by Zenith Brown
Pegott bowed slightly. “Very good, sir. Thank you, sir.” He started to open the door. “You understand, sir,” he said, lowering his voice, “in my position one is bound to hear a great deal.”
It seemed to Dan that the smooth facade of the perfect permanent valet had slipped for an instant as his voice sank, and that he had caught a glimpse of something other than complete impeccability. Hear, or overhear ? he thought. He nodded coolly, looking at the man. It was the first time he had been aware of his face as a face. It was pasty, the eyes a little too close, and a little too bright. They met his in a sharpened scrutiny that might have had more point, he thought, if he had been staying on than it seemed to have, considering he was leaving that day. But the encounter was so brief that he wasn’t sure. It could have been his own imagination entirely.
“I hope you will enjoy your breakfast, sir. I used to work for an American lady who was very particular about her coffee. Thank you, sir.”
He was gone then with a slight bow, his facade intact again. Dan turned to his kippers and the morning paper, a little surprised to find the kippers excellent, the coffee drinkable and the paper almost solely concerned with the private lives of the movie stars. He was a little surprised again to look up and see Pegott at the exact moment he finished all three.
He pushed his chair back, started to reach down for his napkin, remembered the shortages and that he had not had one, and turned to the valet.
“What’s on your mind, Pegott?”
A sharp tingle along his spinal column alerted him instantly as he saw that the man’s facade had not only slipped but slid. Pegott was nervous. He glanced back at the door.
“You’ll understand this is strictly confidential, I hope, sir.”
There was a faint trembling in his voice that communicated itself to his hands. “It would be very awkward if—”
“All right,” Dan said. “What is it?”
The whole train of the previous night’s fantasies that six hours’ sleep had robbed of its presentiments of fear and evil and of its poignancy and emotional tension was back with him. Whether it was a communication of the man’s nervousness or a sudden distaste he was unable to say; but he was acutely aware that nothing had changed overnight. He was precisely where he had been when he found his briefcase tampered with. That Pegott was under some extraordinary tension was clearer by the moment. His face had a kind of dough-like pallor and his occasional glances back into the hall and the narrowed lines at the corners of his eyes were furtive and cunning. The prickling sensation along Dan McGrath’s spine sharpened.
This guy’s no good. He’s a louse or he’s dangerous. Watch him, McGrath.
“What’s on your mind, Pegott? Shoot.”
He felt an instant subtle but very definite change in the atmosphere—or was it simply in the relationship of the two of them? The valet’s nervousness disappeared. In its place came a suppressed excitement, as if he was confident now where he had not been before. As he leaned forward he made no attempt to conceal the backward glance he shot toward the hall. His breath came quickly, so close to Dan that there was no missing the sweet-sour smell of gin on it.
“I know where he is,” he whispered. His voice broke with eagerness. “I know where it is. All I want is half what’s coming. I could take it all but I want it in American dollars put by in New York.”
He straightened up, his eyes, sharp and brightly acquisitive, fixed on Dan’s as if he saw something in them he was not so sure of. He drew himself up, steadied one hand again on the table. “That’s fair enough, I’d say, sir. Wouldn’t you? There was no need to speak to you about it—except I understood you’d been making inquiries.”
Dan nodded, looking at him.
“It depends,” he said coolly, “on who you mean. And on what you mean by ‘it.’ ”
The “who” he could guess. As the “it” was unknown to him he spoke with as casual unconcern as he could manage, not to betray that he did not know. As he said it, Miss Caroline Winship’s words flashed into his mind for the first time since she had spoken them, out in the Square, in the dark overgrown path under the dripping plane trees. “I cannot believe you would wilfully set out to hurt people whom you do not know and have no reason to hurt . . . ” Betray himself? It was the Winships he was betraying—Mary and her mother—listening to this man.
“The person you were making inquiries about, sir,” Pegott said evenly. He had disappeared, with a kind of super-legerdemain, entirely behind the impeccable facade. “And the picture, sir.”
His eyes gleamed and his lips tightened as he added quietly. “The picture I understand he sold—for ten thousand pounds— and neglected to deliver to the American gentleman who’d purchased it, sir.”
With the overtones of the well-trained voice of the well-trained permanent valet there were undertones that Dan McGrath heard and understood, as he was meant to hear and understand. Pegott was not telling him a fact for his information. He was telling him so that he would know Pegott also knew, and knew the exact value involved. It was not information. It was a warning. Pegott had the word. McGrath needn’t try anything on. It was being stated politely but without equivocation.
Dan thought rapidly. This was it. Mary Winship’s father had sold a picture, collected £10,000 and absconded without the formality of turning the picture over to the rightful owner. The title of Mary Winship’s book flashed into his mind. The picture, then, had disappeared with Scott Winship. It belonged, then, to whoever it was had bought it. Or to the insurance firm if it had been insured and the insurance collected and not repaid, depending on what deal the firm had had with the owner. They would have offered a reward, he thought; Pegott was after it.
“How much is the reward?” he asked.
He realized at once it was a blooper. Pegott drew half a step back. That was not what he had in mind. Or that was only a part of it. He was playing for higher stakes. What they were Dan had no idea. What he did have was an exceedingly clear idea that in this sort of business, conducted in this way, there were dangerous potentials. One of them was only too often the shadowy uncharted area where the quicksands of blackmail crept too close to the edge of the solid legal towpath it was safe to proceed along. The warning prickles crept back to his spine. Pegott was not a pretty fellow. Somehow, in spite of that, Dan had no doubt that he did know, or thought he knew, where Mary Winship’s father was and where the picture was. And Mary’s passionate avowal that her father was not a thief and her mother’s poignant indecision and emotional uncertainty made them particularly vulnerable to the lure of the siren’s song . . .
“Where is he?” he asked.
8
MR. EVAN PINKERTON finished shaving. His head was still a painful lump that throbbed unpleasantly whenever he turned it, but nevertheless he turned it once more to listen through the washroom door for Miss Myrtle Grimstead’s managerial voice. He was in a state of acute nervous anxiety. She should have come up by this time, if the nurse had posted his letter, of which he was none too confident. Unless, of course, she had posted it and the estate agents refused to do anything about it. They might easily feel he had no right to insist on Mr. McGrath’s being allowed to stay in the box room in the first place, and regard his request that he stay on as Mr. Pinkerton’s personal guest as a brazen disregard of the prime function of rental property in the second. In any event, it was very important for him to see Mr. McGrath as quickly as possible, or he should not have got up at all. He really did feel seedy this morning, and looked it. Hardly anything he could think of, except fear that the American might actually take it into his head to go to the police and complain about his narrow brush with death, could have spurred him up and out.
Mr. Pinkerton put down his towel and shaving kit, and exclaimed with annoyance as he knocked off the washstand, and for perhaps the dozenth time, the old silver-backed military hair brush that belonged to the chef. His head swam dizzily as he got down on his haunches and recovered it from between the trash can and
the scouring pot. Whenever anyone mentioned the chef, who shared the bath with him and Pegott, and now the young American in the box room—and everyone did mention him, the guests because he was a good cook and could disguise anything, from whale to offal, in a very edible fashion, and Betty the maid because he was what she called uppity and the only member of the staff Miss Grimstead stood in awe of— Mr. Pinkerton always saw a silver-backed military hairbrush on the floor by the scouring pot where he himself had just knocked it. He reflected now that although he had never seen the chef, in spite of the fact that his room was just three doors from his own, next to Pegott’s, he must have picked up the wretched brush scores of times. This was the most painful of all, and the only time he had not been sure, for a moment, that he could get his hand down between the wall and the drainpipe without his head bursting. He got it down, however, and put the brush back on the side of the bowl, wishing very much the man would mind his belongings a bit better.
At his own door he listened again for some evidence of Miss Grimstead’s approach, either in person or in writing, before he went along and put his towel and shaving kit away. Perhaps the nurse had thought his mind was wandering, and left the letter there in his room. He looked about for it as he put on his grey coat and tied his purple string tie. But it was nowhere in sight, and he went out into the hall again. His head still ached, and it jarred it to walk at all. He put his hand out against the wall to absorb some of the shock, and crept gingerly along like a cat on a muddy path until he reached the wall by Dan McGrath’s door. He put his hand out to knock.
“Oh, dear,” he thought, “he’s got someone with him.”
He started to go back to his room when he heard Dan McGrath speak.
“It depends on who you mean. And on what you mean by ‘it.’ ”
Mr. Pinkerton stopped where he was, blinking. Dan McGrath was annoyed at something. He could tell the tone of his voice from his own unfortunate adventure the night before.
“The person you were making inquiries about, sir.”
Mr. Pinkerton stood there motionless. Pegott. Pegott was in there, talking to Dan McGrath, and up to no good. Mr. Pinkerton was sure of that. He felt a sudden warm flush of indignation. Pegott was carrying tales about somebody. That was why his voice had been a low murmur before Dan McGrath spoke. It might even be Mary Winship he was talking about. Mr. Pinkerton would put nothing beyond him. And then he gave an abrupt start that made a hot knife jab through his aching head as he listened, blinking his eyes in incredulous consternation.
It was Mary’s father, not Mary. Mr. Pinkerton moistened his dry lips. Dan McGrath was asking where Scott Winship was, then the business about the picture. Why was he so anxious to know, that he was willing to listen to a person like Arthur Pegott . . . ? Mr. Pinkerton hastily put aside the fantastic idea that had slipped abruptly into his mind. It couldn’t possibly be true.
He could hear the valet clearly.
“That I’m unable to say at this time, sir. All I can say is that I may be able to take you to him—sometime after I go off duty tonight, if you are interested, sir.”
“He is not telling the truth,” Mr. Pinkerton thought. He could tell that too, from the tone of Pegott’s voice. He listened, fascinated, hoping very greatly, but increasingly against hope, that his friend McGrath would tell the man off properly for what seemed extraordinary impertinence indeed.
“I can meet you outside the house. Or most Americans are familiar with the American Express offices in Haymarket. At say ten-thirty or eleven, sir.”
“Right. I’ll meet you outside. But get this. The whole thing may be a washout. There may be nothing in it at all.”
The idea that had come into Mr. Pinkerton’s mind and that he had hastily dismissed darted back into it again. He felt a chill at his heart. Maybe that was what Dan McGrath had really come to London about. The romantic search for Mary Winship was a blind; it was her father, and the picture, that he was actually hunting for all the time. It was a trap, and he had fallen headlong into it.
“Oh, dear, dear me!” Mr. Pinkerton thought dismally.
“Very good, sir,” Pegott said. Mr. Pinkerton could almost see him smile as he said it. Dan McGrath had sounded quite as false as Pegott had done when he said he did not know where Mr. Winship was at that time. They were a pair of outright falsifiers. He heard the sound of a cover being placed on a dish as Pegott added, “My father was quite sure there had been a mistake made. But as you say, sir . . .”
Mr. Pinkerton did not stop to hear any more. As he scurried silently back to his room, he heard Miss Grimstead’s voice coming up the stairwell from the floor below. It was all sweetness and bright light, a shower of milk and liquid honey.
“Betty, Betty! Let’s put the sofa from Colonel Mayhew’s room into Mr. McGrath’s. I’m afraid he’s not really as comfy as he should be. And let’s give dear Mr. Pinkerton Mrs. Jameson’s eiderdown—”
Mr. Pinkerton got into his room and closed the door. The nurse had posted his letter, the estate agents had complied with his directions. He realized gratefully, his heart warming, that in whatever form the communication to Miss Grimstead had come, it must have been what his special friend in the estate agents’ office invariably referred to as a stinker. The eiderdown was pure unearned increment. He’d not had one as long as he had lived there.
He was so pleased that he forgot his aching head and sat down on the side of the couch smiling happily to himself. Until he remembered. Dan McGrath was now his guest, at his expense. If he turned out to be a whited sepulchre, it was all Mr. Pinkerton’s fault—and cost. He stopped smiling abruptly. A further idea came instantly into his mind. The Winships ought certainly to be told. The only question at all, as he thought of it, was which of the Winships he should tell. Miss Caroline as head of the family was the most obvious person, but he dismissed the thought as quickly as he would have done, if it had occurred to him to embrace a boa constrictor. Mrs. Winship was ill, he did not quite trust Eric Dalrymple-Hughes if at all. That left Mary Winship, and Mr. Sidney Copeland, the family friend. And, from what he now knew of Dan McGrath, he was forced reluctantly to the conclusion that Mary had got off to Paris. Mr. McGrath had most probably had no intention at any time of attempting to stop her from going. What had seemed to Mr. Pinkerton surprising apathy, and lack of a lover’s heat, when he had first told him she was going, was now painfully clear to him. Mr. Sidney Copeland was therefore the only person he could really go to.
He stoically put his hard brown bowler on his sensitive head and left his room. Mr. McGrath’s door at the end of the hall was open, and Mr. Pinkerton could hear him in the bath, the spray running. He was not singing, which Mr. Pinkerton thought was unhappily significant. He knew from the cinema that it was an invariable national custom. They even wrote popular songs about it.
It was almost noon when Mr. Pinkerton came dejectedly down the steps from Mr. Copeland’s offices in Wimpole Street. He had waited two hours. In spite of the young lady in the luxurious reception room he knew very well Mr. Copeland had been in the next room, and that he was now in the blue motor car disappearing round the next corner into Portman Square. Mr. Sidney Copeland had refused to see him. Whether it really was because he wanted him to see his own surgeon—Mr. Pinkerton hadn’t one and had never had—as the office assistant had tried to explain, or for some other reason, Mr. Pinkerton could only guess. The fact was still the same. He stood unhappily in the street. If he felt a bit more fit, he might gather sufficient courage to approach Miss Caroline. He suspected, however, he would never feel that fit again as long as he lived. He turned and started dejectedly along the street, when a taxi drew up in front of the house he had just left. He glanced back and stopped, blinking.
It was Mary Winship. She’d not gone to Paris. Dan McGrath had really meant . . . Mr. Pinkerton blinked again and scurried back just as she was crossing the footpath.
“He’s not there,” he said hastily. “He’s—he’s left.”
“Oh, Mr. P
inkerton!”
Mary Winship looked at him with quick surprise. Her cheeks flushed a little. She looked very pretty, except, he thought, that she was rather too pale, as if she’s not slept very well. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to see Mr. Copeland about a—a matter. But he’s not in.”
He saw her hesitate and look up at the house.
“I saw him leave. In his blue car.”
“Oh, really?”
Apparently she had not believed him before, but now did. He could see by the evident distress in her blue-black eyes that she had wanted so see Sidney Copeland even more than he had, and that now she wasn’t sure just what to do.
He cleared his throat hesitatingly. “I—I wonder if you’d have lunch with me?” he asked timidly. “There was something I wanted to see him about too. Perhaps . . .”
She looked at him quickly. “Is it about my father, Mr. Pinkerton?”
He could see that she knew it was, even before he nodded his head, which was a mistake. It felt much better when it was still.
“Then I’d love to. I—I’m terribly worried. I know a place we can go to.”
“You—you didn’t go to Paris?”
They were in a taxi and almost to the Green Parrot in Regent Street before Mr. Pinkerton, dismayed by the sudden realization of what he was actually doing, or about to do, could find his voice to ask her that. He flushed a little as he heard himself putting the question that way.
Her eyes were fixed ahead of her. “I changed my mind. I spent the night with my uncle. Elliot Winship—you know, the architect. My father’s brother. He’s so vague I don’t see how he ever makes up his mind to put one stone on top of another.”
She twisted her hands together and bit her lower lip to stop its trembling.
“I still don’t know whether he even heard what I was talking about. That’s why I wanted to see Copey.”
