John clutched at his throbbing head.
'Young lady? What young lady?'
'You know well enough what young lady, sir. The young lady what brought you here to leave you in our charge. That young lady.'
'That young lady?'
'Yes, sir. The one who brought you here.'
'Brought me here?'
'And left you in our charge.'
'Left me in your charge?'
'Come, come, sir!' said Mr Flannery. 'Are you a parrot?'
The adroit thrust made no impression on John. His mind was too busy to recognize it for what it was – viz., about the cleverest repartee ever uttered by a non-commissioned officer of His Majesty's regular forces. A monstrous suspicion had smitten him, with the effect almost of a physical blow. Suspicion? It was more than a suspicion. If it was at Dolly Molloy's request that he was now locked up in this infernal room, then, bizarre as it might seem, Dolly Molloy must in some way be connected with the nefarious activities of the man Twist. The links that connected the two might be obscure, but as to the fact there could be no doubt whatever.
'You mean...' he gasped.
'I mean your sister, sir, who brought you over here in her car.'
'What! That was my car.'
'No, no, sir, that won't do. I saw her myself driving off in it some hours ago. She waved her 'and to me,' said Mr Flannery, caressing his moustache and allowing a note of tender sentiment to creep into his voice. 'Yes, sir! She turned and waved her 'and.'
John made no reply. He was beyond speech. Trifling though it might seem to an insurance company in comparison with the loss of Rudge Hall's more valuable treasures, the theft of the two-seater smote him a blow from which he could not hope to rally. He loved his Widgeon Seven. He had nursed it, tended it, oiled it, watered it, watched over it in sickness and in health as if it had been a baby sister. And now it had gone.
'Look here!' he cried feverishly. 'You must let me out of here. At once!'
'No, sir. I promised your sister . . .'
'She isn't my sister! I haven't got a sister! Good heavens, man, can't you understand . . .'
'I understand very well, sir. Artfulness! I was prepared for it.' Sergeant-Major Flannery paused for an instant. 'The young lady,' he said dreamily, 'was afraid, too, that you might try to bribe me. She warned me most particular.'
John did not speak. His Widgeon Seven! Gone!
'Bribe me!' repeated Sergeant-Major Flannery, his eyes widening. It was evident that the mere thought of such a thing sickened this good man. 'She said you would try to bribe me to let you go.'
'Well, you can make your mind easy,' said John between his teeth. 'I haven't any money.'
There was a moment's silence. Then Mr Flannery said 'Ho!' in a rather short manner. And silence fell again.
It was broken by the Sergeant-Major, in a moralizing vein.
'It's a wonder to me,' he said, and there was peevishness in his voice, 'that a young fellow with a lovely sister like what you've got can bring himself to lower himself to the beasts of the field, as the saying is. Drink in moderation is one thing. Mopping it up and becoming verlent and a nuisance to all is another. If you'd ever seen one of them lantern-slides showing what alcohol does to the liver of the excessive drinker maybe you'd have pulled up sharp while there was time. And not,' said the Sergeant-Major, still with that oddly querulous note in his voice, 'have wasted all your money on what could only do you 'arm. If you 'adn't of give in so to your self-indulgence and what I may call besottedness, you would now 'ave your pocket full of money to spend how you fancied.' He sighed. 'Your cuppertea's got cold,' he said moodily.
'I don't want any tea.'
'Then I'll be leaving you,' said Mr Flannery. 'If you require anything, press the bell. Nobody'll take any notice of it.'
He withdrew cautiously down the ladder: and, having paused at the bottom to shake his head reproachfully, disappeared from view.
John did not miss him. His desire for company had passed. What he wanted now was to be alone and to think. Not that there was any likelihood of his thoughts being pleasant ones. The more he contemplated the iniquity of the Molloy family, the deeper did the iron enter into his soul. If ever he set eyes on Thomas G. Molloy again . . .
He set eyes on him again, oddly enough, at this very moment. From where he stood, looking out through the bars of the window, there was visible to him a considerable section of the drive. And up the drive at this juncture, toiling painfully, came Mr Molloy in person, seated on a bicycle.
As John craned his neck and glared down with burning eyes, the rider dismounted, and the bicycle, which appeared to have been waiting for the chance, bit him neatly in the ankle with its left pedal. John was too far away to hear the faint cry of agony which escaped the suffering man, but he could see his face. It was a bright crimson face, powdered with dust, and its features were twisted in anguish.
John went back to the jug and took another long drink. In the spectacle just presented to him he had found a faint, feeble glimmering of consolation.
12 UNPLEASANT SCENE BETWEEN
TWO OLD FRIENDS
I
On leaving John, Sergeant-Major Flannery's first act was to go to what he was accustomed to call the orderly-room and make his report. He reached it only a few minutes after its occupant's return to consciousness. Chimp Twist had opened his eyes and staggered to his feet at just about the moment when the Sergeant-Major was offering John the cup of tea.
Mr Twist's initial discovery, like John's, was that he had a headache. He then set himself to try to decide where he was. His mind clearing a little, he was enabled to gather that he was in England . . . and, assembling the facts by degrees, in his study at Healthward Ho (formerly Graveney Court), Worcestershire. After that, everything came back to him, and he stood holding on to the table with one hand and still grasping the lily with the other, and gave himself up to scorching reflections on the subject of the resourceful Mrs Molloy.
He was still busy with these, when there was a forceful knock on the door and Sergeant-Major Flannery entered.
Chimp's grip of the table tightened. He held himself together like one who sees a match set to a train of gunpowder and awaits the shattering explosion. His visitor's lips had begun to move, and Chimp could guess how that parade-ground voice was going to sound to a man with a headache like his.
'H'rarp-h'm,' began Mr Flannery, clearing his throat, and Chimp with a sharp cry reeled to a chair and sank into it. The noise had hit him like a shell. He cowered where he sat, peering at the Sergeant-Major with haggard eyes.
'Oo-er!' boomed Mr Flannery, noting these symptoms. 'You aren't looking up to the mark, Mr Twist.'
Chimp dropped the lily, feeling the necessity of having both hands free. He found he experienced a little relief if he put the palms over his eyes and pressed hard.
'I'll tell you what it is, sir,' roared the sympathetic Sergeant-Major. 'What's 'appened 'ere is that that nasty feverish cold of yours has gone and struck inwards. It's left your 'ead and has penetrated internally to your vitals. If only you'd have took taraxacum and hops like I told you . . .'
'Go away!' moaned Chimp, adding in a low voice what seemed to him a suitable destination.
Mr Flannery regarded him with mild reproach.
'There's nothing gained, Mr Twist, by telling me to get to 'Ell out of here. I've merely come for the single and simple reason that I thought you would wish to know I've had a conversation with the verlent case upstairs, and the way it looks to me, sir, subject to your approval, is that it 'ud be best not to let him out from under lock and key for some time to come. True, 'e did not attempt anything in the nature of actual physical attack, being prevented no doubt by the fact that there was iron bars between him and me, but his manner throughout was peculiar not to say odd, and I recommend that all communications be conducted till further notice through the window.'
'Do what you like,' said Chimp faintly.
'It isn't what I like, sir,' bello
wed Mr Flannery virtuously. 'It's what you like and instruct, me being in your employment and only 'ere to carry out your orders smartly as you give them. And there's one other matter, sir. As perhaps you are aware, the young lady went off in the little car . . .'
'Don't talk to me about the young lady.'
'I was only about to say, Mr Twist, that you will doubtless be surprised to hear that for some reason or another, having started to go off in the little car, the young lady apparently decided on second thoughts to continue her journey by train. She left the little car at Lowick station, with instructions that it be returned 'ere. I found that young Jakes, the station-master's son, outside with it a moment ago. Tooting the 'orn, he was, the young rascal, and saying he wanted half a crown. Using my own discretion I clumped him on the head and gave him sixpence. You may reimburse me at your leisure and when convenient. Shall I take the little car and put it in the garridge, sir?'
Chimp gave eager assent to this proposition, as he would have done to any proposition which appeared to carry with it the prospect of removing this man from his presence.
'It's funny the young lady leaving the little car at the station, sir,' mused Mr Flannery in a voice that shook the chandelier. 'I suppose she happened to reach there at a moment when a train was signalled and decided that she preferred not to overtax her limited strength by driving to London. I fancy she must have had London as her objective.'
Chimp fancied so, too. A picture rose before his eyes of Dolly and Soapy revelling together in the metropolis, with the loot of Rudge Hall bestowed in some safe place where he would never, never be able to get at it. The picture was so vivid that he uttered a groan.
'Where does it catch you, sir?' asked Mr Flannery solicitously.
'Eh?'
'The pain, sir. The agony. You appear to be suffering. If you take my advice, you'll get off to bed and put an 'ot-water bottle on your stummick. Lay it right across the abdomen, sir. It may dror the poison out. I had an old aunt . . .'
'I don't want to hear about your aunt.'
'Very good, sir. Just as you wish.'
'Tell me about her some other time.'
'Any time that suits you, sir,' said Mr Flannery agreeably. 'Well, I'll be off and putting the little car in the garridge.'
He left the room, and Chimp, withdrawing his hands from his eyes, gave himself up to racking thought. A man recovering from knock-out drops must necessarily see things in a jaundiced light, but it is scarcely probable that, even had he been in robust health, Mr Twist's meditations would have been much pleasanter. Condensed, they resolved themselves, like John's, into a passionate wish that he could meet Soapy Molloy again, if only for a moment.
And he had hardly decided that such a meeting was the only thing which life now had to offer, when the door opened again and the maid appeared.
'Mr Molloy to see you, sir.'
Chimp started from his chair.
'Show him in,' he said in a tense, husky voice.
There was a shuffling noise without, and Soapy appeared in the doorway.
II
The progress of Mr Molloy across the threshold of Chimp Twist's study bore a striking resemblance to that of some spent runner breasting the tape at the conclusion of a more than usually gruelling Marathon race. His hair was disordered, his face streaked with dust and heat, and his legs acted so independently of his body that they gave him an odd appearance of moving in several directions at once. An unbiased observer, seeing him, could not but have felt a pang of pity for this wreck of what had once, apparently, been a fine, upstanding man.
Chimp was not an unbiased observer. He did not pity his old business partner. Judging from a first glance, Soapy Molloy seemed to him to have been caught in some sort of machinery and subsequently run over by several motor-lorries, and Chimp was glad of it. He would have liked to seek out the man in charge of that machinery and the drivers of those lorries and reward them handsomely.
'So here you are!' he said.
Mr Molloy, navigating cautiously, backed and filled in the direction of the arm-chair. Reaching it after considerable difficulty, he gripped its sides and lowered himself with infinite weariness. A sharp exclamation escaped him as he touched the cushions. Then, sinking back, he closed his eyes and immediately went to sleep.
Chimp gazed down at him, seething with resentment that made his head ache worse than ever. That Soapy should have had the cold, callous crust to come to Healthward Ho at all after what had happened was sufficiently infuriating. That, having come, he should proceed without a word of explanation or apology to treat the study as a bedroom was more than Chimp could endure. Stooping down, he gripped his old friend by his luxuriant hair and waggled his head smartly from side to side several times.
The treatment proved effective. Soapy sat up.
'Eh?' he said, blinking.
'What do you mean, eh?'
'Which...? Why...? Where am I?'
'I'll tell you where you are.'
'Oh!' said Mr Molloy, intelligence returning.
He sank back among the cushions again. Now that the first agony of contact was over he was finding their softness delightful. In the matter of seats, a man who has ridden twenty miles on an elderly push-bicycle becomes an exacting critic.
'Gee! I feel bad!' he murmured.
It was a natural remark, perhaps, for a man in his condition to make, but it had the effect of adding several degrees Fahrenheit to his companion's already impressive warmth. For some moments Chimp Twist, wrestling with his emotion, could find no form of self-expression beyond a curious spluttering noise.
'Yes, sir,' proceeded Mr Molloy, 'I feel bad. All the way over here on a bicycle, Chimpie, that's where I've been. It's in the calf of the leg that it gets me principally. There and around the instep. And I wish I had a dollar for every bruise those darned pedals have made on me.'
'And what about me?' demanded Chimp, at last ceasing to splutter.
'Yes, sir,' said Mr Molloy, wistfully, 'I certainly wish someone would come along and offer me even as much as fifty cents for every bruise I've gotten from the ankles upwards. They've come out on me like a rash or something.'
'If you had my headache . . .'
'Yes, I've a headache, too,' said Mr Molloy. 'It was the hot sun beating down on my neck that did it. There were times when I thought really I'd have to pass the thing up. Say, if you knew what I feel like...'
'And how about what I feel like?' shrilled Mr Twist, quivering with self-pity. 'A nice thing that was that wife of yours did to me! A fine trick to play on a business partner! Slipping stuff into my highball that laid me out cold. Is that any way to behave? Is that a system?'
Mr Molloy considered the point.
'The madam is a mite impulsive,' he admitted.
'And leaving me laying there and putting a lily in my hand!'
'That was her playfulness,' explained Mr Molloy. 'Girls will have their bit of fun.'
'Fun! Say...'
Mr Molloy felt that it was time to point the moral.
'It was your fault, Chimpie. You brought it on yourself by acting greedy and trying to get the earth. If you hadn't stood us up for that sixty-five–thirty-five of yours, all this would never have happened. Naturally no high-spirited girl like the madam wasn't going to stand for nothing like that. But listen while I tell you what I've come about. If you're willing to can all that stuff and have a fresh deal and a square one this time – one third to me, one third to you, and one third to the madam – I'll put you hep to something that'll make you feel good. Yes, sir, you'll go singing about the house.'
'The only thing you could tell me that would make me feel good,' replied Chimp, churlishly, 'would be that you'd tumbled off of that bicycle of yours and broken your damned neck.'
Mr Molloy was pained.
'Is that nice, Chimpie?'
Mr Twist wished to know if, in the circumstances and after what had occurred, Mr Molloy expected him to kiss him. Mr Molloy said No, but where was the sense of har
sh words? Where did harsh words get anybody? When had harsh words ever paid any dividend?
'If you had a headache like mine, Chimpie,' said Mr Molloy, reproachfully, 'you'd know how it felt to sit and listen to an old friend giving you the razz.'
Chimp was obliged to struggle for awhile with a sudden return of his spluttering.
'A headache like yours? Where do you get that stuff? My headache's a darned sight worse than your headache.'
'It couldn't be, Chimpie.'
'If you want to know what a headache really is, you take some of those kayo drops you're so fond of.'
'Well, putting that on one side,' said Mr Molloy, wisely forbearing to argue, 'let me tell you what I've come here about. Chimpie, that guy Carmody has double-crossed us. He was on to us from the start.'
'What!'
'Yes, sir. I had it from his own lips in person. And do you know what he done? He took that stuff out of the closet and sent his chauffeur over to Worcester to put it in the Left Luggage place at the depot there.'
'What!'
'Yes, sir.'
'Gee!' said Mr Twist, impressed. 'That was smooth. Then you haven't got it, do you mean?'
'No. I haven't got it.'
Mr Twist had never expected to feel anything in the nature of elation that day or for many days to come, but at these words something like ecstasy came upon him. He uttered a delighted laugh, which, owing to sudden agony in the head, changed to a muffled howl.
'So, after all your smartness,' he said, removing his hands from his temples as the spasm passed, 'you're no better off than what I am?'
'We're both sitting pretty, Chimpie, if we get together and act quick.'
'How's that? Act how?'
'I'll tell you. This chauffeur guy left the stuff and brought home the ticket . . .'
'. . . and gave it to old man Carmody, I suppose? Well, where does that get us?'
'No, sir! He didn't give it to old man Carmody. He gave it to that young Carroll fellow!' said Mr Molloy.
The significance of the information was not lost upon Chimp. He stared at Mr Molloy.
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