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Roy Glashan's Library
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"A Little Flutter," Cassell & Co., London, 1930
"A Little Flutter" is a witty social comedy. The story revolves around a comically improbable bird—the so-called Patagonian Groo-Groo, a five-foot-two-inch creature—which becomes the centerpiece of a quirky social satire. The plot unfolds in a world of eccentric British characters, where misunderstandings, pretensions, and social maneuvering drive the narrative.
THE junior clerk, emerging from Mr. Mossphase's private room into the freedom of the general office, conveyed emotion by means of a facial contortion divided into two acts. The first part of the eloquent grimace easily carried the warning that the head of the establishment was in no genial mood, the second part less fluently gave the assurance that he, Mr. Charles Mingle, had not come badly off in the encounter.
"Your turn next, Coppy," he remarked with easy effrontery, to the delight of a large-eared office boy. "Mossyface asked me to be good enough to send you in at once. He said that you—hrrrm!—hadn't been giving satisfaction lately and—hrrrm!—unless you, God bless my soul! buckled to—" But at this point the audible friction of a door handle brought about a lightning change in voice and manner and it was on a very decorous note that the junior finished up:
"Will Mr. Coppinger go in with the home sales register now, as Mr. Mossphase wants to get away, please."
The senior of the general office looked round mildly. Up to the moment when his name was given in seemly form he had been dreaming. He made an unpretentious figure, with the docile, tacitly resigned expression of the middle-aged underling who has been doing much the same sort of routine work all his life and who sees very little chance of ever doing anything else either in this world or in the next two.
He got up from the stool, wiped his pen carefully on an inconspicuous area of his office coat and picking out a weighty ledger disappeared by way of the door through which young Mingle had just entered.
"That chap looks like taking the wrong turning," remarked the youth sagely—he always chose terms of trite hyperbole to display his astuteness. "Haven't you noticed how dolce far nienteish he's been getting for the last few weeks?"
"He never tells me not to do nothing now," confirmed the office boy, gratified at being able to get into the conversation. "Not that I ever took much notice."
"That's it," agreed Mr. Mingle, nodding to the second junior clerk however, so as to put the office boy back into his place. "Incipient laryngitis, I'll go bail. Gradual loss of will-power. D'you think I should have been chipping him like that a month ago? Non ego!"
An employee who affected to be regarded as the assistant manager laughed a distressing jangle.
"Incipient grandmothers!" he jeered. "That's a nursery complaint that kids have to have their adenoids removed for. You're thinking of gastro-meningitis, Neckties."
"Am I?" replied Mr. Mingle freezingly. "Am I? Does your sister happen to be engaged to a man who's going to be a doctor, may I ask?"
"Not that I'm aware of," admitted the alleged assistant manager, thrown out of the argument by this sudden change of gear. "Why?"
"Well, mine does; that's all. So it's hardly likely, is it? But look here, you fellows"—he was not one to cherish an affront so triumphantly rebutted—" did you twig? Old Coppy took in the counter cash book and you all heard me say the sales register. Mossy-face's wind gauge is registering about 60 m.p.h as it is, so look out for maroons."
"Why didn't you tell him then?" asked someone sharply. "Peter isn't half a bad old bird—he's saved you from making many a bloomer, anyway—and now you've let him in."
"I really didn't think of it before he'd gone," said Mingle carelessly. "In any case it makes no odds. The old boy's plainly on the wane and there's bound to be a general move-up shortly. About time, say I."
Mr. Mossphase did not keep his head clerk waiting more than half as long as he would have kept an outside underling before he looked up and became aware of his existence. It was all very well to be impressive, but the staff's time was the employer's money.
"You wished, sir—?" prompted the little man diffidently, as he caught the gracious eye of recognition.
"Er? Oh, yes. Mulligan's account; I want to see how it stands. He's asked for accommodation. And, by the way, hrrrm!—that young Mingle. Watch him. Watch him closely, Coppinger. He's becoming lax. Lax and too dressy. I know the signs.—Why—hrrrm!—God bless my soul, the fellow's socks and neckties proclaim embezzlement. Put a few marked half-crowns among the petty cash, Coppinger, and keep a sharp look-out. Hrrrm! And, by the way, there's this thing"—Mr. Mossphase fluttered the papers lying on his elaborate desk and provided an occasion for Coppinger to bend before him as he retrieved a few skimmers—" these damned pigeons that infest the place. Here's a petition to the Sanitary Committee of the Corporation to clear the lot out when they round up the others. Public nuisance and so forth. Sign here below me and tell everyone else about the place to sign and then send the paper up to Mason and Co and get all their names. See to that, Coppinger, and then—"
"Pigeons, sir?" ventured Coppinger.
Mr. Mossphase looked up sharply. He had been in the middle of a sentence and if—hrrrm.—God bless my soul!
"Pigeons, Coppinger. P-i-g-e-o-n-s. You will find the word several times in the preamble of this document. The birds are a confounded nuisance and they breed like—hrrrm!—cockroaches."
"They look rather nice flying about the square, sir, and I haven't heard of any harm they do," said Peter with a strange and new-born obstinacy.
"But, damn it all, they do, man!" hotly retorted his employer, regarding this hitherto submissive worm with fiercely kindling eyes. "They—hrrrm!—well, look at my new hat there!"
Peter looked. Mr. Mossphase indicated silk head-gear of unexceptional shape and lustre, but, alas! no longer "spotless," and Peter felt constrained to look away again at once.
"Birds—will be birds, sir," he commented weakly. "They can—so long as it isn't on my clothes. And it was a near thing once before. Now, Coppinger, don't let me have any more nonsense. Hrrrm! Be sure you get all Mason's people down—my compliments, of course.—Then—God bless my soul, it's nearly four o'clock! Look me out Mulligan's entry, sharp!"
Peter Coppinger, however, seemed strangely unconscious of any urgency, and his plain, stereotyped features had fallen into the absent-minded cast that had prompted Mr. Mingle's light-hearted flight. But for the blasphemy of the thing, one would have said that he was not really listening.
"I should be sorry to disoblige you, sir," he remarked with conscientious diction, "but I don't feel that I can sign a petition for the furtherance of such an object."
Up to that moment it had not occurred to Mr. Mossphase that his menial was actually opposing him. Of course he had not troubled to consider what the fellow was really driving at, but he tacitly assumed that it was grounded in some plebeian abstraction of homage. Mr. Mossphase knew that he was a "personage." He looked important. He felt important. He—hrrrm! why beat about the bush?—he was important. Common people—commissionaires, railway guards, shopkeepers, clerical hirelings and so forth—liked to touch their hats to him and to cajole a few gracious words from him in reply, especially if less favoured equals could witness their distinction. Quite natural; he had no objection to gratifying so reasonable an instinct; but if this—this—this —
"Look here, Coppinger," he pronounced very deliberately, "I don't know what the devil you think you're talking about, but I'm very pressed for time and you are seriously annoying me. This petition must be signed by every individual in my employ, and by yourself among them. Let me hear no more about it."
"Very well, sir," replied Coppinger, "you shall not. But I shall be unable to comply with your requirements in the matter."
Mr. Mossphase sat down again—he was making for his desecrated head-covering, the primary case of Mulligan having been completely driven from his mind—and by a great control of will he managed to refrain from screaming. He had never yet screamed at anyone during business hours—of course at home one naturally relaxed—but several times he had come very near it.
"I'm not discussing the matter with you, Coppinger," he said, with a volcanic calmness that was really admirable in so large and corpul—that is to say, personable a man, though his right hand performed an unremitting five-finger exercise upon the desk. "I am giving my instructions. I want you to understand—before it is too late—that this is a definite order, deliberately considered. Having taken up that position it is impossible for me to recede from it. You will apprehend the seriousness of obstinacy in the face of what I've said."
Peter considered, or at least he seemed to. He recognized the gravity of the crisis, if only from the fact that Mr. Mossphase had not fallen back upon a single hrrrm! The unnatural thing was that the gravity of the crisis did not seem to disturb him in the least.
"I quite understand your meaning, sir," he replied respectfully. "You've always been like that. As it happens, I'm in rather an awkward situation and—"
"Then I can offer you an excellent opportunity of getting out of it," interposed Mr. Mossphase, feeling, even in that stressful moment, that the quip was very happily turned indeed. "Either sign this or go."
Peter gulped slightly, more from force of habit than in any distress, looked down, and then looked up again.
"A full month from the end of this one, I suppose I may take it, sir?" he inquired, with all the forms of habitual deference. "That has always been the custom with Mossphase and Mossphase, sir."
"But this—this is sheer madness, Coppinger,' protested the head of the firm in a strangely pacific voice. "You aren't feeling yourself this afternoon, I can see. Let Martin look after the office and have the rest of the day off."
"Thank you, sir," replied Peter dutifully, "but there is a certain amount of work to be made up and I should not like to leave anything in arrears when I go."
"Jump on the top of a motor-bus and take a spin out to Richmond or Golders Green and back," continued Mr. Mossphase, pursuing his airy fancy gallantly. "You'll—hrrrm!—feel all the better for a mouthful of fresh air. Then to-morrow we can settle this unfortunate ebullition—which—hrrrm!—believe me, I shall endeavour to forget as soon as possible—on broad and tolerant lines."
"It would be just the same to-morrow, sir," replied Peter. "As a matter of fact, it couldn't have come at a more convenient date. I shall be able to see you over the half-yearly audit, and Mr. Hollier, who is coming on very well indeed, can then take over from me."
"But, God bless my soul!" protested Mr. Mossphase—his evocation of the devil having proved futile he was now disposed to throw in his lot with the other side—" you can't—hrrrm!—really mean to leave us for a mere trifling formality like this? I thought that you had some feeling of loyalty towards the dear old firm; I did indeed, Coppinger," and with considerable verbal agility Mr. Mossphase brought up successfully on a note of wounded confidence.
"I promised your uncle, old Jasper Mossphase, that I would never leave you of my own accord," admitted Peter reminiscently. "That was when you joined the firm, sir, and he seemed a little troubled. But, as I said to him then, I could offer no guarantee that I might not be dismissed."
"Hrrrm! hrrrm! hrrrm!" The waves of reproachful protest that Mr. Mossphase contrived to broadcast from his laryngeal organs at this callous reminder suggested nothing inferior in emotion to the trumpeting of a stricken elephant. "A grand old English gentleman in his time—Uncle Jasper Mossphase—Coppinger, and a model to some of the younger generation in many ways. I, at any rate, should never be ashamed to regard his wish as law. Let me see—how long have you been with us—hrrrm?"
"I shall have completed thirty-three years' service when I go at the end of next month," replied Peter with precision.
"Ah, thirty-three years," said Mr. Mossphase, tactfully ignoring the questionable taste of this exactness. "A fine record, Coppinger. And when was the last occasion that the firm—hrrrm!—recognized your zeal by a—hrrrm!—pecuniary advancement?"
"The last rise I had was about eighteen years ago, sir, when I succeeded Mr. Tremlit."
"Eighteen years ago, hrrm?" Mr. Mossphase's expression could not hide the fact that between Coppinger and himself he thought eighteen years without financial recognition rather niggardly on the part of "the firm," only professional etiquette forbade him to say so. Then his face cleared in benevolent anticipation. "However, we can discuss that at more length to-morrow. I shall be seeing Mr. Gilson shortly and I think I may promise that I shall be able to—hrrrm!—influence him."
"Thank you, sir," replied Peter, without varying a muscle. "Is that all you require of me, sir?"
"Yes, yes, yes, yes; I think so, I think so," hummed—almost warbled—Mr. Mossphase, so determined was he that the interview should end on an indulgent note. "Mrs. Coppinger quite well, I hope, and the—the—" (a dreadful doubt assailed him) "the rest of the—hrrrm!—your—ha! ha! ha! to put it facetiously, Coppinger—encumbrances?"
"Quite well, thank you, sir."
"It would come as something of a shock, wouldn't it, to Mrs. Coppinger—anything of this—hrrrm!—unexpected development?" said Mr. Mossphase, still toying hopefully with the unexplored avenues where influence might be levered.
"The prospect of a rise?" said Peter innocently. "Yes, I suppose it would."
"No, no, no! I mean if it should unhappily eventuate that you should—hrrrm!—feel yourself called upon to leave us."
"Yes, sir," admitted Peter, refusing to compromise among the tenses. "I expect it will."
Mr. Mossphase felt that he really could not go on being amiable much longer. After all, there were five or six weeks for cool reflection.
"Well, well, Coppinger," he said, with a slight stiffening in his manner, "I trust that wiser counsel will prevail. I may say without reservation that I—hrrrm!—should personally regret losing the services of an employee who—hrrrm!—knows as much of the ins-and-outs of the business as I do myself."
"Well, sir," replied Peter Coppinger, with the dash of spirit that a refractory sheep will occasionally exhibit, "if you will excuse my saying so, I know a good deal more. But you will find that out for yourself later on."
He closed the door, and with his departure Mr. Mossphase definitely realized that things were really as they seemed. Up to that moment he had clung to the belief that he was bound to get his own way, as usual, somehow.... He stood up and looked idly out across the dingy square. It was beginning to rain; he had missed the 4.18; his new hat was spoiled; Mrs. Mossphase had her sister Jane coming to stay with them; "Belindas" were down three points since yesterday; and Coppinger was going....
On the sill, outside, the shameless pigeons cooed and strutted as though all was well in this best of all possible worlds.... Mr. Mossphase sighed deeply, a hauntingly pathetic sound coming from so ample and prosperous a gentleman.
THE weeks slipped by, yet Peter forbore giving Mrs. Coppinger the shock that Mr. Mossphase had thoughtfully predicted for her. By this time there was no doubt that he was really going. The office had settled down to an acceptance of the notable event and had even redistributed seats and adjusted salaries on that basis. There had been a slight movement, emanating from the expectant Hollier, towards whipping up a testimonial, but Peter found no difficulty in vetoing this proposal when it was betrayed to his ear by an apprehensive office boy. But in the semi-detached villa of the stagnant little Harringay by-street to which Peter returned just as usual every evening, no whisper of the impending catastrophe yet stirred. What intrigued the office was that Coppinger did not appear to be making any effort to get another post. Practically every member of the staff had tried to pierce this mystery under the sympathetic formula: "If I were in your place," but none could get beyond the patent evasion that Peter "thought of looking round a bit before he quite decided."
"Yet the chap can have nothing much put by, and I know for a fact that he has some sort of a family to keep," remarked a baffled colleague. "He ought to be rustling round: he'll find it a dashed sight harder job dropping into a crib when once he's out of collar than he would from here. It's all right saying that you 'want a change,' but most bosses jib at a fellow who's actually out in the street."
"If you want my opinion," said Mr. Mingle, with his usual generosity where that commodity was involved, "the old man's past it, and he knows it jolly well. Fellows like that come down in the world pretty quickly. I've watched it scores of times. Mark my words, in a year or two you'll see Coppy hanging about in free libraries or standing on the kerbs."
"Mr. Coppinger's been having letters here for weeks now," volunteered the office boy, judging that this contribution of news would frank him into the conversation. "He told me to leave the letters for him to sort soon after they began to come."
"What do you mean—having letters here?" demanded one of the group severely. "Of course he has letters—has had for years. Half the correspondence of the firm is addressed to him."
"I know all about that," replied the observant child. "These are different. They haven't to do with the firm. He doesn't open them; he stuffs them in his pocket. I've watched him."
"Did you happen to notice where they were from?" ventured the assistant manager, after silently taking the opinions of the others.
"Some of them had Ply—Ply—something or other, but it wasn't Plymouth, because I have an aunt lives there, only I've forgotten. That's all I saw."
"Then what do you mean by prying into letters that you've been told to leave alone, you cheeky young beggar?" virtuously demanded the gentleman who had asked him. "If you don't want us to tell Mr. Coppinger about it, go and fill the ink-pots and don't spill it on the desks."
"It's exactly as I thought," confided Mr. Mingle in a rapid whisper as steps were heard approaching. "He sees that he's about non est so far as London is concerned, and he's trying for a country job. Well, mark my words—Oh, good morning, Mr.
Coppinger. Fine in spite of the wet, isn't it?"
When the actual day of his departure came, Peter still kept up the same distressing appearance of normality and unconcern. No, he had heard of nothing yet that seemed likely to suit him, but he wasn't worrying about it.... Sooner or later... Then as the clock struck six he got off his familiar stool, selected from their ring a few keys that appertained to office locks and laid them before his successor, neatly folded up his working coat and as methodically placed it in the wastepaper-basket, shook hands with everyone who happened to be there, and walked out into the street. He had done with Mossphase & Mossphase and all that they meant for ever.
At that moment it occurred to Peter Coppinger that for the first time in three and thirty years he was a free man, and he ought to celebrate it. He had read of such situations frequently in works of fiction, and he knew that if he had a spark of manhood left now was the time to display it. But how? Wild visions of going to a music-hall, of dining sumptuously at some expensive place (he had never had anything more extravagant that a tea-shop lunch since he came of age), of dropping in familiarly at West-End bars and—even—conversing with barmaids, popped in and out among the dim and half-forgotten recesses of his brain like frightened rabbits. He had money in his pocket—he had money to an extent that would have astonished every man at Mossphases' and sent the dismayed principal to the pass-books in a panic. Suppose he sent a wire home, "Delayed in town; don't wait up"? He had never sent a wire home in the whole course of his married life—he had never had occasion to. For the next ten minutes Mr. Coppinger pursued this enticing fancy through a variety of developments, beginning with his wife's mystified reception of the light-hearted message and leading up to his own arrival home, self-possessed but reasonably elated, soon after midnight—for even in that revolutionary forecast Mr. Coppinger could not envisage missing the last train back. It was a short-lived dream.
"Ticket!" snapped a peremptory voice in front of him, and with a docile "Season!" Peter passed through the barrier and trotted down the incline, his one anxiety in life not to miss the 6.37. Even while his soaring fancy had been luring him on to brighter things his treacherous feet had automatically conveyed him to King's Cross.
At the gate of 32 Magnolia Gardens Peter stopped for a moment and looked straight before him. He wanted to see his house, to see it afresh, to see it now; to see it, if possible, as it really was. It was not a beautiful residence to the unprejudiced eye; neither romantic, artistic, attractive, nor even noticeably suggestive of internal comfort, but it had been all these things, and much more beside, to Peter's secret heart. How proudly he had taken it twenty-two years ago, soon after—on the strength of his penultimate rise—his marriage, and Mrs. Coppinger had been quietly but persistently suggesting that they should move to a more desirable position ever since. Peter knew very well that, taking one thing with another, there was no more desirable position attainable at the rent that they could prudently allot; after explaining this very carefully and with much diffidence for several years, and stating it merely and conclusively for several more, he had been content of late to let each wave of vague discontent spend itself harmlessly over his unresponsive head. Peter had all the unobtrusive tenacity of an anchored cork; Mrs. Coppinger rode triumphantly over his defenceless form a hundred times, but he always reappeared in exactly the same spot to go on precisely as before.... He wondered now what sort of an effect it would create if he tore up the anaemic rhododendron by the roots and hurled it through the "drawing-room" window. He began to realize that he was almost hopelessly obscure, even to his most confidential self, of the nature of that precise "effect" that he was dubiously groping towards. He wanted an atmosphere—something of tension, portent or significance—yes, he felt that. This thing could only happen once. If he began: "My dear, I have something of importance to communicate" (apart from the ridiculous feeling that he should be talking like that), ten to one Amy would interrupt him with:
"Oh, just a moment, Peter. That reminds me. Did you remember to match the cotton at Wallis's to-day? I particularly asked you to this morning, and if you haven't—"
But even the crash of shattered glass would not overcome that. It would startle Mrs. Coppinger, probably seriously alarm her, but it would not detach her from the green machine twist or whatever it was she had in mind.... Automatically he fitted his latch-key in the lock and entered, wiping his boots thoroughly, as Amy's tactful little look of half-pained, half-humorous surprise towards his feet had drilled him into the way of doing within six weeks, hung up his hat on the peg that Amy had decided was the one he liked the best, and marched into the dining-room.
It really was not a bad little room, thought Peter, looking at it with his newly-acquired eyes, and the lights, the fire, the table laid for tea, and the presence of his wife and daughter—Amy, comfortably proportioned, reading a library book in rather a distinguished attitude; Walburga, lithe and eager-looking, toasting muffins at the fire—completed the domestic picture. Standing at the door, Peter raised a sigh that all this was so soon to be over.
"Hallo, Dad," exclaimed Walburga, looking round. "We hadn't heard you."
"Oh, is that you, Peter?" said his wife—her back was towards him. "I wonder if you'd mind just seeing that you closed the garden gate as you came in. The front steps have been cleaned, and the dogs are so tiresome...
This being obviously more in the nature of a behest than an inquiry, Peter turned dutifully to obey.
"Certainly, my dear," he assented meekly, but before he had reached the door Walburga was on her feet.
"Half a mome, Dad," she called out, with a note of challenge in her clear, young voice. "As a matter of fact, didn't you close the gate as you came in?"
"Well, yes, Wally; I really think I did," he admitted. "But there's no harm in making sure."
"You know you did," she insisted darkly. "You know very well that you always do. You're too sickeningly careful not to."
"Well, it's a habit I've got into, I suppose," he apologized, lingering. "One's bound to get methodical doing my work day after day, you know."
"Then there's really no need for you to have to go out again to see, is there?" she suggested. "Is there, Mother?" she added, with a perfunctory deference to that lady's authority. "Come and sit down until tea is ready. You must be tired, poor dear."
Mrs. Coppinger had risen quietly during this brief exchange and, with a slightly heightened colour, was walking towards the door.
"No need whatever," she replied in a very flat voice, without turning to look round, and the door closed decisively behind her.
"Now you've done it, Wally," said her father, rather aghast. "We look like being in for a damp evening, my girl."
"I don't care. It's perfectly rotten the way you get ordered about the minute you are back. If you won't stick up for yourself, I must. I'm not going to go on seeing you bullied without a fight while I'm about."
"Bullied!" protested Mr. Coppinger in mild surprise.
"Well, what else is it? Of course it's all very ladylike and in perfectly sweet taste, and if anyone hinted such a thing to her she would be scandalized and protest that she 'only just asked' you to do this, or 'only just told' you to do that, or 'only just suggested' the other."
"It is a fact that when people say 'only just' they seem to think that it only takes half the doing," admitted the recreant Peter. "Your mother is rather a champion 'only juster,' Wally."
"It isn't as if the things really mattered, or even that she wants them," urged the girl. "Whichever way one does a thing she must suggest that it should be done another. It's just her insatiable love of bossing. If she had half a dozen servants—men-servants preferably, because women wouldn't stand it—she'd have a perfectly lovely time and we might get left in peace."
"Oh!" An interested light had come into Peter's eyes. "You think that if your mother had more of an establishment to rule—"
"It's what she's really cut out for—arranging what other people should do and what they shouldn't. And if they jibbed she would not be above telling them that that was what they were paid for. Now you'd hate that sort of life, and it doesn't appeal to me, but there—"
"'Ssh!" warned Peter hastily. "Here she comes." Not the faintest "dampness" accompanied Mrs. Coppinger's return. On her face was a bright smile, and the handkerchief that she carried in her hand had a purely ornamental function. At this unforeseen reversal of their fears Peter felt doubly guilty and Walburga distinctly cheated.
"I knew I had left it somewhere," she announced, waving the shred of cambric to explain her errand. "Well, are we all ready for tea?"
The tray was brought in by a gaunt, middle-aged female, obviously willing but hopelessly inept. Mr. Coppinger recognized her appearance with an encouraging nod of greeting, to which she replied by a furtive grin—a daily rite between them.
"You had closed the gate," whispered Mrs. Coppinger, patting her husband's arm indulgently—whispered but not so modulated that it should fail to reach Walburga's ear—" but the latch was not pressed down. Never mind, dear; I have seen to it."
"You ought to have let me go," protested Peter effetely. "I have my boots on."
"I scarcely got wet at all, and you are tired. But don't you think that you would like to take your boots off before we have tea, Peter? You'd feel so much more comfortable."
"Oh, curse it!" meditated Walburga, as she watched her father trot docilely off to comply with this suggestion. "That leaves our side one down!" She knew that he really preferred to keep his boots on until after tea, and then change with a feeling of blissful ease ahead. "Mother knows it too; but no, it's always supposed that men want to rush into their slippers the minute they get home, so the poor old thing has to like it whether he likes it or not."
"I thought that you'd fancy a haddock for tea," announced Mrs. Coppinger, when Peter returned and they all sat down. "We haven't had one lately, and they are said to be at their best."
This put Walburga on better terms with herself again, for she knew exactly the process by which this deduction had been arrived at. "And she really thinks it is so by now," she mused, as she surreptitiously estimated the respective proportions under her father's generous disposal of the dish. "She's so unselfish that she really and truly forgets that she's rather extremely fond of haddock, and only remembers that father perhaps doesn't actually dislike it. It's really beautiful if it wasn't rather pathetic, and I must have something of a corrupt mind to be able to see through all these little things so clearly."
Meanwhile Peter, outwardly immersed in the conscientious allocation of slabs of translucent meat, was reflecting that he was no nearer the desired atmosphere than before.
"Even if I took this callow fish by the tail and threw it bodily into the fire before their eyes, I don't suppose that anything would come of it," he speculated. "Amy would affect to believe that it was a pure accident, and Wally would say that it really needed a few more minutes." Besides, it would inevitably have ruined the hearth-rug, and whether he had reduced his family to beggary or whether he had just come into a large fortune, Peter would be incapable of overlooking the effect upon the hearth-rug.
He might just as well have dined at the Carlton or the Ritz; only, as he knew perfectly well at heart, he could never have gone through with it.
THE next morning Mr. Coppinger came down to breakfast fully determined to explain the situation unassisted by an "atmosphere." To precipitate this eventuality he contrived to be half an hour late. Walburga was vaguely uneasy—like Mr. Mingle, she had noticed an indefinite change in her father's manner for the past few weeks—but Mrs. Coppinger was blissfully unconscious of anything portentous in the air.
"Surely he need not be there every morning to the very minute, as if he was an ordinary clerk," she said, when Walburga commented on the time. "When Mr. Mossphase is away your father is really the most responsible person in the office, though of course Mr. Gleethorpe thinks that he comes before him."
"If he is responsible I should have thought that he ought to be there to see to things," objected Walburga.
"But he isn't responsible—not in that way, at least," was the quick retort. "It's only that he's so capable—he understands everything about the business, don't you see, Walburga? Indeed," she added with dignity, "if only he had asserted himself more, he might have been a partner in the firm by now."
"But does he want to be a partner?" asked Walburga.
"Of course he must want it—why on earth not?" Mrs. Coppinger opened her eyes very widely at this strange obtuseness on the part of her unnatural daughter. "He would have more money and more authority, and in every way be in a much superior position to a mere clerk. It would make a great difference to our standing in Harringay let me tell you, Walburga."
"Well, he hates authority, anyway, and we have enough money to modge along comfortably enough on here. I don't believe in egging people on to do things just because it's what we want ourselves."
"It's the very last thing I should ever dream of doing," endorsed Mrs. Coppinger with the emphasis of profound conviction. "I always say, 'You must decide exactly as you think best,' when we discuss what he ought to do about anything. But it's very natural for everyone to have some ambition, don't you think, Walburga? And, as I tell him, it's for your and Willie's sakes that I'm really thinking."
"I know it is," said Walburga, with a dash of compunction as she fleetingly recalled a hundred little acts of sacrifice for her own and her young brother's sake in the past. "You really are too good to us in every way, Mother. Only Father is such a meek, settled, uncomplaining old Dobbin that I couldn't bear to think of him being jostled out of his beloved ruts, just to give us a lift from Harringay to Hampstead. If he was ambitious it wouldn't so much matter, but of course if he was he wouldn't be with a tin-potty little firm like Mossphases' now."
"Walburga!" cried Mrs. Coppinger in sharp reproof. "Tin-potty! Mossphases'? Why, child, one of the directors is a baronet!"
This was the moment of Peter's belated entry and Walburga flew to the kitchen to bring in his egg and bacon from the oven. The delay had given a rich, leathery glaze to the surface of the egg, and the bacon was decidedly brittle, but Peter declared that he liked them so—in the minor affairs of home life it was noticeable that he invariably liked things just as they were provided. This had been a considerable stumbling-block to Mrs. Coppinger in the past, because she had rashly assumed that unless her husband was a consummate hypocrite, he must prefer a thing to-morrow in the exact form that he declared that he liked it to-day. When the precise contrary appeared—as it so often did—it baffled the poor lady completely, until, as she plaintively confessed, she "gave it up." Peter was equally distressed because he failed to understand the difficulty. In such negligible things as food he liked whatever was there, just as it happened to be. He really did. If the beef was underdone he discovered his partiality for underdone beef; if overdone, then overdone would have his vote. It was infinitely preferable to prefer it thus than to have to consider whether he wouldn't like it better harder or softer, or thinner or thicker. He was inalienably for the status quo. This was very poor entertainment for Amy, who was capable of talking round a pork-pie for the whole duration of a meal.
"No need to hurry," he called after Walburga, affecting to pitch a light-hearted tone that was far from being what he really felt now that the moment of explanation could scarcely be delayed. "And don't trouble about any boots."
"Oh, aren't you trying for the 9.35?" remarked Mrs. Coppinger as she poured out his coffee. "I think you might perhaps just do it."
"Not worth while," he replied, deeply immersing himself in a Dutch bulb catalogue, the annual reminder of a touching belief abroad that "Gardens" connoted a horticultural fervour. "I—er—Ah, gladioli! Pretty things, aren't they, Amy? I wonder if you'd like—" An inspiration to work gradually round to his subject by way of the bulb catalogue was frustrated by Amy's preoccupation towards a more practical cultivation.
"Yes, dear, very. If you aren't going until the 9.52, Peter, I wonder if you would just slip round by Morgan's on your way to the station and ask him to include three pounds of Spanish onions with the things he's sending. I forgot when I gave the order. Oh, and there's a boot to be left at Holding's—it's quite a small job, and he could have it done by this afternoon. If you should have time—"
"As a matter of fact"—he must begin somewhere—" I wasn't thinking of going to the office to-day," said Peter.
"Oh? I'm very glad. You ought to take a day off now and then, I'm sure. They'll think all the more of you. Mrs. Trotter tells me that her husband often does, and I hope that you are in quite as good a position as he is. Well, let me see —— —"
"Is it—all right?" asked Walburga, looking at her father with rather anxious sympathy.
"Oh, yes—I think so." Mr. Coppinger began to attack his breakfast, feeling that it provided him with a useful line of defence to fall back upon if need be. "But—well, perhaps I'd better tell you something as we're all together."
"Will it take very long?" asked Mrs. Coppinger, with a bright air of wifely interest. "Perhaps I'd better just pop out and get my crochet-work. Then I can listen comfortably." Before Peter could frame a reply she had disappeared and presently her voice was to be heard in the region above carrying on an animated conversation with the arriving daily worker. Ten minutes passed.
"I'll go and see—Mother must have forgotten," muttered Walburga, writhing under the stress of the situation. But Mrs. Coppinger had not forgotten; she assured them of that as she tripped smilingly in again. "Only, Mrs. Clamp has arrived, so I thought that I'd better just start her on the morning's work. You know what a talker Mrs. Clamp is"—confidentially to Walburga. "Well, my dear, it seems that her husband has really 'gone the limit'—that's Mrs. Clamp's way of putting it—this time." The narrator included the two in an appreciative glance of deepening entertainment as she settled down into a basket-chair and produced her handiwork. "Yesterday, when she got home from here, there was this Mr. Clamp of whom we've heard so much—"
"Yes, Mother dear," broke in Walburga, with the brusqueness of despair, "she is a shriek, isn't she? But Dad has something rather important to tell us, I am sure."
"Well, Walburga, you have a way of putting things, I must say!" exclaimed her mother, the happy sunshine of her anecdotal mood extinguished in a moment. "Of course I know very well that nothing I have to say can be of any importance, but you needn't tell me quite so bluntly to my face."
"No, no—" protested Peter, acutely miserable, as experience predicted another spell of dampness obviously impending. "She didn't mean—"
"I think that I might be allowed to speak without having to ask permission in my own dining-room," continued the disheartened lady. "And I thought that we were all going to sit down and have such a cosy chat!" This time the handkerchief made its appearance for light duty. "Perhaps I had better go and get on with the work. You will ring for me if there is anything more that I can do for you, won't you, please?"
An atmosphere!
"Look here, my dear," said Peter, with the reckless spirit that may come over the most timorous man when things are at their worst, "I can soon give you something else to think about. I told you that I wasn't going to the office to-day. Well, I'm not going there any more. Mossphases' and I have parted."
"Oh, Dad!" almost breathed Walburga, and she went across and stood, champion-like, by his chair: stood there silent and offering no cruder touch of sympathy than that.
"But—but—but—" Poor Mrs. Coppinger was not designed for these violent switchings of emotion that required brisk mental effort. A hopelessly befogged expression registered the conscientious struggle she was making to catch up with the situation from the moment when she was sure that she last had it well in hand. No, the ways of man were inscrutable.
"But what does it all mean?" she asked, very wide-eyed with foreboding. "This is the first I have heard of such a thing, Peter. Didn't you know before? Do you mean that you've got a better situation, or have you been—" Even at that direful moment Mrs. Coppinger could not bring herself to voice the possibility of so unrefined an experience as that of her husband's mere dismissal—" the sack" as she understood it was sometimes referred to among the poor.
But Peter did not insist on precision.
"Well, it was that actually, but I more or less asked for it," he admitted. "Unfortunately, I had once promised Mr. Jasper that I would never leave there of my own accord. Of course I owed a lot to him, but I see now that I ought never to have gone that far. It meant my having to be discharged."
"But what was it about?" pressed Mrs. Coppinger.
"What had you done wrong?"
It did not appear unnatural to Peter that, without knowing any of the circumstances, Amy should assume from the fact of his dismissal that he must have done something wrong. Walburga might have got in a sharp response, but Walburga was too concerned with the main issue to turn off on a side-track, and far too excited as well.
"You know what a way Mr. Mossphase has with him when he's set on a thing? Won't hear a word from anyone, though he's simple enough in reason if only you go about it." Yes, they understood all that. "Well, the other—when this came about, that is, he would have it that the pigeons living outside the building—I've told you about them—must be destroyed. Everyone in the place had to sign a petition to that effect or go. When he'd once said that, of course he'd never go back on it—that's his way. I didn't quite know what it might lead up to if I let myself in for signing, so I said I couldn't. And that's how it was."
"But do you really mean, Peter," demanded Mrs. Coppinger, bringing up her most awful tone of deadly precision, "that for the sake of a dozen or two wretched pigeons, that really, I suppose, belonged more to Mr. Mossphase than to anyone, you have deliberately—"
"I think Father was quite right," struck in Walburga loyally. "It wasn't the pigeons, Mother; it was the principle of the thing at stake. What right has a pompous old wind-bag like Mosesphiz—I'll bet that's more like his proper name—to dictate people's private opinions for them? I think Dad was simply splendid."
"Don't be such an idiot, child!" retorted Mrs. Coppinger, the more genteel forms of argument having for the nonce gone by the board. "A lot you know about it! Are his wife and family less important than a few silly birds? What's to become of us until he gets another situation—if indeed he ever does get one?"
"Oh, that's all right, Amy," said Peter genially. "I was coming to that, only we got on to this other business somehow. I won't let you starve, my dear. You know old Uncle Ralph Coppinger, down in Devon—"
"Much help he's likely to afford us," said Amy tartly. "You know he never liked you, and you always said he was crazy."
"Oh, no; no, no, no!" protested Peter stoutly. "Get that idea out of your head at once, my dear. A little original, perhaps, at times, but nothing to comment on. Well, he's died and left me all his money."
Walburga afterwards confided to a close friend that on receipt of these tidings her mother really burst into tears—sheerly on account of the difficulty she experienced in getting her sympathies backwards and forwards quickly enough. If so, she must have recovered very smartly, for she got in the first question that Peter had to deal with after mere articulations of surprise.
"How much is it—roughly, you know?" she demanded briskly. "I always understood that he was considered very wealthy."
"In a way he was. Harker—he's the solicitor down there who has the business in hand—Harker writes me under reserve that there may be an income of about five thousand pounds a year. But he warns me that nothing like that amount will be personally available. Foxgrove Court—that's the house near Plymorchard—is a very expensive place to keep up, with extensive grounds including aviaries and special men to look after the birds. I remember hearing that old Ralph was something of an ornithologist, but it seems that he went in for it up to the neck as he grew older, and at the last he was spending thousands a year on his hobby."
"Of course we shall give that up," said Amy decidedly. "No one wants to live in an out-of-the-way place like Plymorchard. Perhaps it would be nice to keep a parrot or a few canaries out of respect for Uncle Ralph's memory, but nothing in a large way, I am sure."
"Not quite so fast, my dear," said Peter dryly. The unassertive little man seemed to be finding something not absolutely uncongenial in the necessity of telling Mrs. Coppinger what she could and could not do with no personal responsibility in the matter. "There are often conditions to a will, and this one is no exception. I have to live down there and keep on the whole concern. What's more, I have to carry on what Uncle Ralph considered to be his life-work by devoting myself to the study and interests of ornithology."
"Oh, that's very absurd," said Amy, creasing her forehead. "We don't want to be tied to a wilderness like that when we could live quite nicely in the best part of Kensington on half the income. Is there no way of upsetting it, Peter? Lawyers are generally so helpful in such matters."
"Oh, yes; I don't imagine that we should have any real difficulty in upsetting it if we went the proper way to work," said Peter, permitting himself a grin. "Only in that case the whole estate would go to the British Institute of Ornithological Research."
"How stupid!" declared Amy. "I suppose we shall have to take things as they are, but perhaps we shall think of something later."
"Dad!" exclaimed Walburga suddenly. "Oh, Dad! that wasn't why you refused to get the pigeons destroyed, was it? Oh, I believe it was, and I thought that it was your independent spirit! I've never known you to be cunning before. Is this the first fruit of affluence?"
"Well, I won't deny that it crossed my mind in a way," admitted her father. "This society that will benefit if I default may look up all sorts of things.
I'm not a lawyer, and you never know how a case will go, but to petition for a whole flock of City pigeons to be destroyed might be rather an awkward indictment against my love of bird life in the future."
"Just look what it's leading you into already," mocked Walburga, not entirely in jest if not wholly serious. "You abominate all pets—oh, yes, you do, Dad; you wouldn't let Willie keep rabbits here before he went to Margate—and you dislike nature and will feel about as much in your element on a country estate as a hedgehog would in the Holloway Road. And now, for a miserable five thousand pounds a year, you are going to profess an affection for vultures—"
"No, no, Wally, I don't think it need ever come to that," protested Peter. "Mind you, this has cost me a tremendous lot of thinking, and I don't see why in time I shouldn't take an interest—a real interest, I mean—in something smaller. In fact I've already grown rather to like watching ducks on ornamental water."
"Well, I think that you did quite right about the pigeons," said Amy with decision. "Mr. Mossphase had no business to put you in so awkward a position. I've often thought that you made a great mistake in being too easy-going with him, Peter, especially now that there's all this talk about a new spirit in industry and you could do more as you like. I very much doubt if Mr. Mossphase is worth five thousand pounds a year, at any rate."
"Well, I'm certainly not," declared Peter, with an uneasy foreboding that a five-thousand-a-year standard seemed in danger of being established at the outset. "You'll see that when I've shown you all the papers that Harker has sent me."
"If the income is five thousand a year, you are worth five thousand a year, no matter how you spend it," remarked Mrs. Coppinger, who seemed to be receiving a lively satisfaction from the mere pronouncement of these magic figures; for presently it dawned on Walburga that her mother's lips were moving even when she was silent, and, watching them, she soon deciphered the cheerful assurance: Five thousand a year; five thousand a year, which Mrs. Coppinger was confiding to herself at intervals. "I'm sure I should be the last person in the world to boast unduly, but it isn't really straightforward to make oneself out to be poorer than one is. I suppose Foxgrove Court is what would be correctly described as a 'country seat,' isn't it, Peter?"
"Harker gives me the impression that it's rather a dilapidated old ramshackle of a place," replied Peter basely. "But there certainly seem to be seventeen or eighteen rooms for the three of us to sit in."
"A good many of these fine old country mansions are in bad repair, I understand," commented Amy. "It's because of the grossly unfair burden of taxation that we have to put up with. I think it's quite time that something was done about it."
Catching her artlessly speculative eye, Peter wondered whether this was preparatory to a suggestion that he should put up for the parliamentary constituency of Plymorchard, but the next remark showed that her mind had diverged to another but no less delectable phase of the situation.
"I should just like to have seen the faces of the men in your office when you told them!" she remarked with satisfaction. "What did Mr. Mossphase find to say about it, Peter?"
"Oh—er—well, as a matter of fact I never told them," admitted Peter. "You see," he explained lamely, suddenly realizing that the line of conduct that had seemed so natural as he went on from day to day must stand proclaimed as madness in the light of Amy's gathering wonder, "you see, they were all younger fellows who have their hopes and ambitions in life and more or less looked on me as a wash-out. It might have come rather as a set-back to them to find that I, of all people, had dropped into a fortune while they had still to go on quill-driving there, probably for all their lives. Might have seemed a bit depressing, I mean. Anyway, as it is they all have the satisfaction of thinking that they're getting on, instead of feeling that they've really been left behind."
"Well, upon my word, Peter, you have a queer way of putting things sometimes," declared his wife, with the blissful assurance that comes of perfect knowledge. "If I didn't know that it was only your way and doesn't really mean anything I might be just the weeniest bit afraid sometimes that what I do might not always please you." And indeed, were it not that at that moment nothing on earth could have put Mrs. Coppinger out, the implication of Peter's unnatural silence at the office might have brought on a touch of pique; for, so far from dreaming of withholding anything, her primary impulse was to get out at once and proclaim this triumph to the street.
In particular, there was Mrs. Trotter to be called upon—Mrs. Trotter with her absurd social pretensions on the strength of a double-fronted villa! How trivial all this suburban rivalry really was, thought Amy, with a pitying little smile of understanding, as she pictured herself telling Mrs. Trotter of the glories of Foxgrove Court, with its park and staff of gardeners; and still more so as she pictured Mrs. Trotter being told it.
Meanwhile the time was slipping by, and phrases were going off in her mind like very effective fireworks; while a permanent background to the future was composed of the imperishable line "Five thousand pounds a year!" which she saw written everywhere, like the tinted groundwork of a banker's cheque.
"It's all very wonderful," she said, when at last Peter had told all that he could think of and there were no more questions to be asked, "but I suppose that for the time we must go on much the same as usual. Perhaps I had better make sure now what Mrs. Clamp is doing. Then there are one or two things that I ought to see about up at the shops. Wouldn't you like to go across and tell Mr. Robinson about it while I'm out, Peter? You'd have just nice time before dinner."
She sailed out with a happy smile to each in turn, and very soon from an adjacent room the continuous rattle of one voice ecstatic in narration and the occasional tribute of an awed exclamation of amazement from another, disclosed the nature of Mrs. Clamp's present occupation, whatever she had hitherto been doing.
"It's no good, Dad," expounded Walburga, in answer to her father's look of trouble, "she simply must tell someone. Mother could no more keep from talking with all that on her chest than a flower could help unfolding. It would be cruel to try to stop her. She'd wither completely. The only thing for us is to get away from here as soon now as we can."
HARKER met them at Plymorchard station and carried the thing buoyantly from the first. He was a cheery, strenuous, middle-aged young man who would have tackled the plague, an inebriated cook or a supercilious duchess with the same bland efficiency and, if humanly possible, success. In moments of relaxation he was liable to disclose unsuspected founts of humour or romance, but for the ordinary needs of everyday life he had cultivated an exterior that was impervious to any of the known forms of verbal belligerency, either of defence or in attack. He had already dealt summarily with a concentration of representative Plymorchard tradesmen that had threatened to invest the Coppingers' arrival with something of a civic welcome.
"Look here, Stacey, this sort of thing won't do, you know," he said as he routed the last of the tribe out of his stronghold—the station lamp-room. "What with Todgers and his infernal can of milk, and Allchin with half a dozen pints of cider, and Midgery and Blake and Winsome, and now you with a pound of God-knows-what in that parcel you're trying to hide—why, the place'll be like nothing but the ham-and-egg parade they used to have at Margate. Damn it all, man, they won't be starving."
"Yes only a li'l sarmpl of a new creamy cheese we be doing," pleaded the enterprising South Street grocer. "Foxgrove custom ought to be worth having now, sir. Us Plymorchard shops hadn' ought to wait for them to get their stuff regular from a London store, same as what ole Ralph did." Stacey spoke rather crudely for the Town, having come into refinement comparatively late in life from the rusticity of Ireland Hole Farm, out Chaggerford way.
"You leave that to me," said Harker masterfully, as he proceeded to drive Mr. Stacey before him by sheer weight of implied authority. "I wouldn't be too pressing with that cheese of yours; they'll hear of it soon enough."
He spotted the new people as the train glided past him; indeed he could hardly miss them, for there were only three coaches, and no one else was travelling first. Peter would have taken thirds as a matter of course, but Walburga, who had never travelled anything else in her life, had dissuaded him.
"Perhaps we'd better not, Dad," she suggested. "It would very likely be put down to democratic ostentation. Afterwards, when I'm by myself, I can go third to balance things. But I'm afraid that you will have to go about feeling extravagant all your life now—after all, firsts are for those who can afford them."
"Yes, yes; I don't mind," fussed Peter, without knowing what he was talking about; for, in spite of his six hundred suburban trips each year, a real journey with things to see to always found him taut and nervous. "But where's your mother. We were all to meet here under the clock not a minute later than eleven. Surely she understood. Where did you leave her, Wally?"
"I didn't leave her. She remembered 'a few little odds and ends' she really had to get. Of course, as they're only a few little odds and ends it won't be her fault if she isn't—Oh, don't look worried, old dear; she'll turn up all right."
"I dare say," conceded Peter unhappily, "but she's late already."
"Well, surely you know by now that she always is late, Dad," shrugged Walburga. She was feeling a little ruffled herself as the result of pointing out to Amy what would inevitably occur—as it had occurred. Mrs. Coppinger had been pettishly certain that it wouldn't—unless, of course, something went quite different....
"But at a time like this, with a lot of luggage and a long journey—"
"It doesn't make any difference. Mother couldn't be in time. I don't know why it is, but I think she wouldn't consider it quite nice. She has been brought up that way. Her mother did it; I suppose they all did. It seems to have been the thing for ladies to keep gentlemen waiting. Now, poor dear, she could no more be punctual than a cat could help stopping to wash its toes in the middle of a busy street if it got the idea."
"Well, are we all here?" said a brisk, come-come-let's-get-on-with-it voice, and the subject of their conversation bustled up. "Have you got the tickets, Peter? Oh, you should have—it's quarter-past eleven and the train goes at twenty-three. Class? Oh, first, decidedly. I expected you to have them all ready. I've got a paper for you, so you won't Have anything else to do but follow us. Shall we find seats, dear?" And smiling capably Amy led the way, provided with The Times and the Morning Post, Country Life and the Queen. She had done with the Daily Film and an occasional story "mag" for ever.
Harker gave them just enough time to show that they weren't being shepherded, and then proceeded to introduce himself. By way of passing the time profitably he also introduced the stationmaster.
"Very useful chap—Mowle," he explained as the gratified official passed on, "you're bound to know him. He's the leading bass in our choir, besides being a first-rate rabbit shot. Then he can do a lot of conjuring tricks with cards and matches, and he used to keep wicket for us until old Toze ploughed up the only field in Plymorchard that's level enough for cricket. It should come down into clover next year, and then we can get in a bit more."
"Is there any hockey?" asked Walburga, glancing towards her sticks that lay atop the pile of luggage.
"Hockey, Miss Coppinger?" replied Harker with a knowing look. "Just wait till you've seen our ground out by the lime-pits. Hockey!"
Peter, mildly fascinated by the lawyer's carrying-it-off air, resigned himself wholly to his guidance. This had loomed as the most alarming day in all Mr. Coppinger's experience, and he was grateful to anyone who was willing to put himself in the forefront of the occasion and allow the arriving heir to lurk somewhere in the background—it was so entirely alien to his routine. As for Harker, there was probably nothing on earth, from an improvised rat-hunt to a battalion going into manoeuvres, that he would not confidently have put himself at the head of. Amy was inclined to regard the man as perhaps a little too assuming considering their positions, but she was very gracious all the same. Walburga, despite the common bond of hockey, reserved her judgment.
"Well now," said Mr. Harker, when platform observances had run their course, "I suppose you will like to get on? I've got the 'Bell and Anchor' car waiting in the yard here—that's our one decent hotel—but if you have any other plans—"
"Let's get on, by all means," assented Peter, conscious of a row of little faces pressed against the railings near, and a sprinkling of other facts, no longer little, whose owners seemed to have very leisurely business around the station.
"I should have been glad to run you up, but my little jigger is no good for a job like this," continued Mr. Harker, indicating the gate leading out into the yard. "This old bus holds half a dozen and can take tons of luggage. Now shall I come on up with you, or shall I leave you to make your own discoveries? My time's entirely at your disposal, but I don't want to become a nuisance. By the way, I ought to tell you that I've arranged for all the staff to remain on at short notice, so you can suit yourself among 'em."
"Come up with us, by all means," struck in Peter with unmistakable heartiness. The word "staff," that circulated a pleasurable sense of intoxication through Amy's vital system, sent her craven lord's heart down into the region of his boots with plummet directness. Staff!—he pictured a stately door opening upon a majestic hall in which posed a dignified butler, supported by a line of stalwart footmen in their various degrees, with possibly a valet—doubtless foreign and therefore darkly unscrupulous—hovering in the rear, and certainly a page boy. "How many—how many of them are there altogether?" he inquired weakly.
"How many—what?" said Harker, who had passed on to at least two other subjects in the meanwhile. "Oh, the servants." (Peter had not dared to refer to them by so base and familiar a term.) "Well, let's see; there's Mrs. Churcher—she's a kind of cook or housekeeper or something of the sort—and Willet and Annie—or Emmie, I forget which. They're—I don't know exactly what you'd call them, Mrs. Coppinger, but they're just the ordinary run of girls you find about a house, you know. And then there's a boy, half in and half out so to speak.
Pritchard—he's the chap who looks after the birds and knows all about them, and Job and a youth. Job's more or less the gardener, but he takes a turn at the aviaries, and he gives me to understand privately that he's quite as good a man as Mr. Pritchard if it comes to that. Bit of a swanker, Job, I should say, but he's taken prizes regularly at our annual Fruit and Flower Show for years, and he has a name as a hand-bell ringer too."
"And that's all?" said Peter with relief. It might have been much worse. Willet alone inspired him with any particular apprehension: a young female who chose to be designated by her surname only might prove to be terribly superior.
"That's all directly. All I've had to deal with. But your late uncle seems to have had a sort of fast and loose arrangement with several correspondents or agents abroad. We can go into the agreements or whatever there was between them any time you like. I think he had a kind of lien on their services, and they were commissioned to supply him with rare specimens of birds that they could get hold of. It was his one real extravagance. He had a mania ————"
Mr. Harker paused abruptly.
"You don't mean anything—er—" began Peter.
"Not at all; I was thinking of someone else," amended the lawyer with unblushing guile. "As I was saying, Mr. Coppinger, your uncle had a laudable ambition to discover some new species and call it by his name, or to find some survivors of a type supposed to be extinct. He yearned to be a great figure in the bird world, and was prepared to pay pretty stiffly for it."
"You knew him well?" asked Walburga.
"No; I can't really say I did. He had very little to do with anyone outside the grounds and, as you know, he only came here a few years ago. What business we had he did with the old governor."
"The old—?" questioned Amy, with a vague impression, not unmixed with hope, that a form of regal seigniory might prevail in Devon.
"I mean my father, Mrs. Coppinger. Bit slangy, I'm afraid. We're Harker and Harker, you know, only he died last year. But Ralph Coppinger would always have him up, as long as he was alive, to do any business for him. That's the reason why I had so little to do with him."
"I remember the first time I saw him," volunteered Peter. "He was in business in London then—Riderhill Street it was, somewhere in the City. He'd quarrelled with my mother—of course he quarrelled with all his relations—"
"They didn't have to be relations," insinuated Harker. "He quarrelled with everyone by what I hear."
"He was that sort of man. However, my mother—they were cousins, by the way, though I always called him uncle—my mother was a widow then, and in very poor circumstances—"
"My dear!" expostulated Amy, with a confidential smile to Mr. Harker designed to set things right, "I expect it seems to you now much worse than it was." Really, the way Peter put it, it would soon be all over Plymorchard that his mother had been a charwoman!
"I hardly think so," persisted the obtuse creature, "because she always contrived that I should have the best of things. Well, at last she made up her mind to ask old Ralph to take me into his office. I dare say it was a bit of an effort, because, as I was to know later, he had once wanted to marry her and that was the beginning of their differences."
New, this, to Walburga, who found it mildly interesting. Grandmamma she remembered only as an objectionable old beldam with very ill-fitting teeth and a foolish habit of talking obliquely at her about "little girls" and what the good ones did. And Grandmamma had once... Amy shed polite approval now, for the unrequited passion of so wealthy a suitor seemed somehow to rehabilitate old Mrs. Coppinger's financial status, and Harker performed a sympathetic noise somewhere in his throat to express appropriate feelings.
"It must be nearly forty years ago," continued Peter. "I should be about twelve then, and Uncle Ralph, curiously enough, seemed quite an old man to me, though of course he wasn't. Mother stayed out in the street and sent me in to him with a letter. Something might have come of it, perhaps, but unfortunately, as he was reading the letter, Uncle Ralph absent-mindedly sat down where there wasn't a chair, and, boy-like, I laughed out loud. I think I must have expected him to laugh as well, but he didn't.... He never forgave me."
"My dear!" corrected Amy in mild reproach, "how can you say that now? No doubt he was annoyed at the time, but he has made up for everything splendidly, I think."
"Well," maintained Peter, falling back into a speculative monologue, its practical inaudibility designed, possibly, to avoid stirring further discussion, or perhaps to escape the curious ears of the late Ralph Coppinger's shade if it should be hovering near, "I don't altogether know.
.. Sometimes I'm inclined to think... However...
"We're nearly there now," announced Mr. Harker, with a sudden interest in the passing landmarks. "There should be a milestone near. Yes, here we are. Now if you look over there, right through the trees —— See it?"
They leaned eagerly towards the spot he indicated, and peered. Yes; a long, low, white building, discernible at intervals beyond the bank of shrubs that fringed the wood. Foxgrove Court. Theirs!
Nor was life at Foxgrove unstirred by the imminence of their coming. Mrs. Churcher, secretly no less perturbed at what might be in store for her at the hands of these strange new London people than was Mr. Coppinger at the thought of what might be awaiting him from his formidable "staff," endeavoured to assert an air of calmness by chiding everyone within her reach for "running woild." She was the widow (for all purposes save that of matrimony) of a small sporting farmer who had lost his meagre capital. In the capacity of an agricultural bailiff, Mr. Churcher then proceeded to lose the capital of anyone else who would entrust him with the handling of it, and when this source of livelihood finally dried up, he completed the trilogy by losing himself; in other words, he went out, avowedly on business, one fine morning, and never turned up again. This defection invested the lady whom it would perhaps be more exact to refer to as his relict with a faint aura of romance: a distinction that she passively endorsed by wearing a massive gilt medallion containing the tinted portrait of an austere-looking gentleman, and by acquiring an expression of determined resignation. She invariably spoke of the defaulter himself—somewhat mysteriously to the uninitiated—simply as "C."
"For the land's sake, do get to something, you two!" she conjured her underlings, as she drifted into the morning-room, where a window commanded the Plymorchard road, from a bedroom where the window commanded even more of the Plymorchard road. "The lady'll think we've never seen any gentlefolk before if they catch us all craning us necks like a flock of ganders."
Miss Willet laughed an extremely refined laugh in a slightly falsetto key, thus indicating her keen sense of the incongruous.
"It would be rather amusing if I should be put about by people of this sort arriving, considering the kind of houses I've always been used to before I came into the country," she observed smartly. "Oh, very amusing, wouldn't it?
"Well, it mightn't be so amusing to find yourself sent up to pack, if she thought you were above your work," retorted Mrs. Churcher. "First impressions is half the battle, C. used to say, and he ought to know if ever a mortal man should."
"Oh, don't be cross, please, Mrs. Churcher," begged Winnie—neither Annie nor Emmie it now appears. "We won't let them catch us peeping. I don't feel that I can settle to anything proper until I've just seen what they are like. I've got the bread and butter all put ready to start cutting the minute they get here, and Blanche is going to be starching. They'll find us busy."
"Well, well," said the disciplinarian, lingering, "mind they don't look up sudden when you're least expecting. These Londoners are very sharp, I hear."
"Oh, I do wonder if there'll be a young gentleman in the family," speculated Winnie ecstatically. "I always feel that it's nicer, somehow, doing things for them than for other people." She was an ingenuous young creature with an engaging habit of speaking exactly what was in her mind—engaging, that is, if what was in her mind happened to be flattering to the listener. "I don't mind the extry work they make; I reely don't."
"Look here, my girl, don't you be quite so ready with these things that you don't mind doing for young gentlemen, or you may find yourself in Queer Street one of these mornings," said the housekeeper severely.
"Law, Mrs. Churcher, I didn't mean anything like that," pleaded the artless Winnie. "I only said—"
"Young gals never do mean anything, I've noticed," pursued the experienced matron. "The trouble is some things don't need meaning: they come of their own accord—same as warts. Fortunately, perhaps, as I may as well tell you now, there's no one of the sort but a schoolboy, and him you'll only see in the holidays."
"Oo!—and you knew all the time and kept it to yourself! Well, I do call that mean!" declared Miss Willet shrilly. "Do tell us who there is before they come, Mrs. Churcher."
"There's a lady and a gentleman and a young lady, their daughter, and that's the lot," disclosed Mrs. Churcher, preparing to take up the burden of her vigil elsewhere. "So now you know."
"Well, I'd just as soon it was a young lady as the other thing," admitted the chaste Miss Willet. "Sorry for you to be deprived, dear Winnie, all the same! I wonder," she reflected, "whether she'll expect me to maid her? I could, you know, if it was worth my while. When I was with the Honourable Mrs. Guff, at Clifton, I used..."
Pleasant to turn from this scene of idle prattle to the really solid deliberation conducted by Mr. Pritchard and Job in the security of the potting-shed—secure in that it commanded a distant view of the front gate, by which the travellers must arrive—as they steadily fumigated the unused flower-pots against the menace of aphidian invasion. The pliant youth had been sent out towards the front as an advance working-party. As for the "in-and-out" boy—a bright slip known as "young Jim"—he presented the conventional miracle of being in two places at once; for while Mr. Pritchard understood that he was urgently present in the kitchen, cleaning knives, Mrs. Churcher had the definite assurance that he was vitally employed in the boiler-house, "sif'n' sinners."
"I wouldn't altogether say that I'd sooner have this new chap than I would old Ralph, now mind you," remarked Mr. Pritchard, with the weight of utterance due from one of his position. "What I say is—"
"Wait and see!" humorously propounded Job, who was something of a politician.
"Well, more or less, to put it that way. If he's likely to be sharper about some things than old Ralph had gotten to be, he's bound to be a bit at sea at first among the newness, so to speak. That's where we'll have the pull, so long as we don't overdo it. No good spoiling a safe thing, I always say. Of course I don't mean nothing but what's strictly legitimate."
"Certainly not," agreed Job, whose only regret was that he had less opportunity of profiting by this high moral standpoint than Mr. Pritchard had. "I can't altogether make out what this new fellow is likely to turn to though. Mr. Harker never seemed to understand me when I threw out a hint that way."
"I've been keeping my ears open too, for the last few weeks," admitted his companion. "But it's, as you might say, doubtful. I was inclined to think that being a City gentleman he'd be bound to prove a proper mug; but I don't know, I don't know. You heard what the old blighter said about him in his will?"
"What, old Ralph? No, I can't say as I did."
"Something about him being a lifelong student and having a high reputation among the ornithological cognoscenters—that's the knowing," he explained kindly—" and what not. The other night, up at the 'George,' someone was saying he'd heard that this Mr. Peter Coppinger—that's his right name it appears—knew more about fancy pigeons than any two other men put together. But that's only pigeons. All the same, we shall have to go a bit cautious just at first. Don't make out to put him right if he thinks he knows a bit too much of everything. Don't—"
It began to appear to Job that he might be trusted to know that elementary much without all this blinking guidance. But that was Pritchard's way: a sly, double-dealing old toad if ever there was one, and he wouldn't half suck-up and pitch it to the new governor the minute he got him alone! Mr. Pritchard! Job stood up, knocked out his pipe and stretched himself with leisurely elaboration. At any rate, the potting-shed was his domain, he hoped.
"I'm glad you wrung that bloody old cockatoo's neck while you had the chance, anyhow," he casually remarked. "Nipped your thumb once pretty bad, didn't he?"
"What's that?" asked Mr. Pritchard, scenting disaffection. "Oh, him. Bird died of convulsions. I put all about it in the record book."
"Bit sudden, wasn't it? I suppose that's why you put the bird itself in the boiler fire? Well, you needn't be afraid of me saying anything; I'd like to have lammed its ugly head off myself for that matter."
"No, I don't suppose I need," acquiesced Mr. Pritchard, glowering darkly. "Those were a couple of nice loads of pea-sticks that Huckler's cart fetched away early this morning, weren't they?"
"Coppice is getting a bit thick of undergrowth," explained Job on a less assured note. "I was glad to get the stuff away."
"Surely. It was just as well to get it away when you did, wasn't it? Huckler was glad to get it at the price, too, I hear." It was Mr. Pritchard's turn to rise and go through the ritual of stretching. "May as well be getting along, I suppose. Sounds like something tootling up from 'Orchard."
THE bird room at Foxgrove was a singular institution, and, as it was destined to play no inconsiderable part in the remarkable adventure that was already beginning to cast its toils about Mr. Coppinger's wholly unwitting feet, it is necessary to give it more than passing mention.
It stood, detached, in the grounds of Foxgrove at some little distance from the house, isolated and almost hidden among the riotous shrubberies that were a feature of that pleasance, but within easy stone throw of an unfrequented by-way—not the Plymorchard road of the travellers' arrival, but a rutty lane that led away to Culler Bridge and the high, wild moor beyond.
As became the temple devoted to a science, the Bird Room had originally served a devotional purpose. It had, in fact, been the registered meeting-house of the Regenerated New Apostolic Adventists, a small but dogmatic community that had gradually faded away under the withering blight of the weak-kneed tolerance that it everywhere encountered. It was out to withstand the rack and thumbscrew, to defy fire and sword, and to flourish on persecution, but when a modernist vicar of Plymorchard in all good faith proposed an interchange of pulpits for a round of sermons, New Adventism recognized that the good old days were gone for ever, and in both a literal and a vulgar sense "put up the shutters."
The late Mr. Ralph Coppinger saw the derelict little building when he was casting about for something rather roomy, and he promptly acquired it for a bargain consideration. In due course it was taken down and reassembled among the rhododendrons of Foxgrove, to serve its eccentric owner's hobby. It was, as an ex-deacon of Adventism strongly pointed out when vainly endeavouring to bluff the wily Ralph into springing his bed-rock offer, of best Norwegian pitch-pine, grained and varnished within, creosote-proofed without, and weather-tight all over. Half a dozen diamond-paned windows, all but one placed appropriately high, provided a visual cheerfulness inside, whatever the texture of the doctrinal atmosphere may originally have been. An admirable but extremely ugly heating stove was included in the price, as were the velvet curtains that, sliding on a rod, cut off the corner in which stood the ample door from the body of the room. The chairs and other accessories of congregation had already vanished, nor did Ralph Coppinger require them. He covered the walls with pictures of birds and with glass cases containing stuffed examples. The furniture of the place was sparse, good of its kind and useful, and all designed to serve an end. An occasional rug relieved the bare boards of about half the floor space, and here stood a desk devoted to the keeping of ornithological records and correspondence on that subject, bookcases stocked with the works of Seebohm, Yarrell, Gould, Audubon and a host of others, the cabinets of specimens, and the few easy-chairs that found admittance. The other half of the room was the practical department of the business. There the old man had indulged his fancy long after his trembling hand could be trusted to direct a scalpel—dissecting, skinning, curing, mounting or stuffing, as the case might be, whatever of the rare or curious that came his way. Stacy Marks might have painted him thus, surrounded by his feathered craft, and called it "The Ruling Passion."
Six months had passed since the notable interview when Peter had so unexpectedly defied Mr. Mossphase in his very lair. Life at Foxgrove had become an accepted thing, and its routine flowed smoothly, with now and then, perhaps, an eddy on the surface. Walburga, revelling in an allowance beyond the dreams of Harringay, was sampling the joys of real country life with all the enthusiasm of the athletic young city girl turned rustic. Willie, after a paradisiacal vacation in which only the last week had kindled a doubt whether cinemas, toy-shops and railway termini were, after all, wholly negligible, had returned to Margate, pending Mrs. Coppinger's fuller inquiries into the relative claims of Eton, Winchester and Harrow.
As for Amy herself, it would be impossible to describe the fullness of life that had revealed itself to her. She more than blossomed, she burgeoned in a hundred new directions. Nothing in the way of patronage, pecuniary or otherwise, that came inviting, was sent empty away. There had always been the promise beneath her little frets and doldrums that if only she could have everything her own way she would be very pleasant. Her particular line of graciousness might not suit everyone, but at Foxgrove there was plenty of room to get away from it if need be, and she had not yet had time to find disillusion beneath her new surroundings. The "staff" had been retained complete, and were all devoted to her. Walburga considered that at times she treated them outrageously, yet the fact stared her in the face that they would do more for a smile from her mother than they would do for anything that she herself could offer—in spite of all her practice of the modern phase of consideration.
Between mother and daughter there still remained the ancient antagonism, ever latent under all the reality of deep affection. Nothing but complete submission to her will and whim had ever been Amy's ingrained, if disavowed, conception of a true daughter's function, and in Walburga this Victorian idyll of a fond despotism was up against a hard-as-nails product of her reactive epoch: the virgin armed and wary. Not even towards Peter was Mrs. Coppinger's would-be grip so unrelenting, for it had been an axiom of her upbringing that the husband was never to be wholly trusted; nor, indeed, was she so interested in his affairs as she would have been in the young girl's dawning experience. With regard to Peter, a curious but quite characteristic change had been coming over his wife's attitude ever since the rise to fortune. In her eyes the accidental possession of an ample income made him a very different man from the lowly clerk who had toiled for a meagre wage. He had justified himself by being successful, and she was prepared to make submission to his cleverness. In less than three weeks she had come to suspect that he really must have some very special ornithological qualities to have influenced old Ralph in selecting him to be his heir; in less than three months she had never thought anything else, and she was telling everyone about it. It was not seemly that so busy and gifted a man should be at the beck and call of any woman.
The door of the Bird Room rattled noisily open, the curtains were drawn aside, and Job, hat in hand, looked respectfully in. Seeing no one there, his expression at once slipped back into more natural lines, he replaced his hat at an angle of easy grace, and whistling softly to indicate the unstudied casualness of his movements, he began to drift from one object of interest to another in an endeavour to gain some insight into the problem that had occasioned much uneasiness both to Mr. Pritchard and himself during the past few months. Crudely stated, the issue was simply this: What's this new chap up to, and how much does he know? Is he the proper Mug he sometimes seems to be, or is it part of a deep Game?
It will be readily understood that these doubts exercised a paralysing clog on that branch of their activities that came within the scope of the "strictly legitimate." After completing the general orbit of the room without finding anything of moment, and reassured by a glance through the only window that suggested danger, Job ventured to inspect the things that lay about the open desk. The nature of the man was as curious as a magpie, and he turned over one object after another, with special attention to the open letters. A few sheets of written paper, headed "Inquiry into the Prevalent Cause of Epileptic Fits among Cockatoos" in Mr. Coppinger's clerkly hand caught his eye, and he picked it up and began to read. An unsophisticated child of nature, the emotions readily betrayed themselves over his large and plastic features, and anyone watching Job at that moment would have been justified in forming the conclusion that he was puzzled. To remove any possible doubt he tilted his hat still more and slowly massaged the part of the head that is popularly supposed to cover the brain, to stimulate its function. The effect was merely to deepen the lines of bewilderment; indeed, so absorbing did the process become that a step on the walk outside passed quite unnoticed, and when the door handle gave its providential warning Job had barely time to drop the papers, whip off his hat again, and get into an absent-minded attitude at a reasonably convincing distance from the desk. As he expected, it was Mr. Coppinger returning to the field of his literary travail.
"Afternoon, sir," said Job smartly, deciding that he had perhaps better get in the first word even if it entailed the break-up of his fine preoccupation. "They told me just now at the house that you was here, sir, so I thought that you'd wish me to look in and wait."
Nothing could be franker, and if the employer somehow received the impression that his gardener had been chafing at this distraction from his strenuous labours, it must be accounted a remarkable tribute to telepathic practice.
"Quite right, Job," he replied; "quite right. Yes; I'm generally to be found here, aren't I? Always at it. That's the worst of being an enthusiast. Well; nothing wrong, I hope?"
"Nothing exactly wrong, sir. But that new Otus Vulgaris that came up last week seems to be drooping a bit. I thought you'd like to know." Not that he quite thought any such thing, of course. No man likes to be told that any of his cherished possessions is drooping: what Job really meant was that he hoped it would redound to his credit to have been so observing.
Mr. Coppinger's eye wavered in the direction of the nearest bookcase, but the impulse went no further.
"Ah, Otus Vulgaris drooping a bit, eh?" he repeated, with nice discrimination in his voice. "Well, Job, you had better keep the glare of the sun off it for the next few days and—er—perhaps spray it occasionally with soap-suds."
"Soap-suds?" reiterated Job, after considering this course of treatment for a baffled half minute. "You said spray it with soap-suds, sir?"
Mr. Coppinger had at once plunged into the accumulated litter of his desk with the air of a very busy man indeed, but it was impossible to ignore the concern of his menial's dubious voice. Plainly, someone had blundered.
"Weak soap-suds, of course I meant. You would know that as well as I do. Just"—Mr. Coppinger's twiddling finger-tips essayed to convey the impression of tenuity carried to its last expression—" just the merest suggestion of a trace of—"
"You understand, sir, that it's that long-eared owl what I'm referring to. I'm doing Pritchard's work to-day."
"Owl!" exclaimed Mr. Coppinger, for the moment startled out of his usual circumspection. "Owl! Then why, in the name of goodness, didn't you say so, Job?"
"I did, sir," protested Job, looking extremely hurt. "Otus Vulgaris, I said. The late Mr. Ralph never allowed a bird to be called by its English name. He used to fine us a tanner—I mean he deducted sixpence off the extries he allowed us if we as much as said a sparrow. I thought you'd know—"
"Yes, yes," interposed Mr. Coppinger indulgently; "of course I knew. But I didn't think that you did—only I was doing my best not to hurt your feelings. As a matter of fact, Job, I really thought that you'd picked up the name somewhere and were applying it to that golden-rayed lily of Japan you spoke to me about the other day."
"Well, sir," protested Job, who was beginning to find some difficulty in following the thread of his employer's implication, "all I can say—"
"Yes, yes; I know, I know," insisted Mr. Coppinger soothingly. "You aren't a talker like some of the others, eh, Job? There are men who have an excuse or an explanation for everything when they find they're in the wrong. Well, never mind an occasional blunder if it's made in the pursuit of knowledge. Be as scientific as it's possible to be; it's the groundwork of all system. And so," continued the mendacious gentleman without giving his hapless listener time to arrange his never very brilliant wits, "Otus Vulgaris is drooping, eh? Always an—an inscrutable bird, Otus Vulgaris, Job. You may have noticed that? It's rather unfortunate that Pritchard should happen to be away just at this moment."
"I don't doubt that we can get on all right for a few days without Mr. Pritchard, sir," prompted Job. He was on familiar ground here, for he never lost an opportunity of putting a spoke into the wheel of the envied associate with whom, in the expressive Celestial phrase, he ranked "equal but below."
"Of course, of course. But I always regard Pritchard as a thoroughly practical man in his department," said Peter with easy magnanimity. "Now suppose you had been in sole charge, Job—in my absence, let us say—and Otus Vulgaris had exhibited signs of drooping. Come now, how would you—let's hear how you would have gone about it?"
"I'm always a great believer in veronica," admitted Job.
"Veronica—exactly," confirmed Peter. Hitherto he had vaguely associated the name with a lady classically remote, but he supposed that there must be another veronica, esteemed among the bird-wise. "You couldn't do better; it's exactly what I should have prescribed myself if I had been here when we are supposing that I am away."
"Then shall I?"
"Certainly, Job. Give Otus Vulgaris a—"
But at that point a realization of the ambiguities of his position warned the unlucky Peter. What, in heaven's name, did one give veronica as—a pill, poultice, injection, powder, or would it be expedient to fall back upon the familiar phrase, "a good stiff tumbler?" But months of enforced practice were breeding in Mr. Coppinger an unnatural cunning. "Come now, Job, what would you give veronica as—if I was still away?"
"I can't say I ever heard of anything but an infusion, sir."
"No good trying to catch you, eh?" was the generous admission. "Quite right, Job. Give Otus Vulgaris an infusion of veronica and—"
"And what, sir?"
"And leave the rest to nature," concluded Mr. Coppinger, with a happy inspiration. "I couldn't have prescribed for the bird better if I'd been here by myself. And any other trifling case that arises—treat it in your own way. I'm beginning to find that you're a reliable man, Job, and I don't want to be disturbed here again. I have some rather heavy research work to get on with."
"Thank you, sir," replied the simple creature. "I'll see to it all right."
He went out, carefully closing the door behind him, and Mr. Coppinger was alone—alone to grapple with the laborious task before him.
His preparation for this was extraordinarily simple. With a careless sweep of the hand he piled up most of the precious memoranda on the desk into an untidy heap upon one side, leaving a clear space in the middle. An unfortunate stuffed widgeon, caught in the vigour of the movement, was sent spinning to the floor, but Mr. Coppinger did not appear to notice the mishap; at any rate he made no effort to rescue the treasure. Instead, unlocking one of the smaller drawers of the desk, he took out a pack of cards and proceeded to lay them out in an orderly formation before him. It was that particular patience known as the "Devil's Thirteen" that he was trying.
"Six; jack; eight; ace; five—" checked off the player, and he had just become pleasantly absorbed in the game, with a reasonable but not too facile chance of it "coming out," when a mellifluent little coo of greeting reached him from the window. Looking up in something rather like a panic, his startled glance was just in time to recognize Amy's garden hat moving across in the direction of the door.
WHEN Mrs. Coppinger entered the Bird Room, which she did after a playful little announcement upon the door and a bewitching air of reluctance on the threshold, she found Peter seated at his desk and apparently so deeply immersed in study that for an appreciable moment he failed to realize her presence. Written and printed documents were heaped before him, a few books, some open, lay convenient to his hand, and the abused widgeon was again in a dignified position. An atmosphere of scientific research prevailed.
"May I intrude?" she smiled with complacent assurance. "I know that I really oughtn't."
But Peter was on his feet in hospitable effusion, relieving her of a basket of exquisite roses that she carried, and swinging round an easy-chair so that she should not be put to the trouble of walking the three necessary steps towards it. Admirable husband; no wonder Amy beamed!
"Yes, yes, my dear," he protested between these attentions; "come in, of course. 'Intrude'—the very idea! Why, it's—it's a delightful break in the routine of my daily labour."
"All the same, Peter, I feel that it's rather naughty of me to interrupt when you are at work here. Were you engaged on anything tremendously important?
Peter's recreant eye could not forbear a guilty glance towards the drawer into which a pack of cards, still warm from his hand, had just been tumbled; like many another uneasy sinner he sought to compromise with his conscience by a fine affectation of candour.
"As a matter of fact, my dear, I wasn't really working. I was taking a rest from serious business by—er—sorting and rearranging a few unimportant papers."
"It's simply marvellous to me," continued the flattering lady, "the way that you've thrown yourself into carrying on Uncle Ralph's scientific work after being in a City office all your life. Why, your desk is absolutely heaped with formidable-looking papers. May I just peep?" and, vacating the easy-chair, Mrs. Coppinger crossed over to his side and ventured to read the title of an essay that took her fancy. (This was after the most admired way in which young ladies were trained for matrimony in her bread-and-butter days: an "intelligent interest" in the husband's pursuits, with a very clearly-expressed recognition of the wife's inability ever to begin to understand them.) "'Suggestion for the Radium Treatment of Elephantiasis in Japanese Peacocks.' You go so deeply into the subject, Peter. And yet," she continued, with a finger pressed to her lips meditatively, "and yet there is absolutely only one occasion that I can ever remember you taking the least interest in birdkeeping in the past."
"Ah, when was that?" asked Peter. Personally, he could not recall one even.
"It was when Willie was set on keeping bantams in the backyard at Magnolia Gardens. Do you remember?"
"No; I'd entirely forgotten all about it. And I was keen on the subject even then, eh?"
"You were inflexible. You wouldn't hear of it for a moment. You said that hens were dirty, noisy creatures to have about the place, and that bantams were the silliest kind of hens that had ever been invented. Then you advised the poor boy to start collecting postmarks if he wanted a hobby, because that would encourage him to find out where places were."
"Well, well; there was a reason there, of course," explained Peter, rather staggered. "That was at Harringay, and we had our neighbours to consider. Besides, Willie was very backward in geography just then, and postmarks—or foreign stamps, but postmarks cost him nothing—would have been helpful. If he wants to keep poultry now, goodness knows he can have a farmyard,"
"Yes, dear; it would be very nice for him if he did, but somehow he doesn't seem to care about them now. But what I was saying was that I had quite got the idea in those days that you actually disliked pets of every sort and kind."
Yes, thought Peter, looking at her placid, complacent smile indulgently, it's just what you would say. That's the last sort of impression that I can afford to create here; and yet you, admirable but incomprehensible being, are fully capable of blazoning it from the house-top. What he actually said, and into it he ventured to throw just a spice of significance, was: "Amy, doesn't it occur to you that very few men would be unable to conceal the most poignant repugnance at the price of five thousand pounds a year?"
Amy creased her level brow at this, as she considered the matter squarely. Peter could see that any idea of a personal application in such a dilemma did not come within a hundred miles of her imagination.
"Well," she replied, after a conscientious survey, "I suppose there are people who would do almost anything for five thousand pounds a year. But it wouldn't be exactly honest to pretend something quite different to what you felt, merely to get money, would it?"
At this challenge to the equities Peter found it convenient to affect some slight rearrangement of his papers. "Oh, I don't know," he conceded judicially as he bent down over the desk; "I dare say people have different ways of looking at things. Mightn't do to be too exacting."
"That is because you are so scrupulously exact yourself," explained Amy, with whom logic consisted in things being as she wished to have them. "You may smile, Peter"—for the unhappy man had put on the self-conscious smirk that any husband is bound to assume when his wife accuses him of excessive rectitude—" but look at the way that you have proved it. The condition of the will was that—besides keeping on the aviaries and all those sort of things—you were to 'devote yourself' to ornithology. And that exactly describes you now. You are devoted. Of course I am immensely proud of the reputation you are making, but I really think that if we were just a young couple again I might feel a wee bit jealous of your learned 'ologies.'" And to prove that she wasn't in the least really jealous now, and that this was only her playful way of speaking, Amy nestled her head enticingly upon his shoulder with a delightful little gurgle of amusement.
"My dear," protested Peter, his conscience squirming like a pinched worm at all this laudation, "if only I could explain to you how the very sight of a stuffed bird—"
"But I know, Peter; I know quite well. I have it before my eyes; there is no need to explain. It exercises an irresistible fascination over you." Mr. Coppinger emitted a dull groan which he managed to turn into a passable cough before it was too late. "You long to classify it. Your fingers itch to—to analyse it—is 'analyse' right, Peter?"
"'Anathematize' is the word you want, I think," he suggested.
"No, it's neither of those—yes, 'anatomize' I mean. To anatomize it. Do you know, Peter, sometimes, when you haven't seen me looking, I've caught the very strangest expression creep into your face as your eyes rested on one of your rarest specimens."
"What—what sort of an expression?" asked Peter guiltily.
"Well, almost as if it was too much for you. No, that won't convey anything to you, but it's exactly what I mean only I can't put it properly."
"It conveys everything perfectly. But look here, my dear"—her basket of flowers suggested a welcome deviation from the subject—" aren't you perhaps cutting rather more of these conservatory roses than Job would relish? He's—he's rather proud of them, and I fancy he wants some for the show."
"Oh! Does it matter? Don't you think you are just a leetle too good-natured about things like that, Peter? Mind you, my dear, I do approve of encouraging servants in every way: when I meet Job about the garden I always make a point of passing some pleasant little remark, such as, 'What lovely growing weather we are having, Job,' or 'How flourishing everything looks after the rain.' But I think it's carrying it rather to extremes to consider what he thinks."
"Job's in rather an exceptional position, you see. We could scarcely hope to get another gardener who would be competent to assist in the aviaries when required. He takes the place of two."
"That's exactly where you have such an advantage," retorted Amy, with gathering tenacity. "Most gentlemen are mere dummies in the hands of their gardeners. They know nothing of the subject, and the men presume on it and become tyrants. But in the aviary you could always crush Job or Pritchard with your superior knowledge. Then they'd know who was master."
"Oh, I wouldn't quite say that," said Peter, with the absurd diffidence that Amy realized she would have to break him of before he could shine properly in society and be really happy. "One doesn't like to show off, you know."
"You don't, I know," she admitted. "Why, I sometimes hear you letting them make suggestions to you. I suppose it amuses you to hear what they have to say: you have such a keen eye for the humour of a situation, Peter."
"No, no; you must give the men their due," he dissented generously. "Pritchard and Job are both thoroughly practical fellows. I—well, I'm more of a theorist at the best."
Amy smiled the smile of ineffable conviction, such as you may see on the face of any good woman enduring polite contradiction when she has once made up her mind about a thing.
"Then I will go now and leave you to your great theories," she said, gathering herself together. "I suppose that we shall see them in one of your terribly learned journals later on."
"Don't forget your roses," he said, purely to avoid recurring to the other—hateful—subject, for the basket of flowers was right before her eyes. "They'll look splendid in those new bowls."
"Why don't you take to wearing a button-hole?" she suggested. "I'm sure they suit you, Peter. See, here's just a bud. I'll pin it in for you."
"Thank you, my dear," he replied, helping her to disengage the flower. "Hello, what have you got here; letters?"
"Oh, to be sure. I knew that there was something I'd come about, but I could not remember what. These came by the afternoon post. Is there anything from Mr. Trescote among them? We really ought to know by now when he intends coming."
Peter was examining his mail with the interest in its as-yet-unopened possibilities that even the most hardened scarcely ever wholly outlive. There were the usual appeals, under a variety of ingenious covers, the usual bills, and the usual prospectuses—including one from the gentleman in the Midlands who scrupulously sent him three every week with a faith which, if failing to move mountains, certainly did its best to push gold-fields and float rubber plantations. All these were in familiar form, but the last of the batch held out some promise. Its superscription had nothing in common with the facile hand of the professional addresser; on the flap were embossed the words: "Campbell-Voight Line. S.S. Coventry Cross," and the postmark was that of Vigo.
"Is there anything from Mr. Trescote?" repeated Amy.
This time the name reached Peter's brain, and it registered a very definite emotion there. He put down the Vigo letter unopened and stared at Mrs. Coppinger in something approaching consternation.
"Trescote; Trescote? Haven't we heard from him again? There's certainly nothing here. I'd forgotten all about him for the moment."
"You asked me to see to it, so of course —— —"
"Yes, but when is he coming? To-day or tomorrow, isn't it? Why, the man may be in Plymorchard now!"
"It's really very inconsiderate of him," admitted Amy. "I asked him to let you know the train so that we could send a car down to the station to meet him."
"But why—why should we send down to meet him?" demanded Peter, contriving to look almost mildly ferocious as a dreadful suspicion began to take shape within him; a misgiving that became a practical certainty as Amy stood speechless before such unusual bearing. "You don't mean to say that you've asked him to stay here?"
"Yes, dear," she confessed, with astonishing meekness, "didn't you mean that when you told me to say that we should be glad to see him any time?"
"No, no, no! I thought you'd ask him to call one day and then perhaps invite him to lunch or dinner for the next, or something of that sort. We have to be civil to the man, but that ought to have been enough. He'd arranged to put up at the 'Bell and Anchor'—so he wrote."
"Yes, Peter, I know; but as he was coming down especially to meet you, I thought it seemed so much nicer to ask him to stay here."
"Well, well, well; it's done now so we must make the best of him."
"I'm sorry if I misunderstood you, dear," she said penitently—after all, how admirable, this, compared with the Magnolia Gardens Amy who would certainly have let him see how unfeeling he had been on half the provocation, reflected Peter cheerfully. Let Trescote come and be blowed! "I thought that you would like to have someone who would be able to talk to you and understand your clever theories."
"Oh, I don't think it really matters," said Peter, feeling very magnanimous. "It's your fine spirit of hospitality; you always had it, Amy, even in our leanest days. Do you remember insisting on that man staying to tea, because he said that he'd been waiting two hours to catch us—and then it turned out that he'd really only come to cut the gas off?
This was perhaps going a little too far, for Mrs. Coppinger knew so absolutely that whatever she did was right, that it was always an extremely delicate matter to remind her of the times when she had palpably been wrong. Peter glimpsed a mere flicker of the pensive look that used to foreshadow trouble brewing, and hastened to offer solatium.
"It's all right, of course," he continued quickly. "Very splendid really, and now we can afford to do all the entertaining you like. We need a few visitors to liven things up in a big house of this sort, don't we?"
"It's certainly pleasanter for Walburga, and that is why I am glad that Mr. Moon—"
"But I have to remind myself occasionally what Trescote's real position is," kept on Peter, ringing a tactful change on the pronoun he employed. "He is the consulting lawyer of the British Institute of Ornithological Research: the body that will step in and claim everything here if I ever fail to satisfy the conditions of Uncle Ralph's will. And you may take my solemn word, Amy, that he's coming now to see if he can't find some way of doing it."
"Oh, I don't think that for a moment, Peter," declared Amy with airy conviction. "He wrote us such a very pleasant letter. Besides," she added with triumphant finality, "it wouldn't be at all a nice thing to do, and the man is obviously a gentleman. Did you notice that he has a crest?"
"Well, I don't know Mr. Trescote yet," demurred Peter stolidly. "I have never seen him. Of course he is a gentleman—if only by Act of Parliament. But he is a lawyer first, and that by his own choice."
"Besides, what possible ground could there be for interfering with you, Peter? You do everything, and more, that the will requires."
"Yes, yes; I know, my dear," he agreed uneasily, "but Trescote is a lawyer and not a naturalist. It would be on some tricky, technical, legal point that he would go to work. I might be able to overwhelm him with—er—well, let us say ornithological erudition, but what's the good of trying to impress a man with technicalities when he doesn't know the difference between an emu and a seamew?"
"But he does, Peter."
"Eh? What's that?" demanded Peter, struck by her happy note. "He—?"
"The vicar told me only yesterday, when I mentioned Mr. Trescote's name. He was one of the few friends that Uncle Ralph had, it seems, and he frequently stayed here. 'You can't take Trescote in about anything that wears feathers,' were the vicar's very words. You see, you will be able to impress him: that's why I thought it would be so nice for you to have him actually staying here."
"Oh, capital, capital," stammered the unfortunate dissembler. "That puts an entirely different face —
But what a curious, what an uncalled-for remark about him for anyone to make."
"He was referring to some case in which Mr. Trescote had been engaged. It seems that on account of his special knowledge he is in nearly every law-suit about birds, and his side always wins. The vicar said that he had been instrumental in exposing ever so many cases of imposture. You two will be able to have such splendid talks together."
"I picture them!" said Peter, with the hysterical cheerfulness of a man making an appointment with the dentist. "Do you know, Amy, we may have to put Trescote off yet. I—I feel very peculiar. I think I have one of my bad bilious attacks coming on—a long one, this time, by the feeling of it."
"Oh, I hope not!" exclaimed Amy sympathetically. "Shall I send down for Dr. Craig to call?"
"No, no. He wouldn't be able to do anything. But I must see Harker now as soon as we can get him. I won't run the risk of leaving it any longer."
"Peter!" A dreadful apprehension was suddenly reflected in Amy's startled eyes. "You are keeping something back. Are you very ill?"
"No, no, no—"
"You say a doctor can do no good, and now you want a lawyer. What am I to think? Does it mean—"
"No, no, no," protested Peter incoherently.
"Even if you haven't made a will, Peter, don't let things like that trouble you at such a moment," urged the heroic lady. "I shan't mind. Walburga can earn her living somehow, and even if Willie has to leave school, a boy like that can always make his way—"
"Look here!" almost shrieked the erstwhile mildest of men in a stress of frenzy, "please understand that I haven't the slightest intention of dying, either now or at any other time. I want Harker because I wrote to him for his advice and he hasn't taken the trouble to reply. Well, I've had about enough of it now, so I may as well tell you —
For the fourth time that afternoon the semi-ecclesiastical door handle of the Bird Room creaked rustily, and Peter was either saved or lost, as the event may prove. Walburga's face appeared between the parted curtains.
"Yes, here they are, Mr. Harker," she reported, glancing back towards him. "Come on in."
"Well, well," commented Peter with fatalistic resignation. "Talk of the Devil—!"
Harker bustled in, as spruce, alert and self-possessed as ever, and seized Mrs. Coppinger's welcoming hand.
"Ha!" he exclaimed, taking in husband and wife with a genial eye. "Did I catch the tail of a reference to a Certain Personage as I came in?"
"Yes," admitted Amy, in her unconquerably pleasant manner, "we were just talking about you, Mr. Harker," but though she thought of it several times later, in a conscientious endeavour to find some point, she could never understand what all the others laughed at. Her own expression became one of polite and dutiful amusement.
"I think we had better leave you two to your joke, or your business as I suppose we must call it," she said, joining Walburga at the door. "Shall we resign them to their own devices, dear?"
"I have come on business, Mrs. Coppinger, I assure you," remarked the lawyer. "Your husband will vouch for that."
Mrs. Coppinger did not need any assurance on that point after what had passed, but she hoped that Peter's queer turn, whatever it arose from, had blown over. There was a great deal that she did not understand in life, but it never troubled her; indeed she seldom realized that she did not understand it. She merely blotted out anything that did not come in line with the world as she had been taught to know it. Half of that undesirable residuum she never saw, the other half she tactfully ignored.
"At all events I hope that you will stay and have tea with us," she said, pausing at the door, and then added in surprise as she looked out, "Why, what a curious change! There is quite a thick mist coming over now."
Harker, who had accompanied them gallantly to the door, glanced out and nodded.
"One of our sudden Dartmoor fogs, Mrs. Coppinger," he answered. "You'll be quite used to them down here before the year is out."
HAVING closed THE door after the two ladies Mr. Harker strolled back into the room with leisurely deliberation, giving a roving glance towards first one then another feature of the place. Ultimately he brought up beside Mr. Coppinger at the desk, and proceeded to accept an excellent cigar of a brand that he had himself some time earlier recommended to that comparatively inexperienced smoker.
"You've left everything pretty much as you found it," he remarked, with a comprehensive indication of the Bird Room. "Rum old shanty, anyhow."
"Yes," replied Peter. "That was one of the things I could do quite easily. You got my letter?" By way of settling that point Mr. Harker felt in various pockets until he had discovered a well-filled wallet. From this by a similar process he selected an envelope, which in turn yielded its enclosure. With this spread open before him he was in a position to deal positively with the inquiry. This spectacular precision is not without effect in cowing the rancorous and headstrong, especially those of simple mind and slight legal experience. Not that Mr. Harker had any intention of impressing Peter, but these useful professional habits fasten on one. Remembering himself, he refolded the letter and put it back again.
"I did," he admitted, "but I put off replying because I knew that I should be round this way to-day, and because what you ask is very difficult to answer in a letter."
"Ah. It did occur to me afterwards that it might prove a pretty long matter."
"On the contrary," replied Mr. Harker, giving up his attempt to lasso the stuffed widgeon's head with a smoke-ring, "on the contrary, I can answer everything you ask with three short words."
"You can?"
"I can. The words being, 'I don't know.'"
"Well, well." Mr. Coppinger made a spirited endeavour not to look his disappointment. "I should have thought that that would have been easy enough to write."
"Not for me. And you are one of the few men to whom I'd even say it. But seriously, Coppinger, though I can't give a definite 'Yes' or 'No' to your rather complicated inquiry, I thought that if I came we might be able to thresh out something satisfactory between us."
"Now that's deuced friendly of you, Harker," protested Peter warmly. He had liked Harker from the first, with the illogical reaction of the man who would not hurt the feelings of a fly towards the one who would have no compunction about trampling on an elephant. "Very friendly indeed."
"Perhaps," admitted the lawyer. "But I shall book it as a consultation, all the same. Now—you say that you are beginning to find the situation intolerable—what's the exact trouble?"
"The exact trouble is that I don't know where I stand. According to that—that infernal will, Harker, I have to devote myself body and soul to ornithology. Where does that begin and where does it end? Am I overdoing it or am I underdoing it?"
"This is what comes of a man trying to make his own will," said Mr. Harker, not without some indication of a certain complacent satisfaction. "The only circumstance in which it is at all safe for a layman to do that is when he leaves everything unconditionally to his next-of-kin. Then if the will can be upset it goes to the fellow just the same."
"Yes, but if I can be upset, everything here goes to the British Institute of Ornithological Research."
"You seem to be apprehensive of something, Coppinger. Your compliance with the terms of the will hasn't been called into question, has it?"
"Not yet, so far as I am aware. But there's a man called Trescote connected with that society ————"
"Yes, I know him slightly. A decent enough fellow. I met him once when he was staying here."
"Well, it looks like something brewing. Can he quarter himself on me here whether I want him or not?"
"Certainly he cannot. I don't suppose that he ever dreamt of such a thing."
"Perhaps not. Can he come here with the obvious intention of finding out what I am doing, poke about the aviaries, talk to my servants, make my life generally miserable and—and so forth?" demanded Peter, beginning strongly but ending on a very minor note, as honest indignation is apt to do.
"Ah, now you are widening the issues. You don't want to carry the matter to the House of Lords, do you?"
"I don't want to carry it anywhere. I don't want to touch it with a long pole. I only want everything to be fair and reasonable."
"Half the cases that reach the House of Lords get there because both sides insist on everything being fair and reasonable," remarked Mr. Harker sententiously. "Why not be generous and absurd? You are the strong man in possession."
"Just how do you mean?" asked Peter.
"You spoke of Trescote paying a visit here. Well, put him up and make him welcome if he has the least inclination to see Foxgrove Court again. Show him everything and tell him everything. Explain your views and point out what you are doing. Make him subscribe to our 'Country Children's Town Holiday Fund,' and take him to hear your paper at the next village Penny Reading."
"What—what's that?" demanded Peter. "What paper?"
"Your contribution to the evening's gaiety: an address entitled 'Some Feathered Songsters of Our Heaths and Hedgerows.'"
"My God, Harker, don't say that I'm down to do that!" implored the unfortunate Peter.
"But most certainly you are. I saw a printed notice about it in Miss Mew's Berlin wool shop window as I came along."
"And all I said was—But what does that matter now if it's actually in print?" And, shaking his head mournfully from side to side, the dejected little man sadly apostrophized the unresponsive widgeon, "O Amy, Amy, what crimes do you not commit in the name of amiability!"
"And, by Gad," continued Mr. Harker, with a sudden access of enthusiasm, "you must arrange for him to be here to see the Groo-Groo arrive."
"The what?" asked Peter dully. "Groo-Groo? What Groo-Groo?
"The Groo-Groo," emphasized Mr. Harker, regarding Peter with quite extraordinary vivacity. "The Great Groo-Groo: there's only one in the discovered world. You know all about it. You have a collecting agent at Buenos Ayres, haven't you?"
"I have collecting agents at Buenos Ayres, Calcutta, Sydney and New York. Uncle Ralph had them, and I simply let them go on collecting. I daren't do anything else."
"Well, hasn't your agent at Buenos Ayres notified you that he has secured a Groo-Groo for you—hitherto believed to be extinct—and is sending it on by boat?
"I do seem to remember a word like that in a cablegram I got," admitted Peter. "I thought it sounded like a pet name for another of their confounded cockatoos.... They're always sending me cockatoos," he added plaintively.
"But haven't you seen anything about it in your papers? Why, man, it's 'news.' I cut a paragraph only this morning out of the Daily—the Daily"—and in the complicated business of searching his numerous pockets Mr. Harker contrived to lose the precise thread of his disclosure—" the Daily—ah, here it is. Shall I read it for you?"
"Do," said Peter. "I don't feel that I can bear to."
"'A RARA AVIS.'"—("That's what they head it," explained the reader.) "' Mr. Pater Pottinger' (You mustn't mind trifles like that in a newspaper report), ' an enthusiastic ornithologist of this country, has recently secured through his Buenos Ayres agent what is probably the last surviving specimen of that remarkable bird the Patagonian Groo-Groo, for many years supposed to be extinct. The bird, now on its way to Mr. Collinger's aviary, is what the natives call a "fighting female," and stands five yards two feet in height.'"
"Impossible!" shouted the terror-stricken listener, his computing eye unconsciously lifting to the roof. "Why, confound it all, Harker, even a giraffe—"
"Five feet two inches they mean, I expect," suggested Mr. Harker. "These newspaper people do everything on a big scale nowadays—to live up to their large circulation they have to. Well, it goes on: 'Special preparation has been made for its passage on the Coventry Cross, and—'"
"Wait a minute. Coventry Cross: I've seen something about that ship quite lately."
"Among the arrivals somewhere probably. That's nearly all—' and it is being accompanied to this country by a Patagonian Indian, who has been retained as its personal attendant.'"
"Harker," protested Peter solemnly, "this is simply monstrous!"
"It is rather large," admitted his friend, "but I'll tell you one thing, Coppinger. This will settle any question of your doing or not doing all that could be required. Why, you'll become the leading patron of ornithology at one single step."
"No, it's the last straw. I can't keep it up any longer—not in the face of a five foot two inch bird: a fighting female, too. You are my legal adviser, Harker; come, you'd better hear the whole sordid truth."
"As your legal adviser," reserved Mr. Harker, "without prejudice, of course."
"For the last six months I've been leading a double life. I saw the difficulty when you first wrote to me about the will, but I thought that I could get used to it, and in any case I had a wife and family to consider.... I'm not devoted to ornithology, Harker.
I hate pets and animals of every description, but birds most of all I simply loathe."
"Do you mean—"
"I mean that they upset me, just as cats did the Duke of Wellington—or Lord Roberts, was it?—and spiders and mice do most women. I don't study the subject, as the will says I must: I can't. I've tried, but it's no good. I come here and shut myself up for eight working hours a day, and I play patience and read Shakespeare and—er—Tit-Bits—and go to sleep. For three months I did honestly try to take an interest in the beastly things. In that time I wrote six pages of an essay on the cause of epileptic fits among cockatoos. Would you like to hear me read it? It's lying somewhere about."
"I am content to take it as read," said Mr. Harker.
"You do well. Turning to the practical side of my obligation, I stuffed one red-necked parrot during the same period. It belonged to an old lady Amy knew at Finsbury Park, and when it died she sent it here and implored me to make it as lifelike as possible so that darling Toko should always be before her eyes. You shall see it." Mr. Coppinger took out his keys and, seeking the farther end of the room, began to unlock a small medicine chest. "I cut into it one night after everyone was safely out of the way, and I worked on it for six hours with the door locked. I never felt so ill in all my life. Here it is."
HARKER strolled down the room, suppressing, at the sight of his friend's wholly serious—almost tragic—face, an inclination to laugh outrageously.
"Is that a stuffed parrot?" he asked.
"No," replied Peter, "it's a toy balloon like those sold by the hawkers along Holborn. But it was a parrot before I stuffed it. I shouldn't have believed that any mortal creature—except perhaps the india-rubber man—could have such an elastic skin. The more I stuffed the more it stretched. In the end I had to sneak in and take handfuls of flock out of the spare-room bed. And the larger it grew the more it moulted. Even the few feathers you see are mostly stuck on with seccotine. You must do something for me, Harker. If I am challenged to produce some evidence of my work, and that essay was to be read in court and this bird displayed, not five leading K.C.s in a row could save me. I feel that."
"But my dear Coppinger, I never knew—I never guessed—"
"No one knew; no one guessed. You all played up to me in a dazzling fashion. If I met an intelligent man, if I was introduced to a pretty woman, they nailed me down to birds from beginning to end as if any other topic would have been an insult to my reputation. Amy set them on to do it. It's her tactful way since she believes me to be the greatest ornithologist alive. I have to live up to that."
"Well, I must say that I admire the way you've kept it up for the last six months, Coppinger," said Mr. Harker, and with the perversity of human nature he really did appreciate his friend's qualities as a successful impostor more than he had ever done as an eminent ornithologist. "How do you put it across with people who really understand the subject?"
"It's all too easy," confessed the simple deceiver. "I tell you, Harker, I've lived a comparatively blameless life hitherto, but once or twice lately I've caught myself wondering whether that mightn't have been because I had no idea how easy it was to impose on people.... If I meet a practical man I'm an advanced theorist, and wash my hands of mere manual labour. If he's a theorist I'm a practical man and pooh-pooh academic knowledge."
"But I suppose it does occasionally happen that one may be something of both?"
"In that case," replied Peter, "I have an immediate bilious attack and can't talk to him."
Mr. Harker chuckled appreciatively and regarded his host with a waggish look of indulgent fellow-feeling. Then he became severely professional and, communing inwardly, took a couple of turns about the room.
"Well, my friend," he announced, when he came to rest again after this mental stimulation, "it begins to appear to me that perhaps your apprehensions weren't quite so wild as I had imagined."
"You think that I could be dispossessed? That although I've spent twice as much money as I could well afford and kept on every agent and man-jack about the place, and provided an asylum and home-of-rest for every moth-eaten vulture and wall-eyed seagull that has been foisted on me, that I still haven't fulfilled the ridiculous conditions of that preposterous will? You really do say that, Harker?
"I don't say that. As your legal representative, wild eagles wouldn't drag such an admission from me. But if the other side were in possession of all the facts and worked up a strong case, the law might possibly say so."
"Then the law is an ass," declared Mr. Coppinger vindictively.
"That has been frequently discovered," agreed Harker suavely. "But of course, as a lawyer myself, it would hardly do for me to—"
"What's up?" demanded Peter, for his companion had stopped abruptly and appeared to be waiting. From somewhere away in the distance a faint "crack" or two had reached their ears. "Partridge shooting, isn't it?"
"No, no. Those were rifles, unless I'm very much mistaken. Listen!"
The sounds were repeated, a little louder but less definite in effect, as if several weapons had merged into a fusillade. Harker strode to the door and threw it widely open, Peter, impressed by the sense of something in the air, following on his heels. The garden had now been blown clear of mist again, but over the land out towards Culler Bridge it still lay like the waveless stretch of some enchanted lagoon.
"Hear anything?" suggested Harker, crooking a finger in the direction of the moor. "The wind's our way."
"Something," muttered Peter, straining his cars to comply. "There it is again. Sounds like a bell."
"You are right," agreed the man with local knowledge; "it is a bell. It is the prison bell calling in the gangs. Another man has come to the conclusion that the law's an ass, Coppinger. Some convict has made a dash for it and got off in the fog."
"I'm very glad," announced Mr. Coppinger defiantly; "he has my respectful congratulations. I hope he will escape; I hope every convict will escape. I don't approve of our criminal laws and the whole penal system, Harker. I don't approve of civil laws and the muddle-headed way they work out. Most of all, I don't approve of the silly, involved, obsolete probate system that has got me into this confounded mess."
"True, I remember," smiled Harker. "You are a bit of a Socialist, aren't you?"
"I am a Socialist," amended Peter fervently. "At least," he added in a more conciliatory key, "I was a Socialist when I worked for Mossphases' and we lived in Harringay. I'm a theoretical Socialist now."
"Then I strongly advise you to act on your theoretical Socialism by making sure of your window fastenings to-night," said Harker meaningly.
"I always do. But why to-night particularly?"
"That other Socialist—the practical one—out there must have food if he is to lie low, and clothes if he hopes to get away," explained Harker, indicating the direction of the moor as they left the door and turned to their chairs. "You stand rather isolated here: that's all.... I wonder, by the way, if old Ralph had got some inkling of your loose opinions, Coppinger, when he made that will?
"Inkling!" replied Peter scornfully. "I should say! No, Harker, I never toadied to the old man in his ornithological dotage as most of the other relations did. He knew all right; he knew. That's why I never expected a penny from him.... At first I imagined that he had singled me out because I was straightforward about it. But, do you know, since I've been here I've got a queer notion. It came to me one night when I was sitting here in the dusk—about like it is now—waiting for my eight hours' solitary confinement to end."
"Yes," encouraged Harker. "I'm listening."
Peter glanced round—if not exactly nervously, at least with the air of a man who likes to make sure that nothing is creeping up behind him in the dark—and then switched on the desk lamp. This had the effect of creating a reassuring circle of white light immediately about them, though it left everything beyond its protecting nimbus obscurer than before.
"You may know that the old man spent most of his time in this very room," continued Peter, drawing his chair nearer to his guest as he unconsciously dropped his voice almost to a whisper, in keeping with the theme. "Towards the end, I am told that he almost lived here. Well—I know it sounds absurd put into cold words—but I do believe that Ralph Coppinger really did it simply for his own amusement after he was dead!"
"Oh, come! How do you make that out?" demanded the practical-minded lawyer.
"I do indeed, Harker," insisted Peter, relieved to have a confidant now that he had said so much. "I may be wrong in what I think, or Uncle Ralph may have been wrong in what he expected, but you know that the old man firmly believed in Spiritualism towards the end?"
"So I've heard," nodded Harker.
"Well, when he found out how much I hated country life and that I was almost afraid of birds, he left the will he did so that he might have something to amuse himself with for the first few years after he had gone: an arrangement, don't you see, that would give his spirit something to take a humorous interest in while it hung about here until the strangeness of his new surroundings had worn off."
"He certainly had a sardonic vein of pleasantry; still—"
"It would be just like him. Look how he went out of his way to get all the fun he could into it. He actually alludes in his will to my 'deep love of natural history' and 'well-known reputation as a keen ornithologist.' All utter spoof, of course; for the consequence was that when I got here I found a ready-made reputation waiting for me. Well, do you know, Harker, sometimes when I've been pottering about in this room with a few feathers or pretending to write a treatise on a subject that I don't know a single word about, I've more than once fancied that I've heard the old fellow chuckling behind me; I've even heard the rattle—"
It could hardly be called the exemplary Willet's fault. She had found the door unlatched and, having both hands occupied, she pushed it quietly open with her foot. Moving with the noiseless tread of the admirable servant that she was, she made out a small table just behind the two deeply-engrossed gentlemen, and on this—with possibly some excusably slight miscalculation of distance in the dusk—she proceeded to deposit the tea-tray.
"MyGodwhat'sthat!" exclaimed Peter, leaping to his feet and spinning round.
Harker managed to restrain the outward emotions better, but a cold wave passed over him, and when he turned his head to investigate he did it with the slow deliberation of one who is rather apprehensive of what he may see there.
"I beg your pardon, sir," apologized Willet loftily. "I understood from the mistress that I was to bring tea out to you here."
"Well, well; why shouldn't you?" demanded Mr. Coppinger, with more warmth of manner than was his wont. "Why not? It's quite right, Willet; perfectly all right. You didn't think you fancied you saw or heard anything at all unusual, did you?"
"No, sir," replied Willet, investing herself with an almost spiritual detachment from the situation. "Nothing whatever."
"Nor did I," volunteered her master, his tone rather implying that he would very much like to argue the matter out with anyone who suggested that he did. "There's nothing unnatural or strange here that I know of. Everything is going on exactly the same as usual."
"Yes, sir," acquiesced Willet, arranging the tea-things with meticulous precision.
"Then there's nothing to make a fuss about," pronounced Peter with judicial finality. "Kindly switch on the wall-lights as you go out."
"That's better," commented Mr. Harker with determined cheerfulness as the moderate display evoked made the outlook at least tolerable. "This could be turned into quite a decent place of some sort—gymnasium or something really useful, what?—if only you had a free hand, Coppinger."
"If I had a free hand," replied Coppinger, "I should turn it into an immediate vacancy. Look here, Harker, now that you know everything, do you still think that I had better have Trescote staying with us?"
"Why, yes, I do," declared Harker, after reflection. "If he wants to come he will probably come somehow. Better to have him under your own eye all the time and in the restrained position of a guest."
"Very well," sighed Peter. "But I wish it was well over."
"I admit, of course, that your position is a delicate one, but from the first I shouldn't give him any ground for suggesting that you are not everything you seem. I don't see that you need profess anything: after all, you're only supposed to have been 'devoting' yourself for a few months, you know. Be the humble student of science. Maintain a desire to profit by his knowledge: no man is insensible to flattery of that kind."
"Yes, yes, but my reputation; my confounded ready-made reputation, Harker, that I have tacitly accepted. One thing: I won't face that five-foot-two fighting female on any terms. It goes direct to the Zoo as a present for the nation."
"No reason why it shouldn't. Public spirit and all that, overriding the most poignant private yearnings—eh? In fact that would be a positive asset, properly worked up."
"And look here: while Trescote is down can't you meet him here and as my representative get out of him some clear understanding of what his confounded society expects of me?"
"Something might be done, perhaps," admitted the lawyer. "Anyway, no harm in trying."
"I wish you would. I'll let you have the dates.... Get as liberal terms as you can for me, Harker, there's a good fellow. Stick out for half-holidays on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and one whole day a month."
"I'll do ray best," said Harker with a laugh. "No, no more tea, thanks. I must be wending."
"Oh, stay and keep us company at dinner," urged Peter. "We might fill in the time with a hand at bridge if Walburga and Mr. Moon are available."
"Moon? I did see a man about as I came through—"
"He's a friend of theirs," explained Peter, indicating, as Mr. Harker understood, the distaff section of the household. "Lord bless you, Harker, I don't keep count of half the new people they seem to be in with. I suppose they met this Moon somewhere and he made himself agreeable, for now he's staying here. Son of a lord, I understand—Letchworth's the name—so he naturally goes down."
"Title in the offing, eh? How does that suit the theoretical Socialist?"
"I don't think Socialists strain much at aristocrats to-day," admitted Peter. "In the old times 'revolution' meant the barricades going up; now it only means the barriers coming down. Personally, I can't make much headway with this one, I admit, but he seems agreeable enough and certainly he never talks the peerage."
"Well, I'm afraid that I can't stay, anyway," decided Harker. "The missis dropped a few words into my ear as I came away, and I seem to remember that 'not later than six o'clock' was in heavy type among them. But I left my little jigger somewhere round the front, so I'll just look in and say ' goodbye' to Mrs. Coppinger as I go by."
THEY found everyone in the drawing-room, where the last formalities of afternoon tea still lingered: Mrs. Coppinger, Walburga and the Honourable Eustace Moon. The lawyer, taking in the scene with his bright, observant glance, came to the conclusion that certainly one, probably two, and possibly all three sitting there did not find the interruption unwelcome.
"By the way," whispered Peter, holding his friend's elbow for a second, "remember that you are the only soul who knows a word of this."
"Well," smiled Mrs. Coppinger, radiating her pleasure at seeing them again, "have you two gentlemen finished discussing your state secrets?"
"Secrets, Amy?" stammered the guilt-laden Peter. "Now what—"
"Quite right," cut in Mr. Harker, taking charge of the situation with his usual capable alertness. "Your wife merely indicates that even ' Good afternoon' spoken to your lawyer is strictly confidential. Thank you, Mrs. Coppinger; that is very complimentary."
This was slightly too involved for Amy, who had no intention of indicating anything in particular, the phrase simply coming among her stock of appropriate conversational greetings. She bridged the ambiguous moment by introducing her two visitors.
"How d'you do?" said Harker, with the expansive heartiness that he extended to every new acquaintance—and possible fresh client. "If this is your first visit, Mr. Moon, you'll see our few local attractions—scenery and so forth—at their best."
"Yes, it is," replied Mr. Moon, with the air of a serious man giving a weighty problem the consideration it deserved. "Everything is very nice here," and, doubtless unconsciously, his lethargic eyes strayed off to Walburga's certainly "very nice" face—though at that moment it reflected a total lack of interest to his gaze.
"Ah; I'm glad you think so." Mr. Harker was already coming to the conclusion that Peter would not be alone in finding the Honourable Eustace something of a conversational heavy-weight, but he was not the man to be put off by mere tepidity. "I don't know whether you'd be interested in our very scratch little pack here, but there happens to be a convenient meet to-morrow, and as often as not they find quite near."
"Thank you," replied Mr. Moon gravely. "No. I'm afraid I'm not much of a shot."
Even Mr. Harker's aplomb was not proof against this curious revelation, and the conversation might have languished if Mrs. Coppinger, subtly warned that something was not quite right, had not come to the rescue of the situation.
"Mr. Moon is such a great traveller that I am sure he must secretly despise anything Plymorchard has to offer," she declared tactfully.
"Travel, eh?" said Mr. Harker, looking at his man with a new interest. "That makes me envious."
"No, no, Mrs. Coppinger, you really must not say that," protested Mr. Moon with deep feeling. "I assure you it's quite the reverse," and Walburga's face again exercised its magnetic influence.
"Yes, travel is my one great ambition," continued Mr. Harker, persisting, as he felt sure, for the general good. "You'd hardly think it possible to look at me, but at times I have the wildest craving to set out and—well, perhaps cross Arabia disguised as a Bedouin pilgrim, or join a band of howling dervishes and explore the most inaccessible parts of Tibet, or go off on an expedition to the North Pole—or anything of that kind."
"Now that would be something like," contributed Peter, feeling that as a host he ought to make the conversation general.
"Yes, wouldn't it?" agreed Walburga, hoping to shake off the devoted gaze before everyone had noticed it. "Couldn't we make up a party? Put me down for one, Mr. Harker."
"I had no idea that you were so adventurous," said his hostess. "Are you seriously thinking of starting soon?
"I'm afraid I don't see how I could," confessed the adventurer, finding this polite acceptance of his romantic flight embarrassing to discount. "I've already arranged to take Mrs. Harker and the children to Weymouth for a fortnight for this year's outing. No, no; dreams, idle dreams, Mrs. Coppinger. Seven days at lovely Lucerne will be about the limit of my reality. I suppose Arabia Petra would be a mere holiday jaunt to you, Mr. Moon?"
"Arabia," considered Mr. Moon, "no; I cannot say, as a matter of fact, that I have ever been to Arabia."
"Tibet?" suggested Walburga in a far from sympathetic voice.
"Tibet? Tibet? No. I certainly cannot remember ever being in Tibet."
"Not remember!" mused Mr. Harker appreciatively. "Now that's the way I should like to be able to feel about Tibet! Why, I can even remember a day I spent in Boulogne—Margate Belle, you know—twenty years ago.... If you'll excuse my curiosity, Mr. Moon, where have you mostly travelled?"
"As a general thing," replied Mr. Moon, "I confine myself to the south-western round—route, that is."
"The south-western? Yes, yes. And that chiefly comprises such places as—as, eh?"
"Those in the south-west," was the dignified reply. "Oh, exactly, exactly." Harker rarely found himself nonplussed where mere pertinacity would conquer, but short of pressing it to an absolute challenge he had to admit that this fellow Moon was a couple of points beyond him.
"Won't you have another cup of tea, Mr. Harker?" put in Amy, discovering a lapse in the conversation. "I have all the things here."
"I said I wouldn't, but if I may change my mind, I will," said Mr. Harker, contriving to indicate something of what he felt by this acceptance of refreshment. "Thank you, Mrs. Coppinger."
"He doesn't take sugar, Mother," admonished Walburga from the background.
"Oh! How stupid of me," exclaimed Amy, with the little cry of dismay by which she invariably advertised any oversight or tremor. "I know quite well, but I'm afraid that I generally forget."
"It doesn't matter in the least," protested Harker gallantly. "I really don't mind."
"But you ought to mind," insisted Walburga. "You're the only available centre-forward Plymorchard has, and in the last match you were absolutely gasping before you'd gone five minutes. You oughtn't to have even the tea, really."
"Walburga! My dear!" expostulated her mother, feeling very uncomfortable, and a little uncertain whether to frown or to laugh would "carry it off" the better.
"It's quite true, alas!" admitted Harker, favouring Walburga with a grin of friendly understanding. "My evil star once led me into opposing your daughter in the field, since when it's been no use pretending."
"Yes, and a fine old whack you caught me over the knee that time," proclaimed the maiden.
"My dear!" Mrs. Coppinger felt that this was really going too far even if things had, as she quite admitted, moved on somewhat since her own girlhood. She managed to catch Moon's solemnly roving eye and bravely smiled the reassuring message that this was simply the child's high spirits and, as one would say, "meant nothing"—though what it could mean beyond the uncontroversial fact that young ladies do possess knees it would have embarrassed her to define.
"It was quite all right, Mama," Walburga reassured her, but, it is to be feared, more from a sly appreciation of the situation she produced than from any filial motive. "It was in that rotten little mixed show game we got up in aid of the church restoration and the vicar umpired. You remember?"
"Oh, well," assented Mrs. Coppinger, lulled by the mention of so unimpeachable an occasion." Of course if it was in aid of a charity that does seem to make a difference, doesn't it? But I am horribly nervous every time you play, Walburga. It would be such a terrible thing if you got your nose broken or your face disfigured in any way. Don't you think so, Mr. Moon?"
"Dreadful, dreadful, dreadful," confirmed Mr. Moon in the voice of acute mental suffering, and Walburga, although she had turned brusquely away to examine the delightfully interesting wallpaper at this ingenuous maternal exploitation of her features, continued to feel his bovinely-impassioned gaze playing on the back of her head.
"Well, if everyone will excuse me I think I'll vanish," she announced. "You'll post my letters, won't you, Mr. Harker?
"With pleasure—if they arc written. But as it is, I shall have to exceed the limit to escape Mrs. Harker's just resentment. No, no more tea, thank you, Mrs. Coppinger. If I hesitate and your daughter catches me I should certainly incur the fate of Lot's wife and be turned into a pillar of sugar."
"I think that was salt," amended Amy helpfully. "But won't you stay to dinner?"
"Here you are," struck in Walburga, returning with her letters and cutting short Harker's apologies. "Six of them. Please don't lose any on the way; they're all frightfully important. Now, Mother, I'm simply going to work like a horse for the next two hours. Wasn't there something you wanted me to do?"
"No, I don't remember, dear. What was it?"
"Some bazaar sewing that wanted finishing off, you said. It should go back to-morrow. Let me do it for you."
"I don't think it really matters to a few days," demurred her mother. "Besides, the machine is behaving most erratically. I wonder if you know whether there is a sewing-machine shop in Plymorchard, Mr. Harker?"
"Afraid I don't," he admitted. "But I'll ask on my way through, and then drop you a post card."
"One moment," interposed Mr. Moon's dignified voice from the other side of the room, and he moved across to join them. "I think I may be able to save you the trouble. There is no shop of that nature in Plymorchard. But did I hear you say that your sewing-machine was proving stubborn, Mrs. Coppinger? If so, perhaps I can be of service."
Strangely enough, under the novel stimulus of a disabled sewing-machine the Honourable Eustace seemed to have shed a great deal of his habitual dullness. He stood there reasonably alert, inspired by a quiet self-confidence, and obviously anxious to oblige. Mrs. Coppinger stared open-eyed at the transformation, and even Harker felt drawn to linger.
"Thank you, but you mustn't think of troubling about it," replied the lady, recovering the social instinct. "I'm afraid that it's more than just a temporary hitch. I can generally put those right myself."
"Still I may be able to do something," persisted Mr. Moon with calm assurance. "As an amateur constructor of some slight attainment, I have, it happens, made a special study of the mechanism of the various makes of sewing-machine now on the market."
"What an extraordinary fancy," murmured Peter.
"Doubtless. As a matter of fact, it is a favourite hobby of mine.... In ordinary cases, when a machine ceases to function perfectly the trouble almost invariably arises from an insufficient knowledge, so far as it affects a practical application, that is, of the principles governing the tension regulator. If the stitch is irregular on the under surface of the material it indicates—"
"It doesn't sew at all on either side," put in Amy, with a dim, wondering impression of having heard almost that exact preamble in some other existence.
"Then we must now look for the source of the trouble a little deeper. Assuming for the moment that the tension is perfectly adjusted we next turn our attention to the delicate alignment of the oscillating shuttle crutch. If this—"
"Perhaps we had better try the machine, after all." The difficulty of getting the Honourable Eustace going seemed for once to be transferred into that of getting him to stop. Walburga had slipped away again, Peter had wandered out under the impression that his guest would follow, the tea-things were being removed and Mr. Harker had made more than one attempt at definite leave-taking. "Shall we go to the morning-room where it is? I will be there with you in a minute."
"I should like to above all things," said Mr. Moon briskly. "I will go on there."
Hostess and guest exchanged a smile over his exit as they shook hands. Mrs. Coppinger knew that she had a very keen sense of humour—always had had it and always had known it—but she did not think it was quite politic to let everyone else know. Most people were painfully dull, though Mr. Harker could certainly be very amusing if he liked.
"Then I won't send that post card now?" he said, to make the position clear.
"I really don't think you need, thank you," she replied. "Mr. Moon seemed very certain.... I am so glad you came this afternoon: Peter was getting quite grumpy. You did not forget what I asked you, I hope?"
Harker's natural impulse was to say at once, "Of course not—how could I?" but he recognized that this might take him into deeper water, and he thought that perhaps he had better know what she had asked him.
"I am sure I didn't if you asked me," he accordingly replied. "But which one exactly is it?"
"Why, about Peter, of course. To lead the conversation up to birds."
"We talked of nothing else!" said Harker with expression.
"Oh, I'm so glad. He is so diffident, on account of his great reputation, that unless I give people a little hint, I have known him actually to seem to shun the subject. Give my love to Mrs. Harker, won't you, and little Effie: what a quaint child she is!"
"Effie?"
"Isn't it Effie? Millie? I'm so bad at remembering names."
"Mine are all boys," he explained. "But they certainly are little tartars."
Amy frowned slightly as she crossed the panelled hall, where the old lozenge slabs of Purbeck marble were now hidden beneath a warm crimson matting. The hall had always appealed to her as the seat and symbol of her new position, for it was high and spacious and contained a carved oak mantelpiece heraldically embellished. This was the next best thing to having suits of armour hanging on the walls, and for weeks Amy had rarely crossed the hall without finding time to stop and contemplate the carved mantelpiece as she murmured, "Foxgrove Court!" But now she did not so much as glance towards it. It made one look so stupid to be guilty of a mistake like that, and she felt rather cross with Walburga for misleading her. Or, at any rate, if Walburga had not actually said that Mr. Harker had a very original child called Effie, she had said that someone else they knew had, and that someone was in some direct way associated in Amy's mind with Mr. Harker.
But even the slight frown had disappeared by the time she reached the morning-room. She had a very sunny nature. If the sun was not visibly shining it was the fault of someone else for producing clouds that came between.
She entered the room with an apology on her lips to Mr. Moon for having kept him waiting. But there was no need for it: Mr. Moon had not been waiting. He already had the sewing-machine reduced to its fundamentals, and, with coat sleeves drawn well up like a conjurer at work, and humming a careless snatch as he examined one fitting after another, the Honourable Eustace was carrying on with every appearance of a man who understood his job. A curious spectacle.
MR. COPPINGER had brought several unfortunate traits with him from Harringay, and some of these tried Amy sorely. He had, for instance, a rooted objection to ringing the bell to call someone to do a slight service that he could perform quite as well and much more expeditiously himself. Even more strongly did he object to the contention that he ought to remain alone at the table after "the ladies" had retired from dinner. That "the gentlemen remained sipping their wine" had been one of the most hallowed traditions brought out by Amy from the limbo of her novel reading youth, and the essential fact that Peter had invariably finished before she had was dismissed as extraneous. In the old days she would have hung on for her own way with the tenacity of a limpet and the persistence of an ant, but now she was content to accept a compromise, so when there were guests to be considered Peter undertook to inconvenience himself to that extent—if necessary, until one or another of them fell asleep out of sheer ennui. With Moon it was a sombre enough function.
When Amy returned to the drawing-room after dinner on the day of Mr. Harker's call she found it in darkness, except for an occasional flicker from an almost superfluous fire, and deserted. She had expected to meet Walburga there, and had even planned that they should have a quiet little confidential talk together—one of those cosy heart-to-heart confessionals that fell so definitely in with her traditional conception of the true relationship between mother and daughter. Quite a long time had passed, she remembered, since Walburga had enjoyed that privilege, and even on the last occasion... Then with a start and her inevitable little cry of agitation she discovered that she was not alone after all: Walburga was standing by the window, looking out into the night.
"Child, what a turn you gave me!" she exclaimed, with the momentary flicker of annoyance that a shock always wrung from her. Then she remembered her purpose and realized how plastic the opportunity might prove—Walburga had certainly been musing. "What are you doing there all by yourself in the gloaming? Dreaming, dear?"
"Yes, I suppose I was," replied Walburga. Possibly she divined something of her mother's intention—Amy's appropriate tones were very revealing—for she jerked the heavy curtain sharply across the window, and before it was quite plain what she was doing next, the full blaze of illumination had been turned on.
"We don't often get the chance of a nice comfortable little talk together now, do we, dear?" continued the wily diplomatist, approaching the subject up-wind, as a stalker might conceive it. "Won't you bring the hassock and sit down for a few minutes?"
It was a pity that the firelight tableau had been shattered, but Mrs. Coppinger did not feel that she could reasonably ask Walburga to turn out the lights again. She smiled encouragingly and moved her dress with the obvious invitation—surely any ordinarily intelligent girl could see that?—for Walburga to place the hassock there and nestle down by her side in the most approved attitude of maidenly confidences. In the drawing-room at Magnolia Gardens there had hung an engraving of the exact thing, after an Academy picture by a favourite R.A. of the 'eighties. Unfortunately Walburga seemed to have forgotten the picture, for she solicitously placed the stool as a support for her mother's feet, and then took her own position on a chair quite at the other side of the fireplace.
"Well, dearie," prompted the expectant lady, after a pause of rather embarrassing duration, "haven't you anything that you want to talk to me about: something that you feel you would like to tell Mother?
"No, Mother; nothing particular that I can remember," replied Walburga, after a conscientious effort. "Oh—I had a letter from Willie this afternoon. He wants me to back him up in trying to get Father to allow him more pocket-money. I think he has quite as much as is good for him already."
"I don't know how it is, but we really scarcely seem to be any better off than we were before," sighed Amy. "Your father's hobby is so dreadfully expensive, but he is so wholly devoted to it that I haven't the heart to suggest any retrenchment.... I hope that when you marry, Walburga"—quite a happy opening—" you won't have any of these little domestic worries." Apparently Walburga considered silent acquiescence to be a sufficient confirmation of this well-meant aspiration, for Amy had to continue: "Don't you ever dream of the time when we shall be parted?"
"I really don't think I do, Mother. You see, I haven't the least wish to leave you two yet."
"No, dear," assented her mother—with just the very slightest trace of impatience that so admirable a sentiment should obscure the more interesting business on hand—" but every little girl has her romantic fancies, and it is only natural that she should wish to confide in her mother at such times. At least," she added reminiscently, in a momentary lapse to candour, "I know I always had to.... You must have seen that Mr. Moon is quite hopelessly devoted to you."
"I'm sure I wish he wasn't. I hadn't heard of the creature a week ago. What do we know of Mr. Moon, anyway?"
"Well, Walburga, I think it is quite enough that he is a friend of your father's, and the son—if only the younger son—of a nobleman," replied Mrs. Coppinger with considerable dignity. "As a matter CONFIDENCES of fact, I happen to know that his people are immensely wealthy."
"Where have you picked that up, Mother?"
"I wish you wouldn't talk like that, dear," remonstrated Amy. "It doesn't sound quite nice. I didn't 'pick it up,' as you call it, anywhere.... As, it happens, Mr. Moon told me so himself."
"Himself!" Walburga sniffed her scepticism. "Surely, Mother, that isn't very convincing."
At this remarkable implication Mrs. Coppinger was genuinely astonished.
"Well, Walburga," she remarked severely, "I don't see what better authority you could have. The man would hardly say they were rich if they were not, would he?"
"Anyway, it doesn't prepossess me," said Walburga, giving up the argument as hopeless. "Rich things generally upset me."
"Rich pastry, you mean, surely?" suggested her mother.
"It comes to the same thing. He's pasty enough in all conscience.... It would be like being kissed by a suet pudding."
"Kissed!" Amy was genuinely shocked at the crudeness of the allusion. "What an idea to have, Walburga. Is it quite nice, dear," she asked in gentle reproof, "for a young girl to suggest such a thing about a man?"
"But you were suggesting my marrying him, weren't you, Mother?" demanded Walburga bluntly.
"No—that is to say, if I was, I—but I really wasn't. I was only just thinking that if—" Poor Mother very soon got out of her depth at any plain speaking, and in a verbal emergency her instinct was immediate denial. Walburga was not surprised at the fretful note she had known so well of old, as argument gave place to the more adaptable medium of recrimination. "I wish you wouldn't take me up so, Walburga. It's very confusing."
Walburga shrugged her shoulders in callous resignation.
"Well, I thought that that was what we were talking about," she said, with the distressing logic of youth. "And if I married him I expect that he would think he had the privilege of kissing me—at least."
"I was not speaking in the way that you evidently are," replied Amy distantly. "Perhaps I am too stupid to be able to explain what I mean, but I certainly see it in a very different light to what you do. Shall we change the subject?"
"I am very sorry, Mother, if I have said anything to offend you."
"Offend me!" Walburga had the queerest faculty for putting the wrong construction on nearly everything that passed between them. Mrs. Coppinger recognized that she had been snubbed, that she was hurt—perhaps even felt that she ought to indicate displeasure—but to "take offence" was the last thing she would dream of. "I'm not the least tiny bit offended, child. Only I thought that we were going to have such a nice confidential chat, and it seems to have 'ganged all agley.' Shall we have a little music?"
"Very well. And we won't trouble about Mr. Moon any more?"
"We'll renounce all men, dear," declared her mother, with a kind of desperate gaiety. "Moons and Cheams and mankind at large."
Walburga was opening the piano, but at this—what now?—she whipped round again.
"Why do you say that?" she demanded suspiciously.
For a moment Mrs. Coppinger hung between running away and sticking to her guns. She chose the middle course.
"Say what?" she responded guiltily, knowing very well all the time.
"Why do you drag Burman Cheam in? I know that you mean something by your very manner, Mother. You don't like him? You never have done?"
"I always try to remember that he once saved your life, Walburga."
"Yes, but you've got something else against him." Walburga didn't quite mean that implication, but she was in no mood to weigh construction. "Don't you want him to come here to see me?"
"I think it would be more reasonable to ask instead whether Mr. Cheam wishes to come here. You know what sailors are supposed to be, dear. Wasn't he to get leave and come as soon as the Banbury Cross reached Southampton?"
"Yes, and so he will. What are you getting at, Mother?"
It was not the very nicest way of challenging the issue, but Mrs. Coppinger felt that she could afford to ignore externals. She moved with dignity to a cabinet across the room and from a drawer produced a neatly-folded newspaper. Finding the required column in this, she returned to Walburga and pointed to a line without speaking, but with that indefinable air of triumph that it is so difficult for even the most charitable to subdue entirely at such a moment.
"But this is two weeks old!" muttered Walburga, turning to the page heading. Then she read the line again; it was in the column devoted to the movements of shipping, and briefly stated: "Banbury Cross (Campbell-Voight Line) from Rio de la Plata arrived Southampton yesterday." Not until then did the girl seem to realize the full meaning of the announcement, for at that, with a sudden—almost an involuntary—movement of her large, capable hands she twisted the paper across the middle as though she would wring it into shreds, and failing this raised her arm as if to fling the offending thing as far as possible from her. But the impulse of passion fell as abruptly as it had risen and, rather shamefaced, Walburga turned away from her mother and began to smooth out the crumpled pages with scrupulous precision.
"I think that will be all right now," announced Mr. Moon, entering the room with an air of modest attainment. "I have succeeded in relieving the tension."
IT had been Mr. Coppinger's habit to "put in" an hour or two at the Bird Room every evening, partly because he had nothing else particularly to do, and partly as a detail in the general plan of "devoting" himself. His consultation with Harker that afternoon did not seem to advance any good reason for departing from this routine; accordingly, after dinner Peter slipped the latest number of a short-story magazine into a coat pocket and set out in the cause of duty. On his way across the hall he looked in at the drawing-room—the door had stood open.
"Hullo, Wally," he said, finding her alone there, "what's become of the others?"
"Gone off somewhere, I think. Oh, yes—to the morning-room to try the sewing-machine. Mr. Moon has suddenly become brilliant, it seems. He says he's mended it."
"You don't look particularly radiant, anyway, my girl," he remarked, noticing her more closely. "Nothing especially the matter, is there?"
"Oh, no; nothing special—just the ordinary every-day snags. I'm a funny sort of daughter, I suppose. We can always get on together all right though, can't we?"
"Of course we can," responded Peter heartily. "And... look here, Wally. Whatever it is, you must always remember that your mother is the most unselfish woman in the world. Never forget that."
"I know she is," ungrudgingly admitted Walburga. "She always has been: and I think that's why she always gets her own way so easily. The mischief is when I happen to be just as set on having what I want as she is."
"It is a bit awkward sometimes, I admit," acknowledged Peter. "I'll tell you what, Wally; you've been staying too much indoors lately. Suppose we go for a tremendous walk over the moor until bed-time?"
"Would you?"
"Of course I would; or"—with a perceptible drop in his resolution—" you shall take me for a spin in your little car, and go as fast as ever you like—or nearly!"
"You old dear!" she exclaimed, snoozling affectionately against his coat sleeve. "I believe you would, too! No. You've had enough interruption to-day already. Only don't shut yourself up in that beastly old shed too long, Dad. The night before last I saw a light there, and I looked in and you were—"
"Yes—what?" asked Peter with misgiving. To judge by the playful mockery dancing in her eyes he hadn't been writing essays.
"Fast asleep! Dead to the world around. And you would have been ever so much more comfortable in bed."
"No, no; not asleep, Wally," he protested. "I suppose I must have been thinking. I often close my eyes and remain quite inert when I am doing any particularly deep thinking."
"You were certainly doing some particularly deep breathing," she retorted. "I could hear you through the window."
It was a queer business, thought Peter, as he made his way through the silent garden, heavy with night odours, towards his private penitentiary, and how would it all end? Harker had not given him much comfort, as he now came to think it over. Suppose Trescote were charged with a definite purpose of putting him to the test? Mr. Coppinger realized that he could never keep it up if his pretensions were challenged. What would happen then?... That accursed will.... He had been a fool ever to throw up Mossphases', where he was good for another fifteen years. If he could strike a bargain now he would take a clear five hundred a year like a shot and let the Ornithological Researchers keep the rest, whatever Amy might have to say about it. Walburga wouldn't mind: Wally was a brick, and, of course, in a way Amy would say that she was reconciled to whatever he might decide, but it would be in a way. Could a society like that compromise over their respective interests, and even if it could, would... Now whatever might that be?
The figure standing by the door of the Bird Room resolved itself into Willet, her chaste mould delicately tricked by the witchery of moonlight into something strangely pierrette-like in black and silver. Even Peter could not fail to notice the disquieting phenomenon, though his discovery took the form of recognizing that he had never really noticed Willet before. Possibly, though he didn't know it, he was really noticing her less than ever then.
"May I remove the tea-things, sir?" she inquired. "I found the door locked when I got here."
"To be sure," he replied, taking out his keys, relieved and obscurely disappointed at the ordinariness of the occasion. "This is a spring lock, you see, so it acts unless I put the catch up. It isn't that there's any particular reason for keeping the place locked, that I know of; nobody would be likely to take anything from here."
"The old gentleman used to think very highly of them," remarked Willet, her discipline sapped to the extent of looking round freely, for Peter had put on every light within his reach before he politely held the curtains aside for her to enter. "He was never so pleased as when he was telling us all about something."
"Quite right," agreed Peter, realizing that he could not afford to fall short of Uncle Ralph's standard even in this detail. "That's what knowledge is for, Willet: to have the privilege of giving it away. If I am ever able —— —"
"Thank you, sir," replied Willet gratefully, "we all felt sure you would."
Peter had not exactly intended saying specifically what Willet evidently assumed that he had, but it certainly was not worth troubling about. He went to his desk and shuffled a few papers, only to find that Willet had not yet finished the conversation.
"I reely beg your pardon, sir," she continued, feeling in the pocket of a decidedly chic apron, "but I think you would like to see this," and something in the shape of a tiny ball of feathers was offered for his inspection.
"Why, it's a little dead dicky-bird," he proclaimed absurdly, taking the ruffled object gingerly by the extremity of a toe as Willet seemed to expect it. "Poor little beggar!"
"I think that I am right, sir, in identifying it as the golden-crested wren?" she remarked, tactfully ignoring his regrettable lapse.
"Ay, Ay, a wren, isn't it? What we used to call a jenny wren, I seem to remember."
"Mr. Ralph taught us to call it Regulus Cristatus," she amended with some severity. "He used to give us lectures once a week with magic lantern views, and conversation afterwards to stimulate the powers of observation."
"Oh, the lord Harry!" muttered Peter feebly. He had not expected an attack from this quarter.
"Cook thought that it might be Regulus Igtii-capillus, but I pointed out to her that the bill was not broad enough, the tail too sharp, and that it possessed the characteristic black primaries and secondaries of Cristatus."
"You were quite right, and cook ought to have known better," commented Peter. "Now run away, please; I'm going to be very busy."
"I beg your pardon for speaking at all, I'm sure, sir," said Willet, with a sudden reversion to her habitual correctness. "It was only because the old master wouldn't have missed it for anything."
"I quite understand that, Willet; quite. But he's dead, you see, and—er"—with a bright inspiration—" out of respect for his memory I cannot pursue the subject."
"Then what shall I do with Cristatus, sir?"
"Perhaps you had better give it to the cat," said Peter. "It can make no difference to the bird now, and the cat might like the idea."
"And you are sure you don't want it for your collection, sir?" pleaded Willet.
"I do not, thank you all the same, Willet. In future my intention is to confine myself exclusively to dodos." To indicate that the conversation was quite definitely ended, Peter sat down at the desk, turned on the lamp there, and began to throw various papers about in a way that he always imagined produced the impression of businesslike immersion.
Willet's expression was one of superior resignation. She took up the tray, gave a last glance round to see that nothing had been overlooked, and was on her way to the door when a heavy knock claimed her attention. Cart wheels had been grinding along the lane for several minutes, but neither had noticed that a vehicle had stopped just outside.
"It's Hawkins with the station cart, sir," reported Willet. "He says he has something for you."
"That will be all right," instructed Peter. "I'll see to him."
"Very well, sir," said Willet, departing very precisely.
Peter followed her to the door where Hawkins waited, way-bill in hand.
"Evenin', szur," said the carrier, with the leisurely affability of the country toiler. "Seein' the light, I thought I might as well give a knock here on pass'n. Ole Massr Copp'nger mos'n generally always liked heavy stuff brought in by the back gate, but tes all as one to me."
"Ay, ay," replied Mr. Coppinger, "but what is it that you've got for me? Come into the light, Hawkins, and let me see the consignment."
Hawkins came into the ample light beyond the curtains and ran an arbitrary finger along the items of his way-bill.
"No. 17'll be for you," he decided, scoring the line with a finger-nail that maintained a certain analogy to a black-lead pencil. "Crate. Invoice to follow. Where'll y'have'm taken, szur?"
"But I don't know what it is," said Peter. "I'm not expecting anything. I'd better come and see it first. What's about the size?"
"Fvairish lump. Vive or six feet or thereabouts."
"A five or six foot crate!" A sudden, dreadful calm enveloped Peter. "Merciful powers—it's the fighting Groo-Groo!"
"Shall I bring'n along?" asked the patient Hawkins, to whom Mr. Coppinger was merely an eccentric foreigner, at that moment muttering daftly.
"Wait a minute; wait a minute." His instinct was to play for time, as a step towards playing for safety. "Look here, Hawkins—you've had a longish day, and it's heavy work, I'll wager. What about a drop of something?"
"Thank ye, szur," assented Hawkins, now realizing that the best use for a battered billy-cock hat indoors was its removal. "I can put up with most any sort of drink in reason."
"I think I have a little old Scotch somewhere here," particularized his host. Extremely abstemious himself, he had brought down a bottle of choice liqueur spirit to the Bird Room some months ago to be ready for any occasion, and it had remained there ever since, untasted. Plainly Hawkins's call constituted such an occasion, for it did not occur to the simple-minded Peter that a pint of acetose cider would have come up to the expectation.
"Yes a beautiful tastin' sort of liquor, zurecertain," allowed Mr. Hawkins after he had qualified by a generous sample. "Not but what us chaps mosly favours something that makes ee zweat more."
"Try another glass," suggested Peter. "Perhaps then—"
"I don't mind as if I do," was the prompt admission. "'Tis'n like es if et were intoxicacious." Then he added hospitably: "But won't you plaze to drink as well, szur?"
"To be sure—I was forgetting." Peter poured himself a modest noggin, fearful that he had been committing some shameful breach of the ritual of bibation—a ceremonial of which he was profoundly ignorant in all its phases. "Now about this awkward piece of luggage. Are you going on round by the cliff, past that nasty bit of corner where the road's crumbled away? You know the part I mean—where poor old Joe Marsh's cart slipped down into the river and was washed away?"
"Naw. I be gwin straight on droo the town, szur."
That idea was no good then. It had implied no personal violence to Mr. Hawkins, but for one pyrotechnic moment—possibly born of his unusual potation—Mr. Coppinger had had the vision of the hated crate and its alarming contents being providentially spilled into the flood under the combined influence of alcohol and a substantial pecuniary inducement. At this disappointment he mixed himself another tumbler.
"I'm not going to be left alone with that pugnacious female, anyhow," he declared roundly, under this inspiration. "Pritchard is away, and Job has gone home for the night.... Look here, Hawkins, what about that Patagonian Indian—he'll be better than nothing. You ought to have an Indian somewhere according to the papers. He can't be in the crate along with the Groo-Groo, can he?"
"Indian?" repeated Mr. Hawkins, still progressing under the illusion that old Scotch spirit was a sort of mild and lengthy tipple, but able yet to grapple with his way-bill. "I seen the name somewhere, or dang me.... Ess, here be one Indian of a sort, zurecertain."
"There you are then. That must be the man. Where is he?"
No. 22. Indian corn, one sack for Farmer Land,'" read Hawkins with phlegmatic precision. "That tes the only Indian I've got thic journey. No. 17 be what's for you, Massr Coppinger. Crate. Invoice for to follow. An' zideways here there's ridden: 'Per S.S. Coventry Cross.' Where'll you have'n?"
"Coventry Cross!" exclaimed Peter with illumination. This time he joined up the connexion. "Half a minute, Hawkins, I've got a letter from them somewhere, and it may..." It seemed a forlorn sort of hope with the Groo-Groo knocking, as it were, at the very door, but Peter grasped the chance that something in the letter might even now enable him to repudiate the consignment. This, needless to say, had no sort of interest for the carman.
"I'll unload'n, szur. Then I can putt'n wheresoever you plaze," he remarked as he steered a quite creditable course for the doorway.
Mr. Coppinger had found the letter and, tearing it open, was skimming the contents in a hectic scramble to get at the essentials.
"—at Buenos Ayres took on board the Groo-Groo, together with a converted native answering to the name of ' Get-drunk-on-Sunday-Wilfrid,' who was to accompany and attend it—" And then the blessed and almost incredulously-grasped line leapt to his eyes even as one word: "Five days out from Rio de Janeiro the unfortunate bird expired—"
Mr. Coppinger laid down the letter reverently, and his heart, if not his lips, echoed Mr. Lockit's profound conviction: "This is a just world, Brother Peachum." So overwhelming was the emotion of relief that the human mind was incapable of receiving any other impression, and it would have surprised Peter extremely to have learnt that he unconsciously poured out and, in the colloquial phrase, "tossed off" a good stiff glass of spirit. To himself, it merely seemed as though he had paused for a moment in the reading.
"—owing, as a hasty post-mortem revealed, to its having swallowed the first officer's pocket medicine case and its attendant's ukulele. Being in hot latitudes, we were on the point of throwing the carcass overboard when a handy fellow among the crew offered to dress the skin for mounting. You will therefore receive the skin inside the special coop in which the bird came on board. I enclose the key herewith. Get-drunk-on-Sunday-Wilfrid is being sent back from the next port we touch at. Now as regards the question of insurance—"
"Oh, blow the insurance!" Peter felt that he ought rather to write out a handsome cheque for the medicine case and the ukulele. He positively skipped towards the door, waving the precious letter. "That's all right, Hawkins; never mind about the Indian. Bring the crate along in here: it will do as well as anywhere."
Hawkins had got the box down from the cart and balanced rather precariously on a hand-truck. He had succeeded to the post of railway carman by undisputed right of muscle, for local vaunt credited him with being able to run lightly up Massr Vickery's granary steps (and you should know what they are) with a two-hundredweight sack of "wuts" held on his shoulder, but, even so, the thing needed doing, for the crate was cumbersome as well as heavy. It bumped and grazed along the short garden path, and with Peter's dubious aid was manoeuvred up the shallow step and through the curtains. The light revealed it as a substantial case of clean-hewn batten, suitably proportioned for its late occupant. An ordinary hinged door, fastening with a patent spring lock, took up much of the front side; towards the top of the door a small square shutter, securable only by an outside bolt, suggested the dual claims of air and observation. There was no other special feature.
"Bring it along to the far end of the room," instructed Peter, hauling manfully. "It can stand out of the way by the stove there."
"So ee caan," agreed the willing Hawkins. "But which stove 'ull ee have'n by?"
"The first that comes," was the tactful solution. He was not sorry to get Hawkins out and safely under way again. For one thing he was feeling curiously hazy about some details—lights and distances, for instance—himself.—He put it down to excitement and the unusual effort: all he needed was to sit absolutely quiet and rest his head on something. Hawkins was an excellent fellow, a splendid worker, a sterling type—and, although Mr. Coppinger did not profess to be an exacting critic, there was certainly contagion in the rousing melody of
"There was an ole man,
An' a had an ole cow;
An' how for t'keep'n
A did'n knaw how,"
as Mr. Hawkins sang it. An intrepid driver he must be also, for a minute later the station cart could be heard being urged along the narrow rutty lane at a spirited gallop; and even above the rattle of hoofs, wheels, and mixed consignments, it was possible to follow to the gratifying climax:
"So a built an ole barn,
Fvor to keep es cow warm;
An' a drap more zider
'S dun uz no 'arm."
A thoroughly satisfactory evening, but, as Mr. Coppinger began to recognize, he had possibly had just a little too much of some phases of it. What he now wanted was to sit down and think it all quietly over. He turned off the wall-brackets, finding the complexity of lights confusing as well as unnecessary, and at once settled down very contentedly into the easy desk chair, closing his eyes to aid reflection.
"No, no. I'm not going to sleep, Wally. I'm going to think things over."
He hadn't the remotest intention of sleeping. Too much had happened in the day—his mind was too wonderfully kaleidoscopic at that moment—even to think of sleep. Rest, perhaps. And the desk lamp, slanting straight into his eyes, was wholly superfluous to contemplation.
"You know, Wally," he murmured as he readjusted the angles of physical contact after reaching to turn it out, "I always think clearest in the dark."
AN hour later found Mr. Coppinger still thinking. So profound was the nature of his meditation that the cautious turning of the door-handle did not attract his attention, nor yet did the parting of the curtains and the stealthy entrance of a curiously-garbed figure—mud-daubed, hedge-torn and weary. The moonlight lay in broad patches about the floor, leaving the desk and the figure at it screened in darkness. It was not until the intruder—moving always in the shadow—struck his foot painfully against the iron stove and followed the mischance by a hearty imprecation, that the sitter stirred.
"Tea, Amy?" he murmured drowsily. "What, tea again! Oh, put it—" Then, as his faculties suddenly became alert to the sense of impending menace in the room, he called out sharply, "Who's there? What are you doing here?" and his groping hand began to creep about the desk.
"You move or call out and I'll knock your silly 'ead off!" came the venomous but low-pitched answer. "Listen"—there was the unmistakable sound of a heavy stake-butt being thumped upon the floor—" that's who I am. Are you alone?"
"I—I certainly thought that I was until you dropped in." For some reason—possibly it stood upon the table—Peter was feeling much less alarmed than he would himself have expected: he even began to find a not unpleasurable zest in the adventure.
"Funny I don't feel," snapped the intruder. "Can you show any sort of a blinking light there?"
"Yes—but not for you to see to knock my head off by," bargained Peter.
"Turn it up then. And no 'ank, mind you, my merry joker!"
It seemed rather a long business—doubtless its seconds were as minutes to the worn-out wretch who waited—and Peter sounded clumsy as his exploring fingers rattled one object after another in a flurried search for the thing he wanted.
"Whacherdoing?" demanded the voice from the stove suspiciously.
"Feeling for the switch," explained Peter, and as he spoke he found it.
The light—the little table standard had an adjustable shade, and it threw its beam in that direction—fell untempered on the sorry creature trying to put a brave front on it as he poised in an aggressive attitude by the stove. He cut a woebegone enough figure beneath the valiant gesture—his meagre prison garb soaked and clinging, his face and hands torn by the falls and scrapes and varied disasters of his flight, his scanty reserve of vigour used up by the six hours' blind push across bog and brush and barrier. He had lost his cap at the outset of the chase, and, having removed his boots as a preliminary to investigating the Foxgrove demesne, he had shed a stocking in negotiating a sticky patch of dug clay. At the best he would only have been a slight, undersized, little rat of a towny, and in spite of the blusterous hedge-stake his expression was pinched to a cast that was drolly appealing. Mr. Coppinger was favourably impressed towards him on the whole, but for all that he did not immediately relax his advantage, and, as he also came within the secondary influence of the desk light, the convict saw before him a benevolent-looking gentleman whose left hand still remained on the lamp switch while with his right he toyed rather alarmingly about the trigger of a large revolver. It had been among old Ralph Coppinger's desk possessions, but whether it was loaded or unloaded, or how to make the thing go off, Peter had not the most shadowy notion. So he continued to wave it.
"All right, governor," said the convict, with the resignation of exhaustion and defeat; "it's my last hand and the joker takes the knave." He threw away the stake in token of surrender, and sank down into the nearest arm-chair. "I'm done! Blow your whistle; they can't be far away now."
"Whistle? Nonsense!" exclaimed the captor, dropping his formidable weapon into its drawer (to his own considerable relief) as soon as he grasped the position. "You are the escaped convict, aren't you? I congratulate you on your spirit, sir! Don't throw up the sponge now. Take a pull at this"—Mr. Coppinger again brought forth the bottle of Glensomething that was playing so conspicuous a part in that evening's drama, and tilted out a good half tumbler—" it will put new life into you."
The visitor didn't need any second invitation, but even as he drank he continued to regard his unexpected ally even more suspiciously than before.
"Now what crazy kind of idea is this that you've got hold of?" he demanded. "What game d'ye think you're playing?"
"No game at all. I'm being perfectly straightforward with you. You are the outcome of an immoral system of vindictive savagery. Well, I don't approve of penal laws and penal servitude. In fact, I don't approve of any laws or any punishment."
"But, lord bless you, sir, we must have laws and punishment or whatever's going to happen?" surprisingly retorted the convict. "Pretty state of things we should come to if you was to have all your own way!" and he emphasized his opinion of this heterodoxy by laughing satirically.
"But—but am I to understand that you, the helpless victim of the artificial conditions of modern civilization, actually defend their obsolete tyranny?" demanded Peter, accepting the empty glass and applying it to the obvious purpose for which it was tendered.
"Ho! 'Elpless victim! I like that. Let's play the game—me not being in the dock now. I knew what I was doing; I took my chances, didn't I?"
"Well, if you put it that way, I suppose you did. But what do you object to in my attitude?"
"What do I object to? Why, look here, sir, when I'm out and about I lead a quiet and respectable—you might almost say a studious—life, within the bounds of my profession. I don't mix up with gangs and hooligans and suchlike bad characters of that sort. On the whole I've saved money and put it carefully away. When I marry and settle down—as I mean to do very shortly—do you think I'll stand some sniping, 'ulking wastrel coming along and lifting my hard-earned savings and me have no redress against him and no laws to fall back on? I don't call that justice. What you propose is nothing more nor less than to undermine the whole social fabric and to demolish any incentive to individual enterprise and thrift."
"But as a practical Socialist—" pleaded the disconcerted reformer.
"Socialist! What, me? Not much! Why, when I'm at home I'm a member of the Walworth Road Habitation of the Primrose League!" and by a curious association of ideas the unoccupied hand went, half-unconsciously, to where the badge of membership might have been in the lapel of a jacket.
"What's that?" exclaimed Mr. Coppinger, sharply breaking into the silence of this cogitation. "That" had been a low but characteristic whistle heard from some little distance, and at the sound the convict sprang to his feet with a bitter imprecation.
"You mean the warders? They have tracked you? Good heavens, man, then you must make a bolt for it before they get here."
"Too late, governor," for, even as they spoke, other similar notes gave back the signal. "They're all round now or they wouldn't let you hear that.... Take your gun and 'and me over to justice. Act the 'ero!"
"Don't be insulting," snapped Peter warmly. "Hide somewhere, can't you? Look sharp, you ninny, and I'll try and throw them off the scent."
"Straight—you will? Well, you are an 'ero and no error! But, lordelpus, where? I never saw such a mouldy—What's that box there? Is it empty?"
"Yes, yes," said Peter, hustling him forward in a bubble of excitement. "It's empty except for a big bird skin. I can't see anywhere better."
"It's locked," said the convict.
"Here's the key."
The door was swung open and Peter had his first sight of the only existing remains of that remarkable bird the Patagonian Groo-Groo.
"Bird skin, eh," said the other, stooping to move it; "and, my word, it isn't half a whopper!... Now get this, sir, and don't never vary from it. This lock's an automatic action: if they cop me, I sneaked in while you sat asleep there and pulled the door to after me. See?"
"Get in, get in," fumed Peter. "Don't you hear? They're somewhere just outside now."
"It may come off all right," said the convict with fatalistic calmness. "They're very like ordinary coppers, remember."
"COME in, come in," called out Peter to the sharp, authoritative knock half a minute later, and without turning his head—the visitor had not waited for his permission to enter—the wily conspirator added: "That you, Amy? I was just shutting up here."
"Sorry to intrude, sir," said a strange voice, and at it Peter spun round to find a uniformed inspector of the convict police guard before him. "A little unpleasantness, but I hope we shan't give you much trouble. A prisoner escaped from one of the working gangs out on the moor this afternoon and we have reason to believe that he is hiding somewhere in the grounds here. I've got my men placed so that he can't get away without being seen now. Will you accompany me?"
"Dear me!" said Peter, very much flurried, as a timorous civilian might well be supposed to be at so alarming an invasion. "A prisoner escaped and hiding in my garden? Do you mean one of those desperate, bloodthirsty convicts, officer, who would as soon murder a man like me as eat his dinner? Yes, yes; let us go up to the house, by all means, and warn Mrs. Coppinger and the others."
"Mr. Coppinger?" inquired the inspector, evidently not unimpressed by some eccentric phase of local rumour. "The celebrated naturalist?"
"Ah; you have heard of me?" assented Peter, accepting the description with urbane condescension. "Well, well; one must do something. I was just knocking off my research work for the day here, so I'll lock the door after us as we go and then we shall be sure that wherever your man is, he can't be in this place," and with considerable diplomacy Mr. Coppinger was shepherding the inspector towards the door when the sudden intrusion of a heated and dispirited warder upset this ingenious movement.
"Beg pardon, Inspector," reported the underling, "but we can't keep no effective cordon. There's a lot of women running all over the shop like so many frightened rabbits."
"Oh, blast—" muttered the inspector, and he hurried out, followed by the warder, leaving Peter to speculate on what course would now be the best to adopt.
He was not given long to think about it. The harassed warder's simile had not been an unapt one, for the scurry of feet, with an occasional ladylike squeal from one quarter, and a call of interrogation from another showed that both sections of the household had been effectually stampeded. Before the undecided man could make up his mind whether it were better to remain on guard at the point of danger or to lock up the place and go off in search of the inspector, his name was called out several times with gathering insistence, hurried footsteps passed the window, a face appeared between the curtains, and Mrs. Coppinger, a little out of breath, but quite tastefully négligée, having reassured herself of what was to be encountered, made for him.
"Oh, Peter, there you are," she announced. "I've been looking everywhere for you. What does it mean—there are strange men like bus conductors all about the garden?" It was rather characteristic of Amy that although Peter was almost inevitably to be found in the Bird Room at that hour, and that she had, as a matter of fact, come straight there to him, he should be implied to have been responsible for a considerable effort on her part before he could be discovered. But she didn't really mean any deception by it: it was merely habit.
"It's nothing at all, my dear," said Peter, putting out a protective arm and patting her shoulder reassuringly, "practically nothing, I should say. A convict—a small, inoffensive, weakly, undersized sort of man so far as I can learn—seems to have got lost in the fog when they took the others in this afternoon. Now the warders are out looking for the poor fellow, and they appear to think that he must have wandered off in this direction."
"Oh, is that all?" replied Amy with complete satisfaction. "Perhaps I had better have hot coffee got ready for the men while they are here. Policemen are generally so grateful for a little something of that sort."
"Well," conceded Peter doubtfully, "you might try them with it. But I wouldn't encourage them to stay too long or you might get them into trouble for neglecting their duty."
"I was only thinking of extract—it's so much quicker and quite nice, you know—or, of course, cocoa for those who prefer it, with plain sultana cake and perhaps a few macaroons for any of the higher class men, if there are any. Or do you think that fish-paste sandwiches—"
"Yes, yes, my dear; anything of that kind," assented Peter, gradually working her back towards the door while at the same time he kept an anxious eye on the bird-coop and an even more anxious ear trained for the returning searchers. "But I don't think that I should put on the gramophone for them or get out the albums, eh, dear? Now perhaps you'd better run back to see about it, while I wait here, or the others—"
"But here are some of the others," cried Amy, looking up the garden. "Walburga and Mr. Moon and—"
Walburga took the couple of intervening flower beds in a spirited rush, but whether this was due to anxiety for the protection of her parents, or to disinclination for the society of Mr. Moon—an indifferent second—was not apparent. Still more distant, the ingenuous child Winnie hove into view—" also running."
"What in the name of everything is happening, Dad?" demanded Walburga keenly. "Two men in a sort of uniform would try to stop me, but of course—" It was easy to infer that the two had not been tacklers.
The Honourable Eustace also bore traces of disorder, but he did not jump anything, and his entrance combined dignity with polite misgiving.
"I trust, Mrs. Coppinger, that there is nothing—" But an ecstatic shriek "off," obviously from Winnie, cut short Mr. Moon's unspoken aspirations.
"Did you ever!" shrilled the exhilarated maiden, brimming with importance at finding herself the centre of an expectant group and firmly resolved to justify the occasion. "A perliceman—not our George Banks, m'm—put his arm round me—and"—the disclosure seeming to be in danger of falling flat—" tried to kiss me! The very idea!"
Any further concessions to the popular leaning towards sensation were frustrated by the reappearance of the inspector and his attendant warder. The superior ran a deliberate eye over the little company.
"One, two, three, four, five," he checked off. "Two other ladies are saying that they are going to faint in the potting-shed. I think that makes up the lot, Mr. Coppinger? Then we will get on with our work, if you please."
"Certainly, Inspector, certainly," assented Peter. "They'll all go quietly up to the house now, I'll lock up here, and then, perhaps, when you've finished, you'll look in and have a—eh?"
"Thank you, sir," replied the inspector. "But I doubt if it can be done."
"Oh, surely, Inspector?" pleaded Peter. "Now, my dear—now, Walburga—Mr. Moon—and you there, Winnie—don't let us keep the officials here all night. They're waiting for me to turn the lights off and lock up, can't you see?"
"We'll just give a look round here before you do that," fell the shattering decision. "Stubbs!" and a movement of the inspector's hand indicated Stubbs's business.
"Oh, that's all right, never fear," said Peter, with a laugh intended to convey light-hearted assurance. "Why, I've been sitting here myself for the past two hours. A mouse couldn't have crept in without my knowing.... Now, my dear"—to Mrs. Coppinger with a sudden fierceness that left her speechless —
"...now, if you don't mind getting a move on—!"
"You know, Dad," remarked Walburga, throwing herself into the impending breach with an unfortunate touch of archness, "you do sometimes fall —— ————"
"I do not!" retorted her father in so amazingly defiant a tone that it effectually quenched poor Walburga's well-meant effort. "I'm a martyr to insomnia for that matter. And you ought to be in bed yourself at this time of night, miss! Besides, where on earth's the man to hide if he was here? Inside this stuffed duck, I suppose, eh?" And with a discordant noise designed as ironic laughter Peter grabbed the ill-starred widgeon and shook it in derision. He was, in fact, suffering from that first and last infirmity of the unskilled prevaricator: the inability to stop protesting.
"There's this here big case," said the warder, appealing to the inspector, after completing a survey of the room. "It seems to be locked, though."
"Of course it seems to be locked," sneered Peter unwisely, "for the simple reason that it is locked. It's kept locked; always has been. You don't think that he's crept in through the keyhole, do you?"
The warder kept his eye on the inspector. This funny bloke was none of his business. His eye conveyed meaning.
"Better have a look inside, Inspector," he said coolly. "I distinctly heard something there moving."
"That does it!" was Peter's simple précis, delivered by himself to himself in the precious moment for reflection that followed the warder's statement; for the effect produced by the warder's statement was emphatically one that is more easily conveyed by the illuminating word "Sensation!" than described in detail. And then—then, on the crest of the treacherous waters beneath which he was surely sinking deeper every minute, Peter beheld just one frail straw within his distance. To grasp it meant cutting himself off from every other chance of personal safety, for if it failed he was—if one may be permitted the word in the excitement of the moment—a "goner."
It sufficiently indicates the Peter now emerging, as it were, from the Magnolia Gardens pupa, to state that he merely paused to clear his throat in order to ensure distinctness.
"Of course you heard something moving inside there," he said scathingly, "if you took the trouble to listen. And now, I suppose, we must go into all that while your prisoner is probably getting away comfortably through the orchard! You heard something moving there, my man, because the infernal row that we have been kicking up has certainly roused something that lives there. This box"—Peter got into position past the unsuspecting warder and laid a protecting hand upon the woodwork—" this box is the sleeping compartment of the bloodthirsty, relentless Groo-Groo—"
"The Patagonian Groo-Groo?" put in the impressed inspector. "I read about that in the paper lately."
"The Patagonian Groo-Groo," confirmed Peter with a darkly meaning nod. "Technically, Sanguinarius Magnus—the savage, untamed, man-eating, fighting female Groo-Groo of the—of the—well, of Patagonia. Always ferocious, the Groo-Groo is positively demoniacal when disturbed in its night's rest."
"This convict, Whitwish, is a very bold and resourceful man, Mr. Coppinger," said the inspector, wavering but not quite assured. "If one could see, just for a moment—"
"Certainly, certainly, Inspector," agreed the undaunted Peter. "A very prudent and proper formality on your part: I will make sure. Although unapproachable by strangers—maddened to infuriation by the mere sight of them, indeed—I need hardly say that for myself I have the Groo-Groo under perfect control," and to demonstrate that he was in no way boasting Mr. Coppinger kicked the side of the pen fearlessly and uttered the command, "Lie down, sir, lie down, won't you—I'm here!" in a low, growling sort of voice without eliciting any outburst. "Now, if you'll all stand back so that it can't see you, I'll get the key and open the door a few inches to make sure—" [FLUTTER BOOK]
"Peter! Peter!" wailed terror-distraught Amy, throwing restraining arms round the embarrassed hero's neck as he hastened towards the desk to finish the business while the moment was propitious, "don't risk your precious life in this foolhardy manner! It may take a sudden dislike to you—these foreign creatures are so uncertain in their temper I have always understood, and then if—"
"My dear!" he reproved, with a look of ineffable self-confidence; "am I a mere beginner at this sort of thing or am!"
"Yes, yes; I know, Peter; I know," babbled the poor lady a little wildly. "You are devoted! But—ahem!—surely one of these two gentlemen—"
"That's all right—you needn't trouble, mum," came like a doom from the unflattered warder. "I see this here little shutter is only bolted so I'll just take a squint inside—" And before hapless Peter could move one of his frozen limbs to get there, the shutter was thrown open.
There was no need for him to "squint inside;" the Groo-Groo—all and more than all that Peter had foreshadowed—saved him that trouble. Out of the opening shot like a flash a huge and fearsome head, feathered and bristling, and without a breath or pause a formidable beak lunged viciously, straight at the face of sudden dismay confronting it.
"I haven't a scrap of sympathy for you, my man," declared Peter sternly, as he put his arm with perfect confidence through the opening and patted something. "I told you so!"
YOU may be doing the most innocent thing in the world and doing it quite simply; but invest the selfsame action with the consciousness of guilt and your every movement proclaims knavery.
There was no reason on earth why Mr. Coppinger should not have helped himself to a variety of food and drink and carried it openly from the house for a score of legitimate purposes. No one would be in the least likely to question what he was doing, and if anyone did he would have been in a position to answer very shortly. But just because he was foraging on the convict Whitwish's account, self-consciousness damned Peter with the brand of wrong-doing from the outset.
To begin with he had experienced a most extraordinary difficulty in collecting what he wanted. At lunch he had let the opportunity go by, easily persuading himself that it would be a simple matter afterwards when no one was about; but afterwards he discovered that it was by no means a simple matter. Whenever he penetrated into those regions where food might be supposed to be, someone invariably was about, and by no process of self-assurance could Peter be convinced that it would escape comment for the head of the house to be seen emerging from the larder with a cold mutton chop, half a roast fowl or the remains of a meat pie. Certainly there was fruit on the sideboard, where abstraction would be easy enough, but it did not fall in with Mr. Coppinger's views of hospitality to put a man in Whitwish's circumstances on to a fruitarian diet. In the end it took him fully half an hour, and involved many hairbreadth shaves, to secure a plate of mixed cold viands and a bottle of beer. With these in his possession, and the furtive look of detected crime in his eye, he set out to complete his purpose.
It was now the third day of the Groo-Groo's mysterious existence at Foxgrove, and although the situation remained very much the same upon the surface, as in the case of a volcano subterranean forces were relentlessly at work and Peter could not be unconcerned among their mutterings. As a result, if Whitwish lived largely from hand to mouth gastronomically, his host lived quite literally equally hand to mouth among the more violent emotions.
The positive evidence that Whitwish had been seen in the neighbourhood of Plymorchard led to a close watch being kept on every road and piece of cover for miles around, and while this state of things prevailed it was hopeless for the convict to think of passing on out of that dangerous area. It further appeared that two other prisoners had got off at about the same time, and all the varied resources of the force of law and order were now being strained to wipe out this insult by their recapture. There was also another side to the situation by this time, for if Mr. Coppinger was necessary to the convict to preserve his liberty, the convict was equally necessary to Mr. Coppinger to uphold his reputation. Between them they had brought the Groo-Groo into the picture, and, however ticklish a business it might prove to keep it going, it seemed to the conscience-stricken legatee that it would be even more difficult to explain away its spontaneous annihilation. Whitwish had professed to have no doubt at all of his complete ability to personate the Groo-Groo to the life, and entered into the masquerade with a whole-hearted enthusiasm that gave the unfortunate Peter many a qualmish shiver.
"You leave it all to me, sir, except a nod or a wink as may be requisite from time to time," he declared cheerfully. "I'm naturally good at this sort of thing, believe me, and you'll be surprised to see how properly they'll eat it. Now what is this blinking Groo-Groo, so to speak, when he's at home?"
It very soon appeared that if Whitwish gave the impression of taking up the impersonation in an unduly happy-go-lucky spirit, there was nothing slipshod in his preparation for the part. Under his prompting Peter got out all his authorities bearing on the order and, for the first time since his succession, he blessed good Uncle Ralph for the remarkably choice library of the subject that he now found ready at his elbow.
"First as regards the actual appearance of the old duck before he snuffed it," required the embryo understudy. "It was easy enough to fluff off a glum cod like that beetle-eyed Stubbs with the short jab and a sort of 'issing noise that I judged would accompany that kind of beak, but with these experts that you speak of"—the dreaded Trescote was even then on his way—" and in the broad light of day—why, we must stick to nature," and Peter was able to put before him the magnificent coloured plates drawn by Gotchmann—hitherto believed to be the last white who had seen a living Groo-Groo—to illustrate his monumental "Aves Ratitae," published at Leipzig in 1829.
"This looks like a streak of all right," said Whitwish, studying the figures. "Stands up every inch the little grenadier, does young Jou-jou. Why, with a proper adjustment of some such packing stuff as cotton-wool—''
"I read here," said Peter, dipping into the pages of another worthy, "that ordinary penguins, lining the shore, have often been mistaken for people by sailors at a little distance. Of course, in those cases it was the distance—"
"Don't worry about that, sir," said Whitwish. "You'll see they'll keep their little distance all right when I get busy. Only it isn't a bird that's got to be taken for a human here, but a human for the Groo-Groo. The chief thing—"
"The voice of this species," continued Peter, pursuing his subject further, "is said to be something between the quacking of a duck and the braying of a jackass. Now how would you propose to hit that off, Whitwish?
"Let's deal with the bare essentials of the bird, sir, before we come to what you might call the trimmings," urged the convict. "Nobody who'll drop in here is likely ever to have heard a Groo-Groo calling for its dinner, so any sort of noise I make is bound to be authentic."
"That's true," admitted Peter.
"Very well, sir; the outline's the thing to study, and so far as I can see we're plumb on velvet. Five feet two is my height to a fraction, and I never did have any shoulders. Feet are the only things that'll give us any trouble, and fortunately this breed is feathered almost to the toe-nails as you might say—they beat even Cochins hollow. What we've got to do is to take a bit of fine-mesh buckram, cut it out to pattern—"
Thus did Invention, ever the compliant daughter of stern Need, find in ex-convict Whitwish a supple votary and in Mr. Coppinger a fascinated if trepidatious neophyte.
We may safely leave the trio at it.
From the open window of the drawing-room came the strains of Rubenstein's "Waltz Caprice," played with taste and determination. That definitely placed Amy. Harker, who had come across to lunch in furtherance of their scheme for sounding Mr. Trescote about Peter's obligations, had been carried off by Walburga to the lawn tennis courts. They should be safely out of the way. Trescote, like a superfluous character trying to get off the stage in an unsophisticated play, had said something about "writing some letters," and his host hoped that he could believe him. That left only Moon—and Moon did not seem to matter....
Peter crept out like the guilt-stricken criminal that he was, endeavouring to shield the plate of food as much as possible beneath the panama with which he was pretending to fan himself, and wondering at every step what it would feel like if the bottle of beer swinging in a coat-tail pocket exploded under the persistent agitation....
At a little distance from the house and partly within view of some of its windows there was a liberal enclosure, originally designed for the accommodation of the large flightless birds but, fortunately for Peter's peace of mind, untenanted when he came into possession. This was the proper habitat for a bird of the Groo-Groo's nature, and it fell in perfectly with the conspirators' plans that Whitwish should take up his quarters there. It was inevitable, unless suspicion was to be aroused, that he should submit to some inspection, and the railed enclosure permitted this without allowing him to be put to a scrutiny at too close range. Further, the place contained a roomy living pen, to which the Groo-Groo could retire whenever the observation of the curious threatened to become disquieting. A code of signals, vocal and visual, was arranged between them, to call Peter or to warn Whitwish if anything untoward arose, but so far no one had evinced the slightest desire to challenge the former's instructions that he alone should approach the savage captive. To-morrow and the day after lay on the knees of fate and the prison warders, zealously backed up by ambitious members of the rural police. To-day they ate, drank (Whitwish under some difficulty, it may be admitted) and (with the exception of Peter) were reasonably merry.
Then, just as Peter was congratulating himself that he had safely run the unconscious blockade, round the corner sauntered Mr. Trescote.
It was an embarrassing moment, but the first principle of a successful conspirator is that he must never be embarrassed.... Peter displayed his perfect composure by swiftly slewing the plate of meat into a position behind his back, and began to retire stealthily, but, like the doughty fellow that he was, with his face still towards the foe.
"Getting along all right?" he called out quite naturally—exactly as one gentleman would talk to another at a distance of about twenty yards in fact. "Looking round, eh? That's the style!"
"Why, yes," admitted Mr. Trescote, advancing to—as he imagined—meet his host; "I was making the acquaintance of your wonderful—"
From afar the Groo-Groo had been watching the arrival—and impending departure—of its dinner with conflicting emotions. Possibly Mr. Coppinger's naïve strategy did not commend itself to his confederate, and Whitwish decided that it was high time to create a diversion. At all events the Groo-Groo threw back its head, waved its wings menacingly, and emitted a series of cries that reduced Peter's description of what might be expected from it to a pale, uncertain whimper.
"Good heavens!" exclaimed Mr. Trescote, hurrying to the railings. "The Groo-Groo's hymeneal note! What a privilege!"
The situation was saved. Peter could at least retire with his shameful burden undiscovered....
"Yes, dear," said an amused, good-natured voice behind him, as the humiliating thing was neatly whipped from his grasp and exposed to view; "I've got it: what do I do next?"
Amy, needless to say. She had brought out a gloomy-eyed man who might have called to sell a patent razor-strop, or perhaps to obtain signatures on a petition for that crying local need, a spirit licence for the "Bull and Garter;" but who in any case had declared that his business with Peter was confidential. Amy, of course, had implicitly believed him; and now she stood smiling brightly at all three in turn, and waiting to be told what she was to do next with the plate of mixed remnants, which so far she thought was part of a conjuring trick.
"WELL," RESUMED AMY, with the happy assurance that she was doing her part all right; "what is going to happen now?"
Peter wondered. The stranger, under the affectation of being keenly interested in a crow's nest among the tops of some adjacent trees, was following the conversation hopefully. Even Mr. Trescote seemed to be able to spare an occasional glance of curiosity from the Groo-Groo. Peter felt that he must either do some juggling or explain the unusual circumstance of a gentleman wandering aimlessly about his grounds carrying a plate of cold lunch.
"No, my dear," he said deprecatingly, "it's hardly worth speaking of, perhaps, after all. I mean it's making too much of a thing as it's turned out."
"But of what, Peter?" asked Amy wonderingly.
"That's just it," he replied diplomatically. "When I started off—quite casually—I thought that I should find you in the next room. Then when you weren't there I went on into the next, and so on, don't you see? In the end I find myself wandering round the garden in this—absurd fashion," and, with a disarming laugh of contempt towards the cause of his embarrassment, Peter tactfully repossessed himself of the plate.
"Is there really anything the matter with the food then?" was Amy's anxious suggestion—quite a useful idea this, thought Peter. "If so, I think that perhaps I ought to—"
"Oh, no," he insisted, drawing her a little farther away from the politely interested ears, "I'm rather sorry that I started the subject now. After all, it isn't reasonable to expect a cook always to be at the top of her form, is it? Or probably it's really more the butcher's fault. Then when all's said and done, meat must vary in quality of its own accord, mustn't it? No, Amy, on reflection I shouldn't take any notice of what I've said if I were you. But look here, my dear"—Trescote was betraying a disconcerting curiosity in the Groo-Groo's movements—I wish you'd get that fellow away somewhere now. Anywhere! It doesn't matter. Just show him something somewhere and tell him that it's it."
"I quite understand, Peter," assented Amy. What she understood might not perhaps be very specific, but a call upon the exercise of tact never found her unwilling. "He bores you. I had begun to suspect that he was a bit of an ignoramus myself. But about Mrs. Churcher and the cold lamb—"
"Forget it. I am satisfied that I attached too much importance to a very trifling matter. Dismiss it altogether from your mind, my dear. But do take Trescote away or the Groo-Groo may become unmanageable. I can see that it doesn't like his eye."
"Yes, Peter; I'll get him away in a minute. Still, if you think that something ought to be said to Modge about the kind of meat he's been sending lately—"
"Not a word, Amy; it would do more harm than good, I feel sure. No, I am convinced that you are right. It is not the thing for us to stand here arguing about a bit of meat before our guests. Now—if you don't mind, my dear—before something happens —
Amy felt that she had dealt with the situation tactfully. Peter was just a wee bit crotchety about his food—all men were, she had always understood—but he only required humouring: let him seem to get his own way and he was quite content. She moved across to Mr. Trescote with that graceful absence of purpose that is the basis of social diplomacy, and smilingly detached his attention from the Groo-Groo's presence.
"I wonder if you have seen the vista that we have made by cutting through the box hedge?" she inquired. "Most people are delighted with it."
"No, I don't think that I have," he had to admit. "I suppose it is down towards the fish-pond?"
"I will show you," she replied graciously, leading the way without giving him time to work up any excuse. "The view over the stretch of heather is considered quite wonderful, I believe."
Mr. Trescote resigned himself to being drawn away from the Groo-Groo's pen for the time, but he had by no means completed his observations of that remarkable bird's structure and behaviour. The uncanny power which his host certainly exercised over the ferocious brute struck at the roots of his preconceived ideas of that fortunate legatee's quality as a Bird man. From private information he had come down expecting to find a pretentious humbug or a shy dissembler—in any case, one whose exposure would redound to his own credit. And now this Groo-Groo business upset everything and established Coppinger's reputation as on a rock. After considerable thought the lawyer was inclined to attribute the ascendancy to one of two things: either the bird had arrived dead hungry and its owner had succeeded in winning its grateful affection by offering it just the right food at the critical moment, or else there was some mesmeric power latent in Peter's strangely misleading eye. The first theory was rather negated by Job's unfortunate experience, for when that officious helper had sought to establish friendly relations by offering the bird, through the railings, a tempting delicacy in the shape of a raw cod's head, the Groo-Groo had returned the dainty by some incredibly facile movement of a flapper with such disastrous accuracy that it took the staggering Job full in his astonished face. As regards the dominating human eye—well, Mr. Trescote had himself experimented in the same direction, but the behaviour of the Groo-Groo under that ordeal did not suggest submission.
"Ah, yes, the heather," he agreed, catching up to Amy. "I remember it was always a feature.
With your natural advantages here, I wonder that you don't set up an apiary, Mrs. Coppinger."
"Oh, is it good for them?" asked Amy. "But don't you think that monkeys are such mischievous creatures—"
That was the last that Peter heard of the conversation, but it was plain that Amy was carrying out instructions, and he turned to deal with the depressed-looking stranger free of concern as to what might be going on at the enclosure. Meanwhile the stranger had been quietly observing everything that took place with a stealthy unobtrusiveness that was full of significance. It was impossible not to realize, even with one's back turned, that he was sleuthing. His very unnoticeableness made him noticeable.
"Well, Mr.—er—I think you wished to see me?" suggested Peter, able at last to give him some attention. He suddenly realized that he was still burdened with the loathsome incubus, and it is difficult to be quite natural and at one's ease in carrying on a conversation with a perfect stranger while holding a plate of cold meat towards him, but the expedient of concealing it behind his back had not been successful, and it did not occur to him to deposit it on the ground. "If it's a matter of business—"
"It is, Mr. Coppinger. I'm down here on —
But perhaps you'll glance at that," and a rather limp visiting-card was offered.
"'S. Holmes. Private Inquiry Agent,'" read Peter. "Holmes! Private detective! Good heavens, sir, are you the—"
"Stop, if you don't mind, sir," interrupted the stranger, with a dash of feeling breaking through his settled pessimism. "I know exactly what you're going to say, and I'm not. I was born and christened forty-eight years ago, and if anyone has a grievance in the matter I think it's rightly me." He took the opportunity of a moment of abstraction following this mild outburst to repossess himself absent-mindedly of the visiting-card, and slipped it back again into a waistcoat pocket for further service. "You'll excuse me, Mr. Coppinger, sir, but life's been embittered by a circumstance over which I've had no control. When people hear my name they look to me to do things that are more like conjuring than anything else. I've had an evening party sit round and expect me to produce a burglar that they'd had as if he was a rabbit out of a hat. Ah, you don't know what it is to have to live up to a reputation that somebody else has made for you!"
"Oh, don't I!" exclaimed Peter with conviction. "Well, perhaps not," he added with an instinct towards caution on that hazardous topic. "But if it's like that why don't you use your name in full? The initial 'S' is merely suggestive of—"
"Mr. Coppinger, sir," replied S. Holmes darkly, "my maternal grandfather was a Mr. Sherlock, and I am called after him. An unfortunate coincidence, you will think, but, speaking broadly, my experience of life has been unfortunate, sir. Without going into details that it would be dangerous to make public, I may say that a conspiracy exists, involving some of the highest judicial authorities in the land, Mr. Coppinger, to withhold from me the legitimate credit of certain investigations that I have brought to a successful issue. You'll excuse my mentioning the circumstances, I hope, sir, but your sympathetic attitude touched a tender spot."
"I'm really very sorry," said Peter, endeavouring to work a sympathetic note into his attitude so as to justify this meed. "But couldn't you—couldn't you take an entirely different name? A sort of business nom de plume, so to speak."
"I've thought of that naturally, sir, but my feelings—if I may be allowed to possess such—are all against it. Apart from a modest pride in the appellation that my family has always been respected by, it wouldn't do, sir; it wouldn't do."
"No, I suppose not," admitted Peter vaguely.
"You see the point, sir? In the course of my professional duties I frequently have to go into the witness box to give evidence in cases where credibility may be a determining factor. A hostile and unscrupulous counsel would fasten on the circumstance that I was passing under a name that was not my own to damage my reputation in the eyes of a jury without giving me an opportunity to explain the reason. But I am taking up your time, sir, and it's my principle in matters of this sort never to obtrude on those gentlemen with whom I am brought in contact."
"Quite so," acquiesced Peter. "But matters of what sort?"
"I was coming to that, sir. If you remember, I was on the point of disclosing my business when your very flattering interest in my professional achievements—such as they have been, sir—led to this digression. Now, sir, a gentleman of your position will know that anything of importance that happens to-day, no matter where it may take place, and especially if it is concerned with the activities of the criminal classes, is investigated by the newspapers. The recent escape of convicts here has assumed the proportions of Big News. So long as clues can be supplied and tasty details of hairbreadth escapes from capture discussed it will continue to be Big News. That, in short, is why I'm here, in connexion with the Daily Dope and the Sunday Scorcher."
"I see. As a sort of expert special commissioner. Does the actual capture of the fugitives come within your sphere, Mr. Holmes?"
"Perhaps," admitted Mr. Holmes with a mysterious look. "When they are caught. But strictly between ourselves, sir, you'll understand that it would be a mug's game, so far as both me and my principals arc concerned, to finish off the bird prematurely."
"Bird!" quavered Mr. Coppinger, casting an instinctive glance in the direction of the unconscious Groo-Groo—at that moment picking its leisurely way towards them as they stood at the rails as if curious about S. Holmes's business. "What—what has the poor inoffensive bird got to do with it?"
"I allude to the goose that lays the golden egg, sir. It wouldn't suit a good many people's book,
Mr. Coppinger, for a sensational convict escape to come off one day and the lag to be caught the next, before the news story could be properly got going." Peter nodded profound wisdom to this, though it was all quite new and rather scandalizing to his way of thinking—at least it would have been before he took a hand at convict-hiding himself. Now he was chiefly thinking: "This chap might be useful if it comes to a tight corner. I imagine that if it were necessary to bribe him I could give him a 'news story' that would make his hair curl!"
"This being the place where one of the convicts has been actually located—Whitwish by name—I naturally take up the trail here," continued Mr. Holmes, regarding the Groo-Groo's approach with a pensive lack of interest. "And although the prison authorities have been able to find nothing, I don't mind admitting, strictly between ourselves, sir, that I've already picked up an important clue."
"You have!" exclaimed Peter, considerably startled. "Now—idle curiosity, of course—I wonder what—"
"Ah, you must leave that to me for the present, sir. I may say, however, that in my opinion our man may be somewhere much nearer than you would doubtless think likely. Is he lying concealed, you might naturally ask, or has he been able to procure some adequate disguise, discard his prison suit, and throw dust into the eyes of his pursuers? Perhaps, or perhaps not. You'll excuse me letting out no more than a hint on that head, sir. And as regards the exact how, when and where of the situation—it's for that reason that I ask to be allowed to intrude on the privacy of your grounds, Mr. Coppinger."
"I suppose you must," said Peter. "Perhaps we'd better make up some story to save explanations. Shall I introduce you as an old friend from the City or a distant cousin from Australia—"
"Not a word to anyone if you'll leave it to me, sir. Nothing. It's quite unnecessary. I'm not"—Mr. Holmes laughed a quiet, hollow bark of cynical contempt—" I'm not a fiction magazine detective, Mr. Coppinger. I don't come on as the piano-tuner in the afternoon and the extra footman during dinner. You may comfortably dismiss me from your mind, sir. I might be about the place all day, and possibly some of your party would see me now and then, but I should leave no definite impression on the retina. I might even converse with some and obtain all the information I desired, but they would have no recollection whatever of more than a passing remark about the weather. I've reduced impersonality to such a pitch that I'm practically non-existent. Leave me to glide and melt, as it were, in the background, and no one will give me a second thought."
"That certainly simplifies matters. I merely leave you to your own devices?"
"Absolutely, sir. I shall now stroll round and make a few technical observations. Very attractive grounds I see you have, Mr. Coppinger; well wooded, chiefly with fir, I notice. And speaking of fir, by the way, didn't I see a spruce-looking gentleman standing here a few minutes ago?"
"Mr. Trescote probably you mean. A visitor here."
"Ah!" Mr. Holmes produced a serviceable notebook and under a beguiling commentary proceeded to make himself acquainted with a few outstanding details of most of the Foxgrove circle. He was still pursuing this adroit interrogatory—so casually pitched that with a little trouble you might perhaps be able to persuade yourself that you were not being questioned at all—when the sound of approaching voices warned him to slip back the notebook, and with a gesture significant of circumspection he turned to melt imperceptibly into an adjacent shrubbery. It was a characteristic of Mr. Holmes to affect unconcern—and thus deflect observation—by taking a morbid interest in some remote point of the landscape, with the unfortunate result on this occasion that he collided rather sharply with Harker and Walburga, who were returning to the house by a shady grass path. But that contretemps could scarcely be laid to the charge of Mr. Holmes's protective system: indeed in a way it might be regarded as a notable tribute to the reality of his boasted invisibility.
"WELL," said Mrs. Coppinger, beaming on the perspiring Harker as she stroked Walburga's hair—to that maiden's intense private annoyance—" what are you two energetic people going to do next?"
"I'm going to sink down into the first chair that I encounter and gasp," replied Mr. Harker, suiting the action to the undertaking. "But I expect that your daughter is quite ready to take you for a walk up to the top of Myn Tor or to chase butterflies about the garden for an hour or two." He produced a purple silk handkerchief, embellished with a chaste design of pink and yellow dragons, and fell to mopping his neck systematically.
Mrs. Coppinger smiled indulgent appreciation as her gratified glance took in the delightful scene. How satisfactory and agreeable everything was! How nice to be able to provide this sort of thing for all their pleasant friends whenever they cared to come, and to have in the background really capable servants who, without any trouble to oneself, performed what was expected of them and knew their places. How different from the old Harringay days! Foxgrove Court! It was quite what she had always felt she was cut out for. And the conversation was invariably so amiable and in such good taste. She rarely had occasion to feel snubbed now.
"Shall I send out some claret-cup?" she suggested helpfully. "I dare say after your tremendous exertions you might find it refreshing."
"I am sure that Mr. Harker would—he's done most of the running," said Walburga, with a benevolent grin at her limp antagonist.
"I should!" assented Mr. Harker emphatically. "Without any doubt or reservation whatever, I should, and I look forward to pledging your championship form in a quart of anything cooling."
"Thanks, but I'm going in now. I'll tell any of the others I see what they will find here—if they hurry up!"
"I am glad to know that it will be so very much appreciated," laughed Amy. "I will have the things taken away from here"—she indicated a small rustic table, where Peter had been making a pretence of writing letters earlier in the day in order to keep guard over the Groo-Groo—" and then there will be room for the tray. How would it be to move it into the shade close to the railings?"
"That will do first rate," agreed Harker, lending a hand as the table was lifted into the shadow of a copper beech that overhung both the lawn and the enclosure. "Now Trescote can keep his eye on the Groo-Groo while he reclines here at leisure. And that reminds me: you might leave the ink and paper, if you don't mind, Mrs. Coppinger. We two legal conspirators have a little business to discuss and we may want to draw up some details. I'll bring in the inkstand later."
"That will be all right; it really belongs to the Bird Room. I only thought that it would be in the way, but I dare say you can find room for the other things as well."
"I can!" retorted Harker, giving point to the witticism by stroking his waist-line. "There! I am driving Miss Coppinger away with my ill-bred humour."
"Oh, no; she said she was going already," put in Amy, anxious that there should be no misunderstanding. "Come along, dear, you shall help me to see about it," and she linked her arm into Walburga's as she set out towards the house.
But Walburga, fearful of having her cheek patted, probably with a reference to her splendid colour, if Mr. Moon should come within hearing, slipped a tennis ball and had to disengage to recover it.
"Give you your revenge any time, you know," she called back to Mr. Harker, pausing to slice the ball towards the porch so that she would have to follow it. "Just cooee."
"Thank you, but I don't feel in the least revengeful," he responded. "I am singularly at peace with all men."
"What was it that you two were saying about me just now?" inquired Mr. Trescote, turning away from his lengthy contemplation of the deserted enclosure—for the Groo-Groo seemed to have been emulating Achilles's celebrated act of detachment—and taking a seat near the table. "Something nice, I'm sure.
Harker got in a cool sideway glance at his professional brother while the London man was busily engaged in the manipulation of a cigar cutter; then he closed his eyes again in an affectation of lazy comfort. Upon my word, he thought, the fellow verges on the impossible. He has practically foisted himself upon the Coppingers willy-nilly, and what he is here for is as plain as the tail on the hind-quarters of a bullock, while all the time he gives himself the airs of a gracious lord of the manor. Well, business was business, but wariness was going to be his watchword.
"Oh, just that matter of Coppinger's I spoke to you about," he replied carelessly. "I thought we might have an opportunity to discuss it."
"Ah; I remember," conceded Mr. Trescote, after holding up the conversation until he had got the Havana going to his satisfaction. "Well, what is it exactly that the good man complains of?"
"Complains!" repeated Harker with a short laugh of personal derision. "He complain, Trescote; is it likely? A man who is so infatuated with his pursuits as you can see that Coppinger is, would scarcely complain of being legally bound to them, would he?"
"Excellent fellow. But what have we got to talk about then?"
"I said that he is quite content. But a man's obligations don't end with himself, my dear sir. His wife, his family, his friends—they have claims, and they consider that they have every reason to complain. Remonstrate with him about spending practically his entire income and giving all his much-appreciated society to his fascinating hobby, and what answer do they get?"
"I haven't heard," confessed Mr. Trescote, betraying a reprehensible tendency to yawn.
"He takes his stand behind the legal obligations and snaps his fingers in their faces. 'You reproach me with spending three-quarters of my income in this way,' he says in effect; 'very well. Will you guarantee that I shall be fulfilling the conditions of my dear old uncle's will if I spend only half, or a quarter, or an eighth, or what? Give me something definite to go on.' What can they say? What can I, who have to protect his interests, say?"
"Quite so," assented the wholly unmoved listener. "I understand, of course. You've effected your representation, Harker, and I'll make a note—I'm bound to take note—of it." He reluctantly disturbed himself to the extent of leaning forward to the table and picked up a sheet of paper and dipped a pen. "But as for pledging the Society to any definite line of undertaking in the matter, why that's altogether —
Presumably the pen had caught up a hair, for Mr.
Trescote, after trying it, drew a broad line across a newspaper lying close at hand, and then looked at what he had done with interest.
"This is rather amusing, Harker," he remarked, tossing the journal across to his confrère. "Apparently they use old Ralph's special make of ink in the family inkpots. Is it at all familiar to you?"
"Peculiar colour," said Harker, studying the line. "No, I can't say that I—and yet—yes, yes, I've certainly seen that queer shade somewhere."
"Ralph Coppinger's will?"
"Egad, that's it; I remember now. And I think we have it on one or two other papers."
"It was an old idea of his: a special private ink that he used for important documents and for signing the larger cheques—anything, I think, above—er—twenty. Strangely enough, that ink was the foundation of my not unprofitable connexion with the old sinner.... Did you ever hear of William Mills?
Harker shook his head with lukewarm interest and tossed aside the newspaper. He would work back to his client's affair when he got an opening, but there was nothing to be gained by pressing it unduly. Meanwhile the chair was comfortable and the claret-cup must certainly be getting nearer.
"No, of course you wouldn't," continued the other man, lolling back likewise and closing his eyes reminiscently. "It must be getting on for twenty years ago, and there was nothing unusual in the case. Between ourselves, old Ralph Coppinger was an appalling skinflint in his business. He combined it with philanthropy: used to employ a gang of 'His first fall' men in positions where they hadn't the remotest chance of robbing him of anything above one-and-six if they did fall again, and gave them half the wages that he would have had to give anyone else to do their jobs, on the ground that he was employing them out of charity. William Mills was a cheap clerk in his office."
"Was he one of the—?"
"No; not then. He hadn't fallen, but old Ralph paid him on the same lavish scale as if he had, because he argued that he soon would on those wages. He was quite right. William turned out to be a young fellow who possessed the pen of a ready writer. He forged a cheque for thirty pounds—but in his ignorance of his employer's peculiar business methods he used the wrong ink."
"And did the philanthropist prosecute?"
"Yehs, yehs." Mr. Trescote's thin, penetrating voice rose in emphatic diction as he humorously assailed the memory of his erstwhile patron. "He always prosecuted any of his own people as a timely warning to the others. Always pressed for the heaviest sentence, too, though he sometimes took on the men again when they'd served their time—at reduced wages, of course. I got Mills eighteen months and old Ralph was as pleased as Punch. Should have got him penal servitude if it hadn't come out that he was keeping a widowed mother and all that sort of heart-throb on his seventeen shillings a week."
"Oh, come," said Harker. "He couldn't."
"Well, perhaps he couldn't. I suppose he did his best, but it appeared that they had the brokers in for thirty pounds. That was another point in his favour."
"Then I doubt if your William Mills went tamely back into the counting-house again," hazarded Harker.
"I don't know; I don't know. Not into Ralph Coppinger's, certainly. No, no; forgery was the old man's special nightmare, and Mills seems to have had a style naturally like his own. I've wondered once or twice what did become of him: a humble but providential pawn in my own career. He can't have become a really great forger or we should have heard of him again. Probably changed his name and identity and took to a less artistic branch of crime."
"Very interesting," conceded Harker. "But you were saying something about putting my point re Peter Coppinger before your Institution—"
"True, true." Mr. Trescote picked up the pen that had occasioned this digression, but again the reminiscent mood intervened between the frank discussion of concrete detail that Mr. Harker so desired.
"Do you know, Harker," he protested indolently, "my Society consider themselves devilishly ill-used from beginning to end in this matter. They made old Ralph an honorary F.B.I.O.R. and vice-president to boot, on the distinct understanding that he was leaving them all his money."
"Oh, so that was it?"
"Between ourselves. But don't misunderstand me, Harker. Of course a coveted honour like that could not be made dependent on a sordid bargain. It was not; there was no arrangement. But here is the will that Coppinger deposited with me, and, well, his election took place at the next meeting of the Council."
"Very natural indeed," admitted Harker, taking the document that Mr. Trescote produced from his breast pocket. "No one could call that wangling. Written throughout in this purple ink, I see. Yes; it's very like the other."
"Then," continued Mr. Trescote with feeling, "twelve months later he quarrelled with the President. Quarrelled, if you'll believe me, Harker, over nothing more or less than an infernal cuckoo's egg, and in a huff he turned this precious thing into a sheet of mere wastepaper."
"The same two witnesses, I see," remarked the other, turning to the attestation. "Drash and old Yarrup."
Mr. Trescote's manner, without any noticeable violence to his semi-somnolent mood, became easy, offhand and slightly confidential.
"Yes," he commented, "so I gathered. What's become of old Yarrup, by the way?"
"He's dead," replied Mr. Harker, still interested in the paper. "Died within a week of his master, poor old fellow."
"Unfortunate. And this other man, Drash. I don't seem to remember him."
"He was a sort of on-and-off odd man here. He's our village idiot now. No, Mr. Trescote," he added dryly, "you won't be able to get anything out of him, I can promise."
"Really, Mr. Harker:— 'Get anything out of him!'" protested the inquirer with a splash of virtuous indignation. Then he waved the outburst aside, as if between two initiates it wasn't worth while keeping up any pretensions. "Well, well, I don't mind admitting that in the circumstances I thought it might be interesting to ask these two men how many wills they actually did witness. But do you mean that Drash was non compos at the time he acted as witness?"
"Oh, dear no. Far from it. Purely a business proposition—idiocy—with Drash, so far as I understand it. He was never really fond of settled work, you see, and so when our old village idiot—Tozer—came into a little money and was claimed by his relations in Cornwall, Drash imperceptibly slipped into the position. He makes a very good village idiot, too."
"Well, it's all confoundedly inopportune, you know, Harker," fussed Mr. Trescote. "You see my Council's point? The second will was admittedly made in a moment of pique and irritation. It was, so I understand, found, purely by chance, behind the hall barometer, where it had been casually stuffed to keep the instrument in position."
"That is quite correct."
"Then it's obvious what had happened. Six months after executing the second will—the one you stand by—Ralph Coppinger made up that most unfortunate quarrel with our President. By that time he had almost certainly forgotten what he had done with your will, and when he wanted to destroy it, in order to reinstate the one I hold, he couldn't find it. He was, one must admit, Harker, when all's said and done, a most muddle-headed old jackass. We consider it morally certain that he intended making a third will to put matters right again, and quite probably he did make one."
"If so, where is it?
"Ah, where? That's the point, isn't it?" It may have been quite unconnected with the speculation, but Mr. Trescote's ranging gaze played upon the elevation of Foxgrove Court, a stone's-throw across the sward, as if something might be worth while investigating in that direction. Into his field of vision strayed the chaste figure of Willet, carefully picking her way—it would be too humiliating an experience for so exact a handmaiden, in the crude vernacular, to "come a cropper"—with a trayful of jugs and glasses.
"My God—fodder again!" murmured Mr. Trescote caustically as he surmised the occasion. "These new people seem to think that hospitality consists in following one round and round the place with stacks of refreshment."
"And a very bright thought too, when it takes the form of iced cup and one is bone-dry," retorted Harker.
"Oh, is it that?" said Mr. Trescote, relenting. "Well, perhaps—"
"Sorry you can't have any," grinned Harker. "Of course it would ruin the aroma of your exquisite corona."
"Yes, I suppose it would," admitted the connoisseur.
He got up elaborately from the low wicker chair and passed round the overhanging branches of the beech tree to have another look into the enclosure. Straight on the heels of his disappearance Harker heard a sharp exclamation of surprise and the calling of his own name to come and see something.
"What's up?" he asked, joining the other man with no great interest. "Oh, the blessed old Groo-Groo come out at last, you mean?"
"But it's most extraordinary," protested Mr. Trescote. "I could scarcely ever get within sight of the bird before, and now it must have been just behind us at the railings."
"She-bird, I understand," commented Harker. "Curious, like all the others. Well, I don't fancy that it can have heard any ill about itself, so far as I remember."
WHATEVER The Groo-Groo had heard, Peter—never far distant from the enclosure when danger seemed to threaten in those momentous days—had realized that something disquieting was taking place, and he hastened across to join the two men at the beech tree. Prudence warned him to keep clear of a situation that might easily develop to his undoing, but loyalty called on him to fly to Whitwish's aid, if by any mishap that adventurous wight had got himself into a fix from which he required extricating. Needless to say, Peter flew to the sound of the guns, quaking at heart but indomitable in spirit. It did not tend to reassure him to notice that the Groo-Groo was considerably nearer to the rails than they had agreed was prudent, while the discovery that Mr. Trescote had brought a pair of field-glasses to bear upon the captive kindled the direst forebodings.
"I suppose," Harker was saying as Peter came between them, "I suppose that an event like this will furnish you with material for a dozen scientific articles, eh, Trescote?"
"Good Lord, yes," replied Mr. Trescote. "Why, I've known a fellow run to fifteen or twenty pages because he'd heard a corncrake a week earlier than anyone else had." Then noticing his host's presence he added, perfunctorily and with the touch of supercilious condescension that he affected whenever Peter's scientific status was involved, "But I think that etiquette demands that Mr. Coppinger should be left to reap the literary first-fruits of his extraordinary good fortune."
"No, no," deprecated Peter, "I'm not one of those new-fashioned flash-light and fountain-pen naturalists who dash off an illustrated paper before breakfast. Give me observation, sir; long, quiet, uninterrupted study of my subject. It may be months—or years—before the world hears from me anything definite about the Groo-Groo: indeed it's bound to cause so much controversy and bitter feeling that I'm rather inclined to make a posthumous business of it and let 'em fight it out when I'm not here to be dragged into the trouble"—a statement that caused Mr. Harker to regard his friend at first with mystified astonishment and then to retire for a few moments under the excuse of refilling his tumbler.
"All the same, don't let me influence you, Mr. Trescote," urged the modest gentleman. "Why not go in and write up your observations straight off, while they are fresh in your mind? You will have the morning-room to yourself and not be interrupted—"
"Well, as to that, if you have no objection to my anticipating you, I should certainly like to supply our 'Transactions' with a short note on the remarkable formation of the bird's foot. It's opposed to all—"
"Foot—which foot?" demanded Mr. Coppinger warmly. "What's the matter with either of the Groo-Groo's feet, Mr. Trescote? Come, sir, what are you suggesting?"
"Why, as I was pointing out to Harker here just before you came, in all the descriptions that we have—"
"But, good heavens, what an extraordinary thing!" interrupted Harker. "The bird is actually trying to conceal its feet. Look, watch it," and indeed there could be no doubt that, whatever deduction the observers might extort from the circumstance, the sagacious creature was endeavouring to hide its criticized members by shuffling them under a little straw that lay convenient.
In the universal silence of amazement the world seemed to be rocking beneath Peter's feet. Then his mind cleared for the emergency under the spur of his fine new fighting quality, even though his voice may have bleated a little as he hastened to take up the challenge.
"Of course the bird is trying to conceal its feet," he retorted. "So would either of you two try to conceal your feet if they were made the subject of general adverse discussion. The Groo-Groo is naturally one of the shyest and most retiring of living beings, and it probably has a shrewd suspicion that its feet are apt to be laughed at by the shallow-minded."
"Shy!" scoffed the rival expert. "Why, my dear good man, every authority will bear me out that the Groo-Groo is admitted to be the boldest and most unconcerned of its species."
"Now, look here, Mr. Trescote," said Peter, gathering confidence as he thought of something unpleasant to say back, "I've read your monograph on 'The Spotted Flycatcher as a Germ-carrier'—at least I've tried to—and I won't impugn your authority as a judge of spotted flycatchers. But permit me a similar distinction when it comes to a question of Groo-Groos. I may safely claim to have made a closer study of that neglected branch than I have of any other bird-life. Possibly"—with conscious humility—" possibly I've neglected many of the more trivial by-paths of ornithology in order to master Groo-Groos. Apart from its pugnacious outbursts, the bird is irredeemably shy and distrustful, and never more so than when it sees that it is being adversely criticized."
"But what gets me, Coppinger," put in Harker, hoping to avert a wrangle, "is how on earth the bird should know that we were talking about its feet."
"Know?" said Peter, brought up suddenly against this difficulty for which he had thought out no answer; "of course it knows. It's—it's a far more intelligent bird than has been generally supposed, let me tell you." And then a great idea came to him. "We can easily put it to a test. Just fix your eyes steadily on the bird's head and—and say unpleasant things about it."
"Well it certainly looks as though a good moult would improve its appearance," declared Mr. Trescote readily.
"It's difficult to think of anything to say at a moment's notice," contributed Harker, "but, frankly, I don't like the bird's expression."
"And I say that it would get the booby prize for good looks at a village cage show," called out Peter. "There now; what did I tell you? What did I say, eh, eh?" and, explain it how they might, there was no doubt that Peter had scored heavily, for with every mark of abject shame the unfortunate bird hung its discredited head and then slowly raised a flapper to hide its derided features. Even the instinctive hostility of the London lawyer was not proof against this remarkable demonstration, and he lifted his hat ceremoniously as he turned to face his host in generous retractation.
"Mr. Coppinger, on behalf of the Grand Council of the British Institute of Ornithological Research, I salute you!"
Mr. Harker was equally impressed if less formal.
"Coppinger, you are the most incomprehensibly modest of scientists," he declared aloud, and then he added privately, "or the most unmitigated of humbugs! Damme, if I know which though!"
"Some other time," said Peter tolerantly, "we'll clear up that little matter of the bird's foot that has been troubling Mr. Trescote. Just now I think I'm wanted."
True enough, Walburga had appeared on the terrace with a strange young man in attendance, and was looking in their direction. The Groo-Groo had taken the opportunity afforded by Peter's timely diversion to withdraw itself and its dubious extremity into the retirement of the little pen where it was secure from observation. Peter felt that he could safely leave it—at least he hoped so—if only Whitwish wasn't so headstrong —— —
"Here's Mr. Cheam, Father," said Walburga, presenting the stranger. "He saved my life once. I can't find Mother, so will you look after him?" and without further hint or interest the unsatisfactory young woman turned off and went back towards the house, humming gaily after the manner of the subtle when they wish to express indifference.
"Oh, no, it wasn't really quite so near a thing as that," protested the bronzed young man, thus suddenly thrown on to Mr. Coppinger's hands for entertainment. "Miss Coppinger makes too much of it."
"Well," observed Peter, staring rather blankly after the disappearing figure, "I don't see how she could very well have made less."
"I mean," stammered Burman Cheam, "it wasn't much of a thing to do."
"Perhaps not," admitted Peter. "Still, I'm glad you didn't let that put you off doing it. Now, did you bring your traps with you from the station, Mr. Cheam, or shall we send down for them?"
"I had them taken over to the 'Bell and Anchor.'
I thought of putting up there for a few days—while I—well, while I explored the surroundings."
"Oh, nonsense, nonsense. We can't allow that at all. Mrs. Coppinger wouldn't hear of it. She'd be—no, I don't know what she wouldn't be if you didn't join our little house party while you were staying in the neighbourhood. Ah, here she is. Now you shall hear. Amy, Mr. Cheam talks of putting up at the 'Bell and Anchor.' I tell him that we shall all be deeply hurt if he doesn't have his things brought up here instead at once."
"Yes, indeed," agreed Mrs. Coppinger, with a pathetically brave attempt to smile her enthusiasm.
"That is, if Mr. Cheam actually can put up with that simply awful bedroom, and if he doesn't mind—"
"Oh, I'm used to mugging along anywhere," said Cheam brightly. "So if you really think that you can do with me—"
"I'm sure of it, sure," insisted Peter. "Persuading people to stay here is Mrs. Coppinger's pet amusement, and you are an especial favourite of hers." As this flattering statement failed to elicit any response, he felt constrained to apply a little diplomatic prompting. "Eh, dear?"
"I don't think that Mr. Cheam will need to be told that," replied Amy in a rather far-away voice for so cordial an implication.
"I hope not; I hope not," assented Peter. "Or," he confided to himself ruefully, "I'm afraid he'll be disappointed, confound it!"
"Then I shall be only too delighted," said Burman Cheam. He was far too excited by seeing Walburga and the prospect of living in the same house with her to notice anything lukewarm in her mother's manner. "It's most awfully kind of you."
"Pooh, pooh! It's all the other way," insisted Peter. "That's settled."
"I'll see about having Mr. Cheam's bag brought up then, if he really will stay." Amy lingered a hopeful moment, but there seemed to be no doubt now about Mr. Cheam staying.
Peter, who had his own views on the subject, took care that there should be no back-sliding.
"My dear, we've succeeded in persuading him between us. What's your ship, Mr. Cheam? I suppose that I've been told, but I must have forgotten." So Amy went back—rather pensively, it must be admitted, considering that she was engaged in that delightful occupation, giving orders for someone to do something—while Peter started out to entertain the new visitor until his bag arrived.
"I've been a couple of years on the Banbury Cross, but this last voyage I had to wait a fortnight at Buenos Ayres to join another of our boats that was short of officers—the Coventry Cross," replied Burman.
"The Coventry Cross?" The name struck Mr. Coppinger as ominous, though he could not for a moment trace his impression. He stopped short, repeating the words and trying to piece the connexion "The Coventry Cross?" Then he got it. "Oh, my lord Harry! That's the boat that brought the—Here! Mr. Cheam—just a minute—"
But it was too late. While Peter had stood there thinking, his visitor had strolled on and then something straight ahead had taken his attention. Curious about the latest arrival, the Groo-Groo had ventured out into the open again, and at the sight Cheam hurried down to the railings to make sure that he was not mistaken.
"Why, you've got one of those rum old birds here, as well, Mr. Coppinger," he called back, in a voice trained for carrying. "We were bringing a Groo-Groo over on our last voyage, only"—it was no good Peter gesticulating wildly; Mr. Trescote and Harker could not have failed to hear even if they had tried, and they were certainly not trying—" ours died!"
IT is, fortunately, one of the effects of a bomb explosion to produce a moment of pause and stupefaction in which the readier wit can decide upon a course of action. With the possible exception of the convict, Peter had the readiest wit of anyone within hearing, simply because during those hectic days it was a matter of sink or swim with him at every turning. Before the two lawyers had fully grasped what this new-comer's remark implied, Peter slipped in between them at the railings and bestowed on Burman a grimace of such cryptic complexity that, even if it left the recipient in a hopeless fog as to the exact requirement, did at least warn him that for some reason or other he was being called upon to exercise special caution.
By this time Mr. Trescote had grasped what Cheam's remark logically indicated, although he was not prepared to accept it as evidence in any particular direction. Still, it plainly could not be left at that.
"But, my dear sir, what you say is sheerly impossible," he objected. "There is only one known
Groo-Groo in existence and it stands before you. Died! Can you favour us with the circumstances?"
"Died," cut in Peter, without giving the sailor the fraction of a chance of replying; "yes, to be sure; Mr. Cheam is quite right—in the sense that he means, of course. The Groo-Groo frequently died—apparently, that is, I need hardly tell you. It's—it's the marvellous instinct of self-preservation that the bird possesses. Just as the ostrich buries its head in the sand, or the what-you-may-call-it pretends that its wing is broken, so the Groo-Groo feigns absolute lifelessness on the approach of danger. It's so characteristic of the creature that it's a commonplace when speaking of it to say, 'Oh, yes, the Groo-Groo dies,' just as you would say of a chameleon, 'It's always changing colour.' You might roll one over with your foot when it's like that and it wouldn't betray itself by a tremor." He turned to the mystified young man beside him and favoured him with another contortion of agonized warning. "Not a tremor, Mr. Cheam, eh?"
"Wouldn't move a muscle of its face," corroborated Cheam, with admirable self-possession. Well, he was thinking, this old josser is dear Walburga's father, and if he is out to pull these other two fellows' legs, he, Burman Cheam, would be quite willing to oblige him.
Peter turned to the two on his left and nodded, as much as to say, "There, what did I tell you?" It was going better than he could ever have expected.
"Extraordinary!" murmured Harker.
"Extraordinary indeed," confirmed Mr. Trescote. "Extraordinary in any case, but on board ship what earthly danger would there be that the ruse could protect the bird from?"
"Ah, that's the way with instinct, Mr. Trescote," said Peter wisely. "There we are up against the fundamental. It's become a fixed habit with the bird, and it falls back upon it in any extremity, regardless of whether or not it is the right sort of danger. Now I suppose you may have had dirty weather on and off during the voyage, Mr. Cheam? Storms brewing and all that sort of thing you sailors encounter?" To emphasize the requirement, Peter endeavoured to give this new confederate a gentle, surreptitious kick on the ankle, but, misjudging the distance and being rather carried away by the vigorous emotion of the moment, he came unpleasantly near to laming him.
"Yes; one or two nasty blows," owned Cheam, bearing it all heroically for Walburga's sake.
"There you are, you see. There was danger. The bird scented the danger and, taught by nature—illogically, I grant you—fell back upon its one protective instinct. You are a close observer, Mr. Cheam. We shall make a naturalist of you yet."
"Well, I wouldn't call it exactly that," replied Cheam with meaning.
"By the way—let me introduce you," said Peter. He hoped that this ceremonial rite would break off the conversation from its dangerous topic, and, by finesse and a little useful obtuseness, he succeeded in drawing all three men away from the railings and round on the safe side of the screening beech tree. But, as he plainly saw, Mr. Trescote, at all events, was itching to get Cheam aside for a quiet talk on the subject of the Groo-Groo's behaviour during the voyage. Peter was resolved that this should not happen until he had himself explained the position to the sailor and pledged him to secrecy. There was no other possible course: Cheam must be told everything.
Upon this polite skirmish for position fell the inquiring voice of Amy. She had come out on the terrace, and from that slight eminence she was well placed for seeing what was going on beyond them. Her interest in the objects of Mr. Coppinger's "devotion" might be slight, but she quite understood that this latest acquisition meant considerable prestige.
"Oh, Peter," she called across to him, "is anything the matter? The Groo-Groo is behaving so very strangely."
There was a questioning look all round, and then everyone was at the railings. A harrowing sight met their concerned eyes. Close by its inner pen the unfortunate Groo-Groo lay extended, stiff as a stricken warrior, with beak and its maligned feet pointing skyward. Its flappers, folded meekly together on its breast, completed the grotesque suggestion of a sculptured effigy.
"The bird must be ill," said Harker, the first to give expression to their common thought. "Seriously ill by its appearance."
"Yes; I'm afraid this looks like being a misfortune for you," confirmed Mr. Trescote. "These big fellows are the very devil to do anything with when they once get seedy."
"Oh, I don't know that I should worry," put in Cheam, with more expression in the tone than on his guileless face. "The Groo-Groo's only dying. It often does, you know! Mr. Coppinger understands all about it."
"Good heavens," exclaimed Harker, looking sharply from one to another as he became slightly suspicious that somebody—possibly he himself—was being made a fool of, "you don't mean to say that this—"
"Pretending!" ejaculated Mr. Trescote. "Well, this is very remarkable indeed."
Peter felt disposed to agree with him as he dimly wondered what would be Whitwish's next antic. He managed to catch Cheam's eye and telegraphed to him a mute appeal for sympathetic indulgence. Then he turned to the old business of explaining things "The very trick I was telling you about!" he exulted. "You see the thoroughness of the deception, don't you? Why, I really believe that it took you both in, although I had just warned you. How fortunate that it should have happened now. What an object lesson!"
"Yes, but damn it all, Coppinger, I don't believe the bird does it for any blessed reason," protested Harker tartly. "What possible danger can it be exposed to here?"
"What danger!" For one rebellious moment Peter felt like letting himself go in sinister implication; then he quelled the fatuous impulse. "Ah! There you come up against nature in her subtlest mood. We may anticipate nothing, but, depend upon it, the Groo-Groo has a delicate premonition of something or somebody—"
He stopped because no one seemed to be listening. All appeared as if fascinated by the person and movements of a small inconspicuous man who had quietly come within earshot of their conversation. He was apparently reading from a little book as he walked, and his eyes were fixed on it in scholarly abstraction, but by the very stealthy avoidance of all observation, he had a fatal gift for attracting as much notice as if he had been accompanied by an escort of trumpeters. Needless to say, it was S. Holmes, hot on the track, and it was at once as obvious to all as if he had led a brace of bloodhounds that S. Holmes was keenly sleuthing. In the dead silence that greeted his passage he crossed the sward, still studiously engrossed, and had almost reached the shrubbery when his preoccupied footsteps led him into a snare of fallen dead branches. It is no easy thing to walk on, reading in absolute detachment, while every step accounts for a dead stick with a report like a rifle shot, but, inspired by his high professional standard of imperceptibility, S. Holmes did it, and he disappeared into the shrubbery in good outward order.
Under cover of this diversion Cheam got within whispering distance of Peter, and with his face turned from the others, dropped a good-natured, if privately amused, warning:
"I don't know anything about your Groo-Groo, sir, but our Judy couldn't get up again when she was once down on her back."
"Oh, the dickens!" muttered Peter. "Mr. Cheam—just a word in your ear. For heaven's sake don't talk to a soul about any Groo-Groo. It may—it may mean ruin. I'll tell you all, the moment I have a chance."
Cheam nodded and took the opportunity to stroll away in the hope of finding Walburga. It may be briefly stated that he did find her, and was thereupon so unmercifully snubbed for his pains that he swore he wished he had never come.
"This is an opportunity I've often longed for," said Peter, joining the others. "There are some points in connexion with the bird's dissimulation that require clearing up. Will it carry on the deception to the point that it would in the wild state, and allow me to touch it? We shall see that in a minute."
"You are going inside the enclosure?" inquired Mr. Trescote. "I wonder if it would be possible for me to venture in with you?"
"Why not?" said Peter stoutly; then his face fell—the man was becoming an absolute actor and taking a pride in it as well. "No, no. You are my guest, Mr. Trescote. There is a certain risk to myself—slight, I admit, so long as I keep the whip-hand—but if I am torn to pieces it will involve no one in a lifelong remorse. Whereas if you fell I should feel that your blood—"
"Perhaps you are right," admitted Mr. Trescote with noble resignation. "Personally, of course, such a consideration would not affect me a stiver, but I shouldn't like to think that what might happen to me would make the spot always distressing to you in future. Is there anything we can do to help you?"
"Yes, you might lend me your field-glasses," replied Peter, with the happy inspiration of baffling too close a scrutiny, and the offerer could not very well draw back then, although he was so short-sighted that the loss practically put him out of action.
Peter opened the little gate of the enclosure and let himself in, carefully relocking the spring fastening against intrusion. He made some slight show of reconnoitring through the glasses and then approached the recumbent figure, working down so as to keep himself well between the observed and the observers.
"Whitwish," he hissed between his scarcely-moving lips, "what's all this tomfoolery about, sir!"
"Sorry, governor," came the equally guarded reply, "but I'm blest if I haven't turned turtle. Would you give me a bit of a heave at the head end, and I think I could do it."
Peter put his hand under the feathered head and lifted. This, happily, was effective: the bird came to its feet, shook itself very realistically, waved the absurd flappers that nature had reduced its wings to, and began to sidle off with the offended air of outraged dignity that is the only alternative to laughing away a mishap. As the convict had once truly said, he was naturally good at that sort of thing.
"Get into the pen and I'll come after you," instructed Peter, driving the Groo-Groo with "Shoos!" and outstretched arms before him; and when Whitwish, who took a pride in making the thing effective, tried once to double back, Peter was equal to the occasion, and with a loud, "No, you don't, sir!" rounded him up and drove him on again.
"Don't be too hard on me, sir," pleaded the offender—he was safely penned and Peter was standing by the door, where he was in a commanding position against surprises. "I only wanted to attract your notice."
"You succeeded," replied his protector grimly. "If I had a weak heart you'd have attracted an undertaker. I never had so many jumps since T played leap-frog as a boy. What is it that you think you're doing, Whitwish?"
"It was that plate of food upset me, sir. It nearly made me cry to see it going away again, and I guessed that you might have a bottle of beer somewhere. I felt that I must get a word with you somehow. Why shouldn't you bring a pet bird a plate of tit-bits if you like, sir?"
"You live on raw fish," said Peter. "That fellow Trescote would spot something in a minute. We must fix up a better way for to-morrow."
"To-morrow! Don't think me ungrateful, sir; you've been a wonder, but, if you remember, there was a little contretemps about breakfast, and you said—'
"Oh, my lord Harry, yes," ruefully admitted Peter. "I could only get you a handful of biscuits and a cup of cold tea, could!"
"'Thin Marie' they were called, sir—thin by name and thin by nature—and there were eight of them. I'm not actually a heavy feeder, but it's getting well on in the afternoon now, and the thought of that plate of meat food going back—"
"Look here," said Peter, diving into his coat-tail pockets, "I picked up a couple of bananas and a roll, as a last resort, as I came through. If you can fancy those—"
"Fancy bananas!" repeated Whitwish hungrily. "Why, bless your heart, I could relish a bag of monkey-nuts."
"And I'm sorry about the beer, but I remembered this flask. It's nearly full of port wine—"
"Say no more, sir," protested the accommodating fugitive. "You've hit on what's always been a favourite meal of mine. I'm all with old Omar:
' Here with a loaf of bread beneath the bough, A flask of wine, a couple of bananas—and thou.'
I dare say you've heard something like that before, sir?"
"No, I can't say that I have," admitted Peter. "When I take you to the Bird Room to-night I shall try to arrange for something more substantial. Now I'm going back to find Cheam. I ought to tell you—there's a young fellow come to stay here, a sailor who was on the ship bringing over the real Groo-Groo, and I shall have to let him into the secret."
"You don't say so—on the same ship. That's the long arm, isn't it, sir? Anyway, if he's a sailor he's bound to be a good sport."
"If you mean that he won't betray us, I'm pretty sure of that. Now you'll be all right for the time?"
"Right as a pen-nib, sir.—Oh—talking about writing, there's one thing, if I might. I have an idea to get a letter ready for sending to a pal as soon as I am clear. I heard them say that the inkstand out there came from the Bird Room. If you didn't mind seeing that it goes back before to-night—"
"You'll find that all right. There's plenty of ink and everything of that sort lying about there."
"That particular inkstand, if you don't mind, sir," persisted Whitwish tenaciously. "I have a fancy to use it after hearing their talk. I should take it as a favour, sir."
"It was my intention to replace it after I had done here, and I shall certainly do so."
"It's just a sort of touch for luck, as you might say, that I have," apologized Whitwish. "Superstitious some would call me. Plenty of paper, isn't there, sir?"
"Enough to last you all your life," said Peter. "Old Ralph left stacks of it in the desk there that I haven't touched. But look here, Whitwish; you'll have to be more careful how you move about at night.
There's a sort of private detective come on the scene—"
"Measly, rat-faced blighter I've seen nosing about?
"Yes, very likely. Holmes, he's called—S. Holmes, he tells me."
"S. Holmes!" scoffed Whitwish. "I thought I knew the little stinker. Regular copper's nark, if ever there was one. I wouldn't half give something to come across him in the gloaming."
"And that reminds me," said Peter, going. "I must hunt up Mr. Cheam and get his promise.
PETER had very little to tell the two lawyers when he returned from his investigation. Harker was not particularly interested in details, and Mr. Trescote put his host's reticence down to scruples of personal rivalry—very natural, too, in his opinion. Peter picked up the inkstand with a word about replacing it and carried it to the Bird Room, as he went round that way looking for Mr. Cheam.
He finally discovered the sailor pacing moodily to and fro beside a privet hedge that bounded the lawn tennis court on one side. It was not the happiest moment to choose for making his astonishing disclosure and for pressing a confidence that might ultimately land the recipient behind the walls of a prison if things took an ugly turn, but Peter was not in a position to pick and choose his occasion. It had to be done before the unsuspecting Cheam opened his mouth once too often.
"Now, Mr. Cheam, I'm going to make your hair curl," he said, jocosely taking refuge in one of his stock phrases, and, falling in with the young man's step, he began to pace the walk beside him. "You must have been astonished at the remarkable way I've been compelled to behave before you. I will say that in the circumstances you backed me up beyond all reasonable expectation."
"I must admit that I was puzzled," confessed Burman. "Is it a sort of secret that there were two Groo-Groos?"
"There weren't," replied Peter. "There isn't any Groo-Groo. What everyone takes to be a bird is really a fugitive from justice—I mean from injustice."
Fairly launched into the middle of his story, Peter found no difficulty now in going back to the beginning and making the thing coherent. Burman's adventurous spirit was soon caught by the glamour of the occasion. Five minutes before, smarting under Walburga's inexplicable behaviour, he was assuring himself that the girl was just an ordinary shallow coquette, and he had already dismissed her father as a ridiculous old dotard. Now, as they talked, he began to find something likeable and rather heroic in the unpretentious little champion whose one idea seemed to be that it was up to him to protect, at any hazard, the fugitive who had crept in, beaten and cornered, and thrown himself upon his mercy; for, tactfully ignoring the hedge-stake interlude, that was the view that Peter's narrative presented. A scrape like this was meat and drink to Cheam, and he quite forgot his bruised heart as he launched into a lively account of his own experiences with the genuine and original Groo-Groo—" Miss Judy" as the ship had from the first elected to call her. There were one or two ludicrous touches that made Mr. Coppinger laugh heartily: and the woebegone man had scarcely even smiled for days.
"I'm sorry that I rather mugged the thing up for you," apologized Burman, when his narrative had brought him down to his unfortunate remark at the enclosure, "but you got out of the difficulty splendidly, Mr. Coppinger. Your presence of mind was really something colossal."
"Presence of mind, eh?" was the rejoinder. "I should hardly have thought that you would call it exactly that," and Cheam sniggered guiltily at this squaring of innuendos.
"At all events I'm an accomplice now," he said, "so we shall be able to put it across the others no end by working together."
"No, no; you keep out of it if possible," advised Peter. "You are young, Mr. Cheam; I don't want to see you turning grey before my eyes. I was bound to tell you this, or otherwise you must have said something that was safe to burst up the whole bag of tricks sooner or later."
"But surely you don't want to keep me out of this priceless adventure, sir?" pleaded Burman. "We might work it up into no end of a spoof game. I could think of lots of bits of business to put in that would simply have everyone gasping."
"I dare say, I dare say; but take my word for it they come in without any putting. As for keeping you out of it, I can't very well do that as things have happened, but I certainly don't want to drag you any deeper into it. One favour though I must ask; it will help me enormously, and I don't see that it can affect you: if you don't mind I wish you wouldn't let out to anyone at all what ship you came in, or when you came, or where you came from, or anything connected with the Groo-Groo or the Coventry Cross in short. It's bad enough to have to fit in my fiction with one set of facts: if there are two to be dodged—"
"Why, certainly," agreed the young man readily. "I can safely promise not to mention a single thing about it. And if only you'd let me bear a hand I could be useful in one or two other ways, believe me.
.. The set of the head isn't quite right to anyone who has watched the real bird. I could improve on that, for instance."
"Ay, ay," agreed Peter. "There's no doubt you would be helpful. One trouble is that the thing will soon begin to show signs of wear, and if we haven't got Whitwish safely off by the time it tears badly something is bound to come out. It's the getting it on and off that plays the mischief."
"Does he sleep in it?" asked Burman.
"No, he won't. I suggested it, to save the makeup, but he won't keep it on all night. He says that he has had to put up with a plank bed at a pinch once or twice, but he could never stand a feather one."
"I say, that's rather bright for a convict, you know—a plank bed at a pinch, but not a feather one."
"Is it?" conceded Mr. Coppinger tolerantly. "Well, what can you expect? We must make allowances for the poor fellow's training. However, undoing and doing him up again necessitate the Bird Room, so I've given out that the enclosure is too cold at nights, and when it's dark I smuggle him across there, and there, of course, he ought to stay until I take him back the same way in the early morning."
"But do you mean that he doesn't stay there?"
"I do, Mr. Cheam. He does not. As a matter of fact, he takes over the charge of the house from the moment I retire, and he goes round regularly like a night watchman until I'm up again."
"An escaped convict! But, Mr. Coppinger, consider, sir. Is it safe? I don't suppose that in an old place like yours the doors and windows are very securely fastened, and you have ladies sleeping in the house—"
"That's the very argument he uses. He says that what with the number of convicts breaking out just now and the amount of protection afforded by the average rural police, I'll feel safer if I know that there's a reliable man about the premises at night."
"Oh, my Aunt Jane!" was wrung admiringly from Burman.
"It's no good my saying anything against it. He's obstinate when he gets a fixed idea. Besides, I do feel safer. I can go to sleep in confidence. It's the days that are wearing me out, Mr. Cheam—the sudden shocks, the hairbreadth squeaks, the wild alarms. I'm afraid of what I may see every time I approach the enclosure. And yet I must go and look whenever I get the chance. I'm going there now."
They had strolled on from the walk beside the privet hedge, and their footsteps were leading them back towards the house again. It occurred to Cheam that he would like to have another look at the Groo-Groo in the light of his new information, and he was on the point of saying so to Mr. Coppinger when, glancing back, he spied the white dress of Walburga flickering in and out among the foliage, as she sauntered at a discreet distance after diem, with the obvious intention of avoiding an encounter.
"Perhaps, after all, it would be better for us not to be too much in evidence together, near the enclosure," he craftily suggested. "Might put them up to thinking something."
"Ay, ay," agreed Peter, quite pleased to find that Cheam was discovering an element of caution. "We must take every care."
"Then I'll take a turn back and let you go on alone," said Burman, and as Walburga was not prepared for the suddenness of this manoeuvre, her only alternative to meeting him face to face was the unthinkable one of ignominious flight.
"Since we have met, Miss Coppinger," remarked Cheam, in the most approved bleeding-heart-but-no-matter strain of an ill-used hero, "I wonder if you could spare me a few minutes of your valuable time, snatched from entertaining more favoured visitors?"
"If you have anything that you think requires saying to me, Mr. Cheam, I will endeavour to give you due attention. But if it has to do with any domestic details, my mother—"
"It has not, thank you. It is only this: I came here under the delusion that we should meet as friends—real friends. You received me with marked coolness; ever since you have—well—"
"Avoided you? Quite true. I should have avoided you now only I quite recognize that we are bound to have the row out sooner or later."
"The row! I hope not. I have no intention of indulging in vain recrimination. I am sure that so far as—"
"Oh, all right," interrupted Walburga pessimistically. "Let's go on and get it over without having another row about what we're going to call the first one."
"Walburga," said Cheam sadly, trying to fix her compassion by a mournful eye, "isn't there some misunderstanding that we can clear up before it is too late? I am sure that you are mistaken if—"
"Of course you are sure that I am mistaken," crowed Walburga exasperatingly. "You wouldn't be a man if you weren't. I suppose it would never occur to you that you may have been mistaken?"
"I begin to think that I must have been," replied Cheam, determined that he, at least, would remember to quarrel like a gendeman, "mistaken in one I thought a friend. Otherwise I should hardly have been so simple as to hurry here—"
"Did you hurry here?" struck in Walburga, with the alertness of a duellist thrusting as a weakness is discovered. "Did you?"
"Most certainly I did. The moment I was free."
"Ah, free!" she commented, contriving to throw volumes into the implication. "Free of what? Free of whom? Didn't you arrive with the Banbury Cross a fortnight ago, Mr. Cheam?"
"No," he protested quickly, "I—at least, that is to say"—as he suddenly remembered the burden of his promise, and tailing off rather weakly, "I don't think that is quite the point."
"No? Then will you tell me what ship you did come by, Mr. Cheam?"
"Awkwardly enough," replied Cheam, striving to combine frankness with dignity, "it's impossible at the moment for me to mention it."
"How very inconvenient!" sympathized Walburga. "And yet how natural! Then how long have you been in England?—Oh"—as the unfortunate Burman stood mute before her—" is that just as awkward?"
"Look here, Miss Coppinger, I am under a promise that I am quite sure you would approve of if you knew the circumstances. In a few days I expect that it will be settled, and then I can explain things. On any other subject I would satisfy you down to the smallest detail."
"All right," said Walburga, with a businesslike air of decision. "That's your proposal, remember. I didn't ask for it, but you shall have your chance at explaining. Five minutes ago, when you were promenading one side of a privet hedge with someone, did you say, 'There was quite a crowd to see Miss Judy off at Buenos Ayres, but from the first she was very seedy, and she wouldn't have anyone near her but myself?'"
"You've been listening!" he exclaimed indignantly. All the fine tradition of the sea was outraged at the thought of a lady eavesdropping. "Oh, Walburga!"
"Indeed I haven't been listening," she replied with spirit. "And please don't call me 'Walburga' any more.... As a matter of fact, if you stand right close up against the hedge you can't help hearing what anyone says for a few yards each side of you."
"And you stood right close up against the hedge?"
"I had lost a tennis ball there. The point is—did you say it?"
"I dare say I did."
"And when you next passed the place where—where I was looking for the ball, did you make use of these disgusting words, 'On the fourth day out from Rio, as her own attendant had gone sick, I sponged her down from head to foot with a weak solution of Condy's fluid?' Can you deny it?"
"No," said Cheam, dragging his footsteps, "I can't deny it. Is there any more—or had you found the ball?"
"A mere trifle: 'You may imagine my surprise, then, to come across her three days after reaching England.' Do you still wish to satisfy me, down to the smallest detail, of the Arcadian innocence of that remarkable chain of circumstances?"
"I despair of it. It all belongs to the same thing, and my lips are sealed."
"The same awkwardness? Hm'm! Well, Mr.
Cheam, you are our honoured guest, but you will understand that for the future we had better have as few of these pleasant little tête-à-têtes as possible. So long as you stay here I shall do my best to make you thoroughly welcome, but if you consult my wishes I can assure you that I don't want to detain you for a single minute longer than is necessary from the society of this—this degraded, Condy-sponged, South American negress that you found so attractive!"
"Negress!" shouted the exasperated Cheam. "Miss Judy? Well, by God, Walburga, but that puts the final lid on!"
"It was quite a good row while it lasted," reflected Walburga, using her eyes for the dual purpose of damping a handkerchief and watching Burman's rapidly disappearing figure. "I hope he won't do anything drastic for, after all, I suppose I may as well make up my mind that I'm soppy on the blighter.... I wonder who the foul creature really is since she doesn't seem to be a dago?"
WHEN Eustace Moon, after playing a stressful set with Walburga, had taken in the rackets and balls at her suggestion, he went down towards the court again in the hope of finding his late opponent, and, if possible, of resuming the conversation at a point where—as it seemed to Eustace—it had been rather inexplicably short-circuited by a curious lack of intuition on Walburga's part.
No one would describe Miss Coppinger as being dull or slow-witted—Moon repeatedly assured himself that she was immeasurably his superior in every mental attribute—and yet she had seemed quite unable to follow the significance of remarks of his: considered indications of his feelings which he would have thought must have made the situation clear to a young lady of even average smartness. Some would doubtless have led him on to a more specific declaration, others have given him to understand that his avowal was unwelcome; Walburga didn't seem to appreciate that there was anything impending and yet, from some indescribable cause, Moon could make no headway. It was a business of which, as he was only too conscious, he made pretty heavy going, and if he allowed the occasion to slip wholly by he would have to begin all over again at a double disadvantage.
The tennis lawn was deserted except by a couple of thrushes bickering over an unfortunate snail. Moon had expected to find Walburga still there, and for a moment he wondered whether his errand had only been an excuse to get rid of him—an unworthy suspicion which he at once dismissed. Probably, as he had been rather a long time away, she had followed by another path. He set out to return in like manner and thus came unexpectedly upon her, seated in an arbour overhung with a leafy creeper. By an inspiration, Eustace realized the modest invitation of the move. She guessed that he would seek her and had thus indicated—how delicately!—a spot more in keeping with the development of his proposal than was the open garden: a retreat that he might otherwise have been too diffident to lead her to and she too decorous to suggest.
"I wonder if I might bring you a glass of lemonade?" he inquired solicitously. "I did not realize before that you might be subject to ordinary conditions like us mere mortals, Miss Coppinger. If you are warm it would be refreshing. I believe I saw some put out as I came along."
"I suppose there is no beer?" she asked. "No; Mother would think it too vulgar." Walburga certainly looked flushed, but it is doubtful if the very mild exertions that the set with Mr. Moon had called forth on her side were responsible.
"Oh, I am sure that you would find lemonade much more suitable," replied Moon. He was slightly shocked that she should express such a preference, but put it down to inexperience and, possibly, high spirits. Surely she did not really ever drink beer? She must have said it just to tease him.
"Thanks," sighed Walburga when he returned with what proved to be the milder beverage. "I hope you had a good swig yourself when you were getting this. That set seems to have taken it out of you."
"I'm afraid that I am not much good at it," he admitted. "Do you wonder why I played?"
"Well, I did rather wonder once or twice during the set," she frankly acknowledged. "But all you want is practice."
"Possibly you have forgotten the remark, but a day or two ago you happened to say that you regarded the man who played no athletic games as—I think I have the expression correctly—' an utter outer.' That is a description that I am anxious to avoid."
"But lawn tennis isn't a game for a man to play," demurred Walburga loftily. "It's just a pastime for young ladies. Why, whenever you think of a lawn tennis champion it's sure to be a woman—that shows."
"And I thought that I might have pleased you by playing!"
"Well, you certainly amused me. But did you never play either football or cricket?
"Yes, yes," confessed Moon with a slight reluctance, "I really have played cricket. I won't say that I was ever very much at it, or that I could do even that much now, but I certainly used to play at one time."
"That's better, anyway. I suppose you learned at Eton—or did you go to Harrow?"
"No; it wasn't exactly at either. It was at—another place. Must we always talk of things like cricket though, Miss Coppinger? There is another subject—"
"But I'm frightfully glad that there is something we can both enjoy discussing," interposed Walburga. "There's this about a game like cricket: you can go on talking about all the matches you ever played in, years afterwards, and they'll be just as entertaining to anyone else who is really keen about it. Why, look how interested I am."
"True, true. But cannot I interest you in something that means far more to me—"
"By the way, were you a bat or did you go in more for bowling?" demanded Walburga blithely.
"I—I hardly know now," stammered the luckless Eustace. "I think I was generally made to do the fielding."
"Of course you would be. But you must have batted as well, even if you went in tenth wicket. And at some time or another you will surely have tried your hand at bowling. How did you come out in the averages about?"
"Averages?" he pondered. "I wonder if we wore those? Oh, I gather what you mean. I was forgetting. The figures, of course. Would 3.75 be right, I wonder? I seem to remember something like that."
"It would be pretty top-hole bowling, wouldn't it, but rather rotten batting?" she replied suspiciously.
"I think it was catching," said Eustace simply.
"Catching?—Catching?—I never heard of such a thing." Was the man an absolute mutt? Surely at any public school he must have—or, incredible thought, could he be out to take a rise from her?
"Don't they have that now?" he continued. "Perhaps in a girl's game they hardly would though."
"Oh!" exclaimed Walburga, almost breathless. Then, further to explore his curious knowledge, "Where did you usually field?" she asked carelessly.
"I was generally the pig-sty wall," slipped from him before he knew what he was saying. Such is the power of almost-forgotten association.
"The pig-sty wall!" she repeated. "What on earth do you mean? Why, I don't believe that you have ever played cricket at all, Mr. Moon. Now, have you?"
"Oh, yes, I have," he protested. "Only, you see, Miss Coppinger, it didn't happen to be the classically correct game that you are used to. Shall I tell you?"
"Yes, do," she replied.
"I said the pig-sty wall: that was one of the fielding stations. The other points were 'the apple tree, 'the hedge gap,'
'the blackberry clump,'
'the strawberry bed' and 'the water cistern.' There would be some competition, according to the fruit season, for the position at the apple tree, the blackberry bush and the strawberry bed. Even the hedge gap and the water cistern might have advantages at times; but no one wanted the other station. I was the weakest, and I went to the wall—the pig-sty wall.... I have had many disappointments since then, Miss Coppinger; it hasn't been altogether a happy or successful time with me so far, and it has sometimes occurred to me that while luckier men have dropped in for the apple trees and strawberry beds of life, my fate has always been—the pig-sty wall!"
"I'm sorry," murmured Walburga. Perhaps she said it too kindly, but the spectacle of this large, heavy, devoted suitor... was queerly moving. At any rate, Eustace Moon would never gallivant with negresses, black or white; oh, curse them!
"Ah, but you can be more than that," he pleaded. "You can change it all for ever. I know that I am not sharp or brilliant, Miss Coppinger, but there are moments when even the dullest man realizes the romantic stirrings of poetic depths within him. I feel that I can become anything you ask me; do anything you want. A single word is all I ask for now. Is it to be the strawberry bed at last, Walburga, or."
— there was no shirking the alternative, and it says much for Moon's sincerity that he made it sound really tragic—" or the pig-sty wall for ever?
Yet Walburga hesitated and thereby perchance was saved. Everything was in Eustace Moon's favour at that moment—the languorous afternoon with the scent of flowers and the droning of many bees; the appeal to her pity for an unappreciated lonely soul; even his dull solidity, speaking reassuringly of immeasurable depths of not too exciting devotion; and, certainly not least, Burman Cheam's outrageous negress and his too obvious fickleness. Yet Walburga still hesitated, and as she did so, to turn the scale fatally and irrevocably against him, Mr. Moon went plump down upon his two knees at her feet and gazed imploringly upward.
"Don't be absurd," she commanded sharply. "Don't you see how ridiculous you make us both?"
But Eustace could not see: that was his calamitous drawback. He felt deeply and slowly, and he thought that it was due and appropriate homage to go upon his knees when proposing. As a matter of fact, he had always done so. To melt the hard-hearted girl he endeavoured to seize Walburga's hands, and began to pour out a rather less measured but still dignified appeal. So deeply was he stirred, indeed, that he entirely failed to mark a conflux of approaching sounds in which hurrying footsteps, shouts, imprecations and strange calls were promiscuously blended. Not so Walburga, however, and the sudden discovery that she was penned in an angle of the seat by reason of
Eustace's obsolete methods combined with his formidable bulk, lent actual panic to her voice.
"Get up, get up!" she screamed furiously. "Let me out, can't you? Don't you hear them coming?"
"One word, Walburga; just one word of hope," pleaded Moon fatuously. "Then I can live—"
Walburga cared very little at that moment whether he lived or not. "They" were certainly coming: for some nightmarish reason everyone about the place, to judge by the outcry, appeared to be concentrating on the arbour. And then, just as in a nightmare anything may happen, something incredibly bizarre did happen: the creeper which formed the only effective wall of the arbour was bodily torn down all along one side, by a frantically terrified little man in a vain attempt to climb upon the roof, and the confidential tableau staged behind was instantly disclosed to the astonished eyes of every member of the Foxgrove party—all, it seemed, miraculously attracted to the spot.
It was useless to expect the ground obligingly to open at her feet. With a hefty forward thrust of both hands clapped on his shoulders, Walburga sent the Honourable Eustace sprawling on his back, leapt over his prostrate body, and disappeared like a flash of light into the friendly obscurity of a banked mass of rhododendrons.
"LOOK here, M. Cheam," protested Peter warmly, as he encountered his scarcely more than just arrived guest on the terrace, "what's this that the wife tells me? She seems to think you're going."
"Yes, I'm afraid I must," Burman replied. "Unfortunately I find that something important has occurred—" He was fresh from his encounter with Walburga, and he had not yet thought out the necessary untruth. Luckily, Mrs. Coppinger had not required one; but he felt some delicacy about telling Peter that he was going because their conspiracy had resulted in Walburga jumping to the conclusion that he had been consorting with a negress. In any case, the trouble went farther back than that, since Walburga had been noticeably cool before the ill-starred conversation about Judy, and, what with one thing and another, Cheam wasn't at all sure that he wanted to stay any longer.
"Oh, but you can't go now, my dear chap," pleaded his host. "Don't desert me, there's a good fellow. I've had three telegrams and seven letters already from people who are all coming to see the Groo-Groo. Without you I should be a veritable Daniel in a den of experts. I'm relying on you to serve as a sort of buffer between fact and fiction. Come and have another look at the bird now and tell me what you really think about it."
"But we said—" objected Burman.
"Trescote's taking a nap out there under his bandanna. Harker's reading Punch, and anyway, he isn't much interested in Groo-Groos. There's no one else about that matters, and we can go round to the other side of the enclosure and I'll get Whitwish to come up to the rails."
Peter was only anxious to put off the evil hour of Cheam's departure, and perhaps at heart Cheam was not really unwilling to be kept. If to be near Walburga and see what was going on bit like the touch of acid, to be away from her and not see what was going on felt like being frozen inwards. On the whole, it did not seem to matter very much which.
Avoiding the proximity of the copper beech where the two lawyers were still lolling away the afternoon very pleasantly, Peter brought his accomplice round to another part of the enclosure, pausing now and then on the way to point out some detail of interest—anything from a view to a vegetable—to give a convincing air of casualness to the saunter. For some little time Whitwish could not be induced to leave the congenial obscurity of his shelter, but at length Peter got his private signal understood, and the bird began to peck its leisurely way towards them.
"I must say he isn't at all bad," admitted Burman. "Superficially the thing is good enough to take in anyone who isn't looking for something wrong—and why should anyone? That's where you have the pull it seems to me: no one's going to start thinking."
"But you say that you could improve it?"
"I could certainly suggest a few touches. Now that I get a better view I see that the feet are a long way out of what they should be."
"Ay, ay; they're the very deuce to get proper. And Trescote has spotted something queer about them already. I tell Whitwish to keep them out of sight as much as he can, but the fellow's headstrong. Look here, Mr. Cheam, I wish you'd stay over and give us a hand with the feet to-morrow morning."
"If you remember, I offered," replied Burman. "But I thought that you wouldn't let me come in it."
"I know, I know," admitted Peter. "I oughtn't to, of course, but I get nervous if people seem suspicious, and now you corroborate what Trescote has said already. Perhaps it wouldn't matter very much if you did no more than give us a sort of consultation, eh? To-morrow morning we could —— —— ————"
"Sssh," warned Burman, who could spare an occasional glance from the Groo-Groo to see if anything like a white frock was appearing. "Someone's coming."
Peter followed the direction and his heart sank as he saw Amy piloting a sufficiently remarkable-looking stranger towards them. Putting several twos together it was pretty certain that this was one of his recent correspondents, and it was not difficult to make a guess at which. Only one had written on a post card.
"This looks like trouble brewing," whispered Mr. Coppinger into his young friend's ear. "Stand by me, Cheam, or this fellow'll have me in the tureen."
"Why?" asked Burman, staring. "Is he a Patagonian? He almost looks it."
"No; I think he must be the Aberdonian," replied Peter. "But they're just as knowing."
Smiling very happily, Amy tripped up with her convoy. More going on!
"Mr. McGlasham has come all the way from a dreadfully unpronounceable Strath-something to see the Groo-Groo, Peter," she announced. "He says that of course you will have heard of him."
"To be sure," agreed Peter. "From him, that is to say. Well, sir, here's the bird in question: as large as life and twice as natural," from which it may be correctly inferred that Peter was becoming more or less rattled.
"I should pitch it a bit more high-brow for this lot, if I were you, sir," dropped Cheam, under cover of the group being augmented by the other two men, who, at Mr. Trescote's suggestion, strolled up to see what was going on. "I doubt if cross-talk will go down among them."
"Mr. McGlasham," continued Amy, turning to the others with pleasurable importance, "is the greatest living authority on Groo-Groos in the world."
"My Harry, Cheam, that does it!" muttered Peter, gripping Burman by the coat-sleeve. "If you go now, I bolt with you."
A derisive crow of protest marked Mr. Trescote's opinion of the distinguished visitor's qualification. It was too emphatic to be turned off as a cough, nor, to be just to him, did Mr. Trescote stoop to the evasion.
"Well," declared Amy, distributing her smiles impartially all round—even including Burman since he had announced his intention of going—" I have Mr. McGlasham's own word for it, and he should know."
"South o' Berwick-on-Tweed, ye'll bear me witness that Aa said, leddy; south o' Berwick-on-Tweed, for Aa amna boastfu'." He turned to regard his challenger with a dourly baleful eye, and the Groo-Groo took the opportunity of the general distraction to creep prudently away. "But I ken ye well, lawyer Trescote, an' ye canna fash me. Ye're a sair cantankerous body, oor jealous and lairgely wrongheaded." Without making any noise, he relaxed the hirsute pattern of his face to express participation in the laugh that greeted this sally—even Mr. Trescote professing to be amused by it.
"At any rate I'm glad that you thought of paying us a call, Mr. McGlasham," put in Amy. "It will be such a great privilege for Mr. Coppinger to talk to you."
"Ou ay," admitted the visitor. "It will be a graand preevilege."
"We shall be having tea in a few minutes now," continued Amy, "but I hope that you can stay to dinner?"
"Ou ay. Aa can stay a' richt."
After that, no one felt inclined to ask Mr. McGlasham what his subsequent plans might be, and they all continued to look expectantly across the deserted enclosure; until presently Peter found that they were looking expectantly at him.
"What do they want?" he muttered to Burman.
"I think they expect you to produce the bird," was the restrained reply.
"Now, Peter," said his wife encouragingly.
"Come, Coppinger, I believe that you can get the creature to dance a hornpipe if you want to," declared Harker. "Open our eyes."
"I am confidently relying on you to send McGlasham back across the border minus his championship," urged Mr. Trescote.
"How ought I to call it, Cheam?" whispered Peter. "Like a duck or a hen?"
"I'm blest if I know," confessed the sailor. "Judy always used to come without being called."
There was no help for it. With his reputation at stake, Peter saw that it was essential to do something. "Chuck, chuck, choook; chuck, chuck!"
"Ha, ha!" fleered Mr. McGlasham pungently, "Aa'm thinkin', Meester Coppinger—"
"Yes," prompted Mr. Trescote with suave malice, as the appearance of the Groo-Groo's head round the doorpost caused the scoffer to break off short, "yes, Mr. McGlasham. What are you thinking?"
"Joost thinkin'," replied Mr. McGlasham meditatively. "Thinkin', thinkin'."
"I wish he wouldn't think," confided Peter to his accomplice. "I don't half like it."
"What astonishes me," remarked Harker, as Whitwish performed a very natural representation of a bird emerging suspiciously from its pen and regarding a group of human beings with curiosity, "is that a creature so intelligent as the Groo-Groo seems to be should have had no more sense than become extinct."
"Yes, indeed," assented Mrs. Coppinger; her only thought, poor lady, to make herself agreeable all round.
"That's on account o' your total and eentire ignorance o' the subject," politely explained Mr. McGlasham. "Owing to the polyandrri o' the female Croo-Croo—"
"But, my dear McGlasham," interrupted Mr Trescote, "excuse me putting in a word, but surely it must be known even to you that the Groo-Groo is now universally admitted to have been strictly monogamous."
"An' I tell ye, lawyer Trescote, that there's not a jot o' evidence—"
"I know what you are going to say, my good sir, but the authorities you are relying on were discredited fifty years ago. If that is all you know—"
Four peacemakers flung themselves into the discussion, and their four voices went up in unison:
"Perhaps we had better ———I beg your pardon!"
"Look here; as I began the—Have it your own way then!"
"It doesn't really matter—Oh, well, go on!"
"If I may be allowed—Sorry!"
"Mon! Mr. McGlasham's inspired tones rang out above the din, and compelled attention as honest conviction (if loud enough) ever does—" Mon, Aa'm prepairred to stake ma immortal soul that the Croo-Croo—"
"Look here, McGlasham," struck in Mr. Trescote, just as incisively, "we can easily settle this. We'll lay half a crown a-side that the Groo-Groo—"
"Na, na," protested Mr. McGlasham very hastily, "Aa'l nae risk good siller on a mere birrd."
"Well, after all, is it quite fair to rake up a thing like that in the circumstances?" said Harker—very sensibly, it appeared to Amy—as the two chief disputants seemed to be at a deadlock. "Whatever she's been in the past, the poor bird, we understand, is the last of her race now, and she's got to lead the single life henceforth."
"I am content to leave the decision in Mr. Coppinger's hands," volunteered Mr. Trescote liberally, "after to-day I regard him as our greatest living authority on the subject." And having registered this shaft, the lawyer executed a slight gentlemanly grimace in his opponent's direction.
But, surprisingly enough, Mr. McGlasham allowed the taunt to pass unheeded. Something unexpected had certainly caught his attention for, with all his faculties engaged, he had pressed right up to the rails and now stood there, gripping a support with either hand as he followed every movement of the bird in rapt absorption. An occasional absent-minded, "Ou ay,"
"Verra likely,"
"Aa daresa," or "Mebbe"—dropped under the delusion that he was thereby taking part in a conversation which he imagined still to be going on—testified to the completeness of his detachment. Then, satisfied on some point, with a loud triumphant "Ha!" he allowed the tension to relax and turned to enlighten the others.
"It's all up, Cheam," quavered Peter, to whom the exultant cry could have only one meaning, "he's spotted something. We must all make a bolt for it now—What's that he's saying?"
"Meester Coppinger," was what he was saying, "Aa congratulate ye!"
"We all congratulate him," insinuated Mr. Trescote, who was by no means disposed to allow McGlasham to constitute himself the spokesman of the occasion.
"An' allowing, as we may hae reason to hope, that there is another existing Croo-Croo, of a sex not cencompatible wi' the continuance o' the race—"
"What now, Cheam, what now?" muttered Peter. "He's driving at something, you know."
"Aa hardly bind masell to a day or twa, but if a' goes well ye may expect about next Monday week—"
"No, no!" protested Peter, catching the drift of the monstrous implication, "there's nothing of the kind possible, I assure you."
"By Jove, though," exclaimed Mr. Trescote, who had been following the line of his rival's indication, "I believe McGlasham may be right for all that."
"What do they mean?" anxiously asked Mrs. Coppinger, in a delicate aside, of Mr. Harker. She hardly liked to ask as she was the only lady there, but, as she reflected, she knew Mrs. Harker quite well.
"I don't quite get it," replied Harker truthfully. "But perhaps you'd better—eh?"
"I was on the point of going," she said quickly. "And, oh, Peter"—raising her voice—" the cellar door has caught again. Can you come with me for just a minute?"
"The condection o' the birrd is self-evident to ony-one who has studied the subject—after an expairt has pointed it oot, mebbe," continued Mr. McGlasham, addressing his group at the railings.
"There are certainly marked indications, Mr. Coppinger, that compel me to differ from you here. Now would you suggest the use of an incubator on so historic an occasion, McGlasham, or would you leave nature to take her course?
"Allowing that she lays seventeen or auchteen eggs, the size aboot o' coco-nuts—"
"But she won't, she can't; she's not—she's not that kind of bird at all.—Yes, yes, my dear, I'll be with you in a moment.—She's a non-layer. It's ridiculous, ridiculous!"
"Reedeeculous! Look at the redness o' the birrd's wattles—"
"Your wattles would be red if you had been put in that bird's position."
"Obsairve her discreet and retiring habits"—and, indeed, distrustful of so much excitement, the Groo-Groo had pecked away to the farthest confine of the enclosure—" her marked diseenclination to meet the human ee—"
"I don't wonder at it," retorted Peter, glad of an opportunity, now that Whitwish was safely away from observation, to get clear of a discussion so bristling with pitfalls. "I shall never be able to look the bird in the face again."
"Peter!" cooed the amiable summons from the distance.
"Coming, my dear, coming." He dropped his voice as he passed Burman. "Keep an eye on the situation, won't you, Cheam?" And then as a parting shot at the others: "Eighteen coco-nuts!"
IT had not occurred to Mr. Coppinger that he was taking any particular risk in leaving the enclosure for those few minutes. Accustomed to the scrupulous social code that prevailed in Harringay, he would have rejected with scorn the insinuation that perhaps a guest might do something when left alone that no gentleman would ever dream of doing if his host were present. Alas, the simple-minded fellow knew little of the scientific conscience; nor did he take into account that his forcibly-expressed scepticism threw down the gauntlet for the other side's acceptance. He had certainly left a deputy to guard his interest, but Cheam had not a very clear conception of what the trust entailed, and he was, moreover, distracted by the unsmooth current of his own affairs and troubled by the thought of what might be going on elsewhere at that moment. In the circumstances it is not remarkable that, with the best intention in the world towards his host, he began to pace the sward moodily in one direction and another, his eyes generally elsewhere in an unreasoning craving to be tormented by a distant flutter of white piqué. The bird, as he casually satisfied himself from time to time, was somewhere out of sight, and that, he deemed, removed the only element of danger.
In the meanwhile discussion of the approaching event was being carried on by the three men at the rails from the point where Mr. Coppinger's judicious withdrawal had left it.
"Obstinate," summarized Mr. Trescote, with a backward motion of his head to indicate their departed host. "A victim of the idée fixe."
"Pig-heeded, Aa should ca' it," pronounced Mr. McGlasham severely. "It's foo airly, but Aa shouldna wonder gin the Croo-Croo hasna already begun to secrete odds and ends to build her neest wi'."
"That would be conclusive evidence, I suppose?" inquired Harker, who still maintained an open mind.
"You couldn't have anything much stronger, short of the eggs themselves," said Mr. Trescote. "At all events it would be an interesting point to settle. But I hardly imagine that the good man will allow us to go very far on that line of investigation."
"Hoots! Why the no?" demanded the testy Scot.
"Well, you see, McGlasham, he permits no one but himself within the enclosure—very wise, very natural, in the circumstances perhaps—but in the case of a man who is so hopelessly self-opinionated it clogs the wheels of impartial evidence."
"Then Aa'm thinkin' that we'd best mak sicker for oorselves," suggested McGlasham.
"And how do you propose to do that?" demanded Mr. Trescote, with a keen anticipation of what might be coming. "The gate of the enclosure is always kept locked, and the bird itself is—possibly erroneously, I admit—reputed to be savage."
"It's far awa on the ither side wi' the wee hoose between us. The mon Coppinger will no be back for twa three minutes—" Mr. McGlasham cast a rapid glance round the peaceful scene as if summing up the chances. Then, with a sudden resolution, he did a surprising handspring on to the top of the fence, and in a trice he was safely over and inside the forbidden ground. "In the cause o' scientific resairch!" he proclaimed valorously as he began to sprint towards the coveted pen.
It was too late to stop him, even if anyone there had had the inclination. But to Harker the case was merely that of a meddlesome old ass who might get pecked by an irate hen for his trouble, while Mr. Trescote had watched the upshot developing with cynical amusement. Cheam was too far away to offer any opposition, even when he grasped what was taking place, and Peter's contribution to the situation—he appeared on the terrace just as McGlasham launched his heroic flight—was to wave his arms frantically and shout, "Come back, sir! Stop him! Stop him!" as he ran down the slope towards them.
McGlasham safely reached the pen and disappeared inside it. As he had correctly assumed, his line was hidden from the Groo-Groo, and Whitwish's first intimation of anything afoot was Peter's vigorous outcry. It took him an appreciable moment to discover what it all meant, but when he understood he struck out for his lair at an astonishing speed in view of his grotesquely short play of leg and his camouflaged feet. Apprised by warning cries, McGlasham emerged, his hands full of spoil, just in time, and with a weird mixture of fear and exultation on his bewhiskered face, he dashed across for the rails and safety. It was a close, sharp chase, for after such exertion Whitwish dare not press it to a finish; he was hopelessly outclassed on the level, but he might have overhauled his man as he struggled home at the barrier. As it was he contented himself with uttering the most diabolical noises at a safe distance and causing his neck feathers to stand on end in rage—an accomplishment that he had stumbled upon by accident and in which he took an inordinate pride.
"If my heart wasn't in my mouth at your danger, sir, I should use some very strong language," gasped Mr. Coppinger as McGlasham was hauled into port.
"You have taken an unpardonable liberty, let me tell you, and I—I feel it very strongly."
"Our impetuous friend acted rather indiscreetly, but it was all on the spur of the moment, I assure you, and, after all, he seems to have settled a very interesting point." As he spoke Mr. Trescote indicated the spoil that had fallen from Mr. McGlasham's hands as he cast himself upon the palisade. This consisted of a churchwarden pipe—now broken—a tobacco pouch, a couple of books, two empty beer bottles, some bones and a copy of a London evening paper.
"Reedeeculous! Reedeeculous!" chanted McGlasham in derisive exultation. "And these twa three bits o' things are na mair than a top layer. Whur's yere Peter Coppinger the greatest authority on airth the noo?"
"What a very miscellaneous collection of articles," remarked Mrs. Coppinger, who had crossed over from the house to look into all the hubbub. "I hope you found what you were looking for, Mr. McGlasham?"
"The bird evidently took whatever was left lying about within its reach," said Mr. Trescote. "There is no other explanation."
"Yes, yes; I often leave things lying about here," admitted Peter. "I've seen her looking at them curiously more than once. I remember it all now."
"But you never smoke a pipe, Peter," demurred Amy.
"Oh, yes, my dear; I've taken to a pipe lately. And I occasionally come out here after you've all gone to bed and drink a bottle of beer. How everything seems to fit in!"
"It does, remarkably. Even more extraordinary is the coincidence that the Groo-Groo should have got hold of this particular work, 'The Extinct Birds of South America,'" and Mr. Trescote held up one of the books that McGlasham had recovered.
It was rather unfortunate, but no one was likely to develop the point if only Peter had been content to leave it. That, however, in his existing state of mind, was the one thing he could not do. Under the stress of the past few days he was beginning to see an innuendo in the most harmless passage.
"Why 'extraordinary,' Mr. Trescote; why extraordinary?" he demanded, with more warmth than the occasion seemed to warrant. "I have frequently found it convenient to refer to that book on this very spot. Come, sir, there's some sinister meaning hidden in your words. Out with it!"
This was the opportunity for Mr. Harker to put in his oar as peacemaker—with the inevitable consequence for one of that well-meaning body.
"For my part I don't wonder at the poor bird wanting to refer to that particular book, with you three authorities all quarrelling about what she should be like or what she ought to do."
"How could a bird make use of a work of reference, Mr. Harker?" demanded Peter, turning upon his friend with an expression of almost ferocious menace. "Come out into the open, sir, if you have anything to insinuate. Do you suggest that there is some unnatural feature about the Groo-Groo—something, shall I say, double-faced?"
Trust Amy to do the tactful thing if the situation was becoming the least little bit unpleasant.
"Well, dear, I think a cup of tea would do us all good," she said, with "soothing" written across every word she uttered. "Shall we go in now and see if it is ready?"
"No, Amy, I won't go in and see if tea is ready," retorted Peter fiercely. "I shall stay here and defend this calumniated bird to the last drop of my blood."
"Look here, Mr. Coppinger, you are exciting yourself unnecessarily," whispered Cheam, taking advantage of the momentary isolation of his host—for all the others drew somewhat aside to talk about the weather, as well-behaved people will in such circumstances. "Everything is going off quite all right if only you'll take it naturally."
"Bless me, Cheam, have I been excited?" asked Peter, calming down at once. "I hadn't the least idea of it. Do you know, for the last ten minutes I haven't been conscious of a single word I've been saying. It's all been like a dream to me; something between a sort of floating nightmare and what happens on the films. Perhaps you'd better keep me near you."
"This is very interesting indeed," remarked Mr. Trescote, raising his voice for everyone's benefit. "In this book, the author says, 'According to early explorers the Patagonians of the eighteenth century utilized the services of tame Groo-Groos in tracking down malefactors. The keen scent possessed by these birds made them as efficient as the most highly-trained bloodhounds.' Isn't there supposed to be an escaped convict at large somewhere about?"
"Yes, indeed," confirmed Mrs. Coppinger. "We poor women are all frightened out of our wits. I wish the dreadful man was caught—I mean I'm sure he'd be ever so much happier in a comfortable dry prison than lurking in ditches and all those sort of places."
"Well, why not bring the bird out and give the idea a trial?"
"No, no," said Peter, distrustful at once of what this might lead to, "it's quite out of the question. For one thing there must be something that the person has worn to give the scent, you know, so that's knocked on the head. My dear, weren't you mentioning tea just now? Let's go on—"
"If you please, sir," said the simple creature Winnie, choosing this of all moments to appear on the scene with a pair of boots held in her hands, "there's one of those warders that was here before come to ask if he can have the pair of boots that Job found in the hedge."
"The convict's boots!" exclaimed Mr. Trescote, jumping to an unfortunately perfectly accurate conclusion. "The very thing. Mr. Coppinger, this is the opportunity of a lifetime."
"It certainly is a great chance, Coppinger," urged the sporting Harker.
"Aa see no reason why we shouldna face the mon," put in McGlasham. "There'll be five o' us wi'oot the twa bit leddies."
"But it's no good, you know," protested Peter, appealing to each in turn. "This sort of thing never works in practice. The man is dozens of miles away by this time very likely. In any case, the bird is much more dangerous than the convict. And that tea you spoke of, my dear—"
"It may have a queer look if you stick out, sir," dropped Burman warningly. "So long as they keep their distance I don't see that it matters."
"Shall I bring you the poker, dear, before you start?" asked Amy.
"Oh, very well," said Peter, conceding to the general voice against his inner judgment. "Have it your own way, but I can tell you beforehand exactly what will happen." In order that there should be no doubt about this he raised his voice for Whitwish's benefit and assumed an impressive severity of manner. "The bird will simply walk quietly round and then go back again without picking up a scent or doing anything unusual whatever. Now I must ask you all to stand well away or I won't be answerable for the consequences."
"Have you a strong chain, Peter?" called out Amy, retreating towards the terrace.
Mr. Coppinger felt in various pockets and at last discovered a couple of yards of string—a survival of his clerkly method.
"I need hardly say that I don't want any protection on my own account," he remarked, as he unlocked the wicket gate of the enclosure. "I shall lead the bird merely to reassure you. So long as you keep well away there won't be the slightest danger."
"Oh, I do hope that nothing dreadful will happen," confided Mrs. Coppinger to Winnie. "He is so absolutely reckless."
"George Banks, the policeman, is round by the kitchen, m'm, in case anything should," reassured Winnie.
The pair of boots had been left on the grass in the middle of the little natural arena, and towards this exhibit Peter now led the docile captive. He had attached an end of his piece of string to one of the Groo-Groo's ankles, the other end to a corner of his handkerchief, which thus lengthened the leash and gave him a firmer holding. With such a home-made line you may see, on any day of the week, an exultant urchin leading home a recovered puppy, and it says much for the reputation as a bird-trainer which Peter had acquired that no one saw anything particularly bizarre in the arrangement. At the boots the Groo-Groo was halted, and, after looking at them fixedly for a full half-minute, it turned them over curiously with its unshackled foot.
"Isn't she intelligent!" proclaimed Amy.
"There now," said Peter, glad to have got it over, "perhaps you will be satisfied—"
"But she must smell the boots and then make a cast round to pick up the trail," shouted Mr. Trescote.
As Whitwish did not display any anxiety to inconvenience himself in this manner, Mr. Coppinger gingerly picked up one of the boots and held it tentatively at the end of the bird's long beak, in an absent-minded assumption that this must represent the creature's nasal organ. At this indiscretion the Groo-Groo turned on him a look of ineffable pathos and visibly shrugged its shoulders.
"It's no good, of course," declared Peter, throwing down the boot. "If you'll all stand well away, I'll lead the bird once round and then—"
Doubtless it would have been so and the incident would have closed on a note of merely negative attainment had not the laurel branches at that moment been cautiously parted and a reconnoitring face looked through upon the scene. Instantly, with the fatal gift for publicity that attended all his sleuthing, S. Holmes found himself looking full into the eyes of every person present. No one had heard him coming, none had seen any movement of the bushes to attract their notice, yet everyone felt an irresistible impulse to look in that precise direction: a sort of sixth sense that endowed S. Holmes with a perennial attraction—very curious and rather disconcerting.
The bushes closed again as the face disappeared, but the mischief had been done. The Groo-Groo evidently had also seen it. Peter found himself suddenly jerked forward as the bird started off in rapturous pursuit, and, remembering the hint that Whitwish had dropped, he began to have the direst foreboding of what might happen should Holmes be overtaken.
"By Gad, she's got a scent!" cried Harker.
"Don't check the bird, Coppinger; give her free play. Yoicks away there, Beauty!"
Coppinger realized that he had about as much chance of checking the bird as if the lead had been a length of sewing cotton. Nor dare he let out a word of remonstrance with the others beginning to press about them.
"Who is this fellow, anyway?" demanded Mr. Trescote. "I've noticed him once or twice acting very suspiciously. Upon my word, I believe there may be something in it."
Round the laurel clump went the Groo-Groo, his flat padding feet making a better pace than one would have thought likely. All joined in the chase—all, that is, with the exception of Winnie, who with an ecstatic "George! The convict! Save me!" fainted away on the terrace. S. Holmes had disappeared, of course, but the Groo-Groo seemed to have an uncanny instinct for direction, and very soon the snapping of twigs and scrunching of undergrowth announced that the trail was holding. A moment later the quarry came in sight. He was, so far, walking no faster than might a prudent man who remembers a very important appointment, and he still maintained a scholarly abstraction, but at the unearthly scream of triumph that the bird raised on sighting him, the walk became a steady trot, which gradually accelerated until everyone was involved in a breathless scramble. It was a game at which the pursuers should have been hopelessly outclassed, but S. Holmes very quickly disclosed that he was no athlete, and the Groo-Groo's bloodcurdling cries of vengeance seemed to benumb his powers, both of thought and action. With a confused recollection from childhood's story days of some fearsome beast that could only be shaken off by circling, the miserable man tried to put this desperate shift into practice, and with some apparent success until an extra effort brought him face to face with the pursuers. As they almost collided the Groo-Groo emitted so weirdly appalling a shriek of fury that all balance of reason forsook the unhappy victim and, seeing a rustic, creeper-hung structure near at hand he flung himself bodily at it and tried to swarm up the ropes of bine to find a refuge on the roof. Thus to an astonished and rather scandalized field was disclosed the most poignant phase of Eustace Moon's appeal to the reluctant Walburga—an extremely mysterious visitation to the couple chiefly concerned, but, like so many mysterious happenings, extremely natural in the light of its simple explanation.
Thereafter it is more than a little difficult to determine what really happened.
The string must have broken, because someone discovered that the Groo-Groo was missing, and Peter, setting out in down-hearted pursuit, was more than overjoyed to find a contrite but by no means regretful Whitwish safely back in his enclosure.
S. Holmes must have succeeded in climbing up a tree, because it was in that situation that the tide of pursuit overtook him.
Policeman Banks must have been among those who had helped to swell the chase because it was to him, as the embodiment of authority, that Mr. Trescote somewhat officiously turned and, indicating Holmes, announced:
"There, Constable. I think that you will find the escaped convict brought to bay at last."
Finally, Holmes must have had some slight reserve of breath left from his exertions, because at this he looked down, miserably vituperative, on the watchful circle of his captors, and delivered his soul of bitterness: "You silly lot of blithering fatheads—me the convict!—I'm the man that's down here to show you how to track him, and now you've pretty well blued the business!"
TWO days passed—days so devoid of incident that P.C. Banks found himself hard pressed to discover excuses for being so much on duty in the Foxgrove kitchen, and Mr. Coppinger's hair began to turn brown again. Yet beneath the tranquil surface sound spade work was going on in various quarters. There was not a bar-parlour within three miles of Plymorchard that S. Holmes had not mysteriously appeared in, sleuthing for clues, so that for months afterwards little children living in quite remote moorland villages might be seen gravely measuring each other's footprints as they engaged in the new and fascinating game called "playing at tecs." The inspector, Warder Stubbs, and other myrmidons of law and order came and went like things seen at occult séances, and solitary tourists, especially the negligently-dressed and hatless, led a harried life while passing through the "escape zone." Mr. McGlasham had gone north again, the ingenious system of railway travel which he had worked out only enabling him to spend one night at Foxgrove. Eustace Moon was consolidating his position in
Walburga's eyes by means of wall-practice, and Burman Cheam was alternately playing fast and loose with his. Mr. Pritchard, believing that he now had his employer in a fix, had written to say that, as his services did not seem to be appreciated, he would take six months' salary in lieu of notice, as per his verbal agreement with the late Ralph Coppinger, Esq. Mrs. Coppinger hadn't noticed anything particular, Miss Willet had transferred her convictions from the Methodist New Connexion to the Particular Baptists, and Winnie, after enjoying a good cry, had had several rather severe attacks of the giggles.
It was yet early morning, but in the Bird Room three men were already afoot—or, rather, two men and a hybrid, for the convict, in the process of being invested with his daily wear, presented the appearance of a man-bird. Burman Cheam, surrounded by a litter of paints and varnish, sat on the floor putting the finishing touches on the Groo-Groo's criticized feet. The door was locked and Mr. Coppinger stood on watch duty at the one vulnerable window. The commissariat department having been re-established, Whitwish was proving his appreciation of a substantial breakfast, but this did not seem to interfere with the use of his mouth for explaining his views on life in general.
"Mr. Coppinger, 'ee's tried to convert me to Socialism during our lengthy talks on matters of national interest in this very room," he was saying. "Socialism!"—a click of the tongue expressed his contempt for this political dogma. "Setting aside the little gang that's on the make for a four hundred quid a year job in the rowdiest club in Europe, what remains? I ask you, Mr. Cheam, who is there among them that a man of my ideas and practical experience could follow? Mr. H. G. Wells and Mr. Bernard Shaw, I suppose! If only they could get that 'All Caine to join them they might set up a Socialistic republic on a desert island somewhere—the Calf of Man would about fit it—and show us how it ought to be done. At the end of six months' equality 'All Caine he'd be emperor, and Mr. H. G. Wells prophet-extraordinary to the majesty of the people, living up on the top of a column away from the vulgar 'erd and quite taken up with the symptoms of his own miraculous self. As for Mr. Bernard Shaw, well, he'd be Superman: no 'elp for it. Oh, I've seen one or two of his plays, never fear. Very amusing they are, no doubt, to them that likes that sort of thing, but not enough love-making for me.... Fine rotten mess they'd make of it, I'm sure."
Burman Cheam transferred the cigarette from one position in his mouth to another, in order to get a clearer view of the Groo-Groo's toes, and went on varnishing.
"It must be simply hell to you, Whitwish, to be wearing a sort of muzzle all day," he remarked.
Whitwish performed a surprisingly effective gesture of remorse with one of his flappers.
"I'm done, sir; I'm done. I'm easily led on, that's all. It always was the same and it's been the ruin of me."
"What is your particular line of business, by the way, if it's a permissible question in the circumstances?" asked Cheam. "Something rather neat, I should imagine. Forgery?"
"Forgery!" exclaimed Whitwish, with a suspiciously sharp glance first at one and then at the other. "Lumme, no! Whatever put such a silly idea into your head, sir? Why, it's as much as l can do to sign my own name even. My education was sadly neglected or it might have been a very different tale. As it is, I've always had to rely on light manual labour—billiard marking, motor driving and what not—but it's generally been such as brought me into contact with the easy-going and wealthy, and then, if you keep your eyes open, well—"
"I see. Really a sort of modern Robin Hood—take from the rich and give it to the poor?
"Take from the rich—that's right enough," agreed Whitwish thoughtfully. "Well, Mr. Coppinger, if it's any satisfaction for you to know it, as a matter of fact I was not rightly guilty of the last—episode.
"Don't be silly," replied Peter, without relaxing his attention from his own particular job. I never asked whether you were guilty or not, did I? You came here—that's enough.
"One in a million—if ever there was one! "confided Whitwish to the top of Burman's head. "Did it never occur to you, sir," he continued, raising his voice to address his protector, "that you might find yourself in some sort of unpleasantness over this business at the finish?
"I have quite enough to occupy my thoughts from hour to hour without thinking of the finish," was the reply. "Still, yes, since you mention it, I suppose I may get a few years' hard—"
"Don't you believe it, sir," interrupted Whitwish earnestly, "they could never face the chipping. Why, sir, if it got known how they'd been had, as soon as a back was turned there'd go up such a quacking that the tale would go round of a duck farm up at Prince-town. It wouldn't be the sort of capture they'd like to have get in the papers; it's a regrettable incident that it will be pleasanter for all to have dropped and forgotten. Besides, if I get clear, in about three days I shall be able to prove what I tell you, and then you will have been assisting the course of justice, don't you see?"
"Where do you want to get to?" Cheam asked.
"Plymouth, sir. I should be all right once I got there. Twenty miles away." His clicking tongue emphasized the irony of the position. "Twenty mouldy little miles, and it might just as well be two hundred."
"Well, look here, how would this do? Suppose we cut down a suit of mine a bit and then the two of us—"
"No, I won't allow it." Mr. Coppinger wheeled round from the window and spoke with an authority that permitted no demur. "I will not have you mixing yourself up with this escapade in any incriminatory way, Cheam. Anything like this"—he indicated Burman's artistic occupation—" anything that I can take on my own shoulders if it comes out I accept thankfully, but farther than that I will not go."
"He's quite right, sir," joined in Whitwish. "I know you'd do it for the sport of the thing, for you're a gentleman after my own 'eart, if I may say so, but it wouldn't be fair to blarst your prospects. A sailor, I understand, sir?
Cheam, intent on the last toe, nodded.
"Ah, I ought to have been a sailor by rights, too. The romantic and adventurous vein in my nature would have found a legitimate outlet." He sighed heavily and dropped his voice to a confidential whisper. "You'll excuse the freedom, sir—there's a young lady up the Caledonian Road way in my own case, I might mention—but your little affair in that direction"—a twist of his head sufficiently indicated Foxgrove Court and the absent Walburga—" isn't exactly progressing...? Ah, a pity, sir; a great pity. I see more of what's going on while I'm up in my enclosure there than you might think, and 'Youth at the prow and Folly at the 'elm' is particularly applicable to the situation."
Cheam rose from the ground without offering any comment on this dictum, stood back a yard or two to survey his handiwork, and then began to put away the paints and brushes that he had been using.
"That's all right now," he remarked, coming back to complete his operation as a "dresser,"
"but you are showing signs of wear, you know, Whitwish, and I can't say how much longer we shall be able to patch you up safely. You're beginning to go about the place more as if you were a pet lamb than a fighting female; you'll have to drop that and keep at a proper distance when your make-up won't stand looking into." He began to handle the head-piece delicately, preparatory to fixing it, then stopped with an exclamation. "Now what in the name of sanity is this tomfoolery?" he demanded, pulling something away. "This" was a length of pale blue ribbon tied with a graceful bow.
"Only a little favour from that Miss Willet here," said Whitwish bashfully. "I heard her say that she thought it would go prettily with my neck feathers.... Don't be 'arsh, sir. You mayn't have noticed it, but my docility at close quarters has a sort of noli-me-tangereness about it that compels respect."
"Are you ready?" asked Cheam, holding the head poised for the replacement that put an end to easy conversation.
"If it must be, sir," assented Whitwish with resignation.
"If you are quite through, Cheam, I'll unlock the door," called out Mr. Coppinger. "Job is moving about, and I have an idea that he's coming this way."
"All clear, sir," replied Cheam, smoothing down the feathers that concealed the opening.
Peter unlocked the door and sat down at his desk, where the inevitable pile of books and litter of scribbled paper implied his profound industry. Cheam picked up a sketching block and began to rough in the Groo-Groo's outline. It was now understood about the place that Mr. Coppinger was definitely engaged on a work of monumental proportions, and that Burman Cheam, who had a passable gift for drawing, was to be responsible for the plates. It was a convenient fiction to put about as it offered a simple explanation for much that might otherwise have occasioned comment. Thus Job, a sly enough fellow at heart though by nature thickheaded, saw nothing curious in finding the Groo-Groo loose in the Bird Room at that hour and the two gentlemen engaged on the details of their respective departments. So long as one of them stood between the creature of uncertain temper and his line of retreat, he didn't trouble.
"Morning, sir; morning, Mr. Cheam," he greeted them briskly. He had long since discovered that briskness in manner indicated a cheerful disposition and a willingness to work, and, indeed, constituted a practicable substitute for the more troublesome realities if reasonably exploited. "I just picked up this here stocking over against the raspberry bed. Convict must have left it when he broke in that night. I thought I'd better let you have it at once, sir."
"Quite right, Job," said his employer. "Put the thing down on the floor there, will you. And look here, Job; don't mention finding it to anyone else unless someone in authority asks you. If they get started again we shall have another epidemic of convict-eye among the servants."
"Very well, sir. But it goes to show that he can't be very far off at this moment, can he?"
"What?" mused Peter, falling into the curious absent-minded state to which he was becoming subject. "Far away? The Groo-Groo?"
"Why, no, sir," replied Job, staring for all he was worth. "She's here all right, I reckon. I was talking about the convict."
"Of course you were," snapped Mr. Coppinger, coming to his senses in a panic. "So was I, Job. I meant the convict. I—I said the convict. The fact is, all you people are so full of the convict—I mean the Groo-Groo—the convict and the Groo-Groo, that is—that you can't speak of one without bringing in the other. I begin to doubt very much whether there ever was a convict here. If there was, he's flown long ago."
Job considered this a very happy turn of wit and laughed appreciatively.
"Flown, eh?" he repeated, contributing his own humour to the topic. "Then he must ha' been a bird, sir!"
"How could the convict be a bird, sir? Who says that—eh, what is it, Cheam?"
"I seem to have got the right expression," coolly interrupted Burman, thrusting his pad under Peter's nose. "Don't you think that's better?"
"H'm," said Peter, finding that the "expression" consisted of the scribbled warning, "Steady, sir! Let it go at that!"— "Yes, I think you've hit it.
Well, Job, as I was saying, don't pay any attention to idle village chatter. You've done very well with the dahlias and I shouldn't let little things worry you.
And, while I remember it, take your mother a nice bunch of Black Hamburgh grapes with my compliments. That will be all just now, Job."
"Thank you, sir," replied Job, withdrawing—fortunately without any very clear idea of what exactly had been the details of the conversation.
But to Burman Cheam the incident came as a salutary reminder of the danger that he had seen approaching. With the most heroic intentions in the world, Peter had perhaps never really had the sublime self-possession necessary for the part he was now playing, and under the strain of the situation he was certainly beginning to go to pieces. Cheam could not always be at his elbow to recall him to sober reason, and sooner or later a tangle was bound to come from which there could be no extrication.
"And when that happens," ruminated Burman, having followed the probable sequence of events in imagination, "the poor old chap is as good as on the treadmill, and Sindbad the Sailor more than likely with him." From which it may be inferred that Mr. Cheam did not rely implicitly on the convict's optimistic assurance. "At any rate," he summed up, "the obvious thing is to get Whitwish clear of the place as soon as it can possibly be brought off. With Coppinger's approval if it fits in; if not, then jolly well without it. Some day Walburga will learn all and see how cruelly she has misjudged me."
Possibly, stated in slightly different terms, the Groo-Groo was thinking much the same thing as it hung back hoping to get a chance to wander.
Possibly, however, it was merely speculating, as it turned the object over with an investigatory toe-nail, whether the convict's sock (all his other attire having been burned one midnight) was worth preserving for a keepsake. Be that as it may, when Peter again thought of it, some time later, the unclean thing had vanished.
THAT same day—in the afternoon—Mr. Coppinger happened to be moodily rambling about his grounds, wondering ruefully how on earth it would all end and recalling, a little wistfully, the straitened, uneventful, peaceful days of Magnolia Gardens, when the cheerful voice of Mr. Harker hailed him from the drive. Harker always did him good—for one thing he knew that his client hated birds although even he could not be let into the Groo-Groo's secret—indeed, that astute gentleman himself did not hesitate to admit that one of his best professional assets was a good deskside manner. It was, he would contend, every whit as desirable in a lawyer as a reassuring bedside manner in a doctor.
"Glad to see you, Harker; very glad indeed," exclaimed Peter, shaking his hand with quite touching warmth. "But is—er—is there anything special that you've come about?" Heaven knew, there might be anything these times.
"That's the very question I was going to ask you," replied Harker. "What is it he wants me here for?"
"Wants you—who?"
"Why, Trescote to be sure. Didn't you know that he was sending for me to come up? No? Well, really, you know, Coppinger, that fellow—!"
"Not a word," replied Peter. "What is it about?"
"All I know is that I got this note—one of your chaps seems to have brought it—just after lunch. You see what he says"—Mr. Harker had by this time disclosed the communication in question and passed it for his friend's inspection—" and here I am.
Peter took the sheet with a trembling hand, miserably conscious that his poltroon heart was off again on a downward journey. More trouble; nothing but menace was likely to emerge from that hostile quarter. He felt that he could not keep it up much longer; sudden unexpected calls for doughty action might still not find him wanting, but this long continual business was bound in the end to get him. And the few formal words of Mr. Tresçote's letter did not tend towards reassurance.
DEAR HARKER, [he read] I have a very important communication to make to Mr. Coppinger and it occurs to me that he might wish you, as his legal representative, to be present.
Can you make it convenient to call at Foxgrove Court some time this afternoon? I understand that he will be at home all day and, needless to say, I shall await you.
Peter folded the sheet apathetically and handed it back again.
"I haven't the remotest idea what it is about," he remarked, "but we may as well go in and get it over."
"Get it over" adequately reflected his feelings in the matter.
"Oh, come," encouraged Harker, "we've nothing to be afraid of"—nice of him, the "we," thought Peter. "I was stirring him up the other day about that suggestion of a working agreement with the Institute, and I dare say he's heard something from them."
"Ay, ay," assented Peter eagerly, "that will be it, of course." But all the time, at the back of his mind, he knew perfectly well that it wouldn't.
They had not to look far for Mr. Trescote. He was sitting in the porch, having evidently taken up that strategic position with a view to intercepting Harker on his arrival, a piece of forethought that his host's perambulation had discounted. Not that Mr. Trescote was in any way put out by the occasion.
"Glad that you were able to come, Harker," was his greeting when they met. "I took the liberty of sending for him," he continued, turning to Mr. Coppinger, "because I thought that you ought to be legally represented in view of something that I have to say."
"Thank you," replied Peter without spirit. "But I dare say that I could have saved you the trouble by sending myself."
"Quite so," agreed Mr. Trescote, with perfect good humour, "only in that case I should have had to explain the circumstances to you in advance, and that was just what I wanted to avoid. Well, shall we go in somewhere? I would suggest the morning-room."
Peter was too crushed by the sense of impending disaster to offer any dissent, even if he felt resentment at this cool usurpation of his office as a host. He led the way in and across the hall in silence. But on Mr. Harker the portent was not lost.
"Egad, the fellow carries it pretty steeply," he reflected. "He could hardly put on more side if he owned the blessed place." Then in a flash came the inspiration: "Jehoshaphat! Can he have found that will he kept hinting about the other day? It looks uncommonly like it. Poor old Coppinger!"
Whatever it was, there could be no doubt that Mr. Trescote felt called upon to manage the proceedings. He closed the morning-room door, gave a leisurely—almost a proprietorial—look round the attractive little apartment, and indicated that they should be seated. His hand went to his pocket and—no, there was something else that would add to the pleasure of the occasion.
"It occurs to me that Mrs and Miss Coppinger should also be present," he remarked suavely, "if it is not putting them to too much trouble," and he looked towards Peter with evident expectation.
"Are they concerned?" asked Mr. Harker.
"They may be; at all events it is usual."
"I will go and find them," acceded Peter meekly. Even if it were to hear himself accused of fraud, false pretences and treasonable felony, it didn't seem to matter.
"There is a bell," suggested Mr. Trescote pointedly.
But Peter, even yet, could not divest himself of his plebeian habit of ignoring the bell if it were something he could conveniently do himself; besides, he did not relish the idea of sitting there dumbly in the same room with Trescote, waiting to hear the worst.
Fortunately both wife and daughter were near at hand, so merely telling them that Mr. Trescote had something important that he wished to say, he took them to the room. The moment had come at last.
"I find myself in rather an unfortunate position," began Mr. Trescote from the head of the table—a position to which he had invited himself. "I am the guest of a charming family—by the way, won't you sit down, Miss Coppinger?"
"No, thank you," politely replied Walburga, lounging across to the window. "Not if it's all the same to you."
"It rather distracts one's attention," he retorted. "However. As I was saying, I have for several days enjoyed the remarkable hospitality of Foxgrove Court. Not treated as a ceremonial guest, I have been allowed to wander about the place at leisure and to come and go as I pleased. I refer to that because it has a bearing on what I have to say.
"But at the same time I do not forget that I am the legal representative of the British Institute of Ornithological Research and its interests must be paramount. And apart from this there are the ordinary principles of justice and, in fact, the legal obligations incumbent on every citizen."
Amy smiled encouragement to this. It sounded very nice and proper.
"As one or two of you may know—Mr. Harker certainly—I have never disguised the fact that I always held the strongest possible belief in the existence of a third will made by the late Ralph Coppinger. He executed one which I hold—or, rather, I did, for I seem unfortunately to have mislaid it, but I have no doubt that it will turn up—endowing the society which I represent with practically the whole of his possessions. The later document, under which you benefit, Mr. Coppinger, was the result—as its date proves—of a moment of pique and recrimination. That quarrel was soon made up and forgotten, and there was then no earthly reason why Ralph Coppinger should not revert to his original intention of perpetuating his name by means of the Coppinger Ornithological Research Foundation. Still, I would naturally have preferred that the actual discovery should have come by some other hand than mine."
"Then you have really found another will?" put in Harker.
All this imposed an entire rearrangement of ideas on Peter. He hadn't been thinking of wills or anything of that sort. A new will? Different, of course. That probably meant the end of Foxgrove Court and fortune—Trescote's preamble as good as said so. Well, well, in a way—if he had only himself to think of—he would scarcely regret it. He was certainly a bit old to get into harness again, but surely... somehow....
Harringay and Magnolia Gardens. The morning train, Mossphases', his desk and stool and office coat—no, he had left that in the wastepaper-basket—lunch at a tea-shop, Hollier and Mingle and all the rest of them—how bright and up-to-date their talk had always been: he had really often missed it.
Amy's voice—unusually quiet—recalled him. He found that, sitting there as they were, side by side, she had slipped her hand over his although he hadn't noticed. Across the room Walburga was biting a piece of string and looking rather sulky. And though a good many months, or years, had rolled on in Peter's mind, Harker appeared to be only just finishing his inquiry.
"We are quite prepared for any change that may be in store for us, Mr. Trescote," was what Amy was saying.
"In view of the circumstances, that is a wise attitude to adopt," acknowledged Mr. Trescote. He produced a long blue envelope from his breast pocket and ran it delicately backwards and forwards across his fingers as he proceeded. "Yes, Mr. Harker, I think that I may claim to have been so fortunate. Perhaps I may be allowed briefly to indicate how it happened. I have always regarded the Bird Room as the key to the situation. As we all know, during his latter years the late Ralph Coppinger almost lived in it, and he may be said quite literally to have died there. The furniture and appointments remain very much as they were in his time; indeed I have already congratulated the present Mr. Coppinger on preserving the atmosphere of an almost historic shrine so completely. I may admit now that I said it in the hope that he would throw open the place for my free examination, but the courteous hint was not taken. For some reason—doubtless to ensure complete detachment for his profound labours there—the door was sedulously kept locked, and to that extent I was baffled. However, this morning, on taking a stroll in that direction, I was agreeably surprised to find it not only unlocked but standing open. An obvious invitation to enter, and, happening to have a few letters to write, I thought that I could not do better than avail myself of the well-known Liberty Hall spirit of Foxgrove Court and use the accommodation of the desk there. It was while I was engaged on that commonplace business—I was, in fact, looking for a decent pen-nib to write with—that I accidentally" (an unpleasant cough from Walburga) "stumbled across a small drawer which—without being a secret drawer in the ordinary sense—might easily be overlooked from one year's end to another. In that drawer—I really could not avoid seeing it—lay this envelope, endorsed, sealed and unopened as you now receive it."
"In plain English, you used your position as a guest here to ferret about for something to turn us out by! Walburga took no pains to make her opinion sound less contemptuous than her words implied, and she perhaps spoke rather more loudly than a lady should do.
"Walburga!" mildly protested her father with a tired smile.
"Miss Coppinger has the privilege that is generally accorded to a very young person dealing with a complex situation about which she combines strong prejudice with fundamental ignorance," said Mr. Trescote, speaking with lofty detachment. "I will now hand over this envelope to you, Mr. Harker, and await your disclosure of its contents."
"Thanks, thanks," said Harker a little awkwardly, and looking, probably for the first time in his life, as if he would much rather decline legal business. "Well, I suppose we had better get on with it."
"You will notice," added Mr. Trescote as he surrendered the packet "—it is in fact my justification for the whole procedure—that this envelope is prominently inscribed with his special ink in Ralph Coppinger's unmistakable handwriting, 'My last will, revoking all others,' and that it is signed by him and dated a bare six months before his death."
"I see; quite so," assented Harker, opening his pen-knife. "Well, now if you will give me just a few minutes to make sure of the wording of this, I will then read it for you."
Mr. Trescote nodded, and looked round the room at the pictures to avoid the necessity of making conversation. Peter and Amy still sat hand in hand, rather like two good children—which perhaps they were again. Certainly it was not of the morning-room at Foxgrove Court that either was thinking. Walburga had taken up an ivory paper-cutter and was doing balancing tricks with it: a little odd that she alone had to demonstrate her calmness.
Meanwhile Harker had slit the envelope and taken out the single broad sheet that constituted the enclosure. Old Ralph had written a sprawling careless hand, and it was plain that whatever his last will might hold it did not make much ado about it. As he read, Harker raised the paper until his face was concealed from the little company about him; for an appreciable moment it remained so, then lowering the sheet he began at once speaking.
"This document, which so far as we know is the last will of the late Ralph Coppinger, is duly signed, attested and witnessed. It is holograph throughout, and written in the special ink that the testator used for important matters. By it he leaves the whole of his property, without any restriction or proviso whatever, to"—here Mr. Harker turned over the page with distressing slowness—" 'my esteemed relation Peter Coppinger of 32 Magnolia Gardens Harringay in the County of Middlesex clerk and accountant.'"
The sharp crack was the snapping of the ivory paper-knife with which Walburga was establishing her self-possession.
Mr. Harker, rising, moved across to offer the will for his professional friend's inspection, while that disconcerted gentleman, also rising, more than half-snatched it from him.
"Let me have the pleasure of being the first to congratulate you on this satisfactory outcome, Coppinger," said Mr. Harker, including Amy also in his enthusiastic handshake. "And long may you be spared to enjoy it!"
"Thank you, thank you," replied Peter, with evident pleasure. "I—I feel just a little dazed yet." Mr. Trescote had finished his brief inspection. He folded the will and returned it to his confrère.
"Let me hasten to add my personal congratulations to those of Mr. Harker," he said, with a reasonable show of sincerity. "In the circumstances perhaps I had better add nothing to it. The conditions which brought me here no longer exist, Mr. Coppinger; I have no locus standi. And so, as there is a good train"—looking at his watch—" up to town in about fifty minutes, with your permission I will catch it."
"Oh, but we shall be having tea quite soon," put in Amy.
"Not even for your very excellent tea, my dear lady," he replied—laughing rather queerly, thought Amy. "I only have a light suit-case to pack, and in five minutes you will have seen the last of me."
"Oh, I hope not," she exclaimed, without a suspicion of guile. "Surely you will be in this part of the country again some time soon, Mr. Trescote, and won't forget to pay us another visit."
Mr. Trescote, as he frankly admitted to himself, gave her up after that. He did not, nor was he ever likely to, understand her. Still less would he have been able to if he could have followed her thoughts as she sat there thinking after the others had all gone their various ways, a slightly puzzled look on her usually serene features. Yet surely no sublimer instance of the simple faith of that admirable woman, the implicit acquiescence that everything was for the best, could be found than her final conclusion:
"It seems very strange, but I suppose it's too late to bother. I changed them about as soon as ever we got here, and that desk is the one we brought with us from London! Uum-um"—in a mental tone of definite dismissal. "Perhaps I had better say nothing about it. It would only confuse Peter, and I'm quite sure really that it's perfectly all right somehow."
THERE were several reasons why Walburga had taken the deck-chair down the garden to the grass patch beyond the pear espalier. It was shady (on the far side); you had a reasonable chance of remaining undisturbed there; and with the least trouble in the world you could eat your fill (an unpleasant suggestion, but facts are facts) of ripe bonchretians. Walburga was fond of pears and ate them quite frankly—peel, core and all. To see her at it always set her mother's teeth on edge, for Amy was helplessly lost unless she was provided with a knife and fork, to say nothing of a plate; indeed she was wont to say that the fruit never tasted quite the same unless it was a dessert plate. And speaking of her mother...
"Well, girlie, I wondered if I should find you here. Weaving pleasant dreams about the future?"
Walburga had provided herself with two library books, several magazines and a correspondence compendium. All these things lay unopened on the grass, however, and it was more than probable that in the usual acceptance of the term she had been "dreaming." But how was it possible to return a complaisant answer when addressed as "girlie?"
"No, Mother. I was thinking what a perfectly rotten time I seem to be running up against."
"Oh," said Amy, recognizing by the portents that this was not going to be a tell-it-all-to-mother talk. "Do you know that you are getting just a wee bit slangy, dear? I don't fancy that young men really approve of too much of it in a girl they like to think of, although they may seem to encourage it in the others. Besides, I am sure that everything is turning out very satisfactory."
"I'm sure it is—for you. But then it always docs, you know, whatever happens."
"Yes, I've noticed that," agreed Amy thoughtfully. Providence certainly did seem to be on her side, so there must be something in it. "But I must say I wish I knew what Mr. Cheam really intends doing. It is so confusing. He has said that he was going and then said that he was staying eight times since he came here. I know that you don't mean any harm, dear, but as you and Eustace Moon seem to understand one another now, don't you think that you are treating Mr. Cheam just a little unkindly?"
"Yes," ground out Walburga from between her teeth, "I am being perfectly beastly. And the worst of it is, from something Papa dropped this morning, I'm not sure now that there isn't a ghastly mistake about the whole business. There's one consolation, though," she added with savage satisfaction, "if it hurts him it hurts me a jolly sight more!"
That is the worst of carrying on an intimate conversation in the shadow of a leafy barrier. Scarcely more than yesterday it was Cheam circumvented by a privet hedge; now it was Walburga's turn to be betrayed by the espalier. Not more than a couple of yards away Burman's head suddenly appeared through the bars of the arrangement, leaf-crowned like a Bacchant.
"Do you really mean that, Walburga?" he demanded keenly. "Sorry, but I couldn't help hearing: I was looking for a—a bird's nest. Is it true, my precious?"
"Tell him it's all a mistake," counselled Amy in a rapid whisper. "It's a splendid opportunity to break it to him about Eustace. Let him see that it's all settled. If he talks about going say we're sorry but it will really be for the best. I'll run away and leave you —— —— —" and run away she did, but not for getting, with instinctive tact, to turn and call back, "I've just remembered about the rhubarb," to show that Mr. Cheam's appearance had no connexion at all with her sudden departure.
"No, no!" Walburga was meanwhile shrilling, to drown the whisper. "No, no; I didn't! You mustn't take any notice of that. I wasn't thinking what I was saying."
"But that's the very time to take notice if you want to get at what a woman really means," wisely responded Burman. "Hold on there for half a minute."
"It isn't fair; it isn't fair!" chanted Walburga defiantly, but showing no inclination not to "hold on."
"You were off-side, and you had no business to listen."
"Well, I'm not now," he said, coming round the end of the espalier. "You've got to own up, you little devil. What about it?"
"It's no good, Mr. Cheam; it really isn't," she protested. "The fact is—oh, before we part for ever... Was she really so very beautiful, Burman?"
"Beautiful? Who?" he demanded blankly.
"The hideous South American negress, of course. That obscene cat, Judy."
"Walburga"—Cheam managed to look extraordinarily solemn for a moment—" she is not so black as you would paint her. Why, you queer kid," he cried, brimming over with delight at the relief he felt, "do you mean that that absurd business is all that stands between us? I'm dead certain I can get my promise back within an hour or two—he must when I tell him what it's led to—and then I can put myself right. You'll nearly die with laughing."
Walburga doubted it. People said things like that and then when it came she smiled faintly and politely. Moreover, if Burman put himself right and she had been a ninny, it plainly put her wrong, and she never was in the wrong—or very, very rarely. "Besides, there's Eustace Moon now," she concluded.
"What, that fellow?" In the enthusiasm of finding how well everything was going, Cheam had forgotten all about his rival. "But you are not engaged to him?"
"No, I'm not—at least not properly. But"—a little doubtfully as she looked back over one or two recent passages—" he may imagine that I am more engaged to him than I really am."
"Then you must undeceive him at once, Walburga. As it is—by what you say—he may think that you are. He may even go about telling people so."
"It isn't all that easy to undeceive him sometimes," demurred Walburga. "He's rather dense, you know—and I—well, I'm really sorry for him."
"But you don't mean to say that because you are sorry for a chap—"
"No; not that alone.... What I actually said to him was that if he..." Walburga began to discover that she was not perhaps absolutely clear on what basis the ifs and buts of her "understanding" with Eustace Moon could be honourably adjusted.
"Go on," said Burman.
"It's so difficult to explain things like these when you are talking to someone else. You see... No, Burman, it wouldn't be cricket after what I think I really did say. If he believes that I am engaged to him—"
"But surely you must know whether he believes that you are engaged to him"—Burman felt the awkwardness of the discussion, but the mess had to be straightened out—" by the way things go on."
"No, you can't; that's the funny part about it," declared Walburga frankly. "There's a—a something queer about it all."
"Do you mean that the fellow mesmerizes you?" asked Burman, who had heard of such cases.
"Oh, no. It's much more as if I mesmerized him. He sort of gives you the impression of struggling but helpless. But if he claims that I promised and announces it—I shall play the game. He is really very sensitive, although being so—so broad, you mightn't think it. It would be too brutal to let him announce that we were engaged in all good faith, and then flatly deny it. He couldn't help but think that I had done it all on purpose. No, no, Burman, I simply couldn't do it."
"Well, there'll be no need to if only you put him right in time. You can do it awfully well, I'm sure, Walburga. Bit by bit, you know, without hurting his feelings.... And there the fellow is—over by the tomatoes. Look here. I'll send him across to you and then you can get it over."
It seemed the best thing to be done and Walburga braced herself for the coming explanation. She had no doubt at all about the disposal of her feelings—she never had had—but she had a sincere respect for Mr. Moon now, and she wouldn't for the world hurt him. In a way... if Burman Cheam had never existed... well, it may be supposed that it is difficult to have a large, uncommunicative man (one would not regard Moon as exactly strong and silent) absolutely devoted to you for weeks without finding it a little moving. And then Eustace would have been so reliable, so comfortably solid.... In the years to come she would always think of him very, very kindly.
She watched Burman make his way to the tomatoes and then there followed a short exchange of conversation. Moon seemed to be protesting somewhat, with Burman apparently insisting. Walburga divined what it was all about. Eustace had been practising returns against the boiler-house wall and a wild drive had brought him down into that part of the garden. He was in his shirt-sleeves, the bright blue blazer that had recently appeared having been discarded for the exertion... and now he was urging that he ought not to break off for conversation with a lady without going back to replace it. But it ended in Burman prevailing. Now for it.
"Mr. Cheam has just told me that you have something particular that won't keep, Walburga. Otherwise, I should not have ventured—"
"Yes, I think I ought to tell you at once, Mr. Moon," began Walburga. "I have been thinking of what you said to me in the conservatory this morning —— —"
"And I have been thinking of what you said to me," broke in Eustace, giving way to an irresponsible exaltation that was very unlike him. "I have thought of nothing else ever since. The more I think of it the clearer it becomes how much more you meant than you actually said. The modest reticence—"
"But I never meant you to think——"
"No, no; of course you didn't. It was my own dullness, my stupid hopelessness. You said as much as any really nice girl could, while I was too slow and diffident to claim the rest. I ought to have swept you off your feet with a flood of impassioned eloquence that would have swamped the last frail barrier of your maiden bashfulness. I shall not make that mistake a second time; I shall claim you before the whole world as—"
"You must listen to me, Mr. Moon. It is all a mistake; we can't go on like this. If I encouraged you for a single moment to think that there could be a secret understanding between us, I was wrong. I really meant—"
"That is the only thing that was required to complete my happiness! You are quite right, Walburga. Why should we make a secret of it? I am overjoyed that I have your permission to announce it so soon, dear."
Walburga felt at her wits' end. Was she preordained to espouse the Honourable Eustace simply because he couldn't understand that she didn't want him? Short of yelling into his ear, "I'm not going to marry you, so there! Get away! Go!" nothing apparently would undeceive him. Even to the outspoken girl this seemed a painfully brusque way of declining an honourable proposal; and the farther the state of things progressed the severer would be his disillusionment. Still, something must be done: she would try speaking just a little plainer, and, fortunately, Moon now looked like being willing to listen instead of proclaiming his own transports, when, to her dismay, several people suddenly appeared quite near them. It was obvious what had happened. Amy, returning to the house, had encountered her husband with Mr. Harker. Thinking that Burman Cheam would have been dismissed by this time, and the moment perhaps ripe for an announcement, she had adroitly lured them in this direction, with Cheam, uneasily observant, hanging on their flank and, as they approached the danger point, drawing nearer.
To Eustace Moon it was like a providential happening. Walburga had just said that their secret must be told, and, as if impelled by fate, these various people converged on them to share it. He took a few steps towards them, with a backward glance of encouragement towards Walburga to join him. They ought to be hand in hand, or, at least, conveniently near together.
"This is the very thing," he remarked aside. "Her father and mother come first, of course, and these others are sufficiently friends of the family." When they had all but met he stopped, cleared his throat—not nervously, but with the full consciousness of an occasion—and began to address them. In the background Walburga could only gasp like a newly-landed fish and refuse to look at Burman. It had all come about so suddenly, so unforeseen had been the inopportune arrival. After all, you cannot stop a thing before you have quite realized that it is going to happen.
"Mr and Mrs. Coppinger and gentlemen," he said with quiet dignity. "I have an interesting—"
But what could George Banks want at such a moment? He had come rather stealthily from behind the espalier where apparently he had been lurking, and he approached Mr. Moon with some obscure but definite intention. In his hands he held, albeit rather gingerly, something bright that tinkled, and with this he proceeded laboriously to handcuff the stupefied and unresisting Eustace. Then Mr. Banks wiped his face profusely with a large red handkerchief and turned towards the espalier.
"What is it that I have to say to him?" he inquired hazily. "Tell it me over again."
"Edward Whitwish alias the Honourable Eustace Moon, I arrest you as an escaped convict from His Majesty's prison of Dartmoor," hissed the prompting voice from among the pear trees, and Mr. Banks said it.
"WHAT does he mean?" asked the bewildered Eustace. He had something on his mind but he was far from being a convict. He looked at the people round about him in turn and then definitely addressed himself to Peter. No one seemed to have any explanation to offer, but of course you will have guessed already. Yes; S. Holmes, that dark and sinister figure threading his inscrutable way among the weaving fabric of the Foxgrove drama with all the relentless influence of Fate in a Greek play, S. Holmes had sleuthed a clue at last and forthwith shot his bolt with complete and deadly effect. As he in turn disclosed himself from behind the pear espalier it might be seen that he carried on his arm Mr. Moon's neglected jacket, and that from one of its pockets there hung some six inches of mud-stained stocking—pheonstamped and tell-tale.
"What the—" demanded Peter, who rarely spoke so strongly, "the devil, sir, do you think you're doing?"
"And I further warn you," continued S. Holmes, with a fine unconcern towards the popular excitement, "that anything you may say will be used as evidence against you. Now, go on," and he produced a notebook and found a blank page ready for the expected incrimination.
"But this is absurd, Mr. Holmes; ridiculously absurd and an outrage on a guest here. The man you are wanting is—at least so I understand—a thin, undersized wisp of a fellow: the exact opposite of Mr. Moon in fact."
S. Holmes was busily engaged in making notes—presumably of the exact minute of the day, the direction of the wind, and the paced distance of the culprit from the espalier—but he found time to drop an occasional word of explanation.
"What the man we want is like I can't say yet. I haven't been furnished with any description of him."
"You haven't been furnished with a description of the man you are looking for!" incredulously voiced Peter. "Why—what—how—"
S. Holmes briefly indicated the protrusive rag with his damning pencil as he significantly turned a page.
"That is quite enough identification for me, Mr. Coppinger. Nothing handicaps one more than a hard and fast description of an individual. You might never find a man to answer to it in a lifetime."
"Still," interposed Mr. Harker with some tartness, "I suppose it must be reasonably obvious even to you that a convict would be a person with a fairly close-
cropped head and a clean-shaven face—or at the most a few days' stubble."
"You are a lawyer, Mr. Harker; you should know that you can't expect every little detail to fit in from the first minute," retorted Mr. Holmes, glowering darkly across at Harker over the edge of his notebook. "There's been no time to work the case up yet. You'll see that we shall be able to dovetail everything in when once we set about it."
"Mrs. Coppinger, I appeal to you," entreated Eustace. "I assure you that I haven't the least idea how that wretched article got into my pocket."
"Besides, you'd scarcely expect the real convict to carry about an odd stocking as a keepsake, would you?" demanded Harker.
"That's all right as the counsel for the defence, Mr. Harker. But it's not what you expect that we've got to go on but what we actually find people doing."
"But surely you must see, Mr. Holmes," explained Amy with gracious logic, "that as Mr. Moon is a guest of ours there could scarcely be anything wrong about him."
Peter, who had the best of all reasons for knowing that Moon was not the convict, thought that it was about time to settle the matter by a very simple but conclusive line of argument. He could deal with the officious foolishness of Holmes and the naïveté of George Banks later.
"But the great thing, my dear," he said, coming forward emphatically and addressing his wife and the private detective in turn as the point developed "—the crux of the whole situation, Mr. Holmes—is that you, Amy, know Mr. Moon personally as the son of Lord Letchworth.... Mrs. Coppinger knew Mr. Moon and invited him here long before there was any escaped convict, and she can vouch for his identity. That demolishes any mere suspicions that you may have completely."
Nothing could be clearer. Everyone saw at once that there was no more to be said about it. Everyone, that is, except S. Holmes, who remained mysteriously unshaken, Mr. Moon, increasingly uneasy, and Mrs. Coppinger, who began to have a slightly puzzled air of trying to catch up to something.
"No, dear, no; it was not quite like that," she felt obliged to remind him. "If you remember, it was you who brought Mr. Moon here. Of course, as soon as we had met and I found how exceedingly nice he was, I naturally pressed Mr. Moon to remain as long as he could, but until then I had never had the pleasure of seeing him."
"But, my dear," in turn expostulated Peter, "this is surely a misunderstanding. I gathered from something or other, that you had become acquainted with Mr. Moon at a friend's house where you were staying. As for me, I—I really don't know him at all. I never saw or heard of him until he turned up here last week."
"Well, Peter," declared Amy, very reasonably feeling that she had excellent ground for a grievance, "all I can say is that when I went into the drawing-room one day and found Mr. Moon sitting there, I quite naturally took it for granted that he was a friend of yours."
Everyone began to look at one another. Everyone, that is, except S. Holmes, who continued to make notes with complete detachment, and George Banks who obviously felt the sun.
"Mr. Moon," exclaimed both Amy and Peter on a common impulse, "do you mind—"
Both stopped and Amy nodded, just a wee bit crossly, to Peter.
"We're in rather an awkward position, Mr. Moon," confessed the chief explainer. "Would you kindly inform us whose exact guest you are here?"
"I'm afraid that I can scarcely do that," admitted Mr. Moon. "It is, in fact, a question that I have frequently addressed to myself during the past week."
"Well, but how did you get here?" persisted Mr. Harker, seeing that both host and hostess were speechless. "Surely you can tell us something?
"I am coming to that, Mr. Harker," replied Eustace—and it is to be recorded that even in that trying position he managed to convey an air of large, personal dignity. "Some little time ago I had occasion to call here in connexion with a small business matter. I was shown into the drawingroom, and while I was waiting there, a lady—Mrs. Coppinger, as I now know—came in and, seeing me, very graciously at once pressed me to take a cup of tea. I stayed to tea and—and in some inexplicable but, I assure you, perfectly natural and un designing way, I seem to have stayed ever since."
What was there to do but to make the best of it in the circumstances? Amy decided to make it.
"However we first became acquainted, I consider it a very fortunate accident," she said. "I hope that Mr. Moon won't desert us on the grounds that we got him here on false pretences."
"Quite so, my dear. I hope not indeed," contributed Peter, backing her up loyally if with rather less accentuation.
"The Honourable Eustace Moon! Ahem!"
So spake S. Holmes, and with a most unpleasant intonation. It was the first spontaneous remark that he had made, and it carried the impression—priceless to a man of his vocation—of inferring a great deal more than was on the surface.
"Do you mean—?" suggested Harker, voicing what all the others were thinking.
Mr. Holmes did not deign any reply at all, directly. He could afford not to. From the pocket of his delightful notebook he proceeded very deliberately to select a newspaper cutting, and having made sure with leisurely unconcern that it was the one he wanted he held it at arm's length and in a rather tired voice went on to declaim its contents for their enlightenment. It was the farthest he would go towards pandering to the craving for spectacular sensation. If they cared to listen, well and good, if not—As a matter of fact, they did care.
PEER'S SON AND ACTRESS
The latest defection from the London stage is that of Miss Tryphena Flatt, one of the eight charming "Sphinx Girls," now appearing nightly in the phenomenally successful revue, "Turn Your Toes Out," at the Hilarity Theatre. The first intimation of this romantic affair was contained in a letter delivered at the theatre during the course of yesterday, in which Miss Flatt stated that she had just married the Honourable Eustace Moon, seventh son of Lord Letchworth, at the Strand District Registrar's Office, and had no intention of returning. Upon inquiry we learn that the enviable young couple left for Folkestone, en route for Paris, later in the day.
Mr. Moon—our Mr. Moon—laughed a little constrainedly. He had rather a weak, foolish laugh, Amy noticed.
"Yes, that comes at an awkward moment, doesn't it?" he remarked vaguely. "It's just the sort of thing he would do, too."
"Perhaps you will explain, sir," suggested Peter stiffly.
"Yes, of course. I've tried to—I've really been on the point of explaining for a week. Believe me, Mr. Coppinger, and you, madam, I've actually begun the words a dozen times and something has always intervened to stop me."
"This is a very good opportunity to begin again," said Peter. Doubtless he would feel sorry for Eustace later, but Amy, to say nothing of Walburga, came before him. "Nobody is likely to stop you."
"Well, you see, Mr. Eustace Moon is one of our directors. He has always been, as I understand, a little—"
"But who are you, sir; that is the point," demanded Mr. Harker. "Who are you?"
"As a matter of fact, my name is Blimes—Arthur Blimes—and I am a traveller. I'm with the proprietors of the 'Quite-so' sewing-machine—a punning title, you will observe, to meet American and cheap German competition: quite-so, quiet sew, in other words noiseless—the 'Quite-so' automatic check-action compensation shuttle sewer."
"You called here to sell me a sewing-machine!" gasped Amy.
"That, madam, was the sole original purpose of my visit."
"But you said that you were the Honourable Eustace Moon," she protested. "You must have said so."
"Not directly, madam; but I will admit that I allowed you to infer it. As I was explaining, Lord Letchworth has influence with our heads, and so we had to find a post for Mr. Eustace. We tried him in the office and he was no good there, and we tried him in the warehouse and he was no good there. So we made him a director. Of course he was no good there either but he couldn't do much real harm. To make up, for he rather felt it, he suggested himself that the travellers should use his name."
"Are we to understand," demanded Mr. Harker, "that there are possibly dozens of these imitation
Moons revolving in their various orbits and shedding a fictitious brilliance over the merits of the 'Quite-so' sewing-machine?"
"Exactly. It is a slight business fiction. We call as Mr. Eustace's representative and so, for the time, we are Mr. Eustace, in the sense that a carman at the door may say that he is 'Pickford,' or a newspaper reporter announce himself as The Times. Hitherto no harm has ever come of it, and as the majority of ladies consider that they are getting better value by placing their order with the son of a lord, it works advantageously all round."
It was impossible to doubt the sincerity of Mr. Moon's disclosure. The lack of sleuth in S. Holmes's attitude as good as confessed it, though he continued to display the incriminating stocking as significantly as ever. Mr. Banks would doubtless have been equally convinced had he not experienced such extreme difficulty in keeping, as he himself described it, more awake-like. A condition approaching stalemate was happily averted by the arrival of Warder Stubbs, sought out and hurried to the scene by Burman. When everyone else was arguing futilely with Mr. Holmes, this simple extrication had occurred to Walburga.
"Is that the man you're looking for?" asked Cheam.
Stubbs scarcely troubled to glance at the person indicated.
"No; couldn't be more unlike if you picked one," he answered, and then he did look, pointedly—but in another direction.
"S. Holmes!" he articulated with a nasty, grating laugh, and he went off again, whistling—rather curiously Amy thought—a hymn tune.
"Remove those handcuffs, Banks," said Peter shortly, and Banks, not unrelieved to be clear of the doubtful business, obeyed him.
"Of course if Stubbs knows no better than answer a leading question like that—!" snarled Mr.
Holmes in high dudgeon. The inference was—the casting from him of the blue coat symbolized it—that Princetown would have to do its own convict catching for the future; and, in fact, although no one noticed it thereafter (a high tribute to his adaptability), S. Holmes disappeared from the Foxgrove scene from that moment.
"Well, Mr. Blimes," said Harker, as Eustace resumed his garment, "I think on the whole that you may congratulate yourself on getting off pretty cheaply."
Say what you will, Mr. Moon was a good loser. There was nothing of the whipped dog about him now; there had never been anything of the peacock before. Who among them could have come through such a surfeit of misfortune—robbed of a betrothed, handcuffed as a convict, and exposed for a gross fraud, all within five minutes—and still conveyed the impression of almost unruffled dignity?
"Yes, yes," he replied, weighing it thoughtfully, "I suppose you would think so. Doubtless that's what you all think.... Very well, Miss Coppinger, I won't; but you see it is to be the pig-sty wall as usual!"—an enigmatic leave-taking that puzzled Amy not a little. "And now perhaps I had better say 'Good afternoon,' and I beg to thank you all for your very great kindness."
"Oh, but surely you will stay at least and have a cup of tea before—"
"Amy!" expostulated Peter.
"Well, upon my word, you know, the fellow doesn't carry it off at all badly," declared Mr. Harker, striving to infuse an element of cheerfulness into an atmosphere that seemed to have become universally self-conscious. "I doubt if the real Moon has anything like the presence."
"I think it must be time for me to see about the flowers," said Amy. "I suppose you are going to the Bird Room, Peter?"
"Well, neither of you wants me," remarked Harker. "What about a round of tennis, young lady?"
"Couldn't raise a four," objected Walburga, looking for more pears. Burman was something of a rabbit but he would have to be included.
"No, I suppose we couldn't now," agreed Harker. "Eh! what have we here? By Jingo!"
They had Mr. Moon returning—not a partially eclipsed moon, but an alert, self-possessed, facts-at-his-finger-ends young man, who could outlast or talk down any housewife. In his hands were leaflets, booklets, pamphlets and several other forms of commercial literature, and these he proceeded to shed broadcast as he spoke, until the scene resembled a rural beauty-spot in August.
"It occurred to me," he rattled off glibly, "that in case any of you might happen to be wanting a really reliable sewing-machine, I may as well leave a few particulars of some of our leading specialities. Our latest model, O.K. 26, I can thoroughly recommend for family and general utility purposes. A.A. 37 is a cheaper article but equal at all points to the much higher-priced American makes, while 'Bijou Wonder 15' is a special design which many of our most exacting lady customers find both light in touch and efficient in result for the more delicate branches of needlecraft."
"I think I should like one of those," said Amy, who had become really interested.
"It's the very thing that Mrs. Harker has been talking about for months," volunteered Harker. "You'll book one to us, won't you?"
"My people asked me to buy them a couple while I was this way," remarked Burman Cheam, presumably forgetting for the moment that an elderly uncle constituted his only "people."
"One each of the—er, largest tonnage would about fill it."
"I need six: two of each kind," chimed in Walburga. No one seemed to think it strange that she should require a different machine for each day of the week, but Walburga was prepared to refute anyone who questioned. "They are badly wanted in the village, you know," she remarked at large, in convincing explanation.
Our Mr. Moon bowed slightly, as he turned to go, in acknowledgment of these strictly business favours.
"I will note your various requirements," he said, with a nice balance of the old and new demeanours, "and the consignments will follow in due order. If you will kindly address your remittances to the head office I shall receive the full benefit of your esteemed patronage."
Amy and Walburga were strolling slowly back towards the house, for Amy was sure that tea must be nearly ready. Amy's arm was round her daughter's waist and, much as she disliked that sort of thing, Walburga felt that after the business of the afternoon the least she could do was to leave it there.
"I suppose my little girl is convinced now that she knows better than her old mother," remarked Amy sentimentally. "Anyway, dear, I hope that you are satisfied."
"Oh, well," said Walburga, who was on the fundamentally different plane that she never saw the good of talking for hours round a thing that had been settled; "I suppose I found out that I should never be happy without Burman."
"H'm; perhaps not. I know that my opinion goes for very little, but from what I saw of your natures I came to the conclusion that you would never be happy with him."
Walburga bit into her last pear before replying. It proved to be deceptive and rotten from the core so she spat the fragment out and hurled the rest at a skimming blackbird.
"Then as I am to be unhappy either way, I may just as well have him, Mother," she decided. "I shall at least be Burman to the good in that case."
BURMAN CHEAM had just returned from escorting Walburga as far as Plymorchard when he encountered Walburga's father hunting for him around the garden. The salient points about Mr. Coppinger at that moment were a harassed look and an open letter.
"They told me that you had gone out somewhere," he remarked a little vaguely. "Look here, Cheam, are you any good at French—I mean in the way of talking?"
"Only just enough to be able to say that I don't understand it," admitted Burman, with the usual insular diffidence about possessing that acquirement. "Why?"
"I've been trying with a 'Tourist's Travel Talk' and a French grammar to make out the gist of this letter, and there doesn't seem to be any doubt about it," replied Peter. "There's a deputation coming, Cheam, a deputation of Frenchmen. Isn't that about the limit?"
"Well, for that matter the limit seems continually being raised," said Burman. "What does the deputation want?"
"They want to see the Groo-Groo—that's the deuce of it. With luck I could generally hold off a single native or two, but it will be no go with six or eight at once who won't be able to understand me when I tell them that they're not to. The sands are running down, Cheam. We shan't stand the ghost of a chance against this lot."
Taking one thing with another, Burman was inclined to admit that unless something were done, and done rather quickly, Mr. Coppinger accurately outlined the situation.
"Who are they?" he asked.
"They represent some high-sounding Paris bird society—that's plain enough: 'Société' and 'Ornithologie' aren't beyond me—and being over here in London on that sort of business they seem suddenly to have got the idea of working this in as well. But I don't see why the fellow who is writing should go on to say anything about his sex, do you? Of course one knows that the French are rather—" He carried it no further, relying on this young sailor's experience of foreign parts to know that the French are, well, rather —
"No, does he?" agreed Burman. "What does he say about it?"
"Well, I gather that what he really means is that no ladies will be among the party. Perhaps he thinks that we are very particular down here in the country and mightn't like the idea of them travelling about together. Anyway, there it is: 'Mon gendre est,' that bit here, down to 'de la délégation aussi.'"
"Oh, ah, yes," said Burman, glancing at the passage. "I think, after all, it's only his foreign way of saying that his son-in-law will form one of the deputation. Shall I go on with the letter?"
"Yes, do, by all means," assented Peter. "Of course I only knocked it out in the rough. I should like to hear what you make of it."
"Very much the same as what you do," replied the diplomatic Burman. "I see they propose to confer on you the Honorary Fellowship and Badge of the Society while they're down here."
"Oh, they do, eh? I thought there must be a line or two on the second page that I hadn't accounted for somehow. I suppose it's only a bit of ribbon put in one's buttonhole, after all, Cheam—not a medal or anything solid."
"Very likely," admitted Burman. "But what about the deputation, sir? The bird won't bear looking into now by half a dozen experts who can't understand properly what we say to them or we what they say to us. They'll want to get right up to it. They're bound to spot something fishy. You'll have to put them off, sir."
"That's all very well, Cheam, but do you notice that this fellow writes on their own official paper and forgets to give any London address that will find him?"
"You're right," said Cheam, taking another look. "That tears it!"
"As a matter of fact, Cheam," continued Peter wisely, "I don't suppose they want a wire from me to be able to find them. They know that if they turn up here to-morrow I can't very well in decency refuse to show them round, and so they've fixed it.... I shouldn't wonder if Trescote himself hasn't put them up to something. Very likely told them that I'm jealous of showing it."
"Well, you will refuse them if you listen to the small voice of reason—refuse to let them within ten yards of the bird on any terms—no matter what excuse we have to make up about it. The fact is, I've been wanting to speak to you about this all the morning. We ought to get Whitwish away now. I can't patch him up much longer; the skin wasn't dressed for lasting. We're all sitting round a volcano."
"I know it, Cheam; I know it as well as you do—possibly better. The mischief is that we can't get Whitwish away—less now than ever. You know that the roads are still watched?"
Burman Cheam nodded. He had noticed something significant that very day as he went with Walburga through Plymorchard.
"I have every reason for believing that they certainly are," he replied.
"Well, they're being watched closer than before, let me tell you. Last night they got the second of the other convicts who escaped—got him in a shed less than a mile away. They're more convinced than ever that Whitwish has never been far off, and even that business of the stocking turning up the other day is taken as confirmation."
"But that means nothing at all. It had been lying in the garden all the time, so Whitwish told me."
"Of course it had. There's nothing in it, but it just serves to remind someone that there's another convict at large still, and so a few more men are clapped on and fresh instructions sent round to get on with it. I tell you, Cheam, Whitwish couldn't cross the road within five miles of Foxgrove without being challenged."
"Then he must lie doggo for a time. We can easily find somewhere about the grounds or buildings where we can hide him. The point is that the Groo-Groo's as good as worn out. I can't guarantee it not to moult or split or fall to pieces wholesale any time now, if it once gets started."
"My lad," said Peter kindly, "I wanted to keep you out of this convict affair, and what I want now is to keep you from getting into it any deeper. If Whitwish is to be hidden I'll hide him. But—"
"But what?"
"If he goes the Groo-Groo necessarily disappears, and that's going to be very awkward. I can't say it flew away because its wings aren't made for flying, and if I say it just naturally died I've got to be prepared with something reasonable about the body."
"It's your bird, sir, after all."
"Ay, ay; but it's more or less a public character now, and although I could take a high hand if I had nothing to be afraid of, as it is I can't afford to."
"Is there anything particular?" asked Cheam, who had his own reasons for wanting to know just how the land lay. "Anything fresh in the situation?"
Mr. Coppinger looked round, as though he suspected eavesdroppers, before replying—they were about a score of yards away from any possible cover—and took Cheam's arm to emphasize the need of caution.
"Unless I'm very much mistaken there's something getting about, Cheam, and I'm powerless to stop it. It's in the air—a sort of magnetic feeling that things are not quite as they should be. I don't know how far it's gone, or where it started, but although no one might like to say exactly what he thinks about it yet, there's no doubt that the bird is under suspicion."
"All the more reason for getting it out of the way before there's anything definite, I might suggest, sir."
"It's what I suggest to myself several hundred times a day, but that doesn't get me any farther. The fundamental weakness, Cheam, is that the position is strategically untenable. If Whitwish isn't to be discovered, he must be hid away: if he's hid away the bird comes to a mysterious end; if the bird comes to a mysterious end suspicion will be heightened; if suspicion is heightened it's more than likely that close search will then be made here; if close search is made here Whitwish, hidden away, will be discovered. That's what's called the 'vicious circle,' young man, and it's what I'm going round and round in."
"Very well," said Cheam. "I suppose we must trust to luck for something." His side of the conversation had been a move to find out whether Peter had any definite plans for the immediate future.
Plainly he had nothing. "I only wish I could take on more to help you."
"That's all right, Cheam," said Peter amiably; "no one could improve it. I always have the assurance if you're about that no matter what I may say it will be loyally backed up with the most convincing details. It isn't your fault if the job we've dropped on is rather beyond our combined weight. And yet a few days ago I was thinking that if only I was clear of Trescote and his infernal Society, everything would become plain sailing. And now—"
"Well, you are clear of them, aren't you?"
"Yes; but now it's these confounded 'Ornithologies' that we can't even lie to. Of course it's a great relief to be under no conditions, but just for the moment it's out of the frying-pan into the fire."
"The fire, now," mused Burman thoughtfully, as the wooden roof of the Bird Room caught his eye across the farther tree-tops. "Yes; why not? That's an idea certainly."
TO leave the situation fatalistically to luck was about the last thing that Burman Cheam was contemplating. During the previous twenty-four hours he had been clubbing his brains ruthlessly to knock out a bright idea, but so far without achievement. Any scheme, he postulated, would involve Whitwish's acceptance of some new risk and Peter's ignorance of the whole proceeding. He could not take the chance of his father-in-law elect putting down his foot at anyone but himself becoming involved beyond extrication in the escapade, and the young man cheerfully admitted that if anything went wrong he would probably be in it up to the eyelids. But by this time he was more than satisfied that it was someone's business to take Mr. Coppinger in hand and to wind up his excursion into crime on the best terms that offered. And who more fitting than Walburga's future husband?
He was still as far away from the complete and perfect plan as ever, but Peter's last words had held the germ of a brilliant finish. There was, he remembered reading, an ingenious writer of romances who spun his plots around an effective climax, and therefrom proceeded backwards—possibly a good enough way where one could dictate the terms, but in real life not very helpful.
By this time Peter had gone on, and the situation did not seem to invite further conversation. Cheam aimlessly turned his steps from the direction of the house until he found himself at the front gate and staring idly up and down the Plymorchard road. At the sound of the rattle of iron as Burman leaned against it, Warder Stubbs casually detached his form from the leafy depths of the hedge somewhere near and, having satisfied himself, nodded a curt greeting. So Mr. Coppinger had not been beside the mark; even Foxgrove was under observation.
"Afternoon, Stubbs," said Burman, taking out a case of cigarettes as an excuse to linger. "Anything doing?"
"I understand that there is a Fruit and Flower Show and Village Fête in a marquee the other side of Plymorchard," admitted the sardonic warder, human, however, to the extent of accepting Cheam's simple offer. "As one of the unlanded classes and a strict non-dancer I see nothing in it."
Burman laughed dutifully, at the same time wondering whether this was diplomacy or only local humour. He tried once more.
"I mean in the business sense. No fresh drive for that missing convict?"
"Nothing that has come my way, sir. But," he added with a private smile that might possess some meaning, "of course they don't confide everything to one in my position."
It was diplomacy then, he decided. There was nothing to be got in that discreet quarter. Burman had turned away—his hand was on the gate again—when the throb of a motor-cycle drifted up the valley that shut in the road to Plymorchard.
"Wait!" whispered a good fairy in Cheam's ear, and for no other reason in the world he waited. There was nothing arresting in the fact of a rider at that hour or in that place; there was nothing significant in Stubbs remaining by the roadside; there was nothing at all in it, from beginning to end or from top to bottom or from side to side, but that faint insoluble element in human affairs that sooner or later decides their ends "rough-hew them how we will." He waited.
As the cyclist came up the road it was evident that Stubbs was also waiting. Cheam had half-expected him to hide, and he was wondering whether it was to witness the never undiverting sight of authority dissembling that he had stayed when the warder stepped well out into the road and held up his hand as a warning. The cyclist was then no more than two score yards away, and even in the failing light an ordinarily alert eye could sum up his build and figure. At once the engine changed its note and, droning mournfully, the machine slowed down and drew up beside the awaiting figure.
"Sorry to trouble you," said Stubbs with cool formality, "but I should like to take a look at your licence."
The rider—he was in the full rig and panoply affected by the toughest spirits of the road—slowly disencumbered himself of gauntlets, deliberately pushed up his paralysing goggles, and favoured the warder with a long, steady stare of personal challenge.
"Well, you're all pretty near word-perfect, if that's what you're trying over," he retorted in a high, thin voice, when he had looked as much as he wanted. "Bit slow in the movement of the arm, you are, Giovanni"—evidently a side thrust at Mr. Stubbs's slightly southern aspect—" and if good looks take marks, No. 3 has you dead beaten."
"I don't know what you're talking about. I said—"
"Practising for the Cyclist's Hold-up Open Event at the Police Gymkhana, aren't you?" continued the scoffer. "Or is it that you all feel you're thrown away in this deserted glen and aim at being transferred to point duty outside the Bank of England?"
"Now look here, sir," protested Stubbs, rather impressed than affronted, "you know very well—"
"Or the Homeland Association has maybe inveigled ye to intercept wayfarers and point out the local beauty spots of Devon, Glorious Devon?"
"I said your licence—"
"I know ye did; I have it off be heart be this time. Why damme, man," he suddenly exploded, dropping the tone of banter, "this is the fifth time I've been stopped and asked about it between here and Tawes.
Five blasted times in five blessed miles or may I perish. Isn't it enough to sour the temper of a marmoset the way you'd be behaving?"
Oh, have you then? thought Cheam as he listened to this brisk conversation with an interest that gradually passed from mere amusement to intrigue. So that's it, is it? You're a little sprig of a fellow, Billy Bray—you always were a midget—and under your leather and mica you might be any other little sprig of a fellow. As likely as not Whitwish's prison record says that he can ride and drive and so these chaps want to take a look at you to make certain.... And, by the immortal hokey, Billy, if you might pass for the convict, why couldn't the convict...!
"Begin to get me?" nudged the fairy. "Mo-bike A.Q.Z. 0002, driven by a stripling, has been noted by every look-out!"
"Cock sparrow!" Cheam called softly across the road, falling back on the school nick-name that would at once take Bray's attention. "Whence and whither away?"
The exchange of civilities with the warder had come to an end, and Billy Bray was arranging his gear preparatory to pushing off again when the words reached him. For a moment he looked aggressively at the speaker as if suspecting that this covered another attack from some new quarter. Then the frown gave way to a pleased grin of recognition, and chortling with mirth he skipped across to the gate and seized Cheam's hand in his ladylike fingers.
"Old Devonshire Cream, by the holy Moses!" he exclaimed in the same reminiscent spirit. "What in the name of wonders that never cease are you doing here, Cheam?"
"I'm courting a rich widow now," replied Burman, patting the gate stanchion in a proprietorial manner. "And what brings you this way, Billy?"
"I'm looking up an ancient aunt who lives at a place called Muggerhampton. Do you happen to know a Miss Sposter anywhere in these parts?"
"I don't," admitted Cheam, "but I know Muggerhampton, and it's a lucky thing for you that the warder pulled you up here. You ought to have turned off through a farmyard the matter of a mile and a half back."
"The devil!" ejaculated Bray. "I asked and they never told me so—or if they did they didn't tell me in good plain English. Never mind, Cheam; it's an ill wind—and I'd go farther than twice that out of me way on the back chance that I might see ye."
"Well, you wouldn't have done if it hadn't been for the warder. And that reminds me, Billy—you insulted him something shameful. The man only did his duty, besides being in a manner a friend of mine. Smooth it over, Billy, with the slip of a coin into his palm, or he'll have a black thought against you likely."
Moods did not seem to weigh very heavily on Mr. William Bray's social system. He had left Stubbs with a backward curse and the hope that he would soon meet with a fatal accident that would involve his neck in an appropriate tincture. He reapproached him with a sunny smile and a handsome compliment to the tactful way in which he carried out his duties, at the same time suggesting that if the warder could find time later to drink all their healths it would put Mr. Bray himself under a deep personal obligation. For reasons not wholly altruistic Cheam put in a soothing argument on his own account.
"That's all right, sir," Stubbs assured him aside, as he pocketed a couple of shillings. "Bit of Irish about him, isn't there? I don't take any notice of half of what that sort say when they're put out. They don't really mean it."
"Now you're coming in, Billy, to dust your throat," said Cheam, taking his friend's arm with what appeared to even Mr. Bray's warm temperament to be truly hospitable insistence. "And afterwards," he added, speaking with a singular explicitness to one who was at his elbow, "afterwards I'll jump up behind and put you on the right way, or you're as likely as not to miss it."
Ten minutes sufficed to get everything in train, as the three conspirators arranged for the obsequies of the Groo-Groo in the Bird Room.
"And not a day too soon, sir," remarked Whitwish, displaying the hapless skin for his inspection. "Blest if it didn't split from head to tail just because I stretched myself after the governor had left me. I was reckoning that I should have to beat it a bit later, whatever happened."
"Chuck it into the coop there," directed Burman. "There'll be nothing left of it but a stink of feathers when it next appears. Now for some likely bones to go in with it," and the skeleton of a full-grown ostrich was dragged down and yielded its contribution, for there was no particular need to aim at technical exactness. "Everything will be pretty well mixed up when the roof falls," Cheam commented, "and I shall take good care that the remains are trampled past all fitting together before they're cool enough to handle."
"You won't have much trouble about that, sir," said Whitwish, glancing critically. "Wooden walls, wooden roof, floor, and everything about it. Fairly invites incendiarism. What about a little drop of methylated to get things going?"
"Is there any?"
Whitwish had certainly made good use of his time. Probably there was not a cubic inch in the room that he had not investigated. He indicated certain bottles—old Ralph's stock of taxidermal stuff had not suffered at his nephew's hands—and several quarts of alcohol and other volatile spirit were poured on to the flimsiest objects.
"Look here," said Billy Bray, "I don't pretend to know all the ins and outs of this weird business, but it'll be the queer thing if someone doesn't spot that this hasn't exactly been an accidental outbreak."
"There'll be nothing left to spot," replied Burman, as he pushed a couple of wicker chairs against the Groo-Groo's coop and drenched the lot with benzoline.
"It will be a case of complete combustion. There'll be no one to spot anything, either. Coppinger won't make any insurance claim. So there will be no inquiry."
"I bet he won't," confirmed Whitwish. "Only too glad to see the last of the whole caboodle. What about the local—ahem!—fire brigade, sir?
"Most of them will be at the village fête; in any case, it would take at least a couple of hours for them to get here and be in action. Job will be there too, telling people all about his first prizes, and the servants have gone for the dancing and Mrs and Miss Coppinger to serve refreshments. There's no one about the place but Coppinger himself, so that it couldn't be better. If it gets a fifteen minute start a Metropolitan district call couldn't save it."
"Do we set fire to the house as well?" asked Billy, with an intelligent willingness to do the thing completely.
"My God, no!" cried Cheam, aghast. "For the love of Mike, don't get doing anything funny, son. Now listen, Billy. You lie around after we have gone until the glim here begins to show somewhere on the outside. Then you fetch the house at once and root out old man Coppinger. No standing on ceremony, you understand; he's got to listen."
"Ay, ay, sir," assented Bray. "He shall, if I have to stun him before he'll do it."
"Give him this note and see that he reads it. I'm not mentioning names in case it gets about, but he ought to tumble. If he's hazy, rub it in that our IT ENDS IN SMOKE friend here is clean away by that time and that all traces of the Groo-Groo are being wiped out by a providential fusing of the electric light wires here in the Bird Room."
"O.K.," said Billy. "I've got it."
"Now you," instructed Cheam, turning to the other. "You slip into Mr. Bray's rig and we ride straight out and chance it. He's come down the Plymouth road from as far as Tawes and right through Plymorchard so that we're not likely to be challenged. If we are, we must make a dash for it."
"They may 'phone through and put up a barrier later."
"We've got to risk it, that's all."
Cheam had not thought that Whitwish would develop qualms, but the mannerly convict's next remark astonished him still more.
"I suppose what troubles you, Mr. Bray, is whether you're going to get your rotten old machine back again or whether I shall manage to pinch it?" he demanded, with a sudden change in his manner that was even more offensive than the provocation of the expression.
"What the hell do you mean, talking like that?" demanded Billy, his voice thinning shrilly as it did when he was wrathful. "D'ye think I'd be doing this, ye lousy swine, if it—"
"It's all right, sir," interposed a wholly respectful Whitwish; "I only wanted to hear your ordinary roadside voice unadulterated, and I didn't see any other quick way to get it."
"Do you mean—?"
"I may have to live up to the part, sir. I'm naturally good at that sort of thing, you may take it from me, but there's no time now for rehearsal. I hope you'll never doubt that I'm properly grateful for what you're doing, though of course I know it's only on account of Mr. Cheam here."
"Well, if you aren't the queer lad!" murmured Mr. Bray appreciatively. "I wouldn't have missed the like of this for the new 7 h p. 'Cyclone' that I'm wanting."
"All ready?" asked Burman. "Out then. I'm going to touch it off now."
The pillion-rider slipped down to open the big iron gate as they taxied towards it, and, apprised by the clang, Warder Stubbs appeared to bestow a salute when they trundled past him. It was punctiliously returned by both, for it was not until they were out of sight that Whitwish yielded to the temptation to turn his head for a moment and by a backward jerk indicate to Cheam his appreciation of the humour of the situation.
It was no part of their plan to avoid observation—they were keeping to the track of Bray's route to the last possible furlong—and so they flaunted through Plymorchard, although it could easily have been avoided. A warder marked them in and a suspiciously leisured stranger, curious about wall mosses, marked them out again, but neither was interested. The system seemed to be working.
For the next couple of miles they were side by side with the tumbling Yarle, crossing it at Bathrum Bridge, where a peaked hat for a glancing moment showed in the doorway of the round-house. Past Ashstow—in whose narrow street Whitwish peremptorily horned a police-driven car to make way—they left the vale and, in the closing darkness, entered on the long "straight mile" that, rising every inch of its incline, would bring them direct into Tawes. Beyond Tawes....
"What-ho!" sang out Whitwish over his shoulder, and at the same moment Burman saw it. Half-way up the stretch—barely fifty yards ahead of them—a flash-lamp was describing meaning circles. Their own head-light just picked up a uniformed figure. Cheam bent forward.
"Open out!" he shouted, with a sudden reckless impulse to risk anything rather than have his companion taken. "Cram at it, Whitwish!" But even as the words left his lips he felt the power slackening and the next second they had tamely halted. If the official who now approached them harboured the suspicion of a doubt, Cheam felt that the game was as good as up. Whitwish's face was not one that was likely to be soon forgotten.
"Sorry to have to stop you—"
"Oh, the hell, what now?" shrilled a thin, exasperated voice from the fore seat—a voice that Burman vowed afterwards he could have sworn to—" Wants to see my licence again, Cheam, I'll bet you!
"Don't trouble, sir," apologized the abashed warder, stepping back again to give them passage. "I didn't recognize you in this light, but of course I remember you again now."
He was the last special outpost of law and order. Half an hour later Whitwish swung the machine round and brought it to rest by the roadside, with the head-light again pointing northward.
"It'll suit me best to slip away here, sir," he said, with an unexpected awkwardness over the parting. "Short of a miracle of chance I'm as good as over the border."
"That's for you to decide," replied Cheam, fingering his wallet. "Will a couple of ones be enough to see you through?"
"I don't hardly like—I've got friends down here who'll stand by me."
"Don't be a mug, man. They'll think none the worse of you for having something to go on with. Well, so long, and good luck to you!"
"The same to you, sir, and the very best of it. You're a true sport if ever there was one. And I'm glad it's come all right about the young lady."
"Thanks; I'll tell her in due season," said Cheam good-humouredly. "Any other message?"
"Mr. Coppinger, sir. I" Words stumbled about his tongue, but nothing came of them. "You'll tell him?"
Cheam waited a patient minute. What was he to tell? Whitwish raised an inarticulate gesture to the sky and without another word slipped quickly away into the night "All right," Cheam called after him. "Yes; I'm sure he'll understand."
He started his engine again and began to flatten out the miles before him. It hadn't been half a bad lark throughout, and precious few chaps there were who had engineered the escape of a real convict.... From the height of Tawes he noticed a glow in the northern sky that shivered from time to time into a larger corona; and as he skirted Plymorchard he heard across the fields the voices of excited men, shouting confused directions.
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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