"I do not mean about Cakebread," replied Mrs. Cork, with petulance. "I said Miss Benedick, and I meant Miss Benedick. When Mrs. Molloy suggested bringing a detective to Shipley Hall, I welcomed the idea principally because it would enable me to find out a good deal about Miss Benedick which I would very much like to know. Your principal duty, while you are here, will be to watch her. I don't trust her. I think she's sly."
Jeff could not let this pass. The revolting adjective had caused his soul to turn a handspring. He had no objection to Mrs. Cork smirching Lord Uffenham with her foul innuendoes, but when it came to Anne, it was time to pull her up sharply.
"Sly? What do you mean, sly? She's nothing of the sort," he said warmly. "She has a beautiful nature, as frank and open as a—well, you know the sort of thing."
Mrs. Cork began to dislike this young man. She preferred those about her to be Yes-men in the fine old Hollywood tradition. There came into her eyes a hard, steely look, which any of her native bearers and a variety of half-caste traders through the dark continent would have recognised. It was the look which had caused her to be known in native bearer and half-caste trader circles as 'Mgobo-'Mgumbi, which may be loosely translated as She on Whom It Is Unsafe To Try Any Oompus-Boompus.
"You appear to have made up your mind about her on very slight acquaintance," she said, frostily.
"The primary asset of the detective is the ability to read character at a glance."
"Very possibly. But I happen to have had the opportunity of observing her in my nephew's society. And I believe she is trying to entangle him."
The monstrous word affected Jeff like a bradawl through the seat of his trousers. He sat up sharply. "Sly" had been bad enough, verging closely on the frozen limit. "Entangle" reached this limit, if it did not actually pass it.
"My ability to read character at a glance tells me that you are entirely wrong."
"Will you stop talking about your ability to read character at a glance. I am not employing you to contradict me."
Jeff's immediate impulse was to thunder that she was not employing him at all and to rise and turn on his heel and stalk from the room. Only the reflection that this would interfere a good deal with his project of seeing plenty of Anne in the near future restrained him.
"What has given you the idea that there is anything between Miss Benedick and your nephew?" he asked, more pacifically.
"The way she looks at him. And I was telling Mr. Trumper only this afternoon that her behaviour when she was reading me the newspaper report of my nephew's examination in court was most suspicious. Her voice trembled, and when I said I would like to strangle this man Miller with my bare hands, she gave a sort of wistful sigh. I looked up at her sharply, and saw that her eyes were blazing."
"Miller?" said Jeff, interested by the coincidence.
"A man of the name of J. G. Miller. A barrister."
Once more, the bradawl had come shooting through the seat of Jeff's chair, causing him to leap like a salmon in the spawning season. It is always disconcerting for a young man to learn that he is enjoying the hospitality of a woman who is anxious to strangle him with her bare hands. He looked at Mrs. Cork closely. He had the advantage in reach, but she conveyed the impression that she might be a nasty customer in the clinches.
"My nephew, Lionel Green, was a witness yesterday in the law courts, and this J. G. Miller, who acted as counsel for the other side, abused and vilified him in the most outrageous manner. And, as I say, it appeared to affect Miss Benedick, as she read about it, with an indignation which struck me as quite uncalled for. Mr. Trumper says it was just natural good feeling. Stuff! The girl's in love with Lionel. At least, I strongly suspect so. What you are to do, while he is down here—he arrives this evening—is watch them and make sure. I don't want to lose her, if I can help it—she is an excellent secretary, I grant her that—but if I find out that my suspicions are correct, she goes immediately."
It was fortunate for Jeff that the speech which has just been recorded was on the long side, for it gave him time to reassemble his faculties, which had been disordered as if by the touching off beneath him of a bomb. The discovery that he had strayed into the home of Stinker Green's aunt was in itself a disturbing one. Even more disturbing was the news that Stinker Green in person was expected to arrive here this very evening.
That really did call for careful, constructive thought. Unless restrained—and how he was to be restrained was not immediately obvious—this Green, who had presumably been burning briskly with resentment since their last meeting, would undoubtedly denounce him in the first five minutes, or more probably in the first five seconds. After which, even if he escaped strangulation at the hands of Mrs. Cork, which years of healthy exercise on shikarri had rendered peculiarly capable of strangling anything, from a hippopotamus downwards, it would be good-bye to Shipley Kali for Sheringham Adair.
"And while on the subject of Lionel," proceeded Mrs. Cork, "there is another thing. I don't know if Miss Benedick told you, but here at Shipley Hall we are a little colony who have pledged ourselves to discipline the body."
She paused. The tenseness of his thought had caused Jeff to sink into a trance of almost Uffenhamian calibre. She gave the desk a sharp rap
"Discipline the body," she repeated, wondering why Mrs. Molloy had recommended an investigator who, in addition to being as fresh as an April breeze, was also apparently deaf.
Jeff came to himself with a start.
"Oh, ah, yes. You mean all that vegetarian---"
He, too, paused. He had been about to use the word "bilge," and something told him that it might be better to search for a synonym. "That Ugubu stuff?" he substituted.
"Exactly. Have you ever been in Africa, Mr. Adair?"
"Never. Lovely Lucerne, yes. Africa, no."
"Then you have never seen the Ugubus. They are the most splendid physical specimens in existence, with the hearts of little children. This is entirely due to their vegetable diet and the rhythmic dances they dance. I am hoping eventually to spread this Ugubu cult through England, and everything, of course, depends on the earnestness and enthusiasm of our little band. I am sorry to say that not all the members of it are as wholehearted as 1 could wish. Only this morning I found one of them eating steak-and-kidney pie in the potting shed."
Jeff seemed stunned.
"Steak-and-kidney pie?"
"Yes."
"Hot or cold?"
"Cold."
"In the potting shed?"
"Yes."
"My God!"
"And I strongly suspect Lionel of going off to the local inn and obtaining surreptitious supplies of meat while he is at the Hall. And I won't have it. I have warned the innkeeper that he is under observation, and reminded him that his application for the renewal of his licence will be coming up shortly before the local Bench, of which I am a member, and I fancy I have frightened him sufficiently. But I want you to watch Lionel and see that he finds no other source of supply. You will report to me the slightest lapse on his part; and I shall take steps. I may tell you that my nephew is entirely dependent on me, so I am in a position to apply pressure. I can rely on you?"
Jeff inclined his head.
"Implicitly. You were enquiring of me just now, Mrs. Cork, if I had ever seen an Ugubu. I now ask you, in my turn, if you have ever seen a one-armed paperhanger with the hives?"
"I don't understand you."
"I merely wish to assure you that that is what I shall be as busy as. 'Watch Cakebread,' you say. 'Watch Miss Benedick,' you add. 'Watch my nephew,' you conclude. I will do so. I will watch them all. And if it gives me a crick in the neck, that is just one of the perils of the profession—an occupational risk, as you might say—which a detective must face with a stiff upper lip. And now," said Jeff, "I think my best plan will be to lose no time in making your nephew's acquaintance. I always try to become acquainted at the earliest possible moment with people I am employed to watch. I ingratiate myself with them, thus winning their con
fidence and causing them to become clay in my hands. I shall, for instance, try to see a good deal of Miss Benedick while I am here. Similarly with Mr.—Green, did you say was the name? You mentioned, I think, that he was arriving this evening?"
"His train is due in half an hour."
"I will meet it. And I shall hope, by the time we get to the house, to have laid the foundations of a firm friendship. What does he look like?"
"What does that matter?"
"I always think it is a help, when you are meeting a person who is arriving by train, to be able to recognise him."
"Oh, I see. He is tall, slender and very good-looking. He has a small, silky moustache, and his eyes are a soft hazel."
"Then I will be starting now, so as to be on the platform in good time," said Jeff.
There was no actual need for him to have torn himself away from his employer's society for another ten minutes or so, for the walk to the station was a mere step, but it irked him to remain in the company of anyone who could consider Stinker Green's moustache silky.
CHAPTER IX
When a sensitive young man with a high opinion of himself alights from a train and finds confronting him on the platform the barrister who has recently made a public spectacle of him in the witness box, some slight constraint is inevitable. Almost never in such circumstances does the stream of conversation flow from the start with an easy effortlessness.
Lionel Green's eyes, as they rested on Jeff, remained hazel, but the fondest and least discerning aunt could not have described them as soft. He recoiled like one who sees a snake in his path, and, drawing himself to his full height, would have passed on without a word, had not Jeff attached himself to his arm.
"Hullo, there," said Jeff, genially. "We meet again, what?"
Lionel Green endeavoured, without success, to disengage himself.
"Don't wriggle," said Jeff. "You seem disinclined to chat, Stinker, and I believe I know why. You have not forgotten that little dust-up of ours at the bar of Justice yesterday. Or am I wrong?"
Lionel Green assured him that he was not wrong.
"I had a feeling that that might be it. My dear old man, you mustn't take a trifle like that to heart. I was purely the professional. No animus whatsoever. If I had been briefed for the defence, I would have made Ernest Pennefather look just as big a piece of cheese. Don't you feel that outside the court we can be the best of friends?"
Lionel Green said he did not.
"I feared as much. Well, this makes things rather awkward. You see, our interests are bound up together, and only by the exercise of mutual toleration and the old give-and-take spirit can we both obtain our full helping of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. You will have to curb your resentment."
"Will you kindly let go of my arm. I want to find the station cab."
"I will lead you to it. Our paths lie in the same direction. You are headed for Shipley Hall. I am already in residence."
"What!"
"Yes."
"Do you know my aunt?"
"I do, indeed. A charming woman. And this will make you laugh. She thinks I'm a detective—you know how one is always getting mistaken for detectives—and is employing me to watch her butler, whose conduct has been arousing suspicion. So when we fetch up at the Hall, will you remember that my name is Sheringham Adair."
Lionel Green's sombre eyes lit up with a stern joy. "You mean you have wormed your way into the house under a false name?"
"I dislike the word 'wormed,' but you cover the facts."
"I'll have you kicked out the moment we get there."
Jeff nodded.
"I had anticipated that some such project would have occurred to you, for I see that you are in difficult mood. But there is no terror, Stinker, in your threats, for I am armed so strong in honesty that they pass by me as the idle wind, which I respect not. Weren't you listening have to explain. I'm afraid what I am going to tell you will come as something of a shock. In engaging me to watch her butler. Mrs. Cork made it clear that that would be only part of my duties. I am to keep an eye on you, also."
"On me? What do you mean?"
"She suspects you of having fallen into the toils of her secretary, a young person of the name, I believe, of Benedick. And she intends to stop it in no uncertain manner."
The belligerence faded from Lionel Green's demeanour, leaving him deflated. As Jeff had predicted, this item of news had affected him powerfully.
He gazed at his companion wide-eyed, his shapely jaw drooping like a lily on its stem. The fear that had been haunting him for weeks had been proved to possess a solid foundation. Something had revealed the position of affairs to his lynx-eyed aunt, and she had begun, at the worst possible moment, to sit up and take notice. Another day or two, he was thinking bitterly, and he would have been safe.
In stating that her nephew was entirely dependent upon her, Mrs. Cork had spoken the exact truth. It was from her that he received the handsome allowance which enabled him to eat well, dress well, smoke well, belong to the Junior Arts Club and go about in taxi-cabs like that of the neurotic Ernest Pennefather. She also financed the microscopic interior decorator's shop in the Brompton Road, where he sold an occasional olde-worlde chair or Spanish altar cloth to personal friends of his Oxford days.
At any time, her displeasure would have worn a portentous aspect, but circumstances had so arranged themselves at the present moment as to render it particularly lethal. He had recently been given the opportunity of buying a partnership in a larger and really prosperous shrine of interior decorating, that conducted by his friend Mr. Tarvin, situated in a more fashionable neighbourhood and catering rather to the great public than to a handful of ex-college chums imbued with the spirit of Auld Lang Syne.
It was to plead with Mrs. Cork, whom he had already approached with regard to providing the sum he required, that he had forced himself now to visit Shipley Hall. His spirits had sunk at the thought of going there, for he was a young man who preferred, like Mrs. Molloy, to know, when he sat down to dinner, that something would be coming along that would be worthy of his steel. But he was prepared to undergo privations, convinced that a little earnest persuasion would enable him to consummate the deal.
Everything depended on it. With the partnership signed and sealed, he would be in a position to announce his engagement to Anne; to defy Mrs. Cork—preferably, of course, over the telephone; in short, to take a strong and independent line. But if his aunt's woman's intuition had led her to suspect, failure and disaster stared him in the eye.
"I don't suppose, of course, that there is anything in it," continued Jeff, "but that is what she thinks, and it would be best if you were to avoid this Miss Benedick's society as much as possible, while you are at Shipley Hall. It is always wisest on these occasions to leave no loophole for criticism. Well, you see now what I meant when I spoke of our interests being bound up together. Pursue that impulsive plan of yours of getting me kicked out, and what happens? There arrives in my place another detective, a tougher specimen altogether—not an old school friend who has always liked you, though you may have been deceived at times by his surface manner, but a cold, businesslike professional who will turn in an adverse report to your aunt before you can say 'What ho.' I merely mention this for your information and guidance."
He massaged Lionel Green's arm affectionately, ignoring its unresponsive stiffness. It was almost a pity, he was feeling, that he had decided to abandon his career as a pleader at the Bar, for there was no question but that he had a way of putting a case extraordinarily well. Still, what the Bar lost, literature gained. You had to look at these things from every angle.
"And another point, Stinker," be proceeded5 as they stepped into the station cab. "Mrs. Cork, in instructing me to watch you, had in mind not only your relations with Miss Benedick, but your practice, as she suspects, of sneaking off on the sly and supplementing her wholesome Ugubu fare with carnal snacks at the village inn. I may tell you that she has warned mine host th
at her eye is on him, and that if he attempts to slip you so much as a chump chop and chips he will get it right in the neck at the next quarter sessions, when the question of renewing his licence comes up. You spoke?"
Lionel Green had not spoken. He had merely uttered a hollow groan. He had been relying on the village inn.
"So you will need my kindly services more than ever. Not being, like you, a marked man, I shall be able to act as an intermediary or go-between, establishing a liaison between you and this provider of the necessaries of life. Place your orders with me, and I will see that they are filled."
Lionel Green brightened. Nothing would ever make him actually fond of this old schoolmate of his, but he was willing to concede that the fellow had more good in him than he had supposed.
"That's very kind of you, Miller."
"Not at all. It will be a pleasure. And now tell me something of this Miss Benedick—her tastes, I mean. Just give me a list of her favourite topics of conversation, the books she likes, the subjects to avoid when chatting with her and all that sort of thing. You see, in order to convince Mrs. Cork that I am not loafing on my job, it will be necessary for me to see something of the girl from time to time. In which case, it is always a good thing to know what to talk about."
Five minutes later, having stopped the station cab at the gates and alighted with renewed assurances to his companion of his good wishes, Jeff started to saunter through the grounds of Shipley Hall, lost in agreeable meditation.
He was well pleased with the success of his diplomacy. He had eliminated Lionel Green as a menace, and he had acquired a sound working knowledge of Anne Benedick's tastes and preferences, which could scarcely fail to come in handy. He knew nothing of the real Sheringham Adair, apart from the fact that he had a waxed moustache and an uncanny knack of dissolving into thin air, but he doubted if even that trained expert could have handled a situation better.
It was now the gloaming of the June day, and the air was full of soothing sounds and scents. Birds chirped drowsily in the bushes, insects droned as they passed on their way to supper and bed, the grass was fragrant under the failing dew. He strolled along at random, enjoying these phenomena, until presently he found himself on the margin of a small pond not far from the house. Here he paused, to study the activities of certain water beetles which were skimming about its surface in the fussy, energetic way so characteristic of water beetles all the world over.