And with a rapid thrust of her shapely foot she set the machinery in motion and vanished round the corner on two wheels, leaving Conky staring after her with a growing feeling of desolation. He had just realized that he was unaware of her name, address and telephone number and had had what was probably his last glimpse of her. If the expression “Ships that pass in the night” had been familiar to him, he would certainly have uttered it, using clenched teeth for the purpose.
It was a Conky with heart bowed down and a general feeling of having been passed through the wringer who accompanied his uncle to Lord’s next morning. The thought that a Grade A soulmate had come into his life and buzzed out again, leaving no clue to her identity or whereabouts, was a singularly bitter one. Lord Plumpton on the journey to the Mecca of cricket spoke well and easily of the visit of the Australian team of 1921, but Conky proved a distrait listener; so distrait that Lord Plumpton prodded him irascibly in the ribs and called him an infernal goggle-eyed fathead, which of course he was.
He was still in a sort of trance when they took their seats in the pavilion, but here it was less noticeable, for everybody else was in a sort of trance. The somnambulists out in the field tottered to and fro, and the spectators lay back and let their eyes go glassy. For perhaps an hour nothing happened except that Hedger of Middlesex, waking like Abou ben Adhem from a deep dream of peace, flicked his bat at a rising ball and edged it into the hands of a sleeper dozing in what is technically known as the gully. Then Lord Plumpton, who had been silent except for an occasional “Nice! Nice!” sat up with a sudden jerk and an explosive “Well, I’m dashed!” and glared sideways at the three shilling seats which adjoined the pavilion. And Conky, following his gaze, felt his heart execute four separate buck and wing steps and come to rest quivering like a jelly in a high wind.
“Well, I’m dashed!” said Lord Plumpton, continuing to direct at the three shilling seats the kind of look usually associated with human fiends in mystery stories. “There’s that blasted girl!”
It was not a description which Conky himself would have applied to the divinest of her sex, nor one which he enjoyed hearing applied to liner, and for a moment he was in two minds as to whether to haul off and sock his relative on the beezer. Wiser counsels prevailed, and he said:
“Yes, there she spouts.”
Lord Plumpton seemed surprised.
“You know her?”
“Just slightly. She ran into me last night.”
“Into you, too? Good gad, the female’s a public menace. If she’s allowed to remain at large, the population of London will be decimated. I’ve a good mind to go over and tell her what I think of her.”
“But your uncle, ankle.”
“What the devil are you gibbering about?”
“I mean your ankle, uncle. You mustn’t walk about on it. How would it be if I popped over and acquainted her with your displeasure?”
Lord Plumpton considered.
“Yes, that’s not a bad idea. A surprisingly good idea, in fact, considering what a nitwit you are. But pitch it strong.”
“Oh, I will,” said Conky.
He rose and hurried off, and Lord Plumpton fell into conversation with the barely animate spectator on his left. They were soon deep in an argument as to whether it was at square leg or at extra cover that D. C. L. Wodger of Gloucestershire had fielded in 1904.
If the girl had looked like the better class of angel in the uncertain light of last night, she looked more than ever so in the reasonably bright sunshine of to-day. She was one of those lissom girls of medium height. Her eyes and hair were a browny hazel. The general effect was of a seraph who ate lots of yeast.
“Oh, hullo,” said Conky, lowering himself into a seat beside her. ‘We meet again, what?”
She seemed surprised and startled. In her manner, as she gazed at his clean-cut face and then into his frank blue eyes, there was something that might almost be described as fluttering.
“You!” she cried. “What are you doing here?”
“Just watching cricket.”
“But you told me last night that cricket gave you the pip, which I imagine is something roughly equivalent to the megrims or the heeby-jeebies.”
“Quite. But, you see, it’s like this. My uncle is crazy about the ghastly game and I’m dependent on him, so when he says ‘Come along and watch cricket’, I have to come along and watch it like a lynx.”
The girl frowned. It was as if she had been hurt and disappointed.
“Why are you dependent on your uncle? Why don’t you get a job?”
Conky hastened to defend himself.
“I do get a job. I get dozens of jobs. But I lose them all. The trouble is, you see, that I’m not very bright.”
“No?”
“Not very. That’s why they call me Conky.”
“Do they call you Conky?”
“Invariably. What started it was an observation one of the masters at school happened to drop one day. He said, addressing me— To attempt to drive information into your head, Biddle, is no easy task, for Providence, mysterious in its workings has, given you instead of the more customary human brain a skull full of concrete.’ So after that everyone called me Conky.”
“I see. What sort of jobs have you tried?”
“Practically everything except Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.”
“And you get fired every time?”
“Every time.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s dashed white of you to be sorry, but as a matter of fact it’s all right.”
“How do you mean it’s all right?”
Conky hesitated. Then he reflected that if you couldn’t confide in an angel in human shape, who could you confide in? He glanced about him. Except for themselves, the three shilling tier of seats was almost empty.
“Well, you’ll keep it under your hat, won’t you, because it’s supposed to be very hush-hush at the moment. I am on the eve of making a stupendous fortune. You know sea water?”
“The stuff that props the ship up when you come over from New York?”
“That’s right. Well, you probably aren’t aware of it, but it’s full of gold, and I’m in with a fellow who’s got a secret process for scooping it out. I saw his advertisement in the paper saying that if you dashed along and brassed up quick you could get in on an invention of vast possibilities, so I dashed along and brassed up. He was a nice chap and let me into the thing without a murmur. Bloke of the name of MacSporran. I happened to have scraped up ten quid, so I put that in and he tells me that at a conservative estimate I shall get back about two hundred and fifty thousand. I call that a nice profit.”
“Very nice.”
“Yes, it’s all very convenient. And when I say that, I’m not thinking so much of the jolliness of having all that splosh in the old sock, I am alluding more to the difference this has made in what you might call my matrimonial plans. If I want to get married, I mean. What I’m driving at,” said Conky, giving her a melting look, “is that I am now in a position, when I meet the girl I love, to put the binge on a practical basis.”
“I see.”
“In fact,” said Conky, edging a little closer, “I might almost start making my plans at once.”
“That’s the spirit. Father’s slogan is ‘Do it now’, and he’s a tycoon.”
“I thought a tycoon was a sort of storm.”
“No, a millionaire.”
“Is your father a millionaire?”
“Yes, and more pouring in all the time.”
“Oh?”
A sudden chill had come over Conky’s dashing mood. The one thing he had always vowed he would never do was marry for money. For years his six uncles and seven aunts had been urging him to cash in on his looks and grab something opulent. They had paraded heiresses before him in droves, but he had been firm. He had his principles.
Of course, in the present case it was different. He loved this girl with every fibre of his being. But all the
same … No, he told himself, better wait till his bank balance was actually bulging.
With a strong effort he changed the conversation.
“Well, as I was saying,” he said, “I hope to clean up shortly on an impressive scale, and when I do I’ll never watch another cricket match as long as I live. Arising from which, what on earth are you doing here, holding the views on cricket which you do?”
A slight shadow of disappointment seemed to pass over the girl’s face. It was as if she had been expecting the talk to develop along different lines.
“Oh, I came for a purpose.”
“Eh? What purpose?”
She directed his attention to the rows of living corpses in the pavilion. Lord Plumpton and his friend, having settled the Wodger question were, leaning back with their hats over their eyes. It was difficult to realize that life still animated those rigid limbs.
“When I was here yesterday, I was greatly struck by the spectacle of those stiffs over there. I wondered if it was possible to stir them up into some sort of activity.”
“I doubt it.”
“I’m a little dubious myself. They’re like fish on a slab or a Wednesday matinee audience. Still, I thought I would try. Yesterday, of course I hadn’t elastic and ammo with me.”
“Elastic? Ammo?”
Conky stared. From the recesses of her costume she had produced a piece of stout elastic and a wad of tin foil. She placed the tin foil on the elastic and then between her teeth. Then, turning, she took careful aim at Lord Plumpton.
For a sighting shot it was an admirable effort. Conky, following the projectile with a rapt gaze, saw his uncle start and put a hand to his ear. There seemed little reason to doubt that he had caught it amidships.
“Good Lord!” he cried. “Here, after you with that elastic. I used to do that at school, and many was the fine head I secured. I wonder if the old skill still lingers.”
It was some minutes later that Lord Plumpton turned to the friend beside him.
“Wasps very plentiful this year,” he said.
The friend blinked drowsily.
“Watts?”
“Wasps.”
“There was A. R. K. Watts who used to play for Sussex. Ark we used to call him.”
“Not Watts. Wasps.”
“Wasps?”
“Wasps.”
“What about them?”
“They seem very plentiful. One stung me in the ear just now. And now one of them has knocked off my hat. Most extraordinary.”
A man in a walrus moustache who had played for Surrey in 1911 came along, and Lord Plumpton greeted him cordially.
“Hullo, Freddie.”
“Hullo.”
“Good game.”
“Very. Exciting.”
“Wasps are a nuisance, though.”
“Wasps?”
“Wasps.”
“What Wasps?”
“I don’t know their names. The wasps around here.”
“No wasps around here.”
“Yes.”
“Not in the pavilion at Lord’s. You can’t get in unless you’re a member.”
“Well, one has just knocked off my hat. And look, there goes Jimmy’s hat.”
The walrus shook his head. He stooped and picked up a piece of tin foil.
“Someone’s shooting this stuff at you. Used to do it myself a long time ago. Ah yes,” he said, peering about him, “I see where the stuff’s coming from. That girl over there in the three shilling seats with your nephew. If you look closely, you’ll see she’s drawing a bead on you now.”
Lord Plumpton looked, started and stiffened.
“That girl again! Is one to be beset by her through all eternity?
Send for the attendants! Rouse the attendants and give them their divisional orders. Instruct the attendants to arrest her immediately and bring her to the committee room.”
And so it came about that just as Conky was adjusting the elastic to his lips a short while later and preparing to loose off, a heavy hand fell on his shoulder, and there was a stern-faced man in the uniform of a Marylebone Cricket Club attendant. And simultaneously another heavy hand fell on the girl’s shoulder, and there was another stern-faced man in the uniform of another Marylebone Cricket Club attendant.
It was a fair cop.
The committee room of the Marylebone Cricket Club is a sombre and impressive apartment. Photographs of bygone cricketers, many of them with long beards, gaze down from the walls—accusingly, or so it seems to the man whose conscience is not as clear as it might be. Only a man with an exceptionally clear conscience can enter this holy of holies without feeling that he is about to be stripped of his M.C.C. tie and formally ticketed as a social leper.
This is particularly so when, as in the present instance the President himself is seated at his desk. It was at Lord Plumpton’s request that he was there now. It had seemed to Lord Plumpton that a case of this magnitude could be dealt with adequately only at the very highest levels.
He mentioned this in his opening speech for the prosecution. “I demand,” said Lord Plumpton, “the most exemplary punishment for an outrage unparalleled in the annals of the Marylebone Cricket Club, the dear old club we all love so well, if you know what I mean.” Here he paused as if intending to bare his head, but realizing that he had not got his hat on continued, “I mean to say, taking pot-shots at members with a series of slabs of tin foil, dash it! If that isn’t a nice bit of box fruit, what is? Bad enough, if you see what I’m driving at, to take pot-shots at even the cannaille, as they call them in France, who squash in in the free seats, but when it comes to pot-shotting members in the pavilion, I mean where are we? Personally I would advocate skinning the girl, but if you consider that too extreme I am prepared to settle for twenty years in solitary confinement. A menace to the community, that’s what this girl is. Busting about in her car and knocking people endways with one hand and flicking their hats off with the other, if you follow my drift. She reminds me of … who was that woman in the Bible whose work was always so raw? … Delilah? … No … It’s on the tip of my tongue … Ah yes, Jezebel. She’s a modern streamlined Jezebel, dash her insides.”
“Uncle Everard,” said Conky, “you are speaking of the woman I love.”
The girl gave a little gasp.
“No, really?” she said.
“Absolutely,” said Conky. “I had intended to mention it earlier. I don’t know your name …
“Clarissa. Clarissa Binstead.”
“How many s’s?”
“Three, if you count the Binstead.”
“Clarissa, I love you. Will you be my wife?”
“Sure,” said the girl. “I was hoping you’d suggest it. And what all the fuss is about is more than I can understand. Why when we go to a ball game in America, we throw pop bottles.”
There was a silence.
“Are you an American, madam?” said the President.
“One hundred per cent. Oh, say, can you see … No, I never can remember how it goes after that. I could whistle it for you.”
The President had drawn Lord Plumpton aside. His face was grave and anxious.
“My dear Everard,” he said in an urgent undertone, “we must proceed carefully here, very carefully. I had no notion this girl was American. Somebody should have informed me. The last thing we want is an international incident, particularly at a moment when we are hoping, if all goes well, to get into America’s ribs for a bit of the stuff. I can fully appreciate your wounded feelings …”
“And how about my wounded topper?”
“The club will buy you a new hat, and then, my dear fellow, I would strongly urge that we consider the matter closed.”
“You mean not skin her?”
“No.”
“Not slap her into the cooler for twenty years?”
“No. There might be very unfortunate repercussions.”
“Oh, all right,” said Lord Plumpton sullenly. “Oh, very well. But,” he proceede
d on a brighter note, “there is one thing I can do, and that is disinherit this frightful object here. Hoy!” he said to Conky.
“Hullo?” said Conky.
“You are no longer a nephew of mine.”
“Well, that’s a bit of goose,” said Conky.
As he came out of the committee room, he was informed by an attendant that a gentleman wished to speak to him on the telephone. Excusing himself to Clarissa and bidding her wait for him downstairs Conky went to the instrument, listened for a few moments, then reeled away, his eyes bulging and his jaw a-droop. He found Clarissa at the spot agreed upon.
“Hullo, there,” said Conky. “I say, you remember me asking you to be my wife?”
“Yes.”
“You said you would.”
“Yes.”
“Well, the words that spring to the lips are ‘Will you’? Because I’m afraid the whole thing’s off. That was MacSporran on the ‘phone. He said he’d made a miscalculation, and my tenner won’t be enough to start that sea water scheme going. He said he would need another thirty thousand pounds and could I raise it? I said No, and he said ‘Too bad, too bad’. And I said: ‘Do I get my tenner back?’ and he said: ‘No, you don’t get your tenner back.’ So there you are. I can’t marry you.”
Clarissa wrinkled her forehead.
“I don’t see it. Father’s got it in gobs. He will provide.”
“Not for me, he won’t. I always swore I’d never marry a girl for her money.”
“You aren’t marrying me for my money. You’re marrying me because we’re soulmates.”
“That’s true. Still, you appear to have a most ghastly lot of the stuff, and I haven’t a bean.”
“Suppose you had a job?”
“Oh, if I had a job.”
“That’s all right, then. Father runs a gigantic business and he can always find room for another Vice-President.”
“Vice-President?”
“Yes.”
“But I don’t know enough to be a Vice-President.”
“It’s practically impossible not to know enough to be a Vice-President. All you would have to do would be to attend conferences and say ‘Yes’ when Father made a suggestion.”