He endeavoured to restore his composure by plunging himself into his work, and, after a quarter of an hour, was beginning to feel reasonably tranquil once more, when there was a breezy smack on the door, which only one member of his office force would have had the effrontery to deliver, and Joe Vanringham ambled in.
'You sent for me, chief?' he cried heartily. 'Well, here I am. Old Faithful reporting for duty. What can I do for you?'
There was a certain family resemblance between the brothers Vanringham, and if anyone had seen Joe and Tubby together, he might have guessed that they were related, but this resemblance was a purely superficial one. There was between them the fundamental difference which exists between a tough cat which has had to fend for itself among the alleys and ash-cans of the world and its softer kinsman who has for long been the well-nourished pet in a good home. Tubby was sleek, Joe lean and hard. He had that indefinable air which comes to young men who have had to make their way up from a ten-dollar start.
Mr Busby eyed him sourly, for the memory of that telephone conversation still rankled. The Busbys did not lightly forget. He found, moreover, in his young assistant's manner this morning a more than ordinarily offensive exuberance. Always lacking in reverence and possessed of a strong bias toward freshness, Joe Vanringham seemed to him today rather less reverent and slightly fresher than usual. The word 'effervescent' was one which would have covered his deportment.
There's a woman in the waiting-room, come about a bill,' he said. 'Go and attend to her.'
Joe nodded sympathetically.
'I get you, chief. The old, old story, eh?'
'What do you mean, the old, old story?'
'Well, it's happened before, hasn't it? But don't you worry. I'm in rare shape this morning. I could tackle ten women, come about ten bills. Leave it to me.'
'Look out!' cried Mr Busby.
Joe lowered the hand with which he had been about to administer a reassuring pat to his employer's shoulder, and looked at him with a mild surprise.
'Eh?'
'I'm all skinned.'
'Somebody skinned you?'
'Shoulders. Sun bathing.'
'Oh, I see. You should have used oil, chief.'
'I know I should have used oil. And how many times have I told you not to call me "chief"?'
'But I must employ some little term of respect on these occasions when you give me audience. Boss? Magnate? Do you like "magnate"? Or how about "tycoon"?'
'You just call me "sir".'
'"Sir"? Yes, that's good. That's neat. Snappy. Slips off the tongue. How did you come to think of that?'
Mr Busby flushed. He was wondering, as he had so often wondered before, whether even the admirable service which this young man rendered him in his capacity of watchdog was sufficient compensation for this sort of thing. The words 'You're fired!' trembled on his lips, but he choked them down.
'Go and attend to that woman,' he said.
'In one moment,' said Joe. 'First, I have a more painful task to perform.'
He moved to the cupboard under the bookshelf and began to rummage in it.
'What the devil are you doing?'
'Looking for your smelling salts. I'm afraid,' said Joe, returning and regarding his employer with a compassionate eye, 'there is a nasty jolt coming to you, tycoon, and I think we should have restoratives handy. Did you read the papers this morning?'
'What are you talking about?'
'I repeat: Did you read the papers this morning?'
Mr Busby said that he had seen The Times. Joe winced.
'A low rag,' he said. 'But even The Times had to admit that the thing had got over.'
'Eh?'
'My play. It opened last night.'
'Have you written a play?'
'And in what manner! A socko! It has everything.'
'Oh?'
'"Oh?" is not much of a comment. However, let it go. Yes, the old masterpiece opened last night and smacked London right in the eyeball. Extraordinary scenes. Fair women and brave men tied up in convulsions. Even the stage hands laughing, while thousands cheered. A big, vital production. Shall I read you the notices?'
A sudden suspicion came to Mr Busby.
'When did you write this play?'
'Out of office hours, I assure you. Abandon all hope, my Busby, that by claiming that it was written in your time, you can ease yourself in on the proceeds. And I wouldn't have put it past you,' said Joe with frank admiration. 'I've always maintained, and I always shall maintain, that you stand alone. Those contracts of yours! I always picture the author, having signed on the dotted line, leaping back as a couple of sub-clauses in black masks suddenly jump out of a jungle of "whereases" and "hereinafters" and start ganging on him with knuckledusters. But this time, as I say, no hope, buzzard.'
Mr Busby said that he did not want any of Joe's impertinence, and criticized in particular his mode of address. Joe explained that in calling Mr Busby 'buzzard' he had merely been endeavouring to create a pleasant, genial, informal atmosphere.
'For this morning,' he said, 'I am the little friend of all the world. I have had no sleep, but I love everybody. I am walking on air with my hat on the side of my head, and a child could play with me. Do let me read you the notices.'
Mr Busby betrayed no interest in the notices. The compassionate look in Joe's eyes deepened.
'They affect you,' he said. 'They affect you vitally. That is why I wanted the smelling salts. You see, owing to the stupendous success of this colossal play, unhappy Busby, I have decided to leave you. . . . Brace up, man! Put your head between your legs, and the faint feeling will pass off. . . . Yes, Busby, my poor dear old chap, we are about to part. I have been happy here. I shall be sorry to tear myself away, but we must part. I am too rich to work.'
Mr Busby grunted. Oddly enough, considering that the latter had never seen him, he did rather resemble the picture Tubby had drawn of him. He was noticeably porcine, and grunting came easily to him.
'If you leave now, you forfeit half a month's salary.'
'Tchah! Feed it to the birds.'
Mr Busby grunted again.
'It's a success, is it?'
'Haven't you been listening?'
'You can't go by a first night.'
'You can by one like that.'
'Notices don't mean a thing.'
'These do.'
'The heat'll kill it,' said Mr Busby, struggling to be optimistic. 'Crazy, opening in August.'
'Not at all. An August opening gives you a flying start. And the heat won't kill it, because the libraries have made a ten weeks' deal.'
Mr Busby gave up. Optimism cannot live in conditions like these. He made the only possible point left to him.
'Your next one will be a flop, and a year from now you'll be running back here with your tail between your legs. And you'll find your place filled.'
'If the place of a man like me can ever be filled. I wouldn't count on it,' said Joe dubiously. 'But you haven't heard the notices yet. I think I had better just skim through them for you. Let me see. "Sparkling satire." – Daily Mail. "Mordant and satirical." – Daily Telegraph. "Trenchant satire." – Morning Post. "Somewhat—" Oh, no, that's The Times. You won't want to hear that one. Well, you see what I mean about leaving you. A man who can elicit eulogies like those can hardly be expected to go on working for a crook publisher.'
'A what?' said Mr Busby, starting.
'Book publisher. Fellow who publishes books. He owes a duty to his public. But I mustn't stand here talking to you all the morning. I've got to go and see that lurking female of yours. The last little service I shall be able to do for you. My swan song. And then I must go and buy the evening papers. I suppose they will all strike much the same note. One grows a little weary of this incessant praise. It makes one feel like some Oriental monarch when the court poet is in good voice.'
'What did The Times say?' asked Mr Busby.
'Never mind what The Times said,' replied Joe austerely. 'Suffice it that
its office boy took entirely the wrong tone. Let me tell you rather about the scenes of unrestrained enthusiasm at the end of the second act.'
Mr Busby said that he did not wish to be told about the scenes of unrestrained enthusiasm at the end of the second act.
'You would prefer to hear about the furore at the final curtain?'
'Nor that, either,' said Mr Busby. Joe sighed.
A strange mentality, yours,' he said. 'Personally, I cannot imagine a more delightful way of passing a summer morning than to sit and listen to the whole story over and over again. Still, please yourself. Just so long as you have grasped the salient point, that I am leaving you, I will go. Good-bye, Busby. God bless and keep you, and when the Society of Authors jumps out at you from behind a bush, may you always have your fingers crossed.'
With a kindly smile, he turned and left the presence. He would have preferred to make straight for the street, where voices were now calling the midday editions of the evening papers, but the word of a Vanringham was his bond. Mindful of his promise to Mr Busby, he directed his steps to the waiting-room, and arriving at its glass door and looking in, paused spellbound.
Then, having straightened his tie and brushed a speck of dust from his sleeve, he opened the door and walked in.
CHAPTER 4
THERE were few more tastefully appointed waiting-rooms in all London than that provided for the use of his clients by Mortimer Busby So much of his business was conducted with women of the leisured class that he had aimed at creating the Mayfair-boudoir atmosphere which would make them feel at home, sparing no expense on chintz and prints, on walnut tables and soft settees, on jade ornaments and flowers in their season. Many writers had said hard things about Mr Busby from time to time, but all had had to admit that they had been extremely comfortable in his waiting-room.
Jane Abbott, seated on one of the settees, did nothing, in Joe Vanringham's opinion, to lower the room's tone, but, rather, raised it to an entirely new level. Preparing for the interview before her, she had hesitated whether to put on all she had got and, as it were, give Mr Busby the sartorial works, in order to charm and fascinate, or to don something dowdy in order to excite commiseration. She had decided on the former course, and felt that she had acted wisely. She was feeling full of confidence, that confidence which comes to girls only when they know that their frocks are right and their hats are right and their stockings are right and their shoes are right.
Joe, too, felt that she had acted with wisdom. Through the glass door he had stared at her like a bear at a bun, and though his breeding restrained him from doing so now, there was a stunned goggle implicit in his manner. You could see that he approved.
'Good morning,' he said. 'What can I do for you?'
He spoke gently, kindly, almost tenderly, and a feeling of relief swept over Jane. Tubby's words had led her to expect that she would have to deal with a gross person rather on the order of a stage moneylender, and only now did she realize that, despite the moral support of the hat, the frock, the shoes and the stockings, she had been extremely nervous. All nervousness left her as she gazed upon this gentle, kind, almost tender young man. His face, though not strictly handsome, was extraordinarily pleasant; there was a hard, attractive leanness about him; and she liked his eyes.
'Well, to begin with, Mr Busby' she said, smiling at him as he seated himself opposite her and leaned forward with deferential cordiality in every lineament of his not strictly handsome, but very nice face, 'I must apologize for bursting in on you like this.'
'Floating in like some lovely spirit of the summer day,' he corrected.
'Well, bursting or floating, I hope I haven't interrupted you when you were busy.'
'Not at all.'
'I ought to have made an appointment.'
'No, no, please. Any time you're passing.'
'That's very nice of you. Well, this is why I've come. I have just left my father—'
'Only a temporary rift, let us trust.'
' – frothing at the mouth about this bill of yours.'
She ceased to smile. The moment had come for gravity – even, if it proved necessary, for sternness. She saw that he, too, had become serious, and hoped that this did not mean obduracy.
'Ah, yes, the bill. Let me see, what bill was that?'
'The one you sent him for incidental expenses connected with the office. That book of his, you know, which you published for him.'
'What was it called?'
'"My Sporting Memories." It was about his big-game hunting experiences.'
'I see. Far-flung stuff. Outposts of the Empire. How I saved my native bearer, 'Mbongo, from the wounded puma. The villagers seemed friendly, so we decided to stay the night.'
'That sort of thing, yes.'
'I like your hat,' said Joe. 'How wise you are to wear black hats with your lovely fair hair.'
This seemed to Jane evasive.
'It doesn't matter whether you like my hat or not, Mr Busby. The point is that my father—'
'Who is your father?'
'Sir Buckstone Abbott.'
'Plain or Bart?'
'He is a Baronet. But does that matter, either?'
'It doesn't much, does it?' said Joe, struck by her reasoning.
'Than shall we stick to what does. The point is that my father is—'
'At a loss to comprehend?'
'Yes. He quite understood that the money he paid you at the beginning would be all, and now along comes this other bill.'
'May I see it?'
'Here it is.'
'H'm. Yes.'
'What does that mean? That you think it is a bit steep?'
'I think it's precipitous.'
'Well, then?'
'The thing is absurd. It shall be adjusted at once.'
'Thank you.'
'Not at all.'
'And when you say "adjusted"—'
'I mean cancelled. Expunged. Struck off the register. Razed to its foundations and sown with salt.'
Even though her companion's face was pleasant; even though his manner, at first gentle, kind and almost tender, had now become gentle, kind and quite definitely tender, Jane had never hoped for anything as good as this. She gave a little squeak.
'Oh, Mr Busby!'
The young man seemed puzzled.
'May I ask you something?' he said. 'You keep calling me "Mr Busby". I dare say you've noticed it yourself. Why is that?'
Jane stared.
'But you are Mr Busby, aren't you?'
'When you say that, smile. No, I am not Mr Busby.'
'What are you, then? His partner?'
'Not even his friend. I am just a passer-by. Simply a chip drifting down the river of Life.'
He studied the bill, a soft smile playing about his lips.
'Masterly!' he murmured. 'A genuine work of Art. Do you know how Busby estimates these incidental expenses connected with the office? Broadly speaking, they represent the sum which he thinks he can chisel out of the unfortunate sap of the second part without having the police piling in on him. What happens is this: Busby goes out to lunch. The waiter hands him the bill of fare. "Caviar," he reads, and his heart leaps up within him. And then his eye lights on the figure in the right-hand column and there comes the chilling thought: Can he afford it? And he is just about to answer with a rueful negative and put in his order for a chop and French-fried, when he suddenly remembers—'
Jane had been bubbling inarticulately, like her Widgeon Seven when it took a steep hill.
'You – you – you mean,' she cried, at last achieving coherence, 'that you have nothing to do with the firm; that you have just been playing the fool with me; raising my hopes—'
'Not at all.'
'Then what did you mean by saying that you would have the bill cancelled?'
'I meant precisely that.'
The quiet confidence with which he spoke impressed Jane in spite of herself. She looked at him pleadingly.
'You aren't just being funny?'
> 'Certainly not. When I said that I wasn't a friend of Mr Busby's, I did not intend to imply that we were not acquainted. I know him very well. And my bet is that I shall be able to sway him like a reed.'
'But how?'
'I shall appeal to his better feelings.'
'Do you think that will do any good?'
'Who knows? Quite possibly, though I have never actually spotted it yet, he has a heart of gold.'
'And if he hasn't?'
'Why, then we must try something else. But I fancy everything will be all right.'
Jane laughed.
'That's what my mother always says. Whatever happens, all she says is "I guess everything's going to be all right".'
'A very sensible woman,' said Joe approvingly. 'I look forward to meeting her. Well, I'm sure we shall be able to achieve the happy ending in this case. Have no further anxiety.'
'I'm afraid I don't feel so confident as you.'
'That is because you don't know your man.'
'Busby?'
'Me. When you come to know me better, you will be amazed at my gifts. And now the only thing we have not decided is: Will you wait here, or will you go on?'
'Go on?'
'And book a table. I think we might lunch at the Savoy, don't you? It's handy.'
'But I've a luncheon engagement.'
'Then perhaps you had better go on. That will give you time to telephone and break it.'
Jane reflected. If this extraordinary young man really was in a position to persuade Mortimer Busby to see the light, the least she could do in return was to lunch with him.
'It will do me good,' he pointed out, 'to be seen in public with a girl in a hat like that. My social prestige will be enhanced.'
'I was only lunching with some friends,' said Jane, wavering.
'Then trot along and telephone. I will be with you in a few minutes. The Grill, I think, not the restaurant. It is quieter, and I shall have much to say to you.'
It was some quarter of an hour later that Jane, sitting in the lobby of the Savoy Grill, was informed that she was wanted on the telephone. She went to the box reluctantly Mabel Purvis, who had arranged the old school friends' reunion from which, a few moments before, she had excused herself, had been plaintive and expostulatory on the wire, and she feared that this was Mabel, about to be plaintive again.