Bingo was reluctantly compelled to come clean.
"As a matter of fact, Oofy, old man, it's not the baby who wants the stuff, it's me - your old friend, the fellow you've known since he was so high. Unless I get a tenner immediately, disaster stares me in the eyeball. So give of your plenty, Oofy, like the splendid chap you are."
"No!" cried Oofy. "No, no, a thousand times---”
The words died on his lips. It was as though a thought had come, flushing his brow.
"Listen," he said. "Are you doing anything this evening?"
"No. Unless I decide to end it all in the river.''
"Can you slip away from home?"
"Yes, I could do that all right. As it happens, I'm all alone at the moment. My wife and Mrs. Purkiss, the moon of my boss's delight, have legged it to Brighton to attend some sort of Old Girls binge at their late school, and won't be back till tomorrow."
"Good. I want you to dine at the Ritz."
"Fine. Nothing I should like better. I meet you there, do I?"
"You do not. I'm leaving for Paris this afternoon. What you meet is a girl named Mabel Murgatroyd with red hair, a vivacious manner and a dimple on the left side of the chin. You give her dinner."
Bingo drew himself up. He was deeply shocked at the other's loose ideas of how married men behave when their wives are away.
"Do this, and you get your tenner."
Bingo lowered himself.
"Listen," said Oofy. "I will tell you all."
It was a dubious and discreditable story that he related. For some time past, it appeared, he had been flitting round this girl like a pimpled butterfly, and it had suddenly come to him with a sickening shock that his emotional nature had brought him to the very verge of matrimony. Another step and he would be over the precipice. It was the dimple that did it principally, he said. Confronted with it at short range, he tended to say things which in sober retrospect he regretted.
"I asked her to dine with me tonight," he concluded, "and if I go, I'm sunk. Only instant flight can save me. But that's not all. I want you not only to give her dinner, but finally and definitely to choke her off me. You must roast me roundly. Pretend you think I'm the world's leading louse."
The verb "pretend" did not seem to Bingo very happily chosen, but he nodded intelligently.
"Here's your tenner," said Oofy, "and here's the money for the dinner. Don't get carried away by that dimple and forget to roast me."
"I won't."
"Pitch it strong. I'll tell you some things to say."
"No, no, don't bother," said Bingo. "I'll think of them."
Bingo had not been waiting long in the lobby of the Ritz that night when a girl appeared, so vermilion in the upper storey and so dimpled on the left side of the chin that he had no hesitation in ambling up and establishing contact.
"Miss Murgatroyd?"
"You never spoke a truer word."
"My name is Little, R. P. Oofy Prosser, having been unexpectedly called away to the Continent, asked me to roll up and deputise for him."
"Well, I must say it's a bit thick, asking a girl to dinner and then buzzing off to Continents."
"Not for Oofy," said Bingo, starting the treatment. "His work is generally infinitely thicker than that. I don't know how well you know him?"
"Fairly well."
"When you know him really well you will realize that you are up against something quite exceptional Take a wart hog, add a few slugs and some of those things you see under flat stones, sprinkle liberally with pimples, and you will have something which, while of course less loathsome than Alexander Prosser, will give you the general idea."
And so saying, he led her into the dining salon and the meal started.
It went with a swing from start to finish. The girl's views on Oofy proved to be as sound as his own. She told him that she had gone around with this Prosser because he had made such a point of it, but, left to herself, she would not have touched him with a ten-foot pole. And as Bingo would not willingly have touched Oofy with an eleven-foot pole, a perfect harmony prevailed.
It was some two hours later that the girl rose.
"Oh, don't go yet," pleaded Bingo, for it seemed to him that they had not nearly exhausted the topic of Oofy, but she was firm.
"I must," she said. "I promised to meet a man I know at one of these private gambling places."
The words stirred Bingo like a bugle. He had heard much of these establishments, but had never had the opportunity of visiting one, and the tenner Oofy had given him seemed to leap in his pocket. Technically, of course, it belonged to Algernon Aubrey, but he knew no son of his would object to him borrowing it for the evening for such a worthy purpose.
"Gosh!" he said. "You couldn't take me along, could you?"
"Why, of course, if you want to come. It's out in the wilds of St. John's Wood somewhere."
"Really? Then it's on my way home. I live in St. John's Wood."
"I've got the address written down. Forty-three Magnolia Road."
Bingo, always on the lookout for omens and portents, leaped in his seat. Any lingering doubts he may have entertained as to the advisability of arranging that loan with Algernon Aubrey vanished. Obviously this was going to be his lucky night, and he would be vastly surprised if on the morrow he would not be able to pay twenty or thirty pounds into the other's wee little deposit account.
"Of all the coincidences!" he exclaimed. "That's next door but one to my little nest." The girl said Well, fancy that, adding that it was a small world, and Bingo agreed that he had seldom met a smaller.
The police raid on Number Forty-Three Magnolia Road took place, oddly enough, just as Bingo was preparing to leave. He had lost the last of his borrowed capital at the roulette board owing to a mistaken supposition that Red was going to turn up, and was standing at an open window, trying by means of some breaths of fresh air to alleviate that Death-where-is-thy-sting feeling that comes to gamesters at such times, when suddenly bells began to ring all over the place and a number of those present, jostling him to one side, proceeded to pour out of the window in a foaming stream.
Always a quick thinker, it took him but an instant to appreciate that the minds of these persons were working along the right lines. He knew what happened to those who dallied and loitered on occasions like this. They appeared next day before the awful majesty of the Law, charged with being found on enclosed premises, entered by virtue of a warrant in writing signed by the Commissioner of Police and alleged to be a common gaming house, contrary to Section 6 of the Gaming Act of 1845, the last thing a young husband, whose wife disapproved of gaming-houses, would wish to occur.
With the utmost promptitude he added himself to the torrent. A quick dash, and he was in the garden of the house next door to his own, hiding in a convenient water barrel that stood against the potting shed, where some moments later he was joined by Mabel Murgatroyd, who seemed in petulant mood.
"This is the fourth or fifth time this has happened to me," she said peevishly, as she slid into the barrel's interior. "Why can't these rozzers have a heart and not be forever interfering with private enterprise? Do you know what? I had a quid on sixteen, and sixteen came up, but before I could collect the bells began to ring and it was Ho for the open spaces. Thirty-seven pounds sterling gone with the wind. Shift over a bit, will you." Bingo shifted over a bit.
"These water barrels are always rather cramped," he said. "Still, this one hasn't any water in it," he added, pointing out the bright side.
"No, there's that, of course. But last time I hid in a cucumber frame. Solid comfort, that was. Ease away, you're crowding me. I wish you wouldn't suddenly expand like that."
"I was only breathing."
"Well, don't breathe. Is this your water barrel, by the way?"
"No, I'm just a lodger. What gave you that idea?"
"I thought you told me you lived next door to the recent Casino."
"Next door but one. We are at the moment enjoying the hospitality of an
artist of the name of Quintin."
"Nice fellow?"
"Not particularly."
"Ah, well, who is? Hullo, am I wrong, or have things quieted down somewhat? I believe the All Clear's been blown."
And so it proved. They emerged, paused for a moment on the lawn to take a cordial farewell, and then she went her way and he his. With something of the emotions of one who has been tried in the furnace, he hopped over the fence, sneaked into the house and so to bed.
He slept late next morning, and was about to set out for the office of Wee Tots, though feeling ill attuned to the task of providing wholesome reading matter for the juvenile public, when Mrs. Bingo came in, back from Brighton.
"Oh, hullo, my precious dream-rabbit," said Bingo with as much animation as he could dig up. "Welcome to Meadowsweet Hall. I've missed you, Angel."
"Me, too, you, sweetie-pie. And I seem to have missed all sorts of excitement. Mrs. Simmons across the way was telling me about it. Apparently those people at Number Forty-Three have been running one of those gambling places, and last night it was raided by the police."
"Good heavens!"
"I don't wonder you're shocked. We don't want that sort of thing going on in Magnolia Road."
"I should say not. Disgraceful.'
"But how curious that you should have heard nothing."
"I sleep very soundly."
"You must, because Mrs. Simmons says there was a great deal of whistling and shouting going on. I expect Mr. Quintin was furious. People were running about his garden half the night, and you know how fussy he is. He complained about Algy crying, and your ukelele and everything. He's always complaining. Are you off to the office ?"
"Just leaving."
"Won't you be very late? I hope Mr. Purkiss won't be annoyed."
"Oh, that's all right. I have a thorough understanding with Purkiss, who knows a good man when he sees one. Be sure always to get a good night's rest,' he has often said to me."
"You don't look as if you had had a good night's rest. You're a sort of funny yellow colour."
"Intellectual pallor," said Bingo, and withdrew.
Arrived at the office, he listlessly tried to bring his mind to bear on the letters which had come in for the Correspondence page ('Uncle Percy's Post-Bag'), but he found it difficult to concentrate. The standard of pure reason reached by the little subscribers who wrote to the editor of Wee Tots about their domestic pets was never a high one, but today it seemed to him that either he or they must have got water on the brain. There was one communication about a tortoise called Rupert which, in his opinion, would have served as a passport for its young author to any padded cell in the kingdom.
The only thing that enabled him to win through to closing time was the fact that Purkiss was absent. He had telephoned to say that he was nursing a sick headache. Purkiss at this juncture would have been more than he could have coped with.
It was with a feeling of relief that he started homeward at the end of the long day, and he had just unlatched the front door with his latchkey and was standing his hat on the hatstand, when Mrs. Bingo spoke from the drawing-room.
"Will you come here a moment, please, Bingo."
His heart, already low, sank lower. He had a sensitive ear, and he did not like the timbre of her voice. Usually Mrs. Bingo's voice seemed to him like the tinkling of silver bells across a scented meadow at sunset, but now it was on the flat side, and he fancied that he detected in it that metallic note which married men dislike so much.
She was standing in mid-carpet, looking cold and stern. She had a paper of some kind in her hand.
"Bingo," she said, "where were you last night?"
Bingo passed a finger round the inside of his collar. His brow was wet with honest sweat. But he told himself that he must be calm…cool…nonchalant.
"Last night?" he said, frowning thoughtfully. "Let me see, that would be the night of June the fifteenth, would it not? H'm. Ha. The night of…"
"I see you have forgotten," said Mrs. Bingo. "Let me refresh your memory. You were fleeing from the police because they had caught you gambling at Number Forty-Three."
"Who me? You're sure you mean me?"
"Read this," said Mrs. Bingo, and thrust at him the document she was holding. It was a letter, and ran as follows: -
Picasso Lodge 41 Magnolia Road St. John's Wood London, N.8
Madam:
While sympathizing with your husband's desire to avoid being arrested by the police for gambling on enclosed premises, I would be glad if you would ask him next time not to take refuge in my water barrel, as he and some unidentified female did last night.
I remain,
Yours faithfully,
Dante Gabriel Quintin.
"Well?" said Mrs. Bingo.
Bingo's spine had turned to gelatine. It seemed useless to struggle further. His gallant spirit was broken. And he was about to throw in the towel and confess all, when there was a sound outside like a mighty rushing wind and Algernon Aubrey's nanny came tottering in. Her eyes were wide and glassy, she breathed stertorously, and it was obvious that she was in the grip of some powerful emotion.
"Oh, ma'am!" she cried. "The baby!"
All the Mother in Mrs. Bingo awoke. She forgot Bingo and police and water barrels and everything else. She gasped. Bingo gasped. The nanny was already gasping. A stranger, entering the room, would have supposed himself to have strayed into a convention of asthma patients.
"Is he ill?"
"No, ma'am, but he just said 'Cat'."
"Cat?"
"Yes, ma'am, as plain as I'm standing here now. I was showing him his little picture book, and we'd come to the rhinoceros, and he pointed his finger at it and looked up at me and said 'Cat'."
A footnote is required here for the benefit of those who are not family men. 'Cat', they are probably feeling, is not such a tremendously brilliant and epigrammatic thing to say. But what made Algernon Aubrey's utterance of the word so sensational was that it was his first shot at saying anything. Up till now he had been one of those strong silent babies, content merely to dribble at the side of the mouth and emit an occasional gurgle. It can readily be understood, therefore, that the effect of this piece of hot news on Mrs. Bingo was about the same as that of the arrival of Talkies on the magnates of Hollywood. She left the room as if shot out of a gun. The nanny hurried after her. And Bingo was alone.
His first emotion, of course, was one of stunned awe at having been saved from the scaffold at the eleventh hour, but he soon saw that he had been accorded but a brief respite and that on Mrs. Bingo's return he would have to have some good, watertight story in readiness for her: and, try as he might, he could think of nothing that would satisfy her rather exacting taste. He toyed with the idea of saying that he had been in conference with Purkiss last night, discussing matters of office policy, but was forced to dismiss it.
For one thing, Purkiss would never abet his innocent deception. All that Bingo had seen of the man told him that the proprietor of Wee Tots was one of those rigidly upright blisters who, though possibly the backbone of England, are no earthly use to a chap in an emergency. Purkiss was the sort of fellow who, if approached on the matter of bumping up a pal’s alibi, would stare fishily and say "Am I to understand, Mr. Little, that you are suggesting that I sponsor a lie?"
Besides, Purkiss was at his home nursing a sick headache, which meant that negotiations would have to be conducted over the telephone, and you cannot swing a thing like that by remote control. You want the pleading eye and the little pats on the arm.
No, that was no good, and there appeared nothing to be done except groan hollowly, and he was doing this when the door opened and the maid announced "Mr. and Mrs. Purkiss".
As they entered. Bingo, who was pacing the room with unseeing eyes, knocked over a table with a vase, three photograph frames and a bowl of potpourri on it. It crashed to the floor with a noise like a bursting shell, and Purkiss soared silently to the ceiling. As he returned to po
sition one, Bingo saw that his face was Nile green in colour and that there were dark circles beneath his eyes.
"Ah, Mr. Little," said Purkiss.
"Oh, hullo," said Bingo.
Mrs. Purkiss did not speak. She seemed to be brooding on something.
Purkiss proceeded. He winced as he spoke, as if articulation hurt him.
"We are not disturbing you, I hope, Mr. Little?"
"Not at all," said Bingo courteously. "But I thought you were at home with a sick headache."
"I was at home with a sick headache," said Purkiss, "the result, I think, of sitting in a draught and contracting some form of tic or migraine. But my wife was anxious that you should confirm my statement that I was in your company last night. You have not forgotten that we sat up till a late hour at my club? No doubt you will recall that we were both surprised when we looked at our watches and found how the time had gone?"
There came to Bingo, listening to these words, the illusion that a hidden orchestra had begun to play soft music, while somewhere in the room he seemed to smell the scent of violets and mignonette. His eye, which had been duller than that of Purkiss, suddenly began to sparkle, and what he had supposed to be a piece of spaghetti in the neighbourhood of his back revealed itself as a spine, and a good spine, too.
"Yes," he said, drawing a deep breath, "that's right. We were at your club."
"How the time flew!"
"Didn't it! But then, of course, we were carried away by the topics we were discussing."
"Quite. We were deep in a discussion of office policy."
"Absorbing subject."
"Intensely gripping."
"You said so-and-so, and I said such-and-such."
"Precisely."
"One of the points that came up," said Bingo, "was, if you recollect, the question of payment for that story of mine."
"Was it?" said Purkiss doubtfully.
"Surely you haven't forgotten that?" said Bingo. "You told me you had been thinking it over and were now prepared to pay me ten quid for it. Or," he went on, his gaze fixed on the other with a peculiar intensity, "am I wrong?"
"No, no. It all comes back to me."