He hurried to the scene of conflict with uplifted heart. This, he was saying to himself, was his finest hour. If he did not actually utter the words 'My cup runneth over', he came very close to doing so. The expression he actually used was the one provided by wise high officials for the use of officers in circumstances such as these. He said:
'What's all this?'
It is a question which, if asked when the blood is hot, often goes unanswered. It did so now. Chimp was in no shape for speech, and Soapy was far too pre-occupied with the task in hand. Instead of merely strangling his old associate, George noticed that he now appeared to be trying to pull his head off at the roots, and it seemed to him that the time had come to intervene. His method of doing so, in keeping with his character, was simple and direct Wasting no time on verbal reasoning, he attached himself to the scruff of Soapy's neck, and pulled. There was a rending sound, and Chimp found himself free from that clutching hand, a thing he had begun to feel could never happen again in this world. For a brief moment he stood testing his breathing apparatus to make sure that it was still in working order: then, in pursuance of his policy of putting as great a distance as possible in as short a time as possible between himself and the Molloy family, he vanished into the night at a speed which Freddie Widgeon, racing of a morning to catch the 845 train, might have equalled but could never have surpassed.
George, in his patient, stolid way, was trying to get an over-all picture of the events leading up to this welcome break in the monotony of police work in Valley Fields. His original theory, that the large blighter to whose neck he was adhering had snatched the shapely lady's bag and that the small blighter, happening to be passing at the time, had interfered on her behalf, he dismissed. He had not seen much of Chimp, but he had seen enough to convince him that he was not the type that comes to the rescue of damsels in distress. More probably the small blighter - call him the human shrimp - had spoken lightly of a woman's name, and the large blighter, justly incensed, had lost his calm judgment and allowed his feelings to get the better of him.
Well, that was all very well, thought George, and one raised one's helmet in approval of his chivalry and all that, but you can't have fellows, no matter what the excellence of their motives, committing breaches of the peace all over the place, particularly in the presence of policemen who have been dreaming for weeks of making their first arrest. He tightened his grip on Soapy's neck, and with his other hand grasped the latter's wrist, placing himself in a position, should the situation call for it, to tie him in a reef knot and bring back to him memories of old visits to the osteopath. And it was at this point that Dolly's pent-up emotions found expression.
‘You big jug-headed sap!' she cried,
George started. He knew that this was in many ways a not unfair description of himself, for the fact had been impressed upon him both by masters at his school and, later, by superiors in his chosen profession. His sergeant, for one, had always been most frank on the subject. Nevertheless outburst surprised him. He peered at the speaker over Soapy's head, and was interested to recognize in her an old acquaintance, might he not almost say friend.
'Why, hullo,' he said. 'You again? You do keep popping up, don't you? Did I hear you call me a jug-headed sap?’
'Yes, you did,' rejoined Dolly with heat. 'See what you've been and done, you clam. You've gone and allowed that little reptile to make a get-away, and he's got something very valuable belonging to I and my husband.'
George shook his head.
'You shouldn't have let him have it. Neither a borrower nor a lender be. Shakespeare.' 'Plus which, you're giving my husband a crick in the neck.' 'Is this your husband?'
'Yes, it is, and I'll thank you to take your fat hands off'n him.'
'Release him, do you mean? Set him free?'
'That's what I mean.'
Again George shook his head.
'My dear little soul, you don't know what you're asking. Goodness knows I'd do anything in my power to oblige one with whom I have passed such happy moments, but when you suggest releasing this bimbo, I must resolutely decline to co-operate. He was causing a breach of the peace. Very serious matter, that, and one at which we of the force look askance,'
'Oh, applesauce!'
'I beg your pardon?'
'Why all this fuss and feathers about him choking an undersized little weasel that would have been choked at birth it his parents had had an ounce more sense than a billiard ball?'
George appreciated her point, but though as gallant a man as ever donned a uniform he could not allow her to sway him from his purpose.
'I get the idea, of course, and I'd fall in with your wishes like a shot, were the circumstances different, but you're overlooking a vitally important point. Have you any conception of what it means to a rozzer in a place like Valley Fields to be in a position to make a pinch? It's only about once in a blue moon that even so much as a simple drunk and disorderly comes along in this super-saintly suburb, so when you get a red-hot case of assault and battery…’
Words failed George, and he substituted action. Increasing the pressure on Soapy's neck, he propelled him along the road. Dolly, following, had fallen into a thoughtful silence and made no reply when George begged her to take a sporting view and to bear in mind how greatly all this was going to improve his relations with his sergeant. She was feeling in her bag for her blackjack, a girl's best friend. Experience had taught her that there was very little in this world that a blackjack could not cure.
Chimp Twist, meanwhile, his first instinct being to keep going and get away, had wandered far afield, so far that when at length he paused and felt it would be safe to return to Castlewood and its chamois leather bag, he became aware that he had lost himself. Valley Fields, while not an African jungle, is, like most London suburbs, an easy place for the explorer to get lost in, consisting as it does of streets of houses all looking exactly alike. But much may be accomplished by making enquiries of friendly natives, and after an hour or so of taking the first turn to the left and the second to the right and finding himself back where he had started, he won through to the railway station, and, from there to Castlewood was but a step. His spirits were high as he entered
Mulberry Grove, but they became abruptly lowered when he came in sight of the house he sought.
It was not that the sight of the front gate brought back thoughts of George and the Molloys. What caused him to halt suddenly and to realize that Fate was still persecuting him was the spectacle of a young man and a girl standing at that gate, engaged in earnest conversation.
He turned away, with sinking heart. He knew what happened when young men and girls stood in earnest conversation on any given spot. They stayed fixed to it for hours.
25
FREDDIE’S dinner had been a great success. It had started, as was natural in the circumstances, in an atmosphere of some depression, and during the soup course it would not be too much to say that gloom had reigned. But with the fish there had come a marked change for the better, for it was then that Sally, using all her feminine persuasiveness, had prevailed on him to forget the self-respect of the Widgeons and agree to allow her to apply to Leila Yorke for a temporary loan. After that, everything had gone with a swing.
It was only as they stood at the gate of Castlewood that the jarring note crept back into their conversation. For some little time during the homeward journey Sally had noticed a tendency toward silence on her loved one's part, and now he revealed that, having thought things over a bit, he was not easy in his mind about this idea of appealing for help to Leila Yorke. His scruples had risen to the surface again.
'What I mean to say,’ he said, 'Can a Widgeon bite a woman's ear?'
'Oh, Freddie!'
'You can say "Oh, Freddie!" till the cows come home, but the question still remains moot. Odd, this feeling one has about getting into the ribs of the other sex. It's like rubbing velvet the wrong way. I remember when I was a kid and went to dancing school, there was a child called A
lice who had a bar of milk chocolate, and knowing how deep her love for me was I deliberately played on her affection to get half of it off her. I enjoyed it at the time, but now, looking back, I feel unclean. A thoroughly dirty trick I consider it, and I'm not sure this idea of sharing the wealth with Leila Yorke isn't lust as bad.’
‘You won't be getting the money from her. I will’
'But I shall be getting it from you.’
'Well, what's wrong with that?'
'Nothing actually wrong, but---‘
Sally's patience gave out.
'Look here,' she said, 'do you want to marry me?’
'You betcher.'
'Do you want to go to Kenya and make an enormous fortune, growing coffee?'
'Oh, rather.'
'And do you realize that you can't do either of these things unless you get some money quick?'
'Yes, I see that.'
'Then don't be an ass,' said Sally.
Freddie saw her point. He nodded. Her clear feminine reasoning had convinced him.
‘I see what you mean. After all, as you say, it's just a loan.’’
'Exactly.'
'Once the coffee beans start sprouting, I shall be able to repay her a thousandfold.'
'Of course.'
'And you think she'll part?'
‘I'm sure she will She's the most generous person on earth.'
'Well, I hope you're right, because I told you about that letter from Boddington, saying he couldn't hold his offer open much longer. The sands are running out, as you might say. You'll be seeing her tomorrow, I take it?’
'Yes, she told me to hire a car and drive down with the luggage. That shows you what she's like. Any other woman would have made me go by train.‘
'A sterling soul. I've always thought so. She---‘
Freddie broke off. Out of the night a large figure in policeman's uniform had appeared and was standing beside them, breathing rather stertorously, as if it had recently passed through some testing spiritual experience.
'Hullo, Freddie,' it said.
'Hullo, George.'
'Hullo, Miss…I keep forgetting your name.’
'Foster. But think of me as Sally.'
'Right ho. I say,' said George, 'I've just been conked on the base of the skull with a blunt instrument.'
'What!'
'Squarely on the base of the skull. And, what makes it even more bitter, it was a woman who did it. You remember that girl friend of yours who borrowed your pyjamas, Freddie?'
'She wasn't my girl friend!'
George was in no mood to split straws.
'Well, your distant acquaintance or whatever she was. Hers was the hand that let me have it.'
Sally squeaked incredulously.
'You mean Mrs. Molloy hit you?'
'Feel the bump, if you care to.'
Freddie drew in his breath sharply. Since his betrothal to Sally, his views on dallying with the female sex, once broad-minded to the point of laxity, had become austere. He spoke severely.
'You have only yourself to blame, George. How you can do this sort of thing beats me. You are engaged to a sweet girl who loves and trusts you, and yet you go about the place forcing your attentions on other women, a thing which Sally knows I wouldn't do on a bet. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.'
'What are you talking about?'
'Didn't you kiss Mrs. Molloy?'
'Certainly not. I wouldn't kiss her with a ten-foot pole.’
'Then why did she sock you?'
'I was pinching her husband.'
A thrill ran through Freddie's system. Anyone who pinched the hellhound Molloy had his sympathy and support. 'I found him causing a breach of the peace, and took him into custody, and we all marched off en route for the police station. The female Molloy had been pleading with me piteously to let the blighter go, and I might have done it, in spite of the fact that it was my dearest wish to make my first pinch and be fawned on by my sergeant and others, but it suddenly came home to me that she had kept referring to the accused as her husband, and I knew she was Mrs. Molloy, and I put two and two together and realized that this must be the bird who had done you down over those oil shares. After that, of course, I was adamant, and the upshot of the whole thing was that while my attention was riveted on Molloy, she hauled off and biffed me on the occipital bone with what I assumed to be a cosh. I don't know what girls are coming to these days.'
Freddie clicked his tongue.
‘So you let Molloy get away?'
'How do you mean, let him get away?' said George, with spirit. 'I was temporarily a spent force. Everything went black, and when I came out of the ether I was sitting in the gutter with a lump on the back of my bean - you may feel it, if you wish - the size of an ostrich egg, and the Molloys had vanished into the night.'
Sally squeaked again, this time in sympathy.
'You poor man! Does it hurt?'
'Lady, I will conceal nothing from you. It hurts like hell.'
'Come on in and have a drink.'
George shook his head, and a sharp yelp of pain showed how speedily he had regretted the rash act.
'Thanks, but sorry, no, afraid impossible. I'm on duty, and they have a nasty habit at headquarters of sniffing at one's breath. What I stopped for was to touch you for a cigarette, Freddie. Have you the makings?'
'Of course. I've also got a cigar, rather a good one, judging from the price.'
'A cigar would be terrific,' said George gratefully. 'Add a match - I used my last one just before the affair Molloy - and I shall be set,’ and having expressed a wish that at some point in his patrolling he might once more encounter Mr. Molloy, he, too, vanished into the night.
His departure left a silence. Freddie broke it.
'Poor old George!'
'My heart bleeds for him.9
'Mine, too. Must be very galling for an old Oxford boxing blue, who may at any moment represent his country on the football field, to be put on the canvas by a woman and not to be able to wash it down with a drop of the right stuff. That suggestion of yours of a nip of something to keep the cold out, by the way, strikes me as sound. Have you anything on the premises?'
'I've a whole bottle of champagne I bought for Leila Yorke's dinner.'
'You may lead me to it.'
They went into the house, and Sally passed on into the kitchen. When she joined Freddie some moments later in the living-room, her face was a little pale.
‘It isn't there,’ she said.
'No, it's here,' said Freddie, pointing. 'Wonder who brought it in? Three glasses, too. Odd.'
‘I’ll tell you something odder. The kitchen window's broken. Somebody's been getting in.'
'Burglars? Good heavens!’ A grave look came into Freddie's face. 'I don't like this.'
'I don't like it myself.'
'But what on earth would burglars want, breaking into a house of this sort?'
'Well, they evidently did, and what I'm asking myself is, Are they coming back?’
'You mustn't get the wind up.'
'I'm jolly well going to. If you want to know how nervous anyone can be, watch me. I've got to sleep here all alone, and if you think that's a pleasant thought, with burglars popping in and out all the time, you're wrong.' Freddie waved a reassuring hand.
'Have no concern whatsoever, I shall be outside, keeping watch and something. Ward, that's the word I wanted. I'll be in the offing, keeping watch and ward. Don't let burglars weigh on your mind. I will be about their bed and about their board, spying out all their ways.'
'No, you mustn't.'
'Yes, I must.'
'No. You need your sleep. I shall be all right,' said Sally with sudden confidence. She had just remembered Leila Yorkc's shot-gun. There is nothing like a shot-gun for putting heart into a girl.
Freddie pondered.
'You don't want me to keep watch and ward?'
'No. You're not to.'
'Right ho,' said Freddie agreeably. Though still a bachelor,
he knew better than to argue with a woman. He kissed Sally fondly and left by the front door, and Chimp Twist, who had stolen cautiously to the gate and was about to open it, backed hastily and melted into the night again, thinking hard thoughts of the younger generation. The trouble with the younger generation, he was feeling bitterly as he removed himself, was that they were always round and about, popping up all the time where they were not wanted.
It was perhaps an hour later that he thought it would be safe to try again. He knew exactly where the chamois leather bag was, just behind where he had been standing, and it was with a bright anticipation of the happy ending that he approached the gate once more, only to find the same member of the younger generation leaning on it, his eyes raised to the moon and his general aspect that of one who was there for the night.
A man experienced in dealing with the female sex knows that the policy to pursue, when a woman issues an order, is not to stand arguing but to acquiesce and then go off and disobey it, and Freddie had wasted no time trying to persuade Sally to change her mind and allow him to patrol the grounds of Castlewood. He had simply gone and done it. For the last hour he had been, in defiance of her wishes, walking round and round the house like the better type of watch dog, his eye alert for nocturnal marauders. The complete absence of these had induced ennui and, like George, he was delighted to see Chimp. He would have preferred to pass the time of night with someone who looked a little less like something absent without leave from the monkey house at the zoo, but he knew that he was in no position to pick and choose. Valley Fields goes to bed early, and this at such an hour was the best it could provide.