'Are you?'
'Of course I am.'
'Have mine,' said Mr Frisby.
He strode to the telephone, unhooked the receiver, and barked into it to cover a certain not unnatural confusion. If his cheeks had not been made of the most durable leather, they would have been blushing. What he had said was not what he had been intending to say. He had planned something on tenderer and more romantic lines. Still, that was the way it had come out. The proposition had been placed on the agenda, and let it lay, was Mr Frisby's view.
'Chancery 09632? Robbins? Come right round to Grosvenor House, Robbins. Yes, at once. Want to see you.'
Lady Vera was contemplating his rigid back with a kindly smile. She was experienced in the matter of inarticulate proposals. The late Colonel Archibald Mace had grabbed her hand at Hurlingham one summer afternoon, turned purple, and said 'Eh, what?' Compared with him, Mr Frisby had been eloquent.
'Well?' said T. Paterson Frisby, replacing the receiver and turning.
'You go with it, I suppose?' said Lady Vera.
Mr Frisby nodded curtly.
'There is that objection,' he said.
Lady Vera smiled.
'I don't consider it an objection.'
'Vera!' said Mr Frisby.
'Paterson!' said Lady Vera.
'Don't call me Paterson,' said Mr Frisby, breathing devoutly down the back of her neck. 'It's a thing I wouldn't mention to anyone but you, and I hope you won't let it get about, but my first name's Torquil.'
II
To Berry Conway, hurrying across its verdant slopes to where the Tea House nestled among shady trees, Hyde Park seemed to be looking its best and brightest. True, the usual regiment of loafers slumbered on the grass and there was scattered in his path the customary assortment of old paper bags: but this afternoon, such is the magic of Love, these objects of the wayside struck him as merely picturesque. Dogs, to the number of twenty-seven, were barking madly in twenty-seven different keys: and their clamour sounded to him like music. If he had had time, he would have pursued and patted each separate dog and gone the rounds giving sixpences to each individual loafer. But time pressed, and he had to forgo this piece of self-indulgence.
If anyone had told him that his manner during their recent chat had been of a kind to occasion Mr Frisby pain, he would have been surprised and wounded. He was bubbling over with universal benevolence, and the five children who stopped him to ask the correct time received, in addition to the information, a sort of bonus in the form of a smile so dazzling that one of them, less hardy than the rest, burst into tears. And when, coming in view of the Tea House, he perceived Ann already seated at one of the tables, his exhilaration bordered on delirium. The trees seemed to dance. The sparrows sang with a gayer note. The family at the next table, including though it did a small boy in spectacles and a velvet suit, looked like a beautiful picture. Many a person calmer than Berry Conway at that moment had been accepted – and with enthusiasm – by the authorities of hospitals as a first-class fever patient.
He leaped the railings and covered the remaining distance in two bounds.
'Hullo!' he said.
'Hullo,' said Ann.
'Here I am!' he said.
'Yes,' said Ann.
'Am I late?' asked Berry.
'No,' said Ann.
A just perceptible diminution of ecstasy came to Berry Conway. He felt ever so slightly chilled. Nearly eighteen long hours had passed since he and this girl had last met, and he could not help feeling that something more in the key of drama should have signalized their reunion. Of course, in a public place like Hyde Park girls are handicapped in the way of emotional expression. Had Ann sprung from her seat and kissed him, the small boy at the next table would undoubtedly have caused embarrassment by asking in a loud voice, 'Mamah, why did she do that?' No, he could quite see why she did not spring and kiss him.
But – and now he saw what the trouble was – there was nothing whatever to prevent her smiling and – what is more – smiling with a shy, loving tenderness. And she had not done so. Her face was grave. If he had been in a slightly less exalted mood, he might have described it as unfriendly. There was not a smile in sight. Her mouth was set, and she was not looking at him. She was concentrating her gaze – letting her gaze run to waste, as it were – on a small, hard-boiled-looking Pekingese dog which had wandered up and was sitting by the table, waiting for food to appear.
Love sharpens the senses. Berry realized now what the matter was.
'I am late,' he said, contritely.
'Oh, no,' said Ann.
'I'm most frightfully sorry,' said Berry. 'I had to see someone on my way here.'
'Oh?' said Ann.
Even a man with Berry's rosy outlook could not blink the fact that the thermometer was falling. He cursed himself for not having been punctual. This, he told himself, was the way men rubbed the bloom off romance. They arranged to meet girls at five sharp at Tea Houses, and then they loitered and dallied and didn't arrive till five-one or even five-two. And, meanwhile, the poor girls waited and waited and waited, like Marianas in Moated Granges, longing for their tea . . .
Now he saw. Now he understood. Tea! Of course. All he had ever heard and read about the peril of keeping women waiting for their tea came back to him. And he was conscious of a great surge of relief. There was nothing personal about her coldness. It did not mean that she had been thinking things over and had decided that he was not the man for her. It simply meant that she wanted a spot of tea and wanted it quick.
He banged forcefully on the table.
'Tea,' he commanded. 'For two. As quick as you can. And cakes and things.'
Ann had stooped, and was tickling the Peke. Berry decided for the moment, till the relief expedition should arrive with restoratives, to keep the conversation impersonal.
'Lovely day,' he said.
'Yes,' said Ann.
'Nice dog,' said Berry.
'Yes,' said Ann.
Berry withdrew into a cautious silence. Talking only made him feel that he had been thrown into the society of a hostile stranger. He marvelled at the puissance of this strange drug, tea, the lack of which can turn the sweetest girl into a sort of trapped creature that glares and snaps. Amazing to think that about two half-sips and a swallow would change Ann into the thing of gentleness and warmth that she had been last night.
He sat back in his chair, and tried to relieve the strain by looking at the silver waters of the Serpentine. From its brink a faint quacking could be heard. Ducks. In a very short while he and a restored, kindly Ann would be scattering bits of cake to those ducks. All that was needed now was . . .
'Ah!' said Berry.
A tray-laden waitress was approaching.
'Here comes the tea,' he said.
'Oh!' said Ann.
He watched her fill her cup. He watched her drink. Then, reassured, he braced himself to make his apology as an apology should be made.
'I feel simply awful,' he said, 'about keeping you waiting like that.'
'I had only just arrived,' said Ann.
'I had to go and see someone . . .'
'Who?'
'Oh, a man.'
Ann detached a piece of cake and dropped it before the Peke. The Peke sniffed at it disparagingly, and resumed its steady gaze. It wanted chicken. It is the simple creed of the Peke that, where two human beings are gathered together to eat, chicken must enter into the proceedings somewhere.
'I see,' said Ann. 'A man? Not a gang?'
Berry started. The tea sprang from his cup. The words had been surprising enough, but not so surprising as the look which accompanied them. For, as she spoke, Ann had raised her head and for the first time her eyes met him squarely. And her eyes were like burning stones.
'Er – what?'
'Agang, I said,' replied Ann. Her eyes were daggers now. They pierced him through and through. 'I thought that, whenever you had a spare five minutes, you spent it rounding up gangs.'
In the distance ducks we
re quacking. At the next table the small boy had swallowed a crumb the wrong way and was being pounded on the back by abusive parents. Sparrows twittered, and somewhere a voice was calling to Ernie to stop teasing Cyril. Berry heard none of these things. He heard only the beating of his heart, and it was like a drum playing the Dead March.
He opened his mouth to speak, but she stopped him.
'No, please don't bother to tell me any more lies,' she said.
She leaned forward, and lowered her voice. What she had to say was not for the ears of the family at the next table.
'Shall I tell you,' she said, 'how I spent the afternoon? When I got home last night, I had a talk with Lord Biskerton's aunt, who is chaperoning me while I am over here. She had seen you and me dining at Mario's, and she had a lot to say about it. I wanted to discuss things with you, so I went down to Valley Fields in my car, and called at The Nook. You were out, but there was an elderly woman there with whom I had quite a long chat.'
It seemed to Berry that he had uttered a sudden, sharp wail. But he had done so only in spirit. He sat there, staring silently before him, his whole soul in torment. She had met the Old Retainer! She had had quite a long chat with the Old Retainer! He shuddered at the thought of what she must have heard. If ever there was a woman who could be relied on to spill the beans with a firm, unerring hand, that woman was the Old Retainer.
Ann continued speaking in the same low, even voice.
'She told me that you were the last person to do anything as nasty and dangerous as that, because you had always been so quiet and steady and respectable. She told me that you were my uncle's secretary and had never done anything adventurous or exciting in your life. She told me that you wore flannel next to your skin and bed-socks in winter. And,' said Ann, 'she told me that scar on your temple was not caused by a bullet, but that you got it when you were six years old by falling against the hat-stand in the hall because you forgot to scratch the soles of your new shoes.'
She rose abruptly.
'Well, that's all,' she said. 'Why you took so much trouble to make a fool of me, I don't know. Good-bye.'
She was walking away – walking out of his life: and still Berry found himself unable to move. Then, as she disappeared round the angle of the Tea House, he seemed to come out of his trance. He sprang to his feet, and was hurrying after her to explain, to plead, to give her the old oil, to clear himself at least of the charge of wearing bed-socks, when a voice arrested him.
'Jer want your bill, sir?'
It was the waitress, grim and suspicious. She disapproved of customers who developed a sudden activity before they had discharged their financial obligations.
'Oh!' Berry blinked. The waitress sniffed. 'I was forgetting,' said Berry.
He found money, handed it over, waved away the change. But the delay, though brief, had been fatal.
He vaulted the railings and stood peering about him. Hyde Park basked in the summer sunshine, green and spacious. The dogs were there. The loafers were there. The paper bags were there. But Ann had gone.
The ducks in the Serpentine quacked on, unfed.
III
In the smoking-room of the low and seedy club which was his haunt, Captain Kelly was listening with an expressionless face to an agitated Mr Hoke.
'He said he knew your secret?'
'Yes.'
J. B. Hoke mopped his forehead. Emotion, coupled with the four double brandies which he had taken to restore himself after the shock of his recent interview with the Biscuit, had made him more soluble than ever. He had become virtually fluid.
'Which secret?' asked the Captain.
'About the Dream Come True, of course.'
'Why of course? You must have a hundred, each shadier than the other.'
Mr Hoke was not to be consoled by this kindly suggestion. He shook his head.
'This fellow's a friend of young Conway. He lives next door to Conway. He was lunching with Conway. They were talking about the Dream Come True. Conway told me so. I thought right from the start that Conway had been listening at the door that day, and I was right.'
The Captain considered.
'Maybe,' he said. 'On the other hand, this red-headed chap may have been bluffing you.'
'I'm not so easy to bluff,' said Mr Hoke, bridling despite his concern.
'No?' said Captain Kelly. He smiled a twisted smile. 'Well, you were easy enough for me to bluff. You took in that story of mine about the gorillas without blinking. And you signed away half your cash on the strength of it.'
A hideous suspicion shot through Mr Hoke. He trembled visibly.
'The gorillas!' he gasped. 'Do you mean to say—?'
'Of course I do. Gorillas! There aren't any gorillas. What would I be doing spending my money on gorillas? I made them up. It flashed into my mind. Just like that. You know how things flash.'
Mr Hoke was breathing stertorously. It was as if this revelation of a friend's duplicity had stunned him.
'And you fell for it,' said Captain Kelly with relish. 'I'd never have thought it of you. Going to cost a lot, that is.'
Mr Hoke recovered. He spoke venomously.
'Is it?' he said. 'You think you're on to a good thing, do you?'
'I know it.'
'Well, let me tell you something,' said Mr Hoke. 'Do you know how many shares of Horned Toad Copper I hold at the present moment?'
'How many?'
'Not one. Not a single solitary darned one. That's how many.'
The Captain's face stiffened.
'What are you talking about?'
'I'll tell you what I'm talking about. I sold all my holdings at four, and I was going to buy them back when I felt they'd gone low enough. And then we would have spilled the info' about the new reef, and everything would have been fine. But now where are we? What is to prevent that red-headed young hound getting together some money and starting buying directly the market opens? What's to prevent him buying up all the shares there are?'
Something of his companion's concern was reflected on Captain Kelly's face.
'H'm!' he said. He paused thoughtfully. 'You really think he knows?'
'Of course he knows. He said "I know your secret." And I said "What secret?" And he said "Ah!" And I said "About the Dream Come True?" And he said "That's the one." '
Captain Kelly eyed his friend unpleasantly.
'And you said you weren't easy to bluff ! I wish I'd been there.'
'What would you have done?'
'I'd have soaked you with a chair before you could start talking. Can't you see he didn't really know anything?'
'Well, he knows plenty now,' said Mr Hoke sullenly. Recalling the scene, he sat amazed at his simplicity. He could not believe that it was he, J. B. Hoke, who had behaved like that. He put it down to the fact that those phantom gorillas had been preying on his mind to such an extent that he had become incapable of clear thought.
'What are you going to do about it?' asked Captain Kelly.
Mr Hoke regarded him with cold reproach.
'What can I do about it?' he said. 'I'll tell you what I was going to do about it, if you like. I came here to ask you to send those two gorillas of yours down to Valley Fields where this guy lives, and attend to him.'
'Cosh him?'
'There wouldn't have been any need to cosh him. All that's necessary is to keep Conway and that red-haired bird away from the market long enough to let me buy back that stock. They can't do anything today, because the market's closed. But, if they aren't stopped, they'll be there bright and early tomorrow morning. I was going to tell you to send these gorillas down to keep them bottled up at home till I was ready to let them out. They could have flashed a gun at them, and made them stay put. I only need a couple of hours tomorrow to clean up that stock. But what's the use of talking about it now?' said Mr Hoke disgustedly. 'There aren't any gorillas.'
He brooded disconsolately on this shortage. Captain Kelly was also brooding, but his thoughts had taken a different turn.
/> 'It's a good idea,' he said at length. 'I wouldn't have expected you to think of it.'
'What's a good idea?'
'Bottling these fellows up.'
'Yeah?' said Mr Hoke. 'And how's it going to be done?'
Captain Kelly smiled one of his infrequent smiles.
'We'll do it.'
'Who'll do it?'
'You and I'll do it. We'll go down there and do it tonight.'
Mr Hoke stared. His potations had to a certain extent dulled his mental faculties, but he could still understand speech as plain as this.
'Me?' he said, incredulously. 'You think I'm going to horn into folks' homes with a gat in my hand?'
'Ah!' said Captain Kelly.
'I won't.'
'You will,' said the Captain. 'Or would you rather let these two chaps get away with it?'
Mr Hoke quivered. The prospect was not a pleasant one.
'You've said yourself what will happen,' proceeded the Captain, 'if these fellows aren't stopped. They'll get hold of all that stock, and somebody will suspect something, and the price will go up, and when we try to buy we'll have to pay through the nose.'
Mr Hoke nodded pallidly.
'I remember M.T.O. Nickel opening at ten and going to a hundred and twelve two hours later on a rumour,' he said. 'That was five years ago. It'll be the same with Horned Toad. Once start fooling around with these stocks and you never know what won't break.' He paused. 'But go down to Valley Fields and wave gats!' he said, shaking gently like a jelly. 'I can't do it.'
'You're going to do it,' said Captain Kelly firmly. 'Have you got a gat?'
'Of course I haven't got a gat.'
'Then go and buy one now,' said Captain Kelly, 'and meet me here at nine o'clock.'
IV
Captain Kelly regarded Mr Hoke censoriously. He did not like the way his friend had just tumbled into his car. Like a self-propelling sack of coals, the Captain considered.
'Hoke,' he said, 'you're blotto!'
Mr Hoke did not reply. He was gazing good-humouredly into the middle distance. His eyes were like the eyes of a fish not in the best of health.
'Oh, well,' said the Captain resignedly, 'maybe the fresh air will do you good.'