But Frederick Pilcher had his wits well about him. He overswung as he had never overswung before. His ball shot off into the long grass on the right of the course, and he uttered a pleased cry.
“Lost ball, I fancy,” he said. “Too bad!”
“I marked it,” said John Gooch, grimly. “I will come and help you find it.”
“Don’t trouble.”
“It is no trouble.”
“But it’s your hole, anyway. It will take me three or four to get out of there.”
“It will take me four or five to get a yard from where I am.”
“Gooch,” said Frederick Pilcher, in a cautious whisper, “you are a cad.”
“Pilcher,” said John Gooch, in tones equally hushed, “you are a low bounder. And if I find you kicking that ball under a bush, there will be blood shed—and in large quantities.”
“Ha, ha!”
“Ha, ha to you!” said John Gooch.
The ball was lying in a leathery tuft, and, as Pilcher had predicted, it took three strokes to move it back to the fairway. By the time Frederick Pilcher had reached the spot where John Gooch’s drive had finished, he had played seven.
But there was good stuff in John Gooch. It is often in times of great peril that the artistic temperament shows up best. Missing the ball altogether with his next three swings, he topped it with his fourth, topped it again with his fifth, and, playing the like, sent a low, skimming shot well over the green into the bunker beyond. Frederick Pilcher, aiming for the same bunker, sliced and landed on the green. The six strokes which it took John Gooch to get out of the sand decided the issue. Frederick Pilcher was one up at the tenth.
But John Gooch’s advantage was short-lived. On the right, as you approach the eleventh green there is a deep chasm, spanned by a wooden bridge. Frederick Pilcher, playing twelve, just failed to put his ball into this, and it rolled on to within a few feet of the hole. It seemed to John Gooch that the day was his. An easy mashie-shot would take him well into the chasm, from which no eighteen-handicap player had ever emerged within the memory of man. This would put him two down—a winning lead. He swung jubilantly, and brought off a nicely-lofted shot which seemed to be making for the very centre of the pit.
And so, indeed, it was; and it was this fact that undid John Gooch’s schemes. The ball, with all the rest of the chasm to choose from, capriciously decided to strike the one spot on the left-hand rail of the wooden bridge which would deflect it towards the flag. It bounded high in the air, fell on the green, and the next moment, while John Gooch stood watching with fallen jaw and starting eyes, it had trickled into the hole.
There was a throbbing silence. Then Agnes Flack spoke.
“Important, if true,” she said. “All square again. I will say one thing for you two—you make this game very interesting.”
And once more she sent the birds shooting out of the tree-tops with that hearty laugh of hers. John Gooch, coming slowly to after the shattering impact of it, found that he was clutching Frederick Pilcher’s arm. He flung it from him as if it had been a loathsome snake.
A grimmer struggle than that which took place over the next six holes has probably never been seen on any links. First one, then the other seemed to be about to lose the hole, but always a well-judged slice or a timely top enabled his opponent to rally. At the eighteenth tee the game was still square; and John Gooch, taking advantage of the fact that Agnes had stopped to tie her shoe-lace endeavoured to appeal to his one-time friend’s better nature.
“Frederick,” he said, “this is not like you.”
“What isn’t like me?”
“Playing this low-down game. It is not like the old Frederick Pilcher.”
“Well, what sort of a game do you think you are playing?”
“A little below my usual, it is true,” admitted John Gooch. “But that is due to nervousness. You are deliberately trying to foozle, which is not only painting the lily but very dishonest. And I can’t see what motive you have, either.”
“You can’t, can’t you?”
John Gooch laid a hand persuasively on the other’s shoulder.
“Agnes Flack is a most delightful girl.”
“Who is?”
“Agnes Flack.”
“A delightful girl?”
“Most delightful.”
“Agnes Flack is a delightful girl?”
“Yes.”
“Oh?”
“She would make you very happy.”
“Who would?”
“Agnes Flack.”
“Make me happy?”
“Very happy.”
“Agnes Flack would make me happy?”
“Yes.”
“Oh?”
John Gooch was conscious of a slight discouragement. He did not seem to be making headway.
“Well, then, look here,” he said, “what we had better do is to have a gentleman’s agreement.”
“Who are the gentlemen?”
“You and I.”
“Oh?”
John Gooch did not like the other’s manner, nor did he like the tone of voice in which he had spoken. But then there were so many things about Frederick Pilcher that he did not like that it seemed useless to try to do anything about it. Moreover, Agnes Flack had finished tying her shoe-lace, and was making for them across the turf like a mastodon striding over some prehistoric plain. It was no time for wasting words.
“A gentleman’s agreement to halve the match,” he said hurriedly.
“What’s the good of that? She would only make us play extra holes.”
“We would halve those too.”
“Then we should have to play it off another day.”
“But before that we could leave the neighbourhood.”
“Sidney McMurdo would follow us to the ends of the earth.”
“Ah, but suppose we didn’t go there? Suppose we simply lay low in the city and grew beards?”
“There’s something in it,” said Frederick Pilcher, reflectively.
“You agree?”
“Very well.”
“Splendid!”
“What’s splendid?” asked Agnes Flack, thudding up.
“Oh—er—the match,” said John Gooch. “I was saying to Pilcher that this was a splendid match.”
Agnes Flack sniffed. She seemed quieter than she had been at the outset, as though something were on her mind.
“I’m glad you think so,” she said. “Do you two always play like this?”
“Oh, yes. Yes. This is about our usual form.”
“H’m! Well, push on.”
It was with a light heart that John Gooch addressed his ball for the last drive of the match. A great weight had been lifted from his mind, and he told himself that now there was no objection to bringing off a real sweet one. He swung lustily; and the ball, struck on its extreme left side, shot off at right angles, hit the ladies’ tee-box, and, whizzing back at a high rate of speed, would have mown Agnes Flack’s ankles from under her, had she not at the psychological moment skipped in a manner extraordinarily reminiscent of the high hills mentioned in Sacred Writ.
“Sorry, old man,” said John Gooch, hastily, flushing as he encountered Frederick Pilcher’s cold look of suspicion. “Frightfully sorry, Frederick, old man. Absolutely unintentional.”
“What are you apologizing to him for?” demanded Agnes Flack with a good deal of heat. It had been a near thing, and the girl was ruffled.
Frederick Pilcher’s suspicions had plainly not been allayed by John Gooch’s words. He drove a cautious thirty yards, and waited with the air of one suspending judgment for his opponent to play his second. It was with a feeling of relief that John Gooch, smiting vigorously with his brassie, was enabled to establish his bona fides with a shot that rolled to within mashie-niblick distance of the green.
Frederick Pilcher seemed satisfied that all was well. He played his second to the edge of the green. John Gooch ran his third up into the neighbourhood of the pin.
r /> Frederick Pilcher stooped and picked his ball up.
“Here!” cried Agnes Flack.
“Hey!” ejaculated John Gooch.
“What on earth do you think you’re doing?” said Agnes Flack.
Frederick Pilcher looked at them with mild surprise.
“What’s the matter?” he said. “There’s a blob of mud on my ball. I just wanted to brush it off.”
“Oh, my heavens!” thundered Agnes Flack. “Haven’t you ever read the rules? You’re disqualified.”
“Disqualified?”
“Dis-jolly-well-qualified,” said Agnes Flack, her eyes flashing scorn. “This cripple here wins the match.”
Frederick Pilcher heaved a sigh.
“So be it,” he said. “So be it.”
“What do you mean, so be it? Of course it is.”
“Exactly. Exactly. I quite understand. I have lost the match. So be it.”
And, with drooping shoulders, Frederick Pilcher shuffled off in the direction of the bar.
John Gooch watched him go with a seething fury which for the moment robbed him of speech. He might, he told himself, have expected something like this. Frederick Pilcher, lost to every sense of good feeling and fair play, had double-crossed him. He shuddered as he realized how inky must be the hue of Frederick Pilcher’s soul; and he wished in a frenzy of regret that he had thought of picking his own ball up. Too late! Too late!
For an instant the world had been blotted out for John Gooch by a sort of red mist. This mist clearing, he now saw Agnes Flack standing looking at him in a speculative sort of way, an odd expression in her eyes. And beyond her, leaning darkly against the club-house wall, his bulging muscles swelling beneath his coat and his powerful fingers tearing to pieces what appeared to be a section of lead piping, stood Sidney McMurdo.
John Gooch did not hesitate. Although McMurdo was some distance away, he could see him quite clearly; and with equal clearness he could remember every detail of that recent interview with him. He drew a step nearer to Agnes Flack, and having gulped once or twice, began to speak.
“Agnes,” he said huskily, “there is something I want to say to you. Oh, Agnes, have you not guessed⎯”
“One moment,” said Agnes Flack. If you’re trying to propose to me, sign off. There is nothing doing. The idea is all wet.”
“All wet?”
“All absolutely wet. I admit that there was a time when I toyed with the idea of marrying a man with brains, but there are limits. I wouldn’t marry a man who played golf as badly as you do if he were the last man in the world. Sid-nee!” she roared, turning and cupping her mouth with her hands; and a nervous golfer down by the lake-hole leaped three feet and got his mashie entangled between his legs.
“Hullo?”
“I’m going to marry you, after all.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you.”
“Three rousing cheers!” bellowed McMurdo.
Agnes Flack turned to John Gooch. There was something like commiseration in her eyes, for she was a woman. Rather on the large side, but still a woman.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Don’t mention it,” said John Gooch.
“I hope this won’t ruin your life.”
“No, no.”
“You still have your Art.”
“Yes, I still have my Art.”
“Are you working on anything just now?” asked Agnes Flack.
“I’m starting a new story to-night,” said John Gooch. “It will be called Saved From The Scaffold.”
22
THE LETTER OF THE LAW
“FO—O—O—RE!”
The cry, in certain of its essentials not unlike the wail of a soul in torment, rolled out over the valley, and the young man on the seventh tee, from whose lips it had proceeded, observing that the little troupe of spavined octogenarians doddering along the fairway paid no attention whatever, gave his driver a twitch as if he was about to substitute action for words. Then he lowered the club and joined his companion on the bench.
“Better not, I suppose,” he said, moodily.
The Oldest Member, who often infested the seventh tee on a fine afternoon, nodded.
“I think you are wise,” he agreed. “Driving into people is a thing one always regrets. I have driven into people in my golfing days, and I was always sorry later. There is something about the reproachful eye of the victim as you meet it subsequently in the bar of the club-house which cannot fail to jar the man of sensibility. Like a wounded oyster. Wait till they are out of distance, says the good book. The only man I ever knew who derived solid profit from driving into somebody who was not out of distance was young Wilmot Byng. . . .”
The two young men started.
“Are you going to tell us a story?”
“I am.”
“But⎯”
“I knew you would be pleased,” said the Oldest Member.
Wilmot Byng at the time of which I speak (the sage proceeded) was an engaging young fellow with a clear-cut face and a drive almost as long as the Pro’s. Strangers, watching him at his best, would express surprise that he had never taken a couple of days off and won the Open Championship, and you could have knocked them down with a putter when you informed them that his handicap was six. For Wilmot’s game had a fatal defect. He was impatient. If held up during a round, he tended to press. Except for that, however, he had a sterling nature and frank blue eyes which won all hearts.
It was the fact that for some days past I had observed in these eyes a sort of cloud that led me to think that the lad had something on his mind. And when we were lunching together in the club-house one afternoon and he listlessly refused a most admirable steak and kidney pudding I shot at him a glance so significant that, blushing profusely, he told me all.
He loved, it seemed, and the partner he had selected for life’s medal round was a charming girl named Gwendoline Poskitt.
I knew the girl well. Her father was one of my best friends. We had been at the University together. As an undergraduate, he had made a name as a hammer thrower. More recently, he had taken up golf, and being somewhat short-sighted and completely muscle-bound, had speedily won for himself in our little community the affectionate sobriquet of the First Grave Digger.
“Indeed?” I said. “So you love Gwendoline Poskitt, do you? Very sensible. Were I a younger man, I would do it myself. But she scorns your suit?”
“She doesn’t scorn any such dashed thing,” rejoined Wilmot with some heat. “She is all for my suit.”
“You mean she returns your love?”
“She does.”
“Then why refuse steak and kidney pudding?”
“Because her father will never consent to her becoming my wife. And it’s no good saying Why not elope? because I suggested that and she would have none of it. She loves me dearly, she says—as a matter of fact, she admitted in so many words that I was the tree on which the fruit of her life hung—but she can’t bring herself to forgo the big church wedding, with full choral effects and the Bishop doing his stuff and photographs in the illustrated weekly papers. As she quite rightly pointed out, were we to sneak off and get married at the registrar’s, bim would go the Bishop and phut the photographs. I can’t shake her.”
“You ought not to want to shake her.”
“Move her, I mean. Alter her resolution. So I’ve got to get her father’s consent. And how can I, when he has it in for me the way he has?”
He gave a groan and began to crumble my bread. I took another piece and put it on the opposite side of my plate.
“Has it in for you?”
“Yes. It’s like this. You know the Wrecking Crew?”
He was alluding to the quartet of golfing cripples of which Joseph Poskitt was a regular member. The others were Old Father Time, The Man With The Hoe, and Consul, the Almost Human.
“You know the way they dodder along and won’t let anyone through. There have been ugly mutterings about it in the Club for m
onths, and it came even harder on me than on most of the crowd, for, as you know, I like to play quick. Well, the other day I cracked under the strain. I could endure it no longer. I⎯”
“Drove into them?”
“Drove into them. Using my brassie for the shot. I took a nice easy stance, came back slow, keeping my head well down, and let fly—firing into the brown, as it were, and just trusting to luck which of them I hit. The man who drew the short straw was old Poskitt. I got him on the right leg. Did you tell me he got his blue at Oxford for throwing the hammer?”
“Throwing the hammer, yes.”
“Not the high jump?”
“No.”
“Odd. I should have said⎯”
I was deeply concerned. To drive into the father of the girl you love, no matter what the provocation, seemed to me an act of the most criminal folly and so I told him.
He quivered and broke a tumbler.
“Now there,” he said, “you have touched on another cause for complaint. At the time, I had no notion that he was the father of the girl I loved. As a matter of fact, he wasn’t, because I had not met Gwendoline then. She blew in later, having been on one of those round-the-world cruises. I must say I think that old buffers who hold people up and won’t let them through ought to wear some sort of label indicating that they have pretty daughters who will be arriving shortly. Then one would know where one was and act accordingly. Still, there it is. I gave old Poskitt this juicy one, as described, and from what he said to me later in the changing room I am convinced that any suggestions on my part that I become his son-in-law will not be cordially received.”
I ate cheese gravely. I could see that the situation was a difficult one.
“Well, the only thing I can advise,” I said, “is that you cultivate him assiduously. Waylay him and give him cigars. Ask after his slice. Tell him it’s a fine day. He has a dog named Edward. Seek Edward out and pat him. Many a young man has won over the father of the girl he loves by such tactics, so why not you?”
He agreed to do so, and in the days which followed Poskitt could not show his face in the club-house without having Wilmot spring out at him with perfectos. The dog Edward began to lose hair off his ribs through incessant patting. And gradually, as I had hoped, the breach healed. Came a morning when Wilmot, inquiring after my old friend’s slice, was answered not with the usual malevolent grunt but with a reasonably cordial statement that it now showed signs of becoming a hook.