CHAPTER FIFTEEN
VISITORS AT MON REPOS
SAM was preparing to leave for the office when his visitor arrived. He had, indeed, actually opened the front door.
“Mr. Shottah?”
“Yes,” said Sam. He was surprised to see Mrs. Molloy. He had not expected visitors at so early a period of his tenancy. This, he supposed, must be the suburban equivalent of the county calling on the new-comer. Impressed by the hat, he assumed Dolly to be one of the old aristocracy of Valley Fields. A certain challenging jauntiness in her bearing forbade the suspicion that she was collecting funds for charity. “Won’t you come in?”
“Thank yaw. Thank yaw so much. The house agent told me your name.”
“Cornelius?”
“Gink with a full set of white whiskers. Say, somebody ought to put that baby wise about the wonderful invention of the safety razor.”
Sam agreed that this might be in the public interest, but he began to revise his views about the old aristocracy.
“I’m afraid you’ll find the place in rather a mess,” he said apologetically, leading the way to the drawing-room. “I’ve only just moved in.”
The visitor replied that, on the contrary, she thought it cute.
“I seem to know this joint by heart,” she said. “I’ve heard so much about it from old pop.”
“I don’t think I am acquainted with Mr. Popp.”
“My father, I mean. He used to live here when he was a tiny kiddy.”
“Really? I should have taken you for an American.”
“I am American, and don’t let anyone tell you different.”
“I won’t.”
“One hundred per cent, that’s me,” Sam nodded.
“‘Oh, say, can you see by the dawn’s early light?’” he said reverently.
“‘What so proudly’—I never can remember any more.”
“No one,” Sam reminded her, “knows the words but the Argentines....”
“...And the Portuguese and the Greeks.” The lady beamed. “Say, don’t tell me you’re American too!”
“My mother was.”
“Why, this is fine! Pop’ll be tickled to death.”
“Is your father coming here too?”
“Well, I should say so! You don’t think I pay calls on strange gentlemen all by myself, do you?” said the lady archly. “But listen! If you’re American, we’re sitting pretty, because it’s only us Americans that’s got real sentiment in them. Ain’t it the truth?”
“I don’t quite understand. Why do you want me to have sentiment?”
“Pop’ll explain all that when he arrives. I’m surprised he hasn’t blown in yet. I didn’t think I’d get here first.” She looked about her. “It seems funny to think of pop as a little kiddy in this very room.”
“Your father was English then?”
“Born in England—born here—born in this very house. Just to think of pop playing all them childish games in this very room!”
Sam began to wish that she would stop. Her conversation was beginning to give the place a queer feeling. The room had begun to seem haunted by a peculiar being of middle-aged face and juvenile costume. So much so that when she suddenly exclaimed, “There’s pop!” he had a momentary impression that a whiskered elder in Lord Fauntleroy clothes was about to dance out from behind the sofa.
Then he saw that his visitor was looking out of the window and, following her gaze, noted upon the front steps a gentleman of majestic port.
“I’ll go and let him in,” he said.
“Do you live here all alone?” asked the lady, and Sam got the idea that she spoke eagerly.
“Oh, no, I’ve a man. But he’s busy somewhere.”
“I see,” she said disappointedly.
The glimpse which Sam had caught of the new arrival through the window had been a sketchy one. It was only as he opened the door that he got a full view of him. And having done so, he was a little startled. It is always disconcerting to see a familiar face where one had expected a strange one. This was the man he had seen in the bar that day when he had met Hash in Fleet Street.
“Mr. Shotter?”
“Yes.”
It seemed to Sam that the man had aged a good deal since he had seen him last. The fact was that Mr. Molloy, in greying himself up at the temples, had rather overdone the treatment. Still, though stricken in years, he looked a genial, kindly, honest soul.
“My name is Gunn, Mr. Shotter—Thomas G. Gunn.”
It had been Mr. Molloy’s intention—for he was an artist and liked to do a thing, as he said, properly—to adopt for this interview the pseudonym of J. Felkin Haggenbakker, that seeming to his critical view the sort of name a sentimental millionaire who had made a fortune in Pittsburgh and was now revisiting the home of his boyhood ought to have. The proposal had been vetoed by Dolly, who protested that she did not intend to spend hours of her time in unnecessary study.
“Won’t you come in?” said Sam.
He stood aside to let his visitor pass, wondering again where it was that he had originally seen the man. He hated to forget a face and personality which should have been unforgettable. He ushered Mr. Gunn into the drawing-room, still pondering.
“So there you are, pop,” said the lady. “Say, pop, isn’t it dandy? Mr. Shotter’s an American.”
Mr. Gunn’s frank eyes lit up with gratification.
“Ah! Then you are a man of sentiment, Mr. Shotter. You will understand. You will not think it odd that a man should cherish all through his life a wistful yearning for the place where he was born.”
“Not at all,” said Sam politely, and might have reminded his visitor that the feeling, a highly creditable one, was shared by practically all America’s most eminent song writers.
“Well, that is how I feel, Mr. Shotter,” said the other bluffly, “and I am not ashamed to confess it. This house is very dear to me. I was born in it.”
“So Miss Gunn was telling me.”
“Ah, she has told you? Yes, Mr. Shotter, I am a man who has seen men and cities. I have lived in the hovels of the poor, I have risen till, if I may say so, I am welcomed in the palaces of the rich. But never, rich or poor, have I forgotten this old place and the childhood associations which hallow it.”
He paused. His voice had trembled and sunk to a whisper in those last words, and now he turned abruptly and looked out of a window. His shoulders heaved significantly for an instant and something like a stifled sob broke the stillness of the room. But when a moment later he swung round he was himself again, the tough, sturdy old J. Felkin Haggenbakker—or, rather, Thomas G. Gunn—who was so highly respected, and perhaps a little feared, at the Rotary Club in Pittsburgh.
“Well, I must not bore you, Mr. Shotter. You are, no doubt, a busy man. Let me be brief. Mr. Shotter, I want this house.”
“You want what?” said Sam, bewildered. He had had no notion that he was going to be swept into the maelstrom of a business transaction.
“Yes, sir, I want this house. And let me tell you that money is no object. I’ve lots of money.” He dismissed money with a gesture. “I have my whims and I can pay for them. How much for the house, Mr. Shotter?”
Sam felt that it behooved him to keep his head. He had not the remotest intention of selling for all the gold in Pittsburgh a house which, in the first place, did not belong to him and, secondly, was next door to Kay Derrick.
“I’m very sorry——” he began.
Mr. Gunn checked him with an apologetic lift of the hand.
“I was too abrupt,” he said. “I rushed the thing. A bad habit of mine. When I was prospecting in Nevada, the boys used to call me Hair-Trigger Gunn. I ought to have stated my position more clearly.”
“Oh, I understand your position.”
“You realise then that this isn’t a house to me; it is a shrine?”
“Yes, yes; but——”
“It contains,” said Mr. Gunn with perfect truth, “something very precious to me.”
“Yes; but——”
“It is my boyhood that is enshrined here—my innocent, happy, halcyon boyhood. I have played games at my mother’s knee in this very room. I have read tales from the Scriptures with her here. It was here that my mother, seated at the piano, used to sing—sing——”
His voice died away again. He blew his nose and turned once more to the window. But though he was under the impression that he had achieved a highly artistic aposiopesis, he could hardly have selected a more unfortunate word to stammer brokenly. Something resembling an electric thrill ran through Sam. Memory, dormant, had responded to the code word.
Sing Sing! He knew now where he had seen this man before.
It is the custom of the Welfare League of America’s most famous penitentiary to alleviate the monotony of the convict’s lot by giving periodical performances of plays, produced and acted by the personnel of the prison. When the enterprising burglar isn’t burgling, in fact, he is probably memorising the words of some popular lyric for rendition on the next big night.
To one of these performances, some eighteen months back, Sam had been taken by a newspaper friend. The hit of the evening had been this very Thomas G. Gunn, then a mere number, in the rôle of a senator.
Mr. Gunn had resumed his address. He was speaking once more of his mother, and speaking well. But he was not holding his audience. Sam cut in on his eloquence.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “but I’m afraid this house is not for sale.”
“But, Mr. Shotter——”
“No,” said Sam. “I have a very special reason for wishing to stay here, and I intend to remain. And now I’m afraid I must ask you——”
“Suppose I look in this evening and take the matter up again?” pleaded Mr. Gunn, finding with some surprise that he had been edged out onto the steps and making a last stand there.
“It’s no use. Besides, I shan’t be in this evening. I’m dining out.”
“Will anybody be in?” asked Miss Gunn suddenly, breaking a long silence.
“Why, yes,” said Sam, somewhat surprised, “the man who works here. Why?”
“I was only thinking that if we called he might show us over the place.”
“Oh, I see. Well, good-bye.”
“But, say now, listen——”
“Good-bye,” said Sam.
He closed the door and made his way to the kitchen. Hash, his chair tilted back against the wall, was smoking a thoughtful pipe.
“Who was it, Sam?”
“Somebody wanting to buy the house. Hash, there’s something fishy going on.”
“Ur?”
“Do you remember me pointing out a man to you in that bar in Fleet Street?”
“Yes.”
“Well, it was the same fellow. And do you remember me saying that I was sure I had seen him before somewhere?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I’ve remembered where it was. It was in Sing Sing, and he was serving a sentence there.”
Mr. Todhunter’s feet came to the floor with a crash.
“There’s something darned peculiar about this house, Hash. I slept in it the night I landed, and there was a fellow creeping around with an electric torch. And now this man, whom I know to be a crook, puts up a fake story to make me let him have it. What do you think, Hash?”
“I’ll tell you what I think,” said Mr. Todhunter, alarmed. “I think I’m going straight out to buy a good watchdog.”
“It’s a good idea.”
“I don’t like these bad characters hanging about. I had a cousin in the pawnbroking line what was hit on the ’ead by a burglar with a antique vase. That’s what happened to him, all through hearing a noise in the night and coming down to see what it was.”
“But what’s at the back of all this? What do you make of it?”
“Ah, there you have me,” said Hash frankly. “But that don’t alter the fact that I’m going to get a dog.”
“I should. Get something pretty fierce.”
“I’ll get a dog,” said Hash solemnly, “that’ll feed on nails and bite his own mother.”