CHAPTER NINETEEN
LORD TILBURY ENGAGES AN ALLY
ALTHOUGH Lord Tilbury had not seen much of what had passed between Kay and Sam at the luncheon table, he had seen quite enough; and as he drove back to Tilbury House in his cab he was thinking hard and bitter thoughts of the duplicity of the modern girl. Here, he reflected, was one who, encountered at dinner on a given night, had as good as stated in set terms that she thoroughly disliked Sam Shotter. And on the very next afternoon, there she was, lunching with this same Sam Shotter, smiling at this same Sam Shotter and allowing this same Shotter to press her hand. It all looked very black to Lord Tilbury, and the only solution that presented itself to him was that the girl’s apparent dislike of Sam on the previous night had been caused by a lovers’ quarrel. He knew all about lovers’ quarrels, for his papers were full of stories, both short and in serial form, that dealt with nothing else. Oh, woman, woman! about summed up Lord Tilbury’s view of the affair.
He was, he perceived, in an extraordinarily difficult position. As he had explained to his sister Frances on the occasion of Sam’s first visit to the Mammoth Publishing Company, a certain tactfulness and diplomacy in the handling of that disturbing young man were essential. He had not been able, during his visit to America, to ascertain exactly how Sam stood in the estimation of his uncle. The impression Lord Tilbury had got was that Mr. Pynsent was fond of him. If, therefore, any unpleasantness should occur which might lead to a breach between Sam and the Mammoth Publishing Company, Mr. Pynsent might be expected to take his nephew’s side, and this would be disastrous. Any steps, accordingly, which were to be taken in connection with foiling the young man’s love affair must be taken subtly and with stealth.
That such steps were necessary it never occurred to Lord Tilbury for an instant to doubt. His only standard when it came to judging his fellow creatures was the money standard, and it would have seemed ridiculous to him to suppose that any charm or moral worth that Kay might possess could neutralise the fact that she had not a penny in the world. He took it for granted that Mr. Pynsent would see eye to eye with him in this matter.
In these circumstances the helplessness of his position tormented him. He paced the room in an agony of spirit. The very first move in his campaign must obviously be to keep a watchful eye on Sam and note what progress this deplorable affair of his was having. But Sam was in Valley Fields and he was in London. What he required, felt Lord Tilbury, as he ploughed to and fro over the carpet, his thumbs tucked into the armholes of his waistcoat, his habit when in thought, was an ally. But what ally?
A secret-service man. But what secret-service man? A properly accredited spy, who, introduced by some means into the young man’s house, could look, listen and make daily reports on his behaviour.
But what spy?
And then, suddenly, as he continued to perambulate, inspiration came to Lord Tilbury. It seemed to him that the job in hand might have been created to order for young Pilbeam.
Among the numerous publications which had their being in Tilbury House was that popular weekly, Society Spice, a paper devoted to the exploitation of the shadier side of London life and edited by one whom the proprietor of the Mammoth had long looked on as the brightest and most promising of his young men—Percy Pilbeam, to wit, as enterprising a human ferret as ever wrote a Things-We-Want-to-Know-Don’t-You-Know paragraph. Young Pilbeam would handle this business as it should be handled.
It was the sort of commission which he had undertaken before and carried through with complete success, reflected Lord Tilbury, recalling how only a few months back Percy Pilbeam, in order to obtain material for his paper, had gone for three weeks as valet to one of the smart set—the happy conclusion of the venture being that admirable Country-House Cesspools series which had done so much for the rural circulation of Society Spice.
His hand was on the buzzer to summon this eager young spirit, when a disturbing thought occurred to him, and instead of sending for Pilbeam, he sent for Sam Shotter.
“Ah, Shotter, I—ah—— Do you happen to know young Pilbeam?” said His Lordship.
“The editor of Society Spice?”
“Exactly.”
“I know him by sight.”
“You know him by sight, eh? Ah? You know him, eh? Exactly. Quite so. I was only wondering. A charming young fellow. You should cultivate his acquaintance. That is all, Shotter.”
Sam, with a passing suspicion that the strain of conducting a great business had been too much for his employer, returned to his work; and Lord Tilbury, walking with bent brows to the window, stood looking out, once more deep in thought.
The fact that Sam was acquainted with Pilbeam was just one of those little accidents which so often upset the brilliantly conceived plans of great generals, and it left His Lordship at something of a loss. Pilbeam was a man he could have trusted in a delicate affair like this, and now that he was ruled out, where else was an adequate agent to be found?
It was at this point in his meditations that his eyes, roving restlessly, were suddenly attracted by a sign on a window immediately opposite:
THE TILBURY DETECTIVE AGENCY, LTD.
J. Sheringham Adair, Mgr.
Large and Efficient Staff
Such was the sign, and Lord Tilbury read and re-read it with bulging eyes. It thrilled him like a direct answer to prayer.
A moment later he had seized his hat, and without pausing to wait for the lift, was leaping down the stairs like some chamois of the Alps that bounds from crag to crag. He reached the lobby and, at a rate of speed almost dangerous in a man of his build and sedentary habits, whizzed across the street.
Although, with the single exception of a woman who had lost her Pekingese dog, there had never yet been a client on the premises of the Tilbury Detective Agency, it was Chimp Twist’s practice to repair daily to his office and remain there for an hour or two every afternoon. If questioned, he would have replied that he might just as well be there as anywhere; and he felt, moreover, that it looked well for him to be seen going in and out—a theory which was supported by the fact that only a couple of days back the policeman on the beat had touched his helmet to him. To have policemen touching themselves on the helmet instead of him on the shoulder was a novel and agreeable experience to Chimp.
This afternoon he was sitting, as usual, with the solitaire pack laid out on the table before him, but his mind was not on the game. He was musing on Soapy Molloy’s story of his failure to persuade Sam to evacuate Mon Repos.
To an extent, this failure had complicated matters; and yet there was a bright side. To have walked in and collected the late Edward Finglass’ legacy without let or hindrance would have been agreeable; but, on the other hand, it would have involved sharing with Soapy and his bride; and Chimp was by nature one of those men who, when there is money about, instinctively dislike seeing even a portion of it get away from them. It seemed to him that a man of his admitted ingenuity might very well evolve some scheme by which the Molloy family could be successfully excluded from all participation in the treasure.
It only required a little thought, felt Chimp; and he was still thinking when a confused noise without announced the arrival of Lord Tilbury.
The opening of the door was followed by a silence. Lord Tilbury was not built for speed, and the rapidity with which he had crossed the street and mounted four flights of stairs had left him in a condition where he was able only to sink into a chair and pant like a spent seal. As for Chimp, he was too deeply moved to speak. Even when lying back in a chair and saying “Woof!” Lord Tilbury still retained the unmistakable look of one to whom bank managers grovel, and the sudden apparition of such a man affected him like a miracle. He felt as if he had been fishing idly for minnows and landed a tarpon.
Being, however, a man of resource, he soon recovered himself. Placing a foot on a button beneath the table, he caused a sharp ringing to pervade the office.
“Excuse me,” he said, politely but with a busy man’s curtness, as he took up the telephone. “Yes? Yes? Yes, this is the Tilbury Detective Agency.... Scotland Yard? Right, I’ll hold the wire.”
He placed a hand over the transmitter and turned to Lord Tilbury with a little rueful grimace.
“Always bothering me,” he said.
“Woof!” said Lord Tilbury.
Mr. Twist renewed his attention to the telephone.
“Hullo!... Sir John? Good afternoon.... Yes.... Yes.... We are doing our best, Sir John. We are always anxious to oblige headquarters.... Yes.... Yes.... Very well, Sir John. Good-bye.”
He replaced the receiver and was at Lord Tilbury’s disposal.
“If the Yard would get rid of their antiquated system and give more scope to men of brains,” he said, not bitterly but with a touch of annoyance, “they would not always have to be appealing to us to help them out. Did you know that a man cannot be a detective at Scotland Yard unless he is over a certain height?”
“You surprise me,” said Lord Tilbury, who was now feeling better.
“Five-foot-nine, I believe it is. Could there be an absurder regulation?”
“It sounds ridiculous.”
“And is,” said Chimp severely. “I am five-foot-seven myself. Wilbraham and Donahue, the best men on my staff, are an inch and half an inch shorter. You cannot gauge brains by height.”
“No, indeed,” said Lord Tilbury, who was five-feet-six. “Look at Napoleon! And Nelson!”
“Exactly,” said Chimp. “Battling Nelson. A very good case in point. And Tom Sharkey was a short man too.... Well, what was it you wished to consult me about, Mr.—— I have not your name.”
“I take it that I may rely on your complete discretion, Mr. Adair?”
“Nothing that you tell me in this room will go any farther,” said Chimp, with dignity.
“I am Lord Tilbury,” said His Lordship, looking like a man unveiling a statue of himself.
“The proprietor of the joint across the way?”
“Exactly,” said Lord Tilbury a little shortly.
He had expected his name to cause more emotion, and he did not like hearing the Mammoth Publishing Company described as “the joint across the way.”
He would have been gratified had he known that his companion had experienced considerable emotion and that it was only by a strong effort that he had contrived to conceal it. He might have been less pleased if he had been aware that Chimp was confidently expecting him to reveal some disgraceful secret which would act as the foundation for future blackmail. For although, in establishing his detective agency, Chimp Twist had been animated chiefly by the desire to conceal his more important movements, he had never lost sight of the fact that there are possibilities in such an institution.
“And what can I do for you, Lord Tilbury?” he asked, putting his finger tips together.
His Lordship bent closer.
“I want a man watched.”
Once again his companion was barely able to conceal his elation. This sounded exceptionally promising. Though only an imitation private detective, Chimp Twist had a genuine private detective’s soul. He could imagine but one reason why men should want men watched.
“A boy on the staff of Tilbury House.”
“Ah!” said Chimp, more convinced than ever. “Good-looking fellow, I suppose?”
Lord Tilbury considered. He had never had occasion to form an opinion of Sam’s looks.
“Yes,” he said.
“One of these lounge lizards, eh? One of these parlour tarantulas? I know the sort—know ’em well. One of these slithery young-feller-me-lads with educated feet and shiny hair. And when did the dirty work start?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“When did you first suspect this young man of alienating Lady Tilbury’s affections?”
“Lady Tilbury? I don’t understand you. I am a widower.”
“Eh? Then what’s this fellow done?” said Chimp, feeling at sea again.
Lord Tilbury coughed.
“I had better tell you the whole position. This boy is the nephew of a business acquaintance of mine in America, with whom I am in the process of conducting some very delicate negotiations. He, the boy, is over here at the moment, working on my staff, and I am, you will understand, practically responsible to his uncle for his behaviour. That is to say, should he do anything of which his uncle might disapprove, the blame will fall on me, and these negotiations—these very delicate negotiations—will undoubtedly be broken off. My American acquaintance is a peculiar man, you understand.”
“Well, I have just discovered that the boy is conducting a clandestine love affair with a girl of humble circumstances who resides in the suburb.”
“A tooting tooti-frooti,” translated Chimp, nodding. “I see.”
“A what?” asked Lord Tilbury, a little blankly.
“A belle of Balham—Bertha from Brixton.”
“She lives at Valley Fields. And this boy Shotter has taken the house next door to her. I beg your pardon?”
“Nothing,” said Chimp in a thick voice.
“I thought you spoke.”
“No.” Chimp swallowed feverishly. “Did you say Shotter?”
“Shotter.”
“Taken a house in Valley Fields?”
“Yes. In Burberry Road. Mon Repos is the name.”
“Ah!” said Chimp, expelling a deep breath.
“You see the position? All that can be done at present is to institute a close watch on the boy. It may be that I have allowed myself to become unduly alarmed. Possibly he does not contemplate so serious a step as marriage with this young woman. Nevertheless, I should be decidedly relieved if I felt that there was someone in his house watching his movements and making daily reports to me.”
“I’ll take this case,” said Chimp.
“Good! You will put a competent man on it?”
“I wouldn’t trust it to one of my staff, not even Wilbraham or Donahue. I’ll take it on myself.”
“That is very good of you, Mr. Adair.”
“A pleasure,” said Chimp.
“And now arises a difficult point. How do you propose to make your entry into young Shotter’s household?”
“Easy as pie. Odd-job man.”
“Odd-job man?”
“They always want odd-job men down in the suburbs. Fellows who’ll do the dirty work that the help kick at. Listen here, you tell this young man that I’m a fellow that once worked for you and ask him to engage me as a personal favour. That’ll cinch it. He won’t like to refuse the boss—what I mean.”
“True,” said Lord Tilbury. “True. But it will necessitate something in the nature of a change of costumes,” he went on, looking at the other’s shining tweeds.
“Don’t you fret. I’ll dress the part.”
“And what name would you suggest taking? Not your own, of course?”
“I’ve always called myself Twist before.”
“Twist? Excellent! Then suppose you come to my office in half an hour’s time.”
“Sure!”
“I am much obliged, Mr. Adair.”
“Not at all,” said Chimp handsomely. “Not a-tall! Don’t mention it. Only too pleased.”
Sam, when the summons came for him to go to his employer’s office, was reading with no small complacency a little thing of his own in the issue of Pyke’s Home Companion which would be on the bookstalls next morning. It was signed Aunt Ysobel, and it gave some most admirable counsel to Worried (Upper Sydenham) who had noticed of late a growing coldness toward her on the part of her betrothed.
He had just finished reading this, marvelling, as authors will when they see their work in print, at the purity of his style and the soundness of his reasoning, when the telephone rang and he learned that Lord Tilbury desired his presence. He hastened to the holy of holies and found there not only His Lordship but a little man with a waxed moustache, to which he took an instant dislike.
“Ah, Shotter,” said Lord Tilbury.
There was a pause. Lord Tilbury, one hand resting on the back of his chair, the fingers of the other in the fold of his waistcoat, stood looking like a Victorian uncle being photographed. The little man fingered the waxed moustache. And Sam glanced from Lord Tilbury to the moustache inquiringly and with distaste. He had never seen a moustache he disliked more.
“Ah, Shotter,” said Lord Tilbury, “this is a man named Twist, who was at one time in my employment.”
“Odd-job man,” interpolated the waxed-moustached one.
“As odd-job man,” said Lord Tilbury.
“Ah?” said Sam.
“He is now out of work.”
Sam, looking at Mr. Twist, considered that this spoke well for the rugged good sense of the employers of London.
“I have nothing to offer him myself,” continued Lord Tilbury, “so it occurred to me that you might possibly have room for him in your new house.”
“Me?” said Sam.
“I should take it as a personal favour to myself if you would engage Twist. I naturally dislike the idea of an old and—er—faithful employee of mine being out of work.”
Mr. Twist’s foresight was justified. Put in this way, the request was one that Sam found it difficult to refuse.
“Oh, well, in that case——”
“Excellent! No doubt you will find plenty of little things for him to do about your house and garden.”
“He can wash the dog,” said Sam, inspired. The question of the bathing of Amy was rapidly thrusting itself into the forefront of the domestic politics of Mon Repos.
“Exactly! And chop wood and run errands and what not.”
“There’s just one thing,” said Sam, who had been eying his new assistant with growing aversion. “That moustache must come off.”
“What?” cried Chimp, stricken to the core.
“Right off at the roots,” said Sam sternly. “I will not have a thing like that about the place, attracting the moths.”
Lord Tilbury sighed. He found this young man’s eccentricities increasingly hard to bear. With that sad wistfulness which the Greeks called pathos and the Romans desiderium, he thought of the happy days, only a few weeks back, when he had been a peaceful, care-free man, ignorant of Sam’s very existence. He had had his troubles then, no doubt; but how small and trivial they seemed now.
“I suppose Twist will shave off his moustache if you wish it,” he said wearily.
Chancing to catch that eminent private investigator’s eye, he was surprised to note its glazed and despairing expression. The man had the air of one who has received a death sentence.
“Shave it?” quavered Chimp, fondling the growth tenderly. “Shave my moustache?”
“Shave it,” said Sam firmly. “Hew it down. Raze it to the soil and sow salt upon the foundations.”
“Very good, sir,” said Chimp lugubriously.
“That is settled then,” said Lord Tilbury, relieved. “So you will enter Mr. Shotter’s employment immediately, Twist.”
Chimp nodded a mournful nod.
“You will find Twist thoroughly satisfactory, I am sure. He is quiet, sober, respectful and hard-working.”
“Ah, that’s bad,” said Sam.
Lord Tilbury heaved another sigh.