CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
SOAPY MOLLOY’S BUSY AFTERNOON
THE unwelcome discovery of the perfidy of Chimp Twist had been made by Mr. Molloy and his bride at about twenty minutes past four. At 4:30 a natty two-seater car drew up at the gate of San Rafael and Willoughby Braddock alighted. Driving aimlessly about the streets of London some forty minutes earlier, and feeling rather at a loose end, it had occurred to him that a pleasant way of passing the evening would be to go down to Valley Fields and get Kay to give him a cup of tea.
Mr. Braddock was in a mood of the serenest happiness. And if this seems strange, seeing that only recently he had had a proposal of marriage rejected, it should be explained that he had regretted that hasty proposal within two seconds of dropping the letter in the letter box. And he had come to the conclusion that, much as he liked Kay, what had induced him to offer her his hand and heart had been the fact that he had had a good deal of champagne at dinner and that its after effects had consisted of a sort of wistful melancholy which had removed for the time his fundamental distaste for matrimony. He did not want matrimony; he wanted adventure. He had not yet entirely abandoned hope that some miracle might occur to remove Mrs. Lippett from the scheme of things; and when that happened, he wished to be free.
Yes, felt Willoughby Braddock, everything had turned out extremely well. He pushed open the gate of San Rafael with the debonair flourish of a man without entanglements. As he did so, the front door opened and Mr. Wrenn came out.
“Oh, hullo,” said Mr. Braddock. “Kay in?”
“I am afraid not,” said Mr. Wrenn. “She has gone to the theatre.” Politeness to a visitor wrestled with the itch to be away. “I fear I have an engagement also, for which I am already a little late. I promised Cornelius——”
“That’s all right. I’ll go in next door and have a chat with Sam Shotter.”
“He has gone to the theatre with Kay.”
“A washout, in short,” said Mr. Braddock with undiminished cheerfulness. “Right-ho! Then I’ll pop.”
“But, my dear fellow, you mustn’t run away like this,” said Mr. Wrenn with remorse. “Why don’t you come in and have a cup of tea and wait for Kay? Claire will bring you some if you ring.”
“Something in that,” agreed Mr. Braddock. “Sound, very sound.”
He spoke a few genial words of farewell and proceeded to the drawing-room, where he rang the bell. Nothing ensuing, he went to the top of the kitchen stairs and called down.
“I say!” Silence from below. “I say!” fluted Mr. Braddock once more, and now it seemed to him that the silence had been broken by a sound—a rummy sound—a sound that was like somebody sobbing.
He went down the stairs. It was somebody sobbing. Bunched up on a chair, with her face buried in her arms, that weird girl Claire was crying like the dickens.
“I say!” said Mr. Braddock.
There is this peculiar quality about tears—that they can wash away in a moment the animosity of a lifetime. For years Willoughby Braddock had been on terms of distant hostility with this girl. Even apart from the fact that that affair of the onion had not ceased to rankle in his bosom, there had been other causes of war between them. Mr. Braddock still suspected that it was Claire who, when on the occasion of his eighteenth birthday he had called at Midways in a top hat, had flung a stone at that treasured object from the recesses of a shrubbery. One of those things impossible of proof, the outrage had been allowed to become a historic mystery; but Willoughby Braddock had always believed the hidden hand to be Claire’s, and his attitude toward her from that day had been one of stiff disapproval.
But now, seeing her weeping and broken before him, with all the infernal cheek which he so deprecated swept away on a wave of woe, his heart softened. It has been a matter of much speculation among historians what Wellington would have done if Napoleon had cried at Waterloo.
“I say,” said Mr. Braddock, “what’s the matter? Anything up?”
The sound of his voice seemed to penetrate Claire’s grief. She sat up and looked at him damply.
“Oh, Mr. Braddock,” she moaned, “I’m so wretched! I am so miserable, Mr. Braddock!”
“There, there!” said Willoughby Braddock.
“How was I to know?”
“Know what?”
“I couldn’t tell.”
“Tell which?”
“I never had a notion he would act like that.”
“Who would like what?”
“Hash.”
“You’ve spoiled the hash?” said Mr. Braddock, still out of his depth.
“My Hash—Clarence. He took it the wrong way.”
At last Mr. Braddock began to see daylight. She had cooked hash for this Clarence, whoever he might be, and he had swallowed it in so erratic a manner that it had choked him.
“Is he dead?” he asked in a hushed voice.
A piercing scream rang through the kitchen.
“Oh! Oh! Oh!”
“My dear old soul!”
“He wouldn’t do that, would he?”
“Do what?”
“Oh, Mr. Braddock, do say he wouldn’t do that!”
“What do you mean by ‘that’?”
“Go and kill himself.”
“Who?”
“Hash.”
Mr. Braddock removed the perfectly folded silk handkerchief from his breast pocket and passed it across his forehead.
“Look here,” he said limply, “you couldn’t tell me the whole thing from the beginning in a few simple words, could you?”
He listened with interest as Claire related the events of the day.
“Then Clarence is Hash?” he said.
“Yes.”
“And Hash is Clarence?”
“Yes; everyone calls him Hash.”
“That was what was puzzling me,” said Mr. Braddock, relieved. “That was the snag that I got up against all the time. Now that is clear, we can begin to examine this thing in a calm and judicial spirit. Let’s see if I’ve got it straight. You read this stuff in the paper and started testing him—is that right?”
“Yes. And instead of jousting, he just turned all cold-like and broke off the engagement.”
“I see. Well, dash it, the thing’s simple. All you want is for some polished man of the world to take the blighter aside and apprise him of the facts. Shall I pop round and see him now?”
Claire’s tear-stained face lit up as if a light had been switched on behind her eyes. She eyed Mr. Braddock devotedly.
“Oh, if you only would!”
“Of course I will—like a shot.”
“Oh, you are good! I’m sorry I threw that onion at you, Mr. Braddock.”
“Fault’s on both sides,” said Mr. Braddock magnanimously. “Now you stop crying, like a good girl, and powder your nose and all that, and I’ll have the lad round all pleasant and correct in a couple of minutes.”
He patted Claire’s head in a brotherly fashion and trotted out through the back door.
A few minutes later, Mr. and Mrs. Molloy, searching feverishly in the drawing-room of Mon Repos, heard a distant tinkle and looked at each other with a wild surmise.
“It’s the back doorbell,” said Dolly.
“I told you,” said Mr. Molloy sombrely. “I knew this would happen. What’ll we do?”
Mrs. Molloy was not the woman to be shaken for long.
“Why, go downstairs and answer it,” she said. “It’s prob’ly only a tradesman come with a loaf of bread or something. He’ll think you’re the help.”
“And if he doesn’t,” replied Mr. Molloy with some bitterness, “I suppose I bust him one with the meat ax. Looks to me as if I shall have to lay out the whole darned population of this blamed place before I’m through.”
“Sweetie mustn’t be cross.”
“Sweetie’s about fed up,” said Mr. Molloy sombrely.
Expecting, when he opened the back door, to see a tradesman with a basket on his arm, Soapy Molloy found no balm to his nervous system in the apparition of a young man of the leisured classes in a faultlessly cut grey suit. He gaped at Mr. Braddock.
“Hullo,” said Soapy.
“Are you Hash?” inquired the ambassador.
“Pardon?”
“Is your name Clarence?”
In happier circumstances Soapy would have denied the charge indignantly; but now he decided that it was politic to be whatever anyone wished him to be.
“That’s me, brother,” he said.
Mr. Braddock greatly disliked being called brother, but he made no comment.
“Well, I just buzzed round,” he said, “to tell you that everything’s all right.”
Soapy was far from agreeing with him. He was almost equally far from understanding a word that this inexplicable visitor was saying. He coughed loudly, to drown a strangled sound that had proceeded from the gagged and bound Hash, whom he had deposited in a corner by the range.
“That’s good,” he said.
“About the girl, I mean. Claire, you know. I was in the kitchen next door a moment ago, and she was crying and howling and all that because she thought you didn’t love her any more.”
“Too bad,” said Mr. Molloy.
“It seems,” went on Mr. Braddock, “that she read something in a paper, written by some silly ass, which said that she ought to test your affection by pretending to flirt with some other cove. And when she did, you broke off the engagement. And the gist, if you understand me, of what I buzzed round to say is that she loves you still and was only fooling when she sent that other bloke the lock of hair.”
“Ah?” said Mr. Molloy.
“So it’s all right, isn’t it?”
“It’s all right by me,” said Mr. Molloy, wishing—for it sounded interesting—that he knew what all this was about.
“Then that’s that, what?”
“You said it, brother.”
Mr. Braddock paused. He seemed disappointed at a certain lack of emotion on his companion’s part.
“She’s rather expecting you to dash round right away, you know—fold her in your arms, and all that.”
This was a complication which Soapy had not foreseen.
“Well, I’ll tell you,” he said. “I’ve a lot of work to do around this house and I don’t quite see how I can get away. Say, listen, brother, you tell her I’ll be round later on in the evening.”
“All right. I’m glad everything’s satisfactory. She’s a nice girl really.”
“None better,” said Mr. Molloy generously.
“I still think she threw a stone at my top hat that day, but dash it,” said Mr. Braddock warmly, “let the dead past bury its dead, what?”
“Couldn’t do a wiser thing,” said Mr. Molloy.
He closed the door; and having breathed a little stertorously, mounted the stairs.
“Who was it?” called Dolly from the first landing.
“Some nut babbling about a girl.”
“Oh? Well, I’m having a hunt round in the best bedroom. You go on looking in the drawing-room.”
Soapy turned his steps towards the drawing-room, but he did not reach it. For as he was preparing to cross the threshold, the front doorbell rang.
It seemed to Soapy that he was being called upon to endure more than man was ever intended to bear. That, at least, was his view as he dragged his reluctant feet to the door. It was only when he opened it that he realised that he had underestimated the malevolence of fate. Standing on the top step was a policeman.
“Hell!” cried Soapy. And while we blame him for the intemperate ejaculation, we must in fairness admit that the situation seemed to call for some such remark. He stood goggling, a chill like the stroke of an icy finger running down his spine.
“’Evening, sir,” said the policeman. “Mr. Shotter?”
Soapy’s breath returned.
“That’s me,” he said huskily. This thing, coming so soon after his unrehearsed impersonation of Hash Todhunter, made him feel the sort of dizzy feeling which a small-part actor must experience who has to open a play as Jervis, a footman, and then rush up to his dressing room, make a complete change and return five minutes later as Lord George Spelvin, one of Lady Hemmingway’s guests at The Towers.
The policeman fumbled in the recesses of his costume.
“Noo resident, sir, I think?”
“Yes.”
“Then you will doubtless be glad,” said the policeman, shutting his eyes and beginning to speak with great rapidity, as if he were giving evidence in court, “of the opportunity to support a charitibulorganization which is not only most deserving in itself but is connected with a body of men to ’oom you as a house-’older will be the first to admit that you owe the safety of your person and the tranquillity of your home—the police,” explained the officer, opening his eyes.
Mr. Molloy did not look on the force in quite this light, but he could not hurt the man’s feelings by saying so.
“This charitibulorganizationtowhichIallude,” resumed the constable, shutting his eyes again, “is the Policeman’s Orphanage, for which I have been told of—one of several others—to sell tickets for the annual concert of, to be ’eld at the Oddfellows ‘All in Ogilvy Street on the coming sixteenth prox. Tickets, which may be purchased in any quantity or number, consist of the five-shilling ticket, the half-crown ticket, the two-shilling ticket, the shilling ticket and the sixpenny ticket.” He opened his eyes. “May I have the pleasure of selling you and your good lady a couple of the five-shilling?”
“If I may add such weight as I possess to the request, I should certainly advocate the purchase, Mr. Shotter. It is a most excellent and deserving charity.”
The speaker was a gentleman in clerical dress who had appeared from nowhere and was standing at the constable’s side. His voice caused Soapy a certain relief; for when, a moment before, a second dark figure had suddenly manifested itself on the top step, he had feared that the strain of the larger life was causing him to see double.
“I take it that I am addressing Mr. Shotter?” continued the new-comer. He was a hatchet-faced man with penetrating eyes and for one awful moment he had looked to Soapy exactly like Sherlock Holmes. “I have just taken up my duties as vicar of this parish, and I am making a little preliminary round of visits so that I may become acquainted with my parishioners. Mr. Cornelius, the house agent, very kindly gave me a list of names. May I introduce myself?—the Rev. Aubrey Jerningham.”
It has been well said that the world knows little of its greatest men. This name, which would have thrilled Kay Derrick, made no impression upon Soapy Molloy. He was not a great reader; and when he did read, it was something a little lighter and more on the zippy side than Is There a Hell?
“How do?” he said gruffly.
“And ’ow many of the five-shilling may I sell you and your good lady?” inquired the constable. His respect for the cloth had kept him silent through the recent conversation, but now he seemed to imply that business is business.
“It is a most excellent charity,” said the Rev. Aubrey, edging past Soapy in spite of that sufferer’s feeble effort to block the way. “And I understand that several highly competent performers will appear on the platform. I am right, am I not, officer?”
“Yes, sir, you are quite right. In the first part of the program Constable Purvis will render the ’Oly City—no, I’m a liar, Asleep on the Deep; Constable Jukes will render imitations of well-known footlight celebrities ’oo are familiartoyouall; Inspector Oakshott will render conjuring tricks; Constable——”
“An excellent evening’s entertainment, in fact,” said the Rev. Aubrey. “I am taking the chair, I may mention.”
“And the vicar is taking the chair,” said the policeman, swift to seize upon this added attraction. “So ’ow many of the five-shilling may I sell you and your good lady, sir?”
Soapy, like Chimp, was a thrifty man; and apart from the expense, his whole soul shrank from doing anything even remotely calculated to encourage the force. Nevertheless, he perceived that there was no escape and decided that it remained only to save as much as possible from the wreck.
“Gimme one,” he said, and the words seemed to be torn from him.
“One only?” said the constable disappointedly. “’Ow about your good lady?”
“I’m not married.”
“’Ow about your sister?”
“I haven’t a sister.”
“Then ’ow about if you ’appen to meet one of your gentlemen friends at the club and he expresses a wish to come along?”
“Gimme one!” said Soapy.
The policeman gave him one, received the money, returned a few genial words of thanks and withdrew. Soapy, going back into the house, was acutely disturbed to find that the vicar had come too.
“A most deserving charity,” said the vicar.
Soapy eyed him bleakly. How did one get rid of vicars? Short of employing his bride’s universal panacea and hauling off and busting him one, Soapy could not imagine.
“Have you been a resident of Valley Fields long, Mr. Shotter?”
“No.”
“I hope we shall see much of each other.”
“Do you?” said Soapy wanly.
“The first duty of a clergyman, in my opinion——”
Mr. Molloy had no notion of what constituted the first duty of a clergyman, and he was destined never to find out. For at this moment there came from the regions above the clear, musical voice of a woman.
“Sweet-ee!”
Mr. Molloy started violently. So did the Rev. Aubrey Jerningham.
“I’m in the bedroom, honey bunch. Come right on up.”
A dull flush reddened the Rev. Aubrey’s ascetic face.
“I understood you to say that you were not married, Mr. Shotter,” he said in a metallic voice.
“No—er—ah——”
He caught the Rev. Aubrey’s eye. He was looking as Sherlock Holmes might have looked had he discovered Doctor Watson stealing his watch.
“No—I—er—ah——”
It is not given to every man always to do the right thing in trying circumstances. Mr. Molloy may be said at this point definitely to have committed a social blunder. Winking a hideous, distorted wink, he raised the forefinger of his right hand and with a gruesome archness drove it smartly in between his visitor’s third and fourth ribs.
“Oh, well, you know how it is,” he said thickly.
The Rev. Aubrey Jerningham quivered from head to heel. He drew himself up and looked at Soapy. The finger had given him considerable physical pain, but it was the spiritual anguish that hurt the more.
“I do, indeed, know how it is,” he said.
“Man of the world,” said Soapy, relieved.
“I will wish you good evening, Mr. Shotter,” said the Rev. Aubrey.
The front door banged. Dolly appeared on the landing.
“Why don’t you come up?” she said.
“Because I’m going to lie down,” said Soapy, breathing heavily.
“What do you mean?”
“I want a rest. I need a rest, and I’m going to have it.” Dolly descended to the hall.
“Why, you’re looking all in, precious!”
“‘All in’ is right. If I don’t ease off for a coupla minutes, you’ll have to send for an ambulance.”
“Well, I don’t know as I won’t take a spell myself. It’s kinda dusty work, hunting around. I’ll go take a breath of air outside at the back.... Was that somebody else calling just now?”
“Yes, it was.”
“Gee! These people round these parts don’t seem to have any homes of their own, do they? Well, I’ll be back in a moment, honey. There’s a sort of greenhouse place by the back door. Quite likely old Finglass may have buried the stuff there.”
The Rev. Aubrey Jerningham crossed the little strip of gravel that served both Mon Repos and San Rafael as a drive and mounted the steps to Mr. Wrenn’s front door. He was still quivering.
“Mr. Wrenn?” he asked of the well-dressed young man who answered the ring.
Mr. Braddock shook his head. This was the second time in the last five minutes that he had been taken for the owner of San Rafael; for while the vicar had worked down Burberry Road from the top, the policeman had started at the bottom and worked up.
“Sorry,” he said, “Mr. Wrenn’s out.”
“I will come in and wait,” said the Rev. Aubrey.
“Absolutely,” said Mr. Braddock.
He led the way to the drawing-room, feeling something of the embarrassment, though in a slighter degree, which this holy man had inspired in Soapy Molloy. He did not know much about vicars, and rather wondered how he was to keep the conversation going.
“Offer you a cup of tea?”
“No, thank you.”
“I’m afraid,” said Mr. Braddock apologetically, “I don’t know where they keep the whisky.”
“I never touch spirits.”
Conversation languished. Willoughby Braddock began to find his companion a little damping. Not matey. Seemed to be brooding on something, or Mr. Braddock was very much mistaken.
“You’re a clergyman, aren’t you, and all that?” he said, after a pause of some moments.
“I am. My name is the Rev. Aubrey Jerningham. I have just taken up my duties as vicar of this parish.”
“Where every prospect pleases,” said the Rev. Aubrey, “and only man is vile.”
Silence fell once more. Mr. Braddock searched in his mind for genial chatter, and found that he was rather short on clerical small talk.
He thought for a moment of asking his visitor why it was that bishops wore those rummy bootlace-looking things on their hats—a problem that had always perplexed him; but decided that the other might take offence at being urged to give away professional secrets.
“How’s the choir coming along?” he asked.
“The choir is quite satisfactory.”
“That’s good. Organ all right?”
“Quite, thank you.”
“Fine!” said Mr. Braddock, feeling that things were beginning to move. “You know, down where I live, in Wiltshire, the local padres always seem to have the deuce of a lot of trouble with their organs. Their church organs, I mean, of course. I’m always getting touched for contributions to organ funds. Why is that? I’ve often wondered.”
The Rev. Aubrey Jerningham forbore to follow him into this field of speculation.
“Then you do not live here, Mr.——”
“Braddock’s my name—Willoughby Braddock. Oh, no, I don’t live here. Just calling. Friend of the family.”
“Ah? Then you are not acquainted with the—gentleman who lives next door—Mr. Shotter?”
“Oh, yes, I am! Sam Shotter? He’s one of my best pals. Known him for years and years and years.”
“Indeed? I cannot compliment you upon your choice of associates.”
“Why, what’s wrong with Sam?”
“Only this, Mr. Braddock,” said the Rev. Aubrey, his suppressed wrath boiling over like a kettle: “He is living a life of open sin.”
“Open which?”
“Open sin. In the heart of my parish.”
“I don’t get this. How do you mean—open sin?”
“I have it from this man Shotter’s own lips that he is a bachelor.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“And yet a few minutes ago I called at his house and found that there was a woman residing there.”
“A woman?”
“A woman.”
“But there can’t be. Sam’s not that sort of chap. Did you see her?”
“I did not wait to see her. I heard her voice.”
“I’ve got it,” said Mr. Braddock acutely. “She must have been a caller; some casual popper-in, you know.”
“In that case, what would she be doing in his bedroom?”
“In his bedroom?”
“In—his—bedroom! I came here to warn Mr. Wrenn, who, I understand from Mr. Cornelius, has a young niece, to be most careful to allow nothing in the shape of neighbourly relations between the two houses. Do you think that Mr. Wrenn will be returning shortly?”
“I couldn’t say. But look here,” said Mr. Braddock, troubled, “there must be some mistake.”
“You do not know where he is, by any chance?”
“No—yes, I do, though. He said something about going to see Cornelius. I think they play chess together or something. A game,” said Mr. Braddock, “which I have never been able to get the hang of. But then I’m not awfully good at those brainy games.”
“I will go to Mr. Cornelius’ house,” said the Rev. Aubrey, rising.
“You don’t play mah-jongg, do you?” asked Mr. Braddock. “Now, there’s a game that I——”
“If he is not there, I will return.”
Left alone, Willoughby Braddock found that his appetite for tea had deserted him. Claire, grateful for his services, had rather extended herself over the buttered toast, but it had no appeal for him. He lighted a cigarette and went out to fiddle with the machinery of his two-seater, always an assistance to thought.
But even the carburettor, which had one of those fascinating ailments to which carburettors are subject, yielded him no balm. He was thoroughly upset and worried.
He climbed into the car and gave himself up to gloomy meditation, and presently voices down the road announced the return of Kay and Sam. They were chatting away in the friendliest possible fashion—from where he sat, Willoughby Braddock could hear Kay’s clear laugh ringing out happily—and it seemed to Mr. Braddock, though he was no austerer moralist than the rest of his generation, that things were in a position only to be described as a bit thick. He climbed down and waited on the pavement.
“Why, hullo, Willoughby,” said Kay. “This is fine. Have you just arrived? Come in and have some tea.”
“I’ve had tea, thanks. That girl Claire gave me some, thanks.... I say, Sam, could I have a word with you?”
“Say on,” said Sam.
“In private, I mean. You don’t mind, Kay?”
“Not a bit. I’ll go in and order tea.”
Kay disappeared into the house; and Sam, looking at Mr. Braddock, observed with some surprise that his face had turned a vivid red and that his eyes were fastened upon him in a reproachful stare.
“What’s up?” he asked, concerned.
Willoughby Braddock cleared his throat.
“You know, Sam——”
“But I don’t,” said Sam, as he paused.
“——you know, Sam, I’m not a—nobody would call me a—— Dash it, now I’ve forgotten the word!”
“Beauty?” hazarded Sam.
“It’s on the tip of my tongue—Puritan. That’s the word I want. I’m not a Puritan. Not strait-laced, you know. But, really, honestly, Sam, old man—I mean, dash it all!”
Sam stroked his chin thoughtfully.
“I still don’t quite get it, Bradder,” he said. “What exactly is the trouble?”
“Well, I mean, on the premises, old boy, absolutely on the premises—is it playing the game? I mean, next door to people who are pals of mine and taking Kay to the theatre and generally going on as if nothing was wrong.”
“Well, what is wrong?” asked Sam patiently.
“Well, when it comes to the vicar beetling in and complaining about women in your bedroom——”
“What?”
“He said he heard her.”
“Heard a woman in my bedroom?”
“Yes.”
“He must be crazy. When?”
“Just now.”
“This beats me.”
“Well, that was what he said, anyway. Dashed unpleasant he was about it too. Oh, and there’s another thing, Sam. I wish you’d ask that man of yours not to call me brother. He——”
“Great Cæsar!” said Sam.
He took Willoughby Braddock by the arm and urged him toward the steps. His face wore a purposeful look.
“You go in, like a good chap, and talk to Kay,” he said. “Tell her I’ll be in in a minute. There’s something I’ve got to look into.”
“Yes, but listen——”
“Run along!”
“But I don’t understand.”
“Push off!”
Yielding to superior force, Willoughby Braddock entered San Rafael, walking pensively. And Sam, stepping off the gravel onto the grass, moved with a stealthy tread toward his home. Vague but lively suspicions were filling his mind.
He had reached the foot of the steps and paused to listen, when the evening air was suddenly split by a sharp feminine scream. This was followed by a joyous barking. And this in its turn was followed by the abrupt appearance of a flying figure, racing toward the gate. It was moving swiftly and the light was dim, but Sam had no difficulty in recognising his old acquaintance Miss Gunn, of Pittsburgh. She fled rapidly through the gate and out into Burberry Road, while Amy, looking in the dusk like a small elephant, gambolled about her, uttering strange canine noises. Dolly slammed the gate, but gates meant nothing to Amy. She poured herself over it and the two passed into the darkness.
Sam’s jaw set grimly. He moved with noiseless steps to the door of Mon Repos and took out his key.