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1.
Mr. Marius Bradford had just closed the door of the fitting-room behind his last customer when Miss Weston arrived with her mother. Mr. Bradford was fond of his sister but he was even more attached to his niece. Since the death of his brother-in-law, he had done his best to act like a father to her. In point of fact, he was now the head of the family. For this reason, Evelyn and her mother, whenever they called on Mr. Bradford, would attach very great importance to anything he said. So now it was with a grave and ceremonious air that he placed old Hogan's will before him and fished his spectacles from his breast-pocket. He read the document with concentrated attention.
"It seems to me," he said after much silent deliberation, "that this Jim Hogan must have been inveterately work-shy. I recently had in my employment an assistant who was a wonderful worker. He could face a topcoat, that fellow - something amazing. And yet I have been reluctantly compelled to fire him because the man is a boozer. That sort of thing is something I won't have. Why, this very morning, Lord Otterburn - he's one of my regular customers, you know - he said: 'Look, Mr. Bradford,' 'as things are at present...' "
Evelyn interrupted him impatiently.
"Uncle," she said, "we've come here for your advice. What are we to do? That crook's going to be released tomorrow! We must do something immediately to forestall him..."
"Didn't I tell you that old Mr. North, of Longson & North, is an old customer of mine? I used to make poor Mr. Longson's clothes too. He died two years ago because of a neglected gall-stone... All right, all right... I'll ring him up. He will be in at this hour, I expect... Hallo! This is Mr. Bradford. Good afternoon, Mr. North. How do you like your new covert-coat?... I beg your pardon?... Oh no, I should say that's impossible. I only recommend a first-class cloth like that to old customers... No, not about that, Mr. North. Er - I wonder if you can tell me the name of the person to whom you sold that statuette with the big diamond seventeen years ago... Please, Mr. North! No, I haven't. Never in my life! I recently sacked my assistant for that very reason, sir... I'll hand the receiver to my sister's daughter; she's very anxious to have a word with you..." Evelyn managed to seize the receiver. "This is Evelyn Weston. So sorry for this intrusion, Mr. North. I am seeking information about a statuette sold by your firm some years ago... I beg your pardon? Oh. Could you give me the man's address, please?"
She made a note on the margin of a fashion magazine lying beside her on the table, as she repeated the address:
"Austin Knickerbock... Number 4, Long Street... Thank you very much indeed, Mr. North. Good-bye." She hung up.
"There," said Mr. Bradford. "You see, you needn't jump at the drop of a hat, my dear. I will now continue to direct this business..."
"Mr. North says," Evelyn interrupted, "that they have an old filing-clerk who writes circulars and calls on old customers soliciting orders. For this purpose he keeps the sales ledgers in his own home. There we can find all the old books belonging to the firm. The man's name is Austin Knickerbock and he lives at 4, Long Street. Let's go and look this fellow up straight away. We may even find him in now. That convict will soon be on the same track if he is really going to try to get hold of the diamond."
"A very sensible plan," Mr. Bradford agreed. "It's the tailor who hesitates who makes a bad fit not the one who boldly shears away at his cloth."
Mr. Bradford liked to illustrate his views with similes borrowed from the domain of sartorial art. He was just about to utter a maxim concerning the striking similarities to be observed between bad hats - figuratively speaking - and ready-to-wear morning coats, but Evelyn, assisted by Mrs. Weston, quickly extinguished the flow with his hat, which together they thrust onto his head prior to jerking him out into the street.
2.
Number 4, Long Street was a dismal-looking three-storey tenement house. Mr. North's filing-clerk rented two evil-smelling holes at the end of a dark passage facing the courtyard. Like most elderly filing-clerks, Austin Knickerbock was a bachelor and a victim of melancholia. Wearing owlish spectacles to protect his eyes and alpaca cuffs to protect his jacket, he spent his days surrounded by old ledgers and files, writing to lapsed customers, whose names he copied out from the sales ledgers dating back to the vintage years, in the hope that they would order more fancy goods. He would send out circulars, mildly reproving in tone, pointing out the necessity for anyone claiming to be a cultured member of contemporary society to demonstrate this by furnishing his home with artistic statuettes, choice pottery and beautiful imitation Chinese vases. He pointed out that those who neglect to decorate their homes with such fancy goods, are liable to be avoided by their acquaintances and dropped by their friends.
A living proof of this argument was Knickerbock himself. His home was totally devoid of statuettes, his shelves empty of pottery items, and as to Chinese vases - imitation or otherwise - there was not one in sight. On the contrary, there were thick tufts of horsehair erupting from the ancient leather couch on which he slept; and he had his meals brought in from a cook-shop across the street. Only in one respect was the simile inappropriate. Knickerbock was not avoided by his friends. He had no friends at all.
In these circumstances, it is not surprising that Mr. Bradford and the two ladies, arriving as they did at such an unlikely hour of the night, should be greeted by a somewhat suspicious Knickerbock. His suspicions were multiplied when Mr. Bradford produced a ten-shilling note. Greed momentarily elongated the clerk's face and there appeared in his eyes the unmistakable glint of money-lust. Nevertheless, he mastered his urge to grab the stuff and decided to hear out any explanation that might be forthcoming.
"I am sorry," he said in a cool, business-like tone of voice after the proposition had been laid bare before him. "These things are more valuable than you seem to think. You're not the first people to show an interest in this book," he added with instinctive cunning, and saw that his random shot had hit the target.
"You've sold it?" Evelyn gasped.
"No - not yet. I told the other fellow that I could not possibly let him have it for anything under fifty pounds, and he immediately rushed off to fetch the money."
"Here you are!" cried Mr. Bradford and he handed the clerk a cheque for fifty pounds.
Knickerbock hadn't the audacity to ask for more. He showed the visitors into the other room, where the prevailing odour was not unlike that of Roman catacombs. From a high shelf just below the ceiling, he fished out the sales ledger for 1922. It was a rather shabby volume; and as he lifted it off the shelf, the label came off and fell to the floor. Knickerbock, seeing no further point in keeping up the pretence of coolness, showed himself in a more helpful mood and reached obligingly for the glue-pot.
"Shall I paste the label back on for you?"
"No! no!" the visitors protested in unison: and, seizing the ledger, left the premises in great haste, closing the door behind them.
Left to himself again, Knickerbock first switched off the light for reasons of economy; he then sat down on his leather couch, which creaked plaintively, and lit a thin dark-brown cigar. Absently, he puffed out the smoke. Well! Thank Heaven, at last a poor filing-clerk had been noticed by someone in this rotten world in which it had always seemed that the old grease was only applied to civil servants' palms. Graft was a nice thing, after all. He puffed at his cigar, deeply moved, and fell into a reverie as blissful as that of any young mother. He was startled out of his day-dream by the sudden ringing of the door-bell.
"Who on earth can it be this time?" he wondered.
First he switched on the light. Then he moved to answer the bell and as he did so he was invaded by a curious feeling, a kind of premonition. He opened the door, and immediately was thrust aside by a young man who rushed into the house in a state of great agitation, shouting excitedly.
"I've been speaking with your boss on the phone," began the young man hurriedly. "Mr North said that other people had been making inquiries, too... Tell me, has anyone else been here yet?"
Knickerbock felt a rush of soothing warmth about his heart. Well, well. You never could tell. Misfortunes, as anyone would tell you, never come singly. But perhaps the same rule applied to fortunes too. If this young fellow had come here to bribe him too, he certainly would feel no surprise.
"What can I do for you?" he asked cautiously.
"My name is Edward Rancing. I've come to buy your sales ledger for the year 1922," he said, and he let Knickerbock catch a glimpse of the hundred-pound note he was clutching in one hand.
"If you please, sir," Knickerbock bleated miserably, almost in tears; "are you sure you must have the volume for 1922, of all years? I have all the volumes, from 1878 down to the present day, including two volumes for the year war broke out, 1914..."
"For heaven's sake, man, stop drivelling: Go and get the volume for 1922 immediately and I'll give you one hundred pounds for it!"
Knickerbock's suspicions were now multiplied a thousand-fold. Those rascals had cheated him! They had taken an unfair advantage of him! They had counted on his sense of fair play! That ledger must contain some information of very great value. But he would not leave it at that! Tomorrow morning he would go to the police! For the time being, he would take a few soundings to see just how much that book was worth.
"I am sorry, sir," he said. "A few minutes ago, some persons came here and offered to pay two hundred pounds for the book. They've just gone to fetch the money. But I'll charge you less for any of the other books. I could let you have all the rest at a bargain price."
"Look," panted Rancing. "I'll pay you two hundred and fifty, cash down here and now."
The clerk stood transfixed. He felt a lump in his throat and for a few seconds he really thought he would choke. He would certainly have to inform the police!
"Man alive!" yelled the young man suddenly, misinterpreting Knickerbock's silence as hesitation. "Look! I'll give you three hundred pounds! Bring me the book quickly!" For Eddy was afraid he might run into the Westons, and in the same breath he increased his bid:
"Three hundred and fifty!"
Knickerbock staggered into the other room, dumb with amazement. He felt like a Corsican baron returning from a tour of inspection of his tenants and serfs to find his ancestral castle burnt to the ground by his foes, and his family kidnapped or murdered (or having suffered whatever fate was decreed by the rules then in force between noble enemies). The bloodsuckers! They had got that prize for fifty pounds! For a song! He had not known what he was giving away.
Did he know now?
He did.
He now knew that he'd thrown three hundred pounds down the drain. He had thrown away the biggest chance of his life!... He stared wildly round - and saw the label on the floor:
LEDGER-BOOK FOR 1922
Here was his salvation: He snatched up the label, seized the first ledger he could lay his hands on, which happened to be the volume for 1926, and in a matter of seconds, with the aid of the glue-brush, he had firmly pasted the fallen label over the original label.
It was all done in a trice, more swiftly than Knickerbock would ever have thought possible. The stained, old label with the inscription in black ink looked absolutely authentic. This particular ledger might not contain the one item which made the ledger for 1922 so covetable, but if the young man in the other room did not discover this slight adjustment until the following day, he would simply deny having received any money from him. He waited for the glue to dry, then returned to the other room with the book in his hand, saying ruefully:
"This is the book, sir. As a matter of fact, I gave my word to the person who was here before you - and a gentleman's honour..."
"Three hundred and fifty quids! Think of that!"
"My honour cannot be bought with three hundred and fifty pounds!"
"How much?" asked Eddy briefly.
"Four hundred. That's not much for a gentleman's honour."
The next moment he had the four hundred pounds in his hand.
But when the young man had left, Knickerbock no longer felt happy. He saw clearly that they were all taking advantage of his ignorance. That book must be worth a fortune. He would sue them, he would!
Gradually he became calmer, but he did not go to bed immediately. It was possible that other buyers might drop in yet. And now that he came to think of it, it should not be too difficult to alter the 7 on the label for 1927 and so manufacture yet another volume for 1922. In any case it might be as well to soak the labels off a few more ledgers, and change the figures. It would do no harm to be prepared.
Some time later, he lit another short black cigar with fingers that trembled a little. Graft was a nice thing after all. He would use half the money to gamble in stocks and shares, and he would lend the other half at an exorbitant rate of interest. Against good security, of course. He would not let anyone get the better of him. He would chuck up this dreary job. After all, he wasn't sixty yet: life had scarcely begun for him. Now he would be able to take week-ends on the Continent and get to know a few pretty young women. Knickerbock sat up until six in the morning. He could scarcely expect more visitors now, so he lay down on the couch for a little and dozed off immediately.
It was precisely five minutes later when he was rudely awakened by the shrill sound of the door-bell. He had been dreaming that, as general manager of a vast fancy-goods concern, he was giving the sack to a number of filing-clerks for not pulling their weight. Roused from this sweet dream, Knickerbock hurried to answer the bell.
His early visitor proved to be a tall individual, over 6ft. in height, and slightly running to fat; he was somewhat bald and there was a disfiguring scar on his nose. He seemed to be in a very good humour, as well he might be, for he had come straight from Dartmoor.
"Hullo, old fellow!" was his cheery greeting. "What made you choose to live in this lonely out-of-the-way spot, eh? Why anyone could come and do you in here and no one the wiser."
"What can I do for you?" Knickerbock responded, his voice trembling slightly, for although he had been living in this 'lonely' spot for the last ten years, the possibility of being 'done in' had never occurred to him.
"Now look here. Let's talk business. I want your sales ledger for 1922 and I don't mind parting with some dough to get it."
"The question is," said Knickerbock, the astute business man once more, "how much don't you mind parting with?" In his mind's eye, Knickerbock was already in the back room changing a certain number 7 into a 2. "I have just turned down an offer of one thousand pounds."
"Then you've made the biggest mistake of your life. Three bob's the most you can hope for from me. No! On second thoughts the cash offer is cancelled. You ain't going to get a brass farthing out of me. Either you give up the ledger or I'll give you something you won't forget in a hurry. Take your choice: Hand over the book or I'll hand you something harder." A powerful hand fell on Knickerbock's neck in a seemingly casual way. "I'm just out of Dartmoor. I've been in jug for six years. So I warn you, old fellow, I've even been so careless as to kill people in my time. Now you nip along and get that book for me. The ledger, my man and put some snap into it!"
Knickerbock's knees began to give beneath him; he had told a lie that might cost him his life.
"I was not speaking the truth," he whimpered. "I haven't got that ledger any more... I... I've sold it twice, to two different people."
"Come clean," thundered the towering visitor. "I want the whole story and don't try any monkey tricks with me. If you shout, you'll die. I have all my pals waiting for me outside."
With trembling fingers the clerk poured himself a glass of water, raised it to his lips and drank. Somewhat restored, he proceeded to tell the ex-prisoner what had happened, sticking to the truth this time because he knew that his life was at stake. Gordon could tell that this time the clerk was telling no lies. When the old man confessed how he had tampered with the date label on the second ledger, the ex-convict was scarcely able to suppress his mirth. When Knickerbock had finished his story, a savage expression came over Gordon's face and he bawled:
"You lied to me, you worm! You'll die for it!" Knickerbock dropped to his knees in terror, and wrung his hands imploringly:
"I beseech you, sir... I have a family to support... I support my aunt who lives at Birkham in Sussex..." This was a desperate plea considering that he had not seen his aunt since the unhappy occasion eight years previously when they had quarrelled over a couple of silver candlesticks which both of them had felt the urge to remove from the home of a deceased relative. Realising the weakness of his argument, Knickerbock had the idea of strengthening it by actually producing the money.
"Look here," he said. "How do you suppose a poor filing-clerk like me comes to have four hundred and fifty pounds cash unless all that I've been telling you is true?"
With one sweeping gesture of his right arm the ex-prisoner scooped up the notes from the clerk's out-stretched hand; for a moment it looked as if he was going to fling them all in the man's face, but the sweeping movement was broken abruptly as he stuffed the money in his pocket. Then he gave a perfect demonstration of a textbook left hook, beautifully aimed at the clerk's chin.
It was broad daylight when Knickerbock recovered consciousness. Ruefully, he fingered his jaw, then - far more ruefully - his pocket. He had had four hundred and fifty pounds - in transit. That fabulous sum had rested in his pocket - for one night. Alas, it had been just another case of ships that pass in the night. Some minutes later he was astounded to discover the extent of the ex-convict's thoroughness for the man had also whisked away the two pounds which constituted Knickerbock's hard-won, legal earnings! His own money! A fragment of his wretched salary. It was to have kept him going till the first of the month! That accursed crook had left him penniless!
To lose the fabulous sum of four hundred and fifty pounds may be depressing, painful and grievous enough. But the loss of two hard-earned pounds is a terrible blow. It is a tragedy. That day Knickerbock opened his door to no one. He wrote to his landlord that he would be leaving his rooms; and he decided that he would continue to refrain from spending his week-ends on the Continent.
It was a wicked world he lived in; there were no moral standards in it. Graft was not nice, after all. Just let anyone come and try to bribe him again!
But Knickerbock waited for the occasion in vain. No prospective grafters ever came his way again.
3.
How, you may wonder, had Eddy Ranting come by the fabulous sum of money which had stunned old Knickerbock? He had been getting round his uncle. Mr. Arthur Ranting lived in the country and, as a country gentleman, his attitude towards his impecunious metropolitan relative was one of suspicion and distrust. His gravest suspicions were directed towards his nephew Edward. Now, having listened to young Edward's fantastic account of how he had overheard the convict's last will, he paced up and down for a long time, immersed in thought. After some tune, he put a call through to Dartmoor Prison. By claiming to be a relative of James Hogan, he managed to acquire confirmation of the fact that the old convict was dead, and that, before dying, the late J. Hogan had made a will which the prison authorities had now forwarded to the executors. This piece of information settled it. The thought of a precious stone worth one million pounds sterling was stimulating enough to move the wealthy but close-fisted uncle to action. Miserly folk, once their suspicions have been overcome, often turn out to be the most reckless of gamblers.
"Look, uncle," Eddy explained. "This is just what the doctor ordered for me. This business calls for genius. Once I pick up the scent, I will be on to that diamond for you like a retriever after a quail. However, the operation will cost money. It may be some months before I succeed. I may have to bribe people. I may have to meet people and travel around. Altogether, it will take not a penny less than two thousand pounds. If you fork up the needful, I'll go halves with you."
"And suppose you try to cheat me?"
"Uncle! You know me."
"That's why I'm asking."
"Look. I'll give you an I.O.U. for five hundred thousand pounds. Once I've got hold of the diamond I'll want to enjoy my fortune, I shall go into business; I'll buy a house or an estate, and in any case you'll be able to pin me down with the I.O.U. When I've found the diamond I won't bury it in the earth; as soon as I've sold it and start using the money, you'll be able to claim your share. But you won't have to do that. I'm just as honest as you are. Besides, you know, dog doesn't eat dog."
Thus it happened that Fate brought Eddy Ranting the great chance of his life and, with two thousand pounds in his pocket, he went to see the filing-clerk and cheerfully carried off the ledger never suspecting that it was for the year 1926, and that the volume he wanted was in Evelyn's hands. As chance would have it, Longson & North had also sold one 'Dreaming Buddha' (as the precious statuette mounted on a box was called) in the year 1926. These statuettes had been made for the firm by a ceramic artist named Thompson, and fortunately he made only a limited number of each particular model. Two or, at the most, three 'Dreaming Buddhas' were sold each year, and when one had been sold, a new one would be ordered from Thompson. Unfortunately for Eddy, one 'Dreaming Buddha' mounted on a box had been sold, according to an entry in the bogus ledger, in May that year. The statuette, along with another item - a group called 'Harvesters' - was despatched on May 2yth to Herr Adalbert Wollishoff, a technical adviser, Mügli am See, Switzerland.
Eddy Ranting therefore attempted to steal a march on his rivals for the treasure by flying to Zurich, whence he proceeded by the shortest possible route to that picturesque resort, Mügli am See.
4.
Meanwhile Evelyn learned from the genuine ledger for 1922 that the little enamelled box with the ceramic ornament called 'Dreaming Buddha' had been supplied, as per order, to Lieutenant-Commander Terence Brandon, of 4, Westminster Road. The night was already well advanced, but Evelyn was anxious to make the most of their advantage in having been able to start several hours before the convict was to be released, even supposing that he was also in possession of the secret.
It was midnight when the cab in which Evelyn and her mother had travelled from the clerk's lodgings turned into Westminster Road. (Mr. Bradford had meantime gone home.) Evelyn rang the bell, and when presently the door opened they could just make out in the dim light of the hall first a pair of shuffling slippers, above them an expanse of snowy white robes visible as far as the knees of its owner and above them a dignified and braided mantle; the wearer of these garments had completed his attire with an elaborate cap so that he presented an appearance more in keeping with a land-lubber's idea of an admiral in dishabille than a janitor roused from bed.
"Yes?" queried the apparition.
"We wish to see Lieutenant-Commander Brandon," Evelyn replied. "Is he at home, please?"
The man gaped at her in a dumbfounded sort of way as if she had been inquiring after Commander Christopher Columbus.
"You must be making some mistake!" he said when he had managed to return his jaw to a more normal position. "Oh," said Evelyn, dismayed. "Surely he hasn't moved away from here?"
"That's just what he has done, I'm afraid. Yes. Good and proper, too. You don't seem to have read your newspapers very well, ma'am. It's less than a year since Commander Brandon was making front-page headlines every day."
She slipped a shilling into the dignified door-keeper's hand. "It seems that the affair has escaped my attention. I suppose you couldn't give me the broad outlines of what happened to him?"
"Well, as a matter of fact, nobody knows the whole truth of the matter. They do say that he made off with some very important military documents. Yet he seemed such a decent, respectable tenant. Respected by all - held in general esteem, you know. Why, he misled even me! Me, being a door-keeper, it's part of my job to be a keen judge of character. For instance, I'm supposed to be able to tell whether a stranger walking into this building is visiting the actress on the third floor or a cat-burglar in his best clothes doing a bit of reconnoitring before getting down to his real work. Well, as I was saying, being a door-keeper in a big mansion means that I'm pretty well up in the art of placing people just by looking at them - but even I made a mistake over the commander."
It was a good job, thought Evelyn, that Uncle Marius was no longer with them, or the light of dawn might find them still exchanging worldly commonplaces with this august commissionaire.
"Well, if I understand you correctly, Commander Brandon has been involved in a criminal case?"
"Up to the eyebrows. And, as I, say, even I, a commissionaire..."
"Yes, yes, I know. Even you got quite a wrong impression on his character."
"Very happily put, ma'am. Most felicitously expressed. Why, even commissionaires are liable to make an occasional error of judgment. To err, ma'am - as my uncle Joseph never tired of pointing out - is a human failing; and, after all, we commissionaires are no less - and no more - human than any other people. My Uncle Joseph was a commissionaire too."
Evelyn sighed.
"It seems to be a sort of family calling."
"I wouldn't say that. Take my grandfather. He was Head Stableman to Lord Derby. Not to mention my kinswomen, whom their sex automatically prevented from entering the profession. True, some feminist voices have lately been heard raising the demand that, like other vocations, door-keeping be opened to women. But," and he looked intently at Evelyn, raising a warning finger, "if you ask me, this is a dream of the very, very distant future. This occupation, my dear lady, is one for men. It calls for keen eyes and a quick wit, for resource and an ability to act promptly."
"Yes, yes. To be sure... Now, I wonder, could you tell us something about Commander Brandon?"
"Well, on the face of it, he was as decent a person as ever lived in this house. A thoroughly decent fellow. However, one day, it seems, he got hold of some military documents, disappeared, and nothing has been seen of him since."
"He made off without warning, I suppose, leaving his things behind?"
"The commander's departure was indeed precipitous, ma'am. His flat stayed just as he left it for a long while before his mother had all his furniture and belongings removed."
"Could you tell us where we can find Mrs. Brandon, please? It's important for us to speak to her at once."
"That is virtually impossible since we have not yet reached the age of travel by rocket. At this moment, Mrs. Brandon happens to be in Paris."
"Oh," Evelyn heaved a sigh. "Has she gone to live in Paris then?"
"That's right," said the commissionaire. "Since the invention of the aeroplane, it has become possible to reach Paris within a comparatively short time. I well remember the years when such a trip used to be quite a serious undertaking."
"Could you give me Mrs. Brandon's address in Paris?"
The commissionaire shuffled back into his office. When he returned he was wearing wire-rimmed pince-nez, and was browsing in a note-book with chequered covers.
"Ah. Here it is! This is the address his furniture was sent to... Have you got a pencil? The best policy is to write such things down. One keeps forgetting addresses. Well, then... Mrs. Emily Brandon... Got it down?.. Number 7, Rue Mazarin... Paris... France..."
"Thank you very much. Well, I must be going now. I'm in an awful hurry."
"Then I'll just hang about here a bit longer and I think I might have a gasper."
"I hope you enjoy yourself. Good-bye."
"Good-bye, ma'am. And - Bon voyage!"
5.
Evelyn and her mother did not get a wink of sleep all night. A trip to Paris was no light matter for the Westons: travelling expenses, hotels, restaurants...
"Oh dear, we simply can't afford it," Mrs. Weston lamented. There had been a time when they would have thought nothing of "hopping over" to Paris; in those days the cost of such a trip would have seemed negligible.
In those days! Why, before the late Mr. Weston had begun to speculate in land with such unfortunate results they had even had a car.
"Well," said Mrs. Weston, sighing, "if anyone can help us now, it will be Marius, as usual."
"You know, I have an idea that Uncle Marius won't let us down."
Nor was she mistaken. Next morning, Evelyn was standing in the pleasant fitting-room where the smell of freshly ironed clothes showed that the morning's work was already well advanced. Mr. Bradford was standing in front of a basted jacket on a dummy, scrutinising the work with an expert eye.
"You shall cross the Channel, my dear," he said as, head on one side and a few pins projecting from his lips, he took out a flat, round piece of chalk from his waistcoat pocket, and proceeded to mark the position of the buttons. "We will raise the money. We must get to the bottom of this business, whether we get any benefit from it or not. Destiny is like a drunken tailor, my dear: When he starts cutting a piece of cloth, there's no knowing whether it'll turn out as a topcoat or a pair of trousers. Two hundred pounds is all I have to spare at the moment, and that's what I'll give you to cover your expenses. It is my belief that there's been the divine hand at work over this business of the will - though I don't usually have much faith in that sort of thing. But I should never be able to sleep in peace if you did not have a go at finding that diamond. And sound sleep is essential for tailors - it's an absolute necessity for anyone engaged in hard mental work."
Evelyn, however, was no longer listening to her uncle.
She had chanced to look down through the window and her glance fell on a man on the sidewalk across the street: he was tall, bald-headed, and there was a disfiguring scar on his nose.
6.
An unpleasant surprise awaited Lord Bannister, the well-known medical scientist, when he heaved himself out of his elegantly low-slung Alfa-Romeo at Dover. A flock of journalists and cameramen had alighted on the quay where the boat for Calais lay berthed, and was lying in wait for him. His lordship, like most scientists, was a modest, retiring sort of person who hated publicity. Lord Bannister, though not yet forty, had an impressive record of scientific achievement behind him, and it was rumoured that he was going to be awarded a Nobel Prize for his outstanding discoveries about the treatment of sleeping-sickness. Recently, he had received from the royal hand one of the highest decorations in the land, and so much publicity had been given to his research work that he had now received the final accolade - popular interest in a scientific theory which no one really understood. Lord Bannister's sleeping-sickness theory (about "predestinate races") had made its triumphant entry, under the flying colours of intellectual snobbery, into clubs and tea parties, and every ambitious bank clerk managed to bring it into the conversation along with Psychoanalysis and Relativity. A few more yards and the race would be won; Lord Bannister's name would make headlines in the science-and-culture columns of the Sunday papers.
His lordship was leaving for Paris, where he had been invited to lecture at the Sorbonne University. From Paris, he would be going on to Morocco, where he had established a research unit for the study of tropical diseases. There, too, he had a large and beautiful villa in which he usually spent the greater part of the year. It was his present intention to stay in Morocco for the next six months for he was longing for a period of subtropical peace and solitude.
Lord Bannister was both serious and modest, a retiring, timid sort of man.
But tragedy was not unknown to this modest intellectual. He was reputed to be unhappy in his private life. His brothers had died young, and his present trip marked the happy ending of an unhappy marriage: he had for some time been embroiled in a divorce suit and that very morning his marriage had been dissolved. Lord Bannister was glad that he had so far succeeded in keeping the painful affair secret. He lived in constant dread lest one or other of the newspapermen dogging his footsteps should one day find out that he was after all divorcing his wife.
One can understand, therefore, that when Lord Bannister stepped out of his car and after a few unsuspecting steps, found himself facing a barrage of flashlights, he actually leaped into the air like a jumping-bean. Thoroughly off guard, he reeled, stepped back and so tripped up a young lady immediately behind him who was also heading for the gangway. Down she went - suitcase, hat box and all - in the very middle of a pool of muddy water. The journalists, alarmed to see the disastrous result of their zeal, took to their heels. Lord Bannister was at a loss as to how he should behave in these circumstances. All his work in the field of medicine had not prepared him for such a contingency. The young lady, her elegant clothes quite ruined, now struggled to her feet, and fixed on the embarrassed scientist the accusing eyes of a martyr.
"I am awfully sorry, " Lord Bannister stammered. "I... I would like to compensate you for all this damage... It was all my fault... my name is Bannister - er, er, Lord Bannister."
"The scientist!" she cried enthusiastically, forgetting that at that moment she presented the unfortunate appearance of a female chimney-sweep. "I am so very glad to meet you, Lord Bannister."
"The honour is mine," mumbled the noble scientist and, exercising some self-control, took the muddy hand which the enthusiastic young lady was holding out to him. "I'm very glad too... I mean, I'm frightfully sorry..."
In an awkward and embarrassed fashion, he began to extricate himself from his predicament. It had been his original intention to linger on the quayside to watch his car being loaded onto the ship, but now he had lost interest. He was really very angry with this clumsy girl. It was quite possible that the incident would be reported in the press. Good Lord! Was there anything left on earth that would not be reported in the press, he wondered. It was lucky they hadn't got wind of his divorce yet. His remaining hope now was that he would not meet any friends and acquaintances on board. This did not seem too extravagant a hope, considering that Lord Bannister was a man who gave out friendship in exceedingly small doses; with any luck he ought to be able to enjoy a quiet crossing, unmolested by bores asking fatuous questions and wondering if he had read any good books lately.
Lord Bannister had no such luck. Indeed, it seemed that Fate was going out of her way to spite him; for he had only just emerged from the gangway and taken a few wary steps on deck when he ran into a massive fellow with a heavy jowl and thick, horn-rimmed spectacles who instantly greeted him in stentorian tones. (It would in fact have been more truthful to say that it was the loud-voiced gentleman who ran into Lord Bannister - literally ran into him for he had been walking at a good speed and the impact with which he came into contact with the unlucky peer was not inconsiderable.) It was some moments before Lord Bannister was sufficiently recovered to be able to identify this sonorous mass of flesh as P. J. Holler, newspaper proprietor and Busybody of the First Order; his heart sank for the Midlands Mercury and Morning Clarion were among the staunchest supporters of his scientific theories. Canadian by birth, Peter Jeremy Holler was only a junior reporter when he arrived in England where his shrewd business sense, ambition and energy soon earned him in Fleet Street the nickname "Pushing Jerry." It was not long before he was buying up newspapers and magazines, especially in the provinces. Since all his energies were ruthlessly directed towards the acquisition of newspapers, he now controlled nearly a hundred, and still the Moloch of his imprint demanded the sacrifice, one by one, of those papers still struggling to retain their independence.
There are business magnates whose ruthless and assertive methods are in strange contrast to their silent, unobtrusive manner when one meets them personally. It was not so with P. J. Holler. He used both fists when he went into the fight, and when he wanted to be friendly he demonstrated the fact with transatlantic heartiness and exuberant back-slapping. The amount of noise he made was almost offensive. In fact there are few people who can so adequately justify their names as "Pushing Jerry" Holler. From P. J. Holler's vocabulary, such words as reticence, taciturnity and their synonyms, appeared to be missing. Indeed, his qualities could best be described by their opposites - attributes which were scarcely destined to meet with Lord Bannister's approval. His lordship's idea of what constituted polite intercourse scarcely tallied with that of P. J. Holler; and so, as he now unexpectedly found himself face to face with the man, Lord Bannister winced and dejectedly closed his mental eyes. Here was the end of his hope to travel unrecognised. The man was a pest - and unfortunately not a mere everyday pest at all. There was nothing commonplace, drab or obscure about P. J. Holler; he attracted attention to himself wherever he went and it was inevitable that the hapless creature who happened to be in his company would receive a full share of that attention. Even now, as his resounding greeting boomed over the deck, Lord Bannister was only too painfully conscious that every member of the ship's company pricked up his ears and stared. It seemed to his lordship that he was the single tongue-tied actor on a stage watched by everyone on board.
And now Lord Bannister was horrified to learn that P. J. Holler usually spent his holidays in Africa and was now on his way to Morocco. He resigned himself to a minimum of ten minutes of idle talk with the press lord.
It certainly was true, thought Lord Bannister, that misfortunes never come singly, for he was just getting safely through his ten minutes of small talk when into sight hove another familiar-looking face: it belonged to the Mayor of Paris, who was returning from a visit to London by the same boat. Monsieur le maire knew Lord Bannister, as he had attended the ceremony at the Sorbonne when an honorary degree had been conferred upon the noble lord. The ten minutes thus had to be prolonged to a half-hour ordeal, made all the more trying by a cocktail and the mayor's chatty wife. Lord Bannister detested all garrulous wives and towards this one he had a particular aversion.
The mayor told his lordship the happy news that in all probability he would be elected as a member of that same league for the protection of public morals of which Lord Bannister was one of the sponsors. His lordship declared that it would be great pleasure to have monsieur le maire as a fellow member. Meantime Holler promised to break his journey in Paris so that he could attend his lordship's lecture. He would continue his journey to Morocco by air - it would be no trouble at all.
Now they found themselves besieged by autograph-hunters. These impudent fellows stood around grinning and gazing as if he were an animal in the zoo, or a deb at a coming-out ball. He stretched his face into an amiable grimace.
"Have you ever seen the sun rise over the Channel, Lord Bannister?"
That was the sort of idiotic question he was called upon to answer. It had been asked by Holler, of course, and he would certainly have to rustle up an answer.
"Er... the sun?... Over the Channel..." the scientist mused, casting about for some sort of reply. "I don't think I did... I mean, I should think... er... perhaps at some time..."
"Monsieur 'Oiler and myself," the mayor butted in, "have agreed to stay up for the remaining three and a half hours to see the sun come up over the Channel."
"We are great lovers of nature," explained the chatty spouse.
"Oh really," commented his lordship.
"Lady Bannister is not coming down to dine?" asked Holler, for the gong had been rung, and the passengers were beginning to descend to the dining-saloon. The great scientist actually blushed. What more could he be called upon to endure?
"Lady Bannister? .." A look of intense suffering appeared briefly on his usually imperturbable countenance. "No, I don't think she will be able to take supper," he said sadly.
"It's just as well for her to stay in her state-room at the beginning of the crossing," the mayor remarked, soothingly.
Panic thoughts flitted through Lord Bannister's head, for he had never learned to tell a lie. Why hadn't he said coldly that his wife was still in London?
At dinner, it seemed that there was not a person on board who did not attempt to speak at least a couple of words to the celebrated scientist. At last he escaped to the boat deck and was just taking a deep breath of the free ocean air when the mayor clutched him by the elbow and begged his urgent presence in his state-room. A lamp flushed and Lord Bannister knew that his life was still being recorded for an avid public. Disgusted and weary as he was he scarcely noticed that the mayor was no longer with him when the mayor's wife, still chatting, began to unbutton her blouse, asking him to give a scientific assessment of the effect of the sun on her delicate skin.
It was midnight when he staggered back to the haven of his state-room.
At last, at last, he was alone.
He made tea (he never drank tea made by others), lowered himself wearily into a chair, lit a cigar and attempted to soothe his jarred nerves by reading. In his state of extreme exhaustion, it was a matter of seconds before he dozed off.
As he did so, the door of his state-room was flung open and there stood before him, wearing heliotrope pyjamas, the young lady last seen emerging from a pool of muddy water on the quayside at Dover. This young lady now fell upon Lord Bannister, shook him by the shoulder and addressed him in trembling tones, thus:
"My name is Evelyn Weston. Please allow me to spend the night here in your state-room..."
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