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brought it back this morning and made enquiries.”
Although Tydvil’s face was quite composed as he turned round, Geraldine
had not missed the start he had given at her words. “Dear me, so that is
what became of it!” He stared curiously at the hat, and there was
uneasiness in his voice. It was too casual, and Geraldine recognised the
fact.
“Where was it found?” he asked.
Geraldine gave a dramatic and highly coloured account of a dreadful man
who was attempting to murder another with a club, and who had wrought
fearful havoc among the police. “Isn’t it awful, Mr. Jones,” she added,
“he must have been in here.”
“Oh, no!” he smiled, “not here. I was having dinner at the Carlton, and
it was taken by someone.” Tydvil was quite pleased with his fertility of
imagination. “I hope they captured the man,” he added.
“No,” replied Geraldine. “The brute escaped. The policeman said he just
vanished, but that’s absurd. However, they have a good description. They
say he is a horrid, dark man, with a big nose and broad shoulders.”
Mr. Jones shook his head. “Dreadful,” he said. “Drink, no doubt!” But
somehow Geraldine sensed, with that sense that the Creator has given to
women to allow her to bowl out iniquitous man, that the impeccable Tydvil
Jones was fibbing like all his sex, and was just slightly over-acting a
part.
“The policeman asked me to ring up Russell Street when you came in, if
you could help at all. They’re very anxious to get that ruffian.”
“Urn,” said Tydvil. “Better explain that it was taken from the Carlton,
and express my regret that I cannot assist them.”
He had taken his seat, and as he spoke he glanced across the table at the
mail. About one quarter of the letters were still unopened. He pointed an
accusing finger at them. “Oh, Miss Brand! Miss Brand!”
Geraldine flushed guiltily. For the first time since she had been his
secretary she had failed him. She began to stammer an apology. But he
only laughed. “Guilty with extenuating circumstances. Now you listen to
me, young woman. You tell that William Brewer of yours to keep out of
this room—at least until the mail is sorted. He’s a disruptive element.”
“He’s nothing of the kind,” she answered warmly.
“If I say he is, he is!” Tydvil insisted. “He’s worse than that. He’s a
pestilent secretary stealer. That’s what I think of him. But it’s no use
doing anything now since the damage is done.”
That morning when she returned to her desk in the outer office, Geraldine
found a pencil scribbled note on her table. Shorn of the florid opening
lines, which Geraldine thought were the best part of it, it ran: “Look at
page three, The Age, I’ve marked the column. W.” Turning to the place,
Geraldine read with absorbed interest half a column of lurid narrative of
certain happenings in Exhibition Street on the previous night. When she
had finished she decided that if Tydvil were even remotely associated
with them, it would not be surprising if he were unwilling to allow the
fact to become public.
Still later in the day, she was given new, but not altogether unexpected,
food for thought. Tony, the night-watchman of the warehouse, came to hand
in his weekly report, which always passed through Geraldine’s hands. Tony
was one of her very numerous admirers. She knew all about his family, and
their ailments. She was running her eye over the report when he
volunteered, “Governor’s been back late this week, Miss Brand.”
“Oh!” she said, without looking up. “Of course, you’d notice him.”
“I’d be able to pick the Governor by his walk from a thousand. Spotted
him last night as soon as he turned out of Swanston Street.”
Geraldine pricked up her ears. Still looking at the report card, she
said, “Yes, I wonder he didn’t get his death of cold, without his hat.”
“Without his hat!” Tony’s surprise was unmistakable and genuine. “Him
without his hat! Someone must have been pullin’ your leg, Miss Brand. I
seen him as he passed as close as I am to you. It was just ten past
eight, and he was wearin’ a grey felt.”
She smiled up at him. “I must have misunderstood, Tony. Of course it
wouldn’t be likely, would it?”
“Not him, Miss. The governor ain’t that sort,” Tony agreed.
When Tony had departed, Miss Brand was deep in thought as Tydvil passed
from his office into the warehouse. Her eyes followed him as he went.
“Tyddie,” she addressed the straight back in her thoughts. “I’m beginning
to think you’re a worse fibber and a better man than I ever dreamed you
could be.” Deciding that it was more material for herself and Billy to
discuss, she turned to her work.
When, acting under his wife’s most explicit instructions, Tydvil had
dressed early that evening, he found Amy was earlier, and was awaiting
his arrival in the drawing-room. As he caught sight of her, Tydvil’s eyes
opened widely. Never since he had known her had Amy worn anything but
some shade of grey. Amy appeared to think it was the chosen colour of the
virtuous—something that marked her as one apart from the world, the
flesh, and the devil. Now, she was wearing mauve—mauve relieved by
violet. Moreover, it was cut at the neck quite two inches lower than
anything that Tydvil had even seen on her. But, even so, the strictest
critic could not have classed the revelation as daring. Great as was
Tydvil’s surprise, it would have been greater had he known that a harried
dressmaker had kept four girls at work all night so that it would be
finished in time for that night’s dinner.
Tydvil mentally admitted that he had never seen her look more
presentable. The frock had been compiled by an artist. The compliment he
paid her was not very well received. Amy said that she was sorry she had
bought it. It made her look rather more conspicuous than she cared to be.
It was a concession to fashion that she should not have made. Having put
Tydvil in his place, she looked him over critically, straightened a tie
that did not need straightening, and suggested it was about time he
procured another dinner jacket. A man in his position should be well
dressed. For her part, her dress was never more than a secondary
consideration. “I always say, that if a woman respects herself, others
respect her. Dress does not matter.” Tydvil reflected that it was quite
true that she always said that. He had heard her say it two or three
times a week for ten years or more.
“Who are you putting at my end?” he asked when the inspection was over.
To him, his neighbours at the table were a matter of importance.
“You will take in Mrs. Blomb.” Tydvil gritted his teeth. Mrs. Blomb had
very large teeth, a scraggy neck, a reputation as a platform speaker, and
she gushed. “On the other side you will have Mr. Arthur Muskat.” This
announcement caused Tydvil some difficulty in suppressing a word that
would have startled Amy. It was one he had heard in the thick of the
previous night’s finale in Exhibition Street, and its force was only
exceeded by its extreme vulgarity. Muskat was his second best aversion,
and the Secretary of the Moral Uplift Society. He was large of face and
body, spoke in grunts, ate largely, and made unpleasant sounds during
mastication.
He detested only one man more, and that was Arthur’s brother Edwin, who
was a fanatical prohibition advocate. Edwin and Arthur were much alike,
only Edwin added to the other’s lack of attractiveness a smugness and a
pose of righteousness that always gave rise in Tydvil to a longing to
assault him. So that when Amy said, “I am putting Mr. Edwin Muskat
opposite Mr. Senior, because they are both so devoted to the one great
cause,” Tydvil found himself both sympathetic on Senior’s behalf and at
the same time grimly amused. He became still more amused when he heard
that, beside having his hostess to talk to, Mr. Senior would make the
acquaintance of Mrs. Caton Ridgegay. She was a lady whom Mr. Ripley would
have rejected as impossible and unbelievable, both in aspect and for a
capacity for sustained speech composed of windy inanities.
“And now, Tydvil,” went on Amy, impressively, “I wish you to show the
very greatest consideration to Mr. Senior. He is not only a man of
remarkable attainments and distinction, but he has most constructive
plans for a prohibition campaign. I need hardly remind you that at Home a
man with such friends as the Archbishop of Canterbury must be a personage
of considerable importance. I feel sure you cannot but benefit by
cultivating his acquaintance and friendship.”
“Very well,” Tydvil agreed. “I have no doubt he is all that you say.” His
feeling of depression regarding his prospects for the evening ordeal
increased in intensity as it drew nearer. Mentally he reviewed the other
guests.
There was the Rev. George Claire, who had the gift of making every topic
on which he conversed intolerably boring; his wife, Augusta, whom twenty
years of married life with the Rev. George had bereft of speech and
reason, if she ever possessed any, and Mrs. Claire’s sister, Miss Eva
Merrywood. Apart from Nicholas, of their eight guests the only one who
offered any prospects but exasperation was Miss Merrywood. She was a
determined female whose hobby, was slums. Her theory was that the only
way to awaken the public conscience was to tell the unvarnished truth
about slums. This she did, and did it frankly. Her uncensored gleanings,
described in plain language with blank unconcern, had staggered many a
pious gathering. Tydvil was wondering if he could, by some happy chance,
draw her out.
Sometimes he felt that Amy could read his thoughts, for at that moment
she broke in on him. “I wish you particularly, to watch Eva Merrywood,
Tydvil dear. I would not have invited her, but I wanted the vicar and
Augusta, and could not very well leave her out.”
“Do you expect me to gag her?” asked Tydvil truculently.
“That is both absurd and vulgar, Tydvil,” Amy snapped. “Eva means well,
but you know how indiscreet she can be. Just try to change the
conversation if necessary. Dear Eva is so very earnest that I am afraid
Mr. Senior might not understand.”
“Ump!” Tydvil reassured her. “Anyone who can fail to understand Miss
Merry wood’s stories would need to be pretty dull. Your Mr. Senior would
be lucky if he could misunderstand them.”
“Sometimes, Tydvil dear, I think you try to provoke me purposely. I have
been trying to forget your conduct during the past few days…”
“Mrs. Blomb,” announced a maid from the door.
For the first time since he had met her, Tydvil welcomed the presence of
Mrs. Blomb. He returned her greeting politely and stood aside watching
her take in Amy’s costume in gulps. She grasped a hand of Amy in each of
her own, and exclaimed in her platform voice, “Amy!—dear! How truly
charming. Quite Parisian, really!” Turning her face to Tydvil, “You must
be proud of our dear Amy, Mr. Jones, now, confess!”
Tydvil modestly admitted the impeachment and was relieved from further
violation of his conscience by the arrival of the two Muskats. He was
well out of the frying pan into the middle of the fire, because Arthur
Muskat deftly cornered him and, in a series of throaty and nasal sounds,
poured out his gratitude to Tydvil
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