The Missing Angel by Erle Cox (english books to improve english txt) 📖

CHAPTER XXVI

That morning Geraldine Brand entered the portals of C. B. & D. a very

pre-occupied young woman. She had left her home somewhat troubled that

the case of Cranston v. Cranston, Brewer CoRespondent, had been listed

for hearing sooner than she or Billy had anticipated. Though she was

concerned more with the possible unpleasant publicity than with the

outcome of the case.

 

Billy, however, was driven completely into the background of her thoughts

when, in the train on her journey to the city, she read an account of

Basil Williams’s activities of the previous evening. Her’s was a morning

paper that Tydvil had not seen. In addition to the story of the dastardly

assault on Mr. Edwin Muskat, whose nose was, fortunately, not broken, but

very painfully injured; her paper also told of a cowardly attack on Mr.

Tydvil Jones, the well known merchant and philanthropist.

 

Geraldine’s head was buzzing with mixed surmises and preposterous ideas

as she walked through the warehouse. She was too absorbed to notice her

surroundings until, passing through the railed enclosure, she found the

door of the office of the well known merchant and philanthropist closed.

This was unusual, because by her orders to the office cleaners it, and

the windows, were always left open until her arrival.

 

She opened the door, took one step across the threshold and stood

motionless, sniffing fastidiously at a close atmosphere that was

saturated with the odour of stale cigar smoke. As she sniffed, her eyes

took in every detail of untidiness that denoted the room had been

untouched by the cleaner. The char-lady, she learned later in the day, was

suffering from influenza.

 

Swiftly she crossed the floor, let up the blind and raised the heavy

window; not until she had removed her hat and tidied her hair did she

make a closer and methodical survey of the room. Never did Sherlock

Holmes examine cigar ash, that liberally sprinkled the carpet, so

scrupulously as did Geraldine Brand. The carpet also yielded two gorgeous

cigar bands, and the waste-paper basket two more. For some moments she

examined from a respectful distance one cigar butt in the grate and three

in the fender. These, presently, she placed with reluctant fingers into

an envelope which she sealed, and then, still more reluctantly, placed in

her handbag.

 

Two tumblers beside the water bottle on the table next attracted her

attention. Geraldine raised them to her nose and sniffed each one. Then

she said aloud, “Well! I’m blessed!” Since the drains of fluid in the

tumblers smelt strongly of whisky it was only logical to assume that the

tumblers had been filled and had been emptied. There was no evidence to

suggest they had been emptied on the floor.

 

Then for nearly fifteen minutes Geraldine worked vigorously to obliterate

all traces of proceeding foreign to the known abstemious habits of Mr.

Tydvil Jones. By the time she had finished and busied herself with her

mail, the room and the atmosphere were restored to their normal ascetic

purity.

 

But Geraldine’s mind, as her hands worked swiftly over the correspondence

of C. B. & D., was anything but normal. She had secured what she believed

to be presumptive evidence that the impeccable Tydvil Jones not only

smoked, but drank. Therefore, obviously, Tyddie was a fraud. But these

were minor matters. Her mental perturbation was reflected in the

viciousness with which she slashed the envelopes as she tried to arrive

at the identity of Tyddie’s drinking and smoking companion. He may have

smoked four cigars, but, even he, was unlikely to have used two tumblers

for his potations.

 

But the major problem was the inexplicable relationship between Tyddie

and the movements of Basil Williams. It might have been coincidence that

prompted Basil Williams to take Tyddie’s hat from the Carlton—if he did

take it, which Geraldine very much doubted. But, thought Geraldine, what

kind of coincidence was it that led Basil Williams, after assaulting

Edwin Muskat in Queen Street, to commit another assault on Tydvil Jones

close to his own warehouse? Summed up, that would make two highly

improbable coincidences. In trying to fit together the pieces of the

puzzle, Geraldine was inclining to the view that Basil Williams was

Tyddie’s unofficial guest.

 

What then?

 

After all, Tyddie’s morals were not her affair, she reflected. Still, if

Williams were Tyddie’s secret partner in sin, why should he knock Tyddie

out? As a figure of rectitude, Tyddie was tottering on his pedestal. But

Geraldine decided that her discoveries were part of her job as his

secretary, and therefore sacrosanct, even from Billy. No! Decidedly, she

could not tell Billy either of her discoveries or her conclusions—not

yet, at any rate.

 

So, when that eminent warehouseman and well known philanthropist, Tydvil

Jones, breezed into his office with a cheerful “Good morning, Miss

Brand,” that suspicious young woman, while responding politely, inspected

her employer with very critical eyes. Certainly, she thought, Tyddie did

not look like a reprobate, but there was something about him that made

him different from the Tyddie of but a few weeks gone.

 

She stared reflectively at the straight back as he hung up his hat, and

through her lashes she took him in as he seated himself on the opposite

side of the table. Then sudden enlightenment came to her. The new Tyddie

radiated that same something of confidence and experience that was part

of Billy Brewer’s charm. So had Billy, looked when she knew he had been

in mischief, and had enjoyed it. She recognised the symptoms with that

infallible certainty of intuition with which Providence has endowed woman

for the better ordering of man.

 

As Tydvil settled himself, she looked up and said with grave concern,

“Oh! Mr. Jones, I do hope you are none the worse for that disagreeable

experience of last night.”

 

Tydvil, who, knowing two papers had overlooked his share in the Basil

Williams episode, concealed his surprise admirably. But not admirably

enough to escape the steady grey eyes across the table. Swiftly

recognising her knowledge and its probable source, he replied, “It was

really nothing to make a fuss about, Miss Brand. The papers have

exaggerated a trifling incident. A man, who was probably intoxicated, ran

into me and knocked me down. I think the poor creature was unaware that

he struck me.”

 

“Fibber!” breathed Geraldine silently to her blotting pad. Then, aloud,

“But is it not strange that it was that awful man Williams who assaulted

you?”

 

“Williams?” The studied incomprehension was too well done.

 

“Yes, Williams. The same man who took your hat from the Carlton that

night. The brute that the police are hunting for.” The innocent looking

eyes were full of sympathy that she did not feel.

 

“Really? Was it the same man? I had almost forgotten him.” Tydvil’s voice

expressed mild interest only.

 

“Liar!” retorted Geraldine in her heart. But there was no trace of her

unbelief in her voice as she went on. “It seemed to me such a strange

coincidence that on two occasions your name, of all people’s, should be

associated, even