The Missing Angel by Erle Cox (english books to improve english txt) 📖
- Author: Erle Cox
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Tydvil took the letters she passed across to him, and as he unfolded the
first, he shook his head and smiled gently. “Ah! My dear Miss Brand, we
do not know enough about that poor fellow to judge him hastily.” The old
sanctimonious Tydvil was speaking. “Perhaps if we knew the truth we would
find he was more sinned against than sinning. Let us be charitable.”
“Hypocrite!” hissed Geraldine to her inner self. Then, with a toss of the
shining head, she came back, “Well, in that case, all I can say is, that
if half what the papers say about him is true, he must be frightfully
sinned against.”
Tydvil looked at her reflectively, and remarked, “In considering such
cases, Miss Brand, I always say to myself, ‘There, but for the Grace of
God, goes Tydvil Jones!’” He bent over his letter with a pencil in his
hand.
For days past Geraldine had been manufacturing a bomb for Tyddie’s sole
benefit. Now she landed it on the bent head, where it exploded. “I feel
strongly, Mr. Jones, because I can’t help thinking that, somehow, this
man Williams was responsible for the scandal in St. Kilda for which Mr.
Brewer was blamed.”
Tydvil’s head never moved, but the pencil dropped from his right hand and
rolled off the table to the floor. For a second the fingers of the left
hand closed on the letter he was holding with a pressure that almost tore
one corner of it away. Had Geraldine’s gaze not been so intense she might
have thought that he was too intent on his letter to hear her. But
Geraldine saw and Geraldine knew, and her heart sang carols.
There was a long pause before Mr. Jones bent to retrieve his lost pencil.
When he sat up again, his face was slightly flushed, as though from the
exertion of stooping. He said, looking innocently across at her, “I beg
your pardon, Miss Brand, but I’m afraid I was not listening to what you
said.”
Miss Brand repeated her words slowly and distinctly, and added, “And, of
course, you and I know that Mr. Brewer could not have been involved in
that disgraceful affair.”
Tydvil’s eyes were disarmingly frank. He smiled with kindly indulgence.
“Of course we know it. I’m afraid you worry too much about that rather
unfortunate affair.” He laughed lightly, and went on, “It is natural that
our Mr. Billy looms so large just now with you—but a little out of
proportion.”
The paternal and almost condescending tone of his voice so exasperated
Geraldine, that her hands itched to fling everything movable on the table
at the complacent head.
“I may be right,” she persisted. “In any case, I think it would be foul
of one man to let another suffer for his misdeeds. That Williams man is
just the sort to do it, I think.”
“It would be very shocking,” commented Mr. Jones unctuously. Then he
terminated the discussion by writing a few words on the letter on his
blotting pad and busying himself with the next.
That morning as Geraldine left his room, Tydvil watched the disappearing
figure with speculative eyes. He was wondering very profoundly, and
somewhat profanely, by what process of feminine devilry her mind had come
to associate Williams with the St. Kilda affair. There was, too, in his
thoughts, an unselfish envy, of Billy for the firm and pugnacious loyalty
of Geraldine’s love.
At her own desk, the subject of his speculations was thinking things
about her employer that would have startled Tydvil. She was so deep in
thought that she did not notice that someone was standing beside her
until a soft but appealing little cough drew her attention. Geraldine
looked up to see regarding her, with luminous eyes alight with amusement,
the most handsome and distinguished looking man she had ever seen.
Her swift return from abstraction and the unexpected presence of the
stranger drew from Geraldine a startled little “Oh!”
The smile spread from his eyes to his lips. “I am sorry. I’m afraid I
surprised you.” There was courteous concern in the voice.
“I—I…” Geraldine floundered and blushed. She would have been far
more embarrassed had she known that the smiling stranger had read her
thoughts on Tydvil as distinctly as though they had been spoken.
“Could I see Mr. Jones, please?” The quiet voice put her at her ease
again.
“Have you an appointment?” asked Geraldine.
“No,” he shook his head. “But I think Mr. Jones will see me. My name is
Nicholas Senior.”
That name, which had become known far and wide, brought another
embarrassed “Oh!” from Geraldine. She fumbled for her extension phone and
gasped “Mr. Nicholas Senior,” then, still flustered, “Yes, of course, Mr.
Senior, Mr. Jones will see you at once.”
Mr. Senior bowed his thanks to Geraldine as kings bow to their feminine
peers, and passed into Tydvil’s room. As the door closed behind him she
drew a deep breath, and murmured in an awestricken voice, “Jerusalem!
What a man! What a MAN!”
In Tydvil’s sanctum, their greetings exchanged, Nicholas sat opposite his
friend, whom he regarded with such evident amusement that Tydvil asked to
share the jest.
“I doubt,” replied Nicholas, “if you will find it as entertaining as I
do.” He nodded his head in the direction of the outer office, and went
on, “I was smiling about that redheaded Cerberus of yours. You will
remember, Tydvil, that I warned you she was dangerous.”
Tydvil nodded thoughtfully. “She has me a bit worried, Nicholas.”
“She will have you much more worried unless you are careful,” Mr. Senior
replied thoughtfully.
Tydvil recounted his morning’s conversation with Geraldine and her
unsettling suggestion of Basil Williams’s connection with the Brewer
scandal. “Now how on earth,” he asked in an aggrieved voice, “could she
have come at that idea?”
“My dear Tydvil,” Senior grinned, “you impinge on matters beyond our ken.
I have never been able to fathom the workings of a woman’s mind. Indeed,
I doubt if Providence has been any more successful than I.” He paused,
and went on, “Would you like to know just what she was turning over under
that red thatch as I came in?”
“I’d best know as much as possible,” Tydvil muttered.
“Well,” reported Nicholas, “I was beside her for several minutes before I
made her aware of my presence. During that time she was busy persuading
herself that it was not crazy to imagine Basil Williams and Tydvil Jones
being one and the same person, but she was also recognising the sheer
impossibility of enunciating such a thing, let alone of proving it.”
“Hell’s bells!” ejaculated the astonished Tydvil.
“Aye!” Nicholas laughed, “and they’ll ring a peal for Tydvil Jones if
that damsel can manage it.”
“She’s a witch,” growled Tydvil.
“No! No, my friend!” Nicholas was still chuckling. “Just a woman—a
clever woman. You see how her mind has sliced clean through all
improbabilities and cut straight into the truth, where a man’s would have
worked round and never come near it.”
“And to think,” Tydvil stared blankly at the wall over Nicholas’s head,
“that young baggage sat where you are sitting. She looked at me with
those innocent grey, eyes. She took all my dictation—and all the time
she was thinking that—that!” His fist came down hard on the edge of his
table. “‘Pon my word! Nicholas, it’s enough to destroy one’s faith in
women.”
“When you’ve had as much to do with them as I have,” Nicholas smiled,
“you will be far less credulous and far more cautious.”
“By Jove!” Tydvil’s voice was anxious. “She’ll tell Brewer.”
“You don’t know that girl, Tydvil,” Nicholas reassured him. “Neither her
conscience nor her essential loyalty will permit her to discuss your
affairs with him.”
“What am I to do?” Tydvil appealed.
“Sit tight,” Nicholas advised. “Let her guess what she likes. She is too
clever to put her suspicions into words—unless…!” He paused.
“Unless what?”
“At an unlikely juncture where she needs to defend Brewer—and I can
guard against that,” Nicholas said.
“Sometimes I think the world would be better without them,” Tydvil
reflected.
“Perhaps,” conceded Nicholas, “but very, very dull.”
“Oh! That reminds me—it was what I wanted to see you about. I would like
you to keep a close watch on Brewer this afternoon,” Tydvil said.
Nicholas raised an interrogative brow.
“One William Brewer,” Tydvil grinned, “has an appointment in the Botanic
Gardens at three o’clock this afternoon, and he does not wish to risk any
intrusion of the other.”
Nicholas nodded. “And how goes the romance? If the question is
permitted.”
“We call each other Amy and William.”
“Not so bad,” Nicholas nodded with interest.
“And I have raised her hand to my lips without rebuke,” Tydvil added.
“Better still.”
“Well,” Tydvil spoke judicially, “I bow to your riper experience, but I
should have put it ‘Not so good’ and, ‘Worse still’.”
“One thousand pounds for the Moral Uplift Society,” prompted Mr. Senior.
“Yes,”—Tydvil’s voice grew hard—“One thousand pounds!”
“And that address of thanks the society gave you.” Nicholas turned the
knife in the wound.
Tydvil’s jaw set harder. “See here, Nicholas! I don’t want to be greedy.
Would you like to act as locum tenens for me this afternoon?”
Nicholas’s eyes danced. “Get thee behind me, Tydvil!” he replied with
mock severity. “No, the plan is all your own and all that goes with it.”
“It’s a queer experience,” Tydvil said thoughtfully, “to find Amy
pleasant and quite charming in her manner. I have heard that she has a
frustrated life because of a husband who does not understand her. She
tells me she needs sympathy and cherishing to express herself fully. It
appears that Mr. Jones is out of harmony with her higher life.”
“Umph!” commented Nicholas. “My own limited but sufficient experience
suggests that she does not need extraneous aids to help her to express
herself fully.”
“Same thing occurred to me,” agreed Tydvil. “If I’ve only heard her on
second gear, I hope I’m not about when she is going flat out.”
“It all seems very familiar to me,” Nicholas said reminiscently. “Let me
see! That bit about the need of sympathy and cherishing was not new when
Venus fed it to Mars—poor chap! I was at Olympus for a week-end when
that scandal broke. Thought it pretty poor sportsmanship of Vulcan making
the affair public. We went along to a cocktail party with Bacchus
afterwards. Juno was there and blamed Mars for everything.”
“Seems to me they are not very original then,” Tydvil said.
“No need—not the slightest. They know jolly well that a man will believe
anything they tell him. Men ask for it—and they get it.” Nicholas spoke
a little resentfully.
There was a pause that was broken by Tydvil. “Tell me, Nicholas, are you
worried about anything?”
“Nothing that can be helped, I’m afraid,” Nicholas admitted.
“Anything I can do?” Tydvil asked solicitously. Nicholas shook his head.
“Nothing—the truth is that things are in a far worse mess here than I
anticipated.”
“Cheer up!” Tydvil smiled. “They’ve been bad before, and mended.”
“Never like this,” Nicholas answered ruefully. “And the worst of it is it
is my own fault for lack of foresight. Serves me right for listening to
Judas Iscariot.”
“May I hear…” Tydvil hesitated.
“Of course.” Nicholas smiled. “No reason why you should not. It began
less than a century ago only. Our immigration department noticed a
decline in figures. They
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