Fool Errant (7 page)

Mr. Smith said “Ssh!” and the parrot looked at him reproachfully. After a moment it slowly folded its wing, said “Awk!” again rather angrily, and began to recite at the top of its voice:

“Three jolly admirals all of a row;

Collingwood, Nelson, and bold Benbow—”

It stopped abruptly, flapped both wings, and said “Yah!”

The telephone bell rang. Mr. Smith went slowly to the table and took up the receiver.

“Who's that? … Who did you say? … Susan's brother? Yes, of course I knew Susan had a brother. I suppose I met you, didn't I? … What do you want? … Yes, I'm in.… Yes, you can come along.… All right.”

He listened for the click at the other end and put the instrument back. Then he walked to the window and went on watching the rain.

A less nautical figure could hardly have been imagined. It was as if his whole appearance protested against the names thrust upon him in unconscious infancy. Even the enthusiastic parents responsible for them had not seriously considered the sea as a profession after he was five years old. He had distinguished himself greatly both at school and college, and then, like so many brilliant boys, had passed into obscurity. Ample means allowed him to indulge a taste for desultory rambling through the old cities of Europe. He became known as a collector of prints, and published a small monograph on Russian ikons, followed a year or two later by another upon early German woodcuts. Then, quite suddenly, he emerged from this cultured obscurity as the author of a book with a commonplace title and a daring content.
The European Problem
set more than its author in the lime-light. It was at once an analysis and a forecast. In every country it was read, talked of, criticized, and attacked. Written fifteen years before the war, it forecast not only the war itself, but its social and economic consequences. And if he chose, Mr. Smith might at the present moment have indulged himself by observing, “I told you so.” As a matter of fact, he never referred to the subject.

During the war his intimate knowledge of almost every European country brought him very closely into touch with more than one government department. As to his present position and activities, most people were as much in the dark as Hugo Ross, who had merely a vague impression that John Smith's uncle was no end of a distinguished old fellow with some sort of mysterious—or shall we say undefined—connection with the Foreign Office. For the rest, he was a bachelor and an eccentric; and he had given Susan, as a wedding present, a string of pearls worth five thousand pounds. Susan was therefore a prejudiced witness when she declared fervently that he was a dinky old duck.

Hugo came into the study to find the curtains still undrawn and Mr. Smith still contemplating the falling rain. He turned round when the parrot flapped, and said,

“Ssh, Ananias!” and then, “That you, Ross?”

Hugo came forward and lent a hand with the curtains, which his host now proceeded to draw. Ananias watched them with a sarcastic eye.

“It's very good of you to s-see me,” said Hugo when the subsequent silence had gone on for some time.

“Well,” said Mr. Smith, “I'm not doing anything for you—am I?” He began to walk away from the window, talking as he went. “Of course the question is, do you want me to do anything for you?—and if you do, what is it?—and if you don't, why have you come to see me at all? Because of course—” He reached the mantelpiece and, turning, stood with his back against it. “Let me see—I suppose I met you at Susan's wedding, didn't I?”

“Yes, sir.”

It was pretty awful. How on earth was he to begin? How on earth did one begin confiding in a sister's uncle-in-law who just wandered round the room talking vaguely, not to you, but to the carpet at his feet?

He gazed at Mr. Smith's long drooping form and Mr. Smith's rather classic and quite expressionless features surmounted by the horn-rimmed spectacles and a mass of very thick iron-grey hair, and wondered why he had come.

Mr. Smith continued to look at the carpet; but for the moment he had ceased to wander.

“The further question arises as to whether one is justified in recommending anyone for a job when you don't know anything about them except a sister—a very charming sister. Susan is undoubtedly a very charming girl. And though I disapprove of marriage in the abstract, I find that, in the concrete, I do approve of Susan. I suppose you want a job.”

“N-no, sir.”

Mr. Smith pushed the glasses up farther. He had a long, thin, carefully tended hand, and the gesture had a certain weary grace. He said,

“How remarkable! Young men are always coming to me and asking me to recommend them because I knew their grandfathers—or their grandmothers. A grandmother is, of course, the stronger recommendation of the two; and if I ever danced with her, the young man is, naturally, perfectly competent to go anywhere or do anything.”

“I've got a job,” said Hugo.

“Do you want a better one?”

“Not exactly.”

Mr. Smith began to drift off towards the window again.

“It wasn't exactly raining this afternoon, but it's raining now,” he observed. “And it isn't exactly Christmas yet, but it will be in about eleven months—eh, Ananias?”

The parrot rose on his toes and said “Awk!” Then in a rapid monotone it began:

“‘Three jolly admirals all a row;

Collingwood, Nelson, and old Benbow—'

Hard a-port! Hard a-port, I say! Give us a kiss, ducky! Give us a kiss, ducky—do!”

The sound of a resounding smack followed. Mr. Smith said, “Ssh, Ananias!” and drifted back again to the fire.

Hugo was ready for him.

“It m-must seem awful cheek to you, sir, my c-coming to see you like this. I've come because I want advice. I w-wouldn't bother you with my affairs, b-but—”

“There always is a but,” said Mr. Smith.

“I'm not sure where my affairs stop and s-something that I ought to have advice about begins.”

“I am not a solicitor,” said Mr. Smith.

His tone was dreamy, not sarcastic; but Hugo stiffened; the flush which rose so easily to the roots of his fair hair subsided.

“May I tell you what my job is, sir?”

“By all means.”

“I'm Minstrel's secretary.”

Mr. Smith gazed in the direction of Ananias.

“Minstrel?” he said. “Ambrose Minstrel?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you want advice. What sort of advice?”

“I've been there a fortnight—and odd things keep happening.”

“Ah—odd things. What sort of odd things?”

His tone was abstracted, and he continued to look at Ananias; yet somehow Hugo felt that he was being attended to.

“I was very glad to get the job, because I wanted a job pretty badly, and I was most awfully pleased at being taken on by a big man like Minstrel.”

“Yes—how did you get the job?”

“A friend told me that Minstrel was going to advertise, so I got down to his place before anyone else. I didn't think I had an earthly chance, because I thought he'd want someone with shorthand and a lot of other qualifications that I haven't got. But he t-took me.”

“Straight away—without seeing anyone else?”

Hugo laughed.

“He k-kept me to interview the others.”

Mr. Smith took up the tongs, selected a large lump of coal, and put it on the fire. With his back to Hugo, he said,

“Was that one of the odd things?”

“N-not exactly, sir.”

“He took you without references? Did he know anything about you?”

“I believe Hacker telephoned about my references. Hacker's his assistant.”

Mr. Smith turned round again. He still held the tongs, and kept opening and shutting them in an absent sort of way. He seemed to be looking at Hugo's boot-laces.

“Well, well,” he said. “Are you so inherently modest as to consider that there must be something odd about a person who engages you as a secretary?”

“No, sir. I haven't really got to the odd things yet. It—it's difficult to begin. They don't s-seem so odd when you take them one by one.”

“I see. Well—begin. Let us have these oddments. Produce them.”

Hugo began to produce them. It was frightful to feel that his cheeks were burning. The things that he had to produce shrivelled into absurdity under Mr. Smith's attention.

“Someone came into my room in the night and opened my box.”

“Dear me!”

Hugo described the incident in detail. It was a ridiculous incident. He described the half-caught words which he had heard when he first arrived at Meade House: “He's easy—easy;—
easy
.” Minstrel's rasping voice came back to him: “The young fool hasn't got the brains.” The words might have referred to anyone.

He went on to Mr. Rice, and felt on firmer ground. It was impossible to deny the oddness of Mr. Rice and of the client who offered fifty pounds, and was prepared to raise it, for a pair of field-glasses that were not worth five. Mr. Rice's visit, Mr. Rice's letter, and Mr. Rice's telephone call were most undeniably odd.

“You've got this letter?”

“No, sir—that's another thing—it's gone. I p-put it in my pocket-book, and it isn't there.”

“Awk!” said Ananias very loudly.

Mr. Smith laid down the tongs and put his hands behind him.

“Sure?”

“Quite sure, sir.” A pause, and then, “I really am quite sure.”

Ananias began to dance up and down and flap his wings.

“Eena, meena, myna, mo—

Catch a nigger by the toe,

If he hollers, let him go.

Eena, meena, meena,
meena
,
MEENA
!”

Mr. Smith went over and cuffed him. When he came back again, he asked,

“That all?”

“N-no, sir.”

“Go on.”

“There was a girl, sir.”

“There always is. What about her?”

“I m-met her in the lane when I went down about the job—I ran into her in the dark—she was running away—” Hugo stuck there because Mr. Smith was looking at him for the first time.

“Oh, she was running away?”

“Y-yes, sir. And I c-c-carried her b-bag.” He was stammering badly.

“Interesting—but hardly odd,” said Mr. Smith.

“That wasn't the odd p-part. We had to run for the train—her train—and she said I m-mustn't go to M-meade House. I'm t-telling it awfully badly. We were talking and I s-said I hoped I was going to get a job at Meade House. And we saw the train and had to run—and just as the train was g-going out, she s-said, ‘You m-mustn't go there—you
m-mustn't
go to M-meade House!'”

Mr. Smith's eyebrows rose until they touched the horn-rimmed glasses.

“How romantic! Continue.”

“She wrote to me.”

“How did she know you'd got the job?”

“She wrote to a girl who worked for her cousin, and the girl came to the house to find out if I was there. She g-gave me the letter.”

“Got it?”

“No, sir—I burned it. She s-said I m-mustn't s-stay at Meade House—” He hesitated and then repeated Loveday's letter verbatim; after which he found himself explaining about Cissie, who had been encountered on the pier at Brighton; and so on, through the interrupted telephone call to the meeting that afternoon with the girl who wasn't Loveday.

When he had finished, there was a pause. With his back to them, Ananias was swearing softly in Spanish; his back was humped, his feathers ruffled.

Mr. Smith strolled across and scratched the back of his head. Ananias sidled away and swore a little louder. Mr. Smith came back.

“You're sure about the girl? Why?”

“I'm quite sure, sir. That is, I'm quite sure it wasn't the girl I talked to in the lane.”

“How can you be sure? You didn't see her face.”

“I'm quite sure, sir.”

“Tell me why you're sure?”

“I d-don't think I can. They were d-different. Loveday was l-like a n-nice sort of child—the other one—w-wasn't.”

Mr. Smith walked over to his writing-table and sat down.

“Are you staying in town?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Where?”

Hugo gave him the address.

“I expect they'll be able to take me in—I was there for some weeks while I was looking for a job.”

“Well, you might give me the references you gave Minstrel.”

Hugo gave them. Mr. Smith took up a pencil and wrote.

“How long are you staying up?”

“Only till to-morrow afternoon.”

“It's a short time. But I suppose—let me see, you were at school with John—his fag, weren't you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Have you told me everything?”

“I went to the address that man Rice gave, and it was only a place where you call for letters—a dirty little tobacconist's in Finch Street.”

“Number, please?”

“A hundred and seven.”

Mr. Smith wrote it down with an absent air.

“Come and see me at twelve to-morrow,” he said, and getting up, went over and began to make his peace with Ananias.

CHAPTER XI

Hugo's old landlady seemed very pleased to see him.

“I'm sure, sir, we've quite missed you. Ella was only sayin' to me last night, ‘I'm sure, Aunt, I wish to gracious we'd got Mr. Ross back, instead of that there fidgeting, ferreting, philandering foreigner—
that
I do.'”

“Have you got a foreigner, Mrs. Miles? I say,
not
in my old room! Because I want it to-night.”

“You shall have it, Mr. Ross, if I'd fifty foreigners—which thank goodness I haven't, seeing one's enough and to spare. ‘Ella,' I says, ‘if it's my last dying word I won't say different—foreigners is foreign, and what I say is, let 'em stay foreign where everyone's used to it, pore things, and can't help 'emselves.'”