Summer Moonshine (13 page)

Adrian passed his tongue over his lips. His eyes were round and glassy.

'I suppose so,' he said. 'Yes, I suppose it will. Er – well—'

'Are you going?'

'I think I'll be going.'

'Perhaps it is getting late. I'm glad we've had this little talk. Come and lunch here tomorrow. Good night.'

'Good night,' said Adrian.

He kissed her absently, and in the same distrait manner made his way down the stairs and allowed the butler to help him on with his coat. As he wandered through the streets to his flat, his mind was deeply occupied.

What an escape! He felt like a man who has been snatched back from a precipice. He had never expected to think kindly of Sir Buckstone Abbott after learning of his views on penniless suitors and horsewhips, but he did so now. But for the attitude which that excellent man had seen fit to take up toward him, by this time, he told himself, he might have been committed beyond recall to an alliance with a girl whose father could make both ends meet only by filling his home with paying guests. The thought chilled him to the marrow.

He could not help feeling a certain resentment toward Jane, the resentment of a man conscious of having been badly treated. It would be too much, perhaps, to say that he considered that he
had been the victim of sharp practice, but he did think she might have made some laughing reference to the state of the family finances before allowing matters to proceed as far as they had gone. That remark of hers about lodgers could so easily have been amplified.

Once, in the days of his childhood, a visiting aunt had told Adrian Peake that if he went and looked in the cupboard in her room, he would find a lovely surprise. And when he had trudged upstairs – thinking it would be half a crown; hoping that it might be ten shillings; speculating even, for this was an aunt with a fur coat and a motor-car, on the possibility of it being a pound note – all he had found was a rubber ball – a beastly painted rubber ball which would have been dear at sixpence.

As he had felt then, so did he feel now. A little more candour, a little more openness at the outset, and what a lot of heartburning men would be saved in their dealings with women.

He let himself into his flat and sat down to write that well-expressed letter to Jane. But scarcely had he dipped pen in ink when a frightful thought suddenly exploded in his mind, bringing him to his feet with every nerve in his body quivering.

Tubby!

He had completely overlooked the fact that Tubby was in residence at Walsingford Hall.

The future unrolled itself before his eyes like a ghastly motion picture. Heloise had told him that she was going to the Hall the day after tomorrow. He saw her meeting Tubby, being informed by him that he, Adrian, had been living on the houseboat
Mignonette,
putting two and two together in that intelligent way of hers and, having brought the sum out at four, descending upon him with a demand for a full explanation.

His stomach seemed to turn on itself, as if strong hands were twisting it. Once let these things occur, and it was the end. He could say good-bye to a life of ease and plenty. That despite her knowledge of his character – on tonight's showing, a rather unpleasantly intimate knowledge – he exercised over the Princess Dwornitzchek a powerful attraction, he was aware. But there were limits beyond which his spell would cease to operate and that limit would be reached and passed if she ever found out about Jane.

There was, he saw, but one course before him – just one way of avoiding ruin and disaster. He must go down to Walsingford Parva on the morrow, get in touch with Tubby through the medium of the telephone – even in this crisis he did not contemplate calling in person at a house in which lurked Sir Buckstone Abbott and his hunting crop – and enjoin upon him secrecy and silence.

Adrian Peake went to bed. It was only when he woke next morning that he remembered that he had not yet written that letter to Jane.

He dealt with it after breakfast.

T
O
say that the unexpected arrival of her brother Sam in the capacity of plasterer, desirous of plastering one of the guests beneath her roof, had upset Lady Abbott would be to use too forcible a verb. She was not a woman whom it was easy to upset, or even to disturb or ruffle. But, like some placid queen in whose realm civil war has broken out, she did react to the situation to the extent of feeling, in a dreamy sort of way, that, perhaps, something ought to be done about it. Not that she minded herself, but she could see that what had occurred was worrying her Buck and she hated him to be worried.

About an hour after lunch on the day following the Princess Dwornitzchek's small and intimate dinner party, accordingly, she heaved the sort of slight sigh which a philosophical martyr at the stake would have heaved, and, with the spaniels, James and John, at her heels, set out for the houseboat
Mignonette
to have a word in season with the intruder, looking like a stately galleon leaving port accompanied by a brace of skiffs.

The whole thing reflects great credit upon Lady Abbott, for she had never been an enthusiastic pedestrian. As a rule, if she wandered through the rose garden after breakfast and took a couple of turns up and down the terrace before dinner, she considered that she had done her bit as an athlete. Yet
now she started off on the long half-mile hike down to the river without a thought of what the climb back up the hill was going to do to the muscles of her calves. Her great soul bore her on.

She found Mr Bulpitt sitting on the roof of the
Mignonette.
His rosy face and the sparkle of
joie de vivre
in his eyes suggested that he liked his new quarters. And so he did. It was the first time he had been on a houseboat, but he had settled down to the nautical life with the easy adaptability of a man whose circumstances had compelled him to spend a large part of his existence flitting through a series of American provincial hotels. His little knick-knacks were distributed cosily about the saloon, he had plenty of gum and it seemed to him that all the place needed now, to make it like home, was a Gideon Bible.

It was not immediately that he observed his sister's approach, for his gaze was riveted on Walsingford Hall. Unlike Joe Vanringham, who had looked at that curious edifice as if it had been a shrine, and Adrian Peake, who had gazed at it as if it had been the Mint, he scrutinized Walsingford Hall with the eye of the general of a siege force contemplating a fortress which he has come to capture.

The barking of James and John, who had never seen a man sitting on a roof before and suspected a Red plot, diverted his attention.

'Why, hello, Alice,' he said. He climbed cautiously down and embraced her affectionately. The spaniels, reassured by the spectacle, wandered off to sniff at molehills. 'Mighty nice of you to come and see me. I was kind of beginning to think there might be hard feelings.'

Lady Abbott disengaged herself; not angrily, for it was not in her nature to be angry with anyone, but with a certain austerity. She was not in sympathy with her brother. She thought of poor
old Buck, and how worried he was, and the picture that rose before her eyes of him frowning and chewing his pipe as he paced the terrace made her resemble a very easy-going tigress whose cub has been attacked.

'I've come to talk turkey, Sam.'

Mr Bulpitt's manner became guarded.

'Oh, yes?'

'Sam, you've got to lay off.'

Mr Bulpitt shook his head regretfully. He had feared this.

'I can't, Alice. It's a matter of professional pride. Like the North-West Mounted Police.'

A quarter of a century before, with the breezy vocabulary of the dressing-room at her disposal, Lady Abbott would undoubtedly have said something telling and effective about professional pride. But the wife of a Baronet, with the raised eyebrows of the country to consider, tends to lose the old pep as the years go by. So now she merely uttered a wordless exclamation.

'It is,' insisted Mr Bulpitt. 'Women don't understand these things.'

'I understand you've got a nerve, coming and trying to plaster people in your own sister's home.'

'To a plasterer whose heart is in his work,' said Mr Bulpitt sententiously, 'there is no such word as "sister".'

'So you won't lay off?'

'No, Alice. I'd do most anything for you, but the show must go on.'

Lady Abbott sighed. Remembrance of her childhood came to her, when Sam had always been as obstinate as a mule. She realized that no word of hers could soften this man, and, with her customary placid amiability, forbore to argue further.

'Well, suit yourself,' she said.

'Sure,' said Mr Bulpitt. 'Those'll be spannles, won't they?'

Lady Abbott admitted that James and John belonged to the breed mentioned, and silence fell for a space. As if by mutual agreement, they both lowered themselves to the carpet of buttercups and daisies. Mr Bulpitt gazed across the river, sentimentality in his eye. These idyllic surroundings appealed to him. There was something about them that reminded him of Bellport, Long Island, where he had once put the bite on a millionaire whose summer home was in that charming resort. He mentioned this to his sister.

'Jest the same sunny, peaceful afternoon it was, with the sky a lovely blue and the birds singing their little hearts out. He chased me half-way to Patchogue, I remember, with something in his hand that I have an idea was a pitchfork, though I didn't stop to make sure.'

Lady Abbott was interested.

'Then you're allowed to assault a process server?'

'You aren't allowed to. But,' said Mr Bulpitt thoughtfully, 'I've known it done.'

'Maybe you'd better be careful, Sam.'

'What do you mean?'

'I was thinking of this young Vanringham's brother. He's visiting us now.'

'What about him?'

'Oh, nothing. Except that he was telling Buck he used to be a box fighter.'

'Where was he ever a box fighter?'

'Out on the Pacific Coast a few years ago.'

'I've never heard of him. Probably one of these five-dollar prelim boys. Listen,' said Mr Bulpitt. 'One time I slapped a plaster on Young Kelly, the middle-weight challenger, in his
own home. He was having supper with his brother Mike, the all-in wrestler, his cousin Cyril, who killed rats with his teeth, and his sister Genevieve, who was a strong woman in vaudeville. Vanringham? Phooey! Just a novice.'

In spite of herself, Lady Abbott was impressed.

'You do live, Sam.'

'Only just, sometimes. What crossed my mind,' explained Mr Bulpitt, 'was the time I handed the papers to that snake charmer. Sixteen snakes of all sizes, and he sicked 'em all on to me.'

'When did you start this line?'

'Nine, maybe ten, years after I saw you last.'

'What do they pay you?'

'Not much. But it's not the money. It's the joy of the chase.'

'Sort of like big-game hunting, like Buck used to do?'

'That's it. You get a big kick out of plastering a man that thinks he's got you foiled.'

'I don't see how you're going to plaster Tubby Vanringham.'

'I'll find a way.'

'It'll be no good your putting on false whiskers. You can't disguise that map of yours.'

Mr Bulpitt sneered openly at the idea of doing anything so banal as donning a disguise.

'And if you set foot in the grounds, Buck'll butter you over the terrace.'

For the first time, Mr Bulpitt seemed concerned.

'I hope you'll try to make his lordship understand that there's no animus. I like him.'

'He doesn't like you.'

'They don't often like me,' sighed Mr Bulpitt. 'It's the cross we of the profesh have to bear.'

Lady Abbott rose. She pointed a finger up at the Hall.

'How good's your eyesight, Sam?'

'Pretty good.'

'Can you see a big cedar tree up there? Follow the line of the house.'

'I see a tree. I know the one you mean. Noticed it when I was calling on you.'

'Well, young Vanringham's sitting under that tree with a good book, and he's got orders not to stir. So how you think you're going to get at him is more than I can understand.'

'That's where the science comes in.'

'You and your science!'

'All right, then, me and my science.'

There was hostility in Lady Abbott's eyes, but also a certain reluctant respect, such as the Napoleon type always extorts from women.

'Have you ever been beaten at this game, Sam?'

'Once only,' said Mr Bulpitt, with modest pride. 'It was my last job before this one. There was this guy Elmer B. Zagorin – the Night Club King, they used to call him, on account he ran a chain of night clubs in all the big cities – had fifty million dollars and refused to pay a bill for forty for hair restorer. Claimed it hadn't restored his hair. Boy! Did I chase that bird! Clear up and down the country for months and months and months. And he fooled me in the end.'

'He did?'

'Yes, sir. Died on me – weak heart – leaving a signed statement that I had made him very, very happy, because he hadn't had so much fun since he was a small child. Seems I had cured him of onwee. He'd grown kind of bored by wealth and riches,' explained Mr Bulpitt, 'like all these well-to-do millionaires, and
hadn't been able to get a kick out of anything till I came along. Me on his heels all the time stimylated him.'

'Like these foxes that Buck says enjoy the chase more than anyone.'

'That's right. A great guy,' said Mr Bulpitt, reverently as one laying a mental wreath on the Zagorin tomb. A shame we never met. I've a hunch I'd have liked him.'

There was a silence. Lady Abbott looked up at the Hall, as if calculating the weary distance she had to travel. She gave a little sigh.

'Well, good-bye, Sam. Pleased to have seen you.'

'Been nice seeing you, Alice.'

'Comfortable on that boat?'

'Sure. Snug as a bug in a rug.'

'Where do you eat?'

'Down at the inn.'

'I thought Buck had told them not to serve you?'

'They've got to serve me,' said Mr Bulpitt, with modest triumph. 'If they don't, they lose their licence. Lord Abbott can use his pull to make them ease me out of my bedroom, but when it comes to eats and drinks, I'm the public and they have no option. That's the law.'

'I see. Well, good-bye, Sam.'

'Good-bye, Alice.'

And having added a courteous word of advice about taking no wooden nickels, Mr Bulpitt watched his sister collect James and John and move majestically away across the water meadows.

Up at the Hall, Sir Buckstone Abbott was stumping up and down the front drive in the company of his friend, Joe Vanringham.

The callous indifference of Nature toward human anguish has become such a commonplace that nowadays even the most reproachful poet scarcely bothers to comment on it. In literary circles it is pretty well taken for granted that the moment when Man is mourning is the very moment which Nature can be relied on to select for smiling her broadest. The rule held good now. Sir Buckstone's heart was heavy, but the skies did not weep in sympathy with him. The grounds of Walsingford Hall were flooded with golden sunlight.

Sir Buckstone walked with quick, short strides, with which Joe found it difficult to keep step, for his agitation was extreme. He had been in conversation with Mr Chinnery, and Mr Chinnery had made his flesh creep. On the subject of Sam Bulpitt that much-married man could be really eloquent, and had been. Discussing Sam, he had drawn a picture of a kind of supernatural force against which it was futile to try to struggle, illustrating his arguments with anecdotes of the other's illustrious career. Some of these Sir Buckstone was now retailing to Joe.

There was a fellow named Jorkins,' said Sir Buckstone, falling in his emotion into a sort of hop, skip, and jump, 'who used to try to fool him by going out of the back door, crossing an alley, getting into the basement of the house opposite, climbing on to the roof, walking along the roof tops to the end of the street and coming down through another house. You would have thought he would have been safe enough, taking precautions like that.'

'You would, indeed. But—' said Joe, divining correctly that this was but Act I.

'But,' said Sir Buckstone, 'what happened? Bulpitt finds out what he's doing, and goes to a policeman and says, "Officer, a
strange thing is occurring, which I think you ought to know about. I've seen a man coming out of a back door, crossing an alley, getting into the basement of the house opposite—" and, in short, so on. So the policeman lurks in wait for Jorkins—'

'Sees him going out of the back door, crossing an alley, getting into—'

'Precisely. And collars him at the end of the route, and says, "What's all this?" "It's quite all right," says the man. "All this may look odd, but the matter is readily explained. I am doing it for a bet. I am a respectable householder named Jorkins." "Oh, you are, are you?" says Bulpitt, popping out from the shadows. "Then these are for you!" And hands him the papers. What do you think of that?'

'Devilish,' agreed Joe.

'Fiendish,' said Sir Buckstone.

'Tubby must avoid the back door.'

'But he also comes to front doors.'

'Versatile,' said Joe.

'He comes carrying a bottle of champagne, and asks to see the man he's after. The butler, feeling that anyone will be glad of a present of champagne, suspects no trap. He admits the blighter, who proceeds to work his will.'

'Fortunately, we are in the country, where it might excite remark if men called at houses with bottles of champagne.'

'True. Yes, that is a point. But, my dear Joe, there is no end to the ingenuity of this man Bulpitt. Chinnery says that in order to serve a person in retreat at his seaside cottage, he has been known to put on a bathing suit and swim round to the fellow's private beach.'

'He can't get here by swimming.'

'No, that is so. But I fear the man. Do you know anything about the English law on these matters?'

'Not a thing, I'm afraid. Though I'll bet it's silly.'

'Chinnery says the American courts have ruled that a process server, though debarred from entering a house forcibly, may get in through an open door or window. If that is so in this country, it presents an appallingly grave problem. You can't keep all the windows shut in weather like this. And another thing. Have you spoken to your brother?'