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‘That’s curious,’ he commented. ‘I didn’t know Clifford had anything the matter with his eyes. He is one of the best shots I’ve ever seen.’
He was standing with his back to Reggie, who inquired:
‘What do you mean by that? He has the most wonderful eyesight. What makes you think he hasn’t?’
‘Why,’ exclaimed Harding, turning round, ‘these spectacles. A man does not wear spectacles if he has perfect sight.’
‘But Clifford never wore spectacles. These are not his spectacles.’
‘Are they yours or the charwoman’s?’
‘Certainly not.’
‘Who can have left them here?’
‘My dear Harding,’ Reggie answered, ‘since I have been here, not a soul has entered the house. I tell you he never receives anybody here. I don’t know what he keeps the place for except for the excuse for giving me my £500.’
‘Nonsense,’ replied Harding, ‘you could have taken £500 a year all right without his putting himself out to run such an expensive hobby as a house in King Street, even a little house like this.’
‘I tell you what it is, Harding, the whole thing beats me. I have never been able to understand why a man should have his consulting-rooms in Harley Street and sleep here. Of course, no man could live in Harley Street. It is like living in a dissecting-room. But with his reputation he could have brought his patients to…Bayswater or Tulse Hill.’
Carefully the barrister examined the spectacles. He placed them on his nose. Then he whistled.
‘These are a woman’s spectacles,’ he said. ‘I am almost sure of that. They are too small for a man’s face. And the extraordinary thing about them is that they are plain glass, practically plain window-glass. Now what has he got these here for? How did a pair of woman’s spectacles of plain glass come into the possession of an eminent medical man?’
‘I don’t know, Harding. I’ve never seen them before. I suppose he brought them here.’
‘But why, in Heaven’s name?’ queried Harding.
‘A woman does not give away a common pair of steel spectacles as a gage d’amour. You noticed they were open when I found them, as though they had just been taken off the owner’s nose.’
‘Well, what do you make of it?’
The lawyer shrugged his shoulders.
‘Make of it? I don’t make anything of it, at all.’
He affected an air of joviality.
‘But I tell you what it is, Reggie. When Clifford comes home we will have you put away in an asylum for the term of your natural life. A man who comes to one’s house late at night with cock-and-bull stories of corpses on carpets is not needed; there is no market for him. Now I’m going home.’
Reggie, as he let him out, asked: ‘Do you really think that he’s not dead?’
‘The only conclusion to which I have come is that either he is dead or you are mad…if that is a conclusion.’
‘Am I to tell the police?’
‘No. Certainly not. Good-night.’ He turned abruptly up the street.
Reggie remained at the door, looking after the tall figure that strode briskly along the pavement.
CHAPTER IV (#ulink_f61d575f-57ba-5b5c-b91a-b1405a212227)
THE ALLEGED ADA (#ulink_f61d575f-57ba-5b5c-b91a-b1405a212227)
‘OH, we’re not proud at all, are we? Not puffed up with pride, not likely.’
Attracted by the unattractive voice, Reggie looked to his right.
A female servant at No. 35, a much larger house, was seeking to engage him in conversation. This was not the first, the second, nor the third time that she had sought to gain the friendship and—who knows—perhaps, the hand of the ‘gentleman ‘valet in the mysterious house.
‘No, we’re not puffed up with pride,’ answered Reggie, ‘but we don’t converse with menials.’
‘Not when we’ve got our white waistcoat on, eh?’ the girl replied. ‘My word, you are a toff! You’re a deal toffier than your gov’nor. You’re too good for your guv, that’s what you are.’
‘Look here, Ada, we don’t need to go into that.’
The maid was not even pretty. She had a face of the colour and texture of pink blotting-paper. It was of the tint often to be seen on a hard-working hand, unbecoming on the hand, unpleasant on the face. He had no use for her.
‘Not so much of your Ada! My name ain’t Ada,’ she said, tilting up her nose.
‘I thought all scullery-maids were called Ada,’ answered Reggie.
‘That shows what little you know about scullery-maids, mister, and you don’t know anything at all about me. I’m not a scullery-maid. I’m an under-housemaid. £16 a year and beer money. That’s what I am. Scullery-maid, indeed!’
‘I beg your pardon,’ replied Reggie, who had no desire to prolong the conversation. He was on the point of shutting the door, but the girl was agog for a chat. ‘Next door’ was the great topic of conversation in the servants’ hall. ‘Next door’ was a mystery, and the valet of ‘Next door’ was the most glorious valet there had ever been. Apparently he had a position which for lack of labour was the ideal that all gentlemen’s valets strove to find. If his remuneration were in proportion to the comfort of his place, he would make a most desirable husband. That was the universal opinion in the servants’ hall of No. 35.
‘Don’t go in, mister,’ she pleaded.
‘Why not, miss?’ he answered.
‘Don’t call me miss: it’s so stiff like. Call me Nellie.’
‘I decline to call anyone Nellie. It’s a most repulsive name. I regret that your name is Nellie, but,’ he added judicially, ‘I am afraid you deserve it.’
‘Oh, don’t start chipping me, and don’t you go in, neither. Your guv. will be pleased to meet you when he comes back. It will be a great help for him to find you standing there.’
‘What do you mean?’ he inquired in surprise.
‘Well, if he don’t sober-up before he gets home, it will be a difficult job to get him indoors. He was that drunk! And I know something about drunkenness myself, Mr Man. I once had to give notice to one of my guvs for intemperitude. And he never was what you might call rolling drunk: he merely got cursing and fault-finding drunk. But I gave him some of my lip, I can tell you. A nice example to set the other servants!’
‘Who are you talking about?’ persisted Reggie.
‘Who should I be talking about but your guv.’
‘Well, then…Nellie, you’re not talking sense. Sir Clifford is a teetotaller.’
The words had slipped from him in his surprise.
‘Oh, he is a Sir Clifford, is he? Well, that’s something to know. Sir Clifford what, pray?’
But he would go no further.
‘Well, it’s something to know he is Sir Clifford. I don’t suppose there’s so many Sir Cliffords kicking about that I shan’t be able to find out what his full name is. Lor’, he was that drunk I thought he would never get into the cab. I thought I should have died of laughing. Oh, he’s a bad hat, your Sir Clifford is…to go about with a creature like that: a drab I call her.’
‘Look here,’ interjected Reggie, sternly, ‘what are you talking about?’
‘Oh, you want to know, do you? I’ve interested you at last, have I?’
She placed a value on her information.
‘Give me a kiss, mister, and I’ll tell you.’
She coquettishly put up her rough red face and he paid the price. He did not like paying it, and she did not regard his payment as liberal.
‘Why, our Buttons kisses better than that,’ she said. ‘Being kissed by you is like catching a cold. It’s a pity, isn’t it, that gentlemen’s servants aren’t allowed to grow moustaches? That’s where postmen have a pull. When I was living in Westbourne Terrace, I once walked out with a postman…he was proper, I can tell you…’
But Reggie stemmed the tide of amorous recollection. He insisted on knowing what she had seen.
Very deliberately, and in a manner entirely convincing, she said:
‘Just about a quarter past eleven I happened to be standing here; never you mind what for, old inquisitive, but my folks were at the theatre and I do what I like and no questions asked. I should like to see anybody ask ’em. They wouldn’t get any answer, not much…only a month’s warning. Suddenly your door opened and a sort of untidy middle-class woman comes out with your guv. He was so drunk he couldn’t stand. I thought she would have dropped ’im. She must have been a strong woman! But she got him into a four-wheeler as was waiting. Then she comes back and shuts the door, says something to the driver, jumps in, and off they goes. Such goings-on! And not the sort of woman a gentleman should keep company with, to my way o’ thinking; but when the drink takes ’em, you never know. I had a uncle—a Uncle Robert—who was just the same; he was an oil and colourman, too, in a fair way of business. Oh, dash, there’s our rubbish coming back. Must be going. So long!’
And she disappeared down the area as a motor-brougham, with the servants in conspicuous semi-military grey uniforms, dashed up.
Reggie, completely mystified, entered the house. A great weight was taken off his mind.
‘It is much better,’ he reflected, ‘to be drunk than dead…not so dignified, perhaps, but on the whole better…infinitely better.… Besides, I shan’t lose my job.’
CHAPTER V (#ulink_77a4bc07-f6e9-50a3-82c6-3bd4c78f5a64)
AT THE GRIDIRON (#ulink_77a4bc07-f6e9-50a3-82c6-3bd4c78f5a64)
ENGROSSED in thought, Harding scarcely noticed where he was going. His mind was full of the extraordinary circumstances that had occurred.
Automatically he stopped in front of his house. But he hesitated to go in. The December night was clear and crisp. It seemed to him improbable that were he to go to bed, he would sleep.
Therefore he walked on to Piccadilly, and eastwards past the Circus.
Suddenly he felt a hand clapped upon his shoulder, and a hearty voice inquired:
‘Are you on your way to the Gridiron?’
He turned round to find himself in the presence of Lampson Lake, a jovial, middle-aged man whose chief characteristic was his extraordinary versatility in failure. He had failed at everything, and on that account, perhaps, was universally popular with successful men.
At the mention of the club’s name Harding realised that he was hungry and the two turned into the Gridiron.
The single long room which constituted the famous club was desolate except for two men, Sir Algernon Spiers, the famous architect, and Frederick Robinson, a somewhat obscure novelist, who were seated together at the table.
The newcomers took two seats next them.
Robinson, a wisp of a man with a figure like a note of interrogation and hair brushed straight back without any parting, was, after his usual practice, dealing in personalities.
‘I can’t help thinking, Sir Algernon, that it is a very sound scheme of yours to wear your name on your face.’
‘What the dickens do you mean?’ asked Sir Algernon. ‘How do I wear my name on my face?’
‘I will explain. Your name is Algernon, is it not?’
‘Of course, my name is Algernon,’ replied the other, huffily.
‘Well, don’t you know the meaning of Algernon?’
‘No, I don’t.’
‘It has a very curious origin. Waiter, another whisky-and-soda. A very curious origin. It would be idle for me to assume that you are not aware that you suffer from whisker trouble. In fact, you are at the present moment toying with your near-side whisker. You are massaging it for purposes of your own. Whether it will do any good I can’t say. But both you and I and any intelligent observer must be aware that you cultivate a superb pair of white face-fins. Now, whiskers were originally introduced into England by the founder of the Percy family. He came over with William the Conqueror. He was known among his friends as William Als Gernons, or “William with the Whiskers”; whence, says Burke, his posterity have constantly borne the name of Algernon. Curious, isn’t it?’
‘It’s damned impertinence, sir,’ roared Sir Algernon, purple with indignation.
‘On the contrary,’ replied Robinson. ‘It is merely useful information; very, very useful information. There is no need to thank me for the information.’
Then he turned his attention to Harding.
‘Ah,’ he said cheerily, ‘here we have the woman-hater.’
Harding gave him the lie.
‘I’m not a woman-hater,’ he said. ‘Life is only long enough to allow even an energetic man to hate one woman—adequately. If a man says he hates two women he is a liar or he has scamped his work, or he has never known a single woman worthy of his hatred. The ordinary “woman-hater” hates one woman and has no claim to the title. Would you call a man a football player because he has played football…once?’
He had no desire to talk. His desire was to eat a devilled bone and return home. But he had always considered it preferable to bore a man than to be bored by him. Also, he was in no mood for the absurdities of Robinson.
‘Still, you have never married,’ pursued the novelist.
‘I told you I was not a misogynist,’ replied Harding, with a perfunctory smile. ‘No girl that I ever knew was so radically bad as to deserve me.’
‘Nonsense,’ broke in Lampson Lake, ‘my dear old chap, I don’t believe there is a man in England who is so anxious to marry as you are. You have got everything in the world except a wife. You are a huge success. You have got a beautiful house…’
‘Thanks to the advice of Sir Algernon here,’ Harding answered.
‘Heaps of friends,’ continued the other. ‘A face that would not exactly frighten the horses. Why, my dear fellow, your whole life is directed with a view to a happy marriage. You are only looking out for…the impossible.’
‘What do you mean by the impossible?’ queried Robinson.
‘Oh, not you,’ replied Lampson Lake, glancing at the novelist, ‘I don’t go in for personalities. You needn’t worry. The impossible is the perfect woman. And that is what Harding is looking for.’
And herein Lampson Lake was right.
Indeed, Harding, tall, sparsely built, handsome—in a non-theatrical manner, despite his clean-shaven face—with bright brown eyes and athletic figure, seemed rather a happily-married man than a man whose one grief was the fact that he had never yet met a woman with whom he had desired to live for the term of his natural life. He knew that life should be duet. The confirmed soloist is regarded with mistrust. If a man declines to take a partner into his life’s business, surely that life must indeed be a dull and drab affair. And Harding was exceedingly popular with both men and women. Yet he had never come across a woman who could rouse in his heart any feeling warmer than the great affection he had for Clifford Oakleigh.
