“Not a second to lose!” repeated Lady Porlet with a sudden realization that something serious was happening, and ran in an old-lady-like but well-meant manner back to “The Pelican.”
She found Saturday in his office with Lady Mercy and Quentin.
Saturday had just discovered the loss of his poem and they were all in a state of half-ashamed consternation, unwilling to believe in theft, unable to think of a different explanation of its disappearance, when Lady Porlet appeared at the door in evident distress. She was out of breath but full of some tremendous purpose.
“There’s not a second to lose!” she gasped. “He has stolen your portfolio and is going to Scotland with Joan Benbow!”
Saturday and Quentin leapt to their feet. Lady Mercy looked equally amazed, but sat still. With praiseworthy control Saturday helped Lady Porlet to a chair. “I don’t understand,” he said.
“She told me to say that there wasn’t a second to lose,” repeated Lady Porlet, “and she is following them in your car.”
“My car?” asked Lady Mercy. “Who is following whom in my car?”
“A red-haired girl. One of the maids here. And Mr. Wesson and Joan Benbow are in the other car—your car, Mr. Cotton—and he has got your portfolio.”
“Joan!” said Saturday. “And Wesson!”
“Nelly!” said Quentin.
“And who is Mr. Wesson?” Lady Mercy enquired.
“Wesson is a book-collector. Good God!” Saturday exclaimed, as an image of comprehension, tragic and magnificent, came to him, “he’s stolen my manuscript—he collects first editions—the only copy I have! And Joan—”
“Tried to stop him,” said Quentin.
“And she’s with him now?” asked Lady Mercy.
“I saw them,” said Lady Porlet. “She asked me to send George out to her with the key of the garage, and then Mr. Wesson mysteriously appeared and got into the car, and she said that she didn’t want George after all, and they drove away. Then the red-haired girl came out with the portfolio—”
“Nelly had the portfolio?”
“You said Wesson had stolen it.”
“Yes, and the red-haired girl showed it to me, though whether her name is Nelly or not I can’t say. She swore twice and drove away very quickly—”
“I’m completely bewildered,” said Lady Mercy.
“So am I,” said Saturday, “but we’ve got to follow them.”
“There isn’t a car in the place if mine is gone, and mother’s is gone—”
“You can telephone—”
“To the Downish police? That won’t be much good.”
By this time they were in the hall, and the sound of their excitement (for their voices had risen a little) was attracting attention. Mr. van Buren, Colonel Waterhouse, Jacquetta Telfer and some others strolled out to see what was happening.
“I’m going to take the charabanc,” said Saturday resolutely. “Which way did they go?”
“Towards Scotland. That’s where the girl told me they were going,” said Lady Porlet, and pointed vaguely northwards.
“I’m coming too,” declared Quentin.
“Hurry up then,” said Saturday over his shoulder.
“What’s all the excitement?” asked Mr. van Buren.
“Mr. Wesson has stolen something and is going to Scotland”—Lady Porlet had recovered her breath and was beginning to enjoy her position as messenger and incentive to action—“I was coming back from the Vicarage, after lunching with the vicar and his wife—”
But everybody pressed forward as Saturday and Quentin climbed into the charabanc. With a deep metallic purr the engine started, its note shrilly changed, the azure hull leapt forward, soft thunder-echoes rolled back from the startled High Street, a plume of blue smoke emerged from the swollen cerulean stern. The “Blue Bird” was in pursuit.
Utter silence succeeded the dying echoes of its reverberant progress. The hollow chasm of the High Street emptied its thunder and was mute. The speechless group at the door of “The Pelican” stared at the vacant thoroughfare.
Then, like a soldier in a still cathedral, Miss Horsfall-Hughes’s clear voice broke the quietude. She addressed Lady Mercy who, even in a group not undistinguished, was obviously the proper person to be addressed.
“Can you tell me the meaning of this escapade?” asked Miss Horsfall-Hughes in a voice as cold and hard as ice. “Has our charabanc been stolen or merely borrowed?”
“It has been commandeered,” replied Lady Mercy, “for the furtherance of justice.”
“Why was I not consulted?” demanded Miss Horsfall-Hughes. “When will it be returned? We have no wish to stay here indefinitely.”
“As we hired the charabanc,” said Mr. Sidgwick—
“I must say,” began Mrs. Duluth—
“Why was there no policeman if justice was being done?” asked Mr. Harringay.
“Where was the driver?” said someone else; and other Giggleswaders declared that it was an outrage and they were not going to submit to it and the immediate return of the charabanc was imperative.
Lady Mercy’s imperturbable eyes traversed their indignant faces and they were silent.
“If you will leave everything to me,” she said, “I will guarantee that you suffer no undue inconvenience. Please find your driver and send him here.”
Like a ripe egg doomed by dark urging to fission the group divided, the Giggleswaders muttering and unsatisfied on one side, the Pelicans curious but controlled on the other.
“Shall we go in?” said Lady Mercy to the latter. “I am going to call up the police. I shall be with you in a minute.”
“Nothing has happened that will disturb your visit,” she assured them after having telephoned. “Professor Benbow is the only one who is directly concerned.”
“I am completely in the dark as to what has happened,” said the professor.
“I am not too clear myself,” said Lady Mercy. “What I know is this: Somebody has stolen the manuscript of Mr. Keith’s new poem. Lady Porlet saw Mr. Wesson and your daughter in my son’s car—”
“Joan with Wesson! It doesn’t sound probable.”
“I saw them myself,” said Lady Porlet, “and no one could have been more surprised than I was. I had been lunching at the Vicarage, and Joan spoke to me as I was returning. She was alone then, but a minute later I saw Mr. Wesson in the car—I turned back to ask her what she had asked me to do. My memory is a little playful at times—”
“And where is Joan now?”
“That is what Mr. Keith and my son have gone to find out,” said Lady Mercy.
“And the red-haired maid as well,” added Lady Porlet. “It was she who told me about the portfolio, and she drove off at once in your car.”
“What portfolio?” suddenly demanded Mr. van Buren.
“A portfolio containing Mr. Keith’s poem, I gather.”
“Yes,” said Lady Porlet, “the red-haired girl showed it to me.”
“But if the red-haired girl, whoever she is, had the portfolio, what had Wesson stolen?” asked the professor.
“The portfolio!” said Lady Porlet. “She told me there wasn’t a minute to lose.”
There was a moment of silence as they tried to reconcile the difficulties of the story.
“You say that the red-haired girl, one of the maids here, that is, told you that Wesson has stolen a portfolio, and that she herself also had a portfolio?”
“That’s exactly what I have said from the beginning,” said Lady Porlet.
“Then there are two portfolios?”
Mr. van Buren got up hurriedly and left the room, while in the imagination of everyone else mysterious portfolios fluttered madly like bats in a tomb.
“You must notify Scotland Yard,” declared Mrs. Waterhouse.
“I shall as soon as I know precisely what to tell them,” said Lady Mercy, “but the connection between Wesson and this red-haired maid is troubling me. You are sure that she had a portfolio—you actually s
aw it?”
“She waved it in my face,” said Lady Porlet.
“She and Wesson are in league,” suggested Diana Waterhouse in a voice that thrilled with excitement.
“Then why should she take Lady Porlet into her confidence?”
“To confuse the trail, of course.”
“I don’t quite see how.”
“Neither do I,” admitted Diana Waterhouse weakly.
Mr. van Buren re-entered the room. His seamed and battered face was set more grimly than any there had seen it. He spoke harshly.
“I know nothing about Keith’s manuscript,” he said, “but a black leather portfolio has been taken from my desk. A portfolio containing documents of considerable value in themselves and of the utmost importance to me.”
“A black leather one?” asked Lady Porlet.
“Yes,” said van Buren.
“I knew it,” said Lady Porlet triumphantly. “She waved it in my face!”
Van Buren looked at her curiously. “I suspect Wesson,” he said. “I think he followed me here from New York.”
“Of course Wesson is the real cause of the trouble,” said Lady Mercy.
“That’s precisely what I have told you all along,” said Lady Porlet.
“And both portfolios are missing.”
“Two portfolios and Joan,” said the professor.
Lady Mercy said gently: “She can be in no real danger. I don’t understand exactly what has happened, but she can scarcely come to harm in broad daylight. Quentin and Mr. Keith are following them. I am going to call up Scotland Yard and I am returning to London myself—I want your help in that, Sir Philip—to explain everything in what detail I can. I rang up the local police station but there was no one in except the sergeant’s wife, who said that her husband had gone for a walk.”
Colonel Waterhouse said: “The situation, so far as I can see, is this: there are three cars on the road, all heading north. Miss Benbow and Wesson are in the first, a red-haired girl and a portfolio—whose I don’t know—in the second, and in the third one Keith and Quentin Cotton. We may take it that the first car contains the real fugitive and the last one the genuine pursuers. The purpose of the intermediate car is uncertain, but its driver is apparently friendly to us—I identify ‘us’ with justice—and it forms a useful connecting file.”
“That is a lucid exposition,” said Lady Mercy, “which I shall repeat to Scotland Yard. Mr. van Buren, you also want to speak to them, I imagine.”
“I do,” said van Buren, and they went out together.
Mrs. Waterhouse looked admiringly at her husband, and Lady Porlet complacently repeated her story, enlarging it with some description of the Vicarage and the vicar’s wife—who was a sensible woman, it seemed, very well aware of the duties incumbent on a vicar’s wife. Professor Benbow listened as long as he could, saying nothing, trying to conceal his anxiety. When he could stand no more he got up and went out.
After he had gone they talked about Joan, darkly, hopefully, each one aware of her precarious position, everyone discounting its danger; praising her looks, her disposition, remembering what they had said to her on different occasions; glancing at her friendship with Saturday. Then they spoke of the red-haired girl. Everyone had seen a red-haired chamber-maid; some (then now confessed) had suspected there was more in her than met the casual eye. A good-looking girl, the men thought. Red-haired reflected the women.
“Now I remember!” exclaimed Lady Porlet. “It was she whom I saw in Mr. Cotton’s room one day. I was sitting on the edge of the bowling-green reading a book which I had borrowed when I was startled by a duster falling on my lap, and when I glanced up there were Mr. Cotton and this girl looking at me out of a window!”
The effect of this exciting complication was interrupted by the reappearance of Lady Mercy.
“Everything is settled so far as it can be settled,” she said. “I have described Quentin’s car to the police and they will broadcast the information and probably have it stopped quite soon. Where is Professor Benbow? I wanted to reassure him. I said nothing about my Isotta because I thought, if the girl is as honest as she appears to be, it ought to be unimpeded. Now Sir Philip, will you drive Mr. van Buren and me to London?”
“I shall be delighted to help you in any way I can.”
“That’s very nice of you. I have borrowed the mayor’s car. It’s a good one, and he will send it along here in a few minutes. You, I know, don’t waste time when you drive.”
“What about the tourists?” somebody asked.
Lady Mercy smiled. “They won’t trouble you. I arranged for another charabanc to come and pick them up.”
Before she left for London she saw the professor and comforted him by the police assurance that Wesson would certainly be stopped before he had gone far. Then, with Mr. van Buren, she got into the Mayor of Downish’s Daimler, and Sir Philip Betts drove southwards as one would expect a racing motorist to drive.
Lady Mercy’s chauffeur and the driver of the charabanc, both a little better for some beer, returned from wherever they had been and the latter offered an excuse for the Giggleswaders to release their thwarted indignation. If he, they said, had sat still and steadfast in his charabanc, the charabanc would not have been stolen. The driver discussed his rights as a free citizen of the Empire, and the Giggleswaders countered with the inalienable privileges of the hiring class. This occupied their time till the substitute charabanc arrived.
The more permanent guests at “The Pelican” argued, dissected and synthesized explanations with unabated interest, and Lady Porlet was annoyed to find that her incontrovertible, though not always intelligible evidence was frequently disregarded when it upset some ingenious solution.
They were, however, unanimous on this point: that Mr. Wesson, the soi-disant collector of first editions, was a folio-sized wolf in calf’s clothing.
CHAPTER XX
Professor Benbow sat miserably alone. Reason told him that Joan was in no danger; reason bade him think of England, calm and sunny, on a peaceful Sunday afternoon; reason said crime had no place in such a picture. Optimism urged him to think of the whole business as some ridiculous escapade which would come with explanatory laughter safe to harbour. Common sense declared that even a thief shrank from assault, that abduction was story-book stuff. But neither common sense nor careful reason nor the optimism which he had cherished for years could wholly comfort him. Joan was being driven, somewhere out of sight to somewhere out of his ken, by a detestable bogus collector of first editions with a suspiciously expressionless face and curious eye-glasses. And the simulacrum of a sea-dog sat powerless to help her, impotent, without an idea of what to do.
He remembered what Plato and Bacon had said in dispraise of literary men, and cursed his lifetime with books that blurred the eyes and dulled the will and thrust, like cuckoos, action out of its native heart to make room for their clumsy eggs of doubt and deliberation. He thought how Lady Mercy, faced with a difficulty, had emerged from her customary cocoon of volubility and taken charge of the situation. Unflustered, placidly dealing with the contradictory evidence of Lady Porlet, suavely accepting the presence of “The Pelican’s” guests, calmly dismissing the Giggleswaders—Lady Mercy, the business woman, the controller of Cotton’s Beer and half-a-dozen distinguished pubs, had stepped clearly out of Lady Mercy on holiday. He thought of van Buren accepting his loss almost in silence and immediately perceiving his proper course. He thought of Colonel Waterhouse, the old bore, whose training told when it was required and who made a map out of chaos.
Professor Benbow was unhappy because of Joan’s disappearance; that unhappiness, he realized, could not be helped. He was unhappy, too, because of his own inadequacy; that, he decided, was foolish and unmanly. He ought to accept his shortcomings as a necessary complement to his undoubted talents.
“I will,” he said, and went to the buttery to moisten such desert philosophy.
There were half-a-dozen servants in the buttery—George a
nd Bill and Maria and Veronica and O’Higgins—and Holly was holding a tragic-comic audience.
They left when the professor went in. They had been talking of the recent events which had so rudely disturbed the peace of “The Pelican.” Holly’s face was red and white, like a clown’s.
“I suppose you knew that I’d lost it, sir?” he said.
“Lost what?” asked the professor. “I want some beer, please.”
“The recipe for my blue cocktails, sir. Last night—there was things happening last night that neither I nor you knows anything about—last night I had a dream, like Pharaoh, and I got up and come down here, and the recipe was gone. And then I went upstairs—or halfway upstairs, as Miss Scrabster can tell you—and I heard ’em moving. Doors opening, sir, and feet shuffling along the corridor. There was dirty work in ‘The Pelican’ last night, sir, and now the thieves ’ave vanished with their booty.”
The professor drank his beer.
“You mean your recipe?” he asked, “Have you really lost it?”
“I mean my recipe, which I wrote down carefully—for the memory of man is only a sandy beach, sir, and nothing ’olds on sand—and put in this drawer. And now the drawer is empty.”
“But you don’t think that Wesson stole it, do you?”
“If he didn’t steal it, why has he fled like a thief? And that red-’aired vixen’s on his trail, they say, and she’s not going riding for nothing. She wants the recipe too, and she knows he’s got it. They told me something about a black portfolio, though none of them knew what a portfolio was when I asked them. George and Bill, I mean, and Veronica. O’Higgins said it was something a Cabinet Minister had, and when they hadn’t it, it was because the Prime Minister was short of them owing to a Labour Government having been there before. But he’s a sailor, and sailors ’ll tell you anything. The lies that I’ve heard sailors tell would make a widow blush. And often do, I expect. But that’s what he said. And I said ‘Bulrushes!’ to him. ‘Bulrushes!’ I said. And ’e knew the significance of it. I say that that Wesson’s got my recipe.”
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