For all that, Pethwick’s wits had been sharpened in some ways by his troubles. It is hard otherwise to understand how he could anticipate and prepare himself to encounter all the practical difficulties of his undertaking. The logical mind which could foresee those difficulties could not reasonably be expected otherwise to display the ingenuity to circumvent them.
Chapter Ten
Next morning, the first of the summer vacation, Pethwick set out from his house with his suitcase. He walked down Launceton Avenue to the corner, and from there to the High Street, but he did not go to the school, despite what he had said to Mary. He left his suitcase at the station cloakroom, and from there he went into the bank. At first sight this was a legitimate action enough, for he had his salary cheque to pay in—a month’s salary in arrears and one in advance, Sixty-five pounds in all. But when he handed over the slip and cheque to the cashier he still lingered.
‘What is my balance now?’ he asked.
Two minutes later the cashier pushed a slip of paper across the counter to him.
‘That’s without including what you’ve just paid in, Dr. Pethwick,’ he said.
Pethwick unfolded the paper, and written on it were the figures ‘£171 14 9.’ That was the only way Mary was reasonable—she did not insist on living up to their income, and did not trouble Pethwick about money as long as her very modest wants were satisfied and she was not bothered further. With the utmost deliberation Pethwick wrote out a cheque and pushed it across.
‘How will you have this?’ asked the cashier, startled, when he had glanced at it.
‘In one-pound notes,’ said Pethwick, very calmly.
The cashier handed over, almost reluctantly, a sheaf of fifty one-pound notes. He regarded Pethwick anxiously as he did so. Doctor Pethwick appeared by no means the most suitable person in the world to entrust with so much readily-disposable cash.
‘Be careful with it,’ he said.
Pethwick nodded with a fine assumption of carelessness, and crammed the money into his breast-pocket. It was more than he had ever had on his person at one time before.
Outside the bank he boarded a bus which took him to the West End, and there he entered a men’s outfitting store—the one whose advertisements even Doctor Pethwick had not been able to miss. For a moment he stood bewildered in the bustle of the entrace-hall; until now he had done all his shopping in small suburban shops and he was unprepared for this frightening reception. He stood just inside the revolving doors, tall and thin and shabby and drooping—save for his lack of spectacles a living example of the conventional idea of a scientific professor. He managed to find his way to the ready-made clothing department, and there a bright young man laid hold of him.
‘Can I be any help, sir?’ was what the young man said, as he had been trained to do.
‘Yes,’ said Dr. Pethwick. ‘I want a suit.’
The young man inclined eagerly towards him, and looked his expectancy of further details.
‘A good suit,’ said Dr. Pethwick.
Then Pethwick realised that the only obstacle to his saying exactly what he wanted was his shyness, and he discarded that as soon as the realisation came to him, because he was working towards an end which would not admit of shyness.
‘And it’s got to look a good suit,’ said Dr. Pethwick.
‘Yes, sir,’ said the young man, meditatively, running his eye over Dr. Pethwick’s figure. Then he plunged and went on. ‘At that rate. I should have something in grey flannel, sir. Something of this sort.’
He drew Dr. Pethwick over to a corner to where grey flannel suits in endless variety hung by hangers from a rail—suits of the most delicious shades of silver grey, grey with green chalk-mark squares, grey with white lines. It was a God-sent opportunity for the young man, because people who are going to buy twelve-guinea flannel suits do not usually wait until nearly August before buying; the young man was determined to clear off stock which was beginning to hang fire.
‘Something like this,’ said the young man. ‘Double-breasted. With your figure I should have white chalk lines. It’ll look well. Let me take your measurements, sir, and we’ll try one or two on.’
A quarter of an hour later Dr. Pethwick stood in the mirrored dressing-room trying to recognise himself. Always before he had bought suits which were either navy blue or clerical grey—he had alternated from one to the other for fifteen years—because it had never occurred to him to do otherwise. He had never pictured himself in habiliments which he had mentally considered to be the prerogative of Lordly Ones. But now he was wearing a double-breasted pearl-grey suit which looked really well—the sort of suit people like governors wore on Sports Day. The vertical white lines accentuated his height, the double-breasted coat accentuated his breadth, so that he looked twice the man he did in shabby blue serge. And the shop had substantiated its advertised boast to fit any figure in ten minutes. To Dr. Pethwick’s untrained eye the cut of the suit was as good as anything Sir Dumbril Haydock or Mr. Laxton ever wore.
‘Yes, that will do quite well,’ said Dr. Pethwick, eyeing himself as steadily as he could manage. He looked with a considering gaze at the cheerful young man fluttering round him.
‘Now I want everything to go with it,’ he went on. ‘Hat, shoes, shirt, everything.’
‘Yes, sir. I’ll come with you, sir, and see about it.’
Some of the advertisements had made a distinct impression on Dr. Pethwick’s mind—advertisements which told stories of men with unexpected wedding invitations, or who had met with motor-car accidents on the way to important interviews; these men had despairingly called in at the shop and had been instantly outfitted afresh all ready for whatever it was they were going to do. Dr. Pethwick wanted the same done by him, and, sure enough, it was. The bright young man took him to a myriad counters, and summoned a myriad other bright young men to attend to them. Here they bought a hat, and there they bought shoes. The bright young man did most of the selecting, and if it were the expensive things which he chose, with an eye to his commission, he also did his honest best to outfit Dr. Pethwick like a gentleman. A coloured handkerchief for his breast-pocket, a tie of the right shade, wash-leather gloves, silver-mounted cane, a shirt and collar—all these were bought and sent up to the dressing-room to await Dr. Pethwick’s pleasure.
Dr. Pethwick left it all to him. He did not think it worth while to protest when the young man brought him braces and underclothes. No one was going to see his underclothes, and the solid leather braces he had had since boyhood were good enough for him, but he had asked to be supplied with everything, and he was not going to draw back now. So he bought braces of a magnificence of which he had never conceived before, and sock suspenders to match, and silk underclothing, and gold sleeve-links—severe but magnificent.
Back in the ready-made clothing department the bright young man made a hasty abstract of the innumerable bills which had collected there.
‘Thirty pounds four and sevenpence, sir,’ said the bright young man.
Without a tremor Dr. Pethwick produced his sheaf of notes and counted out thirty-one of them.
‘You want to put these clothes on now, sir, I suppose?’ said the bright young man.
‘Yes.’
‘Very good, sir. I’ll call the valet. And where am I to send the old ones?’
It says much for Dr. Pethwick’s determination that he faced a double crisis like this without flinching. He accepted the fact of the valet unmoved; with regard to the need for keeping Mary unaware of his new purchases he said, casually:
‘No, I’ll take them with me. I suppose I shall want a suitcase. Have one sent up and packed for me.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said the bright young man; five seconds later Dr. Pethwick was in the mirrored dressing-room again and yet another bright young man, with sleek hair, all teeth and smiles and handwashing, was helping him to dress. He was a model valet; he took the ragged shirt and the deplorable woollen undervest as if they were royal robes, and laid them reverently
aside before proffering to Dr. Pethwick the silk underclothes. He knelt to adjust the new sock suspenders until they were exactly right. He saw to it that the marvellous braces were of the right length to set off the line of the trousers. He put the sleeve-links into the shirt, and he said ‘Allow me, sir,’ and with two dexterous touches he repaired the hopeless hash Dr. Pethwick had made of tying the new tie. He whipped a shoehorn out of his hip-pocket and gently eased Dr. Pethwick’s feet into the new shoes. He helped Dr. Pethwick into the double-breasted coat and walked round and round him, unobtrusively, twitching it until it sat exactly right. When Dr. Pethwick dubiously put on the new felt hat with the snap brim he said ‘Allow me, sir’ again, and cocked it just a shade over Dr. Pethwick’s right eyebrow and snapped the brim down to the perfect slope.
Dr. Pethwick, looking in the mirror, saw himself wearing a hat as he knew it ought to be worn but in a way he had never dared—at the angle which indicated independence of mind without rakishness, gentlemanliness without formality. He had never had any idea that he could look so well. He fumbled with the yellow gloves, and, on the valet’s suggestion, decided to carry them. Hat on head, gloves and cane in hand, he was ready for the street. He paid yet one more bill—for his new suitcase—and took a last glance at himself in the mirror. The valet picked up the suitcase and fixed him with a glittering eye. He must have been skilled in thought transference, for Pethwick understood him instantly, and handed over a half-crown tip. Then they went down together in the lift and out to the front door.
‘Taxi, sir?’ said the valet.
‘Yes,’ said Pethwick. He had never been in a taxi in his life before, poor man, but time was passing rather fast and he still had much to do. A taxicab came up at the valet’s summons.
‘Where to, sir?’ asked the valet.
‘Oh, tell him—just tell him to drive towards the City.’
A few minutes later the taxicab whirled round the merry riot of Piccadilly Circus en route for Leicester Square, the Strand, Fleet Street, and the City.
At the Bank of England the taxicab drew up.
‘This is the ’eart and centre of the City,’ said the driver. ‘Where do you want to go now?’
‘This will do,’ said Dr. Pethwick.
He paid the driver, guessing wildly at what sort of tip was expected of him. By a stroke of genius he remembered that by leaving the suitcase in the cloakroom of the Bank Underground station he could avoid having to carry it round with him, and, that done, he set out to look for a City office for himself.
Among the black coats and quiet grey suits of the hurrying herds on the pavement the beautiful pearl-grey suit stood out in astonishing contrast. Pethwick himself, conscious for the first time in his life of being irreproachably dressed, walked slowly along Threadneedle Street. He held his head high; he walked with dignity, the silver-mounted cane tapping the pavement. Save for a certain intellectual quality about his face and the abstraction of his expression, he would have passed anywhere as a young man about town. Yet this consciousness of well being, this new certainty of himself, did not alleviate his sorrow after his lost Dorothy, nor did it blunt the singleness of purpose which now consumed him If anything, it only intensified them.
His steps took him into the backwaters and alley-ways off the main City street. It would be there, if anywhere, that he would find what he sought. Sure enough, he found it. In Hammer Court there was a board displayed: ‘Light offices to let. Rents from £50. Apply caretaker.’ Pethwick regarded the building with a thoughtful eye. He walked out to the entrance of the court, and took special note of the volume of traffic in the streets outside. He gauged the distance from the intersection of roads to the court. Then, crossing his Rubicon, he turned and plunged into the block of offices. It took a moment or two for his eyes to grow accustomed to the gloom after the blinding sunlight outside, but at last he was able to read on the half-empty address-board in the hall that the caretaker lived on the lower ground floor. He went down the stairs and rang the bell. The door was opened by a decayed woman in black, who eyed the radiant vision in silver-grey with dumb amazement.
‘I am looking for an office,’ said Dr. Pethwick.
‘’Oos office?’ asked the caretaker.
‘I am looking for an office for myself. I want to rent one,’ explained Dr. Pethwick, patiently.
‘Oh,’ said the caretaker. It became apparent that she held in her hand some dubious sort of cloth—dish-cloth or floor-cloth. She dropped this behind the door, and reached down a bunch of keys from a hook beside her.
‘’Ow big?’ said the caretaker, shutting the door behind her and setting herself to plod up the stairs.
‘There’s one on the ground floor. Suite of five rooms. Six ’undred pounds a year. One on the first, four ’undred. Two small ones on the second, two ’undred.’
‘Oh, I don’t want anything like that,’ said Dr. Pethwick, alarmed. ‘Your board outside said fifty pounds a year. I only want a little office. Just a room.’
‘Ho,’ said the caretaker, stopping abruptly in her upward course. ‘There’s only one like that, and that’s downstairs along o’ me. D’you want to see it?’
‘If you please,’ said Dr. Pethwick.
The caretaker came flat-footed down the stairs again, Pethwick behind her. She unlocked a door and threw it open.
‘There you are,’ she said. ‘Fifty pounds a year. Yearly agreement. Wired for telephone. Electric light. No central ’eating—it doesn’t get down as far as here.’
Pethwick entered the room, and looked round it. It was as dark as a cellar—which is really what it was—and was some ten feet square. Two windows admitted practically no light and made no promise of air. The caretaker switched on the light, revealing the bare cement walls and floor. But the room was all that Pethwick desired.
‘I’ll take it,’ he said.
He sought for his pocket-book, but his hope that the transaction might be completed then and there was dashed to the ground.
‘Agents are Truman and Todd in Fetter Lane,’ said the caretaker woodenly. ‘You’ll ‘ave to settle it with them.’
‘Very well,’ said Pethwick. After all, it was for the purpose of being able to encounter agents that he had gone to all the trouble of buying these fine new clothes. ‘I’ll go along there now.’
He came out of the room.
‘The W.C.’s over there,’ said the caretaker, pointing. ‘Tenants are given a key.’
‘Thank you,’ said Pethwick.
Up in the sunshine again he called a taxicab. All this business had taken a little longer than he had calculated, and he was only now approaching the crucial moment of the day. A pretty girl clerk came up to him when he pushed open the door and entered the office of Messrs. Truman and Todd. She smiled charmingly at him—or at the beautiful grey suit.
‘I want to rent an office for which I believe you are the agents,’ explained Pethwick. ‘In Hammer Court.’
‘Oh, yes,’ said the pretty clerk. ‘Step this way.’
Dr. Pethwick found himself led into the presence of Mr. Todd himself.
Mr. Todd ran a keenly appraising eye over Dr. Pethwick as he was ushered in. Much of the success of an estate agent depends on his ability to size up a man at the moment of introduction. Once more Dr. Pethwick laboriously stated his business.
‘Hammer Court,’ said Mr. Todd, as though to himself. ‘Let me see. Which office do you wish to rent?’
‘The one in the basement,’ said Dr. Pethwick. ‘The little one.’
Mr. Todd looked at him more keenly still; it was not that in referring to the basement instead of to the ‘lower ground floor’ Dr. Pethwick was violating estate agents’ good taste, but that Mr. Todd could not help feeling dubious about people who could only afford fifty pounds a year office rent. There were such people—Mr. Todd was naturally quite sure of that—but there was bound to be something doubtful about them unless the contrary was quite obvious.
‘What is the business you are proposing
to carry on?’ he asked.
Dr. Pethwick brought out his pocket-book, found a visiting card, and handed it over. It was one of fifty which he had had printed when he took his Doctorate, and he still had forty-five of them. Mr. Todd glanced at the card.
DR. EDWARD PETHWICK, D.SC.
University of London
That was satisfactory, at any rate. It made it appear likely that this man could be identified by the aid of books of reference.
‘By profession,’ said Dr. Pethwick, ‘I am a schoolmaster. I am the senior physics and mathematics master at the Liverpool School.’
Mr. Todd nodded. That also could be checked up by reference. But it was a little odd that a schoolmaster should want a City office.
‘I suppose it is obvious,’ went on Dr. Pethwick, ‘that I have never been in business before. In fact I have only recently decided on this step. But I have recently effected two patents covering physical processes which may be of some application in the arts.’
‘And you want to put them on the market?’ said Mr. Todd.
‘That’s exactly right. Some years ago I had an unfortunate experience with a patent agent. It rendered valueless an earlier patent of mine, and I promised myself then that I should never have any more dealings with agents. You may have heard that patent-agents are all thieves.’
Dr. Pethwick smiled. He told his lies in his simplest manner. It did not matter if Mr. Todd thought him a fool, as long as he did not think him a rogue. And Mr. Todd did not think him a rogue, nor even a fool. He was impressed by Dr. Pethwick’s quiet assurance and by his manner when he repeated that remark which he had once overheard at a meeting of the British Association.
‘I’ve no hope of making my fortune from these patents,’ continued Dr. Pethwick, modestly, ‘but it is really very possible that something quite good may come of them. It is becoming necessary that I should have headquarters somewhere in the City.’
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