Mr. Williams thanked Mr. Gunter very much and rang off. He possessed his soul in patience until lunch time, when he glanced at the tape and was delighted to see the figures: 58; 58s. 6d.—9d.; 3d.; 6d.; 59s.; 59s. 3d.; 59s. 6d. He held his chin thoughtfully in his hand and made his decision. He rang up Mr. Gunter from the Club (he knew perfectly well what he could afford to do and what he could not afford to do), and bade him pass the message on to sell “them” all. Every single one. And a very pretty little packet he had made out of them. It was but yesterday he had bought them at 35.
There were still a couple of hours in which he could work, and Williams went to work industriously. He joined a jovial company of five, who were his special cronies, at a round window table in the Club, a cheerful table even on a winter’s day, and there cracked merry jokes about the little disputes that will arise between colleagues; funny stories about the most recent absurdity, the row between the Postmaster-General and outsiders whom he could not abide, and who had been pestering him. Jack Williams was very positive in describing to these jolly friends of his, who so often heard his confidences, Halterton’s curious temper; how he hated to be put upon; how he always kicked against an assumption that he had made up his mind for good and all; how he was particularly annoyed that—well, he wouldn’t go on, because it wouldn’t be fair.
Old Muggridge, who was too rich to care one way or the other, and who always enjoyed this kind of thing, said: “Oh, I always said he would cut up rough with Durrant’s sooner or later. They talked as though they had him in their pocket. That’s what’s up, is it? He’s quarrelled with Durrant’s, eh?”
Jack Williams looked down at his plate.
“Eh?” said Mangey, who happened to be there that day (he came from time to time, though he thought himself superior to that crowd). “Is that so, Jack?”
“Ah, Mangey!” said Jack with a very wise look, but a smile at the same time. “That would be telling!” And that was the end of the luncheon.
The company faded away, uncommonly quickly. Within three minutes the three telephone boxes at the Club were occupied. Mangey was in one of them, little Bonzer was in the second, and—doubtless upon some business connected with the Club—the Head Waiter was in the third. As for Lord Muggridge, he disdained such things, and he went his own way as though no telephones or Stock Exchanges existed. And so would you, my dear reader, and so would I disdain such things, if we were as rich as old Muggridge or old Papworthy. At any rate, we should be great idiots to speculate if we were.
The good deed done, Williams, who really ought to have been at the House, thought there would still be time to look in before it rose, and wedged in a letter.
It was not a brief letter, but he was a rapid writer. It took him perhaps a quarter of an hour to complete.
It was one of those jocular things which he was fond of sending to Lady Caroline Balcombe, which he delighted to write and she to receive; and no one wrote a better letter than Jack Williams, full of gossip and fun; and in the gossip and fun of that day was more than a hint, pretty well an open statement, that Halterton and J. had quarrelled at the last moment.
“If you doubt it,” he said by way of P.S., “ask ’em down to your little hut, and you’ll have the time of your life. I guess you’ll be down there for the week-end? And you can lay your silk stockings they’re scrapping! Cop the state they’re in—watching each other like cat and mouse!”
That letter was not posted, it was sent round by hand. Within twenty minutes after getting it Lady Caroline had, by telephone and in person, spoken to and invited two distinguished guests to that Norman Tudor and Concrete house, Sandlings Castle, in Herts., the largest of the Balcombe country places, the nearest to Town and the chief rallying-point of the Anarchist Party, whether in office or in opposition.
She had bagged them both. They would both be in time for dinner. Having heard from McAuley that he would arrive by train just before dinner, and would dress in Town before he started, she arranged to take the Postmaster-General down in her car, the most magnificent of the Balcombe motors—for Lady Caroline kept the finest of the seven for herself. As it purred on its way through the outer suburbs, Lady Caroline with Halterton at her side was a happy woman. And by the time she reached Sandlings, well before dusk, she was radiant.
Nor did that excellent politician let either of her guests know that the other was to be present—and of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.
Chapter IX
On the way down in the car on that Friday afternoon Lady Caroline made herself pleasant to the Postmaster-General.
It was not difficult to make herself pleasant, for he was most obviously suffering, and all that he wanted was sympathy; a little love at large. Indeed, the suffering had been obvious to everyone who had watched him on the front bench during the last three days. Lady Caroline’s task was the easier because, unlike her husband and unlike James McAuley, he also had been born in the purple: his father the owner of no small area of Essex clay in the days when this sort of thing was more valuable than it is now, and before it had become encumbered so much beyond its present power to pay.
All the way down — Sandlings is only thirty-two miles from the House itself and not fifteen from the last northern suburbs of London—she attempted to discover, as discreetly as she could, what truth there might be in the news that Williams had given her of the P.M.G.’s quarrel with McAuley of Billies. And when I say discreetly, I mean discreetly. I cannot describe the process, because I have never myself been a wealthy hostess advanced in years; but I have watched it from the outside.
There is a kind of bird the name of which would be familiar to bird-bores (there again I am at a loss to give you a description, but a bird it is, and I have seen it), and this kind of bird flies round and round, making wide circles in the air, to reconnoitre its prey swimming in the waters below. It does so at such a height that the victim does not suspect anything. Such was the manoeuvre of Lady Caroline Balcombe during that brief hour in her enormous car.
But she did not learn much. She hardly could, considering that neither stocks nor shares nor Television, nor even the name McAuley, could be pronounced. What she did discover was that the Postmaster-General was even more unhappy than she had imagined. He was not one to conceal his misery from a sympathetic woman, at any rate from a sympathetic woman of sufficient standing, and though it was an added agony to him not to be able to tell her the whole tale (for he dared not), he admitted to her tender inquiries that he had most grievous cause for anxiety.
So far, so good. As they neared the house she fell silent and considered her plan. She had given her two guests two rooms some way apart, but on the same side of the big corridor which leads from the landing in the Barbican Tower to the Edwardian Tudor Wing opposite the Keep, and is reached by way of the archway in the new 14th-century manner which is so familiar to all of you from the pictures. Those who know that great house (and I am taking for granted that you have at least some acquaintance with it) will recognize by this description that neither of the rooms were in the latest part, where every bedroom has its own bathroom, as custom now demands. But there was a bathroom in between the two rooms, one of which was called Bidewell and the other De Clair, from two Templars formerly in the families of two long-past tenants in chief. (For you will remember that the castle was held in Grand Sergeanty. It had added to the price which Mr. Balcombe had paid—and quite rightly.)
All this is not to say that there was no bath for McAuley or for Mr. Halterton. There was a bath all right. It was the one which stood half-way between the two rooms. And all this Lady Caroline had planned with lucid intelligence. Not too near, if indeed they had quarrelled, for their proximity might lead to a rumpus; but not too far to prevent their giving signs of hostility and mutual suspicion.
She had done more. She had—with promises of reward—told the maid deputed to that particular section of the chatellery to keep her weather eye peeled.
When all these things had been accomplished, a
nd she had sent Halterton up to dress (dismissing him with the kindest of smiles, which made him sure of her support and friendship in whatever trials he had before him), she bade him be sure to be down early, as she also would be, because she would like to say something to him before the other guests should join them.
He would; and he did come down early. What she had to say to him was unexpected.
“Mr. Halterton,” she said, almost putting her hand upon his shoulder in the acuteness of her sympathy, “I have asked a friend of yours down here, whom I know you will be glad to meet. He’ll be coming down by the train that gets in just in time for dinner; he told me he would dress in Town. It’s Mr. James McAuley —the younger McAuley, you know—the Attorney-General’s brother.”
Yes, Mr. Wilfrid Halterton knew well enough. Oh, he was delighted to hear that Mr. James McAuley was coming. She watched his delight, which was that of a man compelled to walk the plank; she was the more inclined to credit the Home Secretary’s information.
They had not long to wait. James McAuley appeared. Halterton did not even attempt to escape. She had compelled him to remain at her side; and she greeted the new-comer in his turn with so much sympathy that Halterton positively felt a touch of elderly jealousy. For such are Postmasters-General of a certain age. She excused herself volubly for putting them so far apart at the dinner table, She said she knew they would have a lot to say to each other when the women had gone away.
But they had not. When the women had gone away Halterton listened to the hearty wit of Mr. Balcombe, seven places down on the right-hand side of the table, while McAuley listened with an equal lack of enthusiasm from four places down on the left. And between the great financier and the great statesman intervened an enormous cup all made of gold, and bearing upon it the figures of gods and goddesses (marine) from Elkington’s, but after Benvenuto Cellini.
Nor later, in the long interval before bedtime, did these two gentlemen confer. They did indeed happen to pass one near the other twice in their various movements through the rooms; and at each conjuncture each gave a rapid glance towards the lining of the coat which the other was wearing, the place where a pocket might be—but that was all.
Night, or to be more accurate, early morning fell upon the six towers and the one high turret above the three acres of the roof. With the new day, when the rich wake to their labours, that is, about 9.15 a.m., Lady Caroline Balcombe, drinking her early tea in bed, was visited by that faithful dependant to whom had been assigned the task of keeping her weather eye skinned; and she had a tale to tell. Things had happened. This is what had happened.
Mr. James McAuley, at the preposterous hour of 8.30, had slithered out of his room in a dressing-gown, and had moved noiselessly over the thick carpet of that passage past the bathroom. He had ascertained with infinite precaution that the door was bolted, had heard the water running within. The gods favoured him! He went on as noiselessly as before, and gingerly opened the door of the Postmaster - General’s room. It so happened that as he did so the excellent woman whose eye had been kept peeled in the confident expectation of reward watched him from a distant post, peeping round a corner of the staircase, which is within thirty yards. She saw James McAuley go into that room. She saw his hand stretching out towards the table on which he had perceived certain papers lying, she heard loud protest coming from the bed within. She saw McAuley shut the door precipitately but noiselessly, and wing his way back with astonishing rapidity to his own quarters.
So far so good. The hunt was up. Then the good woman waited, and was again rewarded. Out of the Postmaster-General’s room there came the tall figure of that statesman, clad in a dressing-gown, and it repeated, but in the other direction, the manoeuvre which had just now been performed by the master of finance. There was the same noiseless approach, the same trying of the bolted bathroom door, the same expression of satisfaction at hearing the water running, the same further advance towards the door of the bedroom beyond, the door behind which McAuley was surely now no longer hidden, since clearly he was taking his bath.
But Wilfrid Halterton’s manoeuvre differed from that of his City colleague; it differed with the difference in their character. The Postmaster-General did not attempt to open the door. He stopped, listened carefully, to make quite certain that there was no one within, before he should begin his investigation of the room, and make, as he hoped he would make, the capture of his all-important envelope. He satisfied himself from the stillness that the room was indeed empty. Yet in his nervousness he could not help wondering whether in spite of all indications J. might not be there after all.
He opened the door with infinite precautions, and was immediately informed. For the protest that met him was astonishing. The door was flung open, and James McAuley, half dressed, came through it roaring:
“What the devil are you doing there, Halterton?” he cried; and the joy of the watcher on the corner of the staircase was complete.
“What the devil are you doing?” he shouted again. “Spying about!”
“I … I thought it was … er … my door. I made a mistake,” said Halterton.
“Mistake nothing!” bellowed the financier, whose language had caught something from his frequent crossings of the Atlantic. “Mistake your aunt!” With that he slammed the door, and the unfortunate Minister went back empty-handed, bitterly regretting his audacity.
This was the tale which the excellent woman, who had been mistress of all details from her point of vantage, communicated to the mistress of the castle, thereby amply earning the reward which she immediately, out of a nice little chain bag on the dressing - table, obtained.
It was true, then. Lady Caroline was satisfied.
It would be no good ringing up the brokers until just before ten. Even so Lady Caroline was rather pressed for time. But she managed it. And by the time she had got down to the room where several of them were already come for breakfast she had sold her Billies. She was a little surprised to hear that she could not get anything like the price she had expected from the reports of the day before. Still, they assured her that she was in fair time, though the shares were crashing. She had made a packet all the same, so she had not wasted those fifteen hours. Good strategy had obtained its victory, as it usually does.
The Saturday and Sunday lay rather heavy on Lady Caroline’s mind. They yielded no fruit, not even the fun of open rough-and-tumble between the two men. She longed to know more. She was too wise to attempt further knowledge. She had the pleasure of seeing the Postmaster-General behaving rather oddly so far as the mind behind Durrant’s was concerned, and the man behind Durrant’s behaving rather oddly so far as the Postmaster-General was concerned. It amused her, still more it informed her, to notice the way in which they watched each other. What they were after she did not know, but so much was clear; each was attempting to come upon the other by surprise, for the trick was repeated half a dozen times in the course of the day. She had the further pleasure of seeing from a distance, when she and a few of the others were out together in the Park, something that looked very like a quarrel between the two, and then a sudden separation between them—but that was all.
They went back separately on the Monday morning: Halterton rather ostentatiously by a train which left before anyone was up, as he had warned his hostess he must do on account of the work that awaited him in Town in the department; McAuley as ostentatiously waited on to show that there was no hurry at all for him to get to London.
Lady Caroline even kept him to lunch, seeing that he was willing to stop. She had him almost to herself, and as they sat together she was not averse to saying a few unkind things about Mr. Halterton. She only regretted she had not forced herself to come down early enough to say a few unkind things to Halterton about Mr. McAuley. However, she had learned pretty well all she wanted to learn; or at least all that she could learn under the circumstances.
She was curious, when she was quite independent and everyone had gone, to discover again from her brokers what w
as happening to Billies. She had been delighted to learn that they were still tumbling down, with an eagerness and a haste that consoled her for the price she had got. If she had waited, she would have got out on the wrong side. As it was, she had a little scoop and was fairly content. She had got out at 46s., which was nearly 11s. a share.
She was in a happy mood, therefore, when she came into the House, rather late on the Monday afternoon, and her content was increased by watching the added gloom of the Postmaster-General’s face.
Chapter X
There stands in London in a backwater of Mayfair an excellent house of the 18th century. Between it and the street is a wide courtyard, built for the sweep of great coaches coming up to the Portico, and behind the house is a discreet garden, large enough to be shared by a couple of ancient trees. A man lived there who was to play a great part in the adventures of the Postmaster-General; a friend, an intimate friend, but a loyal friend and a friend of his own age. This friend bore to the world the name of Arthur Lawson; he was by birth a Jew from the eastern boundaries of Lithuania, and this was his story.
A lifetime ago, when he was still a delicate and nervous child, shrinking from the hostile townsmen of the Russian city in which the close-bound Jewry of his people huddled, his father had died. His mother had already died in giving birth to his only brother, a child seven years younger than himself. The family had been miserably poor—miserably poor even according to the standards of that place and time—where poverty was appalling. The father’s whole being had been concentrated upon one thing; the study and exposition of the sacred books of his people. He had lived on the gifts of others almost as poor as himself, who revered his learning and still more his reputation for holiness, which was indeed well deserved, for the old scholar, in so far as he could out of the mist of manuscript and print which wrapped his soul all about—in so far as he could out of the past in which he lived and the problems which absorbed him—said and did good, saying and doing good in that ritual fashion and with that wealth of traditional phrase and exact ceremony which his people loved and demanded. But he was dead, and the two boys, the little child Jacob and the older boy Aaron Levina, had been taken over by an old sharp, duty-doing woman, of whose origin nothing was known, whom the boys had been taught to call “Aunt Reba,” who had kept their father’s house for years, and who lived for him and for his children.
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