‘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
AT THE GRIDIRON
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.
‘But you’re not married either,’ said Sir Algernon to Lampson Lake. ‘Are you looking for the perfect woman, too?’
‘It is no good my looking,’ he replied. ‘No woman will marry a failure—a specialist in failures, that is.’
‘On the contrary,’ interposed Robinson, ‘some of the most shocking failures I know are married.’
‘Yes, but they married first,’ explained Lampson Lake, ‘they became failures afterwards. It is a great consolation for a man, who has made a muddle of his life, to throw the blame on his wife, especially if he can get his wife to believe it.’
‘A perfectly trained wife will believe in anything,’ was the architect’s comment.
‘Except in her husband,’ corrected Robinson, who, not being married, knew all things about wedlock.
�
�A woman wants to marry a man who will succeed or who has succeeded, and I think most women prefer the first. It is surely the greatest privilege of her life to accompany the man she loves from poverty to riches, from obscurity to fame.’
‘No doubt,’ answered Lampson Lake. ‘But I am not in a position, and I never have been in a position, to give a woman the chance. I am one of Nature’s failures. And, mind you, I’m not complaining. The world has need of failures. It is a great pleasure to any K.C. who was called to the Bar at the same time as myself to realise that no sane solicitor would ever give me a brief. Besides, people are kind to me because they are not jealous. They give me their best in the way of food and wine because they know I am not too busy to notice such things. They trust me with their wives because they know I am not ambitious, with their daughters because I am too poor to marry. Oh, I have an excellent time, thank you.’
‘Then, Lampson,’ asked the K.C., ‘you really enjoy not being a…success?’
‘Well, I shouldn’t like to be a failure…as a failure. I am, at any rate, the leading failure of this club. But that’s not saying much, because we’re all famous here; except, of course, Robinson. He is merely notorious.’
‘Thank you,’ replied Robinson, smiling. ‘I know you meant to be rude, but you failed even at that. Fame is what we call the reputation of people who are dead, of great men who are dead. Notoriety is the reputation of great men who are alive.’
‘What,’ asked Lampson, ‘would you call Clifford Oakleigh? Is he famous or is he notorious?’
‘As he is alive,’ replied Robinson, ‘he is notorious. When he is dead he will be famous.’
Harding shot a keen glance at him. He was on the point of speaking. But his lips shut tight.
‘He is a most extraordinary man,’ said Sir Algernon. ‘You know I built that house for him in Pembroke Street, No. 69. He gave me an absolutely free hand to do anything I liked, and I must say I was pleased with what I did. Everything went well until the house was almost finished, and then suddenly Clifford, who is one of the best chaps in the world as we all know, began taking a very great personal interest in the details. So keen was his interest that it became very awkward for me, as a professional man. And, mind you, I discovered that he knows a great deal about architecture. In fact, I have never come across anything that he doesn’t understand. Well, we had a sort of amicable quarrel. We agreed to differ. And the result of the whole thing was that the completion of the building was taken out of the contractor’s hands and he gave the job to some tenth-rate builder that he had discovered in Hammersmith.’
Harding had listened in astonishment to the statement made by Sir Algernon. He had never heard that his friend was building a house in Pembroke Street. Yet another house!
He turned to the architect.
‘You surprise me, Sir Algernon. Clifford and I, as you know, are old friends, and he never mentioned to me the fact that he was building a house. The ordinary man can’t buy a motor without boring his friends to death with the subject. It is very strange that Clifford should not have mentioned to me a little thing like that. How long has it been built?’
‘Oh, about six months!’
‘Six months!’ exclaimed the other. ‘But he doesn’t live there?’
‘No,’ replied Sir Algernon, ‘I don’t think he intends to. I think the idea was to let it furnished. It is one of his hobbies, I think.’
‘A very expensive hobby,’ interposed Lampson Lake.
‘Fortunately, he can afford expensive hobbies,’ said the architect. ‘I understand that it is superbly furnished. And now I come to think of it I remember he said that if he let it he would expect to get £2000 a year. No. 69 is one of the smallest houses in Pembroke Street. The idea of £2000 a year is absolutely preposterous.’
To the barrister’s thinking, the whole scheme was preposterous. No matter what Clifford Oakleigh’s fortune might be, it would not stand a habit of building and furnishing houses on which a prohibitive rent was placed.
‘I should like to have a look at the place,’ continued Sir Algernon. ‘But he made me understand,’ he added laughing, ‘that he would never receive me in the house…so as to avoid painful memories as to my professional pride. However, he gave me an excellent dinner at the Savoy the other night. He is a very curious man; certainly, he is a very curious man.’
‘Not for a genius,’ interposed Harding.
It seemed to him uncanny that these four men should be sitting up at night talking of a dead man as though he were alive. Two or three times it had been on the tip of his tongue to tell them of the tragedy that had just occurred. Had it not been for the fact that Reggie might be hopelessly involved therein, he would have spoken. Another reason that kept him silent was the incongruity of his position. His best friend was dead, and he was taking supper at the Gridiron. Why was he taking supper at the Gridiron? He himself hardly knew. His nerves had been shattered by the events of the night.
‘You think he is a genius?’ asked Robinson.
‘Certainly he is,’ Harding replied. ‘Ever since I have known him he has been a genius. He was a genius at Eton, he was a genius at Oxford, and he has been a genius in London. He has one of the largest practices of any physician in London, and what is more he hardly ever has a failure. Then look at “Baldo”. That was really one of the greatest inventions of the age.’
He was alluding to a preparation invented by Clifford that consisted of a white cream which one applied to one’s face in the morning and it instantly removed the night’s growth of hair. By this useful device, a complete substitute for the razor, Clifford Oakleigh had already made nearly half a million.
‘A slight application of “Baldo” to your whiskers, Sir Algernon, would, I am sure, be efficacious,’ said Robinson.
‘Oh, damn my whiskers,’ replied the architect.
Robinson politely responded: ‘My sentiments entirely.’
‘Directly Robinson begins to talk about whiskers, I go home,’ said Lampson Lake, rising.
‘I, too.’
Harding paid his bill and, incidentally, Lampson Lake’s, and left the club.
CHAPTER VI
THE TROUBLE WITH MINGEY
THE next morning, when Harding reached his chambers in King’s Bench Walk, he noticed that his clerk, Mingey, was looking more dismal and lugubrious than usual.
Were it not that the man was so excellent at his business, Harding could not have tolerated the presence of so lamentable a figure. Mingey was six feet tall, intensely lean, with a dank, black, uncharacteristic, drooping moustache, and a pallid face that looked as if it required starching. He always wore shiny black clothes, and presented the appearance of an undertaker with an artistic taste in his calling. Today there were red rims round his colourless eyes.
‘Cheer up, Mingey,’ said Harding, heartily,
‘this is not your funeral, is it?’
‘Excuse me, sir, but something terrible has happened…my daughter, sir.’
‘Ill, is she?’ inquired Harding. ‘I’m very sorry…’
He went to the table and cast his eyes over his briefs.
‘Worse than that, sir,’ replied the clerk, ‘she has disappeared.’
‘Disappeared!’ echoed the K.C. ‘Perhaps she has eloped,’ he suggested.
‘No, sir, she is not that sort of girl. She never had, to my knowledge, any love affairs. She once did show a sort of feeling for one of our ministers, but he turned out to be engaged to a lady in Scotland, so nothing came of that.’
‘Tell me all about it,’ said Harding, seating himself at his table and preparing to listen.
Succinctly the clerk made his statement. His experience of the Law courts enabled him to do a very unusual thing. He told a simple story in a simple way. It appeared that Miss Mingey was devoted to the creed which her father had discovered was, of all creeds, the most suited to his spiritual wants. [Mr Mingey was, by persuasion, a devout Particular Strict Baptist: an intensely select creed with only two p
laces of worship, one in Peckham and the other in Monmouth Road, Bayswater.] An entirely good girl. She took no interest in clothes or young men. She was, as her father put it, ‘an intellectual girl much given to book-learning.’ As to her appearance, even paternal pride would not enable him to say that she was good-looking.
‘Here is her photo, sir,’ he added to prove his statement.
But the photograph did not quite bear out his contention.
Harding gazed at it intently.
It represented a girl of about twenty—nineteen Mingey maintained was her actual age. Her features, so far as one could judge from a full-face photograph, by a cheap and inadequate practitioner, were regular; she wore spectacles; her hair was done in an unbecoming way; her dress was abominable. It was rather clothing than clothes. With no evidence as to her complexion and her figure one could not say whether the girl was good-looking or plain; but the fact that she took no trouble with her hair, that her dress stood in no relation to the fashion—even, so far as he knew, to Bayswater fashion—that she was photographed in spectacles, proved that she regarded herself as unattractive. A girl who takes this view is almost certain to be right.
He handed the photograph back.
According to the father’s story, after a meat-tea with her mother she had gone out to post a letter. She did not return.
‘She was happy at home, Mingey, was she?’
‘Perfectly, sir. She always attended service twice on Sundays. No, I have never known a girl who was happier, or who had more reason to be happy.’
‘Quite so,’ said the K.C. ‘And no affair of the heart, you say?’
‘Certainly not, sir.’
‘But as to the minister who married the Scotch lady?’
‘Sarah had too much self-respect, sir, to get mixed up with a married man. Directly Mr Septimus Aynesworth married, she—so to speak—cut him out of her life.’
‘Did you go to the police-station?’
‘First thing this morning, sir.’
The Mayfair Mystery Page 3