‘Good-bye,’ said Miss Mornington, ‘and thank you very, very much!’
For the last time that afternoon Sergeant Bellows ran. He ran, not only out from READING AND WRITING ROOM, but across the Entrance Lounge and out of the Entrance Lounge into the street, to return very soon, puffing triumphantly, upon the running board of a taxi.
3
‘I reelly don’t know,’ said Mr Butters to his Chief Lad, Richards, ‘what’s coming over this branch. Why, I can remember the time, Boy, when I’d sixteen lads here and could of done with twenty more. We was that pushed.’
Richards, a youth who would get on, smiled sympathetically. ‘You’re such a one for work, sir!’ he said.
‘Well,’ said Mr Butters, complacently, ‘I do hate being idle. No day is too hard for me. I like to feel I go to bed with something attempted something done. Earned a night’s repose. Always have been that way, I suppose.’
The telephone bell at the other end of the counter rang shrilly. Mr Butters leapt for it. Mr Butters whipped the receiver to his ear with a deft click of his stiff-cuffed wrist.
‘Yers?’ said Mr Butters, interrogatively.
‘Is that,’ said the telephone, ‘the District Messenger Office?’ A man’s voice, deep and pleasing.
‘Yers,’ said Mr Butters, ‘Destrict Mersengers speakin’.’
‘I want,’ said the telephone, ‘to know whether you can place a messenger at my disposal for the remainder of the day. I have no specific message for him to deliver yet, but I want a boy to come round to my house now’—here the telephone gave a most select address which Mr Butters wrote down upon his little yellow pad with much graceful flourish—‘so that he can be at hand if I want to send any messages. I have a very busy afternoon in front of me. I don’t know whether you do that kind of thing …’
‘Cer-tain-ly, sir, cer-tain-ly!’ said Mr Butters. ‘We’re very busy at the moment, of course, but we always do our very, very best to oblige. I think I can get a lad round to you—a trustworthy, intelligent lad—within, shall we say, a quarter of an hour. Would that suit, sir?’
‘Admirably,’ said the telephone, ‘and you will, I suppose, send me an account when you have discovered how long I have kept the boy.’
‘The lad, sir,’ said Mr Butters, ‘will be able to tell you, at the end of his time, what the necessary fee will be. Is that all, sir? … Thank you, sir … The lad will be there within fifteen minutes.’
Mr Butters delicately snipped the receiver back on to its hook. Mr Butters turned.
‘Richards!’ said Mr Butters loudly.
‘Sir!’ said Richards.
‘I want you,’ said Mr Butters, tearing the top sheet off his little yellow pad, ‘to go to this address at once. You are to ’old—hold yourself at the disposal of this gentleman. He wants your services for running messages this afternoon. Now that’s a very very nice little job, Richards; one that may broaden you a lot. You have never had such a job before, I don’t think. We don’t often get ’em nowadays.’
Richards shook his round, clipped bullet of a head upon which was perched, like some neat but untimely growth, the pill-box hat of the messenger service.
‘No, sir,’ said Richards, briskly.
‘Well, I hope you will find it an interesting afternoon,’ said Mr Butters, today in benevolent mood. ‘Now slip off and if it’s after six when you get away, report in the morning as usual. If you get off before six come back here. Understand?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Richard, smartly.
‘Right, then,’ said Mr Butters, ‘Off with you.’ He had the manner of a Marèchal Ney hurling four regiments of cuirassiers into action on the right flank.
‘Shall I, sir,’ said Richards looking at the buff slip, ‘take a bus, sir, or walk?’
‘Walk,’ said Butters, ‘walk, walk, walk. I told the gentleman a quarter of an hour and you should be there five minutes early if you use those fat legs of yours. Off with you now.’
So Richards walked. He went on his way whistling. It was a sunny afternoon and he had, the day before, attained the sunny age of sixteen. It may be that on his melodious way he pondered upon what the afternoon held in store for him. If he did, it is quite certain that any answer he may have given himself to this question was wrong. Many things may have been in his mind, but certainly it did not occur to him that he would spend the rest of that day clad only in his underclothes, reading, very comfortably, a wonderful book called The Coral Island and eating, for at least an hour of that afternoon, the biggest and most splendid tea for which any boy could wish.
4
Captain James laid down a new and rustling five-pound note with a slap upon the counter. It landed in a little glittering pool of beer.
‘Dirty thing!’ said Gwen, snatching the note.
Captain James smiled upon her. A smile to which Gwen responded with a challenging toss of the head, which showed that to her at least the odious qualities of this smile were not marked.
‘Never mind about dirty thing,’ said Captain James, ‘you take for that last round out of it and give me the change, ducky. And what about a nice sip of port for yourself?’
Now Gwen smiled upon Captain James in her turn. They had all, Gwen and Mr Titchfield and the elegant Mr Fawcett and three other unnamed customers in this bar of Croft’s, been smiling upon Captain James, and smiling steadily, ever since half-past five that afternoon.
‘I don’t reely mind,’ Gwen said, ‘if I do …’ and then, a moment or so later: ‘well, cherriliho!’
‘Good-night, Nurse!’ said Captain James. He drained his own glass and set it down upon the counter with a ringing smack.
‘I,’ said he, ‘am going to knock ’em about a bit. Anyone comin’?’
Without waiting for reply, he swaggered off, rolling his thick, short bulk in the direction of the swing doors leading to the Billiard Room.
And presently, in the Billiard Room, he was playing a hundred up with Mr Titchfield. Mr Fawcett was acting as marker, delicately moving the indicators with the tip of his amber-hilted stick. Two of the unnamed cronies were watching. Every shot played by Captain James was applauded by one of them with loud suckings of his deficient teeth; by the other with a curious snorting chuckle … And Albert kept running in and out of the Billiard Room with tray after tray of brimming glasses. Every now and then Captain James would give Albert money …
Captain James, with a break of forty-six, ran out.
‘Too hot for me!’ said Mr Titchfield. ‘Lucky I didn’t have any money on it.’
‘I didn’t,’ said Captain James, ‘have any money on it because I knew I’d beat you and I knew you couldn’t pay. Have a drink? BOY!’
Albert came on the heels of the cry, but this time he came without his tray.
‘Excuse me, Cabted,’ said Albert, ‘bud there’s a Bessenger Boy. Got a parcel for you, Capted. Says he bust have it sighed for.’
‘Well, my Spanish Catarrh,’ said Captain James, ‘sign for the thing yourself and then give it to me.’
‘Please, sir,’ said Albert, ‘I have tried but the boy says it bust be sighed by you, sir.’
‘A lot of nonsense,’ said Captain James. ‘Send the brat in here. I’ll sigh ’im!’
‘Certeddly, sir,’ said Albert and was gone, reappearing almost immediately followed by a District Messenger who bore beneath his thin right arm a large, square box wrapped in brown paper.
‘That,’ said Albert, ‘is Cabted Jabes.’
Captain James surveyed the messenger.
‘Captain James, sir?’ said the boy, smartly.
‘You know,’ said Captain James, ‘you’ll be wanting my birth certificate next, son. That’s me.’ The boy set down the parcel upon the edge of the billiard table. It was addressed in bold characters to:
Captain Inigo James,
Croft’s Hotel,
Milady Street,
Strand.
The boy produced from his wallet a large flat receipt book. He opened it and p
resented it, with a pencil, to Captain James.
‘If you wouldn’t mind, sir,’ he piped, ‘signing at the foot here.’
Captain James took the pencil and signed with a heavy-handed flourish.
‘And who the hell,’ said Captain James, ‘is sending me parcels, I can’t think.’ He turned to Mr Titchfield. ‘Here, you’ve got a knife. Open that, will you … Here, Sonny …’
The messenger boy, escorted by Albert, who watched his every movement as a young constable his first arrest, went out the richer by a shilling. Captain James, this night, was in a mood most unusually generous …
‘It’s a box,’ said Mr Titchfield, through the rustlings of brown paper, ‘of cigars.’
Captain James came to his shoulder and peered over it.
‘Any message?’ he said.
Mr Titchfield conducted an exhaustive search but shook a mournful head. ‘None,’ he said, ‘so far as I can see.’
‘Too marvellously mysterious!’ said Mr Fawcett.
Captain James inspected the square box.
‘Floriale Regias,’ he read. ‘Well, they may be smokeable or they may not.’ He turned to Mr Fawcett. ‘Here, you shove one of those into your face and tell us what it’s like.’ He advanced upon Mr Fawcett, determination in every line of him and a cigar between his fingers.
Mr Fawcett backed nervously away. ‘Oh, really, ay couldn’t!’ said Mr Fawcett, ‘Ay never smoke anything except cigarettes.’
‘You are going,’ said Captain James, ‘to smoke this Floribloodyale. Oh, yes you are, Mary! Oh, yes you are! … Hi! Someone grip him!’
There was subsequently much merriment over Mr Fawcett and the cigar.
COMMENT THE THIRD
WHO is sending Captain James Floriale Regias?
If it comes to that, is it not rather odd that young Mornington was not at Croft’s Hotel, especially as he had, it seems, definitely informed his sister that he would be there?
And what about Messenger Richards and The Coral Island?
And Woolrich is off to the country again!
SEQUENCE THE FOURTH
October 4th, 193— 9.30 a.m. to 9.15 p.m.
THE heavy glittering door of the Bank swung slowly inwards. From behind the first Cashier notice Carstairs looked out.
‘My God!’ said Carstairs, and immediately discovered urgent business behind the screen dividing the main office from the counter. This left Wakefield to deal with the customer who had just entered. Wakefield, too late, looked up and saw who it was; cast an anguished glance to his right and to his left; saw that on his right MacPherson was already engaged and that upon his left there was no Carstairs.
Wakefield, cursed with both a perpetual desire to laugh at the world and a cringing horror of injuring the feelings of others, braced himself …
Mrs Pardee advanced laboriously upon him. Her ebony stick beat out a slow tattoo upon the marble flags. With her right hand she raised, to mask the glaze of her protuberant blue eyes, a pair of heavily gold-rimmed lorgnettes. Mrs Pardee was very rich. Mrs Pardee was very eccentric. And Mrs Pardee was so mean that she could hardly ever bring herself to write a cheque for more than two pounds. This led to Mrs Pardee’s visits to her bank taking place regularly once a day.
‘Hoo-hawing!’ said Mrs Pardee, who suffered from a cloven palate.
Wakefield, the muscles standing out in great wads on each side of his jaw, bowed. He was making body-racking effort to still the shaking of his stomach which he knew preceded gigantic laughter. He bowed with grave courtesy. He did not trust himself to open his mouth.
Mrs Pardee placed upon the counter a black, foot-square object to describe which the word reticule was obviously coined. In this, after much snapping and clipping of clasps, she dived to produce at length a very small, very thin cheque book. This she laid upon the counter and, with laboured actions, smoothed out until it lay quite flat. Mrs Pardee, reaching for a pen, entered once more into the throes of conversation.
‘I wan hoo aw er phmaw hek. Whaw e my baaance?’
A small piece of paper, lobbed truly from behind the partition, struck poor Wakefield at the back of his neck. Having thought that he was now captain of his soul and able to speak without disgracing himself, he suddenly discovered that this was far from the truth. Gallantly he opened his mouth—but there came from it a strange, high-pitched, quivering note …
Mrs Pardee looked up interrogatively.
Wakefield shut his mouth with a snap of teeth which could be heard all over the building. From behind the partition there came a sound which was a cross between a cough and a sneeze and an exclamation of agony.
Wakefield, although he knew Mrs Pardee’s balance by heart, disappeared at speed in search of it … He came back bearing a small piece of paper upon which were pencilled the figures: Bal. curr. A/c. £12,743 11s. 9d.
His face pale, his forehead shining damply, Wakefield courteously slid the slip across the counter. Over it Mrs Pardee bent. After much thought, she began to write painfully upon a cheque-form.
‘Hoo-pahs,’ said Mrs Pardee, ‘chleese.’
This was not the first time upon which Wakefield had spoken with Mrs Pardee. Correctly, he assumed that she wanted two pounds. Encouraged by her imminent departure and satisfied that now he had complete command of himself, he spoke.
‘Two notes?’ he said. He had meant to speak normally; had thought, up to the very moment the words had left his lips, that his voice was going to issue as a courteous sub-tone. But, instead there had come what sounded, even in his own ears, like a bellow.
Mrs Pardee started and dropped her pen. From behind the screen there came distinctly, to Wakefield’s ears, a quavering whisper which said: ‘My God!’
Mrs Pardee shook her head. The bugles on her bonnet danced a fantastic jig. Wakefield, in torment, gazed at them fascinated. Now his teeth were biting his bottom lip so hard that a little trickle of blood was appearing at the corner of his mouth.
‘I wooh hah-ah hah,’ said Mrs Pardee with great rapidity, ‘wung pung noh, wung tenh hihing noh en hen hihinghah hur hall hilher.’
From behind the screen that diabolic voice came once more to Wakefield’s ears. It wailed now, very low: ‘Oh! … Oh! … Oh! …’
With an effort which made to tremble not only the hands with which he laid upon the counter one pound-note, one ten-shilling-note, two half-crowns, one florin and three shilling pieces, but also made his knees feel as if they would at any minute discontinue to support him, Wakefield commanded himself. He was forced to watch while Mrs Pardee not only counted the money four separate times, but placed it, a note at a time and then a coin at a time, into the reticule. He stood, his hands gripping the edge of the counter until the knuckles showed white, motionless save for the ague which every now and then shook him from head to foot. He was now past the stage of coherent thought. The three little wads of blotting-paper which struck him severally upon the right ear, the back of the neck and the left ear, did no more to him than bring on a renewal of the trembling …
Mrs Pardee’s stick, at last and very long last, tap-tapped its slow way across the marble flags …
No sooner had Mrs Pardee’s back been presented to his tear-filled eyes than Wakefield staggered along the length of the counter and round behind the screen. He sank upon a stool, put his head in his hands and let himself go. When he raised his head it was to see Carstairs giving a final mopping to his eyes and hurrying back to duty.
‘I shall resign,’ said Wakefield, tearfully to Tubbs, one of the junior clerks, ‘I can’t stand it! I won’t stand it! And if that unprintable blank Carstairs thinks he can get away every time and leave me to look after that far-more-unprintable old woman, he’s damn well mistaken.’
Wakefield’s annoyance with his colleague, Carstairs, was within two minutes to be re-doubled. For when Wakefield, galvanised by telepathic news of the manager’s approach, went back once more to his till, it was to find that Carstairs was talking, more than half his body atop of the mah
ogany counter, with what Wakefield afterwards described as ‘the most utterly, bewilderingly appealing piece I’ve ever seen.’
Wakefield stared and Carstairs—lucky devil—talked and laughed and was sympathetic and obliging. Most sympathetic and most obliging. At last Carstairs held in his hand a letter which, with an air of grave importance, he studied. Wakefield noted that apparently Carstairs found difficulty, despite the importance, in keeping his eyes upon the letter; but at length, with a smile and a bow which Wakefield told him afterwards were ‘too foully winning,’ he disappeared with the letter. Wakefield spent the next four minutes trying to attend to, without looking at or listening to, the wants of an elderly Colonel who wished to pay into an overdrawn account the sum of five pounds and draw out twenty.
Carstairs came back. He handed something—Wakefield, from the corner of his eye, could see reluctance at the termination of so charming a piece of business expressed in every line of Carstairs’ beautifully arranged person—across the counter to the vision.
‘Thank you,’ said the vision, ‘so much.’
‘Not,’ said Carstairs, smiling fatuously, ‘at all. A pleasure!’
While the vision walked doorwards, and for at least thirty seconds after she had passed through the door, neither the small, thin young woman who now awaited Carstairs’ administrations, nor the fat elderly one who had replaced with Wakefield the ambitious Colonel, received any attention …
2
At the sound of the door opening, Miss Pagan looked up. She saw, pushed round the door at a matter of only some six inches above its handle, the bright face of Charles.
‘Mr Benedik,’ said Charles, ‘told me to tell you, Miss Pygan, that he don’t want any tea today. When Capting Jymes arrives, he wants me to show him straight along … No, don’t you fret, Mr ’Arris, he’s not going to ask you to deal with him!’ Charles shut the door rapidly upon this last shaft of his. You never knew when people might throw things.
Harris, his ears flaring banners of embarrassment, bent over his work, muttering. Miss Pagan smiled.
‘I don’t know,’ said Miss Pagan, ‘what’s come over that boy today. Seems to be even more sure of his own importance than usual!’
The Rynox Mystery Page 12