Tarmac cogitated. Then he called upon a private detective agency and explained to the gentleman who interviewed him that he wanted a certain person shadowed.
“I want to know where he lives.”
Nothing could be simpler. Mr. Tarmac had only to point the person out to one of the firm’s inquiry agents.
“Look here, send your fellow to have lunch with me at my club. Probably I shall be able to put him on the trail from there. I should like him to report to me at my flat.”
It was done. A somewhat dressy and sophisticated young man was lunched by Harold Tarmac at the Green Cat Club. Blount had a habit of appearing in the club about two o’clock. In the smoking-room, over coffee and cigars, Tarmac explained the vagaries of the animal.
“Watch that door. If I say—‘Have a liqueur’ when a certain person enters—that will be your man.”
It happened fortunately for Tarmac. Blount came mincing in as though the room was full of women who adored his poetry. The young man was offered a liqueur. He accepted it, a brandy. And Tarmac paid. Being a careful man he had expected the fellow to say no.
“Exceptionally good cellar here.”
The sophisticated young man savoured the bouquet.
“Yes, it’s it.”
Half an hour later, Mr. Tarmac left him to the sleuth game. He supposed that the affair would be of the simplest, and that by the evening he would know where Oscar hid himself, but the poet proved to be the most circuitous and suspicious of animals. On three successive days the agent shadowed him from the doors of the Green Cat Club, and lost him during the pursuit.
He reported to Mr. Tarmac.
“Never went after such a slippery devil. You think you have got him, and suddenly he’s gone—like the conjurer’s egg.”
Oscar Blount’s elusiveness was more annoying to the young man than to Harold Tarmac, for it suggested to Tarmac that Blount must have very good reasons for his doublings, and that the secret was worth discovering.
“What’s he do?”
“Without any apparent reason at all he will make a sudden dive into the traffic, and when I have got through after him he has vanished. He has done me twice that way.”
“Do you think he suspects——?”
“No, sir. I’m pretty silky at this sort of job. It strikes me that it’s just part of his routine. I’ll run him to earth. Don’t you worry.”
He was as good as his word. On the fourth evening he called on Harold Tarmac with an address.
“Got him, sir.”
He handed Mr. Tarmac a card.
“That’s where he lives. Just a little unexpected.”
It was. The novelist read the address, “No. 7, Saffron Street, Islington.”
The young man appeared to be waiting for Harold Tarmac to ask questions, but Harold was the sort of man who preferred to cut the cake himself.
“I am much obliged to you. Just one thing—did you make any inquiries?”
“Discreetly, sir, yes.”
“One has presumed that the gentleman is a bachelor.”
“Not quite a bachelor—I think, sir.”
Tarmac smiled.
“Ah—like that. I wondered. I am much obliged to you.”
On the following morning Tarmac took a taxi as far as the “Angel.” He discarded the cab, and went forth on foot to discover Saffron Street. It was an elusive street, and he had to ask a postman and an errand boy before he ran Saffron Street to earth. It was shabby, and very much at the back of things, and full of frowsiness. The hour was half-past twelve.
Mr. Tarmac traversed Saffron Street, and No. 7 discovered itself to him as a shop, one of those strange, little shops that play the part of universal providers in miniature. Its window offered to the world bottles of sweets, mummified jam tarts in cardboard boxes, ham, sardines, picture post cards, cheap stationery, cheese. The fascia board bore the name of Blount, and the fat soul of Tarmac gloated. He walked up the street and down the street; he stood and stared at the window. So this was the poet’s corner. He chortled. And at this hour of the day the gentle Oscar would be parading his person in other alleys, or lunching with the more exquisite world.
“By Jove, what a jest!”
Lyrics from Saffron Street! And who was the Sappho who sold the cheese? Was it from here that “Piccadilly Perfumes” had emanated? Ye gods! Little Blount handing out sonnets and stale eggs.
The street was full of children, and not very clean children. Three or four of them were playing a game on the pavement close to No. 7, and a little, saucy wench, seemed interested in Tarmac.
He beamed upon her. He offered her sixpence.
“And what’s your name, young lady?”
She looked at him suspiciously, while making sure of the sixpence.
“Barbara.”
“What a lovely name. And what else?”
“Blount.”
Yes, there was a likeness.
“B.B. That sounds precious. Any brothers and sisters?”
“You bet,” said the child, and sidled off. She did not quite trust Tarmac. He was too sugary.
Harold hesitated for a moment, and then he entered the shop to the jingling of a little bell. A big, florid, dominant looking lady waited for him behind the counter. She had the air of having borne many children. She had a bold, golden buxomness that suggested to Tarmac that once upon a time Blount had put a barmaid into poetry and that she had pinned him down to prose.
He said—“Have you any ink?”
“Penny bottles.”
“One—please.”
The bottle and the penny were exchanged. Tarmac smirked. He produced one of his suavities.
“Most comprehensive shop—this, madam.”
She observed him suspiciously. His inference was correct. Years ago she had been behind a bar, and her golden amplitudes had ravished little Blount. But she knew something about men, and she did not like the ironical succulence of Mr. Tarmac. He was unusual. He might have designs upon the till.
“Anything else?”
Her abrupt blue eyes repulsed him.
“No, thank you, not this morning.”
He removed himself to the tinkling of the bell, and meeting Barbara upon the pavement, was playful with her.
“Guess what your mother has sold me, my dear.”
She stared up into his huge, red, shining face.
“Soap. You looks like it.”
And Harold Tarmac went his way. The Blount tongue lived in the mouth of the daughter.
But Harold was a careful person. He sent again for the young gentleman with the roving eyes, and gave him instructions.
“I want you to find out—if you can—whether the man serves in the shop. Find out what his movements are. You understand?”
“Quite, sir.”
“That will suffice.”
In a day or two he reported to Harold Tarmac that Mr. Blount assisted in the shop between the hours of ten and twelve, and three and six. Yes, and he had unearthed a few details with regard to the intimacies of No. 7, Saffron Street. Would Mr. Tarmac care to hear them? Yes. Local gossip had it that Blount was a free-lance journalist, one of the prowling members who hunt the sensational and the unsavoury, an off and on gentleman, sometimes at home, sometimes not. But apparently, when at home, he was kept in docile subjection by his wife. Yes, they had five children, and it was said that Mrs. Blount had been a barmaid. She was more of a person in Saffron Street than her little husband. She might be hot-headed, but Saffron Street understood her large humanities. As for Blount he was regarded as a supercilious little person, an oddity, a mystery. He had an opera hat. Saffron Street supposed that gentleman of the press had to appear as toffs on certain public occasions.
Tarmac purred. He was inspired. He betook himself to Miss Parmoor’s flat and was playful. He was giving a party, a very particular sort of party. They were going upon a pilgrimage.
“To visit the Castalian Spring, dear lady, and the Temple of the Muses. Sappho and the Isles of
Greece. Can I persuade you and some of your scintillant creatures?”
He was mysterious, jocund.
“You’ll come? Splendid. If fortune is with us I can assure you we shall be thrilled.”
One of Chloe’s young things perched on a purple tuffet asked Harold to be a little more explicit.
“What’s the pose? That last stunt of ours was rather septic.”
“Which one was that?”
“Oh—when a dozen of us went to dine at a sausage and mash shop. I got something in my sausage.”
Tarmac reassured her.
“In this adventure we don’t eat. We may smell pickles and ham and cheese. I shall have two cars. I’m going to show you domestic bliss in Islington.”
He piqued them. He made up his party. He would arrange a lunch at “Tortoni’s,” and afterwards the cars would collect them and carry them upon the adventure. Well, yes, six of them could crowd into each car. The more the merrier. He could assure them that they would not be bored.
It was a very warm day in June. The gentlemen of the Weather Bureau described it as “Rather warm,” while the Press was shouting about a heat wave. Harold Tarmac met his guests at Tortoni’s with a saffron coloured rose in his buttonhole. His head was buttered. He had the air of the high priest perspiring beneficently while conducting a ceremony.
He gave them champagne. It became evident that he was sentimentally interested in Chloe, though his supreme interest would always be in Harold Tarmac. He had put on new white spats and new trousers.
Molly Armour remarked to young Challis.
“Harold looks almost matrimonial.”
“Don’t worry. He won’t perjure himself. Love and cherish. He spends all that on H.T.”
“Malicious creatures—you men.”
“Being a feminist, my dear—I have taken on the qualities of Eve. But if I was a woman and Harold came hot and sizzling to the sofa, I’d either throw a fit or deflate him with a hat pin.”
“Watson! It appears that you don’t like——”
Young Challis grinned at her. He was an out-of-doors young man.
“Now, how on earth did you guess that?”
“Rather bright of me, wasn’t it!”
But the lunch was a successful meal. It fizzed and chattered, and Tarmac boomed, and was mysterious, and like the showman would let no one peep prematurely behind the curtain. He allowed that he would conduct them on a pilgrimage to the Temple of Domestic Bliss. No one suspected the issue.
“In these decadent days, peoples, one should hasten to gaze upon any picture of purity in the home. In cathedral close or in cottage the lily still blooms. We will salute it.”
Challis was getting bored.
“Rhetorical old trout. Wish he’d get a move on.”
“Something is due to your host, my lad.”
“Oh, yes, heaps of things.”
It was half-past two. The brandy liqueurs and the coffees had been finished, and cigars were grey at the middle. Tarmac looked at his watch.
“The procession will start in ten minutes.”
“On wheels all the way?”
“No. We have to walk up the steps of the sanctuary.”
Two big Daimlers hired for the occasion carried them northwards into Islington. Harold Tarmac sat beside the driver of the leading car and directed him, for Saffron Street was not on the social map. Moreover, the procession was to pause in Upper Street, and Tarmac would lead the party on foot to Oscar’s secret sanctuary. They left the two cars in Upper Street, and took to the wilds, and people stared. It looked like a wedding party. The attention grew more marked and less reticent as they approached Saffron Street. Tarmac, walking in front with Miss Parmoor, was superlatively the toff.
Shining hats! Rude children stared.
“Come on, Gertie—it’s a movie stunt.”
They had collected quite a creditable little following by the time they arrived at the end of Saffron Street. Young Challis was growing restive. This was not the sort of sensationalism that suited him.
“What—is—the game, after all?”
Tarmac halted his flock.
“Just—one moment. Talk to the nice little children while I go on and prepare the ground.”
He left them. He walked with stout alacrity up Saffron Street, and showing caution, peered through the shop window. He was not observed by the person within, a little man in his shirt sleeves who was cutting slices of ham. Tarmac retraced his steps and waved, and was joined by the procession. He smiled upon them.
“The Muse is at home. We must be ceremonious.”
He offered Miss Parmoor his arm. They arrived at the shop door, and with a gloved hand Tarmac pushed the door open. The bell jingled, They entered. The tableau was complete.
Behind the counter stood little Oscar Blount, a knife in one hand, and sundry slices of ham supported by the other on a piece of paper. He was in his shirt sleeves; his head was untidy. His face had a kind of horrid vacancy, mouth open, eyes at gaze.
Tarmac raised his hat to him.
“My dear Blount, we pilgrims——”
The crowded shop had a hot silence, but the silence seemed to melt into rapid movement, for Blount, dropping the knife and the ham, incontinently bolted. He disappeared through a back door leading into a kitchen parlour where a large woman was ironing shirts.
Tarmac emitted a silly giggle.
“Dear, dear, we have frightened poor Oscar. Sensitive fellow——”
But the faces behind him were neither mocking nor merry. Miss Parmoor’s lips had a thinness. Young Challis was frowning, and obviously not liking himself where he was.
“I say, isn’t this rather——”
Voices could be heard in the back room. Its door opened abruptly, and to them appeared the large virago. She was aflame. She confronted them with a human and convincing wrath, while a right hand seemed to grope below the counter.
She addressed herself to Mr. Tarmac.
“Met before, haven’t we?”
Tarmac raised his hat to her.
“I have had that pleasure. We are friends of Mr. Blount——”
She scorned him.
“Ah, is that so! You toffs—I suppose you think it’s a scream—crowding in here. Nice people. You think you’ve got the laugh of him. Well—here’s luck.”
She had found her missile, half a pound of butter that was feeling the heat. She had peeled back the wrapper, and she flung that yellow mass well and truly in Tarmac’s face. It adhered; it spread and oozed and oiled itself down over chin and tie and coat.
“Got it. Now—clear out—the whole crowd of you.”
But from the background rose sounds of applause emanating from young Challis who had begun to detach himself from the adventure.
“I say—that’s splendid. Mrs. Blount—do chuck another. I’m with you——”
And suddenly, she smiled at him.
“Well—there’s one gent——”
They all walked out of the shop, deserting Tarmac who was still busy with the butter. Nor did they wait for him. Miss Parmoor sailed off as though severing any bond of sympathy that had attached her to the novelist. Challis walked beside her, and the rest followed.
Said Challis: “Spiteful old tom-cat, Harold. But—I say—that was a prime gesture. She hasn’t left Tarmac much panache.”
Miss Parmoor’s nostrils were shadowy with scorn.
“These celebrities—too much venom. They can’t play nicely without clawing. I’ve every sympathy with the Blount woman.”
“Same here.”
None of them troubled to tarry for Mr. Tarmac, or to put his buttered pride in countenance. How he escaped from that particular Isle of Greece, history does not relate. The party returned to the two cars and left the novelist to the problems of publicity.
But the tale got abroad, and so much abroad that Harold Tarmac took an island in a lake somewhere, and became temporarily reclused. A wag wrote a little poem upon “St. Harold and the Buttercups
.” It was found pinned upon one of the notice boards of the Green Cat Club.
Possibly, it was Oscar who wrote it.
But Miss Parmoor’s cocktails ceased to inspire him.
AN ENCORE
It was early June when Herr Joseph Siegl of Munich collected Ferrers and his luggage from the Hotel Continental and took the road to the Wurm See, and since the season was young and the road very empty between the dark spruce woods, Herr Siegl talked.
He spoke English well, and he liked to practise it. Moreover, he was a kindly and highly intelligent man, with a round head which was hatless, and his Bavarian pate suggested to Ferrers that Mr. Siegl had worn a German steel helmet and worn it so unwillingly that now that peace had come he eschewed all head-gear.
He said: “You will find Parker’s Hotel very comfortable at Tutzing. Yes, and the cooking is excellent. Not much traffic. Yes, we walk a great deal in Germany these days.”
The little man drove very doucely, and sometimes he would slacken speed as though he understood Ferrers’ love of the country and shared it, for Mr. Ferrers was no ordinary tourist. It might be said that he had a European reputation in that it was known to Joseph Siegl.
“Things haven’t changed much here.”
The Bavarian smiled.
“No, we are too poor; we have to content ourselves with rucksacks and flowers. The older philosophy. So you have been here before?”
Ferrers’ face had a peculiar sadness.
“Oh, yes, some eighteen years ago. Same month, same weather, same hotel.”
Herr Siegl’s round face beamed.
“Ah, and you will not be disappointed. That is rare. The same terrace, the same lime trees, and grass and water. Perhaps—even the same room.”
The Englishman’s eyes were half closed.
“I am going to ask for the same room.”
He became silent, and there was a quality in his silence that roused in Joseph Siegl a gentle curiosity; also, it was a silence that could be felt like the aloofness of the pine woods, and Mr. Siegl drove his car and remained quiet. For, after all, it was very pleasant to drive in silence where other cars were not, and where the sky was innocent and unvexed by machines that flew. Peace prevailed, and all the floweriness of June.
So Herr Siegl deposited Ferrers and his luggage at the hotel above the Wurm See, and the Englishman and the German shook hands.
Two in a Train Page 36