Complete Works of a E W Mason

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Complete Works of a E W Mason Page 76

by A. E. W. Mason


  “Does she?” he exclaimed. “Does she really and truly?”

  “Oh! Oh!” Phyllis Harmer moaned, on the verge of tears; and the little car with the girl who made the rabbit’s mouths at the wheel flashed past them and disappeared round the corner into Berkeley Square.

  “I am coming,” said Strickland, and once more they ran on.

  “What I mean is,” he continued, “is Ariadne out on this hunt?”

  “Of course she is. I saw her at the rendezvous. She’s behind us somewhere.”

  “Oh, I ought to have thought of that!” cried Strickland.

  Here was the explanation of his night’s fruitless quest. No wonder he had not found her in any of the drawing-rooms. He laughed aloud at the fears which had so oppressed him.

  “She was driving her car, of course?

  “Yes, the small grey car with the aluminium bonnet.”

  “And I suppose that—” and he hesitated— “that Julian Ransome was with her.”

  “Julian Ransome? On this sort of expedition!” Phyllis Harmer exclaimed, looking at Strickland as if he was a natural. “Dear man, you’ve got bats in the belfry.”

  “I haven’t,” he replied, but he did not resent the imputation. The rest of Phyllis Harmer’s scornful observation more than made up for it. He chuckled as he ran. Julian Ransome did undoubtedly stand aloof in the more pretentious ways of life. Brilliant in a set speech, he was more than a trifle heavy-handed when he had resumed his seat. Strickland laughed and ran on, and laughed again. Meanwhile Phyllis Harmer stopped, unperceived, and called after him:

  “Colonel Strickland! Colonel Strickland! Oh, do grow up just for a minute! This is serious.”

  Strickland stopped and came penitently back.

  “I’ll grow up and climb up,” said he.

  Over the lowest of the stone steps before which Phyllis Harmer had stopped, an iron arch curved high from the iron railings which on each side protected the area. In the middle of this arch a dunce’s cap of iron was set so high that only a very tall man with a very long torch could have thrust the end of it into the cavity and extinguished its light.

  “The clue’s inside. You can see.”

  She touched the spring of her flashlight and directed it upwards. Strickland could see a slip of white paper clipped to the rim of the extinguisher.

  “Yes, I see.”

  He climbed up on to the railings and, leaning out with one hand grasping the arch, took out the clip and the paper which it held. He jumped down. Already Phyllis Harmer had a pencil and a tablet of paper slips in her hand.

  “Hold the torch and read out the clue, whilst I take it down,” she commanded.

  Strickland obediently read out by the light of the torch the following rigmarole:

  If A equals Z, then Z equals A. Then: ZZYLCYZGSILZW.

  “Good,” said Phyllis, though what in the world she had to be cheerful about, Strickland could not imagine. A more unlikely row of letters he had never seen in his life. “Will you please put the clue back in its place, whilst I run round the corner to the car and work this out?”

  “Yes, but you mustn’t bolt before I join you,” cried Strickland. “I want to know what those letters mean too. Promise!”

  But Phyllis Harmer was already running as swiftly as her legs would carry her towards Berkeley Square, and his eager remonstrance might have been spoken to the winds. He climbed up again, replaced the clue and its clip, dropped down again on to the pavement and darted round the corner into Berkeley Square. To his relief he saw that the little car with the brightly-illuminated windows was still standing against the kerb. Phyllis Harmer was leaning over the bonnet upon which she held her tablet of paper slips, and her pencil was busily at work.

  Beside her a large and benevolent policeman was throwing the light of his dark lantern upon her work; and the engine throbbed and hustled in the silence as though it, too, was sentient and shared with its mistress the excitement of the chase.

  “I am getting it,” she cried, with a flourish of her pencil as Strickland joined her. She had written down the whole alphabet from A to Z in a column, and then letter to letter parallel with it, the whole alphabet again but reversed, that is from Z to A. She was now interpreting the letters written in the clue.

  “A — A...B,” she said as she wrote. “The officer says that we are the first...L is O, of course, and C is X — that’s obvious. Automobile Association box...That’s what that means.”

  She was interchanging the letters in the cryptogram with the corresponding letters in the alphabet written straightforwardly from A to Z.

  “A.A. box, Bath Road,” she read out. “That’s the end.”

  At one of the sentry-boxes of the Automobile Association on the Bath Road the invaluable sum of one and eightpence in coppers was to be discovered. The big policeman shook his head.

  “There’ll be a lot of them there boxes, miss, along that there road,” he said regretfully.

  “Oh, there’ll be some indication,” Phyllis Harmer replied confidently. “Thank you so much, officer.” She pressed a piece of paper which crinkled and crackled in a more promising style than the papers of her writing-pad, and stepped into the car. “You won’t give the secret away, officer, will you? Nor you, Colonel Strickland. Not even to Ariadne. Play fair!”

  Strickland smiled.

  “I think you’ll find Ariadne at the A.A. box placidly waiting for you with the one and eightpence in her wrist-bag,” he said.

  Phyllis Harmer laughed derisively.

  “You would,” she cried, and Bobbie Carthew made two rabbit’s mouths as she stepped on the accelerator. “Off we go!”

  But there was one more item of information which Strickland needed.

  “I say,” he cried out and ran to the door of the car. “Whom was Ariadne with, then? She wasn’t alone?”

  “No, she had Corinne with her,” Phyllis Harmer replied; and her car started forward, circled round the Square and streaked out into Piccadilly. The big policeman announced himself sagely to the sleeping houses:

  “What I always says is, when you’re young, be young and generous!”

  But it was only to the sleeping houses that his wise saying was addressed. For Strickland was already racing back along Charles Street. Phyllis Harmer’s last words had taken all the heart and confidence out of him. Archie Clutter had been in secret conference with Corinne the night before — so secret that she had lied to him who had promised to help her. She was now out alone with Ariadne in Ariadne’s small car. Phyllis Harmer had not seen a sign of them since she had left the rendezvous at midnight. What had happened? What might not have happened? He had a picture of Ariadne, somewhere in this dark night crying to him for help. “Too late,” she had said over the telephone to his servant. The conventional epitome of failure rang in his ears. Forebodings crowded upon him.

  Strickland garaged his cars in Shepherd’s Market. He had only to cross the road and run down Queen Street. Immediately opposite to him gaped the archway into the Market. His one idea was to reach the sentry-box on the Bath Road. If Ariadne had really persisted in this chase, she would have beaten all the Phyllis Harmers in the five continents by hours. She might even now be sitting by the roadside in the glowing dawn, like some beautiful and rather dishevelled princess out of a fairy book.

  He knocked up the garage. His small two-seater car was run out into the street and the tank filled with petrol. He buttoned his overcoat across his chest and took his seat at the wheel. He drove back into Charles Street, where now the more belated Treasure Hunters were beginning to arrive. But there was no sign of a low grey car with a long aluminium bonnet, nor did Strickland look for one. If Ariadne was hunting, she was ahead. He drove up Park Lane, down Notting Hill, past Shepherd’s Bush, through Gunnersbury into Kew, whilst the last shadows of the night fled and the glory of the morning lay broad over the world. He was reminded of another summer morning very like to this one, and not so many weeks ago, when he had driven with Ariadne at his si
de. Then, too, the blackbirds and the thrushes were piping in the gardens, and all the earth was a quiet place of gold. The memory of that morning was now sweet with promise, now heavy with black omens. She would be waiting by the sentry-box. At any bend of the road he might see her; and he was swung up on silver pinions to the skies. But these good things didn’t repeat themselves exactly; there could not be a second summer morning the exact mould and copy of its forerunner; and down he plumped again to earth. He really needed Phyllis Harmer on the footpaths, to shout “Oh, Colonel Strickland, please grow up for five minutes!” He ran past Hounslow Barracks and a mile farther on, a small covered car was drawn up by the side of an A.A. box, and a shout brought him to a standstill.

  A coffee-stall, conveyed thither for the occasion, from crackling stove and bubbling tins wafted entrancing odours. In front of it Phyllis Harmer and Bobbie Carthew reclined upon cushions from their car spread out on a stretch of grass. It was Phyllis who had shouted to him. She rattled triumphantly twenty copper pence in a confectioner’s paper bag.

  “I have won the Treasure!” she cried.

  She noticed Strickland’s disappointed eyes, and in the flush of her success was disposed to sympathy.

  “They will all arrive gradually,” she said consolingly. “You had better have some breakfast with us and wait.”

  They made a meal of eggs and bacon and steaming coffee by the side of the road. As they ate, car after car drove up and discharged a laughing company of young men and women. In a little while, as they sat on wraps and cushions on the turf and breakfasted, they might, but for the sober raiment of the men, have been grouped there to make a picture to grace some luxurious edition of old Boccaccio.

  But the low grey car with the aluminium bonnet was not amongst those parked upon the road.

  “They must have had trouble with their tyres,” said Phyllis Harmer as she saw Strickland’s clouded face, and his eyes ranging the road. She rose from the cushions and with her friend got again into her car.

  “I shall give them a little time more,” he replied. “Good-bye.”

  The morning had grown from its tender infancy into its hot youth. Evening gowns could not confront it decently. One by one the Treasure Hunters climbed into their motors and took the London road. At last, besides the keeper of the coffee-stall and the Automobile Association patrol, only Strickland was left. It was clear that Ariadne and Corinne would not come to this spot now. Strickland drove back to the garage and thence walked to Stratton Street. As he let himself into his flat, his servant came forward.

  “Mr. Ransome, sir, is waiting to see you.”

  “Mr. Ransome?”

  Strickland looked at the clock on the mantelshelf of the hall. It was even now not yet eight o’clock. A visit from Julian Ransome at an hour so unseasonable promised no good news. Strickland felt all at once utterly weary and dispirited. He sat down upon a chair, and his face went for the moment grey. His servant was thoroughly startled.

  “Shall I tell Mr. Ransome, sir, that you can’t see him?”

  “No,” answered Strickland. “I’ll see him at once.” He got up with an effort and went forward to his sitting-room.

  XX. THE UNOPENED LETTER

  JULIAN RANSOME WAS seated at the table with Strickland’s copy of The Times open in front of him. He was very correctly dressed in a black cut-away coat, a high stiff white collar, a dark tie, a double-breasted waistcoat of a light brown colour, and a pair of dark grey trousers with fine stripes.

  “Good morning! You wanted to see me?” said Strickland. “I am at your service.”

  Julian Ransome did not return the greeting. He rose to his feet slowly. His face was pale and sullen, his eyes smouldering. He had all the look of a man constraining himself with difficulty to a civil demeanour.

  “Where’s Ariadne?” he asked.

  Strickland threw out his arms in a gesture of hopelessness.

  “So you don’t know, either?” he said, and he dropped into a chair.

  Ransome laughed harshly and scornfully. Strickland, absorbed in his anxiety, had hardly remarked at all the accusation which had winged Ransome’s first question. But the laugh was a different thing. It flouted him for a liar. He pulled himself up erect in his chair.

  “Where is she?” Ransome repeated.

  “I haven’t an idea,” Strickland returned coldly. “I have been searching for her all night.”

  Ransome laughed again, but this time with a note of mockery.

  “So I am to believe that, am I?” he asked. Strickland had now had enough of this kind of examination.

  “Good God, man!” he cried out in exasperation. “I don’t care a tuppenny damn what you believe.”

  “Don’t you, indeed?”

  Julian Ransome mastered himself with an effort.

  “Listen to me, please! Ariadne’s people are away. Ariadne herself returned home last night after dinner, and changed into a tailor-made coat and skirt. She ordered her car to be brought round from the garage. She had her maid pack a small portmanteau and her dressing-case—”

  Strickland leaned forward with an exclamation.

  “Did she?”

  The question provoked Julian Ransome almost beyond endurance. He had not a doubt but that Strickland was play-acting. His face grew dark with blood, but he just managed to keep his passion on the rein.

  “Listen to me without interruption, please! Ariadne then had her portmanteau and dressing-case carried down and placed in the little rumble of the car. She left no address; she simply said that she would be away for a few days, that she would write, and that there was nothing to fear. Then she drove away alone.”

  Ariadne had meant to go away, then. That accounted for her telephone message yesterday. She had made a plan suddenly. But — had she made it? Or had Corinne and Archie Clutter between them worked it out behind the blinds of the lighted room in the South Audley Street house? At the bottom of his mind lay the fear, which he hardly dared acknowledge, that Ariadne held to ransom might — nay, would — earn a fine price for a couple of scoundrels. Crazy? Yes, but it seemed that these crazy things happened in both the hemispheres. He was debating this problem with so complete a concentration that for a few moments he was unaware that Julian Ransome was thundering down upon his head his one question:

  “Where is Ariadne?”

  For the first time Strickland comprehended the motive for Ransome’s unseasonable visit before eight o’clock in the morning.

  “So you hold me to account for her disappearance,” he said coldly. “You flatter me by defaming her.”

  Julian Ransome broke in upon him furiously.

  “I don’t want to hear any epigrams.”

  “And I don’t care what you want to hear,” replied Strickland. “You annoy me.”

  He got up as he spoke and took off his overcoat. Ransome stepped back with a startled exclamation.

  “Good God!” he cried.

  For Strickland, now that he had removed his overcoat, was seen to be clothed in an evening dress suit, which had seen a good deal of wear and tear during the course of the night. He was dusty, crumpled, dishevelled and unshorn. His white butterfly tie was twisted up beneath one ear, the stiff front of his shirt was broken, there was a black patch of oil on one of his cuffs. The sight of him was convincing even to so angry a person as Julian Ransome. Strickland could not after all have bolted with Ariadne. She had returned to her home after dinner, changed, and gone decently off with a portmanteau and a dressing-case. Strickland would have done the same. No woman could love him as he was now, in body and clothes fit only for the wash-tub. Besides, here he was back in his own flat — and alone.

  “I suppose after all that you have been searching for her,” said Ransome in a more moderate voice. He stood for a few moments bewildered. “It never occurred to me but that you and she “ — and thereupon he began to utter surprising fragments of sentences. He began reluctantly, but a sense of grievance spurred him on. Once started, he could not stop. A pa
ssionate conviction that he had been ill-used made him oblivious even to the humiliation of confessing it.

  “Ever since you came back to England there has been nothing but difficulty upon difficulty for me...Oh, I don’t say that you deliberately interfered. No!...I should have had a word or two to say to you if you had...It might have been easier for me. No, you didn’t deliberately get in my way. But you were there, weren’t you?...Yes, you were there!”

  “I suppose that I had a right to be,” Strickland interposed meekly. “I pay my taxes like another.”

  Julian Ransome rebuked him with dignity.

  “I beg you not to be humorous, Colonel Strickland. What I mean, of course, is that you were there always in the background — a sort of stand-by for Ariadne, if you understand me...You didn’t criticise her.”

  “She wouldn’t have listened,” said Strickland.

  “She didn’t listen,” said Ransome with a touch of resentment. “I know that only too well. And your presence here in London helped her not to listen.”

  “My eye and Betty Martin,” said Strickland rudely.

  “Oh, you may jest, but it was so...There was I pretending to play Ariadne’s tune, and bit by bit manoeuvring and working to change it imperceptibly into mine. I had got to, you see...I’ve a big career in front of me...There’s nothing to be gained by shutting one’s eyes to it. A false modesty is the most ruinous, enervating quality. I had got to change Ariadne’s tune for the sake of my career. But you weren’t trying to change it at all...and you were there, as I say. You didn’t want to mould her at all, did you?”

  “No; I thanked God for her as she was,” Strickland agreed.

  “Well, I did,” Julian Ransome asserted violently. “I wanted “ — and a native arrogance, sharpened by disappointment at his obvious failure, carried his tongue to admissions which he would have shrunk from in a moment of greater reserve. “I wanted — it’s a brutal phrase, but it’s what I mean — to break her in. You didn’t! No, you never wanted to — well — to break her in.”

 

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