Читать книгу The Books of Bart - Edgar Wallace - Страница 8

Table of Contents

THE butler announced “Mrs. Roche,” and Fay looked up with a smile of welcome at the florid woman who came fussily into the drawing-room.

“I can’t stop a minute, my dear. I have to go on to that terrible Q woman,” she said breathlessly; “only I was passing——”

Alma Roche was one of the things about Fay that Bart never could understand. Alma bored him to tears. In appearance she was a shapeless girl, always busily dressed. She gave you the impression that, on the way from her room to the street door, she had picked up odd articles of dress and had attached them to her person to save herself the bother of taking them back and putting them away in a drawer. Her face was frank and open and a little irregular; her mouth was an everlasting O of surprise. She had extraordinarily well-balanced views on the subject of the hour, a trait which impressed everybody but Bart, who discovered her guilty secret to her embarrassment, and incidentally made her an enemy for life.

For Alma’s sane view was a paraphrase of the leading article in that morning’s Daily Megaphone, which she not only read but assimilated. Fay had been to school with her and admired her, for Alma had many qualities which appealed to the simple hearted, and if her conversation was mainly confined to the startling items which the morning Press collected and detailed, she gave to cold print the charm of a personal rendering, and to her hearers the pleasant sensation that, be it murder or fire or royal marriage which formed the subject of her discourse, they were getting the news at first hand.

“I can’t really stay a minute,” she said, “but I thought I’d see you—haven’t seen you for ever so long—Mr. Foreman away too, thank heaven—did you read about the new forty thousand tonner to be built? It’s flying in the face of Providence after that Lusitania affair; it will be the biggest ship in the world; when is the great Bartholomew coming back?”

She said all this without pausing to take breath.

“In a fortnight or three weeks,” said Fay lazily.

She had come upon a dull hour in a dull day and welcomed the sight of her friend with more than usual pleasure.

(“Alma Roche is a standing note of interrogation against the judgment of Fay,” said Bart, in despair, when deploring the existence of the friendship. “If Fay retains her as a foil, as you suggest, then by heavens she is the most conceited woman in the world, for only the blessed damoiselle could show a complete set of contrasts to Alma!”)

“Did you hear about the strikers breaking Lord Corby’s windows?” asked Alma, settling herself down. “What they expect to gain by their violence, goodness knows! So ungentlemanly! And Corby is such a charming man and hasn’t a great deal of money and it costs an awful lot to get windows replaced—great plate-glass windows. I went into Eaton Place to look at them. They’ve done their cause so much harm, too.”

“Bartholomew doesn’t think so,” said Fay with intent.

“Bartholomew!”

Miss Roche’s large face puckered in contempt. Miss Roche’s retroussé nose rose heavenward.

“Goodness gracious, my dear lamb—Bartholomew!”

She went through a certain bodily exercise to indicate her opinion of Bartholomew and his views. She stiffened her back and hunched her shoulders and smiled, all in one second, and effectively squashed Bartholomew out of existence. Fay laughed. Alma was a safety valve, George Waterson was another; they both expressed themselves in their peculiar ways, on Bart and Bart’s opinions, and their points of view to some extent coincided with her own. She had no misgiving as to the propriety of her share in the criticism. Bart, in all probability, discussed her with Agatha with equal freedom, though the truth was that he never spoke of her save in terms of respect, even if he was not above employing the most violent terms in speaking of her friends. Alma saw Bart through no softening atmosphere of charity. She knew all that was unpleasant about him, and was honestly blind to his charm.

If Bart was the last man in the world she would never have married him, and in a moment of wrath she had confessed as much to him. Bart had fervently and significantly thanked her.

“Don’t let us talk of Bartholomew,” she said, shortly; “I can’t bear to think of you——” She sighed heavily, and changed the subject to the shamelessness of ball-room fashions.

But she was fated to return to Bart and his enormities, for half-way through the afternoon Mr. Josiah Stenton came.

“Oh, I forgot,” said Fay, rising from the settee on which she was lounging. “I asked him to call—do you feel equal to hearing all about Bart from one who regards him as being little less than the angels?”

She laughed aloud at Alma’s grimace.

“It will do you good,” she said, and nodded to the waiting maid. “Show him in here, Martha.”

Mr. Josiah Stenton was a very rich man and a very simple man. He was stout and short and bald, and his big red face was curiously child-like in its freedom from the creases and wrinkles which usually mark the man of sixty. He had started life as an errand boy in his father’s shop, and had, at the age of thirty, reached the position of first salesman at the Harrod Road branch of old Stenton’s innumerable provision stores, when his father died and left him the dazed possessor of one and a half million pounds, thirty-eight shops, three warehouses, a tea plantation in Ceylon, a villa in Hampstead, and a capacity for living on thirty shillings a week.

Mr. Stenton, recovering from his bewilderment, had retired from active work, floated his shops as a limited liability company, and had plunged into a round of dissipation which included a trip to the Cornish Riviera, the purchase of a tricycle and—this is the only permanent feature of his new life—a suite of apartments at the Great Southern Hotel. The world was a wonderful place to Mr. Stenton. He looked upon life with surprise and benignity, but no more wonderful man occupied space on earth than Bartholomew Foreman, whom he had met at a convivial gathering at the Lambs Club.

He came into the drawing-room cautiously and a little fearfully, a plain, stout, genial man, easily embarrassed, and showed his large white teeth in an ingratiating smile.

“I’m glad you came, Mr. Stenton,” said Fay, going forward to meet him. She was genuinely fond of this big-hearted, simple man. “This is my friend, Alma Roche, of whom you have heard me speak.”

Mr. Stenton advanced his hand and as hastily withdrew it, remembering the injunction of Manners for Men, that gentlemen do not shake hands with ladies on introduction.

“Sit down, won’t you, Mr. Stenton? Alma is so old a friend of mine, and is so much in my confidence, that we may have our usual little talk without reserve. Mr. Stenton, I find, has been interesting himself financially in some of Bart’s schemes,” explained Fay, turning to Alma.

“Oh!” said Alma, and smiled.

Such transparently honest souls as Josiah Stenton can detect antagonism instinctively. That “Oh!” was a sort of sniper which informed him that he was in an enemy’s country.

“What weather we’re havin’!” he said, inconsequently.

“Did you expect to see Bart?” smiled Fay.

“In a manner of speakin’—yes,” said Mr. Stenton cautiously. “In a manner of speakin’—no. A rare clever gentleman, Mr. Foreman,” he challenged. He coughed, and turned his starry eyes upon Alma.

“Very,” agreed Alma sarcastically, but the sarcasm was wasted.

“A genius! Ideas!” He made a motion with his hands to express rapidity. “Schemes! Thinks a thing out at nine o’clock—raises the money to work it by dinner time—that’s genius!”

Fay hid a smile. She wanted no information on Bart’s lightning finance.

“Look at that toothache thing!” Mr. Stenton, warming to his subject, waggled his head in an ecstasy of admiration. “Woke up in the night with the idea, didn’t he, miss?” Fay nodded—she had heard the story at first hand. “Jumps out of bed; jots it down, gets up in the mornin’—dashes down to the chemist and gets it made up. I put five hundred into the scheme—and gladly. It ain’t that I’m worryin’ about,” he went on hastily, “it’s the public,” he said with fierce energy; “they didn’t buy it—for why? Because, miss, the public don’t want an honest article, it wants advertisements and lies; it wants its leg pulled. The public—bah!”

“That is human nature,” said Fay. “We all like to have our—our legs pulled.”

“The same with the play,” he went on. “Brought tears to my eyes when he read it, it did. Especially that bit where the girl says”—he gave a heartrending imitation of a soprano ingénue—“ ‘If I cannot be your wife I will never be your’—um—er—you know the part I mean,” he added hastily. “A great play, miss, but how was it acted? Did Mr. Lydbrook Grove bring tears to my eyes, did Miss what-d’ye-call-her bring tears to my eyes? No, miss—to tell you the truth,” he lowered his voice confidentially, “she gave me the ’ump.”

“There were many things about that play that gave us all the hump,” said Fay dryly.

“But I believe in him, miss—don’t think I don’t, don’t think that a paltry matter of money is ever likely to come between me and him. He ain’t had my business training—why, he knows no more of business than a child. You ought to have seen his accounts, miss,” he chuckled, coughed, and became suddenly severe as he remembered Alma and her “Oh!” “You ought to have seen his accounts. ‘Credit side—Received £500. Debit side—Paid same.’ That’s his book-keeping. There, there, I suppose we ain’t all gifted with commercial ability. My father made his money by keepin’ the change. See what I mean? A sovereign always meant 240 pence to him.” Mr. Stenton nodded gravely. He suggested in that nod that he wasn’t so sure but that Bart was right and he was wrong. He stole an anxious glance at Alma. Yes, undoubtedly here was the evil influence working against Bartholomew Foreman, Esquire. Alma, turning her eyes in his direction, gasped, for Mr. Stenton was regarding her with a scowl of benevolent malignity, and the employment of this oxymoronic figure is well justified.

For it was not in Mr. Stenton’s nature to be malignant.

“Some men,” he said solemnly, “are different to others. There’s no sense in judgin’ racehorses by what cart-horses do. Cart-horses go clop-cloppin’ along day in an’ day out—at least they used to before motors come along—doin’ their bit of work and earnin’ their bit of corn. Racehorses ain’t much good if you put ’em in a business dray; they’ve got to work in their own way or not at all; there’s no sense in expectin’ racehorses to pull wagons—it ain’t the racehorses’ fault if you expect ’em to, is it?”

Miss Alma Roche sniffed. She felt that a reproach was being levelled at her. She was not a sensitive woman and was not very easily hurt, but she resented anything like criticism from a stranger who occasionally found difficulty in remembering how many “h’s” there were in a word like “horse.”

“Racehorses, Mr. Stenton,” said she, with an air of hauteur which was singularly absurd in one so untidy, “have sometimes failed to recognize their responsibility as racehorses. They sometimes—er—run both ways at once—what do you call them then?”

“Miracles,” said Mr. Stenton, not without scorn.

Thereafter Alma could do no more than maintain a dignified and disconcerting silence, whilst Fay endeavoured to soothe this loyal and puzzled adherent of her guardian.

“You mustn’t think we aren’t all tremendous admirers of Mr. Foreman,” she said gently, “only we see him in a different light from that in which you regard all his actions. Perhaps, knowing him better, we expect more and are a little critical when he falls short of our standards.”

No wonder Alma sniffed again and found it convenient to consult her large wrist watch. She kissed Fay a laughing good-bye, bowed distantly to Mr. Stenton (when, unless Manners for Men was at fault, she most certainly should have shaken hands), and left the two to continue a discussion which had grown distasteful to her.

Mr. Stenton put both his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat and glared balefully and defiantly after her, until the white and gold enamelled door closed behind her.

“Now we can have a quiet little chat,” said Fay, suppressing a smile at the evidence of Mr. Stenton’s unsuspected truculence. “I am afraid I have annoyed you, and I am afraid I am going to annoy you still further—exactly how much money does Bartholomew owe you?”

Josiah Stenton was shocked. Money was a subject which he never seriously discussed with women. He might, in his pride, claim to have invested this or that amount in an enterprise which Bartholomew had provided, but he did so in the spirit of a man who might boast that a knighthood cost him a thousand or so. And the word “owe” was a hateful word. It put him—by his reasoning—in the sordid position of moneylender.

Worse; it made Bartholomew a vulgar borrower of money. He wriggled uneasily in his chair, and looked imploringly at the ceiling, pressing his lips tightly together as one who was about to suffer pain, and was anxious to acquit himself in the ordeal with credit.

“It is no use, Mr. Stenton,” smiled Fay, “we’ve got to have this question settled. You see, it isn’t fair to me that a—a relative should owe you money.”

“He owes me nothing, miss,” said Mr. Stenton defiantly. “I’ve taken shares in his concerns an’ I’ve taken partnership bonds—that is enough for me.”

“But, my dear Mr. Stenton!” protested the girl, her eyes alight with amusement.

“I mean it, Miss Milton,” he affirmed stoutly, “an’ here’s a point: suppose all these schemes turn up trumps; suppose they make a lot of money an’ I’ve transferred my interests elsewhere? Who’s goin’ to compensate me for my loss of profit?”

Here was a staggering line of argument.

“But—but——”

“I know you think it’s all bosh,” he said earnestly. “Yes, miss, if you’ll forgive the expression, I know you don’t think as much of Mr. Foreman as I do—he’s a young man, if you’ll excuse the expression, to have charge of a young lady like you, and naturally young people, who don’t even respect their elders—God forgive ’em!—don’t respect people who ain’t much older.” He was considerably agitated. “You think he’s a harum-scarum chap—and so he is; but there’s brains in all them schemes, an’ one day you’ll know it! He frightens me. He’s just like watchin’ one of them high-powered machines, the wheels a-flyin’ round an’ round at a tremendous speed; you’ve got a terror of it ... want to get away from it as quick as you can before somethin’ breaks, that’s what I think about him. One of these days he’ll break loose,” he raised his forefinger warningly, and Fay, who had listened so far in quiet amusement, felt a strange, creepy thrill of apprehension as though this grotesque seer had conveyed something of his vision to her, “he’ll break loose, and there will be a hurry and a scurry to get out of his way, for he’ll hurt, m’m—hurt most horrible!”

He mopped his brow with a hand that shook. He had been carried away out of his placid and complacent self into a realm which was so foreign and unreal as to fill him with wonder at his own eccentricity. Also he became of a sudden conscious that Manners for Men made no allowance for a situation of this kind.

“If I’ve said anything that I didn’t ought to, Miss Milton,” he pleaded huskily, “I hope you will overlook it.”

She was looking at him strangely.

“Break loose, will he?” she said, speaking her thought aloud. “I wonder—anyway, he can’t hurt me.”

Mr. Stenton looked at her with a pained look in his faded blue eyes.

“It’s curious you should say that, miss,” he said almost humbly, “for you were the party I was thinking of when I said he’d hurt.”