Fool Errant (6 page)

“Gone this half-hour,” said Mrs. Parford with a morose sniff. She was slopping water on the hall floor and messing it about with a mop. She regarded Hugo with an air of virtuous distrust, sniffed again, and inquired, “Might you be wanting anything?”

“B-b-breakfast,” said Hugo meekly.

Mrs. Parford tipped the pail in his direction.

“
On
the table—
in
the dining-room. And I'd be glad if you'd make the tea do, seeing I'm in the middle of me floor and it isn't but half an hour made—and what's half an hour when all's said and done?”

Hugo caught the next train. He had the luck to get a carriage to himself, and presently it occurred to him to take out his pocket-book and have another look at Mr. Rice's extraordinary letter. He had pushed it down behind the last letter he had had from his uncle's solicitor.

The solicitor's letter was there, a thick, stiff wad—but Mr. Rice's thin blue sheet was not where he had put it. It was neither behind Mr. Gray's letter, nor in front of it, nor anywhere else in the pocket-book. It was gone. Something else had gone too—those pawn-tickets. Never mind about them.

Hugo sat looking down at the pocket-book on his knee. The telephone bell had rung. He had talked to Rice, and after Rice had rung off, he had taken a look at the letter; and then he had put it back. He was quite sure that he had put it back. He remembered pulling Gray's letter forward so as to make room for it. He had certainly put the letter back, and, as certainly, the letter was gone. The address—yes, fortunately he remembered the address—107 Finch Street, N.E. He thought he would go and have a look at 107 Finch Street after he had talked to Miss Loveday Leigh.

At ten minutes to one he took up his stand between platform 21 and the Tube entrance. An intense shyness had fallen upon him like a fog. He knew quite well that he ought to be feeling adventurous, excited, romantic. Instead, he was merely in a blue funk. Suppose he spoke to the wrong girl. Suppose she never came. Suppose there were half a dozen girls all wearing yellow chrysanthemums. Suppose there wasn't anyone wearing a yellow chrysanthemum at all. In any case, he was quite sure that he was going to have one of his worst stammering fits. A horrified glance at his watch showed him that it was a minute passed one. He would have given anything in the world to be somewhere else, and for four minutes he hoped earnestly that she would not come; after which he became desperately afraid that she had changed her mind, that she had been kept, that she was not coming after all.

He began to walk up and down, twenty yards in the direction of the flower-stall, and twenty yards back again. Perhaps she meant to buy her chrysanthemum at the stall. He walked nearer to it, and when a girl stopped and bought flowers he broke into a cold perspiration. She was a pretty girl with red hair. She bought a sheaf of bronze chrysanthemums and ran past him as if she were afraid of losing her train.

He heaved a sigh of relief. Quite definitely he did not want Loveday to have red hair. And then, right in front of him, coming towards him with a look of inquiry on her face, he saw a girl with a yellow chrysanthemum pinned conspicuously on the left of her coat. She was thinner than he had thought she would be, and older. But perhaps this was because she was made up so pale. He hadn't, somehow, expected her to be made up at all. Why couldn't girls leave their faces alone?

The girl with the yellow chrysanthemum had rather bright blue eyes and very long black lashes. Her face was white with powder, and her mouth was painted a very brilliant shade of cerise. She wore a black coat with some grey fur on it, and a bright scarlet hat. The yellow chrysanthemum struck a vivid, jarring note.

She came up to Hugo with the beginning of a smile. And then, just as she was about to speak, she began to cough; her hand went to her sleeve and out came a bright green handkerchief and a waft of scent. She pressed the handkerchief to her lips and went on coughing, but with less violence. After a moment she made an effort to speak.

“Mr. Hugo?”

Then she began coughing again.

“Yes, I'm Hugo Ross. Are you—?”

“Loveday Leigh.” The bright blue eyes looked up at him, and then were veiled in an affectation of embarrassment. “I've got such a shocking cold. You must excuse me.” Her voice was hoarse and weak. She coughed again.

Something odd had happened to Hugo. His shyness was gone; he no longer felt the slightest inclination to stammer; he was coldly alert. He said,

“I'm so sorry. Perhaps you'll feel better when you've had some lunch. Where would you like to go?”

Lunch for two would make rather a hole in his very small balance. He wondered what she would say.

She looked over her shoulder and back again. Then she said, “I can't stay.”

“But you must have lunch somewhere.”

Another glance, slightly more coquettish.

“Oh, I've got an engagement.”

“With someone more fortunate?”

She giggled, and then coughed again.

“Well, if you won't have lunch, what about a cup of coffee?”

“I can't—really.” She came dangerously near to saying “Reelly.”

Hugo gazed at the yellow chrysanthemum.

“Well, where shall we talk? You said you wanted to talk to me, didn't you?”

“Oh, Mr. Hugo! How that sounds!”

“Yes, doesn't it? But then I want to talk to you.”

She slid a hand into his arm.

“Do you really?”

“Of course I do.”

“Well, there's a seat over there.”

They went over to it and sat down. Station seats are not made for comfort; they are works more of necessity than of mercy. There was a dampness on the pavement and on the seat itself. There was a cold rushing draught. He continued to look at the chrysanthemum. He was conscious of some curiously mixed feelings. Anger was one of them.

The girl fidgeted with the corner of her green handkerchief, looked sideways at him, and said, still in that weak, hoarse voice,

“You were sweet to me the other night.”

“Was I? Was that why you wanted to see me?”

“Of
course
. Didn't you want to see me?”

“Very much. But you had something to tell me, hadn't you?”

She laughed rather consciously and looked down. Her features were pretty in spite of their pallor; the down-dropped lashes were dark and silky.

“Hadn't you something to tell me?” said Hugo.

“Oh—well—”

“You said you had.”

She looked up at him again archly.

“Oh well, a girl says—I mean—well, perhaps I wanted to
see
you.”

“That was very nice of you. But I think there was something more than that.”

“More?”

“You said I mustn't go to Meade House. Aren't you going to tell me what you meant when you said that?”

She gave a little conscious laugh, and then broke off to cough.

“Oh dear—this cold! What did you say?”

“I asked what you meant when you said I mustn't go to Meade House?”

The blue eyes looked at him meltingly.

“It's such a long way off,” she whispered.

“Was that the reason?”

“I oughtn't to have said so.”

“Why not?”

“You'll think—” She coughed. “Oh, you'll think—I must go—really I must.”

She jumped up as she spoke and began to walk away.

Hugo followed.

“Then there isn't really a reason why I oughtn't to stay at Meade House?”

“Not if you don't think so.”

“You were just pulling my leg in fact.” There was a little offence in his tone.

The girl burst out laughing.

“Perhaps I was. You swallowed it all beautifully—didn't you?”

“Oh—well—”

Her eyes teased him.

“Come! You believed it all. You thought there was some deadly secret. You never thought you were just being had.”

“It wasn't very k-kind of you—w-was it?”

She laughed again.

“Poor Mr. Hugo! Never mind—perhaps it wasn't all teasing—perhaps I did really want to see you again. Will you come up and meet me another day if I ask you? Will you?”

Hugo met the challenge of her eyes, and began to stammer very much. It was quite easy to stammer if you wanted to.

“I'd l-l-love to.”

The girl pressed his arm.

“We'll fix it up. I must go. Don't come any farther. No, you mustn't—
reelly
.” It
was
“reelly” this time.

She pressed his arm again and ran off down the incline that led to the Tube.

Hugo watched her out of sight. He did not follow her, because there was no need to follow her. He knew very well that he had not met Loveday Leigh at all. He walked out of the station and over the bridge in a mood of bleak, cold anger. What a fool they must think him! What an utter prize fool and mug! The girl was undoubtedly Cissie—Cissie, who knew Hacker.

He remembered Loveday's little interrupted cry at the telephone. Someone had come in—probably Cissie. How much had Cissie heard? Enough to make her turn up at the meeting place which Loveday had suggested, with a yellow chrysanthemum pinned on her coat. They
must
think him a mug!

It consoled him slightly to remember that the first glance had roused an inward protest, and that the scented green handkerchief had finished him. Miss Cissie probably thought she had been frightfully clever. He could imagine her being terribly pleased with the idea of getting over the difference in voices by pretending to have a very bad cold—she did it quite well too. But from the very first moment he had been furiously certain that she wasn't Loveday.

Concern for Loveday sprang up suddenly and stopped his thinking of himself. Where was Loveday, and why hadn't she come? And what sort of friend was Cissie for the child who had run hand in hand with him down the dark lane to Meade Halt?

He hadn't any answer to these questions.

CHAPTER IX

Hugo lunched economically at an A.B.C. on the other side of the bridge. As he sat at the small marble-topped table, he was wondering what he was going to do next. He went over all the things that had happened in the last fortnight. Any one of them, taken by itself, could be explained away with the greatest ease; but, taken together, they simply could not be explained at all. Some of them were trivial, some annoying; others bizarre and apparently purposeless. Taken in a lump, you couldn't explain them—you simply couldn't. And behind the feeling of being up against something inexplicable there was the constantly recurring prick that says. “Look out!”

He drank his coffee slowly and took time over the tongue, roll, and butter. What was he going to do about it? The name of Mr. Benbow Collingwood Horatio Smith presented itself, and not for the first time. It went on presenting itself, supported by reason and common sense.

Hugo frowned at reason and common sense. The idea of obtruding himself upon the notice of one of Susan's in-laws, and a bit of a bigwig at that, made him feel hot all over. Benbow Collingwood Horatio probably didn't even know of his existence. That is to say, he probably knew that Susan had a brother, and might be vaguely aware of having shaken hands with him at Susan's wedding. Perfectly horrible to trade on being Susan's brother and to thrust one's jumbled affairs upon an unwilling bigwig. The question was, were these jumbled affairs his, Hugo's, private affairs, or was he by some odd chance caught up into a tangle which might concern even bigger people than Benbow Collingwood Horatio Smith.

Hugo could make nothing of this line o thought. He began to think he was a fool not to have followed Cissie. He ought to have followed her. He ought to have found out where she was living; because then he might have met Loveday after all; and if he had met Loveday, she would have told him why he mustn't stay at Meade House.

He paid his bill and set out to look for 107 Finch Street and the elusive Mr. Rice. It was one of those grey days when the air is so wet that it is a constant surprise to discover that rain is not actually falling. It does not fall, because it remains in the air, on your face, your hands, your clothes. This wet air was as warm as if it had been July instead of January.

As Hugo approached Finch Street, his way lay amongst streets that grew steadily greyer, poorer, and, as it seemed, damper. The houses, the pavements, and the people were all damp and dirty. When he had asked his way for about the tenth time, the dampness seemed to be getting into his mind. Why was he looking for Mr. Rice? What did he want with him? What would he say if he found him? What, in fact, was the good of anything?

He came into Finch Street, and found it a place of dismal little shops. It smelt of fish and old clothes. About every tenth shop appeared to sell fish and chips. 105 was a slop shop; 106 a pawnbroker; 107 a tobacconist.

Hugo went in and asked for Mr. Rice. The answer did not surprise him—there was no Mr. Rice there. He tried Price, and Brice, and was looked at coldly by the handsome hook-nosed damsel behind the counter.

“Don't know him.”

“He gave this address.”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“Do you take letters for people?”

“And what if we do? We don't have to ask your leave, I suppose?”

“To be c-called for?”

Hugo could have killed himself for stammering. The girl mimicked him.

“Yes, Mr. C-c-clever. Too c-c-clever to live—aren't you?”

Hugo walked back through the dreary streets. What was he going to do next? He had not answered the question, when the lights of a Tube station caught his eye. He stood and frowned at the lights for a minute. Then he crossed over, entered a telephone booth, and rang up Mr. Benbow Collingwood Horatio Smith.

CHAPTER X

When the telephone bell rang, Mr. Smith was looking out of the window. He stood with his hands behind him and his head a little on one side. A very tall, thin man, with the forward stoop and slightly peering gaze of a scholar. He wore large horn-rimmed glasses pushed up on to his forehead. He appeared to be looking at the rain. On a perch, about a yard away, sat a grey and rose-coloured parrot very busy with its toilet. It stretched a wing, said “Awk!” in a loud peremptory manner, and then, with the wing still spread to its utmost reach, observed conversationally, “I parted from her on the pier the first day of July.”