“Maltby told me that he would be here,” he complained in a weak, querulous voice, as he was shown by Thompson into the library.
“A cup of tea, sir,” Ricardo suggested, and the old man had hardly raised the cup to his lips before Maltby hurried in.
“I have some news,” he said as Ricardo handed a cup to him.
“Good?” Hanaud asked.
“It fits in.”
He leaned forwards to Septimus.
“Frank Barnish was the bo’sun of your first oil-driven ship.”
“The Acropolis. Was he?” exclaimed Septimus with a sudden smile. But the smile was for that adventure in new ships rather than for her bo’sun.
“Yes, sir. He gave trouble, drank too much, resented orders, and, once the voyage was over, was not signed on again. It was a grievance which he didn’t forget. He had the reputation of being a revengeful fellow though a capable seaman, never held up a job for long. It must have been a blessing for him when he was put in to Arkwright’s Farm.”
“That wouldn’t have been a long job, either,” said Septimus. “More than that, it wasn’t meant to be a long job.”
And he sat for a moment or two shaking. He wan back in that shuttered room at Arkwright’s.
“Come, sir, that’s all over,” Maltby declared. “We are looking after you now.”
“Yes, yes,” Septimus cried eagerly, and he caught Maltby by the arm. “I have great confidence in you, Maltby. You were to give me some instructions, I think.”
He asked for them rather pitifully.
“I think you should go home, sir. There is a constable in the front of your car. There will be another outside your house. I shall be obliged if you will refuse to discuss your absence at all, but just take everything easily. If you will leave it all to us, we will keep in touch with you.”
Words—and words which meant nothing at all—but they satisfied Septimus. He rose from his chair with some difficulty and went, downstairs on Maltby’s arm. Ricardo, at the window, watched the car drive away in the darkness. In old age, he thought, how swift the change can be from great authority to exhaustion and how permanent! It was the horror which Septimus had suffered that filled his mind now, no longer the audacity of the crime nor its authors. Maltby spoke at his shoulder in attune with his thoughts:
“It’s a new family that the old gentleman will find in Portman Square. One of the daughters ran out, did she? Well they’ve all run out now. New clothes, a theatre or two, friends to entertain. A little cruel it sounds, perhaps. But after those years of submission and boredom and orders and what not, to be expected, what? Pretty natural. I don’t think he’ll round them up again. Patriarchs don’t go down in the twentieth century. Or do they?”
“And Miss Agatha?” Hanaud asked suddenly from the room behind them. But Maltby merely shrugged his shoulders in surprise. He had no answer to that question; and now that Septimus had been packed off home, he was anxious and hurried. Hanaud pointed to the chairs.
“In a dry we finish everything.”
Maltby was puzzled but took a seat.
“He means in a sec,” Ricardo explained, and took another. Maltby nodded and turned to Hanaud.
So you have found something?”
“That chart.”
Maltby sat back in his chair.
“The chart with the black pins which Horbury brought from his office to White Barn on Thursday, August the twenty-sixth.”
“And which Devisher took away?” said Maltby.
“But he didn’t take it away,” cried Hanaud. “We found it this afternoon slipped into a great roll of charts in the office of the young Crottles.”
“You are sure?” Maltby exclaimed. He was more astounded, more troubled than Ricardo expected.
“So you see. The affair of Horbury and the affair of Crottle—they are one.”
It was Hanaud’s old point once more enforced upon unwilling ears.
“There is the vanishing of Devisher, too,” Hanaud continued, ticking off the points on his fingers.
“Still . . . ” Maltby doubted
“The man without money and without friends. There is his reappearance, besides.”
“I know, but..”
“There is the telephone which was lifted and replaced. There is the blotting-book. There is the door which was locked.”
Hanaud was rushing back through the events of that night of death, Thursday, August the twenty-sixth.
Still Maltby was not convinced, though what course, Hanaud was urging upon him, Ricardo could not tell.
“And there was another night. Oh, if you had been there you would not doubt—when, in a deep silence, a sigh was breathed.”
Maltby stared between his knees at the carpet. “There is not enough,” he said, shaking his head.
“Not when we add to-day the finding of the chart?” Maltby rose ponderously to his feet, whilst Hanaud watched his every movement with hopeful, eager eyes. “We must be quick,” he said. Maltby nodded his great head.
“This is our one night. After the old man’s appearance at his office, to-night there will be action,” Hanaud argued.
Maltby flung back his head and swore. “If only we had the Barnishes!” he cried.
“The Barnishes!” cried Hanaud in almost a scream of disdain. “They are nothing.”
Maltby frowned gloomily at the Frenchman. A man who had to decide between peace and war might look like that. So might a youth who had to choose between a blonde and a brunette. He heaved a great sigh. He made a great resolve—to hesitate again.
“I must go to the Yard,” he said, and as disappointment deepened on Hanaud’s face: “I shall make all the arrangements, however—you know.” He nodded portentously. “And I shall come back. Let me see!”
Ricardo interrupted.
“But, my dear Hanaud, you are dining with Septimus. He said so in his office.”
Hanaud swept the interruption away.
“Comedy, my dear friend. The false invitation which leaves me free. It was arranged.”
“I shall come back with full authority,” said Maltby, his breast swelling, “but . . . ” and he relapsed again into doubt. “A little before eight, then. That will give us time—if we move,” he said, looking at his watch.
“Then perhaps you will dine here? “said Mr. Ricardo, and Hanaud took him up at once.
“Yes, yes, we will dine! But not the big dinner, no. Some hors d’ perhaps, the joint, the sweet, the coffee. Admirable.”
“Really, really.” Mr. Ricardo addressed dumbly the vacant air. “Do I keep the inn, The Policemen’s Rest?”
But Maltby was clattering down the stairs, and Hanaud was urging him to hurry. Hanaud came back to the library and dropped into a chair, limp and dejected.
“It is but and but and but with that man!” he exclaimed moodily. “He will never—no, never—come up and be scratched.”
Whether Mr. Ricardo was still contemplating himself as the appointed innkeeper to the police, who shall say? He cried indignantly, for he had the strongest possible views upon this necessity of the times: “I bet you he has been vaccinated over and over again.”
Hanaud stared at him.
“The vaccination? You talk of this at this hour!” He danced in a rage about the room and suddenly slipped, tame as a cat, to Ricardo’s side. “It is not yet six of the clock, no. And at the moment when I most need his friendship, I gibe. Yes, I gibe fatally!” Smooth, soft words, and the voice so remorseful, so tender.
“What do you want now?” Ricardo asked laughing—though he did not wish to laugh.
“The Rolls Royce.”
“What!”
“Not the Rolls Royce No. 1. No, no, my friend!, I ask for no such enormity. But the Rolls Royce No. 2. the wee, wee one.”
He smiled like a child asking for his father’s second gold watch and confident that he would get it.
“I have no wee, wee car,” Mr. Ricardo said firmly. But it was clear to him that Hanaud was passionately anxious to go somewhere. After all, he wanted help.
“I doubt if I shall have a chauffeur waiting,” he objected. “I have given no orders.”
“A chauffeur!” cried Hanaud, and he thumped his chest. “I, Hanaud, I am the best chauffeur in Europe.”
There was no answer to this statement, except the most direct of negatives; and Ricardo had no authority to make it.
“Come!” he said.
He led Hanaud to the back of the house and to the garage in the Mews. He threw open the doors whilst Hanaud climbed into the car.
“You go to Scotland Yard?” he asked.
“Perhaps,” said Hanaud, fiddling with the instruments.
“And you will drive on the wrong side of the road?”
“I will.”
Ricardo stood at the side and saw Rolls Royce No. 2 dash out into the street, scatter a handful of people in the roadway and disappear.
“It may be that he is the best driver in Europe, but there are no signs of it,” he said to himself. However, what did it matter, even if Rolls Royce No. 2 became a scrap heap? Agitations were here. The world was bubbling. Great criminals sitting at their ease would feel the handcuffs on their wrists. If only Maltby had the courage. “But, but . . . ” Mr. Ricardo could take it to his soul with pride that he had never said “But but . . . ” when Rolls Royce No. 2 had been commandeered. He had let it go to a man who must drive on the wrong side of the road, if he was to survive.
Ricardo shut the garage door and returned to the front of his house. He ordered the short dinner which Hanaud demanded. It was to be on the table at eight, with the Burgundy—say the Musigny, a lighter wine and more fit to precede a nocturnal expedition. Coffee to follow and perhaps a glass of Armagnac. He did not want fingers to tremble on the trigger of a pistol. Mr. Ricardo waited. The clocks chimed—the hour of seven, the half hour which followed; and Hanaud tumbled into the room, his dress dishevelled, his face dirty, his hands scratched and bleeding, yet with so proud a look of conquest in his face that Mr. Ricardo thought of Napoleon at Marengo, and, being English, of Wellington on the mountain of Bussaco. His eyes sparkled, his arms were spread out in an ecstasy. But Ricardo noticed, above all, the lines of dirt upon his face, the torn collar, blood upon the knuckles, the dust upon the clothes.
“You have had a smash!” he cried.
“No, I am not hurt,” Hanaud answered, “but I thank you for the thought.” It was not for him to recognise that Ricardo’s thought was for Rolls Royce No. 2. “It was nothing. Just once I was on the right side of the road and I meet a taxicab. But I was quick—oh, I surprise myself. The driver he threw a name at me—the name—not nice. I forgive him with a wave of the hand, and I drove on. I keep on the wrong side of the road carefully, and Rolls Royce No. 2, she has the right to be proud. Look, it is seven-thirty. We have a quarter of an hour before Maltby arrives.”
“Yes,” said Ricardo eagerly. He was to hear, no doubt, the story of Rolls Royce No. 2’s adventures, “Over a glass of Porto, you shall . . . ” But he got no further.
“But first the wash! “Hanaud exclaimed “I disgust myself. I change the clothes. But not the smoking. Nor for you, my friend. It will not be But—But Maltby, but Maltby, winner of the Derby Round. You shall, see! To-night we prowl!”
Hanaud was half-way up the stairs to his bedroom before he had finished talking. Ricardo delayed following his example for just the time it took to order Royce No. 1 to be ready at the door by half-past eight.
Washed and dressed in inconspicuous clothes, the two men descended into the study with five minutes to spare before the time of Maltby’s arrival.
“A Porto,” Ricardo cried gaily as he filled Hanaud’s glass. “For me the Manzanilla!”
There was just time, he reflected, for him to hear the story of his friend’s adventures and the reason for all his excitement.
“There’s something I want to tell you very much,” said Hanaud, as he lit a cigarette and sipped his Porto.
“Yes, you would wish it!” cried Ricardo. “Such old compères as we are,” and with a most unusual gesture he clinked his glass against Hanaud’s. But, alas! he was to be disappointed.
“There was much misunderstanding. I was hurt. ‘He makes a jest of me,’ I said, whereas Maltby explained that his mistake was to imagine that I understood English which, as you know, I do.”
Ricardo sank back. He was to be told, after all, nothing more than the tale of some ridiculous squabble which he and Maltby had in olden days. He could have groaned.
“But the first day, when I came on Gravot’s account and dined with Maltby in Soho, all was put right.”
“So you told me,” Ricardo answered acidly. And he had lent the man his Rolls Royce, too!
“But I did not tell you the story of the misunderstanding.” Hanaud leaned forward smiling, so urgently did he feel that he must tell it.
“Fire away,” said Ricardo with resignation. “I’m here to be shot.”
“The fact is,” he said to himself, “I’m not audience enough for the real thing. He wants Maltby and myself to be paralysed together.”
Hanaud fired away accordingly.
“There was a dead Frenchman in Golden Square with a bottle beside him..”
That was as far as he got in this never-to-be-told story, when the door was opened and Maltby announced.