Aliens Part 12

"By no means," I cried. "Mr. Carville would never suggest such a thing.

But think for a moment! Is it not a fair guess that a man like our neighbour, who has had such a varied career, who can divine _my_ interest in him as an author, and Mac's as an artist, will be able to fathom the reason why you watch him with a tense and silent stare?"

"Did I stare?" she said. "I'm sorry."

"We all stared," I returned. "Anyone would."

The telephone rang and Mac went to answer it. We could hear his voice plainly on the staircase.

"h.e.l.lo! Who is it? Oh, good evening, Miss Fraenkel--yes, do. We're not going out to-night. How long will you be? Right. Good-bye."

"She'll be up in half an hour," he said, going back to his easel.

I was by no means certain that Miss Fraenkel would be able to help us to forecast accurately the future instalments of the Carville history. Of course if we could induce her to a.s.sume that the painter-cousin's strange companion was Mr. Carville's brother, she might begin to treat the subject with the necessary seriousness. But I had no hope of this. I was too conscious of the extreme subtlety of Mr. Carville's art (we may grant him that now in advance) to think that we could transmit its fascination to Miss Fraenkel. She would probably be astonished at the continuance of our curiosity.

She was. She began, the moment she arrived, to tell us the vicissitudes of a cause to which she had been rapidly and earnestly converted, the cause of female suffrage. It was evident that her reason for calling was to "let off steam," as Mac irreverently phrased it afterwards. A number of millionaires' daughters had drawn upon themselves the eyes of the world by tramping on foot to Washington to plead for the vote. Miss Fraenkel's eyes dilated as she told us. We had seen the account of what the _New York Daily News_ called "The Hike of the Golden Girls," but our eyes had not dilated. We had even acrimoniously hinted that the millionaires' daughters were seeking notoriety rather than a relief for civil disabilities by this undignified tramp across New Jersey and Maryland. But to Miss Fraenkel we said nothing of this. Even if we had been averse to Miss Fraenkel having a vote, we would have said nothing.

Only Bill suggested with a smile that the leading "hiker" need not have offered to kiss the President when he good-humouredly granted them an interview. Miss Fraenkel could not see it. There was no divinity that she knew of to hedge a President from a kiss.

"What about the President's wife?" asked Bill.

"Why, _she's_ one of us!" cried Miss Fraenkel. "She approves!"

"Of kissing her husband?" asked Bill.

But Miss Fraenkel's mind was fashioned in water-tight compartments. She could not switch her enthusiasm from the vote long enough to appreciate this lapse from good taste. Her mind did not work that way. We would have to begin at the beginning and lead up to kissing as a moral or immoral act, before she could give it any serious attention. And when she asked Bill to join the local league I interposed, lest the harmony of the evening should be violated.

"We want your vote on another question," I said, and recounted the events of the afternoon. She listened with apparent attention, playing with a string of beads that hung round her neck. Long before I finished I saw she was ready to speak.

"I'll go right in and ask her if she'll join!" she said.

"They've gone to Newark," said Mac.

"To-morrow, then."

"Well," said Bill. "Come up here to-morrow. He's coming in to tell us some more. You'll meet him first and he can introduce you to his wife."

"That'll do first rate! I'm just crazy to get all the members I can."

The conversation rambled on irrelevantly after that, and we realized that for Miss Fraenkel at least, the story of Mr. Carville's life was not absorbingly attractive. We enjoyed her visit, as we always did, but her influence, in her present preoccupation, was feverish and to a certain slight degree disturbing.

The problem that presented itself when I retired that night was immaterial, perhaps, but new. I wondered quietly in what manner Mr.

Carville would regard Miss Fraenkel. Doubtless I was over-exacting, but I desired to discover, in our neighbour's att.i.tude towards the lady, some clue to his att.i.tude towards us. I felt vaguely that his candour was not at all a mere casual fit of communicativeness of which we "just happened" to be the recipients. If this were the case, it would infallibly appear in his manner towards our voteless friend. It would be ... but no. My vanity did not carry me that far. The vanity of a man of forty is generally a steed broken to harness; it will not prance far into the unknown. I decided to wait until Mr. Carville decided the matter for himself.

The spectacle, while I was shaving next morning, of Mr. Carville proceeding sedately down Van Diemen's Avenue with his children, gave a fresh vagueness to his image in my mind. It was as though a hand had been pa.s.sed over the picture, smudging the outlines and rendering the whole thing of dubious value. A model father! In my bewilderment I nearly cut myself. And yet, supposing, as I had been supposing, that Mr.

Carville had set out with the definite object of contrasting himself vividly with his prodigal brother, would he not eventually take up the role of dutiful parentage? The extraordinary thing was that the model father should be also the artist.

I determined to abandon the Carville problem for an hour or two after breakfast in favour of Maupa.s.sant. It is my custom to read once a year at least, the chief works of that incomparable writer. The forenoon of our Sunday has this peculiarity: no moral obligation to work is imposed by our unwritten laws. If, on Sunday morning, I am discovered by Bill leisurely turning over a pile of old magazines, or reading a story, I am not greeted with "Do you call that work?" On the contrary, she will probably sit down beside me and indulge in what may be charitably described as gossip. Mac, too, will leave his palette and boards in peace, will lie luxuriantly in the big rocker, or, spade on shoulder, disappear among the shrubs at the lower end of the estate. We neglect collars and appear brazenly at breakfast in shirt-sleeves on Sunday mornings. It is for us a day of rest from the insistent badgering of ideas. Our minds go into neglige; we forget editors and advertising-managers for a while. Imagine then our dismay when I reported my view of Mr. Carville in his brushed blue serge and Derby hat, his glazed linen collar and dark green tie, pa.s.sing sedately down the Avenue, a neat child in each hand. There seemed to be no rift in this man's armour of respectability. He seemed determined to maintain a great and terrible contrast between his inner and outer life. O supreme artist! I stretched myself on my sofa and opened Maupa.s.sant:

"_Monsieur_," I read. "_Doctor James Ferdinand does not exist, but the man whose eyes you saw does, and you will certainly recognize his eyes.

This man has committed two crimes, for which he does not feel any remorse, but, as a psychologist, he is afraid of some day yielding to the irresistible temptation of confessing his crimes._"

I laid down the book, drawn by the aptness of the text to my problem.

Had Maupa.s.sant given me the key of the whole enigma? Was this astonishing genius, who had so wrought upon our imaginations, was he a criminal irresistibly driven to tell us the story of his evil life? Were the police of Europe and America even now scouring the surface of the globe for him? That brother, that dare-devil gentleman of the painter-cousin's letter, was a fitting accomplice for him, the quiet, un.o.btrusive, impeccable "seaman." He had a number, what was it?

Three-nine-(fool not to write it down!) three-nine-something. Was that his number during his last imprisonment? Had he spoken in terrific hyperbole when he admitted that no doubt it was "a picturesque life"?

Good G.o.d! How blind we had been! And Miss Fraenkel's shot in the dark, was it after all the truth? Had he really been "held for something"?

I let my pipe go out, so possessed was I, temporarily, with the diabolical possibility. A double knock at the door sent the blood to my heart. I rose, and pa.s.sing into the front room opened the door. Mr.

Carville stood in the porch in an att.i.tude of profound meditation. The sight of him, phlegmatic and isolated from all emotion, restored the balance of my mind somewhat. We shook hands and he still stood there, trying to remember something.

"Another fine day," I said. "I saw you out early this morning."

He nodded absently, and then his face lightened.

Somewhat to my surprise, if any further surprise was possible, he lifted his steady grey-blue eyes to mine, raised his right hand as high as his shoulder and began to recite.

"When that the Knight had thus his tale i-told, In al the route was ther young ne old That he ne seyde it was a n.o.ble story, And worthy to be drawen to memory."

And extending a finger he pointed to the little bra.s.s Canterbury Pilgrim that served us for a knocker. "They told stories too, eh?" he said, smiling.

"You read Chaucer?" I murmured, staggering to a chair in the porch.

"Why, sure!" he said, "don't you?" And he took out his pipe.

I did not pursue the subject, even when I had recovered my poise. The clever application of the Chaucerian verse to his own case was crushing.

I said nothing of it to Mac when he appeared with a pair of shears intended for the borders.

"Hullo, Mr. Carville," he said. "Come to finish the story? Wait till I tell the wife."

"Now where's the hurry?" said our neighbour, deprecatingly, and sitting down he began to cut up some tobacco. I looked across at New York, still surrounded in diaphanous mist, and endeavoured to adjust my mind to the immediate business. Since dinner the night before I had been indulging in somewhat frothy speculation. It was only fair that Mr. Carville should have the floor and speak for himself. Bill came out and nodded brightly. None of us suggested waiting for Miss Fraenkel. I think we were anxious to hear a little more of Mr. Carville before Miss Fraenkel arrived; a sort of presentiment, if you like.

"Do tell us about your brother, Mr. Carville," said Bill. "What happened to him?"

Mr. Carville struck a match and puffed away in the conscientious manner demanded by a corn-cob.

"Why, of course," he said, carefully expelling a jet of smoke from the corner of his closed lips, "he came back, my brother did."

Bill looked at him in tragic annoyance.

CHAPTER VIII

HE CONTINUES HIS TALE

"It was like this," he went on. "Apart from a general dislike of doing things that boys consider 'bad form' my brother had no scruples at all.