Bones in London Part 41

"Beautiful boy?" laughed Bones bitterly. "A fop, dear old Ham! A tailor's dummy! A jolly old clothes-horse--that's what he was. I simply loathe these people who leap around the City for a funeral.

It's not right, dear old thing. It's not manly, dear old sport. What the devil did her father have a sister for? I never knew anything about it."

"They ought to have told you," said Hamilton sympathetically. "Now come and have some food."

But Bones refused. He was adamant. He would sit there and starve. He did not say as much, but he hinted that, when Hamilton returned, his famished and lifeless form would be found lying limply across the desk.

Hamilton went out to lunch alone, hurried through his meal, and came back to find Bones alive but unhappy.

He sat making faces at the table, muttering incoherent words, gesticulating at times in the most terrifying manner, and finally threw himself back into his deep chair, his hands thrust into his trousers pockets, the picture of dejection and misery.

It was three o'clock when Miss Marguerite Whitland returned breathless, and, to Bones's jealous eye, unnecessarily agitated.

"Come, come, dear old miss," he said testily. "Bring your book. I wish to dictate an important letter. Enjoyed your lunch?"

The last question was asked in so threatening a tone that the girl almost jumped.

"Yes--no," she said. "Not very much really."

"Ha, ha!" said Bones, insultingly sceptical, and she went red, flounced into her room, and returned, after five minutes, a haughty and distant young woman.

"I don't think I want to dictate, dear old--dear young typewriter," he said unhappily. "Leave me, please."

"Really, my dear Bones," protested Hamilton, when the girl had gone back, scarlet-faced to her office, "you're making a perfect a.s.s of yourself. If a girl cannot go to lunch with her cousin----"

Bones jumped up from his chair, shrugged his shoulders rapidly, and forced a hideous grin.

"What does it matter to me, dear old Ham?" he asked. "Don't think I'm worried about a little thing like a typewriter going out to lunch.

Pooh! Absurd! Tommy rot! No, my partner, I don't mind--in fact, I don't care a----"

"Jot," said Hamilton, with the gesture of an outraged bishop.

"Of course not," said Bones wildly. "What does it matter to me?

Delighted that young typewriter should have a cousin, and all that sort of thing!"

"Then what the d.i.c.kens is the matter with you?" asked Hamilton.

"Nothing," said Bones, and laughed more wildly than ever.

Relationships between Mr. Augustus Tibbetts, Managing Director of Schemes Limited, and Miss Marguerite Whitland, his heaven-sent secretary, were strained to the point of breaking that afternoon. She went away that night without saying good-bye, and Bones, in a condition of abject despair, walked home to Devonshire Street, and was within a dozen yards of his flat, when he remembered that he had left his motor-car in the City, and had to take a cab back to fetch it.

"Bones," said Hamilton the next morning, "do you realise the horrible gloom which has come over this office?"

"Gloom, dear old Ham?" said the dark-eyed Bones. He had spent the night writing letters to Marguerite, and had exhausted all the stationery in sight in the process. "Gloom, old thing! Good gracious, no! n.o.body is gloomy here!"

"I can tell you somebody who is," said Hamilton grimly. "That unfortunate girl you've been barking at all the morning----"

"Barking at her?" gasped Bones. "Gracious Heavens, I haven't betrayed my worried condition of mind, dear old thing? I thought I hid it rather well."

"What on earth are you worried about?" asked Hamilton, and Bones shrugged.

"Oh, nothing," he said. "Nothing at all. A little fever, dear old thing, contracted in the service of King--G.o.d bless him!--and country."

Hamilton's words had this effect, that he brightened visibly, and for the rest of the morning was almost normal. His spirits took a quick downward turn at five minutes to one, when the debonair Mr. Hyane appeared most unexpectedly.

"I'm afraid you'll think I'm a most awful nuisance, Mr. Tibbetts," he said, "but there are so many things which I must really talk to my cousin about--family affairs, you know."

"Don't apologise," said Bones gruffly.

"I shan't keep her beyond the hour," smiled Mr. Hyane. "I realise that you are a very busy man."

Bones said nothing, and when Marguerite Whitland appeared, he had gained sufficient control of his emotions to indulge in a feeble jest.

The girl's face was a study at the sight of her cousin. Hamilton, a disinterested observer, read astonishment, annoyance, and resignation in the wide-opened eyes. Bones, who prided himself upon a working knowledge of physiognomy, diagnosed the same symptoms as conveying a deep admiration combined with the re-awakening of a youthful love.

"h.e.l.lo, Jackson!" she said coldly. "I didn't expect to see you."

"I told you I would call," he smiled. "I must see you, Marguerite, and Mr. Tibbetts has been so kind that I am sure he will not mind me----"

"Mr. Tibbetts is not concerned about the manner in which I spend my lunch hour," she said stiffly, and Bones groaned inwardly.

There was a silence which Hamilton had not the heart to break after the two had gone, and it was Bones who uttered the first comment.

"That's that," he said, and his voice was so quiet and normal that Hamilton stared at him in astonishment.

"Let's have lunch," said Bones briskly, and led the way out.

Not even when Miss Whitland came to him that afternoon and asked for permission to take two days' holiday did his manner change. With a courtesy entirely free from that extravagance to which she had grown accustomed, he acceded to her request, and she was on the point of explaining to him the reason she had so unexpectedly asked for a vacation, but the memory of his earlier manner checked her.

It was a very simple explanation. Jackson Hyane was a very plausible man. Marguerite Whitland had heard something of her erratic cousin, but certainly nothing in his manner supported the more lurid descriptions of his habits. And Mr. Jackson Hyane had begged her, in the name of their relationships, to take a trip to Aberdeen to examine t.i.tle-deeds which, he explained, would enable her to join with him in an action of the recovery of valuable Whitland property which was in danger of going to the Crown, and she had consented.

The truth was, there had always been some talk in the family of these estates, though n.o.body knew better than Jackson Hyane how unsubstantial were the claims of the Whitlands to the t.i.tle. But the Scottish estate had been docketed away in the pigeon-holes of his mind, and promised to be more useful than he had antic.i.p.ated.

That afternoon he packed his bag at his flat, put his pa.s.sport and railway tickets together in his inside pocket, and made his final preparations for departure.

An old crony of his called whilst he was drinking the cup of tea which the housekeeper of the flats had prepared, and took in the situation revealed by the packed suit-cases and the burnt papers in the hearth.

"h.e.l.lo, Johnny!" he said. "You're getting out, eh?"

Jackson nodded. There was no need to pretend anything with one of his own cla.s.s.

"Couldn't you square the bank?"

Jackson shook his head.

"No, Billy," he said cheerfully, "I couldn't square it. At this identical moment there are several eminent people in the West End of London who are making applications for warrants."

"Dud cheques, eh?" asked the other thoughtfully. "Well, it had to come, Johnny. You've had a lot of bad luck."

"Atrocious," said Mr. Jackson Hyane. "There's plenty of money in Town, but it's absolutely impossible to get at it. I haven't touched a mug for two months, and I've backed more seconds than I care to think about. Still," he mused, "there's a chance."

His friends nodded. In their circle there was always "a chance," but he could not guess that that chance which the student of men, Mr.