Corporal Sam and Other Stories Part 30

'But don't they say anything about d.i.c.k?' quavered the mother, fumbling with her gla.s.ses, while Miss Chrissy stared at the print with shining eyes.

'd.i.c.k's not a millionaire, mother--though it seems he has been supporting one--for a few minutes anyway. Well, Chrissy, how does that make you feel?'

'You see, my dear,' said the little bookseller softly, addressing his wife, 'if any harm had come to the boy, they would have reported it for certain.'

They talked over the news while Jim ate his tea, and now and again interrupted with his mouth full; talked over it and speculated upon it in low, excited tones, which grew calmer by degrees. But still a warm flush showed on the cheeks of both the women, and the little bookseller found it necessary to take out his handkerchief at intervals and wipe his round spectacles.

He was wiping them perhaps for the twentieth time, and announcing that he must go and relieve his a.s.sistant in the shop, when the a.s.sistant's voice was heard uplifted close outside--as it seemed, in remonstrance with a customer.

'Hallo!' said the little bookseller, and was rising from his chair, when the door opened. A middle-aged, Jewish-looking man, wrapped to the chin in a shabby ulster and carrying a suit-case, stood on the threshold, and regarded the little party.

'Mother!' cried Mr Markham. 'Chrissy!'

He set down the suit-case and took two eager strides. Old Mrs.

Rendal, the one immediately menaced, shrank back into Jim's arms as he started up with his throat working to bolt a mouthful of cake.

Chrissy caught her breath.

'Who in thunder are you, sir?' demanded Jim.

'Get out of this, unless you want to be thrown out!'

'Chrissy!' again appealed Mr Markham, but in a fainter voice. He had come to a standstill, and his hand went slowly up to his forehead.

Chrissy pointed to the suit-case. 'It's--it's d.i.c.k's!' she gasped.

Jim did not hear.

'Mr Wenham,' he said to the white-faced a.s.sistant in the doorway; 'will you step out, please, and fetch a policeman?'

'Excuse me.' Mr Markham took his hand slowly from his face, and spread it behind him, groping as he stepped backwards to the door.

'I--I am not well, I think'--he spoke precisely, as though each word as it came had to be held and gripped. 'The address'--here he turned on Chrissy with a vague, apologetic smile--'faces--clear in my head.

Mistake--I really beg your pardon.'

'Get him some brandy, Jim,' said the little bookseller.

'The gentleman is ill, whoever he is.'

But Mr Markham turned without another word, and lurched past the a.s.sistant, who flattened himself against a bookshelf to give him room. Jim followed him through the shop; saw him cross the doorstep and turn away down the pavement to the left; stared in his wake until the darkness and the traffic swallowed him; and returned, softly whistling, to the little parlour.

'Drunk's the simplest explanation,' he announced.

'But how did he know my name?' demanded Chrissy. 'And the suit-case!'

'Eh?' He's left it--well, if this doesn't beat the band!--Here, Wenham nip after the man and tell him he left his luggage behind!'

Jim stooped to lift the case by the handle.

'But it's d.i.c.k's!'

'd.i.c.k's?'

'It's the suit-case I gave him--my birthday present last April.

See, there are his initials!'

CHAPTER V.

d.i.c.k Rendal, alighting at Waterloo, collected his luggage--or rather, Mr Markham's--methodically; saw it hoisted on a four-wheeler; and, handing the cabby two shillings, told him to deliver it at an address in Park Lane, where the butler would pay him his exact fare. This done, he sought the telegraph office and sent three more cablegrams, the concise wording of which he had carefully evolved on the way up from Southampton. These do not come into the story,--which may digress, however, so far as to tell that on receipt of one of them, the Vice-President of the Hands Across Central New York Office remarked to his secretary 'that the old warrior was losing no time.

Leisure and ozone would appear to have bucked him up.' To which the secretary answered that it was lucky for civilisation if Mr Markham missed suspecting, or he'd infallibly make a corner in both.

Having despatched his orders, d.i.c.k Rendal felt in his pockets for a cigar-case; was annoyed and amused (in a sub-conscious sort of way) to find only a briar pipe and a pocketful of coa.r.s.e-cut tobacco; filled and lit his pipe, and started to walk.

His way led him across Westminster Bridge, up through Whitehall, and brought him to the steps of that building which, among all the great London clubs, most exorbitantly resembles a palace. He mounted its perron with the springy confident step of youth; and that same spring and confidence of gait carried him past the usually vigilant porter.

A marble staircase led him to the lordliest smoking-room in London.

He frowned, perceiving that his favourite arm-chair was occupied by a somnolent Judge of the High Court, and catching up the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, settled himself in a window-bay commanding the great twilit square of the Horse Guards and the lamp-lit Mall.

He had entered the smoking-room lightly, almost jauntily; but--not a doubt of it--he was tired--so tired that he shuffled his body twice and thrice in the arm-chair before discovering the precise angle that gave superlative comfort. . . .

'I beg your pardon, sir.'

d.i.c.k opened his eyes. A liveried footman stood over his chair, and was addressing him.

'Eh? Did I ring? Yes, you may bring me a gla.s.s of liqueur brandy.

As quickly as possible, if you please; to tell the truth, George, I'm not feeling very well.'

The man started at hearing his name, but made no motion to obey the order.

'I beg your pardon, sir, but the secretary wishes to see you in his room.'

'The secretary? Mr Hood? Yes, certainly.' d.i.c.k rose. 'I--I am afraid you must give me your arm, please. A giddiness--the ship's motion, I suppose.'

The secretary was standing at his door in the great vestibule as d.i.c.k came down the staircase on the man's arm.

'I beg your pardon,' he said, 'but may I have your name? The porter does not recognise you, and I fear that I am equally at fault.'

'My name?'--with the same gesture that Mr Markham had used in the little back parlour, d.i.c.k pa.s.sed a hand over his eyes. He laughed, and even to his own ears the laugh sounded vacant, foolish.

'Are you a member of the club, sir?'

'I--I thought I was.' The marble pillars of the atrium were swaying about him like painted cloths, the tesselated pavement heaving and rocking at his feet. 'Abominably stupid of me,' he muttered, 'unpardonable, you must think.'

The secretary looked at him narrowly, and decided that he was really ill; that there was nothing in his face to suggest the impostor.

'Come into my room for a moment,' he said, and sent the footman upstairs to make sure that no small property of the Club was missing.

'Here, drink down the brandy. . . . Feeling better? You are aware, no doubt, that I might call in the police and have you searched?'

For a moment d.i.c.k did not answer, but stood staring with rigid eyes.

At length,--