CHAPTER XIV.
In which, incredible as it may seem, a non-Pole has the better of a Pole.
On Tuesday morning Mr. Kirby woke eager for action. Things were fitting in. It was great fun.
Mr. Kirby loved to fit things in—he ought to have been a soldier.
He calculated with a pleasing exactitude. That morning—thanks to the stupid police and the telephone—he would find the Green Overcoat; that afternoon and evening he would invite such other guests as pleased him to dine with him next day, the Wednesday, in London, after Professor Higginson's great lecture upon the Immortality of the Soul. It was an interesting subject, the Immortality of the Soul.
To make certain that all his guests should be there, he would try to talk to one of them in London over the telephone from Ormeston that night. … One of them called James McAuley. He liked the boy. While he was about it he thought he would get a friend of McAuley's to come as well. He didn't know the name of the friend, but no matter; one should always ask one's friends' friends.
So deciding, Mr. Kirby, delighted at the brightness of the day, walked merrily towards a quarter of Ormeston which we have already visited, and which is not the choice of the rich. He walked through the dirty, narrow little streets, prim in his excellent kit, well-groomed and flourishing. He was old-fashioned enough to have a flower in his button-hole, and he had been very careful with his hat. He was going to see someone he knew, someone he had known professionally in the past, and with whom a few years ago he had had very interesting business. He was going to see a man who bore a fine old crusading name, but who must have come down somewhat in the world, though doubtless he had kept his family pride. He was going to see a Mr. Montague.
He knocked at the door in a sharp, commanding sort of way. It was opened quickly, and the little old figure appeared within, armed with insolence. When the eyes recognised Mr. Kirby, the face of that little old figure turned in a moment from insolence to servility.
"Good morning, Samuel," said Mr. Kirby briskly. "No, I won't come in, thank you. I only want you to tell me something. I 'm sorry to trouble you. Where 's that Green Overcoat of Mr. Brassington's? He lost it a few days ago, and a friend of mine told me that you were quite likely to know."
I will waste neither my time nor the reader's in describing Mr. Montague's face at hearing this question; but I will say this much, that it looked like one of those faces carved in hard stone, which antiquity has left us, quite white, not expressionless, but with an expression concealed, and as one might swear, dumb. But the face spoke. It said in a very unnatural voice, a voice lacking breath—
"I swear to God I don't know, Mr. Kirby. If I knew, I swear to God I 'd tell you."
"Just tell me what you did with it," said Mr. Kirby easily and rapidly, looking at his watch. "I 've got to fit a lot of things in."
"I swear to God, sir," said the face, "I gave it away."
Mr. Kirby's smile grew stronger, then suddenly ceased. He believed him.
"Was that all, Samuel?" he asked, turning to go. There was a grave suggestion of peril in his voice.
Turned in a moment from insolence to servility.
The face said only—
"Well, I had to warn my own lot, Mr. Kirby; I had to warn my nephew, sir. I had to warn Lipsky not to touch it, not touch it on any account, Mr. Kirby!"
"Lipsky in the Lydgate?" said Mr. Kirby. "Then he 's got it! Good morning, Samuel," and the lawyer strode away.
He was sorry to have gone out of his way by a quarter of a mile, but he was glad to have got the information he desired.
The little closed shop in the Lydgate seemed to have something deserted about it as he came near. Mr. Kirby was familiar with the stack of old suits outside, the big placarded prices, the occasional announcements of a sale. To-day things seemed less promising and less vivacious, as though the master's hand were not there. Mr. Kirby had known that master also in the past—all in the way of business—and if anything had happened to him he would have regretted it like the passing of a landmark. He walked straight into the shop, and there, instead of the Pole Lipsky, what he saw was an obvious non-Pole, an inept Midland youth with flaxen hair, a stammerer, and a very bad salesman.
Mr. Kirby addressed his young compatriot quickly but courteously.
"Would you be kind enough to give me Mr. Brassington's Green Overcoat?" he said.
"Wh-wh-wh-what?" said the non-Pole, utterly at sea.
There is a type in the modern world which is not destined to commercial success, and certain forms of the non-Polish type present extreme examples of the kind.
"Mr. Brassington's Green Overcoat," repeated Mr. Kirby steadily and hard.
Upstairs Lipsky, rising from his sick bed, heard. He heard the unusual voice, he heard the name, and, as I have written some pages back, he came down.
There is always a common bond between intelligence and intelligence, though the intelligence of the one man be that of an Englishman and of the other man be that of a Pole; and as Lipsky entered the shop Mr. Kirby and he at once picked up communications, and the assistant at once dropped out of the scheme.
"Oh, Mr. Lipsky," said Mr. Kirby courteously, "I 'm afraid you 've been ill! I 'm sorry for that! But the fact is I 'm rather in a hurry, and have come for Mr. Brassington's Green Overcoat."
"Yes, Mr. Kirby, certainly," said the shopkeeper.
He did not understand this race which was not his, but he knew perfectly well that Mr. Kirby would not betray him.
"Very glad you 've called, Mr. Kirby. I just got it done up to send round to Mr. Brassington's this minute. My assistant took it in, sir."
"I" began the non-Pole.
"Silence!" thundered Mr. Kirby to his compatriot, and Mr. Lipsky was very grateful.
Mr. Lipsky continued eagerly—
"You 'll find it all right, Mr. Kirby. There 's the cheque book in the pocket, that 's how I knew it!"
"Yes, of course," said Mr. Kirby airily, "that 's all right."
"You won't take it, Mr. Kirby," said Mr. Lipsky respectfully; "I 'll have it sent."
"Yes, certainly," nodded Mr. Kirby, as he went out of the shop. "No hurry, any time this afternoon—to my private house, not my office, you know."
"My assistant took it in, sir."
Mr. Lipsky came to the door and smiled him out—such a smile! Yes, Mr. Lipsky knew that private house of Mr. Kirby's! He had been granted two or three interviews there. He knew it extraordinarily well.
The lawyer went back through the sunlit streets at a loose end. He felt unusually leisured, though he was a leisured man. Like the peri in the poem, his task was done.
He basked through that afternoon. He rang up the Rockingham Hotel in London to reserve a room and to order dinner for the next day. He rang up his friend Brassington again, to be sure of the appointment, and to be sure that Brassington was bringing his son. Then, when evening came, he took down the big London telephone book and looked up the number of Sir Alexander McAuley, the great doctor. It was years since Mr. Kirby had seen him; but they had known each other well in the past, and he would not mind the liberty. Besides which, what Mr. Kirby wanted as he called up Trunks after dinner that Tuesday evening was not Sir Alexander, but his son, Mr. James. Time pressed, and Mr. Kirby was very keen on talking to Mr. James McAuley.
He got Sir Alexander's house. He heard that Mr. James McAuley was out. He got the name of the restaurant where the youth was dining with some friends. He rang up that restaurant, and at last, a little after half-past nine, he had the pleasure of hearing Jimmy's fresh voice at the end of the wire.
What that conversation was I must, in my next chapter, take the reader to the other end of the wire to inform him; but hardly had he put down the receiver when the door-bell rang and the non-Pole, carrying a bundle for Mr. Kirby, appeared in the hall. Evidently Mr. Lipsky was a good business man. He would not disturb the routine of his shop; things that did not belong to business hours he did outside business hours, and he knew how to get the most out of his assistant's time.
There stood in Mr. Kirby's study a large Ottoman. He lifted the lid of that Victorian piece of furniture and bid the boy put the bundle in.
Mr. Kirby was wholly devoid of superstition. None the less, he went out of the house shortly after, and during the hour or two at his disposal he took the Midland air. Of course, there was nothing in Mr. Brassington's private twist about Green Overcoats, but why should a sensible man run any risks at all?