CHAPTER IV.
It is curious how I went on feeling annoyed that Amber Devine was the girl who had played the ghost trick on me. I had spent only an afternoon and part of an evening with her, and during most of that time I had been occupied with the anarchists; yet the fact that she was the ghost girl stuck in my mind and became a rankling grievance. It began to spoil my temper, and I was getting quite morose.
Jack Thurman, too, was in a gloomy state about something or other; and when, one day, I cursed things generally, he surprised me by agreeing with everything that I said.
My grievance about the ghost girl seemed to affect everything. It made me less keen on running the Gardens, and even my polo bored me. However, I got my twenty-one kitchen ranges, and made a very fair contract for the fixing up of them in the twenty-one houses, not all at once, but one at a time. Also, I sold the twenty-one old kitchen ranges at a very fair price to a Yorkshire man of an unusually speculative turn of mind. At least, it seemed to me that he must be. What on earth can there be in the way of openings for a worn-out kitchen range? However, it was not for me to balk his fancy.
I had already found that being a house agent means continual work. Just as you think that you have got everything cleared up for a week ahead, something fresh crops up. If there was not actually anything to be done, there were always letters from fussy tenants to answer.
Of all the tenants who ever rented a house, Sir Marmaduke Ponderbury is the fussiest. I suppose that I get eight fussy letters a week from him; and the only consolation is that they are typewritten and easy to read—not like Lady Pedder's—because he ambles about in public affairs, and keeps a secretary to write his correspondence. One morning there came from him a letter addressed to me personally, and not to Garth & Thurman. It ran:
- Dear Lord Garthoyle: I am addressing myself to you personally, and not to Messrs. Garth & Thurman, because you are one of my own order. I am sorry to have to inform you that circumstances have arisen that will compel me to abandon the rest of the lease of this house. Hieroglyphics are written nearly every day on the inside wall of my porch. I have the gravest suspicion of their purport I will do myself the honor of calling on you at twelve o'clock to acquaint you with the matter. Under these circumstances, you will not be surprised by my requesting you to release me from the rest of my tenancy; and I am sure that, making the request to one of my own order, it will not be refused. Yours sincerely,
“What does the preposterous old idiot mean?” I said; and I read the letter aloud.
Miss Wishart, my stenographer and bookkeeper, smiled; Jack Thurman laughed.
“He can't suppose that I'm going to let him off his rent because somebody scrawls on the wall of his porch?” I said.
“Can't he, though?” said Jack. “You don't know old Ponderbury. He's the largest spoiled child in England, and the most spoiled. His mother spoiled him; his tutors spoiled him—he never went to a school or a university; his wife spoiled him; he has always lived surrounded by the oiliest gang of sycophants the world holds, and they spoil him worst of all. He believes that the world was made for him, and that he's the most important man in it, or, at any rate, will be when he's got the peerage he's after. I've heard him say the most incredible things—quite incredible. The only person who doesn't spoil him is Mur—his daughter; and he hates her.”
I was a little surprised. Jack does not often let himself go; and his eyes were sparkling, and he was scowling.
“Oh, you know them?” I said.
“Yes, I know them,” said Jack, scowling worse than ever.
“What does he mean by calling me one of his own order? His father got the baronetcy for making crockery,” I said.
“The old snob thinks himself a born aristocrat of the bluest blood. He's trying to get a peerage to make it bluer.”
“These new-rich ones make me feel tired every time,” I said.
“Then old Ponderbury should make you collapse. He's the most tedious swollen-headed old rotter that breathes!” said Jack savagely.
“You seem to have made up your mind about him fairly distinctly,” I said.
“I have,” said Jack.
“I suppose he has played the spoiled child with you.”
“All over me,” said Jack.
“And you say he has a daughter?” I said.
“Yes, he has,” said Jack.
And he hunched himself over the ledger he was working at, as if he did not wish to talk about it.
When, at five minutes past twelve, I went to the library to interview Sir Marmaduke, I thought it well to stick my eyeglass in my eye, leave my mouth open, and look like an idiot. I thought it probable that Sir Marmaduke would be quite open with me; but it was just as well to give him every encouragement. We should get on quicker. He would start the leg-pulling process without delay; and I should know what he was up to without wasting time.
When I came into the room, a large, round, gray man bounced up out of a chair, and bounced across the room at me; just bounced.
“My dear Lord Garthoyle, I am charmed to make your acquaintance,” he squeaked, in a high voice that did not go with his round largeness. “But I regret—I regret that it should be under these painful circumstances—these extremely painful circumstances!”
He seized my hand, and waggled it flabbily in a hand uncommonly like a big, uncooked sole.
“How are you?” I drawled. “What—er—er—are they?”
He sat down slowly and solemnly; and I sized up his large, oblong, flabby face, and his green eyes under thin eyebrows at the bottom of a forehead that ran well on to the top of his head, owing to the retiring hair.
“These hieroglyphics—these menacing hieroglyphics,” he squeaked.
“Ah—er—yes; the scrawls on your porch,” I drawled.
“Scrawls! No, no, Lord Garthoyle! I wish I could think it. I tried to think of it as a freak of some idle boy—even a hoax. They are hieroglyphics, drawn with a deliberate intent.”
“Does it matter?” I drawled.
“Matter? Matter? It is a most serious affair. But I see that you don't appreciate its seriousness—its public importance. But perhaps you do not follow public affairs—the affairs of the great world—with close interest.”
“They're not much in my line, don't you know?” I drawled; and I opened my mouth a little wider.
“No, no. I quite understand. It is a weakness of our order. I have always deplored that so large a percentage of it should devote itself to other vocations, Why, if the whole of our order devoted itself to public affairs, we could absorb them. We should have a monopoly. There would be no room for those wretched middle classes and the rest of the lower orders. Still, there are a few of us who devote ourselves to public affairs. I myself have figured largely in public life for many years, not only as president of the Landlords' Defense League, but in many other ways as the stanch opponent of the forces that threaten our order with destruction. I have made enemies—many dangerous enemies—by stemming the flood of anarchy and socialism that is striving to sweep us away. I am a barrier, Lord Garthoyle—a barrier.” And he paused to look tremendously impressive.
“A barrier? Where they take tickets?” I drawled, looking as puzzled as I could.
“No, no, no!” he squeaked, frowning. “I am a barrier to the advance of that flood. I am the lion in the path.” He looked more like a codfish in the path. “It cannot move on to its task of fell destruction till it has overwhelmed me. It has recognized this, and it is gathering its energies to sweep me away.”
“That's deucedly interesting,” I said. “Are you backing yourself not to be swept? I'm backing the flood. What odds will you take?”
I pulled out my betting book, and looked quite lively.
Sir Marmaduke was pulled up short. He stuttered:
“This is not a matter for an idle wager. I've n-never made a bet in all my life!”
“But this is such a good bet for you, don't you know?” I persuaded. “Why, it's the chance of a lifetime. If you lose, you don't pay. Your executors pay.”
“No, no, no!” he spluttered.
“Come, I'll lay you even money, and we'll fix a time limit, say a year,” I said.
“No, no!” he squeaked
“But think what a comfort it will be to you when the bomb bursts, or the knife jabs in your back, to think that your executors will have to pay,” I persisted.
“I will not bet!” he squealed. “I came to talk about these hieroglyphics; and you won't listen!”
“Oh, all right! Fire away!” I said, in a disgusted tone.
He panted a little, and then he began: “These hieroglyphics are a warning and a threat. I am sure of it. When I first saw them, I took no notice of them beyond telling my butler to wipe them away. He did so. They—were—renewed. My suspicions were awakened; they have been confirmed. The hieroglyphics are not only renewed when they are wiped away; they change. Every three or four days, Lord Garthoyle, they change. They grow more threatening. To-day there is a distinct coffin and a bomb.”
“That's—er—pretty thick, don't you know?” I said.
“Thick? Thick? It would appall the stoutest heart. And we can't find out who draws them. One of the most astute firms of private detectives in London has been watching the house night and day for a fortnight. The hieroglyphics are drawn under their very eyes. They must be. The affair has grown so sinister that the time has come for me to decide whether I should retire from the fight or continue the conflict. There is a great meeting of the Landlords' League shortly; if I speak out, the forces of anarchy will dash themselves upon me. But it has been suggested that I might speak out and then retire into a prudent seclusion for a few months. That is why I have come to you. You are a large owner of property: I am its chief defender. Are you willing to stand by me, if I pursue this desperate course, by releasing me from the rest of my tenancy? Then, when these miscreants come along to accomplish their fell purpose, they will be balked by an empty house.”
“I think I'd rather not,” I drawled. “Two thousand a year is two thousand a year.”
“But what is a paltry two thousand a year compared with the enormous interests at stake—the dearest interest of our order? Consider that, Lord Garthoyle. We owners of property stand or fall together.”
“I don't fall; the flood isn't out after me,” I said.
“But your order—you will surely stand by your order.”
“You're doing the standing by, and I'm doing the looking on—admiring, and all that sort of thing, don't you know? Now, about that bet”
“This is callousness!” he sputtered.
“Not a bit of it,” I drawled. “But rent's so uninteresting. It's the sort of thing that's bound to happen. At least, it always happened to me till I came to live in my own house. There's no point in interfering with rent. But a bet's quite another thing—more sporting—and I'll lay you”
“I'm not going to bet! I'm not going to bet! I keep telling you so!” he squealed. “And you don't realize that I'm making this proposal in your own interest. You don't want to see Number Twelve shattered with a bomb?”
“I don't mind. It's insured. In fact, I should like to touch the insurance company for a bit. I'm always shelling out to it,” I said calmly.
But the loss of life—surely you are not indifferent to that!”
“No! Oh, no! I shall be very sorry, don't you know? But it's your game. I don't put up the stakes,” I said.
He jumped up and began bouncing. He did look uncommonly like a large, gray, india-rubber ball And, as he bounced, he spluttered; and I caught sentences about “astonishing insensibility,” “blind to the clarion call of duty,” and something about imperial Rome being “wrecked by callousness.” There seemed to be a lot of the orator in him.
At last I said, in a hopeful voice:
“It's quite likely that they won't throw any bomb at all. They'll just knife you on the quiet, or plug you from behind with a revolver. I don't think you need worry about Number Twelve. I shan't.”
He stopped bouncing, and stared at me with his eyes wide open; and his face turned green in spots.
“And is this the gratitude one gets from one's order?” he asked, in a kind of squeaky whisper.
“Oh, I'm grateful,” I answered, smiling at him pleasantly. “I should send a—what-d'ye-call-it?—a wreath to your funeral. I couldn't do less, don't you know?”
He went a little greener; but he did not seem to be able to find anything to say. I fancied that I was getting square with him for bothering me with his fussy letters. Then I had a happy idea; I said that I would come and take a look at the hieroglyphics myself, and I bustled him out of the house, and across to his own. He did not say much—he seemed to be thinking hard—and he did not bounce. He walked rather feebly. Two or three times he looked back over his shoulder; I fancied he was looking for that knife.
We came to Number Twelve, and went up into the porch of it. On the left-hand, inside wall were these figures, drawn in chalk:
I looked at them and said:
“I suppose this thing on the left is what you call the coffin? I don't call it a coffin; it might be anything, don't you know? Is the round thing with the cross in the middle the bomb?”
“Yes; that is undoubtedly the rough drawing of a bomb,” he said, in a fainting kind of voice
“I don't see it a bit,” I said. “What's the thing next it?”
“An infernal machine,” he whispered
The door opened, and a very pretty, dark-eyed, dark-haired girl came out. As she came out, she looked quickly from us to the hieroglyphics, and back again. I dropped my eyeglass, and shut my mouth. There was no point in looking like a perfect ass before her.
Sir Marmaduke introduced her to me as his daughter, Muriel, and I explained:
“I was just looking at the hieroglyphics. I don't see that they're coffins and bombs and infernal machines.”
“I say they are, and Mr. Manders agrees with me,” said Sir Marmaduke solemnly, in a disagreeable tone.
“Mr. Manders always agrees with you. They're just scrawls,” she said sharply.
“I never expect any sympathy or understanding from you, Muriel. I do not look for it. We are agreed that the figures are a coffin, a bomb, an infernal machine, a bomb of a different pattern, and the figure four.”
“I'm not agreed,” I said. “I think they might be anything.”
“I'm sure that they're a chocolate box, a hot-cross-bun, a cake, a plum pudding, and the figure four,” said Miss Ponderbury.
“Of course, I might have known it! I stand on the verge of a tremendous peril, and all I get from my daughter—my only daughter—is mockery!” he snapped; and he was no longer greenish, but a nice, bright red.
“You're so silly, father! You let the Manders humbug you about anything,” she said.
“It is like you to sneer at my faithful friends,” he snarled.
It did not seem to me that it was part of the duty of the complete house agent to assist at the family scraps of his tenants; and I said in a loud voice:
“I think I'll just take these figures.”
They stopped scrapping to watch me draw the figures in my betting book. In the middle of it, I looked up and found Miss Ponderbury smiling at me in an odd sort of way, as if she thought me silly to bother with them.
With a little bow, she said:
“Good-by, Lord Garthoyle. It is silly of you, father, to let the Manders worry you about these scrawls.”
And she went down the steps and along the pavement toward Mount Street.
I was just finishing the drawing when a small, sharp-looking woman bustled out of the house, and went off down the pavement after her.
“That's got them,” I said, putting my betting book into my pocket.
“It only remains to discover what the hieroglyphics mean as a whole,” said Sir Marmaduke.
“They do look pretty bad,” I said.
Sir Marmaduke looked very gloomy. He seemed to be thinking about the funeral wreath.
“Perhaps you had better chuck it and go abroad,” I suggested.
“Never! I will never desert my order!” he squeaked; but he did not seem very full of enthusiasm.
“Well, I'll bet fifty to forty that these anarchists, if they are anarchists, will out you, all right. Your executors to pay,” I said.
“I won't bet about such a thing! I consider the suggestion monstrous!” he shrilled furiously.
“Well, if you won't, you won't. But anyhow I'll leave the bet open. You may change your mind,” I said cheerfully. “Good-by.”
He returned my good-by peevishly.
I went home and into my office. I showed Jack my drawings of the hieroglyphics. He did not take much interest in them, but he was interested in Miss Ponderbury's scrap with her gutta-percha papa, and said that she was treating him as he needed to be treated.
“Well, I hope I helped to frighten the silly old india-rubber ball into some out-of-the-way corner where he can't bother me with his infernal fussy letters,” I said.
“It's possible. Let's hope for the best,” said Jack.
We discussed the question—at least, I did; Jack did not seem interested in it—of who was playing the trick on Sir Marmaduke
At last Jack said:
“It might be anybody. If any one were introduced to the preposterous old idiot, the first thing he would go and do would be to scrawl hieroglyphics on his porch wall.”
“He is a bouncing temptation to the average sportsman,” I argued.
It was plain that Sir Marmaduke's theory about anarchists was rubbish; but, to make quite sure, I went around to see that rising young politician, my cousin, Herbert Polkington, and asked him if Sir Marmaduke Ponderbury was sufficiently important for anarchists to throw bombs at.
Herbert is an austere fish, and meek; but at my question his eyes flashed, his pasty face turned pink, he thumped his table, and cried:
“Important! Ponderbury important? If being the most pestiferous old busybody in London, and badgering everybody to be made a peer for it, is being important, then he is important. He pesters my life out, since I'm one of the people who look after the party rewards. I get hundreds of letters from him, and he's always forcing himself on me here and everywhere. I wish to heavens the anarchists would blow him up|”
He had cleared my mind of the last bit of uneasiness about the hieroglyphics; but I decided to back Ponderbury to get his peerage every time I got the chance. A man who could so infuriate Herbert that he turned rose pink at just the mention of his name, was dead certain of it. He must be a perfectly pertinacious beggar.
I soon had proof of it. I had five letters in the next three days, begging me to stand by my order and release him from his tenancy. Then he advertised in the Daily Mail, offering one hundred pounds reward for information about the person who scrawled the figures on the wall of his porch.
I laughed when Jack showed me the advertisement; but I did not laugh when the Ponderbury mystery, with pictures and explanations of the hieroglyphics, filled columns in the papers, and the swarm of amateur detectives settled in the Gardens. There were scores of them. I could not go out of the house without getting piercing glances from eagle eyes, and being dogged by half a dozen men and women to my club. There was always a group in the porch of Number Twelve, examining the scrawls; and twice I saw Muriel Ponderbury in the window, watching them with great enjoyment.
They were a nuisance, but since they were always there, on the watch, they prevented any new hieroglyphics being written, and soon began to lose their keenness. They grew fewer and fewer every day, and it was not long before the last one had gone.
The very next morning, on the same wall of Sir Marmaduke's porch, there was a freshly scrawled figure, the figure that he had called a bomb. This one:
He must have wired the news to the evening papers, for, before noon, the amateur detectives were swarming again. And for the rest of the day they were all over the place.
After dinner, that night, I was strolling across to the garden to smoke a cigar in the moonlight, when I saw Muriel Ponderbury go through the gate of it just in front of me. I strolled after her to ask her the latest news of the hieroglyphics.
She passed out of sight around the corner of a shrubbery. As I came around it, I heard voices, and the sound of a kiss; and I came right on to her and Jack Thurman standing very close together. I was naturally shocked to find that people kissed one another in this exclusive garden; but I managed to say a few kind words about the moonlight and strolled on, trying to look as if I hadn't been shocked.
I had never guessed that Jack had a love affair. But I was pleased to see that he was not letting his barrister's brieflessness prevent him kissing a pretty girl because she was the daughter of a very rich man. It set me wishing that I had a love affair, myself; and somehow or other I found: myself staring at Number Nine, where Amber Devine lived.
The house was lighted up; Scruton was evidently giving a party. Then I caught myself wishing that I went to his parties and met her. I pulled myself up very short; it would never do to get into the way of thinking about the ghost girl. I cleared out of the garden and the moonlight, off to one of my clubs, and played an honest game of bridge.
Next morning, Jack said to me:
“I say, I'd rather you didn't tell any one you saw me with Miss Ponderbury last night.”
“I shouldn't dream of it,” I said.
“We're going to get married as soon as she's of age—in seven months. Her silly old dunderhead of a father is dead against it. He's made her promise not to write to me; and he employs the wife of that sponger, Manders, to see that she never speaks to me. We don't often get a chance to meet.”
“I hope you make up for it when you do,” I said.
“Oh, we try. But it's hard work waiting,” he said.
“It must be,” said I.
He said nothing for a minute or two; then he suggested:
“It's time you were getting married, yourself.”
“I know it is. But I stave it off—I stave it off,” I said, and I don't know why on earth I should have seen a sudden picture of Amber Devine's flushed face and shining eyes, just as I had seen them on Chipperfield Common.
Richards interrupted us to say that Sir Marmaduke Ponderbury wanted to see me particularly, and was waiting in the library. When I went into it, with my eyeglass in my eye and my mouth well open, he was standing before a window, bouncing gently.
He turned and squeaked very shrilly:
“Lord Garthoyle, I've come to make a last appeal to you, as one of my own order, to release me from my tenancy.”
“What's happened, now?” I drawled.
He was a pertinacious beggar.
“The result of my defying these miscreants by my advertisements is that yesterday there was a single hieroglyphic—the figure of a bomb. It is the last warning. They will act at once! Any minute! After a sleepless night, I have resolved to balk them by flight.”
“Well, I don't object. I haven't got a bet with you about it, or I might call on you to stick it out,” I said.
“But my rent—are you going to let me off the rest of my lease?” he squeaked.
“No; I'm not going to interfere with your paying your rent. But I'll tell you what I'll do—I'll lay you seven to four, now, that, whether you bolt or whether you don't, the flood of anarchy outs you.”
He was looking rather green; he went greener. Then he bounced from side to side two or three times, and cried:
“It's incredible! Absolutely incredible! If the ordinary landlord had refused, I could have understood it. But that one of my own order should refuse, when I'm fighting for that order—it's incredible!”
“I'm not going to spoil sport, don't you know? Here are you and these anarchists having a little set-to, and I want to see the best man win. Come, will you take seven to four that they out you?”
“The sporting spirit is the curse of our order!” he howled. And out of the room and down the stairs he bounced.
Next morning I got a letter from him marked “Urgent.” It ran:
- The bomb has been drawn on the porch wall again, in spite of the fact that the police are watching the house. I fly this afternoon. Will you release me from my tenancy?
I wrote in the name of Garth & Thurman, saying that we could not see our way to letting him off his rent.
Later in the morning I strolled out into the garden of the triangle to see what the amateur detectives were doing. They were buzzing in a swarm in front of Sir Marmaduke's house, in the porch, on the pavement, in the roadway, and in the shrubbery of the central garden About fourteen altercations were going on in a lively way; and I waited for a while in the hope of seeing a general scrap. But there was nothing but altercations; and, making up my mind that amateur detectives are noisy, but peaceful, I strolled on around the garden, to see how the gardeners were doing their work.
In the middle of the garden I suddenly came on the ghost girl; and my heart gave quite a jump. She was walking toward me, looking at the ground, her pretty forehead wrinkled with a frown, thinking hard. I thought for half a second that I would bolt before she saw me; then I thought that I would do nothing of the kind. She looked up and saw me and flushed.
We shook hands, and she said:
“Have you, too, come into the garden to find out about the hieroglyphics?”
“I'm afraid my brains wouldn't run to it,” I said.
It was plainly on the tip of her tongue to ask me what I was doing there, since only residents are allowed in the Gardens, and of course she no more knew that I lived in the Gardens than she knew my name, or that I was the man on whom she had played the ghost trick.
But she did not ask; she looked at me earnestly, and said:
“Oh, Mr. Garth, you helped me to take those poor children into the country when had lost my purse. I wonder if you'd help me now?”
“Of course I will.”
“I've found out the secret of the hieroglyphics; but I don't quite know what to do.”
“The dickens you have!” I cried.
“Yes. I want that one hundred pounds reward awfully—for some more poor children I've made friends with. My stepfather said that it was quite plain that the hieroglyphics were drawn by some one who lived in Number Twelve. So I've been watching and watching the house with glasses. Yesterday I found out that it is the pretty girl—Miss Ponderbury, I think it is—who writes them; and she writes them for a a dark young man, with a big, hooked nose, who lives at Number Eighteen.”
Jack Thurman! That was his beak. It could be no one else's. And as I thought of Sir Marmaduke's terrors, and all the fuss in the papers, I burst out laughing. All that fuss about a lovers' signal code!
Miss Devine stared at me. Then she said:
“Yes, it is funny—all that fuss. But she did do it. There was nothing on the wall of the porch at six yesterday morning. At half past six she came out of the house, stopped just a few seconds in the porch, and walked across into the garden. I slipped out at the far gate, came down past the house, ran up the steps, and saw the hieroglyphic on the wall.”
“Excellent!” I said.
“I came back to the garden and went on watching. I saw a housemaid find the hieroglyphic, and I saw all the fuss that the servants and Sir Marmaduke Ponderbury and the police made when it was found. Sir Marmaduke talked very shrilly, and jumped up and down.”
“He does bounce,” I put in.
“And I saw Miss Ponderbury go back into the house soon after eight. Then, at ten minutes to nine, the young man with the big nose came by, ran up the steps, took one look at the hieroglyphic, and came down the steps, looking ever so pleased. I saw quite plainly from his face that he knew all about it, that it was drawn for him. I'm quite sure of it.”
“So am I,” I said. “You must claim the reward at once.”
“That's just the difficulty. It's why I want your help, or rather your advice. Last night I saw Miss Ponderbury and the young man in the garden here, and they—and they—oh, well, they seemed very fond of one another. It would be a shame to get them into trouble. Yet I should like to get that one hundred pounds reward. What am I to do?”
“I see. You want the money; but you don't want the path of true love to run rough. Let's think,” I said.
But I did not find it easy thinking with her standing before me looking so charming with her frowning, puzzled face.
“I think I see a way,” I said presently. “But old Ponderbury will be as mad as a hatter. He'll be the laughing-stock of England. It will knock his precious peerage on the head for good and all.”
“His being angry is just what I'm afraid of,” she said. “It's quite plain that he's already angry with them, or they wouldn't have to meet secretly. This will make him worse than ever.”
“If you like to leave it with me, I think I can work it without harming them; and I'll send Sir Marmaduke's check along to you, if I get it.”
“It would be splendid if you could—a hundred pounds! But you mustn't make trouble for those two,” she added.
“Oh, I won't do that! I wouldn't roughen the path of true love on any account. I might be there myself one of these days,” I said.
“One never knows,” she answered, smiling.
“And what have you been doing since the expedition? And how are your anarchists?” I asked.
She told me that she had given some teas in Hyde Park to two or three other lots of poor children, and that the anarchist family of Briggs was going very strong. She had been invited to join Charlotte Corday Briggs on a great shopping expedition; and, from Robespierre to Stepniak, the family was resplendent.
It was past one before we had finished our talk, and she hurried away to lunch. I walked across to Number Twelve, and was taken straight to Sir Marmaduke, in a small room at the back of the house—out of reach of the bombs. He was sitting in an armchair, looking as if he were out on a rough sea and it was not agreeing with him.
“Ah, at the last moment you have decided to stand by your order, and release me from my tenancy!” he exclaimed.
“No; I've come for the one hundred pounds reward,” I said
“You've found the miscreants? Then I can bring them to justice at once! I must act swiftly and terribly! The country will expect it of me! Their names?”
He was up and bouncing.
“Well, there's only one, and it's Miss Ponderbury,” I drawled.
“Miss Ponderbury? My daughter?” he gasped.
“It seems you made her promise not to write to my friend, Jack Thurman, and these hieroglyphics are their signals.”
“But this is monstrous!” he squeaked.
“It's very natural, don't you know?” I drawled.
“Incredible! Monstrous!” he squealed, bouncing. “My own daughter! I'll have no more to do with her! I'll send her away! She shall never enter this house again!”
He went on at a great length about the ungratefulness of tricking one's father; and I let him bounce and squeal.
Then I said:
“I should have thought you would have been glad to be rid of your fear of anarchists.”
“When I think of what I have suffered, I could curse my daughter—curse her, Lord Garthoyle!” he squeaked.
“Yes. That's all right,” I said. “But the worst thing is that your public work is spoiled for good and all.”
“Why, how?” he squeaked.
“When it comes to be known that you've made all this fuss about some lovers' signals, you'll be the laughingstock of the country; and no one will ever take you seriously again.”
“I never thought of that,” he gasped; and he collapsed into his armchair.
I lighted a cigarette, and let him think of it; then I said:
“You won't be able to do any public work at all, and you'll never get that peerage, unless you can hush it up.”
“Yes, yes; you're right! I'll send my daughter away at once—to-night!” he cried.
“What good would that do? That wouldn't shut Jack Thurman's mouth. It would open it. You've got to shut it,” I said.
“Curse that young man! Curse him!” he squeaked.
“Oh, yes! By all means. But he's got you in a cleft stick. You've got to let them get married.”
“Never! Never! They shall never marry!” he squealed, bouncing up and down again.
I let him bounce till he was tired, then I said:
“It seems rather silly to become the laughingstock of the country and lose a peerage for a fad like this. Really, Jack Thurman has done you a service. He's brought your name before the public as no work of your own ever did. He's really got you a peerage, if you sit tight and take it. But you know best. I'll let the papers know about this discovery at once, myself.”
I rose, and was opening the door, when he cried:
“Wait! Wait! I must think about it! Don't be so hasty!”
He flung himself back in the armchair, pouting, with his eyes full of tears; and I expected him to start blubbering.
At last, he said, very sulkily:
“I yield. They shall marry. I do not yield out of fear of ridicule. I do not abandon my just resentment. The good of my country demands my surrender, the surrender of my private feelings; I cannot let myself be paralyzed in my work for its best interests. They shall marry!” he squeaked solemnly.
“That's all right,” I said. “And now we'll draw up the contract.”
He kicked at this; but what I felt was that it was no use my being a house agent if I did not draw up contracts. Besides, he seemed to me too peevish to trust. I just bullied him into it.
I drew up the contract myself. He gave his consent to Miss Ponderbury's marrying Jack in three months' time. He settled seven hundred a year on her. I tried to make it a thousand, but I found that that was trying him too high and might upset the whole business. When he had signed the contract, he wrote a check for the one hundred pounds reward for Amber Devine.
After it, he was better. He bounced beside me to the front door, and, as I went down the steps, he said:
“It is a relief to once more take up the work of strengthening our order with an unharassed mind.”
When I got home, I sent the check around to Amber Devine, and went into my office. Jack had just come back after his lunch.
“I've just drawn up a contract, and I should like you to look through it,” I said. “I think it's all right.” And I gave it to him.
He could not believe his eyes.
“What? Where? How? How on earth did you get this out of the old dunderhead?” he stammered.
“Gently with your future father-in-law,” said; and I told him the line I had taken.
When I had stopped his thanks, I pulled out my drawing of the hieroglyphics, and asked him what they meant exactly.
“That showed me where Muriel would be on the fourth day after it was drawn,” he said. “The four shows the fourth day, the circle with the line drawn through it at the bottom of it is the afternoon sun; if the line were drawn through the top, it would be the morning sun. The ducal coronet”
“You call that a coronet? Ponderbury called it an infernal machine.”
“It's a coronet—a ducal coronet. It meant that Muriel would be at the Duchess of Huddersfield's in the afternoon. The circle with the cross means the night—the crossed-out sun. The square with the three in it is Three, Berkeley Square. That's where she'd be that night.”
“I see,” I said. “And what does the bomb, the crossed-out sun—the last hieroglyphic you drew—mean when it's by itself?”
“Oh, that meant that her duenna, Mrs. Manders, would be out, and that she'd come to the garden that night. It's quite simple.”
It was.