When Sam had left, which he did rather in the manner of a heavy father in melodrama, shaking the dust of an erring son's threshold off his feet, I mixed myself a high-ball, and sat down to consider the position of affairs. It did not take me long to see that the infernal boy had double-crossed me with a smooth effectiveness which Mr Fisher himself might have envied. Somewhere in this great city, as Sam had observed, he was hiding. But where? London is a vague address.
I wondered what steps Sam was taking. Was there some underground secret service bureau to which persons of his profession had access? I doubted it. I imagined that he, as I proposed to do, was drawing the city at a venture in the hope of flushing the quarry by accident. Yet such was the impression he had made upon me as a man of resource and sagacity, that I did not relish the idea of his getting a start on me, even in a venture so uncertain as this. My imagination began to picture him miraculously inspired in the search, and such was the vividness of the vision that I jumped up from my chair, resolved to get on the trail at once. It was hopelessly late, however, and I did not anticipate that I should meet with any success.
Nor did I. For two hours and a half I tramped the streets, my spirits sinking more and more under the influence of failure and a blend of snow and sleet which had begun to fall; and then, tired out, I went back to my rooms, and climbed sorrowfully into bed.
It was odd to wake up and realize that I was in London. Years seemed to have passed since I had left it. Time is a thing of emotions, not of hours and minutes, and I had certainly packed a considerable number of emotional moments into my stay at Sanstead House. I lay in bed, reviewing the past, while Smith, with a cheerful clatter of crockery, prepared my breakfast in the next room.
A curious lethargy had succeeded the feverish energy of the previous night. More than ever the impossibility of finding the needle in this human bundle of hay oppressed me. No one is optimistic before breakfast, and I regarded the future with dull resignation, turning my thoughts from it after a while to the past. But the past meant Audrey, and to think of Audrey hurt.
It seemed curious to me that in a life of thirty years I should have been able to find, among the hundreds of women I had met, only one capable of creating in me that disquieting welter of emotions which is called love, and hard that that one should reciprocate my feeling only to the extent of the mild liking which Audrey entertained for me.
I tried to analyse her qualifications for the place she held in my heart. I had known women who had attracted me more physically, and women who had attracted me more mentally. I had known wiser women, handsomer women, more amiable women, but none of them had affected me like Audrey. The problem was inexplicable. Any idea that we might be affinities, soul-mates destined for each other from the beginning of time, was disposed of by the fact that my attraction for her was apparently in inverse ratio to hers for me. For possibly the millionth time in the past five years I tried to picture in my mind the man Sheridan, that shadowy wooer to whom she had yielded so readily. What quality had he possessed that I did not? Wherein lay the magnetism that had brought about his triumph?
These were unprofitable speculations. I laid them aside until the next occasion when I should feel disposed for self-torture, and got out of bed. A bath and breakfast braced me up, and I left the house in a reasonably cheerful frame of mind.
To search at random for an individual unit among London's millions lends an undeniable attraction to a day in town. In a desultory way I pursued my investigations through the morning and afternoon, but neither of Ogden nor of his young friend Lord Beckford was I vouchsafed a glimpse. My consolation was that Smooth Sam was probably being equally unsuccessful.
Towards the evening there arose the question of return to Sanstead. I had not gathered whether Mr Abney had intended to set any time-limit on my wanderings, or whether I was not supposed to come back except with the deserters. I decided that I had better remain in London, at any rate for another night, and went to the nearest post office to send Mr Abney a telegram to that effect.
As I was writing it, the problem which had baffled me for twenty-four hours, solved itself in under a minute. Whether my powers of inductive reasoning had been under a cloud since I left Sanstead, or whether they were normally beneath contempt, I do not know. But the fact remains, that I had completely overlooked the obvious solution of my difficulty. I think I must have been thinking so exclusively of the Little Nugget that I had entirely forgotten the existence of Augustus Beckford. It occurred to me now that, by making inquiries at the latter's house, I should learn something to my advantage. A boy of the Augustus type does not run away from school without a reason. Probably some party was taking place tonight at the ancestral home, at which, tempted by the lawless Nugget, he had decided that his presence was necessary.
I knew the house well. There had been a time, when Lord Mountry and I were at Oxford, when I had spent frequent week-ends there. Since then, owing to being abroad, I had seen little of the family. Now was the moment to reintroduce myself. I hailed a cab.
Inductive reasoning had not played me false. There was a red carpet outside the house, and from within came the sounds of music.
Lady Wroxham, the mother of Mountry and the vanishing Augustus, was one of those women who take things as they come. She did not seem surprised at seeing me.
'How nice of you to come and see us,' she said. 'Somebody told me you were abroad. Ted is in the south of France in the yacht. Augustus is here. Mr Abney, his schoolmaster, let him come up for the night.'
I perceived that Augustus had been playing a bold game. I saw the coaching of Ogden behind these dashing falsehoods.
'You will hardly remember Sybil. She was quite a baby when you were here last. She is having her birthday-party this evening.'
'May I go in and help?' I said.
'I wish you would. They would love it.'
I doubted it, but went in. A dance had just finished. Strolling towards me in his tightest Eton suit, his face shining with honest joy, was the errant Augustus, and close behind him, wearing the blasé air of one for whom custom has staled the pleasures of life, was the Little Nugget.
I think they both saw me at the same moment. The effect of my appearance on them was illustrative of their respective characters. Augustus turned a deep shade of purple and fixed me with a horrified stare. The Nugget winked. Augustus halted and shuffled his feet. The Nugget strolled up and accosted me like an old friend.
'Hello!' he said. 'How did you get here? Say, I was going to try and get you on the phone some old time and explain things. I've been pretty much on the jump since I hit London.'
'You little brute!'
My gleaming eye, travelling past him, met that of the Hon. Augustus Beckford, causing that youth to jump guiltily. The Nugget looked over his shoulder.
'I guess we don't want him around if we're to talk business,' he said. 'I'll go and tell him to beat it.'
'You'll do nothing of the kind. I don't propose to lose sight of either of you.'
'Oh, he's all right. You don't have to worry about him. He was going back to the school anyway tomorrow. He only ran away to go to this party. Why not let him enjoy himself while he's here? I'll go and make a date for you to meet at the end of the show.'
He approached his friend, and a short colloquy ensued, which ended in the latter shuffling off in the direction of the other revellers. Such is the buoyancy of youth that a moment later he was dancing a two-step with every appearance of careless enjoyment. The future, with its storms, seemed to have slipped from his mind.
'That's all right,' said the Nugget, returning to me. 'He's promised he won't duck away. You'll find him somewhere around whenever you care to look for him. Now we can talk.'
'I hardly like to trespass on your valuable time,' I said. The airy way in which this demon boy handled what should have been—to him—an embarrassing situation irritated me. For all the authority I seemed to have over him I might have been the potted palm against which he was leaning.
'That's all right.' Everything appeared to be all right with him. 'This sort of thing does not appeal to me. Don't be afraid of spoiling my evening. I only came because Becky was so set on it. Dancing bores me pallid, so let's get somewhere where we can sit down and talk.'
I was beginning to feel that a children's party was the right place for me. Sam Fisher had treated me as a child, and so did the Little Nugget. That I was a responsible person, well on in my thirty-first year, with a narrow escape from death and a hopeless love-affair on my record, seemed to strike neither of them. I followed my companion to a secluded recess with the utmost meekness.
He leaned back and crossed his legs.
'Got a cigarette?'
'I have not got a cigarette, and, if I had, I wouldn't give it to you.'
He regarded me tolerantly.
'Got a grouch tonight, haven't you? You seem all flittered up about something. What's the trouble? Sore about my not showing up at your apartment? I'll explain that all right.'
'I shall be glad to listen.'
'It's like this. It suddenly occurred to me that a day or two one way or the other wasn't going to affect our deal and that, while I was about it, I might just as well see a bit of London before I left. I suggested it to Becky, and the idea made the biggest kind of a hit with him. I found he had only been in an automobile once in his life. Can you beat it? I've had one of my own ever since I was a kid. Well, naturally, it was up to me to blow him to a joy-ride, and that's where the money went.'
'Where the money went?'
'Sure. I've got two dollars left, and that's all. It wasn't altogether the automobiling. It was the meals that got away with my roll. Say, that kid Beckford is one swell feeder. He's wrapping himself around the eats all the time. I guess it's not smoking that does it. I haven't the appetite I used to have. Well, that's how it was, you see. But I'm through now. Cough up the fare and I'll make the trip tomorrow. Mother'll be tickled to death to see me.'
'She won't see you. We're going back to the school tomorrow.'
He looked at me incredulously.
'What's that? Going back to school?'
'I've altered my plans.'
'I'm not going back to any old school. You daren't take me. Where'll you be if I tell the hot-air merchant about our deal and you slipping me the money and all that?'
'Tell him what you like. He won't believe it.'
He thought this over, and its truth came home to him. The complacent expression left his face.
'What's the matter with you? Are you dippy, or what? You get me away up to London, and the first thing that happens when I'm here is that you want to take me back. You make me tired.'
It was borne in upon me that there was something in his point of view. My sudden change of mind must have seemed inexplicable to him. And, having by a miracle succeeded in finding him, I was in a mood to be generous. I unbent.
'Ogden, old sport,' I said cordially, T think we've both had all we want of this children's party. You're bored and if I stop on another half hour I may be called on to entertain these infants with comic songs. We men of the world are above this sort of thing. Get your hat and coat and I'll take you to a show. We can discuss business later over a bit of supper.'
The gloom of his countenance melted into a pleased smile.
'You said something that time!' he observed joyfully; and we slunk away to get our hats, the best of friends. A note for Augustus Beckford, requesting his presence at Waterloo Station at ten minutes past twelve on the following morning, I left with the butler. There was a certain informality about my methods which I doubt if Mr Abney would have approved, but I felt that I could rely on Augustus.
Much may be done by kindness. By the time the curtain fell on the musical comedy which we had attended all was peace between the Nugget and myself. Supper cemented our friendship, and we drove back to my rooms on excellent terms with one another. Half an hour later he was snoring in the spare room, while I smoked contentedly before the fire in the sitting-room.
I had not been there five minutes when the bell rang. Smith was in bed, so I went to the door myself and found Mr Fisher on the mat.
My feeling of benevolence towards all created things, the result of my successful handling of the Little Nugget, embraced Sam. I invited him in.
'Well,' I said, when I had given him a cigar and filled his glass, 'and how have you been getting on, Mr Fisher? Any luck?'
He shook his head at me reproachfully.
'Young man, you're deep. I've got to hand it to you. I underestimated you. You're very deep.'
'Approbation from Smooth Sam Fisher is praise indeed. But why these stately compliments?'
'You took me in, young man. I don't mind owning it. When you told me the Nugget had gone astray, I lapped it up like a babe. And all the time you were putting one over on me. Well, well!'
'But he had gone astray, Mr Fisher.'
He knocked the ash off his cigar. He wore a pained look.
'You needn't keep it up, sonny. I happened to be standing within three yards of you when you got into a cab with him in Shaftesbury Avenue.'
I laughed.
'Well, if that's the case, let there be no secrets between us. 'He's asleep in the next room.'
Sam leaned forward earnestly and tapped me on the knee.
'Young man, this is a critical moment. This is where, if you aren't careful, you may undo all the good work you have done by getting chesty and thinking that, because you've won out so far, you're the whole show. Believe me, the difficult part is to come, and it's right here that you need an experienced man to work in with you. Let me in on this and leave the negotiations with old man Ford to me. You would only make a mess of them. I've handled this kind of thing a dozen times, and I know just how to act. You won't regret taking me on as a partner. You won't lose a cent by it. I can work him for just double what you would get, even supposing you didn't make a mess of the deal and get nothing.'
'It's very good of you, but there won't be any negotiations with Mr Ford. I am taking the boy back to Sanstead, as I told you.' I caught his pained eye. 'I'm afraid you don't believe me.'
He drew at his cigar without replying.
It is a human weakness to wish to convince those who doubt us, even if their opinion is not intrinsically valuable. I remembered that I had Cynthia's letter in my pocket. I produced it as exhibit A in my evidence and read it to him.
Sam listened carefully.
'I see,' he said. 'Who wrote that?'
'Never mind. A friend of mine.'
I returned the letter to my pocket.
'I was going to have sent him over to Monaco, but I altered my plans. Something interfered.'
'What?'
'I might call it coincidence, if you know what that means.'
'And you are really going to take him back to the school?'
'I am.'
'We shall travel back together,' he said. 'I had hoped I had seen the last of the place. The English countryside may be delightful in the summer, but for winter give me London. However,' he sighed resignedly, and rose from his chair, 'I will say good-bye till tomorrow. What train do you catch?'
'Do you mean to say,' I demanded, 'that you have the nerve to come back to Sanstead after what you have told me about yourself?'
'You entertain some idea of exposing me to Mr Abney? Forget it, young man. We are both in glass houses. Don't let us throw stones. Besides, would he believe it? What proof have you?'
I had thought this argument tolerably sound when I had used it on the Nugget. Now that it was used on myself I realized its soundness even more thoroughly. My hands were tied.
'Yes,' said Sam, 'tomorrow, after our little jaunt to London, we shall all resume the quiet, rural life once more.'
He beamed expansively upon me from the doorway.
'However, even the quiet, rural life has its interest. I guess we shan't be dull!' he said.
I believed him.