was very far away.
‘I only suggest my uncle because he called upon me this morning,’ she said. ‘At least, he was waiting for me when I came out to lunch. It is the first time I have seen him since the night he came back from Devonshire.’
‘What did he want to see you about?’
She laughed softly.
‘He came with a most extraordinary offer, that I should keep house for him. And really, he offered me considerably more than the salary I am getting from Stebbings, and said he had no objection to my working in the daytime.’
‘You refused, of course?’
‘I refused, of course,’ she repeated, ‘but he wasn’t at all put out. I’ve never seen him in such an amiable frame of mind.’
‘How does he look?’ asked Jim, remembering the unshaven face he had seen through the window.
‘Very smart,’ was the surprising reply. ‘He told me he had been amusing himself with some of the big films that had appeared since he went to prison. He had hired them and bought a small projector. He really was fond of the pictures, as I know,’ the girl went on, ‘but it seems a queer thing to I have shut oneself up for days just to watch films! And he asked after you.’ She nodded. ‘Why should he ask after you, you are going to say, and that is the question that occurred to me. But he seems to have taken for granted that I am a very close friend of yours. He asked who had introduced me, and I told him your wretched little car on the Thames Embankment!’
‘Speak well of the dead,’ said Jim soberly. ‘Lizzie has cracked a cylinder.’
‘And now,’ she said, ‘prepare for a great shock.’
‘I brace myself,’ said Jim.
‘He asked,’ the girl went on, a twinkle in her eyes, ‘whether I thought you would object to seeing him. I think he must have taken a sudden liking to you.’
‘I’ve never met the gentleman,’ said Jim, ‘but that is an omission which shall be rectified without delay. We’ll go round together! He will naturally jump at the conclusion that we’re an engaged couple, but if you can stand that slur on your intelligence—’
‘I will be brave,’ said Aileen.
Mr Arthur Ingle was only momentarily disconcerted by the appearance of his niece and the man who had filled his mind all that afternoon. Jim had met him once before, but only for a few seconds, when he had called to make an inquiry about Mrs Gibbins. Now he was almost jovial.
‘Where’s friend Elk?’ he asked, with a smile. ‘I understood you never moved without one another in these perilous times, when lunatic ministers are wandering about the country, and no man knows the hour or the day when he will be called up for active service! So you are Mr James Carlton!’
He opened a silver cigar-box and pushed it across to Jim, who made a careful selection.
‘Aileen told you I wanted to see you, I suppose? Well, I do. I’m a bit of a theorist, Mr Carlton, and I have an idea that my theory is right. I wonder if you would be interested to know what it is?’
He pointedly ignored the presence of the girl except to put a chair for her.
‘I’ve been making inquiries,’ said this surprising ex-convict, ‘and I’ve discovered that Sir Joseph is in all sorts of financial difficulties. This is unknown to the Prime Minister or even to his closest friend, but I have had a hint that he was very short of ready money and that his estates in Cheshire were heavily mortgaged. Now, Mr Carlton, do you conceive it as possible that the speech in the House was made with the deliberate intention of slumping the market and that Sir Joseph was paid handsomely for the part he played?’
As he was speaking, he clasped his hands before him, his fingers intertwined; he emphasised every point with a little jerk of his clasped hands and, watching him, the mist rolled from Jim Carlton’s brain, and he instantly solved the mystery of those private film shows which had kept Mr Ingle locked up in his flat for a week. And to solve that was to solve every mystery save the present whereabouts of Sir Joseph Layton.
He listened in silence whilst Ingle went on to expound and elaborate his theory and when the man had finished: ‘I will bring your suggestion to the notice of my superiors,’ he said conventionally.
It was evidently not the speech that Mr Ingle expected. For a moment he looked uncomfortable, and then, with a laugh: ‘I suppose you think it strange that I should be on the side of law and order—and the governing classes! I felt a little sore when I came out of prison. Elk probably told you of the exhibition I made of myself in the train. But I’ve been thinking things over, Carlton, and it has occurred to me that my extremism is not profitable either to my pocket or my mind.’
‘In fact,’ smiled Jim, ‘you’re going to become a reformed character and a member of the good old Tory party?’
‘I don’t know that I shall go as far as that,’ demurred the other, amused, ‘but I have decided to settle down. I am not exactly a poor man, and all that I have got I have paid for—in Dartmoor.’
Only for a second were the old harsh cadences audible in his voice. He nodded towards Aileen Rivers.
‘You’ll persuade this girl to give me a chance, Mr Carlton? I can well understand her hesitation to keep house for a man liable at any moment to be whisked off to durance, and I fear she does not quite believe in my reformation.’
He smiled blandly at the girl, and then turned his eyes upon Jim.
‘Could you not persuade her?’
‘If I could persuade her to any course,’ said Jim deliberately, ‘it would not be the one you suggest.’
‘Why?’ challenged the other.
‘Because,’ said Jim, ‘you are altogether wrong when you say that there is no longer any danger of your being whisked off to durance. The danger was never more pressing.’
Ingle did not reply to this. Once his lips trembled as though he were about to ask a question, and then with a laugh he walked to the table and took a cigar from the box.
‘I guess I won’t detain you,’ he said. ‘But you’re wrong, Carlton. The police have nothing on me! They may frame something to catch me, but you’ll have to be clever to do even that.’
As they passed out of the building:
‘I seem to spend my days giving warnings to the last people in the world who ought to be warned,’ said Jim bitterly. ‘Aileen, maybe you’ll knit me a muzzle in your spare moments? That will help considerably!’
The outstanding feature of this little speech from the girl’s point of view was that he had called her by her name for the first time. Later, when they were nearing her boarding house, she asked: ‘Do you think you will find Sir Joseph?’
He shook his head.
‘I doubt very much if he is alive,’ he said gravely.
But his doubts were to be dispelled, and in the most surprising manner. That night a drunken black-faced comedian hit a policeman over the head with a banjo, and that vulgar incident had an amazing sequel.
CHAPTER 16
THERE is a class of entertainer which devotes its talents to amusing the queues that wait at the doors of the cheaper entrances of London’s theatres. Here is generally to be found a man who can tear paper into fantastic shapes, a ballad singer or two, a performer on the bones and the inevitable black-faced minstrel.
It was eleven o’clock at night, and snow was lightly falling, when a policeman on point duty at the end of Evory Street saw a figure staggering along the middle of the road, in imminent danger from the returning theatre traffic. The man had obviously taken more drink than vas good for him, for he was howling at the top of his voice the song of the moment; and making a clumsy attempt to accompany himself on the banjo which was slung around his neck.
The London police are patient and long-suffering people, and had the reeling figure been less vocal he might have passed on to his destination without interference. For drunkenness in itself is not a crime according to the law; a man must be incapable or create a disturbance, or obstruct the police in the execution of their duty, before he offends. The policeman had no intention of arresting the noisy wayfarer.
He walked into the middle of the road to intercept and quieten him; and then discovered that the reveller was a black-faced comedian with extravagant white lips, a ridiculous Eton collar and a shell coat. On his head was a college cap, and this completed his outfit with the exception of the banjo, with which he was making horrid sounds.
‘Hi, hi!’ said the policeman gently. ‘A little less noise, young fellow!’
