He ran downstairs.
III
At the slight creaking made by Macmaster in pushing open his door, Tietjens started violently. He was sitting in a smoking-jacket, playing patience engrossedly in a sort of garret bedroom. It had a sloping roof outlined by black oak beams, which cut into squares the cream coloured patent distemper of the walls. The room contained also a four-post bedstead, a corner cupboard in black oak, and many rush mats on a polished oak floor of very irregular planking. Tietjens, who hated these disinterred and waxed relics of the past, sat in the centre of the room at a flimsy card-table beneath a white-shaded electric light of a brilliance that, in those surroundings, appeared unreasonable. This was one of those restored old groups of cottages that it was at that date the fashion to convert into hostelries. To it Macmaster, who was in search of the inspiration of the past, had preferred to come. Tietjens, not desiring to interfere with his friend’s culture, had accepted the quarters, though he would have preferred to go to a comfortable modern hotel as being less affected and cheaper. Accustomed to what he called the grown oldnesses of a morose, rambling Yorkshire manor house, he disliked being among collected and rather pitiful bits which, he said, made him feel ridiculous, as if he were trying to behave seriously at a fancy-dress ball. Macmaster, on the other hand, with gratification and a serious air, would run his fingertips along the bevellings of a darkened piece of furniture, and would declare it genuine “Chippendale” or “Jacobean oak,” as the case might be. And he seemed to gain an added seriousness and weight of manner with each piece of ancient furniture that down the years he thus touched. But Tietjens would declare that you could tell the beastly thing was a fake by just cocking an eye at it and, if the matter happened to fall under the test of professional dealers in old furniture, Tietjens was the more often in the right of it, and Macmaster, sighing slightly, would prepare to proceed still further along the difficult road to connoisseurship. Eventually, by conscientious study, he got so far as at times to be called in by Somerset House to value great properties for probate—an occupation at once distinguished and highly profitable.
Tietjens swore with the extreme vehemence of a man who has been made, but who much dislikes being seen, to start.
Macmaster—in evening dress he looked extremely miniature!—said:
“I’m sorry, old man, I know how much you dislike being interrupted. But the General is in a terrible temper.”
Tietjens rose stiffly, lurched over to an eighteenth century rosewood folding washstand, took from its top a glass of flat whisky and soda, and gulped down a large quantity. He looked about uncertainly, perceived a notebook on a “Chippendale” bureau, made a short calculation in pencil and looked at his friend momentarily.
Macmaster said again:
“I’m sorry, old man. I must have interrupted one of your immense calculations.”
Tietjens said:
“You haven’t. I was only thinking. I’m just as glad you’ve come. What did you say?”
Macmaster repeated:
“I said, General is in a terrible temper. It’s just as well you didn’t come up to dinner.”
Tietjens said:
“He isn’t … He isn’t in a temper. He’s as pleased as punch at not having to have these women up before him.”
Macmaster said:
“He says he’s got the police scouring the whole county for them, and that you’d better leave by the first train tomorrow.”
Tietjens said:
“I won’t. I can’t. I’ve got to wait here for a wire from Sylvia.”
Macmaster groaned:
“Oh dear! Oh dear!” Then he said hopefully: “But we could have it forwarded to Hythe.”
Tietjens said with some vehemence:
“I tell you I won’t leave here. I tell you I’ve settled it with the police and that swine of a Cabinet Minister. I’ve mended the leg of the canary of the wife of the police-constable. Sit down and be reasonable. The police don’t touch people like us.”
Macmaster said:
“I don’t believe you realise the public feeling there is …”
“Of course I do, amongst people like Sandbach,” Tietjens said. “Sit down, I tell you. … Have some whisky. …” He filled himself out another long tumbler and, holding it, dropped into a too low-seated, reddish wicker armchair that had cretonne fixings. Beneath his weight the chair sagged a good deal and his dress-shirt front bulged up to his chin.
Macmaster said:
“What’s the matter with you?” Tietjens’ eyes were bloodshot.
“I tell you,” Tietjens said, “I’m waiting for a wire from Sylvia.”
Macmaster said:
“Oh!” And then: “It can’t come tonight, it’s getting on for one.”
“It can,” Tietjens said, “I’ve fixed it up with the postmaster—all the way up to Town! It probably won’t come because Sylvia won’t send it until the last moment, to bother me. None the less I’m waiting for a wire from Sylvia, and this is what I look like.”
Macmaster said:
“That woman’s the cruellest beast …”
“You might,” Tietjens interrupted, “remember that you’re talking about my wife.”
“I don’t see,” Macmaster said, “how one can talk about Sylvia without …”
“The line is a perfectly simple one to draw,” Tietjens said. “You can relate a lady’s actions if you know them and are asked to. You mustn’t comment. In this case you don’t know the lady’s actions even, so you may as well hold your tongue.” He sat looking straight in front of him.
Macmaster sighed from deep in his chest. He asked himself if this was what sixteen hours waiting had done for his friend, what were all the remaining hours going to do?
Tietjens said:
“I shall be fit to talk about Sylvia after two more whiskies. … Let’s settle your other perturbations first. … The fair girl is called Wannop: Valentine Wannop.”
“That’s the Professor’s name,” Macmaster said.
“She’s the late Professor Wannop’s daughter,” Tietjens said. “She’s also the daughter of the novelist.”
Macmaster interjected:
“But …”
“She supported herself for a year after the Professor’s death as a domestic
