Tab stared at him in amazement.
“Babe,” he said, “you’ve got poetical. I guess it is the air of Italy.”
Rex went red, as he always did when he was embarrassed.
“I feel very strongly about the house,” he said curtly and Tab saw that he had hurt his feelings, but Rex’s huff did not last long. He spoke of his voyage, the interesting places he had seen, and then: “You got my ring?”
“Yes, Rex, thank you, it is a beauty,” said Tab. “It seems to me to be worth a terrible lot of money.”
“It didn’t cost so much,” said the other carelessly. “I’ve got a rich way of thinking nowadays, Tab. I shudder at myself sometimes.”
They fell to discussing Rex’s immediate movements and Tab succeeded in persuading him to go to the hotel. He had a reason for this; knowing the lazy nature of his former companion, he guessed that if Rex once got himself settled down in the flat, he would never leave it.
Rex questioned him closely about the second tragedy, plying him with innumerable questions.
“Yes, I shall certainly have that place bricked up. I will put it in the hands of the builders right away,” he said. “And as you decided to chuck me out, perhaps you will come and dine pretty frequently.”
He sent for his trunks the following day and made a call upon Carver. Tab heard later that under the personal direction of Rex, all the deed boxes and other movables in the vault had been removed by a gang of workmen and that immediate preparations were being made to wall up this sinister chamber.
It was like Rex to take up with enthusiasm some unexpected hobby. Carver told him, when next they met, that Rex haunted the builders’ yard, was having elaborate plans drawn for a new house and was himself entering with enthusiasm into the mysteries of mortar-making and bricklaying.
“In fact,” said Tab, “poor Rex is making himself an infernal nuisance. He has these spasms. About three years ago, he decided, in defiance of his Uncle’s intentions, to become a great crime reporter, and spent so much time in the Megaphone library, that the news editor kicked. Whenever he wanted a book, Rex had it; whenever he wanted to look up some old and forgotten crime, there was Rex, in the midst of a chaos of cuttings. The present fit will last exactly three weeks; after that, Rex will buy a large hammock and a large bed and spend his time alternately in one or the other!”
Tab did not see Ursula Ardfern for a week. He wrote to her once, for he was a little worried, remembering her fainting fit on her last night at the theatre, but he received a reassuring, indeed a flippant message from Stone Cottage.
“I have come back here and am entrenched against all mysterious Men in Black with an aged but active butler, who has served in the army and is acquainted with the use of lethal weapons. The late roses are out—won’t you come and see them? They are glorious. And Yeh Ling’s Temple of Peace is roofed with shining red tiles, and the villagers are breathing freely again at the prospect of his queer little labourers leaving the neighborhood.
“I drove over there yesterday and found Yeh Ling very sombre and quiet, watching the final touches being put on what looked to be a huge barrel but which I found was the mould in which the second of his great pillars is to be cast. It is the Pillar of Grateful Recollection, or something of the sort, and it is to be dedicated to—me. I feel thrilled. It is hard to believe that all these years Yeh Ling has remembered the trifling services I gave to his son, and isn’t it curious that in all those years, although I have met him many times, for I used to dine regularly at his restaurant (I dined there this week) he has never made one reference to the old days. It is a little eerie, isn’t it?
“I am learning to shoot. Forgive this inconsequence, but my butler (how grand that sounds!) is very insistent, and I practice every day in the meadows behind the house. I had no idea that a revolver was so very heavy or jumped so when you pressed the trigger, and the noise is appalling! I was scared almost to death the first day of the practice, but I am getting quite used to it now and Turner says I shall make a crack shot.
“If you come you will not lack for excitement. Personally I should have preferred that Turner would have given me lessons in archery; it is much more graceful and ladylike. Every time the pistol fires (it is an automatic) it blackens my hands horribly—and it stings!”
Tab read the letter through very many times before he took the Hertford Road. He stopped en route to admire the monument which Yeh Ling had erected to his prosperity. He could admire in all sincerity, for the house presented not only a striking, but a beautiful appearance. Its unusual lines, the quaint setting in which it stood, for the garden had now taken shape, the one lusty pillar that flanked the broad yellow path, made a striking picture.
The workmen had not gone and presently he spied Yeh Ling himself coming down the broad short flight of steps from the upper terrace.
If he did not distinguish him at first, it was excusable, for he wore the blue blouse and baggy trousers of his workmen, but Yeh Ling had seen him and came straight to where he was standing.
“You’ve nearly finished,” said Tab with a smile of greeting. “I congratulate you, Yeh Ling.”
“You think it is pretty,” said Yeh Ling, in his grave, cultured voice.
