Arrived at the top floor, Lord Hunstanton rang the bell. The sound echoed faintly within.
“Seems to be out,” said his lordship, having tried again.
“We will wait.”
“What, here?”
“On the roof.”
“How long?”
“Until this Finch’s manservant returns.”
“But he may be hours.”
“Then we will wait hours.”
Lord Hunstanton’s aching interior urged him to protest. “Be brave!” it gurgled. And, whilst still not sufficiently courageous to defy, he nerved himself to make a suggestion.
“How would it be,” he said, “if I just pushed round the corner somewhere and snatched a bite? I mean to say, you never know whether this manservant fellow won’t turn nasty. Sticking up for the young master, I mean to say. In which case, I should be twice the man with a bit of food inside me. With a dish of beans or something nicely poised within, I could do my bit.”
Mrs. Waddington regarded him scornfully.
“Very well. But kindly return as soon as possible.”
“Oh, I will, by Jove! Just want to pack away a hasty prune. I’ll be back before you know I’ve gone.”
“You will find me on the roof.”
“On the roof. Right! Well, tinkety-tonk, then, for the moment,” said his lordship, and pattered off down the stairs.
Mrs. Waddington mounted another flight, and came out under the broad canopy of heaven. She found herself with a choice of views, the glittering city that stretched away below and the dark windows of the Finch lair. She chose the windows and watched them narrowly.
She had been watching them for some considerable time, when suddenly the middle ones, the French windows, lit up. And, as she stepped forward, her rosiest dreams were realised. Across the yellow blind there passed a shadow which was plainly that of a young female person, no doubt of a grade of morality so low that in any other place but Washington Square it would have provoked the raised eyebrow and the sharp intake of the breath. Mrs. Waddington advanced to the window and tapped upon it imperiously.
There was a startled exclamation from within. The blind shot up, revealing a stoutish man in sober black. The next moment the window was opened, and the stoutish man popped his head out.
“Who’s there?” he asked.
“I am,” said Mrs. Waddington.
“Jiminy Christmas!” said the stoutish man.
II
Frederick Mullett had been in a nervous frame of mind all the afternoon, more nervous even than that of the ordinary bridegroom on his wedding-day. For he had been deeply exercised for many hours past by the problem of what his bride had been up to that afternoon.
Any bridegroom would be upset if his newly-made wife left him immediately after the ceremony on the plea that she had important business to attend to and would see him later. Frederick Mullett was particularly upset. It was not so much the fact that he had planned a golden afternoon of revelry including a visit to Coney Island and had had to forgo it that disturbed him. That the delightful programme should have been cancelled was, of course, a disappointment: but what really caused him mental anguish was the speculation as to what from the viewpoint of a girl like Fanny constituted important business. Her reticence on this vital question had spoiled his whole day.
He was, in short, in exactly the frame of mind when a man who has married a pickpocket and has watched her go off on important business does not want to hear people tapping sharply on windows. If a mouse had crossed the floor at that moment, Frederick Mullett would have suspected it of being a detective in disguise. He peered at Mrs. Waddington with cold horror.
“What do you want?”
“I wish to see and question the young woman who is in this apartment.”
Mullett’s mouth felt dry. A shiver ran down his spine.
“What young woman?”
“Come, come!”
“There isn’t any young woman here.”
“Tut, tut!”
“There isn’t, I tell you.”
Mrs. Waddington’s direct mind was impatient of this attempt to deceive.
“I will make it worth your while to tell the truth,” she said.
Mullett recoiled. The thought that he was being asked to sell his bride on the very day of their wedding revolted him. Not that he would have sold her at any time, of course, but being asked to do so on this day of all days made the thing seem, as Officer Garroway would have said, so peculiarly stark and poignant.
With a frenzied gesture of abhorrence he slammed the window. He switched off the light and with agonised bounds reached the kitchen, where Mrs. Frederick Mullett was standing at the range stirring a Welsh rarebit.
“Hello, sweetie!” cooed his bride, looking up. “I’m just fixing the rabbit. The soup’s ready.”
“And we’re in it,” said Mullett hollowly.
“Why, whatever do you mean?”
“Fanny, where did you go this afternoon?”
“Just down into the country, dearie. I told you.”
“Yes, but you didn’t tell me what you did there.”
“It’s a secret for the present, darling. I want to keep it as a surprise. It’s something to do with some money that’s coming to us.”
Mullett eyed her wanly.
“Fanny, were you doing a job this afternoon down there in the country?”
“Why, Freddy Mullett! What an idea!”
“Then what are the bulls here for?”
“The bulls!”
“There’s a female dick out on the roof right now. And she’s asking for you.”
Fanny stared, round-eyed.
“Asking for me? You’re crazy.”
“She said ‘I wish to see and question the young woman who is in this apartment.’ Those were her very words.”
“I’ll take a peek at her.”
“Don’t let her see you,” begged Mullett, alarmed.
“Is it likely!”
Fanny walked composedly to the sitting-room. She felt no concern. The most comforting possession in the world is, of course, a quiet conscience: but almost as good is the knowledge that you have left no tracks behind you. Fanny was positive that, on taking her departure from the Waddington home at Hempstead that afternoon,
