It was unnecessary to fetch Bowers. At that moment the door was thrown open. There appeared the tubby and choleric figure of Johnson Stone, girded for war. Behind him, more cautious but still defiantly cocky, walked Henry Bowers. Bowers's dignity was supported by a cigar. I have never learned where Stone carried so many of them, and I think he must have had both pockets of his waistcoat lined with good Havanas. The cigar was cocked up in a corner of Bowers's mouth; and on his face was a lofty expression which seemed to say, 'As one man of the world to the other, what do you think of the flavour of this weed?'
'I want to say this,' said Stone, drawing a deep breath. Bowers was evidently copying Stone's dignity, which was very great. 'After doing what I have done for two young ingrates to-night: after having been kept kicking my heels for precisely half an hour in that front room: I want to say this. I want to say that of all the dirty, scrummy, low-down tricks I have ever had played on me
'Come in, Mr. Stone,' said H.M. 'Come on in. Y'know, I owe you an awful big thunderin' apology.'
Frankly, I could not believe my ears. H.M. spoke in a gruff but almost genial and apologetic tone; and it was one of the few times in my life I have ever heard him address anyone as 'Mr.' There was no blast. There was no riot. Most astonished of all was Stone himself, who stood breathing, while several changes of colour slightly altered his face. Then his own innate knowledge of how to do the handsome thing came to his assistance. He drew himself up. He cleared his throat. He waved aside the apologies. He walked over to the desk with an upright tread.
'Allow me, sir,' he said, 'to offer you a cigar.'
'Mmmm,' said H.M., sniffing voluptuously at the Havana. 'Good. Siddown here. There's no reason why you shouldn't watch us at the business. You ' H.M. turned a baleful eye on Bowers. 'I was just goin' to send out after you. You sit down there in front of me. Charters had a go at you once before, with me lookin' on. Now I'm goin' to ask you some questions, and if you lie to me I'll wring your goddam neck. Got that?'
Bowers recognized the voice of authority, and shrank up a trifle. He looked rather wildly at his own cigar, as though wondering how he could dispose of it; then he compromised and held it as though he did not have a cigar at all. Also, he glanced at me. Though he looked at me accusingly, he did not seem at all surprised. I gathered that Stone — who would have got into conversation with a stuffed mummy, if there had been nobody else available — must have been talking to him.
'Coo,' said Bowers. 'Right you are, sir. Fire away.'
His eye seemed fascinated by the skull on the desk. He sat down gingerly, and adjusted his face with dignity.
'During the time you've been workin' for Hogenauer, did he take a daily newspaper?'
'Newspaper? Yes, sir.'
'Uh-huh. Read it every day, did he?'
'Mostly. That is, usually he'd read it at breakfast. But sometimes 'e forgot, and then they'd accumulate for a couple of days. Then 'e'd take the whole lot into his study one evening, and read 'em all together.'
This line of questioning, which he appeared not to understand, impressed Bowers as much as the skull on the desk.
'What happened to the papers after he had finished readin' 'em?'
'Happened? 'Ere! — sorry, sir. Why, I collected 'em up and put 'em in the pantry, that's all.'
'So. Ever read the papers yourself?'
'No, governor, I didn't.'
'You didn't, hey? Why not?'
''Cos it was too 'ighbrow for me,' said Bowers simply. 'So help me, governor, that's true. It was the Daily Telegraph. Now, you just give me something like the News of the World on Sundays, and then I'm all right. I like something with a bit of spice in it. I mean, actresses and peers taking gas and playing the giddy goat and all that; see what I mean? Mind, I glanced at the paper, but that's not the same thing as actually reading it: now is it?'
His air of petulant persuasiveness, like that of a man ready for instant flight, seemed to convince H.M. H.M. grew drowsy again.
'About Hogenauer, son. Pretty well off, wasn't he?'
'Ah! He was that,' agreed Bowers, sinking his voice confidentially. 'Mind you, not that he was the one to chuck it about. He never played whoopee or anything like that. I've often thought to myself,' somewhere at the back of the pinched face appeared to lurk a happy smile, 'cor, suppose I should come home one night and find the old governor sitting at 'is desk with a bottle of fizz on the table and a little bit of fluff sitting on 'is knee!' Bowers added: 'But he never did.'
'How do you know he was well off?'
''Cos I've seen his pass-book,' answered the other complacently. 'Now, sir, no call to go and lecture me! If you see something, you look at it. 'Uman nature-that's what I always say.'
H.M., the corners of his mouth turned down, drew the ?100note out of his pocket, spread it out, and held it up.
'I wasn't goin' to lecture you, son. I was goin' to ask: did you ever see this before?'
Bowers whistled.
'No, sir. Not me. Or I'd 'ave remembered it.'
'Looks as though it had been chucked about, though,' observed H.M., regarding him fishily. 'Know where this was found, my lad? It was found tucked up in one of them old newspapers you put out in the pantry.'
'Go on!' said Bowers, shying with pale incredulity.
'Oh, it's quite true. Hogenauer must 'a' put it there. But that's not the most interestin' thing about this note, my lad. It might deceive you. It might look like the ripe allurin' promise of one hundred jimmy-o'-goblins. But it's not. It's counterfeit.'
For a brief space Bowers did not say anything, and then he began to curse. Although he did not speak loudly, it was a pretty obscene business in the two or three seconds before I went over, and lifted him in the air, and made his teeth rattle, and set him down again. Momentarily he seemed to be coming to pieces like the shredding cigar in his hand.
'You,' he said to H.M., past my shoulder, 'and what call have you got to do that to a fellow, when-and you,' he turned a sharp and bitter face on me, 'you, going about dressed up as a copper-and-and scaring the bloody-'
'Anything wrong?' said H.M. in an unruffled tone. 'You seem sorta upset. What's the matter, cocky?'
Bowers pulled himself together. ''Cos I've been had, that's why,' he said, not loudly. ''Cos I've been had, and somebody's going to pay for it if I 'ave to get it out of the old beggar's will. Me working and slaving for 'im, and earning me wages and thinking I'd got a tidy bit put by, and now I find I've been paid in money that's not worth-'
'He didn't pay you with this, did he?'
'No. I told you-'
'Oh, then you got nothin' to worry about,' said H.M., 'but there's one thing I want to ask you, and you tell me the truth or God help you.' He leaned across the desk and pointed his finger. 'The date of that paper, Ken tells me, was four days ago — Friday, June 12th. On that day, probably in the evening, somebody visited Hogenauer, and it wasn't Keppel. Who was it?'
'I dunno.'
'But there was somebody, wasn't there? Hey?' 'Yes. No. I dunno! 'Ere! You got no right ' 'Was it a man or a woman?' 'I dunno.'
'Now I'm goin' to tell you why you haven't said anything about this,' said the other. There are times when H.M. seems to spread out and fill the room, like a genie out of a bottle. You would say he was a remarkably solid genie; but, though he only got up from his chair, he appeared to envelop Bowers. 'No, don't look away. Look at me. Keep lookin' at me. Somebody came to the house that night, and had a conference with your boss. Later, probably the next morning, you spotted a good Bank-of-England note — or what you thought was one-carelessly lyin' where your boss or somebody had left it. You thought that was awful careless. And your boss was always careless. It was a note for five or ten pounds. You wouldn't have risked a bigger one. So you just shoved it in your pocket and took a chance. I don't care a whoopin' curse whether you pinched that note or you didn't pinch it. What I want to know is, who was the person with Hogenauer that night?'
Bowers, as I had seen him do once before that night in a crisis, put on a remarkable imitation of coolness. The curve of his slicked hair had come unshredded again, like his cigar. But after a pause he nodded.
