Books: Uneasy Money

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'See it?' she said.

'Don't you see a monkey on the top of the wardrobe?' said Nutty,
becoming more definite.

'There's a sort of bit of wood sticking out--'

Nutty sighed.

'No, not that. You didn't see it. I don't think you would.'

He spoke so dejectedly that for a moment Elizabeth weakened, but
only for an instant.

'Tell me all about this, Nutty,' she said.

Nutty was beyond the desire for evasion and concealment. His one
wish was to tell. He told all.

'But, Nutty, how silly of you!'

'Yes.'

'After what the doctor said.'

'I know.'

'You remember his telling you--'

'I know. Never again!'

'What do you mean?'

'I quit. I'm going to give it up.'

Elizabeth embraced him maternally.

'That's a good child!' she said. 'You really promise?'

'I don't have to promise, I'm just going to do it.'

Elizabeth compromised with her conscience by becoming soothing.

'You know, this isn't so very serious, Nutty, darling. I mean,
it's just a warning.'

'It's warned me all right.'

'You will be perfectly all right if--'

Nutty interrupted her.

'You're sure you can't see anything?'

'See what?'

Nutty's voice became almost apologetic.

'I know it's just imagination, but the monkey seems to me to be
climbing down from the wardrobe.'

'I can't see anything climbing down the wardrobe,' said Elizabeth,
as Eustace touched the floor.

'It's come down now. It's crossing the carpet.'

'Where?'

'It's gone now. It went out of the door.'

'Oh!'

'I say, Elizabeth, what do you think I ought to do?'

'I should go to bed and have a nice long sleep, and you'll feel--'

'Somehow I don't feel much like going to bed. This sort of thing
upsets a chap, you know.'

'Poor dear!'

'I think I'll go for a long walk.'

'That's a splendid idea.'

'I think I'd better do a good lot of walking from now on. Didn't
Chalmers bring down some Indian clubs with him? I think I'll
borrow them. I ought to keep out in the open a lot, I think. I
wonder if there's any special diet I ought to have. Well, anyway,
I'll be going for that walk.'

At the foot of the stairs Nutty stopped. He looked quickly into
the porch, then looked away again.

'What's the matter?' asked Elizabeth.

'I thought for a moment I saw the monkey sitting on the hammock.'

He went out of the house and disappeared from view down the drive,
walking with long, rapid strides.

Elizabeth's first act, when he had gone, was to fetch a banana
from the ice-box. Her knowledge of monkeys was slight, but she
fancied they looked with favour on bananas. It was her intention
to conciliate Eustace.

She had placed Eustace by now. Unlike Nutty, she read the papers,
and she knew all about Lady Wetherby and her pets. The fact that
Lady Wetherby, as she had been informed by the grocer in friendly
talk, had rented a summer house in the neighbourhood made
Eustace's identity positive.

She had no very clear plans as to what she intended to do with
Eustace, beyond being quite resolved that she was going to board
and lodge him for a few days. Nutty had had the jolt he needed,
but it might be that the first freshness of it would wear away, in
which event it would be convenient to have Eustace on the
premises. She regarded Eustace as a sort of medicine. A second
dose might not be necessary, but it was as well to have the
mixture handy. She took another banana, in case the first might
not be sufficient. She then returned to the porch.

Eustace was sitting on the hammock, brooding. The complexities of
life were weighing him down a good deal. He was not aware of
Elizabeth's presence until he found her standing by him. He had
just braced himself for flight, when he perceived that she bore
rich gifts.

Eustace was always ready for a light snack--readier now than
usual, for air and exercise had sharpened his appetite. He took
the banana in a detached manner, as it to convey the idea that it
did not commit him to any particular course of conduct. It was a
good banana, and he stretched out a hand for the other. Elizabeth
sat down beside him, but he did not move. He was convinced now of
her good intentions. It was thus that Lord Dawlish found them when
he came in from the garden.

'Where has your brother gone to?' he asked. 'He passed me just now
at eight miles an hour. Great Scot! What's that?'

'It's a monkey. Don't frighten him; he's rather nervous.'

She tickled Eustace under the ear, for their relations were now
friendly.

'Nutty went for a walk because he thought he saw it.'

'Thought he saw it?'

'Thought he saw it,' repeated Elizabeth, firmly. 'Will you
remember, Mr Chalmers, that, as far as he is concerned, this
monkey has no existence?'

'I don't understand.'

Elizabeth explained.

'You see now?'

'I see. But how long are you going to keep the animal?'

'Just a day or two--in case.'

'Where are you going to keep it?'

'In the outhouse. Nutty never goes there, it's too near the
bee-hives.'

'I suppose you don't know who the owner is?'

'Yes, I do; it must be Lady Wetherby.'

'Lady Wetherby!'

'She's a woman who dances at one of the restaurants. I read in a
Sunday paper about her monkey. She has just taken a house near
here. I don't see who else the animal could belong to. Monkeys are
rarities on Long Island.'

Bill was silent. 'Sudden a thought came like a full-blown rose,
flushing his brow.' For days he had been trying to find an excuse
for calling on Lady Wetherby as a first step toward meeting Claire
again. Here it was. There would be no need to interfere with
Elizabeth's plans. He would be vague. He would say he had just
seen the runaway, but would not add where. He would create an
atmosphere of helpful sympathy. Perhaps, later on, Elizabeth would
let him take the monkey back.

'What are you thinking about?' asked Elizabeth.

'Oh, nothing,' said Bill.

'Perhaps we had better stow away our visitor for the night.'

'Yes.'

Elizabeth got up.

'Poor, dear Nutty may be coming back at any moment now,' she said.

But poor, dear Nutty did not return for a full two hours. When he
did he was dusty and tired, but almost cheerful.

'I didn't see the brute once all the time I was out,' he told
Elizabeth. 'Not once!'

Elizabeth kissed him fondly and offered to heat water for a bath;
but Nutty said he would take it cold. From now on, he vowed,
nothing but cold baths. He conveyed the impression of being a
blend of repentant sinner and hardy Norseman. Before he went to
bed he approached Bill on the subject of Indian clubs.

'I want to get myself into shape, old top,' he said.

'Yes?'

'I've got to cut it out--to-night I thought I saw a monkey.'

'Really?'

'As plain as I see you now.' Nutty gave the clubs a tentative
swing. 'What do you do with these darned things? Swing them about
and all that? All right, I see the idea. Good night.'

But Bill did not pass a good night. He lay awake long, thinking
over his plans for the morrow.

15

Lady Wetherby was feeling battered. She had not realized how
seriously Roscoe Sherriff took the art of publicity, nor what
would be the result of the half-hour he had spent at the telephone
on the night of the departure of Eustace.

Roscoe Sherriff's eloquence had fired the imagination of editors.
There had been a notable lack of interesting happenings this
summer. Nobody seemed to be striking or murdering or having
violent accidents. The universe was torpid. In these circumstances,
the escape of Eustace seemed to present possibilities. Reporters
had been sent down. There were three of them living in the house
now, and Wrench's air of disapproval was deepening every hour.

It was their strenuousness which had given Lady Wetherby that
battered feeling. There was strenuousness in the air, and she
resented it on her vacation. She had come to Long Island to
vegetate, and with all this going on round her vegetation was
impossible. She was not long alone. Wrench entered.

'A gentleman to see you, m'lady.'

In the good old days, when she had been plain Polly Davis, of the
personnel of the chorus of various musical comedies, Lady Wetherby
would have suggested a short way of disposing of this untimely
visitor; but she had a position to keep up now.

'From some darned paper?' she asked, wearily.

'No, m'lady. I fancy he is not connected with the Press.'

There was something in Wrench's manner that perplexed Lady
Wetherby, something almost human, as if Wrench were on the point
of coming alive. She did not guess it, but the explanation was
that Bill, quite unwittingly, had impressed Wrench. There was that
about Bill that reminded the butler of London and dignified
receptions at the house of the Dowager Duchess of Waveney. It was
deep calling unto deep.

'Where is he?'

'I have shown him into the drawing-room, m'lady.'

Lady Wetherby went downstairs and found a large young man awaiting
her, looking nervous.

Bill was feeling nervous. A sense of the ridiculousness of his
mission had come upon him. After all, he asked himself, what on
earth had he got to say? A presentiment had come upon him that he
was about to look a perfect ass. At the sight of Lady Wetherby his
nervousness began to diminish. Lady Wetherby was not a formidable
person. In spite of her momentary peevishness, she brought with
her an atmosphere of geniality and camaraderie.

'It's about your monkey,' he said, coming to the point at once.

Lady Wetherby brightened.

'Oh! Have you seen it?'

He was glad that she put it like that.

'Yes. It came round our way last night.'

'Where is that?'

'I am staying at a farm near here, a place they call Flack's. The
monkey got into one of the rooms.'

'Yes?'

'And then--er--then it got out again, don't you know.'

Lady Wetherby looked disappointed.

'So it may be anywhere now?' she said.

In the interests of truth, Bill thought it best to leave this
question unanswered.

'Well, it's very good of you to have bothered to come out and tell
me,' said Lady Wetherby. 'It gives us a clue, at any rate. Thank
you. At least, we know now in which direction it went.'

There was a pause. Bill gathered that the other was looking on the
interview as terminated, and that she was expecting him to go, and
he had not begun to say what he wanted to say. He tried to think
of a way of introducing the subject of Claire that should not seem
too abrupt.

'Er--' he said.

'Well?' said Lady Wetherby, simultaneously.

'I beg your pardon.'

'You have the floor,' said Lady Wetherby. 'Shoot!'

It was not what she had intended to say. For months she had been
trying to get out of the habit of saying that sort of thing, but
she still suffered relapses. Only the other day she had told
Wrench to check some domestic problem or other with his hat, and
he had nearly given notice. But if she had been intending to put
Bill at his ease she could not have said anything better.

'You have a Miss Fenwick staying with you, haven't you?' he said.

Lady Wetherby beamed.

'Do you know Claire?'

'Yes, rather!'

'She's my best friend. We used to be in the same company when I
was in England.'

'So she has told me.'

'She was my bridesmaid when I married Lord Wetherby.'

'Yes.'

Lady Wetherby was feeling perfectly happy now, and when Lady
Wetherby felt happy she always became garrulous. She was one of
those people who are incapable of looking on anybody as a stranger
after five minutes' acquaintance. Already she had begun to regard
Bill as an old friend.

'Those were great days,' she said, cheerfully. 'None of us had a
bean, and Algie was the hardest up of the whole bunch. After we
were married we went to the Savoy for the wedding-breakfast, and
when it was over and the waiter came with the check, Algie said he
was sorry, but he had had a bad week at Lincoln and hadn't the
price on him. He tried to touch me, but I passed. Then he had a go
at the best man, but the best man had nothing in the world but one
suit of clothes and a spare collar. Claire was broke, too, so the
end of it was that the best man had to sneak out and pawn my watch
and the wedding-ring.'

The room rang with her reminiscent laughter, Bill supplying a bass
accompaniment. Bill was delighted. He had never hoped that it
would be granted to him to become so rapidly intimate with
Claire's hostess. Why, he had only to keep the conversation in
this chummy vein for a little while longer and she would give him
the run of the house.

'Miss Fenwick isn't in now, I suppose?' he asked.

'No, Claire's out with Dudley Pickering. You don't know him, do
you?'

'No.'

'She's engaged to him.'

It is an ironical fact that Lady Wetherby was by nature one of the
firmest believers in existence in the policy of breaking things
gently to people. She had a big, soft heart, and she hated hurting
her fellows. As a rule, when she had bad news to impart to any one
she administered the blow so gradually and with such mystery as to
the actual facts that the victim, having passed through the
various stages of imagined horrors, was genuinely relieved, when
she actually came to the point, to find that all that had happened
was that he had lost all his money. But now in perfect innocence,
thinking only to pass along an interesting bit of information, she
had crushed Bill as effectively as if she had used a club for that
purpose.

'I'm tickled to death about it,' she went on, as it were over her
hearer's prostrate body. It was I who brought them together, you
know. I wrote telling Claire to come out here on the _Atlantic,_
knowing that Dudley was sailing on that boat. I had an idea they
would hit it off together. Dudley fell for her right away, and she
must have fallen for him, for they had only known each other
for a few weeks when they came and told me they were engaged.
It happened last Sunday.'

'Last Sunday!'

It had seemed to Bill a moment before that he would never again be
capable of speech, but this statement dragged the words out of
him. Last Sunday! Why, it was last Sunday that Claire had broken
off her engagement with him!

'Last Sunday at nine o'clock in the evening, with a full moon
shining and soft music going on off-stage. Real third-act stuff.'

Bill felt positively dizzy. He groped back in his memory for
facts. He had gone out for his walk after dinner. They had dined
at eight. He had been walking some time. Why, in Heaven's name,
this was the quickest thing in the amatory annals of civilization!
His brain was too numbed to work out a perfectly accurate
schedule, but it looked as if she must have got engaged to this
Pickering person before she met him, Bill, in the road that night.

'It's a wonderful match for dear old Claire,' resumed Lady
Wetherby, twisting the knife in the wound with a happy unconsciousness.
'Dudley's not only a corking good fellow, but he has thirty million
dollars stuffed away in the stocking and a business that brings him
in a perfectly awful mess of money every year. He's the Pickering of
the Pickering automobiles, you know.'

Bill got up. He stood for a moment holding to the back of his
chair before speaking. It was almost exactly thus that he had felt
in the days when he had gone in for boxing and had stopped
forceful swings with the more sensitive portions of his person.

'That--that's splendid!' he said. 'I--I think I'll be going.'

'I heard the car outside just now,' said Lady Wetherby. 'I think
it's probably Claire and Dudley come back. Won't you wait and see
her?'

Bill shook his head.

'Well, good-bye for the present, then. You must come round again.
Any friend of Claire's--and it was bully of you to bother about
looking in to tell of Eustace.'

Bill had reached the door. He was about to turn the handle when
someone turned it on the other side.

'Why, here is Dudley,' said Lady Wetherby. 'Dudley, this is a
friend of Claire's.'

Dudley Pickering was one of those men who take the ceremony of
introduction with a measured solemnity. It was his practice to
grasp the party of the second part firmly by the hand, hold it,
look into his eyes in a reverent manner, and get off some little
speech of appreciation, short but full of feeling. The opening
part of this ceremony he performed now. He grasped Bill's hand
firmly, held it, and looked into his eyes. And then, having
performed his business, he fell down on his lines. Not a word
proceeded from him. He dropped the hand and stared at Bill
amazedly and--more than that--with fear.

Bill, too, uttered no word. It was not one of those chatty
meetings.

But if they were short on words, both Bill and Mr Pickering were
long on looks. Bill stared at Mr Pickering. Mr Pickering stared at
Bill.

Bill was drinking in Mr Pickering. The stoutness of Mr Pickering--the
orderliness of Mr Pickering--the dullness of Mr Pickering--all these
things he perceived. And illumination broke upon him.

Mr Pickering was drinking in Bill. The largeness of Bill--the
embarrassment of Bill--the obvious villainy of Bill--none of these
things escaped his notice. And illumination broke upon him also.

For Dudley Pickering, in the first moment of their meeting, had
recognized Bill as the man who had been lurking in the grounds and
peering in at the window, the man at whom on the night when he had
become engaged to Claire he had shouted 'Hi!'

'Where's Claire, Dudley?' asked Lady Wetherby.

Mr Pickering withdrew his gaze reluctantly from Bill.

'Gone upstairs.'

I'll go and tell her that you're here, Mr--You never told me your
name.'

Bill came to life with an almost acrobatic abruptness. There were
many things of which at that moment he felt absolutely incapable,
and meeting Claire was one of them.

'No; I must be going,' he said, hurriedly. 'Good-bye.'

He came very near running out of the room. Lady Wetherby regarded
the practically slammed door with wide eyes.

'Quick exit of Nut Comedian!' she said. 'Whatever was the matter
with the man? He's scorched a trail in the carpet.'

Mr Pickering was trembling violently.

'Do you know who that was? He was the man!' said Mr Pickering.

'What man?'

'The man I caught looking in at the window that night!'

'What nonsense! You must be mistaken. He said he knew Claire quite
well.'

'But when you suggested that he should meet her he ran.'

This aspect of the matter had not occurred to Lady Wetherby.

'So he did!'

'What did he tell you that showed he knew Claire?'

'Well, now that I come to think of it, he didn't tell me anything.
I did the talking. He just sat there.'

Mr Pickering quivered with combined fear and excitement and
inductive reasoning.

'It was a trick!' he cried. 'Remember what Sherriff said that
night when I told you about finding the man looking in at the
window? He said that the fellow was spying round as a preliminary
move. To-day he trumps up an obviously false excuse for getting
into the house. Was he left alone in the rooms at all?'

'Yes. Wrench loosed him in here and then came up to tell me.'

'For several minutes, then, he was alone in the house. Why, he had
time to do all he wanted to do!'

'Calm down!'

'I am perfectly calm. But--'

'You've been seeing too many crook plays, Dudley. A man isn't
necessarily a burglar because he wears a decent suit of clothes.'

'Why was he lurking in the grounds that night?'

'You're just imagining that it was the same man.'

'I am absolutely positive it was the same man.'

'Well, we can easily settle one thing about him, at any rate. Here
comes Claire. Claire, old girl,' she said, as the door opened, 'do
you know a man named--Darn it! I never got his name, but he's--'

Claire stood in the doorway, looking from one to the other.

'What's the matter, Dudley?' she said.

'Dudley's gone clean up in the air,' explained Lady Wetherby,
tolerantly. 'A friend of yours called to tell me he had seen
Eustace--'

'So that was his excuse, was it?' said Dudley Pickering. 'Did he
say where Eustace was?'

'No; he said he had seen him; that was all'

'An obviously trumped-up story. He had heard of Eustace's escape
and he knew that any story connected with him would be a passport
into the house.'

Lady Wetherby turned to Claire.

'You haven't told us yet if you know the man. He was a big, tall,
broad gazook,' said Lady Wetherby. 'Very English'

'He faked the English,' said Dudley Pickering. 'That man was no
more an Englishman than I am.'

'Be patient with him, Claire,' urged Lady Wetherby. 'He's been
going to the movies too much, and thinks every man who has had his
trousers pressed is a social gangster. This man was the most
English thing I've ever seen--talked like this.'

She gave a passable reproduction of Bill's speech. Claire started.

'I don't know him!' she cried.

Her mind was in a whirl of agitation. Why had Bill come to the
house? What had he said? Had he told Dudley anything?

'I don't recognize the description,' she said, quickly. 'I don't
know anything about him.'

'There!' said Dudley Pickering, triumphantly.

'It's queer,' said Lady Wetherby. 'You're sure you don't know him,
Claire?'

'Absolutely sure.'

'He said he was living at a place near here, called Flack's.'

'I know the place,' said Dudley Pickering. 'A sinister, tumbledown
sort of place. Just where a bunch of crooks would be living.'

'I thought it was a bee-farm,' said Lady Wetherby. 'One of the
tradesmen told me about it. I saw a most corkingly pretty girl
bicycling down to the village one morning, and they told me she
was named Boyd and kept a bee-farm at Flack's.'

'A blind!' said Mr Pickering, stoutly. 'The girl's the man's
accomplice. It's quite easy to see the way they work. The girl
comes and settles in the place so that everybody knows her. That's
to lull suspicion. Then the man comes down for a visit and goes
about cleaning up the neighbouring houses. You can't get away from
the fact that this summer there have been half a dozen burglaries
down here, and nobody has found out who did them.'

Lady Wetherby looked at him indulgently.

'And now,' she said, 'having got us scared stiff, what are you
going to do about it?'

'I am going,' he said, with determination, 'to take steps.'

He went out quickly, the keen, tense man of affairs.

'Bless him!' said Lady Wetherby. 'I'd no idea your Dudley had so
much imagination, Claire. He's a perfect bomb-shell.'

Claire laughed shakily.

'It is odd, though,' said Lady Wetherby, meditatively, 'that this
man should have said that he knew you, when you don't--'

Claire turned impulsively.

'Polly, I want to tell you something. Promise you won't tell
Dudley. I wasn't telling the truth just now. I do know this man. I
was engaged to him once.'

'What!'

'For goodness' sake don't tell Dudley!'

'But--'

'It's all over now; but I used to be engaged to him.'

'Not when I was in England?'

'No, after that.'

'Then he didn't know you are engaged to Dudley now?'

'N-no. I--I haven't seen him for a long time.'

Lady Wetherby looked remorseful.

'Poor man! I must have given him a jolt! But why didn't you tell
me about him before?'

'Oh, I don't know.'

'Oh, well, I'm not inquisitive. There's no rubber in my
composition. It's your affair.'

'You won't tell Dudley?'

'Of course not. But why not? You've nothing to be ashamed of.'

'No; but--'

'Well, I won't tell him, anyway. But I'm glad you told me about
him. Dudley was so eloquent about burglars that he almost had me
going. I wonder where he rushed off to?'

Dudley Pickering had rushed off to his bedroom, and was examining
a revolver there. He examined it carefully, keenly. Preparedness
was Dudley Pickering's slogan. He looked rather like a stout
sheriff in a film drama.

16

In the interesting land of India, where snakes abound and
scorpions are common objects of the wayside, a native who has had
the misfortune to be bitten by one of the latter pursues an
admirably common-sense plan. He does not stop to lament, nor does
he hang about analysing his emotions. He runs and runs and runs,
and keeps on running until he has worked the poison out of his
system. Not until then does he attempt introspection.

Lord Dawlish, though ignorant of this fact, pursued almost
identically the same policy. He did not run on leaving Lady
Wetherby's house, but he took a very long and very rapid walk,
than which in times of stress there are few things of greater
medicinal value to the human mind. To increase the similarity, he
was conscious of a curious sense of being poisoned. He felt
stifled--in want of air.

Bill was a simple young man, and he had a simple code of ethics.
Above all things he prized and admired and demanded from his
friends the quality of straightness. It was his one demand. He had
never actually had a criminal friend, but he was quite capable of
intimacy with even a criminal, provided only that there was
something spacious about his brand of crime and that it did not
involve anything mean or underhand. It was the fact that Mr
Breitstein whom Claire had wished him to insinuate into his club,
though acquitted of actual crime, had been proved guilty of
meanness and treachery, that had so prejudiced Bill against him.
The worst accusation that he could bring against a man was that he
was not square, that he had not played the game.

Claire had not been square. It was that, more than the shock of
surprise of Lady Wetherby's news, that had sent him striding along
the State Road at the rate of five miles an hour, staring before
him with unseeing eyes. A sudden recollection of their last
interview brought a dull flush to Bill's face and accelerated his
speed. He felt physically ill.

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