Kate plus 10
friends are mentally deficient.”
He turned round and looked at her and was in turn surprised.
“Hello,” he said, staring at her with his blue eyes wide open, “I
thought you were much older.”
She laughed.
“The fact is I didn’t look at you,” he confessed; “how can anybody
look at anything with these beastly things staring one in the
face--Hi! Emma!”
Fortunately the programme girl was looking his way and realised that
he was speaking to her.
“Your name is Emma, I suppose.”
“No, sir,” said the girl impressively, “my name is Evangeline.”
He turned to the girl.
“Here is an Evangeline whom I thought was an Emma; and here are my
Emmas that I thought were Evangelines,” he said despairingly. “What
made you come to this exhibition?”
“I saw a criticism of the pictures in yesterday’s papers.”
“In the _Megaphone_,” he said accusingly.
“Yes--it was a very flattering criticism, I thought,” said the girl.
He nodded.
“I wrote it myself,” he said without shame.
He turned to the programme girl.
“Tell your master to shut up the gallery, have the pictures packed
away and sent home.”
“But,” said Moya in alarm, “I hope my stupid views won’t influence
you.”
“It isn’t your stupid view,” he said, “it is my original stupid view.
You see, I can’t paint really. I know not the slightest thing about
art, I have never had an artistic education or served under any
master. I am a genius. These works are works of a genius. The frames
cost a lot of money and the amount of paint I have used is prodigious.
There is everything there,” he waved his hand to the covered walls,
“except the know-how.”
She murmured a conventional expression of sympathy, but he did not
invite sympathy, he invited condemnation and seemed to find a comfort
in his own misfortune and was obviously all the happier, that he had
reached a decision on his own merits.
They walked out of the gallery together and Moya wondered at herself.
That she had in so brief a space of time entered into the aspirations
and disappointments of a perfect stranger so that she felt something
of his chagrin was truly amazing.
“I know you,” he said, breaking off in the midst of a sardonic
dissertation on art, “you are Lady Moya Melton or Pelton.”
“Felton,” she suggested, amused.
“Oh, yes, Felton,” he nodded. “I saw your portrait in the academy, a
very bad portrait too.”
“People thought it was rather good,” she demurred.
“Idealised, but Lord, what do I know about art? This char-a-banc de
luxe is yours, I presume,” he pointed to the big limousine.
“It does happen to be mine,” she said; “my father gave it to me on my
twenty-first birthday.”
He inspected it critically.
“I wonder if I know as much about motor-cars as I know about
painting,” he said. “I used to think I knew something about both, but
here, at any rate, is something real, it is a very nice car.”
He opened the door for her and she offered her hand.
“I am so sorry about the pictures,” she said.
“Don’t worry,” he replied cheerfully.
She thought for a moment.
“Can I drop you anywhere?”
He fingered his unshaven chin.
“If you know of a nice deep pond where a man may drown himself without
interference I should be obliged,” he said gravely, then, seeing the
look of alarm in her eyes he laughed. “You probably don’t know my
name,” he said.
As a matter of fact she did not and had been trying throughout the
interview to take a surreptitious look at the catalogue. She knew it
was something like Brixel.
“Fonso Blaxton--” he said shortly. “Fonso stands for Alphonso, a
perfectly rotten name, isn’t it? It would be quite all right for an
artist. If there’s any need to send flowers, my address is Oxford
Chambers.”
He shook hands abruptly, handed her into the car and closed the door.
He waited only the briefest spell and had lifted his hat and vanished
before the car had started.
Moya drove back with so much to occupy her thoughts that she forgot to
dream. So preoccupied was she, that she passed Sir Ralph Sapson and
his chic companion turning into the park before she was aware that he
was bowing to her or had time to note anything more about the lady
than that she was very beautifully gowned and that her sunshade was
tilted at such an angle that it was impossible to see her face.
“Who is your friend?”
Sir Ralph turned with a smirk.
“That, Princess,” he said, “is Lady Moya Felton.”
“Oh, your fiancée,” said the girl, “isn’t it a bore being in London
incognito; I should so much like to have met her.”
“Perhaps some day,” said Ralph.
“I should dearly love to,” murmured the girl; “but please go on, you
interest me so much. I am beginning to realise why you English are so
successful. You seem to know every detail of your business.”
“Oh, dear no,” protested Sir Ralph good-humoredly. “I am rather a
dunce if the truth be told, but one must know something of the
details.”
“Something!” said the girl, raising her eye-brows. “I think you are
very modest. Why, you seem to know the workings of your railway system
from beginning to end.”
Sir Ralph stroked his moustache thoughtfully.
“One has to go into things,” he said vaguely, “and of course one takes
a lot of credit for things which one is not entitled to take credit
for. But the gold train was my idea altogether.”
“I never thought there was so much romance in business,” said the
Princess, then suddenly, “do you mind telling the driver to turn
about, I am tired of the park now.”
He leaned forward and instructed the chauffeur and the big car circled
round.
“I am glad you suggested that,” he said.
“Why?” she asked.
“Did you notice a man in a grey felt hat talking to a lady in a
victoria?”
She shook her head.
“He’s a weird bird,” said Sir Ralph; “he is a policeman, Michael
Pretherston, Lord Pretherston’s brother. I don’t want to meet him,
apart from the fact that he might recognize you, even through that
veil of yours which would deny him so much happiness,” he added
gallantly.
“Tell me some more about the gold train,” she said.
Nothing loath Sir Ralph explained. He told the story of the Seahampton
Docks and the big liners which would be coming in and the new services
he had inaugurated to meet the increased traffic.
“We shall carry practically the whole of the gold which comes from the
Rand mines,” he said impressively. “Naturally we have to be very
careful although there is not much danger in England. The gold train
is really two big safes on wheels. To outward appearance, they are
just like ordinary closed railway trucks. In reality they are steel
boxes, burglar proof and fire proof. Of course, nothing can go wrong
and even if we had a smash the cars would be uninjured. But I have the
best men on the system to run the train.”
“How very fascinating,” she said intensely interested. “I suppose you
have a most elaborate time-table?”
“I have worked out every detail myself,” he said.
He took a note-book from his pocket.
“I will show you, Princess,” he said impressively.
He turned the gilt-edged leaves until he came to two pages covered
with his fine writing.
“You will get some idea of the work involved in the running of a
special train,” he said; “here are the times. There is the driver’s
name, the fireman’s name, the assistant fireman’s name, the names of
the two guards.”
She looked at the book.
“I cannot read your writing very well,” she laughed; “you must not
forget that my family was very old fashioned and my dear father never
allowed us to learn the Roman alphabet until we were quite grown up.
But I can see what a very difficult business it is.”
She handed the book back to him with a little sigh.
“I am afraid I am very stupid,” she said; “figures always bother me
and I can see that you revel in them. I hate writing, but by the way
your book is filled, it seems that you revel in it! I cannot
understand people who like to write. It is always an agony for me to
compose an ordinary letter. My thoughts come so much faster than my
poor hand can move.”
She took a pad and pencil from the silver mounted stationery case in
front of her.
“I will show you something,” she said.
She wrote rapidly, resting the pad on her knee and he watched her in
astonishment as she proceeded to fill the sheet.
“There,” she said triumphantly, “that is what I can do best.”
“It looks like shorthand,” he said.
“It is something like Russian shorthand,” said the girl, “and I am
such a lazy person that I always use it whenever I want to write a
note. My secretary, who is the only person in the world who
understands it, transcribes it. I do it because I hate writing.”
“So you are clever, after all, Princess.”
She reached out her little hand and patted his arm.
“You don’t know how clever I am,” she said and they both laughed
together.
CHAPTER IX.
THE SHAREHOLDERS AND AN INTERRUPTION
Colonel Westhanger looked at his watch.
“She’s twenty minutes late already,” he said.
Gregori rolled another cigarette and looked enquiringly at Dr. Philip
Garon who was fingering his trim beard and talking with some animation
to the middle-aged pallid man, who was known to the world as Mr.
Cunningham and to the police as an expert safe breaker.
All Crime Street, with the exception of the admirable Mr. Millet, was
present. The Bishop with his large placid face was playing bezique
with Francis Stockmar. Colling Jacques, who had the appearance of a
prosperous butler who had settled down to the management of his own
private hotel, was reading the newspaper. Mr. Mulberry, that
respectable man with his grey side-whiskers and his sad dog-like eyes,
was discussing Renaissance architecture with the other Stockmar and
the Colonel, pacing the room impatiently, stopped now and again to
fling a word to one or the other.
Presently there was a slight sound in the hall below and the Colonel
went to the door of the room.
“She is here,” he said and passed out to the landing to meet Kate.
She was wearing a dark coat-dress and a big black fox wrap which she
loosened and flung off as she came into the room. It was notable that
the Colonel, who had every right to complain of her unpunctuality, did
not attempt to criticize her for her late arrival, other than to make
mild reference to the fact that he had expected her earlier.
She looked around the room.
“Where is Millet?” she asked.
“Millet is working on the telegrams,” he said and she nodded,
satisfied.
“Everything is ready now,” she said. “Did you see Boltover, Mr.
Mulberry?”
He rose and came toward her with that noiseless step of his.
“A most amiable young man,” he said in his unctuous sing-song voice,
“such a pleasant young man! We had a very long talk together.”
“And?”
“We arranged everything.”
He took a long envelope from his pocket, pulled out a stiff parchment
and handed it to her with the gravity and deference of an ambassador
delivering a treaty to his sovereign lady. She ran her eyes quickly
over the document, turned its crinkling page and read rapidly to the
last flourishing signatures.
“That’s all right,” she said and returned the document.
The long table had been placed in the middle of the room and to this,
without instructions, the whole of the company had drawn. Colonel
Westhanger sat at one end and Kate at the other. From her bag she took
a thick roll of manuscript, cut the strings that fastened it and
smoothed the sheets out before her. One by one she called their names
at the same time handing them, in some cases one, in other cases two
or three sheets covered with writing.
“You have a week to master all this,” she said, “and in a week’s time
we will meet again and I will see that everybody understands.”
She caught Jacques’ eye.