The Girl on the Boat
tent with the object of murdering her, Jane Hubbard had shot without
making inquiries. What strange feminine weakness it was that had caused
her to utter a challenge on this occasion, she could not have said.
Probably it was due to the enervating effects of civilisation. She was
glad now that she had done so, for, being awake and in full possession
of her faculties, she perceived that the intruder, whoever he was, had
no evil intentions.
“Who is it?” she asked.
“I don’t know how to apologise!”
“That’s all right! Let’s have a light.” A match flared in the darkness.
Miss Hubbard lit her candle, and gazed at Mr. Bennett with quiet
curiosity. “Walking in your sleep?” she inquired.
“No, no!”
“Not so loud! You’ll wake Mr. Hignett. He’s next door. That’s why I
took this room, in case he was restless in the night.”
“I want to see Bream Mortimer,” said Mr. Bennett.
“He’s in my old room, two doors along the passage. What do you want to
see him about?”
“I wish to inform him that he may still consider himself engaged to my
daughter.”
“Oh, well, I don’t suppose he’ll mind being woken up to hear that. But
what’s the idea?”
“It’s a long story.”
“That’s all right. Let’s make a night of it.”
“I am a dying man. I awoke an hour ago with a feeling of acute
pain....”
Miss Hubbard listened to the story of his symptoms with interest but
without excitement.
“What nonsense!” she said at the conclusion.
“I assure you....”
“I’d like to bet it’s nothing serious at all.”
“My dear young lady,” said Mr. Bennett, piqued. “I have devoted a
considerable part of my life to medical study....”
“I know. That’s the trouble. People oughtn’t to be allowed to read
medical books.”
“Well, we need not discuss it,” said Mr. Bennett stiffly. He resented
being dragged out of the valley of the shadow of death by the scruff of
his neck like this. A dying man has his dignity to think of. “I will
leave you now, and go and see young Mortimer.” He clung to a hope that
Bream Mortimer at least would receive him fittingly. “Good-night!”
“But wait a moment!”
Mr. Bennett left the room, unheeding. He was glad to go. Jane Hubbard
irritated him.
His expectation of getting more satisfactory results from Bream was
fulfilled. It took some time to rouse that young man from a slumber
almost as deep as his father’s; but, once roused, he showed a
gratifying appreciation of the gravity of affairs. Joy at one half of
his visitor’s news competed with consternation and sympathy at the
other half. He thanked Mr. Bennett profusely, showed a fitting concern
on learning of his terrible situation, and evinced a practical desire
to help by offering him a bottle of liniment which he had found useful
for gnat-stings. Declining this, though not ungratefully, Mr. Bennett
withdrew and made his way down the passage again with something
approaching a glow in his heart. The glow lasted till he had almost
reached the landing, when it was dissipated by a soft but compelling
voice from the doorway of Miss Hubbard’s room.
“Come here!” said Miss Hubbard. She had put on a blue bath-robe, and
looked like a pugilist about to enter the ring.
“Well?” said Mr. Bennett coldly, coming nevertheless.
“I’m going to have a look at that tongue of yours,” said Jane firmly.
“It’s my opinion that you’re making a lot of fuss over nothing.”
Mr. Bennett drew himself up as haughtily as a fat man in a
dressing-gown can, but the effect was wasted on his companion, who had
turned and gone into her room.
“Come in here,” she said.
Tougher men than Mr. Bennett had found it impossible to resist the note
of calm command in that voice, but for all that he reproached himself
for his weakness in obeying.
“Sit down!” said Jane Hubbard.
She indicated a low stool beside the dressing-table.
“Put your tongue out!” she said, as Mr. Bennett, still under her
strange influence, lowered himself on to the stool. “Further out!
That’s right. Keep it like that!”
“Ouch!” exclaimed Mr. Bennett, bounding up.
“Don’t make such a noise! You’ll wake Mr. Hignett. Sit down again!”
“I....”
“Sit down!”
Mr. Bennett sat down. Miss Hubbard extended once more the hand holding
the needle which had caused his outcry. He winced away from it
desperately.
“Baby!” said Miss Hubbard reprovingly. “Why, I once sewed eighteen
stitches in a native bearer’s head, and he didn’t make half the fuss
you’re making. Now, keep quite still.”
Mr. Bennett did—for perhaps the space of two seconds. Then he leaped
from his seat once more. It was a tribute to the forceful personality
of the fair surgeon, if one were needed, that the squeal he uttered was
a subdued one. He was just about to speak—he had framed the opening
words of a strong protest—when suddenly he became aware of something in
his mouth, something small and hard. He removed it and examined it as
it lay on his finger. It was a minute fragment of lobster-shell. And at
the same time he became conscious of a marked improvement in the state
of his tongue. The swelling had gone.
“I told you so!” said Jane Hubbard placidly. “What is it?”
“It—it appears to be a piece of....”
“Lobster-shell. And we had lobster for lunch. Good-night.”
Half-way down the stairs, it suddenly occurred to Mr. Bennett that he
wanted to sing. He wanted to sing very loud, and for quite some time.
He restrained the impulse, and returned to bed. But relief such as his
was too strong to keep bottled up. He wanted to tell someone all about
it. He needed a confidant.
Webster, the valet, awakened once again by the ringing of his bell,
sighed resignedly and made his way downstairs.
“Did you ring, sir?”
“Webster,” cried Mr. Bennett, “it’s all right! I’m not dying after all!
I’m not dying after all, Webster!”
“Very good, sir,” said Webster. “Will there be anything further?”
CHAPTER XII.
THE LURID PAST OF JNO. PETERS
“That’s right!” said Sir Mallaby Marlowe. “Work while you’re young,
Sam, work while you’re young.” He regarded his son’s bent head with
affectionate approval. “What’s the book to-day?”
“Widgery on Nisi Prius Evidence,” said Sam, without looking up.
“Capital!” said Sir Mallaby. “Highly improving and as interesting as a
novel—some novels. There’s a splendid bit on, I think, page two hundred
and fifty-four where the hero finds out all about Copyhold and
Customary Estates. It’s a wonderfully powerful situation. It
appears—but I won’t spoil it for you. Mind you don’t skip to see how it
all comes out in the end!” Sir Mallaby suspended conversation while he
addressed an imaginary ball with the mashie which he had taken out of
his golf-bag. For this was the day when he went down to Walton Heath
for his weekly foursome with three old friends. His tubby form was clad
in tweed of a violent nature, with knickerbockers and stockings. “Sam!”
“Well?”
“Sam, a man at the club showed me a new grip the other day. Instead of
overlapping the little finger of the right hand.... Oh, by the way,
Sam.”
“Yes?”
“I should lock up the office to-day if I were you, or anxious clients
will be coming in and asking for advice, and you’ll find yourself in
difficulties. I shall be gone, and Peters is away on his holiday. You’d
better lock the outer door.”
“All right,” said Sam absently. He was finding Widgery stiff reading.
He had just got to the bit about Raptu Haeredis, which—as of course you
know, is a writ for taking away an heir holding in socage.
Sir Mallaby looked at his watch.
“Well, I’ll have to be going. See you later, Sam.”
“Good-bye.”
Sir Mallaby went out, and Sam, placing both elbows on the desk and
twining his fingers in his hair, returned with a frown of consternation
to his grappling with Widgery. For perhaps ten minutes the struggle was
an even one, then gradually Widgery got the upper hand. Sam’s mind,
numbed by constant batterings against the stony ramparts of legal
phraseology, weakened, faltered, and dropped away; and a moment later
his thoughts, as so often happened when he was alone, darted off and
began to circle round the image of Billie Bennett.
Since they had last met, at Sir Mallaby’s dinner-table, Sam had told
himself perhaps a hundred times that he cared nothing about Billie,
that she had gone out of his life and was dead to him; but
unfortunately he did not believe it. A man takes a deal of convincing
on a point like this, and Sam had never succeeded in convincing himself
for more than two minutes at a time. It was useless to pretend that he
did not still love Billie more than ever, because he knew he did; and
now, as the truth swept over him for the hundred and first time, he
groaned hollowly and gave himself up to the grey despair which is the
almost inseparable companion of young men in his position.
So engrossed was he in his meditation that he did not hear the light
footstep in the outer office, and it was only when it was followed by a
tap on the door of the inner office that he awoke with a start to the
fact that clients were in his midst. He wished that he had taken his
father’s advice and locked up the office. Probably this was some
frightful bore who wanted to make his infernal will or something, and
Sam had neither the ability nor the inclination to assist him.
Was it too late to escape? Perhaps if he did not answer the knock, the
blighter might think there was nobody at home. But suppose he opened
the door and peeped in? A spasm of Napoleonic strategy seized Sam. He
dropped silently to the floor and concealed himself under the desk.
Napoleon was always doing that sort of thing.
There was another tap. Then, as he had anticipated, the door opened.
Sam, crouched like a hare in its form, held his breath. It seemed to
him that he was going to bring this delicate operation off with
success. He felt he had acted just as Napoleon would have done in a
similar crisis. And so, no doubt, he had to a certain extent; only
Napoleon would have seen to it that his boots and about eighteen inches
of trousered legs were not sticking out, plainly visible to all who
entered.
“Good morning,” said a voice.
Sam thrilled from the top of his head to the soles of his feet. It was
the voice which had been ringing in his ears through all his waking
hours.
“Are you busy, Mr. Marlowe?” asked Billie, addressing the boots.
Sam wriggled out from under the desk like a disconcerted tortoise.
“Dropped my pen,” he mumbled, as he rose to the surface.
He pulled himself together with an effort that was like a physical
exercise. He stared at Billie dumbly. Then, recovering speech, he
invited her to sit down, and seated himself at the desk.
“Dropped my pen!” he gurgled again.
“Yes?” said Billie.
“Fountain-pen,” babbled Sam, “with a broad nib.”
“Yes?”
“A broad _gold_ nib,” went on Sam, with the painful exactitude which
comes only from embarrassment or the early stages of intoxication.
“Really?” said Billie, and Sam blinked and told himself resolutely that
this would not do. He was not appearing to advantage. It suddenly
occurred to him that his hair was standing on end as the result of his
struggle with Widgery. He smoothed it down hastily, and felt a trifle
more composed. The old fighting spirit of the Marlowes now began to
assert itself to some extent. He must make an effort to appear as
little of a fool as possible in this girl’s eyes. And what eyes they
were! Golly! Like stars! Like two bright planets in....
However, that was neither here nor there. He pulled down his waistcoat
and became cold and business-like,—the dry young lawyer.
“Er—how do you do, Miss Bennett?” he said with a question in his voice,
raising his eyebrows in a professional way. He modelled this
performance on that of lawyers he had seen on the stage, and wished he