The Girl on the Boat
“Mr. Marlowe told you my name was Miss Milliken!” she repeated.
“He told me that you were the sister of the Miss Milliken who acts as
stenographer for the guv’—for Sir Mallaby, and sent me in to show you
my revolver, because he said you were interested and wanted to see it.”
Billie uttered an exclamation. So did Mr. Bennett, who hated mysteries.
“What revolver? Which revolver? What’s all this about a revolver? Have
you a revolver?”
“Why, yes, Mr. Bennett. It is packed now in my trunk, but usually I
carry it about with me everywhere in order to take a little practice at
the Rupert Street range. I bought it when Sir Mallaby told me he was
sending me to America, because I thought I ought to be prepared—because
of the Underworld, you know.”
A cold gleam had come into Billie’s eyes. Her face was pale and hard.
If Sam Marlowe—at that moment carolling blithely in his bedroom at the
Blue Boar in Windlehurst, washing his hands preparatory to descending
to the coffee-room for a bit of cold lunch—could have seen her, the
song would have frozen on his lips. Which, one might mention, as
showing that there is always a bright side, would have been much
appreciated by the travelling gentleman in the adjoining room, who had
had a wild night with some other travelling gentlemen, and was then
nursing a rather severe headache, separated from Sam’s penetrating
baritone only by the thickness of a wooden wall.
Billie knew all. And, terrible though the fact is as an indictment of
the male sex, when a woman knows all, there is invariably trouble ahead
for some man. There was trouble ahead for Samuel Marlowe. Billie, now
in possession of the facts, had examined them and come to the
conclusion that Sam had played a practical joke on her, and she was a
girl who strongly disapproved of practical humour at her expense.
“That morning I met you at Sir Mallaby’s office, Mr. Peters,” she said
in a frosty voice, “Mr. Marlowe had just finished telling me a long and
convincing story to the effect that you were madly in love with a Miss
Milliken, who had jilted you, and that this had driven you off your
head, and that you spent your time going about with a pistol, trying to
shoot every red-haired woman you saw, because you thought they were
Miss Milliken. Naturally, when you came in and called me Miss Milliken,
and brandished a revolver, I was very frightened. I thought it would be
useless to tell you that I wasn’t Miss Milliken, so I tried to persuade
you that I was and hadn’t jilted you after all.”
“Good gracious!” said Mr. Peters, vastly relieved; and yet—for always
there is bitter mixed with the sweet—a shade disappointed. “Then—er—you
don’t love me after all?”
“No!” said Billie. “I am engaged to Bream Mortimer, and I love him and
nobody else in the world!”
The last portion of her observation was intended for the consumption of
Mr. Bennett, rather than that of Mr. Peters, and he consumed it
joyfully. He folded Billie in his ample embrace.
“I always thought you had a grain of sense hidden away somewhere,” he
said, paying her a striking tribute. “I hope now that we’ve heard the
last of all this foolishness about that young hound Marlowe.”
“You certainly have! I don’t want ever to see him again! I hate him!”
“You couldn’t do better, my dear,” said Mr. Bennett, approvingly. “And
now run away. Mr. Peters and I have some business to discuss.”
A quarter of an hour later, Webster, the valet, sunning himself in the
stable-yard, was aware of the daughter of his employer approaching him.
“Webster,” said Billie. She was still pale. Her face was still hard,
and her eyes still gleamed coldly.
“Miss?” said Webster politely, throwing away the cigarette with which
he had been refreshing himself.
“Will you do something for me?”
“I should be more than delighted, miss.”
Billie whisked into view an envelope which had been concealed in the
recesses of her dress.
“Do you know the country about here well, Webster?”
“Within a certain radius, not unintimately, miss. I have been for
several enjoyable rambles since the fine weather set in.”
“Do you know the place where there is a road leading to Havant, and
another to Cosham? It’s about a mile down....”
“I know the spot well, miss.”
“Well, straight in front of you when you get to the sign-post there is
a little lane....”
“I know it, miss,” said Webster, with a faint smile. Twice had he
escorted Miss Trimblett, Billie’s maid, thither. “A delightfully
romantic spot. What with the overhanging trees, the wealth of
blackberry bushes, the varied wild-flowers....”
“Yes, never mind about the wild-flowers now. I want you after lunch, to
take this note to a gentleman you will find sitting on the gate at the
bottom of the lane....”
“Sitting on the gate, miss. Yes, miss.”
“Or leaning against it. You can’t mistake him. He is rather tall and
... oh, well, there isn’t likely to be anybody else there, so you can’t
make a mistake. Give him this, will you?”
“Certainly, miss. Er—any message?”
“Any what?”
“Any verbal message, miss?”
“No, certainly not! You won’t forget, will you, Webster?”
“On no account whatever, miss. Shall I wait for an answer?”
“There won’t be any answer,” said Billie, setting her teeth for an
instant. “Oh, Webster!”
“Miss?”
“I can rely on you to say nothing to anybody?”
“Most undoubtedly, miss. Most undoubtedly.”
“Does anybody know anything about a feller named S. Marlowe?” inquired
Webster, entering the kitchen. “Don’t all speak at once! S. Marlowe.
Ever heard of him?”
He paused for a reply, but nobody had any information to impart.
“Because there’s something jolly well up! Our Miss B. is sending me
with notes for him to the bottom of lanes.”
“And her engaged to young Mr. Mortimer!” said the scullery-maid,
shocked. “The way they go on. Chronic!” said the scullery-maid.
“Don’t you go getting alarmed! And don’t you,” added Webster, “go
shoving your oar in when your social superiors are talking! I’ve had to
speak to you about that before. My remarks were addressed to Mrs.
Withers here.”
He indicated the cook with a respectful gesture.
“Yes, here’s the note, Mrs. Withers. Of course, if you had a steamy
kettle handy, in about half a moment we could ... but no, perhaps it’s
wiser not to risk it. And, come to that, I don’t need to unstick the
envelope to know what’s inside here. It’s the raspberry, ma’am, or I’ve
lost all my power to read the human female countenance. Very cold and
proud-looking she was! I don’t know who this S. Marlowe is, but I do
know one thing; in this hand I hold the instrument that’s going to give
it him in the neck, proper! Right in the neck, or my name isn’t Montagu
Webster!”
“Well!” said Mrs. Withers, comfortably, pausing for a moment from her
labours. “Think of that!”
“The way I look at it,” said Webster, “is that there’s been some sort
of understanding between our Miss B. and this S. Marlowe, and she’s
thought better of it and decided to stick to the man of her parent’s
choice. She’s chosen wealth and made up her mind to hand the humble
suitor the mitten. There was a rather similar situation in ‘Cupid or
Mammon,’ that Nosegay Novelette I was reading in the train coming down
here, only that ended different. For my part I’d be better pleased if
our Miss B. would let the cash go, and obey the dictates of her own
heart; but these modern girls are all alike! All out for the stuff,
they are! Oh, well, it’s none of my affair,” said Webster, stifling a
not unmanly sigh. For beneath that immaculate shirt-front there beat a
warm heart. Montagu Webster was a sentimentalist.
CHAPTER XVI.
WEBSTER, FRIEND IN NEED
At half-past two that afternoon, full of optimism and cold beef, gaily
unconscious that Webster with measured strides was approaching ever
nearer with the note that was to give it him in the neck, proper,
Samuel Marlowe dangled his feet from the top bar of the gate at the end
of the lane, and smoked contentedly as he waited for Billie to make her
appearance. He had had an excellent lunch; his pipe was drawing well,
and all Nature smiled. The breeze from the sea across the meadows
tickled pleasantly the back of his head, and sang a soothing song in
the long grass and ragged-robins at his feet. He was looking forward
with a roseate glow of anticipation to the moment when the white
flutter of Billie’s dress would break the green of the foreground. How
eagerly he would jump from the gate! How lovingly he would....
The elegant figure of Webster interrupted his reverie. Sam had never
seen Webster before, and it was with no pleasure that he saw him now.
He had come to regard this lane as his own private property, and he
resented trespassers. He tucked his legs under him, and scowled at
Webster under the brim of his hat.
The valet advanced towards him with the air of an affable executioner
stepping daintily to the block.
“Mr. Marlowe, sir?” he inquired politely.
Sam was startled. He could making nothing of this.
“Eh? What?”
“Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. S. Marlowe?”
“Yes, that’s my name.”
“Mine is Webster, sir. I am Mr. Bennett’s personal gentleman’s
gentleman. Miss Bennett entrusted me with this note to deliver to you,
sir.”
Sam began to grasp the position. For some reason or other, the dear
girl had been prevented from coming this afternoon, and she had written
to explain and relieve his anxiety. It was like her. It was just the
sweet, thoughtful thing he would have expected her to do. His
contentment with the existing scheme of things returned. The sun shone
out again, and he found himself amiably disposed towards the messenger.
“Fine day,” he said, as he took the note.
“Extremely, sir,” said Webster, outwardly unemotional, inwardly full of
a grave pity.
It was plain to him that there had been no previous little rift to
prepare the young man for the cervical operation which awaited him, and
he edged a little nearer, in order to be handy to catch Sam if the
shock knocked him off the gate.
As it happened, it did not. Having read the opening words of the note,
Sam rocked violently; but his feet were twined about the lower bars and
this saved him from overbalancing. Webster stepped back, relieved.
The note fluttered to the ground. Webster, picking it up and handing it
back, was enabled to get a glimpse of the first two sentences. They
confirmed his suspicions. The note was hot stuff. Assuming that it
continued as it began, it was about the warmest thing of its kind that
pen had ever written. Webster had received one or two heated epistles
from the sex in his time—your man of gallantry can hardly hope to
escape these unpleasantnesses—but none had got off the mark quite so
swiftly, and with quite so much frigid violence as this.
“Thanks,” said Sam mechanically.
“Not at all, sir. You are very welcome.”
Sam resumed his reading. A cold perspiration broke out on his forehead.
His toes curled, and something seemed to be crawling down the small of
his back. His heart had moved from its proper place and was now beating
in his throat. He swallowed once or twice to remove the obstruction,
but without success. A kind of pall had descended on the landscape,
blotting out the sun.
Of all the rotten sensations in this world, the worst is the
realisation that a thousand-to-one chance has come off, and caused our
wrong-doing to be detected. There had seemed no possibility of that
little ruse of his being discovered, and yet here was Billie in full
possession of the facts. It almost made the thing worse that she did
not say how she had come into possession of them. This gave Sam that
feeling of self-pity, that sense of having been ill-used by Fate, which
makes the bringing home of crime so particularly poignant.