Fool Errant (8 page)

“What sort of foreigner is he?”

It was pleasant to be looked at comfortably by Mrs. Miles after being sniffed at for a fortnight by Mrs. Parford. Mrs. Miles didn't sniff. She was a hearty, buxom cerature who had come up from the country in her youth and never quite lost the look of it.

“What sort, did you say? The sort that's best somewhere else, with his fidgety ways and his ferrety eyes, and never done asking questions. And, as I said to Ella, red hair is what I've no stomach for, neither in man nor woman. And ‘Thank goodness,' I says, ‘yours is a decent brown, for I couldn't never have took to a child with red hair.' And Miles had an aunt as was carrots through and through, and you couldn't get from it.” She sunk her voice to a penetrating whisper, “Would you say there'd be many of those Bolshevist Russians with red hair?”

“I don't know.”

Mrs. Miles looked disappointed.

“I says to Ella, ‘Miller he may call himself, but it's my belief he's one of those there Russian Bolshevists.' Mr. Bolshy Miller is what I'd like to call him to his face—only with red hair you got to be careful—especially when they're foreign and used to knives and all manner of nasty horrors. Why, only last week Ella and me went to the pictures, and there was a pore girl that was carried off by a Bolshevist and served something crool. And I says to Ella then, ‘Money or no money, and rent or no rent, I don't keep that there Miller a day longer than what I can help.'”

Hugo found it quite pleasant to be in his old room again. He wondered if he had done any good by going to Mr. Smith. There was a certain relief in having spoken of the things which had been troubling him—a certain sense of having shifted some part of a growing burden of responsibility. He slept without dreams and woke refreshed.

In the morning Mrs. Miles knocked at the door.

He said, “Come in,” and she brought hot water into the room and then shut the door. Her round face was red with anger.

“That there Miller!” she began.

“I say, what's the matter?”

“I've always been one to mind my own business, and as I says to Ella, ‘A busybody nor a interferer is what I never was and never will be.' But when I sees my duty, I sees it—and a duty I feel it to be.”

Hugo's head went round a little. That the duty was in some way connected with himself was to be discerned from the manner in which Mrs. Miles was looking at him.

“And my advice is—not as you're asking it; and p'r'aps I'd do better not to give none, but seeing as I feels it a duty, I will. For, as I says to Ella, ‘Who's a-going to warn him if I don't? Tell me that, Ella,' I says. And she hadn't a word to say.”

Hugo did not think that Ella very often got a chance of saying a word. He laughed, and said,

“What do you want to warn me about, Mrs. Miles?”

“It's not a case of wanting to,” said Mrs. Miles darkly; “it's a case of feeling it a duty—and what I feels to be a duty I'll do, if it costs me a neffort, or if it don't cost me a neffort.” She was still very red in the face.

Hugo put on an ingratiating smile.

“I s-say, Mrs. Miles, w-would you mind warning me before my sh-sh-shaving water gets cold?”

“And what you wants to shave for, the Lord knows!” said Mrs. Miles.

Hugo blushed.

“I s-say, d-do warn me, and let me get up. I w-w-want to get up—I really do.”

“You may take it light, Mr. Ross, but it's my bounden belief that that there Miller isn't up to no good.”

“Why?”

Mrs. Miles snorted.

“What's the good of asking me why? Because he's a creeping, crawling ferret, and a foreign Bolshevist Russian, if he do call himself Miller—that's why.”

She leaned forward and went on in scornful tones, “And if he isn't, what's he want asking questions like he does—‘Where's Mr. Ross gone?' and, ‘What kind of a job has Mr. Ross got?' and, ‘When's he going out?' and, ‘When's he coming home?' and, ‘Did he pay his rent?' and, ‘How much money did he have?' and, ‘Wasn't he very hard up?' There! I don't rightly know how I kep' myself. I says to Ella, ‘Ella,' I says, ‘I thought I should ha' burst!' And Ella says, ‘Oh, lor, Aunt! Don't say such horful things!' And I says, ‘I do say it, and I won't go from it. And what's more, I shall tell Mr. Ross.'”

“Well,” said Hugo, “you've told me.”

Mrs. Miles looked at him with a pitying eye and shook her head.

“Ah! There's more to come,” she said. “What's he want to see you for? Tell me that!”

“He can't see me,” said Hugo—“I'm g-going out—that is if you'll l-let me get up.”

Mrs. Miles retired.

On his way downstairs Hugo passed a pale, red-haired man whom he supposed to be Mr. Miller. He didn't like the look of him, and he felt distinctly annoyed when, instead of making way, the man addressed him.

“Mr. Ross, is it not?”

“Yes.”

“I have a wish to speak to you.” The fellow had a very decided accent; but whether it was Russian or not, Hugo did not know.

“What do you want?”

Ella was coming upstairs. Mr. Miller spoke quite loud enough for her to hear.

“It is that little matter of business—the offer we make you. If it is not high enough—”

“I don't know what you mean.”

Hugo pushed past him furiously and went on down the stairs. Miller's voice followed him:

“Oh come, Mr. Ross! You know very well what I mean.”

Hugo went out into the street and banged the door.

CHAPTER XII

Hugo found Mr. Benbow Smith very busy teaching Ananias what, he explained, was a very ancient Slav greeting. From the gusto with which Ananias delivered it, it was quite obvious that he considered himself to have acquired a new and impressive malediction. He continued to recite it softly but fervently as Mr. Smith drifted down the room and took up a position on the hearth-rug.

Hugo waited to be addressed. He noticed that Mr. Smith's horn-rimmed glasses were now in his coat pocket.

“Of course,” said Mr. Smith, as if continuing a conversation which had already lasted some time, “the question is, who am I going to advise? Because there are, naturally, two of you. You see that, I suppose?”

Hugo didn't see it in the least. He said,

“N-no, sir.”

Mr. Smith looked over the top of his head and went on speaking in a dreamy voice:

“Or perhaps I should say three—yes, I think three—yes, decidedly.”

Ananias repeated the greeting after the manner of one who says, “Cursed be he in his rising up and in his lying down.”

“Ssh, Ananias!” said Mr. Smith.

Ananias said it all over again in a whisper, with one red eye fixed indignantly on Hugo.

“He's really only saying how pleased he is to see you. Yes—I think three. You see, there's Susan's brother—and a young fellow whom I don't know personally—and—there's Minstrel's secretary. And the question is, which of them do you want me to advise?”

“N-not Susan's brother,” said Hugo quickly.

Mr. Smith nodded.

“You see what I mean—you come to—well, you come to me as Susan's brother, and you tell me you're Minstrel's secretary, and you hand me over a parcel of odd happenings to sort out, and you ask for my advice. Well, if I'm advising Susan's brother, it's quite simple—I do it in two words—‘Clear out!' There—you've got it. And the quicker the better.”

“I don't want you to advise Susan's brother, sir.”

I should give the same advice to Minstrel's secretary. Without going into particulars, I should advise Minstrel's secretary that the job is not likely to be a particularly healthy one.”

Hugo looked at Mr. Smith.

“I want to know just what you think I ought to do, sir.”

“I shouldn't use the word ought. And I don't think I'm going to give any advice to the third person I spoke of. It might—no, I don't think I'll give him any advice. But perhaps I'll just put a hypothetical case—quite without prejudice, you know, and without reference to anyone in this room or outside it. You understand—don't you?”

Hugo went on looking at him.

“Yes.”

“Very well, we take a young fellow who comes of a decent family and has been decently brought up. He finds himself in a position which he doesn't quite like—a position in which a number of odd things keep happening one after another. He doesn't know what to make of them, and he doesn't understand their trend. But he doesn't like them; he feels a vague sense of being threatened—of something ominous. But he is not sure that it is only he himself who is threatened. If he were sure, he could just clear out. But he's not sure. I don't like using high-falutin words; but he has some sort of an idea that something vastly more important than himself is being threatened, and that he has got a duty in the matter. I suppose one might put a case like that without getting out of touch with the facts?”

“Yes, sir,” said Hugo.

Mr. Smith went over to the book-case, took from the lowest shelf a large volume marked “Maps,” and came back with it under his arm. He laid the book on the writing-table and stood looking down at it. Then quite suddenly the drawl went out of his voice. He asked,

“What do you know of Minstrel's work?”

Hugo had turned to face him. He coloured a little in surprise.

“I don't know anything at all. There was a paragraph—‘The Submarine Outsubmarined.'”

Mr. Smith nodded. “It went the round of the papers. Is that all you know?”

“He's working at something now, but I don't know what it is.”

“He's always working at something. It's the ‘submarine' that's in question; only—I'm trusting you, Hugo Ross—it's not a submarine at all. It's convenient sometimes, you know, to call a thing by another name—take ‘Tanks.' That's why that paragraph went round the papers.”

He opened the atlas, turned a leaf or two, and pointed.

“They're pretty far away—aren't they?” With Minstrel's ‘submarine,' there won't be any distance in that old, comfortable sense of the word. If they had Minstrel's ‘submarine,' we could never say again, ‘They're mad, and they're bad, and their idea of world politics is a nightmare; but after all, they're so far away that it doesn't really concern us.' If they have Minstrel's ‘submarine,' sooner or later it's going to concern us.”

He closed the atlas gently and walked back to the hearth. There was a long pause. Ananias filled it with Slavonic syllables.

“Ssh, Ananias!”

Hugo spoke quickly and eagerly.

“How could they have it, sir?”

“Well,” said Mr. Smith in non-committal tones, “they might steal it or they might buy it. You see, there really isn't anything to prevent any inventor from selling any invention to the highest bidder except—it is, of course, quite a big exception—patriotism and, alternatively, fear of public opinion. One or other of these considerations usually operates to prevent the sale of naval and military inventions to a foreign power. Of course, if a man's own government turns his invention down, the case is a little different.”

A vivid colour rose to Hugo's cheeks. He dropped his voice.

“Has the Government turned the ‘submarine' down?”

“No,” said Mr. Smith. “No—not at all—in fact, quite the contrary. I believe they are negotiating.”

“Then—”

Mr. Smith took out his horn-rimmed glasses and began to polish them with a silk handkerchief.

“Perhaps one might put another hypothetical case.” He breathed on the right-hand lens and held it up to the light. “Let me see—yes, a hypothetical case. Let us suppose that a man is known to have something very valuable to sell. Whilst he is negotiating for its disposal it—disappears. We will say that it has been stolen—the owner will certainly say that it has been stolen. The man in the street says, ‘All right—but if it has been stolen, where's your thief?'” He breathed on the other lens, polished it, and looked through it at Ananias, who was scratching the back of his head. “I seem to remember a story about a ram in a thicket—Abraham and Isaac. Isaac wasn't sacrificed; but I believe the ram was.” He slipped the glasses back into his pocket. “That, at least, is my recollection of the story; and I am inclined to ask myself whether Meade House is, or is not, a thicket within the meaning of the tale.”

There was a moment's pause. Then Hugo asked, with a flash of humour,

“Am I the r-ram, sir?”

Mr. Smith nodded.

“I think you might be. That is, of course, if you were a character in this purely hypothetical tale.”

Hugo felt a curious excitement. His mind was very busy piecing things together.

“May I ask you something, sir?”

“Oh yes.”

“Who's got the plans of the ‘submarine'?”

“Yes—that's quite an intelligent question. Well, so far as I know the—er—inventor has them. That, you see, is the point. The negotiations between such high contracting parties as a government department and an eminent inventor who does not—er—underestimate the value of his work, are inclined to be of a somewhat protracted nature. That is the point. If the plans were—stolen, and it was necessary to put the blame on somebody, the position of the unfortunate ram would be very unenviable.”

There was a pause, broken by Ananias, who had tired of his Slavonic sentence. He burst into a loud screech and produced a round, full-flavoured oath of unimpeachably British origin.

“Ssh, Ananias!” said Mr. Smith. Then he asked in quiet conversational tones:

“What's your impression of Hacker?”

Hugo hesitated.

“He's been quite d-decent to me.”

“If Hacker meant to sell the plans, it would certainly suit him to have someone handy to put the blame on.” Mr. Smith seemed to have abandoned his hypothetical case. He stood half turned from Hugo, looking down into the fire, and spoke in a slightly dreamy voice: “Say he sells them, and there's a row—there'd be bound to be a row, you know, and somebody's got to be suspected, and it's not going to be Hacker, who's been Minstrel's assistant for five years. No, I don't think it would be Hacker—I feel sure that Hacker would see to it that it wasn't Hacker. I feel sure that it would be the new boy—the secretary who had been taken on in a hurry. And then a number of interestingly damaging facts would come out. One; the new secretary might reasonably be supposed to have a grievance—it would come out, you see, that he had been disappointed of his succession to a property. I seem to have got a little mixed. Let me begin again. One; the new secretary is a disappointed man. Two; he is so hard up that he has been obliged to pawn some of his possessions—pawn-tickets are always very damaging. Three; a letter will be produced—I think Hacker has it—yes, I feel sure Hacker has it—in which somebody offered the secretary a sum of fifty pounds for an article not specified. A nought or two is easily added to fifty.”