The Strange Affair of Adelaide Harris (10 page)

He laid his hands on Dr. Bunnion's desk and leaned forward, staring very confidentially at the headmaster's cravat. “To be open and aboveboard, sir, I'm fond of your boy. He's a fine fellow and I'd have been content to have him as a son-in-law. In a way, you might say that I love the lad as a son—and that's why I don't aim to stand in his way.” Here the Major gave a little skip sideways, as if to illustrate his point. “I understand your ambitions for the lad. Good God! What father wouldn't? But there's me family's honor which is, and always will be, dearer to me than blessed life itself.”

The Major gnawed his lip, and having finished with Dr. Bunnion's cravat, looked searchingly at his
fingers. He leaned forward still further till the headmaster could make out the powder in the Major's military wig, and also a few cake crumbs. “But there is a compromise, sir,” breathed the Major, and went on to mention that in addition to his daughter, he had a son.

Dr. Bunnion laid his fingers together and pursed his lips. He knew of the Major's son, and of the Major's difficulties in finding a situation for him.

“I understood he's in a monastery,” murmured the headmaster cautiously.

“It didn't suit,” said the Major. “He—ha-ha—he couldn't acquire the habit! Truth of the matter is, he wants to teach. I think he's got a talent for it.”

“But—” began Dr. Bunnion hopelessly.

“Brett,” breathed the honorable Major. “No good, you know. Sly. Secretive. I can't bear underhanded men. If Brett goes, good thing for the school. Then my boy Adam comes. Even better. What d'you say sir?”

The Major skipped back and stared at the headmaster's waistcoat as if to divine what was going on within. In addition to being honorable, the Major was a reasonable man. Though he would have preferred to marry off Tizzy to Ralph, he was quite prepared to settle for the chance of planting his son Adam in the Bunnion stronghold and so increase his grip on it. If the headmaster agreed, at one stroke the Major would have avoided the duel, ridded himself of the contemptible Brett, who he always felt looked down on him, and acted in the best interests of his family.

Dr. Bunnion was silent. As a father, the Major's offer appealed to him, but as a man he shrank from it. He did not at all like the idea of being outnumbered by the Alexanders in his own establishment, and he felt awkward about dismissing Mr. Brett who was, after all, acting as his son's second.

“Thought it best to have a word with you,” said the Major, smiling cunningly at the headmaster's left ear and deciding to let his offer simmer for a day or so. “Man to man. Though we don't say much, deep down I fancy we understand each other. Real friendship . . . silent . . . strong . . . hoops of steel and all that. Settle it out of court, eh?”

Whereupon the Major withdrew and made his way toward his own classroom. He went by way of the kitchen as he thought it best, in everyone's interests, that he should not be seen coming from Dr. Bunnion's study. It was thus that he happened to see a maid-servant gossiping at the side door with a stranger.

Inquisitively the Major halted. He peered over the maid's shoulder. The stranger had a pleasant, innocent looking face, but he was burdened with a clubfoot.

“Yes,” said the maid. “We do 'ave a Mister Brett. Quiet gent, but a bit crafty if you ask me.”

“Indeed, I do ask you,” said the stranger gently. “What makes you think he is crafty?”

“He ain't as honest as he pretends,” said the maid who had, that very morning, come upon the ruined
veal pie in Mr. Brett's bedroom and recognized it as having been stolen from the larder.

At this point, Major Alexander, feeling that he could be more helpful about Mr. Brett, interposed with a curt “good morning,” and proceeded to set the stranger to rights about Mr. Brett.

It really was a stroke of extraordinary good fortune. The Major guessed at once that the stranger was an inquiry agent out for Mr. Brett's blood. He'd had experience of such men before. Whatever Mr. Brett was suspected of, the Major had no idea, but he'd have laid odds on its being something pretty unpleasant. Thus he was able to look on the blackening of Mr. Brett's character as being in the way of a public duty. The Major was really a very scrupulous man. He prided himself on never having performed a mean or underhanded act in his whole life without honor, duty or family love being mixed up in it somewhere. In the present instance he believed he could trace the presence of all three.

Mr. Raven listened gravely. What he'd heard fulfilled his hopes, but did not surprise him. But even yet he was cautious. There was nothing impetuous about the inquiry agent. He needed to make doubly and trebly sure before he could be committed to a course of action. He could not afford to be wrong. He took out a grubby pewter snuffbox and snapped it open, with the idea of distracting the Major into an unguarded admission.

“Hemp,” he said quietly. “Does the name Hemp mean anything to you?”

As Mr. Raven had intended, the Major was momentarily nonplussed. Then, becoming aware of the snuff-box, which gave off a very sour smell, he was reminded of a campaign among the docks at Deptford, and a queer pipe of tobacco . . .

“D'you mean Indian hemp?”

“I would have thought more Gypsy,” said Mr. Raven carefully, as he thought of the baby in Adelaide Harris's cot.

“Could be,” said the Major, thinking of the swarthy seaman who'd offered him the interesting smoke. “Or even Lascar. But Gypsy or Lascar, they're all queer customers not to be trusted. I don't know much about them myself, of course.”

“Oh, but I do,” said Mr. Raven, thinking of the name embroidered on Ralph Bunnion's waistcoat. Maggie Hemp . . .

“But I'll tell you one thing,” said the Major, anxious to return to the subject that interested him. “I'd trust a Gypsy before Brett any day.”

With that, he left the clubfooted stranger and continued to his classroom, resolving as he walked that he'd write directly to his son, bidding him come to Dr. Bunnion's, where there would shortly be a vacancy.

“Brett,” muttered Mr. Raven as he clumped away from the school. “As we thought . . . the prime mover . . . Brett.” Here the inquiry agent brushed so near to the truth of the Adelaide affair that the very
angels in heaven spread their wings and prepared to flee.

“And Hemp with the Gypsy blood. But Brett is the one. What is his real name? De Brett? Viscount Brett?” Mr. Raven preferred to look in high places for his corruption. The nobler the structure, the louder the uproar when he brought it tumbling down.

Tap-thump . . . tap-thump . . . He passed along the morning streets where women avoided him and fishermen spat. There was a briskish breeze coming off the sea and the distant waves wore scabs of white. The inquiry agent halted and stared across the water.

A strange exultation filled him as he sensed how close he was to understanding all parts of the mystery. So intricate was it that the smallest movement of each thread set up shiverings across the whole unsavory web. Only the previous evening he had observed Morgan, the Harrises' nurse, visiting the Hemps and hurrying guiltily away. Thus the connection between the two households had been confirmed and noted down. But who had sent her and on what desperate errand?

The inquiry agent scowled and shook his head. He suspected the affair was approaching some sinister climax. Perhaps his own presence was the cause? He walked on, much troubled by certain tiny aspects of the affair that still eluded him.

He was by the poorhouse and the morning wailing of the five foundlings mingled with the harsh laughter of the swooping sea birds. He leaned in the
narrow shadow of the poorhouse wall, seeming to listen intently to the wordless misery the seagulls jeered at. Then, as if making a certain decision, he rapped his boot and clumped off out of the sunshine into the dark parlor of the Old Ship.

He settled himself in a corner, called for brandy and water, and then, making sure he was the only customer, took out a piece of paper from his pocket that unfolded almost to the size of the table top. “Brett,” he whispered, studying the extraordinary design that reached now to the paper's edge, “the next move is yours, my friend.” He turned the paper around. “What will it be, eh? No matter, no matter, we will be watching. And then, my friend, we will strike with a thunderbolt, etcetera.”

While the inquiry agent was so engaged, his great adversary, Mr. Brett, was struggling with ancient history in his classroom at the academy. Fiercely he tried to pull over his head the paper layers of time and escape from everything. But wherever he turned in the ancient world he seemed to be confronted by images of his own plight—encircling enemies and hopeless love.

In the back parlor, Major Alexander, though he now had every hope that the duel would not take place, was nonetheless uneasy that something might go wrong and he found himself setting his pupils terrific problems concerning the speed of bullets and the cost of coffins in English shillings and German marks.

Not even Dr. Bunnion himself was able to escape the shadowy fears that beset the school. As it was close to the end of term, the headmaster had planned to describe the building of Solomon's temple, right down to the last half cubit of an ornamental angel's wing, so that any boy, with skill and industry, might construct it for himself during the holiday. Instead, the troubled father found himself brooding aloud on the sacrifice of Isaac. In his mind's eye he saw himself as Abraham, poised above the sacrificial stone on which lay the hapless Ralph. “And the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven . . . lay not thy hand upon the lad.” And the angel spoke in the secret, clipped voice of Major Alexander. “And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold, behind him a ram caught in a thicket by its horns . . .” And the ram had the gentle, long-suffering face of Mr. Brett. “And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up . . . instead of Ralph.”

The class looked up in surprise, and Dr. Bunnion flushed and corrected himself. But the notion of sacrificing Mr. Brett to Major Alexander's honor gathered strength in his mind and tormented him throughout the day.

Just before luncheon, being unable to bear the weight of the problem any longer, he confided in Mrs. Bunnion, who looked at him in amazement. To her there was no problem at all. He must close with the Major's offer and get rid of Mr. Brett directly. What right had Dr. Bunnion even to think of keeping Mr. Brett and so endangering Ralph's life? She
had never heard of anything like it in all her born days! He was to stop behaving like a weakling and send Mr. Brett packing at once! Really! Who was he afraid of?

Mutely, Dr. Bunnion gazed at his dignified wife who, though not as tall as he, morally overtopped him by a good six inches. So after the meal he made several attempts to corner Mr. Brett and at last succeeded in catching him at the foot of the stairs.

“Well?” began Dr. Bunnion harshly, seeking an opportunity of losing his temper and so dismissing Mr. Brett in hot rather than cold blood. “I suppose you haven't bothered to see Major Alexander's second?”

Mr. Brett nodded uneasily. He had. Dr. Bunnion looked taken aback. “What then? What did he say?”

“Saturday,” said Mr. Brett. “In the morning.”

“But that's the end of term! Good God! Couldn't he have waited till the holiday?” The headmaster stared at Mr. Brett in horror. “What an idea! Don't you know the parents will be here? What d'you imagine they'll think when they find my son bleeding to death—perhaps already dead—and my arithmetic master in jail for it? What kind of a school d'you suppose they'll think I conduct? Saturday! You must be mad, Brett—”

“But it wasn't up to me, sir.”

“Couldn't you have explained to Alexander's second? It was your duty!”

Feebly Mr. Brett shook his head.

“Saturday!” repeated Dr. Bunnion savagely. “I'll
tell you one thing, Brett—” At last he felt his blood to be heated enough to obey Mrs. Bunnion—“before Saturday comes you'd—”

“Sorley!” cried Mr. Brett, seeing the fat boarder pass by. “Come here, boy!” He reached out and clutched him by the shoulder, then turned back to Dr. Bunnion in desperate triumph. “I—I interrupted you, sir.”

“You'd better—er—see about Doctor Harris,” muttered the headmaster, thwarted by the presence of the baronet's son. Then he shambled away, his blood cooling in defeat.

Mr. Brett, still holding onto Sorley, gazed after him. How much longer could he hope to survive in this dangerous world? Till Saturday perhaps? “Come, boy,” he whispered. “Soon it will be Saturday . . . and the end.”

He walked slowly to his classroom together with the fat boarder, who kept staring up at him piteously. But Mr. Brett had no eyes for Sorley. He was thinking of Tizzy Alexander and how soon he was fated to leave her. The look on Dr. Bunnion's face had been unmistakable. His time was running out. His days in the school were numbered, and the headmaster had decided on what the number was to be. His last chance had come. He would have to tell Tizzy he loved her, or resign himself to never seeing her again.

His eyes filled with tears at the very thought of living without her. He would risk all and tell her that very afternoon. Good God! He was a grown
man, not a tongue-tied, lovesick child! And if he kept silent he'd lose her for certain. James Brett, you fool—take her firmly in your arms, look into her eyes, and say after me, “I love you, Tizzy Alexander. With all my heart and soul, I love you, my dear . . .”

These thoughts so filled his imagination that the afternoon lesson went by as in a dream. His twelve pupils threw ink pellets, tormented Sorley, and buzzed and hovered from place to place, but they troubled him no more than the antics of the classroom flies.

It was during this time that Bostock, under Harris's anxious guidance, wrote the letter that was to inform Dr. Harris, anonymously, of the whereabouts of his lost daughter, Adelaide. He'd had several attempts at it that for one reason and another had been abandoned, but eventually it was completed almost to Harris's satisfaction. Afterward, Mr. Brett remembered vaguely having seen Bostock writing something with Harris, his evil genius, bending over him. But he'd had too much on his mind to be more than remotely curious, and in a little while the memory faded altogether.