In the Public Eye

by Edgar Wallace

IN THE PUBLIC EYE

By EDGAR WALLACE

SUDDEN affluence affects different people in different ways. The Marquis of Pelborough had succeeded, through the death of his uncle, to a title which brought with it nothing more substantial in the shape of estate than one acre of waste garden and a brick cottage badly in need of repair. "Chick" Pelborough was less shocked by his accession to the title than he was by the acquisition of wealth.

He had been a "guinea-pig" director of an oil company, in the flotation of which (he was for a long time in ignorance of this) the promoters had skated so finely near the edge of fraud that only a sound knowledge of the Companies Act had saved them from utter destruction. Chick, left to carry on, had found a derelict company on his hands, until the drill of an engineer, who had already given up hope, "struck oil" in amazing quantities.

"Your future is settled now, Chick," said Gwenda Maynard, at the conclusion of a family council, in which his housekeeper as by right participated. "You should buy a nice house in the country and take your place in Society."

"But I don't want to go into the country," said Chick, aghast at the prospect. "The country bores me, Gwenda. When I used to go to Pelborough to see the old doctor, I used to pray for the hour when I could leave."

She shook her head.

"Going to the country for a day to see a crotchety old gentleman who bullied you is quite another matter to living in a beautiful house, with horses to ride and a car to drive. No, Chick, you've lifted yourself so far——"

"You have put me where I am, Gwenda," said Chick soberly. "If you hadn't been behind me, jogging my elbow, I should have made a mess of things. You don't want me to leave here, do you?" he asked, with a sudden sinking of heart.

"Here" was a little flat at seventy pounds per annum, no suitable abode for a man who had sold out his holding in a certain oil company for a hundred thousand pounds.

The possession of such an incredible sum terrified Chick. It took him the greater part of a week to get over the feeling that he had been engaged in a successful swindle, and for another week he fought with an inclination to restore the money to a gentleman who, believing they were worthless, had certainly tried to ruin him when he had transferred his shares to Chick's account.

Gwenda did not instantly answer his question. She wanted Chick to stay—she had never realised how much he was to her—but the position was grotesque. She had set out to establish the insurance clerk who had so unexpectedly fallen into the ranks of the peerage, and she had devoted her unselfish energies to his advancement. And now that he was fairly on his feet she shrank from the logical culmination of her plan, and she hated herself for her cowardice.

"I don't want you to go, you know that, Chick," she said slowly, "only it isn't right that you should stay."

"Gwenda is talking sense, Lord Pelborough," said the practical Mrs. Phibbs, nodding her imposing head. "People must work up to the level of their superiors. Why, you're scared to death of these flibbertigibbet Society folk, and that isn't right. If you don't go up, Chick, you go down. My husband surrendered at the first check, and found his way to the saloon bar. He was one of those people who liked to be looked up to, and naturally he had to descend pretty far before he reached the admiring strata."

Mrs. Phibbs very seldom talked about her husband.

"He is dead, isn't he?" asked Chick gently.

"He is," said that brisk woman. "and in Heaven, I hope, though I have my doubts."

"Besides, Chick," said Gwenda, "we shall have very little time together here. The play may run for another year, and now that I've gone back to the cast I shall be fully occupied."

Chick said nothing to this. A few days before he was passing down Bond Street on the top of a 'bus, and saw Gwenda and Lord Mansar coming from a tea-shop, and they had driven away in Mansar's car. And on the very next afternoon he had met them walking in Hyde Park, and Gwenda had seemed embarrassed.

And it hurt him just a little bit—a queer, aching hurt that took the colour from the day and left him forlorn and listless.

"We'll postpone our talk until to morrow," said Gwenda, rising. "Mrs, Phibbs, I shall be late to-night. Lord Mansar is taking Miss Bellow and me to supper. You wouldn't care to come, would you, Chick?"

Chick shook his head.

"I'm going to the gym. to punch the bag, Gwenda," he said quietly, and she thought it was the prospect of leaving which had saddened him.

Chick did not stay long in the gymnasium. The spirit had been taken out of him, and his instructor watched his puny efforts with dismay.

"You're not losing your punch, m' lord, are you?" he asked anxiously.

"I'm losing something," said Chick, with a sigh. "I don't think I'm in the mood for practice to-night, sergeant."

He dressed and came out into Langham Place, and he was at a loose end. Even the cinema had no appeal for him, and he loafed down Regent Street without having any especial objective.

Nearing the Circus, he turned into a side-street that led to Piccadilly. And it was here that he saw the girl. To be accurate, he heard her first;—heard a faint, frightened scream, and the thud of her frail body against the shuttered window of a shop.

It is a peculiarity of men who love ring-craft that they have a horror of quarrels, particularly street quarrels. Chick always went breathless and experienced a tightening of the heart at the sight of a street fight. But this was not a street fight. The man was a wiry youth, somewhat overdressed; the girl appeared respectable and, on closer inspection, very pretty.

"You'd do it again, would you?" hissed the man; and then, as his hand came back, Chick crossed the narrow road, no longer breathless.

"Excuse me," he said, and the girl's assailant suddenly spun round. He had no intention of spinning round, and he glared at the slim figure that had appeared from nowhere.

Chick backed slowly to the centre of the asphalted road, and Mr. Arthur Blanbury (for that was the name of the girl's companion) entirely misunderstood the significance of the manœuvre. He thought this interfering stranger had repented of his intrusion. In truth, Chick needed exactly three feet of clear space on either flank. This Mr. Blanbury discovered. Without any preliminary remarks, he drove at Chick scientifically. Chick took the blow over his left shoulder, and drove left and right to the body. It was Mr. Blanbury's weak spot, and he drew off, unguarding his jaw. Chick's left found the point, and Mr. Blanbury went down, in the language of the ring, "for the count."

You cannot indulge in any form of fistic combat within a hundred yards of Piccadilly Circus without collecting a crowd or inviting the attention of an active and intelligent constabulary. A big hand fell on Chick's shoulder, and he turned to meet the commanding eye of a policeman.

"Suppose you come along with me, old man," said the constable; and Chick, who had more sense than most people who have found themselves in his painful situation, did not argue, but allowed himself to be taken to Marlborough Street Police Station.

"The Marquis of what?" said the station inspector humorously. "What are you charging him with—drunk?"

But here an unexpected friend arrived in the person of the girl. Until then Chick had not seen her face. It was a very pretty face, despite its inherent weakness.

But if she was a stranger to Chick, she was known to the station inspector, who raised his grey eyebrows at the sight of her.

"Hello, Miss Farland! What do you want?" he demanded.

And Chick heard the story. She was a shop girl at an Oxford Street store, and her assailant had been her fiancé. It had been one of those sketchy engagements which follow chance meetings in the Park. He was very nice and "gentlemanly," and had treated her like a lady until one night he revealed his true character. She "lived in" with a hundred other girls, and it was possible, as he evidently knew, for her to slip down to a door which communicated with the warehouse and the living quarters alike—being an emergency exit for the girls in case of fire—and to open that door to Mr. Blanbury and his associates, to two of whom he introduced her.

Instead she had communicated with her employer, and the police had trapped the robbers, with the exception of Mr. Blanbury, of whom she had not given a very clear description, actuated possibly by sentimental motives. They had met by accident that night and Chick had been a witness to the sequel.

"Very sorry, indeed, my lord," said the inspector cheerfully. "Go back, Morrison, and pull in that man."

Chick waited in the charge-room until they brought in the somewhat dazed young man, and after he had disappeared through the door leading to the cells, he escorted the girl to her shop.

She was grateful, she was silent, being overawed by the knowledge that her escort was a "lord," but her prettiness was very eloquent, and Chick went back to Doughty Street with his head in the air and a sense that the evening had been less dismal than he had anticipated.

He was so cheerful when Gwenda came in, after a prolonged farewell at the street door—it was not her fault that it lasted more than a second—that she smiled in sympathy, though she did not feel like smiling.

"I've been locked up," said Chick calmly, as he shuffled his patience cards.

"Chick!"

"I was arrested and marched to Marlborough Street," said Chick, enjoying the mild sensation. Then he told her what had happened.

"You splendid dear!" she said, squeezing his hand. "How like you to interfere! Was she pretty, Chick?"

She was not prepared for his reply or his enthusiasm.

"Lovely!" said Chick, in a hushed voice. "Simply lovely! She's got those baby eyes that you like so much, Gwenda, and a sort of mouth that you only see in pictures—like a bud. You wouldn't think she worked in a shop. I was surprised when she told me. Such a nice young lady, Gwenda—you'd love her."

"Perhaps I should, Chick," said the girl, a thought coldly. "I never knew that you were such a connoisseur of feminine charms. Did you like her, Chick?"

"Rather!" said Chick heartily. "She's not a big girl—she just comes up to my shoulder. Gwenda"—he hesitated—"couldn't I ask her to come up to tea one day? I know her name—Millie Farland."

"Certainly," said Gwenda, slowly removing her wrap. "Ask her to come on Wednesday."

Chick looked surprised.

"But that is your matinée day, and you wouldn't be home," he said.

Gwenda eyed him thoughtfully.

"No," she said. "Ask her to come on Sunday. Anyway, she wouldn't be able to come any other day than Saturday or Sunday, if she is in an Oxford Street store, and I want to see her."

Miss Millie Farland was a young lady who enjoyed the fatal experience of publicity, which is a poison that has before now driven inoffensive citizens to commit violent crimes. It is possible to reform a drunkard and cure a dope fiend, but let the unbalanced mentality of unimportant people confront their names in print, and their cases are for ever hopeless. Never again will they be happy until they have once more tasted the fierce thrills of press notices.

Miss Farland had figured in a warehouse robbery. She had given evidence at the Old Bailey. She had seen herself described as a "heroine," and her actions eulogised in a paragraph which was headed "Pretty Girl's Smart Capture of Warehouse Thieves."

She had been photographed entering the court and leaving the court. She had been similarly portrayed at the local cinematograph theatre, and now a marquis had fought for her in the open street! A real lord had got locked up for her and had walked home with her!

There were fifty girls sleeping on her landing at Belham and Sapworth's, and fifty on the landing below. None of them went to bed that night ignorant of the fact that the Most Honourable The Marquis of Pelborough had fought for her in Regent Street.

She went down early in the morning to get the newspaper, never doubting that the amazing adventure would occupy a considerable amount of the space usually given up to such drivelling subjects as meetings of the Supreme Council and silly and incomprehensible speeches by the Prime Minister. She had in her mind's eye seen such great headlines as "Marquis Rescues Beautiful Shop-Lady from Brutal Attack," for Miss Farland had no illusions about her own charms.

And there was no mention of the matter—not so much as a paragraph!

"I expect he kept it out of the papers," she said at the 8.30 rush breakfast. "Naturally, he wouldn't be mixed up in a scandal, and probably he didn't want my name mentioned. He's awfully genteel! The way he took off his hat to me was a fair treat!"

"You'll be a marchioness one of these days, Millie," said an impertinent apprentice, and Miss Farland, who ranked as a "senior," scorned to answer the lowly girl.

To a buyer, a lady who, by virtue of her high position, occupied a room to herself (apprentices sleep four in a room, "seniors" two), she admitted that she had felt a queer flutter at her heart when his lordship had looked at her.

"I suppose we shall be seeing you in court again," said the buyer—"breach of promise and all that sort of thing."

Miss Farland thought it was unlikely. She and his lordship were just friends. Only that, and no more.

Still, the prospect of standing in a witness-box and having her dress described, and her coming in and going out photographed by a sensation-loving press, did not altogether displease her.

And then she received a letter from Chick. It was signed in his sprawling hand "Pelborough," and she was thrilled.

Before the day was over every member of the staff, from the engaging-manager to the meanest member of the outside staff, knew that she was invited to tea next Sunday, and that Lord Pelborough hoped that she was no worse for her alarming experience, and that he thought the weather was very changeable, and that he was "hers sincerely."

"That's what I liked about him—his sincerity," said Miss Farland to her assembled friends. "A man like that couldn't tell a lie. That's the wonderful thing about real gentlemen—they are always sincere."

So she went to tea, and Gwenda was very nice, but very disconcerting, because Miss Farland's first impression was that Gwenda was his lordship's young lady. As to Chick, he was his simple, friendly self, and discussed such matters as the weather and the Cup Tie Final (she was interested in neither subject) with the greatest freedom.

Presently she overcame her shyness and dispensed with the irritating little cough which prefixed her every sentence. She even addressed Chick by that name. Chick went red and choked over his tea, but he liked it. Gwenda neither went red nor choked, but she hated it.

It took away from the sweetness of the word and, on the lips of the girl, turned an endearing nickname into a piece of familiarity.

Chick saw her home.

"You will write to me, won't you, Chick?" Millie Farland had the prettiest pout imaginable. She had tried every one before her mirror, and this she now wore was undoubtedly super-excellent.

"Write?" said the astonished Chick. "Oh—er—yes, of course I'll write—er—yes. What shall I write about?"

"I want to know how you are, of course, Chick," she said, playing with the top button of his coat.

"Is it loose?" asked Chick, interested.

"Of course it isn't, you silly boy," she laughed. "But you will write, won't you? I'm so lonely here, and you've no idea how happy I've been to-day—with you," she added, looking up shyly.

Chick had seen that slow uplift of fringed eyelid in a score of cinema plays, and yet he did not recognise it. She also had seen the movement and many others. The educative value of the cinema is not properly appreciated by outsiders.

"What did you think of her?" he asked, as soon as he got back to the flat.

"A very, very pretty little girl," said Gwenda.

"Isn't she?" echoed Chick. "Poor little soul, she is so lonely, too. She loved being here—she asked me to write to her," he added.

Gwenda walked to the window and looked out.

"It has started to rain," she said.

"I know," said Chick. "It was raining when I came in. What can I write to her about, Gwenda?"

She turned from the window and smiled.

"What a question, Chick!" she said, walking from the room.

"But really——"

"Write to her about oil," said Gwenda at the door, "and about boxing, but don't write to her about yourself or herself, Chick. That's the advice of—of an old married woman."

"Gosh!" said Chick. "But suppose she isn't interested in oil?"

But Gwenda had gone.

He tried the next day to write a letter, but discovered the limitations of correspondence with one whose tastes and interests were a mystery to him. Fortunately, Miss Farland saved him a great deal of trouble by writing.

She spelt a trifle erratically, and was prone to underline. Also she had acquired the habit of employing the note of admiration wherever it was possible. She had enjoyed herself immensely! She hoped he hadn't got wet! And wondered if he thought of her last night! She wanted to ask him a favour! She knew it was cheek! But she felt she must open her heart to him! A gentleman wanted to marry her! But she did not love him! Could marriage be happy without love? And so forth, over eight pages.

Gwenda saw him frowning over the letter, and wondered.

It was a little ominous, she thought, that Chick did not communicate any more of the letter than that it was from "Miss Farland."

The truth was, Chick felt that he was the recipient of a great confidence, and bound by honour to say no more about the girl's dilemma than was necessary. For Chick took these matters very seriously. He had a very great respect for all women, and, being something of an idealist, the thought that this pretty child might be hurried into matrimony with a man she did not love both depressed and horrified him.

Therefore, in the quietness of his room, he wrote, and found writing in these circumstances so easy an exercise that he had written twelve pages before he realised he had begun. And Chick's letter was about love and happiness, and the folly of marrying where love was not. He found he could enlarge upon this subject, and drew from within himself a philosophy of love which amazed him. There was one passage in his letter which ran:

"The social or financial position of a man is immaterial. It does not matter whether I am a marquis or a dustman. It does not matter whether you work for your living or you are a lady moving in the highest social circles: if you love me and I love you, nothing else matters."

He posted the bulky envelope, satisfied in his mind that he had set one pair of feet on the right way. He was staggered the next morning to receive a reply to his letter, although it could have been delivered only the previous night, and this time Miss Farland wrote seventeen pages. Chick's letter had been so helpful! She had never met a man who understood women as well as he did!

On the seventeenth page was a postscript. Would Chick meet her that night, at half-past eight o'clock, near the big statue in the Park?

Chick kept the appointment and found her charmingly fluttered. There was no necessity for him to take her arm as they walked up one of the deserted paths. She saved him the trouble by taking his. Curiously enough, she made not the slightest reference to the gentleman who desired to lure her into a loveless marriage. She talked mostly about herself and what the other girls at the shop thought of her. She admitted that she was a little superior to the position she held, and spoke of her father, who was an officer in the Army, and her mother, who was the daughter of a rural dean.

"A dean who preaches in the country, you know," she explained.

He escorted her back to Oxford Street. She reached her dwelling up a side-street which was never thickly populated, even in the busiest part of the day, and she stopped midway between two lamp-posts to say "Good night."

"You'll see me again, won't you?" she asked plaintively. "You don't know what a comfort your letters are to me."

And then she put up her red and inviting lips to his, and Chick kissed her. He had not either the intention or the desire, but there was the pretty upturned face with the scarlet lips within a few inches of his, and Chick kissed her.

When Gwenda returned home that night, Chick was waiting up for her—a very solemn-faced Chick, who did not meet her eye.

"Gwenda," he said a little huskily, "I want to speak to you before you go to bed."

Her heart went cold. She knew that Chick had gone to meet the girl. She had seen the voluminous correspondence which had passed, and she was afraid. She was determined, too. Chick should not sacrifice his future, his whole career, through the mad infatuation of a moment.

"What is it, Chick?" she asked, sitting down, her hands folded on the table before her.

"I'm afraid I've behaved rather badly," said Chick, still looking down.

"To whom?" asked Gwenda faintly. There was no need to ask the question at all.

"To Miss Farland," said Chick.

"Look at me, Chick!" Gwenda's voice was imperative. He raised his eyes to hers. "When you say you have behaved rather badly, what do you mean? Have you promised to—to marry her?"

His look of astonishment lifted a heavy weight from her heart.

"To marry her?" he said incredulously. "Of course not. I kissed her, that's all."'

She was smiling, but there were tears in her eyes.

"You silly boy," she said softly. "You gave me a fright. Tell me about it, Chick."

He was loth to put the incident into words, and felt he was being disloyal to one whom he described as "this innocent child," but Gwenda's leading questions brought out the story bit by bit. She was serious when he told her of the letter he had written, though Chick could see nothing in that.

"What was the letter about?"

"Well, it was mostly about love," said Chick calmly. "You see, dear, this poor child——"

Gwenda raised her eyes for a second.

"—has had an offer of marriage from a man who, I think, must be very wealthy, from what she tells me. Unfortunately, she doesn't like him a little bit, and she wrote to ask me what she should do."

"And did you tell her, Chick?" said Gwenda. "I suppose you haven't a copy of your letter?"

He shook his head, and she sighed.

"Well, perhaps there was nothing in it," she said. "What are you going to do, Chick?"

"I think I'd better write to her, when she writes again, and tell her that I can't see her," said Chick. "I don't want to hurt the poor girl's feelings, but at the same time I don't want to give her the impression that I'm fond of her. Of course I am fond of her," he added; "she's such a pretty little thing, and so lonely."

His resolution not to answer any more of her letters was shaken when she wrote, as she did the next day, an epistle which occupied both sides of fourteen sheets of large bank paper.

What had she done to offend him? She had trusted him! What had come between them?

"Don't answer it, Chick," warned the girl. And Chick groaned.

This letter was followed by others—some frantic, some pleading, some bearing pointed hints to the Serpentine and hoping he would never forget the poor girl who had loved him unto death!

"It's worse than the letters from the shareholders," groaned poor Chick. "Really, I think I ought to answer this one and tell her that I'm——"

"Unless I'm greatly mistaken," said Gwenda, "you'll have a letter to answer before the next week is over."

And, sure enough, on the following Saturday morning came a typed, epistle from Messrs. Bennett and Reeves, who were, amongst other things, according to the note-head, commissioners of oaths.

They had been instructed by their client, Miss Amelia Farland, to demand from the noble lord whether he intended fulfilling his promise of marriage to their client, and, if he did not so intend, would he supply them with the name of his solicitors?

Poor Chick, a crushed and pallid figure, collapsed into his chair, and Gwenda took the letter from his hand. There were many eminent firms of lawyers who would act for Chick, but she knew a theatrical solicitor, a shrewd man of business, who kept a watchful eye upon the affairs of Mr. Solburg, and to him she carried the letter and gave as near as possible an account of the relationship between Chick and the girl.

"Bennett and Reeves," he mused, as he read the letter. "They take on that kind of work. I'll write them a little note. I don't think your Marquis will be troubled with this action."

Some time after, Miss Millie Farland entered the offices of her solicitors, wearing just that expression of silent suffering which would have photographed so well had there been any photographers waiting in Bedford Row to snap her.

Mr. Bennett received her with every evidence of cordiality.

"About this action, Miss Farland," he said. "They are going to fight the case, and they have briefed Sir John Mason. But do you want this case to go into court? Because, if you do, it is my opinion that you haven't a leg to stand on. I've been making independent inquiries, and it seems that Lord Pelborough did nothing more than rescue you from a former lover of yours."

"You have his letter," said Miss Farland severely.

"Callow essays on love and marriage," said Mr. Bennett contemptuously. "Now let us get down to business. Before we can go any further in this action you must deposit an amount sufficient to cover the costs. That will be, let us say, two thousand pounds."

Miss Farland rose. Afterwards, describing her action, she said that the man quailed under her glance.

"I see," she said bitterly, "there is one law for the rich and another for the poor."

"It is the same law," explained Mr. Bennett. "The only difference is that the poor pay in advance, and the rich pay afterwards."

Miss Farland, addressing a meeting of her sympathisers on Number One landing that night, expressed her determination to go through with the matter to the bitter end. Happily she was spared that ordeal, for an evening or two later, whilst she was strolling with a friend by the side of that very Serpentine in which she had hinted her young life might be blotted out, a small boy bather got into difficulties—and Miss Farland could swim.

The breakfast room at Belham and Sapworth's crowded round her as she read the paper in the morning, and feasted their eyes upon a larger headline than she had ever received: "Pretty Girl's Gallant Rescue in the Serpentine. Modest Heroine Refuses to Give her Name until the Police Compelled Her."

Miss Farland drew a happy sigh.