Paid In Full/Chapter 20
CHAPTER XX
THE LOYALIST
Denny and Conway had scarcely departed through the drawing-room window when Sir Anthony entered, in a manner distinctly furtive, by the breakfast-room door. In his hand he carried the evening paper. He stole to the sideboard, from which he extracted a sherry decanter and a glass. He was engaged in filling one from the other when he heard a light step behind him. It was Joan.
‘Hallo, Uncle Tony!’ she said. ‘Proceeding from labour to refreshment?’
‘Yes, my dear.’
‘What did you think of our chairman this afternoon?’
‘He handled the meeting like a master. It may be an unpatriotic thing to say, but I do admire tact.’
‘What I admired chiefly was his cheek. Uncle Tony, where did he get his Honorary Auditor—and the Honorary Auditor’s wife?’
‘My dear, he told us. From the firm of Moon, Moon, and Moon—or was it Moonshine? And he made the meeting swallow the Moons—all of them! I take off my hat to Conway, and I drink to his confusion!’
‘I was talking to Thwaites this morning,’ said Joan, sitting down.
‘Ah!’
‘But one might as well try to get blood out of a stone. She simply closed up like a trap.’
‘That type of old servant,’ remarked Sir Anthony, ‘would rather go to the stake than betray a domestic secret. Our military friend is quite safe so far as Thwaites is concerned, I should say.’
‘You’re right,’ said Joan. ‘Have you said anything to Mother yet?’
‘No. I have had no opportunity.’
‘Well, I wish you would. I don’t like the way Captain Conway is getting Denny under his thumb. So long as Denny was in training for the races, things were all right; but now—with nothing to do—’
‘Satan finds some mischief still—and so on? Hallo, here is your mother, coming downstairs.’
‘Then do it now!’ suggested practical Joan. ‘I’ve promised to go on the river with Leo.’
She flitted through the open window, and Sir Anthony rose to greet his niece.
‘I was lying down upstairs,’ explained Mildred; ‘and I heard your voices. I would rather have your company than my own any day, Uncle Tony,’ she added, with her ready smile. ‘Have the festivities of the afternoon exhausted you?’
‘Which of them—the Regatta, or the Meeting?’
‘Whichever you please.’
‘The Regatta exhausted me considerably—especially the gentleman with the black face and the prismatic trousers who cast anchor alongside our punt and sang ‘Whose Baby Are You, Dear?’ into my left ear. But the Meeting was a tonic. Our chairman is quite a character.’
‘You like him, then?’
‘I find him most attractive—even though he referred to me in his speech as a retired Pro-Consul of our Eastern Empire.’
‘I suppose you have never met any one quite like him before?’ There was a note in Mildred’s voice which implied that one has to make allowances for exceptional characters.
‘Oh, yes, I have,’ said Uncle Tony unexpectedly. ‘There is a penal settlement in the Indian Ocean (to which I have frequently contributed recruits) full of people just like him—or as like him as they’re able to be.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Mildred, fluttered.
‘I mean, my dear,’ replied Sir Anthony deliberately, ‘that the man is an arrant scamp, and I shall make it my business to expose him.’
Mildred turned to him in sudden fear.
‘Uncle Tony, you mustn’t!’
‘Why not?’
‘He’s—he’s—my friend!’
‘We don’t always select our friends, Milly; sometimes we have to have them. Tell me, is this man straight, or crooked?’
‘He’s eccentric—impulsive. He—he does foolish things at times. He has knocked about the world; he hasn’t got our point of view. Be patient with him, Uncle Tony: I’ll see he doesn’t do anything wrong. Only’—Mildred’s hands were clasped in unaccustomed entreaty—‘please, please don’t try to find out anything about him. If he were pressed too hard—’
Sir Anthony regarded her curiously.
‘You don’t want him driven into a corner?’
‘No.’
‘For fear he might turn nasty?’
‘Yes.’
‘And expose somebody?’
‘Yes.’ A puzzled look crept into Mildred’s eyes.
‘Not you—but somebody.’ Uncle Tony sat down and took his niece’s hand. ‘My dear, brave, loyal Milly—’ he said.
There was real terror in Mildred’s face now.
‘Loyal?’ she whispered. ‘What do you mean? Have you guessed?’
‘I think so.’
‘What have you guessed?’
‘That, in refusing to expose this man, you are shielding some one else.’
‘Some one else?’
‘Or rather, some one else’s memory. Conway has found out something about your late husband, and is blackmailing you.’
Mildred gave a long, shuddering sigh. Sir Anthony was on a false scent. She did not know whether to be relieved or not.
‘You are helpless,’ he continued; ‘because, if you fight, that precious record of which you are so proud—which you have taught your children to revere—might be smirched. Is that so?’
Mildred bowed her head. This shrewd old man might be wrong in his premises, but his conclusions were strangely near the truth.
‘That is why I called you loyal,’ he said. ‘Now, can I help you?’
‘If only you could! But you can’t! This has got to be my own private worry, and no one else’s, Uncle Tony. We all have them!’ She smiled gallantly.
‘There is one way,’ continued Sir Anthony, ‘which I have seldom known to fail in these cases.’
‘What is that?’
‘To investigate his record, quietly. I warrant I’ll find out something about him which will put the boot on the other leg.’
‘No, no, no, no!’ exclaimed Mildred, with a sudden return of her fears. ‘You mustn’t do that. You will ruin everything if you do.’
‘I shouldn’t publish my knowledge. I should just explain to him that I know who he is—’
‘Uncle Tony,’ said Mildred earnestly, with her hand on his arm—‘don’t! You can’t bring him down without bringing me down—and the children, too! Don’t!’
The old man surveyed her gravely.
‘It’s as bad as that, is it?’ he said. Mildred nodded. ‘Very well, then I won’t. But what’s to be done?’
‘You must have patience, dear Uncle Tony. I have hopes of getting him to go away. I have a plan: I think I can succeed. But however you may feel, don’t try to precipitate things!’
‘Very well, my dear,’ said Sir Anthony, rising: ‘we will keep our powder dry for the present. Meanwhile, whenever you want help, remember that the battered old ruin who now confronts you is entirely at your service.’
‘Bless you!’ said Mildred, kissing him.
Suddenly there came sounds of an altercation outside the window. Two voices were audible—one loud, imperious, and passionately angry; the other, sulky and defiant. Mildred ran and looked out.
‘What is it?’ asked Sir Anthony.
‘Captain Conway, on the towpath.’
‘He appears to be reciting.’
‘He’s talking to a rough-looking man—a man wheeling a Punch and Judy show.’
‘Doubtless another Honorary Auditor. Surely he’s not going to bring him in!’
‘No, he’s left him now. He’s coming in here.’
But before he entered the room Cradock whirled round and delivered himself of a final broadside in the direction of the towpath. Mildred watched him, half thrilled. Here, for the moment, was a different man—transfigured by generous indignation.
‘And if I catch you at it again, you filthy swine,’ he shouted, ‘I’ll chuck you into the river—and hold you under!’
He turned contemptuously upon his heel, to find himself face to face with Mildred and Sir Anthony.
He smiled, disarmingly.
‘I beg your pardon,’ he said: ‘I’m afraid I alarmed you. The fact is, that ruffian was knocking his dog about—the poor little Toby brute that supports him. So—I knocked him about! Idiotic, of course; but if there’s one thing in this world that revolts me, it’s cruelty of that kind.’
‘You are referring, I presume,’ said Sir Anthony drily, ‘to physical cruelty?’
‘Is there any other kind that matters,’ snapped Cradock, ‘compared with that?’
‘Oddly enough, sir,’ replied Sir Anthony with sudden heat, ‘there is. And I want to tell you, here and now, that you are to desist from inflicting the same upon this dear lady.’
Cradock flashed a startled glance in the direction of his wife.
‘I don’t quite follow,’ he said.
‘Mrs. Cradock,’ explained Sir Anthony, ‘has been honouring me with her confidence—to this extent, that you have acquired some hold over her, and are trading upon it. I have not pressed Mrs. Cradock for further details—’
‘Ah!’ There was genuine relief in Captain Conway’s voice.
‘But I should like to give you a piece of professional information; and that is, that the law has an ugly name for persons like you, and an uncomfortable remedy for—’
Cradock was quite at his ease again.
‘But you must first catch your hare, my dear Sir Anthony. To employ an expression which I picked up in the United States of America, you have nothing on me.’
‘For the moment I admit that I have nothing on you—’
‘So that’s that!’ Cradock turned away lightly, as if to address Mildred.
‘But I may add that I once numbered among my acquaintances an American attaché at the Embassy in Rome, from whose vocabulary I culled many priceless flowers of American idiom.’
‘Such as—?’
‘Such as: “One of these days I shall catch you with the goods!”’
‘Very apt! Capital!’
Uncle Tony suddenly extended an appealing hand.
‘Captain Conway,’ he said earnestly, ‘you are a man of very exceptional talents and ability. Why don’t you run straight? Why don’t you play the game?’
Cradock laughed, pleasantly enough.
‘Too boring, my old friend. Too humdrum! Too—easy! Life is so much more entertaining if one avoids the beaten path of virtue. That’s my answer. Now, I want a little chat with Mrs. Cradock. Will you excuse us?’
‘Certainly—not!’ said Uncle Tony, sitting heavily upon a chair.
Cradock made an almost imperceptible signal to his wife. She stepped forward mechanically.
‘Please, Uncle Tony!’ she said.
Uncle Tony reluctantly uprooted himself.
‘Very well, my dear,’ he said. ‘But, in leaving this gentleman on your premises, may I recommend you—again quoting my friend the attaché—to have all your furniture screwed to the floor? Au revoir, Captain Conway—until Philippi!’