Part 46 (1/2)

”'Let me tell you, sir, this is no place to inquire after Mr. Sabre,'

said he. 'Let me tell you--'

”Well, I'd ha' let him tell me any old thing. That was what I was there for. But he shut himself up with a kind of gasp and cannoned himself into his tabernacle under the stairs and left me there, wondering if I was where I thought I was, or had got into a moving-picture show by mistake. The clerk had fallen through the floor or something. I was alone. Friendless. n.o.body wanted me. I thought to myself, 'Percival, old man, you're on the unpopular side of the argument. You're nonsuited, old man.' And I thought I wouldn't take any more chances in this Biblical film, not with old father Abraham Fortune or Friend Judas Iscariot Twyning; I thought I'd push out to Penny Green and see old Sabre for myself.

”So I did. I certainly did....

”You can imagine me, old man, in my natty little blue suit, tripping up the path of Sabre's house and guessing to myself that the mystery wasn't a mystery at all, but only the office perhaps rather fed up with Sabre for staying away nursing his game leg so long. By Jove, it wasn't that.

House had rather a neglected appearance, I thought. Door k.n.o.b not polished, or blinds still down somewhere or something. I don't know.

Something. And what made me conscious of it was that I was kept a long time waiting after I'd rung the bell. In fact, I had to ring twice. Then I heard some one coming, and you know how your mind unconsciously expects things and so gives you quite a start when the thing isn't there; well, I suppose I'd been expecting to see one of Sabre's two servants, 'my couple of Jinkses' as he calls them, and 'pon my soul I was quite startled when the door opened and it wasn't one of them at all, but a very different pair of shoes.

”It was a young woman; ladylike, dressed just in some ordinary sort of clothes; I don't know; uncommonly pretty, or might have been if she hadn't looked so uncommonly sad; and--this was what knocked me carrying a baby. 'Pon my soul, I couldn't have been more astonished if the door had been opened by the Kaiser carrying the Crown Prince.

”I don't know why I should have imagined she was the kid's mother, but I did. I don't know why I should have looked at her hands, but I did. I don't know why I should have expected to see a wedding ring, but I did.

And there wasn't one.

”Well, she was saying 'Yes?' in an inquiring, timid sort of way, me standing there like a fool, you understand, and I suddenly recovered from my flabbergasteration and guessed the obvious thing--that the Sabres had let their house to strangers and gone away. Still more obvious, you might say, that Mrs. Sabre had produced a baby, and that the girl was her sister or some one, but that never occurred to me. No, I guessed they'd gone away, and I said, 'I was calling to see Mr. Sabre.

Has he gone away?'

”I'd thought her looking timid. She was looking at me now decidedly as if she were frightened of me. 'No, no, Mr. Sabre's not gone away. He's here. Are you a friend of his?'

”I smiled at her. 'Well, I used to be,' I said. She didn't smile. What the d.i.c.kens was up? 'I used to be. I always thought I was. My name's Hapgood.'

”'Perhaps you'd better come in.'

”You know, it was perfectly extraordinary. Her voice was as sad as her face. I stepped in. What on earth was I going to hear? Sabre dying? Wife dying? Air-raid bomb fallen on the house and everybody dead? 'Pon my soul, I began to feel creepy. Scalp began to p.r.i.c.k. Then suddenly there was old Sabre at the head of the stairs. 'What is it, Effie?' Then he saw me. 'Hullo, Hapgood!' His voice was devilish pleased. Then he said again, rather in a thoughtful voice, 'Hullo, Hapgood,' and he began to come down, slowly, with his stick.

”Well, _he_ wasn't dead, anyway; that was something to go on with. I took his hand and said, 'Hullo, Sabre. How goes it, old man? Able to do the stairs now, I see. I was down to Tidborough and thought I'd come and look you up again.'

”'Fine,' he said, shaking my hand. 'Jolly nice of you.' Then he said, 'Did you go to the office for me, Hapgood?'

”'Just looked in,' I said offhandedly. 'Saw a clerk who said you weren't down to-day, so I came along up.'

”He was doing some thinking, I could see that. He said, 'Jolly good of you. I _am_ glad. You'll stay a bit, of course.' The girl had faded away. He went a bit along the pa.s.sage and called out, 'Effie, you can scratch up a bit of lunch for Mr. Hapgood?'

”I suppose she said Yes. 'Lunch'll be on in about two minutes,' he came back to me with. 'You're later than when you came up last time. Come along in here.'

”Led me into the morning room and we sat down and pretended to talk.

Very poor pretence, I give you my word. Both of us manifestly straining to do the brisk and hearty, and the two of us producing about as much semblance of chatty interchange as a couple of victims waiting their turn in a dentist's parlour. The door was open and I could hear some one moving about laying the lunch. That was all I could hear (bar Sabre's spasmodic jerks of speech) and I don't mind telling you I was a deal more interested in what I could hear going on outside than in anything we could put up between us. Or rather in what I couldn't hear going on outside. No voices, none of those sounds, none of that sort of feeling that tells you people are about the place. No, there was some mystery knocking about the place somewhere, and it was on the other side of the door, and that was where my attention was.

”Presently I heard the girl's voice outside, 'Lunch is ready.'

”We jumped up like two schoolboys released from detention and went along in. More mystery. Lunch at Sabre's place was always a beautifully conducted rite, as I was accustomed to it. Announced by two gongs, warning and ready, to begin with, and here we'd been shuffled in by a girl's casual remark in the pa.s.sage; and beautifully appointed and served when you got there and here was--Well, there were places laid for two only and a ramshackle kind of cold picnic scattered about the cloth.

Everything there, help yourself kind of show. Bit of cold meat, half a cold tart, lump of cheese, loaf of bread, a.s.sortment of plates, and so on.

”Sabre said, 'Oh, by the way, my wife's not here. She's away.'

”I murmured the polite thing. He was staring at the two places, frowning a bit. 'Half a minute,' he said and hopped off on his old stick. Then I heard him talking to this mysterious girl. At least I heard her voice first. 'Oh, I can't! I can't!'

”Then Sabre: 'Nonsense, Effie. You must. You must. I insist. Don't be silly.'