Part 29 (2/2)

He here attacked the eggs with what seemed to be a freshening of his remarkable appet.i.te. And as yet, be it noted, I had detected no consciousness on his part that a foul betrayal of confidence had been committed. I approached the point.

”The Belknap-Jacksons were rather expecting him, you know. My impression was that the Honourable George had been sent to escort him to the Belknap-Jackson house.”

”Well, that's what I thought, too, but I guess the Judge forgot it, or mebbe he thinks the guy will mix in better with Mis' Kenner's crowd.

Anyway, there they was, and it probably didn't make any difference to the guy himself. He likely thought he could while away the tejum there as well as he could while it any place, all of them being such good scouts. And the Judge has certainly got a case on Mis' Kenner, so mebby she asked him to drop in with any friend of his. She's got him bridle-wise and broke to all gaits.” He visibly groped for an illumining phrase. ”He--he just looks at her.”

The simple words fell upon my ears with a sickening finality. ”He just looks at her.” I had seen him ”just look” at the typing-girl and at the Brixton milliner. All too fearfully I divined their preposterous significance. Beyond question a black infamy had been laid bare, but I made no effort to convey its magnitude to my guileless informant. As I left him he was mildly bemoaning his own lack of skill on the pianoforte.

”Darned if I don't wish I'd 'a' took some lessons on the piano myself like that guy done. It certainly does help to while away the tejum when you got friends in for the afternoon. But then I was just a hill-billy. Likely I couldn't have learned the notes good.”

It was a half-hour later that I was called to the telephone to listen to the anguished accents of Belknap-Jackson.

”Have you heard it?” he called. I answered that I had.

”The man is a paranoiac. He should be at once confined in an asylum for the criminal insane.”

”I shall row him fiercely about it, never fear. I've not seen him yet.”

”But the creature should be watched. He may do harm to himself or to some innocent person. They--they run wild, they kill, they burn--set fire to buildings--that sort of thing. I tell you, none of us is safe.”

”The situation,” I answered, ”has even more shocking possibilities, but I've an idea I shall be equal to it. If the worst seems to be imminent I shall adopt extreme measures.” I closed the interview. It was too painful. I wished to summon all my powers of deliberation.

To my amazement who should presently appear among my throng of luncheon patrons but the Honourable George. I will not say that he slunk in, but there was an unaccustomed diffidence in his bearing. He did not meet my eye, and it was not difficult to perceive that he had no wish to engage my notice. As he sought a vacant table I observed that he was spotted quite profusely, and his luncheon order was of the simplest.

Straight I went to him. He winced a bit, I thought, as he saw me approach, but then he apparently resolved to bra.s.s it out, for he glanced full at me with a terrific a.s.sumption of bravado and at once began to give me beans about my service.

”Your bally tea shop running down, what! Louts for waiters, cloddish louts! Disgraceful, my word! Slow beggars! Take a year to do you a rasher and a bit of toast, what!”

To this absurd tirade I replied not a word, but stood silently regarding him. I dare say my gaze was of the most chilling character and steady. He endured it but a moment. His eyes fell, his bravado vanished, he fumbled with the cutlery. Quite abashed he was.

”Come, your explanation!” I said curtly, divining that the moment was one in which to adopt a tone with him. He wriggled a bit, crumpling a roll with panic fingers.

”Come, come!” I commanded.

His face brightened, though with an intention most obviously false. He coughed--a cough of pure deception. Not only were his eyes averted from mine, but they were gla.s.sed to an uncanny degree. The fingers wrought piteously at the now plastic roll.

”My word, the chap was taken bad; had to be seen to, what! Revived, I mean to say. All piano Johnnies that way--nervous wrecks, what!

Spells! Spells, man--spells!”

”Come, come!” I said crisply. The gla.s.sed eyes were those of one hypnotized.

”In the carriage--to the hyphen chap's place, to be sure. Fainting spell--weak heart, what! No stimulants about. Pa.s.sing house! Perhaps have stimulants--heart tablets, er--beer--things of that sort. Lead him in. Revive him. Quite well presently, but not well enough to go on. Couldn't let a piano Johnny die on our hands, what! Inquest, evidence, witnesses--all that silly rot. Save his life, what! Presence of mind! Kind hearts, what! Humanity! Do as much for any chap. Not let him die like a dog in the gutter, what! Get no credit, though----” His curiously mechanical utterance trailed off to be lost in a mere husky murmur. The gla.s.sy stare was still at my wall.

I have in the course of my eventful career had occasion to mark the varying degrees of plausibility with which men speak untruths, but never, I confidently aver, have I beheld one lie with so piteous a futility. The art--and I dare say with diplomat chaps and that sort it may properly be called an art--demands as its very essence that the speaker seem to be himself convinced of the truth of that which he utters. And the Honourable George in his youth mentioned for the Foreign Office!

I turned away. The exhibition was quite too indecent. I left him to mince at his meagre fare. As I glanced his way at odd moments thereafter, he would be muttering feverishly to himself. I mean to say, he no longer _was_ himself. He presently made his way to the street, looking neither to right nor left. He had, in truth, the dazed manner of one stupefied by some powerful narcotic. I wondered pityingly when I should again behold him--if it might be that his poor wits were bedevilled past mending.

My period of uncertainty was all too brief. Some two hours later, full into the tide of our afternoon shopping throng, there issued a spectacle that removed any lingering doubt of the unfortunate man's plight. In the rather smart pony-trap of the Klondike woman, driven by the person herself, rode the Honourable George. Full in the startled gaze of many of our best people he advertised his defection from all that makes for a sanely governed stability in our social organism. He had gone flagrantly over to the Bohemian set.

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