The Missing Angel, Erle Cox [suggested reading TXT] 📗
- Author: Erle Cox
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It occurred to Billy, that since his employer was paying him for his
time, and would probably pay more for his daring, the arrangement would
be most satisfactory.
“Good,” he challenged, “we’ll make the pins worth threepence a dozen.”
So, with pins to the value of half a crown each, they recommenced.
For an hour nothing disturbed the silence of the sanctum but the murmur
of the two voices. Outside, Miss Brand, denied admittance to caller
after caller, including two departmental heads. These, hearing that
Tyddie had been in conference with Brewer half the morning, earnestly
discussed what campaign the Chief could be organising. Lunch time came,
but there was no sound of movement behind the frosted-glass door.
Inside, Tydvil was backing amazing luck with improving technique. Again
and again he sent Billy to the pin tray for more ammunition.
Determination to come out victor led Brewer into taking risks that he
could not afford with the astute Tydvil. Finally, after throwing in his
hand rather than risk “seeing” the victorious Tydvil, he leaned back and
said, “I have no right to ask, but what did you hold then? I drew a
flush.”
There was a little smile on Tydvil’s face as he confessed to a pair of
threes.
Billy put the cards down. He looked at the pile of pins in front of
Tydvil, and said, “Your education is complete. A man who looks like a
full hand holding a pair of threes needs no further instruction. I’ll
cut my loss.” He dug his hand into his trouser pocket.
For the first time during the session, Tydvil looked at the clock. “Good
gracious, Brewer!” he exclaimed. “It is half past one o’clock! Dear me!
I’m sure I had no idea of the time.” Then, glancing at the silver, he
said, “I couldn’t think of letting you pay, Brewer. I am much obliged
for the trouble you have taken.”
Billy shook his head. “Had I won I would have expected to be paid,” he
said decisively. “I consider myself very lucky it was only three pence a
dozen.”
“It is a most demoralising game. Most demoralising!” said Tydvil
gravely. “I admit that I became most fascinated with its possibilities.
Nothing could have brought home to me more clearly how the evil of
gambling could take hold of one. I would rather we considered the matter
settled.”
Leaning across the table, Brewer drew the pad with its pile of pins
towards him. Swiftly his deft fingers separated the pile into dozens.
Presently, Billy looked up. “I make it thirty seven dozen and four.
Threepence a dozen lets me down lightly. I owe you nine and fourpence.”
He sorted out four florins, a shilling and threepence. Adding a penny
from his vest pocket, he handed the loot to Tydvil, who accepted it
reluctantly.
“At any rate,” he said, “in future I shall be able to speak of gambling
with some experience.”
Billy stood up. “I think it lucky for the community that you will make
nothing but academic use of your knowledge. I should hate to sit in with
you in a game of half-crown rises. You have been too good a pupil.” He
grinned.
“I’m afraid my friends would be terribly shocked if they knew how I have
spent the last two hours,” Jones said.
“Well,” said Billy from the door, “they are not likely to hear it from
me. Would one of them believe you had won nine shillings and fourpence
from me in your own office?”
As he passed Geraldine’s table he looked towards her. His one eye met
her two fixed on him in real consternation at the havoc she had wrought.
In spite of herself, a dismayed “Oh!” broke from her lips.
Billy, the unregenerate, smiled cheerfully. “It was coming to me,
Geraldine—and it was well worth the getting. Isn’t it a beauty?”
His utter impenitence froze her sympathy. “In future,” she said with
crushing dignity, “I do not wish you to speak to me.”
With his head on one side Billy surveyed her with a twinkle in the
undamaged eye. “I hear and obey, O Queen! But there’s no law agin’
lookin’ at ye, Geraldine, me darlint.” He kissed the tips of his fingers
to her and went on his way.
As she watched him go the uncertain little smile on her lips grew to a
little laugh as he disappeared from sight.
In his room Tydvil gazed at the coins in his hand with a certain amount
of pride. Taking his hat he apologised politely to Geraldine for having
detained her. He passed the restaurant where he was in the habit of
spending a midday two shillings. Turning into Collins Street, he entered
one over the threshold of which he had never yet set foot. Here he
ordered a lunch that, when he had given the waiter two shillings, left
him with fourpence of his winnings. Tydvil Jones felt much better for
his lunch.
It would have astonished Tydvil Jones considerably had he known that his
wife, also, had departed from the rules of her rigorous upbringing. With
fluttering excitement at what she considered a far more heinous lapse
than that of the curate who finished a day out by returning home in a
smoking carriage, Amy had accompanied her new and distinguished
acquaintance to Menzies.
During the time they, waited in the lounge, and afterwards in the great
dining-room, with its gaily plumaged women and their squires, it gave
her a thrill of feline satisfaction to observe the admiring eyes that
followed her escort.
But there was one thorn in her bouquet of roses. For the first time in
her life, she was conscious that her Spartan simplicity of dress made
her feel there was no other word for it—dowdy. Yesterday she thought
it would have given her a sense of pride. Today, well! There was that
woman’s hat, for instance, that somehow seemed to lend a vividness to a
not very attractive face. Amy felt that if she wore such a hat it would
take on an extra importance. “After all, why not make the best of one’s
looks,” she reflected. “Perhaps Tydvil was right, after all.”
Apart from that she felt perfectly happy. Mr. Senior proved a
fascinating companion. He was both witty and understanding, and won her
confidence completely. Indeed, she found herself thinking how pleasant
it would be if Tydvil possessed such graceful self-assurance combined
with Mr. Senior’s undoubted intellectual attainments.
Tydvil never listened to Amy with such courteous and genuine interest,
or deferred so respectfully to her opinions. A far less conceited woman
than Amy would have found Mr. Senior’s attention very flattering.
They exchanged low voiced censure on two women at a neighbouring table
who drank hock with their luncheon. Mr. Senior gently deplored the state
of a society in which such a spectacle could be tolerated.
Amy assured him that not only she, but her husband, shared similar
views, and she hoped that she could arrange an early meeting between the
two men. “You have so much in common in your principles,” asserted Amy,
that she was sure they would get on well together.
Mr. Senior, who was sipping mineral water, expressed a fervent hope that
a meeting with Mr. Jones would not be long delayed. He also looked
forward to the day when total prohibition would make the spectacle of
women consuming alcoholic beverages at any time, much less in public,
would be a thing of the past.
It was in their excursion round her societies afterwards that filled
Amy’s cup of happiness to overflowing. They spent a rapturous half hour
at the League for the Suppression of Alcohol. Mr. Senior listened with
profound interest to the Secretary’s statistics. His eyes took on the
expression of one listening to inspired harmonies. Then he capped all
by, without prompting, handing a cheque for twenty-five guineas to the
Secretary, becoming, thereby, a life member of the League.
At each office at which they called, its funds were from five to ten
guineas better for the coming of Mr. Senior.
But he was at his best at the rooms of the Moral Uplift Society. He made
innumerable enquiries as to its aims and the methods employed by its
officers. When Amy was moved to tell him how Mr. Jones was rather like
warm in his interest in this work, Mr. Senior was almost incredulous. He
agreed with her that Mr. Jones must have failed to grasp the importance
of the work being done. And when he passed over a pink slip empowering
his bank to pay “Moral Uplift Society or Bearer” one hundred pounds, Amy
exclaimed with gushing sincerity, “Oh, you must be a saint, Mr. Senior!”
That gentleman gently, and very modestly, disclaimed any right to such a
distinction.
Afterwards, on her way home, Amy, by some earnest mental calculation,
estimated that their outing must have cost Mr. Senior something like two
hundred and sixty pounds.
Before stepping in to her own car, which she had ordered by telephone to
meet her, Amy had extracted a promise from her friend that he would dine
with her and meet her husband. “Tydvil is a tower of strength to me,”
she assured him.
Standing bareheaded at her car door, he thanked her for an educational
and inspiring afternoon, and told her how much he was looking forward to
meeting Mr. Jones, and any others of her co-workers as well.
Amy was late in arriving home that afternoon, although she had left Mr.
Senior with ample time at her disposal. The delay was caused by nearly
an hour spent in trying on hats at one of those retiring little shops
where the most becoming headgear could be purchased—at a price.
Even the message by telephone with which her maid met her, to the effect
that Mr. Jones was delayed at the office and would not be home to
dinner, did not upset her genial mood. A royal row with Tydvil after
dinner would be packing too much joy into one day.
She dined alone in solitary state. The maid who waited on her came to
the kitchen later with a tale passing all comprehension. She related to
her frankly dubious colleagues that Amy had kept dinner waiting while
she changed her frock and put on a dinner gown, just to feed by herself.
“Amy’s going gay,” chirped the cook, pirouetting about her domain. “What
a lark!”
Tydvil Jones passed the afternoon in an intensive concentration on his
work. Only by so doing could he get through the long hours before the
evening. He gave Geraldine very little time to consider her own worries,
for which she was inwardly gratified.
Leaving instructions that he might be back to work during the evening,
Tydvil left his office at five o’clock. His unusual lunch and his
excitement combined to make dinner unthinkable. To fill in the
intervening time, he walked through the Alexandra Gardens—and, without
knowing it, was passed by Amy in her car as he crossed Princes Bridge.
Fortunately, Amy also, was too much occupied with her own thoughts to be
alive to anything mundane.
Then, after spending an hour in the library of the Y.M.C.A., he returned
to his office at the appointed time. In compliance with his orders, a
few lights had been left burning on the ground floor. When he gained his
office, he found Mr. Senior already awaiting him.
That gentleman received his warm thanks for averting the calamity of
Amy’s descent on the office with a smile. “You have no idea what an
agreeable afternoon I have spent. Really, I find I have a
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