The Missing Angel, Erle Cox [suggested reading TXT] 📗

>towards the south entrance. Watching her go, the false Billy crossed the

bridge leisurely and made for the north-west gate. Well under cover,

Geraldine followed him, determined to confront him before he left the

gardens. While the false Billy idled, she manoeuvred swiftly ahead across

lawns, till she found shelter on a seat behind a flower bed near the path

he must take. Here, unseen, she watched his coming. As he advanced

towards her, she saw him glancing round the deserted paths and lawns.

Evidently he was ascertaining if there was anyone in sight. His patent

uneasiness puzzled her.

 

Some twenty feet from where she sat concealed, a great elm flung out its

wide network of leafless branches from a two-feet thick bole. Towards

this the figure she was watching so intently, advanced. He passed behind

the bole, hidden for the fraction of a second—but there appeared on the

other side, not the false Billy Brewer, but Tydvil Jones!

 

Geraldine had been on the point of rising to her feet to step from her

hiding place to confront the impostor. The shock of astonishment she

received was almost physical in its impact. It was with a desperate

effort she checked the cry that would have betrayed her presence.

Crouching low, through the leaves she saw Tydvil pass within ten feet of

her hiding place. The laggard pace of the false Billy had changed to the

swift, jaunty step she knew so well. Petrified, she saw him pass.

Petrified, she watched the retreating back until it rounded a curve one

hundred yards away, and was hidden behind the foliage. Even then she did

not move more than her head as she turned to examine the scene of the

transformation to make sure her eyes had not disgraced themselves. No! A

mouse could not have hidden itself just at the spot, much less the bulk

of the false Billy.

 

Presently Geraldine stood up. She walked on to the path, walked round the

tree, examined it from every possible angle, muttered to herself,

“Geraldine Brand, you are going barmy,” then she returned to her seat.

She felt her legs were insisting on a sit-down strike. The situation was

too much for them. When she tried to think, she found her head not much

more tractable than her legs.

 

Had anyone been near enough to see Geraldine as she leaned back in her

seat, he or she might have been excused for thinking that she had bats in

her attic. For she sat there alternately staring ahead, wide-eyed, and

then, apparently, counting and recounting her fingers. Then there were

not two Billies—there were—but one was Tydvil Jones—or Tydvil Jones

was Billy Brewer. But supposing Tydvil Jones was Billy Brewer, why did he

meet clandestinely, and flirt with, his own wife? Geraldine had a fairly

comprehensive knowledge of life, if her actual experience was somewhat

limited. She felt perfectly sure, however, that married men did not meet

their wives furtively to flirt outrageously with them. Tydvil had a

reputation for being a mutt, but even he was not mutt enough to

flirt…Her thoughts checked with a crash that almost disintegrated their

gears. Or was he? No, not a mutt! Slowly she turned that thought over in

her mind. She listened to it. She sniffed at it. She tasted that thought.

 

She, who had been for so long closer to Tyddie than any other being, had

guessed that Amy had made his life pretty tough going. Not that hint or

sign of it ever dropped from Tyddie. Suppose—suppose—Tyddie

had—deliberately trapped Amy—Geraldine’s set face relaxed, and a

gurgling laugh escaped her. Would it be possible? He, Tyddie—if that

other Billy had been Tyddie…He was, if she had not completely

lost her reason—perhaps she had…It was obvious that Tyddie would

not flirt with Amy for the pleasure of it—therefore—that darned,

wicked, unscrupulous little ruffian had tied dear Amy in a knot from

which a Houdini could not escape.

 

Geraldine did not love Amy. She had suffered Amy’s insufferable patronage

too often on that reformer’s visits to the office not to detest the very

sight of that superficial, smiling, exasperating face. Often in her heart

she had felt profound sympathy for the bedevilled Tydvil. Geraldine was

neither malicious nor vindictive, but as she turned over the preposterous

idea that had come into her mind, she felt that if her crazy guess were

correct, she could forgive the culprit everything—even the wrong done to

her Billy.

 

The fading light and the cooling air recalled her to actualities.

Hurriedly she rose to her feet and made for the Domain. As she walked

another idea came to tantalise her. If Tyddie were the false Billy, then

equally, so might he be the notorious Basil Williams. The whole thing was

crazy. No man could transform himself she assured herself. But she had

seen it done. If these things happened, what mischief had Tyddie been up

to? A cold shiver passed through her. Her own clean, logical mind

rejected the thought of anything outside of natural laws.

 

In her heart she knew that her senses had not betrayed her over the queer

transformation she had witnessed. Her wholesome nature had always

rejected the possibility of things supernatural in daily life. She

scorned small superstitions. But she felt that what had occurred could

only be associated with something that was repugnant to every fibre of

her being. The thought that Tydvil Jones was involved with anything of

the kind came as a positive shock.

 

Swiftly her mind reviewed the past few weeks. She could definitely place

the change in Tydvil from that morning of his unexpected appearance on

her encounter with Billy. Everything dated from that day. His lies in the

St. Kilda Court next morning. Billy’s amazing tribulation. The appearance

of Basil Williams, and Tyddie’s further falsehoods about his hat—“Oh,

everything!” she concluded to herself.

 

That night on his arrival at her home, Billy found Geraldine boiling with

suppressed excitement. There was something exquisitely tender and

protective in her greeting of him that made Billy almost dizzy with

happiness. However, when she released herself reluctantly from his arms,

she led him to a couch and seated him at one end of it. Turning, she

gathered three large cushions which she piled in the middle of it, and

seated herself at the other end.

 

Billy, watching her preparations with amused interest, demanded with a

laugh, “Why the fortification, darlint?”

 

“Billy,” she responded, “there is going to be a long and serious pow-wow,

and neither of us can be serious closer than we are now.”

 

“Hang it, Gerry,” said Billy, eyeing the barrier distastefully, “if it is

to be that serious, you should have installed a telephone so as I could

not see you.”

 

She laughed happily. “Boy, I don’t want the barrier there any more than

you do, but we must talk. It’s terribly important.”

 

The earnestness in her voice satisfied him. “Well, I’ll promise to be as

serious as any man can be while he’s looking at you. But, please, mamma,

get it over quickly. Those cushions are suffocating me.”

 

“First, Billy,” she asked, “I want you to tell me everything you did and

everywhere you went between two o’clock and five this afternoon?” Then,

in answer to the questioning eyes, “It’s not a third degree, and I am not

being catty.”

 

Smiling and without hesitation, Billy gave an account of himself. Twice

only Geraldine interrupted, to fix the time of a movement on an

interview, as Billy recited the routine of his afternoon’s work.

 

Geraldine nodded her understanding, and, as he concluded, again asked,

“And every one of those men you saw and spoke to could swear to it if

necessary?”

 

“Of course,” agreed Billy, “but what on earth’s the matter? Not more

trouble, I hope?”

 

“There is more trouble—plenty of it. But not for you, Billy, thank

goodness.”

 

She paused, and went on gravely, “Boy, tell me if you think I am quite

sane, because what I am going to tell you will sound absolutely crazy—so

crazy as to be normally impossible. No!”—she put out an imperative

hand—“you must stay where you are.”

 

“All right,” he said resignedly, settling back in his corner. “But I am

not going to allow even you, Geraldine Brand, to make insulting

suggestions about yourself.”

 

“Well, I only hope you’ll feel that way when I have finished, because,

boy, you are about to receive some shocks.”

 

“Shoot! I can stand them.”

 

“Good! Here’s the first shock.” Her eyes danced. “At three o’clock this

afternoon Mr. William Brewer and Mrs. Tydvil Jones took afternoon tea

together at the kiosk in the Botanical Gardens…”

 

“Holy wars!” Billy was on his feet.

 

She waved him back. “It was your double, Billy—the one who has caused

all the trouble.”

 

Billy sank back, gazing at her blankly.

 

“I never doubted for a second, Billy, believe me. I felt in my bones, as

soon as I saw them, it could not be you—but the likeness was amazing.”

 

“Go on,” he said weakly. “I—you said shocks, Gerry—plural—don’t say

there are more.”

 

“Afraid so, boy—much worse.” Geraldine nodded. Slowly, and carefully

choosing her words, she unfolded the story of her afternoon’s adventure.

Billy, exercising an amazing self-restraint, listened silently till she

told of the appearance of Tyddie.

 

“But,” he protested, “dearest, that’s crazy—crazy!”

 

“Absolutely,” she agreed, “but, boy, it happened exactly as I told you.”

 

There was a long silence. It was broken by Billy. “What you mean is, that

this bird who is the living image of me,-is also Tyddie in another skin?”

 

Geraldine nodded emphatically. “Quite mad, I know, but that is just what

I mean.”

 

“And,” he went on, “this double-barrelled Casanova was also toying round

with the Seventh Commandment with Mrs. Tyddie?”

 

Geraldine pursed her mouth. “I’m no scandal-monger, boy, but from the way

she kissed him goodbye, I doubt that his attentions and intentions are

platonic.”

 

“Suffering serpents!” growled Billy furiously. “I’ll—I’ll sue Tyddie for

criminal libel—I wouldn’t be found dead with her.”

 

For the first time that evening Geraldine laughed heartily. “You’d never

make a jury believe any man made love to Amy.”

 

“But don’t you see, Gerry,” Billy was very sober, “it is just that that

makes the whole thing more crazy still. Husbands don’t go round

committing unnatural sorcery—for that’s what it is—to alienate the

affections of their wives, especially wives like Amy—it’s not done!”

 

“It might be in some circumstances.” Geraldine’s voice was full of

meaning. “Put yourself in Tyddie’s place.”

 

“God forbid!” answered Billy piously. “But I can’t imagine any

circumstances that would prompt me to make love to Amy.”

 

“Suppose you were married to her…”

 

“Well?”

 

“And suppose you wanted to get square for years of nagging.”

 

Slow comprehension dawned in Billy’s eyes. “Gerry,” he chuckled, “you’ve

a disgusting Machiavellian mind. That’s a horrid thought, but—it

fits—it fits!”

 

“Yes,” Geraldine nodded, “it fits. But, Billy, where does it lead us?”

 

“Well, we can’t go round saying that Tyddie can switch himself into any

shape he likes. That’s clear. We’d be run into a mental home faster than

a bat out of Hades.”

 

“You see, Billy,” she argued, “how, if we assume he can do it, it

explains everything. He must have been you that night without the black

eye when I saw him with Hilda Cranston.”

 

He nodded. “You know, dearest, I’d been dodging her for months and taking

no notice of her letters.”

 

“Billy,”—Geraldine smiled—“that murky past of yours seems to have come

home to roost on Tyddie.”

 

“Peccavi, culpa mea. I’m penitent, and I deserve all I get, but I’d hate

to see you suffer for it.”

 

“Forget it