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

been

more conciliatory to Mr. Senior, you know, Geraldine. Without holding a

brief for him, you rather asked for what happened.”

 

“Conciliatory! You can do what you please, but understand this, I’d

rather be compromised by him any day than compromise with him.”

 

“You have no idea what a delightful companion he can be.”

 

“It’s for that very reason that I’m taking no risks,” she asserted. Then,

pointing to the open papers on the table, she went on, “Do you think I

liked those?”

 

He grinned mischievously. “I would unhesitatingly accept your assurance

that you didn’t.” Then, after a pause, “There was someone who liked them

almost less than you did.”

 

“I have one friend apparently.”

 

“Not quite a friend, I’m afraid.” He leaned back in his chair. “To tell

you the truth, it was a high moral authority who suggested at length, and

with some emphasis, that my secretary was a blot on society and quite

unfitted for intimate contact with the proprietor of C. B. &.D.”

 

Danger signals flashed into Geraldine’s face. “If I am tainting the high

moral atmosphere of C. B. & D., and its highly, moral proprietor, the

sooner I remove the blot the better.”

 

“You dare, you wild cat, and by Jove, I’ll—I’ll sue you for breach of

contract or something awful!” He laughed.

 

“Do you think I’d let you house a blot on society?”

 

“Geraldine! In the first place, no Moral Authority, however high, is

allowed to interfere with my management of C. B. &.D. In the second

place, despite the fury of your temper, I like you too much to allow you

to go.” There was no mistaking the sincerity of his voice as he smiled up

at the angry girl.

 

“Oh, Tyddie, you are a mischievous demon!” The “Tyddie” slipped out

unconsciously.

 

“That’s better! Friends again?” There was something of a schoolboy in his

engaging grin.

 

She laughed. “But what about the High Moral Authority?”

 

His eyes twinkled. “You may not believe it, Geraldine, but I derive a

considerable amount of enjoyment from frustrating the High Moral

Authority.”

 

She looked at him speculatively. “Yes,” she said slowly, “I can quite

believe that.”

 

He started up. “Oh, by Jove, I’d almost forgotten! Sit down again and

take this note.”

 

Geraldine resumed her seat, pencil in hand,

 

“Dear Sir,” dictated Tydvil. “Will you kindly accept this as a

notification that I am disassociating myself from the activities of your

society, and desire my name to be removed from the list of members?”

 

From his wallet Tydvil drew a paper and passed it over to Geraldine. “You

will find here a list of seventeen philanthropic societies. I want you to

send a copy of that note to the Secretary of each one.”

 

Geraldine stared up from the list to Tydvil. “I wonder,” she said

thoughtfully, “what the High Moral Authority will say to that?”

 

“It scarcely bears contemplation,” chuckled Tydvil. “Well,” commented

Geraldine, “there are always Gippsland and the tall timber.”

 

She stood up and walked towards the door, but hesitated. Then she

returned and, walking round the table, stood beside it.

 

Seeing her indecision he looked up. “Come, Geraldine, out with whatever

it is.”

 

“Do you know the date?” she asked.

 

He glanced at the date block on his table. “October 18th, unless you have

neglected to change my block. What of it?”

 

“There are just seventeen days before November the fourth.” Her voice was

very serious.

 

His face was expressionless as he replied: “That will be the day after

Cup Day.”

 

“Oh, please, please Tyddie, be serious!” she pleaded. “You know you told

me that that dreadful bill was due on the fourth.”

 

His eyes searched her face. “I believe, Geraldine, you really are

worried.”

 

“Oh! How can I help being worried? You don’t seem to realise; you’re

blind to what it means. I—I want to help.” The deep concern for him was

very real.

 

“Will you believe me when I say the prospect does not worry me in the

slightest degree?” There could be no doubt he meant what he said.

 

“But…” she began.

 

“Listen, Geraldine,” he interrupted, “I went into this with my eyes wide

open. It was a revolt against circumstances. I have had, and will

continue to have, my fun. I am not going to squeal about the price of

it.”

 

“But, Tyddie,” her voice told the affection she felt for him, “there must

be a way out. Would you not take it if there were?”

 

Tydvil raised his eyebrows. “You’re far more optimistic than I am. In

fact, the possibility of evading the bill is so remote that I have never

even considered it.”

 

“But would you take the opportunity if there were one?”

 

“Well,” he replied thoughtfully, “the wording of the endorsement is

explicit, so that I would be quite within my right to do it, and,” he

added, “I quite believe Mr. Senior would accept the situation

philosophically.”

 

“I doubt it.” Geraldine wrinkled her dainty nose disdainfully.

 

“Maybe you do, my dear girl,” Tydvil smiled up at her, “but I have always

found him to be a gentleman and a sportsman in every sense of the word.”

He paused and went on, “And that is more than I can say of any single one

of my former pious associates.”

 

“Was it a sportsman who baited me yesterday?” Geraldine’s indignation

flashed up.

 

Tydvil chuckled. “I admit it must have been rather harrowing for you. But

remember, you challenged him; and remember, too, that he might as easily

as have made the rebuke a thousand times worse.”

 

“Staggered at his own moderation, no doubt.” Geraldine laughed in spite

of herself.

 

“Anyway,” Tydvil said, “if I’m not worrying, you needn’t.”

 

“But I am worrying, and I’m going on worrying,” persisted Geraldine.

 

Tydvil raised his hands in surrender. “From toothache, flat tyres and all

contumacious women, Good Lord deliver us.”

 

Mr. Tydvil Jones’s private Secretary looked her employer straight in the

eye, and protruded the tip of a pink tongue at him in deliberate derision

as she turned towards the door. Far from expressing anger at her

rudeness, Mr. Tydvil Jones laughed heartily at the gesture.

 

As her hand was on the door-knob he called, “Geraldine!”

 

She paused.

 

“I want you to give that Billy of yours a message.”

 

“Well!”

 

“Tell him to put every penny he can spare on ‘Thundercloud’ for the Cup,”

was the astonishing direction.

 

“You…” Geraldine’s stock of vituperative reply was so unfit for

consumption that she left it unspoken. “Don’t you know I’m trying to

break him of those habits?” she demanded.

 

“A dying flutter,” persuaded Tydvil.

 

“Why should he?” she asked indignantly.

 

“Tell him I have one hundred pounds on,” he grinned. “Perhaps he can take

a hint despite the puritan conscience of his fiancee.”

 

“He’s saving for our home; and he won’t waste his money that way,” she

retorted.

 

“He’ll be able to buy and furnish the house if he takes my advice,”

replied the Vice-President of the Anti-Gambling League.

 

“More likely to lose our house and furniture,” she retorted.

 

“The bookmakers are laying three hundred to one against Thundercloud,”

murmured the voice of Tydvil the tempter. “Twenty pounds carefully

invested would return six thousand.”

 

“I’ll tell him no such thing,” hissed the determined damsel as she

disappeared through the door, cutting the discussion short.

 

Nevertheless, as a cynical Tydvil expected, the advice did reach Billy

Brewer; not as a recommendation to accept it, but as a warning against

the wiles of Tydvil in particular, and against backing horses in general.

 

Billy virtuously disclaimed any intention of gambling. In any case, he

alleged that his opinion of Thundercloud’s chances for the Cup was far

more pessimistic than that of the bookmakers.

 

During the afternoon, however, he gave the matter furtive but serious

consideration. He had very scant respect of Thundercloud, but he had a

very great respect for Tydvil’s conservatism in money matters. He

reflected that though Tyddie was lavish with his money for charities,

financing bookmakers to the extent of one hundred pounds would not be

likely to conform to his idea of charity.

 

Tyddie must have had a tip from someone. Who? Nicholas Senior, was the

only answer to that question.

 

Next morning Billy spent some of his employer’s time in putting twenty

pounds on Thundercloud with as many bookmakers. One of these assured him

cheerfully that the horse was not worth half of the twenty shillings

invested on him.

 

It was by no means on moral grounds that Amy had urged Tydvil to rid the

office of the miasmatic presence of that “Brand girl,” as she elected to

call Geraldine. Amy was a very troubled and a very jealous woman. When

she read the story of Billy’s black eye, that had been torn from

Geraldine in the witness box, Amy saw yellow.

 

The more she thought, the more bewildered she became. That night William

had sought refuge from a sudden indisposition, he had not a black eye.

Yet, unless that Brand girl had committed perjury, he most certainly

should have had one. Of course, that Brand girl was just the sort or

creature who would lure a man into kissing her, and a woman like that

would not hesitate to perjure herself, Amy reasoned. Women of that type

were a positive menace to every man they met. Of course, Tydvil was too

simple and ignorant of women to understand.

 

Although by now she felt sure that the confusion had arisen from a

mistaken identity, and that despite the evidence her William had not been

involved with that dreadful Cranston woman, Amy felt rage surge through

her at the thought that William might have kissed that Brand girl.

 

Undoubtedly her William was the office William, who the other was she did

not care.

 

That afternoon when she met him, it was with an air of pained reserve.

She told him she did not wish to prejudge him she had come to give him an

opportunity to explain what seemed to her inexplicable.

 

And William explained.

 

He explained with such an air of innocence and candour that Amy’s heart

burned with indignation at the utterly unscrupulous conduct of that Brand

creature. Well it was for Tydvil that Geraldine could not hear William

lying away her reputation for veracity.

 

He assured Amy that he had not been in the Chief’s office on that fatal

morning. That he had never in his life as much as laid a hand on Miss

Brand, much less had he kissed her, as she alleged. Never had he

experienced any inclination to kiss her. He asserted on his honour that

so far as he was concerned there was not a word of truth in that girl’s

evidence. As proof he recalled to her mind that at their meeting at her

house that night, he had not had a black eye.

 

All this, William’s alter ego assured him, did not depart one hair’s

breadth from the truth.

 

His words carried such conviction that Amy found it impossible to doubt

him.

 

Moreover, the wily William strengthened that conviction by reminding Amy

of the peculiar conduct of Miss Brand in the witness box. A girl who

behaved like that could not be taken seriously, as the judge had pointed

out.

 

By the time William’s explanation was complete, Amy felt convinced that

beside that Brand girl Sapphira was a well of the purest veracity, and

Jezebel was a much overrated sinner. She voiced her thoughts to William

with extensions and annotations, until William began