The Little Warrior Part 46

"Fourteen years ago!"

"Next July," added Wally. "I gave him five s.h.i.+llings for it."

"Five s.h.i.+llings! The little brute!" cried Jill indignantly "It must have been all the money you had in the world!"

"A trifle more, as a matter of fact. All the money I had in the world was three-and-six. But by a merciful dispensation of Providence the curate had called that morning and left a money-box for subscriptions to the village organ-fund ... It's wonderful what you can do with a turn for crime and the small blade of a pocket-knife! I don't think I have ever made money quicker!" He looked at the photograph again.

"Not that it seemed quick at the moment. I died at least a dozen agonizing deaths in the few minutes I was operating. Have you ever noticed how slowly time goes when you are coaxing a s.h.i.+lling and a sixpence out of somebody's money-box? Centuries! But I was forgetting. Of course you've had no experience."

"You poor thing!"

"It was worth it."

"And you've had it ever since!"

"I wouldn't part with it for all Mrs Waddesleigh Peagrim's millions,"

said Wally with sudden and startling vehemence, "if she offered me them." He paused. "She hasn't, as a matter of fact."

There was a silence. Jill looked at Wally furtively, as he returned to his seat. She was seeing him with new eyes. It was as if this trifling incident had removed some sort of a veil. He had suddenly become more alive. For an instant she had seen right into him, to the hidden deeps of his soul. She felt shy and embarra.s.sed.

"Pat died," she said, at length. She felt the necessity of saying something.

"I liked Pat."

"He picked up some poison, poor darling ... How long ago those days seem, don't they!"

"They are always pretty vivid to me. I wonder who has that old house of yours now."

"I heard the other day," said Jill more easily. The odd sensation of embarra.s.sment was pa.s.sing. "Some people called ... what was the name? ... Debenham, I think."

Silence fell again. It was broken by the front-door bell, like an alarm-clock that shatters a dream.

Wally got up.

"Your uncle," he said.

"You aren't going to open the door?"

"That was the scheme."

"But he'll get such a shock when he sees you."

"He must look on it in the light of rent. I don't see why I shouldn't have a little pa.s.sing amus.e.m.e.nt from this business."

He left the room. Jill heard the front door open. She waited breathlessly. Pity for Uncle Chris struggled with the sterner feeling that it served him right.

"Hullo!" she heard Wally say.

"Hullo-ullo-ullo!" replied an exuberant voice. "Wondered if I'd find you in, and all that sort of thing. I say, what a deuce of a way up it is here. Sort of gets a chap into training for going to heaven, what? I mean, what?"

Jill looked about her like a trapped animal. It was absurd, she felt, but every nerve in her body cried out against the prospect of meeting Freddie. His very voice had opened old wounds and set them throbbing.

She listened in the doorway. Out of sight down the pa.s.sage, Freddie seemed by the sounds to be removing his overcoat. She stole out and darted like a shadow down the corridor that led to Wally's bedroom.

The window of the bedroom opened onto the wide roof which Uncle Chris had eulogized. She slipped noiselessly out, closing the window behind her.

2.

"I say, Mason, old top," said Freddie, entering the sitting-room, "I hope you don't mind my barging in like this but the fact is things are a bit thick. I'm dashed worried and I didn't know another soul I could talk it over with. As a matter of fact, I wasn't sure you were in New York at all but I remembered hearing you say in London that you went popping back almost at once, so I looked you up in the telephone book and took a chance. I'm dashed glad you _are_ back.

When did you arrive?"

"This afternoon."

"I've been here two or three days. Well, it's a bit of luck catching you. You see, what I want to ask your advice about ..."

Wally looked at his watch. He was not surprised to find that Jill had taken to flight. He understood her feelings perfectly, and was anxious to get rid of the inopportune Freddie as soon as possible.

"You'll have to talk quick, I'm afraid," he said. "I've lent this place to a man for the evening, and he's having some people to dinner. What's the trouble?"

"It's about Jill."

"Jill?"

"Jill Mariner, you know. You remember Jill? You haven't forgotten my telling you all that? About her losing her money and coming over to America?"

"No. I remember you telling me that."

Freddie seemed to miss something in his companion's manner, some note of excitement and perturbation.

"Of course," he said, as if endeavoring to explain this to himself, "you hardly knew her, I suppose. Only met once since you were kids and all that sort of thing. But I'm a pal of hers and I'm dashed upset by the whole business, I can tell you. It worries me, I mean to say. Poor girl, you know, landed on her uppers in a strange country.

Well, I mean, it worries me. So the first thing I did when I got here was to try to find her. That's why I came over, really, to try to find her. Apart from anything else, you see, poor old Derek is dashed worried about her."

"Need we bring Underhill in?"

"Oh, I know you don't like him and think he behaved rather rummily and so forth, but that's all right now."

"It is, is it?" said Wally drily.

"Oh, absolutely. It's all on again."

"What's all on again?"

"Why, I mean he wants to marry Jill. I came over to find her and tell her so."

Wally's eyes glowed.

"If you have come over as an amba.s.sador ..."

"That's right. Jolly old amba.s.sador. Very word I used myself."