"No longer the Echo's correspondent," he said. "They fired me three weeks ago."
"What's that, son?" HJM. asked very sharply. Jean hesitated. "But why did they... let you go?"
Cy Norton looked wryly back at his life. "Probably," he said half seriously, "because I wasn't much good."
"I don't believe that!" declared Jean. "Why was it, really?"
The car hummed with softness and power. Cy was conscious that he looked older than his age, that he probably needed a shave, that the old soft hat he had bought years ago on Bond Street must look out of place—as he himself felt out of place-in his own country.
"Why was it?" insisted Jean.
"Oh, I don't know. While I was waiting to find the maestro here, I thought of several reasons. But there's still another."
It was one of the few things on earth which could make Cy Norton furious. He must remember, Cy reminded himself, to speak quietly.
"I hate the guts of the Labour Party," he said. "I didn't bother to disguise it The owner of the Echo, here in New York, is one of those 'liberals' who like to praise what they don't understand."
Then Cy grinned, the suffusion of blood retreating from his face.
"But it doesn't matter anyway," he added, "and I'm probably wrong. What I want is information from H.M. Look here, sir. Any traveller, let alone one who knows this country as well as you do, would have known how to get to Washington. Why weren't you playing your monkey tricks at the
Pennsylvania Station instead of at Grand Central?"
Unexpectedly H.M. lowered his defences.
"All right, all right,"he growled. "It wasn't that I didn't want to go to Washington. I've got to go there tomorrow. If d be impolite if I didn't Am I ever impolite to anybody, you stinkin' weasel?"
"No, no, of course not!"
"Well!" said H.M. "And isn't it at Grand Central that you get a train for this place called Maralarch?"
There was a long silence, while the hum of the car sang softly.
"Then you were coming to visit us all along?" asked Jean. A new expression, troubled and almost terrified, drew colour into her face. "Do you mind if I ask why?"
"Because," said H.M., "I got a radiogram aboard ship from your old man. Would you like to see it?"
Fumbling in a capacious inside pocket, H.M. produced the radiogram and held it so that both Jean and Cy could see. The letters seemed to jump out at them.
WHY NOT VISIT ME AT MARALARCH WESTCHESTER COUNTY ONLY TWENTY-ONE MILES FROM NEW YORK WILL SHOW YOU MIRACLE AND CHALLENGE YOU TO EXPLAIN IT.
H.M. Put away the radiogram. Cy repeated aloud the significant words. "Will show you miracle and challenge you to .
explain it" Then Cy whistled.
"I wonder!" he said. "I don't know whether you've heard it, Miss Manning..." "Jean, please."
"All right, Jean. I don't know whether you've heard it, but Sir Henry here is the English detective expert on locked rooms, impossible situations, and miracle crimes."
"Crimes?" Jean exclaimed suddenly. "Who said anything about crimes?"
"Sorry, I didn't mean that I was only making comparisons."
"But why did you say.. ."Jean stopped. Despite herself, she could not keep out the personal. "Do you know," she added, "you look a lot like Leslie Howard?"
Cy closed his eyes. "Oh my God," he murmured.
Jean stiffened. "Have I said anything I shouldn't, Mr. Norton?"
"No. And I wasn't desparaging Leslie Howard. Everybody in England felt a personal loss when he died. But that was because he was a great patriot and a good fellow.... It's these damned films. Must your whole outlook, your whole thoughts and standard of values, be governed by such cheap nonsense?"
Jean's face was flaming under the golden tan.
"But a great film, with real art in it..."
"Jean," he said gently, "the film in general bears about as much relation to art or integrity as a comic book bears to a Rembrandt Can you really swallow a standard of moralities called
'policy,' which would sicken Tartuffe?"
"But they've got to appeal to all types of mentality!"
"Have they?" inquired Cy with interest. "God love them!"
"Oh, you talk just like my father!"
"If that's true, Jean, it's a great compliment Your father is one of the finest men I've ever known."
"Is he?" demanded Jean. The steering wheel wobbled in her hands, and she blurted out "Oh, this is awful!"
"Easy, my wench," H.M. said quietly.
They were nearing the Henry Hudson Bridge over the Harlem River. By tacit consent, when Jean stopped the big yellow car, Cy Norton went round and replaced her in the driver's seat.
"Dad's changed!" said Jean, and put her hands over her eyes. "He's changed!"
"How has he changed?" asked Cy.
"In the first place, he's running around with an awful woman, and I mean a really awful woman, named Irene Stanley. And now—well, I don't understand business things, but they say he's been embezzling from the Manning Foundation, and they say he may go to prison."
Over the Harlem River the sky was blue-white, its edges touched with black. The smell of a thunderstorm, distant but stirring in this humid air, crept past them as they crossed the bridge.
"He thinks the world of you, Sir Henry," Jean observed suddenly. "What’s your opinion about the whole situation?"
And they were aware, as they looked across at H.M. now on the other side of Jean, that the atmosphere had changed too. This was no roaring figure who caused riots in subways. This was the Old Maestro.
‘I'see, my wench," said H.M., still holding the fluttering radiogram, "when I got this message today I thought it was a kind of joke, very fetchin' and fascinating. 'Ho?' thinks I, 'then Fred Manning thinks he can do a miracle?'"
"But what did he mean by that?" cried Jean.
"I dunno—yet. Anyway, I thought visiting him would be like visiting the Polo Grounds or (hurrum!) a friend of mine in the Bronx. But it's not that, my wench. It's dead serious."
Again there was a long silence.
"What do you think about..." Jean stopped. "Do you think Dad's really—oh, how can I say this!—that he's turned into some kind of crook?"
"No!" roared H.M. "I wouldn't believe it even if I saw him standing trial."
"Agreed." muttered Cy Norton.
H.M.'s sharp little eyes swung round behind the big spectacles.
"What's more, my wench, something's upset you and put you into this state of mind. What was it?"
Jean, evidently knowing she was with friends, poured out the story about the interview in Manning's office, up in that quiet place where even traffic howls could not penetrate. Something in it appeared to interest H.M. very much, though he did not comment.
"Robert Browning, hey?" he muttered.
Jean blinked. "Oh! You mean... well, twice a week when the school's in session Dad goes all the way to Albany to lecture. He's got one course in Browning, and another in the Victorian novelists. Of course he's a hundred years behind the times, but he loves it!"
H.M. put away the radiogram and ruffled his hands across his big bald head.
"How long has this funny behavior been goin' on?"
"Ever since he met—that woman."
"So. Have you met her?"
"Good heavens, no! But I've..." Jean stopped abruptly, as though swallowing.
"Y'see," rumbled H.M., again massaging his head, "Fred Manning was in England when I knew him. I knew he had a family, but not much else. Who are you people? Where d'ye live? What’s your background?"
"But there isn't anything to tell!"
"Sure. I know. You tell it just the same."