But there was really no purpose in getting rid of the three old men, now. Not from life, that was, though certainly from the farm. And particularly from his larder.
“Tomorrow!” he said coldly, and jerked his thumb authoritatively in the direction of the door and, symbolically, all of the wide world beyond. “Out! Tomorrow, all of you freeloaders — out!” He did not appreciate it, of course, but had he been ejecting Eliza into the snow, baby and all, he could not have done the voice better.
“Aw, gee,” Harold said plaintively. “Can’t they stay another week or so? We still got lots of grub and it’ll be lonely after they’re gone. And I oughtta get a chance to win back some of my dough. We was goin’ to play bridge, see, now we got four hands, and when I was in the big Q, me and this guy in the next cell — a killer from Spokane — we was the cellblock champions—”
“Keep quiet, Hal.” Clarence looked at the three. “Tomorrow!”
“Wait a moment,” Briggs said in an unusually placating tone for him. “If you can’t see your way clear to our remaining another week, how about five days?”
“Or even three?” Simpson suggested.
“I know!” Carruthers said, snapping his fingers as he solved the dilemma. “Why don’t we simply compromise on four? It’s a nice round — or, rather, square — number.”
“So is six,” Briggs pointed out.
“Or eight. Or ten—” That was Simpson in the interests of accuracy.
“Tomorrow!” Clarence said direly, and came to his feet. His tone indicated all too clearly he was through playing potsie. “The three of you deadbeats — tomorrow! Out!”
Chapter 11
The three old men sat around the kitchen table and alternated between looking at each other disconsolately and staring at the cupboard even more disconsolately, for before Clarence and Harold had gone off to bed, Clarence had locked the cupboard and with it the brandy and champagne. (“Drink water!” he had said cruelly before going to his rest. “It’s good for you!”)
“Good for us!” Briggs said, and made a face. There was silence for several moments, then — “I wonder,” Briggs said in a more thoughtful tone. The other two looked at him questioningly. “Well, I mean,” he went on a bit querulously, “can he do that to us? Kick us out into the night, so to speak? After all, he kidnaped us, or anyway you and me, Billy-Boy. That gives him some degree of responsibility, don’t you think?”
“You mean like the Chinese?” Simpson said. “If you save a man’s life, you’re responsible for him. But,” he added, thinking about it, “this Clarence didn’t really save our lives, did he?”
“For a few meals he did, or rather Harold did,” Briggs maintained.
Carruthers considered the idea and shook his head regretfully. “I rather doubt it would stand up in court. A good barrister would put holes in it in a minute.”
They fell into silence. Then Briggs seemed to perk up again.
“Or maybe we ought to go the other way. Threaten to report him to the authorities for holding us against our will. That’s definitely against the law, and it’ll give him pause, at least; make him think. It ought to gain us a few more days here,” he said, in an optimistic tone that did not truly reflect his feelings, “and by then maybe we can think up something else.”
“No,” Carruthers said sadly. “He certainly isn’t holding us against our will at the moment. Nor did he ever actually hold us against our will. Certainly not me.”
“But if he thought he did—” Simpson said hopefully.
“No. Clarence is far too smart for a mistake of that nature. Nor would any policeman in the world buy it. Holding people against their will by feeding them brandy and champagne? And Harold’s coq au Quentin?” Carruthers sighed and shook his head.
“How about the money Harold owes us?” Briggs said, never one to give up easily. “I know he doesn’t have it, but he could go out and rob a greengrocer or someone, couldn’t he? It’s a legitimate debt, after all...”
“A legitimate debt? Playing with marked cards? Stop it, Tim,” Carruthers said sternly. “No, we must take our medicine like little men. It’s over, but let’s try to look at the bright side. It was a short reprieve from pauperhood, it’s true, but it was a reprieve, none the less.”
“Great!” Briggs said in disgust. “You had three whole days of it; I only had one.”
“I came a bit late, didn’t I?” Simpson said. There was no envy in his voice, for envy did not exist as a Simpsonian sin; there was merely recognition that for some unknown reason God had arranged it so when it was raining soup, the Clifford Simpsons of the world would be out there in the street with forks. “Still,” he added, thinking back on it, “I did manage one drink, didn’t I?”
It was a rhetorical question and one nobody chose to answer.
“What I want to know,” Briggs said in a small voice, his anger suddenly drained from him, “is what do we do now? Go back to starving in a gentlemanly manner?”
That question also seemed to require no answer, or if it did, it was an answer none of them could think of. They sat in dejected silence until Billy-Boy Carruthers heaved himself to his feet. He tried to smile bravely at the others.
“What was it Sir Percival always used to say?” he asked. “Faith and patience, patience and faith. That’s what we require. Something will turn up, I’m sure.”
“Our toes, most likely,” Briggs said glumly.
“Quite,” Simpson said, agreeing sadly. He glanced at the kitchen cupboard once again. “If only we could get into that without making too much noise—”
“No way,” Briggs said positively. “I’ve been looking at it. It’s built to last. And that Clarence is probably the snide type to be a light sleeper.”
“But if we could,” Simpson said hopefully, “at least we would be able to leave here with a few bottles to help us through the first few days at the club...”
“My advice,” Briggs said cruelly, “is not to think about it.”
“I suppose not,” Simpson said, and suppressed a yawn. He came to his feet. “I’m off to my rest,” he said. “At least when I’m sleeping I’m not thinking of food or drink.”
“I agree,” Carruthers said, and turned toward the bedroom. “Coming, Tim?”
“No,” Briggs said dourly. “I’m in no mood for sleep. I think I’ll read a bit, first.”
“As you will. Well, ta—”
“Ta,” Briggs said dispiritedly, and got up to move into the library.
When Josephus Avery the First first brought his bride across the threshold of the Avery farm back in the year 1748, she made him promise that while they both knew he was an uneducated son of the soil and condemned by his economic position to remain so, there was no reason why any son of his should also so remain. And to further this worthy purpose, Mrs. Avery began to buy books as soon as she felt the stirring within her that was eventually to become Josephus Avery the Second. Josephus, Junior, ended up getting the education his father had been denied, graduating in due course with honors from Oxford with a degree as an Itinerant Egyptologist, the first but certainly not the last of the Avery clan to go onward and upward in the field of higher learning.