"Terry," he cried, "you know that album?"
He had to swallow once or twice before he could proceed.
"I've just been talking to Desborough on the telephone. He says he's found a stamp in it worth well over a thousand pounds!"
BOOK TWO
8
From down Westminster way there floated over London the sound of Big Ben striking half-past two, and Augustus Robb came softly into the living room of Number 7 Bloxham House, Park Lane. He had just finished a late lunch, and was now planning to top it off with a good cigar from his employer's box. He was surprised and disconcerted, having made his selection, to observe Stanwood lying on the sofa.
"Why, 'ullo, cocky," he said, hastily thrusting the corona into the recesses of his costume. "I didn't 'ear you come in."
Stanwood did not speak. His face was turned to the wall, and Augustus Robb, eyeing him, came to a not unnatural conclusion.
"Coo!" he exclaimed. "What, again? You do live, chum. Only a few hours since you 'ad one of the biggest loads on I ever beheld in my mortal puff, and here you are once more, equally stinko. Beats me how you do it. Well, it's lucky for you you ain't in my old line of business, because there intemperance hampers you. Yus. I knew a feller once, Harry Corker his name was, Old Suction Pump we used to call him, got into a house while under the influence, caught hold of the safe as it come round for the second time, started twiddling the knobs, and first thing you know he'd got dance music from a continental station. If he hadn't retained the presence of mind to dive through the window, taking the glass with him, he'd have been for it. Steadied him a good deal, that experience. Well, I suppose I'll have to step out and fetch along another bottle of that stuff. I'll tell the young fellow behind the counter to make it a bit stronger this time."
Stanwood sat up. His features were drawn, but his voice was clear and his speech articulate.
"I'm not plastered."
"Ain't you?" said Augustus Robb, surprised. "Well, you look it. Country air's what you need. I've packed."
"Then unpack."
"What? Aren't we going to this Beevor Castle?"
"No," said Stanwood, and proceeded to explain.
One points at Augustus Robb with pride. A snob from the crown of his thinly covered head to the soles of his substantial feet, his heart had been set on going to stay at Beevor Castle. He had looked forward to writing letters to his circle of friends on crested stationery and swanking to them later about his pleasant intimacy with the titled and blue-blooded, and, as he listened to Stanwood's story, he felt like a horn-rimmed spectacled peri excluded from paradise.
But his sterling nature triumphed over the blow. A few muttered "Coo's," and he was himself again. Of all the learned professions none is so character-building as that of the burglar. The man who has been trained in the hard school of porch climbing, where you often work half the night on a safe only to discover that all it contains is a close smell and a dead spider, learns to take the rough with the smooth and to bear with fortitude the disappointments from which no terrestrial existence can be wholly free.
But, though philosophic, he could not approve.
"No good's going to come of this," he said.
"Why not?"
"Never does, cocky, from lies and deceptions. Sooner or later you'll find you've gone and got yourself into a nasty mess with these what I might call subterfuges. 'Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive!' I used to recite that as a nipper. Many a time I remember my old uncle Fred giving me a bag of peppermints to stop. Said it 'ampered 'im in the digesting of his dinner. Used to keep the peppermints handy, in case I started. Well, if you're not stinko, what are you looking like that for?"
"Like what?"
"Like the way you are. You look like three penn'orth of last week's cat's meat," said Augustus Robb, who was nothing if not frank.
In ordinary circumstances Stanwood might have hesitated to confide his more intimate secrets to the flapping ears of one whose manner he sometimes found a little familiar and who, he suspected, needed but very slight encouragement to become more familiar still. But a great sorrow had just come into his life, earthquakes and black frosts had been playing havoc with his garden of dreams, and at such moments the urge to tell all to anyone who happens to be handy cannot be resisted.
"If you really want to know," he said hollowly, "my heart's broken."
"Coo! Is it?" Augustus Robb was surprised and intrigued. "Lumme, no that this Stoker jane of yours is in London and you 'aven't got to leave her, I'd have thought you'd have been as happy as a lark. What's gone wrong? Been playing you up, has she? Always the way with these spoiled public favorites. You young fellows will keep giving them flattery and adulation, when what they really need is a good clump over the ear'ole, and that makes 'em get above themselves. Found somebody else, has she, and gone and handed you your hat? I thought something like that would happen."
Stanwood groaned. He was finding his companion's attitude trying, but the urge to confide still persisted.
"No, it's not that. But I went to see her just now—"
"Shouldn't have done that, cocky. Rash step to take. Girls often wake up cross after a binge."
"She wasn't cross. But she told me she had been thinking it over and had made up her mind she wasn't going to get married again unless the fellow had money."
"Mercenary, eh? You're well out of it, chum."
"She's not mercenary, blast you."
"Language!"
"It's just that she says she's tried it a couple of times and it doesn't work. She says you can't stop marriage being a bust if the wife has all the dough."
Augustus Robb seated himself on the sofa and, having shifted his employer's knees to one side, for they were interfering with his comfort, put the tips of his fingers together like Counsel preparing to give an opinion in chambers.
"Well, she's quite right," he said. "You can't get away from that. I wouldn't have thought a Hollywood star would have had so much sense. Never does for the old man to have to keep running to the missus every time he wants a bob for a packet of gaspers or half a dollar to put on some 'orse he's heard good reports of. Prevents him being master in the 'ome, if you follow my meaning. It's 'appened in me own family. My uncle Reginald—"
"Damn your uncle Reginald!"
"Language again." Augustus Robb rose, offended. "Very well, I was going to tell you about him, and now I won't. But the fact remains she's perfectly correct. I'd have thought you'd have seen that for yourself. You don't want to be supported by your old woman, do you? Where's your self-respect?"
"To hell with self-respect!"
"Language once more. I wonder if you've ever considered the risk you're running of everlasting fire? Well what are you going to do about it?"
"I don't know."
"Nor me. Well, I'll tell you what I'll do, seeing that things has arrived at such a pass that it's only 'umane to relax the rules a bit. I'll fetch you a brandy and soda."
"Make it brandy straight."
"All right, churn, if you prefer it. No use spoiling the ship for a ha'p'orth of tar."
It was some little time before Augustus Robb returned, for a ring at the front doorbell had delayed him. When he did so, he found his employer sitting up and taking nourishment in the shape of a cigarette.