"I'll tell you what I'm going to do," said Stanwood, accepting the brandy gratefully. He had the air of one who has been thinking things over. "I'm going to talk her out of it."
Augustus Robb shook his head.
"Can't see how that's to be done," he said. "You aren't in the posish. It would mean pursuing 'er with your addresses; going to 'er and pleading with 'er, if you see what I mean, using all the eloquence at your disposal."
"That's what I'm going to do."
"No, you're not, chum. Talk sense. How can you pursue her with your addresses if she's in London and you're in the country? It's the identical am-parce Mr. Cardinal found himself up against, only there the little parcel of goods was in the country and 'im in London. Still, the principle's the same."
Stanwood, though feeling better after the brandy, was still ill disposed to listen to the gibberings of a valet who appeared to have become mentally deranged. He stared bleakly at Augusuts Robb.
"What are you talking about? I told you I wasn't going to the country."
"But you'll have to, chum, now this cable's arrived."
"What cable?"
Augustus Robb slapped his forehead self-reproachfully.
"Forgot you 'adn't seen it. Be forgettin' me own 'ead next. It come while I was fetching you that brandy, and I was reading it in the hall and left it on the hall table. It's from your pop. There's been a new development."
"Oh, my God! What's happened now?"
"It's about these photografts."
"What photographs?"
"All right, all right, don't bustle me. I'm coming to that. It's a long cable, and I can't remember it all, but here's the nub. Your pop, taking it for granted, as you might say, that you're going to this Beevor Castle, says he wants you to send along a lot of photografts of its interior, with you in 'em."
"What!"
"Yus. Seems funny," said Augustus Robb with an indulgent smile, "anyone wanting photografts of a dial like yours, don't it? But there's a reason. He don't say so in so many words, but, reading between the lines, as the expression is, it's obvious that why he wants 'em is so's he can show 'em around among his cronies in New York and stick on dog. See what I mean? He meets one of his gentlemen friends at the club or wherever it may be, and the gentleman friend says, Tell me, cocky, what's become of that son of yours? Don't seem to have seen 'im around in quite a while.' 'Ho,' says your pop. 'Ain't you 'card? He's residing with this aristocratic English earl at his old-world castle.' 'Coo!' says his pal. 'An earl?' 'Yus,' says your pop. 'One of the best of'em, and the castle has to be seen to be believed. My boy's just sent me some photografts of the place. Look, this is 'im lounging in the amber droring room, and 'ere's another where he's sauntering around the portrait gallery. Nice little place, ain't it, and they treat him like one of the family, he tells me.' And then he puffs out his blinkin' chest and goes off to tell the tale to someone else. Sinful pride, of course, like Jeshurun who waxed fat and kicked, but there you are."
A greenish pallor had manifested itself on Stanwood's face.
"Oh, gosh!"
"You may well say 'Gosh!', though I'm not sure as I'd pass the expression, coming as it does under the 'ead of Language, or something very like it."
"But how can I get photographs of the inside of this foul castle?"
"R. That's what we'd all like to know, isn't it? Properly up against it, you are, ain't you? The Wages of Sin you might call it. Seems to me the only thing you can do is 'urry and catch Mr. Cardinal before he starts and tell him you're going to this Beevor Castle, after all. Look slippy, I should."
Stanwood looked slippy. He was out of the flat in five seconds. A swift taxi took him to Barribault's Hotel. He shot from its interior and grasped the arm of the ornate attendant at the door, a man who knew both Mike and himself well.
"Say, listen," he gasped. "Have you seen Mr. Cardinal?"
"Why, yes, sir," said the attendant. "He's just this minute left, Mr. Cob-bold. Went off in a car with an elderly gent and a young lady."
It seemed to Stanwood that there was but one thing to do. He tottered to the small bar, and feebly asked Aloysius McGuffy for one of his Specials. As he consumed it, staring with haggard eyes into the murky future, he looked like something cast up by the tide, the sort of flotsam and jetsam that is passed over with a disdainful jerk of the beak by the discriminating sea gull.
9
The car rolled in through the great gates of Beevor Castle, rolled up the winding drive, crossed the moat and drew up at the front door; and Mike, looking out, heaved a sentimental sigh.
"How all this takes me back," he said. "It was here that I saw you for the first time."
"Was it?" said Terry. "I don't remember."
"I do. A big moment, that. You were leaning out of that window up there."
"The schoolroom."
"So I deduced from the fact that there was jam on your face. It hinted at schoolroom tea."
"I never had jam on my face."
"Yes, you did. Raspberry jam. I loved every pip of it. It seemed to set off to perfection the exquisite fairness of your skin."
Lord Shortlands heaved like an ocean billow, preparatory to alighting. For the last twenty miles he had been sitting in a sort of stupor, engrossed in thought, but before that, and during the luncheon which had preceded the drive, he had been very communicative. There was nothing now that Mike did not know concerning the Shortlands-Punter romance and the rivalry, happily no longer dangerous, of Spink, the butler. He could also have passed an examination with regard to the stamp.
The stamp, Lord Shortlands had told him, not once but many times, was a Spanish 1851 dos reales blue unused. Desborough, whose industry and acumen could not in his opinion be overpraised, had happened upon it just as the luncheon gong was sounding, with such stirring effects on his morale that for the first time in his association with his wife Lady Adela he had become the dominant male, stoutly refusing to go to the table until he had telephoned the great news to his father-in-law. According to Desborough, a thousand pounds for such a stamp might be looked upon as a conservative figure. A similar one had sold only the other day for fifteen hundred.
"As far as I could follow him, there's an error in colour or something," said Lord Shortlands, returning to the theme as the car stopped. He had mentioned this before, during lunch at least six times and in the earlier stages of the drive another four, but it seemed to him worth saying again. "An error in colour. Those were the words he used. Why that should make it so valuable I'm blessed if I know."
"From what I recall of my stamp-collecting days," said Mike, "an error in colour was always something to start torchlight processions about."
"Used you to collect stamps?" asked Terry.
"As a boy. Why, don't you remember—"
"What?"
"I forget what I was going to say."
"This is disappointing."
"It was probably nothing of importance."
"But one hangs on your lightest word."
"I know. Still, it can't be helped. It may come back. It'll be something to look forward to."
What he was looking forward to, Lord Shortlands said with a grim smile, was the meeting with the viper Spink. By this time, he explained, the news of his sudden accession to wealth must have seeped through to the Servants Hall, and he made no attempt to conceal the fact that he was anticipating considerable entertainment from the sight of his rival's face, the play of expression on which would, no doubt, in the circumstances be well worth watching. He could hardly wait, he said. A mild and kindly man as a rule, Lord Shortlands could be a tough nut in his dealings with vipers.