"Yes, it does. It means that they're that way."
"Why?" said Terry, fighting hard.
They had reached the sidewalk outsid,e Barribault's Hotel, and Stanwood halted. His face was earnest, and he emphasized his words with wide gestures.
"I look on that lunch as a what-d'you-call-it; a straw showing which way the wind is blowing. If it wasn't, why was Mike so cagey about it? Did he mention it to you? Of course he didn't. Nor to me. Not a yip out of him. Kept it right under his hat. And why? Because it was a—"
Stanwood paused. A light wind had sprung up, and a straw which showed which way it was blowing had lodged itself in his throat, momentarily preventing speech. And before he could remove this obstacle to eloquence and resume his remarks, there occurred an interruption so dramatic that he could only stand and stare, horror growing in his eyes.
On the sidewalk outside the main entrance of Barribault's Hotel there is posted a zealous functionary about eight feet in height, dressed in what appears to be the uniform of an admiral in the Ruritanian navy, whose duty it is to meet cars and taxis, open the door for their occupants and assist them to alight. This ornamental person had just swooped down upon a taxi which was drawing up at the curb.
In addition to being eight feet high, the admiral was also some four feet in width, and his substantial body for a moment hid from view the couple whom he was scooping from the cab's interior. Then, moving past him, they came in sight.
No member of the many Boost for Eileen Stoker clubs which flourished both in America and Great Britain would have failed to recognize the female of the pair, and neither Terry nor Stanwood had any difficulty in identifying her escort. Mike Cardinal passed them without a glance, his whole attention riveted on his fair companion. He was talking earnestly to her in a low, pleading voice, one hand on her arm, and as they paused for an instant at the swing door his eyes met hers and he gave her a Look. Lord Shortlands, had he been present instead of at the moment turning the corner of the street, would have been able to classify that look. It was of the kind known as melting.
Duke Street swam about Terry, wrapped in a flickering mist. From somewhere in the heart of this mist she was vaguely aware of the hoarse cry of a strong man in his agony, and when some little while later the visibility improved she found that she was alone.
She stood where she was, pale and rigid. The life of London went on around her. but she gave it no attention. "Fool!" she was saying to herself. "Fool!" And the Terry Cobbold in spectacles and mittens sighed and said "I told you so."
She was aware of a voice speaking her name.
"Ah, there you are, Terry. Not late, am I?"
It was a new and improved edition of Lord Shortlands that pawed the sidewalk outside Barribault's Hotel with his spatted feet. His childlike faith in his club's champagne had not been betrayed. He had trusted it to buck him up, and it had done so. His manner now was cheerful, almost exuberant. He had no reason to suppose that the meeting with his daughter Adela, when at length he returned to the castle, would be in any sense an agreeable one, but he faced it with intrepidity. This was due not merely to the champagne, which had been excellent, but to the fact that he had just had an inspiration, and that had been excellent, too.
If Terry was going to marry this young Cardinal, he told himself—and a careful review of their conversation in the train had left him with the conclusion that this was what she had said she was going to do—why should not young Cardinal, admittedly a man of substance, lend him that two hundred pounds?
Lord Shortlands, as a panhandler, was a man who had his code. It was a code which forbade the putting of the bite on those linked to him by no close ties. Acquaintances were safe from the fifth earl. They could flaunt their bank rolls in his face, and he would not so much as hint at a desire to count himself in. But let those acquaintances become prospective sons-in-law, and only by climbing trees and pulling them up after them could they hope to escape him. Unless, of course, like Desborough Topping, they had taken the mad step of having joint accounts with Adela. He regarded the financial transaction which he had sketched out as virtually concluded, and this gave to his deportment a rare bonhomie.
"Come along," he said jovially. Abstention from breakfast had sharpened his appetite, and he was looking forward with keen pleasure to testing the always generous catering of Barribault's Hotel.
Terry did not move.
"Let's go somewhere else, Shorty."
"Eh? Why?"
"I'd rather."
"Just as you say. The Ritz?"
"All right."
"Hey, taxi," said Lord Shortlands, and the admiral sprang to do his bidding. "Ritz," said Lord Shortlands to the admiral.
"Ritz," said the admiral to the chauffeur.
"Ritz," said the chauffeur, soliloquizing.
Lord Shortlands produced largesse. The admiral touched his hat. The chauffeur did grating things with his gears. The cab rolled off.
"Terry," said Lord Shortlands.
"Shorty," said Terry simultaneously.
Lord Shortlands, who had been about to say "Do you think that young man of yours would lend me two hundred pounds?", gave way courteously.
"Yes?"
"Oh, sorry, Shorty, you were saying something?"
"After you, my dear."
Thus generously given precedence, Terry hesitated. She had an idea that what she was about to say might cast a cloud on her companion's mood of well-being. Shorty, she knew, thought highly of Mike.
"I've made a mistake, Shorty."
Lord Shortlands looked sympathetic. He often made mistakes himself.
"A mistake?"
Terry forced herself to her distasteful task.
"I'm not going to marry Mike."
"What!"
"No," said Terry.
Lord Shortlands sank back in his seat, a broken man. The day was still as fair as ever, but it seemed to him that the sun had suddenly gone out with a pop.
21
Butlers, like clams, hide their emotions well. In the demeanour of Mervyn Spink, as he drooped gracefully over the telephone in Lord Shortlands' study at four o'clock that afternoon, there was nothing to indicate that vultures were gnawing at his bosom. Sherlock Holmes himself could not have deduced from his deportment that he had recently been deprived of his portfolio after a scene which—on the part, at least, of Lady Adela Topping, his employer—had been stormy and full of wounding personalities. Outwardly, he remained his old calm elegant self, and his voice, as he spoke into the instrument, was quiet and controlled.
"Hullo?" he said. "Are you there? The office of the Kentish Times? Could you inform me what won the three-thirty at Kempton? ... Thank you."
He hung up, his face an impassive mask. It was impossible to tell from it whether the news he had received had been good news or bad news. He left the study, and made his stately way to the hall. There was always some little task to be done in the hall—ash trays to be emptied, papers to be put tidy and the like—and though under sentence of dismissal, he was not the man to shirk his duties. "You leave tomorrow!" Lady Adela had said, putting a good deal of stomp into the words, and he was leaving tomorrow. But while he remained on the premises, his motto was Service.
As a rule, at four in the afternoon he could count on having the hall to himself and being able to scrounge his customary half dozen cigarettes from the silver box on the centre table, but today it had two occupants. Lord Shortlands, looking as if the rescue party had dumped him there after a train accident, was reclining bonelessly in one of the armchairs. Terry sitting in another. She looked up as the butler entered. Her face was pale and set.