Calthorp Professor was inclined to be a trifle stiff over a new client who missed his first breakfast-call, but as Finch had foreseen, he was not impervious to academic conversation mixed with a little judicious flattery. The suggestion of a trip to Ireland, however, he received with frowning doubt. "The matter is one for Sullivan," he said. "Of course, if he wants youse to go, I will interpose no objections, though I am afraid I would hardly feel—uh —justified in allocating funds from the budget of the House Historical Section for such an expedition. I should think youse would start at the other end, say with the Daniel Boone records at Richmond, where they have so fine a collection."
The pronouncement for a substitute trip was so unmistakable and Sullivan would be so certain to learn of it in any case that Finch found it necessary to explain to the House Politician in taking up the matter with him.
"So youse'd be wanting to make business a pleasure and take your new bride on a honeymoon to the Emerald Isle?" Sullivan laughed, then glanced sharply at Finch: "And maybe to get out of providing that orgy for Orange Bill, all at the same time? Well, I've no objection, no objection at all, Arthur. But look here now, I'll tell youse something about the fine art of politics, the which clients should know as much about as politicians. It would just not be right now to run counter to your patron that way, though I understand his reasons, him wanting to spend that year in the northwest to look up the Kentucky families and the District not letting him. So off to Richmond with youse, the way Calthorp Professor suggests; and when youse get back I'll try and have him talked round for youse."
That was how Finch happened to go to Richmond instead of Dublin—a project in which Eulalie displayed no interest.
Seven:
The train proceeded with some of the moderation that had affected the Strawberry House automobile. Finch was without reading matter and bored with watching the landscape that ambled slowly past through the July heat. He had leaned back in his seat with closed eyes, trying to recall the fragments of his real world—if this were not indeed his real world—;when a voice asked:
"Are you Finch Arthur Genealogist?"
He opened his eyes. Behind the voice were the familiar brass buttons of the Proctorate, with two other Proctors looming behind. The one in front held a photograph and a warrant.
"Don't tell me," said Finch, sourly. "Let me guess. I'm arrested again. Right?"
"Shore thing, brother. Sorry, but that's how it is." "What for this time?"
The Proctor frowned over his warrant. "District change. Sort of complicated—innovation, secondary responsibility for atrocious breach of the peace, avoidance of a decree of the District Court. I cain't rightly explain it all, but I'm afraid it's a fertilizing charge if they make it stick. Want to resist arrest?"
"All right," said Finch. He was sorely tempted to make the resistance a real one, but decided that would probably hamper things instead of helping.
A police car carried them at the usual thirty miles an hour to one of the vast beehives in the center of Louisville, but the arrangement within was no different than that at Strawberry House—the same three cells and the clerkly-looking police sergeant.
"I'd like to get word to Sullivan Michael Politician of Strawberry House," said Finch. "He'll understand about this charge."
The sergeant looked mildly surprised. "You think so? I'll send for him ef you insist, but it might not turn out good. He hasn't got no jurisdiction here. This is a District matter; charge brought by a District Politician, that's over Sullivan."
Finch wrinkled his forehead. "A District Politician? Why, what did I ever do to one of them? Who is he?"
The sergeant frowned at the warrant. "Montague Claude District Politician," he read. "Know him? Charges supported by Orange William Banker of Strawberry House, that's a friend of his."
"Oh." It was becoming clearer. "Why didn't Orange bring the charge himself?"
"Couldn't support it in court, I guess, with that busted jaw."
"Busted jaw? How?"
"That's in the charge. The busted jaw your agent Armstrong Terry gave him."
"Armstrong Terry? Look, will you start at the beginning and tell me what sort of a feast of the Lapithae has been going on here? I've been away for a couple of weeks in Richmond, I don't understand this innovation business, and I can't see how I came to be mixed up in it while I was miles away."
The sergeant seemed to be experiencing difficulty in sitting still. "Reckon you better get that from somebody who knows the whole story. I wouldn't want to take the responsibility of telling you something wrong and prejudicing your defense."
"Okay. Where's Armstrong Terry? In jail, too?"
"O' corse not. He was under enfeoffment to you."
More light was breaking. "Then can you please send for him," said Finch.
"Maybe he won't want to come. You see, he's in kind of an embarrassing position—"
"Then tell him I order him, as my bondservant or whatever else it is, to come to me. And—oh, yes, one other thing. I'm planning an active career in district politics when I get out of this absurd business. You understand me?" "
"Yep, reckon I do. Put him in the middle cell, boys."
It was several hours before a subdued Terry arrived, to stand nervously in a corner of the cell, hands in pants pockets, shuffling his feet like an oversized schoolboy.
"Well?" said Finch sharply, "what's this all about?"
"Now looky hyear, Arthur, I never meant you no harm; no sir, not a teensy bit. You've always been a good friend to me ..."
"Yes, I know. You can skip that and get on with the story," said Finch.
"Please, less noise," came a voice from an adjoining cell.
"All right," said Finch. "What am I really in here for? Aside from the fact that Orange wants me here."
"I'm 'fraid," said Armstrong Terry, "they done got you for jest about everything there is, excep' maybe worshipping graven images."
"No doubt. How am I responsible for—what was it?— atrocious breach of the peace?"
"Well, you see, Arthur,—gee, I wouldn't never have done it ef I'd stop to think that it would do to you—"
"Never mind; what did you do?"
"Hit that ol' Orange Bill on the jaw; and him my patron, too."
"Yes, I heard about that. Why did you hit him?"
"On account he was goin' to th'ow your big ashtray at me."
"And why was he going to bounce my ashtray off that Neanderthal head of yours?"
"Well, hit was land of complicated, but the way I look at it, he was under a false impression. Yes sir, a false impression."
"What false impression? Damn it, you're, driving me nuts with your evasions. Can't you tell me a straight story?"
"Well—" Terry squirmed like a hooked worm. "You know when you went away, you sort of left me to take care of things for you, and I figgered Eulalie would be one of the things you wanted me to take care of."
"No doubt."
"Well, the day after you lef, Eulalie says to me she's all stiff in the muscles from nervousness, worrying about you way off there in Virginia."
"About me? I would have said that was about the last thought to enter Eulalie's head."
"Well—"
"God damn it, stop saying 'well' all the time!"
"Okay, Arthur, I'm jest trying to tell you so you won't get too mad. Because I'm your friend, the best friend you ever had. Well, anyway, she said as how she was nervous about you, wondering ef you'd make your trip all right and git the things Sullivan wanted, and she should have gone with you, and things like that. And she says she's all stiff and kin I give her a mass-age. Because she remembers from when we was married—Eulalie and me, that is —I was always good at giving her a mass-age. So I came down to your apartment, and was just goin' to rub her back a bit—now don't get mad, Arthur, there wasn't nothin' wrong—"