The Missing Angel - Erle Cox (whitelam books .TXT) 📗

my servants, insult me publicly in the newspapers. Perhaps

you’ll strike me next.”

 

Had Mr. Senior not been a gentleman by birth and instinct, the suggestion

might have come into effect at that moment. Mr. Senior felt that Amy

might be a much better woman and wife for a good sock on the jaw. He

recognised, however, that, his instincts apart, he could not commit

Tydvil to corrective treatment of Amy. He began to feel a great respect

and a greater sympathy for his friend.

 

However, Amy had not paused for one second. “Talk about your being judge

of the necessities of your office! You, with your name spread all over

the paper in connection with some disgusting brawl in the street last

night. It seems to me that office of yours houses some queer people. Nice

thing for me! What will our friends think? That man Brewer and his black

eye and disgraceful associates! Will you be good enough to tell me why

you did not mention that revolting business at breakfast this morning,

instead of leaving me to find out from the newspapers?”

 

Nicholas paused to gather his thoughts before replying. “Ump!” Amy

snorted. “Sulking again, or are you ashamed to speak? You should be!”

 

Hoping amiability might still the tempest, Nicholas said gently, “My

dear, I am sorry I could not mention the matter this morning, because I

heard nothing of Brewer’s difficulties until I reached the office.”

 

“You knew it when I saw you at the office afterwards,” she retorted.

“Yes, and that is another thing. That dinner tomorrow night! What will

Mr. Senior think of us? And I was so anxious to create a good impression.

You had no right to go to that court and involve yourself in such a

loathsome affair—that Cranston woman should be flogged; but you rush in,

without thinking of me, and become associated with such a creature.”

 

“But,” Mr. Senior put in desperately, “knowing Brewer was innocent,

because he was with me all the evening, I had to go.”

 

“Had to go! Is this Brewer man more important than your wife’s peace of

mind? If he gets himself into brawls he should get himself out of them. I

suppose you sympathise with men of that type. Mr. Tydvil Jones and mixed

up with a gang of the most disreputable people in the city—a gang that

the magistrate said were the worst and most unprincipled liars he had

ever encountered.”

 

Mr. Senior began to feel that self-restraint was almost an heroic virtue

with Amy as a domestic companion.

 

“Yes,” she went on, unrelenting, “and I feel there is something behind

that affair. Did that man actually have the black eye when he was working

with you?”

 

Mr. Senior rose to the occasion, and most emphatically asserted that he

had. “Besides,” he added, “Mr. Arty was in the best position to judge

from the evidence, and he accepted my evidence as conclusive.”

 

“I notice,” Amy came back acidly, “that seven people swore that he had

not. Perhaps Mr. Arty does not know you as well as I do.”

 

Nicholas tried a stopper. “Anyone would think from what you say, that you

knew he had not a black eye,” and he looked straight into Amy’s as he

spoke.

 

Amy back-pedalled rapidly. “There is no need to be offensive, Tydvil,

dear,” she said. “Since the subject is so distasteful to me, I will say

no more about it. What I really wished to discuss with you is that

really, abominable letter of yours to the papers.”

 

“What of it?” demanded Mr. Senior, a trifle truculently.

 

“You will be good enough, Tydvil dear, not to adopt that very vulgar tone

towards me. I am not one of your police court associates. Kindly remember

that, though from your behaviour since yesterday morning, you make me

think you would feel more at home with people of that kind than in a

decent, Christian home. I think, Tydvil dear, that it is time we settled

this question about the Moral Uplift Society—definitely.”

 

Mr. Senior took his cue from Tydvil’s settled policy. “The matter is

settled,” he announced uncompromisingly.

 

“A matter in which you have chosen to brand me publicly as having told a

falsehood, is not settled so simply,” Amy bit back.

 

“Well, didn’t you?” It was not a tactful retort, and Mr. Senior had cause

to regret it.

 

“I admit I was foolish enough to trust in my husband’s honour to support

me in the public work to which I have devoted my life. I believed in your

decency, and your charity and your public spirit—and you betrayed my

trust and confidence. You have held me up to ridicule. There is only one

way out, Tydvil, dear,”—and there was frozen vitriol in that “Tydvil,

dear”—“to rehabilitate me in my own self-respect and in the eyes of my

friends. You must pay that thousand pounds I promised in your name.”

 

“I’ll see you in Jericho first!” was Mr. Senior’s warm response. He stood

up, remembering Tydvil’s advice to make for sanctuary, he thought the

time had arrived at which to put it into practice.

 

But Amy beat him to it. Experience had improved her strategy. Instead of

his locking the door of Tydvil’s bedroom, Amy was inside—a

dead-heat—and secured the key before he could reach for it. Mr. Senior

found himself locked up with Amy’s voice and without any possibility of

escape in his guise as Tydvil Jones.

 

Amy occupied the only chair. Mr. Senior sat on the edge of the bed, a

situation that did not add to his dignity. Amy talked.

 

For nearly two hours that soul-scouring flood of eloquence swept over

him. He felt as though his nerves and spirit were being scarified with a

nutmeg grater. Slowly, the proud spirit of Mr. Senior wilted. He who

ruled his own Empire unchallenged felt himself incompetent to cope with

this relentless flood of bitter, biting verbiage. Every attempt at

reprisal became more feeble and more hopeless. Amy felt round deftly for

the weak places in his armour, and emplanted poisoned darts. She passed

the years of her married life with Tydvil Jones in review—it was a

pageant of her own sufferings gallantly hidden, and of Tydvil’s

contemptible shortcomings. She pleaded and twisted on his raw nerves

alternately. In those hours Mr. Senior learned something in the gentle

art of scientific torture that had hitherto been beyond his imaginings.

With a mind centred almost entirely on his own torments, Mr. Senior

marvelled vaguely how Tydvil could have stuck it out for years.

 

At last the strain broke even Mr. Senior’s iron will. Once more they

stood in Tydvil’s den. Mr. Senior tore a cheque he had filled in for one

thousand pounds from the book and handed it to her.

 

Amy folded it carefully. “I cannot thank you for this, Tydvil,” she said

coldly. “It was nothing but your duty to give it to me. I can only hope

you can feel regret for your own behaviour. I cannot hope that you will

regret the pain you have caused me. This discussion we have had has upset

me terribly. A man such as you cannot understand how heartbreaking it is

for a woman who has to plead, as I have had to plead, for simple justice.

I feel I must go to bed—not that I will sleep, my tears will keep me

awake. Goodnight, Tydvil dear.”

 

Mr. Senior looked after her, a sore stricken man. Presently he stood up

and returned with bowed head to Tydvil’s bedroom, awaiting his summons.

There, again on the edge of the bed, he sat with his face in his hands.

His thoughts were bitter because he felt he had betrayed a friend. How

could he face Tydvil with the story of his defeat?

 

When at length the call of Basil Williams for Mr. Senior’s aid came, it

came with a note of desperate urgency that spurred Mr. Senior into

flashing action. He had divested himself of his likeness to Tydvil and

disappeared in a fraction of a second. By his own means, in another

fraction of a second he was in Exhibition Street, looking down unseen on

as willing a street riot in which any seeker after joyous adventure could

wish to participate.

 

Nicholas’s swift survey showed him some sixty citizens, nearly half of

whom were women, who were engaged in ardent but apparently aimless

combat. Those not entwined with their fellows were mixing it eagerly with

some half a dozen policemen, who were scattered through the crowd, and

who were trying, with some success, to use their batons on everyone not

wearing uniform. Approximately in the middle of the event, which spread

from kerb to kerb and overflowed on the footpaths, was a knot of six

policemen who were more busy than any of the other members of the force.

The language that arose from the spectacle was worthy of the occasion.

 

As Nicholas took in the situation, two of the close knot of police were

shot from the bunch by some unseen force. Where they fell they lay. The

diversion showed Mr. Senior that the nucleus of the excitement was none

other than Mr. Basil Williams. Although the remaining four members of the

force afterwards discussed long and earnestly what happened next, they

were never able to arrive at any definite conclusion. At one moment the

four were endeavouring to slip the bracelets on fourteen stone of human

wild cat, and the next he had gone from their midst as though he had

evaporated. Were it not for torn uniforms, abraded skins and sundry

bruises, they might have persuaded themselves that they had imagined the

fight.

 

All that was tangible of their assailant was a hat. One of them pushed it

under his tunic and the rest turned to deal with the other combatants. It

was not until fourteen of the rioters had been booked at Russell Street

that the hat was remembered. The sergeant in charge examined the grey

felt hat outside and then inside. “Cripes!” he cried in astonishment.

“This lid belongs to Tydvil Jones the Flinders Lane wowser!” It says much

for Tydvil’s public reputation that the discovery, gave rise to no other

comment than an exchange of ribald jokes on the possibility of his being

concerned in the proceedings in Exhibition Street. Suspicion of his

participation there was none.

 

The sergeant in charge listened to the discussion on the escaped prisoner

with official wrath. “Six of you,” he growled, “and you let him make a

get-away. Cripes, what’s this? A police force or a blinkin’ boarding

house for maiden ladies? Any of you seen him before?”

 

There was no reply, and he went on, “I suppose it is too much to hope

that any, genius among you would know him again.”

 

Six feet three inches of indignant muscle in uniform, who, with one foot

on a chair was tenderly examining a blue and swollen shin, looked over

his shoulder and said, “I’d pick that blighter out of an army corps, and

if I come across him again, I’ll…”

 

“Yes, I know,” broke in the sergeant savagely, “you’d chew him up and

spit out the bones. Well, this lid’s been pinched from Jones,” he tossed

the hat across the room, “take it down to his warehouse in the morning

and enquire if he knows anyone answering the description.” Then, looking

coldly over the others, he went on. “If you’re not all too weary you

might get on the job again. Oh, one moment! Don’t forget to powder your

noses.”

 

The group went their way, making insubordinate but heartfelt comments on

the manners and customs of sergeants.

 

Meanwhile, Tydvil Jones, alias Basil Williams, was in his own proper

person seated