The Missing Angel - Erle Cox (whitelam books .TXT) 📗
- Author: Erle Cox
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“What happened, sir?” asked O’Connor.
Tydvil’s pause before answering was deftly prolonged. Then he gasped
weakly, “I was just returning to my office when a tall man turned the
corner. He struck me in the chest—I…”
Anxious voices cut him short. “Which way did he go?”
“Straight on I think,” replied Tydvil, still weakly, “at least,
I suppose so.”
The group of men looked from Tydvil along towards Collins Street. The
Centreway was manifestly empty but for the group round Tydvil, who was
making shaken attempts to get on his feet. Three or four ran along to the
side lane and reported it empty.
“Got clean away!” snorted one of the uniformed men. “Wonder who he was?”
Senior Constable O’Connor, who had helped Tydvil to his feet, glared
round the group. “In case you’d like to know, it was that so-and-so,
Basil Williams—and,” he added, “he’s done us again.”
He turned again to Tydvil. “Do you think, sir, you could recognise that
man again?”
Tydvil shook his head doubtfully. “You see, constable,” he said, “it was
all so dreadfully sudden. I scarcely caught a glimpse of him. All I
remember is that he was taller than I, and that he was wearing a dark
double-breasted suit. Probably blue serge.”
Tydvil, himself, was wearing a single-breasted grey worsted, for which he
inwardly and piously thanked his luck.
Senior Constable O’Connor, who was engaged in tying a handkerchief round
a bleeding wound on the edge of his palm, expressed sympathy for the
shaking Mr. Jones had received, and promised that in the near future he
would settle all outstanding accounts with Basil Williams. His offer to
assist Mr. Jones as far as his office was accepted gratefully and
courteously.
Beyond what the plain-clothes man could tell, that there had been the
deuce of a brawl in Queen Street, the cause and extent of which he was
unaware, none of the pursuing group could inform Mr. Jones of the earlier
activities of the now notorious Basil Williams.
Parting from O’Connor at the warehouse, Tydvil rang for a taxi in which
he reached home, he was glad to learn, before Amy. For reasons
particularly his own, Tydvil went to bed immediately.
Next morning he delayed his breakfast while he searched two morning
papers. Both gave lurid, but varied and not altogether accurate accounts
of the dastardly assault on Mr. Edwin Muskat by a man who was
undoubtedly, Basil Williams. Amy’s name was conspicuous among those
present. Neither paper referred to his own mishap.
By the time Amy arrived at the breakfast table, almost bursting with the
story of her night’s adventure, Tydvil was prepared to nip her narrative
in the bud. He received her formal “Good morning, Tydvil dear,” with an
icy stare. Then, in shocked surprise, he told her that her name was
blazoned in the papers in connection with some very disreputable brawl in
which Edwin Muskat was concerned, also.
“Of course, Amy, I acquit you of personal blame,” he said coldly, “but I
do think, considering our standing in the community, that you have been
indiscreet, and that such a deplorable association could have been
avoided.”
Amy almost choked under the attack. “Don’t you understand, Tydvil, that
the assault on Edwin Muskat was cowardly and utterly unprovoked,” she
protested.
“Amy,” he asked in a pained voice, “do you mean to tell me that a perfect
stranger walked up to Edwin Muskat and struck him violently in the face,
and without provocation?”
“That’s just what happened, Tydvil,” she snapped.
Tydvil’s lips assumed a severe judicial line as he looked coldly at his
wife. “Of course, Amy, I must accept your explanation. I hope other
people will be as generous to you.”
“But…” He waved aside her further explanation with an airy
gesture.
“I am very much afraid, my dear, you will find that most people will
assume that Edwin Muskat, or someone on the scene, must have given some
cause for offence. Men do not commit such assaults as the whim of a
moment.” He stood up and walked to the door. “I would rather not discuss
the matter further,” he said, turning round, “but you may rely upon me to
support your version of the fracas loyally.”
He departed as one who has sacrificed the principles of a lifetime to
save the honour of his house. Amy stared after him, hot under the
injustice of his aspersions and innuendoes, but feeling helpless to
retaliate. By some unaccountable means, Tydvil had deprived her of her
prerogative of rebuke. She recognised also, that, for the second time, he
had defeated her in a breakfast-battle.
That morning Geraldine Brand entered the portals of C. B. & D. a very
pre-occupied young woman. She had left her home somewhat troubled that
the case of Cranston v. Cranston, Brewer CoRespondent, had been listed
for hearing sooner than she or Billy had anticipated. Though she was
concerned more with the possible unpleasant publicity than with the
outcome of the case.
Billy, however, was driven completely into the background of her thoughts
when, in the train on her journey to the city, she read an account of
Basil Williams’s activities of the previous evening. Her’s was a morning
paper that Tydvil had not seen. In addition to the story of the dastardly
assault on Mr. Edwin Muskat, whose nose was, fortunately, not broken, but
very painfully injured; her paper also told of a cowardly attack on Mr.
Tydvil Jones, the well known merchant and philanthropist.
Geraldine’s head was buzzing with mixed surmises and preposterous ideas
as she walked through the warehouse. She was too absorbed to notice her
surroundings until, passing through the railed enclosure, she found the
door of the office of the well known merchant and philanthropist closed.
This was unusual, because by her orders to the office cleaners it, and
the windows, were always left open until her arrival.
She opened the door, took one step across the threshold and stood
motionless, sniffing fastidiously at a close atmosphere that was
saturated with the odour of stale cigar smoke. As she sniffed, her eyes
took in every detail of untidiness that denoted the room had been
untouched by the cleaner. The char-lady, she learned later in the day, was
suffering from influenza.
Swiftly she crossed the floor, let up the blind and raised the heavy
window; not until she had removed her hat and tidied her hair did she
make a closer and methodical survey of the room. Never did Sherlock
Holmes examine cigar ash, that liberally sprinkled the carpet, so
scrupulously as did Geraldine Brand. The carpet also yielded two gorgeous
cigar bands, and the waste-paper basket two more. For some moments she
examined from a respectful distance one cigar butt in the grate and three
in the fender. These, presently, she placed with reluctant fingers into
an envelope which she sealed, and then, still more reluctantly, placed in
her handbag.
Two tumblers beside the water bottle on the table next attracted her
attention. Geraldine raised them to her nose and sniffed each one. Then
she said aloud, “Well! I’m blessed!” Since the drains of fluid in the
tumblers smelt strongly of whisky it was only logical to assume that the
tumblers had been filled and had been emptied. There was no evidence to
suggest they had been emptied on the floor.
Then for nearly fifteen minutes Geraldine worked vigorously to obliterate
all traces of proceeding foreign to the known abstemious habits of Mr.
Tydvil Jones. By the time she had finished and busied herself with her
mail, the room and the atmosphere were restored to their normal ascetic
purity.
But Geraldine’s mind, as her hands worked swiftly over the correspondence
of C. B. & D., was anything but normal. She had secured what she believed
to be presumptive evidence that the impeccable Tydvil Jones not only
smoked, but drank. Therefore, obviously, Tyddie was a fraud. But these
were minor matters. Her mental perturbation was reflected in the
viciousness with which she slashed the envelopes as she tried to arrive
at the identity of Tyddie’s drinking and smoking companion. He may have
smoked four cigars, but, even he, was unlikely to have used two tumblers
for his potations.
But the major problem was the inexplicable relationship between Tyddie
and the movements of Basil Williams. It might have been coincidence that
prompted Basil Williams to take Tyddie’s hat from the Carlton—if he did
take it, which Geraldine very much doubted. But, thought Geraldine, what
kind of coincidence was it that led Basil Williams, after assaulting
Edwin Muskat in Queen Street, to commit another assault on Tydvil Jones
close to his own warehouse? Summed up, that would make two highly
improbable coincidences. In trying to fit together the pieces of the
puzzle, Geraldine was inclining to the view that Basil Williams was
Tyddie’s unofficial guest.
What then?
After all, Tyddie’s morals were not her affair, she reflected. Still, if
Williams were Tyddie’s secret partner in sin, why should he knock Tyddie
out? As a figure of rectitude, Tyddie was tottering on his pedestal. But
Geraldine decided that her discoveries were part of her job as his
secretary, and therefore sacrosanct, even from Billy. No! Decidedly, she
could not tell Billy either of her discoveries or her conclusions—not
yet, at any rate.
So, when that eminent warehouseman and well known philanthropist, Tydvil
Jones, breezed into his office with a cheerful “Good morning, Miss
Brand,” that suspicious young woman, while responding politely, inspected
her employer with very critical eyes. Certainly, she thought, Tyddie did
not look like a reprobate, but there was something about him that made
him different from the Tyddie of but a few weeks gone.
She stared reflectively at the straight back as he hung up his hat, and
through her lashes she took him in as he seated himself on the opposite
side of the table. Then sudden enlightenment came to her. The new Tyddie
radiated that same something of confidence and experience that was part
of Billy Brewer’s charm. So had Billy, looked when she knew he had been
in mischief, and had enjoyed it. She recognised the symptoms with that
infallible certainty of intuition with which Providence has endowed woman
for the better ordering of man.
As Tydvil settled himself, she looked up and said with grave concern,
“Oh! Mr. Jones, I do hope you are none the worse for that disagreeable
experience of last night.”
Tydvil, who, knowing two papers had overlooked his share in the Basil
Williams episode, concealed his surprise admirably. But not admirably
enough to escape the steady grey eyes across the table. Swiftly
recognising her knowledge and its probable source, he replied, “It was
really nothing to make a fuss about, Miss Brand. The papers have
exaggerated a trifling incident. A man, who was probably intoxicated, ran
into me and knocked me down. I think the poor creature was unaware that
he struck me.”
“Fibber!” breathed Geraldine silently to her blotting pad. Then, aloud,
“But is it not strange that it was that awful man Williams who assaulted
you?”
“Williams?” The studied incomprehension was too well done.
“Yes, Williams. The same man who took your hat from the Carlton that
night. The brute that the police are hunting for.” The innocent looking
eyes were full of sympathy that she did not feel.
“Really? Was it the same man? I had almost forgotten him.” Tydvil’s voice
expressed mild interest only.
“Liar!” retorted Geraldine in her heart. But there was no trace of her
unbelief in her voice as she went on. “It seemed to me such a strange
coincidence that on two occasions your name, of all people’s, should be
associated, even
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