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

me inquisitive if I asked why you brought that cheque

in here?” he asked bitterly.

 

“Not at all,” she replied airily. “I did it in the hope that it would

land you in an everlasting mess with the police.”

 

“Thank you, Geraldine, for your kind thought and for your still kinder

intentions.”

 

“I trust I succeeded in my plan?” asked the icy damsel.

 

“Alas! Geraldine, you failed,” he jeered at her. “My native intelligence

saved me. But that does not lessen the debt of gratitude I owe you.”

 

“What a pity,” she sighed. “I hoped to see you go out with handcuffs on.”

 

“Might I venture to ask why you cherish these delightful sentiments

towards me?” he enquired.

 

“It’s a pleasure to enlighten you—you unscrupulous ruffian.”

 

“Please, Geraldine!” Tydvil said gently. “I didn’t ask you for flattery.

Just a little information on so trifling a matter.”

 

“My reason for trying to have you arrested arises from a visit I had from

a certain high moral authority just before you came in,” she retorted

with venom in her voice.

 

“Oh!” Tydvil straightened up. “So,” he thought, “that accounted for Amy’s

presence in the lane.”

 

“I see you understand,” she went on.

 

“My dear Geraldine! There must be some mistake, surely.”

 

“Mistake indeed!” She tossed her head. “Who was it assured Mrs. Jones

that I was a perjurer? Where did she get the notion that I am a designing

unprincipled creature who lures men into disgrace? Who told her that

Billy’s black eye was a pure fabrication? Who led her to believe that I

am a bright pink, if not a scarlet, woman? Who prompted…?”

 

“But, Geraldine!” Tydvil broke in. “Surely you don’t think…”

 

“Think!” she interrupted. “No! I know! Tyddie, you’ve even less moral

scruple than your noble friend.” She glared at Nicholas. “I know what

happened as though I’d been there. As Billy, you had to save yourself,

and you—you horror!—You sacrificed me to do it.”

 

Tydvil’s head was bowed to the blast.

 

“Look me in the eye and deny it! You can’t, and you know you can’t.”

 

Tydvil turned to Nicholas, who shrugged his shoulders and laughed.

 

“Oh! You’re a lovely pair!”

 

Tydvil looked up guiltily at the figure of Nemesis that towered over him.

“Was it a very tough ordeal, Geraldine?” he asked sympathetically.

 

“You admit it?” she demanded.

 

“I was in a terribly tough corner, Geraldine,” he pleaded.

 

She looked from one to the other. Even Nicholas had the grace to look

ashamed. They looked so like a pair of guilty schoolboys that she

laughed, and relented.

 

“Now you listen to me—both of you! If I have any more trouble from you

two I’ll make you both sorry for it if it takes the rest of my life to do

it.”

 

“I’m really sorry, Geraldine,” Tydvil urged penitently,

 

“And so you should be,” she retorted. “And I warn you, if that high moral

authority favours me with any more of her personal views on my character

there is going to be a scandal in C. B. & D. I’ll live up to the

reputation you have given me, my friend. She can consider herself lucky

that she is not a total wreck now.”

 

“But surely, Geraldine, you wouldn’t use violence?” Tydvil’s voice

sounded more hopeful than shocked.

 

“Wouldn’t I?” the fiery girl retorted. “She said things to me that no

woman can say to another. Any woman between a duchess and charwoman would

have been justified in peeling her for half what she said to me.”

 

“Geraldine! Geraldine!” Tydvil admonished, laughing.

 

“You can put it down to my self-restraint and self-respect that she

didn’t get out of the office in her blushes; and I won’t answer for

myself another time.” Voice, attitude, and eyes testified to Amy’s narrow

escape from a truly sensational experience.

 

“And so,” said Tydvil without trying to hide his amusement, “you took it

out of me.”

 

“I did my best,” she agreed.

 

“You put me in an awful hole, you demon.”

 

“I’m so glad,” she replied with simple candour.

 

“What am I to do with her?” Tydvil turned to appreciative Nicholas.

 

“In your place,” advised Nicholas, “my policy would be fervent

conciliation.”

 

Tydvil laughed, “Make it pax, Geraldine. You put a nasty one over me, so

that ought to make us square.”

 

Her wrath had died down, and with a chuckle she said, “Pax it is—but it

should be a lesson to you I’m not to be trifled with.”

 

“Bless you, my children,” from Nicholas.

 

Geraldine swung round on him. “As for you, I don’t appreciate your

blessing. I don’t know what you are or who you are, but even if you’re

what I believe you to be, I’m not afraid of you, and I’m not done with

you yet!” Her eyes turned to the date block on Tydvil’s table. “No, not

yet!”

 

Nicholas stood up. “I have too profound an appreciation of your sex, and

of you, to disregard the warning.”

 

“And I know too much of your sex, and of you, to express much

appreciation of either,” she said defiantly.

 

“Let me try to win a little by offering a sincere apology, for the trick

I played on you.”

 

“Didn’t someone say, ‘Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes’?” Nicholas’s smile

was friendly. “I’m no Greek, Geraldine, and I really mean I am sorry.”

 

She looked at him speculatively. “I believe you mean it, and I accept,

but,” she smiled, “don’t ask me to trust you. It is still war.”

 

“Fair exchange,” he laughed, “you accept my apology and I accept your

challenge.”

 

“Wait a moment,” she said, “Tydvil says you are a sportsman.”

 

He nodded. “I try to be one.”

 

“Then, if it’s war, play fair,” she challenged.

 

“You mean?” He was frankly interested.

 

“Fair play and no miracles,” she demanded.

 

Nicholas laughed heartily. “I might have expected something like that.”

 

“I only want an equality of weapons,” she persisted.

 

“You overestimate my strength,” Nicholas shook his head. “You may not

recognise it, but you are better armed than I. Even I can’t afford to

give anything away in fighting Geraldine Brand.”

 

“Very well!” she said decisively, “then it’s no quarter.”

 

“And the prize?” he glanced towards Tydvil.

 

Geraldine nodded. “Since he won’t help himself.” Then to Tydvil, “You’re

an unscrupulous creature, and don’t think I’m doing it on your account,

I’m only doing it to teach Mr. Senior a lesson.’

 

“Oh! Don’t mind me, Geraldine,” laughed Tydvil. “I seem to have no say in

the arrangement.”

 

“None whatever!” she agreed. “You’re a pawn, a bone of contention—in

fact, you don’t count.”

 

“You must agree, Tydvil, that she is quite candid with us both,” said

Nicholas.

 

“You see,” she turned to Nicholas, “if I can cancel that Bill, I’ll

settle my account with you, and Tydvil will get all he deserves by living

with Mrs. Jones—so he doesn’t escape much.”

 

“What a woman!” There was sincere admiration in Nicholas’s voice.

 

“Now we understand one another, anyway,” she said, moving towards the

door. “I have work to do.”

 

As she closed the door behind her the two men looked from it to one

another.

 

Said Tydvil, “Cheerful child! Isn’t she?”

 

Nicholas grinned. “It may, interest you to know, that despite that tirade

against you, she is as loyal to you as steel, and she likes you

immensely.”

 

“Somehow, I think you’re right,” smiled Tydvil.

 

“And,” Nicholas added, “I think Mrs. Jones would be very well advised to

keep clear of her.”

 

Tydvil nodded. “I’ll do what I can, but that is not much. I wonder,” he

said thoughtfully, “just what Geraldine is up to.”

 

“In a long, long experience,” Nicholas replied, “one of the very few

things I have learned about women is that it is unprofitable to predict

what they will do.”

 

“But can she do anything?” Tydvil asked.

 

“I doubt it,” Nicholas answered, “but…” He paused, sunk in thought.

“Perhaps their Creator does understand women, but they have given me so

much trouble, and deceived me so often that I sometimes think they are

the greatest of my punishments.”

 

“A punishment in disguise,” suggested Tydvil. “Perhaps,” Nicholas

reflected. “But I have never married.”

 

“Misogamist!” laughed Tydvil.

 

“No, just scared,” replied Nicholas.

 

“Scared! You!” Tydvil was astonished.

 

“Aye, Tydvil, scared. How does it go—‘Fools rush in where angels fear to

tread’?”

 

“Angels?”

 

“Same thing,” said Mr. Senior.

 

On the following morning Tydvil handed Geraldine a cheque on his private

account with instructions to cash it herself and to draw the money in

��100 notes. Even the well-trained Geraldine could scarce forbear to raise

her eyebrows when she read the amount. Tydvil, watching her face, saw

the curiosity that she could not hide.

 

“That, my dear Geraldine, is conscience money, since you are so curious

about it,” he said.

 

“You must have a blotchy conscience,” replied Miss Brand, regarding the

figures with awe.

 

“Well, not so blotchy as your censorious mind imagines,” he grinned.

 

“Well,” she returned, “all I can say is that its tenderness does you

credit, if it isn’t blotchy.”

 

“It’s a debt I owe—with interest added—to my very dull youth.” Tydvil

smiled.

 

When Geraldine returned with the notes Tydvil dismissed her, and spent

some time in making them into a neat parcel.

 

That night Miss Elsie Wilson received a small package addressed to her at

the Casino Club. In it was a brief message from Basil Williams regretting

that he had been called from Melbourne on urgent affairs and was unable

to say goodbye. He begged she would accept the enclosure with his best

wishes for her future.

 

Thereafter the Casino Club knew her no more. Within a fortnight Elsie had

established a business which prospered under her own shrewd management.

But she never knew why Craddock, Burns and Despard were always so kind

and considerate to her in her dealings with them.