The Missing Angel - Erle Cox (whitelam books .TXT) 📗
- Author: Erle Cox
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him. Her curiosity almost was visible as it oozed from her.
He drew a gold case from his vest pocket. “My name,” he said, as he
handed her the card, “is Nicholas Senior, though it is probably quite
unfamiliar to you, if I may venture to say so, it is not altogether
unknown in England.”
Amy felt she ought to know the name of one so distinguished in
appearance. She felt almost guilty that it conveyed nothing to her mind.
She shook her head. “I must confess that I have not heard it.” She
smiled graciously to reassure him that her ignorance was no reflection
on him.
“I have come to Australia,” explained Mr. Senior, “with the object of
studying your social problems. I desire to compare them with those of
Britain and the United States.”
Amy brightened. “Are you representing any particular society or
interested in any special branch?” she enquired with rising interest.
Her visitor shook his head. “I am entirely a freelance, but I was
informed both in England and America that Mrs. Tydvil Jones of Melbourne
was pre-eminently competent to act as my mentor and guide. It is to that
you owe, what I am afraid is, a somewhat untimely call.”
Warm and glowing satisfaction pervaded Amy’s entire system. “I did not
know,” she replied with smiling modesty, “that my poor little efforts
were known outside the circle of my immediate associates—an
enthusiastic group, Mr. Senior.”
“Ah! Dear lady,” he responded gently, “you do yourself far less than
justice. Believe me, the name of Mrs. Tydvil Jones stands high, among
those who know, on the list of the world’s philanthropists.” The ring of
sincerity in his voice was faultless.
The words were as oil on the troubled spirit of Amy. What ammunition to
use on Tydvil! “Still,” she protested, “I cannot think of anyone in
England who knew of my work.”
He smiled. “When I decided to come to Australia, I had the honour and
privilege of lunching with the Archbishop of Canterbury. I discussed
with him the object of my visit, and it was from him I first learned
your name. It appears that a former Archbishop of Melbourne had given
him a most glowing account of your work; and”—here he felt in his pocket
—“His Grace was kind enough to procure this letter for me.” He handed
her a dignified looking missive.
Amy took it and glanced at the address and the mitred flap. “I am
delighted you have called, Mr. Senior, and you can trust me to assist
you in every way I can.”
“I felt sure of that.” He bowed his gratitude. “Indeed, the Archbishop
informed me that in making your acquaintance, I would be opening every
avenue of social effort I wished to explore. It is for that reason I
have taken the earliest opportunity to call.”
Never before in her life had Amy felt so important or so perfectly
satisfied with herself. She would let Master Tydvil know exactly where
she stood. It did not occur to her to doubt for a moment that the
Archbishop of Canterbury was alive to her good deeds. Although she did
not belong to the Anglican church, her acquaintance with the clergy was
like Sam Weller’s knowledge of London, “Extensive and peculiar.”
She assured Mr. Senior that she had nothing to do that might not be
deferred, and readily placed herself at his disposal.
It was then that her fascinating visitor suggested the plan of her
lunching with him, that they might devote the afternoon to the
inspection of her endeavours. He apologised nicely to her for inviting
her to Menzies, where he was staying. He expressed his own distaste at
patronising an hotel, but regretted that he could not elsewhere obtain
accommodation suitable for his needs.
Mr. Senior assured Amy that he was an ardent advocate for prohibition,
and hoped that before he left Melbourne, his voice would be raised on
that subject from some public platform.
Amy hesitated. Never in her life had she set foot in an hotel. Never did
she think it possible she would be guilty of such an action. Then she
remembered the Rolls Royce. It occurred to her that if a man who had
lunched with the Archbishop of Canterbury, and who was a prohibitionist,
did not think it wrong to stay at an hotel, surely it would not be wrong
for Amy Jones to lunch there with him.
So, in the end, she dismissed her own car and stepped into that of Mr.
Senior, as proud a woman as ever accompanied that gentleman anywhere—
and there had been very, very many before her.
Meanwhile, in his office, Tydvil Jones had fanned his own plans. A touch
on his bell called Miss Brand to the presence. “If Mr. Brewer is about
the office, will you kindly let him know I require to see him,” was the
message he delivered to his secretary.
Geraldine looked at him uncertainly. He read her unspoken uneasiness.
“It is another matter, Miss Brand. I will respect your wishes about this
morning’s affair.”
Reassured, Geraldine returned to her desk and sought Billy on the
warehouse extension lines. She delivered her message with a wicked
little smile, hanging up immediately to prevent the enquiry he would be
sure to make.
A few minutes later, the culprit answered the summons. She heard his
approach, but kept her eyes resolutely on her work. She knew he paused
for a moment beside her, and anathematised her heart for its rebellious
response to his nearness. She heard him enter the room behind her, and
her work suffered because she could not keep her thoughts from what was
going on behind the closed door.
All the morning Billy had been awaiting the summons. He anticipated, and
regretted, the prospect of a summary dismissal. His only regret for his
conduct lay in the thought that his folly had made the task of winning
Geraldine trebly difficult. Being sacked was a comparatively small price
to pay for the glory of holding her in his arms. He had paused for a
second to gratify his eyes with a glimpse of that golden helmet—or was
it copper? Then he marched grimly to what he believed was his official
scaffold.
Tydvil Jones waved him to a chair with a smileless face. The face was a
sign of ill-omen that was balanced by his offer of the chair. Execution,
he thought, would be carried out standing. Billy felt he cut a very poor
spectacle. Since the morning the rich colouring of his left eye had had
time to develop. Its swollen lid drooped until it almost shut out the
light. No man could feel dignified with such an eye, especially in the
presence of one who had seen how he attained to it.
He began to speak, but Tydvil, recognising his intention, cut him short.
“Do not wish to refer to that matter, Brewer, if you please! Miss Brand
has, very magnanimously, I think, interceded on your behalf.” Billy’s
heart gave a jump.
Then, with a very meaning look at the polychrome eye, he went on. “We
will regard the incident as also closed.”
“That’s a nasty one,” thought Billy. But the fact that Geraldine had
interceded took the sting from Tyddie’s irony. If she had turned aside
the wrath of justice she might…
Here Tydvil cut into his golden hopes. “I understand, Brewer, that you
are addicted to gambling in fact that you are in the habit of playing a
card game known as draw poker.”
Billy gasped from the jolt. “Who,” he wondered, “was the kind friend who
had handed that item of news to Tyddie?” Truly, it was his day of
atonement. It seemed as though the bill for the total of his
peccadilloes was being presented at once. “Let ‘em all come,” he
murmured to himself hopelessly.
He admitted the charge, and added, “At the same time, I have never
regarded it as a heinous offence.”
His judge pursed his lips. “Perhaps not, Brewer—that is, compared with
some others I know of, but on which I will not dwell.” The voice was as
dry as a summer’s throat. “However, I did not send for you to censure
you, however much I disapprove of certain of your actions. I wished to
know if you would be good enough to teach, me that game?”
Billy thought his ears had been bewitched. Tyddie asking to be taught
how to play “draw!”
“He’ll be taking me out for a snifter yet,” reflected the senior city
representative of C. B. &.D. His expression revealed his amazement
to Tydvil more completely than words could.
“I can understand your astonishment,” said Mr. Jones, “but the fact (Oh!
Tydvil!) is, I am making a study of the gambling evil. I find I am
handicapped in my investigations by a need of a practical knowledge of
the subject. I am, therefore, looking to you for enlightenment.”
Billy breathed deeply. Two reprieves in ten minutes were rather too much
for him, but he pulled himself together. Billy never questioned for a
moment that Tydvil’s statement was anything but the truth. It proved
again that a reputation for a blameless life is a perfect cloak for a
lapse therefrom. Billy hastened to assert his willingness to oblige, but
suggested the necessity for a pack of cards.
Tydvil nodded. “That has not escaped me,” he replied. Opening a drawer
in his table, he handed his recent purchase across to Billy. “I presume
those will do.”
Billy snapped the twine and, opening the box, slid the cards on to the
table and ran his fingers through them with an expert’s touch. “Of
course, you understand that we must play for some form of stakes?” he
queried.
“I presumed that it would be so,” Tydvil acquiesced sourly, “but I
suggest we play for something of no value—pins, for instance.”
Billy smiled. “They will do for a start, anyhow,” he replied cheerfully.
“My interest is, of course, purely academic,” insisted Mr. Jones.
“Quite so,” admitted Billy as with deft fingers he shuffled cards so
easily as to draw an admiring comment on his dexterity. “Merely a matter
of practice,” Billy said as he dealt each five cards, cleanly and
swiftly.
Then, facing them up, he gave Tydvil his first lesson in the gentle and
unhallowed art of “draw.” It is a game in which the elements are easily
grasped. In spite of its simplicity, however, there is no game demands a
more skilled technique. Nature had richly endowed Billy Brewer with that
brazen sang froid which is a poker player’s best asset.
Billy dealt half a dozen hands face up, and explained the mysteries of
pairs, threes, straights, flushes and fulls, and the chances of
improving on the draw. Then, after dividing the contents of Tydvil’s pin
tray between them, he began a practical demonstration. Tydvil quickly
grasped the essentials, and, before they realised it, the two were deep
in the simple pastime. Single handed “draw” for pins did not appeal to
Billy very strongly, but to Tydvil, it opened up a new and fascinating
avenue of amusement.
In less than half an hour, beginners’ luck and the absence of risk
enabled Tydvil to completely relieve Billy of his stock of pins.
Noting the smile of satisfaction on Jones’s face, Billy suggested that,
had the pins represented cash, his opponent would not have been quite so
venturesome.
The imputation touched Tydvil’s pride in his new found knowledge. It
pricked him into replying. “Well, I would be prepared, for once, to
prove my competence to play for money—a
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