And if he did not see McAuley after a sufficient delay he would write him another letter. But all that day there was no sign of McAuley.
What did happen that day, and what the Postmaster-General himself discovered from the evening papers, and from the tape, and also, to his no small annoyance, from a certain amount of conversation around him, was a smart little fall in Billies. They had opened well below yesterday’s level, at 21s.—22s. They had sunk to 20s.—21s., rallied again to 22s. and closed at 221/2s. The rally, it may interest my readers to know, was due to the purchase of a fairly large block in the interest of a Mr. Charles Marry—a relative of Miss Rose Fairweather’s, whom she had herself introduced to James McAuley, and who was now devoted to the interests of that great man.
A whole day having thus passed without news having reached the Postmaster-General from his good and intimate friend James McAuley, it was necessary to take action.
There are situations which act marvellously as a spur to the intelligence, and Wilfrid Halterton that very evening acted as he had never acted before in his life. He did what is called, “taking steps”; he “cast about,” in half-a-dozen quite indirect, discreet, indifferent remarks dropped here and there, in the dining-room of the House and in the lobbies, and succeeded by half-past eight in getting hold of J.’s momentary whereabouts.
“Who’s dining at Mary’s to-night?”
“Do you know whether Johnny’s at Angela’s to-night?”
“Hullo, I thought you were dining with McAuley?”
And so on; with such phrases he traced McAuley to his lair. He heard at last that the financier was dining with the Balcombes. At that time of night which Victor Hugo so finely calls the desert hour when lions gather to drink, that is, at a quarter to nine, when the lions lift the first cup of champagne to their lips in the houses of our great democracy, Wilfrid Halterton caused J. to be summoned to the telephone: he used a ruse: he summoned J. in the name of his secretary — “Say Miss Fairweather wants him—urgently.” James McAuley, who had but just sat down and exchanged his first words with his hostess, Lady Caroline, in the very ugly grand new house of the Balcombes in Hill Street, cursed under his breath, left the dinner, went out and sat down to the telephone in Balcombe’s private room, with the thick door carefully shut. He lifted the receiver and said, rather testily:
“Well, Miss Fairweather?”
But it was not Miss Rose Fairweather’s voice that he heard in reply. It was the voice of Wilfrid Halterton.
“I’m sorry to trouble you, J. …”
“What d’ye mean? They told me ‘twas my secretary.”
“The servant must have made a mistake—it’s me.”
“Yes, I can hear that. What about it? What do ye want?”
“You got my letter?”
“Yes, I got your letter. But I didn’t understand it. I think ye’d better explain when I see ye.”
“How do you mean, you didn’t understand it? I told you I’d lost the letter you gave me last night, and asked you whether you could send me another.”
There was a pause, and Wilfrid Halterton at the other end of the wire wondered why there should be a pause. He was not left long in doubt. There came at the end of that pause, in strong virile accents, Scots in timbre, the following words:
“I can’t understand what ye mean! I never gave ye a letter. You gave me a letter. I’m sorry. I can’t wait now. I’ve had to come away from the dinner table. I must get me back. Try and see ye to-morrow.”
And the wire went dead.
There is a row of semi-detached villas in the suburb of Streatham known (I know not why) as Eliza Grove. Of these semi-detached villas, one (known officially and to the gods as Number 5, but to mortals and on the front gate in white letters on a green ground, as Myrtle View) is the dear home of a small building contractor, by name Nicholas Clarke. As he has nothing whatever to do with this story and, for all his efforts, will not be allowed to appear upon these pages again, we may leave it at that. But the other villa of this Siamese twin, tied on to it, rib to rib, Number 7, also with a green door, has no particular name; for its owner has discovered in his social advance that the giving of names to small suburban houses is not done. It is plain Number 7, to gods and men alike.
Here resides that strong, humorous, kindly, thoroughly efficient, healthy man, just on sixty years of age, known to the world as Jack Williams, for the moment Home Secretary—but there, he might be anything he pleased.
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