whilst jane was running away from fear, down the gravel path of the cliff’s edge, captain march was about midway through an interview with his chief.
henry’s chief was a large man who strongly resembled a clean and highly intelligent pig. a very little hair appeared to grow reluctantly on his head; his face was pink and clean-shaven. he had inherited the patronymic of le mesurier, his parents in his baptism had given him the romantic name of julian, and a grateful government had conferred upon him the honour of knighthood. it is, perhaps, unnecessary to add that, from the moment that he emerged from the nursery and set foot within the precincts of his first preparatory school, he had been known exclusively as “piggy.”
there is a story of a débutante who, at a large and formal dinner-party, was discovered during a sudden silence to be addressing him as sir piggott. the dinner-party waited breathlessly. piggy smiled his benign smile and explained that it had not been his good fortune to be called after his aunt, miss piggott.... “i expect you have heard of her? she left all her money to a home for cats, whereas, if my parents had done their duty and invited her to be my godmother, i should be paying at least twice as much income tax as i do now. never undervalue your relations, my dear miss browne.” the aunt was, of course, apocryphal; and after dinner each of the older ladies in turn took the débutante aside, and told her so—as a kindness. to each of them she made the same reply, which was to the effect that “piggy” was a darling. she married him two years later. but all this has nothing to do with henry’s interview with his chief.
sir julian was speaking:
“it’s very unsatisfactory. you say they have been complying with all the suggestions in the original government instructions?”
“yes, sir.”
sir julian frowned.
“it’s very unsatisfactory,” he repeated. “sir william ... well, it’s six months since i saw him, and he looked all right then.”
“he looks all right now,” said henry. “he is all right except on his own particular subject. he’d discuss politics, unemployment, foreign affairs, or anything else, and you wouldn’t notice anything, but the minute he comes to his own subject everything worries and irritates him. he’s lost grip. as far as i can make out, he leaves everything to his daughter and the secretary. they are competent enough, but....” henry did not finish his sentence.
“ah yes, the secretary,” said sir julian. “what’s his name? yes, ember, jeffrey ember....” he turned an indicator under his hand, and spoke rapidly into the telephone beside him. “as soon as possible,” he concluded.
“this girl now,” he said, looking at henry. “i don’t see how this statement of hers can be squared with any of the facts as we know them.”
as he spoke he picked up the notes which henry had taken in the dark cupboard.
“she made a suggestion herself,” said henry. he paused, and looked with a good deal of diffidence at sir julian.
“well?”
“it is just within the bounds of possibility that the government experiments are being used as a blind. that was her suggestion, sir.”
sir julian was busily engaged in drawing on his blotting-paper. he drew in rapid succession cats with arched backs and bottle-brush tails, always beginning with the tail and finishing with the whiskers, three on each side. henry rightly interpreted this as a sign that he was to continue.
“the conversation which was overheard at molloy’s flat referred to a formula ‘a,’ which cannot possibly be the formula ‘a’ which we know. there may be a formula ‘a’ of which we know nothing, and it may constitute a grave danger. ember”—henry paused—“ember is not only in a position of great responsibility with regard to our—the official formula ‘a,’ but he also appears to be mixed up with this other unofficial and possibly dangerous formula ‘a.’ the question, to my mind, is, ‘what about ember?’”
sir julian continued to draw cats. suddenly he looked up, and said:
“how long has patterson been there?”
“a fortnight,” said henry. “we recalled jamieson, you remember, and sent him down.”
“then, if there were unofficial experiments, they would be before his time?”
“yes,” said henry.
“would it be possible—no, i’ll put it another way. officially luttrell marches is impregnable, but unofficially—come march, the place practically belongs to you—is there any way in which there might be coming and going that would defy detection? you see, your hypothesis demands either wholesale corruption of government workmen, or the introduction of other experiments.”
there was a pause. then henry said:
“in confidence, sir, there is a way, but, to the best of my knowledge, it is known only to myself and one other person.”
“it might be discovered.”
“i don’t think so. it never has been.”
“well, i would suggest your ascertaining, in conjunction with the other person, whether there is any evidence to show that the secret has been discovered and the way made use of.”
the telephone bell rang. sir julian lifted the receiver and listened.
“yes,” he said—“yes.” then he began to take notes. “spell the name, please—yes. nineteen hundred and five? is that all? thank you.”
he hung up the receiver, and turned to henry.
“ember’s dossier,” he said. “not much in it at first sight. ‘born 1880. son of charles ember, partner in jarvis & ember—manufacturing chemists; firm liquidated in 1896. education till then at harrow, and subsequently at heidelberg, where he took degrees in medicine and science. from 1905 to 1912 at chicago, u. s. a., as personal assistant to eugene k. blumfield of nitrates ltd. engaged as secretary by sir william carr-magnus during his american tour in autumn of 1912. total exemption during war on sir william’s representations.’ ’m—blameless as a blancmange—at first sight. we wouldn’t have him here at all if we hadn’t been told to get the record of every one employed at luttrell marches. well, march?”
henry looked up with his candid, diffident air.
“heidelberg—chicago—nitrates,” he said, with a little pause after each word. then—“i wonder if it was in chicago that he met molloy. molloy was a leading light of the i. w. w. there in 1911.”
piggy looked up for a moment.
“’m, yes,” he said. “did you get on to the subject of molloy at all?”
“i had to be very careful,” said henry, with a worried air. “i was introduced to miss molloy, so i felt that it would look odd if i asked no questions. on the other hand, i was afraid of asking too many. you see, sir, if there’s really some infernal, underground plot going on, with the general smash-up of civilisation as its object, that girl is in a most awfully dangerous position. i wish to heaven she was out of it, but i’m not at all sure that she isn’t right when she says that the most dangerous thing of all would be for her to give the show away by bolting.”
“’m, yes,” said piggy. “your concern for the young lady’s safety does you credit—attractive damsel in distress, eh? nice, pretty young thing, and all that?”
henry blushed furiously, and said with some stiffness, “as i told you, sir, we are old friends, and i think, it’s natural——”
“entirely, entirely.” piggy waved a large, fat hand with a pencil in it. “but to get back to ember—what did you ask him?”
“well, i said i had known one or two molloys, and asked whether miss molloy was the cricketer’s daughter. ember was quite forthcoming, rather too forthcoming, i thought. said he’d met molloy in the states, and that he was a queer card, but good company. explained how surprised he was when he ran into him at victoria station after not seeing him for years. then, quite casually and naturally, gave me to understand that molloy had put him up for a couple of nights. he really did it very well. said the daughter was a nice little thing just from school, that he thought she would suit lady heritage, and how grateful molloy was, as he was just off to the states, and didn’t know what to do with the girl. the impression i got was that he was taking no chances—not leaving anything for me to find out afterwards.” henry hesitated for a moment, and then said, “the thing that struck me most was this. i didn’t ask to interview miss molloy because i didn’t want to make her position more dangerous than it already is. that is to say, i assumed that there was danger, which really means assuming a criminal conspiracy. now, if there were no danger and no criminal conspiracy, why on earth did every one make it so easy for me not to interview miss molloy? it seems a little thing, but it struck me—it struck me awfully, sir. you see, i took a roll-call of the employés first, and checked them by the official list. then i went down to the stables with sir william, and we went through all the outdoor servants. and i finished up in sir william’s study, where i saw the domestic staff—and mr. ember. from first to last, no one suggested that i should see miss molloy. in the end, i thought it would be too marked not to bring her in at all, so i said to lady heritage, ‘what about your secretary?’ and she said, ‘why, she’s only just come ... you don’t need to see her.’ i got nervous and left it at that. i think now that i ought to have seen her, with lady heritage and ember in the room; then they couldn’t have suspected her of telling me anything.”
piggy looked up from his cats, and looked down again. very carefully he gave each cat a fourth whisker on the left-hand side. then he fixed his small, light eyes on henry and said:
“they?”
* * * * * * * *
at 9.30 that evening sir julian marked a place in his book with a massive thumb, glanced across the domestic hearth at his wife, and observed:
“m’ dear.”
lady le mesurier raised her charming blue eyes from the child’s frock which she was embroidering.
“i have news to break to you—news concerning the lad henry. prepare for a shock. he is another’s. you have lost him, my poor isobel.”
“i never had him,” said isobel placidly.
“his mamma thought you had. she did her very best to warn me. i rather think she considered that your young affections were also entangled. i said to her solemnly, ‘my dear mrs. march—i beg your pardon—my dear mrs. de luttrelle march—of course he is in love with isobel. i expect young men to be in love with her. i am in love with her myself.’”
“piggy, you didn’t!”
“no, m’ dear, but i should have liked to. she is so very large and pink that the temptation to say it, and to watch the pink turn puce, was almost more than i could resist. but you have interrupted me. i was about to break to you a portentous fact. our henry is in love.”
“oh, piggy!” said isobel.
“yes,” continued henry’s chief—“henry is undoubtedly for it. another lost soul. it’s always these promising lads that are snatched by the predatory sex.”
“piggy—we’re not——”
“m’ dear, you are. it’s axiomatic, beyond cavil or argument. like the python in the natural history books, you fascinate us first, and then engulf us.”
isobel allowed a fleeting smile to lift the corners of her very pretty mouth.
“oh, piggy, what a mouthful you would be!” she murmured.
“henry,” pursued sir julian—“henry is in the fascinated stage. he blushed one of the most modestly revealing blushes i have ever beheld. the whole story is of the most thrillingly romantic and intriguing nature, and i regret to say, m’ dear, that i cannot tell you a single word of it.”
lady le mesurier took up a blue silk thread.
“oh, piggy!” she said reproachfully.
sir julian beamed upon her.
“my official duty forbids,” he said, with great enjoyment. “dismiss the indecent curiosity which i see stamped upon your every feature. upon henry’s affair my lips are sealed. i am a tomb. i merely wish to have a small bet with you as to whether henry’s mamma will queer his pitch or not.”
“but, piggy darling, how can i lay odds if i don’t know anything? tell me, is she pretty?”
“isobel, is that the spirit in which to approach this solemn subject? as an old married woman, you should ask, is she virtuous? is she thrifty? is she worthy of henry? and to all these questions i should make the same reply—i do not know.”
isobel leaned forward, and still with that faint, delightful smile she pricked the back of sir julian’s hand sharply with the point of her embroidery needle.
“the serpent’s tooth!” he said, and opened his book. “isobel, you interrupt my studies. i merely wish to commend three aspects of the case to your feminine intuition. first—henry is in love; second—he has yet to reckon with his mamma; third—i may at any time ring you up and instruct you to prepare the guest chamber for henry’s girl.”
lady le mesurier began to work a blue ribbon bow round the stalks of some pink and white daisies.
“you’re rather a lamb, piggy,” she said.
