Jaffery by William J. Locke

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"I have," said he curtly. "I make my living by it."

"I'd come like a shot," said Barbara, "but I can't leave Susan."

"Oh, blazes!" said Jaffery. "I forgot about that. Of course you can't."
He turned to me. "Then Hilary'll come."

"Where?" I asked, stupidly.

"Wherever I take you."

"But, my dear fellow--" I remonstrated.

He cut me short. "Send him to his bath, Barbara dear, and pack his bag,
and see that he's ready to start at ten sharp."

He strode out of the door. I caught him up in the corridor.

"Why the deuce," I cried, "can't you do your manhunting by yourself?"

"There are two of 'em and you may come in useful." He faced me and I met
the cold steel in his eyes. "If you would rather not help me to save a
woman we're both fond of from destruction, I can find somebody else."

"Of course I'll come," said I.

"Good," said he. "Ask Barbara to order a devil of a breakfast."

He marched away, looking in his bath-gown like twenty Roman heroes
rolled into one, quite a different Jaffery from the noisy, bellowing
fellow to whom I had been accustomed. He spoke in the normal tones of
the ordinary human, very coldly and incisively.

I rejoined Barbara. "My dear," said I, "what have we done that we should
be dragged into all these acute discomforts of other people's lives?"

She put her hand on my shoulder. "Perhaps, my dear boy, it's just
because we've done nothing--nothing otherwise to justify our existence.
We're too selfishly, sluggishly happy, you and I and Susan. If we didn't
take a share of other people's troubles we should die of congestion of
the soul."

I kissed her to show that I understood my rare Barbara of the steady
vision. But all the same I fretted at having to start off at a moment's
notice for anywhere--perhaps Havre, perhaps Marseilles, perhaps
Singapore with its horrible damp climate, which wouldn't suit
me--anywhere that tough and discomfort-loving Jaffery might choose to
ordain. And I was getting on so nicely with my translation of
Firdusi. . . .

"Don't forget," said I, departing bathwards, "to tell Franklin to put in
an Arctic sleeping-bag and a solar topee."

* * * * *

We drove first to the house in Queen's Gate and interviewed Mrs.
Jardine, a pretentious woman with gold earrings and elaborately done
black hair, who seemed to resent our examination as though we were
calling in question the moral character of her establishment. She did
not know where Mr. Fendihook and Mrs. Prescott had gone. She was not in
the habit of putting such enquiries to her guests.

"But one or other may have mentioned it casually," said I.

"Mr. Fendihook went away on Sunday and Mrs. Prescott on Thursday. It was
not my business to associate the two departures in any way."

By pressing the various points we learned that Fendihook was an old
client of the house. During Mrs. Considine's residence he had been
touring in America. It had been his habit to go and come without much
ceremonial. As for Liosha, she had given up her rooms, paid her bill and
departed with her trunks.

"When did she give notice to leave you?"

"I knew nothing of her intentions till Thursday morning. Then she came
with her hat on and asked for her bill and said her things were packed
and ready to be brought downstairs."

"What address did she give to the cabman?"

Mrs. Jardine did not know. She rang for the luggage porter. Jaffery
repeated his question.

"Westminster Abbey, sir," answered the man.

I laughed. It seemed rather comic. But every one else regarded it as the
most natural thing in the world. Jaffery frowned on me.

"I see nothing to laugh at. She was obeying instructions--covering up
her tracks. When she got to Westminster she told the driver to cross the
bridge--and what railway station is the other end of the bridge?"

"Waterloo," said I.

"And from Waterloo the train goes to Southampton, and from Southampton
the boat leaves for Havre. There's nothing funny, believe me."

I said no more.

The porter was dismissed. Jaffery drew the letter from his pocket.

"On the other hand she was in London yesterday afternoon in this
district, for here is the 5:45 postmark."

"Oh, I posted that letter," said Mrs. Jardine.

"You?" cried Jaffery. He slapped his thigh. "I said there was something
fishy about it."

"There was nothing fishy, as you call it, at all, Mr. Chayne, and I'm
surprised at your casting such an aspersion on my character. I had a
short letter from Mrs. Prescott yesterday enclosing four other letters
which she asked me to stamp and post, as I owed her fourpence change on
her bill."

"Where did she write from?" Jaffery asked eagerly.

"Nowhere in particular," said the provoking lady.

"But the postmark on the envelope."

She had not looked at the postmark and the envelope had been destroyed.

"Then where is she?" I asked.

"At Southampton, you idiot," said Jaffery. "Let us get there at once."

So after a visit to my bankers--for I am not the kind of person to set
out for Santa Fe de Bogota with twopence halfpenny in my pocket--and
after a hasty lunch at a restaurant, much to Jaffery's impatient
disgust--"Why the dickens," cried he, "did I order a big breakfast if
we're to fool about wasting time over lunch?"--but as I explained, if I
don't have regular meals, I get a headache--and after having made other
sane preparations for a journey, including the purchase of a toothbrush,
an indispensable toilet adjunct, which Franklin, admirable fellow that
he is, invariably forgets to put into my case, we started for
Southampton. And along the jolly Portsmouth Road we went, through
Guildford, along the Hog's Back, over the Surrey Downs rolling warm in
the sunshine, through Farnham, through grey, dreamy Winchester, past St.
Cross, with its old-world almshouse, through Otterbourne and up the hill
and down to Southampton, seventy-eight miles, in two hours and a
quarter. Jaffery drove.

We began our search. First we examined the playbills at the various
places of entertainment. Ras Fendihook was not playing in Southampton.
We went round the hotels, the South-Western, the Royal, the Star, the
Dolphin, the Polygon--and found no trace of the runaways. Jaffery
interviewed officials at the stations and docks, dapper gentlemen with
the air of diplomatists, tremendous fellows in uniform, policemen,
porters, with all of whom he seemed to be on terms of familiar
acquaintance; but none of them could trace or remember such a couple
having crossed by the midnight boats of Thursday or Friday. Nor were
their names down on the list of those who had secured berths in advance
for this Saturday night.

"You're rather at fault," said I, rather maliciously, not displeased at
my masterful friend's failure.

"Not a bit," said he. "Fendihook's leaving on Sunday certainly means
that he was starting to fulfill a provincial engagement on Monday. If it
was a week's engagement, he crosses to-night. We've only to wait and
catch them. If it was a three nights' engagement, which is possible, he
and Liosha crossed on Thursday night. In that case we'll cross ourselves
and track them down."

"Even if we have to go over the Andes and far away," I murmured.

"Even so," said he. "Now listen. If he's had a week's engagement he must
be finishing to-night. In order to catch the boat he must be working in
the neighbourhood. Savvy? The only possible place besides this is
Portsmouth. We'll run over to Portsmouth, only seventeen miles."

"All right," said I, with a wistful look back at my peaceful,
comfortable home, "let us go to Portsmouth. I'll resign myself to dine
at Portsmouth. But supposing he isn't there?" I asked, as the car drove
off.

"Then he went to Havre on Thursday."

"But suppose he's at Birmingham. He would then take to-morrow night's
boat."

"There isn't one on Sundays."

"Then Monday night's boat."

"Well, if he does, won't we be there on Tuesday morning to meet him on
the quay? Lord!" he laughed, and brought his huge grip down on my leg
above the knee, thereby causing me physical agony, "I should like to
take you on an expedition. It would do you a thundering lot of good."

We arrived at Portsmouth, where we conducted the same kind of enquiries
as at Southampton. Neither there nor at adjoining Southsea could we find
a sign of the Variety Star, Ras Fendihook, and still less of the obscure
Liosha. We dined at a Southsea hotel. We dined very well. On that I
insisted--without much expenditure of nervous force. Jaffery rails at me
for a Sybarite and what not, but I have never seen him refuse viands on
account of succulency or wine on account of flavour. We had a quart of
excellent champagne, a pint of decent port and a good cigar, and we felt
that the gods were good. That is how I like to feel. I felt it so
gratefully that when Jaffery suggested it was time to start back to
Southampton in order to waylay the London train at the docks, on the
off-chance of our fugitives having come down by it, and to catch the
Havre boat ourselves, I had not a weary word to say. I cheerfully
contemplated the prospect of a night's voyage to Havre. And as Jaffery
(also humanised by good cheer) had been entertaining me with juicy
stories of China and other mythical lands, I felt equal to any
dare-devil adventure.

We went back to Southampton and collected our luggage at the
South-Western Hotel--the hotel porter in charge thereof. Our uncertainty
as to whether we would cross or not horribly disturbed his dull brain.
Ten shillings and Jaffery's peremptory order to stick to his side and
obey him slavishly took the place of intellectual workings. It was
nearly midnight. We walked through the docks, a background of
darkness, a foreground of confusing lights amid which shone vivid
illuminated placards before the brightly lit steamers--"St.
Malo"--"Cherbourg"--"Jersey"--"Havre." At the quiet gangway of the
Havre boat we waited. The porter deposited our bags on the quay and
stood patiently expectant like a dog who lays a stick at its master's
feet.

One London train came in. The carriage doors opened and a myriad ants
swarmed to the various boats. At the Havre boat I took the fore, he the
aft gangway. Thousands passed over, men and women, vague human forms
encumbered with queer projecting excrescences of impedimenta. They all
seemed alike--just a herd of Britons, impelled by irrational instinct,
like the fate-driven lemmings of Norway, to cross the sea. And all
around, weird in the conflicting lights, hurried gnome-like figures
mountainously laden, and in the confusion of sounds could be heard the
slither and thud of trunks being conveyed to the hold. At last the tail
of the packed wedge disappeared on board and the gangway was clear. I
went to the aft gangway to Jaffery and the porter. Neither of us had
seen Fendihook or Liosha.

A second train produced results equally barren.

There was nothing to do but carry out the prearranged plan. We went
aboard followed by the porter with the luggage.

My method of travel has always been to arrange everything beforehand
with meticulous foresight. In the most crowded trains and boats I have
thus secured luxurious accommodation. To hear therefore that there were
no berths free and that we should have to pass the night either on the
windy deck or in the red-plush discomfort of the open saloon caused me
not unreasonable dismay. I had to choose and I chose the saloon.
Jaffery, of course, chose the raw winds of heaven. All night I did not
get a wink of sleep. There was a gross fellow in the next section of
red-plush whose snoring drowned the throb of the engines. Stewards long
after they had cleared away the remains of supper from the long central
table chinked money at the desk and discussed the racing stables of the
world with a loudly dressed, red-faced man who, judging from the popping
of corks, absorbed whiskies and sodas at the rate of three a minute. I
understood then how thoughts of murder arose in the human brain. I
devised exquisite means of removing him from a nauseated world. Then
there was a lamp which swung backwards and forwards and searched my
eyeballs relentlessly, no matter how I covered them.

What was I doing in this awful galley? Why had I left my wife and child
and tranquil home? The wind freshened as soon as we got out to sea.
There were horrible noises and rattling of tins and swift scurrying of
stewards. The ship rolled, which I particularly hate a ship to do. And I
was fully dressed and it seemed as if all the tender parts of my body
were tied up with twine. What was I doing in this galley?

When I awoke it was broad daylight, and Jaffery was grinning over me and
all was deathly still.

"Good God!" I cried, sitting up. "Why has the ship stopped? Is there a
fog?"

"Fog?" he boomed. "What are you talking of? We're alongside of Havre."

"What time is it?" I asked.

"Half-past six."

"A Christian gentleman's hour of rising is nine o'clock," said I, lying
down again.

He shook me rudely. "Get up," said he.

The sleepless, unshaven, unkempt, twine-bound, self-hating wreck of
Hilary Freeth rose to his feet with a groan.

"What a ghastly night!"

"Splendid," said Jaffery, ruddy and fresh. "I must have tramped over
twenty miles."

There was an onrush of blue-bloused porters, with metal plate numbers
on their arms. One took our baggage. We followed him up the companion
onto the deck, and joined the crowd that awaited the releasing gangway.
I stood resentful in the sardine pack of humans. The sky was overcast.
It was very cold. The universe had an uncared-for, unswept appearance,
like a house surprised at dawn, before the housemaids are up. The forced
appearance of a well-to-do philosopher at such an hour was nothing less
than an outrage. I glared at the immature day. The day glared at me, and
turned down its temperature about twenty degrees. From fool
thoughtlessness I had not put on my overcoat, which was now far away in
charge of the blue-bloused porter. I shivered. Jaffery was behind me. I
glanced over my shoulder.

"This is our so-called civilisation," I said bitterly.

At the sound of my voice a tall woman in the rank five feet deep from us
turned instinctively round, and Liosha and I looked into each other's
eyes.

CHAPTER XVIII

Jaffery caught sight of her at the same time and gripped my arm. Her
eyes travelling from mine to his flashed indignant anger. Then she
turned haughtily. We tried to edge nearer her, but she was just beyond
the convergence of two side currents which pushed us even further away.
The gangway was fixed and the movement of the conglomerate mass began.
Presently Jaffery again seized my arm.

"There's the brute waiting for her."

And there on the quay, with a flower in his buttonhole and a smile on
his fat face, stood Mr. Ras Fendihook. He met her at the foot of the
gangway, and obviously told at once of our presence, sought us anxiously
with his gaze; then with an air of bravado waved his hat--a hard white
felt--and cried out: "Cheer O!" We did not respond. He grinned at us and
linking his arm through Liosha's joined the stream of passengers
hurrying across the stones to the custom-sheds.

"Stop," Jaffery roared.

They turned, as indeed did everybody within earshot. Fendihook would
have gone on, but Liosha very proudly drew him out of the stream into a
clear space and, prepared for battle, awaited us. When we had struggled
our slow way down and reached the quay she advanced a few steps looking
very terrible in her wrath.

"How dare you follow me?"

"Come further away from the crowd," said Jaffery, and with an imperious
gesture he swept the three of us along the quay to the stern of the
boat, where only a few idle sailor men were lounging, and a sergeant de
ville was pacing on his leisurely beat.

"I said you would make a fool of yourself one of these days if I didn't
play dragon," he said, at a sudden halt. "I've come to play dragon with
a vengeance." He marched on Fendihook. "Now you."

"How d'ye do, old cock? Didn't expect you here," he said jauntily.

"Don't be insolent," replied Jaffery in a remarkably quiet tone. "You
know very well why I'm here."

"Jaff Chayne--" Liosha began.

He waved her off. "Take her away, Hilary."

"Come," said I. "I'll tell you all about it."

"He has got to tell me, not you."

"I certainly don't know why the devil you're here," said Fendihook, with
sudden nastiness.

"I've come to save this lady from a dirty blackguard."

"How are you going to do it?"

Jaffery addressed Liosha. "You said in your letter--"

"You wrote to him, you crazy fool, after all my instructions?" snarled
Fendihook.

"You said in your letter you were going to marry this man."

"Sure," said Liosha.

"And are you going to marry this lady?"

"Certainly."

"Why didn't you marry her in England?"

"I told you in my letter," said Liosha. "See here--we don't want any of
your interference." And she planted herself by the side of her abductor,
glaring defiance at Jaffery.

Jaffery smiled. "You told her that because she was a widow and an
Albanian she would find considerable obstacles in her way and would
forfeit half her money to the Government. You lying little skunk!"

The vibration in Jaffery's voice arrested Liosha. She looked swiftly at
Fendihook.

"Wasn't it true what you told me?"

"Of course not," I interposed. "You were as free to marry in England as
Mrs. Considine."

She paid no attention to me.

"Wasn't it true?" she repeated.

Fendihook laughed in vulgar bluster. "You didn't take all that rot
seriously, you silly cuckoo?"

Liosha drew a step away from him and regarded him wonderingly. For the
first time doubt as to his straight-dealing rose in her candid mind.

"She did," said Jaffery. "She also took seriously your promise to marry
her in France."

"Well, ain't I going to marry her?"

"No," said Jaffery. "You can't."

"Who says I can't?"

"I do. You've got a wife already and three children."

"I've divorced her."

"You haven't. You've deserted her, which isn't the same thing. I've
found out all about you. You shouldn't be such a famous character."

Liosha stood speechless, for a moment, quivering all over, her eyes
burning.

"He's married already--" she gasped.

"Certainly. He decoyed you here just to seduce you."

Liosha made a sudden spring, like a tigress, and had it not been for
Jaffery's intervening boom of an arm, her hands would have been round
Fendihook's throat.

"Steady on," growled Jaffery, controlling her with his iron strength.
Fendihook, who had started back with an oath, grew as white as a sheet.
I tapped him on the arm.

"You had better hook it," said I. "And keep out of her way if you don't
want a knife stuck into you. Yes," I added, meeting a scared look,
"you've been playing with the wrong kind of woman. You had better stick
to the sort you're accustomed to."

"Thank you for those kind words," said he. "I will."

"It would be wise also to keep out of the way of Jaffery Chayne. With my
own eyes I've seen him pick up a man he didn't like and"--I made an
expressive gesture--"throw him clean away."

"Right O!" said he.

He nodded, winked impudently and walked away. A thought struck me. I
overtook him.

"Where are you staying in Havre?"

He looked at me suspiciously. "What do you want to know for?"

"To save you from being murdered, as you would most certainly be if we
chanced upon the same hotel."

"I'm staying at the Phares--the swagger one on the beach near the
Casino."

"Excellent," said I. "Go on swaggering. Good-bye."

"Good-bye, old pal," said he.

He tilted his white hat to a rakish angle and marched away.

I rejoined Jaffery and Liosha. He still held her wrists; but she stood
unresisting, tense and rigid, with averted head, looking sidewise down.
Her lip quivered, her bosom heaved. Jaffery had mastered her fury, but
now we had to deal with her shame and humiliation.

"Let her go!" I whispered.

Jaffery freed her. She rubbed her wrists mechanically, without moving
her head. I wished Barbara had been there; she would have known exactly
what to do. As it was, we stood by her, somewhat helplessly.

"_Monsieur_," said a voice close by, and we saw our little blue-bloused
porter. He explained that he had been seeking us everywhere. If we did
not make haste we would lose the Paris train.

I replied that as we were not going to Paris, we were not pressed for
time; but this little outside happening broke the situation.

"Better give this fellow your luggage ticket, Liosha," said Jaffery.

She looked about her bewildered and then I noticed on the ground a
leather satchel which she had been carrying. I picked it up. She
extracted the ticket and we all went to the custom-house.

"What's the programme now?" I asked Jaffery.

"Hotel," said he. "This poor girl will want a rest. Besides, we'll have
to stay the night."

"Our friend is staying at the Hotel des Phares."

"Then we'll go to Tortoni's."

An ordinary woman would have drawn down the motor veil which she wore
cockled-up on her travelling hat; but Liosha, grandly unconcerned with
such vanities, showed her young shame-stricken face to all the world. I
felt intensely sorry for her. She realised now from what a blatant
scoundrel she had been saved; but she still bitterly resented our
intervention. "I felt as if I was stripped naked walking between
them"--that was her primitive account later of her state of mind.

"Barbara," said I, "sent you her very dear love."

She nodded, without looking at me.

"Barbara would have come too, if Susan had not been ill."

She gave a little start. I thought she was about to speak; but she
remained silent. We entered the customs-shed, when she attended
mechanically to her declarations.

On emerging free into the open air again, we found that the cheery sun
had pierced the morning clouds and gave promise of a glorious day. The
luggage was piled on the hotel omnibus. We took an open cab and rattled
through the narrow flag-paved streets of the harbour quarter of the
town. As we emerged into a more spacious thoroughfare, suddenly from a
gaudy column at the corner flared the name of Ras Fendihook. I caught
the heading of the _affiche_: "Music-Hall-Eldorado." Part of the mystery
was solved. Jaffery had been right in his deduction that he had left
London on a professional engagement; but we had not thought of an
engagement out of England. I had a correct answer now to my question:
"Why Havre of all places?" Jaffery sitting with Liosha on the back seat
of the victoria saw it too and we exchanged glances. But Liosha had eyes
for nothing save her hands tightly clasped in her lap. We passed another
column before we entered the Place Gambetta, where already at that early
hour, above its wide terrace, the striped awning of Tortoni's was flung.
We alighted at the hotel and ordered our three rooms; coffee and roll to
be taken up to madame; we men would eat our petit dejeuner downstairs.
Liosha left us without saying a word.

Bathed, shaved, changed, refreshed by the good _cafe au lait_, gladdened
by the sunshine and smugly satisfied with our morning's work, quite a
different Hilary Freeth sat with Jaffery on the terrace from the
sleepless wreck he had awakened two hours before. My urbane dismissal of
Ras Fendihook lingered suave in my memory. The glow of conscious heroism
warmed me, even like last night's dinner, to sympathy with my kind.
After despatching, by the chasseur, a long telegram to Barbara, and
sending up to Liosha's room a bunch of red roses we bought at a
florist's hard by, I surrendered myself idly to the contemplation of the
matutinal Sunday life of provincial France, while Jaffery smoked his
pipe and uttered staccato maledictions on Mr. Ras Fendihook.

I love provincial France. It is narrow, it is bourgeois, it is regarding
of its _sous_, it is what you will. But it lives a spacious,
out-of-door, corporate life. On Sundays, it does not bury itself, like
provincial England, in a cellular house. It walks abroad. It indulges in
its modest pleasures. It is serious, it is intensely conscious of
family, but it can take deep breaths of freedom. It is not Sundayfied
into our vacuous boredom. It clings to the picturesque, in which it
finds its dignified delight. The little soldier clad in blue tunic and
red trousers struts along with his _fiancee_ or _maitresse_ on his arm;
the cuirassier swaggers by in brass helmet and horsehair plume; the
cavalry officer, dapper in light blue, with his pretty wife, drinks
syrup at a neighbouring table in your cafe. The work-girls, even on
Sunday, go about bareheaded, as though they were at home in the friendly
street. The cure in shovel hat and cassock; the workmen for whom Sunday
happens not to be the _jour de repos hebdomadaire_ ordained by law, in
their blue _sarreau_; the peasants from outlying villages--the men in
queer shell-jackets with a complication of buttons, the women in
dazzling white caps astonishingly gauffered; the lawyer in decent black,
with his white cambric tie; the fat and greasy citizen with fat and
greasy wife and prim, pig-tailed little daughter clad in an exiguous
cotton frock of loud and unauthentic tartan, and showing a quarter of an
inch of sock above high yellow boots; the superb pair of gendarmes with
their cocked hats, wooden epaulettes and swords; the white-aproned
waiters standing by cafe tables--all these types are distinct, picked
out pleasurably by the eye; they give a cheery sense of variety; the
stage is dressed.

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