caught it in fact quite literally. The door of Eric Dalrymple-Hughes’s small rear flat on the first floor had opened, and a girl’s voice came up the stairs.
“. . . be ready, Eric, won’t you?” she was saying. “And stop grousing, darling. I promise you I had nothing at all to do with it. I’m just lucky for once, that’s all. And please don’t try to spoil it.”
It was Mary Winship. At the sound of her voice the basilisk-eyed Miss Grimstead vanished from Mr. Pinkerton’s mind as promptly as if she had never existed, and his face brightened. Mary Winship was the one person at Number 4 Godolphin Street, except of course Betty the little Welsh maid, who ever gave him a friendly smile, or spoke to him as though it was a pleasure and not a duty. He listened to her speaking back through the door to her insufferable cousin. She sounded so gay and excited that Mr. Pinkerton did not for an instant doubt the reason.
“She knows he’s here,” he thought, himself almost as excited because she did sound so happy about it. He could not have been happier himself, even when he heard her cousin’s petulant affected voice answer her.
“I’m not grousing. And don’t misunderstand me, Mary. It’s not Aunt Caroline personally that I’m objecting to. It’s the tyranny of the very old.”
“I doubt if she’d like that very much, dear. She’s not that old, and if it’s tyranny at least you don’t have to put up with it. There are jobs, you know. You don’t have to stick here.”
Mr. Pinkerton had started down the stairs again. If he pretended he was going out instead of coming in, he could meet her quite casually. Even if all she said was “Good evening,” he would still have the satisfaction of seeing her violet-blue eyes light up—even if Dan McGrath’s name was not spoken. But he hesitated now. His device, transparent at best, had become slightly awkward in view of the turn the situation had taken.
“I know you’d like to have me out of the field, even if I am only a soi-disant nephew that’s got to sing nicely for his supper if he’s to get any. It’s not my fault my mother was a cousin instead of a step-daughter like yours. And maybe I shall get out. I’m fed up with fiddling for every kipper I get. I’m on to something that would surprise you, Mary Winship. All I want is a bit of ready cash.”
“And all I hope is it’s nothing that’ll get you in trouble again,” Mary Winship retorted cheerfully. “But let’s not quarrel. I’m much too excited to quarrel with you now. And do be ready. I don’t want this spoiled.”
As she closed the door, Mr. Pinkerton in his nervous anxiety to get back up the stairs without being heard did precisely what Pegott had done. The toe of his boot hit the brass rod at the foot of the riser. The sharp metallic clink made Mary Winship turn quickly from the door and glance up.
“Oh, hello, Mr. Pinkerton.” Her face broke into a sunny smile. She took a quick light step over to the middle of the hall and looked up at him. “Oh, Mr. Pinkerton, the most wonderful thing’s happened! You can’t ever guess!” Her eyes were dancing, her whole face lighted up. “I can hardly believe it!”
“I—I think it’s very nice,” Mr. Pinkerton said.
He felt a glow of modest pride because he didn’t have to guess. He knew. He thought Mary Winship-was a pretty girl, one of the prettiest he’d ever known—in real life, that is, not of course in the films. He also thought she was sweet, an old-fashioned virtue he did not look for in the cinema. At the moment she seemed to be both in an extraordinary degree. Slender and graceful as an osier wand, she had wide-set violet-blue eyes fringed with curling dark lashes so long they would have looked unreal except that her brows were thick and shining and her hair almost blue-black and curly too. She did not always look so radiantly happy as she did just then. Once Mr. Pinkerton had seen her in a tea shop, looking tired and so hopeless, all by herself, that he hadn’t spoken to her, thinking perhaps she had just come there to be alone and get a little peace away from her dominant aunt, her invalid mother and her poisonous cousin Eric. But now she was radiant and lovely.
“I’m very pleased about it too,” Mr. Pinkerton said. He wished Dan McGrath could see her then.
“Oh, Aunt Caroline told you? I thought she’d just decided. You know, she’s really an angel! Just think of it—a whole month in Paris! I knew I was to have a week’s holiday, but not now, and here at the flat, not a whole month in Paris. But I’ve got to rush—I’m going on the night boat. Good-bye, Mr. Pinkerton—take care of yourself. I’ll bring you a present!”
She was off, her feet fairly dancing as she waved her hand and ran along the hall to her aunt’s apartment, leaving Mr. Pinkerton mute and stricken halfway up the dimly lighted stairs.
“—Paris. She’s going to Paris.” Some cracked disembodied voice was whispering it in his incredulous ear. “She’s not happy about Dan McGrath. She’s happy because she’s going to Paris. She’s happy because she’s getting away from here.”
Suddenly Mr. Pinkerton caught his breath, standing perfectly still. The truth was brilliantly clear all about him.
“She’s not going to Paris. They’re sending her to Paris. To get her away from here. Her aunt’s sending her away so she won’t see Dan McGrath.”
Mr. Pinkerton’s own voice was telling him that, but he knew it was not the truth. They were sending her away, but it was not on account of Dan McGrath but on account of her father. They were sending her so she would not see Scott Winship. But it was all the same. A month in Paris . . . Miss Grimstead had said a month of sea air in Bournemouth. It was the same month—except that his was to begin on Monday, Dan McGrath’s in the box room and Mary’s in Paris both began that very night. Mr. Pinkerton’s pallid viscera turned over in agonizing protest. It couldn’t be, not after Dan McGrath had come all the way from America. Somebody had got to stop it.
He looked around frantically, as if he hoped by some miraculous dispensation Dan McGrath would appear out of the murky depths of the cabbage-scented hallway and put a stop to it then and there. And it was all his fault. If he had never mentioned Scott Winship it would never have happened. And it couldn’t happen. It mustn’t be allowed to happen. He blinked his watery grey eyes and swallowed. Then he moistened his lips. It had got to be stopped, and he was the one who’d got to stop it.
“Oh, dear!” Mr. Pinkerton said. It was all very easy to say he had got to stop it. The question was how to do it. If only Dan McGrath was there . . . He glanced down into the hall. Eric Dalrymple-Hughes was coming out of his flat. He was whistling under his breath, a jaunty self-satisfied young man, well built and handsome, too handsome for his own good, in Mr. Pinkerton’s opinion, and with a weak mouth and petulant voice. He was a feeble reed to lean on, but at the moment he was the only reed there was, and Mr. Pinkerton himself was hardly a sturdy oak.
He straightened his narrow shoulders and made a pathetic effort to clear his throat and attract Mr. Eric Dalrymple-Hughes’s attention as he paused to light a cigarette. He cleared his throat again. It was at least audible this time, but not so audible as to account for the startled jerk of the young man’s head as he looked up.
“Oh,” he said. “It’s you.”
He snapped his lighter shut and blew a casual ribbon of smoke upward out of the side of his compressed lips. He started to move along.
“Mr. Dalrymple-Hughes! Wait a moment, will you please?”
Mr. Pinkerton found his voice. He scurried anxiously down the stairs. Eric Dalrymple-Hughes, his cigarette poised with an air of bored distinction,
