that the narrator was living on a treasure originally robbed from a church in South America.’
‘But, if it was a treasure, who would care?’
‘The girl was a Catholic. And the murdered man knew more.’
‘How much more?’
‘This: to find out about the treasure, the narrator had taken priest’s orders, and, of course, could not marry. And the other man, being in love with the girl, threatened to tell, and so the lasso came in handy. It is a Protestant story and instructive.’
‘Jolly instructive! But, Miss Martin, you are the Guy Boothby of your sex!’
At this supreme tribute the girl blushed like dawn upon the hills.
‘My word, she is pretty!’ thought Logan; but what he said was, ‘You know Mr. Tierney, your neighbour? Out of a job as a composition master. Almost reduced to University Extension Lectures on the didactic Drama.’
Tierney was talking eagerly to his neighbour, a fascinating lady laundress, la belle blanchisseuse, about starch.
Further off a lady instructress in cookery, Miss Frere, was conversing with a tutor of bridge.
‘Tierney,’ said Logan, in a pause, ‘may I present you to Miss Martin?’ Then he turned to Miss Markham, formerly known at St. Ursula’s as Milo. She had been a teacher of golf, hockey, cricket, fencing, and gymnastics, at a very large school for girls, in a very small town. Here she became society to such an alarming extent (no party being complete without her, while the colonels and majors never left her in peace), that her connection with education was abruptly terminated. At present raiment was draped on her magnificent shoulders at Madame Claudine’s. Logan, as he had told Merton, ‘occasionally met her,’ and Logan had the strongest reasons for personal conviction that she was absolutely proof against infection, in the trying circumstances to which a Disentangler is professionally exposed. Indeed she alone of the women present knew from Logan the purpose of the gathering.
Cigarettes had replaced the desire of eating and drinking. Merton had engaged a withdrawing room, where he meant to be closeted with his guests, one by one, administer the oath, and prosecute delicate inquiries on the important question of immunity from infection. But, after a private word or two with Logan, he deemed these conspicuous formalities needless. ‘We have material enough to begin with,’ said Logan. ‘We knew beforehand that some of the men were safe, and certain of the women.’
There was a balcony. The providence of nature had provided a full moon, and a night of balm. The imaginative maintained that the scent of hay was breathed, among other odours, over Pall Mall the Blest. Merton kept straying with one guest or another into a corner of the balcony. He hinted that there was a thing in prospect. Would the guest hold himself, or herself, ready at need? Next morning, if the promise was given, the guest might awake to peace of conscience. The scheme was beneficent, and, incidentally, cheerful.
To some he mentioned retainers; money down, to speak grossly. Most accepted on the strength of Merton’s assurances that their services must always be ready. There were difficulties with Miss Willoughby and Miss Markham. The former lady (who needed it most) flatly refused the arrangement. Merton pleaded in vain. Miss Markham, the girl known to her contemporaries as Milo, could not hazard her present engagement at Madame Claudine’s. If she was needed by the scheme in the dead season she thought that she could be ready for whatever it was.
Nobody was told exactly what the scheme was. It was only made clear that nobody was to be employed without the full and exhaustive knowledge of the employers, for whom Merton and Logan were merely agents. If in doubt, the agents might apply for counsel to the lady patronesses, whose very names tranquilised the most anxious inquirers. The oath was commuted for a promise, on honour, of secrecy. And, indeed, little if anything was told that could be revealed. The thing was not political: spies on Russia or France were not being recruited. That was made perfectly clear. Anybody might withdraw, if the prospect, when beheld nearer, seemed undesirable. A mystified but rather merry gathering walked away to remote lodgings, Miss Maskelyne alone patronising a hansom.
On the day after the dinner Logan and Merton reviewed the event and its promise, taking Trevor into their counsels. They were not ill satisfied with the potential recruits.
‘There was one jolly little thing in white,’ said Trevor. ‘So pretty and flowering! “Cherries ripe themselves do cry,” a line in an old song, that’s what her face reminded me of. Who was she?’
‘She came with Miss Martin, the penny novelist,’ said Logan. ‘She is stopping with her. A country parson’s daughter, come up to town to try to live by typewriting.’
‘She will be of no use to us,’ said Merton. ‘If ever a young woman looked fancy-free it is that girl. What did you say her name is, Logan?’
‘I did not say, but, though you won’t believe it, her name is Miss Blossom, Miss Florry Blossom. Her godfathers and godmothers must bear the burden of her appropriate Christian name; the other, the surname, is a coincidence—designed or not.’
‘Well, she is not suitable,’ said Merton sternly. ‘Misplaced affections she might distract, but then, after she had distracted them, she might reciprocate them. As a conscientious manager I cannot recommend her to clients.’
‘But,’ said Trevor, ‘she may be useful for all that, as well as decidedly ornamental. Merton, you’ll want a typewriter for your business correspondence, and Miss Blossom typewrites: it is her profession.’
‘Well,’ said Merton, ‘I am not afraid. I do not care too much for “that garden in her face,” for your cherry-ripe sort of young person. If a typewriter is necessary I can bear with her as well as another.’
‘I admire your courage and resignation,’ said Trevor, ‘so now let us go and take rooms for the Society.’
They found rooms, lordly rooms, which Trevor furnished in a stately manner, hanging a selection of his mezzotints on the walls—ladies of old years, after Romney, Reynolds, Hoppner, and the rest. A sober opulence and comfort characterised the chambers; a well-selected set of books in a Sheraton bookcase was intended to beguile the tedium of waiting clients. The typewriter (Miss Blossom accepted the situation) occupied an inner chamber, opening out of that which was to be sacred to consultations.
The firm traded under the title of Messrs. Gray and Graham. Their advertisement—in all the newspapers—addressed itself ‘To Parents, Guardians, Children and others.’ It set forth the sorrows and anxieties which beset families in the matter of undesirable matrimonial engagements and entanglements. The advertisers proposed, by a new method, to restore domestic peace and confidence. ‘No private inquiries will, in any case, be made into the past of the parties concerned. The highest references will in every instance be given and demanded. Intending clients must in the first instance apply by letter to Messrs. Gray and Graham. No charge will be made for a first interview, which can only be granted after satisfactory references have been exchanged by letter.’
‘If that does not inspire confidence,’ said Merton, ‘I don’t know what will.’
‘Nothing short of it will do,’ said Logan.
‘But the mezzotints will carry weight,’ said Trevor, ‘and a few good cloisonnés and enamelled snuff-boxes and bronzes will do no harm.’
So he sent in some weedings of his
