The Bravo of London Page 26

  ‘It was nine that Hulse was to be here by, wasn’t it, Violet?’ he asked.

  Miss Darragh, who had been regarding him for some time in furtive anxiety, almost jumped at the simple question.

  ‘Oh, yes, Hugh—about nine, that is. Of course he had to—’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ interrupted Darragh irritably; ‘we’ve heard all that. And Sims,’ he continued, more for the satisfaction of voicing his annoyance than to engage in conversation, ‘swore by everything that we should have that coat by eight at the very latest. My God! what rotten tools one has to depend on!’

  ‘Perhaps—’ began Violet timidly, and stopped at his deepening scowl.

  ‘Yes?’ said Darragh, with a deadly smoothness in his voice. ‘Yes, Violet; pray continue. You were about to say—’

  ‘It was really nothing, Hugh,’ she pleaded. ‘Nothing at all.’

  ‘Oh, yes, Violet, I am sure that you have some helpful little suggestion to make,’ he went on in the same silky, deliberate way. Even when he was silent his unspoken thoughts seemed to be lashing her with bitterness, and she turned painfully away to pick up the paper he had flung aside. ‘The situation, Kato,’ resumed Darragh, addressing himself to the third occupant of the room, ‘is bluntly this: If Sims isn’t here with that coat before young Hulse arrives, all our carefully-thought-out plan, a month’s patient work, and about the last both of our cash and credit, simply go to the devil!… and Violet wants to say that perhaps Mr Sims forgot to wind his watch last night or poor Mrs Sims’s cough is worse … Proceed, Violet; don’t be diffident.’

  The man addressed as ‘Kato’ knocked a piece off the chessboard he was studying and stooped to pick it up again before he replied. Then he looked from one to the other with a face singularly devoid of expression.

  ‘Perhaps. Who says?’ he replied in his quaintly-ordered phrases. ‘If it is to be, my friend, it will be.’

  ‘Besides, Hugh,’ put in Violet, with a faint dash of spirit, ‘it isn’t really quite so touch-and-go as that. If Sims comes before Hulse has left, Kato can easily slip out and change coats then.’

  Darragh was already on his restless way towards the door. Apparently he did not think it worth while to reply to either of the speakers, but his expression, especially when his eyes turned to Violet, was one of active contempt. As the door closed after him, Kato sprang to his feet and his impassive look gave place to one almost of menace. His hands clenched unconsciously and with slow footsteps he seemed to be drawn on in pursuit. A little laugh, mirthless and bitter, from the couch, where Violet had seated herself, recalled him.

  ‘Is it true, Katie,’ she asked idly, ‘that you are really the greatest ju-jitsuist outside Japan?’

  ‘Polite other people say so,’ replied the Japanese, his voice at once gentle and deprecating.

  ‘And yet you cannot keep down even your little temper!’

  Kato thought this over for a moment; then he crossed to the couch and stood regarding the girl with his usual impenetrable gravity.

  ‘On contrary, I can keep down my temper very well,’ he said seriously. ‘I can keep it so admirably that I, whose ancestors were Samurai and very high nobles, have been able to become thief and swindler and’—his moving hand seemed to beat the air for a phrase—‘and low-down dog and still to live. What does anything it matter that is connected with me alone? But there are three things that do matter—three that I do not allow myself to be insulted and still to live: my emperor, my country, and—you. And so,’ concluded Kato Kuromi, in a somewhat lighter vein, ‘now and then, as you say, my temper gets the better of me slightly.’

  ‘Poor Katie,’ said Violet, by no means disconcerted at this delicate avowal. ‘I really think that I am sorrier for you than I am for Hugh, or even for myself. But it’s no good becoming romantic at this time of day, my dear man.’ The lines of her still quite young and attractive face hardened in keeping with her thoughts. ‘I suppose I’ve had my chance. We’re all of a pattern and I’m as crooked as any of you now.’

  ‘No, no,’ protested Kato loyally; ‘not you of yourself. It is we bad fellows round you. Darragh ought never to have brought you into these things, and then to despise you for your troubles—that is why my temper now and then ju-jitsues me. This time it is the worst of all—the young man Hulse, for whose benefit you pass yourself as the sister of your husband. How any mortal man possessing you—’

  ‘Another cigarette, Katie, please,’ interrupted Violet, for the monotonous voice had become slightly more penetrating than was prudent. ‘That’s all in the way of business, my friend. We aren’t a firm of family solicitors. Jack Hulse had to be fascinated and I—well, if there is any hitch I don’t think that it can be called my fault,’ and she demonstrated for his benefit the bewitching smile that had so effectually enslaved the ardent Beringer.

  ‘Fascinated!’ retorted Kato, fixing on the word jealously, and refusing to be pacified by the bribery of the smile. ‘Yes, so infatuated has become this very susceptible young man that you lead him about like pet lamb at the end of blue ribbon. Business? Perhaps. But how have you been able to do this, Violet? And your husband—Darragh—to him simply business, very good business—and he forces you to do this full of shame thing and mocks at you for reward.’

  ‘Kato, Kato—’ urged Violet, breaking through his scornful laughter.

  ‘I am what your people call yellow man,’ continued Kato relentlessly, ‘and you are the one white woman of my dreams—dreams that I would not lift finger to spoil by trying to make real. But if I should have been Darragh, not ten thousand times the ten thousand pounds that Hulse carries would tempt me to lend you to another man’s arms.’

  ‘Oh, Katie, how horrid you can be!’

  ‘Horrid for me to say, but “business” for you to do! How have you discovered so much, Violet—what Hulse carries, where he carries it, the size and shape the packet makes, even the way he so securely keeps it? “Business” eh? Your husband cares not so long as we succeed. But I, Kato Kuromi, care.’ He went nearer so that his mere attitude was menacing as he stood over her, and his usually smooth voice changed to a tone she had never heard there before. ‘How have you learned all this? How, unless you and Hulse—’

  ‘Sssh!’ she exclaimed in sharp dismay as her ear caught a sound beyond.

  ‘—oh yes,’ continued Kato easily, his voice instantly as soft and unconcerned as ever, ‘it will be there, you mean. The views in the valley of Kedu are considered very fine and the river itself ‘

  It was Darragh whom Violet had heard approaching, and he entered the room in a much better temper than he had left it. At the door he paused a moment to encourage someone forward—a seedy, diffident man of more than middle age, who carried a brown-paper parcel.

  ‘Come on, Sim; hurry up, man!’ urged Darragh impatiently, but without the sting of contempt that had poisoned his speech before. ‘And, oh, Phillips’—looking back and dropping his voice—‘when Mr Hulse arrives show him into the morning- room at first. Not up here, you understand? Now, Sims.’

  After a rather helpless look round for something suitable on which to lay his parcel, the woebegone-looking individual was attempting to untie it on an upraised knee.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ he replied, endeavouring to impart a modicum of briskness into his manner. ‘I’m sorry to be a bit late, sir; I was delayed.’

  ‘Oh, well, never mind that now,’ said Darragh magnanimously. ‘Thing quite all right?’

  ‘Mrs Sims isn’t worse?’ asked Violet kindly.

  Mr Sims managed to get his back to the group before he ventured to reply.

  ‘No, miss,’ he said huskily; ‘she’s better now. She’s dead: died an hour ago. That’s why I wasn’t quite able to get here by eight.’

  From each of his hearers this tragedy drew a characteristic response. Violet gave a little moan of sympathy and turned away. Kato regarded Sims, and continued to regard him, with the tranquil incuriosity of the unpitying East. Darragh—Darragh alone spoke, and his
tone was almost genial.

  ‘Devilish lucky that you were able to get here by now in the circumstances, Sims,’ he said.

  ‘Well, sir,’ replied Sims practically, ‘you see, I shall need the money just as much now—though not quite for the same purpose as I had planned.’ He took the garment from the paper and shook it out before displaying it for Darragh’s approval. ‘I think you will find that quite satisfactory, sir.’

  ‘Exactly the same as the one your people made for Mr Hulse a week ago?’ asked Darragh, glancing at the jacket and then passing it on to Violet for her verdict.

  ‘To a stitch, sir. A friend of mine up at the shop got the measurements and the cloth is a length from the same piece.’

  ‘But the cut, Sims,’ persisted his patron keenly; ‘the cut is the most important thing about it. It makes all the difference in the world.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ acquiesced Sims dispassionately; ‘you can rely on that. I used to be a first-class cutter myself before I took to drink. I am yet, when I’m steady. And I machined both coats myself.’

  ‘That should do then,’ said Darragh complacently. ‘Now you were to have—’

  ‘Ten guineas and the cost of the cloth you promised, sir. Of course it’s a very big price, and I won’t deny that I’ve been a bit uneasy about it from time to time when I—’

  ‘That’s all right.’ Darragh had no wish to keep Mr Sims in evidence a minute longer than was necessary.

  ‘I shouldn’t like to be doing anything wrong, sir,’ persisted the poor creature; ‘and when you stipulated that it wasn’t to be mentioned—’

  ‘Well, well, man; it’s a bet, didn’t I tell you? I stand to win a clear hundred if I can fool Hulse over this coat. That’s the long and short of it.’

  ‘I’m sure I hope it is, sir. I’ve never been in trouble for anything yet, and it would break my wife’s ’art—’ He stopped suddenly and his weak face changed to a recollection of his loss; then without another word he turned and made shakily for the door.

  ‘See him safely away, Katty, and pay him down below,’ said Darragh. ‘I’ll settle with you later,’ and the Japanese, with a careless ‘All right-o,’ followed.

  ‘Now, Violet, slip into it,’ continued her husband briskly. ‘We don’t want to keep Hulse waiting when he comes.’ From a drawer in a cabinet near at hand he took a paper packet, prepared in readiness, and passed it to her. ‘You have the right cotton?’

  ‘Yes, Hugh,’ said Violet, opening a little work-basket. She had already satisfied herself that the coat was a replica of the one the young American would wear, and she now transferred the dummy package to the corresponding pocket and with a few deft stitches secured it in the same way as she had already learned that the real contents were safeguarded. ‘And, Hugh—’

  ‘Well, well?’ responded Darragh, with a return of his old impatience.

  ‘I don’t wish to know all your plans, Hugh,’ continued Violet meekly, ‘but I do want to warn you. You are running a most tremendous risk with Kato.’

  ‘Oh, Kato!’

  ‘It is really serious, Hugh. You don’t believe in patriotism, I know, but Kato happens to. When he learns that it isn’t ten thousand pounds at all, but confidential war plans, that this scoop consists of, something terrible may happen.’

  ‘It might, Violet. Therefore I haven’t told him, and I am so arranging things that he will never know. Cheer up, my girl, there will be no tragedy. All the same, thanks for the hint. It shows a proper regard for your husband’s welfare.’

  ‘Oh, Hugh, Hugh,’ murmured Violet, ‘if only you were more often—’

  Whatever might have been the result—if indeed there was yet hope in an appeal to another and a better nature that he might once have possessed—it came too late. The words were interrupted by the sudden reappearance of Kato, his business with Sims completed. He opened and closed the door quietly but very quickly, and at a glance both the Darraghs saw that something unforeseen had happened.

  ‘Here’s pretty go,’ reported the Japanese. ‘Hulse just come and brought someone with him!’

  For a moment all the conspirators stood aghast at the unexpected complication. Hugh Darragh was the first to speak.

  ‘Damnation!’ he exclaimed, with a terrible look in his wife’s direction; ‘that may upset everything. What ghastly muddle have you made now?’

  ‘I—I don’t know,’ pleaded Violet weakly. ‘I never dreamt of such a thing. Are you sure?’

  ‘Slow man,’ amplified Kato with a nod. ‘Fellow who walk—’ He made a few steps with studied deliberation.

  ‘Blind! It’s Max Carrados,’ exclaimed Violet, in a flash of enlightenment. ‘They have been great friends lately and Jack has often spoken of him. He’s most awfully clever in his way, but stone blind. Hugh, Kato, don’t you see? It’s rather unfortunate his being here, but it can’t really make any difference.’

  ‘True, if he is quite blind,’ admitted Kato.

  ‘I’ll look into it,’ said Darragh briskly. ‘Coat’s all ready for you, Kato.’

  ‘I think no, yet,’ soliloquised the Japanese, critically examining it. ‘Keep door, ’alf-a-mo’, Violet, if please.’ His own contribution to the coat’s appearance was simple but practical—a gentle tension here and there, a general rumple, a dust on the floor and a final shake. ‘One week wear,’ he announced gravely as he changed into it and hid his own away.

  ‘Take your time, Mr Carrados,’ Darragh’s voice was heard insisting on the stairs outside, and the next moment he stood just inside the room, and before Hulse had quite guided Carrados into view, drew Violet’s attention to the necessity of removing the button-hole that the Americans still wore by a significant movement to the lapel of his own coat. It required no great finesse on the girl’s part to effect the transfer of the little bunch of flowers to her own person within five minutes of the guests’ arrival.

  ‘A new friend to see you, Violet—Mr Carrados,’ announced Darragh most graciously. ‘Mr Carrados, my sister.’

  ‘Not to see you exactly, Miss Darragh,’ qualified Carrados. ‘But none the less to know you as well as if I did, I hope.’

  ‘I wanted you to meet Max before I went, Miss Darragh,’ explained Hulse; ‘so I took the liberty of bringing him round.’

  ‘You really are going then?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes. There seems no doubt about it this time. Twelve hours from now I hope to be in Paris. I should say,’ amended the ingenuous young man, ‘I dread to be in Paris, for it may mean a long absence. That’s where I rely on Carrados to become what is called a “connecting file” between us—to cheer my solitude by letting me know when he has met you, or heard of you, or, well, anything in fact.’

  ‘Take care, Mr Hulse,’ she said. ‘Gallantry by proxy is a dangerous game.’

  ‘That’s just it,’ retorted Hulse. ‘Max is the only man I shouldn’t be jealous of—because he can’t see you!’

  While these amiable exchanges were being carried on between the two young people, with Max Carrados standing benignly by, Darragh found an opportunity to lower his voice for Kato’s benefit.

  ‘It’s all right about him,’ he declared. ‘We carry on.’

  ‘As we arranged?’ asked Kato.

  ‘Yes; exactly. Come across now.’ He raised his voice as he led Kato towards the other group. ‘I don’t think that either of you has met Mr Kuromi yet—Mr Hulse, Mr Carrados.’

  ‘I have been pining to meet you for weeks, sir,’ responded Hulse with enthusiasm. ‘Mr Darragh tells me what a wonderful master of ju-jitsu you are.’

  ‘Oh, well; little knack, you know,’ replied Kato modestly. ‘You are interested?’

  ‘Yes, indeed. I regard it as a most useful accomplishment at any time and particularly now. I only wish I’d taken it up when I had the leisure.’

  ‘Let me find you an easy-chair, Mr Carrados,’ said Violet attentively. ‘I am sure that you won’t be interested in so strenuous a subject as ju-jitsu.’

  ‘Oh, ye
s, I am, though,’ protested the blind man. ‘I am interested in everything.’

  ‘But surely—’

  ‘I can’t actually see the ju-jitsuing, you would say? Quite true, but do you know, Miss Darragh, that makes a great deal less difference than you might imagine. I have my sense of touch, my sense of taste, my hearing—even my unromantic nose—and you would hardly believe how they have rallied to my assistance since sight went. For instance—’

  They had reached the chair to which Miss Darragh had piloted him. To guide him into it she had taken both his hands, but now Carrados had gently disengaged himself and was lightly holding her left hand between both of his.

  ‘For instance, Hulse and I were speaking of you the other day—forgive our impertinence—and he happened to mention that you disliked rings of any sort and had never worn one. His eyes, you see, and perhaps a careless remark on your part. Now I know that until quite recently you continually wore a ring upon this finger.’

  Silence had fallen upon the other men as they followed Carrados’s exposition. Into the moment of embarrassment that succeeded this definite pronouncement Mr Hulse threw a cheerful note.

  ‘Oh ho, Max, you’ve come a cropper this time,’ he exclaimed. ‘Miss Darragh has never worn a ring. Have you?’

  ‘N-o,’ replied Violet, a little uncertain of her ground, as the blind man continued to smile benevolently upon her.

  ‘A smooth and rather broad one,’ he continued persuasively. ‘Possibly a wedding ring?’

  ‘Wait a minute, Violet, wait a minute,’ interposed Darragh, endeavouring to look judicially wise with head bent to one side. He was doubtful if Violet could carry the point without incurring some suspicion, and he decided to give her a lead out of it. ‘Didn’t I see you wearing some sort of plain ring a little time ago? You have forgotten, but I really believe Mr Carrados may be right. Think again.’