The Search Party/Chapter 16

IS lordship is still at breakfast, sir," said Wilkins.

"Will you ask him if I can speak to him for a few minutes as soon as he has finished?" said Mr. Goddard. He was shown into the library, where Lord Manton's letters and newspapers were arranged on a table near the window. He was an old gentleman who declined to do business of any kind, even open a letter, before breakfast. He attributed his good health to his habit of facing the kind of worries which the post brings only when he was fortified by a solid meal. Mr. Goddard glanced at the columns of a Dublin evening paper of the day before, half fearful of a scare headline announcing the loss of two Members of Parliament in Connemara. He was delighted to find that the editor had been able to discover nothing more exciting than a crisis in the Balkans and a speech by the Prime Minister. Wilkins entered the room.

"His lordship's compliments," he said, "and he will be pleased if you will join him at breakfast."

Mr. Goddard accepted the invitation gladly. The smell of Jimmy O'Loughlin's bacon and eggs had whetted his appetite. He was conducted to the dining-room by Wilkins, and found Lord Manton seated by himself at the end of a large table. The dining-room in Clonmore Castle is a spacious and well-proportioned apartment. A tradition exists that in the time of Lord Manton's father, on the occasion of a county election, fifty gentlemen once sat down in it together at dinner. In those days, no doubt, people did not object to being crowded. But even to-day thirty people could very comfortably have dined in the room, and there would still have been space for the servants to make their way about. It was the largest room in the Castle, and its present proprietor looked singularly small, even insignificant, seated alone in the middle of it. Lord Manton greeted his guest cheerfully.

"Good morning, Mr. Goddard. This is an early visit. Have you by any chance come across the body of Dr. O'Grady? Won't you help yourself to something to eat? You'll find whatever there is on the side table."

Mr. Goddard secured a kidney and some bacon.

"No," he said; " there's no news of Dr. O'Grady."

"Have you got engaged to be married to Miss Blow?" said Lord Manton. "That's the way this business will end, I expect. That young woman came over here for a husband, and now that the doctor has bolted there is only you or me for her to choose. So far as I can see at present, she seems to prefer you. I'm very glad she does. In fact, I'm keeping out of her way as much as I can."

"So am I; but it's rather difficult."

"I suppose it is. I hear that she went the whole way over to Ballymoy after you last night; walked every step of it. I'm surprised that you escaped her after that. How did you manage it? I should have thought you could hardly have refused to marry her without being actually rude. But perhaps that story is only gossip."

"It's quite true," said Mr. Goddard. "But, Lord Manton, I came up here this morning to speak to you about—the fact is, I am in a serious difficulty."

"You are. I can scarcely imagine anything more serious." "I wanted," said Mr. Goddard, "to ask your advice about"

"You shall have it. Give in and marry her at once with a good grace. That's my advice. After all, you might do a great deal worse. She's a very good-looking girl, and by her own account she'll have some money. It's far better for you to pretend you like it. It's no earthly use your trying' to escape if her mind is made up. Your plan of dodging up and down between Clonmore and Ballymoy can't be kept up for ever. Sooner or later she'll overtake you in one place or the other; or else she'll meet you on the road between the two, where you'll be quite at her mercy."

"I dare say you're right," said Mr. Goddard. "But it's not about Miss Blow that I want to consult you this morning. Did you hear about the Members of Parliament?"

"I heard that two Members of Parliament went through the town on bicycles yesterday," said Lord Manton, "with a lot of women after them on cars; Suffragettes, I suppose, pursuing them for votes. It's astonishing how they track those poor fellows to the remotest ends of the earth."

"They've disappeared," said Mr. Goddard.

"Sensible men. That was by far the wisest thing they could do. But I wonder how they managed it? You haven't been able to disappear from Miss Blow. We must find out about it. I may have to disappear myself when that question comes up to the House of Lords."

"You've not got it right," said Mr. Goddard. "The women on the cars were their wives. Or rather two of them were. The other was their aunt."

"Dear me! Is that legal? That sort of group marriage with a common aunt doesn't seem to me quite the thing for Members of Parliament."

"They had one wife each, of course," said Mr. Goddard, "and the aunt only belonged to one of them. They have the police roused all over the country looking for them. That's what brings me here this morning. I've got to do something to find them."

"Do you mean to tell me that there two men have got lost in such a way that they can't be found?"

"They have. It's really a most extraordinary thing. They started on bicycles yesterday from Clonmore to ride to Pool-a-donagh. They never arrived. That's really all we know about the matter. The ladies followed them on a car and didn't overtake them. We've telegraphed to every police barrack in the neighbourhood, and they haven't turned up anywhere."

"I'll tell you what it is, Goddard. This is an uncommonly awkward business for you. Here you are, responsible for the safety of the inhabitants of this district, and no less than four men disappear completely in the inside of a single week. First there was Dr. O'Grady. Then poor Patsy Devlin vanished, leaving a wife and family behind him."

"We know all about them," said Mr. Goddard.

"And now no less than two Members of Parliament. It doesn't look at all well. I'm greatly afraid there'll be a fuss when it gets into the newspapers. The public will take the keenest interest in it. We shall have columns and columns every day. Do you happen to know whether these men were Liberals or Conservatives?"

"No, I don't. I don't see that it makes any difference. I've got to find them whichever they are."

"It makes the greatest difference," said Lord Manton. "If they're supporters of the Government, there'll be a much bigger fuss than if they're on the Opposition side. The Prime Minister isn't likely to sit down quietly under the loss of two votes, especially with the way bye-elections are going at present. You'll simply have to find them."

"I wish I could," said Mr. Goddard. "I'd do it quick enough, whatever their politics are, if I knew how to go about it."

"Of course, if they belonged to the Opposition," said Lord Manton, "the matter won't be pressed by the Government. But even so you'll have the newspapers to reckon with, and the curiosity of the general public. Why don't you go and look for them?"

"I would go at once, if I had the remotest idea where to look. But I haven't. That's what I want your advice about."

"You say," said Lord Manton, "that there are three ladies belonging to them. If I were you, I should begin by introducing them to Miss Blow. Then get a hold of Mrs. Patsy Devlin and let her talk to the whole party. You could put them all together into a room in Jimmy O'Loughlin's hotel. They'll interest each other. They have so much in common."

"I might do that, of course. But I don't see what good it would be. I shouldn't be any nearer finding the men."

"No, you wouldn't; but you'd have time to turn round and think things out a bit. They'd be sure to talk for a good while once you get them started, and it's quite possible that by the time they'd finished, the two men might have turned up somewhere or other."

"I don't see what can possibly have happened to them," said Mr. Goddard. "After you pass Rosivera the road runs the whole way between the bog and the sea. They couldn't get off it if they tried. And they must have got as far as Rosivera when they started right, for there isn't a cross road between this and there. Even if they were fools enough to go up some bohireen or other, they'd only have to turn around and come down again."

"That seems to me," said Lord Manton, "to knock the bottom out of the theory that they've got lost. As you say, they can't be lost. They might sit down on the side of the road and cry; but if they did the women on the cars would have seen them."

"I've thought all that out. I can't see how they've got lost; but the fact is they are lost."

"I don't believe it," said Lord Manton.

"Surely you don't suppose that they're playing off a practical joke on us."

"Come into the library and have a smoke," said Lord Manton.

"I'm not sure that I ought to. With this business on my hands I scarcely feel justified—I think I should"

"Oh, nonsense. You can't do anything until you've thought. Premature and imperfectly considered action in a case like this is always a mistake, and you can't possibly think properly without tobacco."

Lord Manton kept excellent cigars for his guests. Mr. Goddard, who had smoked them before, lit one with pleasure, and stretched himself in a deep chair. He had breakfasted heartily, in spite of anxiety and worry. He felt that a short rest was due to him. He was prepared to believe that a period of calm reflection was due to the case of the two errant Members of Parliament. Lord Manton did not smoke his own cigars, and rarely lay back in his own very comfortable chairs. He preferred an upright kind of seat, and he smoked cigarettes, lighting them one after another in rapid succession, while he talked, wrote or thought. On this occasion he did not remain seated for more than a couple of minutes. Before his first cigarette was half smoked he stood up and talked down to Mr. Goddard from a commanding position beside the chimney-piece.

"I don't believe," he said, "I don't for one moment believe, that those Members of Parliament are lost."

"Lost or disappeared or stolen," said Mr. Goddard, "it's all the same so far as I am concerned. I've got to find them."

"It's not in the least the same thing. If they were simply lost in the way a child or a dog or a collar stud gets lost, then you'd know where to look for them. Draw a circle of, say, ten miles in diameter, with Rosivera for its centre, and they must be inside of it somewhere. You've only got to put men enough on the job and you're bound to find them. But if they have disappeared of their own accord, vanished intentionally and deliberately, then you will have to proceed in quite a different way."

"It's all very well to talk of Dr. O'Grady and Patsy Devlin disappearing like that; but it's different with these men. Why the devil should they disappear?"

"They can't have got lost," said Lord Manton. "You satisfied me, if you did not satisfy yourself, about that; and if they're lost they must have bolted. How else can you account for their not turning up?"

"But why should they? What had they to run away from?"

"That, of course, I can't say for certain, for I don't know the men. But, taking into consideration the little I do know about them, I can make a guess. Can't you imagine it? They had with them three women, two wives and an aunt. The one who hadn't his aunt with him very probably has one at home, and it's quite possible that they both have sisters."

"I dare say they have. I didn't ask."

"Well now, think. They were English Members of Parliament, and therefore presumably pretty well to do. They probably had businesses somewhere, and residences in a suburban district. What does all that mean? Respectability. Imagine to yourself the appalling weight of respectability involved in the possession of a wife, an aunt, a sister, a business, investments, and a seat in Parliament. Can't you fancy the poor fellows coming to find it all perfectly intolerable; saying to each other: 'Hang it, let's get off and run loose for a while'? I don't say I'm right. I can't be sure, because I don't know the men, and I didn't see the women; but what I'm offering you is an intelligible explanation. What sort of women were they? What were they like?"

"I don't know. I didn't notice anything particular about them. They were just ordinary women."

"There you are," said Lord Manton. "It's your ordinary, well-behaved woman who drives a man perfectly frantic if he has any spirit in him. I couldn't live with an ordinary woman for three months at a stretch. Look at my daughter, for instance. How long do you suppose I could stand her? Certainly not three months, not two months. I'm at the end of my tether after a six weeks' visit to her. And I'm not married to her. I haven't got to be very close to her. I haven't got to see her in a red dressing-gown combing her hair. I haven't got to listen to the noise she makes when she's washing her teeth. You don't understand these things because you're not married. Very likely you never will understand them, because Miss Blow's not an ordinary woman "

"She is not," said Mr. Goddard.

"But these two poor fellows," said Lord Manton "had got to do with ordinary women. They had to give their opinions on new hats, had to listen to stories about the things which the servants did or didn't do. Of course they bolted."

"I wish to goodness they'd have bolted out of some other district, then, if they had to bolt. Why should they come here? You'd think it would be much more convenient to run away from a place like London than from Clonmore. But I don't believe they have bolted."

"They can't have got lost. The thing's absurd on the face of it. Take a single point in addition to all those that you've made already. Take their bicycles. A man might accidentally lose himself, but his bicycle couldn't possibly get lost. He must leave it on the side of the road somewhere, and wherever he leaves it you're sure to find it. You can get rid of a bicycle on purpose, though even that's not so easy. Sinking it in the sea is about the only way I can imagine of effectually disposing of it. But you can't lose it and yourself. Nobody could lose both himself and a bicycle unless he did it on purpose."

"But" said Mr. Goddard.

He had a whole series of criticisms utterly destructive of Lord Manton's hypothesis. He had seen the Members of Parliament. He felt that he knew them. He found it impossible to imagine their breaking out into wild Bohemianism, sickening of respectability, rebelling against the monotony of any woman, however ordinary. There was Mr. Dick, who had bounded out of the railway carriage, volatile, debonnair, gay with familiar quotations. There was Mr. Sanders, rigid, mathematical, a little morose on account of his weak heart. Lord Manton might conceivably find an ordinary woman maddening; but Mr. Dick, once he began, would go on kissing her contentedly for years and years. He would appreciate the way in which his dinner was cooked for him. Mr. Sanders would appreciate that too. He might be a little exacting, would, no doubt, expect his weak heart to be taken seriously, would put a woman in her proper place in the settled order of things, and keep her there. But both Mr. Dick and Mr. Sanders would recognize that a woman must be allowed to wash her teeth. They would not resent the noise of the water gurgling in her mouth. They would both know that women must comb their hair, and that a red dressing-gown is a suitable and convenient garment under certain circumstances. They would not be angry when they were told about the misdeeds of maid-servants, a trying and exhausting class to deal with. They were men with well-balanced minds, men of practical common sense, men who would not fly blindly in the face of facts. They were not the men to run away from their wives, or even from their aunts.

"But" he began again.

Lord Manton lit a fresh cigarette, his fourth, and waited. Mr. Goddard sought for words in which to express his feelings. He might have found them in time, but time was not given him. Wilkins entered the room.

"There is a lady to see you, sir," he said to Mr. Goddard. "I showed her into the small drawing-room. She said she wished to see you particular."

"Good God! " said Mr. Goddard. "It's Miss Blow!"

"Is it Miss Blow?" said Lord Manton to Wilkins. "Don't attempt to break the news to him if it is. Tell him straight out. It's kinder in the end."

"It's the same young lady," said Wilkins, "that called on your lordship two days ago."

"The young lady that was talking about bringing a corpse here? I told you, I remember, to get white flowers from the gardener. Is it that young lady?"

"Yes, my lord."

"And has she brought it this time?"

"Not that I saw, my lord."

"If you didn't see it, Wilkins, I think we may take it for granted that it isn't there."

"Damn that girl! " said Mr. Goddard. "You'd think I had enough on my hands without her."

"From the way you're speaking of her," said Lord Manton, "I suppose you don't feel inclined to go into the drawing-room and offer to marry her. That, as I said before, is the proper thing for you to do. If you won't, the only other course I see open to you is to get away out of this as fast as you can."

"What's the good? She'd be after me again at once." "Not at once," said Lord Manton. "I think I can arrange to give you a good long start. Wilkins will go back and ask her to be good enough to remain where she is for a few minutes. You could tell her, Wilkins, that Mr. Goddard is engaged with me at present, discussing very important business, but that he'll be with her in less than a quarter of an hour. You could do that, Wilkins, couldn't you?"

"Yes, my lord."

"Then Mr. Goddard could get out of the house and walk across the deer park. You could run if you like, Goddard, keeping carefully out of sight of the drawing-room windows. After a time, say at the end of half an hour, Miss Blow will begin to get impatient. What do you suppose she'll do when she gets impatient, Wilkins?"

"I'd say, my lord, that's she's likely to ring the bell."

"Exactly. That's what I thought myself. I suppose, Wilkins, that you could arrange for the under housemaid to go to her when she rings."

"Yes, my lord."

"And the under housemaid would, of course, know nothing about Mr. Goddard. What would the under housemaid do, Wilkins, when she was asked about Mr. Goddard, and knew nothing about him?"

"I'd say, my lord, that she'd tell the young lady she'd go to make inquiries."

"Quite so. She'd be sure to do that. But she needn't go back again to Miss Blow. She could resume her interrupted duties. She could start off under-housemaiding again at the place she left off when Miss Blow rang the bell. I presume that, after a decent interval, say a quarter of an hour, Miss Blow would ring the bell again; this time the upper housemaid could go to her. That could be arranged, I suppose, Wilkins?"

"Certainly, my lord."

"She, of course, would know nothing about Mr. Goddard; but she would promise to go and make inquiries. She would then get back to her upper-housemaiding and completely forget about Miss Blow. After another interval, this time probably a shorter one, say ten minutes, Miss Blow would ring the bell again. Then the cook could go to her, and, of course"

"Beg pardon, my lord, but the cook wouldn't go."

"Couldn't you arrange it, Wilkins?"

"No, my lord; it's not the cook's place to answer bells." "I forgot that," said Lord Manton. "It was stupid of me. I should have remembered. I'm afraid, Wilkins, that you'd have to go yourself the third time. You would tell her that Mr. Goddard had left the house an hour before. It would be about an hour, wouldn't it, Wilkins?"

"As near as I can go to it, it would be about that, my lord."

"After that I should recommend you to leave the room at once, Wilkins. You can stay if you like and see what happens, but I rather recommend you to leave at once."

"Yes, my lord."

"Very well. That gives you a clear hour's start, Goddard. You'd better be off at once."

"Where am I to go to?"

"I really don't know. I'm not advising you to run 1 away. I think it would be wiser for you to stay here and marry Miss Blow without any further resistance. If you act contrary to my advice, you mustn't expect me to make your plans for you."

Mr. Goddard and Wilkins left the room together. Lord Manton lit a fresh cigarette and tried to make up his mind whether he would like to see Miss Blow before she left the house. He felt sure that the interview, if he ventured on it, would be an interesting one, and that Miss Blow would say very amusing things. On the other hand, he had a vivid recollection of the masterful way in which she compelled him to write a note to Sergeant Farrelly. It seemed likely that she would attempt something of the same sort again. He was most unwilling to get further entangled in the mystery of Dr. O'Grady's disappearance. He was still turning the question over in his mind when Mr. Goddard burst noisily into the room.