The Search Party/Chapter 17

ULLO!" said Lord Manton. "Back again. [ What have you forgotten? It's rather rash of you to venture, I think. If it's only your cigar-case or something of that sort that you've left behind, I should have had it posted after you as soon as you sent me your address. I can't keep Miss Blow here permanently, you know. In dealing with a lady like her you ought not to take these risks."

"The others are coming," said Mr. Goddard breathlessly.

"Oh, indeed! What others?"

"I met them in the deer park. They are coming up here. They had Jimmy O'Loughlin's boy with them to show them the way."

"What others?"

"I turned at once and ran back," said Mr. Goddard. "I don't think they saw me; in fact, I'm sure they didn't. But what are we to do now."

"I'd stand a better chance of answering that question," said Lord Manton, "if I knew who you were talking about."

"The other women, Mrs. Dick and"

"Oh, the wives of the lost Members of Parliament."

"Yes. What shall we do?"

"Don't say, what shall we do," said Lord Manton. "I'm not going to do anything except sit here and watch the progress of events. I think that's as much as can be expected of me. Many men wouldn't do even that. I know lots of people who'd object to your way of filling up their houses with strange women; but I'm giving you every latitude. If you choose to interview your lady friends in my drawing-room, I make no objection. But I won't be dragged into any complications myself. That's the reason I don't like your saying 'we.' The question is not what shall we do, but what will you do."

"What shall I do, then?" said Mr. Goddard.

"If you'd taken my advice," said Lord Manton, "and married Miss Blow half an hour ago, you wouldn't be in this difficulty now. Your course would have been perfectly plain. You'd simply have referred the other ladies to Miss Blow. She would have dealt with them, and not allowed them to do you any harm. However, I don't want to rub in your past mistakes. The only course open to you now is to introduce these three to Miss Blow and let them talk the matter over quietly together while you get Mrs. Patsy Devlin to join them."

Wilkins entered the room while Lord Manton was speaking.

"There are some ladies to see your lordship," he said.

"To see me? To see Mr. Goddard, you mean."

"It was your lordship they asked for."

"There must be some mistake," said Lord Manton. "Go to them again, Wilkins, and say that Mr. Goddard is here and will be delighted to see them."

"I don't see what good that will be," said Mr. Goddard. "Wait a minute."

But Wilkins was gone. Mr. Goddard made a protest.

"Why did you give me away like that?" he asked. "If you hadn't told them I was here, they would never have thought of asking for me."

"I gave you away to save myself," said Lord Manton. "I always give other people away when there's any kind of unpleasantness going on. That has been a fixed rule of mine through life, and I've always found it work well."

"Beg pardon, my lord," said Wilkins, who returned, "but the ladies say it's your lordship they want to see; but they'll be very glad to meet Mr. Goddard too."

"Did you ask their business, Wilkins?"

"I did, my lord. They said they heard that you were a magistrate, and"

"That," said Lord Manton, "sounds about as bad as anything could be. How many ladies were there, Wilkins?"

"Three, my lord."

"The whole three," said Mr. Goddard. "I told you so."

"Where have you put them, Wilkins?"

"I showed them into the big drawing-room, my lord. The other lady was in"

"Well, go and change them out of that into the small drawing-room. Or, wait a minute. It may be easier to move Miss Blow. Go and put her into the big drawing-room along with the other three. Then shut the door and leave them. Do you think you can manage that, Wilkins?"

"I could try, my lord."

"Very well. Go and try. And if you succeed, don't go to them again until they've rung the bell at least a dozen times."

"Certainly not, my lord."

"It's rather hard on a man of my age," said Lord Manton, "to be hunted out of my own house in this way by a lot of strange women. I'm not blaming you, Goddard. All the same, if you had been reasonable about Miss Blow we wouldn't be in the position we are. Now, of course, there's nothing for it but to fly. It's very undignified for me, being a peer and that sort of thing. It will also, I'm afraid, be most uncomfortable. I mind that much more than the humiliation. But there's nothing else for it. If I stay here they'll catch me sooner or later." "What will you do?"

"I shall get out a horse and trap if I can without being noticed. I shall drive down to the station, and lie hid in the ticket office until the next train is due. Then I shall go to London. You'd better come with me."

Lord Manton's idea was to reach the stable-yard by way of the servants' quarters, so as to avoid passing the doors of either the big or the small drawing-room. To do this from the library it was necessary to go along a corridor and then cross an angle of the central hall off which both the drawing-rooms opened. The corridor was safe. The passage across the hall was dangerous. Unless Wilkins actually locked the ladies in, a door might be opened at any moment.

Lord Manton and Mr. Goddard went on tiptoe along the corridor. A voice reached them from the hall. It was Wilkins' voice.

"This way, miss, if you please."

"One of them has escaped," said Mr. Goddard.

"No," whispered Lord Manton; "it's only Wilkins moving Miss Blow into the big drawing-room. Wait a minute."

They heard Wilkins' voice again. This time it was nearer than it had been.

"I beg your pardon, miss, but if you'll allow me to show you the way. You're going in quite the wrong direction, miss."

Mr. Goddard clutched Lord Manton's arm. "She's coming down here," he said. "We'd better"

"It's all right," whispered Lord Manton. "Wilkins will head her off."

"I'm going in the direction in which I mean to go."

This voice was unmistakably Miss Blow's. It was clear, resonant, determined, and sounded very near at hand.

"Good heavens! " said Mr. Goddard. "She's quite right," said Lord Manton. "She is going in the direction in which she means to go. I rather respect her for it."

Wildins, walking sideways, and expostulating vehemently, appeared at the end of the corridor. Behind him, mistress of herself and the situation, strode Miss Blow. She caught sight of Lord Manton and Mr. Goddard at once. She pointed to them with a finger and fixed her eyes upon them with a terrible glare. They stood still, fascinated. The idea of escape by running and a leap through the library window occurred to Lord Manton. But with Miss Blow's eyes on him he was incapable of the effort. Wilkins, faithful to the last, walked backwards along the corridor, in front of Miss Blow. He looked as if he meant to sacrifice himself in order to stand between his master and Amazonian violence. He was a good servant.

"So there you are," said Miss Blow. "You" Her finger, pointed at Mr. Goddard, trembled with indignant scorn. "And you, my lord."

There was a fine note of contempt, bitter and furious contempt, in her voice, as she uttered the words "my lord." There was something terrible in the association of a title reckoned honourable by the world with the baseness which she evidently attributed to Lord Manton.

"Yes," said Lord Manton; "we're both here. But why aren't you in the big drawing-room with the other ladies? You oughtn't to come down here, you know, especially without a chaperone."

"You call yourselves gentlemen," said Miss Blow.

"No," said Lord Manton; "we don't. I certainly don't. And I should be surprised to hear that Mr. Goddard did. The word is quite out of fashion, I assure you. Nobody uses it nowadays. Don't bring unjust charges against us, Miss Blow. There are lots of things we may be accused of with truth. We're not the men we ought to be, especially Mr. Goddard. Charge us with the things we've done, and we'll confess at once and apologize. But don't be unjust. We never called ourselves gentlemen."

"You ran away from me yesterday," said Miss Blow, addressing Mr. Goddard, "after promising faithfully that you'd help me. You ran away again to-day. You would be running away now if I hadn't caught you in the act."

"He did and he would," said Lord Manton. "I've just been speaking to him about it. I told him his conduct was disgraceful. I'm glad now that he'll hear what you think of it from your own lips. It'll do him good."

Mr. Goddard frowned and shuffled uneasily. Even though he had been fairly warned of the principle on which Lord Manton treated his friends in emergencies, he did not expect to be sacrificed so completely and remorselessly.

"You're as bad yourself," said Miss Blow.

"No," said Lord Manton; " I'm not. Try to be just, Miss Blow. I didn't run away from you."

"You're just as bad as he is," said Miss Blow.

Her voice was clear and loud. Lord Manton glanced anxiously towards the hall. It was quite possible that the noise of the denunciation might reach the drawing-room.

"Wilkins," he said, "did you shut the door of the big drawing-room?"

"No, my lord; I understood your lordship to say that this lady"

"Then go and do it at once. I can't have the other three Miss Blow is speaking to us in a confidential manner and doesn't want"

"Who are you shutting up?" said Miss Blow. "Who is your lackey going to imprison?"

"Some ladies," said Lord Manton. "There are, I believe, three of them. But I'm not imprisoning them. I'm only trying to keep them where they are for a few minutes. I'm doing it entirely on your account. They wouldn't be at all cheering company for you. They have, unfortunately, just lost their husbands under the most mysterious and trying circumstances. Members of Parliament, you know. Excellent fellows every one of them. The whole thing is unspeakably sad."

"Are those the ladies?" said Miss Blow. "But of course they are. I heard about that. Do you mean to say that you're going to sit here and do nothing, nothing whatever, while men are being murdered in this wholesale manner every day? Will you make no effort to bring the criminals to justice and prevent the loss of more human life? You, sir," she addressed Mr. Goddard, "you wear his Majesty's uniform; you are an officer in what is supposed to be a police force"

"It is a police force," said Mr. Goddard feebly. "It really is, although I am an officer in it."

"And you," she went on, turning to Lord Manton, "you are a magistrate besides being a peer."

"Miss Blow," said Lord Manton, "won't you come into the library and sit down? We could talk so much more comfortably if we were sitting down. Besides, this is rather a public place for the discussion of private affairs."

He looked past Miss Blow towards the end of the corridor. Something in his expression made Miss Blow turn her head. She saw, gathered in a knot in the hall, the cook, the kitchen-maid, the upper and under housemaid, and Wilkins. All of them, except Wilkins, were grinning. They had forgotten all decency and the respect due to their master. They were eagerly listening to every word Miss Blow said. She allowed herself to be led into the library.

"Now sit down," said Lord Manton. "You must be thoroughly tired out after your long walk yesterday and all this excitement to-day. Will you allow me to offer you a glass of wine and a biscuit? Goddard, ring the bell, like a good man."

"No," said Miss Blow.

"A cup of tea, then? No? Or an egg flip? The cook would have it ready in a moment. I often have an egg flip myself when I'm feeling over-done. It's an excellent thing, I assure you."

"No," said Mrs. Blow; "I'll take nothing nothing from you. I"

"Well, just allow me to say one word," said Lord Manton, "before you begin again."

"If you've any excuse to make for your behaviour," said Miss Blow, "make it. I shall listen to you."

"I haven't," said Lord Manton. "Not a shred. Nor has Mr. Goddard. Don't interrupt me, Goddard. You haven't any real excuse, and you know it. But you mustn't be too hard upon us, Miss Blow. Try to put yourself in our position, in Mr. Goddard's position, for I really haven't anything to do with the business one way or other. It wasn't his fault about those Members of Parliament. He's just as sorry about it as anybody else. If he'd known that they intended to run away from their wives he'd have stopped them; but how could he know?"

"Oh! " said Miss Blow. "That is the latest theory, is it? Their husbands ran away from them? Do you expect to get any one to believe that? I suppose the husband of that poor woman down in the village ran away from her. I suppose you mean to try and prove that she ill-treated him, that she, a half-starved, delicate woman, bullied a great hulking blacksmith. I suppose you'll say that Dr. O'Grady ran away from me. Last time I was here you said he ran away from his creditors. When I proved that to be a lie, you have the assurance to say that he ran away from me."

"I hadn't mentioned you or Dr. O'Grady," said Lord Manton. "But come now, Miss Blow, be reasonable. If he has run away from you, he wouldn't be the only man that has. You can't deny that Mr. Goddard ran away from you. He did it twice. You said so yourself. In fact, you more than hinted that he was in the act of a third flight when you caught him. There's nothing inherently absurd in supposing that one man would do what another man has done several times. I needn't say I wouldn't do it myself. But that's another matter. It's far better for you to look facts straight in the face, however unpleasant they are."

Whether Miss Blow looked at the facts or not, the facts as Lord Manton represented them, she certainly looked at Mr. Goddard. It seemed for a moment as if she was about to re-open the question of his flight to Ballymoy and his subsequent flight back again to Clonmore. He felt greatly annoyed with Lord Manton for (calling fresh attention to these performances. There ought, he was convinced, to be some limit to the extent to which a man may give away his friends. But Miss Blow recognized that these hurried flittings of his and the causes of them were side issues. She got back, with an evident effort, to the main point immediately under discussion.

"And why should you suppose that the husbands of the ladies you have shut up in your drawing-room have run away from them?"

It was of Lord Manton that she asked the question; but Mr. Goddard answered her. He saw his opportunity and seized it. Having been sacrificed more than once as a burnt-offering to Miss Blow's wrath, he was perfectly ready, now he got the chance, to show up Lord Manton, as a man who also deserved strong denunciation.

"Lord Manton says," said Mr. Goddard, "that their husbands couldn't bear to live with them any more, because they were ordinary women and"

"As well as I recollect," said Lord Manton, "it was you who used the word 'ordinary.' I hadn't seen the ladies at the time. For that matter, I haven't seen them yet." "And," said Mr. Goddard, speaking slowly and with emphasis, " because they wear red dressing-gowns and wash their teeth."

He glanced at Lord Manton with an expression of triumph on his face. Miss Blow stared first at one of the men before her and then at the other. She was amazed. In spite of the white heat of her virtuous indignation she was reduced for the moment to a silence of sheer astonishment. The nature of the charge brought against the wives of the Members of Parliament took her aback. It was totally unexpected. "Those," said Mr. Goddard, striking home after his victory, "are the exact expressions Lord Manton used."

"Of course," said Lord Manton, in an explanatory and half-apologetic tone, "I didn't mean to suggest that those were Patsy Devlin's reasons for absconding. I don't suppose that his wife has a dressing-gown of any colour, and as for her teeth"

Miss Blow began to recover a little from her first shock.

"Do you mean to say," she said, "that you consider a man is justified in deserting his wife because she wears a red dressing-gown and washes her teeth?"

"Certainly," said Lord Manton. "If you consider the matter fairly and impartially, without bias in favour of either sex, you will see that there can't be two opinions about it. The mere act of wearing a dressing-gown, red or blue, is of course nothing in itself. But considered as an expression of a certain spirit, of what I may perhaps call the spirit of persistent, puritanical domesticity; regarded as an evidence of an oppressive kind of civilized respectability, taken in conjunction with a whole series of trifling, or apparently trifling, mental and physical habits, ordering dinner, for instance, engaging servants, doing needlework, paying weekly bills, keeping a visiting list, taking a holiday every year at the seaside—you will, I am sure, understand the sort of things I mean—taken in conjunction with these and regarded as an expression of the kind of spirit which takes a delight in doing these things and doing them continuously year after year—considered in this way, the wearing of a red dressing-gown does justify a man, a certain sort of man, in deserting his wife. You catch my meaning, I am sure, Miss Blow."

Once more Miss Blow was silent from sheer astonishment. Then, after a pause, she spoke, and Mr. Goddard, like the governor Felix before the Apostle Paul, trembled. Lord Manton, although it was to him that her remark was specially addressed, bore himself more bravely.

"You think it very fine," she said, "to bully and badger a helpless girl, and to allow innocent men to be murdered under your very eyes. But you'll have to answer for it. You'll be held responsible, both of you. It's—it's intolerable."

"My dear Miss Blow," said Lord Manton.

"Don't dare to say 'my dear' to me."

"I didn't mean it," said Lord Manton, quite truthfully. "Nothing was further from my mind than any idea of expressing affection, although of course I have a great regard and esteem for you. But do try to be reasonable. We're quite ready, both of us—I'm sure I may speak for Mr. Goddard as well as myself—to do anything in our power. But what can we do? What do you suggest our doing? What do you want us to do?"

"Arrest the murderers," said Miss Blow.

"Certainly," said Lord Manton. "Goddard, go once and arrest the murderers. You're a policeman. It's your business to arrest murderers. Don't waste time. Do it."

"Who am I to arrest? " said Mr. Goddard. "I don't know any murderers. I don't so much as know the name of a single murderer. If I did, I'd be off after him at once."

"Who is he to arrest, Miss Blow?" said Lord Manton. "You'll have to give him the name and address of your murderer. I suppose you know who he is and where he lives."

"Yes, I do," said Miss Blow. "I didn't at first, but now I do."

Wilkins entered the room as she spoke. "I beg your pardon, my lord," he said.

"Yes, Wilkins, what is it? Be as quick as you can, Wilkins. We are at a most interesting point of our conversation. Miss Blow is just going to reveal to us the name of a murderer, and then Mr. Goddard is going out to arrest him."

"I beg pardon, my lord, but the ladies in the big drawing-room have been ringing the bell."

"Much, Wilkins? I mean to say, have they been ringing it an excessive number of times, or very hard? There is no harm in their ringing moderately. I should wish them to ring when they want anything."

"They've been ringing a good deal, my lord."

"Are they still ringing?"

"Yes, my lord. That's the reason I mentioned it. I thought there might be something you would wish me to say to them."

"Quite right," said Lord Manton. "I'm very glad you told me. My idea would be for you to offer them a cup of tea or something of that sort to keep them quiet. Or what would you say, Miss Blow, if we had them down here? They might take to smashing up the furniture and the ornaments if I keep them there much longer. There's some china in the room that I'd be sorry to lose. Not very valuable, you know, but still things that it would be difficult to replace. Don't tell us the name of your murderer for a minute or two. Mr. Goddard and I will restrain our impatience. I'd like the other ladies to be here when you make the revelation. I'm sure they'd enjoy hearing all about it. Wilkins, will you kindly go to the big drawing-room and ask the three ladies to be good enough to come down here?"