CHAPTER XIV

Gordon was playing absently with potato peelings when she came in.

“You’re Uncle Isaac!” she said in a strained, hazy fashion.

“Where have you been, Heloise?”

The sight of his companion in misfortune brought him with a jerk to normal. Heloise was real, something to cling to; he forgot his resentment in the joy of seeing something that anchored him to Gordon Selsbury.

“Say Gordon, that Jane ... she’s Diana, huh?”

He nodded.

“Your wife, you never told me that?”

“She is not my wife ... she has no right here ... if I gave you cause to think I was married it was because I wanted you to go. Don’t you see what you’ve done? You’ve ruined me! If you had only kept away--if you had only kept away!” he moaned.

“She’s your widow,” she was very quiet and restrained. He decided that she had lost her reason.

“Yes, if you like, she’s my widow,” he said soothingly. “Sit down.... I will get you a glass of water.”

“Diana!” said Heloise in wonder. “That’s your little Australian girl.... Gordon, was she a cop?”

“A what?”

“A headquarters woman! She’s got the style. Come on.”

“Where?”

“She wants us ...” said Heloise listlessly. “What’s the good of fighting, Gordon? We’re entangled in the mesh of circumstance.”

It was a favourite profundity of Heloise; he had heard her say it many times. But they were not entangled then.

Five minutes later.

A small brown-faced man was shaking Gordon by the hand, by both hands, by alternate hands. In the interval of shaking, he held hands.

“Your uncle ... and so young! And yet, he is older than he seems! And this is Aunt Lizzie!”

He kissed the patient Heloise on both cheeks.

Gordon was a dumbfounded spectator. Who was this infernal little cad, he demanded--Diana had omitted an introduction.

After a while it came.

“This, Uncle Isaac, is Mr. Guiseppi Dempsi--you remember how often I have spoken of him.”

Her steely glance was unnecessary. Gordon remembered.

“I thought he was dead.” So intense were his feelings that his voice dropped to a deep base.

It startled even himself.

“But I am alive! Rejoice, Uncle Isaac! Your little Wopsy is alive! I have come back from the shades! A syren’s sweet magic brought me across the world, yea, even through the shadows....”

He pointed with his whole hand to Diana and then.

“My bride!” he said tremendously.

Gordon looked from one to the other. “Dempsi ... bride ... bride Dempsi....”

“Perfectly ridiculous,” said Gordon and quailed under a fiendish glare from Diana.

But Mr. Dempsi was too happy to find anything in the interruption but a piece of rare good humour.

“We will have long talks, you and my uncle!” he said and beamed round on his hostess. “Tell me, little one, have I changed? Ah, but I was a boy then, a weak, vacillating ignorant boy. I did not realize that to win a woman she must be carried off her feet. To whine and wail for her, that is no good; to be diffident and timid--that is no good. To sigh at her feet bores her, to be humble arouses the greatest contempt ... women desire in men the grand manner, biff, bang, boff!”

“Uncle has to go now to ... to feed the chickens,” said Diana hurriedly.

Mr. Guiseppi Dempsi must neither biff, bang nor boff at 61 Cheynel Gardens. Dismayed she realized how broken were the reeds on which she had leant. They also were to know. She came into the kitchen after them.

“You’re no good, either of you,” she was in despair. “I suppose you’re good crooks, but that is because you haven’t the brains to be anything else. You stood like wax figures from the Chamber of Horrors and did _nothing_!”

“What were we supposed to do?” Gordon was stung into enquiring. “If I’d done what I wanted to do, I’d have thrown the little wop into the street! But you’re master here. You won’t accept a perfectly simple explanation----”

“Your perfectly simple explanation doesn’t go with Aunt Lizzie,” she stopped him in her most imperial manner. “You might have deceived me but for that--be sensible, man. I _know_ you’re Double Dan. I want to use you if I can--if I can’t I’ll send for the police. I’m expecting Mr. Superbus at any moment--you will be under his eye; try to conduct yourself as an uncle would.”

Gordon writhed.

“How can I behave like an uncle when you’re setting an infernal bottle-nosed enquiry agent to watch me?” demanded Gordon hotly. “It is no crime to be an uncle, my good girl! You can’t say ‘Watch that man, he’s my Uncle Isaac!’ By your standard of ethics, an uncle may be a suspicious circumstance, but in this country it isn’t ... what excuse can you give?”

Her lips curled.

“I can say that you are weak-minded,” she said, cold-bloodedly, “and that is just what I am going to say!”

Gordon leant against the table for support.

“I’m not weak-minded,” he protested.

They waited until the sound of Diana’s footsteps had died away.

“This comes of trips to Ostend,” said Mr. Selsbury with a catch in his voice.

“If you’d gone to Ostend that couldn’t have happened,” said Heloise fiercely. “Does it occur to you that my husband has followed us and is at this moment sitting on the doorstep waiting to free your poor spirit from this earthly bondage?”

Gordon passed his hand wearily over his forehead. He was in the depths of despondency.

“I don’t care,” he said. “I don’t care about your husband. He’s probably a sensible man to whom one could explain things. Diana is so infernally sure of herself that you can’t argue with her.”

Sitting on the edge of the table, she had lit a cigarette, and was sending blue, twisting rings of smoke into the air. She did not speak for a long time, and then only to break in upon Gordon’s gloomy thoughts.

“My, I wish I was back home in my little apartment on a hundred ’n’ thoity-ninth Street!” she quavered.

Mr. Selsbury was visibly surprised. He had never heard her say “thoity” before.

Diana had come to feel unaccountably fagged. There was no adequate reason, for as a rule she was tireless; but the succession of demands upon her nervous energy was telling. She had to watch for tradesmen, she had to answer the door; a dozen times she was called from The Study to interview callers of all kinds who, obeying the large notice she had hand-printed and stuck on the kitchen door, “Please come to the main entrance: this door is not in use,” fed her with packages of grocery, baskets of meat, trays of fish. The amount of food that was consumed at No. 61 was appalling; she, at any rate, was appalled.

Toward evening, when Dempsi was fidgetting for the dinner she had forgotten to order, a man called. He was poorly dressed, unsavoury of appearance. His thin, yellow face was unshaven and he carried his head slightly askew. The sight of Diana took him aback for a moment.

“Good evening, miss,” he said, touching his cap. “I’ve called for the money.”

“Whose money?” she asked, surprised.

“Mine: I cleaned the windows yesterday.”

Then she recalled him. Heloise had complained that the man was “nosing round The Study,” and expressed doubts about his honesty and bona fides.

“Name of Stark, miss,” he said encouragingly.

“I remember.” She went in search of her bag.

When she came back, he was examining the lock of the door with professional interest. He was once a lock-maker, he offered the excuse for his curiosity. If Diana had not been wearing very soft-soled boots, the excuse would have been unnecessary.

“Mr. Selsbury not in, miss?” as she counted the money in his hand.

“No,” she said shortly.

“Mr. Trenter in, miss?”

“No.” Her eyes gleamed.

“Will Mr. Selsbury be away long--I wanted to see him about a job?”

“I don’t know when he will be back,” she said. “There are several men in the house: would you like to see one?”

His expression changed.

“No, thank you, miss.”

She closed the door on him and wondered when the Watch Dog would arrive.

There was still a lot of money in the safe. Those unaware of her obligations to Mr. Dempsi might imagine there was more.

Dempsi had wandered out of the room when she came in, and she went swiftly to the safe. It was one of those old-fashioned receptables that had, in addition to the combination, a further lock operated by a key. Gordon had once told her that the key was never used; he had once mislaid it and had to summon experts to open the door. She searched his writing-table, pulling out drawers (she opened them all without difficulty) and at last, in a small envelope inscribed gratuitously “Key,” she found what she sought.

“Thank goodness!” said Diana.

A turn of her wrist and the safe was secure even against those who by cunning or violence had obtained the code word.

Mr. Julius Superbus came importantly, descending from a taxicab and drawing out after him a large tin box, mottled red and black. He produced, also from the interior of the cab, a large scrap-book fastened about with a broad green canvas strap. He also delivered from the cab a daring golf cap. These he deposited on the sidewalk, paid the taximan his fare, climbing inside to verify what had seemed to be a preposterous statement of claim, and donated the driver sixpence. Diana in the note she had scrawled had added a P.S. “Spare no expense.”

Gathering his belongings under both arms, he went up the steps, stooped and pressed the bell with his nose, a clever little device that had once come to him as an inspiration and which in itself advertised his originality.

Diana answered the door.

“You sent for me,” said Julius simply. “I have come.”

She was obviously relieved to see him, and piloted him into the dining-room.

“Mr. Superbus, I am going to make great demands upon you, and I’m sure I shall not ask in vain. I am in the greatest trouble.”

He inclined his head.

“Have you searched all your clothes?” he asked quickly. “You’ve lost something--I know this by, so to speak, a method of my own. It’s natural to suspect servants--but do they do it, ma’am? Not once in fifty times----”

“I’ve lost nothing. Mr. Superbus, my uncle is here----”

She was doubtful as to how she should go on. Should she take him entirely into her confidence? A wild idea, but not without its advantage.

“Relations,” the Roman pronounced, “are best apart. They come, they borrow money, they eat you out of house and home, and when they go, they haven’t a good word for you. Uncles especially. Leave him to me, ma’am; I’ll put the case to him man to man. He’ll be out of this house ...” he looked at his watch--“in five minutes.”

She enlightened him briefly: her uncle was a welcome visitor; a nice man, very much like Mr. Selsbury in appearance and as young. Only ... she tapped her forehead. Mr. Superbus understood.

“Tact,” he said, “tact and humour. Let ’em think they’re havin’ their way and then the iron hand in the velvet glove--an expression I invented myself,” he appended modestly. “Leave him to me. You couldn’t come to anybody better than me, ma’am. We’ve had several lunatics in our family”--Diana stepped back a pace--“and his good lady is here?”

“Aunt Lizzie.”

“That makes it a _little_ awkward,” regretted Superbus, “owing to the difficulty of watching him when he’s asleep. Unless Aunt Lizzie would mind? I am a family man.”

“She might object,” said Diana. “No, I don’t think that you need do that. If you can keep a general eye on him. He must not leave the house on any excuse.”

Mr. Superbus smiled.

“You needn’t worry about that, ma’am,” he said.

There followed more instructions and warnings. Diana flew into The Study to pacify a distracted Dempsi, whose urgent voice had interrupted her twice during the interview with the detective.

Mr. Superbus went into the kitchen thoughtfully. He saw no resemblance between Gordon Selsbury and his uncle. He noted that in Aunt Lizzie’s face was an expression of uneasiness.

“Good afternoon,” he said. “My name’s Smith.”

Gordon pointed to the door.

“Go out and change it,” he said.

Mr. Superbus was amused.

“I thought I’d pop down and have a look at you, Uncle Isaac,” he said, and bowed to the lady, “and Aunt Lizzie.” He radiated compassion.

“Get out!” roared Gordon, red of face. “Go back to the lady who employs you and tell her that I give her ten minutes to hand me my keys and kick her infernal Dempsi out of the house!”

“What’s the good?” It was Heloise who spoke. “If you make a fuss you’ll be seeing the judge on Monday.”

“I don’t care!” Gordon was toeing the limit. “I simply don’t care. I’m the master of this house and I will assert myself.”

“Say, Gor-don! What am I--one of the extras? Ain’t I got any say in this? You don’t care! Well, I’m certainly glad you’re that way--it’s grand. But I allowed myself to be trapped by a she-octopus and I’ll find another way of getting out than taking the short trail to the hutch. And the only way out is to behave.”

Mr. Superbus agreed. He was not unprepared for the claim that Gordon was master of the house: against this strange hallucination on the part of Uncle Isaac that he was his own nephew, Diana had warned him.

“You’re a good lad and I’m a good lad,” he murmured. “We’re all good lads together.”

He winked at Heloise. Susceptible to such signals, Heloise winked back.

It was maddening--to what degree, Gordon learnt painfully. Mr. Superbus was so kind and so helpful and so tolerant. Gordon went into his pantry and searched for a large, razor-sharp carving knife. There are some things no man can endure--kindness is one of them.