CHAPTER IV

THE FIRST ROUND

"BRASSBOUND: You are not my guest: you are my prisoner.

SIR HOWARD: Prisoner?

BRASSBOUND: I warned you. You should have taken my warning.

SIR HOWARD: ... Am I to understand, then, that you are a brigand? Is this a matter of ransom?

BRASSBOUND: ... All the wealth of England shall not ransom you.

SIR HOWARD: Then what do you expect to gain by this?

BRASSBOUND: Justice...."

BERNARD SHAW: "Captain Brassbound's Conversion."

But for Pat Culling the library was deserted when I entered it the following morning. I found him with a lighted cigarette jauntily placed behind one ear, at work on an illustrated biography of the Seraph. Loose sheets still wet from his quick, prolific pen lay scattered over chairs, tables and floor, and ranged from "The Budding of the Wing" to "The Chariot of Fire." Fra Angelico, as an irreverent pavement artist, was Culling's artistic parent for the time being.

"Merivale! on my soul!" he exclaimed as he caught sight of me. "Returning from church, washed of all his sins and thinkin' what fun it'll be to start again. We want more paper for this."

As a matter of fact I had not been to church, but Philip had kindly arranged for my coffee to be brought me in bed, and I saw no reason for refusing the offer. It was not as if I had work to neglect, and for some years I have found that other people tend to be somewhat irritating in the early morning. When I breakfast alone, I am not in the least fretful, but I believe it to be physiologically true that the facial muscles grow stiff during sleep, and this makes it difficult for many people to be smiling and conversational for the first few hours after waking. So at least I was informed by a medical student who had spent much time studying the subject in his own person.

"Seraph up yet?" I asked.

"Is ut up?" Culling exclaimed in scorn, and I learnt for the first time that the Seraph habitually lived on berries and cold water, slept in a draught, and mortified his flesh with a hair shirt. He had, further, seen the sun rise, wetted his wings in an icy river and escorted Sylvia to the early service.

"I'm glad one of us was there," I said.

"Be glad it wasn't you," answered Culling darkly. "Seraph's in disgrace over something."

The reason, as I heard some time later, was his unwillingness to enter Sylvia's place of worship. The Seraph has devoted considerable time and money to the study of comparative religion, he will analyse any known faith, and when he has traced its constituent parts back to their magical origin, he feels he has done something really worth doing. Sylvia--like most _dévôtes_--could not believe in the existence of a conscientious free-thinker. Why two attractive young people should have bothered their heads over such matters, passes my comprehension. I have always found the man who demolishes a religion only one degree less tiresome than the man who discovers religion for the first time. Most men seem fated to do one or the other--and to tell me all about it.

"Where's she hiding herself now?" I asked.

"Only gone to bring the rest of the family home."

Almost before the words were out of his mouth, the door burst open and admitted Robin and Michael. The Roden boys were all marked with a strong family likeness, thin, lithe, and active, with black hair and brown eyes. Robin had outgrown the age of eccentricity in dress, but Michael persevered with a succession of elaborate colour-schemes. He was dressed that morning in brown shoes, brown socks, a brown suit and brown Homburg hat; even his shirt had a faint brown line, and his handkerchief a brown border. Of a Sphinx-like family, he was the most enigmatic; his leading characteristics were a surprisingly fluent use of the epithet "bloody," and a condition of permanent insolvency. The first reminded me of the great far-off day when I tested the efficacy of that word in presence of my parents; the second was the basis of our too short friendship. Finding a ten-pound note in my pocket, I tossed Michael whether I should give it to him or keep it myself. I forget who won; he certainly had the note.

A leave-out day from Winchester accounted for Michael's presence. Robin had slipped away from Oxford for the nominal purpose of a few days' rest before his Schools, and with the underlying intention of perfecting certain intricate arrangements for celebrating his last Commemoration.

"You'll come, won't you?" he asked as soon as we had been introduced. "House, Bullingdon and Masonic...."

"Who's paying?" asked Michael.

"Guv'nor, I hope."

"_Je_ ne _pense pas_," murmured Michael, as he wandered round the library in search of a chair that would fit in with his colour-scheme.

"You come," Robin went on regardless of the interruption. "I've got six tickets for each. You, and Gladys. Two. Phil, three. Me, four...."

"Only one girl so far," Culling interposed. "D'you and Phil dance together? And who has the beads? Some one's got to wear a bead necklace, you aren't admitted without it even in Russia. University dancing costume, I believe it's called."

"Silly ass!" Robin murmured without heat, but Culling was already depicting two nude gladiators struggling in front of the Town Hall for the possession of an exiguous necklace. The Vice-Chancellor and Hebdomadal Council hurried in horror-stricken file down St. Aldates from Carfax.

"You, Gladys, and Phil," continued Robin dispassionately. "Sylvia...."

"Oh, am I coming?" asked Sylvia who had just entered the room, and was unpinning a motor-veil.

"Oh, _yes_, darling Sylvia!" Robin--I know--was both fond and proud of his sister, but the tone of _ad hoc_ blandishment suggested that experience had taught him to persuade rather than coerce. "You'll come, if you love me, and bring Mavis," he added with eyes bashfully averted. "Now another man, and a girl for Mr. Merivale."

"Is mother included?" asked Sylvia.

"Not if Mr. Merivale comes," Robin answered in modest triumph. "Who'd you like?" he asked me.

"Keep a spare ticket up your sleeve," I counselled. "Don't lay on any one specially for me, I've seen my best dancing days. In any case I shouldn't last the course three nights running. You'll find me drifting away for a little bridge if I see you're not getting up to mischief."

Robin sucked his pencil meditatively, waved to the Seraph who had just entered the room, and turned to his sister.

"Well, who's it to be?" he asked.

"I don't yet know if I'm coming," Sylvia answered.

"Rot! You must!" said Robin in a tone of mingled firmness and misgiving that suggested memories of previous unsuccessful efforts to hustle his sister. "Think it over," he added more mildly, "but let me know soon, I want the thing fixed up. Whose car, Phil? It's the driving of Jehu, for he driveth furiously."

Philip closed a Blue Book, removed his feet from the back of Culling's chair and strolled to the window. A long green touring car was racing up the drive, cutting all corners.

"The Old Man, by Jove!" he exclaimed.

"Who?"

"Rawnsley. I wonder what he wants."

Michael, who had at last found a brown leather armchair to accord with the day's colour scheme, took on himself to explain the Prime Minister's sudden appearance.

"He's come to fetch that bloody Nigel away," he volunteered. "Praise God with a loud voice. Or else it's a war with Germany."

"Or the offer of a peerage," I suggested pessimistically.

"I much prefer the war with Germany," answered Michael, with the selfishness of youth. "I've no use for honourables, and he'd only be a viscount. 'Gad, I wonder if old Gillingham's handed in his knife and fork! That means the Chancellorship for the guv'nor, and they'll make him an earl, and you'll be Lady Sylvia, my adored sister. How perfectly bloody! I shall emigrate."

We were soon put out of our suspense. The library was in theory the inviolable sanctuary of the Attorney General, and at Philip's suggestion we began to retreat through the open French windows into the garden. The Seraph and I, however, stood at the end of the file and were caught by Arthur and the Prime Minister before we could escape. Rawnsley had forgotten me during my absence abroad, and we had to be introduced afresh.

"Don't go for a moment," said Arthur, as we made another movement towards the window. "You may be able to help us."

I pulled up a chair and watched Rawnsley fumbling for a spectacle-case. He had aged rather painfully since the day I first met him five-and-twenty years before, as President of the Board of Trade, coming to Oxford to address some political club.

"Sheet of paper? A.B.C., Roden?" he demanded in the quick, staccato voice of a man who is always trying to compress three weeks' work into three days. He had his son's ruthless vigour and wilful assurance without any of Nigel's thin-skinned self-consciousness. "Thanks. Now. My daughter's missing, Mr. Merivale. You may be able to help. Do you know her by sight?"

I mentioned the glimpse I had caught of her at the theatre.

"Quite enough. She left Downing Street yesterday morning at a quarter to ten and was to call at her dressmaker's and come down to Hanningford by the eleven-twenty. We've only two decent trains in the day, and if she missed that she was to lunch in town and come by the four-ten. You left at eleven-fifteen, from platform five. The eleven-twenty goes from platform four. May I ask if you saw anything of her before you left?"

I said I had not, and added that I was so busily engaged in meeting old friends and being introduced to new ones that I had had neither time nor eyes....

"Thank you!" he interrupted, turning to the Seraph. "Mr. Aintree, you know my daughter, and Roden tells me you came down by the four-ten yesterday afternoon. The train slips a coach at Longfield, a few miles beyond Hanningford. Did you by any chance see who was travelling by the slip?"

The Seraph was no more helpful than I had been, and Rawnsley shut the A.B.C. with an impatient slap.

"We must try in other directions, then," he said. "She never left London."

"Have you tried the dressmaker's?" I asked.

"Arrived ten, left ten-forty," said Rawnsley.

"Are any of her friends ill?" I asked. "Is she likely to have been called away suddenly?"

"Oh, I know why she's disappeared," Rawnsley answered. "This letter makes that quite plain. I want to find where it took place--with a view to tracing her."

He threw me over a typewritten letter, with the words, "Received by first delivery to-day, posted in the late fee box of the South-Western District Office at Victoria."

The letter, so far as I remember it, ran as follows:

"DEAR SIR,

"This is to inform you that your daughter is well and in safe keeping, but that she is being held as a hostage pending the satisfactory settlement of the Suffrage Question. As you are aware, Sir George Marklake has secured second place in the ballot for Private Member's Bills. Your daughter will be permitted to communicate with you by post, subject to reasonable censorship; on the day when you promise special facilities and Government support for the Marklake Bill, and again at the end of the Report Stage and Third Reading. The same privilege will be accorded at the end of each stage in the House of Lords, and she will be restored to you on the day following that on which the Bill receives the Royal Assent.

"You will hardly need to be reminded that the Marklake Bill is to be taken on the first Private Member's night after the Recess. Should you fail to give the assurances we require, it will be necessary for us to take such further steps as may seem best calculated to secure the settlement we desire."

It took me some minutes to digest the letter before I was in a condition to offer even the most perfunctory condolence. Now that the blow had been struck, I found myself wondering why it had never been attempted before.

"You've no clue?" I asked.

Rawnsley inspected the letter carefully and held it up to the light.

"Written with a Remington, I should say. And a new one, without a single defect in type or alignment. And the paper is made by Hitchcock. That's all I have to go on."

"What are you going to do?"

"Advise Scotland Yard, I suppose. Then await developments. I don't wish what I've told you this morning to go any further; no good purpose will be served by giving the militants a free advertisement. When I am in town, it is to be understood that Mavis is with her mother at Hanningford; and when I am at Hanningford, Mavis must be at Downing Street."

One has no business in private life to badger ministers with political questions, but I could not help asking what line Rawnsley proposed to take with the Marklake Bill. His grey eyes flashed with momentary fire.

"It won't be taken this session," he declared. "I'm moving to appropriate all Private Members' time for the Poor Law Bill. And that's all, I think; I must be getting back to my wife, she's--a good deal upset. Can you spare Nigel, Roden? I should like to take him if I may. Good-bye, Mr. Merivale. Good-bye, Mr. ---- Oh, by the way, Roden, remember you're tarred with the same brush. As soon as the Recess is over, you'll have to keep a close watch on your family. Harding's another; I shall have to warn him."

Rawnsley's departure left me with a feeling of anti-climax and vague discomfort. Short of assassination, which would have defeated its own object, a policy of abduction was the boldest and most effective that the militants could devise at a time when--in Joyce's words--all arguments had been exhausted on both sides and war _à outrance_ was declared by women who insisted on a vote against men who refused to concede it. I had every reason to think I knew whose brain had evolved that abduction policy; its reckless simplicity and directness were characteristic. Then and now I wondered, and still wonder, whether the author of that policy had sufficient imagination and perspective to appreciate the enormity of her offence, or the seriousness of the penalty attendant on non-success.

"Ber-luddy day!" exclaimed Michael, rejoining us in the library and delicately brushing occasional drops of moisture from his immaculate person. A heavy downpour of rain was starting, and though I looked like being spared initiation into the mysteries of golf--which I am not yet infirm enough to learn--it was not very clear how we were to kill time between meal and meal. Gladys was spending the morning quietly in her room, Philip wandered to and fro like a troubled spirit, and Sylvia had mysteriously departed.

In time Michael condescended to give us the reason. It appeared that while we were closeted with Rawnsley in the library, Robin had decided that rest and relaxation before his Schools could best be secured by the organisation of an impromptu Calico Ball, to be given that night to all who would come. While he sat at the telephone summoning the County of Hampshire to do his bidding, Sylvia had departed in her little white runabout to purchase masks and a bale of calico from Brandon Junction, and scour the neighbourhood in search of piano, violin, and 'cello. The wet afternoon was to be spent by the women of the party in improvising costumes, by the men in French-chalking the floor of the ball-room.

I took the precaution of calling on Gladys to acquaint her with the day's arrangements, and beg her to see that I was not compelled to wear any costume belittling to the dignity of a middle-aged uncle. Then after writing a bulletin to catch my brother at Gibraltar, I felt I had earned rest and a cheroot before luncheon. Brandon Court was one of those admirably appointed houses where you could be certain of finding wooden matches in every room; it was not, however, till I got back to the library that I found companionship and the Seraph. He was lying on a sofa writing slowly and painfully with his left hand.

"If that's volume three," I said, "I won't interrupt. If it's anything else, we'd better smoke and talk. I will do the smoking."

"I'm only scribbling," he answered. "There's no hurry about volume three."

"Your public--_quorum pars non magna sum_--is growing impatient."

"There won't be any volume three," he said quietly.

"But why not? I mean, a mere temporary hitch...."

"It's not that. If it wasn't for this hand I could write like, well, like you _do_ write once in a lifetime."

"What's to stop you?"

"Nothing. I only said there wouldn't be a volume three. I shan't publish it."

"Why not?"

His big blue eyes looked up at me thoughtfully for a moment from under their long lashes. Then he crumpled up the half-covered sheet of paper, remarking--

"There are some things you can't make public."

"But with a _nom de plume_...."

"I might let _you_ see it," he conceded.

There we had to leave the subject, as the library was soon afterwards invaded by zealous seekers after luncheon, first Lady Roden and Gartside, then the rest of the party with the single exception of Sylvia. Lady Roden walked over to the window and gazed in dismay at the unceasing downpour.

"Is Sylvia back yet, does anybody know?" she asked.

"She came in about a quarter of an hour ago," volunteered the Seraph.

"Was she very wet?"

"I didn't see her."

Lady Roden bustled out of the room to make first-hand investigation.

"She took a Burberry with her," Robin called out; then springing up he seized an ebony paper knife and advanced on Michael who was reclining decoratively on a Chesterfield sofa. "Talking of Burberries," he went on, with menace in his tone, "what the deuce d'you mean by stealing mine, Michael?"

"Wouldn't be seen dead in your bloody Burberry," Michael responded with delicate languor.

The Roden boys were all much of a size, and on the subject of raided and disputed garments a fierce border warfare raged unintermittently round their bedroom doors. It was so invariable a rule with Michael to meet all direct charges with an equally direct denial that his brothers placed but slight reliance on his word.

"What was it doing in your room, then?" persisted Robin, as he applied the paper-knife to the soles of Michael's feet.

"That was Phil's," said Michael ingenuously.

Robin turned to his elder brother with the suggestion of a little disciplinary boiling-oil.

"It'll be enough if we just ruffle him," answered the humane Philip. "Keep the door, Pat. Now, Robin!"

The perfect harmony of their attack argued long practice. Almost before I had time to move out of the way, Culling was standing with his back to the door while a scuffling trio on the hearthrug indicated that castigation was already being meted out. Within two minutes the immaculate Michael had been reduced to slim, white nudity, and even as the decorous Gartside proffered a consolatory "_Times'_ Educational Supplement," the two brothers and Culling had divided the raiment and taken their centrifugal course through the house, secreting boots, socks, tie and collar in a succession of ingeniously inaccessible places as they went. Then the gong sounded, and Gartside took me in to luncheon.

Such little breezes, as I afterwards discovered, were characteristic of Brandon Court when the three brothers were at home and Philip had forgotten his public dignity. I could have spared the present outbreak, as the inflammatory word "Burberry" had kept me from putting a certain question to the Seraph. At one-thirty he had told Lady Roden that Sylvia had come in about a quarter of an hour before: to be strictly accurate, she had entered the yard as the stable clock struck one-fifteen, and had come into the house three minutes later by a side door and gone straight to her room by a side staircase. The Seraph and I had been sitting in the library since twelve-forty-five. The library looked out over a terrace on to the lawn: stable yard, side door and side staircase were at the diametrically opposite angle of the house. It was impossible for any one, even with the Seraph's uncannily acute senses, to hear a sound from the stable yard; even had it been possible, he could not have identified it as the sound of Sylvia's return.

I put my question in the smoking-room after luncheon, but got no satisfactory answer. Meeting Sylvia in the hall a few minutes later, I took my revenge by setting her to find out.

The afternoon was spent in polishing the ball-room floor. Others worked, I offered advice. At one point, Michael, too, showed a tendency to offer advice, but the threat that his young body would be dragged up and down till the bones cut through the skin and scratched the floor, was effectual in persuading him to swathe his feet in towels and wade through uncharted seas of French chalk to the infinite detriment of the blue colour-scheme he had been forced into adopting for luncheon.

Mrs. Roden, Sylvia and Gladys retired with their three maids and a bale of calico. From time to time one of us would be summoned to have our measurements taken, but no indication was manifested of the guise in which we were to appear. At eight we retired to our rooms with sinking hearts; at eight-thirty a group of sheepish men loitered at the stair-head, waiting for one less self-conscious than the rest to give a lead to the others.

The ball--when it came and found us filled and reckless with dinner--proved an unqualified success. My indistinct memory of it recalls a number of pretty girls who danced well, talked very quickly, and called me--without exception--"my dear." I sat out two with Sylvia, and was cut three times by Gladys, who disappeared with Philip at an early stage. Further, I supped twice with two creditably hungry girls, discussed the lineage of the county with Lady Roden, and smoked a sympathetic cigarette with a nice-looking shy boy of fifteen, who was always being cut by Gladys when he was not being cut by some one else. His name was Willoughby, and I hope some girl has smiled on him less absent-mindedly than my niece.

In my few spare moments I watched Sylvia dealing with her male guests. Culling approached and was rewarded with a smile and one dance. Gartside followed and received an even sweeter, Tristan-und-Isolde smile, and the same proportion of her programme. The Seraph, arm-in-sling, hung unostentatiously on the outskirts of the crowd, and with much hesitation summoned courage to ask if she could spare him one to sit out. She gave him two, and extended it later to three.

I heard afterwards that at the end of the third he prepared to return to the ball-room.

"Who are you taking this one with?" she asked him.

"No one," he told her.

"Why not stay here, then?"

"Haven't you promised it to young Willoughby?"

"He'll survive the disappointment," said Sylvia lightly.

The Seraph shook his head. "May I have one later?" he asked. "You oughtn't to cut Willoughby, he's been looking forward to it."

Sylvia was not accustomed or inclined to dictation from others.

"Have you asked him?" she said, uncertain whether to be amused or angry.

"It wasn't necessary. Haven't you felt his eyes on you while you were dancing? He thinks you're the most wonderful girl in the world. There he's right. He'll treasure up every word you speak, every smile you give him; he'll send himself to sleep picturing ways of saving your life at the cost of his own. And he'll dream of you all night."

The Seraph's tranquil, unemotional voice had grown so earnest that Sylvia found herself growing serious in spite of herself.

"I wish you wouldn't discuss me with boys like that," she said, more to gain time than administer reproof.

"Should I have discussed you?" exclaimed the Seraph. "And would he have told me? Why can't you, why can't any girl understand the mind of a boy of fifteen? You'd make such men of them if you'd only take the trouble. Look at him now, he's thinking out wonderful speeches to make to you...."

"I _hope_ not," said Sylvia ruefully.

"He'll forget them all when he meets you. I was fifteen once."

"I wonder if you'll ever be more."

The Seraph made no answer.

"That wasn't meant for a snub," said Sylvia reassuringly.

"I know that."

Sylvia looked at him curiously. "Is there anything you _don't_ know?" she asked as they descended the stairs to the ball-room.

"I don't even know if you're going to let me take you in to supper."

"I'm glad there's something."

"That's not an answer."

"Do you want to?"

"You ought to know that without asking."

"I'm afraid there's a great deal about you I _don't_ know."

Supper was ended and their table deserted before Sylvia put the question with which I had primed her that afternoon.

"Is there anything I _don't_ know? to use your own words," said the Seraph evasively.

"That's not an answer, to use yours."

"It's the only answer I can give," he replied, with that curious expression in his dark eyes that did duty for a smile.

"Why won't you tell me? I'm interested. It's about myself, so I've a right to know."

"But I can't explain; I don't know. It never happened before."

"Never?"

The Seraph thought over his first meeting with her the previous day.

"Never with any one else," he answered.

Sylvia shook her head in perplexity.

"I don't understand," she said. "Either it was just coincidence and you were talking without thinking, or else ... I don't know. It's rather funny. D'you want to smoke? Let's go out on to the terrace."

"The detectives are there."

"No, father said they weren't to appear to-night."

"They're out there."

"How d'you know?"

"I can hear them."

Sylvia looked round at the closed plate-glass windows.

"You _can't_," she said incredulously.

"Will you bet? No, I don't want to rob you. Shall I tell you something else? You opened a fresh bottle of scent to-night when you dressed for dinner. It's Chaminade, the same kind that you were using before, but this is fresher. Had you noticed it?"

The Seraph was considerably less impressed by his powers than Sylvia appeared to be.

"Anything else?" she asked after a pause.

The Seraph wrinkled his brows in thought.

"Gladys Merivale was coughing last night," he said. "Some one passed my door at two o'clock and went into her room. I don't know who it was, but it wasn't you. The coughing stopped for a time, but started again just before three. Then you passed by and went in."

"How do you know?"

"I heard you."

"You may have heard some one; you didn't know it was me. I went once and mother went once. You couldn't tell which was which."

The Seraph lit a cigarette and walked with her to the door of the supper-room.

"Oh, it was your mother?" he said. "Then she went the first time."

"But how do you know?" Sylvia repeated.

"I can't explain, any more than about the car coming back this morning."

Sylvia shook her head a little uneasily.

"You're abnormal," she pronounced.

"Because I...?"

"Go on."

"Because I know a fraction more about you than other people?"

"Do you?"

"Only a fraction. It would take time to understand you."

"How much? I hate to be thought a sphinx."

"However little I wanted, we should be parted before I got it."

"Why? How? How parted?"

The Seraph shrugged his shoulders.

"Don't ask me to read the future," he said with a sigh.

At the end of the ball I found the Roden boys congratulating themselves on the success of the evening. I added my quota of praise, and was pressed to state if I now felt equal to three successive nights at Commemoration.

"Which reminds me!" Robin exclaimed, flying off at his usual tangent. "Where's Sylvia? Sylvia, my angel, what about Commem.?"

His sister looked tired but happy, and in some way excited.

"I'll come if you want me," she answered, putting her arm round Robin's neck and kissing him good-night. "Yes, all right--I will. Oh, Mr. Rawnsley told me this morning that Mavis wouldn't be able to come, so you must get another girl."

Robin dropped his voice confidentially.

"See if you can persuade Cynthia to come. And we're still a man short."

Sylvia looked slowly round the room with thoughtful, unsmiling eyes--past Culling, past Gartside....

"Will you come, Seraph?" she asked.

Less than a day and a half had passed since I had noticed her practice of avoiding Christian names. For some reason I had supposed nicknames to fall into the same category.