The Day of Uniting/Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI.
Usually Jimmy Blake found no difficulty in amusing himself between dinner and bed-time, but to-night time dragged. He wandered disconsolately into Jerry's study and stood watching him enviously, for it was Gerald van Roon's complaint that there were only twenty-four hours in the day and that he had to waste seven of these in sleep.
“What are you doing, Jerry?” he asked complainingly.
“I'm doing an article for the Scientific Englishman,” said Gerald, looking up, by no means pleased at the interruption.
“What about?” asked Jimmy, seating himself uninvited and lighting a cigarette.
Gerald van Roon pushed his chair back from the table with an air of resignation.
“It is in relation to a controversy which has recently arisen in scientific circles as to whether the scientist should take the public into his confidence in moments of national emergency.”
“What do you think?”
“I believe that the public should know,” said Gerald. “The controversy arose as to the scare of last spring that the wheat and root harvest would fail owing to the presence of some microorganism which had made a mysterious appearance. It looked as though the world was going to be starved of bread and roots. The thing was kept dark and happily the danger did not materialize, but I say that the public should have been told.”
“What a queer old fish you are, Jerry! Put down your pen and come out and be human. I'm bored stiff, and I've half a mind to go up to London and see a revue. It doesn't start until nine o'clock, and we should only miss half an hour of it.”
“I'm not interested in revues or theaters and nobody knows that better than you, Jimmy,” said the other irritably. “Besides, I must finish this article to-night.”
Jimmy rose with a sigh and loafed back to his own den. He tried to read, but his mind was not upon the page. The phrase “falling in love” is more or less a figure of speech to denote an unusual attraction and interest in a person of the opposite sex, plus an extraordinary sense of loss when they have temporarily gone out of one's life. Delia, from the first moment he saw her, was attractive to him. There was something about her which was ineffably sweet and feminine. She was serene without being complacent, efficient but not terrifyingly so. There was not a scrap of affectation in her make-up.
Jimmy wondered how she spent her evenings. Did she ever go to theaters or dinners? He had not even suggested he should meet her. He could do nothing surreptitious or furtive, and he was conscious that anything in the nature of a clandestine meeting would be repugnant to her as it was to him.
She lived in a tiny house which was one of fifty other tiny houses in a drab suburban street. She had no mother, she had told him. She and her father lived alone, a woman coming in in the daytime to do the housework. What a life for a girl—a girl like Delia! He strolled restlessly into the drawing-room and sat down opposite to the chair where, an hour before, she had rested her deep, grave eyes on his as he recounted an air adventure which had all but ended in his finish. He could picture her every movement, the quick movement of her pink hands, the sudden uplift of her eyebrows, the softening of her look when he spoke of his friend who had been shot down and had died in Jimmy's arms.
He got up quickly and, cursing himself for an idiot, went back to his study. This time he did make some attempt to write letters, and working up an interest in the subject, he was fully occupied when the door of the study opened and Gerald appeared. At the sight of him Jimmy stared.
“Where the dickens are you going?” he asked, for Gerald was dressed and was wearing a light raincoat. What interested the other more than his attire, was the seriousness of his cousin's face.
“I've got to go out, Jimmy,” said Van Roon. “I don't know how long I shall be away, but please don't wait up for me. I have a key.”
“Where are you going?”
Gerald shook his head.
“I'm afraid I can't tell you. I've been asked to keep the matter confidential, and I'm afraid I must keep my movements a secret.”
“Has it anything to do with Maggerson?”
Gerald hesitated.
“I can't even tell you that,” he said briefly. 'Don't ask me, old boy, and don't sit up for me! I tell you this, that I haven't the slightest idea what the business is all about.”
“It sounds like a conspiracy to me,” smiled Jimmy. “Well, so long. Keep away from the drink!”
He sat a little longer at his desk, but he did not work. Presently he rose and, going in search of his butler, found him locking up.
“Who was it came for Mr. van Roon?” asked Jimmy.
“I don't know, sir. To tell you the truth, Mr. Blake, I was sitting under the porch having a quiet pipe before I went to bed, a habit of mine, sir, for thirty years, as you well know.”
“Don't tell me the story of your life, Stephens,” said Jimmy. “Who came for Mr. van Roon?”
“Well, sir, I saw two people coming up the drive. They must have seen the glow of my pipe, because they stopped, and then one of them came on. 'Is this Mr. van Roon's house?' this gentleman asked, and he was a gentleman by his tone. 'Begging your pardon, sir, this is Mr. Blake's house, but Mr. van Roon lives here,' says I.”
Jimmy chuckled at the distinction.
“'I've a letter for him which is very urgent,' said the gentleman, and all the time he kept about half a dozen paces from me. 'Wil you come and get it?' says he. I thought it was very strange, his not coming up to the front door, but I went down the drive and took it from his hand.”
“Did you recognize him?” asked Jimmy.
The butler shook his head.
“No, sir, he had his coat collar turned up. It's raining, I suppose you know, and I didn't catch sight of so much as the tip of his nose. I took the letter in to Mr. van Roon and he opened it and read it and he seemed a bit surprised. That is all I know, sir.”
“Did you let Mr. van Roon out?”
“No, sir, he let himself out. I've got an idea that the gentlemen were waiting for him.”
“That's queer,” said Jimmy. “All right, Stephens, lock up. Good night.”
And Jimmy went back to his study which was a big room on the ground floor, communicating by French windows with the lawn and the tennis court.
He looked at his watch. It was a quarter to twelve. His curiosity was piqued. Who on earth were these mysterious individuals with their “coat collars turned up” and presumably their hats pulled over their eyes like melodramatic plotters? That was not Gerald van Roon's line at all. He dealt in simple things, or simple they were to him, like bugs and reaction tests and uninteresting bits of stone, and masses of calculations. There was no romance in his soul, or woman in his life, and people did not call him out at midnight to discuss the atomic theory or the differential calculus.
Jimmy found a pack of cards and spent an unprofitable hour playing patience. At one o'clock he went to the front door, opened it, and looked out. A thin drizzle of rain was falling, but behind the clouds was a hint of a moon. Save for the drip, drip of rain there was no sound. He thought he had heard the wheels of a taxicab, but it was on the other side of the heath on the road running parallel with the boundary wall of Greenwich Park.
He threw his cigarette away and went back to his study again. Two o'clock came, but there was no sign of Gerald. For some extraordinary reason his absence was getting on Jimmy's nerves, though it was not an unusual thing for one or the other to be out at night, and to worry was stark lunacy. He shuffled his cards and began dealing “sevens.”
He stopped suddenly, a card in his hand and listened. He had heard something, and now he heard it again—a “tap, tap” on the study window. The sound was muffled by the curtains and the shutters which covered the French casement, but unmistakably it came from the study window. Perhaps Jerry had forgotten his key after all. He got up quickly, went out into the hall and opened the door.
“Is that you, Jerry?” he asked.
He saw a slight figure coming toward him, the figure of a woman.
“Who is that?” he asked.
“It is Delia Sennett,” said a soft voice and Jimmy's jaw dropped.
“Delia!” he said, hardly believing his ears. “Good heavens! Whatever are you doing out at this time of night? Come in!”
She was clad in a long mackintosh, shiningly wet, and he helped her off with it. There was only a momentary glint of amusement in her eyes as she looked up to him and he saw that she was deeply troubled.
“Come into the study,” he said. “This is the most extraordinary happening! Where is your father?”
“He left me just as your door opened,” she said.
Jimmy could only sit and stare at her when she told her story.
“About an hour ago, perhaps a little more, after daddy and I had gone to bed,” she said, “somebody knocked at the door, and father went down and answered it. I thought at first it was Tom Elmers, and I was frightened because Tom has made threats against father which he may, in his madness, carry out. Daddy was a long time gone, and I got out of bed, put on my dressing gown, and went halfway down the stairs, when he heard me and ordered me to stay where I was. Then he came up and told me that he'd been called out on very important business. I think I should have agreed to staying in the house alone, but he wouldn't hear of it. He went downstairs again, and I heard him talking to somebody at the door. Who it was, he would not say.
“'Delia,' he said, when he came back, 'I'll take you to Mr. van Roon's house and leave you there. Perhaps the housekeeper will look after you. I shall be out all night.' It had been raining when I went to bed, and I did not want to go out, but he insisted. He said whatever happened he couldn't leave me in the house alone. That was nothing new. Ever since—Mr. Elmers was so unpleasant, father has refused night duty. So I dressed, came down, and found a taxi-cab waiting. The man who came for father had disappeared. We drove till we came to the end of the heath—this Blackheath—and then we got down. I thought I saw a car waiting at the side of the road, and I have an idea that the car had come on before us. From there we walked to the priory, and that is all I know.”
“You don't know where your father's gone?”
“I haven't the slightest idea,” said the girl.
“Has he gone back to London?”
“He may have.” She shook her head in a hopeless fashion and then they both laughed.
“Jerry isn't in yet; I'm expecting him every minute. He's had a mysterious summons, too.”
Before Jimmy went upstairs to rouse Mrs. Smith he told Delia what had happened earlier in the evening. Mrs. Smith, like the good old soul she was, came bustling down in her preposterous dressing gown and fussed around Delia like an old hen round a derelict chick, and in half an hour they had sent their charge off to bed and Jimmy continued his vigil.
Four o'clock came and brought no word from Jerry. Dawn had broken when Jimmy stepped again into the garden. The rain had ceased, the clouds were dispersing, and there was a promise of a fine day. He walked down the drive to the road and stood smoking. He looked along the road and across the shadowy heath. The only sign of life was the movement of a big, white motor car which was coming from the direction of Woolwich on the park side of the heath. Instead of passing along toward the Deptford road, it stopped, turned, and then remained stationary.
Jimmy was interested, and wondered what was the meaning of the maneuver. Then he saw a cyclist skimming across the heath path and only knew it was a cyclist by the rapidity with which it moved. Near at hand it proved to be a policeman. Jimmy shouted a “good morning,” and the policeman stopped and jumped down.
“I suppose you haven't anybody missing from this house, sir?” he asked.
“No,” said Gerald, and then remembering with a start, “My cousin hasn't come home yet, but I am expecting him any moment.”
“Oh, a lady?” said the policeman, turning to mount.
“No, a gentleman. Mr. van Roon.”
The policeman turned.
“What sort of a man was he in appearance, sir?”
“He is rather tall,” said Jimmy.
“How was he dressed?” asked the policeman quickly.
“In a black coat and vest and gray trousers,” said Jerry, in alarm. “Why, what has happened?”
“A gentleman has been killed on the heath—if he's not dead now, he will be soon. They're just taking him to the Herbert Hospital. He wore gray trousers and a black coat. Did your cousin wear horn-rimmed spectacles?”
Jimmy's heart sank.
“Yes,” he said huskily.
“Well, that's the man,” said the policeman. “He's been shot to pieces, and I doubt if he'll live till he gets to the hospital.”
“Good God!” gasped Jimmy and went white. “Just come in here, constable.”
Quickly he led the way into the house, and the policeman followed. Jimmy took up a photograph of Gerald from his study table and handed it to the constable. The man nodded.
“Yes, sir, that's the gentleman,” he said quietly.
Jimmy bit his lip. Gerald! A man without an enemy in the world. It seemed incredible!
“Do you mind going up to the second floor, knocking on every door and telling the servants what has happened?” he said. “I'll get my car out of the garage. The Herbert?” he said. “That's the military hospital?”
“Yes, sir. We had to get a military ambulance for him.”
Jimmy ran to the garage and soon the big Rolls was flying across the heath. By this time the ambulance had disappeared. Later he saw it waiting empty outside the principal entrance of Herbert Hospital. In the entrance hall of the building were two policemen. They were talking to a military doctor and turned at Jimmy's appearance.
“You think you know him, sir, do you?”
“I'm afraid I do,” said Jimmy breathlessly. “Is he still living?”
The doctor nodded.
“That is as much as I can say,” he said. “He is in the surgery. I have left him on the stretcher—we dare not move him.”
Jimmy followed the officer through a door and there, lying on the floor on the brown canvas stretcher, his face white and his lips queerly blue, was Gerald van Roon!
Jimmy choked a sob and knelt down by the side of the dying man. Jerry must have sensed the nearness of his friend, for he opened his eyes and his lips twisted in a little smile. He tried to speak, and Jimmy bent his head down until his ear was against the cold lips.
“I was a fool—I didn't realize—Schaffer's letter—forgot all about it—show it to them, Jimmy”
And here his voice ceased suddenly.
Gerald van Roon was dead.