Chapter 18

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THE back parlour of the Cat and Chickens was empty and to Amy it was like a chamber in a palace. There was a bright fire burning and the two horsehair easy-chairs, worn at the edges and dicky as to springs, were drawn up invitingly towards it. As soon as the door was closed, she threw her arms around her cousin’s neck---her little stream of words was incoherent but there was no doubt about her gratitude. The pendant indeed was more beautiful than anything she had ever dreamed of possessing.

“Ernest, you darling,” she exclaimed, as she drew away breathless. “Come and sit down, and pull your chair close to mine. What can I say? What can I do for you?”

Ernest Pank, who was a little embarrassed, knocked at the wooden trapdoor with the end of his stick, and the landlord’s smiling face presently appeared. He greeted his client with a beam of welcome.

“Whisky and soda, and a glass of port for the young lady,” was the order he received.

“I’ll bring them in directly, sir.”

The trapdoor was softly closed and Pank drew the two chairs a trifle nearer the fire. Amy still hung around him and before they seated themselves she bestowed upon him one more long fervent kiss.

“Ernie,” she murmured.

He held her in his arms but whispered caution.

“He’ll be bringing in the drinks directly. Better sit down while we talk.”

She unwound her arms reluctantly.

“How long are you going to stop this time?” she demanded. “And are you going to take me up to London when you go? I’m so tired of Norwich.”

“Don’t be silly, dear,” he said firmly. “I couldn’t take you up to London and you know it. What would your father and mother say? Besides, I’m a hard-working man. I wouldn’t have time to look after you.”

The door was noisily opened. A familiar figure half lounged, half staggered in. His appearance was less attractive than ever. His flannel collar was crumpled and stained and his necktie was a disgrace. His clothes looked as though he had slept in them and the laces of one of his boots were undone. He was pale and unwholesomely moist. His hair, a rusty brown sprinkled with grey, looked as though it had remained untouched by comb or brush for days. He recognised Pank with a wave of the hand.

“Look who’s here,” he exclaimed, leaning against the table. “Came back to the little city all right, eh? No place like it. I’ve been paid for my last job---paid by a gentleman as knows good work when he gets it. What’s it going to be?”

If looks could have killed, the newcomer would have been dead, for Amy had formed plans of her own with regard to this opulent, nicely spoken cousin of hers, and she believed in impetuous methods. Pank, however, although no sign of it appeared in his face, was full of secret satisfaction.

“Sit down with us, Mr. Humble,” he invited. “You’re too late this time, as we’ve already ordered. Another whisky and soda,” he called through the trapdoor which the landlord had just opened.

“Under those circumstances, I’ll join you with pleasure,” Mr. Humble conceded graciously. “I am for the moment in an affluent position, and in confidence I don’t mind telling you that in another fortnight’s time I expect to be a rich man.”

“Fine,” Pank murmured. “Wonderful.”

Mr. Humble waved his hand.

“Money,” he declared, “will never make me proud. I’ll drink with you, my young friend, with pleasure. Afterwards, we’ll see. You and I, the young lady and Harry will each give a name to it. We’ll drink to my boss. A wonderful world it would be if there were more like him.”

Pank almost shivered with anticipation.

“What’s his name?” he asked, with as much carelessness in his tone as he could command.

“Never you mind that, young fellow,” Mr. Humble enjoined, patting him on the back. “I’m glad to see you again. I know a gentleman when I see one. I recognised what you were, directly I came in here for the first time. You’re a gentleman. My boss is a gentleman. I’m a gentleman. But you and I,” he sighed---“no good talking---we ain’t like him. We’re all right, but we ain’t the same. You’re a lucky young woman,” he added, turning to Amy. “Take care of him.”

She tossed her head.

“I don’t get much of a chance,” she replied. “We were just having a sort of intimate talk when you came in.”

“That’s fine,” Mr. Humble declared, pulling up the couch and spreading himself out in the corner. “Don’t you mind me. Anything you’ve got to say goes in at one ear and out at the other, so far as Humble is concerned.”

“Did you propose to your wife with a third person in the room?” Amy enquired.

Mr. Humble chuckled. The hint, if it was a hint, was wasted.

“Never had a wife,” he declared proudly. “Never wanted a wife. Been without a wife all my life. I shouldn’t have had any money to spend upon myself if I had had a wife. Married life,” he went on, sitting up a little and wagging his forefinger towards Pank, “is all very well for them it suits. It don’t suit me. That’s all. I like to have a bob in my pocket for a glass of beer or a drop of spirits when I’m feeling low.”

“I should think you generally feel that way, don’t you?” Amy asked bitterly.

He leaned forward in his place and faced her.

“Young lady,” he demanded, “are you the fiancée of my friend, Mr. Pank?”

“Never mind what I am,” was the sharp reply. “I was having a kind of private talk with him, anyway, when you butted in.”

“If you’re the fiancée of my young friend,” Mr. Humble continued, “there’s nothing more to be said. I may regret the fact but I shall keep my feelings to myself. In any case let me tell you this,---Mr. Pank and I have tastes in common. We seldom meet; when we do it’s a mutual pleasure. A mutual pleasure, I think, Mr. Pank?”

Her cousin’s reply was bitterly disappointing to Amy.

“Mr. Humble,” he said earnestly, “there’s no man I like to have a chat with more than you. Here are our drinks. Now, Amy, sit up and join us. Looks like good port.”

“The port’s all right,” Amy declared shortly.

“How’s business, Mr. Humble?” Pank enquired.

“I’m doing nothing at the moment,” the former confided in a little outburst of frankness. “My last piece of work was a very ticklish and important commission. I have received the first instalment of my payment for it and I am now resting. I’m waiting for what may come along. With regard to funds,” he went on, “if that trifling amount---”

“That’s all right,” Pank interrupted graciously. “I’m not dunning you, if that’s what you are thinking about.”

“Never gave it a thought,” Mr. Humble declared, with a magnificent gesture. “Between gentlemen those matters are not discussed. They just right themselves when the---er---time comes. How is the heel business?”

“Excellent,” Pank admitted. “Talking about business,” he added, “I showed you my sample heel the other day, so you know what my job is. What might yours be?”

Mr. Humble drained the contents of his tumbler and watched Pank signal to the barman with apparent unconsciousness.

“In one sense of the word, I am an artist,” he confided.

“I guessed it was something like that,” his young friend remarked respectfully. “A sculptor perhaps or something of that sort.”

“Why sculptor?” the other demanded, toying with the idea and apparently disliking it.

“Because of your hands. There’s a look of the artist about you and yet seemingly you work with your hands.”

“Quite the Sherlock Holmes, aren’t you?” Mr. Humble observed, accepting his refilled tumbler with mild surprise. “Here’s the best. My turn next, remember. Well, as it happens, you are absolutely right about that. A sculptor I am not---never tried my hand at it. Painting I have done on a large scale and a small. Designing and fitting---all that comes into my work. Have another guess, my boy.”

“You’ve got me floored,” Pank confessed. “Put us out of our misery.”

“I’ll do so,” Mr. Humble conceded graciously. “I see no harm in telling you that I am a well-known builder of scenery in cinema studios.”

Ex-detective Pank suffered the intelligence to sink into his sufficiently alert mind. There was perhaps a single spark of fire in his eyes---a single throb under his neat waistcoat. It was only one thread of the skein but it was wound tightly around his fingers.

“I felt certain that you were something of the sort,” he declared. “What do you think of that, Amy?”

Amy had relapsed into gloom and was only faintly interested.

“I have made some queer sets in my time too,” Mr. Humble went on reflectively. “Some that I ain’t going to talk about, even to you. There are times when it pays us to boost our work and others when we get well paid for saying nothing about it. My last job---well, never mind about that. It’s the one I don’t talk about.”

Pank moved his chair a little closer to the fire. He drew a gasper from his pocket and lit it with difficulty. One of his hands was tightly imprisoned in Amy’s. He leaned back with an air of satisfaction.

“I wonder whether you ever worked at that studio that they have pulled down now, out Hellesdon way?” he speculated.

“I may have done,” was the cautious reply. “What do you know about the place?”

“Nothing. Only I was staying at the Royal about the middle of December, and there were some men there---three of them---who, I believe, were in the film business. I heard them say something about the studio one night, and I rather thought they were going to buy it. I passed there the other day, though, and it was all pulled down.”

“Closing time in ten minutes, gentlemen,” the landlord called out, opening the trapdoor.

Mr. Humble had apparently gone off into a brown study. His eyes were fixed upon the ceiling and his thoughts seemed to be far away.

“Same again, Harry,” Pank ordered briskly. “No, I know what you’re going to say, Mr. Humble. Can’t be done. You can stand what you like outside this place, but here I’m at home.”

Mr. Humble conceded the point and accepted a cigarette.

“Three of them there were,” his young friend continued reflectively. “Seemed to have plenty of money. Champagne all the time in the coffee-room.”

Humble nodded darkly. He had assumed an air of mystery.

“Payne, one of them called himself.”

“Little sandy chap?”

“Come to think of it, he was,” Pank agreed. “Did they do business up at your show?”

Mr. Humble sampled the contents of his last tumbler. His speech was somewhat less precise and he had difficulty with his cigarette.

“A fortnight ago, Ernest Pank,” he said, “I should not have answered you that question. I shouldn’t have answered even you, one of my old pals. To-day it don’t matter. The business is wound up. Yes, they did come there, and a rummy go it was.”

Ernest Pank yawned as he glanced at his watch. He rose to his feet and Amy followed suit with alacrity. Mr. Humble, however, had not finished.

“In my career, if you can call it a career,” he went on reminiscently, “I have come across things which the ordinary person might call mysterious, things the ordinary person would not be able to understand at all. I don’t know, though, that anything could cap this business up at the studio. The set I made up there to order was one of the finest that has ever been seen. Money poured out, all the timber I wanted, all the help, all the tools. Finest scene I’ve ever made. Couldn’t have been beaten in the States---couldn’t have been beaten anywhere. They all came up to look at it. They all said the same thing. There was a bit of a rehearsal one night. The company was to start turning the next day, and when the next day came---you won’t believe me, Ernest my lad, but it’s true---every one got their notice and within twenty-four hours the place was a pack of ruins.”

“You’re joking!” Pank exclaimed.

“A pack of ruins, that’s what it was,” Mr. Humble continued doggedly. “That marvellous set of mine, a wonderful work of art, was broken up and half the stuff was burnt. Pretty well brought the tears into my eyes. If I could have taken it just as it was to Sam Goldwyn, or any one of those big Americans, he would have given me a contract on the spot.”

“Seems a queer business,” Ernest Pank remarked. “I don’t see what there was for those men to buy, if they broke it all up afterwards.”

“A mystery,” Mr. Humble pronounced, holding his glass unsteadily in his hand and surveying its diminished contents. “That’s the word I used. That’s what it was. They were up there that one night, the studio all aflame and the set working. The next day they were gone, and in the morning you couldn’t tell where the studio had been. Where’s the sense of it? Now, you are a young man I have a high opinion of, Mr. Ernest Pank, I ask you---where’s the sense of it?”

“A fool’s business, it seems to me,” his friend pronounced.

“You’re right,” Mr. Humble agreed. “That’s what it was. A fool’s business. That scene of mine might have made me a fortune, with me to run it, if Sam Goldwyn---”

“What was the scene?”

Mr. Humble drained the remaining contents of his tumbler, then he rose to his feet.

“Paid double to keep my mouth shut,” he said sorrowfully. “Not that it matters here in present company, but a man should keep his word. Better take your young cousin home, Miss,” he added to Amy. “I like him. He’s a dear young friend of mine, but somehow when we’re together, talk I must.”

“To take him home is just what I’m waiting to do,” Amy agreed tartly. “Come along, Ernest.”

Mr. Humble’s leave-taking was almost precipitate.

“Good-night all,” was his final salutation.

They heard him stumbling down the passage, heard the front door slam behind him. Ernest Pank seemed to have relapsed into a fit of abstraction. His good-night was a purely mechanical movement of the lips. His eyes were fixed upon the door through which Mr. Humble had disappeared. Ideas were forming in his brain. . . . Amy tugged at his sleeve.

“Don’t you think that you might kiss me good-night,” she suggested tearfully, “now that that horrid man is gone?”

The detective vanished, the man survived. He folded her in his arms.

“Dear Cousin Amy,” he whispered.

“Not so much ‘cousin,’ ” she sighed.