XVIII

Jeff Legge reclined in a long cane chair on a lawn which stretched to the edge of a cliff. Before him were the blue waters of the Channel, and the more gorgeous blue of an unflecked sky. He reached out his hand and took a glass that stood on the table by his side, sipped it with a wry face and called a name pettishly.

It was Lila who came running to his side.

“Take this stuff away, and bring me a whisky-and-soda,” he said.

“The doctor said you weren’t to have anything but lime juice. Oh, Jeff, you must do as he tells you,” she pleaded.

“I’ll break your head for you when I get up,” he snarled. “Do as you’re told. Where’s the governor?”

“He’s gone into the village to post some letters.”

He ruminated on this, and then:

“If that busy comes, you can tell him I’m too ill to be seen.”

“Who⁠—Craig?”

“Yes,” he growled, “the dirty, twisting thief! Johnny would have been in boob for this if he hadn’t straightened Craig. If he didn’t drop a thousand to keep off the moor, I’m a dead man!”

She pulled up a low chair to his side.

“I don’t think Johnny did it,” she said. “The old man thinks it was Peter. The window was found open after. He could have come in by the fire-escape⁠—he knows the way.”

He grumbled something under his breath, and very discreetly she did not press home her view.

“Where’s Marney⁠—back with her father?”

She nodded.

“Who told him I was married to you?”

“I don’t know, Jeff,” she said.

“You liar! You told him; nobody else could have known. If I get ‘bird’ for this marriage, I’ll kill you, Lila. That’s twice you’ve squeaked on me.”

“I didn’t know what I was saying. I was half mad with worry.”

“I wish you’d gone the whole journey,” he said bitterly. “It isn’t the woman⁠—I don’t care a damn about that. It’s the old man’s quarrel, and he’s got to get through with it. It’s the other business being disorganised that’s worrying me. Unless it’s running like clockwork, you’ll get a jam; and when you’ve got a jam, you collect a bigger crowd than I want to see looking at my operations. You didn’t squeak about that, I suppose?”

“No, Jeff, I didn’t know.”

“And that’s the reason you didn’t squeak, eh?”

He regarded her unfavourably. And now she turned on him.

“Listen, Jeff Legge. I’m a patient woman, up to a point, and I’ll stand for all your bad temper whilst you’re ill. But you’re living in a new age, Jeff, and you’d better wake up to the fact. All that Bill Sikes and Nancy stuff never did impress me. I’m no clinger. If you got really rough with me, I’d bat you, and that’s a fact. It may not be womanly, but it’s wise. I never did believe in the equality of the sexes, but no girl is the weaker vessel if she gets first grip of the kitchen poker.”

Very wisely he changed the subject.

“I suppose they searched the club from top to bottom?” he said.

“They did.”

“Did they look in the loft?”

“I believe they did. Stevens told me that they turned everything inside out.”

He grunted.

“They’re clever,” he said. “It must be wonderful to be clever. Who’s this?” He scowled across the lawn at a strange figure that had appeared, apparently by way of the cliff gate.

She rose and walked to meet the stooping stranger, who stood, hat in hand, waiting for her and smiling awkwardly.

“I’m so sorry to intrude,” he said. “This is a beautiful place, is it not? If I remember rightly, this is the Dellsea Vicarage? I used to know the vicar⁠—a very charming man. I suppose you have taken the house from him?”

She was half amused, half annoyed.

“This is Dellsea Vicarage,” she said curtly. “Do you want to see anybody?”

“I wanted to see Mr. Jeffrey”⁠—he screwed up his eyes and stared at the sky, as though trying to withdraw from some obscure cell of memory a name that would not come without special effort⁠—“Mr. Jeffrey Legge⁠—that is the name⁠—Mr. Jeffrey Legge.”

“He is very ill and can’t be seen.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” said the stranger, his mild face expressing the intensest sympathy. “Very sorry indeed.”

He fixed his big, round glasses on the tip of his nose, for effect apparently, because he looked over them at her.

“I wonder if he would see me for just a few minutes. I’ve called to inquire about his health.”

“What is your name?” she asked.

“Reeder⁠—J. G. Reeder.”

The girl felt her colour go, and turned quickly.

“I will ask him,” she said.

Jeff heard the name and pursed his lips.

“That’s the man the bank are running⁠—or maybe it’s the Government⁠—to trail me,” he said in a low tone. “Slip him along, Lila.”

Mr. Reeder was beckoned across the lawn, and came with quick, mincing steps.

“I’m so sorry to see that you’re in such a deplorable condition, Mr. Legge,” he said. “I hope your father is well?”

“Oh, you’ve met the old man, have you?” said Jeffrey in surprise.

Mr. Reeder nodded.

“Yes; I have met your father,” he said. “A very entertaining and a very ingenious man. Very!” The last word was spoken with emphasis.

Jeff was silent at this tribute to his parent’s amiability.

“There has been a lot of talk in town lately about a certain nefarious business that is being carried on⁠—surreptitiously, of course,” said Mr. Reeder, choosing his words with care. “I who live out of the world, and in the backwater of life, hear strange rumours about the distribution of illicit money⁠—I think the cant term is ‘slush’ or ‘slosh’⁠—probably it is ‘slush.’ ”

“It is ‘slush,’ ” agreed Jeff, not knowing whether to be amused or alarmed, and watching the man all the time.

“Now I feel sure that the persons who are engaged in this practice cannot be aware of the enormously serious nature of their offence,” said Mr. Reeder confidentially.

He broke off his lecture to look around the lawn and well-stocked garden that flanked it on either side.

“How beautiful is the world, Mr. Jeff⁠—I beg your pardon, Mr. Legge,” he said. “How lovely those flowers are! I confess that the sight of bluebells always brings a lump to my throat. I don’t suppose they are bluebells,” he added, “for it is rather late in the year. But that peculiar shade of blue! And those wonderful roses⁠—I can smell them from here.”

He closed his eyes, raised his nose and sniffed loudly⁠—a ludicrous figure; but Jeff Legge did not laugh.

“I know very little, but I understand that in Dartmoor Prison there are only a few potted flowers, and that those are never seen by the prisoners, except by one privileged man whose task it is to tend them. A lifer, generally. Life without flowers must be very drab, Mr. Legge.”

“I’m not especially fond of flowers,” said Jeffrey.

“What a pity!” said the other regretfully. “What a thousand pities! But there is no sea view from that establishment, no painted ships upon a painted ocean⁠—which is a quotation from a well-known poem; no delightful sense of freedom; nothing really that makes life durable for a man under sentence, let us say, of fifteen or twenty years.”

Jeff did not reply.

“Do you love rabbits?” was the surprising question that was put to him.

“No, I can’t say that I do.”

Lila sat erect, motionless, all her senses trained to hear and understand.

Mr. Reeder sighed.

“I am very fond of rabbits. Whenever I see a rabbit in a cage or in a hutch, I buy it, take it to the nearest wood and release it. It may be a foolish kindness, because, born and reared in captivity, it may not have the necessary qualities to support itself amongst its wilder fellows. But I like letting rabbits loose; other people like putting rabbits in cages.” He shook his finger in Jeffrey’s face. “Never be a rabbit in a cage, Mr. Jeffrey⁠—or is it Mr. Legge? Yes, Mr. Legge.”

“I am neither a rabbit, nor a chicken, nor a fox, nor a skylark,” said Jeffrey. “The cage hasn’t been built that could hold me.”

Again Mr. Reeder sighed.

“I remember another gentleman saying that some years ago. I forget in what prison he was hanged. Possibly it was Wandsworth⁠—yes, I am sure it was Wandsworth. I saw his grave the other day. Just his initials. What a pity! What a sad end to a promising career! He is better off, I think, for twenty long years in a prison cell, that is a dreadful fate, Mr. Legge! And it is a fate that would never overtake a man who decided to reform. Suppose, let us say, he was forging Bank of England notes, and decided that he would burn his paper and his water-markers, dismiss all his agents⁠ ⁠… I don’t think we should worry very much about that type of person. We should meet him generously and liberally, especially if his notes were of such excellent quality that they were difficult for the uninitiated to detect.”

“What has happened to Golden?” asked Jeffrey boldly.

The eyes of the elderly man twinkled.

“Golden was my predecessor,” he said. “A very charming fellow, by some accounts⁠—”

Again Jeffrey cut him short.

“He used to be the man who was looking after the ‘slush’ for the police. Is he dead?”

“He has gone abroad,” said Mr. Reeder gravely. “Yes, Mr. Golden could not stand this climate. He suffered terribly from asthma, or it may have been sciatica. I know there was an a at the end of it. Did you ever meet him? Ah! You missed a very great opportunity,” said Mr. Reeder. “Golden was a nice fellow⁠—not as smart, perhaps, as he might have been, or as he should have been, but a very nice fellow. He did not work, perhaps, so much in the open as I do; and there I think he was mistaken. It is always an error to shut yourself up in an office and envelop yourself in an atmosphere of mystery. I myself am prone to the same fault. Now, my dear Mr. Legge, I am sure you will take my parable kindly, and will give it every thought and consideration.”

“I would, if I were a printer of ‘slush,’ but, unfortunately, I’m not,” said Jeffrey Legge with a smile.

“You’re not, of course,” the other hastened to say. “I wouldn’t dream of suggesting you were. But with your vast circle of acquaintances⁠—and, I’m sure, admirers⁠—you may perhaps be able to convey my simple little illustration. I don’t like to see rabbits in cages, or birds in cages, or anything else behind bars. And I think that Dartmoor is so⁠—what shall I say?⁠—unaesthetic. And it seems such a pity to spend all the years in Devonshire. In the spring, of course, it is delightful; in the summer it is hot; in the winter, unless you’re at Torquay, it is deplorable. Good morning, Mr. Legge.”

He bowed low to the girl, and, bowing, his spectacles fell off. Stooping, he picked them up with an apology and backed away and they watched him in silence till he had disappeared from view.