Christopher and Columbus Part 49

"Go on," he said, as Mr. Twist paused.

"What I want to know is," burst out Mr. Twist, "what the h.e.l.l--"

The lawyer put up a hand. "One moment, Mr. Twist," he said. "Sorry to interrupt--"

And he got up quickly, and went to a door in the part.i.tion between his office and his clerks' room.

"You may go out to lunch now," he said, opening it a crack.

He then shut it, and came back to his seat at the table.

"Yes, Mr. Twist?" he said, settling down again. "You were inquiring what the h.e.l.l--?"

"Well, I was about to," said Mr. Twist, suddenly soothed, "but you're so calm--"

"Of course I'm calm. I'm a quietly married man."

"I don't see what that's got to do with it."

"Everything. For some dispositions, everything. Mine is one. Yours is another."

"Well, I guess I've not come here to talk about marriage. What I want to know is why--"

"Quite so," said the lawyer, as he stopped. "And I can tell you. It's because your inn is suspected of being run in the interests of the German Government."

A deep silence fell upon the room. The lawyer watched Mr. Twist with a detached and highly intelligent interest. Mr. Twist stared at the lawyer, his kind, lavish lips fallen apart. Anger had left him. This blow excluded anger. There was only room in him for blank astonishment.

"You know about my teapot?" he said at last.

"Try me again, Mr. Twist."

"It's on every American breakfast table."

"Including my own."

"They wouldn't use it if they thought--"

"My dear sir, they're not going to," said the lawyer. "They're proposing, among other little plans for conveying the general sentiment to your notice, to boycott the teapot. It is to be put on an unofficial black list. It is to be banished from the hotels."

Mr. Twist's stare became frozen. The teapot boycotted? The teapot his mother and sister depended on and The Open Arms depended on, and all his happiness, and the twins? He saw the rumour surging over America in great swift waves, that the proceeds of the Twist Non-Trickler were used for Germany. He saw--but what didn't he see in that moment of submerged horror? Then he seemed to come to the surface again and resume reason with a gasp. "Why?" he asked.

"Why they're wanting to boycott the teapot?"

"No. Why do they think the inn--"

"The Miss Twinklers are German."

"Half."

"The half that matters--begging my absent wife's pardon. I know all about that, you see. You started me off thinking them over by that ward notion of yours. It didn't take me long. It was pretty transparent. So transparent that my opinion of the intelligence of my fellow-townsfolk has considerably lowered. But we live in unbalanced times. I guess it's women at the bottom of this. Women got on to it first, and the others caught the idea as they'd catch scarlet fever. It's a kind of scarlet fever, this spy scare that's about. Mind you, I admit the germs are certainly present among us." And the lawyer smiled. He thought he saw he had made a little joke in that last remark.

Mr. Twist was not in the condition to see jokes, and didn't smile. "Do you mean to say those children--" he began.

"They're not regarded as children by any one except you."

"Well, if they're not," said Mr. Twist, remembering the gra.s.s by the wayside in the lane and what he had so recently met in it, "I guess I'd best be making tracks. But I know better. And so would you if you'd seen them on the boat. Why, twelve was putting their age too high on that boat."

"No doubt. No doubt. Then all I can say is they've matured pretty considerably since. Now do you really want me to tell you what is being believed?"

"Of course. It's what I've come for."

"You mayn't find it precisely exhilarating, Mr. Twist."

"Go ahead."

"What Acapulco says--and Los Angeles, I'm told, too, and probably by this time the whole coast--is that you threw over your widowed mother, of whom you're the only son, and came off here with two German girls who got hold of you on the boat--now, Mr. Twist, don't interrupt--on the boat crossing from England, that England had turned them out as undesirable aliens--quite so, Mr. Twist, but let me finish--that they're in the pay of the German Government--no doubt, no doubt, Mr. Twist--and that you're their cat's-paw. It is known that the inn each afternoon has been crowded with Germans, among them Germans already suspected, I can't say how rightly or how wrongly, of spying, and that these people are so familiar with the Miss von Twinklers as to warrant the belief in a complete secret understanding."

For a moment Mr. Twist continued both his silence and his stare. Then he took off his spectacles and wiped them. His hand shook. The lawyer was startled. Was there going to be emotion? One never knew with that sort of lips. "You're not--" he began.

Then he saw that Mr. Twist was trying not to laugh.

"I'm glad you take it that way," he said, relieved but surprised.

"It's so darned funny," said Mr. Twist, endeavouring to compose his features. "To anybody who knows those twins it's so darned funny.

Cat's-paw. Yes--rather feel that myself. Cat's-paw. That does seem a bit of a bull's eye--" And for a second or two his features flatly refused to compose.

The lawyer watched him. "Yes," he said. "Yes. But the effect of these beliefs may be awkward."

"Oh, d.a.m.ned," agreed Mr. Twist, going solemn again.

And there came over him in a flood the clear perception of what it would mean,--the sheer disaster of it, the horrible situation those helpless Annas would be in. What a limitless fool he must have been in his conduct of the whole thing. His absorption in the material side of it had done the trick. He hadn't been clever enough, not imaginative enough, nor, failing that, worldly enough to work the other side properly. When he found there was no Dellogg he ought to have insisted on seeing Mrs. Dellogg, intrusion or no intrusion, and handing over the twins; and then gone away and left them. A woman was what was wanted.

Fool that he was to suppose that he, a man, an unmarried man, could get them into anything but a sc.r.a.pe. But he was so fond of them. He just couldn't leave them. And now here they all were, in this ridiculous and terrible situation.

"There are two things you can do," said the lawyer.

"Two?" said Mr. Twist, looking at him with anxious eyes. "For the life of me I can't see even one. Except running amoke in slander actions--"

"Tut, tut," said the lawyer, waving that aside. "No. There are two courses to pursue. And they're not alternative, but simultaneous. You shut down the inn--at once, to-morrow--that's Sat.u.r.day. Close on Sat.u.r.day, and give notice you don't re-open--now pray let me finish--close the inn as an inn, and use it simply as a private residence. Then, as quick as may be, marry those girls."

"Marry what girls?"

"The Miss von Twinklers."

Mr. Twist stared at him. "Marry them?" he said helplessly. "Marry them who to?"

"You for one."

Mr. Twist stared at him in silence. Then he said, "You've said that to me before."