Three Men and a Maid Part 23

"There's a splendid train in about an hour. I'll take that."

"It's giving you a lot of trouble," said Mr. Bennett with belated consideration.

"Oh no!" said Billie. "I'm only too glad to be able to do something for you, father dear. This noise is a terrible nuisance, isn't it."

"You're a good girl," said Mr. Bennett.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

"That's right!" said Sir Mallaby Marlowe. "Work while you're young, Sam, work while you're young." He regarded his son's bent head with affectionate approval. "What's the book to-day?"

"Widgery on Nisi prius Evidence," said Sam, without looking up.

"Capital!" said Sir Mallaby. "Highly improving and as interesting as a novel-some novels. There's a splendid bit on, I think, page two hundred and fifty-four where the hero finds out all about Copyhold and Customary Estates. It's a wonderfully powerful situation. It appears-but I won't spoil it for you. Mind you don't skip to see how it all comes out in the end!" Sir Mallaby suspended conversation while he addressed an imaginary ball with the mas.h.i.+e which he had taken out of his golf-bag. For this was the day when he went down to Walton Heath for his weekly foursome with three old friends. His tubby form was clad in tweed of a violent nature, with knickerbockers and stockings. "Sam!"

"Well?"

"Sam, a man at the club showed me a new grip the other day. Instead of overlapping the little finger of the right hand ... Oh, by the way, Sam."

"Yes?"

"I should lock up the office to-day if I were you, or anxious clients will be coming in and asking for advice, and you'll find yourself in difficulties. I shall be gone, and Peters is away on his holiday. You'd better lock the outer door."

"All right," said Sam absently. He was finding Widgery stiff reading. He had just got to the bit about Raptu Haeredis, which, as of course you know, is a writ for taking away an heir holding insocage.

Sir Mallaby looked at his watch.

"Well, I'll have to be going. See you later, Sam."

"Good-bye."

Sir Mallaby went out, and Sam, placing both elbows on the desk and twining his fingers in his hair, returned with a frown of concentration to his grappling with Widgery. For perhaps ten minutes the struggle was an even one, then gradually Widgery got the upper hand. Sam's mind, numbed by constant batterings against the stony ramparts of legal phraseology, weakened, faltered, and dropped away; and a moment later his thoughts, as so often happened when he was alone, darted off and began to circle round the image of Billie Bennett.

Since they had last met, Sam had told himself perhaps a hundred times that he cared nothing about Billie, that she had gone out of his life and was dead to him; but unfortunately he did not believe it. A man takes a deal of convincing on a point like this, and Sam had never succeeded in convincing himself for more than two minutes at a time. It was useless to pretend that he did not still love Billie more than ever, because he knew he did; and now, as the truth swept over him for the hundred and first time, he groaned hollowly and gave himself up to the gray despair which is the almost inseparable companion of young men in his position.

So engrossed was he in his meditation that he did not hear the light footstep in the outer office, and it was only when it was followed by a tap on the door of the inner office that he awoke with a start to the fact that clients were in his midst. He wished that he had taken his father's advice and locked up the office. Probably this was some frightful bore who wanted to make his infernal will or something, and Sam had neither the ability nor the inclination to a.s.sist him.

Was it too late to escape? Perhaps if he did not answer the knock, the blighter might think there was n.o.body at home. But suppose he opened the door and peeped in? A spasm of Napoleonic strategy seized Sam. He dropped silently to the floor and concealed himself under the desk. Napoleon was always doing that sort of thing.

There was another tap. Then, as he had antic.i.p.ated, the door opened. Sam, crouched like a hare in its form, held his breath. It seemed to him that he was going to bring this delicate operation off with success. He felt he had acted just as Napoleon would have done in a similar crisis. And so, no doubt, he had to a certain extent; only Napoleon would have seen to it that his boots and about eighteen inches of trousered legs were not sticking out, plainly visible to all who entered.

"Good morning," said a voice.

Sam thrilled from the top of his head to the soles of his feet. It was the voice which had been ringing in his ears through all his waking hours.

"Are you busy, Mr. Marlowe?" asked Billie, addressing the boots.

Sam wriggled out from under the desk like a disconcerted tortoise.

"Dropped my pen," he mumbled, as he rose to the surface.

He pulled himself with an effort that was like a physical exercise. He stared at Billie dumbly. Then, recovering speech, he invited her to sit down, and seated himself at the desk.

"Dropped my pen!" he gurgled again.

"Yes?" said Billie.

"Fountain-pen," babbled Sam, "with a broad nib."

"Yes?"

"A broad gold nib," went on Sam, with the painful exact.i.tude which comes only from embarra.s.sment or the early stages of intoxication.

"Really?" said Billie, and Sam blinked and told himself resolutely that this would not do. He was not appearing to advantage. It suddenly occurred to him that his hair was standing on end as the result of his struggle with Widgery. He smoothed it down hastily, and felt a trifle more composed. The old fighting spirit of the Marlowes now began to a.s.sert itself to some extent. He must make an effort to appear as little of a fool as possible in this girl's eyes. And what eyes they were! Golly! Like stars! Like two bright planets in....

However, that was neither here nor there. He pulled down his waistcoat and became cold and business-like-the dry young lawyer.

"Er-how do you do, Miss Bennett?" he said with a question in his voice, raising his eyebrows in a professional way. He modelled this performance on that of lawyers he had seen on the stage, and wished he had some snuff to take or something to tap against his front teeth. "Miss Bennett, I believe?"

Billie drew herself up stiffly.

"Yes," she replied. "How clever of you to remember me."

"I have a good memory."

"How nice! So have I!"

There was a pause, during which Billie allowed her gaze to travel casually about the room. Sam occupied the intermission by staring furtively at her profile. He was by now in a thoroughly overwrought condition, and the thumping of his heart sounded to him as if workmen were mending the street outside. How beautiful she looked, with that red hair peeping out beneath her hat and ... However!

"Is there anything I can do for you?" he asked in the sort of voice Widgery might have used. Sam always pictured Widgery as a small man with bushy eyebrows, a thin face, and a voice like a rusty file.

"Well, I really wanted to see Sir Mallaby."

"My father has been called away on important business to Walton Heath.

Cannot I act as his subst.i.tute?"

"Do you know anything about the law?"

"Do I know anything about the law!" echoed Sam, amazed. "Do I know-!

Why, I was reading my Widgery on Nisi Prius Evidence when you came in."

"Oh, were you?" said Billie interested. "Do you always read on the floor."

"I told you I dropped my pen," said Sam coldly.

"And of course you couldn't read without that! Well, as a matter of fact, this has nothing to do with Nisi-what you said."