“I’ve got to ask you a very impertinent thing. If you’ve had a lot of jobs, what’s the reason you haven’t kept any of them?”
Just for a moment Car was angry.
“My own incompetence, I suppose,” he said.
“Well!” said Corinna. Her sparkling look accused him of mock humility. She sat up, dimpling. “Do you want me to believe that?”
“I’m afraid it’s true.”
She went suddenly as grave as a judge.
“Carthew Fairfax-you’ve got to tell me the truth. Was it your opinion that you were being incompetent before you got fired from those jobs?”
After a moment he met her look squarely.
“No, I thought I was doing pretty well.”
“There hadn’t been any complaints?”
“No.”
“They just fired you all of a sudden?”
“Yes.”
“Every time?”
He thought for a moment. Beecher -he’d been getting along like a house on fire with old Beecher -and then, “I’m sorry, Mr. Fairfax, but we’re cutting down the staff.” Prothero-yes, that was sudden enough. Craddock-you couldn’t count Craddock, who was just pure beast. But Gray-Gray had been full of a decent embarrassment.
“Why did you ask me that?”
“I’m going to ask you something else,” said Corinna. “I’m going to ask you whether you’ve got an enemy. No, I’m not-I’m going to ask you who your enemy is. I don’t need to ask whether you’ve got one.” A little hot color stood in her cheeks. Her eyes met his squarely.
Car leaned back smiling.
“I’m afraid I’m my own enemy, Miss Lee.”
She clapped her hands together sharply.
“You don’t like me for a cousin!”
“Why-”
“Didn’t I call you Carthew right away? If it isn’t the worst slap in the face I’ve ever had, to be called Miss Lee as if I was my own chaperone and at least as old as Cousin Abby!”
Car laughed, as one laughs at a child.
“My mistake! Let’s begin all over again. I’m Car, and you’re Corinna.”
“And we’re talking business,” said Miss Lee reprovingly.
“Are we?”
“I am.” She put her head a little on one side, let her lashes fall just a shade, and asked,
“Who was that girl on the stairs?”
“Fay Everitt?”
“Fay Something-I didn’t get her whole name. Who is she?”
Car experienced an extreme embarrassment. What was Peter playing at? Had he told this child he was married? He seemed to have told her a good many intimate things, but he didn’t seem to have told her that; and it wasn’t like Peter-it wasn’t in the least like Peter. If Peter hadn’t said he was married to Fay, it was going to be uncommonly awkward for any one else to say it. He wondered if it was Fay who was insisting on this rotten secrecy. He looked very nearly as embarrassed as he felt when he said,
“Didn’t Peter mention her?”
“No. Is she a friend of Peter’s?”
“Yes-she was.”
“You mean they’ve quarreled?”
“Oh no.”
“Is she a friend of yours?”
Car wondered. He wasn’t sure, but he supposed that Fay would have claimed him as a friend.
He compromised with, “I’ve known her for some time,” and to his horror felt the color rise in his face.
“‘M-m-m-” said Corinna. “She didn’t act in a very genial way-did she?”
“Not very.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” said Car.
She waved Fay Everitt away.
“Do you know what I’m doing to-morrow?”
“Something pleasant, I hope.”
“I hope so too. I’m going to Linwood to see my grandmother’s nephew, John Carthew. Will it be pleasant?”
“If he likes you. He’s charming to people he likes.”
“And he doesn’t like you?”
“He likes people as long as they do everything he wants them to. If they want to do something else, there’s trouble.”
“And you wanted to do something else?”
“I like my own way too,” said Car.
XIII
Car Fairfax ’s Diary:
September 18th, Wednesday-I’m blowed if I can understand what’s happening. I’m going to keep on writing everything down. I don’t like the feel of things. Yesterday morning I got a letter from Z.10 Smith-he signed it like that-and it was an apology for not having kept the appointment he had made with me over the telephone. He said he’d been delayed by an accident to his car and didn’t get to Churt Row till nearly eleven, and he finished up by asking me to be at the same place at the same time that evening. I can’t copy the letter or attach it, because it has disappeared. My letters seem to be getting a habit of disappearing. That’s one of the things I don’t like. I’m prepared to swear I left it inside my blotter when I went out, and when I came back it was gone. I didn’t get back till pretty late-that is, I didn’t get up to my room till pretty late-because I met an American cousin on the doorstep, and went off and had tea with her at the Luxe. That looks funny written down; but after the first ten minutes or so it didn’t feel funny. She’s a ripping kid, as friendly as they’re made. Her name’s Corinna Lee. She’s going down to Linwood to-day. I wonder if she’ll see Isobel. I didn’t say anything about Isobel, because I was afraid of giving myself away. Corinna is as sharp as a needle.
Well, at half-past nine I started to walk down to Putney. I found Churt Row without asking this time. I hadn’t heard the clock strike, so I didn’t know whether I was early or not-I thought I must be. There wasn’t any car in sight. I walked as far as Olding Crescent and stood at the corner looking down the road. I hadn’t been there more than half a minute before some one came out of the shadow of the long brick wall which I had noticed the other day. He didn’t come very far across the road. He stood there and said, “Mr. Fairfax?” and as soon as I moved to meet him he went back into the shadow again. I followed him into what was practically pitch dark, because the branches of big trees growing inside the garden came down over the wall nearly the whole way along it. The wall must have run three or four hundred yards, and the nearest lamp-post was a good way off on the other side of the road. I stood still when I got in under the trees. I thought it was up to him to begin.
He said “Mr. Fairfax?” again, and I said, “Mr. Smith?”
“Z.,” he said; and when I didn’t say anything, he went on in a dry, impatient whisper: “What’s the number? If you’re Fairfax, you know the number.”
So then I said, “Z.10.”
That seemed to satisfy him.
“I was vexed to miss you last night. I suppose you gave me up?”
I didn’t answer that. He either knew what had happened last night, or he didn’t. If he didn’t, I wasn’t going to tell him. I waited a bit, and he made an impatient sound, and went on:
“Well, Mr. Fairfax, you’re here now, so I take it you’re interested in the possibility of earning five hundred pounds?”
I thought I might agree to that, so I did, and I wondered what he was going to ask me to do. I hoped it wasn’t going to be forgery. I felt somehow as if I should like a change.
“Five hundred pounds is a large sum of money,” he began.
“There are larger sums.”
“They’re not so easily come by.”
“Is this one easily come by?”
“Very much to the point, Mr. Fairfax-very much to the point.” He took me by the arm and began to walk me down the road away from the corner. “The matter, as you most certainly will have guessed, is of a very confidential nature. Now I put it to you-does one hand over a large sum of money and a confidential mission without making sure that one’s choice is a wise one-wise and-er-safe?”
He had very hard and bony fingers, and a singularly inexpressive voice. He seemed scarcely to touch my arm, and yet his touch cramped me. He was a little man with a fidgety manner and a way of putting up his hand-to adjust his glasses, I thought. There was a flavor of formality about his way of speech. I felt quite sure that I had never talked with him before, except perhaps on the telephone yesterday morning. He went on speaking, and when we came to the end of the long brick wall, he turned and walked me back again.