Freddy’s relief at recognizing Charles Moray was touching.
“I’m all alone in the house, you see. And I shouldn’t be much use if it came to a rough-and-tumble with a burglar- what? Now there was Hugo Byrne-you remember Hugo- no, he was before your time-his mother was Edith Peace, and his sister married one of the Dunlop-Murrays-no relation of yours of course. Let me see, what was I going to tell you? Oh yes-burglars. Well, poor old Hugo got up in the middle of the night and thought he heard a burglar and-let me see, did I tell you?-he’d got his wife’s uncle down from Scotland staying with them-he married Josephine Campbell, you know. No, no, not Josephine-she was the dark one-Elizabeth Campbell. Yes, I’m sure it was Elizabeth, because she had red hair, and we used to call her Red Liz-behind her back, you know, behind her back. And- where was I? Oh yes-poor old Hugo and the burglar. Of course it turned out to be old Robert Campbell. And he never left them a penny. Rather too bad-what?”
The study was in its usual condition of disorder. How Freddy ever found anything in it was a mystery. He appeared to have been making some slight attempt to clear things up.
“Frightful mess-what? Sit down-sit down. Here, put those photograph albums on the floor. No-perhaps better leave those. This chair now-we can shift these papers. Nothing of importance there-what? Only bills-nothing to break one’s heart over, if some of them did get lost-what?”
He tilted a confused mass of papers on to the floor.
“Thanks, I won’t sit,” said Charles. “I’m afraid I’m interrupting you. Fact is I wanted to ask you about something, and when I saw the light I thought I’d come up and get it over.”
“Well, what can I do for you? I don’t suppose I shall do much more here anyway. I thought I’d try and clear up some of this mess; but I’m off tomorrow, and there’s too much of it-I can’t tackle it. Margaret’s coming up to say good-bye. I telephoned to her place to let her know I’d be here, and she’ll come along as soon as she gets off. That’s why the garden door’s open-she’ll come along that way. Well, well, I shall be glad when I’m off. I don’t like saying good-bye-that’s a fact. Stupid of me, isn’t it?”
He was fidgeting with the litter on the table. There was something pathetic about the aimless movements and the deprecating glances which accompanied them.
Charles felt very sorry for him. He said,
“Oh, I don’t know,” and then, “It was about Margaret I wanted to speak to you.”
Freddy brightened into curiosity.
“About Margaret-what? You don’t mean to say-no, no, of course not-much better let bygones be bygones. I remember Tommy Hadow now-he got engaged to the second Jenkins girl-I can’t for the life of me remember her name-something short. Dot? No. May? No, it wasn’t May.”
“It’s nothing of that sort,” said Charles firmly.
“Well, well, I’m sorry-in a way, I’m sorry. But all the same I don’t know that it does to bring these things on again. It didn’t answer in Tommy’s case. Separated in a year-and that’s worse than a broken engagement. Gwendoline! That was the girl’s name-Gwendoline Jenkins! And her sister married Sam Fortescue.”
“No, it’s nothing of that sort,” said Charles. He thought Freddy vaguer than ever, and did not feel the slightest interest in the Jenkins family. “Look here, Freddy, I really do want to talk to you. Naturally you’ve got Margaret’s interests very much at heart, and I thought perhaps if we put our heads together, we could do something to help her out of her present false position.”
It was incredibly difficult. The words he was using seemed to him of a stilted ineptitude, a sort of cross between the Meanderings of Monty and the platitudes of the Reverend Mr. Barlow.
Freddy looked across the table at him with a curious fluttered expression.
“Charles-you distress me. I don’t think I understand. What’s all this about a false position?” He did not say, “And what has this got to do with you?” but there was just a hint of it in his manner.
Charles plunged on:
“Margaret is certainly in a false position. And look here, Freddy, you’re going abroad-your plans are apparently very uncertain-you may be away for years-anything may happen. I think you’ll agree that Margaret ought not to be left-” He hesitated for a word, and finally produced “involved.”
Freddy rumpled his mouse-coloured hair.
“My dear boy, you distress me very much. Has Margaret been getting into debt? I’ve offered her an allowance, and she won’t take it. I really don’t know why.”
“I wasn’t talking about debts.”
“But you said ‘involved.’ ”
“I didn’t mean debt. I think you must know what I mean”-he looked away for a minute-“in fact you do know. I want you to understand that I know too.” He paused, and added, “Margaret has told me why she broke off her engagement.”
He looked back at Freddy and saw a blank, white face, small eyes peering, hands shaking. “Good Lord, what a blue funk he’s in!” Rather horrible to see poor little Freddy like that-horrible to see anyone in such a ghastly funk. Why, the forehead under the mouse-coloured hair was streaming wet.
Freddy put up one of those shaking hands and pushed the damp hair back.
“What did she tell you?”
Charles repeated what Margaret had told him.
“She said you’d slipped into it when you were a boy. She said the affair was political-but of course you won’t expect me to believe that. I don’t say you didn’t believe it when you were seventeen. I don’t know anything about that, and it doesn’t matter. But you know as well as I do now that this Grey Mask business is just a big criminal organization run for gain.”
Freddy put his head in his hands. The white wet face was hidden, but Charles felt that the terrified eyes still peered at him through the shaking fingers. A little contempt flavoured his pity. No wonder Margaret had had to bear the brunt if this was a sample of how Freddy went to bits in an emergency.
“Look here, Freddy,” he said. Then, with sudden impatience, “For heaven’s sake, man, pull yourself together! Don’t slump like that.”
An inarticulate sound, half sob, half protest, came from behind Freddy’s hands.
Charles walked up and down.
“I don’t want to reproach you-I’m not going to reproach you; but you must see that it’s up to you to try to get Margaret out of the mess you got her into. You can’t just go off abroad and leave her to it.”
Another sound. Charles made nothing of it.
“Of course she was an absolute fool to sign anything. She told me she put her name to two statements, both highly damaging. Those statements must be got back. That’s really what I’ve come to talk to you about. When people are on the wrong side of the law like this Grey Mask crowd, there must be ways of doing a deal with them. That’s where you come in. You know them-you’re in touch with them- you’re in a position to-”
Freddy dropped his hands.
“You don’t understand. I can’t do anything.”
“Something’s got to be done.”
Freddy leaned back, his hands on his knees, his whole figure limp.
“You don’t know them. You must forgive me-Charles, it was such a shock-to find that you had any knowledge of-” He spoke in a series of jerks, and at the end of each short sentence his voice was almost gone.
“I suppose it was. I want you to understand my position. I’m concerned for two people. Margaret’s one of them, and Greta Wilson is the other. I’m very deeply concerned for Greta, because I believe she is in a very dangerous position; and I’m so placed that I can’t do what I ought to do to protect Greta without running the risk of finding that Margaret is involved.”