The same evening, some five hours earlier, a taxi turned into Carrick Street and pulled up at the door of a small hotel. The street was empty. It looked like a cul-de-sac, but in reality it was pierced at the far end by an alley, like a thin sleeve, which wound its way into Soho.
‘That the last, sir?’ inquired the driver, after several transits between the cab and the hotel.
‘How many does that make?’
‘Nine packages in all, sir.’
‘Could you get all your worldly goods into nine packages, driver?’
‘That I could; into two.’
‘Well, have a look inside and see if I have left anything.’ The cabman felt about among the cushions. ‘Can’t find nothing, sir.’
‘What do you do with anything you find?’ asked the stranger.
‘Take it to New Scotland Yard, sir,’ the driver promptly answered.
‘Scotland Yard?’ said the stranger. ‘Strike a match, will you, and let me have a look.’
But he, too, found nothing, and reassured, followed his luggage into the hotel.
A chorus of welcome and congratulation greeted him. The manager, the manager’s wife, the Ministers without portfolio of whom all hotels are full, the porters, the lift-man, all clustered around him.
‘Well, Mr. Rumbold, after all these years! We thought you’d forgotten us! And wasn’t it odd, the very night your telegram came from Australia we’d been talking about you! And my husband said, “Don’t you worry about Mr. Rumbold. He’ll fall on his feet all right. Some fine day he’ll walk in here a rich man.” Not that you weren’t always well off, but my husband meant a millionaire.’
‘He was quite right,’ said Mr. Rumbold slowly, savouring his words. ‘I am.’
‘There, what did I tell you?’ the manager exclaimed, as though one recital of his prophecy was not enough. ‘But I wonder you’re not too grand to come to Rossall’s Hotel.’
‘I’ve nowhere else to go,’ said the millionaire shortly. ‘And if I had, I wouldn’t. This place is like home to me.’
His eyes softened as they scanned the familiar surroundings. They were light grey eyes, very pale, and seeming paler from their setting in his tanned face. His cheeks were slightly sunken and very deeply lined; his blunt-ended nose was straight. He had a thin, straggling moustache, straw-coloured, which made his age difficult to guess. Perhaps he was nearly fifty, so wasted was the skin on his neck, but his movements, unexpectedly agile and decided, were those of a younger man.
‘I won’t go up to my room now,’ he said, in response to the manageress’s question. ‘Ask Clutsam—he’s still with you?—good—to unpack my things. He’ll find all I want for the night in the green suitcase. I’ll take my despatch-box with me. And tell them to bring me a sherry and bitters in the lounge.’
As the crow flies it was not far to the lounge. But by the way of the tortuous, ill-lit passages, doubling on themselves, yawning with dark entries, plunging into kitchen stairs—the catacombs so dear to habitués of Rossall’s Hotel—it was a considerable distance. Anyone posted in the shadow of these alcoves, or arriving at the head of the basement staircase, could not have failed to notice the air of utter content which marked Mr. Rumbold’s leisurely progress: the droop of his shoulders, acquiescing in weariness; the hands turned inwards and swaying slightly, but quite forgotten by their owner; the chin, always prominent, now pushed forward so far that it looked relaxed and helpless, not at all defiant. The unseen witness would have envied Mr. Rumbold, perhaps even grudged him his holiday air, his untroubled acceptance of the present and the future.
A waiter whose face he did not remember brought him the apéritif, which he drank slowly, his feet propped unconventionally upon a ledge of the chimneypiece; a pardonable relaxation, for the room was empty. Judge therefore of his surprise when, out of a fire-engendered drowsiness, he heard a voice which seemed to come from the wall above his head. A cultivated voice, perhaps too cultivated, slightly husky, yet careful and precise in its enunciation. Even while his eyes searched the room to make sure that no one had come in, he could not help hearing everything the voice said. It seemed to be talking to him, and yet the rather oracular utterance implied a less restricted audience. It was the utterance of a man who was aware that, though it was a duty for him to speak, for Mr. Rumbold to listen would be both a pleasure and a profit.
‘ . . . A Children’s Party,’ the voice announced in an even, neutral tone, nicely balanced between approval and distaste, between enthusiasm and boredom; ‘six little girls and six little’ (a faint lift in the voice, expressive of tolerant surprise) ‘boys. The Broadcasting Company has invited them to tea, and they are anxious that you should share some of their fun.’ (At the last word the voice became completely colourless.) ‘I must tell you that they have had tea, and enjoyed it, didn’t you, children?’ (A cry of ‘Yes,’ muffled and timid, greeted this leading question.) ‘We should have liked you to hear our table-talk, but there wasn’t much of it, we were so busy eating.’ For a moment the voice identified itself with the children. ‘But we can tell you what we ate. Now, Percy, tell us what you had.’
A piping little voice recited a long list of comestibles; like the children in the treacle-well, thought Rumbold, Percy must have been, or soon would be, very ill. A few others volunteered the items of their repast. ‘So you see,’ said the voice, ‘we have not done so badly. And now we are going to have crackers, and afterwards’ (the voice hesitated and seemed to dissociate itself from the words) ‘Children’s Games.’ There was an impressive pause, broken by the muttered exhortation of a little girl. ‘Don’t cry, Philip, it won’t hurt you.’ Fugitive sparks and snaps of sound followed; more like a fire being kindled, thought Rumbold, than crackers. A murmur of voices pierced the fusillade. ‘What have you got, Alec, what have you got?’ ‘I’ve got a cannon.’ ‘Give it to me.’ ‘No.’ ‘Well, lend it to me.’ ‘What do you want it for?’ ‘I want to shoot Jimmy.’
Mr. Rumbold started. Something had disturbed him. Was it imagination, or did he hear, above the confused medley of sound, a tiny click? The voice was speaking again. ‘And now we’re going to begin the Games.’ As though to make amends for past lukewarmness a faint flush of anticipation gave colour to the decorous voice. ‘We will commence with that old favourite, Ring-a-Ring of Roses.’
The children were clearly shy, and left each other to do the singing. Their courage lasted for a line or two and then gave out. But fortified by the speaker’s baritone, powerful though subdued, they took heart, and soon were singing without assistance or direction. Their light wavering voices had a charming effect. Tears stood in Mr. Rumbold’s eyes. ‘Oranges and Lemons’ came next. A more difficult game, it yielded several unrehearsed effects before it finally got under way. One could almost see the children being marshalled into their places, as though for a figure in the Lancers. Some of them no doubt had wanted to play another game; children are contrary; and the dramatic side of ‘Oranges and Lemons,’ though it appeals to many, always affrights a few. The disinclination of these last would account for the pauses and hesitations which irritated Mr. Rumbold, who, as a child, had always had a strong fancy for this particular game. When, to the tramping and stamping of many small feet, the droning chant began, he leaned back and closed his eyes in ecstasy. He listened intently for the final accelerando which leads up to the catastrophe. Still the prologue maundered on, as though the children were anxious to extend the period of security, the joyous carefree promenade which the great Bell of Bow, by his inconsiderate profession of ignorance, was so rudely to curtail. The Bells of Old Bailey pressed their usurer’s question; the Bells of Shoreditch answered with becoming flippancy; the Bells of Stepney posed their ironical query, when suddenly, before the great Bell of Bow had time to get his word in, Mr. Rumbold’s feelings underwent a strange revolution. Why couldn’t the game continue, all sweetness and sunshine? Why drag in the fatal issue? Let payment be deferred; let the bells go on chiming and never strike the hour. But heedless of Mr. Rumbold’s squeamishness, the game went its way.