Uneasy Money | Page 8

mind that would forget Jones I doubt if ever you'll
be a captain of industry.'
'Why not Chalmers?'
'You think it easier to memorize than Jones?'
'It used to be my name, you see, before I got the title.'
'I see. All right. Chalmers then. When do you think of starting?'
'To-morrow.'
'You aren't losing much time. By the way, as you're going to New York
you might as well use my flat.'
'It's awfully good of you.'
'Not a bit. You would be doing me a favour. I had to leave at a
moment's notice, and I want to know what's been happening to the
place. I left some Japanese prints there, and my favourite nightmare is
that someone has broken in and sneaked them. Write down the
address--Forty-blank East Twenty-seventh Street. I'll send you the key
to Brown's to-night with those letters.'
Bill walked up the Strand, glowing with energy. He made his way to
Cockspur Street to buy his ticket for New York. This done, he set out to
Brown's to arrange with the committee the details of his departure.
He reached Brown's at twenty minutes past two and left it again at
twenty-three minutes past; for, directly he entered, the hall porter had
handed him a telephone message. The telephone attendants at London
clubs are masters of suggestive brevity. The one in the basement of
Brown's had written on Bill's slip of paper the words: '1 p.m. Will Lord
Dawlish as soon as possible call upon Mr Gerald Nichols at his office?'
To this was appended a message consisting of two words: 'Good news.'
It was stimulating. The probability was that all Jerry Nichols wanted to
tell him was that he had received stable information about some horse
or had been given a box for the Empire, but for all that it was
stimulating.
Bill looked at his watch. He could spare half an hour. He set out at once
for the offices of the eminent law firm of Nichols, Nichols, Nichols,
and Nichols, of which aggregation of Nicholses his friend Jerry was the
last and smallest.

3
On a west-bound omnibus Claire Fenwick sat and raged silently in the
June sunshine. She was furious. What right had Lord Dawlish to look
down his nose and murmur '_Noblesse oblige_' when she asked him a
question, as if she had suggested that he should commit some crime? It
was the patronizing way he had said it that infuriated her, as if he were
a superior being of some kind, governed by codes which she could not
be expected to understand. Everybody nowadays did the sort of things
she suggested, so what was the good of looking shocked and saying
'_Noblesse oblige_'?
The omnibus rolled on towards West Kensington. Claire hated the
place with the bitter hate of one who had read society novels, and
yearned for Grosvenor Square and butlers and a general atmosphere of
soft cushions and pink-shaded lights and maids to do one's hair. She
hated the cheap furniture of the little parlour, the penetrating contralto
of the cook singing hymns in the kitchen, and the ubiquitousness of her
small brother. He was only ten, and small for his age, yet he appeared
to have the power of being in two rooms at the same time while making
a nerve-racking noise in another.
It was Percy who greeted her to-day as she entered the flat.
'Halloa, Claire! I say, Claire, there's a letter for you. It came by the
second post. I say, Claire, it's got an American stamp on it. Can I have
it, Claire? I haven't got one in my collection.'
His sister regarded him broodingly. 'For goodness' sake don't bellow
like that!' she said. 'Of course, you can have the stamp. I don't want it.
Where is the letter?'
Claire took the envelope from him, extracted the letter, and handed
back the envelope. Percy vanished into the dining-room with a
shattering squeal of pleasure.
A voice spoke from behind a half-opened door--
'Is that you, Claire?'
'Yes, mother; I've come back to pack. They want me to go to
Southampton to-night to take up Claudia Winslow's part.'
'What train are you catching?'
'The three-fifteen.'
'You will have to hurry.'

'I'm going to hurry,' said Claire, clenching her fists as two simultaneous
bursts of song, in different keys and varying tempos, proceeded from
the dining-room and kitchen. A girl has to be in a sunnier mood than
she was to bear up without wincing under the infliction of a duet
consisting of the Rock of Ages and Waiting for the Robert E. Lee.
Assuredly Claire proposed to hurry. She meant to get her packing done
in record time and escape from this place. She went into her bedroom
and began to throw things untidily into