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IV
Inside room No. 5, David Hunter paused inside the door and looked at the man who had signed
himself Enoch Arden.
Fortyish, knocked about a bit, a suggestion of having come down in the world—on the whole a
difficult customer. Such was David’s summing up. Apart from that, not easy to fathom. A dark
horse.
Arden said:
“Hallo—you Hunter? Good. Sit down. What’ll you have? Whisky?”
He’d made himself comfortable, David noted that. A modest array of bottles—a fire burning
in the grate on this chilly spring evening. Clothes not English cut, but worn as an Englishman
wears clothes. The man was the right age, too….
“Thanks,” David said, “I’ll have a spot of whisky.”
“Say When.”
“When. Not too much soda.”
They were a little like dogs, manoeuvring for position—circling round each other, backs stiff,
hackles up, ready to be friendly or ready to snarl and snap.
“Cheerio,” said Arden.
“Cheerio.”
They set their glasses down, relaxed a little. Round One was over.
The man who called himself Enoch Arden said:
“You were surprised to get my letter?”
“Frankly,” said David, “I don’t understand it at all.”
“N-no—n-no—well, perhaps not.”
David said:
“I understand you knew my sister’s first husband—Robert Underhay.”
“Yes, I knew Robert very well.” Arden was smiling, blowing clouds of smoke idly up in the
air. “As well, perhaps, as any one could know him. You never met him, did you, Hunter?”
“No.”
“Oh, perhaps that’s as well.”
“What do you mean by that?” David asked sharply.
Arden said easily:
“My dear fellow, it makes everything much simpler—that’s all. I apologize for asking you to
come here, but I did think it was best to keep”—he paused—“Rosaleen out of it all. No need to
give her unnecessary pain.”
“Do you mind coming to the point?”
“Of course, of course. Well now, did you ever suspect—how shall we say—that there was
anything—well—fishy—about Underhay’s death?”
“What on earth do you mean?”
“Well, Underhay had rather peculiar ideas, you know. It may have been chivalry—it may just
possibly have been for quite a different reason—but let’s say that, at a particular moment some
years ago, there were certain advantages to Underhay in being considered dead. He was good at
managing natives—always had been. No trouble to him to get a probable story circulated with any
amount of corroborative detail. All Underhay had to do was to turn up about a thousand miles
away—with a new name.”
“It seems a most fantastic supposition to me,” said David.
“Does it? Does it really?” Arden smiled. He leaned forward, tapped David on the knee.
“Suppose it’s true, Hunter? Eh? Suppose it’s true?”
“I should require very definite proof of it.”
“Would you? Well, of course, there’s no superdefinite proof. Underhay himself could turn up
here—in Warmsley Vale. How’d you like that for proof?”
“It would at least be conclusive,” said David dryly.
“Oh, yes, conclusive — but just a little embarrassing — for Mrs. Gordon Cloade, I mean.
Because then, of course, she wouldn’t be Mrs. Gordon Cloade. Awkward. You must admit, just a
little bit awkward?”
“My sister,” said David, “remarried in perfectly good faith.”
“Of course she did, my dear fellow. Of course she did. I’m not disputing that for a second.
Any judge would say the same. No actual blame could attach to her.”
“Judge?” said David sharply.
The other said as though apologetically:
“I was thinking of bigamy.”
“Just what are you driving at?” asked David savagely.
“Now don’t get excited, old boy. We just want to put our heads together and see what’s
best to be done—best for your sister, that’s to say. Nobody wants a lot of dirty publicity.
Underhay—well, Underhay was always a chivalrous kind of chap.” Arden paused. “He still
is….”
“Is?” asked David sharply.
“That’s what I said.”
“You say Robert Underhay is alive. Where is he now?”
Arden leaned forward—his voice became confidential.
“Do you really want to know, Hunter? Wouldn’t it be better if you didn’t know? Put it that,
as far as you know, and as far as Rosaleen knows, Underhay died in Africa. Very good, and if
Underhay is alive, he doesn’t know his wife has married again, he hasn’t the least idea of it.
Because, of course, if he did know he would have come forward…Rosaleen, you see, has inherited
a good deal of money from her second husband—well, then, of course she isn’t entitled to any of
that money…Underhay is a man with a very sensitive sense of honour. He wouldn’t like her
inheriting money under false pretences.” He paused. “But of course it’s possible that
Underhay doesn’t know anything about her second marriage. He’s in a bad way, poor fellow—
in a very bad way.”
“What do you mean by in a bad way?”
Arden shook his head solemnly.
“Broken down in health. He needs medical attention—special treatments—all unfortunately
rather expensive.”
The last word dropped delicately as though into a category of its own. It was the word for which
David Hunter had been unconsciously waiting.
He said:
“Expensive?”
“Yes—unfortunately everything costs money. Underhay, poor devil, is practically destitute.”
He added: “He’s got practically nothing but what he stands up in….”
Just for a moment David’s eyes wandered round the room. He noted the pack slung on a chair.
There was no suitcase to be seen.
“I wonder,” said David, and his voice was not pleasant, “if Robert Underhay is quite the
chivalrous gentleman you make him out to be.”
“He was once,” the other assured him. “But life, you know, is inclined to make a fellow
cynical.” He paused and added softly: “Gordon Cloade was really an incredibly wealthy fellow.
The spectacle of too much wealth arouses one’s baser instincts.”
David Hunter got up.
“I’ve got an answer for you. Go to the devil.”
Unperturbed, Arden said, smiling:
“Yes, I thought you’d say that.”
“You’re a damned blackmailer, neither more nor less. I’ve a good mind to call your
bluff.”
“Publish and be damned? An admirable sentiment. But you wouldn’t like it if I did
‘publish.’ Not that I shall. If you won’t buy, I’ve another market.”
“What do you mean?”
“The Cloades. Suppose I go to them. ‘Excuse me, but would you be interested to learn that
the late Robert Underhay is very much alive?’ Why, man, they’ll jump at it!”
David said scornfully:
“You won’t get anything out of them. They’re broke, every one of them.”
“Ah, but there’s such a thing as a working arrangement. So much in cash on the day it’s
proved that Underhay is alive, that Mrs. Gordon Cloade is still Mrs. Robert Underhay and that
consequently Gordon Cloade’s will, made before his marriage, is good in law….”
For some few minutes David sat silent, then he asked bluntly:
“How much?”
The answer came as bluntly:
“Twenty thousand.”
“Out of the question! My sister can’t touch the capital, she’s only got a life interest.”
“Ten thousand, then. She can raise that, easily. There’s jewellery, isn’t there?”
David sat silent, then he said unexpectedly:
“All right.”
For a moment the other man seemed at a loss. It was as though the ease of his victory surprised
him.
“No cheques,” he said. “To be paid in notes!”
“You’ll have to give us time—to get hold of the money.”
“I’ll give you forty-eight hours.”
“Make it next Tuesday.”
“All right. You’ll bring the money here.” He added before David could speak, “I’m not
meeting you at a lonely copse—or a deserted river bank, so don’t you think so. You’ll bring the
money here—to the Stag—at nine o’clock next Tuesday evening.”
“Suspicious sort of chap, aren’t you?”
“I know my way about. And I know your kind.”
“As you said, then.”
David went out of the room and down the stairs. His face was black with rage.
Beatrice Lippincott came out of the room marked No. 4. There was a communicating door
between 4 and 5, though the fact could hardly be noted by an occupant in 5 since a wardrobe stood
upright in front of it.
Miss Lippincott’s cheeks were pink and her eyes bright with pleasurable excitement. She
smoothed back her pompadour of hair with an agitated hand.
Ten
Shepherd’s Court, Mayfair, was a large block of luxury service flats. Unharmed by the ravages
of enemy action, they had nevertheless been unable to keep up quite their prewar standard of ease.
There was service still, although not very good service. Where there had been two uniformed
porters there was now only one. The restaurant still served meals, but except for breakfast, meals
were not sent up to the apartments.
The flat rented by Mrs. Gordon Cloade was on the third floor. It consisted of a sitting room with
a built-in cocktail bar, two bedrooms with built-in cupboards, and a superbly appointed bathroom,
gleaming with tiles and chromium.
In the sitting room David Hunter was striding up and down whilst Rosaleen sat on a big square-
ended settee watching him. She looked pale and frightened.
“Blackmail!” he muttered. “Blackmail! My God, am I the kind of man to let myself be
blackmailed?”
She shook her head, bewildered, troubled.
“If I knew,” David was saying. “If I only knew!”
From Rosaleen there came a small miserable sob.
He went on:
“It’s this working in the dark—working blindfold—” He wheeled round suddenly. “You
took those emeralds round to Bond Street to old Greatorex?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
Rosaleen’s voice was stricken as she said:
“Four thousand. Four thousand pounds. He said if I didn’t sell them they ought to be
reinsured.”
“Yes—precious stones have doubled in value. Oh well, we can raise the money. But if we do,
it’s only the beginning—it means being bled to death—bled, Rosaleen, bled white!”
She cried:
“Oh, let’s leave England—let’s get away—couldn’t we go to Ireland—America—
somewhere?”
He turned and looked at her.
“You’re not a fighter, are you, Rosaleen? Cut and run is your motto.”
She wailed: “We’re wrong—all this has been wrong—very wicked.”
“Don’t turn pious on me just now! I can’t stand it. We were sitting pretty, Rosaleen. For
the first time in my life I was sitting pretty—and I’m not going to let it all go, do you hear? If
only it wasn’t this cursed fighting in the dark. You understand, don’t you, that the whole thing
may be bluff—nothing but bluff? Underhay’s probably safely buried in Africa as we’ve always
thought he was.”
She shivered.
“Don’t, David. You make me afraid.”
He looked at her, saw the panic in her face, and at once his manner changed. He came over to
her, sat down, took her cold hands in his.
“You’re not to worry,” he said. “Leave it all to me—and do as I tell you. You can manage
that, can’t you? Just do exactly as I tell you.”
“I always do, David.”
He laughed. “Yes, you always do. We’ll snap out of this, never you fear. I’ll find a way of
scotching Mr. Enoch Arden.”
“Wasn’t there a poem, David—something about a man coming back—”
“Yes.” He cut her short. “That’s just what worries me…But I’ll get to the bottom of
things, never you fear.”
She said:
“It’s Tuesday night you—take him the money?”
He nodded.
“Five thousand. I’ll tell him I can’t raise the rest all at once. But I must stop him going to
the Cloades. I think that was only a threat, but I can’t be sure.”
He stopped, his eyes became dreamy, far away. Behind them his mind worked, considering and
rejecting possibilities.
Then he laughed. It was a gay reckless laugh. There were men, now dead, who would have
recognized it….
It was the laugh of a man going into action on a hazardous and dangerous enterprise. There was
enjoyment in it and defiance.
“I can trust you, Rosaleen,” he said. “Thank goodness I can trust you absolutely!”
“Trust me?” She raised her big inquiring eyes. “To do what?”
He smiled again.
“To do exactly as you are told. That’s the secret, Rosaleen, of a successful operation.”
He laughed:
“Operation Enoch Arden.”
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