CHAPTER XIII.

SHOCKS ALL ROUND

Billie had been standing near the wall, inspecting a portrait of the

late Mr. Josiah Appleby, of which the kindest thing one can say is that

one hopes it did not do him justice. She now shrank back against this

wall, as if she were trying to get through it. The edge of the

portrait’s frame tilted her hat out of the straight, but in this

supreme moment she did not even notice it.

“Er—how do you do?” she said.

If she had not been an exceedingly pretty girl, one would have said

that she spoke squeakily. The fighting spirit of the Bennetts, though

it was considerable fighting spirit, had not risen to this emergency.

It had ebbed out of her, leaving in its place a cold panic. She had

seen this sort of thing in the movies—there was one series of pictures,

“The Dangers of Diana,” where something of the kind had happened to the

heroine in every reel—but she had not anticipated that it would ever

happen to her; and consequently she had not thought out any plan for

coping with such a situation. A grave error. In this world one should

be prepared for everything, or where is one?

“I’ve brought the revolver,” said Mr. Peters.

“So—so I see!” said Billie.

Mr. Peters nursed the weapon affectionately in his hand. He was rather

a shy man with women as a rule, but what Sam had told him about her

being interested in his revolver had made his heart warm to this girl.

“I was just on my way to have a little practice at the range,” he said.

“Then I thought I might as well look in here.”

“I suppose—I suppose you’re a good shot?” quavered Billie.

“I seldom miss,” said Jno. Peters.

Billie shuddered. Then, reflecting that the longer she engaged this

maniac in conversation, the more hope there was of Sam coming back in

time to save her, she essayed further small-talk.

“It’s—it’s very ugly!”

“Oh, no!” said Mr. Peters, hurt.

Billie perceived that she had said the wrong thing.

“Very deadly-looking, I meant,” she corrected herself hastily.

“It may have deadly work to do, Miss Milliken,” said Mr. Peters.

Conversation languished again. Billie had no further remarks to make of

immediate interest, and Mr. Peters was struggling with a return of the

deplorable shyness which so handicapped him in his dealings with the

other sex. After a few moments, he pulled himself together again, and,

as his first act was to replace the pistol in the pocket of his coat,

Billie became conscious of a faint stirring of relief.

“The great thing,” said Jno. Peters, “is to learn to draw quickly. Like

this!” he added producing the revolver with something of the smoothness

and rapidity with which Billie, in happier moments, had seen Bream

Mortimer take a bowl of gold fish out of a tall hat. “Everything

depends on getting the first shot! The first shot, Miss Milliken, is

vital.”

Suddenly Billie had an inspiration. It was hopeless, she knew, to try

to convince this poor demented creature, obsessed with his _idée fixe_,

that she was not Miss Milliken. Denial would be a waste of time, and

might even infuriate him into precipitating the tragedy. It was

imperative that she should humour him. And, while she was humouring

him, it suddenly occurred to her, why not do it thoroughly?

“Mr. Peters,” she cried, “you are quite mistaken!”

“I beg your pardon,” said Jno. Peters, with not a little asperity.

“Nothing of the kind!”

“You are!”

“I assure you I am not. Quickness in the draw is essential....”

“You have been misinformed.”

“Well, I had it direct from the man at the Rupert Street range,” said

Mr. Peters stiffly. “And if you have ever seen a picture called

‘Two-Gun Thomas’....”

“Mr. Peters,” cried Billie desperately. He was making her head swim

with his meaningless ravings. “Mr. Peters, hear me! I am not married to

a man at Ealing West!”

Mr. Peters betrayed no excitement at the information. This girl seemed

for some reason to consider her situation an extraordinary one, but

many women, he was aware, were in a similar position. In fact, he could

not at the moment think of any of his feminine acquaintances who _were_

married to men at Ealing West.

“Indeed?” he said politely.

“Won’t you believe me?” exclaimed Billie wildly.

“Why, certainly, certainly,” said Jno. Peters.

“Thank God!” said Billie. “I’m not even engaged! It’s all been a

terrible mistake!”

When two people in a small room are speaking on two distinct and

different subjects and neither knows what on earth the other is driving

at, there is bound to be a certain amount of mental confusion; but at

this point Jno. Peters, though still not wholly equal to the

intellectual pressure of the conversation, began to see a faint shimmer

of light behind the clouds. In a nebulous kind of way he began to

understand that the girl had come to consult the firm about a

breach-of-promise action. Some unknown man at Ealing West had been

trifling with her heart—hardened lawyer’s clerk as he was, that

poignant cry “I’m not even engaged!” had touched Mr. Peters—and she

wished to start proceedings. Mr. Peters felt almost in his depth again.

He put the revolver in his pocket, and drew out a note-book.

“I should be glad to hear the facts,” he said with professional

courtesy. “In the absence of the guv’nor....”

“I have told you the facts!”

“This man at Ealing West,” said Mr. Peters, moistening the point of his

pencil, “he wrote you letters proposing marriage?”

“No, no, no!”

“At any rate,” said Mr. Peters, disappointed but hopeful, “he made love

to you before witnesses?”

“Never! Never! There is no man at Ealing West! There never was a man at

Ealing West!”

It was at this point that Jno. Peters began for the first time to

entertain serious doubts of the girl’s mental balance. The most

elementary acquaintance with the latest census told him that there were

any number of men at Ealing West. The place was full of them. Would a

sane woman have made an assertion to the contrary? He thought not, and

he was glad that he had the revolver with him. She had done nothing as

yet actively violent, but it was nice to feel prepared. He took it out

and laid it nonchalantly in his lap.

The sight of the weapon acted on Billie electrically. She flung out her

hands, in a gesture of passionate appeal, and played her last card.

“I love _you!_” she cried. She wished she could have remembered his

first name. It would have rounded off the sentence neatly. In such a

moment she could hardly call him “Mr. Peters.” “You are the only man I

love.”

“My gracious goodness!” ejaculated Mr. Peters, and nearly fell over

backwards. To a naturally shy man this sudden and wholly unexpected

declaration was disconcerting; and the clerk was, moreover, engaged. He

blushed violently. And yet, even in that moment of consternation, he

could not check a certain thrill. No man thinks he is as plain as he

really is, but Jno. Peters had always come fairly near to a correct

estimate of his charms, and it had always seemed to him, that, in

inducing his fiancée to accept him, he had gone some. He now began to

wonder if he were not really rather a devil of a chap after all. There

must be precious few men going about capable of inspiring devotion like

this on the strength of about six and a half minutes casual

conversation.

Calmer thoughts succeeded this little flicker of complacency. The girl

was mad. That was the fact of the matter. He got up and began to edge

towards the door. Mr. Samuel would be returning shortly, and he ought

to be warned.

“So that’s all right, isn’t it!” said Billie.

“Oh, quite, quite!” said Mr. Peters. “Er—Thank you very much!”

“I thought you would be pleased,” said Billie, relieved but puzzled.

For a man of volcanic passions, as Sam Marlowe had described him, he

seemed to be taking the thing very calmly. She had anticipated a

strenuous scene.

“Oh, it’s a great compliment!” Mr. Peters assured her.

At this point Sam came in, interrupting the conversation at a moment

when it had reached a somewhat difficult stage. He had finished the

instalment of the serial story in _Home Whispers_, and, looking at his

watch, he fancied that he had allowed sufficient time to elapse for

events to have matured along the lines which his imagination had

indicated.

The atmosphere of the room seemed to him, as he entered, a little

strained. Billie looked pale and agitated. Mr. Peters looked rather

agitated, too. Sam caught Billie’s eye. It had an unspoken appeal in

it. He gave an imperceptible nod, a reassuring nod, the nod of a man

who understood all and was prepared to handle the situation.

“Come, Peters,” he said in a deep, firm, quiet voice, laying a hand on

the clerk’s arm. “It’s time that you went.”

“Yes, indeed, Mr. Samuel! Yes, yes, indeed!”

“I’ll see you out,” said Sam soothingly, and led him through the outer

office and on to the landing outside. “Well, good luck, Peters,” he

said, as they stood at the head of the stairs. “I hope you have a

pleasant trip. Why, what’s the matter? You seem upset.”

“That girl, Mr. Samuel! I really think—really, she cannot be quite

right in her head.”

“Nonsense, nonsense!” said Sam firmly. “She’s all right! Well,

good-bye.”

“Good-bye, Mr. Samuel.”

“When did you say you were sailing?”

“Next Saturday, Mr. Samuel. But I fear I shall have no opportunity of

seeing you again before then. I have packing to do and I have to see

this gentleman down in the country....”

“All right. Then we’ll say good-bye now. Good-bye, Peters. Mind you

have a good time in America. I’ll tell my father you called.”

Sam watched him out of sight down the stairs, then turned and made his

way back to the inner office. Billie was sitting limply on the chair

which Jno. Peters had occupied. She sprang to her feet.

“Has he really gone?”

“Yes. He’s gone this time.”

“Was he—was he violent?”

“A little,” said Sam. “A little. But I calmed him down.” He looked at

her gravely. “Thank God I was in time!”

“Oh, you are the bravest man in the world!” cried Billie, and, burying

her face in her hands, burst into tears.

“There, there!” said Sam. “There, there! Come, come! It’s all right

now! There, there, there!”

He knelt down beside her. He slipped one arm round her waist. He patted

her hands.

“There, there, there!” he said.

I have tried to draw Samuel Marlowe so that he will live on the printed

page. I have endeavoured to delineate his character so that it will be

as an open book. And, if I have succeeded in my task, the reader will

by now have become aware that he was a young man with the gall of an

Army mule. His conscience, if he had ever had one, had become atrophied

through long disuse. He had given this sensitive girl the worst fright

she had had since a mouse had got into her bedroom at school. He had

caused Jno. Peters to totter off to the Rupert Street range making low,

bleating noises. And did he care? No! All he cared about was the fact

that he had erased for ever from Billie’s mind that undignified picture

of himself as he had appeared on the boat, and substituted another

which showed him brave, resourceful, gallant. All he cared about was

the fact that Billie, so cold ten minutes before, had just allowed him

to kiss her for the forty-second time. If you had asked him, he would

have said that he had acted for the best, and that out of evil cometh

good, or some sickening thing like that. That was the sort of man

Samuel Marlowe was.

His face was very close to Billie’s, who had cheered up wonderfully by

this time, and he was whispering his degraded words of endearment into

her ear, when there was a sort of explosion in the doorway.

“Great Godfrey!” exclaimed Mr. Rufus Bennett, gazing on the scene from

this point of vantage and mopping with a large handkerchief a scarlet

face, which, as the result of climbing three flights of stairs, had

become slightly soluble. “Great Heavens above! Number four!”