<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2 class="p4">CHAPTER II</h2>
<p class="pch">THE SIGNAL</p>
<p class="drop-cap08">BY now it was past the half-hour; the arrivals
dwindled to a few late stragglers, who were
promptly turned away by the beadle; the
crowd of onlookers dispersed with smiles, shrugs,
and a whistle or two: only a group of reporters stood
on the lowest step, talking to one another and glancing
at Sir Paget, as though they would like to tackle
him but were doubtful of their reception. One did
quietly detach himself from the group and walked
up to where my uncle stood on the top step. I saw
Sir Paget raise his hat, bow slightly, and speak one
sentence. The man bowed in return, and rejoined
his fellows with a rueful smile; then all of them
made off together down the street.</p>
<p>My uncle was a little below middle height, but
very upright and spare, so that he looked taller than
he was. He had large features—a big, high-peaked
nose, wide, thin-lipped mouth, bushy eyebrows, and
very keen blue eyes. He bore himself with marked
dignity—even with some stiffness towards the world
at large, although among intimates he was the most
urbane and accessible of men. His long experience<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</SPAN></span>
in affairs had given him imperturbable composure;
even at this moment he did not look the least put
out. His manner and speech were modeled on the
old school of public men—formal and elaborate
when the occasion demanded, but easy, offhand, and
familiar in private: to hear him was sometimes like
listening to behind-the-scenes utterances of, say, Lord
Melbourne or the great Duke which have come down
to us in memoirs of their period.</p>
<p>When we went up to him, he nodded to me and
gave his hand to Valdez. He had not seen him for
two years, but he only said, “Ah, you here, Arsenio?”
and went on, “Well, boys, here’s a damned
kettle of fish! The girl’s cut and run, by Gad, she
has!”</p>
<p>Valdez muttered “Good Lord!” or “Good Heavens!”
or something of that kind. I found nothing
to say, but the face I had seen at the taxi window
flashed before my eyes again.</p>
<p>“Went out at ten this morning—for a walk, she
said, before dressing. And she never came back.
Half an hour ago a boy-messenger left a note for
her mother. ‘I can’t do it, Mother. So I’ve gone.’—That
was all. Aunt Bertha had been called in to
assist at the dressing-up, and she sent word to me.
Mrs. Knyvett collapsed, of course.”</p>
<p>“And—and Waldo? Is he here?” asked Valdez.
“I’d like to see him and—and say what I could.”</p>
<p>“I got him away by the back door—to avoid those<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</SPAN></span>
press fellows: he consented to go back to the hotel
and wait for me there.”</p>
<p>“It’s a most extraordinary thing,” said Valdez,
who wore an air of embarrassment quite natural
under the circumstances. He was—or had been—an
intimate of the family; but this was an extremely
intimate family affair. “I called in Mount Street
three days ago,” he went on, “and she seemed quite—well,
normal, you know; very bright and happy,
and all that.”</p>
<p>Sir Paget did not speak. Valdez looked at his
watch. “Well, you’ll want to be by yourselves, and
I’ve got an appointment.”</p>
<p>“Good-by, my boy. You must come and see us
presently. You’re looking very well, Arsenio.
Good-by. Don’t you go, Julius, I want you.”</p>
<p>Arsenio walked down the steps very quickly—indeed,
he nearly ran—and got into a taxi which was
standing by the curb. He turned and waved his
hand towards us as he got in. My uncle was frowning
and pursing up his thin, supple lips. He took my
arm and we came down the steps together.</p>
<p>“There’s the devil to pay with Waldo,” he said,
pressing his hand on my sleeve. “It was all I could
do to make him promise to wait till we’d talked it
over.”</p>
<p>“What does he want to do?”</p>
<p>“He’s got one of his rages. You know ‘em?
They don’t come often, but when they do—well, it’s
damned squally weather! And he looks on her as<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</SPAN></span>
as good as his wife, you see.” He glanced up at
me—I am a good deal the taller—with a very unwonted
look of distress and apprehension. “He’s
not master of himself. It would never do for him
to go after them in the state he’s in now.”</p>
<p>“After—<i>them?</i>”</p>
<p>“That’s his view; I incline to it myself, too.”</p>
<p>“She was alone in the taxi.” I blurted it out,
more to myself than to him, and quite without thinking.</p>
<p>I told him of my encounter; it had seemed a delusion,
but need not seem so now.</p>
<p>“Driving past Marlborough House into the
Mall? Looks like Victoria, doesn’t it? Any luggage
on the cab?”</p>
<p>“I didn’t notice, sir.”</p>
<p>“Then you’re an infernal fool, Julius,” said Sir
Paget peevishly.</p>
<p>I was not annoyed, though I felt sure that my
uncle himself would have thought no more about
luggage than I had, if he had seen the face as I had
seen it. But I felt shy about describing the flush on
a girl’s face and the sparkle in her eyes; that was
more Valdez’s line of country than mine. So I said
nothing, and we fell into a dreary silence which lasted
till we got to the hotel.</p>
<p>I went upstairs behind Sir Paget in some trepidation.
I had, for years back, heard of Waldo’s
“white rages”; I had seen only one, and I had not
liked it. Waldo was not, to my thinking, a Rillington:<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</SPAN></span>
we are a dark, spare race. He was a Fleming—stoutly
built, florid and rather ruddy in the face.
But the passion seemed to suck up his blood; it turned
him white. It was rather curious and uncanny, while
it lasted. The poor fellow used to be very much
ashamed of himself when it was over; but while it
was on—well, he did not seem to be ashamed of
anything he did or said. He was dangerous—to
himself and others. Really, that night at Cragsfoot,
I had thought that he was going to knock Valdez’s
head off, though the ostensible cause of quarrel
was nothing more serious—or perhaps I should say
nothing less abstract—than the Legitimist principle,
of which Valdez, true to his paternal tradition,
elected to pose as the champion and brought on himself
a bitter personal attack, in which such words as
hypocrites, parasites, flunkeys, toadeaters, etc., etc.,
figured vividly. And all this before the ladies, and
in the presence of his father, whose absolute authority
over him he was at all normal moments eager to
acknowledge.</p>
<p>“I’m going to tell him that you think you saw her
this morning,” said Sir Paget, pausing outside the
door of the room. “He has a right to know; and
it’s not enough really to give him any clew that might
be—well, too easy!” My uncle gave me a very wry
smile as he spoke.</p>
<p>Waldo was older now; perhaps he had greater
self-control, perhaps the magnitude of his disaster
forbade any fretful exhibition of fury. It was a white<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</SPAN></span>
rage—indeed, he was pale as a ghost—but he was
quiet; the lightning struck inwards. He received
his father’s assurance that everything had been managed
as smoothly as possible—with the minimum of
publicity—without any show of interest; he was beyond
caring about publicity or ridicule, I think. On
the other hand, it may be that these things held too
high a place in Sir Paget’s mind; he almost suggested
that, if the thing could be successfully hushed
up, it would be much the same as if it had never
happened: perhaps the diplomatic instinct sets that
way. Waldo’s concern stood rooted in the thing
itself. This is not to say that his pride was not hit,
as well as his love; but it was the blow that hurt
him, not the noise that the blow might make.</p>
<p>Probably Sir Paget saw this for himself before
many minutes had passed; for he turned to me, saying,
“You’d better tell him your story, for what it’s
worth, Julius.”</p>
<p>Waldo listened to me with a new look of alertness,
but the story seemed to come to less than he
had expected. His interest flickered out again, and
he listened with an impatient frown to Sir Paget’s
conjectures as to the fugitive’s destination. But he
put two or three questions to me.</p>
<p>“Did she recognize you? See you, I mean—bow,
or nod, or anything?”</p>
<p>“Nothing at all; I don’t think she saw me. She
passed me in a second, of course.”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>“It must have been Lucinda, of course. You
couldn’t have been mistaken?”</p>
<p>“I thought I was at the time, because it seemed
impossible. Of course, now—as things stand—there’s
no reason why it shouldn’t have been Lucinda,
and no doubt it was.”</p>
<p>“How was she looking?”</p>
<p>I had to attempt that description, after all! “Very
animated; very—well, eager, you know. She was
flushed; she looked—well, excited.”</p>
<p>“You’re dead sure that she was alone?”</p>
<p>“Oh, yes, I’m positive as to that.”</p>
<p>“Well, it doesn’t help us much,” observed Sir
Paget. “Even if anything could help us! For the
present I think I shouldn’t mention it to any one
else—except, of course, Mrs. Knyvett and Aunt Bertha.
No more talk of any kind than we can help!”</p>
<p>“Besides you two, I’ve only mentioned it to Valdez;
and, when I did that, I didn’t believe that the
girl was Lucinda.”</p>
<p>“Monkey Valdez! Did he come to the—to the
church?” Waldo asked quickly. “I didn’t know
he was in London, or even in England.”</p>
<p>“He’s been in town about a fortnight, I gathered.
He’d seen the Knyvetts, he said, and I suppose they
asked him to the wedding.”</p>
<p>“You met him there—and told him about this—this
seeing Lucinda?”</p>
<p>“I didn’t meet him at the church. He lunched
with me before and we walked there together.”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>“What did he say?”</p>
<p>“Oh, only some half-joking remark that you
couldn’t take any other girl for Lucinda. He
didn’t seem to attach any importance to it.”</p>
<p>Waldo’s eyes were now set steadily on my face.
“Did you tell him at lunch, or as you walked to the
church, or at the church?”</p>
<p>“As a matter of fact, before lunch. I mentioned
the matter—that was half in joke too—as soon as I
met him in the street.”</p>
<p>Sir Paget was about to speak, but Waldo silenced
him imperiously. “Half a minute, Father. I want
to know about this. Where did you meet—and
when?”</p>
<p>“As soon as the taxi—the one with the girl in it—had
gone by. I had to wait for it to go by. I
crossed over to St. James’s Street and stopped to
light a cigarette. Just as I was getting out a match,
he spoke to me.”</p>
<p>“Where did he come from?”</p>
<p>“I don’t know; I didn’t see him till he spoke to
me.”</p>
<p>“He might have been standing at the corner there—or
near it?”</p>
<p>“Yes, for all I know—or just have reached there,
or just crossed from the other corner of St. James’s
Street. I really don’t know. Why does it matter,
Waldo?”</p>
<p>“You’re dense, man, you’re dense!”</p>
<p>“Gently, Waldo, old boy!” Sir Paget interposed<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</SPAN></span>
softly. He was standing with his back to the fireplace,
smoking cigarette after cigarette, but quite
quietly, not in a fluster. It was plain that he had
begun to follow the scent which Waldo was pursuing
so keenly.</p>
<p>“I beg your pardon, Julius. But look here. If
he was at either corner of the street, or on the refuge
in the middle—there is one, I think—he may
well have been there a moment before—standing
there, waiting perhaps. The taxi that passed you
would have passed him. He would have seen the
girl just as you saw her.”</p>
<p>“By Jove, that’s true! But he’d have told me if
he had.”</p>
<p>“He didn’t say he hadn’t?”</p>
<p>I searched my memory. “No, he didn’t say that.
But if—well, if, as you seem to suggest, he was
there in order to see her, and did see her——”</p>
<p>“It was funny enough your happening to see her.
It would be a lot funnier coincidence if he just
happened to be there, and just happened to see her
too! And just as funny if he was there and didn’t
see her, eh?”</p>
<p>“But how could he carry it off as he did?”</p>
<p>“My dear chap, the Monkey would carry off a
load of bricks that hit him on the head! There’s
nothing in that.”</p>
<p>“What’s your theory, Waldo?” Sir Paget asked
quietly.</p>
<p>Waldo sat silent for a full minute. He seemed<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</SPAN></span>
by now to be over the first fit of his rage; there
was color in his cheeks again. But his eyes were
bright, intent, and hard. He seemed to be piecing
together the theory for which his father asked him—piecing
it together so as to give it to us in a complete
form. Waldo was not quick-witted, but he
had a good brain. If he got hold of a problem, he
would worry it to a solution.</p>
<p>“I’ve written to her every day,” he began slowly.
“And she’s answered, quite affectionately—she’s
never offensive; she’s given me no hint that she
meant to go back on me like this. The day before
yesterday I wired to her to know if I might come
up; she wired: ‘For pity’s sake don’t. I am too
busy. Wait till the day.’”</p>
<p>“Nothing much in that,” said his father. “She’d
put it that way—playfully.”</p>
<p>“Nothing much if it stood alone,” Waldo agreed.
“But suppose she was struggling between two influences—mine
and his.” For a moment his voice faltered.
“He’s always been against me—always—ever
since that time at Cragsfoot.” I heard a swallow
in his throat, and he went on again steadily.
“Never mind that. Look at it as a case, a problem,
impersonally. A girl is due to marry a man; another
is besieging her. She can’t make up her mind—can’t
make it up even on the very day before the wedding;
or, if you like, won’t admit to herself that she has
really resolved to break her promise, to be false to
the man to whom she is already——” Again there<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</SPAN></span>
was a falter in his voice—“already really a wife, so
far as anything short of—short of the actual thing
itself—can make her——”</p>
<p>He came to a sudden stop; he was unable to finish;
he had invited us to a dispassionate consideration of
the case as a case, as a problem; in the end he was
not equal to laying it before us dispassionately. “Oh,
you see, Father!” he groaned.</p>
<p>“Yes,” said Sir Paget. “I see the thing—on your
hypothesis. She couldn’t make up her mind—or
wouldn’t admit that she had. So she told the other
man——”</p>
<p>“Valdez?”</p>
<p>“Yes, Julius. Arsenio Valdez. She told Arsenio
to be at a certain spot at a certain time—a time
when, if she were going to keep her promise, she
would be getting ready for her wedding. ‘Be at the
corner of St. James’s Street at one o’clock.’ That
would be it, wouldn’t it? If I drive by in a taxi,
alone, it means yes to you, no to him. If I don’t,
it means the opposite.’ That’s what you mean,
Waldo?”</p>
<p>Waldo nodded assent; but I could not readily
accept the idea.</p>
<p>“You mean, when I saw her she’d just seen him,
and when I saw him, he’d just seen her?”</p>
<p>“Wouldn’t that account for the animation and excitement
you noticed in her face—for the flush that
struck you? She had just given the signal; she’d<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</SPAN></span>
just”—he smiled grimly—“crossed her Rubicon,
Julius.”</p>
<p>“But why wasn’t he with her? Why didn’t he
go with her? Why did he come to the wedding?
Why did he go through that farce?”</p>
<p>Sir Paget shrugged his shoulders. “Some idea of
throwing us off the scent and getting a clear start,
probably.”</p>
<p>“Yes, it might have been that,” I admitted. “And
it does account for—for the way she looked. But
the idea never crossed my mind. There wasn’t a
single thing in his manner to raise any suspicion of
the sort. If you’re right, it was a wonderful bit of
acting.”</p>
<p>Waldo turned to me—he had been looking intently
at his father while Sir Paget expounded the
case—with a sharp movement. “Did Monkey ask
for me when he came to the church?”</p>
<p>“Yes, I think he did. Yes, he did. He said he’d
like to see you and—and say something, you know.”</p>
<p>“I thought so! That would have been his moment!
He wanted to see how I took it, damn him!
Coming to the church was his idea. He may have
persuaded her that it was a good ruse, a clever
trick. But really he wanted to see me—in the dirt.
Monkey Valdez all over!”</p>
<p>I believe that I positively shivered at the bitterness
of his anger and hatred. They had been chums, pals,
bosom friends. And I loved—I had loved—them<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</SPAN></span>
both. Sir Paget, too, had made almost a son of
Arsenio Valdez.</p>
<p>“And for that—he shall pay,” said Waldo, rising
to his feet. “Doesn’t he deserve to pay for that,
Father?”</p>
<p>“What do you propose to do, Waldo?”</p>
<p>“Catch him and—give him his deserts.”</p>
<p>“He’ll have left the country before you can catch
him.”</p>
<p>“I can follow him. And I shall. I can find him,
never fear!”</p>
<p>“You must think of her,” I ventured to suggest.</p>
<p>“Afterwards. As much as you like—afterwards.”</p>
<p>“But by the time you find them, they’ll have—I
mean, they’ll be——”</p>
<p>“Hold your tongue, for God’s sake, Julius!”</p>
<p>I turned to Sir Paget. “If he insists on going, let
me go with him, sir,” I said.</p>
<p>“Yes, that would be—wise,” he assented, but, as
I thought, rather absently.</p>
<p>Waldo gave a laugh. “All right, Julius. If you
fancy the job, come along and pick up the pieces!
There’ll be one of us to bury, at all events.” I
suppose that I made some instinctive gesture of
protest, for he added: “She was mine—mine.”</p>
<p>Sir Paget looked from him to me, and back again
from me to him.</p>
<p>“You must neither of you leave the country,”
he said.</p>
<hr class="chap" />
<div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />