# McClure's Magazine/New Series Volume 1/Number 4/The Ducking of Herbert Polton

Extracted from McClure's magazine, 1925, pp. 596–604. Copyright 1924.
The Ducking of Herbert Polton
By Sapper
OF course it's the old, old story—two men and a woman. But it ended so wonderfully right; it might almost have been the conventional happy ending of the stage. And not only did it end right for the two principal characters, but a whole host of supers who don't even appear in the plot regarded the affair with a sort of dazed, hysterical joy. Decorous city magnates departed from their usual abstemious habits, and consumed champagne for luncheon when they heard of it; in fact if young Bill Saunderson had asked for a wedding present he would probably have got a check running into five figures subscribed by a large number of people whom he had never heard of in his life. In fact Moyra's Uncle William—— Of Uncle William more anon, however. But Bill was asking for nothing except Moyra Jackson, and when all is said and done he'd have been a greedy blighter if he had. And when it became evident that he was the winner out of a very large field, it was significant that every other competitor, short of winning himself, was pleased. All that is except one, and he was the third principal.
Bill wasn't exactly engaged to Moyra when he went out to British East Africa to make his fortune. In fact the field was open.
"How can I tie her down like that?" he said to me one day at lunch at the club. "I've got four hundred a year and a gratuity of two thousand quid. It's impossible, Squash-face, it wouldn't be fair to her."
(As this story is strictly true, I must reveal, without prejudice, to unsympathetic strangers, my entirely unjust and uncalled-for nickname.)
"If I invest the two thousand it means another hundred a year," he went on. "I ask you—what is five hundred a year?"
He gloomily excavated the Stilton, and ordered a glass of light port.
I agreed that five hundred a year didn't go far for two people, especially with tastes like theirs. They'd both hunted and Bill liked polo, which he'd been able to afford while he was in the service. And Moyra liked clothes, being an ordinary normal girl even if she was a darling.
"Of course her old governor would put down something, I suppose," he went on after a while. "But I couldn't expect him to stump up more than I can put down myself. A thousand in all, say."
"What does Moyra say about it!" I inquired.
He got a bit red in the face.
"Look here, old man," he said, "I've been talking out of my turn—but I know you so well. I'm pretty certain that if I asked her she'd marry me with things as they are. But I haven't asked her, and I don't want to give you the impression that there's any understanding, or whatever they call it, between her and me. There isn't, and as far as I can see"—he relapsed into gloom—"there ain't likely to be. I'm beginning to think I was a fool to chuck the army, except that it was a dead end for me. I wouldn't have got into the Staff College in a hundred years. But I must say, Squash-face, the demand for my services has not caused me to post a policeman at the door to regulate the traffic."
And though I didn't say so I doubted if any such demand was ever likely to be made on that excellent body of men as far as Bill was concerned. He was just like hundreds of others—a clean-living sportsman without a trade. And there's no money in being a clean-living sportsman. To ride straight at your fences, possess more than your fair ability with a gun, and be next door to first-class at all games with a ball is an excellent state of affairs; but from the financial point of view an ability to draw a picture of a good mixed-grill on the pavement wins in a canter.
The trouble was that he had no technical knowledge. A fairly senior subaltern when war broke out, he had finished up in command of a battalion with three gold stripes and various bits of ribbon to his credit. And technical knowledge which is of marketable value is not acquired in such a career. In fact it was a thousand pities that he had chucked the service, where, with his private means, he could have gone on living the life that suited him in comparative comfort.
However, like many others during that period of false values which reached its climax in the summer of 1919, Bill Saunderson chucked in his hand. It was perfectly true that, had he remained on, it would have entailed his reversion to company commander for an indefinite period; it was perfectly true that seventy per cent of his pals were dead. But it was the reaction principally that did it; that, and the prevalent and completely erroneous impression that it was easy to get a job. Any old thing, you know—— Organizing—— A perfect whale at organization——
Heavens! the number of fellows who think they can organize—— And old Bill was one of the worst. He had no more idea of organization than I have of trimming a hat. Less—far less.
I said so to Moyra Jackson one day. The conversation had turned on Bill, as it frequently did if she and I were alone.
"Surely, Squash-face," she said a little wistfully, "there must be some market for a man like him. When you see the awful horrors you do see earning huge salaries, it seems ridiculous that Bill can't get a job. He's ever so much nicer than they are. And I know he could run things."
I smiled; I couldn't help it.
"What are you laughing for?" she demanded. "Look at that frightful ass, Julius Mortimer. All he does is to sit in an office and draw five thousand a year for running a cement works. Why shouldn't Bill?"
"Largely, my child," I murmured, "because Bill knows nothing at all about cement. Are you aware that the frightful Julius has spent twenty-seven years of his life mastering the cement trade and everything connected with it in all its details. You can't start in on a show at the top; you've got to begin at the bottom—as our Julius did. Pushing a truck on little rails. Bill could get a job at that to-morrow, provided he joined a trade-union and promised only to push one truck an hour."
"You're a fool, Squash-face," she announced witheringly.
"Maybe, my dear," I agreed. "But I do know something about business and its ways, and there is no good prophesying good things. Besides, I'm far too fond of you and Bill. There are two ways of getting a job that is worth being called a job to-day: one is by ability and the other by influence. And influence is the method I'd choose if I had the choice."
And then, out of the blue, so to speak, came the scheme in British East Africa. I'd been away on business in Italy, and it was all cut and dried when I returned. As a favor I was let into the secret over a little dinner á trois one night.
"We're keeping it dark, Squash-face," said Bill. "No good yapping about these things all over the place. But it's a cinch, old son; a dead snip."
And on paper it certainly seemed to be a very sound proposition. It was coffee, as far as I remember as the main plank, with various side issues, and it held out no wild extravagant promises. Twenty to thirty per cent; perhaps even fifty, depending entirely on the amount of work put in by the owner. Also, of course, a bit of luck; there's bound to be the element of chance in farming. But the great thing was the life. First-class shooting; congenial society of the type who speak the language, as the phrase goes; a wonderful climate. And the name of the company which was running the whole affair was the British East African Combine, Ltd.
It had Bill hooked fast and Moyra, too.
"Think of it, Squash-face," he said. "Away from all these frightful people you hear eating around us; out in a new country with an open-air life. No bally old income-tax to worry one—not that it worries me much as it is, but that's a detail. And if I can get a thousand a year out of the place, why——"
He broke off and stared for a moment or two at Moyra. And she—well, dash it, there had been a time when I had dreamed a wild dream that it might be my luck to bring that look into her eyes. But it was only a dream and has nothing to do with this story——
And so to British East went Bill with a young arsenal of rifles and guns. And as I said before he wasn't exactly engaged to Moyra. I met her a few days after he'd sailed and she came in and lunched with me. She saw, I suppose, that I glanced at her left hand and she smiled a little wistfully.
"I almost threatened to buy one myself and wear it," she said. "But he wouldn't. He insisted that I should be absolutely free until he's made good."
"But you are," I said.
Which is really far more intelligible than it looks in black and white.
It was just as we were finishing lunch that she reverted to him again.
"You think it's all right, Squash-face, don't you?" she said, "It's a good show and all that?"
"As far as I can see it's quite all right," I answered. "Anyway, even if it isn't, the only expense involved is a return ticket."
"But he's had to pay two thousand already," she said. "There was such a rush, you see, to get ground. And there is only a limited amount available."
"The dickens he has," I exclaimed involuntarily. It hadn't struck me before that Bill would put up the money before seeing the place, and it altered the complexion of things very considerably. Of course, it might be all right; on the other hand it most certainly might not. But as it was done there was no good in voicing such fears to Moyra, and I told her that I was sure the scheme was perfectly sound. Even so, a tiny little pucker of anxiety was still remaining on her forehead when the coffee came. That first exclamation of mine had given me away.
"Don't worry, my dear," I repeated as I put her into a taxi. "O1d Bill is going to come out on top. I'm off to the States to-morrow for two or three months, and when I come back I'll probably find you packing up to go out and join him."
It was four months to be exact before I returned, and a few days later I went down to spend a week-end with the Jacksons, Moyra herself had driven the car over to the station to meet me, and, our first greetings over, we plunged into the subject of Bill.
"Everything O. K., Squash-face," she said, and I heaved an inward sigh of relief. "He says it's a magnificent climate, and that he's going to make his fortune." Her eyes were very soft and shining. "I wrote him last mail to tell him that whether he likes it or not I am going out to join him."
"Good," I cried, "I'm so glad, Moyra. So you see I was right, though I don't mind telling you that, at the time, I was a bit uneasy. It was parting with his money before he'd seen the ground that frightened me."
We were driving up to the front door as I spoke, and I saw four men playing tennis on the hard court.
"It's a secret, Squash-face," she said as we pulled up, "about my going out to Bill."
"A secret it is," I answered. "Locked in my heart. But just at the moment I was thinking I'd got 'em again. Is that, or is that not Herbert Polton wielding a tennis racket with the utmost inefficiency?"
"That's Mr. Polton. Why? "
"I'd no idea you knew him."
"He's a friend of daddy's," she answered. "Don't you like him?"
"Mother always told me it was rude to criticize one's fellow-guests," I murmured. "But for your ears alone I will tell you my opinion of Mr. Polton. He is without exception the most poisonous human being that this or any other age has ever produced. Otherwise, of course, quite charming."
"I'm glad you like him so much," she answered. "Uncle William seems almost as fond of him as you are. Personally I can't quite see it. What's the matter with the gent?"
"My dear soul," I said, "you dine at eight. It is now six. There is time for a drink, and there is time for a bath, but there is not time to even touch the fringe of what is the matter with Herbert. I can't believe he's a friend of your father's."
She shrugged her shoulders.
"Not exactly a friend; more a business acquaintance, I think."
And with that the matter dropped, though, as I dressed for dinner, I couldn't help wondering what had caused Herbert Polton to depart so far from his usual habits as to spend a week-end out of London and play tennis.
He loathed the country and everything connected with it, just as he detested all forms of exercise. There was only one driving force in his life and that was money, and the power that was money, and the power that money confers. To that end he had devoted himself, and at the age of forty he was a millionaire many times over.
He was a small man, thin-lipped and clean-shaven, with a pair of penetrating blue eyes. And his eyes gave the clue to the whole man. They were cold and utterly merciless, even as Herbert Polton was cold and merciless. He fought his financial battles giving no quarter and expecting none. And if in the process of amassing a few more hundred thousand pounds which he couldn't possibly spend, two or three smaller men were ruined, that was their fault not his. The weakest to the wall was his motto, and had been ever since he started in the city at the age of twenty.
"No one showed me any mercy," he had been heard to say. "So why should I show it to others! I fought my way to what I am now, alone and unaided, and now that I'm here I don't propose to alter the rules."
One thing there was about him. He had many irons in the fire; he had interests in every corner of the world; but as far as the letter of the law was concerned he was scrupulously honest. Not that it could be accounted to him for virtue; it was simply rudimentary common sense. Only the fool goes outside the letter of the law, and, however much Herbert Polton offended against the spirit of everything that is right and decent in life, he was not a fool. But it was not so much his ruthless methods that made him so universally detested; it was the man himself. He had a snarling, sneering way of talking, especially to a man who was down, that would have resulted in murder in more primitive times. In fact there was the case of one of his head clerks who had been with him for ten years. He was a married man with three children, and Polton sacked him for some trifling clerical error. And a week later the dismissed man stabbed him as he left his office. The poor devil got ten years for it, though Polton was hissed in court as he gave his evidence.
Personally I had run across him once or twice on business matters. I had some interests adjoining his in Burma, and a year previously one or two small details had arisen which necessitated some discussion. His agent out there—a man named Condor and a very decent fellow—had been in London, and it was to see him principally that I had been to Polton's palatial office in Trafalgar Square. A sick man was Condor—eaten out with fever. A lot of his work lay in the mangrove swamps, and it was a pestilential climate, he told me.
I found Polton in the hall, sipping a glass of sherry, when I went down, and we nodded to one another and exchanged a few remarks. And it was he who volunteered the information.
"Remember that agent of mine, Condor?" he said. "Got a cable yesterday to say that he was dead."
"I'm sorry about that," I remarked. "He looked ill enough when I saw him in London. Fever, I suppose."
"Yes—fever," he answered indifferently. "Three years is about the longest a white man can do there. Condor lasted four. I suppose you don't know of a good man who wants the job."
"What job! Dying? No, I don't."
Little swine! I could have hit him under the jaw with comfort at that moment. I knew Condor had asked for a change, but it was specialized work which it took some time to pick up. So Polton had turned down the request.
"Do you stay here often?" he asked casually, though his eyes were fixed on me intently.
"Very often when I'm in England," I answered, a little surprized. "Why do you ask?"
"Oh! nothing. I only wondered. With a charming girl like Miss Jackson it's not surprizing."
His face registered what Polton called a smile.
"I'm afraid I fail to follow," I remarked coldly, and even as I spoke a sudden look came into his eyes. It was gone in a moment, but there was no mistaking its significance. Without even turning round I knew Moyra was coming across the hall towards us, and I also knew something else—the reason for Polton's presence in the house. The reptile was in love with Moyra; I knew it as certainly as if he had spoken his thoughts out loud. How it had started, where he had met her, what had been the beginning of the thing, I didn't know. But the fact remained that Herbert Polton had fallen in love.
I went in to dinner a little thoughtfully. The thing, of course, was absurd. He was sitting next her, and was evidently going out of his way to be pleasant. And Polton being pleasant was not without its humor. The only point I couldn't quite get at was whether Moyra had any idea as to the state of affairs. A woman generally spots that particular ailment in a man on the very first symptom, but then Polton was hardly a man. He was an atrophied calculating machine.
I understood now the reason for his remarks to me before dinner. Evidently he'd been trying to pump me about Moyra, and I smiled inwardly. There was one thing at any rate in which ruthless business efficiency availed nothing, and that was in the matter of love. Bill, with his paltry two thousand, won in a canter there. And when we sat down to play bridge afterwards, the thought of the jolt awaiting Herbert, if and when he laid his vast fortune and his unpleasing personality at Moyra's feet, was as balm to my soul.
And now for a moment it becomes necessary to digress. The digression is only apparent; in reality it has a close bearing on what is to follow. But I must mention briefly the unfortunate contretemps that took place that night over the card-table.
Fate—in the shape of cutting—decreed that Mr. Jackson and I played against Polton and Uncle William, whom I will now introduce. Uncle William was and is a bachelor, with, I regret to state, a penchant for vintage port. And that night at dinner he had consumed four glasses. He was an Anglo-Indian of fiery temperament and considerable wealth, and he suffered from one great delusion. He thought he was a first-class bridge player.
Now, he wasn't. Honesty compels me to state that at his brightest and best he was distinctly C.3. And after four glasses of the old and bold he was about Z.26. But the delusion remained.
On the contrary, Herbert Polton was first-class. He combined a wonderful memory and a clear brain with an almost uncanny card sense. In fact he was as good a player as any one is ever likely to meet.
The trouble occurred in the third hand that was played. Polton was dummy and Uncle William had gone four no trumps, which I had doubled. And Uncle William got the lead in the wrong hand and went down three when he ought to have made his contract.
I will not linger over the subsequent scene. There are men with whom it is a pleasure to play cards, and there are others. Herbert Polton was one of the others. It was not, as he pointed out after a few preliminary remarks, that he objected to the loss of money, but that he considered that there should be some standard of proficiency which must be attained before people were allowed to play. To which Uncle William replied that if the same idea was extended to lawn tennis and manners he would be the first to agree with it. And with that the subject dropped—save in Uncle William's mind. It lingered there until in the fulness of time—— But of that in its proper place.
It was about a month later that Bill walked into my rooms, and threw himself into a chair. I was so surprised that for a moment or two I stared at him without speaking, and then I realized that things were wrong. His eyes were tired, and there were lines on his face that had never been there before.
"I suppose you know a good many fools, Squash-face," he said at length. "Well, I'm the king of that castle."
"What's up, old man?" I asked, pushing over the cigarets.
"Merely that the British East African Combine Ltd. is the most almighty swindle," he answered wearily.
"But Moyra told me you were making your fortune."
He laughed a little bitterly.
"There was no good making her unhappy. It was a lie, of course; though when I wrote that letter I had something else in my mind which might have turned up trumps. It didn't, and that's that. And then she wrote and told me she was going to come out and join me. That's why I've come back—to stop her. By heavens, old man," he burst out savagely, "it's a foul ramp, that scheme. I've lost my two thousand, but there were one or two others——"
He broke off and drummed with his fingers on the table.
"There was a boy there—quite a youngster. Married—and his wife was with him. Lost every penny. Nice boy, too, but not the stuff to stand that. Got on the drink, and blew out her brains and then his own."
"Can't you run them in, Bill!" I asked after a moment.
"I don't know. Perhaps. But it's diabolically clever, Squash-face—that agreement of theirs. Everything they said in it is right up to a point. And that's where the crux comes in. It's a question of degree. All they have done is to unload—I won't say worthless ground, but next door to it—on fellows at about a thousand per cent over its proper price. Everything was to depend on the amount of work put in by the buyer. Naturally. The same may be said of any farming prospect. And if I'd bought that ground for say two hundred pounds, which is about what it was worth, and been able to put the remaining eighteen hundred into improvement and irrigation and that sort of thing, it might have proved a reasonable show. But there's no law against selling a thing at an inflated price, if you can get fools to buy."
We went into it that morning from all angles, and at length I had to agree with him. It was just one of those rotten swindles, which legally are not swindles. The ground sold conformed to what was claimed for it, and if people were prepared to pay ten times more than it was worth it was their worry.
"You haven't seen Moyra yet?" I asked him.
Bill stared out of the window with his back to me.
"No. I only landed this morning. Squash-face, I'm going to ask you to do something for me. Things"—he hesitated a moment—"things were pretty well fixed up, you'll understand. And, of course, this has altered everything. Well, I've been figuring it out on the way home. It's not fair to keep her hanging around while I go on qualifying for a mental home. So I'm just going to fade away out of the country. Canada—or somewhere. And I want you to tell her how things stand. Make her see it, old man; make her understand that it's not—it's not—— Oh! hang it—you understand."
"I understand perfectly, Bill," I answered. "When are you going?"
"As soon as I can. I'm going round to interview the British East African Combine Ltd. this afternoon, and after that the sooner I'm out of London the better."
"Right," I said. "Dine with me to-night anyway: Savoy grill."
He nodded, and picked up his hat.
"You'll make it clear to her, won't you, old son?"
"Confound you, Bill—of course I will. You darned quixotic idiot. Now, for the love of Mike clear out. I've got work to do."
And it was work, too. What on earth was wrong with the telephone system that day I don't know. But it took me the best part of an hour to get through to Moyra, and then she could hardly hear what I said.
"Savoy grill," I bellowed. "Stop with Aunt Jane. Eight o'clock."
"But how is Bill?" she said for the twentieth time.
"Wait and see," I retorted brilliantly.
And I'd replaced the receiver before she had a chance to be rude.
He halted a bit in his tracks, did Bill, when he saw Moyra with me that evening. And Moyra made a little sound in her throat that was half a sigh and half a sob, though she was pleased to be severely aloof when he came up.
"You old blighter, Squash-face," he said, and his voice shook a bit. "Moyra—my dear——"
"Look here, young fellah," she said, "you're for it. What in the name of fortune do you mean by sneaking into England and trying to sneak out again without letting me know? And if the good-looking man on my right had not had the sense to telephone me you might have succeeded."
"But don't you see, my dear," he said helplessly, "it's put the lid on the whole show."
And quite suddenly she dropped her bantering tone.
"Dear boy," she said very low. "Dear, dear boy. Do you really think that it's made any difference at all?"
"At this juncture," I murmured, utilizing to the full that tact which has made me famous throughout three continents, "I will go and ascertain if the oysters are prepared for the sacrifice."
"Ass," said Bill, but ten minutes later when I returned it struck me that the difference was certainly not large.
Once again we went over it all. He'd been down to see the people in the office, but he'd got very little change out of them. They were merely the agents, and if he chose to take legal proceedings—well, they'd regret it but there was nothing to prevent him. Of course he would have to prove that there was a definite misstatement of fact, and the law was an expensive amusement.
"An oily little swine of a Jew bird, Squash-face," he said, and he smiled happily. "With a lisp, you know. I pulled him out of his chair, and I slogged him over the head with a Post Office directory. And then I said to him that I was merely an agent, but that if he chose to take legal proceedings for assault and battery there was nothing to prevent him. I felt better after that."
And then his face became weary again, and he stared at Moyra a bit hopelessly.
"Lordy! Lordy—what a fool I've been," he said for the tenth time. But for the moment she seemed to be engrossed in thought.
"Give me a cigarette, Bill," she said at length. "I'm hatching out an idea. I'm not going to tell you what it is——" She broke off abruptly. "Look here, you two, let's lunch here to-morrow and I'll tell you if the old egg is good or bad."
And not another word would she say, though later on Bill, when he took her back to Aunt Jane, tried to get it out of her.
"I'll tell you to-morrow, Bill," was all she answered, and with that he had to be content.
"What can the dear kid do?" he asked me pessimistically as we waited for her the next day. "She doesn't understand; she—— Good Lord, old man, she's pulled something off! Look at her face."
Sure enough the news was good. Moyra was coming towards us smiling triumphantly.
"Is fifteen hundred a year and first-class prospects any good, my lad? For that's what this child has got for you."
"It is true," murmured Bill, "that yonder man looks like a bad dream, but I have an idea that I'm awake. Elucidate your statement, my angel."
I think I had a premonition of what was coming; she'd been to Herbert Polton. And as she went over the interview and told us what had happened, I listened half mechanically. Bill was getting keener and keener as she talked; the weariness had left his face.
"It's in Burma, Bill," she said. "The manager out there has just died. Fifteen hundred a year to start with, and he wants to see you this afternoon. And Squash-face said he was a sweep——" She turned on me with scorn.
She went on talking, and a feeling of helplessness came over me.
"What job? Dying?"
My remark to Polton came back to me, but what could I do? As clearly as if it was written in a book I saw the whole scheme, but of proof I had none. Polton, realizing Bill was his rival, had adopted the simple expedient of offering him a job at the other end of the earth to get rid of him. The fact that by so doing he earned the gratitude of Moyra and ran a good chance of killing Bill was entirely typical of Herbert Polton. But the utter futility of saying so to them was apparent. You don't deter a virile man from accepting a good job because the locality is unhealthy; you don't tell your best friend that you are convinced that the only reason he's got a job is that the man who has given it to him is in love with his girl and wants him out of the way. At least not without proof, and my proof consisted of a fleeting look on Polton's face.
"You've got some ground out there haven't you, Squash-face?"
Bill was speaking, and I came out of my reverie.
"I have," I answered. And suddenly an idea came to me. "I'll come round and see Polton with you this afternoon, Bill. I know him."
"Splendid," said Bill. "I wish you would."
And so, half an hour later we strolled along the Strand towards Polton's office. Moyra was doing a matinee, and we had arranged to foregather for tea at Rumpelmayers.
"Look here, Bill," I said, "I want you particularly to remember one thing. Tell Polton that you propose to marry Moyra and take her out with you."
He looked at me doubtfully.
"But what about the climate?"
"Never mind the climate. You tell Polton that. I have a reason."
"You're dashed mysterious about this business, old man," he said a little irritably. "It seems to me a wonderfully good job, and a very sporting chance on the part of this man Polton, considering he's never seen me."
I took a chance.
"He's seen Moyra," I said.
Bill turned white.
"What the devil do you mean?" he said quietly.
"Exactly what I say," I answered. "Tell him what I told you."
To say that Herbert Polton was pleased to see me would be to exaggerate. I introduced Bill, and for a few minutes they discussed the job. Bill was staring at him pretty closely as they talked, and, knowing Polton as I did, I could see he wasn't quite at his ease.
"Of course, it's not a healthy locality," he said.
"Three years I think you gave it for any ordinary man," I remarked.
Polton shrugged his shoulders.
"Saunderson looks pretty well salted," he said. "Of course if you don't care about the job—don't take it. I'm merely doing it to oblige Miss Jackson."
"Who will come out there with me," put in Bill quietly.
Polton started perceptibly.
"Impossible," he said decisively. "The climate is out of the question for a white woman. You would have no right whatever to take her out there. In fact, as a friend of her father's, I should feel compelled to withdraw my offer unless you give me your word of honor that you won't do anything of the sort."
"The climate is quite all right for six months of the year," I remarked. "And for the remaining six, with the munificent salary you offer, Mr. Polton, I've no doubt Saunderson will be able to make satisfactory arrangements for his wife's health."
I think it was then that Polton realized that I, at any rate, had guessed his game.
"May I ask if it is you who are engaging Saunderson, or I?" he asked venomously.
"And may I ask," I said "why having offered a job to a completely unknown man—a thing you've never done before in your life—you should be so concerned about his domestic affairs?"
The gloves were off, and no one knew it better than Bill.
"Have you ever read the story of Uriah the Hittite, Mr. Polton?" I said.
"Get out of my office," he snarled.
"You swab," said Bill slowly. "You beastly swab." He reached across the desk, as if he was going to hit Polton, and in doing so knocked over a pile of papers. And then he stood very still, staring at a book which had been hidden under the documents.
"Get out of my office—both of you," gibbered Polton, almost inarticulate with rage. "Or I'll send for the police."
"What have you to do with the British East African Combine?" said Bill in a terrible voice.
"Get out of my office," shouted Polton, and then Bill's great hands came down on him and he squealed like a cornered rat.
"You reptile," said Bill. "Now I remember. A boy who blew out his wife's brains and then his own told me that Polton was the name of the man who had swindled him. Blew out his brains, you little beast; do you hear me?"
"Let me go," screamed Polton, but Bill took no notice.
"I half stunned your wretched agent this morning, Polton," he said thoughtfully, "and I'm wondering what I'll do with you."
And then suddenly he grinned.
"Open the door, Squash-face; and bring my hat."
Half pushing, half carrying, he rushed Herbert Polton down the stairs and across the road. An unholy joy was on Bill's face, and he paid not the slightest attention to the staring bystanders. In fact it was all over so quietly that nobody realized what was happening. For it can't have been more than half a minute from the time Polton left his office to the moment when, with a resounding splash, he entered the fountain in Trafalgar Square.
"You can run me in if you like, you excrescence," remarked Bill dispassionately at Polton, spluttering horribly, got his head above water. "But if you do I shall tell all I know about your swindling combine."
And then arrived the fullness of time of which I have spoken. What marvelous dispensation of providence had caused Uncle William to select that psychological moment to pass on his way to Whitehall I know not. But it happened.
Full of port and the club's '64 brandy, he surveyed the dripping Polton in a kind of ecstacy. Then he threw him a penny.
"A very creditable performance," he boomed. "Much better than your tennis or your bridge."
He turned to Bill.
"Why, good heavens, it's young Bill Saunderson! I'll bail you out, my boy, if there's any trouble."
But there wasn't. The proceeding was undoubtedly irregular, as two policemen pointed out, but since Herbert Polton darted into a cab and disappeared, they contented themselves with taking Bill's name and address for reference in case of necessity, and dispersing the crowd.
"Magnificent," cried Uncle William. "Sublime. I wouldn't have missed it for ten thousand pounds. Did you come back specially from Africa to do it?"
"More or less," grinned Bill. "The little swine swindled me out of all my money."
"Did he indeed?" said Uncle William. "Then what are you going to do about that niece of mine? Can't marry her without money; must marry her if you've ducked Polton. We couldn't let you out of the family. Come and dine at my club, my boy. Wonderful port. We'll talk things over. To-night, at eight. And tell Moyra to order her trousseau."
He departed booming joyfully towards Whitehall, leaving Bill partially dazed.
"What's he mean, Squash-face?"
"Just what he says, old man," I answered. "And now I think I'll leave you to break the news to Moyra that you have—ah—declined the job, and push off. I shall be very busy this afternoon."
"What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to see every human being I know in the City and tell 'em what's happened. So long, Bill."
Copyright, 1925, H. C. McNeile
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1937, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 86 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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