CHAPTER XXIV—DUKE NINEVEH ENTERS

As the years passed the two boys grew into explorers of the undiscovered countries that lie behind the tail-treed reticence of people’s minds. Their sole equipment for these gallant raids was a daring sort of kindness.

Ruddy’s actions were inspired by good nature and high spirits; Teddy’s by introspection and a determination to inquire. He was possessed by a relentless curiosity to find out how things worked.

By a dramatic turn of luck their faculty for curious friendships flung the whole Sheerug household, and Jimmie Boy with it, high up on the strand of what Mrs. Sheerug would have termed “a secure nincome.”

At the time when this happened Teddy was already getting his hand in by helping his father with the letter-press for his illustrated volumes. Ruddy, much to Mrs. Sheerug’s disgust, had announced his intention of “going on the sands,” by which he meant becoming a pierrot.

One sparkling morning in June they were setting out for Brighton. Ruddy had heard of a troupe who were playing there and was anxious to add to his store of pierrot-knowledge. At the last moment, as the train was moving, a distinguished looking man who had been dawdling on the platform seemed to make up his mind to travel by it Paying no heed to the warning shouts of porters, as coolly as if he had been catching a passing bus, he leapt on the step of the boys’ third-class smoker, unlocked the door and entered.

“Handy things to keep about you,” he said, “keys to Tallway carriages. Oh, a third! Thought it was a first. Too bad. Make the best of it.”

There was a cheerful insolence about the way in which he sniffed, “Oh, a third!” addressing nobody in particular and thinking his thoughts aloud. He had a fine, rolling baritone. His aristocratic, drawling way of talking set up an immediate barrier between himself and the world—a barrier which he evidently expected the world to recognize.

Ruddy raised a democratic foot and tapped him on the shin. “Your ticket’s a third. It’s in your hand.”

The distinguished looking man leant down and flapped his trousers with his glove where the democratic foot had touched it Then he fixed Ruddy with a haughty stare. “Ah! So it is. Chap must have given it me in error.”

He settled himself in a corner, paying the utmost attention to his comfort, screwed a monocle in his eye and spread a copy of The Pink ’Un before him.

The boys threw inquiring glances at each other. Why should this ducal looking individual, with his complete self-assurance and patronizing vastness, have worried himself to try to make them believe that he was traveling third-class by accident? Was he an escaping criminal or a lunatic? Had the porters who had shouted warnings at him been disguised detectives? Was there any chance of his becoming violent when they entered the Box Hill Tunnel?

They scrutinized him carefully. He was probably nearing forty; he wore a straw hat, a black flannel suit with a thin white stripe running down it, patent-leather shoes and canvas spats. Everything about him was of expensive cut and bore the stamp of fashion. His face was wrinkled like a bloodhound’s, his hair sleek and tawny, his complexion brick-red with good living. His nose was slightly Roman, his eyes a sleepy gray; his attitude towards the world one of fastidious boredom. He was a large-framed man and would pass for handsome.

Ruddy was not easily awed. Reaching under the seat, he drew out one of the boxes which Mr. Hughes had entrusted to him.

“What message shall we send? The usual?”

On a narrow strip of paper he wrote, “We have just completed another murder.” As the train slowed down at Red Hill, he leant out of the window and tossed the pigeon up.

“Never trouble trouble, till trouble troubles you.”

The distinguished looking person had laid aside his paper.

“Excuse me,” he said, and with that he drew off his patent-leather shoes and rested his feet on the window ledge to air them.

“Tight?” suggested Teddy politely.

“Very,” said the distinguished looking person. “To tell the truth, they’re not mine. I’m too kind-hearted.”

He picked up his paper and wriggled his toes in his silk socks. It was difficult to trace the connection between wearing tight shoes and kind-heartedness.

“A mystingry,” whispered Ruddy.

“Eh! What’s that?” The Roman nose appeared for an instant above The Pink ’Un and the lazy gray eyes twinkled. “I’m wearing ’em easy out of affection for a dear friend. No splendor without pain. I take the pain and leave him the splendor.”

Both boys nodded as though his explanation had made his conduct, which had at first seemed unusual, entirely conventional. Teddy drew a pencil from his pocket and commenced to make a surreptitious sketch. If the imposing stranger were anything that he ought not to be, it might come in useful.

“What are you doing?” The paper was tossed aside. “Humph! Colossal! If I may, I’ll keep it I’m a black-and-white artist myself.” He narrowed his eyes as if to hide their real expression. “You won’t know my name. I’m what you might call a professional amateur. Could make a fortune at it, but won’t be bothered with the vulgarity of selling.” And then, with an airy wave of his hand, flicking the ash off his cigarette: “Of course I don’t need to.”

“Of course not,” said Teddy, with winning frankness.

“Of course not,” echoed Ruddy, with a sly intonation, winking at the patent-leather shoes.

The stranger, who had been using the seat as a couch, shifted his position and glanced at Ruddy. “My dee-ar boy, I meant that. If you have very affectionate friends and enough of them, you never need to earn money. It was only when I was young—about as young as you are—that I was fool enough to labor.” He pronounced it “laybore.”

“Well, I’ve not been fool enough to ’laybore’ yet,” said Ruddy, with sham indignation, as though defending himself from a shameful accusation.

“If you do what I do, there’ll be no necessity.” The stranger closed his eyes. “If you cater to the world’s vanity you can live well and do nothing. There’s nothing—absolute—” he yawned widely, “—lutely nothing to prevent you.”

They waited for his eyes to open. If he wasn’t mad, he was the possessor of a secret—a secret after which all the world was groping: nothing more nor less than how to fare sumptuously and not to work. But his eyes remained shut. Ruddy spoke. “I wish you’d tell us how.”

The stranger didn’t answer; he appeared to be sleeping—sleeping, however, with considerate care not to crumple the beautiful flannel suit The train raced on. A clear, sea-look was appearing above the Sussex Downs, like the bright reflection of a mirror flashing. It was exasperating. They would soon be at Brighton and this man would escape them with his valuable knowledge.

On the second message they sent back to Mr. Hughes they wrote, “A mystingry.” On the third, “The mystingry deepens.”

Brakes began to grind, slowing down the train as they neared their destination. The man sat up. “Best be putting on my shoes.”

Ruddy seized his last opportunity. “Look here, it ’ud be awfully decent of you if you’d tell us.”

“Tell you?”

“How to cater to people’s vanities. How to live without doing a stroke of work. My father’s been trying for years—he’s a promoter. You might tell us.”

“So your father’s a promoter!” The man was pulling on his spats. “Well, I’ll give you a hint and let you reason the rest out There are more women in the world than men, aren’t there? The women are always trying to win the men’s affection. The way in which they think they can do it is by being beautiful. There!”

“That’s a long stoop,” said Ruddy; “let me button them for you.”

By the time the spats were buttoned they had come to a halt in the station.

The man stood up. “Here’s my card. We may meet again.”

He jumped out of the carriage, leaving Ruddy turning his card over. It bore no address, only a name, Duke Ninevah.

“Not the Duke of,” whispered Teddy, peering over his shoulder, “so it can’t be a title.”

“Here, come on,” said Ruddy. “Let’s follow him.”

Further down the platform they saw Duke Ninevah helping a lady from a first-class carriage. She was slight and extremely stylish; even at that distance they guessed she must be beautiful. They had begun to follow when they remembered that they had left the empty pigeon boxes behind. They dashed back to find them; when they again looked up and down the platform, Duke Ninevah and his lady had vanished.

“Must be traceable,” said Ruddy. “Here, let’s leave these things at the parcel-room and clear for action. Now then, let’s use our intellecks. What does one come to the seaside for? To see the sea. We’ll find him either in it or beside it Why does one bring a lady to Brighton? To make love to her, and to make love one needs to be private. We’ve to find a private place by the sea, and then he’s cornered.”

“And what about the pierrots?”

“Let ’em wait. Humph!”

As they came down on to the promenade the waves heliographed to them. A warm south wind flapped against their faces. The air was full of voices, rising and falling and blending: ice-cream men shouting their wares; cabmen inviting hire; an evangelist, balancing on a chair and screaming “Redemption! Redemption!”; a comedian, dressed like a sultan and bawling breathlessly, “I’m the Emperor of Sahara, Tarara, Tarara”; the under-current chatter of conversation, and the laughing screams of girls as they stepped down from bathing huts and felt the first chill of the bubbling surf. Wriggling out like sea-serpents, their tails tethered to the land, were piers with swarms of insect-looking objects creeping along their backs. Gayety everywhere, and somewhere the man who knew how pleasure could be had without working! “By the sea with privacy,” Ruddy kept murmuring; the more remote their chances grew of finding him, the more certain they became that Duke Ninevah had a secret worth the knowing.

They had searched everywhere. It was afternoon and soon they would have to be returning. “Why not try the piers,” suggested Teddy; “if I wanted to gaze at the sea and make love to anybody——”

“Good idea. So would I.”

They passed through the turnstile and recommenced their quest On approaching a shelter, halfway down the pier, their attention was arrested by a slight and lonely figure. She was crouched in a corner with her head sunk forward.

“Hulloa! Left his girl. Let’s present his card and talk with her.”

But when they had walked round the glass shield of the shelter, they saw that she was sleeping. She must be sleeping soundly, for the insistent yapping of a Pomeranian did not seem to disturb her. Her hands lay loosely folded in her lap; in one of them a crumpled hankerchief was clutched. It was plain that she had been crying.

“She’s pretty!” They stole nearer. Then, “Jumping Jehosaphat!”

The tears had washed the color from her cheeks in places; they still hung sparkling on her painted lashes. With the sagging of her head her hat had slipped, and with it her wig, so that a scanty lock of white hair escaped across her forehead. But none of these things had called for the exclamation; they were apprehended at the same moment by something far more startling.

The lady’s head had came forward with a jerk; her mouth opened; her girlish beauty became convulsed, and then crumbled. As though a living creature were forcing an exit, something white and gleaming shot from her mouth. A complete set of excellent false teeth were only prevented from falling into the sea by the excited Pomeranian, who pounced on them and raced away, as though it were in expectation of precisely this event that he had been waiting.

In a flash the boys gave chase, leaving the distressed, scarcely awakened lady gazing after them and clasping imploring hands.

“Here’s a go!” panted Ruddy as they dodged through the crowd. “She’ll lose ’em for a cert. Why, I could have been in love with her myself if this hadn’t—— What a rumpage!”

They were nearing the turnstile. Above the turmoil of their pursuit they heard the comedian on the sands still declaring, “I’m the Emperor of Sahara, Tarara, Tarara.” Probably he was. In Brighton anything was possible. To Teddy it seemed a mad romance, a wild topsy-turvy, a staged burlesque in which Arthurian knights rescued ladies’ teeth instead of their virtue. Of the two, in Brighton, false teeth were the more precious.

The day was hot The Pomeranian was fat Perhaps in Pomerania false teeth are more nutritious. He was beginning to have doubts as to their value, for he had twice turned his head, wondering whether peace might be patched up with honor. He was turning for a third time when he blundered full tilt into a nursemaid’s skirts. He was so startled by the weight of the child she dropped on him that he abandoned his loot and fled. Of the two pursuers Teddy was the first to arrive. Snatching up the teeth, before they could be trampled by the crowd which the child’s screams were attracting, he wrapped them in his pocket-handkerchief, hiding them from public view, and strolled back unconcernedly. But what to do next? How to return them? How to put the lady to least shame?

“Well, they are hers,” Ruddy argued. “She knows that we know she wears ’em. They’re no good to us; and we shouldn’t have chased the dog unless we’d thought that she’d like to have ’em. You’re too delicate-minded.”

Seen from a distance as they approached her, she looked slight as a schoolgirl. Is was impossible to believe that she was really an old woman. She came hurrying towards them with one hand held out and the other pressed against her mouth. Not a word was said as her lost property was returned. The moment she had it, she walked to the side of the pier and gazed seawards, while both boys turned their backs. She was closing her vanity-case when she called to them.

They stared. The powder-puff and mirror had done their work. To the not too observing eye she was a girl.

“I want to thank you.” She gave them each a small gloved hand. “I’d like to send you a reward if you’ll give me your address. May I?”

They shook their heads. Ruddy acted spokesman. “No. But let us stay till Mr. Nineveh comes back.”

“Duke! You know him?”

She had a charming, flute-like note in her voice when she asked a question.

“We’ve been hunting him all day.”

“Why?”

“He said he knew how to get pleasure without,” Ruddy’s face puckered with genial impertinence, “without ’laybore’.”

The lady laughed. “I think I could tell you how he does it. You’ll never guess what the naughty man did to me. He brought me down here for one dear little day to our two selves and then,” she raised her shoulders ever so slightly, “he saw a pretty face and left me in the shelter to wait for him. I’ve waited; I’ve not had any lunch.”

“Had no lunch!” Teddy spoke in the tones of one to whom a missed meal spelled tragedy.

“You see, he carries my purse,” she explained.

The boys asked each other questions with their eyes, jingled the coins in their pockets and nodded.

“If you wouldn’t mind coming with us——”

She looked at them, this young girl, who was old enough to be their grandmother. “You’re very kind.” She smiled mysteriously. “Yes, I’ll let you treat me.”

They took her to the confectioner’s in a side street where they had had their midday meal. It was inexpensive. Seated at a marble-topped table, while trippers came in and out for buns, she looked strangely and exotically elegant.

She noticed that they weren’t eating. “Aren’t you having anything yourselves?”

“Not hungry.”

She guessed their shortage of funds. “You’re kinder than I thought First you prevent me from—well, from becoming seventy and then you take care of me with the last of your money. I’ve known a good many boys and men—they were all greedy, especially the men. But there’s something still more wonderful—something you haven’t done. You didn’t laugh at me when—— I’m always losing them one way or another. I’m in constant dread that Duke’ll see me without them. I know you won’t tell.”

“Has your husband got your ticket?” asked Teddy. He was wondering how they could get her to London.

She looked puzzled. “My husband?” She gave a comic little smile. “My husband—oh, yes! We can meet him at the station. I know the train by which he’ll travel.”

Then she commenced to coquette with them till they blushed. “I’m a silly old woman trying to be young, but you like it all the same.”

They did, for when she bent towards them laughing, fluttering her gay little hands, they forgot the strand of white hair and the way in which they had seen her beauty crumble.

“Ah, but when I was a girl, really a girl, not a painted husk, how you would have loved me! All the men loved me—so many that I can’t remember. What a life I’ve had! And you—you have all your lives before you.”

She made them feel that—this unaccountable old woman—made them throb to the wonder of having all their lives before them. She told them stories of herself to illustrate what that meant—risqu茅 stories which failed of being utterly improper by ending abruptly. It was done with the gravest innocence.

They wandered out on to the promenade. The sun was going down. The waves were tipped with a flamingo redness. It was as though scarlet birds were darting so swiftly that they could not see their bodies.

“Let me be old,” she whispered, “what I am, before I see him. It’s such a rest.”

From frivolity she grew confessional. It seemed as though her false youth fell away from her and only the tell-tale paint was left “If I’d been wiser, I’d have had two boys like you for grandsons. But I’ve not been wise, my dears. I’ve always wanted to be loved; I’ve broken hearts, and now—— When a woman gets to my age, she’s left to do all the loving. I’m condemned to be always, always young. I’d like best, if I could choose, to be just a simple old woman. I’d like to wear a lace cap and no, corsets, and to sit rocking by a window, watching for you boys to come and tell me your hopes and troubles. You must have very dear mothers. I wonder—— If I asked you to visit me—not the me I look now, but the real me—would you come?”

At the station they were climbing into a third, when Duke Nineveh came breezily up.

“Ha! How d’you manage that? Made friends with Madame Josephine, have you?” Then to Madame Josephine, “I say, it’ll hurt business if you’re seen traveling third. Appearances, appearances, my dear—they’ve got to be kept up.”

“Oh, Duke, for once I’m not caring.”

She sat herself down between the two boys, like the little old lady she was, holding a hand of each in her lap. Duke Nineveh waited till her head was nodding, then drew off his shoes softly. “They’ve hurt most confoundedly all day.” He turned to Ruddy. “So your father’s a promoter! Is he any good at it?”

“Good at it! Phew! A regular steam-engine when he gets started.”

“Does he promote everything? I mean, he’s not too particular about what he handles?”

The description Ruddy gave of his father’s capacities would have compelled hair to grow on Mr. Ooze’s head, especially that it might stand up.

“Humph!” Mr. Nineveh rubbed his chin. “Here’s my address. If he cares to call on me, we might make each other’s fortunes.”

As the train was thundering between the walls of London, Madame Josephine woke up. Drawing out her vanity-case, she renewed her complexion. It was so elaborate an undertaking that it was scarcely completed when they came to a halt in the station. “We’re going to meet again,” she said.

As they watched her drive away in the brougham that was waiting for her, accompanied by the man who never had to work, they could scarcely believe that she was not what she looked at that distance—a girl of little more than twenty.

“A fine old world!” Ruddy stuck his hands in his trousers pockets. “One’s always walkin’ round the corner and findin’ something. It’s the walkin’ round the corner that does it.”

“Seems so,” Teddy assented.

They climbed on a bus and drove back through the evening primroses of street-lamps to Eden Row. After all, in spite of Mr. Yaffon, Mr. Ooze, Hal, and all the other disappointed persons, it must be a fine old world when it allowed boys to be so young.