H.M. answered no questions until the big yellow car, having maneuvered cross-town, was racing along the West Side Highway past the Hudson.
Jean, a red scarf round her head, was at the wheel. H.M., his arms folded and a mulish expression on his face, was squeezed in between Jean and Cy Norton on the outside. Cy made one trial effort
"Now look here, H.M. About your going on the razzle-dazzle this afternoon..."
"I'm bein' kidnapped," said H.M., staring malignantly at the windshield. "I got to visit a family in Washington."
The top of the car was down. Though the heat had lessened, its stickiness remained despite a cool breeze. On their left the expanse of the river was dark blue, stung with light points. On their right, far above, the apartment houses of Riverside Drive showed grey as Italian villas against green.
Cy, not a little uneasy, did not speak again until they reached the George Washington Bridge and raced on past.
"There's been no police alarm," he said. "Nobody there as much as glanced inside the car."
"I know!" nodded Jean. "But every minute I've been watching the rear-view mirror, and expecting to hear sirens behind us. And all because of "
"Now, H.M.!"
"Oh, for the love of Esau!"
"You're not being kidnapped," Cy declared violently, "because you never wanted to go to Washington at all."
"I dunno what you're talkin' about."
"And I'll prove it," persisted Cy, "on the basis of your own conduct. Now you knew perfectly damned well how that shuttle worked. Didn't you?"
"Well... now," muttered the great man uncomfortably.
"Somewhere, probably aboard a ship, you learned the trick of how to walk through a turnstile without paying your fare." Cy swallowed hard. Curiosity seared him as it had seared Officer O'Casey. "How did you do it, by the way?"
"Aha!" said H.M. The ghost of an evil glee stole across his face; then again he became the Iron Man.
"That trick's a beauty," he added as a teaser. "Maybe I'll explain how it works, and maybe I won't. But it's a beauty."
Cy restrained his wrath.
"So you couldn't wait," he pointed out, "to try the trick on somebody. You hared off to Grand Central, and sat on your bag like..."
"Like a spider," supplied Jean.
'That's it! You waited like a spider for some likely victim, and along came that motorcycle cop. It was all serene at first But he said Winston Churchill was an American, so you got mad and decided you'd really give him the business. Isn't that correct?"
"By the way," thundered H .M., "did I introduce you two to each other?"
"As a matter of fact you didn't," smiled Jean, with a sidelong glance.
"Think of that, now!" said H.M., as though by mere power of voice he could divert questions about other matters. "Well, this here is Jean Manning, the daughter of an old friend of mine. This feller here," he tapped the opposite shoulder, "is Cy Norton, who's been London correspondent of the New York Echo for eighteen years. There, now!"
"How do you do?" said Jean gravely. And, to tell the truth, it did momentarily divert Cy.
All the time he had been conscious of Jean, too conscious of her, because of that resemblance to someone else. Jean was younger, of course, and less sophisticated. But the memory of other years...
"No longer the Echo's correspondent," he said. "They fired me three weeks ago."
"What's that, son?" HJM. asked very sharply. Jean hesitated. "But why did they... let you go?"
Cy Norton looked wryly back at his life. "Probably," he said half seriously, "because I wasn't much good."
"I don't believe that!" declared Jean. "Why was it, really?"
The car hummed with softness and power. Cy was conscious that he looked older than his age, that he probably needed a shave, that the old soft hat he had bought years ago on Bond Street must look out of place—as he himself felt out of place-in his own country.
"Why was it?" insisted Jean.
"Oh, I don't know. While I was waiting to find the maestro here, I thought of several reasons. But there's still another."
It was one of the few things on earth which could make Cy Norton furious. He must remember, Cy reminded himself, to speak quietly.
"I hate the guts of the Labour Party," he said. "I didn't bother to disguise it The owner of the Echo, here in New York, is one of those 'liberals' who like to praise what they don't understand."
Then Cy grinned, the suffusion of blood retreating from his face.
"But it doesn't matter anyway," he added, "and I'm probably wrong. What I want is information from H.M. Look here, sir. Any traveller, let alone one who knows this country as well as you do, would have known how to get to Washington. Why weren't you playing your monkey tricks at the
Pennsylvania Station instead of at Grand Central?"
Unexpectedly H.M. lowered his defences.
"All right, all right,"he growled. "It wasn't that I didn't want to go to Washington. I've got to go there tomorrow. If d be impolite if I didn't Am I ever impolite to anybody, you stinkin' weasel?"
"No, no, of course not!"
"Well!" said H.M. "And isn't it at Grand Central that you get a train for this place called Maralarch?"
There was a long silence, while the hum of the car sang softly.
"Then you were coming to visit us all along?" asked Jean. A new expression, troubled and almost terrified, drew colour into her face. "Do you mind if I ask why?"
"Because," said H.M., "I got a radiogram aboard ship from your old man. Would you like to see it?"
Fumbling in a capacious inside pocket, H.M. produced the radiogram and held it so that both Jean and Cy could see. The letters seemed to jump out at them.
WHY NOT VISIT ME AT MARALARCH WESTCHESTER COUNTY ONLY TWENTY-ONE MILES FROM NEW YORK WILL SHOW YOU MIRACLE AND CHALLENGE YOU TO EXPLAIN IT.
H.M. Put away the radiogram. Cy repeated aloud the significant words. "Will show you miracle and challenge you to .
explain it" Then Cy whistled.
"I wonder!" he said. "I don't know whether you've heard it, Miss Manning..." "Jean, please."
"All right, Jean. I don't know whether you've heard it, but Sir Henry here is the English detective expert on locked rooms, impossible situations, and miracle crimes."
"Crimes?" Jean exclaimed suddenly. "Who said anything about crimes?"
"Sorry, I didn't mean that I was only making comparisons."
"But why did you say.. ."Jean stopped. Despite herself, she could not keep out the personal. "Do you know," she added, "you look a lot like Leslie Howard?"
Cy closed his eyes. "Oh my God," he murmured.
Jean stiffened. "Have I said anything I shouldn't, Mr. Norton?"
"No. And I wasn't desparaging Leslie Howard. Everybody in England felt a personal loss when he died. But that was because he was a great patriot and a good fellow.... It's these damned films. Must your whole outlook, your whole thoughts and standard of values, be governed by such cheap nonsense?"
Jean's face was flaming under the golden tan.
"But a great film, with real art in it..."
"Jean," he said gently, "the film in general bears about as much relation to art or integrity as a comic book bears to a Rembrandt Can you really swallow a standard of moralities called
'policy,' which would sicken Tartuffe?"
"But they've got to appeal to all types of mentality!"
"Have they?" inquired Cy with interest. "God love them!"
"Oh, you talk just like my father!"
"If that's true, Jean, it's a great compliment Your father is one of the finest men I've ever known."
"Is he?" demanded Jean. The steering wheel wobbled in her hands, and she blurted out "Oh, this is awful!"
"Easy, my wench," H.M. said quietly.
They were nearing the Henry Hudson Bridge over the Harlem River. By tacit consent, when Jean stopped the big yellow car, Cy Norton went round and replaced her in the driver's seat.
"Dad's changed!" said Jean, and put her hands over her eyes. "He's changed!"
"How has he changed?" asked Cy.
"In the first place, he's running around with an awful woman, and I mean a really awful woman, named Irene Stanley. And now—well, I don't understand business things, but they say he's been embezzling from the Manning Foundation, and they say he may go to prison."
Over the Harlem River the sky was blue-white, its edges touched with black. The smell of a thunderstorm, distant but stirring in this humid air, crept past them as they crossed the bridge.
"He thinks the world of you, Sir Henry," Jean observed suddenly. "What’s your opinion about the whole situation?"
And they were aware, as they looked across at H.M. now on the other side of Jean, that the atmosphere had changed too. This was no roaring figure who caused riots in subways. This was the Old Maestro.
‘I'see, my wench," said H.M., still holding the fluttering radiogram, "when I got this message today I thought it was a kind of joke, very fetchin' and fascinating. 'Ho?' thinks I, 'then Fred Manning thinks he can do a miracle?'"
"But what did he mean by that?" cried Jean.
"I dunno—yet. Anyway, I thought visiting him would be like visiting the Polo Grounds or (hurrum!) a friend of mine in the Bronx. But it's not that, my wench. It's dead serious."
Again there was a long silence.
"What do you think about..." Jean stopped. "Do you think Dad's really—oh, how can I say this!—that he's turned into some kind of crook?"
"No!" roared H.M. "I wouldn't believe it even if I saw him standing trial."
"Agreed." muttered Cy Norton.
H.M.'s sharp little eyes swung round behind the big spectacles.
"What's more, my wench, something's upset you and put you into this state of mind. What was it?"
Jean, evidently knowing she was with friends, poured out the story about the interview in Manning's office, up in that quiet place where even traffic howls could not penetrate. Something in it appeared to interest H.M. very much, though he did not comment.
"Robert Browning, hey?" he muttered.
Jean blinked. "Oh! You mean... well, twice a week when the school's in session Dad goes all the way to Albany to lecture. He's got one course in Browning, and another in the Victorian novelists. Of course he's a hundred years behind the times, but he loves it!"
H.M. put away the radiogram and ruffled his hands across his big bald head.
"How long has this funny behavior been goin' on?"
"Ever since he met—that woman."
"So. Have you met her?"
"Good heavens, no! But I've..." Jean stopped abruptly, as though swallowing.
"Y'see," rumbled H.M., again massaging his head, "Fred Manning was in England when I knew him. I knew he had a family, but not much else. Who are you people? Where d'ye live? What’s your background?"
"But there isn't anything to tell!"
"Sure. I know. You tell it just the same."
"Well, we live in this place at Maralarch. It isn't very big or pretentious. I—I suppose Dad's well-off, but not rich. I—I never thought much about it."
"If you never had to think about it, my wench, he's well-to-do. Uh-huh. Go on."
Jean puzzled to know what to say, groped in her mind.
"But there's a lot of ground round the house," she went on. "Dad built us a swimming pool at the back. Then there are some woods, and then Bob's baseball diamond—that's the end of our property—and then an abandoned graveyard that nobody can touch because of laws or something.''
Cy Norton, out of the corner of his eyes, watched Jean's short nose and broad mouth and the curve of her yellow hair.
"My sister," Jean rattled on, "is twenty-four.' Crystal's just got her third divorce. She's very pretty, not like me, and terribly clever. And she's very socially minded, which none of the rest of us are." Despite herself and her brimming eyes, Jean started to laugh. "Sir Henry, I can't wait to see her face when she meets you!"
H.M. somewhat misunderstood this.
"Well... now!" he disclaimed, with a modesty which would not have deceived a baby. "I got a natural dignity, d'ye see, which sort of overawes people until they know me. You were saying?"
"Bob, that's my brother, is the middle one," said Jean. "Bob is twenty-two. He's awfully nice. But he's not clever like Crystal. He's not interested in much except baseball and automobiles. He doesn't know what to do now he's left college. Sometimes Dad is in such a quiet fury with him that I—I could murder him!"
H.M. looked at her curiously.
"Which one could you murder?" he asked. "Your brother or your old man?"
"I—I meant Dad. Not really, of course."
"I see. Anybody else about the place?"
"No. Wait, except for old Stuffy! He's one of the three servants. He's supposed to be houseman, but he does everything from running the vacuum cleaner to massaging Dad's knee. Ages and ages ago he was supposed to be a great baseball player"—here H.M. gave a slight start—"but you'd have to ask Bob about that." Jean paused. Then her voice grew almost hysterical.
"What else can I tell you?" she cried. "We're just an ordinary family!"
H.M.'s gaze, which can be as disconcerting as the evil eye, was turned steadily on her.
"You can tell me this," he answered. "What are you afraid is goin' to happen?"
"I don't understand!"
"You do understand." H.M. spoke patiently. "After that row in your father's office, what are you afraid is going to happen?"
Jean smoothed her skirt over her knees. She looked upwards, as though for help from the sky, and then down again. Cy Norton was intensely conscious of the touch of her arm. Then Jean spoke.
"When Dave and I went to Dad's office this afternoon..."
"Dave," interposed H.M., "being this feller Huntington Davis? Your fiancé?"
"Yes. He's wonderful! He looks just like..." About to quote a film comparison again, Jean glanced at Cy Norton and gritted her teeth.
"Anyway," she went on, "I spoke to Miss Engels, Dad's secretary. She said he'd gone to the Token Bank and Trust Company, and wouldn't be at his office until after lunch. When he did get back, he was carrying a brief case that positively bulged."
"Well?"
Jean swallowed.
"Suppose he is in trouble?" she asked. "Suppose he's going to disappear with a lot of money, and take this dreadful woman with him?"
"But where would be the miracle?" demanded Cy.
"Miracle?"
"He's promised to show H.M. a miracle and challenged him to explain it. There'd be no miracle about running away. Unless," said Cy thoughtfully, "he means to turn into smoke and vanish before your eyes."
"Stop it!" cried Jean.
Cy begged her pardon. He could not imagine what had put that grisly image into his head. Yet it was so vivid that it lingered, like a phantom in the windshield, before three pairs of eyes.
"You take it easy, my wench," H.M. assured her. "I've seen a lot of rummy things in my time, but I've never seen that and I don't expect to see it."
"I'm not worrying about that," retorted Jean, "because it's silly. But tonight..." She turned to Cy. "You'll stay overnight with us, won't you?"
"Great Scott, no. I can't. I haven't got any clothes with me!"
"Neither has Sir Henry," the girl pointed out. "But Dad's always got plenty of spare toothbrushes and razors for guests." She silenced his protests with an appealing look he could not resist
"Because, as I told you," continued a half-hysterical Jean, "Dad's gathering us together for some kind of announcement he says will shock us. And if he makes a remark like that, he's not joking. He means it!"
"Uh-huh," said H.M. "And when is the shockin' due to take place?"
"Tonight!" said Jean. "At dinner!"
Cy Norton hunched up his shoulders. Westwards, the clouds faintly darkened with coming storm.