"A rival comes upon the scene," he continues--"a fatheaded ass, according to my information--and they have a stand-up fight. He gets run in and spends the night in a Vine Street police cell."
I suppose I was grinning without knowing it.
"Funny, ain't it?" he says.
"Well," I says, "it has its humorous side, hasn't it? What'll he get?"
"I am not worrying about what HE is going to get," he answers back.
"I am worrying about what _I_ am going to get."
I thought he had gone dotty.
"What's it got to do with you?" I says.
"If old Wotherspoon is in a good humour," he continues, "and the constable's head has gone down a bit between now and Wednesday, I may get off with forty shillings and a public reprimand.
"On the other hand," he goes on--he was working himself into a sort of fit--"if the constable's head goes on swelling, and old Wotherspoon's liver gets worse, I've got to be prepared for a month without the option. That is, if I am fool enough--"
He had left both the doors open, which in the daytime we generally do, our chambers being at the top. Miss Dorton--that's Mr. Parable's secretary--barges into the room. She didn't seem to notice me. She staggers to a chair and bursts into tears.
"He's gone," she says; "he's taken cook with him and gone."
"Gone!" says the guv'nor. "Where's he gone?"
"To Fingest," she says through her sobs--"to the cottage. Miss Bulstrode came in just after you had left," she says. "He wants to get away from everyone and have a few days' quiet. And then he is coming back, and he is going to do it himself."
"Do what?" says the guv'nor, irritable like.
"Fourteen days," she wails. "It'll kill him."
"But the case doesn't come on till Wednesday," says the guv'nor.
"How do you know it's going to be fourteen days?"
"Miss Bulstrode," she says, "she's seen the magistrate. He says he always gives fourteen days in cases of unprovoked assault."
"But it wasn't unprovoked," says the guv'nor. "The other man began it by knocking off his hat. It was self-defence."
"She put that to him," she says, "and he agreed that that would alter his view of the case. But, you see," she continues, "we can't find the other man. He isn't likely to come forward of his own accord."
"The girl must know," says the guv'nor--"this girl he picks up in St. James's Park, and goes dancing with. The man must have been some friend of hers."
"But we can't find her either," she says. "He doesn't even know her name--he can't remember it."
"You will do it, won't you?" she says.
"Do what?" says the guv'nor again.
"The fourteen days," she says.
"But I thought you said he was going to do it himself?" he says.
"But he mustn't," she says. "Miss Bulstrode is coming round to see you. Think of it! Think of the headlines in the papers," she says.
"Think of the Fabian Society. Think of the Suffrage cause. We mustn't let him."
"What about me?" says the guv'nor. "Doesn't anybody care for me?"
"You don't matter," she says. "Besides," she says, "with your influence you'll be able to keep it out of the papers. If it comes out that it was Mr. Parable, nothing on earth will be able to."
The guv'nor was almost as much excited by this time as she was.
"I'll see the Fabian Society and the Women's Vote and the Home for Lost Cats at Battersea, and all the rest of the blessed bag of tricks--"
I'd been thinking to myself, and had just worked it out.
"What's he want to take his cook down with him for?" I says.
"To cook for him," says the guv'nor. "What d'you generally want a cook for?"
"Rats!" I says. "Does he usually take his cook with him?"
"No," answered Miss Dorton. "Now I come to think of it, he has always hitherto put up with Mrs. Meadows."
"You will find the lady down at Fingest," I says, "sitting opposite him and enjoying a recherche dinner for two."
The guv'nor slaps me on the back, and lifts Miss Dorton out of her chair.
"You get on back," he says, "and telephone to Miss Bulstrode. I'll be round at half-past twelve."
Miss Dorton went out in a dazed sort of condition, and the guv'nor gives me a sovereign, and tells me I can have the rest of the day to myself.
Mr. Condor, Junior, considers that what happened subsequently goes to prove that he was right more than it proves that he was wrong.
Mr. Condor, Junior, also promised to send us a photograph of himself for reproduction, but, unfortunately, up to the time of going to press it had not arrived.
* * *
From Mrs. Meadows, widow of the late Corporal John Meadows, V.C., Turberville, Bucks, the following further particulars were obtained by our local representative:
I have done for Mr. Parable now for some years past, my cottage being only a mile off, which makes it easy for me to look after him.
Mr. Parable likes the place to be always ready so that he can drop in when he chooses, he sometimes giving me warning and sometimes not. It was about the end of last month--on a Friday, if I remember rightly--that he suddenly turned up.
As a rule, he walks from Henley station, but on this occasion he arrived in a fly, he having a young woman with him, and she having a bag--his cook, as he explained to me. As a rule, I do everything for Mr. Parable, sleeping in the cottage when he is there; but to tell the truth, I was glad to see her. I never was much of a cook myself, as my poor dead husband has remarked on more than one occasion, and I don't pretend to be. Mr. Parable added, apologetic like, that he had been suffering lately from indigestion.
"I am only too pleased to see her," I says. "There are the two beds in my room, and we shan't quarrel." She was quite a sensible young woman, as I had judged from the first look at her, though suffering at the time from a cold. She hires a bicycle from Emma Tidd, who only uses it on a Sunday, and, taking a market basket, off she starts for Henley, Mr. Parable saying he would go with her to show her the way.
