Men of Affairs. Roland Pertwee
nodded. The man's face was unfamiliar but Richard returned the nod casually and passed out. The man half rose then changed his mind and sat down again. He was a tall man with black hair threaded with white. His face was large featured but clear cut, high cheekbones, a Roman nose, a straight, firm mouth and Wellingtonian side whiskers, his age forty or a little more. His companion at the table put a question but the man shook his head.
"I fancy I made a mistake," he said.
Richard tipped the porter with the last coins in his pocket, a shilling and five coppers, turned slowly down Berkeley Street and crossed Piccadilly. He passed the Ritz, of pleasant memory, and entered into the sleeping apartment of London's destitute—the single bench on the slope that faces Green Park, gratuitously provided by the generosity of the City of Westminster.
There was a constable by the cabman's shelter and him Richard addressed.
"A fine night, Bobbie," he said.
The constable agreed that this was so. He did not resent having been addressed as 'Bobbie.' There was no offence in it and Richard belonged to that class of individuals with whom familiarity is a cloak for courtesy.
"Taking a stroll, sir?" he asked.
Richard produced his hundred Gold Flake and bade the officer fill his helmet.
"Better help me out with a few or I shall be smoking all night," he said.
"In trouble, sir?"
"Broke," said Richard, "and I want your advice. I've had the devil of a good dinner with the last of my fortune and I'm looking for words of wisdom. In the first place, how about that bench?"
"The Rowton is better."
"Won't run to it."
"Not to be recommended, p'raps, but it's free to all," said the constable, nodding at the green seat which was already filling up for the night, with bundles of rags, voluminous overcoats and thin, shiny blue serges buttoned at the neck.
"I don't want to steal a march on the regular custom," observed Richard.
"It's first come hereabouts, but you'd better not leave it too late.
Anyway you'll get a shake-up when the four o'clock patrol comes on."
"How's that?"
"Always give 'em a shake-up at four o'clock. Don't make many odds. You just get up and sit down again. Takes the cold out of your bones if it does nothing else."
"I suppose," said Richard, "I couldn't doss down on that board that's perched on the two iron standards up towards Hyde Park Comer. It has a single room touch that I rather fancy."
The constable shook his head.
"I couldn't let you," he said, "though there's no particular harm in it."
"Then what's it for anyway?"
"Don't rightly know. They do say it was for the garden carriers to rest their packs on when they was coming up to market from the outlying farms. And again I been told that they laid the corpses on it what was being carried to the plague pits when there was one of these 'ere epidemics in London. Long while back that 'ud be."
"Hm," said Richard, "cheery sort of memory. Well I'll take a chance with the rest. Good night. Oh, by the way, how's one manage about getting a wash in the mornings?"
"You goes without."
"Well, there's a damn thing," said Richard and departed with a nod.
There was an empty place on the bench but Richard hesitated long before occupying it. Although no more than a single step it seemed a tremendous distance from the pavement to the seat. A happy memory of a similar sensation helped him to take the plunge—it was the trembling nervousness he had felt on the first day of his commission when he stood in an agony of suspense outside the anteroom of the officers' mess and tried to summon up courage to enter. A dark shambling figure approaching the spot decided him, and having accomplished the feat it was only to find experience repeating itself. No one took any notice, not a sunken chin was raised. The sleepers to right and left edged away a trifle to give him room and continued with their breathy muttering sleep.
Richard Frencham Altar lit a cigarette and buried his hands in his pockets and with the whole future before him to contemplate and with every vital problem that a man may be called upon to face, he said to himself, "Now I wonder who that johnny was who nodded to me at the Berkeley."
He was still wondering, for want of something better to do, when an hour later his friend the constable passed slowly by and looked him over critically. An official report of his observation would have read as follows:—
Height, about five feet nine. Age, thirty odd. Hair, dark with a disposition to wave. Eyes, brown, merry and set wide apart. Well marked brows. Nose of medium length and slightly crooked to the left. Short upper lip. Firm mouth with an upward twist at the corners. A strong square chin. A habit of holding the head slightly at an angle. Quick way of speaking and walks with a springy step. Stands with one hand on his left hip.
"Doing all right?" asked the constable.
"Fine," said Richard.
CHAPTER 2.
EIGHT CLOSED DOORS.
As the taxi turned into the station yard from the Euston Road, Anthony Barraclough unobtrusively opened the offside door and dropped into the street. A pantechnicon concealed the manoeuvre from the traffic that followed. His taxi driver was blissfully unaware of his departure. It would seem a mean thing to have done but Barraclough had pinned a Bradbury to the vacated seat as a tacit apology.
On landing in the street he wasted no time and nipped very neatly into the open back of the pantechnicon. Here he concealed himself until a stream of a dozen taxis had passed by, and in the pleasant straw smelling shadows Anthony Barraclough grew a beard in precisely half a minute by the clock, and a moustache in even less time. It was a nice beard and a nice moustache, but even so it did not improve his appearance. He was much better looking without. If you doubt the statement here is an official report of his looks and bearing, by means of which you may judge for yourself.
Height, about five feet nine. Age, thirty-four. Hair, dark with a disposition to wave. Eyes, brown and set wide apart. Well marked brows. Nose of medium length and slightly crooked to the left Short upper lip. Firm mouth with an upward twist at the corners. A strong square chin. A habit of holding the head slightly at an angle. Quick way of speaking. Walks with a springy step. Stands with one hand on his left hip.
Compare this description with one printed in the foregoing chapter and a certain peculiar resemblance may suggest itself. The absence of the word 'merry' in the latter as applied to the eyes must not be mistaken for a careless omission, but rather as a piece of keen observation in physiognomy. These things are very important.
Having pressed his cheeks until the wax warmed and adhered, Anthony Barraclough threw a leg over the tailboard and alighted on the pavement. Scarcely a soul bothered to glance his way. At a smart walk he made for the tube station, bought a ticket at the twopenny machine and entered the lift. In the passages below he made a circular tour, entered an ascending lift and reappeared in the street. A 'bus was passing which he entered and travelled in for a few hundred yards. Then he got out and hailed a taxi and two minutes later was at the booking office of St. Pancras Station. As he was reaching for his note case a man in the queue behind him observed, vaguely, as though addressing the air:
"Pity to waste the money, Mr. Barraclough. Much better go home and be reasonable."
He returned the note case to his pocket and stepped out of the queue. A sudden inflammation of anger surged to his cheeks and his brows came down hard and straight.
The individual who had spoken was apparently absorbed