‘No. Hubert, there was somethin’ I wanted to ask you. Oh! I know! But Dinny said you hadn’t had any breeches since the war. How do you like Jean? Rather attractive?’
‘Yes, Aunt Em.’
‘She wasn’t expelled.’
‘Why should she have been?’
‘Oh! well, you never know. She’s never terrorized me. D’you want Lawrence? It’s Voltaire now and Dean Swift. So unnecessary – they’ve been awfully done; but he likes doin’ them because they bite. About those mules, Hubert?’
‘What about them?’
‘I never can remember if the donkey is the sire or the dam.’
‘The donkey is the sire and the dam a mare, Aunt Em.’
‘Yes, and they don’t have children – such a blessin’. Where’s Dinny?’
‘She’s in town, somewhere.’
‘She ought to marry.’
‘Why?’ said the General.
‘Well, there she is! Hen was saying she’d make a good lady-in-waitin’ – unselfish. That’s the danger.’ And, taking a latch-key out of her bag, Lady Mont applied it to the door.
‘I can’t get Lawrence to drink tea – would you like some?’
‘No thank you, Em.’
‘You’ll find him stewin’ in the library.’ She kissed her brother and her nephew, and swam towards the stairs. ‘Puzzlin’,’ they heard her say as they entered the library. They found Sir Lawrence surrounded by the works of Voltaire and Swift, for he was engaged on an imaginary dialogue between those two serious men. He listened gravely to the General’s tale.
‘I saw,’ he said, when his brother-in-law had finished, ‘that Hallorsen had repented him of the evil – that will be Dinny. I think we’d better see him – not here, there’s no cook, Em’s still slimming – but we can all dine at the Coffee House.’ And he took up the telephone.
Professor Hallorsen was expected in at five and should at once be given the message.
‘This seems to be more of an F.O. business than a Police matter,’ went on Sir Lawrence. ‘Let’s go over and see old Shropshire. He must have known your father well, Con; and his nephew, Bobbie Ferrar, is about as fixed a star as there is at the F.O. Old Shropshire’s always in!’
Arrived at Shropshire House Sir Lawrence said:
‘Can we see the Marquess, Pommett?’
‘I rather think he’s having his lesson, Sir Lawrence.’
‘Lesson – in what?’
‘Heinstein, is it, Sir Lawrence?’
‘Then the blind is leading the blind, and it will be well to save him. The moment there’s a chance, Pommett, let us in.’
‘Yes, Sir Lawrence.’
‘Eighty-four and learning Einstein. Who said the aristocracy was decadent? I should like to see the bloke who’s teaching it, though; he must have singular powers of persuasion – there are no flies on old Shropshire.’
At this moment a man of ascetic aspect, with a cold deep eye and not much hair, entered, took hat and umbrella from a chair, and went out.
‘Behold the man!’ said Sir Lawrence. ‘I wonder what he charges? Einstein is like the electron or the vitamin – inapprehensible; it’s as clear a case of money under false pretences as I’ve ever come across. Come along.’
The Marquess of Shropshire was walking up and down his study, nodding his quick and sanguine grey-bearded head as if to himself.
‘Ah! young Mont,’ he said, ‘did you meet that man – if he offers to teach you Einstein, don’t let him. He can no more explain space bounded yet infinite, than I can.’
‘But even Einstein can’t, Marquess.’
‘I am not old enough,’ said the Marquess, ‘for anything but the exact sciences. I told him not to come again. Whom have I the pleasure of seeing?’
‘My brother-in-law General Sir Conway Cherrell, and his son Captain Hubert Cherrell, D.S.O. You’ll remember Conway’s father, Marquess – he was Ambassador at Madrid.’
‘Yes, yes, dear me, yes! I know your brother Hilary, too; a live wire. Sit down! Sit down, young man! Is it anything to do with electricity?’
‘Not wholly, Marquess; more a matter of extradition.’
‘Indeed!’ The Marquess, raising his foot to the seat of a chair, leaned his elbow on his knee and his bearded chin on his hand. And, while the General was explaining he continued to stand in this attitude, gazing at Hubert, who was sitting with compressed lips, and lowered eyes. When the General had finished the Marquess said:
‘D.S.O., I think your uncle said. In the war?’
‘Yes, Sir.’