The Small Bachelor · Chapter 18 (2/2)

“The whole affair,” said Hamilton Beamish, “appears to have been due to a foolish misunderstanding. This lady, Garroway, is the stepmother of this young lady here, to whom Mr. Finch should have been married today. There was some little trouble, I understand from Mr. Waddington, and she was left with the impression that Mr. Finch’s morals were not all they should have been. Later, facts which came to light convinced her of her error, and she hastened to New York to seek Mr. Finch out and tell him that all was well and that the marriage would proceed with her full approval. That is correct, Mrs. Waddington?”

Mrs. Waddington gulped. For a moment her eye seemed about to resume its well-known expression of a belligerent fish. But her spirit was broken. She was not the woman she had been. She had lost the old form.

“Yes.⁠ ⁠… Yes.⁠ ⁠… That is to say⁠ ⁠… I mean, yes,” she replied huskily.

“You called at Mr. Finch’s apartment with no other motive than to tell him this?”

“None.⁠ ⁠… Or, rather.⁠ ⁠… No, none.”

“In fact, to put the thing in a nutshell, you wished to find your future son-in-law and fold him in a mother-in-law’s embrace. Am I right?”

This time the pause before Mrs. Waddington found herself able to reply was so marked and the look she directed at George so full of meaning that the latter, always sensitive, could not but wonder whether in refraining from punching her on the nose he was not neglecting his duty as a man and a citizen. She gazed at him long and lingeringly. Then she spoke.

“Quite right,” she said huskily.

“Excellent,” said Hamilton Beamish. “So you see, Garroway, that Mrs. Waddington’s reason for being in the apartment where you found her was wholly admirable. That clears up that point.”

“It doesn’t clear up why she threw pepper in my face.”

Hamilton Beamish nodded.

“There, Garroway,” he said, “you have put your finger on the one aspect of Mrs. Waddington’s behaviour which was not completely unexceptionable. As regards the pepper, you have, it seems to me, legitimate cause for pique and, indeed, solid grounds for an action for assault and battery. But Mrs. Waddington is a reasonable woman, and will, no doubt, be willing to settle this little matter in a way acceptable to all parties.”

“I will pay him whatever he wants,” cried the reasonable woman. “Anything, anything!”

“Hey!”

It was the voice of Sigsbee H. He stood there, forceful and dominant. His cigar had gone out, and he was chewing the dry remains aggressively.

“Say, listen!” said Sigsbee H. Waddington. “If there’s any bribing of the police to be done, it’s my place to do it, as the head of the family. Look me up at my little place at Hempstead tomorrow, Gallagher, and we’ll have a talk. You will find me a generous man. Openhanded. Western.”

“Capital,” said Hamilton Beamish. “So everything is happily settled.”

There was not much of Officer Garroway’s face that was not concealed by the bandage and the steak, but on the small residuum there appeared a look of doubt and dissatisfaction.

“And what about this bird here?” he asked, indicating George.

“This individual before me,” corrected Hamilton Beamish. “What about him, Garroway?”

“He soaked me in the eye.”

“No doubt in a spirit of wholesome fun. Where did this happen?”

“Down there in the Purple Chicken.”

“Ah! Well, if you knew that restaurant better, you would understand that that sort of thing is the merest commonplace of everyday life at the Purple Chicken. You must overlook it, Garroway.”

“Can’t I push his head down his throat?”

“Certainly not. I cannot have you annoying Mr. Finch. He is to be married tomorrow, and he is a friend of mine.”

“But.⁠ ⁠…”

“Garroway,” said Hamilton Beamish, in a quiet, compelling voice, “Mr. Finch is a friend of mine.”

“Very well, Mr. Beamish,” said the policeman resignedly.

Mrs. Waddington was plucking at her husband’s sleeve.

“Sigsbee.”

“Hello?”

“Sigsbee, dear, I’m starving. I have had nothing to eat since lunch. There is some wonderful soup in there.”

“Let’s go,” said Sigsbee H. “You coming?” he said to George.

“I thought of taking Molly off somewhere.”

“Oh no, do come with us, George,” said Mrs. Waddington winningly. She drew closer to him. “George, is it really true that you hit that policeman in the eye?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Well, he was trying to arrest me, so I threw a tablecloth over his head and then plugged him a couple of rather juicy ones which made him leave go.”

Mrs. Waddington’s eyes glistened. She put her arm through his.

“George,” she said, “I have misjudged you. I could wish Molly no better husband.”

Hamilton Beamish stood in the moonlight, swinging his dumbbells. Having done this for awhile, he embarked on a few simple setting-up exercises. He stood with his feet some six inches apart, his toes turned slightly out: then, placing his hands on his hips, thumbs back, bent slightly forward from the shoulders⁠—not from the hips. He retracted the lower abdomen, and, holding it retracted, leaned well over to the left side, contracting the muscles of the left side forcibly. He kept his legs straight all the time, his knees stiff. He reversed to right side, and repeated twenty times⁠—ten right, ten left. This exercise was done slowly and steadily, without jerking.

“Ah!” said Hamilton Beamish, relaxing. “Splendid for the transversalis muscle, that, converting it into a living belt which girds the loins. Have you ever given considered thought to the loins, Garroway?”

The policeman shook his head.

“Not that I know of,” he said indifferently. “I’ve seen ’em in the Bronx Zoo.”

Hamilton Beamish eyed him with concern.

“Garroway,” he said, “you seem distrait.”

“If that’s how a feller is when he’s been hit and punched, and stepped on and had pepper thrown at him and tablecloths put over his head I’ve got a swell license to seem distrait,” replied the policeman bitterly. “And on top of all that, when I thought I had made a cop.⁠ ⁠…”

“Brought about an arrest.”

“… brought about an arrest which would have got me promotion, I find they’re all friends of yours and have to be allowed to make a clean getaway. That’s what jars me, Mr. Beamish.”

Hamilton Beamish patted him on the shoulder.

“Every poet, Garroway, has to learn in suffering before he can teach in song. Look at Keats! Look at Chatterton! One of these days you will be thankful that all this has happened. It will be the making of you. Besides, think of the money you are going to get from Mr. Waddington tomorrow.”

“I’d give it all for one long, cool drink now.”

“Mr. Garroway.”

The policeman looked up. Molly was standing in the window.

“Mr. Garroway,” said Molly, “a most mysterious thing has happened. Mr. Finch has found two large bottles of champagne in his cupboard. He can’t think how they got there, but he says would you care to come in and examine them and see whether they are good or not.”

The cloud which had hung about the policeman’s face passed from it as if beneath some magic spell. His tongue came slowly out of his mouth and moved lovingly over his arid lips. His one visible eye gleamed with the light which never was on land or sea.

“Are you with me, Mr. Beamish?” he asked.

“I precede you, Mr. Garroway,” said Hamilton Beamish.