Before the Fact Page 18

  “Yes, darling. But will you double your money in a year?”

  “Sweetheart, I keep telling you you will. Do try to understand. Land’s the goods. Land and bricks and mortar. You can’t lose: you must gain. Look at the back page of The Times any day now. They’re simply giving country houses away. You can buy a house that would have cost ten thousand three years ago, for four now. And less. Why everyone doesn’t snap them up, I can’t think.”

  “Will they double in a year too?” asked Lina intelligently.

  “Well, I don’t know about that. Not so certain as land,” Johnnie said sapiently. “Anyhow, we’re not going to risk them. We’re going out for building-sites.”

  “Building-sites?”

  “Yes. I know a fine site in Bournemouth that they were asking twelve thousand for a year ago. Right in the centre of the town; simply asking for a block of shops; couldn’t be safer. We’re getting it for seven. And we’ll sell this time next year for fifteen!”

  “That sounds very good.”

  “Darling, do be a little more enthusiastic. I don’t think you understand even now. Look here – we buy the site for seven; it’s worth, say, eleven; along comes the trade recovery next year, everyone screaming for more shops, more business, more everything, people beginning to build everywhere, and – we’ve got the best site in Bournemouth! Now do you see?”

  “Yes, I think it looks a very good idea. But will the trade recovery come along next year?”

  Johnnie threw his hands in the air and began all over again.

  “How much money is Mr. Thwaite putting up?” Lina asked, when Johnnie had proved his case once more and she had approved it.

  “Twelve thousand. And twelve thousand will make twelve thousand, so that’s six thousand apiece. How’s that?”

  “Very good, darling. I hope it comes off.”

  “Of course it’ll come off. And there’ll be a few more pickings than that,” Johnnie added, with a grin.

  “Will there?”

  “Yes, it’s like this. Old Beaky got tipped the wink that the pound was going to crash and what to do about it, so he sold out twelve thousand pounds worth of shares, sent the money over to New York, and had it turned into dollars. On the sly, of course. Nobody knows a thing about it except himself and me. It’s in a bank over there. One of us is going over there to get it, and bring it back in cash and bearer securities, so that it can’t be traced.”

  “Why mustn’t it be traced?”

  “Oh, better not,” said Johnnie vaguely. “As a matter of fact, Beaky’s windy. Thinks he might get into trouble over having sent the money out of the country and all that. Anyhow, the joke is that old Beaky did what he was told, but he hasn’t the vaguest idea why he was told. Beaky always was a bit batty, but he’s got so much money it doesn’t matter. He hasn’t realized at all that his twelve thousand in dollars will be worth over fifteen thousand when it’s turned back into pounds again, owing to the exchange having gone up in the meantime. He thinks he’s still got only twelve. And,” exulted Johnnie, “he’s going to give me a cheque for the whole boiling in dollars, and I’m going over to New York to collect it, and he only expects twelve thousand pounds out of it, and I’ll get you a new hat when I come back, you funny little monkeyface.”

  “Wait a minute,” Lina worried. “I don’t understand. You’re going to bring back fifteen thousand, and only give Mr. Thwaite twelve? You don’t mean that, surely?”

  “Commission,” said Johnnie glibly. “Always done. You don’t understand these things, darling.”

  Lina could only laugh. Johnnie was so transparent.

  “I understand that you’re intending to cheat Mr. Thwaite out of three thousand pounds, Johnnie, and you mustn’t do anything of the sort. You’ll give him his full fifteen thousand. After all, you say you’re each going to make six out of it.”

  “All right, monkeyface,” Johnnie said, in a resigned voice. “I suppose, if you say so. I was an idiot to tell you.”

  “You’d have been a bigger idiot if you’d done it and he’d found out. Is that a promise, Johnnie?”

  “It is, you little Puritan,” Johnnie smiled. “Lucky for us you’re not in business, isn’t it?”

  “Very well,” said Lina. “It’s a promise. And I shall ask Mr. Thwaite myself if you gave him the whole fifteen thousand.”

  Johnnie’s face fell so suddenly and so completely that Lina laughed again.

  Johnnie was exceedingly transparent.

  Lina took Johnnie’s tendencies quite for granted now.

  3

  So Johnnie went to New York.

  And Lina, having quite decided to give Ronald a week of Johnnie’s fortnight’s absence, altered her mind at the last minute and decided instead that this would really be too unfair to Johnnie.

  She was sorry for Ronald, who was very disappointed.

  4

  It was in September that Lina found the notebook.

  Johnnie had been back from America about three weeks. He had not been at home very much, owing to the requirements of his new business. The owners of the building site in Bournemouth were being difficult, scenting Johnnie’s keenness to buy, and had raised their price, necessitating a procession of telegrams and conferences. Johnnie was touring about a lot too, with Beaky Thwaite, looking for other promising sites. He assured Lina, with as much enthusiasm as ever, that everything was marvellous, but these things took time.

  One morning, having seen Johnnie off to Bournemouth once more, Lina decided with reluctance that she really must look out the things for the jumble sale. She had promised the vicar some old clothes of her own and Johnnie’s, but had put off from day to day the task of sorting them out. Before her resolution, induced by a pleading postcard that morning from the vicar, could ebb, she went upstairs as soon as she had finished her morning talk with the cook.

  There were a couple of hats, some well darned stockings, two or three pairs of old shoes of her own, and a frock or two, which she made into a pile in the middle of the bedroom floor, and then went through her drawers for oddments of ribbons and underclothes and ornaments to add to them. It was surprising, when once she had made up her mind to part with things, how much she found she could spare. It always was.

  Then she went into Johnnie’s dressing room.

  Johnnie had told her what clothes of his she could take. She looked them out, added them to the pile, and looked into Johnnie’s wardrobe. She decided that he could be very well rid of an elderly mauve suit which she had never very much liked and which she was quite sure Johnnie had not worn for at least two years. She took it off its hanger, and felt in the pockets.

  There was an equally elderly handkerchief in the breast pocket, and nothing else at all but a little cheap black notebook in one of the side pockets of the coat. Lina opened it idly, to see whether Johnnie would want it preserved or whether it could be thrown away. Most of the pages were blank, but a few at the beginning were filled with writing, Johnnie’s writing, in pencil. The first one was headed: “Arterio-sclerosis.”

  Lina was interested. Arterio-sclerosis was the disease, she knew, which had caused her father’s death. Arterio-sclerosis combined with mild angina pectoris. She read on.

  As she read, the coat which she was still holding dropped from her hand on to the floor. She sat down on the edge of the bed.

  ARTERIO-SCLEROSIS

  Arterio-sclerosis may be defined as a condition of thickening of the arterial coats, with degeneration, diffuse or circumscribed. The process leads, in the larger arteries, to what is known as atheroma and to endarteritis deformans, and seriously interferes with the normal functions of various organs.

  In the early stages, the patient should be enjoined to live a quiet, well-regulated life, avoiding excesses in food and drink. Alcohol in all forms should be prohibited.

  ANGINA PECTORIS

  Whatever the cause, arterio-sclerosis predisposes to angina. A majority of the patients have sclerosis, many high blood pressure.


  The patient may drop dead at the height of an attack, or faint and pass away in syncope.

  An attack may be induced by emotion, or toxic agents (e. g. alcohol), increasing the tension of the heart walls. Emotion is of less importance. The angina of effort that follows any slight exertion is, as a rule, far more serious.

  CEREBRAL HÆMORRHAGE

  Cerebral hæmorrhage is apoplexy.

  Individuals with arterio-sclerosis are particularly liable to cerebral hæmorrhage. Violent exertion, particularly straining efforts leading to overaction of the heart, may cause a rupture.

  So far the entries were obviously extracts copied from some medical work. The few that followed, written in a more hasty hand, seemed to be jottings added from time to time in Johnnie’s own words.

  High blood pressure. Increase it, and you get apoplexy.

  Three dangerous things – too much to eat, too much to drink, and violent exercise.

  ?Running upstairs after dinner?

  Port. Ha, ha!

  Cecil?

  What about old days in the mess? Excitement.

  Got it! The three-chair trick.

  Ha, ha. Try it, anyhow.

  After that there was a page of figures. Lina did not do more than run her eyes over them. They seemed to consist of calculations of the income to be derived from fifty thousand pounds at various rates of interest. Evidently they referred to the time when Johnnie was trying to persuade her to sell out her government stock and invest her capital in more adventurous schemes.

  She frowned her puzzlement, flicking through the pages again. Why should Johnnie have gone to the labour of studying these diseases after her father died, even to the extent of copying out notes about them? She did not remember that he had shown such interest in the medical details at the time. And what on earth did those extraordinary observations at the end mean?

  She felt oddly disturbed. There was something almost sinister about those two “ha, ha’s” in such a connection. It almost seemed as if Johnnie had been rejoicing over her father’s death.

  As she added the mauve suit to the bundle on the floor and set about collecting Johnnie’s other remnants, her mind was busy recalling the details of her father’s death nearly three years ago.

  They were still quite clear to her.

  General McLaidlaw had died, tragically, on Christmas night, after dinner, while the men were still in the dining room. He had seemed quite well during the meal, and had eaten the usual Christmas dinner, and, in the usual way again, probably a little too much of it. A very special sherry had been got up from the cellar, and a still more special hock, and the General had had his full share of them. It was remembered afterwards that Mrs. McLaidlaw had reminded him, not without anxiety, that his doctor had warned him to be very sparing in his use of alcohol in any form, but the General had robustly damned the eyes of all doctors and retorted that Christmas came but once a year.

  And after dinner there had been a very, very special port.

  The doctor had had no doubts about the cause of death. He had not put his conclusion so bluntly to the family, but its gist was that the General had drunk a great deal too much. The decanter of port was, in fact, almost empty; and Cecil said he had had only one glass, while Johnnie had been sure that he had not drunk more than two. The General must have had something like four. The doctor had been just a little surprised, not that the General should have drunk four glasses of port but at their effect upon him. He had not considered his condition so dangerous, or he would have forbidden him alcohol altogether. But there the General was, patently dead of apoplexy, and all the doctor could do about it then was to sign the death certificate to that effect.

  Johnnie had been very much upset.

  The General had drunk a lot of port, and Johnnie was upset to think that he might perhaps have stopped him and never did. And the General had got excited too, talking about old times in his regiment when he was a giddy lieutenant and the pranks they used to play in the mess on guest nights. But the fault was equally Cecil’s. Cecil might have stopped him too, and never did.

  Actually, however, Cecil had not been in the room when the General died. He had gone out about five minutes earlier, to get something for the General from the library. Johnnie had come to him there and told him that the General had had a stroke, and what ought to be done about it? When the two of them got back to the dining room the General was dead.

  Johnnie had been very much upset.

  Still sitting on the bed, Lina read through the pages again. Johnnie must have been interested, as well as upset. The notes at the end seemed to be jottings of what the General had been doing to bring on his attack. Johnnie must have hurriedly written them down, to tell the doctor. But why those horrible “ha, ha’s”? And what did “Try it, anyhow” mean?

  Lina knew about the three-chair trick. It was a favourite trick of Johnnie’s, requiring a good deal of strength and fitness. You put your head on the seat of one chair, your heels on another, with a third underneath your back; then, supporting yourself on your heels and your head, you took the middle chair away from under you, passed it over your body, and slipped it underneath again on the other side.

  “Got it! The three-chair trick.”

  That could only mean one thing. Johnnie had suddenly realized what had caused the General’s stroke. He had been trying to do the three-chair trick, and it had been too much for him.

  But it would have been madness to do such a thing – madness! He had been warned not to take any great exertion. The three-chair trick was a tremendous exertion. Johnnie used to say it was the biggest physical strain he knew.

  Of course the General had had a good deal to drink. And having knocked it off to a great extent during the previous year or two, it might have gone to his head. That could have made him forget the doctor’s warning and try the three-chair trick.

  But it was inconceivable that Johnnie could have let him do it. Johnnie knew all about his condition. Everyone knew. It had been common knowledge for a year or more that the General, though not in a state which could possibly be called dangerous, had yet to begin to take care. Johnnie could not possibly have let the old man do such an insane thing.

  Lina thought she knew what must have happened. They had been talking about the three-chair trick, and then Johnnie had gone to help Cecil look for the General’s spectacle case in the library, and during his absence the old man must have tried it. Probably Johnnie had heard him fall before he reached the library and hurried back.

  But if he had told the doctor what he suspected, the other had never passed it on to the rest of the family. It was the first time Lina had heard of the three-chair trick in connection with her father’s death.

  She got up and slipped the little notebook into a drawer in Johnnie’s chest of drawers. At first she thought she would ask him if her father had really done this preposterous thing – had practically killed himself like that. Then she decided that it would serve no purpose after all. Lina always preferred to remain ignorant of a possibly unpleasant fact than be forced to acknowledge it.

  Mechanically, for her thoughts still persisted in playing round the notebook, she began to do up the bundle for the jumble sale.

  CHAPTER XIV

  “Not much hope of tennis this afternoon. Hell’s bells!” Johnnie, standing at the window with his hands in his pockets and contemplating the drizzle outside, breathed on the glass and drew a cross in the result with the end of his nose.

  Lina looked up from the stocking she was darning. “Johnnie, did Cecil ever find Father’s spectacles in the library the night he died?”

  “Good heavens, monkeyface, I don’t know. Why?”

  “I just wondered.”

  Lina went on with her darning. Johnnie began to walk restlessly about the room.

  Her head bent over her work, Lina asked:

  “Why did he want his spectacles, in any case?”

  “I don’t know. Oh, to read a newspaper cutting I wanted to show him, I bel
ieve. Why?”

  “Oh, nothing. I just wish it had been you who went to look for the spectacles, not Cecil. That’s all.”

  “Why on earth do you wish that, you extraordinary little monkeyface?”

  “I don’t know. I just do. Then it would have been Cecil who was with him when he had that stroke, not you.”

  “But Cecil couldn’t have done any more for him than I could.”

  “No, I suppose not.”

  “That’s about the fourth time this week you’ve asked me something like that,” Johnnie said idly.

  Lina started ever so slightly. “Is it?” She uttered a nervous little laugh. “How silly of me. I seem to have been thinking about Father lately, for some reason or other.”

  “Well, it’s all more than three years ago now.”

  “Yes,” Lina agreed, with an odd feeling of relief. “Nearly four.” Four years is a long time. Somehow, things that happened nearly four years ago are not nearly so important as things that happened last week.

  But she really must not give way again to this nervous prompting to ask Johnnie details about her father’s death.

  It was true that Lina had been thinking a lot about her father, and her father’s death, during the last week. She had tried hard not to do so, but all the time it was there in her mind, refusing to be thrust into oblivion.

  That little black notebook was haunting her.

  On the very first afternoon she had removed it from the drawer in Johnnie’s room to a drawer in her own dressing table. A dozen times since then she had pored over it, with the fascination of repulsion. But for those “ha, ha’s” she would have asked Johnnie about it with directness. But they prevented her, those appalling little written-down chuckles. She could not bear to confront Johnnie with them, and listen to his glibly lying explanation. For of course Johnnie would lie.