II
In supposing that the person or persons whom he had heard climbing up the fire-escape were in pursuit of himself, George Finch had made a pardonable error. Various circumstances had combined to render his departure from the Purple Chicken unobserved.
In the first place, just as Officer Garroway was on the point of releasing his head from the folds of the tablecloth, Guiseppe, with a loyalty to his employers which it would be difficult to overpraise, hit him in the eye with the coffeepot. This had once more confused the policeman’s outlook, and by the time he was able to think clearly again the lights went out.
Simultaneously the moon, naturally on George’s side and anxious to do all that it could to help, went behind a thick cloud and stayed there. No human eye, therefore, had witnessed the young man’s climb for life.
The persons whom he had heard on the fire-escape were a couple who, like himself, had no object in mind other than a swift removal of themselves from the danger-zone. And so far were they from being hostile to George that each, had they seen him, would have urged him on and wished him luck. For one of them was Madame Eulalie and the other no less a man than J. Hamilton Beamish in person.
Hamilton Beamish, escorting his bride-to-be, had arrived at the Purple Chicken a few minutes after George, and, like George, had found the place crowded to its last table. But unlike George, he had not meekly accepted this situation as unalterable. Exerting the full force of his majestic personality, he had caused an extra table to appear, to be set, and to be placed in the fairway at the spot where the indoor restaurant joined the outdoor annex.
It was a position which at first had seemed to have drawbacks. The waiters who passed at frequent intervals were compelled to bump into Mr. Beamish’s chair, which is always unpleasant when one is trying to talk to the girl one loves. But the time was to arrive when its drawbacks were lost sight of in the contemplation of its strategic advantages. At the moment when the raid may be said to have formally opened, Hamilton Beamish was helping the girl of his heart to what the management had assured him was champagne. He was interrupted in this kindly action by a large hand placed heavily on his shoulder and a gruff voice which informed him that he was under arrest.
Whether Hamilton Beamish would have pursued George Finch’s spirited policy of enveloping the man in the tablecloth and thereafter plugging him in the eye, will never be known: for the necessity for such a procedure was removed by the sudden extinction of the lights: and it was at this point that the advantage of being in that particular spot became apparent.
From the table to the fire-escape was but a few steps: and Hamilton Beamish, seizing his fiancée by the hand, dragged her thither and, placing her foot on the lowest step, gave her an upward boost which left no room for misapprehension. A moment later, Madame Eulalie was hurrying roofwards, with Hamilton Beamish in close attendance.
They stood together at the end of their journey, looking down. The lights of the Purple Chicken were still out, and from the darkness there rose a confused noise indicative of certain persons unknown being rather rough with certain other persons unknown. It seemed to Madame Eulalie that she and her mate were well out of it, and she said so.
“I never realised before what a splendid man you were to have by one in an emergency, Jimmy dear,” she said. “Anything slicker than the way you scooped us out of that place I never saw. You must have had lots and lots of practice.”
Hamilton Beamish was passing a handkerchief over his dome-like forehead. The night was warm, and the going had been fast.
“I shall never forgive myself,” he said, “for exposing you to such an experience.”
“Oh, but I enjoyed it.”
“Well, all has ended well, thank goodness. …”
“But has it?” interrupted Madame Eulalie.
“What do you mean?”
She pointed downwards.
“There’s somebody coming up!”
“You’re right.”
“What shall we do? Go out by the stairs?”
Hamilton Beamish shook his head.
“In all probability they will be guarding the entrance.”
“Then what?”
It is at moments like these that the big brain really tells. An ordinary man might have been nonplussed. Certainly, he would have had to waste priceless moments in thought. Hamilton Beamish, with one flash of his giant mind, had the problem neatly solved in four and a quarter seconds.
He took his bride-to-be by the arm and turned her round.
“Look.”
“Where?”
“There!”
“Which?”
“That.”
“What?” Bewilderment was limned upon the girl’s fair face. “I don’t understand. What do you want me to specially look at?”
“At what do you want me especially to look,” corrected Hamilton Beamish mechanically. He drew her across the roof. “You see that summerhouse thing? It is George Finch’s open-air sleeping-porch. Go in, shut the door, switch on the light. …”
“But. …”
“… and remove a portion of your clothes.”
“What!”
“And if anybody comes tell him that George Finch rented you the apartment and that you are dressing to go out to dinner. I, meanwhile, will go down to my apartment and will come up in a few minutes to see if you are ready to be taken out to dine.” Pardonable pride so overcame Hamilton Beamish that he discarded the English Pure and relapsed into the argot of the proletariat. “Is that a crackerjack?” he demanded with gleaming eyes. “Is that a wam? Am I the bozo with the big bean or am I not?”
The girl eyed him worshippingly. One of the consolations which we men of intellect have is that, when things come to a crisis, what captures the female heart is brains. Women may permit themselves in times of peace to stray after Sheiks and look languishingly at lizards whose only claim to admiration is that they can do the first three steps of the Charleston: but let matters go wrong; let some sudden peril threaten; and who then is the king pippin, who the main squeeze? The man with the eight and a quarter hat.
“Jimmy,” she cried, “it’s the goods!”
“Exactly.”
“It’s a lifesaver.”
“Precisely. Be quick, then. There is no time to waste.”
And so it came about that George Finch, nestling beneath the bed, received a shock which, inured though he should have been to shocks by now, seemed to him to turn every hair on his head instantaneously grey.