The Missing Million

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

MR. THEOPHILUS COLEMAN stood at one of the windows of his handsome dining-room overlooking Portland Place, and he was not in the best of humours. He was (as he told his associates at the Treasury) a creature of habit, due largely to his long association with a Government office. He rose at seven every morning of his life and walked the length of Portland Place four times. It mattered not whether the weather was fair or foul, snowing or lightning, blowing or sweltering. He took his constitutional, wearing, in the summer, a thin alpaca coat, and, in the winter, a very yellow jumper, which interested such milkmen, policemen and members of the working classes as were abroad at that hour.

At nine o'clock he breakfasted, having disposed of his meagre mail and read the first leader in The Times, that his views on the political situation might be brought up to date. Mr. Coleman never played golf, and remained (he confessed) a devotee to whist. In conversation he favoured a high tariff, a big navy and long skirts; his chief detestations were Socialism, Popular Education and America. To these causes, he argued, all the ills and evils of life and circumstance might be traced, and indeed were traced by Mr. Coleman.

He was a man of few inches, stout and very bald.

He wore fluffy grey side-whiskers, until one day, seeing by chance the portrait of a film star similarly, though more tidily, adorned, he was seized with misgiving. On learning that the screen artist was American, Mr. Coleman summoned his valet and peremptorily ordered the removal of the hateful appendage.

His face was rosy, his skin clear, and his many chins added to his appearance of comfort. During the war he had passed to the sinecure of an assistant secretaryship in the Treasury. And here, from ten o'clock in the morning until four o'clock in the afternoon, he initialled documents and passed them on to a superior, who also initialled them. Somewhere between Mr. Coleman and the chief of his department was a person who actually read them. Mr. Coleman had never been sufficiently interested to discover who was this painstaking individual.

Passing into the Treasury as a voluntary worker in the strenuous days of war, his services had not been dispensed with, and for an excellent reason. His salary was small. He had the manner and style of the prosperous Civil Servant, and there were many who thought he had been born in the Treasury.

This morning his habits were broken by the unusual event of a wedding. The small table at which he and his daughter would usually have sat and discussed a stately breakfast with stately views on the political situation and the movements of Canadian Pacific Railway stock, was replaced with a very much larger table smothered with flowers and glittering with glass and silver. Mr. Coleman felt he had been tricked out of his breakfast.

"Have Mr. Walton's trunks arrived?" he asked the grey-haired servitor.

"Yes, sir; they came early this morning. I have taken the liberty of laying out Mr. Walton's going-away suit."

Mr. Coleman eyed him disapprovingly.

"Gentlemen do not have going-away suits, Parker. They have morning suits and dress suits and lounge suits. You have laid out Mr. Walton's lounge suit?"

"Yes, sir."

"When Mr. Walton returns after the ceremony you will assist him to change, Parker. I have no doubt he will tip you liberally. He is a gentleman of extravagant habits— good morning, my dear."

He addressed his daughter, who had come into the room at that moment.

Few women look their best in the morning, but Dora Coleman was one of them. She looked very young and childlike as she crossed to her father and kissed him.

"Slept well, eh? Happy is the bride that the sun shines on, and it's raining, by gad!"

"I shall be happy," she said as she smiled into his eyes.

Lawford Collett arrived at that moment. A successful lawyer, he had the additional distinction of being Mr. Coleman's legal adviser. The fact that he was also Mr. Coleman's only nephew and Dora's cousin, was less important. As Mr. Coleman's legal adviser he had an importance which transcended all other distinctions in Mr. Coleman's eyes.

Rex Walton and his sister, with Jimmy Sepping, came together, and Rex was obviously nervous and distrait. His face lightened as he went to meet his bride, and for a while they stood together in the window recess, talking.

"Ah, Captain Sepping." Outside of Scotland Yard, only Mr. Coleman ever remembered Jimmy's military title. "Come to look after the wedding presents, eh?"

When Mr. Coleman jested, he jested ponderously and supplied his own subdued laughter. Jimmy smiled politely. "I understand there are no wedding presents," he said, and Mr. Coleman nodded gravely.

"Very wise, very wise indeed," he said. "Walton is a very rich man. Why rob his friends? What could we give him that he could not buy himself?"

"Fish knives," said Joan calmly. "Nobody ever buys their own fish knives. I've brought 'em with me."

Mr. Coleman did not like Joan. He never attempted to disguise his antipathy. She represented all that was modern, all that was vulgar in womanhood. She smoked cigarettes, she played games, she danced, not the stately dances that Mr Coleman's grandmother danced, but violent and indelicate jazzes, and she was pert.

"Everybody is here— Parker!"

He nodded significantly, and walking to where Dora and Rex Walton were standing, he led her by the hand to her chair.

Jimmy was on Joan's right, Lawford Collett on his left.

"Have you wheedled out of Rex the honeymoon route?" he asked, turning to the girl.

She shook her head.

"He's as dumb as an oyster. I don't even know the bridegroom-to-bride present. It is something awfully rich and rare, because the jewellers have been living at Cadogan Square for the past month, and I know that Rex rejected a pearl necklace worth thousands because it wasn't good enough."

She looked at the bride and sighed, and Jimmy guessed the reason.

"You are thinking of somebody— I don't think I should if I were you," he said in a low voice, and she nodded her agreement.

"I'm very fond of Dora— she's lovely and so sweet. But Edie was a very dear friend of ours. I wish Rex hadn't married... so soon after. I know he is still fond of her, and I'm really glad he is marrying." She changed the subject abruptly and was her old gay self in a few minutes.

The programme of the morning was a simple one. The marriage ceremony was to be performed at the Marylebone Register Office, after which the bride and bridegroom were to return to Portland Place and change. Walton's big sports car, laden with their baggage, would be waiting, and the happy couple would drive away to their unknown destination.

Jim caught his friend's eye and Rex smiled. He was happy in spite of his overnight fears. He could hardly take his eyes from the radiant girl who sat at Mr. Coleman's right hand.

And then that worthy man rose, glass in hand.

"I bet he'll start My dear friends,'" whispered Joan.

"I'll take that bet," said Jimmy, in the same tone, and lost instantly.

"My dear friends," said Mr. Coleman, "on this occasion, when two— er— loving hearts are to be united in the holy bonds of— er— matrimony, it behoves us to wish them the prosperity and happiness which— er—"

He finished at last to a murmur of applause. The deferential Parker bent over Rex Walton's chair and whispered something in his ear.

"Why is Rex going out?" asked Joan in surprise, as Walton went out of the room.

Apparently neither Mr. Coleman nor the bride thought his retirement unusual. Jim saw Mr. Coleman beckon Parker to him, and there was a brief exchange of question and answer. Mr. Coleman nodded his head and spoke to Dora, who said something inaudible to Jimmy, but which Joan heard.

"He asked Parker to remind him when it was ten minutes past ten," she said uneasily. "I wish he wouldn't do these things. He has a passion for surprising people— I suppose that he has gone to get his wedding present."

Five minutes passed... ten minutes, and Rex Walton had not returned. Mr. Coleman looked at his watch.

"Our young friend should be reminded that he has an important engagement at ten-thirty," he said jocularly.

Another five minutes went by, and then Parker went out of the room, to return almost immediately.

"Mr. Walton is not in the house, sir," he said.

And the search that followed failed to discover Rex Walton. He had vanished, and nobody had seen him go.