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Jack was never much of a conversationalist, and the burden of such talk as they had fell on Pam. She made the conventional remarks: Had Platt ever been in Belfast before? Had he had a good crossing? What did he think of the country? Platt replied pleasantly enough. She thought he improved on acquaintance. He had crossed the previous night, never having been in Ireland before. He had been greatly struck with the view coming up the Lough and with the kindliness he had already met with in the city. His firm had some business out at Cregagh—did they know it?—and he had taken it first so as to be entirely free to devote himself to their demonstration. He was looking forward to a pleasant stay and hoped their meeting would bear fruit. It was all very amicable and commonplace.
‘We’ve engaged a room for you at the local hotel,’ Jack broke in to this artless conversation. ‘I’ll take you there now and when you’ve had a meal I’ll call and introduce M‘Morris, our fourth member: Ferris you’ve met already. We hope that on a later occasion you’ll dine with us.’
‘Thanks, that’ll suit me first rate. Where is your—is it lab or workshop?’
‘Ah, you mustn’t expect too much,’ put in Pam. ‘We’ve just a couple of rooms in a cottage, a quite temporary rig up. I expect you don’t want to be bothered with business tonight. We’ll show it to you tomorrow.’
Platt looked relieved. ‘That’s very kind,’ he said, ‘but I’m tremendously interested in what I’m going to see. Penrose and his friend certainly impressed my respected uncle when they came over.’
‘Is Mr Jefferson your uncle?’
‘Yes, luckily for me. I’m working through the business now, earnestly hoping to get a partnership later on.’
‘Same here,’ said Jack. ‘I’m doing it too, only in a smaller business. My father’s a solicitor. This now is Hillsborough we’re coming to.’
‘You’ve surprised me with one thing already,’ Platt remarked, ‘and that is your roads. They’re wider and straighter than most of ours and just as good a surface.’
‘Not so old as yours, I should think,’ Jack suggested. ‘Now, here’s the hotel. We’ll leave you for the present.’ He took Platt in and then with a hearty, ‘See you later,’ returned to the car.
‘I wonder how long he’ll stay,’ Pam said as they drove away. She was dining with the Penroses that night, as she did fairly frequently.
‘Probably till tomorrow night or Thursday at the latest. It won’t take long, all we’ve got to show him.’
‘And then you’re going to London?’
‘Oh, yes, I forgot to tell you. I had a letter from old Carling this morning. He’ll see me on the day I proposed, Monday. Unfortunately he’s only free in the early morning, so I’ll have to cross on Saturday night.’
‘Why not cross Monday night and see them on Tuesday? Save hanging about on Sunday.’
‘Could scarcely put Carling and Hepworth off so long. They wanted me to go this week, but I thought if this chap Platt was kept at his other job he mightn’t start with us till Thursday or Friday and I’d be better here.’
‘I should think so. Oh, how I hope it’ll all go well.’
‘Oh course it’ll go well. Why shouldn’t it?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. He may want to see more than Ferris will show him.’
‘You mean details of Ferris’s plant? Not if I know it. No details till the agreement is signed.’
‘But he mayn’t sign till he does know.’
‘He has nothing to do with the signing: simply to report to Jefferson.’
Pam was silent for a moment, then she went on. ‘Has it occurred to you that we haven’t seen the details of Ferris’s plant ourselves? If I were asked tomorrow, I couldn’t say how the thing is done.’
‘So much the better, in case Platt tries to vamp you.’
‘But it is funny. We’ve never been shown.’
‘Could you understand it if you were?’ Jack inquired solicitously.
Pam was in a serious mood and ignored this. ‘And Cousin George doesn’t know,’ she went on. ‘He’s asked me, and I haven’t been able to tell him.’
‘All to the good,’ Jack declared as he pulled up at the door. ‘I’ll leave the car here and we’ll drive down later.’
The Penrose family consisted of four members, of whom only three lived at home. Mr Penrose, the solicitor, was a man of about sixty, though he looked younger. He was tall and strongly built like his son, and carried himself well. A shrewd man, he was a hard fighter in business, though at the same time kindly and scrupulously honest. In both his professional and private capacities he was universally respected. His hobby was cattle farming and he was always slipping across to England or the Continent to study the life history of cows in countries other than his own.
Mrs Penrose was a pleasant motherly woman who had taken Pam entirely to her heart. If she had been allowed to select her daughter-in-law, she would have chosen Pamela Grey. Pam already felt as if she had lived in the Penrose household all her life. She pretended to share secrets with Mr Penrose, much to his delight, and was adored by the tiny staff of the establishment, which latter Mrs Penrose said was ‘a good sign.’
‘Well, and has the great man arrived?’ Mr Penrose asked as they began dinner. He took a keen interest in the scheme and closely followed its somewhat spasmodic evolution.
They discussed Platt and his mission and Jack mentioned that they were all going to the hotel for a chat later. Whereupon Pam declared unexpectedly, ‘I’m not.’
‘You’re not?’ Jack looked up in dismay. ‘But you said you would.’
‘I’ve changed my mind. It would be better for you four men to get together. After all you’ll not discuss business tonight. I’ll go to the cottage in the morning when the tests begin.’
Though Jack dutifully protested, he secretly felt that she was right. He promised to take her home on his way to the hotel and to call in after the meeting to tell her how it had gone.
But when about eleven he appeared, he had nothing of interest to report. They had had a perfectly normal evening, simply chatting to the accompaniment of drinks and smokes. Ferris was to call for Platt with his small car about nine-thirty in the morning, and on their arrival at the cottage the demonstration would commence. Jack was going to take two or three hours off in order to be present.
Next morning Pam reached Ferris’s cottage to find only M‘Morris there. Ferris had gone for Platt and Jack had not yet turned up.
Sloan’s Lane was a narrow winding cartway connecting the diverging roads from Hillsborough to Lisburn and Glenavy respectively. Its hedges were overgrown and its surface was rough. Some hundred yards from the Lisburn Road end stood Wayside, as the cottage was called. It was not a structure of high architectural pretensions, consisting simply of a cube of whitewashed plaster covered stone surmounted by a perfectly plain roof of purple slates, with, in the centre of the front wall a porch of the size and shape of the average sentry box. The windows were small and evenly spaced, five in front and five behind. Inside, the door led into a narrow hall from which a single flight of steps, steep as a ladder, led to the rooms above. On each side of the hall was a room, one with a tiled floor fitted with an old fashioned American stove and sink, the other with a wooden floor and a small open fireplace. The two other rooms were overhead. The house was damp, dark, dirty and uncomfortable, but it had served its purpose. One of its great assets was its privacy. It was set well back from the lane, and the hedge and shrubs which separated it therefrom were so overgrown and ill-trimmed as to form a complete screen. Besides, there was practically no traffic along the lane, which was really a farm track to certain fields.
Ferris slept and lived upstairs, using the two lower rooms for the great work. What had been the sitting room was now reserved for the demonstration, the kitchen forming an annexe in which apparatus was made and stores kept.
Presently Jack arrived and on his heels the other two men. A few words of explanation as to what was to be done, a little good humoured chaff all round, and the great moment had arrived.
Ferris had shrouded the electrodes of his U-shaped apparatus in opaque screens so that nothing could be seen of their construction. Platt at once took exception to this.
‘You mustn’t mind,’ he explained, ‘but I’ve been sent over here with the special object of picking holes in your scheme: not of course that we don’t wish it well, but simply to make sure that it stands criticism. If you begin by hiding all the essentials from me, I shall not be able to do my job.’
‘What we want to show you,’ Ferris returned, ‘is that we can produce at will an inert form of petrol, and that we can at will turn that inert form back again into the ordinary active form, and that at a trifling cost in both cases. We do not propose at this stage to give the exact details of the process.’
‘But that’s just it,’ Platt persisted, ‘I don’t see how you can convince me of the one without showing me the other.’
‘Oh, yes we can. Just you look at what I’m going to show you and you’ll be convinced right enough.’
‘It’s this way, Platt,’ Jack added. ‘You’re a business man as well as a scientist. If you were in our position you wouldn’t give away your assets until you had made an agreement with the other fellow. We’ll show you what we can do. Then if you like it we’ll ask you—or your people—to sign a conditional agreement saying that provided our claims as to method are established, you’ll do this and that and the other.’
Platt shrugged good humouredly. ‘I ask your lordships to note my objection,’ he declared. ‘Right. Carry on.’
But though Platt gave way in this pleasant manner, he soon showed he was taking nothing on trust. Ferris did his stunts as he had for Mr Whiteside and Platt admitted his surprise and admiration. But he did not leave it at that. Every step of the process, it appeared, was to be ruthlessly questioned and tested.
He began with the obvious difficulty. ‘You won’t let me see what’s at the end of those things you stick in the petrol,’ he pointed out. ‘How am I to know they’re not pumps which suck the petrol up into one leg and discharge an inert liquid from the other?’
‘Observation will tell you that,’ Ferris returned. ‘The vessel is not emptied. If what you suggest were true, it would have first be emptied and then refilled.’
‘I grant you that. What I mean is, how am I to know that you haven’t there some clever conjuring trick which creates an illusion?’ He smiled so that there could be no offence in his words.
‘We can’t show you our process,’ Ferris repeated, ‘but apart from that you can put the thing to any tests you like.’
Platt then settled down to it. He was indeed so thorough and painstaking that he evoked the admiration of the others. First he insisted that he must analyse a sample of the petrol which was about to be used, to make sure that no secret ingredient had been introduced into it. Then he required the U-shaped apparatus to be suspended from a spring balance, so that if it took up any liquid the change in weight would show. He analysed—endlessly—the inert product, and again the recreated active petrol. In fact he went with great care and pains into every point that he could think of.
He was observant, too, Pam noticed, even about matters outside his own particular line. She could see his sharp little eyes passing over the room and its furnishings and following every movement made by the quartet. When Jack mislaid his matchbox, it was Platt who pointed it out on the chimney piece where Jack had put it down. Pam came to the conclusion that there was not much that happened that was not recorded in the man’s brain.
All these experiments and testings took time. They had expected that lunch time would have finished the demonstration, but by lunch time Platt had scarcely got into his stride. By the evening he had only completed his test of the petrol, and before leaving off work he required a complex system of seals to be put on the work he had done.
‘How long do you think it will take you?’ Pam asked as they stood outside the cottage prior to separating for the night.
‘The firm gave me a week,’ Platt replied, ‘but I do not think it will take anything like that. This is Wednesday night and I thought of crossing back on Saturday night, as if I can get done here before that I should greatly like to see something of the country before I go.’
‘We’ll drive you round with great pleasure,’ Pam assured him as they parted.
Pam was amused at the precautions upon which Ferris insisted. Not for a single moment might Platt be left alone, lest curiosity should tempt him to remove the sacred screens. And Ferris saw that the watch was kept.
All Thursday Platt tested and experimented without coming to a definite conclusion, though he admitted he was nearly convinced. A few hours more, he declared that evening, would complete his investigation.
Though by this time Pam felt that she definitely disliked him—there were indications that he was of an amorous disposition and she hated the way he sometimes looked at her—she was anxious that he should be given as good a time as possible. This was partly out of sheer good nature, but admittedly it was also to bias him as much as possible in their favour in the coming negotiations. With these objects in her mind she took a step on that Thursday evening which afterwards she bitterly regretted. In fact, if she could only have foreseen where it was to lead she would have cut off her hand rather than make such a move.
She rang up the Whitesides and asked them if they would have the party down for the next afternoon.
Mr Whiteside was anxious to meet Platt and the girls were always on for any kind of party or game. The suggestion was therefore hailed as an inspiration.
‘Come down and we can have tennis or golf, or go fishing,’ Dot invited and Pam tentatively agreed.
Later she put the idea to the others. Jack, whom she rang up, was sorry he couldn’t get away. ‘I want to come to the cottage on Saturday morning when Platt’s fixing up finally. Couldn’t get both times,’ he explained, and though she was sorry not to have him at Carnalea, she felt he was right. Ferris and M‘Morris were both pleased with the idea, and Platt expressed himself as delighted.
‘What would you rather do, Mr Platt?’ Pam asked. ‘We’ve been offered a choice of tennis, golf and sea fishing.’
Platt was all for fishing. Tennis he could get at any time, and he was a poor golfer, but sea fishing would be a rare treat. So it was arranged. Pam rang up Dot and told her.
They were in high spirits when on that Friday afternoon they set off. They squeezed into Ferris’s Austin Seven, Platt in front with Ferris and Pam and M‘Morris behind. All were wearing their most disreputable clothes, Ferris and M‘Morris in blue jerseys and Platt in an old waterproof of Ferris’s. The weather smiled on them. The sun was warm and bright, the atmosphere was clear and there was no wind. It was an ideal day for their purpose.
On reaching Loughside, the Whitesides’ house, they were welcomed with wavings and vociferation by Dot and Dash. The girls then took Ferris and M‘Morris down to the shore to get the boat out, while Pam and Platt went in to see Mr Whiteside. The old gentleman was in a particularly good humour and joked with Pam and pulled Platt’s leg mercilessly.
‘They’re taking you out to drown you,’ he told him solemnly. ‘They think you’ve got their secret and they’re not going to let you out of the country alive.’ And when Platt gasped and looked at Pam for enlightenment, he chuckled wickedly and added that if he were in Platt’s place, nothing would induce him to enter the boat.
‘You mustn’t mind him,’ Pam explained as they presently followed the others down to the beach. ‘He loves a joke and he thinks that sort of thing is funny.’
The boat was moored a little distance from the shore by an ingenious arrangement common in that neighbourhood—and doubtless elswhere. The painter was attached to an endless rope, the loop of which was passed through pulleys on the end of the slip and on a post some hundred feet farther out to sea. By pulling the rope the boat could be drawn in to the slip or out halfway to the post, where it could swing about in safety. M‘Morris under the direction of Dot had untied the rope and was engaged in pulling in the boat. Dash with Ferris was at the boat house, where Ferris was grovelling for the key in a hole beneath the step, where it was kept hidden. The lines had been prepared and all that was necessary for the start was to get the oars from the boat house. ‘We’ll not take the sail,’ Pam heard Dash’s voice. ‘There’s no wind, and besides when there are so many of us the lines would get foul.’
It is not necessary to describe their afternoon. One sea fishing expedition is very like another: a joy to those who like it, an interminable misery to those who don’t. It is enough to say that they had good sport and came in about six o’clock with a basket full of grey and silver trophies.
Except for one thing Pam enjoyed the excursion, and that was that Platt became rather too friendly on more than one occasion. It happened that they were together in the stern, Dot and M‘Morris being in the bow and Dash and Ferris amidships. Platt was for ever swinging over so as to lean against Pam and continually touching her hands as he manœuvred his line. Once or twice she determined to exchange places with one of the others, then she thought Platt would be leaving the next day and it would be better to avoid unpleasantness. Of the others, she thought that only Ferris, who saw everything, had noticed it.
They all dined with the Penroses that evening, Platt behaving with exemplary discretion. All, even Pam, were pleased with his visit and with the hints he dropped that his report would be favourable. Afterwards Ferris and M‘Morris drove him to the hotel, where, as Pam afterwards learnt, he insisted on their going in for drinks.
Next morning, Saturday, there was to be a final meeting at the cottage to agree on tentative details of an agreement for submission to Messrs Wrenn Jefferson. Jack had produced a rough draft and they were to discuss its various items with Platt.
It was at this meeting that an incident happened which, though trifling in itself, yet had terribly serious consequences. It occurred, Pam told herself, through her failure to take action during the fishing excursion on the previous day, and for a long time she was inconsolable about what she thought had been her fault.
She walked to the cottage rather more quickly than she had intended, arriving a few minutes before the appointed time. Platt and M‘Morris had however already turned up, and were chatting with Ferris. Jack, who had gone into Lisburn to his office, had not yet returned.
When Ferris heard Pam’s step he came out quickly from the ‘demonstration’ room and met her in the porch. ‘Want to talk to M‘Morris,’ he whispered. ‘Keep Platt from being too inquisitive,’ then went on in his usual loud cheery voice, ‘Hallo, Pam. You’re in good time. Any sign of Jack?’
Pam nodded and answered in her ordinary tones, ‘I haven’t seen him. I came straight from home.’
They joined the others and for a moment chatted in a somewhat forced and perfunctory way. Then Ferris beckoned M‘Morris. ‘Come and let’s get those blessed notes fixed,’ he said, adding with a touch of his usual sardonic humour. ‘Miss Grey will do the honours while we’re away.’
‘I’m sorry to be leaving, Miss Grey,’ Platt said when they were alone. ‘I’ve had a pleasant time here.’
Pam thought this a graceful remark. ‘I’m so pleased you’ve liked it, Mr Platt,’ she said cordially. ‘But if our agreement goes through you’ll probably be over again before long.’
‘I hope so, I’m sure. It’s been such a pleasure meeting you.’
This wasn’t at all what Pam wanted, but after all he was going in a few hours. ‘I hope our agreement will go through,’ she returned with the idea of changing the subject. But Platt did not take it as a change of subject.
‘So that I may come back? Do you really mean that—Pam?’
Annoyed now in reality, she turned to annihilate him. But before she could speak it had happened: she never knew exactly how. Platt had been toying with his handkerchief and now he dropped it. He lunged forward to catch it as it fell and brushed against her. The next moment she found herself in his arms.
‘Mr Platt: let me go!’ she cried in a low tone as she struggled to get free. ‘Let me go at once!’
If the affair had ended there, probably no harm would have been done. With Ferris and M‘Morris within call, Platt would doubtless have let go as soon as he realised that he had made a mistake. But as evil chance would have it, at just that moment Jack walked into the room.
For a moment he stood speechless, gazing with a sort of incredulity at Platt. Platt had released Pam and was beginning a muttered apology. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, but got no further.
With a hoarse roar Jack sprang forward and hit him on the point of the chin. It was not a savage blow, but Platt went down like a ninepin. He crashed back against the work table, knocking it over and sending the objects it bore flying. He brought up on the floor, where he sat nursing his wounded jaw and apparently very sorry for himself. Pam flung herself on Jack.
‘Stop! stop!’ she cried, twisting her arms round him. ‘Don’t make things worse!’ As she spoke Ferris and M‘Morris ran in crying out to know what had happened.
Jack struggled, but could not free himself from Pam’s arms. ‘Get up and get out of this before I kill you!’ he shouted angrily to Platt, who still sat on the floor.
‘No, no! Don’t speak like that!’ Pam insisted. ‘There’s no harm done.’ Then with an appealing look at Ferris she added, ‘Take him next door. It’ll be all right.’
Ferris quickly took in the situation. ‘Come into the next room, you,’ he said roughly, catching Platt by the arm and helping him up. M‘Morris took the other arm and they hustled him away. Jack tried to unclasp Pam’s arms. ‘Let me go, will you?’ he cried. ‘I’ll soon settle him!’
‘Not till you promise to be quiet. Oh, Jack, do control yourself. Fighting won’t help anything. And—and—it was partly my fault. I tried to be decent to him and he misunderstood.’
Jack was of a passionate disposition. His anger flared up suddenly on small provocation, but it died down almost as quickly. He never harboured a grudge.
While Pam, almost sick with annoyance, struggled and reasoned with Jack, the scene seemed to be burnt in on her memory. There was a long table of planks on trestles on which the demonstration was set out, occupying one entire wall of the room. Before it were the three chairs on which she and Jack and Platt had sat while Ferris and M‘Morris dealt with the apparatus. And there, on its side was a small table of accessories that had been at Ferris’s hand. She noticed even the smallest details. Ferris’s notebook, open and upside down, a small condenser that he sometimes used, with one wire torn off it, M‘Morris’s green pencil case on which someone had stepped, breaking off the clip and slightly flattening the top which carried the india-rubber, and three empty test tubes and a pipette, all broken. She saw the wide joints of the stained uneven floor, the patches of discolouration on the faded wallpaper and the broken tile at the back of the fireplace. Had she been playing the memory game, she would have won with flying colours.
M‘Morris came back into the room. ‘No harm done?’ he asked, looking curiously at the others.
‘Of course not,’ Pam answered him. Then trying to speak lightly, she added: ‘Except to your pencil and all that glass.’
Before he could answer, Ferris looked in. ‘Look here, you two,’ he said. ‘The man wants to apologise. He’s upset about what’s happened. You’ve knocked him down, Jack, and that should square the thing. I suggest you cry quits and forget it.’
‘Yes,’ Pam cried eagerly, ‘that’s what I want too. You will, Jack? To please me?’
Jack, breathing threatenings and slaughter, was by no means out for conciliation. But at last he suffered himself to be persuaded, Platt muttered regrets, and the subject was dropped. The suggested agreement was discussed on a strictly business basis and as soon as might be Pam and Jack took their leave. Ferris went with them to the door.
