"The less you say about your standards, the better, my girl," retorted
Sir William. "Do you know that this is blackmail?"
"No, it isn't. Not when I ain't asked you for nothing. And if I pass
the remark how that three pounds a week is my idea of a minimum wage,
it isn't blackmail to state the fact."
Sir William paused in the act of tearing a page out of Fosdike's
note-book. "Three pounds a week!"
"Well," said Dolly reasonably, "I didn't depreciate the currency. Three
pounds a week is little enough these times for the girl who fell from
grace through the chief glory of Calderside."
"But suppose you marry," suggested Mr. Fosdike.
"Then I marry well," she said, "having means of my own. And I ought to,
seeing I'm kind of widow to the chief glory of--"
Sir William looked up sharply from the table. "If you use that phrase
again," he said, "I'll tear this paper up."
"Widow to Tim Martlow," she amended it, defiantly. He handed her the
document he had drawn up. It was an undertaking in brief, unambiguous
terms to pay her three pounds a week for life. As she read it,
exulting, the door was kicked open.
The tramp, whose name was Timothy Martlow, came in and turning, spoke
through the doorway to the janitor below. "Call out," he said, "and
I'll come back and knock you down again." Then he locked the door.
Fosdike went courageously towards him. "What do you mean by this
intrusion? Who are you?"
The tramp assured himself that his hat was well pulled down over his
face. He put his hands in his pockets and looked quizzically at the
advancing Mr. Fosdike. "So far," he said, "I'm the man that locked the
door."
Fosdike started for the second door, which led directly to the
platform. The tramp reached it first, and locked it, shouldering
Fosdike from him. "Now," he said, Sir William was searching the wall,
"are there no bells?" he asked desperately.
"No."
"No?" jeered the tramp. "No bell. No telephone. No nothing. You're
scotched without your rifle this time."
Fosdike consulted Sir William. "I might shout for the police," he
suggested.
"It's risky," commented the tramp. "They sometimes come when they're
called."
"Then----" began the secretary.
"It's your risk," emphasised the tramp. "And, I don't advise it. I've
gone to a lot of trouble this last week to keep out of sight of the
Calderside police. They'd identify me easy, and Sir William wouldn't
like that."
"I wouldn't like?" said Rumbold. "I? Who are you?"
"Wounded and missing, believed dead," quoted the tramp. "Only there's
been a lot of beliefs upset in this war, and I'm one of them."
"One of what?"
"I'm telling you. One of the strayed sheep that got mislaid and come
home at the awkwardest times." He snatched his hat off. "Have a good
look at that face, your worship."
"Timothy Martlow," cried Sir William.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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