"I shall go and see Hugh at once," John decided. "You're not keeping anything from me, George? He's not actually under arrest?"
"Oh, no, you won't have to visit any more police stations to-night," George promised. "Hugh is living with his friend, Aubrey Fenton, at 22 Carlington Road, West Kensington."
"I shall go there to-night," John declared.
He had almost reached the front door when George called him back.
"I've been trying to work out a riddle," he said, earnestly. "You know there's a medicine called Easton's Syrup? Well, I thought ... don't be in such a hurry; you'll muddle me up ... and I shall spoil it...."
"Try it on Major Downman," John advised, crossly, slamming the door of Halma House behind him. "Fatuous, that's what George is, utterly fatuous," he assured himself as he hurried down the steps.
CHAPTER VIII
JOHN decided to walk from Earl's Court to West Kensington. Being still in complete ignorance of what Hugh had done, he had a presentiment that this time it was something really grave, and he was now beginning to believe that George knew how grave it was. Perhaps his decision to go on foot was not altogether wise, for he was tired out by a convulsive day, and he had never experienced before such a fathomless sinking of the stomach on the verge of being mixed up in a disagreeable family complication, which was prolonged by the opportunity that the walk afforded him for dismal meditation. While he hurried with bowed head along one ill-lighted road after another a temptation assailed him to follow George's advice and abandon Hugh, and not merely Hugh, but all the rest of his relations, a temptation that elaborated itself into going back to Church Row, packing up, and escaping to Arizona or British East Africa or Samoa. In the first place, he had already several times vowed never more to have anything to do with his youngest brother; secondly, he was justified in resenting strongly the tortuous road by which he had been approached on his behalf; thirdly, it might benefit Hugh's morals to spend a week or two in fear of the ubiquitous police, instead of a few stay-at-home tradesmen; fourthly, if anything serious did happen to Hugh, it would serve as a warning to the rest of his relations, particularly to George; finally, it was his dinner hour, and if he waited to eat his dinner before tackling Hugh, he should undoubtedly tackle him afterward in much too generous a frame of mind. Yes, it would be wiser to go home at once, have a good dinner, and start for Arizona to-morrow morning. The longer he contemplated it, the less he liked the way he had been beguiled into visiting Hugh. If the—the young bounder—no, really bounder was not too strong a word—if the young bounder was in trouble, why could he not have come forward openly and courageously to the one relation who could help him? Why had he again relied upon his mother's fondness, and why had she, as always, chosen the indirect channel by writing to George rather than to himself? The fact of the matter was that his mother and George and Hugh possessed similar loose conceptions of integrity, and now that it was become a question of facing the music they had instinctively joined hands. Yet George had advised him to have nothing more to do with Hugh, which looked as if his latest game was a bit too strong even for George to relish, for John declined to believe that George possessed enough of the spirit of competitive sponging to bother about trying to poach in Hugh's waters; Hilda or Eleanor might, but George.... George was frightened, that was it; obviously he knew more than he had told, and he did not want to be exposed ... it would not astonish him to learn that George was in the business with Hugh and had invented that letter from Mama to invoke his intervention before it was too late to save himself. What could it all be about? Curiosity turned the scale against Arizona, and John pressed forward to West Kensington.
The houses in Carlington Road looked like an over-crowded row of tall, thin men watching a football match on a cold day; each red-faced house had a tree in front of it like an umbrella and trim, white steps like spats; in a fantastic mood the comparison might be prolonged indefinitely, even so far as to say that, however outwardly uncomfortable they might appear, like enthusiastic spectators, they were probably all aglow within. If John had been asked whether he liked an interior of pink lampshades and brass gongs, he would have replied emphatically in the negative; but on this chill November night he found the inside of number 22 rather pleasant after the street. The maid looked doubtful over admitting him, which was not surprising, because an odor of hot soup in the hall and the chink of plates behind a closed door on the right proclaimed that the family was at dinner.
"Will you wait in the drawing-room, sir?" she inquired. "I'll inform Mr. Touchwood that you're here."