PART XII - THE DEATH OF SIMON FUGE - CHAPTER IV

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_ The drawing-room was about twice as large as the dining-room, and
it contained about four times as much furniture. Once again there
were books all round the walls. A grand piano, covered with music,
stood in a corner, and behind was a cabinet full of bound music.

Mr Brindley, seated on one corner of the bench in front of the
piano, cut the leaves of the Sinfonia Domestica.

'It's the devil!' he observed.

'Aye, lad!' agreed Mr Colclough, standing over him. 'It's
difficult.'

'Come on,' said Mr. Brindley, when he had finished cutting.

'Better take your dust-coat off, hadn't you?' Mrs Brindley
suggested to the friend. She and I were side by side on a sofa at
the other end of the room.

'I may as well,' Mr Colclough admitted, and threw the long garment
on to a chair. 'Look here, Bob, my hands are stiff with steering.'

'Don't find fault with your tools,' said Mr Brindley; 'and sit
down. No, my boy, I'm going to play the top part. Shove along.'

'I want to play the top part because it's easiest,' Mr Colclough
grumbled.

'How often have I told you the top part is never easiest? Who do
you suppose is going to keep this symphony together--you or me?'

'Sorry I spoke.'

They arranged themselves on the bench, and Mr Brindley turned up
the lower corners of every alternate leaf of the music.

'Now,' said he. 'Ready?'

'Let her zip,' said Mr Colclough.

They began to play. And then the door opened, and a servant, whose
white apron was starched as stiff as cardboard, came in carrying a
tray of coffee and unholy liqueurs, which she deposited with a
rattle on a small table near the hostess.

'Curse!' muttered Mr Brindley, and stopped.

'Life's very complex, ain't it, Bob?' Mr Colclough murmured.

'Aye, lad.' The host glanced round to make sure that the rattling
servant had entirely gone. 'Now start again.'

'Wait a minute, wait a minute!' cried Mrs Brindley excitedly. 'I'm
just pouring out Mr Loring's coffee. There!' As she handed me the
cup she whispered, 'We daren't talk. It's more than our place is
worth.'

The performance of the symphony proceeded. To me, who am not a
performer, it sounded excessively brilliant and incomprehensible.
Mr Colclough stretched his right hand to turn over the page, and
fumbled it. Another stoppage.

'Damn you, Ol!' Mr Brindley exploded. 'I wish you wouldn't make
yourself so confoundedly busy. Leave the turning to me. It takes a
great artist to turn over, and you're only a blooming chauffeur.
We'll begin again.'

'Sackcloth!' Mr Colclough whispered.

I could not estimate the length of the symphony; but my impression
was one of extreme length. Halfway through it the players both
took their coats off. There was no other surcease.

'What dost think of it, Bob?' asked Mr Colclough in the weird
silence that reigned after they had finished. They were standing
up and putting on their coats and wiping their faces.

'I think what I thought before,' said Mr Brindley. 'It's
childish.'

'It isn't childish,' the other protested. 'It's ugly, but it isn't
childish.'

'It's childishly clever,' Mr Brindley modified his description. He
did not ask my opinion.

'Coffee's cold,' said Mrs Brindley.

'I don't want any coffee. Give me some Chartreuse, please. Have a
drop o' green, Ol?'

'A split soda 'ud be more in my line. Besides, I'm just going to
have my supper. Never mind, I'll have a drop, missis, and chance
it. I've never tried Chartreuse as an appetizer.'

At this point commenced a sanguinary conflict of wills to settle
whether or not I also should indulge in green Chartreuse. I was
defeated. Besides the Chartreuse, I accepted a cigar. Never before
or since have I been such a buck.

'I must hook it,' said Mr Colclough, picking up his dust-coat.

'Not yet you don't,' said Mr Brindley. 'I've got to get the taste
of that infernal Strauss out of my mouth. We'll play the first
movement of the G minor? La-la-la--la-la-la--la-la-la-ta.' He
whistled a phrase.

Mr Colclough obediently sat down again to the piano.

The Mozart was like an idyll after a farcical melodrama. They
played it with an astounding delicacy. Through the latter half of
the movement I could hear Mr Brindley breathing regularly and
heavily through his nose, exactly as though he were being
hypnotized. I had a tickling sensation in the small of my back, a
sure sign of emotion in me. The atmosphere was changed.

'What a heavenly thing!' I exclaimed enthusiastically, when they
had finished.

Mr Brindley looked at me sharply, and just nodded in silence.
Well, good night, Ol.'

'I say,' said Mr Colclough; 'if you've nothing doing later on,
bring Mr Loring round to my place. Will you come, Mr Loring? Do!
Us'll have a drink.'

These Five Towns people certainly had a simple, sincere way of
offering hospitality that was quite irresistible. One could see
that hospitality was among their chief and keenest pleasures.

We all went to the front door to see Mr Colclough depart homewards
in his automobile. The two great acetylene head-lights sent long
glaring shafts of light down the side street. Mr Colclough,
throwing the score of the Sinfonia Domestica into the tonneau of
the immense car, put on a pair of gloves and began to circulate
round the machine, tapping here, screwing there, as chauffeurs
will. Then he bent down in front to start the engine.

'By the way, Ol,' Mr Brindley shouted from the doorway, 'it seems
Simon Fuge is dead.'

We could see the man's stooping form between the two head-lights.
He turned his head towards the house.

'Who the dagger is Simon Fuge?' he inquired. 'There's about five
thousand Fuges in th' Five Towns.'

'Oh! I thought you knew him.'

'I might, and I mightn't. It's not one o' them Fuge brothers
saggar-makers at Longshaw, is it?'

'No, It's--'

Mr Colclough had succeeded in starting his engine, and the air was
rent with gun-shots. He jumped lightly into the driver's seat.

'Well, see you later,' he cried, and was off, persuading the
enormous beast under him to describe a semicircle in the narrow
street backing, forcing forward, and backing again, to the
accompaniment of the continuous fusillade. At length he got away,
drew up within two feet of an electric tram that slid bumping down
the main street, and vanished round the corner. A little ragged
boy passed, crying, 'Signal, extra,' and Mr Brindley hailed him.

'What IS Mr Colclough?' I asked in the drawing-room.

'Manufacturer--sanitary ware,' said Mr Brindley. 'He's got one of
the best businesses in Hanbridge. I wish I'd half his income.
Never buys a book, you know.'

'He seems to play the piano very well.'

'Well, as to that, he doesn't what you may call PLAY, but he's the
best sight-reader in this district, bar me. I never met his equal.
When you come across any one who can read a thing like the
Domestic Symphony right off and never miss his place, you might
send me a telegram. Colclough's got a Steinway. Wish I had.'

Mrs Brindley had been looking through the Signal.

'I don't see anything about Simon Fuge here,' said she.

'Oh, nonsense!' said her husband. 'Buchanan's sure to have got
something in about it. Let's look.'

He received the paper from his wife, but failed to discover in it
a word concerning the death of Simon Fuge.

'Dashed if I don't ring Buchanan up and ask him what he means!
Here's a paper with an absolute monopoly in the district, and
brings in about five thousand a year clear to somebody, and it
doesn't give the news! There never is anything but advertisements
and sporting results in the blessed thing.'

He rushed to his telephone, which was in the hall. Or rather, he
did not rush; he went extremely quickly, with aggressive footsteps
that seemed to symbolize just retribution. We could hear him at
the telephone.

'Hello! No. Yes. Is that you, Buchanan? Well, I want Mr Buchanan.
Is that you, Buchanan? Yes, I'm all right. What in thunder do you
mean by having nothing in tonight about Simon Fuge's death? Eh?
Yes, the Gazette. Well, I suppose you aren't Scotch for nothing.
Why the devil couldn't you stop in Scotland and edit papers
there?' Then a laugh. 'I see. Yes. What did you think of those
cigars? Oh! See you at the dinner. Ta-ta.' A final ring.

'The real truth is, he wanted some advice as to the tone of his
obituary notice,' said Mr Brindley, coming back into the drawing-
room. 'He's got it, seemingly. He says he's writing it now, for
tomorrow. He didn't put in the mere news of the death, because it
was exclusive to the Gazette, and he's been having some difficulty
with the Gazette lately. As he says, tomorrow afternoon will be
quite soon enough for the Five Towns. It isn't as if Simon Fuge
was a cricket match. So now you see how the wheels go round, Mr
Loring.'

He sat down to the piano and began to play softly the Castle
motive from the Nibelung's Ring. He kept repeating it in different
keys.

'What about the mumps, wife?' he asked Mrs Brindley, who had been
out of the room and now returned.

'Oh! I don't think it is mumps,' she replied. 'They're all
asleep.'

'Good!' he murmured, still playing the Castle motive.

'Talking of Simon Fuge,' I said determined to satisfy my
curiosity, 'who WERE the two sisters?'

'What two sisters?'

'That he spent the night in the boat with, on Ilam Lake.'

'Was that in the Gazette? I didn't read all the article.'

He changed abruptly into the Sword motive, which he gave with a
violent flourish, and then he left the piano. 'I do beg you not to
wake my children,' said his wife.

'Your children must get used to my piano,' said he. 'Now, then,
what about these two sisters?'

I pulled the Gazette from my pocket and handed it to him. He read
aloud the passage describing the magic night on the lake.

'_I_ don't know who they were,' he said. 'Probably something tasty
from the Hanbridge Empire.'

We both observed a faint, amused smile on the face of Mrs
Brindley, the smile of a woman who has suddenly discovered in her
brain a piece of knowledge rare and piquant.

'I can guess who they were,' she said. 'In fact, I'm sure.'

'Who?'

'Annie Brett and--you know who.'

'What, down at the Tiger?'

'Certainly. Hush!' Mrs Brindley ran to the door and, opening it,
listened. The faint, fretful cry of a child reached us. 'There!
You've done it! I told you you would!'

She disappeared. Mr Brindley whistled.

'And who is Annie Brett?' I inquired.

'Look here,' said he, with a peculiar inflection. 'Would you like
to see her?'

'I should,' I said with decision.

'Well, come on, then. We'll go down to the Tiger and have a drop
of something.'

'And the other sister?' I asked.

'The other sister is Mrs Oliver Colclough,' he answered. 'Curious,
ain't it?'

Again there was that swift, scarcely perceptible phenomenon in his
eyes. _

Read next: PART XII - THE DEATH OF SIMON FUGE: CHAPTER V

Read previous: PART XII - THE DEATH OF SIMON FUGE: CHAPTER III

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