He vanished as abruptly as he had appeared. He perceived that what he had taken at first glance for the stenographer was a client, and that the junior partner was engaged on a business conference. He left behind him a momentary silence.
“What a horrible-looking man!” said Billie, breaking it with a little gasp. Jno. Peters often affected the opposite sex like that at first sight.
“I beg your pardon?” said Sam absently.
“What a dreadful-looking man! He quite frightened me!”
For some moments Sam sat without speaking. If this had not been one of his Napoleonic mornings, no doubt the sudden arrival of his old friend, Mr. Peters, whom he had imagined at his home in Putney packing for his trip to America, would have suggested nothing to him. As it was it suggested a great deal. He had had a brain-wave, and for fully a minute he sat tingling under its impact. He was not a young man who often had brain-waves, and, when they came, they made him rather dizzy.
“Who is he?” asked Billie. “He seemed to know you? And who,” she demanded after a slight pause, “is Miss Milliken?”
Sam drew a deep breath.
“It’s rather a sad story,” he said. “His name is John Peters. He used to be clerk here.”
“But isn’t he any longer?”
“No.” Sam shook his head. “We had to get rid of him.”
“I don’t wonder. A man looking like that….”
“It wasn’t that so much,” said Sam. “The thing that annoyed father was that he tried to shoot Miss Milliken.”
Billie uttered a cry of horror!
“He tried to shoot Miss Milliken!”
“He did shoot her—the third time,” said Sam warming to his work. “Only in the arm, fortunately,” he added. “But my father is rather a stern disciplinarian and he had to go. I mean, we couldn’t keep him after that.”
“Good gracious!”
“She used to be my father’s stenographer, and she was thrown a good deal with Peters. It was quite natural that he should fall in love with her. She was a beautiful girl, with rather your own shade of hair. Peters is a man of volcanic passions, and, when, after she had given him to understand that his love was returned, she informed him one day that she was engaged to a fellow at Ealing West, he went right off his onion—I mean, he became completely distraught. I must say that he concealed it very effectively at first. We had no inkling of his condition till he came in with the pistol. And, after that … well, as I say, we had to dismiss him. A great pity, for he was a good clerk. Still, it wouldn’t do. It wasn’t only that he tried to shoot Miss Milliken. That wouldn’t have mattered so much, as she left after he had made his third attempt, and got married. But the thing became an obsession with him, and we found that he had a fixed idea that every red-haired woman who came into the office was the girl who had deceived him. You can see how awkward that made it. Red hair is so fashionable nowadays.”
“My hair is red!” whispered Billie pallidly.
“Yes, I noticed it myself. I told you it was much the same shade as Miss Milliken’s. It’s rather fortunate that I happened to be here with you when he came.”
“But he may be lurking out there still!”
“I expect he is,” said Sam carelessly. “Yes, I suppose he is. Would you like me to go and send him away? All right.”
“But—but is it safe?”
Sam uttered a light laugh.
“I don’t mind taking a risk or two for your sake,” he said, and sauntered from the room, closing the door behind him. Billie followed him with worshipping eyes.
Jno. Peters rose politely from the chair in which he had seated himself for more comfortable perusal of the copy of Home Whispers which he had brought with him to refresh his mind in the event of the firm being too busy to see him immediately. He was particularly interested in the series of chats with Young Mothers.
“Hullo, Peters,” said Sam. “Want anything?”