Meet Mr Mulliner Read Online Free PDF Page A

kinds and However,” he broke
off, the fanatic gleam which comes into the eyes of all fat men who are
describing their system of diet fading away, “this is not a social call, and I
must not take up your time with idle talk. I have a message for you, Mr Mulliner.
From Angela.”
    “Bless her!” said Wilfred. “Sir Jasper, I
love that girl with a fervour which increases daily.”
    “Is that so?” said the baronet. “Well,
what I came to say was, it’s all off.”
    “What?”
    “All off. She sent me to say that she had
thought it over and wanted to break the engagement.”
    Wilfred’s eyes narrowed. He had not
forgotten what Angela had said about this man wanting her to marry his son. He
gazed piercingly at his visitor, no longer deceived by the superficial geniality
of his appearance. He had read too many detective stories where the fat, jolly,
red-faced man turns out a fiend in human shape to be a ready victim to
appearances.
    “Indeed?” he said, coldly. “I should
prefer to have this information from Miss Purdue’s own lips.”
    “She won’t see you. But, anticipating this
attitude on your part, I brought a letter from her. You recognise the writing?”
    Wilfred took the letter. Certainly, the
hand was Angela’s, and the meaning of the words he read unmistakable.
Nevertheless, as he handed the missive back, there was a hard smile on his
face.
    “There is such a thing as writing a letter
under compulsion,” he said.
    The baronet’s pink face turned mauve.
    “What do you mean, sir?”
    “What I say.”
    “Are you insinuating—”
    “Yes, I am.”
    “Pooh, sir!”
    “Pooh to you!” said Wilfred. “And, if you
want to know what I think, you poor ffish, I believe your name is spelled with
a capital F, like anybody else’s.”
    Stung to the quick, the baronet turned on
his heel and left the room without another word.
    Although he had given up his life to
chemical research, Wilfred Mulliner was no mere dreamer. He could be the man of
action when necessity demanded. Scarcely had his visitor left when he was on
his way to the Senior Test-Tubes, the famous chemists’ club in St. James’s.
There, consulting Kelly’s County Families , he learnt that Sir Jasper’s
address was ffinch Hall in Yorkshire. He had found out all he wanted to know.
It was at ffinch Hall, he decided, that Angela must now be immured.
    For that she was being immured somewhere
he had no doubt. That letter, he was positive, had been written by her under
stress of threats. The writing was Angela’s, but he declined to believe that
she was responsible for the phraseology and sentiments. He remembered reading a
story where the heroine was forced into courses which she would not otherwise
have contemplated by the fact that somebody was standing over her with a flask
of vitriol. Possibly this was what that bounder of a baronet had done to Angela.
    Considering this possibility, he did not
blame her for what she had said about him, Wilfred, in the second paragraph of
her note. Nor did he reproach her for signing herself “Yrs truly, A. Purdue.”
Naturally, when baronets are threatening to pour vitriol down her neck, a
refined and sensitive young girl cannot pick her words. This sort of thing must
of necessity interfere with the selection of the mot juste .
    That afternoon, Wilfred was in a train on
his way to Yorkshire. That evening, he was in the ffinch Arms in the village of
which Sir Jasper was the squire. That night, he was in the gardens of ffinch
Hall, prowling softly round the house, listening.
    And presently, as he prowled, there came
to his ears from an upper window a sound that made him stiffen like a statue
and clench his hands till the knuckles stood out white under the strain.
    It was the sound of a woman sobbing.
     
    Wilfred spent a sleepless night, but by
morning he had formed his plan of action. I will not weary you with a
description of the slow and tedious steps by which he first made the
acquaintance of Sir