remotely resembling a smile played about Roland's sensitive mouth. Then
another thought came to wipe the smile away--the realization that,
while the broad general principle of putting snakes in Sir Claude's
bed was entirely admirable, the flaw in the present situation lay in
the fact that this particular snake could be so easily traced to its
source. The butler, or whoever had taken his luggage upstairs, would
be sure to remember carrying up a mysterious box. Probably it had
squished as he carried it and was already the subject of comment in the
servants' hall. Discovery was practically certain.
Roland rose jerkily from his bed. There was only one thing to be done,
and he must do it immediately. He must go to Sir Claude's room and
retrieve his lost pet. He crept to the door and listened carefully. No
sound came to disturb the stillness of the house. He stole out into the
corridor.
It was at this precise moment that Sir Claude Lynn, surfeited with
cannons, put on his coat, replaced his cue in the rack, and came out of
the billiard-room.
* * * * *
If there is one thing in this world that should be done quickly or not
at all, it is the removal of one's personal snake from the bed of a
comparative stranger. Yet Roland, brooding over the snowy coverlet,
hesitated. All his life he had had a horror of crawling and slippery
things. At his private school, while other boys had fondled frogs and
achieved terms of intimacy with slow-worms, he had not been able to
bring himself even to keep white mice. The thought of plunging his
hand between those sheets and groping for an object of such recognized
squishiness as Sidney appalled him. And, even as he hesitated, there
came from the corridor outside the sound of advancing footsteps.
Roland was not by nature a resourceful young man, but even a child
would have known what to do in this crisis. There was a large
cupboard on the other side of the room, and its door had been left
invitingly open. In the rapidity with which he bolted into this his
uncle Joseph would no doubt have seen further convincing evidence of
his rabbit-hood. He reached it and burrowed behind a mass of hanging
clothes just as Sir Claude entered the room.
* * * * *
It was some small comfort to Roland--and at the moment he needed what
comfort he could get, however small--to find that there was plenty of
space in the cupboard. And what was even better, seeing that he had
had no time to close the door, it was generously filled with coats,
overcoats, raincoats, and trousers. Sir Claude Lynn was evidently a man
who believed in taking an extensive wardrobe with him on country-house
visits; and, while he deplored the dandyism which this implied, Roland
would not have had it otherwise. Nestling in the undergrowth, he
peered out between a raincoat and a pair of golfing knickerbockers. A
strange silence had fallen, and he was curious to know what his host
was doing with himself.
At first he could not sight him; but, shifting slightly to the left,
he brought him into focus, and discovered that in the interval that
had passed Sir Claude had removed nearly all his clothes and was now
standing before the open window, doing exercises.
It was not prudery that caused this spectacle to give Roland a sharp
shock. What made him start so convulsively was the man's horrifying
aspect as revealed in the nude. Downstairs, in the conventional
dinner-costume of the well-dressed man, Sir Claude Lynn had seemed
robust and soldierly, but nothing in his appearance then had prepared
Roland for the ghastly physique which he exhibited now. He seemed
twice his previous size as if the removal of constricting garments had
caused him to bulge in every direction. When he inflated his chest, it
looked like a barrel. And, though Roland in the circumstances would
have preferred any other simile, there was only one thing to which his
rippling muscles could be compared. They were like snakes, and nothing
but snakes. They heaved and twisted beneath his skin just as Sidney
was presumably even now heaving and twisting beneath the sheets.
If ever there was a man, in short, in whose bedroom one would rather
not have been concealed in circumstances which might only too easily
lead to a physical encounter, that man was Sir Claude Lynn; and
Roland, seeing him, winced away with a shudder so violent that a
coat-hanger which had been trembling on the edge of its peg fell with a
disintegrating clatter.
There was a moment of complete silence: then the trousers behind which
he cowered were snatched away, and a huge hand, groping like the
tentacle of some dreadful marine monster, seized him painfully by the
hair and started pulling.
"Ouch!" said Roland, and came out like a winkle at the end of a pin.
A modesty which Roland, who was modest himself, should have been the
first to applaud had led the other to clothe himself hastily for this
interview in a suit of pyjamas of a stupefying mauve. In all his life
Roland had never seen such a colour-scheme; and in some curious way
the brilliance of them seemed to complete his confusion. The result
was that, instead of plunging at once into apologies and explanations,
he remained staring with fallen jaw; and his expression, taken in
conjunction with the fact that his hair, rumpled by the coats,
appeared to be standing on end, supplied Sir Claude with a theory
which seemed to cover the case. He remembered that Roland had had much
the same cock-eyed look when he had come into the billiard-room. He
recalled that immediately after dinner Roland had disappeared and had
not joined the rest of the party in the drawing-room. Obviously the
fellow must have been drinking like a fish in some secret part of the
house for hours.
"Get out!" he said curtly, taking Roland by the arm with a look of
disgust and leading him sternly to the door. An abstemious man himself,
Sir Claude Lynn had a correct horror of excess in others. "Go and sleep
it off. I suppose you can find your way to your room? It's the one at
the end of the corridor, as you seem to have forgotten."
"But listen----"
"I cannot understand how a man of any decent upbringing can make such a
beast of himself."
"Do listen!"
"Don't shout like that," snapped Sir Claude, severely. "Good heavens,
man, do you want to wake the whole house? If you dare to open your
mouth again, I'll break you into little bits."
Roland found himself out in the passage, staring at a closed door. Even
as he stared it opened sharply, and the upper half of the mauve-clad
Sir Claude popped out.
"No drunken singing in the corridor, mind!" said Sir Claude, sternly,
and disappeared.
It was a little difficult to know what to do. Sir Claude had counselled
slumber, but the suggestion was scarcely a practical one. On the other
hand there seemed nothing to be gained by hanging about in the passage.
With slow and lingering steps Roland moved towards his room, and had
just reached it when the silence of the night was rent by a shattering
scream; and the next moment there shot through the door he had left
a large body. And, as Roland gazed dumbly, a voice was raised in
deafening appeal.
"Shot-gun!" vociferated Sir Claude. "Help! Shot-gun! Bring a shot-gun,
somebody!"
There was not the smallest room for doubt that the secretory activity
of his thyroid, suprarenal, and pituitary glands had been increased to
an almost painful extent.
It is only in the most modern and lively country houses that this sort
of thing can happen without attracting attention. So quickly did the
corridor fill that it seemed to Roland as if dressing-gowned figures
had shot up through the carpet. Among those present he noticed Lady
Wickham in blue, her daughter Roberta in green, three male guests
in bath-robes, the under-housemaid in curl-papers, and Simmons, the
butler, completely and correctly clad in full afternoon costume. They
were all asking what was the matter, but, as Lady Wickham's penetrating
voice o'ertopped the rest, it was to her that Sir Claude turned to tell
his story.
"A snake?" said Lady Wickham, interested.
"A snake."
"In your bed?"
"In my bed."
"Most unusual," said Lady Wickham, with a touch of displeasure.
Sir Claude's rolling eye wandering along the corridor, picked out
Roland as he shrank among the shadows. He pointed at him with such
swift suddenness that his hostess only saved herself from a nasty blow
by means of some shifty footwork.
"That's the man!" he cried.
Lady Wickham, already ruffled, showed signs of peevishness.
"My dear Claude," she said, with a certain asperity, "do come to some
definite decision. A moment ago you said there was a snake in your
room; now you say it was a man. Besides, can't you see that that is
Mr. Attwater? What would he be doing in your room?"
"I'll tell you what he was doing. He was putting that infernal snake in
my bed. I found him there."
"Found him there? In your bed?"
"In my cupboard. Hiding. I hauled him out."
All eyes were turned upon Roland. His own he turned with a look of
wistful entreaty upon Roberta Wickham. A cavalier of the nicest
gallantry, nothing, of course, would induce him to betray the girl; but
surely she would appreciate that the moment had come for her to step
forward and clear a good man's name with a full explanation.
He had been too sanguine. A pretty astonishment lit up Miss Wickham's
lovely eyes. But her equally lovely mouth did not open.
"But Mr. Attwater has no snake," argued Lady Wickham. "He is a
well-known man-of-letters. Well-known men-of-letters," she said,
stating a pretty generally recognized fact, "do not take snakes with
them when they go on visits."
A new voice joined in the discussion.
"Begging your pardon, your ladyship."
It was the voice of Simmons, grave and respectful.
"Begging your pardon, your ladyship, it is my belief that Mr. Attwater
did have a serpent in his possession. Thomas, who conveyed his baggage
to his room, mentioned a cardboard box that seemed to contain something
alive."
From the expression of the eyes that once more raked him in his
retirement, it was plain that the assembled company were of the opinion
that it was Roland's turn to speak. But speech was beyond him. He had
been backing slowly for some little time, and now, as he backed another
step, the handle of his bedroom door insinuated itself into the small
of his back. It was almost as if the thing were hinting to him that
refuge that lay beyond.
He did not resist the kindly suggestion. With one quick, emotional
movement he turned, plunged into his room, and slammed the door behind
him.
From the corridor without came the sound of voices in debate. He was
unable to distinguish words, but the general trend of them was clear.
Then silence fell.
Roland sat on his bed, staring before him. He was roused from his
trance by a tap on the door.
"Who's that?" he cried, bounding up. His eye was wild. He was prepared
to sell his life dearly.
"It is I, sir. Simmons."
"What do you want?"
The door opened a few inches. Through the gap there came a hand. In
the hand was a silver salver. On the salver lay something squishy that
writhed and wriggled.
"Your serpent, sir," said the voice of Simmons.
* * * * *
It was the opinion of Roland Attwater that he was now entitled to
the remainder of the night in peace. The hostile forces outside must
now, he felt, have fired their last shot. He sat on his bed, thinking
deeply, if incoherently. From time to time the clock on the stables
struck the quarters, but he did not move. And then into the silence
it seemed to him that some sound intruded--a small tapping sound that
might have been the first tentative efforts of a very young woodpecker
just starting out in business for itself. It was only after this small
noise had continued for some moments that he recognized it for what it
was. Somebody was knocking softly on his door.
There are moods in which even the mildest man will turn to bay, and
there gleamed in Roland Attwater's eyes as he strode to the door and
flung it open a baleful light. And such was his militant condition
that, even when he glared out and beheld Roberta Wickham, still in
that green négligée, the light did not fade away. He regarded her
malevolently.
"I thought I'd better come and have a word with you," whispered Miss
Wickham.
"Indeed?" said Roland.
"I wanted to explain."
"Explain!"
"Well," said Miss Wickham, "you may not think there's any explanation
due to you, but I really feel there is. Oh, yes, I do. You see, it was
this way. Claude had asked me to marry him."
"And so you put a snake in his bed? Of course! Quite natural!"
"Well, you see, he was so frightfully perfect and immaculate and
dignified and--oh, well, you've seen him for yourself, so you know
what I mean. He was too darned overpowering--that's what I'm driving
at--and it seemed to me that if I could only see him really human and
undignified--just once--I might--well, you see what I mean?"
"And the experiment, I take it, was successful?"
Miss Wickham wriggled her small toes inside her slippers.
"It depends which way you look at it. I'm not going to marry him, if
that's what you mean."
"I should have thought," said Roland, coldly, "that Sir Claude behaved
in a manner sufficiently--shall I say human?--to satisfy even you."
Miss Wickham giggled reminiscently.
"He did leap, didn't he? But it's all off, just the same."
"Might I ask why?"
"Those pyjamas," said Miss Wickham, firmly. "The moment I caught a
glimpse of them, I said to myself, 'No wedding bells for me!' No! I've
seen too much of life to be optimistic about a man who wears mauve
pyjamas." She plunged for a space into maiden meditation. When she
spoke again, it was on another aspect of the affair. "I'm afraid mother
is rather cross with you, Roland."
"You surprise me!"
"Never mind. You can slate her next novel."
"I intend to," said Roland, grimly, remembering what he had suffered in
the study from chapters one to seven of it.
"But meanwhile I don't think you had better meet her again just yet.
Do you know, I really think the best plan would be for you to go away
to-night without saying good-bye. There is a very good milk-train
which gets you into London at six-forty-five."
"When does it start?"
"At three-fifteen."
"I'll take it," said Roland.
There was a pause. Roberta Wickham drew a step closer.
"Roland," she said, softly, "you were a dear not to give me away. I do
appreciate it so much."
"Not at all!"
"There would have been an awful row. I expect mother would have taken
away my car."
"Ghastly!"
"I want to see you again quite soon, Roland. I'm coming up to London
next week. Will you give me lunch? And then we might go and sit in
Kensington Gardens or somewhere where it's quiet."
Roland eyed her fixedly.
"I'll drop you a line," he said.
* * * * *
Sir Joseph Moresby was an early breakfaster. The hands of the clock
pointed to five minutes past eight as he entered his dining-room with a
jaunty and hopeful step. There were, his senses told him, kidneys and
bacon beyond that door. To his surprise he found that there was also
his nephew Roland. The young man was pacing the carpet restlessly. He
had a rumpled look, as if he had slept poorly, and his eyes were pink
about the rims.
"Roland!" exclaimed Sir Joseph. "Good gracious! What are you doing
here? Didn't you go to Skeldings after all?"
"Yes, I went," said Roland, in a strange, toneless voice.
"Then what----?"
"Uncle Joseph," said Roland, "you remember what we were talking about
at dinner? Do you really think Lucy would have me if I asked her to
marry me?"
"What! My dear boy, she's been in love with you for years."
"Is she up yet?"
"No. She doesn't breakfast till nine."
"I'll wait."
Sir Joseph grasped his hand.
"Roland, my boy----" he began.
But there was that on Roland's mind that made him unwilling to listen
to set speeches.
"Uncle Joseph," he said, "do you mind if I join you for a bite of
breakfast?"
"My dear boy, of course----"
"Then I wish you would ask them to be frying two or three eggs and
another rasher or so. While I'm waiting I'll be starting on a few
kidneys."
It was ten minutes past nine when Sir Joseph happened to go into the
morning-room. He had supposed it empty, but he perceived that the large
arm-chair by the window was occupied by his nephew Roland. He was
leaning back with the air of one whom the world is treating well. On
the floor beside him sat Lucy, her eyes fixed adoringly on the young
man's face.
"Yes, yes," she was saying. "How wonderful! Do go on, darling."
Sir Joseph tip-toed out, unnoticed. Roland was speaking as he softly
closed the door.
"Well," Sir Joseph heard him say, "it was raining, you know, and just
as I reached the corner of Duke Street----"
VIII
THE AWFUL GLADNESS OF THE MATER
"And then," said Mr. Mulliner, "there was the case of Dudley Finch."
He looked inquiringly at his glass, found that it was three-parts full,
and immediately proceeded to resume the Saga of his cousin's daughter,
Roberta.
"At the moment at which I would introduce Dudley Finch to you," said
Mr. Mulliner, "we find him sitting in the lobby of Claridge's Hotel,
looking at his watch with the glazing eye of a starving man. Five
minutes past two was the time it registered, and Roberta Wickham
had promised to meet him for lunch at one-thirty sharp. He heaved a
plaintive sigh, and a faint sense of grievance began to steal over him.
Impious though it was to feel that that angelic girl had any faults,
there was no denying, he told himself, that this tendency of hers to
keep a fellow waiting for his grub amounted to something very like a
flaw in an otherwise perfect nature. He rose from his chair and, having
dragged his emaciated form to the door, tottered out into Brook Street
and stood gazing up and down it like a male Lady of Shalott.
* * * * *
"Standing there in the weak sunlight (said Mr. Mulliner), Dudley
Finch made a singularly impressive picture. He was--sartorially--so
absolutely right in every respect. From his brilliantined hair to his
gleaming shoes, from his fawn-coloured spats to his Old Etonian tie,
he left no loophole to the sternest critic. You felt as you saw him
that if this was the sort of chap who lunched at Claridge's, old man
Claridge was in luck."
It was not admiration, however, that caused the earnest-looking young
man in the soft hat to stop as he hurried by. It was surprise. He
stared wide-eyed at Dudley.
"Good heavens!" he exclaimed. "I thought you were on your way to
Australia."
"No," said Dudley Finch, "not on my way to Australia." His smooth
forehead wrinkled in a frown. "Rolie, old thing," he said, with gentle
reproach, "you oughtn't to go about London in a hat like that." Roland
Attwater was his cousin, and a man does not like to see his relatives
careering all over the Metropolis looking as if cats had brought them
in. "And your tie doesn't match your socks."
He shook his head sorrowfully. Roland was a literary man, and, worse,
had been educated at an inferior school--Harrow, or some such name,
Dudley understood that it was called; but even so he ought to have more
proper feeling about the vital things of life.
"Never mind my hat," said Roland. "Why aren't you on your way to
Australia?"
"Oh, that's all right. Broadhurst had a cable, and isn't sailing till
the fifteenth."
Roland Attwater looked relieved. Like all the more serious-minded
members of the family, he was deeply concerned about his cousin's
future. With regard to this there had been for some time past a little
friction, a little difficulty in reconciling two sharply conflicting
points of view. The family had wanted Dudley to go into his Uncle
John's business in the City; whereas what Dudley desired was that some
broad-minded sportsman should slip him a few hundred quid and enable
him to start a new dance-club. A compromise had been effected when his
god-father, Mr. Sampson Broadhurst, arriving suddenly from Australia,
had offered to take the young man back with him and teach him
sheep-farming. It fortunately happening that he was a great reader of
the type of novel in which everyone who goes to Australia automatically
amasses a large fortune and leaves it to the hero, Dudley had formally
announced at a family council that--taking it by and large--Australia
seemed to him a pretty good egg, and that he had no objection to having
a pop at it.
"Thank goodness," said Roland. "I thought you might have backed out of
going at the last moment."
Dudley smiled.
"Funny you should have said that, old man. A coincidence, I mean.
Because that's just exactly what I've half made up my mind to do."
"What!"
"Absolutely. The fact is, Rolie," said Dudley, confidentially, "I've
just met the most topping girl. And sometimes, when I think of buzzing
off on the fifteenth and being separated from her by all those leagues
of water, I could howl like a dog. I've a jolly good mind to let the
old man sail by himself, and stick here on my native heath."
"This is appalling! You mustn't dream----"
"She's the most wonderful girl. Knows you, too. Roberta Wickham's her
name. She lets me call her Bobbie. She----"
He broke off abruptly. His eyes, gazing past Roland, were shining with
a holy light of devotion. His lips had parted in a brilliant smile.
"Yo-ho!" he cried.
Roland turned. A girl was crossing the road; a slim, boyish-looking
girl, with shingled hair of a glorious red. She came tripping along
with all the gay abandon of a woman who is forty minutes late for lunch
and doesn't give a hoot.
"Yo-ho!" yowled young Mr. Finch. "Yo frightfully ho!"
The girl came up, smiling and debonair.
"I'm not late, am I?" she said.
"Rather not," cooed the love-sick Dudley. "Not a bit. Only just got
here myself."
"That's good," said Miss Wickham. "How are you, Roland?"
"Very well, thanks," replied Roland Attwater, stiffly.
"I must congratulate you, mustn't I?"
"What on?" asked Dudley, puzzled.
"His engagement, of course."
"Oh, that!" said Dudley. He knew that his cousin had recently become
engaged to Lucy Moresby, and he had frequently marvelled at the lack of
soul which could have led one acquainted with the divine Roberta to go
and tack himself on to any inferior female. He put it down to Roland
having been at Harrow.
"I hope you will be very happy."
"Thank you," said Roland, sedately. "Well, I must be going. Good-bye.
Glad to have seen you."
He stalked off towards Grosvenor Square. It seemed to Dudley that his
manner was peculiar.
"Not a very cordial bird, old Rolie," he said, returning to the point
at the luncheon-table. "Biffed off a trifle abruptly, didn't it strike
you?"
Miss Wickham sighed.
"I'm afraid Roland doesn't like me."
"Not like you!" Dudley swallowed a potato which, in a calmer moment,
he would have realized was some eighty degrees Fahrenheit too warm for
mastication. "Not like you!" he repeated, with watering eyes. "The man
must be an ass."
"We were great friends at one time," said Roberta, sadly. "But ever
since that snake business----"
"Snake business?"
"Roland had a snake, and I took it with me when he came down to
Hertfordshire for the week-end. And I put it in a man's bed, and the
mater got the impression that Roland had done it, and he had to sneak
away on a milk-train. He's never quite forgiven me, I'm afraid."
"But what else could you have done?" demanded Dudley, warmly. "I mean
to say, if a fellow's got a snake, naturally you put it in some other
fellow's bed."
"That's just what I felt."
"Only once in a blue moon, I mean, you get hold of a snake. When you
do, you can't be expected to waste it."
"Exactly. Roland couldn't see that, though. Nor, for the matter of
that," continued Miss Wickham, dreamily, "could mother."
"I say," said Dudley, "that reminds me. I'd like to meet your mother."
"Well, I'm going down there this evening. Why don't you come, too?"
"No, I say, really? May I?"
"Of course."
"Rather short notice, though, isn't it?"
"Oh, that's all right. I'll send the mater a wire. She'll be awfully
glad to see you."
"You're sure?"
"Oh, rather! Awfully glad."
"Well, that's fine. Thanks ever so much."
"I'll motor you down."
Dudley hesitated. Something of the brightness died out of his fair
young face. He had had experience of Miss Wickham as a chauffeuse and
had died half-a-dozen deaths in the extremely brief space of time which
it had taken her to thread her way through half a mile of traffic.
"If it's all the same," he said, nervously, "I think I'll pop down by
train."
"Just as you like. The best one's the six-fifteen. Gets you there in
time for dinner."
"Six-fifteen? Right. Liverpool Street, of course? Just bring a
suit-case, I suppose? Fine! I say, you're really sure your mother won't
think I'm butting in?"
"Of course not. She'll be awfully glad to see you."
"Splendid!" said Dudley.