"Yes, I do," answered Mr. Collop with decision. "Come. Smartly, lads!"
No harm was done to the pictures; they knew their work. The Cox was
lifted down and now leaned at a secure angle. The Morland turned its
back canvas to the ceiling, pushed on a capsized armchair. I wish I
could say as much for the Napoleonic looking-glass.
It was just too high for one of the men's hands; he slipped, and down it
came: an omen of ill-fortune, smashed upon the floor--round gilded
frame, Eagle of the Legions, and all.
"Well, well!" said Mr. Collop cheerfully. "No battle without losses, ye
know--hey?"
"I really think...." urged the Home Secretary, with something as near
anger as his temperament allowed.
"Never you fuss, sir," thrust in Mr. Collop genially. "It's all right
now. We've proved our point. That's the 'sential. I say again, the
Negative part is accomplished," and he smiled upon his chief with all
the satisfaction of genius. "The em'rald's not in this room where it was
lost. That's a cert. What's the conclusion? Why, sir, the conclusion is
that it's _somewhere else_. And when I say somewhere else, what do I
mean?"
"You mean...." began the Home Secretary nervously, stepping down
gingerly from his perch and trying to make his way across the
joists--"you mean that you must now consider which, if any, of my
guests ..."
Again Mr. Collop's hand went up.
"Now, sir; pardon me! That's not the scientific spirit. I shall send
these men back to the Lion, with your leave"--it was the first time he
had asked it, and it was granted with enthusiasm--"and then I shall ask
you, sir, to give me details, and I shall make notes. After that we'll
sleep on it.... Before you go, men, get the Austrians down again. Hammer
the clamps down: hammer 'em down good and strong at the corners; whang
'em in! You know how these Austrians buckle! We'll 'ave everything right
again in a jiffy"--to his host--"and then we'll sleep sound on it. Like
'Ogs."
With clamouring echo which shook those ancient walls, square after
square of Austrian antique was thrown back into its place; with
Cyclopean noise the clamps were driven into their former holes, and the
shattering bangs of the heavy iron hammers sounded like thunder through
the silent night. Twenty yards away, in the small smoking-room, Victoria
Mosel and Tommy Galton had remained to exchange a few insults after the
others had gone off to bed. They started at the unusual din; she very
slightly, he with a jerk.
"What are they doing?" said he suspiciously.
"Making your scaffold," shot Vic decidedly: then, more doubtfully. "It's
a damned shame! For I don't suppose you did take it after all, Tommy?
Eh?"
"If I thought there was room on you for that bloody stone," began Tommy
viciously....
"Oh, search me!" said Vic, without sincerity.
"No, but, Vic, what _are_ they doing?"
"Shifting the scenery, Tommy. Summoning the dead. Christ knows!" She
yawned, to the peril of her agglutinative cigarette, but it held nobly.
"It can't go on forever. I'm going to bed. By the time they've stopped
I'll be asleep. So long! I'll come and look you up at Wormwood Scrubbs,
never fear!" And the Virgin departed.
"Not while you're still in Holloway," fired the puller of horses after
her as he got up in his turn, and went out to get his candle for bed.
A few moments later, when the Master of the House peeped out into the
hall, he found all dark and deserted. He was pleased to think that his
guests had suspected nothing.
When everything was accomplished, and the little army of Scotland Yard
men had fallen back upon its billets at the Lion (Humphrey de Bohun
himself let them out at the front door, on tiptoe and with agonised
whispers entreating caution. He himself had locked and bolted these
doors); when, I say, all this affair was over Mr. Collop, first making
quite sure that his seat was secure, took out a notebook, shot a blot of
ink on to the re-established polar bear, and gave tongue.
"Now, sir, fire away!"
"What do you want me to do?" said de Bohun doubtfully.
"Why, just give me details of what those coves 've been doing of," said
Mr. Collop, relapsing into the vernacular.
"You mean my guests?" said the Home Secretary rather stiffly.
"That's right," said Mr. Collop cheerfully, "the toffs."
"Well, really.... I haven't played the spy on my guests, Mr. Collop."
"Oh, I'm looking after that," said Mr. Collop with another of his
healthy winks. "Now, just you tell me all they did. I've got my first
notes here. These three men what I've just met at dinner--and one of
them's young McTaggart--I know 'im--they went down on their knees and
they looked for it in that rug. Well and good. Then they got up, and
they all swore they hadn't got it."
"McTaggart was the last," said de Bohun, defending the interests of the
family.
"Ar? ... I didn't know that!" mused the modern Napoleon deeply. And he
noted it down. "Well, what next?"
"Why, to tell you the truth--the full truth, and I beg you to keep it
private--my cousin, Lord Galton, has told me that he has seen the
emerald--seen it with his own eyes--in the Professor's hands."
"Ar!" said Mr. Collop again. "That's important, that is!" and down it
went. "Saw it with 'is own eyes: where and 'ow?"
"Wait a moment, Mr. Collop, wait a moment. Not long after, the Professor
told me he had infallible scientific proof that it was in McTaggart's
pocket. He showed me the very instrument wherewith he had been able to
discover its presence through the thickness of the coat."
"That's important too!" murmured Mr. Collop, intelligently noting it
down. "An' what does McTaggart say?"
"McTaggart ..." The Home Secretary was about to blurt out the truth and
tell him what McTaggart had singularly announced. But he checked
himself. To insult his last remaining prop would be fatal. "Oh,
McTaggart?" he evaded. "Why, McTaggart said he hadn't got it."
"Ar! just so. 'E did, did 'e? Now, that's _very_ important," affirmed
Mr. Collop, and he noted that down also.
"Now here," he continued, slipping an elastic band over the notebook and
putting it back into his pocket--"here, Mr. Dee Boe Hun, we 'ave got
three 'ypothetics." He again began ticking them off on the thumb and
fingers of the left hand. "First 'ypothetic: Lord Galton stole the
em'rald. Second 'ypothetic: Old Giglamps stole the em'rald ...
Tortoise-shell specs, I mean: the schoolmaster," and he winked again.
"Third 'ypothetic: McTaggart stole the em'rald. Now these three
'ypothetics," he went on, "lead to three totally different conclusions.
Each of 'em has its conjunctions and conjugations. Mr. Dee Boe Hun," he
concluded, rising and assuming hieratic tones, "I shall not sleep
to-night." (There is many a true word spoken in lying.) "I shall bend
all the energies of me mind in the ensuing hours of darkness, and on the
morrow you shall 'ave my conclusions.... I'll trouble you, sir, to leave
me a syphon and a drop o' something. Helps me to concentrate."
"I'm afraid," said the Home Secretary, "the servants will have cleared
the drinks away from the library, and they have all gone to bed." Then,
terrified lest the lack of sustenance should imperil victory, he added
hurriedly: "Don't move! Pray don't move! I think I know where to find
it."
He was away some time, going on tiptoe in the offices. When he returned
it was with an unopened bottle of whiskey, a syphon and a glass. "I'm
afraid I have no corkscrew," he apologised.
"I 'ave," said the imperturbable Collop, who had sat royally in his
chair to receive this tribute. He pulled out the cork, smelt the brand,
approved of it, poured himself out a dope and a most miserable little
splash from the syphon.
"Here's luck!" he said. "Cheerio! Now you leave me _to_ it!"
And de Bohun left him to it, ardently praying with what was left of his
childhood's faith to a God in whom he still vaguely believed, that never
again in the remaining years of his declining life should he be
compelled to harbour under the roof of Paulings any unit from the mighty
Secret Service which he commanded, and inwardly deciding that he would
relinquish that command for India, Paris, South Africa--nay, New
Zealand--anything rather than bear such a burden again.