Three men were in his room and Bob found himself sitting up in bed and
blinking at them. The lights they had turned on seemed rather bright.
“Hello!” said Bob.
“Hello yourself!” said the commodore in a low but nasty manner. “And not
so loud!”
“Some sleeper, you are!” spoke Dickie in a savage whisper.
“Believe he heard, all right!” came Clarence’s hushed, unamiable tones.
“Perverse beast, and pretended not to!”
Bob hugged his knees with his arms. “You’ve torn your pants,” he
observed to the commodore.
“Never you mind _that_” as guardedly, though no more pleasantly than
before.
“Oh, all right,” said Bob meekly. He didn’t ask any questions, nor did
he exhibit any curiosity. There couldn’t anything happen now that would
make matters much worse. But in that, he was “reckoning without his
host.”
“Got in the window, of course,” he observed in a low unconcerned tone,
as if their coming and being there after midnight was the most natural
occurrence in the world. “Not so hard to get in, with that balcony out
there. All you had to do was to ‘shin up’ and then there’s that trellis
to help. Good strong trellis, too. Regular Jacob’s ladder! Easiest thing
for burglars! Thought you _were_ burglars,” he added contemplatively.
“You mean you saw us?” snapped the commodore, almost forgetting his
caution. His expression matched his tone. He was no longer the jovial
sailorman; he wore now a regular Dick Deadeye look. To Bob’s
comprehensive glance he appeared like a fragment in a revival of
_Pinafore_.
“Oh, I didn’t know it was you,” said Bob.
“Where were you?”
“Summer-house.”
“Think of that,” murmured the commodore, disgustedly. “Bird at hand, and
we didn’t know it. Fool of a bird had to hop away and make us all this
trouble!”
“I told you I thought you were burglars,” observed Bob patiently. He
didn’t care how they abused him or what names they called him.
That disagreeable look on Dan’s face was replaced by a startled one.
“Good gracious, man”—only that wasn’t the expression he used—“I hope
you haven’t told any one you saw burglars prowling around? Nice for us
if you did!” As he spoke he gazed anxiously toward the window, before
which they had taken the precaution to draw a heavy drape after
entering.
“No, I didn’t tell a soul.”
“But—I don’t understand why you didn’t when you thought—?”
“I ought to have spoken, I suppose,” said Bob with a melancholy smile.
“But it didn’t seem very important and—I guess I forgot. These little
jewel robberies are getting to be such commonplace occurrences!”
The commodore stared at him. Then he touched his forehead. “A lot of
trouble you’ve made for us,” he said, speaking in that low tense voice,
while Clarence and Dickie looked on in mad and reproachful fashion.
“Bribed a servant to tell you to slip out! Told him to whisper that we
were waiting in the garden and simply had to see you at once! Didn’t you
hear him rap on your door?”
“No,” answered Bob sorrowfully.
“Heavens, man! believe you’d sleep through an earthquake and cyclone
combined! Servant came back and told us he’d tapped on your door as
loudly as he dared. Was afraid he’d arouse the whole house if he knocked
louder. When you leave a ‘call’ at the hotels, how do they manage? Break
down the door with an ax?”
Bob overlooked the sarcasm. The commodore might have thumped him with an
ax, at the moment, and he wouldn’t have protested very hard. He murmured
a contrite apology.
“Get my telegram?” said the commodore.
“Yes. What _could_ you have been thinking about when you sent it? How
could I leave when I had to stay? Thought you must have been sailing
pretty close in the wind at the yacht club, when you dashed it off!
Could just feel your main-sail fluttering.”
The commodore swore softly but effectively. Clarence and Dickie murmured
something, too. Bob hugged his knees closer. Being so unhappy himself,
he couldn’t but feel a dull sympathy when he saw any one else put out.
“See here,” said the commodore, “what’s the situation? We never dreamed,
of course, that you would come here. Have you been talking with Mrs. Dan
and Mrs. Clarence? Dickie’s been conjuring all kinds of awful things you
might have told them, if they cornered you and you got that
truth-telling stunt going. Dickie’s got an imagination. Too confounded
much imagination!” Here the commodore wiped his brow. That was quite a
bad tear in his pants but he appeared oblivious to it. “Maybe you would
have thought it a capital way to turn the tables on us poor chaps?” he
went on, stabbing Bob with a baleful look. “Perhaps you came here on
purpose?”
“No,” said Bob, “I couldn’t have done that, of course, owing to the
conditions.” And he related what had happened to bring him there.
Dan groaned. “Why, it was we, ourselves, who steered him right up
against her at the Waldorf. It was we who got him asked down here. I
suppose you’ve been chuckling ever since you came?” Turning on Bob, with
a correct imitation of Mr. Deadeye, at his grouchiest moment.
“No,” said Bob, speaking to immeasurable distance, “I haven’t done any
chuckling since I came here. Nary a chuckle!”
“Let’s get down to brass tacks,” interrupted Dickie, “and learn if our
worst apprehensions are realized. There’s a girl down here I think a lot
of and I’d like to know if, by any chance, any conversation you may have
had with her turned on me. I allude to Miss Dolly—”
“Hold on,” said the commodore. “That’s not very important. Suppose she
should have found out a few things about you? You aren’t married. It’s
different in the case of married men, like Clarence and me here. We’ll
dismiss Miss Dolly, if you please, for the present—”
“I really haven’t said anything to Miss Dolly about you,” said Bob to
Dickie. “Your name hasn’t been mentioned between us.” He was glad he
could reassure one of them, at least. He wouldn’t have had Dickie so
sorrowful as himself for the world.
That young man looked immensely relieved. It may be he experienced new
hope of leading the temperamental young thing to the altar, and
incidentally consummating a consolidation of competing chimneys,
conveniently contiguous. “Thanks, old chap,” he said, and shook Bob’s
hand heartily.
“But what about us?” whispered the commodore sibilantly. “Have you
talked with Mrs. Clarence or Mrs. Dan to any great extent?”
“I haven’t had hardly a word with Mrs. Clarence,” answered Bob,
whereupon Clarence began to “throw out his chest,” the way Dickie had
done.
The commodore shifted uneasily, seeming to find difficulty in continuing
the conversation. He moved back and forth once or twice, but realizing
he was making a slight noise, stood still again, and looked down at Bob.
“Talk much with Mrs. Dan?” he at length asked nervously.
“I did have a little conversation with Mrs. Dan,” Bob was forced to
reply. “Or, I should say, to be strictly truthful, rather a long
conversation. You see, I took her in to dinner.”
The commodore showed signs of weakness. He seemed to have very
indecisive legs all of a sudden. “Talk about me?” he managed to
ejaculate.
“Some. I’m not certain just how much.”
“What—what was said?”
“I can’t remember all. It’s very confused. I’ve had a lot of
conversations, you see, and most of them awfully unpleasant. I remember,
though, that Mrs. Dan impressed me as a very broad-minded lady. Said she
had lived in Paris, and was not a bit jealous.”
“What!” Dan was breathing hard.
“Said she always wanted you to have the best kind of a time.”
“Did she say that?” asked the commodore. “And you believed it? Go on.”
In a choked voice. “Did you tell her about that cabaret evening?”
“I believe it was mentioned, incidentally.”
“Say _I_ was there?” put in Clarence quickly. He was losing that
“chestiness.”
“I rather think I did. I—what is that?” Bob looked toward the window.
There was a sound below at the foot of the balcony. Some one turned out
the light in the room and Bob strode to the window and looked out. “It’s
a dog,” he said. “He’s snuffing around at the foot.”
“He’s doing more than snuffing,” observed the commodore apprehensively,
as at that moment a bark smote the air. They stood motionless and
silent. The dog stopped barking, but went on snuffing. Maybe it would go
away after a moment, and they waited. Dickie and the commodore had
thrashed out that question of dogs. With so many guests around, they had
figured that, of course, they would be dog-safe. Didn’t they look like
guests? How could a dog tell the difference between them and a guest? It
is true, they hadn’t been expecting so much trouble as they had been put
to, to find Bob. They had, in that little balcony-climbing feat, rather
exceeded what they had expected to be called on to do. In their
impatience, they had acted somewhat impetuously, but it had looked just
as easy, after the servant had pointed out the room and told them Bob
was in, as certain sounds from his bed indubitably indicated.
They couldn’t very well enter the house as self-invited guests, though
they, of course, would have been made welcome. They couldn’t very well
say they had all changed their minds about those original invitations
which had naturally included husbands as well as wives. After all three
had declined to come on account of business, it would certainly look
like collusion, if all three found they hadn’t had urgent business, at
all, in town. If anything untoward or disastrous had happened in the
conversational line, with Bob as the Demon God, Truth, their sudden
entrance upon the stage of festivities, would seem to partake of inner
perturbation; it might even appear to be a united and concentrated case
of triple guilty conscience. This, obviously, must be avoided at any
cost. How they had heard Bob was here at the Ralston house, matters not.
Naturally they had kept tab on his movements, where he went and what he
did being of some moment to them.
The dog barked again. Thereupon, a window opened and they knew that some
one had been aroused.
“He’s looking out. It’s the monocle-chap,” whispered Bob.
“Who’s he?”
“One of Mrs. Ralston’s importations. Belonged to that Anglo-English
colony when she did that little emigration act in dear old London.”
“Hang it, we’ve got to get out,” whispered the commodore nervously. No
matter what had been said; no matter what the Demon God of Truth had
done, it was incumbent on them not to remain longer, with that dog
looking up toward Bob’s window and making that spasmodic racket. Some
one might get up and go out and see footprints, or a disturbed trellis.
The commodore forgot a certain desperate business proposition, apropos
of that confounded wager, he had come to put to Bob. That infernal dog
got on his nerves and put that other matter, which would settle this
truth-telling stunt at once, right out of his mind.
It was all very well, however, to say they “had to get out,” but it was
another matter to tell how they were going to do it. They couldn’t
descend the way they had come, and meet doggie. Bob arose to the
occasion.
“I can let you into the hall and show you downstairs, to that side door
on the other side of the house. You can take one of my golf sticks, just
as a safeguard, but I think you’ll be able to circumvent the jolly
little barker without being obliged to use it.”
“What kind of a dog is it?” whispered the commodore who had a pronounced
aversion to canines.
“Looked like a smallish dog. Might be a bull.”
“Better give us each a club,” suggested Clarence in a weak voice.
Which Bob did. The dog renewed the vocal performance, and— “Hurry,”
whispered the commodore. “Find means to communicate with you to-morrow,
Mr. Bennett.” Bob didn’t resent the formality of this designation, which
implied to what depths he had fallen in good old Dan’s estimation. “Can
we get down-stairs without any one hearing us?”
Bob thought they could. Anyhow, they would have to try, so he opened the
door softly and led the way. Fortunately, the house was solidly built
and not creaky. They attained down-stairs safely, and at last reached
the side door without causing any disturbance. Bob unfastened the door,
the key turned noiselessly and they looked out. There was no sign of any
living thing on lawn or garden on this side of the house.
“Out you go quickly,” murmured Bob, glancing apprehensively over his
shoulder. His position was not a particularly agreeable one. Suppose one
of the servants, on an investigating tour as to the cause of doggie’s
perturbation, should chance upon him (Bob) showing three men out of the
house in that secret manner at this time of night?
But before disappearing into the night, the commodore took time to
whisper: “Was Gee-gee’s name mentioned?”
“I fear so,” said Bob sadly.
The commodore wasted another second or two to tell Bob fiercely what he
thought of him and how they would “fix” him on the morrow, after which
he sprang out and darted away like a rabbit.
Bob wanted to call out that they were welcome to “fix” him, but he was
afraid that others beside Dan might hear him, so he closed and locked
the door carefully and stood there alone in the great hall, in his
dressing-gown. Then he sat down in a dark corner and listened. Better
wait until all was quiet, he told himself, before retracing his steps to
his room. The dog seemed to have stopped barking altogether now and soon
any persons it might have awakened would be asleep again. His trio of
visitors must be well on their way to the village by this time, he
thought. He was sorry the commodore seemed to feel so bad. And
Clarence?—poor Clarence! That last look of his haunted Bob. Anyhow, he
was pleased Dickie had, so far, escaped his (Bob’s) devastating touch.
How long he sat there he did not know. Probably only a few moments. A
big clock ticked near by, which was the only sound now to be heard.
Suddenly it occurred to him that he had better return to his room, and
wearily he arose. Up-stairs it seemed darker than it had been when he
had left his room. He had the dim lights in the great hall below to
guide him then. Now it was a little more difficult. However, after
traversing without mishap a few gloomy corridors—he realized what a big
house it really was—he reached, at last, his room near the end of one
of the upper halls and entered.
He had a vague idea he had left his door partly ajar, but he wasn’t
sure; probably he hadn’t, for it was now closed; or maybe a draft of air
had closed it. Groping his way in the dark for his bed, he ran against a
chair. This ruffled his temper somewhat as the sharp edge had come in
contact with that sensitive part of the anatomy, known as the shin-bone.
He felt for his bed, but it wasn’t there where it ought to be. He must
have got turned around coming in. His fingers ran over a dresser. Some
of the articles on it seemed strange to him. He thought he heard a
rustle and stood still, with senses alert, experiencing a regular
burglar-feeling at the moment. He hadn’t become so ossified to emotion
as he had supposed. But everything was now as silent as the grave. Again
his hand swept out, to learn where he was, and again his fingers swept
over the dresser. What were all those confounded things? He didn’t know
he had left so much loose junk lying around. And where was that
confounded switch-button?
At that moment some one else found it, for the room became suddenly
flooded with light. Bob started back, and as he did so, something fell
from the dresser to the floor. He stared toward the bed in amazement and
horror. Some one, with the clothes drawn up about her, was sitting up.
Bob wasn’t the only one who had a surprise that night. The
temperamental, little dark thing was treated to one, too. Above the
white counterpane, she stared at Bob.