It was the Major's turn to entertain his friend, and by half-past nine,
on a certain squally October evening, he and Puffin were seated by the
fire in the diary-room, while the rain volleyed at the windows and
occasional puffs of stinging smoke were driven down the chimney by the
gale that squealed and buffeted round the house. Puffin, by way of
keeping up the comedy of Roman roads, had brought a map of the district
across from his house, but the more essential part of his equipment for
this studious evening was a bottle of whisky. Originally the host had
provided whisky for himself and his guest at these pleasant chats, but
there were undeniable objections to this plan, because the guest always
proved unusually thirsty, which tempted his host to keep pace with him,
while if they both drank at their own expense, the causes of economy and
abstemiousness had a better chance. Also, while the Major took his
drinks short and strong in a small tumbler, Puffin enriched his with
lemons and sugar in a large one, so that nobody could really tell if
equality as well as fraternity was realized. But if each brought his own
bottle....
It had been a trying day, and the Major was very lame. A drenching storm
had come up during their golf, while they were far from the club-house,
and Puffin, being three up, had very naturally refused to accede to his
opponent's suggestion to call the match off. He was perfectly willing to
be paid his half-crown and go home, but Major Flint, remembering that
Puffin's game usually went to pieces if it rained, had rejected this
proposal with the scorn that it deserved. There had been other
disagreeable incidents as well. His driver, slippery from rain, had
flown out of the Major's hands on the twelfth tee, and had "shot like a
streamer of the northern morn," and landed in a pool of brackish water
left by an unusually high tide. The ball had gone into another pool
nearer the tee. The ground was greasy with moisture, and three holes
further on Puffin had fallen flat on his face instead of lashing his
fifth shot home on to the green, as he had intended. They had given each
other stimies, and each had holed his opponent's ball by mistake; they
had wrangled over the correct procedure if you lay in a rabbit-scrape or
on the tram lines; the Major had lost a new ball; there was a mushroom
on one of the greens between Puffin's ball and the hole.... All these
untoward incidents had come crowding in together, and from the Major's
point of view, the worst of them all had been the collective incident
that Puffin, so far from being put off by the rain, had, in spite of
mushroom and falling down, played with a steadiness of which he was
usually quite incapable. Consequently Major Flint was lame and his wound
troubled him, while Puffin, in spite of his obvious reasons for
complacency, was growing irritated with his companion's ill-temper, and
was half blinded by wood-smoke.
He wiped his streaming eyes.
"You should get your chimney swept," he observed.
Major Flint had put his handkerchief over his face to keep the
wood-smoke out of his eyes. He blew it off with a loud, indignant puff.
"Oh! Ah! Indeed!" he said.
Puffin was rather taken aback by the violence of these interjections;
they dripped with angry sarcasm.
"Oh, well! No offence," he said.
"A man," said the Major impersonally, "makes an offensive remark, and
says 'No offence.' If your own fireside suits you better than mine,
Captain Puffin, all I can say is that you're at liberty to enjoy it!"
This was all rather irregular: they had indulged in a good stiff breeze
this afternoon, and it was too early to ruffle the calm again. Puffin
plucked and proffered an olive-branch.
"There's your handkerchief," he said, picking it up. "Now let's have one
of our comfortable talks. Hot glass of grog and a chat over the fire:
that's the best thing after such a wetting as we got this afternoon.
I'll take a slice of lemon, if you'll be so good as to give it me, and a
lump of sugar."
The Major got up and limped to his cupboard. It struck him precisely at
that moment that Puffin scored considerably over lemons and sugar,
because he was supplied with them gratis every other night; whereas he
himself, when Puffin's guest, took nothing off his host but hot water.
He determined to ask for some biscuits, anyhow, to-morrow....
"I hardly know whether there's a lemon left," he grumbled. "I must lay
in a store of lemons. As for sugar----"
Puffin chose to disregard this suggestion.
"Amusing incident the other day," he said brightly, "when Miss Mapp's
cupboard door flew open. The old lady didn't like it. Don't suppose the
poor of the parish will see much of that corned beef."
The Major became dignified.
"Pardon me," he said. "When an esteemed friend like Miss Elizabeth tells
me that certain provisions are destined for the poor of the parish, I
take it that her statement is correct. I expect others of my friends,
while they are in my presence, to do the same. I have the honour to give
you a lemon, Captain Puffin, and a slice of sugar. I should say a lump
of sugar. Pray make yourself comfortable."
This dignified and lofty mood was often one of the after-effects of an
unsuccessful game of golf. It generally yielded quite quickly to a
little stimulant. Puffin filled his glass from the bottle and the
kettle, while his friend put his handkerchief again over his face.
"Well, I shall just have my grog before I turn in," he observed,
according to custom. "Aren't you going to join me, Major?"
"Presently, sir," said the Major.
Puffin knocked out the consumed cinders in his pipe against the edge of
the fender. Major Flint apparently was waiting for this, for he withdrew
his handkerchief and closely watched the process. A minute piece of ash
fell from Puffin's pipe on to the hearthrug, and he jumped to his feet
and removed it very carefully with the shovel.
"I have your permission, I hope?" he said witheringly.
"Certainly, certainly," said Puffin. "Now get your glass, Major. You'll
feel better in a minute or two."
Major Flint would have liked to have kept up this magnificent attitude,
but the smell of Puffin's steaming glass beat dignity down, and after
glaring at him, he limped back to the cupboard for his whisky bottle. He
gave a lamentable cry when he beheld it.
"But I got that bottle in only the day before yesterday," he shouted,
"and there's hardly a drink left in it."
"Well, you did yourself pretty well last night," said Puffin. "Those
small glasses of yours, if frequently filled up, empty a bottle quicker
than you seem to realize."
Motives of policy prevented the Major from receiving this with the
resentment that was proper to it, and his face cleared. He would get
quits over these incessant lemons and lumps of sugar.
"Well, you'll have to let me borrow from you to-night," he said
genially, as he poured the rest of the contents of his bottle into the
glass. "Ah, that's more the ticket! A glass of whisky a day keeps the
doctor away."
The prospect of sponging on Puffin was most exhilarating, and he put his
large slippered feet on to the fender.
"Yes, indeed, that was a highly amusing incident about Miss Mapp's
cupboard," he said. "And wasn't Mrs. Plaistow down on her like a knife
about it? Our fair friends, you know, have a pretty sharp eye for each
other's little failings. They've no sooner finished one squabble than
they begin another, the pert little fairies. They can't sit and enjoy
themselves like two old cronies I could tell you of, and feel at peace
with all the world."
He finished his glass at a gulp, and seemed much surprised to find it
empty.
"I'll be borrowing a drop from you, old friend," he said.
"Help yourself, Major," said Puffin, with a keen eye as to how much he
took.
"Very obliging of you. I feel as if I caught a bit of a chill this
afternoon. My wound."
"Be careful not to inflame it," said Puffin.
"Thank ye for the warning. It's this beastly climate that touches it up.
A winter in England adds years on to a man's life unless he takes care
of himself. Take care of yourself, old boy. Have some more sugar."
Before long the Major's hand was moving slowly and instinctively towards
Puffin's whisky bottle again.
"I reckon that big glass of yours, Puffin," he said, "holds between
three and a half times to four times what my little tumbler holds.
Between three and a half and four I should reckon. I may be wrong."
"Reckoning the water in, I daresay you're not far out, Major," said he.
"And according to my estimate you mix your drink somewhere about three
and a half times to four stronger than I mix mine."
"Oh, come, come!" said the Major.
"Three and a half to four times, _I_ should say," repeated Puffin. "You
won't find I'm far out."
He replenished his big tumbler, and instead of putting the bottle back
on the table, absently deposited it on the floor on the far side of his
chair. This second tumbler usually marked the most convivial period of
the evening, for the first would have healed whatever unhappy discords
had marred the harmony of the day, and, those being disposed of, they
very contentedly talked through their hats about past prowesses, and
took a rosy view of the youth and energy which still beat in their
vigorous pulses. They would begin, perhaps, by extolling each other:
Puffin, when informed that his friend would be fifty-four next birthday,
flatly refused (without offence) to believe it, and, indeed, he was
quite right in so doing, because the Major was in reality fifty-six. In
turn, Major Flint would say that his friend had the figure of a boy of
twenty, which caused Puffin presently to feel a little cramped and to
wander negligently in front of the big looking-glass between the
windows, and find this compliment much easier to swallow than the
Major's age. For the next half-hour they would chiefly talk about
themselves in a pleasant glow of self-satisfaction. Major Flint, looking
at the various implements and trophies that adorned the room, would
suggest putting a sporting challenge in the _Times_.
"'Pon my word, Puffin," he would say, "I've half a mind to do it.
Retired Major of His Majesty's Forces--the King, God bless him!" (and he
took a substantial sip); "'Retired Major, aged fifty-four, challenges
any gentleman of fifty years or over.'"
"Forty," said Puffin sycophantically, as he thought over what he would
say about himself when the old man had finished.
"Well, we'll halve it, we'll say forty-five, to please you,
Puffin--let's see, where had I got to?--'Retired Major challenges any
gentleman of forty-five years or over to--to a shooting match in the
morning, followed by half a dozen rounds with four-ounce gloves, a game
of golf, eighteen holes, in the afternoon, and a billiard match of two
hundred up after tea.' Ha! ha! I shouldn't feel much anxiety as to the
result."
"My confounded leg!" said Puffin. "But I know a retired captain from His
Majesty's merchant service--the King, God bless him!--aged fifty----"
"Ho! ho! Fifty, indeed!" said the Major, thinking to himself that a
dried-up little man like Puffin might be as old as an Egyptian mummy.
Who can tell the age of a kipper?...
"Not a day less, Major. 'Retired Captain, aged fifty, who'll take on all
comers of forty-two and over, at a steeplechase, round of golf, billiard
match, hopping match, gymnastic competition, swinging Indian clubs----'
No objection, gentlemen? Then carried _nem. con._"
This gaseous mood, athletic, amatory or otherwise (the amatory ones were
the worst), usually faded slowly, like the light from the setting sun or
an exhausted coal in the grate, about the end of Puffin's second
tumbler, and the gentlemen after that were usually somnolent, but
occasionally laid the foundation for some disagreement next day, which
they were too sleepy to go into now. Major Flint by this time would have
had some five small glasses of whisky (equivalent, as he bitterly
observed, to one in pre-war days), and as he measured his next with
extreme care and a slightly jerky movement, would announce it as being
his night-cap, though you would have thought he had plenty of night-caps
on already. Puffin correspondingly took a thimbleful more (the thimble
apparently belonging to some housewife of Anak), and after another
half-hour of sudden single snores and startings awake again, of pipes
frequently lit and immediately going out, the guest, still perfectly
capable of coherent speech and voluntary motion in the required
direction, would stumble across the dark cobbles to his house, and doors
would be very carefully closed for fear of attracting the attention of
the lady who at this period of the evening was usually known as "Old
Mappy." The two were perfectly well aware of the sympathetic interest
that Old Mappy took in all that concerned them, and that she had an eye
on their evening seances was evidenced by the frequency with which the
corner of her blind in the window of the garden-room was raised between,
say, half-past nine and eleven at night. They had often watched with
giggles the pencil of light that escaped, obscured at the lower end by
the outline of Old Mappy's head, and occasionally drank to the "Guardian
Angel." Guardian Angel, in answer to direct inquiries, had been told by
Major Benjy during the last month that he worked at his diaries on three
nights in the week and went to bed early on the others, to the vast
improvement of his mental grasp.
"And on Sunday night, dear Major Benjy?" asked Old Mappy in the
character of Guardian Angel.
"I don't think you knew my beloved, my revered mother, Miss Elizabeth,"
said Major Benjy. "I spend Sunday evening as---- Well, well."
The very next Sunday evening Guardian Angel had heard the sound of
singing. She could not catch the words, and only fragments of the tune,
which reminded her of "The roseate morn hath passed away." Brimming with
emotion, she sang it softly to herself as she undressed, and blamed
herself very much for ever having thought that dear Major Benjy---- She
peeped out of her window when she had extinguished her light, but
fortunately the singing had ceased.
* * * * *
To-night, however, the epoch of Puffin's second big tumbler was not
accompanied by harmonious developments. Major Benjy was determined to
make the most of this unique opportunity of drinking his friend's
whisky, and whether Puffin put the bottle on the further side of him, or
under his chair, or under the table, he came padding round in his
slippers and standing near the ambush while he tried to interest his
friend in tales of love or tiger-shooting so as to distract his
attention. When he mistakenly thought he had done so, he hastily
refilled his glass, taking unusually stiff doses for fear of not getting
another opportunity, and altogether omitting to ask Puffin's leave for
these maraudings. When this had happened four or five times, Puffin,
acting on the instinct of the polar bear who eats her babies for fear
that anybody else should get them, surreptitiously poured the rest of
his bottle into his glass, and filled it up to the top with hot water,
making a mixture of extraordinary power.
Soon after this Major Flint came rambling round the table again. He was
not sure whether Puffin had put the bottle by his chair or behind the
coal-scuttle, and was quite ignorant of the fact that wherever it was,
it was empty. Amorous reminiscences to-night had been the accompaniment
to Puffin's second tumbler.
"Devilish fine woman she was," he said, "and that was the last that
Benjamin Flint ever saw of her. She went up to the hills next
morning----"
"But the last you saw of her just now was on the deck of the P. and O.
at Bombay," objected Puffin. "Or did she go up to the hills on the deck
of the P. and O.? Wonderful line!"
"No, sir," said Benjamin Flint, "that was Helen, _la belle Helene_. It
was _la belle Helene_ whom I saw off at the Apollo Bunder. I don't know
if I told you-- By Gad, I've kicked the bottle over. No idea you'd put it
there. Hope the cork's in."
"No harm if it isn't," said Puffin, beginning on his third most fiery
glass. The strength of it rather astonished him.
"You don't mean to say it's empty?" asked Major Flint. "Why just now
there was close on a quarter of a bottle left."
"As much as that?" asked Puffin. "Glad to hear it."
"Not a drop less. You don't mean to say---- Well, if you can drink that and
can say hippopotamus afterwards, I should put that among your
challenges, to men of four hundred and two: I should say forty-two. It's
a fine thing to have a strong head, though if I drank what you've got in
your glass, I should be tipsy, sir."
Puffin laughed in his irritating falsetto manner.
"Good thing that it's in my glass then, and not your glass," he said.
"And lemme tell you, Major, in case you don't know it, that when I've
drunk every drop of this and sucked the lemon, you'll have had far more
out of my bottle this evening than I have. My usual twice and--and my
usual night-cap, as you say, is what's my ration, and I've had no more
than my ration. Eight Bells."
"And a pretty good ration you've got there," said the baffled Major.
"Without your usual twice."
Puffin was beginning to be aware of that as he swallowed the fiery
mixture, but nothing in the world would now have prevented his drinking
every single drop of it. It was clear to him, among so much that was dim
owing to the wood-smoke, that the Major would miss a good many drives
to-morrow morning.
"And whose whisky is it?" he said, gulping down the fiery stuff.
"I know whose it's going to be," said the other.
"And I know whose it is now," retorted Puffin, "and I know whose whisky
it is that's filled you up ti' as a drum. Tight as a drum," he repeated
very carefully.
Major Flint was conscious of an unusual activity of brain, and, when he
spoke, of a sort of congestion and entanglement of words. It pleased him
to think that he had drunk so much of somebody's else whisky, but he
felt that he ought to be angry.
"That's a very unmentionable sor' of thing to say," he remarked. "An' if
it wasn't for the sacred claims of hospitality, I'd make you explain
just what you mean by that, and make you eat your words. Pologize, in
fact."
Puffin finished his glass at a gulp, and rose to his feet.
"Pologies be blowed," he said. "Hittopopamus!"
"And were you addressing that to me?" asked Major Flint with deadly
calm.
"Of course, I was. Hippot---- same animal as before. Pleasant old boy.
And as for the lemon you lent me, well, I don't want it any more. Have a
suck at it, ole fellow! I don't want it any more."
The Major turned purple in the face, made a course for the door like a
knight's move at chess (a long step in one direction and a short one at
right angles to the first) and opened it. The door thus served as an
aperture from the room and a support to himself. He spoke no word of any
sort or kind: his silence spoke for him in a far more dignified manner
than he could have managed for himself.
Captain Puffin stood for a moment wreathed in smiles, and fingering the
slice of lemon, which he had meant playfully to throw at his friend. But
his smile faded, and by some sort of telepathic perception he realized
how much more decorous it was to say (or, better, to indicate)
good-night in a dignified manner than to throw lemons about. He walked
in dots and dashes like a Morse code out of the room, bestowing a naval
salute on the Major as he passed. The latter returned it with a military
salute and a suppressed hiccup. Not a word passed.
Then Captain Puffin found his hat and coat without much difficulty, and
marched out of the house, slamming the door behind him with a bang that
echoed down the street and made Miss Mapp dream about a thunderstorm. He
let himself into his own house, and bent down before his expired fire,
which he tried to blow into life again. This was unsuccessful, and he
breathed in a quantity of wood-ash.
He sat down by his table and began to think things out. He told himself
that he was not drunk at all, but that he had taken an unusual quantity
of whisky, which seemed to produce much the same effect as intoxication.
Allowing for that, he was conscious that he was extremely angry about
something, and had a firm idea that the Major was very angry too.
"But woz'it all been about?" he vainly asked himself. "Woz'it all been
about?"
He was roused from his puzzling over this unanswerable conundrum by the
clink of the flap in his letter-box. Either this was the first post in
the morning, in which case it was much later than he thought, and
wonderfully dark still, or it was the last post at night, in which case
it was much earlier than he thought. But, whichever it was, a letter had
been slipped into his box, and he brought it in. The gum on the envelope
was still wet, which saved trouble in opening it. Inside was a half
sheet containing but a few words. This curt epistle ran as follows:
"SIR,
"My seconds will wait on you in the course of to-morrow morning.
"Your faithful obedient servant,
"BENJAMIN FLINT.
Captain Puffin."
Puffin felt as calm as a tropic night, and as courageous as a captain.
Somewhere below his courage and his calm was an appalling sense of
misgiving. That he successfully stifled.
"Very proper," he said aloud. "Qui' proper. Insults. Blood. Seconds
won't have to wait a second. Better get a good sleep."
He went up to his room, fell on to his bed and instantly began to snore.
* * * * *
It was still dark when he awoke, but the square of his window was
visible against the blackness, and he concluded that though it was not
morning yet, it was getting on for morning, which seemed a pity. As he
turned over on to his side his hand came in contact with his coat,
instead of a sheet, and he became aware that he had all his clothes on.
Then, as with a crash of cymbals and the beating of a drum in his brain,
the events of the evening before leaped into reality and significance.
In a few hours now arrangements would have been made for a deadly
encounter. His anger was gone, his whisky was gone, and in particular
his courage was gone. He expressed all this compendiously by moaning
"Oh, God!"
He struggled to a sitting position, and lit a match at which he kindled
his candle. He looked for his watch beside it, but it was not there.
What could have happened--then he remembered that it was in its
accustomed place in his waistcoat pocket. A consultation of it followed
by holding it to his ear only revealed the fact that it had stopped at
half-past five. With the lucidity that was growing brighter in his
brain, he concluded that this stoppage was due to the fact that he had
not wound it up.... It was after half-past five then, but how much later
only the Lords of Time knew--Time which bordered so closely on Eternity.
He felt that he had no use whatever for Eternity but that he must not
waste Time. Just now, that was far more precious.
* * * * *
From somewhere in the Cosmic Consciousness there came to him a thought,
namely, that the first train to London started at half-past six in the
morning. It was a slow train, but it got there, and in any case it went
away from Tilling. He did not trouble to consider how that thought came
to him: the important point was that it had come. Coupled with that was
the knowledge that it was now an undiscoverable number of minutes after
half-past five.
There was a Gladstone bag under his bed. He had brought it back from the
Club-house only yesterday, after that game of golf which had been so
full of disturbances and wet stockings, but which now wore the
shimmering security of peaceful, tranquil days long past. How little, so
he thought to himself, as he began swiftly storing shirts, ties, collars
and other useful things into his bag, had he appreciated the sweet
amenities of life, its pleasant conversations and companionships, its
topped drives, and mushrooms and incalculable incidents. Now they wore a
glamour and a preciousness that was bound up with life itself. He
starved for more of them, not knowing while they were his how sweet they
were.
The house was not yet astir, when ten minutes later he came downstairs
with his bag. He left on his sitting-room table, where it would catch
the eye of his housemaid, a sheet of paper on which he wrote "Called
away" (he shuddered as he traced the words). "Forward no letters. Will
communicate...." (Somehow the telegraphic form seemed best to suit the
urgency of the situation.) Then very quietly he let himself out of his
house.
He could not help casting an apprehensive glance at the windows of his
quondam friend and prospective murderer. To his horror he observed that
there was a light behind the blind of the Major's bedroom, and pictured
him writing to his seconds--he wondered who the "seconds" were going to
be--or polishing up his pistols. All the rumours and hints of the
Major's duels and affairs of honour, which he had rather scorned before,
not wholly believing them, poured like a red torrent into his mind, and
he found that now he believed them with a passionate sincerity. Why had
he ever attempted (and with such small success) to call this fire-eater
a hippopotamus?
The gale of the night before had abated, and thick chilly rain was
falling from a sullen sky as he tiptoed down the hill. Once round the
corner and out of sight of the duellist's house, he broke into a limping
run, which was accelerated by the sound of an engine-whistle from the
station. It was mental suspense of the most agonizing kind not to know
how long it was after his watch had stopped that he had awoke, and the
sound of that whistle, followed by several short puffs of steam, might
prove to be the six-thirty bearing away to London, on business or
pleasure, its secure and careless pilgrims. Splashing through puddles,
lopsidedly weighted by his bag, with his mackintosh flapping against his
legs, he gained the sanctuary of the waiting-room and booking-office,
which was lighted by a dim expiring lamp, and scrutinized the face of
the murky clock....
With a sob of relief he saw that he was in time. He was, indeed, in
exceptionally good time, for he had a quarter of an hour to wait. An
anxious internal debate followed as to whether or not he should take a
return ticket. Optimism, that is to say, the hope that he would return
to Tilling in peace and safety before the six months for which the
ticket was available inclined him to the larger expense, but in these
disquieting circumstances, it was difficult to be optimistic and he
purchased a first-class single, for on such a morning, and on such a
journey, he must get what comfort he could from looking-glasses, padded
seats and coloured photographs of places of interest on the line. He
formed no vision at all of the future: that was a dark well into which
it was dangerous to peer. There was no bright speck in its unplumbable
depths: unless Major Flint died suddenly without revealing the
challenge he had sent last night, and the promptitude with which its
recipient had disappeared rather than face his pistol, he could not
frame any grouping of events which would make it possible for him to
come back to Tilling again, for he would either have to fight (and this
he was quite determined not to do) or be pointed at by the finger of
scorn as the man who had refused to do so, and this was nearly as
unthinkable as the other. Bitterly he blamed himself for having made a
friend (and worse than that, an enemy) of one so obsolete and
old-fashioned as to bring duelling into modern life.... As far as he
could be glad of anything he was glad that he had taken a single, not a
return ticket.
He turned his eyes away from the blackness of the future and let his
mind dwell on the hardly less murky past. Then, throwing up his hands,
he buried his face in them with a hollow groan. By some miserable
forgetfulness he had left the challenge on his chimney-piece, where his
housemaid would undoubtedly find and read it. That would explain his
absence far better than the telegraphic instructions he had left on his
table. There was no time to go back for it now, even if he could have
faced the risk of being seen by the Major, and in an hour or two the
whole story, via Withers, Janet, etc., would be all over Tilling.
It was no use then thinking of the future nor of the past, and in order
to anchor himself to the world at all and preserve his sanity he had to
confine himself to the present. The minutes, long though each tarried,
were slipping away and provided his train was punctual, the passage of
five more of these laggards would see him safe. The news-boy took down
the shutters of his stall, a porter quenched the expiring lamp, and
Puffin began to listen for the rumble of the approaching train. It
stayed three minutes here: if up to time it would be in before a couple
more minutes had passed.
There came from the station-yard outside the sound of heavy footsteps
running. Some early traveller like himself was afraid of missing the
train. The door burst open, and, streaming with rain and panting for
breath, Major Flint stood at the entry. Puffin looked wildly round to
see whether he could escape, still perhaps unobserved, on to the
platform, but it was too late, for their eyes met.
In that instant of abject terror, two things struck Puffin. One was that
the Major looked at the open door behind him as if meditating retreat,
the second that he carried a Gladstone bag. Simultaneously Major Flint
spoke, if indeed that reverberating thunder of scornful indignation can
be called speech.
"Ha! I guessed right then," he roared. "I guessed, sir, that you might
be meditating flight, and I--in fact, I came down to see whether you
were running away. I was right. You are a coward, Captain Puffin! But
relieve your mind, sir. Major Flint will not demean himself to fight
with a coward."
Puffin gave one long sigh of relief, and then, standing in front of his
own Gladstone bag, in order to conceal it, burst into a cackling laugh.
"Indeed!" he said. "And why, Major, was it necessary for you to pack a
Gladstone bag in order to stop me from running away? I'll tell you what
has happened. You were running away, and you know it. I guessed you
would. I came to stop you, you, you quaking runaway. Your wound troubled
you, hey? Didn't want another, hey?"
There was an awful pause, broken by the entry from behind the Major of
the outside porter, panting under the weight of a large portmanteau.
"You had to take your portmanteau, too," observed Puffin witheringly,
"in order to stop me. That's a curious way of stopping me. You're a
coward, sir! But go home. You're safe enough. This will be a fine story
for tea-parties."
Puffin turned from him in scorn, still concealing his own bag.
Unfortunately the flap of his coat caught it, precariously perched on
the bench, and it bumped to the ground.
"What's that?" said Major Flint.
They stared at each other for a moment and then simultaneously burst
into peals of laughter. The train rumbled slowly into the station, but
neither took the least notice of it, and only shook their heads and
broke out again when the station-master urged them to take their seats.
The only thing that had power to restore Captain Puffin to gravity was
the difficulty of getting the money for his ticket refunded, while the
departure of the train with his portmanteau in it did the same for the
Major.
* * * * *
The events of that night and morning, as may easily be imagined, soon
supplied Tilling with one of the most remarkable conundrums that had
ever been forced upon its notice. Puffin's housemaid, during his absence
at the station, found and read not only the notice intended for her
eyes, but the challenge which he had left on the chimney-piece. She
conceived it to be her duty to take it down to Mrs. Gashly, his cook,
and while they were putting the bloodiest construction on these
inscriptions, their conference was interrupted by the return of Captain
Puffin in the highest spirits, who, after a vain search for the
challenge, was quite content, as its purport was no longer fraught with
danger and death, to suppose that he had torn it up. Mrs. Gashly,
therefore, after preparing breakfast at this unusually early hour, went
across to the back door of the Major's house, with the challenge in her
hand, to borrow a nutmeg grater, and gleaned the information that Mrs.
Dominic's employer (for master he could not be called) had gone off in a
great hurry to the station early that morning with a Gladstone bag and a
portmanteau, the latter of which had been seen no more, though the Major
had returned. So Mrs. Gashly produced the challenge, and having watched
Miss Mapp off to the High Street at half-past ten, Dominic and Gashly
went together to her house, to see if Withers could supply anything of
importance, or, if not, a nutmeg grater. They were forced to be content
with the grater, but pored over the challenge with Withers, and she
having an errand to Diva's house, told Janet, who without further
ceremony bounded upstairs to tell her mistress. Hardly had Diva heard,
than she plunged into the High Street, and, with suitable additions,
told Miss Mapp, Evie, Irene and the Padre under promise in each case, of
the strictest secrecy. Ten minutes later Irene had asked the defenceless
Mr. Hopkins, who was being Adam again, what he knew about it, and Evie,
with her mouse-like gait that looked so rapid and was so deliberate, had
the mortification of seeing Miss Mapp outdistance her and be admitted
into the Poppits' house, just as she came in view of the front-door. She
rightly conjectured that, after the affair of the store-cupboard in the
garden-room, there could be nothing of lesser importance than "the duel"
which could take that lady through those abhorred portals. Finally, at
ten minutes past eleven, Major Flint and Captain Puffin were seen by one
or two fortunate people (the morning having cleared up) walking together
to the tram, and, without exception, everybody knew that they were on
their way to fight their duel in some remote hollow of the sand-dunes.
Miss Mapp had gone straight home from her visit to the Poppits just
about eleven, and stationed herself in the window where she could keep
an eye on the houses of the duellists. In her anxiety to outstrip Evie
and be the first to tell the Poppits, she had not waited to hear that
they had both come back and knew only of the challenge and that they had
gone to the station. She had already formed a glorious idea of her own
as to what the history of the duel (past or future) was, and intoxicated
with emotion had retired from the wordy fray to think about it, and, as
already mentioned, to keep an eye on the two houses just below. Then
there appeared in sight the Padre, walking swiftly up the hill, and she
had barely time under cover of the curtain to regain the table where her
sweet chrysanthemums were pining for water when Withers announced him.
He wore a furrowed brow and quite forgot to speak either Scotch or
Elizabethan English. A few rapid words made it clear that they both had
heard the main outlines.
"A terrible situation," said the Padre. "Duelling is direct
contravention of all Christian principles, and, I believe, of the civil
law. The discharge of a pistol, in unskilful hands, may lead to
deplorable results. And Major Flint, so one has heard, is an experienced
duellist.... That, of course, makes it even more dangerous."
It was at this identical moment that Major Flint came out of his house
and qui-hied cheerily to Puffin. Miss Mapp and the Padre, deep in these
bloody possibilities, neither saw nor heard them. They passed together
down the road and into the High Street, unconscious that their very look
and action was being more commented on than the Epistle to the Hebrews.
Inside the garden-room Miss Mapp sighed, and bent her eyes on her
chrysanthemums.
"Quite terrible!" she said. "And in our peaceful, tranquil Tilling!"
"Perhaps the duel has already taken place, and--and they've missed,"
said the Padre. "They were both seen to return to their houses early
this morning."
"By whom?" asked Miss Mapp jealously. She had not heard that.
"By Hopkins," said he. "Hopkins saw them both return."
"I shouldn't trust that man too much," said Miss Mapp. "Hopkins may not
be telling the truth. I have no great opinion of his moral standard."
"Why is that?"
This was no time to discuss the nudity of Hopkins and Miss Mapp put the
question aside.
"That does not matter now, dear Padre," she said. "I only wish I thought
the duel had taken place without accident. But Major Benjy's--I mean
Major Flint's--portmanteau has not come back to his house. Of that I'm
sure. What if they have sent it away to some place where they are
unknown, full of pistols and things?"
"Possible--terribly possible," said the Padre. "I wish I could see my
duty clear. I should not hesitate to--well, to do the best I could to
induce them to abandon this murderous project. And what do you imagine
was the root of the quarrel?"
"I couldn't say, I'm sure," said Miss Mapp. She bent her head over the
chrysanthemums.
"Your distracting sex," said he with a moment's gallantry, "is usually
the cause of quarrel. I've noticed that they both seemed to admire Miss
Irene very much."
Miss Mapp raised her head and spoke with great animation.
"Dear, quaint Irene, I'm sure, has nothing whatever to do with it," she
said with perfect truth. "Nothing whatever!"
There was no mistaking the sincerity of this, and the Padre, Tillingite
to the marrow, instantly concluded that Miss Mapp knew what (or who) was
the cause of all this unique disturbance. And as she bent her head again
over the chrysanthemums, and quite distinctly grew brick-red in the
face, he felt that delicacy prevented his inquiring any further.
"What are you going to do, dear Padre?" she asked in a low voice,
choking with emotion. "Whatever you decide will be wise and Christian.
Oh, these violent men! Such babies, too!"
The Padre was bursting with curiosity, but since his delicacy forbade
him to ask any of the questions which effervesced like sherbet round his
tongue, he propounded another plan.
"I think my duty is to go straight to the Major," he said, "who seems to
be the principal in the affair, and tell him that I know all--and guess
the rest," he added.
"Nothing that I have said," declared Miss Mapp in great confusion, "must
have anything to do with your guesses. Promise me that, Padre."
This intimate and fruitful conversation was interrupted by the sound of
two pairs of steps just outside, and before Withers had had time to say
"Mrs. Plaistow," Diva burst in.
"They have both taken the 11.20 tram," she said, and sank into the
nearest chair.
"Together?" asked Miss Mapp, feeling a sudden chill of disappointment
at the thought of a duel with pistols trailing off into one with golf
clubs.
"Yes, but that's a blind," panted Diva. "They were talking and laughing
together. Sheer blind! Duel among the sand-dunes!"
"Padre, it is your duty to stop it," said Miss Mapp faintly.
"But if the pistols are in a portmanteau----" he began.
"What portmanteau?" screamed Diva, who hadn't heard about that.
"Darling, I'll tell you presently," said Miss Mapp. "That was only a
guess of mine, Padre. But there's no time to lose."
"But there's no tram to catch," said the Padre. "It has gone by this
time."
"A taxi then, Padre! Oh, lose no time!"
"Are you coming with me?" he said in a low voice. "Your presence----"
"Better not," she said. "It might---- Better not," she repeated.
He skipped down the steps and was observed running down the street.
"What about the portmanteau?" asked the greedy Diva.
* * * * *
It was with strong misgivings that the Padre started on his Christian
errand, and had not the sense of adventure spiced it, he would probably
have returned to his sermon instead, which was Christian, too. To begin
with, there was the ruinous expense of taking a taxi out to the
golf-links, but by no other means could he hope to arrive in time to
avert an encounter that might be fatal. It must be said to his credit
that, though this was an errand distinctly due to his position as the
spiritual head of Tilling, he rejected, as soon as it occurred to him,
the idea of charging the hire of the taxi to Church Expenses, and as he
whirled along the flat road across the marsh, the thing that chiefly
buoyed up his drooping spirits and annealed his courage was the romantic
nature of his mission. He no longer, thanks to what Miss Mapp had so
clearly refrained from saying, had the slightest doubt that she, in some
manner that scarcely needed conjecture, was the cause of the duel he was
attempting to avert. For years it had been a matter of unwearied and
confidential discussion as to whether and when she would marry either
Major Flint or Captain Puffin, and it was superfluous to look for any
other explanation. It was true that she, in popular parlance, was
"getting on," but so, too, and at exactly the same rate, were the
representatives of the United Services, and the sooner that two out of
the three of them "got on" permanently, the better. No doubt some crisis
had arisen, and inflamed with love.... He intended to confide all this
to his wife on his return.
On his return! The unspoken words made his heart sink. What if he never
did return? For he was about to place himself in a position of no common
danger. His plan was to drive past the club-house, and then on foot,
after discharging the taxi, to strike directly into the line of tumbled
sand-dunes which, remote and undisturbed and full of large convenient
hollows, stretched along the coast above the flat beach. Any of those
hollows, he knew, might prove to contain the duellists in the very act
of firing, and over the rim of each he had to pop his unprotected head.
He (if in time) would have to separate the combatants, and who knew
whether, in their very natural chagrin at being interrupted, they might
not turn their combined pistols on him first, and settle with each
other afterwards? One murder the more made little difference to
desperate men. Other shocks, less deadly but extremely unnerving, might
await him. He might be too late, and pop his head over the edge of one
of these craters, only to discover it full of bleeding if not mangled
bodies. Or there might be only one mangled body, and the other,
unmangled, would pursue him through the sand-dunes and offer him life at
the price of silence. That, he painfully reflected, would be a very
difficult decision to make. Luckily, Captain Puffin (if he proved to be
the survivor) was lame....
With drawn face and agonized prayers on his lips, he began a systematic
search of the sand-dunes. Often his nerve nearly failed him, and he
would sink panting among the prickly bents before he dared to peer into
the hollow up the sides of which he had climbed. His ears shuddered at
the anticipation of hearing from near at hand the report of pistols, and
once a back-fire from a motor passing along the road caused him to leap
high in the air. The sides of these dunes were steep, and his shoes got
so full of sand, that from time to time, in spite of the urgency of his
errand, he was forced to pause in order to empty them out. He stumbled
in rabbit holes, he caught his foot and once his trousers in strands of
barbed wire, the remnant of coast defences in the Great War, he crashed
among potsherds and abandoned kettles; but with a thoroughness that did
equal credit to his wind and his Christian spirit, he searched a mile of
perilous dunes from end to end, and peered into every important hollow.
Two hours later, jaded and torn and streaming with perspiration, he
came, in the vicinity of the club-house, to the end of his fruitless
search.
He staggered round the corner of it and came in view of the eighteenth
green. Two figures were occupying it, and one of these was in the act of
putting. He missed. Then he saw who the figures were: it was Captain
Puffin who had just missed his putt, it was Major Flint who now
expressed elated sympathy.
"Bad luck, old boy," he said. "Well, a jolly good match and we halve it.
Why, there's the Padre. Been for a walk? Join us in a round this
afternoon, Padre! Blow your sermon!"