walking pensively. And Sam, stepping off the gravel onto the grass,
moved with a stealthy tread toward his home. Vague but lively suspicions
were filling his mind.
He had reached the foot of the steps and paused to listen, when the
evening air was suddenly split by a sharp feminine scream. This was
followed by a joyous barking. And this in its turn was followed by the
abrupt appearance of a flying figure, racing toward the gate. It was
moving swiftly and the light was dim, but Sam had no difficulty in
recognising his old acquaintance Miss Gunn, of Pittsburgh. She fled
rapidly through the gate and out into Burberry Road, while Amy, looking
in the dusk like a small elephant, gambolled about her, uttering strange
canine noises. Dolly slammed the gate, but gates meant nothing to Amy.
She poured herself over it and the two passed into the darkness.
Sam’s jaw set grimly. He moved with noiseless steps to the door of Mon
Repos and took out his key.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
MAINLY ABOUT TROUSERS
§ 1
The meeting between Amy and Mrs. Molloy had taken place owing to the
resolve of the latter to search the small conservatory which stood
outside the back door. She had told Soapy that she thought the missing
bonds might be hidden there. They were not, but Amy was. The
conservatory was a favourite sleeping porch of Amy’s, and thither she
had repaired on discovering that her frolicsome overtures to Hash had
been taken in the wrong spirit.
Mrs. Molloy’s feelings, on groping about in the dark and suddenly poking
her hand into the cavernous mouth of the largest dog she had ever
encountered, have perhaps been sufficiently indicated by the description
of her subsequent movements. Iron-nerved woman though she was, this was
too much for her.
The single scream which she emitted, previous to saving her breath for
the race for life, penetrated only faintly to where Mr. Molloy sat
taking a rest on the sofa in the drawing-room. He heard it, but it had
no message for him. He was feeling a little better now, and his
ganglions, though not having ceased to vibrate with uncomfortable
rapidity, were beginning to simmer down. He decided that he would give
himself another couple of minutes of repose.
It was toward the middle of the second minute that the door opened
quietly and Sam came in. He stood looking at the recumbent Mr. Molloy
for a moment.
“Comfortable?” he said.
Soapy shot off the sofa with a sort of gurgling whoop. Of all the
disturbing events of that afternoon, this one had got more surely in
amongst his nerve centres than any other. He had not heard the door
open, and Sam’s voice had been the first intimation that he was no
longer alone.
“I’m afraid I startled you,” said Sam.
The exigencies of a difficult profession had made Soapy Molloy a quick
thinker. Frequently in the course of a busy life he had found himself in
positions where a split second was all that was allowed him for forming
a complete plan of action. His trained mind answered to the present
emergency like a machine.
“You certainly did startle me,” he said bluffly, in his best Thomas G.
Gunn manner. “You startled the daylights out of me. So here you are at
last, Mr. Shotter.”
“Yes, here I am.”
“I have been waiting quite some little time. I’m afraid you caught me on
the point of going to sleep.”
He chuckled, as a man will when the laugh is on him.
“I should imagine,” said Sam, “that it would take a smart man to catch
you asleep.”
Mr. Molloy chuckled again.
“Just what the boys used to say of me in Denver City.” He paused and
looked at Sam a little anxiously. “Say, you do remember me, Mr.
Shotter?”
“I certainly do.”
“You remember my calling here the other day to see my old home?”
“I remember you before that--when you were in Sing Sing.”
He turned away to light the gas, and Mr. Molloy was glad of the interval
for thought afforded by this action.
“Sing Sing?”
“Yes.”
“You were never there.”
“I went there to see a show, in which you took an important part. I
forget what your number was.”
“And what of it?”
“Eh?”
Mr. Molloy drew himself up with considerable dignity.
“What of it?” he repeated. “What if I was for a brief period--owing to a
prejudiced judge and a packed jury--in the place you mention? I decline
to have the fact taken as a slur on my character. You are an American,
Mr. Shotter, and you know that there is unfortunately a dark side to
American politics. My fearless efforts on behalf of the party of reform
and progress brought me into open hostility with a gang of unscrupulous
men, who did not hesitate to have me arrested on a trumped-up charge
and----”
“All this,” said Sam, “would go a lot stronger with me if I hadn’t found
you burgling my house.”
It would have been difficult to say whether the expression that swept
over Mr. Molloy’s fine face was more largely indignation or amazement.
“Burgling your house? Are you insane? I called here in the hope of
seeing you, was informed that you were not at home, and was invited by
your manservant, a most civil fellow, to await your return. Burgling
your house, indeed! If I were, would you have found me lying on the
sofa?”
“Hash let you in?”
Such was the magnetic quality of the personality of one who had often
sold large blocks of shares in nonexistent oil wells to Scotchmen, that
Sam was beginning in spite of himself to be doubtful.
“If Hash is the name of your manservant, most certainly he let me in. He
admitted me by the front door in the perfectly normal and conventional
manner customary when gentlemen pay calls.”
“Where is Hash?”
“Why ask me?”
Sam went to the door. The generous indignation of his visitor had caused
him to waver, but it had not altogether convinced him.
“Hash!” he called.
“He appears to be out.”
“Hash!”
“Gone for a walk, no doubt.”
“Hash!” shouted Sam.
From the regions below there came an answering cry.
“Hi! Help!”
It had been a long and arduous task for Hash Todhunter to expel from his
mouth the duster which Soapy Molloy had rammed into it with such
earnest care, but he had accomplished it at last, and his voice sounded
to Mr. Molloy like a knell.
“He appears to be in, after all,” he said feebly.
Sam had turned and was regarding him fixedly, and Soapy noted with a
sinking heart the athletic set of his shoulders and the large
muscularity of his hands. “Haul off and bust him one!” his wife’s gentle
voice seemed to whisper in his ear; but eying Sam, he knew that any such
project was but a Utopian dream. Sam had the unmistakable look of one
who, if busted, would infallibly bust in return and bust
disintegratingly.
“You tied him up, I suppose,” said Sam, with a menacing calm.
Soapy said nothing. There is a time for words and a time for silence.
Sam looked at him in some perplexity. He had begun to see that he was
faced with the rather delicate problem of how to be in two places at the
same time. He must, of course, at once go down to the kitchen and
release Hash. But if he did that, would not this marauder immediately
escape by the front door? And if he took him down with him to the
kitchen, the probability was that he would escape by the back door.
While if he merely left him in this room and locked the door, he would
proceed at once to depart by the window.
It was a nice problem, but all problems are capable of solution. Sam
solved this one in a spasm of pure inspiration. He pointed a menacing
finger at Soapy.
“Take off those trousers!” he said.
Soapy gaped. The intellectual pressure of the conversation had become
too much for him.
“Trousers?” he faltered.
“Trousers. You know perfectly well what trousers are,” said Sam, “and
it’s no good pretending you don’t. Take them off!”
“Take off my trousers?”
“Good Lord!” said Sam with sudden petulance. “What’s the matter with the
man. You do it every night, don’t you? You do it when you take a Turkish
bath, don’t you? Where’s the difficulty? Peel them off and don’t waste
time.”
“But----”
“Listen!” said Sam. “If those trousers are not delivered to me f. o. b.
in thirty seconds, I’ll bust you one!”
He had them in eighteen.
“Now,” said Sam, “I think you’ll find it a little difficult to get
away.”
He gathered up the garments, draped them over his arm and went down to
the kitchen.
§ 2
Love is the master passion. It had come to Hash Todhunter late, but,
like measles, the more violent for the delay. A natural inclination to
go upstairs and rend his recent aggressor limb from limb faded before
the more imperious urge to dash across to San Rafael and see Claire. It
was the first thing of which he spoke when Sam, with the aid of a
carving knife, had cut his bonds.
“I got to see ’er!”
“Are you hurt, Hash?”
“No, ’e only ’it me on the ’ead. I got to see ’er, Sam.”
“Claire?”
“Ah! The pore little angel, crying ’er ruddy eyes out. The gentleman was
saying all about it.”
“What gentleman?”
“A gentleman come to the back door and told that perisher all about how
the pore little thing was howling and weeping and all, thinking ’e was
me.”
“Have you had a quarrel with Claire?”
“We ’ad words. I got to see ’er.”
“You shall. Can you walk?”
“Of course I can walk. Why shouldn’t I walk?”
“Come along then.”
In spite of his assurance, however, Hash found his cramped limbs hard to
steer. Sam had to lend an arm, and their progress was slow.
“Sam,” said Hash, after a pause which had been intended primarily for
massage, but which had plainly been accompanied by thought, “do you know
anything about getting married?”
“Only that it is an excellent thing to do.”
“I mean, ’ow quick can a feller get married?”
“Like a flash, I believe. At any rate, if he goes to a registrar’s.”
“I’m going to a registrar’s then. I’ve ’ad enough of these what I might
call misunderstandings.”
“Brave words, Hash! How are the legs?”
“The legs are all right. It’s her mother I’m thinking of.”
“You always seem to be thinking of her mother. Are you quite sure
you’ve picked the right one of the family?”
Hash had halted again, and his face was that of a man whose soul was a
battlefield.
“Sam, ’er mother wants to come and live with us when we’re married.”
“Well, why not?”
“Ah, you ain’t seen her, Sam! She’s got a hooked nose and an eye like
one of these animal trainers. Still----”
The battle appeared to be resumed once more.
“Oh, well!” said Hash. He mused for a while. “You’ve got to look at it
all round, you know.”
“Exactly.”
“And there’s this to think of: She says she’ll buy a pub for us.”
“Pubs are pubs,” agreed Sam.
“I’ve always wanted to have a pub of my own.”
“Then I shouldn’t hesitate.”
Hash suddenly saw the poetic side of the vision.
“Won’t my little Clara look a treat standing behind a bar, serving the
drinks and singing out, ‘Time, gentlemen, please!’ Can’t you see her
scraping the froth off the mugs?”
He fell into a rapt silence, and said no more while Sam escorted him
through the back door of San Rafael and led him into the kitchen.
There, rightly considering that the sacred scene of re-union was not for
his eyes, Sam turned away. Gently depositing the nether garments of Mr.
Molloy on the table, he left them together and made his way to the
drawing-room.
§ 3
The first thing he heard as he opened the door was Kay’s voice.
“I don’t care,” she was saying. “I simply don’t believe it.”
He went in and discovered that she was addressing her uncle, Mr. Wrenn,
and the white-bearded Mr. Cornelius. They were standing together by the
mantelpiece, their attitude the sheepish and browbeaten one of men who
have been rash enough to argue with a woman. Mr. Wrenn was fiddling with
his tie, and Mr. Cornelius looked like a druid who is having a little
unpleasantness with the widow of the deceased.
Sam’s entrance was the signal for an awkward silence.
“Hullo, Mr. Wrenn,” said Sam. “Good evening, Mr. Cornelius.”
Mr. Wrenn looked at Mr. Cornelius. Mr. Cornelius looked at Mr. Wrenn.
“Say something,” said Mr. Cornelius’ eye to Mr. Wrenn. “You are her
uncle.”
“You say something,” retorted Mr. Wrenn’s eye to Mr. Cornelius. “You
have a white beard.”
“I’m sorry I’ve been such a time,” said Sam to Kay. “I have had a little
domestic trouble. I found a gentleman burgling my house.”
“What?”
“There had been a lady there, too, but she was leaving as I arrived.”
“A lady!”
“Well, let us call her a young female party.”
Kay swung round on Mr. Wrenn, her eyes gleaming with the light that
shines only in the eyes of girls who are entitled to say “I told you
so!” to elderly relatives. Mr. Wrenn avoided her gaze. Mr. Cornelius
plucked at his beard and registered astonishment.
“Burgling your house? What for?”
“That’s what’s puzzling me. These two people seem extraordinarily
interested in Mon Repos. They called some days ago and wanted to buy the
place, and now I find them burgling it.”
“Good heavens!” cried Mr. Cornelius. “I wonder! Can it be possible?”
“I shouldn’t wonder. It might,” said Sam. “What?”
“Do you remember my telling you, Mr. Shotter, when you came to me about
the lease of the house that a well-known criminal had once lived there?”
“Yes.”
“A man named Finglass. Do you remember Finglass, Wrenn?”
“No; he must have been before my time.”
“How long have you been here?”
“About three years and a half.”
“Ah, then it was before your time. This man robbed the New Asiatic Bank
of something like four hundred thousand pounds’ worth of securities. He
was never caught, and presumably fled the country. You will find the
whole story in my history of Valley Fields. Can it be possible that
Finglass hid the bonds in Mon Repos and was unable to get back there and
remove them?”
“You said it!” cried Sam enthusiastically.
“It would account for the anxiety of these people to obtain access to
the house.”
“Why, of course!” said Kay.
“It sounds extremely likely,” said Mr. Wrenn.
“Was the man tall and thin, with a strong cast in the left eye?”
“No; a square-faced sort of fellow.”
“Then it would not be Finglass himself. No doubt some other criminal,
some associate of his, who had learned from him that the bonds were
hidden in the house. I wish I had my history here,” said Mr. Cornelius.
“Several pages of it are devoted to Finglass.”
“I’ll tell you what,” said Sam, “go and get it.”
“Shall I?”
“Yes, do.”
“Very well. Will you come with me, Wrenn?”
“Certainly he will,” said Sam warmly. “Mr. Wrenn would like a breath of
fresh air.”
With considerable satisfaction he heard the front door close on the
non-essential members of the party.
“What an extraordinary thing!” said Kay.
“Yes,” said Sam, drawing his chair closer. “The aspect of the affair
that strikes me----”
“What became of the man?”
“He’s all right. I left him in the drawing-room.”
“But he’ll escape.”
“Oh, no.”
“Why not?”
“Well, he won’t.”
“But all he’s got to do is walk out of the door.”
“Yes, but he won’t do it.” Sam drew his chair still closer. “I was
saying that the aspect of the affair that strikes me most forcibly is
that now I shall be in a position to marry and do it properly.”
“Are you thinking of marrying someone?”
“I think of nothing else. Well, now, to look into this. The bank will
probably give a ten per cent reward for the return of the stuff. Even
five per cent would be a nice little sum. That fixes the financial end
of the thing. So now----”
“You seem very certain that you will find this money.”
“Oh, I shall find it, have no fear. If it’s there----”
“Yes, but perhaps it isn’t.”
“I feel sure that it is. So now let’s make our plans. We will buy a farm
somewhere, don’t you think?”
“I have no objection to your buying a farm.”
“I said we. We will buy a farm, and there settle down and live to a ripe
old age on milk, honey and the produce of the soil. You will wear a
gingham gown, I shall grow a beard. We will keep dogs, pigeons, cats,
sheep, fowls, horses, cows, and a tortoise to keep in the garden. Good
for the snails,” explained Sam.
“Bad for them, I should think. Are you fond of tortoises?”
“Aren’t you?”
“Not very.”
“Then,” said Sam magnanimously, “we will waive the tortoise.”
“It sounds like a forgotten sport of the past--Waving the Tortoise.”
“To resume. We decide on the farm. Right! Now where is it to be? You are
a Wiltshire girl, so no doubt will prefer that county. I can’t afford
to buy back Midways for you, I’m afraid, unless on second thoughts I
decide to stick to the entire proceeds instead of handing them back to
the bank--we shall have to talk that over later--but isn’t there some
old greystone, honeysuckle-covered place in the famous Braddock
estates?”
“Good heavens!”
“What’s the matter?”
“You said you had left that man in your drawing-room.”
“Well?”
“I’ve suddenly remembered that I sent Willoughby over to Mon Repos ten
minutes ago to find out why you were so long. He’s probably being
murdered.”
“Oh, I shouldn’t think so. To go back to what I was saying----”
“You must go and see at once.”
“Do you really think it’s necessary?”
“Of course it is.”
“Oh, very well.”
Sam rose reluctantly. Life, he felt with considerable peevishness, was
one long round of interruptions. He went round to the door of Mon Repos
and let himself in with his key. A rumble of voices proceeding from the
drawing-room greeted him as he entered. He banged the door, and a moment
later Mr. Braddock came out, looking a little flustered.
“Oh, there you are, Sam! I was just coming round to fetch you.”
“Anything wrong?”
“It depends on what you call wrong.” Mr. Braddock closed the
drawing-room door carefully. “You know Lord Tilbury?”
“Of course I know Lord Tilbury.”
“Well, he’s in there,” said Willoughby Braddock, jerking an awed thumb
toward the drawing-room, “and he hasn’t got any trousers on.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
SAM HEARS BAD NEWS
Sam uttered a cry of exceeding bitterness. Nothing is more galling to
your strategist than to find that some small, unforeseen accident has
occurred and undone all his schemes. The one thing for which he had
omitted to allow was the possibility of some trousered caller wandering
in during his absence and supplying Mr. Molloy with the means of escape.
“So he’s gone, I suppose?” he said morosely.
“No, he’s still here,” said Mr. Braddock. “In the drawing-room.”
“The man, I mean.”
“What man?”
“The other man.”
“What other man?” asked Mr. Braddock, whose exacting afternoon had begun
to sap his mental powers.
“Oh, never mind,” said Sam impatiently. “What did Lord Tilbury want,
coming down here, confound him?”
“Came to see you about something, I should think,” surmised Mr.
Braddock.
“Didn’t he tell you what it was?”
“No. As a matter of fact, we’ve been chatting mostly about trousers. You
haven’t got a spare pair in the house by any chance, have you?”
“Of course I have--upstairs.”
“Then I wish,” said Mr. Braddock earnestly, “that you would dig them out
and give them to the old boy. He’s been trying for the last ten minutes
to get me to lend him mine, and it simply can’t be done. I’ve got to be
getting back to town soon to dress for dinner, and you can say what you
like, a fellow buzzing along in a two-seater without any trousers on
looks conspicuous.”
“Darn that fool, coming down here at just this time!” said Sam, still
aggrieved. “What exactly happened?”
“Well, he’s a bit on the incoherent side; but as far as I can make out,
that man of yours, the chap who called me brother, seems to have gone
completely off his onion. Old Tilbury rang the front doorbell, and there
was a bit of a pause, and then this chap opened the door and old Tilbury
went in, and then he happened to look at him and saw that he hadn’t any
trousers on.”
“That struck him as strange, of course.”
“Apparently he hadn’t much time to think about it, for the bloke
immediately proceeded to hold him up with a gun.”
“He hadn’t got a gun.”
“Well, old Tilbury asserts that he was shoving something against his
pocket from inside.”
“His finger, or a pipe.”
“No, I say, really!” Mr. Braddock’s voice betrayed the utmost
astonishment and admiration. “Would that be it? I call that clever.”
“Well, he hadn’t a gun when I caught him or he would have used it on me.
What happened then?”
“How do you mean--caught him?”
“I found him burgling the house.”
“Was that chap who called me brother a burglar?” cried Mr. Braddock,
amazed. “I thought he was your man.”
“Well, he wasn’t. What happened next?”
“The bloke proceeded to de-bag old Tilbury. Then shoving on the
trousers, he started to leg it. Old Tilbury at this juncture appears to
have said ‘Hi! What about me?’ or words to that effect; upon which the
bloke replied, ‘Use your own judgment!’ and passed into the night. When
I came in, old Tilbury was in the drawing-room, wearing the evening
paper as a sort of kilt and not looking too dashed pleased with things
in general.”
“Well, come along and see him.”
“Not me,” said Mr. Braddock. “I’ve had ten minutes of him and it has
sufficed. Also, I’ve got to be buzzing up to town. I’m dining out.
Besides, it’s you he wants to see, not me.”
“I wonder what he wants to see me about.”
“Must be something important to bring him charging down here. Well, I’ll
be moving, old boy. Mustn’t keep you. Thanks for a very pleasant
afternoon.”
Willoughby Braddock took his departure; and Sam, having gone to his
bedroom and found a pair of grey flannel trousers, returned to the lower
regions and went into the drawing-room.
* * * * *
He had not expected to find his visitor in anything approaching a mood
of sunniness, but he was unprepared for the red glare of hate and
hostility in the eyes which seared their way through him as he entered.
It almost seemed as if Lord Tilbury imagined the distressing happenings
of the last quarter of an hour to be Sam’s fault.
“So there you are!” said Lord Tilbury.
He had been standing with an air of coyness behind the sofa; but now, as
he observed the trousers over Sam’s arm, he swooped forward feverishly
and wrenched them from him. He pulled them on, muttering thickly to
himself; and this done, drew himself up and glared at his host once more
with that same militant expression of loathing in his eyes.
He seemed keenly alive to the fact that he was not looking his best. Sam
was a long-legged man, and in the case of Lord Tilbury, Nature, having
equipped him with an outsize in brains, had not bothered much about his
lower limbs. The borrowed trousers fell in loose folds about his ankles,
brushing the floor. Nor did they harmonise very satisfactorily with the
upper portion of a morning suit. Seeing him, Sam could not check a faint
smile of appreciation.
Lord Tilbury saw the smile, and it had the effect of increasing his fury
to the point where bubbling rage becomes a sort of frozen calm.
“You are amused,” he said tensely.
Sam repudiated the dreadful charge.
“No, no! Just thinking of something.”
“Cor!” said Lord Tilbury.
Sam perceived that a frank and soothing explanation must be his first
step. After that, and only after that, could he begin to institute
inquiries as to why His Lordship had honoured him with this visit.
“That fellow who stole your trousers----”
“I have no wish to discuss him,” said Lord Tilbury with hauteur. “The
fact that you employ a lunatic manservant causes me no surprise.”
“He wasn’t my manservant. He was a burglar.”
“A burglar? Roaming at large about the house? Did you know he was here?”
“Oh, yes. I caught him and I made him take his trousers off, and then I
went next door to tea.”
Lord Tilbury expelled a long breath.
“Indeed? You went next door to tea?”
“Yes.”
“Leaving this--this criminal----”
“Well, I knew he couldn’t get away. Oh, I had reasoned it all out. Your
happening to turn up was just a bit of bad luck. Was there anything you
wanted to see me about?” asked Sam, feeling that the sooner this
interview terminated the pleasanter it would be.
Lord Tilbury puffed out his cheeks and stood smouldering for a moment.
In the agitation of the recent occurrences, he had almost forgotten the
tragedy which had sent him hurrying down to Mon Repos.
“Yes, there was,” he said. He sizzled for another brief instant. “I may
begin by telling you,” he said, “that your uncle, Mr. Pynsent, when he
sent you over here to join my staff, practically placed me _in loco
parentis_ with respect to you.”
“An excellent idea,” said Sam courteously.
“An abominable idea! It was an iniquitous thing to demand of a busy man
that he should take charge of a person of a character so erratic, so
undisciplined, so--er--eccentric as to border closely upon the insane.”