Throughout August, Guruism reigned supreme over the cultured life of
Riseholme, and the priestess and dispenser of its mysteries was Lucia.
Never before had she ruled from so elate a pinnacle, nor wielded so
secure a supremacy. None had access to the Guru but through her: all
his classes were held in the smoking-parlour and he meditated only in
Hamlet or in the sequestered arbour at the end of the laburnum walk.
Once he had meditated on the village green, but Lucia did not approve
of that and had led him, still rapt, home by the hand.
The classes had swelled prodigiously, for practically all Riseholmites
now were at some stage of instruction, with the exception of Hermy and
Ursy, who pronounced the whole thing "piffle," and, as gentle chaff for
Georgie, sometimes stood on one leg in the middle of the lawn and held
their breath. Then Hermy would say One, Two, Three, and they shouted
"Om" at the tops of their discordant voices. Now that the Guru was
practically interned in The Hurst, they had actually never set eyes on
him, for they had not chosen to come to the Hightum garden-party,
preferring to have a second round of golf, and meeting Lucia next day
had been distinctly irreverent on the subject of Eastern philosophy.
Since then she had not been aware of their existence.
Lucia now received special instruction from the Guru in a class all by
herself so prodigious was her advance in Yoga, for she could hold her
breath much longer than anybody else, and had mastered six postures,
while the next class which she attended also consisted of the other
original members, namely Daisy Quantock, Georgie and Peppino. They had
got on very well, too, but Lucia had quite shot away from them, and now
if the Guru had other urgent spiritual claims on him, she gave
instruction to a less advanced class herself. For this purpose she
habited herself in a peculiarly becoming dress of white linen, which
reached to her feet and had full flowing sleeves like a surplice.
It was girdled with a silver cord with long tassels, and had
mother-of-pearl buttons and a hood at the back lined with white satin
which came over her head. Below its hem as she sat and taught in a
really rather advanced posture showed the toes of her white morocco
slippers, and she called it her "Teacher's Robe." The class which she
taught consisted of Colonel Boucher, Piggy Antrobus and Mrs Weston:
sometimes the Colonel brought his bull-dogs with him, who lay and
snorted precisely as if they were doing breathing exercises, too. A
general air of joyful mystery and spiritual endeavour blew balmily
round them all, and without any doubt the exercises and the deep
breathing were extremely good for them.
One evening, towards the end of the month, Georgie was sitting in his
garden, for the half hour before dressing-time, thinking how busy he
was, and yet how extraordinarily young and fresh he felt. Usually this
month when Hermy and Ursy were with him was very fatiguing, and in
ordinary years he would have driven away with Foljambe and Dicky on
the day after their departure, and had a quiet week by the seaside. But
now, though his sisters were going away tomorrow morning, he had no
intention of taking a well-earned rest, in spite of the fact that not
only had he been their host all this time, but had done an amazing
quantity of other things as well. There had been the daily classes to
begin with, which entailed much work in the way of meditation and
exercises, as well as the actual learning, and also he had had another
job which might easily have taxed his energies to the utmost any other
year. For Olga Bracely had definitely bought that house without which
she had felt that life was not worth living, and Georgie all this month
had at her request been exercising a semi-independent supervision over
its decoration and furnishing. She had ordered the general scheme
herself and had sent down from London the greater part of the
furniture, but Georgie was commissioned to report on any likely pieces
of old stuff that he could find, and if expedition was necessary to act
on his own responsibility and buy them. But above all secrecy was still
necessary till the house was so complete that her Georgie might be
told, and by the end of the month Riseholme generally was in a state of
prostration following on the violent and feverish curiosity as to who
had taken the house. Georgie had gone so far as to confess that he
knew, but the most pathetic appeals as to the owner's identity had
fallen on obdurate, if not deaf, ears. Not the smallest hint would he
give on the subject, and though those incessant visits to the house,
those searchings for furniture, the bestowal of it in suitable places,
the superintendence of the making of the garden, the interviewings of
paperhangers, plumbers, upholsterers, painters, carpenters and so forth
occupied a great deal of time, the delicious mystery about it all, and
the fact that he was doing it for so adorable a creature, rendered his
exertions a positive refreshment. Another thing which, in conjunction
with this and his youth-giving studies, made him feel younger than ever
was the discreet arrival and perfect success of his toupet. No longer
was there any need to fear the dislocation of his espaliered locks. He
felt so secure and undetectable in that regard that he had taken to
wearing no hat, and was soon about to say that his hair was growing
more thickly than ever in consequence. But it was not quite time for
that yet: it would be inartistic to suggest that just a couple of weeks
of hatlessness had produced so desirable a result.
As he sat at ease after the labours of the day he wondered how the
coming of Olga Bracely to Riseholme would affect the economy of the
place. It was impossible to think of her with her beauty, her charm,
her fame, her personality as taking any second place in its life.
Unless she was really meaning to use Riseholme as a retreat, to take no
part in its life at all, it was hard to see what part she would take
except the first part. One who by her arrival at Lucia's ever-memorable
party had converted it in a moment from the most dire of Scrubs (in a
psychical sense) to the Hightumest gathering ever known could not lay
aside her distinction and pre-eminence. Never had Lucia "scored" so
amazingly as over Olga's late appearance, which had the effect of
bringing back all her departed guests with the compulsion of a magnet
over iron-filings, and sending up the whole party like a rocket into
the zenith of social success. All Riseholme knew that Olga had come
(after playing croquet with Georgie the entire afternoon) and had given
them free gratis and for nothing, such a treat as only the wealthiest
could obtain with the most staggering fees. Lady Ambermere alone,
driving back to The Hall with Pug and poor Miss Lyall, was the only
person who had not shared in that, and she knew all about it next day,
for Georgie had driven out on purpose to tell her, and met Lucia coming
away. How, then, would the advent of Olga affect Riseholme's social
working generally, and how would it affect Lucia in particular? And
what would Lucia say when she knew on whose behalf Georgie was so busy
with plumbers and painters, and with buying so many of the desirable
treasures in the Ambermere Arms?
Frankly he could not answer these conundrums: they presupposed
inconceivable situations, which yet, though inconceivable, were shortly
coming to pass, for Olga's advent might be expected before October,
that season of tea-parties that ushered in the multifarious gaieties of
the winter. Would Olga form part of the moonlit circle to whom Lucia
played the first movement of the Moonlight Sonata, and give a long sigh
at the end like the rest of them? And would Lucia when they had all
recovered a little from the invariable emotion go to her and say, "Olga
mia, just a little bit out of the Valkyrie? It would be so pleasant."
Somehow Georgie, with all his imagination, could not picture such a
scene. And would Olga take the part of second citizenness or something
of the sort when Lucia played Portia? Would Olga join the elementary
class of Yoga, and be instructed by Lucia in her Teacher's Robe? Would
she sing treble in the Christmas Carols, while Lucia beat time, and
said in syllables dictated by the rhythm, "Trebles a little flat! My
poor ears!"? Georgie could not imagine any of these things, and yet,
unless Olga took no part in the social life of Riseholme at all (and
that was equally inconceivable) what was the alternative? True, she had
said that she was coming here because it was so ideally lazy a
backwater, but Georgie did not take that seriously. She would soon see
what Riseholme was when its life poured down in spate, whirling her
punt along with it.
And finally, what would happen to him, when Olga was set as a shining
star in this firmament? Already he revolved about her, he was aware,
like some eager delighted little moon, drawn away from the orbit where
it had encircled so contentedly by the more potent planet. And the
measure of his detachment from that old orbit might be judged precisely
by the fact that the process of detachment which was already taking
place was marked by no sense of the pull of opposing forces at all. The
great new star sailing into the heavens had just picked him up by force
of its superior power of attraction, even as by its momentary
conjunction with Lucia at the garden-party it had raised her to a
magnitude she had never possessed before. That magnitude was still
Lucia's, and no doubt would be until the great star appeared again.
Then without effort its shining must surely eclipse every other
illumination, just as without effort it must surely attract all the
little moons to itself. Or would Lucia manage somehow or other, either
by sheer force of will, by desperate and hostile endeavour, or, on the
other hand, by some supreme tact and cleverness to harness the great
star to her own chariot? He thought the desperate and hostile endeavour
was more in keeping with Lucia's methods, and this quiet evening hour
represented itself to him as the lull before the storm.
The actual quiet of the moment was suddenly broken into. His front-door
banged, and the house was filled with running footsteps and screams of
laughter. But it was not uncommon for Hermy and Ursy to make this sort
of entrance, and at the moment Georgie had not the slightest idea of
how much further-reaching was the disturbance of the tranquillity. He
but drew a couple of long breaths, said "Om" once or twice, and was
quite prepared to find his deeper calm unshattered.
Hermy and Ursy ran down the steps into the garden where he sat still
yelling with laughter, and still Georgie's imagination went no further
than to suppose that one of them had laid a stymie for the other at
their golf, or driven a ball out of bounds or done some other of these
things that appeared to make the game so diverting to them.
"Georgie, you'll never guess!" cried Hermy.
"The Guru: the Om, of high caste and extraordinary sanctity," cried
Ursy.
"The Brahmin from Benares," shrieked Hermy.
"The great Teacher! Who do you think he is?" said Ursy. "We never seen
him before--"
"But we recognised him at once--"
"He recognised us, too, and didn't he run?--"
"Into The Hurst and shut the door--"
Georgie's deeper calm suddenly quivered like a jelly.
"My dears, you needn't howl so, or talk quite so loud," he said. "All
Riseholme will hear you. Tell me without shouting who it was you
thought you recognised."
"There's no think about it," said Hermy. "It was one of the cooks from
the Calcutta Restaurant in Bedford Street--"
"Where we often have lunch," said Ursy. "He makes the most delicious
curries."
"Especially when he's a little tipsy," said Hermy.
"And is about as much a Brahmin as I am."
"And always said he came from Madras."
"We always tip him to make the curry himself, so he isn't quite
ignorant about money."
"O Lord!" said Hermy, wiping her eyes. "If it isn't the limit!"
"And to think of Mrs Lucas and Colonel Boucher and you and Mrs
Quantock, and Piggy and all the rest of them sitting round a cook,"
said Ursy, "and drinking in his wisdom. Mr Quantock was on the right
track after all when he wanted to engage him."
Georgie with a fallen heart had first to satisfy himself that this was
not one of his sisters' jokes, and then tried to raise his fallen heart
by remembering that the Guru had often spoken of the dignity of simple
manual work, but somehow it was a blow, if Hermy and Ursy were right,
to know that this was a tipsy contriver of curry. There was nothing in
the simple manual office of curry-making that could possibly tarnish
sanctity, but the amazing tissue of falsehoods with which the Guru had
modestly masked his innocent calling was not so markedly in the spirit
of the Guides, as retailed by him. It was of the first importance,
however, to be assured that his sisters had not at present communicated
their upsetting discovery to anybody but himself, and after that to get
their promise that they would not do so.
This was not quite so easy, for Hermy and Ursy had projected a round of
visits after dinner to every member of the classes with the exception
of Lucia, who should wake up next morning to find herself the only
illusioned person in the place.
"She wouldn't like that, you know," said Hermy with brisk malice. "We
thought it would serve her out for never asking us to her house again
after her foolish old garden-party."
"My dear, you never wanted to go," said Georgie.
"I know we didn't, but we rather wanted to tell her we didn't want to
go. She wasn't nice. Oh, I don't think we can give up telling
everybody. It has made such sillies of you all. I think he's a real
sport."
"So do I," said Ursy. "We shall soon have him back at his curry-oven
again. What a laugh we shall have with him."
They subsided for just as long as it took Foljambe to come out of the
house, inform them that it was a quarter of an hour to dinner-time, and
return again. They all rose obediently.
"Well, we'll talk about it at dinner-time," said Georgie
diplomatically. "And I'll just go down to the cellar first to see if I
can find something you like."
"Good old Georgie," said Hermy. "But if you're going to bribe us, you
must bribe us well."
"We'll see," said he.
Georgie was quite right to be careful over his Veuve Clicquot,
especially since it was a bottle of that admirable beverage that Hermy
and Ursy had looted from his cellar on the night of their burglarious
entry. He remembered that well, though he had--chiefly from the desire
to keep things pleasant about his hair--joined in "the fun," and had
even produced another half-bottle. But tonight, even more than then,
there was need for the abolition of all petty economies, for the
situation would be absolutely intolerable if Hermy and Ursy spread
about Riseholme the fact that the introducers and innermost circle of
Yoga philosophers had sat at the feet of no Gamaliel at all, but at
those of a curry-cook from some low restaurant. Indeed he brought up a
second bottle tonight with a view if Hermy and Ursy were not softened
by the first to administer that also. They would then hardly be in a
condition to be taken seriously if they still insisted on making a
house-to-house visit in Riseholme, and tearing the veil from off the
features of the Guru. Georgie was far too upright of purpose to dream
of making his sisters drunk, but he was willing to make great
sacrifices in order to render them kind. What the inner circle would do
about this cook he had no idea; he must talk to Lucia about it, before
the advanced class tomorrow morning. But anything was better than
letting Hermy and Ursy loose in Riseholme with their rude laughs and
discreditable exposures. This evening safely over, he could discuss
with Lucia what was to be done, for Hermy and Ursy would have vanished
at cock-crow as they were going in for some golf-competition at a safe
distance. Lucia might recommend doing nothing at all, and wish to
continue enlightening studies as if nothing had happened. But Georgie
felt that the romance would have evaporated from the classes as regards
himself. Or again they might have to get rid of the Guru somehow. He
only felt quite sure that Lucia would agree with him that Daisy
Quantock must not be told. She with her thwarted ambitions of being the
prime dispenser of Guruism to Riseholme might easily "turn nasty" and
let it be widely known that she and Robert had seen through that fraud
long ago, and had considered whether they should not offer the Guru the
situation of cook in their household, for which he was so much better
qualified. She might even add that his leanings towards her pretty
housemaid had alone dissuaded her.
The evening went off with a success more brilliant than Georgie had
anticipated, and it was quite unnecessary to open the second bottle of
champagne. Hermy and Ursy, perhaps under the influence of the first,
perhaps from innate good-nature, perhaps because they were starting so
very early next morning, and wanted to be driven into Brinton, instead
of taking a slower and earlier train at this station, readily gave up
their project of informing the whole of Riseholme of their discovery,
and went to bed as soon as they had rooked their brother of eleven
shillings at cut-throat bridge. They continued to say, "I'll play the
Guru," whenever they had to play a knave, but Georgie found it quite
easy to laugh at that, so long as the humour of it did not spread. He
even himself said, "I'll Guru you, then," when he took a trick with the
Knave of Trumps.
The agitation and uncertainty caused him not to sleep very well, and in
addition there was a good deal of disturbance in the house, for his
sisters had still all their packing in front of them when they went to
bed and the doze that preceded sleep was often broken by the sound of
the banging of luggage, the clash of golf-clubs and steps on the stairs
as they made ready for their departure.
But after a while these disturbances ceased, and it was out of a deep
sleep that he awoke with the sense that some noise had awakened him.
Apparently they had not finished yet, for there was surely some faint
stir of movement somewhere. Anyhow they respected his legitimate desire
for quiet, for the noise, whatever it was, was extremely stealthy and
subdued. He thought of his absurd lark about burglars on the night of
their arrival, and smiled at the notion. His _toupet_ was in a
drawer close to his bed, but he had no substantial impulse to put it
on, and make sure that the noise was not anything other than his
sisters' preparations for their early start. For himself, he would have
had everything packed and corded long before dinner, if he was to start
next day, except just a suit case that would hold the apparatus of
immediate necessities, but then dear Hermy and Ursy were so ramshackle
in their ways. Some time he would have bells put on all the shutters as
he had determined to do a month ago, and then no sort of noise would
disturb him any more....
The Yoga-class next morning was (unusually) to assemble at ten, since
Peppino, who would not miss it for anything, was going to have a day's
fishing in the happy stream that flowed into the Avon, and he wanted to
be off by eleven. Peppino had made great progress lately and had
certain curious dizzy symptoms when he meditated which were highly
satisfactory.
Georgie breakfasted with his sisters at eight (they had enticed the
motor out of him to convey them to Brinton) and when they were gone,
Foljambe informed him that the housemaid had a sore throat, and had not
"done" the drawing-room. Foljambe herself would "do" it, when she had
cleaned the "young ladies'" rooms (there was a hint of scorn in this)
upstairs, and so Georgie sat on the window seat of the dining-room, and
thought how pleasant peace and quietness were. But just when it was
time to start for The Hurst in order to talk over the disclosures of
the night before with Lucia before the class, and perhaps to frame some
secretive policy which would obviate further exposure, he remembered
that he had left his cigarette-case (the pretty straw one with the
turquoise in the corner) in the drawing-room and went to find it. The
window was open, and apparently Foljambe _had_ just come in to let
fresh air into the atmosphere which Hermy and Ursy had so
uninterruptedly contaminated last night with their "fags" as they
called them, but his cigarette-case was not on the table where he
thought he had left it. He looked round, and then stood rooted to the
spot.
His glass-case of treasures was not only open but empty. Gone was the
Louis XVI snuff-box, gone was the miniature of Karl Huth, gone the
piece of Bow China, and gone the Faberge cigarette case. Only the Queen
Anne toy-porringer was there, and in the absence of the others, it
looked to him, as no doubt it had looked to the burglar, indescribably
insignificant.
Georgie gave a little low wailing cry, but did not tear his hair for
obvious reasons. Then he rang the bell three times in swift succession,
which was the signal to Foljambe that even if she was in her bath, she
must come at once. In she came with one of Hermy's horrid woolen
jerseys that had been left behind, in her hand.
"Yes, sir, what is it?" she asked, in an agitated manner, for never
could she remember Georgie having rung the bell three times except once
when a fish-bone had stuck in his throat, and once again when a note
had announced to him that Piggy was going to call and hoped to find him
alone. For answer Georgie pointed to the rifled treasure-case. "Gone!
Burgled!" he said. "Oh, my God!"
At that supreme moment the telephone bell sounded.
"See what it is," he said to Foljambe, and put the Queen Anne
toy-porringer in his pocket.
She came hurrying back.
"Mrs Lucas wants you to come around at once," she said.
"I can't," said Georgie. "I must stop here and send for the police.
Nothing must be moved," and he hastily replaced the toy-porringer on
the exact circle of pressed velvet where it had stood before.
"Yes, sir," said Foljambe, but in another moment she returned.
"She would be very much obliged if you would come at once," she said.
"There's been a robbery in the house."
"Well, tell her there's been one in mine," said Georgie irritably. Then
good-nature mixed with furious curiosity came to his aid.
"Wait here, then, Foljambe, on this very spot," he said, "and see that
nobody touches anything. I shall probably ring up the police from The
Hurst. Admit them."
In his agitation he put on his hat, instead of going bareheaded and was
received by Lucia, who had clearly been looking out of the music-room
window, at the door. She wore her Teacher's Robe.
"Georgie," she said, quite forgetting to speak Italian in her greeting,
"someone broke into Philip's safe last night, and took a hundred pounds
in bank-notes. He had put them there only yesterday in order to pay in
cash for that cob. And my Roman pearls."
Georgie felt a certain pride of achievement.
"I've been burgled, too," he said. "My Louis XVI snuff-box is
worth more than that, and there's the piece of Bow china, and the
cigarette-case, and the Karl Huth as well."
"My dear! Come inside," said she. "It's a gang. And I was feeling so
peaceful and exalted. It will make a terrible atmosphere in the house.
My Guru will be profoundly affected. An atmosphere where thieves have
been will stifle him. He has often told me how he cannot stop in a
house where there have been wicked emotions at play. I must keep it
from him. I cannot lose him."
Lucia had sunk down on a spacious Elizabethan settle in the hall. The
humorous spider mocked them from the window, the humorous stone fruit
from the plate beside the pot-pourri bowl. Even as she repeated, "I
cannot lose him," again, a tremendous rap came on the front door, and
Georgie, at a sign from his queen, admitted Mrs Quantock.
"Robert and I have been burgled," she said. "Four silver spoons--thank
God, most of our things are plate--eight silver forks and a Georgian
tankard. I could have spared all but the last."
A faint sign of relief escaped Lucia. If the foul atmosphere of thieves
permeated Daisy's house, too, there was no great danger that her Guru
would go back there. She instantly became sublime.
"Peace!" she said. "Let us have our class first, for it is ten already,
and not let any thought of revenge or evil spoil that for us. If I sent
for the police now I could not concentrate. I will not tell my Guru
what has happened to any of us, but for poor Peppino's sake I will ask
him to give us rather a short lesson. I feel completely calm. Om."
Vague nightmare images began to take shape in Georgie's mind, unworthy
suspicions based on his sisters' information the evening before. But
with Foljambe keeping guard over the Queen Anne porringer, there was
nothing more to fear, and he followed Lucia, her silver cord with
tassels gently swinging as she moved, to the smoking-parlour, where
Peppino was already sitting on the floor, and breathing in a rather
more agitated manner than was usual with the advanced class. There were
fresh flowers on the table, and the scented morning breeze blew in from
the garden. According to custom they all sat down and waited, getting
calmer and more peaceful every moment. Soon there would be the tapping
of slippered heels on the walk of broken paving-stones outside, and for
the time they would forget all these disturbances. But they were all
rather glad that Lucia was to ask the Guru to give them a shorter
lesson than usual.
They waited. Presently the hands of the Cromwellian timepiece which was
the nearest approach to an Elizabethan clock that Lucia had been able
at present to obtain, pointed to a quarter past ten.
"My Guru is a little late," said she.
Two minutes afterwards, Peppino sneezed. Two minutes after that Daisy
spoke, using irony.
"Would it not be well to see what has happened to your Guru, dear?" she
asked. "Have you seen your Guru this morning?"
"No, dear," said Lucia, not opening her eyes, for she was
"concentrating," "he always meditates before a class."
"So do I," said Daisy, "but I have meditated long enough."
"Hush!" said Lucia. "He is coming."
That proved to be a false alarm, for it was nothing but Lucia's Persian
cat, who had a quarrel with some dead laurel leaves. Lucia rose.
"I don't like to interrupt him," she said, "but time is getting on."
She left the smoking-parlour with the slow supple walk that she adopted
when she wore her Teacher's Robes. Before many seconds had passed, she
came back more quickly and with no suppleness.
"His door is locked", she said; "and yet there's no key in it."
"Did you look through the keyhole, _Lucia mia_?" asked Mrs
Quantock, with irrepressible irony.
Naturally Lucia disregarded this.
"I knocked," she said, "and there was no reply. I said, 'Master, we are
waiting,' and he didn't answer."
Suddenly Georgie spoke, as with the report of a cork flying out of a
bottle.
"My sisters told me last night that he was the curry-cook at the
Calcutta restaurant," he said. "They recognised him, and they thought
he recognised them. He comes from Madras, and is no more a Brahmin than
Foljambe."
Peppino bounded to his feet.
"What?" he said. "Let's get a poker and break in the door! I believe
he's gone and I believe he's the burglar. Ring for the police."
"Curry-cook, is he?" said Daisy. "Robert and I were right after all. We
knew what your Guru was best fitted for, dear Lucia, but then of course
you always know best, and you and he have been fooling us finely. But
you didn't fool me. I knew when you took him away from me, what sort of
a bargain you had made. Guru, indeed! He's the same class as Mrs Eddy,
and I saw through her fast enough. And now what are we to do? For my
part, I shall just get home, and ring up for the police, and say that
the Indian who has been living with you all these weeks has stolen my
spoons and forks and my Georgian tankard. Guru, indeed! Burglaroo, I
call him! There!"
Her passion, like Hyperion's, had lifted her upon her feet, and she
stood there defying the whole of the advanced class, short and stout
and wholly ridiculous, but with some revolutionary menace about her.
She was not exactly "terrible as an army with banners," but she was
terrible as an elderly lady with a long-standing grievance that had
been accentuated by the loss of a Georgian tankard, and that was
terrible enough to make Lucia adopt a conciliatory attitude. Bitterly
she repented having stolen Daisy's Guru at all, if the suspicions now
thickening in the air proved to be true, but after all they were not
proved yet. The Guru might still walk in from the arbor on the laburnum
alley which they had not yet searched, or he might be levitating with
the door key in his pocket. It was not probable but it was possible,
and at this crisis possibilities were things that must be clung to, for
otherwise you would simply have to submerge, like those U-boats.
They searched all the garden, but found no trace of the curry-cook:
they made guarded enquiries of the servants as to whether he had been
seen, but nothing whatever could be learned about him. So when Peppino
took a ponderous hammer and a stout chisel from his tool chest and led
the way upstairs, they all knew that the decisive moment had come.
Perhaps he might be meditating (for indeed it was likely that he had a
good deal to meditate about), but perhaps--Peppino called to him in his
most sonorous tones, and said that he would be obliged to break his
lock if no answer came, and presently the house resounded with
knockings as terrible as those in Macbeth, and much louder. Then
suddenly the lock gave, and the door was open.
The room was empty, and as they had all conjectured by now, the bed was
unslept in. They opened the drawers of the wardrobe and they were as
empty as the room. Finally, Peppino unlocked the door of a large
cupboard that stood in the corner, and with a clinking and crashing of
glass there poured out a cataract of empty brandy bottles. Emptiness:
that was the key-note of the whole scene, and blank consternation its
effect.
"My brandy!" said Mrs Quantock in a strangled voice. "There are
fourteen or fifteen bottles. That accounts for the glazed look in his
eyes which you, dear Lucia, thought was concentration. I call it
distillation."
"Did he take it from your cellar?" asked Lucia, too shattered to feel
resentment, but still capable of intense curiosity.
"No: he had a standing order from me to order any little things he
might want from my tradesmen. I wish I had my bills sent in every
week."
"Yes, dear," said Lucia.
Georgie's eyes sought hers.
"I saw him buy the first bottle," he said. "I remember telling you
about it. It was at Rush's."
Peppino gathered up his hammer and chisel.
"Well, it's no use sitting here and thinking of old times," he
observed. "I shall ring up the police-station and put the whole matter
into their hands, as far as I am concerned. They'll soon lay hands on
him, and he can do his postures in prison for the next few years."
"But we don't know that it was he who committed all these burglaries
yet," said Lucia.
No one felt it was worth answering this, for the others had all tried
and convicted him already.
"I shall do the same," said Georgie.
"My tankard," said Mrs Quantock. Lucia got up.
_"Peppino mio,"_ she said, "and you, Georgie, and you, Daisy, I
want you before you do anything at all to listen to me for five
minutes. Just consider this. What sort of figure shall we all cut if we
put the matter into the hands of the police? They will probably catch
him, and it will all come out that we have been the dupes of a
curry-cook. Think what we have all been doing for this last month,
think of our classes, our exercises, our--everything. We have been made
fools of, but for my part, I simply couldn't bear that everybody should
know I had been made a fool of. Anything but that. What's a hundred
pounds compared to that, or a tankard--"
"My Louis XVI snuff-box was worth at least that without the other
things," said Georgie, still with a secret satisfaction in being the
greatest sufferer.
"And it was my hundred pounds, not yours, _carissima,"_ said
Peppino. But it was clear that Lucia's words were working within him
like leaven.
"I'll go halves with you," she said. "I'll give you a cheque for fifty
pounds."
"And who would like to go halves in my tankard?" said Daisy with bitter
irony. "I want my tankard."
Georgie said nothing, but his mind was extremely busy. There was Olga
soon coming to Riseholme, and it would be awful if she found it ringing
with the tale of the Guru, and glancing across to Peppino, he saw a
thoughtful and sympathetic look in his eyes, that seemed to indicate
that his mind was working on parallel lines. Certainly Lucia had
given them all something to meditate upon. He tried to imagine the
whole story being shouted into Mrs Antrobus's ear-trumpet on the
village-green, and could not endure the idea. He tried to imagine Mrs
Weston ever ceasing to talk about it, and could not picture her silence.
No doubt they had all been taken in, too, but here in this empty bedroom
were the original dupes, who encouraged the rest.
After Mrs Quantock's enquiry a dead silence fell.
"What do you propose, then?" asked Peppino, showing signs of surrender.
Lucia exerted her utmost wiles.
_"Caro!"_ she said. "I want 'oo to propose. Daisy and me, we silly
women, we want 'oo and Georgie to tell us what to do. But if Lucia must
speak, I fink--"
She paused a moment, and observing strong disgust at her playfulness on
Mrs Quantock's face, reverted to ordinary English again.
"I should do something of this sort," she said. "I should say that dear
Daisy's Guru had left us quite suddenly, and that he has had a call
somewhere else. His work here was done; he had established our classes,
and set all our feet upon the Way. He always said that something of the
sort might happen to him----"
"I believe he had planned it all along," said Georgie. "He knew the
thing couldn't last for ever, and when my sisters recognised him, he
concluded it was time to bolt."
"With all the available property he could lay hands on," said Mrs
Quantock.
Lucia fingered her tassel.
"Now about the burglaries," she said. "It won't do to let it be known
that three burglaries were committed in one night, and that
simultaneously Daisy's Guru was called away--"
"My Guru, indeed!" said Mrs Quantock, fizzing with indignation at the
repetition of this insult.
"That might give rise to suspicion," continued Lucia calmly,
disregarding the interruption, "and we must stop the news from
spreading. Now with regard to our burglary ... let me think a moment."
She had got such complete control of them all now that no one spoke.
"I have it," she said. "Only Boaler knows, for Peppino told her not to
say a word till the police had been sent for. You must tell her,
_carissimo,_ that you have found the hundred pounds. That settles
that. Now you, Georgie."
"Foljambe knows," said Georgie.
"Then tell her not to say a word about it. Put some more things out in
your lovely treasure-case, no one will notice. And you, Daisy."
"Robert is away," said she, quite meekly, for she had been thinking
things over. "My maid knows."
"And when he comes back, will he notice the loss of the tankard? Did
you often use it?"
"About once in ten years."
"Chance it, then," said Lucia. "Just tell your maid to say nothing
about it."
She became deliciously modest again.
"There!" she said. "That's just a little rough idea of mine and now
Peppino and Georgie will put their wise heads together, and tell us
what to do."
That was easily done: they repeated what she had said, and she
corrected them if they went wrong. Then once again she stood fingering
the tassels of her Teacher's Robe.
"About our studies," she said. "I for one should be very sorry to drop
them altogether, because they made such a wonderful difference to me,
and I think you all felt the same. Look at Georgie now: he looks ten
years younger than he did a month ago, and as for Daisy, I wish I could
trip about as she does. And it wouldn't do, would it, to drop
everything just because Daisy's Guru--I mean our Guru--had been called
away. It would look as if we weren't really interested in what he
taught us, as if it was only the novelty of having a--a Brahmin among
us that had attracted us."
Lucia smiled benignly at them all.
"Perhaps we shall find, bye and bye, that we can't progress much all by
ourselves," she said, "and it will all drop quietly. But don't let us
drop it with a bang. I shall certainly take my elementary class as
usual this afternoon."
She paused.
"In my Robe, just as usual," she said.