George Has A Shot At Paradise.
I.
Two hours after George, leaving his Mary near Paltley Hill railway
station, had got back to his inn at Temple Colney, a very agitated
young man booked from Temple Colney to Paltley Hill and was now speeding
between them in the train.
He had the carriage to himself. Sometimes he sat, hands deep in pockets,
legs thrust before him, staring with wide and frightened eyes at the
opposite seat. Sometimes he paced wildly from door to door, chin sunk on
breast, in his eyes still that look of frantic apprehension. Sometimes
he would snatch from his pocket a telegram; glare at it; pucker his
brows over it; groan over it.
George was this feverish young man.
On his table in his room at the inn he had found this telegram awaiting
him. He had broken the envelope, had read, and immediately a tickling
feeling over his scalp had sent a dreadful shiver through his frame:
“_Return at once. Cat found.--Marrapit._”
He had plumped into a chair.
For a space the capacity for thought was gone. In his brain was only
a heavy drumming that numbed. Beneath the window a laden cart went
thumping by--thump, thump; thump, thump--cat found; cat found. The cart
drubbed away and was lost. Then the heavy ticking of the clock edged
into his senses--tick, tock; tick, tock--cat found; cat found.
Then thought came.
Cat found!--then all was lost. Cat found!--then some damned prowling
idiot had chanced upon the hut.
This miserable George had felt certain that Professor Wyvern's arguments
would overcome his Mary's scruples. That little meeting with his Mary
had made him the more desperately anxious for success so that he might
win her and have her. And now--cat found!--all over. Cat found! His
pains for nothing!
Then came the support of a hope, and to this, hurrying back to the
station, speeding now in the train, most desperately he clung. The
Rose, he struggled to assure himself, had not been found at all. It was
impossible that anyone had been to the hut. Some idiot had found a
cat that answered to the Rose's description, and had telegraphed the
discovery to his uncle; or someone had brought a cat to his uncle and
his uncle was himself temporarily deluded.
Wildly praying that this might be so, George leaped from the train at
Paltley Hill; went rushing to the hut. Outside, for full ten minutes he
dared not push the door. What if he saw no Rose? What if all were indeed
lost?
He braced himself; pushed; entered.
At once he gave a whoop, and another whoop, and a third. He snapped his
fingers; cavorted through the steps of a wild dance that considerably
alarmed the noble cat that watched him.
For there was the Rose!
II.
When George had indulged his transports till he was calmer, he took a
moment's swift thought to decide his action.
Since someone was bouncing a spurious Rose on his uncle, he must delay,
he decided, no longer--must dash in with the true Rose at once. Surely
his uncle's delight would be sufficient to arouse in him the gratitude
that would produce the sum necessary for Runnygate!
Previously, when he had reflected upon the plan he should follow on
restoring the cat, he had been a little alarmed at the difficulties
he foresaw. Chief among them was the fact that his uncle, and the
detective, and heaven knew who else besides, would require a plausible
and circumstantial story of how the Rose had been found--might wish to
prosecute the thief. How to invent this story had caused George enormous
anxiety. He shuddered whenever he thought upon it; had steadily put it
behind him till the matter must be faced.
But this and all other difficulties he now sent flying. The relief of
freedom from the badgering he had endured since he abducted the Rose;
the enormous relief of finding that the Rose was not, after all, gone
from the hut; the tearing excitement of the thought that he had his very
fingers upon success--these combined to make him reckless of truth and
blind to doubts. He relied upon his uncle's transports of delight on
recovering the Rose--he felt that in the delirious excitement of that
joy everything must go well and unquestioned with him who had brought it
about. As to his Mary's scruples--time enough for them when the matter
was done.
This was George's feeling at the end of his rapid cogitation. A
heartless chuckle he gave as he thought of Bill and Mr. Brunger at
the inn, closely dogging the landlord; then he seized the cat and in a
second was bounding through the copse to Herons' Holt as Mrs. Major, a
short space ago, had bounded before him.