AN EVENING OF THRILLS
Things simply will not leave off happening in this house! I should
think we had come to the climax of them to-night!
Still! touch wood, you never know! There may be something else
waiting to happen just round the corner.
To begin at the beginning. It was the evening after Evelyn had
confided to me her love affair.
What a contrast between the beginning of that evening--and the end of
it!
To start with the beginning.
We had spent a very quiet time in the drawing-room, Aunt Victoria
playing patience on her green-covered table by the fire, and I busily
embroidering a chemise top which I had just made out of two very nice
hankies, and which I meant to be a belated wedding present for my
sister Nancy.
Because, even if she is able to afford to pay for the new trousseau
pretties out of his grandfather's reconciled allowance, I should
think she would still rather like to have a few little things made
for her by her own flesh and blood. So I have been sewing "a kiss
and a good wish" into every stitch of this chimmie top, as you always
should into the presents that you give to somebody that you are very
fond of.
Evelyn, looking more than washed-out, poor child! after her fit of
crying and confidence this afternoon, was rather languidly knitting a
pair of khaki mittens for one of the men in Mr. Lascelles's company.
Mr. Lascelles himself was stretched out in his own particular
armchair, which is the comfiest one in the drawing-room.
And so it ought to be, considering how hard he has to work, poor boy!
and how he simply tears about all day. It really is just like that
thing he's always humming:
"'_I do all the work,' says the Subaltern._"
To-day it was trousers, if you'll believe it; hours of his time taken
up over four pair of the most awful khaki bags that looked just as if
they were made of the old felt that we've got underneath the
stair-carpet. "Please, sir, do you think these are worth mending?"
and all that. Combined with some complication with a person who is
called the Officer-in-charge-of-stores, who is always complaining
that the precious stores have been misused, and getting people
strafed when they don't deserve it one bit. Mr. Lascelles said he
was quite looking forward to settling down to a little peace and
quiet in the trenches, after all this.
However, he was settled down in his chair for the present, smoking a
cigarette--oh, yes! cigarettes in Aunt Victoria's drawing-room are
nothing, nowadays. I fully expect to see her light up herself one of
these evenings! Well! He was smoking a cigarette and chuckling over
a copy of _The Natal Newsletter_, that ship's newspaper that was
written and printed and everything on board ship. It had been lent
to him by the Commander, who had pinched it off one of the men on a
trawler.
"You might read aloud to us," I said, stitching away.
And he, Mr. Lascelles, said he'd read a poem that was supposed to be
about H.M.S. _Queen Elizabeth_.
"It isn't unlike you, yourself," he said, rather mischievously. "It
begins:
"'_She's quite a modern-to-the-minute flapper----_'"
"I do hate being called a flapper!" I put in, but he frowned me down.
It wasn't a real frown, you know: we were quite friends, now.
"'_And older folk have called her rather fast----_'"
("H'm, that's not so appropriate") put in Mr. Lascelles, reading on:
"'_She's a girl of very vigorous opinions._'"
("That's all in order, isn't it?")
"'_Though young, already has a vivid Past._'"
("That's the joy-ride to the Junction, Miss Elizabeth, the day of
your sister's wedding.")
"'_When she goes a-walking out there's consternation
Among the baggy-trousered Eastern swells.
For she's slinging Cupid's arrows
In the region of their narrows
Is our bu-sy little Lizzie in the dizzy Dardanelles!_'"
Here Aunt Victoria looked up from her patience and asked mildly:
"What are you reading, Mr. Lascelles? Aren't you going on?"
I should have liked him to, but he didn't. He got up, looked at Aunt
Victoria's patience for a minute, then said that as he had had a
rather hefty day's work he thought he would turn in early.
"Good-night, Mrs. Verdeley," he said. "Good-night, Miss Evelyn."
Then he turned to me on his way to the door, and caught my eyes and
said in a lower tone that I don't think the others could possibly
have caught, "Good-night, Miss Betty."
To show there was no ill-will I smiled up at him from my seat on the
_pouffe_ and said, "Good-night, Lonely Subaltern!"
Then I went on embroidering that white silk true-lovers' knot on
young Mrs. Masters' chemise-top, and thinking how funny it was that
I'd ever really disliked him. Evelyn was knitting away, mooning away
at the same time, I expect, over her extremely uninteresting (except
to her) young lover. Aunt Victoria continued to murmur to her cards,
"Ah! that, and that, and _that_. Is it going to come out now? I
believe I shall get it to come out after all." And the fire-flames
"talked" softly in the grate, and everything under the pink lamplight
of the cosy, old-fashioned room was Peace, perfect Peace.
I suppose that peace must have lasted for about five or seven minutes
after Mr. Lascelles had gone upstairs. Then, as suddenly as thunder
in the dark, the peace was shattered by the sound of the quickest,
sharpest "Crack--Crack!"
An explosion? Another raid?
"The Zeppelins! Oh, my goodness, those horrible Zeppelins again!"
shrieked Aunt Victoria, starting up and scattering all her cards,
while the sewing dropped from my hands and the knitting from Evelyn's.
Before we had got up to put out all the lights (as we have been
warned to do by the posters) there followed, quick upon the sound of
those two shots, loud screaming--a shout--(there seemed to come from
the top of our house) and then a hammering and violent ringing at our
front door! I rushed to it, and opened it. There were Mr. Curtis
and four of the sappers from the nearest house to us, all very
breathless and excited-looking, all chorusing, "What's up? what's
up?" Mr. Curtis, rather white, added, "Where's Evelyn?" And then
went on, "I heard shots fired: it is in your house! What has
happened?"
"I don't know," I began, still bewildered. Then Aunt Victoria came
out, still clutching the knave of spades in her hand, and Evelyn
looking over her shoulder.
"Shots came from the garret--I'm sure--they did," declared Mr. Curtis
quickly. (In fact, you must please remember that all these sayings
and doings took place much more quickly than I can possibly write, or
you read about them. It was one mad rush, I can tell you.) "Come
along, you men," called Mr. Curtis; "we must run up and see."
He dashed up the stairs with the four sappers at his heels, me after
them, and Evelyn after me.
Aunt Victoria panted two steps behind Evelyn.
On the first landing we ran into Mary, the housemaid, all ready for
bed.
Her face was as white as her nightie and her eyes were nearly out of
her head with terror. She seized Mr. Curtis by the arm and
exclaimed: "Oh, Lor! I believe I am going to faint."
Here Mr. Curtis shook her--a thing I have often longed to do
myself--and she left off flopping and looked indignantly at the
sappers and said: "Any one would be ready to faint! Happened? Why,
there's that little Mr. Lascelles and old Penny just been and gone
and murdered each other in the attic."
"Murdered!" gasped Aunt Victoria from the rear.
And I knew what it meant when it says in books that people's hearts
have stopped beating with horror. For a moment I really did feel as
if my own heart had stopped.
Mr. Lascelles? Murdered?
Ah, no, no, no! This must be some sort of hideous nightmare! It
could only be that. It was so like the sort of things that only
happen in dreams.
I saw Mr. Curtis put Mary firmly but not too gently aside and then
pelt up the next flight of stairs on to the second landing, then on
to the attic, where old Penny sleeps next door to the maids.
And here I found that I had rushed in front of the sappers and the
others, and was close beside Mr. Curtis as he flung open the door of
old Penny's room. It was dark.
Mr. Curtis struck a match and quickly turned on the gas, of which
there is a bracket close to the side of the door.
The flaring light fell on the most extraordinary picture I have ever
seen, either on a cinema or anywhere else.
The bed, which had been in the farther corner of the room, had been
dragged into the middle of it, close under the skylight. The
skylight was uncovered and open. On the bed was the figure of Penny,
our gardener, fully dressed in his brown corduroys and his gardening
leggings. One hand, hanging over the edge of the bed, was fumbling
frantically about for something that lay just out of his reach on the
floor. At that awful moment I didn't even take in what it was that
he was trying to get at. Mr. Curtis dashed forward and snatched it
up. It was a revolver. ("A thing dear old Penny never _had_!" as
Aunt Victoria kept on saying.) A revolver for which he was feeling
blindly--yes, thank Heavens, he _was_ blinded!
Covering and muffling his head, which we couldn't see, of course, was
the thick curtain of dark green serge which Aunt Victoria had sent up
to his room for him to tack over the skylight so that not a vestige
of light should get through and get him into disgrace with the
military authorities.
He was struggling violently, making what I suppose are the
"superhuman" efforts they're always doing in Henry's books, to free
himself. For he was pinned down as he kicked and writhed. Half
sitting, half lying on his chest, was Mr. Lascelles. Mr. Lascelles
had blood trickling from a wound in his head down his cheek and chin,
and his right arm was hanging all limp and helpless and
dreadful-looking at his side.
"Hullo!" he said, smiling in a crooked way as we came in and Mr.
Curtis rushed on him. "I have just collared this beauty signalling
through the skylight with his electric torch! How's that for a fair
cop, Miss Betty?"
At the last word he just toppled over and fell face downwards on to
the still struggling Penny.
He had fainted dead away.
* * * * * * * *
It's now a whole day after that scene in the attic, and I am only
just getting clear in my mind about what has happened.
Mr. Lascelles, who had been pretty badly hurt (they find), is in his
room with a hospital nurse from the Junction to look after him.
Just as if Aunt Victoria and Evelyn and I couldn't do everything the
doctor wanted! It seems to me that all the nurse does is to give
herself fearful airs, and to send us running about on various
messages for herself all day. Every time I have been to the door to
see if there wasn't something I could do myself for Mr. Lascelles I
have been held up by a starched blue-and-white figure who hasn't so
much as let me put my foot over the threshold. I have only twice
been able to catch a glimpse of Mr. Lascelles's bandaged red head
lying on the pillow; once he didn't even see me, but the other time
he just did. I saw him twist his poor, feverishly flushed little
face into the funniest grimace of dislike at the nurse's back, just
before she shut the door upon me.
I went down to Mr. Curtis, who was in the drawing-room, having torn
over to the Junction and back on his motor-cycle to bring some grapes
and everything else that he could think of in the way of comforts for
his wounded friend.
Isn't it extraordinary that we, in this peaceful camp-of-instruction
place, should have in our house a real, live, wounded officer,
wounded on the spot, too, by the enemy--by a German?
For, would you believe it! After all these years old Penny, our
gardener--that faithful old man as we have thought him--has turned
out to be nothing in the world but a German spy!
Think of that!
Faithful, indeed! Do you know that all these ten years that he has
been here it has been with only one idea in his mind apparently, and
that is to help with the landing party in this place as soon as the
war broke out which the Germans have been planning for years and
years. He got in bright and early, you see, so that he should be
looked upon as the oldest inhabitant, so to speak, and quite one of
the landmarks of the place. Nobody having the vaguest suspicion
except that he was a dear old hard-working Englishman!
And "old," you know. Would you believe it, he isn't even old! That
"pathetic" black wig that we all thought was because he didn't want
to go about as bald as a pale pink Easter egg, was all part of the
take-in. When I saw him being marched off by the military police who
were fetched by the sappers that dreadful night, they tore off his
wig, and there he was underneath, if you please, with a thick stubble
of hair as fair as our own! As for his walking lame with rheumatism,
that was an old sabre-cut on the leg--from one of his superior
officers, I suppose.
(Later.)
Mr. Curtis has just told me the latest about our treasure of a
gardener. They have found out who old Penny is. His name is Otto
Pfennig, and there was enough information in the papers they found in
his garret to have given away every fortified place along this bit of
coast! That is what he has been up to. That was why I met him that
afternoon in the field sniffing round the explosives and saps and
things; that was why he had pretended to have "screwmatics" so badly
that he should leave his cottage, and be able to come and live in our
garret, where there was a nice skylight convenient for signalling
from.
That was why Mr. Lascelles had that bust-up with him the night of the
Zeppelin raid when he found Penny with the skylight uncovered.
But Mr. Lascelles has had his eye on Penny ever since, Mr. Curtis
says. He was absolutely certain that there was something very fishy
about him, and so he shadowed him, and watched him, and that night
when he went to bed early it was really more to reconnoitre than
anything else.
It seems he had got another key cut in the R.E. workshops to fit the
door of Penny's attic, which Penny, if you please, always kept
locked, pretending that he was frightened of burglars! So Mr.
Lascelles was able to steal in softly behind him and to find him with
that electric torch which helped the Zeppelin raid over London that
same night!
Mr. Lascelles had his revolver, and was just going to cover Penny,
but the German, who was a much bigger man, flung himself on to the
top of Mr. Lascelles, and wrested it from him.
Then little Mr. Lascelles seized hold of the skylight curtain, which
was lying on the bed, and managed just in the very nick of time to
get it round Penny's head just as Penny fired.
Those two shots in the dark were what we heard. Of course, they
would have killed poor little Mr. Lascelles if the German had been
able to see what he was doing: as it was, they shattered his right
upper arm and tore his--Mr. Lascelles's--scalp. Thank Heaven he had
the pistol knocked out of his hand and couldn't get at it to fire off
the other four chambers.
Then, while we all pelted upstairs, there must have been a desperate
scuffle between the German gardener and Mr. Lascelles, who still
managed to keep that thick serge curtain wound over his head and
round his throat, and who sat on his chest, keeping him down, just as
a small, very game terrier is sometimes able to hold his own with a
much bigger and more powerful mongrel.
"As it was," said Mr. Curtis, "the rescue party only just got up
there in the very nick of time. That fellow would have wrested
himself free and downed Lascelles in another minute."
"Dear me, oh, _dear_ me!" murmured Aunt Victoria, looking in an
absolute daze of not realising anything yet. "I daresay he might
have hurt him dreadfully!"
"I should have been sorry for him then. For the German gentleman, I
mean, if Lascelles's men had got hold of him," said Mr. Curtis,
grimly. I quite liked him at that moment, being so very angry made
him look almost _nice_! Perhaps Evelyn always sees him like that?
"They'd have picked that spy to pieces like an old woman feathering a
goose."
"That would have been very wrong," said Aunt Victoria, who is one of
those people who sometimes forget that we are fighting Germans, and
not merely savage tribes and barbarians that you have to remember the
rules of war with. _I_ didn't see why Herr Otto Pfennig shouldn't
have been given over to Mr. Lascelles's Field Company as it was, to
do what they thought fit with. None of the officers in the place
need have been passing at the time!
"He was a good gardener while he was a gardener," Aunt Victoria stood
up for him. "And he thinks he's right in doing what he can for his
country, just as you are, Mr. Curtis." (Poor Mr. Curtis looked as if
he wondered why he had ever joined to defend his country, if his
countrywomen thought of him in the same breath as a Boche!)
Aunt Victoria wound up by asking anxiously, "What do you think will
be done with him?"
Mr. Curtis shrugged his rather bony shoulders and said he supposed
Mr. Pfennig would be given the best quarters in the Junction
Barracks, turning out several of our officers to make room for him;
and that he would be allowed to go over to the nearest
concentration-camp and pick out whichever of the German prisoners he
fancied to be his batman and wait on him.
"At least, he's certain to be treated with the utmost consideration,"
he assured Aunt Victoria. "It's only British prisoners who cannot
expect to have every comfort and luxury when they fall into alien
hands. You needn't worry about him, Mrs. Verdeley. It's Lascelles
I'm worrying about. That head-wound of his is jolly nasty. The
nurse says his temperature is up again."