I
MRS. ROBERTS, DR. LAWTON, MRS. CRASHAW, MR. BEMIS, YOUNG MR. AND MRS.
BEMIS
MRS. ROBERTS, surrounded by her guests, and confronting from her sofa Mr.
Bemis, who still remains sunken in his armchair, has apparently closed an
exhaustive recital of the events which have ended in his presence there.
She looks round with a mixed air of self-denial and self-satisfaction to
read the admiration of her listeners in their sympathetic countenances.
DR. LAWTON, with an ironical sigh of profound impression: ‘Well, Mrs.
Roberts, you are certainly the most lavishly hospitable of hostesses.
Every one knows what delightful dinners you give; but these little
dramatic episodes which you offer your guests, by way of appetizer, are
certainly unique. Last year an elevator stuck in the shaft with half the
company in it, and this year a highway robbery, its daring punishment and
its reckless repetition—what the newspapers will call “A Triple Mystery”
when it gets to them—and both victims among our commensals! Really, I
don’t know what more we could ask of you, unless it were the foot-padded
footpad himself as a commensal. If this sort of thing should become _de
rigueur_ in society generally, I don’t know what’s to become of people
who haven’t your invention.’
MRS. ROBERTS: ‘Oh, it’s all very well to make fun now, Dr. Lawton; but if
you had been here when they first came in—’
YOUNG MRS. BEMIS: ‘Yes, indeed, I think so too, Mrs. Roberts. If Mr.
Bemis—Alfred, I mean—and papa hadn’t been with me when you came out there
to prepare us, I don’t know what I should have done. I should certainly
have died, or gone through the floor.’ She looks fondly up into the face
of her husband for approval, where he stands behind her chair, and
furtively gives him her hand for pressure.’
YOUNG MR. BEMIS: ‘Somebody ought to write to the Curwens—Mrs. Curwen,
that is—about it.’
MRS. BEMIS, taking away her hand: ‘Oh yes, papa, _do_ write!’
LAWTON: ‘I will, my dear. Even Mrs. Curwen, dazzling away in another
sphere—hemisphere—and surrounded by cardinals and all the other celestial
lights there at Rome, will be proud to exploit this new evidence of
American enterprise. I can fancy the effect she will produce with it.’
MRS. ROBERTS: ‘And the Millers—what a shame they couldn’t come! How
excited they would have been!—that is, Mrs. Miller. Is their baby very
bad, Doctor?’
LAWTON: ‘Well, vaccination is always a very serious thing—with a first
child. I should say, from the way Mrs. Miller feels about it, that
Miller wouldn’t be able to be out for a week to come yet.’
MRS. ROBERTS: ‘Oh, how ridiculous you are, Doctor!’
BEMIS, rising feebly from his chair: ‘Well, now that it’s all explained,
Mrs. Roberts, I think I’d better go home; and if you’ll kindly have them
telephone for a carriage—’
MRS. ROBERTS: ‘_No_, indeed, Mr. Bemis! We shall not let you go. Why,
the _idea_! You must stay and take dinner with us, just the same.’
BEMIS: ‘But in this state—’
MRS. ROBERTS: ‘Oh, never mind the _state_. You look perfectly well; and
if you insist upon going, I shall know that you bear a grudge against
Edward for not arresting him. Wait! We can put you in perfect order in
just a second.’ She flies out of the room, and then comes swooping back
with a needle and thread, a fresh white necktie, a handkerchief, and a
hair-brush. ‘There! I can’t let you go to Edward’s dressing-room,
because he’s there himself, and the children are in mine, and we’ve had
to put the new maid in the guest-chamber—you _are_ rather cramped in
flats, that’s true; that’s the worst of them—but if you don’t mind having
your toilet made in public, like the King of France—’
BEMIS, entering into the spirit of it: ‘Not the least; but—’ He laughs,
and drops back into his chair.
MRS. ROBERTS, distributing the brush to young Mr. Bemis, and the tie to
his wife, and dropping upon her knees before Mr. Bemis: ‘Now, Mrs. Lou,
you just whip off that crumpled tie and whip on the fresh one, and,
_Mister_ Lou, you give his hair a touch, and I’ll have this torn
button-hole mended before you can think.’ She seizes it and begins to
sew vigorously upon it.
MRS. CRASHAW: ‘Agnes, you are the most ridiculously sensible woman in the
country.’
LAWTON, standing before the group, with his arms folded and his feet well
apart, in an attitude of easy admiration: ‘The Wounded Adonis, attended
by the Loves and Graces. Familiar Pompeiian fresco.’
MRS. ROBERTS, looking around at him: ‘I don’t see a great many Loves.’
LAWTON: ‘She ignores us, Mrs. Crashaw. And after what you’ve just said!’
MRS. ROBERTS: ‘Then why don’t you do something?’
LAWTON: ‘The Loves _never_ do anything—in frescoes. They stand round and
sympathise. Besides, we are waiting to administer an anæsthetic. But
what I admire in this subject even more than the activity of the Graces
is the serene dignity of the Adonis. I have seen my old friend in many
trying positions, but I never realised till now all the simpering
absurdity, the flattered silliness, the senile coquettishness, of which
his benign countenance was capable.’
MRS. ROBERTS: ‘Don’t mind him a bit, Mr. Bemis; it’s nothing but—’
LAWTON: ‘Pure envy. I own it.’
BEMIS: ‘All right, Lawton. Wait till—’
MRS. ROBERTS, making a final stitch, snapping off the thread, and
springing to her feet, all in one: ‘There, have you finished, Mr. and
Mrs. Lou? Well, then, take this lace handkerchief, and draw it down from
his neck and pin it in his waistcoat, and you have—’
LAWTON, as Mr. Bemis rises to his feet: ‘A Gentleman of the Old School.
Bemis, you look like a miniature of yourself by Malbone. Rather
flattered, but—recognisable.’
BEMIS, with perfectly recovered gaiety: ‘Go on, go on, Lawton. I can
understand your envy. I can pity it.’
LAWTON: ‘Could you forgive Roberts for not capturing the garotter?’
BEMIS: ‘Yes, I could. I could give the garotter his liberty, and present
him with an admission to the Provident Woodyard, where he could earn an
honest living for his family.’
LAWTON, compassionately: ‘You _are_ pretty far gone, Bemis. Really, I
think somebody ought to go for Roberts.’
MRS. ROBERTS, innocently: ‘Yes, indeed! Why, what in the world can be
keeping him?’ A nursemaid enters and beckons Mrs. Roberts to the door
with a glance. She runs to her; they whisper; and then Mrs. Roberts,
over her shoulder: ‘That ridiculous great boy of mine says he can’t go to
sleep unless I come and kiss him good-night.’
LAWTON: ‘Which ridiculous great boy, I wonder?—Roberts, or Campbell? But
I didn’t know they had gone to bed!’
MRS. BEMIS: ‘You are too bad, papa! You know it’s little Neddy.’
MRS. ROBERTS, vanishing: ‘Oh, I don’t mind his nonsense, Lou. I’ll fetch
them both back with me.’
LAWTON, after making a melodramatic search for concealed listeners at the
doors: ‘Now, friends, I have a revelation to make in Mrs. Roberts’s
absence. I have found out the garotter—the assassin.’
ALL THE OTHERS: ‘What!’
LAWTON: ‘He has been secured—’
MRS. CRASHAW, severely: ‘Well, I’m very glad of it.’
YOUNG BEMIS: ‘By the police?’
MRS. BEMIS, incredulously: ‘Papa!’
BEMIS: ‘But there were several of them. Have they all been arrested?’
LAWTON: ‘There was only one, and none of him has been arrested.’
MRS. CRASHAW: ‘Where is he, then?’
LAWTON: ‘In this house.’
MRS. CRASHAW: ‘Now, Dr. Lawton, you and I are old friends—I shouldn’t
like to say _how_ old—but if you don’t instantly be serious, I—I’ll carry
my rheumatism to somebody else.’
LAWTON: ‘My _dear_ Mrs. Crashaw, you know how much I prize that
rheumatism of yours! I will be serious—I will be only too serious. The
garotter is Mr. Roberts himself.’
ALL, horror-struck: ‘Oh!’
LAWTON: ‘He went out without his watch. He thought he was robbed, but he
wasn’t. He ran after the supposed thief, our poor friend Bemis here, and
took Bemis’s watch away, and brought it home for his own.’
YOUNG BEMIS: ‘Yes, but—’
MRS. BEMIS: ‘But, papa—’
BEMIS: ‘How do you know it? I can see how such a thing might happen,
but—how do you know it _did_?’
LAWTON: ‘I divined it.’
MRS. CRASHAW: ‘Nonsense!’
LAWTON: ‘Very well, then, I read of just such a ease in the _Advertiser_
a year ago. It occurs annually—in the newspapers. And I’ll tell you
what, Mrs. Crashaw—Roberts found out his mistake as soon as he went to
his dressing-room; and that ingenious nephew of yours, who’s closeted
with him there, has been trying to put him up to something—to some game.’
MRS. CRASHAW: ‘Willis has too much sense. He would know that Edward
couldn’t carry out any sort of game.’
LAWTON: ‘Well, then, he’s getting Roberts to let _him_ carry out the
game.’
MRS. CRASHAW: ‘Edward couldn’t do that either.’
LAWTON: ‘Very well, then, just wait till they come back. Will you leave
me to deal with Campbell?’
MRS. CRASHAW: ‘What are you going to do?’
YOUNG BEMIS: ‘You mustn’t forget that he got us out of the elevator,
sir.’
MRS. BEMIS: ‘We might have been there yet if it hadn’t been for him,
papa.’
MRS. CRASHAW: ‘I shouldn’t want Willis mortified.’
BEMIS: ‘Nor Mr. Roberts annoyed. We’re fellow-sufferers in this
business.’
LAWTON: ‘Oh, leave it to me, leave it to me! I’ll spare their feelings.
Don’t be afraid. Ah, there they come! Now don’t say anything. I’ll
just step into the anteroom here.’
II
MR. ROBERTS, MR. CAMPBELL, AND THE OTHERS
ROBERTS, entering the room before Campbell, and shaking hands with his
guests: ‘Ah, Mr. Bemis; Mrs. Bemis; Aunt Mary! You’ve heard of our
comical little coincidence—our—Mr. Bemis and my—’ He halts, confused,
and looks around for the moral support of Willis, who follows
hilariously.
WILLIS: ‘Greatest joke on record! But I won’t spoil it for you, Roberts.
Go on!’ In a low voice to Roberts: ‘And don’t look so confoundedly down
in the mouth. They won’t think it’s a joke at all.’
ROBERTS, with galvanic lightness: ‘Yes, yes—such a joke! Well, you
see—you see—’
MRS. CRASHAW: ‘See _what_, Edward? _Do_ get it out!’
WILLIS, jollily: ‘Ah, ha, ha!’
ROBERTS, lugubriously: ‘Ah, ha, ha!’
MRS. BEMIS: ‘How funny! Ha, ha, ha!’
YOUNG MR. BEMIS: ‘Capital! capital!’
BEMIS: ‘Excellent!’
WILLIS: ‘Go on, Roberts, do! or I shall die! Ah, ha, ha!’
ROBERTS, in a low voice of consternation to Willis: ‘Where was I? I
can’t go on unless I know where I was.’
WILLIS, _sotto voce_ to Roberts: ‘You weren’t anywhere! For Heaven’s
sake, make a start!’
ROBERTS, to the others, convulsively: ‘Ha, ha, ha! I supposed all the
time, you know, that I had been robbed, and—and—’
WILLIS: ‘Go on! _go_ on!’
ROBERTS, whispering: ‘I can’t do it—’
WILLIS, whispering: ‘You’ve _got_ to! You’re the beaver that clomb the
tree. Laugh naturally, now!’
ROBERTS, with a staccato groan, which he tries to make pass for a laugh:
‘And then I ran after the man—’ He stops, and regards Mr. Bemis with a
ghastly stare.
MRS. CRASHAW: ‘What is the matter with you, Edward? Are you sick?’
WILLIS: ‘Sick? No! Can’t you see that he can’t get over the joke of the
thing? It’s killing him.’ To Roberts: ‘Brace up, old man! You’re doing
it splendidly.’
ROBERTS, hopelessly: ‘And then the other man—the man that had robbed
me—the man that I had pursued—ugh!’
WILLIS: ‘Well, it is too much for him. I shall have to tell it myself, I
see.’
ROBERTS, making a wild effort to command himself: ‘And so—so—this
man—man—ma—’
WILLIS: ‘Oh, good Lord—’ Dr. Lawton suddenly appears from the anteroom
and confronts him. ‘Oh, the devil!’
LAWTON, folding his arms, and fixing his eyes upon him: ‘Which means that
you forgot I was coming.’
WILLIS: ‘Doctor, you read a man’s symptoms at a glance.’
LAWTON: ‘Yes; and I can see that you are in a bad way, Mr. Campbell.’
WILLIS: ‘Why don’t you advertise, Doctor? Patients need only enclose a
lock of their hair, and the colour of their eyes, with one dollar to pay
the cost of materials, which will be sent, with full directions for
treatment, by return mail. Seventh son of a seventh son.’
LAWTON: ‘Ah, don’t try to jest it away, my poor friend. This is one of
those obscure diseases of the heart—induration of the pericardium—which,
if not taken in time, result in deceitfulness above all things, and
desperate wickedness.’
WILLIS: ‘Look here, Dr. Lawton, what are you up to?’
LAWTON: ‘Look here, Mr. Campbell, what is your little game?’
WILLIS: ‘_I_ don’t know what you’re up to.’ He shrugs his shoulders and
walks up the room.
LAWTON, shrugging his shoulders and walking up the room abreast of
Campbell: ‘_I_ don’t know what your little game is.’ They return
together, and stop, confronting each other.
WILLIS: ‘But if you think I’m going to give myself away—’
LAWTON: ‘If you suppose I’m going to take you at your own figure—’ They
walk up the room together, and return as before.
WILLIS: ‘Mrs. Bemis, what is this unnatural parent of yours after?’
MRS. BEMIS, tittering: ‘Oh, I’m sure _I_ can’t tell.’
WILLIS: ‘Aunt Mary, you used to be a friend of mine. Can’t you give me
some sort of clue?’
MRS. CRASHAW: ‘I should be ashamed of you, Willis, if you accepted
anybody’s help.’
WILLIS, sighing: ‘Well, this is pretty hard on an orphan. Here I come to
join a company of friends at the fireside of a burgled brother-in-law,
and I find myself in a nest of conspirators.’ Suddenly, after a moment:
‘Oh, I understand. Why, I ought to have seen at once. But no
matter—it’s just as well. I’m sure that we shall hear Dr. Lawton
leniently, and make allowance for his well-known foible. Roberts is
bound by the laws of hospitality, and Mr. Bemis is the father-in-law of
his daughter.’
MRS. BEMIS, in serious dismay: ‘Why, Mr. Campbell, what do you mean?’
WILLIS: ‘Simply that the mystery is solved—the double garotter is
discovered. I’m sorry for you, Mrs. Bemis; and no one will wish to deal
harshly with your father when he confesses that it was he who robbed Mr.
Roberts and Mr. Bemis. All that they ask is to have their watches back.
Go on, Doctor! How will that do, Aunt Mary, for a little flyer?’
MRS. CRASHAW: ‘Willis, I declare I never saw anybody like you!’ She
embraces him with joyous pride.
ROBERTS, coming forward anxiously: ‘But, my dear Willis—’
WILLIS, clapping his hand over his mouth, and leading him back to his
place: ‘We can’t let you talk now. I’ve no doubt you’ll be considerate,
and all that, but Dr. Lawton has the floor. Go on, Doctor! Free your
mind! Don’t be afraid of telling the whole truth! It will be better for
you in the end.’ He rubs his hands gleefully, and then thrusting the
points of them into his waistcoat pockets, stands beaming triumphantly
upon Lawton.
LAWTON: ‘Do you think so?’ With well-affected trepidation ‘Well,
friends, if I must confess this—this—’
WILLIS: ‘High-handed outrage. Go on.’
LAWTON: ‘I suppose I must. I shall not expect mercy for myself; perhaps
you’ll say that, as an old and hardened offender, I don’t deserve it.
But I had an accomplice—a young man very respectably connected, and who,
whatever his previous life may have been, had managed to keep a good
reputation; a young man a little apt to be misled by overweening vanity
and the ill-advised flattery of his friends; but I hope that neither of
you gentlemen will be hard upon him, but will consider his youth, and
perhaps his congenital moral and intellectual deficiencies, even when you
find your watches—on Mr. Campbell’s person.’ He leans forward, rubbing
his hands, and smiling upon Campbell, ‘How will that do, Mr. Campbell,
for a flyer?’
WILLIS, turning to Mrs. Crashaw: ‘One ahead, Aunt Mary?’
LAWTON, clasping him by the hand: ‘No, generous youth—even!’ They shake
hands, clapping each other on the back with their lefts, and joining in
the general laugh.
BEMIS, coming forward jovially: ‘Well, now, I gladly forgive you both—or
whoever _did_ rob me—if you’ll only give me back my watch.’
WILLIS: ‘_I_ haven’t got your watch.’
LAWTON: ‘Nor I.’
ROBERTS, rather faintly, and coming reluctantly forward: ‘I—I have it,
Mr. Bemis.’ He produces it from one waistcoat pocket and hands it to
Bemis. Then, visiting the other: ‘And what’s worse, I have my own. I
don’t know how I can ever explain it, or atone to you for my
extraordinary behaviour. Willis thought you might finally see it as a
joke, and I’ve done my best to pass it off lightly—’
WILLIS: ‘And you succeeded. You had all the lightness of a sick
hippopotamus.’
ROBERTS: ‘I’m afraid so. I’ll have the chain mended, of course. But
when I went out this evening I left my watch on my dressing-table, and
when you struck against me in the Common I missed it, and supposed I had
been robbed, and I ran after you and took yours—’
WILLIS: ‘Being a man of the most violent temper and the most desperate
courage—’
ROBERTS: ‘But I hope, my dear sir, that I didn’t hurt you seriously?’
BEMIS: ‘Not at all—not the least.’ Shaking him cordially by both hands:
‘I’m all right. Mrs. Roberts has healed all my wounds with her skilful
needle; I’ve got on one of your best neckties, and this lace handkerchief
of your wife’s, which I’m going to keep for a souvenir of the most
extraordinary adventure of my life—’
LAWTON: ‘Oh, it’s an old newspaper story, Bemis, I tell you.’
WILLIS: ‘Well, Aunt Mary, I wish Agnes were here now to see Roberts in
his character of _moral_ hero. He ‘done’ it with his little hatchet, but
he waited to make sure that Bushrod was all right before he owned up.’
MRS. ROBERTS, appearing: ‘Who, Willis?’
WILLIS: ‘A very great and good man—George Washington.’
MRS. ROBERTS: ‘I thought you meant Edward.’
WILLIS: ‘Well, I don’t suppose there _is_ much difference.’
MRS. CRASHAW: ‘The robber has been caught, Agnes.’
MRS. ROBERTS: ‘Caught? Nonsense! You don’t mean it! How can you trifle
with such a subject? I know you are joking! Who is it?’
YOUNG BEMIS: ‘You never could guess—’
MRS. BEMIS: ‘Never in the world!’
MRS. ROBERTS: ‘I don’t wish to. But oh, Mr. Bemis, I’ve just come from
my own children, and you must be merciful to his family!’
BEMIS: ‘For your sake, dear lady, I will.’
BELLA, between the _portières_: ‘Dinner is ready, Mrs. Roberts.’
MRS. ROBERTS, passing her hand through Mr. Bemis’s arm: ‘Oh, then you
must go in with me, and tell me all about it.’