For this also had Columbus everything prepared upon that early morning. He put himself squarely facing the antique front of Rackham Catchings; he elaborately fixed the tripod; he covered his head with the cloth; he went through all the gestures of a performance dear to our fathers. Nor was he, as one might imagine, incapacitated by this attitude from watching his foes; for the camera box beneath the cloth was a fake and in place of its glass a large round hole stared empty, through which all could be naturally observed. He swept the landscape. He patiently waited the arrival of the servants, perhaps with police. He had his expostulations ready in his mind; and, nicely tucked away, concealed in the hollow between his left arm and his left side, the little Zeiss that was to do the trick. He wanted “figures in the foreground.” He got more than he bargained for.
No servant appeared. But what did at last saunter into the bright circle framed in black was something very different. By the boots, a policeman; by the clothes, and especially the sharply pressed trousers, an advertisement for that which the vulgar call ready-to-wear and the gentle ready-made; by the hat, a scandal to God and man; by the face, a fool. My reader has divined him with her customary skill. It was Mr. Pretherton, the Detective.
With a fine nonchalance Mr. Pretherton strolled across the green, as one taking the morning air. He came up to Columbus, still distracted, still, as it were, careless of mundane things. He lifted a corner of the black cloth and whispered in the ear of the stooping expert:
“It may interest you to know that I am a member of the Force in plain clothes.”
Columbus answered—to himself:
“Forty-three and one-tenth, diameter eight,” and proceeded to turn a little screw which was not there.
“And the sooner you make off, young man,” went on the redoubtable Pretherton, lifting the corner of the cloth again, but turning his face towards the house, as though he were taking part in the photography, “the better for you, I can tell you.”
To which Columbus very simply replied, but again to himself and not to his interlocutor:
“Double for morning light; cloudy sky, no deep shadows.”
Upon the scene of this blinded duel there appeared at some little way off, round a corner of the house, an unexpected ally, and an unexpected enemy, of the one and the other protagonist.
They were Bo with the hound Lovey-Lad.
Bo (Oh, the efficiency of the efficient!) had caught the whole situation in a moment. She had inherited, here again, that quality in the eminent peer her progenitor whereby the market may be seized at a glance. The Press was snapping the house. A bull point for the Bo-Jacko crowd. That fellow whom she had suspected was interfering; a bear point for same. To have the tragedy in the papers would complete the ruin of Aunt Hilda’s market. To keep it out was the object of the interfering fellow in the policeman’s boots.
The greatest generals are capable in the heat of action of an ambiguous order. It must be admitted in defence of Lovey-Lad that he could hardly have distinguished between the friend and the enemy of his mistress. When, therefore, he heard from Bo’s arched lips the glad words “Siccum, boy!” he leapt forward like a shell from a gun, not for the evil Pretherton, but alas! for the well-working Columbus. And after all, how should not your bow-legged, hideous, brass-banded bulldog befriend a common human who might be anybody’s friend and rather go for a monster with three wooden legs, two trouser ends and no head?
Through the round empty aperture, where the object glass was not, Columbus saw his Fate hurtling at him. Without pausing to arbitrate on moral right, he fled incontinent. And Mr. Pretherton, very innocently and naturally thinking that someone from the household which he was serving had supported his effort, laughed heartily at the clumsy efforts of the devoted prey, who ran regardless, blinded by the black cloth, straight for the rhododendrons, the first cover he could find.
But dogs, since they are quite unintelligent, are admirably subject to discipline. Bo (who had learned the art in childhood and had happily retained it) put two fingers between her teeth and with a piercing whistle recalled the well - meaning but mistaken hound. What it must have cost Lovey-Lad to pull up again upon the common earth, to lose his quarry, to turn back, slinking—only a dog can know. But the whistle had been imperative, and he had obeyed. He came back panting, not without an irresolute halt now and then and a glance back at the strange morsel he had missed, as Columbus, finding the chase had failed, recovered himself, folded his cloth upon his arm, and, grasping his tripod, came forward somewhat timidly to explain.
But Bo gave him no opportunity. She did not want explanations. She wanted a frank friendship and excellent publicity for the great Rackham Catchings tragedy—for the ghost—in the Press of the metropolis; and notably in that of Lord Toronto, as being to her certain knowledge the most vulgar of all the six vulgarians who control our great organs of opinion.
She could trust Lord Toronto to have it all over London that evening. Meanwhile she must be rid of Hilda’s policeman.
The thing had not taken sixty seconds from the moment when Lovey-Lad had shot forward to the moment when he came back unsatisfied, and almost daring to growl, and sat on his haunches panting at his mistress’ feet. Mr. Pretherton was still smiling the smile of triumph, Columbus was still in hesitating stance, wondering how he would be received, when Bo gave her second order, without hesitation, rapidly, and this time more directly, pointing with an unashamed finger at her victim, and launched the Friend of Man at the Detective.
Then was it seen with what majesty the British policeman bolts! Note to what skill, what promptitude, what immediate appreciation of reality, the public civilian forces of our beloved country are trained!
The flight of Columbus from Lovey-Lad had been a turtle’s waddle, hasty though it was, compared with the whizz of the detective. Lovey-Lad never reached him. He was through the brushwood, under the wire and over the stone coping in a flash; and, her purpose accomplished, his mistress called him back to heel.
What happens in the souls of dogs when they are used for retrievers, for pointers, for any object at all except their own (and they are so used all the time)? Is it triumph in their skill, and an obscure but loyal understanding that they have served their masters, mere disappointment, bewilderment, or what? I know not. But I fancy a mixture of all these things, from the description I have had of what lay upon Lovey-Lad’s features as he came back the second time panting, still hungry, to his mistress’ feet. He had torn nothing, he had bitten nothing; but he had gloriously chased him whom he had been sent to destroy—let that suffice.
Columbus came back extending a large hand towards Bo with the self-possession of his kind. Bo took it with the simplicity of hers. When he thanked her, as one who had saved his life, and when they had both remarked upon the absurd picture presented by the detective in his flight, a very few words made clearer still what Bo had already discovered. With charming good nature the young woman sought out for the journalist the exact point of vantage whence best Rackham Catchings might be snapped. She was torn between her desire for a striking picture which no one could miss and a contradictory desire for early publication. She saw him register the scene; she accompanied him without shame to the lodge gate, and then in a moment of inspiration she made a suggestion consonant with her means, ill-fitted to her condition.
“D’you know what edition of your two-cent’ll carry the picture of Rackham Catchings? Have ye’ seen the story that’s to flare it?”
He had seen the story. It had gone up straight to London—from Lord Hambourne. As to the edition, it would be the lunch-time edition at the latest; he could swear to that—now that she had so kindly seen him through.
Bo decided at once, risking a rebuff, and, as you may expect, not in danger of receiving one. She did not pull out a single pound note, as a less efficient person would have done; she put the whole leather case—scented—quietly into his hand, whence it slipped into his pocket under his eyes.
“I know what’s in there, Bud
,” she said. “And there’ll be as much again for you when I see it in that edition. It sure must go in. D’you get me? But who’m I to send it to? What’s your name?”
In an accent not unlike her own the mysterious stranger answered:
“My name? Nothing! Just you put ‘Columbus’ on the envelope, and the Baron’ll see it won’t miss me.”
They nodded cheerfully to each other. And that was all settled.
Indeed, upon the morrow, after the story had ended and Bo could make sure that her bargain had been observed, she (a woman who knew exactly how much she had in that leather wallet at any one time) put into an envelope the exact equivalent, and, keeping her word, delivered it with her own hands, sealed up, at Lord Toronto’s hideous building off Fleet Street, addressed only “Columbus,” demanding no receipt and leaving no name.
Nor can I deny that Columbus well earned this treble stream of gold, the first from his vulgar master, the second and the third from Bo.
The picture of Rackham Catchings came out enormous on the front page of The Howl: they had the exclusive story; they had the exclusive snaps; and an admirable caption designed by the Editor himself, a Mr. Emston, who had been Emstein somewhere in America years ago. That caption ran:
ELIZABETHAN SPECTRE APPEARS IN ANCIENT MANOR HOUSE.
SEEN BY ALL.
CONCLUSIVE PROOF BY OXFORD PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY.
PROMINENT PEER PROSTRATED.
On the picture a large black cross deeply marked over poor Mrs. Maple’s bathroom window, and having a gigantic arrow pointing at it, was labelled:
ANCIENT MONASTIC CHAPEL WHERE GHOST APPEARED.
And underneath all this, in somewhat smaller letters:
Opinions of our Readers.
which last were a number of letters dated from all parts of London, signed by various names, and written somewhat hurriedly by the sub-editor’s son, who was trying his hand as apprentice serf to Lord Toronto.
It would be all over London by one o’clock and the market for Rackham ruined.
Chapter XVI
Bo, returning into the house, met Betsy Broom. Betsy had not yet recovered from her shock (remember that the morning was still very young), she had but that moment left the Professor’s presence. She gave another little shriek, and was prepared to do another Cinquevalli trick with the dustpan and broom, when Bo dominated her.
“Doan be a li’l fool!” said Bo, pulling her up. “What’s a-matter with ye? Scared?”
“Oh, ma’am! Oh, miss! I thought it was IM again. There! I’m that dazed. I thought ’is lordship was IM I did, when I found ’im telephoning. I’m not meself.”
Bo pounced on the strategic point.
“Which lordship?” she said.
“Lord ’Ambourne, miss. ’E were telephoning all about it” (for thus did Betsy earn the heavy bribe she had received to remain silent).
“Oh, he was, was he?” said Bo grimly.
She remembered Lord Hambourne’s notorious connection with The Howl, and how that other eminent peer and colleague, Lord Toronto, was his paymaster.
“Thank you, Betsy,” she said. She had given away her wallet in a fine gesture—as the newspapers have it; but she felt in the pocket of the little garden coat she was wearing, to shield her from the cold of that morning. She seemed to remember there was something there. And so there was. And she pulled out yet another crumpled ten-shilling note.
Betsy took it gratefully, and curtseyed.
“Oh, thank you, ma’am—miss, I mean!” she said. There entered into Betsy’s young life for the first and the last time an experience of that operation which politicians, share-shufflers, blackmailers, and other candidates for the House of Lords know in their own peculiar language as the “Double Cross.” She had had her palm greased by both sides. Alas! poor innocent child, she went away none the wiser! She made no use of it. With a little more opportunity she might have been in the Cabinet; for such accidents of special knowledge and special payment lead anywhere nowadays.
* * * * *
Remember, my sweet reader, that this book is written in 1927. What Bo did next never would have been done in 1917. And in 1907 it would have meant what they called in the horrible jargon of their day (still retained by Lord Hambourne) “social ostracism.” And in 1897 (but there I am back in my boyhood) it would have been, in the still more horrible jargon of their day, “unthinkable.”
She went straight up to the passage on the first floor. She waited a moment, listening keenly—and hearing nothing—outside the patient’s room. She went on ten yards, and whispered through the keyhole of the room where John had just, after hours of struggle, begun to feel drowsy. She dared not knock.
“Dog-Man,” was the undertone, “come out.” “What? What? What?” said John loudly, starting up.
“Hush!” she whispered again through the keyhole, “come out.”
He staggered out, with his fatigue full upon him, and it crossed Bo’s mind for a moment that he was, if possible, on such an occasion less of a god. A young beard had begun; his eyes were drooping; and the corners of his mouth showed strain. But she was loyal, and saw him as he was really, the divine Jacko, even through this disguise. She put her finger to her lip, as she had during the conspiracy of the day before, and led him tip-toe along the thick carpet to her own room in the other wing.
There she sat him down.
“Jacko,” she said,” listen to me. An’ get your piece word-perfect. I’m telling you. You see there’s going to be a break-up?”
“Oh, yes,” said John.
“We ’ve won, haven’t we?”
“So far … I wish, Bo, that I hadn’t …”
“Pack that away into your old kit-bag. As you say—so far. Now ye ’ve got to hear the rest. Fat Matt’s gotten an ambulance from London. It’ll buzz up here at nine. Then there’ll be the great retreat, an’ the Thunder of the Captains, an’ the Shouting … as it says in the Good Book. Then Aunt Hilda’ll be all alone, and jest wanderin’ around. That’s the time to play the card.”
“What card?” asked John.
“I’m telling you,” answered Bo. “Hambone’s ’phoned The Howl. The help told me all about it. She heard him. Told them over the wire. And they Ve had a picture-man down here snapping the place already. It’ll be all over London, Jacko. And what’s Aunt Hilda to do then?”
“Yes, but what am I to do?” said John.
“What you ’re to do, Bone-head, is to walk in and win. There’s no selling the place for her now. And if she’s still steely-hearted, work her with your Voice.”
“I don’t, see how I could haunt Aunt Hilda in broad daylight.”
“No matter. The Lord will find a way. Only follow up, Jacko; follow up. Have you got the carbons of those letters here?”
“Yes, in my pocket. She has the originals.”
“Well, tell her The Howl’s got the story. Rattle her more, someway. Then she’ll sign.”
“You think she will?” said John doubtfully.
Bo nodded with decision.
“Trust the Young Heiress,” she said. “The child has never failed.”
But even as she spoke there was commotion on the gravel beneath the window. It was the ambulance from London, and the whole house was astir.
The lovers slipped downstairs by the back staircase, reached the hall, and all the turmoil was upon them.
Down the main stairs, moving like funeral bearers under a coffin, staggered sundry males—the driver of the ambulance, his assistant, the footman, the atheist Gaul—even the local doctor lent a hand. While the Specialist from London waddled slowly sideways, downwards, next to the banisters, by way of inept superintendence: for he got the biggest fee.
On the stretcher under which they staggered lay the unfortunate First Baron Mere de Beaurivage, still muttering, still raving.
Bringing up the rear from the head of the stairs and commanding all things, his spouse, Presiding Goddess, herself storming, dominated the storm.
&nbs
p; “Ow, tike ’im gently!” she cried. “Treat him tender! Andle ’im like a child! “But even as she spoke the sufferer rent the air with “A-r-r-r-h!”
“Don’t jerk ’im, pore lamb!” the peeress went on—the procession had allowed her to gain three steps downwards. “Don’t jerk ’im, whatever yer do! Don’t give him a Hoick! Keep his ’ed up, pore dear! Keep the blood from a-flowing to ’is ’ed!”
The foremost of the bearers had reached the bottom stair, Amathea, presiding from above, was half-way down, the doors were fully open, Corton was flinging wide the entry to the ambulance, when poor Hilda Maple, a wreck from lack of sleep and all the attention which women of her age need before they can appear before human kind, made the error of attempting a pacification.
“Amathea,” she bleated, “dearest Amathea! …”
But her adversary blazed out in terrible wrath.
“You shet yer ’ed!” she yelled, without reserve. “It’s you did all the ’arm, it is!” Then to the procession, “Ow, ’andle him gentler, ’ear him groam—ow!” Then to her hostess, “Look on wot yer done!”
“I don’t see what I’ve done,” began Mrs. Maple, but Amathea interrupted her again.
“Yer down’t see?” she cried madly. “Yer down’t see orl the ’arm yer’ve done with yer Demonds and yer Obgoblings and yer lying laow an’ tryin’ to pass off this ’ouse on us an orl?”
“Amathea …” began Mrs. Maple again.
“Don’t you Amathea me, Mrs. Miple!” shouted the peeress, with all the subtle charm of Aristocracy, as she crashed one hand on a table still sordid with last night’s glasses, and stretched the other in wild denunciation. “Don’t you Amathea me! I wish yer ‘d never been born, nor I to meet yer! With yer ’umbug and yer lies and yer Black Devil, and all! Yus, and ’id and concealed from our eyes! But I’ll let yer know! I’ve priced yer! Yer profiteeress!”
Poor Hilda tried to stem the torrent, but the Peeress’s voice filled all heaven, and if its owner had had anything to throw she would have thrown it.
The Haunted House Page 18