Mrs. Falconer says, ‘But if you couldn’t see who it was – ’
‘Ah, but I could smell the onions,’ replies Tony triumphantly. ‘And that proves conclusively that it must have been an Italian onion boy, because if it had been a Punch-and-Judy man he would have smelt of whisky – there was a Punch-and-Judy man who used to come round quite often during the holidays; he had a very red nose, poor fellow, and his breath always smelt of whisky – and bootlaces have a peculiar smell of their own, so it couldn’t possibly have been the bootlace woman.’
‘Papa always used to say– ’ Mrs. Falconer begins, seizing her opportunity while her opponent pauses for breath.
‘And he was perfectly right,’ agrees Tony earnestly. ‘Bootlaces are not what they were. I’ve never met a modern bootlace that could stand a good tug. And studs – the way they leap into corners and hide under mats! It’s my belief, Mrs. Falconer, that all studs are possessed of an evil spirit, and I simply don’t believe these fellows who write to the papers saying that they have used the same stud for thirty years. The thing’s impossible. I once knew a man who was completely ruined by a stud – ’
‘Ruined by a stud!’ gasps Mrs. Falconer.
‘Don’t ask me to tell you about it,’ Tony says, with a slight tremble in his voice. ‘The man was my friend – you will be the first to admit that silence is golden. Let us talk of shoes, or ships, or sealing wax – I know a fellow who uses pink sealing wax – a most disgusting habit! This man actually had the impertinence to write a proposal of marriage to a lady he had known for nine days – or it may have been nine years, I really can’t remember which, and it doesn’t matter, for both are equally insulting, you will agree. In nine days he couldn’t possibly have known her well enough to propose, and in nine years he should have known her too well. But the point is he sealed the letter with pink sealing wax, which warned the poor girl in the nick of time. She was good enough to ask my advice on the subject. “Shall I accept him, Tony?” she said to me with tears in her eyes. “Shall I accept him, and spend my life trying to wean him from his vicious habits?” But, alas, I could give her no hope! I knew, only too well, that a man can never be broken of pink sealing wax, once it has a hold on him.’
‘But surely you don’t mean – ’
‘No, no!’ says Tony gravely. ‘You must not think I meant that. Let us leave the subject and go on to cabbages. Personally I would rather eat hay or thistles, but I am told that quite a number of people consider the cabbage fit for human consumption. The hardhearted ones are best – they are tougher, and have more white stalk to the cubic inch.’
‘Dear Papa did not care for cabbage,’ Mrs. Falconer announces breathlessly.
‘Of course not!’ exclaims Tony with rapture. ‘Nobody did. It is only recently that the cabbage has come to the fore. In your father’s time a gentleman ate to please his palate; nowadays he eats to pamper his stomach. Do not blush, Mrs. Falconer. I assure you that this important organ may now be spoken of with impunity in the drawing rooms of Mayfair. However, if you would rather go on to kings, you have only to say the word. It is the last subject on our list, but by no means the least worthy of exploration. Which is your favourite king? Mine has always been Charles the Second. I feel that he and I would have hit it off splendidly. For many years I found myself in the minority on this point, but I am glad to notice a distinct revulsion in his favour amongst thinking men and women. Why, only the other day the Y.W.C.A. had an exhibition of his relics! It is not a body in which one would expect to find appreciation of the Merry Monarch – but, after all, why not? Doubtless he gave pleasure to a great many young women who would otherwise have led somewhat drab lives – ’
At this moment Mrs. Loudon sneezes violently, and discovers our presence. The monologue ceases abruptly.
‘There you are,’ says Tony. ‘Mrs. Falconer and I have had a most interesting conversation – the time has simply flown.’
Mrs. Falconer says nothing; there is a dazed look in her eyes.
‘We must really continue our conversation some time,’ Tony says brazenly, as we take our places round the tea table. ‘We have not exhausted the subject of kings.’
‘Perhaps you have exhausted Mrs. Falconer,’ I suggest maliciously.
‘Cruel!’ he sighs, helping himself to a scone.
Guthrie’s chair looks very empty – there are several other unoccupied chairs in the room, but only Guthrie’s looks empty. I remark on the phenomenon, but nobody seems to get my point.
‘Where is Guthrie?’ enquires his mother, a trifle anxiously. ‘Have any of you seen him this afternoon?’
Tony says that he saw Guthrie and Miss Thingummy starting off for a walk, but he doesn’t suppose they’ve gone far. When asked the reason for his supposition, he replies that people don’t as a rule. They generally sit down on the first thing handy.
Mrs. Loudon sighs heavily, and Mrs. Falconer, somewhat revived by a cup of strong tea, whispers to me, ‘Do you think he’s offered for her yet?’ but I pretend not to hear.
After tea Tony and I go out on the loch together. Tony insists on acting as boatman, and gives me some valuable advice on the art of throwing a fly. I catch several fine trout, and enjoy myself thoroughly.
Tony is really much more unselfish than most men or else he is not such a keen fisherman, or else– But there is no other explanation; he can’t be such a keen fisherman.
– About seven o’clock the breeze freshens, and Tony says we had better pack up now, it’s too cold for me. I point out that he need not keep up the pretence of solicitude for my welfare when Guthrie is not here to see it, whereupon Tony replies that it is excellent practice for him, and rows firmly homewards.
We find Guthrie waiting for us at the boathouse. He seems slightly out of temper, and says he has been waiting for nearly an hour, and didn’t we hear him shouting to us. (Now that I think of it I believe I did hear somebody shouting.)
Tony replies that the wind is in the other direction, and anyhow it is too cold to fish any more tonight.
‘Cold!’ snorts Guthrie. ‘I don’t call it cold. Some people seem to be made of cotton wool.’
Tony takes no notice of this strange remark; he busies himself collecting the fishing tackle, and making fast the boat.
‘What about another hour’s fishing?’ Guthrie says, ignoring Tony, and addressing himself to me in a wheedling manner. ‘Dinner isn’t till eight, you know, Hester.’
I am about to reply when Tony says innocently, ‘I suppose there is a ghillie belonging to the place, isn’t there, Loudon? Or do you depend entirely on your guests to work the boat for you?’ Guthrie opens his mouth to reply, but no sound comes. He watches in silence while Tony helps me out of the boat as if I were made of spun glass (this is for his especial benefit, of course) and we all walk up to the house together.
Mrs. Loudon comes into my room when I am going to bed and says THE PLAN is working admirably. Guthrie has just been advising her not to ask that fellow Morley to the house any more ‘as he seems rather gone on Hester’. Whereupon I tell her flatly that I hate the plan and everything to do with it, and that I don’t know what on earth Tim would say if he knew.
Mrs. Loudon replies, incoherently, that it would do Tim a lot of good, and that he will never know anything about it, and that anyway I’m not doing anything wrong. ‘And anyway I’ve asked the man to come over tomorrow afternoon,’ she adds firmly, ‘and I’ll not put him off for all Guthrie’s blethering.’
She stays a few moments longer, talking about various matters, and then goes away.
I suppose I must have gone to sleep at once, for I seem to have been asleep for hours but quite suddenly, I am wide awake. It is raining hard and quite dark. Perhaps it is the heavy rain that has wakened me. I lie very still and listen.
Somebody is on the veranda beneath my window. I can hear the sound of hushed voices, and the pad of stealthy feet on the tiles. The sounds are the more alarming because there have been several small burglari
es lately in the neighbourhood, and I decide at once that the correct thing for me to do is to waken Guthrie. I slip on my dressing gown in the dark, and grope my way along the passage to his room. How dark it is! It must be about midnight, for dawn comes early in these latitudes.
Guthrie is fast asleep, but he wakes quickly, and takes in the situation without loss of time.
‘Gosh!’ he exclaims excitedly. ‘They’ve come to the wrong house this time. I must put on my boots – you can’t go after burglars without boots.’
I point out that Guthrie’s boots will make the most frightful noise on the uncarpeted stairs, and that by the time he has reached the bottom the burglars will have gone. After arguing obstinately for a few moments we compromise on tennis shoes. He dons a cardigan, and an overcoat – I never knew a man who could start to do anything without dressing for the part – and, opening the drawer of his dressing table, produces a small revolver, examines the chamber carefully, and slips it into his pocket. I begin to feel quite sorry for the burglars. A pocket torch completes our outfit. This is given into my charge with instructions to ‘flash it into their eyes’. Guthrie will then wing them, tie them up with rope, and gag them with old socks – here the socks are produced and tucked into my dressing-gown pocket.
‘By the way, Hester,’ he says anxiously, ‘I suppose there is some washing rope or something in the house – if not we shall have to make do with window-shade cord.’
It all sounds quite easy.
Guthrie continues that, after having bound them securely, we shall lock them up in the coal cellar, and rouse Dobbie, and send him off to Inverquill for the police. It’s most important to have all your plans cut and dried beforehand, Guthrie says, and then you know exactly where you are. If Jellicoe had been able to do this at Jutland we should have bagged the whole German fleet. I am suitably impressed by this statement, and follow Guthrie downstairs. It is very cold, and the rain is still coming down hard. I hear it swishing on the cupola with an eerie sound. My teeth show an impulse to chatter – I rather wish I had put on some warm stockings, and a jumper, but it is too late now.
We look in the pantry first, Guthrie explaining, in a hoarse whisper, that of course the burglars know where the silver is kept. They never undertake a job of this kind without obtaining a plan of the house. He thinks the garden boy may have given it to them – he’s a shifty-looking individual – or that man who came to look at the kitchen range.
There are no signs of burglars in the pantry – everything is in apple-pie order, and as quiet as the grave – the dining room is also innocent of their presence. We look carefully under the table and into various cupboards. Guthrie says they might have heard us coming and hidden themselves.
I point out to Guthrie that it was on the veranda outside the drawing-room window I heard them, so the inference is that they are in the drawing room, making a clean sweep of Mrs. Loudon’s cherished snuff boxes and silver photograph frames. Guthrie replies that it is better to look elsewhere first, but can give no good reason for his statement, and I begin to wonder whether he is really very keen to meet them now that the time has come. I do not like to question the courage of an officer in His Majesty’s Navy, but this is my impression.
We have now looked everywhere except in the drawing room, and there is no further excuse for delay. We listen outside the door and hear the sound of whispering – or else it may be the rain.
Suddenly Guthrie throws open the door and enters, revolver in hand. I flash the torch in their faces, and the tableau is revealed.
The burglars consist of a tall man in a check overcoat, and a girl in a burberry, with a green tammy on the back of her head. They have lighted one candle, but its fitful flame throws scarcely any light upon the scene.
‘Hello, Loudon!’ the man says. ‘Cleared for action, I see.’
‘Good God!’ Guthrie exclaims. ‘What on earth are you doing here, Bones?’
I realise at once that this tall, thin, lanky individual must be a friend of Guthrie’s – or perhaps it would be exaggerating to say a friend, for Guthrie does not seem enchanted to see him.
‘What on earth brought you here at this time of night?’ he asks again, in the irritable tone of one who has been thoroughly frightened and finds his bogy innocuous.
‘An Austin Seven brought us here,’ replies the man addressed as Bones, with a nonchalant air. ‘Found you’d all cleared off to bed, so we thought we’d warm ourselves a bit – damned cold outside, and wet too.’
‘See here, I guess you’d better introduce us, Bones,’ says the girl suddenly, ‘and then we can get what we want and hook it. Your pal doesn’t seem overjoyed to see us – I guess we must have woke him out of his beauty sleep. Say,’ she adds, turning to me, ‘you don’t happen to have a baby’s bottle, do you?’
I reply in a dazed manner that I have not. It flashes through my mind that they must have escaped from a lunatic asylum; perhaps the ropes may still be required.
Bones now perceives me in the gloom. ‘Good Lord!’ he exclaims. ‘Didn’t know you were married, Loudon. Won’t you introduce me to your wife? Wouldn’t have come, I assure you, if I’d known about it. When did it happen, old man? Congratulations and all that hope we didn’t pop in at an inopportune moment?’
‘I’m not married,’ Guthrie says indignantly.
‘Even sorrier, then,’ says Bones, eyeing me with increased interest.
‘Look here, I wish you’d say what you want and go,’ Guthrie says inhospitably. ‘This is Mrs. Christie she’s staying here with my mother ’
Bones takes this as a formal introduction, and bows gracefully.
‘I don’t know what on earth you want,’ Guthrie continues. ‘But I want to get back to bed.’
‘Don’t wonder,’ murmurs Bones. ‘Don’t wonder at all, old chap. I’d feel the same myself. By the way, you couldn’t produce a spot, I suppose. Dry work, this treasure hunting.’
‘You’ve had quite enough,’ says the girl firmly. ‘You’ve got to drive that car back to Inverquill tonight.’
‘Lord! I’ve not begun,’ replies Bones. ‘You should see what I can take without rocking I can still say Irish Constabulary without a hitch.’
‘Did you come here for a drink?’ enquires Guthrie.
‘Well, not exactly – still a spot never comes amiss– ’ suggests Bones hopefully.
‘I guess you’d better explain or let me,’ says the girl. ‘See here, Mr. er Bones didn’t say what your name was. This is the way of it – Bones and I are in a treasure hunt – we’ve staying over at Inverquill, with the MacKenzies. Well, Bones and I are in the last lap, and we’re just mad to win, so ’
‘Had a gin and bitters at Avielochan Hotel,’ says the lanky man, taking up the tale. ‘Suddenly remembered you were here wonderful how a gin and bitters stimulates a fellow took us hours to – find you but here we are.’
‘So I see,’ says Guthrie unpleasantly.
‘You’ll help us, won’t you!’ says the girl, producing a printed list, somewhat damp and crumpled, from her waterproof pocket. ‘I guess we’ve got nearly everything now, except a baby’s bottle, and a warming pan, and a poker – ’
‘Here’s a poker,’ Bones says, seizing the one out of the grate. ‘You’re not going to take that poker,’ says Guthrie suddenly. ‘Bring it back tomorrow, old man,’ Bones replies, trying to stuff it into his pocket.
The girl continues to consult the list anxiously, holding it near the solitary candle. I perceive that it is she who is the moving spirit in the treasure hunt. Bones is but lukewarm.
‘Look here, Bones,’ says Guthrie, with a sudden access of rage. ‘You put that poker back in its place, and clear out of here – I’m just about fed up with this nonsense.’
‘Make it a deoch-an-doris and I’m your man,’ replies Bones quickly. ‘One small one, and out we go. You couldn’t turn a dog out without a drink on a night like this.’
Perhaps Guthrie thinks that this is the quickest way to get rid of the
man. At any rate he relents.
‘All right,’ he says ungraciously. ‘You’ll get a small one and you’ll clear out. Hester, you had better go back to bed, you’ll get your death of cold. I’ll see these lunatics off the premises.’
I realise that I am almost frozen, and am quite glad to take Guthrie’s advice – besides, the fun is over. I grope my way upstairs, and creep into bed with my dressing gown on – thank goodness there is still a little warmth in my hot-water bottle. My room is turning a soft grey colour, dawn is not far off. I reflect what strange ways people have of enjoying themselves, rushing round the country on a wet dark night collecting baby’s bottles and warming pans.
It is some little while before I hear our burglars departing. Guthrie seems to have some trouble with the lock of the door on to the veranda, then I hear his tennis shoes come padding up the stairs and along the passage. He stops at my door and knocks gently.
‘What happened?’ I enquire.
The door half opens, and Guthrie’s head appears. ‘Are you all right, Hester?’ he asks softly. ‘They’ve gone at last – I had to give them the poker, and a warming pan which was hanging in the hall – they wouldn’t go away without them.’
‘You looked as if you wanted to throw them out,’ I giggled feebly.
‘Oh, I’d have thrown Bones out – but I couldn’t throw out a girl. Wait till we get back to the Polyphon,’ he adds ferociously. ‘I’ll set the whole wardroom on to him. They hate him as it is, and they’ll be too pleased to make his life a burden – he’ll wish he’d never been born when I’ve done with him – the blinkety, blankety fool!’
In his excitement Guthrie has come into my room, and stands beside my bed, a huge dark, looming figure in the half light.
‘I can’t help laughing when I think of us and our “cut and dried” plans,’ I tell him.
Guthrie says he doesn’t see anything funny about it – naturally we thought it was burglars and prepared accordingly.
‘Yes, but it wasn’t burglars.’
‘No, it was lunatics.’
Mrs. Tim of the Regiment Page 24