'Day by day,' murmured Mr Potter, 'in every way, I am getting better and better. Day by day, in every way, I am getting better and better.'
It would have astonished Clifford Gandle, yawning in his room down the corridor, if he could have heard such optimistic sentiments proceeding from those lips.
'Day by day, in every way, I am getting better and better.'
Mr Potter's mind performed an unfortunate side-slip. He lay there tingling. Suppose he was getting better and better, what of it? What was the use of getting better and better if at any moment a mad Gandle might spring out with a razor and end it all?
He forced his thoughts away from these uncomfortable channels. He clenched his teeth and whispered through them with a touch of defiance.
'Day by day, in every way, I am getting better and better. Day by day, in every way—'
A pleasant drowsiness stole over Mr Potter.
'Day by day, in every way,' he murmured, 'I am getting better and better. Day by day, in every way, I am betting getter and getter. Bay by day, in every way, I am betting getter and wetter. Way by day—'
Mr Potter slept.
Over the stables the clock chimed the hour of two, and Clifford Gandle stepped out on to the balcony.
It has been well said by many thinkers that in human affairs you can never be certain that some little trifling obstacle will not undo the best-laid of schemes. It was the sunken road at Hougomont that undid the French cavalry at Waterloo, and it was something very similar that caused Clifford Gandle's plan of action to go wrong now – a jug of water, to wit, which the maid who had brought Mr Potter's hot-water can before dinner had placed immediately beneath the window.
Clifford Gandle, insinuating himself with the extreme of caution through the window and finding his foot resting on something hard, assumed that he was touching the floor, and permitted his full weight to rest upon that foot. Almost immediately afterwards the world collapsed with a crash and a deluge of water; and light, flooding the room, showed Mr Potter sitting up in bed, blinking.
Mr Potter stared at Clifford Gandle. Clifford Gandle stared at Mr Potter.
'Er – hullo!' said Clifford Gandle.
Mr Potter uttered a low, curious sound like a cat with a fishbone in its throat.
'I – er –just looked in,' said Clifford Gandle.
Mr Potter made a noise like a second and slightly larger cat with another fish-bone in its throat.
'I've come for the razah,' said Clifford Gandle. 'Ah, there it is,' he said, and, moving towards the dressing-table, secured it.
Mr Potter leaped from his bed. He looked about him for a weapon. The only one in sight appeared to be the typescript of 'Ethics of Suicide,' and that, while it would have made an admirable instrument for swatting flies, was far too flimsy for the present crisis. All in all, it began to look to Mr Potter like a sticky evening.
'Good night,' said Clifford Gandle.
Mr Potter was amazed to see that his visitor was withdrawing towards the window. It seemed incredible. For a moment he wondered whether Bobbie Wickham had not made some mistake about this man. Nothing could be more temperate than his behaviour at the moment.
And then, as he reached the window, Clifford Gandle smiled, and all Mr Potter's fears leaped into being again.
The opinion of Clifford Gandle regarding this smile was that it was one of those kindly, reassuring smiles – the sort of smile to put the most nervous melancholiac at his ease. To Mr Potter it seemed precisely the kind of maniac grin which he would have expected from such a source.
'Good night,' said Clifford Gandle.
He smiled again, and was gone. And Mr Potter, having stood rooted to the spot for some minutes, crossed the floor and closed the window. He then bolted the window. He perceived a pair of shutters, and shut them. He moved the washhand-stand till it rested against the shutters. He placed two chairs and a small bookcase against the washhand-stand. Then he went to bed, leaving the light burning.
'Day by day, in every way,' said Mr Potter, 'I am getting better and better.'
But his voice lacked the ring of true conviction.
Sunshine filtering in through the shutters, and the song of birds busy in the ivy outside his window, woke Mr Potter at an early hour next morning; but it was some time before he could bring himself to spring from his bed to greet another day. His disturbed night had left him heavy and lethargic. When finally he had summoned up the energy to rise and remove the zareba in front of the window and open the shutters, he became aware that a glorious morning was upon the world. The samples of sunlight that had crept into the room had indicated only feebly the golden wealth without.
But there was no corresponding sunshine in Mr Potter's heart. Spiritually as well as physically he was at a low ebb. The more he examined the position of affairs, the less he liked it. He went down to breakfast in pensive mood.
Breakfast at Skeldings was an informal meal, and visitors were expected to take it when they pleased, irrespective of the movements of their hostess, who was a late riser. In the dining-room, when Mr Potter entered it, only the daughter of the house was present.
Bobbie was reading the morning paper. She nodded cheerfully to him over its top.
'Good morning, Mr Potter. I hope you slept well.'
Mr Potter winced.
'Miss Wickham,' he said, 'last night an appalling thing occurred.'
A startled look came into Bobbie's eyes.
'You don't mean – Mr Gandle?'
'Yes.'
'Oh, Mr Potter, what?'
'Just as I was going to bed, the man knocked at my door and asked if he could borrow my razah – I mean my razor.'
'You didn't lend it to him?'
'No, I did not,' replied Mr Potter, with a touch of asperity. 'I barricaded the door.'
'How wise of you!'
'And at two in the morning he came in through the window!'
'How horrible!'
'He took my razor. Why he did not attack me, I cannot say. But, having obtained it, he grinned at me in a ghastly way and went out.'
There was a silence.
'Have an egg or something,' said Bobbie, in a hushed voice.
'Thank you, I will take a little ham,' whispered Mr Potter.
There was another silence.
'I'm afraid,' said Bobbie at length, 'you will have to go.'
'That is what I think.'
'It is quite evident that Mr Gandle has taken one of his uncontrollable dislikes to you.'
'Yes.'
'What I think you ought to do is to leave quite quietly, without saying good-bye or anything, so that he won't know where you've gone and won't be able to follow you. Then you could write mother a letter, saying that you had to go because of Mr Gandle's persecution.'
'Exactly.'
'You needn't say anything about his being mad. She knows that. Just say that he ducked you in the moat and then came into your room at two in the morning and made faces at you. She will understand.'
'Yes. I—'
'Hush!'
Clifford Gandle came into the room.
'Good morning,' said Bobbie.
'Good morning,' said Mr Gandle.
He helped himself to poached egg; and, glancing across the table at the publisher, was concerned to note how wan and sombre was his aspect. If ever a man looked as if he were on the verge of putting an end to everything, that man was John Hamilton Potter.
Clifford Gandle was not feeling particularly festive himself at the moment, for he was a man who depended greatly for his well-being on a placid eight hours of sleep; but he exerted himself to be bright and optimistic.
'What a lovely morning!' he trilled.
'Yes,' said Mr Potter.
'Surely such weather is enough to make any man happy and satisfied with life.'
'Yes,' said Mr Potter doubtfully.
'Who, with all Na-chah smiling, could seriously contemplate removing himself from so bright a world?'
'George Philibert, of
32, Acacia Road, Cricklewood, did,' said Bobbie, who had resumed her study of the paper.
'Eh?' said Mr Gandle.
'George Philibert, of 32, Acacia Road, Cricklewood, was had up before the beak yesterday, charged with attempted suicide. He stated that—'
Mr Gandle cast a reproachful look at her. He had always supposed Roberta Wickham to be a girl of fair intelligence, as women go; and it seemed to him that he had over-estimated her good sense. He did his best to cover up her blunder.
'Possibly,' he said, 'with some really definite and serious reason—'
'I can never understand,' said Mr Potter, coming out of what had all the outward appearance of a trance, 'why the idea arose that suicide is wrong.'
He spoke with a curious intensity. The author of 'Ethics of Suicide' had wielded a plausible pen, and the subject was one on which he now held strong views. And, even if he had not already held them, his mood this morning was of a kind to breed them in his bosom.
'The author of a very interesting book which I intend to publish shortly,' he said, 'points out that none but the votaries of the monotheistic religions look upon suicide as a crime.'
'Yes,' said Mr Gandle, 'but—'
'If, he goes on to say, the criminal law forbids suicide, that is not an argument valid in the Church. And, besides, the prohibition is ridiculous, for what penalty can frighten a man who is not afraid of death itself?'
'George Philibert got fourteen days,' said Bobbie.
'Yes, but—' said Mr Gandle.
'The ancients were very far from regarding the matter in the modern light. Indeed, in Massilia and on the island of Cos, the man who could give valid reasons for relinquishing his life was handed the cup of hemlock by the magistrate, and that, too, in public.'
'Yes, but—'
'And why,' said Mr Potter, 'suicide should be regarded as cowardly is beyond me. Surely no man who had not an iron nerve—'
He broke off. The last two words had tapped a chord in his memory. Abruptly it occurred to him that here he was, half-way through breakfast, and he had not taken those iron nerve-pills which his doctor had so strictly ordered him to swallow thirty minutes before the morning meal.
'Yes,' said Mr Gandle. He lowered his cup, and looked across the table. 'But—'
His voice died away. He sat staring before him in horror-struck silence. Mr Potter, with a strange, wild look in his eyes, was in the very act of raising to his lips a sinister-looking white pellet. And, even as Mr Gandle gazed, the wretched man's lips closed over the horrid thing and a movement of his Adam's apple showed that the deed was done.
'Surely,' said Mr Potter, 'no man who—'
It seemed that Fate was inflexibly bent on preventing him from finishing that particular sentence this morning. For he had got thus far when Clifford Gandle, seizing the mustard-pot, rose with a maniac screech and bounded, wild-eyed, round the table at him.
Lady Wickham came downstairs and made her way like a stately galleon under sail towards the dining-room. Unlike others of the household, she was feeling particularly cheerful this morning. She liked fine weather, and the day was unusually fine. Also, she had resolved that after breakfast she would take Mr Potter aside and use the full force of her commanding personality to extract from him something in the nature of an informal contract.
She would not, she decided, demand too much at first. If he would consent to undertake the American publication of 'Agatha's Vow,' 'A Strong Man's Love,' and – possibly – A Man For A That,' she would be willing to postpone discussion of 'Meadow-sweet,' 'Fetters of Fate,' and the rest of her works. But if he thought he could eat her bread and salt and sidestep 'Agatha's Vow,' he had grievously under-estimated the power of her cold grey eye when it came to subduing such members of the animal kingdom as publishers.
There was a happy smile, therefore, on Lady Wickham's face as she entered the room. She was not actually singing, but she stopped only just short of it.
She was surprised to find that, except for her daughter Roberta, the dining-room was empty.
'Good morning, mother,' said Bobbie.
'Good morning. Has Mr Potter finished his breakfast?'
Bobbie considered the question.
'I don't know if he had actually finished,' she said. 'But he didn't seem to want any more.'
'Where is he?'
'I don't know, mother.'
'When did he go?'
'He's only just left.'
'I didn't meet him.'
'He went out of the window.'
The sunshine faded from Lady Wickham's face.
'Out of the window? Why?'
'I think it was because Clifford Gandle was between him and the door.'
'What do you mean? Where is Clifford Gandle?'
'I don't know, mother. He went out of the window, too. They were both running down the drive when I last saw them.' Bobbie's face grew pensive. 'Mother, I've been thinking,' she said. 'Are you really sure that Clifford Gandle would be such a steadying influence for me? He seems to me rather eccentric.'
'I cannot understand a word of what you are saying.'
'Well, he is eccentric. At two o'clock this morning, Mr Potter told me, he climbed in through Mr Potter's window, made faces at him, and climbed out again. And just now—'
'Made faces at Mr Potter?'
'Yes, mother. And just now Mr Potter was peacefully eating his breakfast, when Clifford Gandle suddenly uttered a loud cry and sprang at him. Mr Potter jumped out of the window and Clifford Gandle jumped out after him and chased him down the drive. I thought Mr Potter ran awfully well for an elderly man, but that sort of thing can't be good for him in the middle of breakfast.'
Lady Wickham subsided into a chair.
'Is everybody mad?'
'I think Clifford Gandle must be. You know, these men who do wonderful things at the University often do crack up suddenly. I was reading a case only yesterday about a man in America. He took every possible prize at Harvard or wherever it was, and then, just as everybody was predicting the most splendid future for him, he bit his aunt. He—'
'Go and find Mr Potter,' cried Lady Wickham. 'I must speak to him.'
'I'll try. But I don't believe it will be easy. I think he's gone for good.'
Lady Wickham uttered a bereaved cry, such as a tigress might who sees its prey snatched from it.
'Gone!'
'He told me he was thinking of going. He said he couldn't stand Clifford Gandle's persecution any longer. And that was before breakfast, so I don't suppose he has changed his mind. I think he means to go on running.'
A sigh like the whistling of the wind through the cracks in a broken heart escaped Lady Wickham.
'Mother,' said Bobbie, 'I've something to tell you. Last night Clifford Gandle asked me to marry him. I hadn't time to answer one way or the other, because just after he had proposed he jumped into the moat and tried to drown Mr Potter; but if you really think he would be a steadying influence for me—'
Lady Wickham uttered a snort of agony.
'I forbid you to dream of marrying this man!'
'Very well, mother,' said Bobbie dutifully. She rose and moved to the sideboard. 'Would you like an egg, mother?'
'No!'
'Some ham?'
'No!'
'Very well.' Bobbie paused at the door. 'Don't you think it would be a good idea,' she said, 'if I were to go and find Clifford Gandle and tell him to pack up and go away? I'm sure you won't like having him about after this.'
Lady Wickham's eyes flashed fire.
'If that man dares to come back, I'll – I'll— Yes. Tell him to go. Tell him to go away and never let me set eyes on him again.'
'Very well, mother,' said Bobbie.
Elsewhere –
2. The Mulliners of Hollywood
8 MONKEY BUSINESS
A tankard of Stout had just squashed a wasp as it crawled on the arm of Miss Postlethwaite, our popular barmaid, and the conversation in the bar-parlour of the Angler's Rest had turned t
o the subject of physical courage.
The Tankard himself was inclined to make light of the whole affair, urging modestly that his profession, that of a fruit-farmer, gave him perhaps a certain advantage over his fellow-men when it came to dealing with wasps.
'Why, sometimes in the picking season,' said the Tankard, 'I've had as many as six standing on each individual plum, rolling their eyes at me and daring me to come on.'
Mr Mulliner looked up from his hot Scotch and lemon.
'Suppose they had been gorillas?' he said.
The Tankard considered this.
'There wouldn't be room,' he argued, 'not on an ordinary-sized plum.'
'Gorillas?' said a Small Bass, puzzled.
'And I'm sure if it had been a gorilla Mr Bunyan would have squashed it just the same,' said Miss Postlethwaite, and she gazed at the Tankard with wholehearted admiration in her eyes.
Mr Mulliner smiled gently.
'Strange,' he said, 'how even in these orderly civilized days women still worship heroism in the male. Offer them wealth, brains, looks, amiability, skill at card-tricks or at playing the ukelele ... unless these are accompanied by physical courage they will turn away in scorn.'
'Why gorillas?' asked the Small Bass, who liked to get these things settled.
'I was thinking of a distant cousin of mine whose life became for a time considerably complicated owing to one of these animals. Indeed, it was the fact that this gorilla's path crossed his that nearly lost Montrose Mulliner the hand of Rosalie Beamish.'
The Small Bass still appeared mystified.
'I shouldn't have thought anybody's path would have crossed a gorilla's. I'm forty-five next birthday, and I've never so much as seen a gorilla.'
'Possibly Mr Mulliner's cousin was a big-game hunter,' said a Gin Fizz.
'No,' said Mr Mulliner. 'He was an assistant-director in the employment of the Perfecto-Zizzbaum Motion Picture Corporation of Hollywood: and the gorilla of which I speak was one of the cast of the super-film, "Black Africa," a celluloid epic of the clashing of elemental passions in a land where might is right and the strong man comes into his own. Its capture in its native jungle was said to have cost the lives of seven half-dozen members of the expedition, and at the time when this story begins it was lodged in a stout cage on the Perfecto-Zizzbaum lot at a salary of seven hundred and fifty dollars a week, with billing guaranteed in letters not smaller than those of Edmund Wigham and Luella Benstead, the stars.
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