by Molly Thynne
But what became more and more clear as the day wore on was the disconcerting possibility that the Anti-Carew League might of necessity become a very real thing. As Soames put it somewhere about tea-time: “The ‘wine and women’ stage is well under weigh already; I think we may take it we shall get the ‘song’ all right later.”
Major Carew had started the day with the firm intention of cementing himself to the Romsey party, but his efforts so far had met with little success. Neither Lord Romsey nor his son had shown themselves for more than a few minutes at a time, and had presumably spent the greater part of the day in their rooms. Victoria Ford’s frigid aloofness had proved a more effective weapon even than her sister’s uncompromising rudeness, which nevertheless had actually succeeded in piercing his hide earlier in the day. Even later, when his inherent snobbery had been dissolved by frequent libations and had given place to a still more unpleasing trait, he was wary of approaching her. Before the afternoon was half over, his principal objective in life had become the unfortunate Mrs. Orkney Cloude, and by tea-time he had driven her to the seclusion of her room. Failing her, he was prepared to put up with Miss Hamilton, Mrs. van Dolen’s secretary: a more defenceless if less distinguished quarry.
The three men and Angela Ford held a council of war over the fire in the lounge.
“At this rate he’ll be either helpless or fighting drunk by the evening,” said Constantine. “We can only pray that it will be the former.”
“I’ll get him to bed if I can,” volunteered Soames. “I’ve had a bit of experience of that sort of thing. You’re apt to come across it in my job.”
He and Constantine had spent the afternoon over the chessboard, and had missed the spectacle of Carew’s bacchanalian antics.
“Where is he now?” asked Constantine.
“In complete possession of the billiard-room,” answered Angela Ford bitterly. “The pleasantest room in the house. When I went in just now I met the nice Trevor boy coming out. His face was the colour of beetroot, and that great beast was sprawling in front of the fire, muttering something about ‘Twopenny excursionists in their stinking charabancs.’ He’d evidently been insulting the wretched boy. I fled before he had time to see me, and wasted ten minutes on the stairs being positively fulsome to the poor Trevor thing, trying to soothe his wounded pride.”
“How did you get rid of him?” asked Constantine with interest. It was not the first time he had observed Angela’s methods with appreciation.
“I poked him into the little sitting-room,” she informed him guilelessly. “You see, Miss Hamilton was sitting there alone, and I suggested that he might keep an eye on her and see that she didn’t get into the clutches of Carew again. He was feeling frightfully manly and chivalrous; then I left him, and the door into the billiard-room was shut, so I don’t suppose Carew will find them.”
And now I suppose you consider that you have done your good deed for the day?” mocked Constantine.
She blinked at him through her long lashes.
“Well, they would make rather a nice little couple, don’t you think?” she suggested, unabashed.
They ordered their tea in the lounge and sat on there chatting casually, till Angela Ford remembered that she had promised to read aloud to her father till dinnertime.
She had risen and was about to go upstairs, when the door opened and a man was blown in, bringing a flurry of snow with him.
“Geoff!” she cried. “You might have told me you were going out! I’d have come with you!”
He slipped out of his overcoat and shook the snow off his cap.
“It’s pitch dark, and the snow’s too heavy to be pleasant,” he said. “Walking’s impossible, but if we’d got some skis here we could have a gorgeous time. We shall have to get some exercise somehow.”
His sister nodded.
“I know,” she said. “Father’s getting goutier every moment, and, short of taking him out snowballing, I can’t think what to do with him.”
Constantine chuckled openly at the thought.
“I’m going to sleep,” he announced, “and if I wake with a liver it’ll be no one’s fault but my own.”
He followed Angela up the wide staircase, but when she turned down the passage to her father’s room, he did not pursue his way up to his own floor. Instead, he stood for a few minutes motionless on the landing, his hands lightly clasped behind him, his eyes fixed on the carpet at his feet. Then he glanced down the passage to his left. Angela had already disappeared, and there was nobody to watch his movements as he made his way thoughtfully along the passage to the foot of the short flight of steps which led, as he now knew, to the back stairs.
The trail of wet on the carpet, emphasized here and there by a little clot of melting snow, was easy enough to follow, and it led, as he had expected, to the foot of the steps. He turned back along the track, crossed the landing, and went on down the passage to the right of the stairs.
At the door of the room next to that of Mrs. van Dolen he paused, and bending down, passed his hand lightly over the wood of the door jamb. It came away wet. On the carpet was a little lump of snow, as though some one had brushed a sopping coat against the side of the door and knocked the snow off in the passing.
Geoffrey Ford was not the only person who had decided to brave the weather that evening! Humming a little tune softly under his breath, Dr. Constantine passed on up the stairs to his room.
Half an hour later, Stuart, finding himself nodding in front of the hot fire, decided to follow Constantine’s example. He was standing near the door of his bedroom, cutting the pages of the book with which he proposed to read himself to sleep, when a sound outside his door made him pause.
There was the noise of a scuffle, then a girl’s voice raised in evident distress, followed by another sound so unmistakable, that he made a plunge for the door and threw it open, feeling very little doubt as to whom he would find outside.
But swiftly as he had moved, some one else had been quicker.
The boy Trevor was already standing between Carew and the shrinking figure of Miss Hamilton, his fists clenched and his face ablaze with anger.
Then, before Stuart could interfere, Carew lurched sideways and brought his arm, with all the force of his heavy body behind it, across the boy’s face, hurling him clean off his balance and against the wall behind him.
Stuart stepped neatly in between them.
“Look here,” he said. “We can’t have that sort of thing here, you know.”
He spoke quietly, but there was an edge to his voice that penetrated Carew’s drunken fury. Also the stockiness of Stuart’s build and the alertness of his poise suggested that he might prove a more formidable antagonist than the boy who was already mopping a crimson nose behind him.
“What do you mean by interfering?” stormed Carew. But even now his truculence was only half-hearted.
“We’ve stood as much as we intend to stand from you to-day,” pursued Stuart, ignoring the interruption. “And it’s as well you should know it. Your room’s at the other end of the passage, I believe. If you take my advice you’ll go to it.”
“Who are you—” began Carew angrily.
Stuart’s answer was to take a step forward.
“Are you going?” he asked, without raising his voice.
Carew fell back, stood glaring at him for a moment, and then, surprisingly, collapsed like a pricked bubble.
“No offence meant,” he muttered vaguely. “Was annoyed, naturally. Misunderstanding—”
His voice trailed into silence as he turned and stumbled away down the long passage.
Stuart watched him turn into his room before he transferred his attention to the couple behind him.
“So that’s that,” he remarked cheerfully. “Sometime or other, and not so long ago either, I fancy that chap got what he deserved from some one and he hasn’t forgotten it yet. I came out of it better than you did, I’m afraid. He hasn’t broken your nose, has he?”
Trevor removed the blood-stained handkerchief from his nose and felt the bridge tenderly. He looked as he felt, piteously humiliated, but he managed to achieve a rueful grin.
“No damage done,” he muttered. “Afraid I made rather a fool of myself.”
“You were splendid!” gasped Miss Hamilton.
She looked exceedingly pretty and very futile, Stuart thought, standing there with her hands clasped, the ready tears still wet on her long lashes.
“I don’t think he’ll bother you again,” he said reassuringly. “If he does, let out a screech. One of us is sure to be handy.”
Then, feeling that he was no longer needed, he retired, leaving Trevor to the grateful ministrations of Miss Hamilton.
Carew did not appear at dinner.
“Let’s hope he’s sleeping it off,” concluded Stuart, after describing what had passed.
Soames took a more pessimistic view of the situation.
“I’ve been having a word with Girling,” he said. “He’s pretty sick about it, I can tell you, and he tells me that the beggar’s got a couple of bottles of whisky up in his room. He sent for them this morning, and Girling had no excuse then not to let him have them.”
There was no sign of him that evening, and Girling, who had made an excuse to go to his room, reported that he had found him asleep on his bed.
In spite of which, Soames’s forebodings were verified.
He and Constantine had sat up late, playing chess in Constantine’s room, and it was close on one o’clock when they were disturbed by a series of suggestive bumps in the passage.
Constantine got up and opened his door. He was immediately confronted with the congested profile of Carew. He was being propelled down the passage by Geoffrey Ford, whose usually sedate features were convulsed with rage.
“Where’s this fellow’s room, do you know?” he rasped over his shoulder.
“The last one on the right, next to Melnotte’s,” Constantine informed him, with an appreciative eye on the operation.
Soames slipped past them and opened the door of Carew’s room.
“Want any help?” he asked, with a cheerful grin.
For answer Ford propelled his victim through the door and drew back into the passage. A heavy bump from within suggested that Carew had reached his destination on all-fours.
Transferring the key to the outside, Ford slammed the door and locked it.
“If he shouts I can’t help it,” he said. “There’s no other way of dealing with the brute.”
They stood listening, but there was no further sound from within.
“What happened?” asked Constantine, who had joined them.
Ford turned on them a face white with fury.
“The foul beast tried to get into Mrs. Orkney Cloude’s room,” he said shortly, and swung away down the passage.
Soames stared at his retreating back.
“What with the weather and Carew,” he remarked sapiently, “there’ll be blue murder here before Christmas!”
CHAPTER V
By the time Stuart reached his room, there was only one thing he desired—sleep. Not only was he feeling the effects of the night before, but the weather, combined with lack of exercise, was beginning to tell on him; and, as he sank gratefully into bed, he decided that, snow or no snow, he must somehow manage to get into the open for a couple of hours each day. His last drowsy thought before he lost consciousness was one of thankfulness that Carew’s room was not at the far end of the passage, and that, should he elect to make himself objectionable during the night, Soames and Constantine would have to bear the brunt of his activities. Judging by his last view of them, they had settled down to an all-night seance over the chessboard, so that they would no doubt be up and ready to deal with any situation that might arise.
It seemed as though he had no sooner closed his eyes than he found himself involved in a wild dream. He was on the hill where he had originally encountered the Misses Adderley. They were both there, seated on the running-board of their car, clad in crimson dressing-gowns, with woollen fascinators round their heads, shrieking encouragement to Lord Romsey and Angela Ford, who were running hand and hand up the hill in pursuit of Major Carew. Miss Connie was shouting through her ear-trumpet, which had miraculously turned into a megaphone: “Stop him! He’s taken the emerald girdle, and he’s going to bury it in the snow!” Urged on by their cries, Stuart was trying to catch them up; but the snow, which now reached above his knees, made progress impossible, and he was engaged in one of those gigantic efforts that only occur in dreams—forcing himself to run violently against overwhelming odds and achieving no progress whatever—when a hand was laid on his shoulder, and, turning, he realized that Carew had somehow managed to outflank his pursuers and was holding him captive from behind. He made a violent effort to wrench himself free, but the grasp on his shoulder tightened …
He opened his eyes. The first thing they fell on was the lighted bulb of the electric lamp that he had turned out on going to bed. Then he was aware of Soames’s fresh-coloured countenance in dose proximity to his own.
He stared up at him.
“Talk of the seven sleepers!” ejaculated Soames softly.
His brain began slowly to function. Soames was wearing his pyjamas under an overcoat, so he must have been to bed. Stuart found his voice.
“What time is it?” he asked stupidly.
“Close on three. Dr. Constantine sent me along. There’s something queer happening. That chap Carew has got out of his room, and we’ve got to find him. Heaven knows what he may be up to. If he has another shot at Mrs. Cloude’s room, I honestly believe Ford’ll do him in. I never saw a man in such a murderous rage as he was last night.”
Stuart climbed out of bed reluctantly. Hunting Carew in a dream was bad enough, but running him to earth at three o’clock on a winter’s morning, in a house as rambling and spacious as the “Noah’s Ark,” was beyond a joke.
“How did he get out?” he asked. “Dr. Constantine told me that Ford had locked him in.”
“That’s the extraordinary part. Down a rope from his bedroom to the balcony underneath.”
Stuart stared at him in amazement.
“He couldn’t! It’d be a physical impossibility for a chap in his condition! Besides, he’s as soft as butter, even when he’s sober. Have you looked in his room?”
“Can’t! The key’s gone.”
“Gone? Where?”
Soames suddenly lost patience.
“My dear chap, I don’t know! For Heaven’s sake get a move on. If he had the grit to get through that window on a dark night like this, you may be sure he was drunk; and if he’s drunk, goodness knows what he may be up to. At any moment there may be an appalling shindy from one of the women. We’ve got to find him, and bottle him up before it’s too late.”
“Confound the fellow!” ejaculated Stuart, with deep feeling, as he followed Soames down the passage.
“Amen to that,” was his companion’s heart-felt rejoinder. “I don’t feel as if I should ever be warm again.”
At the head of the stairs Constantine joined them.
An idea struck Stuart.
“Look here,” he exclaimed. “If he did get down on to the balcony without a smash, he’d have to get off it somehow.”
“That is what is troubling us,” said Constantine. “With the exception of the little window on the stairs, the only way off that balcony is through one or other of the two rooms opening on to it: Mrs. van Dolen’s or Mrs. Cloude’s. They’ll be frightened to death if he tries to get in there.”
They had reached the window on the stairs. Stuart bent over it and examined it carefully.
“This is latched on the inside, so he hasn’t come in that way,” he said.
He unlatched it and raised the lower sash.
“I’d better get out, I suppose,” he continued reluctantly. “He may have come a cropper and be lying helpless on the balcony.”
He squeezed out with some difficult
y, and immediately found himself almost up to his knees in snow. Considering that his nether limbs were dad in pyjama trousers and bedroom slippers, the language that floated back through the window to Soames’s appreciative ears was perhaps excusable.
Stuart ploughed his way along the balcony. This was worse—a good deal—than his dream, he decided. But at least there was no sign of the ominous black bulk he dreaded to find, hunched against the whiteness of the snow. Something brushed his face lightly, and he almost cried out, only to find that it was the end of a thin rope, dangling, presumably, from Carew’s window.
He reached the end of the balcony and looked down.
He could not see the ground, but it was obvious that, unless he had fallen over, Carew could not have left the balcony that way. Chilled to the bone, and conscious that his slippers were ruined for ever, he felt his way past the French windows of the two bedrooms giving on to the balcony. Softly, so as not to arouse the inmates, he tested them. They both appeared to be securely latched on the inside.
Soames’s black shadow was blocking the window. Constantine was standing behind him.
“Well?” whispered Soames.
“Nothing doing. Unless he’s fallen over. I suppose we’d better go down and see. Heaven knows how you get out of this place at night, and I haven’t a torch.”
They got the front door unbolted, and Stuart, who was so wet already that a midnight stroll held no terrors for him, plunged once more into the snow. With the aid of a box of matches, filched from the table in the hall, he made a fairly exhaustive examination of the ground underneath the balcony.