“In certain respects you have genius,” I said, delighted that Carmella would be one of the community. “But where are you going to find all that money?”
“Buried treasure,” said Carmella mysteriously. “I dug a buried treasure from under the floor boards of the servants’ lavatory in the back yard.”
It was quite impossible to tell if she was serious or joking. Buried treasure in a servants’ lavatory was not impossible but rare, very rare indeed.
“What sort of buried treasure?” I asked intrigued. “Spanish coins, Indian gold jewels or just rivers of diamonds and rubies?”
“I dug up a mine of uranium by mistake,” said Carmella. “You remember that I told you in my letter that I had thought of making an underground passage from my house to the Institute here? Well I had begun digging quietly, in the most secluded spot I could find and I dug up a mine of uranium. My niece and I are millionaires, I am thinking of buying some race horses.”
“Really Carmella,” I said, not knowing what to believe. “Most extraordinary things do happen to you. I expect you have bought a helicopter, as you always wanted?”
“As a matter of fact,” said Carmella with dignity, “I have merely bought a limousine. Come and look at it.” Drawn up in front of the main entrance was a huge long modern automobile painted a shade of lilac I knew to be Carmella’s favourite colour. At the wheel sat a Chinese chauffeur in a black uniform powdered with pink roses. He saluted us respectfully.
I was so overcome with surprise that I could only wonder if the hunger strike had given me hallucinations.
“Majong,” said Carmella to the chauffeur, “bring in the crate of sardines and the five dozen bottles of sweet port.” The chauffeur leapt out of the car and started hauling out a crate from the luggage compartment, which started playing catatonic Sardanas, Carmella’s favourite music, when opened.
As Carmella and I led the way, Majong, the chauffeur, carried the luxurious crate, heavy with a hundred tins of real Portuguese sardines to my bungalow.
The snow that had started to fall during the afternoon had become heavier, and the garden was already white.
“Extraordinary weather for this time of year,” said Carmella. “One would imagine oneself in Sweden. They say if the earth tilted the snow caps at the poles would melt and the equator would form new caps of snow, being in the place where the poles were before.”
A great light flashed in my mind. The riddle, of course.
I wear a white cap on my head and my tail
Around my fat belly my girdle is hot
I move round and round though legs I have not.
The answer, of course, was the Earth. Why had I not thought of that at once? Then I felt suddenly afraid. Suppose my mother’s idea that Monte Carlo was on the equator and that snow in Biarritz meant the poles were changing was really a prophecy? The effects of such a change would be disastrous to many inhabitants of the planet. My mind reeled.
“When I return tomorrow,” said Carmella, “I will bring everybody sheepskin coats, just like mine, and top boots. It is a wonder that you don’t all die of the cold.”
“You mustn’t spend all your fortune at once,” I said. “It would be awful if you found you had nothing left after a week.”
“Never mind,” replied Carmella. “I have millions. I couldn’t spend it all even if I wanted to. Just imagine, I have bought the biggest and most elegant tearoom in the whole town, just as a present for my niece.”
“But why don’t you buy yourself a luxurious palace in town instead of coming here, where there is no luxury at all?”
“I like company,” replied Carmella. “Besides I shall bring luxury with me. Like that mountain that went walking after somebody whose name I can’t recall.”
“It was Dunsinane Forest and Shakespeare said it went walking,” I said, wondering if I might be mistaken.
“Forest or mountain, no matter,” said Carmella, as we watched Majong arrange the bottles of port neatly along the walls of the Lookout. He put the precious crate of sardines on the table.
“It is so cold in here,” said Carmella, “that I shall leave you my coat.”
“Please do not, I would be very embarrassed,” I said, hoping she would anyhow.
“I have a fine bearskin rug in the car,” said Carmella, “Majong!”
“Yes Madam.”
“Go and get the bearskin rug out of the car. I am leaving my cloak with Mrs. Leatherby. She will certainly catch pneumonia if she sleeps in here tonight without adequate covering.”
“Yes Madam.” He left as I protested feebly. The cold was most intense, and seemed to increase hour by hour.
“I really believe the poles are changing places,” said Carmella. “There will almost certainly be famine, so I shall go shopping tomorrow morning and bring supplies. We will no doubt soon be fighting packs of hungry wolves.” She seemed pleased at the thought and elaborated further, “Naturally elephants living in Africa and India would have to grow long fur and become mammoths again, to survive the cold. Flora and fauna of a tropical kind that were unable to adapt would perish. I feel most upset about the animals. Happily most of them have fur that grows quickly, and carnivorous animals would have plenty of human beings to eat, all those people who had not foreseen what was coming and died of exposure. It is all the fault of that dreadful atom bomb they were so proud of.”
“You mean we are entering another ice age?” I asked, feeling far from happy.
“Why not? it happened before,” said Carmella logically. “I must say that I do feel it is poetic justice if all those horrible governments are frozen stark in their respective governmental palaces or parliaments. Actually they always sit in front of microphones, so there is a good chance that they might all get frozen to death. That would be a nice change, after pushing the poor nations to all-slaughter, ever since nineteen-fourteen.
“It is impossible to understand how millions and millions of people all obey a sickly collection of gentlemen that call themselves ‘Government’! The word, I expect, frightens people. It is a form of planetary hypnosis, and very unhealthy.”
“It has been going on for years,” I said. “And it only occurred to relatively few to disobey and make what they call revolutions. If they won their revolutions, which they occasionally did, they made more governments, sometimes more cruel and stupid than the last.”
“Men are very difficult to understand,” said Carmella. “Let’s hope they all freeze to death. I am sure it would be very pleasant and healthy for human beings to have no authority whatever. They would have to think for themselves, instead of always being told what to do and think by advertisements, cinemas, policemen and parliaments.”
By this time Majong had returned with the rug. Carmella gave me her coat and she left wrapped in the rug, leaning on the arm of her Chinese chauffeur.
“I will be here at noon tomorrow,” said Carmella over her shoulder. “Get them to sterilize that double bungalow. Its vibrations must be very diseased after the murder.”
Carmella disappeared into the night and, comfortably wrapped in the warm cloak, I sallied forth to invite the ladies to an orgy of sardines and port wine.
The doors of the bungalow and Natacha’s igloo hung open and snow blew into the empty rooms. Natacha and Mrs. Van Tocht had gone. Where they had gone to we never discovered, and none of us made much effort to find out.
•
At dawn I arose and looked out. It was still snowing, and the pale garden looked delightful. I was surprised to see several ladies walking towards the main building at such an early hour. Perhaps they had decided to take breakfast in the dining room, as Natacha and Mrs. Van Tocht had gone. It was difficult to believe that they were unusually hungry, as we had dined royally on several tins of sardines each, washed down with fine sweet port. A banquet, in fact. However, after so many days fasting perhaps they stil
l had a lot of appetite. I dressed slowly and thought about the two riddles I had not yet solved.
I never move as you whirl round and round
I sit and watch you with never a sound.
Now who could this possibly be? If the first verse referred to the earth, did the second, perhaps, refer to the sun? It did seem like a possibility, as the sun does appear to move, although the third line insists again that the sun “caps” change:
If you tilt far enough caps become belt,
New caps are made the old caps will melt.
The Belt meant the equator obviously, and the “New Caps” would be new poles formed on the old equator. If this made sense and was not a gratuitous obscurity to make things more difficult, then the Sitting Watcher who appears to move but does not could not mean the sun. The poles don’t have to change place with the equator to make the sun appear to move, it does that anyhow.
Though legless your whirling will then appear lame
I seem to move but I don’t, what’s my name?
What indeed? And why does the whirling Earth appear lame?
I could not find the solution, and really I felt too old to cudgel my ancient creaking brain with riddles. Feeling slightly cross, I wrapped myself in the great sheepskin cloak and walked out into the snow. The sun had not yet risen, dawn seemed to be unusually long, but the sky was overcast and this would have obscured the sun in any case.
The snow was almost up to my knees, but it was powdery and dry due to the intense cold. I felt rather guilty wearing such a nice warm cloak when the others were wrapped in all sorts of old blankets. If Carmella did not bring the other cloaks, I thought, we could make ourselves waistcoats out of this big cloak. That would keep one’s bronchial tubes warm. Chest disorders at our age were not to be taken lightly.
The only spot in the garden which showed green was a perfect circle around the sunken rocks where the warm spring leapt out from underground. The round green circle surrounding the dark warm depths looked curiously unnatural in the expanse of snow. The Gambits, I thought, should have had an indoor bath built, where we could bathe our rheumatic joints. The sulphuric water was surely good for rheumatism? Perhaps they did not like to spend so much money on a property that was not their own. The owner, however, could have made a nice spa, with a naturally warm spring right on his property. Perhaps he earned enough money already with his grocery store.
The Marquise caught up with me and we shared the shelter of the cloak. Her face was cobalt blue with cold.
“It is inexplicable,” she shouted into my left ear.
“Yes indeed, I never saw such fickle weather at this time of year,” I replied, adjusting my hearing trumpet, which I now always carried hung on a cord, Robin Hood style.
“Not fickle,” said the Marquise, “I said inexplicable!”
“Yes, it is really inexplicable, although I expect the geologists will make some very satisfactory and incomprehensible reports,” I replied. “So much snow below the tropic of Cancer must be very unusual.”
“Not only the snow,” replied the Marquise, “but also the fact that it is now eleven o’clock in the morning and the sun has not risen!”
What was left of my sparse grey hair rose on my scalp. The sun had not risen. Something really cataclysmic must be afoot. I was terrified, but also excited.
A fire had been lit in the lounge, and all the ladies had clustered around the warmth with mugs of coffee. They were discussing the phenomenon with animation.
“I do hope sea lions will migrate here,” Anna Wertz was saying, “they are so wonderfully clever. We could teach them tricks in the garden and they would eat some of the sardines.”
“If the sun is really disappearing,” said Georgina, “the only life left on this planet will be arctic fungus, and even that will disappear eventually.” The general and immediate preoccupation concerned clothing. I proposed we should cut the cloak into sections, in case Carmella forgot to bring others as she had promised. We all agreed that this would at least protect our bronchial tracts.
“It would take some time before we were entirely overrun with giant polar bears,” continued Anna Wertz, whose mind seemed to have coagulated on arctic animals. “Large polar bears might be formidable enemies, although personally I believe that all animals are friendly if treated unaggressively. One would initiate a very kind but cautious attitude towards them, leaving a bowl of milk out in the evenings or a slice of salted cod, of which they are very fond. Bit by bit they could be induced to allow themselves to be petted, and even sleep inside the bungalows, this would increase the warmth immensely. One or two polar bears the size of ordinary cart horses could generate a good deal of warmth.”
“Talking of warmth,” said Georgina, “I suggest we move our camp beds in here for the night and keep the fire going, otherwise none of us will live to tell the tale. We might be the last surviving human beings on earth.”
The brass clock over the fireplace suggested that it was already midday, but the pale sun got no lighter and the snow fell without abating. Outside the trees were already laden, and one or two banana palms had collapsed under the weight of snow.
Anna Wertz went to the kitchen and got some dry bread which she threw outside on the veranda for the birds.
“They feel so cold, poor things, and nothing to eat all of a sudden.” Actually some pigeons, sparrows and a few ravens were walking about on the snow outside looking for food. In the trees birds would begin to twitter and then stop, undecided whether it was morning or evening. We could hardly tell ourselves, if it hadn’t been for the brass clock.
Georgina had locked all the doors, in case we were visited by Dr. Gambit, who might object to the lighted fire.
“If he comes now with his beastly sermons,” said Georgina, “we had better tie him up and gag him. After all, they are only two against six.”
I had begun to worry about Carmella, who had promised to arrive by midday. The roads would already be covered with snow and might be difficult to negotiate in a car.
Perhaps she had overslept, thinking, as I had, that at eleven o’clock it was dawn.
More and more birds agglomerated on the lawn, and the most audacious of them hopped onto the veranda and started picking at the crumbs. We were startled to see a toucan and some parrots arrive, as well as sea birds such as gulls, pelicans and small white cranes that lived on the coast in the tropics.
Soon we were all standing at the window watching the sight. In the pale twilight it was not always possible to distinguish the breed of bird, but those that came close enough were quite visible against the snow.
All of a sudden the front door bell clanged loudly and the birds nearest the house rose into the air with fright. I went to the front accompanied by Georgina. We were happy to see Carmella’s lilac limousine drawn up at the front door.
“Get the door open,” said Carmella poking her head out of one of the windows. “We must drive the car into the garden and use the headlights, there may be no electricity for some time.”
I noticed she wore a handsome new lilac wig, to match the car. It suited her better, I thought, than the other one, which had been rather intensely red. With much puffing and wheezing Georgina and I managed to open the great double doors which had no doubt remained closed since Don Alvarez de la Selva had died. Majong drove the car into the courtyard where it slithered and stopped. The snow was already too deep to get it into the garden.
“It will be alright here,” I told Carmella, “because we have taken over the lounge and do not intend to allow the Gambits to enter. Unless of course they come pacifically.”
“Excellent,” said Carmella. “If we gather in one place it will be easier to economize fuel.”
Majong had opened the luggage carrier, which sang Sardanas tunefully, and was already extracting all sorts of packing cases. The inside of the car was also stuffed to the roof with shee
pskin cloaks, top boots, oil lamps, oil, umbrellas, caps, jerseys, flower pots with plants, and twelve agitated cats amongst which I recognized my own with rejoicing.
When Carmella opened the door all the cats leapt out of the car and ran hissing angrily in all directions. “They will soon settle down and come into the house,” said Carmella. “I have taken the precaution to put some dried codfish inside my cloak so they can find me easily by my scent. They won’t get lost.”
As Majong carried the packing cases into the house Carmella ticked off each item on a long list she carried in her hand.
“Mushroom spore. Beans, lentils, dried peas and rice. Grass seed, biscuits, tinned fish, miscellaneous sweet wines, sugar, chocolates, marshmallows, tinned catfood, face cream, tea, coffee, medicine chest, flour, violet capsules, tinned soup, sack of wheat, work basket, pickaxe, tobacco, cocoa, nail polish, etc. etc.” There were enough provisions to face a siege.
“As soon as the sky clears we will use the planisphere,” said Carmella. “And then we will know exactly what is happening. During the last three months I made friends with a student of astronomy who explained exactly how it works.”
“You may be right about the changing of the poles,” I said, thinking of the strange riddles that Christabel had given me to solve. “The sun has not really risen since yesterday morning.”
“It is surprising how friendly people become if you have money,” said Carmella reflectively. “The astronomer actually wanted to marry me, but as he was only twenty-two I thought it would be imprudent. I don’t really want to marry again in any case.”
We stacked all the provisions in the lounge. It was not quite warm inside but the supply of wood that Mrs. Gambit had gathered in the closet was not large, and it was doubtful if it would last through another day or night. There was no coal, because in the past wood fires in the evening were quite sufficient to keep warm.
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