Her remorseless reasoning had had its effect. Odd, he felt, that he had not spotted for himself that palpable flaw in the new valet's story to which she had directed his attention. A young fellow, getting the bird from his father, gets it good and proper. The father, just before administering the boot, does not say, "Oh, by the way, you will be needing cash for expenses. Take these few hundreds."
Where, then, as Miss Pym had asked, had Joss obtained the money in which he rolled?
And that stuff about Mayfair Men. That made you think a bit.
Suave, presentable chaps they were, he had always been given to understand-just like this Weatherby.
At the moment when Lord Holbeton was entering the breakfast room Chibnall, too restless to remain between the sheets, had risen from his bed and gone to the window. And as Claines Hall was an L-shaped house, and his room in the smaller part of the L, he had been admirably placed to see the light when it Hashed on.
It confirmed his worst fears. Two minutes later he was on the spot, armed with the weapon which he had picked up while passing through the hall.
His disappointment at finding Lord Holbeton was great.
"Oh, it's you, m'lord," he said dejectedly.
Lord Holbeton, though a crooner, was not without a certain sagacity. Some explanation of his presence would, he realized, be required, and he had thought one up.
"I say, Chibnall, I saw a light in here."
"So did I, m'lord."
"It was still on when I got here."
"Indeed, m'lord?"
"And I found the window open. Did you lock it tonight? You did? Well, it was open when I arrived. Odd."
"Very odd, M'lord." ,
"In fact: a bit rummy.
Yes, m lord.
At this moment, just when their conversation promised to develop along interesting lines, it seemed to both men that the end of the world had suddenly come. It was, as a matter of fact, only Patricia barking, but that was the impression they got.
If there was one thing this Pekinese prided herself on it was her voice. She might not be big; she might look like a section of hearthrug, but she could bark. She was a coloratura soprano who thought nothing of starting at A in alt and going steadily higher, and when she went off unexpectedly under their feet like a bomb strong men were apt to lose their poise and skip like the high hills.
Until this moment what had kept her silent was the fact that the man she had seen had been inside the house, looking out, and not outside the house, looking in. This had decided her to suspend judgment until she could investigate further. But as she made for the breakfast room she had been feeling extremely dubious, and what had finally turned the scale was the sight of Lord Holbeton' s dressing gown. It was of a pattern so loud and vivid that it seemed absurd to suppose that it could encase an honest man. Patricia threw her head back, allowed her eyes to bulge to their extremest limit and went into a trill of accidental grace notes. And simultaneously Mrs Chavender, in the library, and Mrs Steptoe, in her bedroom, started up and hurried to the spot.
Mrs Chavender, being nearer, got there first and was just in time to see Patricia, a dog of action as well as words, bite Lord Holbeton shrewdly on the ankle.
The sight woke all the mother in her.
"What do you mean," she demanded sternly, snatching the Pekinese to her bosom, "by teasing the poor little tl1ing when you know she's not well?"
It was while Lord Holbeton was endeavouring to select the most acid of the six replies which had suggested themselves to him that Mrs Steptoe entered.
"What the heck?" enquired Mrs Steptoe.
"Why, hullo, Mabel," said Mrs Chavender. "You here? Doesn't anyone sleep in this joint?"
"I shouldn't think so," said Mrs Steptoe tartly, "unless they're deaf."
"The dear old place has been a little on the noisy side tonight," admitted Mrs Chavender. "Plenty of life and movement."
"I thought there had been a murder."
"I don't believe blood has actually been spilled, unless Lord Holbeton has lost a drop or two. From motives which she has not yet explained to me, though I assume they were sound, Patricia made a light supper off his leg."
"Chewed me to the bally bone," said Lord Holbeton morosely.
"Get hydrophobia as likely as not."
Mrs Steptoe addressed herself to the butler, appearing to consider him, in spite of the battle-axe, the most responsible party present.
"What is all this, Chibnall?''
''There was a light in the window, madam. I saw it from my room and felt it my duty to descend and investigate. On arrival I found his lordship here. He, too, had observed the light. And he informs me that when he entered he found the window open."
"I opened it," said Mrs Chavender, "to let Patricia out."
"Indeed, madam? I was not aware of that."
"She wanted to go and eat grass."
"I quite understand, madam."
"Her tummy was upset."
"Precisely, madam. Grass in such circumstances is a recognized specific."
Whether Mrs Steptoe was pleased or disappointed at this tame explanation of the affair it would have been difficult to say. Her manner, when she spoke, was brusque, but then it always tended to be a little on that side.
"Well, if your dog is sure it has had all the grass it requires, Beatrice," she said, "perhaps we might all go back to bed and try to get a little sleep."
Mrs Chavender intimated that that was just what she was thinking, and Lord Holbeton said he thought so, too, adding a little frostily that this would enable him to bathe his ankle in cold water and get in touch with the iodine bottle, thus possibly saving a human life.
"Shut that window, Chibnall."
"Very good, madam."
"Well, good night, all," said Mrs Chavender. "No, Patricia, no second helping."
She passed from the room, followed by Lord Holbeton, limping reproachfully. Patricia gave a final shrill comment on the dressing gown before signing off.
Mrs Steptoe clicked her tongue impatiently. Chibnall was standing at the window, peering out as if rapt by the beauty of the night, and she disapproved. When she told butlers to close windows she expected an imitation of forked lightning.
"Chibnall!"
"Madam?"
"Be quick."
"Excuse me, madam."
"Well, what is 'it?"
The butler had closed the window and withdrawn into the room.
There was an urgency in his manner.
"I fancied I saw dim figures stealing across the lawn, madam,"
"What?"
"Yes, madam. Two dim figures. They appeared to be coming in this direction."
"What on earth," asked Mrs Steptoe, not unreasonably, "would dim figures be doing on the lawn at this time of night?"
"Burglars, no doubt, madam. If I might—"
He moved to the switch, and the next moment the room was in darkness, a fact that seemed to make an unfavourable impression on Mrs Steptoe.
"You poor fish," she cried, forgetting in her agitation the respect due to butlers, "what on earth are you doing?''
"I thought it advisable to extinguish the light, madam, in order not to alarm these persons."
To a sentimentalist it would have seemed a kindly, rather pretty thought, but the exclamation that proceeded from the darkness suggested that Mrs Steptoe found such consideration for the nervous systems of the criminal classes hypersensitive.
"I am in favour, if it can be contrived, madam, of catching the miscreants red-handed. I have closed the window. If they break the glass that will be proof of their unlawful intentions. As they enter the room I will switch the light on and confront them."
"Oh, I see. Well, don't let go of that battle-axe."
"I have it in readiness, madam. If I might make the suggestion, it would be best if we now preserved a complete silence."
They did so. There was a long moment of suspense. Then something tinkled in the darkness. Glass had fallen to the floor.
/>
The light Hashed out. It shone on Mr Steptoe blinking, and behind him Joss, whose air was one of courteous interest.
If Joss had been aware that the idea of lending to the night's proceedings the aspect of an outside job had occurred independently to Sally he would have taken it as additional proof, if such were needed, that she and he were twin souls, for it was what he had thought of himself. Mr Steptoe, a blunt, direct man, had been unable to see the point of getting out of the house merely in order to get into it again, but Joss had overruled him. These things, he had explained, should be done properly or not at all.
"Well!" said Mrs Steptoe.
"Oh, there you are," said Joss heartily.
"Weatherby!"
"Madam? Ah, good evening, Chibnall," said Joss, not wishing to leave him out of the conversation.
"What the heck do you think you're doing? And you, Howard,"
demanded Mrs Steptoe, turning on her mate, "what do you think you're doing?"
It was a question which Mr Steptoe could see was prompted by a genuine desire for information, and he was in a position to answer it. But he shrank from doing so. He seemed to swallow something which his thorax was not quite wide enough to accommodate with comfort and cast at Joss the look of a drowning man anxious to be thrown a life line.
Joss did not fail him.
"I am afraid, madam," he said smoothly, "that I am wholly to blame for this untimely intrusion. Lying awake in bed just now, I happened to hear the nightingale and, feeling that Mr Steptoe ought not to miss this treat, I woke him and suggested that he should accompany me into the garden."
"Oh!"
"Yes, madam. We could not see what Bowers were at our feet, nor what soft incense hung upon the boughs, but we managed to catch a glimpse of the bird, did we not, sir?"
"Yeah," said Mr Steptoe. "It was a whopper."
"Quite well developed," assented Joss. "And vocally in tremendous form. We listened, entranced. 'Thou wast not made for death, immortal bird,' said Mr Steptoe, and I agreed with him. I often say that there is no melody quite like the song of the nightingale.
Mr Steptoe feels the same."
"Yeah," said Mr Steptoe.
"He put forward the rather interesting theory that this was quite possibly the selfsame song that found a path through the sad heart of Ruth when, sick for Horne, she stood in tears amid the alien corn. I thought there might be something in it."
"Weatherby," said Mrs Steptoe, "have you been drinking?"
"Only of the Pierian fount, madam."
The intellectual pressure of the conversation was becoming too much for Mrs Steptoe.
"All this," she said, "doesn't explain why you come busting in through windows."
"In his anxiety to reach the garden, madam, Mr Steptoe unfortunately omitted to take his latchkey with him, and we found ourselves shut out. Not wishing to disturb the house, I suggested that we should make an unobtrusive entrance through a window."
"Oh," said Mrs Steptoe. She stood awhile in thought, then jerked an imperious hand towards the door. "Howard, go to bed."
"Yes, honey," said Mr Steptoe obediently and shambled out.
His mind was in a whirl, but there emerged from the welter one coherent thought. Like the poet Keats on a similar occasion, he wanted a drink. Oh, he was saying to himself as he mounted the stairs, for a beaker full of the warm South, full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, and by a singular piece of good fortune he had the makings in a flask on the table beside his bed. His rather careworn manner softened, and he sucked in his lips in pleasant anticipation.
"Shut that window," said Mrs Steptoe.
"Very good, madam," said Joss.
"Though it's hardly worth while after you've been punching holes in it," said Mrs Steptoe, and left the room stiffly.
She was surprised to discover, as she reached the foot of the stairs, that she had been accompanied by her butler and paused to ascertain the reason for this matiness on his part.
"Yes, Chibnall?"
"I wonder if I might speak to you for a moment, madam?"
"You've picked a swell time for chatting. I need my beauty sleep. Well, all right, make it snappy."
"It is with reference to the young man Weatherby, madam."
"What about him?"
"I am not easy in my mind about his bona fides, madam. I find his behaviour suspicious. Were you aware, madam, that he arrived at the Hall in his personal automobile."
"Did he?"
"Yes, madam. That was my reason for showing him to the drawing room. I naturally supposed him to be a guest."
Mrs Steptoe pursed her lips. In her native California, of course, the incident would have been without significance. It is a very impoverished valet in the Golden State who does not dash up to the door in his private car. But in England, she knew, different conditions prevailed.
"Odd," she said.
"Yes, madam. It is also unusual for a young fellow in his position to give the butler in the establishment where he is taking service a present of ten pounds."
"Did he do that?"
"Yes, madam."
"H'm."
"A suggestion which has been advanced by a friend of mine to whom I confided the circumstances is that he is one of these Mayfair Men who, having recently pulled off a big job, is using the Hall for what is termed a hide-out."
"Nonsense.''
"Just as you say, madam. But he seems a very peculiar valet to me. I certainly think it would be advisable to notify the police and have them institute enquiries into his antecedents."
"No, that's out," said Mrs Steptoe decidedly. Chibnall had agitated her, but even in her agitation she did not lose sight of the fact that Joss, if a peculiar-and possibly a criminal-valet, was an extremely efficient one. By what magic he had wrought the miracle she could not say, but he had sent the hick Howard down to dinner on the previous night looking not merely respectable but refulgent.
His shirt had shown like a lighthouse, so that baronets gaped at the sight of it. So had his shoes. And as for his collar and tie, they could have been used as exhibits in a lecture on what the smart dresser should wear. It would be madness to put the police on the trail of this wonder man.
On the other hand, she did not want to wake up one morning and find the place looted.
''I'm not going to have the house littered up with cops. You had better watch him."
"Very good, madam. I was about to suggest that, if the idea meets with your approval, I should pass the remainder of the night in the breakfast room. This would enable me to guard the tapestries."
"He can't be after those."
"They are extremely valuable."
"Yes, but if he had been trying to swipe them would he have taken Mr Steptoe with him?''
"There is that, of course, madam."
"Still, I'm all for your spending the night in the breakfast room.
1 don't like leaving that broken window. Snap into it."
"Very good, madam."
In the breakfast room, meanwhile, Joss, having closed the window, had been standing in a train of thought. What had started this train of thought had been the sight of the knife which Lord Holbeton had dropped on the floor. He was at a loss to account for its presence there, but it seemed to him to come under the bead of manna from heaven. Two things are essential to the purloining of a portrait from a country house-the first, opportunity; the second, some implement for removing the thing from its frame.
He now had both.
He picked up the knife and, like Lord Holbeton, crossed to the fireplace. There, also like Lord Holbeton, he stood gazing at the portrait, thinking-though this Lord Holbeton had not done what a remarkably good bit of work it was. Then, bringing up a chair and standing on it, he was about to start carving when a voice, speaking in his rear, brought him to the ground as if he had been lassoed.
"Ah!" said the voice.
Mrs Chavender was standing in the doorway.
Chapter XII
Mrs Chaven
der's appearance was always striking. It was now rendered additionally so by the circumstances that she, like himself, was armed to the teeth. There was a large knife in her hand.
It made her look like Lady Macbeth.
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