CHAPTER IX
I
John woke late next day, and in the moment between sleeping and waking was dimly conscious of a feeling of extraordinary happiness. For some reason, which he could not immediately analyze, the world seemed suddenly to have become the best of all possible worlds. Then he remembered, and sprang out of bed with a shout.
Emily, lying curled up in her basket, her whole appearance that of a dog who has come home with the milk, raised a drowsy head. Usually it was her custom to bustle about and lend a hand while John bathed and dressed, but this morning she did not feel equal to it. Deciding that it was too much trouble even to tell him about the man she had seen in the grounds last night, she breathed heavily twice and returned to her slumbers.
Having dressed and come out into the open, John found that he had missed some hours of what appeared to be the most perfect morning in the world's history. The stable yard was a well of sunshine: light breezes whispered in the branches of the cedars: fleecy clouds swam in a sea of blue: and from the direction of the home farm there came the soothing crooning of fowls. His happiness swelled into a feeling of universal benevolence toward all created things. He looked upon the birds and found them all that birds should be: the insects which hummed in the sunshine were, he perceived, a quite superior brand of insect: he even felt fraternal toward a wasp which came flying about his face. And when the Dex-Mayo rolled across the bridge of the moat and Bolt, applying the brakes, drew up at his side, he thought he had never seen a nicer-looking chauffeur.
"Good morning, Bolt," said John, effusively.
"Good morning, sir."
"Where have you been off to so early?"
"Mr. Carmody sent me to Worcester, sir, to leave a bag for him at Shrub Hill station. If you're going into the house, Mr. John, perhaps you wouldn't mind giving him the ticket?"
John was delighted. It was a small kindness that the chauffeur was asking, and he wished it had been in his power to do something for him on a bigger scale. However, the chance of doing even small kindnesses was something to be grateful for on a morning like this. He took the ticket and put it in his pocket.
"How are you, Bolt?"
"All right, thank you, sir."
"How's Mrs. Bolt?"
"She's all right, Mr. John."
"How's the baby?"
"The baby's all right."
"And the dog?"
"The dog's all right, sir."
"That's splendid," said John. "That's great. That's fine. That's capital. I'm delighted."
He smiled a radiant smile of cheeriness and good will, and turned toward the house. However much the heart may be uplifted, the animal in a man insists on demanding breakfast, and, though John was practically pure spirit this morning, he was not blind to the fact that a couple of eggs and a cup of coffee would be no bad thing. As he reached the door, he remembered that Mrs. Bolt had a canary and that he had not inquired after that, but decided that the moment had gone by. Later on, perhaps. He opened the back door and made his way to the morning room, where eggs abounded and coffee could be had for the asking. Pausing only to tickle a passing cat under the ear and make chirruping noises to it, he went in.
The morning room was empty, and there were signs that the rest of the party had already breakfasted. John was glad of it. Genially disposed though he felt toward his species to-day, he relished the prospect of solitude. A man who is about to picnic on Wenlock Edge in perfect weather with the only girl in the world, wants to meditate, not to make conversation.
So thoroughly had his predecessors breakfasted that he found, on inspecting the coffee pot, that it was empty. He rang the bell.
"Good morning, Sturgis," he said affably, as the butler appeared. "You might give me some more coffee, will you?"
The butler of Rudge Hall was a little man with snowy hair who had been placidly withering in Mr. Carmody's service for the last twenty years. John had known him ever since he could remember, and he had always been just the same—frail and venerable and kindly and dried-up. He looked exactly like the Good Old Man in a touring melodrama company.
"Why, Mr. John! I thought you were in London."
"I got back late last night. And very glad," said John heartily, "to be back. How's the rheumatism, Sturgis?"
"Rather troublesome, Mr. John."
John was horrified. Could these things be on such a day as this?
"You don't say so?"
"Yes, Mr. John. I was awake the greater portion of the night."
"You must rub yourself with something and then go and lie down and have a good rest. Where do you feel it mostly?"
"In the limbs, Mr. John. It comes on in sharp twinges."
"That's bad. By Jove, yes, that's bad. Perhaps this fine weather will make it better."
"I hope so, Mr. John."
"So do I, so do I," said John earnestly. "Tell me, where is everybody?"
"Mr. Hugo and the young gentleman went up to London."
"Of course, yes. I was forgetting."
"Mr. Molloy and Miss Molloy finished their breakfast some little time ago, and are now out in the garden."
"Ah, yes. And my uncle?"
"He is up in the picture gallery with the policeman, Mr. John."
John stared.
"With the what?"
"With the policeman, Mr. John, who's come about the burglary."
"Burglary?"
"Didn't you hear, Mr. John, we had a burglary last night?"
The world being constituted as it is, with Fate waiting round almost every corner with its sandbag, it is not often that we are permitted to remain for long undisturbed in our moods of exaltation. John came down to earth swiftly.
"Good heavens!"
"Yes, Mr. John. And if you could spare the time...."
Remorse gripped John. He felt like a sentinel who, falling asleep at his post, has allowed the enemy to creep past him in the night.
"I must go up and see about this."
"Very good, Mr. John. But if I might have a word...."
"Some other time, Sturgis."
He ran up the stairs to the picture gallery. Mr. Carmody and Rudge's one policeman were examining something by the window, and John, in the brief interval which elapsed before they became aware of his presence, was enabled to see the evidence of the disaster. Several picture frames, robbed of their contents, gaped at him like blank windows. A glass case containing miniatures had been broken and rifled. The Elizabethan salt cellar presented to Aymas Carmody by the Virgin Queen herself was no longer in its place.
"Gosh!" said John.
Mr. Carmody and his companion turned.
"John! I thought you were in London."
"I came back last night."
"Did you see, or observe or hear anything of this business?" asked the policeman.
Constable Mould was one of the slowest-witted men in Rudge, and he had eyes like two brown puddles filmed over with scum, but he was doing his best to look at John keenly.
"No."
"Why not?"
"I wasn't here."
"You said you were, sir," Constable Mould pointed out cleverly.
"I mean, I wasn't anywhere near the house," replied John impatiently. "Immediately I arrived I went out for a row on the moat."
"Then you did not see or observe anything?"
"No."
Constable Mould, who had been licking the tip of his pencil and holding a notebook in readiness, subsided disappointedly.
"When did this happen?" asked John.
"It is impossible to say," replied Mr. Carmody. "By a most unfortunate combination of circumstances the house was virtually empty from almost directly after dinner. Hugo and his friend, as you know, left for London yesterday morning. Mr. Molloy and his daughter took the car to Birmingham to see a play. And I myself retired to bed early with a headache. The man could have effected an entrance without being observed almost any time after eight o'clock. No doubt he actually did break in shortly before midnight."
"How did he get in?"
"Undoubtedly through this window by means of a ladder."
John perceived that the glass of the window had been cut out.
"Another most unfortunate thing," proceeded Mr. Carmody, "is that the objects stolen, though so extremely valuable, are small in actual size. The man could have carried them off without any inconvenience. No doubt they are miles away by this time, possibly even in London."
"Was this here stuff insured?" asked Constable Mould.
"Yes. Curiously enough, the reason my nephew here went to London yesterday was to increase the insurance. You saw to that matter, John?"
"Oh, yes." John spoke absently. Like everybody else who has ever found himself on the scene of a recently committed burglary, he was looking about for clues. "Hullo!"
"What is the matter?"
"Did you see this?"
"Certainly I saw it," said Mr. Carmody.
"I saw it first," said Constable Mould.
"The man must have cut his finger getting it."
"That's what I thought," said Constable Mould.
The combined Mould-Carmody-John discovery was a bloodstained fingerprint on the woodwork of the window sill: and, like so many things in this world, it had at first sight the air of being much more important than it really was. John said he considered it valuable evidence, and felt damped when Mr. Carmody pointed out that its value was decreased by the fact that it was not easy to search through the whole of England for a man with a cut finger.
"I see," said John.
Constable Mould said he had seen it right away.
"The only thing to be done, I suppose," said Mr. Carmody resignedly, "is to telephone to the police in Worcester. Not that they will be likely to effect anything, but it is as well to observe the formalities. Come downstairs with me, Mould."
They left the room, the constable, it seemed to John, taking none too kindly to the idea that there were higher powers in the world of detection than himself. His uncle, he considered, had shown a good deal of dignity in his acceptance of the disaster. Many men would have fussed and lost their heads, but Lester Carmody remained calm. John thought it showed a good spirit.
He wandered about the room, hoping for more and better clues. But the difficulty confronting the novice on these occasions is that it is so hard to tell what is a clue and what is not. Probably, if he only knew, there were clues lying about all over the place, shouting to him to pick them up. But how to recognize them? Sherlock Holmes can extract a clue from a wisp of straw or a flake of cigar ash. Doctor Watson has to have it taken out for him and dusted and exhibited clearly with a label attached. John was forced reluctantly to the conclusion that he was essentially a Doctor Watson. He did not rise even to the modest level of a Scotland Yard Bungler.
He awoke from a reverie to find Sturgis at his side.
II
"Ah, Sturgis," said John absently.
He was not particularly pleased to see the butler. The man looked as if he were about to dodder, and in moments of intense thought one does not wish to have doddering butlers around one.
"Might I have a word, Mr. John?"
John supposed he might, though he was not frightfully keen about it. He respected Sturgis's white hairs, but the poor old ruin had horned in at an unfortunate moment.
"My rheumatism was very bad last night, Mr. John."
John recognized the blunder he had made in being so sympathetic just now. At the time, feeling, as he had done, that all mankind were his little brothers, to inquire after and display a keen interest in Sturgis's rheumatism had been a natural and, one might say, unavoidable act. But now he regretted it. He required every cell in his brain for this very delicate business of clue-hunting, and it was maddening to be compelled to call a number of them off duty to attend to gossip about a butler's swollen joints. A little coldly he asked Sturgis if he had ever tried Christian Science.
"It kept me awake a very long time, Mr. John."
"I read in a paper the other day that bee stings sometimes have a good effect."
"Bee stings, sir?"
"So they say. You get yourself stung by bees, and the acid or whatever it is in the sting draws out the acid or whatever it is in you."
Sturgis was silent for a while, and John supposed he was about to ask if he could direct him to a good bee. Such, however, was not the butler's intention. It was Sturgis, the old retainer with the welfare of Rudge Hall nearest his heart—not Sturgis the sufferer from twinges in the limbs—who was present now in the picture gallery.
"It is very kind of you, Mr. John," he said, "to interest yourself, but what I wished to have a word with you about was this burglary of ours last night."
This was more the stuff. John became heartier.
"A most mysterious affair, Sturgis. The man apparently climbed in through this window, and no doubt escaped the same way."
"No, Mr. John. That's what I wished to have a word with you about. He went away down the front stairs."
"What! How do you know?"
"I saw him, Mr. John."
"You saw him?"
"Yes, Mr. John. Owing to being kept awake by my rheumatism."
The remorse which had come upon John at the moment when he had first heard the news of the burglary was as nothing to the remorse which racked him now. Just because this fine old man had one of those mild, goofy faces and bleated like a sheep when he talked, he had dismissed him without further thought as a dodderer. And all the time the splendid old fellow, who could not help his face and was surely not to be blamed if age had affected his vocal chords, had been the God from the Machine, sent from heaven to assist him in getting to the bottom of this outrage. There is no known case on record of a man patting a butler on the head, but John at this moment came very near to providing one.
"You saw him!"
"Yes, Mr. John."
"What did he look like?"
"I couldn't say, Mr. John, not really definite."
"Why couldn't you?"
"Because I did not really see him."
"But you said you did."
"Yes, Mr. John, but only in a manner of speaking."
John's new-born cordiality waned a little. His first estimate, he felt, had been right. This was doddering, pure and simple.
"How do you mean, only in a manner of speaking?"
"Well, it was like this, Mr. John...."
"Look here," said John. "Tell me the whole thing right from the start."
Sturgis glanced cautiously at the door. When he spoke, it was in a lowered voice, which gave his delivery the effect of a sheep bleating with cotton wool in its mouth.
"I was awake with my rheumatism last night, Mr. John, and at last it come on so bad I felt I really couldn't hardly bear it no longer. I lay in bed, thinking, and after I had thought for quite some time, Mr. John, it suddenly crossed my mind that Mr. Hugo had once remarked, while kindly interesting himself in my little trouble, that a glassful of whisky, drunk without water, frequently alleviated the pain."
John nodded. So far, the story bore the stamp of truth. A glassful of neat whisky was just what Hugo would have recommended for any complaint, from rheumatism to a broken heart.
"So I thought in the circumstances that Mr. Carmody would not object if I tried a little. So I got out of bed and put on my overcoat, and I had just reached the head of the stairs, it being my intention to go to the cellarette in the dining room, when what should I hear but a noise."
"What sort of noise?"
"A sort of sneezing noise, Mr. John. As it might be somebody sneezing."
"Yes? Well?"
"I was stottled."
"Stottled? Oh, yes, I see. Well?"
"I remained at the head of the stairs. For quite a while I remained at the head of the stairs. Then I crope ..."
"You what?"
"I crope to the door of the picture gallery."
"Oh, I see. Yes?"
"Because the sneezing seemed to have come from there. And then I heard another sneeze. Two or three sneezes, Mr. John. As if whoever was in there had got a nasty cold in the head. And then I heard footsteps coming toward the door."
"What did you do?"
"I went back to the head of the stairs again, sir. If anybody had told me half an hour before that I could have moved so quick I wouldn't have believed him. And then out of the door came a man carrying a bag. He had one of those electric torches. He went down the stairs, but it was only when he was at the bottom that I caught even a glimpse of his face."
"But you did then?"
"Yes, Mr. John, for just a moment. And I was stottled."
"Why? You mean he was somebody you knew?"
The butler lowered his voice again.
"I could have sworn, Mr. John, it was that Doctor Twist who came over here the other day from Healthward Ho."
"Doctor Twist!"
"Yes, Mr. John. I didn't tell the policeman just now, and I wouldn't tell anybody but you, because after all it was only a glimpse, as you might say, and I couldn't swear to it, and there's defamation of character to be considered. So I didn't mention it to Mr. Mould when he was inquiring of me. I said I'd heard nothing, being in my bed at the time. Because, apart from defamation of character and me not being prepared to swear on oath, I wasn't sure how Mr. Carmody would like the idea of my going to the dining-room cellarette even though in agonies of pain. So I'd be much obliged if you would not mention it to him, Mr. John."
"I won't."
"Thank you, sir."
"You'd better leave me to think this over, Sturgis."
"Very good, Mr. John."
"You were quite right to tell me."
"Thank you, Mr. John. Are you coming downstairs to finish your breakfast, sir?"
John waved away the material suggestion.
"No. I want to think."
"Very good, Mr. John."
Left alone, John walked to the window and frowned meditatively out. His brain was now working with a rapidity and clearness which the most professional of detectives might have envied. For the first time since his cousin Hugo had come to him to have his head repaired he began to realize that there might have been something, after all, in that young man's rambling story. Taken in conjunction with what Sturgis had just told him, Hugo's weird tale of finding Doctor Twist burgling the house became significant.
This Twist, now. After all, what about him? He had come from nowhere to settle down in Worcestershire, ostensibly in order to conduct a health farm. But what if that health farm were a mere blind for more dastardly work. After all, it was surely a commonplace that your scientific criminal invariably adopted some specious cover of respectability for his crimes....
Into the radius of John's vision there came Mr. Thomas G. Molloy, walking placidly beside the moat with his dashing daughter. It seemed to John as if he had been sent at just this moment for a purpose. What he wanted above all things was a keen-minded sensible man of the world with whom to discuss these suspicions of his, and who was better qualified for this rôle than Mr. Molloy? Long since he had fallen under the spell of the other's magnetic personality, and had admired the breadth of his intellect. Thomas G. Molloy was, it seemed to him, the ideal confidant.
He left the room hurriedly, and ran down the stairs.
III
Mr. Molloy was still strolling beside the moat when John arrived. He greeted him with his usual bluff kindliness. Soapy, like John some half hour earlier, was feeling amiably disposed toward all mankind this morning.
"Well, well, well!" said Soapy. "So you're back? Did you have a pleasant time in London?"
"All right, thanks. I wanted to see you...."
"You've heard about this unfortunate business last night?"
"Yes. It was about that...."
"I have never been so upset by anything in my life," said Mr. Molloy. "By pure bad luck Dolly here and myself went over to Birmingham after dinner to see a show, and in our absence the outrage must have occurred. I venture to say," went on Mr. Molloy, a stern look creeping into his eyes, "that if only I'd been on the spot the thing could never have happened. My hearing's good, and I'm pretty quick on a trigger, Mr. Carroll—pretty quick, let me tell you. It would have taken a right smart burglar to have gotten past me."
"You bet it would," said Dolly. "Gee! It's a pity. And the man didn't leave a single trace, did he?"
"A fingerprint—or it may have been a thumb print—on the sill of the window, honey. That was all. And I don't see what good that's going to do us. You can't round up the population of England and ask to see their thumbs."
"And outside of that not so much as a single trace. Isn't it too bad! From start to finish not a soul set eyes on the fellow."
"Yes, they did," said John. "That's what I came to talk to you about. One of the servants heard a noise and came out and saw him going down the staircase."
If he had failed up to this point to secure the undivided attention of his audience, he had got it now. Miss Molloy seemed suddenly to come all eyes, and so tremendous were the joy and relief of Mr. Molloy that he actually staggered.
"Saw him?" exclaimed Miss Molloy.
"Sus-saw him?" echoed her father, scarcely able to speak in his delight.
"Yes. Do you by any chance know a man named Twist?"
"Twist?" said Mr. Molloy, still speaking with difficulty. He wrinkled his forehead. "Twist? Do I know a man named Twist, honey?"
"The name seems kind of familiar," admitted Miss Molloy.
"He runs a place called Healthward Ho about twenty miles from here. My uncle stayed there for a couple of weeks. It's a place where people go to get into condition—a sort of health farm, I suppose you would call it."
"Of course, yes. I have heard Mr. Carmody speak of his friend Twist. But...."
"Apparently he called here the other day—to see my uncle, I suppose—and this servant I'm speaking about saw him and is convinced that he was the burglar."
"Improbable, surely?" Mr. Molloy seemed still to be having a little trouble with his breath. "Surely not very probable. This man Twist, from what you tell me, is a personal friend of your uncle. Why, therefore.... Besides, if he owns a prosperous business...."
John was not to be put off the trail by mere superficial argument. Doctor Watson may be slow at starting, but, once started, he is a bloodhound for tenacity.
"I've thought of all that. I admit it did seem curious at first. But if you come to look into it you can see that the very thing a burglar who wanted to operate in these parts would do is to start some business that would make people unsuspicious of him."
Mr. Molloy shook his head.
"It sounds far-fetched to me."
John's opinion of his sturdy good sense began to diminish.
"Well, anyhow," he said in his solid way, "this servant is sure he recognized Twist, and one can't do any harm by going over there and having a look at the man. I've got quite a good excuse for seeing him. My uncle's having a dispute about his bill, and I can say I came over to discuss it."
"Yes," said Mr. Molloy in a strained voice. "But——"
"Sure you can," said Miss Molloy, with sudden animation. "Smart of you to think of that. You need an excuse, if you don't want to make this Twist fellow suspicious."
"Exactly," said John.
He looked at the girl with something resembling approval.
"And there's another thing," proceeded Miss Molloy, warming to her subject. "Don't forget that this bird, if he's the man that did the burgling last night, has a cut finger or thumb. If you find this Twist is going around with sticking plaster on him, why then that'll be evidence."
John's approval deepened.
"That's a great idea," he agreed. "What I was thinking was that I wanted to find out if Twist has a cold in the head."
"A kuk-kuk-kuk...?" said Mr. Molloy.
"Yes. You see, the burglar had. He was sneezing all the time, my informant tells me."
"Well, say, this begins to look like the goods," cried Miss Molloy gleefully. "If this fellow has a cut thumb and a cold in the head, there's nothing to it. It's all over except tearing off the false whiskers and saying 'I am Hawkshaw, the Detective!' Say, listen. You get that little car of yours out and you and I will go right over to Healthward Ho, now. You see, if I come along that'll make him all the more unsuspicious. We'll tell him I'm a girl with a brother that's been whooping it up a little too heavily for some time past, and I want to make inquiries with the idea of putting him where he can't get the stuff for a while. I'm sure you're on the right track. This bird Twist is the villain of the piece, I'll bet a million dollars. As you say, a fellow that wanted to burgle houses in these parts just naturally would settle down and pretend to be something respectable. You go and get that car out, Mr. Carroll, and we'll be off right away."
John reflected. Filled though he was with the enthusiasm of the chase, he could not forget that his time to-day was ear-marked for other and higher things than the investigation of the mysterious Doctor Twist, of Healthward Ho.
"I must be back here by a quarter to one," he said.
"Why?"
"I must."
"Well, that's all right. We're not going to spend the week end with this guy. We're simply going to take a look at him. As soon as we've done that, we come right home and turn the thing over to the police. It's only twenty miles. You'll be back here again before twelve."
"Of course," said John. "You're perfectly right. I'll have the car out in a couple of minutes."
He hurried off. His views concerning Miss Molloy now were definitely favourable. She might not be the sort of girl he could ever like, she might not be the sort of girl he wanted staying at the Hall, but it was idle to deny that she had her redeeming qualities. About her intelligence, for instance, there was, he felt, no doubt whatsoever.
And yet it was with regard to this intelligence that Soapy Molloy was at this very moment entertaining doubts of the gravest kind. His eyes were protruding a little, and he uttered an odd, strangled sound.
"It's all right, you poor sap," said Dolly, meeting his shocked gaze with a confident unconcern.
Soapy found speech.
"All right? You say it's all right? How's it all right? If you hadn't pulled all that stuff...."
"Say, listen!" said Dolly urgently. "Where's your sense? He would have gone over to see Chimp anyway, wouldn't he? Nothing we could have done would have headed him off that, would it? And he'd noticed Chimp had a cut finger, without my telling him, wouldn't he? All I've done is to make him think I'm on the level and working in cahoots with him."
"What's the use of that?"
"I'll tell you what use it is. I know what I'm doing. Listen, Soapy, you just race into the house and get those knock-out drops and give them to me. And make it snappy," said Dolly.
As when on a day of rain and storm there appears among the clouds a tiny gleam of blue, so now, at those magic words "knock-out drops," did there flicker into Mr. Molloy's sombre face a faint suggestion of hope.
"Don't you worry, Soapy. I've got this thing well in hand. When we've gone you jump to the 'phone and get Chimp on the wire and tell him this guy and I are on our way over. Tell him I'm bringing the kayo drops and I'll slip them to him as soon as I arrive. Tell him to be sure to have something to drink handy and to see that this bird gets a taste of it."
"I get you, pettie!" Mr. Molloy's manner was full of a sort of awe-struck reverence, like that of some humble adherent of Napoleon listening to his great leader outlining plans for a forthcoming campaign; but nevertheless it was tinged with doubt. He had always admired his wife's broad, spacious outlook, but she was apt sometimes, he considered, in her fresh young enthusiasm, to overlook details. "But, pettie," he said, "is this wise? Don't forget you're not in Chicago now. I mean, supposing you do put this fellow to sleep, he's going to wake up pretty soon, isn't he? And when he does won't he raise an awful holler?"
"I've got that all fixed. I don't know what sort of staff Chimp keeps over at that joint of his, but he's probably got assistants and all like that. Well, you tell him to tell them that there's a young lady coming over with a brother that wants looking after, and this brother has got to be given a sleeping draught and locked away somewhere to keep him from getting violent and doing somebody an injury. That'll get him out of the way long enough for us to collect the stuff and clear out. It's rapid action now, Soapy. Now that Chimp has gummed the game by letting himself be seen we've got to move quick. We've got to make our getaway to-day. So don't you go off wandering about the fields picking daisies after I've gone. You stick round that 'phone, because I'll be calling you before long. See?"
"Honey," said Mr. Molloy devoutly, "I always said you were the brains of the firm, and I always will say it. I'd never have thought of a thing like this myself in a million years."
IV
It was about an hour later that Sergeant-Major Flannery, seated at his ease beneath a shady elm in the garden of Healthward Ho, looked up from the novelette over which he had been relaxing his conscientious mind and became aware that he was in the presence of Youth and Beauty. Toward him, across the lawn, was walking a girl who, his experienced eye assured him at a single glance, fell into that limited division of the Sex which is embraced by the word "Pippin." Her willowy figure was clothed in some clinging material of a beige colour, and her bright hazel eyes, when she came close enough for them to be seen, touched in the Sergeant-Major's susceptible bosom a ready chord. He rose from his seat with easy grace, and his hand, falling from the salute, came to rest on the western section of his waxed moustache.
"Nice morning, miss," he bellowed.
It seemed to Sergeant-Major Flannery that this girl was gazing upon him as on some wonderful dream of hers that had unexpectedly come true, and he was thrilled. It was unlikely, he felt, that she was about to ask him to perform some great knightly service for her, but if she did he would spring smartly to attention and do it in a soldierly manner while she waited. Sergeant-Major Flannery was pro-Dolly from the first moment of their meeting.
"Are you one of Doctor Twist's assistants?" asked Dolly.
"I am his only assistant, miss. Sergeant-Major Flannery is the name."
"Oh? Then you look after the patients here?"
"That's right, miss."
"Then it is you who will be in charge of my poor brother?" She uttered a little sigh, and there came into her hazel eyes a look of pain.
"Your brother, miss? Are you the lady...."
"Did Doctor Twist tell you about my brother?"
"Yes, miss. The fellow who's been...."
He paused, appalled. Only by a hair's-breadth had he stopped himself from using in the presence of this divine creature the hideous expression "mopping it up a bit."
"Yes," said Dolly. "I see you know about it."
"All I know about it, miss," said Sergeant-Major Flannery, "is that the doctor had me into the orderly room just now and said he was expecting a young lady to arrive with her brother, who needed attention. He said I wasn't to be surprised if I found myself called for to lend a hand in a roughhouse, because this bloke—because this patient was apt to get verlent."
"My brother does get very violent," sighed Dolly. "I only hope he won't do you any injury."
Sergeant-Major Flannery twitched his banana-like fingers and inflated his powerful chest. He smiled a complacent smile.
"He won't do me an injury, miss. I've had experience with...." Again he stopped just in time, on the very verge of shocking his companion's ears with the ghastly noun "souses" ... "with these sort of nervous cases," he amended. "Besides, the doctor says he's going to give the gentleman a little sleeping draught, which'll keep him as you might say 'armless till he wakes up and finds himself under lock and key."
"I see. Yes, that's a very good idea."
"No sense in troubling trouble till trouble troubles you, as the saying is, miss," agreed the Sergeant-Major. "If you can do a thing in a nice, easy, tactful manner without verlence, then why use verlence? Has the gentleman been this way long, miss?"
"Four years."
"You ought to have had him in a home sooner."
"I have put him into dozens of homes. But he always gets out. That's why I'm so worried."
"He won't get out of Healthward Ho, miss."
"He's very clever."
It was on the tip of Sergeant-Major Flannery's tongue to point out that other people were clever, too, but he refrained, not so much from modesty as because at this moment he swallowed some sort of insect. When he had finished coughing he found that his companion had passed on to another aspect of the matter.
"I left him alone with Doctor Twist. I wonder if that was safe."
"Quite safe, miss," the Sergeant-Major assured her. "You can see the window's open and the room's on the ground floor. If there's trouble and the gentleman starts any verlence, all the doctor's got to do is to shout for 'elp and I'll get to the spot at the double and climb in and lend a hand."
His visitor regarded him with a shy admiration.
"It's such a relief to feel that there's someone like you here, Mr. Flannery. I'm sure you are wonderful in any kind of an emergency."
"People have said so, miss," replied the Sergeant-Major, stroking his moustache and smiling another quiet smile.
"But what's worrying me is what's going to happen when my brother comes to after the sleeping draught and finds that he is locked up. That's what I meant just now when I said he was so clever. The last place he was in they promised to see that he stayed there, but he talked them into letting him out. He said he belonged to some big family in the neighbourhood and had been shut up by mistake."
"He won't get round me that way, miss."
"Are you sure?"
"Quite sure, miss. If there's one thing you get used to in a place like this, it's artfulness. You wouldn't believe how artful some of these gentlemen can be. Only yesterday that Admiral Sir Rigby-Rudd toppled over in my presence after doing his bending and stretching exercises and said he felt faint and he was afraid it was his heart and would I go and get him a drop of brandy. Anything like the way he carried on when I just poured half a bucketful of cold water down his back instead, you never heard in your life. I'm on the watch all the time, I can tell you, miss. I wouldn't trust my own mother if she was in here, taking the cure. And it's no use arguing with them and pointing out to them that they came here voluntarily of their own free will, and are paying big money to be exercised and kept away from wines, spirits, and rich food. They just spend their whole time thinking up ways of being artful."
"Do they ever try to bribe you?"
"No, miss," said Mr. Flannery, a little wistfully. "I suppose they take a look at me and think—and see that I'm not the sort of fellow that would take bribes."
"My brother is sure to offer you money to let him go."
"How much—how much good," said Sergeant-Major Flannery carefully, "does he think that's going to do him?"
"You wouldn't take it, would you?"
"Who, me, miss? Take money to betray my trust, if you understand the expression?"
"Whatever he offers you, I will double. You see, it's so very important that he is kept here, where he will be safe from temptation, Mr. Flannery," said Dolly, timidly, "I wish you would accept this."
The Sergeant-Major felt a quickening of the spirit as he gazed upon the rustling piece of paper in her hand.
"No, no, miss," he said, taking it. "It really isn't necessary."
"I know. But I would rather you had it. You see, I'm afraid my brother may give you a lot of trouble."
"Trouble's what I'm here for, miss," said Mr. Flannery bravely. "Trouble's what I draw my salary for. Besides, he can't give much trouble when he's under lock and key, as the saying is. Don't you worry, miss. We're going to make this brother of yours a different man. We...."
"Oh!" cried Dolly.
A head and shoulders had shot suddenly out of the study window—the head and shoulders of Doctor Twist. The voice of Doctor Twist sounded sharply above the droning of bees and insects.
"Flannery!"
"On the spot, sir."
"Come here, Flannery. I want you."
"You stay here, miss," counselled Sergeant-Major Flannery paternally. "There may be verlence."
V
There were, however, when Dolly made her way to the study some five minutes later, no signs of anything of an exciting and boisterous nature having occurred recently in the room. The table was unbroken, the carpet unruffled. The chairs stood in their places, and not even a picture glass had been cracked. It was evident that the operations had proceeded according to plan, and that matters had been carried through in what Sergeant-Major Flannery would have termed a nice, easy, tactful manner.
"Everything jake?" inquired Dolly.
"Uh-hum," said Chimp, speaking, however, in a voice that quavered a little.
Mr. Twist was the only object in the room that looked in any way disturbed. He had turned an odd greenish colour, and from time to time he swallowed uneasily. Although he had spent a lifetime outside the law, Chimp Twist was essentially a man of peace and accustomed to look askance at any by-product of his profession that seemed to him to come under the heading of rough stuff. This doping of respectable visitors, he considered, was distinctly so to be classified; and only Mr. Molloy's urgency over the telephone wire had persuaded him to the task. He was nervous and apprehensive, in a condition to start at sudden noises.
"What happened?"
"Well, I did what Soapy said. After you left us the guy and I talked back and forth for a while, and then I agreed to knock a bit off the old man's bill, and then I said 'How about a little drink?' and then we have a little drink, and then I slip the stuff you gave me in while he wasn't looking. It didn't seem like it was going to act at first."
"It don't. It takes a little time. You don't feel nothing till you jerk your head or move yourself, and then it's like as if somebody has beaned you one with an iron girder or something. So they tell me," said Dolly.
"I guess he must have jerked his head, then. Because all of a sudden he went down and out," Chimp gulped. "You—you don't think he's ... I mean, you're sure this stuff...?"
Dolly had nothing but contempt for these masculine tremors.
"Of course. Do you suppose I go about the place croaking people? He's all right."
"Well, he didn't look it. If I'd been a life-insurance company I'd have paid up on him without a yip."
"He'll wake up with a headache in a little while, but outside of that he'll be as well as he ever was. Where have you been all your life that you don't know how kayo drops act?"
"I've never had occasion to be connected with none of this raw work before," said Chimp virtuously. "If you'd of seen him when he slumped down on the table, you wouldn't be feeling so good yourself, maybe. If ever I saw a guy that looked like he was qualified to step straight into a coffin, he was him."
"Aw, be yourself, Chimp!"
"I'm being myself all right, all right."
"Well, then, for Pete's sake, be somebody else. Pull yourself together, why can't you. Have a drink."
"Ah!" said Mr. Twist, struck with the idea.
His hand was still shaking, but he accomplished the delicate task of mixing a whisky and soda without disaster.
"What did you with the remains?" asked Dolly, interested.
Mr. Twist, who had been raising the glass to his lips, lowered it again. He disapproved of levity of speech at such a moment.
"Would you kindly not call him 'the remains,'" he begged. "It's all very well for you to be so easy about it all and to pull this stuff about him doing nothing but wake up with a headache, but what I'm asking myself is, will he wake up at all?"
"Oh, cut it out! Sure, he'll wake up."
"But will it be in this world?"
"You drink that up, you poor dumb-bell, and then fix yourself another," advised Dolly. "And make it a bit stronger next time. You seem to need it."
Mr. Twist did as directed, and found the treatment beneficial.
"You've nothing to grumble at," Dolly proceeded, still looking on the bright side. "What with all this excitement and all, you seem to have lost that cold of yours."
"That's right," said Chimp, impressed. "It does seem to have got a whole lot better."
"Pity you couldn't have got rid of it a little earlier. Then we wouldn't have had all this trouble. From what I can make of it, you seem to have roused the house by sneezing your head off, and a bunch of the help come and stood looking over the banisters at you."
Chimp tottered. "You don't mean somebody saw me last night?"
"Sure they saw you. Didn't Soapy tell you that over the wire?"
"I could hardly make out all Soapy was saying over the wire. Say! What are we going to do?"
"Don't you worry. We've done it. The only difficult part is over. Now that we've fixed the remains...."
"Will you please...!"
"Well, call him what you like. Now that we've fixed that guy the thing's simple. By the way, what did you do with him?"
"Flannery took him upstairs."
"Where to?"
"There's a room on the top floor. Must have been a nursery or something, I guess. Anyway, there's bars to the windows."
"How's the door?"
"Good solid oak. You've got to hand it to the guys who built these old English houses. They knew their groceries. When they spit on their hands and set to work to make a door, they made one. You couldn't push that door down, not if you was an elephant."
"Well, that's all right, then. Now, listen, Chimp. Here's the low-down. We...." She broke off. "What's that?"
"What's what?" asked Mr. Twist, starting violently.
"I thought I heard someone outside in the corridor. Go and look."
With an infinite caution born of alarm, Mr. Twist crept across the floor, reached the door and flung it open. The passage was empty. He looked up and down it, and Dolly, whose fingers had hovered for an instant over the glass which he had left on the table, sat back with an air of content.
"My mistake," she said. "I thought I heard something."
Chimp returned to the table. He was still much perturbed.
"I wish I'd never gone into this thing," he said, with a sudden gush of self-pity. "I felt all along, what with seeing that magpie and the new moon through glass...."
"Now, listen!" said Dolly vigorously. "Considering you've stood Soapy and me up for practically all there is in this thing except a little small change, I'll ask you kindly, if you don't mind, not to stand there beefing and expecting me to hold your hand and pat you on the head and be a second mother to you. You came into this business because you wanted it. You're getting sixty-five per cent. of the gross. So what's biting you? You're all right so far."
It was in Mr. Twist's mind to inquire of his companion precisely what she meant by this expression, but more urgent matter claimed his attention. More even than the exact interpretation of the phrase "so far," he wished to know what the next move was.
"What happens now?" he asked.
"We go back to Rudge."
"And collect the stuff?"
"Yes. And then make our getaway."
No programme could have outlined more admirably Mr. Twist's own desires. The mere contemplation of it heartened him. He snatched his glass from the table and drained it with a gesture almost swash-buckling.
"Soapy will have doped the old man by this time, eh?"
"That's right."
"But suppose he hasn't been able to?" said Mr. Twist with a return of his old nervousness. "Suppose he hasn't had an opportunity?"
"You can always find an opportunity of doping people. You ought to know that."
The implied compliment pleased Chimp.
"That's right," he chuckled.
He nodded his head complacently. And immediately something which may have been an iron girder or possibly the ceiling and the upper parts of the house seemed to strike him on the base of the skull. He had been standing by the table, and now, crumpling at the knees, he slid gently down to the floor. Dolly, regarding him, recognized instantly what he had meant just now when he had spoken of John appearing like a total loss to his life-insurance company. The best you could have said of Alexander Twist at this moment was that he looked peaceful. She drew in her breath a little sharply, and then, being a woman at heart, took a cushion from the armchair and placed it beneath his head.
Only then did she go to the telephone and in a gentle voice ask the operator to connect her with Rudge Hall.
"Soapy?"
"Hello!"
The promptitude with which the summons of the bell had been answered brought a smile of approval to her lips. Soapy, she felt, must have been sitting with his head on the receiver.
"Listen, sweetie."
"I'm listening, pettie!"
"Everything's set."
"Have you fixed that guy?"
"Sure, precious. And Chimp, too."
"How's that? Chimp?"
"Sure. We don't want Chimp around, do we, with that sixty-five—thirty-five stuff of his? I just slipped a couple of drops into his highball and he's gone off as peaceful as a lamb. Say, wait a minute," she added, as the wire hummed with Mr. Molloy's low-voiced congratulations. "Hello!" she said, returning.
"What were you doing, honey? Did you hear somebody?"
"No. I caught sight of a bunch of lilies in a vase, and I just slipped across and put one of them in Chimp's hand. Made it seem more sort of natural. Now listen, Soapy. Everything's clear for you at your end now, so go right ahead and clean up. I'm going to beat it in that guy Carroll's runabout, and I haven't much time, so don't start talking about the weather or nothing. I'm going to London, to the Belvidere. You collect the stuff and meet me there. Is that all straight?"
"But, pettie!"
"Now what?"
"How am I to get the stuff away?"
"For goodness' sake! You can drive a car, can't you? Old Carmody's car was outside the stable yard when I left. I guess it's there still. Get the stuff and then go and tell the chauffeur that old Carmody wants to see him. Then, when he's gone, climb in and drive to Birmingham. Leave the car outside the station and take a train. That's simple enough, isn't it?"
There was a long pause. Admiration seemed to have deprived Mr. Molloy of speech.
"Honey," he said at length, in a hushed voice, "when it comes to the real smooth stuff you're there every time. Let me just tell you...."
"All right, baby," said Dolly. "Save it till later. I'm in a hurry."