A Man in the Zoo

by David Garnett

This feeling was naturally intensified in regard to his immediate neighbours, the female Orang and the Chimpanzee. In their case he was indeed only making a slight return for the ill will they bore him, which seemed to increase with every day. Mr. Cromartie was really much to blame for an aggravation of their natural and, one may say, reasonable dislike of him. For not only did he draw a larger crowd than fell to their share, but he persistently ignored them, and so neglected ordinary civilities that he would have made himself exceedingly unpopular had his neighbours been human beings like himself. This was due to a singular defect of imagination in him rather than to natural want of manners, for in ordinary life he always showed himself perfectly well bred. If an excuse can be found for his conduct it is that he believed that the proper thing for him to do was to ignore the very existence of his neighbours, and also that Collins, his keeper, never set him right on this point. The fact is that Collins was never perfectly easy with Mr. Cromartie, and that he was the kind of man to take offence himself. Indeed, he was more jealous of the feelings of his old favourites, the two apes, than he was quite aware of. Besides this he had lost the Gibbon, which had been given to another keeper when Mr. Cromartie had come, and there is no hiding the fact that Collins would have liked to have the Gibbon back in Mr. Cromartie’s place. For one thing the ape had given him less work, and for another, it had never been at any time in its life his social superior. Besides that, Collins had, for we should do him justice, a very positive affection for the animal. One evening, after a day passed in a most desultory way, Mr. Cromartie was sitting in his cage sucking his pipe, when suddenly he saw Miss Lackett come into the empty house.

This was the evening of the day after her troubled night. In the morning she had resolved to settle the question whether Cromartie were mad or not, to make a judgment on the subject that would be impartial and definitive, for she felt convinced that if she could not settle the question of his sanity one way or the other, there would be no doubt of her losing hers.

But when she had got into the Gardens she found it impossible to see Mr. Cromartie alone. A crowd, though not as large as formerly, was still clustered round the Ape-house the whole of the morning. Between one and two there were always some persons before his cage whose presence rendered it impossible for her to speak with him. She saw then that the only thing was for her to wait till last thing at night and to hurry in just at closing time. All this delay upset the arrangements of her day. The knowledge that she had promised to call for her old schoolfellow, Lady Rebecca Joel, and to go on and take tea at Admiral Goshawk’s, and to go out afterwards with them, worried her excessively. At the last minute she sent messages pleading headache and indisposition, and then found nothing to do until closing time at the Zoo. To stay in the Gardens for so long was intolerable. To add to her discomfort the sky clouded over and a sharp storm came on, the air soon being filled with sleet, snowflakes and hailstones. She ran out of the Gardens, getting wet as she did so, and it was some moments before she could find a taxi. When once inside there was the absolute necessity of telling the man where to take her.

“Baker Street,” said she. For Baker Street is a central point from which she could easily go wherever she wished. This was the reason, it will be remembered, that made the great detective Holmes choose to have his rooms in Baker Street, and to-day it is still more central. All Metro-Land is at one’s feet.

But the time taken between the Zoo and Baker Street Tube station is short, and Miss Lackett arrived with no clearer idea of where to go or what to do than she had when she first ran out of the Gardens. To be sure the rain had stopped for the time being, and she walked briskly along the Marylebone Road. For she belonged to the order of society which cannot loiter in the street. She marched away without any purpose, wondering what she would do with herself, when on came the storm again with a sudden gush of rain. Josephine looked about her and found a refuge offered by the gates of a large red-brick building, which she entered. It was Madame Tussaud’s.

She had never as a child visited the celebrated collection of wax-work effigies, and she was at once interested in what she saw there. Some internal voice bade her make the most of this casual opportunity, to throw aside her temporary unhappiness, and enjoy herself.

She fell into a peaceful state of mind, and for several hours in succession gave herself up to the pleasure of gazing at the formal figures of the most celebrated persons of this and former ages. For the most part they were the great Victorians and dated from last century. There were but few other visitors, but the great saloons are always crowded, and everywhere that she looked she found familiar faces.

Josephine had been presented at Court, but had not been impressed by the experience. Madame Tussaud’s seemed to her like a more august presentation at an Eternal Levee.

At one end of the room there were indeed the royal families of Europe in their coronation robes. There was an air of formality, a stiffness, and a constraint in all present which seemed to her natural in guests waiting for their host to come in. And perhaps in another moment a curtain would be brushed aside, and the Host of Hosts would appear.

Josephine did not wait any longer, but ran downstairs to the Chamber of Horrors.