Chapter III
Freddie Stickney owed his presence in the Friocksheim house-party to qualities other than those which make a welcome guest. He was a mean little man, with a skin which invariably proved itself impenetrable to ordinary social pin-pricks; and this thickness of hide enabled him to thrust himself into positions wherein an average individual would have felt too keenly that he was an intruder. He had invited himself, knowing Rollo Dangerfield’s dislike for hurting people’s feelings and counting on that quality to avoid a refusal; and, having arrived, he proposed to stay for just as long as it suited him to do so. Not that he had any special interest in the Dangerfields. He had angled for three other invitations before turning to Friocksheim as a last resource. However, he was quite prepared to make the most of it, now that he had fixed the thing up. “Even the best of us,” he reflected philosophically, “even the best of us have to put up with the second-best at times.” And in this kindly spirit he had come down from town.
Freddie’s lack of popularity was due to certain peculiarities in his mind. An acquaintance of his, hard put to it to account for the matter, had explained it thus: “Freddie’s got a certain acuteness. Give him a fact, and he’ll worry at it and draw inferences from it. And the funny thing is that every inference he draws tends to discredit somebody or something. And yet he doesn’t do it out of malice. It’s just Freddie’s way. He’s got that kind of mind—can’t help making people uncomfortable.”
On the afternoon of the day after Rollo Dangerfield had shown the Talisman to his guests, Freddie was lounging on a seat in the garden when one of these inference-bearing facts crossed his mind.
“Why,” he said to himself, “now that Westenhanger’s gone to town, we shall be thirteen at table to-night. That’s very thoughtless of the Dangerfields. Out of thirteen people there’s certain to be at least one person who’s superstitious. That’ll be most uncomfortable for everybody. I think I’d better mention it before we sit down.”
As it chanced he had not to wait so long before announcing his discovery. Before he had finished a mental analysis of the probable distribution of superstition among his fellow-guests, Mrs. Dangerfield came into view, armed with gloves and scissors. Freddie rose and joined her.
“Going to cut some flowers?” he inquired. “May I help?”
Mrs. Dangerfield refused his assistance; but Freddie was not to be shaken off.
“Friend of mine once suffered badly. Tore his finger with a thorn, then let some dirt into it. Careless fellow he was, poor chap. It suppurated, swelled up, they had to take the finger off at last.”
Mrs. Dangerfield deliberately put on her gardening gloves.