“To watch him eating,” he remarked, “you’d think he was something out of the Zoo.”
That remark destroyed any compunction that William might otherwise have had on Robert’s behalf in the events that followed.
Robert, fully attired in his Charles the First costume discreetly covered by an overcoat, came downstairs. He wore a look of pleasure and triumph.
The pleasure was caused by his appearance which he imagined to be slightly more romantic than it really was. The triumph was triumph over William. He knew that William had been anxious to see the costume, from what Robert took to be motives of idle curiosity with a not improbable view to jeering at him afterwards. Robert, who considered that he owed William a good deal for one thing and another (notably for a watch which William had dismembered in the interests of Science the week before), had determined to frustrate that object. Directly after tea he had locked his bedroom door and pocketed the key, and a few minutes later he had had the satisfaction of seeing William furtively trying the handle. William, however, was not about the hall as he descended the stairs. The costume had proved satisfactorily magnificent, but the drawback to the whole affair was that SHE would not be there to see it. At that moment he would have given almost anything in exchange for the certainty that SHE could see him in his glory. For Robert considered that the costume made him look very handsome indeed. He did not see how any girl could look at him in it and remain completely heart whole.... If only SHE were to be there....
He took down his hat, bade farewell to his mother and set off down the drive. A small boy whom he could not see, but who, he satisfied himself, was not William (it was Henry) stepped out of the bushes, handed him a note and disappeared. He went down to the end of the drive and, standing beneath the lamp-post in the road, read it. It was type-written.
“Dear Mr. Brown,” it read,
“I have seen you in the road passing by our house, and because you look good and kind, I turn to you for help. Will you please rescue me from my father? He keeps me a prisoner here. He is mad, but not mad enough to put in an asylum. He thinks he’s living in the reign of Charles the First and he won’t let anyone into the house unless they’re dressed in Charles the First clothes, so I don’t know how you’ll get in. If you can get in please humour him and let him draw you because he thinks that he is an artist, and when once he’s drawn you he’ll probably let you do what you like. Then please rescue me and take me to my aunt in Scotland and she will reward you.
“Gloria Groves.”
The letter was the result of arduous toil on the part of the Outlaws. Every word had been laboriously looked up in the dictionary and then laboriously typed in secret by Henry on his father’s typewriter.
Robert stood reading it, his face paling, his mouth and eyes opening wide with astonishment. He looked down at the costume which was visible beneath his coat.