Soapy was obliged to concede that the operation she had outlined was in essence a simple one. Lord Uffenham's stomach was a target which one could scarcely miss. Nevertheless, his objections were not yet satisfied.
"But what do I say?"
"You say 'Stick 'em up!"
"But I can't."
"Why not?"
"It sounds so silly."
"Then just point it at him. He'll understand.”
"Well, all right, sugar.' said Soapy, still plainly unhappy.”Okay, if that's the way you see it. But I'd a lot rather you'd ask me to sell him oil stock. What's Chimp doing all this while?"
"Chimp's holding up the gang in the drawing-room, so's they don't come busting out and muscling in on you."
It seemed that there was better, braver stuff in Mr. Twist than in Mr. Molloy. He advanced no far-fetched objections to this scheme, but was on his feet in an instant with outstretched hand.
"Swell," he said. "Gimme a gun."
"That's the only one I got," said Dolly. "What do you think I'm doing—running a shooting gallery?"
"Then what do I use?"
"You don't use nothing. Just stick your finger in your coat pocket, so's they'll think you've gotten a Roscoe there. What you looking like that for?"
Chimp Twist was looking like that because the plan, as outlined, seemed to him fundamentally unsound.
"That's the idea, is it?"
"What's wrong with it?"
"It's cuckoo."
"It isn't, too, cuckoo. A bunch of prunes like that isn't going to try and rush you."
"And how about the Cork dame?"
"Are you scared of a woman?"
"You betcher I'm scared of that woman," said Chimp, with decision. What little he had seen of Mrs. Cork had impressed him enormously. "And lemme tell ya sump'n. If I've got to stick up an eat-'em-alive baby like her with nothing but a finger in my pocket, I want an extra cut. Yes, ma'am," he proceeded firmly, ignoring Dolly's stricken cry and her husband's gasp of pain, "you can forget that fifty-fifty stuff. Either I have a rod, or it's seventy-five-twenty-five."
A lesser woman than Dolly Molloy might well have been nonplussed. But this sudden crisis, threatening a deadlock at the eleventh hour, found her equal to it. A few moments of thoughtful silence, punctuated by little moans from Mr. Molloy, and she had found the solution.
"Well, listen," she said, holding up a hand to check her husband, who was asking Mr. Twist if this was nice. "Here's what, then. I'll lock her in the cellar before you start your act. I guess that'll satisfy you?"
"How you going to do that?"
"I can swipe the key. It's hanging on a nail in Lord Cakebread's pantry."
"But how you going to get her to the cellar?"
"Tell her Lord Cakebread's inside, raising Cain. That'll make her come running."
Dolly turned to her husband, silently seeking his applause, and he gave it without stint. Even Chimp Twist was forced to admit that the scheme was pretty much of a ball of fire. At the prospect of not having to cope with his formidable hostess, he had brightened noticeably.
"All straight now? You've got the set-up? Soapy sticks up Lord Cakebread. You stick up the prunes. I ease the Corko into the cellar and lock her in, and then I go to the garage and get a car out and have it waiting on the drive, all ready for the getaway. Anybody anything to say?"
Both men had. Mr. Molloy said:
"Pettie, they ought to make you a General in the United States Army."
Chimp Twist said:
"Juss a minute, juss a minute, juss a minute!"
The other members of the Syndicate looked at him apprehensively. His tone had had that flat note which they had observed in it on a previous occasion when he had made use of the same expression, and it seemed plain that he was about to go on to say something which would mar the harmony and interfere with the pull-together spirit.
"Eh?" said Mr. Molloy.
"Now what?" said Dolly.
Chimp made himself clear,
"What happens then?"' he asked. "Here's the scenario, as I see it. Soapy’ll have the ice. You'll be outside with the car. I'll be in the drawing-room with the prunes. How do I contact you? I wouldn't want you," said Chimp, that flat note still in his voice, "to drive away with the stuff, and then look at each other after you'd gone fifty miles and say 'Why, hello! Where's Chimp? I clean forgot about him!'"
Dolly sighed
"We won't, forget about you."
"Oh, no?"
"I'll fire off the gun, when we're set to start. Then you take it on the lam and join us. Oke?"
"Oke," said Chimp, though a little dubiously. "You won't let it slip your mind?"
"You can trust the madam," said Mr. Molloy coldly.
"Oh, yeah?" said Chimp, and on these always unpleasant words took his departure.
As the door closed, Dolly drew a deep breath.
"If I don't bean that little cheese mite before I'm much older," she said, "something'll crack. My constitution won't stand it,"
CHAPTER XXVI
These bi-weekly lectures of Mrs. Cork's, the eleventh of which she was to deliver this evening, were among the most delightful features of life at Shipley Hail. Their range was wide. One night you might find yourself assisting from a distance at a native wedding; three days later enthralled by a Walter Winchell peep at the home life of the rhinoceros. And their appeal was not only to the ear, but also, for they were accompanied by the exhibition of home-made cinematograph films, to the eye.
It was with the gratifying feeling, accordingly, that she was about to give pleasure that she always approached her task, and it never failed to wound and exasperate her when she discovered that members of her flock, who did not know what was good for them, had sneaked off while her eye was elsewhere.
This very seldom happened, for the strength of personality which enabled her to get rid of copies of A Woman In The Wilds served also to intimidate would-be backsliders, but it was not absolutely unknown, and to-night provided the worst case on record. Counting heads before settling down to business, she was shocked to note that no fewer than three of her audience were missing. Mr. Molloy was not there. Nor was Mrs. Molloy. And the keenest scrutiny failed to reveal J. G. Miller. It topped the black evening when Mr. Wix and Mr. Henderson, absent from parade without leave, had been found in the latter's bedroom, drinking whisky and discussing the future of dog-racing.
Mrs. Cork was not the woman to remain supine under this sort of thing.
"Miss Benedick?"
"Yes, Mrs. Cork?"
"I do not see Mr. and Mrs. Molloy, nor Mr. Miller. They may be out in the garden. Go and find them and tell them that we are waiting to begin."
Anne hurried out, and Mr. Trumper, hovering at the lecturer's side, clicked his tongue.
"Most annoying, Clarissa."
"Most."
"People should be here at the proper time."
"Yes."
"I always am."
A tender look crept into Mrs. Cork's eyes. Her frown vanished. For the hundredth time, she was thinking that Eustace was wonderful. Standing by, switching or. the lights, switching off the lights, leading the applause, keeping her glass of water filled, picking up her wand if she dropped it ... whatever the demand made upon him, Eustace Trurnper was equal to it.
"You are exceptional," she said. "I often feel that I don't know how I could get along without you."
Something seemed to go off like a spring in Eustace Trurnper. It was as if a voice had whispered to him that now was the time to put his fate to the test, to win or lose it all. They were standing outside the drawing-room, well removed from earshot of the docile disciples settling themselves in their seats, so that conditions could not have been better. And, as he quite rightly felt, if you have worshipped a woman for twelve years, you cannot be condemned as precipitate if at the end »f that period you mention it.
Left to himself, his instinct would have been to edge into his theme with a cough or two and perhaps hal
f a dozen assorted squeaks and bleats, but he saw that these bronchial preliminaries were out of the question new. Footsteps could be heard approaching along the corridor, and at any moment the owner of these feet would be coming into view.
"Clarissa," he said, "I love you. Will you be my wife?"
The words were crisp and to the point. He could hardly have made them crisper and still kept his meaning clear. But, even so, he had cut it too fine. Before Mrs. Cork could reply, Dolly Molloy appeared. It was she whose footsteps had obliged Mr. Trurnper to speed up his declaration, and he eyed her, as she drew up beside them, with no little annoyance.
"Golly!" said Dolly.
She spoke breathlessly. It was evident that the even tenor of her life had been interrupted by some untoward happening. Mr. Trumper's annoyance gave way to curiosity.
"Is something the matter, Mrs. Molloy?" he asked. To Mrs. Cork, this agitation seemed only natural. She took it for the decent remorse of a woman who has suddenly realised that she is late for a lecture and has been keeping everybody waiting.
"It is quite all right, Mrs. Molloy," she said graciously. "I have not started."
"Then that's where you're different from me," said Dolly. "I started plenty. Gee! I jumped six feet."
Mrs. Cork froze a little.
"I beg your pardon?"
"When that bottle came whizzing past my bean."
"Bottle?"
Dolly laughed—hysterically, it seemed to Mr. Trumper.
"I'm starting the story at the wrong end," she said. "Here's how it was. I'm on my way here, see, and I'm going through the hall, when one of the help comes up and tells me Cakebread's acting sort of peculiar, and they don't like to disturb you, so would I step along and see could I do anything about it."
Mrs. Cork's eyes hardened.
"Cakebread?"
She spoke grimly. Her views on her eccentric employee had come of late to resemble those entertained by King Henry the Second towards Thomas a Becket. The words "Will no one rid me of this turbulent butler?" seemed to be trembling on her lips.
"Cakebread? What has he been doing now?"
"Getting pie-eyed."
"Pie-eyed?"
"Sozzled."
"Sozzled?"
"Fried. Plastered. Ossified. Oh, hell," said Dolly, impatient, as so many of her compatriots had found themselves when in England, at the slowness of comprehension of the aborigines. "Drunk."
"Drunk!"
"He's got a load on that would sink an ocean liner."
Mr. Trumper squeaked amazedly.
"Bless my soul! Are you sure?"
"Sure?" repeated Dolly, weighing the question. "Well, no, I'm not sure. I'm only guessing. The bozo may be a strict teetotaller, for all I know. I'm just going by the fact that he's in the cellar, singing comic songs and breaking bottles."
"Breaking bottles?"
"Yay. He seemed to be using a hatchet on them. All except one. That was the one he loosed off at me when I poked my head in at the door and said 'Hello, what goes on?' It missed my perm by an inch, and I backed out. sort of feeling that I'd best not get mixed up in what begun to look like a vulgar brawl. I reckoned the thing to do was to come and hand in my report to you."
"You did quite rightly. I will attend to this."
Mr. Trumper was squeaking incredulously.
"This is most extraordinary. He seemed perfectly normal at dinner."
"No," said Mrs. Cork. "I remember now noticing that there was a wild gleam in his eyes. No doubt he had been drinking like a fish all the afternoon."
There was disapproval in her voice, but mingled with it a certain note of satisfaction, even of relief. Except in print where it can be investigated by Inspector Purvis and his like, everybody hates a mystery, and the enigma of Cakebread had been vexing her intensely. Dolly's story had made everything clear. All that was wrong with Cakebread, it now appeared, was that he was a secret dipsomaniac. She knew where she was with dipsomaniacs. Many of her most intimate acquaintances in Africa had been native chiefs who could never say No when the Cape gin was circulating.
"He is in the cellar, you say? I will go and see him at once."
"Better take a battle-axe or sump'n."
Mr. Trumper again proved how invaluable he was when there was any job to be done, any little thing to be fetched. He galloped into the drawing-room and came back with the poker.
"Take this, Clarissa."
"Thank you, Eustace."
"I will come with you."
"There is no necessity."
"I would prefer it," said Mr. Trumper, with quiet decision, and Dolly, too, announced her intention of making one of the party.
The procession passed through the green baize door, and by stone-flagged passages and worn stone steps came to the cellar. Its door stood open, but no sounds of revelry proceeded from beyond it.
Mrs. Cork peered in. Mr. Trumper and Dolly exchanged whispers in her rear.
"He seems very quiet," said Mr. Trumper.
"Just biding his time," said Dolly.
Mrs. Cork gave tongue, speaking with a sharp imperiousness. Her nerves were of chilled steel, but this uncanny silence was having its effect on them. When a butler has received wide publicity as a bottle-breaker, you expect to find him breaking bottles. If he merely lurks, you are disconcerted.
"Cakebread!"
The silence continued.
"Cakebread!"
More silence. It was as if this butler were crouching for the spring.
"Perhaps he has gone," suggested Mr. Trumper hopefully.
"No," said Dolly. "I can see his eyes gleaming over there at the back."
The statement was like a bugle call to Mrs. Cork. It was never her way to stand bandying words when there was a possibility of action. Grasping the poker, she strode into the darkness, and Eustace Trumper, with only the merest suspicion of a pause, strode in after her.
He had scarcely crossed the threshold, a little weak about the knees but conscious that this was a far, far better thing that he did than he had ever done, when the door slammed behind him and he heard the key turn in the lock.
Anne, meanwhile, on her way to the garden to round up stragglers, had reached the terrace. About to cross it, she halted abruptly. Out of the corner of her eye, she had seen that the lights were on in Mrs. Cork's study. And the sudden thought came to her that she had been the last person in it. Her employer had sent her there only a quarter of an hour before to fetch a copy of A Woman In The Wilds, extracts from which she wished to incorporate in her lecture.
Bowed down with the sense of guilt which weighs on those who leave lights on in unoccupied rooms, she hurried in through the french windows to repair her negligence, and found that the room was far from being unoccupied. The first thing she saw in it was England's least likeable scrum-half, J. G. Miller. His back was towards her, and he was making encouraging noises to something on the floor, at the moment obscured from her view by the desk. Moving closer, she found that this something was a substantial trouser-seat. It was jutting out from the interior of a cupboard, and the eye of love told her that it was a trouser-seat she knew—that of her uncle, George, sixth Viscount Uffenham.
An intelligent girl, she should have realised that if her uncle's rear elevation was sticking out of cupboards, it was because he was prospecting for diamonds there. But the strenuous day through which she had passed must have dulled her senses, for the spectacle surprised her.
"What---" she began, and Jeff soared into the air like a man practising for the Standing High Jump. And simultaneously what Inspector Purvis would have recognized as a dull, sickening thud told that the last of the Uffenhams had bumped his head on the roof of the cupboard.
Jeff, turning in mid-air, had been enabled to identify this addition to their little gathering.
"Oh, hullo," he said, cordially. "Come on in. You're just in time."
It was open to Anne to draw herself to her full height and stare coldly at him without speaking. But no red-bloode
d girl, agog with inquisitiveness, can pursue a settled policy of aloof silence even towards the dregs of the human species, when such dregs seem to be in a position to provide first-hand information on the point which is perplexing her.
"What on earth are you doing?" she cried.
Jeff was brief and to the point. Good news need not be broken gently.
"We've found 'em!"
Anne gasped.
"The diamonds?"
"Yes. All over but the cheering."
Lord Uffenham backed out of the cupboard like a performing elephant entering an arena the wrong way round. With one hand he was rubbing his head, with the other he clutched a large tobacco jar.
"Here they are, my dear. But I wish you wouldn't speak suddenly like that. Not at such a moment."
Jeff could not subscribe to this view. The long, enthralling conversation he had just had with this girl had refreshed him as rain refreshes the parched earth. It was true that the shock her voice had given him had turned his hair white and probably affected his heart permanently, but if she liked to speak suddenly, he felt, by all means let her speak suddenly. The great thing was to get her speaking.
"Yerss," said Lord Uffenham. "Here they are."
"Then stick 'em up!" said a strong, firm, manly voice, and Mr. Molloy walked jauntily in, preceded by the pistol.
CHAPTER XXVII
At his last appearance in this chronicle, it may be remembered, Soapy Molloy was far from being in debonair mood. Introduced to the pistol which he was now bearing with such a flourish, like a carefree waiter carrying an order of chipped potatoes, he had quailed visibly, as if he had found himself fondling a scorpion. Nobody, seeing him then, could possibly have mistaken him for the Happy Warrior, and a word or two will be necessary to explain why he now walked jauntily and spoke in a strong, firm, manly voice.
It was to the thoughtfulness and tact of his wife that this altered deportment was due. His perturbation had not gone unnoticed by Dolly, and her first act after Chimp Twist had left the room had been to give him a couple of shots from a bottle of brandy which she had begged from Lord Uffenham and kept stowed away, ready for emergencies, in a drawer underneath her step-ins.