'Now I'm beginning to get the whole thing,' he said. 'What you want to do is go to Seven, Nasturtium Villas, Marigold Road, Valley Fields.'
'Precisely.'
'Well, will you have the tennis shoe and the carpet slipper now, or wait till we get there?'
'I do not desire the tennis shoe. I have no wish for the carpet slipper. I am not in the market for them.'
'I could do you them at half-a-crown apiece.'
'No, thank you.'
'Couple of bob, then.'
'No, no, no. I do not want the tennis shoe. The carpet slipper makes no appeal to me.'
'You don't want the shoe?'
'No.'
'And you don't want the slipper?'
'No.'
'But you do want,' said the driver, assembling the facts and arranging them in an ordinary manner, 'to go to Seven, Nasturtium Villas, Marigold Road, Valley Fields?'
'Precisely.'
'Ah,' said the driver, slipping in his clutch with an air of quiet rebuke. 'Now we've got the thing straight. If you'd only told me that in the first place, we'd have been 'arf-way there by now.'
The urge which had come upon Cedric Mulliner to visit Seven, Nasturtium Villas, Marigold Road, Valley Fields, that picturesque suburb in the south-eastern postal division of London, had been due to no idle whim. Nor was it prompted by a mere passion for travel and sightseeing. It was at that address that his secretary, Miss Myrtle Watling, lived: and the plan which Cedric had now formed was, in his opinion, the best to date. What he proposed to do was to seek out Miss Watling, give her his latch-key, and dispatch her to the Albany in the cab to fetch him one of his thirty-seven pairs of black boots. When she returned with them he could put them on and look the world in the face again.
He could see no flaw in the scheme, nor did any present itself during the long ride to Valley Fields. It was only when the cab had stopped outside the front garden of the neat little red-brick house and he had alighted and told the driver to wait ('Wait?' said the driver. 'How do you mean, wait? Oh, you mean wait?') that doubts began to disturb him. Even as he raised his finger to press the door-bell, there crept over him a chilly feeling of mistrust, and he drew the finger back as sharply as if he had found it on the point of prodding a Dowager Duchess in the ribs.
Could he meet Miss Watling in morning-clothes and yellow shoes? Reluctantly he told himself that he could not. He remembered how often she had taken down at his dictation letters to the Times deploring modern laxity on matters of dress: and his brain reeled at the thought of how she would look if she saw him now. Those raised brows . . . those scornful lips . . . those clear, calm eyes registering disgust through their windshields . . .
No, he could not face Miss Watling.
A sort of dull resignation came over Cedric Mulliner. It was useless, he saw, to struggle any longer. He was on the point of moving from the door and going back to the cab and embarking on the laborious task of explaining to the driver that he wished to return to the Albany ('But I took you there once, and you didn't like it,' he could hear the man saying) when from somewhere close at hand there came to his ears a sudden, loud, gurgling noise, rather like that which might have proceeded from a pig suffocating in a vat of glue. It was the sound of someone snoring. He turned, and was aware of an open window at his elbow.
The afternoon, I should have mentioned before, was oppressively warm. It was the sort of afternoon when suburban householders, after keeping body and soul together with roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, mealy potatoes, apple tart, cheddar cheese and bottled beer, retire into sitting-rooms and take refreshing naps. Such a householder, enjoying such a nap, was the conspicuous feature of the room into which my cousin Cedric was now peering. He was a large, stout man, and he lay in an arm-chair with a handkerchief over his face and his feet on another chair. And those feet, Cedric saw, were clad merely in a pair of mauve socks. His boots lay beside him on the carpet.
With a sudden thrill as sharp as if he had backed into a hot radiator in his bathroom, Cedric perceived that they were black boots.
The next moment, as if impelled by some irresistible force, Cedric Mulliner had shot silently through the window and was crawling on all fours along the floor. His teeth were clenched, and his eyes gleamed with a strange light. If he had not been wearing a top hat, he would have been an almost exact replica of the hunting-cheetah of the Indian jungle stalking its prey.
Cedric crept stealthily on. For a man who had never done this sort of thing before, he showed astonishing proficiency and technique. Indeed, had the cheetah which he so closely resembled chanced to be present, it could undoubtedly have picked up a hint or two which it would have found useful in its business. Inch by inch he moved silently forward, and now his itching fingers were hovering over the nearer of the two boots. At this moment, however, the drowsy stillness of the summer afternoon was shattered by what sounded to his strained senses like G. K. Chesterton falling on a sheet of tin. It was, as a matter of fact, only his hat dropping to the floor, but in the highly nervous state of mind into which he had been plunged by recent events it nearly deafened him. With one noiseless, agile spring, remarkable in one of his waist-measurement, he dived for shelter behind the arm-chair.
A long moment passed. At first he thought that all was well. The sleeper had apparently not wakened. Then there was a gurgle, a heavy body sat up, and a large hand passed within an inch of Cedric's head and pressed the bell in the wall. And presently the door opened and a parlourmaid entered.
'Jane,' said the man in the chair.
'Sir?'
'Something woke me up.'
'Yes, sir?'
'I got the impression . . . Jane!'
'Sir?'
'What is that top hat doing on the floor?'
'Top hat, sir?'
'Yes, top hat. This is a nice thing,' said the man, speaking querulously. 'I compose myself for a refreshing sleep, and almost before I can close my eyes the room becomes full of top hats. I come in here for a quiet rest, and without the slightest warning I find myself knee-deep in top hats. Why the top hat, Jane? I demand a categorical answer.'
'Perhaps Miss Myrtle put it there, sir.'
'Why would Miss Myrtle strew top hats about the place?'
'Yes, sir.'
'What do you mean, Yes, sir?'
'No, sir.'
'Very well. Another time, think before you speak. Remove the hat, Jane, and see to it that I am not disturbed again. It is imperative that I get my afternoon's rest.'
'Miss Myrtle said that you were to weed the front garden, sir.'
'I am aware of the fact, Jane,' said the man with dignity. 'In due course I shall proceed to the front garden and start weeding. But first I must have my afternoon's rest. This is a Sunday in June. The birds are sleeping in the trees. Master Willie is sleeping in his room, as ordered by the doctor. I, too, intend to sleep. Leave me, Jane, taking the top hat with you.'
The door closed. The man sank back in his chair with a satisfied grunt, and presently he had begun to snore again.
Cedric did not act hastily. Bitter experience was teaching him the caution which Boy Scouts learn in the cradle. For perhaps a quarter of an hour he remained where he was, crouching in his hiding place. Then the snoring rose in a crescendo. It had now become like something out of Wagner, and it seemed to Cedric that the moment had arrived when action could safely be taken. He removed his left boot and, creeping softly from his lair, seized one of the black boots and put it on. It was a nice fit, and for the first time something approaching contentment began to steal upon him. A minute more, one little minute, and all would be well.
This heartening thought had just crossed his mind when with an abruptness which caused his heart to loosen one of his front teeth the silence was again broken – this time by something that sounded like the Grand Fleet putting in a bit of gunnery-practice off the Nore. An instant later, he was back, quivering, in his niche behind the chair.
The sleeper sat up with a jerk.
r /> 'Save the women and children,' he said.
Then the hand came out and pressed the bell again.
'Jane!'
'Sir?'
'Jane, that beastly window-sash has got loose again. I never saw anything like the sashes in this house. A fly settles on them and down they come. Prop it up with a book or something.'
'Yes, sir.'
'And I'll tell you one thing, Jane, and you can quote me as having said so. Next time I want a quiet afternoon's rest, I shall go to a boiler-factory.'
The parlourmaid withdrew. The man heaved a sigh, and lowered himself into the chair again. And presently the room was echoing once more with the Ride of the Valkyries.
It was shortly after this that the bumps began on the ceiling.
They were good, hearty bumps. It sounded to Cedric as if a number of people with large feet were dancing Morris dances in the room above, and he chafed at the selfishness which could lead them to indulge in their pleasures at such a time. Already the man in the chair had begun to stir, and now he sat up and reached for the bell with the old familiar movement.
'Jane!'
'Sir?'
'Listen!'
'Yes, sir.'
'What is it?'
'It is Master Willie, I think, sir, taking his Sunday sleep.'
The man heaved himself out of the chair. It was plain that his emotions were too deep for speech. He yawned cavernously, and began to put on his boots.
'Jane!'
'Sir?'
'I have had enough of this. I shall now go and weed the front garden. Where is my hoe?'
'In the hall, sir.'
'Persecution,' said the man bitterly. 'That's what it is, persecution. Top hats . . . window-sashes . . .Master Willie . . .You can argue as much as you like, Jane, but I shall speak out fearlessly. I insist – and the facts support me – that it is persecution . . . Jane!'
A wordless gurgle proceeded from his lips. He seemed to be choking.
'Jane!'
'Yes, sir?'
'Look me in the face!'
'Yes, sir.'
'Now, answer me, Jane, and let us have no subterfuge or equivocation, Who turned this boot yellow?'
'Boot, sir?'
'Yes, boot.'
'Yellow, sir?'
'Yes, yellow. Look at that boot. Inspect it. Run your eye over it in an unprejudiced spirit. When I took this boot off it was black. I close my eyes for a few brief moments and when I open them it is yellow. I am not a man tamely to submit to this sort of thing. Who did this?'
'Not me, sir.'
'Somebody must have done it. Possibly it is the work of a gang. Sinister things are happening in this house. I tell you, Jane, that Seven, Nasturtium Villas has suddenly – on a Sunday, too, which makes it worse – become a house of mystery. I shall be vastly surprised if, before the day is out, clutching hands do not appear through the curtains and dead bodies drop out of the walls. I don't like it, Jane, and I tell you so frankly. Stand out of my way, woman, and let me get at those weeds.'
The door banged, and there was peace in the sitting-room. But not in the heart of Cedric Mulliner. All the Mulliners are clear thinkers, and it did not take Cedric long to recognize the fact that his position had changed considerably for the worse. Yes, he had lost ground. He had come into this room with a top hat and yellow boots. He would go out of it minus a top hat and wearing one yellow boot and one black one.
A severe set-back.
And now, to complete his discomfiture, his line of communications had been cut. Between him and the cab in which he could find at least temporary safety there stood the man with the hoe. It was a situation to intimidate even a man with a taste for adventure. Douglas Fairbanks would not have liked it. Cedric himself found it intolerable.
There seemed but one course to pursue. This ghastly house presumably possessed a back garden with a door leading out into it. The only thing to do was to flit noiselessly along the passage – if in such a house noiselessness were possible – and find that door and get out into the garden and climb over the wall into the next garden and sneak out into the road and gallop to the cab and so home. He had almost ceased to care what the hall-porter at the Albany would think of him. Perhaps he could pass his appearance off with a light laugh and some story of a bet. Possibly a handsome bribe would close the man's mouth. At any rate, whatever might be the issue, upshot or outcome, back to the Albany he must go, and that with all possible speed. His spirit was broken.
Tiptoeing over the carpet, Cedric opened the door and peeped out. The passage was empty. He crept along it, and had nearly reached its end when he heard the sound of footsteps descending the stairs. There was a door to his left. It was ajar. He leaped through and found himself in a small room through the window of which he looked out onto a pleasant garden. The footsteps passed on and went down the kitchen stairs.
Cedric breathed again. It seemed to him that the danger was past and that he could now embark on the last portion of his perilous journey. The thought of the cab drew him like a magnet. Until this moment he had not been conscious of any marked fondness for the driver of the cab, but now he found himself yearning for his society. He panted for the driver as the hart pants after the water-brooks.
Cautiously, Cedric Mulliner opened the window. He put his head out to examine the terrain before proceeding farther. The sight encouraged him. The drop to the ground below was of the simplest. He had merely to wriggle through, and all would be well.
It was as he was preparing to do this that the window-sash descended on the back of his neck like a guillotine, and he found himself firmly pinned to the sill.
A thoughtful-looking ginger-coloured cat, which had risen from the mat at his entrance and had been scrutinizing him with a pale eye, now moved forward and sniffed speculatively at his left ankle. The proceedings seemed to the cat irregular but full of human interest. It sat down and gave itself up to meditation.
Cedric, meanwhile, had done the same. There is, if you come to think of it, little else that a man in his position can do but meditate. And so for some considerable space of time Cedric Mulliner looked down upon the smiling garden and busied himself with his thoughts.
These, as may readily be imagined, were not of the most agreeable. In circumstances such as those in which he had been placed, it is but rarely that the sunny and genial side of a man's mind comes uppermost. He tends to be bitter, and it is inevitable that his rancour should be directed at those whom he considers responsible for his unpleasant situation.
In Cedric's case, there was no difficulty in fixing the responsibility. It was a woman – if one may apply the term to the only daughter of an Earl – who had caused his downfall. Nothing could be more significant of the revolution which circumstances had brought about in Cedric's mind than the fact that, regardless of her high position in Society, he now found himself thinking of Lady Chloe Downblotton in the harshest possible vein.
So moved, indeed, was he that, not content with thoroughly disliking Lady Chloe, he was soon extending his loathing – first to her nearer relations, and finally, incredible as it may seem, to the entire British aristocracy. Twenty-four hours ago – aye even a brief two hours ago – Cedric Mulliner had loved every occupant of Debrett's Peerage, from the premier Dukes right down to the people who scrape in at the bottom of the page under the heading 'Collateral Branches', with a respectful fervour which it had seemed that nothing would ever be able to quench. And now there ran riot in his soul something that was little short of Red Republicanism.