The fact that it never even occurred to George Emerson he was being offensively patronizing shows the stern stuff of which these supermen are made.

* * *

The Efficient Baxter bicycled broodingly to Market Blandings for tobacco. He brooded for several reasons. He had just seen Aline Peters and George Emerson in confidential talk on the upper terrace, and that was one thing which exercised his mind, for he suspected George Emerson. He suspected him nebulously as a snake in the grass; as an influence working against the orderly progress of events concerning the marriage that had been arranged and would shortly take place between Miss Peters and the Honorable Frederick Threepwood.

It would be too much to say that he had any idea that George was putting in such hard and consistent work in his serpentine role; indeed if he could have overheard the conversation just recorded it is probable that Rupert Baxter would have had heart failure; but he had observed the intimacy between the two as he observed most things in his immediate neighborhood, and he disapproved of it. It was all very well to say that George Emerson had known Aline Peters since she was a child. If that was so, then in the opinion of the Efficient Baxter he had known her quite long enough and ought to start making the acquaintance of somebody else.

He blamed the Honorable Freddie. If the Honorable Freddie had been a more ardent lover he would have spent his time with Aline, and George Emerson would have taken his proper place as one of the crowd at the back of the stage. But Freddie's view of the matter seemed to be that he had done all that could be expected of a chappie in getting engaged to the girl, and that now he might consider himself at liberty to drop her for a while.

So Baxter, as he bicycled to Market Blandings for tobacco, brooded on Freddie, Aline Peters and George Emerson. He also brooded on Mr. Peters and Ashe Marson. Finally he brooded in a general way, because he had had very little sleep the past week.

The spectacle of a young man doing his duty and enduring considerable discomforts while doing it is painful; but there is such uplift in it, it affords so excellent a moral picture, that I cannot omit a short description of the manner in which Rupert Baxter had spent the nights which had elapsed since his meeting with Ashe in the small hours in the hall.

In the gallery which ran above the hall there was a large chair, situated a few paces from the great staircase. On this, in an overcoat—for the nights were chilly—and rubber-soled shoes, the Efficient Baxter had sat, without missing a single night, from one in the morning until daybreak, waiting, waiting, waiting. It had been an ordeal to try the stoutest determination. Nature had never intended Baxter for a night bird. He loved his bed. He knew that doctors held that insufficient sleep made a man pale and sallow, and he had always aimed at the peach-bloom complexion which comes from a sensible eight hours between the sheets.

One of the King Georges of England—I forget which—once said that a certain number of hours' sleep each night—I cannot recall at the moment how many—made a man something, which for the time being has slipped my memory. Baxter agreed with him. It went against all his instincts to sit up in this fashion; but it was his duty and he did it.

It troubled him that, as night after night went by and Ashe, the suspect, did not walk into the trap so carefully laid for him, he found an increasing difficulty in keeping awake. The first two or three of his series of vigils he had passed in an unimpeachable wakefulness, his chin resting on the rail of the gallery and his ears alert for the slightest sound; but he had not been able to maintain this standard of excellence.

On several occasions he had caught himself in the act of dropping off, and the last night he had actually wakened with a start to find it quite light. As his last recollection before that was of an inky darkness impenetrable to the eye, dismay gripped him with a sudden clutch and he ran swiftly down to the museum. His relief on finding that the scarab was still there had been tempered by thoughts of what might have been.

Baxter, then, as he bicycled to Market Blandings for tobacco, had good reason to brood. Having bought his tobacco and observed the life and thought of the town for half an hour—it was market day and the normal stagnation of the place was temporarily relieved and brightened by pigs that eluded their keepers, and a bull calf which caught a stout farmer at the psychological moment when he was tying his shoe lace and lifted him six feet—he made his way to the Emsworth Arms, the most respectable of the eleven inns the citizens of Market Blandings contrived in some miraculous way to support.

In English country towns, if the public houses do not actually outnumber the inhabitants, they all do an excellent trade. It is only when they are two to one that hard times hit them and set the innkeepers to blaming the government.

It was not the busy bar, full to overflowing with honest British yeomen—many of them in a similar condition—that Baxter sought. His goal was the genteel dining-room on the first floor, where a bald and shuffling waiter, own cousin to a tortoise, served luncheon to those desiring it. Lack of sleep had reduced Baxter to a condition where the presence and chatter of the house party were insupportable. It was his purpose to lunch at the Emsworth Arms and take a nap in an armchair afterward.

He had relied on having the room to himself, for Market Blandings did not lunch to a great extent; but to his annoyance and disappointment the room was already occupied by a man in brown tweeds.

Occupied is the correct word, for at first sight this man seemed to fill the room. Never since almost forgotten days when he used to frequent circuses and side shows, had Baxter seen a fellow human being so extraordinarily obese. He was a man about fifty years old, gray-haired, of a mauve complexion, and his general appearance suggested joviality.

To Baxter's chagrin, this person engaged him in conversation directly he took his seat at the table. There was only one table in the room, as is customary in English inns, and it had the disadvantage that it collected those seated at it into one party. It was impossible for Baxter to withdraw into himself and ignore this person's advances.

It is doubtful whether he could have done it, however, had they been separated by yards of floor, for the fat man was not only naturally talkative but, as appeared from his opening remarks, speech had been dammed up within him for some time by lack of a suitable victim.

"Morning!" he began; "nice day. Good for the farmers. I'll move up to your end of the table if I may, sir. Waiter, bring my beef to this gentleman's end of the table."

He creaked into a chair at Baxter's side and resumed:

"Infernally quiet place, this, sir. I haven't found a soul to speak to since I arrived yesterday afternoon except deaf-and-dumb rustics. Are you making a long stay here?"

"I live outside the town."

"I pity you. Wouldn't care to do it myself. Had to come here on business and shan't be sorry when it's finished. I give you my word I couldn't sleep a wink last night because of the quiet. I was just dropping off when a beast of a bird outside the window gave a chirrup, and it brought me up with a jerk as though somebody had fired a gun. There's a damned cat somewhere near my room that mews. I lie in bed waiting for the next mew, all worked up.

"Heaven save me from the country! It may be all right for you, if you've got a comfortable home and a pal or two to chat with after dinner; but you've no conception what it's like in this infernal town—I suppose it calls itself a town. What a hole! There's a church down the street. I'm told it's Norman or something. Anyway, it's old. I'm not much of a man for churches as a rule, but I went and took a look at it.

"Then somebody told me there was a fine view from the end of High Street; so I went and took a look at that. And now, so far as I can make out, I've done the sights and exhausted every possibility of entertainment the town has to provide—unless there's another church. I'm so reduced that I'll go and see the Methodist Chapel, if there is one."

Fresh air, want of sleep and the closeness of the dining-room combined to make Baxter drowsy. He ate his lunch in a torpor, hardly replying to his companion's remarks, who, for his part, did not seem to wish or to expect replies. It was enough for him to be talking.

"What do people do with themselves in a place like this? When they want amusement, I mean. I suppose it's different if you've been brought up to it. Like being born color-blind or something. You don't notice. It's the visitor who suffers. They've no enterprise in this sort of place. There's a bit of land just outside here that would make a sweet steeplechase course; natural barriers; everything. It hasn't occurred to 'em to do anything with it. It makes you despair of your species—that sort of thing. Now if I—"

Baxter dozed. With his fork still impaling a piece of cold beef, he dropped into that half-awake, half-asleep state which is Nature's daytime substitute for the true slumber of the night. The fat man, either not noticing or not caring, talked on. His voice was a steady drone, lulling Baxter to rest.

Suddenly there was a break. Baxter sat up, blinking. He had a curious impression that his companion had said "Hello, Freddie!" and that the door had just opened and closed.

"Eh?" he said.

"Yes?" said the fat man.

"What did you say?"

"I was speaking of—"

"I thought you said, 'Hello, Freddie!'"

His companion eyed him indulgently.

"I thought you were dropping off when I looked at you. You've been dreaming. What should I say, 'Hello, Freddie!' for?"

The conundrum was unanswerable. Baxter did not attempt to answer it. But there remained at the back of his mind a quaint idea that he had caught sight, as he woke, of the Honorable Frederick Threepwood, his face warningly contorted, vanishing through the doorway. Yet what could the Honorable Freddie be doing at the Emsworth Arms?

A solution of the difficulty occurred to him: he had dreamed he had seen Freddie and that had suggested the words which, reason pointed out, his companion could hardly have spoken. Even if the Honorable Freddie should enter the room, this fat man, who was apparently a drummer of some kind, would certainly not know who he was, nor would he address him so familiarly.

Yes, that must be the explanation. After all, the quaintest things happened in dreams. Last night, when he had fallen asleep in his chair, he had dreamed that he was sitting in a glass case in the museum, making faces at Lord Emsworth, Mr. Peters, and Beach, the butler, who were trying to steal him, under the impression that he was a scarab of the reign of Cheops of the Fourth Dynasty—a thing he would never have done when awake. Yes; he must certainly have been dreaming.

In the bedroom into which he had dashed to hide himself, on discovering that the dining-room was in possession of the Efficient Baxter, the Honorable Freddie sat on a rickety chair, scowling. He elaborated a favorite dictum of his:

"You can't take a step anywhere without stumbling over that damn feller, Baxter!"

He wondered whether Baxter had seen him. He wondered whether Baxter had recognized him. He wondered whether Baxter had heard R. Jones say, "Hello, Freddie!"

He wondered, if such should be the case, whether R. Jones' presence of mind and native resource had been equal to explaining away the remark.



CHAPTER VIII

"'Put the butter or drippings in a kettle on the range, and when hot add the onions and fry them; add the veal and cook until brown. Add the water, cover closely, and cook very slowly until the meat is tender; then add the seasoning and place the potatoes on top of the meat. Cover and cook until the potatoes are tender, but not falling to pieces.'"

"Sure," said Mr. Peters—"not falling to pieces. That's right. Go on."

"'Then add the cream and cook five minutes longer'" read Ashe.

"Is that all?"

"That's all of that one."

Mr. Peters settled himself more comfortably in bed.

"Read me the piece where it tells about curried lobster."

Ashe cleared his throat.

"'Curried Lobster,'" he read. "'Materials: Two one-pound lobsters, two teaspoonfuls lemon juice, half a spoonful curry powder, two tablespoonfuls butter, a tablespoonful flour, one cupful scalded milk, one cupful cracker crumbs, half teaspoonful salt, quarter teaspoonful pepper.'"

"Go on."

"'Way of Preparing: Cream the butter and flour and add the scalded milk; then add the lemon juice, curry powder, salt and pepper. Remove the lobster meat from the shells and cut into half-inch cubes.'"

"Half-inch cubes," sighed Mr. Peters wistfully. "Yes?"

"'Add the latter to the sauce.'"

"You didn't say anything about the latter. Oh, I see; it means the half-inch cubes. Yes?"

"'Refill the lobster shells, cover with buttered crumbs, and bake until the crumbs are brown. This will serve six persons.'"

"And make them feel an hour afterward as though they had swallowed a live wild cat," said Mr. Peters ruefully.

"Not necessarily," said Ashe. "I could eat two portions of that at this very minute and go off to bed and sleep like a little child."

Mr. Peters raised himself on his elbow and stared at him. They were in the millionaire's bedroom, the time being one in the morning, and Mr. Peters had expressed a wish that Ashe should read him to sleep. He had voted against Ashe's novel and produced from the recesses of his suitcase a much-thumbed cookbook. He explained that since his digestive misfortunes had come on him he had derived a certain solace from its perusal.

It may be that to some men sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things; but Mr. Peters had not found that to be the case. In his hour of affliction it soothed him to read of Hungarian Goulash and escaloped brains, and to remember that he, too, the nut-and-grass eater of today, had once dwelt in Arcadia.

The passage of the days, which had so sapped the stamina of the efficient Baxter, had had the opposite effect on Mr. Peters. His was one of those natures that cannot deal in half measures. Whatever he did, he did with the same driving energy. After the first passionate burst of resistance he had settled down into a model pupil in Ashe's one-man school of physical culture. It had been the same, now that he came to look back on it, at Muldoon's.

Now that he remembered, he had come away from White Plains hoping, indeed, never to see the place again, but undeniably a different man physically. It was not the habit of Professor Muldoon to let his patients loaf; but Mr. Peters, after the initial plunge, had needed no driving. He had worked hard at his cure then, because it was the job in hand. He worked hard now, under the guidance of Ashe, because, once he had begun, the thing interested and gripped him.

Ashe, who had expected continued reluctance, had been astonished and delighted at the way in which the millionaire had behaved. Nature had really intended Ashe for a trainer; he identified himself so thoroughly with his man and rejoiced at the least signs of improvement.

In Mr. Peters' case there had been distinct improvement already. Miracles do not happen nowadays, and it was too much to expect one who had maltreated his body so consistently for so many years to become whole in a day; but to an optimist like Ashe signs were not wanting that in due season Mr. Peters would rise on stepping-stones of his dead self to higher things, and though never soaring into the class that devours lobster a la Newburg and smiles after it, might yet prove himself a devil of a fellow among the mutton chops.

"You're a wonder!" said Mr. Peters. "You're fresh, and you have no respect for your elders and betters; but you deliver the goods. That's the point. Why, I'm beginning to feel great! Say, do you know I felt a new muscle in the small of my back this morning? They are coming out on me like a rash."

"That's the Larsen Exercises. They develop the whole body."

"Well, you're a pretty good advertisement for them if they need one. What were you before you came to me—a prize-fighter?"

"That's the question everybody I have met since I arrived here has asked me. I believe it made the butler think I was some sort of crook when I couldn't answer it. I used to write stories— detective stories."

"What you ought to be doing is running a place over here in England like Muldoon has back home. But you will be able to write one more story out of this business here, if you want to. When are you going to have another try for my scarab?"

"To-night."

"To-night? How about Baxter?"

"I shall have to risk Baxter."

Mr. Peters hesitated. He had fallen out of the habit of being magnanimous during the past few years, for dyspepsia brooks no divided allegiance and magnanimity has to take a back seat when it has its grip on you.

"See here," he said awkwardly; "I've been thinking this over lately—and what's the use? It's a queer thing; and if anybody had told me a week ago that I should be saying it I wouldn't have believed him; but I am beginning to like you. I don't want to get you into trouble. Let the old scarab go. What's a scarab anyway? Forget about it and stick on here as my private Muldoon. If it's the five thousand that's worrying you, forget that too. I'll give it to you as your fee."

Ashe was astounded. That it could really be his peppery employer who spoke was almost unbelievable. Ashe's was a friendly nature and he could never be long associated with anyone without trying to establish pleasant relations; but he had resigned himself in the present case to perpetual warfare.

He was touched; and if he had ever contemplated abandoning his venture, this, he felt, would have spurred him on to see it through. This sudden revelation of the human in Mr. Peters was like a trumpet call.

"I wouldn't think of it," he said. "It's great of you to suggest such a thing; but I know just how you feel about the thing, and I'm going to get it for you if I have to wring Baxter's neck. Probably Baxter will have given up waiting as a bad job by now if he has been watching all this while. We've given him ten nights to cool off. I expect he is in bed, dreaming pleasant dreams. It's nearly two o'clock. I'll wait another ten minutes and then go down." He picked up the cookbook. "Lie back and make yourself comfortable, and I'll read you to sleep first."

"You're a good boy," said Mr. Peters drowsily.

"Are you ready? 'Pork Tenderloin Larded. Half pound fat pork—'" A faint smile curved Mr. Peters' lips. His eyes were closed and he breathed softly. Ashe went on in a low voice: "'four large pork tenderloins, one cupful cracker crumbs, one cupful boiling water, two tablespoonfuls butter, one teaspoonful salt, half teaspoonful pepper, one teaspoonful poultry seasoning.'"

A little sigh came from the bed.

"'Way of Preparing: Wipe the tenderloins with a damp cloth. With a sharp knife make a deep pocket lengthwise in each tenderloin. Cut your pork into long thin strips and, with a needle, lard each tenderloin. Melt the butter in the water, add the seasoning and the cracker crumbs, combining all thoroughly. Now fill each pocket in the tenderloin with this stuffing. Place the tenderloins—'"

A snore sounded from the pillows, punctuating the recital like a mark of exclamation. Ashe laid down the book and peered into the darkness beyond the rays of the bed lamp. His employer slept.

Ashe switched off the light and crept to the door. Out in the passage he stopped and listened. All was still. He stole downstairs.

* * *

George Emerson sat in his bedroom in the bachelors' wing of the castle smoking a cigarette. A light of resolution was in his eyes. He glanced at the table beside his bed and at what was on that table, and the light of resolution flamed into a glare of fanatic determination. So might a medieval knight have looked on the eve of setting forth to rescue a maiden from a dragon.

His cigarette burned down. He looked at his watch, put it back, and lit another cigarette. His aspect was the aspect of one waiting for the appointed hour. Smoking his second cigarette, he resumed his meditations. They had to do with Aline Peters.

George Emerson was troubled about Aline Peters. Watching over her, as he did, with a lover's eye, he had perceived that about her which distressed him. On the terrace that morning she had been abrupt to him—what in a girl of less angelic disposition one might have called snappy. Yes, to be just, she had snapped at him. That meant something. It meant that Aline was not well. It meant what her pallor and tired eyes meant—that the life she was leading was doing her no good.

Eleven nights had George dined at Blandings Castle, and on each of the eleven nights he had been distressed to see the manner in which Aline, declining the baked meats, had restricted herself to the miserable vegetable messes which were all that doctor's orders permitted to her suffering father. George's pity had its limits. His heart did not bleed for Mr. Peters. Mr. Peters' diet was his own affair. But that Aline should starve herself in this fashion, purely by way of moral support for her parent, was another matter.

George was perhaps a shade material. Himself a robust young man and taking what might be called an outsize in meals, he attached perhaps too much importance to food as an adjunct to the perfect life. In his survey of Aline he took a line through his own requirements; and believing that eleven such dinners as he had seen Aline partake of would have killed him he decided that his loved one was on the point of starvation.

No human being, he held, could exist on such Barmecide feasts. That Mr. Peters continued to do so did not occur to him as a flaw in his reasoning. He looked on Mr. Peters as a sort of machine. Successful business men often give that impression to the young. If George had been told that Mr. Peters went along on gasoline, like an automobile, he would not have been much surprised. But that Aline—his Aline—should have to deny herself the exercise of that mastication of rich meats which, together with the gift of speech, raises man above the beasts of the field—— That was what tortured George.

He had devoted the day to thinking out a solution of the problem. Such was the overflowing goodness of Aline's heart that not even he could persuade her to withdraw her moral support from her father and devote herself to keeping up her strength as she should do. It was necessary to think of some other plan.

And then a speech of hers had come back to him. She had said—poor child:

"I do get a little hungry sometimes—late at night generally."

The problem was solved. Food should be brought to her late at night.

On the table by his bed was a stout sheet of packing paper. On this lay, like one of those pictures in still life that one sees on suburban parlor walls, a tongue, some bread, a knife, a fork, salt, a corkscrew and a small bottle of white wine.

It is a pleasure, when one has been able hitherto to portray George's devotion only through the medium of his speeches, to produce these comestibles as Exhibit A, to show that he loved Aline with no common love; for it had not been an easy task to get them there. In a house of smaller dimensions he would have raided the larder without shame, but at Blandings Castle there was no saying where the larder might be. All he knew was that it lay somewhere beyond that green-baize door opening on the hall, past which he was wont to go on his way to bed. To prowl through the maze of the servants' quarters in search of it was impossible. The only thing to be done was to go to Market Blandings and buy the things.

Fortune had helped him at the start by arranging that the Honorable Freddie, also, should be going to Market Blandings in the little runabout, which seated two. He had acquiesced in George's suggestion that he, George, should occupy the other seat, but with a certain lack of enthusiasm it seemed to George. He had not volunteered any reason as to why he was going to Market Blandings in the little runabout, and on arrival there had betrayed an unmistakable desire to get rid of George at the earliest opportunity.

As this had suited George to perfection, he being desirous of getting rid of the Honorable Freddie at the earliest opportunity, he had not been inquisitive, and they had parted on the outskirts of the town without mutual confidences.

George had then proceeded to the grocer's, and after that to another of the Market Blandings inns, not the Emsworth Arms, where he had bought the white wine. He did not believe in the local white wine, for he was a young man with a palate and mistrusted country cellars, but he assumed that, whatever its quality, it would cheer Aline in the small hours.

He had then tramped the whole five miles back to the castle with his purchases. It was here that his real troubles began and the quality of his love was tested. The walk, to a heavily laden man, was bad enough; but it was as nothing compared with the ordeal of smuggling the cargo up to his bedroom. Superhuman though he was, George was alive to the delicacy of the situation. One cannot convey food and drink to one's room in a strange house without, if detected, seeming to cast a slur on the table of the host. It was as one who carries dispatches through an enemy's lines that George took cover, emerged from cover, dodged, ducked and ran; and the moment when he sank down on his bed, the door locked behind him, was one of the happiest of his life.

The recollection of that ordeal made the one he proposed to embark on now seem slight in comparison. All he had to do was to go to Aline's room on the other side of the house, knock softly on the door until signs of wakefulness made themselves heard from within, and then dart away into the shadows whence he had come, and so back to bed. He gave Aline credit for the intelligence that would enable her, on finding a tongue, some bread, a knife, a fork, salt, a corkscrew and a bottle of white wine on the mat, to know what to do with them—and perhaps to guess whose was the loving hand that had laid them there.

The second clause, however, was not important, for he proposed to tell her whose was the hand next morning. Other people might hide their light under a bushel—not George Emerson.

It only remained now to allow time to pass until the hour should be sufficiently advanced to insure safety for the expedition. He looked at his watch again. It was nearly two. By this time the house must be asleep.

He gathered up the tongue, the bread, the knife, the fork, the salt, the corkscrew and the bottle of white wine, and left the room. All was still. He stole downstairs.

* * *

On his chair in the gallery that ran round the hall, swathed in an overcoat and wearing rubber-soled shoes, the Efficient Baxter sat and gazed into the darkness. He had lost the first fine careless rapture, as it were, which had helped him to endure these vigils, and a great weariness was on him. He found difficulty in keeping his eyes open, and when they were open the darkness seemed to press on them painfully. Take him for all in all, the Efficient Baxter had had about enough of it.

Time stood still. Baxter's thoughts began to wander. He knew that this was fatal and exerted himself to drag them back. He tried to concentrate his mind on some one definite thing. He selected the scarab as a suitable object, but it played him false. He had hardly concentrated on the scarab before his mind was straying off to ancient Egypt, to Mr. Peters' dyspepsia, and on a dozen other branch lines of thought.

He blamed the fat man at the inn for this. If the fat man had not thrust his presence and conversation on him he would have been able to enjoy a sound sleep in the afternoon, and would have come fresh to his nocturnal task. He began to muse on the fat man. And by a curious coincidence whom should he meet a few moments later but this same man!

It happened in a somewhat singular manner, though it all seemed perfectly logical and consecutive to Baxter. He was climbing up the outer wall of Westminster Abbey in his pyjamas and a tall hat, when the fat man, suddenly thrusting his head out of a window which Baxter had not noticed until that moment, said, "Hello, Freddie!"

Baxter was about to explain that his name was not Freddie when he found himself walking down Piccadilly with Ashe Marson. Ashe said to him: "Nobody loves me. Everybody steals my grapefruit!" And the pathos of it cut the Efficient Baxter like a knife. He was on the point of replying; when Ashe vanished and Baxter discovered that he was not in Piccadilly, as he had supposed, but in an aeroplane with Mr. Peters, hovering over the castle.

Mr. Peters had a bomb in his hand, which he was fondling with loving care. He explained to Baxter that he had stolen it from the Earl of Emsworth's museum. "I did it with a slice of cold beef and a pickle," he explained; and Baxter found himself realizing that that was the only way. "Now watch me drop it," said Mr. Peters, closing one eye and taking aim at the castle. "I have to do this by the doctor's orders."

He loosed the bomb and immediately Baxter was lying in bed watching it drop. He was frightened, but the idea of moving did not occur to him. The bomb fell very slowly, dipping and fluttering like a feather. It came closer and closer. Then it struck with a roar and a sheet of flame.

Baxter woke to a sound of tumult and crashing. For a moment he hovered between dreaming and waking, and then sleep passed from him, and he was aware that something noisy and exciting was in progress in the hall below.

* * *

Coming down to first causes, the only reason why collisions of any kind occur is because two bodies defy Nature's law that a given spot on a given plane shall at a given moment of time be occupied by only one body.

There was a certain spot near the foot of the great staircase which Ashe, coming downstairs from Mr. Peters' room, and George Emerson, coming up to Aline's room, had to pass on their respective routes. George reached it at one minute and three seconds after two a.m., moving silently but swiftly; and Ashe, also maintaining a good rate of speed, arrived there at one minute and four seconds after the hour, when he ceased to walk and began to fly, accompanied by George Emerson, now going down. His arms were round George's neck and George was clinging to his waist.

In due season they reached the foot of the stairs and a small table, covered with occasional china and photographs in frames, which lay adjacent to the foot of the stairs. That—especially the occasional china—was what Baxter had heard.

George Emerson thought it was a burglar. Ashe did not know what it was, but he knew he wanted to shake it off; so he insinuated a hand beneath George's chin and pushed upward. George, by this time parted forever from the tongue, the bread, the knife, the fork, the salt, the corkscrew and the bottle of white wine, and having both hands free for the work of the moment, held Ashe with the left and punched him in the ribs with the right.

Ashe, removing his left arm from George's neck, brought it up as a reinforcement to his right, and used both as a means of throttling George. This led George, now permanently underneath, to grasp Ashe's ears firmly and twist them, relieving the pressure on his throat and causing Ashe to utter the first vocal sound of the evening, other than the explosive Ugh! that both had emitted at the instant of impact.

Ashe dislodged George's hands from his ears and hit George in the ribs with his elbow. George kicked Ashe on the left ankle. Ashe rediscovered George's throat and began to squeeze it afresh; and a pleasant time was being had by all when the Efficient Baxter, whizzing down the stairs, tripped over Ashe's legs, shot forward and cannoned into another table, also covered with occasional china and photographs in frames.

The hall at Blandings Castle was more an extra drawing-room than a hall; and, when not nursing a sick headache in her bedroom, Lady Ann Warblington would dispense afternoon tea there to her guests. Consequently it was dotted pretty freely with small tables. There were, indeed, no fewer than five more in various spots, waiting to be bumped into and smashed.

The bumping into and smashing of small tables, however, is a task that calls for plenty of time, a leisured pursuit; and neither George nor Ashe, a third party having been added to their little affair, felt a desire to stay on and do the thing properly. Ashe was strongly opposed to being discovered and called on to account for his presence there at that hour; and George, conscious of the tongue and its adjuncts now strewn about the hall, had a similar prejudice against the tedious explanations that detection must involve.

As though by mutual consent each relaxed his grip. They stood panting for an instant; then, Ashe in the direction where he supposed the green-baize door of the servants' quarters to be, George to the staircase that led to his bedroom, they went away from that place.

They had hardly done so when Baxter, having disassociated himself from the contents of the table he had upset, began to grope his way toward the electric-light switch, the same being situated near the foot of the main staircase. He went on all fours, as a safer method of locomotion, though slower, than the one he had attempted before.

Noises began to make themselves heard on the floors above. Roused by the merry crackle of occasional china, the house party was bestirring itself to investigate. Voices sounded, muffled and inquiring.

Meantime Baxter crawled steadily on his hands and knees toward the light switch. He was in much the same condition as one White Hope of the ring is after he has put his chin in the way of the fist of a rival member of the Truck Drivers' Union. He knew that he was still alive. More he could not say. The mists of sleep, which still shrouded his brain, and the shake-up he had had from his encounter with the table, a corner of which he had rammed with the top of his head, combined to produce a dreamlike state.

And so the Efficient Baxter crawled on; and as he crawled his hand, advancing cautiously, fell on something—something that was not alive; something clammy and ice-cold, the touch of which filled him with a nameless horror.

To say that Baxter's heart stood still would be physiologically inexact. The heart does not stand still. Whatever the emotions of its owner, it goes on beating. It would be more accurate to say that Baxter felt like a man taking his first ride in an express elevator, who has outstripped his vital organs by several floors and sees no immediate prospect of their ever catching up with him again. There was a great cold void where the more intimate parts of his body should have been. His throat was dry and contracted. The flesh of his back crawled, for he knew what it was he had touched.

Painful and absorbing as had been his encounter with the table, Baxter had never lost sight of the fact that close beside him a furious battle between unseen forces was in progress. He had heard the bumping and the thumping and the tense breathing even as he picked occasional china from his person. Such a combat, he had felt, could hardly fail to result in personal injury to either the party of the first part or the party of the second part, or both. He knew now that worse than mere injury had happened, and that he knelt in the presence of death.

There was no doubt that the man was dead. Insensibility alone could never have produced this icy chill. He raised his head in the darkness, and cried aloud to those approaching. He meant to cry: "Help! Murder!" But fear prevented clear articulation. What he shouted was: "Heh! Mer!" On which, from the neighborhood of the staircase, somebody began to fire a revolver.

The Earl of Emsworth had been sleeping a sound and peaceful sleep when the imbroglio began downstairs. He sat up and listened. Yes; undoubtedly burglars! He switched on his light and jumped out of bed. He took a pistol from a drawer, and thus armed went to look into the matter. The dreamy peer was no poltroon.

It was quite dark when he arrived on the scene of conflict, in the van of a mixed bevy of pyjamaed and dressing-gowned relations. He was in the van because, meeting these relations in the passage above, he had said to them: "Let me go first. I have a pistol." And they had let him go first. They were, indeed, awfully nice about it, not thrusting themselves forward or jostling or anything, but behaving in a modest and self-effacing manner that was pretty to watch.

When Lord Emsworth said, "Let me go first," young Algernon Wooster, who was on the very point of leaping to the fore, said, "Yes, by Jove! Sound scheme, by Gad!"—and withdrew into the background; and the Bishop of Godalming said: "By all means, Clarence undoubtedly; most certainly precede us."

When his sense of touch told him he had reached the foot of the stairs, Lord Emsworth paused. The hall was very dark and the burglars seemed temporarily to have suspended activities. And then one of them, a man with a ruffianly, grating voice, spoke. What it was he said Lord Emsworth could not understand. It sounded like "Heh! Mer!"—probably some secret signal to his confederates. Lord Emsworth raised his revolver and emptied it in the direction of the sound.

Extremely fortunately for him, the Efficient Baxter had not changed his all-fours attitude. This undoubtedly saved Lord Emsworth the worry of engaging a new secretary. The shots sang above Baxter's head one after the other, six in all, and found other billets than his person. They disposed themselves as follows: The first shot broke a window and whistled out into the night; the second shot hit the dinner gong and made a perfectly extraordinary noise, like the Last Trump; the third, fourth and fifth shots embedded themselves in the wall; the sixth and final shot hit a life-size picture of his lordship's grandmother in the face and improved it out of all knowledge.

One thinks no worse of Lord Emsworth's grandmother because she looked like Eddie Foy, and had allowed herself to be painted, after the heavy classic manner of some of the portraits of a hundred years ago, in the character of Venus—suitably draped, of course, rising from the sea; but it was beyond the possibility of denial that her grandson's bullet permanently removed one of Blandings Castle's most prominent eyesores.

Having emptied his revolver, Lord Emsworth said, "Who is there? Speak!" in rather an aggrieved tone, as though he felt he had done his part in breaking the ice, and it was now for the intruder to exert himself and bear his share of the social amenities.

The Efficient Baxter did not reply. Nothing in the world could have induced him to speak at that moment, or to make any sound whatsoever that might betray his position to a dangerous maniac who might at any instant reload his pistol and resume the fusillade. Explanations, in his opinion, could be deferred until somebody had the presence of mind to switch on the lights. He flattened himself on the carpet and hoped for better things. His cheek touched the corpse beside him; but though he winced and shuddered he made no outcry. After those six shots he was through with outcries.

A voice from above, the bishop's voice, said: "I think you have killed him, Clarence."

Another voice, that of Colonel Horace Mant, said: "Switch on those dashed lights! Why doesn't somebody? Dash it!"

The whole strength of the company began to demand light.

When the lights came, it was from the other side of the hall. Six revolver shots, fired at quarter past two in the morning, will rouse even sleeping domestics. The servants' quarters were buzzing like a hive. Shrill feminine screams were puncturing the air. Mr. Beach, the butler, in a suit of pink silk pajamas, of which no one would have suspected him, was leading a party of men servants down the stairs—not so much because he wanted to lead them as because they pushed him.

The passage beyond the green-baize door became congested, and there were cries for Mr. Beach to open it and look through and see what was the matter; but Mr. Beach was smarter than that and wriggled back so that he no longer headed the procession. This done, he shouted:

"Open that door there! Open that door! Look and see what the matter is."

Ashe opened the door. Since his escape from the hall he had been lurking in the neighborhood of the green-baize door and had been engulfed by the swirling throng. Finding himself with elbowroom for the first time, he pushed through, swung the door open and switched on the lights.

They shone on a collection of semi-dressed figures, crowding the staircase; on a hall littered with china and glass; on a dented dinner gong; on an edited and improved portrait of the late Countess of Emsworth; and on the Efficient Baxter, in an overcoat and rubber-soled shoes, lying beside a cold tongue. At no great distance lay a number of other objects—a knife, a fork, some bread, salt, a corkscrew and a bottle of white wine.

Using the word in the sense of saying something coherent, the Earl of Emsworth was the first to speak. He peered down at his recumbent secretary and said:

"Baxter! My dear fellow—what the devil?"

The feeling of the company was one of profound disappointment. They were disgusted at the anticlimax. For an instant, when the Efficient one did not move, a hope began to stir; but as soon as it was seen that he was not even injured, gloom reigned. One of two things would have satisfied them—either a burglar or a corpse. A burglar would have been welcome, dead or alive; but, if Baxter proposed to fill the part adequately it was imperative that he be dead. He had disappointed them deeply by turning out to be the object of their quest. That he should not have been even grazed was too much.

There was a cold silence as he slowly raised himself from the floor. As his eyes fell on the tongue, he started and remained gazing fixedly at it. Surprise paralyzed him.

Lord Emsworth was also looking at the tongue and he leaped to a not unreasonable conclusion. He spoke coldly and haughtily; for he was not only annoyed, like the others, at the anticlimax, but offended. He knew that he was not one of your energetic hosts who exert themselves unceasingly to supply their guests with entertainment; but there was one thing on which, as a host, he did pride himself—in the material matters of life he did his guests well; he kept an admirable table.

"My dear Baxter," he said in the tones he usually reserved for the correction of his son Freddie, "if your hunger is so great that you are unable to wait for breakfast and have to raid my larder in the middle of the night, I wish to goodness you would contrive to make less noise about it. I do not grudge you the food—help yourself when you please—but do remember that people who have not such keen appetites as yourself like to sleep during the night. A far better plan, my dear fellow, would be to have sandwiches or buns—or whatever you consider most sustaining— sent up to your bedroom."

Not even the bullets had disordered Baxter's faculties so much as this monstrous accusation. Explanations pushed and jostled one another in his fermenting brain, but he could not utter them. On every side he met gravely reproachful eyes. George Emerson was looking at him in pained disgust. Ashe Marson's face was the face of one who could never have believed this had he not seen it with his own eyes. The scrutiny of the knife-and-shoe boy was unendurable.

He stammered. Words began to proceed from him, tripping and stumbling over each other. Lord Emsworth's frigid disapproval did not relax.

"Pray do not apologize, Baxter. The desire for food is human. It is your boisterous mode of securing and conveying it that I deprecate. Let us all go to bed."

"But, Lord Emsworth——-"

"To bed!" repeated his lordship firmly.

The company began to stream moodily upstairs. The lights were switched off. The Efficient Baxter dragged himself away. From the darkness in the direction of the servants' door a voice spoke.

"Greedy pig!" said the voice scornfully.

It sounded like the fresh young voice of the knife-and-shoe boy, but Baxter was too broken to investigate. He continued his retreat without pausing.

"Stuffin' of 'isself at all hours!" said the voice.

There was a murmur of approval from the unseen throng of domestics.



CHAPTER IX

As we grow older and realize more clearly the limitations of human happiness, we come to see that the only real and abiding pleasure in life is to give pleasure to other people. One must assume that the Efficient Baxter had not reached the age when this comes home to a man, for the fact that he had given genuine pleasure to some dozens of his fellow-men brought him no balm.

There was no doubt about the pleasure he had given. Once they had got over their disappointment at finding that he was not a dead burglar, the house party rejoiced whole-heartedly at the break in the monotony of life at Blandings Castle. Relations who had not been on speaking terms for years forgot their quarrels and strolled about the grounds in perfect harmony, abusing Baxter. The general verdict was that he was insane.

"Don't tell me that young fellow's all there," said Colonel Horace Mant; "because I know better. Have you noticed his eye? Furtive! Shifty! Nasty gleam in it. Besides—dash it!—did you happen to take a look at the hall last night after he had been there? It was in ruins, my dear sir—absolute dashed ruins. It was positively littered with broken china and tables that had been bowled over. Don't tell me that was just an accidental collision in the dark.

"My dear sir, the man must have been thrashing about—absolutely thrashing about, like a dashed salmon on a dashed hook. He must have had a paroxysm of some kind—some kind of a dashed fit. A doctor could give you the name for it. It's a well-known form of insanity. Paranoia—isn't that what they call it? Rush of blood to the head, followed by a general running amuck.

"I've heard fellows who have been in India talk of it. Natives get it. Don't know what they're doing, and charge through the streets taking cracks at people with dashed whacking great knives. Same with this young man, probably in a modified form at present. He ought to be in a home. One of these nights, if this grows on him, he will be massacring Emsworth in his bed."

"My dear Horace!" The Bishop of Godalming's voice was properly horror-stricken; but there was a certain unctuous relish in it.

"Take my word for it! Though, mind you, I don't say they aren't well suited. Everyone knows that Emsworth has been, to all practical intents and purposes, a dashed lunatic for years. What was it that young fellow Emerson, Freddie's American friend, was saying, the other day about some acquaintance of his who is not quite right in the head? Nobody in the house—is that it? Something to that effect, at any rate. I felt at the time it was a perfect description of Emsworth."

"My dear Horace! Your father-in-law! The head of the family!"

"A dashed lunatic, my dear sir—head of the family or no head of the family. A man as absent-minded as he is has no right to call himself sane. Nobody in the house—I recollect it now—nobody in the house except gas, and that has not been turned on. That's Emsworth!"

The Efficient Baxter, who had just left his presence, was feeling much the same about his noble employer. After a sleepless night he had begun at an early hour to try and corner Lord Emsworth in order to explain to him the true inwardness of last night's happenings. Eventually he had tracked him to the museum, where he found him happily engaged in painting a cabinet of birds' eggs. He was seated on a small stool, a large pot of red paint on the floor beside him, dabbing at the cabinet with a dripping brush. He was absorbed and made no attempt whatever to follow his secretary's remarks.

For ten minutes Baxter gave a vivid picture of his vigil and the manner in which it had been interrupted.

"Just so; just so, my dear fellow," said the earl when he had finished. "I quite understand. All I say is, if you do require additional food in the night let one of the servants bring it to your room before bedtime; then there will be no danger of these disturbances. There is no possible objection to your eating a hundred meals a day, my good Baxter, provided you do not rouse the whole house over them. Some of us like to sleep during the night."

"But, Lord Emsworth! I have just explained—It was not—I was not—"

"Never mind, my dear fellow; never mind. Why make such an important thing of it? Many people like a light snack before actually retiring. Doctors, I believe, sometimes recommend it. Tell me, Baxter, how do you think the museum looks now? A little brighter? Better for the dash of color? I think so. Museums are generally such gloomy places."

"Lord Emsworth, may I explain once again?"

The earl looked annoyed.

"My dear Baxter, I have told you that there is nothing to explain. You are getting a little tedious. What a deep, rich red this is, and how clean new paint smells! Do you know, Baxter, I have been longing to mess about with paint ever since I was a boy! I recollect my old father beating me with a walking stick. . . . That would be before your time, of course. By the way, if you see Freddie, will you tell him I want to speak to him? He probably is in the smoking-room. Send him to me here."

It was an overwrought Baxter who delivered the message to the Honorable Freddie, who, as predicted, was in the smoking-room, lounging in a deep armchair.

There are times when life presses hard on a man, and it pressed hard on Baxter now. Fate had played him a sorry trick. It had put him in a position where he had to choose between two courses, each as disagreeable as the other. He must either face a possible second fiasco like that of last night, or else he must abandon his post and cease to mount guard over his threatened treasure.

His imagination quailed at the thought of a repetition of last night's horrors. He had been badly shaken by his collision with the table and even more so by the events that had followed it. Those revolver shots still rang in his ears.

It was probably the memory of those shots that turned the scale. It was unlikely he would again become entangled with a man bearing a tongue and the other things—he had given up in despair the attempt to unravel the mystery of the tongue; it completely baffled him—but it was by no means unlikely that if he spent another night in the gallery looking on the hall he might not again become a target for Lord Emsworth's irresponsible firearm. Nothing, in fact, was more likely; for in the disturbed state of the public mind the slightest sound after nightfall would be sufficient cause for a fusillade.

He had actually overheard young Algernon Wooster telling Lord Stockheath he had a jolly good mind to sit on the stairs that night with a shotgun, because it was his opinion that there was a jolly sight more in this business than there seemed to be; and what he thought of the bally affair was that there was a gang of some kind at work, and that that feller—what's-his-name?—that feller Baxter was some sort of an accomplice.

With these things in his mind Baxter decided to remain that night in the security of his bedroom. He had lost his nerve. He formed this decision with the utmost reluctance, for the thought of leaving the road to the museum clear for marauders was bitter in the extreme. If he could have overheard a conversation between Joan Valentine and Ashe Marson it is probable he would have risked Lord Emsworth's revolver and the shotgun of the Honorable Algernon Wooster.

Ashe, when he met Joan and recounted the events of the night, at which Joan, who was a sound sleeper, had not been present, was inclined to blame himself as a failure. True, fate had been against him, but the fact remained that he had achieved nothing. Joan, however, was not of this opinion.

"You have done wonders," she said. "You have cleared the way for me. That is my idea of real teamwork. I'm so glad now that we formed our partnership. It would have been too bad if I had got all the advantage of your work and had jumped in and deprived you of the reward. As it is, I shall go down and finish the thing off to-night with a clear conscience."

"You can't mean that you dream of going down to the museum to-night!"

"Of course I do."

"But it's madness!"

"On the contrary, to-night is the one night when there ought to be no risk at all."

"After what happened last night?"

"Because of what happened last night. Do you imagine Mr. Baxter will dare to stir from his bed after that? If ever there was a chance of getting this thing finished, it will be to-night."

"You're quite right. I never looked at it in that way. Baxter wouldn't risk a second disaster. I'll certainly make a success of it this time."

Joan raised her eyebrows.

"I don't quite understand you, Mr. Marson. Do you propose to try to get the scarab to-night?"

"Yes. It will be as easy as—"

"Are you forgetting that, by the terms of our agreement, it is my turn?"

"You surely don't intend to hold me to that?"

"Certainly I do."

"But, good heavens, consider my position! Do you seriously expect me to lie in bed while you do all the work, and then to take a half share in the reward?"

"I do."

"It's ridiculous!"

"It's no more ridiculous than that I should do the same. Mr. Marson, there's no use in our going over all this again. We settled it long ago."

Joan refused to discuss the matter further, leaving Ashe in a condition of anxious misery comparable only to that which, as night began to draw near, gnawed the vitals of the Efficient Baxter.

* * *

Breakfast at Blandings Castle was an informal meal. There was food and drink in the long dining-hall for such as were energetic enough to come down and get it; but the majority of the house party breakfasted in their rooms, Lord Emsworth, whom nothing in the world would have induced to begin the day in the company of a crowd of his relations, most of whom he disliked, setting them the example.

When, therefore, Baxter, yielding to Nature after having remained awake until the early morning, fell asleep at nine o'clock, nobody came to rouse him. He did not ring his bell, so he was not disturbed; and he slept on until half past eleven, by which time, it being Sunday morning and the house party including one bishop and several of the minor clergy, most of the occupants of the place had gone off to church.

Baxter shaved and dressed hastily, for he was in state of nervous apprehension. He blamed himself for having lain in bed so long. When every minute he was away might mean the loss of the scarab, he had passed several hours in dreamy sloth. He had wakened with a presentiment. Something told him the scarab had been stolen in the night, and he wished now that he had risked all and kept guard.

The house was very quiet as he made his way rapidly to the hall. As he passed a window he perceived Lord Emsworth, in an un-Sabbatarian suit of tweeds and bearing a garden fork—which must have pained the bishop—bending earnestly over a flower bed; but he was the only occupant of the grounds, and indoors there was a feeling of emptiness. The hall had that Sunday-morning air of wanting to be left to itself, and disapproving of the entry of anything human until lunch time, which can be felt only by a guest in a large house who remains at home when his fellows have gone to church.

The portraits on the walls, especially the one of the Countess of Emsworth in the character of Venus rising from the sea, stared at Baxter as he entered, with cold reproof. The very chairs seemed distant and unfriendly; but Baxter was in no mood to appreciate their attitude. His conscience slept. His mind was occupied, to the exclusion of all other things, by the scarab and its probable fate. How disastrously remiss it had been of him not to keep guard last night! Long before he opened the museum door he was feeling the absolute certainty that the worst had happened.

It had. The card which announced that here was an Egyptian scarab of the reign of Cheops of the Fourth Dynasty, presented by J. Preston Peters, Esquire, still lay on the cabinet in its wonted place; but now its neat lettering was false and misleading. The scarab was gone.

* * *

For all that he had expected this, for all his premonition of disaster, it was an appreciable time before the Efficient Baxter rallied from the blow. He stood transfixed, goggling at the empty place.

Then his mind resumed its functions. All, he perceived, was not yet lost. Baxter the watchdog must retire, to be succeeded by Baxter the sleuthhound. He had been unable to prevent the theft of the scarab, but he might still detect the thief.

For the Doctor Watsons of this world, as opposed to the Sherlock Holmeses, success in the province of detective work must always be, to a very large extent, the result of luck. Sherlock Holmes can extract a clew from a wisp of straw or a flake of cigar ash; but Doctor Watson has to have it taken out for him and dusted, and exhibited clearly, with a label attached.

The average man is a Doctor Watson. We are wont to scoff in a patronizing manner at that humble follower of the great investigator; but as a matter of fact we should have been just as dull ourselves. We should not even have risen to the modest height of a Scotland Yard bungler.

Baxter was a Doctor Watson. What he wanted was a clew; but it is so hard for the novice to tell what is a clew and what is not. And then he happened to look down—and there on the floor was a clew that nobody could have overlooked.

Baxter saw it, but did not immediately recognize it for what it was. What he saw, at first, was not a clew, but just a mess. He had a tidy soul and abhorred messes, and this was a particularly messy mess. A considerable portion of the floor was a sea of red paint. The can from which it had flowed was lying on its side—near the wall. He had noticed that the smell of paint had seemed particularly pungent, but had attributed this to a new freshet of energy on the part of Lord Emsworth. He had not perceived that paint had been spilled.

"Pah!" said Baxter.

Then suddenly, beneath the disguise of the mess, he saw the clew. A footmark! No less. A crimson footmark on the polished wood! It was as clear and distinct as though it had been left there for the purpose of assisting him. It was a feminine footmark, the print of a slim and pointed shoe.

This perplexed Baxter. He had looked on the siege of the scarab as an exclusively male affair. But he was not perplexed long. What could be simpler than that Mr. Peters should have enlisted female aid? The female of the species is more deadly than the male. Probably she makes a better purloiner of scarabs. At any rate, there the footprint was, unmistakably feminine.

Inspiration came to him. Aline Peters had a maid! What more likely than that secretly she should be a hireling of Mr. Peters, on whom he had now come to look as a man of the blackest and most sinister character? Mr. Peters was a collector; and when a collector makes up his mind to secure a treasure, he employs, Baxter knew, every possible means to that end.

Baxter was now in a state of great excitement. He was hot on the scent and his brain was working like a buzz saw in an ice box. According to his reasoning, if Aline Peters' maid had done this thing there should be red paint in the hall marking her retreat, and possibly a faint stain on the stairs leading to the servants' bedrooms.

He hastened from the museum and subjected the hall to a keen scrutiny. Yes; there was red paint on the carpet. He passed through the green-baize door and examined the stairs. On the bottom step there was a faint but conclusive stain of crimson!

He was wondering how best to follow up this clew when he perceived Ashe coming down the stairs. Ashe, like Baxter, and as the result of a night disturbed by anxious thoughts, had also overslept himself.

There are moments when the giddy excitement of being right on the trail causes the amateur—or Watsonian—detective to be incautious. If Baxter had been wise he would have achieved his object—the getting a glimpse of Joan's shoes—by a devious and snaky route. As it was, zeal getting the better of prudence, he rushed straight on. His early suspicion of Ashe had been temporarily obscured. Whatever Ashe's claims to be a suspect, it had not been his footprint Baxter had seen in the museum.

"Here, you!" said the Efficient Baxter excitedly.

"Sir?"

"The shoes!"

"I beg your pardon?"

"I wish to see the servants' shoes. Where are they?"

"I expect they have them on, sir."

"Yesterday's shoes, man—yesterday's shoes. Where are they?"

"Where are the shoes of yesteryear?" murmured Ashe. "I should say at a venture, sir, that they would be in a large basket somewhere near the kitchen. Our genial knife-and-shoe boy collects them, I believe, at early dawn."

"Would they have been cleaned yet?"

"If I know the lad, sir—no."

"Go and bring that basket to me. Bring it to me in this room."

* * *

The room to which he referred was none other than the private sanctum of Mr. Beach, the butler, the door of which, standing open, showed it to be empty. It was not Baxter's plan, excited as he was, to risk being discovered sifting shoes in the middle of a passage in the servants' quarters.

Ashe's brain was working rapidly as he made for the shoe cupboard, that little den of darkness and smells, where Billy, the knife-and-shoe boy, better known in the circle in which he moved as Young Bonehead, pursued his menial tasks. What exactly was at the back of the Efficient Baxter's mind prompting these maneuvers he did not know; but that there was something he was certain.

He had not yet seen Joan this morning, and he did not know whether or not she had carried out her resolve of attempting to steal the scarab on the previous night; but this activity and mystery on the part of their enemy must have some sinister significance. He gathered up the shoe basket thoughtfully. He staggered back with it and dumped it down on the floor of Mr. Beach's room. The Efficient Baxter stooped eagerly over it. Ashe, leaning against the wall, straightened the creases in his clothes and flicked disgustedly at an inky spot which the journey had transferred from the basket to his coat.

"We have here, sir," he said, "a fair selection of our various foot coverings."

"You did not drop any on your way?"

"Not one, sir."

The Efficient Baxter uttered a grunt of satisfaction and bent once more to his task. Shoes flew about the room. Baxter knelt on the floor beside the basket, and dug like a terrier at a rat hole. At last he made a find and with an exclamation of triumph rose to his feet. In his hand he held a shoe.

"Put those back," he said.

Ashe began to pick up the scattered footgear.

"That's the lot, sir," he said, rising.

"Now come with me. Leave the basket there. You can carry it back when you return."

"Shall I put back that shoe, sir?"

"Certainly not. I shall take this one with me."

"Shall I carry it for you, sir?"

Baxter reflected.

"Yes. I think that would be best."

Trouble had shaken his nerve. He was not certain that there might not be others besides Lord Emsworth in the garden; and it occurred to him that, especially after his reputation for eccentric conduct had been so firmly established by his misfortunes that night in the hall, it might cause comment should he appear before them carrying a shoe.

Ashe took the shoe and, doing so, understood what before had puzzled him. Across the toe was a broad splash of red paint. Though he had nothing else to go on, he saw all. The shoe he held was a female shoe. His own researches in the museum had made him aware of the presence there of red paint. It was not difficult to build up on these data a pretty accurate estimate of the position of affairs.

"Come with me," said Baxter.

He left the room. Ashe followed him.

In the garden Lord Emsworth, garden fork in hand, was dealing summarily with a green young weed that had incautiously shown its head in the middle of a flower bed. He listened to Baxter's statement with more interest than he usually showed in anybody's statements. He resented the loss of the scarab, not so much on account of its intrinsic worth as because it had been the gift of his friend Mr. Peters.

"Indeed!" he said, when Baxter had finished. "Really? Dear me! It certainly seems—It is extremely suggestive. You are certain there was red paint on this shoe?"

"I have it with me. I brought it on purpose to show you." He looked at Ashe, who stood in close attendance. "The shoe!"

Lord Emsworth polished his glasses and bent over the exhibit.

"Ah!" he said. "Now let me look at—This, you say, is the—Just so; just so! Just—My dear Baxter, it may be that I have not examined this shoe with sufficient care, but—Can you point out to me exactly where this paint is that you speak of?"

The Efficient Baxter stood staring at the shoe with wild, fixed stare. Of any suspicion of paint, red or otherwise, it was absolutely and entirely innocent!

The shoe became the center of attraction, the center of all eyes. The Efficient Baxter fixed it with the piercing glare of one who feels that his brain is tottering. Lord Emsworth looked at it with a mildly puzzled expression. Ashe Marson examined it with a sort of affectionate interest, as though he were waiting for it to do a trick of some kind. Baxter was the first to break the silence.

"There was paint on this shoe," he said vehemently. "I tell you there was a splash of red paint across the toe. This man here will bear me out in this. You saw paint on this shoe?"

"Paint, sir?"

"What! Do you mean to tell me you did not see it?"

"No, sir; there was no paint on this shoe."

"This is ridiculous. I saw it with my own eyes. It was a broad splash right across the toe."

Lord Emsworth interposed.

"You must have made a mistake, my dear Baxter. There is certainly no trace of paint on this shoe. These momentary optical delusions are, I fancy, not uncommon. Any doctor will tell you—"

"I had an aunt, your lordship," said Ashe chattily, "who was remarkably subject—"

"It is absurd! I cannot have been mistaken," said Baxter. "I am positively certain the toe of this shoe was red when I found it."

"It is quite black now, my dear Baxter."

"A sort of chameleon shoe," murmured Ashe.

The goaded secretary turned on him.

"What did you say?"

"Nothing, sir."

Baxter's old suspicion of this smooth young man came surging back to him.

"I strongly suspect you of having had something to do with this."

"Really, Baxter," said the earl, "that is surely the least probable of solutions. This young man could hardly have cleaned the shoe on his way from the house. A few days ago, when painting in the museum, I inadvertently splashed some paint on my own shoe. I can assure you it does not brush off. It needs a very systematic cleaning before all traces are removed."

"Exactly, your lordship," said Ashe. "My theory, if I may—"

"Yes?"

"My theory, your lordship, is that Mr. Baxter was deceived by the light-and-shade effects on the toe of the shoe. The morning sun, streaming in through the window, must have shone on the shoe in such a manner as to give it a momentary and fictitious aspect of redness. If Mr. Baxter recollects, he did not look long at the shoe. The picture on the retina of the eye consequently had not time to fade. I myself remember thinking at the moment that the shoe appeared to have a certain reddish tint. The mistake—"

"Bah!" said Baxter shortly.

Lord Emsworth, now thoroughly bored with the whole affair and desiring nothing more than to be left alone with his weeds and his garden fork, put in his word. Baxter, he felt, was curiously irritating these days. He always seemed to be bobbing up. The Earl of Emsworth was conscious of a strong desire to be free from his secretary's company. He was efficient, yes—invaluable indeed—he did not know what he should do without Baxter; but there was no denying that his company tended after a while to become a trifle tedious. He took a fresh grip on his garden fork and shifted it about in the air as a hint that the interview had lasted long enough.

"It seems to me, my dear fellow," he said, "the only explanation that will square with the facts. A shoe that is really smeared with red paint does not become black of itself in the course of a few minutes."

"You are very right, your lordship," said Ashe approvingly. "May I go now, your lordship?"

"Certainly—certainly; by all means."

"Shall I take the shoe with me, your lordship?"

"If you do not want it, Baxter."

The secretary passed the fraudulent piece of evidence to Ashe without a word; and the latter, having included both gentlemen in a kindly smile, left the garden.

On returning to the butler's room, Ashe's first act was to remove a shoe from the top of the pile in the basket. He was about to leave the room with it, when the sound of footsteps in the passage outside halted him.

"I do not in the least understand why you wish me to come here, my dear Baxter," said a voice, "and you are completely spoiling my morning, but—"

For a moment Ashe was at a loss. It was a crisis that called for swift action, and it was a little hard to know exactly what to do. It had been his intention to carry the paint-splashed shoe back to his own room, there to clean it at his leisure; but it appeared that his strategic line of retreat was blocked. Plainly, the possibility—nay, the certainty—that Ashe had substituted another shoe for the one with the incriminating splash of paint on it had occurred to the Efficient Baxter almost directly the former had left the garden.

The window was open. Ashe looked out. There were bushes below. It was a makeshift policy, and one which did not commend itself to him as the ideal method, but it seemed the only thing to be done, for already the footsteps had reached the door. He threw the shoe out of window, and it sank beneath the friendly surface of the long grass round a wisteria bush.

Ashe turned, relieved, and the next moment the door opened and Baxter walked in, accompanied—with obvious reluctance—-by his bored employer.

Baxter was brisk and peremptory.

"I wish to look at those shoes again," he said coldly.

"Certainly, sir," said Ashe.

"I can manage without your assistance," said Baxter.

"Very good, sir."

Leaning against the wall, Ashe watched him with silent interest, as he burrowed among the contents of the basket, like a terrier digging for rats. The Earl of Emsworth took no notice of the proceedings. He yawned plaintively, and pottered about the room. He was one of Nature's potterers.

The scrutiny of the man whom he had now placed definitely as a malefactor irritated Baxter. Ashe was looking at him in an insufferably tolerant manner, as if he were an indulgent father brooding over his infant son while engaged in some childish frolic. He lodged a protest.

"Don't stand there staring at me!"

"I was interested in what you were doing, sir."

"Never mind! Don't stare at me in that idiotic way."

"May I read a book, sir?"

"Yes, read if you like."

"Thank you, sir."

Ashe took a volume from the butler's slenderly stocked shelf. The shoe-expert resumed his investigations in the basket. He went through it twice, but each time without success. After the second search he stood up and looked wildly about the room. He was as certain as he could be of anything that the missing piece of evidence was somewhere within those four walls. There was very little cover in the room, even for so small a fugitive as a shoe. He raised the tablecloth and peered beneath the table.

"Are you looking for Mr. Beach, sir?" said Ashe. "I think he has gone to church."

Baxter, pink with his exertions, fastened a baleful glance upon him.

"You had better be careful," he said.

At this point the Earl of Emsworth, having done all the pottering possible in the restricted area, yawned like an alligator.

"Now, my dear Baxter—" he began querulously.

Baxter was not listening. He was on the trail. He had caught sight of a small closet in the wall, next to the mantelpiece, and it had stimulated him.

"What is in this closet?"

"That closet, sir?"

"Yes, this closet." He rapped the door irritably.

"I could not say, sir. Mr. Beach, to whom the closet belongs, possibly keeps a few odd trifles there. A ball of string, perhaps. Maybe an old pipe or something of that kind. Probably nothing of value or interest."

"Open it."

"It appears to be locked, sir—"

"Unlock it."

"But where is the key?"

Baxter thought for a moment.

"Lord Emsworth," he said, "I have my reasons for thinking that this man is deliberately keeping the contents of this closet from me. I am convinced that the shoe is in there. Have I your leave to break open the door?"

The earl looked a little dazed, as if he were unequal to the intellectual pressure of the conversation.

"Now, my dear Baxter," said the earl impatiently, "please tell me once again why you have brought me in here. I cannot make head or tail of what you have been saying. Apparently you accuse this young man of keeping his shoes in a closet. Why should you suspect him of keeping his shoes in a closet? And if he wishes to do so, why on earth should not he keep his shoes in a closet? This is a free country."

"Exactly, your lordship," said Ashe approvingly. "You have touched the spot."

"It all has to do with the theft of your scarab, Lord Emsworth. Somebody got into the museum and stole the scarab."

"Ah, yes; ah, yes—so they did. I remember now. You told me. Bad business that, my dear Baxter. Mr. Peters gave me that scarab. He will be most deucedly annoyed if it's lost. Yes, indeed."

"Whoever stole it upset the can of red paint and stepped in it."

"Devilish careless of them. It must have made the dickens of a mess. Why don't people look where they are walking?"

"I suspect this man of shielding the criminal by hiding her shoe in this closet."

"Oh, it's not his own shoes that this young man keeps in closets?"

"It is a woman's shoe, Lord Emsworth."

"The deuce it is! Then it was a woman who stole the scarab? Is that the way you figure it out? Bless my soul, Baxter, one wonders what women are coming to nowadays. It's all this movement, I suppose. The Vote, and all that—eh? I recollect having a chat with the Marquis of Petersfield some time ago. He is in the Cabinet, and he tells me it is perfectly infernal the way these women carry on. He said sometimes it got to such a pitch, with them waving banners and presenting petitions, and throwing flour and things at a fellow, that if he saw his own mother coming toward him, with a hand behind her back, he would run like a rabbit. Told me so himself."

"So," said the Efficient Baxter, cutting in on the flow of speech, "what I wish to do is to break open this closet."

"Eh? Why?"

"To get the shoe."

"The shoe? . . . Ah, yes, I recollect now. You were telling me."

"If your lordship has no objection."

"Objection, my dear fellow? None in the world. Why should I have any objection? Let me see! What is it you wish to do?"

"This," said Baxter shortly.

He seized the poker from the fireplace and delivered two rapid blows on the closet door. The wood was splintered. A third blow smashed the flimsy lock. The closet, with any skeletons it might contain, was open for all to view.

It contained a corkscrew, a box of matches, a paper-covered copy of a book entitled "Mary, the Beautiful Mill-Hand," a bottle of embrocation, a spool of cotton, two pencil-stubs, and other useful and entertaining objects. It contained, in fact, almost everything except a paint-splashed shoe, and Baxter gazed at the collection in dumb disappointment.

"Are you satisfied now, my dear Baxter," said the earl, "or is there any more furniture that you would like to break? You know, this furniture breaking is becoming a positive craze with you, my dear fellow. You ought to fight against it. The night before last, I don't know how many tables broken in the hall; and now this closet. You will ruin me. No purse can stand the constant drain."

Baxter did not reply. He was still trying to rally from the blow. A chance remark of Lord Emsworth's set him off on the trail once more. Lord Emsworth, having said his say, had dismissed the affair from his mind and begun to potter again. The course of his pottering had brought him to the fireplace, where a little pile of soot on the fender caught his eye. He bent down to inspect it.

"Dear me!" he said. "I must remember to tell Beach to have his chimney swept. It seems to need it badly."

No trumpet-call ever acted more instantaneously on old war-horse than this simple remark on the Efficient Baxter. He was still convinced that Ashe had hidden the shoe somewhere in the room, and, now that the closet had proved an alibi, the chimney was the only spot that remained unsearched. He dived forward with a rush, nearly knocking Lord Emsworth off his feet, and thrust an arm up into the unknown. The startled peer, having recovered his balance, met Ashe's respectfully pitying gaze.

"We must humor him," said the gaze, more plainly than speech.

Baxter continued to grope. The chimney was a roomy chimney, and needed careful examination. He wriggled his hand about clutchingly. From time to time soot fell in gentle showers.

"My dear Baxter!"

Baxter was baffled. He withdrew his hand from the chimney, and straightened himself. He brushed a bead of perspiration from his face with the back of his hand. Unfortunately, he used the sooty hand, and the result was too much for Lord Emsworth's politeness. He burst into a series of pleased chuckles.

"Your face, my dear Baxter! Your face! It is positively covered with soot—positively! You must go and wash it. You are quite black. Really, my dear fellow, you present rather an extraordinary appearance. Run off to your room."

Against this crowning blow the Efficient Baxter could not stand up. It was the end.

"Soot!" he murmured weakly. "Soot!"

"Your face is covered, my dear fellow—quite covered."

"It certainly has a faintly sooty aspect, sir," said Ashe.

His voice roused the sufferer to one last flicker of spirit.

"You will hear more of this," he said. "You will—"

At this moment, slightly muffled by the intervening door and passageway, there came from the direction of the hall a sound like the delivery of a ton of coal. A heavy body bumped down the stairs, and a voice which all three recognized as that of the Honorable Freddie uttered an oath that lost itself in a final crash and a musical splintering sound, which Baxter for one had no difficulty in recognizing as the dissolution of occasional china.

Even if they had not so able a detective as Baxter with them, Lord Emsworth and Ashe would have been at no loss to guess what had happened. Doctor Watson himself could have deduced it from the evidence. The Honorable Freddie had fallen downstairs.

* * *

With a little ingenuity this portion of the story of Mr. Peters' scarab could be converted into an excellent tract, driving home the perils, even in this world, of absenting one's self from church on Sunday morning. If the Honorable Freddie had gone to church he would not have been running down the great staircase at the castle at this hour; and if he had not been running down the great staircase at the castle at that hour he would not have encountered Muriel.

Muriel was a Persian cat belonging to Lady Ann Warblington. Lady Ann had breakfasted in bed and lain there late, as she rather fancied she had one of her sick headaches coming on. Muriel had left her room in the wake of the breakfast tray, being anxious to be present at the obsequies of a fried sole that had formed Lady Ann's simple morning meal, and had followed the maid who bore it until she had reached the hall.

At this point the maid, who disliked Muriel, stopped and made a noise like an exploding pop bottle, at the same time taking a little run in Muriel's direction and kicking at her with a menacing foot. Muriel, wounded and startled, had turned in her tracks and sprinted back up the staircase at the exact moment when the Honorable Freddie, who for some reason was in a great hurry, ran lightly down.

There was an instant when Freddie could have saved himself by planting a number-ten shoe on Muriel's spine, but even in that crisis he bethought him that he hardly stood solid enough with the authorities to risk adding to his misdeeds the slaughter of his aunt's favorite cat, and he executed a rapid swerve. The spared cat proceeded on her journey upstairs, while Freddie, touching the staircase at intervals, went on down.

Having reached the bottom, he sat amid the occasional china, like Marius among the ruins of Carthage, and endeavored to ascertain the extent of his injuries. He had a dazed suspicion that he was irretrievably fractured in a dozen places. It was in this attitude that the rescue party found him. He gazed up at them with silent pathos.

"In the name of goodness, Frederick," said Lord Emsworth peevishly, "what do you imagine you are doing?"

Freddie endeavored to rise, but sank back again with a stifled howl.

"It was that bally cat of Aunt Ann's," he said. "It came legging it up the stairs. I think I've broken my leg."

"You have certainly broken everything else," said his father unsympathetically. "Between you and Baxter, I wonder there's a stick of furniture standing in the house."

"Thanks, old chap," said Freddie gratefully as Ashe stepped forward and lent him an arm. "I think my bally ankle must have got twisted. I wish you would give me a hand up to my room."

"And, Baxter, my dear fellow," said Lord Emsworth, "you might telephone to Doctor Bird, in Market Blandings, and ask him to be good enough to drive out. I am sorry, Freddie," he added, "that you should have met with this accident; but—but everything is so—so disturbing nowadays that I feel—I feel most disturbed."

Ashe and the Honorable Freddie began to move across the hall—Freddie hopping, Ashe advancing with a sort of polka step. As they reached the stairs there was a sound of wheels outside and the vanguard of the house party, returned from church, entered the house.

"It's all very well to give it out officially that Freddie has fallen downstairs and sprained his ankle," said Colonel Horace Mant, discussing the affair with the Bishop of Godalming later in the afternoon; "but it's my firm belief that that fellow Baxter did precisely as I said he would—ran amuck and inflicted dashed frightful injuries on young Freddie. When I got into the house there was Freddie being helped up the stairs, while Baxter, with his face covered with soot, was looking after him with a sort of evil grin. What had he smeared his face with soot for, I should like to know, if he were perfectly sane?

"The whole thing is dashed fishy and mysterious and the sooner I can get Mildred safely out of the place, the better I shall be pleased. The fellow's as mad as a hatter!"



CHAPTER X

When Lord Emsworth, sighting Mr. Peters in the group of returned churchgoers, drew him aside and broke the news that the valuable scarab, so kindly presented by him to the castle museum, had been stolen in the night by some person unknown, he thought the millionaire took it exceedingly well. Though the stolen object no longer belonged to him, Mr. Peters no doubt still continued to take an affectionate interest in it and might have been excused had he shown annoyance that his gift had been so carelessly guarded.

Mr. Peters was, however, thoroughly magnanimous about the matter. He deprecated the notion that the earl could possibly have prevented this unfortunate occurrence. He quite understood. He was not in the least hurt. Nobody could have foreseen such a calamity. These things happened and one had to accept them. He himself had once suffered in much the same way, the gem of his collection having been removed almost beneath his eyes in the smoothest possible fashion.

Altogether, he relieved Lord Emsworth's mind very much; and when he had finished doing so he departed swiftly and rang for Ashe. When Ashe arrived he bubbled over with enthusiasm. He was lyrical in his praise. He went so far as to slap Ashe on the back. It was only when the latter disclaimed all credit for what had occurred that he checked the flow of approbation.

"It wasn't you who got it? Who was it, then?"

"It was Miss Peters' maid. It's a long story; but we were working in partnership. I tried for the thing and failed, and she succeeded."

It was with mixed feelings that Ashe listened while Mr. Peters transferred his adjectives of commendation to Joan. He admired Joan's courage, he was relieved that her venture had ended without disaster, and he knew that she deserved whatever anyone could find to say in praise of her enterprise: but, at first, though he tried to crush it down, he could not help feeling a certain amount of chagrin that a girl should have succeeded where he, though having the advantage of first chance, had failed. The terms of his partnership with Joan had jarred on him from the beginning.

A man may be in sympathy with the modern movement for the emancipation of woman and yet feel aggrieved when a mere girl proves herself a more efficient thief than himself. Woman is invading man's sphere more successfully every day; but there are still certain fields in which man may consider that he is rightfully entitled to a monopoly—and the purloining of scarabs in the watches of the night is surely one of them. Joan, in Ashe's opinion, should have played a meeker and less active part.

These unworthy emotions did not last long. Whatever his other shortcomings, Ashe possessed a just mind. By the time he had found Joan, after Mr. Peters had said his say, and dispatched him below stairs for that purpose, he had purged himself of petty regrets and was prepared to congratulate her whole-heartedly. He was, however, resolved that nothing should induce him to share in the reward. On that point, he resolved, he would refuse to be shaken.

"I have just left Mr. Peters," he began. "All is well. His check book lies before him on the table and he is trying to make his fountain pen work long enough to write a check. But there is just one thing I want to say—"

She interrupted him. To his surprise, she was eyeing him coldly and with disapproval.

"And there is just one thing I want to say," she said; "and that is, if you imagine I shall consent to accept a penny of the reward—"

"Exactly what I was going to say. Of course I couldn't dream of taking any of it."

"I don't understand you. You are certainly going to have it all. I told you when we made our agreement that I should only take my share if you let me do my share of the work. Now that you have broken that agreement, nothing could induce me to take it. I know you meant it kindly, Mr. Marson, but I simply can't feel grateful. I told you that ours was a business contract and that I wouldn't have any chivalry; and I thought that after you had given me your promise—"

"One moment," said Ashe, bewildered. "I can't follow this. What do you mean?"

"What do I mean? Why, that you went down to the museum last night before me and took the scarab, though you had promised to stay away and give me my chance."

"But I didn't do anything of the sort."

It was Joan's turn to look bewildered.

"But you have got the scarab, Mr. Marson?"

"Why, you have got it!"

"No!"

"But—but it has gone!"

"I know. I went down to the museum last night, as we had arranged; and when I got there there was no scarab. It had disappeared."

They looked at each other in consternation. Ashe was the first to speak.

"It was gone when you got to the museum?"

"There wasn't a trace of it. I took it for granted that you had been down before me. I was furious!"

"But this is ridiculous!" said Ashe. "Who can have taken it? There was nobody beside ourselves who knew Mr. Peters was offering the reward. What exactly happened last night?"

"I waited until one o'clock. Then I slipped down, got into the museum, struck a match, and looked for the scarab. It wasn't there. I couldn't believe it at first. I struck some more matches—quite a number—but it was no good. The scarab was gone; so I went back to bed and thought hard thoughts about you. It was silly of me. I ought to have known you would not break your word; but there didn't seem any other solution of the thing's disappearance.

"Well, somebody must have taken it; and the question is, what are we to do?" She laughed. "It seems to me that we were a little premature in quarreling about how we are to divide that reward. It looks as though there wasn't going to be any reward."

"Meantime," said Ashe gloomily, "I suppose I have got to go back and tell Peters. I expect it will break his heart."



CHAPTER XI

Blandings Castle dozed in the calm of an English Sunday afternoon. All was peace. Freddie was in bed, with orders from the doctor to stay there until further notice. Baxter had washed his face. Lord Emsworth had returned to his garden fork. The rest of the house party strolled about the grounds or sat in them, for the day was one of those late spring days that are warm with a premature suggestion of midsummer.

Aline Peters was sitting at the open window of her bedroom, which commanded an extensive view of the terraces. A pile of letters lay on the table beside her, for she had just finished reading her mail. The postman came late to the castle on Sundays and she had not been able to do this until luncheon was over.

Aline was puzzled. She was conscious of a fit of depression for which she could in no way account. She had a feeling that all was not well with the world, which was the more remarkable in that she was usually keenly susceptible to weather conditions and reveled in sunshine like a kitten. Yet here was a day nearly as fine as an American day—and she found no solace in it.

She looked down on the terrace; as she looked the figure of George Emerson appeared, walking swiftly. And at the sight of him something seemed to tell her that she had found the key to her gloom.

There are many kinds of walk. George Emerson's was the walk of mental unrest. His hands were clasped behind his back, his eyes stared straight in front of him from beneath lowering brows, and between his teeth was an unlighted cigar. No man who is not a professional politician holds an unlighted cigar in his mouth unless he wishes to irritate and baffle a ticket chopper in the subway, or because unpleasant meditations have caused him to forget he has it there. Plainly, then, all was not well with George Emerson.

Aline had suspected as much at luncheon; and looking back she realized that it was at luncheon her depression had begun. The discovery startled her a little. She had not been aware, or she had refused to admit to herself, that George's troubles bulked so large on her horizon. She had always told herself that she liked George, that George was a dear old friend, that George amused and stimulated her; but she would have denied she was so wrapped up in George that the sight of him in trouble would be enough to spoil for her the finest day she had seen since she left America.

There was something not only startling but shocking in the thought; for she was honest enough with herself to recognize that Freddie, her official loved one, might have paced the grounds of the castle chewing an unlighted cigar by the hour without stirring any emotion in her at all.

And she was to marry Freddie next month! This was surely a matter that called for thought. She proceeded, gazing down the while at the perambulating George, to give it thought.

Aline's was not a deep nature. She had never pretended to herself that she loved the Honorable Freddie in the sense in which the word is used in books. She liked him and she liked the idea of being connected with the peerage; her father liked the idea and she liked her father. And the combination of these likings had caused her to reply "Yes" when, last Autumn, Freddie, swelling himself out like an embarrassed frog and gulping, had uttered that memorable speech beginning, "I say, you know, it's like this, don't you know!"—and ending, "What I mean is, will you marry me—what?"

She had looked forward to being placidly happy as the Honorable Mrs. Frederick Threepwood. And then George Emerson had reappeared in her life, a disturbing element.

Until to-day she would have resented the suggestion that she was in love with George. She liked to be with him, partly because he was so easy to talk to, and partly because it was exciting to be continually resisting the will power he made no secret of trying to exercise. But to-day there was a difference. She had suspected it at luncheon and she realized it now. As she looked down at him from behind the curtain, and marked his air of gloom, she could no longer disguise it from herself.

She felt maternal—horribly maternal. George was in trouble and she wanted to comfort him.

Freddie, too, was in trouble. But did she want to comfort Freddie? No. On the contrary, she was already regretting her promise, so lightly given before luncheon, to go and sit with him that afternoon. A well-marked feeling of annoyance that he should have been so silly as to tumble downstairs and sprain his ankle was her chief sentiment respecting Freddie.

George Emerson continued to perambulate and Aline continued to watch him. At last she could endure it no longer. She gathered up her letters, stacked them in a corner of the dressing-table and left the room. George had reached the end of the terrace and turned when she began to descend the stone steps outside the front door. He quickened his pace as he caught sight of her. He halted before her and surveyed her morosely.

"I have been looking for you," he said.

"And here I am. Cheer up, George! Whatever is the matter? I've been sitting in my room looking at you, and you have been simply prowling. What has gone wrong?"

"Everything!"

"How do you mean—everything?"

"Exactly what I say. I'm done for. Read this."

Aline took the yellow slip of paper. "A cable," added George. "I got it this morning—mailed on from my rooms in London. Read it."

"I'm trying to. It doesn't seem to make sense."

George laughed grimly.

"It makes sense all right."

"I don't see how you can say that. 'Meredith elephant kangaroo—?'"

"Office cipher; I was forgetting. 'Elephant' means 'Seriously ill and unable to attend to duty.' Meredith is one of the partners in my firm in New York."

"Oh, I'm so sorry! Do you think he is very sick? Are you very fond of Mr. Meredith?"

"Meredith is a good fellow and I like him; but if it was simply a matter of his being ill I'm afraid I could manage to bear up under the news. Unfortunately 'kangaroo' means 'Return, without fail, by the next boat.'"

"You must return by the next boat?" Aline looked at him, in her eyes a slow-growing comprehension of the situation. "Oh!" she said at length.

"I put it stronger than that," said George.

"But—the next boat—— That means on Wednesday."

"Wednesday morning, from Southampton. I shall have to leave here to-morrow."

Aline's eyes were fixed on the blue hills across the valley, but she did not see them. There was a mist between. She was feeling crushed and ill-treated and lonely. It was as though George was already gone and she left alone in an alien land.

"But, George!" she said; she could find no other words for her protest against the inevitable.

"It's bad luck," said Emerson quietly; "but I shouldn't wonder if it is not the best thing that really could have happened. It finishes me cleanly, instead of letting me drag on and make both of us miserable. If this cable hadn't come I suppose I should have gone on bothering you up to the day of your wedding. I should have fancied, to the last moment, that there was a chance for me; but this ends me with one punch.

"Even I haven't the nerve to imagine that I can work a miracle in the few hours before the train leaves to-morrow. I must just make the best of it. If we ever meet again—and I don't see why we should—you will be married. My particular brand of mental suggestion doesn't work at long range. I shan't hope to influence you by telepathy."

He leaned on the balustrade at her side and spoke in a low, level voice.

"This thing," he said, "coming as a shock, coming out of the blue sky without warning—Meredith is the last man in the world you would expect to crack up; he looked as fit as a dray horse the last time I saw him—somehow seems to have hammered a certain amount of sense into me. Odd it never struck me before; but I suppose I have been about the most bumptious, conceited fool that ever happened.

"Why I should have imagined that there was a sort of irresistible fascination in me, which was bound to make you break off your engagement and upset the whole universe simply to win the wonderful reward of marrying me, is more than I can understand. I suppose it takes a shock to make a fellow see exactly what he really amounts to. I couldn't think any more of you than I do; but, if I could, the way you have put up with my mouthing and swaggering and posing as a sort of superman, would make me do it. You have been wonderful!"

Aline could not speak. She felt as though her whole world had been turned upside down in the last quarter of an hour. This was a new George Emerson, a George at whom it was impossible to laugh, but an insidiously attractive George. Her heart beat quickly. Her mind was not clear; but dimly she realized that he had pulled down her chief barrier of defense and that she was more open to attack than she had ever been. Obstinacy, the automatic desire to resist the pressure of a will that attempted to overcome her own, had kept her cool and level-headed in the past. With masterfulness she had been able to cope. Humility was another thing altogether.