Mulliner Nights (23 page)

‘Not yet. I
had a copy, but mother took it with her.’

‘Ah? Well, if
I am to catch a train that will get me to Barkley for dinner, I must be going.
Good-bye, sweetheart, and never forget that Gilbert Glendale in “The Missing
Toe” won the girl he loved in spite of being up against two mysterious
stranglers and the entire Black Moustache gang.

He kissed her
fondly, and went off to pack.

Barkley
Towers, the country seat of Sir Mortimer and Lady Wingham, was two hours from
London by rail. Thinking of Amelia and reading the opening chapters of Horatio
Slingsby’s powerful story, Cyril found the journey pass rapidly. In fact, so
preoccupied was he that it was only as the train started to draw out of Barkley
Regis station that he realized where he was. He managed to hurl himself on to
the platform just in time.

As he had
taken the five-seven express, stopping only at Gluebury Peveril, he arrived at
Barkley Towers at an hour which enabled him not only to be on hand for dinner
but also to take part in the life-giving distribution of cocktails which
preceded the meal.

The
house-party, he perceived on entering the drawing-room, was a small one. Besides
Lady Bassett and himself, the only visitors were a nondescript couple of the
name of Simpson, and a tall, bronzed, handsome man with flashing eyes who, his
hostess informed him in a whispered aside, was Lester Maple Durham (pronounced
Mum), the explorer and big-game hunter.

Perhaps it was
the oppressive sensation of being in the same room with two explorers and big-game
hunters that brought home to Cyril the need for following Amelia’s advice as
quickly as possible. But probably the mere sight of Lady Bassett alone would
have been enough to make him break a lifelong abstinence. To her normal
resemblance to Wallace Beery she appeared now to have added a distinct
suggestion of Victor McLaglen, and the spectacle was sufficient to send Cyril
leaping toward the cocktail tray.

After three
rapid glasses he felt a better and a braver man. And so lavishly did he
irrigate the ensuing dinner with hock, sherry, champagne, old brandy and port,
that at the conclusion of the meal he was pleased to find that his diffidence
had completely vanished. He rose from the table feeling equal to asking a dozen
Lady Bassetts for their consent to marry a dozen daughters.

In fact, as he
confided to the butler, prodding him genially in the ribs as the spoke, if Lady
Bassett attempted to put on any dog with
him,
he would know what to do
about it. He made no threats, he explained to the butler, he simply stated that
he would know what to do about it. The butler said ‘Very good, sir. Thank you,
sir,’ and the incident closed.

It had been
Cyril’s intention — feeling, as he did, in this singularly uplifted and
dominant frame of mind — to get hold of Amelia’s mother and start oiling up to
her immediately after dinner. But, what with falling into a doze in the
smoking-room and then getting into an argument on theology with one of the
under-footmen whom he met in the hall, he did not reach the drawing-room until
nearly half-past ten. And he was annoyed, on walking in with a merry cry of ‘Lady
Bassett! Call for Lady Bassett!’ on his lips, to discover that she had retired
to her room.

Had Cyril’s
mood been even slightly less elevated, this news might have acted as a check on
his enthusiasm. So generous, however, had been Sir Mortimer’s hospitality that
he merely nodded eleven times, to indicate comprehension, and then, having
ascertained that his quarry was roosting in the Blue Room, sped thither with a
brief ‘Tally-ho!’

Arriving at
the Blue Room, he banged heartily on the door and breezed in. He found Lady
Bassett propped up with pillows. She was smoking a cigar and reading a book.
And that book, Cyril saw with intense surprise and resentment, was none other
than Horatio Slingsby’s ‘Strychnine in the Soup’.’

The spectacle
brought him to an abrupt halt.

‘Well, I’m
dashed!’ he cried. ‘Well, I’m blowed! What do you mean by pinching my book?’

Lady Bassett
had lowered her cigar. She now raised her eyebrows.

‘What are you
doing in my room, Mr Mulliner?’

‘It’s a
little
hard,’ said Cyril, trembling with self-pity. ‘I go to enormous expense to buy
detective stories, and no sooner is my back turned than people rush about the
place sneaking them.’

‘This book
belongs to my daughter Amelia.’

‘Good old
Amelia!’ said Cyril cordially. ‘One of the best.’

‘I borrowed it
to read in the train. Now will you kindly tell me what you are doing in my
room, Mr Mulliner?’

Cyril smote
his forehead.

‘Of course. I
remember now. It all comes back to me. She told me you had taken it. And, what’s
more, I’ve suddenly recollected something which clears you completely. I was
hustled and bustled at the end of the-journey. I sprang to my feet, hurled bags
on to the platform — in a word, lost my head. And, like a chump, I went and
left my copy of “Strychnine in the Soup” in the train. Well, I can only
apologize.’

‘You can not
only apologize. You can also tell me what you are doing in my room?’

‘What I am
doing in your room?’

‘Exactly.’

‘Ah!’ said
Cyril, sitting down on the bed. ‘You may well ask.’

‘I
have
asked.
Three times.’

Cyril closed
his eyes. For some reason, his mind seemed cloudy and not at its best.

‘If you are
proposing to go to sleep here, Mr Mulliner,’ said Lady Bassett, ‘tell me, and I
shall know what to do about it.’

The phrase
touched a chord in Cyril’s memory. He recollected now his reasons for being
where he was. Opening his eyes, he fixed them on her.

‘Lady Bassett,’
he said, ‘you are, I believe, an explorer?’

‘I am.’

‘In the course
of your explorations, you have wandered through many a jungle in many a distant
land?’

‘I have.’

‘Tell me, Lady
Bassett,’ said Cyril keenly, ‘while making a pest of yourself to the denizens
of those jungles, did you notice one thing? I allude to the fact that Love is
everywhere — aye, even in the jungle. Love, independent of bounds and
frontiers, of nationality and species, works its spell on every living thing.
So that, no matter whether an individual be a Congo native, an American
song-writer, a jaguar, an armadillo, a bespoke tailor, or a tsetse-tsetse fly,
he will infallibly seek his mate. So why shouldn’t an interior decorator and
designer of ornamental gardens? I put this to you, Lady Bassett.’

‘Mr Mulliner,’
said his room-mate, ‘you are blotto!’

Cyril waved
his hand in a spacious gesture, and fell off the bed.

‘Blotto I may
be,’ he. said, resuming his seat, ‘but, none the less, argue as you will, you
can’t get away from the fact that I love your daughter Amelia.’

There was a
tense pause.

‘What did you
say?’ cried Lady Bassett.

‘When?’ said
Cyril absently, for he had fallen into a daydream and, as far as the
intervening blankets, would permit, was playing ‘This little pig went to market’
with his companion’s toes.

‘Did I hear
you say… my daughter Amelia?’

‘Grey-eyed
girl, medium height, sort of browny-red hair,’ said Cyril, to assist her
memory. ‘Dash it, you
must
know Amelia. She goes everywhere. And let me
tell you something, Mrs — I’ve forgotten your name. We’re going to be married, if
I can obtain her foul mother’s consent. Speaking as an old friend, what would
you say the chances were?’

‘Extremely
slight.’

‘Eh?’

‘Seeing that I
am
Amelia’s mother….’

Cyril blinked,
genuinely surprised.

‘Why, so you
are! I didn’t recognize you. Have you been there all the time?’

‘I have.’

Suddenly Cyril’s
gaze hardened. He drew himself up stiffly.

‘What are you
doing in my bed?’ he demanded.

‘This is not your
bed.’

‘Then whose is
it?’

‘Mine.’

Cyril shrugged
his shoulders helplessly.

‘Well, it all
looks very funny to me,’ he said. ‘I suppose I must believe your story, but, I
repeat, I consider the whole thing odd, and I propose to institute very strict
enquiries. I may tell you that I happen to know the ringleaders. I wish you a
very hearty good night.’

It was perhaps
an hour later that Cyril, who had been walking on the terrace in deep thought,
repaired once more to the Blue Room in quest of information. Running over the
details of the recent interview in his head, he had suddenly discovered that
there was a point which had not been satisfactorily cleared up.

‘I say,’ he
said.

Lady Bassett
looked up from her book, plainly annoyed.

‘Have you no
bedroom of your own, Mr Mulliner?’

‘Oh, yes,’
said Cyril. ‘They’ve bedded me out in the Moat Room. But there was something I
wanted you to tell me.’

‘Well?’

‘Did you say I
might or mightn’t?’

‘Might or
mightn’t what?’

‘Marry Amelia?’

‘No. You may
not.’

‘No?’

‘No!’

‘Oh!’ said
Cyril. ‘Well, pip-pip once more.

It was a moody
Cyril Mulliner who withdrew to the Moat Room. He now realized the position of
affairs. The mother of the girl he loved refused to accept him as an eligible
suitor. A dickens of a situation to be in, felt Cyril, sombrely unshoeing
himself.

Then he
brightened a little. His life, he reflected, might be wrecked, but he still had
two-thirds of ‘Strychnine in the Soup’ to read.

At the moment
when the train reached Barkley Regis station, Cyril had just got to the bit
where Detective Inspector Mould looks through the half-open cellar door and,
drawing in his breath with a sharp, hissing sound, recoils in horror. It was
obviously going to be good. He was just about to proceed to the dressing-table
where, he presumed, the footman had placed the book on unpacking his bag, when
an icy stream seemed to flow down the centre of his spine and the room and its
contents danced before him.

Once more he
had remembered that he had left the volume in the train.

He uttered an
animal cry and tottered to a chair.

The subject of
bereavement is one that has often been treated powerfully by poets, who have
run the whole gamut of the emotions while laying bare for us the agony of those
who have lost parents, wives, children, gazelles, money, fame, dogs, cats,
doves, sweethearts, horses, and even collar-studs. But no poet has yet treated
of the most poignant bereavement of all — that of the man half-way through a
detective story who finds himself at bedtime without the book.

Cyril did not
care to think of the night that lay before him. Already his brain was lashing
itself from side to side like a wounded snake as it sought for some explanation
of Inspector Mould’s strange behaviour. Horatio Slingsby was an author who
could be relied on to keep faith with his public. He was not the sort of man to
fob the reader off in the next chapter with the statement that what had made
Inspector Mould look horrified was the fact that he had suddenly remembered
that he had forgotten all about the letter his wife had given him to post. If
looking through cellar doors disturbed a Slingsby detective, it was because a
dismembered corpse lay there, or at least a severed hand.

A soft moan,
as of some thing in torment, escaped Cyril. What to do? What to do? Even a
makeshift substitute for ‘Strychnine in the Soup’ was beyond his reach. He knew
so well what he would find if he went to the library in search of something to
read. Sir Mortimer Wingham was heavy and country-squire-ish. His wife affected
strange religions. Their literature was in keeping with their tastes. In the
library there would be books on Ba-ha-ism, volumes in old leather of the Rural
Encyclopædia, ‘My Two Years in Sunny Ceylon’, by the Rev. Orlo Waterbury… but
of anything that would interest Scotland Yard, of anything with a bit of blood
in it and a corpse or two into which a
fellow could get his teeth, not a
trace.

What, then,
coming right back to it, to do?

And suddenly,
as if in answer to the question, came the solution. Electrified, he saw the way
out.

The hour was
now well advanced. By this time Lady Bassett must surely be asleep. ‘Strychnine
in the Soup’ would be lying on the table beside her bed. All he had to do was
to creep in and grab it.

The more he
considered the idea, the better it looked. It was not as if he did not know the
way to Lady Bassett’s room or the topography of it when he got there. It seemed
to him as if most of his later life had been spent in Lady Bassett’s room. He
could find his way about it with his eyes shut.

He hesitated
no longer. Donning a dressing-gown, he left his room and hurried along the
passage.

Pushing open
the door of the Blue Room and closing it softly behind him, Cyril stood for a
moment full of all those emotions which come to man revisiting some long-familiar
spot. There the dear old room was, just the same as ever. How it all came back
to him! The place was in darkness, but that did not deter him. He knew where
the bed-table was, and he made for it with stealthy steps.

In the manner
in which Cyril Mulliner advanced towards the bed-table there was much which
would have reminded Lady Bassett, had she been an eye-witness, of the furtive
prowl of the Lesser Iguanodon tracking its prey. In only one respect did Cyril
and this creature of the wild differ in their technique.

Iguanodons —
and this applies not only to the Lesser but to the Larger Iguanodon — seldom,
if ever, trip over cords on the floor and bring the lamps to which they are
attached crashing to the ground like a ton of bricks.

Cyril did. Scarcely
had he snatched up the book and placed it in the pocket of his dressing-gown,
when his foot became entangled in the trailing cord and the lamp on the table
leaped nimbly into the air and, to the accompaniment of a sound not unlike that
made by a hundred plates coming apart simultaneously in the hands of a hundred
scullery-maids, nose-dived to the floor and became a total loss.