The Castle by the Sea/Chapter 5
CHAPTER V
THE COUNCIL OF PERFECTION
I WAS now at the parting of the ways. The solicitors had discarded me and contemned my warnings, and yet I had clear evidence of a plot of some sort involving the Castle. The question for me was, whether I was to ignore it, inasmuch as it obviously could not affect me personally to any extent, or whether I should take up the gage of battle and run this gang to earth. I had only a dim notion as to who constituted it, and had but a guess at what it wanted; but, in passing through the picture-gallery next morning, I scowled on Peter Toosey as he sat meekly before his easel transferring Lady Claire Norroy to a second canvas.
"It's a beautiful day," he volunteered tentatively. I threw an affirmative at him, and then had qualms of conscience. After all, why should I suppose he was in the conspiracy? I looked back, and saw him nervously mixing his colors, and I returned, and stood for a while watching him.
"Beginning with a Reynolds?" I said lightly. "What after that.
He nearly dropped his brushes. "Yes," he stammered. "I thought of the Claude next."
"A change," I suggested. "Are you going right round the gallery?"
"I—I don't know," he stammered. "You see," he explained uneasily, "it's a commission."
Commission! Did any one pine to reduplicate the modest gallery of Norroy Castle? The man was a fool. I left him to his work and went out into the sunlight. In that divine air suspicions melted from me like morning rime, and of a sudden I experienced poignant remorse. Why had I suspected Miss Forrest? Madness could no farther go. I strode out, on the impulse of the moment, towards the gates, designing to go to the village, but when I reached the limit of my domain I was checked. I had no earthly reason for intruding on the ladies; and, moreover, the chances were that they were already on some innocent expedition of their own, beloved of women. I came out at the gates in this reflective temper, and found a man lounging there. He was a rough fellow, with a big frame, and a barrel chest, and he smoked an awesome cigar. He stared at me shamelessly, put his hands in his pockets and went on smoking. What was he doing there? He had no look of a seafarer from the Point, or of a villager. I felt certain that if I turned my back he would pop into the garden. I returned him his stare with interest, and he took this, or chose to take it, as a sufficient introduction.
"Niceish bit of garden yours," he remarked, taking his abominable cigar from his mouth.
I grunted.
Reminds me a bit of Battersea Park," he went on affably, in his cockney voice.
"It's been modelled on it," I said. "We took no end of pains over it."
"Ah!" said he, complacently, without a sense of my sarcasm, "I thought it was like."
"Staying here long?" I inquired, intending more aggression and designing studious offence.
"P'raps," he said affably. "Bit of a 'olliday," and jingled his coins in his pocket while he surveyed my garden. I could do nothing with an insensate brute like this, and, reflecting that he could do no harm in the broad daylight, I continued on my way. Two hundred yards farther I pulled up, a prey to misgivings. Had I been treating a vulgar but innocent fellow creature unjustly. My mental outlook was sicklied o'er with the jaundice of my suspicions. I had terrified the artist and probably incensed the cockney. I cursed the plot and the burglars, and increased my pace down the sloping lane.
It wound down the hill deliberately, now delving deep between high banks, and now running shallowly on the surface. Half-way to Southington, it ran into the copse that opens here to receive it, in a green environment of growing corn and grass. Turning aside, I admired the great elms, the thickening shade of the beeches, and the bright underwood. And as I stood so,, my eyes were caught by a movement through the bushes. Athwart the copse by a grass track came Miss Forrest, the spring wind off the sea in her face. Her gaze was right ahead, as if she walked expectantly to meet some one, a smile opening her beautiful face like the dawn and brightening in her eyes, her lips parted ever so slightly, budding with that smile. She moved gayly, like a child, and full of mere physical delight. I fell back in the shadow of the bushes, so that she passed without seeing me. I was smitten anew with pangs of conscience, with self-reproach and self-contempt. How dared I to suppose any wrong of so innocent and lovely a creature! I would at that moment as soon have suspected an angel in Paradise of complicity in nefarious plots. I watched her out of sight through the wood, and continued on my way ashamed. Two minutes later I found myself confronting Miss Fuller seated on a fallen log under an oak. I took off my hat, and she returned my greeting handsomely, regarding me curiously, I thought, out of her large eyes. She was nice to look at, and her expression promised a fount of sympathy, if I knew anything of woman. I took my resolution swiftly as I am wont to do.
"Miss Fuller," said I, in a saddened and penitent voice, "I have a confession to make, which I beg you will hear."
She stirred with interest. "Indeed!" she said simply, but I could pierce that flimsy veil of indifference.
"Yes," I went on, launching myself, "I want you to make my peace with Miss Forrest."
"Forrest!" she echoed blankly.
"Yes, your friend, Miss Forrest," I said.
"Oh, yes," she said quickly. "You mean Miss Forrest," and displayed signs of agitation out of keeping with the circumstances.
"The fact is," I continued manfully, "I have done her a grievous injustice. I thought she was a burglar."
"A burglar!" exclaimed Miss Fuller on a high crescendo, opening her wide eyes wider. "Good gracious! Why—how—"
"My dear lady," I said in all humility, "I have no excuses and no explanations. I merely confess, and offer my apologies—to you first as proxy; and perhaps I may be permitted later to own up to the injured lady herself. Who knows?"
Miss Fuller hesitated. "I can't think how you came to make such a preposterous and shameful mistake," she said at last, with some asperity for so sympathetic a woman. "It was—it was unpardonable."
"Then, alas!" I began in a lamentable voice.
"But perhaps Per—Miss Forrest would forgive you, if you are really penitent," she added, with a touch of playfulness that seemed coy and arch at once.
"With your assistance, my dear lady—"I said.
She had risen, and now cast inquisitive glances at me again, as we began without premeditation to walk together through the wood.
"It has nothing to do with me," she protested.
"Oh, but it has," I urged; "I thought you were one of the gang, too."
"Me!" she screamed, and her face flamed. "Good heavens, how wicked of you!"
"You may trample on me," I said contritely. "I am here for sentence, but you see you are concerned in it."
"Whatever made you think such monstrous things?" demanded Miss Fuller sternly.
"I have been the victim of circumstances," I pleaded. "There is a story to tell, which I will tell, by your kind indulgence, to you both."
I felt that this was a very clever move; I should now be sure of my audience, and possibly of my forgiveness Curiosity would hardly stand so gross a test, not certainly in the case of Miss Fuller's marvelling eyes. She continued to walk, but said nothing, until she broke new ground.
"The Castle has pretty gardens."
"Yes," I assented.
"It must be nice to own such a beautiful old place," said Miss Fuller.
"I dare say it is," I said. "I've not had the chance of feeling what it's like."
Miss Fuller started and colored. "Oh, no, of course not," she agreed hurriedly.
"But that gave me an idea. "If you have really done me the honor to forgive me," I went on, "you will further honor me by condescending to mark that forgiveness by taking tea at the Castle, and allowing me to show you it."
Miss Fuller's expressive eyes testified to her own desire, but she exclaimed lightly:
"That is for Miss Forrest to say."
It was then that we came out of the wood into a meadow already lush with the growing May grass. Regardless of injury to this, before us was Perdita, sprawling in it, her hat discarded, her bronze-brown hair tumbling about her face, and her skirts well above her pretty ankles. Hastily she thrust her dress lower about her feet as we emerged, and her face flushed delicately pink for a moment. I saluted submissively, while, the color slowly passing, she surveyed us with speculative eyes. The open joy had left her eyes, which were on me in a sort of challenging reserve. She had assumed the defensive armor of convention, and her look unmistakably demanded what I wanted. I turned to Miss Fuller appealingly:
"Perdita, dear," she said hesitantly. "This gentleman—Mr.—Mr.—Brabazon, wants to apologize to you for something."
Perdita made no reply, beyond that of her inquiring eyes, while I was only conscious of a bronze tress that was swaying on the white of her neck. I came to with a start and a rush.
"You explain, please," I said to Miss Fuller in a whisper.
"Oh, no, it's your affair," she said nodding.
"But I am unstrung," I pleaded. "Give me a lead, do, like a gracious lady."
Miss Fuller, good at need, hesitated, and confusedly yielded. "Mr. Brabazon wants to apologize for your being a burglar, dear," she said.
"What!" cried Miss Forrest, looking from one to the other of us. Miss Fuller retrieved herself.
"How silly of me! For thinking you a burglar," she amended.
Perdita still gazed in astonishment. "I'm afraid I don't understand," she said politely. "Perhaps it's an elaborate joke."
I was constrained to take a hand on my own behalf. "It's this way, please," I said. "I suspected you of being in a secret plot, Miss Forrest—"
Perdita's face was smitten of a sudden with dismay, almost with fear.
"That you were a burglar!" put in Miss Fuller breathlessly, as if anxious now not to be left out.
Perdita's soft bosom of white muslin rose and fell quickly. "I still don't understand," she said, in a lower voice that was somewhat constrained.
"It is a sort of story," I told her, "and if you will forgive me I will tell you the whole of it. But meanwhile I want to make abject and absolute confession. For a base and horrible and unashamed quarter of an hour I did think you might be part of a plot."
"A plot!" she exclaimed in bewilderment.
"Ah, that's my story. And if after my confession you will deign to take tea with me at the Castle, I will unfold that story. I think, on the whole, it is really worth hearing. Of course it would be more worth hearing, if you were still in it."
Perdita looked at Miss Fuller perplexedly, and Miss Fuller's eyes signalled back something. Then her charming smile captured Perdita's face.
"This may be a trap," she said, "to catch us, or to make us commit ourselves."
"On my honor," I assured her, "there will be no one present save myself and Jackman, my servant—at least that I know of. I can't answer for the spies."
"Spies!" she echoed in wonderment.
"That's my story," said I firmly.
I knew now I had her, had them both in fact. The word spies sent a thrill through Miss Fuller, as I could see in the glance she wheeled on me. She looked at Perdita. Perdita refused to meet her eyes.
"This afternoon," I appended, in my confidence.
Perdita suddenly laughed. "I suppose we are all mad," she said.
It was surrender. I knew it. And it had all been engineered by feminine curiosity.
"Then suppose we seize time by the forelock and go back now?" I suggested.
Perdita got to her feet suddenly. "I'm sorry," she said, "but it is n't possible to-day." She looked at Miss Fuller. "We have some one coming."
Miss Fuller exclaimed. "Oh, I forgot! How dreadful of me! Miss Harvey."
"Couldn't you persuade your friend also?" I pleaded.
"No," said Miss Fuller firmly. "It wouldn't do. We must go back now, dear. It's quite late."
I said nothing to this, as the case appeared hopeless, but I have the tenacity of a tiger when necessary, and the avidity of one, too. Also, on the trail I am a panther. I explained these characteristics of mine to Miss Fuller, as we went down the lane together.
"Really!" she said with wondering interest.
Miss Forrest listened politely, a demure little smile on her face. "But I don't quite see—excuse me," said Miss Fuller, "what this has got to do—I mean—"
She could not express her meaning for embarrassment. "These essentially animal qualities, Miss Fuller," I explained, "are combined in one who has absolutely no other claims to notice. But unfortunately for those whose company he admires, they obsess him."
Perdita bit her lip, as if she would thus refrain from laughter. Miss Fuller looked more puzzled than ever.
"How strange!" she said most civilly, but most blankly.
We reached the bottom of the lane where the village opens out, and Perdita broke her long silence.
"There it is," she said.
I looked, and on the village green was a motor-car. Harvey! Harvey! The name suddenly rang in my memory. Of course I recalled her now. It was the name of my American, and here was her car. So the girls had struck up an acquaintance, unless— But that last reflection was ancient and abandoned history. My heart plucked up.
We walked slowly towards the car, and, sure enough, the gracious vision who stood in its vicinity advanced to meet us with both hands.
"Why, I was just going to drive right after you, and hunt you out," she declared, greeting Perdita warmly. "How are you this afternoon, Mr.—Mr. Brabazon?" she asked next, flashing her bright eyes on me with a winning smile.
A muffled choking sound came from the car, and we all gave it our attention. It seemed to have run over some one, and a hapless fellow creature, apparently in dying convulsions, lay beneath those juggernaut wheels. Miss Fuller's large eyes opened wider with horror.
"Oh!" she cried.
"It's only my new chauffeur!" said Miss Harvey, sweetly. "He would just try, and I bet him he could n't."
Bet him! I saw Miss Fuller look shocked.
"What is he doing?" I asked, as we approached the car and the wriggling legs that protruded from underneath it.
"I guess he's doing nothing but swallow dirt. He's trying to fix up some screws," said Miss Harvey, calmly, putting on her gloves again.
I glanced at the man who stood by me; here was manifestly the real chauffeur, orthodox in his leathern jacket. Who, then, was the tortured victim under the car? The chauffeur looked on with a complacent grin, and the wrigglings of the legs increased. An indeterminate noise, worse than before, reached us from the machinery.
"That's the second time he's died," I observed.
Miss Fuller shot an indignant glance at me.
"What's he say, Inchbold?" inquired Miss Harvey.
Inchbold's grin fell from him. "I—I don't think he wanted anything," he replied in some confusion. "It was only a sort of exclamation, Miss."
"I'm getting tired of this. Time we got on," remarked Miss Harvey, impatiently. "Can't you get him out, Inchbold? I guess he's no good as a mechanician."
"If Inchbold took hold of one leg, and I got the other, we might manage it," I suggested thoughtfully, "particularly if some one, Miss Fuller, say, hammered his fingers to make him let go."
"Oh, how perfectly dreadful!" cried that lady. Miss Harvey laughed. But ere my proposition could be carried into effect, if it had been so intended, the legs gave a final squirm and then wriggled forth, disclosing a face all begrimed and greasy, but still unmistakably Eustace's. I wondered now that I had not recognized those soft-gaitered legs. I experienced at once a revulsion of feeling. What in Heaven's name did this suspect here?
He recognized me when he got to his feet, threw me a perfunctory nod, and turned his gaze straight on Miss Harvey.
"I'd have done it sooner, if the oil had n't dropped in my eye," he said. "Half a dollar, was n't it?" He held out his hand bluntly, and Miss Harvey, full of laughter, took a two-shilling piece from her purse and put it in his palm. I scornfully expected him to touch his cap, but he did n't.
"Knew I could do it," he said cheerfully, putting the coin in his pocket. "There is n't much in this car business. H' are yer, Brabazon
I burned with secret indignation, though his impertinence was ludicrous. From the contagion of his impudent presence I felt I must withdraw the innocent ladies. My salutation was civil but distant, and I addressed Miss Harvey deliberately in front of him, begging her to honor me at the Castle with the other ladies. You will perceive that this had been my design all along.
Miss Harvey smiled graciously. She would love to; she had taken a tremendous fancy to the old place, and wanted to bring her mamma over, if she might. Of course she might. We exchanged friendly invitations, and the wretched, thick-skinned groom listened in a boorish fashion. It was at least a direct snub for him. In the end we all mounted Miss Harvey's car, and sailing off left the groom in the dust of the road, a dirty, smudgy, unintelligent-looking object, to whom Miss Harvey waved an indulgent farewell. He stood, staring after us with a dull, meditative set of his expressionless face.
"That's a man," said I, to my companions, "whom I am persistently endeavoring to avoid. He clings like a burr."
"Oh, he's great fun," said Miss Harvey, laughing.
"He looks respectable enough," said Perdita, kindly.
"He's just a treat," said Miss Harvey, as we hummed up the lane. "There's no man on the other side that would behave just as he behaves. He's a unique specimen to us. He's an English product only, and can only be caught in his native jungles. But I like him. He just says what he thinks, and so do I. It's a treat after some of our fancy ways."
"An old friend?" I queried, with what I intended for sarcasm.
But Miss Harvey had no ear for sarcasm. "No," she said, pensively for her, "he just came right up, and asked me about the car, and said he'd bet twenty horses against it any day, with a bit to spare. And then he got fooling about the machinery, and I bet him he could n't put a screw right that Inchbold was busy about; and that was all."
I was not anxious to waste time on Mr. Eustace, and if I had been, my thoughts would have been shunted off him by the sight of the burly cockney still promenading in front of the gates. We flashed through, and his eyes carefully sorted us as we did so. He was still on guard, then.
A shadow of reserve fell on the ladies at tea, except on Miss Harvey, who maintained a conversation briskly. Perhaps some conventional scruple returned unbidden and unexpectedly to the others, a scruple with which the more licensed American was untroubled. And this was one reason why I. recurred to my original device, which, you will remember, was based on a story.
"And now," I said, in my most preacher-like voice, "the time has come, my friends, for me to redeem my promise. And here begins the story of the thief and the spy, which, as you have not heard, I shall now proceed to relate."
"Story!" exclaimed Miss Harvey with interest. "Why, that's lovely. What's it all about?"
"My tale may begin, it you like, at the gates," said I, "with that burly scoundrel who stared after us."
"Scoundrel!" exclaimed Miss Harvey. Miss Fuller breathed deeply, and drew her chair closer, and Miss Forrest's eyes were interrogatively on me. A little color collecting in her face, she reminded me of an interested and innocent child, with excitement hanging over her. I began, and related, with some embroidery of circumstance for the sake of art, the events which had occurred since my arrival at the Castle. I told of the intruder in the picture-gallery, of the dropped note-book stolen from my room, of the visits of Mr. Joyce and Mr. Naylor, and of the spies I had found surrounding the Castle. "You saw that man at the gates," I concluded. "He is one of them."
I confess that, if it had not been for the embellishments of my art, the story would have sounded a little tame, and fallen a little flat. For, after all, there was not much that had happened, and it was rather in the atmosphere that I smelled a mystery than in actual facts. But in my narrative I led my sympathetic audience skilfully up to the strong-room, and directed their fascinated attention on the plate and jewels. Miss Harvey emitted from her pretty lips what was almost a whistle.
"This is stirring," she commented. "You are having a live time." And then she looked at Perdita. "And you suspected her?" she inquired.
I hung my head. "Temporarily blinded by the glare of suspicion, I blundered," I said. "Please have some more tea."
"And where did you think I came in?" demanded the ruthless lady, with shining eyes.
"I regret to say I took you for a confederate," I said, with what firmness I could.
"Oh!" Miss Harvey's handsome face was rosy bright. "I should love just to be in something exciting like that," she declared unscrupulously.
"Have you any theory, Mr. Brabazon?" asked Perdita.
I shook my head sadly. "None whatever. The facts are more or less plain. Burglarious attempts have been made on the house, with, I assume, the jewels in view. And it would seem as if the gang are watching the Castle. That's all I know."
"But surely you will get the police in," panted Miss Fuller.
"There's no doubt I ought to," I answered. "But after all, why should I? Let Sir Gilbert look after his own property."
The three girls exchanged glances, but I could not determine what thus passed between them. But they seemed to signal in this way to each other, as only girls can.
"And then—I forgot—there is the artist," I went on.
"The artist!" they echoed.
"Yes, he's up-stairs in the gallery, painting. What does he want there?"
"You said he was painting," remarked Miss Fuller.
"Yes, but why do they all go to the gallery?" I demanded.
"Really, I think your suspicions are unreasonable Mr. Brabazon," said the lady severely.
"Well, there's Eustace," I said desperately.
"Eustace!"
"The man under the car," I explained.
"What's he got to do with it?" asked Miss Harvey. "You surely don't suggest that nice man of being a burglar."
"I should n't wonder," I said moodily.
Miss Forrest and Miss Fuller surveyed me with wondering eyes; I think my gloom was impressing them against their will. Miss Harvey rose, and was the first to speak as she rose.
"Let us see this artist. Did you say he was up-stairs?"
I assented. She picked up the eyes of the others; and simultaneously they made a movement for the door. I followed, feeling somehow that I had unchained forces which I was impotent to control. They were like Miss Harvey's motor-car. They rolled over me up the stairs. With misgivings I timidly brought up the rear, while Miss Harvey swept in the van like a conqueror.
Mr. Peter Toosey was painting. He was clad in dingy velveteens, smudged with the refuse of his palette, and he was painting as if for dear life. Miss Harvey greeted him with that gracious ease which never invites a liberty.
"What a lovely Gainsborough!" she exclaimed.
Mr. Toosey looked uneasily over his shoulder at her, and his terrified gaze shifted from girl to girl.
"It—it is a Reynolds," he said with timid truthfulness.
Miss Fuller elevated her nose and sniffed; Miss Forrest sniffed; and Miss Harvey turned round and sniffed in my face.
"I beg your pardon," I said, and then I, too, sniffed.
Mr. Toosey painted harder than ever, laying on his colors furiously, as if he were working against time. In his agitation, he painted out Lady Claire's nose, as if he feared she, too, would sniff.
The smell grew stronger. "Chimneys!" ventured Miss Fuller.
"No; clothes!" said Miss Harvey.
Suddenly Mr. Peter Toosey leapt from his stool with a little yell, and set his hand to his side. A stream of smoke was issuing from his pocket. From my place in the rear-guard I hurried to his assistance, and between us we put out the conflagration.
"I feel," said Mr. Toosey, breathing hard, as he shook his fragmentary pocket, "I feel I owe you an apology. I took the liberty of smoking."
"If Sir Gilbert Norroy does not object, it is not my place to do so," I remarked.
He eyed me distrustfully, and the ladies, obviously in some indignation, vied with one another in comforting him. I strolled away, as if the affair were none of mine. Indeed it turned out that it was n't; for before I had examined more than three pictures casually, the party passed me on its way down-stairs.
"Mr. Toosey is going to have tea with us," explained Miss Harvey.
They had already had tea, and it was my tea, and more or less my house, but I had abdicated. Apprehensively, Mr. Toosey left the gallery under cover of the ladies. It was, as I have indicated, their affair, and consequently I did not inflict my presence on them for some time. When I did so, Mr. Toosey was obviously enjoying himself, though he shifted about like an uncomfortable schoolboy when I entered. He had a large piece of cake which he ate with some noise, in his hand, and, balanced in the other, was a drunken cup of tea. So far as I could make out, he was explaining why life would be better for all of us if we lived in caves and wore little or nothing. Neither Miss Harvey, nor Perdita, nor even Miss Fuller, turned a hair; they hung on his silly words as if he had been a musical prodigy.
"In Touraine," said Mr. Toosey, with an uneasy eye on me, "there are wonderful caverns which could be taken possession of for summer holidays, you know. They could be rented for a few francs, and the Cave Cure could be tried. You see," he went on, forgetting me, and warming to his subject with a kindling eye, "how it would revolutionize all our holiday system. Mud cures, sun cures, grape cures, water cures, and the slap cure would all give way to the Cave Cure."
"What's the slap cure?" asked Perdita, curiously.
"I believe it prevails in Bohemia," said Mr. Toosey, twinkling.
"And all the summer papers then would advertise: 'Cave to let—owner being obliged to seek closer quarters,' or 'Try our Caves for air and darkness,' or some such auctioneer's jimmy. And you could have them labelled Carlton or Ritz or Delmonico's, you know. And whenever a rabbit came by, you would scurry into your burrow like winking."
What had come to Mr. Peter Toosey? His tongue wagged on. I wondered if they had put anything in his tea. He entertained a rapt audience. And in the middle of it all, Mrs. Jackman arrived with a pressing request that I would speak with her. We retired to the hall, where I found she wished to know if the ladies were stopping to dinner. I looked at my watch, and discovered it to be late, though the serene light of the May evening had not warned us.
I told her "no," and saw from her communicative eye that she would like to have said more. But instead she left the ladies and got upon the uninteresting topic of soups, being anxious to know if I had liked my last soup, and if she should repeat it on another occasion. It was all very trivial and irritating, for I experienced a strong desire to get back to the room to hear Mr. Toosey. And so I cut her short, and was reëntering when a pretty idea came into my head.
I went out into the garden, sought the western wall in the neighborhood of my own bedroom, on which grew a straggling Marechal Niel rose. That glorious rose is invariably the first of its kind, and in Devon comes particularly early. I culled three choice opening buds in various stages, and turned away to go back. As I withdrew from the shelter of the wall, I had a glimpse of a figure stealing by the back of the Castle towards those rear parts which contain the kitchen apartments, and even in the declining light I knew it was Eustace.
The apparition angered me. The fellow had manifestly followed us. What did he there, trespassing on my privacy? It was like his vulgar impudence to press himself on company which had shown him that he was not wanted. But stay! Was it only idle assurance that had brought him to the Castle, or was he come for another and a baser motive? He had vanished among the shrubberies at the back, and I did not doubt that he was on his way to the gates, where his friend the cockney was probably on guard. What the devil did it all signify?
I entered the house in a puzzled and angry temper, and was greeted by three excited voices.
"Why did n't you tell us about the ghost?"
"The ghost!" I echoed. I had quite forgotten the estate agent's ghost.
"Yes, Mr. Toosey has been telling us about the ghost," said Miss Harvey. "Oh, I should love a ghost."
"Indeed!" I said coldly, wheeling a deadly eye on the hapless artist.
"Mrs.—Mrs. Jackman told me about it," he said lamely. Mrs. Jackman's tongue was a nuisance.
"Oh, well, there's always a ghost, you know," I said lightly.
"Oh, but it explains everything," said Miss Fuller. "It's the ghost."
She looked delightfully scared and awed.
"It must be the ghost," said Perdita.
"It is the ghost," said Miss Harvey.
I sat down. "Yes," said I, "I am disposed to agree with you. Your arguments are convincing. And that being so, I propose that we have a ghost hunt."
"Ghost hunt!" exclaimed Perdita.
"Yes; that we keep watch together all night in the gallery, and see what happens."
"Oh, heavenly!" said Miss Harvey, clapping her hands.
Miss Fuller looked dubious. "I—I don't think we ought to do that," she said.
I looked at Perdita.
"And I think we ought to be going," she said, rising cheerfully to her feet.
It was the signal. My guests rose; but at the door Miss Harvey whispered into my ear:
"He's a most delightful character, Mr. Toosey. Don't you go off with any fancies about him. I believe he's a genius. I'm going to get papa to buy some of his pictures."
The evening fell as they went, with Mr. Toosey between two girls in the rear of the car. Jackman was laying my dinner when I went in.
"Jackman, have you seen any one hanging about?" I asked.
"No, sir," he said, staring, and after a pause went on with his task. His attitude seemed to ask an explanation.
"I saw a man skulking about the shrubberies behind," I said.
"No, sir. Indeed, sir." said JackmaUo
"And what is more, I recognized him," I said.
The forks dropped with a clatter on the table from Jackman's hand.
"Indeed, sir," he said, showing confusion at his awkwardness.
"Yes," I mused, "and I will be damned, Jackman, if I won't see it through," I said.
"Yes, sir," said Jackman, now himself again.
And in the diversion I had forgotten the roses!