The House with the Twisted Chimneys/Chapter 8

It was a case of now or never!

“Took here, Bertie,” I said; “what I've been thinking of is this: You'd better hide, and let me go alone to find Krammie. Suppose your mother has looked in your room! She'll know from Kram that the ladies are motoring, so she may come out to speak with Kram and ask for you. Squeeze into this clump of lilac bushes at the end of the terrace! Trust me to make everything right and come back soon.”

The picture of his mother on the warpath turned Bertie to a jelly. He was in the lilac bushes almost before I'd finished, and I hurried off, ostensibly to seek Kram. I did not, however, seek far or in any direction where she was likely to be. Presently I returned and in my turn plunged into the bushes. I broke the news that I hadn't seen Kram. It looked as if the worst had happened. But Bertie must buck up. I'd thought of a splendid plan.

“How would you like to stay with me,” I wheedled, “until your mother'll crawl to get you back, cry and sob, and swear not to punish you?”

The boy looked doubtful.

“I've heard my mother swear,” he said, “but never cry or sob. Do you think she would?”

“I'm sure,” I urged. “And you'll have the time of your life with me! All the money you want for toys chocolates. And you needn't go to bed till you choose.”

“What kind of toys?” he bargained, “Tanks and motor cars that go?”

“Rather! And marching soldiers and a gramophone.”

“Right-o, I'll come! And I don't care a darn if I never see mother or father again!” decided the cherub.

I would have given as much for a taxi as Richard the Third for a horse, but I'd walked from the village and must return in the same way. We started at once, hand in hand, stepping out as Bertie Scarlett, the second, had never, perhaps, stepped before. It was only a mile to Dawley St. Ann, and in twenty minutes I had smuggled my prize into the inn by a little-used side door. This led straight to my rooms, and I whisked the boy in without being seen. So far, so good. But what to do with him next was the question!

I saw that, in such an emergency, Terry Burns would hinder more than help. He was cured of the listlessness, the melancholia, which had been the aftermath of shell shock, but he was rather like a male Sleeping Beauty just roused from a hundred years' nap, full of reawakened fire and vigor, yet not knowing what use to make of his brand-new energy. It was my job to advise him, not his to counsel me! And if I flung at his head my version of the Cecil story, his one impulse would be to batter down the sported oak of the garden-court suite.

He and I had agreed, in calm moments, that it would be vain and worst than vain to appeal to the police. But calm moments were ended, especially for Terry. He might think that the police would act on the story we could now patch up together. I didn't think so, or I wouldn't have stolen the heir of all the Scarletts!

Well, I had stolen him. Here it was, in my small sitting room, stuffing chocolates bestowed on me by Terry. On top of uncounted cakes, they would probably make him sick, and I couldn't send for a doctor without endangering the whole plot.

The child must be disposed of, and there wasn't a minute to waste. Terry's lodgings were as unsuited for a hiding place as my rooms at the inn. Both of us were likely to be suspected when Bertie was missed. I didn't much care for myself, but I did care for Terry, because my business was to keep him out of trouble, not to get him into it, even for his love's sake.

Suddenly, as I concentrated on little Bertie and how to disguise him for my purpose, Jim Courtenaye's description of the child drifted into my head.

Jim! The thought of Jim, just then, was like picking up a pearl on the way to the poorhouse!

Dear Jim! I hadn't been sure what my feeling for him was, but at this minute I adored him. I adored him because he was a wild-Western creature capable of lassoing enemies as he would cows. I adored him because the fire of his nature blazed out in his ted hair and his black eyes. Jim was an anachronism from some barbaric century of Courtenayes. Jim was a precious heirloom. He had called the Scarlett boy a venomous little brute! I could hear again his voice through the telephone:

“I'd do more than that for you.”

Idiot that I was, on that I'd rung him off! And I hadn't made a sign of life since, though he was sure to have heard, somehow, that I was at Dawley St. Ann, within forty miles of the abbey and Courtenaye Coombe!

I could have torn my hair, only it's too precious to waste. Instead, I ran into the next room, pulled the bell rope, and demanded the village taxi immediately. Then I flew back to Bertie, and made him up for a new part.

This was done, to his mingled amusement and disgust, by means of a tight-fitting, veiled motor hood of my own and a scarlet cape, short for a grown girl, but long for a small boy. This produced a fair imitation of what the police would call “a female child,” should they catch sight of my companion. But, as it happened, they did not, nor did any one else at Dawley St. Ann, so far as I was aware. By my instructions the taxi drew up at the side door, and while Timmins, the chauffeur, was starting the engine—he stopped it, as I'd kept him waiting—I rushed Bertie into the car. Once in, I squashed him down on the floor, seated tailor fashion, with a perfectly good, perfectly new box of burnt almonds in his lap.

“Drive as fast as you dare without being held up,” I ordered, and Timmins obeyed with violence. The distance was forty miles, the hour of starting six, and at seven-thirty we were spinning up the long avenue of Courtenaye Abbey. This was good going for Dev- onshire hills!

I took the chance that Jim might be at the abbey rather than at Courtenaye Coombe, where he lodged. The way was shorter, and there were as many hiding places in the abbey as at Dun Moat. Luck was with me! It was one of the days when Jim opened the abbey to tourists, and he was late because he'd gone the rounds with the guardian. His small car, which he drove himself, stood before the door, and from that door he. flew like a jack-in-the-box as we dashed up.

“Elizabeth! I mean, princess!” he exclaimed.

“Call me anything!” I whispered recklessly, bending out of the car as we shook hands. “Mum's the word! But look what I've brought—something I want you to store for me.”

A jerk of my head introduced him to a red-cloaked, gray-veiled child asleep on the taxi floor.

Most men would have shown some sign of surprise or other emotion. But Jim Courtenaye's sang-froid is a tribute to the cinemalike life he must have led even before he burst into the war. Whether he thought that the object in red was my own offspring, concealed from the world till now, I don't know, and probably never shall. All I do know is that, judging from his expression, it might have been a shoulder of veal brought without a ration book.

Deftly he scooped Bertie up without rousing him, and bore the bundle gently through the open door before it occurred to Timmins to turn his head.

“Hurray!” thought I. “Not a soul has seen the little wretch between Dun Moat and here!'

I jumped out of the car and followed Jim into the house, which I'd never entered since it had been let to him. He had not paused in the great hall, but was carrying his burden toward a small room which grandmother had used for receiving tenants and other bothersome business. I flashed in after him, and realized that Jim had fitted it up as a private sanctum.

Somehow, I didn't like him to go on fancying quaint things about my character, and by the time he'd deposited Bertie on a huge, bedlike sofa I had plunged into my story.

I told him all, from beginning to end. When I'd reached the latter, to my surprise, Jim jumped up and shook my hand.

“Are you congratulating me?” I asked.

“No. It's because I'm so dashed pleased that I don't need to!”

“You mean?”

“Well, let's put it that I'm glad Burns may have to be congratulated, some day, on being engaged to the Baroness Scarlett instead of to the Princess Miramare.”

So, he had known of my activities, and had misunderstood my interest in Terry. Brighteners, alas, are being misunderstood!

“I'd forgotten,” I said primly, “that the women of the Scarlett family inherit the title if there's no son. That would account for a lot! So you don't think my theory of what's going on at Dun Moat is too melodramatic?”

“My experience is,” said Jim, “that nothing is ever quite so melodramatic as real life. I believe this Cecil girl must be a legitimate daughter of the chap who died in Australia. She must have proofs, and they're probably where the Scarlett family can't lay hands on them, otherwise she'd be under the daisies before this. That Defarge type you talk about doesn't stop at trifles. And we know Scarlett's reputation! I needn't call him 'Lord Scarlett' any more! But what beats me is this: why did the fly walk into the spider web? If the girl had comm sense, she must have seen she wouldn't be a welcome visitor, coming to turn her uncle out of home and title for himself and son! Yet you say she brought presents for the kid.”

“I wonder,” I thought aloud, “if she could have meant to suggest some friendly compromise? Maybe she'd heard a lot from her father about the wonderful old place. Grandmother said that Cecil Scarlett was so poor he lived in Australia like a laborer, although his father died while he was there and he inherited the title. Think what the description of Dun Most would be like to a girl brought up in the bush! And maybe her mother was of the lower classes, as no one knew about the marriage. What if the daughter came into money from sheep or mines or something and meant to propose living at Dun Moat with her uncle's family? I can see her arriving en surprise, full of enthusiasm and loving kindness, which wouldn't cut it with Madame Defarge!”

“Not much!” agreed Jim grimly “She'd calmly begin knitting the shroud!”

So we talked on, thrashing out one theory after another, but sure, in any case, that there was a prisoner at Dun Moat. Jim made me quite proud by applauding my plot, and didn't wait to be asked before offering to help carry it out. Indeed, as my “sole living relative”—he put it that way—he would take the whole responsibility upon himself, The police were not to be called in save as a last resort, and that night or next day, according to the turn of the game, the trump card I'd pulled out of the pack should be played for all it was worth!