Like Ashe, he had always visualized the recovery of his scarab as a thing of the small hours, a daring act to be performed when sleep held the castle in its grip. That an opportunity would be presented to him of walking in quite calmly and walking out again with the Cheops in his pocket, had never occurred to him as a possibility.
Yet now this chance was presenting itself in all its simplicity, and all he had to do was to grasp it. The door of the museum was not even closed. He could see from where he stood that it was ajar.
He moved cautiously in its direction--not in a straight line as one going to a museum, but circuitously as one strolling without an aim. From time to time he glanced over his shoulder. He reached the door, hesitated, and passed it. He turned, reached the door again--and again passed it. He stood for a moment darting his eyes about the hall; then, in a burst of resolution, he dashed for the door and shot in like a rabbit.
At the same moment the Efficient Baxter, who, from the shelter of a pillar on the gallery that ran around two-thirds of the hall, had been eyeing the peculiar movements of the distinguished guest with considerable interest for some minutes, began to descend the stairs.
Rupert Baxter, the Earl of Emsworth's indefatigable private secretary, was one of those men whose chief characteristic is a vague suspicion of their fellow human beings. He did not suspect them of this or that definite crime; he simply suspected them. He prowled through life as we are told the hosts of Midian prowled.
His powers in this respect were well-known at Blandings Castle. The Earl of Emsworth said: "Baxter is invaluable--positively invaluable." The Honorable Freddie said: "A chappie can't take a step in this bally house without stumbling over that damn feller, Baxter!" The manservant and the maidservant within the gates, like Miss Willoughby, employing that crisp gift for characterization which is the property of the English lower orders, described him as a Nosy Parker.
Peering over the railing of the balcony and observing the curious movements of Mr. Peters, who, as a matter of fact, while making up his mind to approach the door, had been backing and filling about the hall in a quaint serpentine manner like a man trying to invent a new variety of the tango, the Efficient Baxter had found himself in some way--why, he did not know--of what, he could not say--but in some nebulous way, suspicious.
He had not definitely accused Mr. Peters in his mind of any specific tort or malfeasance. He had merely felt that something fishy was toward. He had a sixth sense in such matters.
But when Mr. Peters, making up his mind, leaped into the museum, Baxter's suspicions lost their vagueness and became crystallized. Certainty descended on him like a bolt from the skies. On oath, before a notary, the Efficient Baxter would have declared that J. Preston Peters was about to try to purloin the scarab.
Lest we should seem to be attributing too miraculous powers of intuition to Lord Emsworth's secretary, it should be explained that the mystery which hung about that curio had exercised his mind not a little since his employer had given it to him to place in the museum. He knew Lord Emsworth's power of forgetting and he did not believe his account of the transaction. Scarab maniacs like Mr. Peters did not give away specimens from their collections as presents. But he had not divined the truth of what had happened in London.
The conclusion at which he had arrived was that Lord Emsworth had bought the scarab and had forgotten all about it. To support this theory was the fact that the latter had taken his check book to London with him. Baxter's long acquaintance with the earl had left him with the conviction that there was no saying what he might not do if left loose in London with a check book.
As to Mr. Peters' motive for entering the museum, that, too, seemed completely clear to the secretary. He was a curia enthusiast himself and he had served collectors in a secretarial capacity; and he knew, both from experience and observation, that strange madness which may at any moment afflict the collector, blotting out morality and the nice distinction between meum and tuum, as with a sponge. He knew that collectors who would not steal a loaf if they were starving might--and did--fall before the temptation of a coveted curio.
He descended the stairs three at a time, and entered the museum at the very instant when Mr. Peters' twitching fingers were about to close on his treasure. He handled the delicate situation with eminent tact. Mr. Peters, at the sound of his step, had executed a backward leap, which was as good as a confession of guilt, and his face was rigid with dismay; but the Efficient Baxter pretended not to notice these phenomena. His manner, when he spoke, was easy and unembarrassed.
"Ah! Taking a look at our little collection, Mr. Peters? You will see that we have given the place of honor to your Cheops. It is certainly a fine specimen--a wonderfully fine specimen."
Mr. Peters was recovering slowly. Baxter talked on, to give him time. He spoke of Mut and Bubastis, of Ammon and the Book of the Dead. He directed the other's attention to the Roman coins.
He was touching on some aspects of the Princess Gilukhipa of Mitanni, in whom his hearer could scarcely fail to be interested, when the door opened and Beach, the butler, came in, accompanied by Ashe. In the bustle of the interruption Mr. Peters escaped, glad to be elsewhere, and questioning for the first time in his life the dictum that if you want a thing well done you must do it yourself.
"I was not aware, sir," said Beach, the butler, "that you were in occupation of the museum. I would not have intruded; but this young man expressed a desire to examine the exhibits, and I took the liberty of conducting him."
"Come in, Beach--come in," said Baxter.
The light fell on Ashe's face, and he recognized him as the cheerful young man who had inquired the way to Mr. Peters' room before dinner and who, he had by this time discovered, was not the Honorable Freddie's friend, George Emerson--or, indeed, any other of the guests of the house. He felt suspicious.
"Oh, Beach!"
"Sir?"
"Just a moment."
He drew the butler into the hall, out of earshot.
"Beach, who is that man?"
"Mr. Peters' valet, sir."
"Mr. Peters' valet!"
"Yes, sir."
"Has he been in service long?" asked Baxter, remembering that a mere menial had addressed him as "old man."
Beach lowered his voice. He and the Efficient Baxter were old allies, and it seemed right to Beach to confide in him.
"He has only just joined Mr. Peters, sir; and he has never been in service before. He told me so himself, and I was unable to elicit from him any information as to his antecedents. His manner struck me, sir, as peculiar. It crossed my mind to wonder whether Mr. Peters happened to be aware of this. I should dislike to do any young man an injury; but it might be anyone coming to a gentleman without a character, like this young man. Mr. Peters might have been deceived, sir."
The Efficient Baxter's manner became distraught. His mind was working rapidly.
"Should he be informed, sir?"
"Eh! Who?"
"Mr. Peters, sir--in case he should have been deceived?"
"No, no; Mr. Peters knows his own business."
"Far from me be it to appear officious, sir; but--"
"Mr. Peters probably knows all about him. Tell me, Beach, who was it suggested this visit to the museum? Did you?"
"It was at the young man's express desire that I conducted him, sir."
The Efficient Baxter returned to the museum without a word. Ashe, standing in the middle of the room, was impressing the topography of the place on his memory. He was unaware of the piercing stare of suspicion that was being directed at him from behind.
He did not see Baxter. He was not even thinking of Baxter; but Baxter was on the alert. Baxter was on the warpath. Baxter knew!
CHAPTER VI
AMONG the compensations of advancing age is a wholesome pessimism, which, though it takes the fine edge off of whatever triumphs may come to us, has the admirable effect of preventing Fate from working off on us any of those gold bricks, coins with strings attached, an
d unhatched chickens, at which ardent youth snatches with such enthusiasm, to its subsequent disappointment. As we emerge from the twenties we grow into a habit of mind that looks askance at Fate bearing gifts. We miss, perhaps, the occasional prize, but we also avoid leaping light-heartedly into traps.
Ashe Marson had yet to reach the age of tranquil mistrust; and when Fate seemed to be treating him kindly he was still young enough to accept such kindnesses on their face value and rejoice at them.
As he sat on his bed at the end of his first night in Castle Blandings, he was conscious to a remarkable degree that Fortune was treating him well. He had survived--not merely without discredit, but with positive triumph--the initiatory plunge into the etiquette maelstrom of life below stairs. So far from doing the wrong thing and drawing down on himself the just scorn of the steward's room, he had been the life and soul of the party. Even if to-morrow, in an absent-minded fit, he should anticipate the groom of the chambers in the march to the table, he would be forgiven; for the humorist has his privileges.
So much for that. But that was only a part of Fortune's kindnesses. To have discovered on the first day of their association the correct method of handling and reducing to subjection his irascible employer was an even greater boon. A prolonged association with Mr. Peters on the lines in which their acquaintance had begun would have been extremely trying. Now, by virtue of a fortunate stand at the outset, he had spiked the millionaire's guns.
Thirdly, and most important of all, he had not only made himself familiar with the locality and surroundings of the scarab, but he had seen, beyond the possibility of doubt, that the removal of it and the earning of the five thousand dollars would be the simplest possible task. Already he was spending the money in his mind. And to such lengths had optimism led him that, as he sat on his bed reviewing the events of the day, his only doubt was whether to get the scarab at once or to let it remain where it was until he had the opportunity of doing Mr. Peters' interior good on the lines he had mapped out in their conversation; for, of course, directly he had restored the scarab to its rightful owner and pocketed the reward, his position as healer and trainer to the millionaire would cease automatically.
He was sorry for that, because it troubled him to think that a sick man would not be made well; but, on the whole, looking at it from every aspect, it would be best to get the scarab as soon as possible and leave Mr. Peters' digestion to look after itself. Being twenty-six and an optimist, he had no suspicion that Fate might be playing with him; that Fate might have unpleasant surprises in store; that Fate even now was preparing to smite him in his hour of joy with that powerful weapon, the Efficient Baxter.
He looked at his watch. It was five minutes to one. He had no idea whether they kept early hours at Blandings Castle or not, but he deemed it prudent to give the household another hour in which to settle down. After which he would just trot down and collect the scarab.
The novel he had brought down with him from London fortunately proved interesting. Two o'clock came before he was ready for it. He slipped the book into his pocket and opened the door.
All was still--still and uncommonly dark. Along the corridor on which his room was situated the snores of sleeping domestics exploded, growled and twittered in the air. Every menial on the list seemed to be snoring, some in one key, some in another, some defiantly, some plaintively; but the main fact was that they were all snoring somehow, thus intimating that, so far as this side of the house was concerned, the coast might be considered clear and interruption of his plans a negligible risk.
Researches made at an earlier hour had familiarized him with the geography of the place. He found his way to the green-baize door without difficulty and, stepping through, was in the hall, where the remains of the log fire still glowed a fitful red. This, however, was the only illumination, and it was fortunate that he did not require light to guide him to the museum.
He knew the direction and had measured the distance. It was precisely seventeen steps from where he stood. Cautiously, and with avoidance of noise, he began to make the seventeen steps.
He was beginning the eleventh when he bumped into somebody-- somebody soft--somebody whose hand, as it touched his, felt small and feminine.
The fragment of a log fell on the ashes and the fire gave a dying spurt. Darkness succeeded the sudden glow. The fire was out. That little flame had been its last effort before expiring, but it had been enough to enable him to recognize Joan Valentine.
"Good Lord!" he gasped.
His astonishment was short-lived. Next moment the only thing that surprised him was the fact that he was not more surprised. There was something about this girl that made the most bizarre happenings seem right and natural. Ever since he had met her his life had changed from an orderly succession of uninteresting days to a strange carnival of the unexpected, and use was accustoming him to it. Life had taken on the quality of a dream, in which anything might happen and in which everything that did happen was to be accepted with the calmness natural in dreams.
It was strange that she should be here in the pitch-dark hall in the middle of the night; but--after all--no stranger than that he should be. In this dream world in which he now moved it had to be taken for granted that people did all sorts of odd things from all sorts of odd motives.
"Hello!" he said.
"Don't be alarmed."
"No, no!"
"I think we are both here for the same reason."
"You don't mean to say--"
"Yes; I have come here to earn the five thousand dollars, too, Mr. Marson. We are rivals."
In his present frame of mind it seemed so simple and intelligible to Ashe that he wondered whether he was really hearing it the first time. He had an odd feeling that he had known this all along.
"You are here to get the scarab?"
"Exactly."
Ashe was dimly conscious of some objection to this, but at first it eluded him. Then he pinned it down.
"But you aren't a young man of good appearance," he said.
"I don't know what you mean. But Aline Peters is an old friend of mine. She told me her father would give a large reward to whoever recovered the scarab; so I--"
"Look out!" whispered Ashe. "Run! There's somebody coming!"
There was a soft footfall on the stairs, a click, and above Ashe's head a light flashed out. He looked round. He was alone, and the green-baize door was swaying gently to and fro.
"Who's that? Who's there?" said a voice.
The Efficient Baxter was coming down the broad staircase.
A general suspicion of mankind and a definite and particular suspicion of one individual made a bad opiate. For over an hour sleep had avoided the Efficient Baxter with an unconquerable coyness. He had tried all the known ways of wooing slumber, but they had failed him, from the counting of sheep downward. The events of the night had whipped his mind to a restless activity. Try as he might to lose consciousness, the recollection of the plot he had discovered surged up and kept him wakeful.
It is the penalty of the suspicious type of mind that it suffers from its own activity. From the moment he detected Mr. Peters in the act of rifling the museum and marked down Ashe as an accomplice, Baxter's repose was doomed. Nor poppy nor mandragora, nor all the drowsy sirups of the world, could ever medicine him to that sweet sleep which he owed yesterday.
But it was the recollection that on previous occasions of wakefulness hot whisky and water had done the trick, which had now brought him from his bed and downstairs. His objective was the decanter on the table of the smoking-room, which was one of the rooms opening on the gallery that looked down on the hall. Hot water he could achieve in his bedroom by means of his stove.
So out of bed he had climbed and downstairs he had come; and here he was, to all appearances, just in time to foil the very plot on which he had been brooding. Mr. Peters might be in bed, but there in the hall below him stood the accomplice, not ten paces from the museum's door. He arrived on the spot at racing spee
d and confronted Ashe.
"What are you doing here?"
And then, from the Baxter viewpoint, things began to go wrong. By all the rules of the game, Ashe, caught, as it were, red-handed, should have wilted, stammered and confessed all; but Ashe was fortified by that philosophic calm which comes to us in dreams, and, moreover, he had his story ready.
"Mr. Peters rang for me, sir."
He had never expected to feel grateful to the little firebrand who employed him, but he had to admit that the millionaire, in their late conversation, had shown forethought. The thought struck him that but for Mr. Peters' advice he might by now be in an extremely awkward position; for his was not a swiftly inventive mind.
"Rang for you? At half-past two in the morning!"
"To read to him, sir."
"To read to him at this hour?"
"Mr. Peters suffers from insomnia, sir. He has a weak digestion and pain sometimes prevents him from sleeping. The lining of his stomach is not at all what it should be."
"I don't believe a word of it."
With that meekness which makes the good man wronged so impressive a spectacle, Ashe produced and exhibited his novel.
"Here is the book I am about to read to him. I think, sir, if you will excuse me, I had better be going to his room. Good night, sir."
He proceeded to mount the stairs. He was sorry for Mr. Peters, so shortly about to be roused from a refreshing slumber; but these were life's tragedies and must be borne bravely.
The Efficient Baxter dogged him the whole way, sprinting silently in his wake and dodging into the shadows whenever the light of an occasional electric bulb made it inadvisable to keep to the open. Then abruptly he gave up the pursuit. For the first time his comparative impotence in this silent conflict on which he had embarked was made manifest to him, and he perceived that on mere suspicion, however strong, he could do nothing. To accuse Mr. Peters of theft or to accuse him of being accessory to a theft was out of the question.
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