V
There were, however, when Dolly made her way to the study some five minutes later, no signs of anything of an exciting and boisterous nature having occurred recently in the room. The table was unbroken, the carpet unruffled. The chairs stood in their places, and not even a picture-glass had been cracked. It was evident that the operations had proceeded according to plan, and that matters had been carried through in what Sergeant-Major Flannery would have termed a nice, easy, tactful manner.
'Everything jake?' inquired Dolly.
'Uh-huh,' said Chimp, speaking, however, in a voice that quavered a little.
Mr Twist was the only object in the room that looked in any way disturbed. He had turned an odd greenish colour, and from time to time he swallowed uneasily. Although he had spent a lifetime outside the law, Chimp Twist was essentially a man of peace and accustomed to look askance at any by-product of his profession that seemed to him to come under the heading of rough stuff. This doping of respectable visitors, he considered, was distinctly so to be classified; and only Mr Molloy's urgency over the telephone wire had persuaded him to the task. He was nervous and apprehensive, in a condition to start at sudden noises.
'What happened?'
'Well, I did what Soapy said. After you left us the guy and I talk back and forth for awhile, and then I agreed to knock a bit off the old man's bill, and then I said "How about a little drink?" and then we have a little drink, and then I slip the stuff you gave me in while he wasn't looking. It didn't seem like it was going to act at first.'
'It don't. It takes a little time. You don't feel nothing till you jerk your head or move yourself, and then it's like as if somebody has beaned you one with an iron girder or something. So they tell me,' said Dolly.
'I guess he must have jerked his head, then. Because all of a sudden he went down and out,' Chimp gulped. 'You – you don't think he's . . . I mean, you're sure this stuff . . .?'
Dolly had nothing but contempt for these masculine tremors.
'Of course. Do you suppose I go about the place croaking people? He's all right.'
'Well, he didn't look it. If I'd been a life-insurance company I'd have paid up on him without a yip.'
'He'll wake up with a headache in a little while, but outside of that he'll be as well as he ever was. Where have you been all your life that you don't know how kayo drops act?'
'I've never had occasion to be connected with none of this raw work before,' said Chimp virtuously. 'If you'd of seen him when he slumped down on the table, you wouldn't be feeling so good yourself, maybe. If ever I saw a guy that looked like he was qualified to step straight into a coffin, he was him.'
'Aw, be yourself, Chimp!'
'I'm being myself all right, all right.'
'Well, then, for Pete's sake, be somebody else. Pull yourself together, why can't you? Have a drink.'
'Ah!' said Mr Twist, struck with the idea.
His hand was still shaking, but he accomplished the delicate task of mixing a whisky and soda without disaster.
'What did you with the remains?' asked Dolly, interested.
Mr Twist, who had been raising the glass to his lips, lowered it again. He disapproved of levity of speech at such a moment.
'Would you kindly not call him "the remains",' he begged. 'It's all very well for you to be so easy about it all and to pull this stuff about him doing nothing but wake up with a headache, but what I'm asking myself is, will he wake up at all?'
'Oh, cut it out! Sure, he'll wake up.'
'But will it be in this world?'
'You drink that up, you poor dumb-bell, and then fix yourself another,' advised Dolly. 'And make it a bit stronger next time. You seem to need it.'
Mr Twist did as directed, and found the treatment beneficial.
'You've nothing to grumble at,' Dolly proceeded, still looking on the bright side. 'What with all this excitement and all, you seem to have lost that cold of yours.'
'That's right,' said Chimp, impressed. 'It does seem to have got a whole lot better.'
'Pity you couldn't have got rid of it a little earlier. Then we wouldn't have had all this trouble. From what I can make of it, you seem to have roused the house by sneezing your head off, and a bunch of the help came and stood looking over the banisters at you.'
Chimp tottered.
'You don't mean somebody saw me last night?'
'Sure they saw you. Didn't Soapy tell you that over the wire?'
'I could hardly make out all Soapy was saying over the wire. Say! What are we going to do?'
'Don't you worry. We've done it. The only difficult part is over. Now that we've fixed the remains. . . .'
'Will you please . . . !'
'Well, call him what you like. Now that we've fixed that guy the thing's simple. By the way, what did you do with him?'
'Flannery took him upstairs.'
'Where to?'
'There's a room on the top floor. Must have been a nursery or something, I guess. Anyway, there's bars to the window.'
'How's the door?'
'Good solid oak. You've got to hand it to the guys who built these old English houses. They knew their groceries. When they spit on their hands and set to work to make a door, they made one. You couldn't push that door down, not if you was an elephant.'
'Well, that's all right, then. Now, listen, Chimp. Here's the low-down. We . . .' She broke off. 'What's that?'
'What's what?' asked Mr Twist, starting violently.
'I thought I heard someone outside in the corridor. Go and look.'
With an infinite caution born of alarm, Mr Twist crept across the floor, reached the door and flung it open. The passage was empty. He looked up and down it, and Dolly, whose fingers had hovered for an instant over the glass which he had left on the table, sat back with an air of content.
'My mistake,' she said. 'I thought I heard something.'
Chimp returned to the table. He was still much perturbed.
'I wish I'd never gone into this thing,' he said with a sudden gush of self-pity. 'I felt all along, what with seeing that magpie and the new moon through glass. . . .'
'Now, listen!' said Dolly vigorously. 'Considering you've stood Soapy and me up for practically all there is in this thing except a little small change, I'll ask you kindly, if you don't mind, not to stand there beefing and expecting me to hold your hand and pat you on the head and be a second mother to you. You came into this business because you wanted to. You're getting sixty-five per cent of the gross. So what's biting you? You're all right – so far.'
It was in Mr Twist's mind to inquire of his companion precisely what she meant by this expression, but more urgent matters claimed his attention. More even than the exact interpretation of the phrase 'so far', he wished to know what the next move was.
'What happens now?' he asked.
'We go back to Rudge.'
'And collect the stuff?'
'Yes. And then make our getaway.'
No programme could have outlined more admirably Mr Twist's own desires. The mere contemplation of it heartened him. He snatched his glass from the table and drained it with a gesture almost swashbuckling.
'Soapy will have doped the old man by this time, eh?'
'That's right.'
'But suppose he hasn't been able to?' said Mr Twist with a return of his old nervousness. 'Suppose he hasn't had an opportunity?'
'You can always find an opportunity of doping people. You ought to know that.'
The implied compliment pleased Chimp.
'That's right,' he chuckled.
He nodded his head complacently. And immediately something which may have been an iron girder or possibly the ceiling and the upper parts of the house seemed to strike him on the base of the skull. He had been standing by the table, and now, crumpling at the knees, he slid gently down to the floor. Dolly, regarding him, recognized instantly what he had meant just now when he had spoken of John appearing like a total loss to his life-insurance company. The best you
could have said of Alexander Twist at this moment was that he looked peaceful. She drew in her breath a little sharply, and then, being a woman at heart, took a cushion from the arm-chair and placed it beneath his head.
Only then did she go to the telephone and in a gentle voice ask the operator to connect her with Rudge Hall.
'Soapy?'
'Hello!'
The promptitude with which the summons of the bell had been answered brought a smile of approval to her lips. Soapy, she felt, must have been sitting with his head on the receiver.
'Listen, sweetie.'
'I'm listening, pettie!'
'Everything's set.'
'Have you fixed that guy?'
'Sure, precious. And Chimp, too.'
'How's that? Chimp?'
'Sure. We don't want Chimp around, do we, with that sixty-five–thirty-five stuff of his? I just slipped a couple of drops into his high-ball and he's gone off as peaceful as a lamb. Say, wait a minute,' she added, as the wire hummed with Mr Molloy's low-voiced congratulations. 'Hello!' she said, returning.
'What were you doing, honey? Did you hear somebody?'
'No. I caught sight of a bunch of lilies in a vase, and I just slipped across and put one of them in Chimp's hand. Made it seem more sort of natural. Now listen, Soapy. Everything's clear for you at your end now, so go right ahead and clean up. I'm going to beat it in that guy Carroll's runabout, and I haven't much time, so don't start talking about the weather or nothing. I'm going to London, to the Belvedere. You collect the stuff and meet me there. Is that all straight?'
'But, pettie!'
'Now what?'
'How am I to get the stuff away?'
'For goodness sake! You can drive a car, can't you? Old Carmody's car was outside the stable-yard when I left. I guess it's there still. Get the stuff and then go and tell the chauffeur that old Carmody wants to see him. Then, when he's gone, climb in and drive to Birmingham. Leave the car outside the station and take a train. That's simple enough, isn't it?'
There was a long pause. Admiration seemed to have deprived Mr Molloy of speech.
'Honey,' he said at length, in a hushed voice, 'when it comes to the real smooth stuff you're there every time. Let me just tell you...'
'All right, baby,' said Dolly. 'Save it till later, I'm in a hurry.'
10 ACTIVITY OF SOAPY MOLLOY
I
Soapy Molloy replaced the receiver, and came out of the telephone-cupboard glowing with the resolve to go right ahead and clean up as his helpmeet had directed. Like all good husbands, he felt that his wife was an example and an inspiration to him. Mopping his fine forehead, for it had been warm in the cupboard with the door shut, he stood for awhile and mused, sketching out in his mind a plan of campaign.
The prudent man, before embarking on any enterprise which may at a moment's notice necessitate his skipping away from a given spot like a scalded cat, will always begin by preparing his lines of retreat. Mr Molloy's first act was to go to the stable-yard in order to ascertain with his own eyes that the Dex-Mayo was still there.
It was. It stood out on the gravel, simply waiting for someone to spring to its wheel and be off.
So far, so good. But how far actually was it? The really difficult part of the operations, Mr Molloy could not but recognize, still lay before him. The knock-out drops nestled in his waistcoat pocket all ready for use, but in order to bring about the happy ending it was necessary for him, like some conjuror doing a trick, to transfer them thence to the interior of Mr Lester Carmody. And little by little, chilling his enthusiasm, there crept upon Soapy the realization that he had not a notion how the deuce this was to be done.
The whole question of administering knock-out drops to a fellow-creature is a very delicate and complex one. So much depends on the co-operation of the party of the second part. Before you can get anything in the nature of action, your victim must first be induced to start drinking something. At Health-ward Ho, Soapy had gathered from the recent telephone conversation, no obstacles had arisen. The thing had been, apparently, from the start a sort of jolly carousal. But at Rudge Hall, it was plain, matters were not going to be nearly so simple.
When you are a guest in a man's house, you cannot very well go about thrusting drinks on your host at half-past eleven in the morning. Probably Mr Carmody would not think of taking liquid refreshment till lunch-time, and then there would be a butler in and out of the room all the while. Besides, lunch would not be for another two hours or more, and the whole essence of this enterprise was that it should be put through swiftly and at once.
Mr Molloy groaned in spirit. He wandered forth into the garden, turning the problem over in his mind with growing desperation, and had just come to the conclusion that he was mentally unequal to it, when, reaching the low wall that bordered the moat, he saw a sight which sent the blood coursing joyously through his veins once more – a sight which made the world a thing of sunshine and bird-song again.
Out in the middle of the moat lay the punt. In the punt sat Mr Carmody. And in Mr Carmody's hand was a fishing-rod.
Æsthetically considered, wearing as he did a pink shirt and a slouch hat which should long ago have been given to the deserving poor, Mr Carmody was not much of a spectacle, but Soapy, eyeing him, felt that he had never beheld anything lovelier. He was not a fisherman himself but he knew all about fishermen. They became, he was aware, when engaged on their favourite pursuit, virtually monomaniacs. Earthquakes might occur in their immediate neighbourhood, dynasties fall and pestilences ravage the land, but they would just go on fishing. As long as the bait held out, Lester Carmody, sitting in that punt, was for all essential purposes as good as if he had been crammed to the brim with the finest knock-out drops. It was as though he were in another world.
Exhilaration filled Soapy like a tonic.
'Any luck?' he shouted.
'Wah, wah, wah,' replied Mr Carmody inaudibly.
'Stick to it,' cried Soapy. "Atta-boy!'
With an encouraging wave of the hand he hurried back to the house. The problem which a moment before had seemed to defy solution had now become so simple and easy that a child could have negotiated it – any child, that is to say, capable of holding a hatchet and endowed with sufficient strength to break a cupboard door with it.
'I'm telling the birds, telling the bees,' sang Soapy gaily, charging into the hall, 'Telling the flowers, telling the trees how I love you...'
'Sir?' said Sturgis respectfully, suddenly becoming manifest out of the infinite.
Soapy gazed at the butler blankly, his wild woodnotes dying away in a guttural gurgle. Apart from the embarrassment which always comes upon a man when caught singing, he was feeling, as Sturgis himself would have put it, stottled. A moment before, the place had been completely free from butlers, and where this one could have come from was more than he could understand. Rudge Hall's old retainer did not look the sort of man who would pop up through traps, but there seemed no other explanation of his presence.
And then, close to the cupboard door, Soapy espied another door, covered with green baize. This, evidently, was the Sturgis bolt-hole.
'Nothing,' he said.
'I thought you called, sir.'
'No.'
'Lovely day, sir.'
'Beautiful,' said Soapy.
He gazed bulgily at this inconvenient old fossil. Once more, shadows had fallen about his world, and he was brooding again on the deep gulf that is fixed between artistic conception and detail-work.
The broad artistic conception of breaking open the cupboard door and getting away with the swag while Mr Carmody, anchored out on the moat, dabbled for bream or dibbled for chub or sniggled for eels or whatever weak-minded thing it is that fishermen do when left to themselves in the middle of a sheet of water, was magnificent. It was bold, dashing, big in every sense of the word. Only when you came to inspect it in detail did it occur to you that it might also be a little noisy.
That was the fatal flaw – the noise. The
more Soapy examined the scheme, the more clearly did he see that it could not be carried through in even comparative quiet. And the very first blow of the hammer or axe or chisel selected for the operation must inevitably bring Methuselah's little brother popping through that green baize door, full of inquiries.
'Hell!' said Soapy.
'Sir?'
'Nothing,' said Soapy. 'I was just thinking.'
He continued to think, and to such effect that before long he had begun to see daylight. There is no doubt that in time of stress the human mind has an odd tendency to take off its coat and roll up its sleeves and generally spread itself in a spasm of unwonted energy. Probably if this thing had been put up to Mr Molloy as an academic problem over the nuts and wine after dinner, he would have had to confess himself baffled. Now, however, with such vital issues at stake, it took him but a few minutes to reach the conclusion that what he required, as he could not break open a cupboard door in silence, was some plausible reason for making a noise.
He followed up this line of thought. A noise of smashing wood. In what branch of human activity may a man smash wood blamelessly? The answer is simple. When he is doing carpentering. What sort of carpentering? Why, making something. What? Oh, anything. Yes, but what? Well, say for example a rabbit-hutch. But why a rabbit-hutch? Well, a man might very easily have a daughter who, in her girlish, impulsive way, had decided to keep pet rabbits, mightn't he? There actually were pet rabbits on the Rudge Hall estate, weren't there? Certainly there were. Soapy had seen them down at one of the lodges.
The thing began to look good. It only remained to ascertain whether Sturgis was the right recipient for this kind of statement. The world may be divided broadly into two classes – men who will believe you when you suddenly inform them at half-past eleven on a summer morning that you propose to start making rabbit-hutches, and men who will not. Sturgis looked as if he belonged to the former and far more likeable class. He looked, indeed, like a man who would believe anything.
'Say!' said Soapy.
'Sir?'
'My daughter wants me to make her a rabbit-hutch.'
Money for Nothing Page 18
