The Haunted Pajamas
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Billings got in and then I helped her. "Awfully jolly good of you to humor his crazy whims," I whispered gratefully.
"Crazy!" she ejaculated, one foot on the running-board. "Why, he's just getting sane! He's been a born fool all his life! And now, Jacky, as you were saying of the antennae– " And she flopped eagerly by him and together they bent over the glass.
It was rum, but I was getting along so swimmingly with Frances that I didn't much care what they did. Seemed to be only about a minute more and we were clipping through the curves of the Wolhurst park – Frances pointed the way – and had slowed down under the porte-cochère.
The frump whispered to the man who opened the door.
"As quietly as possible, Wilkes," she said, "and without his father seeing him."
"The judge is away, miss," said the man. "He drove down to the village with Senator Soakem, who had to catch a train back to Albany; but I'm looking for him every – "
"Be quick, then," jerked the frump. "You know what to do."
"I guess I do, miss," answered the butler gloomily. "I've had to do it often enough – Perkins and me. A good cold souse – that's the thing – and then bed. I know!"
Billings waved his hand to the frump as he mounted the stairway inside. And then, dash it, he kissed his fingers.
"Vale!" he chirped, leaning over the marble balustrade. "Vale, sed spero non semper! I will resume the discussion in propria persona."
And, by Jove, if she didn't come back at him quick as lightning, and with his own gibberish, too:
"Confido et conquiesco!" she cooed, waving her handkerchief.
Oh, it was tragical, dash it – that was the word, tragical! And yet the frump looked almost happy. And as for Frances, except for being amused, her brother's condition didn't seem to trouble her spirit at all. But then, dash it, I remembered she was used to him this way. She did not even wait, but with a bright smile and a murmured word to me, left her friend and myself to await Wilkes' report.
The frump kind of glared down the deserted vista of the fine old hall and shrugged her shoulders.
"Everybody loafing, as usual," she muttered sourly, and she hurled her coat at the carven back of a great cathedral chair – and missed it.
It was clear that her type scorned conventionalities and knew how to make themselves thoroughly at home.
"I hope you'll be made comfortable here, Mr. Lightnut," she said, peeling a glove with a jerk, "but I have my doubts."
And she gave a kind of hollow laugh.
I shifted distressfully. "Oh, really now," I began protestingly, but she marched right over me:
"I can assure you that a guest here earns a martyr's crown," she said, lifting her eyebrows. Then she shook her head, her lips compressed.
I coughed. Couldn't say the thing I wanted to say, you know – seemed too devilish rude. Just have to stand it when they talk that way. Pugsley says best thing to do is to purse up your lips and bob your head – you don't have to mean it.
So I just went through all this and threw in a shrug, too. Thought no use having her mad and working against me with Frances. Catch the idea? Simple thing, you know, just to play her with my finesse.
"Awfully tiresome, these country places," I said sympathetically. I screwed my glass at a couple of footmen who came into view at the far end of the hall, and who were whispering and chuckling about something. "Things seem to be run a bit loose, don't you know – that's a fact. Don't mind for myself, but fancy a girl might find it rather trying visiting here."
By Jove, how she opened her eyes at me – surprised, I knew, at finding me such a devilish keen observer. My sympathy touched her, too, for her eyeballs shone moist of a sudden and I saw her lip tremble as she stared. Then she swallowed hard and slapped her gloves sharply across her palm.
"It's Francis that's to blame for that sort of thing," she rasped, nodding down the hall.
"Frances?" I ejaculated in protest. "Oh, here, I say, now – "
"You don't know Francis, Mr. Lightnut!" Her jaw grounded with a snap, and what a look she gave me! "Wait till you do – you just wait!" And eyes and hands lifted to the ceiling.
I coughed again.
The cat! And this was my darling's friend!
But her claws raked on: "I tell you you just can't be familiar with grooms and hail-fellow-well-met with footmen without demoralizing them – and that's what Francis does." She jerked this out viciously, and while I gasped, went on: "You know very well, Mr. Lightnut, if you play cards and drink and carouse with your men-servants until two or three o'clock in the morning, you can't reasonably look for respect from them." She breathed heavily. "The trouble is, Francis has no self-respect – no pride!"
Her uplifted hands fumbled and jerked the hat from her tossing head. "Sometimes," she breathed through her teeth, "when I think of Francis, I feel like I'd like to – " The words died behind her teeth as she ground them – yes, ground them. She jabbed the pins into the hat savagely and at random and tossed it after the coat. And this time she put the ball – in a big Benares jar that stood against the wall.
But I was counting forty-four!
Ever try that when you were angry and wanted to insult somebody? Preacher told us about it once at the old Harvard Union, and I thought it a devilish good idea. Gives you time, you know, to think up the things to say that otherwise you would be turning over in your mind afterward as the scathing, clever things you might have said.
So, by the twenty-eighth count, I had her; and jamming my hands almost through my pockets, I faced her with a withering frown.
"By Jove, if I were you, Miss – er – " Dash me if I hadn't forgotten her name! "If you feel that way, I don't see why the de – H'm! I mean why do you stay on here and – er —sacrifice yourself?" I drawled this in the most devilish sarcastic way! "I'd pack my jolly trunk and get as far away as I could."
I added earnestly – coaxingly: "And stay away, you know!"
And I took a deep breath, for I expected to see her wilt or go straight up in the air. I knew it was a toss-up for either.
Not she! She just twisted a sour smile at me.
"Ummh!" she grunted. "Perhaps you don't know that Francis has suggested that to me several times – frankly and rudely – when I have complained. That may surprise you."
It did not surprise me – not at all, by Jove! What did surprise me was that my Frances had ever allowed this jolly female barnacle to fasten on her in this way. Remembered a remark of Jack Ellsworth's about some bounder visiting at his house that he said "the old man couldn't pry loose with a crowbar." Devilish coarse way to express it, I had thought; but now I understood.
The frump was this sort! Poor Frances! Poor Frances!
I was just considering the advisability of tactfully trying to shame this girl into taking the next train, or whatever it is, back to China, when suddenly my devilish active mind hit right on the explanation of her conduct! Bores me, you know, the way things come to me at times when I am not looking for them at all. Still, this time, I was rather glad. Might confound her and put her on the run if she knew that a shrewd, eagle-eyed man of the world had penetrated her mask.
So I coughed significantly in lieu of using her dashed name, and lifted my monocle so I could bore her sidewise through narrowed eyes.
"Dare say you've put up with Frances though for Jack's sake!" I let her have it coldly, deliberately. "Brother Jack has been a sort of compensation —that's it, eh?"
And I shot her a foxy wink!
That is, I almost did – pulled up, though, just on the brink. By Jove, gave me cold marrows for an instant, thinking how I might have compromised myself, you know. Besides, I could spare her that– had rubbed it in so devilish raw, anyhow. That is, you would have thought so; for that sort of thing said to a normal Yankee girl would have stirred her pride or unchained the jolly lightnings from her eyes —you know!
But dashed if this imported freak didn't suddenly nod with a sort of chokey snuffle and reach out her hand for mine.
"How you do understand!" she crooned unblushingly, and she leaked a big cold tear down upon my hand and let another splash my cuff – and Jenkins hadn't come with my things yet, dash it! "I do try to be patient about Francis for Jacky's sake – he asked me to: and I do try not to mind the way things are run, but oh, Mr. Lightnut, what this place needs is a head!" She almost squeezed my hand, and blinked damply at me out of her pasty face. "And then," she snuffled, "I do so want to make a home for my father and my brothers. They have never known what it was to have a home– think of it!"
I didn't want to think of it – besides, I didn't believe it. I knew people have to have homes, dash it – it's the law. If they go in for that sort of thing – not having homes, you know – they're arrested. Still, in a rum country like China, it might be different, of course. However, I didn't take time to give this much thought, for I was so devilish floored – irritated, you know – at the girl's cold-blooded, brazen effrontery.
By Jove, I wondered if I could pink her!
I wasn't sure. I had gone at her in a cunning, subtle way: the hand of steel in the glove of what's-its-name, you know; the curving, velvet thrust of the needle rapier – all that sort of rot – and she had merely given me back a Roland for my what's-its-name. I felt a bit dashed, you know.
Idea seized me that perhaps, though, something more brutally direct would —
"See here," I said, fixing my monocle sternly and folding my arms – for I had got back my hand under pretense of fixing my part. "You don't mean to say that Jack would ever ask you to take charge here!"
Rather plain and direct, that, don't you think? Sort of heavy broadsword stroke, you know. But she took it full and clean – never winced or turned a hair. Just looked thoughtful.
"Yes," she said slowly. "Jacky says it'll have to come to that some day —some arrangement. Neither of us ever want to marry."
"Oh!"
And my monocle dropped!
Couldn't chirp another word, you know! Just stood there, round-mouthed and staring blankly – kind of fascinated, too, dash it – and wondering what particular freak cult hers was. And I felt myself getting redder and redder every second! Then the awful thought came to me that this advanced and emancipated dowd had been the friend and companion of my darling – that her poisonous influence had been felt for months; was being exerted still. I wondered how she could look me in the face, but she wasn't. No, she had switched her head around and was glaring at the servants down the hall. So I just swayed there, trying to think, and boring at the back of her head, till it came to me dully that her hair didn't match her what-you-call-'ems, and my dashed brain just seized on and clung to this like a drowning man does to a what-you-may-call-it.
"Thom-as!" the frump exploded.
One of the footmen who was doubled over, red-faced and writhing, in the exercise of some pleasantry with his companion, straightened with an aggrieved air. He ambled toward us.
"Some specimens that Mr. Billings gathered – plants and foliage; he left them in the car," jerked the frump. "See they are cared for."
The man nodded indifferently and slouched away.
Her frown gloomed after him and her voice snapped at his laggard heels:
"And Flora – send Flora to me. Is she asleep somewhere?"
She faced me with an acid grimace and shrug.
"You see how it is here, Mr. Lightnut," she grumbled querulously; "but you understand!"
Understand! By Jove, yes – I thought I did! I could see that the fellow was just sullen under the too free and easy assumptions of a guest from whom little had been experienced in the way of an occasional douceur. And dashed if I blamed him!
But I murmured some jolly rubbish, hoping every instant that Wilkes would come and lead me away.
"That's the way with them all here, from the housekeeper down," she went on gloomily. "They take advantage of the fact that the mistress of the house is abroad and the master absorbed and busy." Her voice quickened sharply: "Then do you think they care two pins about the authority of a silly girl who has been allowed to grow up untrained and ignorant of the first a b c of anything practical?"
I felt my face tingling.
"See here – Oh, dash it all!" I protested. "That's not fair, you know!"
"Fair?" She bit the word out of the air and just glared at me. "Why, they know she's a fool!"
I opened my mouth two or three times; then swallowed helplessly and grew red. Somehow, it came back to me – a time when I was a little boy and my nurse had been so shocked when I said "shucks!" I remembered how that night she read to me a tract about swear words and told me how when I grew up to be a big man, I would have to choose whether I was ever going to learn to swear or not. She said that if I didn't choose right, a day would come when I would be – oh, so sorry!
And now, dash it, the day had come and I knew that she was right! For I was sorry, by Jove!
CHAPTER XXIII
A MESSAGE AND A WARNING
"It's all right, miss," Wilkes reported; "at least, I hope so. Perkins is with him – we've been trying to persuade him to have a bath and lie down. But I don't know – "
He shook his head gloomily, then turned to me.
"If you will come with me, sir – " Then he added, and it seemed a question: "You must have made a quick run, sir. Seems like only a few minutes since we got Mr. Jack's 'phone message." His voice dropped: "From the station house, you know."
"Eh – what's that?" I paused with my foot on the first tread of the stairway. "Jack's 'phone message – from the station house?" I repeated blankly. "What are you talking about?"
Wilkes coughed reproachfully. "Why, you know, sir, he told about being arrested in front of the Kahoka Apartments. He mentioned that it was about – h'm!" He stole a furtive backward glance at the frump, but she was enjoying herself berating a fat girl she addressed as "Flora." He looked at me eloquently and whispered: "About his – h'm – stealing some black silk pajamas."
My monocle dropped, and I almost did myself.
"By Jove!" I gasped feebly.
"Yes, sir." Wilkes looked up at the paneled ceiling and stroked his chin. "He mentioned that they found them – or thought they found them in the bag he had with him."
"But he's got them on, and they are his own," I managed to get out.
Wilkes' face lightened understandingly. "Oh-h, I see, sir," he said, nodding with his jolly chin hanging; "so that's how you got him off – I was a-wondering!" He looked at me, his fishy old eyes twinkling admiration. "Very neat, if I may say, sir – making, as it were, a sort of alibi —very neat, indeed! Of course, when they puts 'em on him, they see for themselves they are his'n, and not any lady's what had been stolen – Oh, I see!"
Dash me, if I did! The only thing I saw was that it must have been Jenkins that had telephoned and the message had been twisted. What he had said, of course, was that Billings had almost been arrested. But the police finding the pajamas in his bag – I did not like that. Could it be that, after all, Billings had found his sister's pajamas in the guest-room and had quietly confiscated them? It looked devilishly, ominously like it! Or perhaps he, himself, had recovered them from Foxy Grandpa, and with more delicacy than I thought him capable of, had kept the whole matter to himself. One thing only was certain: the sleuth hounds of the law, stimulated by the extravagant reward I had offered over the telephone, had run down and recovered her pajamas. It was a relief that they were out of his hands, anyhow —I could get them again, but he couldn't. By Jove!
Alone in my room, I stood before the mirror, hands in pockets and rocking on my toes – kind of smiling, you know – and thinking what a daredevil, reckless thing it had been – clever, too, dash it – in getting them away from old Jack, and right under his nose. By Jove, I felt a bit proud about it – sort of exultation, don't you know – and I had just got off a wink at myself, when Wilkes appeared again.
"Pardon, sir, for disturbing you, but Mr. Billings is acting so queer, we are afraid to cross him; and he just insisted I take his message to you at once."
"Message?" I repeated, sobering.
"Yes, sir – something about some pajamas – "
"Pajamas?" I faltered, and I dropped into a chair. "Oh!"
Wilkes looked grave. "Pajamas seem to be the thing with him this time, sir – it's the queerest go! That's a new one, that is!" He shifted contemplatively. "The last time it was lizards and the time before blue dachshunds, but his main stand-by, so to speak, is piebald rattlesnakes – them we're used to; but this new turn, pajamas, gets me!" He shook his head dubiously. "And he won't take his off – you can't get him to; he just gets kinder peevish and goes off on the queerest streak of freak talk you ever heard. Perkins tried to coax him to take a bath, but he said he never had taken a bath in his life – and he called Perkins something awful – some name about a yard long. It squelched Perkins so that he – "
"But the message?" I suggested nervously.
"I was just a-coming to that, sir. He asks me if I knew whether you were still on the place; and when I said you were, he says to me kinder excited and impressive like: 'Well, you go to him at once —at once– and tell him I'm on the trail of the mystery of those pajamas, and I'll soon know as much about 'em as he does. Just tell him that —he'll know what I mean.'"
"Oh!" I gasped shortly.
"Yes, sir," Wilkes nodded, "but that ain't quite all. He says: 'Tell Mr. Lightnut that when I first saw those pajamas in his rooms – '" Wilkes paused inquiringly. "Did you say something, sir?"
I had not – I had only groaned!
He went on, repeating as by rote: "'When I found and took them away, I was curious and amused, but skeptical – firmly skeptical – of there being any dark mystery about them. But now I know I let myself be deceived and I mean to get at the bottom of the whole thing.'"
Wilkes seemed to kind of waver and fade before me, and then go out like a candle. Then he came back into view and I heard his voice again:
"'And what's more, you tell him I say – '"
The butler hesitated and seemed embarrassed – his heavy jowls reddened a little. He looked beyond me and coughed.
"Of course you know, sir," he said, shifting uneasily, "Mr. Billings ain't exactly himself, so to speak, so you mustn't mind. Fact is – if I may say so – he's got the most considerable case of jimmies I ever see him with, so – "
"Oh, go on!" I breathed miserably.
"Yes, sir – h'm!" Wilkes heaved distressfully, then drove doggedly ahead: "Oh, well, sir, what he says was that it was his duty, he thought, to tell the family the truth about those pajamas, so that they would know that the man they were harboring under their roof wasn't what he seemed to be." His gaze bored higher over my head, his voice tapering off so faintly I could hardly hear.
But I heard all right! Oh, yes, I got the full devilish force of it; but I couldn't speak. My dry lips touched wordlessly and I hunched deep into the hollow of the big leather rocker. I would have liked to get even deeper, and I studied wistfully a tiny floor-crack under the radiator. I thought I could make it if I were alone!
Wilkes coughed again. I winced – there was evidently more!
"Yes, sir," he murmured, as I cut a quick glance upward. "He did say further that if you weren't satisfied, though, and would prefer another trial – "
"Eh?" I bounded out of the chair. "What's that? Oh, dash it, yes– I would, by Jove!"
"Very good, sir." Wilkes looked relieved, himself. "In that case, he said he was willing to experiment again – that was his word —experiment. He said he wouldn't detain you here on his account, but he would have to ask you to stay another day or two while he made his observations."
It was a devilish cold shoulder, but I had no choice. Fact was, by Jove, I was so jolly glad for that chance, and for being trusted again by Billings, even in this half-hearted way, that I just ground my pride under my heel – why, dash it, I would have ground anything under my heel for her! I was as happy as a bird, and life was again one grand, sweet what's-its-name.
"Tell him certainly, Wilkes, and thank him – don't forget to thank him." And I believe I wrung his hand. "And – er – wait, Wilkes – couldn't you use a tenner?" I checked him on the threshold. "Let's see – no, that's a twenty – say, take that; take them both —thank you, Wilkes! – and there's a five, too. Oh, yes, you must take it all – I have no use for it, you know – never would use those particular ones!"
And, by Jove, he took it – just made him, you know. These butlers are not half bad fellows if you go at them right – I can always manage them. He sympathized with me – you could see that – dashed if the fellow wasn't almost weeping as he closed the door.
And then I just flopped down upon a divan and lay there panting like a what's-its-name – reaction, you know. So he had known! He had known when he let me come to Wolhurst, and had waited for the moment when he would have me under his roof and be able utterly to confound me. This, then, explained his mental condition, his relapse to drink again – his madness on the subject of pajamas. It was awful! By Jove, as I lay there thinking of his suspicions and diseased imaginings induced by his monstrous folly of drink – the awful curse of drink – and of what it had almost brought upon two innocent lives, I felt indignant – almost sick. Lay there helpless, wishing Jenkins would come, and wondering if I wasn't getting a bit feverish – mouth dry and craving moisture, you know. But not a thing could I find in the room except a glass – and empty. Carafe beside it, but nothing in it but water, you know, and a large, round ball of ice. So just had to fall back on the couch and try not to think of my throbbing, swollen tongue.
Mind got to wandering then, I think. Thought of Frances and how much I loved her, and of cooling streams – fizzy and gurgling – and of amber fountains, crested with sparkling, pearly sunbursts —you know! I even got to wondering if she really loved me – fact! And then came the disquieting thought of how devilish disappointing and awful it would be if Jenkins should forget a stock of my Egyptian Koroskos. What was it she had told me that night about being engaged to another and wanting to be free, now that she had met me – the darling! Then, dash me if I could remember to save me whether Jenkins had or had not said something to me that morning about packing my ashes-of-roses socks and ties – or was it about my lilac silk underwear with the mauve fleur-de-lis? Devilish annoying I couldn't remember. Of course it was this that was making her so reticent and offish about any reference to the other night – I mean it was this thing of being entangled with this other chap. So jolly sensitive and high-minded, don't you know, she didn't want to talk about our future until she had dumped the other fellow in the road – that was it.
Struck me suddenly that there was some jolly proverb thing about it: something about the old love and the new – some dashed wise, old, musty rot about that. What the deuce was it?
And luckily, just then Jenkins came!
And when he had laid out my things, and I found I was to wear a scarf of Harvard crimson – the color she admired – I was so devilish pleased and grateful to Jenkins for the decision that I thought that now I would let him have a try at the proverb.