Part 44 (2/2)

Then, exceeding rash, he retraced his way up the steps as best he could, with the apparent intention of inquiring why he had been handled in such unceremonious fas.h.i.+on. Before, however, he had gained the actual summit, he went flying backwards, with the lady's a.s.sistance, in such summary fas.h.i.+on that it was only the back of his head being brought into contact with the pavement that stopped him.

When he understood, dimly, what had happened, he began to raise an agreeable hullabaloo, mingling imprecations on all and sundry, with curses on the lady in particular, and cries of help to the public and the police. Mrs. Lamb, for the third time that day, was brought into contact with a constable. A policeman appearing round the corner, perceiving Mr. Cottrell gesticulating on the pavement, came sauntering up to learn what was wrong. The butler explained.

”I give her into custody, that's what I do!--tried to murder me, that's what she's done!--broken my brains out!--a.s.sault and battery, that's what it is; and that's what I charge her with, policeman. You put the handcuffs on her, and take her to the station, and I'll come round and give all the evidence that's wanted.”

The officer was calmer than Mr. Cottrell. He heard the butler to an end, then he glanced at his mistress.

”What's wrong?”

She explained.

”That man's my butler, although you would not think it to look at him. He has taken advantage of my absence to get into that condition. He kept me waiting for more than twenty minutes on the doorstep, and then when he opened he was not only drunk but insolent. I have dismissed him from my service, and put him into the street, and out in the street he stops. I should be obliged by your moving him away, and preventing his making a disturbance in front of the house.”

The policeman, who was young, leaped to the conclusion that right was on the side of the lady. He was disposed to give the butler but a short shrift.

”Now, then, move on! Away you go! We don't want any of your nonsense here!”

Mr. Cottrell vehemently objected.

”Don't talk to me like that, policeman! She owes me three months' wages; there's another nearly due, and another instead of notice. You let her pay me five months' wages before she talks of putting me out into the street.”

The policeman looked up at the lady.

”Is what he says true?”

”It's an entire falsehood. Any claim he may have to make must be made in the proper quarter.”

She threw the door wide open. By now other members of the household had, unwisely enough, come up to see what the discussion was about. Her action revealed them.

”You see, officer, here are some more of my servants. They, also, have taken advantage of my absence, and are like that man--drunk. I dismiss them all--now. Perhaps you won't mind coming in and seeing their boxes packed; I suspect them of having property of mine in their possession.”

The policeman went in--Mr. Cottrell went in also, with his a.s.sistance; he saw their boxes packed. It was a process in which the packers fared badly, the butler in particular. Each servant in the house, almost without exception, was shown to be in possession of property which was indisputably Mrs. Lamb's. Their mistress' att.i.tude was one of magnanimity. She declined to prefer a charge against them, at any rate just then, whatever she might do later. Though, of course, under the circ.u.mstances, to pay them anything in the shape of wages was altogether out of the question. All she wanted to do was to see their backs. And she saw them. A shamefaced, miserable, draggle-tailed crew they looked, as, one after the other, under the policeman's cold official glance, they took their boxes out into the street. Then Mrs. Lamb presented that zealous young officer with a sovereign.

He made short work of clearing the debris away from the front.

So Mrs. Lamb was left alone in that great mansion without a servant to wait on her of any sort or kind.

She went into the boudoir; that and her bedroom, and indeed the whole house, was exactly in the same condition in which she had found it in the morning. It seemed as if no one had moved a finger to put anything in order. Removing her hat, she sat down and tried to think. The result was a failure. Her thoughts would not travel on the lines she wished; they would launch out in undesirable directions. She had scarcely been there a minute before she began to become conscious of an unpleasant feeling that she was not alone, when, all the time, she knew she was. An odd, morbid obsession began to overpower her, as, directly she was alone, it had shown an uncomfortable apt.i.tude to do of late.

Putting her hands up to her eyes she rubbed them with her palms, as if she were endeavouring to rub something away from them.

Then, removing her hands again, she looked about her, queerly.

”Of course it's ridiculous, and I suppose the real explanation is that I'm not so well as I ought to be; but it's funny how I'm always seeming to be back in his room, and how plainly I can see it all; and the bed--the bed.” There was a rigid expression on her face which it was not agreeable to observe, as she herself seemed to understand. Standing up she gave herself a little shake, as if she were trying to shake something from off her.

”This won't do--it won't do. It's not healthy. And yet there's something which I ought to look at--to see; to understand. It's something in the room. It's not the bed--not only the bed; it's something else. I wish I could think what it was; I wish I could understand; then perhaps it might go.”

The overturned decanter which had been on the buhl table in the morning was still there. She picked it up, holding it up to the light. It was empty. She went to what seemed to be a buhl liqueur case which stood on the floor in a corner. It was locked. She went to her bedroom to look for the key. It was not in its usual place.

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