"They were my words, sir, not hers," he explained desperately. "I was merely putting two and two together--forming an opinion from her manner not from her words. She is very particular to mention everything you do for her, and thanks me if I call her attention to anything she may have forgotten. She certainly appreciates your kindness to the baby."
"That is extremely gratifying," said I acidly.
He hesitated once more. "Of course, you understand that the divorce itself is absolute. It"s only the matter of the child that remains unsettled. The--"
I fairly barked at him. "What the devil do you mean by that, sir? What has the divorce got to do with it?"
"A great deal, I should say," said he, with the rare, almost superhuman patience that has made him so valuable to me.
"Upon my soul!" was all that I could say.
Hawkes rapped on the door luckily at that instant.
"The men from the telephone company are here, sir, and the electricians.
Where are they to begin, sir?"
"Tell them to wait," said I. Then I hurried to the top of the east wing to ask if she had the least objection to an extension "phone being placed in my study. She thought it would be very nice, so I returned with instructions for the men to put in three instruments: one in her room, one in mine, and one in the butler"s pantry. It seemed a very jolly arrangement all "round. As for the electric bell system, it would speak for itself.
Toward the middle of the afternoon when Mr. p.o.o.pend.y.k.e and I were hard at work on my synopsis we were startled by a dull, mysterious pounding on the wall hard by. We paused to listen. It was quite impossible to locate the sound, which ceased almost immediately. Our first thought was that the telephone men were drilling a hole through the wall into my study. Then came the sharp rat-a-ta-tat once more. Even as we looked about us in bewilderment, the portly facade of Ludwig the Red moved out of alignment with a heart-rending squeak and a long thin streak of black appeared at the inner edge of the frame, growing wider,--and blacker if anything,--before our startled eyes.
"Are you at home?" inquired a voice that couldn"t by any means have emanated from the chest of Ludwig, even in his mellowest hours.
I leaped to my feet and started across the room with great strides.
My secretary"s eyes were glued to the magic portrait. His fingers, looking like claws, hung suspended over the keyboard of the typewriter.
"By the Lord Harry!" I cried. "Yes!"
The secret door swung quietly open, laying Ludwig"s face to the wall, and in the aperture stood my amazing neighbour, as lovely a portrait as you"d see in a year"s trip through all the galleries in the world.
She was smiling down upon us from the slightly elevated position, a charming figure in the very latest Parisian hat and gown. Something grey and black and exceedingly chic, I remember saying to p.o.o.pend.y.k.e afterwards in response to a question of his.
"I am out making afternoon calls," said she. Her face was flushed with excitement and self-consciousness. "Will you please put a chair here so that I may hop down?"
For answer, I reached up a pair of valiant arms. She laughed, leaned forward and placed her hands on my shoulders. My hands found her waist and I lifted her gently, gracefully to the floor.
"How strong you are!" she said admiringly. "How do you do, Mr.
p.o.o.pend.y.k.e! Dear me! I am not a ghost, sir!"
His fingers dropped to the keyboard. "How do you do," he jerked out.
Then he felt of his heart. "My G.o.d! I don"t believe it"s going."
Together we inspected the secret doors, going so far as to enter the room beyond, the Countess peering through after us from my study. To my amazement the room was absolutely bare. Bed, trunks, garments, chairs--everything in fact had vanished as if whisked away by an all-powerful genie.
"What does this mean?" I cried, turning to her.
"I don"t mind sleeping upstairs, now that I have a telephone," she said serenely. "Max and Rudolph moved everything up this afternoon."
p.o.o.pend.y.k.e and I returned to the study. I, for one, was bitterly disappointed.
"I"m sorry that I had the "phone put in," I said.
"Please don"t call it a "phone!" she objected. "I hate the word "phone."
"So do I," said p.o.o.pend.y.k.e recklessly.
I glared at _him_. What right had he to criticise my manner of speech?
He started to leave the room, after a perfunctory scramble to put his papers in order, but she broke off in the middle of a sentence to urge him to remain. She announced that she was calling on both of us.
"Please don"t stop your work on my account," she said, and promptly sat down at his typewriter and began pecking at the keys. "You must teach me how to run a typewriter, Mr. p.o.o.pend.y.k.e. I shall be as poor as a church mouse before long, and I know father won"t help me. I may have to become a stenographer."
He blushed abominably. I don"t believe I"ve ever seen a more unattractive fellow than p.o.o.pend.y.k.e.
"Oh, every cloud has its silver lining," said he awkwardly.
"But I am used to gold," said she. The bell on the machine tinkled.
"What do I do now?" He made the shift and the s.p.a.ce for her.
"Go right ahead," said he. She scrambled the whole alphabet across his neat sheet but he didn"t seem to mind.
"Isn"t it jolly, Mr. Smart? If Mr. p.o.o.pend.y.k.e should ever leave you, I may be able to take his place as your secretary."
I bowed very low. "You may be quite sure, Countess, that I shall dismiss Mr. p.o.o.pend.y.k.e the instant you apply for his job."
"And I shall most cheerfully abdicate," said he. Silly a.s.s!
I couldn"t help thinking how infinitely more attractive and perilous she would be as a typist than the excellent young woman who had married the jeweller"s clerk, and what an improvement on p.o.o.pend.y.k.e!
"I came down to inquire when you would like to go exploring for buried treasure, Mr. Smart," she said, after the cylinder had slipped back with a bang that almost startled her out of her pretty boots and caused her to give up typewriting then and there, forevermore.
"Never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day," quoted I glibly.
She looked herself over. "If you knew how many times this gown had to be put off till to-morrow, you wouldn"t ask me to ruin it the second time I"ve had it on my back."
"It is an uncommonly attractive gown," said I.
"Shall we set to-morrow for the treasure quest?"
"To-morrow is Sunday."
"Can you think of a better way to kill it?"
"Yes, you might have me down here for an old-fashioned midday dinner."
"Capital! Why not stay for supper, too?"
"It would be too much like spending a day with relatives," she said.
"We"ll go treasure hunting on Monday. I haven"t the faintest notion where to look, but that shouldn"t make any difference. No one else ever had. By the way, Mr. Smart, I have a bone to pick with you. Have you seen yesterday"s papers? Well, in one of them, there is a long account of my--of Mr. Pless"s visit to your castle, and a lengthy interview in which you are quoted as saying that he is one of your dearest friends and a much maligned man who deserves the sympathy of every law-abiding citizen in the land."
"An abominable lie!" I cried indignantly. "Confound the newspapers!"