"Sounds funny!"
"Bertie, shall I tell you what I suspect?"
"What"s that?"
"The suspicion will no doubt sound to you incredible, but it alone seems to fit the facts as we know them. I incline to the belief that the parcel has been stolen."
"Oh, I say! Surely not!"
"Wait! Hear me out. Though I have said nothing to you before, or to anyone else, concerning the matter, the fact remains that during the past few weeks a number of objects--some valuable, others not--have disappeared in this house. The conclusion to which one is irresistibly impelled is that we have a kleptomaniac in our midst. It is a peculiarity of kleptomania, as you are no doubt aware, that the subject is unable to differentiate between the intrinsic values of objects. He will purloin an old coat as readily as a diamond ring, or a tobacco pipe costing but a few shillings with the same eagerness as a purse of gold. The fact that this ma.n.u.script of mine could be of no possible value to any outside person convinces me that----"
"But, uncle, one moment; I know all about those things that were stolen. It was Meadowes, my man, who pinched them. I caught him snaffling my silk socks. Right in the act, by Jove!"
He was tremendously impressed.
"You amaze me, Bertie! Send for the man at once and question him."
"But he isn"t here. You see, directly I found that he was a sock-sneaker I gave him the boot. That"s why I went to London--to get a new man."
"Then, if the man Meadowes is no longer in the house it could not be he who purloined my ma.n.u.script. The whole thing is inexplicable."
After which we brooded for a bit. Uncle Willoughby pottered about the room, registering baffledness, while I sat sucking at a cigarette, feeling rather like a chappie I"d once read about in a book, who murdered another cove and hid the body under the dining-room table, and then had to be the life and soul of a dinner party, with it there all the time. My guilty secret oppressed me to such an extent that after a while I couldn"t stick it any longer. I lit another cigarette and started for a stroll in the grounds, by way of cooling off.
It was one of those still evenings you get in the summer, when you can hear a snail clear its throat a mile away. The sun was sinking over the hills and the gnats were fooling about all over the place, and everything smelled rather topping--what with the falling dew and so on--and I was just beginning to feel a little soothed by the peace of it all when suddenly I heard my name spoken.
"It"s about Bertie."
It was the loathsome voice of young blighted Edwin! For a moment I couldn"t locate it. Then I realised that it came from the library. My stroll had taken me within a few yards of the open window.
I had often wondered how those Johnnies in books did it--I mean the fellows with whom it was the work of a moment to do about a dozen things that ought to have taken them about ten minutes. But, as a matter of fact, it was the work of a moment with me to chuck away my cigarette, swear a bit, leap about ten yards, dive into a bush that stood near the library window, and stand there with my ears flapping.
I was as certain as I"ve ever been of anything that all sorts of rotten things were in the offing.
"About Bertie?" I heard Uncle Willoughby say.
"About Bertie and your parcel. I heard you talking to him just now. I believe he"s got it."
When I tell you that just as I heard these frightful words a fairly substantial beetle of sorts dropped from the bush down the back of my neck, and I couldn"t even stir to squash the same, you will understand that I felt pretty rotten. Everything seemed against me.
"What do you mean, boy? I was discussing the disappearance of my ma.n.u.script with Bertie only a moment back, and he professed himself as perplexed by the mystery as myself."
"Well, I was in his room yesterday afternoon, doing him an act of kindness, and he came in with a parcel. I could see it, though he tried to keep it behind his back. And then he asked me to go to the smoking-room and snip some cigars for him; and about two minutes afterwards he came down--and he wasn"t carrying anything. So it must be in his room."
I understand they deliberately teach these dashed Boy Scouts to cultivate their powers of observation and deduction and what not.
Devilish thoughtless and inconsiderate of them, I call it. Look at the trouble it causes.
"It sounds incredible," said Uncle Willoughby, thereby bucking me up a trifle.
"Shall I go and look in his room?" asked young blighted Edwin. "I"m sure the parcel"s there."
"But what could be his motive for perpetrating this extraordinary theft?"
"Perhaps he"s a--what you said just now."
"A kleptomaniac? Impossible!"
"It might have been Bertie who took all those things from the very start," suggested the little brute hopefully. "He may be like Raffles."
"Raffles?"
"He"s a chap in a book who went about pinching things."
"I cannot believe that Bertie would--ah--go about pinching things."
"Well, I"m sure he"s got the parcel. I"ll tell you what you might do.
You might say that Mr. Berkeley wired that he had left something here.
He had Bertie"s room, you know. You might say you wanted to look for it."
"That would be possible. I----"
I didn"t wait to hear any more. Things were getting too hot. I sneaked softly out of my bush and raced for the front door. I sprinted up to my room and made for the drawer where I had put the parcel. And then I found I hadn"t the key. It wasn"t for the deuce of a time that I recollected I had shifted it to my evening trousers the night before and must have forgotten to take it out again.
Where the d.i.c.kens were my evening things? I had looked all over the place before I remembered that Jeeves must have taken them away to brush. To leap at the bell and ring it was, with me, the work of a moment. I had just rung it when there was a footstep outside, and in came Uncle Willoughby.
"Oh, Bertie," he said, without a blush, "I have--ah--received a telegram from Berkeley, who occupied this room in your absence, asking me to forward him his--er--his cigarette-case, which, it would appear, he inadvertently omitted to take with him when he left the house. I cannot find it downstairs; and it has, therefore, occurred to me that he may have left it in this room. I will--er--just take a look around."
It was one of the most disgusting spectacles I"ve ever seen--this white-haired old man, who should have been thinking of the hereafter, standing there lying like an actor.
"I haven"t seen it anywhere," I said.
"Nevertheless, I will search. I must--ah--spare no effort."
"I should have seen it if it had been here--what?"
"It may have escaped your notice. It is--er--possibly in one of the drawers."
He began to nose about. He pulled out drawer after drawer, pottering around like an old bloodhound, and babbling from time to time about Berkeley and his cigarette-case in a way that struck me as perfectly ghastly. I just stood there, losing weight every moment.
Then he came to the drawer where the parcel was.
"This appears to be locked," he said, rattling the handle.
"Yes; I shouldn"t bother about that one. It--it"s--er--locked, and all that sort of thing."
"You have not the key?"
A soft, respectful voice spoke behind me.
"I fancy, sir, that this must be the key you require. It was in the pocket of your evening trousers."