"I"m not arguing!"
"You are!"
"I"m not!"
Jane Hubbard had practically every n.o.ble quality which a woman can possess with the exception of patience. A patient woman would have stood by, shrinking from interrupting the dialogue. Jane Hubbard"s robuster course was to raise the elephant-gun, point it at the front door, and pull the trigger.
"I thought that would stop you," she said complacently, as the echoes died away and Mr. Bennett had finished leaping into the air. She inserted a fresh cartridge, and sloped arms. "Now, the question is...."
"You made me bite my tongue!" said Mr. Bennett, deeply aggrieved.
"Serves you right!" said Jane placidly. "Now, the question is, have the fellows got away or are they hiding somewhere in the house? I think they"re still in the house."
"The police!" exclaimed Mr. Bennett, forgetting his lacerated tongue and his other grievances. "We must summon the police!"
"Obviously!" said Mrs. Hignett, withdrawing her fascinated gaze from the ragged hole in the front door, the cost of repairing which she had been mentally a.s.sessing. "We must send for the police at once."
"We don"t really need them, you know," said Jane. "If you"ll all go to bed and just leave me to potter round with my gun...."
"And blow the whole house to pieces!" said Mrs. Hignett tartly. She had begun to revise her original estimate of this girl. To her, Windles was sacred, and anyone who went about shooting holes in it forfeited her esteem.
"Shall I go for the police?" said Billie. "I could bring them back in ten minutes in the car."
"Certainly not!" said Mr. Bennett. "My daughter gadding about all over the countryside in an automobile at this time of night!"
"If you think I ought not to go alone, I could take Bream."
"Where is Bream?" said Mr. Mortimer.
The odd fact that Bream was not among those present suddenly presented itself to the company.
"Where can he be?" said Billie.
Jane Hubbard laughed the wholesome, indulgent laugh of one who is broad-minded enough to see the humor of the situation even when the joke is at her expense.
"What a silly girl I am!" she said. "I do believe that was Bream I shot at upstairs. How foolish of me making a mistake like that!"
"You shot my only son!" cried Mr. Mortimer.
"I shot at him," said Jane. "My belief is that I missed him. Though how I came to do it beats me. I don"t suppose I"ve missed a sitter like that since I was a child in the nursery. Of course," she proceeded, looking on the reasonable side, "the visibility wasn"t good, and I fired from the hip, but it"s no use saying I oughtn"t at least to have winged him, because I ought." She shook her head with a touch of self-reproach. "I shall be chaffed about this if it comes out," she said regretfully.
"The poor boy must be in his room," said Mr. Mortimer.
"Under the bed, if you ask me," said Jane, blowing on the barrel of her gun and polishing it with the side of her hand. "He"s all right! Leave him alone, and the housemaid will sweep him up in the morning."
"Oh, he can"t be!" cried Billie, revolted.
A girl of high spirit, it seemed to her repellent that the man she was engaged to marry should be displaying such a craven spirit. At that moment she despised and hated Bream Mortimer. I think she was wrong, mind you. It is not my place to criticise the little group of people whose simple annals I am relating-my position is merely that of a reporter-: but personally I think highly of Bream"s st.u.r.dy common-sense. If somebody loosed off an elephant gun at me in a dark corridor, I would climb on to the roof and pull it up after me. Still, rightly or wrongly, that was how Billie felt: and it flashed across her mind that Samuel Marlowe, scoundrel though he was, would not have behaved like this. And for a moment a certain wistfulness added itself to the varied emotions then engaging her mind.
"I"ll go and look, if you like," said Jane agreeably. "You amuse yourselves somehow till I come back."
She ran easily up the stairs, three at a time. Mr. Mortimer turned to Mr. Bennett.
"It"s all very well your saying Wilhelmina mustn"t go, but, if she doesn"t, how can we get the police? The house isn"t on the "phone, and n.o.body else can drive the car."
"That"s true," said Mr. Bennett, wavering.
"I"m going," said Billie resolutely. It occurred to her, as it has occurred to so many women before her, how helpless men are in a crisis. The temporary withdrawal of Jane Hubbard had had the effect which the removal of a rudder has on a boat. "It"s the only thing to do. I shall be back in no time."
She stepped firmly to the coat-rack, and began to put on her motoring-cloak. And just then Jane Hubbard came downstairs, shepherding before her a pale and gla.s.sy-eyed Bream.
"Right under the bed," she announced cheerfully, "making a noise like a piece of fluff in order to deceive burglars."
Billie cast a scornful look at her fiancee. Absolutely unjustified, in my opinion, but nevertheless she cast it. But it had no effect at all. Terror had stunned Bream Mortimer"s perceptions. His was what the doctors call a penumbral mental condition. He was in a sort of trance.
"Bream," said Billie, "I want you to come in the car with me to fetch the police."
"All right," said Bream.
"Get your coat."
"All right," said Bream.
"And cap."
"All right," said Bream.
He followed Billie in a docile manner out through the front door, and they made their way to the garage at the back of the house, both silent. The only difference between their respective silences was that Billie"s was thoughtful, while Bream"s was just the silence of a man who has unhitched his brain and is getting along as well as he can without it.
In the hall they had left, Jane Hubbard once more took command of affairs.
"Well, that"s something done," she said, scratching Smith"s broad back with the muzzle of her weapon. "Something accomplished, something done, has earned a night"s repose. Not that we"re going to get it yet. I think those fellows are hiding somewhere, and we ought to search the house and rout them out. It"s a pity Smith isn"t a bloodhound. I like you personally, Smithy, but you"re about as much practical use in a situation like this as a cold in the head. You"re a good cake-hound, but as a watch-dog you don"t finish in the first ten."
The cake-hound, charmed at the compliment, frisked about her feet like a young elephant.
"The first thing to do," continued Jane, "is to go through the ground-floor rooms...." She paused to strike a match against the suit of armour nearest to her, a proceeding which elicited a sharp cry of protest from Mrs. Hignett, and lit a cigarette. "I"ll go first, as I"ve got a gun...." She blew a cloud of smoke. "I shall want somebody with me to carry a light, and...."
"Tchoo!"
"What?" said Jane.
"I didn"t speak," said Mr. Mortimer. "Who am I to speak?" he went on bitterly. "Who am I that it should be supposed that I have anything sensible to suggest?"
"Somebody spoke," said Jane. "I...."
"Achoo!"
"Do you feel a draught, Mr. Bennett?" cried Jane sharply, wheeling round on him.
"There is a draught," began Mr. Bennett.