A Burglar Alarm
I must confess that the idea appealed to Leila more strongly than itdid to me. I do not deny that it struck me as original. But it doesnot follow that because an idea is original it is of much practicalvalue. Leila thought that it was just the thing which was wanted tocalm her condition of nervous disquietude. So, of course, I saidnothing.
At that time we were living at The Larches, and had only justdiscovered what a striking difference there is in a house, which isnine miles away from anywhere, in the summer and in the winter. In thesummer the place was a perfect paradise. The house was embowered intrees. Within a stone's-throw was a little stream, which murmured asit meandered, singing, as it were, songs of Arcady. But as the nightsgrew longer, and the mornings further off, it was even painful toobserve what a different aspect The Larches began to wear. The windshowled through the leafless corpses of the trees like souls in agony.The stream rose till it flooded all the neighbourhood. During the longevenings the feeling of solitude was really most depressing. As Leilajustly remarked, if anything happened in the dead of the night, and wewere in need of assistance, where should we be? The nearest doctor wasthirteen miles off. A policeman seven. The only servants we couldinduce to stay with us were an old woman, who was so old that she hadto choose between us and the workhouse, and a young girl who had cometo us out of the workhouse, and who was undoubtedly meditatingreturning whence she came. She said that it was livelier at theworkhouse than at The Larches. Of that, personally, I have not theslightest doubt.
One day in November I was reading a paper. We did get a paper, now andthen, though I trust that not many people have realised what it meansto drive, in English November weather, in an open basket-carriage,perhaps eighteen miles to get one. In this paper a paragraph caught myeye, which was headed, "A Burglar Alarm." I read it. The idea of thething was this. You were to cover the hall, and the stairs, and thebanisters, and any other place where anybody was likely to tread, withopen newspapers. Then, if a burglar came into the house in the middleof the night, he would step on the newspapers, and you would hear themrustle, and would know that he was there. The idea rather struck me. Imentioned it to Leila. Indeed, I read the paragraph to her there andthen. She was quite ecstatic.
"We'll try it to-night," she said.
I did not see the exact _sequitur_. Nor why we should lay traps forburglars because paragraphs appeared in papers. I told her so.
"If a burglar did break in, where should we be?" she asked.
That was her favourite form of inquiry. I really could not tell her,though I strongly suspected that I, for one, should be in bed. Nor didI see how, in that respect, the situation would be altered, althoughthe house was covered with newspapers, both within and without.
"My dear Frederic, how dense you are! Don't you understand that weshould at least know that the man was there, and that would be somerelief at any rate."
I was not so sure of this myself, although I did not care to interrupther flow of eloquence to tell her so.
"I'll hunt up all the newspapers I can find, and, to-night, we'llcover the stairs."
We did. Leila is of a sanguine temperament. When she has made up hermind on a subject I generally acquiesce. I acquiesced then.
Shortly before nine, which hour, as a rule, was our bedtime at TheLarches, except on those occasions when we retired earlier, wecommenced our operations.
We endeavoured to enlist the servants' sympathy and assistance; butMrs. Perkins evidently regarded the whole affair as savouring oflunacy, and Eliza did nothing else but giggle. So Leila and I had,practically, to do it all. I think that we made a very fair job of it,on the whole. We laid between a dozen and twenty newspapers down inthe hall. We covered the stairs.
By the way, it was only after we had covered the stairs that wediscovered that it would be difficult, not to say impossible, foranyone to ascend them without disarranging all that we had done; so aswe ourselves, and Mrs. Perkins and Eliza were all below, the stairshad to be done over again. The servants went up first. We followed.And, as we followed, we covered the treads with the papers as we went.We even hung newspapers over the banisters, so that if a burglar,alarmed at the noise which he found he made by stepping on the stairs,caught hold of the banisters, he would not find that there was safetythere.
I rather fancy that the preparations which we had made for an enemywho might or might not come acted on our own nervous systems.
Anyhow, hardly had we got into our bedroom and locked the door, thanthere came a noise as if all the newspapers we had just laid down werebeing stepped upon at once. And not only stepped but jumped on. Leilawas immediately in an almost painful state of agitation. I, of course,was not so much affected. Still, I own that, even to me, the thingseemed curious.
"Did you lock the door?" she gasped.
"Certainly. Didn't you see me lock it?"
"Don't let him come in!"
"Don't let who come in, my dear?"
Leila did not say. She stood listening, trembling like a leaf. All wasstill.
"Frederic, who can it be?"
"I think, my dear, that perhaps I had better go and inquire."
Scarcely had I spoken than there came the noise again. This time itwas louder than before, and more prolonged. Leila threw her arms aboutmy neck. She was almost in hysterics.
"Frederic, it's a burglar!"
I did not see very well how it could be. If it was, then the fellowmust have been secreted in the house. He must have watched us to ourbedrooms, and then have instantaneously taken advantage of the fact ofour backs being turned to indulge in acrobatic performances which werescarcely in accordance with received burglarious traditions.
"Nonsense, my dear, it is nothing of the kind."
As a matter of fact, it was not. It was the cat. Or rather, to bequite accurate, the kitten. Our cat, whose name, although the animalwas of the feminine persuasion, was Simon, had recently had anaddition to her family. In fact, five additions. Four of them, withina very short time of their birth, had passed from life--and into apail of water. One of them remained alive. I really cannot say why. Iimagine that a white eye had something to do with the matter. Thesmall creature was like a lump of soot, except about the region of oneeye. There it was as white as the driven, or the undriven--I don'tknow which it is, but I know it is one or the other--snow. Leila hadannounced that the creature was to be named Macgregor. I can onlyrepeat that, again, I cannot say why. Leila has a somewhat peculiarhabit of naming, or, perhaps, it would be more correct to write,misnaming, the animals which come into her possession. She called thepony we had at The Larches the Duke of Liverpool. She said she did sobecause there was not a Duke of Liverpool. That seemed to me aninsufficient reason why the title should have been conferred upon aspavined, ill-groomed little brute, with a nasty temper, and onlythree sound legs to move, or, as was more frequently the case, tostand upon.
It seems that Macgregor had mistaken us. He seems to have supposedthat Leila and I had occupied the better part of an hour, and takenthe stiffening out of our backs, in order to provide him with a novelform of amusement, by means of which he might while away, to his ownsatisfaction, the witching hours of the stilly night. It appears, too,that Simon, his masculinely-named female parent, had shared in hisdelusion. At any rate, when Leila was beginning to think that all theburglars in England were dancing breakdowns on those newspapers, and Iwent out to see what really was the matter, with a revolver which wasnot loaded, and which never had been loaded, in one hand, and ahairbrush in the other, I found Macgregor dashing up and down thestairs in a perfect ecstasy of enjoyment, while his wretched parent,forgetting the respect which she owed to herself, and the examplewhich she owed to him, was rushing and raging after him. I threw therevolver at Simon and the hairbrush at Macgregor.
Of course Macgregor had to be captured. Also Simon, his mother. It wasabsurd to suppose that we had covered the house from the top to thebottom with newspapers in order that these two animals might
renderlife not worth the living. But Macgregor was not easy to catch. Leilaand I had to hunt him single-handed; though, perhaps, double-handedwould have been the better expression. We endeavoured to summon theservants to our assistance. But Mrs. Perkins, who was more than alittle deaf when wide awake, was stone deaf when fast asleep. We neverentertained any hopes of being able to make her hear. Our idea was torouse Eliza, then to induce Eliza to prod Mrs. Perkins with her elbowin the side, and so to establish a chain of communication.
However, directly we began to rap at the bedroom door, Eliza seemed tobe developing strong symptoms of hysterics, apparently under theimpression that we were burglars. So, since the girl was always moreor less of an idiot, and we thought it would, perhaps, not be worthour while to send her into fits, we resolved, as has been said, tohunt Macgregor single-handed.
A kitten is a lively animal. One has an object-lesson on thisinteresting fact in natural history, when, with the aid of a singlecandle, two persons endeavour to catch a kitten in a large, rambling,old-fashioned house in the darkness of the night. We almost hadMacgregor several times. Never quite. We followed him all over thehouse with untiring and, one might almost write, increasing zeal. Upthe stairs and down the stairs. Then up again, then down again. Idoubt if, in his short life, Macgregor had ever enjoyed himself somuch before. For my part I vowed that never again should a _lususnaturae_, in the shape of a white eye, keep a kitten out of a pail.
Finally, in the back kitchen, while making a frenzied dash at him, Imissed Macgregor, and knocked the candle over. In endeavouring tosave it I cannoned into Leila. I had not previously been aware thatshe was in my near neighbourhood. With such force did I strike herthat I sent her flying backwards, until, reaching the floor, she founda resting-place amidst the pots and the pans. She fell with such aclatter, and with such a din, that, in the darkness, my blood rancold. And, having fallen, she began to scream in a manner whichdeprived me of the little self-possession I had left.
"Is that you, Leila?" I inquired.
I felt morally persuaded that it was. I did not see who else it couldbe. Still, I imagined that I might as well make sure. She did not tellme in so many words. But the voice which screamed was the voice ofLeila.
"Are you hurt?" I asked.
Again she did not answer. She only screamed. I was in darkness. I hadnot saved the candle. I could not see her. I could not feel, becauseevery time I moved I seemed to hit her with another saucepan. I had nomatches. I knew of none nearer than the bedroom. I had to leave Leilascreaming there. I had to find my way out of that back kitchen,stumbling, as it seemed to me, over all the contents of anironmonger's shop, and almost knocking out my brains against thepartly-opened door. I had to grope my way along the newspaper-coveredpassages, across the newspaper-covered hall, up the newspaper-coveredstairs. I had to hang on to the newspaper-covered banisters.
If ever there was a burglar alarm I sounded it. I heard Macgregor andSimon, his mother, indulging in their little playful pranks, above andbelow me, and everywhere at once. But the servants did not seem tohear anything. No, nothing. I had no means of knowing if Eliza hadfrightened herself into a fit, and if Mrs. Perkins was dead. As Ientered the bedroom I swept a jug and basin off the wash-hand-stand.It sounded as if I had broken the contents of a china shop. But no oneseemed to notice it--not even Simon and Macgregor. Such was my stateof agitation, and such the confusion of my mind, that I flounderedinto the middle cupboard of the wardrobe, which, in some mysteriousmanner, must have opened of its own accord. I had dragged all Leila'sdresses off the hooks and half smothered myself beneath them before Idiscovered where I was. But I found the matches. Oh, yes, I found themafter all.
I also found Leila. She was sitting up on the kitchen floor, in themidst of the pots and pans, in a frame of mind which, by me, wasunexpected. She seemed to be under the impression that my conduct hadbeen base, not to say heartless. She appeared to be under the, to me,extraordinary delusion that I had scrambled in the darkness up thenewspaper-covered stairs, and fallen over everything which I couldfall over, because I hated her. She wept. It was all I myself could doto refrain from tears.
However, we managed to secure Macgregor and his mother in thedrawing-room, in which apartment we felt morally persuaded that theywould break everything that was worth the breaking. Then Leilainsisted upon me rearranging the ingenious little trap which we hadlaid to catch a burglar.
"What," she remarked, as she wiped away a final tear, "was the use ofdoing a thing at all if we didn't do it properly?"
There was wisdom in her unanswerable inquiry, though I could not butfeel thankful as I reflected that there were no more cats in the housewho could mistake our intentions, and, under an entire misapprehension,turn them topsy-turvy once again.
Leila seemed to think that it was all owing to me that the newspapershad become disarranged. I do not know what could have put such an ideainto her head. But it was obviously because she thought so that sheinsisted upon my doing all the work, while she stood three stairsabove me and issued her instructions.
I am of a plethoric habit, and by the time I had done all the stoopingwhich Leila thought was indispensable if the burglar alarm was to beall that a burglar alarm ought to be, I was, I am convinced, within ameasurable distance of apoplexy. Indeed, I hinted to Leila thatburglars might take up their permanent residence at The Larches beforeI should ever again be persuaded to make such arrangements for theirreception. As for that paragraph in the paper, the stuff which some ofthe papers do contain is really monstrous. If I ever do encounter theeditor of that particular journal in private life, I care not wherenor when, I shall have to be bound over by the magistrates in at leasttwo sureties, I know I shall.
When Leila, on entering the bedroom, stepped on the handle of thebroken jug and perceived the rest of the remains, and that there wasabout half an inch of water on the floor, I must say that I found herbehaviour not a little trying. I had not informed her of the accidentwhich, when I was searching for the matches, I had had, because, suchwas my state of agitation, it had slipped my mind--though, I know, shedoubts it to this hour.
I was aware that she was bound to discover what had happened,therefore why should I have attempted to conceal it? Under thecircumstances it is a mere absurdity to imagine that I could haveproposed to myself to do anything of the kind; nor was it necessaryfor her to inform me, especially in the way in which she did informme, that that toilet set had been one of her wedding presents. If awedding present is to be regarded as a fetish in a family, and made asort of little god of, then all I can say is that I wish she had hadfewer wedding presents even than she did have.
I regret to have to write that Leila did not hesitate to suggest thatI had broken that toilet set on purpose. According to her it was allpart of my heartlessness and the hatred which I bore her. That I hadalmost killed myself while hunting for the matches was nothing to her.Nor did she pause to consider how I could have done it on purpose,when, such was the Egyptian nature of the darkness, I did not evenknow that the toilet set was there. We mopped the water up with thetowels. Then Leila knelt down and pieced the fragments of the toiletset together as best she could, and continued to address me as if Ihad been guilty, at the very least, of treason felony. When shediscovered that during my unfortunate search for those mislaid andmiserable matches I had also accidentally and quite unintentionallyvisited the wardrobe, I thought that she would have thrown somethingat me, even though she would have had to use as missiles pieces of thebroken ware.
It appeared that in dragging Leila's dresses off the hooks I had hadwhat one is bound to confess was the singular ill-fortune to tearholes in most, if not in all of them. Insignificant holes they werefor the most part. Really hardly worth the mentioning, though youwould not have thought they were hardly worth the mentioning if youhad heard Leila. True, I had made rather a lengthy incision in theback of her best silk, and ripped the waistband off her tailor-made;but the rest of the garments were scarcely, that is to say, from mypoint of view, not apprec
iably damaged. And when you consider that inmy agitation I had struggled as for my life in that death-trap of awardrobe, surely an allowance might have been made. Leila, however,made absolutely none.
That was not upon the whole a restful night. Neither Leila nor I wooedsweet sleep in that equable, at-peace-with-all-the-world frame of mindin which she should be wooed. It was some time before I ventured intobed at all. When at last I insinuated myself between the sheetsLeila's observations followed me. Indeed, if I may be allowed to sayso, they more than followed me. I had to coax her with all the powerof coaxing that was in me before she could be induced to even think ofslumber. Seating herself upon a chair, she announced her unalterabledetermination to spend the night there rather than consent to shareher couch with the being who had torn her dresses. I perceived quiteplainly that that burglar alarm was not going to prove an economicalcontrivance. The little mishaps which I had had were likely to prove amore serious matter than any injury which mere burglars might havecaused. But no matter. Leila protests that upon that fateful night Ipromised, as some slight solatium to her injured feelings, not tospeak of her damaged vestments, to present her with six new dresses.This sounds to me almost incredible. I scarcely think that under anycircumstances I can have gone so far as that. And when she adds, asshe does add, that I gave her my solemn assurance that she should beallowed to select and to purchase at my expense any toilet set whichshe might see, and which might take her fancy when she next went upwith me to town, I can only declare that if I did give such anundertaking it was only because I had firmly and finally resolved, inmy own mind, that while such a prospect stared me in the face shenever should go up with me to town again. But, as I have said already,no matter. I daresay that I did promise something. Now, I do not carewhat I promised. Whatever it was, the promise was extracted from meunder pressure. I never meant to keep it. That I earnestly affirm.
When finally, having for all I know promised to present her with thecontents of half the shops in Regent Street and of all the shops inPiccadilly, I had succeeded in persuading her to come to bed, theexcitement she had undergone told upon her slight and fragile frame,and ere long my Leila was asleep. I, too, slept at her side. Norduring the remaining silent watches of the night did aught disturb ourrest.
We were roused by someone knocking at our bedroom door. I awoke withthe immediate consciousness that we had overslept ourselves. As amatter of fact we had, by about two hours.
"Frederic!" exclaimed Leila, in that nervous way of hers which is aptto convey to those who do not know her the impression that the lasttrump has sounded. "There's someone at the door!"
"Who's there?" I asked.
The voice which answered was the voice of Eliza.
"If you please, sir, there's been robbers in the house!"
"Robbers! Don't talk such nonsense!"
"If you please, sir, it ain't nonsense. Mrs. Perkins says there have!"
And what Mrs. Perkins said was true. There had been robbers in thehouse; or, at any rate, a robber; a midnight felon; a rifler of thehomes of honest men. He had made his entry by way of the back kitchenwindow. He had had his supper in the front kitchen. A hearty meal itmust have been. There were the remains of the feast still on theboard. He seemed to have eaten all that there was worth eating. He haddrunk all that there was worth drinking. He had certainly taken awaywith him on his departure all that there was worth taking. He hadstripped the house of all its valuables. True, they were not many; butthey were our all. And they were gone.
I imagine that few burglaries have been better carried through. He wasa conscientious and observant workman of his kind. The ruthlessvillain! I hope one day to lay hands upon him somewhere. The countyconstabulary, I am certain, never will.
As for the burglar alarm--the burglar alarm was arranged in a neatheap in a corner of the hall. It had not fulfilled the purpose it hadbeen intended to fulfil. Like Macgregor and Simon, his mother, theburglar had misunderstood the intentions which had actuated ourbosoms, Leila's and mine, when we had placed it there. He cannot haveread the paragraph we had noticed in the paper.
I suspect that that burglar must have been, in his way--his own way--ahumorist. He had seen those newspapers apparently; and, if youreflect, it was not strange: he had wondered what they meant by beingthere. Possibly he had supposed that they had been placed there tosave the oilcloth and the carpets from being stepped upon. Anyhow,being certain that at any rate his boots were clean, and that hestepped lightly, he picked up the newspapers carefully one by one,folded them neatly into four, and placed them, as I have said, in alittle heap in a corner of the hall.