Until this moment, as has been indicated, occupied with other and sweeter thoughts, Eustace Trumper had thrust into the background of his mind the mystery of that agile form which he had seen flitting up the stairs. It now came flooding back like a tidal wave, and he realized that his first suspicions had been correct. Irregular though it might be for burglars to start operating at an hour like this, the figure he had seen must have been that of a member of that unpleasant section of the community—some health-loving marauder, no doubt, who did not approve of late hours and liked to get his crib-cracking done in good time for the early bed and the long, refreshing sleep.
He based his reasoning on the fact that the noise, whatever it had been, had come from inside the wardrobe. Honest men, he felt, do not hide in wardrobes, and he was, of course, perfectly correct. The simple question "Do you hide in wardrobes?" is a handy means of separating the sheep from the goats in this world. It is the acid test. At the man who answers "Yes," we look askance, and rightly.
On this point, Eustace Trumper was clear. It was when he started to try to decide what he was going to do about it that he found doubts and uncertainty creeping in.
Mankind may be divided roughly into two classes—those who, becoming aware of cracksmen in their wardrobe, fling open the door and confront them, and those who d0 not. It was to the latter group that Eustace Trumper belonged. What would have stimulated Lord Uffenham to instant action induced in him only profound thought.
The ideal procedure, of course, as he realised, would have been to steal softly to the wardrobe and turn the key in the door. Nothing makes a burglar feel so silly as being locked in a wardrobe. But even from where he stood he could see that there was no key in the door. This blocked the exploration of that avenue, and he found himself quite unable to think of an alternative scheme—one, at least, which, while producing solid results, would avoid danger to the person.
And then, as he stood irresolute, there came floating into his mind like drifting thistledown the thought that there were other and younger men than he in the house, and that the risk of his becoming embroiled in unpleasantness could be avoided by handing over the whole conduct of the affair to one of these. Eustace Trumper had no objection to danger to the person, provided it was some other person. He was not familiar with the fine old slogan, Let George Do It, but if he had been, those were the words which would now have sprung to his lips, with the necessary substitution for "George" of the name J. Sheringham Adair.
The great advantage of having a resident detective in the house is that, when anything like an incursion of burglars is bothering you, you can shove it off on to him, and tell him to deal with it and put it down on the bill. Jeff's bedroom, he believed, was on the floor above, and a housemaid, whom he met as he tiptoed out, verified this supposition. Third door along the passage, said the housemaid, and thither he repaired. He had considered for a moment the idea of taking the girl into his confidence regarding the contents of his wardrobe, but dismissed it. Housemaids, after all, are but broken reeds to lean upon in such an emergency. They lack stamina and the will to win.
But though he started out towards the third door along the passage, he did not reach his destination. The second door along the passage was the bathroom which served that part of the house, and as he came abreast of it there proceeded from within the sound of a voice raised in song. It was easily identifiable as that of the man he was seeking. On the previous morning, he had heard Jeff singing in the rhododendron walk, and it was not an experience one could forget. He halted, and placing his lips to the keyhole, said: "Oh … er ..."
The only response which greeted this effort was the sound of splashing and a renewed burst of song. Mr. Trumper, with some vague idea of not allowing himself to be overheard by the man in the wardrobe a floor below, had pitched his voice in an almost inaudible whisper. He was aware of this, but nevertheless found himself annoyed. He did not approve of hired investigators breaking into song. An old-fashioned man, with rigid views upon these things, there seemed to him something improper and disrespectful about such a procedure. You engage a detective, he felt, to detect, not to behave like a canary.
It was, accordingly, in a louder tone, with a note of asperity in it, that he spoke again.
"Mr. Adair."
Once more, all that came through was the whoosh of water and a repeated statement on the bather's part that some unidentified third party was the top.
"Mr. Adair!"
This time he was more successful. A cheerful voice shouted "Hullo?"
"This is Mr. Trumper, Mr. Adair."
"I shan't be a minute."
"I do not want a bath---"
"All right I'll be out in a second. Excuse me a moment. I have to catch up with my singing."
Mr. Trumper felt discouraged. It occurred to him that even if the other could be induced to suspend his rendition of "You're The Top," which he had now resumed, so that the position of affairs could be explained to him, it would be some considerable time before he could become dried and dressed and in a condition to deal with housebreakers. There is nothing, of course, that so brisks a young man up and puts him in shape for setting about the criminal classes as a good splash in the tub, but what Mr. Trumper wanted was somebody already booted and spurred. On these occasions, time is of the essence.
It was at this moment that Lionel Green came out of the fourth door along the passage, clad in a futuristic dressing-gown and carrying sponge and loofah. He looked coldly at Mr. Trumper, whom he disliked.
"Evening," he said reservedly.
He tested the bathroom door, found it locked and clicked his tongue, annoyed. This meant that he would have to go to the floor below for his ablutions. With a distant nod at Mr. Trumper, he was passing on, when the latter came trotting after him.
"Oh, Lionel," bleated Mr. Trumper. "Just a minute, Lionel. I want to speak to you, Lionel."
CHAPTER XVII
The reason Lionel Green disliked Mr. Trumper was that he suspected the latter of being a spy in his aunt's service and the man who had told her that he, Lionel, sometimes looked in at the Stag and Antlers for a snack. He made no attempt to conceal his displeasure at being detained by such a one.
"Well?" he said, with much the same stiffness as had marked Lord Uffenham's manner, when using the same conversational gambit to Chimp Twist.
Mr. Trumper sensed the hostility in his tone, but in view of the urgency of the crisis decided to ignore it.
"Lionel, a most disturbing thing has happened. There is a burglar in my wardrobe."
Lionel Green's beautifully shaped eyebrows rose.
"A burglar?"
"A burglar."
"A burglar in your wardrobe?"
"Yes."
"There can't be."
"There is."
"Nonsense. You must have imagined it."
That sense of discouragement, that feeling of not being en rapport with his audience, which had come to Mr. Trumper during his talk with Jeff, began to afflict him once more. This was not the spirit of ready sympathy and selfless service for which he had hoped.
"I did not imagine it," he said petulantly. "I heard him."
"Heard him what?"
"What do you mean, heard him what?"
"What did he do that you heard?"
"He made a noise."
"What sort of noise?"
This caused Mr. Trumper to search his memory and ponder. He had not made any attempt till now to analyse the extraordinary sound which had proceeded from the interior of the wardrobe. Thus taxed, he rather rashly tried to imitate it, and found his companion eyeing him with open incredulity.
"It couldn't have sounded like that," said Lionel. "There isn't such a noise."
Mr. Trumper in his exasperation broke into what looked like the opening steps of a tribal dance.
"Well, never mind what it sounded like," he cried feverishly. "What does it matter what it sounded like? The important thing is that there should have been anyone making nois
es in my wardrobe at all. The exact kind of noise he was making is wholly immaterial."
"How do you know he was in your wardrobe?"
"I keep telling you the sound came from there."
"Probably someone out in the corridor."
"The sound came from my wardrobe, I tell you."
"You thought it came from your wardrobe," corrected Lionel Green. "Did you look inside?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"I—er—it was not my place to do so. It was young man's work."
Again, Lionel Green's delicate eyebrows rose. "You aren't suggesting that I should do it?"
"Yes, I am."
"Well, I'm not going to. I haven't time. You know how annoyed Aunt Clarissa gets, if people are late for dinner. I shall only just be able to have my bath, as it is."
"You're afraid," cried Mr. Trumper, forgetting all courtesy.
"Pooh," said Lionel Green, and passed on, flicking a defiant loofah.
Mr. Trumper remained where he was, seething. The abruptness of Lionel's manner would alone have been enough to wake the fiend that slept in him, and in addition to this he was feeling scornful and contemptuous. He was convinced that the explanation he had advanced of the other's reluctance to assist had been the correct one. Mrs. Cork, he knew, admired her nephew, but to Mr. Trumper there came the growing conviction that he had feet of clay, and cold ones, at that.
He was still fuming helplessly, when Anne came down the stairs. Secretary-companions have small rooms up near the roof.
"Why, hullo, Mr. Trumper," she said. "You're looking rather lost. Is something the matter?"
To Mr. Trumper, her advent had brought a marked improvement in the general outlook. It was not that he supposed that she could be of any practical assistance, for he classed secretary-companions with housemaids as among Nature's non-combatants, but she would listen and sympathise, and a sympathetic audience was what he most needed. So far, he had had the misfortune to draw either deaf adders who stopped their ears and sang "You're The Top," or poltroons of distant and supercilious manner, who shirked their obvious duty on the thin plea that if they were late for dinner their aunts would be annoyed.
"Oh, Miss Benedick," he squeaked, "I hope you will not be alarmed, but there is a burglar in my wardrobe."
He had not relied in vain on her womanly sympathy. Anne's eyes widened. Shipley Hall for excitement, she felt.
"A burglar?"
"Yes."
"How do you know?"
"I heard him."
"You couldn't have been mistaken?"
To a man who is telling a tale of burglars in wardrobes, there is a world of difference between such a query and the curt statement, chilled by an Oxford accent, that he must have imagined the whole thing.
"I assure you I was not mistaken. He made a noise."
"What sort of noise?"
When Lionel Green had asked the same question, Mr. Trumper had been exasperated, and possibly for that reason had failed to do himself justice as an imitator of sneezing burglars. His performance now was on a different plane altogether. It still did not come anywhere near suggesting what it was supposed to represent, but it lacked that element of unearthliness, of being something out of another and a horrible world, which had confirmed Lionel Green in his scepticism. You could not have said just what the noise was which he was supposed to be reproducing, but at least it sounded possible.
" Something like that," he said.
Anne was looking thoughtful, as well she might.
"You don't think it could have been the cat?"
"What cat?"
"Any cat. Cats make a noise like that, if you step on them by accident. But, of course," said Anne, for she was a kindhearted girl and saw that her companion could stand only just so much of this sort of thing, "you didn't step on this cat."
"Which cat?"
"The cat in the wardrobe, if it had been a cat, but of course it wasn't," said Anne, making the thing clear to the meanest intelligence.
Mr. Trumper clutched his forehead. For a moment he had had a nightmare feeling as if he had been about to plunge into an abyss, unable to stop himself though fully aware of the disadvantages of such an action. The Gadarene swine, rounding into the straight, must have experienced much the same uneasy sensation.
"Do you mind," he said in a low voice, "if we do not talk about cats? It merely clouds the issue. I am prepared to give you the most solemn assurance, Miss Benedick, that there was a man inside my wardrobe. As a matter of fact," said Mr. Trumper, suddenly brightening, for he realised that here was just the telling piece of evidence his story required, "I saw him."
"Oh, you looked in the wardrobe?"
Mr. Trumper hastened to shake his head. The conversation, he perceived, was on the verge of slipping away from him again.
"No," he replied. "I am referring to an earlier occasion. I was coming out of the billiard-room, and I just caught a glimpse of a man running very rapidly up the stairs."
"Golly!" said Anne, impressed. This looked like the real thing. "What did you do?"
"I did nothing. He was gone like a flash, and I naturally supposed that he was one of the residents of the house. Now, I am convinced that he was a burglar. Having run up the stairs, he must have concealed himself in my room."
"Hid in the wardrobe.”
"Precisely."
"What happened when he made the noise?"
"I was extremely taken aback."
"I mean, you didn't go and investigate?"
Mr. Trumper shuddered.
"No," he said. "I did not."
"I wonder if he's still there."
"Undoubtedly. If he had left the room, I should have seen him."
"Then it seems to me," said Anne, "that the next move is to collect a gang."
"I beg your pardon?"
"I mean, get reinforcements. What we want here is a horny-handed assistant or two. Why not try Mr. Adair?"
"I did. But he was singing in his bath, and I was unable to make him understand. And when I approached Lionel Green for help, he affected to disbelieve my story. The truth was, of course," said Mr. Trumper vengefully, "that he was afraid."
Anne started.
"Oh, no!"
Mr. Trumper was firm.
"Afraid," he repeated. "Terrified. He slunk away, and refused to have anything to do with the matter."
Anne was biting her lip. It is not pleasant for a girl of spirit to be compelled to recognise in the man to whom she has pledged herself the absence of the quality she most admires in the male, and she would have given much to be able to dismiss the accusation as absurd. But she knew that it was not. She remembered the affair of the stuffed antelope. The man who refuses to go into his aunt's study and delve into stuffed antelopes is a man who, if he declines to apprehend burglars in wardrobes, does so from dastardly motives.
For an instant, as had happened before, there came to her the disagreeable suspicion that Lionel Green was not, as she had supposed, the top, but somewhere very low down on the list. She tried to scout the idea, but it would not be scouted. The poisoned barb remained.
"The man is a poltroon," proceeded Mr. Trumper, for the Trumpers did not lightly forgive. "And he has left me in a most unpleasant quandary. I wish to finish dressing, and how can I, with burglars liable to come bursting out of wardrobes at any moment?"
Anne saw his point, and it seemed to her well taken. Under such conditions, the fastidious dresser cannot do himself justice. She reflected.
"You say Mr. Adair was having a bath?"
"Yes. He assured me that he would only be a minute, but the impression I received was that he intended to remain wallowing in the water indefinitely. In any case, we cannot possibly delay until he is dried and dressed. I want something done about it immediately. My tie is in my bedroom. So is my coat. And I have not yet brushed my hair."
Anne nodded, and fell again to thinking. Her brows were bent, and the tip of her nose wiggled.
"Do you know
," she said, "I think our best plan is to go to Mrs. Cork."
The idea came as something quite new to Mr. Trumper.
"Mrs. Cork?" he echoed, turning it over in his mind. He believed in keeping the women out of these things.
"Yes, I know she is of the female sex," said Anne, reading his thoughts. "But does that matter—I mean, in the case of an exceptional woman like her? You wouldn't object to a spot of help from Boadicea, if she were handy?"
Mr. Trumper admitted that the warlike queen of the Iceni might have been of considerable assistance in a crisis like the present one, and that he would have welcomed her co-operation.
"Mrs. Cork," said Anne, "rather reminds one of Boadicea, don't you think?"
"There is a resemblance."
"And after the sort of life she has led, this kind of thing will be right up her street. I mean, she has probably spent half her time these last years shooing lions and leopards and cannibal chiefs and things like that out of her tent."
Mr. Trumper endorsed this. Mrs. Cork had often held him spellbound with tales of her adventures in the wilds, and he had been left with a confused impression that on most of these expeditions of hers her tent had been a sort of social centre for the wild life of the neighbourhood. "Let's all go round to Cork's," lions had said to one another, when they found time hanging a little heavy on their paws of an evening. And the same thing applied to cannibal chiefs and leopards.
"You are perfectly right," he said, pleased at this happy solution of a problem which had threatened to become an impasse. "Shall we go to her at once?"
"Tally ho!" said Anne.
CHAPTER XVIII