Ambrotox and Limping Dick Part 41

When they had expressed the inexpressible and explained the obvious, he returned to that fish-hook phrase of hers.

"What made you put it like that, young woman?" he asked.

"Your eyes, d.i.c.k. For a moment you were afraid, wondering whether I should toe the line exactly. Your eyes got hard. They stabbed right into me, and they had a sort of backward wings, like fish-hooks--father's got a horrid arrow like that--won't come out again without tearing. Yours won't ever, d.i.c.k."

CHAPTER XXIV.

"KUK-KUK-KUK-KATIE."

Soft, even light filled the wide entrance hall of No. -- Park Lane.

The single, expressionless footman appeared almost hopeful, knowing his release was near; for the time was only twenty minutes short of midnight.

The road between the front door and the park railings was almost as peaceful as the houses on its one side, and the gra.s.s and trees on the other. Hardly a hoof on the wood, and but a rare motor rus.h.i.+ng, at intervals, with soft, apologetic speed over the thoroughfare from north to south.

But there came at last a taxi--Charles, in spite of thick door and perfect roadway, recognised its venal characteristics--a taxi which hesitated, stopped, started again, and came to rest at the very door of No. --.

Though his ears could scarce believe it on that Sat.u.r.day night, when there was not within earshot any function or reception going on, there came feet up those splendid, shallow steps--feet which seemed to halt, and even vacillate beneath a swaying body.

The mere suspicion was shocking; but even worse, to that cultivated ear, was the clamour of the bell which followed.

But when, having opened the door, Charles examined the ringer, he was astounded, not to say appalled.

The man, though his eyes were heavy and his voice that of one driving himself to the limit of his strength, was certainly not intoxicated; for in that matter, Charles the footman knew and trusted the nicety of his own judgment. But the condition of the dress, the cut cheek-bone, the puffy eye above it, the dirty hands with raw knuckles, and the pockets grotesquely bulging, made a picture so painfully in contrast with the house and its quarter, that the footman's face lost its habitual expression of restrained good-humour under a mask of severity altogether tragic.

For a moment he hesitated: to ask this scarecrow his business would concede him the right to exist; and the ruffian's undamaged eye and his a.s.sured carriage were plain warning against any concession whatsoever.

The visitor, therefore, spoke first, even as if he had been respectable.

"I want to see Mr. Bruffin," he said.

"Not at home," replied Charles, trying to boom like a butler.

"Then I'll wait till he comes," said d.i.c.k Bellamy, taking a step forward in spite of the door and the footman's hand upon it.

"Impossible to see Mr. Bruffin to-night--sir," said Charles. "I'm afraid I must ask you to step outside."

His vision of what might be in those bloated pockets was only a little less alarming than the reality.

But d.i.c.k felt he had only a drop or so of physical energy left; and so, lest they should trickle from him, he used them now.

And Charles, lifted most disconcertingly by the slack of his breeches and the stiffness of his resisting neck, was s.h.i.+fted quickly and painfully to the doorstep, to hear the door close upon him before he could turn to face it.

The house was new, even to its owners. Its rebuilding and exquisite refitting had been a marvel for the magpie chorus of the occasional column. The public already knew more of his new house than George Bruffin could ever forget.

But d.i.c.k, who never read more of a newspaper than he must, knew only its address and the day when George and his wife should go into residence.

This, he had remembered, was the first day of their second week, and, even if George had already learned his way to his own study, d.i.c.k must find means to reach him more expeditious than geographical exploration.

He looked about him, and his eye fell upon a thing of which George had told him with pride almost boyish; a framework of sh.e.l.l-cases, graduated from the slender treble of a shortened soizante-quinze to the deepest base of a full-length monster from some growling siege-gun.

For George had done his portion of fighting and had collected this material for a dinner gong, on which one might play with padded stick anything from the "Devil's Tattoo" to "Caller Herrin'" or the "Wedding March."

From the doorstep, the frantic Charles, with eyes rolling, saw the taxi.

What was in it he could not see, for the chauffeur stood blocking the open window, watching, it appeared, whatever the cab might contain--wild Bolshevists with bombs, perhaps, or soft litters of pedigree pups.

From Apsley House to Marble Arch, he felt, was never a policeman. He could have embraced the h.o.a.riest of specials.

The service entrance was too far round. Before he could reach it all might be over.

So, forgetting the bell, he turned and beat, with fists none too hard, upon the door that was anything but soft. And cursed, as he had never cursed man before, the architect whose enlightened scheme had found no place for a knocker.

And with his first blow there burst out in the hall the wild, indecorous strains of "Kuk-kuk kuk-Katie," pealing out louder and ever louder as the musician found confidence.

With his left hand supporting half his tired weight on the frame of these bells, translated by some twentieth-century Tubal Cain to a music so strangely different from the first they had uttered, d.i.c.k was absorbed in his rendering of such bars of the vulgar melody as he could remember, when he heard, far behind him, a slow, unimpa.s.sioned voice.

"What's all this h.e.l.l's delight?" it asked.

A confused chorus of protesting explanation, interwoven with the yapping cries and hysterical laughter of women, was all his answer.

In a fresh surge of enthusiasm "Katie" drowned it.

Then George Bruffin shouted--almost, the servants felt, as if he might some day lose his temper.

"How did this freak minstrel get in?" he roared.

"Don't know, sir."

"Who was on duty here?"

"Charles, sir," chimed the chorus.

"Where is he?"

The music died in a last tinkling "Kuk-kuk." And then, as the minstrel swung round to face his audience, the whole company heard the beating on the great door.

"That," said d.i.c.k with a wave of his baton towards it, "is Charles."

While George stared heavily at the intruder's battle-worn visage, the second footman flung open the door.

With a face livid and distorted by pa.s.sion, Charles made a rush at his enemy--to be brought up short by the sight of his master, wringing the rascal's hand and patting his disgraceful shoulder.

"You silly goat," were all the words George could find for his laughter.

"I had to see you," said d.i.c.k. "And I do."