The Haunted Pajamas Part 46

Jenkins' coldly elevated brows dismissed the matter from further consideration. He lifted the parcel with a slight gesture of inquiry.

I had already come to a decision about it: I would send it to Billings!

Perhaps the retrieving of the pajamas would have a soothing effect upon his poor mind!

I gave Jenkins instructions. "H'm! Of course, manage to speak with him alone," I cautioned, having thought of Judge Billings; "and don't forget the message."

"Certainly, sir," said Jenkins attentively. "I'm just to say: 'Mr.

Lightnut's compliments, sir, and he says _you'll_ know what to do with these.'"

I nodded. "Exactly, and I'll wait here--but, oh, hurry, dash it!" And I looked longingly at the pavilion and tried to feel if my part was right.

He _did_ hurry! By Jove, he was back almost immediately and looking a bit rattled.

"Yes, sir!"--he coughed as I screwed my gla.s.s inquiringly--"I got there just as the judge went into his room across the corridor, and Mr.

Billings opened the door the minute I said I was from you. I gave him the package and the message and he took it over in a corner; and then in about a minute I heard him chuck it somewhere and say some long word. He came back to me, looking kinder irritated and with his eyes snapping."

"Oh!" I uttered nervously. "Er, what did he say, Jenkins?"

Jenkins sighed. "Oh, well, sir, nothing as you might say was anything, _really_; he jerks out kinder crossly: 'Tell Mr. Lightnut, I say one thing at a time, and give him this!'"

On the sc.r.a.p of paper I clutched out of Jenkins' hand was a crazy scrawl of just a half-dozen words:

_I'm a biped, not a centipede!_

I squinted through the dashed thing twice, but could make nothing of it--I even tried it backward!

"Jove!" I muttered perplexedly. "It's rum, Jenkins!"

Jenkins' mouth tightened and relaxed. "H'm, what _I_ thought, sir," he responded soberly. "The demon rum, sir!"

CHAPTER XXVIII

"IF EVER I FIND A MAN!"

"I trust you've not been getting into trouble, Mr. Lightnut!"

Her lovely eyes were dancing with mischief as they hung there below mine--eyes, bluer than the Hudson at our feet; yet between the jolly ripples that played across those pools of truth I could glimpse far down into depths that were the most devilishly entrancing, darkly, deeply, beautifully--oh, _you_ know!

Why, by Jove, I almost took a cropper right into them! Only caught just in time, you know; straightened right on the verge, as it were--and came up with a gasp, monocle dangling.

Had almost forgotten the dashed windows--and the two cats that might be looking out!

I murmured some jolly apology, adding:

"Oh, yes--quite so; certainly! I _mean_--eh what?"

She was smiling, her rose-petal lip dragging through her teeth.

"The 'bobby,' you know, just now"--she nodded toward the _porte-cochere_--"I was positive he had come to drag you away to your loathsome dungeon. And when he retired, I was--oh, _so_ relieved!" And she clasped her hands, her eyes lifting upward.

"Oh, I say now--were you, though?" I grinned delightedly and slipping to a rustic chair beside her, looked her affectionately in the eye. For all her air of chaffing, I knew that under it was a current of anxiety for me--the darling!

I screwed my gla.s.s at her tenderly.

"What would you have done," I said softly, "if he had--er--lugged me off, you know?"

"_Can_ you ask?" What a reproachful side-glance she shot me through the meshes of her silken what-you-call-'ems! "Why, of course, I should have drawn my good excalibar and run him thr-r-rough and thr-r-r-ough!"

By Jove, how she said it! And she ill.u.s.trated with the stemless rose--dash it, no; the roseless stem! She was _superb_--looked like the jolly fencing girl; only a dashed sight more stunning, don't you know!

And her excalibar, too! Didn't know what a jolly excalibar was, but guessed it was some delightfully mysterious but deadly feminine thing--some kind of submerged hat-pin-sort-of-thing, you know--_that_ sort, dash it! Yet she would have drawn it--and her _good_ one, too, she said!

"Jove!" I said feelingly. "Would you, _really_?" And I almost took her hand--and again remembered the windows! So I just shot her a look.

Her glorious eyes sparkled. "That is, I would if I had one," she said smiling; "but I'm afraid poor Arthur lost the last and only one. Sad, isn't it?"

"Oh!"

I just felt my jolly heart sink like what's-its-name. Who the deuce was "poor Arthur?" This must be another--some other thundering chap who had been engaged to her. And what a rotten, careless beggar, too, to have lost it--that is, if he _really_ had! Of course, he would say so, anyhow. And how the deuce did he get it, in the first place--did she give it to him, or did he--

By Jove, how I should have liked to punch Arthur's head! Always did hate a chap with that name! I flushed guiltily, but she did not see. For the moment, she was looking off dreamily across the valley.

"I wonder," she said pensively, "why it is one can never find another man like Arthur. Do you suppose it is because he was the ideal?"

For an instant, I swallowed hard--then I plucked up bravely, or tried to, don't you know.

"Jolly likely!" I chirped. Then gloomily: "Oh, I say, you know, was he _your_ ideal?"

"Always!"--the blue eyes lighted wistfully--"I suppose it's because he was my first love; I found him so brave, so n.o.ble-mannered, you know--so simple!"

_Simple!_ Dash simple people--never could stand them! Thing _I_ admired was brains! Aloud I said gently--almost humbly:

"So glad you like him, don't you know--_did_ like, I mean!"

"_Did_ like? I do still!"--her tone lifted in earnest protest--"I love to think of brave, dear Arthur and his knights--so few, and yet so full of love, of gallantry and daring!"

So _his_ nights were like that! By Jove, I was devilish glad then that they had been _so few_--that was some comfort, dash it! I wondered if the beggar was dead. But what difference did it make now, after all? She was mine now and she knew I knew it; that was why this sweet, ingenuous child was laying bare to me her past--the darling!

Really, I ought not to let her go on.

"Never mind them now," I urged soothingly. And heedless of the windows, I hitched a wee bit closer. "That's all past and gone and you and I will yet see as good nights as they _ever_ were." I spoke with a.s.surance.

"Don't _you_ think so?" I added softly.

She sighed. "I don't know--I hope so!"--she lingered dubiously over it, looking away again, the while her hand put back the fleecy, golden what-you-call-it that was snuggling to her eyes. I looked at the G.o.ddess-like forearm, bared to above the elbow, where it slipped from sight under the roll of sleeve, and thought of that night in my apartment when she had made me feel of her biceps, don't you know.