Berry and Co Part 12

Disregarding Jonah's protests that we were going the wrong way, I swung the car in the direction from which we had come, and streaked down the road to Cranmer Place.

A minute later I dashed into the hall, with Jill at my heels.

The first person I saw was Mr. Holly.

"Has it come up yet?"

I flung the words at him, casting strategy to the winds.

"It 'as, Major, an' I'm sorry to say we've lorst it. I never see such a thing. There was a gent there as meant to 'ave it. 'Cept for 'im, there wasn't a bid after twenty-five pounds. I never thort we'd 'ave to go over fifty, neither. Might 'a bin the owner 'isself, the way 'e was runnin' us up. An' when we was in the eighties, I sez to meself, I sez, 'The one as calls a nundred first 'as it. So 'ere goes.' 'Eighty-nine,'

sez'e. 'A nundred pound,' sez I, bold-like. 'Make it guineas,' sez he, as cool as if 'e was buyin' a naporth o' figs. I tell you. Major, it fair knocked me, it did. I come all of a tremble, an' me knees----"

"Where's the fellow who bought it?" said I.

"I'm afraid it's no good, Major. I tell you 'e meant to 'ave them drawers."

With an effort I mastered my impatience.

"Will you tell me where he is? Or, if he's gone, find out----"

"I don't think 'e's gorn," said Mr. Holly, looking round. "I 'alf think----There 'e is," he cried, suddenly, nodding over my shoulder.

"That's 'im on the stairs, with the lady in blue."

Excitedly I swung round, to see my brother-in-law languidly descending the staircase, with Miss Childe by his side.

"Hullo," he said. "Do you mind not asking me why I'm here?"

"It's not my practice," said I, "to ask a question, the answer to which I already know." I turned to Mr. Holly and took out a one pound note.

"I'm much obliged for your trouble. 'Not a bid after twenty-five pounds,' I think you said." I handed him the note, which he accepted with protests of grat.i.tude. "You did better than you know," I added.

"May I ask," said Berry unsteadily, "if this gentleman and you are in collusion?"

"We were," said I. "At least, I instructed him to purchase some furniture for me. Unfortunately we were outbid. But it's of no consequence."

Berry raised his eyes to heaven and groaned/

"Subtraction," he said, "is not my strongest point, but I make it eighty pounds. Is that right?"

I nodded, and he turned to Miss Childe.

"That viper," he said, "has stung the fool who feeds him to the tune of eighty pounds. Shall I faint here or by the hat-stand? Let's be clear about it. The moment I enter the swoon----"

"Still, as long as it's in the family----" began Jill.

"Exactly," said I. "The main thing is, we've got it. And when you've heard my tale----"

"Eighty paper pounds," said Berry. "Can you beat it?"

"That'd only be about thirty-five before the War," said Miss Childe in a shaking voice.

"Yes," said I. "Look at it that way. And what's thirty-five? A bagatelle, brother, a bagatelle. Now, if we were in Russia----"

"Yes," said Berry grimly, "and if we were in Patagonia, I suppose I should be up on the deal. You can cut that bit."

Miss Childe and Jill dissolved into peals of merriment.

"That's right," said Berry. "Deride the dest.i.tute. Mock at bereavement.

As for you," he added, turning to Jill, "your visit to the Zoo is indefinitely postponed. Other children shall feel sick in the monkey-house and be taken to smell the bears. But you, never." He turned to Miss Childe and laid a hand on her arm. "Shut your eyes, my dear, and repeat one of Alfred Austin's odes. This place is full of the unG.o.dly."

My determination to carry the tallboy chest to London in the Rolls met with stern opposition, but in the end I prevailed, and at six o'clock that evening it was safely housed in Mayfair.

To do him justice, Berry's annoyance was considerably tempered by the strange story which I unfolded during a belated tea.

The house and park which I had seen we were unable to identify, and the Post Office Guide was silent as to the whereabouts of Colt. But the excitement which Daphne's production of a tape-measure aroused was only exceeded by the depression which was created by our failure to discover anything unusual about the chest.

We measured the cornice and we measured the plinth. We measured the frame and we measured the drawers. But if the linear measurements afforded us little satisfaction, the square measurements revealed considerably less, while, since no one of us was a mathematician, the calculation of the cubic capacity proved, not only unprofitable, but provocative of such bitter arguments and insulting remarks that Daphne demanded that we should desist.

"All right," said Berry, "if you don't believe me, call in a consulting engineer. I've worked the blinking thing out three times. I admit the answers were entirely different, but that's not my fault. I never did like astrology. I tell you the beastly chest holds twenty-seven thousand point nine double eight recurring cubic inches of air. Some other fool can reduce that to rods, and there you are. I'm fed up with it. Thanks to the machinations of that congenital idiot with the imitation mustachios, I've paid more than four times its value, and I'm not going to burst my brains trying to work out which drawer would have had a false bottom if it had been built by a dipsomaniac who kept fowls. And that's that."

Tearfully Miss Childe announced that it was time for her to be going, and I elected to escort her as far as the garage. As we stepped on to the pavement--

"I know a lot more about you than you think," said I. "I never told you half what I dreamed."

"What do you know?"

"Oh, nothing momentous. Just the more intimate details of your everyday life. Your partiality to mushrooms, your recognition of Love, your recklessness, pretty peculiarities of your toilet----"

"Good Heavens!" cried Miss Childe.

"But you wouldn't tell me your name."

"False modesty. Seriously you don't mean to say----"

"But I do. Nothing was hid from me. Your little bare feet----"

A stifled scream interrupted me.

"This," said Miss Childe, "is awful." We turned into the mews. "What are you doing to-morrow?"

"Dictating. You see, there's a dream I want recorded."

"I shall expect you at half-past one. We can start after lunch. I've a beautiful hand."

"I know you have. Two of them. They were bare, too," I added reflectively.

With a choking sound, Miss Childe got into the car.