Bindle Part 38

"This 'ere, mum," holding the articles of equipment for Lady k.n.o.b-Kerrick's inspection, "is me summer uniform, but as the nights is a little bit chilly I added a pair o' trousers and a few other things."

Miss Strint t.i.ttered, and then, appalled at her own temerity, coughed violently.

Lady k.n.o.b-Kerrick turned upon her accustomed victim.

"Strint," she cried, glaring through her lorgnettes, "have you no sense of decency?"

"She's got an awful cough, mum. Yer'd better leave 'er alone," and Bindle grinned in a manner that Lady k.n.o.b-Kerrick decided was intolerable.

"I want you to explain, mum, wot you mean by letting Calves and d.i.c.ky-Bird keep a special constable from the execution of 'is duty."

Lady k.n.o.b-Kerrick looked uncertainly from Bindle to Wilton, then to Miss Strint, and then back again to Bindle.

"You were with the ruffians who have taken my daughter," she said.

"Well, mum, that's where you're sort o' wrong. I've collected white mice and rabbits and once I had a special sort of jumpin' fleas, but I never collected daughters. Besides, there's Mrs. Bindle. She's a bit funny when it comes to another woman. What she'll say when she gets to know that yer've had me 'eld 'ere, a-givin' of me the glad eye through them two 'oles on a stick-I tell yer, mum, I jest daren't think."

"How dare you, you vulgar fellow!" Lady k.n.o.b-Kerrick had seen the ghost of a smile flit across Thomas's face. "Hold your tongue!"

"I can't, mum. Lived too long wi' Mrs. B. I'm sort o' surprised at you 'oldin' me 'ere like this. It's like kissin' a girl against her will."

At this juncture there was a loud ringing at the outer bell.

"Go!" said Lady k.n.o.b-Kerrick, addressing Thomas.

"Now then, 'op it, Calves," added Bindle, as he resumed his armlet.

A minute later an inspector of police entered. He bowed to Lady k.n.o.b-Kerrick and looked towards Bindle, who saluted with a suddenness so dramatic as to cause both Wilton and Thomas involuntarily to start back.

"This man has been--" Lady k.n.o.b-Kerrick paused, at a loss to formulate the charge.

"Says I've run off with 'er daughter-me! 'Oly Moses! If Mrs. Bindle only knew!" And Bindle smiled so broadly and so joyously that even the official face of the inspector relaxed.

"What is the complaint, my lady?" the inspector enquired, producing his note-book.

"Someone has abducted my daughter and-and-we-I got this man."

Lady k.n.o.b-Kerrick was hesitant, and clearly not very sure of her ground.

She explained how she had gone into the garden in search of Miss k.n.o.b-Kerrick, had come across the ladder, and how in moving it Bindle had come cras.h.i.+ng down upon her, and had been captured.

The inspector turned to Bindle, whom he knew as a special constable.

"This 'ere's goin' to be a serious business for 'er," Bindle indicated Lady k.n.o.b-Kerrick with his thumb. "I 'eard a whistle, then see a man on the wall and another in a motor-car. 'What-oh!' says I, 'burglars or German spies. If I blows me whistle orf they goes.' I climbs up a tree and drops on to the wall, crawls along, then I 'ears a young woman's voice. I jest got to the top of the ladder, frightened as a goat I was, when somebody gives it a tug. Over I tumbles on wot I thought was a air-cus.h.i.+on, but it was 'er." Bindle bowed elaborately to Lady k.n.o.b-Kerrick, who flushed scarlet. "She nabs me when I was goin' to nab the lot of 'em. I might 'a got the V.C.! Silly things, women." Bindle spat the words out with supreme disgust.

The inspector turned to Lady k.n.o.b-Kerrick.

"Do you wish to charge this special constable?"

"Yes, that's it," put in Bindle. "Jest let 'er charge me. She's got to do it now since she's 'eld me 'ere, and I'm out for damages. There's also goin' to be some damage done to d.i.c.ky-Bird and Calves before I've finished." And Bindle looked fiercely from one to the other.

Lady k.n.o.b-Kerrick motioned the inspector to the other end of the room, where she held a whispered conversation with him. Presently they returned to Bindle. The inspector said with official coldness:

"There seems to have been a mistake, and her ladys.h.i.+p offers you a sovereign in compensation."

"Oh, she does, does she?" remarked Bindle. "Well, jest tell 'er bloomin' ladysillys.h.i.+p wi' Joseph Bindle's compliments that there's nothin' doin'. A quid might 'ave been enough for a ordinary slop, but I'm a special sort o' slop and, like a special train, I 'as to be paid for. She can stump up a fiver or--"

The inspector looked nonplussed. He was not quite sure what authority he had over a special constable. A further whispered conversation followed, and eventually Lady k.n.o.b-Kerrick left the room and a few minutes later returned with five one-pound notes, which she handed to the inspector without a word, and he in turn pa.s.sed them on to Bindle.

"Well," Bindle remarked, "I must be off. 'Ope you'll find your daughter, mum; and as for you, d.i.c.ky-Bird and Calves, we'll probably meet again. S'long." And he departed.

CHAPTER XIX

THE SCARLET HORSE COTERIE

One of the indirect results of Millie's romance was the foregathering each Friday night under the hospitable roof of the Scarlet Horse of a number of congenial and convivial spirits. It was Bindle's practice to spend the two hours during which Millie and Charlie Dixon were at the cinema in drinking a pint of beer at the Scarlet Horse, and exchanging ideas with anyone who showed himself conversationally inclined.

In time Bindle's friends and acquaintance got to know of this practice, and it became their custom to drop into "the 'Orse to 'ear ole Joe tell the tale."

Ginger would come over from Chiswick, Huggles from West Kensington, Wilkes from Hammersmith, and one man regularly made the journey from Tottenham Court Road.

At first they had met in the public bar, but later, through the diplomacy of Bindle, who had explained to the proprietor that "yer gets more thirsty in a little place than wot yer does in a big 'un, 'cause it's 'otter," they had been granted the use of a small room.

Sometimes the proprietor himself would join the company.

One September evening, having handed over Millie to her cavalier with strict injunctions to be outside the Cinema at ten sharp, Bindle turned his own steps towards the Scarlet Horse. As he entered he was greeted with that cordiality to which he had become accustomed. Calling for a pint of beer, he seated himself beside a rough-looking labourer known as "Ruddy" Bill, on account of the extreme picturesqueness and sustained directness of his language.

On Bindle's arrival Bill had been delivering himself of an opinion, accompanied by a string of explicatory oaths and obscenities that obviously embarra.s.sed his hearers, rough though they were. Waiting his opportunity, Bindle presently remarked quite casually:

"Words such as 'd.a.m.n' and "ell,' like beer and tobacco, was sent to sort of 'elp us along, 'specially them wot is married. Where'd I be wi' Mrs. B. if I 'adn't 'ell an' a few other things to fall back on? No!" he continued after a moment's pause, "I don't 'old wi' swearin'." He turned and looked at Ruddy Bill as if seeking confirmation of his view.

"'Oo the blinkin' 'ell arst wot you 'old wiv?" demanded Bill truculently, and with much adornment of language.

Bindle proceeded deliberately to light his pipe as if he had not heard the question; then, when it was drawing to his entire satisfaction, he raised his eyes and gazed at Bill over the lighted match.

"No one, ole sport. Yer always gets the good things for nothink, like twins an' lodgers."

Bill resented the laugh that greeted Bindle's reply, and proceeded to pour forth his views on those given to "shovin' in their decorated snouts."

When he had exhausted his eloquence Bindle remarked good-humouredly.

"It 'ud take a bucketful of carbolic an' a d.a.m.n big brush to clean the dirty words out o' your mouth, Sweet William."

Bill growled out further obscenities.