Читать книгу The Intriguers - Harold Bindloss - Страница 13

The next evening Harding was taking out a cigar in the vestibule when a man brushed past him wearing big mittens and a loose black cloak such as old-fashioned French-Canadians sometimes use.

"Why, Blake!" he cried. "What have you got on? Have you been serenading somebody?"

"I can't stop," Blake answered with a grin. "Open that door for me—quick!"

A porter held back the door, but as Blake slipped through, Harding seized his cloak.

"Hold on! I want a talk with you!"

Blake made an effort to break loose, and as he did so a bobcat dropped from beneath his arm and fell, spitting and snarling, to the floor. Its fur was torn and matted, tufts were hanging loose, and the creature had a singularly disreputable and ferocious appearance. Blake made an attempt to recapture it, but, evading him easily, it ran along the floor with a curious hopping gait and disappeared among the pillars. Then he turned to his friend with a rueful laugh.

"You see what you've done! It's gone into the rotunda, where everybody is."

Harding looked at him critically.

"You seem sober. What ever possessed you to get yourself up like an Italian opera villain and go round the town with a wild beast under your arm?"

"I'll tell you later," Blake laughed. "What we have to do now is to catch the thing."

"It's time," drawled Harding. "The circus is beginning."

Men's laughter and women's shrieks rose from the rotunda. Somebody shouted orders in French, there was a patter of running feet, and then a crash as of chairs being overturned. Blake sprang in, and Harding followed, divided between amusement and impatience. They saw an animated scene. Two porters were chasing the bobcat, which now and then turned upon them savagely, while several waiters, keeping at a judicious distance, tried to frighten it into a corner by flourishing their napkins. Women fled out of the creature's way, men hastily moved chairs and tables to give the pursuers room, and some of the more energetic joined in the chase. At one end of the room, Mrs. Keith stood angrily giving instructions which nobody attended to. Millicent, standing near her, looked hot and unhappy, but for all that her eyes twinkled when a waiter, colliding with a chair, went down with a crash and the bobcat sped away from him in a series of awkward jumps.

At last, Blake managed to seize it with his mittened hands. He rolled it in a cloth and gave it to a porter, and then advanced toward Mrs. Keith, his face red with exertion but contrite, and the cloak, which had come unhooked, hanging down from one shoulder. She glanced at him in a puzzled, half-disturbed manner when he stopped.

"As the cat belongs to me," she said imperiously, "and as I'm told you dropped it in the vestibule, I feel that I'm entitled to an explanation. I gave the animal to my maid this morning, sending Miss Graham to see it delivered to a veterinary surgeon, and it disappeared. May I ask how it came into your possession?"

"Through no fault of Miss Graham's, I assure you. I happened to notice your maid trying to carry an awkwardly shaped hamper, and Miss Graham looking for a cab. It struck me the thing was more of a man's errand and I undertook it."

"It's curious that you knew what the errand was, unless Miss Graham told you." Mrs. Keith looked sternly at Millicent, and the girl blushed. "I have been led to believe that you made her acquaintance, without my knowledge, on board the steamer by which we came up."

"That," said Blake respectfully, "is not quite correct. I was formally presented to Miss Graham in England some time ago. However, as I saw a car coming along St. Catharine's while your maid was looking for a hack, and there was no time to explain, I scribbled a note on a bit of a letter and gave it to a boy to deliver to Miss Graham, and then I took the cat to a taxidermist."

"To a taxidermist! Why?"

"It struck me that he ought to know something about the matter.

Anyway, he was the nearest approach to a vet that I could find."

Mrs. Keith looked at him thoughtfully.

"You seem to have a curious way of reasoning. What did the man say?"

"He promised to engage the services of a dog-fancier friend of his."

"You imagined that a dog-fancier would specialize in cats?"

Millicent's eyes twinkled, but Mrs. Keith's face was serious and

Blake's perfectly grave.

"I don't know that I argued the matter out. To tell the truth, I undertook the thing on impulse."

"So it seems. But you haven't told me what became of my hamper."

"The hamper was unfortunately smashed. I left it at a basket shop; and that explains the cloak. My friend, the taxidermist, insisted on lending it and his winter gloves to me. One looks rather conspicuous walking through the streets with a bobcat on one's arm."

Then, to Blake's astonishment, Mrs. Keith broke into a soft laugh.

"I understand it all," she said. "It was a prank one would expect you to play. Though it's a very long time since I saw you, you haven't changed, Dick. Now take that ridiculous cloak off and come back and talk to me."

When Blake returned, Millicent had gone, and Mrs. Keith noticed the glance he cast about the room.

"I sent Miss Graham away," she said. "You have been here some days.

Why didn't you tell me who you were?"

"I wasn't sure you would be willing to acknowledge me," he answered frankly.

"Oh, I never quite agreed with the popular opinion about what you were supposed to have done. It wasn't like you; there must have been something that did not come out."

"Thank you," Blake said quietly.

She gave him a searching glance.

"Can't you say something for yourself?" she urged.

"I think not. The least said, the soonest mended, you know."

"But for the sake of others."

"So far as I know, only one person was much troubled about my disgrace.

I'm thankful my father died before it came."

"Your uncle felt it very keenly. He was furious when the first news arrived, and refused to believe you were to blame. Then, when Major Allardyce wrote, he scarcely spoke for the rest of the day, and it was a long time before he recovered from the blow; I was staying at Sandymere. He loved you, Dick, and I imagined he expected you to do even better than his son."

Blake mused for a few moments, and Mrs. Keith could not read his thoughts.

"Bertram is a good fellow," he said. "Why should his people think less of him because he likes to paint? But I've been sorry for the Colonel; more sorry than I've felt for myself."

There was a softness in his dark blue eyes that appealed to Mrs. Keith. She had been fond of Dick Blake in his younger days and firmly believed in him. Now she could not credit his being guilty of cowardice.

"Well," she said, "you have a long life before you, I trust; and there are people who would be glad to see you reinstated."

He made a sign of grave dissent.

"That can't happen, in the way you mean. I closed the door of the old life against my return, with my own hands; and you don't gain distinction, as the Challoners think of it, in business."

"What business have you gone into?"

Blake's eyes gleamed humorously.

"At present, I'm in the paint line."

"Paint!" Mrs. Keith exclaimed.

"Yes, but not common paint. We use the highest grade of lead and the purest linseed oil. Varnish also of unapproachable quality, guaranteed to stand exposure to any climate. There's nothing to equal our products in North America."

"Do you seriously mean that you are going about selling these things?"

"I'm trying to. I booked an order for two kegs yesterday, but it isn't to be paid for until arrival, when I shall not be here. Can't I induce you to give us a trial? Your house must need painting now and then, and we'll ship you the stuff to Liverpool in air-tight drums. Once you have tried it you'll use nothing else."

Mrs. Keith laughed.

"Dick, you're a marvel! I'm glad adversity hasn't soured you; but you know that you won't make enough to keep you in neckties at any business you take up. It's ludicrous to think of your running about with paint samples!"