Kitabı oku: «The Haunted Pajamas», sayfa 7

He turned about and jerked his head.

"Oh, Dicky! Here, just a minute, old chap – will you?"

Of course I took no notice of him whatever. In fact I looked in the other direction.

"Lightnut!" he called. I just stared up at the castle on the hill. I felt devilish annoyed, though. I recalled a conversation the other day at the club in which Van Dyne remarked that the intimacy affected now by chauffeurs was growing insufferable. Declared his man had asked him for a light that morning.

The fellow stared a little; then he came toward me, smirking in a jocular, impertinent way.

"Say, stop your kidding, old man," he muttered; "girls have no sense of humor, you know. Come along – I've just been telling them you are my best friend."

I stole another look at the car, but Frances avoided me; so I came to a decision. I turned shortly on the driver.

"See here now, my good fellow," I said sharply, "you stop subjecting those ladies to annoyance. Drive on, or I'll report you to my friends."

He stared – seemed to be trying to stare me out of countenance, in fact. Then the grin slowly faded.

"Why, Dicky!" he exclaimed in an aggrieved tone, "don't you remember me – don't you know me?"

"I certainly do not," I answered with decision. I felt my face getting red with vexation. "And what's more, my name is not 'Dicky.'"

His hand slowly swept his chin and he whistled.

"Wha – Well, I'll be jiggered!" He whirled toward the car.

"On me, this time, I guess! You're right!"

Then his face clouded and he moved down upon me.

"Here, you get along now about your business, whoever you are!" His hand waved as though sweeping me away. "I've a mind to kick you for annoying that young lady."

He looked toward Frances and I could see he was showing off. But I thought she looked a bit disgusted. As for the frump, she suddenly opened the door, stepped down and then up again, but this time behind the steering wheel.

"If you don't come on, I'm going," she said quietly.

"Just a minute," he said, scowling back at her. He faced me.

"Look here, if I hit you once" – he leveled his finger – "well, they'll have to pick you up with a sponge, that's all!"

But, except for fixing my glass for a better study of Frances, I never moved. Didn't occur to me as necessary, you know, until she should drive off. Just stood leaning on my cane and with feet crossed, you know, in the way I had long ago found was the least exhausting, if one has to stand at all. But, by Jove, the fellow was right in my face now, almost! Devilish annoying!

"Did you hear me, you glass-eyed fool?" he barked in my ear. "You masher! By George, I'll mash you!"

And he looked at Frances again and laughed, but she was looking away off up at the big stone castle on the Pocantico Hills behind. And I just reveled in her glorious profile, splashed bright by the golden sunshine reflected from the Tappan Zee opposite. Incidentally, I was trying in my mind the three arm movements that must be made as one, and for which, to learn, I had paid the great master, Galliard of Paris, a thousand francs in gold.

The car began to edge away.

"All right – coming!" he yelled; and then he launched his blow. But so rapid – instantaneous, in fact – are the famous three movements of the great scientist, I don't remember that my eye even shifted its grip upon the monocle. Therefore, as I came back into the same position again as his shoulder hit the ground, I was in time to catch my darling's eye at last just as they curved. And, by Jove, she looked amused – and pleased.

As for the frump, she frankly and harshly laughed, and then moved up a speed, just as a south-bound express took the station.

And I swung aboard it, back for little old New York. Didn't see what the chauffeur did. Wasn't interested, you know, about that.

CHAPTER XV
BILLINGS' SYMPTOMS ALARM ME

"Most infernal outrage of the century, I tell you!" Billings stormed. For an hour I had sat there in my rooms, limp and bewildered under the tempest of his wrath. The wild and incoherent sputter over the 'phone that Jenkins reported upon my return had sent me on a hunt for my friend. I had found him sullenly dining alone over at the club, and as soon as I entered he started to bolt from the room. Only through the greatest pleading had I managed to coax him back to my chambers, hoping I might screw out of him some explanation.

I had received it, by Jove!

Of course, I recognized it all as impossible and crazy, you know, but when I said so to Billings his remarks were so violent, and he turned such a dangerous apoplectic purple, dashed if I didn't renege.

"But then the old man, you know!" I protested weakly.

Billings leveled his big arm at me, mouthing wordlessly for a minute.

"That – that'll do, about that old man!" he choked at last. "Not – not another word about him!" And finally he collapsed into his seat from sheer exhaustion. Just sat there panting and glaring at me like a jolly bulldog.

Gradually he became calmer.

"Tell you what: the only thing that lets you out, Dicky, is the way Van Dyne and Blakesley did, in turn, when I got them there."

He spoke savagely, but I brightened a little.

"Oh!" I said. "Didn't they recognize you, either?"

Billings' snort made me jump.

"Recognize!" he bellowed. "They went back, mad as hell!"

"By Jove!" I said soothingly.

"That's not all," continued Billings grimly. "I was so sure it was a put-up job, some asinine, fool joke, I wrote a cautious note to the governor. After a lot of pleading, I got the fools to send it. He came."

Billings paused dramatically.

"Oh, yes, he came!" he went on, fixing me with an excited eye. "And when I staggered forward and did the prodigal son act on his neck, he handed me a punch that jolted off his silk tile. Went straight up in the air with the whole bunch down there and contracted to do things for them that will keep him active for a year. Threatened to have me sent up for forgery – this is my own father now, mind you – forgery of my own name! Huh!"

Billings strode to the end of the room and back. Then he sat down again, beating with his foot upon the floor.

"Say, has everybody gone crazy?" he demanded.

I didn't dare say a word, for I had my own opinions, you know, and I knew it wouldn't do to express them. Only excite him. Best way seemed just to pretend to swallow it all, you know. Best way always, Pugsley says, especially with best friends.

"They were pretty nasty after that," Billings went on gloomily; "and they wouldn't send for any one else. Just had to sit there in that infernal bastile with nothing on but pajamas and a pair of bedroom slippers. Every once in a while somebody would come and address me as 'Foxy,' and want me to send for my clothes or else send out and buy some. Finally, a big brute came and threw me some dirty rags and said I'd have to put on those or else buy some others. Buy some, Dicky – did you get that? —buy some!"

"Devilish rude, I say," I commented indignantly. "Who wants to wear bought clothes? Why, dash it, my tailor says – "

"Pshaw!" Billings whirled his fat head impatiently. "You miss the whole point, Dicky! I didn't have a cent of money; and what's more, I couldn't get any." He paused. "See? Try to get that, Dicky – make an effort, old chap."

I did, but, dash it, it was such a rum idea – very oddest thing he had said – and silly, you know. Fancy any one not being able to send out and get money! I just got to thinking what a jolly queer idea it was and lost part of what Billings was saying – something about how he managed to get them to send a note for his clothes. Here is what I did hear:

"And I had just got into the togs and stuffed the rubies and pajamas out of sight in my pocket, when the particular brigand who had charge of my coop came back. He almost threw a fit when he saw me. 'Where's Twenty-seven?' he wanted to know. And then, before I could say a word, he blustered up to me with: 'And say, what business you got in here? Clear out!' And you bet I didn't lose a single golden minute – I cleared. You should have seen me beat it down that corridor! The fellow followed me a little, grumbling to himself. Then he called to a cop who was just coming in: 'Say, O'Keefe, run that young fat freak out of here, will you? It's one of that bunch of visitors that went through just now. Fresh thing – snooping into the cells!'

"And so the same cop that brought me there – the very same – was the one that shoved me out of the door, warning me that I'd best not go poking into the prisoners' cells again if I knew what was good for me!"

"By Jove!" I ventured sympathetically.

Billings nodded. "Of course, I knew it was a semi-lucid interval with them all, but for all I knew it might pass any instant and some bat discover I was a Dutch scrubwoman escaped from Hoboken. So I broke for the first taxi and hit it up for the club."

Billings took a deep breath and went on:

"By George," he said, laughing nervously. "I felt like a dog with a can to its tail hunting for a place to hide. Every time a fellow looked at me I had heart failure until he called me by my own name. Bribed Eugene to lie about my whereabouts until his face hurt and then I went to bed. Sneaked out of my hole this evening to get a bite of something, and then you ran me down.

"And Dicky" – Billings finished excitedly – "I was sure you had come to drag me back to my dungeon, and I looked behind you, fully expecting to see those two Irish pirates. If I had, I should have swooned in my soup, that's all!"

I murmured my sympathy. And, by Jove, I certainly did have a heartache about him, but of course I couldn't tell him why. I was getting him quieted – I could see that – and he was so far mollified as to help himself to a cigar. When he had clipped a V from the end with his knife, he leaned over and tapped me impressively on the knee with the blade.

"And just think, Dicky," he said, absently emphasizing with the sharp point of the knife, "there I sat, moneyless – not even a dime, you know – in a suit of pajamas whose three buttons were worth one hundred and fifty thousand dollars!"

He fell back, his fat arms eloquently outspreading.

"Can you beat it?" he demanded.

I rubbed my palm on my knee and considered.

Privately, I thought I could beat it – by Jove, I was sure I could! I knew of a pair of pajamas worth a dashed sight more than money. And I wondered gloomily where they were. I had telephoned as soon as I stepped out at the Grand Central Station, and after a bit made them understand who I was and reminded them that the black pajamas had not been returned according to promise. And then they told me Foxy Grandpa had escaped, but as he had nothing else on, they felt sure of rounding him up as soon as he came out of his hiding-place – probably after dark.

"By the way, old chap," puffed Billings, his poise and good humor improving under the spell of the cigar, "I was sorry to return the pajamas torn and dusty and wrinkled as they were. But you see, on account of the rubies, I was leary about having them pressed or fussed over. So I wrapped and sealed them myself, just as one does a jewel package. Got them, did you?"

I stared at Billings through my glass.

"Didn't you get them?" he questioned in alarm.

"Yes, yes – it's all right, old chap," I said hastily and as pleasantly as I could. "Eugene delivered the box to Jenkins and I opened it myself. Thought it was – h'm – thought it was something else." Then I proceeded soothingly: "But you're just a little mistaken about the dust and wrinkles, old chap – and about them being torn. Ha, ha! Good joke!"

But Billings' face was unresponsive.

"Why, you goop," he said with cheerful contempt, "there's a triangular tear in the back of the coat you could stick your head through; and one of the sleeves is in ribbons."

I just opened the drawer of the table and took out the box – glove box, I think it was – containing the pajamas. I had read something somewhere about the clearing effect – the reaction, and that sort of thing, produced sometimes by a shock.

"See for yourself, old chap," I said gently. And I lifted out the gossamer fabrics and again spread their crimson glory under the lamp. Billings examined them eagerly, but just looked confounded.

"Don't understand it," he said, biting his nails. "Why, hang it, they look smooth, too, as though never worn. And the rubies are all right, too."

He rested his chin upon his hands and gloomed at the red sweep.

I caught a few sentences of his mumbling.

"By George, I'm half a mind to think there's something in the pajamas," he muttered – "something uncanny and disagreeable – something they're alive with!"

I sprang up and back, overturning my chair.

"Good heavens – oh, I say!" I exclaimed in consternation, as I fixed my glass on the garments. "It's your jail, then, you know – "

His hand checked my reach to the bell push.

"Don't be any more kinds of an ass than you can help, Dicky," he said with rude irritability. "I'm talking about something else; and I haven't got any jail, dammit! A station house isn't exactly a jail!"

He reached for another cigar and went off into a brown study, wrapping himself in clouds of smoke. I thought that maybe if I kept quite still he might come to himself all right. Meantime, for want of something to do, and to keep from getting so devilish sleepy, I fell to turning over the pajamas, admiring their beauty and daintiness and kind of half-daringly wondering how she would —

And suddenly I made a discovery; and I forgot about keeping still.

"By Jove, Billings!" I exclaimed excitedly. "Here's something inside the collar – some sort of jolly writing!"

"What's that?" said Billings sharply. He jerked the garment from my hand and held it in the light. All round the circle within the collar band ran four or five darker red lines of queer little crisscross characters.

"Chinese laundry marks, you idiot," he commented carelessly. And then he ducked his head closer with a quick intake of breath.

"By George, Dicky!" he cried, his voice tremulous with some excitement. "Can't be that either; it's woven in – awfully fine, neat job, too. Now, what do you suppose – "

He broke off wonderingly.

CHAPTER XVI
AN INSCRIPTION AND A MYSTERY

Billings rubbed his chin perplexedly.

"By jigger, now, I wonder what those hen tracks mean?" he uttered musingly. Then he looked up at me with sudden animation in his face.

"Look here, Dicky," he exclaimed, "do you happen to know Doozenberry?"

I tried to remember. I shut one eye and studied the marks closely through my glass, but had to shake my head at last.

"Sorry, old chap; don't seem to remember it at all if I ever did – not a dashed glimmer of it left." I yawned. "Never tried to keep any of those college things, you know."

Billings, who had been staring, uttered a rude comment.

"It's not a language, you cuckoo," he snapped; "it's a man. He's a D.S. – distinguished scientist, you know. What's more, he's one of your neighbors, right in this building."

"Don't know him," I said a little stiffly. "What's his club?"

Billings all but gnashed his teeth.

"Club, thunder!" he jerked out impatiently. "Why, man, he's a member of all the great societies of the world – bodies whose rank and exclusiveness put the blink on all the clubs you or I ever saw. Got a string of letters after his name like a universal keyboard, and is the main squeeze, the great scream, among all the scientific push over here and in Europe. Lots of dough, but off his trolley with learning."

"And in this building?" I said wonderingly. "What's he like?"

For a moment I had a thought of Foxy Grandpa, but the janitor had said he did not belong in the building. Besides, Billings' next words removed that clue to the lost pajamas. By Jove, how I did long to ask his advice about them! Once I was on the point of doing so – had devilish narrow escape, in fact – but pulled up on the brink. So deuced hard to remember that anything so delicate and sweet and fetching could be Billings' sister, you know. I had been wondering for an hour whether I had better say anything about my adventure up at Tarrytown – wondered if she would like me to.

"Here, you moon calf, wake up!" Billings' coarse voice brought me back to the present, and I had to blink and pretend I was listening. "I'm telling you about Doozenberry! I say you surely must have seen him – you couldn't miss him in a black cave. Queer-looking old skate, tall as a street lamp and as thin; looks like a long cylinder of black broadcloth. So dignified it hurts him."

I reflected.

"Awfully large head," continued Billings, elevating his hands some two feet apart, "pear-shaped affair – big end up – bumps on it like halves of grape fruit, porcupine eyebrows, and – "

"Oh, I know," I said, nodding eagerly; "and a little, shriveled – well, kind of mashed sort of face, eyes beadlike and jolly small. I've got him now! I've gone down with him in the elevator."

Billings nodded. "You've got him painted," he said drily. "That's the professor; only, his eyes are anything but 'jolly.' I've ridden in the elevator with him myself. Always manages to look like he was traveling with a bad smell!"

"Devilish sensitive, I dare say."

Billings looked at me suspiciously, but I had got hold of the thing I was trying to recollect and I went on quickly:

"By Jove, you know, I believe Jenkins knows his man – fellow who butlers, and, I believe, cooks, for him. He and Jenkins belong to the same – how do they call it? – same club of gentlemen's gentlemen."

Billings brought his fist down. "Let's have Jenkins in," he suggested. And we did.

"I say, Jenkins," I began, "this Professor Doodle bug above us – "

"Doozenberry!" Billings sharply corrected.

"Well, some jolly rum thing about him, don't you know, Jenkins – something you said his man told you – remember, eh?"

Jenkins' eyes batted a little.

He cleared his throat. "Why, yes, sir; he told me a lot of funny things one night, sir. Don't suppose he would have done it, only him and me had an evening off and we – we – "

Jenkins seemed to hesitate.

"And you went on a bat together," suggested Billings, rubbing his hands pleasantly.

"It was, sir," Jenkins admitted, looking at me sadly. "Leastways, he sort o' loosened up as he got – got – "

"Pickled," Billings helped smoothly.

"Quite so, sir; there's some is that way always: some is taken other ways." Jenkins considered Billings moodily. "The power of the demon rum, sir."

"Ah, true!" sighed Billings, lifting his eyes.

"This here chap, he got to going on and all but crying about his cursed hard fate – them's his own words, sir – his cursed hard fate in having to drink water all the time and eat cow feed – "

"Eat what?"

"I don't know, sir – that's what he called it – something the perfesser has him fix out of cereals and nuts and sour milk. That's all they have, sir; and they don't have no cooking, for the perfesser says it breaks the celluloid – "

"Cellular," corrected Billings.

"Maybe so, sir," demurred Jenkins. "He said celluloid – the celluloid tissue papers, he called it. And then his having no heat on all winter and the windows kept open all the time and the snow piling up on his bed at night kept him with colds all the year. And then, there was the dampness – "

"That's it, the dampness!" I exclaimed. "Tell him."

"Why, sir, he told me that every night he had to turn down the perfesser's bed and go all over it with a two-gallon watering can – "

"Watering can!" gasped Billings.

"I'm telling you what he says, sir. Then he covers it all up again, and in about a half-hour the perfesser turns the covers down; and if it's what he calls 'fine' – that is, damp all over – he climbs in and sleeps like a top."

"Cold-water bug, you know," I explained, but Billings shrugged his shoulders.

"That's all right. Bug or not, he's the goods, all the same. Greatest ever." He spoke with quiet conviction.

He deliberated a moment and turned to me.

"Tell you what, Dicky: I'm going up and ask him down. He's the one to give us the right dope on these crazy letters – Eh, what you say, Jenkins?"

"Beg pardon, sir; I was saying that the perfesser don't visit nobody; and he never sees nobody but the big lit'ry and scientific sharps."

"Oh, he don't eh?" Billings snorted contemptuously. "Well, Jenkins, I haven't been a prize fisherman in my time for nothing; I guess I know how to select my 'fly.' I know what will fetch him: 'Mr. Lightnut's compliments, and will he be pleased to honor him by passing upon an Oriental curio of rare scientific interest?' – that sort of merry rot! Why, you couldn't hold him back with a block and tackle. Oh, you needn't worry; I'll do the proper curves all right." He turned toward the door. "And, Jenkins, you come along and work me into the lodge."

"Oh, but dash it," I protested nervously, "he won't come – he'll be insulted. Why, he'll know as soon as he sees you that you couldn't – "

I checked myself, recalling that the best thing after his recent exhibition was to avoid every contradiction. And then, by Jove, I knew that if he became ill and had to go to a hospital or somewhere, it would be all off with his taking me up to Wolhurst next day.

Billings grinned confidently. "Watch me bring him down here," he said.

And by Jove, he did!