Jonah and Co Part 34

"I was through.

"I had my dinner in bed. I think I deserved it. Still, I suppose it was indiscreet to have ordered lobster _a la Newburg_. I have slept better. I _was_ sleeping better at half-past eight the next morning, when a waiter entered to say that _there was an official to see me from the Gare du Nord_....

"Believing it to be another dream, I turned over and shut my eyes. The waiter approached and, touching me on the arm, repeated his ghastly communication. With a frightful effort I explained that I had the ague and could see n.o.body for some days. Mercifully he retired, and for a little s.p.a.ce I lay in a sort of trance. After a bit I began to wonder what, in the name of Heaven, I was to do. I was afraid to get up, and I was afraid to stay in bed. I was afraid to stop in the hotel, and I was terrified of meeting the official downstairs. I was afraid to leave the case there, and I was still more afraid to take it away. I was getting hungry, and I was afraid to ring for breakfast. It was a positively poisonous position. Finally, after a lot of thought, I got up, bolted the door, unpacked the blasted box and shoved all the tobacco in the drawers of the wardrobe. Luckily there was a key. The kit I disposed naturally enough. Then I had a bath and dressed.

"As I was fastening my collar, the telephone went. It was the _Gare du Nord_. I jammed the receiver back.

"As I pa.s.sed through the hall, a clerk dashed after me 'The _Gare du Nord_,' he said, 'were insisting upon seeing me about a case of mine.'

I replied that I was busy all day, and could see n.o.body before six o'clock. I didn't mention that my train went at five. It was as well I didn't argue, for, as I left the hotel, a station official entered.

I leapt into a taxi and told the driver to go to _Notre Dame_. Not that I felt like Church, but it was the first place I could think of.

Somebody shouted after me, but--well, you know how they drive in Paris.

I stopped round the second corner, discharged the taxi, and walked to a restaurant. By rights, I should have been ravenous. As it was, the food stuck in my throat. A bottle of lime-juice, however, pulled me together. After luncheon I went to a cinema--I had to do something.

Besides, the darkness attracted me.... I fancy I dozed for a bit. Any way, the first thing I remember was a couple of men being arrested in the lounge of a hotel. It was most realistic. What was more, the clerk who had run after me in the morning and the clerk on the screen might have been twins.... I imagine that my hair rose upon my head, and for the second time it seemed certain that I had mislaid my paunch.

"I got out of the place somehow, to find that it was snowing. For the next hour I drove up and down the _Champs Elysees_. I only hope the driver enjoyed it more than I did. At last, when pneumonia seemed very near, I told him to drive to the hotel.

"I fairly whipped through the hall and into the lift. As this ascended, a page arrived at the gate and spoke upward. I didn't hear what he said.

"When I was in a hot bath, the telephone went. I let the swine ring.

Finally somebody came and knocked at the door. Of my wisdom I hadn't bolted it, so, after waiting a little, they entered. I lay in the bath like the dead. After a good look round, they went away....

"By twenty past four I'd dressed, and repacked the case. I rang for a porter, told him to shove it on a taxi, and descended to settle my bill. Mercifully, the clerk who had stopped me in the morning was off duty. I could have squealed with delight. I paid my reckoning, tipped about eight people I'd never seen before, and climbed into the cab.

Ten minutes later I was at the _Quai d'Orsay_.

"By the time I was in the wagon lit it was ten minutes to five....

"I sank down upon the seat in silent grat.i.tude. The comfortable glow of salvation began to steal over my limbs. I looked benevolently about me. I reflected that, after all, the last thirty hours of my life had been rich with valuable experience. Smilingly I decided not to regret them. When I thought of the scene in the baggage-room, I actually laughed. Then the conductor put his head in at the door and said that there was somebody to see me from the _Gare du Nord_."

Berry suspended his recital and buried his face in his hands.

"I shall never be the same again," he said brokenly. "Never again. Up to then I had a chance--a sporting chance of recovery. At that moment it snapped. In a blinding flash I saw what a fool I'd been. If I'd only stayed on the platform, if I'd only gone into the restaurant car, if I'd only locked myself in a lavatory till the train had started, I should have been all right. As it was, I was caught--bending.

"It was the official I'd seen in the morning all right. After a preliminary flurry of e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, he locked the door behind him and began to talk.... Don't ask me what he said, because I didn't hear.

When the rope's round your neck, you're apt to miss the subtleties of the hangman's charge. After a time I realised that he was asking me a question. I stared at him dully and shook my head. With a gesture of despair, he glanced at his watch.

"'_Monsieur_,' he said, 'the train departs. I have sought you all day.

The superintendent has told me to speak with you at all costs--to beg that you will lodge no complaint. He is desolated that your baggage was injured. It is a misfortune frightful. He cannot think how it has occurred. But to complain--no. I will tell _Monsieur_ the truth.

Twice in the last half-year an English officer's baggage has gone astray. But one more complaint from your Emba.s.sy, and the superintendent will be replaced. And in ten short days, _Monsieur_, he will have won his pension.... Ah, _Monsieur_, be merciful.'

"I was merciful.

"I waved the fellow away and swore haltingly that I would say nothing.

We mingled a few tears, and he got out as the train was moving....

"And there you are. I'd got my reprieve. Everything in the garden was lovely. But I couldn't enjoy it. My spirits failed to respond." He took the Sealyham's head between his hands and gazed into his eyes.

"O n.o.bwell, n.o.b-well!

Had I but seen the fool at half-past eight As he desired, he would not in the train Have put the wind up me so h.e.l.lishly."

There was a moment's silence.

Then Jonah stepped to my brother-in-law and clapped him on the back.

"Brother," he said, "I take my hat off. I tell you frankly I couldn't have done it. I wouldn't have claimed that case at Paris for a thousand pounds."

Clamorously we endorsed his approval.

By way of acknowledgment the hero groaned.

"What you want," said I, "is a good night's rest. By mid-day to-morrow you'll be touching the ground in spots."

"I shan't be touching it at all," said Berry. "If it's nice and warm, I shall have a Bath chair, which you and Jonah will propel at a convenient pace. n.o.bby will sit at my feet as a hostage against your careless negotiation of gradients." He drew a key from his pocket and pitched it on to a table. "I fancy," he added, "I heard them put the case on the landing: and as I propose, decorative though it is, to remove my beard, perhaps one of you wasters will fetch me a cigarette."

There was a rush for the door.

True enough, the uniform-case was outside.

Jonah and I had its cords off in twenty seconds.

One hinge was broken and some khaki was protruding.

Adele thrust the key into the lock. This was too stiff for her fingers, so after a desperate struggle, she let me have at the wards....

After an exhausting two minutes we sent for a cold-chisel....

As the lock yielded, Berry appeared upon the scene.

For a moment he stared at us. Then--

"But why not gun-cotton?" he inquired. "That's the stuff to open a broken box with, if you don't like the look of the key. You know, you're thwarting me. And don't try to turn the lid back, because there aren't any hin----"

The sentence was never finished.

As I lifted the lid, my brother-in-law fell upon his knees. With trembling hands he plucked at a Jaeger rug, reposing, carefully folded, upon the top of some underclothes. Then he threw back his head and took himself by the throat.

"Goats and monkeys!" he shrieked. "_It's somebody else's case!_"

When, twenty-four hours later, a letter arrived from Piers' aunt, inviting us all to tea, we accepted, not because we felt inclined to go junketing, but because we did not wish to seem rude.

We were in a peevish mood. For this the loss of our forbidden fruit was indirectly responsible. The immediate cause of our ill-humour was the exasperating reflection that we were debarred from taking even those simple steps which lead to the restoration of lost luggage. We stood in the shoes of a burglar who has been robbed of his spoils. As like as not, our precious uniform-case was lying at the station, waiting to be claimed. Yet we dared not inquire, because of what our inquiries might bring forth. Of course the authorities might be totally ignorant of its contents. But then, again, they might not. It was a risk we could not take. The chance that, by identifying our property, we might be at once accusing and convicting ourselves of smuggling a very large quant.i.ty of tobacco, was too considerable.

There were moments when Jonah and I, goaded to desperation, felt ready to risk penal servitude and 'have a dart' at the bait. But Berry would not permit us. If things went wrong, he declared, he was bound to be involved--hideously. And he'd had enough of thin ice. The wonder was, his hair wasn't white.... By the time we had swung him round, our own courage had evaporated.

As for Piers, no one of us had seen or heard from him for five whole days. Ever since his extraordinary outburst upon the verandah, the boy had made himself scarce. While we were all perplexed, Jill took his absence to heart. She mourned openly. She missed her playfellow bitterly, and said as much. And when three days had gone by and the last post had brought no word of him, she burst into tears. The next morning there were rings beneath her great grey eyes. She was far too artless to pretend that she did not care. Such a course of action never occurred to her. She had no idea, of course, that she was in love.

All the same, when upon Wednesday afternoon the cars were waiting to take us to tea with Mrs. Waterbrook, my cousin leaned over the banisters with a bright red spot upon either cheek.