Her Ladyship's Elephant Part 20

"Oh!" said Carrington, "perhaps that solves the mystery. Did your friend bring you back the change?"

"N--o," admitted Mrs. Allingford; "that is, not yet."

"I'm afraid you will never hear from your five-pound note, and that Allingford never received his telegram from Winchester," commented Carrington; "but it has disposed of Faro Charlie as a witness, and perhaps that was worth the money."

"Do you really think he meant to take it?" she asked in a shocked tone.

"I'm sure of it," he replied, "and time will prove the correctness of my theory." And time did.

They breakfasted together, and, at Carrington's suggestion, all the baggage was sent to the station, in order that they might have every chance of making the train. Jack's brother joined them about half-past eight, and the three proceeded to the court, where a few words from that officer to the magistrate, with whom he was personally acquainted, were sufficient to bring Scarsdale's case first on the docket.

The landlord of the Lion's Head appeared, a ma.s.s of bandages, and groaning dolefully to excite the sympathy of the court; but he testified without hesitation that the prisoner, though somewhat resembling Richard Allingford, was not he; and it did not need Carrington's identification to make Scarsdale a free man. Then there were mutual congratulations, and a hurried drive to the station, where they just succeeded in catching the train; and, almost before he knew it, Jack was standing alone upon the platform, while his two friends were speeding towards the goal of all their hopes, _via_ Southampton and Salisbury.

"I suppose," said Mrs. Scarsdale to the Consul, as their train drew out of Salisbury in the first flush of the sunrise on the morning which saw Mr. Scarsdale's liberation from durance vile--"I suppose you realise that you have exiled me from the home of my ancestors."

"How so?" asked the Consul.

"Why, you don't imagine that I shall ever dare to show my face at Melton Court again. Just picture to yourself her ladys.h.i.+p and your elephant!

She will never forgive us, and will cut poor Harold off with a s.h.i.+lling."

"That won't hurt him much, from all I've heard of her ladys.h.i.+p's finances," he replied.

"I think," she resumed, "that I ought to be very angry with you; but I can't help laughing, it is so absurd. A bull in a china-shop would be tame compared with an elephant at Melton Court. What do you think she will do with the beast?"

"Pasture it on the front lawn to keep away objectionable relatives,"

retorted the Consul. "But, seriously speaking, have you any definite plan of campaign?"

"Certainly not. What do you suppose I carry you round for, if it is not to plan campaigns?"

"Which you generally alter. You will please remember that the visit to Melton Court was entirely owing to you."

"Quite, and I shall probably upset this one; but proceed."

"Well, in the first place, as soon as we reach Southampton I think we had better have a good breakfast."

"That is no news. You are a man; therefore you eat. Go on."

"Do you object?"

"Not at all. I expected it; I'll even eat with you."

"Well said. After this necessary duty, I propose to go to the station and thoroughly investigate the matter of the arrival and departure of my wife and your husband."

"If they were at Basingstoke we should have heard from them before this," she said; "and even if they were not, they should have telegraphed."

"Very probably they did," he replied; "but, as you ought to know, there is nothing more obliging and more generally dense than an English minor official. I dare say that the key to the whole mystery is at this moment reposing, neatly done up in red tape, at the office of that disgusting little junction. But here we are at Southampton. Now for breakfast; and then the American Sherlock Holmes will sift this matter to the bottom."

And the Consul, in excellent spirits, a.s.sisted her to alight.

Indeed, now that the elephant had been left behind, he felt that, actually as well as metaphorically, a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

"Evidently," remarked Allingford, as they were finis.h.i.+ng a breakfast in one of the cosy princ.i.p.al hotels--"evidently the loss of your husband has not included the loss of your appet.i.te."

"Of course it hasn't," replied Mrs. Scarsdale. "Why shouldn't I eat a good breakfast? I have no use for conventions which make one do disagreeable things just because one happens to feel miserable."

"Do you feel very miserable? I thought you seemed rather cheerful on the whole," he commented.

"Well, you are not to think anything so unpleasant or personal. I'm utterly wretched; and if you don't believe it I won't eat a mouthful."

"I'm sure," he returned, "that your husband would be much put out if he knew you contemplated doing anything so foolish."

"Do you know," she said, "that I'm beginning to have serious doubts that I ever had a husband? Do you think he's a myth, and that you and I will have to go through life together in an endless pursuit of what doesn't exist?"

"Good Lord, I hope not!" he exclaimed.

"That is very uncomplimentary to me," she retorted.

"In the face of that remark," he replied, pus.h.i.+ng back his chair, "I am silent."

"Do you know," said his companion after a moment, as she folded her napkin, "that the keen sense of humour with which we Americans are endowed saves a large percentage of us from going mad or committing suicide?"

"Are you thinking of doing either?" he asked anxiously.

"I am thinking," she replied, "that we have had two exceedingly amusing days, and I am almost sorry they are over."

"Don't you want to find your husband?" he exclaimed.

"Of course I do; but it has been a sort of breathing-s.p.a.ce before settling down to the seriousness of married life, and that elephant episode was funny. I think it was worth two days of any husband; don't you?"

"I don't know," returned the Consul, somewhat ruefully. "I'd just as lief that Scarsdale had had the beast."

"Oh, I wouldn't!" she cried. "He would have spoiled all the fun. He'd have done some stupid, rational thing. Donated it to the 'Zoo' in London, I should think; wasted the elephant, in fact. It took the spirit of American humour to play your colossal, practical joke. I wonder if it has arrived at the Court yet. I can fancy it sticking its head, trunk and all, through the great window in Lady Melton's dining-room."

"She called me a consular person," remarked that official stiffly.

"Hence the elephant," laughed his fair companion. "Cause and effect.

But, joking apart, there is a pitiful side to our adventure. When I think of those two matter-of-fact, serious British things, your better half and my--my husband, and of what a miserable time they have been having, unrelieved by any spark of humour, it almost makes me cry."

"Hold on!" cried Allingford, "You are just as bad as your great-aunt.

She calls me a consular person, and you call my wife a British thing! I wish I had another elephant."

"I beg your pardon, I do really," she replied. "I cla.s.sed my husband in the same category. But don't you agree with me that it's sad? I'm sure your poor wife has cried her eyes out; and as for my husband, I doubt if he's eaten anything, and I'm certain he's worn his most unbecoming clothes."

"You are wrong there," interrupted Allingford; "he packed all the worst specimens, and I rescued them at Salisbury. I tried them on yesterday, and there wasn't a suit I'd have had the face to wear in public."

"There, run along and turn the station upside down; you've talked enough," she said, laughing, and drove him playfully out of the room.