Under One Flag Part 46

"I must protest--" I began.

But he cut me short, pretending to misunderstand what I was about to say.

"In one instant so you shall. You shall be the first to break your mirror, as you suggested."

"As I suggested!"

"Only give us time, and all your suggestions shall be acted on. You will find, my dear Short, if you will only have a little patience, that the whole affair has been planned on the lines which you yourself laid down. Gentlemen, Mr Augustus Short, as our President, will lead the way."

I do not know exactly what happened. I fancy that Gardiner jerked my arm, anyhow, the mirror slipped from my grasp, and although I certainly did not "dash" it to the ground, directly it touched the floor it was s.h.i.+vered into fragments with quite an extraordinary amount of noise. My conviction is that those mirrors were specially and artfully arranged to smash with a kind of explosion directly they came into contact with a resisting substance. I caught myself stammering, while I was still bewildered by the din the thing had made,--

"So much for the bad luck a broken mirror is supposed to bring!"

I have a vague idea that the others did as I had done, but my impressions were of such a variegated hue that for some seconds I hardly knew what was taking place. I found myself in an apartment the lights of which were shaded by globes of a peculiarly ghastly green.

The walls were hung in black. Mottoes sprawled across them. I noted two, "The Thirteen Club laughs at luck." "Down with all Omens." There was a table in the centre shrouded in the same funereal shade. One presumed that it was laid for dinner. But the articles upon it were of such an unusual sort, and were arranged in such fantastic forms, that the thing was but presumption. Gardiner, however, did what I suppose he considered his best to make the matter clear.

"I think, Mr President and Gentlemen, you will agree with me that this is a fitting environment for such a function as the inaugural dinner of the Thirteen Club."

I, for one, disagreed with him entirely. But at that instant I found myself without the capacity to say so. To be frank, the look of the whole thing had surprised me into speechlessness. Gardiner went on in a tone of voice which suggested that he was enjoying himself immensely.

If that were the case then I am convinced that he in his enjoyment was singular.

"We find ourselves surrounded by the proverbial attributes of gloom.

The lighting is uncanny, it lends to us all the attributes of sick men. The walls and tables are decked with the traditional trappings of the tomb. The only ornaments upon the festive board are skeletons, cross-bones, and skulls. You will notice that the knives are crossed.

The drinking cups are of funereal ebony. Beside each chair is a black cat in a black wicker cage."

That explained the peculiar sounds which were arising. Most of those cats were objecting to the position in which Gardiner had placed them.

"So far as we have been able, Mr Finlayson and I have spared no pains to provide a harmonious whole. Without self-conceit we are conscious that we have made just those arrangements for you which you would have wished to have made for yourselves. It only remains for the Thirteen Club to show that it can be gay and light-hearted even among surroundings the most forbidding. To your seats!" Gardiner bundled me to mine. "One little ceremony still has to be performed. Each will find in front of him a salt-cellar full of salt. Take it between your right finger and thumb and spill the contents on the board."

He forced what I perceived to be a salt-cellar between my fingers, then, giving my wrist a twist, he compelled me to upset it. I objected, strongly, to the unceremonious manner in which he persisted in making me behave as if I were an automaton. Moreover, I thought of Adeline's view on the subject of the spilling of salt.

"This is beyond a joke," I exclaimed.

"Beyond a joke!" he echoed. "I should think it was. It's a challenge from the Thirteen Club to the gnomes and goblins of Demon Fortune to come on and do their worst. One word as regards the waiters. We have been at some trouble to select notoriously bad characters, most of them with crime-stained hands. The costume is a little notion of my own.

Waiters!"

There was a rustling behind us. From under the sombre hangings which screened the wall there appeared a number of the most forbidding-looking figures I ever beheld. They were enveloped from head to foot in some s.h.i.+ny material which was red as blood. Slits were cut for their eyes, nose, and mouth. Beyond that there was nothing to show that the creatures within were men. The sight of them made me positively uneasy. Especially after Gardiner's allusion to "notoriously bad characters" and "crime-stained hands." Had I antic.i.p.ated anything of that sort I certainly should not have come.

"Another observation," he continued, in that strident voice which grated more and more upon my ears, "I would ask to be permitted to make before you fall to the feast with that appet.i.te which, I am well aware, grows every instant sharper." Did it? That was decidedly not the case with mine. "Referring to the menu, I would beg of you to bestow on it a little careful study, and then to tell me if you are not of opinion that it is a masterpiece from the point of view of its suitability to this unique occasion. The conception, I hasten to add, is again my very own."

I glanced at the menu card which a small white skeleton thrust out towards me in its attenuated hand. This is what I read:--

MENU OF THE INAUGURAL DINNER OF THE THIRTEEN CLUB.

_Potages_.

Consomme Tete de Mort.

Creme d'Entrepreneurs des Pompes Funebres;

_Poissons_.

Soles a la Pierre Tumulaire.

Saumon, Sauce Fossoyeur.

_Entrees_.

Ris de Veau au Jus Mortuaire.

Pajasky de Volaille en Cercueil.

_Releves_.

Quartier d'Agneau Roti, Sauce Cadavre.

Boeuf Braise aux Revenants.

_Legumes_.

Pommes de Terre Meurtriere.

Pet.i.ts Pois Nouveaux a la Suicide.

_Rotis_.

Canetons Rotis a la memoire de la Fin de Touts.

Salade des Espoirs Evanouis.

_Entremets_.

Savarin au Cimetiere.

Parfait Woking.

Gateaux Kensal Green.

My knowledge of French is, in a manner of speaking, limited. It was only after some moments' consideration that the monstrous nature of the thing began to dawn on me. Was it possible that we were supposed to eat food prepared in such fas.h.i.+ons as the menu suggested? What connection could sweetbreads have with "mortuary juice," and potatoes with murder?

What were "tombstone" soles, and "gravedigger" sauce? The allusions to "Woking" and "Kensal Green," at a dinner-table, in a.s.sociation with sweets, was enough to destroy one's appet.i.te entirely. Was the intention to hint that the dishes so named would send us there? One shuddered at the thought.

I had not yet succeeded in realising the full horror of this final outrage when one of the gruesomely-attired figures which it had been Gardiner's humour to provide as waiters planted itself at my side. A voice issued from one of the slits in the scarlet envelope, deep, harsh, threatening, addressing me as if presenting a pistol at my head, and demanding my money or my life.

"Death's Head Soup, or Cream of Undertakers?"

The question so startled me that I nearly jumped out of my chair. What could the creature mean? A glance at the card which I was holding showed that the reference was to the first two dishes on the bill of fare. He was asking which of them I wished to have. I felt as if I were on the point of choking. The same inquiry, uttered, as it seemed to me, in the same sinister accents, came in a chorus from all round the table.

Silence followed. Then a voice was heard which I recognised as Tom Boulter's.

"Excuse me, Gardiner, but if you don't mind I think I'll slip round to a tripe shop I know and dine off a saveloy. I've heard a saveloy described as a 'bag of mystery'; but, anyhow, it can hardly be more mysterious than 'cream of undertakers.'"

"Personally I never eat a dish of which I know nothing--never. And it's outrageous--simply outrageous--that we should be expected to play tricks with our digestion by attempting to eat such--such extraordinary things."

This was James Rutherford, whose one hobby is what he calls "dieting"

himself. What he would think of such a bill of fare I could dimly fancy. Lawrence Jackson spoke next. Judging from his tone he was on the verge of tears. He is a man who is easily moved in the direction of the melancholic.

"It isn't only what there is to eat. It's everything. Making us sit in a chamber of horrors, with a possible murderer behind your chair, and a green light always makes me ill. If I stay here much longer I shall have to be carried out, I know I shall. I was far from well when I came. Each second I'm growing worse. What my wife would say if she were here I do not dare to think."

"If this is a Thirteen Club dinner I'm off it. Stomach's turned."

I am thankful to say that this distinctly vulgar remark was made by a person who was a perfect stranger to me. A remark which was immediately afterwards made by the man Finlayson transfixed me with astonishment.