‘Put him in the coal-cellar,’ said Lady Wetherby.
Wrench was more far-seeing.
‘If I might offer the warning, m’lady,’ said Wrench, ‘not the cellar. It is full of coal. It would be placing temptation in the animal’s way.’
The odd-job man endorsed this.
‘Put him in the garage, then,’ said Lady Wetherby.
The odd-job man departed, bearing his heaving bag at arm’s length. The cook and the parlour-maid addressed themselves to comforting and healing the scullery-maid. Wrench went off to polish silver, Lady Wetherby to resume her letters. The cat was the last of the party to return to the normal. She came down from the chimney an hour later covered with soot, demanding restoratives.
Lady Wetherby finished her letters. She cut them short, for Eustace’s insurgence had interfered with her flow of ideas. She went into the drawing-room, where she found Roscoe Sherriff strumming on the piano.
‘Eustace has been raising Cain,’ she said.
The Press-agent looked up hopefully. He had been wearing a rather preoccupied air.
‘How’s that?’ he asked.
‘Throwing eggs and plates in the kitchen.’
The gleam of interest which had come into Roscoe Sherriff’s face died out.
‘You couldn’t get more than a fill-in at the bottom of a column on that,’ he said, regretfully. ‘I’m a little disappointed in that monk. I hoped he would pan out bigger. Well, I guess we’ve just got to give him time. I have an idea that he’ll set the house on fire or do something with a punch like that one of these days. You mustn’t get discouraged. Why, that puma I made Valerie Devenish keep looked like a perfect failure for four whole months. A child could have played with it. Miss Devenish called me up on the phone, I remember, and said she was darned if she was going to spend the rest of her life maintaining an animal that might as well be stuffed for all the liveliness it showed, and that she was going right out to buy a white mouse instead. Fortunately, I talked her round.
‘A few weeks later she came round and thanked me with tears in her eyes. The puma had suddenly struck real mid-season form. It clawed the elevator-boy, bit a postman, held up the traffic for miles, and was finally shot by a policeman. Why, for the next few days there was nothing in the papers at all but Miss Devenish and her puma. There was a war on at the time in Mexico or somewhere, and we had it backed off the front page so far that it was over before it could get back. So, you see, there’s always hope. I’ve been nursing the papers with bits about Eustace, so as to be ready for the grand-stand play when it comes–and all we can do is to wait. It’s something if he’s been throwing eggs. It shows he’s waking up.’
The door opened and Lord Wetherby entered. He looked fatigued. He sank into a chair and sighed.
‘I cannot get it,’ he said. ‘It eludes me.’
He lapsed into a sombre silence.
‘What can’t you get?’ said Lady Wetherby, cautiously.
‘The expression–the expression I want to get into the child’s eyes in my picture, “Innocence”.’
‘But you have got it.’
Lord Wetherby shook his head.
‘Well, you had when I saw the picture,’ persisted Lady Wetherby. ‘This child you’re painting has just joined the Black Hand. He has been rushed in young over the heads of the waiting list because his father had a pull. Naturally the kid wants to do something to justify his election, and he wants to do it quick. You have caught him at the moment when he sees an old gentleman coming down the street and realizes that he has only got to sneak up and stick his little knife–‘
‘My dear Polly, I welcome criticism, but this is more–‘
Lady Wetherby stroked his coat-sleeve fondly.
‘Never mind, Algie, I was only joking, precious. I thought the picture was coming along fine when you showed it to me. I’ll come and take another look at it.’
Lord Wetherby shook his head.
‘I should have a model. An artist cannot mirror Nature properly without a model. I wish you would invite that child down here.’