‘No, Algie, there are limits. I wouldn’t have him within a mile of the place.’
‘Yet you keep Eustace.’
‘Well, you made me engage Wrench. It’s fifty-fifty. I wish you wouldn’t keep picking on Eustace, Algie dear. He does no harm. Mr Sherriff and I were just saying how peaceable he is. He wouldn’t hurt–‘
Claire came in.
‘Polly,’ she said, ‘did you put that monkey of yours in the garage? He’s just bitten Dudley in the leg.’
Lord Wetherby uttered an exclamation.
‘Now perhaps–‘
‘We went in just now to have a look at the car,’ continued Claire. ‘Dudley wanted to show me the commutator on the exhaust-box or the windscreen, or something, and he was just bending over when Eustace jumped out from nowhere and pinned him. I’m afraid he has taken it to heart rather.’
Roscoe Sherriff pondered.
‘Is this worth half a column?’ He shook his head. ‘No, I’m afraid not. The public doesn’t know Pickering. If it had been Charlie Chaplin or William J. Bryan, or someone on those lines, we could have had the papers bringing out extras. You can visualize William J. Bryan being bitten in the leg by a monkey. It hits you. But Pickering! Eustace might just as well have bitten the leg of the table!’
Lord Wetherby reasserted himself.
‘Now that the animal has become a public menace–‘
‘He’s nothing of the kind,’ said Lady Wetherby. ‘He’s only a little upset to-day.’
‘Do you mean, Pauline, that even after this you will not get rid of him?’
‘Certainly not–poor dear!’
‘Very well,’ said Lord Wetherby, calmly. ‘I give you warning that if he attacks me I shall defend myself.’
He brooded. Lady Wetherby turned to Claire.
‘What happened then? Did you shut the door of the garage?’
‘Yes, but not until Eustace had got away. He slipped out like a streak and disappeared. It was too dark to see which way he went.’
Dudley Pickering limped heavily into the room.
‘I was just telling them about you and Eustace, Dudley.’
Mr Pickering nodded moodily. He was too full for words.
‘I think Eustace must be mad,’ said Claire.
Roscoe Sherriff uttered a cry of rapture.
‘You’ve said it!’ he exclaimed. ‘I knew we should get action sooner or later. It’s the puma over again. Now we are all right. Now I have something to work on. “Monkey Menaces Countryside.” “Long Island Summer Colony in Panic.” “Mad Monkey Bites One–“‘
A convulsive shudder galvanized Mr Pickering’s portly frame.
‘”Mad Monkey Terrorizes Long Island. One Dead!”‘ murmured Roscoe Sherriff, wistfully. ‘Do you feel a sort of shooting, Pickering–a kind of burning sensation under the skin? Lady Wetherby, I guess I’ll be getting some of the papers on the phone. We’ve got a big story.’
He hurried to the telephone, but it was some little time before he could use it. Dudley Pickering was in possession, talking earnestly to the local doctor.
14
It was Nutty Boyd’s habit to retire immediately after dinner to his bedroom. What he did there Elizabeth did not know. Sometimes she pictured him reading, sometimes thinking. Neither supposition was correct. Nutty never read. Newspapers bored him and books made his head ache. And as for thinking, he had the wrong shape of forehead. The nearest he ever got to meditation was a sort of trance-like state, a kind of suspended animation in which his mind drifted sluggishly like a log in a backwater. Nutty, it is regrettable to say, went to his room after dinner for the purpose of imbibing two or three surreptitious whiskies-and-sodas.
He behaved in this way, he told himself, purely in order to spare Elizabeth anxiety. There had been in the past a fool of a doctor who had prescribed total abstinence for Nutty, and Elizabeth knew this. Therefore, Nutty held, to take the mildest of drinks with her knowledge would have been to fill her with fears for his safety. So he went to considerable inconvenience to keep the matter from her notice, and thought rather highly of himself for doing so.
It certainly was inconvenient–there was no doubt of that. It made him feel like a cross between a hunted fawn and a burglar. But he had to some extent diminished the possibility of surprise by leaving his door open; and to-night he approached the cupboard where he kept the materials for refreshment with a certain confidence. He had left Elizabeth on the porch in a hammock, apparently anchored for some time. Lord Dawlish was out in the grounds somewhere. Presently he would come in and join Elizabeth on the porch. The risk of interruption was negligible.