“Yes, and a bark like a steam siren, and, in addition to that, about eighty-five teeth, all sharper than razors. I couldn’t get within ten feet of that dog without its lifting the roof off, and, if I did, it would chew me into small pieces.”
“I had anticipated that difficulty, sir. In ‘Footpaths of Fate’ there was a nurse who assisted the hero by drugging the child.”
“By Jove!” said Sam, impressed.
“He rewarded her,” said Webster, allowing his gaze to stray nonchalantly over the countryside, “liberally, very liberally.”
“If you mean that you expect me to reward you if you drug the dog,” said Sam, “don’t worry. Let me bring this thing off, and you can have all I’ve got, and my cuff-links as well. Come, now, this is really beginning to look like something. Speak to me more of this matter. Where do we go from here?”
“I beg your pardon, sir?”
“I mean, what’s the next step in the scheme? Oh, Lord!” Sam’s face fell. The light of hope died out of his eyes. “It’s all off! It can’t be done! How could I possibly get into the house? I take it that the little brute sleeps in the house?”
“That need constitute no obstacle, sir; no obstacle at all. The animal sleeps in a basket in the hall…. Perhaps you are familiar with the interior of the house, sir?”
“I haven’t been inside it since I was at school. I’m Mr. Hignett’s cousin, you know.”
“Indeed, sir? I wasn’t aware. Mr. Hignett sprained his ankle this morning, poor gentleman.”
“Has he?” said Sam, not particularly interested. “I used to stay with him,” he went on, “during the holidays sometimes, but I’ve practically forgotten what the place is like inside. I remember the hall vaguely. Fireplace at one side, one or two suits of armour standing about, a sort of window-ledge near the front door..”
“Precisely, sir. It is close beside that window-ledge that the animal’s basket is situated. If I administer a slight soporific….”
“Yes, but you haven’t explained yet how I am to get into the house in the first place.”
“Quite easily, sir. I can admit you through the drawing-room windows while dinner is in progress.”
“Fine!”
“You can then secrete yourself in the cupboard in the drawing-room. Perhaps you recollect the cupboard to which I refer, sir?”
“No, I don’t remember any cupboard. As a matter of fact, when I used to stay at the house the drawing-room was barred…. Mrs. Hignett wouldn’t let us inside it for fear we should smash her china. Is there a cupboard?”
“Immediately behind the piano, sir. A nice, roomy cupboard. I was glancing into it myself in a spirit of idle curiosity only the other day. It contains nothing except a few knick-knacks on an upper shelf. You could lock yourself in from the interior, and be quite comfortably seated on the floor till the household retired to bed.”
“When would that be?”
“They retire quite early, sir, as a rule. By half-past ten the coast is generally clear. At that time I would suggest that I came down and knocked on the cupboard door to notify you that all was well.”
Sam was glowing with frank approval.
“You know, you’re a master-mind!” he said, enthusiastically.
“You’re very kind, sir!”
“One of the lads, by Jove!” said Sam. “And not the worst of them! I don’t want to flatter you, but there’s a future for you in crime, if you cared to go in for it.”
“I am glad that you appreciate my poor efforts, sir. Then we will regard the scheme as passed and approved?”
“I should say we would! It’s a bird!”
“Very good, sir.”
“I’ll be round at about a quarter to eight. Will that be right?”
“Admirable, sir.”
“And, I say, about that soporific…. Don’t overdo it. Don’t go killing the little beast.”
“Oh, no, sir.”
“Well,” said Sam, “you can’t say it’s not a temptation. And you know what you Napoleons of the Underworld are!”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
1
If there is one thing more than another which weighs upon the mind of a story-teller as he chronicles the events which he has set out to describe, it is the thought that the reader may be growing impatient with him for straying from the main channel of his tale and devoting himself to what are after all minor developments. This story, for instance, opened with Mrs. Horace Hignett, the world-famous writer on Theosophy, going over to America to begin a lecture-tour; and no one realises more keenly than I do that I have left Mrs. Hignett flat. I have thrust that great thinker into the background and concentrated my attention on the affairs of one who is both her mental and moral inferior, Samuel Marlowe. I seem at this point to see the reader—a great brute of a fellow with beetling eyebrows and a jaw like the ram of a battleship, the sort of fellow who is full of determination and will stand no nonsense—rising to remark that he doesn’t care what happened to Samuel Marlowe and that what he wants to know is, how Mrs. Hignett made out on her lecturing-tour. Did she go big in Buffalo? Did she have ‘em tearing up the seats in Schenectady? Was she a riot in Chicago and a cyclone in St. Louis? Those are the points on which he desires information, or give him his money back.