5 Check-Out Time (18 page)

Something rippled the water, a tadpole, perhaps, or the breeze from the ocean.

It broke up his reflection for a moment, and he waited impatiently for the surface to smooth out again. When it did, he saw with a shock that there were now two faces peering back at him. His own and that of the doorman, Arthur Barrett.

Stanley sat back on his heels with a jerk and looked up. Arthur stood above him, looking down at him, his usual grin splitting his face.

“Well, now, me young fellow,” he said softly, “you seem to be having quite a game there all by yourself. What would you be doing now, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Nothing,” Stanley said quickly, shoving the watch back in his pocket.

He watched Arthur squat down beside him, not sure if he should be frightened or not. Arthur certainly looked friendly
enough, and his smile seemed to warm Stanley’s chilled body.

“The way I see it,” Arthur said, his face now on Stanley’s level. “I’d say you were doing something really interesting. Seems to me you were trying to hypnotize yourself, am I not right?”

There was that strange word again. Stanley looked into Arthur’s eyes but saw only friendship and sympathy. Maybe he wasn’t bad at all. Maybe it was his father who’d been bad, and Arthur had simply punished him.

Anxious that Arthur should not think he was doing anything bad, Stanley vigorously nodded his head. “I can’t do it to myself,” he said, then added proudly, “but I did it with that dumb colonel.”

“Ah,” Arthur said slowly. “Now I understand. Very clever, Master Stanley. Very clever indeed.”

“He’s the only one I can do it on,” Stanley said, hoping perhaps Arthur would let him do it on him. “I tried to do it on myself, but it doesn’t work. And no one else will keep their eyes on the watch when I tell them to.”

“Well, I tell you what, young fellow,” Arthur said, getting to his feet. “I can tell, just by watching you, what it is you are doing wrong. Hypnotism is a very special art, and when you learn how to do it properly, you can achieve the most amazing results.”

Stanley peered up at him, his heart beating faster with excitement. “Really? Like what?”

Arthur let out a hearty laugh. “Well, me boy, you can use it to get whatever you want. Imagine going into a sweet shop and ordering the assistant to give you as many gumdrops as you can eat. Or a toy shop where you can walk out with an armful of toys, without paying one single farthing for the lot.”

Stanley’s eyes widened. He hadn’t thought about that at all. Just think what he could do with this strange new power. He would never have to do what he was told again. He could
do anything, have anything he wanted, and no one would be able to stop him.

Then he’d have lots of friends to play with, all right. They would all want to play with him when they found out what he could do. He could give all the kids toys, then maybe they wouldn’t tease him about being fat anymore and would want to play with him.

“How do I do it?” he asked breathlessly. “Would you show me how to do it properly?”

“Well, of course I will.” Arthur beamed down at him. “But it will take a little time. What time do you have to go to bed?”

Stanley shrugged. “Whenever they find me,” he said darkly.

Arthur laughed out loud, the sound of it echoing across the darkened lawns. “Well, to be sure now, you are a boy after me own heart. Tell you what. Why don’t we go back to my room? They’ll never find you there, even if they searched all night, and that would give us lots of time to work on this. By the time you go to bed tonight, my fine fellow, you will know everything there is to know about hypnotism, and the world will be yours.”

Stanley scrambled to his feet, eager for this exciting lesson to begin. “Where is your room?”

“It’s right next to the stables, me lad. They won’t see us go in there, I can promise you that. Once you have learned the magic art of hypnotism, I’ll sneak you back into the hotel. How does that sound?”

“That sounds wonderful,” Stanley said and put his hand into the big, warm hand of Arthur Barrett.

CHAPTER
18

Gertie knelt in front of the roaring stove, perspiration streaming down her face as she thrust the shovel beneath the smoldering grate. Another pile of gray ash emerged on the blade when she withdrew it, and she held her breath in case she should sneeze and send the lot over the hearth.

It was bad enough trying to sweep up the stray ash that fell off the shovel. The stuff seemed to have a life of its own, escaping from her in little dust clouds until she was ready to scream.

She filled the bucket with the hot ash and cinders, then straightened her back. Her last task for the day, thank God. Lifting the corner of her apron, she mopped her brow. Now all she had to do was empty the bucket, then find Stanley the Horrible, and she’d be free to go lie on her bed and rest her aching back.

The pain seemed to be getting worse lately. Not only in her back, but low in her belly, as well. She’d mentioned it to Mrs. Chubb, but the housekeeper had reassured her, saying that as long as she could feel the baby kick, she had no need to worry.

Well, she’d felt it kick all right. Right there on the sands, it had kicked so hard she thought she was going to drop it right there and then.

Gertie smiled to herself. That would have caused a right fuss an’ all. Wonder what Master Stanley-bleeding-Malton would have said to that? Would have been an early lesson in how babies are born, that it would.

On her way out to the yard she met Mrs. Chubb coming in the kitchen door. “Aren’t you finished yet?” the housekeeper said, peering up into Gertie’s face. “Are you feeling all right, my girl?”

Gertie shrugged. “Only me bleeding back, and that pain in me belly. Otherwise I’m as fit as a spring lamb.”

“Well, you don’t look it. You had best get to bed and have a good night’s rest. We have a big day tomorrow, getting ready for the Midsummer Ball.”

Gertie groaned. “Don’t bleeding remind me. I’ll be bloody glad when this season is over, I can tell you. I’ve never been so blooming tired in all my life. I swear I haven’t.”

“It’s your pregnancy, ducks. Drags you down a bit toward the end.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve got another three months to go yet. Gawd knows what I’ll be like by the time the little perisher gets here.”

Mrs. Chubb looked shocked. “Gertie Brown, that’s no way to talk about your baby. Where’s your mothering instinct?”

“Got up and left, I reckon.” Gertie heaved the bucket into the other hand. “There’s something I’d like to bloody know. Why is it the women what have to be bleeding put up with all this shit? Why couldn’t it be the blinking men what have
to have the babies? They get away with it scot-free, that’s what. It’s not bleeding fair.”

Mrs. Chubb sighed. “Gertie, love, it’s time you understood that the world is not, and never will be, fair to women.”

Gertie snorted. “Well, just wait until we get the vote. Then we’ll vote for all women in the bleeding government and chuck all the flipping men out.”

“It’s a nice dream, dearie, but I’m afraid it will never happen. Men have women right where they want them.” She pressed her thumb on the table. “Under there. And there isn’t one of them ever going to give an inch, as long as they have slaves to do their cleaning and their cooking and bring up their children.”

“Yeah, well, this woman’s got to bring up her bleeding kid on her own. No wonder I ain’t got the mothering instinct.”

Mrs. Chubb patted her on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, ducks. You’ll get it. Sooner or later. And who knows, you might find a man who’ll want a woman for his slave.”

Gertie stepped out into the yard, shivering a little at the contrast of the cool breeze after the stifling heat of the kitchen. “Well, not me,” she said, sticking her chin in the air. “I’ll bring me bloody kid up on me own, with no help from no man, thank you very much.”

With that she stomped across the yard to the dustbins. Lifting the lid of the dustbin, she emptied the bucket. A cloud of dust enveloped her head, provoking a fit of coughing that left her breathless.

“Strewth,” she muttered when she’d regained her breath, “I’ve probably got a filthy face now.” She started back to the kitchen, then something dawned on her. It was no longer daylight. Stanley was still out on the lawn. At least, she bleeding hoped he was.

God knows what he was up to, now that the sun had gone down. Probably terrorizing the moths that hovered around
the gas lamps. The little monster wasn’t happy unless he was upsetting someone.

Back inside the kitchen, the air seemed even more oppressive than it had before. Even Mrs. Chubb’s cheeks had a rosy shine to them as she sat mending a lace tablecloth.

“I’m going to find that bleeding Stanley,” Gertie announced.

Mrs. Chubb winced but merely said, “I was going to ask you where he is. Who’s taking care of him?”

Gertie shifted from one foot to the other. “Well, nobody right now. I left him playing on the lawn, and he promised me faithfully, crossed his heart, he did, that he wouldn’t leave that bit of grass.”

Mrs. Chubb paused with her needle half out of the fabric. “How long ago was that?” she said in a voice that Gertie knew was just the calm before the storm.

She looked at the clock on the mantelpiece, her heart skipping a beat when she saw the time. “About three hours ago,” she admitted unhappily.

Mrs. Chubb dropped the tablecloth into her lap. “Three hours? You left Master Stanley Malton alone for three hours to amuse himself, with no one to watch him?”

Gertie miserably nodded her head up and down. “I didn’t realize the time slipping away.”

Mrs. Chubb closed her eyes. “Well, you’d better realize the time slipping away,” she said, her voice gaining volume with each word. “You’d better get out there right now, my girl, and hope to heaven that he’s still there. Because if he’s not, and we have to search this hotel for him at this time of night”—her voice reached an earsplitting shriek—“your head is going to be served up tomorrow night for supper with an apple stuffed into your mouth! Do you understand?”

Gertie had already begun backing toward the door. She gulped as the last words resounded in her ears like a clap of thunder.

“Yes, Mrs. Chubb,” she said faintly, then tumbled through
the door and down the hallway before she could be deafened by another tirade.

Ethel stared at her as she flew past her in the foyer. “Where are you going in such a hurry?” Ethel called after her. “I’ve got something to tell you.”

“Can’t,” Gertie yelled back. “I’ll be back later.” She reached the top of the steps and hurtled clumsily down them, her frantic glance around already telling her that Stanley was nowhere in sight.

“Damn you, you little shit!” she screamed to the wind. “Why the hell can’t you do what you’re bleeding told? Where the bloody blazes are you, then?”

Stanley was too far away to hear the frantic words hurled on his head. He sat on the bed in Arthur’s tiny little room at the back of the stables and listened to the story the doorman unfolded.

“Now, when the wolf realized that the sheep recognized him and ran away from him, he had to think of a way to get close to them, without them knowing who he was.”

Stanley yawned. He was feeling very tired. It had been a long day, and all the sun and fresh sea air on the sands had made him feel very sleepy. He wanted to hear the rest of the story, and he especially wanted Arthur to teach him how to do the hypnertiz, or whatever it was. But he was very much afraid he was going to fall asleep before he learned a single thing.

“Anyway,” Arthur said, taking off his uniform jacket, “the wolf hit on a very clever idea. He went back to the first sheep he’d killed, and he took the coat off the sheep and covered himself with it.”

Stanley jerked his eyes open. “Oh, I know that trick,” he said scornfully. “I did that myself. I pretended I was a bear with the rug from the drawing room.”

“So you did, me boy,” Arthur said quietly. “So you did. Ay, and more’s the pity. The world could use more imaginative people like yourself.”

“What’s a pity?” Stanley mumbled. Arthur had the brightest blue eyes he’d ever seen, but they gave him a strange tingly feeling when he stared into them. “When are you going to teach me how to hypnertize?”

“Right now,” Arthur said, pulling a glittering glass object from his pocket. “The first thing you have to know is how to speak. You must keep your voice low and smooth, so you don’t have a jarring note to wake the victim up.”

“I know that,” Stanley said, opening his mouth wide for another yawn. “I did that to the colonel.”

“Ah, you did that, me fine friend.” Arthur started swinging the glass back and forth. It looked a little like the glass pieces of the chandeliers hanging from the ceiling in the hotel. It was long and narrow and had ridges in it, which caught the light, turning them into a rainbow of dazzling colors.

Stanley watched the brilliant stone swing back and forth, until they were swirling arcs of red, blues, greens, and yellows. He tried to separate them but couldn’t.

“You are getting sleepy, Stanley,” Arthur’s voice said.

“I don’t want to get sleepy,” Stanley protested, dragging his gaze away from the dazzling stone. “I want to learn how to do it.”

“Ah, but isn’t that just what I’m going to tell you?” Arthur’s smooth, quiet voice murmured. “I’m going to send you to sleep first, you see, then I’ll put all the instructions into your mind. When you wake up, you’ll know everything that I know. And you’ll be as clever as Mervin the Mysterious. Now isn’t that the best way to learn something?”

“Who’s Mervin the Mysterious?” Not that Stanley really wanted to know. He was too busy thinking about the new, simple way to learn something. No struggling with books and with hard words he didn’t understand.

He’d just go to sleep and wake up with the most wonderful, exciting power anyone could possibly have. The world, and everything in it, would be his.

He’d have cars, and boats, and even one of those newfangled aeroplanes that his father showed him a picture of one day. Imagine being able to fly a machine in the air! He could soar with the birds above the mountains and the ocean, something he’d always longed to do.

No more worries about friends to play with, there’d be a million things he could do. He could … even … go …

With a soft sigh, Stanley stopped resisting and drifted into the welcoming darkness.

“I’ve looked everywhere,” Gertie said, her eyes brimming with tears. “I can’t think where he could bleeding be.”

“Just calm down,” Cecily said, giving the distraught girl a comforting pat on the shoulder. “He can’t be far. I’ll send out some people to hunt for him. You look exhausted. Just go to bed and stop worrying. We’ll find him.”

“I can’t. I can’t,” Gertie said brokenly. “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have left him alone all that time. What if he wandered off and is lost somewhere on Putney Downs? The gypsies could find him and take him away.”

“Gertie,” Cecily said firmly, “you know very well the gypsies left Putney Downs some time ago.”

“No, they didn’t.” Gertie vehemently shook her head. “I’ve heard people say you can still hear their music at night. They just pretended to leave, but they’re there, deeper in the woods on Putney Downs.”

“Well, even if they did take Master Stanley, I’m quite sure that after an hour or two of his company they would be only too glad to send him back.”

Gertie showed a glimmer of a smile. “What if he went in the sea and got drowned? No one would see him in the dark.”

Cecily shook her head. “That’s the last place he’d be,” she said, trying to sound confident of that. “I’m sure we’ll find him somewhere in the hotel. Most likely he’d been hiding from you, and that’s why you couldn’t find him.”

Gertie nodded, looking a little better. “Well, maybe I will go and lie down for a little while. But I won’t sleep. I won’t even close my eyes, I know it.”

“I’ll send someone to tell you as soon as we find him,” Cecily promised, praying that wouldn’t be too long. She felt quite sorry for the girl as she watched her walk down the hallway to her room.

Hurrying up the steps to the foyer a minute later, Cecily thought about whom she could send to search for Stanley. Not too many of the staff were still up at that hour of the night. She would have to ask Baxter to wake up Samuel, and perhaps she could enlist the help of Mrs. Chubb if she were not yet asleep.

Arthur stood at his usual spot in the doorway when she reached the foyer. He would remain there until midnight, then lock up for the night. Anyone wanting to enter the hotel after that would have to ring the bell, whereupon the night porter would open the door.

Cecily glanced at the clock as she crossed the foyer. It was not quite eleven o’clock. She longed to speak to Arthur and confront him with what she had learned, but right now wasn’t the time. Her priority had to be Stanley.

Hurrying down the hallway to Baxter’s office, she prayed they would find the boy, and soon. She hoped with all her heart that Arthur Barrett was not responsible for Stanley’s disappearance.

“It is such a lovely night,” Ethel whispered as she strolled along the Esplanade with her hand tucked in the crook of Joe’s elbow. She felt so daring, being alone with a man in the dark without a chaperon. True, they were on the street, but she couldn’t see another soul, which made her virtually alone with the man she loved.

Even now, as she looked up at him, she could feel her throat fill with emotion for this strong, handsome man. She still found it so hard to believe that he cared for her enough to want to marry her.

How could she have had any doubts about what to do? Gertie had been right. She would never have been happy if Joe had gone to London without her. No, she’d made the right decision, though she would miss Badgers End dreadfully.

“A penny for them,” Joe said, and she looked up at him to find him smiling down at her.

“A penny for what?” she asked, momentarily confused by her rush of love for him.

“Your thoughts, of course.” He lightly pinched her cheek. “Where were you, sweetheart?”

She gave him a smile of sublime happiness. “I was just thinking how wonderful it will be to be starting a new life with you in London.”