The Blind Barber (24 page)

By dint of holding firmly to Mrs. Perrigord’s arm while the captain took Peggy’s, they slid through the rollicking, friendly crowd that was now streaming upstairs for a headlong rush on the bar before the hour of the ship’s concert. The bar, already crowded and seething with noise, seemed even more crowded and noisy to Morgan. Each of his trio had consumed exactly one bottle of champagne; and, while he would have scorned the imputation that he could become the least sozzled on a quart of fizz, he could not in honesty deny certain insidious manifestations. For example, it seemed to him that he was entirely without legs, and that his torso must be moving through the air in a singularly ghostly fashion; whereas the more lachrymose became the two ladies over Uncle Jules going off on the razzle-dazzle, the more it impressed him as an excellent joke. On the other hand, his brain was clearer than normal; sights, sounds, colours, voices took on a brilliant sharpness and purity. He felt in his pores the heat and smoke and alcoholic dampness of the bar. He saw the red-faced crowd milling about leather chairs under the whirring fans and the pastoral scenes of the roof. He saw the amber lights glittering on mosaic glass in the windows, and heard somebody strumming the piano. Good old bar! Excellent bar!

“Come on!” said Captain Valvick. “Shovf de ladies into chairs at de table here and we make de round.
Coroosh!
Ay vant to see that marionette show myself. Come on. We start along de side and work ofer. You see him anywhere? Ay dunno him at all.”

Morgan did not see him. He saw white-coated stewards shuttling in and out of the crowd with trays; but everybody in the crowd seemed to get in his way. Twice they made the circuit of the room: and no Uncle Jules.

“It’s all right, I think,” said Morgan, mopping his forehead with a handkerchief when they drew back towards a door giving on B deck. “He’s probably gone down to take a last look at the marionettes. It’s all right. He’s safe, after all, and—”

“‘When chapman-billies leave the street,’”
intoned a sepulchral voice just behind them,
“‘and drouthy neighbours neighbours meet
—
When market-days are wearin’ late, and folk begin to tak the gate’
… Not bad, not bad,” the voice broke off genially. “Guid evening to ye’, Mr. Morgan!”

Morgan whirled. A hand was raised in greeting from a leather alcove in a corner, where Dr. Oliver Harrison Kyle sat bolt upright in a solitary state. On Dr. Kyle’s rugged face there was an expression of Jovian pleasure; a trifle frozen, it is true, but dreamy and appreciative. He had stretched out one hand levelly, and his eyes were half-closed as he rolled out the lines. But now he gestured hospitably.

Dr. Kyle was full of reaming swats that drank divinely. Dr. Kyle was, in fact, cockeyed.

“‘Auld Ayr, wham ne’er a town surpasses,’”
announced Dr. Kyle, with a gesture that indicated him to be a local boy and proud of it,
“‘for honest men and bonnie lasses’!
Aye! A statement ye ken, Mr. Morgan, frae the wairks o’ the great Scottish poet, Rabbie Burrrns. Sit down, Mr. Morgan. And perhaps ye’ll tak a drap o’ whusky, eh?
‘The souter tauld his queerest stories
—
’”

“Excuse me, sir,” said Morgan. “We can’t stop now, I’m afraid, but maybe you can help us. We’re looking for a Frenchman named Fortinbras; short, stocky chap—perhaps you saw—?”

“Ah,” said the doctor reflectively. He shook his head. “A guid horse, Mr. Morgan, a guid horse, but ower hasty. Weel, weel! I could ha’ tauld him frae his ain exuberance at clearing the firrst sax hurdles he wadna gang the courrse. Ye’ll find him
there
,” said Dr. Kyle.

They hauled Uncle Jules out from under the lounge, a pleasant far-off smile on his red face, but unquestionably locked in slumber. Peggy and Mrs. Perrigord arrived just as they were trying to revive him.

“Quick!” Peggy gulped. “I knew it! Stand round, now, so nobody sees him. The door’s right behind you … carry him out and downstairs.”

“Any chance of reviving him?” inquired Morgan, rather doubtfully. “He looks—”

“Come
on
! Don’t argue! You
won’t
say anything of this, will you, Dr. Kyle?” she demanded. “He’ll be perfectly all right by curtain-time. Please don’t mention it. Nobody’ll ever know … ”

The doctor assured her gallantly the secret would be safe with him. He deplored the habits of inebriates, and offered to give them assistance in moving Uncle Jules; but Valvick and Morgan managed it. They contrived to lurch out on the deck and below without more than the incurious observation of stewards. Peggy, stanching her tears, was a whirlwind.

“Not to his cabin—to the dressing-room at the back entrance to the concert-hall! Oh, be careful! Be careful! Where can Abdul have been? Why wasn’t Abdul watching him? Abdul will be furious; he’s got a fearful temper as it is … Oh, if we can’t revive him there’ll be nobody to speak the prologue; and Abdul will have to take
all
the parts himself, which he probably won’t do … Listen! You can hear the hall filling up already … ”

They had come out into the corridor in the starboard side of C deck aft, and Peggy led them up a darkish side-passage. At its end was a door opening on a steep stairway, and beside it the door of a large cabin whose lights she switched on. Faintly, from up the staircase, they could hear an echoing murmur which seemed to come chiefly from children. Panting hard, Morgan helped Valvick spill on a couch the puppet-master, who was as heavily limp as one of his own puppets. A small whistle escaped the lips of Uncle Jules as his head rolled over. He murmured,
“Magnifique!”
and began to snore, smiling sadly.

Peggy, weeping and cursing at once, rushed to an open trunk in one corner of the cabin. It was a cabin fully fitted up as a dressing-room, Morgan saw. Three superb uniforms, with spiked helmets, broadswords, scimitars, chain mail, and cloaks crusted in glass jewels, hung in a wardrobe. A scent of powder was in the air; on a lighted dressing-table were false whiskers of varying hues, wigs in long fighting-curls, face creams, greasepaints, spirit gum, make-up boxes, and pencils of rich soft blackness. Morgan breathed deeply the air of the theatre and liked it. Peggy snatched from the trunk a large box of baking-soda.

“You neffer do it,” said Captain Valvick, looking gloomily at Uncle Jules. “Ay seen lots of drunks in my time, and ay tell you—”

“I will do it!” cried Peggy. “Mrs. Perrigord, please,
please
stop crying and pour out a glass of water. Water, somebody! I got him round once in Nashville when he was nearly as bad as this. Now! Now, if somebody will—”

“Oh, the poah
deah
!” cried Mrs. Perrigord, going over to stroke his forehead. Immediately, with a deep snore which rose to a crescendo in a reverberating whistle, Uncle Jules slid off the couch on the other side.

“Up!” wailed Peggy. “Hold him—lift him up, Captain! Hold his head. That’s it. Now tickle him. Yes, tickle him; you know.” She dropped a lump of baking-soda into a glass of water and advanced warily through an aroma of gin that was drowning the odour of grease paint. “Hold him now. Oh,
where
is Abdul? Abdul knows how to do this! Now, hold him and tickle him a little …”

“Gla-goo!”
snorted Uncle Jules, leaping like a captured dolphin. An expression of mild annoyance had crossed his face.

“Viens, mon oncle!”
whispered Peggy soothingly. Her steps were a little unsteady, her eyes smearily bright; but she was determined.
“Ah, mon pauvre enfant! Mon pauvre petit gosse! Viens, alors
…
”

The
pauvre enfant
seemed vaguely to catch the drift of this. He sat up suddenly with his eyes closed; his fist shot out with unerring aim, caught the glass full and true, and carried it with a crash against the opposite bulkhead. Then Uncle Jules slid down and serenely went on snoring. “Haah, whee!” breathed Uncle Jules.

There was a knock at the door.

Peggy nearly screamed as she backed away. “That can’t be Mr. Perrigord!” she wailed. “Oh, it can’t be! He’ll ruin us if he learns this. He
hates
drinking, and he says he’s going to write an account again for the papers. Abdul! Maybe it’s Abdul. He’ll have to do it now. He’ll have to … ”

“Dat,” said Captain Valvick suddenly, “is a very funny knock. Lissen!”

They stared, and Morgan felt a rather eerie sensation. The knock was a complicated one, very light and rapid, rather like a lodge signal. Valvick moved over to open it, when it began to open of itself in a rather singular and mysterious way, by sharp jerks …

“Ps-s-sst!” hissed a voice warningly.

Into the room, after a precautionary survey, darted none other than Mr. Curtis Warren. His attire was much rumpled, including torn coat and picturesquely grease-stained white flannels; his hair stood up, and there was some damage done to his countenance. But a glow of fiendish triumph shone from it. He closed the door carefully and faced them with a proud gesture.

Before they could recover from the shock of stupefaction and horror, he laughed a low, satisfied, swaggering laugh.

Thrusting his hand into his pocket, he drew it forth and held up, winking and glittering on its gold chain, the emerald elephant.

“I’ve got it back!” he announced triumphantly.

M
ORGAN SAID NOTHING. LIKE
Captain Whistler on several occasions too well known to cite, he was incapable of speech. His first sharp fear—
viz
., that his eyes were deceiving him, and that this might be a grotesque fantasy of champagne and weariness—was dispelled by sombre reality. Warren was here. He was here, and he had the emerald elephant. What he might have been up to was a vision which Morgan, for the moment, did not care to face. All he distinctly remembered afterwards was Valvick saying, hoarsely, “Lock dat door!”

“As for you—” continued Warren, and made a withering gesture at Peggy. “As for you—that’s all the faith and trust you put in me, is it? That’s the help I get, Baby! Ha! I put through a deep-laid plan; but do you trust me when I’m shamming sleep? No! You go rushing off in a tantrum …”

“Darling!” said Peggy, and rushed, weeping, into his arms.

“Well, now—” said Warren, somewhat mollified. “Have a drink!” he added, with an air of inspiration, and drew from his pocket a bottle of Old Rob Roy depleted by exactly one pint.

Morgan pressed his fists to his throbbing temples. He swallowed hard. Trying to get a grip on himself, he approached Warren as warily as you would approach a captured orang-outang, and tried to speak in a sensible tone.

“To begin with,” he said, “it is no use wasting time in futile recriminations. Beyond pointing out that you are intoxicated as well as off your onion, I will say nothing. But I want you to try, if possible, to collect yourself sufficiently to give me a coherent account of your movements.” A horrible suspicion struck him. “You didn’t haul off and paste the captain again, did you?” he demanded. “O God! you didn’t assault Captain Whistler for the third time, did you? No? Well, that’s something. Then what have you been up to?”

“You’re asking
me
?” queried Warren. He patted Peggy with one hand and passed the bottle to Morgan with the other. Morgan instantly took a healing pull at it. “You’re asking
me
? What did Lord Gerald do in Chapter Nine? It was your own idea. What did Lord Gerald do in Chapter Nine?”

To the other’s bemused wits this was on a par with that cryptic query touching the manifesto said to have been thundered forth by W. E. Gladstone in the year 1886.

“Now, hold on,” said Morgan, soothingly. “We’ll take it bit by bit. First, where did you pinch that emerald again?”

“From Kyle, the dastardly villain! I lifted it out of his cabin not five minutes ago. Oh, he had it, all right! We’ve
got
him now; and if Captain Whistler doesn’t have me a medal … ”

“From K
YLE
? … Don’t gibber, my dear Curt,” commanded Morgan, pressing his hands to his temples again. “I can’t stand any more gibbering. You couldn’t have got it from Kyle’s cabin. It was returned to Lord—”

“Now, Hank, old man,” interposed Warren with an air of friendly reasonableness. “
I
ought to know where I got it, oughtn’t I? You’ll at least admit that? Well, it was in Kyle’s cabin. I sneaked in there to get the goods on the villain, the way Lord Gerald did when Sir Geoffrey’s gang thought they had him imprisoned in the house at Moorfens. And I’ve
got
the goods on him … Oh, by the way,” said Warren, remembering something exultantly. He thrust his hand into the breast pocket of his coat and drew out a thick bundle. “I also got all his private papers, too.”

“You did
what
?”

“Well, I sort of opened all his bags and trunk and briefcases and things …”

“But, I say, howevah did the deah boy get out of gaol?” inquired Mrs. Perrigord. She had dried her tears, adjusted her monocle again, and she watched breathlessly with her hands against her breast. “I think it’s most, owfully, screamingly, delightfully clevah of him to … ”

There was a quick knock at the door.

“They’re after him!” breathed Peggy, whirling round with wide eyes. “Oh, they’re a-after the p-poor darling to p-put him back in that horrible brig. Oh,
don’t let them take
—”

“Sh-h-h!” rumbled Valvick, and made a mighty gesture. He blinked round. “Ay dunno what he done, but he got to hide … ”

The knock was repeated …

“Dere iss no cupboard—dere iss no—Coroosh! Ay got it! He hass got to put on de false whiskers. Come here. Come here, ay tell you, or ay bust you one! You iss cuckoo! Don’t argu wit’ me,” he boomed as a spluttering Warren was hauled across the cabin. “Here iss a pair of red whiskers wit’ de wires for de ears. Here iss a wig. Mr. Morgan, get a robe or something out of dat locker … ”

“But why, I ask you?” demanded Warren. He spoke with a difficult attempt at dignity from behind a threatening bush of red whiskers with curled ends, and a black wig with long curls which Valvick had jammed over one eye. When he began to shake one arm and declaim, Morgan wrapped round him a scarlet bejewelled robe. “I’ve got proof! I can prove Kyle is a crook. All I’ve got to do is to go to Whistler and say, ‘Look here, you old porpoise—’”