The Club of Queer Trades, G. K. Chesterton [book series for 12 year olds .TXT] 📗

about him with a sort of sulky desperation. Above a row of shutters and a door, all indescribably dingy in appearance and in size scarce sufficient even for a penny toyshop, ran the inscription: “P. Montmorency, House-Agent.”

“This is the office of which I spoke,” said Keith, in a cutting voice. “Will you wait here a moment, or does your astonishing tenderness about my welfare lead you to wish to overhear everything I have to say to my business adviser?”

Rupert’s face was white and shaking with excitement; nothing on earth would have induced him now to have abandoned his prey.

“If you will excuse me,” he said, clenching his hands behind his back, “I think I should feel myself justified in⁠—”

“Oh! Come along in,” exploded the lieutenant. He made the same gesture of savage surrender. And he slammed into the office, the rest of us at his heels.

P. Montmorency, House-Agent, was a solitary old gentleman sitting behind a bare brown counter. He had an egglike head, froglike jaws, and a grey hairy fringe of aureole round the lower part of his face; the whole combined with a reddish, aquiline nose. He wore a shabby black frock-coat, a sort of semi-clerical tie worn at a very unclerical angle, and looked, generally speaking, about as unlike a house-agent as anything could look, short of something like a sandwich man or a Scotch Highlander.

We stood inside the room for fully forty seconds, and the odd old gentleman did not look at us. Neither, to tell the truth, odd as he was, did we look at him. Our eyes were fixed, where his were fixed, upon something that was crawling about on the counter in front of him. It was a ferret.

The silence was broken by Rupert Grant. He spoke in that sweet and steely voice which he reserved for great occasions and practised for hours together in his bedroom. He said:

“Mr. Montmorency, I think?”

The old gentleman started, lifted his eyes with a bland bewilderment, picked up the ferret by the neck, stuffed it alive into his trousers pocket, smiled apologetically, and said:

“Sir.”

“You are a house-agent, are you not?” asked Rupert.

To the delight of that criminal investigator, Mr. Montmorency’s eyes wandered unquietly towards Lieutenant Keith, the only man present that he knew.

“A house-agent,” cried Rupert again, bringing out the word as if it were “burglar.”

“Yes⁠ ⁠… oh, yes,” said the man, with a quavering and almost coquettish smile. “I am a house-agent⁠ ⁠… oh, yes.”

“Well, I think,” said Rupert, with a sardonic sleekness, “that Lieutenant Keith wants to speak to you. We have come in by his request.”

Lieutenant Keith was lowering gloomily, and now he spoke.

“I have come, Mr. Montmorency, about that house of mine.”

“Yes, sir,” said Montmorency, spreading his fingers on the flat counter. “It’s all ready, sir. I’ve attended to all your suggestions er⁠—about the br⁠—”

“Right,” cried Keith, cutting the word short with the startling neatness of a gunshot. “We needn’t bother about all that. If you’ve done what I told you, all right.”

And he turned sharply towards the door.

Mr. Montmorency, House-Agent, presented a picture of pathos. After stammering a moment he said: “Excuse me⁠ ⁠… Mr. Keith⁠ ⁠… there was another matter⁠ ⁠… about which I wasn’t quite sure. I tried to get all the heating apparatus possible under the circumstances⁠ ⁠… but in winter⁠ ⁠… at that elevation⁠ ⁠…”

“Can’t expect much, eh?” said the lieutenant, cutting in with the same sudden skill. “No, of course not. That’s all right, Montmorency. There can’t be any more difficulties,” and he put his hand on the handle of the door.

“I think,” said Rupert Grant, with a satanic suavity, “that Mr. Montmorency has something further to say to you, lieutenant.”

“Only,” said the house-agent, in desperation, “what about the birds?”

“I beg your pardon,” said Rupert, in a general blank.

“What about the birds?” said the house-agent doggedly.

Basil, who had remained throughout the proceedings in a state of Napoleonic calm, which might be more accurately described as a state of Napoleonic stupidity, suddenly lifted his leonine head.

“Before you go, Lieutenant Keith,” he said. “Come now. Really, what about the birds?”

“I’ll take care of them,” said Lieutenant Keith, still with his long back turned to us; “they shan’t suffer.”

“Thank you, sir, thank you,” cried the incomprehensible house-agent, with an air of ecstasy. “You’ll excuse my concern, sir. You know I’m wild on wild animals. I’m as wild as any of them on that. Thank you, sir. But there’s another thing⁠ ⁠…”

The lieutenant, with his back turned to us, exploded with an indescribable laugh and swung round to face us. It was a laugh, the purport of which was direct and essential, and yet which one cannot exactly express. As near as it said anything, verbally speaking, it said: “Well, if you must spoil it, you must. But you don’t know what you’re spoiling.”

“There is another thing,” continued Mr. Montmorency weakly. “Of course, if you don’t want to be visited you’ll paint the house green, but⁠—”

“Green!” shouted Keith. “Green! Let it be green or nothing. I won’t have a house of another colour. Green!” and before we could realize anything the door had banged between us and the street.

Rupert Grant seemed to take a little time to collect himself; but he spoke before the echoes of the door died away.

“Your client, Lieutenant Keith, appears somewhat excited,” he said. “What is the matter with him? Is he unwell?”

“Oh, I should think not,” said Mr. Montmorency, in some confusion. “The negotiations have been somewhat difficult⁠—the house is rather⁠—”

“Green,” said Rupert calmly. “That appears to be a very important point. It must be rather green. May I ask you, Mr. Montmorency, before I rejoin my companion outside, whether, in your business, it is usual to ask for houses by their colour? Do clients write to a house-agent asking for a pink house or a blue house? Or, to take another instance, for a green house?”

“Only,” said Montmorency, trembling, “only to be inconspicuous.”

Rupert had his ruthless smile. “Can you tell me any place on earth in which a green house would be inconspicuous?”

The house-agent was fidgeting nervously in his pocket. Slowly