A Gentleman of Leisure, P. G. Wodehouse [speld decodable readers .TXT] 📗

drawer, and you’d get into awful trouble. Quick!”

She pushed him behind the curtain where the clothes hung, and switched off the light.

From behind the curtain came the muffled voice of his lordship.

“It’s Uncle Thomas. I’m coming out. Pull his nose.”

“Be quiet!”

She sprang to the curtain and slipped noiselessly behind it.

“But, I say⁠—” began his lordship.

“Hush!”

She gripped his arm. He subsided.

The footsteps had halted outside the door. Then the handle turned softly. The door opened and closed again with hardly a sound.

The footsteps passed on into the room.

XXV Explanations and an Interruption

Jimmy, like Lord Dreever, had been trapped at the beginning of the duologue, and had not been able to get away till it was nearly over. He had been introduced by Lady Julia to an elderly and adhesive baronet, who had recently spent ten days in New York, and escape had not been won without a struggle. The baronet, on his return to England, had published a book entitled Modern America and Its People and it was with regard to the opinions expressed in this volume that he invited Jimmy’s views. He had no wish to see the duologue, and it was only after the loss of much precious time that Jimmy was enabled to tear himself away on the plea of having to dress. He anathematized the authority on Modern America and Its People freely as he ran upstairs.

While the duologue was in progress there had been no chance of Sir Thomas taking it into his head to visit his dressing room. He had been, as his valet detective had observed to Mr. Galer, too busy jollying among the swells. It would only be the work of a few moments restoring the necklace to its place. But for the tenacity of the elderly baronet the thing would have been done by this time. But now there was no knowing what might not happen⁠—anybody might come along the passage and see him.

He had one point in his favour: there was no likelihood of the jewels being required by their owner till the conclusion of the theatricals. The part which Lady Julia had been persuaded by Charteris to play mercifully contained no scope for the display of gems.

Before going down to dinner he had locked up the necklace in a drawer. It was still there, Spike having, apparently, been able to resist the temptation of recapturing it. He took it out and went into the corridor. He looked up and down it. There was nobody about. He shut his door and walked quickly in the direction of the dressing room.

He had provided himself with a lamp from a bicycle belonging to one of the grooms. Once inside, having closed the door, he lit this and looked about him.

Spike had given him minute directions as to the position of the jewel box. He found it without difficulty. To his untrained eye it seemed tolerably massive and impregnable, but Spike had evidently known how to open it without much difficulty. The lid was shut, but it came up without an effort when he tried to raise it, and he saw that the lock had been broken.

“Spike’s coming on!” he said.

He was dangling the necklace over the box, preparatory to dropping it in, when there was a quick rustle at the other side of the room. The curtain was plucked aside and Molly came out.

“Jimmy!” she cried.

Jimmy’s nerves were always in pretty good order, but at the sight of this apparition he certainly jumped.

“Great Scot!” he said.

The curtain again became agitated by some unseen force, violently this time, and from its depths a plaintive voice made itself heard.

“Dash it all,” said the voice, “I’ve stuck!”

There was another upheaval, and his lordship emerged, his yellow locks ruffled and upstanding, his face crimson.

“Caught my head in a coat or something,” he explained at large. “Halloa, Pitt!”

Pressed rigid against the wall, Molly had listened with growing astonishment to the movements on the other side of the curtain. Her mystification deepened every moment. It seemed to her that the room was still in darkness. She could hear the sound of breathing; and then the light of the lantern caught her eye. Who could this be, and why had he not switched on the electric light?

She strained her ears to catch a sound. For a while she heard nothing except the soft breathing. Then came a voice that she knew well; and, abandoning her hiding place, she came out into the room, and found Jimmy standing with a lamp in his hand over some dark object in the corner of the room.

It was a full minute after Jimmy’s first exclamation of surprise before either of them spoke again. The light of the lamp hurt Molly’s eyes. She put up a hand to shade them. It seemed to her that they had been standing like this for years.

Jimmy had not moved. There was something in his attitude which filled Molly with a vague fear. In the shadow behind the lamp he looked shapeless and inhuman.

“You’re hurting my eyes,” she said at last.

“I’m sorry,” said Jimmy. “I didn’t think. Is that better?” He turned the light from her face. Something in his voice and the apologetic haste with which he moved the lamp seemed to relax the strain of the situation. The feeling of stunned surprise began to leave her. She found herself thinking coherently again.

The relief was but momentary. Why was Jimmy in the room at that time? Why had he a lamp? What had he been doing? The questions shot from her brain like sparks from an anvil.

The darkness began to tear at her nerves. She felt along the wall for the switch and flooded the room with light.

Jimmy laid down the lantern and stood for a moment undecided. He had concealed the necklace behind him. Now he brought it forward and dangled it silently before the eyes of Molly and his lordship. Excellent as were his motives for being in that