"Oh, hell," said Smollett. "All right."
"Pull two hairs out of his head, George," said Mr. Princey, "and remember what I told you to do with them. Now, Smollett, you take that bar and raise the big flagstone with the ring in it. Withers is in the next stall. You've got to drag him through and dump him in."
"I won't touch him," said Smollett.
"Stand back, George," said Mr. Princey, raising his gun.
"Wait a minute," cried Smollett. "Wait a minute." He did as he was told.
Mr. Princey wiped his brow. "Look here," said he. "Everything is perfectly safe. Remember, no one knows that Withers came here. Everyone thinks he walked over to Bass Hill. That's five miles of country to search. They'll never look in our sewer. Do you see how safe it is?"
"I suppose it is," said Smollett.
"Now come into the house," said Mr. Princey. "We shall never get that rat."
They went into the house. The maid was bringing tea into the drawing-room. "See, my dear," said Mr. Princey to his wife, "we went to the stable to shoot a rat and we found Captain Smollett. Don't be offended, my dear fellow."
"You must have walked up the back drive," said Mrs. Princey.
"Yes. Yes. That was it," said Smollett in some confusion.
"You've cut your lip," said George, handing him a cup of tea.
"I . . . I just knocked it."
"Shall I tell Bridget to bring some iodine?" said Mrs. Princey. The maid looked up, waiting.
"Don't trouble, please," said Smollett. "It's nothing."
"Very well, Bridget," said Mrs. Princey. "That's all."
"Smollett is very kind," said Mr. Princey. "He knows all our trouble. We can rely on him. We have his word."
"Oh, have we, Captain Smollett?" cried Mrs. Princey. "You are good."
"Don't worry, old fellow," Mr. Princey said. "They'll never find anything."
Pretty soon Smollett took his leave. Mrs. Princey pressed his hand very hard. Tears came into her eyes. All three of them watched him go down the drive. Then Mr. Princey spoke very earnestly to his wife for a few minutes and the two of them went upstairs and spoke still more earnestly to Millicent. Soon after, the rain having ceased, Mr. Princey took a stroll round the stable yard.
He came back and went to the telephone. "Put me through to Bass Hill police station," said he. "Quickly . . . Hullo, is that the police station? This is Mr. Princey, of Abbott's Laxton. I'm afraid something rather terrible has happened up here. Can you send someone at once?"
SQUIRRELS HAVE BRIGHT EYES
I had what appeared to be the misfortune to fall in love with a superb creature, an Amazon, a positive Diana. Her penthouse pied--terre was a single enormous room, liberally decorated with the heads and skins of the victims of her Lee-Enfield, her Ballard, her light Winchester repeater. Bang a hearth-rug! Crack a fur coat! Pop, pop a pair of cosy mittens!
But, as a matter of fact, clothes suffocated her. Supremely Nordic, she ranged her vast apartment clad only in a sort of kirtle. This displayed four magnificent limbs, sunburned several tones darker than her blonde and huntress hair. So I fell in love. What limbs! What hair! What love!
She only laughed. "Squirrel," she said she called me Squirrel "it's no good. You're a real pet, though; you remind me a little of Bopotiti. He lived in a tree on the Congo. "Bogey," she said to her hateful little female adorer, who was always curled up on some skin or other, "Bogey," she said, "show him that snap of Bopotiti."
"Really," I said, "this is not like me at all. I am more graceful, more bird-like."
"Yes, but he used to bring me mjna-mjnas. Every morning."
"I will bring you love, at all hours. Marry me."
"No."
"Live with me."
"No, no. I live with my guns. The world cannot utter its gross libidinous sneers at a girl who lives chastely with her Lee-Enfield, her Ballard, her light Winchester."
"Love is better."
"Ha! Ha! Forgive me. I must laugh now." And she flung herself upon a polar-bear skin in a paroxysm of giant mirth.
Utterly crushed, I went out to do myself in. Racking my brain for the most expressive method, I suddenly remembered a man called Harringay, a taxidermist who was often at her cocktail parties, where he had eyed me with a friendly interest.
I went to his shop. He was there alone. "Harringay! Stuff me!"
"Sure. What shall it be? Steak? Chop suey? Something fancy?"
"No, Harringay, bitumen. Harringay, I want you to employ your art upon me. Send me to Miss Bjornstjorm with my compliments. For her collection. I love her." Here I broke down.
Harringay, that owl-like man, acted magnificently. He gave me his philosophy, put new heart into me. "Go just as you are," said he. "Perhaps love will come. Fortunately your eyes are somewhat glassy by nature. You have only to hold the pose."
"You think love will come?"
"She must at any rate recognize you as an admirably motionless companion for a it's on the tip of my tongue one of those things up in a tree to shoot from."
"It's on the tip of mine, too. I'll gamble on it. Harringay, you are a friend."
"No, no. It will be an advertisement for me."
"No, no. You are a friend. In one moment I shall be ready."
I was. He carried me to her apartment. "Brynhild, here is something more for your natural history museum."
"Why, it's Squirrel! Is he stuffed?"
"For love of you, Brynhild."
"How life-like! Harringay, you are the king of taxidermists."
"Yes, and I service him every day. It's a new method. It's all arranged for. Shall I put him in that alcove?"
"Yes, and we'll have a cocktail party. Right away. Everybody must come. Bogey, call everybody."
"Even Captain Fenshawe-Fanshawe?"
"Yes, by all means the Captain."
She collapsed, roaring with laughter, upon a flamboyant tiger-skin. She was still laughing when the guests poured in. The gigantic Captain Fenshawe-Fanshawe, my rival with the monocle and the Habsburg chin, taller than Brynhild herself, towered among them.
Everybody laughed, chattered, and admired. "Marvellous work, Mr. Harringay! When our dear Pongo dies, I shall send him to you."
"I hope you will do our Fifi, Mr. Harringay."
Harringay bowed and smiled.
"He did it for love, they say."
"Love!" boomed the Captain, filliping me under the nose. I trembled with rage and mortification.
"Be careful! He's very delicately wired," said Harringay.
"Love!" boomed the Captain. "A squirrel! Ha! Ha! It takes a full-sized man to hold a worth-while amount of love. What sort of heart did you find in him, Harringay?"
"Quite a good sort," said Harringay. "Broken of course."
Brynhild's laughter, which had been continuous, stopped.
"A squirrel!" sneered the Captain. "Didn't know you went in for small deer, Brynhild. Send you a stuffed mouse for Christmas."
He had not observed Brynhild's expression. I had. It looked like one of those bird's-eye views of the world you see before a news-reel, with everything going round and round: clouds, continents, seas, one thing after another. Suddenly, in a single convulsive movement, she was off her flamboyant tiger-skin, and stretched superbly prone on the funeral pelt of a black panther. "Leave me!" she cried chokingly. "Go away, everybody. Go away! Go away!"
The guests felt something was wrong. They edged out.
"Does that mean me?" said the Captain.
"Go away!" she cried.
"Me, too?" said Bogey.
"Everybody," sobbed Brynhild. Nevertheless a woman must have a friend: she clutched her by the hand.
"Brynhild! What is it? You are crying. I have never seen you cry. Tell me. We are alone."
"Bogey, he did it for love."
"Yes."
"I've just realized what that means, Bogey. I didn't know. I've been all my life hunting things killing them having them stuffed. Bogey, that's all done now. He's everything to me. I'll marry him."