A feeling of being on the verge of one of those crises which dot the smooth path of our lives came to Jimmy. To conceal his identity from Ann any longer seemed impossible. He was about to speak, when Ann broke in.
"Aunt Nesta," she said, "I can't let this go on any longer. Jerry Mitchell isn't to blame. I told him to kidnap Ogden!"
There was an awkward silence. Mrs. Pett laughed nervously.
"I think you had better go to bed, my dear child. You have had a severe shock. You are not yourself."
"But it's true! I did tell him, didn't I, Jerry?"
"Say!" Miss Trimble silenced Jerry with a gesture. "You beat 't back t' y'r little bed, honey, like y'r aunt says. Y' say y' told this guy t' steal th' kid. Well, what about this here Skinner? Y' didn't tell him, did y'?"
"I—I—" Ann began confusedly. She was utterly unable to account for Skinner, and it made her task of explaining difficult.
Jimmy came to the rescue. He did not like to think how Ann would receive the news, but for her own sake he must speak now. It would have required a harder-hearted man than himself to resist the mute pleading of his father's grease-painted face. Mr. Crocker was a game sport: he would not have said a word without the sign from Jimmy, even to save himself from a night in prison, but he hoped that Jimmy would speak.
"It's perfectly simple," said Jimmy, with an attempt at airiness which broke down miserably under Miss Trimble's eye. "Perfectly simple. I really am Jimmy Crocker, you know." He avoided Ann's gaze. "I can't think what you are making all this fuss about."
"Th'n why did y' sit in at a plot to kidnap this boy?"
"That, of course—ha, ha!—might seem at first sight to require a little explanation."
"Y' admit it, then?"
"Yes. As a matter of fact, I did have the idea of kidnapping Ogden. Wanted to send him to a dogs' hospital, if you understand what I mean." He tried to smile a conciliatory smile, but, encountering Miss Trimble's left eye, abandoned the project. He removed a bead of perspiration from his forehead with his handkerchief. It struck him as a very curious thing that the simplest explanations were so often quite difficult to make. "Before I go any further, I ought to explain one thing. Skinner there is my father."
Mrs. Pett gasped.
"Skinner was my sister's butler in London."
"In a way of speaking," said Jimmy, "that is correct. It's rather a long story. It was this way, you see. . . ."
Miss Trimble uttered an ejaculation of supreme contempt.
"I n'ver saw such a lot of babbl'ng crooks in m' life! 't beats me what y' hope to get pulling this stuff. Say!" She indicated Mr. Crocker. "This guy's wanted f'r something over in England. We've got h's photographs 'n th' office. If y' ask me, he lit out with the spoons 'r something. Say!" She fixed one of the geniuses with her compelling eye. "'Bout time y' made y'rself useful. Go'n call up th' Astorbilt on th' phone. There's a dame there that's been making the enquiries f'r this duck. She told Anderson's—and Anderson's handed it on to us—to call her up any hour of the day 'r night when they found him. You go get her on the wire and t'll her t' come right up here'n a taxi and identify him."
The genius paused at the door.
"Whom shall I ask for?"
"Mrs. Crocker," snapped Miss Trimble. "Siz Bingley Crocker. Tell her we've found th' guy she's been looking for!"
The genius backed out. There was a howl of anguish from the doorway.
"I beg your pardon!" said the genius.
"Can't you look where you're going!"
"I am exceedingly sorry—"
"Brrh!"
Mr. Pett entered the room, hopping. He was holding one slippered foot in his hand and appeared to be submitting it to some form of massage. It was plain that the usually mild and gentle little man was in a bad temper. He glowered round him at the company assembled.
"What the devil's the matter here?" he demanded. "I stood it as long as I could, but a man can't get a wink of sleep with this noise going on!"
"Yipe! Yipe! Yipe!" barked Aida from the shelter of Mrs. Pett's arms.
Mr. Pett started violently.
"Kill that dog! Throw her out! Do something to her!"
Mrs. Pett was staring blankly at her husband. She had never seen him like this before. It was as if a rabbit had turned and growled at her. Coming on top of the crowded sensations of the night, it had the effect of making her feel curiously weak. In all her married life she had never known what fear was. She had coped dauntlessly with the late Mr. Ford, a man of a spirited temperament; and as for the mild Mr. Pett she had trampled on him. But now she felt afraid. This new Peter intimidated her.
CHAPTER XXIV
SENSATIONAL TURNING OF A WORM
To this remarkable metamorphosis in Mr. Peter Pett several causes had contributed. In the first place, the sudden dismissal of Jerry Mitchell had obliged him to go two days without the physical exercises to which his system had become accustomed, and this had produced a heavy, irritable condition of body and mind. He had brooded on the injustice of his lot until he had almost worked himself up to rebellion. And then, as sometimes happened with him when he was out of sorts, a touch of gout came to add to his troubles. Being a patient man by nature, he might have borne up against these trials, had he been granted an adequate night's rest. But, just as he had dropped off after tossing restlessly for two hours, things had begun to happen noisily in the library. He awoke to a vague realisation of tumult below.
Such was the morose condition of his mind as the result of his misfortune that at first not even the cries for help could interest him sufficiently to induce him to leave his bed. He knew that walking in his present state would be painful, and he declined to submit to any more pain just because some party unknown was apparently being murdered in his library. It was not until the shrill barking of the dog Aida penetrated right in among his nerve-centres and began to tie them into knots that he found himself compelled to descend. Even when he did so, it was in no spirit of kindness. He did not come to rescue anybody or to interfere between any murderer and his victim. He came in a fever of militant wrath to suppress Aida. On the threshold of the library, however, the genius, by treading on his gouty foot, had diverted his anger and caused it to become more general. He had not ceased to concentrate his venom on Aida. He wanted to assail everybody.
"What's the matter here?" he demanded, red-eyed. "Isn't somebody going to tell me? Have I got to stop here all night? Who on earth is this?" He glared at Miss Trimble. "What's she doing with that pistol?" He stamped incautiously with his bad foot, and emitted a dry howl of anguish.
"She is a detective, Peter," said Mrs. Pett timidly.
"A detective? Why? Where did she come from?"
Miss Trimble took it upon herself to explain.
"Mister Pett, siz Pett sent f'r me t' watch out so's nobody kidnapped her son."
"Oggie," explained Mrs. Pett. "Miss Trimble was guarding darling Oggie."
"Why?"
"To—to prevent him being kidnapped, Peter."
Mr. Pett glowered at the stout boy. Then his eye was attracted by the forlorn figure of Jerry Mitchell. He started.
"Was this fellow kidnapping the boy?" he asked.
"Sure," said Miss Trimble. "Caught h'm with th' goods. He w's waiting outside there with a car. I held h'm and this other guy up w'th a gun and brought 'em back!"
"Jerry," said Mr. Pett, "it wasn't your fault that you didn't bring it off, and I'm going to treat you right. You'd have done it if nobody had butted in to stop you. You'll get the money to start that health-farm of yours all right. I'll see to that. Now you run off to bed. There's nothing to keep you here."