He unearthed coffee and a coffeepot, mastered the intricacies of the electric stove, and proceeded to cook himself some breakfast.
He wanted to see the rest of the house. He yearned to see it. But if the rest were as satisfactory as this room, he would never be able to pause for food.
It disappointed him to find the chefs cap and apron after he had finished cooking, but he put the outfit on anyway, and wondered whether Dow or Cassie or Jock was responsible for the legend, “Bill’s Chop House,” stitched on the front. There was a red telephone in the comer, and he started to phone Cassie and . invite everybody to breakfast. But a telephone conversation with Cassie, as he knew from experience, was nothing’ to be entered into lightly. It was something you undertook when you had a clear, free day ahead. And he wanted to see the rest of the house. And besides, they were probably on their way.
He returned things to the refrigerator lingeringly, one at a time, put his dishes in the washer, and fed coffee grounds and eggshells to the garbage chopper.
Just as he opened the red refrigerator door for one last time before setting out to see the rest of the house, a musical chime began to sound in a gentle, restrained fashion.
Leonidas finally tracked it down. It was the bell at the rear entrance.
He wondered, as he opened the door, what the front door would produce. An aria, probably.
A man with a piece of paper in his hand stood on the doorstep.
He looked at Leonidas’s cap and apron, and then thrust out the paper.
“We got an icebox, mister.”
“That’s nice,” Leonidas said.
“For you.”
“Thank you, I have one. It’s red, and it lights up.”
“Yeah, but it ain’t right—”
“My dear fellow,” Leonidas said, “it is. Definitely. It’s just the thing.”
“Listen, I tell you we got an icebox!”
“I don’t doubt it. I’m sure you have, if you say so.”
“Listen, yours ain’t right, see? Yours is all wrong. Yours don’t work.”
“My good man,” Leonidas said, “it works beautifully. I know. I’ve worked it. It’s a fine red refrigerator, and it satisfies me completely. As far as I am concerned, the refrigerator problem has been solved, and I am not in the market for more refrigerators. Good morning.”
“Don’t you want a bigger one?”
“No.”
“But this one’s a better one than you got!”
“Impossible. Good morning!”
“Listen, I’m supposed to take your icebox out—”
“What?” Leonidas put on his pince-nez. “You’re supposed to what?”
“Take your icebox out, see?” the man waved the paper. “I’m supposed to take your icebox out, and—”
“The person,” Leonidas said firmly, “who removes my red refrigerator will do so over my dead body. Is that quite clear?”
He shut the door.
He remembered that Cassie had often complained bitterly of the number of people who came to her house and tried to sell her things, but he hadn’t suspected that anything as large as refrigerators would be peddled from door to door. The fellow was obviously a half-wit.
He paused a moment in the kitchen, and then took the door at his right. The front of the house would probably prove most interesting, so he would save that till last.
He found himself in the most fantastic room he had ever seen in his life. It wasn’t large, but it contained a gas furnace, a washing machine, a drier, a hot-water heater, and several large boxlike objects whose purpose he didn’t even dare guess at. One of them, he suspected, conditioned air. If it didn’t, it was a rocket ship.
A door in the comer led down a short flight of steps to a small hallway, and Leonidas realized for the first time that the slope of the hill had been utilized to provide for a lower level. He hadn’t noticed it, with the drifts outside.
On the right was a low-ceilinged bedroom with a bath beyond. A servant’s room, Leonidas decided, and very ingenious of Mr. Dow. Its occupant could come and go without disturbing anyone, and the tiny radio could run forever without any complaints from him.
He returned to the hallway and hurried along to the door on the left.
It was sealed with a wide strip of rather grimy adhesive tape, under which a note had been stuck.
Leonidas smiled as he put on his pince-nez and read the scrawl.
“Dear Bill,
Please don’t go in here till I come. Please. Don’t let Gran invaiggle you, either. This is in case anything goes wrong with our plans and I’m not here when you are. Please wait. This is my surprise as much as theirs. I thought of it.
Jock.”
Leonidas chuckled. Jock knew, better than anyone, how his grandmother could inveigle. And Jock, in turn, was probably the only person who exerted any real influence over his impetuous grandmother. Cassie was putty in Jock’s hands.
Probably the room would be a workshop, he thought as he went back upstairs. Jock and his uncle, Colonel Carpenter, built model ships, and very likely the workshop had been their idea. Leonidas could imagine that Cassie, who hated what she called their litter, had enthusiastically approved the plan. Whatever the motives, it was nice to have a workroom in one’s house.
He hurried through the boiler room and the kitchen into a small dining room, with a bay window of glass brick at one end. It would never suit a person like Cassie, who was unhappy without at least eight to dinner, but it was large enough for Leonidas, and his old mahogany table fitted beautifully against the wall. He liked the inlaid linoleum floor, and the built-in china shelves.
The dining room led to a hall, from which a circular staircase rose. Leonidas paused, and then crossed the hall into a living room that ran the width of the house.
He stood in the doorway and held his breath.
A long glass picture window looked out over the terrace. There was a fireplace to his left, with a low, curving sort of sofa in front of it. There was a large green leather chair
