XXXV
Eline Simpson with a large handkerchief tied round her face, turned on her bed and groaned. It was unfortunate for all concerned that Eline’s bedroom was immediately above that occupied by Mr. John Stott and his wife, although Eline’s groans had no serious effect upon that lady.
Mr. Stott had reached the stage where he waited with agonized expectancy for the next boom of anguish; when it did not come he was frantic, when it finally shivered the walls of his room, he was maddened. Eline was an irregular groaner.
“Eline goes tomorrow!” he roared, and even Mrs. Stott heard him.
“She’s had her tooth out,” said Mrs. Stott sleepily.
“Go upstairs and tell that girl to get up and walk about—no, no, not to walk about, to sit still.”
“M’m,” said Mrs. Stott, and sighed happily.
Mr. Stott glared at her and then came another groan from above. He got out of bed and into his dressing-gown—it was really a kimono—and trotted up the stairs.
“Eline!” he called in a hushed intense voice, suitable to the hour and the occasion.
“Yes, sir,” pathetically.
“What the he—why are you making such a—such a hullabaloo?”
“Oh, my tooth does ache, sir!” she wailed jerkily.
“Nonsense!” said Mr. Scott, “how can it ache when it is at the dentist’s? Don’t be a baby. Get up and take something, come downstairs, dress yourself decently,” he warned her.
He went down into the dining-room and from a secret cupboard produced a bottle with a boastful label. Into a tumbler he splashed a very generous portion.
Eline came in a flannel dressing-gown and skirt. She looked scarcely human.
“Drink this,” commanded Mr. Stott.
Eline took the glass timidly and examined it.
“I could never drink that, sir,” she said, awestricken.
“Drink it!” commanded Mr. Stott fiercely, “it is nothing.”
To prove that it was nothing, he poured himself out an even more impressive quantity and tossed it down. In retaliation, the whiskey almost tossed down Mr. Stott. At any rate, he staggered under the shock. Fortunately for his reputation as a hard and easy drinker, Eline was oblivious to everything except a sense of complete suffocation accompanied by a feeling that she had swallowed a large ladleful of molten lead. So she did not see Mr. Stott gasping like a fish and clutching his throat.
“Oh, sir—what was it?” she found voice to ask.
“Whiskey,” said Mr. Stott in a strangled voice, “neat whiskey! It is nothing.”
Eline had never drunk neat whiskey before. It seemed to her, as whiskey, distinctly untidy. It had sharp edges. She could only look upon her employer with a new born respect.
“It is nothing,” said Mr. Stott again. Now that it was all over it seemed at any rate, easy. He was an abstemious man and in truth had never tasted whiskey in its undiluted state. Bravado had made him do it, but now that it was done, he had no regrets.
“How’s your tooth?”
“Fine, sir,” said Eline gratefully. She experienced a wonderful sense of exhilaration. So did Mr. Stott.
“Sit down, Eline,” he pointed grandly to a chair.
Eline smiled foolishly and sat.
“I have always been a very heavy drinker,” said Mr. Stott gravely. “My father was before me. I am what is known as a three-bottle man.”
He wondered at himself as he spoke. His maligned parent had been a Baptist minister.
“Goodness!” said Eline impressed, “and there are only two bottles on the sideboard!”
Mr. Stott looked.
“There is only one, Eline,” he said severely, and looked again. “Yes, perhaps you’re right.” He closed first one eye and then the other. “Only one,” he said.
“Two,” murmured Eline defiantly.
“We Stotts have always been devil-may-care fellows,” said Mr. Stott moodily. “Into one scrape and out of another. Hard drinking, hard riding, hard living men, the salt of the earth, Eline.”
“There are three bottles!” said Eline in wonderment.
“My father fought Kid McGinty for twenty-five rounds.” Mt. Stott shook his head. “And beat him to—to—a jelly. Hard fighters every one of us. By heaven,” he said, his pugilistic mood reviving certain memories, “if I had laid my hands on that scoun’rel … !”
He walked heavily, rose and walked with long strides into the hall. Eline scenting action, followed. Her strides were not so long, but longer than she expected. Mr. Stott was standing on the doorstep, his hands on his hip, his legs apart, and he was looking disparagingly at Mayfield.
“Come any more of your tricks—and look out!” he challenged. “You’ll find a Stott—”
Eline clutched his arm frenziedly.
“Oh sir—there’s somebody there!”
Undoubtedly there was somebody there; a light was showing in the front room, a red and uncertain light. And then a door closed loudly.
“Somebody there—?”
Mr. Stott strode down the steps furiously. Even when he strode down a step that wasn’t there, he did not lose his poise.
“Somebody there—?”
He remembered mistily that the gardener had a lazy habit of leaving his spade beneath the trimmed hedge that marked the boundaries of his property.
“You’ll catch your death of cold, dear,” wailed Eline outrageously.
But Mr. Stott neither observed the uncalled-for endearment, nor the rain that soaked him, nor the wind that flapped his dressing-gown loose. He groped for the spade and found it, just as a car came smashing through the frail gate of Mayfield.
“Hi, you, sir!” shouted Mr. Stott fiercely, “what in hell do you mean, sir!”
He stood in the centre of the road, brandishing his spade—the mudguard of the car just missed him.
Mr. Stott turned and stared after.
“Disgusting—no lights!” he said.
But there were lights in Mayfield, white and red and yellow lights, that flickered up in long caressing tongues.
“Fire!” said Mr. Stott thickly.
He staggered up to the door of Mayfield and brought his spade down upon the narrow glass panel with a crash. Putting in his hand, he found the knob of the door and fell into the passage.
“Fire!” boomed Mr. Stott.
He had an idea that something ought to be done—a feeling that somebody should be rescued. The dining-room was blazing at the window end and by the light he saw an open door. Below was a glow of steady illumination.
“Anybody there?” shouted
