His progress was stayed by a solid, forbidding slab of oak. Somehow or other, since he had left the room, the door had managed to get itself shut.
'Oh, dash it!' said Archie.
The mildness of the expletive was proof that the full horror of the situation had not immediately come home to him. His mind in the first few moments was occupied with the problem of how the door had got that way. He could not remember shutting it. Probably he had done it unconsciously. As a child, he had been taught by sedulous elders that the little gentleman always closed doors behind him, and presumably his subconscious self was still under the influence. And then, suddenly, he realised that this infernal, officious ass of a subconscious self had deposited him right in the gumbo. Behind that closed door, unattainable as youthful ambition, lay his gent's heather-mixture with the green twill, and here he was, out in the world, alone, in a lemon-coloured bathing suit.
In all crises of human affairs there are two broad courses open to a man. He can stay where he is or he can go elsewhere. Archie, leaning on the banisters, examined these alternatives narrowly. If he stayed where he was he would have to spend the night on this dashed landing. If he legged it, in this kit, he would be gathered up by the constabulary before he had gone a hundred yards. He was no pessimist, but he was reluctantly forced to the conclusion that he was up against it.
It was while he was musing with a certain tenseness on these things that the sound of footsteps came to him from below. But almost in the first instant the hope that this might be J. B. Wheeler, the curse of the human race, died away. Whoever was coming up the stairs was running, and J. B. Wheeler never ran upstairs. He was not one of your lean, haggard, spiritual-looking geniuses. He made a large income with his brush and pencil, and spent most of it in creature comforts. This couldn't be J. B. Wheeler.
It was not. It was a tall, thin man whom he had never seen before. He appeared to be in a considerable hurry. He let himself into the studio on the floor below, and vanished without even waiting to shut the door.
He had come and disappeared in almost record time, but, brief though his passing had been, it had been long enough to bring consolation to Archie. A sudden bright light had been vouchsafed to Archie, and he now saw an admirably ripe and fruity scheme for ending his troubles. What could be simpler than to toddle down one flight of stairs and in an easy and debonair manner ask the chappie's permission to use his telephone? And what could be simpler, once he was at the 'phone, than to get in touch with somebody at the Cosmopolis who would send down a few trousers and what not in a kit bag. It was a priceless solution, thought Archie, as he made his way downstairs. Not even embarrassing, he meant to say. This chappie, living in a place like this, wouldn't bat an eyelid at the spectacle of a fellow trickling about the place in a bathing suit. They would have a good laugh about the whole thing.
'I say, I hate to bother you--dare say you're busy and all that sort of thing--but would you mind if I popped in for half a second and used your 'phone?'
That was the speech, the extremely gentlemanly and well-phrased speech. Which Archie had prepared to deliver the moment the man appeared. The reason he did not deliver it was that the man did not appear. He knocked, but nothing stirred.
'I say!'
Archie now perceived that the door was ajar, and that on an envelope attached with a tack to one of the panels was the name 'Elmer M. Moon' He pushed the door a little farther open and tried again.
'Oh, Mr. Moon! Mr. Moon!' He waited a moment. 'Oh, Mr. Moon! Mr. Moon! Are you there, Mr. Moon?'
He blushed hotly. To his sensitive ear the words had sounded exactly like the opening line of the refrain of a vaudeville song-hit. He decided to waste no further speech on a man with such an unfortunate surname until he could see him face to face and get a chance of lowering his voice a bit. Absolutely absurd to stand outside a chappie's door singing song-hits in a lemon-coloured bathing suit. He pushed the door open and walked in; and his subconscious self, always the gentleman, closed it gently behind him.
'Up!' said a low, sinister, harsh, unfriendly, and unpleasant voice.
'Eh?' said Archie, revolving sharply on his axis.
He found himself confronting the hurried gentleman who had run upstairs. This sprinter had produced an automatic pistol, and was pointing it in a truculent manner at his head. Archie stared at his host, and his host stared at him.
'Put your hands up,' he said.
'Oh, right-o! Absolutely!' said Archie. 'But I mean to say--'
The other was drinking him in with considerable astonishment. Archie's costume seemed to have made a powerful impression upon him.
'Who the devil are you?' he enquired.
'Me? Oh, my name's--'
'Never mind your name. What are you doing here?'
'Well, as a matter of fact, I popped in to ask if I might use your 'phone. You see--'
A certain relief seemed to temper the austerity of the other's gaze. As a visitor, Archie, though surprising, seemed to be better than he had expected.
'I don't know what to do with you,' he said, meditatively.
'If you'd just let me toddle to the 'phone--'
'Likely!' said the man. He appeared to reach a decision. 'Here, go into that room.'
He indicated with a jerk of his head the open door of what was apparently a bedroom at the farther end of the studio.
'I take it,' said Archie, chattily, 'that all this may seem to you not a little rummy.'
'Get on!'
'I was only saying--'
