The Disentanglers. Lang Andrew

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ the maid said, ‘Ma’am, Rangoon has jumped down, and is walking off to the right, after a gentleman.’

      ‘After a sparrow, I dare say, bless him,’ said Miss Blowser. Two minutes later she asked, ‘Has Rangy come back?’

      ‘No, ma’am.’

      ‘Just look out and see what he is doing, the dear.’

      ‘He’s walking along the pavement, ma’am, sniffing at something. And oh! there’s that curate’s dog.’

      ‘Yelping little brute! I hope Rangy will give him snuff,’ said Miss Blowser.

      ‘He’s flown at him,’ cried the maid ambiguously, in much excitement. ‘Oh, ma’am, the gentleman has caught hold of Rangoon. He’s got a wire mask on his face, and great thick gloves, not to be scratched. He’s got Rangoon: he’s putting him in a bag,’ but by this time Miss Blowser, brandishing a saucepan with a long handle, had rushed out of the kitchen, through the little garden, cannoned against Mr. Fulton, who happened to be coming in with flowers to decorate his table, knocked him against a lamp-post, opened the garden gate, and, armed and bareheaded as she was, had rushed forth. You might have deemed that you beheld Bellona speeding to the fray.

      What Miss Blowser saw was a man disappearing into a hansom, whence came the yapping of a dog. Another cab was loitering by, empty; and this cabman had his orders. Logan had seen to that. To hail that cab, to leap in, to cry, ‘Follow the scoundrel in front: a sovereign if you catch him,’ was to the active Miss Blowser the work of a moment. The man whipped up his horse, the pursuit began, ‘there was racing and chasing on Cannobie Lee,’ Marylebone rang with the screams of female rage and distress. Mr. Fulton, he also, leaped up and rushed in pursuit, wringing his hands. He had no turn of speed, and stopped panting. He only saw Miss Blowser whisk into her cab, he only heard her yells that died in the distance. Mr. Fulton sped back into his house. He shouted for Mary: ‘What’s the matter with your mistress, with my cook?’ he raved.

      ‘Somebody’s taken her cat, sir, and is off, in a cab, and her after him.’

      ‘After her cat! D- her cat,’ cried Mr. Fulton. ‘My dinner will be ruined! It is the last she shall touch in this house. Out she packs – pack her things, Mary; no, don’t – do what you can in the kitchen. I must find a cook. Her cat!’ and with language unworthy of a drysalter Mr. Fulton clapped on his hat, and sped into the street, with a vague idea of hurrying to Fortnum and Mason’s, or some restaurant, or a friend’s house, indeed to any conceivable place where a cook might be recruited impromptu. ‘She leaves this very day,’ he said aloud, as he all but collided with a lady, a quiet, cool-looking lady, who stopped and stared at him.

      ‘Oh, Miss Frere!’ said Mr. Fulton, raising his hat, with a wild gleam of hope in the trouble of his eyes, ‘I have had such a misfortune!’

      ‘What has happened, Mr. Fulton?’

      ‘Oh, ma’am, I’ve lost my cook, and me with a dinner-party on to-day.’

      ‘Lost your cook? Not by death, I hope?’

      ‘No, ma’am, she has run away, in the very crisis, as I may call it.’

      ‘With whom?’

      ‘With nobody. After her cat. In a cab. I am undone. Where can I find a cook? You may know of some one disengaged, though it is late in the day, and dinner at seven. Can’t you help me?’

      ‘Can you trust me, Mr. Fulton?’

      ‘Trust you; how, ma’am?’

      ‘Let me cook your dinner, at least till your cook catches her cat,’ said Miss Frere, smiling.

      ‘You, don’t mean it, a lady!’

      ‘But a professed cook, Mr. Fulton, and anxious to help so nobly generous a patron of the art.. if you can trust me.’

      ‘Trust you, ma’am!’ said Mr. Fulton, raising to heaven his obsecrating hands. ‘Why, you’re a genius. It is a miracle, a mere miracle of good luck.’

      By this time, of course, a small crowd of little boys and girls, amateurs of dramatic scenes, was gathering.

      ‘We have no time to waste, Mr. Fulton. Let us go in, and let me get to work. I dare say the cook will be back before I have taken off my gloves.’

      ‘Not her, nor does she cook again in my house. The shock might have killed a man of my age,’ said Mr. Fulton, breathing heavily, and leading the way up the steps to his own door. ‘Her cat, the hussy!’ he grumbled.

      Mr. Fulton kept his word. When Miss Blowser returned, with her saucepan and Rangoon, she found her trunks in the passage, corded by Mr. Fulton’s own trembling hands, and she departed for ever.

      Her chase had been a stern chase, a long chase, the cab driven by Trevor had never been out of sight. It led her, in the western wilds, to a Home for Decayed and Destitute Cats, and it had driven away before she entered the lane leading to the Home. But there she found Rangoon. He had just been deposited there, in a seedy old traveller’s fur-lined sleeping bag, the matron of the Home averred, by a very pleasant gentleman, who said he had found the cat astray, lost, and thinking him a rare and valuable animal had deemed it best to deposit him at the Home. He had left money to pay for advertisements. He had even left the advertisement, typewritten (by Miss Blossom).

      ‘FOUND. A magnificent Siamese Cat. Apply to the Home for Destitute and Decayed Cats, Water Lane, West Hammersmith.’

      ‘Very thoughtful of the gentleman,’ said the matron of the Home. ‘No; he did not leave any address. Said something about doing good by stealth.’

      ‘Stealth, why he stole my cat!’ exclaimed Miss Blowser. ‘He must have had the advertisement printed like that ready beforehand. It’s a conspiracy,’ and she brandished her saucepan.

      The matron, who was prejudiced in favour of Logan, and his two sovereigns, which now need not be expended in advertisements, was alarmed by the hostile attitude of Miss Blowser. ‘There’s your cat,’ she said drily; ‘it ain’t stealing a cat to leave it, with money for its board, and to pay for advertisements, in a well-conducted charitable institution, with a duchess for president. And he even left five shillings to pay for the cab of anybody as might call for the cat. There is your money.’

      Miss Blowser threw the silver away.

      ‘Take your old cat in the bag,’ said the matron, slamming the door in the face of Miss Blowser.

* * * * *

      After the trial for breach of promise of marriage, and after paying the very considerable damages which Miss Blowser demanded and received, old Mr. Fulton hardened his heart, and engaged a male chef.

      The gratitude of Mrs. Gisborne, now free from all anxiety, was touching. But Merton assured her that he knew nothing whatever of the stratagem, scarcely a worthy one, he thought, as she reported it, by which her uncle was disentangled.

      It was Logan’s opinion, and it is mine, that he had not been guilty of theft, but perhaps of the wrongous detention or imprisonment of Rangoon. ‘But,’ he said, ‘the Habeas Corpus Act has no clause about cats, and in Scottish law, which is good enough for me, there is no property in cats. You can’t, legally, steal them.’

      ‘How do you know?’ asked Merton.

      ‘I СКАЧАТЬ