The Complete Works of R. Austin Freeman: Action Thrillers, Murder Mysteries & Detective Stories (Illustrated). R. Austin Freeman

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СКАЧАТЬ at me thoughtfully. "It's very—very flattering of you to say so, Dr. Jardine."

      "I hope you don't mean that as a snub," I said, rather uneasy at the form of her reply and thinking of my letter.

      "A snub!" she exclaimed. "No, I certainly don't. What did I say?"

      "You called me Dr. Jardine. I addressed you in my letter as "Sylvia "—"My dear Sylvia."

      "And what ought I to have said?" she asked, blushing warmly and casting down her eyes.

      "Well, Sylvia, if you liked me as well as I like you, I don't see why you shouldn't call me Humphrey. We are quite old friends now."

      "So we are," she agreed; "and perhaps it would be less formal. So Humphrey it shall be in future, since that is your royal command. But tell me, how did you prevail on Dr. Thorndyke to let you come here? Is there any change in the situation?"

      "There's a change in my situation, and a mighty agreeable change, too. I'm here."

      "Now don't be silly. How did you persuade Dr. Thorndyke to let you come?"

      "Ha—that, my dear Sylvia, is a rather embarrassing question. Shall we change the subject?"

      "No, we won't." She looked at me suspiciously for a moment and then exclaimed in low, tragical tones: "Humphrey! You don't mean to tell me that you came away without his knowledge!"

      "I'm afraid that is what it amounts to. I saw a loop-hole and I popped through it; and here I am, as I remarked before."

      "But how dreadful of you! Perfectly shocking! And whatever will he say to you when you go back?"

      "That is a question that I am not proposing to present vividly to my consciousness until I arrive on the door-step. I've broken out of chokee and I'm going to have a good time—to go on having a good time, I should say."

      "Then you consider that you are having a good time now?"

      "I don't consider. I am sure of it. Am I not, at this very moment looking at you? And what more could a man desire?"

      She tried to look severe, though the attempt was not strikingly successful, and retorted in an admonishing tone: "You needn't try to wheedle me with compliments. You are a very wicked person and most indiscreet. But it seems to me that some sort of change has come over you since you retired from the world. Don't you think I'm right?"

      "You're perfectly right. I've improved. That's what it is. Matured and mellowed, you know, like a bottle of claret that has been left in a cellar and forgotten. Say you think I've improved, Sylvia."

      "I won't," she replied, and then, changing her mind, she added: "Yes, I will. I'll say that you are more insinuating than ever, if that will do. And now, as, you are clearly quite incorrigible, I won't scold you any more, especially as you 'broke out of chokee' to come and see me. You shall tell me all about your adventures."

      "I didn't come here to talk about myself, Sylvia. I came to tell you something—well, about myself, perhaps, but—er—not my adventures you know or—or that sort of thing—but, I have been thinking a good deal, since I have been alone so much—about you, I mean, Sylvia—and—er—Oh! the deuce!"

      The latter exclamation was evoked by the warning voice of the gong, evidently announcing tea, and the subsequent appearance of the housemaid; who was certainly not such a goose as she was supposed to be, for she tapped discreetly at the door and waited three full seconds before entering; and even then she appeared demurely unconscious of my existence. "If you please, Miss Sylvia, Miss Vyne has woke up and I've taken in the tea."

      Such was the paltry interruption that arrested the flow of my eloquence and scattered my flowers of rhetoric to the winds. I murmured inwardly, "Blow the tea!" for the opportunity was gone; but I comforted myself with the reflection that it didn't matter very much, since Sylvia and I seemed to have arrived at a pretty clear understanding; which understanding was further clarified by a momentary contact of our hands as we followed the maid to the drawing-room. Miss Vyne was on this occasion, as on the last, seated in the exact centre of the room, and with the same monumental effect; so that my thoughts were borne irresistibly to the ethnographical section of the British Museum, and especially to that part of it wherein the deities of Polynesia look out from their cases in perennial surprise at the degenerate European visitors. If she had been asleep previously, she was wide enough awake now; but the glittering eyes were not directed at me. From the moment of our entering the room they focussed themselves on Sylvia's face and there remained riveted, whereby the heightening of that young lady's complexion, which our interview had produced, became markedly accentuated. It was to no purpose that I placed myself before the rigid figure and offered my hand. A paw was lifted automatically to mine, but the eyes remained fixed on Sylvia. "What did you say this gentleman's name was!" the waxwork asked frigidly.

      "This is Dr. Jardine," was the reply.

      "Oh, indeed. And who was the gentleman who called some three weeks ago?"

      "Why, that was Dr. Jardine; you know it was."

      "So I thought, but my memory is not very reliable. And this is a Dr. Jardine, too? Very interesting. A medical family, apparently. But not much alike."

      I was beginning to explain my identity and the cause of my altered appearance, when Sylvia approached with a cup of tea and a carefully dissected muffin, which latter she thrust under the nose of the elder lady; who regarded it attentively and with a slight squint, owing to its nearness. "It's of no use, you know," said Sylvia, "for you to pretend that you don't know him, because I've told you all about the transformation—that is, all I know myself. Don't you think it's rather a clever make-up?"

      "If," said Miss Vyne, "by 'make-up' you mean a disguise, I think it is highly successful. The beard is a most admirable imitation."

      "Oh, the beard is his own; at least, I think it is."

      I confirmed this statement, ignoring Polton's slight additions. "Indeed," said Miss Vyne. "Then the wig—it is a wig, I suppose?"

      "No, of course it isn't," Sylvia replied.

      "Then," said Miss Vyne, majestically, "perhaps you will explain to me what the disguise consists of."

      "Well," said Sylvia, "there are the eyebrows. You can see that they have been completely altered in shape."

      "If I had committed the former shape of the eyebrows to memory, as you appear to have done," said Miss Vyne. "I should, no doubt, observe the change. But I did not. It seems to me that the disguise which you told me about with such a flourish of trumpets just amounts to this; that Dr. Jardine has allowed his beard to grow. I find the reality quite disappointing."

      "Do you?" said Sylvia. "But, at any rate, you didn't recognize him; so your disappointment doesn't count for much."

      The old lady, being thus hoist with her own petard, relapsed into majestic silence; and Sylvia then renewed her demand for an account of my adventures. "We want to hear all about that objectionable person who has been shadowing you, and how you finally got rid of him. Your letters were rather sketchy and wanting in detail, so you have got to make up the deficiency now."

      Thus commanded, I plunged into an exhaustive account of those events which I have already chronicled at length and which I need not refer to again, nor need I record the cross-examination to which I was subjected, since it elicited nothing that is not set forth in the preceding pages. When СКАЧАТЬ