The feeling of the company was one of profound disappointment.

They were disgusted at the anticlimax. For an instant, when the Efficient one did not move, a hope began to stir; but as soon as it was seen that he was not even injured, gloom reigned. One of two things would have satisfied them--either a burglar or a corpse. A burglar would have been welcome, dead or alive; but, if Baxter proposed to fill the part adequately it was imperative that he be dead. He had disappointed them deeply by turning out to be the object of their quest. That he should not have been even grazed was too much.

There was a cold silence as he slowly raised himself from the floor. As his eyes fell on the tongue, he started and remained gazing fixedly at it. Surprise paralyzed him.

Lord Emsworth was also looking at the tongue and he leaped to a not unreasonable conclusion. He spoke coldly and haughtily; for he was not only annoyed, like the others, at the anticlimax, but offended. He knew that he was not one of your energetic hosts who exert themselves unceasingly to supply their guests with entertainment; but there was one thing on which, as a host, he did pride himself--in the material matters of life he did his guests well; he kept an admirable table.

"My dear Baxter," he said in the tones he usually reserved for the correction of his son Freddie, "if your hunger is so great that you are unable to wait for breakfast and have to raid my larder in the middle of the night, I wish to goodness you would contrive to make less noise about it. I do not grudge you the food--help yourself when you please--but do remember that people who have not such keen appet.i.tes as yourself like to sleep during the night. A far better plan, my dear fellow, would be to have sandwiches or buns--or whatever you consider most sustaining-- sent up to your bedroom."

Not even the bullets had disordered Baxter's faculties so much as this monstrous accusation. Explanations pushed and jostled one another in his fermenting brain, but he could not utter them. On every side he met gravely reproachful eyes. George Emerson was looking at him in pained disgust. Ashe Marson's face was the face of one who could never have believed this had he not seen it with his own eyes. The scrutiny of the knife-and-shoe boy was unendurable.

He stammered. Words began to proceed from him, tripping and stumbling over each other. Lord Emsworth's frigid disapproval did not relax.

"Pray do not apologize, Baxter. The desire for food is human. It is your boisterous mode of securing and conveying it that I deprecate. Let us all go to bed."

"But, Lord Emsworth-----"

"To bed!" repeated his lordship firmly.

The company began to stream moodily upstairs. The lights were switched off. The Efficient Baxter dragged himself away. From the darkness in the direction of the servants' door a voice spoke.

"Greedy pig!" said the voice scornfully.

It sounded like the fresh young voice of the knife-and-shoe boy, but Baxter was too broken to investigate. He continued his retreat without pausing.

"Stuffin' of 'isself at all hours!" said the voice.

There was a murmur of approval from the unseen throng of domestics.

CHAPTER IX

As we grow older and realize more clearly the limitations of human happiness, we come to see that the only real and abiding pleasure in life is to give pleasure to other people. One must a.s.sume that the Efficient Baxter had not reached the age when this comes home to a man, for the fact that he had given genuine pleasure to some dozens of his fellow-men brought him no balm.

There was no doubt about the pleasure he had given. Once they had got over their disappointment at finding that he was not a dead burglar, the house party rejoiced whole-heartedly at the break in the monotony of life at Blandings Castle. Relations who had not been on speaking terms for years forgot their quarrels and strolled about the grounds in perfect harmony, abusing Baxter.

The general verdict was that he was insane.

"Don't tell me that young fellow's all there," said Colonel Horace Mant; "because I know better. Have you noticed his eye?

Furtive! Shifty! Nasty gleam in it. Besides--dash it!--did you happen to take a look at the hall last night after he had been there? It was in ruins, my dear sir--absolute dashed ruins. It was positively littered with broken china and tables that had been bowled over. Don't tell me that was just an accidental collision in the dark.

"My dear sir, the man must have been thrashing about--absolutely thrashing about, like a dashed salmon on a dashed hook. He must have had a paroxysm of some kind--some kind of a dashed fit. A doctor could give you the name for it. It's a well-known form of insanity. Paranoia--isn't that what they call it? Rush of blood to the head, followed by a general running amuck.

"I've heard fellows who have been in India talk of it. Natives get it. Don't know what they're doing, and charge through the streets taking cracks at people with dashed whacking great knives. Same with this young man, probably in a modified form at present. He ought to be in a home. One of these nights, if this grows on him, he will be ma.s.sacring Emsworth in his bed."

"My dear Horace!" The Bishop of G.o.dalming's voice was properly horror-stricken; but there was a certain unctuous relish in it.

"Take my word for it! Though, mind you, I don't say they aren't well suited. Everyone knows that Emsworth has been, to all practical intents and purposes, a dashed lunatic for years. What was it that young fellow Emerson, Freddie's American friend, was saying, the other day about some acquaintance of his who is not quite right in the head? n.o.body in the house--is that it?

Something to that effect, at any rate. I felt at the time it was a perfect description of Emsworth."

"My dear Horace! Your father-in-law! The head of the family!"

"A dashed lunatic, my dear sir--head of the family or no head of the family. A man as absent-minded as he is has no right to call himself sane. n.o.body in the house--I recollect it now--n.o.body in the house except gas, and that has not been turned on. That's Emsworth!"

The Efficient Baxter, who had just left his presence, was feeling much the same about his n.o.ble employer. After a sleepless night he had begun at an early hour to try and corner Lord Emsworth in order to explain to him the true inwardness of last night's happenings. Eventually he had tracked him to the museum, where he found him happily engaged in painting a cabinet of birds' eggs.

He was seated on a small stool, a large pot of red paint on the floor beside him, dabbing at the cabinet with a dripping brush.

He was absorbed and made no attempt whatever to follow his secretary's remarks.

For ten minutes Baxter gave a vivid picture of his vigil and the manner in which it had been interrupted.

"Just so; just so, my dear fellow," said the earl when he had finished. "I quite understand. All I say is, if you do require additional food in the night let one of the servants bring it to your room before bedtime; then there will be no danger of these disturbances. There is no possible objection to your eating a hundred meals a day, my good Baxter, provided you do not rouse the whole house over them. Some of us like to sleep during the night."

"But, Lord Emsworth! I have just explained--It was not--I was not--"

"Never mind, my dear fellow; never mind. Why make such an important thing of it? Many people like a light snack before actually retiring. Doctors, I believe, sometimes recommend it.

Tell me, Baxter, how do you think the museum looks now? A little brighter? Better for the dash of color? I think so. Museums are generally such gloomy places."

"Lord Emsworth, may I explain once again?"

The earl looked annoyed.

"My dear Baxter, I have told you that there is nothing to explain. You are getting a little tedious. What a deep, rich red this is, and how clean new paint smells! Do you know, Baxter, I have been longing to mess about with paint ever since I was a boy! I recollect my old father beating me with a walking stick.

... That would be before your time, of course. By the way, if you see Freddie, will you tell him I want to speak to him? He probably is in the smoking-room. Send him to me here."

It was an overwrought Baxter who delivered the message to the Honorable Freddie, who, as predicted, was in the smoking-room, lounging in a deep armchair.

There are times when life presses hard on a man, and it pressed hard on Baxter now. Fate had played him a sorry trick. It had put him in a position where he had to choose between two courses, each as disagreeable as the other. He must either face a possible second fiasco like that of last night, or else he must abandon his post and cease to mount guard over his threatened treasure.

His imagination quailed at the thought of a repet.i.tion of last night's horrors. He had been badly shaken by his collision with the table and even more so by the events that had followed it.

Those revolver shots still rang in his ears.

It was probably the memory of those shots that turned the scale.

It was unlikely he would again become entangled with a man bearing a tongue and the other things--he had given up in despair the attempt to unravel the mystery of the tongue; it completely baffled him--but it was by no means unlikely that if he spent another night in the gallery looking on the hall he might not again become a target for Lord Emsworth's irresponsible firearm.

Nothing, in fact, was more likely; for in the disturbed state of the public mind the slightest sound after nightfall would be sufficient cause for a fusillade.

He had actually overheard young Algernon Wooster telling Lord Stockheath he had a jolly good mind to sit on the stairs that night with a shotgun, because it was his opinion that there was a jolly sight more in this business than there seemed to be; and what he thought of the bally affair was that there was a gang of some kind at work, and that that feller--what's-his-name?--that feller Baxter was some sort of an accomplice.

With these things in his mind Baxter decided to remain that night in the security of his bedroom. He had lost his nerve. He formed this decision with the utmost reluctance, for the thought of leaving the road to the museum clear for marauders was bitter in the extreme. If he could have overheard a conversation between Joan Valentine and Ashe Marson it is probable he would have risked Lord Emsworth's revolver and the shotgun of the Honorable Algernon Wooster.

Ashe, when he met Joan and recounted the events of the night, at which Joan, who was a sound sleeper, had not been present, was inclined to blame himself as a failure. True, fate had been against him, but the fact remained that he had achieved nothing.

Joan, however, was not of this opinion.

"You have done wonders," she said. "You have cleared the way for me. That is my idea of real teamwork. I'm so glad now that we formed our partnership. It would have been too bad if I had got all the advantage of your work and had jumped in and deprived you of the reward. As it is, I shall go down and finish the thing off to-night with a clear conscience."

"You can't mean that you dream of going down to the museum to-night!"

"Of course I do."

"But it's madness!"