The Girl on the Boat

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"Shall I go for the police?" said Billie. "I could bring them back in
ten minutes in the car."

"Certainly not!" said Mr. Bennett. "My daughter gadding about all over
the countryside in an automobile at this time of night!"

"If you think I ought not to go alone, I could take Bream."

"Where _is_ Bream?" said Mr. Mortimer.

The odd fact that Bream was not among those present suddenly presented
itself to the company.

"Where can he be?" said Billie.

Jane Hubbard laughed the wholesome, indulgent laugh of one who is
broad-minded enough to see the humour of the situation even when the
joke is at her expense.

"What a silly girl I am!" she said. "I do believe that was Bream I shot
at upstairs. How foolish of me making a mistake like that!"

"You shot my only son!" cried Mr. Mortimer.

"I shot _at_ him," said Jane. "My belief is that I missed him. Though
how I came to do it beats me. I don't suppose I've missed a sitter like
that since I was a child in the nursery. Of course," she proceeded,
looking on the reasonable side, "the visibility wasn't good, but it's no
use saying I oughtn't at least to have winged him, because I ought." She
shook her head with a touch of self-reproach. "I shall get chaffed about
this if it comes out," she said regretfully.

"The poor boy must be in his room," said Mr. Mortimer.

"Under the bed, if you ask me," said Jane, blowing on the barrel of her
gun and polishing it with the side of her hand. "_He's_ all right! Leave
him alone, and the housemaid will sweep him up in the morning."

"Oh, he can't be!" cried Billie, revolted.

A girl of high spirit, it seemed to her repellent that the man she was
engaged to marry should be displaying such a craven spirit. At that
moment she despised and hated Bream Mortimer. I think she was wrong,
mind you. It is not my place to criticise the little group of people
whose simple annals I am relating--my position is merely that of a
reporter--; but personally I think highly of Bream's sturdy
common-sense. If somebody loosed off an elephant-gun at me in a dark
corridor, I would climb on to the roof and pull it up after me. Still,
rightly or wrongly, that was how Billie felt; and it flashed across her
mind that Samuel Marlowe, scoundrel though he was, would not have
behaved like this. And for a moment a certain wistfulness added itself
to the varied emotions then engaging her mind.

"I'll go and look, if you like," said Jane agreeably. "You amuse
yourselves somehow till I come back."

She ran easily up the stairs, three at a time. Mr. Mortimer turned to
Mr. Bennett.

"It's all very well your saying Wilhelmina mustn't go, but, if she
doesn't, how can we get the police? The house isn't on the 'phone, and
nobody else can drive the car."

"That's true," said Mr. Bennett, wavering.

"Of course, we could drop them a post-card first thing to-morrow
morning," said Mr. Mortimer in his nasty sarcastic way.

"I'm going," said Billie resolutely. It occurred to her, as it has
occurred to so many women before her, how helpless men are in a crisis.
The temporary withdrawal of Jane Hubbard had had the effect which the
removal of the rudder has on a boat. "It's the only thing to do. I shall
be back in no time."

She stepped firmly to the coat-rack, and began to put on her
motoring-cloak. And just then Jane Hubbard came downstairs, shepherding
before her a pale and glassy-eyed Bream.

"Right under the bed," she announced cheerfully, "making a noise like a
piece of fluff in order to deceive burglars."

Billie cast a scornful look at her fiance. Absolutely unjustified, in my
opinion, but nevertheless she cast it. But it had no effect at all.
Terror had stunned Bream Mortimer's perceptions. His was what the
doctors call a penumbral mental condition.

"Bream," said Billie, "I want you to come in the car with me to fetch
the police."

"All right," said Bream.

"Get your coat."

"All right," said Bream.

"And cap."

"All right," said Bream.

He followed Billie in a docile manner out through the front door, and
they made their way to the garage at the back of the house, both
silent. The only difference between their respective silences was that
Billie's was thoughtful, while Bream's was just the silence of a man who
has unhitched his brain and is getting along as well as he can without
it.

In the hall they had left, Jane Hubbard once more took command of
affairs.

"Well, that's something done," she said, scratching Smith's broad back
with the muzzle of her weapon. "Something accomplished, something done,
has earned a night's repose. Not that we're going to get it yet. I think
those fellows are hiding somewhere, and we ought to search the house and
rout them out. It's a pity Smith isn't a bloodhound. He's a good
cake-hound, but as a watch-dog he doesn't finish in the first ten."

The cake-hound, charmed at the compliment, frisked about her feet like a
young elephant.

"The first thing to do," continued Jane, "is to go through the
ground-floor rooms...." She paused to strike a match against the suit of
armour nearest to her, a proceeding which elicited a sharp cry of
protest from Mrs. Hignett, and lit a cigarette. "I'll go first, as I've
got a gun...." She blew a cloud of smoke. "I shall want somebody with me
to carry a light, and...."

"Tchoo!"

"What?" said Jane.

"I didn't speak," said Mr. Mortimer. "Who am I to speak?" he went on
bitterly. "Who am I that it should be supposed that I have anything
sensible to suggest?"

"Somebody spoke," said Jane. "I...."

"Achoo!"

"Do you feel a draught, Mr. Bennett?" cried Jane sharply, wheeling round
on him.

"There _is_ a draught," began Mr. Bennett.

"Well, finish sneezing and I'll go on."

"I didn't sneeze!"

"Somebody sneezed."

"It seemed to come from just behind you," said Mrs. Hignett nervously.

"It couldn't have come from just behind me," said Jane, "because there
isn't anything behind me from which it could have...." She stopped
suddenly, in her eyes the light of understanding, on her face the set
expression which was wont to come to it on the eve of action. "Oh!" she
said in a different voice, a voice which was cold and tense and
sinister. "Oh, I see!" She raised her gun, and placed a muscular
forefinger on the trigger. "Come out of that!" she said. "Come out of
that suit of armour and let's have a look at you!"

"I can explain everything," said a muffled voice through the vizor of
the helmet. "I can--_achoo_!" The smoke of the cigarette tickled Sam's
nostrils again, and he suspended his remarks.

"I shall count three," said Jane Hubbard, "One--two--"

"I'm coming! I'm coming!" said Sam petulantly.

"You'd better!" said Jane.

"I can't get this dashed helmet off!"

"If you don't come quick, I'll blow it off."

Sam stepped out into the hall, a picturesque figure which combined the
costumes of two widely separated centuries. Modern as far as the neck,
he slipped back at that point to the Middle Ages.

"Hands up!" commanded Jane Hubbard.

"My hands _are_ up!" retorted Sam querulously, as he wrenched at his
unbecoming head-wear.

"Never mind trying to raise your hat," said Jane. "If you've lost the
combination, we'll dispense with the formalities. What we're anxious to
hear is what you're doing in the house at this time of night, and who
your pals are. Come along, my lad, make a clean breast of it and perhaps
you'll get off easier. Are you a gang?"

"Do I look like a gang?"

"If you ask me what you look like...."

"My name is Marlowe ... Samuel Marlowe...."

"Alias what?"

"Alias nothing! I say my name is Samuel Marlowe...."

An explosive roar burst from Mr. Bennett.

"The scoundrel! I know him! I forbade him the house, and...."

"And by what right did you forbid people my house, Mr. Bennett?" said
Mrs. Hignett with acerbity.

"I've rented the house, Mortimer and I rented it from your son...."

"Yes, yes, yes," said Jane Hubbard. "Never mind about that. So you know
this fellow, do you?"

"I don't know him!"

"You said you did."

"I refuse to know him!" went on Mr. Bennett. "I won't know him! I
decline to have anything to do with him!"

"But you identify him?"

"If he says he's Samuel Marlowe," assented Mr. Bennett grudgingly, "I
suppose he is. I can't imagine anybody saying he was Samuel Marlowe if
he didn't know it could be proved against him."

"_Are_ you my nephew Samuel?" said Mrs. Hignett.

"Yes," said Sam.

"Well, what are you doing in my house?"

"It's _my_ house," said Mr. Bennett, "for the summer, Henry Mortimer's
and mine. Isn't that right, Henry?"

"Dead right," said Mr. Mortimer.

"There!" said Mr. Bennett. "You hear? And when Henry Mortimer says a
thing, it's so. There's nobody's word I'd take before Henry Mortimer's."

"When Rufus Bennett makes an assertion," said Mr. Mortimer, highly
flattered by these kind words, "you can bank on it. Rufus Bennett's word
is his bond. Rufus Bennett is a white man!"

The two old friends, reconciled once more, clasped hands with a good
deal of feeling.

"I am not disputing Mr. Bennett's claim to belong to the Caucasian
race," said Mrs. Hignett testily. "I merely maintain that this house is
m...."

"Yes, yes, yes, yes!" interrupted Jane. "You can thresh all that out
some other time. The point is, if this fellow is your nephew, I don't
see what we can do. We'll have to let him go."

"I came to this house," said Sam, raising his vizor to facilitate
speech, "to make a social call...."

"At this hour of the night!" snapped Mrs. Hignett. "You always were an
inconsiderate boy, Samuel."

"I came to inquire after poor Eustace's mumps. I've only just heard that
the poor chap was ill."

"He's getting along quite well," said Jane, melting. "If I had known you
were so fond of Eustace...."

"All right, is he?" said Sam.

"Well, not quite all right, but he's going on very nicely."

"Fine!"

"Eustace and I are engaged, you know!"

"No, really? Splendid! I can't see you very distinctly--how those
Johnnies in the old days ever contrived to put up a scrap with things
like this on their heads beats me--but you sound a good sort. I hope
you'll be very happy."

"Thank you ever so much, Mr. Marlowe. I'm sure we shall."

"Eustace is one of the best."

"How nice of you to say so."

"All this," interrupted Mrs. Hignett, who had been a chaffing auditor of
this interchange of courtesies, "is beside the point. Why did you dance
in the hall, Samuel, and play the orchestrion?"

"Yes," said Mr. Bennett, reminded of his grievance, "waking people up."

"Scaring us all to death!" complained Mr. Mortimer.

"I remember you as a boy, Samuel," said Mrs. Hignett, "lamentably
lacking in consideration for others and concentrated only on your
selfish pleasures. You seem to have altered very little."

"Don't ballyrag the poor man," said Jane Hubbard. "Be human! Lend him a
sardine opener!"

"I shall do nothing of the sort," said Mrs. Hignett. "I never liked him
and I dislike him now. He has got himself into this trouble through his
own wrong-headedness."

"It's not his fault his head's the wrong size," said Jane.

"He must get himself out as best he can," said Mrs. Hignett.

"Very well," said Sam with bitter dignity. "Then I will not trespass
further on your hospitality, Aunt Adeline. I have no doubt the local
blacksmith will be able to get this damned thing off me. I shall go to
him now. I will let you have the helmet back by parcel-post at the
earliest opportunity. Good-night!" He walked coldly to the front door.
"And there are people," he remarked sardonically, "who say that blood is
thicker than water! I'll bet they never had any aunts!"

He tripped over the mat and withdrew.

Sec. 6

Billie meanwhile, with Bream trotting docilely at her heels, had reached
the garage and started the car. Like all cars which have been spending a
considerable time in secluded inaction, it did not start readily. At
each application of Billie's foot on the self-starter, it emitted a
tinny and reproachful sound and then seemed to go to sleep again.
Eventually, however, the engines began to revolve and the machine moved
reluctantly out into the drive.

"The battery must be run down," said Billie.

"All right," said Bream.

Billie cast a glance of contempt at him out of the corner of her eyes.
She hardly knew why she had spoken to him except that, as all motorists
are aware, the impulse to say rude things about their battery is almost
irresistible. To a motorist the art of conversation consists in rapping
out scathing remarks either about the battery or the oiling-system.

Billie switched on the head-lights and turned the car down the dark
drive. She was feeling thoroughly upset. Her idealistic nature had
received a painful shock on the discovery of the yellow streak in Bream.
To call it a yellow streak was to understate the facts. It was a great
belt of saffron encircling his whole soul. That she, Wilhelmina
Bennett, who had gone through the world seeking a Galahad, should finish
her career as the wife of a man who hid under beds simply because people
shot at him with elephant guns was abhorrent to her. Why, Samuel Marlowe
would have perished rather than do such a thing. You might say what you
liked about Samuel Marlowe--and, of course, his habit of playing
practical jokes put him beyond the pale--but nobody could question his
courage. Look at the way he had dived overboard that time in the harbour
at New York! Billie found herself thinking wistfully about Samuel
Marlowe.

There are only a few makes of car in which you can think about anything
except the actual driving without stalling the engines, and Mr.
Bennett's Twin-Six Complex was not one of them. It stopped as if it had
been waiting for the signal.... The noise of the engine died away. The
wheels ceased to revolve. The car did everything except lie down. It was
a particularly pig-headed car and right from the start it had been
unable to see the sense in this midnight expedition. It seemed now to
have the idea that if it just lay low and did nothing, presently it
would be taken back to its cosy garage.

Billie trod on the self-starter. Nothing happened.

"You'll have to get down and crank her," she said curtly.

"All right," said Bream.

"Well, go on," said Billie impatiently.

"Eh?"

"Get out and crank her."

Bream emerged for an instant from his trance.

"All right," he said.

The art of cranking a car is one that is not given to all men. Some of
our greatest and wisest stand helpless before the task. It is a job
towards the consummation of which a noble soul and a fine brain help not
at all. A man may have all the other gifts and yet be unable to
accomplish a task which the fellow at the garage does with one quiet
flick of the wrist without even bothering to remove his chewing gum.
This being so, it was not only unkind but foolish of Billie to grow
impatient as Bream's repeated efforts failed of their object. It was
wrong of her to click her tongue, and certainly she ought not to have
told Bream that he was not fit to churn butter. But women are an
emotional sex and must be forgiven much in moments of mental stress.

"Give it a good sharp twist," she said.

"All right," said Bream.

"Here, let me do it," cried Billie.

She jumped down and snatched the thingummy from his hand. With bent
brows and set teeth she wrenched it round. The engine gave a faint
protesting mutter, like a dog that has been disturbed in its sleep, and
was still once more.

"May I help?"

It was not Bream who spoke but a strange voice--a sepulchral voice, the
sort of voice someone would have used in one of Edgar Allen Poe's
cheerful little tales if he had been buried alive and were speaking from
the family vault. Coming suddenly out of the night it affected Bream
painfully. He uttered a sharp exclamation and gave a bound which, if he
had been a Russian dancer would undoubtedly have caused the management
to raise his salary. He was in no frame of mind to bear up under sudden
sepulchral voices.

Billie, on the other hand, was pleased. The high-spirited girl was just
beginning to fear that she was unequal to the task which she had chided
Bream for being unable to perform and this was mortifying her.

"Oh, would you mind? Thank you so much. The self-starter has gone
wrong."

Into the glare of the headlights there stepped a strange figure,
strange, that is to say, in these tame modern times. In the Middle Ages
he would have excited no comment at all. Passers by would simply have
said to themselves, "Ah, another of those knights off after the
dragons!" and would have gone on their way with a civil greeting. But in
the present age it is always somewhat startling to see a helmeted head
pop up in front of your motor car. At any rate, it startled Bream. I
will go further. It gave Bream the shock of a lifetime. He had had
shocks already that night, but none to be compared with this. Or perhaps
it was that this shock, coming on top of those shocks, affected him more
disastrously than it would have done if it had been the first of the
series instead of the last. One may express the thing briefly by saying
that, as far as Bream was concerned, Sam's unconventional appearance put
the lid on it. He did not hesitate. He did not pause to make comments
or ask questions. With a single cat-like screech which took years off
the lives of the abruptly wakened birds roosting in the neighbouring
trees, he dashed away towards the house and, reaching his room, locked
the door and pushed the bed, the chest of drawers, two chairs, the towel
stand, and three pairs of boots against it.

Out on the drive Billie was staring at the man in armour who had now,
with a masterful wrench which informed the car right away that he would
stand no nonsense, set the engine going again.

"Why--why," she stammered, "why are you wearing that thing on your
head?"

"Because I can't get it off."

Hollow as the voice was, Billie recognised it.

"S--Mr. Marlowe!" she exclaimed.

"Get in," said Sam. He had seated himself at the steering wheel. "Where
can I take you?"

"Go away!" said Billie.

"Get in!"

"I don't want to talk to you."

"I want to talk to _you_! Get in!"

"I won't."

Sam bent over the side of the car, put his hands under her arms, lifted
her like a kitten, and deposited her on the seat beside him. Then
throwing in the clutch, he drove at an ever-increasing speed down the
drive and out into the silent road. Strange creatures of the night came
and went in the golden glow of the head-lights.

Sec. 7

"Put me down," said Billie.

"You'd get hurt if I did, travelling at this pace."

"What are you going to do?"

"Drive about till you promise to marry me."

"You'll have to drive a long time."

"Right ho!" said Sam.

The car took a corner and purred down a lane. Billie reached out a hand
and grabbed at the steering wheel.

"Of course, if you _want_ to smash up in a ditch!" said Sam, righting
the car with a wrench.

"You're a brute!" said Billie.

"Caveman stuff," explained Sam, "I ought to have tried it before."

"I don't know what you expect to gain by this."

"That's all right," said Sam, "I know what I'm about."

"I'm glad to hear it."

"I thought you would be."

"I'm not going to talk to you."

"All right. Lean back and doze off. We've the whole night before us."

"What do you mean?" cried Billie, sitting up with a jerk.

"Have you ever been to Scotland?"

"What do you mean?"

"I thought we might push up there. We've got to go somewhere and, oddly
enough, I've never been to Scotland."

Billie regarded him blankly.

"Are you crazy?"

"I'm crazy about you. If you knew what I've gone through to-night for
your sake you'd be more sympathetic. I love you," said Sam, swerving to
avoid a rabbit. "And what's more, you know it."

"I don't care."

"You will!" said Sam confidently. "How about North Wales? I've heard
people speak well of North Wales. Shall we head for North Wales?"

"I'm engaged to Bream Mortimer."

"Oh no, that's all off," Sam assured her.

"It's not!"

"Right off!" said Sam firmly. "You could never bring yourself to marry a
man who dashed away like that and deserted you in your hour of need.
Why, for all he knew, I might have tried to murder you. And he ran away!
No, no, we eliminate Bream Mortimer once and for all. He won't do!"

This was so exactly what Billie was feeling herself that she could not
bring herself to dispute it.

"Anyway, I hate _you_!" she said, giving the conversation another turn.

"Why? In the name of goodness, why?"

"How dared you make a fool of me in your father's office that morning?"

"It was a sudden inspiration. I had to do something to make you think
well of me, and I thought it might meet the case if I saved you from a
lunatic with a pistol. It wasn't my fault that you found out."

"I shall never forgive you!"

"Why not Cornwall?" said Sam. "The Riviera of England! Let's go to
Cornwall. I beg your pardon. What were you saying?"

"I said I should never forgive you and I won't."

"Well, I hope you're fond of motoring," said Sam, "because we're going
on till you do."

"Very well! Go on, then!"

"I intend to. Of course, it's all right now while it's dark. But have
you considered what is going to happen when the sun gets up? We shall
have a sort of triumphal procession. How the small boys will laugh when
they see a man in a helmet go by in a car! I shan't notice them myself
because it's a little difficult to notice anything from inside this
thing, but I'm afraid it will be rather unpleasant for you.... I know
what we'll do. We'll go to London and drive up and down Piccadilly! That
will be fun!"

There was a long silence.

"Is my helmet on straight?" said Sam.

Billie made no reply. She was looking before her down the hedge-bordered
road. Always a girl of sudden impulses, she had just made a curious
discovery, to wit that she was enjoying herself. There was something so
novel and exhilarating about this midnight ride that imperceptibly her
dismay and resentment had ebbed away. She found herself struggling with
a desire to laugh.

"Lochinvar!" said Sam suddenly. "That's the name of the chap I've been
trying to think of! Did you ever read about Lochinvar? 'Young Lochinvar'
the poet calls him rather familiarly. He did just what I'm doing now,
and everybody thought very highly of him. I suppose in those days a
helmet was just an ordinary part of what the well-dressed man should
wear. Odd how fashions change!"

Till now dignity and wrath combined had kept Billie from making any
inquiries into a matter which had excited in her a quite painful
curiosity. In her new mood she resisted the impulse no longer.

"_Why_ are you wearing that thing?"

"I told you. Purely and simply because I can't get it off. You don't
suppose I'm trying to set a new style in gents' head-wear, do you?"

"But why did you ever put it on?"

"Well, it was this way. After I came out of the cupboard in the
drawing-room...."

"What!"

"Didn't I tell you about that? Oh yes, I was sitting in the cupboard in
the drawing-room from dinner-time onwards. After that I came out and
started cannoning about among Aunt Adeline's china, so I thought I'd
better switch the light on. Unfortunately I switched on some sort of
musical instrument instead. And then somebody started shooting. So, what
with one thing and another, I thought it would be best to hide
somewhere. I hid in one of the suits of armour in the hall."

"Were you inside there all the time we were...?"

"Yes. I say, that was funny about Bream, wasn't it? Getting under the
bed, I mean."

"Don't let's talk about Bream."

"That's the right spirit! I like to see it! All right, we won't. Let's
get back to the main issue. Will you marry me?"

"But why did you come to the house at all?"

"To see you."

"To see me! At that time of night?"

"Well, perhaps not actually to see you." Sam was a little perplexed for
a moment. Something told him that it would be injudicious to reveal his
true motive and thereby risk disturbing the harmony which he felt had
begun to exist between them. "To be near you! To be in the same house
with you!" he went on vehemently feeling that he had struck the right
note. "You don't know the anguish I went through after I read that
letter of yours. I was mad! I was ... well, to return to the point, will
you marry me?"

Billie sat looking straight before her. The car, now on the main road,
moved smoothly on.

"Will you marry me?"

Billie rested her hand on her chin and searched the darkness with
thoughtful eyes.

"Will you marry me?"

The car raced on.

"Will you marry me?" said Sam. "Will you marry me? Will you marry me?"

"Oh, don't talk like a parrot," cried Billie. "It reminds me of Bream."

"But will you?"

"Yes," said Billie.

Sam brought the car to a standstill with a jerk, probably very bad for
the tyres.

"Did you say 'yes'?"

"Yes!"

"Darling!" said Sam, leaning towards her. "Oh, curse this helmet!"

"Why?"

"Well, I rather wanted to kiss you and it hampers me."

"Let me try and get it off. Bend down!"

"Ouch!" said Sam.

"It's coming. There! How helpless men are!"

"We need a woman's tender care," said Sam depositing the helmet on the
floor of the car and rubbing his smarting ears. "Billie!"

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