LOCUM TENENS
I
The summer rain lashed down; another gust of wind came sweeping round the corner; and the motor-bicycle skidded giddily across the glistening road.
“A near shave that time, old soul!” observed Mr. Archibald Wade over his shoulder.
The gentleman addressed, Captain James Pryor, who for the last two hours had been enduring the acme of human discomfort upon the luggage carrier, with his arms twined affectionately round his friend's waist, made no reply. Instead, he vacated his seat without warning or premeditation and assumed a recumbent attitude under an adjacent hedge. The motor-bicycle, unexpectedly lightened of half its burden, miraculously righted itself, and, starting forward with a flick of its tail, whizzed on its way.
In due course it returned, trundled by its owner, who addressed the prostrate James reprovingly:
“Tell me, my dear James, why did you dismount from the flapper-bracket?”
“Dismount, you lunatic?” replied the injured Pryor. “I fell off! I was shot off, if you like.”
“Why, I wonder?” said Archibald thoughtfully.
“Because you came swinging round that last corner at forty miles an hour. We side-slipped, and I simply flew.”
“It was foolish of you to fly without proper equipment, James. You are too ambitious—too impulsive. Are you in the Royal Air Force? No! You are only a machine-gunner. Machine-gunners don’t fly: they pop—and stop. You have just stopped. Examine yourself, and decide—”
“For heaven's sake, Archie,” exclaimed the exasperated James, “stop talking like a village idiot for a minute!” James was a serious-minded and slightly pessimistic young man at the best of times: he was also severely bruised and badly in love—a combination inimical to equability of temper.
“I fear you are unstrung, comrade,” replied Archibald, quite unruffled.
“Unstrung or not,” retorted James warmly, “I’ll see you at blazes before I trust myself on your rotten machine for another yard!”
“This is no time,” Archibald pointed out reprovingly, “for the venting of passion. Besides, I have troubles of my own: this blinking back tyre has burst. Do you happen to remember what the last milestone said?”
“Popleigh, one mile,” growled Captain Pryor.
“That is splendid.”
“Why should it be splendid? We want to get on to Tuckleford.”
“Why should we go to Tuckleford? What is Tuckleford to us?”
“Well—” James hesitated, and reddened.
“Well, what?”
“Well, if you must know, I am expecting to meet some one there.”
“A girl, of course?”
“Yes.”
“Not—Dorothy? The Dorothy?”
James, with the rain streaming down his face, nodded dismally. “Yes,” he said. “That was why I suggested the trip.”
Archibald considered.
“It is well,” he said at length. “We can push this condemned sewing-machine on to Popleigh; there we will obtain food and clothing, and I will get a new tyre. In the afternoon, if it clears up, I will convey you to Dorothy.”
“How can we get food and clothing at Popleigh?” demanded the irritable James. “Have you ever been to the place in your life?”
“Never.”
“Then why on earth—?”
“Because I have had a rush of brains to the head. Do you remember The Old Flick?”
James considered.
“Do you mean Flick Windrum, of Trinity Hall?”
“The same.”
“Yes. What about it? He became a Dodger, did n’t he? Curate in Kensington, or something.”
“He was, but not now. I have just remembered that he wrote to me a year ago saying that he had received a push up—promotion. A cure of souls—that’s what he called it—a cure of souls in Popleigh. He must have cured quite a lot by this time. We will drop in at his parsonage, and touch him for a couple of them, and perhaps a bottle of Bass, and get our clothes dried. Then, hey for Dorothy!”
“Archibald,” observed James, not without admiration, “you are quite balmy.”
“I know,” replied that irresponsible youth composedly. “The insanity of genius, really. You push the bike.”
II
Half an hour later the motor-bicycle, still propelled by James, drew up at the gate of Popleigh Vicarage. The Vicarage itself stood well back from the road in a spacious garden—a riot of roses and honeysuckle—under the lee of an ancient Norman church. Simultaneously the summer storm passed, the clouds broke, and the hot July sun broke out hospitably.
Archibald Wade wheeled the bicycle up to the front door and rang the bell. After repeating the performance three times, he turned to his depressed companion.
“I wonder where the old sinner can be,” he remarked.
“We don’t know,” replied James through chattering teeth, “and we are n’t likely to find out. Let's go and find the village pub.”
“Peradventure,” suggested Archibald, upon whose receptive soul the ecclesiastical atmosphere was already taking effect, “he is upon a journey, or sleepeth, what?”
He tried the handle of the door.
“Locked,” he announced.
“Let’s go round to the back,” suggested the practical James.
The procession, now steaming comfortably, moved off again. The back door was also locked. Upon the panel was pinned a fluttering scrap of paper which said, tout court:
Bak at 3
“I wonder who wrote that,” said James.
“From the spelling,” replied Archibald, “I should say it was The Flick himself; but as it is written on buttery paper I expect it was the cook. Depend upon it, The Flick has taken the little creature out for a brisk country walk. Still, I know he would never forgive us if we gave him the go-by. Let us find a window.”
The windows upon the ground floor were all closed, but one stood open above a verandah on the sunny side of the house. With the assistance of the faithful James, Mr. Wade clambered up the trellis-work and effected his burglarious purpose. A minute later he opened the front door with a flourish, and admitted his shrinking accomplice. There ensued a tour of inspection.
“Dining-room!” announced Archibald, opening a door. “Table not laid for lunch. We will remedy that. Study—very snug! We will smoke there after. Kitchen! Aha, this is where we commandeer supplies. Now, my dear young friend, you will go upstairs and have a nice warm bath, while I raid the old man's dressing-room. Run along, or you will catch something.”
The docile James departed upstairs. Twenty minutes later, emerging greatly refreshed from the bathroom, draped in a towel, he was confronted by a Saintly figure in impeccable clerical attire.
“Pax vobiscum!” chanted Archibald, in a throaty baritone. “What do you think of my kit? It took a bit of getting on, I can tell you. James, I have dis covered why parsons have to marry right away.”
“Why?”
“Because they button up the back.” The newly ordained clerk revolved slowly upon his toes. “A pretty good fit, on the whole. I expected to find it rather small for me, but Flick appears to have swelled. James, I am warming up to this part. I am going to be a success in it. Let us go downstairs and find the harmonium.”
“Dry up,” urged James, “and tell me where I can get some clothes. I suppose I shall have to make a holy show of myself too?”
“Unfortunately not,” replied his friend. “This is the only parsonical outfit that I can find. Probably it is what The Flick wears on Sunday.”
“Do you mean that there are no more clothes in the house?”
“There is nothing in the dressing-room. But root about a bit, and you may find something. In the last extremity you can lunch in that bath-towel. Meanwhile, I will lay the table.”
Archibald bounded exuberantly downstairs, his coat-tails flying. The disconsolate James tried yet another door. This time he found himself in what was plainly the spare room. The blinds were drawn; the bed was draped in a dust-sheet; the jug stood upon its head in the basin. Under a heap of clerical vestments in the wardrobe he discovered an old blue flannel suit–evidently a relic of The Flick's secular existence. With this he returned to the dressing room, and, having helped himself to a cricket-shirt and a pair of socks, proceeded to invest himself in his borrowed plumes. They were a tight fit, for James was a large man.
“I wonder what that maniac is doing downstairs,” he mused. “I hope he has made up the kitchen fire, so that we can dry our things. I can’t face Dolly in this rig. Hallo! What's that?”
From the garden outside came the toot of a motor-horn; then a buzzing and popping right under the window; then silence.
Downstairs Archibald, depositing a fine ham upon the dining-room table, tiptoed to the window and peeped through the curtain. Outside the front door stood another motor-cycle, this time with side-car attached. Within the porch he could descry two persons. One—a female—was disencumbering her head of a voluminous motor-veil. Her male companion was ringing the bell.
After a hurried glance at his own ensemble in the mirror over the mantelpiece, Archibald strode into the hall and opened the front door.
“Good morning,” he said.
The male caller returned the greeting with a patronizing nod. He was a slender young man, with large eyes and a low turned-down collar. But Archibald's first impression of him was that his hair required cutting.
“I trust you will pardon me,” he said, “for coming to the door myself, but my servant”—a new inspiration came upon him as he spoke—“my manservant—is busy upstairs, changing his clothes.”
“Are you the incumbent of this parish?” inquired the young man, in the same patronizing tone.
“I am his locum tenens,” replied Archibald blandly. “Will you not enter?”
All this while the girl in the motor-veil had stood silent, with her large blue eyes fixed apprehensively upon Archibald Wade. Archibald mentally diagnosed her as a romantic and impulsive infant without sufficient knowledge or discrimination to be aware that one must never be seen in public with a young man with bobbed hair.
He ushered his visitors into the study. Even as they crossed the hall, he was conscious of the anxious and inquiring countenance of Captain James Pryor suspended in midair, like a harvest moon, over the banisters of the upper landing.
“And now,” he inquired, taking up his new rôle with characteristic enjoyment, as the couple seated themselves upon the sofa, “what can I do for you, this lovely summer day?” He leaned back in The Flick's swing chair and smiled paternally. The young gentleman with the long hair gave a brief staccato cough.
“Are you licensed?” he inquired.
Archibald sprung to his feet.
“My dear sir,” he said, “a thousand apologies! I ought to have remembered! On such a warm morning, too! What will you take?”
This hospitable invitation was received with such unfeigned surprise that he realized that he had made a slip, and sat down again with a feeble giggle.
“You mean—?” he said.
“Is your church licensed,” asked the young man, “for the performance of the marriage ceremony?”
“Oh, yes,” replied Archibald with a smile—“fully licensed. We are open on Sundays, too!” he added playfully.
“In that case,” said the young man, with a glance at the girl by his side, “we desire that you should marry us.”
The girl gave a little hysterical gasp.
“Quite so,” replied Archibald calmly. “To each other, I presume?”
The young man, after a brief stare, nodded his head.
“And when would you like the ceremony to take place?” continued Archibald, instinctively playing for time.
“At once,” said the young man.
Archibald turned inquiringly to the girl.
“Is that your wish?” he asked, smiling.
The girl turned crimson, and hesitated.
“Answer, Dorothy!” commanded the young man.
“Yes, please,” whispered Dorothy
III
Upstairs, five minutes later, pandemonium.
“I tell you it's little Dolly Wenner!” reiterated the distracted James, upon whose toilet Archibald had broken in with the news of the emergency. “My little girl! And she's doing a bolt with that bounder!”
“Do you happen to know his name?” inquired Archibald.
“Lionel Gillibrand, or something like that. I don't know much about him, but he has been hanging round her ever since she and I had a row last November.”
“Oh, you had a row, had you? What was it about?”
“I have no notion: you know what girls are. We were half-engaged—but only half; and I suppose I took things too much for granted.”
“What do you mean, half-engaged?” demanded Archibald. “Be more succinct. Have you ever kissed her, for instance?”
“That's my business!” replied James briefly.
“That means you have. Proceed, mon enfant! You took things too much for granted. Yes?”
“We had a bit of a turn-up,” continued James dolefully, “and she bunged me out for good and all. I have n’t seen her since; but being down here with you and knowing she would probably be at the garden-party, I thought I would go over to Tuckleford to-day and try and get her to make it up. And now she's eloping with a feller like an Angora goat!” The unhappy young man groaned again.
“As things have turned out,” remarked Archibald complacently, “nothing could have been more fortunate.”
“Fortunate? What do you mean?”
“I mean that Providence has placed the matter in my hands. You are fortunate in having me to extricate your little friend from her predicament.”
“Predicament? She's doing it of her own free will.”
Archibald shook his head judicially.
“She may have started out of her own free will,” he remarked, “but she's scared stiff now. I think we can stop this marriage all right.”
“What are you going to do about it? Refuse to marry them?” inquired James with gloomy sarcasm.
“No, I don’t think I shall refuse. If I do, they will only go to some one else, which would be a pity, because some one else might marry them, which I can’t do under any circumstances. Ergo, she is safer in my hands.”
“But what are you going to do?”
“I have n’t the faintest notion yet, but I have no doubt that something will occur to me at the proper time. I believe that Napoleon also relied a good deal upon the inspiration of the moment. For the present I shall temporize, and exercise extreme tact. It won’t do to put that little person's back up. I should say she was the sort who would cut off her nose to spite her face.”
“She is!” agreed James, with feeling.
“Meanwhile,” continued Archibald, “I have invited them to have luncheon. I am afraid I can't ask you to join us, under the circumstances, but you shall come in and wait at table.”
“Wait?”
“Yes. It will add a spice of pleasurable excitement to the proceedings.”
“But she would recognize me.”
“It is most unlikely that she will so much as look at you. She is far too agitated to notice anything. Still, she might; and that is where the pleasurable excitement would come in. I think I shall disguise you a little. There is a pair of blue spectacles lying on the study table: Flick must have taken to glasses. You can wear those. Blacken that beautiful golden moustache of yours with burnt cork, and speak, when necessary, in a husky whisper. I will explain that you have got diphtheria, or something. Don't loiter about the room too much, of course. Just hand the dishes, and clear away, and so on.”
“I refuse altogether—” began James emphatically.
“It’s too late to refuse now,” replied Archibald. “I have already mentioned to them that I keep a manservant. They saw you hanging over the banisters as we crossed the hall, and I had to explain your face somehow. Luckily it was rather dark. Well, that's settled. Don't overdo your part, of course. Don't lean over the back of Dorothy's chair, or blow on the top of her head, or tickle the back of her neck, or anything of that kind.”
“How long,” inquired James resignedly—he had ever been clay in the hands of his volatile friend—“is this tomfool entertainment to go on?”
“Until I have an inspiration, or until The Flick turns up. It's lunch-time now: go and sound the gong.”
Five minutes later, the trio sat down to luncheon.
“Lenten fare, I fear, Mr. Gillibrand,” remarked Archibald. “But a warm welcome goes with it.”
“It is not Lent,” said Mr. Gillibrand at once.
“Some of us,” replied Archibald gently, “keep Lent all the year round, Mr. Gillibrand. Hand the cold salmon, Ja—John. Had you a pleasant ride, Mr. Gillibrand, until overtaken by the rain?”
“We had a fairly swift one, thanks,” replied Gillibrand languidly. “I wish I’d had my car, though, instead of a hired motor-cycle. Still, we were doing thirty-five miles an hour through that last ten mile limit, I should think.” With some difficulty he helped himself to salmon, James's ideas as to the right distance from which to proffer food being elementary.
“Leo is a dreadfully reckless driver,” said Dorothy, with timid admiration. “I was terrified.”
She smiled in a half-hypnotized fashion at the intrepid Leo, who took not the slightest notice. Archibald disliked him more and more.
“Thirty-five miles an hour!” he exclaimed, shaking a playful finger. “What would my parishioners say? I hope you did not run over any of them.”
“We flattened out two or three chickens outside a cottage about a mile from here,” replied the intrepid one. “A bumpkin of a policeman saw us, and had the impudence to blow his whistle. Luckily I had my identification number covered over with mud.”
“You ought to have stopped, Leo,” said Dorothy.
Mr. Gillibrand replied with a cold stare, which brought a blush to his beloved's cheek and nearly converted a small blanc-mange, which James was handing round, from a comestible into a missile.
Suddenly an inspiration came to Archibald the Erratic. He pushed back his chair, and, fitting the tips of his fingers together after the traditional manner of stage clerics, addressed the couple before him.
“Now, my dear young people, with regard to the—ah—pleasant ceremony which is to take place this afternoon. I have already explained to you that certain formalities will be necessary, connected with a Special Licence, and Doctor's Commons, and The Archbishop of Canterbury, and so on. Mere matters of form, but you know what red tape is! John!”
James came briskly to attention.
“Hand me the telegraph forms from off that writing-table in the window, please,” said Archibald, and resumed:
“I propose telegraphing to His Grace for the necessary permission. It is a purely mechanical business; I need not even give your names. Ah, thank you, John!” He took the telegraph forms and proceeded to write. “Put on your hat, like a good fellow, and take this to the village. Let me see: Cantuar, London, is sufficient address, I think.” He handed the form to his dazed friend. “Can you read it, John?”
James glanced through the message. It said:
Tell village policeman that man who ran over chickens is here, and be quick about it, my lad!
“Is that legible?” he asked.
James emitted a muffled sound, and departed.
“A strange, reticent fellow,” observed Archibald to his guests. “His tonsils are most unreliable, but he has a heart of gold. Shall we go into the garden? The birds are singing again. Indeed, yes!” He cooed, and rose to his feet. “The answer to the telegram,” he continued, “should be here within the hour, leaving ample time for the ceremony. I also expect a clerical friend to call about that time. Doubtless he will be glad to assist me, and so make assurance doubly sure!”
He led the way into the garden. He was still in a condition of utter ignorance as to how this escapade was to end; but he intended, if all else failed, to transfer the ensuing unpleasantness to the innocent shoulders of The Old Flick. Meanwhile, he calculated, the village policeman would incorporate an artistic element of complication into the afternoon's entertainment.
IV
Suddenly, as the trio strolled in constrained silence down an aisle of high hollyhocks, there came to their ears a crunching sound upon the gravel of the drive, and a small governess cart, drawn by a fat grey pony, entered the Vicarage gateway and proceeded in the direction of the stable. The driver of the cart had his back turned, but Archibald could see that he wore a soft black clerical hat. The Old Flick had arrived, and the cast was completed.
“I rather fancy that is my dear friend Windrum,” he announced. “Forgive me if I leave you for a moment. You will doubtless bear my absence with fortitude!” He smiled archly. “The raspberries are at your disposal.” With a pontifical gesture of benediction he turned and walked in the direction of the house. This would be a surprise for The Old Flick.
He entered the library through the verandah windows. Before him, in the cool shade of the hall beyond, he beheld the tall, black-coated figure of the gentleman to whom he was acting as understudy. His principal's back was turned, and he was gazing dumbly through the open door into the adjoining dining-room, where the débris of the recent feast were still visible.
The Old Flick's attention, however, was immediately distracted from this spectacle by a shattering blow upon the spine, followed by a thunderous greeting. He whirled round, and faced his demonstrative assailant.
He was not The Old Flick at all.
Archibald the Erratic was stricken dumb for perhaps five seconds; then he put out a friendly hand.
“Good afternoon,” he said. “I consider it most neighbourly of you to have called. Sit down, won't you?”
The stranger, a severe-looking man of about fifty, wearing spectacles over which beetling brows bent threateningly, declined the proffered hand and faced the intruder with great deliberation.
“My name,” he said, “is Septimus Pontifex.”
“I am very glad to make your acquaintance, Pontifex,” said Archibald cordially. And reaching down a box from the mantelpiece, he offered Mr. Pontifex one of his own cigarettes.
“May I inquire,” said Pontifex, in a low, vibrating voice, “what you are doing in my house?”
“Your house?” replied Archibald with a rather uncertain smile. “Come, I like that!”
“You are pleased to be facetious, sir!” retorted Mr. Pontifex angrily. His spinal cord was still quivering. “If this house is not my actual property, it is mine in effect, so long as I remain Mr. Windrum's locum temens.”
So that was it! Archibald surveyed the swelling figure before him thoughtfully. He had better explain at once. No; on second thoughts he would wait a little. This was evidently a quarrelsome and inhospitable fellow—very different from The Flick—unworthy of great consideration. What would be an appropriate way of—?
He was recalled from his meditations by the alarming demeanour of Mr. Pontifex, whose gaze for the last half-minute had been concentrated upon a small crimson circular object upon the right-hand leg of Archibald's trousers. It was a spot of sealing wax. Now he pointed a trembling finger, and almost screamed:
“What do you mean, sir, by wearing my clothes? I recognize my trousers: do not deny it! I made that spot of sealing-wax myself, last night.”
“Yes, Pontifex,” replied Archibald in a soothing voice, “I am sure you did. You invent your own games, and play them by yourself. Very clever and resourceful!”
“Do not trifle with me, sir!” boomed Pontifex. “You are wearing my trousers: I know they are mine!”
Archibald shook his head mournfully.
“Really, Pontifex, really!” he said. “I had heard stories, of course, but I had no idea things were as bad as this. No wonder the dear Bishop was getting anxious.” He patted the astonished man upon the shoulder. “My poor friend, can't you do anything? My heart bleeds for you.”
Archibald choked—not from emotion, but from inability to decide what to say next. Mr. Pontifex saved him further trouble by turning on his heel and walking swiftly out of the room and upstairs. Presently he could be heard overhead, seeking confirmatory evidence in his rifled dressing-room.
Archibald lit a cigarette, strolled to the window, and looked out into the garden. Presently Septimus Pontifex came striding downstairs again, and stood framed in the doorway.
“You are a thief, sir,” he announced, “and an impostor. I do not know who you are or where you come from, but I presume that the motor-bicycle which I noticed in the stables is yours. I shall now lock you into this room and send for a constable.”
“Do not put yourself to such trouble, my dear Mr. Pontifex,” Archie replied. “I have already done so.” He extended a hand and drew the bemused Pontifex to the window. “In fact, I see he has arrived.”
V
Dorothy Venner was still enough of a child to appreciate being left alone with the raspberries. But this afternoon her appetite was gone—which was not altogether surprising. Eloping is like riding a bicycle: you must go full speed ahead all the time, or you will begin to wobble. Dorothy was of a romantic disposition and barely twenty. She had been attracted by Mr. Gillibrand's dark eyes and lofty attitude towards his fellow-creatures; and the fact that a peppery papa and a philistine elder brother had described her paragon as an effeminate young Nancy and a mangy little swine, respectively, had been in itself sufficient to convince her that she loved him to distraction. But, as already indicated, you cannot take an elopement andante. Dorothy was wobbling badly. The sunny peaceful garden did not soothe her at all. She wanted to scream. She wanted to cry. Above all, she wanted some one to confide in.
Furtively, almost fearfully, she peeped through the raspberry canes to observe the movements of her beloved. He was wandering—one had almost said slouching—along a gravel path not fifteen yards away. Suddenly he halted, stiffened, and gave a startled glance in the direction of the house. Then he ducked, and, running with quite surprising swiftness in the attitude of a Red Indian on the war-trail, dived into a large rhododendron bush and disappeared from sight.
Dorothy was too astonished to move or cry out. Now she was conscious of the thump of elephantine feet upon the grass close by, and next moment the explanation of Lionel's peculiar conduct revealed itself in the form of a policeman—the largest policeman she had ever seen.
Now, although we are pleased to be humorous upon the subject of policemen, it is in a spirit of pure bravado. Secretly we are all afraid of them: our upbringing at the hands of unscrupulous under nurses has ensured that. Whether we are stealing jam or engaging in an elopement, the policeman is ever at the back of our thoughts. Dorothy trembled guiltily.
The policeman addressed her. He was a stout, jolly-looking man, and in his leisure moments was much in request at home as a minder of the baby. He was painfully conscious of this infirmity, and in the execution of his duty endeavoured to nullify it as far as possible. He spoke in a deep monotone, and his language was formal and official.
“Good afternoon miss I am informed that the gentleman what passed through Popleigh village about twelve-thirty p.m. to-day riding of a motor-cycle with side-car attached is on these 'ere premises can you give me any information as to his whereabouts?”
“He is somewhere about the garden, I think,” gasped Dorothy.
The policeman thanked her, and passed on. Dorothy watched him out of sight, and then turned and ran blindly in the direction of the house, straight into the arms of Captain James Pryor. He was wearing his own clothes, and had discarded his make-up.
Dorothy started back with an hysterical little cry.
“Jim!” she whispered. “You?”
“Yes,” said Jim simply—“just me.”
Dorothy gave him both her hands.
“Jim, dear,” she said, “I’m in awful trouble. I have been a little imbecile.”
“Oh, not at all!” said James tenderly.
“Yes, I have!” insisted Dorothy.
“No, you have n't!” said James. “I tell you, I know about imbeciles. I’ve been spending the day with one.”
Miss Venner abandoned the argument, and wept comfortably, with her forehead resting upon Jim's broad chest.
“I’m ashamed to look you in the face,” she sobbed.
“Never mind,” replied James, passing a protecting arm round her. “Have a look at my waistcoat instead: it’s been greatly admired in its time. Now, what's your trouble?”
“It’s a long story,” said Dorothy; “but I simply must tell—”
“Don’t you tell me any stories you don’t need to,” interposed James swiftly. “I’m not an inquisitive sort of feller. … That's a wretched little handkerchief of yours: try mine!” He deprived Miss Venner of a small scrap of lawn and handed her a prismatic bandana.
“Now, cut out the explanations, and tell me what you want me to do,” he said.
“I want you to take me away from this place. Back to Tuckleford—anywhere!” said Dorothy, with a shuddering glance over her shoulder in the direction of the rhododendron bush.
“Right-o!” replied James, who was always happy when there was plenty to do and nothing to say. “Let’s go to the stable and start up your little friend's buzz-wagon. … By Jove, there's some one coming out of the verandah window now. Run!” He seized his lady-love by the arm and fairly whirled into the stable yard.
VI
Septimus Pontifex, dazed and bewildered, crossed the lawn and approached the raspberry canes, accompanied by Archibald. Ten yards behind followed an elderly female, carrying three dead chickens. She had been brought to the Vicarage as principal witness for the prosecution, and, growing tired of waiting in the road outside, had decided to take a more intimate part in the proceedings.
The policeman had extracted Lionel Gillibrand from the rhododendron bush; and having produced a notebook and pencil from the interior of his chest, was well embarked upon a searching but stereotyped inquiry into his prisoner's identity and antecedents, when he became aware of two gentlemen in clerical dress—one elderly and lowering like a thundercloud, the other young and struggling with acute hysteria—who had included themselves in the interview. Slightly flustered, he touched his helmet and returned to his cross-examination.
“Your name and address?” he repeated.
“You have no right to ask for it,” persisted Lionel uneasily. “The Law cannot touch me in this matter.”
“Your name and address?” reiterated the policeman, with the steady insistency of a man who has the whole British Constitution at his back. “Surname? Christian name?”
“You had better give it, Mr. Gillibrand,” advised the less sedate clergyman.
“Persons,” corroborated the policeman, “charged with a offence against the law and witholdin’ of their name and address when requested by a police officer is liable to be arrested summary. Now, my man, out with it!”
Lionel complied, sulkily.
“I say again,” he added, “that the Law cannot touch me in the matter. There was no compulsion or undue influence. It was a purely voluntary act.”
The policeman ploughed on.
“I must ask you to show me your licence,” he continued.
Lionel grasped at this straw.
“Certainly!” he replied triumphantly. “I have a Special Licence!”
The policeman scratched his ear in a puzzled fashion, and then resorted to sarcasm.
“Special?” he said slowly. “What may a Special Licence be? Does it include liddle chickens?”
“Are you referring,” inquired Leo furiously, “to my future—?”
“I am referrin’,” replied the policeman doggedly, “to your licence.”
“I tell you I have a Special Licence,” shouted Lionel—“from the Archbishop of Canterbury.” He turned to Archibald. “Has the telegram arrived yet?” he inquired feverishly.
“Not yet,” replied Archibald.
“Touchin' this licence,” persisted the adamantine policeman, “I don't see what no Archbishop of Canterbury has got to do with liddle chickens. Mrs. Challice, will you step this way?”
The elderly female with the corpses, who had been standing respectfully aloof, glided mechanically forward.
“I was a-sittin' outside of my door, sir”—she began rapidly to Archibald.
“You will be charged—” announced the policeman to Mr. Gillibrand.
“Hallo! What's that?” exclaimed Archibald. From the drive came a whirring and a popping sound.
“It’s my motor-cycle!” exclaimed Gillibrand.
“B.G. seven-one-two,” corroborated the policeman grimly. “I’ve got your number all right. Here, stop!”
Mr. Gillibrand was already halfway across the lawn. But he was too late. As he rounded the corner of the house, his motor-cycle, carrying two passengers, swung out of the gate into the road and whizzed away, with a single derisive toot, in the direction of Tuckleford.
Desperately he sped after it. The policeman, stertorous but tenacious, followed. Last of all came the owner of the corpses, minus her evidence. Archibald the Erratic and Septimus Pontifex were left alone.
VII
“Well,” announced Archie cheerfully, “that’s that!”
Mr. Pontifex turned majestically upon him.
“Sir,” he announced, “I shall wait no longer—”
“Sorry you have to go,” said Archibald, extending a friendly hand. “Look in again, won't you?”
Mr. Pontifex ignored this hospitable invitation, and continued:
“You have broken into my house; you are masquerading in my clothes; you have entertained a party of friends at luncheon at my expense; and you have involved me in a grotesque and inexplicable brawl between a village policeman and an escaped criminal, to whom you have apparently promised a dispensation from the Archbishop of Canterbury. If you can explain all these things to me with any degree of plausibility, I shall be grateful.”
Archie, who possessed the saving grace–rare in irresponsible humourists—of knowing when a joke has gone far enough, complied. His explanation was characteristically involved, and abounded in irrelevance. But Pontifex's severe features had relaxed considerably ere he finished.
“Mr. Wade,” he said–“if that be your name—I am inclined to accept your narrative as substantially correct, and I applaud your design to prevent this marriage, though your methods of execution are open to criticism. But you will forgive me if I verify your statements by a direct reference to Mr. Windrum? I shall send a telegram—”
“I can save you the trouble,” replied Archibald.
“You seem to think of everything,” remarked Mr. Pontifex, with an indulgent smile. “Have you telegraphed yourself?”
“No, sir. My certificate of character is hanging in your own study.”
Archibald crossed the verandah and disappeared. Presently he returned, carrying a framed photograph.
“My passport, sir, and certificate aforesaid,” he announced.
Mr. Pontifex examined the portrait—a young officer in the uniform of the Royal Air Force, inscribed: “To The Old Flick, from Archibald the Erratic.”
“I recognize it,” he said. “And you are Archibald the Erratic?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And the–er—Old Flick?”
“Mr. Windrum, sir. We were boys together. At that age we are apt to be thoughtless and inconsiderate in the nicknames that we bestow.”
“That is very true,” agreed Mr. Pontifex. “I remember, in my undergraduate days at Oxford—”
What Mr. Pontifex remembered will never be known, for at this moment there was a sound of turmoil outside; the garden gate clicked, and the police man reappeared, holding Mr. Lionel Gillibrand by the collar. The lady with the chickens appeared to have been unable to stay the course: at any rate, she was no longer visible.
“I’ve got him, sir!” announced the policeman to Archibald—whom, not altogether unreasonably, he appeared to regard as the President of the tribunal.
“Excellent, officer!” said Archibald approvingly. “Put him there.” He indicated a chair, into which the representative of the law proceeded to bump his prisoner. This done, the policeman again extracted the notebook from his bosom, and resumed:
“Attemptin' to escape from custody amounts to resistin' of the police in the execution of their duty. That makes the charge much more serious.” He sucked his blunt pencil thoughtfully, then wrote:
“You will now be charged with driving a mechanically propelled vehicle—to wit, one motor-cycle—along the Tuckleford Road to the common danger; exceeding of the speed limit in a ten-mile control; destroying of live-stock—to wit, three chickens; refusing to stop when requested to do so by a police officer, and resisting of the police in the execution of their duty.” He shut the book with a snap. Lionel Gillibrand gazed at him incredulously.
“Do you mean to say—” he began.
The policeman held up his hand about the size of a small ham.
“Stop one minute!” he commanded. “I have some evidence here.” He dived under his chair and produced the corpses of the chickens. “Three chickens! That's what you’re wanted for, my man!”
“Do you mean to say,” inquired Gillibrand, in a voice of mingled indignation and relief, “that that is all?”
“And quite enough, too!” retorted the policeman, obviously more than a little piqued.
“But—but—I thought—”
Archibald intervened swiftly.
“Yes, that is all, Mr. Gillibrand. If you have any other crime on your conscience—well, forget it! Next Monday you will be penalized forty shillings or a month by the local beaks, like any other ordinary little road-hog, for running over three chickens and resisting the police in the execution of their duty. I would n’t have the charge made more—romantic than that, if I were you. Believe me, it’s not done! See?”
Gillibrand favoured him with a lingering and malevolent glare; then turned away sulkily. Archibald rose to his feet.
“I suppose this gentleman is at liberty to leave us now, officer?” he said.
“I shall not require him further,” replied the policeman grandly—“for a day or two.
VIII
Archibald the Erratic accompanied Mr. Gillibrand to the gate, and pointed out to that depreciated Lochinvar the nearest way to the railway station. He returned to find the Rector sitting alone in the verandah.
“Has our policeman left us?” Archibald asked.
“My housekeeper,” replied Mr. Pontifex, “who has just returned from an afternoon visit to her sister, is supplying him with refreshment in the kitchen. Mr. Wade, I think you handled the delicate matter of the true reason of Mr. Gillibrand's presence here with great discrimination. I am glad now I trusted to my own judgment and allowed you to conduct the case in your own way. Will you remain and join us at supper?”
“Yourself and your housekeeper?” inquired Archibald, politely temporizing until he should find a way of escape from what promised to be a somewhat parochial evening.
“Oh, dear, no! My housekeeper is a person of quite humble station. Myself and my daughter.”
“Your daughter?”
“Precisely. Possibly I have not informed you that I am so blessed. There she is, coming in at the garden gate now. She has been to a garden-party.”
Archibald turned quickly. In the open gateway stood a girl—fair-haired, slender, dressed in white, her face shaded by a large black lace hat. There was a bunch of pink carnations at her belt. On seeing her father engaged in amicable conversation with a young and eminently presentable brother of the cloth, she broke into a smile. Archibald, who was an observant young man, noted she had a dimple in her left cheek. Concurrently, he was conscious of a slight shortness of breath.
“You will stay to supper, then?” said Mr. Pontifex.
Archibald the Erratic bowed his head reverentially, and uttered the first serious words of a frivolous career:
“I will!”