Actions and Reactions Part 28

The three closed round the monkey,--hanging on his every motion with an earnestness almost equal to ours. The great judge's head--seamed and vertical forehead, iron mouth, and pike-like under-jaw, all set on that thick neck rising out of the white flannelled collar--was thrown against the puckered green silk of the organ-front as it might have been a cameo of t.i.tus. Jimmy, with raised eyes and parted lips, fingered his grizzled chestnut beard, and I was near enough to-note, the capable beauty of his hands. Sir Christopher stood a little apart, his arms folded behind his back, one heavy brown boot thrust forward, chin in as curbed, and black eyebrows lowered to shade the keen eyes.

Giuseppe's dark face between flas.h.i.+ng earrings, a twisted rag of red and yellow silk round his throat, turned from the reaching yearning monkey to the pink and white biscuits spiked on the bronzed leaf.a.ge. And upon them all fell the serious and workmanlike sun of an English summer forenoon.

"Fils de Saint Louis, montez au ciel!" said Lord Lundie suddenly in a voice that made me think of Black Caps. I do not know what the monkey thought, because at that instant he leaped off the organ and disappeared.

There was a clash of broken gla.s.s behind the tree.

The monkey's face, distorted with pa.s.sion, appeared at an upper window of the house, and a starred hole in the stained-gla.s.s window to the left of 'the front door showed the first steps of his upward path.

"We've got to catch him," cried Sir Christopher. "Come along!"

They pushed at the door, which was unlocked.

"Yes. But consider the ethics of the case," said Jimmy. "Isn't this burglary or something, Bubbles?"

"Settle that when he's caught," said Sir Christopher. "We're responsible for the beast."

A furious clanging of bells broke out of the empty house, followed by m.u.f.fed gurglings and trumpetings.

"What the deuce is that?" I asked, half aloud.

"The plumbing, of course," said Penfentenyou. "What a pity! I believe he'd have climbed if Lord Lundie hadn't put him off!"

"Wait a moment, Chris," said Jimmy the interpreter; "Guiseppe says he may answer to the music of his infancy. Giuseppe, therefore, will go in with the organ. Orpheus with his lute, you know. Avante, Orpheus!

There's no Neapolitan for bathroom, but I fancy your friend is there."

"I'm not going into another man's house with a hurdy-gurdy," said Lord Lundie, recoiling, as Giuseppe uns.h.i.+pped the working mechanism of the organ (it developed a hang-down leg) from its wheels, slipped a strap round his shoulders, and gave the handle a twist.

"Don't be a cad, Bubbles," was Jimmy's answer. "You couldn't leave us now if you were on the Woolsack. Play, Orpheus! The Cadi accompanies."

With a whoop, a buzz, and a crash, the organ sprang to life under the hand of Giuseppe, and the procession pa.s.sed through the rained-to-imitate-walnut front door. A moment later we saw the monkey ramping on the roof.

"He'll be all over the towns.h.i.+p in a minute if we don't head him," said Penfentenyou, leaping to his feet, and cras.h.i.+ng into the garden. We headed him with pebbles till he retired through a window to the tuneful reminder that he had left a lot of little things behind him. As we pa.s.sed the front door it swung open, and showed Jimmy the artist sitting at the bottom of a newly-cleaned staircase. He waggled his hands at us, and when we entered we saw that the man was stricken speechless. His eyes grew red--red like a ferret's--and what little breath he had whistled shrilly. At first we thought it was a fit, and then we saw that it was mirth--the inopportune mirth of the Artistic Temperament.

The house palpitated to an infamous melody punctuated by the stump of the barrel-organ's one leg, as Giuseppe, above, moved from room to room after his rebel slave. Now and again a floor shook a little under the combined rushes of Lord Lundie and Sir Christopher Tomling, who gave many and contradictory orders. But when they could they cursed Jimmy with splendid thoroughness.

"Have you anything to do with the house?" panted Jimmy at last. "Because we're using it just now." He gulped. "And I'm ah--keeping cave."

"All right," said Penfentenyou, and shut the hall door.

"Jimmy, you unspeakable blackguard, Jimmy, you cur! You coward!"

(Lord Lundie's voice overbore the flood of melody.) "Come up here!

Giussieppe's saying something we don't understand."

Jimmy listened and interpreted between hiccups.

"He says you'd better play the organ, Bubbles, and let him do the stalking. The monkey knows him."

"By Jove, he's quite right," said Sir Christopher from the landing.

"Take it, Bubbles, at once."

"My G.o.d!" said Lord Lundie in horror.

The chase reverberated over our heads, from the attics to the first floor and back again. Bodies and Voices met in collision and argument, and once or twice the organ hit walls and doors. Then it broke forth in a new manner.

"He's playing it," said Jimmy. "I know his acute Justinian ear. Are you fond of music?"

"I think Lord Lundie plays very well for a beginner," I ventured.

"Ah! That's the trained legal intellect. Like mastering a brief. I haven't got it." He wiped his eyes and shook.

"Hi!" said Penfentenyou, looking through the stained gla.s.s window down the garden. "What's that!"

A household removals van, in charge of four men, had halted at the gate. A husband and his wife householders beyond question--quavered irresolutely up the path. He looked tired. She was certainly cross.

In all this haphazard world the last couple to understand a scientific experiment.

I laid hands on Jimmy--the clamour above drowning speech and with Penfentenyou's aid, propped him against the window, that he should see.

He saw, nodded, fell as an umbrella can fall, and kneeling, beat his forehead on the shut door. Penfentenyou slid the bolt.

The furniture men reinforced the two figures on the path, and advanced, spreading generously.

"Hadn't we better warn them up-stairs?" I suggested:

"No. I'll die first!" said Jimmy. "I'm pretty near it now. Besides, they called me names."

I turned from the Artist to the Administrator.

"Coeteris paribus, I think we'd better be going," said Penfentenyou, dealer in crises.

"Ta--take me with you," said Jimmy. "I've no reputation to lose, but I'd like to watch 'em from--er--outside the picture."

"There's always a modus viviendi," Penfentenyou murmured, and tiptoed along the hall to a back door, which he opened quite silently. We pa.s.sed into a tangle of gooseberry bushes where, at his statesmanlike example, we crawled on all fours, and regained the hedge.

Here we lay up, secure in our alibi.

"But your firm,"--the woman was wailing to the furniture removals men--"your firm promised me everything should be in yesterday. And it's to-day! You should have been here yesterday!"

"The last tenants ain't out yet, lydy," said one of them.

Lord Lundie was rapidly improving in technique, though organ-grinding, unlike the Law, is more of a calling than a trade, and he hung occasionally on a dead centre. Giuseppe, I think, was singing, but I could not understand the drift of Sir Christopher's remarks. They were Spanish.

The woman said something we did not catch.