CHAPTER V

THE REVEREND HORATIO MERLE

In order to make it clear how Hester of the scarlet cloak (for it was she) happened to be waiting at the lodge gate on the evening of Betty Thompson's arrival, we must go back a little and consider the activities of the Reverend Horatio Merle during the previous twenty-four hours.

It was on the morning of the day preceding Hiram Baxter's return and the curate and his wife were lingering over their matutinal repast in the sunny breakfast room of Ipping House. A nice little clerical man, a pink and puffy little woman; he with finely drawn features and thin side whiskers, she with alert, almost domineering, eyes.

"Good gracious!" cried Mrs. Merle, looking up from the newspaper. "Just listen to this, Horatio!"

"I am listening, my dear," said Horatio, carefully replacing in its Dresden cup the egg which had been doing preliminary duty as a hand warmer, clasped between his devotional palms.

But Harriet Merle with the self-absorption of newspaper monopolists was now reading rapidly half aloud half to herself with tantalizing incoherence--"first-class carriage--inside pocket--five thousand pounds--progressive mothers--thoroughly searched--Bishop of Bunchester."

"That accounts for it," she said at last, laying down the newspaper. "That explains it," repeated Harriet.

"Explains what? What is it all about?" queried her husband, nervously adjusting his eyeglasses, which magnified to an almost goblin intensity the note of interrogation in his pale blue eyes.

Harriet briefly recapitulated the startling news of the stolen purse, to a running accompaniment of "Tut tut!"--"Bless my soul!"--"Well, I never!" from her astonished spouse, who straightway begged to see the newspaper for himself and, with fascinated interest, studied the details of the robbery.

"Clever piece of work," the curate muttered. "Looks like a high-class crook." And his eyes went off into space.

"A crook? Horatio! What do you mean?"

"Nothing, my dear! Nothing!" he assured her with a guilty look, for the truth was this mild-mannered clergyman adored detective mysteries and in his secret chamber had devoured numbers of them.

"Now you see, Horatio, the bishop will be detained in London over Friday, and as Dr. Dibble is laid up with his throat, that is why the Progressive Mothers have asked you to deliver the address at the opening of the bazaar."

"Dear, dear!" sighed Horatio, ignoring the all-important matter of the address. "Such a large sum, such an incredible sum! Fancy losing anything so huge as five thousand pounds!" he smiled at the thought. "It's like--it's like the musician who lost a bass drum in a hansom cab. Now if it were five shillings, or even five pounds, I could really sympathize; and, speaking of sympathy, Harriet, I think I will go to the rectory this morning and see if there is anything I can do for poor Dr. Dibble."

"You'll do nothing of the kind." Harriet had finished her breakfast and now rose majestically to her full height of five feet three inches (including her marceled pompadour and military heels). "You'll go straight to your room and write your Progressive Mothers' address. You may make light of our poverty and the humiliating dependence it entails on the hospitality of my cousin, Hiram----"

"Second cousin-in-law," gently corrected Horatio.

She swept the interruption aside. "You may even scoff at my relationship to Cousin Eleanor, but you shall not make light of this opportunity. It is not only an honor, Horatio, but there is also a----" Harriet hesitated.

"Honorarium?" suggested her husband.

She nodded. "I don't know how much, but we cannot afford to ignore it, and, besides, there is no knowing what it may lead to. Poor, dear Dr. Dibble must be in his eighties, and another of these attacks----"

Horatio raised a hand in protest. "My dear, I beg of you not to impute such mercenary motives to my anxiety about Dr. Dibble's health."

But Harriet was not listening, she was gazing with an expression of horror at Horatio's outstretched hand.

"Horatio!" she exclaimed.

He examined the back of his two hands, then turned them over and held them out with the air of a schoolboy expecting to be scolded.

"I assure you, my dear, I scrubbed them with all my might, but the water was so cold, so very cold," he shivered at the recollection.

Harriet shook her head. "It isn't that," she said.

"Then what is it, my dear? This suspense is killing me."

"Your cuffs, Horatio."

Her voice had in it a note of anguish. For the moment all the pitiful makeshifts of the last few months, ever since Horatio resigned from his last pulpit, and their present dependence on the bounty of a distant relative, seemed to find concentrated expression on Horatio's frayed cuffs. Harriet was on the verge of tears.

"Come to your room," she said. "I will get my scissors."

They paused at the first landing of the long oak staircase, Harriet for breath, Horatio for Harriet.

"I wish you thought more of your appearance, Horatio," she panted. "Cousin Hiram, though he is only an American, is so particular about his shirts."

"If I had Cousin Hiram's money I might----"

"No, you wouldn't, Horatio. You'd spend it all on charities and Angora cats and--mechanical toys," she added indignantly.

"And real lace dresses for my old Dutch," laughed Horatio, putting his arm around her, "and satin slippers like the Countess Kate's."

"The countess!" snapped Harriet.

Horatio felt her shrug of aversion at the mention of Kate Clendennin's name. He knew what Harriet was thinking, knew what she would say if she spoke. Kate had something no woman of forty-nine can forgive: she had youth. Kate had other things equally unforgivable, things that went with youth and satin slippers, and a title--a title after all is a title even if it is only a German title, and Harriet classed German titles in a vague category with German silver, German measles, cousins German, and--Germans!

"They're coming now," said Horatio, interrupting her thoughts.

"What? Who?"

"The satin slippers," he repeated in a stage whisper and pointed upward. His choice of words moved even Harriet to reluctant mirth, for the countess had put on heavy walking boots, and the sound of them now descending the uncarpeted oak stairs was anything but satin.

Kate Clendennin paused a moment in her downward flight to exchange the usual morning insincerities. She was a splendid specimen of British young womanhood, with her dark, well-behaved hair and gray-green eyes, capitally set off by a gray tweed walking suit. Harriet regarded her resentfully. What right had Kate to the complexion of an early riser when she always breakfasted in bed, and to the figure of Artemis when she never set foot to the ground if there were a horse or an automobile in sight?

"Ah! I hope you slept well," said Mrs. Merle.

The countess smothered a yawn with a tan glove. "I really don't know; I'm not awake yet." She was thinking, "What an odd little couple they are, these two, this pink-and-white cockatoo lady in the faded purple morning gown, and this little gray mouse in the black velvet coat."

"Is Mr. Fitz Brown down yet?" they heard her call to Parker a moment later, as she disappeared into the breakfast room. "Tell Anton we shall want the motor."

"It's perfectly shameful the way those two abuse dear Cousin Hiram's kindness," grumbled Harriet. "They've had the car every day this week."

The Merles were now standing in Horatio's study near a window overlooking the conservatory. For a moment there was silence, broken only by the gnashing of the tiny scissors. The operation of cuff trimming is a delicate one, requiring skill and steadiness of hand. The deviation of a thread's breadth by those sharp little scissors might be fatal to the cuff, might even endanger the life of the shirt.

"I have always maintained," the curate remarked, "that surgery is a science for which women are by nature peculiarly----"

"The other hand, please," interrupted Harriet shortly. She was annoyed by Horatio's avoidance of her pet subject of discussion. It was his cue here to say: "If Lionel and Kate abuse Cousin Hiram's hospitality, why, so do we." To which she would reply: "That is different, Horatio; we are relatives of Eleanor Baxter." And he would say: "So are they, Harriet." And she would answer, contemptuously: "They are third cousins." Then Horatio would say: "Yes?" He had a particularly irritating way of saying "Yes?" And, if Harriet weathered this irritation sufficiently to answer she would generally sweep out of the discussion with, "You know perfectly well, Horatio, that people like the Baxters consider being second cousins to such a family as mine a very close relationship."

In her secret heart Harriet knew that Horatio was right, but she had never admitted it and never would. There was no knowing how Horatio would follow up such a victory. Suppose he insisted on their bringing their visit to an end. It was not to be thought of! Their money was all gone, they had no other relatives. What would become of them?

"There!" she said at length, surveying the completed cuff. "That's better. Now you must get to work on the address."

Harriet replaced the scissors in a silver sheath that hung from her chatelaine at her side. At the door she turned with a look the curate knew well. "You will find everything you need, Horatio, and I will see that you are not disturbed."

The door closed with a subdued but ominous after-click. Horatio stood listening until the sound of his wife's footsteps had died away, then, tiptoeing quietly across the floor, he turned the knob cautiously and pulled. Alas! There was no mistake. Harriet had locked him in. He was a prisoner in his own room.

"Strange," he reflected, "that the change of only a quarter of an inch in the position of a minute piece of metal in a door should transform into a gloomy dungeon cell what, only one moment before, was a comfortable study, with its inviting easy chair, its reposeful sofa, and----"

He looked quickly, smitten by a sudden dread. It was as he feared--the easy chair was gone, the sofa, too, had been taken away, and there, grimly awaiting him on the table, were a solemn row of dark policeman-like books, Cruden's "Concordance," Roget's "Thesaurus," the "Dictionary of Phrase and Fable," Philpot's "Elements of Rhetoric" and Veighley's "Mythology." In the shadow of these and other cheerful volumes stood a bronze inkstand of mournful Egyptian architecture, and exactly at right angles to this lay a quire of blue ruled sermon paper. Parallel to the paper rested a pen of shiny black and, as Horatio soon ascertained, evil tasting wood.

"Pththt!" he exclaimed suddenly, after some minutes of violent concentration on the subject of Progressive Mothers. "Why doesn't Edison invent a penholder of some edible material?"

And now the curate's thoughts wandered back to the mystery of the bishop's purse. Who could have taken it? There were two women in the railway carriage and two musicians. Horatio much preferred crimes with a woman at the bottom and he disliked musicians, so he decided that one of these fair travelers--of course, they were fair--had turned the trick. He loved the crisp vulgarity of that expression--turned the trick. And, forthwith, he loosed his fancy over the paths of fearless adventure that he loved to tread. Now he was a great detective, on the track of a desperate criminal, and his gentle soul thrilled in the conflict of plot and counter-plot. In all literature and theology there was nothing that stirred Horatio Merle like these imaginings.

Half an hour later, Harriet, listening at the study door, heard a faint scratching sound and smiled in satisfaction.

"He's writing," she said to herself and stole swiftly away. She had an errand in the village and could leave now with a clear conscience.

The scratching sound continued. It came, however, not from the writing table, but from the window casement, which presently swung open, apparently of its own accord. Whereupon Horatio came back, with a start, from his heroic wanderings, back to the world of drab reality and looked blinkingly about him. There, on the window ledge, sharply silhouetted against the wistaria leaves, stood Martin Luther. His tail swayed swiftly from side to side like the ebony baton of a chef d'orchestre. His staring eyes were like two circular holes through which you saw the green of the leafy background. He held his head proudly, he was carrying something. Horatio shut his eyes quickly. There were moments when he hated Martin Luther.

When he looked again the cat was standing by his chair purring noisily to attract attention to something that lay on the floor. It was a field mouse, just such a one as he had watched in the cornfield the day before and had scolded Martin Luther for frightening. Perhaps it was the same field mouse.

"You little murderer!" cried Merle. "It would serve you right if I had left you to drown in the canal!"

He pushed the cat away roughly and picked up the unconscious little creature. The field mouse stirred in his hand. Merle examined it tenderly and was surprised to find it apparently quite uninjured. He stroked it gently with his finger. Suddenly the mouse sat up and began preening itself with an incredibly rapid whirring movement of its tiny hands. Then just as suddenly the movements stopped, the little head drooped, and the eyes closed.

"Poor little thing!" said Horatio. "The shock was too much for it."

He had scarcely uttered these words when the mouse opened its eyes again and went on preening itself as if nothing had happened.

"You're sleepy, that's what's the matter with you," decided Merle, after watching several repetitions of this performance. "I'm going to take you home and put you to bed. As for you, Martin Luther," he turned severely to the cat, "you are a disgrace to the family and deserve to be excommunicated."

Martin Luther, after a stare of pained incredulity, walked stiffly to the farthest corner of the room and, turning his back on the curate, signified with silent and elaborate symbolism that he washed his hands and feet of the whole matter.

And now the Reverend Horatio, mindless of difficulties and dangers, set about keeping his rash promise to return the field mouse to its sorrowing relatives. First he tried the door in the vain hope that Harriet had secretly relented and unlocked it. No such luck. The window was his only means of exit. Very well, he would exit by the window. The thought of failing to keep his word never entered his head.

Looking out of the window, the kindly gentleman studied the situation with scientific mind. Three feet below was the glass roof of the conservatory, which was not more than eight feet wide at this point and curved downward like the brink of a glass waterfall. At its outer edge there was a drop of perhaps six feet to the driveway.

One thing the curate, leaning out, noted with joy. A little to the right, just where the conservatory rounded the corner of the house and the supporting girder was of a greater width the wistaria took an unexpected turn and spanned the dome of glass with a network of rope-like branches that covered it in some places to the width of a foot. It was as if the friendly tree had miraculously gone out of its way to help him. To Merle's imagination this seemed like a sign of providential approval.

There still remained the disposition of the field mouse, but this offered only a momentary difficulty. The solution was found in a bag cleverly improvised from the curate's silk handkerchief, the ends gathered together, dumpling-wise, and secured by the string of his eyeglass detached for the purpose. And, thus enveloped, the little creature was safely and comfortably suspended (like a princess swung in a Sedan chair) from the top button of Horatio's black coat. This arrangement left the curate's hands free for climbing.

Having assured himself that the combined strength of the branches and the glass would bear his weight, Horatio proceeded with the descent and found this perfectly easy; but just as he had reached the jumping-off place, the curate was brought to a palpitating halt by the sound of steps in the conservatory beneath him. Parting the wistaria leaves and peering downward through the glass he saw Anton, the chauffeur, moving among the plants from the direction of the library.

"What's he doing there, I wonder?" thought Merle. "What business has Anton in the conservatory?"

As he came directly underneath the spot where Horatio was crouching, the chauffeur stood still and looked about him cautiously. Apparently satisfied that he was unobserved, he pulled a blue-and-white envelope from his pocket, and, skillfully loosening the flap, took out a paper which, as he held it scarcely two feet below him, Merle could see was a cablegram. After a glance at the contents, Anton replaced the paper in its envelope and quickly retraced his steps toward the library.

It all happened so quickly that, even had Merle tried to read the cable, he could not have done so. Some figures and the word "Gramercy" caught his eye. Then, as he looked away, the humorous appropriateness of the term eavesdropper to his position on the roof caused him to laugh aloud. It was fortunate for the Reverend Horatio that Anton was out of hearing, more fortunate than the gentle curate dreamed.