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Page 72
It is the penalty of the suspicious type of mind that it suffers
from its own activity. From the moment he detected Mr. Peters in
the act of rifling the museum and marked down Ashe as an
accomplice, Baxter's repose was doomed. Nor poppy nor mandragora,
nor all the drowsy sirups of the world, could ever medicine him
to that sweet sleep which he owed yesterday.
But it was the recollection that on previous occasions of
wakefulness hot whisky and water had done the trick, which had
now brought him from his bed and downstairs. His objective was
the decanter on the table of the smoking-room, which was one of
the rooms opening on the gallery that looked down on the hall.
Hot water he could achieve in his bedroom by means of his stove.
So out of bed he had climbed and downstairs he had come; and here
he was, to all appearances, just in time to foil the very plot on
which he had been brooding. Mr. Peters might be in bed, but there
in the hall below him stood the accomplice, not ten paces from
the museum's door. He arrived on the spot at racing speed and
confronted Ashe.
"What are you doing here?"
And then, from the Baxter viewpoint, things began to go wrong. By
all the rules of the game, Ashe, caught, as it were, red-handed,
should have wilted, stammered and confessed all; but Ashe was
fortified by that philosophic calm which comes to us in dreams,
and, moreover, he had his story ready.
"Mr. Peters rang for me, sir."
He had never expected to feel grateful to the little firebrand
who employed him, but he had to admit that the millionaire, in
their late conversation, had shown forethought. The thought
struck him that but for Mr. Peters' advice he might by now be in
an extremely awkward position; for his was not a swiftly
inventive mind.
"Rang for you? At half-past two in the morning!"
"To read to him, sir."
"To read to him at this hour?"
"Mr. Peters suffers from insomnia, sir. He has a weak digestion
and pain sometimes prevents him from sleeping. The lining of his
stomach is not at all what it should be."
"I don't believe a word of it."
With that meekness which makes the good man wronged so impressive
a spectacle, Ashe produced and exhibited his novel.
"Here is the book I am about to read to him. I think, sir, if you
will excuse me, I had better be going to his room. Good night,
sir."
He proceeded to mount the stairs. He was sorry for Mr. Peters, so
shortly about to be roused from a refreshing slumber; but these
were life's tragedies and must be borne bravely.
The Efficient Baxter dogged him the whole way, sprinting silently
in his wake and dodging into the shadows whenever the light of an
occasional electric bulb made it inadvisable to keep to the open.
Then abruptly he gave up the pursuit. For the first time his
comparative impotence in this silent conflict on which he had
embarked was made manifest to him, and he perceived that on mere
suspicion, however strong, he could do nothing. To accuse Mr.
Peters of theft or to accuse him of being accessory to a theft
was out of the question.
Yet his whole being revolted at the thought of allowing the
sanctity of the museum to be violated. Officially its contents
belonged to Lord Emsworth, but ever since his connection with the
castle he had been put in charge of them, and he had come to look
on them as his own property. If he was only a collector by proxy
he had, nevertheless, the collector's devotion to his curios,
beside which the lioness' attachment to her cubs is tepid; and he
was prepared to do anything to retain in his possession a scarab
toward which he already entertained the feelings of a life
proprietor.
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