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Page 88
* * *
On his chair in the gallery that ran round the hall, swathed in
an overcoat and wearing rubber-soled shoes, the Efficient Baxter
sat and gazed into the darkness. He had lost the first fine
careless rapture, as it were, which had helped him to endure
these vigils, and a great weariness was on him. He found
difficulty in keeping his eyes open, and when they were open the
darkness seemed to press on them painfully. Take him for all in
all, the Efficient Baxter had had about enough of it.
Time stood still. Baxter's thoughts began to wander. He knew that
this was fatal and exerted himself to drag them back. He tried to
concentrate his mind on some one definite thing. He selected the
scarab as a suitable object, but it played him false. He had
hardly concentrated on the scarab before his mind was straying
off to ancient Egypt, to Mr. Peters' dyspepsia, and on a dozen
other branch lines of thought.
He blamed the fat man at the inn for this. If the fat man had not
thrust his presence and conversation on him he would have been
able to enjoy a sound sleep in the afternoon, and would have come
fresh to his nocturnal task. He began to muse on the fat man.
And by a curious coincidence whom should he meet a few moments
later but this same man!
It happened in a somewhat singular manner, though it all seemed
perfectly logical and consecutive to Baxter. He was climbing up
the outer wall of Westminster Abbey in his pyjamas and a tall
hat, when the fat man, suddenly thrusting his head out of a
window which Baxter had not noticed until that moment, said,
"Hello, Freddie!"
Baxter was about to explain that his name was not Freddie when he
found himself walking down Piccadilly with Ashe Marson. Ashe said
to him: "Nobody loves me. Everybody steals my grapefruit!" And
the pathos of it cut the Efficient Baxter like a knife. He was on
the point of replying; when Ashe vanished and Baxter discovered
that he was not in Piccadilly, as he had supposed, but in an
aeroplane with Mr. Peters, hovering over the castle.
Mr. Peters had a bomb in his hand, which he was fondling with
loving care. He explained to Baxter that he had stolen it from
the Earl of Emsworth's museum. "I did it with a slice of cold
beef and a pickle," he explained; and Baxter found himself
realizing that that was the only way. "Now watch me drop it,"
said Mr. Peters, closing one eye and taking aim at the castle.
"I have to do this by the doctor's orders."
He loosed the bomb and immediately Baxter was lying in bed
watching it drop. He was frightened, but the idea of moving did
not occur to him. The bomb fell very slowly, dipping and
fluttering like a feather. It came closer and closer. Then it
struck with a roar and a sheet of flame.
Baxter woke to a sound of tumult and crashing. For a moment he
hovered between dreaming and waking, and then sleep passed from
him, and he was aware that something noisy and exciting was in
progress in the hall below.
* * *
Coming down to first causes, the only reason why collisions of
any kind occur is because two bodies defy Nature's law that a
given spot on a given plane shall at a given moment of time be
occupied by only one body.
There was a certain spot near the foot of the great staircase
which Ashe, coming downstairs from Mr. Peters' room, and George
Emerson, coming up to Aline's room, had to pass on their
respective routes. George reached it at one minute and three
seconds after two a.m., moving silently but swiftly; and Ashe,
also maintaining a good rate of speed, arrived there at one
minute and four seconds after the hour, when he ceased to walk
and began to fly, accompanied by George Emerson, now going down.
His arms were round George's neck and George was clinging to his
waist.
In due season they reached the foot of the stairs and a small
table, covered with occasional china and photographs in frames,
which lay adjacent to the foot of the stairs. That--especially
the occasional china--was what Baxter had heard.
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