His eyes became sunken. His cheekbones
stood out. He lost weight. And so noticeable was this change in his physique
that Sir Jasper ffinch-ffarrowmere commented on it one evening in tones of
unconcealed envy.
“How the devil, Straker,” he said—for this
was the pseudonym under which Wilfred was passing, “do you manage to keep so
thin? Judging by the weekly books, you eat like a starving Esquimaux, and yet
you don’t put on weight. Now I, in addition to knocking off butter and
potatoes, have started drinking hot unsweetened lemon-juice each night before
retiring: and yet, damme,” he said —for, like all baronets, he was careless in
his language, “I weighed myself this morning, and I was up another six ounces.
What’s the explanation?”
“Yes, Sir Jasper,” said Wilfred,
mechanically.
“What the devil do you mean, Yes, Sir
Jasper?”
“No, Sir Jasper.”
The baronet wheezed plaintively.
“I’ve been studying this matter closely,” he
said, “and it’s one of the seven wonders of the world. Have you ever seen a fat
valet? Of course not. Nor has anybody else. There is no such thing as a fat
valet. And yet there is scarcely a moment during the day when a valet is not
eating. He rises at six-thirty, and at seven is having coffee and buttered
toast. At eight, he breakfasts off porridge, cream, eggs, bacon, jam, bread,
butter, more eggs, more bacon, more jam, more tea, and more butter, finishing
up with a slice of cold ham and a sardine. At eleven o’clock he has his ‘elevenses,’
consisting of coffee, cream, more bread and more butter. At one, luncheon —a
hearty meal, replete with every form of starchy food and lots of beer. If he
can get at the port, he has port. At three, a snack. At four, another snack. At
five, tea and buttered toast. At seven—dinner, probably with floury potatoes,
and certainly with lots more beer. At nine, another snack. And at ten-thirty he
retires to bed, taking with him a glass of milk and a plate of biscuits to keep
himself from getting hungry in the night. And yet he remains as slender as a
string-bean, while I, who have been dieting for 3 years, tip the beam at two
hundred and seventeen pounds, and am growing a third and supplementary chin.
These are mysteries, Straker.”
“Yes, Sir Jasper.”
“Well, I’ll tell you one thing,” said the
baronet, “I’m getting down one of those indoor Turkish Bath cabinet-affairs
from London; and if that doesn’t do the trick, I give up the struggle.”
The indoor Turkish Bath duly arrived and was
unpacked; and it was some three nights later that Wilfred, brooding in the
servants’ hall, was aroused from his reverie by Murgatroyd.
“Here,” said Murgatroyd, “wake up. Sir
Jasper’s calling you.”
“Calling me what?” asked Wilfred, coming
to himself with a start.
“Calling you very loud,” growled the
butler.
It was indeed so. From the upper regions
of the house there was proceeding a series of sharp yelps, evidently those of a
man in mortal stress. Wilfred was reluctant to interfere in any way if, as
seemed probable, his employer was dying in agony; but he was a conscientious
man, and it was his duty, while in this sinister house, to perform the work for
which he was paid. He hurried up the stairs; and, entering Sir Jasper’s bedroom,
perceived the baronet’s crimson face protruding from the top of the indoor
Turkish Bath.
“So you’ve come at last!” cried Sir
Jasper. “Look here, when you put me into this infernal contrivance just now,
what did you do to the dashed thing?”
“Nothing beyond what was indicated in the
printed pamphlet accompanying the machine, Sir Jasper. Following the
instructions, I slid Rod A into Groove B, fastening with Catch C.”
“Well, you must have made a mess of it,
somehow. The thing’s stuck. I can’t get out.”
“You can’t?” cried Wilfred.
“No. And the bally apparatus is getting
considerably hotter than the hinges of the Inferno.” I must apologise for Sir
Jasper’s language, but you know what baronets are. “I’m being cooked to a
crisp.”
A sudden flash of light seemed to blaze
upon Wilfred Mulliner.
“I will release you. Sir Jasper—”
“Well, hurry up, then.”
“On one condition.” Wilfred fixed him with
a piercing gaze. “First, I must have the key.”
“There isn’t a key, you idiot. It doesn’t
lock. It just clicks when you slide Gadget D into Thingummybob E.”
“The key I require is that of the room in
which you are holding Angela Purdue a prisoner.”
“What the devil do you mean? Ouch!”
“I will tell you what I mean, Sir Jasper
ffinch-ffarrowmere. I am Wilfred Mulliner!”
“Don’t be an ass. Wilfred Mulliner has
black hair. Yours is red. You must be thinking of some one else.”
“This is a wig,” said Wilfred. “By
Clarkson.” He shook a menacing finger at the baronet. “You little thought, Sir
Jasper ffinch-ffarrowmere, when you embarked on this dastardly scheme, that
Wilfred Mulliner was watching your every move. I guessed your plans from the
start. And now is the moment when I checkmate them. Give me that key, you
Fiend.”
“ffiend,” corrected Sir Jasper,
automatically.
“I am going to release my darling, to take
her away from this dreadful house, to marry her by special licence as soon as
it can legally be done.”
In spite of his sufferings, a ghastly
laugh escaped Sir Jasper’s lips.
“You are, are you!”
“I am.”
“Yes, you are!”
“Give me the key,”
“I haven’t got it, you chump. It’s in the
door.”
“Ha, ha!”
“It’s no good saying ‘Ha, ha!’ It is in
the door. On Angela’s side of the door.”
“A likely story! But I cannot stay here
wasting time. If you will not give me the key, I shall go up and break in the
door.”
“Do!” Once more the baronet laughed like a
tortured soul. “And see what she’ll say.”
Wilfred could make nothing of this last
remark. He could, he thought, imagine very clearly what Angela would say. He
could picture her sobbing on his chest, murmuring that she knew he would come,
that she had never doubted him for an instant. He leapt for the door.
“Here! Hi! Aren’t you going to let me out?”
“Presently,” said Wilfred. “Keep cool.” He
raced up the stairs.
“Angela,” he cried, pressing his lips
against the panel. “Angela!”
“Who’s that?” answered a well-remembered
voice from within.
“It is I—Wilfred. I am going to burst open
the door. Stand clear of the gates.”
He drew back a few paces, and hurled
himself at the woodwork. There was a grinding crash, as the lock gave. And
Wilfred, staggering on, found himself in a room so dark that he could see
nothing.
“Angela, where are you?”
“I’m here. And I’d like to know why you are,
after that letter I wrote you. Some men,’ continued the strangely cold voice, “do
not seem to know how to take a hint.”
Wilfred staggered, and would have fallen
had he not clutched at his forehead.
“That letter?” he stammered. “You surely
didn’t mean what you wrote in that letter?”
“I meant every word and I wish I had put
in more.”
“But—but—but But don’t you love me, Angela?”
A hard, mocking laugh rang through the
room.
“Love you? Love the man who recommended me
to try Mulliner’s Raven Gipsy Face-Cream!”
“What do you mean?”
“I will tell you what I mean. Wilfred
Mulliner, look on your handiwork!”
The room became suddenly flooded with light.
And there, standing with her hand on the switch, stood Angela—a queenly, lovely
figure, in whose radiant beauty the sternest critic would have noted but one
flaw—the fact that she was piebald.
Wilfred gazed at her with adoring eyes.
Her face was partly brown and partly white, and on her snowy neck were patches
of sepia that looked like the thumb-prints you find on the pages of books in
the Free Library: but he thought her the most beautiful creature he had ever
seen. He longed to fold her in his arms: and but for the fact that her eyes
told him that she would undoubtedly land an upper-cut on him if he tried it he
would have done so.
“Yes,” she went on, “this is what you have
made of me, Wilfred Mulliner—you and that awful stuff you call the Raven Gipsy
Face-Cream. This is the skin you loved to touch! I took your advice and bought
one of the large jars at seven and six, and see the result! Barely twenty-four
hours after the first application, I could have walked into any circus and
named my own terms as the Spotted Princess of the Fiji Islands. I fled here to
my childhood home, to hide myself. And the first thing that happened…” —her
voice broke—” was that my favourite hunter shied at me and tried to bite pieces
out of his manger: while Ponto, my little dog, whom I have reared from a puppy,
caught one sight of my face and is now in the hands of the vet. and unlikely to
recover. And it was you, Wilfred Mulliner, who brought this curse upon me!”
Many men would have wilted beneath these
searing words, but Wilfred Mulliner merely smiled with infinite compassion and
understanding.
“It is quite all right,” he said. “I
should have warned you, sweetheart, that this occasionally happens in cases
where the skin is exceptionally delicate and finely-textured. It can be
speedily remedied by an application of the Mulliner Snow of the Mountains
Lotion, four shillings the medium-sized bottle.”
“Wilfred! Is this true?”
“Perfectly true, dearest. And is this all that
stands between us?”
“No!” shouted a voice of thunder.
Wilfred wheeled sharply. In the doorway
stood Sir Jasper ffinch-ffarrowmere. He was swathed in a bath-towel, what was
visible of his person being a bright crimson. Behind him, toying with a
horse-whip, stood Murgatroyd, the butler.
“You didn’t expect to see me, did you?”
“I certainly,” replied Wilfred, severely,
“did not expect to see you in a lady’s presence in a costume like that.”
“Never mind my costume.” Sir Jasper
turned.
“Murgatroyd, do your duty!”
The butler, scowling horribly, advanced
into the room.
“Stop!” screamed Angela.
“I haven’t begun yet, miss,” said the
butler, deferentially.
“You shan’t touch Wilfred. I love him.”
“What!” cried Sir Jasper. “After all that
has happened?”
“Yes. He has explained everything.”
A grim frown appeared on the baronet’s
vermilion face.
“I’ll bet he hasn’t explained why he left me
to be cooked in that infernal Turkish Bath. I was beginning to throw out clouds
of smoke when Murgatroyd, faithful fellow, heard my cries and came and released
me.”
“Though not my work,” added the butler.
Wilfred eyed him steadily.
“If,” he said, “you used Mulliner’s
Reduc-o, the recognised specific for obesity, whether in the tabloid form at
three shillings the tin, or as a liquid at five and six the flask, you would
have no need to stew in Turkish Baths. Mulliner’s Reduc-o, which contains no
injurious chemicals, but is compounded purely of health-giving herbs, is
guaranteed to remove excess weight, steadily and without weakening
after-effects, at the rate of two pounds a week. As used by the nobility.”
The glare of hatred faded from the baronet’s
eyes.
“Is that a fact?” he whispered.
“It is.” You guarantee it?” All the
Mulliner preparations are fully guaranteed.”
“My boy!” cried the baronet. He shook
Wilfred by the hand. “Take her,” he said, brokenly. “And with her my
b-blessing.”
A discreet cough sounded in the
background.
“You haven’t anything, by any chance, sir,”
asked Murgatroyd, “that’s good for lumbago?”
“Mulliner’s Ease-o will cure the most
stubborn case in six days.”
“Bless you, sir, bless you,” sobbed
Murgatroyd. “Where can I get it?”
“At all chemists.”
“It catches me in the small of the back
principally, sir.”
“It need catch you no longer,” said
Wilfred.
There is little to add. Murgatroyd is now
the most lissom butler in Yorkshire. Sir Jasper’s weight is down under the
fifteen stone and he is thinking of taking up hunting again. Wilfred and Angela
are man and wife; and never, I am informed, have the wedding-bells of the old
church at ffinch village rung out a blither peal than they did on that June
morning when Angela, raising to her love a face on which the brown was as
evenly distributed as on an antique walnut table, replied to the clergyman’s
question, “Wilt thou, Angela, take this Wilfred?” with a shy, “I will.” They
now have two bonny bairns—the small, or Percival, at a preparatory school in
Sussex, and the large, or Ferdinand, at Eton.
Here Mr Mulliner, having finished his hot
Scotch, bade us farewell and took his departure.