Nothing But the Truth

A yawn escaped his lips, and it rather surprised him that a broken-hearted man could yawn. He looked at his watch, holding it in the moonlight, and saw that it was late enough now so that he could retire if he wished, without violating, to any great degree, that even-tenor-of-his-way clause. Accordingly Bob got up and walked toward the house. A side door was open and he went in that way and up to his room. He was glad he didn’t encounter any one – that is, any one he had to speak to. The monocle-man drifted by him somewhere, but Bob didn’t have to pay much attention to him. He could imagine the superior way in which the Britisher had informed Miss Gerald that he found him (Bob) an “interesting young man.” The monocle-man and the bishop seemed to agree on that point.

Undressing hastily, Bob flung himself into bed. He had gone through so much he was tired and scarcely had he touched the sheets when the welcoming arms of Morpheus claimed him. His sleep was sound – very sound! In fact, it was so sound that something occurred and he didn’t know it. It occurred again – several times – and still he did not know it. Another interval! – a long one! Bob yet slept the sleep of the overwrought. His fagged brain was trying to readjust itself. He could have slept right through to the dawn, but this was not to be. Long before the glowing god made its appearance in the east, Bob was rudely yanked from the arms of Morpheus.

CHAPTER IX – ANOTHER SURPRISE

Three men were in his room and Bob found himself sitting up in bed and blinking at them. The lights they had turned on seemed rather bright.

“Hello!” said Bob.

“Hello yourself!” said the commodore in a low but nasty manner. “And not so loud!”

“Some sleeper, you are!” spoke Dickie in a savage whisper.

“Believe he heard, all right!” came Clarence’s hushed, unamiable tones. “Perverse beast, and pretended not to!”

Bob hugged his knees with his arms. “You’ve torn your pants,” he observed to the commodore.

“Never you mind that” as guardedly, though no more pleasantly than before.

“Oh, all right,” said Bob meekly. He didn’t ask any questions, nor did he exhibit any curiosity. There couldn’t anything happen now that would make matters much worse. But in that, he was “reckoning without his host.”

“Got in the window, of course,” he observed in a low unconcerned tone, as if their coming and being there after midnight was the most natural occurrence in the world. “Not so hard to get in, with that balcony out there. All you had to do was to ‘shin up’ and then there’s that trellis to help. Good strong trellis, too. Regular Jacob’s ladder! Easiest thing for burglars! Thought you were burglars,” he added contemplatively.

“You mean you saw us?” snapped the commodore, almost forgetting his caution. His expression matched his tone. He was no longer the jovial sailorman; he wore now a regular Dick Deadeye look. To Bob’s comprehensive glance he appeared like a fragment in a revival of Pinafore.

“Oh, I didn’t know it was you,” said Bob.

“Where were you?”

“Summer-house.”

“Think of that,” murmured the commodore, disgustedly. “Bird at hand, and we didn’t know it. Fool of a bird had to hop away and make us all this trouble!”

“I told you I thought you were burglars,” observed Bob patiently. He didn’t care how they abused him or what names they called him.

That disagreeable look on Dan’s face was replaced by a startled one. “Good gracious, man” – only that wasn’t the expression he used – “I hope you haven’t told any one you saw burglars prowling around? Nice for us if you did!” As he spoke he gazed anxiously toward the window, before which they had taken the precaution to draw a heavy drape after entering.

“No, I didn’t tell a soul.”

“But – I don’t understand why you didn’t when you thought – ?”

“I ought to have spoken, I suppose,” said Bob with a melancholy smile. “But it didn’t seem very important and – I guess I forgot. These little jewel robberies are getting to be such commonplace occurrences!”

The commodore stared at him. Then he touched his forehead. “A lot of trouble you’ve made for us,” he said, speaking in that low tense voice, while Clarence and Dickie looked on in mad and reproachful fashion. “Bribed a servant to tell you to slip out! Told him to whisper that we were waiting in the garden and simply had to see you at once! Didn’t you hear him rap on your door?”

“No,” answered Bob sorrowfully.

“Heavens, man! believe you’d sleep through an earthquake and cyclone combined! Servant came back and told us he’d tapped on your door as loudly as he dared. Was afraid he’d arouse the whole house if he knocked louder. When you leave a ‘call’ at the hotels, how do they manage? Break down the door with an ax?”

Bob overlooked the sarcasm. The commodore might have thumped him with an ax, at the moment, and he wouldn’t have protested very hard. He murmured a contrite apology.

“Get my telegram?” said the commodore.

“Yes. What could you have been thinking about when you sent it? How could I leave when I had to stay? Thought you must have been sailing pretty close in the wind at the yacht club, when you dashed it off! Could just feel your main-sail fluttering.”

The commodore swore softly but effectively. Clarence and Dickie murmured something, too. Bob hugged his knees closer. Being so unhappy himself, he couldn’t but feel a dull sympathy when he saw any one else put out.

“See here,” said the commodore, “what’s the situation? We never dreamed, of course, that you would come here. Have you been talking with Mrs. Dan and Mrs. Clarence? Dickie’s been conjuring all kinds of awful things you might have told them, if they cornered you and you got that truth-telling stunt going. Dickie’s got an imagination. Too confounded much imagination!” Here the commodore wiped his brow. That was quite a bad tear in his pants but he appeared oblivious to it. “Maybe you would have thought it a capital way to turn the tables on us poor chaps?” he went on, stabbing Bob with a baleful look. “Perhaps you came here on purpose?”

“No,” said Bob, “I couldn’t have done that, of course, owing to the conditions.” And he related what had happened to bring him there.

Dan groaned. “Why, it was we, ourselves, who steered him right up against her at the Waldorf. It was we who got him asked down here. I suppose you’ve been chuckling ever since you came?” Turning on Bob, with a correct imitation of Mr. Deadeye, at his grouchiest moment.

“No,” said Bob, speaking to immeasurable distance, “I haven’t done any chuckling since I came here. Nary a chuckle!”

“Let’s get down to brass tacks,” interrupted Dickie, “and learn if our worst apprehensions are realized. There’s a girl down here I think a lot of and I’d like to know if, by any chance, any conversation you may have had with her turned on me. I allude to Miss Dolly – ”

“Hold on,” said the commodore. “That’s not very important. Suppose she should have found out a few things about you? You aren’t married. It’s different in the case of married men, like Clarence and me here. We’ll dismiss Miss Dolly, if you please, for the present – ”

“I really haven’t said anything to Miss Dolly about you,” said Bob to Dickie. “Your name hasn’t been mentioned between us.” He was glad he could reassure one of them, at least. He wouldn’t have had Dickie so sorrowful as himself for the world.

That young man looked immensely relieved. It may be he experienced new hope of leading the temperamental young thing to the altar, and incidentally consummating a consolidation of competing chimneys, conveniently contiguous. “Thanks, old chap,” he said, and shook Bob’s hand heartily.

“But what about us?” whispered the commodore sibilantly. “Have you talked with Mrs. Clarence or Mrs. Dan to any great extent?”

“I haven’t had hardly a word with Mrs. Clarence,” answered Bob, whereupon Clarence began to “throw out his chest,” the way Dickie had done.

The commodore shifted uneasily, seeming to find difficulty in continuing the conversation. He moved back and forth once or twice, but realizing he was making a slight noise, stood still again, and looked down at Bob.

“Talk much with Mrs. Dan?” he at length asked nervously.

“I did have a little conversation with Mrs. Dan,” Bob was forced to reply. “Or, I should say, to be strictly truthful, rather a long conversation. You see, I took her in to dinner.”

The commodore showed signs of weakness. He seemed to have very indecisive legs all of a sudden. “Talk about me?” he managed to ejaculate.

“Some. I’m not certain just how much.”

“What – what was said?”

“I can’t remember all. It’s very confused. I’ve had a lot of conversations, you see, and most of them awfully unpleasant. I remember, though, that Mrs. Dan impressed me as a very broad-minded lady. Said she had lived in Paris, and was not a bit jealous.”

“What!” Dan was breathing hard.

“Said she always wanted you to have the best kind of a time.”

“Did she say that?” asked the commodore. “And you believed it? Go on.” In a choked voice. “Did you tell her about that cabaret evening?”

“I believe it was mentioned, incidentally.”