Free Berry And Co. by Dornford Yates

says I. ‘A ’at,’ says she. ‘Fetch it down.’ I fetches it down and shows it ’er. ‘An’ a nice noo ’at, too,’ she says, ‘wot must have blowed orf of a gent’s ’ead, an’ ’e on top of a ’bus, as like as not.’ Then she looks inside and see the initials and the name o’ the shop. ‘Take it back where it come from,’ she says. ‘They’ll know ’oose it is.’ ‘Very good, me lady,’ said I, an’ come straight down, sir.”
    I took off the hat I was wearing and bade him read the initials which had just been placed there. He did so reluctantly. Then—
    “Very glad to ’ave found you so quick, sir. Shall I tell them to send it along? You won’t want to carry it.”
    “I’ll see to that,” said I, taking it out of his hand. “Why didn’t it blow off your canopy?”
    “The spare cover was ’oldin’ it, sir. Must ’ave shifted on to the brim as soon as it come there. I don’t know ’ow long—”
    “Best part of an hour,” I said shortly, giving him a two-shilling piece. “Good day, and thanks very much.”
    He touched his cap and withdrew.
    A wrestle with mental arithmetic showed me that the draught which I had encountered nearly an hour before had cost me exactly one and a half guineas.
    Ordinarily I should have dismissed the matter from my mind, but for some reason I had no sooner let the chauffeur go than I was tormented by a persistent curiosity regarding the identity of his considerate mistress. If I had not promised to rejoin Berry for lunch – a meal for which I was already half an hour late – I should have gone to the Berkeley and scrutinized the guests. The reflection that such a proceeding must only have been unprofitable consoled me not at all, so contrary a maid is Speculation. For the next two hours Vexation rode me on the curb. I quarrelled with Berry, I was annoyed with myself, and when the hall porter at the Club casually observed that there was “a nasty wind,” I agreed with such hearty and unexpected bitterness that he started violently and dropped the pile of letters which he was searching on my behalf.
    A visit to Lincoln’s Inn Fields, however, with regard to an estate of which I was a trustee, followed by a sharp walk in the Park, did much to reduce the ridiculous fever of which my folly lay sick, and I returned home in a frame of mind almost as comfortable as that in which I had set out.
    It was half-past four, but no one of the others was in, so I ordered tea to be brought to the library, and settled down to the composition of a letter to The Observer .
    I was in the act of recasting my second sentence, when the light went out.
    By the glow of the fire I made my way to the door. A glance showed me that the hall and the staircase were in darkness. It was evident that a fuse had come to a violent end.
    I closed the door and returned to my seat. Then I reached for the telephone and put the receiver to my ear.
    “What an extraordinary thing!” said a voice. “And you’ve no idea whose it was?”
    “Not the slightest.” came the reply. There was a musical note in the girlish tone that would have attracted any one. “There it was, on the top of the car, when we got to the Berkeley. It wasn’t such a bad hat, either.”
    “Excuse me,” said I. “It was a jolly good hat.”
    A long tense silence followed my interruption. At length—
    “I say, are you there, Dot?”
    “Yes,” came the reply in an excited whisper. “Who was that speaking?”
    “I’ve not the faintest idea,” rejoined the first voice I had heard. “Somebody must have got on to our line. I expect—”
    A familiar explosion severed the sentence with the clean efficiency of the guillotine.
    “Isn’t that sickening?” said I. “Now we shall never know what her theory was.”
    “It’s all your fault, whoever you are. If you hadn’t butted in—”
    “I don’t know what you mean,” I retorted. “I was ushered into your presence, so to speak, by la force majeure .