Free Mr Mulliner Speaking by P. G. Wodehouse Page A

time. Already the man in the chair had begun to stir, and now he sat up and reached for the bell with the old familiar movement.
     
'Jane!'
     
'Sir?'
     
'Listen!'
     
'Yes, sir.'
     
'What is it?'
     
'It is Master Willie, I think, sir, taking his Sunday sleep.'
     
The man heaved himself out of the chair. It was plain that his emotions were too deep for speech. He yawned cavernously, and began to put on his boots.
     
'Jane!'
     
'Sir?'
     
'I have had enough of this. I shall now go and weed the front garden. Where is my hoe?'
     
'In the hall, sir.'
     
'Persecution,' said the man bitterly. 'That's what it is, persecution. Top hats . . . window-sashes . . .Master Willie . . .You can argue as much as you like, Jane, but I shall speak out fearlessly. I insist – and the facts support me – that it is persecution . . . Jane!'
     
A wordless gurgle proceeded from his lips. He seemed to be choking.
     
'Jane!'
     
'Yes, sir?'
     
'Look me in the face!'
     
'Yes, sir.'
     
'Now, answer me, Jane, and let us have no subterfuge or equivocation, Who turned this boot yellow?'
     
'Boot, sir?'
     
'Yes, boot.'
     
'Yellow, sir?'
     
'Yes, yellow. Look at that boot. Inspect it. Run your eye over it in an unprejudiced spirit. When I took this boot off it was black. I close my eyes for a few brief moments and when I open them it is yellow. I am not a man tamely to submit to this sort of thing. Who did this?'
     
'Not me, sir.'
     
'Somebody must have done it. Possibly it is the work of a gang. Sinister things are happening in this house. I tell you, Jane, that Seven, Nasturtium Villas has suddenly – on a Sunday, too, which makes it worse – become a house of mystery. I shall be vastly surprised if, before the day is out, clutching hands do not appear through the curtains and dead bodies drop out of the walls. I don't like it, Jane, and I tell you so frankly. Stand out of my way, woman, and let me get at those weeds.'
     
The door banged, and there was peace in the sitting-room. But not in the heart of Cedric Mulliner. All the Mulliners are clear thinkers, and it did not take Cedric long to recognize the fact that his position had changed considerably for the worse. Yes, he had lost ground. He had come into this room with a top hat and yellow boots. He would go out of it minus a top hat and wearing one yellow boot and one black one.
     
A severe set-back.
     
And now, to complete his discomfiture, his line of communications had been cut. Between him and the cab in which he could find at least temporary safety there stood the man with the hoe. It was a situation to intimidate even a man with a taste for adventure. Douglas Fairbanks would not have liked it. Cedric himself found it intolerable.
     
There seemed but one course to pursue. This ghastly house presumably possessed a back garden with a door leading out into it. The only thing to do was to flit noiselessly along the passage – if in such a house noiselessness were possible – and find that door and get out into the garden and climb over the wall into the next garden and sneak out into the road and gallop to the cab and so home. He had almost ceased to care what the hall-porter at the Albany would think of him. Perhaps he could pass his appearance off with a light laugh and some story of a bet. Possibly a handsome bribe would close the man's mouth. At any rate, whatever might be the issue, upshot or outcome, back to the Albany he must go, and that with all possible speed. His spirit was broken.
     
Tiptoeing over the carpet, Cedric opened the door and peeped out. The passage was empty. He crept along it, and had nearly reached its end when he heard the sound of footsteps descending the stairs. There was a door to his left. It was ajar. He leaped through and found himself in a small room through the window of which he looked out onto a pleasant garden. The footsteps passed on and went down the kitchen stairs.
     
Cedric breathed again. It seemed to him that the danger was