PAGE 7
A Strange Banquet
by
“‘She’s going to give a supper!’ whispered Mr. Perkins.
“‘It looks like it,’ said I. ‘And a mighty fine one at that.’
“In a minute she came back with a pail, in which were four bottles of champagne, in her hand. This she took into the cellar, returning to the kitchen as the clock struck twelve.
“Then the queerest part began,” said the detective. “For ten minutes by the clock people were apparently arriving, though, as far as Mr. Perkins or I could see, there wasn’t a soul in the kitchen besides Margaret. She was talking away like one possessed. Every once in a while she’d stop in the middle of a sentence and rush to the door and shake hands with some, to us invisible, arrival. Then she’d walk in with them chatting and laughing. Several times she went through the motion of taking people’s hats, and finally, if we could judge from her actions, she had ’em all seated at the table. She passed salads all around, helping each guest herself. She sent them fruit and cakes, and then she brought out the wine, which she distributed in the same fashion. She also apologized because some ice-cream she had ordered hadn’t come.
“When the invisible guests appeared to have had all they could eat, she began the chatty part again, and never seemed to be disturbed but once, when she requested some one not to sing so loud for fear of disturbing the family.
“Altogether it was the weirdest and rummest thing I’d ever seen in my life. We watched it for one full hour, and then we quit because she did. At one o’clock she apparently bade her guests good-night, after which she gathered up and put away all the eatables there were left–and, of course, everything but what she had eaten herself still remained–cleaned all the dishes, restored them to their proper places in the dining-room pantry, and went back up-stairs to her room.
“Mr. Perkins and I didn’t know what to make of it. There wasn’t a thing stolen, and it was clear to my mind that I’d done the woman an injustice in connecting her with thieves. She was honest, except in so far as she had ordered all those salads and creams and things from time to time on Mr. Perkins’s account, which was easy enough for her to do, since Mrs. Perkins let her do the ordering. There was only one explanation of the matter. She was crazy, and I said so.
“‘I fancy you are right,’ said Mr. Perkins. ‘We’ll have to send her to an asylum!’
“‘That’s the thing,’ said I, ‘and we’d better do it the first thing in the morning. I wouldn’t tackle her to-night, because she’s probably excited, and like as not would make a great deal of trouble.’
“And that,” said the detective, “was where Mr. Perkins and I made our mistake. Next morning she wasn’t to be found, and to this day I haven’t heard a word of her. She disappeared just like that,” he said, snapping his fingers. “Of course, I don’t mean to say that anything supernatural occurred. She simply must have slipped down and out while we were asleep. The front door was wide open in the morning, and a woman answering to her description was seen to leave the Park station, five miles from the Perkins house, on the six- thirty train that morning.”
“And you have no idea where she is now?” I asked of the detective, when he had finished.
“No,” he answered, “not the slightest. For all I know she may be cooking for you at this very minute.”
With which comforting remark he left me.
For my part, I hope the detective was wrong. If I thought there was a possibility of Margaret’s ever being queen of my culinary department, I should either give up house-keeping at once and join some simple community where every man is his own chef, or dine forevermore on canned goods.