FullReads

“Oh, it’s furnished all right,” quivered Flame. “It’s just chock-full of dead things! Pressed flowers! And old plush bags! And pressed flowers! And–and pressed flowers!”

“Great Heavens!” groaned Delcote. “And I came here to forget ‘dead things’!”

“Your–your Butler said you’d had misfortunes,” murmured Flame.

“Misfortunes?” rallied Delcote. “I should think I had! In a single year I’ve lost health,–money,–most everything I own in the world except my man and my dogs!”

“They’re … good dogs,” testified Flame.

“And the Doctor’s sent me here for six months,” persisted Delcote, “before he’ll even hear of my plunging into things again!”

“Six months is a–a good long time,” said Flame. “If you’d turn the hems we could make yellow curtains for the parlor in no time at all!”

“W–we?” stammered Delcote.

“M–Mother,” said Flame. “… It’s a long time since any dogs lived in the Rattle-Pane House.”

“Rattle-Brain house?” bridled Delcote.

“Rattle-Pane House,” corrected Flame.

A little bit worriedly Delcote returned to his seat.

“I shall have to rend the turkey, instead of carve it,” he said.

“Rend it,” acquiesced Flame.

In the midst of the rending a dark frown appeared between Delcote’s eyes.

“These–these guests that you were expecting–?” he questioned.

“Oh, stop!” cried Flame. “Dreadful as I am I never–never would have dreamed of inviting ‘guests’!”

“This ‘guest’ then,” frowned Delcote. “Was he…?”

“Oh, you mean … Bertrand?” flushed Flame. “Oh, truly, I didn’t invite him! He just butted in … same as you!”

“Same as … I?” stammered Delcote.

“Well…” floundered Flame. “Well … you know what I mean and …”

With peculiar intentness the Master of the House fixed his eyes on the knotted white handkerchief which Flame had thrown across the corner of her chair.

“And is this ‘Bertrand’ person so … so dazzling,” he questioned, “that human eye may not look safely upon his countenance?”

“Bertrand … dazzling?” protested Flame. “Oh, no! He’s really quite dull…. It was only,” she explained with sudden friendliness, “It was only that I had promised Mother not to ‘see’ him…. So, of course, when he butted in I….”

“O–h,” relaxed the Master of the House. With a precipitous flippancy of manners which did not conform at all to the somewhat tragic austerity of his face he snatched up his knife and fork and thumped joyously on the table with the handles of them. “And some people talk about a country village being dull in the Winter Time!” he chuckled. “With a Dog’s Masquerade and a Robbery at the Rectory all happening the same evening!” Grabbing her cat in her arms, Flame jerked her chair back from the table.

“A–a robbery at the Rectory?” she gasped. “Why–why, I’m the Rectory! I must go home at once!”

“Oh, Shucks!” shrugged the Master of the House. “It’s all over now. But the people at the railroad station were certainly buzzing about it as I came through.”

“B–buzzing about it?” articulated Flame with some difficulty.

Expeditiously the Master of the House resumed his rending of the turkey.

“Are you really from the Rectory?” he questioned. “How amusing…. Well, there’s nothing really you could do about it now…. The constable and his prisoner are already on their way to the County Seat–wherever that may be. And a freshly ‘burgled’ house is rather a creepy place for a young girl to return to all alone…. Your parents are away, I believe?”

“Con–stable … constable,” babbled Flame quite idiotically.

“Yes, the regular constable was off Christmasing somewhere it seems, so he put a substitute on his job, a stranger from somewhere. Some substitute that! No mulling over hot toddies on Christmas night for him! He saw the marauder crawling in through the Rectory window! He saw him fumbling now to the left, now to the right, all through the front hall! He followed him up the stairs to a closet where the silver was evidently kept! He caught the man red-handed as it were! Or rather–white-handed,” flushed the Master of the House for some quite unaccountable reason. “To be perfectly accurate,” he explained conscientiously, “he was caught with a pair of–of–” Delicately he spelt out the word. “With a pair of–c-o-r-s-e-t-s rolled up in his hand. But inside the roll it seemed there was a solid silver–very elaborate carving set which the Parish had recently presented. The wretch was just unrolling it,–them, when he was caught.”