“Your coat!” Edith uttered a little cry. “I dropped it in the hall.”
Westgate sat down and whistled.
“What’s that?” cried Humphrey.
“Tell him,” Westgate said, “that it’s the first bars of the Miserere.”
An hour passed very quietly, save when from time to time a haggard voice came through the ventilator:
“You’re not whispering, are you?”
“No!”
“It isn’t fair that I should have to stand here.”
“Then why don’t you go to sleep? That’s what we’re trying to do.”
“While you make up some fool explanation for Edith? I know it’s something you don’t want me to hear, something just disgraceful—”
Another hour waned while Edith dozed on the bed and Westgate stretched on the settee. Then, as if a church clock striking in the village was a signal, a cry, followed by a crash, came from the other room. Westgate sprang to his feet.
“He’s down!” he exclaimed. “Poor old Humphrey. Now I can talk. Listen, Edith, and listen quick.”
“Yes,” she said in a frightened voice. “I’m listening.”
“It wasn’t me who was sued for breach of promise—it was my father. I let people think it because he was senile and I wanted him to die with a good name. I’ve only just finished paying off his bills. Now if there’s anything fancy about that explanation—”
“What is it?” cried Humphrey, who had painfully regained his perch. “Here I have a nasty fall and you take advantage of it—” He broke off at a curious hushed sound. “What is it, Edith?” he cried, despairing.
“Oh, Humphrey, can’t a girl cry?”
“Anyhow, it’s another day,” said Westgate.
“Not until dawn.”
“All right, then.”
After that there was no sound at all from the room except the occasional squeaking of a wicker settee. Westgate and Edith were keeping their promise.
At the crack of dawn they got the attention of a farmer outside and in half an hour they were free. But the coat was gone from the hall, and with it the tiara was gone—and Pan-e-troon.
“I still can’t believe it,” protested Edith. “But if he took it he’ll be easy to find.”
“I don’t know—it might have been a clever disguise.” Deering looked at Westgate. “A clever inside job.”
They were making a cursory tour of the place in the early light, and now they started at a cry from the farmer, who had opened the door of the little icehouse.
Inside, where quarters of beef and mutton swung from hooks, Pan-e-troon was just raising himself sleepily from a pile of sawdust.
“Good morning,” he said, grinning. And then, as the men advanced toward him menacingly, “No be mad today. Pan-e-troon sorry. He no think you bad men now.”
“But we think you are!” thundered Humphrey. “Where’s the coronet?”
“I got it. That’s why I fix door so you locked up in room. I think you bad men maybe. But now no—I catch real bad man. Put him here for cool off. I only half good detect,” grinned Pan-e-troon. “I forget lock his door too. But when I make march round and round the big house I see him come out with black coat. Then we have big hit fight and I take headdress.”
“I see,” said Westgate. He turned to Edith. “Then Christopher did answer the call bell—but when he saw the coat in the hall he saw his opportunity.”
Pan-e-troon stretched. “I sure danger was there,” he said. “Now I go Lapland today.”
“Just once before you go we want you to render Pain in a Corner for the special benefit of Mr. Humphrey Deering,” Westgate said.
But Pan-e-troon was the son of many chiefs and he had too much dignity to be kidded.
“That fine song in my country. That mean danger.”
Pan-e-troon’s visit to Chicago is handed down in the annals of his tribe, though the Eskimo version differs a little—the Cary estate, for instance, did not break off from the mainland and float out into Lake Michigan, with Westgate and Edith perched upon it. And as Pan-e-troon is entirely a gentleman his wife will never know that part of his devotion is reserved for a princess of the fabled trading posts in the far away.
Published in Liberty magazine (June 8, 1935).
