Mulliner Nights Read Online Free

little place for
a visit, naturally I chain up the hair-brushes and tell the butler to count the
spoons every night, but I’d never dream of going so far as to employ beastly
detectives. One has one’s code. Noblesse, I mean to say, oblige, what,
what?’
    ‘But, listen,’
pleaded the Baronet. ‘I keep telling you. I had to invite the fellow here. I
thought that if he had eaten my bread and salt, he would not expose me.’
    ‘How do you
mean, expose you?’
    Sir Sutton
coughed.
    ‘Oh, it was
nothing. The merest trifle. Still, the man undoubtedly could have made things
unpleasant for me, if he had wished. So, when I looked up and saw him smiling
at me in that frightful sardonic, knowing way—’
    Sir Jasper
Addleton uttered a sharp cry.
    ‘Smiling!’ He
gulped. ‘Did you say smiling?’
    ‘Smiling,’
said the Baronet, ‘is right. It was one of those smiles that seem to go clean
through you and light up all your inner being as if with a searchlight.’
    Sir Jasper
gulped again.
    ‘Is this
fellow — this smiler fellow — is he a tall, dark, thin chap?’
    ‘That’s right.
He sat opposite you at dinner.’
    ‘And he’s a
detective?’
    ‘He is,’ said
Lord Brangbolton. ‘As shrewd and smart a detective,’ he added grudgingly, ‘as I
ever met in my life. The way he found that soap…. Feller struck me as having
some sort of a sixth sense, if you know what I mean, dash and curse him. I hate
detectives,’ he said with a shiver. ‘They give me the creeps. This one wants to
marry my daughter, Millicent, of all the dashed nerve!’
    ‘See you
later,’ said Sir Jasper. And with a single bound he was out of the room and on
his way to the terrace. There was, he felt, no time to waste. His florid face,,
as he galloped along, was twisted and ashen. With one hand he drew from his
inside pocket a cheque-book, with the other from his trouser-pocket a
fountain-pen.
    Adrian, when
the financier found him, was feeling a good deal better. He blessed the day
when he had sought the specialist’s advice. There was no doubt about it, he
felt, the man knew his business. Smiling might make the cheek-muscles ache, but
it undoubtedly did the trick as regarded the pangs of dyspepsia.
    For a brief
while before Sir Jasper burst onto the terrace, waving fountain-pen and
cheque-book, Adrian had been giving his face a rest. But now, the pain in his
cheeks having abated, he deemed it prudent to resume the treatment. And so it
came about that the financier, hurrying towards him, was met with a smile so
meaning, so suggestive, that he stopped in his tracks and for a moment could
not speak.
    ‘Oh, there you
are!’ he said, recovering at length. ‘Might I have a word with you in private,
Mr Mulliner?’
    Adrian nodded,
beaming. The financier took him by the coat-sleeve and led him across the
terrace. He was breathing a little stertorously.
    ‘I’ve been
thinking things over,’ he said, ‘and I’ve come to the conclusion that you were
right.’
    ‘Right?’ said
Adrian.
    About me
marrying. It wouldn’t do.’
    ‘No?’
    ‘Positively
not. Absurd. I can see it now. I’m too old for the girl.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Too bald.’
    ‘Exactly.’
    ‘And too fat.’
    ‘Much too fat,’
agreed Adrian. This sudden change of heart puzzled him, but none the less the
other’s words were as music to his ears. Every syllable the O.B.E. had spoken
had caused his heart to leap within him like a young lamb in springtime, and
his mouth curved in a smile.
    Sir Jasper,
seeing it, shied like a frightened horse. He patted Adrian’s arm feverishly.
    ‘So I have
decided,’ he said, ‘to take your advice and — if I recall your expression —
give the thing a miss.’
    ‘You couldn’t
do better,’ said Adrian heartily.
    ‘Now, if I
were to remain in England in these circumstances,’ proceeded Sir Jasper, ‘there
might be unpleasantness. So I propose to go quietly away at once to some
remote spot — say, South America. Don’t you think I