"I said genially, `I am so sorry to disturb you, Miss James, but Imust really be going.I have--er--' I stopped here, for the words she had uttered in reply, though singularly brief and in tone extremely business-like, were such as to render that arrest of my remarks, I think, natural and excusable.I have these words also noted down.I have not the least idea of their meaning; so I have only been able to render them phonetically.But she said," and Mr Shorter peered short-sightedly at his papers, "she said: `Chuck it, fat 'ead,' and she added something that sounded like `It's a kop', or (possibly) `a kopt'.And then the last cord, either of my sanity or the sanity of the universe, snapped suddenly.My esteemed friend and helper, Miss Brett, standing by the mantelpiece, said: `Put 'is old 'ead in a bag, Sam, and tie 'im up before you start jawin'.
You'll be kopt yourselves some o' these days with this way of coin'
things, har lar theater.'
"My head went round and round.Was it really true, as I had suddenly fancied a moment before, that unmarried ladies had some dreadful riotous society of their own from which all others were excluded? I remembered dimly in my classical days (I was a scholar in a small way once, but now, alas! rusty), I remembered the mysteries of the Bona Dea and their strange female freemasonry.Iremembered the witches' Sabbaths.I was just, in my absurd lightheadedness, trying to remember a line of verse about Diana's nymphs, when Miss Mowbray threw her arm round me from behind.The moment it held me I knew it was not a woman's arm.
"Miss Brett--or what I had called Miss Brett--was standing in front of me with a big revolver in her hand and a broad grin on her face.
Miss James was still leaning against the door, but had fallen into an attitude so totally new, and so totally unfeminine, that it gave one a shock.She was kicking her heels, with her hands in her pockets and her cap on one side.She was a man.I mean he was a wo--no, that is I saw that instead of being a woman she--he, Imean--that is, it was a man."
Mr Shorter became indescribably flurried and flapping in endeavouring to arrange these genders and his plaid shawl at the same time.He resumed with a higher fever of nervousness:
"As for Miss Mowbray, she--he, held me in a ring of iron.He had her arm--that is she had his arm--round her neck--my neck I mean--and I could not cry out.Miss Brett--that is, Mr Brett, at least Mr something who was not Miss Brett--had the revolver pointed at me.
The other two ladies--or er--gentlemen, were rummaging in some bag in the background.It was all clear at last: they were criminals dressed up as women, to kidnap me! To kidnap the Vicar of Chuntsey, in Essex.But why? Was it to be Nonconformists?
"The brute leaning against the door called out carelessly, `'Urry up, 'Arry.Show the old bloke what the game is, and let's get off.'
"`Curse 'is eyes,' said Miss Brett--I mean the man with the revolver--`why should we show 'im the game?'
"`If you take my advice you bloomin' well will,' said the man at the door, whom they called Bill.`A man wot knows wet 'e's doin' is worth ten wot don't, even if 'e's a potty old parson.'
"`Bill's right enough,' said the coarse voice of the man who held me (it had been Miss Mowbray's).`Bring out the picture, 'Arry.'
"The man with the revolver walked across the room to where the other two women--I mean men--were turning over baggage, and asked them for something which they gave him.He came back with it across the room and held it out in front of me.And compared to the surprise of that display, all the previous surprises of this awful day shrank suddenly.
"It was a portrait of myself.That such a picture should be in the hands of these scoundrels might in any case have caused a mild surprise; but no more.It was no mild surprise that I felt.The likeness was an extremely good one, worked up with all the accessories of the conventional photographic studio.I was leaning my head on my hand and was relieved against a painted landscape of woodland.It was obvious that it was no snapshot; it was clear that I had sat for this photograph.And the truth was that I had never sat for such a photograph.It was a photograph that I had never had taken.
"I stared at it again and again.It seemed to me to be touched up a good deal; it was glazed as well as framed, and the glass blurred some of the details.But there unmistakably was my face, my eyes, my nose and mouth, my head and hand, posed for a professional photographer.And I had never posed so for any photographer.
"`Be'old the bloomin' miracle,' said the man with the revolver, with ill-timed facetiousness.`Parson, prepare to meet your God.'
And with this he slid the glass out of the frame.As the glass moved, I saw that part of the picture was painted on it in Chinese white, notably a pair of white whiskers and a clerical collar.And underneath was a portrait of an old lady in a quiet black dress, leaning her head on her hand against the woodland landscape.The old lady was as like me as one pin is like another.It had required only the whiskers and the collar to make it me in every hair.
"`Entertainin', ain't it?' said the man described as 'Arry, as he shot the glass back again.`Remarkable resemblance, parson.
Gratifyin' to the lady.Gratifyin' to you.And hi may hadd, particlery gratifyin' to us, as bein' the probable source of a very tolerable haul.You know Colonel Hawker, the man who's come to live in these parts, don't you?'
"I nodded.
"`Well,' said the man 'Arry, pointing to the picture, `that's 'is mother.'Oo ran to catch 'im when 'e fell? She did,' and he flung his fingers in a general gesture towards the photograph of the old lady who was exactly like me.
"`Tell the old gent wot 'e's got to do and be done with it,' broke out Bill from the door.`Look 'ere, Reverend Shorter, we ain't goin' to do you no 'arm.We'll give you a sov.for your trouble if you like.And as for the old woman's clothes--why, you'll look lovely in 'em.'
