Further Adventures of Lad [43]
"That dog!" he croaked. "That--that--DOG! The maid saw him go into the house. Saw him go up to my study. She was afraid to follow, at first. But in a few minutes she did. She saw him coming out of my study! COME!!! I demand it. All of you. COME!"
Without another word, he wheeled and made off down the road, pausing only to beckon imperiously. Marveling, the group on the veranda followed. Deaf to their questions, he led the way. Lad fell into line behind the perplexed Mistress.
Down the road to the next house, stalked Rutherford Garretse. At the doorway, he repeated his dramatic gesture and commanded
"COME!"
Up the broad stairs he stamped. Behind him trailed the dumfounded procession; Laddie still pattering happily along with the Mistress. At the open door of a large room at the stairhead, the author stood aside and pointed in silent despair through the doorway.
"What's up?" queried Harmon, for perhaps the tenth time. "Is anything--?"
His question ended in a grunt. And, like the others, he stared aghast on the scene before him.
The room, very evidently, was a study. But much of its floor, just now, was heaped, ankle high, with hundreds of pages of torn and crumpled paper.
The desk-top and a Sheraton cabinet and table were bare of all contents. On the floor reposed countless shattered articles of glass and porcelain; jumbled together with blotters an pastepot and shears and ink-stand and other utensils. Ink had been poured in grotesque pattern on rugs and parquetry and window curtains.
In one corner lay a typewriter, its keys twisted and its carriage broken. Books--some of them in rare bindings,--lay gutted and ink-smeared, from one end of the place to the other.
Through the daze of general horror boomed the tremblingly majestic voice of Rutherford Garretse.
"I wanted you to see!" he declaimed. "I ordered everything left as it was. That mess of papers all over the floor is what remains of the first draft of my book. The book I have been at work on for six months! I--"
"And it was the dog, there!" sputtered the maid-servant; emotion riding over discipline. "I c'n swear the room was neat and all dusted. Not a blessed thing out of place; and all the paper where Mr. Garretse had stacked 'em in his portfolio, yonder. I dusted this study and then the dining room. And then I went out to sweep the veranda; like I always do, before breakfast. And maybe ten minutes later I see this brute trot out of Mr. Harmon's place, and along the road, and come, asnuffing up the steps and into the house. And when I followed him upstairs and scatted him out, I saw the room looking like it is, now; and I yells to Mr. Garretse, and he's shaving, and--"
"That will do, Esther!" snapped the author. "And, now, sir--"
"But, Mr. Garretse," put in the Mistress, "Lad never did such a thing as this, in all his life! He's been brought up in the house. Even as a puppy, he was--"
"The evidence shows otherwise," interrupted Garretse, with a visible struggle at self-control. "No human, unless he were a maniac, would have done such a wantonly destructive thing. No other animal has been here. The dog was seen entering and leaving this room. And my work of six months is not only destroyed by him, but many of the very best pieces in my glass-and-porcelain cabinet."
"But--"
"I consented to stay on at Daylight Park, only on the solemn assurance of the Governors that no animal should be allowed again within the Park precincts. I detest animals. Particularly dogs. And now I see my dislike is not mere prejudice. May I ask what the owners and--and the harborer--of the cur mean to do about this outrage? Notice, please, that I am speaking with studied moderation, in asking this vital question. I--"
"It is my fault,--or rather, it is a mistake,--that Lad is in the Park," spoke up the Master. "Mr. Harmon is wholly innocent in the matter. I can testify to that. If there is any fine or other penalty in connection with my dog's being here, I'm ready to settle for it. But if you expect me to believe that Laddie did all this