IV
There were not many things which could have diverted Mrs. Waddington’s attention at that moment from the plate before her. An earthquake might have done it. So might the explosion of a bomb. This voice accomplished it instantaneously. She spun round with a sharp scream, her heart feeling as if it were performing one of those eccentric South Seas dances whose popularity she had always deplored.
A policeman was standing in the doorway.
“Arrested, I should have said,” added the policeman with a touch of apology. He seemed distressed that in the first excitement of this encounter he had failed to achieve the Word Beautiful.
Mrs. Waddington was not a woman often at a loss for speech, but she could find none now. She stood panting.
“I must ask you, if you will be so good,” said the policeman courteously, “to come along with me. And it will avoid a great deal of unpleasantness if you come quietly.”
The torpor consequent upon the disintegrating shock of this meeting began to leave Mrs. Waddington.
“I can explain!” she cried.
“You will have every opportunity of doing so at the station-house,” said the policeman. “In your own interests I should advise you until then to say as little as possible. For I must warn you that in pursuance of my duty I shall take a memorandum of any statement which you may make. See, I have my notebook and pencil here in readiness.”
“I was doing no harm.”
“That, is for the judge to decide. I need scarcely point out that your presence in this apartment is, to say the least, equivocal. You came in through a window—an action which constitutes breaking and entering, and, furthermore, I find you in the act of purloining the property of the owner of the apartment—to wit, soup. I am afraid I must ask you to accompany me.”
Mrs. Waddington started to clasp her hands in a desperate appeal: and, doing so, was aware that some obstacle prevented this gesture.
It was suddenly borne in upon her that she was still holding the pepper-pot. And suddenly a thought came like a full-blown rose, flushing her brow.
“Ha!” she exclaimed.
“I beg your pardon?” said the policeman.
Everything in this world, every little experience which we undergo or even merely read about, is intended, philosophers tell us, to teach us something, to help to equip us for the battle of life. It was not, according to this theory, mere accident, therefore, which a few days before had caused Mrs. Waddington to read and subconsciously memorise the report that had appeared in the evening paper to which she subscribed of a burglary at the residence of a certain leading citizen of West Orange, New Jersey. The story had been sent to help her.
Of the less important details of this affair she retained no recollection: but the one salient point in connection with it came back to her now with all the force of an inspiration from above. Cornered by an indignant householder, she recalled, the West Orange burglar had made his escape by the simple means of throwing about two ounces of pepper in the householder’s face.
What this humble, probably uneducated man had been able to achieve was surely not beyond the powers of a woman like herself—the honorary president of twenty-three charitable societies and a well-known lecturer on the upbringing of infants. Turning coyly sideways, she began to unscrew the top of the pot.
“You will understand,” said the policeman deprecatingly, “that this is extremely unpleasant for me. …”
He was perfectly right. Unpleasant, he realised a moment later, was the exact adjective which the most punctilious stylist would have chosen. For suddenly the universe seemed to dissolve in one great cloudburst of pepper. Pepper tickled his mouth: pepper filled his nose: pepper strayed into his eyes and caressed his Adam’s apple. For an instant he writhed blindly: then, clutching at the table for support, he began to sneeze.
With the sound of those titanic sneezes ringing in her ears, Mrs. Waddington bumped her way through the darkness till she came to the open window: then, galloping across the roof, hurled herself down the fire-escape.