Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels Part 9

"They refuse to."

"Exactly. All this is plain sailing. Of course they must have a constabulary. Lord Edward," continued the Premier, turning now to the Secretary of War, "how long will it take to send in a couple of hundred constabulary? I think they'll expect it, you know. It's their right."

"Let me see," said Lord Edward, calculating quickly, with military precision, "sending them over the Barooda in buckets and then over the mountains in baskets--I think in about two weeks."

"Good," said the Premier. "Gentlemen, we shall meet the House to-morrow.

Sir John, will you meantime draft us an annexation bill? And you, young man, what you have done is really not half bad. His Majesty will see you to-morrow. I am glad that you are safe."

"On my way home," said Powers, with quiet modesty, "I was attacked by a lion----"

"But you beat it off," said the Premier. "Exactly. Good night."

CHAPTER V

It was on the following afternoon that Sir John Elphinspoon presented the Wazoo Annexation Bill to a crowded and breathless House.

Those who know the House of Commons know that it has its moods. At times it is grave, earnest, thoughtful. At other times it is swept with emotion which comes at it in waves. Or at times, again, it just seems to sit there as if it were stuffed.

But all agreed that they had never seen the House so hushed as when Sir John Elphinspoon presented his Bill for the Annexation of Wazuchistan.

And when at the close of a splendid peroration he turned to pay a graceful compliment to the man who had saved the nation, and thundered forth to the delighted ears of his listeners--

_Arma virumque cano Wazoo qui primus ab oris_,

and then, with the words "England, England," still on his lips, fell over backwards and was carried out on a stretcher, the House broke into wild and unrestrained applause.

CHAPTER VI

The next day Sir Perriton Powers--for the King had knighted him after breakfast--stood again in the conservatory of the house in Carlton Terrace.

"I have come for my reward," he said. "Do I get it?"

"You do," said Angela.

Sir Perriton clasped her in his arms.

"On my way home," he said, "I was attacked by a lion. I tried to beat it----"

"Hush, dearest," she whispered, "let me take you to father."

IV

WHO DO YOU THINK DID IT?

OR, THE MIXED-UP MURDER MYSTERY

(_Done after the very latest fashion in this sort of thing_)

_IV.--Who Do You Think Did It? or, The Mixed-Up Murder Mystery._

_NOTE.--Any reader who guesses correctly who did it is ent.i.tled (in all fairness) to a beautiful gold watch and chain._

CHAPTER I

HE DINED WITH ME LAST NIGHT

The afternoon edition of the _Metropolitan Planet_ was going to press.

Five thousand copies a minute were reeling off its giant cylinders. A square acre of paper was pa.s.sing through its presses every hour. In the huge _Planet_ building, which dominated Broadway, employes, compositors, reporters, advertisers, surged to and fro. Placed in a single line (only, of course, they wouldn't be likely to consent to it) they would have reached across Manhattan Island. Placed in two lines, they would probably have reached twice as far. Arranged in a procession they would have taken an hour in pa.s.sing a saloon: easily that.

In the whole vast building all was uproar. Telephones, megaphones and gramophones were ringing throughout the building. Elevators flew up and down, stopping nowhere.

Only in one place was quiet--namely, in the room where sat the big man on whose capacious intellect the whole organization depended.

Masterman Throgton, the general manager of the _Planet_, was a man in middle life. There was something in his ma.s.sive frame which suggested ma.s.siveness, and a certain quality in the poise of his great head which indicated a balanced intellect. His face was impenetrable and his expression imponderable.

The big chief was sitting in his swivel chair with ink all round him.

Through this man's great brain pa.s.sed all the threads and filaments that held the news of a continent. Snap one, and the whole continent would stop.

At the moment when our story opens (there was no sense in opening it sooner), a written message had just been handed in.

The Chief read it. He seemed to grasp its contents in a flash.

"Good G.o.d!" he exclaimed. It was the strongest expression that this solid, self-contained, semi-detached man ever allowed himself. Anything stronger would have seemed too near to profanity. "Good G.o.d!" he repeated, "Kivas Kelly murdered! In his own home! Why, he dined with me last night! I drove him home!"

For a brief moment the big man remained plunged in thought. But with Throgton the moment of musing was short. His instinct was to act.

"You may go," he said to the messenger. Then he seized the telephone that stood beside him (this man could telephone almost without stopping thinking) and spoke into it in quiet, measured tones, without wasting a word.

"Hullo, operator! Put me through to two, two, two, two, two. Is that two, two, two, two, two? Hullo, two, two, two, two, two; I want Transome Kent. Kent speaking? Kent, this is Throgton speaking. Kent, a murder has been committed at the Kelly residence, Riverside Drive. I want you to go and cover it. Get it all. Don't spare expense. The _Planet_ is behind you. Have you got car-fare? Right."

In another moment the big chief had turned round in his swivel chair (at least forty degrees) and was reading telegraphic despatches from Jerusalem. That was the way he did things.