Mr Mulliner Speaking by P. G. Wodehouse

flesh and pulled them down with a slow, lingering motion.
     
From Cedric's lips there came a cry like that of some Indian peasant who, wandering on the banks of the Ganges, suddenly finds himself being bitten in half by a crocodile. It rang through the garden like a clarion, and, as the echoes died away, a girl came up the path. The sun glinted on her tortoiseshell-rimmed spectacles, and Cedric recognized his secretary, Miss Myrtle Watling.
     
'Good afternoon, Mr Mulliner,' said Miss Watling.
     
She spoke in her usual calm, controlled voice. If she was surprised to see her employer and, seeing him, to behold nothing of him except his head, there was little to show it. A private secretary learns at the outset of their association never to be astonished at anything her employer may do.
     
Yet Myrtle Watling was not altogether devoid of feminine curiosity.
     
'What are you doing there, Mr Mulliner?' she asked.
     
'Something is biting me in the leg,' cried Cedric.
     
'It is probably Mortal Error,' said Miss Watling, who was a Christian Scientist. 'Why are you standing there in that rather constrained attitude?'
     
'The sash came down as I was looking out of the window.'
     
'Why were you looking out of the window?'
     
'To see how far there was to drop?'
     
'Why did you wish to drop?'
     
'I wanted to get away from here.'
     
'Why did you come here?'
     
It became plain to Cedric that he must tell his story. He was loath to do so, but to refrain meant that Myrtle Watling would stand there till sunset, saying sentences beginning with 'Why?' In a husky voice he told her all.
     
For some moment after he had finished, the girl remained silent. A pensive expression had come into her face.
     
'What you need,' she said, 'is someone to look after you.'
     
She paused.
     
'Well, it's not everybody's job,' she said reflectively, 'but I don't mind taking it on.'
     
A strange foreboding chilled Cedric.
     
'What do you mean?' he gasped. 'What you need,' said Myrtle Watling, 'is a wife. It is a matter which I have been turning over in my mind for some time, and now the thing is quite clear to me. You should be married. I will marry you, Mr Mulliner.'
     
Cedric uttered a low cry. This, then, was the meaning of that look which during the past few weeks he had happened to note from time to time in his secretary's glass-fringed eyes.
     
Footsteps sounded in the gravel path. A voice spoke, the voice of the man who had slept in the chair. He was plainly perturbed.
     
'Myrtle,' he said, 'I am not a man, as you know, to make a fuss about nothing. I take life as it comes, the rough with the smooth. But I feel it my duty to tell you that eerie influences are at work in this house. The atmosphere has become definitely sinister. Top hats appear from nowhere. Black boots turn yellow. And now this cabby here, this cab-driver fellow. . . I didn't get your name. Lanchester? Mr Lanchester, my daughter Myrtle . . .And now Mr Lanchester here tells me that a fare of his entered our front garden some time back and instantly vanished off the face of the earth, and has never been seen again. I am convinced that some little-known Secret Society is at work and that Seven, Nasturtium Villas, is one of those houses you see in the mystery-plays where shrieks are heard from dark corners and mysterious Chinamen flit to and fro making significant gestures and . . .' He broke off with a sharp howl of dismay, and stood staring. 'Good God! What's that?'
     
'What, father?'
     
'That. That bodiless head. That trunkless face. I give you my honest word that there is a severed head protruding from the side of the house. Come over where I'm standing. You can see it distinctly from here.'
     
'Oh, that?' said Myrtle. 'That is my fiancé.'
     
'Your fiancé?'
     
'My fiancé, Mr Cedric Mulliner.'
     
'Is that all there is of him?' asked the cabman, surprised.
     
'There is more inside the house,' said Myrtle.
     
Mr Watling, his composure somewhat restored, was