The Grand Babylon Hotel by Arnold Bennett

Author:Arnold Bennett
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: Millionaires -- Fiction, Americans -- England -- Fiction, London (England) -- Fiction
Publisher: Standard Ebooks
Published: 2018-07-24T22:23:55+00:00

XVI The Woman with the Red Hat

“There is one thing, Prince, that we have just got to settle straight off,” said Theodore Rack­sole.

They were all three seated—Rack­sole, his daugh­ter, and Prince Aribert—round a din­ner table in a private room at the Hôtel Wel­ling­ton. Rack­sole had duly ar­rived by the af­ter­noon boat, and had been met on the quay by the other two. They had dined early, and Rack­sole had heard the full story of the ad­ven­tures by sea and land of Nella and the Prince. As to his own ad­ven­ture of the pre­vi­ous night he said very little, merely ex­plain­ing, with as little de­tail as pos­sible, that Dim­mock’s body had come to light.

“What is that?” asked the Prince, in an­swer to Rack­sole’s re­mark.

“We have got to settle whether we shall tell the po­lice at once all that has oc­curred, or whether we shall pro­ceed on our own re­spons­ib­il­ity. There can be no doubt as to which course we ought to pur­sue. Every con­sid­er­a­tion of prudence points to the ad­vis­ab­il­ity of tak­ing the po­lice into our con­fid­ence, and leav­ing the mat­ter en­tirely in their hands.”

“Oh, Papa!” Nella burst out in her pout­ing, im­puls­ive way. “You surely can’t think of such a thing. Why, the fun has only just be­gun.”

“Do you call last night fun?” ques­tioned Rack­sole, gaz­ing at her sol­emnly.

“Yes, I do,” she said promptly. “Now.”

“Well, I don’t,” was the mil­lion­aire’s lac­onic re­sponse; but per­haps he was think­ing of his own situ­ation in the lift.

“Do you not think we might in­vest­ig­ate a little fur­ther,” said the Prince ju­di­ciously, as he cracked a wal­nut, “just a little fur­ther—and then, if we fail to ac­com­plish any­thing, there would still be ample op­por­tun­ity to con­sult the po­lice?”

“How do you sug­gest we should be­gin?” asked Rack­sole.

“Well, there is the house which Miss Rack­sole so in­trep­idly entered last even­ing”—he gave her the homage of an ad­mir­ing glance; “you and I, Mr. Rack­sole, might ex­am­ine that abode in de­tail.”

“To­night?”

“Cer­tainly. We might do some­thing.”

“We might do too much.”

“For ex­ample?”

“We might shoot someone, or get ourselves mis­taken for burg­lars. If we out­stepped the law, it would be no ex­cuse for us that we had been act­ing in a good cause.”

“True,” said the Prince. “Never­the­less—” He stopped.

“Never­the­less you have a dis­taste for bring­ing the po­lice into the busi­ness. You want the hunt all to your­self. You are on fire with the ar­dour of the chase. Is not that it? Ac­cept the ad­vice of an older man, Prince, and sleep on this af­fair. I have little fancy for noc­turnal es­capades two nights to­gether. As for you, Nella, off with you to bed. The Prince and I will have a yarn over such flu­ids as can be ob­tained in this hole.”

“Papa,” she said, “you are per­fectly hor­rid to­night.”

“Per­haps I am,” he said. “De­cidedly I am very cross with you for com­ing over here all alone. It was mon­strous. If I didn’t hap­pen to be the most fool­ish of par­ents—There! Good night. It’s nine o’clock. The Prince, I am sure, will ex­cuse you.”

If

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