Page 148

‘…will be perfectly fine, Mr Linton! Now sit down!’
For once, I did as he said. My legs didn’t feel all too steady, and even Alexander the Great, who had sneaked in behind us unnoticed, was sitting down in a corner of the room. Surely, if a world-famous conqueror was sitting down, that meant that I could, too.
Mr Ambrose bent to retrieve my tailcoat from the floor. Straightening, he said: ‘I will give your clothes to the night porter. He will have them washed and dried soon enough.’
I squinted at him, doubtfully. ‘He’s a porter. Does he know how to wash clothes?’
‘Probably not. But I demand ingenuity and dedication of all my employees.’
Turning, he marched towards the door without another word. Was it just my imagination, or did he walk just a little faster than usual, almost as if he were running? At the door, he hesitated. ‘I’ll be back soon,’ he said. Then he fled, slamming the door behind him.
Suppressing a yawn, I nodded to Alexander in the corner. ‘I think he really doesn't like you,’ I told him.
The Macedonian conqueror shrugged and started cleaning his fingernails.
Looking for Truffles and Butterflies
Mr Ambrose’s porter apparently was no instant-cleaning wizard. I soon grew tired of waiting for my tailcoat’s return. To tell the truth, I felt tired in general - tired and battered and dirty. What I really needed was not just to get my clothes cleaned, but to get myself cleaned, too. To wash the dirt off my skin, and all the confusions of the night along with it.
Didn’t Mr Ambrose have a powder room? With a shower? I thought I remembered something of the sort from when I had needed to powder my foot. Or had it been my nose?
I got to my feet and waited until that nasty, ill-tempered floor had more or less stopped trying to buck me off. It took some time, but finally it seemed to accept I wasn’t just going to be thrown out of the window.
With all the authority I could muster, I pointed a finger at the floor.
‘Stay!’ I told it. ‘I’m going to go to powder my little toe now, and you’re going to stay right where you are. Understood?’
The floor nodded, and I raised my chin in triumph. There! I had gained a complete victory. The little yellow piggies cheered and applauded as I paraded past the desk to the little door behind it.
The powder room was just as I remembered it. One toilet, one shower, and no powder at all. Not even gunpowder. But then, I had come to shower, not to blow things up, so maybe that was just as well.
It was a little darker in the room than the last time I had been in here, though. For a moment I wondered why, until I remembered.
Of course! It’s nighttime, and that bright thingy in the sky is missing. What’s it called again?
The sun! Yes, that’s what it was called.
So… you need those other thingamies now. Those whatyemaycallit… lamps!
Dear me! I was really quite impressed by my vast memory and intellect. It even led me to suspect that there might be some sort of switch for the lamps beside the door - and voilà, I was right! My fingers found the switch and turned it.
Bright light exploded from my left and I gave a little gasp, shielding my eyes from the sudden invasion. After a few seconds of familiarization, I took my hand from my eyes and saw that the room was now bathed in a soft yellow light. Now all I needed was for me to be bathed, too - only with water instead of light.
The shower head protruded from the left wall, over a broad, white, ceramic basin. Of course, it had absolutely no gold ornaments or other adornments like any other decent upper-class British bathroom. This was Mr Ambrose’s shower, after all. At the moment, though, I didn’t care about ornaments. All I cared about was that water would come out of the pipes.
Closing the door behind me, I strode over to the shower. For some strange reason, I felt as though I had forgotten something, but the prospect of the shower was so alluring I put it out of my mind.
The floor in here seemed to be friendlier than the office floor. It only wobbled slightly once or twice as I made my way across the room.
‘Good floor,’ I mumbled. ‘Nice floor. That’s right. Just stay where you are.’
The floor obeyed, and soon I had reached my destination and could grab one of the pipes for support.
I noticed there wasn’t just a shower, there were towels, too. Perfect! Though a bit strange, admittedly. Who kept bath towels in his office?
He probably practically lives here.
Well, all the better. I wasn’t in the mood to drive miles to our bathtub at home, and I needed the calming feel of water on my skin. Maybe my head would feel a little clearer after I sprinkled a little water on it.
Humming contentedly to myself, I slipped out of my remaining clothes, getting it done much more quickly than usual. Trousers were really handy things to wear, compared with hoop skirts. I grabbed one of the towels, all of which, of course, weren’t made of embroidered terry cloth, but simple white linen. They felt so smooth and cool that they reminded me of him. Wrapping myself in them was almost like wrapping myself in him. It felt nice.
But… wasn’t I supposed to do that only after the shower? I felt a bit confused. Oh well, it couldn’t hurt and, as mentioned before, it felt so nice. I was so engrossed in the task of wrapping the towels tightly around me that I didn’t hear the approaching footsteps outside.
Only when the door swung open and I heard a gasp behind me did I realize I was no longer alone.
‘Mr Linton!’
Drat! I knew I had forgotten something. Nobody was supposed to be able to come in, right? Though I couldn’t remember how or why exactly…
I turned, towels pressed against my chest, just in time to see Mr Ambrose back out of the room, his eyes tightly shut. The door slammed behind him.
‘Mr Linton?’ His voice came from the other side of the door. Was it just my imagination, or did he sound just a little bit not his usual cool self?
‘Yes, Sir?’
‘The next time you decide to use my private bathroom, would you be so kind as to bolt the door?’
Bolts! That’s how you made sure the door didn’t open. I remembered it now. With effort, I squinted at the door.
‘I can’t, Sir. There’s no bolt on it.’
‘Of course there isn’t!’ he snapped. ‘Do you think I would waste money having a bolt installed on the door of a bathroom which only I ever use?’
I nodded gravely. ‘Of course not, Sir. Time is money is pumpernickel, right?’