Hippolite said that a package expected Clem. "In the drawing-room."
The package proved to be a hat box. Seeing it, I felt curious and stayed by Clem to see. A usual hat box, that's why he didn't put it aside, being about to finish with it quickly and only then to go to his room. Weighting the light box in hands, Clem winced and said, "Why on earth anybody sends a hat to me?"
"Let me see it…" I said noticing a label… "Salon Semiramis."
Seeing it, Clem said, "How dared he?"
I said, "Extravagant, indeed. Too extravagant for businessmen. Maybe, only the box is out of their firm packing. The owner of the Salon is no more, by the by."
"I remember," Clem said, "The very suicide I witnessed."
"That's it. But there may be his successors. The late owner of the Salon, the very suicide in a lilac top hat…"
Clem stared at me again, "Did they dare sending their late boss' top hat to me?!"
"Scarcely," I said, while examining the box, "Too fantastic… Unless it's someone's unbalanced mind… A note!" I pulled a small paper out of the ribbon. Unfolding the paper, we saw a typewritten text --
"I heard you are interested in having a lilac top hat.
Please, accept it as a present from me.
Wherever you be let your wind go free.
Sincerely Yours
T."
"What the hell!.." Clem said staring at me, "Nobody could hear it from me. Nobody!!!" Clenching his fists, he raised them and shook fiercely, crying out, "Nobody!.. Nobody!.. Nobody!.. It was only a thought. A fleeting impression in my dream!"
Getting the paper that his hand dropped, I said, "Don't dear… What's wrong with you?"
He shouted out, "I'm sick and tired! Oscar… I simply have had enough of all the maze!.. or whatever it is!" He looked at the paper in my hand, "Who's that T? Where's Mother? Why's the package? How dare he, whoever he is? Is anybody in the world to answer my questions?!" He tore the paper from my fingers, threw it up in the air, buried his face in his hands and sobbed out, "I'm tired… oh how I'm tired… Oscar… I can't stand all this any longer!"
I violently pulled him to myself and pressed his head to my breast. Hippolite came in running and paused staring at us. Old Ilmar came after. I gestured them to go, and it took them a while to understand my gesture and leave the room silently. "We shall return the package," I said gently stroking the sobbing boy's head, "We shall find the sender and he'll answer all our questions. We shall force him to answer. I promise. You have to take some cold water."
"No," Clem sighed and get out of my embrace, "I'm all right."
His hysterics seemed to pass off; a moment more and both of us were ready to agree that the box should be opened.
Clem left me to do to the box whatever I wanted, I opened it, and then… it was my turn to clench fists, right like Clem did it a while ago, for a reason so awfully similar.
Inside the box there was a head-dress. But it was not lilac, and it was not a top hat.
Instead of a lilac top hat, promised by the message, there was a topi.
I reached for the topi and took it out of the box.
The topi was damaged on side and soiled. The lightweight rigid cloth-covered helmet made of cork, with brims front and back, known as a pith helmet looked... no, it was the very one that I left in the wilderness of the Island Shardana. "No!!!" I shouted out, "What's going on?!!!" I shouted, joining Clem in his recent emotional outburst.
It was his turn to get surprised, and I had to explain my agitation in a few words.
Really, no need to say much, but, "It's the very topi which I left in Shardana." The sense of the words was simple and clear enough to be heard and understood and to stun my companion, but it was simply beyond my comprehension.
My own mind hardly could take the fact that it was the very topi which I threw into the green abyss, and yet the thing was in my hand, before my eyes, familiar and unquestionably recognizable. Clem's features winced with anger as he shared my feelings. My hand wavered with agitation if not awe. Holding my hand out, I dropped the topi, and it fell down in the box. The sight of my own old head-dress feared me like a devil's doing.
It took us some time to brace ourselves up, for the sake of our upcoming outing as well as for saving appearances. "Obviously, it's someone's joke," I began reasoning, getting a chair astride, while Clem was pacing the floor with a slight limp, "Two jokes in one box for two of us. Concerning the lilac top hat. Who did you share your thought of having a lilac top hat?"
"You alone," he said, "My wish to have a lilac top hat was too fleeting to think of it in earnest."
"Too bad. About my topi. Nobody witnessed my taking it away. My topi was damaged. He who did the practical joke, knew of that, but he could not see my throwing the topi to the green abyss. We were alone in the wilderness. We two. It was a duel. I was alone there, at the moment, when I got rid of my damaged topi. Can you picture that, dear? The topi was thrown to the abyss overgrown with the sub-tropical thicket, and the unknown joker had to get it out of the abyss when he designed his joke!" On the move, Clem enclasped his head in reply to my words. I said, "On the other hand... the topi may be a fake. It could be faked solely for this practical joke. In that event, the fact that my topi was left there is known to someone else but me. Whether someone spied on me, at the moment, there, on the isle, or..." I never finished the sentence, because I was about to say that two jokes could be explained by a fantastic supposition that the joker could read my thoughts as well as Clem's, which theory could sound too depressive for Clem. The thought that the blond boy, who shot at me on the island Shardana, saw me, spying through the foliage, at the moments, when I believed myself alone, seemed interesting and I was about to keep it in mind -- if not the blond boy, then whoever else, in the shrubbery around or among the trees on the bottom of the abyss, could see me with my topi, after all. Rounding off, I said, "...however, it's needless to dilate." But Clem seemed not to hear me.
Time glided on. If we wanted to find clerks before the Address Bureau was closed, we should hurry, therefore, we parted going to our rooms to get ready for going out, and Clem called Old Ilmar so that the manservant helped him to relive the minor pain in his leg.