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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/75435-0.txt b/75435-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fa79df6 --- /dev/null +++ b/75435-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11709 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75435 *** + + + + + + FISH PREFERRED + + By P. G. WODEHOUSE + + A NOVEL + + A. L. BURT COMPANY + Publishers + New York + + Published by arrangement with + Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc. + + Printed in U. S. A. + + COPYRIGHT, 1929 + BY PELHAM GRANVILLE WODEHOUSE + + ALL RIGHTS RESERVED + + PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES AT + THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS + GARDEN CITY, N. Y. + + + BOOKS BY P. G. WODEHOUSE + + FISH PREFERRED + MONEY FOR NOTHING + CARRY ON JEEVES + DIVOTS + THE SMALL BACHELOR + SAM IN THE SUBURBS + BILL THE CONQUEROR + INDISCRETIONS OF ARCHIE + HE RATHER ENJOYED IT + THREE MEN AND A MAID + GOLF WITHOUT TEARS + LEAVE IT TO PSMITH + THE LITTLE WARRIOR + A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS + MOSTLY SALLY + JEEVES + + + FISH PREFERRED + + + + + CHAPTER I + + + I + +Blandings Castle slept in the sunshine. Dancing little ripples of heat +mist played across its smooth lawns and stone-flagged terraces. The air +was full of the lulling drone of insects. It was that gracious hour of +a summer afternoon, midway between luncheon and tea, when nature seems +to unbutton its waistcoat and put its feet up. + +In the shade of a laurel bush outside the back premises of this stately +home of England, Beach, butler to Clarence, ninth Earl of Emsworth, +its proprietor, sat sipping the contents of a long glass and reading +a weekly paper devoted to the doings of Society and the Stage. His +attention had just been arrested by a photograph in an oval border on +one of the inner pages; and for perhaps a minute he scrutinized this +in a slow, thorough, pop-eyed way, absorbing its every detail. Then, +with a fruity chuckle, he took a penknife from his pocket, cut out the +photograph, and placed it in the recesses of his costume. + +At this moment the laurel bush, which had hitherto not spoken, said, +"Psst!" + +The butler started violently. A spasm ran through his ample frame. + +"Beach!" said the bush. + +Something was now peering out of it. This might have been a wood nymph, +but the butler rather thought not, and he was right. It was a tall +young man with light hair. He recognized his employer's secretary, +Mr. Hugo Carmody, and rose with pained reproach. His heart was still +jumping, and he had bitten his tongue. + +"Startle you, Beach?" + +"Extremely, sir." + +"I'm sorry. Excellent for the liver, though. Beach, do you want to earn +a quid?" + +The butler's austerity softened. The hard look died out of his eyes. + +"Yes, sir." + +"Can you get hold of Miss Millicent alone?" + +"Certainly, sir." + +"Then give her this note, and don't let anyone see you do it. +Especially--and this is where I want you to follow me very closely, +Beach--Lady Constance Keeble." + +"I will attend to the matter immediately, sir." + +He smiled a paternal smile. Hugo smiled back. A perfect understanding +prevailed between these two. Beach understood that he ought not to be +giving his employer's niece surreptitious notes; and Hugo understood +that he ought not to be urging a good man to place such a weight upon +his conscience. + +"Perhaps you are not aware, sir," said the butler, having trousered the +wages of sin, "that her ladyship went up to London on the three-thirty +train?" + +Hugo uttered an exclamation of chagrin. + +"You mean that all this Red Indian stuff--creeping from bush to bush +and not letting a single twig snap beneath my feet--has simply been a +waste of time?" He emerged, dusting his clothes. "I wish I'd known that +before," he said. "I've severely injured a good suit, and it's a very +moot question whether I haven't got some kind of a beetle down my back. +However, nobody ever took a toss through being careful." + +"Very true, sir." + +Relieved by the information that the X-ray eye of the aunt of the girl +he loved was operating elsewhere, Mr. Carmody became conversational. + +"Nice day, Beach." + +"Yes, sir." + +"You know, Beach, life's rummy. I mean to say, you can never tell what +the future holds in store. Here I am at Blandings Castle, loving it. +Sing of joy, sing of bliss, home was never like this. And yet, when the +project of my coming here was first placed on the agenda I don't mind +telling you the heart was rather bowed down with weight of woe." + +"Indeed, sir?" + +"Yes. Noticeably bowed down. If you knew the circumstances you would +understand why." + +Beach did know the circumstances. There were few facts concerning the +dwellers in Blandings Castle of which he remained in ignorance for +long. He was aware that young Mr. Carmody had been until a few weeks +back co-proprietor with Mr. Ronald Fish, Lord Emsworth's nephew, of a +night club called the Hot Spot, situated just off Bond Street in the +heart of London's pleasure-seeking area; that, despite this favoured +position, it had proved a financial failure; that Mr. Ronald had gone +off with his mother, Lady Julia Fish, to recuperate at Biarritz; and +that Hugo, on the insistence of Ronnie that unless some niche was found +for his boyhood friend he would not stir a step toward Biarritz or any +other blighted place, had come to Blandings as Lord Emsworth's private +secretary. + +"No doubt you were reluctant to leave London, sir?" + +"Exactly. But now, Beach, believe me or believe me not, as far as I am +concerned, anyone who likes can have London. Mark you, I'm not saying +that just one brief night in the Piccadilly neighbourhood would come +amiss. But to dwell in give me Blandings Castle. What a spot, Beach!" + +"Yes, sir." + +"A Garden of Eden, shall I call it?" + +"Certainly, sir, if you wish." + +"And now that old Ronnie's coming here, joy, as you might say, will be +unconfined." + +"Is Mr. Ronald expected, sir?" + +"Coming either to-morrow or the day after. I had a letter from him this +morning. Which reminds me. He sends his regards to you and asks me to +tell you to put your shirt on Baby Bones for the Medbury Selling Plate." + +The butler pursed his lips dubiously. + +"A long shot, sir. Not generally fancied." + +"Rank outsider. Leave it alone is my verdict." + +"And yet Mr. Ronald is usually very reliable. It is many years now +since he first began to advise me in these matters, and I have done +remarkably well by following him. Even as a lad at Eton he was always +singularly fortunate in his information." + +"Well, suit yourself," said Hugo indifferently. "What was that thing +you were cutting out of the paper just now?" + +"A photograph of Mr. Galahad, sir. I keep an album in which I paste +items of interest relating to the Family." + +"What that album needs is an eyewitness's description of Lady Constance +Keeble falling out of a window and breaking her neck." + +A nice sense of the proprieties prevented Beach from indorsing this +view verbally, but he sighed a little wistfully. He had frequently felt +much the same about the chatelaine of Blandings. + +"If you would care to see the clipping, sir? There is a reference to +Mr. Galahad's literary work." + +Most of the photographs in the weekly paper over which Beach had been +relaxing were of peeresses trying to look like chorus girls and chorus +girls trying to look like peeresses; but this one showed the perky +features of a dapper little gentleman in the late fifties. Beneath it, +in large letters, was the single word-- + + GALLY + +Under this ran a caption in smaller print: + + The Hon. Galahad Threepwood, brother of the Earl of Emsworth. + A little bird tells us that "Gally" is at Blandings Castle, + Shropshire, the ancestral seat of the family, busily engaged in + writing his Reminiscences. As every member of the Old Brigade will + testify, they ought to be as warm as the weather, if not warmer. + +Hugo scanned the exhibit thoughtfully and handed it back, to be placed +in the archives. + +"Yes," he observed, "I should say that about summed it up. That old +bird must have been pretty hot stuff, I imagine, back in the days of +Edward the Confessor." + +"Mr. Galahad was somewhat wild as a young man," agreed the butler +with a sort of feudal pride in his voice. It was the opinion of the +Servants' Hall that the Hon. Galahad shed lustre on Blandings Castle. + +"Has it ever occurred to you, Beach, that that book of his is going to +make no small stir when it comes out?" + +"Frequently, sir." + +"Well, I'm saving up for my copy. By the way, I knew there was +something I wanted to ask you. Can you give me any information on the +subject of a bloke named Baxter?" + +"Mr. Baxter, sir? He used to be private secretary to his lordship." + +"Yes, so I gathered. Lady Constance was speaking to me about him this +morning. She happened upon me as I was taking the air in riding kit and +didn't seem over-pleased. 'You appear to enjoy a great deal of leisure, +Mr. Carmody,' she said. 'Mr. Baxter,' she continued, giving me the +meaning eye, 'never seemed to find time to go riding when he was Lord +Emsworth's secretary. Mr. Baxter was always so hard at work. But then, +Mr. Baxter,' she added, the old lamp becoming more meaning than ever, +'loved his work. Mr. Baxter took a real interest in his duties. Dear +me! What a very conscientious man Mr. Baxter was, to be sure!' Or words +to that effect. I may be wrong, but I classed it as a dirty dig. And +what I want to know is, if Baxter was such a world beater why did they +ever let him go?" + +The butler gazed about him cautiously. + +"I fancy, sir, there was some trouble." + +"Pinched the spoons, eh? Always the way with these zealous workers." + +"I never succeeded in learning the full details, sir, but there was +something about some flower pots." + +"He pinched the flower pots?" + +"Threw them at his lordship, I was given to understand." + +Hugo looked injured. He was a high-spirited young man who chafed at +injustice. + +"Well, I'm dashed if I see, then," he said, "where this Baxter +can claim to rank so jolly high above me as a secretary. I may be +leisurely, I may forget to answer letters, I may occasionally on warm +afternoons go in to some extent for the folding of the hands in sleep, +but at least I don't throw flower pots at people. Not so much as a pen +wiper have I ever bunged at Lord Emsworth. Well, I must be getting +about my duties. That ride this morning and a slight slumber after +lunch have set the schedule back a bit. You won't forget that note, +will you?" + +"No, sir." + +Hugo reflected. + +"On second thoughts," he said, "perhaps you'd better hand it back to +me. Safer not to have too much written matter circulating about the +place. Just tell Miss Millicent that she will find me in the rose +garden at six sharp." + +"In the rose garden...." + +"At six sharp." + +"Very good, sir. I will see that she receives the information." + + + II + +For two hours after this absolutely nothing happened in the grounds of +Blandings Castle. At the end of that period there sounded through the +mellow, drowsy stillness a drowsy, mellow chiming. It was the clock +over the stables striking five. Simultaneously a small but noteworthy +procession filed out of the house and made its way across the +sun-bathed lawn to where the big cedar cast a grateful shade. It was +headed by James, a footman, bearing a laden tray. Following him came +Thomas, another footman, with a gate-leg table. The rear was brought up +by Beach, who carried nothing but merely lent a tone. + +The instinct that warns all good Englishmen when tea is ready +immediately began to perform its silent duty. Even as Thomas set +gate-leg table to earth there appeared, as if answering a cue, an +elderly gentleman in stained tweeds and a hat he should have been +ashamed of: Clarence, ninth Earl of Emsworth, in person. He was a long, +lean, stringy man of about sixty, slightly speckled at the moment with +mud, for he had spent most of the afternoon pottering round pigsties. +He surveyed the preparations for the meal with vague amiability through +rimless pince-nez. + +"Tea?" + +"Yes, your lordship." + +"Oh?" said Lord Emsworth. "Ah? Tea, eh? Tea? Yes. Tea. Quite so. To be +sure, tea. Capital." + +One gathered from his remarks that he realized that the tea hour had +arrived and was glad of it. He proceeded to impart his discovery to +his niece, Millicent, who, lured by that same silent call, had just +appeared at his side. + +"Tea, Millicent." + +"Yes." + +"Er--tea," said Lord Emsworth, driving home his point. + +Millicent sat down and busied herself with the pot. She was a tall, +fair girl with soft blue eyes and a face like the Soul's Awakening. Her +whole appearance radiated wholesome innocence. Not even an expert could +have told that she had just received a whispered message from a bribed +butler and was proposing at six sharp to go and meet a quite ineligible +young man among the rose bushes. + +"Been down seeing the Empress, Uncle Clarence?" + +"Eh? Oh, yes. Yes, my dear. I have been with her all the afternoon." + +Lord Emsworth's mild eyes beamed. They always did when that noble +animal, Empress of Blandings, was mentioned. The ninth Earl was a +man of few and simple ambitions. He had never desired to mould the +destinies of the State, to frame its laws and make speeches in the +House of Lords that would bring all the peers and bishops to their +feet, whooping and waving their hats. All he yearned to do, by way of +insuring admittance to England's Hall of Fame, was to tend his prize +sow, Empress of Blandings, so sedulously that for the second time in +two consecutive years she would win the silver medal in the Fat Pigs +class at the Shropshire Agricultural Show. And every day, it seemed to +him, the glittering prize was coming more and more within his grasp. + +Earlier in the summer there had been one breathless, sickening moment +of suspense, and disaster had seemed to loom. This was when his +neighbour, Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe of Matchingham Hall, had basely +lured away his pig man, the superbly gifted George Cyril Wellbeloved, +by the promise of higher wages. For a while Lord Emsworth had feared +lest the Empress, mourning for her old friend and valet, might refuse +food and fall from her high standard of obesity. But his apprehensions +had proved groundless. The Empress had taken to Pirbright, George +Cyril's successor, from the first, and was tucking away her meals with +all the old abandon. The Right triumphs in this world far more often +than we realize. + +"What do you do to her?" asked Millicent curiously. "Read her bedtime +stories?" + +Lord Emsworth pursed his lips. He had a reverent mind and disliked +jesting on serious subjects. + +"Whatever I do, my dear, it seems to effect its purpose. She is in +wonderful shape." + +"I didn't know she had a shape. She hadn't when I last saw her." + +This time Lord Emsworth smiled indulgently. Gibes at the Empress's +rotundity had no sting for him. He did not desire for her that +schoolgirl slimness which is so fashionable nowadays. + +"She has never fed more heartily," he said. "It is a treat to watch +her." + +"I'm so glad. Mr. Carmody," said Millicent, stooping to tickle a +spaniel which had wandered up to take pot luck, "told me he had never +seen a finer animal in his life." + +"I like that young man," said Lord Emsworth emphatically. "He is sound +on pigs. He has his head screwed on the right way." + +"Yes, he's an improvement on Baxter, isn't he?" + +"Baxter!" His lordship choked over his cup. + +"You didn't like Baxter much, did you, Uncle Clarence?" + +"Hadn't a peaceful moment while he was in the place. Dreadful feller! +Always fussing. Always wanting me to _do_ things. Always coming round +corners with his infernal spectacles gleaming and making me sign papers +when I wanted to be out in the garden. Besides, he was off his head. +Thank goodness I've seen the last of Baxter." + +"But have you?" + +"What do you mean?" + +"If you ask me," said Millicent, "Aunt Constance hasn't given up the +idea of getting him back." + +Lord Emsworth started with such violence that his pince-nez fell off. +She had touched on his favourite nightmare. Sometimes he would wake +trembling in the night, fancying that his late secretary had returned +to the castle. And though on these occasions he always dropped off to +sleep again with a happy smile of relief, he had never ceased to be +haunted by the fear that his sister Constance, in her infernal managing +way, was scheming to restore the fellow to office. + +"Good God! Has she said anything to you?" + +"No. But I have a feeling. I know she doesn't like Mr. Carmody." + +Lord Emsworth exploded. + +"Perfect nonsense! Utter, absolute, dashed nonsense. What on earth does +she find to object to in young Carmody? Most capable, intelligent boy. +Leaves me alone. Doesn't fuss me. I wish to heaven she would----" + +He broke off, and stared blankly at a handsome woman of middle age who +had come out of the house and was crossing the lawn. + +"Why, here she is!" said Millicent, equally and just as disagreeably +surprised. "I thought you had gone up to London, Aunt Constance." + +Lady Constance Keeble had arrived at the table. Declining with a +distrait shake of the head her niece's offer of the seat of honour by +the teapot, she sank into a chair. She was a woman of still remarkable +beauty, with features cast in a commanding mould, and fine eyes. These +eyes were at the moment dull and brooding. + +"I missed my train," she explained. "However, I can do all I have to do +in London to-morrow. I shall go up by the eleven-fifteen. In a way, it +will be more convenient, for Ronald will be able to motor me back. I +will look in at Norfolk Street and pick him up there before he starts." + +"What made you miss your train?" + +"Yes," said Lord Emsworth complainingly. "You started in good time." + +The brooding look in his sister's eyes deepened. + +"I met Sir Gregory Parsloe." Lord Emsworth stiffened at the name. +"He kept me talking. He is extremely worried." Lord Emsworth looked +pleased. "He tells me he used to know Galahad very well a number of +years ago, and he is very much alarmed about this book of his." + +"And I bet he isn't the only one," murmured Millicent. + +She was right. Once a man of the Hon. Galahad Threepwood's antecedents +starts taking pen in hand and being reminded of amusing incidents +that happened to my dear old friend So-and-So you never know where +he will stop; and all over England, among the more elderly of the +nobility and gentry, something like a panic had been raging ever since +the news of his literary activities had got about. From Sir Gregory +Parsloe-Parsloe of Matchingham Hall to gray-headed pillars of society +in distant Cumberland and Kent, whole droves of respectable men who in +their younger days had been rash enough to chum with the Hon. Galahad +were recalling past follies committed in his company and speculating +agitatedly as to how good the old pest's memory was. + +For Galahad in his day had been a notable lad about town. A _beau +sabreur_ of Romano's. A Pink 'Un. A Pelican. A crony of Hughie Drummond +and Fatty Coleman; a brother in arms of the Shifter, the Pitcher, Peter +Blobbs, and the rest of an interesting but not straitlaced circle. +Bookmakers had called him by his pet name; barmaids had simpered +beneath his gallant chaff. He had heard the chimes at midnight. And +when he looked in at the old Gardenia commissionaires had fought for +the privilege of throwing him out. A man, in a word, who should never +have been taught to write and who, if unhappily gifted with that +ability, should have been restrained by Act of Parliament from writing +reminiscences. + +So thought Lady Constance, his sister. So thought Sir Gregory +Parsloe-Parsloe, his neighbour. And so thought the pillars of Society +in distant Cumberland and Kent. Widely as they differed on many points, +they were unanimous on this. + +"He wanted me to try to find out if Galahad was putting anything about +him into it." + +"Better ask him now," said Millicent. "He's just come out of the house +and seems to be heading in this direction." + +Lady Constance turned sharply; and, following her niece's pointing +finger, winced. The mere sight of her deplorable brother was generally +enough to make her wince. When he began to talk and she had to listen +the wince became a shudder. His conversations had the effect of making +her feel as if she had suddenly swallowed something acid. + +"It always makes me laugh," said Millicent, "when I think what a +frightfully bad shot Uncle Gally's godfathers and godmothers made when +they christened him." + +She regarded her approaching relative with that tolerant--indeed, +admiring--affection which the young of her sex, even when they have +Madonna-like faces, are only too prone to lavish on such of their +seniors as have had interesting pasts. + +"Doesn't he look marvellous?" she said. "It really is an extraordinary +thing that anyone who has had as good a time as he has can be so +amazingly healthy. Everywhere you look you see men leading model +lives and pegging out in their prime, while good old Uncle Gally, who +apparently never went to bed till he was fifty, is still breezing along +as fit and rosy as ever." + +"All our family have had excellent constitutions," said Lord Emsworth. + +"And I'll bet Uncle Gally needed every ounce of his," said Millicent. + +The Author, ambling briskly across the lawn, had now joined the little +group at the tea table. As his photograph had indicated, he was a +short, trim, dapper little man of the type one associates automatically +in one's mind with checked suits, tight trousers, white bowler hats, +pink carnations, and race glasses bumping against the left hip. Though +bareheaded at the moment and in his shirt sleeves and displaying +on the tip of his nose the ink spot of the literary life, he still +seemed out of place away from a paddock or an American bar. His bright +eyes, puckered at the corners, peered before him as though watching +horses rounding into the straight. His neatly shod foot had about it +a suggestion of pawing in search of a brass rail. A jaunty little +gentleman, and, as Millicent had said, quite astonishingly fit and +rosy. A thoroughly misspent life had left the Hon. Galahad Threepwood, +contrary to the most elementary justice, in what appeared to be +perfect, even exuberantly perfect, physical condition. How a man who +ought to have had the liver of the century could look and behave as he +did was a constant mystery to his associates. His eyes were not dimmed, +nor his natural force abated; and when, skipping blithely across the +turf, he tripped over the spaniel, so graceful was the agility with +which he recovered his balance that he did not spill a drop of the +whisky-and-soda in his hand. He continued to bear the glass aloft like +some brave banner beneath which he had often fought and won. Instead of +the blot on a proud family he might have been a teetotal acrobat. + +Having disentangled himself from the spaniel and soothed the animal's +wounded feelings by permitting it to sniff the whisky-and-soda, the +Hon. Galahad produced a black-rimmed monocle and, screwing it into his +eye, surveyed the table with a frown of distaste. + +"Tea?" + +Millicent reached for a cup. + +"Cream and sugar, Uncle Gally?" + +He stopped her with a gesture of shocked loathing. + +"You know I never drink tea. Too much respect for my inside. Don't tell +me you are ruining your inside with that poison." + +"Sorry, Uncle Gally. I like it." + +"You be careful," urged the Hon. Galahad, who was fond of his niece +and did not like to see her falling into bad habits. "You be very +careful how you fool about with that stuff. Did I ever tell you about +poor Buffy Struggles back in 'ninety-three? Some misguided person +lured poor old Buffy into one of those temperance lectures illustrated +with coloured slides, and he called on me next day ashen, poor old +chap--ashen. 'Gally,' he said. 'What would you say the procedure was +when a fellow wants to buy tea? How would a fellow set about it?' +'Tea?' I said. 'What do you want tea for?' 'To drink,' said Buffy. +'Pull yourself together, dear boy,' I said. 'You're talking wildly. You +can't drink tea. Have a brandy-and-soda.' 'No more alcohol for me,' +said Buffy. 'Look what it does to the common earthworm.' 'But you're +not a common earthworm,' I said, putting my finger on the flaw in +his argument right away. 'I dashed soon shall be if I go on drinking +alcohol,' said Buffy. Well, I begged him with tears in my eyes not to +do anything rash, but I couldn't move him. He ordered in ten pounds of +the muck and was dead inside the year." + +"Good heavens! Really?" + +The Hon. Galahad nodded impressively. + +"Dead as a doornail. Got run over by a hansom cab, poor dear old chap, +as he was crossing Piccadilly. You'll find the story in my book." + +"How's the book coming along?" + +"Magnificently, my dear. Splendidly. I had no notion writing was so +easy. The stuff just pours out. Clarence, I wanted to ask you about +a date. What year was it there was that terrible row between young +Gregory Parsloe and Lord Burper, when Parsloe stole the old chap's +false teeth and pawned them at a shop in the Edgware Road? '96? I +should have said later than that--'97 or '98. Perhaps you're right, +though. I'll pencil in '96 tentatively." + +Lady Constance uttered a sharp cry. The sunlight had now gone quite +definitely out of her life. She felt, as she so often felt in her +brother Galahad's society, as if foxes were gnawing her vitals. Not +even the thought that she could now give Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe +the inside information for which he had asked was able to comfort her. + +"Galahad! You are not proposing to print libellous stories like that +about our nearest neighbour?" + +"Certainly I am." The Hon. Galahad snorted militantly. "And as for +libel, let him bring an action if he wants to. I'll fight him to the +House of Lords. It's the best documented story in my book. Well, if +you insist it was '96, Clarence--I'll tell you what," said the Hon. +Galahad, inspired, "I'll say 'toward the end of the nineties.' After +all, the exact date isn't so important. It's the facts that matter." +And, leaping lightly over the spaniel, he flitted away across the lawn. + +Lady Constance sat rigid in her chair. Her fine eyes were now +protruding slightly, and her face was drawn. This, and not the Mona +Lisa's, you would have said, looking at her, was the head on which all +the sorrows of the world had fallen. + +"Clarence!" + +"My dear?" + +"What are you going to do about this?" + +"Do?" + +"Can't you see that something must be done? Do you realize that if +this awful book of Galahad's is published it will alienate half our +friends? They will think we are to blame. They will say we ought to +have stopped him somehow. Imagine Sir Gregory's feelings when he reads +that appalling story!" + +Lord Emsworth's amiable face darkened. + +"I am not worrying about Parsloe's feelings. Besides, he did steal +Burper's false teeth. I remember him showing them to me. He had them +packed up in cotton wool in a small cigar box." + +The gesture known as wringing the hands is one that is seldom seen in +real life, but Lady Constance Keeble at this point did something with +hers which might by a liberal interpretation have been described as +wringing. + +"Oh, if Mr. Baxter were only here!" she moaned. + +Lord Emsworth started with such violence that his pince-nez fell off +and he dropped a slice of seed cake. + +"What on earth do you want that awful feller here for?" + +"He would find a way out of this dreadful business. He was always so +efficient." + +"Baxter's off his head." + +Lady Constance uttered a sharp exclamation. + +"Clarence, you really can be the most irritating person in the world. +You get an idea and you cling to it in spite of whatever anybody says. +Mr. Baxter was the most wonderfully capable man I ever met." + +"Yes, capable of anything," retorted Lord Emsworth with spirit. "Threw +flower pots at me in the middle of the night. I woke up in the small +hours and found flower pots streaming in at my bedroom window and +looked out and there was this feller Baxter standing on the terrace in +lemon-coloured pajamas, hurling the dashed things as if he thought he +was a machine gun or something. I suppose he's in an asylum by this +time." + +Lady Constance had turned a bright scarlet. Even in their nursery days +she had never felt quite so hostile toward the head of the family as +now. + +"You know perfectly well that there was a quite simple explanation. My +diamond necklace had been stolen, and Mr. Baxter thought the thief had +hidden it in one of the flower pots. He went to look for it and got +locked out and tried to attract attention by----" + +"Well, I prefer to think the man was crazy, and that's the line that +Galahad takes in his book." + +"His----! Galahad is not putting that story in his book?" + +"Of course he's putting it in his book. Do you think he's going to +waste excellent material like that? And, as I say, the line Galahad +takes--and he's a clear-thinking, level-headed man--is that Baxter was +a raving, roaring lunatic. Well, I'm going to have another look at the +Empress." + +He pottered off pigward. + + + III + +For some moments after he had gone there was silence at the tea table. +Millicent lay back in her chair, Lady Constance sat stiffly upright in +hers. A little breeze that brought with it a scent of wallflowers began +whispering the first tidings that the cool of evening was on its way. + +"Why are you so anxious to get Mr. Baxter back, Aunt Constance?" asked +Millicent. + +Lady Constance's rigidity had relaxed. She was looking her calm, +masterful self again. She had the air of a woman who has just solved a +difficult problem. + +"I think his presence here essential," she said. + +"Uncle Clarence doesn't seem to agree with you." + +"Your Uncle Clarence has always been completely blind to his best +interests. He ought never to have dismissed the only secretary he has +ever had who was capable of looking after his affairs." + +"Isn't Mr. Carmody any good?" + +"No. He is not. And I shall never feel easy in my mind until Mr. Baxter +is back in his old place." + +"What's wrong with Mr. Carmody?" + +"He is grossly inefficient. And," said Lady Constance, unmasking her +batteries, "I consider that he spends far too much of his time mooning +around you, my dear. He appears to imagine that he is at Blandings +Castle simply to dance attendance on you." + +The charge struck Millicent as unjust. She thought of pointing out that +she and Hugo only met occasionally and then on the sly, but it occurred +to her that the plea might be injudicious. She bent over the spaniel. +A keen observer might have noted a defensiveness in her manner. She +looked like a girl preparing to cope with an aunt. + +"Do you find him an entertaining companion?" + +Millicent yawned. + +"Mr. Carmody? No, not particularly." + +"A dull young man, I should have thought." + +"Deadly." + +"Vapid." + +"Vap to a degree." + +"And yet you went riding with him last Tuesday." + +"Anything's better than riding alone." + +"You play tennis with him, too." + +"Well, tennis is a game I defy you to play by yourself." + +Lady Constance's lips tightened. + +"I wish Ronald had never persuaded your uncle to employ him. Clarence +should have seen by the mere look of him that he was impossible." She +paused. "It will be nice having Ronald here," she said. + +"Yes." + +"You must try to see something of him. If," said Lady Constance, in the +manner which her intimates found rather less pleasant than some of her +other manners, "Mr. Carmody can spare you for a moment from time to +time." + +She eyed her niece narrowly. But Millicent was a match for any number +of narrow glances, and had been from her sixteenth birthday. She was +also a girl who believed that the best form of defence is attack. + +"Do you think I'm in love with Mr. Carmody, Aunt Constance?" + +Lady Constance was not a woman who relished the direct methods of the +younger generation. She coloured. + +"Such a thought never entered my head." + +"That's fine. I was afraid it had." + +"A sensible girl like you would naturally see the utter impossibility +of marriage with a man in his position. He has no money and very little +prospects. And, of course, your uncle holds your own money in trust +for you and would never dream of releasing it if you wished to make an +unsuitable marriage." + +"So it does seem lucky I'm not in love with him, doesn't it?" + +"Extremely fortunate." + +Lady Constance paused for a moment, then introduced a topic on which +she had frequently touched before. Millicent had seen it coming by the +look in her eyes. + +"Why you won't marry Ronald I can't think. It would be so suitable in +every way. You have been fond of one another since you were children." + +"Oh, I like old Ronnie a lot." + +"It has been a great disappointment to your Aunt Julia." + +"She must cheer up. She'll get him off all right if she sticks at it." + +Lady Constance bridled. + +"It is not a question of.... If you will forgive my saying so, my dear, +I think you have allowed yourself to fall into a way of taking Ronald +far too much for granted. I am afraid you have the impression that he +will always be there, ready and waiting for you when you at last decide +to make up your mind. I don't think you realize what a very attractive +young man he is." + +"The longer I wait, the more fascinating it will give him time to +become." + +At a moment less tense Lady Constance would have taken time off to +rebuke this flippancy; but she felt it would be unwise to depart from +her main theme. + +"He is just the sort of young man that girls are drawn to. In fact, +I have been meaning to tell you. I had a letter from your Aunt Julia +saying that during her stay at Biarritz they met a most charming +American girl, a Miss Schoonmaker, whose father, it seems, used to be +a friend of your Uncle Galahad. She appeared to be quite taken with +Ronald, and he with her. He travelled back to Paris with her and left +her there." + +"How fickle men are!" sighed Millicent. + +"She had some shopping to do," said Lady Constance sharply. "By this +time she is probably in London. Julia invited her to stay at Blandings, +and she accepted. She may be here any day now. And I do think, my +dear," proceeded Lady Constance earnestly, "that before she arrives +you ought to consider very carefully what your feelings toward Ronald +really are." + +"You mean, if I don't watch my step this Miss Doopenhacker may steal my +Ronnie away from me?" + +It was not quite how Lady Constance would have put it herself, but it +conveyed her meaning. + +"Exactly." + +Millicent laughed. It was plain that her flesh declined to creep at the +prospect. + +"Good luck to her," she said. "She can count on a fish slice from me, +and I'll be a bridesmaid, too, if wanted. Can't you understand, Aunt +Constance, that I haven't the slightest desire to marry Ronnie? We're +great pals and all that, but he's not my style. Too short, for one +thing." + +"Short?" + +"I'm inches taller than he is. When we went up the aisle I should look +like someone taking her little brother for a walk." + +Lady Constance would undoubtedly have commented on this remark, but +before she could do so the procession reappeared, playing an unexpected +return date. Footman James bore a dish of fruit; Footman Thomas a +salver with a cream jug on it. Beach, as before, confined himself to a +straight ornamental rôle. + +"Oo!" said Millicent welcomingly. And the spaniel, who liked anything +involving cream, gave a silent nod of approval. + +"Well," said Lady Constance, as the procession withdrew, giving up the +lost cause, "if you won't marry Ronald, I suppose you won't." + +"That's about it," agreed Millicent, pouring cream. + +"At any rate, I am relieved to hear that there is no nonsense going on +between you and this Mr. Carmody. That I could not have endured." + +"He's only moderately popular with you, isn't he?" + +"I dislike him extremely." + +"I wonder why. I should have thought he was fairly all right, as young +men go. Uncle Clarence likes him. So does Uncle Gally." + +Lady Constance had a high, arched nose, admirably adapted for sniffing. +She used it now to the limits of its power. + +"Mr. Carmody," she said, "is just the sort of young man your Uncle +Galahad would like. No doubt he reminds him of the horrible men he used +to go about London with in his young days." + +"Mr. Carmody isn't a bit like that." + +"Indeed?" Lady Constance sniffed again. "Well, I dislike mentioning it +to you, Millicent, for I am old-fashioned enough to think that young +girls should be shielded from a knowledge of the world, but I happen +to know that Mr. Carmody is not at all a nice young man. I have it on +the most excellent authority that he is entangled with some impossible +chorus girl." + +It is not easy to sit suddenly bolt upright in a deep garden chair, but +Millicent managed the feat. + +"What!" + +"Lady Allardyce told me so." + +"And how does she know?" + +"Her son Vernon told her. A girl of the name of Brown. Vernon Allardyce +says that he used to see her repeatedly, lunching and dining and +dancing with Mr. Carmody." + +There was a long silence. + +"Nice boy, Vernon," said Millicent. + +"He tells his mother everything." + +"That's what I meant. I think it's so sweet of him." Millicent rose. +"Well, I'm going to take a short stroll." + +She wandered off toward the rose garden. + + + IV + +A young man who has arranged to meet the girl he loves in the rose +garden at six sharp naturally goes there at five-twenty-five, so as +not to be late. Hugo Carmody had done this, with the result that by +three minutes to six he was feeling as if he had been marooned among +roses since the beginning of the summer. + +If anybody had told Hugh Carmody six months before that halfway through +the following July he would be lurking in trysting places like this, +his whole being alert for the coming of a girl, he would have scoffed +at the idea. He would have laughed lightly. Not that he had not been +fond of girls. He had always liked girls. But they had been, as it +were, the mere playthings, so to speak, of a financial giant's idle +hour. Six months ago he had been the keen, iron-souled man of business, +all his energies and thoughts devoted to the management of the Hot Spot. + +But now he stood shuffling his feet and starting hopefully at every +sound, while the leaden moments passed sluggishly on their way. Then +his vigil was enlivened by a wasp, which stung him on the back of the +hand. He was leaping to and fro, licking his wounds, when he perceived +the girl of his dreams coming down the path. + +"Ah!" cried Hugo. + +He ceased to leap and, rushing forward, would have clasped her in a +fond embrace. Many people advocate the old-fashioned blue-bag for wasp +stings, but Hugo preferred this treatment. + +To his astonishment she drew back. And she was not a girl who usually +drew back on these occasions. + +"What's the matter?" he asked, pained. It seemed to him that a spanner +had been bunged into a holy moment. + +"Nothing." + +Hugo was concerned. He did not like the way she was looking at him. Her +soft blue eyes appeared to have been turned into stone. + +"I say," he said, "I've just been stung by a beastly great wasp." + +"Good!" said Millicent. The way she was talking seemed to him worse +than the way she was looking. + +Hugo's concern increased. + +"I say, what's up?" + +The granite eye took on an added hardness. + +"You want to know what's up?" + +"Yes--what's up?" + +"I'll tell you what's up." + +"Well, what's up?" asked Hugo. + +He waited for enlightenment, but she had fallen into a chilling silence. + +"You know," said Hugo, breaking it, "I'm getting pretty fed up with +all this secrecy and general snakiness. Seeing you for an occasional +odd five minutes a day and having to put on false whiskers and hide in +bushes to manage that. I know the Keeble looks on me as a sort of cross +between a leper and a nosegay of deadly nightshade, but I'm strong with +the old boy. I talk pig to him. You might almost say I play on him as +on a stringed instrument. So what's wrong with going to him and telling +him in a frank and manly way that we love each other and are going to +get married?" + +The marble of Millicent's face was disturbed by one of those quick, +sharp, short, bitter smiles that do nobody any good. + +"Why should we lie to Uncle Clarence?" + +"Eh?" + +"I say why should we tell him something that isn't true?" + +"I don't get your drift." + +"I will continue snowing," said Millicent coldly. "I am not quite sure +if I am ever going to speak to you again in this world or the next. +Much will depend on how good you are as an explainer. I have it on the +most excellent authority that you are entangled with a chorus girl. How +about it?" + +Hugo reeled. But then St. Anthony himself would have reeled if a charge +like that had suddenly been hurled at him. The best of men require time +to overhaul their consciences on such occasions. A moment, and he was +himself again. + +"It's a lie!" + +"Name of Brown." + +"Not a word of truth in it. I haven't set eyes on Sue Brown since I +first met you." + +"No. You've been down here all the time." + +"And when I _was_ setting eyes on her--why, dash it, my attitude from +start to finish was one of blameless, innocent, one hundred per cent. +brotherliness. A wholesome friendship. Brotherly. Nothing more. I liked +dancing and she liked dancing and our steps fitted. So occasionally we +would go out together and tread the measure. That's all there was to +it. Pure brotherliness. Nothing more. I looked on myself as a sort of +brother." + +"Brother, eh?" + +"Absolutely a brother. Don't," urged Hugo earnestly, "go running away, +my dear old thing, with any sort of silly notion that Sue Brown was +something in the nature of a vamp. She's one of the nicest girls you +would ever want to meet." + +"Nice, is she?" + +"A sweet girl. A girl in a million. A real good sort. A sound egg." + +"Pretty, I suppose?" + +The native good sense of the Carmodys asserted itself at the eleventh +hour. + +"Not pretty," said Hugo decidedly. "Not pretty, no. Not at all pretty. +Far from pretty. Totally lacking in sex appeal, poor girl. But nice. A +good sort. No nonsense about her. Sisterly." + +Millicent pondered. + +"H'm," she said. + +Nature paused, listening. Birds checked their song, insects their +droning. It was as if it had got about that this young man's fate hung +in the balance and the returns would be in shortly. + +"Well, all right," she said at length. "I suppose I'll have to believe +you." + +"'At's the way to talk!" + +"But just you bear this in mind, my lad. Any funny business from now +on...." + +"As if...!" + +"One more attack of that brotherly urge...." + +"As though...!" + +"All right, then." + +Hugo inhaled vigorously. He felt like a man who has just dodged a +wounded tigress. + +"_Banzai!_" he said. "Sweethearts still!" + + + V + +Blandings Castle dozed in the twilight. Its various inmates were +variously occupied. Clarence, ninth Earl of Emsworth, after many a +longing, lingering look behind, had dragged himself away from the +Empress's boudoir and was reading his well-thumbed copy of _British +Pigs_. The Hon. Galahad, having fixed up the Parsloe-Burper passage, +was skimming through his day's output with an artist's complacent +feeling that this was the stuff to give 'em. Butler Beach was pasting +the Hon. Galahad's photograph into his album. Millicent, in her +bedroom, was looking a little thoughtfully into her mirror. Hugo, in +the billiard room, was practising pensive cannons and thinking loving +thoughts of his lady, coupled with an occasional reflection that a +short, swift binge in London would be a great wheeze if he could wangle +it. + +And in her boudoir on the second floor Lady Constance Keeble had taken +pen in hand and was poising it over a sheet of notepaper. + +"Dear Mr. Baxter," she wrote. + + + + + CHAPTER II + + + I + +The brilliant sunshine which so enhanced the attractions of life at +Blandings Castle had brought less pleasure to those of England's +workers whose duties compelled them to remain in London. In his offices +on top of the Regal Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue, Mr. Mortimer Mason, +the stout senior partner in the firm of Mason and Saxby, Theatrical +Enterprises, Ltd., was of opinion that what the country really needed +was one of those wedge-shaped depressions off the Coast of Iceland. +Apart from making him feel like a gaffed salmon, Flaming July was +ruining business. Only last night, to cut down expenses, he had had +to dismiss some of the chorus from the show downstairs, and he hated +dismissing chorus girls. He was a kind-hearted man and, having been in +the profession himself in his time, knew what it meant to get one's +notice in the middle of the summer. + +There was a tap on the door. The human watchdog who guarded the outer +offices entered. + +"Well?" said Mortimer Mason wearily. + +"Can you see Miss Brown, sir?" + +"Which Miss Brown? Sue?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Of course." In spite of the heat Mr. Mason brightened. "Is she +outside?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Then pour her in." + +Mortimer Mason had always felt a fatherly fondness for this girl, Sue +Brown. He liked her for her own sake, for her unvarying cheerfulness +and the honest way she worked. But what endeared her more particularly +to him was the fact that she was Dolly Henderson's daughter. London +was full of elderly gentlemen who became pleasantly maudlin when they +thought of Dolly Henderson and the dear old days when the heart was +young and they had had waists. He heaved himself from his chair; then +fell back again, filled with a sense of intolerable injury. + +"My God!" he cried. "Don't look so cool." + +The rebuke was not undeserved. On an afternoon when the asphalt is +bubbling in the roadways and theatrical managers melting where they +sit, no girl has a right to resemble a dewy rose plucked from some +old-world garden. And that, Mr. Mason considered, was just what this +girl was deliberately resembling. She was a tiny thing, mostly large +eyes and a wide happy smile. She had a dancer's figure, and in every +movement of her there was Youth. + +"Sorry, Pa." She laughed, and Mr. Mason moaned faintly. Her laugh had +reminded him, for his was a nature not without its poetical side, of +ice tinkling in a jug of beer. "Try not looking at me." + +"Well, Sue, what's on your mind? Come to tell me you're going to be +married?" + +"Not at the moment, I'm afraid." + +"Hasn't that young man of yours got back from Biarritz yet?" + +"He arrived this morning. I had a note during the matinée. I suppose +he's outside now, waiting for me. Want to have a look at him?" + +"Does it mean walking downstairs?" asked Mr. Mason guardedly. + +"No. He'll be in his car. You can see him from the window." + +Mr. Mason was equal to getting to the window. He peered down at the +rakish sports-model two-seater in the little street below. Its occupant +was lying on his spine, smoking a cigarette in a long holder and +looking austerely at certain children of the neighbourhood whom he +seemed to suspect of being about to scratch his paint. + +"They're making fiancés very small this season," said Mr. Mason, +concluding his inspection. + +"He is small, isn't he? He's sensitive about it, poor darling. Still, +I'm small, too, so that's all right." + +"Fond of him?" + +"Frightfully." + +"Who is he, anyway? Yes, I know his name's Fish, and it doesn't mean a +thing to me. Any money?" + +"I believe he's got quite a lot, only his uncle keeps it all. Lord +Emsworth. He's Ronnie's trustee or something." + +"Emsworth? I knew his brother years ago." Mr. Mason chuckled +reminiscently. "Old Gally! What a lad! I've got a scheme I'd like to +interest old Gally in. I wonder where he is now." + +"The _Prattler_ this week said he was down at Blandings Castle. That's +Lord Emsworth's place in Shropshire. Ronnie's going down there this +evening." + +"Deserting you so soon?" Mortimer Mason shook his head. "I don't like +this." + +Sue laughed. + +"Well, I don't," said Mr. Mason. "You be careful. These lads will all +bear watching." + +"Don't worry, Pa. He means to do right by our Nell." + +"Well, don't say I didn't warn you. So old Gally is at Blandings, is +he? I must remember that. I'd like to get in touch with him. And now, +what was it you wanted to see me about?" + +Sue became grave. + +"I've come to ask you a favour." + +"Go ahead. You know me." + +"It's about those girls you're getting rid of." + +Mr. Mason's genial face took on a managerial look. + +"Got to get rid of them." + +"I know. But one of them's Sally Field." + +"Meaning what?" + +"Well, Sally's awfully hard up, Pa. And what I came to ask," said Sue +breathlessly, "was, will you keep her on and let me go instead?" + +Utter amazement caused Mortimer Mason momentarily to forget the heat. +He sat up, gaping. + +"Do what?" + +"Let me go instead." + +"Let you go instead?" + +"Yes." + +"You're crazy." + +"No, I'm not. Come on, Pa. Be a dear." + +"Is she a great friend of yours?" + +"Not particularly. I'm sorry for her." + +"I won't do it." + +"You must. She's down to her last bean." + +"But I need you in the show." + +"What nonsense! As if I made the slightest difference." + +"You do. You've got--I don't know--" Mr. Mason twiddled his +fingers--"something. Your mother used to have it. Did you know I was +the second juvenile in the first company she was ever in?" + +"Yes, you told me. And haven't you got on! There's enough of you now to +make two second juveniles. Well, you will do it, won't you?" + +Mr. Mason reflected. + +"I suppose I'll have to, if you insist," he said at length. "If I don't +you'll just hand your notice in anyway. I know you. You're a sportsman, +Sue. Your mother was just the same. But are you sure you'll manage all +right? I shan't be casting the new show till the end of August, but I +may be able to fix you up somewhere if I look round." + +"I don't see how you could look any rounder if you tried, you poor +darling. Do you realize, Pa, that if you got up early every morning and +did half an hour's Swedish exercises----" + +"If you don't want to be murdered, stop!" + +"It would do you all the good in the world, you know. Well, it's +awfully sweet of you to bother about me, Pa, but you mustn't. You've +got enough to worry you already. I shall be all right. Good-bye. You've +been an angel about Sally. It'll save her life." + +"If she's that cross-eyed girl at the end of the second row who's +always out of step I'm not sure I want to save her life." + +"Well, you're going to do it, anyway. Good-bye." + +"Don't run away." + +"I must. Ronnie's waiting. He's going to take me to tea somewhere. Up +the river, I hope. Think how nice it will be there, under the trees, +with the water rippling----" + +"The only thing that stops me hitting you with this ruler," said +Mr. Mason, "is the thought that I shall soon be getting out of this +Turkish bath myself. I've a show opening at the Blackpool next week. +Think how nice and cool it will be on the sands there, with the waves +splashing----" + +"--And you with your little spade and bucket, paddling! Oh, Pa, do send +me a photograph. Well, I can't stand here all day chatting over your +vacation plans. My poor darling Ronnie must be getting slowly fried." + + + II + +The process of getting slowly fried, especially when you are chafing +for a sight of the girl you love after six weeks of exile from her +society, is never an agreeable one. After enduring it for some time +the pink-faced young man with the long cigarette holder had left his +seat in the car and had gone for shade and comparative coolness to the +shelter of the stage entrance, where he now stood reading the notices +on the call board. He read them moodily. The thought that, after having +been away from Sue for all these weeks, he was now compelled to leave +her again and go to Blandings Castle was weighing on Ronald Overbury +Fish's mind sorely. + +Mac, the guardian of the stage door, leaned out of his hutch. The +matinée over, he had begun to experience that solemn joy which comes +to camels approaching an oasis and stage-door men who will soon be at +liberty to pop round the corner. He endeavoured to communicate his +happiness to Ronnie. + +"Won't be long now, Mr. Fish." + +"Eh?" + +"Won't be long now, sir." + +"Ah," said Ronnie. + +Mac was concerned at his companion's gloom. He liked smiling faces +about him. Reflecting, he fancied he could diagnose its cause. + +"I was sorry to hear about that, Mr. Fish." + +"Eh?" + +"I say I was sorry to hear about that, sir." + +"About what?" + +"About the Hot Spot, sir. That night club of yours. Busting up that +way. Going West so prompt." + +Ronnie Fish winced. He presumed the man meant well, but there are +certain subjects one does not want mentioned. When you have contrived +with infinite pains to wheedle a portion of your capital out of a +reluctant trustee and have gone and started a night club with it and +have seen that night club flash into the receiver's hands like some +frail eggshell engulfed by a whirlpool, silence is best. + +"Ah," he said briefly, to indicate this. + +Mac had many admirable qualities, but not tact. He was the sort of man +who would have tried to cheer Napoleon up by talking about the winter +sports at Moscow. + +"When I heard that you and Mr. Carmody was starting one of those +places I said to the fireman, 'I give it two months,' I said. And it +was six weeks, wasn't it, sir?" + +"Seven." + +"Six or seven. Immaterial which. Point is I'm usually pretty right. I +said to the fireman, 'It takes brains to run a night club,' I said. +'Brains and a certain what-shall-I-say.' Won me half a crown, that did." + +He searched in his mind for other topics to interest and amuse. + +"Seen Mr. Carmody lately, sir?" + +"No. I've been in Biarritz. He's down in Shropshire. He's got a job as +secretary to an uncle of mine." + +"And I shouldn't wonder," said Mac cordially, "if he wouldn't make a +mess of _that_." + +He began to feel that the conversation was now going with a swing. + +"Used to see a lot of Mr. Carmody round here at one time." + +The advance guard of the company appeared, in the shape of a flock +of musicians. They passed out of the stage door, first a couple of +thirsty-looking flutes, then a group of violins, finally an oboe by +himself with a scowl on his face. Oboes are always savage in captivity. + +"Yes, sir. Came here a lot, Mr. Carmody did. Asking for Miss Brown. +Great friends those two was." + +"Oh?" said Ronnie thickly. + +"Used to make me laugh to see them together." + +Ronnie appeared to swallow something large and jagged. + +"Why?" + +"Well, him so tall and her so small. But there," said Mac +philosophically, "they say it's opposites that get on best. I know I +weigh seventeen stone and my missus looks like a ninepenny rabbit, and +yet we're as happy as can be." + +Ronnie's interest in the poundage of the stage-door keeper's domestic +circle was slight. + +"Ah," he said. + +Mac, having got onto the subject of Sue Brown, stayed there. + +"You see the flowers arrived all right, sir." + +"Eh?" + +"The flowers you sent Miss Brown, sir," said Mac, indicating with a +stubby thumb a bouquet on the shelf behind him. "I haven't given her +them yet. Thought she'd rather have them after the performance." + +It was a handsome bouquet, but Ronnie Fish stared at it with a sort of +dumb horror. His pink face had grown pinker, and his eyes were glassy. + +"Give me those flowers, Mac," he said in a strangled voice. + +"Right, sir. Here you are, sir. Now you look just like a bridegroom, +sir," said the stage-door keeper, chuckling the sort of chuckle that +goes with seventeen stone and a fat head. + +This thought had struck Ronnie, also. It was driven home a moment +later by the displeasing behaviour of two of the chorus girls who came +flitting past. Both looked at him in a way painful to a sensitive young +man, and one of them giggled. Ronnie turned to the door. + +"When Miss Brown comes, tell her I'm waiting outside in my car." + +"Right, sir. You'll be in again, I suppose, sir?" + +"No." The sombre expression deepened on Ronnie's face. "I've got to go +down to Shropshire this evening." + +"Be away long?" + +"Yes. Quite a time." + +"Sorry to hear that, sir. Well, good-bye, sir. Thank you, sir." + +Ronnie, clutching the bouquet, walked with leaden steps to the +two-seater. There was a card attached to the flowers. He read it, +frowned darkly and threw the bouquet into the car. + +Girls were passing now in shoals. They meant nothing to Ronnie Fish. +He eyed them sourly, marvelling why the papers talked about "beauty +choruses." And then, at last, there appeared one at the sight of whom +his heart, parting from its moorings, began to behave like a jumping +bean. It had reached his mouth when she ran up with both hands extended. + +"Ronnie, you precious angel lambkin!" + +"Sue!" + +To a young man in love, however great the burden of sorrows beneath +which he may be groaning, the spectacle of the only girl in the world, +smiling up at him, seldom fails to bring a temporary balm. For the +moment Ronnie's gloom ceased to be. He forgot that he had recently +lost several hundred pounds in a disastrous commercial venture. He +forgot that he was going off that evening to live in exile. He even +forgot that this girl had just been sent a handsome bouquet by a +ghastly bargee named P. Frobisher Pilbeam, belonging to the Junior +Constitutional Club. These thoughts would return, but for the time +being the one that occupied his mind to the exclusion of all others was +the thought that after six long weeks of separation he was once more +looking upon Sue Brown. + +"I'm so sorry I kept you waiting, precious. I had to see Mr. Mason." + +Ronnie started. + +"What about?" + +A student of the motion pictures, he knew what theatrical managers were. + +"Just business." + +"Did he ask you to lunch or anything?" + +"No. He just fired me." + +"Fired you!" + +"Yes, I've lost my job," said Sue happily. + +Ronnie quivered. + +"I'll go and break his neck." + +"No, you won't. It isn't his fault. It's the weather. They have to cut +down expenses when there's a heat wave. It's all the fault of people +like you for going abroad instead of staying in London and coming to +the theatre." She saw the flowers and uttered a delightful squeal. "For +me?" + +A moment before, Ronnie had been all chivalrous concern--a knight +prepared to battle to the death for his lady love. He now froze. + +"Apparently," he said coldly. + +"How do you mean, apparently?" + +"I mean they are." + +"You pet!" + +"Leap in." + +Ronnie's gloom was now dense and foglike once more. He gestured +fiercely at the clustering children and trod on the self-starter. The +car moved smoothly round the corner into Shaftesbury Avenue. + +Opposite the Monico there was a traffic block, and he unloaded his soul. + +"In re those blooms." + +"They're lovely." + +"Yes, but I didn't send them." + +"You brought them. Much nicer." + +"What I'm driving at," said Ronnie heavily, "is that they aren't from +me at all. They're from a blighter named P. Frobisher Pilbeam." + +Sue's smile had faded. She knew her Ronald's jealousy so well. It was +the one thing about him which she could have wished changed. + +"Oh?" she said dismally. + +The crust of calm detachment from all human emotion, built up by years +of Eton and Cambridge, cracked abruptly, and there peeped forth a +primitive Ronald Overbury Fish. + +"Who is this Pilbeam?" he demanded. "Pretty much the Boy Friend, I take +it, what?" + +"I've never even met him!" + +"But he sends you flowers." + +"I know he does," wailed Sue, mourning for a golden afternoon now +probably spoiled beyond repair. "He keeps sending me his beastly +flowers and writing me his beastly letters." + +Ronnie gritted his teeth. + +"And I tell you I've never set eyes on him in my life." + +"You don't know who he is?" + +"One of the girls told me that he used to edit that paper, _Society +Spice_. I don't know what he does now." + +"When he isn't sending you flowers, you mean?" + +"I can't help him sending me flowers." + +"I don't suppose you want to." + +Sue's eyes flickered. Realizing, however, that her Ronnie in certain +moods resembled a child of six, she made a pathetic attempt to lighten +the atmosphere. + +"It's not my fault if I get persecuted with loathsome addresses, is it? +I suppose, when you go to the movies, you blame Lillian Gish for being +pursued by the heavy." + +Ronnie was not to be diverted. + +"Sometimes I ask myself," he said darkly, "if you really care a hang +for me." + +"Oh, Ronnie!" + +"Yes, I do--repeatedly. I look at you and I look at myself and that's +what I ask myself. What on earth is there about me to make a girl like +you fond of a fellow? I'm a failure. Can't even run a night club. No +brains. No looks." + +"You've got a lovely complexion." + +"Too pink. Much too pink. And I'm so damned short." + +"You're not a bit too short." + +"I am. My Uncle Gally once told me I looked like the protoplasm of a +minor jockey." + +"He ought to have been ashamed of himself." + +"Why the dickens," said Ronnie, laying bare his secret dreams, "I +couldn't have been born a decent height, like Hugo...." He paused. His +hand shook on the steering wheel. "That reminds me. That fellow Mac +at the stage door was saying that you and Hugo used to be as thick as +thieves. Always together, he said." + +Sue sighed. Things were being difficult to-day. + +"That was before I met you," she explained patiently, "I used to like +dancing with him. He's a beautiful dancer. You surely don't suppose for +a minute that I could ever be in love with Hugo." + +"I don't see why not." + +"Hugo!" Sue laughed. There was something about Hugo Carmody that always +made her want to laugh. + +"Well, I don't see why not. He's better looking than I am. Taller. Not +so pink. Plays the saxophone." + +"Will you stop being silly about Hugo!" + +"Well, I fear that bird. He's my best pal, and I know his work. He's +practically handsome. And lissom, to boot." A hideous thought smote +Ronnie like a blow. "Did he ever--" he choked--"did he ever hold your +hand?" + +"Which hand?" + +"Either hand." + +"How can you suggest such a thing!" cried Sue, shocked. + +"Well, will you swear there's nothing between him and you?" + +"Of course there isn't." + +"And nothing between this fellow Pilbeam and you?" + +"Of course not." + +"Ah!" said Ronnie. "Then I can go ahead as planned." + +His was a mercurial temperament, and it had lifted him in an instant +from the depths to the heights. The cloud had passed from his face, the +look of Byronic despair from his eyes. He beamed. + +"Do you know why I'm going down to Blandings to-night?" he asked. + +"No. I only wish you weren't." + +"Well, I'll tell you. I've got to get round my uncle." + +"Do what?" + +"Make myself solid with my Uncle Clarence. If you've ever had anything +to do with trustees you'll know that the one thing they bar like poison +is parting with money. And I've simply got to have another chunk of +my capital, and a good big one, too. Without money, how on earth can +I marry you? Let me get hold of funds, and we'll dash off to the +registrar's the moment you say the word. So now you understand why I've +got to get to Blandings at the earliest possible moment and stay there +till further notice." + +"Yes. I see. And you're a darling. Tell me about Blandings, Ronnie." + +"How do you mean?" + +"Well, what sort of a place is it? I want to imagine you there while +you're away." + +Ronnie pondered. He was not at his best as a word painter. + +"Oh, you know the kind of thing. Parks and gardens and terraces and +immemorial elms and all that. All the usual stuff." + +"Any girls there?" + +"My Cousin Millicent. She's my Uncle Lancelot's daughter. He's dead. +The family want Millicent and me to get married." + +"To each other, you mean? What a perfectly horrible idea." + +"Oh, it's all right. We're both against the scheme." + +"Well, that's some comfort. What other girls will there be at +Blandings?" + +"Only one that I know of. My mother met a female called Schoonmaker at +Biarritz. American. Pots of money, I believe. One of those beastly tall +girls. Looked like something left over from Dana Gibson. I couldn't +stand her myself, but my mother was all for her, and I didn't at all +like the way she seemed to be trying to shove her off onto me. You +know--'Why don't you ring up Myra Schoonmaker, Ronnie? I'm sure she +would like to go to the Casino to-night. And then you could dance +afterward.' Sinister, it seemed to me." + +"And she's going to Blandings? H'm!" + +"There's nothing to 'h'm' about." + +"I'm not so sure. Oh, well, I suppose your family are quite right. I +suppose you ought really to marry some nice girl in your own set." + +Ronnie uttered a wordless cry and in his emotion allowed the mudguard +of the two-seater to glide so closely past an Austin Seven that Sue +gave a frightened squeak and the Austin Seven went on its way thinking +black thoughts. + +"Do be careful, Ronnie, you old chump!" + +"Well, what do you want to go saying things like that for? I get enough +of that from the family without having _you_ start." + +"Poor old Ronnie! I'm sorry. Still, you must admit that they'd be quite +within their rights, objecting to me. I'm not so hot, you know. Only a +chorus girl. Just one of the ensemble!" + +Ronnie said something between his teeth that sounded like "Juk!" What +he meant was, be her station never so humble, a pure, sweet girl is a +fitting mate for the highest in the land. + +"And my mother was a music-hall singer." + +"A what?" + +"A music-hall singer. What they used to call a 'serio.' You know--pink +tights and rather risky songs." + +This time Ronnie did not say, "Juk!" He merely swallowed painfully. The +information had come as a shock to him. Somehow or other he had never +thought of Sue as having encumbrances in the shape of relatives; and he +could not hide from himself the fact that a pink-tighted serio might +stir the Family up quite a little. He pictured something with peroxide +hair who would call his Uncle Clarence "dearie." + +"English, do you mean? On the halls here in London?" + +"Yes. Her stage name was Dolly Henderson." + +"Never heard of her." + +"I dare say not. But she was the rage of London twenty years ago." + +"I always thought you were American," said Ronnie, aggrieved. "I +distinctly recollect Hugo, when he introduced us, telling me that you +had just come over from New York." + +"So I had. Father took me to America soon after Mother died." + +"Oh, your mother is--er--no longer with us?" + +"No." + +"Too bad," said Ronnie, brightening. + +"My father's name was Cotterleigh. He was in the Irish Guards." + +"What!" + +Ronnie's ecstatic cry seriously inconvenienced a traffic policeman in +the exercise of his duties. + +"But this is fine! This is the goods! It doesn't matter to me, of +course, one way or the other. I'd love you just the same if your father +had sold jellied eels. But think what an enormous difference this will +make to my blasted family!" + +"I doubt it." + +"But it will. We must get him over at once and spring him on them. Or +is he in London?" + +Sue's brown eyes clouded. + +"He's dead." + +"Eh? Oh! Sorry!" said Ronnie. + +He was dashed for a moment. + +"Well, at least let me tell the family about him," he urged, +recovering. "Let me dangle him before their eyes a bit." + +"If you like. But they'll still object to me because I'm in the chorus." + +Ronnie scowled. He thought of his mother, he thought of his Aunt +Constance, and reason told him that her words were true. + +"Dash all this rot people talk about chorus girls!" he said. "They seem +to think that just because a girl works in the chorus she must be a +sort of animated champagne vat----" + +"Ugh!" + +"--spending her life dancing on supper tables with tight +stockbrokers----" + +"And not a bad way of passing an evening," said Sue meditatively. "I +must try it some time." + +"--with the result that when it's a question of her marrying anybody, +fellow's people look down their noses and kick like mules. It's +happened in our family before. My Uncle Gally was in love with some +girl on the stage back in the dark ages, and they formed a wedge and +bust the thing up and shipped him off to South Africa or somewhere +to forget her. And look at him! Drew three sober breaths in the year +nineteen hundred and then decided that was enough. I expect I shall be +the same. If I don't take to drink, cooped up at Blandings a hundred +miles away from you, I shall be vastly surprised. It's all a lot of +silly nonsense. I haven't any patience with it. I've a jolly good mind +to go to Uncle Clarence to-night and simply tell him that I'm in love +with you and intend to marry you and that if the family don't like it +they can lump it." + +"I wouldn't." + +Ronnie simmered down. + +"Perhaps you're right." + +"I'm sure I am. If he hears about me he certainly won't give you your +money; whereas, if he doesn't, he may. What sort of a man is he?" + +"Uncle Clarence? Oh, a mild, dreamy old boy. Mad about gardening and +all that. At the moment I hear he's wrapped up in his pig." + +"That sounds cosy." + +"I'd feel a lot easier in my mind, I can tell you, going down there to +tackle him, if I were a pig. I'd expect a much warmer welcome." + +"You were rather a pig just now, weren't you?" + +Ronnie quivered. Remorse gnawed the throbbing heart beneath his +beautifully cut waistcoat. + +"I'm sorry. I'm frightfully sorry. The fact is, I'm so crazy about you +I get jealous of everybody you meet. Do you know, Sue, if you ever let +me down, I'd--I don't know what I'd do. Er--Sue!" + +"Hullo?" + +"Swear something." + +"What?" + +"Swear that while I'm at Blandings you won't go out with a soul. Not +even to dance." + +"Not even to dance?" + +"No." + +"All right." + +"Especially this man Pilbeam." + +"I thought you were going to say Hugo." + +"I'm not worrying about Hugo. He's safe at Blandings." + +"Hugo at Blandings?" + +"Yes. He's secretarying for my Uncle Clarence. I made my mother get him +the job when the Hot Spot conked." + +"So you'll have him _and_ Millicent _and_ Miss Schoonmaker there to +keep you company! How nice for you." + +"Millicent!" + +"It's all very well to say 'Millicent!' like that. If you ask me, I +think she's a menace. She sounds coy and droopy. I can see her taking +you for walks by moonlight under those immemorial elms and looking up +at you with big dreamy eyes." + +"Looking down at me, you mean. She's about a foot taller than I am. +And, anyway, if you imagine there's a girl on earth who could extract +so much as a kindly glance from me when I've got you to think about +you're very much mistaken. I give you my honest word...." + +He became lyrical. Sue, leaning back, listened contentedly. The cloud +had been a threatening cloud, blackening the skies for a while, but it +had passed. The afternoon was being golden, after all. + + + III + +"By the way," said Ronnie, the flood of eloquence subsiding. "A thought +occurs. Have you any notion where we're headed for?" + +"Heaven!" + +"I mean at the moment." + +"I supposed you were taking me to tea somewhere." + +"But where? We've got right out of the tea zone. What with one thing +and another I've just been driving at random--to and fro, as it +were--and we seem to have worked round to somewhere in the Swiss +Cottage neighbourhood. We'd better switch back and set a course for the +Carlton or some place. How do you feel about the Carlton?" + +"All right." + +"Or the Ritz?" + +"Whichever you like." + +"Or--gosh!" + +"What's the matter?" + +"Sue! I've got an idea." + +"Beginner's luck." + +"Why not go to Norfolk Street?" + +"To your home?" + +"Yes. There's nobody there, and our butler is a staunch bird--he'll get +us tea and say nothing." + +"I'd like to meet a staunch butler." + +"Then shall we?" + +"I'd love it. You can show me all your little treasures and belongings +and the photographs of you as a small boy." + +Ronnie shook his head. It irked him to discourage her pretty +enthusiasm, but a man cannot afford to take risks. + +"Not those. No love could stand up against the sight of me in a sailor +suit at the age of ten. I don't mind," he said, making a concession, +"letting you see the one of me and Hugo, taken just before the Public +Schools Rackets Competition, my last year at school. We were the Eton +pair." + +"Did you win?" + +"No. At a critical moment in the semifinal that ass Hugo foozled a shot +a one-armed cripple ought to have taken with his eyes shut. It dished +us." + +"Awful!" said Sue. "Well, if I ever had any impulse to love Hugo that's +killed it." She looked about her. "I don't know this aristocratic +neighbourhood at all. How far is it to Norfolk Street?" + +"Next turning." + +"You're sure there's nobody in the house? None of the dear old family?" + +"Not a soul." + +He was right. Lady Constance Keeble was not actually in the house. At +the moment when he spoke she had just closed the front door behind her. +After waiting half an hour in the hope of her nephew's return she had +left a note for him on the hall table and was going to Claridge's to +get a cup of tea. + +It was not until he had drawn up immediately opposite the house that +Ronnie perceived what stood upon the steps. Having done so, he blanched +visibly. + +"Oh, my sainted aunt!" he said. + +And seldom can the familiar phrase have been used with more +appropriateness. + +The sainted aunt was inspecting the two-seater and its contents with a +frozen stare. Her eyebrows were two marks of interrogation. As she had +told Millicent, she was old-fashioned, and when she saw her flesh and +blood snuggled up to girls of attractive appearance in two-seaters she +suspected the worst. + +"Good-afternoon, Ronald." + +"Er--hullo, Aunt Constance." + +"Will you introduce me?" + +There is no doubt that peril sharpens the intellect. His masters at +school and his tutors at the university, having had to do with Ronald +Overbury Fish almost entirely at times when his soul was at rest, had +classed him among the less keen-witted of their charges. Had they seen +him now in this crisis they would have pointed at him with pride. +And, being the sportsmen and gentlemen that they were, they would +have hastened to acknowledge that they had grossly underestimated his +ingenuity and initiative. + +For, after turning a rather pretty geranium tint and running a finger +round the inside of his collar for an instant, as if he found it too +tight, Ronnie Fish spoke the only two words in the language which could +have averted disaster. + +"Miss Schoonmaker," he said huskily. + +Sue, at his side, gave a little gasp. These were unsuspected depths. + +"Miss Schoonmaker!" + +Lady Constance's resemblance to Apollyon straddling right across the +way had vanished abruptly. Remorse came upon her that she should have +wronged her blameless nephew with unfounded suspicion. + +"Miss Schoonmaker, my aunt, Lady Constance Keeble," said Ronnie, +going from strength to strength and speaking now quite easily and +articulately. + +Sue was not the girl to sit dumbly by and fail a partner in his hour of +need. She smiled brightly. + +"How do you do, Lady Constance?" she said. She smiled again, if +possible even more brightly than before. "I feel I know you already. +Lady Julia told me so much about you at Biarritz." + +A momentary qualm lest, in the endeavour to achieve an easy cordiality, +she had made her manner a shade too patronizing melted in the sunshine +of the older woman's smile. Lady Constance had become charming, +almost effusive. She had always hoped that Ronald and Millicent would +make a match of it; but, failing that, this rich Miss Schoonmaker +was certainly the next best thing. And driving chummily about London +together like this must surely, she thought, mean something, even in +these days when chummy driving is so prevalent between the sexes. At +any rate, she hoped so. + +"So here you are in London!" + +"Yes." + +"You did not stay long in Paris." + +"No." + +"When can you come down to Blandings?" + +"Oh, very soon, I hope." + +"I am going there this evening. I only ran up for the day. I want you +to drive me back, Ronald." + +Ronnie nodded silently. The crisis passed, a weakness had come upon +him. He preferred not to speak, if speech could be avoided. + +"Do try to come soon. The gardens are looking delightful. My brother +will be so glad to see you. I was just on my way to Claridge's for a +cup of tea. Won't you come too?" + +"I'd love to," said Sue, "but I really must be getting on. Ronnie was +taking me shopping." + +"I thought you stayed in Paris to do your shopping." + +"Not all of it." + +"Well, I shall hope to see you soon." + +"Oh, yes." + +"At Blandings." + +"Thank you so much. Ronnie, I think we ought to be getting along." + +"Yes." Ronnie's mind was blurred, but he was clear on that point. "Yes, +getting along. Pushing off." + +"Well, I'm so delighted to have seen you. My sister told me so much +about you in her letters. After you have put your luggage on the car, +Ronald, will you come and pick me up at Claridge's?" + +"Right ho." + +"I would like to make an early start, if possible." + +"Right ho." + +"Well, good-bye for the present, then." + +"Right ho." + +"Good-bye, Lady Constance." + +"Good-bye." + +The two-seater moved off, and Ronnie, taking his right hand from the +wheel as it turned the corner, groped for a handkerchief, found it, and +passed it over his throbbing brow. + +"So that was Aunt Constance!" said Sue. + +Ronnie breathed deeply. + +"Nice meeting one of whom I have heard so much." + +Ronnie replaced his hand on the wheel and twiddled it feebly to avoid a +dog. Reaction had made him limp. + +Sue was gazing at him almost reverently. + +"What genius, Ronnie! What ready wit! What presence of mind! If I +hadn't heard it with my own ears I wouldn't have believed it. Why +didn't you ever tell me you were one of those swift thinkers?" + +"I didn't know it myself." + +"Of course, I'm afraid it has complicated things a little." + +"Eh?" Ronnie started. This aspect of the matter had not struck him. +"How do you mean?" + +"When I was a child they taught me a poem----" + +Ronnie raised a suffering face to hers. + +"Don't let's talk about your childhood now, old thing," he pleaded. +"Feeling rather shaken. Any other time----" + +"It's all right. I'm not wandering from the subject. I can only +remember two lines of the poem. They were, 'Oh, what a tangled web we +weave when first we practise to deceive.' You do see the web is a bit +tangled, don't you, Ronnie, darling?" + +"Eh? Why? Everything looks pretty smooth to me. Aunt Constance +swallowed you without a yip." + +"And when the real Miss Schoonmaker arrives at Blandings with her +jewels and her twenty-four trunks?" said Sue gently. + +The two-seater swerved madly across Grosvenor Street. + +"Gosh!" said Ronnie. + +Sue's eyes were sparkling. + +"There's only one thing to do," she said. "Now you're in you'll have to +go in deeper. You'll have to put her off." + +"How?" + +"Send her a wire saying she mustn't come to Blandings because scarlet +fever or something has broken out." + +"I couldn't." + +"You must. Sign it in Lady Constance's name." + +"But suppose----" + +"Well, suppose they do find out? You won't be in any worse hole than +you will be if she comes sailing up to the front door all ready to stay +a couple of weeks. And she will unless you wire." + +"That's true." + +"What it means," said Sue, "is that instead of having plenty of time +to get that money out of Lord Emsworth you'll have to work quick." She +touched his arm. "Here's a post office," she said. "Go in and send that +wire before you weaken." + +Ronnie stopped the car. + +"You will have to do the most rapid bit of trustee touching in the +history of the world, I should think," said Sue reflectively. "Do you +think you can manage it?" + +"I'll have a jolly good prod." + +"Remember what it means." + +"I'll do that all right. The only trouble is that in the matter of +biting Uncle Clarence's ear I've nothing to rely on but my natural +charm. And as far as I've been able to make out," said Ronnie, "he +hasn't noticed yet that I have any." + +He strode into the post office, thinking deeply. + + + + + CHAPTER III + + + I + +It was the opinion of the poet Calverley, expressed in his immortal +"Ode to Tobacco," that there is no heaviness of the soul which will +not vanish beneath the influence of a quiet smoke. Ronnie Fish would +have disputed this theory. It was the third morning of his sojourn at +Blandings Castle; and, taking with him a tennis ball which he proposed +to bounce before him in order to assist thought, he had wandered out +into the grounds, smoking hard. And tobacco, though Turkish and costly, +was not lightening his despondency at all. It seemed to Ronnie that the +present was bleak and the future gray. Roaming through the sun-flooded +park, he bounced his tennis ball and groaned in spirit. + +On the credit side of the ledger one single item could be inscribed. +Hugo was at the castle. He had the consolation, therefore, of knowing +that that tall and lissom young man was not in London, exercising his +fatal fascination on Sue. But when you had said this you had said +everything. After all, even eliminating Hugo, there still remained in +the metropolis a vast population of adult males, all either acquainted +with Sue or trying to make her acquaintance. The poison sac Pilbeam, +for instance. By now it might well be that that bacillus had succeeded +in obtaining an introduction to her. A devastating thought. + +And even supposing he hadn't, even supposing that Sue, as she had +promised, was virtuously handing the mitten to all the young thugs who +surged around her with invitations to lunch and supper; where did that +get a chap? What, in other words, of the future? + +In coming to Blandings Castle Ronnie was only too well aware he had +embarked on an expedition the success or failure of which would +determine whether his life through the years was to be roses, roses +all the way or a dreary desert. And so far, in his efforts to win the +favour and esteem of his Uncle Clarence, he seemed to have made no +progress whatsoever. On the occasions when he had found himself in Lord +Emsworth's society the latter had looked at him sometimes as if he did +not know he was there, more often as if he wished he wasn't. It was +only too plain that the collapse of the Hot Spot had left his stock +in bad shape. There had been a general sagging of the market. Fish +Preferred, taking the most sanguine estimate, could scarcely be quoted +at more than about thirty to thirty-five. + +Plunged in thought and trying without any success to conjure up a +picture of a benevolent uncle patting him on the head with one hand +while writing checks with the other, he had wandered some distance from +the house and was passing a small spinney when he observed in a little +dell to his left a peculiar object. + +It was a large yellow caravan. And what, he asked himself, was a +caravan doing in the grounds of Blandings Castle? + +To aid him in grappling with the problem he flung the tennis ball at +it. Upon which the door opened and a spectacled head appeared. + +"Hullo!" said the head. + +"Hullo!" said Ronnie. + +"Hullo!" + +"Hullo!" + +The thing threatened to become a hunting chorus. At this moment, +however, the sun went behind a cloud, and Ronnie was enabled to +recognize the head's proprietor. Until now the light, shining on the +other's glasses, had dazzled him. + +"Baxter!" he exclaimed. + +The last person he would have expected to meet in the park of +Blandings. He had heard all about that row a couple of years ago. He +knew that if his own stock with Lord Emsworth was low that of the +Efficient Baxter was down in the cellar with no takers. Yet here the +fellow was, shoving his head out of caravans as if nothing had happened. + +"Ah, Fish!" + +Rupert Baxter descended the steps, a swarthy-complexioned young man +with a supercilious expression which had always been displeasing to +Ronnie. + +"What are you doing here?" asked Ronnie. + +"I happened to be taking a caravan holiday in the neighbourhood. And, +finding myself at Market Blandings last night, I thought I would pay a +visit to the place where I had spent so many happy days." + +"I see." + +"Perhaps you could tell me where I could find Lady Constance?" + +"I haven't seen her since breakfast. She's probably about somewhere." + +"I will go and inquire. If you meet her perhaps you would not mind +mentioning that I am here." + +The Efficient Baxter strode off, purposeful as ever; and Ronnie, having +speculated for a moment as to how his Uncle Clarence would comport +himself if he came suddenly round a corner and ran into this bit of the +dead past, and having registered an idle hope that, when this happened, +he might be present with a camera, inserted another cigarette in its +holder and passed on his way. + + + II + +Five minutes later Lord Emsworth, leaning pensively out of the library +window and sniffing the morning air, received an unpleasant shock. He +could have sworn he had seen his late secretary, Rupert Baxter, cross +the gravel and go in at the front door. + +"Bless my soul!" said Lord Emsworth. + +The only explanation that occurred to him was that Baxter, having +met with some fatal accident, had come back to haunt the place. To +suppose the fellow could be here in person was absurd. When you shoot +a secretary out for throwing flower pots at you in the small hours he +does not return to pay social calls. A frown furrowed his lordship's +brow. The spectre of one of his ancestors he could have put up with, +but the idea of a Blandings Castle haunted by Baxter he did not relish +at all. He decided to visit his sister Constance in her boudoir and see +what she had to say about it. + +"Constance, my dear." + +Lady Constance looked up from the letter she was writing. She clicked +her tongue, for it annoyed her to be interrupted at her correspondence. + +"Well, Clarence?" + +"I say, Constance, a most extraordinary thing happened just now. I was +looking out of the library window and--you remember Baxter?" + +"Of course I remember Mr. Baxter." + +"Well, his ghost has just walked across the gravel." + +"What _are_ you talking about, Clarence?" + +"I'm telling you. I was looking out of the library window and I +suddenly saw----" + +"Mr. Baxter," announced Beach, flinging open the door. + +"Mr. Baxter!" + +"Good-morning, Lady Constance." + +Rupert Baxter advanced with joyous camaraderie glinting from both +lenses. Then he perceived his former employer, and his exuberance +diminished. "Er--good-morning, Lord Emsworth," he said, flashing his +spectacles austerely upon him. + +There was a pause. Lord Emsworth adjusted his pince-nez and regarded +the visitor dumbly. Of the relief which was presumably flooding his +soul at the discovery that Rupert Baxter was still on this side of the +veil he gave no outward sign. + +Baxter was the first to break an uncomfortable silence. + +"I happened to be taking a caravan holiday in this neighbourhood, +Lady Constance, and finding myself near Market Blandings last night I +thought I would...." + +"Why, of course! We should never have forgiven you if you had not come +to see us. Should we, Clarence?" + +"Eh?" + +"I said, should we?" + +"Should we what?" said Lord Emsworth, who was still adjusting his mind. + +Lady Constance's lips tightened, and a moment passed during which it +seemed always a fifty-fifty chance that a handsome silver ink pot would +fly through the air in the direction of her brother's head. But she was +a strong woman. She fought down the impulse. + +"Did you say you were travelling in a caravan, Mr. Baxter?" + +"In a caravan. I left it in the park." + +"Well, of course you must come and stay with us. The castle," she +continued, raising her voice a little, to compete with a sort of +wordless bubbling which had begun to proceed from her brother's lips, +"is almost empty just now. We shall not be having our first big house +party till the middle of next month. You must make quite a long visit. +I will send somebody over to fetch your things." + +"It is exceedingly kind of you." + +"It will be delightful having you here again. Won't it, Clarence?" + +"Eh?" + +"I said, won't it?" + +"Won't it what?" + +Lady Constance's hand trembled above the ink pot like a hovering +butterfly. She withdrew it. + +"Will it not be delightful," she said, catching her brother's eye and +holding it like a female Ancient Mariner, "having Mr. Baxter back at +the castle again?" + +"I'm going down to see my pig," said Lord Emsworth. + +A silence followed his departure, such as would have fallen had a +coffin just been carried out. Then Lady Constance shook off gloom. + +"Oh, Mr. Baxter, I'm so glad you were able to come. And how clever +of you to come in a caravan. It prevented your arrival seeming +prearranged." + +"I thought of that." + +"You think of everything." + +Rupert Baxter stepped to the door, opened it, satisfied himself that no +listeners lurked in the passage, and returned to his seat. + +"Are you in any trouble, Lady Constance? Your letter seemed so very +urgent." + +"I am in dreadful trouble, Mr. Baxter." + +If Rupert Baxter had been a different type of man and Lady Constance +Keeble a different type of woman he would probably at this point have +patted her hand. As it was he merely hitched his chair an inch closer +to hers. + +"If there is anything I can do?" + +"There is nobody except you who can do anything. But I hardly like to +ask you." + +"Ask me whatever you please. And if it is in my power...." + +"Oh, it is." + +Rupert Baxter gave his chair another hitch. + +"Tell me." + +Lady Constance hesitated. + +"It seems such an impossible thing to ask of anyone." + +"Please!" + +"Well--you know my brother?" + +Baxter seemed puzzled. Then an explanation of the peculiar question +presented itself. + +"Oh, you mean Mr...?" + +"Yes, yes, yes. Of course I wasn't referring to Lord Emsworth. My +brother Galahad." + +"I have met him. Oddly enough, though he visited the castle twice +during the period when I was Lord Emsworth's secretary, I was away both +times on my holiday. Is he here now?" + +"Yes. Finishing his Reminiscences." + +"I saw in some paper that he was writing the history of his life." + +"And if you know what a life his has been you will understand why I am +distracted." + +"Certainly I have heard stories," said Baxter guardedly. + +Lady Constance performed that movement with her hands which came so +close to wringing. + +"The book is full from beginning to end of libellous anecdotes, Mr. +Baxter. About all our best friends. If it is published we shall +not have a friend left. Galahad seems to have known everybody in +England when they were young and foolish and to remember everything +particularly foolish and disgraceful that they did. So----" + +"So you want me to get hold of the manuscript and destroy it?" + +Lady Constance stared, stunned by this penetration. She told herself +that she might have known that she would not have to make long +explanations to Rupert Baxter. His mind was like a searchlight, darting +hither and thither, lighting up whatever it touched. + +"Yes," she gasped. She hurried on. "It does seem, I know, an +extraordinary thing to----" + +"Not at all." + +"--but Lord Emsworth refuses to do anything." + +"I see." + +"You know how he is in the face of any emergency." + +"Yes, I do, indeed." + +"So supine. So helpless. So vague and altogether incompetent." + +"Precisely." + +"Mr. Baxter, you are my only hope." + +Baxter removed his spectacles, polished them, and put them back again. + +"I shall be delighted, Lady Constance, to do anything to help you that +lies in my power. And to obtain possession of this manuscript should be +an easy task. But is there only one copy of it in existence?" + +"Yes, yes, yes. I am sure of that. Galahad told me that he was waiting +till it was finished before sending it to the typist." + +"Then you need have no further anxiety." + +It was a moment when Lady Constance Keeble would have given much for +eloquence. She sought for words that should adequately express her +feelings, but could find none. + +"Oh, Mr. Baxter!" she said. + +Ronnie Fish's aimlessly wandering feet had taken him westward. It was +not long, accordingly, before there came to his nostrils a familiar and +penetrating odour, and he found that he was within a short distance of +the detached residence employed by Empress of Blandings as a combined +bedroom and restaurant. A few steps and he was enabled to observe that +celebrated animal in person. With her head tucked well down and her +tail wiggling with pure _joie de vivre_, the Empress was hoisting in a +spot of lunch. + +Everybody likes to see somebody eating. Ronnie leaned over the rail, +absorbed. He poised the tennis ball and with an absent-minded flick +of the wrist bounced it on the silver medallist's back. Finding the +pleasant, ponging sound which resulted soothing to harassed nerves, he +did it again. The Empress made excellent bouncing. She was not one of +your razor-backs. She presented a wide and resistant surface. For some +minutes, therefore, the pair carried on according to plan--she eating, +he bouncing, until presently Ronnie was thrilled to discover that this +outdoor sport of his was assisting thought. Gradually--mistily at +first, then assuming shape--a plan of action was beginning to emerge +from the murk of his mind. + +How would this be, for instance? + +If there was one thing calculated to appeal to his Uncle Clarence, +to induce in his Uncle Clarence a really melting mood, it was the +announcement that somebody desired to return to the land. He loved to +hear of people returning to the land. How, then, would this be? Go to +the old boy, state that one had seen the light and was in complete +agreement with him that England's future depended on checking the drift +to the towns, and then ask for a good fat slice of capital with which +to start a farm. + +The project of starting a farm was one which was bound to----Half +a minute. Another idea on the way. Yes, here it came, and it was a +pippin. Not merely just an ordinary farm, but a pig farm! Wouldn't +Uncle Clarence leap in the air and shower gold on anybody who wanted to +live in the country and breed pigs? You bet your Sunday cuffs he would. +And, once the money was safely deposited to the account of Ronald +Overbury Fish in Cox's Bank, then ho! for the registrar's hand in hand +with Sue. + +There was a musical _plonk_ as Ronnie bounced the ball for the last +time on the Empress's complacent back. Then, no longer with dragging +steps but treading on air, he wandered away to sketch out the last +details of the scheme before going indoors and springing it. + + + III + +Too often it happens that, when you get these brain waves, you take +another look at them after a short interval and suddenly detect some +fatal flaw. No such disappointment came to mar the happiness of Ronnie +Fish. + +"I say, Uncle Clarence," he said, prancing into the library some half +hour later. + +Lord Emsworth was deep in the current issue of a weekly paper of +porcine interest. It seemed to Ronnie, as he looked up, that his eye +was not any too chummy. This, however, did not disturb him. That eye, +he was confident, would melt anon. If, at the moment, Lord Emsworth +could hardly have sat for his portrait in the rôle of a benevolent +uncle, there would, Ronnie felt, be a swift change of demeanour in the +very near future. + +"I say, Uncle Clarence, you know that capital of mine." + +"That what?" + +"My capital. My money. The money you're trustee of. And a jolly good +trustee," said Ronnie handsomely. "Well, I've been thinking things +over, and I want you, if you will, to disgorge a segment of it for a +sort of venture I've got in mind." + +He had not expected the eye to melt yet, and it did not. Seen through +the glass of his uncle's pince-nez it looked like an oyster in an +aquarium. + +"You wish to start another night club?" + +Lord Emsworth's voice was cold, and Ronnie hastened to disabuse him of +the idea. + +"No, no. Nothing like that. Night clubs are a mug's game. I ought never +to have touched them. As a matter of fact, Uncle Clarence, London as +a whole seems to me a bit of a washout these days. I'm all for the +country. What I feel is that the drift to the towns should be checked. +What England wants is more blokes going back to the land. That's the +way it looks to me." + +Ronnie Fish began to experience the first definite twinges of +uneasiness. This was the point at which he had been confident that the +melting process would set in. Yet, watching the eye, he was dismayed +to find it as oysterlike as ever. He felt like an actor who has been +counting on a round of applause and goes off after his big speech +without a hand. The idea occurred to him that his uncle might possibly +have grown a little hard of hearing. + +"To the land," he repeated, raising his voice. "More blokes going back +to the land. So I want a dollop of capital to start a farm." + +He braced himself for the supreme revelation. + +"I want to breed pigs," he said reverently. + +Something was wrong. There was no blinking the fact any longer. So far +from leaping in the air and showering gold his uncle merely stared at +him in an increasingly unpleasant manner. Lord Emsworth had removed his +pince-nez and was wiping them; and Ronnie thought that his eye looked +rather less agreeable in the nude than it had done through glass. + +"Pigs!" he cried, fighting against a growing alarm. + +"Pigs?" + +"Pigs." + +"You wish to breed pigs?" + +"That's right," bellowed Ronnie. "Pigs!" And from somewhere in his +system he contrived to dig up and fasten on his face an ingratiating +smile. + +Lord Emsworth replaced his pince-nez. + +"And I suppose," he said throatily, quivering from his head to his +roomy shoes, "that when you've got 'em you'll spend the whole day +bouncing tennis balls on their backs?" + +Ronnie gulped. The shock had been severe. The ingratiating smile +lingered on his lips, as if fastened there with pins, but his eyes were +round and horrified. + +"Eh?" he said feebly. + +Lord Emsworth rose. So long as he insisted on wearing an old shooting +jacket with holes in the elbows and letting his tie slip down and +show the head of a brass stud, he could never hope to be completely +satisfactory as a figure of outraged majesty; but he achieved as +imposing an effect as his upholstery would permit. He drew himself up +to his full height, which was considerable, and from this eminence +glared balefully down on his nephew. + +"I saw you! I was on my way to the piggery and I saw you bouncing your +infernal tennis balls on my pig's back. Tennis balls!" Fire seemed to +stream from the pince-nez. "Are you aware that Empress of Blandings is +an excessively nervous, highly strung animal, only too ready on the +lightest provocation to refuse her meals? You might have undone the +work of months with your idiotic tennis ball." + +"I'm sorry." + +"What's the good of being sorry?" + +"I never thought----" + +"You never do. That's what's the trouble with you. Pig farm!" said Lord +Emsworth vehemently, his voice soaring into the upper register. "You +couldn't manage a pig farm. You aren't fit to manage a pig farm. You +aren't worthy to manage a pig farm. If I had to select somebody out of +the whole world to manage a pig farm I would choose you last." + +Ronnie Fish groped his way to the table and supported himself on it. +He had a sensation of dizziness. On one point he was reasonably clear, +viz.: that his Uncle Clarence did not consider him ideally fitted to +manage a pig farm, but apart from that his mind was in a whirl. He felt +as if he had stepped on something and it had gone off with a bang. + +"Here! What _is_ all this?" + +It was the Hon. Galahad who had spoken, and he had spoken peevishly. +Working in the small library with the door ajar, he had found the +babble of voices interfering with literary composition and, justifiably +annoyed, had come to investigate. + +"Can't you do your reciting some time when I'm not working, Clarence?" +he said. "What's all the trouble about?" + +Lord Emsworth was still full of his grievance. + +"He bounced tennis balls on my pig!" + +The Hon. Galahad was not impressed. He did not register horror. + +"Do you mean to tell me," he said sternly, "that all this fuss, ruining +my morning's work, was simply about that blasted pig of yours?" + +"I refuse to allow you to call the Empress a blasted pig! Good +heavens!" cried Lord Emsworth passionately. "Can none of my family +appreciate the fact that she is the most remarkable animal in Great +Britain? No pig in the whole annals of the Shropshire Agricultural Show +has ever won the silver medal two years in succession. And that, if +only people will leave her alone and refrain from incessantly pelting +her with tennis balls, is what the Empress is quite certain to do. It +is an unheard of feat." + +The Hon. Galahad frowned. He shook his head reprovingly. It was all +very well, he felt, a stable being optimistic about its nominee, but +he was a man who could face facts. In a long and checkered life he had +seen so many good things unstuck. Besides, he had his superstitions, +and one of them was that counting your chickens in advance brought bad +luck. + +"Don't be too cocksure, my boy," he said gravely. "I looked in at +the Emsworth Arms the other day for a glass of beer, and there was a +fellow in there offering three to one on an animal called Pride of +Matchingham. Offering it freely. Tall, red-haired fellow with a squint. +Slightly bottled." + +Lord Emsworth forgot Ronnie, forgot tennis balls, forgot in the shock +of this announcement everything except that deeper wrong which so long +had been poisoning his peace. + +"Pride of Matchingham belongs to Sir Gregory Parsloe," he said, "and I +have no doubt that the man offering such ridiculous odds was his pig +man, Wellbeloved. As you know, the fellow used to be in my employment, +but Parsloe lured him away from me by the promise of higher wages." +Lord Emsworth's expression had now become positively ferocious. The +thought of George Cyril Wellbeloved, that perjured pig man, always +made the iron enter into his soul. "It was a most abominable and +unneighbourly thing to do." + +The Hon. Galahad whistled. + +"So that's it, is it? Parsloe's pig man going about offering three to +one--against the form book, I take it?" + +"Most decidedly. Pride of Matchingham was awarded second prize last +year, but it is a quite inferior animal to the Empress." + +"Then you look after that pig of yours, Clarence." The Hon. Galahad +spoke earnestly. "I see what this means. Parsloe's up to his old games +and intends to queer the Empress somehow." + +"Queer her?" + +"Nobble her; or, if he can't do that, steal her." + +"You don't mean that?" + +"I do mean it. The man's as slippery as a greased eel. He would nobble +his grandmother if it suited his book. Let me tell you I've known young +Parsloe for thirty years, and I solemnly state that if his grandmother +was entered in a competition for fat pigs and his commitments made it +desirable for him to get her out of the way, he would dope her bran +mash and acorns without a moment's hesitation." + +"God bless my soul!" said Lord Emsworth, deeply impressed. + +"Let me tell you a little story about young Parsloe. One or two of +us used to meet at the Black Footman in Gossiter Street in the old +days--they've pulled it down now--and match our dogs against rats in +the room behind the bar. Well, I put my Towser, an admirable beast, +up against young Parsloe's Banjo on one occasion for a hundred pounds +a side. And when the night came and he was shown the rats I'm dashed +if he didn't just give a long yawn and roll over and go to sleep. I +whistled him--called him--Towser, Towser!--No good--fast asleep. And +my firm belief has always been that young Parsloe took him aside just +before the contest was to start and gave him about six pounds of steak +and onions. Couldn't prove anything, of course, but I sniffed the dog's +breath, and it was like opening the kitchen door of a Soho chophouse on +a summer night. That's the sort of man young Parsloe is." + +"Galahad!" + +"Fact. You'll find the story in my book." + +Lord Emsworth was tottering to the door. + +"God bless my soul! I never realized ... I must see Pirbright at once. +I didn't suspect.... It never occurred...." + +The door closed behind him. The Hon. Galahad, preparing to return to +his labours, was arrested by the voice of his nephew Ronald. + +"Uncle Gally!" + +The young man's pink face had flamed to a bright crimson. His eyes +gleamed strangely. + +"Well?" + +"You don't really think Sir Gregory will try to steal the Empress?" + +"I certainly do. Known him for thirty years, I tell you." + +"But how could he?" + +"Go to her sty at night, of course, and take her away." + +"And hide her somewhere?" + +"Yes." + +"But an animal of that size. Rather like looking in at the Zoo and +pocketing one of the elephants, what?" + +"Don't talk like an idiot. She's got a ring through her nose, hasn't +she?" + +"You mean, Sir Gregory would catch hold of the ring and she would +breeze along quite calmly?" + +"Certainly. Puffy Benger and I stole old Wivenhoe's pig the night of +the Bachelors Ball at Hammers Easton in the year '95. We put it in Plug +Basham's bedroom. There was no difficulty about the thing whatsoever. A +little child could have led it." + +He withdrew into the small library, and Ronnie slid limply into the +chair which Lord Emsworth had risen from so majestically. He felt the +need of sitting. The inspiration which had just come to him had had a +stunning effect. The brilliance of it almost frightened him. That idea +about starting a pig farm had shown that this was one of his bright +mornings, but he had never foreseen that he would be as bright as this. + +"Golly!" said Ronnie. + +Could he...? + +Well, why not? + +Suppose.... + +No, the thing was impossible. + +Was it? Why? Why was it impossible? Suppose he had a stab at it. +Suppose, following his Uncle Galahad's expert hints, he were to creep +out to-night, abstract the Empress from her home, hide her somewhere +for a day or two, and then spectacularly restore her to her bereaved +owner? What would be the result? Would Uncle Clarence sob on his neck +or would he not? Would he feel that no reward was too good for his +benefactor or wouldn't he? Most decidedly he would. Fish Preferred +would soar immediately. That little matter of the advance of capital +would solve itself. Money would stream automatically from the Emsworth +coffers. + +But could it be done? Ronnie forced himself to examine the scheme +dispassionately, with a mind alert for snags. + +He could detect none. A suitable hiding place occurred to him +immediately--that disused gamekeeper's cottage in the west wood. Nobody +ever went there. It would be as good as a Safe Deposit. + +Risk of detection? Why should there be any risk of detection? Who would +think of connecting Ronald Fish with the affair? + +Feeding the animal?... + +Ronnie's face clouded. Yes, here at last was the snag. This did present +difficulties. He was vague as to what pigs ate, but he knew that they +needed a lot of whatever it was. It would be no use restoring to Lord +Emsworth a skeleton Empress. The cuisine must be maintained at its +existing level or the thing might just as well be left undone. + +For the first time he began to doubt the quality of his recent +inspiration. Scanning the desk with knitted brows, he took from the +book rest the volume entitled _Pigs, and How to Make Them Pay_. A +glance at page 61 and his misgivings were confirmed. + +"'myes," said Ronnie, having skimmed through all the stuff about barley +meal and maize meal and linseed meal and potatoes and separated milk or +buttermilk. This, he now saw clearly, was no one-man job. It called not +only for a dashing principal but a zealous assistant. + +And what assistant? + +Hugo? + +No. In many respects the ideal accomplice for an undertaking of +this nature, Hugo Carmody had certain defects that automatically +disqualified him. To enrol Hugo as his lieutenant would mean revealing +to him the motives that lay at the back of the venture. And if Hugo +knew that he, Ronnie, was endeavouring to collect funds in order to get +married the thing would be all over Shropshire in a couple of days. +Short of putting it on the front page of the _Daily Mail_ or having +it broadcast over the wireless, the surest way of obtaining publicity +for anything you wanted kept dark was to confide it to Hugo Carmody. A +splendid chap, but the real, genuine human colander. No, not Hugo. + +Then who...? + +Ah! + +Ronnie Fish sprang from his chair, threw his head back, and uttered a +yodel of joy so loud and penetrating that the door of the small library +flew open as if he had touched a spring. + +A tousled literary man emerged. + +"Stop that damned noise! How the devil can I write with a row like that +going on?" + +"Sorry, Uncle. I was just thinking of something." + +"Well, think of something else. How do you spell 'intoxicated?'" + +"One 'x.'" + +"Thanks," said the Hon. Galahad, and vanished again. + + + IV + +In his pantry, in shirt-sleeved ease, Beach, the butler, sat taking +the well-earned rest of a man whose silver is all done and who has +no further duties to perform till lunch time. A bullfinch sang gaily +in a cage on the window sill, but it did not disturb him, for he was +absorbed in the Racing Intelligence page of the _Morning Post_. + +Suddenly he rose, palpitating. A sharp rap had sounded on the door, and +he was a man who reacted nervously to sudden noises. There entered his +employer's nephew, Mr. Ronald Fish. + +"Hullo, Beach." + +"Sir?" + +"Busy?" + +"No, sir." + +"Just thought I'd look in." + +"Yes, sir." + +"For a chat." + +"Very good, sir." + +Although the butler spoke with his usual smooth courtesy he was far +from feeling easy in his mind. He did not like Ronnie's looks. It +seemed to him that his young visitor was feverish. The limbs twitched, +the eyes gleamed, the blood pressure appeared heightened, and there was +a supernormal pinkness in the epidermis of the cheek. + +"Long time since we had a cosy talk, Beach." + +"Yes, sir." + +"When I was a kid I used to be in and out of this pantry of yours all +day long." + +"Yes, sir." + +A mood of extreme sentimentality now appeared to grip the young man. He +sighed like a centenarian recalling far-off, happy things. + +"Those were the days, Beach." + +"Yes, sir." + +"No problems then. No worries. And even if I had worries I could always +bring them to you, couldn't I?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Remember the time I hid in here when my uncle Gally was after me with +a whangee for putting tin-tacks on his chair?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"It was a close call, but you saved me. You were staunch and true. A +man in a million. I've always thought that if there were more people +like you in the world it would be a better place." + +"I do my best to give satisfaction, sir." + +"And how you succeed! I shall never forget your kindness in those dear +old days, Beach." + +"Extremely good of you to say so, sir." + +"Later, as the years went by, I did my best to repay you by sharing +with you such snips as came my way. Remember the time I gave you +Blackbird for the Manchester November Handicap?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"You collected a packet." + +"It did prove a remarkably sound investment, sir." + +"Yes. And so it went on. I look back through the years, and I seem to +see you and me standing side by side, each helping each, each doing the +square thing by the other. You certainly always did the square thing by +me." + +"I trust I shall always continue to do so, sir." + +"I know you will, Beach. It isn't in you to do otherwise. And that," +said Ronnie, beaming on him lovingly, "is why I feel so sure that, when +I have stolen my uncle's pig, you will be there helping to feed it till +I give it back." + +The butler's was not a face that registered nimbly. It took some time +for a look of utter astonishment to cover its full acreage. Such a look +had spread to perhaps two thirds of its surface when Ronnie went on. + +"You see, Beach, strictly between ourselves, I have made up my mind to +sneak the Empress away and keep her hidden in that gamekeeper's cottage +in the west wood, and then, when Uncle Clarence is sending out S O S's +and offering large rewards, I shall find it there and return it, thus +winning his undying gratitude and putting him in the right frame of +mind to yield up a bit of my money that I want to get out of him. You +get the idea?" + +The butler blinked. He was plainly endeavouring to conquer a suspicion +that his mind was darkening. Ronnie nodded kindly at him as he fought +for speech. + +"It's the scheme of a lifetime, you were going to say? You're quite +right. It is. But it's one of these schemes that call for a sympathetic +fellow worker. You see, pigs like the Empress, Beach, require large +quantities of food at frequent intervals. I can't possibly handle the +entire commissariat department myself. That's where you're going to +help me, like the splendid fellow you are and always have been." + +The butler had now begun to gargle slightly. He cast a look of agonized +entreaty at the bullfinch, but the bird had no comfort to offer. +It continued to chirp reflectively to itself, like a man trying to +remember a tune in his bath. + +"An enormous quantity of food they need," proceeded Ronnie. "You'd be +surprised. Here it is in this book I took from my uncle's desk. At +least six pounds of meal a day, not to mention milk or buttermilk and +bran made sloppy with swill." + +Speech at last returned to the butler. It took the form at first of a +faint sound like the cry of a frightened infant. Then words came. + +"But, Mr. Ronald...!" + +Ronnie stared at him incredulously. He seemed to be wrestling with an +unbelievable suspicion. + +"Don't tell me you're thinking of throwing me down, Beach? You? +My friend since I was so high?" He laughed. He could see now how +ridiculous the idea was. "Of course you aren't! You couldn't. Apart +from wanting to do me a good turn you've gathered by this time with +that quick intelligence of yours that there's money in the thing. Ten +quid down, Beach, the moment you give the nod. And nobody knows better +than yourself that ten quid, invested on Baby Bones for the Medbury +Selling Plate at the current odds, means considerably more than a +hundred in your sock on settling day." + +"But, sir--it's impossible. I couldn't dream.... If ever it was found +out.... Really, I don't think you ought to ask me, Mr. Ronald." + +"Beach!" + +"Yes, but really, sir...." + +Ronnie fixed him with a compelling eye. + +"Think well, Beach. Who gave you Creole Queen for the Lincolnshire?" + +"But, Mr. Ronald...." + +"Who gave you Mazawattee for the Jubilee Stakes, Beach? What a beauty!" + +A tense silence fell upon the pantry. Even the bullfinch was hushed. + +"And it may interest you to know," said Ronnie, "that just before I +left London I heard of something really hot for the Goodwood Cup." + +A low gasp escaped Beach. All butlers are sportsmen, and Beach had been +a butler for eighteen years. Mere gratitude for past favours might not +have been enough in itself to turn the scale, but this was different. +On the subject of form for the Goodwood Cup he had been quite unable to +reach a satisfying decision. It had baffled him. For days he had been +groping in the darkness. + +"Jujube, sir?" he whispered. + +"Not Jujube." + +"Ginger George?" + +"Not Ginger George. It's no use your trying to guess, for you'll never +do it. Only two touts and the stable cat know this one. But you shall +know it, Beach, the minute I give that pig back and claim my reward. +And that pig needs to be fed. Beach, how about it?" + +For a long minute the butler stared before him, silent. Then, as if he +felt that some simple, symbolic act of the sort was what this moment +demanded, he went to the bullfinch's cage and put a green baize cloth +over it. + +"Tell me just what it is you wish me to do, Mr. Ronald," he said. + + + V + +The dawn of another day crept upon Blandings Castle. Hour by hour the +light grew stronger till, piercing the curtains of Ronnie's bedroom, it +woke him from a disturbed slumber. He turned sleepily on the pillow. +He was dimly conscious of having had the most extraordinary dream, all +about stealing pigs. In this dream.... + +He sat up with a jerk. Like cold water dashed in his face had come the +realization that it had been no dream. + +"Gosh!" said Ronnie, blinking. + +Few things have such a tonic effect on a young man accustomed to be +a little heavy on waking in the morning as the discovery that he has +stolen a prize pig overnight. Usually, at this hour, Ronnie was more +or less of an inanimate mass till kindly hands brought him his early +cup of tea; but to-day he thrilled all down his pajama-clad form with a +novel alertness. Not since he had left school had he sprung out of bed, +but he did so now. Bed, generally so attractive to him, had lost its +fascination. He wanted to be up and about. + +He had bathed, shaved, and was slipping into his trousers when his +toilet was interrupted by the arrival of his old friend Hugo Carmody. +On Hugo's face there was an expression which it was impossible to +misread. It indicated as plainly as a label that he had come bearing +news, and Ronnie, guessing the nature of this news, braced himself to +be suitably startled. + +"Ronnie!" + +"Well?" + +"Heard what's happened?" + +"What?" + +"You know that pig of your uncle's?" + +"What about it?" + +"It's gone." + +"Gone!" + +"Gone!" said Hugo, rolling the word round his tongue. "I met the old +boy half a minute ago, and he told me. It seems he went down to the pig +bin for a before-breakfast look at the animal and it wasn't there." + +"Wasn't there?" + +"Wasn't there." + +"How do you mean, wasn't there?" + +"Well, it wasn't. Wasn't there at all. It had gone." + +"Gone?" + +"Gone! Its room was empty and its bed had not been slept in." + +"Well, I'm dashed!" said Ronnie. + +He was feeling pleased with himself. He felt he had played his part +well. Just the right incredulous amazement, changing just soon enough +into stunned belief. + +"You don't seem very surprised," said Hugo. + +Ronnie was stung. The charge was monstrous. + +"Yes, I do," he cried. "I seem frightfully surprised. I _am_ surprised. +Why shouldn't I be surprised?" + +"All right. Just as you say. Spring about a bit more, though, another +time when I bring you these sensational items. Well, I'll tell you one +thing," said Hugo with satisfaction. "Out of evil cometh good. It's an +ill wind that has no turning. For me this startling occurrence has been +a life saver. I've got thirty-six hours' leave out of it. The old boy +is sending me up to London to get a detective." + +"A what?" + +"A detective." + +"A detective!" + +Ronnie was conscious of a marked spasm of uneasiness. He had not +bargained for detectives. + +"From a place called the Argus Enquiry Agency." + +Ronnie's uneasiness increased. This thing was not going to be so simple +after all. He had never actually met a detective, but he had read a lot +about them. They nosed about and found clues. For all he knew he might +have left a hundred clues. + +"Naturally I shall have to stay the night in town. And, much as I like +this place," said Hugo, "there's no denying that a night in town won't +hurt. I've got fidgety feet, and a spot of dancing will do me all the +good in the world. Bring back the roses to my cheeks." + +"Whose idea was it, getting down this blighted detective?" demanded +Ronnie. He knew he was not being nonchalant, but he was disturbed. + +"Mine." + +"Yours, eh?" + +"All mine. I suggested it." + +"You did, did you?" said Ronnie. + +He directed at his companion a swift glance of a kind that no one +should have directed at an old friend. + +"Oh?" he said morosely. "Well, buzz off. I want to dress." + + + VI + +A morning spent in solitary wrestling with a guilty conscience had left +Ronnie Fish thoroughly unstrung. By the time the clock over the stable +struck the hour of one his mental condition had begun to resemble that +of the late Eugene Aram. He paced the lower terrace with bent head, +starting occasionally at the sudden chirp of a bird, and longed for +Sue. Five minutes of Sue, he felt, would make him a new man. + +It was perfectly foul, mused Ronnie, this being separated from the girl +he loved. There was something about Sue--he couldn't describe it, but +something that always seemed to act on a fellow's whole system like a +powerful pick-me-up. She was the human equivalent of those pink drinks +you went and got--or, rather, which you used to go and get before a +good woman's love had made you give up all that sort of thing--at that +chemist's at the top of the Haymarket after a wild night on the moors. +It must have been with a girl like Sue in mind, he felt, that the poet +had written those lines "When something something something brow, a +ministering angel thou"! + +At this point in his meditations, a voice from immediately behind him +spoke his name. + +"I say, Ronnie." + +It was only his cousin Millicent. He became calmer. For an instant, so +deep always is a criminal's need for a confidant, he had a sort of idea +of sharing his hideous secret with this girl, between whom and himself +there had long existed a pleasant friendship. Then he abandoned the +notion. His secret was not one that could be lightly shared. Momentary +relief of mind was not worth purchasing at the cost of endless anxiety. + +"Ronnie, have you seen Mr. Carmody anywhere?" + +"Hugo? He went up to London on the ten-thirty." + +"Went up to London? What for?" + +"He's gone to a place called the Argus Enquiry Agency to get a +detective." + +"What, to investigate this business of the Empress?" + +"Yes." + +Millicent laughed. The idea tickled her. + +"I'd like to be there to see old man Argus's face when he finds that +all he's wanted for is to track down missing pigs. I should think he +would beat Hugo over the head with a bloodstain." + +Her laughter trailed away. There had come into her face the look of one +suddenly visited by a displeasing thought. + +"Ronnie!" she said. + +"Hullo?" + +"Do you know what?" + +"What?" + +"This looks fishy to me." + +"How do you mean?" + +"Well, I don't know how it strikes you, but this Argus Enquiry Agency +is presumably on the 'phone. Why didn't Uncle Clarence just ring them +up and ask them to send down a man?" + +"Probably didn't think of it." + +"Whose idea was it, anyway, getting down a man?" + +"Hugo's." + +"He suggested that he should run up to town?" + +"Yes." + +"I thought as much," said Millicent darkly. + +"What do you mean?" + +Millicent's eyes narrowed. She kicked moodily at a passing worm. + +"I don't like it," she said. "It's fishy. Too much zeal. It looks very +much to me as if our Mr. Carmody had a special reason for wanting to +get up to London for the night. And I think I know what the reason was. +Did you ever hear of a girl named Sue Brown?" + +The start which Ronnie gave eclipsed in magnitude all the other starts +he had given that morning. And they had been many and severe. + +"It isn't true!" + +"What isn't true?" + +"That there's anything whatever between Hugo and Sue Brown." + +"Oh? Well, I had it from an authoritative source." + +It was not the worm's lucky morning. It had now reached Ronnie, and he +kicked at it, too. The worm had the illusion that it had begun to rain +shoes. + +"I've got to go in and make a 'phone call," said Millicent abruptly. + +Ronnie scarcely noticed her departure. He had supposed himself to have +been doing some pretty tense thinking all the morning, but compared +with its activity now his brain hitherto had been stagnant. + +It couldn't be true, he told himself. Sue had said definitely that it +wasn't, and she couldn't have been lying to him. Girls like Sue didn't +lie. And yet.... + +The sound of the luncheon gong floated over the garden. + +Well, one thing was certain. It was simply impossible to remain +here at Blandings Castle, getting his mind poisoned with doubts and +speculations which for the life of him he could not keep out of it. If +he took the two-seater and drove off in it the moment this infernal +meal was over he could be in London before eight. He could call at +Sue's flat; receive her assurance once more that Hugo Carmody, tall and +lissom though he might be, expert on the saxophone though he admittedly +was, meant nothing to her; take her out to dinner and, while dining, +ease his mind of that which weighed upon it. Then, fortified with +comfort and advice, he could pop into the car and be back at the castle +by lunch time on the following day. + +It wasn't, of course, that he didn't trust her implicitly. +Nevertheless.... + +Ronnie went in to lunch. + + + + + CHAPTER IV + + + I + +If you go up Beeston Street in the southwestern postal division of +London and follow the pavement on the right-hand side, you come to a +blind alley called Hayling Court. If you enter the first building on +the left of this blind alley and mount a flight of stairs you find +yourself facing a door, on the ground glass of which is the legend: + + ARGUS + ENQUIRY + AGENCY + LTD. + +and below it, to one side, the smaller legend + + P. FROBISHER PILBEAM, MGR. + +And if, at about the hour when Ronnie Fish had stepped into his +two-seater in the garage of Blandings Castle, you had opened this door +and gone in and succeeded in convincing the gentlemanly office boy +that yours was a bona fide visit, having nothing to do with the sale +of life insurance, proprietary medicines, or handsomely bound sets +of Dumas, you would have been admitted to the august presence of the +manager himself. P. Frobisher Pilbeam was seated at his desk, reading a +telegram which had arrived during his absence at lunch. + +This is peculiarly an age of young men starting out in business for +themselves; of rare, unfettered spirits chafing at the bonds of +employment and refusing to spend their lives working forty-eight weeks +in the year for a salary. Quite early in his career Pilbeam had seen +where the big money lay and decided to go after it. + +As editor of that celebrated weekly scandal sheet, _Society Spice_, +Percy Pilbeam had had exceptional opportunities of discovering in +good time the true bent of his genius; with the result that, after +three years of nosing out people's discreditable secrets on behalf +of the Mammoth Publishing Company, his employers, he had come to the +conclusion that a man of his gifts would be doing far better for +himself nosing out such secrets on his own behalf. Considerably to +the indignation of Lord Tilbury, the Mammoth's guiding spirit, he had +borrowed some capital, handed in his portfolio, and was now in an +extremely agreeable financial position. + +The telegram over which he sat brooding with wrinkled forehead was just +the sort of telegram an inquiry agent ought to have been delighted +to receive, being thoroughly cryptic and consequently a pleasing +challenge to his astuteness as a detective; but Percy Pilbeam, in his +ten minutes' acquaintance with it, had come to dislike it heartily. He +preferred his telegrams easier. + +It ran as follows: + + Be sure send best man investigate big robbery. + +It was unsigned. + +What made the thing particularly annoying was that it was so +tantalizing. A big robbery probably meant jewels, with a +correspondingly big fee attached to their recovery. But you cannot +scour England at random asking people if they have had a big robbery in +their neighbourhood. + +Reluctantly he gave the problem up and, producing a pocket mirror, +began with the aid of a pen nib to curl his small and revolting +moustache. His thoughts had drifted now to Sue. They were not +altogether sunny thoughts, for the difficulty of making Sue's +acquaintance was beginning to irk Percy Pilbeam. He had written her +notes. He had sent her flowers. And nothing had happened. She ignored +the notes, and what she did with the flowers he did not know. She +certainly never thanked him for them. + +Brooding upon these matters, he was interrupted by the opening of the +door. The gentlemanly office boy entered. Pilbeam looked up, annoyed. + +"How many times have I told you not to come in here without knocking?" +he asked sternly. + +The office boy reflected. + +"Seven," he replied. + +"What would you have done if I had been in conference with an important +client?" + +"Gone out again," said the office boy. Working in a Private Enquiry +Agency, you drop into the knack of solving problems. + +"Well, go out now." + +"Very good, sir. I merely wished to say that while you were absent at +lunch a gentleman called." + +"Eh? Who was he?" + +The office boy, who liked atmosphere and hoped some day to be promoted +to the company of Mr. Murphy and Mr. Jones, the two active assistants +who had their lair on the ground floor, thought for a moment of saying +that, beyond the obvious facts that the caller was a Freemason, +left-handed, a vegetarian and a traveller in the East, he had made +no deductions from his appearance. He perceived, however, that his +employer was not in the vein for that sort of thing. + +"A Mr. Carmody, sir. Mr. Hugo Carmody." + +"Ah!" Pilbeam displayed interest. "Did he say he would call again?" + +"He mentioned the possibility, sir." + +"Well, if he does, inform Mr. Murphy and tell him to be ready when I +ring." + +The office boy retired, and Pilbeam returned to his thoughts of Sue. He +was quite certain now that he did not like her attitude. Her attitude +wounded him. Another thing he deplored was the reluctance of stage-door +keepers to reveal the private addresses of the personnel of the +company. Really, there seemed to be no way of getting to know the girl +at all. + +Eight respectful knocks sounded on the door. The office boy, though +occasionally forgetful, was conscientious. He had restored the average. + +"Well?" + +"Mr. Carmody to see you, sir." + +Pilbeam once more relegated Sue to the hinterland of his mind. Business +was business. + +"Show him in." + +"This way, sir," said the office boy with a graceful courtliness which, +even taking into account the fact that he suffered from adenoids, had +an old-world flavour, and Hugo sauntered across the threshold. + +Hugo felt, and was looking, quietly happy. He seemed to bring the +sunshine with him. Nobody could have been more wholeheartedly attached +than he to Blandings Castle and the society of his Millicent, but he +was finding London, revisited, singularly attractive. + +"And this, if I mistake not, Watson, is our client now," said Hugo +genially. + +Such was his feeling of universal benevolence that he embraced with his +goodwill even the repellent-looking young man who had risen from the +desk. Percy Pilbeam's eyes were too small and too close together, and +he marcelled his hair in a manner distressing to right-thinking people, +but to-day he had to be lumped in with the rest of the species as a man +and a brother, so Hugo bestowed a dazzling smile upon him. He still +thought Pilbeam should not have been wearing pimples with a red tie. +One or the other if he liked, but not both. Nevertheless, he smiled +upon him. + +"Fine day," he said. + +"Quite," said Pilbeam. + +"Very jolly, the smell of the asphalt and carbonic gas." + +"Quite." + +"Some people might call London a shade on the stuffy side on an +afternoon like this, but not Hugo Carmody." + +"No?" + +"No. H. Carmody finds it just what the doctor ordered." He sat down. +"Well, sleuth," he said, "to business. I called before lunch but you +were out." + +"Yes." + +"But here I am again. And I suppose you want to know what I've come +about?" + +"When you're ready to get round to it," said Pilbeam patiently. + +Hugo stretched his long legs comfortably. + +"Well, I know you detective blokes always want a fellow to begin at +the beginning and omit no detail, for there is no saying how important +some seemingly trivial fact may be. Omitting birth and early education, +then, I am at the moment private secretary to Lord Emsworth at +Blandings Castle in Shropshire. And," said Hugo, "I maintain, a jolly +good secretary. Others may think differently, but that is my view." + +"Blandings Castle?" + +A thought had struck the proprietor of the Argus Enquiry Agency. He +fumbled in his desk and produced the mysterious telegram. Yes, as he +had fancied, it had been handed in at a place called Market Blandings. + +"Do you know anything about this?" he asked, pushing it across the desk. + +Hugo glanced at the document. + +"The old boy must have sent that after I left," he said. "The absence +of signature is, no doubt, due to mental stress. Lord Emsworth is +greatly perturbed. A-twitter. Shaken to the core, you might say." + +"About this robbery?" + +"Exactly. It has got right in amongst him." + +Pilbeam reached for pen and paper. There was a stern, set, bloodhound +sort of look in his eyes. + +"Kindly give me the details." + +Hugo pondered for a moment. + +"It was a dark and stormy night----No, I'm a liar. The moon was riding +serenely in the sky----" + +"This big robbery--tell me about it." + +Hugo raised his eyebrows. + +"Big?" + +"The telegram says 'big.'" + +"These telegraph operators will try to make sense. You can't stop them +editing. The word should be 'pig.' Lord Emsworth's pig has been stolen!" + +"Pig!" cried Percy Pilbeam. + +Hugo looked at him a little anxiously. + +"You know what a pig is, surely? If not, I'm afraid there is a good +deal of tedious spade work ahead of us." + +The roseate dreams which the proprietor of the Argus had had of missing +jewels broke like bubbles. He was deeply affronted. A man of few +ideals, the one deep love of his life was for the inquiry agency which +he had created and nursed to prosperity through all the dangers and +vicissitudes which beset inquiry agencies in their infancy. And the +thought of being expected to apply its complex machinery to a search +for lost pigs cut him, as Millicent had predicted, to the quick. + +"Does Lord Emsworth seriously suppose that I have time to waste looking +for stolen pigs?" he demanded shrilly. "I never heard such nonsense in +my life." + +"Almost the exact words which all the other Hawkshaws used. Finding you +not at home," explained Hugo, "I spent the morning going round to other +agencies. I think I visited six in all, and every one of them took the +attitude you do." + +"I am not surprised." + +"Nevertheless, it seemed to me that they, like you, lacked vision. +This pig, you see, is a prize pig. Don't picture to yourself something +with a kink in its tail sporting idly in the mud. Imagine, rather, a +favourite daughter kidnapped from her ancestral home. This is heavy +stuff, I assure you. Restore the animal in time for the Agricultural +Show and you may ask of Lord Emsworth what you will, even unto half his +kingdom." + +Percy Pilbeam rose. He had heard enough. + +"I will not trouble Lord Emsworth. The Argus Enquiry Agency----" + +"--does not detect pigs? I feared as much. Well, well, so be it. +And now," said Hugo affably, "may I take advantage of the beautiful +friendship which has sprung up between us to use your telephone?" + +Without waiting for permission--for which, indeed, he would have had +to wait some time--he drew the instrument to him and gave a number. He +then began to chat again. + +"You seem a knowledgable sort of bloke," he said. "Perhaps you can tell +me where the village swains go these days when they want to dance upon +the green? I have been absent for some little time from the centre of +the vortex, and I have become as a child in these matters. What is the +best that London has to offer to a young man with his blood up and the +vine leaves more or less in his hair?" + +Pilbeam was a man of business. He had no wish to converse with this +client who had disappointed him and wounded his finest feelings, but it +so happened that he had recently bought shares in a rising restaurant. + +"Mario's," he replied promptly. "It's the only place." + +Hugo sighed. Once he had dreamed that the answer to a question like +that would have been "The Hot Spot." But where was the Hot Spot now? +Gone like the flowers that wither in the first frost. The lion and +the lizard kept the courts where Jamshyd gloried and--after hours, +unfortunately, which had started all the trouble--drank deep. Ah, well, +life was pretty complex. + +A voice from the other end of the wire broke in on his reverie. He +recognized it as that of the porter of the block of flats where Sue had +her tiny abode. + +"Hullo? Bashford? Mr. Carmody speaking. Will you make a long arm and +haul Miss Brown to the instrument. Eh? Miss Sue Brown, of course. No +other Browns are any use to me whatsoever. Right ho, I'll wait." + +The astute detective never permits himself to exhibit emotion. Pilbeam +turned his start of surprise into a grave, distrait nod, as if he were +thinking out deep problems. He took up his pen and drew three crosses +and a squiggle on the blotting paper. He was glad that no gentlemanly +instinct had urged him to leave his visitor alone to do his telephoning. + +"Mario's, eh?" said Hugo. "What's the band like?" + +"It's Leopard's." + +"Good enough for me," said Hugo with enthusiasm. He hummed a bar or +two and slid his feet dreamily about the carpet. "I'm shockingly out +of practice, dash it. Well, that's that. Touching this other matter, +you're sure you won't come to Blandings?" + +"Quite." + +"Nice place. Gravel soil, spreading views, well laid out pleasure +ground, company's own water. I would strongly advise you to bring +your magnifying glass and spend the summer. However, if you really +feel----Sue! Hullo-ullo-ullo! This is Hugo. Yes, just up in town for +the night on a mission of extraordinary secrecy and delicacy which I am +not empowered to reveal. Speaking from the Argus Enquiry Agency, by +courtesy of proprietor. I was wondering if you would care to come out +and help me restore my lost youth, starting at about eight-thirty. Eh?" + +A silence had fallen at the other end of the wire. What was happening +was that in the hall of the block of flats Sue's conscience was +fighting a grim battle against heavy odds. Ranged in opposition to it +were her loneliness, her love of dancing, and her desire once more to +see Hugo, who, though he was not a man one could take seriously, always +cheered her up and made her laugh. And she had been needing a laugh for +days. + +Hugo thought he had been cut off. + +"Hullo-ullo-ullo-ullo-ullo-ullo!" he barked peevishly. + +"Don't yodel like that," said Sue. "You've nearly made me deaf." + +"Sorry, dear heart. I thought the machine had conked. Well, how do you +react? Is it a bet?" + +"I do want to see you again," said Sue hesitatingly. + +"You shall. In person. Clean shirt, white waistcoat, the Carmody studs, +and everything." + +"Well...." + +A psychically gifted bystander, standing in the hall of the block of +flats, would have heard at this moment a faint moan. It was Sue's +conscience collapsing beneath an unexpected flank attack. She had just +remembered that if she went to dine with Hugo she would learn all +the latest news about Ronnie. It put the whole thing in an entirely +different light. Surely Ronnie himself could have no objection to +the proposed feast if he knew that all she was going for was to talk +about him? She might dance a little, of course, but purely by the way. +Her real motive in accepting the invitation, she now realized quite +clearly, was to hear all about Ronnie. + +"All right," she said. "Where?" + +"Mario's. They tell me it's the posh spot these days." + +"Mario's?" + +"Yes. M for mange, A for asthma, R for rheumatism.... Oh, you've got +it? All right, then. At eight-thirty." + +Hugo put the receiver back. Once more he allowed his dazzling smile to +play upon the Argus's proprietor. + +"Much obliged for use of instrument," he said. "Thank you." + +"Thank _you_," said Pilbeam. + +"Well, I'll be pushing along. Ring us up if you change your mind. +Market Blandings 32X. If you don't take on the job no one will. I +suppose there are other sleuths in London besides the bevy I've +interviewed to-day, but I'm not going to see them. I consider that I +have done my bit and am through." He looked about him. "Make a good +thing out of this business?" he asked, for he was curious on these +points and was never restrained by delicacy from seeking information. + +"Quite." + +"What does the work consist of? I've often wondered. Measuring +footprints and putting the tips of your fingers together and all that, +I suppose?" + +"We are frequently asked to follow people and report on their +movements." + +Hugo laughed amusedly. + +"Well, don't go following me and reporting on my movements. Much +trouble might ensue. Bung-oh." + +"Good-bye," said Percy Pilbeam. + +He pressed a bell on the desk and moved to the door to show his visitor +out. + + + II + +Leopard's justly famous band, its cheeks puffed out and its eyeballs +rolling, was playing a popular melody with lots of stomp in it, and +for the first time since she had accepted Hugo's invitation to the +dance Sue, gliding round the floor, was conscious of a spiritual calm. +Her conscience, quieted by the moaning of the saxophones, seemed to +have retired from business. It realized, no doubt, the futility of +trying to pretend that there was anything wrong in a girl enjoying this +delightful exercise. + +How absurd, she felt, Ronnie's objections were. It was, considered +Sue, becoming analytical, as if she were to make a tremendous fuss +because he played tennis and golf with girls. Dancing was just a game +like those two pastimes, and it so happened that you had to have a man +with you or you couldn't play it. To get all jealous and throaty just +because one went out dancing was simply ridiculous. + +On the other hand, placid though her conscience now was, she had to +admit that it was a relief to feel that he would never know of this +little outing. + +Men were such children when they were in love. Sue found herself +sighing over the opposite sex's eccentricities. If they were only +sensible, how simple life would be. It amazed her that Ronnie could +ever have any possible doubt, however she might spend her leisure +hours, that her heart belonged to him alone. She marvelled that he +should suppose for a moment that even if she danced all night and every +night with every other man in the world it would make any difference to +her feelings toward him. + +All the same, holding the peculiar views he did, he must undoubtedly be +humoured. + +"You won't breathe a word to Ronnie about our coming here, will you, +Hugo?" she said, repeating an injunction which had been her opening +speech on arriving at the restaurant. + +"Not a syllable." + +"I can trust you?" + +"Implicitly. Telegraphic address, Discretion, Market Blandings." + +"Ronnie's funny, you see." + +"One long scream." + +"I mean, he wouldn't understand." + +"No. Great surprise it was to me," said Hugo, doing complicated things +with his feet, "to hear that you and the old leper had decided to +team up. You could have knocked me down with a feather. Odd he never +confided in his boyhood friend." + +"Well, it wouldn't do for it to get about." + +"Are you suggesting that Hugo Carmody is a babbler?" + +"You do like gossipping. You know you do." + +"I know nothing of the sort," said Hugo with dignity. "If I were asked +to give my opinion I should say that I was essentially a strong, silent +man." + +He made a complete circle of the floor in that capacity. His +taciturnity surprised Sue. + +"What's the matter?" she asked. + +"Dudgeon," said Hugo. + +"What?" + +"I'm sulking. That remark of yours rankles. That totally unfounded +accusation that I cannot keep a secret. It may interest you to know +that I, too, am secretly engaged and have never so much as mentioned it +to a soul." + +"Hugo!" + +"Yes. Betrothed. And so at long last came a day when Love wound his +silken fetters about Hugo Carmody." + +"Who's the unfortunate girl?" + +"There is no unfortunate girl. The lucky girl----Was that your foot?" + +"Yes." + +"Sorry. I haven't got the hang of these new steps yet. The lucky girl, +I was saying, is Miss Millicent Threepwood." + +As if stunned by the momentousness of the announcement the band stopped +playing; and, chancing to be immediately opposite their table, the man +who never revealed secrets led his partner to her chair. She was gazing +at him ecstatically. + +"You don't mean that?" + +"I do mean that. What did you think I meant?" + +"I never heard anything so wonderful in my life!" + +"Good news?" + +"I'm simply delighted." + +"I'm pleased, too," said Hugo. + +"I've been trying not to admit it to myself, but I was very scared +about Millicent. Ronnie told me the family wanted him and her to marry, +and you never know what may happen when families throw their weight +about. And now it's all right!" + +"Quite all right." + +The music had started again, but Sue remained in her seat. + +"Not?" said Hugo, astonished. + +"Not just yet. I want to talk. You don't realize what this means to me. +Besides, your dancing's gone off, Hugo. You're not the man you were." + +"I need practice." He lighted a cigarette and tapped a philosophical +vein of thought, eying the gyrating couples meditatively. "It's the way +they're always introducing new steps that bothers the man who has been +living out in the woods. I have become a rusty rustic." + +"I didn't mean you were bad. Only you used to be such a marvel. Dancing +with you was like floating on a pink cloud above an ocean of bliss." + +"A very accurate description, I should imagine," agreed Hugo. "But +don't blame me. Blame these Amalgamated Professors of the Dance, or +whatever they call themselves--the birds who get together every couple +of weeks or so to decide how they can make things more difficult. +Amazing thing that they won't leave well alone." + +"You must have change." + +"I disagree with you," said Hugo. "No other walk in life is afflicted +by a gang of thugs who are perpetually altering the rules of the game. +When you learn to play golf the professional doesn't tell you to bring +the club up slowly and keep the head steady and roll the forearms and +bend the left knee and raise the left heel and keep your eye on the +ball and not sway back, and a few more things, and then, after you've +sweated yourself to the bone learning all that, suddenly add, 'Of +course you understand that this is merely intended to see you through +till about three weeks from next Thursday. After that the Supreme Grand +Council of Consolidated Divot Shifters will scrap these methods and +invent an entirely new set!'" + +"Is this more dudgeon?" + +"No. Not dudgeon." + +"It sounds like dudgeon. I believe your little feelings are hurt +because I said your dancing wasn't as good as it used to be." + +"Not at all. We welcome criticism." + +"Well, get your mind off it and tell me all about you and Millicent +and...." + +"When I was about five," resumed Hugo, removing his cigarette from the +holder and inserting another, "I attended my first dancing school. I'm +a bit shaky on some of the incidents of the days when I was trailing +clouds of glory, but I do remember that dancing school. At great +trouble and expense I was taught to throw up a rubber ball with my +left hand and catch it with my right, keeping the small of the back +rigid and generally behaving in a graceful and attractive manner. It +doesn't sound a likely sort of thing to learn at a dancing school, but +I swear to you that that's what the curriculum was. Now, the point I am +making----" + +"Did you fall in love with Millicent right away, or was it gradual?" + +"The point I am making is this. I became very good at throwing and +catching that rubber ball. I dislike boasting, but I stood out +conspicuously among a pretty hot bunch. People would nudge each other +and say, 'Who is he?' behind their hands. I don't suppose, when I was +feeling right, I missed the rubber ball more than once in twenty goes. +But what good does it do me now? Absolutely none. Long before I got a +chance of exhibiting my accomplishment in public and having beautiful +women fawn on me for my skill, the Society of Amalgamated Professors +of the Dance decided that the Rubber-Ball Glide, or whatever it was +called, was out of date." + +"Is she very pretty?" + +"And what I say is that all this chopping and changing handicaps a +chap. I am perfectly prepared at this moment to step out on that +floor and heave a rubber ball about, but it simply isn't being done +nowadays. People wouldn't understand what I was driving at. In other +words, all the time and money and trouble that I spent on mastering +the Rubber-Ball Shimmy is a dead loss. I tell you, if the Amalgamated +Professors want to make people cynics, they're going the right way to +work." + +"I wish you would tell me all about Millicent." + +"In a moment. Dancing, they taught me at school, dates back to the +early Egyptians, who ascribed the invention to the god Thoth. The +Phrygian Corybantes danced in honour of somebody whose name I've +forgotten, and every time the festival of Rhea Silvia came round the +ancient Roman hoofers were there with their hair in a braid. But what +was good enough for the god Thoth isn't good enough for these blighted +Amalgamated Professors! Oh, no! And it's been the same all through the +ages. I don't suppose there has been a moment in history when some +poor, well-meaning devil, with ambition at one end of him and two left +feet at the other, wasn't getting it in the neck." + +"And all this," said Sue, "because you trod on my foot for just one +half second." + +"Hugo Carmody dislikes to tread on women's feet, even for half a +second. He has his pride. Ever hear of Father Mariana?" + +"No." + +"Mariana, George. Born twelve hundred and something. Educated privately +and at Leipsic University. Hobbies, fishing, illuminating vellum, and +mangling the wurzel. You must have heard of old Pop Mariana?" + +"I haven't and I don't want to. I want to hear about Millicent." + +"It was the opinion of Father Mariana that dancing was a deadly sin. +He was particularly down, I may mention, on the saraband. He said the +saraband did more harm than the plague. I know just how he felt. I'll +bet he had worked like a dog at twenty-five pazazas the complete course +of twelve lessons, guaranteed to teach the fandango: and, just when his +instructor had finally told him that he was fit to do it at the next +Saturday Night Social, along came the Amalgamated Brothers with their +new-fangled saraband, and where was Pop? Leaning against the wall with +the other foot-and-mouth diseasers, trying to pretend dancing bored +him. Did I hear you say you wanted a few facts about Millicent?" + +"You did." + +"Sweetest girl on earth." + +"Really?" + +"Absolutely. It's well known. All over Shropshire." + +"And she really loves you?" + +"Between you and me," said Hugo confidentially, "I don't wonder +you speak in that amazed tone. If you saw her you'd be still more +surprised. I am a man who thinks before he speaks. I weigh my words. +And I tell you solemnly that that girl is too good for me." + +"But you're a sweet darling precious pet." + +"I know I'm a sweet darling precious pet. Nevertheless, I still +maintain that she is too good for me. She is the nearest thing to +an angel that ever came glimmering through the laurels in the quiet +evenfall in the garden by the turrets of the old manorial hall." + +"Hugo! I'd no idea you were so poetical." + +"Enough to make a chap poetical, loving a girl like that." + +"And you really do love her?" + +Hugo took a feverish gulp of champagne and rolled his eyeballs as if he +had been a member of Leopold's justly famous band. + +"Madly. Devotedly. And when I think how I have deceived her my soul +sickens." + +"Have you deceived her?" + +"Not yet. But I'm going to in about five minutes. I put in a 'phone +call to Blandings just now, and when I get through I shall tell her I'm +speaking from my hotel bedroom, where I am on the point of going to +bed. You see," said Hugo confidentially, "Millicent, though practically +perfect in every other respect, is one of those girls who might +misunderstand this little night out of mine did it but come to her +ears. Speaking of which, you ought to see them. Like alabaster shells." + +"I know what you mean. Ronnie's like that." + +Hugo stared. + +"Ronnie?" + +"Yes." + +"You mean to sit there and tell me that Ronnie's ears are like +alabaster shells?" + +"No, I meant that he would be furious if he knew that I had come out +dancing. And, oh, I do love dancing so," sighed Sue. + +"He must never know!" + +"No. That's why I asked you just now not to tell him." + +"I won't. Secrecy and silence. Thank goodness, there's nobody who could +tell Millicent even if they wanted to. Ah! this must be the bringer of +glad tidings, come to say my call is through. All set?" he asked the +page boy who had threaded his way through the crowd to their table. + +"Yes, sir." + +Hugo rose. + +"Amuse yourself somehow till I return." + +"I shan't be dull," said Sue. + +She watched him disappear, then leaned back in her seat, watching +the dancers. Her eyes were bright, and Hugo's news had brought a +flush to her cheeks. Percy Pilbeam, who had been hovering in the +background, hoping for such an opportunity ever since his arrival at +the restaurant, thought he had never seen her looking prettier. He +edged between the tables and took Hugo's vacated chair. There are men +who, approaching a member of the other sex, wait for permission before +sitting down, and men who sit down without permission. Pilbeam was one +of the latter. + +"Good-evening," he said. + +She turned and was aware of a nasty-looking little man at her elbow. +He seemed to have materialized from nowhere. + +"May I introduce myself, Miss Brown?" said this blot. "My name is +Pilbeam." + +At the same moment there appeared in the doorway and stood there raking +the restaurant with burning eyes the flannel-suited figure of Ronald +Overbury Fish. + + + III + +Ronnie Fish's estimate of the time necessary for reaching London from +Blandings Castle in a sports-model two-seater had been thrown out of +gear by two mishaps. Halfway down the drive the car had developed some +mysterious engine trouble, which had necessitated taking it back to +the stables and having it overhauled by Lord Emsworth's chauffeur. It +was not until nearly an hour later that he had been able to resume his +journey, and a blow-out near Oxford had delayed him still further. He +arrived at Sue's flat just as Sue and Hugo were entering Mario's. + +Ringing Sue's front-door bell produced no result. Ronnie regretted that +in the stress of all the other matters that occupied his mind he had +forgotten to send her a telegram. He was about to creep away and have +a bite of dinner at the Drones Club--a prospect which pleased him not +at all, for the Drones at dinner time was always full of hearty eggs +who talked much too loud for a worried man's nerves and might even go +so far as to throw bread at him, when, descending the stairs into the +hall, he came upon Bashford, the porter. + +Bashford, who knew Ronnie well, said, "'Ullo, Mr. Fish," and Ronnie +said, "Hullo, Bashford," and Bashford said the weather seemed to keep +up, and Ronnie said, Yes, that's right, it did, and it was at this +point that the porter uttered these memorable and, as events proved, +epoch-making words: + +"If you're looking for Miss Brown, Mr. Fish, I've an idea she's gone to +a place called Mario's." + +He poured further details into Ronnie's throbbing ear. Mr. Carmody had +rung up on the 'phone, might have been ar-parse four, and he, Bashford, +not listening but happening to hear, had thought he had caught +something said about this place Mario's. + +"Mario's?" said Ronnie. "Thanks, Bashford. Mario's, eh? Right!" + +The porter, for Eton and Cambridge train their sons well, found nothing +in the way Mr. Fish spoke to cause a thrill. Totally unaware that he +had been conversing with Othello's younger brother he went back to his +den in the basement and sat down with a good appetite to steak and +chips. And Ronnie, quivering from head to foot, started the car and +drove off. + +Jealousy, said Shakespeare, and he was about right, is a green-eyed +monster which doth mock the meat he feeds on. By the time Ronald +Overbury Fish pushed through the swinging door that guards the revelry +at Mario's from the gaze of the passer-by, he was, like the Othello +he so much resembled, perplexed in the extreme. He felt hot all over, +then cold all over, then hot again, and the waiter who stopped him +on the threshold of the dining room to inform him that evening dress +was indispensable on the dancing floor and that flannel suits must +go up to the balcony, was running a risk which would have caused his +insurance company to purse its lips and shake its head. + +Fortunately for him Ronnie did not hear. He was scanning the crowd +before him in an effort to find Sue. + +"Plenty of room in the balcony, sir," urged the waiter, continuing to +play with fire. + +This time Ronnie did become dimly aware that somebody was addressing +him, and he was about to turn and give the man one look when halfway +down a grove of black coats and gaily coloured frocks he suddenly +saw what he was searching for. The next moment he was pushing a path +through the throng, treading on the toes of brave men and causing fair +women to murmur bitterly that this sort of thing ought to be prevented +by the management. + +Five yards from Sue's table Ronnie Fish would have said that his cup +was full and could not possibly be made any fuller. But when he had +covered another two and pushed aside a fat man who was standing in +the fairway he realized his mistake. It was not Hugo who was Sue's +companion, but a reptilian-looking squirt with narrow eyes and his +hair done in ridges. And as he saw him something seemed to go off in +Ronnie's brain like a released spring. + +A waiter, pausing with a tray of glasses, pointed out to him that on +the dancing floor evening dress was indispensable. + +Gentlemen in flannel suits, he added, could be accommodated in the +balcony. + +"Plenty of room in the balcony, sir," said the waiter. + +Ronnie reached the table. Pilbeam at the moment was saying that he had +wanted for a long time to meet Sue. He hoped she had got his flowers +all right. + +It was perhaps a natural desire to look at anything but this odious and +thrusting individual who had forced his society upon her that caused +Sue to raise her eyes. + +Raising them, she met Ronnie's. And as she saw him her conscience, +which she had supposed lulled for the night, sprang to life more +vociferous than ever. It had but been crouching, the better to spring. + +"Ronnie!" + +She started up. Pilbeam also rose. The waiter with the glasses pressed +the edge of his tray against Ronnie's elbow in a firm but respectful +manner and told him that on the dancing floor evening dress was +indispensable. Gentlemen in flannel suits, however, would find ample +accommodation in the balcony. + +Ronnie did not speak. And it would have been better if Sue had not done +so. For at this crisis some subconscious instinct, of the kind which is +always waiting to undo us at critical moments, suggested to her dazed +mind that when two men who do not know each other are standing side by +side in a restaurant one ought to introduce them. + +"Mr. Fish, Mr. Pilbeam," murmured Sue. + +Only the ringing of the bell that heralds the first round of a +heavy-weight championship fight could have produced more instant +and violent results. Through Ronnie's flannel-clad body a sort of +galvanic shock seemed to pass. Pilbeam! He had come expecting Hugo, +and Hugo would have been bad enough. But Pilbeam! The man she had +said she didn't even know. The man she hadn't met. The man whose gifts +of flowers she had professed to resent. In person! In the flesh! +Hobnobbing with her in a restaurant! By God, he meant to say! By +George! Good Gosh! + +His fists clenched. Eton was forgotten, Cambridge not even a memory. +He inhaled so sharply that a man at the next table who was eating a +mousse of chicken stabbed himself in the chin with his fork. He turned +on Pilbeam with a hungry look. And at this moment the waiter, raising +his voice a little, for he was beginning to think that Ronnie's hearing +was slightly affected, mentioned as an interesting piece of information +that the management of Mario's preferred to reserve the dancing floor +exclusively for clients in evening dress. But there was a bright side. +Gentlemen in flannel suits could be accommodated in the balcony. + +It was the waiter who saved Percy Pilbeam. Just as a mosquito may +divert for an instant a hunter who is about to spring at and bite in +the neck a tiger of the jungle, so did this importunate waiter divert +Ronnie Fish. What it was all about he was too overwrought to ascertain, +but he knew that the man was annoying him, pestering him, trying to +chat with him when he had business elsewhere. With all the force of +a generous nature sorely tried, he plugged the waiter in the stomach +with his elbow. There was a crash which even Leopold's band could not +drown. The man who had stabbed himself with the fork had his meal still +further spoiled by the fact that it suddenly began to rain glass. And, +as regards the other occupants of the restaurant, the word "sensation" +about sums the situation up. + +Ronnie and the management of Mario's now formed two sharply contrasted +schools of thought. To Ronnie the only thing that seemed to matter was +this Pilbeam--this creeping, slinking, cuckoo-in-the-nest Pilbeam, the +Lothario who had lowered all speed records in underhand villainy by +breaking up his home before he had got one. He concentrated all his +faculties to the task of getting round the table, to the other side of +which the object of his dislike had prudently withdrawn, and showing +him in no uncertain manner where he got off. + +To the management, on the other hand, the vital issue was all this +broken glassware. The waiter had risen from the floor, but the +glasses were still there, and scarcely one of them was in a condition +ever to be used again for the refreshment of Mario's customers. The +head waiter, swooping down on the fray like some god in the Iliad +descending from a cloud, was endeavouring to place this point of view +before Ronnie. Assisting him with word and gesture were two inferior +waiters--Waiter A and Waiter B. + +Ronnie was in no mood for abstract debate. He hit the head waiter +in the abdomen, Waiter A in the ribs, and was just about to dispose +of Waiter B when his activities were hampered by the sudden arrival +of re-enforcements. From all parts of the room other waiters had +assembled--to name but a few, Waiters C, D, E, F, G, and H--and he +found himself hard pressed. It seemed to him that he had dropped +into a Waiters' Convention. As far as the eye could reach the arena +was crammed with waiters, and more coming. Pilbeam had disappeared +altogether, and so busy was Ronnie now that he did not even miss him. +He had reached that condition of mind which the old Vikings used to +call "berserk" and which among modern Malays is termed "running amok." + +Ronnie Fish, in the course of his life, had had many ambitions. As a +child he had yearned some day to become an engine driver. At school +it had seemed to him that the most attractive career the world had to +offer was that of the professional cricketer. Later he had hoped to run +a prosperous night club. But now, in his twenty-sixth year, all these +desires were cast aside and forgotten. The only thing in life that +seemed really worth while was to massacre waiters; and to this task he +addressed himself with all the energy and strength at his disposal. + +Matters now began to move briskly. Waiter C, who rashly clutched the +sleeve of Ronnie's coat, reeled back with a hand pressed to his right +eye. Waiter D, a married man, contented himself with standing on the +outskirts and talking Italian. But Waiter E, made of sterner stuff, hit +Ronnie rather hard with a dish containing _omelette aux champignons_; +and it was as the latter reeled beneath this buffet that there suddenly +appeared in the forefront of the battle a figure wearing a gay uniform +and almost completely concealed behind a vast moustache, waxed at the +ends. It was the commissionaire from the street door; and anybody who +has ever been bounced from a restaurant knows that commissionaires are +heavy metal. + +This one, whose name was McTeague, and who had spent many lively years +in the army before retiring to take up his present duties, had a grim +face made of some hard kind of wood, and the muscles of a village +blacksmith. A man of action rather than words, he clove his way through +the press in silence. Only when he reached the centre of the maelstrom +did he speak. This was when Ronnie, leaping onto a chair the better to +perform the operation, hit him on the nose. On receipt of this blow +he uttered the brief monosyllable "Ho!" and then, without more delay, +scooped Ronnie into an embrace of steel and bore him toward the door, +through which was now moving a long, large, leisurely policeman. + + + IV + +It was some few minutes later that Hugo Carmody, emerging from the +telephone booth on the lower floor where the cocktail bar is, sauntered +back into the dancing room and was interested to find waiters massaging +bruised limbs, other waiters replacing fallen tables, and Leopold's +band playing in a sort of hushed undertone like a band that has seen +strange things. + +"Hullo!" said Hugo. "Anything up?" + +He eyed Sue inquiringly. She looked to him like a girl who has had some +sort of a shock. Not, or his eyes deceived him, at all her old bright +self. + +"What's up?" he asked. + +"Take me home, Hugo!" + +Hugo stared. + +"Home? Already? With the night yet young?" + +"Oh, Hugo! Take me home, quick." + +"Just as you say," assented Hugo agreeably. He was now pretty +certain that something was up. "One second to settle the bill, and +then homeward ho. And on the way you shall tell me all about it. For +I jolly well know," said Hugo, who prided himself on his keenness of +observation, "that something is--or has been--up." + + + + + CHAPTER V + + +The Law of Great Britain is a remorseless machine which, once set in +motion, ignores first causes and takes into account only results. It +will not accept shattered dreams as an excuse for shattering glassware; +nor will you get far by pleading a broken heart in extenuation of your +behaviour in breaking waiters. Haled on the morrow before the awful +majesty of Justice at Bosher Street Police Court and charged with +disorderly conduct in a public place--to wit, Mario's Restaurant--and +resisting an officer--to wit, P. C. Murgatroyd--in the execution of +his duties, Ronald Fish made no impassioned speeches. He did not raise +clenched fists aloft and call upon Heaven to witness that he was a good +man wronged. Experience, dearly bought in the days of his residence at +the university, had taught him that when the Law gripped you with its +talons the only thing to do was to give a false name, say nothing, and +hope for the best. + +Shortly before noon, accordingly, on the day following the painful +scene just described, Edwin Jones, of 7 Nasturtium Villas, Cricklewood, +poorer by the sum of five pounds, was being conveyed in a swift taxicab +to his friend Hugo Carmody's hotel, there to piece together his broken +life and try to make a new start. + +On the part of the man Jones himself during the ride there was a +disposition toward silence. He gazed before him bleakly and gnawed his +lower lip. Hugo Carmody, on the other hand, was inclined to be rather +jubilant. It seemed to Hugo that, after a rocky start, things had +panned out pretty well. + +"A nice smooth job," he said approvingly. "I was scanning the beak's +face closely during the summing up, and I couldn't help fearing for +a moment that it was going to be a case of fourteen days without the +option. As it is, here you are, a free man, and no chance of your name +being in the paper. A moral victory, I call it." + +Ronnie released his lower lip in order to bare his teeth in a bitter +sneer. + +"I wouldn't care if my name were in every paper in London." + +"Oh, come, old loofah! The honoured name of Fish?" + +"What do I care about anything now?" + +Hugo was concerned. This morbid strain, he felt, was unworthy of a +Nasturtium Villas Jones. + +"Aren't you rather tending to make a bit too much heavy weather over +this?" + +"Heavy weather!" + +"I think you are. After all, when you come right down to it, what has +happened? You find poor little Sue----" + +"Don't call her 'poor little Sue!'" + +"You find the party of the second part," amended Hugo, "at a dance +place. Well, why not? What, if you follow me, of it? Where's the harm +in her going out to dance?" + +"With a man she swore she didn't know!" + +"Well, at the time when you asked her probably she didn't know him. +Things move quickly in a great city. I wish I had a quid for every girl +I've been out dancing with whom I hadn't known from Eve a couple of +days before." + +"She promised me she wouldn't go out with a soul." + +"Ah, but with a merry twinkle in her eye, no doubt? I mean to say, you +can't expect a girl nowadays to treat a promise like that seriously. I +mean, dash it, be reasonable!" + +"And with that little worm of all people!" + +Hugo cleared his throat. He was conscious of a slight embarrassment. He +had not wished to touch on this aspect of the affair, but Ronnie's last +words gave a Carmody and a gentleman no choice. + +"As a matter of fact, Ronnie, old man," he said, "you are wrong in +supposing that she went to Mario's with the above Pilbeam. She went +with me. Blameless Hugo, what. I mean, more like a brother than +anything." + +Ronnie declined to be comforted. + +"I don't believe you." + +"My dear chap!" + +"I suppose you think you're damned clever, trying to smooth things +over. She was at Mario's with Pilbeam." + +"I took her there." + +"You may have taken her, but she was dining with Pilbeam." + +"Nothing of the kind." + +"Do you think I can't believe my own eyes? It's no use your saying +anything, Hugo, I'm through with her. She's let me down. Less than a +week I've been away," said Ronnie, his voice trembling, "and she lets +me down. Well, it serves me right for being such a fool as to think +she ever cared a curse for me." + +He relapsed into silence. And Hugo, after turning over in his mind a +few specimen remarks, decided not to make them. The cab drew up before +the hotel, and Ronnie, getting out, uttered a wordless exclamation. + +"No, let me," said Hugo considerately. A bit rough on a man, he felt, +after coughing up five quid to the hellhounds of the law, to be +expected to pay the cab. He produced money and turned to the driver. It +was some moments before he turned back again, for the driver, by the +rules of the taxi chauffeurs' union, kept his petty cash tucked into +his underclothing. When he did so he was considerably astonished to +find that Ronnie, while his back was turned, had in some unaccountable +manner become Sue. The changeling was staring unhappily at him from the +exact spot where he had left his old friend. + +"Hullo!" he said. + +"Ronnie's gone," said Sue. + +"Gone?" + +"Yes. He walked off as quick as he could round the corner when he saw +me. He--" Sue's voice broke--"he didn't say a word." + +"How did you get here?" asked Hugo. There were other matters, of +course, to be discussed later, but he felt he must get this point +cleared up first. + +"I thought you would bring him back to your hotel, and I thought that +if I could see him I could--say something." + +Hugo was alarmed. He was now practically certain that this girl was +going to cry, and if there was one thing he disliked it was being with +crying girls in a public spot. He would not readily forget the time +when a female named Yvonne Something had given way to a sudden twinge +of neuralgia in his company not far from Piccadilly Circus and an old +lady had stopped and said that it was brutes like him who caused all +the misery in the world. + +"Come inside," he urged quickly. "Come and have a cocktail or a cup of +tea or a bun or something. I say," he said, as he led the way into the +hotel lobby and found two seats in a distant corner, "I'm frightfully +sorry about all this. I can't help feeling it's my fault." + +"Oh, no." + +"If I hadn't asked you to dinner----" + +"It isn't that that's the trouble. Ronnie might have been a little +cross for a minute or two if he had found you and me together, but he +would soon have got over it. It was finding me with that horrid little +man Pilbeam. You see, I told him--and it was quite true--that I didn't +know him." + +"Yes, so he was saying to me in the cab." + +"Did he--what did he say?" + +"Well, he plainly resented the Pilbeam, I'm afraid. His manner, when +touching on the Pilbeam, was austere. I tried to drive into his head +that that was just an accidental meeting and that you had come to +Mario's with me, but he would have none of it. I fear, old thing, +there's nothing to be done but leave the whole binge to Time, the Great +Healer." + +A page boy was making a tour of the lobby. He seemed to be seeking a +Mr. Gargery. + +"If only I could get hold of him and make him listen. I haven't been +given a chance to explain." + +"You think you could explain, even if given a chance?" + +"I could try. Surely he couldn't help seeing that I really loved him if +we had a real talk?" + +"And the trouble is you're here and he'll be back at Blandings in a few +hours. Difficult," said Hugo, shaking his head. "Complex." + +"Mr. Carmody," chanted the page boy, coming nearer. "Mr. Carmody." + +"Hi!" cried Hugo. + +"Mr. Carmody? Wanted on the telephone, sir." + +Hugo's face became devout and saintlike. + +"Awfully sorry to leave you for an instant," he said, "but do you mind +if I rush? It must be Millicent. She's the only person who knows I'm +here." + +He sped away, and Sue, watching him, found herself choking with sudden +tears. It seemed to emphasize her forlornness so, this untimely +evidence of another love story that had not gone awry. She seemed to +be listening to that telephone conversation, hearing Hugo's delighted +yelps as the voice of the girl he loved floated to him over the wire. + +She pulled herself together. Beastly of her to be jealous of Hugo just +because he was happy.... + +Sue sat up abruptly. She had had an idea. + +It was a breath-taking idea, but simple. It called for courage, for +audacity, for a reckless disregard of consequences, but nevertheless it +was simple. + +"Hugo," she cried, as that lucky young man returned and dropped into +the chair at her side. "Hugo, listen!" + +"I say," said Hugo. + +"I've suddenly thought----" + +"I say," said Hugo. + +"Do listen!" + +"I say," said Hugo, "that was Millicent on the 'phone." + +"Was it? How nice. Listen, Hugo." + +"Speaking from Blandings." + +"Yes. But----" + +"And she has broken off the engagement!" + +"What!" + +"Broken off the bally engagement," repeated Hugo. He signalled urgently +to a passing waiter. "Get me a brandy-and-soda, will you?" he said. His +face was pale and set. "A stiffish brandy-and-soda, please." + +"Brandy-and-soda, sir?" + +"Yes," said Hugo. "Stiffish." + + + + + CHAPTER VI + + +Sue stared at him, bewildered. + +"Broken off the engagement?" + +"Broken off the engagement." + +In moments of stress the foolish question is always the one that comes +uppermost in the mind. + +"Are you sure?" + +Hugo emitted a sound which resembled the bursting of a paper bag. He +would have said himself, if asked, that he was laughing mirthlessly. + +"Sure? Not much doubt about it." + +"But why?" + +"She knows all." + +"All what?" + +"Everything, you poor fish," said Hugo, forgetting in a strong man's +agony the polish of the Carmodys. "She's found out that I took you to +dinner last night." + +"What!" + +"She has." + +"But how?" + +The paper bag exploded again. A look of intense bitterness came into +Hugo's face. + +"If ever I meet that slimy, slinking, marcelle-waved by-product Pilbeam +again," he said, "let him commend his soul to God! If he has time," he +added. + +He took the brandy-and-soda from the waiter and eyed Sue dully. + +"Anything on similar lines for you?" + +"No, thanks." + +"Just as you like. It's not easy for a man in my position to realize," +said Hugo, drinking deeply, "that refusing a brandy-and-soda is +possible. I shouldn't have said, offhand, that it could be done." + +Sue was a warm-hearted girl. In the tragedy of this announcement she +had almost forgotten that she had troubles herself. + +"Tell me all about it, Hugo." + +He put down the empty glass. + +"I came up from Blandings yesterday," he said, "to interview the Argus +Enquiry Agency on the subject of sending a man down to investigate the +theft of Lord Emsworth's pig." + +Sue would have liked to hear more about this pig, but she knew that +this was no time for questions. + +"I went to the Argus and saw this wen Pilbeam, who runs it." + +Again Sue would have liked to speak. Once more she refrained. She felt +as if she were at a sick-bed, hearing a dying man's last words. On such +occasions one does not interrupt. + +"Meanwhile," proceeded Hugo tonelessly, "Millicent, suspecting--and I +am surprised at her having a mind like that; I always looked on her +as a pure, white soul--suspecting that I might be up to something in +London, got the Argus on the long-distance telephone and told them to +follow my movements and report to her. And, apparently, just before +she called me up, she had been talking to them on the wire and getting +their statement. All this she revealed to me in short, burning +sentences, and then she said that if I thought we were still engaged I +could have three more guesses. But, to save me trouble, she would tell +me the right answer--viz.: No wedding bells for me. And to think," said +Hugo, picking up the glass and putting it down again, after inspection, +with a hurt and disappointed look, "that I actually rallied this growth +Pilbeam on the subject of following people and reporting on their +movements. Yes, I assure you. Rallied him blithely. Just as I was +leaving his office we kidded merrily back and forth. And then I went +out into the world, happy and care-free, little knowing that my every +step was dogged by a blasted bloodhound. Well, all I can say is that, +if Ronnie wants this Pilbeam's gore, and I gather that he does, he will +jolly well have to wait till I've helped myself." + +Sue, womanlike, blamed the woman. + +"I don't think Millicent can be a very nice girl," she said primly. + +"An angel," said Hugo. "Always was. Celebrated for it. I don't blame +her." + +"I do." + +"I don't." + +"I do." + +"Well, have it your own way," said Hugo handsomely. He beckoned to the +waiter. "Another of the same, please." + +"This settles it," said Sue. + +Her eyes were sparkling. Her chin had a resolute tilt. + +"Settles what?" + +"While you were at the telephone, I had an idea." + +"I have had ideas in my time," said Hugo. "Many of them. At the moment +I have but one. To get within arm's length of the yam Pilbeam and twist +his greasy neck till it comes apart in my hands. 'What do you do here?' +I said. 'Measure footprints?' 'We follow people and report on their +movements,' said he. 'Ha-ha!' I laughed carelessly. 'Ha-ha!' laughed +he. General mirth and jollity. And all the while----" + +"Hugo, will you listen?" + +"And this is the bitter thought that now strikes me. What chance have +I of scooping out the man's inside with my bare hands? I've got to go +back to Blandings on the two-fifteen or I lose my job. Leaving him +unscathed in his bally lair, chuckling over my downfall and following +some other poor devil's movements." + +"Hugo!" + +The broken man passed a weary hand over his forehead. + +"You spoke?" + +"I've been speaking for the last ten minutes, only you won't listen." + +"Say on," said Hugo listlessly, starting on the second restorative. + +"Have you ever heard of a Miss Schoonmaker?" + +"I seem to know the name. Who is she?" + +"Me." + +Hugo lowered his glass, pained. + +"Don't talk drip to a broken-hearted man," he begged. "What do you +mean?" + +"When Ronnie was driving me in his car we met Lady Constance Keeble." + +"A blister," said Hugo. "Always was. Generally admitted all over +Shropshire." + +"She thought I was this Miss Schoonmaker." + +"Why?" + +"Because Ronnie said I was." + +Hugo sighed hopelessly. + +"Complex. Complex. My God, how complex!" + +"It was quite simple and natural. Ronnie had just been telling me about +this girl--how he had met her at Biarritz and that she was coming to +Blandings, and so on, and when he saw Lady Constance looking at me with +frightful suspicion it suddenly occurred to him to say that I was her." + +"That you were Lady Constance?" + +"No, idiot. Miss Schoonmaker. And now I'm going to wire her--Lady +Constance, not Miss Schoonmaker, in case you were going to ask--saying +that I'm coming to Blandings right away." + +"Pretending to be this Miss Schoonmaker?" + +"Yes." + +Hugo shook his head. + +"Imposs." + +"Why?" + +"Absolutely out of the q." + +"Why? Lady Constance is expecting me. Do be sensible." + +"I'm being sensible all right. But somebody is gibbering and, naming no +names, it's you. Don't you realize that, just as you reach the front +door, this Miss Schoonmaker will arrive in person, dishing the whole +thing?" + +"No, she won't." + +"Why won't she?" + +"Because Ronnie sent her a telegram, in Lady Constance's name, saying +that there's scarlet fever or something at Blandings and she wasn't to +come." + +Hugo's air of the superior critic fell from him like a garment. He sat +up in his chair. So moved was he that he spilled his brandy-and-soda +and did not give it so much as a look of regret. He let it soak into +the carpet unheeded. + +"Sue!" + +"Once I'm at Blandings I shall be able to see Ronnie and make him be +sensible." + +"That's right." + +"And then you'll be able to tell Millicent that there couldn't have +been much harm in my being out with you last night because I'm engaged +to Ronnie." + +"That's right, too." + +"Can you see any flaws?" + +"Not a flaw." + +"I suppose, as a matter of fact, you'll give the whole thing away in +the first five minutes by calling me Sue." + +Hugo waved an arm buoyantly. + +"Don't give the possibility another thought," he said. "If I do I'll +cover it up adroitly by saying I meant 'Schoo.' Short for Schoonmaker. +And now go and send her another telegram. Keep on sending telegrams. +Leave nothing to chance. Send a dozen and pitch it strong. Say that +Blandings Castle is ravaged with disease. Not merely scarlet fever. +Scarlet fever _and_ mumps. Not to mention housemaid's knee, diabetes, +measles, shingles, and the botts. We're onto a big thing, my Susan. Let +us push it along." + + + + + CHAPTER VII + + + I + +Sunshine, calling to all right-thinking men to come out and revel in +its heartening warmth, poured in at the windows of the great library +of Blandings Castle. But to Clarence, ninth Earl of Emsworth, much as +he liked sunshine as a rule, it brought no cheer. His face drawn, his +pince-nez askew, his tie drooping away from its stud like a languorous +lily, he sat staring sightlessly before him. He looked like something +that had just been prepared for stuffing by a taxidermist. + +A moralist, watching Lord Emsworth in his travail, would have reflected +smugly that it cuts both ways, this business of being a peer of +the realm with large private means and a good digestion. Unalloyed +prosperity, he would have pointed out in his offensive way, tends to +enervate: and in this world of ours, full of alarms and uncertainties, +where almost anything is apt to drop suddenly on top of your head +without warning at almost any moment, what one needs is to be tough and +alert. + +When some outstanding disaster happens to the ordinary man, it finds +him prepared. Years of missing the eight-forty-five, taking the dog for +a run on rainy nights, endeavouring to abate smoky chimneys, and coming +down to breakfast and discovering that they have burned the bacon +again, have given his soul a protective hardness, so that by the time +his wife's relations arrive for a long visit he is ready for them. + +Lord Emsworth had had none of this salutary training. Fate, hitherto, +had seemed to spend its time thinking up ways of pampering him. He +ate well, slept well, and had no money troubles. He grew the best +roses in Shropshire. He had won a first prize for pumpkins at that +county's agricultural show, a thing no Earl of Emsworth had ever done +before. And, just previous to the point at which this chronicle opens, +his younger son Frederick had married the daughter of an American +millionaire and had gone to live three thousand miles away from +Blandings Castle, with lots of good, deep water in between him and it. +He had come to look on himself as Fate's spoiled darling. + +Can we wonder, then, that in the agony of this sudden treacherous blow +he felt stunned and looked eviscerated? Is it surprising that the +sunshine made no appeal to him? May we not consider him justified, +as he sat there, in swallowing a lump in his throat like an ostrich +gulping down a brass door knob? + +The answer to these questions, in the order given, is No, No, and Yes. + +The door of the library opened, revealing the natty person of his +brother Galahad. Lord Emsworth straightened his pince-nez and looked at +him apprehensively. Knowing how little reverence there was in the Hon. +Galahad's composition and how tepid was his interest in the honourable +struggles for supremacy of Fat Pigs, he feared that the other was about +to wound him in his bereavement with some jarring flippancy. Then his +gaze softened and he was conscious of a soothing feeling of relief. +There was no frivolity in his brother's face, only a gravity which +became him well. The Hon. Galahad sat down, hitched up the knees of his +trousers, cleared his throat, and spoke in a tone that could not have +been more sympathetic or in better taste. + +"Bad business, this, Clarence." + +"Appalling, my dear fellow." + +"What are you going to do about it?" + +Lord Emsworth shrugged his shoulders hopelessly. He generally did when +people asked him what he was going to do about things. + +"I am at a loss," he confessed. "I do not know how to act. What young +Carmody tells me has completely upset all my plans." + +"Carmody?" + +"I sent him to the Argus Enquiry Agency in London to engage the +services of a detective. It is a firm that Sir Gregory Parsloe once +mentioned to me, in the days when we were on better terms. He said, +in rather a meaning way, I thought, that if ever I had any trouble +of any sort that needed expert and tactful handling, these were the +people to go to. I gathered that they had assisted him in some matter, +the details of which he did not confide to me, and had given complete +satisfaction." + +"Parsloe!" said the Hon. Galahad, and sniffed. + +"So I sent young Carmody to London to approach them about finding the +Empress. And now he tells me that his errand proved fruitless. They +were firm in their refusal to trace missing pigs." + +"Just as well." + +"What do you mean?" + +"Save you a lot of unnecessary expense. There's no need for you to +waste money employing detectives." + +"I thought that possibly the trained mind----" + +"I can tell you who's got the Empress. I've known it all along." + +"What!" + +"Certainly." + +"Galahad!" + +"It's as plain as the nose on your face." + +Lord Emsworth felt his nose. + +"Is it?" he said doubtfully. + +"I've just been talking to Constance----" + +"Constance?" Lord Emsworth opened his mouth feebly. "She hasn't got my +pig?" + +"I've just been talking to Constance," repeated the Hon. Galahad, "and +she called me some very unpleasant names." + +"She does, sometimes. Even as a child, I remember----" + +"Most unpleasant names. A senile mischief maker, among others, and a +meddling old penguin. And all because I told her that the man who had +stolen Empress of Blandings was young Gregory Parsloe." + +"Parsloe!" + +"Parsloe. Surely it's obvious? I should have thought it would have been +clear to the meanest intelligence." + +From boyhood up, Lord Emsworth had possessed an intelligence about as +mean as an intelligence can be without actually being placed under +restraint. Nevertheless, he found his brother's theory incredible. + +"Parsloe?" + +"Don't keep saying 'Parsloe.'" + +"But, my dear Galahad----!" + +"It stands to reason." + +"You don't really think so?" + +"Of course I think so. Have you forgotten what I told you the other +day?" + +"Yes," said Lord Emsworth. He always forgot what people told him the +other day. + +"About young Parsloe," said the Hon. Galahad impatiently. "About his +nobbling my dog Towser." + +Lord Emsworth started. It all came back to him. A hard expression crept +into the eyes behind the pince-nez, which emotion had just jerked +crooked again. + +"To be sure. Towser. Your dog. I remember." + +"He nobbled Towser, and he's nobbled the Empress. Dash it, Clarence, +use your intelligence. Who else except young Parsloe had any interest +in getting the Empress out of the way? And if he hadn't known there was +some dirty work being planned would that pig man of his, Brotherhood or +whatever his name is, have been going about offering three to one on +Pride of Matchingham? I told you at the time it was fishy." + +The evidence was damning, and yet Lord Emsworth found himself once more +a prey to doubt. Of the blackness of Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe's +soul he had, of course, long been aware. But could the man actually be +capable of the Crime of the Century? A fellow landowner? A justice of +the peace? A man who grew pumpkins? A baronet? + +"But, Galahad--a man in Parsloe's position...?" + +"What do you mean, a man in his position? Do you suppose a fellow +changes his nature just because a cousin of his dies and he comes into +a baronetcy? Haven't I told you a dozen times that I've known young +Parsloe all his life? Known him intimately. He was always as hot as +mustard and as wide as Leicester Square. Ask anybody who used to go +around town in those days. When they saw young Parsloe coming strong +men winced and hid their valuables. He hadn't a penny except what he +could get by telling the tale, and he always did himself like a prince. +When I knew him first he was living down on the river at Shepperton. +His old father, the Dean, had made an arrangement with the keeper of +the pub there to give him breakfast and bed and nothing else. 'If he +wants dinner, he must earn it,' the old boy said. And do you know how +he used to earn it? He trained that mongrel of his, Banjo, to go and do +tricks in front of parties that came to the place in steam launches. +And then he would stroll up and hope his dog was not annoying them and +stand talking till they went in to dinner and then go in with them and +pick up the wine list, and before they knew what was happening he would +be bursting with their champagne and cigars. That's the sort of fellow +young Parsloe was." + +"But even so----" + +"I remember him running up to me outside that pub one afternoon--the +Jolly Miller, it was called--his face shining with positive ecstasy. +'Come in, quick!' he said. 'There's a new barmaid, and she hasn't found +out yet I'm not allowed credit.'" + +"But, Galahad----" + +"And if young Parsloe thinks I've forgotten a certain incident that +occurred in the early summer of the year '95 he's very much mistaken. +He met me in the Haymarket and took me into the Two Goslings for a +drink--there's a hat shop now where it used to be--and after we'd had +it he pulls a sort of dashed little top affair out of his pocket, a +thing with numbers written round it. Said he'd found it in the street +and wondered who thought of these ingenious little toys and insisted on +our spinning it for half-crowns. 'You take the odd numbers, I'll take +the even,' says young Parsloe. And before I could fight my way out into +the fresh air I was ten pounds seven and sixpence in the hole. And I +discovered next morning that they make those beastly things so that if +you push the stem through and spin them the wrong way up you're bound +to get an even number. And when I asked him the following afternoon to +show me that top again he said he'd lost it. That's the sort of fellow +young Parsloe was. And you expect me to believe that inheriting a +baronetcy and settling down in the country has made him so dashed pure +and high-minded that he wouldn't stoop to nobbling a pig." + +Lord Emsworth uncoiled himself. Cumulative evidence had done its work. +His eyes glittered, and he breathed stertorously. + +"The scoundrel!" + +"Tough nut, always was." + +"What shall I do?" + +"Do? Why, go to him right away and tax him." + +"Tax him?" + +"Yes. Look him squarely in the eye and tax him with his crime." + +"I will! Immediately." + +"I'll come with you." + +"Look him squarely in the eye!" + +"And tax him!" + +"And tax him." Lord Emsworth had reached the hall and was peering +agitatedly to right and left. "Where the devil's my hat? I can't find +my hat. Somebody's always hiding my hat. I will not have my hats +hidden." + +"You don't need a hat to tax a man with stealing a pig," said the Hon. +Galahad, who was well versed in the manners and rules of good society. + + + II + +In his study at Matchingham Hall in the neighbouring village of Much +Matchingham, Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe sat gazing at the current +number of a weekly paper. We have seen that weekly paper before. On +that occasion it was in the plump hands of Beach. And, oddly enough, +what had attracted Sir Gregory's attention was the very item which had +interested the butler. + + The Hon. Galahad Threepwood, brother of the Earl of Emsworth. + A little bird tells us that "Gally" is at Blandings Castle, + Shropshire, the ancestral seat of the family, busily engaged in + writing his Reminiscences. As every member of the Old Brigade will + testify, they ought to be as warm as the weather, if not warmer! + +But whereas Beach, perusing this, had chuckled, Sir Gregory +Parsloe-Parsloe shivered, like one who on a country ramble suddenly +perceives a snake in his path. + +Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe of Matchingham Hall, seventh baronet of +his line, was one of those men who start their lives well, skid for a +while, and then slide back onto the straight and narrow path and stay +there. That is to say, he had been up to the age of twenty a blameless +boy and from the age of thirty-one, when he had succeeded to the title, +a practically blameless bart. So much so that now, in his fifty-second +year, he was on the eve of being accepted by the local Unionist +Committee as their accredited candidate for the forthcoming by-election +in the Bridgeford and Shifley Parliamentary Division of Shropshire. + +But there had been a decade in his life, that dangerous decade of the +twenties, when he had accumulated a past so substantial that a less +able man would have been compelled to spread it over a far longer +period. It was an epoch in his life to which he did not enjoy looking +back, and years of irreproachable barthood had enabled him, as far as +he personally was concerned, to bury the past. And now, it seemed, this +pestilential companion of his youth was about to dig it up again. + +The years had turned Sir Gregory into a man of portly habit; and, as +portly men do in moments of stress, he puffed. But, puff he never so +shrewdly, he could not blow away that paragraph. It was still there, +looking up at him, when the door opened and the butler announced Lord +Emsworth and Mr. Galahad Threepwood. + +Sir Gregory's first emotion on seeing the taxing party file into the +room was one of pardonable surprise. Aware of the hard feelings which +George Cyril Wellbeloved's transference of his allegiance had aroused +in the bosom of that gifted pig man's former employer, he had not +expected to receive a morning call from the Earl of Emsworth. As for +the Hon. Galahad, he had ceased to be on cordial terms with him as long +ago as the winter of the year nineteen hundred and six. + +Then, following quickly on the heels of surprise, came indignation. +That the author of the Reminiscences should be writing scurrilous +stories about him with one hand and strolling calmly into his private +study with, so to speak, the other, occasioned him the keenest +resentment. He drew himself up and was in the very act of staring +haughtily when the Hon. Galahad broke the silence. + +"Young Parsloe," said the Hon. Galahad, speaking in a sharp, unpleasant +voice, "your sins have found you out!" + +It had been the baronet's intention to inquire to what he was indebted +for the pleasure of this visit, and to inquire it icily; but at this +remarkable speech the words halted on his lips. + +"Eh?" he said blankly. + +The Hon. Galahad was regarding him through his monocle rather as a cook +eyes a black beetle on discovering it in the kitchen sink. It was a +look which would have aroused pique in a slug, and once more the Squire +of Matchingham's bewilderment gave way to wrath. + +"What the devil do you mean?" he demanded. + +"See his face?" asked the Hon. Galahad in a rasping aside. + +"I'm looking at it now," said Lord Emsworth. + +"Guilt written upon it." + +"Plainly," agreed Lord Emsworth. + +The Hon. Galahad, who had folded his arms in a menacing manner, +unfolded them and struck the desk a smart blow. + +"Be very careful, Parsloe! Think before you speak. And when you speak, +speak the truth. I may say, by way of a start, that we know all." + +How low an estimate Sir Gregory Parsloe had formed of his visitors' +collective sanity was revealed by the fact that it was actually to Lord +Emsworth that he now turned as the more intelligent one of the pair. + +"Emsworth! Explain! What the deuce are you doing here? And what the +devil is that old image talking about?" + +Lord Emsworth had been watching his brother with growing admiration. +The latter's spirited opening of the case for the prosecution had won +his hearty approval. + +"You know," he said curtly. + +"I should say he dashed well does know," said the Hon. Galahad. +"Parsloe, produce that pig!" + +Sir Gregory pushed his eyes back into their sockets a split second +before they would have bulged out of his head beyond recovery. He did +his best to think calm, soothing thoughts. He had just remembered that +he was a man who had to be careful about his blood pressure. + +"Pig?" + +"Pig." + +"Did you say pig?" + +"Pig." + +"What pig?" + +"He says, 'What pig?'" + +"I heard him," said Lord Emsworth. + +Sir Gregory Parsloe again had trouble with his eyes. + +"I don't know what you are talking about." + +The Hon. Galahad unfolded his arms again and smote the desk a blow that +unshipped the cover of the inkpot. + +"Parsloe, you sheep-faced, shambling exile from hell," he cried, +"disgorge that pig immediately!" + +"My Empress," added Lord Emsworth. + +"Precisely. Empress of Blandings. The pig you stole last night." + +Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe rose slowly from his chair. The Hon. +Galahad pointed an imperious finger at him, but he ignored the gesture. +His blood pressure was now hovering around the hundred-and-fifty mark. + +"Do you mean to tell me that you seriously accuse----" + +"Parsloe, sit down!" + +Sir Gregory choked. + +"I always knew, Emsworth, that you were as mad as a coot." + +"As a what?" whispered his lordship. + +"Coot," said the Hon. Galahad curtly. "Sort of duck." He turned to the +defendant again. "Vituperation will do you no good, young Parsloe. We +_know_ that you have stolen that pig." + +"I haven't stolen any damned pig. What would I want to steal a pig for?" + +The Hon. Galahad snorted. + +"What did you want to nobble my dog Towser for in the back room of the +Black Footman in the spring of the year '97?" he said. "To queer the +favourite, that's why you did it. And that's what you're after now, +trying to queer the favourite again. Oh, we can see through you all +right, young Parsloe. We read you like a book." + +Sir Gregory had stopped worrying about his blood pressure. No amount of +calm, soothing thoughts could do it any good now. + +"You're crazy! Both of you. Stark staring mad." + +"Parsloe, will you or will you not cough up that pig?" + +"I have not got your pig." + +"That is your last word, is it?" + +"I haven't seen the creature." + +"Why a coot?" asked Lord Emsworth, who had been brooding for some time +in silence. + +"Very well," said the Hon. Galahad. "If that is the attitude you +propose to adopt there is no course before me but to take steps. And +I'll tell you the steps I'm going to take, young Parsloe. I see now +that I have been foolishly indulgent. I have allowed my kind heart to +get the better of me. Often and often, when I've been sitting at my +desk, I've remembered a good story that simply cried out to be put into +my Reminiscences, and every time I've said to myself, 'No,' I've said, +'that would wound young Parsloe. Good as it is, I can't use it. I must +respect young Parsloe's feelings.' Well, from now on there will be no +more forbearance. Unless you restore that pig I shall insert in my book +every dashed thing I can remember about you--starting with our first +meeting, when I came into Romano's and was introduced to you while you +were walking round the supper table with a soup tureen on your head and +stick of celery in your hand, saying that you were a sentry outside +Buckingham Palace. The world shall know you for what you are--the only +man who was ever thrown out of the Café de l'Europe for trying to raise +the price of a bottle of champagne by raffling his trousers at the main +bar. And, what's more, I'll tell the full story of the prawns." + +A sharp cry escaped Sir Gregory. His face had turned a deep magenta. +In these affluent days of his middle age he always looked rather like a +Regency buck who has done himself well for years among the fleshpots. +He now resembled a Regency buck who, in addition to being on the verge +of apoplexy, has been stung in the leg by a hornet. + +"I will," said the Hon. Galahad firmly. "The full, true, and complete +story of the prawns, omitting nothing." + +"What was the story of the prawns, my dear fellow?" asked Lord +Emsworth, interested. + +"Never mind. I know. And young Parsloe knows. And if Empress of +Blandings is not back in her sty this afternoon, you will find it in my +book." + +"But I keep telling you," cried the suffering baronet, "that I know +nothing whatever about your pig." + +"Ha!" + +"I've not seen the animal since last year's agricultural show." + +"Ho!" + +"I didn't know it had disappeared till you told me." + +The Hon. Galahad stared fixedly at him through the black-rimmed +monocle. Then, with a gesture of loathing, he turned to the door. + +"Come, Clarence!" he said. + +"Are we going?" + +"Yes," said the Hon. Galahad with quiet dignity. "There is nothing +more that we can do here. Let us get away from this house before it is +struck by a thunderbolt." + + + III + +The gentlemanly office boy who sat in the outer room of the Argus +Enquiry Agency read the card which the stout visitor had handed to him +and gazed at the stout visitor with respect and admiration. A polished +lad, he loved the aristocracy. He tapped on the door of the inner +office. + +"A gentleman to see me?" asked Percy Pilbeam. + +"A _baronet_ to see you, sir," corrected the office boy. "Sir Gregory +Parsloe-Parsloe, Matchingham Hall, Salop." + +"Show him in immediately," said Pilbeam with enthusiasm. + +He rose and pulled down the lapels of his coat. Things, he felt, were +looking up. He remembered Sir Gregory Parsloe. One of his first cases. +He had been able to recover for him some letters which had fallen into +the wrong hands. He wondered, as he heard the footsteps outside, if his +client had been indulging in correspondence again. + +From the baronet's sandbagged expression as he entered such might well +have been the case. It is the fate of Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe to +come into this chronicle puffing and looking purple. He puffed and +looked purple now. + +"I have called to see you, Mr. Pilbeam," he said, after the preliminary +civilities had been exchanged and he had lowered his impressive bulk +into a chair, "because I am in a position of serious difficulty." + +"I am sorry to hear that, Sir Gregory." + +"And because I remember with what discretion and resource you once +acted on my behalf." + +Pilbeam glanced at the door. It was closed. He was now convinced that +his visitor's little trouble was the same as on that previous occasion, +and he looked at the indefatigable man with frank astonishment. Didn't +these old bucks, he was asking himself, ever stop writing compromising +letters? You would have thought they would get writer's cramp. + +"If there is any way in which I can assist you, Sir Gregory.... Perhaps +you will tell me the facts from the beginning?" + +"The beginning?" Sir Gregory pondered. "Well, let me put it this way. +At one time, Mr. Pilbeam, I was younger than I am to-day." + +"Quite." + +"Poorer." + +"No doubt." + +"And less respectable. And during that period of my life I +unfortunately went about a good deal with a man named Threepwood." + +"Galahad Threepwood?" + +"You know him?" said Sir Gregory, surprised. + +Pilbeam chuckled reminiscently. + +"I know his name. I wrote an article about him once, when I was +editing a paper called _Society Spice_. Number One of the Thriftless +Aristocrats series. The snappiest thing I ever did in my life. They +tell me he called twice at the office with a horsewhip, wanting to see +me." + +Sir Gregory exhibited concern. + +"You have met him, then?" + +"I have not. You are probably not familiar with the inner workings of +a paper like _Society Spice_, Sir Gregory, but I may tell you that it +is foreign to the editorial policy ever to meet visitors who call with +horsewhips." + +"Would he have heard your name?" + +"No. There was a very strict rule in the _Spice_ office that the names +of the editorial staff were not to be divulged." + +"Ah!" said Sir Gregory, relieved. + +His relief gave place to indignation. There was an inconsistency about +the Hon. Galahad's behaviour which revolted him. + +"He cut up rough, did he, because you wrote things about him in your +paper? And yet he doesn't seem to mind writing things himself about +other people, damn him. That's quite another matter. A different thing +altogether. Oh, yes!" + +"Does he write? I didn't know." + +"He's writing his Reminiscences at this very moment. He's down at +Blandings Castle, finishing them now. And the book's going to be full +of stories about me. That's why I've come to see you. Dashed, infernal, +damaging stories, which'll ruin my reputation in the county. There's +one about some prawns----" + +Words failed Sir Gregory. He sat puffing. Pilbeam nodded gravely. He +understood the position now. As to what his client expected him to do +about it, however, he remained hazy. + +"But if these stories you speak of are libellous----" + +"What has that got to do with it? They're true." + +"The greater the truth, the greater the----" + +"Oh, I know all about that," interrupted Sir Gregory impatiently. +"And a lot of help it's going to be to me. A jury could give me the +heaviest damages on record and it wouldn't do me a bit of good. What +about my reputation in the county? What about knowing that every +damned fool I met was laughing at me behind my back? What about the +Unionist Committee? I may tell you, Mr. Pilbeam, apart from any other +consideration, that I am on the point of being accepted by our local +Unionist Committee as their candidate at the next election. And if that +old pest's book is published they will drop me like a hot coal. Now do +you understand?" + +Pilbeam picked up a pen, and with it scratched his chin thoughtfully. +He liked to take an optimistic view with regard to his clients' +affairs, but he could not conceal from himself that Sir Gregory +appeared to be out of luck. + +"He is determined to publish this book?" + +"It's the only object he's got in life, the miserable old fossil." + +"And he is resolved to include the stories?" + +"He called on me this morning expressly to tell me so. And I caught the +next train to London to put the matter in your hands." + +Pilbeam scratched his left cheek bone. + +"H'm!" he said. "Well, in the circumstances, I really don't see what is +to be done except----" + +"--Get hold of the manuscript and destroy it, you were about to say? +Exactly. That's precisely what I've come to ask you to do for me." + +Pilbeam opened his mouth, startled. He had not been about to say +anything of the kind. What he had been intending to remark was that, +the situation being as described, there appeared no course to pursue +but to fold the hands, set the teeth, and await the inevitable +disaster like a man and a Briton. He gazed blankly at this lawless +bart. Baronets are proverbially bad, but surely, felt Percy Pilbeam, +there was no excuse for them to be as bad as all that. + +"Steal the manuscript?" + +"Only possible way." + +"But that's rather a tall order, isn't it, Sir Gregory?" + +"Not," replied the baronet ingratiatingly, "for a clever young fellow +like you." + +The flattery left Pilbeam cold. His distant, unenthusiastic manner +underwent no change. However clever a man is, he was thinking, he +cannot very well abstract the manuscript of a book of Reminiscences +from a house unless he is first able to enter that house. + +"How could I get into the place?" + +"I should have thought you would have found a dozen ways." + +"Not even one," Pilbeam assured him. + +"Look how you recovered those letters of mine." + +"That was easy." + +"You told them you had come to inspect the gas meter." + +"I could scarcely go to Blandings Castle and say I had come to inspect +the gas meter and hope to be invited to make a long visit on the +strength of it. You do not appear to realize, Sir Gregory, that the +undertaking you suggest would not be a matter of a few minutes. I might +have to remain in the house for quite a considerable time." + +Sir Gregory found his companion's attitude damping. He was a man who, +since his accession to the baronetcy and its accompanying wealth, had +grown accustomed to seeing people jump smartly to it when he issued +instructions. He became peevish. + +"Why couldn't you go there as a butler or something?" + +Percy Pilbeam's only reply to this was a tolerant smile. He raised the +pen and scratched his head with it. + +"Scarcely feasible," he said. And again that rather pitying smile +flitted across his face. + +The sight of it brought Sir Gregory to the boil. He felt an +irresistible desire to say something to wipe it away. It reminded him +of the smiles he had seen on the faces of bookmakers in his younger +days when he had suggested backing horses with them on credit and in a +spirit of mutual trust. + +"Well, have it your own way," he snapped. "But it may interest you to +know that to get that manuscript into my possession I am willing to pay +a thousand pounds." + +It did, as he had foreseen, interest Pilbeam extremely. So much so that +in his emotion he jerked the pen wildly, inflicting a nasty scalp wound. + +"A thuth?" he stammered. + +Sir Gregory, a prudent man in money matters, perceived that he had +allowed his sense of the dramatic to carry him away. + +"Well, five hundred," he said, rather quickly. "And five hundred pounds +is a lot of money, Mr. Pilbeam." + +The point was one which he had no need to stress. Percy Pilbeam had +grasped it without assistance, and his face grew wan with thought. The +day might come when the proprietor of the Argus Enquiry Agency would +remain unmoved by the prospect of adding five hundred pounds to his +bank balance, but it had not come yet. + +"A check for five hundred the moment that old weasel's manuscript is in +my hands," said Sir Gregory insinuatingly. + +Nature had so arranged it that in no circumstances could Percy +Pilbeam's face ever become really beautiful; but at this moment there +stole into it an expression which did do something to relieve, to a +certain extent, its normal unpleasantness. It was an expression of +rapture, of joy, of almost beatific happiness--the look, in short, of a +man who sees his way clear to laying his hands on five hundred pounds. + +There is about the mention of any substantial sum of money something +that seems to exercise a quickening effect on the human intelligence. A +moment before Pilbeam's mind had been an inert mass. Now, abruptly, it +began to function like a dynamo. + +Get into Blandings Castle? Why, of course he could get into Blandings +Castle. And not sneak in, either, with a trousers seat itching in +apprehension of the kick that should send him out again, but bowl +proudly up to the front door in his two-seater and hand his suitcase +to the butler and be welcomed as the honoured guest. Until now he +had forgotten, for he had deliberately set himself to forget, the +outrageous suggestion of that young idiot whose name escaped him that +he should come to Blandings and hunt about for lost pigs. It had +wounded his self-respect so deeply at the time that he had driven it +from his thoughts. When he had found himself thinking about Hugo he +had immediately pulled himself together and started thinking about +something else. Now it all came back to him. And Hugo's parting words, +he recalled, had been that if ever he changed his mind the commission +would still be open. + +"I will take this case, Sir Gregory," he said. + +"Woof?" + +"You may rely on my being at Blandings Castle by to-morrow evening at +the latest. I have thought of a way of getting there." + +He rose from his desk and paced the room with knitted brows. That agile +brain had begun to work under its own steam. He paused once to look +in a distrait manner out of the window, and when Sir Gregory cleared +his throat to speak, jerked an impatient shoulder at him. He could not +have baronets, even with hyphens in their names, interrupting him at a +moment like this. + +"Sir Gregory," he said at length, "the great thing in matters like this +is to be prepared with a plan. I have a plan." + +"Woof!" said Sir Gregory. + +This time he meant that he had thought all along that his companion +would get one after pacing like that. + +"When you arrive home I want you to invite Mr. Galahad Threepwood to +dinner to-morrow night." + +The baronet shook like a jelly. Wrath and amazement fought within him. +Ask the man to dinner? After what had occurred? + +"As many others of the Blandings Castle party as you think fit, of +course, but Mr. Threepwood without fail. Once he is out of the house my +path will be clear." + +Wrath and amazement died away. The baronet had grasped the idea. The +beauty and simplicity of the stratagem stirred his admiration. But was +it not, he felt, a simpler matter to issue such an invitation than +to get it accepted? A vivid picture rose before his eyes of the Hon. +Galahad as he had last seen him. + +Then there came to him the blessed, healing thought of Lady Constance +Keeble. He would send the invitation to her and--yes, dash it!--he +would tell her the full facts, put his cards on the table, and trust +to her sympathy and proper feeling to enlist her in the cause. He had +long been aware that her attitude towards the Reminiscences resembled +his own. He could rely on her to help him. He could also rely on +her somehow--by what strange feminine modes of coercion he, being a +bachelor, could only guess at--to deliver the Hon. Galahad Threepwood +at Matchingham Hall in time for dinner. Women, he knew, had this +strange power over their near relations. + +"Splendid!" he said. "Excellent! Capital. Woof! I'll see it's done." + +"Then you can leave the rest to me." + +"You think, if I can get him out of the house, you will be able to +secure the manuscript?" + +"Certainly." + +Sir Gregory rose and extended a trembling hand. + +"Mr. Pilbeam," he said, with deep feeling, "coming to see you was the +wisest thing I ever did in my life." + +"Quite," said Percy Pilbeam. + + + + + CHAPTER VIII + + +Having reread the half-dozen pages which he had written since luncheon, +the Hon. Galahad Threepwood attached them with a brass paper fastener +to the main body of his monumental work and placed the manuscript in +its drawer--lovingly, like a young mother putting her first born to +bed. The day's work was done. Rising from the desk, he yawned and +stretched himself. + +He was ink stained but cheerful. Happiness, as solid thinkers have +often pointed out, comes from giving pleasure to others; and the little +anecdote that he had just committed to paper would, he knew, give great +pleasure to a considerable number of his fellow men. All over England +they would be rolling out of their seats when they read it. True, their +enjoyment might possibly not be shared to its fullest extent by Sir +Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe of Matchingham Hall, for what the Hon. Galahad +had just written was the story of the prawns: but the first lesson an +author has to learn is that he cannot please everybody. + +He left the small library which he had commandeered as a private study +and, descending the broad staircase, observed Beach in the hall below. +The butler was standing mountainously beside the tea table, staring in +a sort of trance at a plateful of anchovy sandwiches; and it struck +the Hon. Galahad, not for the first time in the last few days, that he +appeared to have something on his mind. A strained, haunted look he +seemed to have, as if he had done a murder and was afraid somebody was +going to find the body. A more practised physiognomist would have been +able to interpret that look. It was the one that butlers always wear +when they have allowed themselves to be persuaded against their better +judgment into becoming accessories before the fact in the theft of +their employers' pigs. + +"Beach," he said, speaking over the banisters, for he had just +remembered that there was a question he wanted to ask the man about the +somewhat eccentric Major General Magnus in whose employment he had once +been. + +"What's the matter with you?" he added with some irritation. For the +butler, jerked from his reverie, had jumped a couple of inches and +shaken all over in a manner that was most trying to watch. A butler, +felt the Hon. Galahad, is a butler, and a startled fawn is a startled +fawn. He disliked the blend of the two in a single body. + +"Why on earth do you spring like that when anyone speaks to you? I've +noticed it before. He leaps," he said complainingly to his niece +Millicent, who now came down the stairs with slow, listless steps; +"when addressed he quivers like a harpooned whale." + +"Oh?" said Millicent dully. She had drooped into a chair and picked up +a book. She looked like something that might have occurred to Ibsen in +one of his less frivolous moments. + +"I am extremely sorry, Mr. Galahad." + +"No use being sorry. Thing is not to do it. If you are practising the +shimmy for the servants' ball be advised by an old friend and give it +up. You haven't the build." + +"I think I may have caught a chill, sir." + +"Take a stiff whisky toddy. Put you right in no time. What's the car +doing out there?" + +"Her ladyship ordered it, sir. I understand that she and Mr. Baxter are +going to Market Blandings to meet the train arriving at four-forty." + +"Somebody expected?" + +"The American young lady, sir, Miss Schoonmaker." + +"Of course, yes. I remember. She arrives to-day, does she?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Schoonmaker. I used to know old Johnny Schoonmaker well. A great +fellow. Mixed the finest mint juleps in America. Have you ever tasted a +mint julep, Beach?" + +"Not to my recollection, sir." + +"Oh, you'd remember all right if you had. Insidious things. They creep +up to you like a baby sister and slide their little hands into yours, +and the next thing you know the judge is telling you to pay the clerk +of the court fifty dollars. Seen Lord Emsworth anywhere?" + +"His lordship is at the telephone, sir." + +"Don't do it, I tell you!" said the Hon. Galahad petulantly. For once +again the butler had been affected by what appeared to be a kind of +palsy. + +"I beg your pardon, Mr. Galahad. It was something I was suddenly +reminded of. There was a gentleman just after luncheon who desired to +communicate with you on the telephone. I understood him to say that he +was speaking from Oxford, being on his way from London to Blackpool +in his automobile. Knowing that you were occupied with your literary +work I refrained from disturbing you. And till I mentioned the word +'telephone' the matter slipped my mind." + +"Who was he?" + +"I did not get the gentleman's name, sir. The wire was faulty. But he +desired me to inform you that his business had to do with a dramatic +entertainment." + +"A play?" + +"Yes, sir," said Beach, plainly impressed by this happy way of putting +it. "I took the liberty of advising him that you might be able to see +him later in the afternoon. He said that he would call after tea." + +The butler passed from the hall with heavy haunted steps and the Hon. +Galahad turned to his niece. + +"I know who it is," he said. "He wrote to me yesterday. It's a +theatrical manager fellow I used to go about with years ago. Man named +Mason. He's got a play, adapted from the French, and he's had the idea +of changing it into the period of the 'nineties and getting me to put +my name to it." + +"Oh?" + +"On the strength of my book coming out at the same time. Not a bad +notion, either. Galahad Threepwood's a name that's going to have +box-office value pretty soon. The house'll be sold out for weeks to all +the old buffers who'll come flocking up to London to see if I've put +anything about them into it." + +"Oh?" said Millicent. + +The Hon. Galahad frowned. He sensed a lack of interest and sympathy. + +"What's the matter with you?" he demanded. + +"Nothing." + +"Then why are you looking like that?" + +"Like what?" + +"Pale and tragic, as if you'd just gone into Tattersall's and met a +bookie you owed money to." + +"I am perfectly happy." + +The Hon. Galahad snorted. + +"Yes, radiant. I've seen fogs that were cheerier. What's that book +you're reading?" + +"It belongs to Aunt Constance." Millicent glanced wanly at the cover. +"It seems to be about theosophy." + +"Theosophy! Fancy a young girl in the springtime of life.... What the +devil has happened to everybody in this house? There's some excuse, +perhaps, for Clarence. If you admit the possibility of a sane man +getting so attached to a beastly pig he has a right to be upset. But +what's wrong with all the rest of you? Ronald! Goes about behaving like +a bereaved tomato. Beach! Springs up and down when you speak to him. +And that young fellow Carmody----" + +"I am not interested in Mr. Carmody." + +"This morning," said the Hon. Galahad, aggrieved, "I told that boy one +of the most humorous limericks I ever heard in my life--about an Old +Man of--however, that is neither here nor there--and he just gaped at +me with his jaw dropping, like a spavined horse looking over a fence. +There are mysteries afoot in this house, and I don't like 'em. The +atmosphere of Blandings Castle has changed all of a sudden from that +of a normal, happy English home into something Edgar Allan Poe might +have written on a rainy Sunday. It's getting on my nerves. Let's hope +this girl of Johnny Schoonmaker's will cheer us up. If she's anything +like her father she ought to be a nice lively girl. But I suppose, when +she arrives, it'll turn out that she's in mourning for a great-aunt or +brooding over the situation in Russia or something. I don't know what +young people are coming to nowadays. Gloomy. Introspective. The old gay +spirit seems to have died out altogether. In my young days a girl of +your age would have been upstairs making an apple-pie bed for somebody +instead of lolling on chairs reading books about theosophy." + +Snorting once more, the Hon. Galahad disappeared into the smoking room, +and Millicent, tight lipped, returned to her book. She had been reading +for some minutes when she became aware of a long, limp, drooping figure +at her side. + +"Hullo," said Hugo, for this ruin of a fine young man was he. + +Millicent's ear twitched, but she did not reply. + +"Reading?" said Hugo. + +He had been standing on his left leg. With a sudden change of policy he +now shifted and stood on his right. + +"Interesting book?" + +Millicent looked up. + +"I beg your pardon?" + +"Only said--is that an interesting book?" + +"Very," said Millicent. + +Hugo decided that his right leg was not a success. He stood on his left +again. + +"What's it about?" + +"Transmigration of souls." + +"A thing I'm not very well up on." + +"One of the many, I should imagine," said the haughty girl. "Every +day you seem to know less and less about more and more." She rose and +made for the stairs. Her manner suggested that she was disappointed +in the hall of Blandings Castle. She had supposed it a nice place for +a girl to sit and study the best literature, and now, it appeared, it +was overrun by the underworld. "If you're really anxious to know what +'transmigration' means, it's simply that some people believe that when +you die your soul goes into something else." + +"Rum idea," said Hugo, becoming more buoyant. He began to draw hope +from her chattiness. She had not said as many consecutive words as this +to him for quite a time. "Into something else, eh? Odd notion. What do +you suppose made them think of that?" + +"Yours, for instance, would probably go into a pig. And then I would +come along and look into your sty, and I'd say, 'Good gracious! Why, +there's Hugo Carmody. He hasn't changed a bit!'" + +The spirit of the Carmodys had been a good deal crushed by recent +happenings, but at this it flickered into feeble life. + +"I call that a beastly thing to say." + +"Do you?" + +"Yes, I do." + +"I oughtn't to have said it?" + +"No, you oughtn't." + +"Well, I wouldn't have if I could have thought of anything worse." + +"And when you let a little thing like what happened the other night rot +up a great love like ours, I--well, I call it a bit rotten. You know +perfectly well that you're the only girl in the world I ever----" + +"Shall I tell you something?" + +"What?" + +"You make me sick." + +Hugo breathed passionately through his nose. + +"So all is over, is it?" + +"You can jolly well bet all is over. And if you're interested in my +future plans I may mention I intend to marry the first man who comes +along and asks me. And you can be a page at the wedding if you like. +You couldn't look any sillier than you do now, even in a frilly shirt +and satin knickerbockers." + +Hugo laughed raspingly. + +"Is that so?" + +"It is." + +"And once you said there wasn't another man like me in the world." + +"Well, I should hate to think there was," said Millicent. And as the +celebrated James-Thomas-Beach procession had entered with cakes and +gate-leg tables and her last word seemed about as good a last word as a +girl might reasonably consider herself entitled to, she passed proudly +up the stairs. + +James withdrew. Thomas withdrew. Beach remained gazing with a +hypnotized eye at the cake. + +"Beach!" said Hugo. + +"Sir?" + +"Curse all women!" + +"Very good, sir," said Beach. + +He watched the young man disappear through the open front door, heard +his footsteps crunch on the gravel, and gave himself up to meditation +again. How gladly, he was thinking, if it had not been for upsetting +Mr. Ronald's plans, would he have breathed in his employer's ear as he +filled his glass at dinner, "The pig is in the gamekeeper's cottage in +the west wood, your lordship. Thank you, your lordship." But it was not +to be. His face twisted, as if with sudden pain, and he was aware of +the Hon. Galahad emerging from the smoking room. + +"Just remembered something I wanted to ask you, Beach. You were with +old General Magnus, weren't you, some years ago, before you came here?" + +"Yes, Mr. Galahad." + +"Then perhaps you can tell me the exact facts about that trouble in +1912. I know the old chap chased young Mandeville three times round the +lawn in his pajamas, but did he merely try to stab him with the bread +knife or did he actually get home?" + +"I could not say, sir. He did not honour me with his confidence." + +"Infernal nuisance," said the Hon. Galahad. "I like to get these things +right." + +He eyed the butler discontentedly as he retired. More than ever was he +convinced that the fellow had something on his mind. The very way he +walked showed it. He was about to return to the smoking room when his +brother Clarence came into the hall. And there was in Lord Emsworth's +bearing so strange a gaiety that he stood transfixed. It seemed to +the Hon. Galahad years since he had seen anyone looking cheerful in +Blandings Castle. + +"Good God, Clarence! What's happened?" + +"What, my dear fellow?" + +"You're wreathed in smiles, dash it, and skipping like the high hills. +Found that pig under the drawing-room sofa or something?" + +Lord Emsworth beamed. + +"I have had the most cheering piece of news, Galahad. That +detective--the one I sent young Carmody to see--the Argus man, you +know--he has come after all. He drove down in his car and is at this +moment in Market Blandings, at the Emsworth Arms. I have been speaking +to him on the telephone. He rang up to ask if I still required his +services." + +"Well, you don't." + +"Certainly I do, Galahad. I consider his presence vital." + +"He can't tell you any more than you know already. There's only one man +who can have stolen that pig, and that's young Parsloe." + +"Precisely. Yes. Quite true. But this man will be able to collect +evidence and bring the thing home and--er--bring it home. He has the +trained mind. I consider it most important that the case should be in +the hands of a man with a trained mind. We should be seeing him very +shortly. He is having what he describes as a bit of a snack at the +Emsworth Arms. When he has finished he will drive over. I am delighted. +Ah, Constance, my dear." + +Lady Constance Keeble, attended by the Efficient Baxter, had appeared +at the foot of the stairs. His lordship eyed her a little warily. The +chatelaine of Blandings was apt sometimes to react unpleasantly to the +information that visitors not invited by herself were expected at the +castle. + +"Constance, my dear, a friend of mine is arriving this evening to spend +a few days. I forgot to tell you." + +"Well, we have plenty of room for him," replied Lady Constance, with +surprising amiability. "There is something I forgot to tell you, too. +We are dining at Matchingham to-night." + +"Matchingham?" Lord Emsworth was puzzled. He could think of no one who +lived in the village of Matchingham except Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe. +"With whom?" + +"Sir Gregory, of course. Who else do you suppose it could be?" + +"What?" + +"I had a note from him after luncheon. It is short notice, of course, +but that doesn't matter in the country. He took it for granted that we +would not be engaged." + +"Constance!" Lord Emsworth swelled slightly. "Constance, I will +not--dash it, I will not--dine with that man. And that's final." + +Lady Constance smiled a sort of lion tamer's smile. She had foreseen +a reaction of this kind. She had expected sales resistance and was +prepared to cope with it. Not readily, she knew, would her brother +become Parsloe-conscious. + +"Please do not be absurd, Clarence. I thought you would say that. I +have already accepted for you, Galahad, myself, and Millicent. You may +as well understand at once that I do not intend to be on bad terms with +our nearest neighbour, even if a hundred of your pig men leave you and +go to him. Your attitude in the matter has been perfectly childish +from the very start. If Sir Gregory realizes that there has been a +coolness and has most sensibly decided to make the first move toward a +reconciliation, we cannot possibly refuse the overture." + +"Indeed? And what about my friend? Arriving this evening." + +"He can look after himself for a few hours, I should imagine." + +"Abominable rudeness, he'll think it." This line of attack had +occurred to Lord Emsworth quite suddenly. He found it good. Almost an +inspiration, it seemed to him. "I invite my friend Pilbeam here to pay +us a visit, and the moment he arrives we meet him at the front door, +dash it, and say, 'Ah, here you are, Pilbeam! Well, amuse yourself, +Pilbeam. We're off.' And this Miss--er--this American girl. What will +she think?" + +"Did you say Pilbeam?" asked the Hon. Galahad. + +"It is no use talking, Clarence. Dinner is at eight. And please see +that your dress clothes are nicely pressed. Ring for Beach and tell him +now. Last night you looked like a scarecrow." + +"Once and for all, I tell you----" + +At this moment an unexpected ally took the arena on Lady Constance's +side. + +"Of course we must go, Clarence," said the Hon. Galahad, and Lord +Emsworth, spinning round to face this flank attack, was surprised to +see a swift, meaning wink come and go on his brother's face. "Nothing +gained by having unpleasantness with your neighbours in the country. +Always a mistake. Never pays." + +"Exactly," said Lady Constance, a little dazed at finding this Saul +among the prophets, but glad of the helping hand. "In the country one +is quite dependent on one's neighbours." + +"And young Parsloe--not such a bad chap, Clarence. Lots of good in +Parsloe. We shall have a pleasant evening." + +"I am relieved to find that you, at any rate, have sense, Galahad," +said Lady Constance handsomely. "I will leave you to try and drive some +of it into Clarence's head. Come, Mr. Baxter, we shall be late." + +The sound of the car's engine had died away before Lord Emsworth's +feelings found relief in speech. + +"But, Galahad, my dear fellow!" + +The Hon. Galahad patted his shoulder reassuringly. + +"It's all right, Clarence, my boy. I know what I'm doing. I have the +situation well in hand." + +"Dine with Parsloe after what has occurred? After what occurred +yesterday? It's impossible. Why on earth the man is inviting us, I +can't understand." + +"I suppose he thinks that if he gives us a dinner I shall relent and +omit the prawn story. Oh, I see Parsloe's motive all right. A clever +move. Not that it'll work." + +"But what do you want to go for?" + +The Hon. Galahad raked the hall with a conspiratorial monocle. It +appeared to be empty. Nevertheless, he looked under a settee and, going +to the front door, swiftly scanned the gravel. + +"Shall I tell you something, Clarence?" he said, coming +back--"something that'll interest you?" + +"Certainly, my dear fellow. Certainly. Most decidedly." + +"Something that'll bring the sparkle to your eyes?" + +"By all means. I should enjoy it." + +"You know what we're going to do? To-night? After dining with Parsloe +and sending Constance back in the car?" + +"No." + +The Hon. Galahad placed his lips to his brother's ear. + +"We're going to steal his pig, my boy." + +"What!" + +"It came to me in a flash while Constance was talking. Parsloe stole +the Empress. Very well, we'll steal Pride of Matchingham. Then we'll be +in a position to look young Parsloe squarely in the eye and say, 'What +about it?'" + +Lord Emsworth swayed gently. His brain, never a strong one, had +tottered perceptibly on its throne. + +"Galahad!" + +"Only thing to do. Reprisals. Recognized military manœuvre." + +"But how? Galahad, how can it be done?" + +"Easily. If young Parsloe stole the Empress, why should we have any +difficulty in stealing his animal? You show me where he keeps it, my +boy, and I'll do the rest. Puffy Benger and I stole old Wivenhoe's pig +at Hammers Easton in the year '95. We put it in Plug Basham's bedroom. +And we'll put Parsloe's pig in a bedroom, too." + +"In a bedroom?" + +"Well, a sort of bedroom. Where are we to hide the animal--that's what +you've been asking yourself, is it? I'll tell you. We're going to put +it in that caravan that your flower-pot throwing friend Baxter arrived +in. Nobody's going to think of looking there. Then we'll be in a +position to talk terms to young Parsloe, and I think he will very soon +see the game is up." + +Lord Emsworth was looking at his brother almost devoutly. He had always +known that Galahad's intelligence was superior to his own, but he had +never realized it could soar to quite such lofty heights as this. It +was, he supposed, the result of the life his brother had lived. He +himself, sheltered through the peaceful, uneventful years at Blandings +Castle, had allowed his brain to become comparatively atrophied. But +Galahad, battling through these same years with hostile skittle-sharps +and the sort of man that used to be a member of the old Pelican Club, +had kept his clear and vigorous. + +"You really think it would be feasible?" + +"Trust me. By the way, Clarence, this man Pilbeam of yours. Do you know +if he was ever anything except a detective?" + +"I have no idea, my dear fellow. I know nothing of him. I have merely +spoken to him on the telephone. Why?" + +"Oh, nothing. I'll ask him when he arrives. Where are you going?" + +"Into the garden." + +"It's raining." + +"I have my mackintosh. I really--I feel I really must walk about after +what you have told me. I am in a state of considerable excitement." + +"Well, work it off before you see Constance again. It won't do to have +her start suspecting there's something up. If there's anything you want +to ask me about you'll find me in the smoking room." + +For some twenty minutes the hall of Blandings Castle remained empty. +Then Beach appeared. At the same moment, from the gravel outside there +came the purring of a high-powered car and the sound of voices. Beach +posed himself in the doorway, looking, as he always did on these +occasions, like the Spirit of Blandings welcoming the lucky guest. + + + + + CHAPTER IX + + +"Leave the door open, Beach," said Lady Constance. + +"Very good, your ladyship." + +"I think the smell of the wet earth and the flowers is so refreshing, +don't you?" + +The butler did not. He was not one of your fresh-air men. Rightly +conjecturing, however, that the question had been addressed not to him +but to the girl in the beige suit who had accompanied the speaker up +the steps, he forbore to reply. He cast an appraising, bulging-eyed +look at this girl and decided that she met with his approval. Smaller +and slighter than the type of woman he usually admired, he found +her, nevertheless, even by his own exacting standards of criticism, +noticeably attractive. He liked her face and he liked the way she was +dressed. Her frock was right, her shoes were right, her stockings were +right, and her hat was right. As far as Beach was concerned Sue had +passed the Censor. + +Her demeanour pleased him, too. From the flush on her face and the +sparkle in her eyes, she seemed to be taking her first entry into +Blandings Castle in quite the proper spirit of reverential excitement. +To be at Blandings plainly meant something to her, was an event in her +life; and Beach, who after many years of residence within its walls +had come to look on the Castle as a piece of personal property, felt +flattered and gratified. + +"I don't think this shower will last long," said Lady Constance. + +"No," said Sue, smiling brightly. + +"And now you must be wanting some tea after your journey." + +"Yes," said Sue, smiling brightly. + +It seemed to her that she had been smiling brightly for centuries. The +moment she had alighted from the train and found her formidable hostess +and this strangely sinister Mr. Baxter waiting to meet her on the +platform, she had begun to smile brightly and had been doing it ever +since. + +"Usually we have tea on the lawn. It is so nice there." + +"It must be." + +"When the rain is over, Mr. Baxter, you must show Miss Schoonmaker the +rose garden." + +"I shall be delighted," said the Efficient Baxter. + +He flashed gleaming spectacles in her direction, and a momentary panic +gripped Sue. She feared that already this man had probed her secret. In +his glance, it seemed to her, there shone suspicion. + +Such, however, was not the case. It was only the combination of large +spectacles and heavy eyebrows that had created the illusion. Although +Rupert Baxter was a man who generally suspected everybody on principle, +it so happened that he had accepted Sue without question. The glance +was an admiring, almost a loving glance. It would be too much to say +that Baxter had already fallen a victim to Sue's charms, but the good +looks which he saw and the wealth which he had been told about were +undeniably beginning to fan the hidden fire. + +"My brother is a great rose grower." + +"Yes, isn't he? I mean, I think roses are so lovely." The spectacles +were beginning to sap Sue's morale. They seemed to be eating into her +soul like some sort of corrosive acid. "How nice and old everything +is here," she went on hurriedly. "What is that funny-looking gargoyle +thing over there?" + +What she actually referred to was a Japanese mask which hung from the +wall, and it was unfortunate that the Hon. Galahad should have chosen +this moment to come out of the smoking room. It made the question seem +personal. + +"My brother Galahad," said Lady Constance. Her voice lost some of the +kindly warmth of the hostess putting the guest at her ease and took +on the cold disapproval which the author of the Reminiscences always +induced in her. "Galahad, this is Miss Schoonmaker." + +"Really?" The Hon. Galahad trotted briskly up. "Is it? Bless my soul! +Well, well, well!" + +"How do you do?" said Sue, smiling brightly. + +"How are you, my dear? I know your father intimately." + +The bright smile faded. Sue had tried to plan this venture of hers +carefully, looking ahead for all possible pitfalls, but that she would +encounter people who knew Mr. Schoonmaker intimately she had not +foreseen. + +"Haven't seen him lately, of course. Let me see--must be twenty-five +years since we met. Yes, quite twenty-five years." + +A warm and lasting friendship was destined to spring up between Sue and +the Hon. Galahad Threepwood, but never in the whole course of it did +she experience again quite the gush of whole-hearted affection which +surged over her at these words. + +"I wasn't born then," she said. + +The Hon. Galahad was babbling on happily. + +"A great fellow, old Johnny. You'll find some stories about him in +my book. I'm writing my Reminiscences, you know. Fine sportsman, old +Johnny. Great grief to him, I remember, when he broke his leg and had +to go into a nursing home in the middle of the racing season. However, +he made the best of it. Got the nurses interested in current form and +used to make a book with them in fruit and cigarettes and things. I +recollect coming to see him one day and finding him quite worried. He +was a most conscientious man, with a horror of not settling up when he +lost, and apparently one of the girls had had a suet dumpling on the +winner of the three o'clock race at fifteen to eight, and he couldn't +figure out what he had got to pay her." + +Sue, laughing gratefully, was aware of a drooping presence at her side. + +"My niece, Millicent," said Lady Constance. "Millicent, my dear, this +is Miss Schoonmaker." + +"How do you do?" said Sue, smiling brightly. + +"How do you do?" said Millicent, like the silent tomb breaking its +silence. + +Sue regarded her with interest. So this was Hugo's Millicent. The sight +of her caused Sue to wonder at the ardent nature of that young man's +devotion. Millicent was pretty, but she would have thought that one of +Hugo's exuberant disposition would have preferred something a little +livelier. + +She was startled to observe in the girl's eyes a look of surprise. In a +situation as delicate as hers was, Sue had no wish to occasion surprise +to anyone. + +"Ronnie's friend?" asked Millicent. "The Miss Schoonmaker Ronnie met at +Biarritz?" + +"Yes," said Sue faintly. + +"But I had the impression that you were very tall. I'm sure Ronnie told +me so." + +"I suppose almost anyone seems tall to that boy," said the Hon. Galahad. + +Sue breathed again. She had had a return of the unpleasant feeling of +being boneless which had come upon her when the Hon. Galahad had spoken +of knowing Mr. Schoonmaker intimately. But though she breathed she +was still shaken. Life at Blandings Castle was plainly going to be a +series of shocks. She sat back with a sensation of dizziness. Baxter's +spectacles seemed to her to be glittering more suspiciously than ever. + +"Have you seen Ronald anywhere, Millicent?" asked Lady Constance. + +"Not since lunch. I suppose he's out in the grounds somewhere." + +"I saw him half an hour ago," said the Hon. Galahad. "He came mooning +along under my window while I was polishing up some stuff I wrote this +afternoon. I called to him, but he just grunted and wandered off." + +"He will be surprised to find you here," said Lady Constance, turning +to Sue. "Your telegram did not arrive till after lunch, so he does +not know that you were planning to come to-day. Unless you told him, +Galahad." + +"I didn't tell him. Never occurred to me that he knew Miss Schoonmaker. +Forgot you'd met him at Biarritz. What was he like then? Reasonably +cheerful?" + +"Yes, I think so." + +"Didn't scowl and jump and gasp and quiver all over the place?" + +"No." + +"Then something must have happened when he went up to London. It was +after he came back that I remember noticing that he seemed upset about +something. Ah, the rain's stopped." + +Lady Constance looked over her shoulder. + +"The sky still looks very threatening," she said, "but you might be +able to get out for a few minutes. Mr. Baxter," she explained, "is +going to show Miss Schoonmaker the rose garden." + +"No, he isn't," said the Hon. Galahad, who had been scrutinizing Sue +through his monocle with growing appreciation. "I am. Old Johnny +Schoonmaker's little girl--why, there are a hundred things I want to +discuss." + +The last thing Sue desired was to be left alone with the intimidating +Baxter. She rose quickly. + +"I should love to come," she said. + +The prospect of discussing the intimate affairs of the Schoonmaker +family was not an agreeable one, but anything was better than the +society of the spectacles. + +"Perhaps," said the Hon. Galahad, as he led her to the door, "you'll +be able to put me right about that business of old Johnny and the +mysterious woman at the New Year's Eve party. As I got the story, +Johnny suddenly found this female--a perfect stranger, mind you--with +her arms round his neck, telling him in a confidential undertone that +she had made up her mind to go straight back to Des Moines, Iowa, and +stick a knife into Fred. What he had done to win her confidence and who +Fred was and whether she ever did stick a knife into him, your father +hadn't found out by the time I left for home." + +His voice died away, and a moment later the Efficient Baxter, starting +as if a sudden thought had entered his powerful brain, rose abruptly +and made quickly for the stairs. + + + + + CHAPTER X + + + I + +The rose garden of Blandings Castle was a famous beauty spot. Most +people who visited it considered it deserving of a long and leisurely +inspection. Enthusiastic horticulturists frequently went pottering +and sniffing about it for hours on end. The tour through its fragrant +groves personally conducted by the Hon. Galahad Threepwood lasted some +six minutes. + +"Well, that's what it is, you see," he said, as they emerged, waving +a hand vaguely. "Roses and--er--roses, and all that sort of thing. +You get the idea. And now, if you don't mind, I ought to be getting +back. I want to keep in touch with the house. It slipped my mind, but +I'm expecting a man to call to see me at any moment on some rather +important business." + +Sue was quite willing to return. She liked her companion, but she had +found his company embarrassing. The subject of the Schoonmaker family +history showed a tendency to bulk too largely in his conversation for +comfort. Fortunately, his practice of asking a question and answering +it himself and then rambling off into some anecdote of the person or +persons involved had enabled her so far to avoid disaster; but there +was no saying how long this happy state of things would last. She was +glad of the opportunity of being alone. + +Besides, Ronnie was somewhere out in these grounds. At any moment, if +she went wandering through them, she might come upon him. And then, +she told herself, all would be well. Surely he could not preserve his +sullen hostility in the face of the fact that she had come all this +way, pretending dangerously to be Miss Schoonmaker of New York, simply +in order to see him? + +Her companion, she found, was still talking. + +"He wants to see me about a play. This book of mine is going to make a +stir, you see, and he thinks that if he can get me to put my name to +the play...." + +Sue's thoughts wandered again. She gathered that the caller he was +expecting had to do with the theatrical industry, and wondered for a +moment if it was anyone she had ever heard of. She was not sufficiently +interested to make inquiries. She was too busy thinking of Ronnie. + +"I shall be quite happy," she said, as the voice beside her ceased. +"It's such a lovely place. I shall enjoy just wandering about by +myself." + +The Hon. Galahad seemed shocked at the idea. + +"Wouldn't dream of leaving you alone. Clarence will look after you, and +I shall be back in a few minutes." + +The name seemed to Sue to strike a familiar chord. Then she remembered. +Lord Emsworth. Ronnie's Uncle Clarence. The man who held Ronnie's +destinies in the hollow of his hand. + +"Hi! Clarence!" called the Hon. Galahad. + +Sue perceived pottering toward them a long, stringy man of mild and +benevolent aspect. She was conscious of something of a shock. In +Ronnie's conversation the Earl of Emsworth had always appeared in the +light of a sort of latter-day ogre, a man at whom the stoutest nephew +might well shudder. She saw nothing formidable in this newcomer. + +"Is that Lord Emsworth?" she asked, surprised. + +"Yes. Clarence, this is Miss Schoonmaker." + +His lordship had pottered up and was beaming amiably. + +"Is it, indeed? Oh, ah, yes, to be sure. Delighted. How are you? How +are you? Miss Who?" + +"Schoonmaker. Daughter of my old friend Johnny Schoonmaker. You knew +she was arriving. Considering that you were in the hall when Constance +went to meet her----" + +"Oh, yes." The cloud was passing from what, for want of a better word, +must be called Lord Emsworth's mind. "Yes, yes, yes. Yes, to be sure." + +"I've got to leave you to look after her for a few minutes, Clarence." + +"Certainly, certainly." + +"Take her about and show her things. I wouldn't go too far from the +house, if I were you. There's a storm coming up." + +"Exactly. Precisely. Yes, I will take her about and show her things. +Are you fond of pigs?" + +Sue had never considered this point before. Hers had been an urban +life, and she could not remember ever having come into contact with a +pig on what might be termed a social footing. But, remembering that +this was the man whom Ronnie had described as being wrapped up in one +of these animals, she smiled her bright smile. + +"Oh, yes. Very." + +"Mine has been stolen." + +"I'm so sorry." + +Lord Emsworth was visibly pleased at this womanly sympathy. + +"But I now have strong hopes that she may be recovered. The trained +mind is everything. What I always say----" + +What it was that Lord Emsworth always said was unfortunately destined +to remain unrevealed. It would probably have been something good, but +the world was not to hear it; for at this moment, completely breaking +his train of thought, there came from above, from the direction of the +window of the small library, an odd scrabbling sound. Something shot +through the air. And the next instant there appeared in the middle of +a flower bed containing lobelias something that was so manifestly not +a lobelia that he stared at it in stunned amazement, speech wiped from +his lips as with a sponge. + +It was the Efficient Baxter. He was on all fours, and seemed to be +groping about for his spectacles, which had fallen off and got hidden +in the undergrowth. + + + II + +Properly considered, there is no such thing as an insoluble mystery. +It may seem puzzling at first sight when ex-secretaries start falling +as the gentle rain from heaven upon the lobelias beneath, but there is +always a reason for it. That Baxter did not immediately give the reason +was due to the fact that he had private and personal motives for not +doing so. + +We have called Rupert Baxter efficient, and efficient he was. The +word, as we interpret it, implies not only a capacity for performing +the ordinary tasks of life with a smooth firmness of touch but in +addition a certain alertness of mind, a genius for opportunism, a gift +for seeing clearly, thinking swiftly, and Doing It Now. With these +qualities Rupert Baxter was preëminently equipped; and it had been with +him the work of a moment to perceive, directly the Hon. Galahad had +left the house with Sue, that here was his chance of popping upstairs, +nipping into the small library, and abstracting the manuscript of the +Reminiscences. Having popped and nipped, as planned, he was in the +very act of searching the desk when the sound of a footstep outside +froze him from his spectacles to the soles of his feet. The next moment +fingers began to turn the door handle. + +You may freeze a Baxter's body, but you cannot numb his active brain. +With one masterful, lightning-like flash of clear thinking he took in +the situation and saw the only possible way out. To reach the door +leading to the large library he would have to circumnavigate the desk. +The window, on the other hand, was at his elbow. So he jumped out of it. + +All these things Baxter could have explained in a few words. Refraining +from doing so, he rose to his feet and began to brush the mould from +his knees. + +"Baxter! What on earth----?" + +The ex-secretary found the gaze of his late employer trying to nerves +which had been considerably shaken by his fall. The occasions on which +he disliked Lord Emsworth most intensely were just these occasions when +the other gaped at him open-mouthed like a surprised halibut. + +"I overbalanced," he said curtly. + +"Overbalanced?" + +"Slipped." + +"Slipped?" + +"Yes. Slipped." + +"How? Where?" + +It now occurred to Baxter that by a most fortunate chance the window of +the small library was not the only one that looked out onto this arena +into which he had precipitated himself. He might equally well have +descended from the larger library which adjoined it. + +"I was leaning out of the library window." + +"Why?" + +"Inhaling the air." + +"What for?" + +"And I lost my balance." + +"Lost your balance?" + +"I slipped." + +"Slipped?" + +Baxter had the feeling--it was one which he had often had in the old +days when conversing with Lord Emsworth--that an exchange of remarks +had begun which might go on forever. A keen desire swept over him to +be--and that right speedily--in some other place. He did not care where +it was. So long as Lord Emsworth was not there it would be Paradise +enow. + +"I think I will go indoors and wash my hands," he said. + +"And face," suggested the Hon. Galahad. + +"My face also," said Rupert Baxter coldly. + +He started to move round the angle of the house, but long before he +had got out of hearing Lord Emsworth's high and penetrating tenor was +dealing with the situation. His lordship, as so often happened on these +occasions, was under the impression that he spoke in a hushed whisper. + +"Mad as a coot!" he said. And the words rang out through the still +summer air like a public oration. + +They cut Baxter to the quick. They were not the sort of words to which +a man with an inch and a quarter of skin off his left shin bone ought +ever to have been called upon to listen. With flushed ears and glowing +spectacles, the Efficient Baxter passed on his way. Statistics relating +to madness among coots are not to hand, but we may safely doubt whether +even in the ranks of these notoriously unbalanced birds there could +have been found at this moment one who was feeling half as mad as he +was. + + + III + +Lord Emsworth continued to gaze at the spot where his late secretary +had passed from sight. + +"Mad as a coot," he repeated. + +In his brother Galahad he found a ready supporter. + +"Madder," said the Hon. Galahad. + +"Upon my word, I think he's actually worse than he was two years ago. +Then, at least, he never fell out of windows." + +"Why on earth do you have that fellow here?" + +Lord Emsworth sighed. + +"It's Constance, my dear Galahad. You know what she is. She insisted on +inviting him." + +"Well, if you take my advice you'll hide the flower pots. One of the +things this fellow does when he gets these attacks," explained the Hon. +Galahad, taking Sue into the family confidence, "is to go about hurling +flower pots at people." + +"Really?" said Sue. + +"I assure you. Looking for me, Beach?" + +The careworn figure of the butler had appeared, walking as one pacing +behind the coffin of an old friend. + +"Yes, sir. The gentleman has arrived, Mr. Galahad. I looked in the +small library, thinking that you might possibly be there, but you were +not." + +"No, I was out here." + +"Yes, sir." + +"That's why you couldn't find me. Show him up to the small library, +Beach, and tell him I'll be with him in a moment." + +"Very good, sir." + +The Hon. Galahad's temporary delay in going to see his visitor was due +to his desire to linger long enough to tell Sue, to whom he had taken +a warm fancy and whom he wished to shield as far as it was in his +power from the perils of life, what every girl ought to know about the +Efficient Baxter. + +"Never let yourself be alone with that fellow in a deserted spot, my +dear," he counselled. "If he suggests a walk in the woods call for +help. Been off his head for years. Ask Clarence." + +Lord Emsworth nodded solemnly. + +"And it looks to me," went on the Hon. Galahad, "as if his mania had +now taken a suicidal turn. Overbalanced, indeed! How the deuce could +he have overbalanced? Flung himself out bodily, that's what he did. +I couldn't think who it was he reminded me of till this moment. He's +the living image of a man I used to know in the 'nineties. The first +intimation any of us had that this chap had anything wrong with him was +when he turned up to supper at the house of a friend of mine--George +Pallant. You remember George, Clarence?--with a couple of days' beard +on him. And when Mrs. George, who had known him all her life, asked him +why he hadn't shaved--'Shaved?' says this fellow, surprised.--Packleby, +his name was. One of the Leicestershire Packlebys.--'Shaved, dear +lady?' he says. 'Well, considering that they even hide the butter knife +when I come down to breakfast for fear I'll try to cut my throat with +it, is it reasonable to suppose they'd trust me with a razor?' Quite +stuffy about it, he was, and it spoiled the party. Look after Miss +Schoonmaker, Clarence. I shan't be long." + +Lord Emsworth had little experience in the art of providing diversion +for young girls. Left thus to his native inspiration, he pondered a +while. If the Empress had not been stolen, his task would, of course, +have been simple. He could have given this Miss Schoonmaker a half hour +of sheer entertainment by taking her down to the piggeries to watch +that superb animal feed. As it was, he was at something of a loss. + +"Perhaps you would care to see the rose garden?" he hazarded. + +"I should love it," said Sue. + +"Are you fond of roses?" + +"Tremendously." + +Lord Emsworth found himself warming to this girl. Her personality +pleased him. He seemed dimly to recall something his sister Constance +had said about her--something about wishing that her nephew Ronald +would settle down with some nice girl with money like that Miss +Schoonmaker whom Julia had met at Biarritz. Feeling so kindly toward +her, it occurred to him that a word in season, opening her eyes to his +nephew's true character, might prevent the girl making a mistake which +she would regret forever when it was too late. + +"I think you know my nephew Ronald?" he said. + +"Yes." + +Lord Emsworth paused to smell a rose. He gave Sue a brief biography of +it before returning to the theme. + +"That boy's an ass," he said. + +"Why?" said Sue sharply. She began to feel less amiable toward this +stringy old man. A moment before she had been thinking that it was +rather charming, that funny, vague manner of his. Now she saw him +clearly for what he was--a dodderer, and a Class A dodderer at that. + +"Why?" His lordship considered the point. "Well, heredity, probably, +I should say. His father, old Miles Fish, was the biggest fool in the +Brigade of Guards." He looked at her impressively through slanting +pince-nez, as if to call her attention to the fact that this was +something of an achievement. "The boy throws tennis balls at pigs," he +went on, getting down to the ghastly facts. + +Sue was surprised. The words, if she had caught them correctly, seemed +to present a side of Ronnie's character of which she had been unaware. + +"Does what?" + +"I saw him with my own eyes. He threw a tennis ball at Empress of +Blandings. And not once but repeatedly." + +The motherly instinct which all girls feel toward the men they love +urged Sue to say something in Ronnie's defence. But apart from +suggesting that the pig had probably started it she could not think +of anything. They left the rose garden and began to walk back to the +lawn, Lord Emsworth still exercised by the thought of his nephew's +shortcomings. For one reason and another Ronnie had always been a +source of vague annoyance to him since boyhood. There had even been +times when he had felt that he would almost have preferred the society +of his younger son, Frederick. + +"Aggravating boy," he said. "Most aggravating. Always up to something +or other. Started a night club the other day. Lost a lot of money over +it. Just the sort of thing he would do. My brother Galahad started some +kind of a club many years ago. It cost my old father nearly a thousand +pounds, I recollect. There is something about Ronald that reminds me +very much of Galahad at the same age." + +Although Sue had found much in the author of the Reminiscences to +attract her she was able to form a very fair estimate of the sort +of young man he must have been in the middle twenties. This charge, +accordingly, struck her as positively libellous. + +"I don't agree with you, Lord Emsworth." + +"But you never knew my brother Galahad as a young man," his lordship +pointed out cleverly. + +"What is the name of that hill over there?" asked Sue in a cold voice, +changing the unpleasant subject. + +"That hill? Oh, that one?" It was the only one in sight. "It is called +the Wrekin." + +"Oh?" said Sue. + +"Yes," said Lord Emsworth. + +"Ah," said Sue. + +They had crossed the lawn and were on the broad terraces that looked +out over the park. Sue leaned on the low stone wall that bordered it +and gazed before her into the gathering dusk. + +The castle had been built on a knoll of rising ground, and on this +terrace one had the illusion of being perched up at a great height. +From where she stood, Sue got a sweeping view of the park and of the +dim, misty Vale of Blandings that dreamed beyond. In the park, rabbits +were scuttling to and fro. In the shrubberies birds called sleepily. +From somewhere out across the fields there came the faint tinkling of +sheep bells. The lake shone like old silver, and there was a river in +the distance, dull gray between the dull green of the trees. + +It was a lovely sight, age-old, orderly, and English, but it was +spoiled by the sky. The sky was overcast and looked bruised. It seemed +to be made of dough, and one could fancy it pressing down on the world +like a heavy blanket. And it was muttering to itself. A single heavy +drop of rain splashed on the stone beside Sue, and there was a low +growl far away as if some powerful and unfriendly beast had spied her. + +She shivered. She had been gripped by a sudden depression, a strange +foreboding that chilled the spirit. That muttering seemed to say that +there was no happiness anywhere and never could be any. The air was +growing close and clammy. Another drop of rain fell, squashily like a +toad, and spread itself over her hand. + +Lord Emsworth was finding his companion unresponsive. His stream of +prattle slackened and died away. He began to wonder how he was to +escape from a girl who, though undeniably pleasing to the eye, was +proving singularly difficult to talk to. Raking the horizon in search +of aid, he perceived Beach approaching, a silver salver in his hand. +The salver had a card on it and an envelope. + +"For me, Beach?" + +"The card, your lordship. The gentleman is in the hall." + +Lord Emsworth breathed a sigh of relief. + +"You will excuse me, my dear? It is most important that I should see +this fellow immediately. My brother Galahad will be back very shortly, +I have no doubt. He will entertain you. You don't mind?" + +He bustled away, glad to go, and Sue became conscious of the salver, +thrust deferentially toward her. + +"For you, miss." + +"For me?" + +"Yes, miss," moaned Beach, like a winter wind wailing through dead +trees. + +He inclined his head sombrely and was gone. She tore open the envelope. +For one breath-taking instant she had thought it might be from Ronnie. +But the writing was not Ronnie's familiar scrawl. It was bold, clear, +decisive writing, the writing of an efficient man. + +She looked at the last page. + + Yours sincerely + R. J. BAXTER. + +Sue's heart was beating faster as she turned back to the beginning. +When a girl in the position in which she had placed herself has been +stared at through steel-rimmed spectacles in the way this R. J. Baxter +had stared at her through his spectacles, her initial reaction to +mysterious notes from the man behind the lenses cannot but be a panic +fear that all has been discovered. + +The opening sentence dispelled her alarm. Purely personal motives, it +appeared, had caused Rupert Baxter to write these few lines. The mere +fact that the letter began with the words "Dear Miss Schoonmaker" was +enough in itself to bring comfort. + + At the risk of annoying you by the intrusion of my private affairs + [wrote the Efficient Baxter, rather in the manner of one beginning + an after-dinner speech], I feel that I must give you an explanation + of the incident which occurred in the garden in your presence this + afternoon. From the observation--in the grossest taste--which Lord + Emsworth let fall in my hearing, I fear you may have placed a wrong + construction on what took place. (I allude to the expression "Mad + as a coot," which I distinctly heard Lord Emsworth utter as I moved + away.) + + The facts were precisely as I stated. I was leaning out of the + library window, and, chancing to lean too far, I lost my balance + and fell. That I might have received serious injuries and was + entitled to expect sympathy, I overlook. But the words "Mad as a + coot" I resent extremely. + + Had this incident not occurred, I would not have dreamed of saying + anything to prejudice you against your host. As it is, I feel that + in justice to myself I must tell you that Lord Emsworth is a man to + whose utterances no attention should be paid. He is to all intents + and purposes half-witted. Life in the country, with its lack of + intellectual stimulus, has caused his natural feebleness of mind + to reach a stage which borders closely on insanity. His relatives + look on him as virtually an imbecile and have, in my opinion, every + cause to do so. + + In these circumstances, I think I may rely on you to attach no + importance to his remarks this afternoon. + + Yours sincerely + R. J. BAXTER. + + P.S. You will, of course, treat this as entirely confidential. + + P.P.S. If you are fond of chess and would care for a game after + dinner I am a good player. + + P.P.S.S. Or bezique. + +Sue thought it a good letter, neat and well expressed. Why it had +been written she could not imagine. It had not occurred to her that +love--or, at any rate, a human desire to marry a wealthy heiress--had +begun to burgeon in R. J. Baxter's bosom. With no particular emotions +other than the feeling that if he was counting on playing bezique with +her after dinner he was due for a disappointment, she put the letter in +her pocket, and looked out over the park again. + +The object of all good literature is to purge the soul of its petty +troubles. This, she was pleased to discover, Baxter's letter had +succeeded in doing. Recalling its polished phrases, she found herself +smiling appreciatively. + +That muttering sky did not look so menacing now. Everything, she told +herself, was going to be all right. After all, she did not ask much +from Fate--just an uninterrupted five minutes with Ronnie. And if Fate +so far had denied her this very moderate demand---- + +"All alone?" + +Sue turned, her heart beating quickly. The voice, speaking close behind +her, had had something of the effect of a douche of iced water down her +back. For, restorative though Baxter's letter had been, it had not +left her in quite the frame of mind to enjoy anything so sudden and +jumpy as an unexpected voice. + +It was the Hon. Galahad, back from his interview with the gentleman, +and the sight of him did nothing to calm her agitation. He was eying +her, she thought, with a strange and sinister intentness. And though +his manner, as he planted himself beside her and began to talk, seemed +all that was cordial and friendly, she could not rid herself of a +feeling of uneasiness. That look still lingered in her mind's eye. +With the air all heavy and woolly and the sky growling pessimistic +prophecies it had been a look to alarm the bravest girl. + +Chattering amiably, the Hon. Galahad spoke of this and that: of scenery +and the weather; of birds and rabbits; of friends of his who had served +terms in prison, and of other friends who, one would have said on the +evidence, had been lucky to escape. Then his monocle was up again and +that look was back on his face. + +The air was more breathless than ever. + +"You know," said the Hon. Galahad, "it's been a great treat to me, +meeting you, my dear. I haven't seen any of your people for a number of +years, but your father and I correspond pretty regularly. He tells me +all the news. Did you leave your family well?" + +"Quite well." + +"How was your Aunt Edna?" + +"Fine," said Sue feebly. + +"Ah," said the Hon. Galahad. "Then your father must have been mistaken +when he told me she was dead. But perhaps you thought I meant your Aunt +Edith?" + +"Yes," said Sue gratefully. + +"She's all right, I hope?" + +"Oh, yes." + +"What a lovely woman!" + +"Yes." + +"You mean she still is?" + +"Oh, yes." + +"Remarkable! She must be well over seventy by now. No doubt you mean +beautiful considering she is over seventy?" + +"Yes." + +"Pretty active?" + +"Oh, yes." + +"When did you see her last?" + +"Oh--just before I sailed." + +"And you say she's active? Curious! I heard two years ago that she was +paralyzed. I suppose you mean active for a paralytic." + +The little puckers at the corners of his eyes deepened into wrinkles. +The monocle gleamed like the eye of a dragon. He smiled genially. + +"Confide in me, Miss Brown," he said. "What's the game?" + + + + + CHAPTER XI + + + I + +Sue did not answer. When the solid world melts abruptly beneath the +feet one feels disinclined for speech. Avoiding the monocle, she stood +looking with wide blank eyes at a thrush which hopped fussily about the +lawn. Behind her the sky gave a low chuckle, as if this was what it had +been waiting for. + +"Up there," proceeded the Hon. Galahad, pointing to the small library, +"is the room where I work. And sometimes, when I'm not working, I look +out of the window. I was looking out a short while back when you were +down here talking to my brother Clarence. There was a fellow with +me. He looked out, too." His voice sounded blurred and far away. "A +theatrical manager fellow I used to know very well in the old days. A +man named Mason." + +The thrush had flown away. Sue continued to gaze at the spot where +it had been. Across the years, for the mind works oddly in times of +stress, there had come to her vivid recollection of herself at the age +of ten, taken by her mother to the Isle of Man on her first steamer +trip and just beginning to feel the motion of the vessel. There had +been a moment then, just before the supreme catastrophe, when she had +felt exactly as she was feeling now. + +"We saw you, and he said, 'Why there's Sue!' I said, 'Sue? Sue Who?' +'Sue Brown,' said this fellow Mason. He said you were one of the girls +at his theatre. He didn't seem particularly surprised to see you here. +He said he took it that everything had been fixed up all right and he +was glad, because you were one of the best. He wanted to come and have +a chat with you, but I headed him off. I thought you might prefer to +talk over this little matter of your being Miss Sue Brown alone with +me. Which brings me back to my original question. What, Miss Brown, is +the game?" + +Sue felt dizzy, helpless, hopeless. + +"I can't explain," she said. + +The Hon. Galahad tut-tutted protestingly. + +"You don't mean to say you propose to leave the thing as just another +of those historic mysteries? Don't you want me ever to get a good +night's sleep again?" + +"Oh, it's so long." + +"We have the evening before us. Take it bit by bit, a little at a time. +To begin with, what did Mason mean by saying that everything was all +right?" + +"I had told him about Ronnie." + +"Ronnie? My nephew Ronald?" + +"Yes. And, seeing me here, he naturally took it for granted that Lord +Emsworth and the rest of you had consented to the engagement and +invited me to the castle." + +"Engagement?" + +"I used to be engaged to Ronnie." + +"What! That young Fish?" + +"Yes." + +"Good God!" said the Hon. Galahad. + +Suddenly Sue began to feel conscious of a slackening of the tension. +Mysteriously, the conversation was seeming less difficult. In spite of +the fact that Reason scoffed at the absurdity of such an idea, she felt +just as if she were talking to a potential friend and ally. The thought +had come to her at the moment when, looking up, she caught sight of +her companion's face. It is an unpleasant thing to say of any man, but +there is no denying that the Hon. Galahad's face, when he was listening +to the confessions of those who had behaved as they ought not to have +behaved, very frequently lacked the austerity and disapproval which one +likes to see in faces on such occasions. + +"But however did Pa Mason come to be here?" asked Sue. + +"He came to discuss some business in connection with----Never mind +about that," said the Hon. Galahad, calling the meeting to order. +"Kindly refrain from wandering from the point. I'm beginning to see +daylight. You are engaged to Ronald you say?" + +"I was." + +"But you broke it off?" + +"He broke it off." + +"He did?" + +"Yes. That's why I came here. You see, Ronnie was here and I was in +London, and you can't put things properly in letters, so I thought that +if I could get down to Blandings I could see him and explain and put +everything right--and I'd met Lady Constance in London one day when I +was with Ronnie, and he had introduced me as Miss Schoonmaker, so that +part of it was all right--so--well, so I came." + +If this chronicle has proved anything it has proved by now that the +moral outlook of the Hon. Galahad Threepwood was fundamentally unsound. +A man to shake the head at. A man to view with concern. So felt his +sister, Lady Constance Keeble, and she was undoubtedly right. If final +evidence were needed, his next words supplied it. + +"I never heard," said the Hon. Galahad, beaming like one listening to a +tale of virtue triumphant, "anything so dashed sporting in my life." + +Sue's heart leaped. She had felt all along that Reason, in denying the +possibility that this man could ever approve of what she had done, had +been mistaken. These pessimists always are. + +"You mean," she cried, "you won't give me away?" + +"Me?" said the Hon. Galahad, aghast at the idea. "Of course I won't. +What do you take me for?" + +"I think you're an angel." + +The Hon. Galahad seemed pleased at the compliment, but it was plain +that there was something that worried him. He frowned a little. + +"What I can't make out," he said, "is why you want to marry my nephew +Ronald." + +"I love him, bless his heart." + +"No, seriously!" protested the Hon. Galahad. "Do you know that he once +put tin-tacks on my chair?" + +"And he throws tennis balls at pigs. All the same, I love him." + +"You can't!" + +"I do." + +"How can you possibly love a fellow like that?" + +"That's just what he always used to say," said Sue softly. "And I think +that's why I love him." + +The Hon. Galahad sighed. Fifty years' experience had taught him that +it was no use arguing with women on this particular point, but he had +conceived a warm affection for this girl, and it shocked him to think +of her madly throwing herself away. + +"Don't you go doing anything in a hurry, my dear. Think it over +carefully. I've seen enough of you to know that you're a very +exceptional girl." + +"I don't believe you like Ronnie." + +"I don't dislike him. He's improved since he was a boy. I'll admit +that. But he isn't worthy of you." + +"Why not?" + +"Well, he isn't." + +She laughed. + +"It's funny that you of all people should say that. Lord Emsworth was +telling me just now that Ronnie is exactly like what you used to be at +his age." + +"What!" + +"That's what he said." + +The Hon. Galahad stared incredulously. + +"That boy like me?" He spoke with indignation, for his pride had been +sorely touched. "Ronald like me? Why, I was twice the man he is. How +many policemen do you think it used to take to shift me from the +Alhambra to Vine Street when I was in my prime? Two! Sometimes three. +And one walking behind carrying my hat. Clarence ought to be more +careful what he says, dash it. It's just this kind of loose talk that +makes trouble. The fact of the matter is, he's gone and got his brain +so addled with pigs he doesn't know what he is saying half the time." + +He pulled himself together with a strong effort. He became calmer. + +"What did you and that young poop quarrel about?" he asked. + +"He is not a poop!" + +"He is. It's astonishing to me that any one individual can be such a +poop. You'd have thought it would have required a large syndicate. How +long have you known him?" + +"About nine months." + +"Well, I've known him all his life. And I say he's a poop. If he wasn't +he wouldn't have quarrelled with you. However, we won't split straws. +What did you quarrel about?" + +"He found me dancing." + +"What's wrong with that?" + +"I had promised him I wouldn't." + +"And is that all the trouble?" + +"It's quite enough for me." + +The Hon. Galahad made light of the tragedy. + +"I don't see what you're worrying about. If you can't smooth a little +thing like that over you're not the girl I take you for." + +"I thought I might be able to." + +"Of course you'll be able to. Girls were always doing that sort of +thing to me in my young days, and I never held out for five minutes +once the crying started. Go and sob on the boy's waistcoat. How are you +as a sobber?" + +"Not very good, I'm afraid." + +"Well, there are all sorts of other tricks you can try. Every girl +knows a dozen. Falling on your knees, fainting, laughing hysterically, +going rigid all over--scores of them." + +"I think it will be all right if I can just talk to him. The difficulty +is to get an opportunity." + +The Hon. Galahad waved a hand spaciously. + +"Make an opportunity! Why, I knew a girl years ago--she's a grandmother +now--who had a quarrel with the fellow she was engaged to, and a week +or so later she found herself staying at the same country house with +him--Heron's Hill, it was, the Matchelows' place in Sussex--and she got +him into her room one night and locked the door and said she was going +to keep him there all night and ruin both their reputations unless he +handed back the ring and agreed that the engagement was on again. And +she'd have done it, too. Her name was Frederica Something. Red-haired +girl." + +"I suppose you have to have red hair to do a thing like that. I was +thinking of a quiet meeting in the rose garden." + +The Hon. Galahad seemed to consider this tame, but he let it pass. + +"Well, whatever you do, you'll have to be quick about it, my dear. +Suppose old Johnny Schoonmaker's girl really turns up? She said she was +going to." + +"Yes, but I made Ronnie send her a telegram, signed with Lady +Constance's name, saying that there was scarlet fever at the castle and +she wasn't to come." + +One dislikes the necessity of perpetually piling up the evidence +against the Hon. Galahad Threepwood, to show ever more and more clearly +how warped was his moral outlook. Nevertheless, the fact must be +stated that at these words he threw his head up and uttered a high, +piercing laugh that sent the thrush, which had just returned to the +lawn, starting back as if a bullet had hit it. It was a laugh which, +when it had rung out in days of yore in London's more lively night +resorts, had caused commissionaires to leap like war horses at the note +of the bugle, to spit on their hands, feel their muscles, and prepare +for action. + +"It's the finest thing I ever heard!" cried the Hon. Galahad. "It +restores my faith in the younger generation. And a girl like you +seriously contemplates marrying a boy like----Oh, well!" he said +resignedly, seeming to brace himself to make the best of a distasteful +state of affairs, "it's your business, I suppose. You know your own +mind best. After all, the great thing is to get you into the family. A +girl like you is what this family has been needing for years." + +He patted her kindly on the shoulder, and they started to walk toward +the house. As they did so two men came out of it. + +One was Lord Emsworth. The other was Percy Pilbeam. + + + II + +There is about a place like Blandings Castle something which, if you +are not in the habit of visiting country houses planned on the grand +scale, tends to sap the morale. At the moment when Sue caught sight +of him the proprietor of the Argus Enquiry Agency was not feeling his +brightest and best. + +Beach, ushering him through the front door, had started the trouble. +He had merely let his eye rest upon Pilbeam, but it had been enough. +The butler's eye, through years of insufficient exercise and too hearty +feeding, had acquired in the process of time a sort of glaze which +many people found trying when they saw it. In Pilbeam it created an +inferiority complex of the severest kind. + +He could not know that to this godlike man he was merely a blur. To +Beach, tortured by the pangs of a guilty conscience, almost everything +nowadays was merely a blur. Misinterpreting his gaze, Pilbeam had read +into it a shocked contempt, a kind of wincing agony at the thought that +things like himself should be creeping into Blandings Castle. He felt +as if he had crawled out from under a flat stone. + +And it was at this moment that somebody in the dimness of the hall had +stepped forward and revealed himself as the young man, name unknown, +who had showed such a lively disposition to murder him on the dancing +floor of Mario's restaurant. And from the violent start which he gave +it was plain that the young man's memory was as good as his own. + +So far things had not broken well for Percy Pilbeam. But now his luck +turned. There had appeared in the nick of time an angel from heaven, +effectively disguised in a shabby shooting coat and an old hat. He had +introduced himself as Lord Emsworth, and he had taken Pilbeam off with +him into the garden. Looking back over his shoulder, Pilbeam saw that +the young man was still standing there, staring after him--wistfully, +it seemed to him; and he was glad, as he followed his host out into the +fresh air, to be beyond the range of his eye. Between it and the eye +of Beach, the butler, there seemed little to choose. + +Relief, however, by the time he arrived on the terrace, had not +completely restored his composure. That inferiority complex was still +at work, and his surroundings intimidated him. At any moment, he felt, +on a terrace like this, there might suddenly appear to confront him and +complete his humiliation some brilliant shattering creature indigenous +to this strange and disturbing world--a Duchess, perhaps--a haughty +hunting woman, it might be--the dashing daughter of a hundred earls, +possibly, who would look at him as Beach had looked at him and, raising +beautifully pencilled eyebrows in aristocratic disdain, turn away with +a murmured, "Most extraordinary!" He was prepared for almost anything. + +One of the few things he was not prepared for was Sue. And at the sight +of her he leaped three clear inches and nearly broke a collar stud. + +"Gaw!" he said. + +"I beg your pardon?" said Lord Emsworth. He had not caught his +companion's remark and hoped he would repeat it. The lightest utterance +of a detective with the trained mind is something not to be missed. +"What did you say, my dear fellow?" + +He, too, perceived Sue; and with a prodigious effort of the memory, +working by swift stages through Schofield, Maybury, Coolidge, and +Spooner, recalled her name. + +"Mr. Pilbeam, Miss Schoonmaker," he said. "Galahad, this is Mr. +Pilbeam. Of the Argus, you remember." + +"Pilbeam?" + +"How do you do?" + +"Pilbeam?" + +"My brother," said Lord Emsworth, exerting himself to complete the +introduction. "This is my brother Galahad." + +"Pilbeam?" said the Hon. Galahad, looking intently at the proprietor +of the Argus. "Were you ever connected with a paper called _Society +Spice_, Mr. Pilbeam?" + +The gardens of Blandings Castle seemed to the detective to rock gently. +There had, he knew, been a rigid rule in the office of that bright +but frequently offensive paper that the editor's name was never to be +revealed to callers; but it now appeared only too sickeningly evident +that a leakage had occurred. Underlings, he realized too late, can be +bribed. + +He swallowed painfully. Force of habit had come within a hair's breadth +of making him say "Quite." + +"Never," he gasped. "Certainly not. No! Never." + +"A fellow of your name used to edit it. Uncommon name, too." + +"Relation, perhaps. Distant." + +"Well, I'm sorry you're not the man," said the Hon. Galahad +regretfully. "I've been wanting to meet him. He wrote a very offensive +thing about me once. Most offensive thing." + +Lord Emsworth, who had been according the conversation the rather +meagre interest which he gave to all conversations that did not deal +with pigs, created a diversion. + +"I wonder," he said, "if you would like to see some photographs?" + +It seemed to Pilbeam, in his disordered state, strange that anyone +should suppose that he was in a frame of mind to enjoy the Family +Album, but he uttered a strangled sound which his host took for +acquiescence. + +"Of the Empress, I mean, of course. They will give you some idea of +what a magnificent animal she is. They will--" he sought for the _mot +juste_--"stimulate you. I'll go to the library and get them out." + +The Hon. Galahad was now his old affable self again. + +"You doing anything after dinner?" he asked Sue. + +"There was some talk," said Sue, "of a game of bezique with Mr. Baxter." + +"Don't dream of it," said the Hon. Galahad vehemently. "The fellow +would probably try to brain you with the mallet. I was thinking that if +I hadn't got to go out to dinner I'd like to read you some of my book. +I think you would appreciate it. I wouldn't read it to anybody except +you. I somehow feel you've got the right sort of outlook. I let my +sister Constance see a couple of pages once, and she was too depressing +for words. An author can't work if people depress him. I'll tell you +what I'll do--I'll give you the thing to read. Which is your room?" + +"The Garden Room, I think it's called." + +"Oh, yes. Well, I'll bring the manuscript to you before I leave." + +He sauntered off. There was a moment's pause. Then Sue turned to +Pilbeam. Her chin was tilted. There was defiance in her eye. + +"Well?" she said. + + + III + +Percy Pilbeam breathed a sigh of relief. At the first moment of their +meeting all that he had ever read about doubles had raced through his +mind. This question clarified the situation. It put matters on a firm +basis. His head ceased to swim. It was Sue Brown and no other who stood +before him. + +"What on earth are you doing here?" he asked. + +"Never mind." + +"What's the game?" + +"Never mind." + +"There's no need to be so dashed unfriendly." + +"Well, if you must know, I came here to see Ronnie and try to explain +about that night at Mario's." + +There was a pause. + +"What was that name the old boy called you?" + +"Schoonmaker." + +"Why did he call you that?" + +"Because that's who he thinks I am." + +"What on earth made you choose a name like that?" + +"Oh, don't keep asking questions." + +"I don't believe there is such a name. And when it comes to asking +questions," said Pilbeam warmly, "what do you expect me to do? I never +got such a shock in my life as when I met you just now. I thought I +was seeing things. Do you mean to say you're here under a false name, +pretending to be somebody else?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, I'm hanged! And as friendly as you please with everybody." + +"Yes." + +"Everybody except me." + +"Why should I be friendly with you? You've done your best to ruin my +life." + +"Eh?" + +"Oh, never mind," said Sue impatiently. + +There was another pause. + +"Chatty!" said Pilbeam, wounded again. + +He fidgeted his fingers along the wall. + +"The Galahad fellow seems to look on you as a daughter or something." + +"We are great friends." + +"So I see. And he's going to give you his book to read." + +"Yes." + +A keen, purposeful, Argus-Enquiry-Agency sort of look shot into +Pilbeam's face. + +"Well, this is where you and I get together," he said. + +"What do you mean?" + +"I'll tell you what I mean. Do you want to make some money?" + +"No," said Sue. + +"What! Of course you do. Everybody does. Now, listen. Do you know why +I'm here?" + +"I've stopped wondering why you're anywhere. You just seem to pop up." + +She started to move away. A sudden disturbing thought had come to her. +At any moment Ronnie might appear on the terrace. If he found her here, +closeted, so to speak, with the abominable Pilbeam, what would he +think? What, rather, would he not think? + +"Where are you going?" + +"Into the house." + +"Come back," said Pilbeam urgently. + +"I'm going." + +"But I've got something important to say." + +"Well?" + +She stopped. + +"That's right," said Pilbeam approvingly. "Now, listen. You'll admit +that, if I liked, I could give you away and spoil whatever game it is +that you're up to in this place?" + +"Well?" + +"But I'm not going to do it if you'll be sensible." + +"Sensible?" + +Pilbeam looked cautiously up and down the terrace. + +"Now, listen," he said. "I want your help. I'll tell you why I'm here. +The old boy thinks I've come down to find his pig, but I haven't. I've +come to get that book your friend Galahad is writing." + +"What!" + +"I thought you'd be surprised. Yes, that's what I'm after. There's a +man living near here who's scared stiff that there's going to be a lot +of stories about him in that book, and he came to see me at my office +yesterday and offered me--" he hesitated a moment--"offered me," he +went on, "a hundred pounds if I'd get into the house somehow and snitch +the manuscript. And you being friendly with the old buster has made +everything simple." + +"You think so?" + +"Easy," he assured her. "Especially now he's going to give you the +thing to read. All you have to do is hand it over to me and there's +fifty quid for you. For doing practically nothing." + +Sue's eyes lit up. Pilbeam had expected that they would. He could not +conceive of a girl whose eyes would not light up at such an offer. + +"Oh?" said Sue. + +"Fifty quid," said Pilbeam. "I'm going halves with you." + +"And if I don't do what you want I suppose you will tell them who I +really am?" + +"That's it," said Pilbeam, pleased at her ready intelligence. + +"Well, I'm not going to do anything of the kind." + +"What!" + +"And if," said Sue, "you want to tell these people who I am, go ahead +and tell them." + +"I will." + +"Do. But just bear in mind that the moment you do I shall tell Mr. +Threepwood that it was you who wrote that thing about him in _Society +Spice_." + +Percy Pilbeam swayed like a sapling in the breeze. The blow had +unmanned him. He found no words with which to reply. + +"I will," said Sue. + +Pilbeam continued speechless. He was still trying to recover from +this deadly thrust through an unexpected chink in his armour when the +opportunity for speech passed. Millicent had appeared and was walking +along the terrace toward them. She wore her customary air of settled +gloom. On reaching them she paused. + +"Hullo," said Millicent, from the depths. + +"Hullo," said Sue. + +The library window framed the head and shoulders of Lord Emsworth. + +"Pilbeam, my dear fellow, will you come up to the library? I have found +the photographs." + +Millicent eyed the detective's retreating back with a mournful +curiosity. + +"Who's he?" + +"A man named Pilbeam." + +"Pill, I should say, is right. What makes him waddle like that?" + +Sue was unable to supply a solution to this problem. Millicent came and +stood beside her and, leaning on the stone parapet, gazed disparagingly +at the park. She gave the impression of disliking all parks but this +one particularly. + +"Ever read Schopenhauer?" she asked, after a silence. + +"No." + +"You should. Great stuff." + +She fell into a heavy silence again, her eyes peering into the +gathering gloom. Somewhere in the twilight world a cow had begun to +emit long, nerve-racking bellows. The sound seemed to sum up and +underline the general sadness. + +"Schopenhauer says that all the suffering in the world can't be mere +chance. Must be meant. He says life's a mixture of suffering and +boredom. You've got to have one or the other. His stuff's full of +snappy cracks like that. You'd enjoy it. Well, I'm going for a walk. +You coming?" + +"I don't think I will, thanks." + +"Just as you like. Schopenhauer says suicide's absolutely O.K. He says +Hindoos do it instead of going to church. They bung themselves into the +Ganges and get eaten by crocodiles and call it a well-spent day." + +"What a lot you seem to know about Schopenhauer." + +"I've been reading him up lately. Found a copy in the library. +Schopenhauer says we are like lambs in a field, disporting themselves +under the eye of the butcher, who chooses first one and then another +for his prey. Sure you won't come for a walk?" + +"No, thanks, really. I think I'll go in." + +"Just as you like," said Millicent. "Liberty Hall." + +She moved off a few steps, then returned. + +"Sorry if I seem loopy," she said. "Something on my mind. Been giving +it a spot of thought. The fact is, I've just got engaged to be married +to my cousin Ronnie." + +The trees that stood out against the banking clouds seemed to swim +before Sue's eyes. An unseen hand had clutched her by the throat and +was crushing the life out of her. + +"Ronnie!" + +"Yes," said Millicent, rather in the tone of voice which Schopenhauer +would have used when announcing the discovery of a caterpillar in his +salad. "We fixed it up just now." + +She wandered away, and Sue clung to the terrace wall. That at least was +solid in a world that rocked and crashed. + +"I say!" + +It was Hugo. She was looking at him through a mist, but there was never +any mistaking Hugo Carmody. + +"I say! Did she tell you?" + +Sue nodded. + +"She's engaged." + +Sue nodded. + +"She's going to marry Ronnie." + +"Death, where is thy sting?" said Hugo, and vanished in the direction +taken by Millicent. + + + + + CHAPTER XII + + + I + +The firm and dignified note in which Rupert Baxter had expressed his +considered opinion of the Earl of Emsworth had been written in the +morning room immediately upon the ex-secretary's return to the house +and delivered into Beach's charge with hands still stained with garden +mould. Only when this urgent task had been performed did he start to +go upstairs in quest of the wash and brush-up which he so greatly +needed. He was mounting the stairs to his bedroom and had reached the +first floor when a door opened and his progress was arrested by what +in a lesser woman would have been a yelp. Proceeding, as it did, from +the lips of Lady Constance Keeble, we must call it an exclamation of +surprise. + +"Mr. Baxter!" + +She was standing in the doorway of her boudoir, and she eyed his +dishevelled form with such open-mouthed astonishment that for an +instant the ex-secretary came near to including her with the head of +the family in the impromptu commination service which was taking shape +in his mind. He was in no mood for wide-eyed looks of wonder. + +"May I come in?" he said curtly. He could explain all, but did not wish +to do so on the first-floor landing of a house where almost anybody +might be listening with flapping ears. + +"But, Mr. Baxter!" said Lady Constance. + +He paused for a moment to grit his teeth, then closed the door. + +"What _have_ you been doing, Mr. Baxter?" + +"Jumping out of window." + +"Jumping out of _win_-dow?" + +He gave a brief synopsis of the events which had led up to his spirited +act. Lady Constance drew in her breath with a remorseful hiss. + +"Oh, dear!" she said. "How foolish of me. I should have told you." + +"I beg your pardon?" + +Even though she was in the safe retirement of her boudoir Lady +Constance Keeble looked cautiously over her shoulder. In the stirring +and complicated state into which life had got itself at Blandings +Castle practically everybody in the place, except Lord Emsworth, had +fallen into the habit nowadays of looking cautiously over his or her +shoulder before he or she spoke. + +"Sir Gregory Parsloe said in his note," she explained, "that this man +Pilbeam who is coming here this evening is acting for him." + +"Acting for him?" + +"Yes. Apparently Sir Gregory went to see him yesterday and has promised +him a large sum of money if he will obtain possession of my brother +Galahad's manuscript. That is why he has invited us to dinner to-night, +to get Galahad out of the house. So there was no need for you to have +troubled." + +There was silence. + +"So there was no need," repeated the Efficient Baxter slowly, wiping +from his eye the remains of a fragment of mould which had been causing +him some inconvenience, "for me to have troubled." + +"I am so sorry, Mr. Baxter." + +"Pray do not mention it, Lady Constance." + +His eye, now that the mould was out of it, was able to work again with +its customary keenness. His spectacles, as he surveyed the remorseful +woman before him, had a cold, steely look. + +"I see," he said. "Well, it might perhaps have spared me some little +inconvenience had you informed me of this earlier, Lady Constance. +I have bruised my left shin somewhat severely and, as you see, made +myself rather dirty." + +"I am so sorry." + +"Furthermore, I gathered from the remark he let fall that the +impression my actions have made upon Lord Emsworth is that I am insane." + +"Oh, dear!" + +"He even specified the precise degree of insanity. As mad as a coot, +were his words." + +He softened a little. He reminded himself that this woman before him, +who was so nearly doing what is described as wringing the hands, had +always been his friend, had always wished him well, had never slackened +her efforts to restore him to the secretarial duties which he had once +enjoyed. + +"Well, it cannot be helped," he said. "The thing now is to think of +some way of recovering the lost ground." + +"You mean, if you could find the Empress?" + +"Exactly." + +"Oh, Mr. Baxter, if you only could!" + +"I can." + +Lady Constance stared at his dark, purposeful, efficient face in dumb +admiration. To another man who had spoken those words she would have +replied "How?" or even "How on earth?" But, as they had proceeded from +Rupert Baxter, she merely waited silently for enlightenment. + +"Have you given this matter any consideration, Lady Constance?" + +"Yes." + +"To what conclusions have you come?" + +Lady Constance felt dull and foolish. She felt like Doctor +Watson--almost like a Scotland Yard Bungler. + +"I don't think I have come to any," she said, avoiding the spectacles +guiltily. "Of course," she added, "I think it is absurd to suppose that +Sir Gregory----" + +Baxter waved aside the notion. It was not even worth a "Tchah!" + +"In any matter of this kind," he said, "the first thing to do is to +seek motive. Who is there in Blandings Castle who could have had a +motive for stealing Lord Emsworth's pig?" + +Lady Constance would have given a year's income to have been able to +make some reasonably intelligent reply, but all she could do was look +and listen. Baxter was not annoyed. He would not have had it otherwise. +He preferred his audiences dumb and expectant. + +"Carmody." + +"Mr. Carmody!" + +"Precisely. He is Lord Emsworth's secretary, and a most inefficient +secretary, a secretary who stands hourly in danger of losing his +position. He sees me arrive at the Castle, a man who formerly held the +post he holds. He is alarmed. He suspects. He searches wildly about in +his mind for means of consolidating himself in Lord Emsworth's regard. +Then he has an idea, the sort of wild, motion-picture-bred idea which +would come to a man of his stamp. He thinks to himself that if he +removes the pig and conceals it somewhere and then pretends to have +found it and restores it to its owner, Lord Emsworth's gratitude will +be so intense that all danger of his dismissal will be at an end." + +He removed his spectacles and wiped them. Lady Constance uttered a low +cry. In anybody else it would have been a squeak. Baxter replaced his +spectacles. + +"I have no doubt the pig is somewhere in the grounds at this moment," +he said. + +"But, Mr. Baxter----" + +The ex-secretary raised a compelling hand. + +"But he would not have undertaken a thing like this single-handed. A +secretary's time is not his own, and it would be necessary to feed the +pig at regular intervals. He would require an accomplice. And I think I +know who that accomplice is--Beach!" + +This time not even the chronicler's desire to place Lady Constance's +utterances in the best and most attractive light can hide the truth. +She bleated. + +"Bee-ee-ee-ee-ech!" + +The spectacles raked her keenly. + +"Have you observed Beach closely of late?" + +She shook her head. She was not a woman who observed butlers closely. + +"He has something on his mind. He is nervous. Guilty. Conscience +stricken. He jumps when you speak to him." + +"Does he?" + +"Jumps," repeated the Efficient Baxter. "Just now I gave him a--I +happened to address him, and he sprang in the air." He paused. "I have +half a mind to go and question him." + +"Oh, Mr. Baxter! Would that be wise?" + +Rupert Baxter's intention of interrogating the butler had been merely +a nebulous one, a sort of idle dream, but these words crystallized it +into a resolve. He was not going to have people asking him if things +would be wise. + +"A few searching questions should force him to reveal the truth." + +"But he'll give notice!" + +This interview had been dotted with occasions on which Baxter might +reasonably have said, "Tchah!" but, as we have seen, until this moment +he had refrained. He now said it. + +"Tchah!" said the Efficient Baxter. "There are plenty of other butlers." + +And with this undeniable truth he stalked from the room. The wash +and brush-up were still as necessary as they had been ten minutes +before, but he was too intent on the chase to think about washes and +brushes-up. He hurried down the stairs. He crossed the hall. He passed +through the green baize door that led to the quarters of the Blandings +Castle staff. And he was making his way along the dim passage to the +pantry where at this hour Beach might be supposed to be when its door +opened abruptly and a vast form emerged. + +It was the butler. And from the fact that he was wearing a bowler hat +it was plain that he was seeking the great outdoors. + +Baxter stopped in mid-stride and remained on one leg, watching. Then, +as his quarry disappeared in the direction of the back entrance, he +followed quickly. + +Out in the open it was almost as dark as it had been in the passage. +That gray, threatening sky had turned black by now. It was a swollen +mass of inky clouds, heavy with the thunder, lightning, and rain which +so often come in the course of an English summer to remind the island +race that they are hardy Nordics and must not be allowed to get their +fibre all sapped by eternal sunshine like the less favoured dwellers in +more southerly climes. It bayed at Baxter like a bloodhound. + +But it took more than dirty weather to quell the Efficient Baxter when +duty called. Like the character in Tennyson's poem who followed the +gleam, he followed the butler. There was but one point about Beach +which even remotely resembled a gleam, but it happened to be only one +which at this moment really mattered. He was easy to follow. + +The shrubbery swallowed the butler. A few seconds later it had +swallowed the Efficient Baxter. + + + II + +There are those who maintain--and make a nice income by doing so in +the evening papers--that in these degenerate days the old hardy spirit +of the Briton has died out. They represent themselves as seeking +vainly for evidence of the survival of those qualities of toughness +and endurance which once made Englishmen what they were. To such, the +spectacle of Rupert Baxter braving the elements could not have failed +to bring cheer and consolation. They would have been further stimulated +by the conduct of Hugo Carmody. + +It had not escaped Hugo's notice, as he left Sue on the terrace and +started out in the wake of Millicent, that the weather was hotting up +for a storm. He saw the clouds. He heard the fast-approaching thunder. +For neither did he give a hoot. Let it rain, was Hugo's verdict. Let it +jolly well rain as much as it dashed well wanted to. As if encouraged, +the sky sent down a fat, wet drop which insinuated itself just between +his neck and collar. + +He hardly noticed it. The information confided to him by his friend +Ronald Fish had numbed his senses so thoroughly that water down the +back of the neck was merely an incident. He was feeling as he had not +felt since the evening some years ago when, boxing for his university +in the light-weight division, he had incautiously placed the point of +his jaw in the exact spot at the moment occupied by his opponent's +right fist. When you have done this or--equally--when you have just +been told that the girl you love is definitely betrothed to another, +you begin to understand how anarchists must feel when the bomb goes off +too soon. + +In all the black days through which he had been living recently, Hugo +had never really lost hope. It had been dim sometimes, but it had +always been there. It was his opinion that he knew women, just as it +was Sue's idea that she knew men. Like Sue, he had placed his trust +in the thought that true love conquers all obstacles; that coldness +melts; that sundered hearts may at long last be brought together again +by a little judicious pleading and reasoning. Even the fact that +Millicent stared at him when they met, with large, scornful eyes that +went through him like stilettos, unpleasant though it was, had not +caused him to despair. He had looked forward to the moment when he +should contrive to get her alone and do a bit of snappy talking along +the right lines. + +But this was final. This was the end. This put the tin hat on it. She +was engaged to Ronnie. Soon she would be married to Ronnie. Like a +gadfly the hideous thought sent Hugo Carmody reeling on through the +gloom. + +It was so dark now that he could scarcely see before him. And, looking +about him, he discovered that the reason for this was that he had made +his way into a wood of sorts. The west wood, he deduced dully, taking +into consideration the fact that there was no other in this particular +part of the estate. Well, he might just as well be in the west wood as +anywhere. He trudged on. + +The ground beneath his feet was spongy and equipped with low-lying +brambles which pricked through his thin flannels and would have +caused him discomfort if he had been in the frame of mind to notice +brambles. There were trees against which he bumped, and logs over +which he tripped. And ahead of him, in a small clearing, there was a +dilapidated-looking cottage. He noticed this because it seemed the +sort of place where a man, now that a warm, gusty wind had sprung up, +might shelter and light a cigarette. The need for tobacco had become +imperative. + +He was surprised to find that it was raining, and had apparently, from +the state of his clothes, been raining for quite some time. It was +also thundering. The storm had broken, and the boom of it seemed to be +all round him. A flash of lightning reminded him that he was in just +the kind of place, among all these trees, where blokes get struck. At +dinner time they are missed, and later on search parties come out with +lanterns. Somebody stumbles over something soft, and the rays of the +lantern fall on a charred and blackened form. Here, quickly, we have +found him! Where? Over here. Is _that_ Hugo Carmody? Well, well! Pick +him up, boys, and bring him along. He was a good chap once. Moody, +though, of late. Some trouble about a girl, wasn't it? She will be +sorry when she hears of this. Drove him to it, you might almost say. +Steady with that stretcher. Now, when I say, "_To me_." Right! + +There was something about this picture which quite cheered Hugo up. +Ajax defied the lightning. Hugo Carmody rather encouraged it than +otherwise. He looked approvingly at a more than usually vivid flash +that seemed to dart among the treetops like a snake. All the same, he +was forced to reflect, he was getting dashed wet. No sense, when you +came right down to it, in getting dashed wet. After all, a man could +be struck by lightning just as well in that cottage sort of place over +there. Ho! for the cottage, felt Hugo, and headed for it at a gallop. + +He had just reached the door when it was flung open. There was a +noise rather like that made by a rising pheasant, and the next moment +something white had flung itself into his arms and was weeping +emotionally on his chest. + +"Hugo! Hugo darling!" + +Reason told Hugo it could scarcely be Millicent who was clinging to +him like this and speaking to him like this. And yet Millicent it most +certainly appeared to be. She continued to speak, still in the same +friendly, even chatty strain. + +"Hugo! Save me!" + +"Right ho!" + +"I wur-wur-went in thur-thur-there to shush-shush-shelter from the +rain, and it's all pitch dark." + +Hugo squeezed her fondly and with the sort of relief that comes to men +who find themselves squeezing where they had not thought to squeeze. +No need for that snappy bit of talking now. No need for arguments and +explanations, for pleadings and entreaties. No need for anything but a +good biceps. + +He was bewildered. But mixed with his bewilderment had come a certain +feeling of complacency. There was no denying that it was enjoyable, +this exhibition of tremulous weakness in one who, if she had had the +shadow of a fault, had always been inclined to matter-of-factness and +the display of that rather hard, bright self-sufficiency which is so +characteristic of the modern girl. If this melting mood was due to +the fact that Millicent, while in the cottage, had seen a ghost, Hugo +wanted to meet that ghost and shake its hand. Every man likes to be in +a position to say, "There, there, little woman!" to the girl of his +heart, particularly if for the last few days she has been treating him +like a more than ordinarily unpleasant worm, and Hugo Carmody felt that +he was in that position now. + +"There, there!" he said, not quite feeling up to risking the "little +woman." "It's all right." + +"But it tut-tut-tut----" + +"It what?" said Hugo, puzzled. + +"It tut-tut-tut-tisn't. There's a man in there!" + +"A man?" + +"Yes. I didn't know there was anyone there, and it was pitch dark, and +I heard something move, and I said, 'Who's that?' and then he suddenly +spoke to me in German." + +"In German?" + +"Yes." + +Hugo released her gently. His face was determined. + +"I'm going in to have a look." + +"Hugo! Stop! You'll be killed." + +She stood there, rigid. The rain lashed about her, but she did not heed +it. The lightning gleamed. She paid it no attention. For the minute +that lasts an hour she waited, straining her ears for sounds of the +death struggle. Then a dim form appeared. + +"I say, Millicent." + +"Hugo! Are you all right?" + +"Yes, I'm all right. I say, Millicent, do you know what?" + +"No, what?" + +A chuckle came to her through the darkness. + +"It's the pig." + +"It's what?" + +"The pig." + +"Who's a pig?" + +"This is. Your friend in here. It's Empress of Blandings, as large as +life. Come and have a look." + + + III + +Millicent had a look. She came to the door of the cottage and peered +in. Yes, just as he had said, there was the Empress. In the feeble +light of the match that Hugo was holding, the noble animal's attractive +face was peering up at her--questioningly, as if wondering if she +might be the bearer of the evening snack which would be so exceedingly +welcome. The picture was one which would have set Lord Emsworth +screaming with joy. Millicent merely gaped. + +"How on earth did she get here?" + +"That's what I'm going to find out," said Hugo. "One always knew she +must be cached somewhere, of course. What is this place, anyway?" + +"It used to be a gamekeeper's cottage, I believe." + +"Well, there seems to be a room up above," said Hugo, striking another +match. "I'm going to go up there and wait. It's quite likely that +somebody will be along soon to feed the animal, and I'm going to see +who it is." + +"Yes, that's what we'll do. How clever of you!" + +"Not you. You get back home." + +"I won't." + +There was a pause. A strong man would, no doubt, have asserted himself. +But Hugo, though feeling better than he had done for days, was not +feeling quite so strong as all that. + +"Just as you like." He shut the door. "Well, come on. We'd better be +making a move. The fellow may be here at any moment." + +They climbed the crazy stairs and lowered themselves cautiously to a +floor which smelled of mice and mildew. Below, all was in darkness, +but there were holes through which it would be possible to look when +the time should come for looking. Millicent could feel one near her +face. + +"You don't think this floor will give way?" she asked rather nervously. + +"I shouldn't think so. Why?" + +"Well, I don't want to break my neck." + +"You don't, don't you? Well, I would jolly well like to break mine," +said Hugo, speaking tensely in the darkness. It had just occurred to +him that now would be a good time for a heart-to-heart talk. "If you +suppose I'm keen on going on living with you and Ronnie doing the +Wedding Glide all over the place you're dashed well mistaken. I take it +you're aware that you've broken my bally heart, what?" + +"Oh, Hugo!" said Millicent. + +Silence fell. Below, the Empress rustled. Aloft, something scuttered. + +"Oo!" cried Millicent. "Was that a rat?" + +"I hope so." + +"What!" + +"Rats gnaw you," explained Hugo. "They cluster round and chew you to +the bone and put an end to your misery." + +There was silence again. Then Millicent spoke in a small voice. + +"You're being beastly," she said. + +Remorse poured over Hugo in a flood. + +"I'm frightfully sorry. Yes, I know I am, dash it! But look here, you +know--I mean, all this getting engaged to Ronnie. A bit thick, what? +You don't expect me to give three hearty cheers, do you? Wouldn't want +me to break into a few care-free dance steps?" + +"I can't believe it's really happened." + +"Well, how did it happen?" + +"It sort of happened all of a sudden. I was feeling miserable and very +angry with you and--and all that. And I met Ronnie and he took me for +a stroll and we went down by the lake and started throwing little bits +of stick at the swans, and suddenly Ronnie sort of grunted and said, +'I say!' and I said, 'Hullo?' and he said, 'Will you marry me?' and +I said, 'All right,' and he said 'I ought to warn you, I despise all +women,' and I said, 'And I loathe all men,' and he said 'Right-o, I +think we shall be very happy.'" + +"I see." + +"I only did it to score off you." + +"You succeeded." + +A trace of spirit crept into Millicent's voice. + +"You never really loved me," she said. "You know jolly well you didn't." + +"Is that so?" + +"Well, what did you want to go sneaking off to London for, then, and +stuffing that beastly girl of yours with food?" + +"She isn't my girl. And she isn't beastly." + +"She is." + +"Well, you seem to get on with her all right. I saw you chatting on the +terrace together as cosily as dammit." + +"What!" + +"Miss Schoonmaker." + +"I don't know what you're talking about. What's Miss Schoonmaker got to +do with it?" + +"Miss Schoonmaker isn't Miss Schoonmaker. She's Sue Brown." + +For a moment it seemed to Millicent that the crack in her companion's +heart had spread to his head. Futile though the action was, she stared +in the direction from which his voice had proceeded. Then, suddenly, +his words took on a meaning. She gasped. + +"She's followed you down here?" + +"She hasn't followed me down here. She's followed Ronnie down +here. Can't you get it into your nut," said Hugo, with justifiable +exasperation, "that you've been making floaters and bloomers and +getting everything mixed up all along? Sue Brown has never cared a +curse for me, and I've never thought anything about her, except that +she's a jolly girl and nice to dance with. That's absolutely and +positively the only reason I went out with her. I hadn't had a dance +for six weeks, and my feet had begun to itch so that I couldn't sleep +at night. So I went to London and took her out, and Ronnie found her +talking to that pestilence Pilbeam and thought he had taken her out, +and she had told him she didn't even know the man, which was quite +true, but Ronnie cut up rough and said he was through with her and came +down here, and she wanted to get a word with him, so she came down +here, pretending to be Miss Schoonmaker, and the moment she gets here +she finds Ronnie is engaged to you. A nice surprise for the poor girl!" + +Millicent's head had begun to swim long before the conclusion of this +recital. + +"But what is Pilbeam doing down here?" + +"Pilbeam?" + +"He was on the terrace talking to her." + +A low snarl came through the darkness. + +"Pilbeam here? Ah! So he came, after all, did he? He's the fellow +Lord Emsworth sent me to about the Empress. He runs the Argus Enquiry +Agency. It was Pilbeam's minions that dogged my steps that night, at +your request. So he's here, is he? Well, let him enjoy himself while he +can. Let him sniff the country air while the sniffing is good. A bitter +reckoning awaits that bloke." + +From the disorder of Millicent's mind another point emerged insistently +demanding explanation. + +"You said she wasn't pretty!" + +"Who?" + +"Sue Brown." + +"Nor is she." + +"You don't call her pretty? She's fascinating." + +"Not to me," said Hugo doggedly. "There's only one girl in the world +that I call pretty, and she's going to marry Ronnie." He paused. "If +you haven't realized by this time that I love you and always shall love +you and have never loved anybody else and never shall love anybody +else, you're a fathead. If you brought me Sue Brown or any other girl +in the world on a plate with watercress round her, I wouldn't so much +as touch her hand." + +Another rat--unless it was an exceptionally large mouse--had begun to +make its presence felt in the darkness. It seemed to be enjoying an +early dinner off a piece of wood. Millicent did not even notice it. +She had reached out, and her hand had touched Hugo's arm. Her fingers +closed on it desperately. + +"Oh, Hugo!" she said. + +The arm became animated. It clutched her, drew her along the +mouse-and-mildew scented floor. And time stood still. + +Hugo was the first to break the silence. + +"And to think that not so long ago I was wishing that a flash of +lightning would strike me amidships!" he said. + +The aroma of mouse and mildew had passed away. Violets seemed to be +spreading their fragrance through the cottage. Violets and roses. The +rat, a noisy feeder, had changed into an orchestra of harps, dulcimers, +and sackbuts that played soft music. + +And then, jarring upon these sweet strains, there came the sound of the +cottage door opening. And a moment later light shone through the holes +in the floor. + +Millicent gave Hugo's arm a warning pinch. They looked down. On the +floor below stood a lantern, and beside it a man of massive build who, +from the golloping noises that floated upward, appeared to be giving +the Empress those calories and proteids which a pig of her dimensions +requires so often and in such large quantities. + +This Good Samaritan had been stooping. Now he straightened himself and +looked about him with an apprehensive eye. He raised the lantern, and +its light fell upon his face. + +And, as she saw that face, Millicent, forgetting prudence, uttered in a +high, startled voice a single word. + +"Beach!" cried Millicent. + +Down below, the butler stood congealed. It seemed to him that the Voice +of Conscience had spoken. + + + IV + +Conscience, besides having a musical voice, appeared also to be +equipped with feet. Beach could hear them clattering down the stairs, +and the volume of noise was so great that it seemed as if Conscience +must be a centipede. But he did not stir. It would have required at +that moment a derrick to move him, and there was no derrick in the +gamekeeper's cottage in the west wood. He was still standing like a +statue when Hugo and Millicent arrived. Only when the identity of the +newcomers impressed itself on his numbed senses did his limbs begin +to twitch and show some signs of relaxing. For he looked on Hugo as +a friend. Hugo, he felt, was one of the few people in his world who +finding him in his present questionable position might be expected to +take the broad and sympathetic view. + +He nerved himself to speak. + +"Good-evening, sir. Good-evening, miss." + +"What's all this?" said Hugo. + +Years ago, in his hot and reckless youth, Beach had once heard that +question from the lips of a policeman. It had disconcerted him then. It +disconcerted him now. + +"Well, sir," he replied. + +Millicent was staring at the Empress, who, after one courteous look +of inquiry at the intruders, had given a brief grunt of welcome and +returned to the agenda. + +"_You_ stole her, Beach? _You!_" + +The butler quivered. He had known this girl since her long hair and +rompers days. She had sported in his pantry. He had cut elephants out +of paper for her and taught her tricks with bits of string. The shocked +note in her voice seared him like vitriol. To her, he felt, niece to +the Earl of Emsworth and trained by his lordship from infancy in the +best traditions of pig worship, the theft of the Empress must seem the +vilest of crimes. He burned to reëstablish himself in her eyes. + +There comes in the life of every conspirator a moment when loyalty +to his accomplices wavers before the urge to make things right for +himself. We can advance no more impressive proof of the nobility of +the butler's soul than that he did not obey this impulse. Millicent's +accusing eyes were piercing him, but he remained true to his trust. Mr. +Ronald had sworn him to secrecy, and even to square himself he could +not betray him. + +And, as if by way of a direct reward from Providence for this sterling +conduct, inspiration descended upon Beach. + +"Yes, miss," he replied. + +"Oh, Beach!" + +"Yes, miss. It was I who stole the animal. I did it for your sake, +miss." + +Hugo eyed him sternly. + +"Beach," he said, "this is pure apple sauce." + +"Sir?" + +"Apple sauce, I repeat. Why endeavour to swing the lead, Beach? What do +you mean, you stole the pig for her sake?" + +"Yes," said Millicent. "Why for my sake?" + +The butler was calm now. He had constructed his story and he was going +to stick to it. + +"In order to remove the obstacles in your path, miss." + +"Obstacles?" + +"Owing to the fact that you and Mr. Carmody have frequently entrusted +me with your--may I say surreptitious correspondence, I have long been +cognizant of your sentiments toward one another, miss. I am aware that +it is your desire to contract a union with Mr. Carmody, and I knew that +there would be objections raised on the part of certain members of the +family." + +"So far," said Hugo critically, "this sounds to me like drivel of the +purest water. But go on." + +"Thank you, sir. And then it occurred to me that, were his lordship's +pig to disappear, his lordship would, on recovering the animal, be +extremely grateful to whoever restores it. It was my intention to +apprise you of the animal's whereabouts and suggest that you should +inform his lordship that you had discovered it. In his gratitude, I +fancied, his lordship would consent to the union." + +There could never be complete silence in any spot where Empress of +Blandings was partaking of food; but something as near silence as was +possible followed this speech. In the rays of the lantern Hugo's eyes +met Millicent's. In hers, as in his, there was a look of stunned awe. +They had heard of faithful old servitors. They had read about faithful +old servitors. They had seen faithful old servitors on the stage. But +never had they dreamed that faithful old servitors could be as faithful +as this. + +"Oh, Beach!" said Millicent. + +She had used the words before. But how different this "Oh, Beach!" +was from that other, earlier "Oh, Beach!" On that occasion the +exclamation had been vibrant with reproach, pain, disillusionment. Now +it contained gratitude, admiration, an affection almost too deep for +speech. + +And the same may be said of Hugo's "Gosh!" + +"Beach," cried Millicent, "you're an angel!" + +"Thank you, miss." + +"A topper!" agreed Hugo. + +"Thank you, sir." + +"However did you get such a corking idea?" + +"It came to me, miss." + +"I'll tell you what it is, Beach," said Hugo earnestly. "When you hand +in your dinner pail in due course of time--and may the moment be long +distant!--you've got to leave your brain to the nation. You've simply +got to. Have it pickled and put in the British Museum, because it's +the outstanding brain of the century. I never heard of anything so +brilliant in my life. Of course the old boy will be all over us." + +"He'll do anything for us," said Millicent. + +"This is not merely a scheme. It is more. It is an egg. Pray silence +for your chairman. I want to think." + +Outside, the storm had passed. Birds were singing. Far away, the +thunder still rumbled. It might have been the sound of Hugo's thoughts, +leaping and jostling one another. + +"I've worked it all out," said Hugo at length. "Some people might say, +Rush to the old boy now and tell him we've found his pig. I say, no. In +my opinion we ought to hold this pig for a rising market. The longer we +wait, the more grateful he will be. Give him another forty-eight hours, +I suggest, and he will have reached the stage where he will deny us +nothing." + +"But----" + +"No! Act precipitately and we are undone. Don't forget that it is not +merely a question of getting your uncle's consent to our union. We've +got to break it to him that you aren't going to marry Ronnie. And the +family have always been pretty keen on your marrying Ronnie. To my +mind, another forty-eight hours at the very least is essential." + +"Perhaps you're right." + +"I know I'm right." + +"Then we'll simply leave the Empress here?" + +"No," said Hugo decidedly. "This place doesn't strike me as safe. If +we found her here, anybody might. We require a new safe deposit, and I +know the very one. It's----" + +Beach came out of the silence. His manner betrayed agitation. + +"If it is all the same to you, sir, I would much prefer not to hear it." + +"Eh?" + +"It would be a great relief to me, sir, to be able to expunge the +entire matter from my mind. I have been under a considerable mental +strain of late, sir, and I really don't think I could bear any more +of it. Besides, supposing I were questioned, sir. It may be my +imagination, but I have rather fancied from the way he has looked at me +occasionally that Mr. Baxter harbours suspicions." + +"Baxter always harbours suspicions about something," said Millicent. + +"Yes, miss. But in this case they are well grounded, and if it is all +the same to you and Mr. Carmody I would greatly prefer that he was not +in a position to go on harbouring them." + +"All right, Beach," said Hugo. "After what you have done for us, your +lightest wish is law. You can be out of this, if you want to. Though I +was going to suggest that, if you cared to go on feeding the animal----" + +"No, sir--really--if you please...." + +"Right ho, then. Come along, Millicent. We must be shifting." + +"Are you going to take her away now?" + +"This very moment. I pass this handkerchief through the handy ring +which you observe in the nose and--Ho! Allez-oop! Good-bye, Beach. It +is a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done, I think." + +"Good-bye, Beach," said Millicent. "I can't tell you how grateful we +are." + +"I am glad to have given satisfaction, miss. I wish you every success +and happiness, sir." + +Left alone, the butler drew in his breath till he swelled like a +balloon, then poured it out again in a long, sighing puff. He picked +up the lantern and left the cottage. His walk was the walk of a butler +from whose shoulders a great weight has rolled. + + + V + +It is a fact not generally known, for a nice sense of the dignity of +his position restrained him from exercising it, that Beach possessed a +rather attractive singing voice. It was a mellow baritone, in timbre +not unlike that which might have proceeded from a cask of very old, dry +sherry, had it had vocal chords: and we cannot advance a more striking +proof of the lightness of heart which had now come upon him than by +mentioning that, as he walked home through the wood, he broke his rigid +rule and definitely warbled. + + "There's a light in thy bow-er," + +sang Beach, + + "A light in thy BOW-er...." + +He felt more like a gay young second footman than a butler of years' +standing. He listened to the birds with an uplifted heart. Upon the +rabbits that sported about his path he bestowed a series of indulgent +smiles. The shadow that had darkened his life had passed away. His +conscience was at rest. + +So completely was this so that when, on reaching the house, he was +informed by Footman James that Lord Emsworth had been inquiring for +him and desired his immediate presence in the library, he did not even +tremble. A brief hour ago, and what menace this announcement would +have seemed to him to hold. But now it left him calm. It was with some +little difficulty that, as he mounted the stairs, he kept himself from +resuming his song. + +"Er--Beach." + +"Your lordship?" + +The butler now became aware that his employer was not alone. Dripping +in an unpleasant manner on the carpet, for he seemed somehow to have +got himself extremely wet, stood the Efficient Baxter. Beach regarded +him with a placid eye. What was Baxter to him or he to Baxter now? + +"Your lordship?" he said again, for Lord Emsworth appeared to be +experiencing some difficulty in continuing the conversation. + +"Eh? What? What? Oh, yes." + +The ninth earl braced himself with a visible effort. + +"Er--Beach." + +"Your lordship?" + +"I--er--I sent for you, Beach----" + +"Yes, your lordship?" + +At this moment Lord Emsworth's eye fell on a volume on the desk dealing +with Diseases in Pigs. He seemed to draw strength from it. + +"Beach," he said, in quite a crisp, masterful voice, "I sent for you +because Mr. Baxter has made a remarkable charge against you. Most +extraordinary." + +"I should be glad to be acquainted with the gravamen of the accusation, +your lordship." + +"The what?" asked Lord Emsworth, starting. + +"If your lordship would be kind enough to inform me of the substance of +Mr. Baxter's charge?" + +"Oh, the substance? Yes. You mean the substance? Precisely. Quite so. +The substance. Yes, to be sure. Quite so. Quite so. Yes. Exactly. No +doubt." + +It was plain to the butler that his employer had begun to dodder. Left +to himself this human cuckoo clock would go maundering on like this +indefinitely. Respectfully, but with the necessary firmness, he called +him to order. + +"What is it that Mr. Baxter says, your lordship?" + +"Eh? Oh, tell him, Baxter. Yes, tell him, dash it." + +The Efficient Baxter moved a step closer and began to drip on another +part of the carpet. His spectacles gleamed determinedly. Here was no +stammering, embarrassed peer of the realm, but a man who knew his own +mind and could speak it. + +"I followed you to the gamekeeper's cottage in the west wood just now, +Beach." + +"Sir?" + +"You heard what I said." + +"Undoubtedly, sir. But I fancied I must be mistaken. I have not been to +the spot you mention, sir." + +"I saw you with my own eyes." + +"I can only repeat my asseveration, sir," said the butler with a +saintly meekness. + +Lord Emsworth, who had taken another look at Diseases in Pigs, became +brisk again. + +"He says he peeped through the window, dash it." + +Beach raised a respectful eyebrow. It was as if he had said that it +was not his place to comment on the pastimes of the Castle's guests, +however childish. If Mr. Baxter wished to go out into the woods in the +rain and play solitary games of Peep-bo, that, said the eyebrow, was a +matter that concerned Mr. Baxter alone. + +"And you were in there, he says, feeding the Empress." + +"Your lordship?" + +"And you were in there----Dash it, you heard." + +"I beg your pardon, your lordship, but I really fail to comprehend." + +"Well, if you want it in a nutshell, Mr. Baxter says it was you who +stole my pig." + +There were few things in the world that the butler considered worth +raising both eyebrows at. This was one of the few. He stood for a +moment, exhibiting them to Lord Emsworth: then turned to Baxter, so +that he could see them, too. This done, he lowered them and permitted +about three eighths of a smile to play for a moment about his lips. + +"Might I speak frankly, your lordship?" + +"Dash it, man, we want you to speak frankly. That's the whole idea. +That's why I sent for you. We want a full confession and the name of +your accomplice and all that sort of thing." + +"I hesitate only because what I should like to say may possibly give +offence to Mr. Baxter, your lordship, which would be the last thing I +should desire." + +The prospect of offending the Efficient Baxter which caused such +concern to Beach appeared to disturb his lordship not at all. + +"Get on. Say what you like." + +"Well, then, your lordship, I think it possible that Mr. Baxter, if he +will pardon my saying so, may have been suffering from a hallucination." + +"Tchah!" said the Efficient Baxter. + +"You mean he's potty?" said Lord Emsworth, struck with the idea. In the +excitement of his late secretary's information, he had overlooked this +simple explanation. Now there came surging back to him all the evidence +that went to support such a theory. Those flower pots--that leap from +the library window. He looked at Baxter keenly. There _was_ a sort of +wild gleam in his eyes. The old coot glitter. + +"Really, Lord Emsworth!" + +"Oh, I'm not saying you are, my dear fellow. Only----" + +"It is quite obvious to me," said Baxter stiffly, "that this man is +lying. Wait!" he continued, raising a hand. "Are you prepared to come +with his lordship and me to the cottage now, at this very moment, and +let his lordship see for himself?" + +"No, sir." + +"Ha!" + +"I should first," said Beach, "wish to go downstairs and get my hat." + +"Quite right," agreed Lord Emsworth cordially. "Very sensible. Might +catch a nasty cold in the head. Certainly, get your hat, Beach, and +meet us at the front door." + +"Very good, your lordship." + +A bystander, observing the little party that was gathered some five +minutes later on the gravel outside the great door of Blandings Castle, +would have noticed about it a touch of chill, a certain restraint. None +of its three members seemed really in the mood for a ramble through +the woods. Beach, though courtly, was not cordial. The face under his +bowler hat was the face of a good man misjudged. Baxter was eying +the sullen sky as though he suspected it of something. As for Lord +Emsworth, he had just become conscious that he was about to accompany +through dark and deserted ways one who, though on this afternoon's +evidence the trend of his tastes seemed to be toward suicide, might +quite possibly become homicidal. + +"One moment," said Lord Emsworth. + +He scuttled into the house again and came out looking happier. He was +carrying a stout walking stick with an ivory knob on it. + + + + + CHAPTER XIII + + + I + +Blandings Castle basked in the afterglow of a golden summer evening. +Only a memory now was the storm which, two hours since, had raged with +such violence through its parks, pleasure grounds, and messuages. It +had passed, leaving behind it peace and bird song and a sunset of pink +and green and orange and opal and amethyst. The air was cool and sweet, +and the earth sent up a healing fragrance. Little stars were peeping +down from a rain-washed sky. + +To Ronnie Fish, slumped in an armchair in his bedroom on the second +floor, the improved weather conditions brought no spiritual uplift. He +could see the sunset, but it left him cold. He could hear the thrushes +calling in the shrubberies, but did not think much of them. It is, in +short, in no sunny mood that we reintroduce Ronald Overbury Fish to the +reader of this chronicle. + +The meditation of a man who has recently proposed to and been accepted +by a girl some inches taller than himself, for whom he entertains no +warmer sentiment than a casual feeling that, take her for all in all, +she isn't a bad sort of egg, must of necessity tend toward the sombre: +and the surroundings in which Ronnie had spent the latter part of the +afternoon had not been of a kind to encourage optimism. At the moment +when the skies suddenly burst asunder and the world became a shower +bath, he had been walking along the path that skirted the wall of the +kitchen garden; and the only shelter that offered itself was a gloomy +cave or dugout that led to the heating apparatus of the hothouses. Into +this he had dived like a homing rabbit, and here, sitting on a heap of +bricks, he had remained for the space of fifty minutes with no company +but one small green frog and his thoughts. + +The place was a sort of Sargasso Sea into which had drifted all the +flotsam and jetsam of the kitchen-garden which adjoined. There was a +wheelbarrow, lacking its wheel and lying drunkenly on its side. There +were broken pots in great profusion. There were a heap of withered +flowers, a punctured watering can, a rake with large gaps in its front +teeth, some potatoes unfit for human consumption, and half a dead +blackbird. The whole effect was extraordinarily like hell, and Ronnie's +spirits, not high at the start, had sunk lower and lower. + +Sobered by rain, wheelbarrows, watering cans, rakes, potatoes, and dead +blackbirds, not to mention the steady, supercilious eye of a frog which +resembled that of a bishop at the Athenæum inspecting a shy new member, +Ronnie had begun definitely to repent of the impulse which had led him +to ask Millicent to be his wife. And now, in the cosier environment of +his bedroom, he was regretting it more than ever. + +Like most people who have made a defiant and dramatic gesture and then +have leisure to reflect, he was oppressed by a feeling that he had gone +considerably farther than was prudent. Samson, as he heard the pillars +of the temple begin to crack, must have felt the same. Gestures are all +very well while the intoxication lasts. The trouble is that it lasts +such a very little while. + +In asking Millicent to marry him he had gone, he now definitely +realized, too far. He had overdone it. It was not that he had any +objection to Millicent as a wife. He had none whatever--provided she +were somebody else's wife. What was so unpleasant was the prospect of +being married to her himself. + +He groaned in spirit and became aware that he was no longer alone. The +door had opened, and his friend Hugo Carmody was in the room. He noted +with a dull surprise that Hugo was in the conventional costume of the +English gentleman about to dine. He had not supposed the hour so late. + +"Hullo," said Hugo. "Not dressed? That gong's gone." + +It now became clear to Ronnie that he simply was not equal to facing +his infernal family at the dinner table. He supposed that Millicent +had spread the news of their engagement by this time, and that +meant discussion, wearisome congratulations, embraces from his Aunt +Constance, chaff of the vintage of 1895 from his Uncle Galahad--in +short, fuss and gabble. And he was in no mood for fuss and gabble. Pot +luck with a tableful of Trappist monks he might just have endured, but +not a hearty feed with the family. + +"I don't want any dinner." + +"No dinner?" + +"No." + +"Ill or something?" + +"No." + +"But you don't want any dinner? I see. Rummy! However, your affair, +of course. It begins to look as if I should have to don the nosebag +alone. Beach tells me that Baxter also will be absent from the trough. +He's upset about something, it seems, and has asked for a snort and +sandwiches in the smoking room. And as for the pustule Pilbeam," said +Hugo grimly, "I propose to interview him at the earliest possible date, +and after that he won't want any dinner, either." + +"Where are the rest of them?" + +"Didn't you know?" said Hugo, surprised. "They're dining over at old +Parsloe's. Your aunt, Lord Emsworth, old Galahad, and Millicent." +He coughed. A moment of some slight embarrassment impended. "I say, +Ronnie, old man, while on the subject of Millicent----" + +"Well?" + +"You know that engagement of yours?" + +"What about it?" + +"It's off." + +"Off?" + +"Right off. A washout. She's changed her mind." + +"What!" + +"Yes. She's going to marry me. I may tell you we have been engaged for +weeks--one of those secret betrothals--but we had a row. Row now over. +Complete reconciliation. So she asked me to break it to you gently that +in the circs she proposes to return you to store." + +A thrill of ecstasy shot through Ronnie. He felt as men on the scaffold +feel when the messenger bounds in with the reprieve. + +"Well, that's the first bit of good news I've had for a long time," he +said. + +"You mean you didn't want to marry Millicent?" + +"Of course I didn't." + +"Not so much of the 'of course,' laddie," said Hugo, offended. + +"She's an awfully nice girl----" + +"An angel. Shropshire's leading seraph." + +"--but I'm not in love with her any more than she's in love with me." + +"In that case," said Hugo, with justifiable censure, "why propose to +her? A goofy proceeding, it seems to me." He clicked his tongue. "Of +course, this is what happened. You grabbed Millicent to score off Sue, +and she grabbed you to score off me. And now, I suppose, you've fixed +it up with Sue again. Very sound. Couldn't have made a wiser move. +She's obviously the girl for you." + +Ronnie winced. The words had touched a nerve. He had been trying not +to think of Sue, but without success. Her picture insisted on rising +before him. Not being able to exclude her from his thoughts he had +tried to think of her bitterly. + +"I haven't," he cried. + +Extraordinary how difficult it was, even now, to think bitterly of Sue. +Sue was Sue. That was the fundamental fact that hampered him. Try as he +might to concentrate it on the tragedy of Mario's restaurant, his mind +insisted on slipping back to earlier scenes of sunshine and happiness. + +"You haven't?" said Hugo, damped. + +That Ronnie could possibly be in ignorance of Sue's arrival at the +castle never occurred to him. Long ere this, he took it for granted, +they must have met. And he assumed, from the equanimity with which his +friend had received the news of the loss of Millicent, that Sue and he +must have had just such another heart-to-heart talk as had taken place +in the room above the gamekeeper's cottage. The dour sullenness of +Ronnie's face made his kindly heart sink. + +"You mean you haven't fixed things up?" + +"No." + +Ronnie writhed. Sue in his car. Sue up the river. Sue in his arms to +the music of sweet saxophones. Sue laughing. Sue smiling. Sue in the +springtime, with the little breezes ruffling her hair.... + +He forced his mind away from these weakening visions. Sue at +Mario's.... That was better.... Sue letting him down.... Sue hobnobbing +with the blister Pilbeam.... That was much better. + +"I think you're being very hard on that poor little girl, Ronnie." + +"Don't call her a poor little girl." + +"I will call her a poor little girl," said Hugo firmly. "To me she is a +poor little girl, and I don't care who knows it. I don't mind telling +you that my heart bleeds for her. Bleeds profusely. And I must say I +should have thought----" + +"I don't want to talk about her." + +"--after her doing what she has done----" + +"I don't want to talk about her, I tell you." + +Hugo sighed. He gave it up. The situation was what they called an +_impasse_. Too bad. His best friend and a dear little girl like that +parted forever. Two jolly good eggs sundered for all eternity. Oh, +well, that was Life. + +"If you want to talk about anything," said Ronnie, "you had much better +talk about this engagement of yours." + +"Only too glad, old man. Was afraid it might bore you, or would have +touched more freely on subject." + +"I suppose you realize the family will squash it flat?" + +"Oh, no, they won't." + +"You think my Aunt Constance is going to leap about and bang the +cymbals?" + +"The Keeble, I admit," said Hugo, with a faint shiver, "may make her +presence felt to some extent. But I rely on the ninth earl's support +and patronage. Before long, I shall be causing the ninth to look on me +as a son." + +"How?" + +For a moment Hugo almost yielded to the temptation to confide in this +friend of his youth. Then he realized the unwisdom of such a course. +By an odd coincidence, he was thinking exactly the same of Ronnie +as Ronnie at an earlier stage of this history had thought of him. +Ronnie, he considered, though a splendid chap, was not fitted to be a +repository of secrets. A babbler. A sieve. The sort of fellow who would +spread a secret hither and thither all over the place before nightfall. + +"Never mind," he said. "I have my methods." + +"What are they?" + +"Just methods," said Hugo, "and jolly good ones. Well, I'll be pushing +off. I'm late. Sure you won't come down to dinner? Then I'll be going. +It is imperative that I get hold of Pilbeam with all possible speed. +Don't want the sun to go down on my wrath. All has ended happily in +spite of him, but that's no reason why he shouldn't be massacred. I +look on myself as a man with a public duty." + +For some minutes after the door had closed Ronnie remained humped in +his chair. Then, in spite of everything, there began to creep upon +him a desire for food, too strong to be resisted. Perfect health and +a tealess afternoon spent in the open had given him a compelling +appetite. He still shrank from the thought of the dining room. Fond as +he was of Hugo, he simply could not stand his conversation to-night. A +chop at the Emsworth Arms would meet the case. He could get down there +in five minutes in his two-seater. + +He rose. His mind, as he moved to the door, was not entirely occupied +with thoughts of food. Hugo's parting words had turned it in the +direction of Pilbeam again. + +What had brought Pilbeam to the castle, he did not know. But, now +that he was here, let him look out for himself! A couple of minutes +alone with P. Frobisher Pilbeam was just the medicine his bruised soul +required. Apparently, from what he had said, Hugo also entertained some +grievances against the man. It could be nothing compared with his own. + +Pilbeam! The cause of all his troubles. Pilbeam! The snake in the +grass. Pilbeam!... Yes.... His heart might be broken, his life a wreck, +but he could still enjoy the faint consolation of dealing faithfully +with Pilbeam. + +He went out into the corridor. And, as he did so, Percy Pilbeam came +out of the room opposite. + + + II + +Pilbeam had dressed for dinner with considerable care. Owing to the +fact that Lord Emsworth, in his woolen-headed way, had completely +forgotten to inform him of the exodus to Matchingham Hall, he was +expecting to meet a gay and glittering company at the meal and had +prepared himself accordingly. Looking at the result in the mirror, he +had felt a glow of contentment. This glow was still warming him as he +passed into the corridor. As his eyes fell on Ronnie it faded abruptly. + +In the days of his editorship of _Society Spice_, that frank and +fearless journal, P. Frobisher Pilbeam had once or twice had personal +encounters with people having no cause to wish him well. They had +not appealed to him. He was a man who found no pleasure in physical +violence. And that physical violence threatened now was only too +sickeningly plain. It was foreshadowed in the very manner in which this +small but sturdy young man confronting him had begun to creep forward. +Pilbeam, who was an F. R. Z. S., had seen leopards at the Zoo creep +just like that. + +Years of conducting a weekly scandal sheet, followed by a long period +of activity as a private inquiry agent, undoubtedly train a man well +for the exhibition of presence of mind in sudden emergencies. One finds +it difficult in the present instance to overpraise Percy Pilbeam's +ready resource. Had a great military strategist been present he would +have nodded approval. With the grim menace of Ronnie Fish coming closer +and closer, Percy Pilbeam did exactly what Napoleon, Hannibal, or the +great Duke of Marlborough would have done. Reaching behind him for +the handle and twisting it sharply, he slipped through the door of his +bedroom, banged it, and was gone. Many an eel has disappeared into the +mud with less smoothness and celerity. + +If the leopard which he resembled had seen its prey vanish into the +undergrowth just before dinner time it would probably have expressed +its feelings in exactly the same kind of short, rasping cry as +proceeded from Ronnie Fish, witnessing this masterly withdrawal. For an +instant he was completely taken aback. Then he plunged for the door and +into the room. + +He stood, baffled. Pilbeam had vanished. To Ronnie's astonished eyes +the apartment appeared entirely free from detectives in any shape or +form whatsoever. There was the bed. There were the chairs. There were +the carpet, the dressing table, and the bookshelf. But of private +inquiry agents there was a complete shortage. + +How long this miracle would have continued to afflict him, one cannot +say. His mind was still dealing dazedly with it, when there came to his +ears a sharp click, as of a key being turned in the lock. It seemed to +proceed from a hanging cupboard at the other side of the room. + +Old Miles Fish, Ronnie's father, might, as Lord Emsworth had asserted, +have been the biggest fool in the Brigade of Guards, but his son could +reason and deduce. Springing forward, he tugged at the handle of the +cupboard door. The door stood fast. + +At the same moment there filtered through it the sound of muffled +breathing. + +Ronnie was already looking grim. He now looked grimmer. He placed his +lips to the panel. + +"Come out of that!" + +The breathing stopped. + +"All right," said Ronnie, with a hideous calm. "Right jolly ho! I can +wait." + +For some moments there was silence. Then from the beyond a voice spoke +in reply. + +"Be reasonable!" said the voice. + +"Reasonable?" said Ronnie thickly. "Reasonable, eh?" He choked. "Come +out! I only want to pull your head off," he added, with a note of +appeal. + +The voice became conciliatory. + +"I know what you're upset about," it said. + +"You do, eh?" + +"Yes, I quite understand. But I can explain everything." + +"What?" + +"I say I can explain everything." + +"You can, can you?" + +"Quite," said the voice. + +Up till now Ronnie had been pulling. It now occurred to him that +pushing might possibly produce more satisfactory results. So he pushed. +Nothing, however, happened. Blandings Castle was a house which rather +prided itself on its solidity. Its walls were walls and its doors, +doors. No jimcrack work here. The cupboard creaked but did not yield. + +"I say!" + +"Well?" + +"I wish you'd listen. I tell you I can explain everything. About that +night at Mario's, I mean. I know exactly how it is. You think Miss +Brown is fond of me. I give you my solemn word she can't stand the +sight of me. She told me so herself." + +A pleasing thought came to Ronnie. + +"You can't stay in there all night," he said. + +"I don't want to stay in here all night." + +"Well, come on out, then." + +The voice became plaintive. + +"I tell you she had never set eyes on me before that night at Mario's. +She was dining with that fellow Carmody, and he went out and I came +over and introduced myself. No harm in that, was there?" + +Ronnie wondered if kicking would do any good. A tender feeling for his +toes, coupled with the reflection that his Uncle Clarence might have +something to say if he started breaking up cupboard doors, caused him +to abandon the scheme. He stood, breathing tensely. + +"Just a friendly word, that's all I came over to say. Why shouldn't a +fellow introduce himself to a girl and say a friendly word?" + +"I wish I'd got there earlier." + +"I'd have been glad to see you," said Pilbeam courteously. + +"Would you?" + +"Quite." + +"I shall be glad to see _you_," said Ronnie, "when I can get this +damned door open." + +Pilbeam began to fear asphyxiation. The air inside the cupboard was +growing closer. Peril lent him the inspiration which it so often does. + +"Look here," he said, "are you Ronnie?" + +Ronnie turned pinker. + +"I don't want any of your dashed cheek." + +"No, but listen. Is your name Ronnie?" + +Silence without. + +"Because if it is," said Pilbeam, "you're the fellow she's come here to +see." + +More silence. + +"She told me so. In the garden this evening. She came here calling +herself Miss Shoemaker, or some such name, just to see you. That ought +to show you that I'm not the man she's keen on." + +The silence was broken by a sharp exclamation. + +"What's that?" + +Pilbeam repeated his remark. A growing hopefulness lent an almost +finicky clearness to his diction. + +"Come out!" cried Ronnie. + +"That's all very well, but----" + +"Come out, I want to talk to you." + +"You are talking to me." + +"I don't want to bellow this through a door. Come on out. I swear I +won't touch you." + +It was not so much Pilbeam's faith in the knightly word of the Fishes +that caused him to obey the request as a feeling that, if he stayed +cooped up in this cupboard much longer, he would get a rush of blood to +the head. Already he was beginning to feel as if he were breathing a +solution of dust and mothballs. He emerged. His hair was rumpled, and +he regarded his companion warily. He had the air of a man who has taken +his life in his hands. But the word of the Fishes held good. As far as +Ronnie was concerned the war appeared to be over. + +"What did you say? She's here?" + +"Quite." + +"What do you mean, quite?" + +"Certainly. Quite. She got here just before I did. Haven't you seen +her?" + +"No." + +"Well, she's here. She's in the room they call the Garden Room. I heard +her tell that old bird Galahad so. If you go there now," said Pilbeam +insinuatingly, "you could have a quiet word with her before she goes +down to dinner." + +"And she said she had come here to see me?" + +"Yes. To explain about that night at Mario's. And what I say," +proceeded Pilbeam warmly, "is, if a girl didn't love a fellow, would +she come to a place like this, calling herself Miss Shoolbred or +something, simply to see him? I ask you!" said Pilbeam. + +Ronnie did not answer. His feelings held him speechless. He was too +deep in a morass of remorse to be able to articulate. Indeed, he was in +a frame of mind so abased that he almost asked Pilbeam to kick him. The +thought of how he had wronged his blameless Sue was almost too bitter +to be borne. It bit like a serpent and stung like an adder. + +From the surge and riot of his reflections one thought now emerged +clearly, shining like a beacon on a dark night. The Garden Room! + +Turning without a word, he shot out of the door as quickly as Percy +Pilbeam a short while ago had shot in. And Percy Pilbeam, with a deep +sigh, went to the dressing table, took up the brush, and started to +restore his hair to a state fit for the eyes of the nobility and +gentry. This done, he smoothed his moustache and went downstairs to the +drawing room. + + + III + +The drawing room was empty. And to Pilbeam's surprise it continued +to be empty for quite a considerable time. He felt puzzled. He had +expected to meet a reproachful host with an eye on the clock and a +haughty hostess clicking her tongue. As the minutes crept by and his +solitude remained unbroken, he began to grow restless. + +He wandered about the room, staring at the pictures, straightening his +tie and examining the photographs on the little tables. The last of +these was one of Lord Emsworth, taken apparently at about the age of +thirty, in long whiskers and the uniform of the Shropshire Yeomanry. +He was gazing at this with the fascinated horror which it induced in +everyone who saw it suddenly for the first time, when the door at last +opened, and with a sinking sensation of apprehension Pilbeam beheld the +majestic form of Beach. + +For an instant he stood eying the butler with that natural alarm which +comes to all of us when in the presence of a man who a few short hours +earlier has given us one look and made us feel like a condemned food +product. Then his tension relaxed. + +It has been well said that for every evil in this world nature supplies +an antidote. If butlers come, can cocktails be far behind? Beach was +carrying a tray with glasses and a massive shaker on it; and Pilbeam, +seeing these, found himself regarding their formidable bearer almost +with equanimity. + +"A cocktail, sir?" + +"Thanks." + +He accepted a brimming glass. The darkness of its contents suggested a +welcome strength. He drank. And instantaneously all through his system +beacon fires seemed to burst into being. + +He drained the glass. His whole outlook on life was now magically +different. Quite suddenly he had begun to feel equal to a dozen +butlers, however glazed their eyes might be. + +And it might have been an illusion caused by gin and vermouth, but this +butler seemed to have changed considerably for the better since their +last meeting. His eye, though still glassy, had lost the old basilisk +quality. There appeared now, in fact, to be something so positively +light hearted about Beach's whole demeanour that the proprietor of the +Argus Enquiry Agency was emboldened to plunge into conversation. + +"Nice evening." + +"Yes, sir." + +"Nice after the storm." + +"Yes, sir." + +"Came down a bit, didn't it?" + +"The rain was undoubtedly extremely heavy, sir. Another cocktail?" + +"Thanks." + +The relighting of the beacons had the effect of removing from Pilbeam +the last trace of diffidence and shyness. He saw now that he had been +entirely mistaken in this butler. Encountering him in the hall at the +moment of his arrival, he had supposed him supercilious and hostile. He +now perceived that he was a butler and a brother. More like Old King +Cole, that jolly old soul, indeed, than anybody Pilbeam had met for +months. + +"I got caught in it," he said affably. + +"Indeed, sir?" + +"Yes. Lord Emsworth had been showing me some photographs of that pig of +his.... By the way, in strict confidence--what's your name?" + +"Beach, sir." + +"In strict confidence, Beach, I know something about that pig." + +"Indeed, sir?" + +"Yes. Well, after I had seen the photographs I went for a walk in the +park and the rain came on and I got pretty wet. In fact, I don't mind +telling you I had to get under cover and take my trousers off to dry." + +He laughed merrily. + +"Another cocktail, sir?" + +"Making three in all?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Perhaps you're right," said Pilbeam. + +For some moments he sat, pensive and distrait, listening to the strains +of a brass band which seemed to have started playing somewhere in the +vicinity. Then his idly floating thoughts drifted back to the mystery +which had been vexing him before this delightful butler's entry. + +"I say, Beach, I've been waiting here hours and hours. Where's this +dinner I heard you beating gongs about?" + +"Dinner is ready, sir, but I put it back some little while, as +gentlemen aren't punctual in the summer time." + +Pilbeam considered this statement. It sounded to him as if it would +make rather a good song title. Gentlemen aren't punctual in the summer +time, in the summer time (I said, In the summertime). So take me back +to that old Kentucky Shack.... He tried to fit it to the music which +the brass band was playing, but it did not go very well, and he gave it +up. + +"Where is everybody?" he asked. + +"His lordship and her ladyship and Mr. Galahad and Miss Threepwood are +dining at Matchingham Hall." + +"What! With old Pop Parsloe?" + +"With Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe, yes, sir." + +Pilbeam chuckled. + +"Well, well, well! Quick worker, old Parsloe. Don't you think so, +Beach? I mean, you advise him to do a thing, to act in a certain way, +to adopt a certain course of action, and he does it right away. You +agree with me, Beach?" + +"I fear my limited acquaintance with Sir Gregory scarcely entitles me +to offer an opinion, sir." + +"Talking of old Parsloe, Beach--you did say your name was Beach?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"With a capital B?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Well, talking of old Parsloe, Beach, I could tell you something about +him--something he's up to." + +"Indeed, sir?" + +"But I'm not going to. Respect client's confidence. Lips sealed. +Professional secret." + +"Yes, sir?" + +"As you rightly say, yes. Any more of that stuff in the shaker, Beach?" + +"A little, sir, if you consider it judicious." + +"That's just what I do consider it. Start pouring." + +The detective sipped luxuriously, fuller and fuller every moment of an +uplifting sense of well-being. If the friendship which had sprung up +between himself and the butler was possibly a little one-sided, on the +one side on which it did exist it was warm, even fervent. It seemed +to Pilbeam that for the first time since he had arrived at Blandings +Castle he had found a real chum, a kindred soul in whom he might +confide. And he was filled with an overwhelming desire to confide in +somebody. + +"As a matter of fact, Beach," he said, "I could tell you all sorts of +things about all sorts of people. Practically everybody in this house I +could tell you something about. What's the name of that chap with the +light hair, for instance? The old boy's secretary." + +"Mr. Carmody, sir?" + +"Carmody! That's the name. I've been trying to remember it. Well, I +could tell you something about Carmody." + +"Indeed, sir?" + +"Yes. Something about Carmody that would interest you very much. I saw +Carmody this afternoon when Carmody didn't see me." + +"Indeed, sir?" + +"Yes. Where is Carmody?" + +"I imagine he will be down shortly, sir. Mr. Ronald also." + +"Ronald!" Pilbeam drew in his breath sharply. "There's a tough baby, +Beach. That Ronnie. Do you know what he wanted to do just now? Murder +me!" + +In Beach's opinion, for he did not look on Percy Pilbeam as a very +necessary member of society, this would have been a commendable act, +and he regretted that its consummation had been prevented. He was also +feeling that the conscientious butler he had always prided himself on +being would long ere this have withdrawn and left this man to talk to +himself. But even the best of butlers have human emotions, and the +magic of Pilbeam's small-talk held Beach like a spell. It reminded +him of the Gossip page of _Society Spice_, a paper to which he was a +regular subscriber. He was piqued and curious. So far, it was true, his +companion had merely hinted, but something seemed to tell him that, if +he lingered on, a really sensational news item would shortly emerge. + +He had never been more right in his life. Pilbeam by this time had +finished the fourth cocktail, and the urge to confide had become +overpowering. He looked at Beach, and it nearly made him cry to think +that he was holding anything back from such a splendid fellow. + +"And do you know why he wanted to murder me, Beach?" + +It scarcely seemed to the butler that the action required anything in +the nature of a reasoned explanation, but he murmured the necessary +response. + +"I could not say, sir." + +"Of course you couldn't. How could you? You don't know. That's why I'm +telling you. Well, listen. He's in love with a girl in the chorus at +the Regal, a girl named Sue Brown, and he thought I had been taking her +out to dinner. That's why he wanted to murder me, Beach." + +"Indeed, sir?" + +The butler spoke calmly, but he was deeply stirred. He had always +flattered himself that the inmates of Blandings Castle kept few secrets +from him, but this was something new. + +"Yes. That was why. I had the dickens of a job holding him off, I can +tell you. Do you know what saved me, Beach?" + +"No, sir." + +"Presence of mind. I put it to him--to Ronnie--I put it to Ronnie as a +reasonable man that, if this girl loved me, would she have come to this +place, pretending to be Miss Shoemaker, simply so as to see him?" + +"Sir!" + +"Yes, that's who Miss Shoemaker is, Beach. She's a chorus girl called +Sue Brown, and she's come here to see Ronnie." + +Beach stood transfixed. His eyes swelled bulbously from their sockets. +He was incapable of even an "Indeed, sir?" + +He was still endeavouring to assimilate this extraordinary revelation +when Hugo Carmody entered the room. + +"Ah!" said Hugo, his eye falling on Pilbeam. He stiffened. He stood +looking at the detective like Schopenhauer's butcher at the selected +lamb. + +"Leave us, Beach," he said, in a grave, deep voice. + +The butler came out of his trance. + +"Sir?" + +"Pop off." + +"Very good, sir." + +The door closed. + +"I've been looking for you, viper," said Hugo. + +"Have you, Carmody?" said Percy Pilbeam effervescently. "I've been +looking for you, too. Got something I want to talk to you about. Each +looking for each. Or am I thinking of a couple of other fellows? Come +right in, Carmody, and sit down. Good old Carmody! Jolly old Carmody! +Splendid old Carmody. Well, well, well, well, well!" + +If the lamb mentioned above had suddenly accosted the above-mentioned +butcher in a similar strain of hearty camaraderie, it could have hardly +disconcerted him more than Pilbeam with these cheery words disconcerted +Hugo. His stern, set gaze became a gaping stare. + +Then he pulled himself together. What did words matter? He had no time +to bother about words. Action was what he was after. Action! + +"I don't know if you're aware of it, worm," he said, "but you came +jolly near to blighting my life." + +"Doing what, Carmody?" + +"Blighting my life." + +"List to me while I tell you of the Spaniard who blighted my life," +sang Percy Pilbeam, letting it go like a lark in the springtime. He had +never felt happier or in more congenial society. "How did I blight your +life, Carmody?" + +"You didn't." + +"You said I did." + +"I said you tried to." + +"Make up your mind, Carmody." + +"Don't keep calling me Carmody." + +"But, Carmody," protested Pilbeam, "it's your name, isn't it? +Certainly it is. Then why try to hush it up, Carmody? Be frank and +open. I don't mind people knowing my name. I glory in it. It's +Pilbeam--Pilbeam--Pilbeam--that's what it is--Pilbeam!" + +"In about thirty seconds," said Hugo, "it will be Mud." + +It struck Percy Pilbeam for the first time that in his companion's +manner there was a certain peevishness. + +"Something the matter?" he asked, concerned. + +"I'll tell you what's the matter." + +"Do, Carmody, do," said Pilbeam. "Do, do, do. Confide in me. I like +your face." + +He settled himself in a deep armchair and, putting the tips of his +fingers together after a little preliminary difficulty in making them +meet, leaned back, all readiness to listen to whatever trouble it was +that was disturbing this new friend of his. + +"Some days ago, insect----" + +Pilbeam opened his eyes. + +"Speak up, Carmody," he said. "Don't mumble." + +Hugo's fingers twitched. He regarded his companion with a burning +eye and wondered why he was wasting time talking instead of at once +proceeding to the main business of the day and knocking the fellow's +head off at the roots. What saved Pilbeam was the reclining position he +had assumed. If you are a Carmody and a sportsman, you cannot attack +even a viper if it persists in lying back on its spine and keeping its +eyes shut. + +"Some days ago," he began again, "I called at your office. And after we +had talked of this and that I left. I discovered later that immediately +upon my departure you had set your foul spies on my trail and had +instructed them to take notes of my movements and report on them. The +result being that I came jolly close to having my bally life ruined. +And, if you want to know what I'm going to do, I'm going to haul you +out of that chair and turn you round and kick you hard and go on +kicking you till I kick you out of the house. And if you dare to shove +your beastly little nose back inside the place, I'll disembowel you." + +Pilbeam unclosed his eyes. + +"Nothing," he said, "could be fairer than that. Nevertheless, that's no +reason why you should go about stealing pigs." + +Hugo had often read stories in which people reeled and would have +fallen had they not clutched at whatever it was that they clutched +at. He had never expected to undergo that experience himself. But it +is undoubtedly the fact that, if he had not at this moment gripped +the back of a chair, he would have been hard put to it to remain +perpendicular. + +"Pig pincher!" said Pilbeam austerely, and closed his eyes again. + +Hugo, having established his equilibrium by means of the chair, had now +moved away. He was making a strong effort to recover his morale. He +picked up the photograph of Lord Emsworth in his Yeomanry uniform and +looked at it absently; then, as if it had just dawned upon him, put it +down with a shudder, like a man who finds that he has been handling a +snake. + +"What do you mean?" he said thickly. + +Pilbeam's eyes opened. + +"What do I mean? What do you think I mean? I mean you're a pig pincher. +That's what I mean. You go to and fro, sneaking pigs and hiding them in +caravans." + +Hugo took up Lord Emsworth's photograph again, saw what he was doing, +and dropped it quickly. Pilbeam had closed his eyes once more, and, +looking at him, Hugo could not repress a reluctant thrill of awe. He +had often read about the superhuman intuition of detectives, but he had +never before been privileged to observe it in operation. Then an idea +occurred to him. + +"Did you see me?" + +"What say, Carmody?" + +"Did you see me?" + +"Yes, I see you, Carmody," said Pilbeam playfully. "Peep-bo!" + +"Did you see me put that pig in the caravan?" + +Pilbeam nodded eleven times in rapid succession. + +"Certainly I saw you, Carmody. Why shouldn't I see you, considering I'd +been caught in the rain and taken shelter in the caravan and was in +there with my trousers off, trying to dry them because I'm subject to +lumbago?" + +"I didn't see you." + +"No, Carmody, you did not. And I'll tell you why, Carmody. Because I +heard a girl's voice outside saying, 'Be quick, or somebody will come +along!' and I hid. You don't suppose I would let a sweet girl see me +in knee-length mesh-knit underwear, do you? Not done, Carmody," said +Pilbeam severely. "Not cricket." + +Hugo was experiencing the bitterness which comes to all criminals +who discover too late that they have undone themselves by trying to +be clever. It had seemed at the time such a good idea to remove the +Empress from the gamekeeper's cottage in the west wood and place her +in Baxter's caravan, where nobody would think of looking. How could +he have anticipated that the caravan would be bulging with blighted +detectives? + +At this tense moment the door opened and Beach appeared. + +"I beg your pardon, sir, but do you propose to wait any longer for Mr. +Ronald?" + +"Eh?" + +"Certainly not," said Pilbeam. "Who the devil's Mr. Ronald, I should +like to know? I didn't come to this place to do a fast-cure. I want my +dinner, and I want it now. And if Mr. Ronald doesn't like it, he can do +the other thing." He strode in a dominating manner to the door. "Come +along, Carmody. Din-dins." + +Hugo had sunk into a chair. + +"I don't want any dinner," he said dully. + +"You don't want any dinner?" + +"No." + +"No dinner?" + +"No." + +Pilbeam shrugged his shoulders impatiently. + +"The man's an ass," he said. + +He headed for the stairs. His manner seemed to indicate that he washed +his hands of Hugo. + +Beach lingered. + +"Shall I bring you some sandwiches, sir?" + +"No, thanks. What's that?" + +A loud crash had sounded. The butler went to the door and looked out. + +"It is Mr. Pilbeam, sir. He appears to have fallen downstairs." + +For an instant a look of hope crept into Hugo's careworn face. + +"Has he broken his neck?" + +"Apparently not, sir." + +"Ah," said Hugo regretfully. + + + + + CHAPTER XIV + + + I + +The Efficient Baxter had retired to the smoking room shortly before +half-past seven. He desired silence and solitude, and in this cosy +haven he got both. For a few minutes nothing broke the stillness but +the slow ticking of a clock on the mantelpiece. Then from the direction +of the hall there came a new sound, faint at first but swelling and +swelling to a frenzied blare, seeming to throb through the air with a +note of passionate appeal like a woman wailing for her demon lover. It +was that tocsin of the soul, that muezzin of the country house, the +dressing-for-dinner gong. + +Baxter did not stir. The summons left him unmoved. He had heard it, +of course. Butler Beach was a man who swung a pretty gong stick. He +had that quick forearm flick and wristy follow through which stamp the +master. If you were anywhere within a quarter of a mile or so you could +not help hearing him. But the sound had no appeal for Baxter. He did +not propose to go in to dinner. He wanted to be alone with his thoughts. + +They were not the sort of thoughts with which most men would have +wished to be left alone, being both dark and bitter. That expedition +to the gamekeeper's cottage in the west wood had not proved a pleasure +trip for Rupert Baxter. Reviewing it in his mind, he burned with +baffled rage. + +And yet everybody had been very nice to him--very nice and tactful. +True, at the moment of the discovery that the cottage contained no pig +and appeared to have been pigless from its foundation, there had been +perhaps just the slightest suspicion of constraint. Lord Emsworth had +grasped his ivory-knobbed stick a little more tightly and had edged +behind Beach in a rather noticeable way, his manner saying more plainly +than was agreeable, "If he springs, be ready!" And there had come into +the butler's face a look, hard to bear, which was a blend of censure +and pity. But after that both of them had been charming. + +Lord Emsworth had talked soothingly about light and shade effects. He +had said--and Beach had agreed with him--that in the darkness of a +thunderstorm anybody might have been deceived into supposing that he +had seen a butler feeding a pig in the gamekeeper's cottage. It was +probably, said Lord Emsworth--and Beach thought so, too--a bit of wood +sticking out of the wall or something. He went on to tell a longish +story of how he himself, when a boy, had fancied he had seen a cat with +flaming eyes. He had concluded by advising Baxter--and Beach said the +suggestion was a good one--to hurry home and have a nice cup of hot tea +and go to bed. + +His attitude, in short, could not have been pleasanter or more +considerate. Yet Baxter, as he sat in the smoking room, burned, as +stated, with baffled rage. + +The door handle turned. Beach stood on the threshold. + +"If you have changed your mind, sir, about taking dinner, the meal is +quite ready." + +He spoke as friend to friend. There was nothing in his manner to +suggest that the man he addressed had ever accused him of stealing +pigs. As far as Beach was concerned, all was forgotten and forgiven. + +But the milk of human kindness, of which the butler was so full, had +not yet been delivered on Baxter's doorstep. The hostility in his eye, +as he fixed it on his visitor, was so marked that a lesser man than +Beach might have been disconcerted. + +"I don't want any dinner." + +"Very good, sir." + +"Bring me that whisky-and-soda quick." + +"Yes, sir." + +The door closed as softly as it had opened, but not before a pang like +a red-hot needle had pierced the ex-secretary's bosom. It was caused by +the fact that he had distinctly heard the butler, as he withdrew, utter +a pitying sigh. + +It was the sort of sigh which a kind-hearted man would have given on +peeping into a padded cell in which some old friend was confined, and +Baxter resented it with all the force of an imperious nature. He had +not ceased to wonder what, if anything, could be done about it when the +refreshments arrived, carried by James the footman. James placed them +gently on the table, shot a swift glance of respectful commiseration at +the patient, and passed away. + +The sigh had cut Baxter like a knife. The look stabbed him like a +dagger. For a moment he thought of calling the man back and asking +him what the devil he meant by staring at him like that, but wiser +counsels prevailed. He contented himself with draining a glass of +whisky-and-soda and swallowing two sandwiches. + +This done, he felt a little--not much, but a little--better. Before, he +would gladly have murdered Beach and James and danced on their graves. +Now, he would have been satisfied with straight murder. + +However, he was alone at last. That was some slight consolation. Beach +had come and gone. Footman James had come and gone. Everybody else must +by now be either at Matchingham Hall or assembled in the dining room. +On the solitude which he so greatly desired there could be no further +intrusion. He resumed his meditations. + +For a time these dealt exclusively with the recent past, and were, in +consequence, of a morbid character. Then, as the grateful glow of the +whisky began to make itself felt, a softer mood came to Rupert Baxter. +His mind turned to thoughts of Sue. + +Men as efficient as Rupert Baxter do not fall in love in the generally +accepted sense of the term. Their attitude toward the tender passion is +more restrained than that of the ordinary feckless young man who loses +his heart at first sight with a whoop and a shiver. Baxter approved of +Sue. We cannot say more. But this approval, added to the fact that he +had been informed by Lady Constance that the girl was the only daughter +of a man who possessed sixty million dollars, had been enough to cause +him to earmark her in his mind as the future Mrs. Baxter. In that +capacity he had docketed her and filed her away at the first moment of +their meeting. + +Naturally, therefore, the remarks which Lord Emsworth had let fall +in her hearing had caused him grave concern. It hampers a man in +his wooing if the girl he has selected for his bride starts with the +idea that he is as mad as a coot. He congratulated himself on the +promptitude with which he had handled the situation. That letter which +he had written her could not fail to put him right in her eyes. + +Rupert Baxter was a man in whose lexicon there was no such word as +failure. An heiress like this Miss Schoonmaker would not, he was aware, +lack for suitors; but he did not fear them. If only she were making a +reasonably long stay at the castle he felt that he could rely on his +force of character to win the day. In fact, it seemed to him that he +could almost hear the wedding bells ringing already. Then, coming out +of his dreams, he realized that it was the telephone. + +He reached for the instrument with a frown, annoyed at the +interruption, and spoke with an irritated sharpness. + +"Hullo?" + +A ghostly voice replied. The storm seemed to have effected the wires. + +"Speak up!" barked Baxter. + +He banged the telephone violently on the table. The treatment, as is so +often the case, proved effective. + +"Blandings Castle?" said the voice, no longer ghostly. + +"Yes." + +"Post Office, Market Blandings, speaking. Telegram for Lady Constance +Keeble." + +"I will take it." + +The voice became faint again. Baxter went through the movements as +before. + +"Lady Constance Keeble, Blandings Castle, Market Blandings, +Shropshire, England," said the voice, recovering strength, as if it had +shaken off a wasting sickness. "Handed in at Paris." + +"Where?" + +"Paris, France." + +"Oh? Well?" + +The voice gathered volume. + +"'Terribly sorry hear news.'" + +"What?" + +"'News.'" + +"Yes?" + +"'Terribly sorry hear news Stop Quite understand Stop So disappointed +shall be unable come to you later as going back America at end of Month +Stop Do hope we shall be able arrange something when I return next year +Stop Regards Stop!'" + +"Yes?" + +"Signed 'Myra Schoonmaker.'" + +"Signed--_what?_" + +"Myra Schoonmaker." + +Baxter's mouth had fallen open. The forehead above the spectacles was +wrinkled, the eyes behind them staring blankly and with a growing +horror. + +"Shall I repeat?" + +"What?" + +"Do you wish the message repeated?" + +"No," said Baxter in a choking voice. + +He hung up the receiver. There seemed to be something crawling down his +back. His brain was numbed. + +Myra Schoonmaker! Telegraphing from Paris! + +Then who was this girl who was at the castle calling herself by that +preposterous name? An impostor, an adventuress. She must be. + +And if he made a move to expose her she would revenge herself by +showing Lord Emsworth that letter of his. + +In the agitation of the moment he had risen to his feet. He now sat +down heavily. + +That letter...! + +He must recover it. He must recover it at once. As long as it remained +in the girl's possession it was a pistol pointed at his head. Once let +Lord Emsworth become acquainted with those very frank criticisms of +himself which it contained and not even his ally, Lady Constance, would +be able to restore him to his lost secretaryship. The ninth earl was a +mild man, accustomed to bowing to his sister's decrees, but there were +limits beyond which he could not be pushed. + +And Baxter yearned to be back at Blandings Castle in the position he +had once enjoyed. Blandings was his spiritual home. He had held other +secretaryships--he held one now, at a salary far higher than that which +Lord Emsworth had paid him--but never had he succeeded in recapturing +that fascinating sense of power, of importance, of being the man who +directed the destinies of one of the largest houses in England. + +At all costs he must recover that letter. And the present moment, he +perceived, was ideal for the venture. The girl must have the thing in +her room somewhere, and for the next hour at least she would be in the +dining room. He would have ample opportunity for a search. + +He did not delay. Thirty seconds later he was mounting the stairs, his +face set, his spectacles gleaming grimly. A minute later he reached his +destination. No good angel, aware of what the future held, stood on the +threshold to bar his entry. The door was ajar. He pushed it open and +went in. + + + II + +Blandings Castle, like most places of its size and importance, +contained bedrooms so magnificent that they were never used. With their +four-poster beds and their superb but rather oppressive tapestries they +had remained untenanted since the time when Queen Elizabeth, dodging +from country house to country house in that restless, snipe-like way of +hers, had last slept in them. Of the guest rooms still in commission +the most luxurious was that which had been given to Sue. + +At the moment when Baxter stole cautiously in, it was looking its best +in the gentle evening light. But Baxter was not in sightseeing mood. +He ignored the carved bedstead, the easy armchairs, the pictures, the +decorations, and the soft carpet into which his feet sank. The beauty +of the sky through the French windows that gave onto the balcony drew +but a single brief glance from him. Without delay he made for the +writing desk which stood against the wall near the bed. It seemed to +him a good point of departure for his search. + +There were several pigeonholes in the desk. They contained single +sheets of notepaper, double sheets of notepaper, postcards, envelopes, +telegraph forms, and even a little pad on which the room's occupant was +presumably expected to jot down any stray thoughts and reflections on +Life which might occur to him or her before turning in for the night. +But not one of them contained the fatal letter. + +He straightened himself and looked about the room. The drawer of the +dressing table now suggested itself as a possibility. He left the desk +and made his way toward it. + +The primary requisite of dressing tables being a good supply of light, +they are usually placed in a position to get as much of it as possible. +This one was no exception. It stood so near to the open windows that +the breeze was ruffling the tassels on its lamp shades: and Baxter, +arriving in front of it, was enabled for the first time to see the +balcony in its entirety. + +And as he saw it his heart seemed to side-slip. Leaning upon the +parapet and looking out over the sea of gravel that swept up to the +front door from the rhododendron-fringed drive stood a girl. And not +even the fact that her back was turned could prevent Baxter identifying +her. + +For an instant he remained frozen. Even the greatest men congeal +beneath the chill breath of the totally unexpected. He had assumed as +a matter of course that Sue was down in the dining room, and it took +him several seconds to adjust his mind to the unpleasing fact that +she was up on her balcony. When he recovered his presence of mind +sufficiently to draw noiselessly away from the line of vision, his +first emotion was one of irritation. This chopping and changing, this +eleventh-hour alteration of plans, these sudden decisions to remain +upstairs when they ought to be downstairs, were what made women as a +sex so unsatisfactory. + +To irritation succeeded a sense of defeat. There was nothing for it, +he realized, but to give up his quest and go. He started to tiptoe +silently to the door, agreeably conscious now of the softness and +thickness of the Axminster pile that made it possible to move unheard, +and had just reached it, when from the other side there came to his +ears a sound of chinking and clattering--the sound, in fact, which is +made by plates and dishes when they are carried on a tray to a guest +who, after a long railway journey, has asked her hostess if she may +take dinner in her room. + +Practice makes perfect. This was the second time in the last three +hours that Baxter had found himself trapped in a room in which it was +vitally urgent that he should not be discovered, and he was getting +the technique of the thing. On the previous occasion, in the small +library, he had taken to himself wings like a bird and sailed out of +window. In the present crisis such a course, he perceived immediately, +was not feasible. The way of an eagle would profit him nothing. Soaring +over the balcony, he would be observed by Sue and would, in addition, +unquestionably break his neck. What was needed here was the way of a +diving duck. + +And so, as the door handle turned, Rupert Baxter, even in this black +hour efficient, dropped on all-fours and slid under the bed as smoothly +as if he had been practising for weeks. + + + III + +Owing to the restricted nature of his position and the limited range +of vision which he enjoys, virtually the only way in which a man who +is hiding under a bed can entertain himself is by listening to what is +going on outside. He may hear something of interest, or he may hear +only the draught sighing along the floor; but, for better or for worse, +that is all he is able to do. + +The first sound that came to Rupert Baxter was that made by the placing +of the tray on the table. Then, after a pause, a pair of squeaking +shoes passed over the carpet and squeaked out of hearing. Baxter +recognized them as those of Footman Thomas, a confirmed squeaker. + +After this, somebody puffed, causing him to deduce the presence of +Beach. + +"Your dinner is quite ready, miss." + +"Oh, thank you." + +The girl had apparently come in from the balcony. A chair scraped to +the table. A savoury scent floated to Baxter's nostrils, causing him +acute discomfort. He had just begun to realize how extremely hungry he +was and how rash he had been, first to attempt to dine off a couple of +sandwiches and secondly to undertake a mission like his present one +without a square meal inside him. + +"That is chicken, miss--en casserole." + +Baxter had deduced as much, and was trying not to let his mind dwell +on it. He uttered a silent groan. In addition to the agony of having +to smell food, he was beginning to be conscious of a growing cramp in +his left leg. He turned on one side and did his best to emulate the +easy nonchalance of those Indian fakirs who, doubtless from the best +motives, spend the formative years of their lives lying on iron spikes. + +"It looks very good." + +"I trust you will enjoy it, miss. Is there anything further that I can +do for you?" + +"No, thank you. Oh, yes. Would you mind fetching that manuscript from +the balcony? I was reading it out there, and I left it on the chair. +It's Mr. Threepwood's book." + +"Indeed, miss? An exceedingly interesting compilation, I should +imagine?" + +"Yes, very." + +"I wonder if it would be taking a liberty, miss, to ask you to inform +me later, at your leisure, if I make any appearance in its pages." + +"You?" + +"Yes, miss. From what Mr. Galahad has let fall from time to time I +fancy it was his intention to give me printed credit as his authority +for certain of the stories which appear in the book." + +"Do you want to be in it?" + +"Most decidedly, miss. I should consider it an honour. And it would +please my mother." + +"Have you a mother?" + +"Yes, miss. She lives at Eastbourne." + +The butler moved majestically onto the balcony, and Sue's mind had +turned to speculation about his mother and whether she looked anything +like him when there was a sound of hurrying feet without, the door flew +open, and Beach's mother passed from her mind like the unsubstantial +fabric of a dream. With a little choking cry she rose to her feet. +Ronnie was standing before her. + + + + + CHAPTER XV + + +And meanwhile, if we may borrow an expression from a sister act, what +of Hugo Carmody? + +It is a defect unfortunately inseparable from any such document as +this faithful record of events in and about Blandings Castle that the +chronicler, in order to give a square deal to each of the individuals +whose fortunes he has undertaken to narrate, is compelled to flit +abruptly from one to the other in the manner popularized by the chamois +of the Alps leaping from crag to crag. The activities of the Efficient +Baxter seeming to him to demand immediate attention, he was reluctantly +compelled some little while back to leave Hugo in the very act of +reeling beneath a crushing blow. The moment has now come to return to +him. + +The first effect on a young man of sensibility and gentle upbringing +of the discovery that an unfriendly detective has seen him placing +stolen pigs in caravans is to induce a stunned condition of mind, a +sort of mental coma. The face lengthens. The limbs grow rigid. The tie +slips sideways and the cuffs recede into the coat sleeves. The subject +becomes temporarily, in short, a total loss. + +It is perhaps as well, therefore, that we did not waste valuable time +watching Hugo in the process of digesting Percy Pilbeam's sensational +announcement, for it would have been like looking at a statue. If the +reader will endeavour to picture Rodin's Thinker in a dinner jacket and +trousers with braid down the sides, he will have got the general idea. +At the instant when Hugo Carmody makes his reappearance life has just +begun to return to the stiffened frame. + +And with life came the dawning of intelligence. This ghastly snag which +had popped up in his path was too big, reflected Hugo, for any man to +tackle. It called for a woman's keener wit. His first act on emerging +from the depths, therefore, was to leave the drawing room and totter +downstairs to the telephone. He got the number of Matchingham Hall and, +establishing communication with Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe's butler, +urged him to summon Miss Millicent Threepwood from the dinner table. +The butler said in rather a reproving way that Miss Threepwood was at +the moment busy drinking soup. Hugo, with the first flash of spirit he +had shown for a quarter of an hour, replied that he didn't care if she +was bathing in it. "Fetch her," said Hugo, and almost added the words, +"You scurvy knave." He then clung weakly to the receiver, waiting, and +in a short while a sweet but agitated voice floated to him across the +wire. + +"Hugo?" + +"Millicent?" + +"Is that you?" + +"Yes. Is that you?" + +"Yes." + +Anything in the nature of misunderstanding was cleared away. It was +both of them. + +"What's up?" + +"Everything's up." + +"How do you mean?" + +"I'll tell you," said Hugo, and did so. It was not a difficult story to +tell. Its plot was so clear that a few whispered words sufficed. + +"You don't mean that?" said Millicent, the tale concluded. + +"I do mean that." + +"Oh, golly!" said Millicent. + +Silence followed. Hugo waited palpitatingly. The outlook seemed to him +black. He wondered if he had placed too much reliance in woman's wit. +That "Golly!" had not been hopeful. + +"Hugo!" + +"Hullo?" + +"This is a bit thick." + +"Yes," agreed Hugo. The thickness had not escaped him. + +"Well, there's only one thing to do." + +A faint thrill passed through Hugo Carmody. One would be enough. +Woman's wit was going to bring home the bacon after all. + +"Listen!" + +"Well?" + +"The only thing to do is for me to go back to the dining room and tell +Uncle Clarence you've found the Empress." + +"Eh?" + +"Found her, fathead." + +"How do you mean?" + +"Found her in the caravan." + +"But weren't you listening to what I was saying?" There were tears in +Hugo's voice. "Pilbeam saw us putting her there." + +"I know." + +"Well, what's our move when he says so?" + +"Stout denial." + +"Eh?" + +"We stoutly deny it," said Millicent. + +The thrill passed through Hugo again, stronger than before. It might +work. Yes, properly handled, it would work. He poured broken words of +love and praise into the receiver. + +"That's right," he cried. "I see daylight. I will go to Pilbeam and +tell him privily that if he opens his mouth I'll strangle him." + +"Well, hold on. I'll go and tell Uncle Clarence. I expect he'll be out +in a moment to have a word with you." + +"Half a minute! Millicent!" + +"Well?" + +"When am I supposed to have found this ghastly pig?" + +"Ten minutes ago, when you were taking a stroll before dinner. You +happened to pass the caravan and you heard an odd noise inside and you +looked to see what it was and there was the Empress, and you raced back +to the house to telephone." + +"But, Millicent! Half a minute!" + +"Well?" + +"The old boy will think Baxter stole her." + +"So he will! Isn't that splendid? Well, hold on." + +Hugo resumed his vigil. It was some moments later that a noise like the +clucking of fowls broke out at the Matchingham Hall end of the wire. +He deduced correctly that this was caused by the ninth Earl of Emsworth +endeavouring to clothe his thoughts in speech. + +"Kuk-kuk-kuk...." + +"Yes, Lord Emsworth?" + +"Kuk-Carmody!" + +"Yes, Lord Emsworth?" + +"Is this true?" + +"Yes, Lord Emsworth." + +"You've found the Empress?" + +"Yes, Lord Emsworth." + +"In that feller Baxter's caravan?" + +"Yes, Lord Emsworth." + +"Well, I'll be damned!" + +"Yes, Lord Emsworth." + +So far Hugo Carmody had found his share of the dialogue delightfully +easy. On these lines he would have been prepared to continue it all +night. But there was something else besides "Yes, Lord Emsworth" that +he must now endeavour to say. There is a tide in the affairs of men +which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune: and that tide, he knew, +would never rise higher than at the present moment. He swallowed twice +to unlimber his vocal chords. + +"Lord Emsworth," he said, and, though his heart was beating fast, +his voice was steady, "there is something I would like to take this +opportunity of saying. It will come as a surprise to you, but I hope +not as an unpleasant surprise. I love your niece Millicent, and she +loves me, Lord Emsworth. We have loved each other for many weeks, and +it is my hope that you will give your consent to our marriage. I am not +a rich man, Lord Emsworth. In fact, strictly speaking, except for my +salary I haven't a bean in the world. But my Uncle Lester owns Rudge +Hall in Worcestershire--I dare say you have heard of the place? You +turn to the left off the main road to Birmingham and go about a couple +of miles--well, anyway, it's a biggish sort of place in Worcestershire, +and my Uncle Lester owns it, and the property is entailed, and I'm +next in succession.... I won't pretend that my Uncle Lester shows any +indications of passing in his checks--he was extremely fit last time +I saw him--but, after all, he's getting on, and all flesh is as grass +and, as I say, I'm next man in, so I shall eventually succeed to quite +a fairish bit of the stuff and a house and park and rent roll and all +that; so what I mean is, it isn't as if I wasn't in a position to +support Millicent later on, and if you realized, Lord Emsworth, how we +love one another I'm sure you would see that it wouldn't be playing +the game to put any obstacles in the way of our happiness, so what I'm +driving at, if you follow me, is, may we charge ahead?" + +There was dead silence at the other end of the wire. It seemed as if +this revelation of a good man's love had struck Lord Emsworth dumb. +It was only some moments later, after he had said "Hullo!" six times +and "I say, are you there?" twice that it was borne in upon Hugo that +he had wasted two hundred and eighty words of the finest eloquence on +empty space. + +His natural chagrin at this discovery was sensibly diminished by the +sudden sound of Millicent's voice in his ear. + +"Hullo!" + +"Hullo!" + +"Hullo!" + +"Hullo!" + +"Hugo!" + +"Hullo!" + +"I say, Hugo!" She spoke with the joyous excitement of a girl who has +just emerged from the centre of a family dog fight. "I say, Hugo, +things are hotting up here properly. I sprung it on Uncle Clarence just +now that I want to marry you!" + +"So did I. Only he wasn't there." + +"I said, 'Uncle Clarence, aren't you grateful to Mr. Carmody for +finding the Empress?' and he said, 'Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, to be +sure. Capital boy! Capital boy! Always liked him.' And I said, 'I +suppose you wouldn't by any chance let me marry him?' and he said, 'Eh, +what? Marry him?' 'Yes,' I said. 'Marry him.' And he said, 'Certainly, +certainly, certainly, certainly, by all means.' And then Aunt Constance +had a fit, and Uncle Gally said she was a kill-joy and ought to be +ashamed of herself for throwing the gaff into love's young dream, and +Uncle Clarence kept on saying 'Certainly, certainly.' I don't know what +old Parsloe thinks of it all. He's sitting in his chair looking at the +ceiling and drinking Hock. The butler left at the end of round one. I'm +going back to see how it's all coming out. Hold the line." + +A man for whom Happiness and Misery are swaying in the scales three +miles away, and whose only medium of learning the result of the +contest is a telephone wire, is not likely to ring off impatiently. +Hugo sat tense and breathless, like one listening in on the radio to a +championship fight in which he has a financial interest. It was only +when a cheery voice spoke at his elbow that he realized that his +solitude had been invaded, and by Percy Pilbeam at that. + +Percy Pilbeam was looking rosy and replete. He swayed slightly, and his +smile was rather wider and more pebble-beached than a total abstainer's +would have been. + +"Hullo, Carmody," said Percy Pilbeam. "What ho, Carmody. So here you +are, Carmody." + +It came to Hugo that he had something to say to this man. + +"Here, you!" he cried. + +"Yes, Carmody?" + +"Do you want to be battered to a pulp?" + +"No, Carmody." + +"Then listen. You didn't see me put that pig in the caravan. +Understand?" + +"But I did, Carmody." + +"You didn't--not if you want to go on living." + +Percy Pilbeam appeared to be in a mood not only of keen intelligence +but of the utmost reasonableness and amiability. + +"Say no more, Carmody," he said agreeably. "I take your point. You want +me not to tell anybody I saw you put that caravan in the pig. Quite, +Carmody, quite." + +"Well, bear it in mind." + +"I will, Carmody. Oh, yes, Carmody, I will. I'm going for a stroll +outside, Carmody. Care to join me?" + +"Go to hell!" + +"Quite," said Percy Pilbeam. + +He tacked unsteadily to the door, aimed himself at it and passed +through. And a moment later Millicent's voice spoke. + +"Hugo?" + +"Hullo?" + +"Oh, Hugo, darling, the battle's over. We've won. Uncle Clarence has +said 'Certainly' sixty-five times, and he's just told Aunt Constance +that if she thinks she can bully him she's very much mistaken. It's +a walk-over. They're all coming back right away in the car. Uncle +Clarence is an angel." + +"So are you." + +"Me?" + +"Yes, you." + +"Not such an angel as you are." + +"Much more of an angel than I am," said Hugo, in the voice of one +trained to the appraising and classifying of angels. + +"Well, anyway, you precious old thing, I'm going to give them the slip +and walk home along the road. Get out Ronnie's two-seater and come and +pick me up, and we'll go for a drive together, miles and miles through +the country. It's the most perfect evening." + +"You bet it is!" said Hugo fervently. "What I call something like an +evening. Give me two minutes to get the car out and five to make the +trip and I'll be with you." + +"'At-a-boy!" said Millicent. + +"'At-a-baby!" said Hugo. + + + + + CHAPTER XVI + + +Sue stood staring, wide eyed. This was the moment that she had tried +to picture to herself a hundred times. And always her imagination had +proved unequal to the task. Sometimes she had seen Ronnie in her mind's +eye cold, aloof, hostile; sometimes gasping and tottering, dumb with +amazement; sometimes pointing a finger at her like a character in a +melodrama and denouncing her as an impostor. The one thing for which +she had not been prepared was what happened now. + +Eton and Cambridge train their sons well. Once they have grasped the +fundamental fact of life that all exhibitions of emotion are bad form, +bombshells cannot disturb their poise and earthquakes are lucky if +they get so much as an "Eh, what?" from them. But Cambridge has its +limitations, and so has Eton. And remorse had goaded Ronnie Fish to a +point where their iron discipline had ceased to operate. He was stirred +to his depths, and his scarlet face, his rumpled hair, his starting +eyes, and his twitching fingers all proclaimed the fact. + +"Ronnie!" cried Sue. + +It was all she had time to say. The thought of what she had done for +his sake; the thought that for love of him she had come to Blandings +Castle under false colours--an impostor--faced at every turn by the +risk of detection--liable at any moment to be ignominiously exposed +and looked at through a lorgnette by his Aunt Constance; the thought of +the shameful way he had treated her--all these thoughts were racking +Ronald Fish with a searing anguish. They had brought the hot blood of +the Fishes to the boil, and now, face to face with her, he did not +hesitate. + +He sprang forward, clasped her in his arms, hugged her to him. To +Baxter's revolted ears, though he tried not to listen, there came in a +husky cataract the sound of a Fish's self-reproaches. Ronnie was saying +what he thought of himself, and his opinion appeared not to be high. He +said he was a beast, a brute, a swine, a cad, a hound, and a worm. If +he had been speaking of Percy Pilbeam he could scarcely have been less +complimentary. + +Even up to this point Baxter had not liked the dialogue. It now became +perfectly nauseating. Sue said it had all been her fault. Ronnie said, +No, his. No, hers, said Sue. No, his, said Ronnie. No, hers, said Sue, +No, altogether his, said Ronnie. It must have been his, he pointed out, +because, as he had observed before, he was a hound and a worm. He now +went further. He revealed himself as a blister, a tick, and a perishing +outsider. + +"You're not!" + +"I am!" + +"You're not!" + +"I am!" + +"Of course you're not!" + +"I certainly am!" + +"Well, I love you, anyway." + +"You can't." + +"I do!" + +"You can't." + +"I do." + +Baxter writhed in silent anguish. + +"How long?" said Baxter to his immortal soul. "How long?" The question +was answered with a startling promptitude. From the neighbourhood of +the French windows there sounded a discreet cough. The debaters sprang +apart, two minds with but a single thought. + +"Your manuscript, miss," said Beach sedately. + +Sue looked at him. Ronnie looked at him. Sue until this moment had +forgotten his existence. Ronnie had supposed him downstairs, busy about +his butlerine duties. Neither seemed very glad to see him. + +Ronnie was the first to speak. + +"Oh--hullo, Beach!" + +There being no answer to this except "Hullo, sir!" which is a thing +that butlers do not say, Beach contented himself with a benignant +smile. It had the unfortunate effect of making Ronnie think that the +man was laughing at him, and the Fishes were men at whom butlers may +not lightly laugh. He was about to utter a heated speech, indicating +this, when the injudiciousness of such a course presented itself to +his mind. Beach must be placated. He forced his voice to a note of +geniality. + +"So there you are, Beach?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"I suppose all this must seem tolerably rummy to you?" + +"No, sir." + +"No?" + +"I had already been informed, Mr. Ronald, of the nature of your +feelings toward this lady." + +"What!" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Who told you?" + +"Mr. Pilbeam, sir." + +Ronnie uttered a gasp. Then he became calmer. He had suddenly +remembered that this man was his ally, his accomplice, linked to +him not only by a friendship dating back to his boyhood but by the +even stronger bond of a mutual crime. Between them there need be no +reserves. Delicate though the situation was, he now felt equal to it. + +"Beach," he said, "how much do you know?" + +"All, sir." + +"All?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Such as----?" + +Beach coughed. + +"I am aware that this lady is a Miss Sue Brown. And, according to my +informant, she is employed in the chorus of the Regal Theatre." + +"Quite the Encyclopædia, aren't you?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"I want to marry Miss Brown, Beach." + +"I can readily appreciate such a desire on your part, Mr. Ronald," said +the butler with a paternal smile. + +Sue caught at the smile. + +"Ronnie! He's all right. I believe he's a friend." + +"Of course he's a friend! Old Beach. One of my earliest and stoutest +pals." + +"I mean, he isn't going to give us away." + +"Me, miss?" said Beach, shocked. "Certainly not." + +"Splendid fellow, Beach!" + +"Thank you, sir." + +"Beach," said Ronnie, "the time has come to act. No more delay. I've +got to make myself solid with Uncle Clarence at once. Directly he gets +back to-night I shall go to him and tell him that Empress of Blandings +is in the gamekeeper's cottage in the west wood, and then, while he's +still weak, I shall spring on him the announcement of my engagement." + +"Unfortunately, Mr. Ronald, the animal is no longer in the cottage." + +"You've moved it?" + +"Not I, sir. Mr. Carmody. By a most regrettable chance Mr. Carmody +found me feeding it this afternoon. He took it away and deposited it in +some place of which I am not cognizant, sir." + +"But, good heavens, he'll dish the whole scheme. Where is he?" + +"You wish me to find him, sir?" + +"Of course I wish you to find him. Go at once and ask him where that +pig is. Tell him it's vital." + +"Very good, sir." + +Sue had listened with bewilderment to this talk of pigs. + +"I don't understand, Ronnie." + +Ronnie was pacing the room in agitation. Once he came so close to where +Baxter lay in his snug harbour that the ex-secretary had a flashing +glimpse of a sock with a lavender clock. It was the first object of +beauty that he had seen for a long time, and he should have appreciated +it more than he did. + +"I can't explain now," said Ronnie. "It's too long. But I can tell you +this. If we don't get that pig back we're in the soup." + +"Ronnie!" + +Ronnie had ceased to pace the room. He was standing in a listening +attitude. + +"What's that?" + +He sprang quickly to the balcony, looked over the parapet and came +softly back. + +"Sue!" + +"What!" + +"It's that blighter Pilbeam," said Ronnie in a guarded undertone. "He's +climbing up the waterspout!" + + + + + CHAPTER XVII + + +From the moment when it left the door of Matchingham Hall and started +on its journey back to Blandings Castle, a silence as of the tomb +had reigned in the Antelope car which was bringing Lord Emsworth, +his sister, Lady Constance Keeble, and his brother, the Hon. Galahad +Threepwood, home from their interrupted dinner party. Not so much as a +syllable proceeded from one of them. + +In the light of what Millicent, an eyewitness at the front, had told +Hugo over the telephone of the family battle which had been raging at +Sir Gregory Parsloe's table this will appear strange. If ever three +people with plenty to say to one another were assembled together in a +small space, these three, one would have thought, were those three. +Lady Constance alone might have been expected to provide enough +conversation to keep the historian busy for hours. + +The explanation, like all explanations, is simple. It is supplied by +that one word Antelope. + +Owing to the fact that some trifling internal ailment had removed from +the active list the Hispano-Suiza in which Blandings Castle usually +went out to dinner, Voules, the chauffeur, had had to fall back upon +this secondary and inferior car; and anybody who has ever owned an +Antelope is aware that there is no glass partition inside it, shutting +off the driver from the cash customers. He is right there in their +midst, ready and eager to hear everything that is said and to hand it +on in due course to the Servants' Hall. + +In these circumstances, though the choice seemed one between speech +and spontaneous combustion, the little company kept their thoughts +to themselves. They suffered, but they did it. It would be difficult +to find a better illustration of all that is implied in the fine old +phrase _Noblesse oblige_. At Lady Constance we point with particular +pride. She was a woman, and silence weighed hardest on her. + +There were times during the drive when even the sight of Voules's +large, red ears all pricked up to learn the reason for this sudden and +sensational return was scarcely sufficient to restrain Lady Constance +Keeble from telling her brother Clarence just what she thought of him. +From boyhood up he had not once come near to being her ideal man; but +never had he sunk so low in her estimation as at the moment when she +heard him giving his consent to the union of her niece Millicent with a +young man who, besides being penniless, had always afflicted her with a +nervous complaint for which she could find no name, but which is known +to scientists as the heeby-jeebies. + +Nor had he reëstablished himself in any way by his outspoken remarks on +the subject of the Efficient Baxter. He had said things about Baxter +which no admirer of that energetic man could forgive. The adjectives +mad, crazy, insane, gibbering--and worse, potty--had played in and out +of his conversation like flashes of lightning. And from the look in +his eye she gathered that he was still saying them all over again to +himself. + +Her surmise was correct. To Lord Emsworth the events of this day had +come as a stunning revelation. On the strength of that flower-pot +incident, two years ago, he had always looked on Baxter as mentally +unbalanced; but, being a fair-minded man, he had recognized the +possibility that a quiet, regular life and freedom from worries might, +in the interval which had elapsed since his late secretary's departure +from the castle, have effected a cure. Certainly the man had appeared +quite normal on the day of his arrival. And now into the space of a few +hours he had crammed enough variegated lunacy to equip all the March +Hares in England and leave some over for the Mad Hatters. + +The ninth Earl of Emsworth was not a man who was easily disturbed. +His was a calm which, as a rule, only his younger son Frederick could +shatter. But it was not proof against the sort of thing that had been +going on to-day. No matter how placid you may be, if you find yourself +in close juxtaposition with a man who, when he is not hurling himself +out of windows, is stealing pigs and trying to make you believe they +were stolen by your butler, you begin to think a bit. Lord Emsworth +was thoroughly upset. As the car bowled up the drive he was saying to +himself that nothing could surprise him now. + +And yet something did. As the car turned the corner by the +rhododendrons and wheeled into the broad strip of gravel that faced +the front door, he beheld a sight which brought the first sound he had +uttered since the journey began bursting from his lips. + +"Good God!" + +The words were spoken in a high, penetrating tenor, and they made +Lady Constance jump as if they had been pins running into her. This +unexpected breaking of the great silence was agony to her taut nerves. + +"What _is_ the matter?" + +"Matter? Look! Look at that fellow!" + +Voules took it upon himself to explain. Never having met Lady Constance +socially, as it were, he ought perhaps not to have spoken. He +considered, however, that the importance of the occasion justified the +solecism. + +"A man is climbing the waterspout, m'lady." + +"What! Where? I don't see him." + +"He has just got into the balcony outside one of the bedrooms," said +the Hon. Galahad. + +Lord Emsworth went straight to the heart of the matter. + +"It's that fellow Baxter!" he exclaimed. + +The summer day, for all the artificial aid lent by daylight saving, was +now definitely over, and gathering night had spread its mantle of dusk +over the world. The visibility, therefore, was not good; and the figure +which had just vanished over the parapet of the balcony of the Garden +Room had been unrecognizable except to the eye of intuition. This, +however, was precisely the sort of eye that Lord Emsworth possessed. + +He reasoned closely. There were, he knew, on the premises of Blandings +Castle other male adults besides Rupert Baxter; but none of these +would climb up waterspouts and disappear over balconies. To Baxter, on +the other hand, such a pursuit would seem the normal, ordinary way of +passing an evening. It would be his idea of wholesome relaxation. Soon, +no doubt, he would come out onto the balcony again and throw himself +to the ground. That was the sort of fellow Baxter was--a man of strange +pleasures. + +And so, going, as we say, straight to the heart of the matter, Lord +Emsworth, jerking the pince-nez off his face in his emotion, exclaimed: + +"It's that fellow Baxter!" + +Not since a certain day in their mutual nursery many years ago had Lady +Constance gone to the length of actually hauling off and smiting her +elder brother on the head with the flat of an outraged hand; but she +came very near to doing it now. Perhaps it was the presence of Voules +that caused her to confine herself to words. + +"Clarence, you're an idiot!" + +Even Voules could not prevent her saying that. After all, she was +revealing no secrets. The chauffeur had been in service at the castle +quite long enough to have formed the same impression for himself. + +Lord Emsworth did not argue the point. The car had drawn up now outside +the front door. The front door was open, as always of a summer evening, +and the ninth earl, accompanied by his brother Galahad, hurried up the +steps and entered the hall. And, as they did so, there came to their +ears the sound of running feet. The next moment, the flying figure of +Percy Pilbeam came into view, taking the stairs four at a time. + +"God bless my soul!" said Lord Emsworth. + +If Pilbeam heard the words or saw the speaker, he gave no sign of +having done so. He was plainly in a hurry. He shot through the hall +and, more like a startled gazelle than a private inquiry agent, +vanished down the steps. His shirt front was dark with dirt stains, +his collar had burst from its stud, and it seemed to Lord Emsworth, in +the brief moment during which he was able to focus him, that he had a +black eye. The next instant, there descended the stairs and flitted +past with equal speed the form of Ronnie Fish. + +Lord Emsworth got an entirely wrong conception of the affair. He had no +means of knowing what had taken place in the Garden Room when Pilbeam, +inspired by alcohol and flushed with the thought that now was the time +to get into that apartment and possess himself of the manuscript of the +Hon. Galahad's Reminiscences, had climbed the waterspout to put the +plan into operation. He knew nothing of the detective's sharp dismay +at finding himself unexpectedly confronted with the menacing form of +Ronnie Fish. He was ignorant of the lively and promising mix-up which +had been concluded by Pilbeam's tempestuous dash for life. All he +saw was two men fleeing madly for the open spaces, and he placed the +obvious interpretation upon this phenomenon. + +Baxter, he assumed, had run amok and had done it with such +uncompromising thoroughness that strong men ran panic-stricken before +him. + +Mild enough the ninth earl was by nature, a lover of rural peace and +the quiet life, he had, like all Britain's aristocracy, the right +stuff in him. It so chanced that during the years when he had held his +commission in the Shropshire Yeomanry the motherland had not called +to him to save her. But, had that call been made, Clarence, ninth +Earl of Emsworth, would have answered it with as prompt a "Bless my +Soul! Of course. Certainly!" as any of his Crusader ancestors. And in +his sixtieth year the ancient fire still lingered. The Hon. Galahad, +who had returned to watch the procession through the front door with +a surprised monocle, turned back and found that he was alone. Lord +Emsworth had disappeared. He now beheld him coming back again. On his +amiable face was a look of determination. In his hand was a gun. + +"Eh? What?" said the Hon. Galahad, blinking. + +The head of the family did not reply. He was moving toward the stairs. +In just that same silent purposeful way had an Emsworth advanced on the +foe at Agincourt. + +A sound as of disturbed hens made the Hon. Galahad turn again. + +"Galahad! What is all this? What is happening?" + +The Hon. Galahad placed his sister in possession of the facts as known +to himself. + +"Clarence has just gone upstairs with a gun." + +"With a gun!" + +"Yes. Looked like mine, too. I hope he takes care of it." He perceived +that Lady Constance had also been seized with the urge to climb. She +was making excellent time up the broad staircase. So nimbly did she +move that she was on the second landing before he came up with her. + +And, as they stood there, a voice made itself heard from a room down +the corridor. + +"Baxter! Come out! Come out, Baxter, my dear fellow, immediately." + +In the race for the room from which the words had appeared to proceed, +Lady Constance, getting off to a good start, beat her brother by a +matter of two lengths. She was thus the first to see a sight unusual +even at Blandings Castle, though strange things had happened there from +time to time. + +Her young guest, Miss Schoonmaker, was standing by the window, looking +excited and alarmed. Her brother Clarence, pointing a gun expertly from +the hip, was staring fixedly at the bed. And from under the bed, a +little like a tortoise protruding from its shell, there was coming into +view the spectacled head of the Efficient Baxter. + + + + + CHAPTER XVIII + + +A man who has been lying under a bed for a matter of some thirty +minutes and, while there, has been compelled to listen to the sort of +dialogue which accompanies a lovers' reconciliation seldom appears at +his best or feels his brightest. There was fluff in Baxter's hair, dust +on his clothes, and on Baxter's face a scowl of concentrated hatred +of all humanity. Lord Emsworth, prepared for something pretty wild +looking, found his expectations exceeded. He tightened his grasp on the +gun and, to insure a more accurate aim, raised the butt of it to his +shoulder, closing one eye and allowing the other to gleam along the +barrel. + +"I have you covered, my dear fellow," he said mildly. + +Rupert Baxter had not yet begun to stick straws in his hair, but he +seemed on the verge of that final piece of self-expression. + +"Don't point that damned thing at me!" + +"I shall point it at you," replied Lord Emsworth with spirit. He was +not a man to be dictated to in his own house. "And at the slightest +sign of violence----" + +"Clarence!" It was Lady Constance who spoke. "Put that gun down." + +"Certainly not." + +"Clarence!" + +"Oh, all right." + +"And now, Mr. Baxter," said Lady Constance, proceeding to dominate the +scene in her masterly way, "I am sure you can explain." + +Her agitation had passed. It was not in this strong woman to remain +agitated long. She had been badly shaken, but her faith in her idol +still held good. Remarkable as his behaviour might appear, she was sure +that he could account for it in a perfectly satisfactory manner. + +Baxter did not speak. His silence gave Lord Emsworth the opportunity of +advancing his own views. + +"Explain?" he spoke petulantly, for he resented the way in which his +sister had thrust him from the centre of the stage. "What on earth is +there to explain? The thing's obvious." + +"Can't say I've quite got to the bottom of it," murmured the Hon. +Galahad. "Fellow under bed. Why? Why under bed? Why here at all?" + +Lord Emsworth hesitated. He was a kind-hearted man, and he felt that +what he had to say would be better said in Baxter's absence. However, +there seemed no way out of it, so he proceeded. + +"My dear Galahad, think!" + +"Eh!" + +"That flower-pot affair. You remember?" + +"Oh!" Understanding shone in the Hon. Galahad's monocle. "You mean...?" + +"Exactly." + +"Yes, yes. Of course. Subject to these attacks, you mean?" + +"Precisely." + +This was not the first time Lady Constance Keeble had had the +opportunity of hearing a theory ventilated by her brothers which she +found detestable. She flushed brightly. + +"Clarence!" + +"My dear?" + +"Kindly stop talking in that offensive way." + +"God bless my soul!" Lord Emsworth was stung. "I like that. What have I +said that is offensive?" + +"You know perfectly well." + +"If you mean that I was reminding Galahad in the most delicate way that +poor Baxter here is not quite----" + +"Clarence!" + +"All very well to say 'Clarence!' like that. You know yourself he isn't +right in the head. Didn't he throw flower pots at me? Didn't he leap +out of a window this very afternoon? Didn't he try to make me think +that Beach----" + +Baxter interrupted. There were certain matters on which he considered +silence best, but this was one on which he could speak freely. + +"Lord Emsworth!" + +"Eh!" + +"It has now come to my knowledge that Beach was not the prime mover in +the theft of your pig. But I have ascertained that he was an accessory." + +"A what?" + +"He helped," said Baxter, grinding his teeth a little. "The man who +committed the actual theft was your nephew, Ronald." + +Lord Emsworth turned to his sister with a triumphant gesture, like one +who has been vindicated. + +"There! Now perhaps you'll say he's not potty? It won't do, Baxter, +my dear fellow," he went on, waggling a reproachful gun at his late +employee. "You really mustn't excite yourself by making up these +stories." + +"Bad for the blood pressure," agreed the Hon. Galahad. + +"The Empress was found this evening in your caravan," said Lord +Emsworth. + +"What!" + +"In your caravan. Where you put her when you stole her. And, bless my +soul," said Lord Emsworth, with a start, "I must be going and seeing +that she is put back in her sty. I must find Pirbright. I must----" + +"In my caravan?" Baxter passed a feverish hand across his dust-stained +forehead. Illumination came to him. "Then that's what that fellow +Carmody did with the animal!" + +Lord Emsworth had had enough of this. Empress of Blandings was waiting +for him. Counting the minutes to that holy reunion, he chafed at having +to stand here listening to these wild ravings. + +"First Beach, then Ronald, then Carmody! You'll be saying I stole her +next, or Galahad here, or my sister Constance. Baxter, my dear fellow, +we aren't blaming you. Please don't think that. We quite see how it is. +You will overwork yourself, and of course nature demands the penalty. I +wish you would go quietly to your room, my dear fellow, and lie down. +All this must be very bad for you." + +Lady Constance intervened. Her eye was aflame, and she spoke like +Cleopatra telling an Ethiopian slave where he got off. + +"Clarence, will you kindly use whatever slight intelligence you +may possess? The theft of your pig is one of the most trivial and +unimportant things that have ever happened in this world, and I +consider the fuss that has been made about it quite revolting. But +whoever stole the wretched animal----" + +Lord Emsworth blenched. He stared as if wondering if he had heard +aright. + +"--and wherever it has been found, it was certainly not Mr. Baxter who +stole it. It is, as Mr. Baxter says, much more likely to have been a +young man like Mr. Carmody. There is a certain type of young man, I +believe, to which Mr. Carmody belongs, which considers practical joking +amusing. Do ask yourself, Clarence, and try to answer the question +as reasonably as is possible for a man of your mental calibre: what +earthly motive would Mr. Baxter have for coming to Blandings Castle and +stealing pigs?" + +It may have been the feel of the gun in his hand which awoke in Lord +Emsworth old memories of dashing days with the Shropshire Yeomanry and +lent him some of the hot spirit of his vanished youth. The fact remains +that he did not wilt beneath his sister's dominating eye. He met it +boldly, and boldly answered back. + +"And ask yourself, Constance," he said, "what earthly motive Mr. Baxter +has for anything he does?" + +"Yes," said the Hon. Galahad loyally. "What motive has our friend +Baxter for coming to Blandings Castle and scaring girls stiff by hiding +under beds?" + +Lady Constance gulped. They had found the weak spot in her defences. +She turned to the man who she still hoped could deal efficiently with +this attack. + +"Mr. Baxter!" she said, as if she were calling on him for an +after-dinner speech. + +But Rupert Baxter had had no dinner. And it was perhaps this that +turned the scale. Quite suddenly there descended on him a frenzied +desire to be out of this, cost what it might. An hour before, half an +hour before, even five minutes before, his tongue had been tied by a +still lingering hope that he might yet find his way back to Blandings +Castle in the capacity of private secretary to the Earl of Emsworth. +Now he felt that he would not accept that post were it offered to him +on bended knee. + +A sudden overpowering hatred of Blandings Castle and all it contained +gripped the Efficient Baxter. He marvelled that he had ever wanted to +come back. He held at the present moment the well-paid and responsible +position of secretary and adviser to J. Horace Jevons, the American +millionaire, a man who not only treated him with an obsequiousness +and respect which were balm to his soul, but also gave him such sound +advice on the investment of money that already he had trebled his +savings. And it was this golden-hearted Chicagoan whom he had been +thinking of deserting, purely to satisfy some obscure sentiment which +urged him to return to a house which, he saw now, he loathed as few +houses have been loathed since human beings left off living in caves. + +His eyes flashed through their lenses. His mouth tightened. + +"I will explain!" + +"I knew you would have an explanation," cried Lady Constance. + +"I have. A very simple one." + +"And short, I hope?" asked Lord Emsworth restlessly. He was aching to +have done with all this talk and discussion and to be with his pig once +more. To think of the Empress languishing in a beastly caravan was +agony to him. + +"Quite short," said Rupert Baxter. + +The only person in the room who so far had remained entirely outside +this rather painful scene was Sue. She had looked on from her place by +the window, an innocent bystander. She now found herself drawn abruptly +into the maelstrom of the debate. Baxter's spectacles were raking +her from head to foot, and he had pointed at her with an accusing +forefinger. + +"I came to this room," he said, "to try to recover a letter which I had +written to this lady who calls herself Miss Schoonmaker." + +"Of course she calls herself Miss Schoonmaker," said Lord Emsworth, +reluctantly dragging his thoughts from the Empress. "It's her name, my +dear fellow. That," he explained gently, "is why she calls herself Miss +Schoonmaker. God bless my soul!" he said, unable to restrain a sudden +spurt of irritability. "If a girl's name is Schoonmaker naturally she +calls herself Miss Schoonmaker." + +"Yes, if it is. But hers is not. It is Brown." + +"Listen, my dear fellow," said Lord Emsworth soothingly. "You are only +exciting yourself by going on like this. Probably doing yourself a +great deal of harm. Now, what I suggest is that you go to your room and +put a cool compress on your forehead and lie down and take a good rest. +I will send Beach up to you with some nice bread-and-milk." + +"Rum and milk," amended the Hon. Galahad. "It's the only thing. I knew +a fellow in the year '97 who was subject to these spells--you probably +remember him, Clarence--Bellamy--Barmy Bellamy we used to call him--and +whenever----" + +"Her name is Brown!" repeated Baxter, his voice soaring in a hysterical +crescendo. "Sue Brown. She is a chorus girl at the Regal Theatre in +London. And she is apparently engaged to be married to your nephew +Ronald." + +Lady Constance uttered a cry. Lord Emsworth expressed his feelings with +a couple of tuts. The Hon. Galahad alone was silent. He caught Sue's +eye, and there was concern in his gaze. + +"I overheard Beach saying so in this very room. He said he had had the +information from Mr. Pilbeam. I imagine it to be accurate. But, in any +case, I can tell you this much. Whoever she is, she is an impostor +who has come here under a false name. While I was in the smoking room +some time back a telegram came through on the telephone from Market +Blandings. It was signed Myra Schoonmaker, and it had been handed in in +Paris this afternoon. That is all I have to say," concluded Baxter. "I +will now leave you, and I sincerely hope I shall never set eyes on any +of you again. Good-evening!" + +His spectacles glinting coldly, he strode from the room and in the +doorway collided with Ronnie, who was entering. + +"Can't you look where you're going?" he asked. + +"Eh?" said Ronnie. + +"Clumsy idiot!" said the Efficient Baxter, and was gone. + +In the room he had left, Lady Constance Keeble had become a stone +figure of menace. She was not at ordinary times a particularly tall +woman, but she seemed now to tower like something vast and awful, and +Sue quailed before her. + +"Ronnie!" cried Sue weakly. + +It was the cry of the female in distress calling to her mate. Just so +in prehistoric days must Sue's cave woman ancestress have cried to the +man behind the club when suddenly cornered by the sabre-toothed tiger +which Lady Constance Keeble so closely resembled. + +"Ronnie!" + +"What's all this?" asked the last of the Fishes. + +He was breathing rather quickly, for the going had been fast. Pilbeam, +once out in the open, had shown astonishing form at the short sprint. +He had shaken off Ronnie's challenge twenty yards down the drive and +plunged into a convenient shrubbery, and Ronnie, giving up the pursuit, +had come back to Sue's room to report. It occasioned him some surprise +to find that in his absence it had become the scene of some sort of +public meeting. + +"What's all this?" he said, addressing that meeting. + +Lady Constance wheeled round upon him. + +"Ronald, who is this girl?" + +"Eh?" Ronnie was conscious of a certain uneasiness, but he did his +best. He did not like his aunt's looks, but then he never had. +Something was evidently up, but it might be that airy nonchalance would +save the day. "You know her, don't you? Miss Schoonmaker? Met her with +me in London." + +"Is her name Brown? And is she a chorus girl?" + +"Why, yes," admitted Ronnie. It was a bombshell, but Eton and Cambridge +stood it well. "Why, yes," he said, "as a matter of fact, that's right." + +Words seemed to fail Lady Constance. Judging from the expression on her +face this was just as well. + +"I'd been meaning to tell you about that," said Ronnie. "We're engaged." + +Lady Constance recovered herself sufficiently to find one word. + +"Clarence!" + +"Eh?" said Lord Emsworth. His thoughts had been wandering. + +"You heard?" + +"Heard what?" + +Beyond the stage of turbulent emotion Lady Constance had become +suddenly calm and icy. + +"If you have not been sufficiently interested to listen," she said, "I +may inform you that Ronald has just announced his intention of marrying +a chorus girl." + +"Oh, ah?" said Lord Emsworth. Would a man of Baxter's outstanding +unbalanced intellect, he was wondering, have remembered to feed the +Empress regularly? The thought was like a spear quivering in his heart. +He edged in agitation toward the door and had reached it when he +perceived that his sister had not yet finished talking to him. + +"So that is all the comment you have to make, is it?" + +"Eh? What about?" + +"The point I have been endeavouring to make you understand," went on +Lady Constance, with laborious politeness, "is that your nephew Ronald +has announced his intention of marrying into the Regal Theatre chorus." + +"Who?" + +"Ronald. This is Ronald. He is anxious to marry Miss Brown, a chorus +girl. This is Miss Brown." + +"How do you do?" said Lord Emsworth. He might be vague but he had the +manners of the old school. + +Ronnie interposed. The time had come to play the ace of trumps. + +"She isn't an ordinary chorus girl." + +"From the fact of her coming to Blandings Castle under a false name," +said Lady Constance, "I imagine not. It shows unusual enterprise." + +"What I mean," continued Ronnie, "is, I know what a bally snob you are, +Aunt Constance--no offence, but you know what I mean--keen on birth +and family and all that sort of rot. Well, what I'm driving at is that +Sue's father was in the Guards." + +"A private? Or a corporal?" + +"Captain. A fellow named----" + +"Cotterleigh," said Sue in a small voice. + +"Cotterleigh," said Ronnie. + +"Cotterleigh!" + +It was the Hon. Galahad who had spoken. He was staring at Sue open +mouthed. + +"Cotterleigh? Not Jack Cotterleigh?" + +"I don't know whether it was Jack Cotterleigh," said Ronnie. "The point +I'm making is that it was Cotterleigh and that he was in the Irish +Guards." + +The Hon. Galahad was still staring at Sue. + +"My dear," he cried, and there was an odd sharpness in his voice, "was +your mother Dolly Henderson, who used to be a serio at the old Oxford +and the Tivoli?" + +Not for the first time Ronald Fish was conscious of a feeling that +his Uncle Galahad ought to be in some kind of a home. He would drag in +Dolly Henderson! He would stress the Dolly Henderson note at just this +point in the proceedings! He would spoil the whole thing by calling +attention to the Dolly Henderson aspect of the matter, just when it was +vital to stick to the Cotterleigh, the whole Cotterleigh, and nothing +but the Cotterleigh. Ronnie sighed wearily. Padded cells, he felt, had +been invented specially for the Uncle Galahads of this world, and the +Uncle Galahads, he considered, ought never to be permitted to roam +about outside them. + +"Yes," said Sue, "she was." + +The Hon. Galahad was advancing on her with outstretched hands. He +looked like some father in melodrama welcoming the prodigal daughter. + +"Well, I'm dashed!" he said. He repeated three times that he was in +this condition. He seized Sue's limp paws and squeezed them fondly. +"I've been trying to think all this while who it was that you reminded +me of, my dear girl. Do you know that in the years '96, '97, and '98 +I was madly in love with your mother myself? Do you know that if my +infernal family hadn't shipped me off to South Africa I would certainly +have married her? Fact, I assure you. But they got behind me and shoved +me onto the boat, and when I came back I found that young Cotterleigh +had cut me out. Well!" + +It was a scene that some people would have considered touching. Lady +Constance Keeble was not one of them. + +"Never mind about that now, Galahad," she said. "The point is----" + +"The point is," retorted the Hon. Galahad warmly, "that that young +Fish there wants to marry Dolly Henderson's daughter, and I'm for it. +And I hope, Clarence, that you'll have some sense for once in your life +and back them up like a sportsman." + +"Eh?" said the ninth earl. His thoughts had once more been wandering. +Even assuming that Baxter had fed the Empress, would he have given her +the right sort of food and enough of it? + +"You see for yourself what a splendid girl she is." + +"Who?" + +"This girl." + +"Charming," agreed Lord Emsworth courteously, and returned to his +meditations. + +"Clarence!" cried Lady Constance, jerking him out of them. + +"Eh?" + +"You are not to consent to this marriage!" + +"Who says so?" + +"I say so. And think what Julia will say." + +She could not have advanced a more impressive argument. In this +chronicle the Lady Julia Fish, relict of the late Major General Sir +Miles Fish, C.B.O., of the Brigade of Guards, has made no appearance. +We, therefore, know nothing of her compelling eye, her dominant chin, +her determined mouth, and her voice, which at certain times--as, +for example, when rebuking a brother--could raise blisters on a +sensitive skin. Lord Emsworth was aware of all these things. He had +had experience of them from boyhood. His idea of happiness was to be +where Lady Julia Fish was not. And the thought of her coming down to +Blandings Castle and tackling him in his library about this business +froze him to the marrow. It had been his amiable intention until this +moment to do whatever the majority of those present wanted him to do. +But now he hesitated. + +"You think Julia wouldn't like it?" + +"Of course Julia would not like it." + +"Julia's an ass," said the Hon. Galahad. + +Lord Emsworth considered this statement and was inclined to agree with +it. But it did not alter the main point. + +"You think she would make herself unpleasant about it?" + +"I do." + +"In that case----" Lord Emsworth paused. Then a strange, soft light +came into his eyes. "Well, see you all later," he said. "I'm going down +to look at my pig." + +His departure was so abrupt that it took Lady Constance momentarily by +surprise, and he was out of the room and well down the corridor before +she could recover herself sufficiently to act. Then she too hurried +out. They could hear her voice diminishing down the stairs. It was +calling, "Clarence!" + +The Hon. Galahad turned to Sue. His manner was brisk yet soothing. + +"A shame to inflict these fine old English family rows on a visitor," +he said, patting her shoulder as one who, if things had broken right +and there had not been a regular service of boats to South Africa in +the 'nineties, might have been her father. "What you need, my dear, is +a little rest and quiet. Come along, Ronald, we'll leave you. The place +to continue this discussion is somewhere outside this room. Cheer up, +my dear. Everything may come out all right yet." + +Sue shook her head. + +"It's no good," she said hopelessly. + +"Don't you be too sure," said the Hon. Galahad. + +"I'll jolly well tell you one thing," said Ronnie. "I'm going to marry +you whatever happens. And that's that. Good heavens! I can work, can't +I?" + +"What at?" asked the Hon. Galahad. + +"What at? Why--er--why, at anything." + +"The market value of any member of this family," said the Hon. Galahad, +who harboured no illusions about his nearest and dearest, "is about +threepence-ha'penny per annum. No! What we've got to do is get round +old Clarence somehow, and that means talk and argument, which had +better take place elsewhere. Come along, my boy. You never know your +luck. I've seen stickier things than this come out right in my time." + + + + + CHAPTER XIX + + +Sue stood on the balcony, looking out into the night. Velvet darkness +shrouded the world, and from the heart of it came the murmur of +rustling trees and the clean, sweet smell of earth and flowers. A +little breeze had sprung up, stirring the ivy at her side. Somewhere in +it a bird was chirping drowsily, and in the distance sounded the tinkle +of running water. + +She sighed. It was a night made for happiness. And she was quite sure +now that happiness was not for her. + +A footstep sounded behind her, and she turned eagerly. + +"Ronnie!" + +It was the voice of the Hon. Galahad Threepwood that answered. + +"Only me, I'm afraid, my dear. May I come onto your balcony? God bless +my soul, as Clarence would say, what a wonderful night!" + +"Yes!" said Sue doubtfully. + +"You don't think so?" + +"Oh, yes." + +"I bet you don't. I know I didn't that night when my old father put his +foot down and told me I was leaving for South Africa on the next boat. +Just such a night as this it was, I remember." He rested his arms on +the parapet. "I never saw your mother after she was married," he said. + +"No?" + +"No. She left the stage and--oh, well, I was rather busy at the +time--lot of heavy drinking to do, and so forth, and somehow we never +met. The next thing I heard--two or three years ago--was that she was +dead. You're very like her, my dear. Can't think why I didn't spot the +resemblance right away." + +He became silent. Sue did not speak. She slid her hand under his +arm. It was all that there seemed to do. A corncrake began to call +monotonously in the darkness. + +"That means rain," said the Hon. Galahad. "Or not. I forget which. Did +you ever hear your mother sing that song----No, you wouldn't. Before +your time. About young Ronald," he said abruptly. + +"What about him?" + +"Fond of him?" + +"Yes." + +"I mean really fond?" + +"Yes." + +"How fond?" + +She leaned out over the parapet. At the foot of the wall beneath her +Percy Pilbeam, who had been peering out of a bush, popped his head back +again. For the detective, possibly remembering with his subconscious mind +stories heard in childhood of Bruce and the spider, had refused to +admit defeat and returned by devious ways to the scene of his disaster. +Five hundred pounds is a lot of money, and Percy Pilbeam was not going +to be deterred from attempting to earn it by the fact that at his +last essay he had only just succeeded in escaping with his life. The +influence of his potations had worn off to some extent, and he was his +calm, keen self again. It was his intention to lurk in these bushes +till the small hours, if need be, and then to attack the waterspout +again, and so to the Garden Room where the manuscript of the Hon. +Galahad's Reminiscences lay. You cannot be a good detective if you are +easily discouraged. + +"I can't put it into words," said Sue. + +"Try." + +"No. Everything you say straight out about the way you feel about +anybody always sounds silly. Besides, to you Ronnie isn't the sort of +man you could understand anyone raving about. You look on him just as +something quite ordinary." + +"If that," said the Hon. Galahad critically. + +"Yes, if that. Whereas to me he's something--rather special. In +fact, if you really want to know how I feel about Ronnie, he's the +whole world to me. There! I told you it would sound silly. It's like +something out of a song, isn't it? I've worked in the chorus of that +sort of song a hundred times. Two steps left, two steps right, kick, +smile, both hands on heart--because he's all the wo-orld to me-ee! You +can laugh if you like." + +There was a momentary pause. + +"I'm not laughing," said the Hon. Galahad. "My dear, I only wanted to +find out if you really cared for that young Fish." + +"I wish you wouldn't call him 'that young Fish.'" + +"I'm sorry, my dear. It seems to describe him so neatly. Well, I just +wanted to be quite sure you really were fond of him because----" + +"Well?" + +"Well, because I've just fixed it all up." + +She clutched at the parapet. + +"What!" + +"Oh, yes," said the Hon. Galahad. "It's all settled. I don't say that +you can actually count on an aunt-in-law's embrace from my sister +Constance--in fact, if I were you, I wouldn't risk it--she might bite +you--but apart from that, everything's all right. The wedding bells +will ring out. Your young man's in the garden somewhere. You had better +go and find him and tell him the news. He'll be interested." + +"But--but----" + +Sue was clutching his arm. A wild impulse was upon her to shout and +sob. She had no doubts now as to the beauty of the night. + +"But--how? Why? What has happened?" + +"Well--you'll admit I might have married your mother?" + +"Yes." + +"Which makes me a sort of honorary father to you." + +"Yes." + +"In which capacity, my dear, your interests are mine. More than mine, +in fact. So what I did was to make your happiness the Price of the +Papers. Ever see that play? No, before your time. It ran at the Adelphi +before you were born. There was a scene where----" + +"What do you mean?" + +The Hon. Galahad hesitated a moment. + +"Well, the fact of the matter is, my dear, knowing how strongly my +sister Constance has always felt on the subject of those Reminiscences +of mine, I went to her and put it to her squarely. 'Clarence,' I +said to her, 'is not the sort of man to make any objection to anyone +marrying anybody so long as he isn't expected to attend the wedding. +You're the real obstacle,' I said. 'You and Julia. And if you come +round, you can talk Julia over in five minutes. You know how she relies +on your judgment.' And then I said that, if she gave up acting like a +barbed-wire entanglement in the path of true love I would undertake not +to publish the Reminiscences." + +Sue clung to his arm. She could find no words. + +Percy Pilbeam, who, for the night was very still, had heard all, +could have found many. Nothing but the delicate nature of his present +situation kept him from uttering them, and that only just. To Percy +Pilbeam it was as if he had seen five hundred pounds flutter from his +grasp like a vanishing blue bird. He raged dumbly. In all London and +the Home Counties there were few men who liked five hundred pounds +better than P. Frobisher Pilbeam. + +"Oh!" said Sue. Nothing more. Her feelings were too deep. She hugged +his arm. "Oh!" she said, and again, "Oh!" + +She found herself crying and was not ashamed. + +"Now, come!" said the Hon. Galahad protestingly. "Nothing so very +extraordinary in that, was there? Nothing so exceedingly remarkable in +one pal helping another?" + +"I don't know what to say." + +"Then don't say it," said the Hon. Galahad, much relieved. "Why, bless +you, I don't care whether the damned things are published or not. At +least--no, certainly I don't.... Only cause a lot of unpleasantness. +Besides, I'll leave the dashed book to the nation and have it published +in a hundred years and become the Pepys of the future, what? Best thing +that could have happened. Homage of Posterity and all that." + +"Oh!" said Sue. + +The Hon. Galahad chuckled. + +"It is a shame, though, that the world will have to wait a hundred +years before it hears the story of young Gregory Parsloe and the +prawns. Did you get to that when you were reading the thing this +evening?" + +"I'm afraid I didn't read very much," said Sue. "I was thinking of +Ronnie rather a lot." + +"Oh? Well, I can tell you. You needn't wait a hundred years. It was at +Ascot, the year Martingale won the Gold Cup...." + +Down below, Percy Pilbeam rose from his bush. He did not care now +if he were seen. He was still a guest at this hole of a castle, and +if a guest cannot pop in and out of bushes if he likes, where does +British hospitality come in? It was his intention to shake the dust of +Blandings off his feet, to pass the night at the Emsworth Arms, and on +the morrow to return to London, where he was appreciated. + +"Well, my dear, it was like this. Young Parsloe...." + +Percy Pilbeam did not linger. The story of the prawns meant nothing +to him. He turned away, and the summer night swallowed him. Somewhere +in the darkness an owl hooted. It seemed to Pilbeam that there was +derision in the sound. He frowned. His teeth came together with a +little click. + +If he could have found it he would have had a word with that owl. + + + THE END + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75435 *** diff --git a/75435-h/75435-h.htm b/75435-h/75435-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6433556 --- /dev/null +++ b/75435-h/75435-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,11934 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <title> + Fish Preferred | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .51em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .49em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: 33.5%; + margin-right: 33.5%; + clear: both; +} + +hr.tb {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;} +hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} +@media print { hr.chap {display: none; visibility: hidden;} } +hr.full {width: 95%; margin-left: 2.5%; margin-right: 2.5%;} +div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} +h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} + +x-ebookmaker-drop {display: none;} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.right {text-align: right;} + +.smcap { font-variant:small-caps; } + +/* Images */ +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; + page-break-inside: avoid; + max-width: 100%; +} + +div.titlepage { + text-align: center; + page-break-before: always; + page-break-after: always; +} + +div.titlepage p { + text-align: center; + text-indent: 0em; + font-weight: bold; + line-height: 1.5; + margin-top: 3em; +} + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} + +table.autotable { border-collapse: collapse; } +table.autotable td, +table.autotable th { padding: 4px; } + +.tdl {text-align: left;} +.tdr {text-align: right;} +.tdc {text-align: center;} + +.ph1 { text-align: center; text-indent: 0em; } +.ph1 { font-size: x-large; margin: .83em auto; } + +.ph2 { text-align: center; text-indent: 0em; } +.ph2 { font-size: large; margin: .83em auto; } + +.ph3 { text-align: right; text-indent: 0em; } +.ph3 { font-size: medium; margin: .83em auto; } + +.ph4 { text-align: center; text-indent: 0em; } +.ph4 { font-size: medium; margin: .83em auto; } + + </style> +</head> +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75435 ***</div> + +<div class="titlepage"> + +<h1>FISH PREFERRED</h1> + +<p class="ph1">By P. G. WODEHOUSE</p> + +<p>A NOVEL</p> + +<p>A. L. BURT COMPANY<br> +Publishers<br> +New York</p> + +<p>Published by arrangement with Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc.</p> + +<p>Printed in U. S. A.</p> + +<p>COPYRIGHT, 1929<br> +BY PELHAM GRANVILLE WODEHOUSE</p> + +<p>ALL RIGHTS RESERVED</p> + +<p>PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES AT<br> +THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS<br> +GARDEN CITY, N. Y.</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap"> + +<p class="ph2">BOOKS BY P. G. WODEHOUSE</p> + +<p class="ph4">FISH PREFERRED<br> +MONEY FOR NOTHING<br> +CARRY ON JEEVES<br> +DIVOTS<br> +THE SMALL BACHELOR<br> +SAM IN THE SUBURBS<br> +BILL THE CONQUEROR<br> +INDISCRETIONS OF ARCHIE<br> +HE RATHER ENJOYED IT<br> +THREE MEN AND A MAID<br> +GOLF WITHOUT TEARS<br> +LEAVE IT TO PSMITH<br> +THE LITTLE WARRIOR<br> +A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS<br> +MOSTLY SALLY<br> +JEEVES</p> + + +<hr class="chap"> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<table> +<tr><td class="tdc"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdc"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdc"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdc"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdc"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdc"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdc"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdc"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdc"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdc"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX</a></td></tr> +</table> + + +<hr class="chap"> + + +<h2>FISH PREFERRED</h2> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I</h2> +</div> + + +<p class="ph2">I</p> + +<p>Blandings Castle slept in the sunshine. Dancing little ripples of heat +mist played across its smooth lawns and stone-flagged terraces. The air +was full of the lulling drone of insects. It was that gracious hour of +a summer afternoon, midway between luncheon and tea, when nature seems +to unbutton its waistcoat and put its feet up.</p> + +<p>In the shade of a laurel bush outside the back premises of this stately +home of England, Beach, butler to Clarence, ninth Earl of Emsworth, +its proprietor, sat sipping the contents of a long glass and reading +a weekly paper devoted to the doings of Society and the Stage. His +attention had just been arrested by a photograph in an oval border on +one of the inner pages; and for perhaps a minute he scrutinized this +in a slow, thorough, pop-eyed way, absorbing its every detail. Then, +with a fruity chuckle, he took a penknife from his pocket, cut out the +photograph, and placed it in the recesses of his costume.</p> + +<p>At this moment the laurel bush, which had hitherto not spoken, said, +"Psst!"</p> + +<p>The butler started violently. A spasm ran through his ample frame.</p> + +<p>"Beach!" said the bush.</p> + +<p>Something was now peering out of it. This might have been a wood nymph, +but the butler rather thought not, and he was right. It was a tall +young man with light hair. He recognized his employer's secretary, +Mr. Hugo Carmody, and rose with pained reproach. His heart was still +jumping, and he had bitten his tongue.</p> + +<p>"Startle you, Beach?"</p> + +<p>"Extremely, sir."</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry. Excellent for the liver, though. Beach, do you want to earn +a quid?"</p> + +<p>The butler's austerity softened. The hard look died out of his eyes.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"Can you get hold of Miss Millicent alone?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly, sir."</p> + +<p>"Then give her this note, and don't let anyone see you do it. +Especially—and this is where I want you to follow me very closely, +Beach—Lady Constance Keeble."</p> + +<p>"I will attend to the matter immediately, sir."</p> + +<p>He smiled a paternal smile. Hugo smiled back. A perfect understanding +prevailed between these two. Beach understood that he ought not to be +giving his employer's niece surreptitious notes; and Hugo understood +that he ought not to be urging a good man to place such a weight upon +his conscience.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps you are not aware, sir," said the butler, having trousered the +wages of sin, "that her ladyship went up to London on the three-thirty +train?"</p> + +<p>Hugo uttered an exclamation of chagrin.</p> + +<p>"You mean that all this Red Indian stuff—creeping from bush to bush +and not letting a single twig snap beneath my feet—has simply been a +waste of time?" He emerged, dusting his clothes. "I wish I'd known that +before," he said. "I've severely injured a good suit, and it's a very +moot question whether I haven't got some kind of a beetle down my back. +However, nobody ever took a toss through being careful."</p> + +<p>"Very true, sir."</p> + +<p>Relieved by the information that the X-ray eye of the aunt of the girl +he loved was operating elsewhere, Mr. Carmody became conversational.</p> + +<p>"Nice day, Beach."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"You know, Beach, life's rummy. I mean to say, you can never tell what +the future holds in store. Here I am at Blandings Castle, loving it. +Sing of joy, sing of bliss, home was never like this. And yet, when the +project of my coming here was first placed on the agenda I don't mind +telling you the heart was rather bowed down with weight of woe."</p> + +<p>"Indeed, sir?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Noticeably bowed down. If you knew the circumstances you would +understand why."</p> + +<p>Beach did know the circumstances. There were few facts concerning the +dwellers in Blandings Castle of which he remained in ignorance for +long. He was aware that young Mr. Carmody had been until a few weeks +back co-proprietor with Mr. Ronald Fish, Lord Emsworth's nephew, of a +night club called the Hot Spot, situated just off Bond Street in the +heart of London's pleasure-seeking area; that, despite this favoured +position, it had proved a financial failure; that Mr. Ronald had gone +off with his mother, Lady Julia Fish, to recuperate at Biarritz; and +that Hugo, on the insistence of Ronnie that unless some niche was found +for his boyhood friend he would not stir a step toward Biarritz or any +other blighted place, had come to Blandings as Lord Emsworth's private +secretary.</p> + +<p>"No doubt you were reluctant to leave London, sir?"</p> + +<p>"Exactly. But now, Beach, believe me or believe me not, as far as I am +concerned, anyone who likes can have London. Mark you, I'm not saying +that just one brief night in the Piccadilly neighbourhood would come +amiss. But to dwell in give me Blandings Castle. What a spot, Beach!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"A Garden of Eden, shall I call it?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly, sir, if you wish."</p> + +<p>"And now that old Ronnie's coming here, joy, as you might say, will be +unconfined."</p> + +<p>"Is Mr. Ronald expected, sir?"</p> + +<p>"Coming either to-morrow or the day after. I had a letter from him this +morning. Which reminds me. He sends his regards to you and asks me to +tell you to put your shirt on Baby Bones for the Medbury Selling Plate."</p> + +<p>The butler pursed his lips dubiously.</p> + +<p>"A long shot, sir. Not generally fancied."</p> + +<p>"Rank outsider. Leave it alone is my verdict."</p> + +<p>"And yet Mr. Ronald is usually very reliable. It is many years now +since he first began to advise me in these matters, and I have done +remarkably well by following him. Even as a lad at Eton he was always +singularly fortunate in his information."</p> + +<p>"Well, suit yourself," said Hugo indifferently. "What was that thing +you were cutting out of the paper just now?"</p> + +<p>"A photograph of Mr. Galahad, sir. I keep an album in which I paste +items of interest relating to the Family."</p> + +<p>"What that album needs is an eyewitness's description of Lady Constance +Keeble falling out of a window and breaking her neck."</p> + +<p>A nice sense of the proprieties prevented Beach from indorsing this +view verbally, but he sighed a little wistfully. He had frequently felt +much the same about the chatelaine of Blandings.</p> + +<p>"If you would care to see the clipping, sir? There is a reference to +Mr. Galahad's literary work."</p> + +<p>Most of the photographs in the weekly paper over which Beach had been +relaxing were of peeresses trying to look like chorus girls and chorus +girls trying to look like peeresses; but this one showed the perky +features of a dapper little gentleman in the late fifties. Beneath it, +in large letters, was the single word—</p> + + + +<p class="ph4">GALLY</p> + + +<p>Under this ran a caption in smaller print:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The Hon. Galahad Threepwood, brother of the Earl of Emsworth. A +little bird tells us that "Gally" is at Blandings Castle, Shropshire, +the ancestral seat of the family, busily engaged in writing his +Reminiscences. As every member of the Old Brigade will testify, they +ought to be as warm as the weather, if not warmer.</p> +</div> + +<p>Hugo scanned the exhibit thoughtfully and handed it back, to be placed +in the archives.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he observed, "I should say that about summed it up. That old +bird must have been pretty hot stuff, I imagine, back in the days of +Edward the Confessor."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Galahad was somewhat wild as a young man," agreed the butler with +a sort of feudal pride in his voice. It was the opinion of the Servants' +Hall that the Hon. Galahad shed lustre on Blandings Castle.</p> + +<p>"Has it ever occurred to you, Beach, that that book of his is going to +make no small stir when it comes out?"</p> + +<p>"Frequently, sir."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm saving up for my copy. By the way, I knew there was +something I wanted to ask you. Can you give me any information on the +subject of a bloke named Baxter?"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Baxter, sir? He used to be private secretary to his lordship."</p> + +<p>"Yes, so I gathered. Lady Constance was speaking to me about him this +morning. She happened upon me as I was taking the air in riding kit and +didn't seem over-pleased. 'You appear to enjoy a great deal of leisure, +Mr. Carmody,' she said. 'Mr. Baxter,' she continued, giving me the +meaning eye, 'never seemed to find time to go riding when he was Lord +Emsworth's secretary. Mr. Baxter was always so hard at work. But then, +Mr. Baxter,' she added, the old lamp becoming more meaning than ever, +'loved his work. Mr. Baxter took a real interest in his duties. Dear +me! What a very conscientious man Mr. Baxter was, to be sure!' Or words +to that effect. I may be wrong, but I classed it as a dirty dig. And +what I want to know is, if Baxter was such a world beater why did they +ever let him go?"</p> + +<p>The butler gazed about him cautiously.</p> + +<p>"I fancy, sir, there was some trouble."</p> + +<p>"Pinched the spoons, eh? Always the way with these zealous workers."</p> + +<p>"I never succeeded in learning the full details, sir, but there was +something about some flower pots."</p> + +<p>"He pinched the flower pots?"</p> + +<p>"Threw them at his lordship, I was given to understand."</p> + +<p>Hugo looked injured. He was a high-spirited young man who chafed at +injustice.</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm dashed if I see, then," he said, "where this Baxter +can claim to rank so jolly high above me as a secretary. I may be +leisurely, I may forget to answer letters, I may occasionally on warm +afternoons go in to some extent for the folding of the hands in sleep, +but at least I don't throw flower pots at people. Not so much as a pen +wiper have I ever bunged at Lord Emsworth. Well, I must be getting +about my duties. That ride this morning and a slight slumber after +lunch have set the schedule back a bit. You won't forget that note, +will you?"</p> + +<p>"No, sir."</p> + +<p>Hugo reflected.</p> + +<p>"On second thoughts," he said, "perhaps you'd better hand it back to +me. Safer not to have too much written matter circulating about the +place. Just tell Miss Millicent that she will find me in the rose +garden at six sharp."</p> + +<p>"In the rose garden...."</p> + +<p>"At six sharp."</p> + +<p>"Very good, sir. I will see that she receives the information."</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p class="ph2">II</p> + +<p>For two hours after this absolutely nothing happened in the grounds of +Blandings Castle. At the end of that period there sounded through the +mellow, drowsy stillness a drowsy, mellow chiming. It was the clock +over the stables striking five. Simultaneously a small but noteworthy +procession filed out of the house and made its way across the +sun-bathed lawn to where the big cedar cast a grateful shade. It was +headed by James, a footman, bearing a laden tray. Following him came +Thomas, another footman, with a gate-leg table. The rear was brought up +by Beach, who carried nothing but merely lent a tone.</p> + +<p>The instinct that warns all good Englishmen when tea is ready +immediately began to perform its silent duty. Even as Thomas set +gate-leg table to earth there appeared, as if answering a cue, an +elderly gentleman in stained tweeds and a hat he should have been +ashamed of: Clarence, ninth Earl of Emsworth, in person. He was a long, +lean, stringy man of about sixty, slightly speckled at the moment with +mud, for he had spent most of the afternoon pottering round pigsties. +He surveyed the preparations for the meal with vague amiability through +rimless pince-nez.</p> + +<p>"Tea?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, your lordship."</p> + +<p>"Oh?" said Lord Emsworth. "Ah? Tea, eh? Tea? Yes. Tea. Quite so. To be +sure, tea. Capital."</p> + +<p>One gathered from his remarks that he realized that the tea hour had +arrived and was glad of it. He proceeded to impart his discovery to +his niece, Millicent, who, lured by that same silent call, had just +appeared at his side.</p> + +<p>"Tea, Millicent."</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Er—tea," said Lord Emsworth, driving home his point.</p> + +<p>Millicent sat down and busied herself with the pot. She was a tall, +fair girl with soft blue eyes and a face like the Soul's Awakening. Her +whole appearance radiated wholesome innocence. Not even an expert could +have told that she had just received a whispered message from a bribed +butler and was proposing at six sharp to go and meet a quite ineligible +young man among the rose bushes.</p> + +<p>"Been down seeing the Empress, Uncle Clarence?"</p> + +<p>"Eh? Oh, yes. Yes, my dear. I have been with her all the afternoon."</p> + +<p>Lord Emsworth's mild eyes beamed. They always did when that noble +animal, Empress of Blandings, was mentioned. The ninth Earl was a +man of few and simple ambitions. He had never desired to mould the +destinies of the State, to frame its laws and make speeches in the +House of Lords that would bring all the peers and bishops to their +feet, whooping and waving their hats. All he yearned to do, by way of +insuring admittance to England's Hall of Fame, was to tend his prize +sow, Empress of Blandings, so sedulously that for the second time in +two consecutive years she would win the silver medal in the Fat Pigs +class at the Shropshire Agricultural Show. And every day, it seemed to +him, the glittering prize was coming more and more within his grasp.</p> + +<p>Earlier in the summer there had been one breathless, sickening moment +of suspense, and disaster had seemed to loom. This was when his +neighbour, Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe of Matchingham Hall, had basely +lured away his pig man, the superbly gifted George Cyril Wellbeloved, +by the promise of higher wages. For a while Lord Emsworth had feared +lest the Empress, mourning for her old friend and valet, might refuse +food and fall from her high standard of obesity. But his apprehensions +had proved groundless. The Empress had taken to Pirbright, George +Cyril's successor, from the first, and was tucking away her meals with +all the old abandon. The Right triumphs in this world far more often +than we realize.</p> + +<p>"What do you do to her?" asked Millicent curiously. "Read her bedtime +stories?"</p> + +<p>Lord Emsworth pursed his lips. He had a reverent mind and disliked +jesting on serious subjects.</p> + +<p>"Whatever I do, my dear, it seems to effect its purpose. She is in +wonderful shape."</p> + +<p>"I didn't know she had a shape. She hadn't when I last saw her."</p> + +<p>This time Lord Emsworth smiled indulgently. Gibes at the Empress's +rotundity had no sting for him. He did not desire for her that +schoolgirl slimness which is so fashionable nowadays.</p> + +<p>"She has never fed more heartily," he said. "It is a treat to watch +her."</p> + +<p>"I'm so glad. Mr. Carmody," said Millicent, stooping to tickle a +spaniel which had wandered up to take pot luck, "told me he had never +seen a finer animal in his life."</p> + +<p>"I like that young man," said Lord Emsworth emphatically. "He is sound +on pigs. He has his head screwed on the right way."</p> + +<p>"Yes, he's an improvement on Baxter, isn't he?"</p> + +<p>"Baxter!" His lordship choked over his cup.</p> + +<p>"You didn't like Baxter much, did you, Uncle Clarence?"</p> + +<p>"Hadn't a peaceful moment while he was in the place. Dreadful feller! +Always fussing. Always wanting me to <i>do</i> things. Always coming round +corners with his infernal spectacles gleaming and making me sign papers +when I wanted to be out in the garden. Besides, he was off his head. +Thank goodness I've seen the last of Baxter."</p> + +<p>"But have you?"</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"If you ask me," said Millicent, "Aunt Constance hasn't given up the +idea of getting him back."</p> + +<p>Lord Emsworth started with such violence that his pince-nez fell off. +She had touched on his favourite nightmare. Sometimes he would wake +trembling in the night, fancying that his late secretary had returned +to the castle. And though on these occasions he always dropped off to +sleep again with a happy smile of relief, he had never ceased to be +haunted by the fear that his sister Constance, in her infernal managing +way, was scheming to restore the fellow to office.</p> + +<p>"Good God! Has she said anything to you?"</p> + +<p>"No. But I have a feeling. I know she doesn't like Mr. Carmody."</p> + +<p>Lord Emsworth exploded.</p> + +<p>"Perfect nonsense! Utter, absolute, dashed nonsense. What on earth does +she find to object to in young Carmody? Most capable, intelligent boy. +Leaves me alone. Doesn't fuss me. I wish to heaven she would——"</p> + +<p>He broke off, and stared blankly at a handsome woman of middle age who +had come out of the house and was crossing the lawn.</p> + +<p>"Why, here she is!" said Millicent, equally and just as disagreeably +surprised. "I thought you had gone up to London, Aunt Constance."</p> + +<p>Lady Constance Keeble had arrived at the table. Declining with a +distrait shake of the head her niece's offer of the seat of honour by +the teapot, she sank into a chair. She was a woman of still remarkable +beauty, with features cast in a commanding mould, and fine eyes. These +eyes were at the moment dull and brooding.</p> + +<p>"I missed my train," she explained. "However, I can do all I have to do +in London to-morrow. I shall go up by the eleven-fifteen. In a way, it +will be more convenient, for Ronald will be able to motor me back. I +will look in at Norfolk Street and pick him up there before he starts."</p> + +<p>"What made you miss your train?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Lord Emsworth complainingly. "You started in good time."</p> + +<p>The brooding look in his sister's eyes deepened.</p> + +<p>"I met Sir Gregory Parsloe." Lord Emsworth stiffened at the name. +"He kept me talking. He is extremely worried." Lord Emsworth looked +pleased. "He tells me he used to know Galahad very well a number of +years ago, and he is very much alarmed about this book of his."</p> + +<p>"And I bet he isn't the only one," murmured Millicent.</p> + +<p>She was right. Once a man of the Hon. Galahad Threepwood's antecedents +starts taking pen in hand and being reminded of amusing incidents +that happened to my dear old friend So-and-So you never know where +he will stop; and all over England, among the more elderly of the +nobility and gentry, something like a panic had been raging ever since +the news of his literary activities had got about. From Sir Gregory +Parsloe-Parsloe of Matchingham Hall to gray-headed pillars of society +in distant Cumberland and Kent, whole droves of respectable men who in +their younger days had been rash enough to chum with the Hon. Galahad +were recalling past follies committed in his company and speculating +agitatedly as to how good the old pest's memory was.</p> + +<p>For Galahad in his day had been a notable lad about town. A <i>beau +sabreur</i> of Romano's. A Pink 'Un. A Pelican. A crony of Hughie Drummond +and Fatty Coleman; a brother in arms of the Shifter, the Pitcher, Peter +Blobbs, and the rest of an interesting but not straitlaced circle. +Bookmakers had called him by his pet name; barmaids had simpered +beneath his gallant chaff. He had heard the chimes at midnight. And +when he looked in at the old Gardenia commissionaires had fought for +the privilege of throwing him out. A man, in a word, who should never +have been taught to write and who, if unhappily gifted with that +ability, should have been restrained by Act of Parliament from writing +reminiscences.</p> + +<p>So thought Lady Constance, his sister. So thought Sir Gregory +Parsloe-Parsloe, his neighbour. And so thought the pillars of Society +in distant Cumberland and Kent. Widely as they differed on many points, +they were unanimous on this.</p> + +<p>"He wanted me to try to find out if Galahad was putting anything about +him into it."</p> + +<p>"Better ask him now," said Millicent. "He's just come out of the house +and seems to be heading in this direction."</p> + +<p>Lady Constance turned sharply; and, following her niece's pointing +finger, winced. The mere sight of her deplorable brother was generally +enough to make her wince. When he began to talk and she had to listen +the wince became a shudder. His conversations had the effect of making +her feel as if she had suddenly swallowed something acid.</p> + +<p>"It always makes me laugh," said Millicent, "when I think what a +frightfully bad shot Uncle Gally's godfathers and godmothers made when +they christened him."</p> + +<p>She regarded her approaching relative with that tolerant—indeed, +admiring—affection which the young of her sex, even when they have +Madonna-like faces, are only too prone to lavish on such of their +seniors as have had interesting pasts.</p> + +<p>"Doesn't he look marvellous?" she said. "It really is an extraordinary +thing that anyone who has had as good a time as he has can be so +amazingly healthy. Everywhere you look you see men leading model +lives and pegging out in their prime, while good old Uncle Gally, who +apparently never went to bed till he was fifty, is still breezing along +as fit and rosy as ever."</p> + +<p>"All our family have had excellent constitutions," said Lord Emsworth.</p> + +<p>"And I'll bet Uncle Gally needed every ounce of his," said Millicent.</p> + +<p>The Author, ambling briskly across the lawn, had now joined the little +group at the tea table. As his photograph had indicated, he was a +short, trim, dapper little man of the type one associates automatically +in one's mind with checked suits, tight trousers, white bowler hats, +pink carnations, and race glasses bumping against the left hip. Though +bareheaded at the moment and in his shirt sleeves and displaying +on the tip of his nose the ink spot of the literary life, he still +seemed out of place away from a paddock or an American bar. His bright +eyes, puckered at the corners, peered before him as though watching +horses rounding into the straight. His neatly shod foot had about it +a suggestion of pawing in search of a brass rail. A jaunty little +gentleman, and, as Millicent had said, quite astonishingly fit and +rosy. A thoroughly misspent life had left the Hon. Galahad Threepwood, +contrary to the most elementary justice, in what appeared to be +perfect, even exuberantly perfect, physical condition. How a man who +ought to have had the liver of the century could look and behave as he +did was a constant mystery to his associates. His eyes were not dimmed, +nor his natural force abated; and when, skipping blithely across the +turf, he tripped over the spaniel, so graceful was the agility with +which he recovered his balance that he did not spill a drop of the +whisky-and-soda in his hand. He continued to bear the glass aloft like +some brave banner beneath which he had often fought and won. Instead of +the blot on a proud family he might have been a teetotal acrobat.</p> + +<p>Having disentangled himself from the spaniel and soothed the animal's +wounded feelings by permitting it to sniff the whisky-and-soda, the +Hon. Galahad produced a black-rimmed monocle and, screwing it into his +eye, surveyed the table with a frown of distaste.</p> + +<p>"Tea?"</p> + +<p>Millicent reached for a cup.</p> + +<p>"Cream and sugar, Uncle Gally?"</p> + +<p>He stopped her with a gesture of shocked loathing.</p> + +<p>"You know I never drink tea. Too much respect for my inside. Don't tell +me you are ruining your inside with that poison."</p> + +<p>"Sorry, Uncle Gally. I like it."</p> + +<p>"You be careful," urged the Hon. Galahad, who was fond of his niece +and did not like to see her falling into bad habits. "You be very +careful how you fool about with that stuff. Did I ever tell you about +poor Buffy Struggles back in 'ninety-three? Some misguided person +lured poor old Buffy into one of those temperance lectures illustrated +with coloured slides, and he called on me next day ashen, poor old +chap—ashen. 'Gally,' he said. 'What would you say the procedure was +when a fellow wants to buy tea? How would a fellow set about it?' +'Tea?' I said. 'What do you want tea for?' 'To drink,' said Buffy. +'Pull yourself together, dear boy,' I said. 'You're talking wildly. You +can't drink tea. Have a brandy-and-soda.' 'No more alcohol for me,' +said Buffy. 'Look what it does to the common earthworm.' 'But you're +not a common earthworm,' I said, putting my finger on the flaw in +his argument right away. 'I dashed soon shall be if I go on drinking +alcohol,' said Buffy. Well, I begged him with tears in my eyes not to +do anything rash, but I couldn't move him. He ordered in ten pounds of +the muck and was dead inside the year."</p> + +<p>"Good heavens! Really?"</p> + +<p>The Hon. Galahad nodded impressively.</p> + +<p>"Dead as a doornail. Got run over by a hansom cab, poor dear old chap, +as he was crossing Piccadilly. You'll find the story in my book."</p> + +<p>"How's the book coming along?"</p> + +<p>"Magnificently, my dear. Splendidly. I had no notion writing was so +easy. The stuff just pours out. Clarence, I wanted to ask you about +a date. What year was it there was that terrible row between young +Gregory Parsloe and Lord Burper, when Parsloe stole the old chap's +false teeth and pawned them at a shop in the Edgware Road? '96? I +should have said later than that—'97 or '98. Perhaps you're right, +though. I'll pencil in '96 tentatively."</p> + +<p>Lady Constance uttered a sharp cry. The sunlight had now gone quite +definitely out of her life. She felt, as she so often felt in her +brother Galahad's society, as if foxes were gnawing her vitals. Not +even the thought that she could now give Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe +the inside information for which he had asked was able to comfort her.</p> + +<p>"Galahad! You are not proposing to print libellous stories like that +about our nearest neighbour?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly I am." The Hon. Galahad snorted militantly. "And as for +libel, let him bring an action if he wants to. I'll fight him to the +House of Lords. It's the best documented story in my book. Well, if +you insist it was '96, Clarence—I'll tell you what," said the Hon. +Galahad, inspired, "I'll say 'toward the end of the nineties.' After +all, the exact date isn't so important. It's the facts that matter." +And, leaping lightly over the spaniel, he flitted away across the lawn.</p> + +<p>Lady Constance sat rigid in her chair. Her fine eyes were now +protruding slightly, and her face was drawn. This, and not the Mona +Lisa's, you would have said, looking at her, was the head on which all +the sorrows of the world had fallen.</p> + +<p>"Clarence!"</p> + +<p>"My dear?"</p> + +<p>"What are you going to do about this?"</p> + +<p>"Do?"</p> + +<p>"Can't you see that something must be done? Do you realize that if +this awful book of Galahad's is published it will alienate half our +friends? They will think we are to blame. They will say we ought to +have stopped him somehow. Imagine Sir Gregory's feelings when he reads +that appalling story!"</p> + +<p>Lord Emsworth's amiable face darkened.</p> + +<p>"I am not worrying about Parsloe's feelings. Besides, he did steal +Burper's false teeth. I remember him showing them to me. He had them +packed up in cotton wool in a small cigar box."</p> + +<p>The gesture known as wringing the hands is one that is seldom seen in +real life, but Lady Constance Keeble at this point did something with +hers which might by a liberal interpretation have been described as +wringing.</p> + +<p>"Oh, if Mr. Baxter were only here!" she moaned.</p> + +<p>Lord Emsworth started with such violence that his pince-nez fell off +and he dropped a slice of seed cake.</p> + +<p>"What on earth do you want that awful feller here for?"</p> + +<p>"He would find a way out of this dreadful business. He was always so +efficient."</p> + +<p>"Baxter's off his head."</p> + +<p>Lady Constance uttered a sharp exclamation.</p> + +<p>"Clarence, you really can be the most irritating person in the world. +You get an idea and you cling to it in spite of whatever anybody says. +Mr. Baxter was the most wonderfully capable man I ever met."</p> + +<p>"Yes, capable of anything," retorted Lord Emsworth with spirit. "Threw +flower pots at me in the middle of the night. I woke up in the small +hours and found flower pots streaming in at my bedroom window and +looked out and there was this feller Baxter standing on the terrace in +lemon-coloured pajamas, hurling the dashed things as if he thought he +was a machine gun or something. I suppose he's in an asylum by this +time."</p> + +<p>Lady Constance had turned a bright scarlet. Even in their nursery days +she had never felt quite so hostile toward the head of the family as +now.</p> + +<p>"You know perfectly well that there was a quite simple explanation. My +diamond necklace had been stolen, and Mr. Baxter thought the thief had +hidden it in one of the flower pots. He went to look for it and got +locked out and tried to attract attention by——"</p> + +<p>"Well, I prefer to think the man was crazy, and that's the line that +Galahad takes in his book."</p> + +<p>"His——! Galahad is not putting that story in his book?"</p> + +<p>"Of course he's putting it in his book. Do you think he's going to +waste excellent material like that? And, as I say, the line Galahad +takes—and he's a clear-thinking, level-headed man—is that Baxter was +a raving, roaring lunatic. Well, I'm going to have another look at the +Empress."</p> + +<p>He pottered off pigward.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p class="ph2">III</p> + +<p>For some moments after he had gone there was silence at the tea table. +Millicent lay back in her chair, Lady Constance sat stiffly upright in +hers. A little breeze that brought with it a scent of wallflowers began +whispering the first tidings that the cool of evening was on its way.</p> + +<p>"Why are you so anxious to get Mr. Baxter back, Aunt Constance?" asked +Millicent.</p> + +<p>Lady Constance's rigidity had relaxed. She was looking her calm, +masterful self again. She had the air of a woman who has just solved a +difficult problem.</p> + +<p>"I think his presence here essential," she said.</p> + +<p>"Uncle Clarence doesn't seem to agree with you."</p> + +<p>"Your Uncle Clarence has always been completely blind to his best +interests. He ought never to have dismissed the only secretary he has +ever had who was capable of looking after his affairs."</p> + +<p>"Isn't Mr. Carmody any good?"</p> + +<p>"No. He is not. And I shall never feel easy in my mind until Mr. Baxter +is back in his old place."</p> + +<p>"What's wrong with Mr. Carmody?"</p> + +<p>"He is grossly inefficient. And," said Lady Constance, unmasking her +batteries, "I consider that he spends far too much of his time mooning +around you, my dear. He appears to imagine that he is at Blandings +Castle simply to dance attendance on you."</p> + +<p>The charge struck Millicent as unjust. She thought of pointing out that +she and Hugo only met occasionally and then on the sly, but it occurred +to her that the plea might be injudicious. She bent over the spaniel. +A keen observer might have noted a defensiveness in her manner. She +looked like a girl preparing to cope with an aunt.</p> + +<p>"Do you find him an entertaining companion?"</p> + +<p>Millicent yawned.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Carmody? No, not particularly."</p> + +<p>"A dull young man, I should have thought."</p> + +<p>"Deadly."</p> + +<p>"Vapid."</p> + +<p>"Vap to a degree."</p> + +<p>"And yet you went riding with him last Tuesday."</p> + +<p>"Anything's better than riding alone."</p> + +<p>"You play tennis with him, too."</p> + +<p>"Well, tennis is a game I defy you to play by yourself."</p> + +<p>Lady Constance's lips tightened.</p> + +<p>"I wish Ronald had never persuaded your uncle to employ him. Clarence +should have seen by the mere look of him that he was impossible." She +paused. "It will be nice having Ronald here," she said.</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"You must try to see something of him. If," said Lady Constance, in the +manner which her intimates found rather less pleasant than some of her +other manners, "Mr. Carmody can spare you for a moment from time to +time."</p> + +<p>She eyed her niece narrowly. But Millicent was a match for any number +of narrow glances, and had been from her sixteenth birthday. She was +also a girl who believed that the best form of defence is attack.</p> + +<p>"Do you think I'm in love with Mr. Carmody, Aunt Constance?"</p> + +<p>Lady Constance was not a woman who relished the direct methods of the +younger generation. She coloured.</p> + +<p>"Such a thought never entered my head."</p> + +<p>"That's fine. I was afraid it had."</p> + +<p>"A sensible girl like you would naturally see the utter impossibility +of marriage with a man in his position. He has no money and very little +prospects. And, of course, your uncle holds your own money in trust +for you and would never dream of releasing it if you wished to make an +unsuitable marriage."</p> + +<p>"So it does seem lucky I'm not in love with him, doesn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Extremely fortunate."</p> + +<p>Lady Constance paused for a moment, then introduced a topic on which +she had frequently touched before. Millicent had seen it coming by the +look in her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Why you won't marry Ronald I can't think. It would be so suitable in +every way. You have been fond of one another since you were children."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I like old Ronnie a lot."</p> + +<p>"It has been a great disappointment to your Aunt Julia."</p> + +<p>"She must cheer up. She'll get him off all right if she sticks at it."</p> + +<p>Lady Constance bridled.</p> + +<p>"It is not a question of.... If you will forgive my saying so, my dear, +I think you have allowed yourself to fall into a way of taking Ronald +far too much for granted. I am afraid you have the impression that he +will always be there, ready and waiting for you when you at last decide +to make up your mind. I don't think you realize what a very attractive +young man he is."</p> + +<p>"The longer I wait, the more fascinating it will give him time to +become."</p> + +<p>At a moment less tense Lady Constance would have taken time off to +rebuke this flippancy; but she felt it would be unwise to depart from +her main theme.</p> + +<p>"He is just the sort of young man that girls are drawn to. In fact, +I have been meaning to tell you. I had a letter from your Aunt Julia +saying that during her stay at Biarritz they met a most charming +American girl, a Miss Schoonmaker, whose father, it seems, used to be +a friend of your Uncle Galahad. She appeared to be quite taken with +Ronald, and he with her. He travelled back to Paris with her and left +her there."</p> + +<p>"How fickle men are!" sighed Millicent.</p> + +<p>"She had some shopping to do," said Lady Constance sharply. "By this +time she is probably in London. Julia invited her to stay at Blandings, +and she accepted. She may be here any day now. And I do think, my +dear," proceeded Lady Constance earnestly, "that before she arrives +you ought to consider very carefully what your feelings toward Ronald +really are."</p> + +<p>"You mean, if I don't watch my step this Miss Doopenhacker may steal my +Ronnie away from me?"</p> + +<p>It was not quite how Lady Constance would have put it herself, but it +conveyed her meaning.</p> + +<p>"Exactly."</p> + +<p>Millicent laughed. It was plain that her flesh declined to creep at the +prospect.</p> + +<p>"Good luck to her," she said. "She can count on a fish slice from me, +and I'll be a bridesmaid, too, if wanted. Can't you understand, Aunt +Constance, that I haven't the slightest desire to marry Ronnie? We're +great pals and all that, but he's not my style. Too short, for one +thing."</p> + +<p>"Short?"</p> + +<p>"I'm inches taller than he is. When we went up the aisle I should look +like someone taking her little brother for a walk."</p> + +<p>Lady Constance would undoubtedly have commented on this remark, but +before she could do so the procession reappeared, playing an unexpected +return date. Footman James bore a dish of fruit; Footman Thomas a +salver with a cream jug on it. Beach, as before, confined himself to a +straight ornamental rôle.</p> + +<p>"Oo!" said Millicent welcomingly. And the spaniel, who liked anything +involving cream, gave a silent nod of approval.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Lady Constance, as the procession withdrew, giving up the +lost cause, "if you won't marry Ronald, I suppose you won't."</p> + +<p>"That's about it," agreed Millicent, pouring cream.</p> + +<p>"At any rate, I am relieved to hear that there is no nonsense going on +between you and this Mr. Carmody. That I could not have endured."</p> + +<p>"He's only moderately popular with you, isn't he?"</p> + +<p>"I dislike him extremely."</p> + +<p>"I wonder why. I should have thought he was fairly all right, as young +men go. Uncle Clarence likes him. So does Uncle Gally."</p> + +<p>Lady Constance had a high, arched nose, admirably adapted for sniffing. +She used it now to the limits of its power.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Carmody," she said, "is just the sort of young man your Uncle +Galahad would like. No doubt he reminds him of the horrible men he used +to go about London with in his young days."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Carmody isn't a bit like that."</p> + +<p>"Indeed?" Lady Constance sniffed again. "Well, I dislike mentioning it +to you, Millicent, for I am old-fashioned enough to think that young +girls should be shielded from a knowledge of the world, but I happen +to know that Mr. Carmody is not at all a nice young man. I have it on +the most excellent authority that he is entangled with some impossible +chorus girl."</p> + +<p>It is not easy to sit suddenly bolt upright in a deep garden chair, but +Millicent managed the feat.</p> + +<p>"What!"</p> + +<p>"Lady Allardyce told me so."</p> + +<p>"And how does she know?"</p> + +<p>"Her son Vernon told her. A girl of the name of Brown. Vernon Allardyce +says that he used to see her repeatedly, lunching and dining and +dancing with Mr. Carmody."</p> + +<p>There was a long silence.</p> + +<p>"Nice boy, Vernon," said Millicent.</p> + +<p>"He tells his mother everything."</p> + +<p>"That's what I meant. I think it's so sweet of him." Millicent rose. +"Well, I'm going to take a short stroll."</p> + +<p>She wandered off toward the rose garden.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p class="ph2">IV</p> + +<p>A young man who has arranged to meet the girl he loves in the rose +garden at six sharp naturally goes there at five-twenty-five, so as +not to be late. Hugo Carmody had done this, with the result that by +three minutes to six he was feeling as if he had been marooned among +roses since the beginning of the summer.</p> + +<p>If anybody had told Hugh Carmody six months before that halfway through +the following July he would be lurking in trysting places like this, +his whole being alert for the coming of a girl, he would have scoffed +at the idea. He would have laughed lightly. Not that he had not been +fond of girls. He had always liked girls. But they had been, as it +were, the mere playthings, so to speak, of a financial giant's idle +hour. Six months ago he had been the keen, iron-souled man of business, +all his energies and thoughts devoted to the management of the Hot Spot.</p> + +<p>But now he stood shuffling his feet and starting hopefully at every +sound, while the leaden moments passed sluggishly on their way. Then +his vigil was enlivened by a wasp, which stung him on the back of the +hand. He was leaping to and fro, licking his wounds, when he perceived +the girl of his dreams coming down the path.</p> + +<p>"Ah!" cried Hugo.</p> + +<p>He ceased to leap and, rushing forward, would have clasped her in a +fond embrace. Many people advocate the old-fashioned blue-bag for wasp +stings, but Hugo preferred this treatment.</p> + +<p>To his astonishment she drew back. And she was not a girl who usually +drew back on these occasions.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter?" he asked, pained. It seemed to him that a spanner +had been bunged into a holy moment.</p> + +<p>"Nothing."</p> + +<p>Hugo was concerned. He did not like the way she was looking at him. Her +soft blue eyes appeared to have been turned into stone.</p> + +<p>"I say," he said, "I've just been stung by a beastly great wasp."</p> + +<p>"Good!" said Millicent. The way she was talking seemed to him worse +than the way she was looking.</p> + +<p>Hugo's concern increased.</p> + +<p>"I say, what's up?"</p> + +<p>The granite eye took on an added hardness.</p> + +<p>"You want to know what's up?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—what's up?"</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you what's up."</p> + +<p>"Well, what's up?" asked Hugo.</p> + +<p>He waited for enlightenment, but she had fallen into a chilling silence.</p> + +<p>"You know," said Hugo, breaking it, "I'm getting pretty fed up with +all this secrecy and general snakiness. Seeing you for an occasional +odd five minutes a day and having to put on false whiskers and hide in +bushes to manage that. I know the Keeble looks on me as a sort of cross +between a leper and a nosegay of deadly nightshade, but I'm strong with +the old boy. I talk pig to him. You might almost say I play on him as +on a stringed instrument. So what's wrong with going to him and telling +him in a frank and manly way that we love each other and are going to +get married?"</p> + +<p>The marble of Millicent's face was disturbed by one of those quick, +sharp, short, bitter smiles that do nobody any good.</p> + +<p>"Why should we lie to Uncle Clarence?"</p> + +<p>"Eh?"</p> + +<p>"I say why should we tell him something that isn't true?"</p> + +<p>"I don't get your drift."</p> + +<p>"I will continue snowing," said Millicent coldly. "I am not quite sure +if I am ever going to speak to you again in this world or the next. +Much will depend on how good you are as an explainer. I have it on the +most excellent authority that you are entangled with a chorus girl. How +about it?"</p> + +<p>Hugo reeled. But then St. Anthony himself would have reeled if a charge +like that had suddenly been hurled at him. The best of men require time +to overhaul their consciences on such occasions. A moment, and he was +himself again.</p> + +<p>"It's a lie!"</p> + +<p>"Name of Brown."</p> + +<p>"Not a word of truth in it. I haven't set eyes on Sue Brown since I +first met you."</p> + +<p>"No. You've been down here all the time."</p> + +<p>"And when I <i>was</i> setting eyes on her—why, dash it, my attitude from +start to finish was one of blameless, innocent, one hundred per cent. +brotherliness. A wholesome friendship. Brotherly. Nothing more. I liked +dancing and she liked dancing and our steps fitted. So occasionally we +would go out together and tread the measure. That's all there was to +it. Pure brotherliness. Nothing more. I looked on myself as a sort of +brother."</p> + +<p>"Brother, eh?"</p> + +<p>"Absolutely a brother. Don't," urged Hugo earnestly, "go running away, +my dear old thing, with any sort of silly notion that Sue Brown was +something in the nature of a vamp. She's one of the nicest girls you +would ever want to meet."</p> + +<p>"Nice, is she?"</p> + +<p>"A sweet girl. A girl in a million. A real good sort. A sound egg."</p> + +<p>"Pretty, I suppose?"</p> + +<p>The native good sense of the Carmodys asserted itself at the eleventh +hour.</p> + +<p>"Not pretty," said Hugo decidedly. "Not pretty, no. Not at all pretty. +Far from pretty. Totally lacking in sex appeal, poor girl. But nice. A +good sort. No nonsense about her. Sisterly."</p> + +<p>Millicent pondered.</p> + +<p>"H'm," she said.</p> + +<p>Nature paused, listening. Birds checked their song, insects their +droning. It was as if it had got about that this young man's fate hung +in the balance and the returns would be in shortly.</p> + +<p>"Well, all right," she said at length. "I suppose I'll have to believe +you."</p> + +<p>"'At's the way to talk!"</p> + +<p>"But just you bear this in mind, my lad. Any funny business from now +on...."</p> + +<p>"As if...!"</p> + +<p>"One more attack of that brotherly urge...."</p> + +<p>"As though...!"</p> + +<p>"All right, then."</p> + +<p>Hugo inhaled vigorously. He felt like a man who has just dodged a +wounded tigress.</p> + +<p>"<i>Banzai!</i>" he said. "Sweethearts still!"</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p class="ph2">V</p> + +<p>Blandings Castle dozed in the twilight. Its various inmates were +variously occupied. Clarence, ninth Earl of Emsworth, after many a +longing, lingering look behind, had dragged himself away from the +Empress's boudoir and was reading his well-thumbed copy of <i>British +Pigs</i>. The Hon. Galahad, having fixed up the Parsloe-Burper passage, +was skimming through his day's output with an artist's complacent +feeling that this was the stuff to give 'em. Butler Beach was pasting +the Hon. Galahad's photograph into his album. Millicent, in her +bedroom, was looking a little thoughtfully into her mirror. Hugo, in +the billiard room, was practising pensive cannons and thinking loving +thoughts of his lady, coupled with an occasional reflection that a +short, swift binge in London would be a great wheeze if he could wangle +it.</p> + +<p>And in her boudoir on the second floor Lady Constance Keeble had taken +pen in hand and was poising it over a sheet of notepaper.</p> + +<p>"Dear Mr. Baxter," she wrote.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II</h2> +</div> + + +<p class="ph2">I</p> + +<p>The brilliant sunshine which so enhanced the attractions of life at +Blandings Castle had brought less pleasure to those of England's +workers whose duties compelled them to remain in London. In his offices +on top of the Regal Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue, Mr. Mortimer Mason, +the stout senior partner in the firm of Mason and Saxby, Theatrical +Enterprises, Ltd., was of opinion that what the country really needed +was one of those wedge-shaped depressions off the Coast of Iceland. +Apart from making him feel like a gaffed salmon, Flaming July was +ruining business. Only last night, to cut down expenses, he had had +to dismiss some of the chorus from the show downstairs, and he hated +dismissing chorus girls. He was a kind-hearted man and, having been in +the profession himself in his time, knew what it meant to get one's +notice in the middle of the summer.</p> + +<p>There was a tap on the door. The human watchdog who guarded the outer +offices entered.</p> + +<p>"Well?" said Mortimer Mason wearily.</p> + +<p>"Can you see Miss Brown, sir?"</p> + +<p>"Which Miss Brown? Sue?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"Of course." In spite of the heat Mr. Mason brightened. "Is she +outside?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"Then pour her in."</p> + +<p>Mortimer Mason had always felt a fatherly fondness for this girl, Sue +Brown. He liked her for her own sake, for her unvarying cheerfulness +and the honest way she worked. But what endeared her more particularly +to him was the fact that she was Dolly Henderson's daughter. London +was full of elderly gentlemen who became pleasantly maudlin when they +thought of Dolly Henderson and the dear old days when the heart was +young and they had had waists. He heaved himself from his chair; then +fell back again, filled with a sense of intolerable injury.</p> + +<p>"My God!" he cried. "Don't look so cool."</p> + +<p>The rebuke was not undeserved. On an afternoon when the asphalt is +bubbling in the roadways and theatrical managers melting where they +sit, no girl has a right to resemble a dewy rose plucked from some +old-world garden. And that, Mr. Mason considered, was just what this +girl was deliberately resembling. She was a tiny thing, mostly large +eyes and a wide happy smile. She had a dancer's figure, and in every +movement of her there was Youth.</p> + +<p>"Sorry, Pa." She laughed, and Mr. Mason moaned faintly. Her laugh had +reminded him, for his was a nature not without its poetical side, of +ice tinkling in a jug of beer. "Try not looking at me."</p> + +<p>"Well, Sue, what's on your mind? Come to tell me you're going to be +married?"</p> + +<p>"Not at the moment, I'm afraid."</p> + +<p>"Hasn't that young man of yours got back from Biarritz yet?"</p> + +<p>"He arrived this morning. I had a note during the matinée. I suppose +he's outside now, waiting for me. Want to have a look at him?"</p> + +<p>"Does it mean walking downstairs?" asked Mr. Mason guardedly.</p> + +<p>"No. He'll be in his car. You can see him from the window."</p> + +<p>Mr. Mason was equal to getting to the window. He peered down at the +rakish sports-model two-seater in the little street below. Its occupant +was lying on his spine, smoking a cigarette in a long holder and +looking austerely at certain children of the neighbourhood whom he +seemed to suspect of being about to scratch his paint.</p> + +<p>"They're making fiancés very small this season," said Mr. Mason, +concluding his inspection.</p> + +<p>"He is small, isn't he? He's sensitive about it, poor darling. Still, +I'm small, too, so that's all right."</p> + +<p>"Fond of him?"</p> + +<p>"Frightfully."</p> + +<p>"Who is he, anyway? Yes, I know his name's Fish, and it doesn't mean a +thing to me. Any money?"</p> + +<p>"I believe he's got quite a lot, only his uncle keeps it all. Lord +Emsworth. He's Ronnie's trustee or something."</p> + +<p>"Emsworth? I knew his brother years ago." Mr. Mason chuckled +reminiscently. "Old Gally! What a lad! I've got a scheme I'd like to +interest old Gally in. I wonder where he is now."</p> + +<p>"The <i>Prattler</i> this week said he was down at Blandings Castle. That's +Lord Emsworth's place in Shropshire. Ronnie's going down there this +evening."</p> + +<p>"Deserting you so soon?" Mortimer Mason shook his head. "I don't like +this."</p> + +<p>Sue laughed.</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't," said Mr. Mason. "You be careful. These lads will all +bear watching."</p> + +<p>"Don't worry, Pa. He means to do right by our Nell."</p> + +<p>"Well, don't say I didn't warn you. So old Gally is at Blandings, is +he? I must remember that. I'd like to get in touch with him. And now, +what was it you wanted to see me about?"</p> + +<p>Sue became grave.</p> + +<p>"I've come to ask you a favour."</p> + +<p>"Go ahead. You know me."</p> + +<p>"It's about those girls you're getting rid of."</p> + +<p>Mr. Mason's genial face took on a managerial look.</p> + +<p>"Got to get rid of them."</p> + +<p>"I know. But one of them's Sally Field."</p> + +<p>"Meaning what?"</p> + +<p>"Well, Sally's awfully hard up, Pa. And what I came to ask," said Sue +breathlessly, "was, will you keep her on and let me go instead?"</p> + +<p>Utter amazement caused Mortimer Mason momentarily to forget the heat. +He sat up, gaping.</p> + +<p>"Do what?"</p> + +<p>"Let me go instead."</p> + +<p>"Let you go instead?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"You're crazy."</p> + +<p>"No, I'm not. Come on, Pa. Be a dear."</p> + +<p>"Is she a great friend of yours?"</p> + +<p>"Not particularly. I'm sorry for her."</p> + +<p>"I won't do it."</p> + +<p>"You must. She's down to her last bean."</p> + +<p>"But I need you in the show."</p> + +<p>"What nonsense! As if I made the slightest difference."</p> + +<p>"You do. You've got—I don't know—" Mr. Mason twiddled his +fingers—"something. Your mother used to have it. Did you know I was +the second juvenile in the first company she was ever in?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, you told me. And haven't you got on! There's enough of you now to +make two second juveniles. Well, you will do it, won't you?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Mason reflected.</p> + +<p>"I suppose I'll have to, if you insist," he said at length. "If I don't +you'll just hand your notice in anyway. I know you. You're a sportsman, +Sue. Your mother was just the same. But are you sure you'll manage all +right? I shan't be casting the new show till the end of August, but I +may be able to fix you up somewhere if I look round."</p> + +<p>"I don't see how you could look any rounder if you tried, you poor +darling. Do you realize, Pa, that if you got up early every morning and +did half an hour's Swedish exercises——"</p> + +<p>"If you don't want to be murdered, stop!"</p> + +<p>"It would do you all the good in the world, you know. Well, it's +awfully sweet of you to bother about me, Pa, but you mustn't. You've +got enough to worry you already. I shall be all right. Good-bye. You've +been an angel about Sally. It'll save her life."</p> + +<p>"If she's that cross-eyed girl at the end of the second row who's +always out of step I'm not sure I want to save her life."</p> + +<p>"Well, you're going to do it, anyway. Good-bye."</p> + +<p>"Don't run away."</p> + +<p>"I must. Ronnie's waiting. He's going to take me to tea somewhere. Up +the river, I hope. Think how nice it will be there, under the trees, +with the water rippling——"</p> + +<p>"The only thing that stops me hitting you with this ruler," said +Mr. Mason, "is the thought that I shall soon be getting out of this +Turkish bath myself. I've a show opening at the Blackpool next week. +Think how nice and cool it will be on the sands there, with the waves +splashing——"</p> + +<p>"—And you with your little spade and bucket, paddling! Oh, Pa, do send +me a photograph. Well, I can't stand here all day chatting over your +vacation plans. My poor darling Ronnie must be getting slowly fried."</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p class="ph2">II</p> + +<p>The process of getting slowly fried, especially when you are chafing +for a sight of the girl you love after six weeks of exile from her +society, is never an agreeable one. After enduring it for some time +the pink-faced young man with the long cigarette holder had left his +seat in the car and had gone for shade and comparative coolness to the +shelter of the stage entrance, where he now stood reading the notices +on the call board. He read them moodily. The thought that, after having +been away from Sue for all these weeks, he was now compelled to leave +her again and go to Blandings Castle was weighing on Ronald Overbury +Fish's mind sorely.</p> + +<p>Mac, the guardian of the stage door, leaned out of his hutch. The +matinée over, he had begun to experience that solemn joy which comes +to camels approaching an oasis and stage-door men who will soon be at +liberty to pop round the corner. He endeavoured to communicate his +happiness to Ronnie.</p> + +<p>"Won't be long now, Mr. Fish."</p> + +<p>"Eh?"</p> + +<p>"Won't be long now, sir."</p> + +<p>"Ah," said Ronnie.</p> + +<p>Mac was concerned at his companion's gloom. He liked smiling faces +about him. Reflecting, he fancied he could diagnose its cause.</p> + +<p>"I was sorry to hear about that, Mr. Fish."</p> + +<p>"Eh?"</p> + +<p>"I say I was sorry to hear about that, sir."</p> + +<p>"About what?"</p> + +<p>"About the Hot Spot, sir. That night club of yours. Busting up that +way. Going West so prompt."</p> + +<p>Ronnie Fish winced. He presumed the man meant well, but there are +certain subjects one does not want mentioned. When you have contrived +with infinite pains to wheedle a portion of your capital out of a +reluctant trustee and have gone and started a night club with it and +have seen that night club flash into the receiver's hands like some +frail eggshell engulfed by a whirlpool, silence is best.</p> + +<p>"Ah," he said briefly, to indicate this.</p> + +<p>Mac had many admirable qualities, but not tact. He was the sort of man +who would have tried to cheer Napoleon up by talking about the winter +sports at Moscow.</p> + +<p>"When I heard that you and Mr. Carmody was starting one of those +places I said to the fireman, 'I give it two months,' I said. And it +was six weeks, wasn't it, sir?"</p> + +<p>"Seven."</p> + +<p>"Six or seven. Immaterial which. Point is I'm usually pretty right. I +said to the fireman, 'It takes brains to run a night club,' I said. +'Brains and a certain what-shall-I-say.' Won me half a crown, that did."</p> + +<p>He searched in his mind for other topics to interest and amuse.</p> + +<p>"Seen Mr. Carmody lately, sir?"</p> + +<p>"No. I've been in Biarritz. He's down in Shropshire. He's got a job as +secretary to an uncle of mine."</p> + +<p>"And I shouldn't wonder," said Mac cordially, "if he wouldn't make a +mess of <i>that</i>."</p> + +<p>He began to feel that the conversation was now going with a swing.</p> + +<p>"Used to see a lot of Mr. Carmody round here at one time."</p> + +<p>The advance guard of the company appeared, in the shape of a flock +of musicians. They passed out of the stage door, first a couple of +thirsty-looking flutes, then a group of violins, finally an oboe by +himself with a scowl on his face. Oboes are always savage in captivity.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir. Came here a lot, Mr. Carmody did. Asking for Miss Brown. +Great friends those two was."</p> + +<p>"Oh?" said Ronnie thickly.</p> + +<p>"Used to make me laugh to see them together."</p> + +<p>Ronnie appeared to swallow something large and jagged.</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"Well, him so tall and her so small. But there," said Mac +philosophically, "they say it's opposites that get on best. I know I +weigh seventeen stone and my missus looks like a ninepenny rabbit, and +yet we're as happy as can be."</p> + +<p>Ronnie's interest in the poundage of the stage-door keeper's domestic +circle was slight.</p> + +<p>"Ah," he said.</p> + +<p>Mac, having got onto the subject of Sue Brown, stayed there.</p> + +<p>"You see the flowers arrived all right, sir."</p> + +<p>"Eh?"</p> + +<p>"The flowers you sent Miss Brown, sir," said Mac, indicating with a +stubby thumb a bouquet on the shelf behind him. "I haven't given her +them yet. Thought she'd rather have them after the performance."</p> + +<p>It was a handsome bouquet, but Ronnie Fish stared at it with a sort of +dumb horror. His pink face had grown pinker, and his eyes were glassy.</p> + +<p>"Give me those flowers, Mac," he said in a strangled voice.</p> + +<p>"Right, sir. Here you are, sir. Now you look just like a bridegroom, +sir," said the stage-door keeper, chuckling the sort of chuckle that +goes with seventeen stone and a fat head.</p> + +<p>This thought had struck Ronnie, also. It was driven home a moment +later by the displeasing behaviour of two of the chorus girls who came +flitting past. Both looked at him in a way painful to a sensitive young +man, and one of them giggled. Ronnie turned to the door.</p> + +<p>"When Miss Brown comes, tell her I'm waiting outside in my car."</p> + +<p>"Right, sir. You'll be in again, I suppose, sir?"</p> + +<p>"No." The sombre expression deepened on Ronnie's face. "I've got to go +down to Shropshire this evening."</p> + +<p>"Be away long?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Quite a time."</p> + +<p>"Sorry to hear that, sir. Well, good-bye, sir. Thank you, sir."</p> + +<p>Ronnie, clutching the bouquet, walked with leaden steps to the +two-seater. There was a card attached to the flowers. He read it, +frowned darkly and threw the bouquet into the car.</p> + +<p>Girls were passing now in shoals. They meant nothing to Ronnie Fish. +He eyed them sourly, marvelling why the papers talked about "beauty +choruses." And then, at last, there appeared one at the sight of whom +his heart, parting from its moorings, began to behave like a jumping +bean. It had reached his mouth when she ran up with both hands extended.</p> + +<p>"Ronnie, you precious angel lambkin!"</p> + +<p>"Sue!"</p> + +<p>To a young man in love, however great the burden of sorrows beneath +which he may be groaning, the spectacle of the only girl in the world, +smiling up at him, seldom fails to bring a temporary balm. For the +moment Ronnie's gloom ceased to be. He forgot that he had recently +lost several hundred pounds in a disastrous commercial venture. He +forgot that he was going off that evening to live in exile. He even +forgot that this girl had just been sent a handsome bouquet by a +ghastly bargee named P. Frobisher Pilbeam, belonging to the Junior +Constitutional Club. These thoughts would return, but for the time +being the one that occupied his mind to the exclusion of all others was +the thought that after six long weeks of separation he was once more +looking upon Sue Brown.</p> + +<p>"I'm so sorry I kept you waiting, precious. I had to see Mr. Mason."</p> + +<p>Ronnie started.</p> + +<p>"What about?"</p> + +<p>A student of the motion pictures, he knew what theatrical managers were.</p> + +<p>"Just business."</p> + +<p>"Did he ask you to lunch or anything?"</p> + +<p>"No. He just fired me."</p> + +<p>"Fired you!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I've lost my job," said Sue happily.</p> + +<p>Ronnie quivered.</p> + +<p>"I'll go and break his neck."</p> + +<p>"No, you won't. It isn't his fault. It's the weather. They have to cut +down expenses when there's a heat wave. It's all the fault of people +like you for going abroad instead of staying in London and coming to +the theatre." She saw the flowers and uttered a delightful squeal. "For +me?"</p> + +<p>A moment before, Ronnie had been all chivalrous concern—a knight +prepared to battle to the death for his lady love. He now froze.</p> + +<p>"Apparently," he said coldly.</p> + +<p>"How do you mean, apparently?"</p> + +<p>"I mean they are."</p> + +<p>"You pet!"</p> + +<p>"Leap in."</p> + +<p>Ronnie's gloom was now dense and foglike once more. He gestured +fiercely at the clustering children and trod on the self-starter. The +car moved smoothly round the corner into Shaftesbury Avenue.</p> + +<p>Opposite the Monico there was a traffic block, and he unloaded his soul.</p> + +<p>"In re those blooms."</p> + +<p>"They're lovely."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but I didn't send them."</p> + +<p>"You brought them. Much nicer."</p> + +<p>"What I'm driving at," said Ronnie heavily, "is that they aren't from +me at all. They're from a blighter named P. Frobisher Pilbeam."</p> + +<p>Sue's smile had faded. She knew her Ronald's jealousy so well. It was +the one thing about him which she could have wished changed.</p> + +<p>"Oh?" she said dismally.</p> + +<p>The crust of calm detachment from all human emotion, built up by years +of Eton and Cambridge, cracked abruptly, and there peeped forth a +primitive Ronald Overbury Fish.</p> + +<p>"Who is this Pilbeam?" he demanded. "Pretty much the Boy Friend, I take +it, what?"</p> + +<p>"I've never even met him!"</p> + +<p>"But he sends you flowers."</p> + +<p>"I know he does," wailed Sue, mourning for a golden afternoon now +probably spoiled beyond repair. "He keeps sending me his beastly +flowers and writing me his beastly letters."</p> + +<p>Ronnie gritted his teeth.</p> + +<p>"And I tell you I've never set eyes on him in my life."</p> + +<p>"You don't know who he is?"</p> + +<p>"One of the girls told me that he used to edit that paper, <i>Society +Spice</i>. I don't know what he does now."</p> + +<p>"When he isn't sending you flowers, you mean?"</p> + +<p>"I can't help him sending me flowers."</p> + +<p>"I don't suppose you want to."</p> + +<p>Sue's eyes flickered. Realizing, however, that her Ronnie in certain +moods resembled a child of six, she made a pathetic attempt to lighten +the atmosphere.</p> + +<p>"It's not my fault if I get persecuted with loathsome addresses, is it? +I suppose, when you go to the movies, you blame Lillian Gish for being +pursued by the heavy."</p> + +<p>Ronnie was not to be diverted.</p> + +<p>"Sometimes I ask myself," he said darkly, "if you really care a hang +for me."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Ronnie!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I do—repeatedly. I look at you and I look at myself and that's +what I ask myself. What on earth is there about me to make a girl like +you fond of a fellow? I'm a failure. Can't even run a night club. No +brains. No looks."</p> + +<p>"You've got a lovely complexion."</p> + +<p>"Too pink. Much too pink. And I'm so damned short."</p> + +<p>"You're not a bit too short."</p> + +<p>"I am. My Uncle Gally once told me I looked like the protoplasm of a +minor jockey."</p> + +<p>"He ought to have been ashamed of himself."</p> + +<p>"Why the dickens," said Ronnie, laying bare his secret dreams, "I +couldn't have been born a decent height, like Hugo...." He paused. His +hand shook on the steering wheel. "That reminds me. That fellow Mac +at the stage door was saying that you and Hugo used to be as thick as +thieves. Always together, he said."</p> + +<p>Sue sighed. Things were being difficult to-day.</p> + +<p>"That was before I met you," she explained patiently, "I used to like +dancing with him. He's a beautiful dancer. You surely don't suppose for +a minute that I could ever be in love with Hugo."</p> + +<p>"I don't see why not."</p> + +<p>"Hugo!" Sue laughed. There was something about Hugo Carmody that always +made her want to laugh.</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't see why not. He's better looking than I am. Taller. Not +so pink. Plays the saxophone."</p> + +<p>"Will you stop being silly about Hugo!"</p> + +<p>"Well, I fear that bird. He's my best pal, and I know his work. He's +practically handsome. And lissom, to boot." A hideous thought smote +Ronnie like a blow. "Did he ever—" he choked—"did he ever hold your +hand?"</p> + +<p>"Which hand?"</p> + +<p>"Either hand."</p> + +<p>"How can you suggest such a thing!" cried Sue, shocked.</p> + +<p>"Well, will you swear there's nothing between him and you?"</p> + +<p>"Of course there isn't."</p> + +<p>"And nothing between this fellow Pilbeam and you?"</p> + +<p>"Of course not."</p> + +<p>"Ah!" said Ronnie. "Then I can go ahead as planned."</p> + +<p>His was a mercurial temperament, and it had lifted him in an instant +from the depths to the heights. The cloud had passed from his face, the +look of Byronic despair from his eyes. He beamed.</p> + +<p>"Do you know why I'm going down to Blandings to-night?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"No. I only wish you weren't."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'll tell you. I've got to get round my uncle."</p> + +<p>"Do what?"</p> + +<p>"Make myself solid with my Uncle Clarence. If you've ever had anything +to do with trustees you'll know that the one thing they bar like poison +is parting with money. And I've simply got to have another chunk of +my capital, and a good big one, too. Without money, how on earth can +I marry you? Let me get hold of funds, and we'll dash off to the +registrar's the moment you say the word. So now you understand why I've +got to get to Blandings at the earliest possible moment and stay there +till further notice."</p> + +<p>"Yes. I see. And you're a darling. Tell me about Blandings, Ronnie."</p> + +<p>"How do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Well, what sort of a place is it? I want to imagine you there while +you're away."</p> + +<p>Ronnie pondered. He was not at his best as a word painter.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you know the kind of thing. Parks and gardens and terraces and +immemorial elms and all that. All the usual stuff."</p> + +<p>"Any girls there?"</p> + +<p>"My Cousin Millicent. She's my Uncle Lancelot's daughter. He's dead. +The family want Millicent and me to get married."</p> + +<p>"To each other, you mean? What a perfectly horrible idea."</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's all right. We're both against the scheme."</p> + +<p>"Well, that's some comfort. What other girls will there be at +Blandings?"</p> + +<p>"Only one that I know of. My mother met a female called Schoonmaker at +Biarritz. American. Pots of money, I believe. One of those beastly tall +girls. Looked like something left over from Dana Gibson. I couldn't +stand her myself, but my mother was all for her, and I didn't at all +like the way she seemed to be trying to shove her off onto me. You +know—'Why don't you ring up Myra Schoonmaker, Ronnie? I'm sure she +would like to go to the Casino to-night. And then you could dance +afterward.' Sinister, it seemed to me."</p> + +<p>"And she's going to Blandings? H'm!"</p> + +<p>"There's nothing to 'h'm' about."</p> + +<p>"I'm not so sure. Oh, well, I suppose your family are quite right. I +suppose you ought really to marry some nice girl in your own set."</p> + +<p>Ronnie uttered a wordless cry and in his emotion allowed the mudguard +of the two-seater to glide so closely past an Austin Seven that Sue +gave a frightened squeak and the Austin Seven went on its way thinking +black thoughts.</p> + +<p>"Do be careful, Ronnie, you old chump!"</p> + +<p>"Well, what do you want to go saying things like that for? I get enough +of that from the family without having <i>you</i> start."</p> + +<p>"Poor old Ronnie! I'm sorry. Still, you must admit that they'd be quite +within their rights, objecting to me. I'm not so hot, you know. Only a +chorus girl. Just one of the ensemble!"</p> + +<p>Ronnie said something between his teeth that sounded like "Juk!" What +he meant was, be her station never so humble, a pure, sweet girl is a +fitting mate for the highest in the land.</p> + +<p>"And my mother was a music-hall singer."</p> + +<p>"A what?"</p> + +<p>"A music-hall singer. What they used to call a 'serio.' You know—pink +tights and rather risky songs."</p> + +<p>This time Ronnie did not say, "Juk!" He merely swallowed painfully. The +information had come as a shock to him. Somehow or other he had never +thought of Sue as having encumbrances in the shape of relatives; and he +could not hide from himself the fact that a pink-tighted serio might +stir the Family up quite a little. He pictured something with peroxide +hair who would call his Uncle Clarence "dearie."</p> + +<p>"English, do you mean? On the halls here in London?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Her stage name was Dolly Henderson."</p> + +<p>"Never heard of her."</p> + +<p>"I dare say not. But she was the rage of London twenty years ago."</p> + +<p>"I always thought you were American," said Ronnie, aggrieved. "I +distinctly recollect Hugo, when he introduced us, telling me that you +had just come over from New York."</p> + +<p>"So I had. Father took me to America soon after Mother died."</p> + +<p>"Oh, your mother is—er—no longer with us?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Too bad," said Ronnie, brightening.</p> + +<p>"My father's name was Cotterleigh. He was in the Irish Guards."</p> + +<p>"What!"</p> + +<p>Ronnie's ecstatic cry seriously inconvenienced a traffic policeman in +the exercise of his duties.</p> + +<p>"But this is fine! This is the goods! It doesn't matter to me, of +course, one way or the other. I'd love you just the same if your father +had sold jellied eels. But think what an enormous difference this will +make to my blasted family!"</p> + +<p>"I doubt it."</p> + +<p>"But it will. We must get him over at once and spring him on them. Or +is he in London?"</p> + +<p>Sue's brown eyes clouded.</p> + +<p>"He's dead."</p> + +<p>"Eh? Oh! Sorry!" said Ronnie.</p> + +<p>He was dashed for a moment.</p> + +<p>"Well, at least let me tell the family about him," he urged, +recovering. "Let me dangle him before their eyes a bit."</p> + +<p>"If you like. But they'll still object to me because I'm in the chorus."</p> + +<p>Ronnie scowled. He thought of his mother, he thought of his Aunt +Constance, and reason told him that her words were true.</p> + +<p>"Dash all this rot people talk about chorus girls!" he said. "They seem +to think that just because a girl works in the chorus she must be a +sort of animated champagne vat——"</p> + +<p>"Ugh!"</p> + +<p>"—spending her life dancing on supper tables with tight +stockbrokers——"</p> + +<p>"And not a bad way of passing an evening," said Sue meditatively. "I +must try it some time."</p> + +<p>"—with the result that when it's a question of her marrying anybody, +fellow's people look down their noses and kick like mules. It's +happened in our family before. My Uncle Gally was in love with some +girl on the stage back in the dark ages, and they formed a wedge and +bust the thing up and shipped him off to South Africa or somewhere +to forget her. And look at him! Drew three sober breaths in the year +nineteen hundred and then decided that was enough. I expect I shall be +the same. If I don't take to drink, cooped up at Blandings a hundred +miles away from you, I shall be vastly surprised. It's all a lot of +silly nonsense. I haven't any patience with it. I've a jolly good mind +to go to Uncle Clarence to-night and simply tell him that I'm in love +with you and intend to marry you and that if the family don't like it +they can lump it."</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't."</p> + +<p>Ronnie simmered down.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps you're right."</p> + +<p>"I'm sure I am. If he hears about me he certainly won't give you your +money; whereas, if he doesn't, he may. What sort of a man is he?"</p> + +<p>"Uncle Clarence? Oh, a mild, dreamy old boy. Mad about gardening and +all that. At the moment I hear he's wrapped up in his pig."</p> + +<p>"That sounds cosy."</p> + +<p>"I'd feel a lot easier in my mind, I can tell you, going down there to +tackle him, if I were a pig. I'd expect a much warmer welcome."</p> + +<p>"You were rather a pig just now, weren't you?"</p> + +<p>Ronnie quivered. Remorse gnawed the throbbing heart beneath his +beautifully cut waistcoat.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry. I'm frightfully sorry. The fact is, I'm so crazy about you +I get jealous of everybody you meet. Do you know, Sue, if you ever let +me down, I'd—I don't know what I'd do. Er—Sue!"</p> + +<p>"Hullo?"</p> + +<p>"Swear something."</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"Swear that while I'm at Blandings you won't go out with a soul. Not +even to dance."</p> + +<p>"Not even to dance?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"All right."</p> + +<p>"Especially this man Pilbeam."</p> + +<p>"I thought you were going to say Hugo."</p> + +<p>"I'm not worrying about Hugo. He's safe at Blandings."</p> + +<p>"Hugo at Blandings?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. He's secretarying for my Uncle Clarence. I made my mother get him +the job when the Hot Spot conked."</p> + +<p>"So you'll have him <i>and</i> Millicent <i>and</i> Miss Schoonmaker there to +keep you company! How nice for you."</p> + +<p>"Millicent!"</p> + +<p>"It's all very well to say 'Millicent!' like that. If you ask me, I +think she's a menace. She sounds coy and droopy. I can see her taking +you for walks by moonlight under those immemorial elms and looking up +at you with big dreamy eyes."</p> + +<p>"Looking down at me, you mean. She's about a foot taller than I am. +And, anyway, if you imagine there's a girl on earth who could extract +so much as a kindly glance from me when I've got you to think about +you're very much mistaken. I give you my honest word...."</p> + +<p>He became lyrical. Sue, leaning back, listened contentedly. The cloud +had been a threatening cloud, blackening the skies for a while, but it +had passed. The afternoon was being golden, after all.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p class="ph2">III</p> + +<p>"By the way," said Ronnie, the flood of eloquence subsiding. "A thought +occurs. Have you any notion where we're headed for?"</p> + +<p>"Heaven!"</p> + +<p>"I mean at the moment."</p> + +<p>"I supposed you were taking me to tea somewhere."</p> + +<p>"But where? We've got right out of the tea zone. What with one thing +and another I've just been driving at random—to and fro, as it +were—and we seem to have worked round to somewhere in the Swiss +Cottage neighbourhood. We'd better switch back and set a course for the +Carlton or some place. How do you feel about the Carlton?"</p> + +<p>"All right."</p> + +<p>"Or the Ritz?"</p> + +<p>"Whichever you like."</p> + +<p>"Or—gosh!"</p> + +<p>"What's the matter?"</p> + +<p>"Sue! I've got an idea."</p> + +<p>"Beginner's luck."</p> + +<p>"Why not go to Norfolk Street?"</p> + +<p>"To your home?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. There's nobody there, and our butler is a staunch bird—he'll get +us tea and say nothing."</p> + +<p>"I'd like to meet a staunch butler."</p> + +<p>"Then shall we?"</p> + +<p>"I'd love it. You can show me all your little treasures and belongings +and the photographs of you as a small boy."</p> + +<p>Ronnie shook his head. It irked him to discourage her pretty +enthusiasm, but a man cannot afford to take risks.</p> + +<p>"Not those. No love could stand up against the sight of me in a sailor +suit at the age of ten. I don't mind," he said, making a concession, +"letting you see the one of me and Hugo, taken just before the Public +Schools Rackets Competition, my last year at school. We were the Eton +pair."</p> + +<p>"Did you win?"</p> + +<p>"No. At a critical moment in the semifinal that ass Hugo foozled a shot +a one-armed cripple ought to have taken with his eyes shut. It dished +us."</p> + +<p>"Awful!" said Sue. "Well, if I ever had any impulse to love Hugo that's +killed it." She looked about her. "I don't know this aristocratic +neighbourhood at all. How far is it to Norfolk Street?"</p> + +<p>"Next turning."</p> + +<p>"You're sure there's nobody in the house? None of the dear old family?"</p> + +<p>"Not a soul."</p> + +<p>He was right. Lady Constance Keeble was not actually in the house. At +the moment when he spoke she had just closed the front door behind her. +After waiting half an hour in the hope of her nephew's return she had +left a note for him on the hall table and was going to Claridge's to +get a cup of tea.</p> + +<p>It was not until he had drawn up immediately opposite the house that +Ronnie perceived what stood upon the steps. Having done so, he blanched +visibly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, my sainted aunt!" he said.</p> + +<p>And seldom can the familiar phrase have been used with more +appropriateness.</p> + +<p>The sainted aunt was inspecting the two-seater and its contents with a +frozen stare. Her eyebrows were two marks of interrogation. As she had +told Millicent, she was old-fashioned, and when she saw her flesh and +blood snuggled up to girls of attractive appearance in two-seaters she +suspected the worst.</p> + +<p>"Good-afternoon, Ronald."</p> + +<p>"Er—hullo, Aunt Constance."</p> + +<p>"Will you introduce me?"</p> + +<p>There is no doubt that peril sharpens the intellect. His masters at +school and his tutors at the university, having had to do with Ronald +Overbury Fish almost entirely at times when his soul was at rest, had +classed him among the less keen-witted of their charges. Had they seen +him now in this crisis they would have pointed at him with pride. +And, being the sportsmen and gentlemen that they were, they would +have hastened to acknowledge that they had grossly underestimated his +ingenuity and initiative.</p> + +<p>For, after turning a rather pretty geranium tint and running a finger +round the inside of his collar for an instant, as if he found it too +tight, Ronnie Fish spoke the only two words in the language which could +have averted disaster.</p> + +<p>"Miss Schoonmaker," he said huskily.</p> + +<p>Sue, at his side, gave a little gasp. These were unsuspected depths.</p> + +<p>"Miss Schoonmaker!"</p> + +<p>Lady Constance's resemblance to Apollyon straddling right across the +way had vanished abruptly. Remorse came upon her that she should have +wronged her blameless nephew with unfounded suspicion.</p> + +<p>"Miss Schoonmaker, my aunt, Lady Constance Keeble," said Ronnie, +going from strength to strength and speaking now quite easily and +articulately.</p> + +<p>Sue was not the girl to sit dumbly by and fail a partner in his hour of +need. She smiled brightly.</p> + +<p>"How do you do, Lady Constance?" she said. She smiled again, if +possible even more brightly than before. "I feel I know you already. +Lady Julia told me so much about you at Biarritz."</p> + +<p>A momentary qualm lest, in the endeavour to achieve an easy cordiality, +she had made her manner a shade too patronizing melted in the sunshine +of the older woman's smile. Lady Constance had become charming, +almost effusive. She had always hoped that Ronald and Millicent would +make a match of it; but, failing that, this rich Miss Schoonmaker +was certainly the next best thing. And driving chummily about London +together like this must surely, she thought, mean something, even in +these days when chummy driving is so prevalent between the sexes. At +any rate, she hoped so.</p> + +<p>"So here you are in London!"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"You did not stay long in Paris."</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"When can you come down to Blandings?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, very soon, I hope."</p> + +<p>"I am going there this evening. I only ran up for the day. I want you +to drive me back, Ronald."</p> + +<p>Ronnie nodded silently. The crisis passed, a weakness had come upon +him. He preferred not to speak, if speech could be avoided.</p> + +<p>"Do try to come soon. The gardens are looking delightful. My brother +will be so glad to see you. I was just on my way to Claridge's for a +cup of tea. Won't you come too?"</p> + +<p>"I'd love to," said Sue, "but I really must be getting on. Ronnie was +taking me shopping."</p> + +<p>"I thought you stayed in Paris to do your shopping."</p> + +<p>"Not all of it."</p> + +<p>"Well, I shall hope to see you soon."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes."</p> + +<p>"At Blandings."</p> + +<p>"Thank you so much. Ronnie, I think we ought to be getting along."</p> + +<p>"Yes." Ronnie's mind was blurred, but he was clear on that point. "Yes, +getting along. Pushing off."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm so delighted to have seen you. My sister told me so much +about you in her letters. After you have put your luggage on the car, +Ronald, will you come and pick me up at Claridge's?"</p> + +<p>"Right ho."</p> + +<p>"I would like to make an early start, if possible."</p> + +<p>"Right ho."</p> + +<p>"Well, good-bye for the present, then."</p> + +<p>"Right ho."</p> + +<p>"Good-bye, Lady Constance."</p> + +<p>"Good-bye."</p> + +<p>The two-seater moved off, and Ronnie, taking his right hand from the +wheel as it turned the corner, groped for a handkerchief, found it, and +passed it over his throbbing brow.</p> + +<p>"So that was Aunt Constance!" said Sue.</p> + +<p>Ronnie breathed deeply.</p> + +<p>"Nice meeting one of whom I have heard so much."</p> + +<p>Ronnie replaced his hand on the wheel and twiddled it feebly to avoid a +dog. Reaction had made him limp.</p> + +<p>Sue was gazing at him almost reverently.</p> + +<p>"What genius, Ronnie! What ready wit! What presence of mind! If I +hadn't heard it with my own ears I wouldn't have believed it. Why +didn't you ever tell me you were one of those swift thinkers?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't know it myself."</p> + +<p>"Of course, I'm afraid it has complicated things a little."</p> + +<p>"Eh?" Ronnie started. This aspect of the matter had not struck him. +"How do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"When I was a child they taught me a poem——"</p> + +<p>Ronnie raised a suffering face to hers.</p> + +<p>"Don't let's talk about your childhood now, old thing," he pleaded. +"Feeling rather shaken. Any other time——"</p> + +<p>"It's all right. I'm not wandering from the subject. I can only +remember two lines of the poem. They were, 'Oh, what a tangled web we +weave when first we practise to deceive.' You do see the web is a bit +tangled, don't you, Ronnie, darling?"</p> + +<p>"Eh? Why? Everything looks pretty smooth to me. Aunt Constance +swallowed you without a yip."</p> + +<p>"And when the real Miss Schoonmaker arrives at Blandings with her +jewels and her twenty-four trunks?" said Sue gently.</p> + +<p>The two-seater swerved madly across Grosvenor Street.</p> + +<p>"Gosh!" said Ronnie.</p> + +<p>Sue's eyes were sparkling.</p> + +<p>"There's only one thing to do," she said. "Now you're in you'll have to +go in deeper. You'll have to put her off."</p> + +<p>"How?"</p> + +<p>"Send her a wire saying she mustn't come to Blandings because scarlet +fever or something has broken out."</p> + +<p>"I couldn't."</p> + +<p>"You must. Sign it in Lady Constance's name."</p> + +<p>"But suppose——"</p> + +<p>"Well, suppose they do find out? You won't be in any worse hole than +you will be if she comes sailing up to the front door all ready to stay +a couple of weeks. And she will unless you wire."</p> + +<p>"That's true."</p> + +<p>"What it means," said Sue, "is that instead of having plenty of time +to get that money out of Lord Emsworth you'll have to work quick." She +touched his arm. "Here's a post office," she said. "Go in and send that +wire before you weaken."</p> + +<p>Ronnie stopped the car.</p> + +<p>"You will have to do the most rapid bit of trustee touching in the +history of the world, I should think," said Sue reflectively. "Do you +think you can manage it?"</p> + +<p>"I'll have a jolly good prod."</p> + +<p>"Remember what it means."</p> + +<p>"I'll do that all right. The only trouble is that in the matter of +biting Uncle Clarence's ear I've nothing to rely on but my natural +charm. And as far as I've been able to make out," said Ronnie, "he +hasn't noticed yet that I have any."</p> + +<p>He strode into the post office, thinking deeply.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III</h2> +</div> + + +<p class="ph2">I</p> + +<p>It was the opinion of the poet Calverley, expressed in his immortal +"Ode to Tobacco," that there is no heaviness of the soul which will +not vanish beneath the influence of a quiet smoke. Ronnie Fish would +have disputed this theory. It was the third morning of his sojourn at +Blandings Castle; and, taking with him a tennis ball which he proposed +to bounce before him in order to assist thought, he had wandered out +into the grounds, smoking hard. And tobacco, though Turkish and costly, +was not lightening his despondency at all. It seemed to Ronnie that the +present was bleak and the future gray. Roaming through the sun-flooded +park, he bounced his tennis ball and groaned in spirit.</p> + +<p>On the credit side of the ledger one single item could be inscribed. +Hugo was at the castle. He had the consolation, therefore, of knowing +that that tall and lissom young man was not in London, exercising his +fatal fascination on Sue. But when you had said this you had said +everything. After all, even eliminating Hugo, there still remained in +the metropolis a vast population of adult males, all either acquainted +with Sue or trying to make her acquaintance. The poison sac Pilbeam, +for instance. By now it might well be that that bacillus had succeeded +in obtaining an introduction to her. A devastating thought.</p> + +<p>And even supposing he hadn't, even supposing that Sue, as she had +promised, was virtuously handing the mitten to all the young thugs who +surged around her with invitations to lunch and supper; where did that +get a chap? What, in other words, of the future?</p> + +<p>In coming to Blandings Castle Ronnie was only too well aware he had +embarked on an expedition the success or failure of which would +determine whether his life through the years was to be roses, roses +all the way or a dreary desert. And so far, in his efforts to win the +favour and esteem of his Uncle Clarence, he seemed to have made no +progress whatsoever. On the occasions when he had found himself in Lord +Emsworth's society the latter had looked at him sometimes as if he did +not know he was there, more often as if he wished he wasn't. It was +only too plain that the collapse of the Hot Spot had left his stock +in bad shape. There had been a general sagging of the market. Fish +Preferred, taking the most sanguine estimate, could scarcely be quoted +at more than about thirty to thirty-five.</p> + +<p>Plunged in thought and trying without any success to conjure up a +picture of a benevolent uncle patting him on the head with one hand +while writing checks with the other, he had wandered some distance from +the house and was passing a small spinney when he observed in a little +dell to his left a peculiar object.</p> + +<p>It was a large yellow caravan. And what, he asked himself, was a +caravan doing in the grounds of Blandings Castle?</p> + +<p>To aid him in grappling with the problem he flung the tennis ball at +it. Upon which the door opened and a spectacled head appeared.</p> + +<p>"Hullo!" said the head.</p> + +<p>"Hullo!" said Ronnie.</p> + +<p>"Hullo!"</p> + +<p>"Hullo!"</p> + +<p>The thing threatened to become a hunting chorus. At this moment, +however, the sun went behind a cloud, and Ronnie was enabled to +recognize the head's proprietor. Until now the light, shining on the +other's glasses, had dazzled him.</p> + +<p>"Baxter!" he exclaimed.</p> + +<p>The last person he would have expected to meet in the park of +Blandings. He had heard all about that row a couple of years ago. He +knew that if his own stock with Lord Emsworth was low that of the +Efficient Baxter was down in the cellar with no takers. Yet here the +fellow was, shoving his head out of caravans as if nothing had happened.</p> + +<p>"Ah, Fish!"</p> + +<p>Rupert Baxter descended the steps, a swarthy-complexioned young man +with a supercilious expression which had always been displeasing to +Ronnie.</p> + +<p>"What are you doing here?" asked Ronnie.</p> + +<p>"I happened to be taking a caravan holiday in the neighbourhood. And, +finding myself at Market Blandings last night, I thought I would pay a +visit to the place where I had spent so many happy days."</p> + +<p>"I see."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps you could tell me where I could find Lady Constance?"</p> + +<p>"I haven't seen her since breakfast. She's probably about somewhere."</p> + +<p>"I will go and inquire. If you meet her perhaps you would not mind +mentioning that I am here."</p> + +<p>The Efficient Baxter strode off, purposeful as ever; and Ronnie, having +speculated for a moment as to how his Uncle Clarence would comport +himself if he came suddenly round a corner and ran into this bit of the +dead past, and having registered an idle hope that, when this happened, +he might be present with a camera, inserted another cigarette in its +holder and passed on his way.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p class="ph2">II</p> + +<p>Five minutes later Lord Emsworth, leaning pensively out of the library +window and sniffing the morning air, received an unpleasant shock. He +could have sworn he had seen his late secretary, Rupert Baxter, cross +the gravel and go in at the front door.</p> + +<p>"Bless my soul!" said Lord Emsworth.</p> + +<p>The only explanation that occurred to him was that Baxter, having +met with some fatal accident, had come back to haunt the place. To +suppose the fellow could be here in person was absurd. When you shoot +a secretary out for throwing flower pots at you in the small hours he +does not return to pay social calls. A frown furrowed his lordship's +brow. The spectre of one of his ancestors he could have put up with, +but the idea of a Blandings Castle haunted by Baxter he did not relish +at all. He decided to visit his sister Constance in her boudoir and see +what she had to say about it.</p> + +<p>"Constance, my dear."</p> + +<p>Lady Constance looked up from the letter she was writing. She clicked +her tongue, for it annoyed her to be interrupted at her correspondence.</p> + +<p>"Well, Clarence?"</p> + +<p>"I say, Constance, a most extraordinary thing happened just now. I was +looking out of the library window and—you remember Baxter?"</p> + +<p>"Of course I remember Mr. Baxter."</p> + +<p>"Well, his ghost has just walked across the gravel."</p> + +<p>"What <i>are</i> you talking about, Clarence?"</p> + +<p>"I'm telling you. I was looking out of the library window and I +suddenly saw——"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Baxter," announced Beach, flinging open the door.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Baxter!"</p> + +<p>"Good-morning, Lady Constance."</p> + +<p>Rupert Baxter advanced with joyous camaraderie glinting from both +lenses. Then he perceived his former employer, and his exuberance +diminished. "Er—good-morning, Lord Emsworth," he said, flashing his +spectacles austerely upon him.</p> + +<p>There was a pause. Lord Emsworth adjusted his pince-nez and regarded +the visitor dumbly. Of the relief which was presumably flooding his +soul at the discovery that Rupert Baxter was still on this side of the +veil he gave no outward sign.</p> + +<p>Baxter was the first to break an uncomfortable silence.</p> + +<p>"I happened to be taking a caravan holiday in this neighbourhood, +Lady Constance, and finding myself near Market Blandings last night I +thought I would...."</p> + +<p>"Why, of course! We should never have forgiven you if you had not come +to see us. Should we, Clarence?"</p> + +<p>"Eh?"</p> + +<p>"I said, should we?"</p> + +<p>"Should we what?" said Lord Emsworth, who was still adjusting his mind.</p> + +<p>Lady Constance's lips tightened, and a moment passed during which it +seemed always a fifty-fifty chance that a handsome silver ink pot would +fly through the air in the direction of her brother's head. But she was +a strong woman. She fought down the impulse.</p> + +<p>"Did you say you were travelling in a caravan, Mr. Baxter?"</p> + +<p>"In a caravan. I left it in the park."</p> + +<p>"Well, of course you must come and stay with us. The castle," she +continued, raising her voice a little, to compete with a sort of +wordless bubbling which had begun to proceed from her brother's lips, +"is almost empty just now. We shall not be having our first big house +party till the middle of next month. You must make quite a long visit. +I will send somebody over to fetch your things."</p> + +<p>"It is exceedingly kind of you."</p> + +<p>"It will be delightful having you here again. Won't it, Clarence?"</p> + +<p>"Eh?"</p> + +<p>"I said, won't it?"</p> + +<p>"Won't it what?"</p> + +<p>Lady Constance's hand trembled above the ink pot like a hovering +butterfly. She withdrew it.</p> + +<p>"Will it not be delightful," she said, catching her brother's eye and +holding it like a female Ancient Mariner, "having Mr. Baxter back at +the castle again?"</p> + +<p>"I'm going down to see my pig," said Lord Emsworth.</p> + +<p>A silence followed his departure, such as would have fallen had a +coffin just been carried out. Then Lady Constance shook off gloom.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mr. Baxter, I'm so glad you were able to come. And how clever +of you to come in a caravan. It prevented your arrival seeming +prearranged."</p> + +<p>"I thought of that."</p> + +<p>"You think of everything."</p> + +<p>Rupert Baxter stepped to the door, opened it, satisfied himself that no +listeners lurked in the passage, and returned to his seat.</p> + +<p>"Are you in any trouble, Lady Constance? Your letter seemed so very +urgent."</p> + +<p>"I am in dreadful trouble, Mr. Baxter."</p> + +<p>If Rupert Baxter had been a different type of man and Lady Constance +Keeble a different type of woman he would probably at this point have +patted her hand. As it was he merely hitched his chair an inch closer +to hers.</p> + +<p>"If there is anything I can do?"</p> + +<p>"There is nobody except you who can do anything. But I hardly like to +ask you."</p> + +<p>"Ask me whatever you please. And if it is in my power...."</p> + +<p>"Oh, it is."</p> + +<p>Rupert Baxter gave his chair another hitch.</p> + +<p>"Tell me."</p> + +<p>Lady Constance hesitated.</p> + +<p>"It seems such an impossible thing to ask of anyone."</p> + +<p>"Please!"</p> + +<p>"Well—you know my brother?"</p> + +<p>Baxter seemed puzzled. Then an explanation of the peculiar question +presented itself.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you mean Mr...?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, yes. Of course I wasn't referring to Lord Emsworth. My +brother Galahad."</p> + +<p>"I have met him. Oddly enough, though he visited the castle twice +during the period when I was Lord Emsworth's secretary, I was away both +times on my holiday. Is he here now?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Finishing his Reminiscences."</p> + +<p>"I saw in some paper that he was writing the history of his life."</p> + +<p>"And if you know what a life his has been you will understand why I am +distracted."</p> + +<p>"Certainly I have heard stories," said Baxter guardedly.</p> + +<p>Lady Constance performed that movement with her hands which came so +close to wringing.</p> + +<p>"The book is full from beginning to end of libellous anecdotes, Mr. +Baxter. About all our best friends. If it is published we shall +not have a friend left. Galahad seems to have known everybody in +England when they were young and foolish and to remember everything +particularly foolish and disgraceful that they did. So——"</p> + +<p>"So you want me to get hold of the manuscript and destroy it?"</p> + +<p>Lady Constance stared, stunned by this penetration. She told herself +that she might have known that she would not have to make long +explanations to Rupert Baxter. His mind was like a searchlight, darting +hither and thither, lighting up whatever it touched.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she gasped. She hurried on. "It does seem, I know, an +extraordinary thing to——"</p> + +<p>"Not at all."</p> + +<p>"—but Lord Emsworth refuses to do anything."</p> + +<p>"I see."</p> + +<p>"You know how he is in the face of any emergency."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I do, indeed."</p> + +<p>"So supine. So helpless. So vague and altogether incompetent."</p> + +<p>"Precisely."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Baxter, you are my only hope."</p> + +<p>Baxter removed his spectacles, polished them, and put them back again.</p> + +<p>"I shall be delighted, Lady Constance, to do anything to help you that +lies in my power. And to obtain possession of this manuscript should be +an easy task. But is there only one copy of it in existence?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, yes. I am sure of that. Galahad told me that he was waiting +till it was finished before sending it to the typist."</p> + +<p>"Then you need have no further anxiety."</p> + +<p>It was a moment when Lady Constance Keeble would have given much for +eloquence. She sought for words that should adequately express her +feelings, but could find none.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mr. Baxter!" she said.</p> + +<p>Ronnie Fish's aimlessly wandering feet had taken him westward. It was +not long, accordingly, before there came to his nostrils a familiar and +penetrating odour, and he found that he was within a short distance of +the detached residence employed by Empress of Blandings as a combined +bedroom and restaurant. A few steps and he was enabled to observe that +celebrated animal in person. With her head tucked well down and her +tail wiggling with pure <i>joie de vivre</i>, the Empress was hoisting in a +spot of lunch.</p> + +<p>Everybody likes to see somebody eating. Ronnie leaned over the rail, +absorbed. He poised the tennis ball and with an absent-minded flick +of the wrist bounced it on the silver medallist's back. Finding the +pleasant, ponging sound which resulted soothing to harassed nerves, he +did it again. The Empress made excellent bouncing. She was not one of +your razor-backs. She presented a wide and resistant surface. For some +minutes, therefore, the pair carried on according to plan—she eating, +he bouncing, until presently Ronnie was thrilled to discover that this +outdoor sport of his was assisting thought. Gradually—mistily at +first, then assuming shape—a plan of action was beginning to emerge +from the murk of his mind.</p> + +<p>How would this be, for instance?</p> + +<p>If there was one thing calculated to appeal to his Uncle Clarence, +to induce in his Uncle Clarence a really melting mood, it was the +announcement that somebody desired to return to the land. He loved to +hear of people returning to the land. How, then, would this be? Go to +the old boy, state that one had seen the light and was in complete +agreement with him that England's future depended on checking the drift +to the towns, and then ask for a good fat slice of capital with which +to start a farm.</p> + +<p>The project of starting a farm was one which was bound to——Half +a minute. Another idea on the way. Yes, here it came, and it was a +pippin. Not merely just an ordinary farm, but a pig farm! Wouldn't +Uncle Clarence leap in the air and shower gold on anybody who wanted to +live in the country and breed pigs? You bet your Sunday cuffs he would. +And, once the money was safely deposited to the account of Ronald +Overbury Fish in Cox's Bank, then ho! for the registrar's hand in hand +with Sue.</p> + +<p>There was a musical <i>plonk</i> as Ronnie bounced the ball for the last +time on the Empress's complacent back. Then, no longer with dragging +steps but treading on air, he wandered away to sketch out the last +details of the scheme before going indoors and springing it.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p class="ph2">III</p> + +<p>Too often it happens that, when you get these brain waves, you take +another look at them after a short interval and suddenly detect some +fatal flaw. No such disappointment came to mar the happiness of Ronnie +Fish.</p> + +<p>"I say, Uncle Clarence," he said, prancing into the library some half +hour later.</p> + +<p>Lord Emsworth was deep in the current issue of a weekly paper of +porcine interest. It seemed to Ronnie, as he looked up, that his eye +was not any too chummy. This, however, did not disturb him. That eye, +he was confident, would melt anon. If, at the moment, Lord Emsworth +could hardly have sat for his portrait in the rôle of a benevolent +uncle, there would, Ronnie felt, be a swift change of demeanour in the +very near future.</p> + +<p>"I say, Uncle Clarence, you know that capital of mine."</p> + +<p>"That what?"</p> + +<p>"My capital. My money. The money you're trustee of. And a jolly good +trustee," said Ronnie handsomely. "Well, I've been thinking things +over, and I want you, if you will, to disgorge a segment of it for a +sort of venture I've got in mind."</p> + +<p>He had not expected the eye to melt yet, and it did not. Seen through +the glass of his uncle's pince-nez it looked like an oyster in an +aquarium.</p> + +<p>"You wish to start another night club?"</p> + +<p>Lord Emsworth's voice was cold, and Ronnie hastened to disabuse him of +the idea.</p> + +<p>"No, no. Nothing like that. Night clubs are a mug's game. I ought never +to have touched them. As a matter of fact, Uncle Clarence, London as +a whole seems to me a bit of a washout these days. I'm all for the +country. What I feel is that the drift to the towns should be checked. +What England wants is more blokes going back to the land. That's the +way it looks to me."</p> + +<p>Ronnie Fish began to experience the first definite twinges of +uneasiness. This was the point at which he had been confident that the +melting process would set in. Yet, watching the eye, he was dismayed +to find it as oysterlike as ever. He felt like an actor who has been +counting on a round of applause and goes off after his big speech +without a hand. The idea occurred to him that his uncle might possibly +have grown a little hard of hearing.</p> + +<p>"To the land," he repeated, raising his voice. "More blokes going back +to the land. So I want a dollop of capital to start a farm."</p> + +<p>He braced himself for the supreme revelation.</p> + +<p>"I want to breed pigs," he said reverently.</p> + +<p>Something was wrong. There was no blinking the fact any longer. So far +from leaping in the air and showering gold his uncle merely stared at +him in an increasingly unpleasant manner. Lord Emsworth had removed his +pince-nez and was wiping them; and Ronnie thought that his eye looked +rather less agreeable in the nude than it had done through glass.</p> + +<p>"Pigs!" he cried, fighting against a growing alarm.</p> + +<p>"Pigs?"</p> + +<p>"Pigs."</p> + +<p>"You wish to breed pigs?"</p> + +<p>"That's right," bellowed Ronnie. "Pigs!" And from somewhere in his +system he contrived to dig up and fasten on his face an ingratiating +smile.</p> + +<p>Lord Emsworth replaced his pince-nez.</p> + +<p>"And I suppose," he said throatily, quivering from his head to his +roomy shoes, "that when you've got 'em you'll spend the whole day +bouncing tennis balls on their backs?"</p> + +<p>Ronnie gulped. The shock had been severe. The ingratiating smile +lingered on his lips, as if fastened there with pins, but his eyes were +round and horrified.</p> + +<p>"Eh?" he said feebly.</p> + +<p>Lord Emsworth rose. So long as he insisted on wearing an old shooting +jacket with holes in the elbows and letting his tie slip down and +show the head of a brass stud, he could never hope to be completely +satisfactory as a figure of outraged majesty; but he achieved as +imposing an effect as his upholstery would permit. He drew himself up +to his full height, which was considerable, and from this eminence +glared balefully down on his nephew.</p> + +<p>"I saw you! I was on my way to the piggery and I saw you bouncing your +infernal tennis balls on my pig's back. Tennis balls!" Fire seemed to +stream from the pince-nez. "Are you aware that Empress of Blandings is +an excessively nervous, highly strung animal, only too ready on the +lightest provocation to refuse her meals? You might have undone the +work of months with your idiotic tennis ball."</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry."</p> + +<p>"What's the good of being sorry?"</p> + +<p>"I never thought——"</p> + +<p>"You never do. That's what's the trouble with you. Pig farm!" said Lord +Emsworth vehemently, his voice soaring into the upper register. "You +couldn't manage a pig farm. You aren't fit to manage a pig farm. You +aren't worthy to manage a pig farm. If I had to select somebody out of +the whole world to manage a pig farm I would choose you last."</p> + +<p>Ronnie Fish groped his way to the table and supported himself on it. +He had a sensation of dizziness. On one point he was reasonably clear, +viz.: that his Uncle Clarence did not consider him ideally fitted to +manage a pig farm, but apart from that his mind was in a whirl. He felt +as if he had stepped on something and it had gone off with a bang.</p> + +<p>"Here! What <i>is</i> all this?"</p> + +<p>It was the Hon. Galahad who had spoken, and he had spoken peevishly. +Working in the small library with the door ajar, he had found the +babble of voices interfering with literary composition and, justifiably +annoyed, had come to investigate.</p> + +<p>"Can't you do your reciting some time when I'm not working, Clarence?" +he said. "What's all the trouble about?"</p> + +<p>Lord Emsworth was still full of his grievance.</p> + +<p>"He bounced tennis balls on my pig!"</p> + +<p>The Hon. Galahad was not impressed. He did not register horror.</p> + +<p>"Do you mean to tell me," he said sternly, "that all this fuss, ruining +my morning's work, was simply about that blasted pig of yours?"</p> + +<p>"I refuse to allow you to call the Empress a blasted pig! Good +heavens!" cried Lord Emsworth passionately. "Can none of my family +appreciate the fact that she is the most remarkable animal in Great +Britain? No pig in the whole annals of the Shropshire Agricultural Show +has ever won the silver medal two years in succession. And that, if +only people will leave her alone and refrain from incessantly pelting +her with tennis balls, is what the Empress is quite certain to do. It +is an unheard of feat."</p> + +<p>The Hon. Galahad frowned. He shook his head reprovingly. It was all +very well, he felt, a stable being optimistic about its nominee, but +he was a man who could face facts. In a long and checkered life he had +seen so many good things unstuck. Besides, he had his superstitions, +and one of them was that counting your chickens in advance brought bad +luck.</p> + +<p>"Don't be too cocksure, my boy," he said gravely. "I looked in at +the Emsworth Arms the other day for a glass of beer, and there was a +fellow in there offering three to one on an animal called Pride of +Matchingham. Offering it freely. Tall, red-haired fellow with a squint. +Slightly bottled."</p> + +<p>Lord Emsworth forgot Ronnie, forgot tennis balls, forgot in the shock +of this announcement everything except that deeper wrong which so long +had been poisoning his peace.</p> + +<p>"Pride of Matchingham belongs to Sir Gregory Parsloe," he said, "and I +have no doubt that the man offering such ridiculous odds was his pig +man, Wellbeloved. As you know, the fellow used to be in my employment, +but Parsloe lured him away from me by the promise of higher wages." +Lord Emsworth's expression had now become positively ferocious. The +thought of George Cyril Wellbeloved, that perjured pig man, always +made the iron enter into his soul. "It was a most abominable and +unneighbourly thing to do."</p> + +<p>The Hon. Galahad whistled.</p> + +<p>"So that's it, is it? Parsloe's pig man going about offering three to +one—against the form book, I take it?"</p> + +<p>"Most decidedly. Pride of Matchingham was awarded second prize last +year, but it is a quite inferior animal to the Empress."</p> + +<p>"Then you look after that pig of yours, Clarence." The Hon. Galahad +spoke earnestly. "I see what this means. Parsloe's up to his old games +and intends to queer the Empress somehow."</p> + +<p>"Queer her?"</p> + +<p>"Nobble her; or, if he can't do that, steal her."</p> + +<p>"You don't mean that?"</p> + +<p>"I do mean it. The man's as slippery as a greased eel. He would nobble +his grandmother if it suited his book. Let me tell you I've known young +Parsloe for thirty years, and I solemnly state that if his grandmother +was entered in a competition for fat pigs and his commitments made it +desirable for him to get her out of the way, he would dope her bran +mash and acorns without a moment's hesitation."</p> + +<p>"God bless my soul!" said Lord Emsworth, deeply impressed.</p> + +<p>"Let me tell you a little story about young Parsloe. One or two of +us used to meet at the Black Footman in Gossiter Street in the old +days—they've pulled it down now—and match our dogs against rats in +the room behind the bar. Well, I put my Towser, an admirable beast, +up against young Parsloe's Banjo on one occasion for a hundred pounds +a side. And when the night came and he was shown the rats I'm dashed +if he didn't just give a long yawn and roll over and go to sleep. I +whistled him—called him—Towser, Towser!—No good—fast asleep. And +my firm belief has always been that young Parsloe took him aside just +before the contest was to start and gave him about six pounds of steak +and onions. Couldn't prove anything, of course, but I sniffed the dog's +breath, and it was like opening the kitchen door of a Soho chophouse on +a summer night. That's the sort of man young Parsloe is."</p> + +<p>"Galahad!"</p> + +<p>"Fact. You'll find the story in my book."</p> + +<p>Lord Emsworth was tottering to the door.</p> + +<p>"God bless my soul! I never realized ... I must see Pirbright at once. +I didn't suspect.... It never occurred...."</p> + +<p>The door closed behind him. The Hon. Galahad, preparing to return to +his labours, was arrested by the voice of his nephew Ronald.</p> + +<p>"Uncle Gally!"</p> + +<p>The young man's pink face had flamed to a bright crimson. His eyes +gleamed strangely.</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"You don't really think Sir Gregory will try to steal the Empress?"</p> + +<p>"I certainly do. Known him for thirty years, I tell you."</p> + +<p>"But how could he?"</p> + +<p>"Go to her sty at night, of course, and take her away."</p> + +<p>"And hide her somewhere?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"But an animal of that size. Rather like looking in at the Zoo and +pocketing one of the elephants, what?"</p> + +<p>"Don't talk like an idiot. She's got a ring through her nose, hasn't +she?"</p> + +<p>"You mean, Sir Gregory would catch hold of the ring and she would +breeze along quite calmly?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly. Puffy Benger and I stole old Wivenhoe's pig the night of +the Bachelors Ball at Hammers Easton in the year '95. We put it in Plug +Basham's bedroom. There was no difficulty about the thing whatsoever. A +little child could have led it."</p> + +<p>He withdrew into the small library, and Ronnie slid limply into the +chair which Lord Emsworth had risen from so majestically. He felt the +need of sitting. The inspiration which had just come to him had had a +stunning effect. The brilliance of it almost frightened him. That idea +about starting a pig farm had shown that this was one of his bright +mornings, but he had never foreseen that he would be as bright as this.</p> + +<p>"Golly!" said Ronnie.</p> + +<p>Could he...?</p> + +<p>Well, why not?</p> + +<p>Suppose....</p> + +<p>No, the thing was impossible.</p> + +<p>Was it? Why? Why was it impossible? Suppose he had a stab at it. +Suppose, following his Uncle Galahad's expert hints, he were to creep +out to-night, abstract the Empress from her home, hide her somewhere +for a day or two, and then spectacularly restore her to her bereaved +owner? What would be the result? Would Uncle Clarence sob on his neck +or would he not? Would he feel that no reward was too good for his +benefactor or wouldn't he? Most decidedly he would. Fish Preferred +would soar immediately. That little matter of the advance of capital +would solve itself. Money would stream automatically from the Emsworth +coffers.</p> + +<p>But could it be done? Ronnie forced himself to examine the scheme +dispassionately, with a mind alert for snags.</p> + +<p>He could detect none. A suitable hiding place occurred to him +immediately—that disused gamekeeper's cottage in the west wood. Nobody +ever went there. It would be as good as a Safe Deposit.</p> + +<p>Risk of detection? Why should there be any risk of detection? Who would +think of connecting Ronald Fish with the affair?</p> + +<p>Feeding the animal?...</p> + +<p>Ronnie's face clouded. Yes, here at last was the snag. This did present +difficulties. He was vague as to what pigs ate, but he knew that they +needed a lot of whatever it was. It would be no use restoring to Lord +Emsworth a skeleton Empress. The cuisine must be maintained at its +existing level or the thing might just as well be left undone.</p> + +<p>For the first time he began to doubt the quality of his recent +inspiration. Scanning the desk with knitted brows, he took from the +book rest the volume entitled <i>Pigs, and How to Make Them Pay</i>. A +glance at page 61 and his misgivings were confirmed.</p> + +<p>"'myes," said Ronnie, having skimmed through all the stuff about barley +meal and maize meal and linseed meal and potatoes and separated milk or +buttermilk. This, he now saw clearly, was no one-man job. It called not +only for a dashing principal but a zealous assistant.</p> + +<p>And what assistant?</p> + +<p>Hugo?</p> + +<p>No. In many respects the ideal accomplice for an undertaking of +this nature, Hugo Carmody had certain defects that automatically +disqualified him. To enrol Hugo as his lieutenant would mean revealing +to him the motives that lay at the back of the venture. And if Hugo +knew that he, Ronnie, was endeavouring to collect funds in order to get +married the thing would be all over Shropshire in a couple of days. +Short of putting it on the front page of the <i>Daily Mail</i> or having +it broadcast over the wireless, the surest way of obtaining publicity +for anything you wanted kept dark was to confide it to Hugo Carmody. A +splendid chap, but the real, genuine human colander. No, not Hugo.</p> + +<p>Then who...?</p> + +<p>Ah!</p> + +<p>Ronnie Fish sprang from his chair, threw his head back, and uttered a +yodel of joy so loud and penetrating that the door of the small library +flew open as if he had touched a spring.</p> + +<p>A tousled literary man emerged.</p> + +<p>"Stop that damned noise! How the devil can I write with a row like that +going on?"</p> + +<p>"Sorry, Uncle. I was just thinking of something."</p> + +<p>"Well, think of something else. How do you spell 'intoxicated?'"</p> + +<p>"One 'x.'"</p> + +<p>"Thanks," said the Hon. Galahad, and vanished again.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p class="ph2">IV</p> + +<p>In his pantry, in shirt-sleeved ease, Beach, the butler, sat taking +the well-earned rest of a man whose silver is all done and who has +no further duties to perform till lunch time. A bullfinch sang gaily +in a cage on the window sill, but it did not disturb him, for he was +absorbed in the Racing Intelligence page of the <i>Morning Post</i>.</p> + +<p>Suddenly he rose, palpitating. A sharp rap had sounded on the door, and +he was a man who reacted nervously to sudden noises. There entered his +employer's nephew, Mr. Ronald Fish.</p> + +<p>"Hullo, Beach."</p> + +<p>"Sir?"</p> + +<p>"Busy?"</p> + +<p>"No, sir."</p> + +<p>"Just thought I'd look in."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"For a chat."</p> + +<p>"Very good, sir."</p> + +<p>Although the butler spoke with his usual smooth courtesy he was far +from feeling easy in his mind. He did not like Ronnie's looks. It +seemed to him that his young visitor was feverish. The limbs twitched, +the eyes gleamed, the blood pressure appeared heightened, and there was +a supernormal pinkness in the epidermis of the cheek.</p> + +<p>"Long time since we had a cosy talk, Beach."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"When I was a kid I used to be in and out of this pantry of yours all +day long."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>A mood of extreme sentimentality now appeared to grip the young man. He +sighed like a centenarian recalling far-off, happy things.</p> + +<p>"Those were the days, Beach."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"No problems then. No worries. And even if I had worries I could always +bring them to you, couldn't I?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"Remember the time I hid in here when my uncle Gally was after me with +a whangee for putting tin-tacks on his chair?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"It was a close call, but you saved me. You were staunch and true. A +man in a million. I've always thought that if there were more people +like you in the world it would be a better place."</p> + +<p>"I do my best to give satisfaction, sir."</p> + +<p>"And how you succeed! I shall never forget your kindness in those dear +old days, Beach."</p> + +<p>"Extremely good of you to say so, sir."</p> + +<p>"Later, as the years went by, I did my best to repay you by sharing +with you such snips as came my way. Remember the time I gave you +Blackbird for the Manchester November Handicap?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"You collected a packet."</p> + +<p>"It did prove a remarkably sound investment, sir."</p> + +<p>"Yes. And so it went on. I look back through the years, and I seem to +see you and me standing side by side, each helping each, each doing the +square thing by the other. You certainly always did the square thing by +me."</p> + +<p>"I trust I shall always continue to do so, sir."</p> + +<p>"I know you will, Beach. It isn't in you to do otherwise. And that," +said Ronnie, beaming on him lovingly, "is why I feel so sure that, when +I have stolen my uncle's pig, you will be there helping to feed it till +I give it back."</p> + +<p>The butler's was not a face that registered nimbly. It took some time +for a look of utter astonishment to cover its full acreage. Such a look +had spread to perhaps two thirds of its surface when Ronnie went on.</p> + +<p>"You see, Beach, strictly between ourselves, I have made up my mind to +sneak the Empress away and keep her hidden in that gamekeeper's cottage +in the west wood, and then, when Uncle Clarence is sending out S O S's +and offering large rewards, I shall find it there and return it, thus +winning his undying gratitude and putting him in the right frame of +mind to yield up a bit of my money that I want to get out of him. You +get the idea?"</p> + +<p>The butler blinked. He was plainly endeavouring to conquer a suspicion +that his mind was darkening. Ronnie nodded kindly at him as he fought +for speech.</p> + +<p>"It's the scheme of a lifetime, you were going to say? You're quite +right. It is. But it's one of these schemes that call for a sympathetic +fellow worker. You see, pigs like the Empress, Beach, require large +quantities of food at frequent intervals. I can't possibly handle the +entire commissariat department myself. That's where you're going to +help me, like the splendid fellow you are and always have been."</p> + +<p>The butler had now begun to gargle slightly. He cast a look of agonized +entreaty at the bullfinch, but the bird had no comfort to offer. +It continued to chirp reflectively to itself, like a man trying to +remember a tune in his bath.</p> + +<p>"An enormous quantity of food they need," proceeded Ronnie. "You'd be +surprised. Here it is in this book I took from my uncle's desk. At +least six pounds of meal a day, not to mention milk or buttermilk and +bran made sloppy with swill."</p> + +<p>Speech at last returned to the butler. It took the form at first of a +faint sound like the cry of a frightened infant. Then words came.</p> + +<p>"But, Mr. Ronald...!"</p> + +<p>Ronnie stared at him incredulously. He seemed to be wrestling with an +unbelievable suspicion.</p> + +<p>"Don't tell me you're thinking of throwing me down, Beach? You? +My friend since I was so high?" He laughed. He could see now how +ridiculous the idea was. "Of course you aren't! You couldn't. Apart +from wanting to do me a good turn you've gathered by this time with +that quick intelligence of yours that there's money in the thing. Ten +quid down, Beach, the moment you give the nod. And nobody knows better +than yourself that ten quid, invested on Baby Bones for the Medbury +Selling Plate at the current odds, means considerably more than a +hundred in your sock on settling day."</p> + +<p>"But, sir—it's impossible. I couldn't dream.... If ever it was found +out.... Really, I don't think you ought to ask me, Mr. Ronald."</p> + +<p>"Beach!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, but really, sir...."</p> + +<p>Ronnie fixed him with a compelling eye.</p> + +<p>"Think well, Beach. Who gave you Creole Queen for the Lincolnshire?"</p> + +<p>"But, Mr. Ronald...."</p> + +<p>"Who gave you Mazawattee for the Jubilee Stakes, Beach? What a beauty!"</p> + +<p>A tense silence fell upon the pantry. Even the bullfinch was hushed.</p> + +<p>"And it may interest you to know," said Ronnie, "that just before I +left London I heard of something really hot for the Goodwood Cup."</p> + +<p>A low gasp escaped Beach. All butlers are sportsmen, and Beach had been +a butler for eighteen years. Mere gratitude for past favours might not +have been enough in itself to turn the scale, but this was different. +On the subject of form for the Goodwood Cup he had been quite unable to +reach a satisfying decision. It had baffled him. For days he had been +groping in the darkness.</p> + +<p>"Jujube, sir?" he whispered.</p> + +<p>"Not Jujube."</p> + +<p>"Ginger George?"</p> + +<p>"Not Ginger George. It's no use your trying to guess, for you'll never +do it. Only two touts and the stable cat know this one. But you shall +know it, Beach, the minute I give that pig back and claim my reward. +And that pig needs to be fed. Beach, how about it?"</p> + +<p>For a long minute the butler stared before him, silent. Then, as if he +felt that some simple, symbolic act of the sort was what this moment +demanded, he went to the bullfinch's cage and put a green baize cloth +over it.</p> + +<p>"Tell me just what it is you wish me to do, Mr. Ronald," he said.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p class="ph2">V</p> + +<p>The dawn of another day crept upon Blandings Castle. Hour by hour the +light grew stronger till, piercing the curtains of Ronnie's bedroom, it +woke him from a disturbed slumber. He turned sleepily on the pillow. +He was dimly conscious of having had the most extraordinary dream, all +about stealing pigs. In this dream....</p> + +<p>He sat up with a jerk. Like cold water dashed in his face had come the +realization that it had been no dream.</p> + +<p>"Gosh!" said Ronnie, blinking.</p> + +<p>Few things have such a tonic effect on a young man accustomed to be +a little heavy on waking in the morning as the discovery that he has +stolen a prize pig overnight. Usually, at this hour, Ronnie was more +or less of an inanimate mass till kindly hands brought him his early +cup of tea; but to-day he thrilled all down his pajama-clad form with a +novel alertness. Not since he had left school had he sprung out of bed, +but he did so now. Bed, generally so attractive to him, had lost its +fascination. He wanted to be up and about.</p> + +<p>He had bathed, shaved, and was slipping into his trousers when his +toilet was interrupted by the arrival of his old friend Hugo Carmody. +On Hugo's face there was an expression which it was impossible to +misread. It indicated as plainly as a label that he had come bearing +news, and Ronnie, guessing the nature of this news, braced himself to +be suitably startled.</p> + +<p>"Ronnie!"</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"Heard what's happened?"</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"You know that pig of your uncle's?"</p> + +<p>"What about it?"</p> + +<p>"It's gone."</p> + +<p>"Gone!"</p> + +<p>"Gone!" said Hugo, rolling the word round his tongue. "I met the old +boy half a minute ago, and he told me. It seems he went down to the pig +bin for a before-breakfast look at the animal and it wasn't there."</p> + +<p>"Wasn't there?"</p> + +<p>"Wasn't there."</p> + +<p>"How do you mean, wasn't there?"</p> + +<p>"Well, it wasn't. Wasn't there at all. It had gone."</p> + +<p>"Gone?"</p> + +<p>"Gone! Its room was empty and its bed had not been slept in."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm dashed!" said Ronnie.</p> + +<p>He was feeling pleased with himself. He felt he had played his part +well. Just the right incredulous amazement, changing just soon enough +into stunned belief.</p> + +<p>"You don't seem very surprised," said Hugo.</p> + +<p>Ronnie was stung. The charge was monstrous.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I do," he cried. "I seem frightfully surprised. I <i>am</i> surprised. +Why shouldn't I be surprised?"</p> + +<p>"All right. Just as you say. Spring about a bit more, though, another +time when I bring you these sensational items. Well, I'll tell you one +thing," said Hugo with satisfaction. "Out of evil cometh good. It's an +ill wind that has no turning. For me this startling occurrence has been +a life saver. I've got thirty-six hours' leave out of it. The old boy +is sending me up to London to get a detective."</p> + +<p>"A what?"</p> + +<p>"A detective."</p> + +<p>"A detective!"</p> + +<p>Ronnie was conscious of a marked spasm of uneasiness. He had not +bargained for detectives.</p> + +<p>"From a place called the Argus Enquiry Agency."</p> + +<p>Ronnie's uneasiness increased. This thing was not going to be so simple +after all. He had never actually met a detective, but he had read a lot +about them. They nosed about and found clues. For all he knew he might +have left a hundred clues.</p> + +<p>"Naturally I shall have to stay the night in town. And, much as I like +this place," said Hugo, "there's no denying that a night in town won't +hurt. I've got fidgety feet, and a spot of dancing will do me all the +good in the world. Bring back the roses to my cheeks."</p> + +<p>"Whose idea was it, getting down this blighted detective?" demanded +Ronnie. He knew he was not being nonchalant, but he was disturbed.</p> + +<p>"Mine."</p> + +<p>"Yours, eh?"</p> + +<p>"All mine. I suggested it."</p> + +<p>"You did, did you?" said Ronnie.</p> + +<p>He directed at his companion a swift glance of a kind that no one +should have directed at an old friend.</p> + +<p>"Oh?" he said morosely. "Well, buzz off. I want to dress."</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p class="ph2">VI</p> + +<p>A morning spent in solitary wrestling with a guilty conscience had left +Ronnie Fish thoroughly unstrung. By the time the clock over the stable +struck the hour of one his mental condition had begun to resemble that +of the late Eugene Aram. He paced the lower terrace with bent head, +starting occasionally at the sudden chirp of a bird, and longed for +Sue. Five minutes of Sue, he felt, would make him a new man.</p> + +<p>It was perfectly foul, mused Ronnie, this being separated from the girl +he loved. There was something about Sue—he couldn't describe it, but +something that always seemed to act on a fellow's whole system like a +powerful pick-me-up. She was the human equivalent of those pink drinks +you went and got—or, rather, which you used to go and get before a +good woman's love had made you give up all that sort of thing—at that +chemist's at the top of the Haymarket after a wild night on the moors. +It must have been with a girl like Sue in mind, he felt, that the poet +had written those lines "When something something something brow, a +ministering angel thou"!</p> + +<p>At this point in his meditations, a voice from immediately behind him +spoke his name.</p> + +<p>"I say, Ronnie."</p> + +<p>It was only his cousin Millicent. He became calmer. For an instant, so +deep always is a criminal's need for a confidant, he had a sort of idea +of sharing his hideous secret with this girl, between whom and himself +there had long existed a pleasant friendship. Then he abandoned the +notion. His secret was not one that could be lightly shared. Momentary +relief of mind was not worth purchasing at the cost of endless anxiety.</p> + +<p>"Ronnie, have you seen Mr. Carmody anywhere?"</p> + +<p>"Hugo? He went up to London on the ten-thirty."</p> + +<p>"Went up to London? What for?"</p> + +<p>"He's gone to a place called the Argus Enquiry Agency to get a +detective."</p> + +<p>"What, to investigate this business of the Empress?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>Millicent laughed. The idea tickled her.</p> + +<p>"I'd like to be there to see old man Argus's face when he finds that +all he's wanted for is to track down missing pigs. I should think he +would beat Hugo over the head with a bloodstain."</p> + +<p>Her laughter trailed away. There had come into her face the look of one +suddenly visited by a displeasing thought.</p> + +<p>"Ronnie!" she said.</p> + +<p>"Hullo?"</p> + +<p>"Do you know what?"</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"This looks fishy to me."</p> + +<p>"How do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't know how it strikes you, but this Argus Enquiry Agency +is presumably on the 'phone. Why didn't Uncle Clarence just ring them +up and ask them to send down a man?"</p> + +<p>"Probably didn't think of it."</p> + +<p>"Whose idea was it, anyway, getting down a man?"</p> + +<p>"Hugo's."</p> + +<p>"He suggested that he should run up to town?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"I thought as much," said Millicent darkly.</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>Millicent's eyes narrowed. She kicked moodily at a passing worm.</p> + +<p>"I don't like it," she said. "It's fishy. Too much zeal. It looks very +much to me as if our Mr. Carmody had a special reason for wanting to +get up to London for the night. And I think I know what the reason was. +Did you ever hear of a girl named Sue Brown?"</p> + +<p>The start which Ronnie gave eclipsed in magnitude all the other starts +he had given that morning. And they had been many and severe.</p> + +<p>"It isn't true!"</p> + +<p>"What isn't true?"</p> + +<p>"That there's anything whatever between Hugo and Sue Brown."</p> + +<p>"Oh? Well, I had it from an authoritative source."</p> + +<p>It was not the worm's lucky morning. It had now reached Ronnie, and he +kicked at it, too. The worm had the illusion that it had begun to rain +shoes.</p> + +<p>"I've got to go in and make a 'phone call," said Millicent abruptly.</p> + +<p>Ronnie scarcely noticed her departure. He had supposed himself to have +been doing some pretty tense thinking all the morning, but compared +with its activity now his brain hitherto had been stagnant.</p> + +<p>It couldn't be true, he told himself. Sue had said definitely that it +wasn't, and she couldn't have been lying to him. Girls like Sue didn't +lie. And yet....</p> + +<p>The sound of the luncheon gong floated over the garden.</p> + +<p>Well, one thing was certain. It was simply impossible to remain +here at Blandings Castle, getting his mind poisoned with doubts and +speculations which for the life of him he could not keep out of it. If +he took the two-seater and drove off in it the moment this infernal +meal was over he could be in London before eight. He could call at +Sue's flat; receive her assurance once more that Hugo Carmody, tall and +lissom though he might be, expert on the saxophone though he admittedly +was, meant nothing to her; take her out to dinner and, while dining, +ease his mind of that which weighed upon it. Then, fortified with +comfort and advice, he could pop into the car and be back at the castle +by lunch time on the following day.</p> + +<p>It wasn't, of course, that he didn't trust her implicitly. +Nevertheless....</p> + +<p>Ronnie went in to lunch.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV</h2> +</div> + + +<p class="ph2">I</p> + +<p>If you go up Beeston Street in the southwestern postal division of +London and follow the pavement on the right-hand side, you come to a +blind alley called Hayling Court. If you enter the first building on +the left of this blind alley and mount a flight of stairs you find +yourself facing a door, on the ground glass of which is the legend:</p> + +<p class="ph4">ARGUS<br> +ENQUIRY<br> +AGENCY<br> +LTD.</p> + + +<p>and below it, to one side, the smaller legend</p> + +<p class="ph4">P. FROBISHER PILBEAM, MGR.</p> + + +<p>And if, at about the hour when Ronnie Fish had stepped into his +two-seater in the garage of Blandings Castle, you had opened this door +and gone in and succeeded in convincing the gentlemanly office boy +that yours was a bona fide visit, having nothing to do with the sale +of life insurance, proprietary medicines, or handsomely bound sets +of Dumas, you would have been admitted to the august presence of the +manager himself. P. Frobisher Pilbeam was seated at his desk, reading a +telegram which had arrived during his absence at lunch.</p> + +<p>This is peculiarly an age of young men starting out in business for +themselves; of rare, unfettered spirits chafing at the bonds of +employment and refusing to spend their lives working forty-eight weeks +in the year for a salary. Quite early in his career Pilbeam had seen +where the big money lay and decided to go after it.</p> + +<p>As editor of that celebrated weekly scandal sheet, <i>Society Spice</i>, +Percy Pilbeam had had exceptional opportunities of discovering in +good time the true bent of his genius; with the result that, after +three years of nosing out people's discreditable secrets on behalf +of the Mammoth Publishing Company, his employers, he had come to the +conclusion that a man of his gifts would be doing far better for +himself nosing out such secrets on his own behalf. Considerably to +the indignation of Lord Tilbury, the Mammoth's guiding spirit, he had +borrowed some capital, handed in his portfolio, and was now in an +extremely agreeable financial position.</p> + +<p>The telegram over which he sat brooding with wrinkled forehead was just +the sort of telegram an inquiry agent ought to have been delighted +to receive, being thoroughly cryptic and consequently a pleasing +challenge to his astuteness as a detective; but Percy Pilbeam, in his +ten minutes' acquaintance with it, had come to dislike it heartily. He +preferred his telegrams easier.</p> + +<p>It ran as follows:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Be sure send best man investigate big robbery.</p> +</div> + +<p>It was unsigned.</p> + +<p>What made the thing particularly annoying was that it was so +tantalizing. A big robbery probably meant jewels, with a +correspondingly big fee attached to their recovery. But you cannot +scour England at random asking people if they have had a big robbery in +their neighbourhood.</p> + +<p>Reluctantly he gave the problem up and, producing a pocket mirror, +began with the aid of a pen nib to curl his small and revolting +moustache. His thoughts had drifted now to Sue. They were not +altogether sunny thoughts, for the difficulty of making Sue's +acquaintance was beginning to irk Percy Pilbeam. He had written her +notes. He had sent her flowers. And nothing had happened. She ignored +the notes, and what she did with the flowers he did not know. She +certainly never thanked him for them.</p> + +<p>Brooding upon these matters, he was interrupted by the opening of the +door. The gentlemanly office boy entered. Pilbeam looked up, annoyed.</p> + +<p>"How many times have I told you not to come in here without knocking?" +he asked sternly.</p> + +<p>The office boy reflected.</p> + +<p>"Seven," he replied.</p> + +<p>"What would you have done if I had been in conference with an important +client?"</p> + +<p>"Gone out again," said the office boy. Working in a Private Enquiry +Agency, you drop into the knack of solving problems.</p> + +<p>"Well, go out now."</p> + +<p>"Very good, sir. I merely wished to say that while you were absent at +lunch a gentleman called."</p> + +<p>"Eh? Who was he?"</p> + +<p>The office boy, who liked atmosphere and hoped some day to be promoted +to the company of Mr. Murphy and Mr. Jones, the two active assistants +who had their lair on the ground floor, thought for a moment of saying +that, beyond the obvious facts that the caller was a Freemason, +left-handed, a vegetarian and a traveller in the East, he had made +no deductions from his appearance. He perceived, however, that his +employer was not in the vein for that sort of thing.</p> + +<p>"A Mr. Carmody, sir. Mr. Hugo Carmody."</p> + +<p>"Ah!" Pilbeam displayed interest. "Did he say he would call again?"</p> + +<p>"He mentioned the possibility, sir."</p> + +<p>"Well, if he does, inform Mr. Murphy and tell him to be ready when I +ring."</p> + +<p>The office boy retired, and Pilbeam returned to his thoughts of Sue. He +was quite certain now that he did not like her attitude. Her attitude +wounded him. Another thing he deplored was the reluctance of stage-door +keepers to reveal the private addresses of the personnel of the +company. Really, there seemed to be no way of getting to know the girl +at all.</p> + +<p>Eight respectful knocks sounded on the door. The office boy, though +occasionally forgetful, was conscientious. He had restored the average.</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Carmody to see you, sir."</p> + +<p>Pilbeam once more relegated Sue to the hinterland of his mind. Business +was business.</p> + +<p>"Show him in."</p> + +<p>"This way, sir," said the office boy with a graceful courtliness which, +even taking into account the fact that he suffered from adenoids, had +an old-world flavour, and Hugo sauntered across the threshold.</p> + +<p>Hugo felt, and was looking, quietly happy. He seemed to bring the +sunshine with him. Nobody could have been more wholeheartedly attached +than he to Blandings Castle and the society of his Millicent, but he +was finding London, revisited, singularly attractive.</p> + +<p>"And this, if I mistake not, Watson, is our client now," said Hugo +genially.</p> + +<p>Such was his feeling of universal benevolence that he embraced with his +goodwill even the repellent-looking young man who had risen from the +desk. Percy Pilbeam's eyes were too small and too close together, and +he marcelled his hair in a manner distressing to right-thinking people, +but to-day he had to be lumped in with the rest of the species as a man +and a brother, so Hugo bestowed a dazzling smile upon him. He still +thought Pilbeam should not have been wearing pimples with a red tie. +One or the other if he liked, but not both. Nevertheless, he smiled +upon him.</p> + +<p>"Fine day," he said.</p> + +<p>"Quite," said Pilbeam.</p> + +<p>"Very jolly, the smell of the asphalt and carbonic gas."</p> + +<p>"Quite."</p> + +<p>"Some people might call London a shade on the stuffy side on an +afternoon like this, but not Hugo Carmody."</p> + +<p>"No?"</p> + +<p>"No. H. Carmody finds it just what the doctor ordered." He sat down. +"Well, sleuth," he said, "to business. I called before lunch but you +were out."</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"But here I am again. And I suppose you want to know what I've come +about?"</p> + +<p>"When you're ready to get round to it," said Pilbeam patiently.</p> + +<p>Hugo stretched his long legs comfortably.</p> + +<p>"Well, I know you detective blokes always want a fellow to begin at +the beginning and omit no detail, for there is no saying how important +some seemingly trivial fact may be. Omitting birth and early education, +then, I am at the moment private secretary to Lord Emsworth at +Blandings Castle in Shropshire. And," said Hugo, "I maintain, a jolly +good secretary. Others may think differently, but that is my view."</p> + +<p>"Blandings Castle?"</p> + +<p>A thought had struck the proprietor of the Argus Enquiry Agency. He +fumbled in his desk and produced the mysterious telegram. Yes, as he +had fancied, it had been handed in at a place called Market Blandings.</p> + +<p>"Do you know anything about this?" he asked, pushing it across the desk.</p> + +<p>Hugo glanced at the document.</p> + +<p>"The old boy must have sent that after I left," he said. "The absence +of signature is, no doubt, due to mental stress. Lord Emsworth is +greatly perturbed. A-twitter. Shaken to the core, you might say."</p> + +<p>"About this robbery?"</p> + +<p>"Exactly. It has got right in amongst him."</p> + +<p>Pilbeam reached for pen and paper. There was a stern, set, bloodhound +sort of look in his eyes.</p> + +<p>"Kindly give me the details."</p> + +<p>Hugo pondered for a moment.</p> + +<p>"It was a dark and stormy night——No, I'm a liar. The moon was riding +serenely in the sky——"</p> + +<p>"This big robbery—tell me about it."</p> + +<p>Hugo raised his eyebrows.</p> + +<p>"Big?"</p> + +<p>"The telegram says 'big.'"</p> + +<p>"These telegraph operators will try to make sense. You can't stop them +editing. The word should be 'pig.' Lord Emsworth's pig has been stolen!"</p> + +<p>"Pig!" cried Percy Pilbeam.</p> + +<p>Hugo looked at him a little anxiously.</p> + +<p>"You know what a pig is, surely? If not, I'm afraid there is a good +deal of tedious spade work ahead of us."</p> + +<p>The roseate dreams which the proprietor of the Argus had had of missing +jewels broke like bubbles. He was deeply affronted. A man of few +ideals, the one deep love of his life was for the inquiry agency which +he had created and nursed to prosperity through all the dangers and +vicissitudes which beset inquiry agencies in their infancy. And the +thought of being expected to apply its complex machinery to a search +for lost pigs cut him, as Millicent had predicted, to the quick.</p> + +<p>"Does Lord Emsworth seriously suppose that I have time to waste looking +for stolen pigs?" he demanded shrilly. "I never heard such nonsense in +my life."</p> + +<p>"Almost the exact words which all the other Hawkshaws used. Finding you +not at home," explained Hugo, "I spent the morning going round to other +agencies. I think I visited six in all, and every one of them took the +attitude you do."</p> + +<p>"I am not surprised."</p> + +<p>"Nevertheless, it seemed to me that they, like you, lacked vision. +This pig, you see, is a prize pig. Don't picture to yourself something +with a kink in its tail sporting idly in the mud. Imagine, rather, a +favourite daughter kidnapped from her ancestral home. This is heavy +stuff, I assure you. Restore the animal in time for the Agricultural +Show and you may ask of Lord Emsworth what you will, even unto half his +kingdom."</p> + +<p>Percy Pilbeam rose. He had heard enough.</p> + +<p>"I will not trouble Lord Emsworth. The Argus Enquiry Agency——"</p> + +<p>"—does not detect pigs? I feared as much. Well, well, so be it. +And now," said Hugo affably, "may I take advantage of the beautiful +friendship which has sprung up between us to use your telephone?"</p> + +<p>Without waiting for permission—for which, indeed, he would have had +to wait some time—he drew the instrument to him and gave a number. He +then began to chat again.</p> + +<p>"You seem a knowledgable sort of bloke," he said. "Perhaps you can tell +me where the village swains go these days when they want to dance upon +the green? I have been absent for some little time from the centre of +the vortex, and I have become as a child in these matters. What is the +best that London has to offer to a young man with his blood up and the +vine leaves more or less in his hair?"</p> + +<p>Pilbeam was a man of business. He had no wish to converse with this +client who had disappointed him and wounded his finest feelings, but it +so happened that he had recently bought shares in a rising restaurant.</p> + +<p>"Mario's," he replied promptly. "It's the only place."</p> + +<p>Hugo sighed. Once he had dreamed that the answer to a question like +that would have been "The Hot Spot." But where was the Hot Spot now? +Gone like the flowers that wither in the first frost. The lion and +the lizard kept the courts where Jamshyd gloried and—after hours, +unfortunately, which had started all the trouble—drank deep. Ah, well, +life was pretty complex.</p> + +<p>A voice from the other end of the wire broke in on his reverie. He +recognized it as that of the porter of the block of flats where Sue had +her tiny abode.</p> + +<p>"Hullo? Bashford? Mr. Carmody speaking. Will you make a long arm and +haul Miss Brown to the instrument. Eh? Miss Sue Brown, of course. No +other Browns are any use to me whatsoever. Right ho, I'll wait."</p> + +<p>The astute detective never permits himself to exhibit emotion. Pilbeam +turned his start of surprise into a grave, distrait nod, as if he were +thinking out deep problems. He took up his pen and drew three crosses +and a squiggle on the blotting paper. He was glad that no gentlemanly +instinct had urged him to leave his visitor alone to do his telephoning.</p> + +<p>"Mario's, eh?" said Hugo. "What's the band like?"</p> + +<p>"It's Leopard's."</p> + +<p>"Good enough for me," said Hugo with enthusiasm. He hummed a bar or +two and slid his feet dreamily about the carpet. "I'm shockingly out +of practice, dash it. Well, that's that. Touching this other matter, +you're sure you won't come to Blandings?"</p> + +<p>"Quite."</p> + +<p>"Nice place. Gravel soil, spreading views, well laid out pleasure +ground, company's own water. I would strongly advise you to bring +your magnifying glass and spend the summer. However, if you really +feel——Sue! Hullo-ullo-ullo! This is Hugo. Yes, just up in town for +the night on a mission of extraordinary secrecy and delicacy which I am +not empowered to reveal. Speaking from the Argus Enquiry Agency, by +courtesy of proprietor. I was wondering if you would care to come out +and help me restore my lost youth, starting at about eight-thirty. Eh?"</p> + +<p>A silence had fallen at the other end of the wire. What was happening +was that in the hall of the block of flats Sue's conscience was +fighting a grim battle against heavy odds. Ranged in opposition to it +were her loneliness, her love of dancing, and her desire once more to +see Hugo, who, though he was not a man one could take seriously, always +cheered her up and made her laugh. And she had been needing a laugh for +days.</p> + +<p>Hugo thought he had been cut off.</p> + +<p>"Hullo-ullo-ullo-ullo-ullo-ullo!" he barked peevishly.</p> + +<p>"Don't yodel like that," said Sue. "You've nearly made me deaf."</p> + +<p>"Sorry, dear heart. I thought the machine had conked. Well, how do you +react? Is it a bet?"</p> + +<p>"I do want to see you again," said Sue hesitatingly.</p> + +<p>"You shall. In person. Clean shirt, white waistcoat, the Carmody studs, +and everything."</p> + +<p>"Well...."</p> + +<p>A psychically gifted bystander, standing in the hall of the block of +flats, would have heard at this moment a faint moan. It was Sue's +conscience collapsing beneath an unexpected flank attack. She had just +remembered that if she went to dine with Hugo she would learn all +the latest news about Ronnie. It put the whole thing in an entirely +different light. Surely Ronnie himself could have no objection to +the proposed feast if he knew that all she was going for was to talk +about him? She might dance a little, of course, but purely by the way. +Her real motive in accepting the invitation, she now realized quite +clearly, was to hear all about Ronnie.</p> + +<p>"All right," she said. "Where?"</p> + +<p>"Mario's. They tell me it's the posh spot these days."</p> + +<p>"Mario's?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. M for mange, A for asthma, R for rheumatism.... Oh, you've got +it? All right, then. At eight-thirty."</p> + +<p>Hugo put the receiver back. Once more he allowed his dazzling smile to +play upon the Argus's proprietor.</p> + +<p>"Much obliged for use of instrument," he said. "Thank you."</p> + +<p>"Thank <i>you</i>," said Pilbeam.</p> + +<p>"Well, I'll be pushing along. Ring us up if you change your mind. +Market Blandings 32X. If you don't take on the job no one will. I +suppose there are other sleuths in London besides the bevy I've +interviewed to-day, but I'm not going to see them. I consider that I +have done my bit and am through." He looked about him. "Make a good +thing out of this business?" he asked, for he was curious on these +points and was never restrained by delicacy from seeking information.</p> + +<p>"Quite."</p> + +<p>"What does the work consist of? I've often wondered. Measuring +footprints and putting the tips of your fingers together and all that, +I suppose?"</p> + +<p>"We are frequently asked to follow people and report on their +movements."</p> + +<p>Hugo laughed amusedly.</p> + +<p>"Well, don't go following me and reporting on my movements. Much +trouble might ensue. Bung-oh."</p> + +<p>"Good-bye," said Percy Pilbeam.</p> + +<p>He pressed a bell on the desk and moved to the door to show his visitor +out.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p class="ph2">II</p> + +<p>Leopard's justly famous band, its cheeks puffed out and its eyeballs +rolling, was playing a popular melody with lots of stomp in it, and +for the first time since she had accepted Hugo's invitation to the +dance Sue, gliding round the floor, was conscious of a spiritual calm. +Her conscience, quieted by the moaning of the saxophones, seemed to +have retired from business. It realized, no doubt, the futility of +trying to pretend that there was anything wrong in a girl enjoying this +delightful exercise.</p> + +<p>How absurd, she felt, Ronnie's objections were. It was, considered +Sue, becoming analytical, as if she were to make a tremendous fuss +because he played tennis and golf with girls. Dancing was just a game +like those two pastimes, and it so happened that you had to have a man +with you or you couldn't play it. To get all jealous and throaty just +because one went out dancing was simply ridiculous.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, placid though her conscience now was, she had to +admit that it was a relief to feel that he would never know of this +little outing.</p> + +<p>Men were such children when they were in love. Sue found herself +sighing over the opposite sex's eccentricities. If they were only +sensible, how simple life would be. It amazed her that Ronnie could +ever have any possible doubt, however she might spend her leisure +hours, that her heart belonged to him alone. She marvelled that he +should suppose for a moment that even if she danced all night and every +night with every other man in the world it would make any difference to +her feelings toward him.</p> + +<p>All the same, holding the peculiar views he did, he must undoubtedly be +humoured.</p> + +<p>"You won't breathe a word to Ronnie about our coming here, will you, +Hugo?" she said, repeating an injunction which had been her opening +speech on arriving at the restaurant.</p> + +<p>"Not a syllable."</p> + +<p>"I can trust you?"</p> + +<p>"Implicitly. Telegraphic address, Discretion, Market Blandings."</p> + +<p>"Ronnie's funny, you see."</p> + +<p>"One long scream."</p> + +<p>"I mean, he wouldn't understand."</p> + +<p>"No. Great surprise it was to me," said Hugo, doing complicated things +with his feet, "to hear that you and the old leper had decided to +team up. You could have knocked me down with a feather. Odd he never +confided in his boyhood friend."</p> + +<p>"Well, it wouldn't do for it to get about."</p> + +<p>"Are you suggesting that Hugo Carmody is a babbler?"</p> + +<p>"You do like gossipping. You know you do."</p> + +<p>"I know nothing of the sort," said Hugo with dignity. "If I were asked +to give my opinion I should say that I was essentially a strong, silent +man."</p> + +<p>He made a complete circle of the floor in that capacity. His +taciturnity surprised Sue.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Dudgeon," said Hugo.</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"I'm sulking. That remark of yours rankles. That totally unfounded +accusation that I cannot keep a secret. It may interest you to know +that I, too, am secretly engaged and have never so much as mentioned it +to a soul."</p> + +<p>"Hugo!"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Betrothed. And so at long last came a day when Love wound his +silken fetters about Hugo Carmody."</p> + +<p>"Who's the unfortunate girl?"</p> + +<p>"There is no unfortunate girl. The lucky girl——Was that your foot?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Sorry. I haven't got the hang of these new steps yet. The lucky girl, +I was saying, is Miss Millicent Threepwood."</p> + +<p>As if stunned by the momentousness of the announcement the band stopped +playing; and, chancing to be immediately opposite their table, the man +who never revealed secrets led his partner to her chair. She was gazing +at him ecstatically.</p> + +<p>"You don't mean that?"</p> + +<p>"I do mean that. What did you think I meant?"</p> + +<p>"I never heard anything so wonderful in my life!"</p> + +<p>"Good news?"</p> + +<p>"I'm simply delighted."</p> + +<p>"I'm pleased, too," said Hugo.</p> + +<p>"I've been trying not to admit it to myself, but I was very scared +about Millicent. Ronnie told me the family wanted him and her to marry, +and you never know what may happen when families throw their weight +about. And now it's all right!"</p> + +<p>"Quite all right."</p> + +<p>The music had started again, but Sue remained in her seat.</p> + +<p>"Not?" said Hugo, astonished.</p> + +<p>"Not just yet. I want to talk. You don't realize what this means to me. +Besides, your dancing's gone off, Hugo. You're not the man you were."</p> + +<p>"I need practice." He lighted a cigarette and tapped a philosophical +vein of thought, eying the gyrating couples meditatively. "It's the way +they're always introducing new steps that bothers the man who has been +living out in the woods. I have become a rusty rustic."</p> + +<p>"I didn't mean you were bad. Only you used to be such a marvel. Dancing +with you was like floating on a pink cloud above an ocean of bliss."</p> + +<p>"A very accurate description, I should imagine," agreed Hugo. "But +don't blame me. Blame these Amalgamated Professors of the Dance, or +whatever they call themselves—the birds who get together every couple +of weeks or so to decide how they can make things more difficult. +Amazing thing that they won't leave well alone."</p> + +<p>"You must have change."</p> + +<p>"I disagree with you," said Hugo. "No other walk in life is afflicted +by a gang of thugs who are perpetually altering the rules of the game. +When you learn to play golf the professional doesn't tell you to bring +the club up slowly and keep the head steady and roll the forearms and +bend the left knee and raise the left heel and keep your eye on the +ball and not sway back, and a few more things, and then, after you've +sweated yourself to the bone learning all that, suddenly add, 'Of +course you understand that this is merely intended to see you through +till about three weeks from next Thursday. After that the Supreme Grand +Council of Consolidated Divot Shifters will scrap these methods and +invent an entirely new set!'"</p> + +<p>"Is this more dudgeon?"</p> + +<p>"No. Not dudgeon."</p> + +<p>"It sounds like dudgeon. I believe your little feelings are hurt +because I said your dancing wasn't as good as it used to be."</p> + +<p>"Not at all. We welcome criticism."</p> + +<p>"Well, get your mind off it and tell me all about you and Millicent +and...."</p> + +<p>"When I was about five," resumed Hugo, removing his cigarette from the +holder and inserting another, "I attended my first dancing school. I'm +a bit shaky on some of the incidents of the days when I was trailing +clouds of glory, but I do remember that dancing school. At great +trouble and expense I was taught to throw up a rubber ball with my +left hand and catch it with my right, keeping the small of the back +rigid and generally behaving in a graceful and attractive manner. It +doesn't sound a likely sort of thing to learn at a dancing school, but +I swear to you that that's what the curriculum was. Now, the point I am +making——"</p> + +<p>"Did you fall in love with Millicent right away, or was it gradual?"</p> + +<p>"The point I am making is this. I became very good at throwing and +catching that rubber ball. I dislike boasting, but I stood out +conspicuously among a pretty hot bunch. People would nudge each other +and say, 'Who is he?' behind their hands. I don't suppose, when I was +feeling right, I missed the rubber ball more than once in twenty goes. +But what good does it do me now? Absolutely none. Long before I got a +chance of exhibiting my accomplishment in public and having beautiful +women fawn on me for my skill, the Society of Amalgamated Professors +of the Dance decided that the Rubber-Ball Glide, or whatever it was +called, was out of date."</p> + +<p>"Is she very pretty?"</p> + +<p>"And what I say is that all this chopping and changing handicaps a +chap. I am perfectly prepared at this moment to step out on that +floor and heave a rubber ball about, but it simply isn't being done +nowadays. People wouldn't understand what I was driving at. In other +words, all the time and money and trouble that I spent on mastering +the Rubber-Ball Shimmy is a dead loss. I tell you, if the Amalgamated +Professors want to make people cynics, they're going the right way to +work."</p> + +<p>"I wish you would tell me all about Millicent."</p> + +<p>"In a moment. Dancing, they taught me at school, dates back to the +early Egyptians, who ascribed the invention to the god Thoth. The +Phrygian Corybantes danced in honour of somebody whose name I've +forgotten, and every time the festival of Rhea Silvia came round the +ancient Roman hoofers were there with their hair in a braid. But what +was good enough for the god Thoth isn't good enough for these blighted +Amalgamated Professors! Oh, no! And it's been the same all through the +ages. I don't suppose there has been a moment in history when some +poor, well-meaning devil, with ambition at one end of him and two left +feet at the other, wasn't getting it in the neck."</p> + +<p>"And all this," said Sue, "because you trod on my foot for just one +half second."</p> + +<p>"Hugo Carmody dislikes to tread on women's feet, even for half a +second. He has his pride. Ever hear of Father Mariana?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Mariana, George. Born twelve hundred and something. Educated privately +and at Leipsic University. Hobbies, fishing, illuminating vellum, and +mangling the wurzel. You must have heard of old Pop Mariana?"</p> + +<p>"I haven't and I don't want to. I want to hear about Millicent."</p> + +<p>"It was the opinion of Father Mariana that dancing was a deadly sin. +He was particularly down, I may mention, on the saraband. He said the +saraband did more harm than the plague. I know just how he felt. I'll +bet he had worked like a dog at twenty-five pazazas the complete course +of twelve lessons, guaranteed to teach the fandango: and, just when his +instructor had finally told him that he was fit to do it at the next +Saturday Night Social, along came the Amalgamated Brothers with their +new-fangled saraband, and where was Pop? Leaning against the wall with +the other foot-and-mouth diseasers, trying to pretend dancing bored +him. Did I hear you say you wanted a few facts about Millicent?"</p> + +<p>"You did."</p> + +<p>"Sweetest girl on earth."</p> + +<p>"Really?"</p> + +<p>"Absolutely. It's well known. All over Shropshire."</p> + +<p>"And she really loves you?"</p> + +<p>"Between you and me," said Hugo confidentially, "I don't wonder +you speak in that amazed tone. If you saw her you'd be still more +surprised. I am a man who thinks before he speaks. I weigh my words. +And I tell you solemnly that that girl is too good for me."</p> + +<p>"But you're a sweet darling precious pet."</p> + +<p>"I know I'm a sweet darling precious pet. Nevertheless, I still +maintain that she is too good for me. She is the nearest thing to +an angel that ever came glimmering through the laurels in the quiet +evenfall in the garden by the turrets of the old manorial hall."</p> + +<p>"Hugo! I'd no idea you were so poetical."</p> + +<p>"Enough to make a chap poetical, loving a girl like that."</p> + +<p>"And you really do love her?"</p> + +<p>Hugo took a feverish gulp of champagne and rolled his eyeballs as if he +had been a member of Leopold's justly famous band.</p> + +<p>"Madly. Devotedly. And when I think how I have deceived her my soul +sickens."</p> + +<p>"Have you deceived her?"</p> + +<p>"Not yet. But I'm going to in about five minutes. I put in a 'phone +call to Blandings just now, and when I get through I shall tell her I'm +speaking from my hotel bedroom, where I am on the point of going to +bed. You see," said Hugo confidentially, "Millicent, though practically +perfect in every other respect, is one of those girls who might +misunderstand this little night out of mine did it but come to her +ears. Speaking of which, you ought to see them. Like alabaster shells."</p> + +<p>"I know what you mean. Ronnie's like that."</p> + +<p>Hugo stared.</p> + +<p>"Ronnie?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"You mean to sit there and tell me that Ronnie's ears are like +alabaster shells?"</p> + +<p>"No, I meant that he would be furious if he knew that I had come out +dancing. And, oh, I do love dancing so," sighed Sue.</p> + +<p>"He must never know!"</p> + +<p>"No. That's why I asked you just now not to tell him."</p> + +<p>"I won't. Secrecy and silence. Thank goodness, there's nobody who could +tell Millicent even if they wanted to. Ah! this must be the bringer of +glad tidings, come to say my call is through. All set?" he asked the +page boy who had threaded his way through the crowd to their table.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>Hugo rose.</p> + +<p>"Amuse yourself somehow till I return."</p> + +<p>"I shan't be dull," said Sue.</p> + +<p>She watched him disappear, then leaned back in her seat, watching +the dancers. Her eyes were bright, and Hugo's news had brought a +flush to her cheeks. Percy Pilbeam, who had been hovering in the +background, hoping for such an opportunity ever since his arrival at +the restaurant, thought he had never seen her looking prettier. He +edged between the tables and took Hugo's vacated chair. There are men +who, approaching a member of the other sex, wait for permission before +sitting down, and men who sit down without permission. Pilbeam was one +of the latter.</p> + +<p>"Good-evening," he said.</p> + +<p>She turned and was aware of a nasty-looking little man at her elbow. +He seemed to have materialized from nowhere.</p> + +<p>"May I introduce myself, Miss Brown?" said this blot. "My name is +Pilbeam."</p> + +<p>At the same moment there appeared in the doorway and stood there raking +the restaurant with burning eyes the flannel-suited figure of Ronald +Overbury Fish.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p class="ph2">III</p> + +<p>Ronnie Fish's estimate of the time necessary for reaching London from +Blandings Castle in a sports-model two-seater had been thrown out of +gear by two mishaps. Halfway down the drive the car had developed some +mysterious engine trouble, which had necessitated taking it back to +the stables and having it overhauled by Lord Emsworth's chauffeur. It +was not until nearly an hour later that he had been able to resume his +journey, and a blow-out near Oxford had delayed him still further. He +arrived at Sue's flat just as Sue and Hugo were entering Mario's.</p> + +<p>Ringing Sue's front-door bell produced no result. Ronnie regretted that +in the stress of all the other matters that occupied his mind he had +forgotten to send her a telegram. He was about to creep away and have +a bite of dinner at the Drones Club—a prospect which pleased him not +at all, for the Drones at dinner time was always full of hearty eggs +who talked much too loud for a worried man's nerves and might even go +so far as to throw bread at him, when, descending the stairs into the +hall, he came upon Bashford, the porter.</p> + +<p>Bashford, who knew Ronnie well, said, "'Ullo, Mr. Fish," and Ronnie +said, "Hullo, Bashford," and Bashford said the weather seemed to keep +up, and Ronnie said, Yes, that's right, it did, and it was at this +point that the porter uttered these memorable and, as events proved, +epoch-making words:</p> + +<p>"If you're looking for Miss Brown, Mr. Fish, I've an idea she's gone to +a place called Mario's."</p> + +<p>He poured further details into Ronnie's throbbing ear. Mr. Carmody had +rung up on the 'phone, might have been ar-parse four, and he, Bashford, +not listening but happening to hear, had thought he had caught +something said about this place Mario's.</p> + +<p>"Mario's?" said Ronnie. "Thanks, Bashford. Mario's, eh? Right!"</p> + +<p>The porter, for Eton and Cambridge train their sons well, found nothing +in the way Mr. Fish spoke to cause a thrill. Totally unaware that he +had been conversing with Othello's younger brother he went back to his +den in the basement and sat down with a good appetite to steak and +chips. And Ronnie, quivering from head to foot, started the car and +drove off.</p> + +<p>Jealousy, said Shakespeare, and he was about right, is a green-eyed +monster which doth mock the meat he feeds on. By the time Ronald +Overbury Fish pushed through the swinging door that guards the revelry +at Mario's from the gaze of the passer-by, he was, like the Othello +he so much resembled, perplexed in the extreme. He felt hot all over, +then cold all over, then hot again, and the waiter who stopped him +on the threshold of the dining room to inform him that evening dress +was indispensable on the dancing floor and that flannel suits must +go up to the balcony, was running a risk which would have caused his +insurance company to purse its lips and shake its head.</p> + +<p>Fortunately for him Ronnie did not hear. He was scanning the crowd +before him in an effort to find Sue.</p> + +<p>"Plenty of room in the balcony, sir," urged the waiter, continuing to +play with fire.</p> + +<p>This time Ronnie did become dimly aware that somebody was addressing +him, and he was about to turn and give the man one look when halfway +down a grove of black coats and gaily coloured frocks he suddenly +saw what he was searching for. The next moment he was pushing a path +through the throng, treading on the toes of brave men and causing fair +women to murmur bitterly that this sort of thing ought to be prevented +by the management.</p> + +<p>Five yards from Sue's table Ronnie Fish would have said that his cup +was full and could not possibly be made any fuller. But when he had +covered another two and pushed aside a fat man who was standing in +the fairway he realized his mistake. It was not Hugo who was Sue's +companion, but a reptilian-looking squirt with narrow eyes and his +hair done in ridges. And as he saw him something seemed to go off in +Ronnie's brain like a released spring.</p> + +<p>A waiter, pausing with a tray of glasses, pointed out to him that on +the dancing floor evening dress was indispensable.</p> + +<p>Gentlemen in flannel suits, he added, could be accommodated in the +balcony.</p> + +<p>"Plenty of room in the balcony, sir," said the waiter.</p> + +<p>Ronnie reached the table. Pilbeam at the moment was saying that he had +wanted for a long time to meet Sue. He hoped she had got his flowers +all right.</p> + +<p>It was perhaps a natural desire to look at anything but this odious and +thrusting individual who had forced his society upon her that caused +Sue to raise her eyes.</p> + +<p>Raising them, she met Ronnie's. And as she saw him her conscience, +which she had supposed lulled for the night, sprang to life more +vociferous than ever. It had but been crouching, the better to spring.</p> + +<p>"Ronnie!"</p> + +<p>She started up. Pilbeam also rose. The waiter with the glasses pressed +the edge of his tray against Ronnie's elbow in a firm but respectful +manner and told him that on the dancing floor evening dress was +indispensable. Gentlemen in flannel suits, however, would find ample +accommodation in the balcony.</p> + +<p>Ronnie did not speak. And it would have been better if Sue had not done +so. For at this crisis some subconscious instinct, of the kind which is +always waiting to undo us at critical moments, suggested to her dazed +mind that when two men who do not know each other are standing side by +side in a restaurant one ought to introduce them.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Fish, Mr. Pilbeam," murmured Sue.</p> + +<p>Only the ringing of the bell that heralds the first round of a +heavy-weight championship fight could have produced more instant +and violent results. Through Ronnie's flannel-clad body a sort of +galvanic shock seemed to pass. Pilbeam! He had come expecting Hugo, +and Hugo would have been bad enough. But Pilbeam! The man she had +said she didn't even know. The man she hadn't met. The man whose gifts +of flowers she had professed to resent. In person! In the flesh! +Hobnobbing with her in a restaurant! By God, he meant to say! By +George! Good Gosh!</p> + +<p>His fists clenched. Eton was forgotten, Cambridge not even a memory. +He inhaled so sharply that a man at the next table who was eating a +mousse of chicken stabbed himself in the chin with his fork. He turned +on Pilbeam with a hungry look. And at this moment the waiter, raising +his voice a little, for he was beginning to think that Ronnie's hearing +was slightly affected, mentioned as an interesting piece of information +that the management of Mario's preferred to reserve the dancing floor +exclusively for clients in evening dress. But there was a bright side. +Gentlemen in flannel suits could be accommodated in the balcony.</p> + +<p>It was the waiter who saved Percy Pilbeam. Just as a mosquito may +divert for an instant a hunter who is about to spring at and bite in +the neck a tiger of the jungle, so did this importunate waiter divert +Ronnie Fish. What it was all about he was too overwrought to ascertain, +but he knew that the man was annoying him, pestering him, trying to +chat with him when he had business elsewhere. With all the force of +a generous nature sorely tried, he plugged the waiter in the stomach +with his elbow. There was a crash which even Leopold's band could not +drown. The man who had stabbed himself with the fork had his meal still +further spoiled by the fact that it suddenly began to rain glass. And, +as regards the other occupants of the restaurant, the word "sensation" +about sums the situation up.</p> + +<p>Ronnie and the management of Mario's now formed two sharply contrasted +schools of thought. To Ronnie the only thing that seemed to matter was +this Pilbeam—this creeping, slinking, cuckoo-in-the-nest Pilbeam, the +Lothario who had lowered all speed records in underhand villainy by +breaking up his home before he had got one. He concentrated all his +faculties to the task of getting round the table, to the other side of +which the object of his dislike had prudently withdrawn, and showing +him in no uncertain manner where he got off.</p> + +<p>To the management, on the other hand, the vital issue was all this +broken glassware. The waiter had risen from the floor, but the +glasses were still there, and scarcely one of them was in a condition +ever to be used again for the refreshment of Mario's customers. The +head waiter, swooping down on the fray like some god in the Iliad +descending from a cloud, was endeavouring to place this point of view +before Ronnie. Assisting him with word and gesture were two inferior +waiters—Waiter A and Waiter B.</p> + +<p>Ronnie was in no mood for abstract debate. He hit the head waiter +in the abdomen, Waiter A in the ribs, and was just about to dispose +of Waiter B when his activities were hampered by the sudden arrival +of re-enforcements. From all parts of the room other waiters had +assembled—to name but a few, Waiters C, D, E, F, G, and H—and he +found himself hard pressed. It seemed to him that he had dropped +into a Waiters' Convention. As far as the eye could reach the arena +was crammed with waiters, and more coming. Pilbeam had disappeared +altogether, and so busy was Ronnie now that he did not even miss him. +He had reached that condition of mind which the old Vikings used to +call "berserk" and which among modern Malays is termed "running amok."</p> + +<p>Ronnie Fish, in the course of his life, had had many ambitions. As a +child he had yearned some day to become an engine driver. At school +it had seemed to him that the most attractive career the world had to +offer was that of the professional cricketer. Later he had hoped to run +a prosperous night club. But now, in his twenty-sixth year, all these +desires were cast aside and forgotten. The only thing in life that +seemed really worth while was to massacre waiters; and to this task he +addressed himself with all the energy and strength at his disposal.</p> + +<p>Matters now began to move briskly. Waiter C, who rashly clutched the +sleeve of Ronnie's coat, reeled back with a hand pressed to his right +eye. Waiter D, a married man, contented himself with standing on the +outskirts and talking Italian. But Waiter E, made of sterner stuff, hit +Ronnie rather hard with a dish containing <i>omelette aux champignons</i>; +and it was as the latter reeled beneath this buffet that there suddenly +appeared in the forefront of the battle a figure wearing a gay uniform +and almost completely concealed behind a vast moustache, waxed at the +ends. It was the commissionaire from the street door; and anybody who +has ever been bounced from a restaurant knows that commissionaires are +heavy metal.</p> + +<p>This one, whose name was McTeague, and who had spent many lively years +in the army before retiring to take up his present duties, had a grim +face made of some hard kind of wood, and the muscles of a village +blacksmith. A man of action rather than words, he clove his way through +the press in silence. Only when he reached the centre of the maelstrom +did he speak. This was when Ronnie, leaping onto a chair the better to +perform the operation, hit him on the nose. On receipt of this blow +he uttered the brief monosyllable "Ho!" and then, without more delay, +scooped Ronnie into an embrace of steel and bore him toward the door, +through which was now moving a long, large, leisurely policeman.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p class="ph2">IV</p> + +<p>It was some few minutes later that Hugo Carmody, emerging from the +telephone booth on the lower floor where the cocktail bar is, sauntered +back into the dancing room and was interested to find waiters massaging +bruised limbs, other waiters replacing fallen tables, and Leopold's +band playing in a sort of hushed undertone like a band that has seen +strange things.</p> + +<p>"Hullo!" said Hugo. "Anything up?"</p> + +<p>He eyed Sue inquiringly. She looked to him like a girl who has had some +sort of a shock. Not, or his eyes deceived him, at all her old bright +self.</p> + +<p>"What's up?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Take me home, Hugo!"</p> + +<p>Hugo stared.</p> + +<p>"Home? Already? With the night yet young?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Hugo! Take me home, quick."</p> + +<p>"Just as you say," assented Hugo agreeably. He was now pretty +certain that something was up. "One second to settle the bill, and +then homeward ho. And on the way you shall tell me all about it. For +I jolly well know," said Hugo, who prided himself on his keenness of +observation, "that something is—or has been—up."</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V</h2> +</div> + + +<p>The Law of Great Britain is a remorseless machine which, once set in +motion, ignores first causes and takes into account only results. It +will not accept shattered dreams as an excuse for shattering glassware; +nor will you get far by pleading a broken heart in extenuation of your +behaviour in breaking waiters. Haled on the morrow before the awful +majesty of Justice at Bosher Street Police Court and charged with +disorderly conduct in a public place—to wit, Mario's Restaurant—and +resisting an officer—to wit, P. C. Murgatroyd—in the execution of +his duties, Ronald Fish made no impassioned speeches. He did not raise +clenched fists aloft and call upon Heaven to witness that he was a good +man wronged. Experience, dearly bought in the days of his residence at +the university, had taught him that when the Law gripped you with its +talons the only thing to do was to give a false name, say nothing, and +hope for the best.</p> + +<p>Shortly before noon, accordingly, on the day following the painful +scene just described, Edwin Jones, of 7 Nasturtium Villas, Cricklewood, +poorer by the sum of five pounds, was being conveyed in a swift taxicab +to his friend Hugo Carmody's hotel, there to piece together his broken +life and try to make a new start.</p> + +<p>On the part of the man Jones himself during the ride there was a +disposition toward silence. He gazed before him bleakly and gnawed his +lower lip. Hugo Carmody, on the other hand, was inclined to be rather +jubilant. It seemed to Hugo that, after a rocky start, things had +panned out pretty well.</p> + +<p>"A nice smooth job," he said approvingly. "I was scanning the beak's +face closely during the summing up, and I couldn't help fearing for +a moment that it was going to be a case of fourteen days without the +option. As it is, here you are, a free man, and no chance of your name +being in the paper. A moral victory, I call it."</p> + +<p>Ronnie released his lower lip in order to bare his teeth in a bitter +sneer.</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't care if my name were in every paper in London."</p> + +<p>"Oh, come, old loofah! The honoured name of Fish?"</p> + +<p>"What do I care about anything now?"</p> + +<p>Hugo was concerned. This morbid strain, he felt, was unworthy of a +Nasturtium Villas Jones.</p> + +<p>"Aren't you rather tending to make a bit too much heavy weather over +this?"</p> + +<p>"Heavy weather!"</p> + +<p>"I think you are. After all, when you come right down to it, what has +happened? You find poor little Sue——"</p> + +<p>"Don't call her 'poor little Sue!'"</p> + +<p>"You find the party of the second part," amended Hugo, "at a dance +place. Well, why not? What, if you follow me, of it? Where's the harm +in her going out to dance?"</p> + +<p>"With a man she swore she didn't know!"</p> + +<p>"Well, at the time when you asked her probably she didn't know him. +Things move quickly in a great city. I wish I had a quid for every girl +I've been out dancing with whom I hadn't known from Eve a couple of +days before."</p> + +<p>"She promised me she wouldn't go out with a soul."</p> + +<p>"Ah, but with a merry twinkle in her eye, no doubt? I mean to say, you +can't expect a girl nowadays to treat a promise like that seriously. I +mean, dash it, be reasonable!"</p> + +<p>"And with that little worm of all people!"</p> + +<p>Hugo cleared his throat. He was conscious of a slight embarrassment. He +had not wished to touch on this aspect of the affair, but Ronnie's last +words gave a Carmody and a gentleman no choice.</p> + +<p>"As a matter of fact, Ronnie, old man," he said, "you are wrong in +supposing that she went to Mario's with the above Pilbeam. She went +with me. Blameless Hugo, what. I mean, more like a brother than +anything."</p> + +<p>Ronnie declined to be comforted.</p> + +<p>"I don't believe you."</p> + +<p>"My dear chap!"</p> + +<p>"I suppose you think you're damned clever, trying to smooth things +over. She was at Mario's with Pilbeam."</p> + +<p>"I took her there."</p> + +<p>"You may have taken her, but she was dining with Pilbeam."</p> + +<p>"Nothing of the kind."</p> + +<p>"Do you think I can't believe my own eyes? It's no use your saying +anything, Hugo, I'm through with her. She's let me down. Less than a +week I've been away," said Ronnie, his voice trembling, "and she lets +me down. Well, it serves me right for being such a fool as to think +she ever cared a curse for me."</p> + +<p>He relapsed into silence. And Hugo, after turning over in his mind a +few specimen remarks, decided not to make them. The cab drew up before +the hotel, and Ronnie, getting out, uttered a wordless exclamation.</p> + +<p>"No, let me," said Hugo considerately. A bit rough on a man, he felt, +after coughing up five quid to the hellhounds of the law, to be +expected to pay the cab. He produced money and turned to the driver. It +was some moments before he turned back again, for the driver, by the +rules of the taxi chauffeurs' union, kept his petty cash tucked into +his underclothing. When he did so he was considerably astonished to +find that Ronnie, while his back was turned, had in some unaccountable +manner become Sue. The changeling was staring unhappily at him from the +exact spot where he had left his old friend.</p> + +<p>"Hullo!" he said.</p> + +<p>"Ronnie's gone," said Sue.</p> + +<p>"Gone?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. He walked off as quick as he could round the corner when he saw +me. He—" Sue's voice broke—"he didn't say a word."</p> + +<p>"How did you get here?" asked Hugo. There were other matters, of +course, to be discussed later, but he felt he must get this point +cleared up first.</p> + +<p>"I thought you would bring him back to your hotel, and I thought that +if I could see him I could—say something."</p> + +<p>Hugo was alarmed. He was now practically certain that this girl was +going to cry, and if there was one thing he disliked it was being with +crying girls in a public spot. He would not readily forget the time +when a female named Yvonne Something had given way to a sudden twinge +of neuralgia in his company not far from Piccadilly Circus and an old +lady had stopped and said that it was brutes like him who caused all +the misery in the world.</p> + +<p>"Come inside," he urged quickly. "Come and have a cocktail or a cup of +tea or a bun or something. I say," he said, as he led the way into the +hotel lobby and found two seats in a distant corner, "I'm frightfully +sorry about all this. I can't help feeling it's my fault."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no."</p> + +<p>"If I hadn't asked you to dinner——"</p> + +<p>"It isn't that that's the trouble. Ronnie might have been a little +cross for a minute or two if he had found you and me together, but he +would soon have got over it. It was finding me with that horrid little +man Pilbeam. You see, I told him—and it was quite true—that I didn't +know him."</p> + +<p>"Yes, so he was saying to me in the cab."</p> + +<p>"Did he—what did he say?"</p> + +<p>"Well, he plainly resented the Pilbeam, I'm afraid. His manner, when +touching on the Pilbeam, was austere. I tried to drive into his head +that that was just an accidental meeting and that you had come to +Mario's with me, but he would have none of it. I fear, old thing, +there's nothing to be done but leave the whole binge to Time, the Great +Healer."</p> + +<p>A page boy was making a tour of the lobby. He seemed to be seeking a +Mr. Gargery.</p> + +<p>"If only I could get hold of him and make him listen. I haven't been +given a chance to explain."</p> + +<p>"You think you could explain, even if given a chance?"</p> + +<p>"I could try. Surely he couldn't help seeing that I really loved him if +we had a real talk?"</p> + +<p>"And the trouble is you're here and he'll be back at Blandings in a few +hours. Difficult," said Hugo, shaking his head. "Complex."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Carmody," chanted the page boy, coming nearer. "Mr. Carmody."</p> + +<p>"Hi!" cried Hugo.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Carmody? Wanted on the telephone, sir."</p> + +<p>Hugo's face became devout and saintlike.</p> + +<p>"Awfully sorry to leave you for an instant," he said, "but do you mind +if I rush? It must be Millicent. She's the only person who knows I'm +here."</p> + +<p>He sped away, and Sue, watching him, found herself choking with sudden +tears. It seemed to emphasize her forlornness so, this untimely +evidence of another love story that had not gone awry. She seemed to +be listening to that telephone conversation, hearing Hugo's delighted +yelps as the voice of the girl he loved floated to him over the wire.</p> + +<p>She pulled herself together. Beastly of her to be jealous of Hugo just +because he was happy....</p> + +<p>Sue sat up abruptly. She had had an idea.</p> + +<p>It was a breath-taking idea, but simple. It called for courage, for +audacity, for a reckless disregard of consequences, but nevertheless it +was simple.</p> + +<p>"Hugo," she cried, as that lucky young man returned and dropped into +the chair at her side. "Hugo, listen!"</p> + +<p>"I say," said Hugo.</p> + +<p>"I've suddenly thought——"</p> + +<p>"I say," said Hugo.</p> + +<p>"Do listen!"</p> + +<p>"I say," said Hugo, "that was Millicent on the 'phone."</p> + +<p>"Was it? How nice. Listen, Hugo."</p> + +<p>"Speaking from Blandings."</p> + +<p>"Yes. But——"</p> + +<p>"And she has broken off the engagement!"</p> + +<p>"What!"</p> + +<p>"Broken off the bally engagement," repeated Hugo. He signalled urgently +to a passing waiter. "Get me a brandy-and-soda, will you?" he said. His +face was pale and set. "A stiffish brandy-and-soda, please."</p> + +<p>"Brandy-and-soda, sir?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Hugo. "Stiffish."</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI</h2> +</div> + + +<p>Sue stared at him, bewildered.</p> + +<p>"Broken off the engagement?"</p> + +<p>"Broken off the engagement."</p> + +<p>In moments of stress the foolish question is always the one that comes +uppermost in the mind.</p> + +<p>"Are you sure?"</p> + +<p>Hugo emitted a sound which resembled the bursting of a paper bag. He +would have said himself, if asked, that he was laughing mirthlessly.</p> + +<p>"Sure? Not much doubt about it."</p> + +<p>"But why?"</p> + +<p>"She knows all."</p> + +<p>"All what?"</p> + +<p>"Everything, you poor fish," said Hugo, forgetting in a strong man's +agony the polish of the Carmodys. "She's found out that I took you to +dinner last night."</p> + +<p>"What!"</p> + +<p>"She has."</p> + +<p>"But how?"</p> + +<p>The paper bag exploded again. A look of intense bitterness came into +Hugo's face.</p> + +<p>"If ever I meet that slimy, slinking, marcelle-waved by-product Pilbeam +again," he said, "let him commend his soul to God! If he has time," he +added.</p> + +<p>He took the brandy-and-soda from the waiter and eyed Sue dully.</p> + +<p>"Anything on similar lines for you?"</p> + +<p>"No, thanks."</p> + +<p>"Just as you like. It's not easy for a man in my position to realize," +said Hugo, drinking deeply, "that refusing a brandy-and-soda is +possible. I shouldn't have said, offhand, that it could be done."</p> + +<p>Sue was a warm-hearted girl. In the tragedy of this announcement she +had almost forgotten that she had troubles herself.</p> + +<p>"Tell me all about it, Hugo."</p> + +<p>He put down the empty glass.</p> + +<p>"I came up from Blandings yesterday," he said, "to interview the Argus +Enquiry Agency on the subject of sending a man down to investigate the +theft of Lord Emsworth's pig."</p> + +<p>Sue would have liked to hear more about this pig, but she knew that +this was no time for questions.</p> + +<p>"I went to the Argus and saw this wen Pilbeam, who runs it."</p> + +<p>Again Sue would have liked to speak. Once more she refrained. She felt +as if she were at a sick-bed, hearing a dying man's last words. On such +occasions one does not interrupt.</p> + +<p>"Meanwhile," proceeded Hugo tonelessly, "Millicent, suspecting—and I +am surprised at her having a mind like that; I always looked on her +as a pure, white soul—suspecting that I might be up to something in +London, got the Argus on the long-distance telephone and told them to +follow my movements and report to her. And, apparently, just before +she called me up, she had been talking to them on the wire and getting +their statement. All this she revealed to me in short, burning +sentences, and then she said that if I thought we were still engaged I +could have three more guesses. But, to save me trouble, she would tell +me the right answer—viz.: No wedding bells for me. And to think," said +Hugo, picking up the glass and putting it down again, after inspection, +with a hurt and disappointed look, "that I actually rallied this growth +Pilbeam on the subject of following people and reporting on their +movements. Yes, I assure you. Rallied him blithely. Just as I was +leaving his office we kidded merrily back and forth. And then I went +out into the world, happy and care-free, little knowing that my every +step was dogged by a blasted bloodhound. Well, all I can say is that, +if Ronnie wants this Pilbeam's gore, and I gather that he does, he will +jolly well have to wait till I've helped myself."</p> + +<p>Sue, womanlike, blamed the woman.</p> + +<p>"I don't think Millicent can be a very nice girl," she said primly.</p> + +<p>"An angel," said Hugo. "Always was. Celebrated for it. I don't blame +her."</p> + +<p>"I do."</p> + +<p>"I don't."</p> + +<p>"I do."</p> + +<p>"Well, have it your own way," said Hugo handsomely. He beckoned to the +waiter. "Another of the same, please."</p> + +<p>"This settles it," said Sue.</p> + +<p>Her eyes were sparkling. Her chin had a resolute tilt.</p> + +<p>"Settles what?"</p> + +<p>"While you were at the telephone, I had an idea."</p> + +<p>"I have had ideas in my time," said Hugo. "Many of them. At the moment +I have but one. To get within arm's length of the yam Pilbeam and twist +his greasy neck till it comes apart in my hands. 'What do you do here?' +I said. 'Measure footprints?' 'We follow people and report on their +movements,' said he. 'Ha-ha!' I laughed carelessly. 'Ha-ha!' laughed +he. General mirth and jollity. And all the while——"</p> + +<p>"Hugo, will you listen?"</p> + +<p>"And this is the bitter thought that now strikes me. What chance have +I of scooping out the man's inside with my bare hands? I've got to go +back to Blandings on the two-fifteen or I lose my job. Leaving him +unscathed in his bally lair, chuckling over my downfall and following +some other poor devil's movements."</p> + +<p>"Hugo!"</p> + +<p>The broken man passed a weary hand over his forehead.</p> + +<p>"You spoke?"</p> + +<p>"I've been speaking for the last ten minutes, only you won't listen."</p> + +<p>"Say on," said Hugo listlessly, starting on the second restorative.</p> + +<p>"Have you ever heard of a Miss Schoonmaker?"</p> + +<p>"I seem to know the name. Who is she?"</p> + +<p>"Me."</p> + +<p>Hugo lowered his glass, pained.</p> + +<p>"Don't talk drip to a broken-hearted man," he begged. "What do you +mean?"</p> + +<p>"When Ronnie was driving me in his car we met Lady Constance Keeble."</p> + +<p>"A blister," said Hugo. "Always was. Generally admitted all over +Shropshire."</p> + +<p>"She thought I was this Miss Schoonmaker."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"Because Ronnie said I was."</p> + +<p>Hugo sighed hopelessly.</p> + +<p>"Complex. Complex. My God, how complex!"</p> + +<p>"It was quite simple and natural. Ronnie had just been telling me about +this girl—how he had met her at Biarritz and that she was coming to +Blandings, and so on, and when he saw Lady Constance looking at me with +frightful suspicion it suddenly occurred to him to say that I was her."</p> + +<p>"That you were Lady Constance?"</p> + +<p>"No, idiot. Miss Schoonmaker. And now I'm going to wire her—Lady +Constance, not Miss Schoonmaker, in case you were going to ask—saying +that I'm coming to Blandings right away."</p> + +<p>"Pretending to be this Miss Schoonmaker?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>Hugo shook his head.</p> + +<p>"Imposs."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"Absolutely out of the q."</p> + +<p>"Why? Lady Constance is expecting me. Do be sensible."</p> + +<p>"I'm being sensible all right. But somebody is gibbering and, naming no +names, it's you. Don't you realize that, just as you reach the front +door, this Miss Schoonmaker will arrive in person, dishing the whole +thing?"</p> + +<p>"No, she won't."</p> + +<p>"Why won't she?"</p> + +<p>"Because Ronnie sent her a telegram, in Lady Constance's name, saying +that there's scarlet fever or something at Blandings and she wasn't to +come."</p> + +<p>Hugo's air of the superior critic fell from him like a garment. He sat +up in his chair. So moved was he that he spilled his brandy-and-soda +and did not give it so much as a look of regret. He let it soak into +the carpet unheeded.</p> + +<p>"Sue!"</p> + +<p>"Once I'm at Blandings I shall be able to see Ronnie and make him be +sensible."</p> + +<p>"That's right."</p> + +<p>"And then you'll be able to tell Millicent that there couldn't have +been much harm in my being out with you last night because I'm engaged +to Ronnie."</p> + +<p>"That's right, too."</p> + +<p>"Can you see any flaws?"</p> + +<p>"Not a flaw."</p> + +<p>"I suppose, as a matter of fact, you'll give the whole thing away in +the first five minutes by calling me Sue."</p> + +<p>Hugo waved an arm buoyantly.</p> + +<p>"Don't give the possibility another thought," he said. "If I do I'll +cover it up adroitly by saying I meant 'Schoo.' Short for Schoonmaker. +And now go and send her another telegram. Keep on sending telegrams. +Leave nothing to chance. Send a dozen and pitch it strong. Say that +Blandings Castle is ravaged with disease. Not merely scarlet fever. +Scarlet fever <i>and</i> mumps. Not to mention housemaid's knee, diabetes, +measles, shingles, and the botts. We're onto a big thing, my Susan. Let +us push it along."</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII</h2> +</div> + + +<p class="ph2">I</p> + +<p>Sunshine, calling to all right-thinking men to come out and revel in +its heartening warmth, poured in at the windows of the great library +of Blandings Castle. But to Clarence, ninth Earl of Emsworth, much as +he liked sunshine as a rule, it brought no cheer. His face drawn, his +pince-nez askew, his tie drooping away from its stud like a languorous +lily, he sat staring sightlessly before him. He looked like something +that had just been prepared for stuffing by a taxidermist.</p> + +<p>A moralist, watching Lord Emsworth in his travail, would have reflected +smugly that it cuts both ways, this business of being a peer of +the realm with large private means and a good digestion. Unalloyed +prosperity, he would have pointed out in his offensive way, tends to +enervate: and in this world of ours, full of alarms and uncertainties, +where almost anything is apt to drop suddenly on top of your head +without warning at almost any moment, what one needs is to be tough and +alert.</p> + +<p>When some outstanding disaster happens to the ordinary man, it finds +him prepared. Years of missing the eight-forty-five, taking the dog for +a run on rainy nights, endeavouring to abate smoky chimneys, and coming +down to breakfast and discovering that they have burned the bacon +again, have given his soul a protective hardness, so that by the time +his wife's relations arrive for a long visit he is ready for them.</p> + +<p>Lord Emsworth had had none of this salutary training. Fate, hitherto, +had seemed to spend its time thinking up ways of pampering him. He +ate well, slept well, and had no money troubles. He grew the best +roses in Shropshire. He had won a first prize for pumpkins at that +county's agricultural show, a thing no Earl of Emsworth had ever done +before. And, just previous to the point at which this chronicle opens, +his younger son Frederick had married the daughter of an American +millionaire and had gone to live three thousand miles away from +Blandings Castle, with lots of good, deep water in between him and it. +He had come to look on himself as Fate's spoiled darling.</p> + +<p>Can we wonder, then, that in the agony of this sudden treacherous blow +he felt stunned and looked eviscerated? Is it surprising that the +sunshine made no appeal to him? May we not consider him justified, +as he sat there, in swallowing a lump in his throat like an ostrich +gulping down a brass door knob?</p> + +<p>The answer to these questions, in the order given, is No, No, and Yes.</p> + +<p>The door of the library opened, revealing the natty person of his +brother Galahad. Lord Emsworth straightened his pince-nez and looked at +him apprehensively. Knowing how little reverence there was in the Hon. +Galahad's composition and how tepid was his interest in the honourable +struggles for supremacy of Fat Pigs, he feared that the other was about +to wound him in his bereavement with some jarring flippancy. Then his +gaze softened and he was conscious of a soothing feeling of relief. +There was no frivolity in his brother's face, only a gravity which +became him well. The Hon. Galahad sat down, hitched up the knees of his +trousers, cleared his throat, and spoke in a tone that could not have +been more sympathetic or in better taste.</p> + +<p>"Bad business, this, Clarence."</p> + +<p>"Appalling, my dear fellow."</p> + +<p>"What are you going to do about it?"</p> + +<p>Lord Emsworth shrugged his shoulders hopelessly. He generally did when +people asked him what he was going to do about things.</p> + +<p>"I am at a loss," he confessed. "I do not know how to act. What young +Carmody tells me has completely upset all my plans."</p> + +<p>"Carmody?"</p> + +<p>"I sent him to the Argus Enquiry Agency in London to engage the +services of a detective. It is a firm that Sir Gregory Parsloe once +mentioned to me, in the days when we were on better terms. He said, +in rather a meaning way, I thought, that if ever I had any trouble +of any sort that needed expert and tactful handling, these were the +people to go to. I gathered that they had assisted him in some matter, +the details of which he did not confide to me, and had given complete +satisfaction."</p> + +<p>"Parsloe!" said the Hon. Galahad, and sniffed.</p> + +<p>"So I sent young Carmody to London to approach them about finding the +Empress. And now he tells me that his errand proved fruitless. They +were firm in their refusal to trace missing pigs."</p> + +<p>"Just as well."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Save you a lot of unnecessary expense. There's no need for you to +waste money employing detectives."</p> + +<p>"I thought that possibly the trained mind——"</p> + +<p>"I can tell you who's got the Empress. I've known it all along."</p> + +<p>"What!"</p> + +<p>"Certainly."</p> + +<p>"Galahad!"</p> + +<p>"It's as plain as the nose on your face."</p> + +<p>Lord Emsworth felt his nose.</p> + +<p>"Is it?" he said doubtfully.</p> + +<p>"I've just been talking to Constance——"</p> + +<p>"Constance?" Lord Emsworth opened his mouth feebly. "She hasn't got my +pig?"</p> + +<p>"I've just been talking to Constance," repeated the Hon. Galahad, "and +she called me some very unpleasant names."</p> + +<p>"She does, sometimes. Even as a child, I remember——"</p> + +<p>"Most unpleasant names. A senile mischief maker, among others, and a +meddling old penguin. And all because I told her that the man who had +stolen Empress of Blandings was young Gregory Parsloe."</p> + +<p>"Parsloe!"</p> + +<p>"Parsloe. Surely it's obvious? I should have thought it would have been +clear to the meanest intelligence."</p> + +<p>From boyhood up, Lord Emsworth had possessed an intelligence about as +mean as an intelligence can be without actually being placed under +restraint. Nevertheless, he found his brother's theory incredible.</p> + +<p>"Parsloe?"</p> + +<p>"Don't keep saying 'Parsloe.'"</p> + +<p>"But, my dear Galahad——!"</p> + +<p>"It stands to reason."</p> + +<p>"You don't really think so?"</p> + +<p>"Of course I think so. Have you forgotten what I told you the other +day?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Lord Emsworth. He always forgot what people told him the +other day.</p> + +<p>"About young Parsloe," said the Hon. Galahad impatiently. "About his +nobbling my dog Towser."</p> + +<p>Lord Emsworth started. It all came back to him. A hard expression crept +into the eyes behind the pince-nez, which emotion had just jerked +crooked again.</p> + +<p>"To be sure. Towser. Your dog. I remember."</p> + +<p>"He nobbled Towser, and he's nobbled the Empress. Dash it, Clarence, +use your intelligence. Who else except young Parsloe had any interest +in getting the Empress out of the way? And if he hadn't known there was +some dirty work being planned would that pig man of his, Brotherhood or +whatever his name is, have been going about offering three to one on +Pride of Matchingham? I told you at the time it was fishy."</p> + +<p>The evidence was damning, and yet Lord Emsworth found himself once more +a prey to doubt. Of the blackness of Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe's +soul he had, of course, long been aware. But could the man actually be +capable of the Crime of the Century? A fellow landowner? A justice of +the peace? A man who grew pumpkins? A baronet?</p> + +<p>"But, Galahad—a man in Parsloe's position...?"</p> + +<p>"What do you mean, a man in his position? Do you suppose a fellow +changes his nature just because a cousin of his dies and he comes into +a baronetcy? Haven't I told you a dozen times that I've known young +Parsloe all his life? Known him intimately. He was always as hot as +mustard and as wide as Leicester Square. Ask anybody who used to go +around town in those days. When they saw young Parsloe coming strong +men winced and hid their valuables. He hadn't a penny except what he +could get by telling the tale, and he always did himself like a prince. +When I knew him first he was living down on the river at Shepperton. +His old father, the Dean, had made an arrangement with the keeper of +the pub there to give him breakfast and bed and nothing else. 'If he +wants dinner, he must earn it,' the old boy said. And do you know how +he used to earn it? He trained that mongrel of his, Banjo, to go and do +tricks in front of parties that came to the place in steam launches. +And then he would stroll up and hope his dog was not annoying them and +stand talking till they went in to dinner and then go in with them and +pick up the wine list, and before they knew what was happening he would +be bursting with their champagne and cigars. That's the sort of fellow +young Parsloe was."</p> + +<p>"But even so——"</p> + +<p>"I remember him running up to me outside that pub one afternoon—the +Jolly Miller, it was called—his face shining with positive ecstasy. +'Come in, quick!' he said. 'There's a new barmaid, and she hasn't found +out yet I'm not allowed credit.'"</p> + +<p>"But, Galahad——"</p> + +<p>"And if young Parsloe thinks I've forgotten a certain incident that +occurred in the early summer of the year '95 he's very much mistaken. +He met me in the Haymarket and took me into the Two Goslings for a +drink—there's a hat shop now where it used to be—and after we'd had +it he pulls a sort of dashed little top affair out of his pocket, a +thing with numbers written round it. Said he'd found it in the street +and wondered who thought of these ingenious little toys and insisted on +our spinning it for half-crowns. 'You take the odd numbers, I'll take +the even,' says young Parsloe. And before I could fight my way out into +the fresh air I was ten pounds seven and sixpence in the hole. And I +discovered next morning that they make those beastly things so that if +you push the stem through and spin them the wrong way up you're bound +to get an even number. And when I asked him the following afternoon to +show me that top again he said he'd lost it. That's the sort of fellow +young Parsloe was. And you expect me to believe that inheriting a +baronetcy and settling down in the country has made him so dashed pure +and high-minded that he wouldn't stoop to nobbling a pig."</p> + +<p>Lord Emsworth uncoiled himself. Cumulative evidence had done its work. +His eyes glittered, and he breathed stertorously.</p> + +<p>"The scoundrel!"</p> + +<p>"Tough nut, always was."</p> + +<p>"What shall I do?"</p> + +<p>"Do? Why, go to him right away and tax him."</p> + +<p>"Tax him?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Look him squarely in the eye and tax him with his crime."</p> + +<p>"I will! Immediately."</p> + +<p>"I'll come with you."</p> + +<p>"Look him squarely in the eye!"</p> + +<p>"And tax him!"</p> + +<p>"And tax him." Lord Emsworth had reached the hall and was peering +agitatedly to right and left. "Where the devil's my hat? I can't find +my hat. Somebody's always hiding my hat. I will not have my hats +hidden."</p> + +<p>"You don't need a hat to tax a man with stealing a pig," said the Hon. +Galahad, who was well versed in the manners and rules of good society.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p class="ph2">II</p> + +<p>In his study at Matchingham Hall in the neighbouring village of Much +Matchingham, Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe sat gazing at the current +number of a weekly paper. We have seen that weekly paper before. On +that occasion it was in the plump hands of Beach. And, oddly enough, +what had attracted Sir Gregory's attention was the very item which had +interested the butler.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The Hon. Galahad Threepwood, brother of the Earl of Emsworth. A +little bird tells us that "Gally" is at Blandings Castle, Shropshire, +the ancestral seat of the family, busily engaged in writing his +Reminiscences. As every member of the Old Brigade will testify, they +ought to be as warm as the weather, if not warmer!</p> +</div> + +<p>But whereas Beach, perusing this, had chuckled, Sir Gregory +Parsloe-Parsloe shivered, like one who on a country ramble suddenly +perceives a snake in his path.</p> + +<p>Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe of Matchingham Hall, seventh baronet of +his line, was one of those men who start their lives well, skid for a +while, and then slide back onto the straight and narrow path and stay +there. That is to say, he had been up to the age of twenty a blameless +boy and from the age of thirty-one, when he had succeeded to the title, +a practically blameless bart. So much so that now, in his fifty-second +year, he was on the eve of being accepted by the local Unionist +Committee as their accredited candidate for the forthcoming by-election +in the Bridgeford and Shifley Parliamentary Division of Shropshire.</p> + +<p>But there had been a decade in his life, that dangerous decade of the +twenties, when he had accumulated a past so substantial that a less +able man would have been compelled to spread it over a far longer +period. It was an epoch in his life to which he did not enjoy looking +back, and years of irreproachable barthood had enabled him, as far as +he personally was concerned, to bury the past. And now, it seemed, this +pestilential companion of his youth was about to dig it up again.</p> + +<p>The years had turned Sir Gregory into a man of portly habit; and, as +portly men do in moments of stress, he puffed. But, puff he never so +shrewdly, he could not blow away that paragraph. It was still there, +looking up at him, when the door opened and the butler announced Lord +Emsworth and Mr. Galahad Threepwood.</p> + +<p>Sir Gregory's first emotion on seeing the taxing party file into the +room was one of pardonable surprise. Aware of the hard feelings which +George Cyril Wellbeloved's transference of his allegiance had aroused +in the bosom of that gifted pig man's former employer, he had not +expected to receive a morning call from the Earl of Emsworth. As for +the Hon. Galahad, he had ceased to be on cordial terms with him as long +ago as the winter of the year nineteen hundred and six.</p> + +<p>Then, following quickly on the heels of surprise, came indignation. +That the author of the Reminiscences should be writing scurrilous +stories about him with one hand and strolling calmly into his private +study with, so to speak, the other, occasioned him the keenest +resentment. He drew himself up and was in the very act of staring +haughtily when the Hon. Galahad broke the silence.</p> + +<p>"Young Parsloe," said the Hon. Galahad, speaking in a sharp, unpleasant +voice, "your sins have found you out!"</p> + +<p>It had been the baronet's intention to inquire to what he was indebted +for the pleasure of this visit, and to inquire it icily; but at this +remarkable speech the words halted on his lips.</p> + +<p>"Eh?" he said blankly.</p> + +<p>The Hon. Galahad was regarding him through his monocle rather as a cook +eyes a black beetle on discovering it in the kitchen sink. It was a +look which would have aroused pique in a slug, and once more the Squire +of Matchingham's bewilderment gave way to wrath.</p> + +<p>"What the devil do you mean?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>"See his face?" asked the Hon. Galahad in a rasping aside.</p> + +<p>"I'm looking at it now," said Lord Emsworth.</p> + +<p>"Guilt written upon it."</p> + +<p>"Plainly," agreed Lord Emsworth.</p> + +<p>The Hon. Galahad, who had folded his arms in a menacing manner, +unfolded them and struck the desk a smart blow.</p> + +<p>"Be very careful, Parsloe! Think before you speak. And when you speak, +speak the truth. I may say, by way of a start, that we know all."</p> + +<p>How low an estimate Sir Gregory Parsloe had formed of his visitors' +collective sanity was revealed by the fact that it was actually to Lord +Emsworth that he now turned as the more intelligent one of the pair.</p> + +<p>"Emsworth! Explain! What the deuce are you doing here? And what the +devil is that old image talking about?"</p> + +<p>Lord Emsworth had been watching his brother with growing admiration. +The latter's spirited opening of the case for the prosecution had won +his hearty approval.</p> + +<p>"You know," he said curtly.</p> + +<p>"I should say he dashed well does know," said the Hon. Galahad. +"Parsloe, produce that pig!"</p> + +<p>Sir Gregory pushed his eyes back into their sockets a split second +before they would have bulged out of his head beyond recovery. He did +his best to think calm, soothing thoughts. He had just remembered that +he was a man who had to be careful about his blood pressure.</p> + +<p>"Pig?"</p> + +<p>"Pig."</p> + +<p>"Did you say pig?"</p> + +<p>"Pig."</p> + +<p>"What pig?"</p> + +<p>"He says, 'What pig?'"</p> + +<p>"I heard him," said Lord Emsworth.</p> + +<p>Sir Gregory Parsloe again had trouble with his eyes.</p> + +<p>"I don't know what you are talking about."</p> + +<p>The Hon. Galahad unfolded his arms again and smote the desk a blow that +unshipped the cover of the inkpot.</p> + +<p>"Parsloe, you sheep-faced, shambling exile from hell," he cried, +"disgorge that pig immediately!"</p> + +<p>"My Empress," added Lord Emsworth.</p> + +<p>"Precisely. Empress of Blandings. The pig you stole last night."</p> + +<p>Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe rose slowly from his chair. The Hon. +Galahad pointed an imperious finger at him, but he ignored the gesture. +His blood pressure was now hovering around the hundred-and-fifty mark.</p> + +<p>"Do you mean to tell me that you seriously accuse——"</p> + +<p>"Parsloe, sit down!"</p> + +<p>Sir Gregory choked.</p> + +<p>"I always knew, Emsworth, that you were as mad as a coot."</p> + +<p>"As a what?" whispered his lordship.</p> + +<p>"Coot," said the Hon. Galahad curtly. "Sort of duck." He turned to the +defendant again. "Vituperation will do you no good, young Parsloe. We +<i>know</i> that you have stolen that pig."</p> + +<p>"I haven't stolen any damned pig. What would I want to steal a pig for?"</p> + +<p>The Hon. Galahad snorted.</p> + +<p>"What did you want to nobble my dog Towser for in the back room of the +Black Footman in the spring of the year '97?" he said. "To queer the +favourite, that's why you did it. And that's what you're after now, +trying to queer the favourite again. Oh, we can see through you all +right, young Parsloe. We read you like a book."</p> + +<p>Sir Gregory had stopped worrying about his blood pressure. No amount of +calm, soothing thoughts could do it any good now.</p> + +<p>"You're crazy! Both of you. Stark staring mad."</p> + +<p>"Parsloe, will you or will you not cough up that pig?"</p> + +<p>"I have not got your pig."</p> + +<p>"That is your last word, is it?"</p> + +<p>"I haven't seen the creature."</p> + +<p>"Why a coot?" asked Lord Emsworth, who had been brooding for some time +in silence.</p> + +<p>"Very well," said the Hon. Galahad. "If that is the attitude you +propose to adopt there is no course before me but to take steps. And +I'll tell you the steps I'm going to take, young Parsloe. I see now +that I have been foolishly indulgent. I have allowed my kind heart to +get the better of me. Often and often, when I've been sitting at my +desk, I've remembered a good story that simply cried out to be put into +my Reminiscences, and every time I've said to myself, 'No,' I've said, +'that would wound young Parsloe. Good as it is, I can't use it. I must +respect young Parsloe's feelings.' Well, from now on there will be no +more forbearance. Unless you restore that pig I shall insert in my book +every dashed thing I can remember about you—starting with our first +meeting, when I came into Romano's and was introduced to you while you +were walking round the supper table with a soup tureen on your head and +stick of celery in your hand, saying that you were a sentry outside +Buckingham Palace. The world shall know you for what you are—the only +man who was ever thrown out of the Café de l'Europe for trying to raise +the price of a bottle of champagne by raffling his trousers at the main +bar. And, what's more, I'll tell the full story of the prawns."</p> + +<p>A sharp cry escaped Sir Gregory. His face had turned a deep magenta. +In these affluent days of his middle age he always looked rather like a +Regency buck who has done himself well for years among the fleshpots. +He now resembled a Regency buck who, in addition to being on the verge +of apoplexy, has been stung in the leg by a hornet.</p> + +<p>"I will," said the Hon. Galahad firmly. "The full, true, and complete +story of the prawns, omitting nothing."</p> + +<p>"What was the story of the prawns, my dear fellow?" asked Lord +Emsworth, interested.</p> + +<p>"Never mind. I know. And young Parsloe knows. And if Empress of +Blandings is not back in her sty this afternoon, you will find it in my +book."</p> + +<p>"But I keep telling you," cried the suffering baronet, "that I know +nothing whatever about your pig."</p> + +<p>"Ha!"</p> + +<p>"I've not seen the animal since last year's agricultural show."</p> + +<p>"Ho!"</p> + +<p>"I didn't know it had disappeared till you told me."</p> + +<p>The Hon. Galahad stared fixedly at him through the black-rimmed +monocle. Then, with a gesture of loathing, he turned to the door.</p> + +<p>"Come, Clarence!" he said.</p> + +<p>"Are we going?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said the Hon. Galahad with quiet dignity. "There is nothing +more that we can do here. Let us get away from this house before it is +struck by a thunderbolt."</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p class="ph2">III</p> + +<p>The gentlemanly office boy who sat in the outer room of the Argus +Enquiry Agency read the card which the stout visitor had handed to him +and gazed at the stout visitor with respect and admiration. A polished +lad, he loved the aristocracy. He tapped on the door of the inner +office.</p> + +<p>"A gentleman to see me?" asked Percy Pilbeam.</p> + +<p>"A <i>baronet</i> to see you, sir," corrected the office boy. "Sir Gregory +Parsloe-Parsloe, Matchingham Hall, Salop."</p> + +<p>"Show him in immediately," said Pilbeam with enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>He rose and pulled down the lapels of his coat. Things, he felt, were +looking up. He remembered Sir Gregory Parsloe. One of his first cases. +He had been able to recover for him some letters which had fallen into +the wrong hands. He wondered, as he heard the footsteps outside, if his +client had been indulging in correspondence again.</p> + +<p>From the baronet's sandbagged expression as he entered such might well +have been the case. It is the fate of Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe to +come into this chronicle puffing and looking purple. He puffed and +looked purple now.</p> + +<p>"I have called to see you, Mr. Pilbeam," he said, after the preliminary +civilities had been exchanged and he had lowered his impressive bulk +into a chair, "because I am in a position of serious difficulty."</p> + +<p>"I am sorry to hear that, Sir Gregory."</p> + +<p>"And because I remember with what discretion and resource you once +acted on my behalf."</p> + +<p>Pilbeam glanced at the door. It was closed. He was now convinced that +his visitor's little trouble was the same as on that previous occasion, +and he looked at the indefatigable man with frank astonishment. Didn't +these old bucks, he was asking himself, ever stop writing compromising +letters? You would have thought they would get writer's cramp.</p> + +<p>"If there is any way in which I can assist you, Sir Gregory.... Perhaps +you will tell me the facts from the beginning?"</p> + +<p>"The beginning?" Sir Gregory pondered. "Well, let me put it this way. +At one time, Mr. Pilbeam, I was younger than I am to-day."</p> + +<p>"Quite."</p> + +<p>"Poorer."</p> + +<p>"No doubt."</p> + +<p>"And less respectable. And during that period of my life I +unfortunately went about a good deal with a man named Threepwood."</p> + +<p>"Galahad Threepwood?"</p> + +<p>"You know him?" said Sir Gregory, surprised.</p> + +<p>Pilbeam chuckled reminiscently.</p> + +<p>"I know his name. I wrote an article about him once, when I was +editing a paper called <i>Society Spice</i>. Number One of the Thriftless +Aristocrats series. The snappiest thing I ever did in my life. They +tell me he called twice at the office with a horsewhip, wanting to see +me."</p> + +<p>Sir Gregory exhibited concern.</p> + +<p>"You have met him, then?"</p> + +<p>"I have not. You are probably not familiar with the inner workings of +a paper like <i>Society Spice</i>, Sir Gregory, but I may tell you that it +is foreign to the editorial policy ever to meet visitors who call with +horsewhips."</p> + +<p>"Would he have heard your name?"</p> + +<p>"No. There was a very strict rule in the <i>Spice</i> office that the names +of the editorial staff were not to be divulged."</p> + +<p>"Ah!" said Sir Gregory, relieved.</p> + +<p>His relief gave place to indignation. There was an inconsistency about +the Hon. Galahad's behaviour which revolted him.</p> + +<p>"He cut up rough, did he, because you wrote things about him in your +paper? And yet he doesn't seem to mind writing things himself about +other people, damn him. That's quite another matter. A different thing +altogether. Oh, yes!"</p> + +<p>"Does he write? I didn't know."</p> + +<p>"He's writing his Reminiscences at this very moment. He's down at +Blandings Castle, finishing them now. And the book's going to be full +of stories about me. That's why I've come to see you. Dashed, infernal, +damaging stories, which'll ruin my reputation in the county. There's +one about some prawns——"</p> + +<p>Words failed Sir Gregory. He sat puffing. Pilbeam nodded gravely. He +understood the position now. As to what his client expected him to do +about it, however, he remained hazy.</p> + +<p>"But if these stories you speak of are libellous——"</p> + +<p>"What has that got to do with it? They're true."</p> + +<p>"The greater the truth, the greater the——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I know all about that," interrupted Sir Gregory impatiently. +"And a lot of help it's going to be to me. A jury could give me the +heaviest damages on record and it wouldn't do me a bit of good. What +about my reputation in the county? What about knowing that every +damned fool I met was laughing at me behind my back? What about the +Unionist Committee? I may tell you, Mr. Pilbeam, apart from any other +consideration, that I am on the point of being accepted by our local +Unionist Committee as their candidate at the next election. And if that +old pest's book is published they will drop me like a hot coal. Now do +you understand?"</p> + +<p>Pilbeam picked up a pen, and with it scratched his chin thoughtfully. +He liked to take an optimistic view with regard to his clients' +affairs, but he could not conceal from himself that Sir Gregory +appeared to be out of luck.</p> + +<p>"He is determined to publish this book?"</p> + +<p>"It's the only object he's got in life, the miserable old fossil."</p> + +<p>"And he is resolved to include the stories?"</p> + +<p>"He called on me this morning expressly to tell me so. And I caught the +next train to London to put the matter in your hands."</p> + +<p>Pilbeam scratched his left cheek bone.</p> + +<p>"H'm!" he said. "Well, in the circumstances, I really don't see what is +to be done except——"</p> + +<p>"—Get hold of the manuscript and destroy it, you were about to say? +Exactly. That's precisely what I've come to ask you to do for me."</p> + +<p>Pilbeam opened his mouth, startled. He had not been about to say +anything of the kind. What he had been intending to remark was that, +the situation being as described, there appeared no course to pursue +but to fold the hands, set the teeth, and await the inevitable +disaster like a man and a Briton. He gazed blankly at this lawless +bart. Baronets are proverbially bad, but surely, felt Percy Pilbeam, +there was no excuse for them to be as bad as all that.</p> + +<p>"Steal the manuscript?"</p> + +<p>"Only possible way."</p> + +<p>"But that's rather a tall order, isn't it, Sir Gregory?"</p> + +<p>"Not," replied the baronet ingratiatingly, "for a clever young fellow +like you."</p> + +<p>The flattery left Pilbeam cold. His distant, unenthusiastic manner +underwent no change. However clever a man is, he was thinking, he +cannot very well abstract the manuscript of a book of Reminiscences +from a house unless he is first able to enter that house.</p> + +<p>"How could I get into the place?"</p> + +<p>"I should have thought you would have found a dozen ways."</p> + +<p>"Not even one," Pilbeam assured him.</p> + +<p>"Look how you recovered those letters of mine."</p> + +<p>"That was easy."</p> + +<p>"You told them you had come to inspect the gas meter."</p> + +<p>"I could scarcely go to Blandings Castle and say I had come to inspect +the gas meter and hope to be invited to make a long visit on the +strength of it. You do not appear to realize, Sir Gregory, that the +undertaking you suggest would not be a matter of a few minutes. I might +have to remain in the house for quite a considerable time."</p> + +<p>Sir Gregory found his companion's attitude damping. He was a man who, +since his accession to the baronetcy and its accompanying wealth, had +grown accustomed to seeing people jump smartly to it when he issued +instructions. He became peevish.</p> + +<p>"Why couldn't you go there as a butler or something?"</p> + +<p>Percy Pilbeam's only reply to this was a tolerant smile. He raised the +pen and scratched his head with it.</p> + +<p>"Scarcely feasible," he said. And again that rather pitying smile +flitted across his face.</p> + +<p>The sight of it brought Sir Gregory to the boil. He felt an +irresistible desire to say something to wipe it away. It reminded him +of the smiles he had seen on the faces of bookmakers in his younger +days when he had suggested backing horses with them on credit and in a +spirit of mutual trust.</p> + +<p>"Well, have it your own way," he snapped. "But it may interest you to +know that to get that manuscript into my possession I am willing to pay +a thousand pounds."</p> + +<p>It did, as he had foreseen, interest Pilbeam extremely. So much so that +in his emotion he jerked the pen wildly, inflicting a nasty scalp wound.</p> + +<p>"A thuth?" he stammered.</p> + +<p>Sir Gregory, a prudent man in money matters, perceived that he had +allowed his sense of the dramatic to carry him away.</p> + +<p>"Well, five hundred," he said, rather quickly. "And five hundred pounds +is a lot of money, Mr. Pilbeam."</p> + +<p>The point was one which he had no need to stress. Percy Pilbeam had +grasped it without assistance, and his face grew wan with thought. The +day might come when the proprietor of the Argus Enquiry Agency would +remain unmoved by the prospect of adding five hundred pounds to his +bank balance, but it had not come yet.</p> + +<p>"A check for five hundred the moment that old weasel's manuscript is in +my hands," said Sir Gregory insinuatingly.</p> + +<p>Nature had so arranged it that in no circumstances could Percy +Pilbeam's face ever become really beautiful; but at this moment there +stole into it an expression which did do something to relieve, to a +certain extent, its normal unpleasantness. It was an expression of +rapture, of joy, of almost beatific happiness—the look, in short, of a +man who sees his way clear to laying his hands on five hundred pounds.</p> + +<p>There is about the mention of any substantial sum of money something +that seems to exercise a quickening effect on the human intelligence. A +moment before Pilbeam's mind had been an inert mass. Now, abruptly, it +began to function like a dynamo.</p> + +<p>Get into Blandings Castle? Why, of course he could get into Blandings +Castle. And not sneak in, either, with a trousers seat itching in +apprehension of the kick that should send him out again, but bowl +proudly up to the front door in his two-seater and hand his suitcase +to the butler and be welcomed as the honoured guest. Until now he +had forgotten, for he had deliberately set himself to forget, the +outrageous suggestion of that young idiot whose name escaped him that +he should come to Blandings and hunt about for lost pigs. It had +wounded his self-respect so deeply at the time that he had driven it +from his thoughts. When he had found himself thinking about Hugo he +had immediately pulled himself together and started thinking about +something else. Now it all came back to him. And Hugo's parting words, +he recalled, had been that if ever he changed his mind the commission +would still be open.</p> + +<p>"I will take this case, Sir Gregory," he said.</p> + +<p>"Woof?"</p> + +<p>"You may rely on my being at Blandings Castle by to-morrow evening at +the latest. I have thought of a way of getting there."</p> + +<p>He rose from his desk and paced the room with knitted brows. That agile +brain had begun to work under its own steam. He paused once to look +in a distrait manner out of the window, and when Sir Gregory cleared +his throat to speak, jerked an impatient shoulder at him. He could not +have baronets, even with hyphens in their names, interrupting him at a +moment like this.</p> + +<p>"Sir Gregory," he said at length, "the great thing in matters like this +is to be prepared with a plan. I have a plan."</p> + +<p>"Woof!" said Sir Gregory.</p> + +<p>This time he meant that he had thought all along that his companion +would get one after pacing like that.</p> + +<p>"When you arrive home I want you to invite Mr. Galahad Threepwood to +dinner to-morrow night."</p> + +<p>The baronet shook like a jelly. Wrath and amazement fought within him. +Ask the man to dinner? After what had occurred?</p> + +<p>"As many others of the Blandings Castle party as you think fit, of +course, but Mr. Threepwood without fail. Once he is out of the house my +path will be clear."</p> + +<p>Wrath and amazement died away. The baronet had grasped the idea. The +beauty and simplicity of the stratagem stirred his admiration. But was +it not, he felt, a simpler matter to issue such an invitation than +to get it accepted? A vivid picture rose before his eyes of the Hon. +Galahad as he had last seen him.</p> + +<p>Then there came to him the blessed, healing thought of Lady Constance +Keeble. He would send the invitation to her and—yes, dash it!—he +would tell her the full facts, put his cards on the table, and trust +to her sympathy and proper feeling to enlist her in the cause. He had +long been aware that her attitude towards the Reminiscences resembled +his own. He could rely on her to help him. He could also rely on +her somehow—by what strange feminine modes of coercion he, being a +bachelor, could only guess at—to deliver the Hon. Galahad Threepwood +at Matchingham Hall in time for dinner. Women, he knew, had this +strange power over their near relations.</p> + +<p>"Splendid!" he said. "Excellent! Capital. Woof! I'll see it's done."</p> + +<p>"Then you can leave the rest to me."</p> + +<p>"You think, if I can get him out of the house, you will be able to +secure the manuscript?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly."</p> + +<p>Sir Gregory rose and extended a trembling hand.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Pilbeam," he said, with deep feeling, "coming to see you was the +wisest thing I ever did in my life."</p> + +<p>"Quite," said Percy Pilbeam.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII</h2> +</div> + + +<p>Having reread the half-dozen pages which he had written since luncheon, +the Hon. Galahad Threepwood attached them with a brass paper fastener +to the main body of his monumental work and placed the manuscript in +its drawer—lovingly, like a young mother putting her first born to +bed. The day's work was done. Rising from the desk, he yawned and +stretched himself.</p> + +<p>He was ink stained but cheerful. Happiness, as solid thinkers have +often pointed out, comes from giving pleasure to others; and the little +anecdote that he had just committed to paper would, he knew, give great +pleasure to a considerable number of his fellow men. All over England +they would be rolling out of their seats when they read it. True, their +enjoyment might possibly not be shared to its fullest extent by Sir +Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe of Matchingham Hall, for what the Hon. Galahad +had just written was the story of the prawns: but the first lesson an +author has to learn is that he cannot please everybody.</p> + +<p>He left the small library which he had commandeered as a private study +and, descending the broad staircase, observed Beach in the hall below. +The butler was standing mountainously beside the tea table, staring in +a sort of trance at a plateful of anchovy sandwiches; and it struck +the Hon. Galahad, not for the first time in the last few days, that he +appeared to have something on his mind. A strained, haunted look he +seemed to have, as if he had done a murder and was afraid somebody was +going to find the body. A more practised physiognomist would have been +able to interpret that look. It was the one that butlers always wear +when they have allowed themselves to be persuaded against their better +judgment into becoming accessories before the fact in the theft of +their employers' pigs.</p> + +<p>"Beach," he said, speaking over the banisters, for he had just +remembered that there was a question he wanted to ask the man about the +somewhat eccentric Major General Magnus in whose employment he had once +been.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter with you?" he added with some irritation. For the +butler, jerked from his reverie, had jumped a couple of inches and +shaken all over in a manner that was most trying to watch. A butler, +felt the Hon. Galahad, is a butler, and a startled fawn is a startled +fawn. He disliked the blend of the two in a single body.</p> + +<p>"Why on earth do you spring like that when anyone speaks to you? I've +noticed it before. He leaps," he said complainingly to his niece +Millicent, who now came down the stairs with slow, listless steps; +"when addressed he quivers like a harpooned whale."</p> + +<p>"Oh?" said Millicent dully. She had drooped into a chair and picked up +a book. She looked like something that might have occurred to Ibsen in +one of his less frivolous moments.</p> + +<p>"I am extremely sorry, Mr. Galahad."</p> + +<p>"No use being sorry. Thing is not to do it. If you are practising the +shimmy for the servants' ball be advised by an old friend and give it +up. You haven't the build."</p> + +<p>"I think I may have caught a chill, sir."</p> + +<p>"Take a stiff whisky toddy. Put you right in no time. What's the car +doing out there?"</p> + +<p>"Her ladyship ordered it, sir. I understand that she and Mr. Baxter are +going to Market Blandings to meet the train arriving at four-forty."</p> + +<p>"Somebody expected?"</p> + +<p>"The American young lady, sir, Miss Schoonmaker."</p> + +<p>"Of course, yes. I remember. She arrives to-day, does she?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"Schoonmaker. I used to know old Johnny Schoonmaker well. A great +fellow. Mixed the finest mint juleps in America. Have you ever tasted a +mint julep, Beach?"</p> + +<p>"Not to my recollection, sir."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you'd remember all right if you had. Insidious things. They creep +up to you like a baby sister and slide their little hands into yours, +and the next thing you know the judge is telling you to pay the clerk +of the court fifty dollars. Seen Lord Emsworth anywhere?"</p> + +<p>"His lordship is at the telephone, sir."</p> + +<p>"Don't do it, I tell you!" said the Hon. Galahad petulantly. For once +again the butler had been affected by what appeared to be a kind of +palsy.</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon, Mr. Galahad. It was something I was suddenly +reminded of. There was a gentleman just after luncheon who desired to +communicate with you on the telephone. I understood him to say that he +was speaking from Oxford, being on his way from London to Blackpool +in his automobile. Knowing that you were occupied with your literary +work I refrained from disturbing you. And till I mentioned the word +'telephone' the matter slipped my mind."</p> + +<p>"Who was he?"</p> + +<p>"I did not get the gentleman's name, sir. The wire was faulty. But he +desired me to inform you that his business had to do with a dramatic +entertainment."</p> + +<p>"A play?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir," said Beach, plainly impressed by this happy way of putting +it. "I took the liberty of advising him that you might be able to see +him later in the afternoon. He said that he would call after tea."</p> + +<p>The butler passed from the hall with heavy haunted steps and the Hon. +Galahad turned to his niece.</p> + +<p>"I know who it is," he said. "He wrote to me yesterday. It's a +theatrical manager fellow I used to go about with years ago. Man named +Mason. He's got a play, adapted from the French, and he's had the idea +of changing it into the period of the 'nineties and getting me to put +my name to it."</p> + +<p>"Oh?"</p> + +<p>"On the strength of my book coming out at the same time. Not a bad +notion, either. Galahad Threepwood's a name that's going to have +box-office value pretty soon. The house'll be sold out for weeks to all +the old buffers who'll come flocking up to London to see if I've put +anything about them into it."</p> + +<p>"Oh?" said Millicent.</p> + +<p>The Hon. Galahad frowned. He sensed a lack of interest and sympathy.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter with you?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>"Nothing."</p> + +<p>"Then why are you looking like that?"</p> + +<p>"Like what?"</p> + +<p>"Pale and tragic, as if you'd just gone into Tattersall's and met a +bookie you owed money to."</p> + +<p>"I am perfectly happy."</p> + +<p>The Hon. Galahad snorted.</p> + +<p>"Yes, radiant. I've seen fogs that were cheerier. What's that book +you're reading?"</p> + +<p>"It belongs to Aunt Constance." Millicent glanced wanly at the cover. +"It seems to be about theosophy."</p> + +<p>"Theosophy! Fancy a young girl in the springtime of life.... What the +devil has happened to everybody in this house? There's some excuse, +perhaps, for Clarence. If you admit the possibility of a sane man +getting so attached to a beastly pig he has a right to be upset. But +what's wrong with all the rest of you? Ronald! Goes about behaving like +a bereaved tomato. Beach! Springs up and down when you speak to him. +And that young fellow Carmody——"</p> + +<p>"I am not interested in Mr. Carmody."</p> + +<p>"This morning," said the Hon. Galahad, aggrieved, "I told that boy one +of the most humorous limericks I ever heard in my life—about an Old +Man of—however, that is neither here nor there—and he just gaped at +me with his jaw dropping, like a spavined horse looking over a fence. +There are mysteries afoot in this house, and I don't like 'em. The +atmosphere of Blandings Castle has changed all of a sudden from that +of a normal, happy English home into something Edgar Allan Poe might +have written on a rainy Sunday. It's getting on my nerves. Let's hope +this girl of Johnny Schoonmaker's will cheer us up. If she's anything +like her father she ought to be a nice lively girl. But I suppose, when +she arrives, it'll turn out that she's in mourning for a great-aunt or +brooding over the situation in Russia or something. I don't know what +young people are coming to nowadays. Gloomy. Introspective. The old gay +spirit seems to have died out altogether. In my young days a girl of +your age would have been upstairs making an apple-pie bed for somebody +instead of lolling on chairs reading books about theosophy."</p> + +<p>Snorting once more, the Hon. Galahad disappeared into the smoking room, +and Millicent, tight lipped, returned to her book. She had been reading +for some minutes when she became aware of a long, limp, drooping figure +at her side.</p> + +<p>"Hullo," said Hugo, for this ruin of a fine young man was he.</p> + +<p>Millicent's ear twitched, but she did not reply.</p> + +<p>"Reading?" said Hugo.</p> + +<p>He had been standing on his left leg. With a sudden change of policy he +now shifted and stood on his right.</p> + +<p>"Interesting book?"</p> + +<p>Millicent looked up.</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon?"</p> + +<p>"Only said—is that an interesting book?"</p> + +<p>"Very," said Millicent.</p> + +<p>Hugo decided that his right leg was not a success. He stood on his left +again.</p> + +<p>"What's it about?"</p> + +<p>"Transmigration of souls."</p> + +<p>"A thing I'm not very well up on."</p> + +<p>"One of the many, I should imagine," said the haughty girl. "Every +day you seem to know less and less about more and more." She rose and +made for the stairs. Her manner suggested that she was disappointed +in the hall of Blandings Castle. She had supposed it a nice place for +a girl to sit and study the best literature, and now, it appeared, it +was overrun by the underworld. "If you're really anxious to know what +'transmigration' means, it's simply that some people believe that when +you die your soul goes into something else."</p> + +<p>"Rum idea," said Hugo, becoming more buoyant. He began to draw hope +from her chattiness. She had not said as many consecutive words as this +to him for quite a time. "Into something else, eh? Odd notion. What do +you suppose made them think of that?"</p> + +<p>"Yours, for instance, would probably go into a pig. And then I would +come along and look into your sty, and I'd say, 'Good gracious! Why, +there's Hugo Carmody. He hasn't changed a bit!'"</p> + +<p>The spirit of the Carmodys had been a good deal crushed by recent +happenings, but at this it flickered into feeble life.</p> + +<p>"I call that a beastly thing to say."</p> + +<p>"Do you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I do."</p> + +<p>"I oughtn't to have said it?"</p> + +<p>"No, you oughtn't."</p> + +<p>"Well, I wouldn't have if I could have thought of anything worse."</p> + +<p>"And when you let a little thing like what happened the other night rot +up a great love like ours, I—well, I call it a bit rotten. You know +perfectly well that you're the only girl in the world I ever——"</p> + +<p>"Shall I tell you something?"</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"You make me sick."</p> + +<p>Hugo breathed passionately through his nose.</p> + +<p>"So all is over, is it?"</p> + +<p>"You can jolly well bet all is over. And if you're interested in my +future plans I may mention I intend to marry the first man who comes +along and asks me. And you can be a page at the wedding if you like. +You couldn't look any sillier than you do now, even in a frilly shirt +and satin knickerbockers."</p> + +<p>Hugo laughed raspingly.</p> + +<p>"Is that so?"</p> + +<p>"It is."</p> + +<p>"And once you said there wasn't another man like me in the world."</p> + +<p>"Well, I should hate to think there was," said Millicent. And as the +celebrated James-Thomas-Beach procession had entered with cakes and +gate-leg tables and her last word seemed about as good a last word as a +girl might reasonably consider herself entitled to, she passed proudly +up the stairs.</p> + +<p>James withdrew. Thomas withdrew. Beach remained gazing with a +hypnotized eye at the cake.</p> + +<p>"Beach!" said Hugo.</p> + +<p>"Sir?"</p> + +<p>"Curse all women!"</p> + +<p>"Very good, sir," said Beach.</p> + +<p>He watched the young man disappear through the open front door, heard +his footsteps crunch on the gravel, and gave himself up to meditation +again. How gladly, he was thinking, if it had not been for upsetting +Mr. Ronald's plans, would he have breathed in his employer's ear as he +filled his glass at dinner, "The pig is in the gamekeeper's cottage in +the west wood, your lordship. Thank you, your lordship." But it was not +to be. His face twisted, as if with sudden pain, and he was aware of +the Hon. Galahad emerging from the smoking room.</p> + +<p>"Just remembered something I wanted to ask you, Beach. You were with +old General Magnus, weren't you, some years ago, before you came here?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Mr. Galahad."</p> + +<p>"Then perhaps you can tell me the exact facts about that trouble in +1912. I know the old chap chased young Mandeville three times round the +lawn in his pajamas, but did he merely try to stab him with the bread +knife or did he actually get home?"</p> + +<p>"I could not say, sir. He did not honour me with his confidence."</p> + +<p>"Infernal nuisance," said the Hon. Galahad. "I like to get these things +right."</p> + +<p>He eyed the butler discontentedly as he retired. More than ever was he +convinced that the fellow had something on his mind. The very way he +walked showed it. He was about to return to the smoking room when his +brother Clarence came into the hall. And there was in Lord Emsworth's +bearing so strange a gaiety that he stood transfixed. It seemed to +the Hon. Galahad years since he had seen anyone looking cheerful in +Blandings Castle.</p> + +<p>"Good God, Clarence! What's happened?"</p> + +<p>"What, my dear fellow?"</p> + +<p>"You're wreathed in smiles, dash it, and skipping like the high hills. +Found that pig under the drawing-room sofa or something?"</p> + +<p>Lord Emsworth beamed.</p> + +<p>"I have had the most cheering piece of news, Galahad. That +detective—the one I sent young Carmody to see—the Argus man, you +know—he has come after all. He drove down in his car and is at this +moment in Market Blandings, at the Emsworth Arms. I have been speaking +to him on the telephone. He rang up to ask if I still required his +services."</p> + +<p>"Well, you don't."</p> + +<p>"Certainly I do, Galahad. I consider his presence vital."</p> + +<p>"He can't tell you any more than you know already. There's only one man +who can have stolen that pig, and that's young Parsloe."</p> + +<p>"Precisely. Yes. Quite true. But this man will be able to collect +evidence and bring the thing home and—er—bring it home. He has the +trained mind. I consider it most important that the case should be in +the hands of a man with a trained mind. We should be seeing him very +shortly. He is having what he describes as a bit of a snack at the +Emsworth Arms. When he has finished he will drive over. I am delighted. +Ah, Constance, my dear."</p> + +<p>Lady Constance Keeble, attended by the Efficient Baxter, had appeared +at the foot of the stairs. His lordship eyed her a little warily. The +chatelaine of Blandings was apt sometimes to react unpleasantly to the +information that visitors not invited by herself were expected at the +castle.</p> + +<p>"Constance, my dear, a friend of mine is arriving this evening to spend +a few days. I forgot to tell you."</p> + +<p>"Well, we have plenty of room for him," replied Lady Constance, with +surprising amiability. "There is something I forgot to tell you, too. +We are dining at Matchingham to-night."</p> + +<p>"Matchingham?" Lord Emsworth was puzzled. He could think of no one who +lived in the village of Matchingham except Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe. +"With whom?"</p> + +<p>"Sir Gregory, of course. Who else do you suppose it could be?"</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"I had a note from him after luncheon. It is short notice, of course, +but that doesn't matter in the country. He took it for granted that we +would not be engaged."</p> + +<p>"Constance!" Lord Emsworth swelled slightly. "Constance, I will +not—dash it, I will not—dine with that man. And that's final."</p> + +<p>Lady Constance smiled a sort of lion tamer's smile. She had foreseen +a reaction of this kind. She had expected sales resistance and was +prepared to cope with it. Not readily, she knew, would her brother +become Parsloe-conscious.</p> + +<p>"Please do not be absurd, Clarence. I thought you would say that. I +have already accepted for you, Galahad, myself, and Millicent. You may +as well understand at once that I do not intend to be on bad terms with +our nearest neighbour, even if a hundred of your pig men leave you and +go to him. Your attitude in the matter has been perfectly childish +from the very start. If Sir Gregory realizes that there has been a +coolness and has most sensibly decided to make the first move toward a +reconciliation, we cannot possibly refuse the overture."</p> + +<p>"Indeed? And what about my friend? Arriving this evening."</p> + +<p>"He can look after himself for a few hours, I should imagine."</p> + +<p>"Abominable rudeness, he'll think it." This line of attack had +occurred to Lord Emsworth quite suddenly. He found it good. Almost an +inspiration, it seemed to him. "I invite my friend Pilbeam here to pay +us a visit, and the moment he arrives we meet him at the front door, +dash it, and say, 'Ah, here you are, Pilbeam! Well, amuse yourself, +Pilbeam. We're off.' And this Miss—er—this American girl. What will +she think?"</p> + +<p>"Did you say Pilbeam?" asked the Hon. Galahad.</p> + +<p>"It is no use talking, Clarence. Dinner is at eight. And please see +that your dress clothes are nicely pressed. Ring for Beach and tell him +now. Last night you looked like a scarecrow."</p> + +<p>"Once and for all, I tell you——"</p> + +<p>At this moment an unexpected ally took the arena on Lady Constance's +side.</p> + +<p>"Of course we must go, Clarence," said the Hon. Galahad, and Lord +Emsworth, spinning round to face this flank attack, was surprised to +see a swift, meaning wink come and go on his brother's face. "Nothing +gained by having unpleasantness with your neighbours in the country. +Always a mistake. Never pays."</p> + +<p>"Exactly," said Lady Constance, a little dazed at finding this Saul +among the prophets, but glad of the helping hand. "In the country one +is quite dependent on one's neighbours."</p> + +<p>"And young Parsloe—not such a bad chap, Clarence. Lots of good in +Parsloe. We shall have a pleasant evening."</p> + +<p>"I am relieved to find that you, at any rate, have sense, Galahad," +said Lady Constance handsomely. "I will leave you to try and drive some +of it into Clarence's head. Come, Mr. Baxter, we shall be late."</p> + +<p>The sound of the car's engine had died away before Lord Emsworth's +feelings found relief in speech.</p> + +<p>"But, Galahad, my dear fellow!"</p> + +<p>The Hon. Galahad patted his shoulder reassuringly.</p> + +<p>"It's all right, Clarence, my boy. I know what I'm doing. I have the +situation well in hand."</p> + +<p>"Dine with Parsloe after what has occurred? After what occurred +yesterday? It's impossible. Why on earth the man is inviting us, I +can't understand."</p> + +<p>"I suppose he thinks that if he gives us a dinner I shall relent and +omit the prawn story. Oh, I see Parsloe's motive all right. A clever +move. Not that it'll work."</p> + +<p>"But what do you want to go for?"</p> + +<p>The Hon. Galahad raked the hall with a conspiratorial monocle. It +appeared to be empty. Nevertheless, he looked under a settee and, going +to the front door, swiftly scanned the gravel.</p> + +<p>"Shall I tell you something, Clarence?" he said, coming +back—"something that'll interest you?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly, my dear fellow. Certainly. Most decidedly."</p> + +<p>"Something that'll bring the sparkle to your eyes?"</p> + +<p>"By all means. I should enjoy it."</p> + +<p>"You know what we're going to do? To-night? After dining with Parsloe +and sending Constance back in the car?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>The Hon. Galahad placed his lips to his brother's ear.</p> + +<p>"We're going to steal his pig, my boy."</p> + +<p>"What!"</p> + +<p>"It came to me in a flash while Constance was talking. Parsloe stole +the Empress. Very well, we'll steal Pride of Matchingham. Then we'll be +in a position to look young Parsloe squarely in the eye and say, 'What +about it?'"</p> + +<p>Lord Emsworth swayed gently. His brain, never a strong one, had +tottered perceptibly on its throne.</p> + +<p>"Galahad!"</p> + +<p>"Only thing to do. Reprisals. Recognized military manœuvre."</p> + +<p>"But how? Galahad, how can it be done?"</p> + +<p>"Easily. If young Parsloe stole the Empress, why should we have any +difficulty in stealing his animal? You show me where he keeps it, my +boy, and I'll do the rest. Puffy Benger and I stole old Wivenhoe's pig +at Hammers Easton in the year '95. We put it in Plug Basham's bedroom. +And we'll put Parsloe's pig in a bedroom, too."</p> + +<p>"In a bedroom?"</p> + +<p>"Well, a sort of bedroom. Where are we to hide the animal—that's what +you've been asking yourself, is it? I'll tell you. We're going to put +it in that caravan that your flower-pot throwing friend Baxter arrived +in. Nobody's going to think of looking there. Then we'll be in a +position to talk terms to young Parsloe, and I think he will very soon +see the game is up."</p> + +<p>Lord Emsworth was looking at his brother almost devoutly. He had always +known that Galahad's intelligence was superior to his own, but he had +never realized it could soar to quite such lofty heights as this. It +was, he supposed, the result of the life his brother had lived. He +himself, sheltered through the peaceful, uneventful years at Blandings +Castle, had allowed his brain to become comparatively atrophied. But +Galahad, battling through these same years with hostile skittle-sharps +and the sort of man that used to be a member of the old Pelican Club, +had kept his clear and vigorous.</p> + +<p>"You really think it would be feasible?"</p> + +<p>"Trust me. By the way, Clarence, this man Pilbeam of yours. Do you know +if he was ever anything except a detective?"</p> + +<p>"I have no idea, my dear fellow. I know nothing of him. I have merely +spoken to him on the telephone. Why?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, nothing. I'll ask him when he arrives. Where are you going?"</p> + +<p>"Into the garden."</p> + +<p>"It's raining."</p> + +<p>"I have my mackintosh. I really—I feel I really must walk about after +what you have told me. I am in a state of considerable excitement."</p> + +<p>"Well, work it off before you see Constance again. It won't do to have +her start suspecting there's something up. If there's anything you want +to ask me about you'll find me in the smoking room."</p> + +<p>For some twenty minutes the hall of Blandings Castle remained empty. +Then Beach appeared. At the same moment, from the gravel outside there +came the purring of a high-powered car and the sound of voices. Beach +posed himself in the doorway, looking, as he always did on these +occasions, like the Spirit of Blandings welcoming the lucky guest.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX</h2> +</div> + + +<p>"Leave the door open, Beach," said Lady Constance.</p> + +<p>"Very good, your ladyship."</p> + +<p>"I think the smell of the wet earth and the flowers is so refreshing, +don't you?"</p> + +<p>The butler did not. He was not one of your fresh-air men. Rightly +conjecturing, however, that the question had been addressed not to him +but to the girl in the beige suit who had accompanied the speaker up +the steps, he forbore to reply. He cast an appraising, bulging-eyed +look at this girl and decided that she met with his approval. Smaller +and slighter than the type of woman he usually admired, he found +her, nevertheless, even by his own exacting standards of criticism, +noticeably attractive. He liked her face and he liked the way she was +dressed. Her frock was right, her shoes were right, her stockings were +right, and her hat was right. As far as Beach was concerned Sue had +passed the Censor.</p> + +<p>Her demeanour pleased him, too. From the flush on her face and the +sparkle in her eyes, she seemed to be taking her first entry into +Blandings Castle in quite the proper spirit of reverential excitement. +To be at Blandings plainly meant something to her, was an event in her +life; and Beach, who after many years of residence within its walls +had come to look on the Castle as a piece of personal property, felt +flattered and gratified.</p> + +<p>"I don't think this shower will last long," said Lady Constance.</p> + +<p>"No," said Sue, smiling brightly.</p> + +<p>"And now you must be wanting some tea after your journey."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Sue, smiling brightly.</p> + +<p>It seemed to her that she had been smiling brightly for centuries. The +moment she had alighted from the train and found her formidable hostess +and this strangely sinister Mr. Baxter waiting to meet her on the +platform, she had begun to smile brightly and had been doing it ever +since.</p> + +<p>"Usually we have tea on the lawn. It is so nice there."</p> + +<p>"It must be."</p> + +<p>"When the rain is over, Mr. Baxter, you must show Miss Schoonmaker the +rose garden."</p> + +<p>"I shall be delighted," said the Efficient Baxter.</p> + +<p>He flashed gleaming spectacles in her direction, and a momentary panic +gripped Sue. She feared that already this man had probed her secret. In +his glance, it seemed to her, there shone suspicion.</p> + +<p>Such, however, was not the case. It was only the combination of large +spectacles and heavy eyebrows that had created the illusion. Although +Rupert Baxter was a man who generally suspected everybody on principle, +it so happened that he had accepted Sue without question. The glance +was an admiring, almost a loving glance. It would be too much to say +that Baxter had already fallen a victim to Sue's charms, but the good +looks which he saw and the wealth which he had been told about were +undeniably beginning to fan the hidden fire.</p> + +<p>"My brother is a great rose grower."</p> + +<p>"Yes, isn't he? I mean, I think roses are so lovely." The spectacles +were beginning to sap Sue's morale. They seemed to be eating into her +soul like some sort of corrosive acid. "How nice and old everything +is here," she went on hurriedly. "What is that funny-looking gargoyle +thing over there?"</p> + +<p>What she actually referred to was a Japanese mask which hung from the +wall, and it was unfortunate that the Hon. Galahad should have chosen +this moment to come out of the smoking room. It made the question seem +personal.</p> + +<p>"My brother Galahad," said Lady Constance. Her voice lost some of the +kindly warmth of the hostess putting the guest at her ease and took +on the cold disapproval which the author of the Reminiscences always +induced in her. "Galahad, this is Miss Schoonmaker."</p> + +<p>"Really?" The Hon. Galahad trotted briskly up. "Is it? Bless my soul! +Well, well, well!"</p> + +<p>"How do you do?" said Sue, smiling brightly.</p> + +<p>"How are you, my dear? I know your father intimately."</p> + +<p>The bright smile faded. Sue had tried to plan this venture of hers +carefully, looking ahead for all possible pitfalls, but that she would +encounter people who knew Mr. Schoonmaker intimately she had not +foreseen.</p> + +<p>"Haven't seen him lately, of course. Let me see—must be twenty-five +years since we met. Yes, quite twenty-five years."</p> + +<p>A warm and lasting friendship was destined to spring up between Sue and +the Hon. Galahad Threepwood, but never in the whole course of it did +she experience again quite the gush of whole-hearted affection which +surged over her at these words.</p> + +<p>"I wasn't born then," she said.</p> + +<p>The Hon. Galahad was babbling on happily.</p> + +<p>"A great fellow, old Johnny. You'll find some stories about him in +my book. I'm writing my Reminiscences, you know. Fine sportsman, old +Johnny. Great grief to him, I remember, when he broke his leg and had +to go into a nursing home in the middle of the racing season. However, +he made the best of it. Got the nurses interested in current form and +used to make a book with them in fruit and cigarettes and things. I +recollect coming to see him one day and finding him quite worried. He +was a most conscientious man, with a horror of not settling up when he +lost, and apparently one of the girls had had a suet dumpling on the +winner of the three o'clock race at fifteen to eight, and he couldn't +figure out what he had got to pay her."</p> + +<p>Sue, laughing gratefully, was aware of a drooping presence at her side.</p> + +<p>"My niece, Millicent," said Lady Constance. "Millicent, my dear, this +is Miss Schoonmaker."</p> + +<p>"How do you do?" said Sue, smiling brightly.</p> + +<p>"How do you do?" said Millicent, like the silent tomb breaking its +silence.</p> + +<p>Sue regarded her with interest. So this was Hugo's Millicent. The sight +of her caused Sue to wonder at the ardent nature of that young man's +devotion. Millicent was pretty, but she would have thought that one of +Hugo's exuberant disposition would have preferred something a little +livelier.</p> + +<p>She was startled to observe in the girl's eyes a look of surprise. In a +situation as delicate as hers was, Sue had no wish to occasion surprise +to anyone.</p> + +<p>"Ronnie's friend?" asked Millicent. "The Miss Schoonmaker Ronnie met at +Biarritz?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Sue faintly.</p> + +<p>"But I had the impression that you were very tall. I'm sure Ronnie told +me so."</p> + +<p>"I suppose almost anyone seems tall to that boy," said the Hon. Galahad.</p> + +<p>Sue breathed again. She had had a return of the unpleasant feeling of +being boneless which had come upon her when the Hon. Galahad had spoken +of knowing Mr. Schoonmaker intimately. But though she breathed she +was still shaken. Life at Blandings Castle was plainly going to be a +series of shocks. She sat back with a sensation of dizziness. Baxter's +spectacles seemed to her to be glittering more suspiciously than ever.</p> + +<p>"Have you seen Ronald anywhere, Millicent?" asked Lady Constance.</p> + +<p>"Not since lunch. I suppose he's out in the grounds somewhere."</p> + +<p>"I saw him half an hour ago," said the Hon. Galahad. "He came mooning +along under my window while I was polishing up some stuff I wrote this +afternoon. I called to him, but he just grunted and wandered off."</p> + +<p>"He will be surprised to find you here," said Lady Constance, turning +to Sue. "Your telegram did not arrive till after lunch, so he does +not know that you were planning to come to-day. Unless you told him, +Galahad."</p> + +<p>"I didn't tell him. Never occurred to me that he knew Miss Schoonmaker. +Forgot you'd met him at Biarritz. What was he like then? Reasonably +cheerful?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I think so."</p> + +<p>"Didn't scowl and jump and gasp and quiver all over the place?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Then something must have happened when he went up to London. It was +after he came back that I remember noticing that he seemed upset about +something. Ah, the rain's stopped."</p> + +<p>Lady Constance looked over her shoulder.</p> + +<p>"The sky still looks very threatening," she said, "but you might be +able to get out for a few minutes. Mr. Baxter," she explained, "is +going to show Miss Schoonmaker the rose garden."</p> + +<p>"No, he isn't," said the Hon. Galahad, who had been scrutinizing Sue +through his monocle with growing appreciation. "I am. Old Johnny +Schoonmaker's little girl—why, there are a hundred things I want to +discuss."</p> + +<p>The last thing Sue desired was to be left alone with the intimidating +Baxter. She rose quickly.</p> + +<p>"I should love to come," she said.</p> + +<p>The prospect of discussing the intimate affairs of the Schoonmaker +family was not an agreeable one, but anything was better than the +society of the spectacles.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps," said the Hon. Galahad, as he led her to the door, "you'll +be able to put me right about that business of old Johnny and the +mysterious woman at the New Year's Eve party. As I got the story, +Johnny suddenly found this female—a perfect stranger, mind you—with +her arms round his neck, telling him in a confidential undertone that +she had made up her mind to go straight back to Des Moines, Iowa, and +stick a knife into Fred. What he had done to win her confidence and who +Fred was and whether she ever did stick a knife into him, your father +hadn't found out by the time I left for home."</p> + +<p>His voice died away, and a moment later the Efficient Baxter, starting +as if a sudden thought had entered his powerful brain, rose abruptly +and made quickly for the stairs.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X</h2> +</div> + + +<p class="ph2">I</p> + +<p>The rose garden of Blandings Castle was a famous beauty spot. Most +people who visited it considered it deserving of a long and leisurely +inspection. Enthusiastic horticulturists frequently went pottering +and sniffing about it for hours on end. The tour through its fragrant +groves personally conducted by the Hon. Galahad Threepwood lasted some +six minutes.</p> + +<p>"Well, that's what it is, you see," he said, as they emerged, waving +a hand vaguely. "Roses and—er—roses, and all that sort of thing. +You get the idea. And now, if you don't mind, I ought to be getting +back. I want to keep in touch with the house. It slipped my mind, but +I'm expecting a man to call to see me at any moment on some rather +important business."</p> + +<p>Sue was quite willing to return. She liked her companion, but she had +found his company embarrassing. The subject of the Schoonmaker family +history showed a tendency to bulk too largely in his conversation for +comfort. Fortunately, his practice of asking a question and answering +it himself and then rambling off into some anecdote of the person or +persons involved had enabled her so far to avoid disaster; but there +was no saying how long this happy state of things would last. She was +glad of the opportunity of being alone.</p> + +<p>Besides, Ronnie was somewhere out in these grounds. At any moment, if +she went wandering through them, she might come upon him. And then, +she told herself, all would be well. Surely he could not preserve his +sullen hostility in the face of the fact that she had come all this +way, pretending dangerously to be Miss Schoonmaker of New York, simply +in order to see him?</p> + +<p>Her companion, she found, was still talking.</p> + +<p>"He wants to see me about a play. This book of mine is going to make a +stir, you see, and he thinks that if he can get me to put my name to +the play...."</p> + +<p>Sue's thoughts wandered again. She gathered that the caller he was +expecting had to do with the theatrical industry, and wondered for a +moment if it was anyone she had ever heard of. She was not sufficiently +interested to make inquiries. She was too busy thinking of Ronnie.</p> + +<p>"I shall be quite happy," she said, as the voice beside her ceased. +"It's such a lovely place. I shall enjoy just wandering about by +myself."</p> + +<p>The Hon. Galahad seemed shocked at the idea.</p> + +<p>"Wouldn't dream of leaving you alone. Clarence will look after you, and +I shall be back in a few minutes."</p> + +<p>The name seemed to Sue to strike a familiar chord. Then she remembered. +Lord Emsworth. Ronnie's Uncle Clarence. The man who held Ronnie's +destinies in the hollow of his hand.</p> + +<p>"Hi! Clarence!" called the Hon. Galahad.</p> + +<p>Sue perceived pottering toward them a long, stringy man of mild and +benevolent aspect. She was conscious of something of a shock. In +Ronnie's conversation the Earl of Emsworth had always appeared in the +light of a sort of latter-day ogre, a man at whom the stoutest nephew +might well shudder. She saw nothing formidable in this newcomer.</p> + +<p>"Is that Lord Emsworth?" she asked, surprised.</p> + +<p>"Yes. Clarence, this is Miss Schoonmaker."</p> + +<p>His lordship had pottered up and was beaming amiably.</p> + +<p>"Is it, indeed? Oh, ah, yes, to be sure. Delighted. How are you? How +are you? Miss Who?"</p> + +<p>"Schoonmaker. Daughter of my old friend Johnny Schoonmaker. You knew +she was arriving. Considering that you were in the hall when Constance +went to meet her——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes." The cloud was passing from what, for want of a better word, +must be called Lord Emsworth's mind. "Yes, yes, yes. Yes, to be sure."</p> + +<p>"I've got to leave you to look after her for a few minutes, Clarence."</p> + +<p>"Certainly, certainly."</p> + +<p>"Take her about and show her things. I wouldn't go too far from the +house, if I were you. There's a storm coming up."</p> + +<p>"Exactly. Precisely. Yes, I will take her about and show her things. +Are you fond of pigs?"</p> + +<p>Sue had never considered this point before. Hers had been an urban +life, and she could not remember ever having come into contact with a +pig on what might be termed a social footing. But, remembering that +this was the man whom Ronnie had described as being wrapped up in one +of these animals, she smiled her bright smile.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes. Very."</p> + +<p>"Mine has been stolen."</p> + +<p>"I'm so sorry."</p> + +<p>Lord Emsworth was visibly pleased at this womanly sympathy.</p> + +<p>"But I now have strong hopes that she may be recovered. The trained +mind is everything. What I always say——"</p> + +<p>What it was that Lord Emsworth always said was unfortunately destined +to remain unrevealed. It would probably have been something good, but +the world was not to hear it; for at this moment, completely breaking +his train of thought, there came from above, from the direction of the +window of the small library, an odd scrabbling sound. Something shot +through the air. And the next instant there appeared in the middle of +a flower bed containing lobelias something that was so manifestly not +a lobelia that he stared at it in stunned amazement, speech wiped from +his lips as with a sponge.</p> + +<p>It was the Efficient Baxter. He was on all fours, and seemed to be +groping about for his spectacles, which had fallen off and got hidden +in the undergrowth.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p class="ph2">II</p> + +<p>Properly considered, there is no such thing as an insoluble mystery. +It may seem puzzling at first sight when ex-secretaries start falling +as the gentle rain from heaven upon the lobelias beneath, but there is +always a reason for it. That Baxter did not immediately give the reason +was due to the fact that he had private and personal motives for not +doing so.</p> + +<p>We have called Rupert Baxter efficient, and efficient he was. The +word, as we interpret it, implies not only a capacity for performing +the ordinary tasks of life with a smooth firmness of touch but in +addition a certain alertness of mind, a genius for opportunism, a gift +for seeing clearly, thinking swiftly, and Doing It Now. With these +qualities Rupert Baxter was preëminently equipped; and it had been with +him the work of a moment to perceive, directly the Hon. Galahad had +left the house with Sue, that here was his chance of popping upstairs, +nipping into the small library, and abstracting the manuscript of the +Reminiscences. Having popped and nipped, as planned, he was in the +very act of searching the desk when the sound of a footstep outside +froze him from his spectacles to the soles of his feet. The next moment +fingers began to turn the door handle.</p> + +<p>You may freeze a Baxter's body, but you cannot numb his active brain. +With one masterful, lightning-like flash of clear thinking he took in +the situation and saw the only possible way out. To reach the door +leading to the large library he would have to circumnavigate the desk. +The window, on the other hand, was at his elbow. So he jumped out of it.</p> + +<p>All these things Baxter could have explained in a few words. Refraining +from doing so, he rose to his feet and began to brush the mould from +his knees.</p> + +<p>"Baxter! What on earth——?"</p> + +<p>The ex-secretary found the gaze of his late employer trying to nerves +which had been considerably shaken by his fall. The occasions on which +he disliked Lord Emsworth most intensely were just these occasions when +the other gaped at him open-mouthed like a surprised halibut.</p> + +<p>"I overbalanced," he said curtly.</p> + +<p>"Overbalanced?"</p> + +<p>"Slipped."</p> + +<p>"Slipped?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Slipped."</p> + +<p>"How? Where?"</p> + +<p>It now occurred to Baxter that by a most fortunate chance the window of +the small library was not the only one that looked out onto this arena +into which he had precipitated himself. He might equally well have +descended from the larger library which adjoined it.</p> + +<p>"I was leaning out of the library window."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"Inhaling the air."</p> + +<p>"What for?"</p> + +<p>"And I lost my balance."</p> + +<p>"Lost your balance?"</p> + +<p>"I slipped."</p> + +<p>"Slipped?"</p> + +<p>Baxter had the feeling—it was one which he had often had in the old +days when conversing with Lord Emsworth—that an exchange of remarks +had begun which might go on forever. A keen desire swept over him to +be—and that right speedily—in some other place. He did not care where +it was. So long as Lord Emsworth was not there it would be Paradise +enow.</p> + +<p>"I think I will go indoors and wash my hands," he said.</p> + +<p>"And face," suggested the Hon. Galahad.</p> + +<p>"My face also," said Rupert Baxter coldly.</p> + +<p>He started to move round the angle of the house, but long before he +had got out of hearing Lord Emsworth's high and penetrating tenor was +dealing with the situation. His lordship, as so often happened on these +occasions, was under the impression that he spoke in a hushed whisper.</p> + +<p>"Mad as a coot!" he said. And the words rang out through the still +summer air like a public oration.</p> + +<p>They cut Baxter to the quick. They were not the sort of words to which +a man with an inch and a quarter of skin off his left shin bone ought +ever to have been called upon to listen. With flushed ears and glowing +spectacles, the Efficient Baxter passed on his way. Statistics relating +to madness among coots are not to hand, but we may safely doubt whether +even in the ranks of these notoriously unbalanced birds there could +have been found at this moment one who was feeling half as mad as he +was.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p class="ph2">III</p> + +<p>Lord Emsworth continued to gaze at the spot where his late secretary +had passed from sight.</p> + +<p>"Mad as a coot," he repeated.</p> + +<p>In his brother Galahad he found a ready supporter.</p> + +<p>"Madder," said the Hon. Galahad.</p> + +<p>"Upon my word, I think he's actually worse than he was two years ago. +Then, at least, he never fell out of windows."</p> + +<p>"Why on earth do you have that fellow here?"</p> + +<p>Lord Emsworth sighed.</p> + +<p>"It's Constance, my dear Galahad. You know what she is. She insisted on +inviting him."</p> + +<p>"Well, if you take my advice you'll hide the flower pots. One of the +things this fellow does when he gets these attacks," explained the Hon. +Galahad, taking Sue into the family confidence, "is to go about hurling +flower pots at people."</p> + +<p>"Really?" said Sue.</p> + +<p>"I assure you. Looking for me, Beach?"</p> + +<p>The careworn figure of the butler had appeared, walking as one pacing +behind the coffin of an old friend.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir. The gentleman has arrived, Mr. Galahad. I looked in the +small library, thinking that you might possibly be there, but you were +not."</p> + +<p>"No, I was out here."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"That's why you couldn't find me. Show him up to the small library, +Beach, and tell him I'll be with him in a moment."</p> + +<p>"Very good, sir."</p> + +<p>The Hon. Galahad's temporary delay in going to see his visitor was due +to his desire to linger long enough to tell Sue, to whom he had taken +a warm fancy and whom he wished to shield as far as it was in his +power from the perils of life, what every girl ought to know about the +Efficient Baxter.</p> + +<p>"Never let yourself be alone with that fellow in a deserted spot, my +dear," he counselled. "If he suggests a walk in the woods call for +help. Been off his head for years. Ask Clarence."</p> + +<p>Lord Emsworth nodded solemnly.</p> + +<p>"And it looks to me," went on the Hon. Galahad, "as if his mania had +now taken a suicidal turn. Overbalanced, indeed! How the deuce could +he have overbalanced? Flung himself out bodily, that's what he did. +I couldn't think who it was he reminded me of till this moment. He's +the living image of a man I used to know in the 'nineties. The first +intimation any of us had that this chap had anything wrong with him was +when he turned up to supper at the house of a friend of mine—George +Pallant. You remember George, Clarence?—with a couple of days' beard +on him. And when Mrs. George, who had known him all her life, asked him +why he hadn't shaved—'Shaved?' says this fellow, surprised.—Packleby, +his name was. One of the Leicestershire Packlebys.—'Shaved, dear +lady?' he says. 'Well, considering that they even hide the butter knife +when I come down to breakfast for fear I'll try to cut my throat with +it, is it reasonable to suppose they'd trust me with a razor?' Quite +stuffy about it, he was, and it spoiled the party. Look after Miss +Schoonmaker, Clarence. I shan't be long."</p> + +<p>Lord Emsworth had little experience in the art of providing diversion +for young girls. Left thus to his native inspiration, he pondered a +while. If the Empress had not been stolen, his task would, of course, +have been simple. He could have given this Miss Schoonmaker a half hour +of sheer entertainment by taking her down to the piggeries to watch +that superb animal feed. As it was, he was at something of a loss.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps you would care to see the rose garden?" he hazarded.</p> + +<p>"I should love it," said Sue.</p> + +<p>"Are you fond of roses?"</p> + +<p>"Tremendously."</p> + +<p>Lord Emsworth found himself warming to this girl. Her personality +pleased him. He seemed dimly to recall something his sister Constance +had said about her—something about wishing that her nephew Ronald +would settle down with some nice girl with money like that Miss +Schoonmaker whom Julia had met at Biarritz. Feeling so kindly toward +her, it occurred to him that a word in season, opening her eyes to his +nephew's true character, might prevent the girl making a mistake which +she would regret forever when it was too late.</p> + +<p>"I think you know my nephew Ronald?" he said.</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>Lord Emsworth paused to smell a rose. He gave Sue a brief biography of +it before returning to the theme.</p> + +<p>"That boy's an ass," he said.</p> + +<p>"Why?" said Sue sharply. She began to feel less amiable toward this +stringy old man. A moment before she had been thinking that it was +rather charming, that funny, vague manner of his. Now she saw him +clearly for what he was—a dodderer, and a Class A dodderer at that.</p> + +<p>"Why?" His lordship considered the point. "Well, heredity, probably, +I should say. His father, old Miles Fish, was the biggest fool in the +Brigade of Guards." He looked at her impressively through slanting +pince-nez, as if to call her attention to the fact that this was +something of an achievement. "The boy throws tennis balls at pigs," he +went on, getting down to the ghastly facts.</p> + +<p>Sue was surprised. The words, if she had caught them correctly, seemed +to present a side of Ronnie's character of which she had been unaware.</p> + +<p>"Does what?"</p> + +<p>"I saw him with my own eyes. He threw a tennis ball at Empress of +Blandings. And not once but repeatedly."</p> + +<p>The motherly instinct which all girls feel toward the men they love +urged Sue to say something in Ronnie's defence. But apart from +suggesting that the pig had probably started it she could not think +of anything. They left the rose garden and began to walk back to the +lawn, Lord Emsworth still exercised by the thought of his nephew's +shortcomings. For one reason and another Ronnie had always been a +source of vague annoyance to him since boyhood. There had even been +times when he had felt that he would almost have preferred the society +of his younger son, Frederick.</p> + +<p>"Aggravating boy," he said. "Most aggravating. Always up to something +or other. Started a night club the other day. Lost a lot of money over +it. Just the sort of thing he would do. My brother Galahad started some +kind of a club many years ago. It cost my old father nearly a thousand +pounds, I recollect. There is something about Ronald that reminds me +very much of Galahad at the same age."</p> + +<p>Although Sue had found much in the author of the Reminiscences to +attract her she was able to form a very fair estimate of the sort +of young man he must have been in the middle twenties. This charge, +accordingly, struck her as positively libellous.</p> + +<p>"I don't agree with you, Lord Emsworth."</p> + +<p>"But you never knew my brother Galahad as a young man," his lordship +pointed out cleverly.</p> + +<p>"What is the name of that hill over there?" asked Sue in a cold voice, +changing the unpleasant subject.</p> + +<p>"That hill? Oh, that one?" It was the only one in sight. "It is called +the Wrekin."</p> + +<p>"Oh?" said Sue.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Lord Emsworth.</p> + +<p>"Ah," said Sue.</p> + +<p>They had crossed the lawn and were on the broad terraces that looked +out over the park. Sue leaned on the low stone wall that bordered it +and gazed before her into the gathering dusk.</p> + +<p>The castle had been built on a knoll of rising ground, and on this +terrace one had the illusion of being perched up at a great height. +From where she stood, Sue got a sweeping view of the park and of the +dim, misty Vale of Blandings that dreamed beyond. In the park, rabbits +were scuttling to and fro. In the shrubberies birds called sleepily. +From somewhere out across the fields there came the faint tinkling of +sheep bells. The lake shone like old silver, and there was a river in +the distance, dull gray between the dull green of the trees.</p> + +<p>It was a lovely sight, age-old, orderly, and English, but it was +spoiled by the sky. The sky was overcast and looked bruised. It seemed +to be made of dough, and one could fancy it pressing down on the world +like a heavy blanket. And it was muttering to itself. A single heavy +drop of rain splashed on the stone beside Sue, and there was a low +growl far away as if some powerful and unfriendly beast had spied her.</p> + +<p>She shivered. She had been gripped by a sudden depression, a strange +foreboding that chilled the spirit. That muttering seemed to say that +there was no happiness anywhere and never could be any. The air was +growing close and clammy. Another drop of rain fell, squashily like a +toad, and spread itself over her hand.</p> + +<p>Lord Emsworth was finding his companion unresponsive. His stream of +prattle slackened and died away. He began to wonder how he was to +escape from a girl who, though undeniably pleasing to the eye, was +proving singularly difficult to talk to. Raking the horizon in search +of aid, he perceived Beach approaching, a silver salver in his hand. +The salver had a card on it and an envelope.</p> + +<p>"For me, Beach?"</p> + +<p>"The card, your lordship. The gentleman is in the hall."</p> + +<p>Lord Emsworth breathed a sigh of relief.</p> + +<p>"You will excuse me, my dear? It is most important that I should see +this fellow immediately. My brother Galahad will be back very shortly, +I have no doubt. He will entertain you. You don't mind?"</p> + +<p>He bustled away, glad to go, and Sue became conscious of the salver, +thrust deferentially toward her.</p> + +<p>"For you, miss."</p> + +<p>"For me?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, miss," moaned Beach, like a winter wind wailing through dead +trees.</p> + +<p>He inclined his head sombrely and was gone. She tore open the envelope. +For one breath-taking instant she had thought it might be from Ronnie. +But the writing was not Ronnie's familiar scrawl. It was bold, clear, +decisive writing, the writing of an efficient man.</p> + +<p>She looked at the last page.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Yours sincerely<br> +<span class="smcap">R. J. Baxter</span>.</p> +</div> + +<p>Sue's heart was beating faster as she turned back to the beginning. +When a girl in the position in which she had placed herself has been +stared at through steel-rimmed spectacles in the way this R. J. Baxter +had stared at her through his spectacles, her initial reaction to +mysterious notes from the man behind the lenses cannot but be a panic +fear that all has been discovered.</p> + +<p>The opening sentence dispelled her alarm. Purely personal motives, it +appeared, had caused Rupert Baxter to write these few lines. The mere +fact that the letter began with the words "Dear Miss Schoonmaker" was +enough in itself to bring comfort.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>At the risk of annoying you by the intrusion of my private affairs +[wrote the Efficient Baxter, rather in the manner of one beginning +an after-dinner speech], I feel that I must give you an explanation +of the incident which occurred in the garden in your presence this +afternoon. From the observation—in the grossest taste—which Lord +Emsworth let fall in my hearing, I fear you may have placed a wrong +construction on what took place. (I allude to the expression "Mad as a +coot," which I distinctly heard Lord Emsworth utter as I moved away.)</p> + +<p>The facts were precisely as I stated. I was leaning out of the library +window, and, chancing to lean too far, I lost my balance and fell. +That I might have received serious injuries and was entitled to expect +sympathy, I overlook. But the words "Mad as a coot" I resent extremely.</p> + +<p>Had this incident not occurred, I would not have dreamed of saying +anything to prejudice you against your host. As it is, I feel that +in justice to myself I must tell you that Lord Emsworth is a man to +whose utterances no attention should be paid. He is to all intents +and purposes half-witted. Life in the country, with its lack of +intellectual stimulus, has caused his natural feebleness of mind to +reach a stage which borders closely on insanity. His relatives look on +him as virtually an imbecile and have, in my opinion, every cause to +do so.</p> + +<p>In these circumstances, I think I may rely on you to attach no +importance to his remarks this afternoon.</p> + +<p class="ph3">Yours sincerely<br> +<span class="smcap">R. J. Baxter</span>.</p> + +<p>P.S. You will, of course, treat this as entirely confidential.</p> + +<p>P.P.S. If you are fond of chess and would care for a game after dinner +I am a good player.</p> + +<p>P.P.S.S. Or bezique.</p> +</div> + +<p>Sue thought it a good letter, neat and well expressed. Why it had +been written she could not imagine. It had not occurred to her that +love—or, at any rate, a human desire to marry a wealthy heiress—had +begun to burgeon in R. J. Baxter's bosom. With no particular emotions +other than the feeling that if he was counting on playing bezique with +her after dinner he was due for a disappointment, she put the letter in +her pocket, and looked out over the park again.</p> + +<p>The object of all good literature is to purge the soul of its petty +troubles. This, she was pleased to discover, Baxter's letter had +succeeded in doing. Recalling its polished phrases, she found herself +smiling appreciatively.</p> + +<p>That muttering sky did not look so menacing now. Everything, she told +herself, was going to be all right. After all, she did not ask much +from Fate—just an uninterrupted five minutes with Ronnie. And if Fate +so far had denied her this very moderate demand——</p> + +<p>"All alone?"</p> + +<p>Sue turned, her heart beating quickly. The voice, speaking close behind +her, had had something of the effect of a douche of iced water down her +back. For, restorative though Baxter's letter had been, it had not +left her in quite the frame of mind to enjoy anything so sudden and +jumpy as an unexpected voice.</p> + +<p>It was the Hon. Galahad, back from his interview with the gentleman, +and the sight of him did nothing to calm her agitation. He was eying +her, she thought, with a strange and sinister intentness. And though +his manner, as he planted himself beside her and began to talk, seemed +all that was cordial and friendly, she could not rid herself of a +feeling of uneasiness. That look still lingered in her mind's eye. +With the air all heavy and woolly and the sky growling pessimistic +prophecies it had been a look to alarm the bravest girl.</p> + +<p>Chattering amiably, the Hon. Galahad spoke of this and that: of scenery +and the weather; of birds and rabbits; of friends of his who had served +terms in prison, and of other friends who, one would have said on the +evidence, had been lucky to escape. Then his monocle was up again and +that look was back on his face.</p> + +<p>The air was more breathless than ever.</p> + +<p>"You know," said the Hon. Galahad, "it's been a great treat to me, +meeting you, my dear. I haven't seen any of your people for a number of +years, but your father and I correspond pretty regularly. He tells me +all the news. Did you leave your family well?"</p> + +<p>"Quite well."</p> + +<p>"How was your Aunt Edna?"</p> + +<p>"Fine," said Sue feebly.</p> + +<p>"Ah," said the Hon. Galahad. "Then your father must have been mistaken +when he told me she was dead. But perhaps you thought I meant your Aunt +Edith?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Sue gratefully.</p> + +<p>"She's all right, I hope?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes."</p> + +<p>"What a lovely woman!"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"You mean she still is?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes."</p> + +<p>"Remarkable! She must be well over seventy by now. No doubt you mean +beautiful considering she is over seventy?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Pretty active?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes."</p> + +<p>"When did you see her last?"</p> + +<p>"Oh—just before I sailed."</p> + +<p>"And you say she's active? Curious! I heard two years ago that she was +paralyzed. I suppose you mean active for a paralytic."</p> + +<p>The little puckers at the corners of his eyes deepened into wrinkles. +The monocle gleamed like the eye of a dragon. He smiled genially.</p> + +<p>"Confide in me, Miss Brown," he said. "What's the game?"</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI</h2> +</div> + + +<p class="ph2">I</p> + +<p>Sue did not answer. When the solid world melts abruptly beneath the +feet one feels disinclined for speech. Avoiding the monocle, she stood +looking with wide blank eyes at a thrush which hopped fussily about the +lawn. Behind her the sky gave a low chuckle, as if this was what it had +been waiting for.</p> + +<p>"Up there," proceeded the Hon. Galahad, pointing to the small library, +"is the room where I work. And sometimes, when I'm not working, I look +out of the window. I was looking out a short while back when you were +down here talking to my brother Clarence. There was a fellow with +me. He looked out, too." His voice sounded blurred and far away. "A +theatrical manager fellow I used to know very well in the old days. A +man named Mason."</p> + +<p>The thrush had flown away. Sue continued to gaze at the spot where +it had been. Across the years, for the mind works oddly in times of +stress, there had come to her vivid recollection of herself at the age +of ten, taken by her mother to the Isle of Man on her first steamer +trip and just beginning to feel the motion of the vessel. There had +been a moment then, just before the supreme catastrophe, when she had +felt exactly as she was feeling now.</p> + +<p>"We saw you, and he said, 'Why there's Sue!' I said, 'Sue? Sue Who?' +'Sue Brown,' said this fellow Mason. He said you were one of the girls +at his theatre. He didn't seem particularly surprised to see you here. +He said he took it that everything had been fixed up all right and he +was glad, because you were one of the best. He wanted to come and have +a chat with you, but I headed him off. I thought you might prefer to +talk over this little matter of your being Miss Sue Brown alone with +me. Which brings me back to my original question. What, Miss Brown, is +the game?"</p> + +<p>Sue felt dizzy, helpless, hopeless.</p> + +<p>"I can't explain," she said.</p> + +<p>The Hon. Galahad tut-tutted protestingly.</p> + +<p>"You don't mean to say you propose to leave the thing as just another +of those historic mysteries? Don't you want me ever to get a good +night's sleep again?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's so long."</p> + +<p>"We have the evening before us. Take it bit by bit, a little at a time. +To begin with, what did Mason mean by saying that everything was all +right?"</p> + +<p>"I had told him about Ronnie."</p> + +<p>"Ronnie? My nephew Ronald?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. And, seeing me here, he naturally took it for granted that Lord +Emsworth and the rest of you had consented to the engagement and +invited me to the castle."</p> + +<p>"Engagement?"</p> + +<p>"I used to be engaged to Ronnie."</p> + +<p>"What! That young Fish?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Good God!" said the Hon. Galahad.</p> + +<p>Suddenly Sue began to feel conscious of a slackening of the tension. +Mysteriously, the conversation was seeming less difficult. In spite of +the fact that Reason scoffed at the absurdity of such an idea, she felt +just as if she were talking to a potential friend and ally. The thought +had come to her at the moment when, looking up, she caught sight of +her companion's face. It is an unpleasant thing to say of any man, but +there is no denying that the Hon. Galahad's face, when he was listening +to the confessions of those who had behaved as they ought not to have +behaved, very frequently lacked the austerity and disapproval which one +likes to see in faces on such occasions.</p> + +<p>"But however did Pa Mason come to be here?" asked Sue.</p> + +<p>"He came to discuss some business in connection with——Never mind +about that," said the Hon. Galahad, calling the meeting to order. +"Kindly refrain from wandering from the point. I'm beginning to see +daylight. You are engaged to Ronald you say?"</p> + +<p>"I was."</p> + +<p>"But you broke it off?"</p> + +<p>"He broke it off."</p> + +<p>"He did?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. That's why I came here. You see, Ronnie was here and I was in +London, and you can't put things properly in letters, so I thought that +if I could get down to Blandings I could see him and explain and put +everything right—and I'd met Lady Constance in London one day when I +was with Ronnie, and he had introduced me as Miss Schoonmaker, so that +part of it was all right—so—well, so I came."</p> + +<p>If this chronicle has proved anything it has proved by now that the +moral outlook of the Hon. Galahad Threepwood was fundamentally unsound. +A man to shake the head at. A man to view with concern. So felt his +sister, Lady Constance Keeble, and she was undoubtedly right. If final +evidence were needed, his next words supplied it.</p> + +<p>"I never heard," said the Hon. Galahad, beaming like one listening to a +tale of virtue triumphant, "anything so dashed sporting in my life."</p> + +<p>Sue's heart leaped. She had felt all along that Reason, in denying the +possibility that this man could ever approve of what she had done, had +been mistaken. These pessimists always are.</p> + +<p>"You mean," she cried, "you won't give me away?"</p> + +<p>"Me?" said the Hon. Galahad, aghast at the idea. "Of course I won't. +What do you take me for?"</p> + +<p>"I think you're an angel."</p> + +<p>The Hon. Galahad seemed pleased at the compliment, but it was plain +that there was something that worried him. He frowned a little.</p> + +<p>"What I can't make out," he said, "is why you want to marry my nephew +Ronald."</p> + +<p>"I love him, bless his heart."</p> + +<p>"No, seriously!" protested the Hon. Galahad. "Do you know that he once +put tin-tacks on my chair?"</p> + +<p>"And he throws tennis balls at pigs. All the same, I love him."</p> + +<p>"You can't!"</p> + +<p>"I do."</p> + +<p>"How can you possibly love a fellow like that?"</p> + +<p>"That's just what he always used to say," said Sue softly. "And I think +that's why I love him."</p> + +<p>The Hon. Galahad sighed. Fifty years' experience had taught him that +it was no use arguing with women on this particular point, but he had +conceived a warm affection for this girl, and it shocked him to think +of her madly throwing herself away.</p> + +<p>"Don't you go doing anything in a hurry, my dear. Think it over +carefully. I've seen enough of you to know that you're a very +exceptional girl."</p> + +<p>"I don't believe you like Ronnie."</p> + +<p>"I don't dislike him. He's improved since he was a boy. I'll admit +that. But he isn't worthy of you."</p> + +<p>"Why not?"</p> + +<p>"Well, he isn't."</p> + +<p>She laughed.</p> + +<p>"It's funny that you of all people should say that. Lord Emsworth was +telling me just now that Ronnie is exactly like what you used to be at +his age."</p> + +<p>"What!"</p> + +<p>"That's what he said."</p> + +<p>The Hon. Galahad stared incredulously.</p> + +<p>"That boy like me?" He spoke with indignation, for his pride had been +sorely touched. "Ronald like me? Why, I was twice the man he is. How +many policemen do you think it used to take to shift me from the +Alhambra to Vine Street when I was in my prime? Two! Sometimes three. +And one walking behind carrying my hat. Clarence ought to be more +careful what he says, dash it. It's just this kind of loose talk that +makes trouble. The fact of the matter is, he's gone and got his brain +so addled with pigs he doesn't know what he is saying half the time."</p> + +<p>He pulled himself together with a strong effort. He became calmer.</p> + +<p>"What did you and that young poop quarrel about?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"He is not a poop!"</p> + +<p>"He is. It's astonishing to me that any one individual can be such a +poop. You'd have thought it would have required a large syndicate. How +long have you known him?"</p> + +<p>"About nine months."</p> + +<p>"Well, I've known him all his life. And I say he's a poop. If he wasn't +he wouldn't have quarrelled with you. However, we won't split straws. +What did you quarrel about?"</p> + +<p>"He found me dancing."</p> + +<p>"What's wrong with that?"</p> + +<p>"I had promised him I wouldn't."</p> + +<p>"And is that all the trouble?"</p> + +<p>"It's quite enough for me."</p> + +<p>The Hon. Galahad made light of the tragedy.</p> + +<p>"I don't see what you're worrying about. If you can't smooth a little +thing like that over you're not the girl I take you for."</p> + +<p>"I thought I might be able to."</p> + +<p>"Of course you'll be able to. Girls were always doing that sort of +thing to me in my young days, and I never held out for five minutes +once the crying started. Go and sob on the boy's waistcoat. How are you +as a sobber?"</p> + +<p>"Not very good, I'm afraid."</p> + +<p>"Well, there are all sorts of other tricks you can try. Every girl +knows a dozen. Falling on your knees, fainting, laughing hysterically, +going rigid all over—scores of them."</p> + +<p>"I think it will be all right if I can just talk to him. The difficulty +is to get an opportunity."</p> + +<p>The Hon. Galahad waved a hand spaciously.</p> + +<p>"Make an opportunity! Why, I knew a girl years ago—she's a grandmother +now—who had a quarrel with the fellow she was engaged to, and a week +or so later she found herself staying at the same country house with +him—Heron's Hill, it was, the Matchelows' place in Sussex—and she got +him into her room one night and locked the door and said she was going +to keep him there all night and ruin both their reputations unless he +handed back the ring and agreed that the engagement was on again. And +she'd have done it, too. Her name was Frederica Something. Red-haired +girl."</p> + +<p>"I suppose you have to have red hair to do a thing like that. I was +thinking of a quiet meeting in the rose garden."</p> + +<p>The Hon. Galahad seemed to consider this tame, but he let it pass.</p> + +<p>"Well, whatever you do, you'll have to be quick about it, my dear. +Suppose old Johnny Schoonmaker's girl really turns up? She said she was +going to."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but I made Ronnie send her a telegram, signed with Lady +Constance's name, saying that there was scarlet fever at the castle and +she wasn't to come."</p> + +<p>One dislikes the necessity of perpetually piling up the evidence +against the Hon. Galahad Threepwood, to show ever more and more clearly +how warped was his moral outlook. Nevertheless, the fact must be +stated that at these words he threw his head up and uttered a high, +piercing laugh that sent the thrush, which had just returned to the +lawn, starting back as if a bullet had hit it. It was a laugh which, +when it had rung out in days of yore in London's more lively night +resorts, had caused commissionaires to leap like war horses at the note +of the bugle, to spit on their hands, feel their muscles, and prepare +for action.</p> + +<p>"It's the finest thing I ever heard!" cried the Hon. Galahad. "It +restores my faith in the younger generation. And a girl like you +seriously contemplates marrying a boy like——Oh, well!" he said +resignedly, seeming to brace himself to make the best of a distasteful +state of affairs, "it's your business, I suppose. You know your own +mind best. After all, the great thing is to get you into the family. A +girl like you is what this family has been needing for years."</p> + +<p>He patted her kindly on the shoulder, and they started to walk toward +the house. As they did so two men came out of it.</p> + +<p>One was Lord Emsworth. The other was Percy Pilbeam.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p class="ph2">II</p> + +<p>There is about a place like Blandings Castle something which, if you +are not in the habit of visiting country houses planned on the grand +scale, tends to sap the morale. At the moment when Sue caught sight +of him the proprietor of the Argus Enquiry Agency was not feeling his +brightest and best.</p> + +<p>Beach, ushering him through the front door, had started the trouble. +He had merely let his eye rest upon Pilbeam, but it had been enough. +The butler's eye, through years of insufficient exercise and too hearty +feeding, had acquired in the process of time a sort of glaze which +many people found trying when they saw it. In Pilbeam it created an +inferiority complex of the severest kind.</p> + +<p>He could not know that to this godlike man he was merely a blur. To +Beach, tortured by the pangs of a guilty conscience, almost everything +nowadays was merely a blur. Misinterpreting his gaze, Pilbeam had read +into it a shocked contempt, a kind of wincing agony at the thought that +things like himself should be creeping into Blandings Castle. He felt +as if he had crawled out from under a flat stone.</p> + +<p>And it was at this moment that somebody in the dimness of the hall had +stepped forward and revealed himself as the young man, name unknown, +who had showed such a lively disposition to murder him on the dancing +floor of Mario's restaurant. And from the violent start which he gave +it was plain that the young man's memory was as good as his own.</p> + +<p>So far things had not broken well for Percy Pilbeam. But now his luck +turned. There had appeared in the nick of time an angel from heaven, +effectively disguised in a shabby shooting coat and an old hat. He had +introduced himself as Lord Emsworth, and he had taken Pilbeam off with +him into the garden. Looking back over his shoulder, Pilbeam saw that +the young man was still standing there, staring after him—wistfully, +it seemed to him; and he was glad, as he followed his host out into the +fresh air, to be beyond the range of his eye. Between it and the eye +of Beach, the butler, there seemed little to choose.</p> + +<p>Relief, however, by the time he arrived on the terrace, had not +completely restored his composure. That inferiority complex was still +at work, and his surroundings intimidated him. At any moment, he felt, +on a terrace like this, there might suddenly appear to confront him and +complete his humiliation some brilliant shattering creature indigenous +to this strange and disturbing world—a Duchess, perhaps—a haughty +hunting woman, it might be—the dashing daughter of a hundred earls, +possibly, who would look at him as Beach had looked at him and, raising +beautifully pencilled eyebrows in aristocratic disdain, turn away with +a murmured, "Most extraordinary!" He was prepared for almost anything.</p> + +<p>One of the few things he was not prepared for was Sue. And at the sight +of her he leaped three clear inches and nearly broke a collar stud.</p> + +<p>"Gaw!" he said.</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon?" said Lord Emsworth. He had not caught his +companion's remark and hoped he would repeat it. The lightest utterance +of a detective with the trained mind is something not to be missed. +"What did you say, my dear fellow?"</p> + +<p>He, too, perceived Sue; and with a prodigious effort of the memory, +working by swift stages through Schofield, Maybury, Coolidge, and +Spooner, recalled her name.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Pilbeam, Miss Schoonmaker," he said. "Galahad, this is Mr. +Pilbeam. Of the Argus, you remember."</p> + +<p>"Pilbeam?"</p> + +<p>"How do you do?"</p> + +<p>"Pilbeam?"</p> + +<p>"My brother," said Lord Emsworth, exerting himself to complete the +introduction. "This is my brother Galahad."</p> + +<p>"Pilbeam?" said the Hon. Galahad, looking intently at the proprietor +of the Argus. "Were you ever connected with a paper called <i>Society +Spice</i>, Mr. Pilbeam?"</p> + +<p>The gardens of Blandings Castle seemed to the detective to rock gently. +There had, he knew, been a rigid rule in the office of that bright +but frequently offensive paper that the editor's name was never to be +revealed to callers; but it now appeared only too sickeningly evident +that a leakage had occurred. Underlings, he realized too late, can be +bribed.</p> + +<p>He swallowed painfully. Force of habit had come within a hair's breadth +of making him say "Quite."</p> + +<p>"Never," he gasped. "Certainly not. No! Never."</p> + +<p>"A fellow of your name used to edit it. Uncommon name, too."</p> + +<p>"Relation, perhaps. Distant."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm sorry you're not the man," said the Hon. Galahad +regretfully. "I've been wanting to meet him. He wrote a very offensive +thing about me once. Most offensive thing."</p> + +<p>Lord Emsworth, who had been according the conversation the rather +meagre interest which he gave to all conversations that did not deal +with pigs, created a diversion.</p> + +<p>"I wonder," he said, "if you would like to see some photographs?"</p> + +<p>It seemed to Pilbeam, in his disordered state, strange that anyone +should suppose that he was in a frame of mind to enjoy the Family +Album, but he uttered a strangled sound which his host took for +acquiescence.</p> + +<p>"Of the Empress, I mean, of course. They will give you some idea of +what a magnificent animal she is. They will—" he sought for the <i>mot +juste</i>—"stimulate you. I'll go to the library and get them out."</p> + +<p>The Hon. Galahad was now his old affable self again.</p> + +<p>"You doing anything after dinner?" he asked Sue.</p> + +<p>"There was some talk," said Sue, "of a game of bezique with Mr. Baxter."</p> + +<p>"Don't dream of it," said the Hon. Galahad vehemently. "The fellow +would probably try to brain you with the mallet. I was thinking that if +I hadn't got to go out to dinner I'd like to read you some of my book. +I think you would appreciate it. I wouldn't read it to anybody except +you. I somehow feel you've got the right sort of outlook. I let my +sister Constance see a couple of pages once, and she was too depressing +for words. An author can't work if people depress him. I'll tell you +what I'll do—I'll give you the thing to read. Which is your room?"</p> + +<p>"The Garden Room, I think it's called."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes. Well, I'll bring the manuscript to you before I leave."</p> + +<p>He sauntered off. There was a moment's pause. Then Sue turned to +Pilbeam. Her chin was tilted. There was defiance in her eye.</p> + +<p>"Well?" she said.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p class="ph2">III</p> + +<p>Percy Pilbeam breathed a sigh of relief. At the first moment of their +meeting all that he had ever read about doubles had raced through his +mind. This question clarified the situation. It put matters on a firm +basis. His head ceased to swim. It was Sue Brown and no other who stood +before him.</p> + +<p>"What on earth are you doing here?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Never mind."</p> + +<p>"What's the game?"</p> + +<p>"Never mind."</p> + +<p>"There's no need to be so dashed unfriendly."</p> + +<p>"Well, if you must know, I came here to see Ronnie and try to explain +about that night at Mario's."</p> + +<p>There was a pause.</p> + +<p>"What was that name the old boy called you?"</p> + +<p>"Schoonmaker."</p> + +<p>"Why did he call you that?"</p> + +<p>"Because that's who he thinks I am."</p> + +<p>"What on earth made you choose a name like that?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't keep asking questions."</p> + +<p>"I don't believe there is such a name. And when it comes to asking +questions," said Pilbeam warmly, "what do you expect me to do? I never +got such a shock in my life as when I met you just now. I thought I +was seeing things. Do you mean to say you're here under a false name, +pretending to be somebody else?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm hanged! And as friendly as you please with everybody."</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Everybody except me."</p> + +<p>"Why should I be friendly with you? You've done your best to ruin my +life."</p> + +<p>"Eh?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, never mind," said Sue impatiently.</p> + +<p>There was another pause.</p> + +<p>"Chatty!" said Pilbeam, wounded again.</p> + +<p>He fidgeted his fingers along the wall.</p> + +<p>"The Galahad fellow seems to look on you as a daughter or something."</p> + +<p>"We are great friends."</p> + +<p>"So I see. And he's going to give you his book to read."</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>A keen, purposeful, Argus-Enquiry-Agency sort of look shot into +Pilbeam's face.</p> + +<p>"Well, this is where you and I get together," he said.</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you what I mean. Do you want to make some money?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Sue.</p> + +<p>"What! Of course you do. Everybody does. Now, listen. Do you know why +I'm here?"</p> + +<p>"I've stopped wondering why you're anywhere. You just seem to pop up."</p> + +<p>She started to move away. A sudden disturbing thought had come to her. +At any moment Ronnie might appear on the terrace. If he found her here, +closeted, so to speak, with the abominable Pilbeam, what would he +think? What, rather, would he not think?</p> + +<p>"Where are you going?"</p> + +<p>"Into the house."</p> + +<p>"Come back," said Pilbeam urgently.</p> + +<p>"I'm going."</p> + +<p>"But I've got something important to say."</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>She stopped.</p> + +<p>"That's right," said Pilbeam approvingly. "Now, listen. You'll admit +that, if I liked, I could give you away and spoil whatever game it is +that you're up to in this place?"</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"But I'm not going to do it if you'll be sensible."</p> + +<p>"Sensible?"</p> + +<p>Pilbeam looked cautiously up and down the terrace.</p> + +<p>"Now, listen," he said. "I want your help. I'll tell you why I'm here. +The old boy thinks I've come down to find his pig, but I haven't. I've +come to get that book your friend Galahad is writing."</p> + +<p>"What!"</p> + +<p>"I thought you'd be surprised. Yes, that's what I'm after. There's a +man living near here who's scared stiff that there's going to be a lot +of stories about him in that book, and he came to see me at my office +yesterday and offered me—" he hesitated a moment—"offered me," he +went on, "a hundred pounds if I'd get into the house somehow and snitch +the manuscript. And you being friendly with the old buster has made +everything simple."</p> + +<p>"You think so?"</p> + +<p>"Easy," he assured her. "Especially now he's going to give you the +thing to read. All you have to do is hand it over to me and there's +fifty quid for you. For doing practically nothing."</p> + +<p>Sue's eyes lit up. Pilbeam had expected that they would. He could not +conceive of a girl whose eyes would not light up at such an offer.</p> + +<p>"Oh?" said Sue.</p> + +<p>"Fifty quid," said Pilbeam. "I'm going halves with you."</p> + +<p>"And if I don't do what you want I suppose you will tell them who I +really am?"</p> + +<p>"That's it," said Pilbeam, pleased at her ready intelligence.</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm not going to do anything of the kind."</p> + +<p>"What!"</p> + +<p>"And if," said Sue, "you want to tell these people who I am, go ahead +and tell them."</p> + +<p>"I will."</p> + +<p>"Do. But just bear in mind that the moment you do I shall tell Mr. +Threepwood that it was you who wrote that thing about him in <i>Society +Spice</i>."</p> + +<p>Percy Pilbeam swayed like a sapling in the breeze. The blow had +unmanned him. He found no words with which to reply.</p> + +<p>"I will," said Sue.</p> + +<p>Pilbeam continued speechless. He was still trying to recover from +this deadly thrust through an unexpected chink in his armour when the +opportunity for speech passed. Millicent had appeared and was walking +along the terrace toward them. She wore her customary air of settled +gloom. On reaching them she paused.</p> + +<p>"Hullo," said Millicent, from the depths.</p> + +<p>"Hullo," said Sue.</p> + +<p>The library window framed the head and shoulders of Lord Emsworth.</p> + +<p>"Pilbeam, my dear fellow, will you come up to the library? I have found +the photographs."</p> + +<p>Millicent eyed the detective's retreating back with a mournful +curiosity.</p> + +<p>"Who's he?"</p> + +<p>"A man named Pilbeam."</p> + +<p>"Pill, I should say, is right. What makes him waddle like that?"</p> + +<p>Sue was unable to supply a solution to this problem. Millicent came and +stood beside her and, leaning on the stone parapet, gazed disparagingly +at the park. She gave the impression of disliking all parks but this +one particularly.</p> + +<p>"Ever read Schopenhauer?" she asked, after a silence.</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"You should. Great stuff."</p> + +<p>She fell into a heavy silence again, her eyes peering into the +gathering gloom. Somewhere in the twilight world a cow had begun to +emit long, nerve-racking bellows. The sound seemed to sum up and +underline the general sadness.</p> + +<p>"Schopenhauer says that all the suffering in the world can't be mere +chance. Must be meant. He says life's a mixture of suffering and +boredom. You've got to have one or the other. His stuff's full of +snappy cracks like that. You'd enjoy it. Well, I'm going for a walk. +You coming?"</p> + +<p>"I don't think I will, thanks."</p> + +<p>"Just as you like. Schopenhauer says suicide's absolutely O.K. He says +Hindoos do it instead of going to church. They bung themselves into the +Ganges and get eaten by crocodiles and call it a well-spent day."</p> + +<p>"What a lot you seem to know about Schopenhauer."</p> + +<p>"I've been reading him up lately. Found a copy in the library. +Schopenhauer says we are like lambs in a field, disporting themselves +under the eye of the butcher, who chooses first one and then another +for his prey. Sure you won't come for a walk?"</p> + +<p>"No, thanks, really. I think I'll go in."</p> + +<p>"Just as you like," said Millicent. "Liberty Hall."</p> + +<p>She moved off a few steps, then returned.</p> + +<p>"Sorry if I seem loopy," she said. "Something on my mind. Been giving +it a spot of thought. The fact is, I've just got engaged to be married +to my cousin Ronnie."</p> + +<p>The trees that stood out against the banking clouds seemed to swim +before Sue's eyes. An unseen hand had clutched her by the throat and +was crushing the life out of her.</p> + +<p>"Ronnie!"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Millicent, rather in the tone of voice which Schopenhauer +would have used when announcing the discovery of a caterpillar in his +salad. "We fixed it up just now."</p> + +<p>She wandered away, and Sue clung to the terrace wall. That at least was +solid in a world that rocked and crashed.</p> + +<p>"I say!"</p> + +<p>It was Hugo. She was looking at him through a mist, but there was never +any mistaking Hugo Carmody.</p> + +<p>"I say! Did she tell you?"</p> + +<p>Sue nodded.</p> + +<p>"She's engaged."</p> + +<p>Sue nodded.</p> + +<p>"She's going to marry Ronnie."</p> + +<p>"Death, where is thy sting?" said Hugo, and vanished in the direction +taken by Millicent.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII</h2> +</div> + + +<p class="ph2">I</p> + +<p>The firm and dignified note in which Rupert Baxter had expressed his +considered opinion of the Earl of Emsworth had been written in the +morning room immediately upon the ex-secretary's return to the house +and delivered into Beach's charge with hands still stained with garden +mould. Only when this urgent task had been performed did he start to +go upstairs in quest of the wash and brush-up which he so greatly +needed. He was mounting the stairs to his bedroom and had reached the +first floor when a door opened and his progress was arrested by what +in a lesser woman would have been a yelp. Proceeding, as it did, from +the lips of Lady Constance Keeble, we must call it an exclamation of +surprise.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Baxter!"</p> + +<p>She was standing in the doorway of her boudoir, and she eyed his +dishevelled form with such open-mouthed astonishment that for an +instant the ex-secretary came near to including her with the head of +the family in the impromptu commination service which was taking shape +in his mind. He was in no mood for wide-eyed looks of wonder.</p> + +<p>"May I come in?" he said curtly. He could explain all, but did not wish +to do so on the first-floor landing of a house where almost anybody +might be listening with flapping ears.</p> + +<p>"But, Mr. Baxter!" said Lady Constance.</p> + +<p>He paused for a moment to grit his teeth, then closed the door.</p> + +<p>"What <i>have</i> you been doing, Mr. Baxter?"</p> + +<p>"Jumping out of window."</p> + +<p>"Jumping out of <i>win</i>-dow?"</p> + +<p>He gave a brief synopsis of the events which had led up to his spirited +act. Lady Constance drew in her breath with a remorseful hiss.</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear!" she said. "How foolish of me. I should have told you."</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon?"</p> + +<p>Even though she was in the safe retirement of her boudoir Lady +Constance Keeble looked cautiously over her shoulder. In the stirring +and complicated state into which life had got itself at Blandings +Castle practically everybody in the place, except Lord Emsworth, had +fallen into the habit nowadays of looking cautiously over his or her +shoulder before he or she spoke.</p> + +<p>"Sir Gregory Parsloe said in his note," she explained, "that this man +Pilbeam who is coming here this evening is acting for him."</p> + +<p>"Acting for him?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Apparently Sir Gregory went to see him yesterday and has promised +him a large sum of money if he will obtain possession of my brother +Galahad's manuscript. That is why he has invited us to dinner to-night, +to get Galahad out of the house. So there was no need for you to have +troubled."</p> + +<p>There was silence.</p> + +<p>"So there was no need," repeated the Efficient Baxter slowly, wiping +from his eye the remains of a fragment of mould which had been causing +him some inconvenience, "for me to have troubled."</p> + +<p>"I am so sorry, Mr. Baxter."</p> + +<p>"Pray do not mention it, Lady Constance."</p> + +<p>His eye, now that the mould was out of it, was able to work again with +its customary keenness. His spectacles, as he surveyed the remorseful +woman before him, had a cold, steely look.</p> + +<p>"I see," he said. "Well, it might perhaps have spared me some little +inconvenience had you informed me of this earlier, Lady Constance. +I have bruised my left shin somewhat severely and, as you see, made +myself rather dirty."</p> + +<p>"I am so sorry."</p> + +<p>"Furthermore, I gathered from the remark he let fall that the +impression my actions have made upon Lord Emsworth is that I am insane."</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear!"</p> + +<p>"He even specified the precise degree of insanity. As mad as a coot, +were his words."</p> + +<p>He softened a little. He reminded himself that this woman before him, +who was so nearly doing what is described as wringing the hands, had +always been his friend, had always wished him well, had never slackened +her efforts to restore him to the secretarial duties which he had once +enjoyed.</p> + +<p>"Well, it cannot be helped," he said. "The thing now is to think of +some way of recovering the lost ground."</p> + +<p>"You mean, if you could find the Empress?"</p> + +<p>"Exactly."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mr. Baxter, if you only could!"</p> + +<p>"I can."</p> + +<p>Lady Constance stared at his dark, purposeful, efficient face in dumb +admiration. To another man who had spoken those words she would have +replied "How?" or even "How on earth?" But, as they had proceeded from +Rupert Baxter, she merely waited silently for enlightenment.</p> + +<p>"Have you given this matter any consideration, Lady Constance?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"To what conclusions have you come?"</p> + +<p>Lady Constance felt dull and foolish. She felt like Doctor +Watson—almost like a Scotland Yard Bungler.</p> + +<p>"I don't think I have come to any," she said, avoiding the spectacles +guiltily. "Of course," she added, "I think it is absurd to suppose that +Sir Gregory——"</p> + +<p>Baxter waved aside the notion. It was not even worth a "Tchah!"</p> + +<p>"In any matter of this kind," he said, "the first thing to do is to +seek motive. Who is there in Blandings Castle who could have had a +motive for stealing Lord Emsworth's pig?"</p> + +<p>Lady Constance would have given a year's income to have been able to +make some reasonably intelligent reply, but all she could do was look +and listen. Baxter was not annoyed. He would not have had it otherwise. +He preferred his audiences dumb and expectant.</p> + +<p>"Carmody."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Carmody!"</p> + +<p>"Precisely. He is Lord Emsworth's secretary, and a most inefficient +secretary, a secretary who stands hourly in danger of losing his +position. He sees me arrive at the Castle, a man who formerly held the +post he holds. He is alarmed. He suspects. He searches wildly about in +his mind for means of consolidating himself in Lord Emsworth's regard. +Then he has an idea, the sort of wild, motion-picture-bred idea which +would come to a man of his stamp. He thinks to himself that if he +removes the pig and conceals it somewhere and then pretends to have +found it and restores it to its owner, Lord Emsworth's gratitude will +be so intense that all danger of his dismissal will be at an end."</p> + +<p>He removed his spectacles and wiped them. Lady Constance uttered a low +cry. In anybody else it would have been a squeak. Baxter replaced his +spectacles.</p> + +<p>"I have no doubt the pig is somewhere in the grounds at this moment," +he said.</p> + +<p>"But, Mr. Baxter——"</p> + +<p>The ex-secretary raised a compelling hand.</p> + +<p>"But he would not have undertaken a thing like this single-handed. A +secretary's time is not his own, and it would be necessary to feed the +pig at regular intervals. He would require an accomplice. And I think I +know who that accomplice is—Beach!"</p> + +<p>This time not even the chronicler's desire to place Lady Constance's +utterances in the best and most attractive light can hide the truth. +She bleated.</p> + +<p>"Bee-ee-ee-ee-ech!"</p> + +<p>The spectacles raked her keenly.</p> + +<p>"Have you observed Beach closely of late?"</p> + +<p>She shook her head. She was not a woman who observed butlers closely.</p> + +<p>"He has something on his mind. He is nervous. Guilty. Conscience +stricken. He jumps when you speak to him."</p> + +<p>"Does he?"</p> + +<p>"Jumps," repeated the Efficient Baxter. "Just now I gave him a—I +happened to address him, and he sprang in the air." He paused. "I have +half a mind to go and question him."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mr. Baxter! Would that be wise?"</p> + +<p>Rupert Baxter's intention of interrogating the butler had been merely +a nebulous one, a sort of idle dream, but these words crystallized it +into a resolve. He was not going to have people asking him if things +would be wise.</p> + +<p>"A few searching questions should force him to reveal the truth."</p> + +<p>"But he'll give notice!"</p> + +<p>This interview had been dotted with occasions on which Baxter might +reasonably have said, "Tchah!" but, as we have seen, until this moment +he had refrained. He now said it.</p> + +<p>"Tchah!" said the Efficient Baxter. "There are plenty of other butlers."</p> + +<p>And with this undeniable truth he stalked from the room. The wash +and brush-up were still as necessary as they had been ten minutes +before, but he was too intent on the chase to think about washes and +brushes-up. He hurried down the stairs. He crossed the hall. He passed +through the green baize door that led to the quarters of the Blandings +Castle staff. And he was making his way along the dim passage to the +pantry where at this hour Beach might be supposed to be when its door +opened abruptly and a vast form emerged.</p> + +<p>It was the butler. And from the fact that he was wearing a bowler hat +it was plain that he was seeking the great outdoors.</p> + +<p>Baxter stopped in mid-stride and remained on one leg, watching. Then, +as his quarry disappeared in the direction of the back entrance, he +followed quickly.</p> + +<p>Out in the open it was almost as dark as it had been in the passage. +That gray, threatening sky had turned black by now. It was a swollen +mass of inky clouds, heavy with the thunder, lightning, and rain which +so often come in the course of an English summer to remind the island +race that they are hardy Nordics and must not be allowed to get their +fibre all sapped by eternal sunshine like the less favoured dwellers in +more southerly climes. It bayed at Baxter like a bloodhound.</p> + +<p>But it took more than dirty weather to quell the Efficient Baxter when +duty called. Like the character in Tennyson's poem who followed the +gleam, he followed the butler. There was but one point about Beach +which even remotely resembled a gleam, but it happened to be only one +which at this moment really mattered. He was easy to follow.</p> + +<p>The shrubbery swallowed the butler. A few seconds later it had +swallowed the Efficient Baxter.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p class="ph2">II</p> + +<p>There are those who maintain—and make a nice income by doing so in +the evening papers—that in these degenerate days the old hardy spirit +of the Briton has died out. They represent themselves as seeking +vainly for evidence of the survival of those qualities of toughness +and endurance which once made Englishmen what they were. To such, the +spectacle of Rupert Baxter braving the elements could not have failed +to bring cheer and consolation. They would have been further stimulated +by the conduct of Hugo Carmody.</p> + +<p>It had not escaped Hugo's notice, as he left Sue on the terrace and +started out in the wake of Millicent, that the weather was hotting up +for a storm. He saw the clouds. He heard the fast-approaching thunder. +For neither did he give a hoot. Let it rain, was Hugo's verdict. Let it +jolly well rain as much as it dashed well wanted to. As if encouraged, +the sky sent down a fat, wet drop which insinuated itself just between +his neck and collar.</p> + +<p>He hardly noticed it. The information confided to him by his friend +Ronald Fish had numbed his senses so thoroughly that water down the +back of the neck was merely an incident. He was feeling as he had not +felt since the evening some years ago when, boxing for his university +in the light-weight division, he had incautiously placed the point of +his jaw in the exact spot at the moment occupied by his opponent's +right fist. When you have done this or—equally—when you have just +been told that the girl you love is definitely betrothed to another, +you begin to understand how anarchists must feel when the bomb goes off +too soon.</p> + +<p>In all the black days through which he had been living recently, Hugo +had never really lost hope. It had been dim sometimes, but it had +always been there. It was his opinion that he knew women, just as it +was Sue's idea that she knew men. Like Sue, he had placed his trust +in the thought that true love conquers all obstacles; that coldness +melts; that sundered hearts may at long last be brought together again +by a little judicious pleading and reasoning. Even the fact that +Millicent stared at him when they met, with large, scornful eyes that +went through him like stilettos, unpleasant though it was, had not +caused him to despair. He had looked forward to the moment when he +should contrive to get her alone and do a bit of snappy talking along +the right lines.</p> + +<p>But this was final. This was the end. This put the tin hat on it. She +was engaged to Ronnie. Soon she would be married to Ronnie. Like a +gadfly the hideous thought sent Hugo Carmody reeling on through the +gloom.</p> + +<p>It was so dark now that he could scarcely see before him. And, looking +about him, he discovered that the reason for this was that he had made +his way into a wood of sorts. The west wood, he deduced dully, taking +into consideration the fact that there was no other in this particular +part of the estate. Well, he might just as well be in the west wood as +anywhere. He trudged on.</p> + +<p>The ground beneath his feet was spongy and equipped with low-lying +brambles which pricked through his thin flannels and would have +caused him discomfort if he had been in the frame of mind to notice +brambles. There were trees against which he bumped, and logs over +which he tripped. And ahead of him, in a small clearing, there was a +dilapidated-looking cottage. He noticed this because it seemed the +sort of place where a man, now that a warm, gusty wind had sprung up, +might shelter and light a cigarette. The need for tobacco had become +imperative.</p> + +<p>He was surprised to find that it was raining, and had apparently, from +the state of his clothes, been raining for quite some time. It was +also thundering. The storm had broken, and the boom of it seemed to be +all round him. A flash of lightning reminded him that he was in just +the kind of place, among all these trees, where blokes get struck. At +dinner time they are missed, and later on search parties come out with +lanterns. Somebody stumbles over something soft, and the rays of the +lantern fall on a charred and blackened form. Here, quickly, we have +found him! Where? Over here. Is <i>that</i> Hugo Carmody? Well, well! Pick +him up, boys, and bring him along. He was a good chap once. Moody, +though, of late. Some trouble about a girl, wasn't it? She will be +sorry when she hears of this. Drove him to it, you might almost say. +Steady with that stretcher. Now, when I say, "<i>To me</i>." Right!</p> + +<p>There was something about this picture which quite cheered Hugo up. +Ajax defied the lightning. Hugo Carmody rather encouraged it than +otherwise. He looked approvingly at a more than usually vivid flash +that seemed to dart among the treetops like a snake. All the same, he +was forced to reflect, he was getting dashed wet. No sense, when you +came right down to it, in getting dashed wet. After all, a man could +be struck by lightning just as well in that cottage sort of place over +there. Ho! for the cottage, felt Hugo, and headed for it at a gallop.</p> + +<p>He had just reached the door when it was flung open. There was a +noise rather like that made by a rising pheasant, and the next moment +something white had flung itself into his arms and was weeping +emotionally on his chest.</p> + +<p>"Hugo! Hugo darling!"</p> + +<p>Reason told Hugo it could scarcely be Millicent who was clinging to +him like this and speaking to him like this. And yet Millicent it most +certainly appeared to be. She continued to speak, still in the same +friendly, even chatty strain.</p> + +<p>"Hugo! Save me!"</p> + +<p>"Right ho!"</p> + +<p>"I wur-wur-went in thur-thur-there to shush-shush-shelter from the +rain, and it's all pitch dark."</p> + +<p>Hugo squeezed her fondly and with the sort of relief that comes to men +who find themselves squeezing where they had not thought to squeeze. +No need for that snappy bit of talking now. No need for arguments and +explanations, for pleadings and entreaties. No need for anything but a +good biceps.</p> + +<p>He was bewildered. But mixed with his bewilderment had come a certain +feeling of complacency. There was no denying that it was enjoyable, +this exhibition of tremulous weakness in one who, if she had had the +shadow of a fault, had always been inclined to matter-of-factness and +the display of that rather hard, bright self-sufficiency which is so +characteristic of the modern girl. If this melting mood was due to +the fact that Millicent, while in the cottage, had seen a ghost, Hugo +wanted to meet that ghost and shake its hand. Every man likes to be in +a position to say, "There, there, little woman!" to the girl of his +heart, particularly if for the last few days she has been treating him +like a more than ordinarily unpleasant worm, and Hugo Carmody felt that +he was in that position now.</p> + +<p>"There, there!" he said, not quite feeling up to risking the "little +woman." "It's all right."</p> + +<p>"But it tut-tut-tut——"</p> + +<p>"It what?" said Hugo, puzzled.</p> + +<p>"It tut-tut-tut-tisn't. There's a man in there!"</p> + +<p>"A man?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I didn't know there was anyone there, and it was pitch dark, and +I heard something move, and I said, 'Who's that?' and then he suddenly +spoke to me in German."</p> + +<p>"In German?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>Hugo released her gently. His face was determined.</p> + +<p>"I'm going in to have a look."</p> + +<p>"Hugo! Stop! You'll be killed."</p> + +<p>She stood there, rigid. The rain lashed about her, but she did not heed +it. The lightning gleamed. She paid it no attention. For the minute +that lasts an hour she waited, straining her ears for sounds of the +death struggle. Then a dim form appeared.</p> + +<p>"I say, Millicent."</p> + +<p>"Hugo! Are you all right?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I'm all right. I say, Millicent, do you know what?"</p> + +<p>"No, what?"</p> + +<p>A chuckle came to her through the darkness.</p> + +<p>"It's the pig."</p> + +<p>"It's what?"</p> + +<p>"The pig."</p> + +<p>"Who's a pig?"</p> + +<p>"This is. Your friend in here. It's Empress of Blandings, as large as +life. Come and have a look."</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p class="ph2">III</p> + +<p>Millicent had a look. She came to the door of the cottage and peered +in. Yes, just as he had said, there was the Empress. In the feeble +light of the match that Hugo was holding, the noble animal's attractive +face was peering up at her—questioningly, as if wondering if she +might be the bearer of the evening snack which would be so exceedingly +welcome. The picture was one which would have set Lord Emsworth +screaming with joy. Millicent merely gaped.</p> + +<p>"How on earth did she get here?"</p> + +<p>"That's what I'm going to find out," said Hugo. "One always knew she +must be cached somewhere, of course. What is this place, anyway?"</p> + +<p>"It used to be a gamekeeper's cottage, I believe."</p> + +<p>"Well, there seems to be a room up above," said Hugo, striking another +match. "I'm going to go up there and wait. It's quite likely that +somebody will be along soon to feed the animal, and I'm going to see +who it is."</p> + +<p>"Yes, that's what we'll do. How clever of you!"</p> + +<p>"Not you. You get back home."</p> + +<p>"I won't."</p> + +<p>There was a pause. A strong man would, no doubt, have asserted himself. +But Hugo, though feeling better than he had done for days, was not +feeling quite so strong as all that.</p> + +<p>"Just as you like." He shut the door. "Well, come on. We'd better be +making a move. The fellow may be here at any moment."</p> + +<p>They climbed the crazy stairs and lowered themselves cautiously to a +floor which smelled of mice and mildew. Below, all was in darkness, +but there were holes through which it would be possible to look when +the time should come for looking. Millicent could feel one near her +face.</p> + +<p>"You don't think this floor will give way?" she asked rather nervously.</p> + +<p>"I shouldn't think so. Why?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't want to break my neck."</p> + +<p>"You don't, don't you? Well, I would jolly well like to break mine," +said Hugo, speaking tensely in the darkness. It had just occurred to +him that now would be a good time for a heart-to-heart talk. "If you +suppose I'm keen on going on living with you and Ronnie doing the +Wedding Glide all over the place you're dashed well mistaken. I take it +you're aware that you've broken my bally heart, what?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Hugo!" said Millicent.</p> + +<p>Silence fell. Below, the Empress rustled. Aloft, something scuttered.</p> + +<p>"Oo!" cried Millicent. "Was that a rat?"</p> + +<p>"I hope so."</p> + +<p>"What!"</p> + +<p>"Rats gnaw you," explained Hugo. "They cluster round and chew you to +the bone and put an end to your misery."</p> + +<p>There was silence again. Then Millicent spoke in a small voice.</p> + +<p>"You're being beastly," she said.</p> + +<p>Remorse poured over Hugo in a flood.</p> + +<p>"I'm frightfully sorry. Yes, I know I am, dash it! But look here, you +know—I mean, all this getting engaged to Ronnie. A bit thick, what? +You don't expect me to give three hearty cheers, do you? Wouldn't want +me to break into a few care-free dance steps?"</p> + +<p>"I can't believe it's really happened."</p> + +<p>"Well, how did it happen?"</p> + +<p>"It sort of happened all of a sudden. I was feeling miserable and very +angry with you and—and all that. And I met Ronnie and he took me for +a stroll and we went down by the lake and started throwing little bits +of stick at the swans, and suddenly Ronnie sort of grunted and said, +'I say!' and I said, 'Hullo?' and he said, 'Will you marry me?' and +I said, 'All right,' and he said 'I ought to warn you, I despise all +women,' and I said, 'And I loathe all men,' and he said 'Right-o, I +think we shall be very happy.'"</p> + +<p>"I see."</p> + +<p>"I only did it to score off you."</p> + +<p>"You succeeded."</p> + +<p>A trace of spirit crept into Millicent's voice.</p> + +<p>"You never really loved me," she said. "You know jolly well you didn't."</p> + +<p>"Is that so?"</p> + +<p>"Well, what did you want to go sneaking off to London for, then, and +stuffing that beastly girl of yours with food?"</p> + +<p>"She isn't my girl. And she isn't beastly."</p> + +<p>"She is."</p> + +<p>"Well, you seem to get on with her all right. I saw you chatting on the +terrace together as cosily as dammit."</p> + +<p>"What!"</p> + +<p>"Miss Schoonmaker."</p> + +<p>"I don't know what you're talking about. What's Miss Schoonmaker got to +do with it?"</p> + +<p>"Miss Schoonmaker isn't Miss Schoonmaker. She's Sue Brown."</p> + +<p>For a moment it seemed to Millicent that the crack in her companion's +heart had spread to his head. Futile though the action was, she stared +in the direction from which his voice had proceeded. Then, suddenly, +his words took on a meaning. She gasped.</p> + +<p>"She's followed you down here?"</p> + +<p>"She hasn't followed me down here. She's followed Ronnie down +here. Can't you get it into your nut," said Hugo, with justifiable +exasperation, "that you've been making floaters and bloomers and +getting everything mixed up all along? Sue Brown has never cared a +curse for me, and I've never thought anything about her, except that +she's a jolly girl and nice to dance with. That's absolutely and +positively the only reason I went out with her. I hadn't had a dance +for six weeks, and my feet had begun to itch so that I couldn't sleep +at night. So I went to London and took her out, and Ronnie found her +talking to that pestilence Pilbeam and thought he had taken her out, +and she had told him she didn't even know the man, which was quite +true, but Ronnie cut up rough and said he was through with her and came +down here, and she wanted to get a word with him, so she came down +here, pretending to be Miss Schoonmaker, and the moment she gets here +she finds Ronnie is engaged to you. A nice surprise for the poor girl!"</p> + +<p>Millicent's head had begun to swim long before the conclusion of this +recital.</p> + +<p>"But what is Pilbeam doing down here?"</p> + +<p>"Pilbeam?"</p> + +<p>"He was on the terrace talking to her."</p> + +<p>A low snarl came through the darkness.</p> + +<p>"Pilbeam here? Ah! So he came, after all, did he? He's the fellow +Lord Emsworth sent me to about the Empress. He runs the Argus Enquiry +Agency. It was Pilbeam's minions that dogged my steps that night, at +your request. So he's here, is he? Well, let him enjoy himself while he +can. Let him sniff the country air while the sniffing is good. A bitter +reckoning awaits that bloke."</p> + +<p>From the disorder of Millicent's mind another point emerged insistently +demanding explanation.</p> + +<p>"You said she wasn't pretty!"</p> + +<p>"Who?"</p> + +<p>"Sue Brown."</p> + +<p>"Nor is she."</p> + +<p>"You don't call her pretty? She's fascinating."</p> + +<p>"Not to me," said Hugo doggedly. "There's only one girl in the world +that I call pretty, and she's going to marry Ronnie." He paused. "If +you haven't realized by this time that I love you and always shall love +you and have never loved anybody else and never shall love anybody +else, you're a fathead. If you brought me Sue Brown or any other girl +in the world on a plate with watercress round her, I wouldn't so much +as touch her hand."</p> + +<p>Another rat—unless it was an exceptionally large mouse—had begun to +make its presence felt in the darkness. It seemed to be enjoying an +early dinner off a piece of wood. Millicent did not even notice it. +She had reached out, and her hand had touched Hugo's arm. Her fingers +closed on it desperately.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Hugo!" she said.</p> + +<p>The arm became animated. It clutched her, drew her along the +mouse-and-mildew scented floor. And time stood still.</p> + +<p>Hugo was the first to break the silence.</p> + +<p>"And to think that not so long ago I was wishing that a flash of +lightning would strike me amidships!" he said.</p> + +<p>The aroma of mouse and mildew had passed away. Violets seemed to be +spreading their fragrance through the cottage. Violets and roses. The +rat, a noisy feeder, had changed into an orchestra of harps, dulcimers, +and sackbuts that played soft music.</p> + +<p>And then, jarring upon these sweet strains, there came the sound of the +cottage door opening. And a moment later light shone through the holes +in the floor.</p> + +<p>Millicent gave Hugo's arm a warning pinch. They looked down. On the +floor below stood a lantern, and beside it a man of massive build who, +from the golloping noises that floated upward, appeared to be giving +the Empress those calories and proteids which a pig of her dimensions +requires so often and in such large quantities.</p> + +<p>This Good Samaritan had been stooping. Now he straightened himself and +looked about him with an apprehensive eye. He raised the lantern, and +its light fell upon his face.</p> + +<p>And, as she saw that face, Millicent, forgetting prudence, uttered in a +high, startled voice a single word.</p> + +<p>"Beach!" cried Millicent.</p> + +<p>Down below, the butler stood congealed. It seemed to him that the Voice +of Conscience had spoken.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p class="ph2">IV</p> + +<p>Conscience, besides having a musical voice, appeared also to be +equipped with feet. Beach could hear them clattering down the stairs, +and the volume of noise was so great that it seemed as if Conscience +must be a centipede. But he did not stir. It would have required at +that moment a derrick to move him, and there was no derrick in the +gamekeeper's cottage in the west wood. He was still standing like a +statue when Hugo and Millicent arrived. Only when the identity of the +newcomers impressed itself on his numbed senses did his limbs begin +to twitch and show some signs of relaxing. For he looked on Hugo as +a friend. Hugo, he felt, was one of the few people in his world who +finding him in his present questionable position might be expected to +take the broad and sympathetic view.</p> + +<p>He nerved himself to speak.</p> + +<p>"Good-evening, sir. Good-evening, miss."</p> + +<p>"What's all this?" said Hugo.</p> + +<p>Years ago, in his hot and reckless youth, Beach had once heard that +question from the lips of a policeman. It had disconcerted him then. It +disconcerted him now.</p> + +<p>"Well, sir," he replied.</p> + +<p>Millicent was staring at the Empress, who, after one courteous look +of inquiry at the intruders, had given a brief grunt of welcome and +returned to the agenda.</p> + +<p>"<i>You</i> stole her, Beach? <i>You!</i>"</p> + +<p>The butler quivered. He had known this girl since her long hair and +rompers days. She had sported in his pantry. He had cut elephants out +of paper for her and taught her tricks with bits of string. The shocked +note in her voice seared him like vitriol. To her, he felt, niece to +the Earl of Emsworth and trained by his lordship from infancy in the +best traditions of pig worship, the theft of the Empress must seem the +vilest of crimes. He burned to reëstablish himself in her eyes.</p> + +<p>There comes in the life of every conspirator a moment when loyalty +to his accomplices wavers before the urge to make things right for +himself. We can advance no more impressive proof of the nobility of +the butler's soul than that he did not obey this impulse. Millicent's +accusing eyes were piercing him, but he remained true to his trust. Mr. +Ronald had sworn him to secrecy, and even to square himself he could +not betray him.</p> + +<p>And, as if by way of a direct reward from Providence for this sterling +conduct, inspiration descended upon Beach.</p> + +<p>"Yes, miss," he replied.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Beach!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, miss. It was I who stole the animal. I did it for your sake, +miss."</p> + +<p>Hugo eyed him sternly.</p> + +<p>"Beach," he said, "this is pure apple sauce."</p> + +<p>"Sir?"</p> + +<p>"Apple sauce, I repeat. Why endeavour to swing the lead, Beach? What do +you mean, you stole the pig for her sake?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Millicent. "Why for my sake?"</p> + +<p>The butler was calm now. He had constructed his story and he was going +to stick to it.</p> + +<p>"In order to remove the obstacles in your path, miss."</p> + +<p>"Obstacles?"</p> + +<p>"Owing to the fact that you and Mr. Carmody have frequently entrusted +me with your—may I say surreptitious correspondence, I have long been +cognizant of your sentiments toward one another, miss. I am aware that +it is your desire to contract a union with Mr. Carmody, and I knew that +there would be objections raised on the part of certain members of the +family."</p> + +<p>"So far," said Hugo critically, "this sounds to me like drivel of the +purest water. But go on."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, sir. And then it occurred to me that, were his lordship's +pig to disappear, his lordship would, on recovering the animal, be +extremely grateful to whoever restores it. It was my intention to +apprise you of the animal's whereabouts and suggest that you should +inform his lordship that you had discovered it. In his gratitude, I +fancied, his lordship would consent to the union."</p> + +<p>There could never be complete silence in any spot where Empress of +Blandings was partaking of food; but something as near silence as was +possible followed this speech. In the rays of the lantern Hugo's eyes +met Millicent's. In hers, as in his, there was a look of stunned awe. +They had heard of faithful old servitors. They had read about faithful +old servitors. They had seen faithful old servitors on the stage. But +never had they dreamed that faithful old servitors could be as faithful +as this.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Beach!" said Millicent.</p> + +<p>She had used the words before. But how different this "Oh, Beach!" +was from that other, earlier "Oh, Beach!" On that occasion the +exclamation had been vibrant with reproach, pain, disillusionment. Now +it contained gratitude, admiration, an affection almost too deep for +speech.</p> + +<p>And the same may be said of Hugo's "Gosh!"</p> + +<p>"Beach," cried Millicent, "you're an angel!"</p> + +<p>"Thank you, miss."</p> + +<p>"A topper!" agreed Hugo.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, sir."</p> + +<p>"However did you get such a corking idea?"</p> + +<p>"It came to me, miss."</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you what it is, Beach," said Hugo earnestly. "When you hand +in your dinner pail in due course of time—and may the moment be long +distant!—you've got to leave your brain to the nation. You've simply +got to. Have it pickled and put in the British Museum, because it's +the outstanding brain of the century. I never heard of anything so +brilliant in my life. Of course the old boy will be all over us."</p> + +<p>"He'll do anything for us," said Millicent.</p> + +<p>"This is not merely a scheme. It is more. It is an egg. Pray silence +for your chairman. I want to think."</p> + +<p>Outside, the storm had passed. Birds were singing. Far away, the +thunder still rumbled. It might have been the sound of Hugo's thoughts, +leaping and jostling one another.</p> + +<p>"I've worked it all out," said Hugo at length. "Some people might say, +Rush to the old boy now and tell him we've found his pig. I say, no. In +my opinion we ought to hold this pig for a rising market. The longer we +wait, the more grateful he will be. Give him another forty-eight hours, +I suggest, and he will have reached the stage where he will deny us +nothing."</p> + +<p>"But——"</p> + +<p>"No! Act precipitately and we are undone. Don't forget that it is not +merely a question of getting your uncle's consent to our union. We've +got to break it to him that you aren't going to marry Ronnie. And the +family have always been pretty keen on your marrying Ronnie. To my +mind, another forty-eight hours at the very least is essential."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps you're right."</p> + +<p>"I know I'm right."</p> + +<p>"Then we'll simply leave the Empress here?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Hugo decidedly. "This place doesn't strike me as safe. If +we found her here, anybody might. We require a new safe deposit, and I +know the very one. It's——"</p> + +<p>Beach came out of the silence. His manner betrayed agitation.</p> + +<p>"If it is all the same to you, sir, I would much prefer not to hear it."</p> + +<p>"Eh?"</p> + +<p>"It would be a great relief to me, sir, to be able to expunge the +entire matter from my mind. I have been under a considerable mental +strain of late, sir, and I really don't think I could bear any more +of it. Besides, supposing I were questioned, sir. It may be my +imagination, but I have rather fancied from the way he has looked at me +occasionally that Mr. Baxter harbours suspicions."</p> + +<p>"Baxter always harbours suspicions about something," said Millicent.</p> + +<p>"Yes, miss. But in this case they are well grounded, and if it is all +the same to you and Mr. Carmody I would greatly prefer that he was not +in a position to go on harbouring them."</p> + +<p>"All right, Beach," said Hugo. "After what you have done for us, your +lightest wish is law. You can be out of this, if you want to. Though I +was going to suggest that, if you cared to go on feeding the animal——"</p> + +<p>"No, sir—really—if you please...."</p> + +<p>"Right ho, then. Come along, Millicent. We must be shifting."</p> + +<p>"Are you going to take her away now?"</p> + +<p>"This very moment. I pass this handkerchief through the handy ring +which you observe in the nose and—Ho! Allez-oop! Good-bye, Beach. It +is a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done, I think."</p> + +<p>"Good-bye, Beach," said Millicent. "I can't tell you how grateful we +are."</p> + +<p>"I am glad to have given satisfaction, miss. I wish you every success +and happiness, sir."</p> + +<p>Left alone, the butler drew in his breath till he swelled like a +balloon, then poured it out again in a long, sighing puff. He picked +up the lantern and left the cottage. His walk was the walk of a butler +from whose shoulders a great weight has rolled.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p class="ph2">V</p> + +<p>It is a fact not generally known, for a nice sense of the dignity of +his position restrained him from exercising it, that Beach possessed a +rather attractive singing voice. It was a mellow baritone, in timbre +not unlike that which might have proceeded from a cask of very old, dry +sherry, had it had vocal chords: and we cannot advance a more striking +proof of the lightness of heart which had now come upon him than by +mentioning that, as he walked home through the wood, he broke his rigid +rule and definitely warbled.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>"There's a light in thy bow-er,"</p> +</div> + +<p>sang Beach,</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>"A light in thy BOW-er...."</p> +</div> + +<p>He felt more like a gay young second footman than a butler of years' +standing. He listened to the birds with an uplifted heart. Upon the +rabbits that sported about his path he bestowed a series of indulgent +smiles. The shadow that had darkened his life had passed away. His +conscience was at rest.</p> + +<p>So completely was this so that when, on reaching the house, he was +informed by Footman James that Lord Emsworth had been inquiring for +him and desired his immediate presence in the library, he did not even +tremble. A brief hour ago, and what menace this announcement would +have seemed to him to hold. But now it left him calm. It was with some +little difficulty that, as he mounted the stairs, he kept himself from +resuming his song.</p> + +<p>"Er—Beach."</p> + +<p>"Your lordship?"</p> + +<p>The butler now became aware that his employer was not alone. Dripping +in an unpleasant manner on the carpet, for he seemed somehow to have +got himself extremely wet, stood the Efficient Baxter. Beach regarded +him with a placid eye. What was Baxter to him or he to Baxter now?</p> + +<p>"Your lordship?" he said again, for Lord Emsworth appeared to be +experiencing some difficulty in continuing the conversation.</p> + +<p>"Eh? What? What? Oh, yes."</p> + +<p>The ninth earl braced himself with a visible effort.</p> + +<p>"Er—Beach."</p> + +<p>"Your lordship?"</p> + +<p>"I—er—I sent for you, Beach——"</p> + +<p>"Yes, your lordship?"</p> + +<p>At this moment Lord Emsworth's eye fell on a volume on the desk dealing +with Diseases in Pigs. He seemed to draw strength from it.</p> + +<p>"Beach," he said, in quite a crisp, masterful voice, "I sent for you +because Mr. Baxter has made a remarkable charge against you. Most +extraordinary."</p> + +<p>"I should be glad to be acquainted with the gravamen of the accusation, +your lordship."</p> + +<p>"The what?" asked Lord Emsworth, starting.</p> + +<p>"If your lordship would be kind enough to inform me of the substance of +Mr. Baxter's charge?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, the substance? Yes. You mean the substance? Precisely. Quite so. +The substance. Yes, to be sure. Quite so. Quite so. Yes. Exactly. No +doubt."</p> + +<p>It was plain to the butler that his employer had begun to dodder. Left +to himself this human cuckoo clock would go maundering on like this +indefinitely. Respectfully, but with the necessary firmness, he called +him to order.</p> + +<p>"What is it that Mr. Baxter says, your lordship?"</p> + +<p>"Eh? Oh, tell him, Baxter. Yes, tell him, dash it."</p> + +<p>The Efficient Baxter moved a step closer and began to drip on another +part of the carpet. His spectacles gleamed determinedly. Here was no +stammering, embarrassed peer of the realm, but a man who knew his own +mind and could speak it.</p> + +<p>"I followed you to the gamekeeper's cottage in the west wood just now, +Beach."</p> + +<p>"Sir?"</p> + +<p>"You heard what I said."</p> + +<p>"Undoubtedly, sir. But I fancied I must be mistaken. I have not been to +the spot you mention, sir."</p> + +<p>"I saw you with my own eyes."</p> + +<p>"I can only repeat my asseveration, sir," said the butler with a +saintly meekness.</p> + +<p>Lord Emsworth, who had taken another look at Diseases in Pigs, became +brisk again.</p> + +<p>"He says he peeped through the window, dash it."</p> + +<p>Beach raised a respectful eyebrow. It was as if he had said that it +was not his place to comment on the pastimes of the Castle's guests, +however childish. If Mr. Baxter wished to go out into the woods in the +rain and play solitary games of Peep-bo, that, said the eyebrow, was a +matter that concerned Mr. Baxter alone.</p> + +<p>"And you were in there, he says, feeding the Empress."</p> + +<p>"Your lordship?"</p> + +<p>"And you were in there——Dash it, you heard."</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon, your lordship, but I really fail to comprehend."</p> + +<p>"Well, if you want it in a nutshell, Mr. Baxter says it was you who +stole my pig."</p> + +<p>There were few things in the world that the butler considered worth +raising both eyebrows at. This was one of the few. He stood for a +moment, exhibiting them to Lord Emsworth: then turned to Baxter, so +that he could see them, too. This done, he lowered them and permitted +about three eighths of a smile to play for a moment about his lips.</p> + +<p>"Might I speak frankly, your lordship?"</p> + +<p>"Dash it, man, we want you to speak frankly. That's the whole idea. +That's why I sent for you. We want a full confession and the name of +your accomplice and all that sort of thing."</p> + +<p>"I hesitate only because what I should like to say may possibly give +offence to Mr. Baxter, your lordship, which would be the last thing I +should desire."</p> + +<p>The prospect of offending the Efficient Baxter which caused such +concern to Beach appeared to disturb his lordship not at all.</p> + +<p>"Get on. Say what you like."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, your lordship, I think it possible that Mr. Baxter, if he +will pardon my saying so, may have been suffering from a hallucination."</p> + +<p>"Tchah!" said the Efficient Baxter.</p> + +<p>"You mean he's potty?" said Lord Emsworth, struck with the idea. In the +excitement of his late secretary's information, he had overlooked this +simple explanation. Now there came surging back to him all the evidence +that went to support such a theory. Those flower pots—that leap from +the library window. He looked at Baxter keenly. There <i>was</i> a sort of +wild gleam in his eyes. The old coot glitter.</p> + +<p>"Really, Lord Emsworth!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm not saying you are, my dear fellow. Only——"</p> + +<p>"It is quite obvious to me," said Baxter stiffly, "that this man is +lying. Wait!" he continued, raising a hand. "Are you prepared to come +with his lordship and me to the cottage now, at this very moment, and +let his lordship see for himself?"</p> + +<p>"No, sir."</p> + +<p>"Ha!"</p> + +<p>"I should first," said Beach, "wish to go downstairs and get my hat."</p> + +<p>"Quite right," agreed Lord Emsworth cordially. "Very sensible. Might +catch a nasty cold in the head. Certainly, get your hat, Beach, and +meet us at the front door."</p> + +<p>"Very good, your lordship."</p> + +<p>A bystander, observing the little party that was gathered some five +minutes later on the gravel outside the great door of Blandings Castle, +would have noticed about it a touch of chill, a certain restraint. None +of its three members seemed really in the mood for a ramble through +the woods. Beach, though courtly, was not cordial. The face under his +bowler hat was the face of a good man misjudged. Baxter was eying +the sullen sky as though he suspected it of something. As for Lord +Emsworth, he had just become conscious that he was about to accompany +through dark and deserted ways one who, though on this afternoon's +evidence the trend of his tastes seemed to be toward suicide, might +quite possibly become homicidal.</p> + +<p>"One moment," said Lord Emsworth.</p> + +<p>He scuttled into the house again and came out looking happier. He was +carrying a stout walking stick with an ivory knob on it.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII</h2> +</div> + + +<p class="ph2">I</p> + +<p>Blandings Castle basked in the afterglow of a golden summer evening. +Only a memory now was the storm which, two hours since, had raged with +such violence through its parks, pleasure grounds, and messuages. It +had passed, leaving behind it peace and bird song and a sunset of pink +and green and orange and opal and amethyst. The air was cool and sweet, +and the earth sent up a healing fragrance. Little stars were peeping +down from a rain-washed sky.</p> + +<p>To Ronnie Fish, slumped in an armchair in his bedroom on the second +floor, the improved weather conditions brought no spiritual uplift. He +could see the sunset, but it left him cold. He could hear the thrushes +calling in the shrubberies, but did not think much of them. It is, in +short, in no sunny mood that we reintroduce Ronald Overbury Fish to the +reader of this chronicle.</p> + +<p>The meditation of a man who has recently proposed to and been accepted +by a girl some inches taller than himself, for whom he entertains no +warmer sentiment than a casual feeling that, take her for all in all, +she isn't a bad sort of egg, must of necessity tend toward the sombre: +and the surroundings in which Ronnie had spent the latter part of the +afternoon had not been of a kind to encourage optimism. At the moment +when the skies suddenly burst asunder and the world became a shower +bath, he had been walking along the path that skirted the wall of the +kitchen garden; and the only shelter that offered itself was a gloomy +cave or dugout that led to the heating apparatus of the hothouses. Into +this he had dived like a homing rabbit, and here, sitting on a heap of +bricks, he had remained for the space of fifty minutes with no company +but one small green frog and his thoughts.</p> + +<p>The place was a sort of Sargasso Sea into which had drifted all the +flotsam and jetsam of the kitchen-garden which adjoined. There was a +wheelbarrow, lacking its wheel and lying drunkenly on its side. There +were broken pots in great profusion. There were a heap of withered +flowers, a punctured watering can, a rake with large gaps in its front +teeth, some potatoes unfit for human consumption, and half a dead +blackbird. The whole effect was extraordinarily like hell, and Ronnie's +spirits, not high at the start, had sunk lower and lower.</p> + +<p>Sobered by rain, wheelbarrows, watering cans, rakes, potatoes, and dead +blackbirds, not to mention the steady, supercilious eye of a frog which +resembled that of a bishop at the Athenæum inspecting a shy new member, +Ronnie had begun definitely to repent of the impulse which had led him +to ask Millicent to be his wife. And now, in the cosier environment of +his bedroom, he was regretting it more than ever.</p> + +<p>Like most people who have made a defiant and dramatic gesture and then +have leisure to reflect, he was oppressed by a feeling that he had gone +considerably farther than was prudent. Samson, as he heard the pillars +of the temple begin to crack, must have felt the same. Gestures are all +very well while the intoxication lasts. The trouble is that it lasts +such a very little while.</p> + +<p>In asking Millicent to marry him he had gone, he now definitely +realized, too far. He had overdone it. It was not that he had any +objection to Millicent as a wife. He had none whatever—provided she +were somebody else's wife. What was so unpleasant was the prospect of +being married to her himself.</p> + +<p>He groaned in spirit and became aware that he was no longer alone. The +door had opened, and his friend Hugo Carmody was in the room. He noted +with a dull surprise that Hugo was in the conventional costume of the +English gentleman about to dine. He had not supposed the hour so late.</p> + +<p>"Hullo," said Hugo. "Not dressed? That gong's gone."</p> + +<p>It now became clear to Ronnie that he simply was not equal to facing +his infernal family at the dinner table. He supposed that Millicent +had spread the news of their engagement by this time, and that +meant discussion, wearisome congratulations, embraces from his Aunt +Constance, chaff of the vintage of 1895 from his Uncle Galahad—in +short, fuss and gabble. And he was in no mood for fuss and gabble. Pot +luck with a tableful of Trappist monks he might just have endured, but +not a hearty feed with the family.</p> + +<p>"I don't want any dinner."</p> + +<p>"No dinner?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Ill or something?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"But you don't want any dinner? I see. Rummy! However, your affair, +of course. It begins to look as if I should have to don the nosebag +alone. Beach tells me that Baxter also will be absent from the trough. +He's upset about something, it seems, and has asked for a snort and +sandwiches in the smoking room. And as for the pustule Pilbeam," said +Hugo grimly, "I propose to interview him at the earliest possible date, +and after that he won't want any dinner, either."</p> + +<p>"Where are the rest of them?"</p> + +<p>"Didn't you know?" said Hugo, surprised. "They're dining over at old +Parsloe's. Your aunt, Lord Emsworth, old Galahad, and Millicent." +He coughed. A moment of some slight embarrassment impended. "I say, +Ronnie, old man, while on the subject of Millicent——"</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"You know that engagement of yours?"</p> + +<p>"What about it?"</p> + +<p>"It's off."</p> + +<p>"Off?"</p> + +<p>"Right off. A washout. She's changed her mind."</p> + +<p>"What!"</p> + +<p>"Yes. She's going to marry me. I may tell you we have been engaged for +weeks—one of those secret betrothals—but we had a row. Row now over. +Complete reconciliation. So she asked me to break it to you gently that +in the circs she proposes to return you to store."</p> + +<p>A thrill of ecstasy shot through Ronnie. He felt as men on the scaffold +feel when the messenger bounds in with the reprieve.</p> + +<p>"Well, that's the first bit of good news I've had for a long time," he +said.</p> + +<p>"You mean you didn't want to marry Millicent?"</p> + +<p>"Of course I didn't."</p> + +<p>"Not so much of the 'of course,' laddie," said Hugo, offended.</p> + +<p>"She's an awfully nice girl——"</p> + +<p>"An angel. Shropshire's leading seraph."</p> + +<p>"—but I'm not in love with her any more than she's in love with me."</p> + +<p>"In that case," said Hugo, with justifiable censure, "why propose to +her? A goofy proceeding, it seems to me." He clicked his tongue. "Of +course, this is what happened. You grabbed Millicent to score off Sue, +and she grabbed you to score off me. And now, I suppose, you've fixed +it up with Sue again. Very sound. Couldn't have made a wiser move. +She's obviously the girl for you."</p> + +<p>Ronnie winced. The words had touched a nerve. He had been trying not +to think of Sue, but without success. Her picture insisted on rising +before him. Not being able to exclude her from his thoughts he had +tried to think of her bitterly.</p> + +<p>"I haven't," he cried.</p> + +<p>Extraordinary how difficult it was, even now, to think bitterly of Sue. +Sue was Sue. That was the fundamental fact that hampered him. Try as he +might to concentrate it on the tragedy of Mario's restaurant, his mind +insisted on slipping back to earlier scenes of sunshine and happiness.</p> + +<p>"You haven't?" said Hugo, damped.</p> + +<p>That Ronnie could possibly be in ignorance of Sue's arrival at the +castle never occurred to him. Long ere this, he took it for granted, +they must have met. And he assumed, from the equanimity with which his +friend had received the news of the loss of Millicent, that Sue and he +must have had just such another heart-to-heart talk as had taken place +in the room above the gamekeeper's cottage. The dour sullenness of +Ronnie's face made his kindly heart sink.</p> + +<p>"You mean you haven't fixed things up?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>Ronnie writhed. Sue in his car. Sue up the river. Sue in his arms to +the music of sweet saxophones. Sue laughing. Sue smiling. Sue in the +springtime, with the little breezes ruffling her hair....</p> + +<p>He forced his mind away from these weakening visions. Sue at +Mario's.... That was better.... Sue letting him down.... Sue hobnobbing +with the blister Pilbeam.... That was much better.</p> + +<p>"I think you're being very hard on that poor little girl, Ronnie."</p> + +<p>"Don't call her a poor little girl."</p> + +<p>"I will call her a poor little girl," said Hugo firmly. "To me she is a +poor little girl, and I don't care who knows it. I don't mind telling +you that my heart bleeds for her. Bleeds profusely. And I must say I +should have thought——"</p> + +<p>"I don't want to talk about her."</p> + +<p>"—after her doing what she has done——"</p> + +<p>"I don't want to talk about her, I tell you."</p> + +<p>Hugo sighed. He gave it up. The situation was what they called an +<i>impasse</i>. Too bad. His best friend and a dear little girl like that +parted forever. Two jolly good eggs sundered for all eternity. Oh, +well, that was Life.</p> + +<p>"If you want to talk about anything," said Ronnie, "you had much better +talk about this engagement of yours."</p> + +<p>"Only too glad, old man. Was afraid it might bore you, or would have +touched more freely on subject."</p> + +<p>"I suppose you realize the family will squash it flat?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, they won't."</p> + +<p>"You think my Aunt Constance is going to leap about and bang the +cymbals?"</p> + +<p>"The Keeble, I admit," said Hugo, with a faint shiver, "may make her +presence felt to some extent. But I rely on the ninth earl's support +and patronage. Before long, I shall be causing the ninth to look on me +as a son."</p> + +<p>"How?"</p> + +<p>For a moment Hugo almost yielded to the temptation to confide in this +friend of his youth. Then he realized the unwisdom of such a course. +By an odd coincidence, he was thinking exactly the same of Ronnie +as Ronnie at an earlier stage of this history had thought of him. +Ronnie, he considered, though a splendid chap, was not fitted to be a +repository of secrets. A babbler. A sieve. The sort of fellow who would +spread a secret hither and thither all over the place before nightfall.</p> + +<p>"Never mind," he said. "I have my methods."</p> + +<p>"What are they?"</p> + +<p>"Just methods," said Hugo, "and jolly good ones. Well, I'll be pushing +off. I'm late. Sure you won't come down to dinner? Then I'll be going. +It is imperative that I get hold of Pilbeam with all possible speed. +Don't want the sun to go down on my wrath. All has ended happily in +spite of him, but that's no reason why he shouldn't be massacred. I +look on myself as a man with a public duty."</p> + +<p>For some minutes after the door had closed Ronnie remained humped in +his chair. Then, in spite of everything, there began to creep upon +him a desire for food, too strong to be resisted. Perfect health and +a tealess afternoon spent in the open had given him a compelling +appetite. He still shrank from the thought of the dining room. Fond as +he was of Hugo, he simply could not stand his conversation to-night. A +chop at the Emsworth Arms would meet the case. He could get down there +in five minutes in his two-seater.</p> + +<p>He rose. His mind, as he moved to the door, was not entirely occupied +with thoughts of food. Hugo's parting words had turned it in the +direction of Pilbeam again.</p> + +<p>What had brought Pilbeam to the castle, he did not know. But, now +that he was here, let him look out for himself! A couple of minutes +alone with P. Frobisher Pilbeam was just the medicine his bruised soul +required. Apparently, from what he had said, Hugo also entertained some +grievances against the man. It could be nothing compared with his own.</p> + +<p>Pilbeam! The cause of all his troubles. Pilbeam! The snake in the +grass. Pilbeam!... Yes.... His heart might be broken, his life a wreck, +but he could still enjoy the faint consolation of dealing faithfully +with Pilbeam.</p> + +<p>He went out into the corridor. And, as he did so, Percy Pilbeam came +out of the room opposite.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p class="ph2">II</p> + +<p>Pilbeam had dressed for dinner with considerable care. Owing to the +fact that Lord Emsworth, in his woolen-headed way, had completely +forgotten to inform him of the exodus to Matchingham Hall, he was +expecting to meet a gay and glittering company at the meal and had +prepared himself accordingly. Looking at the result in the mirror, he +had felt a glow of contentment. This glow was still warming him as he +passed into the corridor. As his eyes fell on Ronnie it faded abruptly.</p> + +<p>In the days of his editorship of <i>Society Spice</i>, that frank and +fearless journal, P. Frobisher Pilbeam had once or twice had personal +encounters with people having no cause to wish him well. They had +not appealed to him. He was a man who found no pleasure in physical +violence. And that physical violence threatened now was only too +sickeningly plain. It was foreshadowed in the very manner in which this +small but sturdy young man confronting him had begun to creep forward. +Pilbeam, who was an F. R. Z. S., had seen leopards at the Zoo creep +just like that.</p> + +<p>Years of conducting a weekly scandal sheet, followed by a long period +of activity as a private inquiry agent, undoubtedly train a man well +for the exhibition of presence of mind in sudden emergencies. One finds +it difficult in the present instance to overpraise Percy Pilbeam's +ready resource. Had a great military strategist been present he would +have nodded approval. With the grim menace of Ronnie Fish coming closer +and closer, Percy Pilbeam did exactly what Napoleon, Hannibal, or the +great Duke of Marlborough would have done. Reaching behind him for +the handle and twisting it sharply, he slipped through the door of his +bedroom, banged it, and was gone. Many an eel has disappeared into the +mud with less smoothness and celerity.</p> + +<p>If the leopard which he resembled had seen its prey vanish into the +undergrowth just before dinner time it would probably have expressed +its feelings in exactly the same kind of short, rasping cry as +proceeded from Ronnie Fish, witnessing this masterly withdrawal. For an +instant he was completely taken aback. Then he plunged for the door and +into the room.</p> + +<p>He stood, baffled. Pilbeam had vanished. To Ronnie's astonished eyes +the apartment appeared entirely free from detectives in any shape or +form whatsoever. There was the bed. There were the chairs. There were +the carpet, the dressing table, and the bookshelf. But of private +inquiry agents there was a complete shortage.</p> + +<p>How long this miracle would have continued to afflict him, one cannot +say. His mind was still dealing dazedly with it, when there came to his +ears a sharp click, as of a key being turned in the lock. It seemed to +proceed from a hanging cupboard at the other side of the room.</p> + +<p>Old Miles Fish, Ronnie's father, might, as Lord Emsworth had asserted, +have been the biggest fool in the Brigade of Guards, but his son could +reason and deduce. Springing forward, he tugged at the handle of the +cupboard door. The door stood fast.</p> + +<p>At the same moment there filtered through it the sound of muffled +breathing.</p> + +<p>Ronnie was already looking grim. He now looked grimmer. He placed his +lips to the panel.</p> + +<p>"Come out of that!"</p> + +<p>The breathing stopped.</p> + +<p>"All right," said Ronnie, with a hideous calm. "Right jolly ho! I can +wait."</p> + +<p>For some moments there was silence. Then from the beyond a voice spoke +in reply.</p> + +<p>"Be reasonable!" said the voice.</p> + +<p>"Reasonable?" said Ronnie thickly. "Reasonable, eh?" He choked. "Come +out! I only want to pull your head off," he added, with a note of +appeal.</p> + +<p>The voice became conciliatory.</p> + +<p>"I know what you're upset about," it said.</p> + +<p>"You do, eh?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I quite understand. But I can explain everything."</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"I say I can explain everything."</p> + +<p>"You can, can you?"</p> + +<p>"Quite," said the voice.</p> + +<p>Up till now Ronnie had been pulling. It now occurred to him that +pushing might possibly produce more satisfactory results. So he pushed. +Nothing, however, happened. Blandings Castle was a house which rather +prided itself on its solidity. Its walls were walls and its doors, +doors. No jimcrack work here. The cupboard creaked but did not yield.</p> + +<p>"I say!"</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"I wish you'd listen. I tell you I can explain everything. About that +night at Mario's, I mean. I know exactly how it is. You think Miss +Brown is fond of me. I give you my solemn word she can't stand the +sight of me. She told me so herself."</p> + +<p>A pleasing thought came to Ronnie.</p> + +<p>"You can't stay in there all night," he said.</p> + +<p>"I don't want to stay in here all night."</p> + +<p>"Well, come on out, then."</p> + +<p>The voice became plaintive.</p> + +<p>"I tell you she had never set eyes on me before that night at Mario's. +She was dining with that fellow Carmody, and he went out and I came +over and introduced myself. No harm in that, was there?"</p> + +<p>Ronnie wondered if kicking would do any good. A tender feeling for his +toes, coupled with the reflection that his Uncle Clarence might have +something to say if he started breaking up cupboard doors, caused him +to abandon the scheme. He stood, breathing tensely.</p> + +<p>"Just a friendly word, that's all I came over to say. Why shouldn't a +fellow introduce himself to a girl and say a friendly word?"</p> + +<p>"I wish I'd got there earlier."</p> + +<p>"I'd have been glad to see you," said Pilbeam courteously.</p> + +<p>"Would you?"</p> + +<p>"Quite."</p> + +<p>"I shall be glad to see <i>you</i>," said Ronnie, "when I can get this +damned door open."</p> + +<p>Pilbeam began to fear asphyxiation. The air inside the cupboard was +growing closer. Peril lent him the inspiration which it so often does.</p> + +<p>"Look here," he said, "are you Ronnie?"</p> + +<p>Ronnie turned pinker.</p> + +<p>"I don't want any of your dashed cheek."</p> + +<p>"No, but listen. Is your name Ronnie?"</p> + +<p>Silence without.</p> + +<p>"Because if it is," said Pilbeam, "you're the fellow she's come here to +see."</p> + +<p>More silence.</p> + +<p>"She told me so. In the garden this evening. She came here calling +herself Miss Shoemaker, or some such name, just to see you. That ought +to show you that I'm not the man she's keen on."</p> + +<p>The silence was broken by a sharp exclamation.</p> + +<p>"What's that?"</p> + +<p>Pilbeam repeated his remark. A growing hopefulness lent an almost +finicky clearness to his diction.</p> + +<p>"Come out!" cried Ronnie.</p> + +<p>"That's all very well, but——"</p> + +<p>"Come out, I want to talk to you."</p> + +<p>"You are talking to me."</p> + +<p>"I don't want to bellow this through a door. Come on out. I swear I +won't touch you."</p> + +<p>It was not so much Pilbeam's faith in the knightly word of the Fishes +that caused him to obey the request as a feeling that, if he stayed +cooped up in this cupboard much longer, he would get a rush of blood to +the head. Already he was beginning to feel as if he were breathing a +solution of dust and mothballs. He emerged. His hair was rumpled, and +he regarded his companion warily. He had the air of a man who has taken +his life in his hands. But the word of the Fishes held good. As far as +Ronnie was concerned the war appeared to be over.</p> + +<p>"What did you say? She's here?"</p> + +<p>"Quite."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean, quite?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly. Quite. She got here just before I did. Haven't you seen +her?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Well, she's here. She's in the room they call the Garden Room. I heard +her tell that old bird Galahad so. If you go there now," said Pilbeam +insinuatingly, "you could have a quiet word with her before she goes +down to dinner."</p> + +<p>"And she said she had come here to see me?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. To explain about that night at Mario's. And what I say," +proceeded Pilbeam warmly, "is, if a girl didn't love a fellow, would +she come to a place like this, calling herself Miss Shoolbred or +something, simply to see him? I ask you!" said Pilbeam.</p> + +<p>Ronnie did not answer. His feelings held him speechless. He was too +deep in a morass of remorse to be able to articulate. Indeed, he was in +a frame of mind so abased that he almost asked Pilbeam to kick him. The +thought of how he had wronged his blameless Sue was almost too bitter +to be borne. It bit like a serpent and stung like an adder.</p> + +<p>From the surge and riot of his reflections one thought now emerged +clearly, shining like a beacon on a dark night. The Garden Room!</p> + +<p>Turning without a word, he shot out of the door as quickly as Percy +Pilbeam a short while ago had shot in. And Percy Pilbeam, with a deep +sigh, went to the dressing table, took up the brush, and started to +restore his hair to a state fit for the eyes of the nobility and +gentry. This done, he smoothed his moustache and went downstairs to the +drawing room.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p class="ph2">III</p> + +<p>The drawing room was empty. And to Pilbeam's surprise it continued +to be empty for quite a considerable time. He felt puzzled. He had +expected to meet a reproachful host with an eye on the clock and a +haughty hostess clicking her tongue. As the minutes crept by and his +solitude remained unbroken, he began to grow restless.</p> + +<p>He wandered about the room, staring at the pictures, straightening his +tie and examining the photographs on the little tables. The last of +these was one of Lord Emsworth, taken apparently at about the age of +thirty, in long whiskers and the uniform of the Shropshire Yeomanry. +He was gazing at this with the fascinated horror which it induced in +everyone who saw it suddenly for the first time, when the door at last +opened, and with a sinking sensation of apprehension Pilbeam beheld the +majestic form of Beach.</p> + +<p>For an instant he stood eying the butler with that natural alarm which +comes to all of us when in the presence of a man who a few short hours +earlier has given us one look and made us feel like a condemned food +product. Then his tension relaxed.</p> + +<p>It has been well said that for every evil in this world nature supplies +an antidote. If butlers come, can cocktails be far behind? Beach was +carrying a tray with glasses and a massive shaker on it; and Pilbeam, +seeing these, found himself regarding their formidable bearer almost +with equanimity.</p> + +<p>"A cocktail, sir?"</p> + +<p>"Thanks."</p> + +<p>He accepted a brimming glass. The darkness of its contents suggested a +welcome strength. He drank. And instantaneously all through his system +beacon fires seemed to burst into being.</p> + +<p>He drained the glass. His whole outlook on life was now magically +different. Quite suddenly he had begun to feel equal to a dozen +butlers, however glazed their eyes might be.</p> + +<p>And it might have been an illusion caused by gin and vermouth, but this +butler seemed to have changed considerably for the better since their +last meeting. His eye, though still glassy, had lost the old basilisk +quality. There appeared now, in fact, to be something so positively +light hearted about Beach's whole demeanour that the proprietor of the +Argus Enquiry Agency was emboldened to plunge into conversation.</p> + +<p>"Nice evening."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"Nice after the storm."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"Came down a bit, didn't it?"</p> + +<p>"The rain was undoubtedly extremely heavy, sir. Another cocktail?"</p> + +<p>"Thanks."</p> + +<p>The relighting of the beacons had the effect of removing from Pilbeam +the last trace of diffidence and shyness. He saw now that he had been +entirely mistaken in this butler. Encountering him in the hall at the +moment of his arrival, he had supposed him supercilious and hostile. He +now perceived that he was a butler and a brother. More like Old King +Cole, that jolly old soul, indeed, than anybody Pilbeam had met for +months.</p> + +<p>"I got caught in it," he said affably.</p> + +<p>"Indeed, sir?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Lord Emsworth had been showing me some photographs of that pig of +his.... By the way, in strict confidence—what's your name?"</p> + +<p>"Beach, sir."</p> + +<p>"In strict confidence, Beach, I know something about that pig."</p> + +<p>"Indeed, sir?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Well, after I had seen the photographs I went for a walk in the +park and the rain came on and I got pretty wet. In fact, I don't mind +telling you I had to get under cover and take my trousers off to dry."</p> + +<p>He laughed merrily.</p> + +<p>"Another cocktail, sir?"</p> + +<p>"Making three in all?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps you're right," said Pilbeam.</p> + +<p>For some moments he sat, pensive and distrait, listening to the strains +of a brass band which seemed to have started playing somewhere in the +vicinity. Then his idly floating thoughts drifted back to the mystery +which had been vexing him before this delightful butler's entry.</p> + +<p>"I say, Beach, I've been waiting here hours and hours. Where's this +dinner I heard you beating gongs about?"</p> + +<p>"Dinner is ready, sir, but I put it back some little while, as +gentlemen aren't punctual in the summer time."</p> + +<p>Pilbeam considered this statement. It sounded to him as if it would +make rather a good song title. Gentlemen aren't punctual in the summer +time, in the summer time (I said, In the summertime). So take me back +to that old Kentucky Shack.... He tried to fit it to the music which +the brass band was playing, but it did not go very well, and he gave it +up.</p> + +<p>"Where is everybody?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"His lordship and her ladyship and Mr. Galahad and Miss Threepwood are +dining at Matchingham Hall."</p> + +<p>"What! With old Pop Parsloe?"</p> + +<p>"With Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe, yes, sir."</p> + +<p>Pilbeam chuckled.</p> + +<p>"Well, well, well! Quick worker, old Parsloe. Don't you think so, +Beach? I mean, you advise him to do a thing, to act in a certain way, +to adopt a certain course of action, and he does it right away. You +agree with me, Beach?"</p> + +<p>"I fear my limited acquaintance with Sir Gregory scarcely entitles me +to offer an opinion, sir."</p> + +<p>"Talking of old Parsloe, Beach—you did say your name was Beach?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"With a capital B?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"Well, talking of old Parsloe, Beach, I could tell you something about +him—something he's up to."</p> + +<p>"Indeed, sir?"</p> + +<p>"But I'm not going to. Respect client's confidence. Lips sealed. +Professional secret."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir?"</p> + +<p>"As you rightly say, yes. Any more of that stuff in the shaker, Beach?"</p> + +<p>"A little, sir, if you consider it judicious."</p> + +<p>"That's just what I do consider it. Start pouring."</p> + +<p>The detective sipped luxuriously, fuller and fuller every moment of an +uplifting sense of well-being. If the friendship which had sprung up +between himself and the butler was possibly a little one-sided, on the +one side on which it did exist it was warm, even fervent. It seemed +to Pilbeam that for the first time since he had arrived at Blandings +Castle he had found a real chum, a kindred soul in whom he might +confide. And he was filled with an overwhelming desire to confide in +somebody.</p> + +<p>"As a matter of fact, Beach," he said, "I could tell you all sorts of +things about all sorts of people. Practically everybody in this house I +could tell you something about. What's the name of that chap with the +light hair, for instance? The old boy's secretary."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Carmody, sir?"</p> + +<p>"Carmody! That's the name. I've been trying to remember it. Well, I +could tell you something about Carmody."</p> + +<p>"Indeed, sir?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Something about Carmody that would interest you very much. I saw +Carmody this afternoon when Carmody didn't see me."</p> + +<p>"Indeed, sir?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Where is Carmody?"</p> + +<p>"I imagine he will be down shortly, sir. Mr. Ronald also."</p> + +<p>"Ronald!" Pilbeam drew in his breath sharply. "There's a tough baby, +Beach. That Ronnie. Do you know what he wanted to do just now? Murder +me!"</p> + +<p>In Beach's opinion, for he did not look on Percy Pilbeam as a very +necessary member of society, this would have been a commendable act, +and he regretted that its consummation had been prevented. He was also +feeling that the conscientious butler he had always prided himself on +being would long ere this have withdrawn and left this man to talk to +himself. But even the best of butlers have human emotions, and the +magic of Pilbeam's small-talk held Beach like a spell. It reminded +him of the Gossip page of <i>Society Spice</i>, a paper to which he was a +regular subscriber. He was piqued and curious. So far, it was true, his +companion had merely hinted, but something seemed to tell him that, if +he lingered on, a really sensational news item would shortly emerge.</p> + +<p>He had never been more right in his life. Pilbeam by this time had +finished the fourth cocktail, and the urge to confide had become +overpowering. He looked at Beach, and it nearly made him cry to think +that he was holding anything back from such a splendid fellow.</p> + +<p>"And do you know why he wanted to murder me, Beach?"</p> + +<p>It scarcely seemed to the butler that the action required anything in +the nature of a reasoned explanation, but he murmured the necessary +response.</p> + +<p>"I could not say, sir."</p> + +<p>"Of course you couldn't. How could you? You don't know. That's why I'm +telling you. Well, listen. He's in love with a girl in the chorus at +the Regal, a girl named Sue Brown, and he thought I had been taking her +out to dinner. That's why he wanted to murder me, Beach."</p> + +<p>"Indeed, sir?"</p> + +<p>The butler spoke calmly, but he was deeply stirred. He had always +flattered himself that the inmates of Blandings Castle kept few secrets +from him, but this was something new.</p> + +<p>"Yes. That was why. I had the dickens of a job holding him off, I can +tell you. Do you know what saved me, Beach?"</p> + +<p>"No, sir."</p> + +<p>"Presence of mind. I put it to him—to Ronnie—I put it to Ronnie as a +reasonable man that, if this girl loved me, would she have come to this +place, pretending to be Miss Shoemaker, simply so as to see him?"</p> + +<p>"Sir!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, that's who Miss Shoemaker is, Beach. She's a chorus girl called +Sue Brown, and she's come here to see Ronnie."</p> + +<p>Beach stood transfixed. His eyes swelled bulbously from their sockets. +He was incapable of even an "Indeed, sir?"</p> + +<p>He was still endeavouring to assimilate this extraordinary revelation +when Hugo Carmody entered the room.</p> + +<p>"Ah!" said Hugo, his eye falling on Pilbeam. He stiffened. He stood +looking at the detective like Schopenhauer's butcher at the selected +lamb.</p> + +<p>"Leave us, Beach," he said, in a grave, deep voice.</p> + +<p>The butler came out of his trance.</p> + +<p>"Sir?"</p> + +<p>"Pop off."</p> + +<p>"Very good, sir."</p> + +<p>The door closed.</p> + +<p>"I've been looking for you, viper," said Hugo.</p> + +<p>"Have you, Carmody?" said Percy Pilbeam effervescently. "I've been +looking for you, too. Got something I want to talk to you about. Each +looking for each. Or am I thinking of a couple of other fellows? Come +right in, Carmody, and sit down. Good old Carmody! Jolly old Carmody! +Splendid old Carmody. Well, well, well, well, well!"</p> + +<p>If the lamb mentioned above had suddenly accosted the above-mentioned +butcher in a similar strain of hearty camaraderie, it could have hardly +disconcerted him more than Pilbeam with these cheery words disconcerted +Hugo. His stern, set gaze became a gaping stare.</p> + +<p>Then he pulled himself together. What did words matter? He had no time +to bother about words. Action was what he was after. Action!</p> + +<p>"I don't know if you're aware of it, worm," he said, "but you came +jolly near to blighting my life."</p> + +<p>"Doing what, Carmody?"</p> + +<p>"Blighting my life."</p> + +<p>"List to me while I tell you of the Spaniard who blighted my life," +sang Percy Pilbeam, letting it go like a lark in the springtime. He had +never felt happier or in more congenial society. "How did I blight your +life, Carmody?"</p> + +<p>"You didn't."</p> + +<p>"You said I did."</p> + +<p>"I said you tried to."</p> + +<p>"Make up your mind, Carmody."</p> + +<p>"Don't keep calling me Carmody."</p> + +<p>"But, Carmody," protested Pilbeam, "it's your name, isn't it? +Certainly it is. Then why try to hush it up, Carmody? Be frank and +open. I don't mind people knowing my name. I glory in it. It's +Pilbeam—Pilbeam—Pilbeam—that's what it is—Pilbeam!"</p> + +<p>"In about thirty seconds," said Hugo, "it will be Mud."</p> + +<p>It struck Percy Pilbeam for the first time that in his companion's +manner there was a certain peevishness.</p> + +<p>"Something the matter?" he asked, concerned.</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you what's the matter."</p> + +<p>"Do, Carmody, do," said Pilbeam. "Do, do, do. Confide in me. I like +your face."</p> + +<p>He settled himself in a deep armchair and, putting the tips of his +fingers together after a little preliminary difficulty in making them +meet, leaned back, all readiness to listen to whatever trouble it was +that was disturbing this new friend of his.</p> + +<p>"Some days ago, insect——"</p> + +<p>Pilbeam opened his eyes.</p> + +<p>"Speak up, Carmody," he said. "Don't mumble."</p> + +<p>Hugo's fingers twitched. He regarded his companion with a burning +eye and wondered why he was wasting time talking instead of at once +proceeding to the main business of the day and knocking the fellow's +head off at the roots. What saved Pilbeam was the reclining position he +had assumed. If you are a Carmody and a sportsman, you cannot attack +even a viper if it persists in lying back on its spine and keeping its +eyes shut.</p> + +<p>"Some days ago," he began again, "I called at your office. And after we +had talked of this and that I left. I discovered later that immediately +upon my departure you had set your foul spies on my trail and had +instructed them to take notes of my movements and report on them. The +result being that I came jolly close to having my bally life ruined. +And, if you want to know what I'm going to do, I'm going to haul you +out of that chair and turn you round and kick you hard and go on +kicking you till I kick you out of the house. And if you dare to shove +your beastly little nose back inside the place, I'll disembowel you."</p> + +<p>Pilbeam unclosed his eyes.</p> + +<p>"Nothing," he said, "could be fairer than that. Nevertheless, that's no +reason why you should go about stealing pigs."</p> + +<p>Hugo had often read stories in which people reeled and would have +fallen had they not clutched at whatever it was that they clutched +at. He had never expected to undergo that experience himself. But it +is undoubtedly the fact that, if he had not at this moment gripped +the back of a chair, he would have been hard put to it to remain +perpendicular.</p> + +<p>"Pig pincher!" said Pilbeam austerely, and closed his eyes again.</p> + +<p>Hugo, having established his equilibrium by means of the chair, had now +moved away. He was making a strong effort to recover his morale. He +picked up the photograph of Lord Emsworth in his Yeomanry uniform and +looked at it absently; then, as if it had just dawned upon him, put it +down with a shudder, like a man who finds that he has been handling a +snake.</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?" he said thickly.</p> + +<p>Pilbeam's eyes opened.</p> + +<p>"What do I mean? What do you think I mean? I mean you're a pig pincher. +That's what I mean. You go to and fro, sneaking pigs and hiding them in +caravans."</p> + +<p>Hugo took up Lord Emsworth's photograph again, saw what he was doing, +and dropped it quickly. Pilbeam had closed his eyes once more, and, +looking at him, Hugo could not repress a reluctant thrill of awe. He +had often read about the superhuman intuition of detectives, but he had +never before been privileged to observe it in operation. Then an idea +occurred to him.</p> + +<p>"Did you see me?"</p> + +<p>"What say, Carmody?"</p> + +<p>"Did you see me?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I see you, Carmody," said Pilbeam playfully. "Peep-bo!"</p> + +<p>"Did you see me put that pig in the caravan?"</p> + +<p>Pilbeam nodded eleven times in rapid succession.</p> + +<p>"Certainly I saw you, Carmody. Why shouldn't I see you, considering I'd +been caught in the rain and taken shelter in the caravan and was in +there with my trousers off, trying to dry them because I'm subject to +lumbago?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't see you."</p> + +<p>"No, Carmody, you did not. And I'll tell you why, Carmody. Because I +heard a girl's voice outside saying, 'Be quick, or somebody will come +along!' and I hid. You don't suppose I would let a sweet girl see me +in knee-length mesh-knit underwear, do you? Not done, Carmody," said +Pilbeam severely. "Not cricket."</p> + +<p>Hugo was experiencing the bitterness which comes to all criminals +who discover too late that they have undone themselves by trying to +be clever. It had seemed at the time such a good idea to remove the +Empress from the gamekeeper's cottage in the west wood and place her +in Baxter's caravan, where nobody would think of looking. How could +he have anticipated that the caravan would be bulging with blighted +detectives?</p> + +<p>At this tense moment the door opened and Beach appeared.</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon, sir, but do you propose to wait any longer for Mr. +Ronald?"</p> + +<p>"Eh?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly not," said Pilbeam. "Who the devil's Mr. Ronald, I should +like to know? I didn't come to this place to do a fast-cure. I want my +dinner, and I want it now. And if Mr. Ronald doesn't like it, he can do +the other thing." He strode in a dominating manner to the door. "Come +along, Carmody. Din-dins."</p> + +<p>Hugo had sunk into a chair.</p> + +<p>"I don't want any dinner," he said dully.</p> + +<p>"You don't want any dinner?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"No dinner?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>Pilbeam shrugged his shoulders impatiently.</p> + +<p>"The man's an ass," he said.</p> + +<p>He headed for the stairs. His manner seemed to indicate that he washed +his hands of Hugo.</p> + +<p>Beach lingered.</p> + +<p>"Shall I bring you some sandwiches, sir?"</p> + +<p>"No, thanks. What's that?"</p> + +<p>A loud crash had sounded. The butler went to the door and looked out.</p> + +<p>"It is Mr. Pilbeam, sir. He appears to have fallen downstairs."</p> + +<p>For an instant a look of hope crept into Hugo's careworn face.</p> + +<p>"Has he broken his neck?"</p> + +<p>"Apparently not, sir."</p> + +<p>"Ah," said Hugo regretfully.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV</h2> +</div> + + +<p class="ph2">I</p> + +<p>The Efficient Baxter had retired to the smoking room shortly before +half-past seven. He desired silence and solitude, and in this cosy +haven he got both. For a few minutes nothing broke the stillness but +the slow ticking of a clock on the mantelpiece. Then from the direction +of the hall there came a new sound, faint at first but swelling and +swelling to a frenzied blare, seeming to throb through the air with a +note of passionate appeal like a woman wailing for her demon lover. It +was that tocsin of the soul, that muezzin of the country house, the +dressing-for-dinner gong.</p> + +<p>Baxter did not stir. The summons left him unmoved. He had heard it, +of course. Butler Beach was a man who swung a pretty gong stick. He +had that quick forearm flick and wristy follow through which stamp the +master. If you were anywhere within a quarter of a mile or so you could +not help hearing him. But the sound had no appeal for Baxter. He did +not propose to go in to dinner. He wanted to be alone with his thoughts.</p> + +<p>They were not the sort of thoughts with which most men would have +wished to be left alone, being both dark and bitter. That expedition +to the gamekeeper's cottage in the west wood had not proved a pleasure +trip for Rupert Baxter. Reviewing it in his mind, he burned with +baffled rage.</p> + +<p>And yet everybody had been very nice to him—very nice and tactful. +True, at the moment of the discovery that the cottage contained no pig +and appeared to have been pigless from its foundation, there had been +perhaps just the slightest suspicion of constraint. Lord Emsworth had +grasped his ivory-knobbed stick a little more tightly and had edged +behind Beach in a rather noticeable way, his manner saying more plainly +than was agreeable, "If he springs, be ready!" And there had come into +the butler's face a look, hard to bear, which was a blend of censure +and pity. But after that both of them had been charming.</p> + +<p>Lord Emsworth had talked soothingly about light and shade effects. He +had said—and Beach had agreed with him—that in the darkness of a +thunderstorm anybody might have been deceived into supposing that he +had seen a butler feeding a pig in the gamekeeper's cottage. It was +probably, said Lord Emsworth—and Beach thought so, too—a bit of wood +sticking out of the wall or something. He went on to tell a longish +story of how he himself, when a boy, had fancied he had seen a cat with +flaming eyes. He had concluded by advising Baxter—and Beach said the +suggestion was a good one—to hurry home and have a nice cup of hot tea +and go to bed.</p> + +<p>His attitude, in short, could not have been pleasanter or more +considerate. Yet Baxter, as he sat in the smoking room, burned, as +stated, with baffled rage.</p> + +<p>The door handle turned. Beach stood on the threshold.</p> + +<p>"If you have changed your mind, sir, about taking dinner, the meal is +quite ready."</p> + +<p>He spoke as friend to friend. There was nothing in his manner to +suggest that the man he addressed had ever accused him of stealing +pigs. As far as Beach was concerned, all was forgotten and forgiven.</p> + +<p>But the milk of human kindness, of which the butler was so full, had +not yet been delivered on Baxter's doorstep. The hostility in his eye, +as he fixed it on his visitor, was so marked that a lesser man than +Beach might have been disconcerted.</p> + +<p>"I don't want any dinner."</p> + +<p>"Very good, sir."</p> + +<p>"Bring me that whisky-and-soda quick."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>The door closed as softly as it had opened, but not before a pang like +a red-hot needle had pierced the ex-secretary's bosom. It was caused by +the fact that he had distinctly heard the butler, as he withdrew, utter +a pitying sigh.</p> + +<p>It was the sort of sigh which a kind-hearted man would have given on +peeping into a padded cell in which some old friend was confined, and +Baxter resented it with all the force of an imperious nature. He had +not ceased to wonder what, if anything, could be done about it when the +refreshments arrived, carried by James the footman. James placed them +gently on the table, shot a swift glance of respectful commiseration at +the patient, and passed away.</p> + +<p>The sigh had cut Baxter like a knife. The look stabbed him like a +dagger. For a moment he thought of calling the man back and asking +him what the devil he meant by staring at him like that, but wiser +counsels prevailed. He contented himself with draining a glass of +whisky-and-soda and swallowing two sandwiches.</p> + +<p>This done, he felt a little—not much, but a little—better. Before, he +would gladly have murdered Beach and James and danced on their graves. +Now, he would have been satisfied with straight murder.</p> + +<p>However, he was alone at last. That was some slight consolation. Beach +had come and gone. Footman James had come and gone. Everybody else must +by now be either at Matchingham Hall or assembled in the dining room. +On the solitude which he so greatly desired there could be no further +intrusion. He resumed his meditations.</p> + +<p>For a time these dealt exclusively with the recent past, and were, in +consequence, of a morbid character. Then, as the grateful glow of the +whisky began to make itself felt, a softer mood came to Rupert Baxter. +His mind turned to thoughts of Sue.</p> + +<p>Men as efficient as Rupert Baxter do not fall in love in the generally +accepted sense of the term. Their attitude toward the tender passion is +more restrained than that of the ordinary feckless young man who loses +his heart at first sight with a whoop and a shiver. Baxter approved of +Sue. We cannot say more. But this approval, added to the fact that he +had been informed by Lady Constance that the girl was the only daughter +of a man who possessed sixty million dollars, had been enough to cause +him to earmark her in his mind as the future Mrs. Baxter. In that +capacity he had docketed her and filed her away at the first moment of +their meeting.</p> + +<p>Naturally, therefore, the remarks which Lord Emsworth had let fall +in her hearing had caused him grave concern. It hampers a man in +his wooing if the girl he has selected for his bride starts with the +idea that he is as mad as a coot. He congratulated himself on the +promptitude with which he had handled the situation. That letter which +he had written her could not fail to put him right in her eyes.</p> + +<p>Rupert Baxter was a man in whose lexicon there was no such word as +failure. An heiress like this Miss Schoonmaker would not, he was aware, +lack for suitors; but he did not fear them. If only she were making a +reasonably long stay at the castle he felt that he could rely on his +force of character to win the day. In fact, it seemed to him that he +could almost hear the wedding bells ringing already. Then, coming out +of his dreams, he realized that it was the telephone.</p> + +<p>He reached for the instrument with a frown, annoyed at the +interruption, and spoke with an irritated sharpness.</p> + +<p>"Hullo?"</p> + +<p>A ghostly voice replied. The storm seemed to have effected the wires.</p> + +<p>"Speak up!" barked Baxter.</p> + +<p>He banged the telephone violently on the table. The treatment, as is so +often the case, proved effective.</p> + +<p>"Blandings Castle?" said the voice, no longer ghostly.</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Post Office, Market Blandings, speaking. Telegram for Lady Constance +Keeble."</p> + +<p>"I will take it."</p> + +<p>The voice became faint again. Baxter went through the movements as +before.</p> + +<p>"Lady Constance Keeble, Blandings Castle, Market Blandings, +Shropshire, England," said the voice, recovering strength, as if it had +shaken off a wasting sickness. "Handed in at Paris."</p> + +<p>"Where?"</p> + +<p>"Paris, France."</p> + +<p>"Oh? Well?"</p> + +<p>The voice gathered volume.</p> + +<p>"'Terribly sorry hear news.'"</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"'News.'"</p> + +<p>"Yes?"</p> + +<p>"'Terribly sorry hear news Stop Quite understand Stop So disappointed +shall be unable come to you later as going back America at end of Month +Stop Do hope we shall be able arrange something when I return next year +Stop Regards Stop!'"</p> + +<p>"Yes?"</p> + +<p>"Signed 'Myra Schoonmaker.'"</p> + +<p>"Signed—<i>what?</i>"</p> + +<p>"Myra Schoonmaker."</p> + +<p>Baxter's mouth had fallen open. The forehead above the spectacles was +wrinkled, the eyes behind them staring blankly and with a growing +horror.</p> + +<p>"Shall I repeat?"</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"Do you wish the message repeated?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Baxter in a choking voice.</p> + +<p>He hung up the receiver. There seemed to be something crawling down his +back. His brain was numbed.</p> + +<p>Myra Schoonmaker! Telegraphing from Paris!</p> + +<p>Then who was this girl who was at the castle calling herself by that +preposterous name? An impostor, an adventuress. She must be.</p> + +<p>And if he made a move to expose her she would revenge herself by +showing Lord Emsworth that letter of his.</p> + +<p>In the agitation of the moment he had risen to his feet. He now sat +down heavily.</p> + +<p>That letter...!</p> + +<p>He must recover it. He must recover it at once. As long as it remained +in the girl's possession it was a pistol pointed at his head. Once let +Lord Emsworth become acquainted with those very frank criticisms of +himself which it contained and not even his ally, Lady Constance, would +be able to restore him to his lost secretaryship. The ninth earl was a +mild man, accustomed to bowing to his sister's decrees, but there were +limits beyond which he could not be pushed.</p> + +<p>And Baxter yearned to be back at Blandings Castle in the position he +had once enjoyed. Blandings was his spiritual home. He had held other +secretaryships—he held one now, at a salary far higher than that which +Lord Emsworth had paid him—but never had he succeeded in recapturing +that fascinating sense of power, of importance, of being the man who +directed the destinies of one of the largest houses in England.</p> + +<p>At all costs he must recover that letter. And the present moment, he +perceived, was ideal for the venture. The girl must have the thing in +her room somewhere, and for the next hour at least she would be in the +dining room. He would have ample opportunity for a search.</p> + +<p>He did not delay. Thirty seconds later he was mounting the stairs, his +face set, his spectacles gleaming grimly. A minute later he reached his +destination. No good angel, aware of what the future held, stood on the +threshold to bar his entry. The door was ajar. He pushed it open and +went in.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p class="ph2">II</p> + +<p>Blandings Castle, like most places of its size and importance, +contained bedrooms so magnificent that they were never used. With their +four-poster beds and their superb but rather oppressive tapestries they +had remained untenanted since the time when Queen Elizabeth, dodging +from country house to country house in that restless, snipe-like way of +hers, had last slept in them. Of the guest rooms still in commission +the most luxurious was that which had been given to Sue.</p> + +<p>At the moment when Baxter stole cautiously in, it was looking its best +in the gentle evening light. But Baxter was not in sightseeing mood. +He ignored the carved bedstead, the easy armchairs, the pictures, the +decorations, and the soft carpet into which his feet sank. The beauty +of the sky through the French windows that gave onto the balcony drew +but a single brief glance from him. Without delay he made for the +writing desk which stood against the wall near the bed. It seemed to +him a good point of departure for his search.</p> + +<p>There were several pigeonholes in the desk. They contained single +sheets of notepaper, double sheets of notepaper, postcards, envelopes, +telegraph forms, and even a little pad on which the room's occupant was +presumably expected to jot down any stray thoughts and reflections on +Life which might occur to him or her before turning in for the night. +But not one of them contained the fatal letter.</p> + +<p>He straightened himself and looked about the room. The drawer of the +dressing table now suggested itself as a possibility. He left the desk +and made his way toward it.</p> + +<p>The primary requisite of dressing tables being a good supply of light, +they are usually placed in a position to get as much of it as possible. +This one was no exception. It stood so near to the open windows that +the breeze was ruffling the tassels on its lamp shades: and Baxter, +arriving in front of it, was enabled for the first time to see the +balcony in its entirety.</p> + +<p>And as he saw it his heart seemed to side-slip. Leaning upon the +parapet and looking out over the sea of gravel that swept up to the +front door from the rhododendron-fringed drive stood a girl. And not +even the fact that her back was turned could prevent Baxter identifying +her.</p> + +<p>For an instant he remained frozen. Even the greatest men congeal +beneath the chill breath of the totally unexpected. He had assumed as +a matter of course that Sue was down in the dining room, and it took +him several seconds to adjust his mind to the unpleasing fact that +she was up on her balcony. When he recovered his presence of mind +sufficiently to draw noiselessly away from the line of vision, his +first emotion was one of irritation. This chopping and changing, this +eleventh-hour alteration of plans, these sudden decisions to remain +upstairs when they ought to be downstairs, were what made women as a +sex so unsatisfactory.</p> + +<p>To irritation succeeded a sense of defeat. There was nothing for it, +he realized, but to give up his quest and go. He started to tiptoe +silently to the door, agreeably conscious now of the softness and +thickness of the Axminster pile that made it possible to move unheard, +and had just reached it, when from the other side there came to his +ears a sound of chinking and clattering—the sound, in fact, which is +made by plates and dishes when they are carried on a tray to a guest +who, after a long railway journey, has asked her hostess if she may +take dinner in her room.</p> + +<p>Practice makes perfect. This was the second time in the last three +hours that Baxter had found himself trapped in a room in which it was +vitally urgent that he should not be discovered, and he was getting +the technique of the thing. On the previous occasion, in the small +library, he had taken to himself wings like a bird and sailed out of +window. In the present crisis such a course, he perceived immediately, +was not feasible. The way of an eagle would profit him nothing. Soaring +over the balcony, he would be observed by Sue and would, in addition, +unquestionably break his neck. What was needed here was the way of a +diving duck.</p> + +<p>And so, as the door handle turned, Rupert Baxter, even in this black +hour efficient, dropped on all-fours and slid under the bed as smoothly +as if he had been practising for weeks.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p class="ph2">III</p> + +<p>Owing to the restricted nature of his position and the limited range +of vision which he enjoys, virtually the only way in which a man who +is hiding under a bed can entertain himself is by listening to what is +going on outside. He may hear something of interest, or he may hear +only the draught sighing along the floor; but, for better or for worse, +that is all he is able to do.</p> + +<p>The first sound that came to Rupert Baxter was that made by the placing +of the tray on the table. Then, after a pause, a pair of squeaking +shoes passed over the carpet and squeaked out of hearing. Baxter +recognized them as those of Footman Thomas, a confirmed squeaker.</p> + +<p>After this, somebody puffed, causing him to deduce the presence of +Beach.</p> + +<p>"Your dinner is quite ready, miss."</p> + +<p>"Oh, thank you."</p> + +<p>The girl had apparently come in from the balcony. A chair scraped to +the table. A savoury scent floated to Baxter's nostrils, causing him +acute discomfort. He had just begun to realize how extremely hungry he +was and how rash he had been, first to attempt to dine off a couple of +sandwiches and secondly to undertake a mission like his present one +without a square meal inside him.</p> + +<p>"That is chicken, miss—en casserole."</p> + +<p>Baxter had deduced as much, and was trying not to let his mind dwell +on it. He uttered a silent groan. In addition to the agony of having +to smell food, he was beginning to be conscious of a growing cramp in +his left leg. He turned on one side and did his best to emulate the +easy nonchalance of those Indian fakirs who, doubtless from the best +motives, spend the formative years of their lives lying on iron spikes.</p> + +<p>"It looks very good."</p> + +<p>"I trust you will enjoy it, miss. Is there anything further that I can +do for you?"</p> + +<p>"No, thank you. Oh, yes. Would you mind fetching that manuscript from +the balcony? I was reading it out there, and I left it on the chair. +It's Mr. Threepwood's book."</p> + +<p>"Indeed, miss? An exceedingly interesting compilation, I should +imagine?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, very."</p> + +<p>"I wonder if it would be taking a liberty, miss, to ask you to inform +me later, at your leisure, if I make any appearance in its pages."</p> + +<p>"You?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, miss. From what Mr. Galahad has let fall from time to time I +fancy it was his intention to give me printed credit as his authority +for certain of the stories which appear in the book."</p> + +<p>"Do you want to be in it?"</p> + +<p>"Most decidedly, miss. I should consider it an honour. And it would +please my mother."</p> + +<p>"Have you a mother?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, miss. She lives at Eastbourne."</p> + +<p>The butler moved majestically onto the balcony, and Sue's mind had +turned to speculation about his mother and whether she looked anything +like him when there was a sound of hurrying feet without, the door flew +open, and Beach's mother passed from her mind like the unsubstantial +fabric of a dream. With a little choking cry she rose to her feet. +Ronnie was standing before her.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV</h2> +</div> + + +<p>And meanwhile, if we may borrow an expression from a sister act, what +of Hugo Carmody?</p> + +<p>It is a defect unfortunately inseparable from any such document as +this faithful record of events in and about Blandings Castle that the +chronicler, in order to give a square deal to each of the individuals +whose fortunes he has undertaken to narrate, is compelled to flit +abruptly from one to the other in the manner popularized by the chamois +of the Alps leaping from crag to crag. The activities of the Efficient +Baxter seeming to him to demand immediate attention, he was reluctantly +compelled some little while back to leave Hugo in the very act of +reeling beneath a crushing blow. The moment has now come to return to +him.</p> + +<p>The first effect on a young man of sensibility and gentle upbringing +of the discovery that an unfriendly detective has seen him placing +stolen pigs in caravans is to induce a stunned condition of mind, a +sort of mental coma. The face lengthens. The limbs grow rigid. The tie +slips sideways and the cuffs recede into the coat sleeves. The subject +becomes temporarily, in short, a total loss.</p> + +<p>It is perhaps as well, therefore, that we did not waste valuable time +watching Hugo in the process of digesting Percy Pilbeam's sensational +announcement, for it would have been like looking at a statue. If the +reader will endeavour to picture Rodin's Thinker in a dinner jacket and +trousers with braid down the sides, he will have got the general idea. +At the instant when Hugo Carmody makes his reappearance life has just +begun to return to the stiffened frame.</p> + +<p>And with life came the dawning of intelligence. This ghastly snag which +had popped up in his path was too big, reflected Hugo, for any man to +tackle. It called for a woman's keener wit. His first act on emerging +from the depths, therefore, was to leave the drawing room and totter +downstairs to the telephone. He got the number of Matchingham Hall and, +establishing communication with Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe's butler, +urged him to summon Miss Millicent Threepwood from the dinner table. +The butler said in rather a reproving way that Miss Threepwood was at +the moment busy drinking soup. Hugo, with the first flash of spirit he +had shown for a quarter of an hour, replied that he didn't care if she +was bathing in it. "Fetch her," said Hugo, and almost added the words, +"You scurvy knave." He then clung weakly to the receiver, waiting, and +in a short while a sweet but agitated voice floated to him across the +wire.</p> + +<p>"Hugo?"</p> + +<p>"Millicent?"</p> + +<p>"Is that you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Is that you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>Anything in the nature of misunderstanding was cleared away. It was +both of them.</p> + +<p>"What's up?"</p> + +<p>"Everything's up."</p> + +<p>"How do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you," said Hugo, and did so. It was not a difficult story to +tell. Its plot was so clear that a few whispered words sufficed.</p> + +<p>"You don't mean that?" said Millicent, the tale concluded.</p> + +<p>"I do mean that."</p> + +<p>"Oh, golly!" said Millicent.</p> + +<p>Silence followed. Hugo waited palpitatingly. The outlook seemed to him +black. He wondered if he had placed too much reliance in woman's wit. +That "Golly!" had not been hopeful.</p> + +<p>"Hugo!"</p> + +<p>"Hullo?"</p> + +<p>"This is a bit thick."</p> + +<p>"Yes," agreed Hugo. The thickness had not escaped him.</p> + +<p>"Well, there's only one thing to do."</p> + +<p>A faint thrill passed through Hugo Carmody. One would be enough. +Woman's wit was going to bring home the bacon after all.</p> + +<p>"Listen!"</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"The only thing to do is for me to go back to the dining room and tell +Uncle Clarence you've found the Empress."</p> + +<p>"Eh?"</p> + +<p>"Found her, fathead."</p> + +<p>"How do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Found her in the caravan."</p> + +<p>"But weren't you listening to what I was saying?" There were tears in +Hugo's voice. "Pilbeam saw us putting her there."</p> + +<p>"I know."</p> + +<p>"Well, what's our move when he says so?"</p> + +<p>"Stout denial."</p> + +<p>"Eh?"</p> + +<p>"We stoutly deny it," said Millicent.</p> + +<p>The thrill passed through Hugo again, stronger than before. It might +work. Yes, properly handled, it would work. He poured broken words of +love and praise into the receiver.</p> + +<p>"That's right," he cried. "I see daylight. I will go to Pilbeam and +tell him privily that if he opens his mouth I'll strangle him."</p> + +<p>"Well, hold on. I'll go and tell Uncle Clarence. I expect he'll be out +in a moment to have a word with you."</p> + +<p>"Half a minute! Millicent!"</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"When am I supposed to have found this ghastly pig?"</p> + +<p>"Ten minutes ago, when you were taking a stroll before dinner. You +happened to pass the caravan and you heard an odd noise inside and you +looked to see what it was and there was the Empress, and you raced back +to the house to telephone."</p> + +<p>"But, Millicent! Half a minute!"</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"The old boy will think Baxter stole her."</p> + +<p>"So he will! Isn't that splendid? Well, hold on."</p> + +<p>Hugo resumed his vigil. It was some moments later that a noise like the +clucking of fowls broke out at the Matchingham Hall end of the wire. +He deduced correctly that this was caused by the ninth Earl of Emsworth +endeavouring to clothe his thoughts in speech.</p> + +<p>"Kuk-kuk-kuk...."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Lord Emsworth?"</p> + +<p>"Kuk-Carmody!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Lord Emsworth?"</p> + +<p>"Is this true?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Lord Emsworth."</p> + +<p>"You've found the Empress?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Lord Emsworth."</p> + +<p>"In that feller Baxter's caravan?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Lord Emsworth."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'll be damned!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Lord Emsworth."</p> + +<p>So far Hugo Carmody had found his share of the dialogue delightfully +easy. On these lines he would have been prepared to continue it all +night. But there was something else besides "Yes, Lord Emsworth" that +he must now endeavour to say. There is a tide in the affairs of men +which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune: and that tide, he knew, +would never rise higher than at the present moment. He swallowed twice +to unlimber his vocal chords.</p> + +<p>"Lord Emsworth," he said, and, though his heart was beating fast, +his voice was steady, "there is something I would like to take this +opportunity of saying. It will come as a surprise to you, but I hope +not as an unpleasant surprise. I love your niece Millicent, and she +loves me, Lord Emsworth. We have loved each other for many weeks, and +it is my hope that you will give your consent to our marriage. I am not +a rich man, Lord Emsworth. In fact, strictly speaking, except for my +salary I haven't a bean in the world. But my Uncle Lester owns Rudge +Hall in Worcestershire—I dare say you have heard of the place? You +turn to the left off the main road to Birmingham and go about a couple +of miles—well, anyway, it's a biggish sort of place in Worcestershire, +and my Uncle Lester owns it, and the property is entailed, and I'm +next in succession.... I won't pretend that my Uncle Lester shows any +indications of passing in his checks—he was extremely fit last time +I saw him—but, after all, he's getting on, and all flesh is as grass +and, as I say, I'm next man in, so I shall eventually succeed to quite +a fairish bit of the stuff and a house and park and rent roll and all +that; so what I mean is, it isn't as if I wasn't in a position to +support Millicent later on, and if you realized, Lord Emsworth, how we +love one another I'm sure you would see that it wouldn't be playing +the game to put any obstacles in the way of our happiness, so what I'm +driving at, if you follow me, is, may we charge ahead?"</p> + +<p>There was dead silence at the other end of the wire. It seemed as if +this revelation of a good man's love had struck Lord Emsworth dumb. +It was only some moments later, after he had said "Hullo!" six times +and "I say, are you there?" twice that it was borne in upon Hugo that +he had wasted two hundred and eighty words of the finest eloquence on +empty space.</p> + +<p>His natural chagrin at this discovery was sensibly diminished by the +sudden sound of Millicent's voice in his ear.</p> + +<p>"Hullo!"</p> + +<p>"Hullo!"</p> + +<p>"Hullo!"</p> + +<p>"Hullo!"</p> + +<p>"Hugo!"</p> + +<p>"Hullo!"</p> + +<p>"I say, Hugo!" She spoke with the joyous excitement of a girl who has +just emerged from the centre of a family dog fight. "I say, Hugo, +things are hotting up here properly. I sprung it on Uncle Clarence just +now that I want to marry you!"</p> + +<p>"So did I. Only he wasn't there."</p> + +<p>"I said, 'Uncle Clarence, aren't you grateful to Mr. Carmody for +finding the Empress?' and he said, 'Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, to be +sure. Capital boy! Capital boy! Always liked him.' And I said, 'I +suppose you wouldn't by any chance let me marry him?' and he said, 'Eh, +what? Marry him?' 'Yes,' I said. 'Marry him.' And he said, 'Certainly, +certainly, certainly, certainly, by all means.' And then Aunt Constance +had a fit, and Uncle Gally said she was a kill-joy and ought to be +ashamed of herself for throwing the gaff into love's young dream, and +Uncle Clarence kept on saying 'Certainly, certainly.' I don't know what +old Parsloe thinks of it all. He's sitting in his chair looking at the +ceiling and drinking Hock. The butler left at the end of round one. I'm +going back to see how it's all coming out. Hold the line."</p> + +<p>A man for whom Happiness and Misery are swaying in the scales three +miles away, and whose only medium of learning the result of the +contest is a telephone wire, is not likely to ring off impatiently. +Hugo sat tense and breathless, like one listening in on the radio to a +championship fight in which he has a financial interest. It was only +when a cheery voice spoke at his elbow that he realized that his +solitude had been invaded, and by Percy Pilbeam at that.</p> + +<p>Percy Pilbeam was looking rosy and replete. He swayed slightly, and his +smile was rather wider and more pebble-beached than a total abstainer's +would have been.</p> + +<p>"Hullo, Carmody," said Percy Pilbeam. "What ho, Carmody. So here you +are, Carmody."</p> + +<p>It came to Hugo that he had something to say to this man.</p> + +<p>"Here, you!" he cried.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Carmody?"</p> + +<p>"Do you want to be battered to a pulp?"</p> + +<p>"No, Carmody."</p> + +<p>"Then listen. You didn't see me put that pig in the caravan. +Understand?"</p> + +<p>"But I did, Carmody."</p> + +<p>"You didn't—not if you want to go on living."</p> + +<p>Percy Pilbeam appeared to be in a mood not only of keen intelligence +but of the utmost reasonableness and amiability.</p> + +<p>"Say no more, Carmody," he said agreeably. "I take your point. You want +me not to tell anybody I saw you put that caravan in the pig. Quite, +Carmody, quite."</p> + +<p>"Well, bear it in mind."</p> + +<p>"I will, Carmody. Oh, yes, Carmody, I will. I'm going for a stroll +outside, Carmody. Care to join me?"</p> + +<p>"Go to hell!"</p> + +<p>"Quite," said Percy Pilbeam.</p> + +<p>He tacked unsteadily to the door, aimed himself at it and passed +through. And a moment later Millicent's voice spoke.</p> + +<p>"Hugo?"</p> + +<p>"Hullo?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Hugo, darling, the battle's over. We've won. Uncle Clarence has +said 'Certainly' sixty-five times, and he's just told Aunt Constance +that if she thinks she can bully him she's very much mistaken. It's +a walk-over. They're all coming back right away in the car. Uncle +Clarence is an angel."</p> + +<p>"So are you."</p> + +<p>"Me?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, you."</p> + +<p>"Not such an angel as you are."</p> + +<p>"Much more of an angel than I am," said Hugo, in the voice of one +trained to the appraising and classifying of angels.</p> + +<p>"Well, anyway, you precious old thing, I'm going to give them the slip +and walk home along the road. Get out Ronnie's two-seater and come and +pick me up, and we'll go for a drive together, miles and miles through +the country. It's the most perfect evening."</p> + +<p>"You bet it is!" said Hugo fervently. "What I call something like an +evening. Give me two minutes to get the car out and five to make the +trip and I'll be with you."</p> + +<p>"'At-a-boy!" said Millicent.</p> + +<p>"'At-a-baby!" said Hugo.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI</h2> +</div> + + +<p>Sue stood staring, wide eyed. This was the moment that she had tried +to picture to herself a hundred times. And always her imagination had +proved unequal to the task. Sometimes she had seen Ronnie in her mind's +eye cold, aloof, hostile; sometimes gasping and tottering, dumb with +amazement; sometimes pointing a finger at her like a character in a +melodrama and denouncing her as an impostor. The one thing for which +she had not been prepared was what happened now.</p> + +<p>Eton and Cambridge train their sons well. Once they have grasped the +fundamental fact of life that all exhibitions of emotion are bad form, +bombshells cannot disturb their poise and earthquakes are lucky if +they get so much as an "Eh, what?" from them. But Cambridge has its +limitations, and so has Eton. And remorse had goaded Ronnie Fish to a +point where their iron discipline had ceased to operate. He was stirred +to his depths, and his scarlet face, his rumpled hair, his starting +eyes, and his twitching fingers all proclaimed the fact.</p> + +<p>"Ronnie!" cried Sue.</p> + +<p>It was all she had time to say. The thought of what she had done for +his sake; the thought that for love of him she had come to Blandings +Castle under false colours—an impostor—faced at every turn by the +risk of detection—liable at any moment to be ignominiously exposed +and looked at through a lorgnette by his Aunt Constance; the thought of +the shameful way he had treated her—all these thoughts were racking +Ronald Fish with a searing anguish. They had brought the hot blood of +the Fishes to the boil, and now, face to face with her, he did not +hesitate.</p> + +<p>He sprang forward, clasped her in his arms, hugged her to him. To +Baxter's revolted ears, though he tried not to listen, there came in a +husky cataract the sound of a Fish's self-reproaches. Ronnie was saying +what he thought of himself, and his opinion appeared not to be high. He +said he was a beast, a brute, a swine, a cad, a hound, and a worm. If +he had been speaking of Percy Pilbeam he could scarcely have been less +complimentary.</p> + +<p>Even up to this point Baxter had not liked the dialogue. It now became +perfectly nauseating. Sue said it had all been her fault. Ronnie said, +No, his. No, hers, said Sue. No, his, said Ronnie. No, hers, said Sue, +No, altogether his, said Ronnie. It must have been his, he pointed out, +because, as he had observed before, he was a hound and a worm. He now +went further. He revealed himself as a blister, a tick, and a perishing +outsider.</p> + +<p>"You're not!"</p> + +<p>"I am!"</p> + +<p>"You're not!"</p> + +<p>"I am!"</p> + +<p>"Of course you're not!"</p> + +<p>"I certainly am!"</p> + +<p>"Well, I love you, anyway."</p> + +<p>"You can't."</p> + +<p>"I do!"</p> + +<p>"You can't."</p> + +<p>"I do."</p> + +<p>Baxter writhed in silent anguish.</p> + +<p>"How long?" said Baxter to his immortal soul. "How long?" The question +was answered with a startling promptitude. From the neighbourhood of +the French windows there sounded a discreet cough. The debaters sprang +apart, two minds with but a single thought.</p> + +<p>"Your manuscript, miss," said Beach sedately.</p> + +<p>Sue looked at him. Ronnie looked at him. Sue until this moment had +forgotten his existence. Ronnie had supposed him downstairs, busy about +his butlerine duties. Neither seemed very glad to see him.</p> + +<p>Ronnie was the first to speak.</p> + +<p>"Oh—hullo, Beach!"</p> + +<p>There being no answer to this except "Hullo, sir!" which is a thing +that butlers do not say, Beach contented himself with a benignant +smile. It had the unfortunate effect of making Ronnie think that the +man was laughing at him, and the Fishes were men at whom butlers may +not lightly laugh. He was about to utter a heated speech, indicating +this, when the injudiciousness of such a course presented itself to +his mind. Beach must be placated. He forced his voice to a note of +geniality.</p> + +<p>"So there you are, Beach?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"I suppose all this must seem tolerably rummy to you?"</p> + +<p>"No, sir."</p> + +<p>"No?"</p> + +<p>"I had already been informed, Mr. Ronald, of the nature of your +feelings toward this lady."</p> + +<p>"What!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"Who told you?"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Pilbeam, sir."</p> + +<p>Ronnie uttered a gasp. Then he became calmer. He had suddenly +remembered that this man was his ally, his accomplice, linked to +him not only by a friendship dating back to his boyhood but by the +even stronger bond of a mutual crime. Between them there need be no +reserves. Delicate though the situation was, he now felt equal to it.</p> + +<p>"Beach," he said, "how much do you know?"</p> + +<p>"All, sir."</p> + +<p>"All?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"Such as——?"</p> + +<p>Beach coughed.</p> + +<p>"I am aware that this lady is a Miss Sue Brown. And, according to my +informant, she is employed in the chorus of the Regal Theatre."</p> + +<p>"Quite the Encyclopædia, aren't you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"I want to marry Miss Brown, Beach."</p> + +<p>"I can readily appreciate such a desire on your part, Mr. Ronald," said +the butler with a paternal smile.</p> + +<p>Sue caught at the smile.</p> + +<p>"Ronnie! He's all right. I believe he's a friend."</p> + +<p>"Of course he's a friend! Old Beach. One of my earliest and stoutest +pals."</p> + +<p>"I mean, he isn't going to give us away."</p> + +<p>"Me, miss?" said Beach, shocked. "Certainly not."</p> + +<p>"Splendid fellow, Beach!"</p> + +<p>"Thank you, sir."</p> + +<p>"Beach," said Ronnie, "the time has come to act. No more delay. I've +got to make myself solid with Uncle Clarence at once. Directly he gets +back to-night I shall go to him and tell him that Empress of Blandings +is in the gamekeeper's cottage in the west wood, and then, while he's +still weak, I shall spring on him the announcement of my engagement."</p> + +<p>"Unfortunately, Mr. Ronald, the animal is no longer in the cottage."</p> + +<p>"You've moved it?"</p> + +<p>"Not I, sir. Mr. Carmody. By a most regrettable chance Mr. Carmody +found me feeding it this afternoon. He took it away and deposited it in +some place of which I am not cognizant, sir."</p> + +<p>"But, good heavens, he'll dish the whole scheme. Where is he?"</p> + +<p>"You wish me to find him, sir?"</p> + +<p>"Of course I wish you to find him. Go at once and ask him where that +pig is. Tell him it's vital."</p> + +<p>"Very good, sir."</p> + +<p>Sue had listened with bewilderment to this talk of pigs.</p> + +<p>"I don't understand, Ronnie."</p> + +<p>Ronnie was pacing the room in agitation. Once he came so close to where +Baxter lay in his snug harbour that the ex-secretary had a flashing +glimpse of a sock with a lavender clock. It was the first object of +beauty that he had seen for a long time, and he should have appreciated +it more than he did.</p> + +<p>"I can't explain now," said Ronnie. "It's too long. But I can tell you +this. If we don't get that pig back we're in the soup."</p> + +<p>"Ronnie!"</p> + +<p>Ronnie had ceased to pace the room. He was standing in a listening +attitude.</p> + +<p>"What's that?"</p> + +<p>He sprang quickly to the balcony, looked over the parapet and came +softly back.</p> + +<p>"Sue!"</p> + +<p>"What!"</p> + +<p>"It's that blighter Pilbeam," said Ronnie in a guarded undertone. "He's +climbing up the waterspout!"</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII</h2> +</div> + + +<p>From the moment when it left the door of Matchingham Hall and started +on its journey back to Blandings Castle, a silence as of the tomb +had reigned in the Antelope car which was bringing Lord Emsworth, +his sister, Lady Constance Keeble, and his brother, the Hon. Galahad +Threepwood, home from their interrupted dinner party. Not so much as a +syllable proceeded from one of them.</p> + +<p>In the light of what Millicent, an eyewitness at the front, had told +Hugo over the telephone of the family battle which had been raging at +Sir Gregory Parsloe's table this will appear strange. If ever three +people with plenty to say to one another were assembled together in a +small space, these three, one would have thought, were those three. +Lady Constance alone might have been expected to provide enough +conversation to keep the historian busy for hours.</p> + +<p>The explanation, like all explanations, is simple. It is supplied by +that one word Antelope.</p> + +<p>Owing to the fact that some trifling internal ailment had removed from +the active list the Hispano-Suiza in which Blandings Castle usually +went out to dinner, Voules, the chauffeur, had had to fall back upon +this secondary and inferior car; and anybody who has ever owned an +Antelope is aware that there is no glass partition inside it, shutting +off the driver from the cash customers. He is right there in their +midst, ready and eager to hear everything that is said and to hand it +on in due course to the Servants' Hall.</p> + +<p>In these circumstances, though the choice seemed one between speech +and spontaneous combustion, the little company kept their thoughts +to themselves. They suffered, but they did it. It would be difficult +to find a better illustration of all that is implied in the fine old +phrase <i>Noblesse oblige</i>. At Lady Constance we point with particular +pride. She was a woman, and silence weighed hardest on her.</p> + +<p>There were times during the drive when even the sight of Voules's +large, red ears all pricked up to learn the reason for this sudden and +sensational return was scarcely sufficient to restrain Lady Constance +Keeble from telling her brother Clarence just what she thought of him. +From boyhood up he had not once come near to being her ideal man; but +never had he sunk so low in her estimation as at the moment when she +heard him giving his consent to the union of her niece Millicent with a +young man who, besides being penniless, had always afflicted her with a +nervous complaint for which she could find no name, but which is known +to scientists as the heeby-jeebies.</p> + +<p>Nor had he reëstablished himself in any way by his outspoken remarks on +the subject of the Efficient Baxter. He had said things about Baxter +which no admirer of that energetic man could forgive. The adjectives +mad, crazy, insane, gibbering—and worse, potty—had played in and out +of his conversation like flashes of lightning. And from the look in +his eye she gathered that he was still saying them all over again to +himself.</p> + +<p>Her surmise was correct. To Lord Emsworth the events of this day had +come as a stunning revelation. On the strength of that flower-pot +incident, two years ago, he had always looked on Baxter as mentally +unbalanced; but, being a fair-minded man, he had recognized the +possibility that a quiet, regular life and freedom from worries might, +in the interval which had elapsed since his late secretary's departure +from the castle, have effected a cure. Certainly the man had appeared +quite normal on the day of his arrival. And now into the space of a few +hours he had crammed enough variegated lunacy to equip all the March +Hares in England and leave some over for the Mad Hatters.</p> + +<p>The ninth Earl of Emsworth was not a man who was easily disturbed. +His was a calm which, as a rule, only his younger son Frederick could +shatter. But it was not proof against the sort of thing that had been +going on to-day. No matter how placid you may be, if you find yourself +in close juxtaposition with a man who, when he is not hurling himself +out of windows, is stealing pigs and trying to make you believe they +were stolen by your butler, you begin to think a bit. Lord Emsworth +was thoroughly upset. As the car bowled up the drive he was saying to +himself that nothing could surprise him now.</p> + +<p>And yet something did. As the car turned the corner by the +rhododendrons and wheeled into the broad strip of gravel that faced +the front door, he beheld a sight which brought the first sound he had +uttered since the journey began bursting from his lips.</p> + +<p>"Good God!"</p> + +<p>The words were spoken in a high, penetrating tenor, and they made +Lady Constance jump as if they had been pins running into her. This +unexpected breaking of the great silence was agony to her taut nerves.</p> + +<p>"What <i>is</i> the matter?"</p> + +<p>"Matter? Look! Look at that fellow!"</p> + +<p>Voules took it upon himself to explain. Never having met Lady Constance +socially, as it were, he ought perhaps not to have spoken. He +considered, however, that the importance of the occasion justified the +solecism.</p> + +<p>"A man is climbing the waterspout, m'lady."</p> + +<p>"What! Where? I don't see him."</p> + +<p>"He has just got into the balcony outside one of the bedrooms," said +the Hon. Galahad.</p> + +<p>Lord Emsworth went straight to the heart of the matter.</p> + +<p>"It's that fellow Baxter!" he exclaimed.</p> + +<p>The summer day, for all the artificial aid lent by daylight saving, was +now definitely over, and gathering night had spread its mantle of dusk +over the world. The visibility, therefore, was not good; and the figure +which had just vanished over the parapet of the balcony of the Garden +Room had been unrecognizable except to the eye of intuition. This, +however, was precisely the sort of eye that Lord Emsworth possessed.</p> + +<p>He reasoned closely. There were, he knew, on the premises of Blandings +Castle other male adults besides Rupert Baxter; but none of these +would climb up waterspouts and disappear over balconies. To Baxter, on +the other hand, such a pursuit would seem the normal, ordinary way of +passing an evening. It would be his idea of wholesome relaxation. Soon, +no doubt, he would come out onto the balcony again and throw himself +to the ground. That was the sort of fellow Baxter was—a man of strange +pleasures.</p> + +<p>And so, going, as we say, straight to the heart of the matter, Lord +Emsworth, jerking the pince-nez off his face in his emotion, exclaimed:</p> + +<p>"It's that fellow Baxter!"</p> + +<p>Not since a certain day in their mutual nursery many years ago had Lady +Constance gone to the length of actually hauling off and smiting her +elder brother on the head with the flat of an outraged hand; but she +came very near to doing it now. Perhaps it was the presence of Voules +that caused her to confine herself to words.</p> + +<p>"Clarence, you're an idiot!"</p> + +<p>Even Voules could not prevent her saying that. After all, she was +revealing no secrets. The chauffeur had been in service at the castle +quite long enough to have formed the same impression for himself.</p> + +<p>Lord Emsworth did not argue the point. The car had drawn up now outside +the front door. The front door was open, as always of a summer evening, +and the ninth earl, accompanied by his brother Galahad, hurried up the +steps and entered the hall. And, as they did so, there came to their +ears the sound of running feet. The next moment, the flying figure of +Percy Pilbeam came into view, taking the stairs four at a time.</p> + +<p>"God bless my soul!" said Lord Emsworth.</p> + +<p>If Pilbeam heard the words or saw the speaker, he gave no sign of +having done so. He was plainly in a hurry. He shot through the hall +and, more like a startled gazelle than a private inquiry agent, +vanished down the steps. His shirt front was dark with dirt stains, +his collar had burst from its stud, and it seemed to Lord Emsworth, in +the brief moment during which he was able to focus him, that he had a +black eye. The next instant, there descended the stairs and flitted +past with equal speed the form of Ronnie Fish.</p> + +<p>Lord Emsworth got an entirely wrong conception of the affair. He had no +means of knowing what had taken place in the Garden Room when Pilbeam, +inspired by alcohol and flushed with the thought that now was the time +to get into that apartment and possess himself of the manuscript of the +Hon. Galahad's Reminiscences, had climbed the waterspout to put the +plan into operation. He knew nothing of the detective's sharp dismay +at finding himself unexpectedly confronted with the menacing form of +Ronnie Fish. He was ignorant of the lively and promising mix-up which +had been concluded by Pilbeam's tempestuous dash for life. All he +saw was two men fleeing madly for the open spaces, and he placed the +obvious interpretation upon this phenomenon.</p> + +<p>Baxter, he assumed, had run amok and had done it with such +uncompromising thoroughness that strong men ran panic-stricken before +him.</p> + +<p>Mild enough the ninth earl was by nature, a lover of rural peace and +the quiet life, he had, like all Britain's aristocracy, the right +stuff in him. It so chanced that during the years when he had held his +commission in the Shropshire Yeomanry the motherland had not called +to him to save her. But, had that call been made, Clarence, ninth +Earl of Emsworth, would have answered it with as prompt a "Bless my +Soul! Of course. Certainly!" as any of his Crusader ancestors. And in +his sixtieth year the ancient fire still lingered. The Hon. Galahad, +who had returned to watch the procession through the front door with +a surprised monocle, turned back and found that he was alone. Lord +Emsworth had disappeared. He now beheld him coming back again. On his +amiable face was a look of determination. In his hand was a gun.</p> + +<p>"Eh? What?" said the Hon. Galahad, blinking.</p> + +<p>The head of the family did not reply. He was moving toward the stairs. +In just that same silent purposeful way had an Emsworth advanced on the +foe at Agincourt.</p> + +<p>A sound as of disturbed hens made the Hon. Galahad turn again.</p> + +<p>"Galahad! What is all this? What is happening?"</p> + +<p>The Hon. Galahad placed his sister in possession of the facts as known +to himself.</p> + +<p>"Clarence has just gone upstairs with a gun."</p> + +<p>"With a gun!"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Looked like mine, too. I hope he takes care of it." He perceived +that Lady Constance had also been seized with the urge to climb. She +was making excellent time up the broad staircase. So nimbly did she +move that she was on the second landing before he came up with her.</p> + +<p>And, as they stood there, a voice made itself heard from a room down +the corridor.</p> + +<p>"Baxter! Come out! Come out, Baxter, my dear fellow, immediately."</p> + +<p>In the race for the room from which the words had appeared to proceed, +Lady Constance, getting off to a good start, beat her brother by a +matter of two lengths. She was thus the first to see a sight unusual +even at Blandings Castle, though strange things had happened there from +time to time.</p> + +<p>Her young guest, Miss Schoonmaker, was standing by the window, looking +excited and alarmed. Her brother Clarence, pointing a gun expertly from +the hip, was staring fixedly at the bed. And from under the bed, a +little like a tortoise protruding from its shell, there was coming into +view the spectacled head of the Efficient Baxter.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII</h2> +</div> + + +<p>A man who has been lying under a bed for a matter of some thirty +minutes and, while there, has been compelled to listen to the sort of +dialogue which accompanies a lovers' reconciliation seldom appears at +his best or feels his brightest. There was fluff in Baxter's hair, dust +on his clothes, and on Baxter's face a scowl of concentrated hatred +of all humanity. Lord Emsworth, prepared for something pretty wild +looking, found his expectations exceeded. He tightened his grasp on the +gun and, to insure a more accurate aim, raised the butt of it to his +shoulder, closing one eye and allowing the other to gleam along the +barrel.</p> + +<p>"I have you covered, my dear fellow," he said mildly.</p> + +<p>Rupert Baxter had not yet begun to stick straws in his hair, but he +seemed on the verge of that final piece of self-expression.</p> + +<p>"Don't point that damned thing at me!"</p> + +<p>"I shall point it at you," replied Lord Emsworth with spirit. He was +not a man to be dictated to in his own house. "And at the slightest +sign of violence——"</p> + +<p>"Clarence!" It was Lady Constance who spoke. "Put that gun down."</p> + +<p>"Certainly not."</p> + +<p>"Clarence!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, all right."</p> + +<p>"And now, Mr. Baxter," said Lady Constance, proceeding to dominate the +scene in her masterly way, "I am sure you can explain."</p> + +<p>Her agitation had passed. It was not in this strong woman to remain +agitated long. She had been badly shaken, but her faith in her idol +still held good. Remarkable as his behaviour might appear, she was sure +that he could account for it in a perfectly satisfactory manner.</p> + +<p>Baxter did not speak. His silence gave Lord Emsworth the opportunity of +advancing his own views.</p> + +<p>"Explain?" he spoke petulantly, for he resented the way in which his +sister had thrust him from the centre of the stage. "What on earth is +there to explain? The thing's obvious."</p> + +<p>"Can't say I've quite got to the bottom of it," murmured the Hon. +Galahad. "Fellow under bed. Why? Why under bed? Why here at all?"</p> + +<p>Lord Emsworth hesitated. He was a kind-hearted man, and he felt that +what he had to say would be better said in Baxter's absence. However, +there seemed no way out of it, so he proceeded.</p> + +<p>"My dear Galahad, think!"</p> + +<p>"Eh!"</p> + +<p>"That flower-pot affair. You remember?"</p> + +<p>"Oh!" Understanding shone in the Hon. Galahad's monocle. "You mean...?"</p> + +<p>"Exactly."</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes. Of course. Subject to these attacks, you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Precisely."</p> + +<p>This was not the first time Lady Constance Keeble had had the +opportunity of hearing a theory ventilated by her brothers which she +found detestable. She flushed brightly.</p> + +<p>"Clarence!"</p> + +<p>"My dear?"</p> + +<p>"Kindly stop talking in that offensive way."</p> + +<p>"God bless my soul!" Lord Emsworth was stung. "I like that. What have I +said that is offensive?"</p> + +<p>"You know perfectly well."</p> + +<p>"If you mean that I was reminding Galahad in the most delicate way that +poor Baxter here is not quite——"</p> + +<p>"Clarence!"</p> + +<p>"All very well to say 'Clarence!' like that. You know yourself he isn't +right in the head. Didn't he throw flower pots at me? Didn't he leap +out of a window this very afternoon? Didn't he try to make me think +that Beach——"</p> + +<p>Baxter interrupted. There were certain matters on which he considered +silence best, but this was one on which he could speak freely.</p> + +<p>"Lord Emsworth!"</p> + +<p>"Eh!"</p> + +<p>"It has now come to my knowledge that Beach was not the prime mover in +the theft of your pig. But I have ascertained that he was an accessory."</p> + +<p>"A what?"</p> + +<p>"He helped," said Baxter, grinding his teeth a little. "The man who +committed the actual theft was your nephew, Ronald."</p> + +<p>Lord Emsworth turned to his sister with a triumphant gesture, like one +who has been vindicated.</p> + +<p>"There! Now perhaps you'll say he's not potty? It won't do, Baxter, +my dear fellow," he went on, waggling a reproachful gun at his late +employee. "You really mustn't excite yourself by making up these +stories."</p> + +<p>"Bad for the blood pressure," agreed the Hon. Galahad.</p> + +<p>"The Empress was found this evening in your caravan," said Lord +Emsworth.</p> + +<p>"What!"</p> + +<p>"In your caravan. Where you put her when you stole her. And, bless my +soul," said Lord Emsworth, with a start, "I must be going and seeing +that she is put back in her sty. I must find Pirbright. I must——"</p> + +<p>"In my caravan?" Baxter passed a feverish hand across his dust-stained +forehead. Illumination came to him. "Then that's what that fellow +Carmody did with the animal!"</p> + +<p>Lord Emsworth had had enough of this. Empress of Blandings was waiting +for him. Counting the minutes to that holy reunion, he chafed at having +to stand here listening to these wild ravings.</p> + +<p>"First Beach, then Ronald, then Carmody! You'll be saying I stole her +next, or Galahad here, or my sister Constance. Baxter, my dear fellow, +we aren't blaming you. Please don't think that. We quite see how it is. +You will overwork yourself, and of course nature demands the penalty. I +wish you would go quietly to your room, my dear fellow, and lie down. +All this must be very bad for you."</p> + +<p>Lady Constance intervened. Her eye was aflame, and she spoke like +Cleopatra telling an Ethiopian slave where he got off.</p> + +<p>"Clarence, will you kindly use whatever slight intelligence you +may possess? The theft of your pig is one of the most trivial and +unimportant things that have ever happened in this world, and I +consider the fuss that has been made about it quite revolting. But +whoever stole the wretched animal——"</p> + +<p>Lord Emsworth blenched. He stared as if wondering if he had heard +aright.</p> + +<p>"—and wherever it has been found, it was certainly not Mr. Baxter who +stole it. It is, as Mr. Baxter says, much more likely to have been a +young man like Mr. Carmody. There is a certain type of young man, I +believe, to which Mr. Carmody belongs, which considers practical joking +amusing. Do ask yourself, Clarence, and try to answer the question +as reasonably as is possible for a man of your mental calibre: what +earthly motive would Mr. Baxter have for coming to Blandings Castle and +stealing pigs?"</p> + +<p>It may have been the feel of the gun in his hand which awoke in Lord +Emsworth old memories of dashing days with the Shropshire Yeomanry and +lent him some of the hot spirit of his vanished youth. The fact remains +that he did not wilt beneath his sister's dominating eye. He met it +boldly, and boldly answered back.</p> + +<p>"And ask yourself, Constance," he said, "what earthly motive Mr. Baxter +has for anything he does?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said the Hon. Galahad loyally. "What motive has our friend +Baxter for coming to Blandings Castle and scaring girls stiff by hiding +under beds?"</p> + +<p>Lady Constance gulped. They had found the weak spot in her defences. +She turned to the man who she still hoped could deal efficiently with +this attack.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Baxter!" she said, as if she were calling on him for an +after-dinner speech.</p> + +<p>But Rupert Baxter had had no dinner. And it was perhaps this that +turned the scale. Quite suddenly there descended on him a frenzied +desire to be out of this, cost what it might. An hour before, half an +hour before, even five minutes before, his tongue had been tied by a +still lingering hope that he might yet find his way back to Blandings +Castle in the capacity of private secretary to the Earl of Emsworth. +Now he felt that he would not accept that post were it offered to him +on bended knee.</p> + +<p>A sudden overpowering hatred of Blandings Castle and all it contained +gripped the Efficient Baxter. He marvelled that he had ever wanted to +come back. He held at the present moment the well-paid and responsible +position of secretary and adviser to J. Horace Jevons, the American +millionaire, a man who not only treated him with an obsequiousness +and respect which were balm to his soul, but also gave him such sound +advice on the investment of money that already he had trebled his +savings. And it was this golden-hearted Chicagoan whom he had been +thinking of deserting, purely to satisfy some obscure sentiment which +urged him to return to a house which, he saw now, he loathed as few +houses have been loathed since human beings left off living in caves.</p> + +<p>His eyes flashed through their lenses. His mouth tightened.</p> + +<p>"I will explain!"</p> + +<p>"I knew you would have an explanation," cried Lady Constance.</p> + +<p>"I have. A very simple one."</p> + +<p>"And short, I hope?" asked Lord Emsworth restlessly. He was aching to +have done with all this talk and discussion and to be with his pig once +more. To think of the Empress languishing in a beastly caravan was +agony to him.</p> + +<p>"Quite short," said Rupert Baxter.</p> + +<p>The only person in the room who so far had remained entirely outside +this rather painful scene was Sue. She had looked on from her place by +the window, an innocent bystander. She now found herself drawn abruptly +into the maelstrom of the debate. Baxter's spectacles were raking +her from head to foot, and he had pointed at her with an accusing +forefinger.</p> + +<p>"I came to this room," he said, "to try to recover a letter which I had +written to this lady who calls herself Miss Schoonmaker."</p> + +<p>"Of course she calls herself Miss Schoonmaker," said Lord Emsworth, +reluctantly dragging his thoughts from the Empress. "It's her name, my +dear fellow. That," he explained gently, "is why she calls herself Miss +Schoonmaker. God bless my soul!" he said, unable to restrain a sudden +spurt of irritability. "If a girl's name is Schoonmaker naturally she +calls herself Miss Schoonmaker."</p> + +<p>"Yes, if it is. But hers is not. It is Brown."</p> + +<p>"Listen, my dear fellow," said Lord Emsworth soothingly. "You are only +exciting yourself by going on like this. Probably doing yourself a +great deal of harm. Now, what I suggest is that you go to your room and +put a cool compress on your forehead and lie down and take a good rest. +I will send Beach up to you with some nice bread-and-milk."</p> + +<p>"Rum and milk," amended the Hon. Galahad. "It's the only thing. I knew +a fellow in the year '97 who was subject to these spells—you probably +remember him, Clarence—Bellamy—Barmy Bellamy we used to call him—and +whenever——"</p> + +<p>"Her name is Brown!" repeated Baxter, his voice soaring in a hysterical +crescendo. "Sue Brown. She is a chorus girl at the Regal Theatre in +London. And she is apparently engaged to be married to your nephew +Ronald."</p> + +<p>Lady Constance uttered a cry. Lord Emsworth expressed his feelings with +a couple of tuts. The Hon. Galahad alone was silent. He caught Sue's +eye, and there was concern in his gaze.</p> + +<p>"I overheard Beach saying so in this very room. He said he had had the +information from Mr. Pilbeam. I imagine it to be accurate. But, in any +case, I can tell you this much. Whoever she is, she is an impostor +who has come here under a false name. While I was in the smoking room +some time back a telegram came through on the telephone from Market +Blandings. It was signed Myra Schoonmaker, and it had been handed in in +Paris this afternoon. That is all I have to say," concluded Baxter. "I +will now leave you, and I sincerely hope I shall never set eyes on any +of you again. Good-evening!"</p> + +<p>His spectacles glinting coldly, he strode from the room and in the +doorway collided with Ronnie, who was entering.</p> + +<p>"Can't you look where you're going?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Eh?" said Ronnie.</p> + +<p>"Clumsy idiot!" said the Efficient Baxter, and was gone.</p> + +<p>In the room he had left, Lady Constance Keeble had become a stone +figure of menace. She was not at ordinary times a particularly tall +woman, but she seemed now to tower like something vast and awful, and +Sue quailed before her.</p> + +<p>"Ronnie!" cried Sue weakly.</p> + +<p>It was the cry of the female in distress calling to her mate. Just so +in prehistoric days must Sue's cave woman ancestress have cried to the +man behind the club when suddenly cornered by the sabre-toothed tiger +which Lady Constance Keeble so closely resembled.</p> + +<p>"Ronnie!"</p> + +<p>"What's all this?" asked the last of the Fishes.</p> + +<p>He was breathing rather quickly, for the going had been fast. Pilbeam, +once out in the open, had shown astonishing form at the short sprint. +He had shaken off Ronnie's challenge twenty yards down the drive and +plunged into a convenient shrubbery, and Ronnie, giving up the pursuit, +had come back to Sue's room to report. It occasioned him some surprise +to find that in his absence it had become the scene of some sort of +public meeting.</p> + +<p>"What's all this?" he said, addressing that meeting.</p> + +<p>Lady Constance wheeled round upon him.</p> + +<p>"Ronald, who is this girl?"</p> + +<p>"Eh?" Ronnie was conscious of a certain uneasiness, but he did his +best. He did not like his aunt's looks, but then he never had. +Something was evidently up, but it might be that airy nonchalance would +save the day. "You know her, don't you? Miss Schoonmaker? Met her with +me in London."</p> + +<p>"Is her name Brown? And is she a chorus girl?"</p> + +<p>"Why, yes," admitted Ronnie. It was a bombshell, but Eton and Cambridge +stood it well. "Why, yes," he said, "as a matter of fact, that's right."</p> + +<p>Words seemed to fail Lady Constance. Judging from the expression on her +face this was just as well.</p> + +<p>"I'd been meaning to tell you about that," said Ronnie. "We're engaged."</p> + +<p>Lady Constance recovered herself sufficiently to find one word.</p> + +<p>"Clarence!"</p> + +<p>"Eh?" said Lord Emsworth. His thoughts had been wandering.</p> + +<p>"You heard?"</p> + +<p>"Heard what?"</p> + +<p>Beyond the stage of turbulent emotion Lady Constance had become +suddenly calm and icy.</p> + +<p>"If you have not been sufficiently interested to listen," she said, "I +may inform you that Ronald has just announced his intention of marrying +a chorus girl."</p> + +<p>"Oh, ah?" said Lord Emsworth. Would a man of Baxter's outstanding +unbalanced intellect, he was wondering, have remembered to feed the +Empress regularly? The thought was like a spear quivering in his heart. +He edged in agitation toward the door and had reached it when he +perceived that his sister had not yet finished talking to him.</p> + +<p>"So that is all the comment you have to make, is it?"</p> + +<p>"Eh? What about?"</p> + +<p>"The point I have been endeavouring to make you understand," went on +Lady Constance, with laborious politeness, "is that your nephew Ronald +has announced his intention of marrying into the Regal Theatre chorus."</p> + +<p>"Who?"</p> + +<p>"Ronald. This is Ronald. He is anxious to marry Miss Brown, a chorus +girl. This is Miss Brown."</p> + +<p>"How do you do?" said Lord Emsworth. He might be vague but he had the +manners of the old school.</p> + +<p>Ronnie interposed. The time had come to play the ace of trumps.</p> + +<p>"She isn't an ordinary chorus girl."</p> + +<p>"From the fact of her coming to Blandings Castle under a false name," +said Lady Constance, "I imagine not. It shows unusual enterprise."</p> + +<p>"What I mean," continued Ronnie, "is, I know what a bally snob you are, +Aunt Constance—no offence, but you know what I mean—keen on birth +and family and all that sort of rot. Well, what I'm driving at is that +Sue's father was in the Guards."</p> + +<p>"A private? Or a corporal?"</p> + +<p>"Captain. A fellow named——"</p> + +<p>"Cotterleigh," said Sue in a small voice.</p> + +<p>"Cotterleigh," said Ronnie.</p> + +<p>"Cotterleigh!"</p> + +<p>It was the Hon. Galahad who had spoken. He was staring at Sue open +mouthed.</p> + +<p>"Cotterleigh? Not Jack Cotterleigh?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know whether it was Jack Cotterleigh," said Ronnie. "The point +I'm making is that it was Cotterleigh and that he was in the Irish +Guards."</p> + +<p>The Hon. Galahad was still staring at Sue.</p> + +<p>"My dear," he cried, and there was an odd sharpness in his voice, "was +your mother Dolly Henderson, who used to be a serio at the old Oxford +and the Tivoli?"</p> + +<p>Not for the first time Ronald Fish was conscious of a feeling that +his Uncle Galahad ought to be in some kind of a home. He would drag in +Dolly Henderson! He would stress the Dolly Henderson note at just this +point in the proceedings! He would spoil the whole thing by calling +attention to the Dolly Henderson aspect of the matter, just when it was +vital to stick to the Cotterleigh, the whole Cotterleigh, and nothing +but the Cotterleigh. Ronnie sighed wearily. Padded cells, he felt, had +been invented specially for the Uncle Galahads of this world, and the +Uncle Galahads, he considered, ought never to be permitted to roam +about outside them.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Sue, "she was."</p> + +<p>The Hon. Galahad was advancing on her with outstretched hands. He +looked like some father in melodrama welcoming the prodigal daughter.</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm dashed!" he said. He repeated three times that he was in +this condition. He seized Sue's limp paws and squeezed them fondly. +"I've been trying to think all this while who it was that you reminded +me of, my dear girl. Do you know that in the years '96, '97, and '98 +I was madly in love with your mother myself? Do you know that if my +infernal family hadn't shipped me off to South Africa I would certainly +have married her? Fact, I assure you. But they got behind me and shoved +me onto the boat, and when I came back I found that young Cotterleigh +had cut me out. Well!"</p> + +<p>It was a scene that some people would have considered touching. Lady +Constance Keeble was not one of them.</p> + +<p>"Never mind about that now, Galahad," she said. "The point is——"</p> + +<p>"The point is," retorted the Hon. Galahad warmly, "that that young +Fish there wants to marry Dolly Henderson's daughter, and I'm for it. +And I hope, Clarence, that you'll have some sense for once in your life +and back them up like a sportsman."</p> + +<p>"Eh?" said the ninth earl. His thoughts had once more been wandering. +Even assuming that Baxter had fed the Empress, would he have given her +the right sort of food and enough of it?</p> + +<p>"You see for yourself what a splendid girl she is."</p> + +<p>"Who?"</p> + +<p>"This girl."</p> + +<p>"Charming," agreed Lord Emsworth courteously, and returned to his +meditations.</p> + +<p>"Clarence!" cried Lady Constance, jerking him out of them.</p> + +<p>"Eh?"</p> + +<p>"You are not to consent to this marriage!"</p> + +<p>"Who says so?"</p> + +<p>"I say so. And think what Julia will say."</p> + +<p>She could not have advanced a more impressive argument. In this +chronicle the Lady Julia Fish, relict of the late Major General Sir +Miles Fish, C.B.O., of the Brigade of Guards, has made no appearance. +We, therefore, know nothing of her compelling eye, her dominant chin, +her determined mouth, and her voice, which at certain times—as, +for example, when rebuking a brother—could raise blisters on a +sensitive skin. Lord Emsworth was aware of all these things. He had +had experience of them from boyhood. His idea of happiness was to be +where Lady Julia Fish was not. And the thought of her coming down to +Blandings Castle and tackling him in his library about this business +froze him to the marrow. It had been his amiable intention until this +moment to do whatever the majority of those present wanted him to do. +But now he hesitated.</p> + +<p>"You think Julia wouldn't like it?"</p> + +<p>"Of course Julia would not like it."</p> + +<p>"Julia's an ass," said the Hon. Galahad.</p> + +<p>Lord Emsworth considered this statement and was inclined to agree with +it. But it did not alter the main point.</p> + +<p>"You think she would make herself unpleasant about it?"</p> + +<p>"I do."</p> + +<p>"In that case——" Lord Emsworth paused. Then a strange, soft light +came into his eyes. "Well, see you all later," he said. "I'm going down +to look at my pig."</p> + +<p>His departure was so abrupt that it took Lady Constance momentarily by +surprise, and he was out of the room and well down the corridor before +she could recover herself sufficiently to act. Then she too hurried +out. They could hear her voice diminishing down the stairs. It was +calling, "Clarence!"</p> + +<p>The Hon. Galahad turned to Sue. His manner was brisk yet soothing.</p> + +<p>"A shame to inflict these fine old English family rows on a visitor," +he said, patting her shoulder as one who, if things had broken right +and there had not been a regular service of boats to South Africa in +the 'nineties, might have been her father. "What you need, my dear, is +a little rest and quiet. Come along, Ronald, we'll leave you. The place +to continue this discussion is somewhere outside this room. Cheer up, +my dear. Everything may come out all right yet."</p> + +<p>Sue shook her head.</p> + +<p>"It's no good," she said hopelessly.</p> + +<p>"Don't you be too sure," said the Hon. Galahad.</p> + +<p>"I'll jolly well tell you one thing," said Ronnie. "I'm going to marry +you whatever happens. And that's that. Good heavens! I can work, can't +I?"</p> + +<p>"What at?" asked the Hon. Galahad.</p> + +<p>"What at? Why—er—why, at anything."</p> + +<p>"The market value of any member of this family," said the Hon. Galahad, +who harboured no illusions about his nearest and dearest, "is about +threepence-ha'penny per annum. No! What we've got to do is get round +old Clarence somehow, and that means talk and argument, which had +better take place elsewhere. Come along, my boy. You never know your +luck. I've seen stickier things than this come out right in my time."</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX</h2> +</div> + + +<p>Sue stood on the balcony, looking out into the night. Velvet darkness +shrouded the world, and from the heart of it came the murmur of +rustling trees and the clean, sweet smell of earth and flowers. A +little breeze had sprung up, stirring the ivy at her side. Somewhere in +it a bird was chirping drowsily, and in the distance sounded the tinkle +of running water.</p> + +<p>She sighed. It was a night made for happiness. And she was quite sure +now that happiness was not for her.</p> + +<p>A footstep sounded behind her, and she turned eagerly.</p> + +<p>"Ronnie!"</p> + +<p>It was the voice of the Hon. Galahad Threepwood that answered.</p> + +<p>"Only me, I'm afraid, my dear. May I come onto your balcony? God bless +my soul, as Clarence would say, what a wonderful night!"</p> + +<p>"Yes!" said Sue doubtfully.</p> + +<p>"You don't think so?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes."</p> + +<p>"I bet you don't. I know I didn't that night when my old father put his +foot down and told me I was leaving for South Africa on the next boat. +Just such a night as this it was, I remember." He rested his arms on +the parapet. "I never saw your mother after she was married," he said.</p> + +<p>"No?"</p> + +<p>"No. She left the stage and—oh, well, I was rather busy at the +time—lot of heavy drinking to do, and so forth, and somehow we never +met. The next thing I heard—two or three years ago—was that she was +dead. You're very like her, my dear. Can't think why I didn't spot the +resemblance right away."</p> + +<p>He became silent. Sue did not speak. She slid her hand under his +arm. It was all that there seemed to do. A corncrake began to call +monotonously in the darkness.</p> + +<p>"That means rain," said the Hon. Galahad. "Or not. I forget which. Did +you ever hear your mother sing that song——No, you wouldn't. Before +your time. About young Ronald," he said abruptly.</p> + +<p>"What about him?"</p> + +<p>"Fond of him?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"I mean really fond?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"How fond?"</p> + +<p>She leaned out over the parapet. At the foot of the wall beneath her +Percy Pilbeam, who had been peering out of a bush, popped his head back +again. For the detective, possibly remembering with his subconscious mind +stories heard in childhood of Bruce and the spider, had refused to +admit defeat and returned by devious ways to the scene of his disaster. +Five hundred pounds is a lot of money, and Percy Pilbeam was not going +to be deterred from attempting to earn it by the fact that at his +last essay he had only just succeeded in escaping with his life. The +influence of his potations had worn off to some extent, and he was his +calm, keen self again. It was his intention to lurk in these bushes +till the small hours, if need be, and then to attack the waterspout +again, and so to the Garden Room where the manuscript of the Hon. +Galahad's Reminiscences lay. You cannot be a good detective if you are +easily discouraged.</p> + +<p>"I can't put it into words," said Sue.</p> + +<p>"Try."</p> + +<p>"No. Everything you say straight out about the way you feel about +anybody always sounds silly. Besides, to you Ronnie isn't the sort of +man you could understand anyone raving about. You look on him just as +something quite ordinary."</p> + +<p>"If that," said the Hon. Galahad critically.</p> + +<p>"Yes, if that. Whereas to me he's something—rather special. In +fact, if you really want to know how I feel about Ronnie, he's the +whole world to me. There! I told you it would sound silly. It's like +something out of a song, isn't it? I've worked in the chorus of that +sort of song a hundred times. Two steps left, two steps right, kick, +smile, both hands on heart—because he's all the wo-orld to me-ee! You +can laugh if you like."</p> + +<p>There was a momentary pause.</p> + +<p>"I'm not laughing," said the Hon. Galahad. "My dear, I only wanted to +find out if you really cared for that young Fish."</p> + +<p>"I wish you wouldn't call him 'that young Fish.'"</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry, my dear. It seems to describe him so neatly. Well, I just +wanted to be quite sure you really were fond of him because——"</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"Well, because I've just fixed it all up."</p> + +<p>She clutched at the parapet.</p> + +<p>"What!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," said the Hon. Galahad. "It's all settled. I don't say that +you can actually count on an aunt-in-law's embrace from my sister +Constance—in fact, if I were you, I wouldn't risk it—she might bite +you—but apart from that, everything's all right. The wedding bells +will ring out. Your young man's in the garden somewhere. You had better +go and find him and tell him the news. He'll be interested."</p> + +<p>"But—but——"</p> + +<p>Sue was clutching his arm. A wild impulse was upon her to shout and +sob. She had no doubts now as to the beauty of the night.</p> + +<p>"But—how? Why? What has happened?"</p> + +<p>"Well—you'll admit I might have married your mother?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Which makes me a sort of honorary father to you."</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"In which capacity, my dear, your interests are mine. More than mine, +in fact. So what I did was to make your happiness the Price of the +Papers. Ever see that play? No, before your time. It ran at the Adelphi +before you were born. There was a scene where——"</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>The Hon. Galahad hesitated a moment.</p> + +<p>"Well, the fact of the matter is, my dear, knowing how strongly my +sister Constance has always felt on the subject of those Reminiscences +of mine, I went to her and put it to her squarely. 'Clarence,' I +said to her, 'is not the sort of man to make any objection to anyone +marrying anybody so long as he isn't expected to attend the wedding. +You're the real obstacle,' I said. 'You and Julia. And if you come +round, you can talk Julia over in five minutes. You know how she relies +on your judgment.' And then I said that, if she gave up acting like a +barbed-wire entanglement in the path of true love I would undertake not +to publish the Reminiscences."</p> + +<p>Sue clung to his arm. She could find no words.</p> + +<p>Percy Pilbeam, who, for the night was very still, had heard all, +could have found many. Nothing but the delicate nature of his present +situation kept him from uttering them, and that only just. To Percy +Pilbeam it was as if he had seen five hundred pounds flutter from his +grasp like a vanishing blue bird. He raged dumbly. In all London and +the Home Counties there were few men who liked five hundred pounds +better than P. Frobisher Pilbeam.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said Sue. Nothing more. Her feelings were too deep. She hugged +his arm. "Oh!" she said, and again, "Oh!"</p> + +<p>She found herself crying and was not ashamed.</p> + +<p>"Now, come!" said the Hon. Galahad protestingly. "Nothing so very +extraordinary in that, was there? Nothing so exceedingly remarkable in +one pal helping another?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know what to say."</p> + +<p>"Then don't say it," said the Hon. Galahad, much relieved. "Why, bless +you, I don't care whether the damned things are published or not. At +least—no, certainly I don't.... Only cause a lot of unpleasantness. +Besides, I'll leave the dashed book to the nation and have it published +in a hundred years and become the Pepys of the future, what? Best thing +that could have happened. Homage of Posterity and all that."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said Sue.</p> + +<p>The Hon. Galahad chuckled.</p> + +<p>"It is a shame, though, that the world will have to wait a hundred +years before it hears the story of young Gregory Parsloe and the +prawns. Did you get to that when you were reading the thing this +evening?"</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid I didn't read very much," said Sue. "I was thinking of +Ronnie rather a lot."</p> + +<p>"Oh? Well, I can tell you. You needn't wait a hundred years. It was at +Ascot, the year Martingale won the Gold Cup...."</p> + +<p>Down below, Percy Pilbeam rose from his bush. He did not care now +if he were seen. He was still a guest at this hole of a castle, and +if a guest cannot pop in and out of bushes if he likes, where does +British hospitality come in? It was his intention to shake the dust of +Blandings off his feet, to pass the night at the Emsworth Arms, and on +the morrow to return to London, where he was appreciated.</p> + +<p>"Well, my dear, it was like this. Young Parsloe...."</p> + +<p>Percy Pilbeam did not linger. The story of the prawns meant nothing +to him. He turned away, and the summer night swallowed him. Somewhere +in the darkness an owl hooted. It seemed to Pilbeam that there was +derision in the sound. He frowned. His teeth came together with a +little click.</p> + +<p>If he could have found it he would have had a word with that owl.</p> + + +<p class="ph4">THE END</p> + +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75435 ***</div> +</body> +</html> + diff --git a/75435-h/images/cover.jpg b/75435-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0b7a529 --- /dev/null +++ b/75435-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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