"If I might make the suggestion, sir, a simple brown or blue, with a
hint of some quiet twill----"
"What absolute rot!"
"Very good, sir."
"Perfectly blithering, my dear man!"
"As you say, sir."
I felt as if I had stepped on the place where the last stair ought to
have been, but wasn't. I felt defiant, if you know what I mean, and
there didn't seem anything to defy.
"All right, then," I said.
"Yes, sir."
And then he went away to collect his kit, while I started in again on
"Types of Ethical Theory" and took a stab at a chapter headed
"Idiopsychological Ethics."
* * * * *
Most of the way down in the train that afternoon, I was wondering what
could be up at the other end. I simply couldn't see what could have
happened. Easeby wasn't one of those country houses you read about in
the society novels, where young girls are lured on to play baccarat
and then skinned to the bone of their jewellery, and so on. The
house-party I had left had consisted entirely of law-abiding birds
like myself.
Besides, my uncle wouldn't have let anything of that kind go on in his
house. He was a rather stiff, precise sort of old boy, who liked a
quiet life. He was just finishing a history of the family or
something, which he had been working on for the last year, and didn't
stir much from the library. He was rather a good instance of what they
say about its being a good scheme for a fellow to sow his wild oats.
I'd been told that in his youth Uncle Willoughby had been a bit of a
rounder. You would never have thought it to look at him now.
When I got to the house, Oakshott, the butler, told me that Florence
was in her room, watching her maid pack. Apparently there was a dance
on at a house about twenty miles away that night, and she was motoring
over with some of the Easeby lot and would be away some nights.
Oakshott said she had told him to tell her the moment I arrived; so I
trickled into the smoking-room and waited, and presently in she came.
A glance showed me that she was perturbed, and even peeved. Her eyes
had a goggly look, and altogether she appeared considerably pipped.
"Darling!" I said, and attempted the good old embrace; but she
sidestepped like a bantam weight.
"Don't!"
"What's the matter?"
"Everything's the matter! Bertie, you remember asking me, when you
left, to make myself pleasant to your uncle?"
"Yes."
The idea being, of course, that as at that time I was more or less
dependent on Uncle Willoughby I couldn't very well marry without his
approval. And though I knew he wouldn't have any objection to
Florence, having known her father since they were at Oxford together,
I hadn't wanted to take any chances; so I had told her to make an
effort to fascinate the old boy.
"You told me it would please him particularly if I asked him to read
me some of his history of the family."
"Wasn't he pleased?"
"He was delighted. He finished writing the thing yesterday afternoon,
and read me nearly all of it last night. I have never had such a shock
in my life. The book is an outrage. It is impossible. It is horrible!"
"But, dash it, the family weren't so bad as all that."
"It is not a history of the family at all. Your uncle has written his
reminiscences! He calls them 'Recollections of a Long Life'!"
I began to understand. As I say, Uncle Willoughby had been somewhat on
the tabasco side as a young man, and it began to look as if he might
have turned out something pretty fruity if he had started recollecting
his long life.
"If half of what he has written is true," said Florence, "your uncle's
youth must have been perfectly appalling. The moment we began to read
he plunged straight into a most scandalous story of how he and my
father were thrown out of a music-hall in 1887!"
"Why?"
"I decline to tell you why."
It must have been something pretty bad. It took a lot to make them
chuck people out of music-halls in 1887.
"Your uncle specifically states that father had drunk a quart and a
half of champagne before beginning the evening," she went on. "The
book is full of stories like that. There is a dreadful one about Lord
Emsworth."
"Lord Emsworth? Not the one we know? Not the one at Blandings?"
A most respectable old Johnnie, don't you know. Doesn't do a thing
nowadays but dig in the garden with a spud.
"The very same. That is what makes the book so unspeakable. It is full
of stories about people one knows who are the essence of propriety
today, but who seem to have behaved, when they were in London in the
'eighties, in a manner that would not have been tolerated in the
fo'c'sle of a whaler. Your uncle seems to remember everything
disgraceful that happened to anybody when he was in his early
twenties. There is a story about Sir Stanley Gervase-Gervase at
Rosherville Gardens which is ghastly in its perfection of detail. It
seems that Sir Stanley--but I can't tell you!"
"Have a dash!"
"No!"
"Oh, well, I shouldn't worry. No publisher will print the book if it's
as bad as all that."
"On the contrary, your uncle told me that all negotiations are settled
with Riggs and Ballinger, and he's sending off the manuscript tomorrow
for immediate publication. They make a special thing of that sort of
book. They published Lady Carnaby's 'Memories of Eighty Interesting
Years.'"
"I read 'em!"
"Well, then, when I tell you that Lady Carnaby's Memories are simply
not to be compared with your uncle's Recollections, you will
understand my state of mind. And father appears in nearly every story
in the book! I am horrified at the things he did when he was a young
man!"
"What's to be done?"
"The manuscript must be intercepted before it reaches Riggs and
Ballinger, and destroyed!"
I sat up.
This sounded rather sporting.
"How are you going to do it?" I enquired.
"How can I do it? Didn't I tell you the parcel goes off to-morrow? I
am going to the Murgatroyds' dance to-night and shall not be back till
Monday. You must do it. That is why I telegraphed to you."
"What!"
She gave me a look.
"Do you mean to say you refuse to help me, Bertie?"
"No; but--I say!"
"It's quite simple."
"But even if I--What I mean is--Of course, anything I can do--but--if
you know what I mean----"
"You say you want to marry me, Bertie?"
"Yes, of course; but still----"
For a moment she looked exactly like her old father.
"I will never marry you if those Recollections are published."
"But, Florence, old thing!"
"I mean it. You may look on it as a test, Bertie. If you have the
resource and courage to carry this thing through, I will take it as
evidence that you are not the vapid and shiftless person most people
think you. If you fail, I shall know that your Aunt Agatha was right
when she called you a spineless invertebrate and advised me strongly
not to marry you. It will be perfectly simple for you to intercept the
manuscript, Bertie. It only requires a little resolution."
"But suppose Uncle Willoughby catches me at it? He'd cut me off with a
bob."
"If you care more for your uncle's money than for me----"
"No, no! Rather not!"
"Very well, then. The parcel containing the manuscript will, of
course, be placed on the hall table to-morrow for Oakshott to take to
the village with the letters. All you have to do is to take it away
and destroy it. Then your uncle will think it has been lost in the
post."
It sounded thin to me.
"Hasn't he got a copy of it?"
"No; it has not been typed. He is sending the manuscript just as he
wrote it."
"But he could write it over again."
"As if he would have the energy!"
"But----"
"If you are going to do nothing but make absurd objections, Bertie----"
"I was only pointing things out."
"Well, don't! Once and for all, will you do me this quite simple act
of kindness?"
The way she put it gave me an idea.
"Why not get Edwin to do it? Keep it in the family, kind of, don't you
know. Besides, it would be a boon to the kid."
A jolly bright idea it seemed to me. Edwin was her young brother, who
was spending his holidays at Easeby. He was a ferret-faced kid, whom I
had disliked since birth. As a matter of fact, talking of
Recollections and Memories, it was young blighted Edwin who, nine
years before, had led his father to where I was smoking his cigar and
caused all of the unpleasantness. He was fourteen now and had just
joined the Boy Scouts. He was one of those thorough kids, and took his
responsibilities pretty seriously. He was always in a sort of fever
because he was dropping behind schedule with his daily acts of
kindness. However hard he tried, he'd fall behind; and then you would
find him prowling about the house, setting such a clip to try and
catch up with himself that Easeby was rapidly becoming a perfect hell
for man and beast.
The idea didn't seem to strike Florence.
"I shall do nothing of the kind, Bertie. I wonder you can't appreciate
the compliment I am paying you--trusting you like this."
"Oh, I see that all right, but what I mean is, Edwin would do it so
much better than I would. These Boy Scouts are up to all sorts of
dodges. They spoor, don't you know, and take cover and creep about,
and what not."
"Bertie, will you or will you not do this perfectly trivial thing for
me? If not, say so now, and let us end this farce of pretending that
you care a snap of the fingers for me."
"Dear old soul, I love you devotedly!"
"Then will you or will you not----"
"Oh, all right," I said. "All right! All right! All right!"
And then I tottered forth to think it over. I met Jeeves in the
passage just outside.
"I beg your pardon, sir. I was endeavouring to find you."
"What's the matter?"
"I felt that I should tell you, sir, that somebody has been putting
black polish on our brown walking shoes."
"What! Who? Why?"
"I could not say, sir."
"Can anything be done with them?"
"Nothing, sir."
"Damn!"
"Very good, sir."
* * * * *
I've often wondered since then how these murderer fellows manage to
keep in shape while they're contemplating their next effort. I had a
much simpler sort of job on hand, and the thought of it rattled me to
such an extent in the night watches that I was a perfect wreck next
day. Dark circles under the eyes--I give you my word! I had to call on
Jeeves to rally round with one of those life-savers of his.
From breakfast on I felt like a bag-snatcher at a railway station. I
had to hang about waiting for the parcel to be put on the hall table,
and it wasn't put. Uncle Willoughby was a fixture in the library,
adding the finishing touches to the great work, I supposed, and the
more I thought the thing over the less I liked it. The chances against
my pulling it off seemed about three to two, and the thought of what
would happen if I didn't gave me cold shivers down the spine. Uncle
Willoughby was a pretty mild sort of old boy, as a rule, but I've
known him to cut up rough, and, by Jove, he was scheduled to extend
himself if he caught me trying to get away with his life work.
It wasn't till nearly four that he toddled out of the library with the
parcel under his arm, put it on the table, and toddled off again. I
was hiding a bit to the south-east at the moment, behind a suit of
armour. I bounded out and legged it for the table. Then I nipped
upstairs to hide the swag. I charged in like a mustang and nearly
stubbed my toe on young blighted Edwin, the Boy Scout. He was standing
at the chest of drawers, confound him, messing about with my ties.
"Hallo!" he said.
"What are you doing here?"
"I'm tidying your room. It's my last Saturday's act of kindness."
"Last Saturday's?"
"I'm five days behind. I was six till last night, but I polished your
shoes."
"Was it you----"
"Yes. Did you see them? I just happened to think of it. I was in here,
looking round. Mr. Berkeley had this room while you were away. He left
this morning. I thought perhaps he might have left something in it
that I could have sent on. I've often done acts of kindness that way."
"You must be a comfort to one and all!"
It became more and more apparent to me that this infernal kid must
somehow be turned out eftsoons or right speedily. I had hidden the
parcel behind my back, and I didn't think he had seen it; but I wanted
to get at that chest of drawers quick, before anyone else came along.
"I shouldn't bother about tidying the room," I said.
"I like tidying it. It's not a bit of trouble--really."
"But it's quite tidy now."
"Not so tidy as I shall make it."
This was getting perfectly rotten. I didn't want to murder the kid,
and yet there didn't seem any other way of shifting him. I pressed
down the mental accelerator. The old lemon throbbed fiercely. I got an
idea.
"There's something much kinder than that which you could do," I said.
"You see that box of cigars? Take it down to the smoking-room and snip
off the ends for me. That would save me no end of trouble. Stagger
along, laddie."
He seemed a bit doubtful; but he staggered. I shoved the parcel into a
drawer, locked it, trousered the key, and felt better. I might be a
chump, but, dash it, I could out-general a mere kid with a face like a
ferret. I went downstairs again. Just as I was passing the
smoking-room door, out curveted Edwin. It seemed to me that if he
wanted to do a real act of kindness he would commit suicide.
"I'm snipping them," he said.
"Snip on! Snip on!"
"Do you like them snipped much, or only a bit?"
"Medium."
"All right. I'll be getting on, then."
"I should."
And we parted.
Fellows who know all about that sort of thing--detectives, and so
on--will tell you that the most difficult thing in the world is to get
rid of the body. I remember, as a kid, having to learn by heart a poem
about a bird by the name of Eugene Aram, who had the deuce of a job in
this respect. All I can recall of the actual poetry is the bit that
goes:
_Tum-tum, tum-tum, tum-tumty-tum,
I slew him, tum-tum-tum!_
But I recollect that the poor blighter spent much of his valuable time
dumping the corpse into ponds and burying it, and what not, only to
have it pop out at him again. It was about an hour after I had shoved
the parcel into the drawer when I realised that I had let myself in
for just the same sort of thing.
Florence had talked in an airy sort of way about destroying the
manuscript; but when one came down to it, how the deuce can a chap
destroy a great chunky mass of paper in somebody else's house in the
middle of summer? I couldn't ask to have a fire in my bedroom, with
the thermometer in the eighties. And if I didn't burn the thing, how
else could I get rid of it? Fellows on the battle-field eat dispatches
to keep them from falling into the hands of the enemy, but it would
have taken me a year to eat Uncle Willoughby's Recollections.
I'm bound to say the problem absolutely baffled me. The only thing
seemed to be to leave the parcel in the drawer and hope for the best.
I don't know whether you have ever experienced it, but it's a dashed
unpleasant thing having a crime on one's conscience. Towards the end
of the day the mere sight of the drawer began to depress me. I found
myself getting all on edge; and once when Uncle Willoughby trickled
silently into the smoking-room when I was alone there and spoke to me
before I knew he was there, I broke the record for the sitting high
jump.
I was wondering all the time when Uncle Willoughby would sit up and
take notice. I didn't think he would have time to suspect that
anything had gone wrong till Saturday morning, when he would be
expecting, of course, to get the acknowledgment of the manuscript from
the publishers. But early on Friday evening he came out of the library
as I was passing and asked me to step in. He was looking considerably
rattled.
"Bertie," he said--he always spoke in a precise sort of pompous kind
of way--"an exceedingly disturbing thing has happened. As you know, I
dispatched the manuscript of my book to Messrs. Riggs and Ballinger,
the publishers, yesterday afternoon. It should have reached them by
the first post this morning. Why I should have been uneasy I cannot
say, but my mind was not altogether at rest respecting the safety of
the parcel. I therefore telephoned to Messrs. Riggs and Ballinger a
few moments back to make enquiries. To my consternation they informed
me that they were not yet in receipt of my manuscript."
"Very rum!"
"I recollect distinctly placing it myself on the hall table in good
time to be taken to the village. But here is a sinister thing. I have
spoken to Oakshott, who took the rest of the letters to the post
office, and he cannot recall seeing it there. He is, indeed,
unswerving in his assertions that when he went to the hall to collect
the letters there was no parcel among them."
"Sounds funny!"
"Bertie, shall I tell you what I suspect?"
"What's that?"
"The suspicion will no doubt sound to you incredible, but it alone
seems to fit the facts as we know them. I incline to the belief that
the parcel has been stolen."
"Oh, I say! Surely not!"
"Wait! Hear me out. Though I have said nothing to you before, or to
anyone else, concerning the matter, the fact remains that during the
past few weeks a number of objects--some valuable, others not--have
disappeared in this house. The conclusion to which one is irresistibly
impelled is that we have a kleptomaniac in our midst. It is a
peculiarity of kleptomania, as you are no doubt aware, that the
subject is unable to differentiate between the intrinsic values of
objects. He will purloin an old coat as readily as a diamond ring, or
a tobacco pipe costing but a few shillings with the same eagerness as
a purse of gold. The fact that this manuscript of mine could be of no
possible value to any outside person convinces me that----"
"But, uncle, one moment; I know all about those things that were
stolen. It was Meadowes, my man, who pinched them. I caught him
snaffling my silk socks. Right in the act, by Jove!"
He was tremendously impressed.
"You amaze me, Bertie! Send for the man at once and question him."
"But he isn't here. You see, directly I found that he was a
sock-sneaker I gave him the boot. That's why I went to London--to
get a new man."
"Then, if the man Meadowes is no longer in the house it could not be
he who purloined my manuscript. The whole thing is inexplicable."
After which we brooded for a bit. Uncle Willoughby pottered about the
room, registering baffledness, while I sat sucking at a cigarette,
feeling rather like a chappie I'd once read about in a book, who
murdered another cove and hid the body under the dining-room table,
and then had to be the life and soul of a dinner party, with it there
all the time. My guilty secret oppressed me to such an extent that
after a while I couldn't stick it any longer. I lit another cigarette
and started for a stroll in the grounds, by way of cooling off.
It was one of those still evenings you get in the summer, when you can
hear a snail clear its throat a mile away. The sun was sinking over
the hills and the gnats were fooling about all over the place, and
everything smelled rather topping--what with the falling dew and so
on--and I was just beginning to feel a little soothed by the peace of
it all when suddenly I heard my name spoken.
"It's about Bertie."
It was the loathsome voice of young blighted Edwin! For a moment I
couldn't locate it. Then I realised that it came from the library. My
stroll had taken me within a few yards of the open window.
I had often wondered how those Johnnies in books did it--I mean the
fellows with whom it was the work of a moment to do about a dozen
things that ought to have taken them about ten minutes. But, as a
matter of fact, it was the work of a moment with me to chuck away my
cigarette, swear a bit, leap about ten yards, dive into a bush that
stood near the library window, and stand there with my ears flapping.
I was as certain as I've ever been of anything that all sorts of
rotten things were in the offing.
"About Bertie?" I heard Uncle Willoughby say.
"About Bertie and your parcel. I heard you talking to him just now. I
believe he's got it."
When I tell you that just as I heard these frightful words a fairly
substantial beetle of sorts dropped from the bush down the back of my
neck, and I couldn't even stir to squash the same, you will understand
that I felt pretty rotten. Everything seemed against me.
"What do you mean, boy? I was discussing the disappearance of my
manuscript with Bertie only a moment back, and he professed himself as
perplexed by the mystery as myself."
"Well, I was in his room yesterday afternoon, doing him an act of
kindness, and he came in with a parcel. I could see it, though he
tried to keep it behind his back. And then he asked me to go to the
smoking-room and snip some cigars for him; and about two minutes
afterwards he came down--and he wasn't carrying anything. So it must
be in his room."
I understand they deliberately teach these dashed Boy Scouts to
cultivate their powers of observation and deduction and what not.
Devilish thoughtless and inconsiderate of them, I call it. Look at the
trouble it causes.
"It sounds incredible," said Uncle Willoughby, thereby bucking me up a
trifle.
"Shall I go and look in his room?" asked young blighted Edwin. "I'm
sure the parcel's there."
"But what could be his motive for perpetrating this extraordinary
theft?"
"Perhaps he's a--what you said just now."
"A kleptomaniac? Impossible!"
"It might have been Bertie who took all those things from the very
start," suggested the little brute hopefully. "He may be like
Raffles."
"Raffles?"
"He's a chap in a book who went about pinching things."
"I cannot believe that Bertie would--ah--go about pinching things."
"Well, I'm sure he's got the parcel. I'll tell you what you might do.
You might say that Mr. Berkeley wired that he had left something here.
He had Bertie's room, you know. You might say you wanted to look for
it."
"That would be possible. I----"
I didn't wait to hear any more. Things were getting too hot. I sneaked
softly out of my bush and raced for the front door. I sprinted up to
my room and made for the drawer where I had put the parcel. And then I
found I hadn't the key. It wasn't for the deuce of a time that I
recollected I had shifted it to my evening trousers the night before
and must have forgotten to take it out again.
Where the dickens were my evening things? I had looked all over the
place before I remembered that Jeeves must have taken them away to
brush. To leap at the bell and ring it was, with me, the work of a
moment. I had just rung it when there was a footstep outside, and in
came Uncle Willoughby.
"Oh, Bertie," he said, without a blush, "I have--ah--received a
telegram from Berkeley, who occupied this room in your absence, asking
me to forward him his--er--his cigarette-case, which, it would appear,
he inadvertently omitted to take with him when he left the house. I
cannot find it downstairs; and it has, therefore, occurred to me that
he may have left it in this room. I will--er--just take a look
around."
It was one of the most disgusting spectacles I've ever seen--this
white-haired old man, who should have been thinking of the hereafter,
standing there lying like an actor.
"I haven't seen it anywhere," I said.
"Nevertheless, I will search. I must--ah--spare no effort."
"I should have seen it if it had been here--what?"
"It may have escaped your notice. It is--er--possibly in one of the
drawers."
He began to nose about. He pulled out drawer after drawer, pottering
around like an old bloodhound, and babbling from time to time about
Berkeley and his cigarette-case in a way that struck me as perfectly
ghastly. I just stood there, losing weight every moment.
Then he came to the drawer where the parcel was.
"This appears to be locked," he said, rattling the handle.
"Yes; I shouldn't bother about that one. It--it's--er--locked, and all
that sort of thing."
"You have not the key?"
A soft, respectful voice spoke behind me.
"I fancy, sir, that this must be the key you require. It was in the
pocket of your evening trousers."
It was Jeeves. He had shimmered in, carrying my evening things, and
was standing there holding out the key. I could have massacred the
man.
"Thank you," said my uncle.
"Not at all, sir."
The next moment Uncle Willoughby had opened the drawer. I shut my
eyes.
"No," said Uncle Willoughby, "there is nothing here. The drawer is
empty. Thank you, Bertie. I hope I have not disturbed you. I
fancy--er--Berkeley must have taken his case with him after all."
When he had gone I shut the door carefully. Then I turned to Jeeves.
The man was putting my evening things out on a chair.
"Er--Jeeves!"
"Sir?"
"Oh, nothing."
It was deuced difficult to know how to begin.
"Er--Jeeves!"
"Sir?"