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.