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.