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.