I
Blandings Castle basked in the afterglow of a golden summer evening.
Only a memory now was the storm which, two hours since, had raged with
such violence through its parks, pleasure grounds, and messuages. It
had passed, leaving behind it peace and bird song and a sunset of pink
and green and orange and opal and amethyst. The air was cool and sweet,
and the earth sent up a healing fragrance. Little stars were peeping
down from a rain-washed sky.
To Ronnie Fish, slumped in an armchair in his bedroom on the second
floor, the improved weather conditions brought no spiritual uplift. He
could see the sunset, but it left him cold. He could hear the thrushes
calling in the shrubberies, but did not think much of them. It is, in
short, in no sunny mood that we reintroduce Ronald Overbury Fish to the
reader of this chronicle.
The meditation of a man who has recently proposed to and been accepted
by a girl some inches taller than himself, for whom he entertains no
warmer sentiment than a casual feeling that, take her for all in all,
she isn't a bad sort of egg, must of necessity tend toward the sombre:
and the surroundings in which Ronnie had spent the latter part of the
afternoon had not been of a kind to encourage optimism. At the moment
when the skies suddenly burst asunder and the world became a shower
bath, he had been walking along the path that skirted the wall of the
kitchen garden; and the only shelter that offered itself was a gloomy
cave or dugout that led to the heating apparatus of the hothouses. Into
this he had dived like a homing rabbit, and here, sitting on a heap of
bricks, he had remained for the space of fifty minutes with no company
but one small green frog and his thoughts.
The place was a sort of Sargasso Sea into which had drifted all the
flotsam and jetsam of the kitchen-garden which adjoined. There was a
wheelbarrow, lacking its wheel and lying drunkenly on its side. There
were broken pots in great profusion. There were a heap of withered
flowers, a punctured watering can, a rake with large gaps in its front
teeth, some potatoes unfit for human consumption, and half a dead
blackbird. The whole effect was extraordinarily like hell, and Ronnie's
spirits, not high at the start, had sunk lower and lower.
Sobered by rain, wheelbarrows, watering cans, rakes, potatoes, and dead
blackbirds, not to mention the steady, supercilious eye of a frog which
resembled that of a bishop at the Athenæum inspecting a shy new member,
Ronnie had begun definitely to repent of the impulse which had led him
to ask Millicent to be his wife. And now, in the cosier environment of
his bedroom, he was regretting it more than ever.
Like most people who have made a defiant and dramatic gesture and then
have leisure to reflect, he was oppressed by a feeling that he had gone
considerably farther than was prudent. Samson, as he heard the pillars
of the temple begin to crack, must have felt the same. Gestures are all
very well while the intoxication lasts. The trouble is that it lasts
such a very little while.
In asking Millicent to marry him he had gone, he now definitely
realized, too far. He had overdone it. It was not that he had any
objection to Millicent as a wife. He had none whatever--provided she
were somebody else's wife. What was so unpleasant was the prospect of
being married to her himself.
He groaned in spirit and became aware that he was no longer alone. The
door had opened, and his friend Hugo Carmody was in the room. He noted
with a dull surprise that Hugo was in the conventional costume of the
English gentleman about to dine. He had not supposed the hour so late.
"Hullo," said Hugo. "Not dressed? That gong's gone."
It now became clear to Ronnie that he simply was not equal to facing
his infernal family at the dinner table. He supposed that Millicent
had spread the news of their engagement by this time, and that
meant discussion, wearisome congratulations, embraces from his Aunt
Constance, chaff of the vintage of 1895 from his Uncle Galahad--in
short, fuss and gabble. And he was in no mood for fuss and gabble. Pot
luck with a tableful of Trappist monks he might just have endured, but
not a hearty feed with the family.
"I don't want any dinner."
"No dinner?"
"No."
"Ill or something?"
"No."
"But you don't want any dinner? I see. Rummy! However, your affair,
of course. It begins to look as if I should have to don the nosebag
alone. Beach tells me that Baxter also will be absent from the trough.
He's upset about something, it seems, and has asked for a snort and
sandwiches in the smoking room. And as for the pustule Pilbeam," said
Hugo grimly, "I propose to interview him at the earliest possible date,
and after that he won't want any dinner, either."
"Where are the rest of them?"
"Didn't you know?" said Hugo, surprised. "They're dining over at old
Parsloe's. Your aunt, Lord Emsworth, old Galahad, and Millicent."
He coughed. A moment of some slight embarrassment impended. "I say,
Ronnie, old man, while on the subject of Millicent----"
"Well?"
"You know that engagement of yours?"
"What about it?"
"It's off."
"Off?"
"Right off. A washout. She's changed her mind."
"What!"
"Yes. She's going to marry me. I may tell you we have been engaged for
weeks--one of those secret betrothals--but we had a row. Row now over.
Complete reconciliation. So she asked me to break it to you gently that
in the circs she proposes to return you to store."
A thrill of ecstasy shot through Ronnie. He felt as men on the scaffold
feel when the messenger bounds in with the reprieve.
"Well, that's the first bit of good news I've had for a long time," he
said.
"You mean you didn't want to marry Millicent?"
"Of course I didn't."
"Not so much of the 'of course,' laddie," said Hugo, offended.
"She's an awfully nice girl----"
"An angel. Shropshire's leading seraph."
"--but I'm not in love with her any more than she's in love with me."
"In that case," said Hugo, with justifiable censure, "why propose to
her? A goofy proceeding, it seems to me." He clicked his tongue. "Of
course, this is what happened. You grabbed Millicent to score off Sue,
and she grabbed you to score off me. And now, I suppose, you've fixed
it up with Sue again. Very sound. Couldn't have made a wiser move.
She's obviously the girl for you."
Ronnie winced. The words had touched a nerve. He had been trying not
to think of Sue, but without success. Her picture insisted on rising
before him. Not being able to exclude her from his thoughts he had
tried to think of her bitterly.
"I haven't," he cried.
Extraordinary how difficult it was, even now, to think bitterly of Sue.
Sue was Sue. That was the fundamental fact that hampered him. Try as he
might to concentrate it on the tragedy of Mario's restaurant, his mind
insisted on slipping back to earlier scenes of sunshine and happiness.
"You haven't?" said Hugo, damped.
That Ronnie could possibly be in ignorance of Sue's arrival at the
castle never occurred to him. Long ere this, he took it for granted,
they must have met. And he assumed, from the equanimity with which his
friend had received the news of the loss of Millicent, that Sue and he
must have had just such another heart-to-heart talk as had taken place
in the room above the gamekeeper's cottage. The dour sullenness of
Ronnie's face made his kindly heart sink.
"You mean you haven't fixed things up?"
"No."
Ronnie writhed. Sue in his car. Sue up the river. Sue in his arms to
the music of sweet saxophones. Sue laughing. Sue smiling. Sue in the
springtime, with the little breezes ruffling her hair....
He forced his mind away from these weakening visions. Sue at
Mario's.... That was better.... Sue letting him down.... Sue hobnobbing
with the blister Pilbeam.... That was much better.
"I think you're being very hard on that poor little girl, Ronnie."
"Don't call her a poor little girl."
"I will call her a poor little girl," said Hugo firmly. "To me she is a
poor little girl, and I don't care who knows it. I don't mind telling
you that my heart bleeds for her. Bleeds profusely. And I must say I
should have thought----"
"I don't want to talk about her."
"--after her doing what she has done----"
"I don't want to talk about her, I tell you."
Hugo sighed. He gave it up. The situation was what they called an
_impasse_. Too bad. His best friend and a dear little girl like that
parted forever. Two jolly good eggs sundered for all eternity. Oh,
well, that was Life.
"If you want to talk about anything," said Ronnie, "you had much better
talk about this engagement of yours."
"Only too glad, old man. Was afraid it might bore you, or would have
touched more freely on subject."
"I suppose you realize the family will squash it flat?"
"Oh, no, they won't."
"You think my Aunt Constance is going to leap about and bang the
cymbals?"
"The Keeble, I admit," said Hugo, with a faint shiver, "may make her
presence felt to some extent. But I rely on the ninth earl's support
and patronage. Before long, I shall be causing the ninth to look on me
as a son."
"How?"
For a moment Hugo almost yielded to the temptation to confide in this
friend of his youth. Then he realized the unwisdom of such a course.
By an odd coincidence, he was thinking exactly the same of Ronnie
as Ronnie at an earlier stage of this history had thought of him.
Ronnie, he considered, though a splendid chap, was not fitted to be a
repository of secrets. A babbler. A sieve. The sort of fellow who would
spread a secret hither and thither all over the place before nightfall.
"Never mind," he said. "I have my methods."
"What are they?"
"Just methods," said Hugo, "and jolly good ones. Well, I'll be pushing
off. I'm late. Sure you won't come down to dinner? Then I'll be going.
It is imperative that I get hold of Pilbeam with all possible speed.
Don't want the sun to go down on my wrath. All has ended happily in
spite of him, but that's no reason why he shouldn't be massacred. I
look on myself as a man with a public duty."
For some minutes after the door had closed Ronnie remained humped in
his chair. Then, in spite of everything, there began to creep upon
him a desire for food, too strong to be resisted. Perfect health and
a tealess afternoon spent in the open had given him a compelling
appetite. He still shrank from the thought of the dining room. Fond as
he was of Hugo, he simply could not stand his conversation to-night. A
chop at the Emsworth Arms would meet the case. He could get down there
in five minutes in his two-seater.
He rose. His mind, as he moved to the door, was not entirely occupied
with thoughts of food. Hugo's parting words had turned it in the
direction of Pilbeam again.
What had brought Pilbeam to the castle, he did not know. But, now
that he was here, let him look out for himself! A couple of minutes
alone with P. Frobisher Pilbeam was just the medicine his bruised soul
required. Apparently, from what he had said, Hugo also entertained some
grievances against the man. It could be nothing compared with his own.
Pilbeam! The cause of all his troubles. Pilbeam! The snake in the
grass. Pilbeam!... Yes.... His heart might be broken, his life a wreck,
but he could still enjoy the faint consolation of dealing faithfully
with Pilbeam.
He went out into the corridor. And, as he did so, Percy Pilbeam came
out of the room opposite.
II
Pilbeam had dressed for dinner with considerable care. Owing to the
fact that Lord Emsworth, in his woolen-headed way, had completely
forgotten to inform him of the exodus to Matchingham Hall, he was
expecting to meet a gay and glittering company at the meal and had
prepared himself accordingly. Looking at the result in the mirror, he
had felt a glow of contentment. This glow was still warming him as he
passed into the corridor. As his eyes fell on Ronnie it faded abruptly.
In the days of his editorship of _Society Spice_, that frank and
fearless journal, P. Frobisher Pilbeam had once or twice had personal
encounters with people having no cause to wish him well. They had
not appealed to him. He was a man who found no pleasure in physical
violence. And that physical violence threatened now was only too
sickeningly plain. It was foreshadowed in the very manner in which this
small but sturdy young man confronting him had begun to creep forward.
Pilbeam, who was an F. R. Z. S., had seen leopards at the Zoo creep
just like that.
Years of conducting a weekly scandal sheet, followed by a long period
of activity as a private inquiry agent, undoubtedly train a man well
for the exhibition of presence of mind in sudden emergencies. One finds
it difficult in the present instance to overpraise Percy Pilbeam's
ready resource. Had a great military strategist been present he would
have nodded approval. With the grim menace of Ronnie Fish coming closer
and closer, Percy Pilbeam did exactly what Napoleon, Hannibal, or the
great Duke of Marlborough would have done. Reaching behind him for
the handle and twisting it sharply, he slipped through the door of his
bedroom, banged it, and was gone. Many an eel has disappeared into the
mud with less smoothness and celerity.
If the leopard which he resembled had seen its prey vanish into the
undergrowth just before dinner time it would probably have expressed
its feelings in exactly the same kind of short, rasping cry as
proceeded from Ronnie Fish, witnessing this masterly withdrawal. For an
instant he was completely taken aback. Then he plunged for the door and
into the room.
He stood, baffled. Pilbeam had vanished. To Ronnie's astonished eyes
the apartment appeared entirely free from detectives in any shape or
form whatsoever. There was the bed. There were the chairs. There were
the carpet, the dressing table, and the bookshelf. But of private
inquiry agents there was a complete shortage.
How long this miracle would have continued to afflict him, one cannot
say. His mind was still dealing dazedly with it, when there came to his
ears a sharp click, as of a key being turned in the lock. It seemed to
proceed from a hanging cupboard at the other side of the room.
Old Miles Fish, Ronnie's father, might, as Lord Emsworth had asserted,
have been the biggest fool in the Brigade of Guards, but his son could
reason and deduce. Springing forward, he tugged at the handle of the
cupboard door. The door stood fast.
At the same moment there filtered through it the sound of muffled
breathing.
Ronnie was already looking grim. He now looked grimmer. He placed his
lips to the panel.
"Come out of that!"
The breathing stopped.
"All right," said Ronnie, with a hideous calm. "Right jolly ho! I can
wait."
For some moments there was silence. Then from the beyond a voice spoke
in reply.
"Be reasonable!" said the voice.
"Reasonable?" said Ronnie thickly. "Reasonable, eh?" He choked. "Come
out! I only want to pull your head off," he added, with a note of
appeal.
The voice became conciliatory.
"I know what you're upset about," it said.
"You do, eh?"
"Yes, I quite understand. But I can explain everything."
"What?"
"I say I can explain everything."
"You can, can you?"
"Quite," said the voice.
Up till now Ronnie had been pulling. It now occurred to him that
pushing might possibly produce more satisfactory results. So he pushed.
Nothing, however, happened. Blandings Castle was a house which rather
prided itself on its solidity. Its walls were walls and its doors,
doors. No jimcrack work here. The cupboard creaked but did not yield.
"I say!"
"Well?"
"I wish you'd listen. I tell you I can explain everything. About that
night at Mario's, I mean. I know exactly how it is. You think Miss
Brown is fond of me. I give you my solemn word she can't stand the
sight of me. She told me so herself."
A pleasing thought came to Ronnie.
"You can't stay in there all night," he said.
"I don't want to stay in here all night."
"Well, come on out, then."
The voice became plaintive.
"I tell you she had never set eyes on me before that night at Mario's.
She was dining with that fellow Carmody, and he went out and I came
over and introduced myself. No harm in that, was there?"
Ronnie wondered if kicking would do any good. A tender feeling for his
toes, coupled with the reflection that his Uncle Clarence might have
something to say if he started breaking up cupboard doors, caused him
to abandon the scheme. He stood, breathing tensely.
"Just a friendly word, that's all I came over to say. Why shouldn't a
fellow introduce himself to a girl and say a friendly word?"
"I wish I'd got there earlier."
"I'd have been glad to see you," said Pilbeam courteously.
"Would you?"
"Quite."
"I shall be glad to see _you_," said Ronnie, "when I can get this
damned door open."
Pilbeam began to fear asphyxiation. The air inside the cupboard was
growing closer. Peril lent him the inspiration which it so often does.
"Look here," he said, "are you Ronnie?"
Ronnie turned pinker.
"I don't want any of your dashed cheek."
"No, but listen. Is your name Ronnie?"
Silence without.
"Because if it is," said Pilbeam, "you're the fellow she's come here to
see."
More silence.
"She told me so. In the garden this evening. She came here calling
herself Miss Shoemaker, or some such name, just to see you. That ought
to show you that I'm not the man she's keen on."
The silence was broken by a sharp exclamation.
"What's that?"
Pilbeam repeated his remark. A growing hopefulness lent an almost
finicky clearness to his diction.
"Come out!" cried Ronnie.
"That's all very well, but----"
"Come out, I want to talk to you."
"You are talking to me."
"I don't want to bellow this through a door. Come on out. I swear I
won't touch you."
It was not so much Pilbeam's faith in the knightly word of the Fishes
that caused him to obey the request as a feeling that, if he stayed
cooped up in this cupboard much longer, he would get a rush of blood to
the head. Already he was beginning to feel as if he were breathing a
solution of dust and mothballs. He emerged. His hair was rumpled, and
he regarded his companion warily. He had the air of a man who has taken
his life in his hands. But the word of the Fishes held good. As far as
Ronnie was concerned the war appeared to be over.
"What did you say? She's here?"
"Quite."
"What do you mean, quite?"
"Certainly. Quite. She got here just before I did. Haven't you seen
her?"
"No."
"Well, she's here. She's in the room they call the Garden Room. I heard
her tell that old bird Galahad so. If you go there now," said Pilbeam
insinuatingly, "you could have a quiet word with her before she goes
down to dinner."
"And she said she had come here to see me?"
"Yes. To explain about that night at Mario's. And what I say,"
proceeded Pilbeam warmly, "is, if a girl didn't love a fellow, would
she come to a place like this, calling herself Miss Shoolbred or
something, simply to see him? I ask you!" said Pilbeam.
Ronnie did not answer. His feelings held him speechless. He was too
deep in a morass of remorse to be able to articulate. Indeed, he was in
a frame of mind so abased that he almost asked Pilbeam to kick him. The
thought of how he had wronged his blameless Sue was almost too bitter
to be borne. It bit like a serpent and stung like an adder.
From the surge and riot of his reflections one thought now emerged
clearly, shining like a beacon on a dark night. The Garden Room!
Turning without a word, he shot out of the door as quickly as Percy
Pilbeam a short while ago had shot in. And Percy Pilbeam, with a deep
sigh, went to the dressing table, took up the brush, and started to
restore his hair to a state fit for the eyes of the nobility and
gentry. This done, he smoothed his moustache and went downstairs to the
drawing room.
III
The drawing room was empty. And to Pilbeam's surprise it continued
to be empty for quite a considerable time. He felt puzzled. He had
expected to meet a reproachful host with an eye on the clock and a
haughty hostess clicking her tongue. As the minutes crept by and his
solitude remained unbroken, he began to grow restless.
He wandered about the room, staring at the pictures, straightening his
tie and examining the photographs on the little tables. The last of
these was one of Lord Emsworth, taken apparently at about the age of
thirty, in long whiskers and the uniform of the Shropshire Yeomanry.
He was gazing at this with the fascinated horror which it induced in
everyone who saw it suddenly for the first time, when the door at last
opened, and with a sinking sensation of apprehension Pilbeam beheld the
majestic form of Beach.
For an instant he stood eying the butler with that natural alarm which
comes to all of us when in the presence of a man who a few short hours
earlier has given us one look and made us feel like a condemned food
product. Then his tension relaxed.
It has been well said that for every evil in this world nature supplies
an antidote. If butlers come, can cocktails be far behind? Beach was
carrying a tray with glasses and a massive shaker on it; and Pilbeam,
seeing these, found himself regarding their formidable bearer almost
with equanimity.
"A cocktail, sir?"
"Thanks."
He accepted a brimming glass. The darkness of its contents suggested a
welcome strength. He drank. And instantaneously all through his system
beacon fires seemed to burst into being.
He drained the glass. His whole outlook on life was now magically
different. Quite suddenly he had begun to feel equal to a dozen
butlers, however glazed their eyes might be.
And it might have been an illusion caused by gin and vermouth, but this
butler seemed to have changed considerably for the better since their
last meeting. His eye, though still glassy, had lost the old basilisk
quality. There appeared now, in fact, to be something so positively
light hearted about Beach's whole demeanour that the proprietor of the
Argus Enquiry Agency was emboldened to plunge into conversation.
"Nice evening."
"Yes, sir."
"Nice after the storm."
"Yes, sir."
"Came down a bit, didn't it?"
"The rain was undoubtedly extremely heavy, sir. Another cocktail?"
"Thanks."
The relighting of the beacons had the effect of removing from Pilbeam
the last trace of diffidence and shyness. He saw now that he had been
entirely mistaken in this butler. Encountering him in the hall at the
moment of his arrival, he had supposed him supercilious and hostile. He
now perceived that he was a butler and a brother. More like Old King
Cole, that jolly old soul, indeed, than anybody Pilbeam had met for
months.
"I got caught in it," he said affably.
"Indeed, sir?"
"Yes. Lord Emsworth had been showing me some photographs of that pig of
his.... By the way, in strict confidence--what's your name?"
"Beach, sir."
"In strict confidence, Beach, I know something about that pig."
"Indeed, sir?"
"Yes. Well, after I had seen the photographs I went for a walk in the
park and the rain came on and I got pretty wet. In fact, I don't mind
telling you I had to get under cover and take my trousers off to dry."
He laughed merrily.
"Another cocktail, sir?"
"Making three in all?"
"Yes, sir."
"Perhaps you're right," said Pilbeam.
For some moments he sat, pensive and distrait, listening to the strains
of a brass band which seemed to have started playing somewhere in the
vicinity. Then his idly floating thoughts drifted back to the mystery
which had been vexing him before this delightful butler's entry.
"I say, Beach, I've been waiting here hours and hours. Where's this
dinner I heard you beating gongs about?"
"Dinner is ready, sir, but I put it back some little while, as
gentlemen aren't punctual in the summer time."
Pilbeam considered this statement. It sounded to him as if it would
make rather a good song title. Gentlemen aren't punctual in the summer
time, in the summer time (I said, In the summertime). So take me back
to that old Kentucky Shack.... He tried to fit it to the music which
the brass band was playing, but it did not go very well, and he gave it
up.
"Where is everybody?" he asked.
"His lordship and her ladyship and Mr. Galahad and Miss Threepwood are
dining at Matchingham Hall."
"What! With old Pop Parsloe?"
"With Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe, yes, sir."
Pilbeam chuckled.
"Well, well, well! Quick worker, old Parsloe. Don't you think so,
Beach? I mean, you advise him to do a thing, to act in a certain way,
to adopt a certain course of action, and he does it right away. You
agree with me, Beach?"
"I fear my limited acquaintance with Sir Gregory scarcely entitles me
to offer an opinion, sir."
"Talking of old Parsloe, Beach--you did say your name was Beach?"
"Yes, sir."
"With a capital B?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, talking of old Parsloe, Beach, I could tell you something about
him--something he's up to."
"Indeed, sir?"
"But I'm not going to. Respect client's confidence. Lips sealed.
Professional secret."
"Yes, sir?"
"As you rightly say, yes. Any more of that stuff in the shaker, Beach?"
"A little, sir, if you consider it judicious."
"That's just what I do consider it. Start pouring."
The detective sipped luxuriously, fuller and fuller every moment of an
uplifting sense of well-being. If the friendship which had sprung up
between himself and the butler was possibly a little one-sided, on the
one side on which it did exist it was warm, even fervent. It seemed
to Pilbeam that for the first time since he had arrived at Blandings
Castle he had found a real chum, a kindred soul in whom he might
confide. And he was filled with an overwhelming desire to confide in
somebody.
"As a matter of fact, Beach," he said, "I could tell you all sorts of
things about all sorts of people. Practically everybody in this house I
could tell you something about. What's the name of that chap with the
light hair, for instance? The old boy's secretary."
"Mr. Carmody, sir?"
"Carmody! That's the name. I've been trying to remember it. Well, I
could tell you something about Carmody."
"Indeed, sir?"
"Yes. Something about Carmody that would interest you very much. I saw
Carmody this afternoon when Carmody didn't see me."
"Indeed, sir?"
"Yes. Where is Carmody?"
"I imagine he will be down shortly, sir. Mr. Ronald also."
"Ronald!" Pilbeam drew in his breath sharply. "There's a tough baby,
Beach. That Ronnie. Do you know what he wanted to do just now? Murder
me!"
In Beach's opinion, for he did not look on Percy Pilbeam as a very
necessary member of society, this would have been a commendable act,
and he regretted that its consummation had been prevented. He was also
feeling that the conscientious butler he had always prided himself on
being would long ere this have withdrawn and left this man to talk to
himself. But even the best of butlers have human emotions, and the
magic of Pilbeam's small-talk held Beach like a spell. It reminded
him of the Gossip page of _Society Spice_, a paper to which he was a
regular subscriber. He was piqued and curious. So far, it was true, his
companion had merely hinted, but something seemed to tell him that, if
he lingered on, a really sensational news item would shortly emerge.
He had never been more right in his life. Pilbeam by this time had
finished the fourth cocktail, and the urge to confide had become
overpowering. He looked at Beach, and it nearly made him cry to think
that he was holding anything back from such a splendid fellow.
"And do you know why he wanted to murder me, Beach?"
It scarcely seemed to the butler that the action required anything in
the nature of a reasoned explanation, but he murmured the necessary
response.
"I could not say, sir."
"Of course you couldn't. How could you? You don't know. That's why I'm
telling you. Well, listen. He's in love with a girl in the chorus at
the Regal, a girl named Sue Brown, and he thought I had been taking her
out to dinner. That's why he wanted to murder me, Beach."
"Indeed, sir?"
The butler spoke calmly, but he was deeply stirred. He had always
flattered himself that the inmates of Blandings Castle kept few secrets
from him, but this was something new.
"Yes. That was why. I had the dickens of a job holding him off, I can
tell you. Do you know what saved me, Beach?"
"No, sir."
"Presence of mind. I put it to him--to Ronnie--I put it to Ronnie as a
reasonable man that, if this girl loved me, would she have come to this
place, pretending to be Miss Shoemaker, simply so as to see him?"
"Sir!"
"Yes, that's who Miss Shoemaker is, Beach. She's a chorus girl called
Sue Brown, and she's come here to see Ronnie."
Beach stood transfixed. His eyes swelled bulbously from their sockets.
He was incapable of even an "Indeed, sir?"
He was still endeavouring to assimilate this extraordinary revelation
when Hugo Carmody entered the room.
"Ah!" said Hugo, his eye falling on Pilbeam. He stiffened. He stood
looking at the detective like Schopenhauer's butcher at the selected
lamb.
"Leave us, Beach," he said, in a grave, deep voice.
The butler came out of his trance.
"Sir?"
"Pop off."
"Very good, sir."
The door closed.
"I've been looking for you, viper," said Hugo.
"Have you, Carmody?" said Percy Pilbeam effervescently. "I've been
looking for you, too. Got something I want to talk to you about. Each
looking for each. Or am I thinking of a couple of other fellows? Come
right in, Carmody, and sit down. Good old Carmody! Jolly old Carmody!
Splendid old Carmody. Well, well, well, well, well!"
If the lamb mentioned above had suddenly accosted the above-mentioned
butcher in a similar strain of hearty camaraderie, it could have hardly
disconcerted him more than Pilbeam with these cheery words disconcerted
Hugo. His stern, set gaze became a gaping stare.
Then he pulled himself together. What did words matter? He had no time
to bother about words. Action was what he was after. Action!
"I don't know if you're aware of it, worm," he said, "but you came
jolly near to blighting my life."
"Doing what, Carmody?"
"Blighting my life."
"List to me while I tell you of the Spaniard who blighted my life,"
sang Percy Pilbeam, letting it go like a lark in the springtime. He had
never felt happier or in more congenial society. "How did I blight your
life, Carmody?"
"You didn't."
"You said I did."
"I said you tried to."
"Make up your mind, Carmody."
"Don't keep calling me Carmody."
"But, Carmody," protested Pilbeam, "it's your name, isn't it?
Certainly it is. Then why try to hush it up, Carmody? Be frank and
open. I don't mind people knowing my name. I glory in it. It's
Pilbeam--Pilbeam--Pilbeam--that's what it is--Pilbeam!"
"In about thirty seconds," said Hugo, "it will be Mud."
It struck Percy Pilbeam for the first time that in his companion's
manner there was a certain peevishness.
"Something the matter?" he asked, concerned.
"I'll tell you what's the matter."
"Do, Carmody, do," said Pilbeam. "Do, do, do. Confide in me. I like
your face."
He settled himself in a deep armchair and, putting the tips of his
fingers together after a little preliminary difficulty in making them
meet, leaned back, all readiness to listen to whatever trouble it was
that was disturbing this new friend of his.
"Some days ago, insect----"
Pilbeam opened his eyes.
"Speak up, Carmody," he said. "Don't mumble."
Hugo's fingers twitched. He regarded his companion with a burning
eye and wondered why he was wasting time talking instead of at once
proceeding to the main business of the day and knocking the fellow's
head off at the roots. What saved Pilbeam was the reclining position he
had assumed. If you are a Carmody and a sportsman, you cannot attack
even a viper if it persists in lying back on its spine and keeping its
eyes shut.
"Some days ago," he began again, "I called at your office. And after we
had talked of this and that I left. I discovered later that immediately
upon my departure you had set your foul spies on my trail and had
instructed them to take notes of my movements and report on them. The
result being that I came jolly close to having my bally life ruined.
And, if you want to know what I'm going to do, I'm going to haul you
out of that chair and turn you round and kick you hard and go on
kicking you till I kick you out of the house. And if you dare to shove
your beastly little nose back inside the place, I'll disembowel you."
Pilbeam unclosed his eyes.
"Nothing," he said, "could be fairer than that. Nevertheless, that's no
reason why you should go about stealing pigs."
Hugo had often read stories in which people reeled and would have
fallen had they not clutched at whatever it was that they clutched
at. He had never expected to undergo that experience himself. But it
is undoubtedly the fact that, if he had not at this moment gripped
the back of a chair, he would have been hard put to it to remain
perpendicular.
"Pig pincher!" said Pilbeam austerely, and closed his eyes again.
Hugo, having established his equilibrium by means of the chair, had now
moved away. He was making a strong effort to recover his morale. He
picked up the photograph of Lord Emsworth in his Yeomanry uniform and
looked at it absently; then, as if it had just dawned upon him, put it
down with a shudder, like a man who finds that he has been handling a
snake.
"What do you mean?" he said thickly.
Pilbeam's eyes opened.
"What do I mean? What do you think I mean? I mean you're a pig pincher.
That's what I mean. You go to and fro, sneaking pigs and hiding them in
caravans."
Hugo took up Lord Emsworth's photograph again, saw what he was doing,
and dropped it quickly. Pilbeam had closed his eyes once more, and,
looking at him, Hugo could not repress a reluctant thrill of awe. He
had often read about the superhuman intuition of detectives, but he had
never before been privileged to observe it in operation. Then an idea
occurred to him.
"Did you see me?"
"What say, Carmody?"
"Did you see me?"
"Yes, I see you, Carmody," said Pilbeam playfully. "Peep-bo!"
"Did you see me put that pig in the caravan?"
Pilbeam nodded eleven times in rapid succession.
"Certainly I saw you, Carmody. Why shouldn't I see you, considering I'd
been caught in the rain and taken shelter in the caravan and was in
there with my trousers off, trying to dry them because I'm subject to
lumbago?"
"I didn't see you."
"No, Carmody, you did not. And I'll tell you why, Carmody. Because I
heard a girl's voice outside saying, 'Be quick, or somebody will come
along!' and I hid. You don't suppose I would let a sweet girl see me
in knee-length mesh-knit underwear, do you? Not done, Carmody," said
Pilbeam severely. "Not cricket."
Hugo was experiencing the bitterness which comes to all criminals
who discover too late that they have undone themselves by trying to
be clever. It had seemed at the time such a good idea to remove the
Empress from the gamekeeper's cottage in the west wood and place her
in Baxter's caravan, where nobody would think of looking. How could
he have anticipated that the caravan would be bulging with blighted
detectives?
At this tense moment the door opened and Beach appeared.
"I beg your pardon, sir, but do you propose to wait any longer for Mr.
Ronald?"
"Eh?"
"Certainly not," said Pilbeam. "Who the devil's Mr. Ronald, I should
like to know? I didn't come to this place to do a fast-cure. I want my
dinner, and I want it now. And if Mr. Ronald doesn't like it, he can do
the other thing." He strode in a dominating manner to the door. "Come
along, Carmody. Din-dins."
Hugo had sunk into a chair.
"I don't want any dinner," he said dully.
"You don't want any dinner?"
"No."
"No dinner?"
"No."
Pilbeam shrugged his shoulders impatiently.
"The man's an ass," he said.
He headed for the stairs. His manner seemed to indicate that he washed
his hands of Hugo.
Beach lingered.
"Shall I bring you some sandwiches, sir?"
"No, thanks. What's that?"
A loud crash had sounded. The butler went to the door and looked out.
"It is Mr. Pilbeam, sir. He appears to have fallen downstairs."
For an instant a look of hope crept into Hugo's careworn face.
"Has he broken his neck?"
"Apparently not, sir."
"Ah," said Hugo regretfully.