I
The Efficient Baxter had retired to the smoking room shortly before
half-past seven. He desired silence and solitude, and in this cosy
haven he got both. For a few minutes nothing broke the stillness but
the slow ticking of a clock on the mantelpiece. Then from the direction
of the hall there came a new sound, faint at first but swelling and
swelling to a frenzied blare, seeming to throb through the air with a
note of passionate appeal like a woman wailing for her demon lover. It
was that tocsin of the soul, that muezzin of the country house, the
dressing-for-dinner gong.
Baxter did not stir. The summons left him unmoved. He had heard it,
of course. Butler Beach was a man who swung a pretty gong stick. He
had that quick forearm flick and wristy follow through which stamp the
master. If you were anywhere within a quarter of a mile or so you could
not help hearing him. But the sound had no appeal for Baxter. He did
not propose to go in to dinner. He wanted to be alone with his thoughts.
They were not the sort of thoughts with which most men would have
wished to be left alone, being both dark and bitter. That expedition
to the gamekeeper's cottage in the west wood had not proved a pleasure
trip for Rupert Baxter. Reviewing it in his mind, he burned with
baffled rage.
And yet everybody had been very nice to him--very nice and tactful.
True, at the moment of the discovery that the cottage contained no pig
and appeared to have been pigless from its foundation, there had been
perhaps just the slightest suspicion of constraint. Lord Emsworth had
grasped his ivory-knobbed stick a little more tightly and had edged
behind Beach in a rather noticeable way, his manner saying more plainly
than was agreeable, "If he springs, be ready!" And there had come into
the butler's face a look, hard to bear, which was a blend of censure
and pity. But after that both of them had been charming.
Lord Emsworth had talked soothingly about light and shade effects. He
had said--and Beach had agreed with him--that in the darkness of a
thunderstorm anybody might have been deceived into supposing that he
had seen a butler feeding a pig in the gamekeeper's cottage. It was
probably, said Lord Emsworth--and Beach thought so, too--a bit of wood
sticking out of the wall or something. He went on to tell a longish
story of how he himself, when a boy, had fancied he had seen a cat with
flaming eyes. He had concluded by advising Baxter--and Beach said the
suggestion was a good one--to hurry home and have a nice cup of hot tea
and go to bed.
His attitude, in short, could not have been pleasanter or more
considerate. Yet Baxter, as he sat in the smoking room, burned, as
stated, with baffled rage.
The door handle turned. Beach stood on the threshold.
"If you have changed your mind, sir, about taking dinner, the meal is
quite ready."
He spoke as friend to friend. There was nothing in his manner to
suggest that the man he addressed had ever accused him of stealing
pigs. As far as Beach was concerned, all was forgotten and forgiven.
But the milk of human kindness, of which the butler was so full, had
not yet been delivered on Baxter's doorstep. The hostility in his eye,
as he fixed it on his visitor, was so marked that a lesser man than
Beach might have been disconcerted.
"I don't want any dinner."
"Very good, sir."
"Bring me that whisky-and-soda quick."
"Yes, sir."
The door closed as softly as it had opened, but not before a pang like
a red-hot needle had pierced the ex-secretary's bosom. It was caused by
the fact that he had distinctly heard the butler, as he withdrew, utter
a pitying sigh.
It was the sort of sigh which a kind-hearted man would have given on
peeping into a padded cell in which some old friend was confined, and
Baxter resented it with all the force of an imperious nature. He had
not ceased to wonder what, if anything, could be done about it when the
refreshments arrived, carried by James the footman. James placed them
gently on the table, shot a swift glance of respectful commiseration at
the patient, and passed away.
The sigh had cut Baxter like a knife. The look stabbed him like a
dagger. For a moment he thought of calling the man back and asking
him what the devil he meant by staring at him like that, but wiser
counsels prevailed. He contented himself with draining a glass of
whisky-and-soda and swallowing two sandwiches.
This done, he felt a little--not much, but a little--better. Before, he
would gladly have murdered Beach and James and danced on their graves.
Now, he would have been satisfied with straight murder.
However, he was alone at last. That was some slight consolation. Beach
had come and gone. Footman James had come and gone. Everybody else must
by now be either at Matchingham Hall or assembled in the dining room.
On the solitude which he so greatly desired there could be no further
intrusion. He resumed his meditations.
For a time these dealt exclusively with the recent past, and were, in
consequence, of a morbid character. Then, as the grateful glow of the
whisky began to make itself felt, a softer mood came to Rupert Baxter.
His mind turned to thoughts of Sue.
Men as efficient as Rupert Baxter do not fall in love in the generally
accepted sense of the term. Their attitude toward the tender passion is
more restrained than that of the ordinary feckless young man who loses
his heart at first sight with a whoop and a shiver. Baxter approved of
Sue. We cannot say more. But this approval, added to the fact that he
had been informed by Lady Constance that the girl was the only daughter
of a man who possessed sixty million dollars, had been enough to cause
him to earmark her in his mind as the future Mrs. Baxter. In that
capacity he had docketed her and filed her away at the first moment of
their meeting.
Naturally, therefore, the remarks which Lord Emsworth had let fall
in her hearing had caused him grave concern. It hampers a man in
his wooing if the girl he has selected for his bride starts with the
idea that he is as mad as a coot. He congratulated himself on the
promptitude with which he had handled the situation. That letter which
he had written her could not fail to put him right in her eyes.
Rupert Baxter was a man in whose lexicon there was no such word as
failure. An heiress like this Miss Schoonmaker would not, he was aware,
lack for suitors; but he did not fear them. If only she were making a
reasonably long stay at the castle he felt that he could rely on his
force of character to win the day. In fact, it seemed to him that he
could almost hear the wedding bells ringing already. Then, coming out
of his dreams, he realized that it was the telephone.
He reached for the instrument with a frown, annoyed at the
interruption, and spoke with an irritated sharpness.
"Hullo?"
A ghostly voice replied. The storm seemed to have effected the wires.
"Speak up!" barked Baxter.
He banged the telephone violently on the table. The treatment, as is so
often the case, proved effective.
"Blandings Castle?" said the voice, no longer ghostly.
"Yes."
"Post Office, Market Blandings, speaking. Telegram for Lady Constance
Keeble."
"I will take it."
The voice became faint again. Baxter went through the movements as
before.
"Lady Constance Keeble, Blandings Castle, Market Blandings,
Shropshire, England," said the voice, recovering strength, as if it had
shaken off a wasting sickness. "Handed in at Paris."
"Where?"
"Paris, France."
"Oh? Well?"
The voice gathered volume.
"'Terribly sorry hear news.'"
"What?"
"'News.'"
"Yes?"
"'Terribly sorry hear news Stop Quite understand Stop So disappointed
shall be unable come to you later as going back America at end of Month
Stop Do hope we shall be able arrange something when I return next year
Stop Regards Stop!'"
"Yes?"
"Signed 'Myra Schoonmaker.'"
"Signed--_what?_"
"Myra Schoonmaker."
Baxter's mouth had fallen open. The forehead above the spectacles was
wrinkled, the eyes behind them staring blankly and with a growing
horror.
"Shall I repeat?"
"What?"
"Do you wish the message repeated?"
"No," said Baxter in a choking voice.
He hung up the receiver. There seemed to be something crawling down his
back. His brain was numbed.
Myra Schoonmaker! Telegraphing from Paris!
Then who was this girl who was at the castle calling herself by that
preposterous name? An impostor, an adventuress. She must be.
And if he made a move to expose her she would revenge herself by
showing Lord Emsworth that letter of his.
In the agitation of the moment he had risen to his feet. He now sat
down heavily.
That letter...!
He must recover it. He must recover it at once. As long as it remained
in the girl's possession it was a pistol pointed at his head. Once let
Lord Emsworth become acquainted with those very frank criticisms of
himself which it contained and not even his ally, Lady Constance, would
be able to restore him to his lost secretaryship. The ninth earl was a
mild man, accustomed to bowing to his sister's decrees, but there were
limits beyond which he could not be pushed.
And Baxter yearned to be back at Blandings Castle in the position he
had once enjoyed. Blandings was his spiritual home. He had held other
secretaryships--he held one now, at a salary far higher than that which
Lord Emsworth had paid him--but never had he succeeded in recapturing
that fascinating sense of power, of importance, of being the man who
directed the destinies of one of the largest houses in England.
At all costs he must recover that letter. And the present moment, he
perceived, was ideal for the venture. The girl must have the thing in
her room somewhere, and for the next hour at least she would be in the
dining room. He would have ample opportunity for a search.
He did not delay. Thirty seconds later he was mounting the stairs, his
face set, his spectacles gleaming grimly. A minute later he reached his
destination. No good angel, aware of what the future held, stood on the
threshold to bar his entry. The door was ajar. He pushed it open and
went in.
II
Blandings Castle, like most places of its size and importance,
contained bedrooms so magnificent that they were never used. With their
four-poster beds and their superb but rather oppressive tapestries they
had remained untenanted since the time when Queen Elizabeth, dodging
from country house to country house in that restless, snipe-like way of
hers, had last slept in them. Of the guest rooms still in commission
the most luxurious was that which had been given to Sue.
At the moment when Baxter stole cautiously in, it was looking its best
in the gentle evening light. But Baxter was not in sightseeing mood.
He ignored the carved bedstead, the easy armchairs, the pictures, the
decorations, and the soft carpet into which his feet sank. The beauty
of the sky through the French windows that gave onto the balcony drew
but a single brief glance from him. Without delay he made for the
writing desk which stood against the wall near the bed. It seemed to
him a good point of departure for his search.
There were several pigeonholes in the desk. They contained single
sheets of notepaper, double sheets of notepaper, postcards, envelopes,
telegraph forms, and even a little pad on which the room's occupant was
presumably expected to jot down any stray thoughts and reflections on
Life which might occur to him or her before turning in for the night.
But not one of them contained the fatal letter.
He straightened himself and looked about the room. The drawer of the
dressing table now suggested itself as a possibility. He left the desk
and made his way toward it.
The primary requisite of dressing tables being a good supply of light,
they are usually placed in a position to get as much of it as possible.
This one was no exception. It stood so near to the open windows that
the breeze was ruffling the tassels on its lamp shades: and Baxter,
arriving in front of it, was enabled for the first time to see the
balcony in its entirety.
And as he saw it his heart seemed to side-slip. Leaning upon the
parapet and looking out over the sea of gravel that swept up to the
front door from the rhododendron-fringed drive stood a girl. And not
even the fact that her back was turned could prevent Baxter identifying
her.
For an instant he remained frozen. Even the greatest men congeal
beneath the chill breath of the totally unexpected. He had assumed as
a matter of course that Sue was down in the dining room, and it took
him several seconds to adjust his mind to the unpleasing fact that
she was up on her balcony. When he recovered his presence of mind
sufficiently to draw noiselessly away from the line of vision, his
first emotion was one of irritation. This chopping and changing, this
eleventh-hour alteration of plans, these sudden decisions to remain
upstairs when they ought to be downstairs, were what made women as a
sex so unsatisfactory.
To irritation succeeded a sense of defeat. There was nothing for it,
he realized, but to give up his quest and go. He started to tiptoe
silently to the door, agreeably conscious now of the softness and
thickness of the Axminster pile that made it possible to move unheard,
and had just reached it, when from the other side there came to his
ears a sound of chinking and clattering--the sound, in fact, which is
made by plates and dishes when they are carried on a tray to a guest
who, after a long railway journey, has asked her hostess if she may
take dinner in her room.
Practice makes perfect. This was the second time in the last three
hours that Baxter had found himself trapped in a room in which it was
vitally urgent that he should not be discovered, and he was getting
the technique of the thing. On the previous occasion, in the small
library, he had taken to himself wings like a bird and sailed out of
window. In the present crisis such a course, he perceived immediately,
was not feasible. The way of an eagle would profit him nothing. Soaring
over the balcony, he would be observed by Sue and would, in addition,
unquestionably break his neck. What was needed here was the way of a
diving duck.
And so, as the door handle turned, Rupert Baxter, even in this black
hour efficient, dropped on all-fours and slid under the bed as smoothly
as if he had been practising for weeks.
III
Owing to the restricted nature of his position and the limited range
of vision which he enjoys, virtually the only way in which a man who
is hiding under a bed can entertain himself is by listening to what is
going on outside. He may hear something of interest, or he may hear
only the draught sighing along the floor; but, for better or for worse,
that is all he is able to do.
The first sound that came to Rupert Baxter was that made by the placing
of the tray on the table. Then, after a pause, a pair of squeaking
shoes passed over the carpet and squeaked out of hearing. Baxter
recognized them as those of Footman Thomas, a confirmed squeaker.
After this, somebody puffed, causing him to deduce the presence of
Beach.
"Your dinner is quite ready, miss."
"Oh, thank you."
The girl had apparently come in from the balcony. A chair scraped to
the table. A savoury scent floated to Baxter's nostrils, causing him
acute discomfort. He had just begun to realize how extremely hungry he
was and how rash he had been, first to attempt to dine off a couple of
sandwiches and secondly to undertake a mission like his present one
without a square meal inside him.
"That is chicken, miss--en casserole."
Baxter had deduced as much, and was trying not to let his mind dwell
on it. He uttered a silent groan. In addition to the agony of having
to smell food, he was beginning to be conscious of a growing cramp in
his left leg. He turned on one side and did his best to emulate the
easy nonchalance of those Indian fakirs who, doubtless from the best
motives, spend the formative years of their lives lying on iron spikes.
"It looks very good."
"I trust you will enjoy it, miss. Is there anything further that I can
do for you?"
"No, thank you. Oh, yes. Would you mind fetching that manuscript from
the balcony? I was reading it out there, and I left it on the chair.
It's Mr. Threepwood's book."
"Indeed, miss? An exceedingly interesting compilation, I should
imagine?"
"Yes, very."
"I wonder if it would be taking a liberty, miss, to ask you to inform
me later, at your leisure, if I make any appearance in its pages."
"You?"
"Yes, miss. From what Mr. Galahad has let fall from time to time I
fancy it was his intention to give me printed credit as his authority
for certain of the stories which appear in the book."
"Do you want to be in it?"
"Most decidedly, miss. I should consider it an honour. And it would
please my mother."
"Have you a mother?"
"Yes, miss. She lives at Eastbourne."
The butler moved majestically onto the balcony, and Sue's mind had
turned to speculation about his mother and whether she looked anything
like him when there was a sound of hurrying feet without, the door flew
open, and Beach's mother passed from her mind like the unsubstantial
fabric of a dream. With a little choking cry she rose to her feet.
Ronnie was standing before her.