Sue stood on the balcony, looking out into the night. Velvet darkness
shrouded the world, and from the heart of it came the murmur of
rustling trees and the clean, sweet smell of earth and flowers. A
little breeze had sprung up, stirring the ivy at her side. Somewhere in
it a bird was chirping drowsily, and in the distance sounded the tinkle
of running water.
She sighed. It was a night made for happiness. And she was quite sure
now that happiness was not for her.
A footstep sounded behind her, and she turned eagerly.
"Ronnie!"
It was the voice of the Hon. Galahad Threepwood that answered.
"Only me, I'm afraid, my dear. May I come onto your balcony? God bless
my soul, as Clarence would say, what a wonderful night!"
"Yes!" said Sue doubtfully.
"You don't think so?"
"Oh, yes."
"I bet you don't. I know I didn't that night when my old father put his
foot down and told me I was leaving for South Africa on the next boat.
Just such a night as this it was, I remember." He rested his arms on
the parapet. "I never saw your mother after she was married," he said.
"No?"
"No. She left the stage and--oh, well, I was rather busy at the
time--lot of heavy drinking to do, and so forth, and somehow we never
met. The next thing I heard--two or three years ago--was that she was
dead. You're very like her, my dear. Can't think why I didn't spot the
resemblance right away."
He became silent. Sue did not speak. She slid her hand under his
arm. It was all that there seemed to do. A corncrake began to call
monotonously in the darkness.
"That means rain," said the Hon. Galahad. "Or not. I forget which. Did
you ever hear your mother sing that song----No, you wouldn't. Before
your time. About young Ronald," he said abruptly.
"What about him?"
"Fond of him?"
"Yes."
"I mean really fond?"
"Yes."
"How fond?"
She leaned out over the parapet. At the foot of the wall beneath her
Percy Pilbeam, who had been peering out of a bush, popped his head back
again. For the detective, possibly remembering with his subconscious mind
stories heard in childhood of Bruce and the spider, had refused to
admit defeat and returned by devious ways to the scene of his disaster.
Five hundred pounds is a lot of money, and Percy Pilbeam was not going
to be deterred from attempting to earn it by the fact that at his
last essay he had only just succeeded in escaping with his life. The
influence of his potations had worn off to some extent, and he was his
calm, keen self again. It was his intention to lurk in these bushes
till the small hours, if need be, and then to attack the waterspout
again, and so to the Garden Room where the manuscript of the Hon.
Galahad's Reminiscences lay. You cannot be a good detective if you are
easily discouraged.
"I can't put it into words," said Sue.
"Try."
"No. Everything you say straight out about the way you feel about
anybody always sounds silly. Besides, to you Ronnie isn't the sort of
man you could understand anyone raving about. You look on him just as
something quite ordinary."
"If that," said the Hon. Galahad critically.
"Yes, if that. Whereas to me he's something--rather special. In
fact, if you really want to know how I feel about Ronnie, he's the
whole world to me. There! I told you it would sound silly. It's like
something out of a song, isn't it? I've worked in the chorus of that
sort of song a hundred times. Two steps left, two steps right, kick,
smile, both hands on heart--because he's all the wo-orld to me-ee! You
can laugh if you like."
There was a momentary pause.
"I'm not laughing," said the Hon. Galahad. "My dear, I only wanted to
find out if you really cared for that young Fish."
"I wish you wouldn't call him 'that young Fish.'"
"I'm sorry, my dear. It seems to describe him so neatly. Well, I just
wanted to be quite sure you really were fond of him because----"
"Well?"
"Well, because I've just fixed it all up."
She clutched at the parapet.
"What!"
"Oh, yes," said the Hon. Galahad. "It's all settled. I don't say that
you can actually count on an aunt-in-law's embrace from my sister
Constance--in fact, if I were you, I wouldn't risk it--she might bite
you--but apart from that, everything's all right. The wedding bells
will ring out. Your young man's in the garden somewhere. You had better
go and find him and tell him the news. He'll be interested."
"But--but----"
Sue was clutching his arm. A wild impulse was upon her to shout and
sob. She had no doubts now as to the beauty of the night.
"But--how? Why? What has happened?"
"Well--you'll admit I might have married your mother?"
"Yes."
"Which makes me a sort of honorary father to you."
"Yes."
"In which capacity, my dear, your interests are mine. More than mine,
in fact. So what I did was to make your happiness the Price of the
Papers. Ever see that play? No, before your time. It ran at the Adelphi
before you were born. There was a scene where----"
"What do you mean?"
The Hon. Galahad hesitated a moment.
"Well, the fact of the matter is, my dear, knowing how strongly my
sister Constance has always felt on the subject of those Reminiscences
of mine, I went to her and put it to her squarely. 'Clarence,' I
said to her, 'is not the sort of man to make any objection to anyone
marrying anybody so long as he isn't expected to attend the wedding.
You're the real obstacle,' I said. 'You and Julia. And if you come
round, you can talk Julia over in five minutes. You know how she relies
on your judgment.' And then I said that, if she gave up acting like a
barbed-wire entanglement in the path of true love I would undertake not
to publish the Reminiscences."
Sue clung to his arm. She could find no words.
Percy Pilbeam, who, for the night was very still, had heard all,
could have found many. Nothing but the delicate nature of his present
situation kept him from uttering them, and that only just. To Percy
Pilbeam it was as if he had seen five hundred pounds flutter from his
grasp like a vanishing blue bird. He raged dumbly. In all London and
the Home Counties there were few men who liked five hundred pounds
better than P. Frobisher Pilbeam.
"Oh!" said Sue. Nothing more. Her feelings were too deep. She hugged
his arm. "Oh!" she said, and again, "Oh!"
She found herself crying and was not ashamed.
"Now, come!" said the Hon. Galahad protestingly. "Nothing so very
extraordinary in that, was there? Nothing so exceedingly remarkable in
one pal helping another?"
"I don't know what to say."
"Then don't say it," said the Hon. Galahad, much relieved. "Why, bless
you, I don't care whether the damned things are published or not. At
least--no, certainly I don't.... Only cause a lot of unpleasantness.
Besides, I'll leave the dashed book to the nation and have it published
in a hundred years and become the Pepys of the future, what? Best thing
that could have happened. Homage of Posterity and all that."
"Oh!" said Sue.
The Hon. Galahad chuckled.
"It is a shame, though, that the world will have to wait a hundred
years before it hears the story of young Gregory Parsloe and the
prawns. Did you get to that when you were reading the thing this
evening?"
"I'm afraid I didn't read very much," said Sue. "I was thinking of
Ronnie rather a lot."
"Oh? Well, I can tell you. You needn't wait a hundred years. It was at
Ascot, the year Martingale won the Gold Cup...."
Down below, Percy Pilbeam rose from his bush. He did not care now
if he were seen. He was still a guest at this hole of a castle, and
if a guest cannot pop in and out of bushes if he likes, where does
British hospitality come in? It was his intention to shake the dust of
Blandings off his feet, to pass the night at the Emsworth Arms, and on
the morrow to return to London, where he was appreciated.
"Well, my dear, it was like this. Young Parsloe...."
Percy Pilbeam did not linger. The story of the prawns meant nothing
to him. He turned away, and the summer night swallowed him. Somewhere
in the darkness an owl hooted. It seemed to Pilbeam that there was
derision in the sound. He frowned. His teeth came together with a
little click.
If he could have found it he would have had a word with that owl.
THE END