“I think I know what’s on your mind, Tuppy,” I said. “If you were in
those bushes during my conversation with the recent Angela, I dare say
you heard what I was saying about you.”
“I did.”
“I see. Well, we won’t go into the ethics of the thing. Eavesdropping,
some people might call it, and I can imagine stern critics drawing in
the breath to some extent. Considering it--I don’t want to hurt your
feelings, Tuppy--but considering it un-English. A bit un-English,
Tuppy, old man, you must admit.”
“I’m Scotch.”
“Really?” I said. “I never knew that before. Rummy how you don’t
suspect a man of being Scotch unless he’s Mac-something and says ‘Och,
aye’ and things like that. I wonder,” I went on, feeling that an
academic discussion on some neutral topic might ease the tension, “if
you can tell me something that has puzzled me a good deal. What exactly
is it that they put into haggis? I’ve often wondered about that.”
From the fact that his only response to the question was to leap over
the bench and make a grab at me, I gathered that his mind was not on
haggis.
“However,” I said, leaping over the bench in my turn, “that is a side
issue. If, to come back to it, you were in those bushes and heard what
I was saying about you----”
He began to move round the bench in a nor’-nor’-easterly direction. I
followed his example, setting a course sou’-sou’-west.
“No doubt you were surprised at the way I was talking.”
“Not a bit.”
“What? Did nothing strike you as odd in the tone of my remarks?”
“It was just the sort of stuff I should have expected a treacherous,
sneaking hound like you to say.”
“My dear chap,” I protested, “this is not your usual form. A bit slow
in the uptake, surely? I should have thought you would have spotted
right away that it was all part of a well-laid plan.”
“I’ll get you in a jiffy,” said Tuppy, recovering his balance after a
swift clutch at my neck. And so probable did this seem that I delayed
no longer, but hastened to place all the facts before him.
Speaking rapidly and keeping moving, I related my emotions on receipt
of Aunt Dahlia’s telegram, my instant rush to the scene of the
disaster, my meditations in the car, and the eventual framing of this
well-laid plan of mine. I spoke clearly and well, and it was with
considerable concern, consequently, that I heard him observe--between
clenched teeth, which made it worse--that he didn’t believe a damned
word of it.
“But, Tuppy,” I said, “why not? To me the thing rings true to the last
drop. What makes you sceptical? Confide in me, Tuppy.”
He halted and stood taking a breather. Tuppy, pungently though Angela
might have argued to the contrary, isn’t really fat. During the winter
months you will find him constantly booting the football with merry
shouts, and in the summer the tennis racket is seldom out of his hand.
But at the recently concluded evening meal, feeling, no doubt, that
after that painful scene in the larder there was nothing to be gained
by further abstinence, he had rather let himself go and, as it were,
made up leeway; and after really immersing himself in one of Anatole’s
dinners, a man of his sturdy build tends to lose elasticity a bit.
During the exposition of my plans for his happiness a certain animation
had crept into this round-and-round-the mulberry-bush jamboree of
ours--so much so, indeed, that for the last few minutes we might have
been a rather oversized greyhound and a somewhat slimmer electric hare
doing their stuff on a circular track for the entertainment of the
many-headed.
This, it appeared, had taken it out of him a bit, and I was not
displeased. I was feeling the strain myself, and welcomed a lull.
“It absolutely beats me why you don’t believe it,” I said. “You know
we’ve been pals for years. You must be aware that, except at the moment
when you caused me to do a nose dive into the Drones’ swimming bath,
an incident which I long since decided to put out of my mind and let
the dead past bury its dead about, if you follow what I mean--except on
that one occasion, as I say, I have always regarded you with the utmost
esteem. Why, then, if not for the motives I have outlined, should I
knock you to Angela? Answer me that. Be very careful.”
“What do you mean, be very careful?”
Well, as a matter of fact, I didn’t quite know myself. It was what the
magistrate had said to me on the occasion when I stood in the dock
as Eustace Plimsoll, of The Laburnums: and as it had impressed me a
good deal at the time, I just bunged it in now by way of giving the
conversation a tone.
“All right. Never mind about being careful, then. Just answer me that
question. Why, if I had not your interests sincerely at heart, should I
have ticked you off, as stated?”
A sharp spasm shook him from base to apex. The beetle, which, during
the recent exchanges, had been clinging to his head, hoping for the
best, gave it up at this and resigned office. It shot off and was
swallowed in the night.
“Ah!” I said. “Your beetle,” I explained. “No doubt you were unaware of
it, but all this while there has been a beetle of sorts parked on the
side of your head. You have now dislodged it.”
He snorted.
“Beetles!”
“Not beetles. One beetle only.”
“I like your crust!” cried Tuppy, vibrating like one of Gussie’s newts
during the courting season. “Talking of beetles, when all the time you
know you’re a treacherous, sneaking hound.”
It was a debatable point, of course, why treacherous, sneaking hounds
should be considered ineligible to talk about beetles, and I dare say a
good cross-examining counsel would have made quite a lot of it.
But I let it go.
“That’s the second time you’ve called me that. And,” I said firmly, “I
insist on an explanation. I have told you that I acted throughout from
the best and kindliest motives in roasting you to Angela. It cut me
to the quick to have to speak like that, and only the recollection of
our lifelong friendship would have made me do it. And now you say you
don’t believe me and call me names for which I am not sure I couldn’t
have you up before a beak and jury and mulct you in very substantial
damages. I should have to consult my solicitor, of course, but it would
surprise me very much if an action did not lie. Be reasonable, Tuppy.
Suggest another motive I could have had. Just one.”
“I will. Do you think I don’t know? You’re in love with Angela
yourself.”
“What?”
“And you knocked me in order to poison her mind against me and finally
remove me from your path.”
I had never heard anything so absolutely loopy in my life. Why, dash
it, I’ve known Angela since she was so high. You don’t fall in love
with close relations you’ve known since they were so high. Besides,
isn’t there something in the book of rules about a man may not marry
his cousin? Or am I thinking of grandmothers?
“Tuppy, my dear old ass,” I cried, “this is pure banana oil! You’ve
come unscrewed.”
“Oh, yes?”
“Me in love with Angela? Ha-ha!”
“You can’t get out of it with ha-ha’s. She called you ‘darling’.”
“I know. And I disapproved. This habit of the younger g. of scattering
‘darlings’ about like birdseed is one that I deprecate. Lax, is how I
should describe it.”
“You tickled her ankles.”
“In a purely cousinly spirit. It didn’t mean a thing. Why, dash it, you
must know that in the deeper and truer sense I wouldn’t touch Angela
with a barge pole.”
“Oh? And why not? Not good enough for you?”
“You misunderstand me,” I hastened to reply. “When I say I wouldn’t
touch Angela with a barge pole, I intend merely to convey that my
feelings towards her are those of distant, though cordial, esteem. In
other words, you may rest assured that between this young prune and
myself there never has been and never could be any sentiment warmer and
stronger than that of ordinary friendship.”
“I believe it was you who tipped her off that I was in the larder last
night, so that she could find me there with that pie, thus damaging my
prestige.”
“My dear Tuppy! A Wooster?” I was shocked. “You think a Wooster would
do that?”
He breathed heavily.
“Listen,” he said. “It’s no good your standing there arguing. You can’t
get away from the facts. Somebody stole her from me at Cannes. You told
me yourself that she was with you all the time at Cannes and hardly saw
anybody else. You gloated over the mixed bathing, and those moonlight
walks you had together----”
“Not gloated. Just mentioned them.”
“So now you understand why, as soon as I can get you clear of this
damned bench, I am going to tear you limb from limb. Why they have
these bally benches in gardens,” said Tuppy discontentedly, “is more
than I can see. They only get in the way.”
He ceased, and, grabbing out, missed me by a hair’s breadth.
It was a moment for swift thinking, and it is at such moments, as I
have already indicated, that Bertram Wooster is at his best. I suddenly
remembered the recent misunderstanding with the Bassett, and with a
flash of clear vision saw that this was where it was going to come in
handy.
“You’ve got it all wrong, Tuppy,” I said, moving to the left. “True,
I saw a lot of Angela, but my dealings with her were on a basis from
start to finish of the purest and most wholesome camaraderie. I can
prove it. During that sojourn in Cannes my affections were engaged
elsewhere.”
“What?”
“Engaged elsewhere. My affections. During that sojourn.”
I had struck the right note. He stopped sidling. His clutching hand
fell to his side.
“Is that true?”
“Quite official.”
“Who was she?”
“My dear Tuppy, does one bandy a woman’s name?”
“One does if one doesn’t want one’s ruddy head pulled off.”