Uncle Fred in the Springtime Page 13

  His admission to Lady Constance that there was nothing which he himself could do in this situation which called so imperiously for decisive action had irked Rupert Baxter and wounded his self-esteem. That remark of Pongo’s, moreover, about a dead stymie still rankled in his bosom like a poisoned dart. He was not accustomed to being laid dead stymies by the dregs of the underworld. Was there, he asked himself, no method by which he could express his personality, no means whereby he could make his presence felt? He concentrated on the problem exercising his brain vigorously.

  It often happens that great brains, when vigorously exercised, find a musical accompaniment of assistance to their activities. Or, putting it another way, thinkers, while thinking, frequently whistle. Rupert Baxter did, selecting for his purpose a melody which had always been a favourite of his — the ‘Bonny Bonny Banks of Loch Lomond’.

  If he had been less preoccupied, he would have observed that at about the fourth bar a. certain liveliness had begun to manifest itself behind the french window which he was passing. It opened softly, and a white-moustached head peered furtively out. But he was preoccupied, and consequently did not observe it. He reached the end of the lawn, ground a heel into the immemorial turf and turned. Starting his measured walk anew, he once more approached the window.

  He was now singing. He had a pleasant tenor voice.

  ‘You take the high road

  And I’ll take the low road,

  And I’ll be in Scotland a-FORE ye.

  For I and my true love

  Will never meet again —’

  The starlight gleamed on a white-moustached figure.

  ‘On the bonny bonny BANKS of Loch LO —’

  Something whizzed through the night air … crashed on Rupert Baxter’s cheek … spread itself in sticky ruin ….

  And simultaneously there came from the Garden Suite the sudden, sharp cry of a strong man in pain.

  It was perhaps half an hour after he had left it that Lord Ickenham returned to the billiard-room. He found Pongo still there, but no longer alone. He had been joined by Lord Bosham, who had suggested a hundred up, and Lord Ickenham found the game nearing its conclusion, with Pongo, exhilarated by recent happenings, performing prodigies with cue. He took a seat, and with a decent respect for the amenities waited in silence until the struggle was over.

  Lord Bosham resumed his coat.

  ‘Jolly well played, sir,’ he said handsomely, a gallant loser. ‘Jolly good game. Very jolly, the whole thing.’ He paused, and looked at Lord Ickenham enquiringly. The latter had clicked his tongue and was shaking his head with an air of rebuke. ‘Eh?’ he said.

  ‘It was simply that the irony of the thing struck me,’ explained Lord Ickenham. ‘Tragedy has been stalking through this house: doctors have been telephoned for, sick rooms made ready, cool compresses prepared; and here are you two young men carelessly playing billiards. Fiddling while Rome burns is about what it amounts to.’

  ‘Eh?’ said Lord Bosham again, this time adding a ‘What?’ to lend the word greater weight. He found him cryptic.

  ‘Somebody ill?’ asked Pongo. ‘Not Baxter?’ he went on, a note of hope in his voice.

  ‘I would not say that Baxter was actually ill,’ said Lord Ickenham, ‘though no doubt much bruised in spirit. He got an egg on the left cheek-bone. But soap and water will by now have put this right. Far more serious is the case of the Duke. It was he who threw the egg, and overestimating the limberness of what is known in America, I believe, as the old soup-bone, he put his shoulder out. I left him drinking barley-water with his arm in a sling.’

  ‘I say!’ said Lord Bosham. ‘How dashed unpleasant for him.’

  ‘Yes, he didn’t seem too elated about it.’

  ‘Still,’ argued Pongo, pointing out the bright side, ‘he got Baxter all right?’

  ‘Oh, he got him squarely. I must confess that my respect for the Duke has become considerably enhanced by tonight’s exhibition of marksmanship. Say what you will, there is something fine about our old aristocracy. I’ll bet Trotsky couldn’t hit a moving secretary with an egg on a dark night.’

  A point occurred to Lord Bosham. His was rather a slow mind, but he had a way of getting down to essentials.

  ‘Why did old Dunstable bung an egg at Baxter?’

  ‘I thought you might want to know that. Events moved towards the big moment with the inevitability of Greek tragedy. There appears to be a member of the gardening staff of Blandings Castle who has a partiality for the “Bonny Bonny Banks of Loch Lomond”, and he whistles and sings it outside the Duke’s window, with the result that the latter has for some time been lying in wait for him with a basket of eggs. Tonight, for some reason which I am unable to explain, Baxter put himself on as an understudy. The Duke and I were in the Garden Suite, chatting of this and that, when he suddenly came on the air and the Duke, diving into a cupboard like a performing seal, emerged with laden hands and started to say it with eggs. I should have explained that he has a rooted distaste for that particular song. I gather that his sensitive ear is offended by that rather daring rhyme — ‘Loch Lomond’ and ‘afore ye’. Still, if I had given the matter more thought, I would have warned him. You can’t throw eggs at his age without —’

  The opening of the door caused him to suspend his remarks. Lady Constance came in. Her sigh of relief as she saw Lord Bosham died away as she perceived the low company he was keeping.

  ‘Oh!’ she said, surveying his foul associates with unconcealed dislike, and Pongo, on whom the first full force of her gaze had been turned, shook like a jelly and fell backwards against the billiard-table.

  Lord Ickenham, as usual, remained suave and debonair.

  ‘Ah, Lady Constance. I have just been telling the boys about the Duke’s unfortunate accident.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Lord Bosham. ‘It’s true, is it, that the old bird has bust a flipper?’

  ‘He has wrenched his shoulder most painfully,’ assented Lady Constance, with a happier choice of phrase. ‘Have you finished your game, Bosham? Then I would like to speak to you.’

  She led her nephew out, and Lord Ickenham looked after her thoughtfully.

  ‘Odd,’ he said. ‘Surely her manner was frigid? Did you notice a frigidity in her manner, Pongo?’

  ‘I don’t know about her manner. Her eye was piping hot,’ said Pongo, who was still quivering.

  ‘Warm eye, cold manner…. This must mean something. Can Baxter have been blowing the gaff, after all? But no, he wouldn’t dare. I suppose it was just a hostess’s natural reaction to having her guests wrench themselves asunder and involve her in a lot of fuss with doctors. Let us dismiss her from our thoughts, for we have plenty of other, things to talk about. To begin with, that pig-snitching scheme is off.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘You remember I outlined it to you? It was to have started with you driving Emsworth’s pig to Ickenham and ended with him gratefully pressing purses of gold into’ your hand, but I’m afraid it is not to be. The Duke’s stranglehold on Emsworth, you will. recall, was the fact that if the latter did not obey his lightest word he would wreck the home with a poker. This accident, of course, has rendered him incapable of any serious poker-work for some time to come, and Emsworth, seizing his advantage like a master-strategist, has notified him that he cannot have the pig. So he no longer wishes it snitched.’

  Pongo had listened to this exposition with mixed feelings. On the whole, relief prevailed. A purse of gold would undoubtedly have come in uncommonly handy, but better, he felt, to give it a miss than to pass a night of terror in a car with a pig. Like so many sensitive young men, he shrank from making himself conspicuous, and only a person wilfully blind to the realities of life could deny that you made yourself dashed conspicuous, driving pigs across England in cars.

  ‘Well,’ he said, having considered, ‘I could have used a purse of gold, but I don’t know that I’m sorry.’

  ‘You may be.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

>   ‘Another complication has arisen, which is going to make it a little difficult for us to linger here and look about at our leisure for ways of collecting cash.’

  ‘Oh, my gosh, what’s wrong now?’

  ‘I would not say that there was anything wrong. This is just an additional obstacle, and one welcomes obstacles. They put one on one’s mettle and bring out the best in one.’

  Pongo danced a step or two.

  ‘Can’t you tell me what has happened?

  ‘I will tell you in a word. You know Polly’s minstrel boy. The poet with a punch.’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘He will shortly be with us.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Yes, he’s joining the troupe. When we were alone together, after the tumult and the shouting had died and the captains and kings — I allude to Emsworth, Connie and the doctor — had departed, the Duke confided in me that he was going to show Emsworth what was what. That pig, he said, had been definitely promised to him, and if Emsworth thought he could double-cross him, he was dashed well mistaken. He intends to steal the pig, and has sent for Ricky Gilpin to come and do it. In my presence, he dictated a long telegram to the young man, commanding his instant presence.’

  ‘But if Ricky comes here and meets Miss Pott, we shall be dished. You can’t fool a hard-headed bird like that the way we did Horace.’

  ‘No. That is why I called it an obstacle. Still, he will not actually be in residence at the castle. The Duke’s instructions to him were to take a room at the Emsworth Arms. He may not meet Polly.’

  ‘A fat chance!’

  ‘Pretty obese, I admit. Still, we must hope for the best. Pull yourself together, my dear Pongo. Square the shoulders and chuck out the chest. Sing like the birdies sing — Tweet, tweet-tweet, tweet-tweet.’

  ‘If you’re interested in my plans, I’m going to bed.’

  ‘Yes, do, and get a nice rest.’

  ‘Rest!’

  ‘You think you may have some difficulty in dropping off? Count sheep.’

  ‘Sheep! I shall count Baxters and Lady Constances and loony uncles. Ha!’ said Pongo, withdrawing.

  Lord Ickenham took up a cue and gave the white ball a pensive tap. He was a little perplexed. The reference to Baxter and Lady Constance he could understand. It was the allusion to loony uncles that puzzled him.

  Lady Constance Keeble was a gifted raconteuse. She had the knack of telling a story in a way that left her audience, even when it consisted of a nephew who had to have the He-and-She jokes in the comic papers explained to him, with a clear grasp of what she was talking about. After a shaky start, Lord Bosham followed her like a bloodhound. Long before she had finished speaking, he had gathered that what Blandings Castle was overrun with was impostors, not mice.

  His first words indicated this.

  ‘What ho!’ he said. ‘Impostors!’

  ‘Impostors!’ said Lady Constance, driving it home.

  ‘What ho, what ho!’ said Lord Bosham, giving additional proof that he was alive to the gravity of the situation.

  A silence followed. Furrows across his forehead and a tense look on his pink face showed that Lord Bosham was thinking.

  ‘Then, by Jove,’ he said, ‘this bird is the bird, after all! I thought for a while,’ he explained, ‘that he couldn’t be the bird, but now you’ve told me this it’s quite clear he must be the bird. The bird in the flesh, by Jingo! Well, I’m dashed!’

  Lady Constance was very seldom in the mood for this sort of thing, and tonight after the nervous strain to which she had been subjected she was less in the mood for it than ever.

  ‘What are you talking about, George?’

  ‘This bird,’ said Lord Bosham, seeing that he had not made himself clear. ‘It turns out he was the bird, after all.’

  ‘Oh, George!’ Lady Constance paused for an instant. It was a hard thing that she was going to say, but she felt she must say it. ‘Really, there are times when you are exactly like your father!’

  ‘The confidence-trick bird,’ said Lord Bosham, annoyed at her slowness of comprehension. ‘Dash it, you can’t have forgotten me telling you about the suave bimbo who got away with my wallet in Park Lane.’

  Lady Constance’s fine eyes widened.

  ‘You don’t mean —?’

  ‘Yes, I do. That’s just what I do mean. Absolutely. When I met him at the station, the first thing I said to myself was ‘What ho, the bird!’ Then I said to myself: ‘What ho, no, not the bird.’ Because you had told me he was a big bug in the medical world. But now you tell me he isn’t a big bug in the medical world —’

  Lady Constance brought her hand sharply down on the arm of her chair.

  ‘This settles it! Mr Baxter was wrong.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Mr Baxter thinks that the reason these people have come here is that they are trying to trap Horace Davenport into marrying the girl. I don’t believe it. They are after my diamond necklace. George, we must act immediately!’

  ‘How?’ asked Lord Bosham, and for the second time since their conference had begun Lady Constance was struck by the resemblance of his thought-processes to those of a brother whom she had often wanted to hit over the head with a blunt instrument.

  ‘There is only one thing to do. We must —’But half a jiffy. Aren’t you missing the nub? If you know these bounders are wrong ‘uns, why don’t we just whistle up the local police force?’

  ‘We can’t. Do you suppose I did not think of that? It would mean that Mr Baxter would lose his position with Alaric.’

  ‘Eh? Why? What? Which? Wherefore? Why would Baxter lose his posish?’

  It irked Lady Constance to be obliged to waste valuable time in order to explain the position of affairs, but she did it.

  ‘Oh, ah?’ said Lord Bosham, enlightened. ‘Yes, I see. But couldn’t he get another job?’

  ‘Of course he could. But he was emphatic about wishing to continue in Alaric’s employment, so what you suggest is out of the question. We must —’I’ll tell you one thing. I don’t intend to be far away from my gun these next few days.

  This is official.’

  Lady Constance stamped her foot. It was not an easy thing for a sitting woman to do impressively, but she did it in a way that effectually silenced a nephew who in his boyhood had frequently been spanked by her with the back of a hairbrush. Lord Bosham, who had intended to speak further of his gun, of which he was very fond, desisted.

  ‘Will you please not keep interrupting me, George! I say there is only one thing to do. We must send for a detective to watch these people.’

  ‘Why, of course!’ Like his younger brother, Frederick Threepwood, now over in the United States of America selling the dog biscuits manufactured by the father of his charming wife, Lord Bosham was a great reader of thrillers, and anything about detectives touched a ready chord in him. ‘That’s the stuff! And you know just the man, don’t you?’

  ‘I?’

  ‘Wasn’t there a detective here last summer?’

  Lady Constance shuddered. The visit of the person to whom he alluded had not passed from her memory. Sometimes she thought it never would. Occasionally in the late afternoon, when the vitality is low and one tends to fall a prey to strange, morbid fancies, she had the illusion that she was still seeing that waxed moustache of his.

  ‘Pilbeam!’ she cried. ‘I would rather be murdered in my bed than have that man Pilbeam in the house again. Don’t you know any detectives?’

  ‘Me? No. Why should I know any…. By Jove, yes, I do, though,’ said Lord Bosham, inspired. ‘By Jingo, now I come to think of it, of course I do. That man of Horace’s.’

  ‘What man of Horace’s?’

  Lord Bosham dissembled. Belatedly, he had realized that he was on the verge of betraying confidences. Horace, he recalled, when unburdening his soul during their drive from London, had sworn him to the strictest secrecy on the subject of his activities as an employer of private investigators.

  �
��Well, when I say he was a man of Horace’s, of course I’m sort of speaking loosely. He was a fellow Horace told me about that a friend of his engaged to—to—er—do something or other.’

  ‘And did he do it?’ ‘Oh, yes, he did it.’ ‘He is competent, then?’ ‘Oh, most competent.’

  ‘What is his name?’ ‘Pott. Claude Pott.’

  ‘Do you know his address?’

  ‘I expect it would be in the book.’

  ‘Then go and speak to him now. Tell him to come down here immediately.’ ‘Right ho,’ said Lord Bosham.

  13

  The Duke’s decision, on receiving Lord Emsworth’s ultimatum regarding the Empress of Blandings, to mobilize his nephew Ricky and plunge immediately into power politics was one which would have occasioned no surprise to anybody acquainted with the militant traditions of his proud family. It was this man’s father who had twice cut down the barbed wire fence separating the garden of his villa in the South of France from the local golf links. His grandfather, lunching at his club, had once rubbed the nose of a member of the committee in an unsatisfactory omelette. The Dukes of Dunstable had always been men of a high and haughty spirit, swift to resent affronts and institute reprisals — the last persons in the world, in short, from whom you could hope to withhold pigs with impunity.

  His shoulder, thanks to the prompt treatment it had received, had soon ceased to pain him. Waking next morning, he found himself troubled physically by nothing worse than an uncomfortable stiffness. But there was no corresponding improvement in his spiritual condition. Far into the night he had lain brooding on Lord Emsworth’s chicanery, and a new day brought no relief. The bitterness still persisted, and with it the grim determination to fight for his rights.

  At hunch-time a telegram came from his nephew saying that he was catching the five o’clock train, and at ten o’clock on the following morning, after another wakeful night, he summoned his secretary, Rupert Baxter, and bade him commandeer a car from the castle garage and drive him to the Emsworth Arms. He arrived there at half-past ten precisely, and a red-haired, thick-set, freckled young man came bounding across the lounge to greet him.