Lord Emsworth and Others Read online

  At dinner that night, no one had occasion to rally me on my preoccupation. It had just occurred to me that, when the time came to announce the scarlet fever, I could not only send these birds racing out of the house, but would probably be in a position to mulct them in heavy damages for breaking their legal agreements. The result was that I sparkled as never before. I had instructed Barter, in view of the changed conditions, to stop looking grave and to lay off the ominous head-shaking till I gave the word, so that there was not an unsmiling face about the board. The evening was voted by all one of our best and j oiliest.

  The following day passed off equally well. Dinner was a perfect joy-feast. And, the others having retired to rest and not feeling particularly sleepy myself, I fished out a cigar and mixed myself a drink and went and sat in the study, trying to estimate how far ahead I should be when at length the good thing had to be closed down.

  And I may tell you, Corky, that I was in extremely sunny mood, as a man may well be who has snatched victory from the jaws of defeat and by his level head and vision has placed himself in a position to amass enormous wealth.

  Such were my meditations, old horse, and they were getting juicier and juicier every moment, when suddenly from somewhere upstairs there came the sound of a shot. And then another. Two shots in all. And something seemed to tell me that they were to be chalked up to the credit of Lieutenant-Colonel B. B. Bagnew's Army revolver.

  And, sure enough, after a while, as I stood at the door listening for further manifestations, along came the Colonel, waving the weapon.

  'What was all the shooting for?' I asked.

  The Colonel was looking pretty pleased with himself. He followed me into the study and took a chair

  'Didn't I tell you,' he said, 'that that chap who pretended to inspect the drains was the advance-man of a gang of burglars? I was just dropping off to sleep when I thought I heard a noise on the stairs. I took my revolver and, stepping softly like a leopard, went out into the passage. And there, at the head of the stairs, was a shadowy figure, creeping along. It was too dark to distinguish anything but a dim outline, but I blazed away.'

  'Yes?' I said. 'Yes?'

  The Colonel clicked his tongue, annoyed. 'I must have missed,' he said. 'When I switched on the lights, there was no corpse.'

  'No corpse?' I said.

  'No corpse,' said the Colonel. ‘I attribute it to the fact that the visibility was not good. In fact, we were in almost total darkness. I had the same experience once in Purundapore. Well, I looked around for a while, but I could see it was no use. The passage window was open, and I have no doubt the miscreant made good his escape that way. There is ivy on the walls, and he could have scrambled down without difficulty.'

  'Did the fellow say anything?'

  'Yes,' said the Colonel. 'Odd that you should ask that. Just after I had fired the first shot, he said something that sounded like "Bah! Bah!" speaking in a curious, high-pitched voice.'

  'Bah, bah?' I said, a bit puzzled. It didn't seem to me to make sense.

  'That is what it sounded like.'

  ‘A loony burglar.'

  'He may have been snarling.'

  'Do burglars snarl?'

  'Frequently,' said the Colonel.

  He helped himself to a liberal spot and sucked it down with the air of a man who has borne himself in a fashion well befitting an ex-officer of a proud regiment.

  It struck me that it was strange that the house was so quiet. I should have thought my lodgers, hearing shots in the night, would have been buzzing about a bit, making inquiries.

  'Where are all the others?' I asked.

  The Colonel chuckled tolerantly.

  'Lying deuced low. Well, well,' he said, 'I suppose we mustn't blame them. Physical courage is a thing that comes naturally to some, not so readily to others. I was surprised myself that nobody seemed to have taken any notice of the little affair, so I went the rounds and found them all snug in bed. The bedclothes weren't actually over their heads, I admit, but it was a very near thing in one or two cases. Poor Lady Bastable was particularly upset. Apparently she has mislaid the key to her door. And now what? Shall we search the house?'

  'There doesn't seem much sense in that, does there? You say the bird escaped by the passage window.'

  ‘I think he must have done. Certainly he disappeared with the most extraordinary rapidity. One moment he was there, the next he had vanished.'

  'Well, I think one last spot, then, and to bed.'

  'Perhaps you're right,' said the Colonel.

  So we had a final one and then parted for the night. At least we didn't part immediately, because we were sleeping on the same floor. My room was at the head of the stairs next to Lady Bastable's, and the Colonel dossed at the end of the passage.

  I thought it only courteous as a host to tap at Lady Bastable's door as I passed, with a view to inquiring how she was making out. But there was such a frightful yelp of anguished fear from within at the first impact of my knuckles on the wood that I didn't proceed further in the matter. The Colonel had passed on to his well-earned slumber, so I went into my room and, donning my pyjamas, turned in. I was a little disturbed, of course, at the thought that burglars had been busting into The Cedars, but it didn't seem likely that they would come back as long as they thought the good old Colonel's ammunition was holding out; so, dismissing the matter from my mind, I switched off the light and was soon in a dreamless sleep.

  And there, Corky, if there was any justice in the world, if Providence really looked after the deserving as it ought to, the story should have ended. But did it? Laddie', not by a jugful.

  How long I slept I couldn't tell you. Possibly an hour it may have been. Possibly more. I was aroused by a hand shaking my shoulder, and, sitting up, perceived that there was a female in my room. I couldn't see her distinctly, and I was just going to express my opinion of this lax and Bohemian behaviour in a respectable house, when she spoke.

  'Shush!' she said.

  'Less of the "Shush!"' I replied, a little warmly. 'What are you doing in my room?'

  ‘It is I, Stanley,' she said.

  Corky, it was my aunt!! And I don't mind telling you that for an instant Reason rocked on its throne.

  ‘Aunt Julia!’

  'Don't make a noise.'

  'But listen,' I said, and I dare say my voice was a bit peevish, for the injustice of the whole thing was rankling very considerably. 'You said in your wireless that you were going to Paris. "Arriving in Paris Tuesday," you said.'

  ‘I said "Arriving on Paris." The Paris was the boat I travelled by. And what does it matter?'

  What did it matter! I'll trouble you, Corky! I ask you, old horse. Here was I, right up against it, with all my nicely reasoned plans gone phut, purely and simply because this woman hadn't taken the trouble to write distinctly. From time to time in the course of my life I have occasion to think some bitter things about women as a sex, but never had my reflections been bitterer than then.

  'Stanley,' said my aunt, 'Barter has gone mad.'

  'Eh?' I said.' Who has?'

  'Barter. I arrived late at Southampton, but I was anxious to sleep in my own bed, so I hired a motor and drove here from the docks. I let myself in with my latchkey and crept upstairs as quietly as possible, so as not to disturb anyone, and I had just got to the top of the stairs when Barter suddenly appeared and shot a pistol at me. I called out "Barter! Barter!" and he must have recognized my voice, but he paid no attention whatever. He shot at me again, and I ran into your room and hid in the cupboard. Mercifully, he did not follow me. He must be off his head. Have you noticed anything odd, Stanley, about Barter, while I have been away?'

  Corky, you have often expressed admiration of my ingenuity and resource. What? Well, if it wasn't you, it was somebody else. At any rate, I have frequently received unstinted compliments for those qualities. But I can tell you I never deserved them so much as at that moment.

  For, hanging on the very brink of destruction, as it wer
e; faced by the fact that my aunt was actually on the premises and that those premises housed a retired Colonel, the widow of a knight from Huddersfield, and four assorted City blokes, I nevertheless kept my head and saw the way out.

  'Yes, Aunt Julia,' I said. 'I have noticed something odd about Barter. He has been going round looking grave, and shaking his head in an ominous way, as if he were brooding on something. The man is unquestionably potty. And this, Aunt Julia,' I said, 'is what you must do. This house is obviously not safe for you while he remains on the premises. You must leg it, and instantly. Don't wait. Don't linger. Steal out now on tiptoe and execute a noiseless sneak downstairs and out of the front door. There are taxis at all hours of the night on the corner of the road. Take one and go to a hotel. Meanwhile, I will be dealing with Barter,'

  'But, Stanley,' she said. And she spoke in a quavering, startled-fawn sort of voice which was music to my ears. I could see that she was deeply impressed by my intrepid courage, and it seemed to me that the whole episode might very well end in my not only escaping disaster, but actually making a most substantial touch. There is nothing that appeals to women more than the old bulldog grit in the male.

  'Leave the whole thing to me,' I said. 'This is man's work, Aunt Julia. The great thing is to get you away in safety, immediately.'

  'But how will you manage, Stanley? What will you do? He has a pistol.'

  'That'll be all right, Aunt Julia,' I said heartily. T have the situation well in hand. I shall send for him in the morning, apparently to discuss some trivial domestic matter connected with his butling. "Ah, Barter," I shall say, nonchalantly, "come in, Barter." And then, when his attention is diverted, I shall make a sudden spring and overpower him. Quite simple. You may leave it all to me.'

  Well, it was too dark to see the worshipping look in her eyes, but I knew it was there. I went to the door and peeped out. All was quiet in the passage. I took her hand, pressed it in an encouraging sort of way, and led her out.

  And then, just as we were moving nicely, Corky, what do you think?

  'I can't go to an hotel without a suit-case,' she said. There should be one in the cupboard in my room. And I can probably find some things to put in it.'

  Corky, my heart stopped. Your old friend's heart stopped. You see, naturally, she being the only female in my troupe, I had given Lady Bastable the best bedroom. My aunt's bedroom, in fact - the very one which my aunt was now reaching for the door-knob of. Her clutching fingers were within half an inch of the handle.

  Well, I did my best.

  'You don't want a suit-case, Aunt Julia,’ I said. 'You don't need a suit-case.'

  But it was no good. For the first time there crept into her manner something of the old austerity.

  'Don't be a fool,' she said. ‘I am certainly not going to sleep in my clothes.'

  And with these words she turned the handle and shoved her arm in and found the electric-light switch and bunged it on. And simultaneously from within there came the scream of a lost soul. Lady Bastable taking it big. And immediately after that there was a sound like a mighty, rushing wind, and out came the Colonel from the room down the way and resumed his revolver practice where he had left off.

  The whole thing was extraordinarily like the big scene in one of those mystery plays.

  Well, Corky, I came away. I didn't wait I could see no profit to be derived from lingering on. I nipped into my room, brushing aside the bullets, reached hastily for my mackintosh, and legged it down the stairs, leaving them to settle things among themselves. I got out of the house. I found a cab. I took the cab. I came here. And here I am.

  And one thing, Corky, I want to say to you very seriously, as a man who has been through the mill and knows what he is talking about. Be very wary, old horse, of these opportunities of making easy money. As in the case I have just related, they too often have strings tied to them. You are a young fellow in the spring-time of life; eager, sanguine, alert for every chance

  of getting something for nothing. When that chance comes, Corky, examine it well. Walk round it. Pat it with your paws. Sniff at it. And if on inspection it shows the slightest indication of not being all you had thought it, if you spot any possible way in which it can blow a fuse and land you eventually waist-high in the soup, leave it alone and run like a hare.

  Chapter Eight

  The Come-back of Battling Billson

  ‘I like 'em,' said Ukridge.

  'You can't.'

  'Yes, I do. God bless every adenoid in their system, say I. They have my support.'

  We were speaking of the Talking Films. The negotiations for the motion-picture sale of a novel of mine had broken down that morning, and I had been saying to Ukridge, my guest at luncheon, that while one didn't, of course, care twopence personally, it did seem a pity - taking the broad, general view - that some effort was not made to raise the things to a rather higher artistic level. Thanks, I pointed out, to this shortsighted policy of not acquiring the best material available, Talking Films were, as you might say, wallowing in the depths and in a fair way to becoming a hissing and a byword. In fact...

  It was at this point that Ukridge said he liked them, and I felt aggrieved. The Etiquette books are silent on the subject, but there is surely an unwritten Gentleman's Agreement that a fellow who is bursting with another fellow's meat shall receive his host's dicta in a spirit of tactful acquiescence.

  'Yes, Corky, old man, I know you're feeling sore ...'

  'Nothing of the kind. It is a matter of complete indifference to one whether these people buy one's stuff or not. It is merely...'

  'but I have a soft spot in my heart for the Talkies.

  They got me out of a very nasty hole some years ago.'

  'It couldn't have been very many years ago. The beastly things only started the other day.'

  'The one that got me out of the hole was about the first that was produced. It wasn't all-talking, I recollect. Just a patch of sound-effects in the middle somewhere.'

  That must have been "The Jazz Singer".'

  ‘I dare say. I can't remember the name. I wasn't paying much attention to anything at the time, being deeply exercised in my mind about that blighter Battling Billson. You have not forgotten Battling Billson, Corky?'

  I certainly had not. The Battler was a heavyweight pugilist whom Ukridge had dug up from somewhere and managed intermittently over a period of a year or so. In which enterprise he had been considerably hampered by the other's unfortunate temperament. A peerless scrapper, this Billson, with muscles strong as iron bands, but of the very maximum boneheadedness. An eccentric soul. He had a habit of developing a sentimental pity for his opponent towards the middle of the second round, or else he would get religion on the eve of battle and refuse to enter the ring. It complicated things a good deal for his manager.

  ‘I've often wondered what became of him,' I said.

  ‘Oh, he married that girl of his - Flossie, the barmaid. I believe they are doing well in the jellied eel line down White-chapel way. All this happened when he was still a bachelor. I was living with my aunt at the moment, she having recently taken me back after chucking me out. That was how I came to be in a position to let her garden for the afternoon to those Folk Dance people.'

  ‘To do what?'

  'I happened to see their advertisement in the paper one morning. The North Kensington Folk Dance Society they called themselves, and they were offering spot cash for some place, not too far from the centre of things, where they could hold their annual beano. I dare say you've heard of these birds, Corky? They tie bells to their trousers and dance old rustic dances, showing that it takes all sorts to make a world. Most of the time, it seems, they do this in decent privacy, but once a year, apparently, they break out and require something in the nature of an open-air arena. And what more suitable, I asked myself, being a bit strapped for money at the time, than the picturesque garden of The Cedars, Wimbledon Common?'

  ‘But what about your aunt?'

  ‘You mean, h
er views regarding having a platoon of North

  Kensington hoofers- prancing about on her carefully-tended lawns? There, laddie, with your customary clear-sightedness, you have put your fingers on the very nub of the thing. Aunt Julia would have had a fit at the mere idea. Most fortunately, however, she was scheduled to go off on a lecture-tour. So, taking this fact into consideration, I felt justified in nipping round to the headquarters of these St Vitus's patients and negotiating the deal. I found the Hon. Sec. a little less open-handed than I could have wished, but eventually we came to terms, and I left with the cash in my pocket. Ten quid it was, and as sorely needed a ten quid as I have ever pouched. The future seemed bright.'

  'And then, of course, your aunt returned unexpectedly?'

  'No. She did not return. And why? Because she never went, curse her. There was some confusion of dates and her tour was postponed. I have had this happen to me before. One of the things that poison this age of ours, Corky, is the beastly slipshod way these lecture bureaux run their affairs. No system. Nothing clean-cut. I was placed in the distressing position of having to inform the Hon. Sec. that the deal was off and that he and his fellow-sufferers must do their bally sarabands elsewhere.'

  'How did he take that?'

  'None too well. You see, in order to secure the cash, I had rather piled it on about the scenic beauties of my aunt's grounds, and I suppose the disappointment was severe. He beefed quite a good deal. However, there was nothing he could do about it. The real trouble was that I was now, naturally, in common honesty, under an obligation to return him his money.'