Uncle Dynamite [187-142-066-4.5]

By: P. G. Wodehouse

Category: NonFiction general

Synopsis:

No synopsis available.


Last printing: 09/27/02
`?08-' ISBN: 0-6452-109-9603-1
Penguin Book 2546
Uncle Dynamite


P. G. Wodehouse was born in 1881, and educated at Dulwich College. He
was in the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank for two years and then got a job
on the 'By The Way' column of the old Globe. His first stories were
school stories written for The Captain, in one of which Psmith made his
first appearance. He paid a visit to America in 1904, and another in
1909, when he sold two short stories for $300 apiece, and decided to
remain there. Eventually he sold a serial to the Saturday Evening Post,
and for the next twenty-five years almost all his books appeared first
in this magazine. In 1906 he wrote some lyrics to music by Jerome Kern,
and some years later he formed a partnership with Guy Bolton, which
resulted in a number of shows and straight plays. Mr Wodehouse worked at
plays with George Grossmith and lan Hay and has made some adaptations.
He has written some seventy books.

Penguin Books


Penguin Books Ltd, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England Penguin Books
Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia


First published by Herbert Jenkins 1948 Published in Penguin Books 1966



Made and printed in Great Britain by ' Hazell Watson & Viney Ltd,
Aylesbury, Bucks Set in Linotype Times


All the characters in this book are purely imaginary and have no
relation whatsoever to any living person


This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of
trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated
without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover
other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition
including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser


Part One


Chapter 1


On the little branch line which starts at Wockley Junction and conveys
passengers to Eggmarsh St John, Ashenden Oakshott, Bishop's Ickenham and
other small and somnolent hamlets of the south of England the early
afternoon train had just begun its leisurely journey.

It was a train whose patrons, sturdy sons of the soil who did not intend
to let a railway company trouser more of their money than they could
help, had for the most part purchased third-class tickets. But a
first-class compartment had been provided for the rich and thriftless,
and today it had two occupants, a large youth of open and ingenuous
countenance, much sunburned, and a tall, slim, distinguished-looking man
some thirty years his senior with a jaunty grey moustache and a bright
and enterprising eye, whose air was that of one who has lived to the
full every minute of an enjoyable life and intends to go on doing so
till further notice. His hat was on the side of his head, and he bore
his cigar like a banner.

For some ten minutes after the train had started, the usual decent
silence of the travelling Englishman prevailed in the compartment. Then
the young man, who had been casting covert glances at his companion,
cleared his throat and said 'Er.'

The elderly gentleman looked up inquiringly. Deepening in colour, for he
was of bashful temperament and was already wondering why he had been ass
enough to start this, the sunburned youth proceeded:

'I say, excuse me. Aren't you Lord Ickenham?'

'I am.'

'Fine.'

The elderly gentleman seemed puzzled.

5

'I'm pretty pleased about it myself,' he admitted. 'But why do you
rejoice?'

'Well, if you hadn't been -' said the young man, and paused aghast at
the thought of what horrors might not have resulted from the wanton
addressing of a perfect stranger. 'What I mean is, I used to know you.
Years ago. Sort of. I was a pal of your nephew Pongo, and I came over to
your place for tennis sometimes. You once tipped me five bob.'

'Thlt's how the money goes."

'I don't suppose you remember me. Bill Oakshott.'

'Of course I remember you, my dear fellow,' said Lord Ickenham heartily
and quite .untruthfully. 'I wish I had a tenner for every time I've said
to my wife "Whatever became of Bill Oakshott?"'

'No, really? Fine. How is Lady Ickenham?'

'Fine.'

'Fine. She once tipped me half a crown.'

'You will generally find women loosen up less lavishly than me. It's
something to do with the bone structure of the head. Yes, my dear wife,
I am glad to say, continues in the pink. I've just been seeing her off
on the boat at Southampton. She is taking a trip to the West Indies.'

'Jamaica?'

'No, she went of her own free will.'

The human tomato digested this for a moment in silence, seemed on the
point of saying 'Fine,' then changed his mind, and inquired after Pongo.

'Pongo,' said Lord Ickenham, 'is in terrific form. He bestrides the
world like a Colossus. It would not be too much to say that Moab is his
washpot and over what's-its-name has he cast his shoe. He came into the
deuce of a lot of money the other day from a deceased godfather in
America, and can now face his tailor without a tremor. He is also
engaged to be married.'

'Good.'

'Yes,' said Lord Ickenham, rather startled by this evidence of an
unexpectedly wide vocabulary. 'Yes, he seems fairly radiant about it. I
myself, I must confess, am less enthusiastic. I don't know if you have
noticed it, Bill Oakshott, but nothing

6

in this world ever works out one hundred per cent satisfactorily for
all parties. Thus, while A. is waving -his hat and giving a series of
rousing cheers, we see B. frowning dubiously. And the same is true of X.
and Z. Take this romance of Pongo's, for instance. I was hoping that he
would marry another girl, a particular protegee of mine whom I have
watched grow from a child, and a singularly fascinating child, at that,
to a young woman of grace, charm and strength of character who in my
opinion has everything. Among other advantages which she possesses is
sense enough for two, which, it seems to me, is just the amount the wife
of Reginald ("Pongo") Twistleton will require. But it was not to be.
However, let us look on the bright side. Shall we?'

'Oh, rather.'

'Fine. Well, looking on the bright side, I haven't met this new girl,
but she sounds all right. And of course the great thing is to get the
young blighter safely married and settled down, thus avoiding the risk
of his coming in one day and laying on the mat something with a platinum
head and an Oxford accent which he picked up on the pier at Blackpool.
You remember what a pushover he always was for the gentle sex.'

'I haven't seen Pongo since we were kids.'

'Even then he was flitting from flower to flower like a willowy
butterfly. He was the Don Juan of his dancing class when he wore Little
Lord Fauntleroy suits, his heart an open door with "Welcome" on the
mat.'

'He'll chuck all that sort of thing now.'

'Let us hope so. But you remember what the fellow said. Can the leopard
change his spots, or the Ethiopian his hue? Or is it skin? And talking
of Ethiopians,' said Lord Ickenham, allowing himself to become personal,
'has someone been cooking you over a slow fire, or did you sit in the
sun without your parasol?'

Bill Oakshott grinned sheepishly.

'I am a bit sunburned, aren't I? I've been in Brazil. I'm on my way home
from the boat.'

'You reside in this neighbourhood?'

'At Ashenden Manor.'

•Married?'

'No. I live with my uncle. Or, rather, he lives with me.' . 'What is the
distinction?'

'Well, what I mean is, Ashenden really belongs to me, but I was only
sixteen when my father died, and my uncle came barging over from
Cheltenham and took charge. He dug in, and has been there ever since.
Running the whole show. You'd think from the way he goes on,' said Bill,
stirred to unwonted loquacity by the recollection of his wrongs, 'that
he owned the bally place. Well, to give you an instance, he's pinched
the best room in the house for his damned collection of African curios.'

'Does he collect African curios? God help him.'

'And that's not all. Who has the star bedroom? Me? No! Uncle Aylmer, Who
collars the morning paper? Me? No! Uncle Aylmer. Who gets the brown egg
at breakfast?"

''Don't tell me. Let me guess. Uncle Aylmer?'

'Yes. Blast him!'

Lord Ickenham stroked his moustache.

'A certain guarded something in your manner, Bill Oakshott,' he said,
'suggests to me that you do not like having your Uncle Aylmer living at
Ashenden Manor. Am I correct?'

«Yes.'

"Then why not bung him out?'

The truculence faded from Bill Oakshott's demeanour, leaving in its
place embarrassment. He could have answered the question, but to do so
would have involved revealing his great love for his uncle's daughter,
Hermione, and agreeable old bird though Lord Ickenham was, he did not
feel that he knew him intimately enough.

'Oh, well,' he said, and coyly scraped a shoe like a violin case along
the floor of the compartment. 'No, I don't quite see how I could do
that."

There are complications?'

*Yes. Complications.'

'I understand."

It was plain to Lord Ickenham that he had stumbled upon a delicate
domestic situation, and he tactfully forbore to probe into it. Picking
up his Times, he turned to the crossword puzzle, 8

and Bill Oakshott sat gazing out of the window at the passing scenery.

But he did not see the familiar fields and spinneys, only the lovely
face of his cousin Hermione. It rose before him like some radiant
vision, and soon, he reflected, he would be beholding it not merely with
the eye of imagination. Yes, at any moment, now that he was back in
England again, he was liable to find himself gazing into her beautiful
eyes or, if she happened to be standing sideways, staring at her pure,
perfect profile.

In which event, what would the procedure be? Would he, as before, just
gape and shuffle his feet? Or would he, fortified by three months in
bracing Brazil, at last be able to shake off his distressing timidity
and bring himself to reveal a silent passion which had been functioning
uninterruptedly for some nine years?

He hoped so, but at the same time was compelled to recognize the point
as a very moot one.

A tap on the knee interrupted his meditations.

'Next stop, Ashenden Oakshott,' Lord Ickenham reminded him.

'Eh? Oh, yes. That's right, so it is,'

'You had better be girding up your loins.'

'Yes,' said Bill, and rose and hauled down his suitcase from the rack.
Then, as the train puffed out of the tunnel, he gave a sudden sharp cry
and stood staring. As if unable to believe his eyes, he blinked them
twice with great rapidity. But they had not deceived him. He still saw
what he thought he had seen.

Under normal conditions there is about the station of Ashenden Oakshott
little or nothing to rouse the emotions and purge the soul with pity and
terror. Once you have seen the stationmaster's whiskers, which are of a
Victorian bushiness and give the impression of having been grown under
glass, you have drained it of all it has to offer in the way of thrills,
unless you are one of those easily excited persons who can find drama in
the spectacle of a small porter wrestling with a series of large milk
cans. 'Placid' is the word that springs to the lips.

But today all this was changed, and it was obvious at a


9


glance that Ashenden Oakshott was stepping out. From the
penny-in-the-slot machine at the far end to the shed where the porter
kept his brooms and buckets the platform was dark with what practically
amounted to a sea of humanity. At least forty persons must have been
present.

Two, selected for their muscle and endurance, were holding aloft on
poles a streamer on which some loving hand, which had not left itself
quite enough room, had inscribed the words:


WELCOME HOME, MR WILLM.


and in addition to these the eye noted a Silver Band, some Boy Scouts, a
policeman, a clergyman, a mixed assortment of villagers of both sexes,
what looked like an Infants' Bible Class (with bouquets) and an
impressive personage with a large white moustache, who seemed to be
directing the proceedings.

From his post by the window Bill Oakshott continued to stand rigid and
open-mouthed, like some character in a fairy story on whom a spell has
been cast, and so limpid was his countenance that Lord Ickenham had no
difficulty in analysing the situation.

Here, he perceived, was a young man of diffident and retiring
disposition, one who shrank from the public eye and quailed at the
thought of being conspicuous, and for some reason somebody had organized
this stupendous reception for him. That was why he was now looking like
a stag at bay.

Publicity was a thing from which Lord Ickenham himself had never been
averse. He frankly enjoyed it. If Silver Bands and Boy Scouts had come
to welcome him at a station, he would have leaped to meet them with a
whoop and a holler, and would have been out taking bows almost before
the train had stopped. But it was plain that this young friend of his
was differently constituted, and his heart was moved by his distress.

The kindly peer had always been a practical man. He did not, as others
might have done, content himself in this crisis with a pitying glance or
a silent handclasp.

'Nip under the seat,' he advised.

To Bill it seemed like a voice from heaven. It was as if in the hour of
deadly peril his guardian angel had suddenly come

10



I


1


through with something constructive. He followed the counsel without
delay, and presently there was a lurch and a heave and the train resumed
its journey.

When he crawled out, dusting his hands, he found his companion regarding
him with open admiration.

'As neat a vanishing act as I have ever witnessed,' said Lord Ickenham
cordially. 'It was like a performing seal going after a slice of fish.
You've done this sort of thing before, Bill Oak shott. No? You amaze me.
I would have sworn that you had had years of practice on race trains.
Well, you certainly baffled them. I don't think I have ever seen a
Silver Band so nonplussed. It was as though a bevy of expectant wolves
had overtaken a sleigh and found no Russian peasant aboard, than which I
can imagine nothing more sickening. For the wolves, of course.

Bill Oakshott was still quivering. He gazed gratefully at his benefactor
and in broken words thanked him for his inspired counsel.

'Not at all,' said Lord Ickenham. 'My dear fellow, don't mention it. I
am like the chap in Damon Runyan's story, who always figured that if he
could bring a little joy into any life, no matter how, he was doing a
wonderful deed. It all comes under the head of spreading sweetness and
light, which is my constant aim.'

'Well, I shall never forget it, never,' said Bill earnestly. 'Do you
realize that I should have had to make a speech, besides probably
kissing all those ghastly children with the flowers?' He shuddered
strongly. 'Did you see them? About a million of them, each with a posy.'

'I did, indeed. And the sight confirmed me in my view that since the
days when you used to play tennis at my place you must have become
pretty illustrious. I have knocked about the world long enough to know
that infants with bouquets don't turn out for every Tom, Dick and Harry.
I myself am a hell of a fellow - a first-class Earl who keeps his
carriage - but have infants ever offered me bouquets? What have you been
doing, Bill Oakshott, to merit this reception - nay, this Durbar?' 'I
haven't done a thing.'


11




3 i.i«-

1"Well, it's all very odd. I suppose it was in your honour that the
affair was arranged? They would hardly have said "Mr Willm.," if they
had meant someone else.'

'No, that's true.'

'Have you any suspicions as to the ringleaders?'

'I suppose my uncle was at the bottom of it.'

'Was he the impressive citizen with the moustache, who looked like
Clemenceau?'

'Yes. He must have got the thing up."

'But why?'

'I don't know.'

'Search your memory. Can you think of nothing you have done recently
which could have put you in the Silver Band and Boy Scout class?'

'Well, I went on this expedition up the Amazon.'

'Oh, you went on an expedition, did you, and up the Amazon, to boot. I
didn't realize that. I assumed that you had«merely been connected with
the Brazil nut industry or something. That might account for it, of
course. And why did you commit this rash act? Wanted to get some girl
out of your system, I suppose?'

Bill blushed. It had indeed been the seeming hopelessness of his love
for his cousin Hermione that had driven him to try a cure which, as he
might have foreseen, had proved quite ineffective.

'Why, yes. Something of the sort.'

'In my day we used to go to the Rocky Mountains and shoot grizzlies.
What made you choose Brazil?'

'I happened to see an advertisement in The Times about an expedition
that was starting off for the Lower Amazon, run by a chap .called Major
Plank, and I thought it might be a good idea to sign on.'

'I see. Well, I wish I had known of this before. I could have stuck on a
lot of dog on the strength of having met you as a boy. But we shall be
at Bishop's Ickenham in a minute or two, and the question arises, what
do you propose to do? Wait for a train back? Or shall I take you to my
place and give you a drink and send you home in the car?'

12


TOVtX


'Wouldn't that be a nuisance?'

'On the contrary. Nothing could suit my book better. That's settled
then. We now come to a matter to which I think we ought to devote some
little attention. What story are you going to tell your uncle, to
account for your non-appearance at the revels?'

A thoughtful look came into Bill Oakshott's face. He winced slightly, as
if a Brazilian alligator had attached itself to the fleshy part of his
leg.

'I was rather wondering about that,' he confessed.

'A good, coherent story will undoubtedly be required. He will be feeling
chagrined at your failure to materialize, and he looked a dangerous
specimen, the sort of man whose bite spells death. What is he? An all-in
wrestler? A chap who kills rats with his teeth?'

'He used to be Governor of one of those Crown colonies.'

'Then we must strain every nerve to pacify him. I know these
ex-Governors. Tough nuts. You didn't mention his name, by the way.'

'Bostock. Sir Aylmer Bostock.'

'What? Is that who he is? Well, I'll be dashed.'

'You know him?'

'I have not seen him for more than forty years, but at one time I knew
him well. We were at school together.'

'Oh, really?'

'Mugsy we used to call him. He was younger than me by some three years,
one of those tough, chunky, beetle-browed kids who scowl at their
seniors and bully then- juniors. I once gave him six of the juiciest
with a fives bat in the hope of correcting this latter tendency. Well,
the mystery of that civic welcome is now explained. Mugsy is to stand
for Parliament shortly, my paper informs me, and no doubt he thought it
would give him a leg up. Like me, he hopes to trade on his connexion
with a man who has extended the bounds of Civilization.'

'I didn't extend the bounds of Civilization.'

'Nonsense. I'll bet you extended them like elastic. But we are getting
away from our discussion of what story you are to tell.


13


ow would it be to say that the warmth of the day caused you to drop off
into a light slumber, and when you woke up blowed if you weren't at
Bishop's Ickenham?'

Tine.'

'You like it? I don't think it's so bad myself. Simple, which is always
good. Impossible to disprove, which is better. And with the added
advantage of having a historic precedent; the case, if you remember, of
the lady who wanted to go to Birmingham and they were taking her on to
Crewe. Yes, I fancy it ought to get by. So that was young Mugsy, was
it?' said Lord Ickenham. 'I must say I'm surprised that he should have
finished up as anything so comparatively respectable as Governor of a
Crown colony. It just shows you never can tell.'

'How long did you say it was since you had met him?'

'Forty-two years come Lammas Eve. Why?'

'I was only wondering why you hadn't run across him. Living so close, I
mean.'	"

'Well, I'll tell you, Bill Oakshott. It is my settled policy to steer
pretty clear of the neighbours. You have probably noticed yourself that
the British Gawd-help-us seems to flourish particularly luxuriantly in
the rural districts. My wife tries to drag me to routs and revels from
time to time, but I toss my curls at her and refuse to stir. I often
think that the ideal life would be to have plenty of tobacco and be cut
by the County. And as regards your uncle, I look back across the years
at Mugsy, the boy, and I see nothing that encourages me to fraternize
with Mugsy, the man.'

'Something in that.'

'Not an elfin personality, Mugsy's. I'm afraid Pongo doesn't realize
what he's up against in taking on such a father-in-law. It's his
daughter Hermione that he's gone and got engaged to, and I see a sticky
future ahead of the unhappy lad. Ah, here we are,' said Lord Ickenham,
as the train slowed down. 'Let's go and get that drink. It's just
possible that we may find Pongo at the old shack. He rang me up this
morning, saying he was coming to spend the night. He is about to visit
Ashenden Manor, to show the old folks what they've got.'

He hopped nimbly on to the platform, prattling gaily, quite


14


Hunaware that he had to all intents and purposes just struck an
estimable young man behind the ear with a sock full of wet sand. The
short, quick, gulping grunt, like that of a bulldog kicked in the ribs
while eating a mutton chop, which had escaped Bill Oakshott on the cue
'got engaged to', he had mistaken for a hiccough.


I I*

I

I i


Chapter 2


The summer afternoon had mellowed into twilight and Bill Oakshott had
long since taken his bruised heart off the premises before Pongo
Twistleton fetched up at the home of his ances- tors. One of those
mysterious breakdowns which affect two seater cars had delayed him on
the road. He arrived just in time to dress for dinner, and the hour of
eight found him seated I opposite his uncle in the oak-panelled
dining-room, restoring his tissues after a trying day.

Lord Ickenham, delighted to see him, was a gay and effervescent host,
but during the meal the presence of a hovering butler made conversation
of a really intimate nature impossible, and the talk confined itself to
matters of general interest. Pongo spoke of New York, whence he had
recently returned from a visit connected with the winding up of his
godfather's estate, and Lord Ickenham mentioned that Lady Ickenham was
on her way to Trinidad to attend the wedding of the daughter of an old
friend. Lord Ickenham alluded to his meeting with Pongo's former crony,
Bill Oakshott, and Pongo, though confessing that	| he remembered Bill
only imperfectly - 'Beefy stripling with a pink face, unless I'm
thinking of someone else' - said that he looked forward to renewing
their old friendship when he hit Ashenden Manor.

They also touched on such topics as the weather, dogs, two seater cars
(their treatment in sickness and in health), the	1 foreign policy of the
Government, the chances of Jujube for the Goodwood Cup, and what you
would do - this subject arising from Pongo's recent literary studies -
if you found a dead body in your bath one morning with nothing on but
pince-nez and a I pair of spats.

It was only when the coffee had been served and the cigars


16


lighted that Lord Ickenham prepared to become more expansive.	*

'Now we're nice and cosy,' he said contentedly. 'What a relief it always
is when the butler pops off. It makes you realize the full meaning of
that beautiful line in the hymn book - "Peace, perfect peace, with loved
ones far away." Not that I actually love Coggs. A distant affection,
rather, tempered with awe. Well, Pongo, I'm extraordinarily glad you
blew in. I was wanting a quiet chat with you about your plans and what
not.'

'Ah,' said Pongo.

He spoke reservedly. He was a slender, personable young man with
lemon-coloured hair and an attractive face, and on this face a close
observer would have noted at the moment an austere, wary look, such as
might have appeared on that of St Anthony just before the temptations
began. He had a strong suspicion that now that they were alone together,
it was going to be necessary for him to be very firm with this uncle of
his and to maintain an iron front against his insidious wiles.

Watching the head of the family closely during dinner, he had not failed
to detect in his eyes, while he was speaking of his wife's voyage to the
West Indies, a lurking gleam such as one might discern in the eye of a
small boy who has been left alone in the house and knows where the key
of the jam cupboard is. He had seen that gleam before, and it had always
heralded trouble of a major kind. Noticeable even as early as the soup
course, it had become, as its proprietor puffed at his cigar, more
marked than ever, and Pongo waited coldly for him to proceed.

'How long are you proposing to inflict yourself on these Bostocks of
yours?"

'About a week.'

'And after that?'

'Back to London, I suppose.'

'Good,' said Lord Ickenham heartily. 'That was what I wanted to know.
That was what I wished to ascertain. You will return to London.
Excellent. I will join you there, and we will have one of our pleasanter
and instructive afternoons.'

17

Pongo stiffened. He did not actually say 'Ha!' but the exclamation was
implicit in the keen glance which he shot across the table. His
suspicions had been correct. His wife's loving surveillance having been
temporarily removed, Frederick Altamont Cornwallis, fifth Earl of
Ickenham, was planning to be out and about again.

'You ask me,' a thoughtful Crumpet had once said in the smoking-room of
the Drones Club, 'why it is that at the mention of his Uncle Fred's name
Pongo Twistleton blenches to the core and calls for a couple of quick
ones. I will tell you. It is because this uncle is pure dynamite. Every
time he is in Pongo's midst, with the sap running strongly in his veins,
he subjects the unfortunate young egg to some soul-testing experience,
luring him out into the open and there, right in the public eye,
proceeding to step high, wide and plentiful. For though well stricken in
years the old blister becomes on these occasions as young as he feels,
which seems to be about twenty-two. I don't know if you happen to know
what the word "excesses" means, but those are what he invariably
commits, when on the loose. Get Pongo to tell you some time about that
day they had together at the dog races.'

It was a critique of which, had he heard it, Lord Ickenham would have
been the first to admit the essential justice. From boyhood up his had
always been a gay and happy disposition, and in the evening of his life
he still retained, together with a juvenile waistline, the bright
enthusiasms and the fresh, unspoiled mental outlook of a slightly
inebriated undergraduate. He had enjoyed a number of exceedingly
agreeable outings in his nephew's society in the course of the last few
years, and was pleasantly conscious of having stepped on these occasions
as high, wide and plentiful as a man could wish, particularly during
that day at the dog races. Though there, he had always maintained, a
wiser policeman would have been content with a mere reprimand.

'As you are aware, if you were not asleep while I was talking at
dinner,' he said, resuming his remarks, 'your aunt has left me for a few
weeks and, as you can well imagine, I am suffering agonies. I feel like
one of those fellows in the early

18

I


nineteenth-century poems who used to go about losing dear gazelles.
Still '

'Now listen,' said Pongo.

'Still, in practically every cloud wrack the knowledgeable eye, if it
peers closely enough, can detect some sort of a silver lining, however
small, and the horror of my predicament is to a certain extent mitigated
by the thought that I now become a mobile force again. Your aunt is the
dearest woman in the world, and nobody could be fonder of her than I am,
but I sometimes find her presence ... what is the word I want...
restrictive. She holds, as you know, peculiar views on the subject of my
running around loose in London, as she puts it, and this prevents me
fulfilling myself. It is a pity. Living in a rural morgue like Bishop's
Ickenham all the time, one gets rusty and out of touch with modern
thought. I don't suppose these days I could tell you the name of a
single chucker-out in the whole of the West End area, and I used to know
them all. That is why-'

'Now listen."

'That is why the fact of her having packed a toothbrush and popped off
to Trinidad, though it blots the sunshine from my life, is not an
unrelieved tragedy. Existence may have become for me an arid waste, but
let us not forget that I can now be up and doing with a heart for any
fate. Notify me when you return to London, and I will be with you with
my hair in a braid. Bless my soul, how young I'm feeling these days! It
must be the weather."

Pongo knocked the ash off his cigar and took a sip of brandy. There was
a cold, stern look on his face.

'Now listen, Uncle Fred," he said, and his voice was like music to the
ears of the Recording Angel, who felt that this was going to be good.
'All that stuff is out.'

'Out?'

'Right out. You don't get me to the dog races again.'

'I did not specify the dog races. Though they provide an admirable means
of studying the soul of the people."

'Or on any other frightful binge of yours. Get thou behind me, about
sums it up. If you come to see me in London, you will


19


get lunch at my flat and afterwards a good book. Nothing more.'

Lord Ickenham sighed, and was silent for a space. He was musing on the
curse of wealth. In the old days, when Pongo had been an impecunious
young fellow reading for the Bar and attempting at intervals to get into
an uncle's ribs for an occasional much-needed fiver, nobody could have
been a more sympathetic companion along the primrose path. But coming
into money seemed to have changed him completely. The old, old story,
felt Lord Ickenham.

'Oh, very well,' he said. 'If that is how you feel '

'It is,' Pongo assured him. 'Make a note of it on your cuff. And it's no
good saying "Ichabod", because I intend to stick to my position with
iron resolution. My standing with Hermione is none too secure as it is -
she looks askance at my belonging to the Drones - and the faintest
breath of scandal would dish me properly. And most unfortunately she
knows all about you."

'My life is an open book.'

'She has heard what a loony you are, and she seems to think it may be
hereditary. "I hope you are not like your uncle," she keeps saying, with
a sort of brooding look in her eye.'

'You must have misunderstood her. "I hope you are like your uncle," she
probably said. Or "Do try, darling, to be more like your uncle."'

'Consequently I shall have to watch my step like a ruddy hawk. Let her
get the slightest suspicion into her nut that I am not one hundred per
cent steady and serious, and him will go my chances of putting on the
spongebag trousers and walking down the aisle with her."

"Then you would not consider the idea of my coming to Ashenden as your
valet, and seeing what innocent fun we could whack out of the
deception?'

'My God!'

'Merely a suggestion. And it couldn't be done, anyway. It would involve
shaving off my moustache, to which I am greatly attached. When a man has
neither chick nor child, he gets very fond of a moustache. So she's that
sort of girl, is she?'

20

'What do you mean, that sort of girl?'

'Noble-minded. High principled. A credit to British womanhood.'

'Oh, rather. Yes, she's terrific. Must be seen to be believed."

'I look forward to seeing her.'

'I have a photograph here, if you would care to take a dekko,' said
Pongo, producing one of cabinet size from his breast pocket like a
conjurer extracting a rabbit from a top hat.

Lord Ickenham took a photograph, and studied it for some moments.

'A striking face.'

'Don't miss the eyes.'

'I've got 'em.'

'The nose, also.'

'I've got that, too. She looks intelligent.'

'And how. Writes novels.'

'Good God!'

A monstrous suspicion had germinated in Pongo's mind.

'Don't you like her?' he asked incredulously.

'Well, I'll tell you,' said Lord Ickenham, feeling his way carefully. 'I
can see she's a remarkable girl, but I wouldn't say she was the wife for
you.'

'Why not?'

'In my opinion you will be giving away too much weight. Have you studied
these features? That chin is a determined chin. Those eyes are flashing
eyes.'

'What's the matter with flashing eyes?'

'Dashed unpleasant things to have about the home. To cope with flashing
eyes, you have to be a man of steel and ginger.. Are you a man of steel
and ginger? No. You're like me, a gentle coffee-caddie.'

'A how much?'

'By a coffee-caddie I mean a man - and there is no higher type - whose
instinct it is to carry his wife's breakfast up to her room on a tray
each morning and bill and coo with her as she wades into it. And what
the coffee-caddie needs is not a female novelist with a firm chin and
flashing eyes, but a jolly little soul who, when he bills, will herself
bill like billy-o, and who will

21

be right there with bells on when he starts to coo. The advice I give
to every young man starting out to seek a life partner is to find a girl
whom he can tickle. Can you see yourself tickling Hermione Bostock? She
would draw herself to her full height and say "Sir!" The ideal wife for
you, of course, would have been Sally Painter.'

At the mention of this name, as so often happens when names from the
dead past bob up in conversation, Pongo's face became mask-like and a
thin coating of ice seemed to form around him. A more sensitive man than
Lord Ickenham would have sent for his winter woollies.

'Does Coggs suffer from bunions?' he said distantly. 'I thought he was
walking as if he had trouble with his feet.'

'Ever since she came to England,' proceeded Lord Ickenham, refusing to
be lured from the subject into realms of speculation, however
fascinating, 'I have always hoped that you and Sally would eventually
form a merger. And came a day when you appraised me that the thing was
on. And then, dammit,' he went on, raising his voice a little in his
emotion, 'came another day when you appraised me that it was off. And
why, having succeeded in getting engaged to a girl like Sally Painter,
you were mad enough to sever relations, is more than I can understand.
It was all your fault, I suppose?'

Pongo had intended to maintain a frigid silence until the distasteful
subject should have blown over, but this unjust charge shook him out of
his proud reserve.

'It wasn't anything of the bally kind. Perhaps you will allow me to
place the facts before you.'

'I wish you would. It's about time someone did. I could get nothing out
of Sally.'

'You've seen her, then?'

'She came down here with Otis a couple of weeks ago and left one of her
busts in my charge. I don't know why. That's it, over there in the
corner.'

Pongo gave the bust a brief and uninterested glance.

'And she didn't place the facts before you?'

'She said the engagement was off, which I knew already, but nothing
more.'

22

'Oh? Well,' said Pongo, breathing heavily through the nostrils as he
viewed the body of the dead past, 'what happened was this. Just because
I wouldn't do something she wanted me to do, she called me a
lily-livered poltroon.'

'She probably meant it as a compliment. A lily liver must be very
pretty.'

'High words ensued. I said so-and-so, and she said suchand-such. And
later that evening ring, letters and all the fixings were returned by
district messenger boy.'

'A mere lovers' tiff. I should have thought you would have vnade it up
next day.'

'Well, we jolly well didn't. As a matter of fact, that lilylivered
sequence was simply what put the lid on it. We had been getting in each
other's hair for some time before that and (here was bound to be a
smash-up sooner or later.'

'What were the principal subjects of disagreement?'

'For one thing, that damned brother of hers. He makes me sick.'

'Otis isn't everybody's money, I admit. He's a publisher now, 3ally
tells me. I suppose he will make as big a mess of that as he did of his
antique shop. Did you tell her he made you lick?'

'Yes. She got a bit steamed up about it. And then there was more trouble
because I wanted her to chuck being a sculptress.'

'Why didn't you like her being a sculptress?'

'I hated her mixing with all that seedy crowd in Chelsea. Bounders with
beards,' said Pongo, with an austere shudder. 'I've been in her studio
sometimes, and the blighters were crawling out of the woodwork in
hundreds, bearded to the eyebrows.'

Lord Ickenham drew thoughtfully at his cigar.

'I was mistaken in saying that you were not a man of steel and ginger.
You appear to have thrown your weight about like a sheikh.'

'Well, she threw her weight about with me. She was always trying to boss
me.'

'Girls do. Especially American girls. I know, because I married one.
It's part of their charm.'

23

'Well, there's a limit.'

'And with you that was reached - how? You had started to tell me. What
was it she wanted you to do?'

Take some jewellery with me when I went to New York and smuggle it
through the customs.' 'Bless her heart, what an enterprising little soul
she is. But since when has Sally possessed jewellery?'

'It wasn't for her, it was for one of her rich American pals, a girl
named Alice something. This ass of a female had been loading herself up
with the stuff in and around Bond Street and didn't like the idea of
paying duty on it when she got back to New York, and Sally wanted me to
run it through for her.'

'A kindly thought.'

'A fatheaded thought. And so I told her. A nice chump I should have
looked, being disembowelled by port officials.'

Lord Ickenham sighed.

'I see. Well, I'm sorry. A wealthy husband like you would have come in
very handy for Sally. I'm afraid that girl is on the rocks.'

Pongo's lower jaw dropped a notch. Love might be dead, but he had a
feeling heart.

'Oh, I say!'

'I don't believe she gets enough to eat.'

'What rot!'

'It isn't rot. She seemed thin to me, and I didn't like the way she
tucked into the lamb and green peas, as if she hadn't had a square meal
for weeks. There can't be a fortune in sculping, if that's the right
verb. Who the dickens buys clay busts?'

'Oh, that's all right,' said Pongo, relieved. 'She doesn't depend on her
sculpting. She's got a little bit of money an aunt in Kansas City left
her.'

'I know. But I'm wondering whether something hasn't gone wrong with that
sheet anchor. It's two years since she came to London to join Otis. He
may well have wheedled it out of her. A chap like Otis can do a lot in
two years.'

'Sally's got too much sense.'

'The most level-headed girls often prove perfect mugs where a loved
brother is concerned. At any rate, in answer to a recent


24


tummunication of mine telling her that I hoped shortly to be in London
and would like her to keep an evening free for dinner I got a letter
saying she was glad I was coming up, because she wanted to see me on a
very urgent matter. She underlined the "very". I didn't like the ring of
that statement. It was the sort of thing you used to write to me in the
old days, when you were having a passing unpleasantness with your bookie
and hoped to float a small loan. Well, I shall be seeing her tomorrow,
and I will institute a probe. Poor little Sally, I hope to God she's all
right. What an admirable girl she is."

'Yes.' You still feel that, do you?'

'Oh, rather. I'm frightfully fond of Sally. I tried to do her a bit of
good just before I left for America. Hermione told me old Bostock wanted
a bust of himself, to present to the village club, and I got her to put
him on to Sally. I thought she might be glad of the commish.'

'Well, well. An impulsive girl would be touched by a thing like that.
Yes, indeed. "The whitest man I know," one can hear her saying. I
believe, if you played your cards right, you could still marry her,
Pongo.'

'Aren't you overlooking the trifling fact that I happen to be mgaged to
Hermione?'

'Slide out of it.'

'Ha!'

'It is what your best friends would advise. You are a moody,
ntrospective young man, all too prone to look on the dark ade of things.
I shall never forget you that day at the dog races. Sombre is the only
word to describe your attitude as the cop's ngers closed on your coat
collar. You reminded me of Hamlet. What you need is a jolly, lively wife
to take you out of "ourself, the sort of wife who would set booby traps
for the

ishop when he came to spend the night. I don't suppose this Hermione
Bostock of yours ever made so much as an apple-pie bed in her life. I'd
give her a miss. Send her an affectionate telegram saying you've changed
your mind and it's all off. I have a telegraph form in my study.'

A look of intense devoutness came over Pongo's face.


U.B. -2	25


'For your information, Uncle Fred, wild horses wouldn't make me break
my engagement.'

'Most unlikely they'll ever try.'

'I worship that girl. There's nothing I wouldn't do for her. Well, to
give you a rough idea, I told her I was a teetotaller. And why? Purely
because she happened one day to express the hope that I wasn't like so
many of these modern young suction pumps, always dropping in at bars and
lowering a couple for the tonsils. "Me?" I said. "Good Lord, no. I never
touch the stuff." That'll show you.'

'So when you get to Ashenden -'

'-They'll uncork the barley water and bring on the lemonade. I know.
I've foreseen that. It'll be agony, but I can take it. For her sake. I
worship her, I tell you. If H. Bostock isn't an angel in human shape,
then I don't know an angel in human shape when I see one. Until now I
have never known what love was.'

'Well, you have had ample opportunity of finding out. I have watched you
with the tenderest solicitude through about fifty seven romances,
starting with that freckled child with the missing front tooth at the
dancing class, who blacked your eye with a wooden dumb-bell when you
kissed her in the cloakroom, and ending with this '

Lord Ickenham paused, and Pongo eyed him narrowly.

'Well? This what?'

'This gruesome combination of George Eliot, Boadicea and the late Mrs
Carrie Nation,' said Lord Ickenham. 'This flashing-eyed governess. This
twenty-minute egg with whom no prudent man would allow himself to walk
alone down a dark alley.'

It was enough. Pongo rose, a dignified figure.

'Shall we join the ladies?' he said coldly. 'There aren't any,' said
Lord Ickenham.

'I don't know why I said that,' said Pongo, annoyed. 'What I meant was,
let's stop talking bally rot and go and have a game of billiards.'

jiapier 3


!t was with a light heart and a gay tra-la-la on his lips that 50
Twistleton set out for Ashenden Manor on the follow ifternoon, leaving
Lord Ickenham, who was not embark on his metropolitan jaunt till a few
hours later, waving :volently from the front steps.

Nothing so braces a young man in love as the consciousness

having successfully resisted a Tempter who has tried to lure

iim into a course of action of which the adored object would

int approve: and as he recalled the splendid firmness with

;h he had tied the can to his Uncle Fred's suggestion of a

pleasant and instructive afternoon in London, Pongo felt spiri"ly
uplifted.

leasant and instructive afternoon, forsooth! Few people

; ever come nearer to saying 'Faugh!' than did Pongo as

i Ickenham's phrase shot through his wincing mind like

e loathsome serpent. The crust of the old buster, daring

uggest pleasant and instructive afternoons to a man who

put that sort of thing behind him once and for all. With a

Ider of distaste he thrust the whole degrading episode into

the hinterland of his consciousness, and turned his thoughts to

i more agreeable theme, the coming meeting with Hermione's

">a rents.

his, he was convinced, was going to be a riot from the d Go. He had
little data about these two old geezers, of :ourse, but he presumed that
they were intelligent old geezers, ible to spot a good man when they saw
one, and it seemed, iccordingly, pretty obvious that a fellow like
himself - steady, ipright, impervious to avuncular wheedlings and true
blue from >oup to nuts - would have them eating out of his hand in the
irst minute. 'My dear, he's charmingl' they would write to


27


Hermione, and bluff Sir Aylmer, whom he pictured as a sort of modern
Cheeryble Brother, would say to Lady Bostock (gentle, sweet-faced,
motherly), as they toddled up to bed at the conclusion of a delightful
first evening, 'Gad, my dear, nothing much wrong with that young chap,
what?' - or possibly 'What, what?' He looked forward with bright
confidence to grappling them to his soul with hoops of steel.

It was consequently with some annoyance that he found on reaching his
destination that there was going to be a slight delay before this
desirable state of affairs could be consummated. The first essential
preliminary to grappling a householder and his wife to your soul with
hoops of steelis that you should be able to get into the house they are
holding, and this, he discovered, presented unforeseen difficulties.

Ashenden Manor was one of those solidly built edifices which date from
the days when a home was not so much a place for putting on the old
slippers and lighting the pipe, as a fortress to be defended against
uncouth intruders with battering rams. Its front door was stout and
massive, and at the moment tightly closed. Furthermore, the bell
appeared to be out of order. He leaned against the button with his full
weight for a while, but it soon became clear that this was going to get
him nowhere, and the necessity of taking alternative action presented
itself.

It was at this point that he observed not far from where he stood an
open French window, and it seemed to him that he had found a formula. A
bit irregular, perhaps, to start your first visit to a place by
strolling in through windows, but a kindly, hearty old boy like Sir
Aylmer Bostock would overlook that. Abandoning the front door,
accordingly, as a lost cause, he stepped through, and an instant later
was experiencing the unpleasant shock which always came to people who
found themselves for the first time in the room where the ex-Governor
kept the African curios which he had collected during his years of
honourable exile. Sir Aylmer Bostock's collection of African curios was
probably the most hideous, futile and valueless that even an ex-Governor
had ever brought home with him, and many of its items seemed to take
Pongo into a different and a dreadful world.


28


And he had picked up and started to scrutinize the nearest

;o hand, a peculiar sort of what-not executed in red mud by an

irtist apparently under the influence of trade gin, and was won

lering why even an untutored African should have been chump

igh to waste on an effort like this hours which might have

jeen more profitably employed in chasing crocodiles or beaning

he neighbours with his knobkerrie, when a voice, having in it

many of the qualities of the Last Trump, suddenly split the air.

e o inald I'

arting violently, Pongo dropped the what-not. It crashed »e floor and
became a mere macedoine. A moment later, a y figure appeared in the
doorway, preceded by a large e moustache.


^t about the moment when Pongo at Ickenham Hall was iging to the wheel
of his Buffy-Porson and pressing a foot on the self-starter, Sir Aylmer
Bostock had gone !„ ,,ife's bedroom on the first floor of Ashenden Manor
to d a broken slat in the Venetian blind. He was a man who I to attend
to these little domestic chores himself, and he ted to have it ready
when the midday train brought Lady

jusiock back from London, where she had been spending a

week with her daughter Hermione.

predicting that this old schoolmate of his would feel ;rined at Bill
Oakshott's failure to cooperate in the civic

veicome which he had gone to such trouble to arrange for him,

"rd Ickenham had shown sound judgement of character. When x-Governor,
accustomed for years to seeing his official re- long go like clockwork,
tastes in a black hour the bitterness lilure and anti-climax, pique is
bound to supervene. Fists be clenched, oaths breathed, lower lips
bitten. And this is ocularly so if the ex-Governor is one whose mental
attitude, under the most favourable conditions, resembles, as did

iir Aylmer Bostock's, that of a trapped cinnamon bear. As he

worked, his brow was dark, his moustache bristling, and from

ime to time he snorted in a quiet undertone.

29

He yearned for his wife's company, so that he could pour into her
always receptive ear the story of his wrongs, and soon after he had put
the finishing touches to the broken slat he got it. A cab drove up to
the front door, and presently Lady Bostock appeared, a woman in the late
forties who looked like a horse.

'Oh, there you are, dear,' she said brightly. In conversation with her
consort she was nearly always obliged to provide brightness enough for
both of them. She paused, sniffing. 'What a curious smell there is in
here.'

Sir Aylmer frowned. He resented criticism, even of his smells.	-

'Glue,' he said briefly. 'I've been mending the blind.'

'Oh, how clever of you, darling. Thank you so much,' said Lady Bostock,
brighter than ever. 'Well, I suppose you thought I was never coming
back. It's lovely to be home again. London was terribly stuffy. I
thought Hermione was looking very well. She sent all sorts of messages
to you and Reginald. Has he arrived yet?'

On the point of asking who the devil Reginald was, Sir Aylmer remembered
that his daughter had recently become betrothed to some young pot of
cyanide answering to that name. He replied that Reginald had not yet
arrived.

'Hermione said he was coming today.'

'Well, he hasn't.'

'Has he wired?'

'No.'

'I suppose he forgot."

'Silly fatheaded young poop,' said Sir Aylmer.

Lady Bostock regarded him anxiously. She seemed to sense in his manner
an anti-Reginald bias, and she knew his work. He was capable, she was
aware, when in anything like shape, of reducing young men who had failed
to arouse his enthusiasm to spots of grease in a matter of minutes, and
she was intensely desirous that no such disaster should occur on the
present occasion. Hermione, seeing her off at Waterloo, had issued
definite instructions that her loved one, while at Ashenden Manor, was
to enjoy the status of an ewe lamb, and Hermione was a girl


30


wnom it did not do to cross. She expected people to carry out her
wishes, and those who knew what was good for them in

iably did so.

Recalling all the timid young aides-de-camp whom she had seen curling up
at the edges like scorched paper beneath his »i«re during those long and
happy years in Lower Barnatoland,

gazed at her husband pleadingly.

You will be nice to Reginald, dear, won't you?'

I am always nice.'

I don't want him to complain to Hermione about his un

come. You know what she is like.'

ik. thoughtful silence fell, as they allowed their minds to

ell on what Hermione was like. Lady Bostock broke it on a

e of hope.

You may become the greatest friends.'

Bah!'

Hermione says he is delightful.'

bably the usual young pest with brilliantined hair and

,i66ie,' said Sir Aylmer morosely, refusing to look for the

'er lining and try to find the sunny side of life. 'It's bad l having
William around. Add Reginald, and existence come a hell.'

words reminded Lady Bostock that there was a topic on in affectionate
aunt ought to have touched earlier.

William has arrived, then?'

Yes. Oh, yes, he's arrived.'

I hope the reception went off well. Such a good idea, I

iught, when you told me about it. How surprised he must

fe been. It's so fortunate that he should have come back in

)d time for the fete. He is always so useful, looking after the

irts. Where is he?'

[ don't know. Dead, I hope ...'

Aylmer! What do you mean?'

>ir Aylmer had not snorted since his wife's return and now

was as if all the snorts he might have been snorting had

.lesced into one stupendous burst of sound. It was surprising

t Pongo, at that moment driving in through the main gates,

not hear it and think one of his tyres had gone.


31


Til tell you what I mean. Do you know what that young hound did? Didn't
get out at Ashenden Oakshott. Remained skulking in the train, went on to
Bishop's Ickenham and turned up hours later in a car belonging to Lord
Ickenham, stewed to the gills.'

One hastens to protest that this was a complete misstatement,
attributable solely to prejudice and bitterness of spirit. Considering
that he had arrived there reeling beneath the blow of the discovery that
the girl he loved was betrothed to another, Bill Oakshott had comported
himself at Lord Ickenham's residence with the most exemplary
abstemiousness. In a situation where many men would have started
lowering the stuff by the pailful, this splendid young fellow had
exercised an iron self control. One fairly quick, followed by another
rather slower, and he had been through.

It is true that on encountering his uncle his manner had been such as to
give rise to misunderstanding, but something of this kind is bound to
happen when a nervous young man meets an incandescent senior, of whom he
has always stood in awe, knowing that it is he who has brought him to
the boil. In such circumstances the face inevitably becomes suffused and
the limbs start twitching, even if the subject is a lifelong abstainer.

So much for this monstrous charge.

Lady Bostock made that clicking noise, like a wet finger touching a hot
iron, which women use as a substitute for the masculine 'Well, I'll be
damned!'

'A car belonging to Lord Ickenham?'

'Yes.'

'But how did he come to be in a car belonging to Lord Ickenham?'

'They appear to have met on the train.'

'Oh, I see. I was wondering, because we don't know him.'

'I used to, forty years ago. We were at school together. Haven't seen
him since, thank God. He's a lunatic.'

'I have always heard that he was very eccentric.' Lady Bostock paused,
listening. 'Hark. There's a car driving up. It must be Reginald. You had
better go down."

'I won't go down,' said Sir Aylmer explosively. 'Blast Regi

32

nald. Let him cool his heels for a bit. I'm going to finish telling you
about William.'

'Yes, dear. Do, dear. He does seem to have behaved most oddly. Had he
any explanation?"

'Oh, he had his story all ready, trust him for that. Said he went to
sleep and woke up to find himself at Bishop's Icken ham. I didn't
swallow a word of it. What happened, obviously, was that on seeing the
preparations made for his reception he lost his nerve and remained in
the train, the young toad, leaving me to get the Vicar, his wife, a
Silver Band, ten Boy Scouts and fourteen members of the Infants Bible
Class back to their homes without any of them starting a riot. And let
me tell you it was a very near thing once or twice. Those Bible Class
infants were in ugly mood.'

'It must have been dreadfully disappointing for you all.' _	'That's not
the worst of it. It has probably lost me hundreds B of votes.'

'Oh, but, dear, why? It wasn't your fault.'

'What does that matter? People don't reason. The news of a fiasco like
that flies all over the county. One man tells another. It gets about
that I have been placed in a ridiculous position, and the voters lose
confidence in me. And nothing to be done about it. That is the bitter
thought. You can't put a fellow of William's age and size across your
knee and get at him with the back of a hairbrush... come in.'

There had been a knock on the door. It was followed by the entry of
Jane, the parlourmaid.

'Your ladyship is wanted on the telephone, m'lady,' said Jane, who
believed in respect to the titled. 'It's the Vicar, m'lady.'

'Thank you, Jane. I will come at once.'

'And I,' said Sir Aylmer with a weary snort, 'had better go and welcome
this blasted Reginald, I suppose.'

'You won't forget about Hermione?'

'No, I won't forget about Hermione,' said Sir Aylmer moodily. He did not
waver in his view that his daughter's future husband was bound to be a
deleterious slab of damnation like all other young men nowadays, but if
Hermione de33


sired it he was prepared to coo to him like a turtle dove ; or as
nearly like a turtle dove as was within the scope of one whose vocal
delivery was always rather reminiscent of a bad-tempered toastmaster.

He made his way to the drawing-room, and finding it empty was for a
moment baffled. But ex-Governors are quick-thinking men, trained to deal
with emergencies. When an ex-Governor, seeking a Twistleton, arrives in
the drawing-room where that Twistleton ought to be and finds no
Twistleton there, he does not stand twiddling his thumbs and wondering
what to do. He inflates his lungs and shouts.

'reginald!' thundered Sir Aylmer.

It seemed to him, as the echoes died away, that he could hear the sound
of movements in the collection room across the hall. He went thither,
and poked his head in.

It was as he had suspected. Something, presumably of a Twistletonian
nature, was standing there. He crossed the threshold, and these two
representatives of the older and the younger generation were enabled to
see each other steadily and see each other whole.

On both sides the reaction to the scrutiny was unfavourable. Pongo,
gazing apprehensively at the rugged face with its top dressing of
moustache, was thinking that this Bostock, so far from being the kindly
Dickens character of his dreams, was without exception the hardest old
gumboil he had ever encountered in a career by no means free from
gumboils of varying hardness: while Sir Aylmer, drinking Pongo in from
his lemon-coloured hair to his clocked socks and suede shoes, was
feeling how fight he had been in anticipating that his future son-in-law
would be a pot of cyanide and a deleterious young slab of damnation. He
could see at a glance that he was both.

However, he had come there grimly resolved to coo like a turtle dove, so
he cooed.

'Oh, there you are. Reginald Twistleton?'

'That's right. Twistleton, Reginald.'

'H'ar yer?' roared Sir Aylmer like a lion which has just received an
ounce of small shot in the rear quarters while slaking its thirst at a
water hole, though, if questioned, he would have


34


nsisted that he was still cooing. 'Glad to see yer, Reginald. My vife
will be down in a moment. What you doing in here?'

'I was having a look at these - er - objects.'

'My collection of African curios. It's priceless.'

'Really? How priceless!'

'You won't find many collections like that. Took me ten ^ears to get it
together. You interested in African curios?'

'Oh, rather. I love 'em.'

The right note had been struck. A sort of writhing movement behind his
moustache showed that Sir Aylmer was smiling, and n another moment who
knows what beautiful friendship might not have begun to blossom.
Unfortunately, however, before the burgeoning process could set in, Sir
Aylmer's eyes fell on the remains of the what-not and the smile vanished
from his face like breath off a razor blade, to be replaced by a scowl
of such malignity that Pongo had the illusion that his interior organs
were being scooped out with a spade or trowel.

'Gorbl ...!' he cried, apparently calling on some tribal god. 'How
the... What the ... Did you do that?'

'Er, yes,' said Pongo, standing on one leg. 'Frightfully sorry.'

Sir Aylmer, not without some justice, asked what was the use of being
sorry, and Pongo, following his reasoning, said Yes, he saw what he
meant, supplementing the words with a nervous giggle.

Many people do not like nervous giggles. Sir Aylmer was one of them. On
several occasions in the old days he had had to mention this to his
aides-de-camp. Not even the thought of his daughter Hermione could
restrain him from bestowing on Pongo a second scowl, compared with which
its predecessor had been full of loving kindness. He lowered himself to
the ground, and, crouched on all fours over the remains like Marius
among the ruins of Carthage, began to mutter beneath his breath about
young fools and clumsy idiots. Pongo could not catch his remarks in
their entirety, but he heard enough to give him the general idea.

He gulped pallidly. A sticky moisture had begun to bedew his brow, as if
he had entered the hot room of some Turkish bath of the soul.
Governesses in his childhood and school

35


masters in his riper years had sometimes spoken slightingly of his
I.Q., but he was intelligent enough to realize that on this visit of
his, where it was so vital for him to make a smash hit with Hermione's
parents, he had got off to a- poor start.

It was as Sir Aylmer rose and began to say that the whatnot had been the
very gem and pearl of his collection and that he wouldn't have parted
with it for a hundred pounds, no, not if the intending purchaser had
gone on his bended knees to add emphasis to the offer, that there was a
whirring sound without, indicating that some solid body was passing down
the hall at a high rate of m.p.h. The next moment, Lady Bostock entered,
moving tempestuously.

From Lady Bostock's aspect only Sherlock Holmes, perhaps, would have
been able to deduce that she had just heard from the Vicar over the
telephone that the curate was down with measles, but even Doctor Watson
could have seen that her soul had in some way been badly jolted. So
moved was she that, though a polished hostess, she paid no attention to
Pongo, who was now standing on the other leg.

'Aylmer!'

'Well?'

'Aylmer ... The Vicar ...'

'well?'

'The Vicar says Mr Brotherhood has got measles. He wants us to go and
see him at once.'

'Who the devil's Mr Brotherhood?'

'The curate. You know Mr Brotherhood, the curate. That nice young man
with the pimples. He has gone and got measles, and I was relying on him
to judge the babies.'

'What babies?'

'The bOnny babies. At the fete.'

A word about this fete. It was the high spot of Ashenden Oakshott's
social year, when all that was bravest and fairest in the village
assembled in the Manor grounds and made various kinds of whoopee. Races
were run, country dances danced, bonny babies judged in order of merit
in the big tent and tea and buns consumed in almost incredible
quantities. Picture a blend of the Derby and a garden party at
Buckingham


36


Palace, add Belshazzar's Feast, and you have the Ashenden Oakshott
Fete.

One can readily appreciate, therefore, Lady Bostock's concern at the
disaster which had occurred. A lady of the manor, with an important fete
coming along and the curate in bed with measles, is in the distressing
position of an impresario whose star fails him a couple of days before
the big production or a general whose crack regiment gets lumbago on the
eve of battle.

'It's terrible. Dreadful. I can't think who I can get to take his
place.'

Sir Aylmer, who believed in having a thorough understanding about these
things at the earliest possible moment, said he was dashed if he was
going to do it, and Lady Bostock said No, no, dear, she wouldn't dream
of asking him.

'But I must find somebody.' Lady Bostock's eye, rolling in a fine frenzy
from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven, picked on Pongo, now back on
the leg he had started with, and she stared at him dazedly, like one
seeing unpleasant things in a dream. 'Are you Reginald?' she said
distractedly.

The emotional scene, following upon his chat with Sir Aylmer about
what-nots, had left Pongo in a condition of such mental turmoil that for
an instant he was not quite sure. Regin-, aid? Was he Reginald? Was
Reginald a likely thing for anyone to be? ... Why, yes, of course. The
woman was perfectly correct.

'Yes, I'm Reginald.'

'How nice to meet you at last,' wailed Lady Bostock like a soul in
torment.

It is never easy off-hand to find the ideal reply to such an
observation. Discarding 'Yes!' as too complacent and 'What ho!' as too
familiar, and not being fortunate enought to think of 'I've been looking
forward so much to meeting you,' Pongo contented himself with another of
his nervous giggles.

A sudden light came into Lady Bostock's haggard eyes.

'Have you ever judged bonny babies, Reginald?'

The?' said Pongo, reeling.

Before he could speak further, an angel, in the very effective


37


disguise of Sir Aylmer, intervened to save him from the ghastly peril
which had so suddenly risen to confront him.

'You don't want Reginald,' he said, and Pongo. who a moment earlier
would have scoffed at the suggestion that it would ever be possible for
him to want to leap at his host and kiss him on both cheeks, was
conscious of a powerful urge in that direction. 'I'll tell you who gets
the job.'

After uttering the words 'I'm dashed if I'm going to do it' and
receiving his wife's reassuring reply, Sir Aylmer had fallen into a
silence, as if musing or pondering, and it was plain now that the brain
work on which he had been engaged had borne fruit. His manner had become
animated, and in his eye, which, Testing upon Pongo, had been dull and
brooding, there was a triumphant gleam.

It was a gleam which might have puzzled an untravelled beholder, but
anybody who had ever seen a Corsican feudist suddenly presented with the
opportunity of wreaking a sinister vengeance on a family foe would have
recognized it immediately. It was that strange, almost unearthly light
which comes into the eyes of wronged uncles when they see a chance of
getting a bit of their own back from erring nephews.

'I'll tell you who gets the job,' he repeated. 'William.'

'William?'

'William,' said Sir Aylmer, rolling the word round his tongue like
vintage port.

Lady Bostock stared.

'But William ... Surely, dear... The very last person ...'

'William.'

'But he would hate it.'

'William.'

'You know how terribly shy he is."

'William. I don't want any argument, Emily. It's no good you standing
there blinding and sniffing. William judges the bonny babies. I insist.
Perhaps now he'll be sorry he skulked in trains and went on toots with
old Ickenham.'

Lady Bostock sighed. But a habit of obsequiousness which had started at
the altar rails was too strong for her.

'Very well, dear.'


38


'Good. Tell him when you see him. Meanwhile, you say, the yicar wants
us to go down to the vicarage and confer with iim. Right. I'll drive you
in the car. Come along.'

He darted through the French windows, followed by Lady Bostock, and
after a few moments occupied in mopping his 'orehead with the
handkerchief which so perfectly matched his ie and socks, Pongo followed
them.

He felt he needed air. A similar sensation had often come to sensitive
native chiefs at the conclusion of an interview with Sir Aylmer Bostock
on the subject of unpaid hut taxes.


Sunshine and the pure Hampshire breezes playing about his temples soon
did wonders in the way of restoring him to the normal. Presently,
feeling almost himself again, he returned to the house, and, as always
happened with those, who had once seen Sir Aylmer's collection of
African curios, there came jver him a morbid urge to take another look
at these weird exhibits, to ascertain whether they really looked as
frightful is they had appeared at first sight. He passed through the
French window into the collection room, and a pink policeman, who had
been bicycling dreamily up the drive, uttered a sharp 'Ho!' and
accelerated his pace, his eyes hard and his jaw protruding
belligerently.

The policeman's name was Harold Potter. He represented the awful majesty
of the Law in Ashenden Oakshott. His pinkness was due to the warmth of
the weather, and he was dreamy because he had been musing on Elsie Bean,
the Manor nousemaid, to whom he was affianced.

It was in order to enjoy a chat with Elsie Bean that he had come here,
and until he turned the corner and was in view of the house his thoughts
had been all of love. But at the sight of furtive forms slinking in
through French windows Potter, the Romeo, became in a flash Potter, the
sleepless guardian of the peace. His substantial feet pressed on the
pedals like those of a racing cyclist.

It looked to Harold Potter like a fair cop.

And so it came about that Pongo, his opinion of the intelligence of
African natives now even lower than before, was

39

disturbed in his contemplation of their fatuous handiwork by the sound
of emotional breathing in his rear. He spun round, to find himself
gazing into the steely eyes of a large policeman with a ginger
moustache.

'Ho!' he cried, startled.

'Ho!' said Constable Potter, like an echo in the Swiss mountains.


It would be idle to pretend that the situation was not one of some
embarrassment. It belonged to the type which would have enchanted Lord
Ickenham, who enjoyed nothing better than these little variations in the
calm monotone of life, but it brought Pongo out from head to foot in a
sort of prickly heat.

Unlike most of his lighthearted companions of the Drones Club, who
rather made pets of policemen, tipping them when in funds and stealing
their helmets on Boat Race night, Pongo had always had a horror of the
Force. That sombreness of his on the day at the dog races, for which
Lord Ickenham had reproached him, had been occasioned by the fact that a
member of that Force, who might have been this one's twin brother, had
been attached to his coat collar and advising him to come quietly.

He smiled a weak smile.

'Oh, hullo,' he said.

'Hullo,' replied Constable Potter coldly. 'What's all this?'

'What's all what?'

'What are you doing on these enclosed premises?'

'I've been invited here for a brief visit.'

'Ho!'

It seemed to Pongo that he was not making headway. The situation, sticky
at the outset, appeared to be growing progressively stickier. He was
relieved, accordingly, when a third party arrived to break up the
teteatete.

This was a small, sturdy girl of resolute appearance with blue eyes and
a turned-up nose, clad in the uniform of a house40



I


maid. She regarded with interest the picture in still life before her.

'Hullo,' she said. 'Where did you spring from, Harold? And who's this?'

'Chap I've apprehended on enclosed premises,' said Constable Potter
briefly.

Pongo, who had been dabbing at his forehead, waved his handkerchief in
passionate protest against this too professional view.

'What's all this rot about enclosed premises?' he demanded with spirit.
'I resent the way, officer, you keep chewing the fat about enclosed
premises. Why shouldn't I be on enclosed premises, when specially
invited? Here, you, what's your name, my dear old housemaid '

'Miss Bean, my fiancee,' said Constable Potter, frigidly doing the
honours.

'Oh really? Heartiest congratulations. Pip-pip, Miss Bean.'

'Toodle-oo.'

'I hope you'll be very, very happy. Well, what I was going to say was
that you will be able to bear me out that I'm a guest at this joint.
I've just arrived in my car to spend a few days. I'm the celebrated
Twistleton, the bird who's engaged to Miss Bostock. You must know all
about me. No doubt the place has been ringing with my name.'

'Miss Hermione is engaged to a gentleman named Twistleton.'

'Exactly.'

'And Jane heard them saying at dinner that he was expected k^re, Harold.
I believe this is him.'

'Well spoken, young Bean,' said Pongo with enthusiasm. He had taken an
immediate liking to this clear-reasoning girl. 'Of course I'm him.
Look,' said Pongo, turning back the pocket of his coat. 'Read this
definite statement by one of the most reputable tailors in London. "R.
G. Twistleton." There you are, in black and white.'

'It could be somebody else's coat that you'd bought second hand,' argued
Constable Potter, fighting in the last ditch.

Pongo gave him a look.

41



Ji - :




*

s


'Don't say such things even in jest, officer. Rather,' he said with a
sudden flash of inspiration, 'ring up the Vicar and ask for Sir Aylmer,
who is in conference with him on the subject of bonny babies, and put it
squarely up to the latter - Sir Aylmer, I mean, not the bonny babies -
whether he didn't leave me here only a few moments ago after a pleasant
and invigorating chat."

'You mean you've met Sir Aylmer?'

'Of course I've met Sir Aylmer. We're just like that,'

Constable Potter seemed reluctantly convinced.

'Well, I suppose it's all right, then. I beg your pardon, sir.'

'Quite all right, officer.'

'Then I'll be saying good afternoon, sir. How about a pot of tea in the
kitchen, Elsie?'

Elsie Bean elevated her small nose.

'You can go to the kitchen, if you like. Not me. Your sister's there,
calling on cook.'

'Ho!' Constable Potter stood for a moment in thought. The conflicting
claims of tea and a loved one's society were plainly warring within him.
One is sorry to report that the former prevailed. 'Well, I think I'll
mooch along and have a cup,' he said, and mooched, as foreshadowed.

Elsie Bean looked after his retreating blue back with a frown.

'You and your sister!' she said.

The note of acerbity in her voice was so manifest that Pongo could not
help but be intrigued. Here, he told himself, or he was very much
mistaken, was a housemaid with a secret sorrow. He stopped mopping his
forehead and cocked an inquiring eye at Elsie Bean.

'Don't you like his sister?'

'No, I don't.'

'Well, if there's any sort of family resemblance, I can fully
comprehend,' said Pongo. With Constable Potter's departure Ashenden
Manor seemed to him to have become a sweeter, better place. 'Why don't
you like his sister? What's the matter with her?'

Elsie Bean was a friendly little soul who, though repeatedly encouraged
to do so by her employers, had never succeeded in 42

achieving that demure aloofness which is the hallmark of the
well-trained maid. Too often in her dealings with the ruling classes, in
circumstances where a distant 'Yes, sir,' or 'No, madam,' would have
been more suitable, you would find her becoming expansive and
conversational. And on the present occasion she regarded herself as a
hostess.

'I'll tell you what's the matter with her. She goes on at him about how
he mustn't leave the Force. It's "Don't you do it, Harold," and "Don't
you let Elsie talk you into acting against your true interests,' all the
time. I haven't any patience.'

Pongo concentrated tensely.

'Let me see if I've got this straight,' he said. 'You want him to turn
in his boots and truncheon? To cease, in a word, to be a copper?'

'R.'

'But his sister doesn't. Yes, I get the set-up. Why do you want him to
turn in his boots and truncheon?' asked Pongo. A man who has been
reading for the Bar for some years gets into the way of putting the
pertinent question.

Elsie Bean seemed surprised that such a question should have been
considered necessary.

'Well, wouldn't you? If you was a girl, would you like to be married to
a policeman? Feeling your old man was hated by all. If I went home to
Uottleton East and told my family I was going to get spliced to a
copper, they'd have a fit. A nice thing .for my brother Bert to hear,
when he comes out in September."

Pongo nodded intelligently. Until now, having supposed his companion to
be a local product, he had failed to grasp the nub, but her last words
made everything clear. He could quite see how a London girl, especially
a child of the notoriously rather vivacious quarter of Bottleton East,
might shrink from linking her lot with that of a professional tapper on
shoulders and grasper of coat collars. In addition to this brother Bert
- at the moment, it appeared, unhappily no longer with us - there were
no doubt a number of Uncle Herbs and Cousin Georges in her entourage
who, were she to commit such a mesalliance, would consider, and rightly,
that she had inflicted a blot on the Bean escutcheon.


43


IS

'I see what you mean,' he said. 'But what could he do if he resigned
his portfolio? Not easy to find jobs nowadays.'

'I want him to buy a pub. He's got three hundred pounds. He won a
football pool last winter.'

The lucky stiff.'

'But he's scared of that sister of his, and I can't persuade him. "Now,
listen, Harold," I keep saying, but he just hums and haws and chews his
moustache. Oh, well,' said Elsie philosophically, 'I suppose it'll all
come out in the wash. What's that mess on the floor?'

'It's what's left of a sort of gadget I happened to drop.'

'Does he know about it?'

'Oh, yes. The topic came up.'

'I wonder he didn't chew your head off.'

'He did look for a moment as if he were toying with some such idea.
Rather a hard nut, what?'

'He's an overbearing dishpot,' said Elsie Bean.

Pongo wandered out into the hall. He had about as much as he required of
the collection of African curios for the time being, and he wanted to
pace up and down and ponder. He had already formed a reasonably accurate
estimate of Sir Aylmer Bostock's character, but it was interesting to
find it confirmed by the woman who knew.

An overbearing dishpot? The words had a disagreeable sound. His attitude
towards overbearing dishpqts resembled that of his companion's circle in
Bottleton East towards officers of the Law. He disliked and feared them.
It began to look to him as if union with Hermione Bostock, good though
it might be in itself, carried with it certain disadvantages which
wanted thinking over.

'And Lady Bostock?' he said. 'She flitted only briefly through my life,
but she struck me as being slightly less of a man-eater.'

'Yes, she's better than what he is,' agreed Elsie Bean. 'But the one I
like is Mr William.'

'Who would he be?'

'Their nephew. Mr Oakshott.'

'Oh, ah, yes. I was forgetting. I know him, or used to. Got a pink face,
hasn't he?'


44


I

'Well, I'd call it more of a tomato ketchup colour. Owing to the heat of
the sun in them parts. He's just come back from Brazil. He was telling
me about Brazil this morning,' said Elsie, who had lost no time in
buttonholing the returned wanderer and exchanging ideas with him. 'The
natives there shoot birds with poisoned darts.'

'Poisoned darts?'

*R. Through blowpipes.'

Pongo was courteous, but he could not let this pass. Though it was some
time since he had boned up on his Brazil, memories of 'The Boy Explorers
Up the Amazon' still lingered in his mind.

'Not poisoned darts.'

'That's what Mr William told me.'

'He was pulling your leg. They keep those for their wives' relations.
Use your intelligence, my dear old housemaid. When a Brazilian native
shoots a bird, he does it with a purpose. He intends to employ that bird
subsequently in broiled or fricassee form. Obviously, then, if he soaked
it with a poisoned dart, he would be defeating his own ends, because no
sooner had he bitten into the liver wing than he would kick the bucket
in awful agonies. And Brazilian natives, while they may be asses, are
not silly asses. If you really want to know how they shoot birds, I will
tell you. They fashion a rude sling - thus,' said Pongo, taking out his
handkerchief and unfolding it. 'They then look about them for a handy
projectile, as it might be this paperweight, and stuff it into the rude
sling. This done, they whirl the contraption round their heads and ...
Oh, my God I Where did that one go?'

It had not been his intention to give a practical demonstration. He had
planned to stop short of the actual discharge of the projectile, merely
indicating its effects verbally. But artistic enthusiasm had carried him
too far. A rending crash, and something white in the shadows at the end
of the hall was lying in fragments.

'Coo!' said Elsie Bean, awed. 'You aren't half breaking up the home, are
you? You'll catch it when His Nibs gets back.'

For the third time since he had entered this house of terror,

45

Pongo's brow grew warm and damp. With that get-together of theirs over
the broken what-not still green in his memory, it seemed to him only too
sickeningly certain that he would catch it when His Nibs got back.

'What was it?' he quavered, rightly speaking of the object in the past
tense.

'It's a sort of sawn-off statue like, that he had presented to him when
he give up being Governor of that dog's island out in Africa that he
used to be Governor of. A bust, cook says it's called. He thinks the
world of it. The other morning he happened to come along while I was
giving it a bit of a dusting, and you ought to have heard him go on,
just because I kind of rocked it a little. "Be careful, girl! Be
careful, girl! Mind what you're doing, my good girl!" Coo!'

Pongo's brow grew damper. A stylist would now have described it as
beaded. And simultaneously he found himself chilled to the bone. He was
a human replica of one of those peculiar puddings which lure the diner
on into supposing that he is biting into a hot souffle and then suddenly
turn right around and become ice-cream in the middle.

Matters were even worse, he perceived, than he had feared. This was not
one of those minor breakages which get passed off with a light apology
on the one side and a jolly laugh on the other. It was as if Sir Aylmer
Bostock had had a favourite child on whom he doted and he, Pongo, had
socked that child on the occiput and laid it out good and proper. And
coming right on top of the what-not misadventure, too! What would be the
effect on his temperamental host of this second and possibly even more
wrath-provoking outrage?

'Golly!' he moaned, sagging at the knees. 'This is a nice bit of box
fruit. Advise me, young Bean. What do I do for the best, do you think?'

It may be that Bottleton East produces an exceptionally quick-witted
type of girl, or perhaps all women are like that. At any rate, Elsie
Bean, with scarcely a pause for thought, provided the solution hot off
the griddle.

'Well, look,' she said. 'It's kind of dark in that corner, so maybe he
won't miss his old bust for a bit. He's shortsighted,


46


[ know, and he won't wear specs because he thinks they'd make iim look
silly. Jane heard them talking about it at dinner. If [ was you, I'd hop
into that car of yours and drive lickerty-split :o London and get
another bust. And then you drive back and stick it up. Ten to one he
won't notice nothing.'

For an instant Pongo's numbed brain was incapable of following her
reasoning. Then the mists cleared, and he saw that t was red-hot stuff.
This girl had found the way.

Drive lickerty-split to London? No need to do that. He could procure the
substitute a dashed sight nearer than London. At Ickenham Hall, to be
precise. His mind shot back to last night's dinner-table.... Uncle Fred
jerking a thumb at an object in the corner of the room and saying it was
a bust which Sally had brought down and left in his charge, and himself
- how ironical it seemed now - giving the thing a brief and uninterested
glance. It wouldn't be an uninterested glance he would be giving it when
he saw it again.

His spirits soared. Ickenham Hall was only a dozen miles away, and he
had an owner-driver's touching faith in the ability of his Buffy-Porson
to do a dozen miles, if pushed, in about three minutes and a quarter. He
could be there and back and have the understudy on its pedestal long
before his host had finished conferring with the Vicar.

He beamed upon Elsie Bean.

'That's the set-up. I'll go and get the car.'

'I would.'

'You, meanwhile, might be putting in a bit of earnest brush and-pan
work."

'Right ho!'

'Fine. Great. Capital. Splendid,' said Pongo, and raced for the stables.

Elsie Bean, her errand of mercy concluded, was standing on the front
steps when he drove up. He was conscious, as he saw her, of a twinge of
remorse, for it had just come to him that he had churlishly omitted to
chuck her so much as a word of thanks for her splendid resourcefulness.

'I say,' he said, 'I forgot to mention it in the swirl and rush of
recent events, but I'm most frightfully obliged to you for


47


 I

the very sporting way you've rallied round and saved me from the fate
that is worse than death - viz;' explained Pongo, 'getting glared at by
that goggle-eyed old Jack the Ripper with the lip fungus.'

Elsie Bean said she was only too pleased, to be sure, and he took her
hand in his and pressed it.

'But for you I should have been in the soup and going down for the third
time. I owe you more than words can tell.'

He was still pressing her hand, and from that to kissing her in a
grateful and brotherly manner was but a short step. He took it, and Bill
Oakshott, coming round the corner after one of the long walks with which
he was endeavouring these days to allay the pangs of frustrated love,
was able to observe the courteous gesture from start to finish.

Pongo sprang into the car with a lissom bound, waved his hand and drove
off, and Bill stared after him, stunned. Pongo belonged to the type of
man which changes very little in appearance with the passage of the
years, and he recognized him immediately.

Still, to make sure ...

'Wasn't that Mr Twistleton?' he inquired of Elsie Bean.

'Yes, sir,' said Elsie composedly. She had no inkling of the turmoil in
his soul, and would have been astounded to learn that anyone was taking
exception to that kiss. In Bottleton East everybody kisses everybody
else as a matter of course, like the early Christians. 'He says you were
wrong about the natives, Mr William.'

'The what?'

'Those natives in Brazil. They don't shoot birds with poisoned darts,
only their wives' relations. They use rude slings.'

With an effort that shook his powerful frame to its foundations Bill
Oakshott contrived to keep from saying something ruder about Brazilian
natives than any sling fashioned by them. There was no room in his
thoughts for Brazilian natives. All the available space was occupied by
Pongo.

So this, he was saying to himself, was the man to whom Hermione had
entrusted her happiness; a libertine who, once


48


the Don Juan of his dancing class, now went about kissing jousemaids on
doorsteps. How right, how unerringly right, Did Ickenham had been. Can
the leopard change his spots, he jail speculated. This leopard didn't
even seem to want to.

'Gosh!' thought Bill, aghast at the stark horror of the thing.

A minor point presented itself.

'Where's he off to?' he asked, puzzled.

'London, sir.'

'London?'

'Yes, sir,'

'But he's only just arrived.'

'Yes, sir.'

'Did he say why he was going to London?'

Elsie Bean was a good accomplice, cautious, reliable, on the dert
against verbal slips.

'No, sir. He just said "Coo! I think I'll go to London," and Dopped
off.'

Bill Oakshott drew a deep breath. It seemed to him that in the years
since he had seen him last, his old friend, never very strong in the
head, must have become absolutely non compos. Do balanced men drive to
country houses and immediately ipon arrival say 'Coo! I think I'll go to
London,' and drive off igain? They certainly do not.

His heart, as he filled his pipe, was heavy. Sane libertines, le was
thinking, are bad enough, but loony libertines are the limit.


u.d. -3


Chapter 4


It was at a quarter to eight that evening that Lord Ickenham, after a
pleasant journey to London in his car and a bath and change at his club,
arrived in Budge Street, Chelsea, to pick up Sally Painter and take her
to dinner.

Budge Street, Chelsea, in the heart of London's artistic quarter, is,
like so many streets in the hearts of artistic quarters, dark, dirty,
dingy and depressing. Its residents would appear; to be great readers
and very fond of fruit, for tattered newspapers can always be found
fluttering about its sidewalks and old banana skins, cores of apples,
plum stones and squashed strawberries lying in large quantities in its
gutters. Its cats are stringy, hard-boiled cats, who look as if they
were contemplating, or had just finished perpetrating, a series of
murders of the more brutal type.

It was a bit of luck, accordingly, for this dishevelled thoroughfare to
be toned up by Lord Ickenham's ornamental presence. With his well-cut
clothes and distinguished deportment he lent to the scene a suggestion
of the enclosure at Ascot on Cup Day.	.

And he had not been there long, strolling up and down, when Budge Street
had another slice of'good fortune. Round the corner from the King's Road
there came hurrying a small, alert girl in beige, whose arrival
intensified the Ascot note. Nobody, not even Pongo at the very height of
that unfortunate discussion about the tint of his liver, had ever
attempted to deny that Sally Painter was pretty: and even if she had not
been, there was a jauntiness in her carriage which would have gone far
to create that illusion.

To Lord Ickenham she seemed like some spirit of the summer day. Watching
her as she paused to tickle a passing cat


50


 I


and noting how under the treatment the cat became in an instant a
better, more idealistic cat, his heart went out to her.

'BoyI' he cried paternally, and she came running up, floating into his
arms like a columbine.

'I hope I haven't kept you waiting, Uncle Fred. I had to see a man about
a bust.'

'Not at all,' said Lord Ickenham. Odd, he was thinking, how everybody
seemed to be seeing men about busts today. It was only a few hours since
Pongo had come charging into his study, clamouring for one. 'Always see
men about busts. It is the secret of a happy and successful life.'

Sally linked her arm in his, and gave it a squeeze.

'It's lovely seeing you again, angel.'

'I am always well worth looking at.'

'How wonderful of you to come. And how brave! How did you manage to
sneak away?'

'What extraordinary verbs you employ, child.'

'Well, didn't Aunt Jane say she would scalp you with a blunt knife next
time you were A.W.O.L.?'

'In her playful way she did say something of the sort. Odd, that craving
of hers to keep me vegetating in the country. But your honorary Aunt
Jane is at the moment on her way to the West Indies. This has eased the
situation a good deal. I thought it a good opportunity of broadening my
mind.'

'Or playing hooky.'

'That -is another way of putting it, of course. Well, let's find a taxi
and go and get some dinner. There's one,' said Lord Ickenham, as they
turned the corner. 'Hop in. Barribault's,' he said to the driver, and
Sally closed her eyes in a sort of ecstasy. A girl who as a rule dined
sparingly in Soho, she found enchantment in the mere name of London's
premier restaurant.

'Barribault's? We're not dressed.'

'Grill room. Ev. dress not oblig.'

'But do I look smart enough?'

'My dear, you look like Helen of Troy after a good facial.' Sally leaned
back against the cushions. 'Barribault's!' she murmured.


51


'We Earls step high,' Lord Ickenharfi assured her. 'The best is none
too good for us.'	'

'It must be great being an Oil.'	'

'It's terrific. I often lie awake at night, aching with pity for all the
poor devils who aren't.'	- ' 'Though I suppose you know you're an
anachronistic para- ''. site on the body of the State? Or so Otis says.
He's just become a Communist.'	/.

'He has, has he? Well, you can tell him from me that if he starts any
nonsense of trying to hang me from a lamp-post, I shall speak very
sharply to him. Doesn't he like Earls?'.	'!K

'Not much. He thinks they're blood-suckers.'	" "'

'What an ass that boy is; to be sure. Where's the harm in sucking blood?
We. need it, to keep us rosy. And-it isn't as if I hadn't had to work
for my little bit of gore. People see ; me now the dickens of a fellow
with five Christian names and a coronet hanging on-a peg in the hats and
coats cupboard under the stairs, and they forget that I started at the
bottom of the ladder. For years I was a younger son, a mere Honourable!'
'

'Why have you never told me this?*

'I hadn't the heart to. A worm of an Hon. In Debrett, yes, but only in
small print.'	.

'You're making me cry.'	.

'I can't help that. Do you know how they treat Hons,.Sally? Like dogs.
They have to go into dinner behind the Vice-Chancellor of the County
Palatinate of Lancaster.'	. '

'Well, it's all over now, darling.'	' .

'The only bit of sunshine in their.lives is the privilege of , being
allowed to stand at the bar of the House of Lords during - " debates.
And I couldn't even do that, my time being earmarked for the cows I was
punching in Arizona.'	. 'I didn't know you had ever punched cows.'	.'

'As a young man, hundreds. I had a beautiful punch in those days,
straight and true, like the kick of a mule, and never, travelling more
than six inches. I also jerked soda, did a bit of newspaper work, which
was when I met' your father, and had a ' shot at prospecting in the
Mojave' Desert. But was I happy? , '


52	. ' '


to. Because always at the back of my mind, like some cor oding acid,
was the thought that I had to go into dinner be- find the
Vice-Chancellor of the County Palatinate of Lancas er. In the end, by
pluck and perseverance, I raised myself from he depths and became what I
am to-day. I'd like to see any /ice-Chancellor of the County Palatinate
of Lancaster try to quash in ahead of me now.'

'It's like something out of Horatio Alger.'

'Very like. But I'm boring you. I'm afraid we fellows who lave made good
have a tendency to go rambling on about jur early struggles. Tell me of
yourself. How are you doing hese days, Sally?'

'Well, I still go into dinner behind fashion editresses, but iside from
that I'm making out pretty satisfactorily.'

'Trade good?'

'Not so bad.'

The cab drew up at the ornate portal of Barribault's Hotel, and they
made their way to the grill-room. As they took their seats, Sally was
sniffing luxuriously.

'Heaven!' she said.

'Hungry?'

'I'm always hungry.'

Lord Ickenham looked at her a little anxiously.

'You're sure you're not hard up, Sally?'

'Not a bit. Busts are quite brisk. It's odd, when you think how hideous
most people are, that so many of them should svant to hand their faces
down to posterity."

'You wouldn't deceive me?*

'No, honestly. I'm opulent.'

'Then why did you send me that S.O.S.? What is the very urgent matter
you wanted to see me about, with the "very" underlined?'

Sally was silent for a moment, but only because she was sating caviare.
It did not often come her way.

'Oh, that? It's about Otis.'

'My God!'

'Well, it is. I'm sorry.'

'Otis again! A thing I've noticed all my life is that the nicest


53


girls always have the. ghastliest brothers. It seems to be a law of
nature. Well, what's the trouble this .time, and what do you want me to
do?'

'I'll explain about the trouble later. What I want you to do is to ask
Pongo to do something for me.' ,'Pongo?'

'I can't very well approach him direct,' said Sally.

There was a sudden flatness in her voice which did not .escape Lord
Ickenham's quick ear. He leaned across and petted her hand.	• .

'A shame about you and Pongo, Sally.'

.'Yes.'	•'.-.•• \

There Was a.silence. Lord Ickenham stole a glance across the table.
Sally was gazing into the middle distance, her eyes, or so it seemed to
him, suspiciously bright and with a disposition to moisture which
disquieted him. It is rarely that an uncle is able to understand how a
nephew of his can possibly cast a fatal spell and, fond as he was of
Pongo, Lord Ickenham could not see him as a breaker of hearts. Yet it
appeared plain • that his loss had left a large gap in this girl's life.
Her air was the air of one who v?as pining for Pongo, and it was a
relief when the waiter, arriving with truite bleue, broke a tension'
which had begun to be uncomfortable.

'Tell .me about Otis,' he said.

Sally smiled a rather twisted smile.

'You needn't be tactful, Uncle Fred. I don't mind talking about Pongo.
At least... No, of course I don't. Have you seen him lately?'

'He left me this afternoon. He turned up yesterday and spent the night.'
' • . .' . 'How Was he looking?' :

'Oh, very well.'

.'Did he speak about me?'	' . .

'Yes. And when I cursed him for being ass enough to part brass rags with
you, he told me the inside story.' '

'About my wanting him to smuggle Alice Vansittart's jewels into
America?'	..•'••

'Yes.'	• '

54

'I was a fool to get mad. And it was all so unnecessary, as it turned
out.'

"The Vansittart decided on reflection to pay duty?'

'No. But I thought of a much better way of slipping the stuff through.
I'm not going to tell even you what it was, but it's a peach of a way.
It can't fail. Alice is crazy about it.'

She spoke with a girlish animation which encouraged Lord Ickenham to
hope that her heart was, after all, not irretrievably broken. That
bright, moist look had gone from her eyes, leaving in its place a gleam
not unlike that of which Pongo had so disapproved, when he had seen it
in the eyes of his Uncle Fred.

'She is, is she?'

'When I told her, she clapped her hands in glee.'

'You realize, of course, that it is very wrong to deceive the United
States Customs authorities?'

'Yes, it makes me miserable. Poor darlings.'

'Still, there it is. So you and Pongo need not have split up at all.'

'No.'

'It was silly of him to take your breaking the engagement so seriously.
My dear wife broke ours six times, and each time I came up smiling.'

'I ought to have remembered that Pongo does take things seriously.'

'Yes. A saintly character, but muttonheaded.'

'And now he's gone and got engaged to Hermione, only daughter of Sir
Aylmer Bostock and Lady Bostock, of Ashen den Manor, Ashenden Oakshott,
Hants. Oh, well. Do you know her, Uncle Fred?'

'No. I've seen her photograph.'

'So have I. It was in the Toiler. She's very good-looking.'

'If you admire that type of looks.'

'Pongo seems to.'

'Yes. For the moment you might describe him as being under the ether.
But there will be a bitter awakening.'

'You can't know that just from seeing her photograph."

'Yes, I can. She'll give him the devil.'	H


55


'Oh, 'poor angel.'

There was another silence.

'Well, what is it you want me to ask him to do for you?' said Lord
Ickenham. 'I may mention that I'm'pretty sure he will do it; whatever it
is. He> still'.damned fond of you, Sally.'

'Oh, no.'	. :

'He is, I tell you. He confessed as much, in so many words.'

A dazzling smile flashed out on Sally's face. The waiter, who was
bringing chicken en casserole, caught it head-on aad nearly dropped the
dish. ' 'Did he?'

'And don't forget that he still retained enough of the old affection to
send you a customer in the shape of Sir Aylmer Bostock.'	. '

'Was it Pongo who got me that job? How like him,' said Sally softly. T
love him for that. Though unfortunately it was through my doing that
.bust that poor Otis's trouble came about.'	.

'How did that happen?"

'Well, to begin at the beginning, I did the bust'

'Quite.'

'And during the process, of course, my sitter and I talked of this and
that.'	.

'Was his conversation entertaining?'

'Not very. He was rather inclined to compare my. efforts to their
disadvantage with those of a sculptor who did a bust of him when he
retired.''

'The one that stands - or stood - in the hall at Ashenden?' .- 'Yes.
However did you know?' <	.

'Wait, my child. I shall'Shortly be telling you a story of my own. Go
on. He conversed with you, but you did nbt find him very entertaining.'
'

'No. But he said one thing that gripped my attention, and that was that
he had written his Reminiscences and had decided after some thought to
pay for their publication, He spoke like a man who had had
disappointments. So I said to myself "HaL AjobforOtis."'

'I begin to see. Qtis took it on and made a mess of it?'


56 '.'	'.'''


'Yes. In a negligent moment he slipped in some plates which should have
appeared in a book on Modern Art which he was doing. Sir Aylmer didn't
like any of them much, but the one he disliked particularly was the nude
female with 'Myself in the Early Twenties' under it. The .first thing I
knew about it was when he sent the bust back. Lady Bostock brought it
round to my studio with a stiff note. And now he's bringing an action
for enormous damages. If it comes off, it will smash Otis's poor little
publishing firm. It's all rather unfortunate.'

'Most. But characteristic of Otis.'

'Poor lamb, he's dreamy.'

'Poor fish, he's a nightmare. I suppose you put up money for his
publishing firm?'

'A certain amount.'

'Oh, heavens. Well, I'm sorry to say it, my dear, but if what you tell
me is correct, any jury will give Bostock Otis's head on a charger.'

T know. If the thing ever comes into court. That's why I need Pongo's
help. I want him to use his influence with Sir Aylmer to get him to
withdraw the suit. He might persuade him to settle for some smallish
amount which wouldn't ruin Otis.'

'That would be the happy ending, of course. But is Pongo persona grata
with him!'

'Surely?'

'I wonder. It all depends on how he has come out with that bust. Strange
that Otis's future as a publisher, which I don't care a damn about, and
your little bit of money, which I do, should depend on Pongo's ability
to sneak a clay bust into Ashenden Manor and get away with it. Odd.
Bizarre, you might say. Life can be very complicated at times.'

'What do you mean? What bust?'

'That is the stpry I am about to relate. Have you had enough to eat?
Then let's go and have our coffee in the lounge. Yes,' said Lord
Ickenham, when they had seated themselves in two of the luxurious
armchairs which Barribault's Hotel provides for its patrons, 'very
complicated indeed. I told you Pongo came to my place last night.'


57


was going to call for the bust next week and take it to America. That
was the "way" I was telling you I thought of.'

'Well, dash my wig and buttons!' said Lord Ickenham.

There followed a pregnant silence. Having dashed his wig and buttons,
Lord Ickenham, though nobody could have called him an unresourceful man,
seemed at a loss. He scratched his chin, he twirled his moustache, he
drummed with his fingers on the side of his chair, but without obtaining
anything in the nature of an inspiration.

Finally he rose.

'Well, it's no good saying I'm sorry, my dear. Nor is there much to be
gained by pointing out that I meant well. What you want is a policy, not
remorseful bleatings. I think I'll take a turn up and down outside. The
fresh air may assist the flow of thought. And the flow of thought would
certainly seem to need all the assistance it can get.'

He went out through the revolving door, his head bowed, his hands
clasped behind his back. When he returned some minutes later, it was
with a message of hope. His face had cleared and he was his old bright
self again.

'It's all right, my child. This little difficulty can be very simply
adjusted. It just needed concentration. You did tell me Mugsy had
returned that bust you did of him? You have it at the studio?'

'Yes.'

'Then all is well. We will go down to Ashenden tomorrow in the car,
taking it with us, and I will substitute it for the one now in
residence.'

'But -'

'Don't say "But."'

'How-?'

'And don't say "How." It's the sort of thing the boys in the back room
used to say to Columbus when he told them he was going to discover
America, and look how silly he made them feel. I'll find a way. Don't
bother your head about the trifling details, leave them to me. You go
home and pack a few necessaries and get a good night's rest, while I
remain and iron out the one or two points I haven't got quite straight
yet. More

60

I

I


coffee? No? Then Off you go'. Bless my soul," said Lord Icken ham with
boyish relish, as he escorted her to the door, 'what

a providential thing that this' should have happened. Something on these
lines was just what I was needing, to stimulate me arid bring back the
flush of youth; I feel as I did when Pongo and I

,. started out last spring for Standings Castle in the roles of Sir
Roderick Glossop, the brain specialist, and his nephew Basil.

Did he ever tell you about that?' 'No.'

. 'Odd. T should have thought it would have been one of his dearest
.memories. You shall have the whole story tomorrow on the journey down.
Well, good night, my dear/ said Lord Ickenham, assisting Sally into her
taxi. 'Sleep well, and don't worry. You cari trust me to look after
everything. This is the sort of situation that brings out the best in
me. And when you get the best in Frederick Altamont Cornwallis, fifth
Earl of good old Ickenham, you've got sornething.'

I I

I


I I


I

I

Part Two


Chapter 5


It was the custom of Lady Go stock-, when the weather was fine, to sit
in a garden chair on the terrace of Ashenden Manor after luncheon,
knitting socks for the deserving poor. A believer, like Lord Ickenham,
in spreading sweetness and light, she considered, possibly correctly,
that there is nothing that brings the sunshine into grey lives like a
sock or two.

On the day following the events which have just been recorded the
weather was extremely fine. Soft white clpuds 'floated across a.sky of
the purest blue, the lake shone like ' molten silver, and from the
adjacent flower-beds came the murmur of bees and' the fragrant scent of
lavender and mignonette. It was an afternoon to raise the spirits,
lighten the heart and set a woman counting her blessings one by one.

Nor did Lady Bostock omit to do this.. She recognized these blessings as
considerable. It was pleasant to be home again., though she had never
really enjoyed life in the country, preferring Cheltenham with its gay
society. Mrs Gooch, the cook, had dished up >an inspired lunch. And ever
since the assignment of judging the bonny babres at the fete had been
handed to, his nephew William, Sir Aylrner had been in a mood which
could almost -be called .rollicking, a consummation. always devoutly to
be wished by a wife whose life work it was to keep him in a good temper.
She could hear him singing in his study now. Something about his wealth
being a burly spear and brand and a right good shield-of hides untanned
which on his arm he buckled - or, to be absolutely accurate, berhuckled.

So far, so good. And yet, despite the fineness of the day, the

virtuosity of Mrs Gooch and the joviality of her husband, Lady

Bostock's heart was heavy. In these days in which we live, when

existence has become a thing of infinite complexity arid fate,


63


forty-three bonny babies, all dribbling out of the side of the mouth,
must be pretty scarce, pretty scarce. Well, I think I'll be pushing
along, Aunt Emily. It seems to help a little if I keep moving.'

He plodded off, listlessly puffing smoke, leaving behind him an aunt
with an aching heart. And it was perhaps because Lady Bostock was now so
near the nadir of depression that she thought she might as well make a
complete job of it. So she began to think of Pongo.

It frequently happens that prospective sons-in-law come as a rather
painful shock to their prospective mothers-in-law, and the case of Lady
Bostock had provided no exception to the rule. Immediately on seeing
Pongo she had found herself completely at a loss to understand why her
daughter should have chosen him as a mate. From the very start she had
felt herself to be in the presence of one whose soul was not attuned to
hers. At moments, indeed, only her perfect breeding had restrained her
from beating him over the head with the sock which she was knitting for
the deserving poor.

Analysing his repellent personality, she came to the conclusion that
while she disliked his nervous giggle, his lemon coloured hair and the
way he had of drooping his lower jaw and letting his eyes get glassy,
the thing about him that particularly exasperated her was his
extraordinary jumpiness.

Of this she had witnessed a manifestation only an hour or so ago, as
they were leaving the dining-room after lunch. As they started to cross
the hall, Aylmer had moved in the direction of that bust of his, as if
to give it a flick with his handkerchief, as he sometimes did, and
Reginald had bounded _in his tracks with a soft, animal yelp, recovering
his composure only when Aylmer, abandoning the idea of flicking, had
moved on again.

A strange young man. Was he half - or even a quarter - witted? Or was
his mind, if he had a mind, burdened by some guilty secret?

Speculations like these, indulged in on a warm day after a rather heavy
lunch, are apt to induce drowsiness. Her eyelids began to flutter.
Somewhere out of sight a lawn-mower was

66


J


purring hypnotically. The west wind played soothingly on her face. .

Lady Bostock slept.

But not for long. Her eyes had scarcely closed when the word 'emily',
spoken at the extreme limit of a good man's lungs, jerked her from her
slumber as if a charge of trinitrotoluol had been exploded beneath her
chair.

Sir Aylmer was leaning out of the study window.

'emily!'

'Yes, dear? Yes, dear?'

'Come here.' roared Sir Aylmer, like a bo'sun addressing an' able-bodied
seaman across the deck in the middle of a hurricane. 'Wantcher.'	'


As Lady Bostock made her way to the study, her heart was racing
painfully. There had been that in her husband's manner which caused her
to fear unnamed disasters, and her first glance at him as she crossed
the threshold told her that her apprehensions had been well founded.

His face was purple, and his moustache, always a barometer of the
emotions, was dancing about beneath his laboured breath. She had not
beheld such activity in it since'the night years ago when the youngest
arid most nervously giggling of the. aides-de-camp, twiddling the
nut-crackers during the dessert course at dinner at Government House,
had snapped the stem of one of his favourite set of wineglasses.

He was not alone. Standing at a respectful distance in one of the
corners, as if he knew his place better than to thrust himself forward;
was Constable Harold Potter, looking, as policemen do at such moments,
as if he -had been stuffed by a good taxiderrnist. She stared from one
to the other, bewildered. '

'Aylmer! What is it?'

Sir Aylmer Bostock was not 'a man who beat about bushes. When he had
disturbing news to impart, he imparted it.

'Emily,' he said, quivering in every hair, 'there's a damned plot
afoot.'


67


'A what?'

A plot. An infernal outrage against the public weal. You know Potter?'

Lady Bostock knew Potter.

'How do you do, Potter?' she said.

'How do you do, m'lady?' said Constable Potter, coming un stuffed for an
instant in order to play his part in the courteous exchanges and then
immediately getting stuffed again.

'Potter,' said Sir Aylmer, 'has just come to me with a strange story.
Potter!'

'Sir?'

'Tell her ladyship your strange story.'

'Yes, sir.'

'It's about Reginald,' said Sir Aylmer, to whet the interest of the
audience. 'Or, rather,' he added, exploding his bombshell, 'the fellow
who's posing as Reginald.'

Lady Bostock's eyes were already bulging to almost their maximum extent,
but at these words they managed to protrude a little further.

'Posing?'

'Yes.'

'What do you mean?'

'What I say. I can't put it any plainer. The chap who's come here
pretending to be Reginald Twistleton is an impostor. He isn't Reginald
Twistleton at all. I had my suspicions of him all along. I didn't like
his eye. Sly. Shifty. And that sinister giggle of his. What I'd call a
criminal type. Potter!'

'Sir?'

'Get on with your strange story.'

'Yes, sir.'

Constable Potter stepped forward, his helmet balanced against his right
hip. A glazed look had come into his eyes. It was the look which they
always assumed when he was giving evidence in court. His gaze was
directed some two feet above Sir Aylmer's head, so that his remarks
seemed to be addressed to a bodiless spirit hovering over the scene and
taking notes in an invisible notebook.

'On the sixteenth inst. '

68

Yesterday.'

Yesterday,' proceeded Constable Potter, accepting the emendation. 'On
the sixteenth inst., which was yesterday, I was proceeding up the drive
of Ashenden Manor on my bicycle, when my attention was drawn to a
suspicious figure entering the premises through a window.'

'The window of my collection room.'

'The window of Sir Aylmer Bostock's collection room. I immediately
proceeded to follow the man and question him. In reply to my inquiries
he made the statement that his name was Twistleton and that he was
established as a guest at this residence.'

'Well, so he is,' said Lady Bostock, speaking a little dazedly.

Sir Aylmer waved an imperious hand.

'Wati, wait, wait, wait, wait. Mark the sequel.'

He paused, and stood puffing at his moustache. Lady Bostock, who had
sunk into a chair, picked up a copy of the parish magazine and began to
fan herself with it.

'We're coming to the part where he turns out not to be Twistleton,' said
Sir Aylrner, allowing his moustache to subside like an angry sea after a
storm. 'Carry on, Potter.'

Constable Potter, who had momentarily removed the glazed look from his
eyes, put it back again. Raising his chin, which he had lowered in order
to rest the neck muscles, he once more addressed the bodiless spirit.

'Having taken the man's statement, I proceeded to put searching
questions to him. These appearing to establish his bona fides, I
withdrew, leaving him in the company of Bean, a housemaid, whose
evidence had assisted me in establishing the conclusion that his bona
ride had been' - Constable Potter paused, searching for the telling verb
- 'established,' he said. 'But '

'Here comes the sequel.'

'But I was not wholly satisfied, and I'll tell you why,' said Constable
Potter, suddenly abandoning the official manner and becoming chatty. The
moment I saw this chap, I had a sort of feeling that his face was kind
of familiar, but I couldn't place him. You know how it is. And, what's
more, I could have


u.D.-4	69


taken my oath that last time we'd met his name hadn't been Twistleton '

"Or anything like it,' said Sir Aylmer, adroitly snatching the
conversational ball from the speaker and proceeding to carry it himself.
'I must start by telling you . . . are you asleep, emily?'

'No, dear. No, dear,' cried Lady Bostock, who had been rash enough to
close her eyes for an instant in order to relieve a shooting pain across
the forehead.

'I must start by telling you that before Potter came to Ashen den
Oakshott he used to be a member of the London police force, and this
afternoon, as he was smoking a pipe after his lunch '

'Cigarette, sir,' interpolated the officer respectfully. He knew the
importance of exactitude on these occasions. 'A gasper.'

'- It suddenly flashed on him,' went on Sir Aylmer, having given him a
dangerous look, 'that where he had seen this fellow before was at some
dog races down Shepherd's Bush way, when he had arrested him, together
with an accomplice, and hauled him off in custody.'

'Aylmer!'

'You may well say "Aylmer!" It seems that Potter keeps a scrap album
containing newspaper clippings having to do with cases with which he has
been connected, and he looked up this scrap album and found that the
chap's name, so far from being Twistleton, is Edwin Smith, of 11
Nasturtium Road, East Dulwich. Edwin Smith,' repeated Sir Aylmer,
somehow contriving by his intonation to make it seem a name to shudder
at. 'Now do you believe me when I say he's an impostor I '

Women, having no moustaches, are handicapped at moments like this. Lady
Bostock had begun to pant like a spent horse, but it was not the same
thing. She could not hope to rival her husband's impressiveness.

'But what is he doing here?'

'Potter's view is that he is the advance man of a gang of burglars. I
think he's right. These fellows always try to simplify matters for
themselves by insinuating an accomplice into the


70


house to pave the way for them. When the time is ripe, the bounder
opens a window and the other bounders creep in. And if you want to know
what this gang is after at Ashenden Manor, it sticks out a mile. My
collection of African curios. Where did Potter find this chap? In my
collection room. Where did I find him? Again in my collection room. My
collection fascinates him. He can't keep away from it. You agree,
Potter?'

Constable Potter, though not too well pleased at the way in which he had
been degraded from the position of star witness to that of a mere
Yes-man, was forced to admit that he agreed.

Lady Bostock was still panting softly.

'But it seems so extraordinary.'

'Why? It's value is enormous.'

'I mean, that he should take such a risk.'

'These fellows are used to taking risks. Eh, Potter?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Doing it all the time, aren't they?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Dangerous devils, what?'

'Yes, sir,' said Constable Potter, now apparently resigned to his
demotion.

'But he must have known that Reginald was expected here. How could he
tell that he was not going to run into him?'

'My dear Emily, don't be childish. The gang's first step would of
course, be to make away with Reginald.'

'Make away with him? How?'

'Good Lord, how do chaps make away with chaps? Don't you ever read
detective stories?"

Constable Potter saw his chance, and took it.

'They telephone 'em, m'lady, telling them to come to ruined mills, and
then lock 'em up in the cellar. Or they '

'- Slip drugs in their drinks and carry them off on yachts,' said Sir
Aylmer, once more seizing the ball. 'There are a hundred methods. If we
looked into it, I expect we should find that the real Reginald is at
this moment lying bound and gagged on a pallet bed in Limehouse. Eh,
Potter?"


71


Yes, sir.'

'Or in the hold of a tramp steamer bound for South America?'

'Yes, sir.'

'I shouldn't wonder if they weren't sticking lighted matches between his
toes to make him write them cheques,' said Sir Aylmer dispassionately.
'Well, all right, Potter, that's all. We won't keep you. Would you like
a glass of beer?'

'Yes, sir,' said Constable Potter, this time with real enthusiasm.

'Go and get one in the kitchen. And now,' said Sir Aylmer, as the door
closed, 'to business.'

'Where are you going?'

'To confront this impostor and kick him out, of course.'

'But, Aylmer.'

'Now what?'

'Suppose there is some mistake.'

'How can there be any mistake?'

'But suppose there is. Suppose this young man is really Reginald, and
you turn him out of the house, we should never hear the last of it from
Hermione.'


Something of the gallant fire which was animating him seemed to pass out
of Sir Aylmer Bostock. He blinked, like some knight of King Arthur's
court, who, galloping to perform a deed of derring-do, has had the
misfortune to collide with a tree. Though keeping up a brave front, he,
like his wife, had always quailed before Hermione. Native chiefs,
accustomed to leap like fawns at a waggle of his moustache, would have
marvelled at this weakness in one who had always seemed to them
impervious to human emotions, but it existed.

' 'M, yes,' he said thoughtfully. 'Yes, I see what you mean.'

'She would be furious.'

That's true.'

'I really don't know what to think myself,' said Lady Bostock
distractedly. 'Potter's story did seem very convincing, but

72

I

it is just possible that he is mistaken in supposing that this man who
has come here as Reginald is really Edwin Smith.'

'I'd bet a million on it.'

'Yes, dear, I know. And I must say I have noticed something curiously
furtive about the young man, as if he had a guilty secret. But '

An idea occurred to Sir Aylmer.

'Didn't Hermione give some sort of description of this young poop of
hers in that letter she wrote you saying she was engaged?'

'Why, of course. I had forgotten. It's in my desk. I'll go and get it.'

'Well?' said Sir Aylmer a few moments later.

Lady Bostock was skimming through the document.

'She says he is tall and slender, with large, lustrous eyes.'

'There you are! This chap hasn't got lustrous eyes.'

'Wouldn't you say his eyes were lustrous?'

'Certainly not. Like a couple of damned poached eggs. What else?'

'He is very amusing.'

'You see!'

'Oh!'

'What?'

'She says William used to know him as a boy.'

'She does? Then William's evidence will clinch the thing. Where is he?
william! william! I william! II'

It is rarely that this sort of thing does not produce results. Bill
Oakshott, who was still on the terrace, smoking his pipe and pondering
over his numerous misfortunes, came clattering up the stairs as if
pulled at the end of a string.

The fear - or hope - that his uncle was being murdered left him as he
entered the room, but not his bewilderment at the summons.

'Hullo?' he said gropingly.

'Oh, there you are,' said Sir Aylmer, who was still bellowing out of the
window. 'William, this fellow who calls himself Reginald Twistleton, how
about him?'

'How about him?'


73


'Exactly. How about him?'

'How do you mean, how about him?'

'Good God, boy, can't you understand plain English I I mean How about
him?'

Lady Bostock explained.

'We are terribly upset, William. Your uncle thinks that the man who came
yesterday is not Reginald, but an impostor pretending to be Reginald.'

'What on earth gives him that idea?"

'Never mind what on earth gives me that idea,' said Sir Aylmer, nettled.
'You knew Reginald Twistleton as a boy?'

'Yes.'

'Good. That's established,' said Sir Aylmer, borrowing from Constable
Potter's non-copyright material. 'Now, then, When you saw him yesterday,
did you recognize him?'

'Of course.'

'Don't say "Of course" in that airy way. When had you seen him last?'

'About twelve years ago.' . 'Then how can you be sure you recognized
him?'

'Well, he looked about the same. Grown a bit, of course.'

'Have you discussed boyhood days with him?'

'No.'

'Have you asked him a single question, the response to which would prove
that he had known you as a boy?'

'Why, no.'

'There you are, then.'

'But he answers to the name of Pongo.'

Sir Aylmer snorted.

'Of course he answers to the name of Pongo. Do you suppose that an
impostor, when addressed as Pongo by somebody claiming to be an old
friend of the man he was impersonating, would not have the elementary
intelligence to dissemble? Your evidence is completely valueless.'

'Sorry.'

'No good being sorry. Well, I shall have to look into the thing for
myself. I shall take the car and go over to Ickenham Hall. The real
Reginald is Ickenham's nephew, so the old


74


lunatic will presumably have a photograph of him somewhere on the
premises. A glance at that will settle the matter.'

'What a splendid idea, Aylmer!'

'Yes,' said Sir Aylmer, who thought well of it himself. 'Just occurred
to me.'

He shot from the room as if propelled from a rude sling in the hands of
a Brazilian native, and hurried down the stairs. In the hall he was
obliged to check his progress for an instant in order to glare at Pongo,
who, like a murderer returning to the scene of his crime, had come
thither to gaze at the substitute bust and ask himself for the hundredth
time what were its chances of getting by.

'Ha!' said Sir Aylmer.

'Oh, hullo,' said Pongo, smiling weakly.

Sir Aylmer eyed him with that blend of horror and loathing with which
honest men eye those who call themselves Twistleton when they are really
Edwin Smith of 11, Nasturtium Road, East Dulwich, especially when these
latter smile like minor gangsters caught in the act of committing some
felony. It seemed to him that if he ever had seen furtive guilt limned
on a human face, he had seen it now.

'Ha!' he said again, and went off to get his car.

A few minutes after he had steered it out into the road, tooting
fiercely, for he was a noisy driver, another car, coming from the
opposite direction, drew up outside the gate.

At its wheel was Lord Ickenham, and beside him Sally.

Chapter 6


Lord Ickenham cast an alert eye up the curving drive, and gave his
moustache a carefree twiddle. His air was that of a man who has arrived
at some joyous tryst. A restful night and a good lunch had brought his
always resilient nature to a fine pitch of buoyancy and optimism. There
is an expression in common use which might have been invented to
describe the enterprising peer at moments such as this; the expression
'boomps-a-daisy.' You could look askance at his methods, you could shake
your head at him in disapproval and click your tongue in reproof, but
you could not deny that he was boompsa-daisy.

"This might be the place, don't you think?' he said.

'It is.'

'You speak confidently.'

'Well, I've been here before. When I was doing the bust.'

'Didn't Mugsy come to the studio?'

'Of course not. Great men like him don't come to the studios of poor
working girls.'

Lord Ickenham took her point.

'True,' he said. 'I can't get used to the idea of young Mugsy Bostock
being a big pot. To me he remains j|£rmanently a pie faced stripling
bending over a chair while I assure him that what is about to occur is
going to hurt me more than it does him. A black lie, of course. I
enjoyed it. One of the hardest things in life is to realize that people
grow up. Nothing, for instance, can convince me that I am not a
sprightly young fellow of twenty-five and, as for Pongo, the idea of him
being old enough to contemplate marriage fills me with a perpetual
astonishment. To me, he still wears sailor suits.'

'He must have looked sweet in a sailor suit.'

76


 I


I I

'No, he didn't. He looked foul. Like a ballet girl in a nautical musical
comedy. But enough of this idle chatter. The time has come,' said Lord
Ickenham, "to discuss strategy and tactics.'

He spoke with the gay lilt in his voice which had so often in the past
struck a chill into the heart of his nephew.

'Strategy and tactics,' he repeated. 'Here is the house. We have the
bust. All that is needed is to effect an entry into the former, carrying
the latter. This, accordingly, I shall now proceed to do. You spoke?'

'No, I only sort of gurgled. I was going to say "How?" but I mustn't,
must I, because of Columbus and the boys in the back room.'

Lord Ickenham seemed amazed.

'My dear girl, you are surely not worrying yourself about the simple
mechanics of the thing? There are a thousand ways, all child's play to
one of my gifts. If I droop my moustache, thus, do I look like a man
come to inspect the drains?'

'No.'

If I turn it up at the ends, so, do I suggest the representative of a
journal of rural interest, anxious to obtain Mugsy's views on the
mangel-wurzel situation?"

'Not a bit.'

'Then I must try something else. I wonder if Mugsy has a parrot.'

T know he hasn't. Why?'

'Didn't Pongo ever tell you of our afternoon at The Cedars, Mafeking
Road, Mitching Hill?'

'No. What was The Cedars, Mafeking Road, Mitching Hill?'

'A suburban villa, heavily fortified and supposed to be impregnable. But
I got in with absurd ease. One moment, I was outside its barred gates,
lashed by an April shower; the next, in the sitting-room, toasting my
toes at the gas fire. I told the maid I had come from the bird shop to
clip the parrot's claws and slipped Pongo in with the statement that he
was Mr Walk inshaw, my assistant, who applied the anaesthetic. I'm
surprised he never mentioned it. I don't like the way he seems to have
kept things from you. An unhealthy spirit. Yes, I think I may say with
all due modesty that I am at my best when im77



personating officials from bird shops who have called to prune the
parrot, and I am sorry to hear you say that Mugsy has not got one. Not
that I'm surprised. Only the gentler, kindlier type of man keeps a
parrot and makes of it a constant friend. Ah, well, no doubt I shall be
able to effect an entry somehow.'

'And what do you do then?'

'That's the easy part. I have the bust under my coat, I engage Mugsy in
conversation, and at a selected moment I suddenly say "Look behind you!"
He looks behind him, and while his back is turned I switch the busts and
come away. So let's go.'

'Wait,' said Sally.

'Is this a time for waiting? The Ickenhams have never waited.'

'Well, they're going to start now. I've a much better plan.'

'Better than mine?' said Lord Ickenham incredulously.

'Better in every way,' said Sally firmly. 'Saner and simpler.'

Lord Ickenham shrugged his shoulders.

'Well, let's hear it. I'll bet I'm not going to like it.'

'You don't have to like it. You are going to stay in the car '

'Absurd.'

'- While I take that bust to the house.'

'Ridiculous. I knew it was going to be rotten.'

'I shall try, of course, to put the deal through unobserved. But if I am
observed, I shall have my story ready, which is more than you would have
done.'

'I would have had twenty stories ready, each one better than the last.'

'Each crazier than the last. Mine will be a good one, carrying
conviction in every syllable. I shall say I came to see Sir Aylmer '

'I wish you would call him Mugsy. It's friendlier.'

'I won't call him Mugsy. I shall say I came to see Sir Aylmer, bringing
the bust with me, in the hope that I could persuade him to relent and
accept it after all.'

'Loathsome.' 'I may even cry a little.'


78


I

I I


'Revolting. Where's your pride?'

'The worst that can happen is that he will show me to the door and
dismiss me with a cold gesture.'

'And then,' said Lord Ickenham, brightening, 'we will start all over
again, this time putting the affair in older and wiser hands than yours.
Well, all right. On that understanding I don't mind you trying your way.
I don't like it. It's tame. It degrades me to the position of a super
supporting a star, and you get all the fun. Still, carry on, if you
must. I shall stay here and sulk.'

He lit a cigar, and watched her as she walked up the drive. At the point
where it curved out of sight, she turned and waved her hand, and he
waved back, filled with a not unmanly emotion. Good old Sally, he was
feeling. What a girl!

Lord Ickenham was a man with many friends in the United States where he
had spent twenty years of his life, and of all these friends the one of
whom he had been fondest was the late George Painter, that amiable and
impecunious artist with whom he had shared so many of the joys and
sorrows of an agreeably chequered youth. He had loved George, and he
loved his daughter Sally.

Sally was just the sort of girl that appealed to him most, the sort
America seems to turn out in thousands, gay, grave, and adventurous,
enjoying life with an almost Ickenhamian relish and resolutely refusing
to allow its little difficulties to daunt her spirit.

How admirably, for instance, after the first shock, she had reacted to
that unquestionably nasty wallop he had handed her in the lobby of
Barribault's Hotel. No tears, no wringing of the hands, no profitless
reproaches and recriminations. In the best and deepest sense of the
words, a pippin of a girl. And why Pongo had let her go, simply from
some finnicky objection to being disembowelled by New York port
officials, baffled Lord Ickenham. It was one of the things that make a
man who is getting on in years depair of the younger generation.

Time marched on. He looked at his watch. About now, he felt, she would
be nearing the front door; about now, doing the quick glide through the
hall and the rapid substitution of


79


 bust for bust. It would not be long before he saw her again, no doubt
threading her way cautiously through the bushes that fringed the drive.
He kept a keen eye riveted on those, but when she did appear she was
walking in full view, and the first thing that attracted his attention
was the fact that her hands were empty. At some point in her progress to
and from the house, it would seem, she and her precious burden had
parted company.

He could make nothing of this. His eyebrows rose in a silent query. Her
face, he saw, was grave. It wore a strained look.

As she reached the car, however, her normal gaiety of disposition seemed
to assert itself. She broke into a gurgling laugh, and his eyebrows rose
again.

'We are amused?'

'Well, it was funny,' said Sally. 'I can't help laughing, though the
absolutely rock-bottom worst has happened, Uncle Fred. We really are up
against it now. You'll never guess.'

'I shan't try. Tell me.'

Sally leaned against the side of the car. Her face had become grave once
more. 'I must have a cigarette first."

'Nerves vibrating?'

'I'm shattered.'

She smoked in silence for a moment.

'Ready?'

'Waiting.'

'Very well, then, here it comes. When I got to the house, I found the
front door open, which seemed to me about as big a piece of luck as I
could want -'

'Always mistrust too much luck at the outset of any enterprise,' said
Lord Ickenham judicially. 'It's simply part of Fate's con game. But I
mustn't interrupt you. Go on.'

'I looked carefully over both shoulders. Nobody seemed to be about. I
listened. I couldn't hear anybody in the hall. Everything was silent. So
I sneaked in.'

'Quite.'

'And tiptoed across the hall.'

'You couldn't have done better.'


80


I

 'And put the bust... Shall I call it Bust A., to distinguish it from
Bust B.?'

'By all means.'

'You've got them clear? Bust A. was the one I was toting, and Bust B.
the one with poor Alice's jewels in it.'

'Exactly.'

Sally drew at her cigarette. Her manner was absent, as if she were
reliving an episode which had affected her deeply. She came to herself
with something of the air of a sleeper awakening.

'Where was I?'

'Tiptoeing across the hall.'

'Yes, of course. Sorry to be so goofy.'

'Quite all right, my child.*

'I tiptoed across the hall and shifted Bust B. from its stand and put
Busf A. in its place and gathered up Bust B. and started to come away
... fairly quickly. No sense in hanging around, I mean.'

'None whatever. Never outstay your welcome.'

'And just as I got to the door of the room where Sir Aylmer keeps his
collection of African curios, out came Lady Bostock from the
drawing-room.'

'Dramatic.'

'I'll say it was dramatic. The memory of that moment is going to haunt
me for the rest of my life. I don't suppose I shall sleep again for
months and months and months."

'We all sleep too much.'

'She said "Who's that?" '

'And you, I suppose, said "Me," meaning that it was you.'

'I hadn't time to say anything, because she suddenly leaped forward with
a sort of pitying cluck --'

'A what?'

'A cluck. Of pity. Like a nice hen. She really is a good sort, Uncle
Fred. I had never realized it before. When I was down here, doing the
bust, she always seemed stiff and distant. But it was just her manner.
She has a heart of gold.'

'A neat phrase, that. I must remember it. In what way did she exhibit
this golden heart?'


81


J

'Why, by swooping down on me and grabbing the bust and saying in a
hoarse whisper that she knew exactly why I had brought it and that she
was terribly sorry for me and had begged Sir Aylmer to change his mind,
but he wouldn't, so she would keep the bust and send me a cheque
secretly and everything would be all right. And then she went into the
collection room and locked it up in a cupboard, hurriedly, like a
murderer concealing the body. And then she hustled me out. She didn't
actually say "Fly!" but it amounted to that. And it all happened so
quickly that there wasn't a thing I could do.'

'And there the bust is?'

'Yes. Locked up in a cupboard in Sir Aylmer's collection room with all
Alice's jewels in it. Tie that for a disaster, Uncle Fred.'

All through the narrative, Lord Ickenham had been reviving like a
watered flower. His air, as it reached its culminating point, was that
of one hearing tidings of great joy.

'Disaster?' he said exuberantly. 'What do you mean, disaster? This is
the most admirable thing that could have happened. I now have something
I can get my teeth into. It is no longer a question merely of effecting
an entry into the house, but of getting myself established there. And if
there is one thing I enjoy more than another, it is getting established
in other people's houses. It brings the roses to my cheeks and tones up
my whole system. Here is the immediate procedure, as I see it. You will
drive on to Ickenham, which will serve us as a base, and I will take my
suitcase and put up at the local inn and weave my subtle schemes. Expect
sensational results shortly.'

'You are really going to establish yourself at the house?'

'I am.'

'And I still mustn't say "How?" '

'You certainly must not. You just leave everything to me, confident that
I shall act for the best, as always. But you look grave, my child. I
hope not from any lack of faith in my vision and enterprise?'

'I was thinking of Pongo. What will he do, when you suddenly appear?'


82


'I should imagine he will get the start of his young life and skip like
the high hills. And an excellent thing, too. Pongo is a chap who wants
taking out of himself.'

The car drove off, and Lord Ickenham hoisted his suitcase and set off
for the village. He was just wishing that he had thought of asking Sally
to drop him at the inn, for it was a heavy suitcase, when something
large and tomato-coloured loomed up before him, and he recognized Bill
Oakshott.


In Bill Oakshott's demeanour, as he approached, there was the suggestion
of a somnambulist who, in addition to having blisters on both feet, is
wrestling with an unpleasant nightmare. The scene through which he had
recently passed, following so swiftly upon his election as judge of the
Bonny Babies contest, had shajcen to its foundations a system already
weakened by the knowledge that Hermione Bostock loved another, and that
other a libertine who kissed housemaids on doorsteps. In response to
Lord Ickenham's whoop of welcome he stared dully, like a dying halibut.

'Oh, hullo, Lord Ickenham,' he said.

'Well, well, well!' cried the fifth earl buoyantly. The hour or two
which he had spent with this massive youth had left him with a strong
appreciation of his sterling worth, and he was delighted to see him
again. 'Well, well well, well, well! Bill Oakshott in person. Well met
by moonlight, proud Oakshott.'

'Eh?'

'Adaptation of Shakespearian quotation. But let it go. It is not of the
slightest importance. And how is every little thing with you, Bill
Oakshott? Fine?'

'Well, to be absolutely accurate,' said Bill, 'no.'

Lord Ickenham raised his eyebrows.

'Not fine?'

'No. Bloody awful.'

'My dear chap, you surprise and shock me. I should have thought you
would have been so glad to get back from a


83


ghastly country like Brazil that life would have been roses, roses all
the way. What's wrong?'

With his affairs in such disorder, Bill was in need of all the sympathy
he could get. He decided to withhold nothing from this cordial and
well-disposed old buster. It would not have taken much to make him sob
on Lord Ickenham's chest.

'Well, to start with,' he said, touching on the most recent of the
spiritual brickbats which had assailed his soul, 'my uncle's gone off
his onion.'

Lord Ickenham pursed his lips.

'Nuts?'

'Completely nuts.'

'Indeed? That must jar you a good deal. Nothing spoils the quiet home
atmosphere more than a goofy uncle on the premises. When did this
tragedy occur?'

'Just now.'

'It came on suddenly?'

'Like a flash.'

'What caused it?'

'Pongo.'

Lord Ickenham seemed at a loss.

'You aren't telling me that a single day of Pongo has been enough to set
a host sticking straws in his hair? If it had been two weeks ... What
were the symptoms?'

'Well, he gibbered a good bit, and now he's driven over to your place to
get a photograph of Pongo.'

'Why?'

'To find out what he looks like."

'Can't he see what he looks like?'

'He doesn't believe Pongo is Pongo.'

'But doesn't Pongo admit it?'

'He thinks he's an impostor.'

'Why?'

'I don't know. I tell you he's potty. I was out on the terrace and I
heard him yelling for me, and I went to the study, and he said Hadn't I
known Pongo when he was a kid? And I said Yes. And he said How did I
know after all these years that this was the same chap and he was
absolutely convinced that Pongo


84


wasn't Pongo, and the only way to settle it was to drive to your
place.and get a photograph of him.'

Lord Ickenham shook his head.

'A fruitless quest. A man like myself, refined, sensitive, with a love
for the rare and the beautiful, does not surround himself with
photographs of Pongo. I could do him a nude Venus, if he would like one.
Yes, it certainly looks as though you were right, Bill Oakshott, and
that Mugsy's brain had come unstuck; the result, no doubt, of some
sunstroke in the days when he was the curse of Africa. I'm not surprised
that you are worried. The only thing I can suggest is that you give him
plenty of aspirins, humour him in conversation and keep him away from
razors, dinner knives and other sharp instruments. But apart from this
everything is pretty smooth?'

Bill Oakshott laughed one of those hollow, mirthless laughs.

'Is it! If that was all I had to worry me, I should be singing like a
lark.'

Lord Ickenham eyed him with concern. In his look, disappointment that he
would not be able to hear his young friend singing like a lark was
blended with distress at the news that he had further reasons for gloom.

'Don't tell me there is more? What else has happened, my ill-starred
youth?'

Bill quivered, and for a moment could not speak.

'I saw Pongo kiss the housemaid,' he said in a low throaty voice.

Lord Ickenham was perplexed.

'But why shouldn't he?'

'Why shouldn't he? Dash it, he's engaged to my cousin Her mione.'

Lord Ickenham's face cleared.

'I see. Ah, yes, I understand. Her happiness is a matter of concern to
you, and you do not like to think that she may be linking her lot with
that of a Casanova. My dear chap, don't give the matter another thought.
He does that sort of thing automatically. Where you or I would light a
cigarette and throw off an epigram, Pongo kisses the housemaid. It means
nothing. A purely unconscious reflex action.'


85


•H'm,' said Bill.

'I assure you,' said Lord Ickenham. 'You'll find it in all the case
books. They have a scientific name for it. Housemaiditis? No. No, it's
gone. But that ends your catalogue of woe? Apart from your uncle's
strange seizure and this mannerism of Pongo's, you have nothing on your
mind?'

'Haven't I!'

'You have? Is this the head upon which all the sorrows of the world have
come? What is the next item?'

'Babies!'

'I beg your pardon?'

'Bonny babies.'

Lord Ickenham groped cautiously for his meaning.

'You are about to become a father?'

Tm about to become a blasted judge.'

'You speak in riddles, Bill Oakshott. What do you mean, a judge?'

'At the fete.'

'What fete?' said Lord Ickenham. 'You are forgetting that I am a
stranger in these parts. Tell me the whole story in your own words.'

He listened with interest while Bill did so, and the latter had no lack
of sympathy to complain of when he had finished revealing the facts in
connexion with Sir Aylmer Bostock's hideous vengeance.

'Too bad, too bad,' said Lord Ickenham. 'But we might have foreseen
something of the sort. As I warned you, these exGovernors are tough
eggs. They strike like lightning. So you are for it?'

'Unless I can find someone else to take on the job.' A sudden thought
flushed Bill's brow. 'I say, will you do it?'

Lord Ickenham shook his head.

'Were the conditions right,' he said, 'I would spring to the task, for I
can imagine no more delightful experience than judging a gaggle of bonny
babies at a rural fete. But the conditions are not right. Mugsy would
not accept my nomination. Between him and myself there is, alas, an
unfortunate and I fear insurmountable barrier. As I told you on the
train it is

86

only the other day that he was curving his person into the posture best
adapted for the receipt of six of the juiciest with a fives bat, and I
was the motivating force behind the fives bat.'

'But, dash it, he'll have forgotten that.'

'Already?'

'Wasn't it forty years ago?'

'Forty-two. But you grievously underestimate the suppleness of my wrist
at the age of eighteen, if you suppose that anyone to whom I
administered six with a fives bat would forget it in forty-two years.'

'Well, if he hasn't forgotten it, what does it matter? You'll just have
a good laugh together over the whole thing.'

'I disagree with you, Bill Oakshott. Why after your recent experience of
his dark malignity you should suppose young Mugsy to be a sort of vat or
container for the milk of human kindness, I cannot imagine. You must
know perfectly well that in the warped soul of Mugsy Bostock there is no
room for sweetness and light. Come now, be honest. Does he not chew
broken glass and conduct human sacrifices at the time of the full moon?
Of course he does. And yet you cling to this weak pretence that, with
the old wounds still throbbing, he will forget and forgive.'

'We could try him.'

'Useless. He would merely scowl darkly and turn me from his door - or
your door, didn't you tell me it was? And suppose he did not? Suppose he
welcomed me? What then? It would mean starting an association which
would last the rest of our lives. He would always be popping over to my
place, and I would be expected to pop over here. Wife would meet wife,
presents would be exchanged at Christmas, it would be appalling. Even to
oblige you, my dear fellow, I could not contemplate such a thing. Did
you say "Oh, hell!"?'

'Yes.'

'I thought you did, and it wrung my heart.'

There was a silence. Bill stared moodily at a passing beetle.

'Then I'm sunk.'

'But why? Have you no friends?'


87


'I've lost touch with them all, being away. The only one I could lay my
hands on is Plank.'

'Who is Plank? Ah, yes, I remember. The head of the expedition you went
on.'

'That's right. Major Brabazon-Plank.'

'Brabazon.-Pla.nk7 You interest me strangely. I was at school with a
fellow named Brabazon-Plank. He still owes me two bob. Is your
Brabazon-Plank a pear-shaped chap, rather narrow in the shoulders and
very broad in the beam?'

'Yes.'

'Practically all backside?'

'Yes.'

'Then it must be the same fellow. Bimbo we used to call him.
Extraordinary what a mine of my old schoolmates you are turning out to
be. You don't seem able-to mention a name without it proving that of
someone with whom in one way or another I used once to pluck the gowans
fine. And you think you could contact Bimbo?'

'I have his address in London. We came back on the boat together. But it
wouldn't be any use contacting him. If anyone suggested that he should
judge bonny babies, he would run like a rabbit. He has a horror of
them.'

, 'Indeed? The well-known baby fixation. See the case books.'

'All the way home on the boat he was moaning that when he got to England
he would have to go and see his sisters, and he didn't know how he was
going to face it, because all of them were knee-deep in babies which he
would be expected to kiss. No, Plank's no good.'

'Then really,' said Lork Ickenham, 'it looks as if you would have to
fall back on me.'

Bill, who had been staring dully at the beetle, transferred his gaze to
his companion. It was a wide-eyed, gaping gaze, speaking eloquently of a
mind imperfectly adjusted to the intellectual pressure of the
conversation. 'Eh?'

'I say that you will be compelled, for want of anything better, to avail
yourself of my poor services. Invite me to your


88


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I


I


home, and in return for this hospitality I will judge these bonny
babies.'

Bill continued to gape.

'But you said you wouldn't.'

'Surely not?'

'Yes, you did. Just now.'

Lord Ickenham's perplexity vanished.

'Ah, I see where the confusion of thought has arisen,' he said. 'You
misunderstood me. I merely meant that, for the reasons which I explained
to you, it was impossible for that fine old English aristocrat,
Frederick Altamont Cornwallis, Earl of Ickenham, to come barging in on
an establishment of which Mugsy Bostock formed a part. What I am
proposing now is th£t I shall throw a modest veil over my glittering
identity.'

'Eh?'

'You do keep saying "Eh?" don't you? It is surely quite simple. I am
most anxious to visit Ashenden Manor, of which I hear excellent reports,
and I suggest that I do so incognito."

'Under another name, do you mean?'

'Exactly. What a treat it is' to deal with an intelligence like yours,
Bill Oakshott. Under, as you put it so luminously, another name. As a
matter of fact, I never feel comfortable going to stay at houses under
my own name. It doesn't seem sporting.'

Bill Oakshott's was not a mind readily receptive of new ideas. As he
stared at Lord Ickenham, his resemblance to a fish on a slab was more
striking than ever.

'You'll call yourself something else?' he said, for he was a man who
liked to approach these things from every angle.

'Precisely.'

But-'

'I never like that word "But".'

'You couldn't get away with it.'

Lord Ickenham laughed lightly.

'My dear fellow, at The Cedars, Mafeking Road, in the suburb of Mitching
Hill last spring I impersonated in a single afternoon and with complete
success not only an official from the bird shop, come to clip the claws
of the parrot, but Mr


u.d.s	89


Roddis, lessee of The Cedars, and a Mr J. G. Bulstrode, a resident of
the same neighbourhood. It has been a lasting grief to me that I was
given no opportunity of impersonating the parrot, which I am convinced I
should have done on broad, artistic lines. Have no anxiety about my not
being able to get away with it. Introduce me into the house, and I will
guarantee to do the rest.'

The clearness with which he had expounded his scheme had enabled Bill to
grasp it, but he was looking nervous and unhappy, like a man who has
grasped the tail of a tiger.

'It's too risky. Suppose my uncle found out.'

'Are you afraid of Mugsy?'

'Yes.'

'More than of the bonny babies?'

Bill quivered. In every limb and feature he betrayed his consciousness
of standing at a young man's crossroads.

'But what's the procedure? You mean you just blow in, calling yourself
Jones or Robinson?"

'Not Robinson. I have had occasion in the past to call myself Robinson,
but it would not do now. You overlook the fact that the judge of a
contest of this importance must be a man who counts. He must have
authority and presence. I suggest that I come as Major Brabazon-Plank.
It would give me genuine pleasure to impersonate old Bimbo, and I can
think of no one more suitable. The whole thing is so plausible. You run
into your old chief Plank, who happens to be passing by on a motor tour,
and what more natural than that you should insist on him stopping off
for a day or two at your home? And, having stopped off, what more
natural than that he, learning of this very important and attractive
job, a job which will render him the cynosure of all eyes and is in
addition right up his street, he being passionately fond of babies,
should insist on having it assigned to him? And the crowning beauty of
the scheme is that I don't see how Mugsy can do anything about it. We've
got him cold. It isn't as if Plank were just an ordinary man. Plank is a
hell of a celebrity, and his wishes have to be deferred to. If you ask
me, Bill Oakshott, if you care to have my unbiased opinion of the
set-up, I think the thing's in the bag.'

90

1


Into Bill's fishlike eyes a gleam of enthusiasm had crept. His air was
that of a red-faced young man who has been convinced by the voice of
reason. He still feared the shape of things to come, should he fall in
with his benefactor's suggestion, but he feared still more the shape of
things to come, should he not.

Stamped indelibly on his mental retina was the memory of last year's
fete, when he had watched the Rev. Aubrey Brotherhood preparing to
embark on his duties in the big tent. Intrepid curate though he was, a
man who could dominate the rowdiest Mothers' Meeting, the Rev. Aubrey
had paled visibly at the task confronting him. Forty-three village
matrons, holding in their arms in the hope of catching the judge's eye
forty-three babies of almost the maximum repulsiveness...

'Right!' he cried with sudden resolution. Tine. Let's go.'

'Yes, let's,' said Lord Ickenham. 'You can carry the suitcase.'

They walked down the road. Bill, who had begun to think things over
again, was a little silent and thoughtful, but Lord Ickenham was all
gaiety and animation. He talked well and easily of this and that, and
from time to time pointed out objects of interest by the wayside./They
had just reached the Manor gates, when the uproar of an approaching car
caused Bill to turn his head: and, having turned it, paled beneath his
tan and tottered slightly.

'Oh, golly, here comes my uncle. I say, do you think we really ought -'

'Tush, Bill Oakshott,' said Lord Ickenham, prompt in the hour of peril
to stimulate and encourage. 'This is weakness. Stiffen the sinews,
summon up the blood. Let us stand our ground firmly, and give him a huge
hello."


Sir Aylmer Bostock had spent four minutes at Ickenham Hall, all on the
front door step, and of these four minutes there had not been one which
he had not disliked. Sometimes in our wanderings about the world we meet
men of whom it is said that they have passed through the furnace. Of Sir
Aylmer it


91


would be more correct to say that he had passed through the frigidaire.

If you call at a country house where you are not known and try to get
the butler to let you come in and search the premises for photographs of
his employer's nephew, -you will generally find this butler chilly in
his manner, and Coggs, the majordomo of Ickenham Hall, had been rather
chillier than the average. He was a large, stout, moon-faced man with an
eye like that of a codfish, and throughout the proceedings he had kept
his eye glued on Sir Aylmer's, as if peering into his soul. And anyone
who has ever had his soul peered into by a codfish will testify how
extremely unpleasant such an ordeal is.

The message in that eye had been only too easy to read. Coggs had not
actually accused Sir Aylmer of being after the spoons, but the charge
might just as well have been clothed in words. In a voice of ice he had
said No, sir, I fear I cannot accede to your request, sir, and had then
terminated the interview by backing a step and shutting the door firmly
in the visitor's face. And when we say firmly, we mean with a bang which
nearly jarred the latter's moustache loose from its foundations.


All this sort of thing is very galling to a proud and arrogant man,
accustomed for years to having his lightest word treated as law, and it
was consequently in no sunny mood that Sir Aylmer heard Lord Ickenham's
huge hello. He was still snorting and muttering to himself, and a native
chief who had encountered him in this dangerous mental condition would
have called on his protecting ju-ju for quick service and climbed a
tree.

Lord Ickenham was made of sterner stuff. He stepped out into the road
and gave the huge hello, as planned.

'Hello, there, Mugsy,' he carolled. 'A very happy pip-pip to you, my
bright and bounding Bostock.'

It was probably astonishment at being addressed by a name which he
supposed that he had lived down years ago, rather than the fact that the
speaker was blocking the way, that caused Sir Aylmer to apply the
brakes. He brought the car to a halt and leaned forward, glaring through
the windscreen. Close

92

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I

I

I


scrutiny of Lord Ickenham afforded no clue to the latter's identity. All
that Sir Aylmer was able to say with certainty was that this must be
some old schoolfellow of his, and he wished he had the moral courage to
drive on and run him over.

It was too late to do this now, for Lord Ickenham had advanced and was
standing with a friendly foot on the running board. With an equally
friendly hand he slapped Sir Aylmer on the back, and his smile was just
as friendly as his hand and foot. Sir Aylmer might not be glad to see
this figure from the past, but the figure from the past was plainly glad
to see Sir Aylmer.

'Mugsy,' he said with kindly reproach, 'I believe you've forgotten me.'

Sir Aylmer said he had. He contrived to convey in his manner the
suggestion that he would willingly do so again.

'Too bad,' said Lord Ickenham. Well, to put you out of your suspense,
for I see that you are all keyed up, I'm Plank."

'Plank?'

'Major Brabazon-Plank, Uncle Aylmer,' said Bill, emboldened by the
suavity with which his accomplice was conducting these delicate
pourparlers. 'Major Plank ran that expedition I went on to Brazil.'

Lord Ickenham was obliged to demur.

'Don't let him mislead you, Mugsy. In a strictly technical sense I
suppose you might say I ran that expedition. Officially, no doubt, I was
its head. But the real big noise was Bill Oak shott here. He was the
life and soul of the party, giving up his water ration to the sick and
ailing, conducting himself with cool aplomb among the alligators and
encouraging with word and gesture the weaker brethren who got depressed
because they couldn't dress for dinner. Chilled Steel Oakshott, we used
to call him. You should be proud of such a nephew.'

Sir Aylmer appeared not to have heard these eulogies. He was still
wrestling with what might be called the Plank angle of the situation.

'Plank?' he said. 'You can't be Plank.'

'Why not?'

'The Plank who was at school with me?'

'That very Plank.'

93

'That very Plank.'

'But he was a fellow with an enormous trouser seat.'

'Ah, I see what is on your mind. Yes, yes. As a boy, quite true, I was
bountifully endowed with billowy curves in the part you have indicated.
But since those days I have been using Slimmo, the sovereign remedy for
obesity. The results you see before you. You ought to try it yourself,
Mugsy. You've put on weight.'

Sir Aylmer grunted. There was dissatisfaction in his grunt. Plainly, he
was unwilling to relinquish his memories of a callipygous Plank.

'Well, I'm damned if I would have recognized you.'

'Nor I you, had not Bill Oakshott given me the office. We've both
altered quite a bit. I don't think you had a white moustache at school,
did you? And there's no ink on your collar.'

'You're really Plank?'

'None other.'

'And what are you doing here?'

'I'm on a motor tour."

'Oh, are you?' said Sir Aylmer, brightening. 'Then you'll be wanting to
get along. Good-bye, Plank.'

Lord Ickenham smiled a gentle, reassuring smile.

'That sad word will not be required here, Mugsy. Prepare to receive
tidings of great joy. I'm coming to stay.'

'What!'

'I had intended to hurry on, but when Bill Oakshott became pressing, I
could not refuse. Especially when he told me of this fete which is
breaking loose shortly and promised that if I consented to be his guest
at Ashenden Man»r I might judge the Bonny Babies contest. That decided
me. I would go fifty miles to judge bonny babies. Sixty,' said Lord
Ickenham. 'Or make it a hundred.'

Sir Aylmer started like a tiger that sees its Indian villager being
snatched away from it. His face, already mauve, became an imperial
purple.

'You're not going to judge the bonny babies!'

'Yes, I am.'


94


'No, you're not.'

Lord Ickenham was a genial man, but he could be firm.

'I don't want any lip from you, young Mugsy,' he said sternly. 'Let me
give you a word of warning. I see by the papers that you are about to
stand for Parliament. Well, don't forget that I could swing the voting
against you pretty considerably, if I wanted to, by letting an
idealistic electorate in on some of the shady secrets of your boyhood.
You won't like it, Mugsy, when questions about your boyhood are
thundered at you from the body of the hall while you are outlining your
views on the Tariff problem. Do I judge those bonny babies?'

Sir Aylmer sat brooding in silence, his Adam's apple moving Up and down
as if he were swallowing something hard and jagged. The stoutest man
will quail at the prospect of having the veil torn from his past, unless
that past is one of exceptional purity. He scowled, but scowling brought
no solace. He chewed his moustache, but gained no comfort thereby.

'Very well,' he said at length, speaking as if the words were being
pulled out of him with a dentist's forceps. His eye, swivelling round,
rested for an instant on Bill's and the young man leaped convulsively.
'Oh, very well.'

'Good,' said Lord Ickenham, his cheery self once more. 'That's settled.
And now you shall take me home and show me the model dairy.'

'What model dairy?'

'Haven't you a model dairy? The stables, then.'

'I don't keep horses.'

'Odd. I was always led to believe that hosts at English country houses
were divided into two classes: those who, when helpless guests were in
their power, showed them the stables and those who showed them the model
dairy. There was also, I understood, a minor sub-division which showed
them the begonias, but that is a technicality into which we need not go.
No model dairy, you say? No horses? Then perhaps I had better be going
to the inn, where I have one or two things to do. These seen to, I will
present myself at the house and the revels can commence. And as you are
doubtless anxious to


95


I


hurry on and get my room - one with a southern exposure, if possible -
swept and garnished, I won't detain you. You coming with me, Bill
Oakshott?'

'I think I'll stay here and smoke a pipe.'

'Just as you please. We shall all meet then, at Philippi, and very jolly
it will be, too.'

It was with a light and elastic step that Lord Ickenham made his way to
the Bull's Head in Ashenden Oakshott's High Street. He was well
satisfied with the progress of affairs. Something attempted,. something
done had, in his opinion, earned the spot of beer to which he had been
looking forward for some considerable time, for this spreading of
sweetness and light is thirsty work. After putting through a telephone
call to his home and speaking to Sally, he sat down to a tankard, and
was savouring its amber contents with quiet relish, when the door of the
saloon bar burst open with a good deal of violence and Bill Oakshott
entered.

That Bill was not at his serenest and most tranquil was indicated at
once to Lord Ickenham's experienced eye by his appearance and
deportment. His hair was ruffled, as if he had been passing a fevered
hand through it, and that glazed look was back in his eyes. He was a
young man who, when things went awry, always endeavoured, after the
fashion of the modern young man, to preserve the easy repose of manner
of a Red Indian at the stake, but it was plain that whatever had
occurred to upset him now was of a magnitude which rendered impossible
such an exhibition of stoicism.

'Ah, Bill Oakshott,' said Lord Ickenham affably. 'You could not have
arrived at a more opportune moment. You find .me enjoying a well-earned
gargle, like Caesar in his tent the day he overcame the Nervii. I stress
the adjective "well-earned," for I think you will admit that in the
recent exchanges I put it across the Nervii properly. Have you ever seen
an ex-Governor so baffled? I haven't, and I doubt if anyone has.'But you
seem disturbed about something, and I would recommend some of this
excellent beer. It will strengthen you and help you to look for the
silver lining.'

He went to the counter, remained there a while in conversa


96


 I

tion with the stout blonde behind it, and returned bearing a foaming
tankard.

'Nice girl,' he said paternally. 'I've been telling her about Brazil.
Quaff that, Bill Oakshott, and having quaffed spill what is on your
mind.'

Bill, who had been sitting with his head clasped in his hands, took a
deep draught.

'It's about this business of your coming to the house as Plank.'

'Ah yes?'

'You can't go on with it.' , Lord Ickenham raised his eyebrows.

'Can't? A strange word to use to the last of a proud family. Did my
ancestors say "Can't" on the stricken fields of the Middle Ages, when
told off to go and fight the Paynim? As a matter of fact,' said Lord
Ickenham confidentially, 'I believe lots of them did, as you can verify
by turning up Richard Cceur de Lion's dispatches, so perhaps it is a
pity that I asked the question. Why do you say I can't go on with it?'

'Because you jolly well can't. Shall I tell you what's happened?'

'Do. I'm all agog.'

Bill finished his tankard, and seemed to draw from it strength to
continue.

'After you went away,' he said tonelessly, 'Uncle Aylmer drove off in
the car, leaving me stuck there with the suitcase.'

'A low trick.'

'I yelled to him to stop and take the damned thing, because it weighed a
ton and I didn't want to have to lug it all the way up the drive, but he
wouldn't. And I was just starting off with it, when Potter came along on
his bike.'

'Who is Potter?'

'The policeman.'

'Ah yes. Pongo spoke of him, I remember. A zealous officer.'

'So I said, "Oh, Potter" and he said "Sir?" and I said "You in a hurry?"
and he said "No, sir," and I said "Then I wish you'd take this suitcase
up to the house." And he said "Certainly, sir," and hoisted it aboard
his bike.'

97

'I like your dialogue,' said Lord Ickenham critically. 'It's crisp and
good. Do you ever write?'

'No.'	• . .

'You should. You'd make a packet. But I'm interrupting you.'

'You are a bit.'

'It shall not occur again. You had got to where Potter said "Certainly,
sir." Then what?'

'I said "It belongs to Major Brabazon-Plank. He's coming to stay." And
Potter said . . . Could I have another beer?'

'Had he already had some beer ?'

'I mean, could I have, now? I think it might pull me to» gether.'

Lord Ickenham repeated his trip to the counter.

'You were saying,' he said, having returned with the lifegiving fluid,
'that you told Potter that the suitcase belonged to Major
Brabazon-Plank. .In response to which?'

Bill drank deeply, gasped a little and spoke with a sort of frozen calm.

'In response to which he said, his bally face lighting .up joyfully,
"Major Brabazon-Plank? Did you say Major BrabazonPlank? Coo, I know him.
well. He comes from my old village. Played cricket with him, I have -
ah, hundreds of times. If convenient, Mr William, I'll step up and shake
him by the hand after I've-had my tea." So now what?'

Lord Ickenham remained for a moment in thought.

'You're kidding me, Bill Oakshott. Nobody but a practised writer could
have told that story so superbly. Beneath your magic touch Potter seems
to live .and breathe. You publish your stuff secretly under another
name. I believe you're one, if not more, of the Sitwells. But we can go
into that later. "So now what?" you say. Yes, I agree that the problem
is one that presents certain features of interest, but all problems can
be solved with a little earnest thought. How did you articulate when you
spoke the words "Brabazon-Plank"? Distinctly?'

'Yes.'

'You didn't mumble?'

'No.'

98

r






'So you couldn't say that what you had really said was "Smith" or
"KnatchbullHuguessen"?'

'No.'

Lord Ickenham reflected.

'Well, then, what we must do is tell him that I am your Plank's
brother.'

'Do you think you could get away with that?'

'There are no limits to what I can get away with when I am functioning
properly. We might go and call upon him now. Where does he live?'

'Just.round the corner.'

'Then finish up your beer and let's be off.'

Except for the royal arms over the door and a notice saying 'Police
Station,' there was nothing about the residence of Constable Potter to
suggest that here was the dreadful headquarters of Law and Justice. Like
so many police stations in. English villages, it was a cheerful little
cottage with a thatched roof and a nice little garden, the latter at the
moment occupied by Mr Potter's nephew Basil, aged nine months, who was
taking a nap in his perambulator. Lord Ickenham, reaching the garden
gate, cocked an inquiring eye at this vehicle.

'Is Potter a married man?'

. 'No. That's his sister's baby. She lives with him. Her husband's a
steward on one of the South American boats. He's away most of the time.
Of course, he comes back sometimes."

'Yes, one guesses that.'

Through an open window there came the sound of a female voice, high and
penetrating. It was touching on the subject of socks. How, it was
asking, did the invisible person it was addressing contrive to get so
many and such large holes in his all the time? The voice itself
attributed the phenomenon to carelessness and a wilful lack of
consideration for those who had to work their fingers to the bone,
darning them. Lord Ickenham consulted Bill with a raised eyebrow.

'Would that be the lady speaking now?'

'Yes.'

'To Potter?' ' 'I suppose so.'

99

ill


'She seems to be giving him beans.'

'Yes. He's scared stiff of her, so Elsie tells me.'

'Elsie?'

'The housemaid.'

'Ah, yes, the one Pongo ... I forget what I was going to say.'

'I know what you were going to say.'

'Well, well, we need not go into that now. Let us saunter in and let our
first move be to examine this bonny baby more closely. It will all be
practice for the great day,'

Chapter 7


Inside the cottage, in the cosy little kitchen, Constable Potter,
guardian of Ashenden Oakshott's peace, at his ease in his shirt sleeves,
was enjoying high tea.

The word 'enjoying' is perhaps ill chosen, for he was partaking of the
meal under the eye of his sister, Mrs Bella Stubbs,

, who, if not his best friend, had always been his severest critic. She
had already told him not to put his elbows on the table, not to gollop
his food like that and not to help himself to butter with his herringy
knife, and at the moment when Bill and Lord Ickenham arrived had begun,
as has been shown, to touch on the subject of his socks, one of which
she held in her hand

. for purposes of demonstration.

Constable Potter was twenty-eight years old, his sister thirty three.
The simplest of mathematical calculations, therefore, will show that
when he was seven she had been twelve, and a strong-willed sister of
twelve can establish over a brother of seven a moral ascendancy which
lasts a lifetime. In those formative years which mean so much, Harold
Potter had been dragged about by the hand, slapped, scolded and told by
the future mother of George Basil Percival Stubbs not to do practically
everything he wanted to do. She had even - crowning indignity - blown
his nose.

These things leave their mark. It was the opinion of Elsie Bean,
repeatedly expressed, that her Harold was a cowardy custard ;. and in
the main, one feels, the verdict of history will be that Elsie was
right. It is unpleasant to think of an officer of the Law cowering in
his chair when a woman puts a finger through a hole in one of his socks
and waggles it, but it cannot be disputed that while watching Mrs Stubbs
do this Con^ stable Potter had come very near to cowering.

101

To ease the strain, he bent forward to help himself to butter, being
careful this time to use the knife allotted to that purpose, and the
movement enabled him to see through the window the corner of the garden
where George Basil Percival was taking his siesta.	»

' 'Ullo,' he said, glad to change the subject. "There's somebody on the
lawn.'

'Never mind about the lawn. I'm talking about this sock."

'It's a tall gentleman.'

'Look at it. Like a sieve.'

'A tall gentleman with a grey moustache. He's poking your Basil in the
stomach.'

He had said the one thing calculated to divert his companion's thoughts
from the sock topic. A devoted mother, Mrs Stubbs held the strongest
possible views on the enormity of gentlemen, whether tall or short,
coming into her garden and poking her offspring in the stomach at a
moment when his well-being demanded uninterrupted repose.

'Then go and send him away 1'

'Right ho.'

Constable Potter was full to the brim. He had eaten three kippered
herrings, four boiled eggs and half a loaf of bread, and his impulse
would have been to lean back in his chair like a gorged python and give
his gastric juices a chance to fulfil themselves. But, apart from the
fact that his sister Bella's word was law, curiosity overcame the urge
to digest. Scrutinizing Lord Ickenham through the window, he had a sort
of feeling that he had seen him before. He wanted to get a closer view
of this mysterious stranger.

In the garden, when he reached it, Lord Ickenham, wearying of his
attentions to Basil's stomach, had begun to tickle the child under the
chin. Bill, who was not very fond of babies and in any case preferred
them to look less like Edward G. Robinson, had moved aside as if anxious
to disassociate himself from the whole unpleasant affair, and was thus
the first to see the newcomer.

'Oh, hullo, Potter,' he said. 'We thought we'd look in.'

'I was anxious,' said Lord Ickenham, 'to make the acquaintance of one of
whom I had heard so much.'


102


Constable Potter seemed a little dazed by these civilities.

'Ho!' he said. 'I didn't catch the name, sir.'

'Plank. Brabazon-Plank.'

There was a loud hiccough. It was Constable Potter registering
astonishment; and more than astonishment, suspicion. There were few men,
in Ashenden Oakshott at any rate, more gifted with the ability to
recognize funny business when they were confronted with it, and here, it
seemed to Harold Potter, was funny business in excelsis. He fixed on
Lord Ickenham the stern and accusing gaze which he would have directed
at a dog caught in the act of appearing in public without a collar.

'Brabazon-Plank?'

'Brabazon-Plank.'

'You're not the Major Brabazon-Plank I used to play cricket with at
Lower Shagley in Dorsetshire.'

'His brother.'

'I didn't know he had a brother.'

'He kept things from you, did he? Too bad. Yes, I am his elder brother.
Bill Oakshott was telling me you knew him.'

'He said you was him.'

'Surely not?''

'Yus, he did.' Constable Potter's gaze grew sterner. He was resolved to
probe this thing to the bottom. 'He, give me your suitcase to take to
the house, and he said "This here belongs to Major Brabazon-Plank."'

Lord Ickenham laughed amusedly. .

'Just a slip of the tongue, such as so often occurs. He meant
Brabazon-Plank, major. As opposed to my brother, who, being younger than
me, is, of course, Brabazon-Plank, minor. I can understand you being
confused,' said Lord Ickenham with a commiserating glance at the
officer, into whose face had crept the boiled look of one who finds the
conversation becoming abstruse. Three kippers, four eggs and half a loaf
of bread, while nourishing the body, take the keen edge off the mental
powers. 'And what renders it all the more complex is that as I myself am
a mining engineer by profession, anyone who wants to get straight on the
Brabazon-Plank situation has got to keep steadily before him the fact
that the minor is a major and th'e

103

major a miner. I have known strong men to break down on realizing this.
So you know my minor, the major, do you? Most interesting. It's a small
world, I often say. Well, when I say "often," perhaps once a fortnight.
Why are you looking like a stuck pig, Bill Oakshott?'

Bill came with a start out of what appeared to be a sort of trance.
Pongo, who had had so many opportunities of observing his Uncle Fred in
action, could have told him that a trancelike condition was almost
always the result of being associated with this good old man when he was
going nicely.

'Was I?'

'Yes.'

'Sorry.'

'Don't mention it. Ah, whom have we here?'

Mrs Stubbs had made her appearance, coming towards them with a
suggestion in her manner of a lioness hastening to the aid of an
imperilled cub. Annoyed by her brother's tardiness in getting rid of
these intruders, she had decided to take the matter in hand herself.

'Oh, hullo, Mrs Stubbs,' said Bill. 'We were just giving your baby the
once over.'

Lord Ickenham started.

'Your baby? Is this remarkably fine infant yours, madam?'

His bearing was so courteous, his manner so reverent that Mrs Stubbs,
who had come in like a lioness, began to envisage the possibility of
going out like a lamb.

'Yes, sir,' she said, and went so far as to curtsy. She was not a woman
who often curtsied, but there was something about this
distinguished-looking elderly gentleman that seemed to call for the
tribute. 'It's my little Basil.'

'A sweet name. And a sweet child. A starter I hope?'

'Sir?'

'You have entered him for the Bonny Baby contest at the fete?'

'Oh, yes, sir.'

'Good. Excellent. It would have been madness to hide his light under a
bushel. Have you studied this outstanding infant closely, Bill Oakshott?
If not, do st> now,' said Lord Ickenham,

104

I'for you will never have a better chance of observing a classic
'yearling. What hocks! What pasterns! And what lungs!' he ^continued, as
George Basil Percival, waking, like Abou ben lAdhem, from a deep dream
of peace, split the welkin with a I sudden howl. 'I always mark heavily
for lungs. I should ex j, plain, madam, that I am to have the honour of
acting as judge at the contest to which I have referred.'. 'You are,
sir?'

'I am, indeed. Is your husband at home? No? A pity. I would have advised
him to pick up a bit of easy money by putting his shirt on this child
for the Bonny Baby stakes. Have you a shirt, Mr Potter? Ah, I see you
have. Well, slap it on the stable's entry and fear nothing. I have at
present, of course, no acquaintance with local form, but I cannot
imagine that there will be another competitor of such supreme quality as
to nose him out. I see myself at the close of the proceedings raising
Basil's hand in the air with the words "The winnah!" Well, Mrs Stubbs,'
said Lord Ickenham, with a polished bow in the direction of his hostess
and a kindly 'Kitchy-kitchy' to the coming champ, who was staring at him
with what a more sensitive man would have considered offensive
curiosity, 'we must be pushing along. We have much to do. Good-bye, Mrs
Stubbs. Good-bye, baby. Good-bye, off '

He paused, the word unspoken. Constable Potter had suddenly turned and
was making for the cottage at a high rate of speed, and Lord Ickenham
stared after him a little blankly.

'Gone without a cry!' he said. 'I suppose he forgot something.'

'His manners,' said Mrs Stubbs tartly. "The idea!' 'Ah, well,' said Lord
Ickenham, always inclined to take the tolerant view, 'what are manners,
if the heart be of gold? Good-bye again, Mrs Stubbs. Good-bye, baby. As
I say, we must be moving. May I repeat what a privilege it has been to
get together with this superb child in what I may term his training
quarters and urge you once more, with all the emphasis at my disposal,
to put the family shirt on him for the big event. There could be no
sounder investment. Good-bye,' said Lord Icken


105


ham, good-bye, good-bye,' and took his departure, scattering sweetness
and light in all directions. Out in the road he paused to light a cigar.
'How absurdly simple these things are,' he said, 'when you have someone
with elephantiasis of the brain, like myself, directing the operations.
A few well-chosen words, and we baffle the constable just as we baffled
Mugsy. Odd that he should have left us so abruptly. But perhaps he went
in to spray his temples with eau-de-Cologne. I got the impression that
he was cracking under the strain a little when I was dishing out the
major and minor stuff.'

'How did you come to think of that?' 'Genius,' said Lord Ickenham
modestly. 'Pure genius.' 'I wonder if he swallowed it.' 'I think so. I
hope so.'

'You laid it on a bit thick about that ruddy baby.' 'Kind words are
never wasted, Bill Oakshott. And now-for Ashenden Manor, I think, don't
you, and the warm English welcome.'

Bill seemed uncertain.

'Do you know, I believe I could do with some more beer.' 'You feel
faint?' 'I do, rather.'

'All right, then, you push on to the pub. I must try to find Pongo.
Would he be in the house?' 'No, I saw him going out.'

'Then I will scour the countryside for'him. It is vital,' said Lord
Ickenham, 'that I put him abreast of the position of affairs before he
has an opportunity of spilling the beans. We don't want him charging in
when I am chatting with Mugsy and calling me "Uncle Fred". Before we
settle down to the quiet home evening to which I am looking forward so
much, he must be informed that he is losing an uncle but gaining a
Brazilian explorer. So for the moment, bung-ho. Where was it I told
Mugsy that we should all meet? Ah, yes, at Philippi. See you there,
then, when you have drunk your fill.'


106


In times of spiritual disturbance there is nothing like a brisk mystery
thriller for taking the mind off its anxieties. Pongo's first move after
parting from Sir Aylmer Bostock had been to go to his room and get his
copy of Murder in the Fog; his second to seek some quiet spot outside
the grounds, where there would be no danger of meeting the ex-Governor
on his return, and soothe himself with a good read. He found such a spot
at the side of the road not far from the Manor gates, and soon became
absorbed.

The treatment proved almost immediately effective. That interview with
Sir Aylmer in the hall had filled him with numbing fears and rendered
him all of a twitter, but now he found his quivering ganglia getting
back to mid-season form: and, unlike the heroine of the tale in which he
was immersed, who had just got trapped in the underground den of one of
those Faceless Fiends who cause so much annoyance, he was feeling quite
tranquil, when a shadow fell on the page, a well-remembered voice spoke
his name, and he looked up to see his Uncle Fred standing before him.

If there is one occasion more than another when joy might be expected to
be unconfined and happiness to reign supreme, it is surely, one would
say, when a nephew in the course of a country ramble encounters an uncle
who in his time has often dandled him on his knee. At such a moment one
would anticipate the quick indrawing of the breath, the raising of the
eyes thankfully to heaven and the meeting of hand and hand in a fervent
clasp.

It is unpleasant, therefore, to have to record that in Pongo's bosom, as
he beheld Lord Ickenham, joy was not the predominating emotion. He could
scarcely, indeed, have appeared more disconcerted if the Faceless Fiend
from the volume in his hand had popped from its pages to confront him.

'Uncle Fred!' he ejaculated. The burned child fears the fire, and bitter
experience had taught Pongo Twistleton to view with concern the presence
in his midst of Ickenham's fifth earl. One recalls the words, quoted in
a previous chapter, of the

107

t

thoughtful crumpet. 'Good Lord, Uncle Fred, what on earth are you doing
here?'

Lord Ickenham, unlike Sir Aylmer Bostock, was a man who believed in
breaking things gently. With a tale to unfold whose lightest word would
harrow up his nephew's soul and make his two eyes, like stars, start
from their spheres, he decided to hold it in for the time being and to
work round gradually and by easy stages to what Pongo would have called
the nub. With a gentle smile on his handsome face, he lowered himself to
the ground and gave his moustache a twirl.

'Just pottering to and fro, my boy, just pottering to and fro. This road
is open for being pottered in at this hour, I believe.'

'But I left you at Ickenham.'

'The parting was agony.'

'You told me you were going to London.'

'So I did.'

'You never said a word about coming here.'

'No, but you know how it is. Things happen. One's plans become
modified.'

A passing ant paused to investigate Pongo's wrist. He flung it from him,
and the ant, alighting on its head some yards to the sou'-sou'-east,
went off to warn other ants to watch out for earthquakes.

'I might have known it,' he cried passionately. 'You're going to start
something.'

'No, no.'

'Then what's up?'

Lord Ickenham considered the question.

'I don't know that I would go so far as to say that anything was
actually up. The word is too strong. Certain complications have arisen,
it is true, but nothing that cannot be adjusted by a couple of cool,
calm men of the world who keep their heads. Let me begin at the
beginning. I went to London and gave Sally dinner, and in the course of
the meal she revealed why it was that she had wanted to see me so
urgently. It seemed that her brother Otis is in trouble again. She asked
me to tell you all about it and endeavour to enlist your aid.'

As the story of Otis Painter and Sir Aylmer Bostock's Remi


108


niscences unfolded itself, relief poured over Pongo in a healing wave.
He blamed himself for having so readily fallen a prey to the agitation
which the unexpected appearance of his Uncle Fred was so apt to occasion
in him. Up to this point he had been standing. He now sat down with the
air of a man who is at his ease. He even laughed, a thing which he was
seldom able to do when in conference with his uncle.

'Rather funny,' he said.

'The matter is not without its humorous aspect,' Lord Icken ham agreed.
'But we must not forget that if the action goes through, Sally stands to
lose a lot of money.'

That's true. So she wants me to plead with the old boy and get him to
settle the thing out of court. Well, I'll do what I can.'

'You speak doubtfully. Doesn't he love you like a son?'

'I wouldn't say absolutely like a son. You see, I broke one of his
African curios.'

'You do break things, don't you? And this has rankled?'

'I fancy it has to some extent. When I met him in the hall just now, he
gave me a nasty look and a couple of distinctly unpleasant "Ha's!" The
slant I got was that he had been thinking me over and come to the
conclusion that I was a bit of a louse. Still, he may come round.'

'Of course he will. You must persevere.'

'Oh, rather.'

"That's the spirit. Keep after him, exerting all your charm. Remember
what it means to Sally.'

'Right ho. And is that really all you wanted to see me about?'

'I think so. Except... Now what else was it I wanted to see you about? .
.. Ah, yes, I remember. That bust of Sally's. The one you borrowed from
my place.'

'Oh, the old busto? Yes, of course. Well, everything went according to
plan. I sneaked it in all right. A testing experience, though. If you
knew what I went through, beetling across the hall with the thing in my
possession, expecting every moment to feel old Bostock's hot breath on
the back of my neck!'

'I can readily imagine it. I wonder,' said Lord Ickenham, 'if


U.D.-6	109


you know how these busts are made? Sally has been explaining it to me.
It is a most interesting process. You first model the clay. Then you
slap on it a coat of liquid plaster.'

'Oh, yes?'

'After that you wait a little while until the plaster becomes fairly
hard, when you divide it into two neat halves and throw away the clay.
You then fill the mould with plaster.'

• 'Very jolly, if you like that sort of thing,' said Pongo tolerantly.
'How was Sally looking?'

'At first, radiant. Later, somewhat perturbed.'

'About Otis, you mean?'

'About Otis - and other things. But let me finish, telling you about the
way busts are made. You fill the mould with plaster, leaving a small
empty space at the top. This,' said Lord Ickenham, feeling that he had
now broken the thing sufficiently gently, 'you utilize as a repository
for any jewels that any friend of yours may wish to smuggle into the
United States.'

'What!' Pongo shot up in a whirl of arms and legs. Another ant, which
climbed on to his wrist in a rather sceptical spirit, took as impressive
a toss as its predecessor had done, and might have been observed some
moments later rubbing its head and telling a circle of friends that old
George had been right when he had spoken of seismic disturbances. 'You
don't mean-?'

'Yes. Inadvertently, intending no harm, we appear to have got away with
the bust in which Sally had cached her friend Alice Vansittart's bit of
stuff. The idea came to her, apparently, shortly after you had refused
to help her out. It seems a pity now that you were not more amenable. Of
course, as Hamlet very sensibly remarked, there's nothing either good or
bad but thinking makes it so ; still, a rather sticky situation has
unquestionably been precipitated. The Vansittart sails for New York next
week.'

'Oh, my gosh!'

'You see the drama of the thing? I thought you would. Well, there it is.
You will agree with me, I think, that we are in honour bound to return
these trinkets. Can't go snitching a poor girl's little bit of
jewellery. Not done. Not cricket.'

110

Pongo nodded. Nobody could teach him anything about noblesse oblige. He
shrank from repeating the dreadful performance to which he had forced
himself on his arrival at the house, but he quite saw that it had to be
done.

'That's right,' he said. 'I'll have to nip over to Ickenham and get
another bust. Will Coggs be able to dig me out one?'

'No,' said Lord Ickenham. 'And if he could, it would not be any good.
Another complication has occurred, which I must now relate to you. You
remember the bust Sally did of Sir Aylmer, the one that was to have been
presented to the village club, poor devils. Piqued as the result of this
Otis business, he returned it to her, and I brought her down here this
afternoon in my car and she crept into the house and substituted it for
the one with Miss Vansittart's jewels in it. And just as she was getting
away with the latter, Lady Bostock intercepted her, took it away from
her and locked it up in a cupboard in the room where the African curios
are. And there it now is. So-'

Pongo interrupted, speaking quickly and forcefully. There are limits to
what noblesse obliges.

T know what you're going to say,' he cried. 'You want me to sneak down
in the middle of the night and break open the cupboard and pinch it.
Well, I'm jolly well not going to do it.'

'No, no,' said Lord Ickenham. 'Calm yourself, my dear boy. I would not
dream of burdening you with such a responsibility. I will do the
pinching.'

'You?'

'In person.'

'But you can't get into the house.'

'I wish people wouldn't tell me I can't do things. It is all going to be
perfectly simple. My young friend, Bill Oakshott, has invited me to stay
at Ashenden Manor. He wants me to judge the Bonny Babies contest at a
fete they are having here shortly. Why his choice fell upon me, one
cannot say. I suppose he knew I was good. These things get about.'

Pongo gazed up at the reeling sky and sent his haggard eyes roaming over
a countryside that had broken into a sort of Ouled Nail muscle dance.
His face was drawn, and his limbs


111


twitched. Lord Ickenham, watching him, received the impression that he
did not like the idea of his, Lord Ickenham's, approaching visit to
Ashenden Manor.

'You're coming to the house?' he gasped.

'I go into residence this evening. And, by the way,' said Lord Ickenham,
'another small point. I nearly forgot to mention it. My name during my
visit will be Brabazon-Plank. Major Brabazon-Plank, the well-known
Brazilian explorer. Don't forget it, will you.'

From between Pongo's hands, which he had clasped on either side of his
head, as if to prevent it dividing itself into two neat halves like a
plaster bust, there proceeded a low moaning sound. Lord Ickenham
regarded him sympathetically and, in an endeavour to relieve the
situation of some of its tenseness, began to chant in a pleasant
baritone an old song hit of his youth. And he was interested some
moments later to find that this, starting- as a solo, seemed suddenly to
have turned into a duet. Glancing over his shoulder, he perceived the
reason. Constable Potter was riding up on his bicycle, shouting 'BoyI'


Lord Ickenham was always the soul of courtesy. You had only to shout
'BoyI' at him from a bicycle to have him drop everything and give you
his immediate attention. 'Ah, officer,' he said. 'You crave an
audience?' Constable Potter dismounted, and stood for a space bent over
the handle-bars, puffing. His sharp ride, taken at a moment when he was
loaded down above the Plimsoll mark with eggs, bread, tea and kippered
herrings, had left him short of breath. Lord Ickenham, in his
considerate way, begged him to take his time.

Presently the puffing ceased, and Harold Potter spoke. 'Ho!'he said.

'Ho to you,' replied Lord Ickenham civilly. 'Have a cigar?" With an
austere gesture Constable Potter declined the cigar. A conscientious
policeman does not accept gifts at the hands of

112

the dregs of the criminal world, and such he now knew this man before
him to be.

Ever since that odd episode in the garden, the reader of this record,
the chronicler is aware, has been in a fever of impatience to learn what
it was that sent this splendid upholder of law and order shooting into
his cottage with such curious abruptness. This can now be revealed. The
social lapse which had caused Mrs Bella Stubbs to purse her lips and
comment acidly on his lack of manners had been occasioned by the fact
that he had got the goods on Lord Ickenham. He had remembered where he
had seen him before, and he had hurried indoors to consult his scrap
album and ascertain his name. Having ascertained his name, he had
mounted his bicycle and ridden off to confront and denounce him.

He fixed Lord Ickenham with a gimlet-like eye.

'Brabazon-Plank!' he said.

'Why,' asked Lord Ickenham, 'do you say "Brabazon-Plank" in that strange
tone, as if it were some kind of expletive?'

'Ho!'

'Now we're back where we started. This is where we came in.'

Constable Potter decided that the time had come to explode his
bombshell. On his face was that hard, keen look which comes into the
faces of policemen when they intend to do their duty pitilessly and
crush a criminal like a snake beneath the • heel. It was the look which
Constable Potter's face wore when he was waiting beneath a tree to
apprehend a small boy who was up in the branches stealing apples, the
merciless expression that turned it to flint when he called at a house
to serve a summons on somebody for moving pigs without a permit.

'Brabazon-Plank, eh? You call yourself Brabazon-Plank, do you? Ho! You
look to me more like George Robinson of 14 Nasturtium Road, East
Dulwich.'

Lord Ickenham stared. He removed the cigar from his mouth and stared
again.

'Don't tell me you're the cop who pinched me that day at the dog races!'

•Yus, I am.5

113

A bubbling cry like that of some strong swimmer in his agony proceeded
from Pongo's lips. He glared wildly at the helmeted figure of doom. Lord
Ickenham, in sharp contra-distinction, merely beamed, like one of a pair
of lovers who have met at journey's end.

'Well, I'll be dashed," he said cordially. 'What a really remarkable
thing. Fancy running into you again like this. I'd never have known you.
You've grown a moustache since then, or something. My dear fellow, this
is delightful. What are you doing in these parts?'

There was no answering cordiality in Harold Potter's manner as he
intensified the gimlet quality of his gaze. He was taut and alert, as
became an officer who, after a jog-trot existence of Saturday drunks and
failures to abate smoky chimneys, finds himself faced for the first time
with crime on a colossal scale.

For that this was the real big stuff he had no doubt whatsoever. All the
evidence went, as he himself would have said, to establish it. On the
previous afternoon that shambling miscreant, Edwin Smith, had insinuated
himself into Ashenden Manor under the alias of Twistleton. This evening
along came his sinister associate, George Robinson, under the alias of
Brabazon-Plank. And here they were together by the roadside, plotting.
If you could not call this the Muster of the Vultures, it would be
interesting, Harold Potter felt, to know what set of circumstances did
qualify for that description.

'What are you doing in these parts, is more like it,' he retorted. 'You
and your pal Edwin Smith there.'

'So you've recognized him, too? You have an extraordinary memory for
faces. Like the royal family. What are we doing in these parts, you ask?
Just paying a country-house visit.'

'Oh, yes?'

'I assure you.'

'You think you are,' corrected Constable Potter. 'But a fat lot of
country-house visiting you're going to do.'

Lord Ickenham raised his eyebrows.

'Pongo.'

'Guk?'

114

'I think the gentleman intends to unmask us.'

'Guk.'

'Do you intend to unmask us, Mr Potter?"

Yus.'

'I wouldn't.'

'Ho!'

There was infinite kindliness in Lord Ickenham's voice as he went on to
explain himself. You could see that he felt the deepest sympathy for
Constable Potter.

'No, honestly I wouldn't. Consider what will happen. I shall be ejected
-'

'You're right, you'll be ejected!'

'- And my place as judge of the Bonny Babies contest taken by another
judge, less prejudiced in favour of your sister's little Basil. The
child will finish among the also-rans, and in this event will not your
sister make inquiries? And having made them and ascertained that it was
through your agency that I was disqualified, will she not have a word or
two to say to you on the subject? Think it over, my dear chap, and I
fancy you will agree with me that the conditions for unmasking are none
too good.'

It sometimes happens to a policeman that he is sharply censured by a
bench of magistrates. When this occurs, he feels as if he had been
kicked in the stomach by a mule and the world becomes black. The effect
of these words on Constable Potter was to give him the illusion that he
had been censured by half a dozen benches of magistrates, all speaking
at once. His jaw drooped like a lily, and in a low voice, instinct with
emotion, he uttered the word 'Coo!'

'You may well say "Coo!"' agreed Lord Ickenham. 'I know Mrs Stubbs only
slightly, of course, but she struck me as a woman of high spirit, the
last person to mince her words to the man instrumental in robbing her
child of the coveted trophy. Potter, I would think twice.'

Constable Potter only needed to think once. For a long instant there was
a silence, one of those heavy silences which seem to be made of glue.
Then, still without speaking, he mounted his bicycle and rode off.


115


Lord Ickenham was a fighter who could always be generous to a beaten
foe.

'Amazingly fine stuff there is in our policemen,' he said. "You crush
them to earth, and they rise again. You think you've baffled them, and
up they pop, their helmets still in the ring. However, this time I fancy
the trick has been done. There, in my opinion, pedalled a policeman
whose lips are sealed.'

Pongo, always prone to the gloomy view, demurred.

'How do you know? He was heading for the house. He's probably gone off
to tell old Bostock the whole story.'

'You say that because you do not know his sister. No, no, Sealed lips,
my dear Pongo, sealed lips. You have now nothing whatever to worry
about.'

Pongo uttered a mirthless laugh of a quality which would have extorted
the admiration of Bill Oakshott, a specialist in that line.

'Nothing to worry about? Ha! With you coming to stay with Hermione's
people under a - what's the word '

'Pseudonym?'

'Pseudonym. And planning to prowl about busting open cupboards I '

'Don't let that trivial matter give you the slightest anxiety, my dear
boy. I shall attend to that tonight, and then we can all settle down and
enjoy ourselves.'

'Tonight?'

'Yes. I phoned Sally from the inn, and everything is arranged. She will
drive over in my car and be waiting in the garden outside the collection
room at one ack emma. I shall secure the bust and hand it to her, and
she will drive off with it. As simple as that.'

'Simple!'

'What can go wrong?'

'A million things. Suppose you're caught.'

'I am never caught. They know me in the Underworld as The Shadow. I wish
I could cure you of this extraordinary tendency of yours always to look
on the dark side.'

'Well, what other sides are there?' said Pongo.


116


The dinner hour was approaching. In her room, Lady Bostock had finished
dressing and was regarding herself in the mirror, wishing, not for the
first time, that she looked less like a horse. It was not that she had
anything specific against horses; she just wished she did not look like
one.

Footsteps sounded outside the door. Sir Aylmer entered. There was a
heavy frown on his face, and it was plain that something had occurred to
disturb his always easily disturbed equanimity.

'Emily!'

'Yes, dear?'

'I've just been talking to Potter.'

'Yes, dear?'

'Dam'fool!'

'Why, dear?'

Sir Aylmer picked up a hairbrush, and swished it. There was a wealth of
irritation in the movement.

'Do you remember,' he asked, 'the time I played Dick Deadeye in Pinafore
at that amateur performance in aid of the Lower Barnatoland Widows and
Orphans?'

'Yes, dear. You were splendid.'

'Do you remember the scene where Dick Deadeye goes to the captain to
warn him his daughter is going to elope, and won't come out with
anything definite?'

'Yes, dear. You were wonderful in that scene.'

'Well, Potter was like that. Mystic.'

'Mystic?'

'It's the only word. Kept hinting that I must be on my guard, but
wouldn't say why. I tried to pin him down, but it was no use. It was as
if his lips had been sealed. All I could get out of him was that he
thought danger threatened us, probably tonight. What are you wriggling
like that for?'

Lady Bostock had not wriggled, she had shuddered.

'Danger?' she faltered. 'What did he mean?'

'How the dickens should I know what he meant, when every time he started
to say anything he stopped as if somebody had

117

 I

clapped a hand over his mouth? I believe the man's half-witted. But he
did go so far as to advise me to be on the alert, and said that he was
going to lurk in the garden and watch the house carefully.'

Aylmer!'

'I wish you wouldn't bellow "Aylmer" like that. You've made me bite my
tongue.'

'But, Aylmer '

'Thinking it over, I have come to the conclusion that he must have found
out something further about this impostor who calls himself Twistleton,
but why he couldn't say so is more than I can imagine. Well, if this
so-called Twistleton is planning to make any sort of move tonight, I
shall be ready for him.'

.'Ready?'

'Ready.'

'What are you going to do?'

'Never mind,' said Sir Aylmer, rather inconsistently for one who had
reproached Constable Potter for being mystic. 'My plans are all
perfected. I shall be ready.'

I Part Three


Chapters


The quiet home evening to which Lord Ickenham had so looked forward had
drawn to a close. Curfews had tolled the knell of parting day, lowing
herds wound slowly o'er the lea. Now slept the crimson petal and the
white, and in the silent garden of Ashenden Manor nothing stirred save
shy creatures of the night such as owls, mice, rats, gnats, bats and
Constable Potter. Down in the village the clock on the church tower,
which a quarter of an hour ago had struck twelve, chimed a single chime,
infoming Pongo, pacing the floor of his bedroom overlooking the terrace,
that in just forty-five minutes the balloon was due to go up.

As Pongo paced the floor, from time to time quivering all over like a
Brazilian explorer with a touch of malaria, he was still in faultless
evening dress, for the idea of going to bed on Jhis night of fear had
not even occurred to him. A young man visiting the parents of the girl
he loves, and knowing that at one sharp an uncle of the maximum
eccentricity will be starting to burgle the house, does not hop between
the sheets at eleven fifteen and sink into a dreamless sleep. He stays
up and shudders. Pongo had made one or two attempts to divert his
thoughts by reading Murder in the Fog, but without success. There are
moments when even the most faceless of fiends cannot hope to grip.

In a past the contemplation of which sometimes affected him as if he had
bitten into a bad oyster, Pongo Twistleton had frequently been called
upon to tremble like an aspen when an unwilling participant in the
activities of his Uncle Fred, but seldom had he done it more
wholeheartedly than now. He was feeling rather as the heroine of Murder
in the Fog was wont to do when she got trapped in underground dens, the
illusion that


119


his nerves were sticking two inches out of his body and curling at the
ends being extraordinarily vivid. And it is probable that mental
distress would have unstrung him completely, but for the fact that in
addition to suffering agony of the soul he was also in the process of
dying of thirst, and this seemed to act on the counter-irritation
principle.

The thirst of which he was dying was one of those lively young thirsts
which seem to start at the soles of the feet and get worse all the way
up. Growing in intensity ever since his arrival at the house, it had
reached its peak at eleven o'clock to-night, when Jane, the parlourmaid,
had brought the bedtime decanter and syphon into the drawing-room. He
was no weakling, but having to sit there watching his host, his uncle
and Bill Oakshott getting theirs like so many stags at eve - he himself,
in deference to his known prejudice against alcoholic liquor, having
been served with barley water - had tested his iron control almost
beyond endurance.

For some minutes he continued to pace the floor, cursing the mad impulse
which had led him to tell Hermjone that he never touched the stuff and
sketching out in his mind the series of long, cool ones with which, if
he ever got out of here alive, he would correct this thirst of his. And
then, as he reached the end of the carpet and was about to turn and pace
back again, he stopped abruptly with one foot in the air, looking so
like The Soul's Awakening that a seasoned art critic would have been
deceived. Two chimes had just sounded from the church tower, and it was
as if they had been the voice of a kindly friend whispering in his ear.

'Aren't you,' they seemed to say, 'overlooking the fact that that
decanter is still in the drawing-room? One merely throws this out as a
suggestion.' And he saw that here was the solution of what had appeared
to be an impasse. His guardian angel, for he presumed it was his
guardian angel, had pointed out the way. Hats off to the good old
guardian angel, was Pongo's attitude.

A minute later he was in the corridor. Three minutes later he was in the
drawing-room. Three and a quarter minutes later he was pouring with
trembling fingers what promised to be


120


the snifter of a lifetime. And four minutes later, reclining in an
armchair with his feet on a small table, he had begun to experience that
joy, than which there is none purer, which comes to the unwilling
abstainer who has at last succeeded in assembling the materials, when
from immediately behind him a voice spoke.

All the voice actually said was 'Coo!' but it was enough. Indeed, in the
circumstances, a mere clearing of the throat would have been sufficient.
His knotted and combined locks parted, each particular hair standing on
end like quills upon the fretful porcupine: his heart broke from its
moorings and crashed with a dull thud against his front teeth: and with
a wordless cry he shot toward the ceiling.

It was only some moments later, after he had hit the ceiling twice and
was starting to descend to terra firma, that the mists cleared from his
eyes and he was able to perceive that the intruder was not, as he had
supposed, Sir Aylmer Bostock, but Elsie Bean, his old playmate of the
rude sling days. She was standing by the door with a hand to her heart,
panting a little, as housemaids will when they enter drawing-rooms at
twenty minutes to one in the morning and find them occupied by the
ruling classes.

The relief was stupendous. Pongo's equanimity returned, and with it a
warm gush of the milk of human kindness. To a man who had been
anticipating an embarrassing interview with Sir Aylmer Bostock in his
dressing-gown Elsie Bean was like something the doctor had ordered. He
had no objection whatever to Elsie Bean joining him, quite the reverse.
A chat with one of the finest minds in Bottleton East was just what he
was in the mood for. He beamed on the girl, and having released his
tongue, which had got entangled with his uvula, spoke in a genial and
welcoming voice.

'What ho, Bean.'

'What ho, sir.'

'It's you, is it?'

'Yes, sir,'

'You gave me a start.'	*

'You gave me a start, sir.'

121


L


'Making two starts in all,' said Pongo, who had taken mathematics at
school. 'You must forgive me for seeming a little perturbed for a
moment. I thought you were mine host. Thank God you weren't. Do you
remember in your inimitable way describing him as an overbearing
dishpot? You were right. A dishpot he is, and a dishpot he always will
be, and to hell with all dishpots is my view. Well, come along in, young
Bean, and tell me your news. How's the Harold situation developing? Any
change on the Potter front?'

Elsie Bean's face clouded. She tossed her head, plainly stirred.

'Harold's a mess,' she said, with the frankness which comes naturally to
those reared in the bracing air of Bottleton East. 'He's an obstinate,
pig-headed, fat-headed, flat-footed copper. I've no patience.'

'He still refuses to send in his papers?'

«R.'

A pang of pity shot through Pongo. Nothing that he had seen of Constable
Potter had tended to build up in his mind the picture of a sort of demon
lover for whom women might excusably go wailing through the woods, but
he knew that his little friend was deeply attached to this uniformed
perisher and his heart bled for her. He was broad-minded enough to be
able to appreciate that if you are enamoured of a fat-headed copper and
obstacles crop up in the way of your union with him, you mourn just as
much as if he were Gregory Peck or Clark Gable.

'He came round to-night after supper, and we talked for an hour and a
half, but nothing I could say would move him.'

'No dice, eh? Too bad,'

'It's that sister of his. She won't let him call his soul his own. I
don't know what's to come of it, I'm sure.'

A pearly tear appeared at the corner of Elsie Bean's eye, and she
sniffed in an overwrought way. Pongo patted her head. It was the least a
man of sensibility could do.

'I wouldn't despair,' he said. "These things seem sticky at the moment,
1?ut they generally iron out straight in the end. Give him time, and
you'll find he'll be guided by the voice of love.'


122


Elsie Bean, having sniffed again, became calmer. There was good stuff
in this girl.

'What would guide him a lot better,' she said, 'would be. being bopped
on the nose.'

'Bopped on the nose?'

'R.'

Of the broad, general principle of bopping Constable Potter on the nose
Pqngo was, of course, a warm adherent. It was a thing that he felt
should be done early and often. But he was unable to see how it could
pay dividends in the present circumstances.

'I don't quite follow.'

'That would knock some sense into him. Harold's nervous.'

'Nervous?' said Pongo incredulously. He had detected no such basic
weakness in the flatty under advisement. A man of iron, he would have
said.

'That's why he got himself shifted to the country from London, where he
used to be. He found it too hot being a rozzer in London. He had some
unpleasant experiences with blokes giving him shiners when he was
pinching them, and it shook him. He come here for peace and quiet. So if
he found it was too hot being a rozzer here as well, he wouldn't want to
be a rozzer anywhere. He'd give his month's notice, and we'd all be
happy.'

Pongo saw her point. He could scarcely have done otherwise, for it had
been admirably put.

'True,' he said. 'You speak sooth, Bean.'

'If only someone would bop him on the nose, he wouldn't hesitate not for
a moment. You wouldn't bop him on the nose, would you?'

'No, I would not bop him on the nose.'

'Or squash in his helmet when he wasn't looking?'

Pongo was sorry for the idealistic girl, but he felt it due to himself
to discourage this line of thought from the outset.

'A man like Harold is always looking,' he said. 'No, I wish you luck,
young Bean, and I shall follow your future career with considerable
interest, but don't count on me fdr anything more than heartfelt
sympathy. Still, I fully concur in your view


123


l

that what you require is an up and coming ally, who will drive home to
Harold the risks of the profession, thus causing him to see the light,
and I strongly recommend featuring your brother Bert in the part. It's a
pity he doesn't come out till September. What's he in for?'

'Resisting of the police in the execution of their duty. He sloshed a
slop on the napper with a blunt instrument.'

'There you are, then. The People's Choice. Tails up, my dear old
housemaid. Provided, of course, that his sojourn in the coop has not
weakened Bert as a force, you should be hearing the warbling of the blue
bird by early October at the latest. Meanwhile, switching lightly to
another topic, what on earth are you doing here at this time of night?'
'I came to get some whisky.'

All the host in Pongo sprang to life. He blushed for his remissness. Tin
frightfully sorry,' he said, reaching for the decanter. 'Ought to have
offered you a spot ages ago. Can't imagine what I was thinking of.'

'For Harold,' Elsie Bean explained. 'He's lurking in the garden. He
chucked a stone at my window, and when I popped my head out he asked me
in a hoarse whisper to bring him a drop of something. And I remembered
Jane always took the whisky in here last thing before bed. Lurking in
the garden!' she proceeded with bitterness. 'What's he lurking in
gardens for? Doing some sort of copper's job, I suppose. If he'd give up
being a copper, he could stay in bed like other folks. I've no
patience.'

She sniffed, and Pongo, fearing another pearly tear, hastened to apply
first aid.

'There, there,' he said. 'You mustn't let it get you down. Right will
prevail. Have a cigarette?'

'Thanks.'

Turkish this side, Virginia that,' said Pongo.

He had taken one himself a few moments before, and he proceeded now to
light hers from his own. And it was while their faces were in the close
juxtaposition necessitated by this process that Bill Oakshott entered
the room.


f24


Whether one is justified in describing Bill Oakshott and Pongo
Twistleton as great minds is perhaps a question open to debate. But they
had exhibited to-night the quality which is supposed to be
characteristic of great minds, that of thinking alike. Pongo, yearning
for a snootful, had suddenly remembered the decanter in the
drawing-room, and so had Bill.

Ever since his meeting that afternoon with Lord Ickenham, Bill
Oakshott's emotions had been rather similar to those which he would have
experienced, had he in the course of a country walk discovered that his
coat tails had become attached to the rear end of the Scotch express en
route from London to Edinburgh. Like most of those who found themselves
associated with the effervescent peer when he was off the chain and
starting to go places, he was conscious of a feeling of breathlessness,
shot through with a lively apprehension as to what was coming next. This
had induced sleeplessness. Sleeplessness had induced thirst. And with
thirst had come the recollection of the decanter in the drawing-room.

With Bill, as with Pongo, to think was to act, and only in a minor
detail of technique had their procedure differed. Pongo, not knowing
whether the bally things creaked or not, had descended the stairs
mincingly, like Agag, while Bill, more familiar with the terrain, had
taken them three at a time., like a buffalo making for a water hole. He.
arrived, accordingly, somewhat touched in the wind, and the affectionate
scene that met his eyes as he crossed the threshold took away what
remained of his breath completely. Elsie Bean, entering the room, had
said 'Coo!' Bill for the moment was unable to utter at all. He merely
stood and goggled, shocked to the core.

The theory which Lord Ickenham had advanced in extenuation of Pongo's
recent kissing of this girl whose nose he was now so nearly touching
with his own had not satisfied Bill Oakshott. It might have been, as the
kindly peer had said, a mere mannerism, but Bill thought not. The
impression he had received on the previous afternoon had been of a
licentious


125


clubman operating on all twelve cylinders, and that was the impression
he received now. And at the thought that it was in the hands of an
all-in Lothario like this that Hermione Bostock had placed her life's
happiness his sensitive soul quivered like a jelly. The outlook, to
Bill's mind, was bad.

Pongo was the first to break an awkward silence.

'Oh, hullo,' he said.

'Oh, hullo, sir,' said Elsie Bean.

'Oh, hullo,' said Bill.

His manner, as he spoke, was distrait. He was trying to decide whether
the fact of Pongo not being, as he had at one time supposed, off his
onion improved the general aspect of affairs or merely rendered it
darker and sadder. It was plain now that Elsie Bean had been mistaken on
the previous day when she had asserted that the other had said 'Coo! I
think I'll go to London,' and had driven thither. He had merely, it
appeared, taken a short spin somewhere in his Buffy-Porson, which was
quite a reasonable thing to do on a fine afternoon. But was this good or
bad? Bill had said in his haste that loony libertines are worse than
sane ones, but now he was not so sure. It might be a close thing, but
were you not entitled to shudder even more strongly at a libertine who
was responsible for his actions than at one who was not?

On one point, however, his mind was clear. It was his intention, as soon
as they were alone together, to buttonhole this squire of dames and talk
to him like an elder brother - as, for instance, one could imagine
Brabazon-Plank major talking to Brabazon-Plank minor.

The opportunity of doing this came earlier than those familiar with
Elsie Bean and her regrettable tendency to be a mixer would have
anticipated. It is true that all her instincts urged the gregarious
little soul to stick around and get the conversation going, but though
sometimes failing to see eye to eye with Emily Post she was not without
a certain rudimentary regard for the proprieties, and her social sense
told her that this would not be the done thing. When a housemaid in
curling pins and a kimono finds herself in a drawing-room at one in the
morning with her employer and a male guest, she

126

should as soon as possible make a decorous exit. This is in Chapter One
of all the etiquette books.

So with a courteous 'Well, good night, all,' she now withdrew. And it
was not very long after the door had closed that Pongo, who had become
conscious of a feeling of uneasiness, as if he were sitting in a
draught, was able to perceive what it was that was causing this. He was
being looked at askance.

The rather delicate enterprise of looking askance at an old boyhood
friend is one that different men embark on in different ways. Bill's
method - for while he was solid on the point that it was about time that
a fearless critic came along and pointed out to Pongo some of the
aspects in which his behaviour deviated from the ideal, he found it
difficult to overcome his natural shyness - was to turn bright vermilion
and allow his eyes to protrude like a snail's. He also cleared his
throat three times.

Finally he spoke.

'Pongo.'

'Hullo?'

Bill cleared his throat again.

'Pongo,'

'On the spot.'

Bill took a turn up and down the room. It was not easy to think of a
good opening sentence, and when you are talking like an elder brother to
libertines the opening sentence is extremely important, if not vital. He
cleared his throat once more.

'Pongo.'

'Still here, old man.'

Bill cleared his throat for the fifth time, and having replied rather
testily in the negative to Pongo's query as to whether he had swallowed
a gnat or something, resumed his pacing. This brought his shin into
collision with a small chair which was lurking in the shadows, and the
sharp agony enabled him to overcome his diffidence.

'Pongo,' he said, and his voice was crisp and firm, 'I haven't mentioned
it before, because the subject didn't seem to come up somehow, but when
I returned from Brazil the day before


127


yesterday, I was told that you were engaged to my cousin Hermione.'

"That's right.'

'Congratulations.'

'Thanks.'

'I hope you will be very happy."

'You betcher.'

'And I hope - here's the nub - that you will make her happy.'

'Oh, rather.'

'Well, will you? You say you will, but I'm dashed if I see how it's
going to be done, if you spend your whole time hobnobbing with
housemaids.'

'Eh?'

'You heard.'

'Hobnobbing with housemaids?'

'Hobnobbing with housemaids.'

The charge was one which few men would have been able to hear unmoved.
Its effect on Pongo was to make him mix himself another whisky and soda.
Grasping this, like King Arthur brandishing his sword Excalibur, he
confronted his accuser intrepidly and began a spirited speech for the
defence.

It was inaccurate, he pointed out, to say that he spent his whole time
hobnobbing with housemaids. Indeed, he doubted if he could just be said
to hobnob with them at all. It all depended on what you meant by the
expression. To offer a housemaid a cigarette is not bobbing. Nor, when
you light it for her, does that constitute nobbing. If you happen - by
the merest chance - to be in a drawing-room at one in the morning with a
housemaid, you naturally do the civil thing, behaving like a well bred
English gentleman and putting her at her ease.

You chat. You pass the time of day. You offer her a gasper. And when she
has got her hooks on it, you light it for her. That, at least, was
Pongo's creed, and he believed it would have been the creed of Sir
Galahad and the Chevalier Bayard, if he had got the name correctly,
neither of whom had to the best of his knowledge ever been called
hobnobbers. He concluded by saying that it was a pity that some people,
whose identity


128


'" he did not specify, had minds like sinks and, by the most for |
tunate of chances remembering a good one at just the right I moment,
added that to the pure all things were pure.

It was a powerful harangue, and it is not surprising that for an instant
Bill Oakshott seemed to falter before it, like some sturdy oak swayed by
the storm. But by dint of thinking of the righteousness of his cause and
clearing his throat again, he recovered the quiet strength which had
marked his manner at the outset.

'All that,' he said coldly, 'would go a lot stronger with me, if I
hadn't seen you kissing Elsie Bean yesterday.'

Pongo stared.

'Kissing Elsie Bean?'

'Kissing Elsie Bean.'

'I never kissed Elsie Bean.'

'Yes, you did kiss Elsie Bean. On the front steps.'

Pongo clapped a hand to his forehead.

'Good Lord, yes, so I did. Yes, you're perfectly right. I did, didn't I?
It all comes back to me. But only like a brother.'

'Like a brother, my foot.'

'Like a brother,' insisted Pongo, as if he had spent his whole life
watching brothers kiss housemaids. 'And if you knew the circumstances -'

Bill raised a hand. He was in no mood to listen to any tale of diseased
motives. He drew a step nearer and stared bleakly at Pongo, as if the
latter had been an alligator of the Brazilian swamps whom he was
endeavouring to quell with the power of the human eye.

'Twistleton!'

'I wish you wouldn't call me `?08-' Twistleton.'

'I will call you Twistleton, blast you. And this is what I want to say
to you, Twistleton, by way of a friendly warning which you will do well
to bear in mind, if you don't want your head pulled off at the roots and
your insides ripped from your body -'

'My dear chap!'

' - With my naked hands. Cut it out.'

'Cut what out?'


u.0. - 7


129

'You know what. This Don Juan stuff. This butterfly stuff. This way
you've got of flitting from flower to flower and sipping. Lay off it,
Twistleton. Give it a miss. Curb that impulse. Kiss fewer housemaids.
Try to remember that you are engaged to be married to a sweet girl who
loves and trusts you.'

'But -'

Pongo, about to speak, paused. Bill had raised his hand again.

The gesture of raising the hand is one which is generally more effective
in costume dramas, where it always suffices to quell the fiercest crowd,
than in real life: and what made it so potent now was probably the size
of the hand. To Pongo's excited imagination it seemed as large as a ham,
and he could not overlook the fact that it was in perfect proportion
with the rest of his companion's huge body; a body which even the most
casual eye would have recognized as being composed mostly of rippling
muscle. Taking all this into consideration, he decided to remain silent,
and Bill proceeded.

'I suppose you're wondering what business it is of mine?'

'No, no. Any time you're passing '

'Well, I'll tell you,' said Bill, departing from a lifetime's habit of
reticence. 'I've loved Hermione myself for years and years.'

'No, really?'

'Yes. Years and years and years. I've never mentioned it to her.'

'No?'

'No. So she knows nothing about it."

'Quite. She wouldn't, would she?'

'And loving her like this I feel that it is my job to watch over her
like a '

'Governess?'

'Not governess. Elder brother. To watch over her like an elder brother
and protect her and see that no smooth bird comes along and treats her
as the plaything of an idle hour.'

This surprised Pongo. The idea of anyone treating Hermione Bostock as
the plaything of an idle hour was new to him.

'But -' he began again, and once more Bill raised his hand,


130


I bigger and better than ever. In a dreamlike way, Porigo found

i himself wondering what size he took in gloves.

^ 'As the plaything of an idle hour,' repeated Bill. 'I don't

r object to her marrying another man '

I 'Broadminded.'

'At least, I do - it's agony - but what I mean is, it's up to her, and
if she feels like marrying another man, right ho! So long as it makes
her happy. All I want is her happiness.' ; 'Very creditable.'

'But get this, Twistleton," continued Bill, and Pongo, meeting his eye,
was reminded of that of the headmaster of his private school, with whom
some fifteen years previously he had had a painful interview arising
from his practice of bringing white mice into the classroom. 'This is
what I want to drive into your nut. If I found .that that other man was
playing fast and loose with her, two-timing her, Twistleton, breaking
her gentle heart by going and whooping it up round the corner, I would
strangle him like a '

He paused, snapping his fingers. 'Dog?' said Pongo, to help him out.

'No, not dog, you silly ass. Who the dickens strangles dogs? Like a foul
snake.'

Pongo might have argued, had he felt like going into the thing, that the
number of people who strangle foul snakes must be very limited, but he
did not feel like going into the thing. In a sort of coma he watched his
companion look askance at him again, stride to the table, mix himself a
medium strong whisky and soda, drain it and stride to the door. It
closed, and he was alone.

And he was just beginning to lose that stunned sensation of having been
beaten over the head with something hard and solid which must have come
to the policeman whom Elsie Bean's brother Bert had sloshed on the
napper with a blunt instrument, when from across the hall, from the
direction of the room where Sir Aylmer Bostock kept his collection of
African curios, there proceeded an agonized cry, followed by the sound
of voices.

Pongo, crouched in his armchair like a hare in its form, his

131

eyes revolving and his heart going into a sort of adagio dance, was
unable to catch what these voices were saying, but he . recognized them
as those of Sir Aylmer and Lord Ickenham. The former appeared to be
speaking heatedly, while the intonation of the latter was that of a man
endeavouring to pour oil on troubled waters.

Presently the door of the collection room slammed, and a few moments
later that of the drawing-room opened, and Lord Ickenham walked in.


Whatever the nature of the exchanges in which he had been taking part,
they had done nothing to impair Lord Ickenham's calm. His demeanour, as
he entered, was the .easy, unembarrassed demeanour of an English peer
who has just remembered that there is a decanter of whisky in a
drawing-room. As always at moments when lesser men would have been
plucking at their ties and shaking in every limb, this excellent old man
preserved the suave imperturbability of a fish on a cake of ice. It
seemed to Pongo, though it was difficult for him to hear distinctly, for
his heart, in addition to giving its impersonation of Nijinsky, was now
making a noise like a motor-cycle, that the head of the family was
humming lightheartedly.

'Ah, Pongo,' he said, making purposefully for the decanter and seeming
in no way surprised to see his nephew. 'Up and about? One generally
finds you not far from the whisky.' He filled his glass, and sank
gracefully into a chair. 'I always think,' he said, having refreshed
himself with a couple of swallows and a sip, 'that this is the best hour
of the day. The soothing hush, the grateful stimulant, the pleasant
conversation on whatever topic may happen to come up. Well, my boy,
what's new? You seem upset about something. Nothing wrong, I hope?'

Pongo uttered a curious hissing sound like the death-rattle of a
soda-water syphon. He found the question ironical.

'I don't know what you call wrong. I've just been told that I'm
extremely apt to have my insides ripped out."

132

'Who told you that?'

'Bill Oakshott.'

'Was he merely reading your future in the tea leaves, or do you mean
that he proposed to do the ripping?'

'He proposed to do the ripping with his bare hands.'

'You amaze me. Bill Oakshott? That quiet, lovable young man.'

'Lovable be blowed. He's worse than a Faceless Fiend. He could walk
straight into the Chamber of Horrors at Madame Tussaud's, and no
questions asked. He also said he would pull my head off at the roots,
and strangle me like a foul snake.'

'Difficult to do that, if he had pulled your head off. Assuming, as I
think we are entitled to assume, that the neck would come away with the
head. But what had you been doing to Bill Oakshott to stir his passions
thus?'

'He didn't like my being in here with Elsie Bean.'

'I don't think I remember who Elsie Bean is. One meets so many people.'

'The housemaid.'

'Ah, yes. The one you kiss.'

Pongo raised a tortured face heavenwards, as if he were calling for
justice from above.

T don't kiss her! At least, I may have done once - like a brother - in
recognition of a signal service which she had rendered me. The way you
and Bill Oakshott talk, you'd think this Bean and I spent twenty-four
hours a day playing postman's knock.'

'My dear boy, don't get heated. My attitude is wholly sympathetic. I
recollect now that Bill told me he had been a little disturbed by the
spectacle of the embrace. He has the interests of your fiancee at
heart.'

'He's in love with her.' *

'Really?'

'He told me so.'

'Well, well. Poor lad. It must have been a severe jolt for him when I
mentioned in the train that she was engaged to you. I feel a gentle pity
for Bill Oakshott.'

'I don't. I hope he chokes.'


133


"The astonishing thing to my mind is that a man like Mugsy can have a
daughter who seems to fascinate one and all. One would have expected
Mugsy's daughter to be something on the lines of the Gorgon, with snakes
instead of hair. Did you happen to hear him just now?' 'Golly, yes. What
was all that?'

'Just Mugsy in one of his tantrums.'

'Did he catch you going into the collection room?'

'He was there already. Sleeping among his African curios. All wrong, it
seemed to me. Either a man is an African curio, or he is not an African
curio. If he is not, he ought not to curl up with them at night.' A
cloud came into Lord Icken ham's handsome face, and his voice took on a
disapproving note. 'You know, Pongo, there is a kind of low cunning
about Mugsy which I do not like to see. Can you conceive the state of
mind of a man who would have his bed moved into the collection room and
sleep there with a string tied to his big toe and to the handle of the
door?'

'He didn't?'

'He certainly did. It's the deceit of the thing that hurts me. Naturally
I assumed, when we all wished each other good night and went our
separate ways, that Mugsy was off to his bedroom like any decent
householder, so I toddled down to the collection room at zero hour
without a thought of unpleasantness in my mind. A nice, easy, agreeable
job, I was saying to myself. I sauntered to the door, grasped the
handle, turned it and gave it a sharp pull.'

'Gosh!'

'I don't know if you have ever, while walking along a dark street,
happened to step on an unseen cat? I once had the experience years ago
in Waverly Place, New York, and the picture seemed to rise before my
eyes just now, when that awful yowl rent the air.'

'What on earth did you say?'

'Well, Mugsy did most of the saying.'

'I mean, how did you explain?"

'Oh, that? That was simple enough. I told him I was walking in my
sleep.'


134


'Did he believe it?'

'I really don't know. The point seemed to me of no interest.'

'Well, this dishes us.'

'Nonsense. That is the pessimist in you speaking. All that has happened
is that we have sustained a slight check '

'Slight!'

'My dear Pongo, there are a thousand ways of getting around a trifling
obstacle like this. Mugsy is sleeping in the cpllection room, is he?
Very well, then we simply sit down and think out a good method of
eliminating him. A knockout drop in his bedtime whisky and soda would,
of course, be the best method, but I happen to have come here without my
knockout drops. Idiotic of me. It is madness to come to country houses
without one's bottle of Mickey Finns. One ought to pack them first thing
after one's clean collars. But I'm not worrying about Mugsy. If I can't
outsmart an ex-Governor, what was the use of all my early training in
the United States of America? The only thing that bothers me a little is
the thought of Sally, bless her heart. She is out there in the garden,
watching and waiting like Mariana at the Moated grange --'

Pongo uttered a stricken cry.

'And so is that blighted Potter out there in the garden, watching and
waiting like Mariana at the ruddy moated grange. I'd clean forgotten
Elsie Bean told me so. She came in here to get a drink for him.'

Lord Ickenham stroked his chin.

'H'm. I did not know that. He's out in the garden, eh? That may
complicate matters a little. I hope '

He broke off. Shrilling through the quiet night, the front door bell had
begun to ring, loudly and continuously, as if someone had placed a
large, fat thumb on the button and was keeping it there.

Lord Ickenham looked at Pongo. Pongo looked at Lord Ickenham.

'Potter!' said Lord Ickenham.

'The rotter!' said Pongo.

Chapter 9


It is a characteristic of England's splendid police force at which many
people have pointed with pride, or would have pointed with pride if they
had happened to think of it, that its members, thanks to the rigid
discipline which has moulded them since they were slips of boys, are
always able to bear with philosophic fortitude the hardships and
disappointments inseparable from their chosen walk in life. They can, in
a word, take it as well as dish it out.

If, for example, they happen to be lurking in the garden of a country
house in the small hours, when even a summer night tends to be a bit
chilly, and ask their friends to bring them a drop of something to keep
the cold out, and after a longish wait it becomes evident that his drop
is not going to materialize, they do not wince nor cry aloud. 'Duty,
stern daughter of the voice of God,' they say to themselves, and go on
lurking.

It had been so with Constable Potter. In their recent Romeo and Juliet
scene Elsie Bean had spoken hopefully of whisky in the drawing-room, but
he quite realized that obstacles might arise to prevent her connecting
with it. And as the minutes went by and she did not appear, he assumed
that these obstacles had arisen and with a couple of 'Coo's' and a
stifled oath dismissed the whole subject of whisky from his mind.

In surroundings such as those in which he was keeping his vigil a more
spiritual man might have felt the urge to try his hand at roughing out a
little verse, so much was there that was romantic and inspirational in
the garden of Ashenden Manor at this hour. Soft breezes sighed through
the trees, bringing with them the scent at stock and tobacco plant. Owls
tu-whitted, other owls tu-whooed. Add the silent grandeur of the fine
old

136

house and the shimmer of distant water reflecting the twinkling stars
above, and you had a set-up well calculated to produce another
policeman-poet.

But Harold Potter had never been much of a man for poetry. Even when
alone with Elsie Bean in the moonlight he seldom got much further in
that direction than a description of the effect which regulation boots
had on his corns. What he thought of was beef sandwiches. And he was
just sketching out in his mind the beef sandwich supreme which he would
eat on returning to his cottage, when in the darkness before him he
discerned a dim form. Like himself, it appeared to be lurking.

He pursed his lips disapprovingly. He had taken an instant dislike to
this dim form.

It was not the fact that it was dim that offended him. In the garden of
Ashenden Manor at one in the morning a form had got to be dim. It had no
option. The point, as Constable Potter saw it, was that forms, dim or
otherwise, had no business to be in the garden of Ashenden Manor at one
in the morning, and he stepped forward, his blood circulating briskly.
This might or might not be big stuff, but it had all the appearance of
big stuff. 'Intrepid Officer Traps Nocturnal Marauder' seemed to him
about the angle from which to look at the thing.

"Ullo,' he boomed. He should have said: 'What's all this?' which is the
formula laid down for use on these occasions in 'What Every Young
Policeman Ought to Know,' but, as so often happens, excitement had made
him blow up in his lines. "Ullo. What are you doing here?'

The next moment any doubt which he might have entertained as to the
bigness of the stuff was resolved. With a startled squeak the dim
figure, which had leaped some six inches into the air on being
addressed, broke into hurried flight, and with the deep bay, so like a
bloodhound's, of the policeman engaged in the execution of his duty he
immediately proceeded to bound after it. 'Night Chase in Darkened
Garden,' he was feeling as he dropped into his stride.

Into races of a cross-country nature the element of luck


137


always enters largely. One notices this in the Grand National. Had the
affair been taking place on a cinder track, few punters would have cared
to invest their money on the constable, for he was built for endurance
rather than speed and his quarry was showing itself exceptionally nippy
on its feet. But in this more difficult going nimbleness was not
everything. Some unseen obstacle tripped the dim form. It stumbled,
nearly fell. Constable Potter charged up, reached out, seized something.
There was a rending sound and he fell back, momentarily deprived of his
balance. When he recovered it, he was alone with the owls and the stars.
The dim form had disappeared, and he stood there with his hands full of
what seemed to be the major part of a woman's dress.

It was at this point that he felt justified, despite the advanced hour,
in going to the front door and ringing the bell. And it was not long
afterwards that the door opened and he strode masterfully into the hall.

He found himself playing to a gratifyingly full house. He was, indeed,
doing absolute capacity. You cannot punch front door bells in the small
hours without attracting attention, and Ashenden Manor had turned out en
masse to greet him. In addition to such members of his personal circle
as Mrs Gooch, the cook, Elsie Bean, his bethrothed, Jane, the
parlourmaid, and Percy, the boy who cleaned the knives and boots, he
noticed Sir Aylmer Bostock, looking like Clemenceau on one of his bad
mornings, Lady Bostock, looking like a horse, and their nephew William,
looking large and vermilion. There was also present, and a shudder ran
through him as he saw them, the scum of the East Dulwich underworld in
the person of the scoundrels George Robinson and Edwin Smith. The former
was, as ever, debonair; the latter seemed agitated.

Constable Potter fondled his moustache. This was his hour, the high spot
in his life when he was going to be fawned on by one and all. Or he
thought it was until, just as he was about to speak, Sir Aylmer, who
after the incursion of Lord Ickenham had managed to get to sleep again
and had woken up cross, exploded like a bomb.

'potter!'

138

r


'Sir?' said the zealous officer, somewhat taken aback by his |l manner.

'Was it y o u making that infernal noise?'

'Sir?'

'Ringing the damned bell at this hour! Waking everybody I up! Ruining my
night's rest! whatthedevildoyou

f MEAN BY IT?'

1 'But, sir, I've caught a marauder.'

'A what?'

'A nocturnal marauder, sir.'

'Then where is he? Don't tell me you let him get away?'

'Well, yes, sir.'

'Ass! Fool! Idiot! Imbecile!'said Sir Aylmer.

Constable Potter was wounded.

'It wasn't my fault, sir. The garments give when I clutched them.'

With the manner of Counsel putting in Exhibit A, he thrust beneath his
interlocutor's eyes the flimsy fragment which he was holding, and Sir
Aylmer inspected it closely.

'This is a woman's dress,' he said.

'A female's,' corrected Constable Potter, always indefatigable in his
quest for exactitude. 'I observed her engaged in suspicious loitering,
and when I up and apprehended her she come apart in my hands.'

At this dramatic recital of events which, even if colourlessly related,
could scarcely have failed to chill the spine, there proceeded from the
group of female members of the staff, huddled together for mutual
support, a cry, or as Constable Potter would probably have preferred to
put it, an ejaculation, consisting of the monosyllable 'ow!' Weighing
the evidence, one would say that the speaker was not Elsie Bean, who
would have said 'Coo!' but is more likely to have been Mrs Gooch or Jane
the parlourmaid. The interruption had the unfortunate effect of
attracting Sir Aylmer's attention to the group, and he started
immediately to make his presence felt.

'emily 1'

'Yes, dear?"

'What are all these women doing here?' Sir Aylmer's red139



dening eye passed from Mrs Gooch to Jane the parlourmaid, from Jane the
parlourmaid to Elsie Bean. 'Good God! The place is full of damned women.
Send 'em to bed.' 'Yes, dear.'

'Dishpot!' cried a clear young voice, this time unmistakably that of
Miss Bean. She had been looking forward to spending most of the rest of
the night in the hall, listening to tales of stirring events and
commenting on them in her friendly way, and to get the bftm's rush like
this in the first five minutes was very bitter to her independent
spirit. Not since the evening of her seventh birthday when, excitement
having induced an attack of retching and nausea, she had been led out of
the Bottleton East Theatre Royal half-way through her first pantomime,
had she experienced such a sense of disappointment and frustration.

Sir Aylmer started. These were fighting words. 'Who called me a
dishpot?'

'I did,' replied Elsie Bean with quiet fortitude. 'An overbearing
dishpot, that's what you are, and I would like to give my month's
notice.'

'I would like to give my month's notice,' said Mrs Gooch, struck by the
happy thought.

'So would I like to give my month's notice,' said Jane the parlourmaid,
falling in with the mob spirit.

Sir Aylmer clutched his dressing-gown. For a moment it seemed as if it
were his intention to rend it, like a minor prophet of the Old
Testament. 'emily!' 'Yes, dear?'

'Are you or are you not going to throw these women out?' 'Yes, dear. At
once, dear.'

Briskly, though with a leaden heart, for none knew better than she the
difficulty of obtaining domestic help in the country, Lady Bostock
shepherded the rebels through the door. Of the wage-earning members of
the household only Percy, the knives and boots boy, remained, a pimpled
youth with a rather supercilious manner. He had lighted a cigarette, and
his whole demeanour showed his satisfaction that the women had


140


p


I gone and that the men could now get together and thresh the j; thing
out in peace.

; Sir Aylmer drew a deep breath like a speaker at a public ' meeting
after the hecklers have been ejected.

Totter.'

'Sir?'

'Tell me your story again.'

The constable told his story again, even better than before, for he had
been able to think of some new words, and Sir Aylmer listened
frowningly.

'Where was this woman?'

'This Mystery Woman,' corrected Constable Potter. 'In the garden, sir.'

'What part of the garden?'

'Near the window of the room where you keep your thinga- . majigs, sir.'

'MywhatT	*

'Those objects from Africa, sir. Curios is, I believe, the name.'

'Then call them curios.'

'Yes, sir.'

'Not thingamajigs.'

'No, sir.'

'What was she doing?'

'Lying in wait, sir.'

'What for?'

'Don't know, sir.'

Percy flicked the ash off his cigarette.

If you arst me,' he said, throwing out the suggestion for what it was
worth, 'she was expecting the arrival of her accomplice. This is the
work of a gang.'

He would have done better to remain in modest obscurity. Compelled by
his official status to accept meekly the recriminations of landed
proprietors who were also members of the bench of magistrates, Constable
Potter could be very terrible when dealing with knives and boots boys,
and he had been wanting some form of relief for his feeling ever since
Sir AJymer had called him an ass, a fool, an idiot and an imbecile.

141

To advance and seize Percy by the left ear was with him the work of an
instant, to lead him to the door and speed him on his way with a swift
kick the work of another. A thud and a yelp, and Percy had ceased to
have a seat at the conference table. Constable Potter returned to his
place, his air that of a man who has carried out a pleasant task neatly
and well.

Percy's head appeared round the door.

'And so would I like to give my month's notice,' he said and withdrew
once more.	(

Lord Ickenham, who had been a genial spectator, spoke for the first
time.

'A clean sweep, Mugsy. What, all my pretty chickens at one fell swoop!
Too bad. Very difficult these days to get servants in the country.'

Sir Aylmer did not reply. The same thought had come to

^him independently, and he was beginning to be a little dubious

as to the wisdom of his forthright policy in dealing with

domestics. It was Constable Potter who now came before the

meeting with a few well-judged words.

'Not but what there ain't a lot in what the lad said,' he observed. He
was not fond of Percy, suspecting him of being the hidden hand which had
thrown half a brick at him the other day as he cycled up the drive, but
he could give credit where credit was due. 'About its being a gang, what
I mean. Women don't conduct burglaries on their own hook. They have
pals. Established inside the house as like as not,' he added with a
significant glance.

It was Pongo who spoke next, as if impelled to utterance by a jab in the
trouser seat from a gimlet or bradawl. In saying that Constable Potter's
glance was significant, we omitted to state that it was at the last of
the Twistletons that it had been directed, nor did we lay anything like
sufficient stress on its penetrating qualities. It was silly of us to
describe as merely significant something so closely resembling a death
ray.

'What are you looking at me for?' he asked weakly.

Constable Potter, who could be as epigrammatic as the next man when he
wanted to, replied that a cat may look at a king. And he was just
smiling at his ready wit, when Sir Aylmer de142


I cided that the time for finesse and dissembling was past arid

!that what was required here was direct frontal attack. All the evening
he had been irked by the necessity of playing the genial host - or the
fairly genial host - to this rat of the underworld, ['; and now not even
the thought of possible repercussions from | his daughter Hermione could
restrain him from speaking out. t' 'I'll tell you why he's looking at
you, my man. Because he happens to be aware that you're a scoundrel and
an impostor.'

'Who, me?'

'Yes, you. You thought you had fooled us, didn't you? Well, ' you
hadn't. Potter 1' 'Sir?'

'Tell your story about your previous meeting with this fellow.'

'Very good, sir,' said Constable Potter, quickly applying the necessary
glaze to his eyes and starting to address the bodiless spirit in
mid-air. 'Here's what transpired. On the ... Coo! " I've forgotten when
it was, I'd have to look up my scrap album to establish the exact inst.,
but it was about a year ago, when I was in the C division in the
metropolis and they'd put me on duty at the dog races down Shepherd's
Bush way. Accused was drawn to my attention along of making himself
conspicuous by conduct like as it might have been of a disorderly
nature, and I apprehended him. Questioned while in custody, he stated
his name was Smith.' 'Not Twistleton?'

'No, sir. Edwin Smith, of 11, Nasturtium Road, East Dulwich.'	* 'So what
have you to say to that?' demanded Sir Aylmer. Lord Ickenham intervened.

'My dear Mugsy, the whole thing is obviously an absurd misunderstanding.
One sees so clearly what must have happened. Scooped in by the police
and reluctant to stain the fine old Twistleton escutcheon by revealing
his true identity, the boy gave a false name. You've done it yourself a
hundred times.'

'I haven't!'

Lord Ickenham shrugged his shoulders.

143

L

'Have it your own way, Mugsy. The point is immaterial, arid I would be
the last man to awaken painful memories. But I can assure you that this
really is Reginald Twistleton. Bill Oak shott happened to mention it
only this afternoon. He was telling me that you had gone off your onion
'

'He was, was he?'

'-And when I inquired as to the symptoms, he explained that you had got
this extraordinary idea that his old friend Reginald Twistleton was not
his old friend Reginald Twistleton, whereas that is in reality what his
old friend Reginald Twistleton is nothing else but. You will testify,
Bill Oakshott, to the hundred per cent Twistletonity of this Reginald?'

'Fine. I mean, oh rather.'

'There you are, then, Mugsy.'

Sir Aylmer blew at his moustache.

'William on his own statement has not seen Reginald Twistleton for more
than twelve years. How can he possibly claim to recognize him? Ha!
William 1'

'Hullo?'

'I see how we can settle this matter. Ask him questions."

'Questions?'

'About your school days.'

'Pongo and I weren't at school together. I met him in the holidays at
Lord Ickenham's place.'

'That alone would seem to be a guarantee of respectability,' said Lord
Ickenham. 'A very exclusive house, that, I have always understood. By
the way, how did you get on there this afternoon, Mugsy?'

'Never mind,' said Sir Aylmer shortly. 'What was he doing at Lord
Ickenham's?'

'He was staying there.'

Sir Aylmer reflected. An inspiration came to him.

'Was there a dog there?'

'Eh?'

'A dog.'

'Oh, you mean a dog. Yes, a -'

'Don't tell him, don't tell him. Ask him.'

Lord Ickenham nodded.


144


'I see what you mean, Mugsy. Very shrewd. If he was stay I ing at
Ickenham Hall, he would remember the resident dog. I Boys always
remember dogs. Do you remember that dog, I prisoner at the bar?'

'Of course I remember the dog. It was a sheep dog."

'Correct, Bill Oakshott?'

'Absolutely.'

'Called ?'

'Mittens.'

'Accurate, Bill Oakshott?' *

I 'Definitely. Right on the bull's eye. Want any more, Uncle * Aylmer?'

'No,' said Sir Aylmer.

'I should hope not,' said Lord Ickenham. 'You've been making an ass of
yourself, Mugsy.'

'Oh, have I?' said Sir Aylmer, stung. 'Well, let me tell you that I
think the time has come now to ask you some questions."

The?'

'Yes. How do I know who you are? You come here claiming to be Plank, and
you don't look a bit like Plank, as I remember him-'

'But I explained about the absence of the billowy curves. Slimmo. In the
small half-crown or the larger three-and-six pence bottle. You mix it
with your food, and it acts as a gentle, agreeable remedy for
hypertrophy of the trouser seat, not habit-forming."

'I don't believe you are Plank. How do I know that William did not pick
up the first stranger he met and* talk him into coming and judging the
Bonny Baby contest, so that he could get out of it himself?'

'Ridiculous. You have only to look at that pure brow, those candid eyes
'

"There are some damned funny things going on here,' proceeded Sir Aylmer
firmly, 'and I intend to get to the bottom '

'Like Slimmo.'

'This afternoon a man I don't remember from Adam comes and insinuates
himself into the house, saying he is an old

145

schoolfellow of mine. Tonight Potter catches a woman prowling in my
garden '

'Not so much prowling, sir, as lurking.'

'shut up!'

'Yes, sir.'

'Potter catches a woman prowling in my garden, obviously trying to
establish communication with some man in the house. Who was that man?'

'Ah.'

'It wasn't me.'

'One hopes not, Mugsy."

'It wasn't William. It wasn't that boy who was in here just now, the one
that cleans the knives and boots '

'How do you know? If I were you, I would watch that boy, watch him
closely.'

'It was presumably not Reginald, seeing that Reginald really is
Reginald. That leaves you.'

'But, Mugsy, this is absurd. You say this woman was trying to establish
communication with some man in the house. Why? What possible evidence
have you of that? I see her as some poor, homeless waif who wandered
into your garden try' ing to find shelter for the night in the tool shed
or the byre, whatever a byre may be.'

'Poor, homeless waif be damned. And if she was trying to find shelter in
the tool shed, why didn't she go there, instead of hanging about '

'Loitering suspiciously, sir.'

'shut up! Instead of hanging about outside the window of my collection
room. She was one of a gang of burglars, that's what she was, and I'm
going to find out who the rest of them are. You say you're Plank. Prove
it.'

Lord Ickenham beamed.

'My dear Mugsy, why didn't you say so at first? Prove it? Of course I
can prove it. But is not the fact that I have been calling you Mugsy
from the start in itself a proof?"

'No. You could have found out somewhere that I used to be called that at
school.'

'Then let us touch on some of the things which I could not

146

pounds have found out except by actual daily contact with you in f
those far-off days. Who pinched jam sandwiches at the school ' shop,
Mugsy? Who put the drawing-pin on the French master's ; chair? Who got
six of the best with a fives bat for bullying the I juniors? And talking
of bullying juniors, do you recollect one w term a frail, golden-haired
child arriving at the old seminary, a frail, wistful child who looked to
you like something sent from heaven? You swooped on that child, Mugsy,
as if you had been ' an Assyrian coming down like a wolf on the fold.
You pulled his golden hair. You twisted his slender arm. And just as you
had started twisting it, it suddenly uncoiled itself in one of the
sweetest left hooks I have ever witnessed and plugged you in the eye.
Ten minutes later, after we had helped you to bed, investigation
revealed that the child was the previous year's public-school
bantam-weight champion, who had been transferred to us from his former
place of education because his father thought the air in our part of the
world was better for his lungs. On another occasion '

He paused. A horrible cackling sound, like a turkey with laryngitis, had
interrupted the flow of his narrative. It was Constable Potter laughing.
He was not a man who laughed easily, and he had not wanted to laugh now.
He had, indeed, tried not to laugh. But his sense of the humorous had
been too much for him.

'Uck, uck, uck,' he gurgled, and Sir Aylmer turned on him with all the
fury of a bantam-weight champion whose arm had been twisted. 'potter!,'
'S-sir?'

'Get out! What the devil are you doing, lounging about in here, when you
ought to be finding that woman you were fool enough to let escape?'

The rebuke sobered Constable Potter. He saw that he had been remiss.
'Yes, sir.'

'What do you mean, Yes, sir?'

'I mean No, sir. I mean I'll start instituting a search instanter. It
oughtn't to be so hard to find her. She'll be practi


147


cally in the nood, as the expression is, and that,' said Constable
Potter who, when he thought at all, thought clearly, 'will render her
conspicuous.'

With a courteous inclination of the head he passed through the door,
stern and vigilant, and Sir Aylmer prepared to follow his example.

'I'm off to bed,' he said shortly. 'It must be two o'clock.'

'Past two,' said Lord Ickenham, consulting his watch. 'How time flies
when one is agreeably occupied. Then let us all go to bed.'

He linked his arm in that of Pongo, who was breathing stertorously like
a fever patient, and together they made their way up the stairs.


The bedroom which had been allocated to Lord Ickenham was a spacious
apartment on the second floor, looking out over the park. It was thither
that he conducted Pongo, bringing him to rest on the chaise-longue which
stood beside the window.

'Relax, my boy,' he said, tidying up his nephew's legs, which were
showing a tendency to straggle, and gently placing a cushion behind his
head. 'You seem a little overwrought. You remind me of an old New York
friend of mine named Bream Rockmeteller on the occasion one Fourth of
July when somebody touched off a maroon beneath his chair. That same
stunned look. Odd. I should have thought that the clearing up of that
Edwin Smith misunderstanding would have made you feel as if you had just
had a fortnight at Bracing Bognor.'

Pongo sat up, his legs once more shooting out in all directions.

'Come, come," said Lord Ickenham, rearranging them. 'Are you a man or an
octopus? One ought to tie you up with a system of ropes.'

Pongo ignored the rebuke. His eyes were stony.

'Uncle Fred,' he said, speaking in a low, metallic voice, 'I don't know
if you know it, but you're Public Scourge Number 148

One. You scatter ruin and desolation on every side like a ruddy sower
going forth sowing. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness aren't
possible when you're around. You're like the Black Death or one of those
pestilences of the Middle Ages, taking their toll of thousands.'

His vehemence seemed to occasion Lord Ickenham a mild surprise.

'But, my dear boy, what have I done?'

'All that stuff about my giving a false name at the dog races.'

'Well, I'm dashed. I was looking on that as my day's good deed. But for
my timely intervention '

'I was just going to deny the whole thing, when you butted in.'

Lord Ickenham shook his head.

'You would never have got away with it. Heaven knows that there are few
more fervent apostles of the creed of stout denial than myself - I have
been practising it for thirty years with your aunt - but it would not
have served here. The copper's word would have been accepted, and you
would have been branded in Mugsy's eyes as a burglar.'

'Well, look what I'm branded in his eyes as now. A chap who goes on
toots and gets pinched at dog races. What's Her mione going to say when
he tells her about it? The moment the facts are placed before her,
she'll sit down and write me a stinker, calling our engagement off.'

'You think so?'

'I can see her dipping the pen.'

'Well, that'll be good. If I were you, I would give three rousing cheers
and let it go at that.'

'I won't give three rousing cheers. I worship the girl. Until now '

'I know, I know. You have never known what love meant. Quite.
Nevertheless, I stick to it that you would be well out of this perilous
enterprise of trying to hitch up with a girl who appears to have the
austere outlook of the head mistress of a kindergarten and will probably
spend most of her married life rapping her husband on the knuckles with
a ruler. But we


u.d.s	149


mustn't sit warning about your amours now. There are graver, matters on
which we have to rivet our attention.'

'Such as ?'

'My dear Pongo, Sally. Is it nothing to you that she is at this moment
roaming Hampshire in her cami-knickers? Where's your chivalry?'

Pongo bowed his head in shame. No appeal to the preux chevalier in him
was ever wasted. The thought that he had clean forgotten about Sally was
a knife in his bosom.

'Oh, golly. Yes, that's right. She'll catch cold.'

'If nothing worse.'

'And may be gathered in by Potter.'

'Exactly.'

'Blast him.'

'Yes, I confess to feeling a little cross with Constable Potter, and in
the deepest and truest sense it will be all right with me if he trips
over a footprint and breaks his damned neck. In trying to cope with
Constable Potter one has the sense of being up against some great
natural force. I wouldn't have thought so much zeal could have been
packed into a blue uniform and a pair of number eleven boots. Well, see
you shortly, Pongo.'

'Where are you going?'

'Out into the great open spaces,' said Lord Ickenham, picking up a
flowered dressing-gown. 'God knows where Sally is, but she can't have
got far. As Potter said, she will be conspicuous.'

'Shall I come, too?'

'No,' said Lord Ickenham. 'We don't want the thing to look like one of
those great race movements. You stay here and think calm, healing
thoughts.'

He left the room,.walking like one who intends not to let a twig snap
beneath his feet, and Pongo leaned back against the cushion and closed
his eyes.

'Healing thoughts!' he said to himself bitterly, and laughed one of his
mirthless laughs.

But the human mind is capable of strange feats. You never know where you
are with it. If questioned at the moment when

150

the door had closed as to the chances of anything in the nature of a
healing thought coming into a mind that was more like a maelstrom than a
collection of grey cells, Pongo would have offered a hundred to eight
against and been surprised if there had been any takers. Yet now,
gradually, he discovered that one was beginning to shape itself.

As if painted in flame, the picture of the whisky decanter which he had
left standing on the round table in the drawing room, at least half of
its elixir still within it, started to rise before his mental retina,
and he sat up, the light of hope dawning in his eyes. He had tested the
magic properties of that decanter before, and they had in no way fallen
short of his dreams, and now there came upon him the urge to test them
again. Reason told him that he would never need one for the tonsils more
than in the present pass to which he had been reduced. In fact, added
Reason, the first thing any good specialist, seeing him, would recommend
- nay, insist on - was a little something in a glass.

Thirty seconds later he had begun his journey to the promised land, and
a couple of minutes after that was sitting in his favourite armchair
with his feet up, almost calm again.

It was very pleasant in the quiet drawing-room, very pleasant and
restorative and soothing. At least, it was for perhaps a quarter of an
hour. At the end of that period Sir Aylmer Bostock entered in his
dressing-gown. Tossing on his pillow after having had his beauty sleep
twice broken, Sir Aylmer had bethought him of the decanter and it had
drawn him like a magnet. Experience had taught him that the most
stubborn insomnia can often be corrected by means of a couple of quick
ones.

His emotions on beholding Pongo established at the fountainhead were
sharp and poignant. Although he had been compelled to abandon his view
of this young man as a rat of the underworld, he still considered him a.
rat, and the last thing he desired was a jolly party with him at
half-past two in the morning, the glasses clinking and the conversation
flowing free. Life, he was thinking, was difficult enough without
finding


151


Pongo under one's feet wherever one went. If Sir Aylmer Bostock after
two days of his future son-in-law's society had been asked to sketch out
a br^ef description of his ideal world, he would have replied that he
was not a fussy man and did not expect perfection but that he did insist
on one thing, that it should contain fewer and better Twistletons.

'Ugh!'he said.'You!'

There are extraordinarily few good answers to the ejaculation 'You!'
especially when preceded by the monosyllable 'Ugh!' Pongo could not
think of any of them. The other's entry had caused him to repeat that
sitting'high jump of his, and on descending from the neighbourhood of
the ceiling he had found his mind a blank. The best he could achieve was
a nervous giggle.

This was unfortunate, for we have made no secret of Sir Aylmer Bostock's
views on nervous gigglers. The ex-Governor had never actually fallen on
a nervous giggler and torn him limb from limb, but that was simply
because he had not wanted to get himself involved in a lot of red tape.
But he definitely did not like them. He glared at Pongo, and as he
glared observed the glass in the latter's hand, and it was as if someone
had whispered in his ear 'What is wrong with this picture?'

'Gar!' he exclaimed, once more calling on one of those tribal gods. 'I
thought you told me you were a teetotaller.'

'Eh?'

'Teetotaller.'

'Oh, yes, that's right.'

'How the devil can you be a teetotaller, if you sit swigging whisky all
the time?'

'Medicinal.'

'What?'

'I take a drop occasionally for my health,' said Pongo. 'Doctor's
orders."

There are moments in life when, after offering frank and manly
explanations of our actions, we are compelled to pause and wonder if
they have got by. This was one of them. And it was while Pongo was
anxiously scrutinizing his host's face

and trying, without much success, to read in its rugged features an
expression of childlike trust that Lady Bostock entered the room.

There are critics to whom it will seem one of those strained
coincidences which are so inartistic that on this troubled night no
fewer than six of the residents of Ashenden Manor should have been
seized independently of each other with the idea of going to the
drawing-room in order to establish contact with the decanter placed
there earlier in the evening by Jane, the parlourmaid, while others will
see in the thing that inevitability which was such a feature of the best
Greek tragedy. jEschylus once said to Euripides. 'You can't beat
inevitability,' and Euripides said he had often thought so, too.

Be that as it may, it was the decanter which had brought Lady Bostock to
the spot. Finding a difficulty in getting to sleep after the recent
strain upon her nerves, she had thought that a weak whisky and water
might prove the specific which she needed.

She, too, was surprised on discovering that she had boon companions.

'Aylmer!' she said. 'You here? And Reginald?' The glass in Pongo's hand
attracted her attention, producing reactions identical \v,ith those of
her husband. 'I thought you were a teetotaller, Reginald.'

Sir Aylmer snorted. A most unpleasant, cynical snort, a sort of nasal
'Oh, yeah.'

'He takes a drop occasionally for his health.'

'Oh, yes?'

'Yes,' said Sir Aylmer. 'Medicinal. Doctor's orders.'

His intonation was so extremely disagreeable, suggesting as it did
contempt, disgust and that revolted loathing which temperate men feel
when confronted with the world's drink-sodden wrecks, that Pongo, though
his sitting high jump had caused him to spill practically all the
contents of his glass and he would much have liked to refill it, felt
that this was not the moment. Stronger than his desire for one for the
road was the passionate wish to be somewhere where Sir Aylmer and Lady
Bostock were not.

153

'Well - er - good night,' he mumbled.

'You're leaving us?' said Sir Aylmer grimly.

'Er - yes. Good night.'

'Good night,' said Sir Aylmer.

'Good night,' said Lady Bostock.

There was an expression of concern on her face as the door closed. She
looked like a horse that is worried about the quality of its oats.

'Oh, dear,' she said. 'I do hope Reginald is not a drinker.' A thought
occurred to her, and she brightened. 'But, of course, I was forgetting.
He isn't Reginald, is he? He's just somebody pretending to be Reginald.'

Sir Aylmer, though reluctant to present himself in the light of one who
had been in error, felt obliged to put her abreast of his latest
findings.

'Yes, he's Reginald. I've been into that matter, and it now seems pretty
well established that he's Reginald all right. Apparently, at those dog
races where Potter arrested him, he gave a false name and address.'

'That does not sound very nice."

'It was not very nice. It wasn't nice at all. It was disgraceful and it
throws a blinding light on the true character of Reginald Twistleton.
Shows you what sort of a fellow he is. And as to him being a drinker, of
course he's a drinker. You can tell it by those shifty eyes and that
weak giggle. I knew there was something wrong with the young toad the
first time I saw him. Dipsomaniac is written all over Him. No doubt he
has been absorbing the stuff like a sponge whenever our backs were
turned. I don't suppose he has drawn a sober breath since he came here.
God help Hermione, married to a chap like that. He'll be seeing pink
snakes on the honeymoon. Orange spiders,' said Sir Aylmer, allowing his
imagination free rein. 'Gamboge elephants. Purple penguins.'

It is never difficult to touch a mother's heart with this sort of thing.
Lady Bostock uttered a stricken neigh.

'Hermione must be warned!'

'Exactly what I was about to suggest myself. You'd better write to her.'


154


'I'll go and see her."

'Very well, go and see her.'

'Tomorrow morning!'

'The sooner, the better. Well, if you're going to London in the morning,
you'd better go to bed and get some sleep. Can't imagine why you aren't
there now.'

'I came down to get a weak whisky. I couldn't sleep.'

'I came to get a strong whisky. I couldn't sleep, either. How the devil
can anyone be expected to sleep in a house where fools are incessantly
breaking in on you, saying they're somnambulists, and policemen ring
door bells all the time? Did you get those women to bed?'

'Yes, dear. They kept giving their notices all the way upstairs.'

'Curse them. Say when, Emily.'

'When. O dear, O dear, O dear.'

'What's the matter now?'

'I was only thinking of Reginald,' said Lady Bostock. 'I wonder if the
gold cure would do any good.'

Unaware of the exact nature of what was being said about him by the
parents of the girl he loved, but suspecting that his case might have
come upon the agenda paper after his withdrawal, Pongo had tottered up
the stairs to his room. While not in tip-top form, he found himself
enjoying the novel sensation of being separated for a while from members
of the human race, a race for which the events of the night had caused
him to acquire a rather marked distaste. 'Alone at last,' he was saying
to himself, as he opened the door.

A moment later he saw that he had been too optimistic. Seated on the bed
was his Uncle Frederick, enjoying a mild cigar, and in the armchair,
clad in a flowered dressing-gown, a girl at the sight of whom his heart,
already, as we have seen, on several occasions tonight compelled to
rival the feverish mobility of a one-armed paperhanger with the hives,
executed a leap and a bound surpassing all previous efforts by a wide
margin.

'Ah, Pongo,' said Lord Ickenham. 'Come along in. Here's Sally. We
climbed up the water pipe.'


155


3


It was not immediately that Pongo found himself able to speak. Strong
emotion often has the effect of tying the vocal cords into a reefer
knot, and he was in the grip of not one strong emotion, but two.

As always when confronted with some new manifestation of his uncle's
activities, he was filled with a nameless fear, saying to himself, as so
often in similar circumstances, 'What will the harvest be?': and in
addition to this nameless fear he was experiencing the embarrassment
which cannot but come to a young man of sensibility when he encounters
unexpectedly a former fiancee from whom he has severed relations in a
scene marked on both sides by raised voices and harsh words.

Fortunately women handle these situations more adroitly than the uncouth
male. In Sally's demeanour there was no suggestion that she found in
this meeting any cause for discomfort. Her eyes, bright and beautiful as
he had always remembered them, shone with a friendly light. Her voice,
when she spoke, was cordial. And she accompanied her words with a
dazzling smile.

'Hullo, Pongo.'

'Hullo, Sally.'

'It's nice to see you again.'

'What ho.'

'You look very well.'

'Oh, rather,' said Pongo.

He spoke absently, for he was distrait. What with going to New York to
attend to his financial interests and getting engaged to Hermione
Bostock and all the other excitements of what had recently been a full
life, he had rather allowed the peculiar properties of Sally's smile to
fade from his mind, and getting it between the eyes like this had had a
shaking effect, inducing a feeling somewhat similar to that which must
have come to Lord Ickenham's friend Bream Rockmeteller in the course of
those distant Fourth of July celebrations.

Sally's smile ...

That smile of Sally's ...

156

Yes, he had forgotten just what it could do to your system, suddenly
flashing out at you like the lights of a village pub seen through rain
and darkness at the end of a ten-mile hike and transporting you into a
world of cosiness and joy and laughter. He blinked, and not even his
great love for Hermione Bostock could keep him from experiencing a
momentary twinge of nostalgia, a swift pang of that self-reproach which
comes to a man conscious of having been on a good thing and of having
omitted to push it along.

The weakness passed. He thought - hard - of Hermione Bostock, and it did
the trick. It was a Reginald Twistleton who was himself again, a strong,
firm Reginald Twistleton with not a chink in his armour, who now put the
question which he would have put a good deal earlier but for the mental
upheaval which we have just been analysing.

'What's all this?' he asked, and Constable Potter himself, addressing a
suspicious loiterer, could not have spoken in a colder, more level
voice. 'What's the idea, Uncle Fred?'

'The idea?'

'What's Sally doing here?'

'Seeking sanctuary.'

'In my room?'

'Just for the time being, till we can make other arrangements.'

Pongo placed a hand on either side of his head to shore it up. That old,
familiar sensation that it was coming unstuck had swept over him.

'Oh, God!'

'Why do you say "Oh, God!" my boy? What seems to you to be the
difficulty?'

'How the dickens can she stay in my room?'

'Why not? You will have a shakedown in mine. I can't offer you a bed,
but you remember that very comfortable chaise longue.'

'I don't mean that. I mean, well, dash it, what about people coming in?'

'Where?'

'Here.'

'When?'

157


L


'Tomorrow morning.'

'Nobody will come in tomorrow morning except the housemaid. And before
nightfall I hope to get the poor child safely away. She tells me she
stowed the car in the local garage. I shall take it out and drive over
to Ickenham first thing, and bring her back some of my wife's
reach-me-downs. She will then be free to go where she lists. A word,'
said Lord Ickenham thoughtfully, 'which I have never been able to
understand. Why lists? How do lists come into it? However, that is
neither here nor there. Getting back to what you were saying, nobody is
going to muscle in except the housemaid, and all that is needed,
therefore, is to square the housemaid. I wonder if you ever reflected
that if only he could square the housemaid, every visitor at a country
house would be able to take in paying guests and make a good deal of
money.'

'And how are you going to square the housemaid?'

'Odd how when one keeps repeating that it sounds like one of those
forgotten sports of the past. Squaring the housemaid. One can picture
William the Conqueror being rather good at it. My dear Pongo, have no
uneasiness. The housemaid is already squared. Perhaps I had better tell
you the story from the beginning. It won't bore you, Sally?'

'Not at all, Uncle Fred.'

'Capital. Well, when I left you, Pongo, I started to make a systematic
search of the grounds, exploring every avenue and leaving no stone
unturned. I was handicapped by having no bloodhounds, another thing
which one ought always to bring with one to a country house, but
eventually I located Sally in the potting shed, watering the geraniums
with her tears.'

'I wasn't,' said Sally indignantly, and Lord Ickenham rose, kissed the
top of her head paternally and returned to the bed.

T was only making a good story of it, my dear. Actually, your attitude
was heroic. I was proud of you. She laughed, Pongo, when she heard my
voice. Laughed heartily.'

'I wish I could.'

'Can't you? Not at this happy ending?'

'What do you mean, happy ending?'

'Well, it looks like a happy ending to me. I see Sally as a 158

; little storm-tossed boat that has put into harbour after the I
dickens of a gruelling from the winds and waves, and can now ; take it
easy for a bit. Where was I, Sally?'

Totting shed.'

'That's right. I found her in the potting shed. I draped her in the
dressing-gown, and we crept out into the night. Did you ever hear of
Chingachgook?'

'No.'

'A red Indian of some celebrity in my younger days. I suppose nobody
reads Fenimore Cooper now.'

'What about him?'

'I was only going to say that that was what we crept like; softly and
silently, as if we were wearing moccasins. And while we were creeping,
we heard voices.'

'And did I jump!'

'I, too. I soared up like a rocket. For one of the voices was Constable
Potter's. The other was that of the housemaid, Elsie Bean. A rather
pleasant feature of life at Ashenden Manor is the way you can always
find housemaids sauntering about the grounds at half-past two in the
morning. It was she who was doing most of the speaking. She seemed to be
reproaching the officer for his professional activities. She was telling
him that she had given her month's notice and that before her time
expired he must make his decision about resigning from the Force. She
said she hadn't any patience, and so alien did she appear to his aims
and ideals that I felt that we had found a sympathizer. I was right.
Presently, the constable left, his manner that of a man who has had his
ears pinned back, and with a slight snort she turned, presumably to
re-enter the house. It was at this point that we emerged and contacted
her.'

'With a cheery "BoyI" '

'With, as you say, a cheery "BoyI" Well, after that every'thing went
with the most delightful smoothness. I think she was a little surprised
to see us - indeed, she stated later that that ghastly sound proceeding
from the darkness had scared her out of a year's growth - but she soon
recovered her poise and showed herself the soul of consideration. It was
she who pointed out the water pipe and after I had helped Sally to climb


159


it gave me that preliminary leg-up which a man needs at my time of
life, if he is to negotiate water pipes successfully. I don't know when
I met a nicer girl, and I don't wonder you —'

'You don't wonder I what?'

'Oh, nothing. So here we are, thanks to her, and she has guaranteed that
she will give us all the aid and comfort at her disposal. She said she
would look in shortly and confer with us. I suppose she feels that there
are one or two details which need discussing.'

Sally clasped her hands.

'My breakfast!'

'That, no doubt, was one of them.'

'I'm starving already.'

'Poor child. In a few minutes I will take you down to the larder and we
will knock together a bite of supper which will keep you going till the
morning. I could do with a couple of boiled eggs myself. These late
hours give one an appetite. Ah, here is Miss Bean. Come in, Miss Bean. I
think you know everybody. A cigarette?'

Thank you, sir.'.

'Give the lady a cigarette, Pongo. A chair, Miss Bean? and a footstool
for your feet? That's right. And now, Miss Bean, tell us everything that
is on your mind. I hope you have come to indicate to us in what way we
may make some slight return for all your kindness tonight. Speaking for
myself, if a fiver would be any good to you - and when I say a fiver I
mean, of course a tenner -'

Elsie Bean tossed her head, setting the curling pins leaping like Sir
Aylmer Bostock's moustache.

'I don't want money,' she said, not actually referring to it as dross,
but giving the impression that that was what she considered it.
'Thanking you all the same.'

'Not at all.'

'What I want,' said Elsie Bean, once more imparting life to the curling
pins, 'is Harold bopped on the nose.'

She spoke with a strange intensity, her face hard and her blue eyes
gleaming with a relentless light. That interview with her loved one in
the garden seemed to have brought her to a 160

decision. Here, you felt, was a housemaid who had been pushed just so
far and could be pushed no further. Nor is the fact surprising. Tempers
are quick in Bottleton East, and Constable Potter's way of replying
'Well, I dunno,' to her most impassioned pleadings would have irritated
a far less emotional girl.

Lord Ickenham inclined his head courteously.

'Harold?'

'Harold Potter.'

'Ah, yes, our friend the constable. What did you say you wished done to
his nose?'

'I want it bopped.'

'Struck, you mean? Socked? Given a biff?'

'R.'

'But why? Not that I want to be inquisitive, of course.'

'I was telling Mr Twistleton. There's only one way to make Harold be
sensible and give up being a copper, and that's to dot him a good bop on
the nose. Because he's nervous. He don't like being bopped on the nose.'

'Of course, of course. I see just what you mean. Your psychology is
unerring. If I were a copper and somebody bopped me on the nose, I would
hand in my resignation like a flash. The matter shall be attended to.
Pongo -'

Pongo started convulsively.

'Now listen, Uncle Fred. All that's been arranged. This Bean and I have
discussed it and are in full agreement that the bird to take the job on
is her brother Bert. Bert, I may mention, is a chap who habitually
sloshes slops on the napper with blunt instruments, so this will be a
picnic to him.'

'But Bert doesn't come out till September."

Lord Ickenham was shocked.

'Are you suggesting, Pongo, that this poor girl shall wait till
September for the fulfilment of her hopes and dreams? It is obvious that
time is of the essence and that we must rush to her assistance
immediately. I, unfortunately, am a little too old to bop policemen on
the nose, much as I should enjoy it, so the task devolves upon you. See
to it as soon as possible.'

'But, dash it '

'And don't say "But, dash it." You remind me of our mutual

161

 ancestor, Sir Gervase Twistleton, who got a bad name in the days of
the Crusades from curling up in bed and murmuring "Some other time,"
when they asked him to come and do his bit at the battle of Joppa. I am
convinced that this matter could not be placed in better hands than
yours, and I would suggest that you and Miss Bean have a talk about ways
and means while Sally and I go down to the larder and forage. It might
be best if we took the back stairs. Can you direct us to the back
stairs, Miss Bean? At the end of the passage? Thank you. I don't suppose
we shall have any trouble in finding the larder. Is there a gas range in
the kitchen for egg boiling purposes? Excellent. Every convenience. Then
come along, Sally. I think I can promise you a blow-out on lavish lines.
I have already tested Mugsy's hospitality, and it is princely. I
shouldn't wonder if in addition to eggs there might not be a ham and
possibly even sausages.'

With a bow of old world courtesy to Elsie Bean, Lord Icken ham escorted
Sally from the room, speaking of sausages he had toasted at school on
the ends of pens, and Pongo, who had folded his arms in a rather
noticeable manner, found on turning to Miss Bean that her set face had
relaxed.

'He's a nice old gentleman,' she said.

This seemed to Pongo such a monstrously inaccurate description of one
who in his opinion was like a sort of human upas tree, casting its
deadly blight on every innocent bystander who came within its sphere of
influence, that he uttered a brassy 'Ha!'

'Pardon?'

'I said "Ha!"' said Pongo, and would have gone on to speak further, had
there not at this moment occurred an interruption. Knuckles were rapping
gently on the door, and through the woodwork there made itself heard a
voice.

'Pongo.'

The voice of Bill Oakshott.


In the literature and drama which have come down to us through the ages
there have been a number of powerful des162

criptions of men reacting to unpleasant surprises. That of King
Claudius watching the unfolding of the play of 'The Mouse Trap' is one
of these, and writers of a later date than Shakespeare have treated
vividly of the husband who discovers in an inner pocket the letter given
to him by his wife to slip in the mail box two weeks previously.

• Of all the protagonists in these moving scenes it is perhaps to
Macbeth seeing the ghost of Banquo that one may most aptly compare Pongo
Twistleton as he heard this voice in the night. He stiffened from the
ankles up, his eyes rolling, his hair stirring as if beneath a sudden
breeze, his very collar seeming to wilt, and from his ashen lips there
came a soft, wordless cry. It was not exactly the Potter-Bean 'Coo!' and
not precisely the 'Gar!' of Sir Aylmer Bostock, but a sort of blend or
composite of the two. That intelligent Scottish nobleman, Ross, whom
very little escaped, said, as he looked at Macbeth, 'His highness is not
well,' and he would have said the same if he had been looking at Pongo.

Nor is his emotion hard to understand. When a sensitive young man,
animated by a lively consideration for his personal well-being, has been
told by a much larger young man of admittedly homicidal tendencies that
if he does not abandon his practice of hobnobbing with housemaids in the
drawingroom at one-thirty in the morning he, the much larger young man,
will scoop out his insides with his bare hands, he shrinks from the
prospect of being caught by the other entertaining a housemaid in his
bedroom at two forty-five. If Pongo said 'Gar!' or it may have been
'Coo!' and behaved as if an old friend whom he had recently caused to be
murdered had dropped in to dinner with dagger wounds all over him, he
cannot fairly be blamed. Those hands of Bill Oakshott's seemed to rise
before his eyes like dreadful things seen in a nightmare.

But it was only for an instant that he stood inactive. In times of
crisis blood will tell, and he had the fortune to belong to a family
whose members, having gone through a lot of this sort of thing in their
day, had acquired and transmitted to their descendants a certain
technique. A good many Twistletons, notably in the eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries, had

163

been constrained by circumstances to think quick on occasions just such
as this and, having thought quick, to hide women in cupboards. It was to
the cupboard, therefore, acting automatically in accordance with the
family tradition, that Pongo now directed Elsie Bean.

'Slide in there!' he hissed. 'And not a sound, not a yip, not a murmur.
A human life hangs on your silence.'

He closed the cupboard door, straightened his tie and drawing a deep
breath called 'Come in.' And it was while he was smoothing his hair and
simultaneously commending his soul to God that Bill Oakshott entered.

'Oh, hullo,' he said.

'Hullo,' said Bill. 'I'm glad you're still up, Pongo. I - er - I wanted
a word with you.'

The phrase is one that sometimes has an ominous ring, but it was not
menacingly that Bill Oakshott employed it. His voice was soft, even
winning, and Pongo was encouraged to see that though looking as large as
ever, if not larger, he seemed pacific. Ross, or somebody like that who
noticed things, would have said that Bill was embarrassed, and he would
have been right.

It often happens that after talking to a boyhood friend like an elder
brother a young man of normally kindly disposition, when he has had time
to reflect, finds himself wondering if his tone during the interview was
not a little brusque. It was so with Bill Oakshott. Musing in solitude
and recalling the scene in the drawing-room, it had seemed to him that
some of his remarks had taken too anatomical a trend. It was to
apologize that he had come to Pongo's bedroom, and he proceeded now to
do so.

It would have suited Pongo better if he had put these apologies in
writing and submitted them to him in the form of a note, but he accepted
them in a generous spirit, though absently, for he was listening to a
soft rustling sound which had begun to proceed from the cupboard. It
made him feel as if spiders were walking up and down his back. The
celebrated Beau Twistleton, in the days of the Regency, had once had a
similar experience.

Bill appeared to have heard it, too.

164

'What's that?' he asked, pausing in his remarks.

'Eh?'

'That sort of scratching noise. In the cupboard.'

Pongo wiped a bead of perspiration from his forehead.

'Mice,' he said.

'Oh, mice. Lots of them about.'

'Yes, quite a good year for mice,' said Pongo. 'Well, good night, Bill,
old man.'

But Bill was not yet ready to leave. Like so many large young men, he
was sentimental, and this disinclined him to rush these scenes of
reconciliation. When he healed rifts with boyhood friends, he liked to
assure himself that they were going to stay healed. He sat down on the
bed, which creaked beneath his weight.

'Well, I'm glad everything's all right, Pongo. You're sure you're not
offended?'

'Not at all, not a-tall.'

'I thought you might have got the impression that I thought you were a
foul snake.'

'No, no.'

'I ought never to have suggested such a thing.'

'Not keeping you up, am I, Bill?'

'Not a bit. It was just that when I found you and Elsie Bean in the
drawing-room, I thought for a moment '

'Quite.'

'You know how it is.'

'Oh, rather.'

'You see... I'd sock those mice, if I were you.'

'I will - tomorrow - with an iron hand. Regardless of their age and
sex.'

'You see, your heads were a bit close together.'

'I was merely lighting her cigarette.'

'Of course, of course. I realize that now. I know that I can trust you.'

'Oh, rather.'

'I know that you love Hermione and will make her happy. You will look on
it as a sacred duty.'

'You betcher.'


165


'Fine,' said Bill, clasping his hands and putting a good deal of soul
into his expression. 'That's a bit of goose. I'm devoted to Hermione,
Pongo.'

'Yes, you told me.'

'Hermione '

'How about having a long talk about her in the morning?'

'Not now?'

'Bit late, isn't it?'

'Ay yes, I suppose you want to turn in. I was only going to say that
Hermione is the ... dash it, what are those things?'

'The berries?'

'Lode stars. She is the lode star of my life. I've been crazy about her
for years and years and years, and her happiness means everything to me.
How wonderful she is, Pongo.'

'Terrific.'

'You don't find many girls like Hermione.'

'Very scarce.'

'So beautiful.'

*Ah.'

'So clever.'

'What ho.'

'You've read her novels, of course?'

Pongo could not repress a guilty start. The question was an awkward one.
He was uncomfortably conscious of having devoted to Murder in the Fog
hours of study which would have been better employed in familiarizing
himself with his loved one's output.

'Well, I'll tell you,' he said. 'Up to the moment of going to press, I
haven't for one reason and another been able to smack into them to quite
the extent I could wish. But she's given me her latest to read while I'm
here, and I can see from the first page that it's the bezuzus. Strikes a
new note, as you might say.'

'Which one is that?'

'I've forgotten the name, but I know it was called something."

'How long has it been out?'

'Just published, I understand.'

'Ah, then I haven't seen it. Fine. That's a treat to look for166


f ward to. Isn't she amazing, Pongo? Isn't it extraordinary that 4 die
can write all those wonderful books -' f 'Oh, rather.'

'- And still be a simple, healthy, out-of-doors country girl, |, never
happier than when she is getting up at six in the morning v and going
for a long walk through the ' !< Pongo started.

'Six in the morning?' He spoke in a thin, strained voice, and his jaw
had fallen a little. 'She doesn't get up at six in the morn, ing?'

'In the summer always." 'And in the winter?'

'Seven. I've known her to do a round and a half of golf before
breakfast, and if she doesn't play golf it's a long walk through the
woods and fields. I tell you, she's marvellous. Well, good night, Pongo,
you'll be wanting to go to bed,' said Bill, and heaving himself up took
his departure.

It was a pensive Pongo Twistleton who went to the door and listened and
then went to the cupboard and extracted Elsie Bean. To say that Bill's
words had weakened his great love would perhaps be going too far, for he
still thought Hermione Bostock a queen among women and had no intention
of replying in the negative when the clergyman said 'Wilt thou,
Reginald, take this Hermione to be thy wedded wife?' But the discovery
that he was engaged to a girl who habitually got up at six in the
morning, and would presumably insist on him getting up at that hour
also, had definitely shaken him. His manner as he de-Beaned the cupboard
was distrait, and when his guest complained of being in the final stages
of suffocation he merely said'Oh, ah?'

His detachment displeased Elsie Bean. She displayed a captious spirit.

'What did I have to go killing myself in cupboards for? It was only Mr
William.'

'Only!' said Pongo, unable to share this easy outlook. 'Do you realize
that if he had found you here, he would have pulled my head off at the
roots?' 'You don't say?'

167

'Not to mention scooping out my insides with his bare hands.'

'Coo! What a nut!'

'The word nut understates it. When roused - and finding you on the
premises would have roused him like nobody's business — he's a menace to
pedestrians and traffic. Gosh!' said Pongo, struck with an idea. 'Why
wouldn't he be the man to bop your Harold on the nose?'

'But you're going to do it.*

'In case I can't manage to get around to it, I mean. You know how full
one's time is. I believe Bill would be just the chap you want.'

Elsie Bean shook her head.

'No, I asked him.'

'Asked him?'

'R. I met him walking in the garden after I'd helped that nice old
gentleman up the water pipe. He said he wouldn't.'

'Why not?'

'He doesn't believe in bopping coppers on the nose.'

It was a prejudice which Pongo shared, but nevertheless he found himself
exasperated. One never likes to see a man stifling his natural gifts.
The parable of the talents crossed his mind.

'But how on earth do you expect me to do it?' he demanded peevishly.
'The way everybody talks, you'd think it was the simplest thing in the
world to walk up to a fifteen-stone policeman and sock him on the
beezer. I can't see the procedure. How does one start? One can't just go
and do it. It wants leading up to. And even then -'

Elsie seemed to appreciate his difficulty.

'I've been thinking about that,' she said. 'How would it be if you
pushed him into the duck pond?'

'What duck pond?'

"The one outside the front gate.'

'But he may not go near the bally duck pond.'

'Yes, he will. He always does, when he's on his beat. He goes and stands
there and spits into it.'

Pongo brightened a little. It would be idle to pretend that he

168

found the picture which his companion had conjured up attractive, but
it was less repellent than the other.

'Creep up behind him, you mean?'

'R.'

'And give him a hearty shove?'

'R.'

'Yes. Yes, I see what you mean. Well, there is much in what you say, and
I will give the matter my attention. It may be that you have found the
solution. Meanwhile, go and peer cautiously up and down the passage and
see if there's anybody about. If there isn't, pick up your feet and
streak along for your dugout like a flash.'

Before she could reach the door, it had opened to admit Lord Ickenham
and Sally. Both looked greatly refreshed, the former in particular
wearing the contented expression of a man who has been steeping himself
in boiled eggs.

'As good a little meal as I have ever tasted,' he said. 'Really, Mugsy
does one extraordinarily well. And now bed, don't you think? The evening
is wearing along. You had better be putting a few things together,
Pongo.'

Pongo did not reply. He was staring at Sally. Lord Ickenham approached
him and drove a kindly finger into his ribs.

'Ouch!'

'Start packing, my boy.'

'Eh? Oh, right, ho!'

'Just a few necessaries. I can lend you a razor and my great sponge,
Joyeuse.' Lord Ickenham turned to Elsie Bean. 'You two have settled
things, I hope?'

'Yes, sir. Mr Twistleton is going to push Harold into the duck pond.'

'Capital, capital,' said Lord Ickenham heartily. 'An excellent idea.
You'll enjoy that, Pongo. Don't forget that in pushing policemen into
duck ponds the follow through is everything.'

Pongo, mechanically filling a suitcase, again made no reply. Though he
had ceased to stare at Sally, she still occupied his thoughts. The sight
of her coming through the door had acted upon him like a powerful
electric shock, for her eyes, the eyes of a girl refreshed with tea and
eggs, had seemed, if possible,


o.D.-9	169


brighter than ever, and once more she had flashed upon him that smile
of hers. And this time, though he had immediately thought of Hermione
Bostock, it was only to be reminded of her habit of rising at six in the
summer and at seven during the winter months. .

He closed the suitcase, and stood waiting.. Strange thrills were
shooting through his streamlined body, and his heart, which had been
comparatively inactive recently, was again jumping and bumping. That
consciousness of not having pushed a good thing along was now very
pronounced.

'Well, good night, Sally,' said Lord Ickenham.

'Good night, Uncle Fred. Good night, Pongo.'

'Eh? Oh, good night.'.

'And thanks for the sanctuary.'

'Eh? Oh, not at all.'

'Good night, Miss Bean."

'Good night, sir.'

'You will be turning in yourself shortly, no doubt? A thousand thanks
once more for all your sympathy and kindness. The duck pond, eh?' said
Lord Ickenham thoughtfully. 'Yes, admirable, admirable. Come along,
Pongo.'

Half-way along the corridor Pongo paused.. Lord Ickenham eyed .him
inquiringly.

'Forgotten something?'

'Eh? Oh, no. I was only thinking about Sally.'

'What about her?'

'She looked dashed pretty in that dressing-gown.'

'Charming. By the way, she tells me she wants a lipstick. See to that
tomorrow, will you.'

'Right ho,' said Pongo. 'Lipstick, one. Right.'

He resumed his progress musingly.

Part Four


Chapter 10


If you motor to Wockley Junction in the morning, starting from Ashenden
Manor reasonably soon after an early-ish breakfast, you can get an
express train which deposits you on the arrival platform at Waterloo at
twelve-forty-three. The passage of the hours in no way having weakened
her determination to visit her child and make plain to her the bleakness
of the future awaiting any girl rash enough to put on a white veil and
walk down the aisle with her arm linked in that of Reginald Twistleton,
Lady Bostock had done this. Bill Oakshott drove her to the junction, and
she reached the block of flats where Hermione had her London residence
shortly after one, just as Hermione, outside its front door, was about
to step into her two-seater.

Privileged to direct a square look at this girl as she stood there in
the almost unbelievable splendour of her new hat, her best frock and her
carefully selected shoes, gloves and stockings, the dullest eye would
have been able to see that she had what it takes. Her father might look
like a walrus and her mother like something starting at a hundred to
eight in the two thirty race at Catterick Bridge, but Hermione herself,
tall and dark, with, large eyes, a perfect profile and an equally
perfect figure, was an Oriental potentate's dream of what the harem
needed.

Hearing Lady Bostock's bleating cry, she turned and stared, incredulity
blended in her gaze with the natural dismay of a daughter who, having
said good-bye to her mother on a Monday afternoon after entertaining her
for a week at her flat, sees her come hobbling up again on Wednesday
morning.

'Mother!' she exclaimed in the rich contralto which for years


171


had been stirring up Bill Oakshott's soul like an egg whisk. Whatever
...?'

'Oh, dear,' said Lady Bostock. 'Have you got to go? I came up specially
to see you.'

'I must. I'm lunching at Barribault's and I'm late already. What did you
want to see me about?'

'Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear. Reginald.'

'Reginald?'

'Yes, dear. Your father '

A smouldering gleam came into Hermione's fine eyes. Those words 'Your
father', taken in conjunction with the name of the man to Whom she had
plighted her troth, had aroused her suspicions. They could only mean, it
seemed to her, that in defiance of her explicit instructions Sir Aylmer
had not been treating her nominee like an ewe lamb. And she was a girl
who when she said ewe lamb meant ewe lamb.

'What has Father been doing to Reginald?' she demanded sternly. 'Has he
been barking at him?'

'No, no. Your father never barks. He sometimes raises his voice."

'Has he been raising his voice, then?'

'Scarcely so that you could notice it. No, what has happened ... Oh
dear, it's such a long story.'

'Then I really can't wait to hear it now. I'm terribly late. And I'm
lunching with a publisher,'

'MrPopgood?'

Hermione laughed a short, dry laugh. In an association which had lasted
three years Augustus Popgood, the sponsor of her books, had never
offered her so much as a cheese straw. Nor had his partner, Cyril
Grooly.

'No,' she said. 'This is a new one. He wrote to me a few days ago,
saying that he would like to have me on his list and suggesting
luncheon. He seems a most enterprising man, quite different from Popgood
and Grooly. He is the head of a firm called Meriday House, a Mr Pointer
or Punter or Painter. I couldn't make out the signature on his letter.
Good-bye, mother. I'll try to get back about three.'

Til wait for you, dear.'

172

T


I


'It's something important, you say?'

'Very, very important.'

'About Reginald?'

'Yes, dear. We find that he '

'I'm sorry, mother,' said Hermione. 'I must rush.'

She was not without a normal girl's curiosity, but she was also an
ambitious young authoress who believed that there is a tide in the
affairs of men which taken at the flood leads on to fortune, and there
was waiting her at Barribault's Hotel a publisher who, judging from his
letter, was evidently a live wire endowed with pep and ginger and all
the other qualities which ambitious young authoresses like to see in
those responsible for the marketing of their books.

The car moved off. Seated at the wheel, she gave herself up to agreeable
thoughts about this pushful Mr Pointer.

Or Punter.

Or possibly Painter.


Painter was the name. Not Pointer. Not Punter. Painter. It was Sally's
brother Otis who was waiting for Hermione in the lobby of Barribn'ill's
Hotel, and at the moment when her two seater joined the stream of
traffic he had sprung from his chair, too nervous to sit any longer, and
begun to stride to and fro, his eyes from time to time straying to his
wrist watch. The coming luncheon marked a crisis in his affairs.

It was no mere coincidence that Otis Painter, in his capacity of
publisher of the book beautiful, should have written to Hermione
suggesting a meeting with a view to an agreement. The invitation had
been the outcome of some very rapid thinking on his part.

Right from the start it had been plain to Otis Painter that if anything
like a happy ending was to be achieved in that matter of the lawsuit
which was brooding over him like a thunder cloud, Sir Aylmer Bostock
would have to be pleaded with, and he had told Sally to tell Pongo to
perform the task. And it was while he was in the grip of that unpleasant
sinking


173


feeling which always came to those who placed their affairs in Pongo's
hands that he had happened upon the issue of the Taller containing
Hermione's photograph.

'Miss Hermione Bostock,' he read, 'daughter of Sir Aylmer and Lady
Bostock of Ashenden Manor, Hants. In addition to being prominent in
Society, Miss Bostock has written several novels under the pseudonym of
Gwynneth Gould."


The words had brought inspiration. His thoughts, as he gazed at the
photograph and the caption beneath it, had run roughly as follows. And
they seem to us to display an intelligence considerably above the
average of what might have been expected in one who.had been in his time
both an interior decorator and a seller of antiques, besides running a
marionette' ' theatre in the Boulevard Raspail.


Q. Who is the best possible person to plead with an old

crumb who is threatening to bring a ruinous suit for

damages against a shaky young publishing firm? A. Obviously the crumb's
daughter, the apple of his eye to

whom he can refuse nothing. Q. Get hold of the daughter, then, and
enlist her in one's

cause? A. Exactly. Q. But how? A. Easy. She's an author. Offer her a
contract. Her interest

will then be identical with those of her publisher, and

she will exert her tremendous influence to save him from

ruin. Better ask her to lunch. Q. Right. A. At Barribault's. Q. What?
Have you ever been to Barribault's and seen the

prices on the right-hand side? A. No good spoiling the ship for a
ha'porth of tar. You

can't swing a deal like this on bottled beer, a mutton chop

and two veg.


So now Otis was pacing Barribault's lobby, wondering why his guest did
not arrive and what the lunch was going to set


174


him back when she did. A few thoughtful words about acidity might steer
her off champagne, but at a place like this even hock was likely to
inflict a ghastly gash on the wallet.

Watching Otis Painter walk to and fro with his mouth ajar and his knees
clashing like cymbals, for he had the misfortune to suffer from adenoids
and to be knock-kneed, a spectator would have been surprised to learn
that he was so closely related to Sally. But just .as daughters have a
way of being easier on the eye than their fathers and mothers, so are
sisters frequently more attractive than their brothers. Otis was a stout
young man with a pink nose, horn-rimmed spectacles and short
side-whiskers, who looked like something from the AngloSaxon colony on
the east bank of the Seine.

It was, indeed, to the east bank of the Seine that he had migrated
immediately after graduating from the college where he had received his
education, having sprouted a soul and the side-whiskers simultaneously
towards the end of his sophomore year. From the rive gauche he had
drifted to London, there to try various ventures with a uniform lack of
success, and here he was, five years later, the directing executive of
Meriday House, formerly Ye Panache Presse, waiting in Barribault's lobby
to give lunch to Hermione Bostock.

The hands of his watch were pointing to twenty-seven minutes past one
when through the glass of the outer door he saw the gaily apparelled
official who stood on the threshold to scoop clients out of their cars
and cabs suddenly stiffen himself, touch his hat convulsively and give
his moustache a spasmodic twirl, sufficient indication that something
pretty sensational was on its way in. And a moment later the door
revolved and through it came a figure that made him catch his breath and
regret that the pimple on the tip of his nose had not yielded to
treatment that morning. There is nothing actually low and degrading
about a pimple on the tip of the nose, but there are times when a
susceptible young man wishes he did not have one.

He stepped forward devoutly.

'Miss Gould?'

'Oh, how do you do, Mr Pointer?'


175


'Painter.'

'Punter?'

'Painter.'

'Oh, Painter. Ihope I'm not late.'

'No, no. Cocktail?'

'No, thank you. I never drink.'

Otis started. The wallet in his hip pocket seemed to give a joyful leap.

'What, not even at lunch?'

'Only lemonade.'

'Come right in,' said Otis with an enthusiasm which he made no attempt
to conceal. 'Come right along in.'

He led the way buoyantly towards the grill room. Lemonade, he happened
to know, was half-a-crown.


It was probably this immediate striking of the right note that made the
luncheon such a success. For that it was a success not even the most
exacting critic could have disputed. From the first forkful of smoked
salmon it went with all the swing of a Babylonian orgy or of one of
those conferences between statesmen which are conducted throughout in a
spirit of the utmost cordiality.

Too often when a publisher entertains an author at the midday meal a
rather sombre note tinges the table talk. The host is apt to sigh a good
deal and to choose as the theme of his' remarks the hardness of the
times, the stagnant condition of the book trade and the growing price of
pulp paper. And when his guest tries to cheer him up by suggesting that
these disadvantages may be offset by a spirited policy of publicity, he
sighs again and says that eulogies of an author's work displayed in the
press at the publisher's expense are of little or no value, the only
advertising that counts being - how shall he put it - well, what he
might perhaps describe as word-of-mouth advertising.

There was nothing of that sort here today. Otis scoffed at the idea that
the times were hard. The times, in his opinion, were swell. So was the
book trade. Not a trace of stagnation. And as 176

r


for pulp paper, you might have supposed from the way he spoke that they
gave him the stuff.

He then went on to sketch out his policy as regarded advertising.

Otis, said Otis, believed in advertising. When he found an author in
whom he had confidence - like you, Miss Gould, if he might say so - the
sky was the limit. A column here, a column there. That sort of thing.
The cost? He didn't give a darn about the cost. You got it all back on
the sales. His motto, he said, coming through smoothly with the only bit
of French - except Oo-la-la - which had managed to stick from the old
left bank days, was L'audace, I'audace, et toujours I'audace.

It was a statement of faith well calculated to make any young authoress
feel that she was floating on a pink cloud over an ocean of joy, and
that was how Hermione felt as she listened. The sensation grew even more
acute as her host spoke of commissioning her next three books, sight
unseen, and paying royalty on them at the rate of twenty per cent,
rfting to twenty five above three thousand. Even when uttered by a man
with adenoids the words were like the strains of some grand anthem.

It is possible that the reader of this chronicle, misled by Bill
Oakshott's enthusiasm, may have formed an erroneous idea of Hermione
Bostock's standing in the world of literature, for her career had been a
good deal less triumphant than he had appeared to suggest. She had
published three works of fiction through the house of Popgood and
Grooly, of which the first two had sold eleven hundred and four and
sixteen hundred and eight copies respectively. The last, just out, was
reported by Popgood, a gloomy man, to be 'moving slowly'. Grooly, the
optimist of the firm, spoke in brighter vein of a possible sale of two
thousand.

But even if you strung along with sunny young Grooly you could not say
that figures like these were anything but a poor return for a great deal
of hard toil, and Hermione attributed them not to any lack of merit in
the books themselves, for she knew their merit to be considerable, but
to the firm's preference for keeping its money in the old sack chest
instead of spending


177


it on advertisements in the papers. She had once taken this matter up
with the partners, and Popgood had said that it was no use advertising
in the papers, because the only form of advertising that counted was ...
how should he put it?

'Word of mouth?' suggested Grooly.

'Word of mouth!' assented Popgood, looking gratefully at the ingenious
phrase-maker.

Little wonder, then, that as Hermione drank in Otis's intoxicating
words, soft music seemed to fill the air and even the directing
executive of Meriday House became almost beautiful. She listened as if
in a dream, and the more he talked the more she liked it. It was only as
she was sipping her coffee (two shillings, but unavoidable) that
anything crept into his remarks that suggested that all was not for the
best in the best of all possible worlds. Quite suddenly, after an
eloquent passage . surcharged with optimism, he struck a minor chord.

'Yay,' he said, 'that's how I feel. I admire your work and I would like
to tike hold of your books and push them ast they ought to be pushed.
But '

He paused, and Hermione, descending from her pink cloud, looked at him
with concern. When a publisher has offered you twenty per cent rising to
twenty-five above three thousand and has been talking spaciously of
column spreads in all the literate Sunday papers, you do not like to
hear him use that word 'but'.

'But-?'she echoed.

Otis removed his horn-rimmed spectacles, polished them and replaced them
on his nose which an excellent luncheon had turned from pink to scarlet.
He also touched his pimple and polished that, and with a pudgy hand
stroke.d his starboard whisker. The interview had reached its crux, and
he wished to reflect before proceeding.

'But . . . Well, the fact is,' he said, 'there's a Catch. I'm not so
sure I'm going to have the money to do it with. I may go bankrupt before
I can start.'

'What!'

'You see, I'm faced with a darned nasty legal action, and my lawyer
tells me the damages may be very heavy.'

'But why do you speak as if you were .certain to lose?'

178

.'I am, if it ever comes into court. And I don't see how I'm going to
stop it coming into court. This man Bostock -'

'Bostock?'

'Sir Aylmer Bostock. He used to be Governor of one of those African
colonies, and he wrote his Reminiscences and got me to publish them '

'But that was Ye Panache Presse.'

'I changed the name to Meriday House. Crisper. Why, say,' said Otis with
natural surprise, 'you speak as if you know all about it. You do?
Extraordinary how these things get around: Well, if you've heard what
happened, I don't have to explain. The point is that this Bostock is
showing a very vindictive spirit. And, as I say, if the thing comes into
court, I shall be ruined.'

'Ah!' said Hermione.

Lord Ickenham, looking at this girl's photograph, had given it as his
opinion that she was a potential eye-flasher. He had been correct. Her
eyes were flashing now, and in that simple 'Ah!' there was all the
sinister significance of CoWable Potter's 'Ho!' '

- In earlier portions of this chronicle reference was made to the
emotions of wolves which overtake sleighs and find no Russian peasant
aboard and of tigers deprived of their Indian Coolie just as they are
sitting down to lunch. More poignant even than these are the feelings of
a young authoress who, having just been offered twenty per cent rising
to twenty-five above three thousand by a publisher who believes in
column spreads in all the literate Sunday papers, learns that her father
is planning to rob that publisher, of the means to publish.

Hermione rose, grim and resolute.

'Don't worry, Mr Painter. I will see that the suit does not come into
court.'

'Eh?'

'I ought to have told you earlier -that Gwynneth Gould is merely my
pen-name. I am Hermione Bostock. Sir Aylmer's daughter.' Otis was almost
too amazed for words.

'His daughter! Well, fancy that. Well, I'll be darned. What an
extraordinary thing.'

'I will talk to Father. I will drive down and see him at once.'


179


 'How would it be if you took me along? In case you needed help.'

'I shall not need help."

'Still, I'd like to be on the spot, to hear the good news as soon as
possible.'

'Very well. While I am seeing Father, you can wait at the inn. So if you
are ready, Mr Painter, let us be going. My car is outside."

It was as they were nearing Guildford at sixty miles an hour, for she
was a girl who believed that accelerators were made to be stepped on,
that a thought which for some time had been groping about the exterior
of Hermione's mind, like an inebriated householder fumbling with his
latch-key, suddenly succeeded in effecting an entrance, and she gave a
gasp.

'Pardon?' said Otis, who also had been gasping. He was finding his
companion's driving a novel and terrifying experience.

'Nothing,' said Hermione. 'Just something I happened to remember.'

It was the circumstances of her mother's visit that she had happened to
remember, that devoted mother who had now been waiting three hours at
her flat to tell her something about Reginald. For an instant she was
conscious of a twinge of remorse. Then she told herself that Mother
would be all right. She had a comfortable chair and all the illustrated
papers.

She pressed her foot on the accelerator, and Otis shut his eyes and
commended his soul to God.

J

Chapter 11


The afternoon sun, slanting in through the French window of what until
the previous night had been Pongo's bedroom, touched Sally's face and
woke her from the doze -into which she had fallen. She rose and
stretched herself, yawning.

The French window opened on a balcony, and she eyed it wistfully. It
would have been pleasant on so fine a summer day to go arid sit on that
balcony. But girls who are known, if only slightly, to the police must
be prudent. The best she could do was to stand behind the curtain and
from this observation post peer out at the green and golden world
beyond.

Soon exhausting the entertainment value.of a patch of gravel and part of
a rhododendron bush, she was about to return to the chaise-longue, when
there appeared on the patch of gravel the tall, distinguished figure of
Lord Ickenham, walking jauntily and carrying a small suitcase. He passed
from view, and' a moment later there was a thud as the suitcase fell on
the balcony.

Her heart leaped. An intelligent girl, she realized that this must mean
clothes. The fifth earl might have his frivolous moments, but he was not
the man to throw suitcases on to balconies in a spirit of mere
wantonness. She crawled cautiously on all fours and possessed herself of
the rich gift.

Her confidence had not been misplaced. It was clothes, and she hastened
to put on what she recognized as a white sports dress and red jacket
belonging to Lady Ickenham with all the eagerness of a girl who likes to
look nice and for some little time has had to get along with a man's
flowered dressing-gown. And it was as she stood examining herself
contentedly in the mirror that Lord Ickenham entered.

'So you got them-all right?' he said. 'Not a bad shot for a

181

man who has jerked very little since the old soda days. But if you have
once jerked soda, you never really lose the knack. I like that red coat.
Rather dressy.'

Sally kissed him gratefully.

'You're an angel, Uncle Fred. Nobody saw you, I hope?'

'Not a soul. The enemy's lines were thin and poorly guarded. Your
hostess went to London soon after breakfast, and Mugsy is over at a
neighbouring village, trying to sell someone a cow, I understand.'

Sally started.

'Then why not do it now? Get the bust, I mean.'

'My dear child, you don't suppose that idea did not occur to me? My
first move on learning that the coast was clear was to make a bee-line
for the collection room, only to discover that Mugsy had locked the door
and gone off with the key. As I was saying to Pongo last night, there is
a streak of low cunning in Mugsy's nature which one deplores. Still,
don't worry. I'm biding my time. That's the sort of man I'm, as the song
says. I shall arrange everything to your full satisfaction quite
shortly.'

'Says you.'

'Sally! Don't tell me you're losing confidence in me.'

'Oh, darling Uncle Fred, of course not. Why did I speak those harsh
words? Consider them unsaid.'

They are already expunged from my memory. Yes, you look charming in that
coat. Quite a vision. No wonder Pongo loves you.'

'Not any more.'

'More than ever. I was noticing the way his eyes came popping out last
night every time they rested on you. Did you ever see a prawn in the
mating season? Like that. And one of the last things he said to me was
"She looked dashed pretty in that dressing-gown." With a sort of catch
in his voice. That means love.'

'If he thought I looked pretty in a dressing-gown made for a man of six
feet two, it must mean something.'

'Love, my dear. Love, I tell you. All the old fervour has started
gushing up again like a geyser. He worships you. He

182

;v adores you. He would die for one little rose from your hair. How are
conditions at your end?'

'Oh, I haven't changed.' I "You love him still?' * 'I'm crazy about
him.'

p 'That's satisfactory. Though odd. I'm very fond of Pongo. I . In fact,
except for my wife and you and my dog, George, I can think of nobody of
whom I am fonder. But I can't, understand anyone being crazy about him.
How do you do it?"

'It's quite easy, bless his precious heart. He's a baa-lamb.'

'You see him from that angle?'

'I always have. A sweet, woolly, baa-lamb that you want to stroke and
pet.'

'Well, you may be right. You know more about baa-lambs than I do. But
this is official. If I were a girl and he begged me for one little rose
from my hair, I wouldn't give it him. He'd have a pretty thin time
trying to get roses out of me. Still, the great thing is that you love
him, because I have an idea that he will very soon be at liberty to pay
his addresses to you. This engagement of his can't last.'

'You certainly do spread sweetness and light, don't you, Uncle Fred?'

'I try to.'

'Tell me more. I could listen for ever. Why do you think the engagement
won't last?'

'How can it? What on earth does a girl like Hermione Bostock want to
marry Pongo for?'

'Maybe she likes baa-lambs, too.'

'Nonsense. I've only seen her photograph, but I could tell at a glance
that what she needs is a large, solid, worshipping husband of the
huntin', shootin' and fishin' type, not a metropolitan product like
Pongo. Her obvious mate is her cousin, Bill Oakshott, who has been
devoted to her for years. But he's too mild in his methods. He doesn't
tell his love, but lets concealment like a worm i' the bud feed on his
damask cheek. You can't run a business that way. I intend to have a very
serious talk with young William Oakshott next time I see him. In fact,
I'll go and try to find him now.'

183


'No, don't go yet. I want to tell you about Pongo.'

'What about him?'

'He's worried to death, the poor pet. My heart aches for him. He was in
here not long ago, and he just sat in a chair and groaned.'

'You're sure he wasn't singing?'

'I don't think so. Would he have buried his face in his hands, if he had
been singing?'

'No. You're perfectly right. That is the acid test. I have heard Pongo
sing on several occasions at our village concert, and it is impossible
to mistake the symptoms. He sticks his chin up and throws his head back
and lets it go in the direction of the ceiling at an angle of about
forty-five. And very unpleasant it is, especially when the song is "Oh,
My Dolores, Queen of the Eastern Sea," as too often happens. So he
groaned, did he? Why?'

'He doesn't like this idea of pushing the policeman into the duck pond."

'Doesn't like it? Not when he knows it's going to bring happiness and
wedding bells to the divine Bean?'

'The impression he gave me was that he wasn't thinking much about the
divine Bean and her wedding bells.'

'Looking at the thing principally in the light of how it was going to
affect good old Twistleton?' Lord Ickenham sighed. 'Young men are not
what they were in my day, Sally. We were all Galahads then. Damsels in
distress had merely to press a button, and we would race up with our
ears flapping, eager to do their behest. Well, we can't have him backing
out. We owe a debt of honour to Miss Bean, and it must be paid. And,
dash it, what's he making such heavy weather about? It isn't as if this
duck pond were miles away across difficult country.'

A strange look had come into Sally's face, the sort of resolute look you
might have surprised on the faces of Joan of Arc or Boadicea.

'Where is it?' she asked. 'He didn't tell me.'

'Outside the front gate. A mere step. And I was speaking to Miss Bean
this morning, and she tells me that when Potter arrives there on his
beat he always stands beside it for an appre 184

oiable space of time, spitting and, one hopes, thinking of her. What
simpler and more agreeable task could there be than to saunter up behind
a spitting policeman, at a moment when he is wrapped in thought, and
push him into a pond? To further the interest of a girl like La Bean,
the finest housemaid that ever flicked a duster, I would have pushed
twenty policemen into twenty ponds when I was Pongo's age.'

'But Pongo has such a rare, sensitive nature.'

'So had I a rare, sensitive nature. It was the talk of New York. Well,
if the thing is to be done today, he ought to be starting. It is at just
about this hour, I am informed, that Potter rolls along. Where is he?'

'I don't know. He drifted out.'

'I must find him at once.'

'Just a minute,' said Sally.

The resolute expression on her face had become more noticeable than
ever. In- addition to looking like loan of Arc and Boadicea, she could
now have been mistaken in a dim light for Jael, the wife of Heber, and
Lord Ickenham, pausing on his way to the door, was impressed and vaguely
disturbed.

'What's the matter?' he asked. 'You have a strained air. You aren't
worrying about Pongo?'

'Yes I am.'

'But I keep assuring you that the task before him is both simple and
agreeable.'

'Not for Pongo. He's a baa-lamb. I told you that before.'

'But why should the circumstance of being a baa-lamb unfit a man for
pushing policemen into ponds?'

'I don't know. But it does. I've studied this thing of pushing policemen
into ponds, Uncle Fred, and I'm convinced that what you need, to get the
best results, is a girl whose clothes the policeman tore off on the
previous night.'

'GoodGod, Sally! You don't mean-?'

'Yes, I do. My mind is made up. I'm going to pinch hit for Pongo, and,
if it interests you to know it, it is a far, far better thing that I do
than-I have ever done. Good-bye, Uncle Fred. See you later.'

She disappeared on to the balcony, and a scrabbling sound

185

told Lord Ickenham that she was descending the water pipe. He went out,
and was in time to see her vanish into the bushes on the other side of
the terrace. For some moments he stood there staring after her, then
with a little sigh, the sigh too often extorted from Age by the
spectacle of Head-strong Youth doing its stuff, passed thoughtfully from
the room. Making his way downstairs, still pensive, he reached the hall.

Bill Oakshott was there, balancing a walking stick on the tip of his
nose.


That the young squire of Ashenden in essaying this equilibristic feat
had not been animated by a mere spirit of frivolity, but was
endeavouring rather, as men will in times of mental stress, to divert
his thoughts from graver issues, was made clear by a certain touch of
the careworn in his manner. It is not easy to look careworn when you are
balancing a walking stick on the tip of your nose, but Bill Oakshott
contrived to do so.

At the sight of Lord Ickenham he brightened. Ever since he had escorted
Lady Bostock to Wockley Junction that morning he had been wanting to see
and seek counsel from one on whose judgement he had come to rely, and
owing to the fact of having been obliged to fulfil a long-standing
luncheon engagement with friends who lived on the Wockley road he had
had no opportunity of approaching him earlier.

'Oh, there you are,' he said. 'Fine.'

Lord Ickenham reluctantly put Sally's affairs to one side for the time
being. The sight of this massive youth had reminded him that he had a
pep talk to deliver.

The word "fine,"' he replied, 'is happily chosen, for I, too, have been
looking forward to this encounter. I want to speak to you, Bill
Oakshott.'

'I want to speak to you.'

'I have much to say.'

'So have I much to say.'

'Well, if it comes to a duet, I'll bet I can talk louder and quicker
than you, and I am willing to back this opinion with


186


i

notes, cash or lima beans. However, as I am your guest, I suppose
courtesy demands that I yield the floor. Proceed.'

Bill marshalled his thoughts.

'Well, it's like this. After breakfast this morning, I drove my aunt to
Wockley to catch the express to London. I was feeling a bit tired after
being up so late last night, so I didn't talk as we tootled along, just
kept an eye on the road and thought of this and that.'

Lord Ickenham interrupted him.

'Skip all this part. I shall be able to read it later, no doubt, in your
autobiography, in the chapter headed "Summer Morning Outings With My
Aunt." Spring to the point.'

'Well, what I was going to say was that I was keeping an eye on the road
and thinking of this and that, when she suddenly said "Dipsomaniac."'

'Why did she call you a dipsomaniac?'

'She didn't. It turned out she was talking about Pongo.'

'Pongo, egad? Was she, indeed?'

'Yes. She said "Dipsomaniac." And I said "Eh?" And she said "He's a
dipsomaniac." And I said "Who's a dipso.maniac?" And she said "Reginald
Twistleton is a dipsomaniac. Your uncle says he has not been sober since
he got here." '

Lord Ickenham drew in his breath with a little hiss of admiration.

'Masterly!' he said. 'Once again, Bill Oakshott, I must pay a marked
tribute to your narrative gifts. I never met a man who could tell a
story better. Come clean, my boy. You are Sinclair Lewis, are you not?
Well, I'm convinced you're someone. So your aunt said "Dipsomaniac," and
you said "Eh?" and she said ... and so forth and so on, concluding with
this fearless expose of Pongo. Very interesting. Did she mention on what
she based the charge?'

'Oh, rather. Apparently she and Uncle Aylmer found him swigging whisky
in the drawing-room.'

'I would not attach too much importance to that. Many of our noblest men
swig whisky in drawing-rooms. I do myself.'

'But not all night. Well, you might say all night. What I


187


mean is, I found Pongo in the drawing-room, swigging away, at about one
o'clock this morning, and my aunt and uncle appear to have found him
there, still swigging, at half-past two. That makes one and a half
hours. Give him say half an hour before I came in, and you get two hours
of solid swigging. And after my aunt and uncle left he must have started
swigging again. Because he was unquestionably stinko after breakfast.'

'I decline to believe that anyone could get stinko at breakfast.'

'I didn't say he did get stinko at breakfast. You're missing the point.
My theory is that he swigged all night, got stinko round about six a.m.
and continued stinko till the incident occurred.'

'To what incident do you allude?'

'It happened just after breakfast. My aunt was waiting for me to bring
the car round, and Uncle Aylmer made some unpleasant cracks about the
hat she was wearing. So she went up to her room to get another, and as
she reached the door she heard someone moving about inside. When she
went in, there was nobody to be seen, and then suddenly there came a
sneeze from the wardrobe, and there was Pongo, crouching on the floor.'

'She was sure?'

'Sure?'

'It wasn't a shoe or a bit of fluff?'

'No, it was Pongo. She says he smiled weakly and said he had looked in
to borrow her lipstick. He must have been as tight as an owl. Because,
apart from anything else, a glance at Aunt Emily should have told him
she hasn't got a lipstick. And what I've been trying to make up my mind
about is, oughtn't Hermione to be warned? Isn't it a bit thick to allow
her to breeze gaily into a lifelong union with a chap who's going to
spend his married life sitting up all night getting stinko in the
drawing-room? I don't see how a wife could possibly be happy under such
conditions.'

'She might feel rather at a loose end, might she not? But you are
misjudging Pongo in considering him a nonstop

188

swigger. As a general thing he is quite an abstemious young man. Only
in exceptional circumstances does he go on anything which a purist would
call a bender. At the moment he is under a severe nervous strain.'

'Why?'

Tor some reason he always is when we visit a house together. My presence
- it is difficult to explain it - seems to do something to him.'

'Then you don't think that Hermione ought to be told?'

'I will have to think it over. 'But,' said Lord Ickenham, fixing his
young friend with a penetrating eye, 'there is something she must be
told -without delay, and by you, Bill Oakshott.'

'Eh?'

'And that is that you love her and would make her yours.'

'Eh?'

'Fight against this tendency to keep saying "Eh." You do love her, do
you not? You would make her yours, wouldn't you? I have it from an
authoritative source that you have been thinking along those lines for
years and years.'

Bill had turned a pretty vermilion. He shuffled his feet.

'Why, yes,' he admitted, 'that's right, as a matter of fact. I have. But
how can I tell her I would make her mine? She's engaged to Pongo.'

'What of it?'

'You can't go barging in on a girl, telling her you would make her
yours, when she's engaged to another chap.'

'Of course you can. How about Young Lochinvar? He did it, and was
extremely highly thought of in consequence. You are familiar with the
case of Young Lochinvar?'

'Oh, yes. I used to recite the poem as a kid.'

'It must have sounded wonderful,' said Lord Ickenham courteously. 'I
myself was best at "It wath the thschooner Hethperuth that thailed the
thtormy theas." Well, let me tell you something, my dear chap. You need
have no morbid scruples about swinging Hermione Bostock on to your
saddle bow, as far as Pongo is concerned. He's in love with somebody
else. Do you remember me speaking at our first meeting of a girl I had
been hoping he would marry? I don't think I u.d.io	189

mentioned it then, but he was at one time engaged to her, and all the
symptoms point to his wanting to be again. The last time I saw them
together, which was quite recently, I received the distinct impression
that he would die for one little rose from her hair. So you can go ahead
without a qualm. Miss Bostock is in London, I understand. Pop up there
and pour your heart out.'

'M'm.'

'Why do you say "M'm"?'

Once again Bill Oakshott shuffled his feet, producing on the parquet
floor a sound resembling waves breaking on a stern and rockbound coast.

'It's so difficult.'	%

'What, to pour out your heart? Nonsense.'

'Well, I've been trying to do it for nine years, but not a ripple. I
can't seem to get started.'

Lord Ickenham reflected.

'I think I see where the trouble lies. You have made the mistake of
brooding in advance too much, with the result that you have pottered
about and accomplished nothing. Swiftness and decision are what is
needed. Don't hesitate. Have at her. Sweep her off her feet. Take her by
storm.'

'Oh, yes?' said Bill flatly, and Lord Ickenham laid a kindly hand on his
shoulder. He knew what was passing in the young man's mind.

'I can understand your feeling a little nervous,' he said. 'When I saw
Hermione Bostock's photograph, I was struck at once by something
formidable in her face, a touch of that majestic inaccessibility which
used to cramp the style of diffident young Greek shepherds in their
relations with the more dignified of the goddesses of Mount Olympus. She
is what in my day would have been called a proud beauty. And that makes
it all the more necessary to take a strong line from the start. Proud
beauties have to be dominated.'

'But, dash it, Pongo can't have dominated her.'

'True. But Pongo, so I am informed, is a baa-lamb. Baalambs get their
results by different methods.'

'You don't think I'm a baa-lamb?'

190

'I fear not. You're too large, too robust and ruddy of countenance, too
obviously a man who does his daily dozen of a morning and likes
roly-poly pudding for lunch. Where a Pongo can click by looking fragile
and stammering words of endearment, you must be the whirlwind wooer, or
nothing. You will have to behave like the heroes of those novels which
were so popular at one time, who went about in riding breeches and were
not above giving the girl of their choice a couple with a hunting-crop
on the spot where it would do most good. Ethel M. Dell. That's the name
I was trying to think of. You must comport yourself like the hero of an
Ethel M. Dell novel. Buy her works, and study them diligently.'

A firm look came into Bill's face.

'I'm not going to sock her with a hunting-crop.'

'It would help.'

'No. Definitely no.'

'Very well. Cut business with hunting-crop. Then what you must do is
stride up to the girl and grab her by the wrist.'

'Oh, gosh!'

'Ignoring her struggles, clasp her to your bosom and shower kisses on
her upturned face. You needn't say much. Just "My mate!" or something of
that sort. Well, think it over, my dear fellow. But I can assure you
that this method will bring home the bacon. It is known as the Ickenham
System, and it never fails. And now I fear I must be leaving you. I'm
looking for Pongo. You don't happen to know where he is?'

'I saw him half an hour ago walking up and down on the tennis lawn.'

'With bowed head?'

'Yes, I believe his head was bowed, now you mention it."

'I thought as much. Poor lad, poor lad. Well, I have tidings for him
which will bring him up with a jerk. So good-bye for the moment. Oh, by
the way,' said Lord Ickenham, reappearing like a benevolent Cheshire
cat, 'in grabbing the subject by the wrist, don't behave as if you were
handling a .delicate piece of china. Grip firmly and waggle her about a
bit.'

He disappeared again, and Bill could hear him trolling


191


an old love song of the early nineteen hundreds as he started for the
tennis lawn.


On a shy and diffident young man, accustomed for years just to shuffle
his feet and look popeyed when in the presence of the girl he loves, a
pep talk along the lines of that delivered by Lord Ickenham has much the
same effect as a plunge into icy water on a cold morning. First comes
the numbing shock, when everything turns black and the foundations of
the soul seem to start reeling. Only later does there follow the glowing
reaction.

For some appreciable time after his mentor had taken his departure, Bill
stood congealed with horror as he contemplated the picture which the
other had limned for him. The thought of showering kisses on Hermione
Bostock's upturned face set his spine crawling like something in the
Snake House at the Zoo. The idea of grabbing her by the wrist and
waggling her about a bit made him feel as he had once felt at his
private school after eating six ice-creams in a quarter of an hour
because somebody bet him he wouldn't.

And then suddenly, with considerable astonishment, he found that horror
had given way to a strange exhilaration. He could now appreciate the
solid merits of this Ickenham system, chief among which was the fact
that it placed the woping of Hermione Bostock on the plane of physical
action. Physical action was his dish. Give him something to do with his
hands, and he knew where he was.

So simple, too. Nothing intricate or elaborate about it. Run( over it
once more, just to make sure one hadn't forgotten anything.

Stride up and grab?

Easy.

Waggle about?

Pie. .

Clasp to bosom and s.k. on upturned f.?

No difficulty there.


192


Say 'My mate'?

About that he was not so sure. It seemed to him that Lord Ickenham,
brilliant as an arranger of stage business, had gone astray as regarded
dialogue. Wouldn't a fellow be apt to feel a bit of a chump, saying 'My
mate'? Better, surely, just to pant a good deal? Yes, that was the
stuff. Stride, grab, waggle, clasp, ' kiss, pant. Right.

Under the stress of intense thought he had started to walk up and down
the hall, his head bent over the fingers on which he was ticking off the
various items on the list, and it was as he unconsciously accelerated
his pace on getting that inspiration about panting that a bumping
sensation and a loud roar of

• anguish told him that there had been a traffic accident.

Narrowing his gaze, he saw that he had rammed something substantial and
white moustached, and narrowing it still further identified this as his
uncle. Sir Aylmer Bostock. And he was about to offer suitable apologies,
when all thought of injured uncles was wiped from his mind and his heart
leaped within him like an adagio dancer trying out a new step. Behind
Sir Aylmer, looking more unbelievably beautiful even than he had
remembered her, stood Hermione.

Hermione smiled upon him dazzlingly. She was in the sunniest of moods.
After dropping Otis at the Bull's Head in the High Street, she had
arrived at the front door just in time to see her father driving up, and
such was the force of her personality-that she had settled that little
matter of the proposed legal action of Bostock v. Painter in something
under two minutes and a quarter. The future of the publishing firm of
Meriday House, in so far as concerned civil actions on'the part

* of the late Governor of Lower Barnatoland, was secure.

So she smiled dazzlingly. In an amused, sisterly way she had always been
devoted to dear old Bill, and she was glad to see him again.

'Hullo, Bill,' she said.

Bill found speech.

'Oh, hullo, Hermione.'

Sir Aylmer also found speech.

'What the devil are you doing, you great clumsy oaf,' he

193

said, standing on one leg and submitting the other to a system of
massage, for the impact had been severe. 'Charging about the place like
a damned rhinoceros. Why can't you look where you're going?'

Bill was staring at Hermione. In a dim way he was aware that words' were
proceeding from this old blighter, but he was unable to concentrate on
their import.

'Oh, rather," he said. , 'What do you mean, oh, rather?'

'Yes, isn't it?' said Bill.

To a man who was good at snorting and to whom snorts came easily there
was only one answer to this sort of thing. Sir Aylmer snorted, and
stumped into the collection room, telling himself that he would go into
the matter later on when his nephew seemed more in the mood. Useless to
waste good stuff on one who, always deficient in intellect, seemed now
to be suffering from some form of mental paralysis.

Hermione continued cordial.

'So you're back, Bill. It's jolly seeing you again. How was Brazil?'

'Oh, fine.'

'Have a good time?'

'Oh, yes, fine, thanks.'

'You're very sunburned. I suppose you had lots of adventures?'

'Oh, rather.'

'Snakes and so on?"

'Oh, yes.'

'Well, you must tell me all about it later. I've got to hurry off now. I
have to see a friend of mine at the inn.'

Bill cleared his throat.

'Er - just a second,' he said.

This, he was telling himself, was the moment. Now, if ever, was his
opportunity of putting the Ickenham system into practice. Here they
were, alone together. A single stride would place him in a position
to.grab. And he was already panting. More ideal conditions could
scarcely have been asked for.

But he found himself unable to move. All through those

194

i

weary months in Brazil the image of this girl had been constantly before
his mental eye, but now that he was seeing her face to face her beauty
numbed him, causing trembling of the limbs and that general feeling of
debility and run-down-ness which afflicts so many people nowadays and
can be corrected only by the use of such specifics as Buck-u-Uppo or
Doctor Smythe's Tonic Swamp Juice.

Had he had a bottle - nay, even a tablespoonful - of the tonic, swamp
juice handy, all might have been well. Lacking it, he merely shuffled
his feet and looked popeyed, just as he had been doing for the last nine
years.

'Well?' said Hermione.

('Stride, grab, waggle, clasp, kiss, pant,' urged Bill's better self.
But his limbs refused to move.)

'Well?'

'Hermione.'

'Yes?'

'Hermione.'

'Well?'

'Oh, nothing,' said Bill.

He found himself alone. From outside came the sound of a car getting
into gear and moving off. She had gone.

Nor could he blame her. Reviewing the late scene, recalling that
horrible, bleating voice with its hideous resemblance to that of a
B.B.C. announcer, he shuddered, marvelling that any being erect upon two
legs and bearing the outward semblance of a man could have shown himself
so wormlike a poltroon.

Writhing in anguish, he thought for a moment of bumping his head against
the wall, but on reflection decided against this. No sense in dinting a
good wall. Better to go to his room, fling himself on the bed and bury
his face in the pillow. He did so.


Anxious to get to the Bull's Head and inform Otis as soon as possible of
the happy outcome of her interview with her father,


195


Hermione had started up her car and driven off with the minimum of
delay. Had she postponed her departure for as long as a minute, she
would have observed a wild-eyed young man without a hat making for the
house from the direction of the tennis lawn at a feverish canter, his
aspect that of a young man who has taken something big. Once before in
the course of this chronicle we have heard Reginald Twistleton compared
to a cat on hot bricks. It was of a cat on hot bricks that he would have
reminded an onlooker now.

Skimming across the terrace, he reached the house and plunged over the
threshold. Skimming across the hall, he flew up the stairs. Skimming
along the first-floor corridor, he burst into what had formerly been his
bedroom, and Sally, who was reclining on the chaise-longue like an
Amazon resting after an important battle, rose as he entered. Indeed,
she shot up as if a gimlet had suddenly penetrated the cushions and
embedded itself in her person. She was a girl of poise, who did not
easily lose command of herself, but after pushing policemen into ponds
even girls of poise experience a certain tautness of the nerves, and the
abrupt opening of the door had given her a momentary impression that
here came Constable Potter.

Recognizing her visitor, she became calmer, though still inclined to
gasp.

'Oh, Pongo!' she said.

'Oh, Sally!' said Pongo.

To say that the story which Lord Ickenham had related to him on the
tennis lawn, before going off to the Bull's Head for a drop of beer and
a chat with the boys about Brazil, had stirred Reginald Twistleton would
be to indicate but feebly the turmoil which it had created in his bosom.
It had caused him to run what is known as the gamut of the emotions,
prominent among them gratitude to a girl who could thus risk all on his
behalf, shame that his own pusillanimity had rendered her stupendous act
of heroism necessary and, above all, a surge of love such as he had
never, felt before - and he had been falling in love with fair
regularity ever since his last summer but one at Eton.

196

His honourable obligations to Hermione Bostock had passed completely
from his mind. He had no other thought than to find Sally and notify her
of the trend of his views. Precisely as Bill Oakshott had done, he
contemplated a future in which he would stride, grab and waggle, clasp,
kiss and pant. With this difference, that whereas Bill, as we have seen,
had planned to behave like an osteopath handling a refractory patient,
he, Pongo, saw the set-up more in the light of abasing himself at a
shrine. The word 'grab' is wrong. So is the word "waggle." But 'clasp,'
'kiss' and 'pant' may stand.

He was panting now, and he lost no time in proceeding to the other items
on the programme which he had sketched out. Bill Oakshott, had he been
present, would have received a valuable object lesson on how this sort
of thing should be done.

'Oh, Sally!'he said.

'Oh, Pongo!' said Sally.

Time stood still. In the world outside people were going about their
various occupations. Constable Potter was in his cottage, changing into
a dry uniform. Lord Ickenham, humming a gay stave, was striding along
the road to the village. Hermione, half a mile ahead of him, was driving
along the same road. Sir Aylmer was messing about with his African
curios. Bill Oakshott was burying his face in his pillow. And up in
London Lady Bostock, in her daughter's flat, had finished the
illustrated papers and fallen into a light doze.

But Pongo and Sally were alone together in a world of their own,
enjoying the scent of the violets and roses which sprouted through the
bedroom floor and listening to the soft music which an orchestra of
exceptional ability, consisting chiefly of harps and violins, was
playing near at hand. Of Constable Potter, of Lord Ickenham, of Sir
Aylmer Bostock, of Lady Bostock, of Bill Oakshott and of Hermione they
recked nothing ; though the time was to come when they, particularly
Pongo, would be obliged to reck of the last named quite a good deal.

Presently Pongo, adjusting his arm more comfortably about Sally's waist,
for they were now sitting side by side on the

197

chaise-longue, began to speak remorsefully of the past, featuring in
his observations the criminal idiocy of the oaf Twistle ton, that
abysmal sap who had allowed himself to be parted from the only girl on
earth whom a discriminating man could possibly wish to marry. He
contemplated with unconcealed aversion this mutton-headed Twistleton.

'Gosh, what a chump I was!'

'Not such a chump as me."

'Much more of a chump than you. No comparison.'

'It was all my fault.'

'No, it wasn't.'

'Yes, it was.'

'It wasn't.'

'It was.'

The dispute threatened to become heated, but just as Pongo was about to
say 'It wasn't' again he suddenly paused, and into his sensitive
features there crept that look of horror and apprehension which they had
worn fourteen hours earlier, on the occasion when Bill Oakshott's
knocking had sounded in the silent night.

'What's the matter, precious?' asked Sally solicitously.

Pongo gulped.

'Oh, nothing. At least, nothing much, I just happened to think of
Hermione.'

There was a pause. A quick twinge of anxiety and alarm shot through
Sally. Much - indeed, her life's happiness - depended on the exact
extent to which the Twistletons regarded their word as their bond.

'Oh, Hermione?' she said. 'You don't mean you're too honourable to break
off the engagement?'

Pongo gulped again.

'Not too honourable exactly, but... You've never met Hermione, have you?
Well, it's difficult to explain, but she isn't a frightfully easy girl
to break off engagements with. It's a little hard to know how to start.'

'I should just go to her and tell her frankly that you find you have
made a mistake.'

'Yes, that's one way.'


198


'Or you could write her a letter.'

Pongo gave a start, like some strong swimmer in his agony who hears a
splash and observes that somebody has thrown him a lifebelt. 'A letter?'

'You might find it less embarrassing.'

'I might,' said Pongo, and, quivering with gratitude to his helpmeet for
her timely suggestion, he clasped her to his bosom and showered kisses
on her upturned face.

This would probably have gone on for some time, had not Elsie Bean at
this moment entered softly with a tray in her hands containing a
tea-pot, a cup, some slices of buttered toast and a piece of cake.

'Tea,' said Elsie, and Pongo, soaring ceilingwards, came down and
regarded her wrathfully.

'Why the dickens can't you blow your horn?' he demanded with a good deal
of heat.

Elsie remained unmoved. The passionate scene which she had interrupted
had made little impression upon her. It was the sort of thing that was
happening all the time in Bottleton East.

'Tea, toast and a bit-er-cake,' she said. 'Have you pushed Harold into
the pond yet, Mr Twistleton?' Sally took charge of the situation in her
competent way. 'Of course he has pushed him into the pond. He said he
would, didn't he? You don't suppose Mr Twistleton would fail you?'

'Did he go in with a splash?' 'With a terrific splash. You could hear it
for miles.' 'Coo. Well, I'm sure I'm very much obliged to you, Mr
Twistleton. Have you seen Miss Hermione?' Pongo leaped an inch or two.
'She isn't here?'

'Yes, she is. I saw her drive up in her car.' Pongo remained silent for
a space. He was clutching his head.

T think I'll go and walk up and down on the tennis lawn for a while,' he
said. 'This wants brooding over.'

199

With a brief groan he left the room, once more with that suggestion in
his manner of a cat on hot bricks, and Elsie followed him with a
critical eye.

'Nice young gentleman, Mr Twistleton,' she said. 'A bit barmy, isn't
he?'

'A bit,' agreed Sally. "I love it.'


The Bull's Head was still standing in its old place in the High Street
when Hermione drove up, but Otis was no longer on the premises. She was
informed that he had stepped out some little time previously, but
whither he had stepped was not known. Annoyed, for no girl bringing the
good news from Aix to Ghent likes to find Ghent empty when she gets
there, Hermione returned to her two-seater and started to drive back
along the road by which she had come. It had occurred to her that, now
that she was in the Ashenden Manor neighbourhood, she ought to take the
opportunity of exchanging a few words with her betrothed. It was the
first time since lunch that she had given him a thought.

But her annoyance did not last long, nor did the desire to seek out
Pongo. She had just reached the first milestone when something seemed to
hit her between the eyes. It felt like a thunderbolt, but actually it
was the central idea for the first of that series of three novels at
twenty per cent rising to twenty five above three thousand which Otis
Painter would now be in a position to publish. This sort of thing is
always happening to authors. They are driving along or walking along or
possibly just sitting in a chair, their minds a blank, when all of a
sudden - bing.

And the first thing an author learns is that it is fatal on these
occasions to pigeon-hole the inspiration away at the back of the mind,
trusting that memory will produce it when required. Notes must be made
immediately. Drawing up her two-seater at the side of the road, Hermione
found an old envelope and began to write. She wrote rapidly, breathing
tensely through the nose.

At about the same moment Lord Ickenham reached the Bull's Head and
turned in at the door of the saloon bar.


It was with the easy assurance of one confident of his welcome that Lork
Ickenham entered the saloon bar, for on his previous visit there he had
had an outstanding social success. The stout blonde behind the counter,
her uncle the landlord (Jno. Humphreys, licensed to sell ales, wines and
spirits) and quite a number of thtf inn's clients had hung upon his
lips. It is not often given to the natives of remote Hampshire hamlets
to sit at the feet of a man who knows Brazil like the back of his hand,
who has looked his alligator in the eye and made it wilt and who can
talk of his adventures fluently and well.

To-day he saw that his audience was to be smaller. Indeed, at the moment
only the barmaid was present. He seemed to have struck one of those
slack periods which come to all saloon bars. With the best will in the
world English villagers cannot be drinking all the time, and this
appeared to be one of the times when those of Ashenden Oakshott had
decided to allow their gullets a brief respite, no doubt on the reculer
pour mieux sauter principle.

But your true artist will always give of his best, however thin the
house. As Lord Ickenham placed an elbow on the counter and requested the
stout blonde to start pouring, there was no suggestion in his manner
that he was going to walk through his part. He resumed his saga of life
on the Lower Amazon as if he had been addressing a crowded hall, and the
barmaid listened with all the impressment which she had shown on the
previous day.

'Well, I do call that a pity,' she said, as he paused for an instant to
raise his tankard.

'A pity?' said Lord Ickenham, a little hurt, for he had been speaking of
the occasion when a puma had only just failed to add him to its bill of
fare. 'Ah, I see. You are looking at the incident from the puma's
view-point, and your womanly sympathy has been aroused by its failure to
get the square meal


201


for which it had been budgeting. Yes, it was tough on the puma. I
remember noticing at the time that the animal's eyes were wet with
unshed tears.'

'A pity you should have missed that gentleman, I mean. There was a
gentleman in here for a quick one not five minutes ago,' explained the
barmaid, 'who was telling me he had just come from Brazil. He'd have
liked to meet you.'

Lord Ickenham gave her to understand that this was an almost universal
aspiration on the part of his fellow men, but privately he was relieved
that he had not arrived five minutes earlier. In his present rather
delicate circumstances he greatly preferred to avoid gentlemen who had
just come from Brazil.

'Too bad,' he said. 'One of the boys, eh? It would have been delightful
to have got together and swapped yarns.'

'Why, here he is,' said the barmaid.

The door had opened, revealing an elderly man of square build with a
pugnacious, sunburned face. Such was the excellence of the Bull's Head
beer that those who went out after having a quick one nearly always came
homing back again to have another.

'This is the gentleman I was speaking of. Excuse me, sir,' said the
barmaid, addressing the gentleman, who had approached the counter and
placed an elbow on it and was now licking his lips in quiet
anticipation, 'here's a gentleman you ought to know, you being from
Brazil. He knows more about Brazil than you could shake a stick at.
Major Plank, the great explorer.'

At this moment a voice from without, recognizable as that of Jno.
Humphreys, licensed to sell ales, wines and spirits, made itself heard.
It was bellowing 'Myrtle,' and the barmaid, whose parents had inflicted
that name on her, vanished with a brief 'Excuse me.' The voice had been
urgent, and it was evident that stern experience had taught this niece
that her uncle Jno. was a man who did not like to be kept waiting.

'Tell him about the puma, Major Plank,' she said, pausing for an instant
in her flight.

Normally, Lord Ickenham would have done this without delay, for he
enjoyed telling people about pumas and knew


202


that he was good at it. But one of the things which a man of the world
learns early in his career is that there are times when it is best to
keep silent on the subject of these fascinating fauna. The gentleman was
looking at him fixedly, and in his eye there was no spark of the
encouraging light which indicates a willingness to be informed about
pumas. There have been some bleak and fishy eyes scattered through this
chronicle - those of Coggs, the butler at Ickenham Hall, spring to the
mind - but none bleaker and fishier than the gentleman's at this
juncture.

'Plank?' he said, speaking raspingly. 'Did I hear her call you Major
Plank?'

'That's right,' said Lord Ickenham. 'Major Plank.'

'Are you Major Brabazon-Plank, the explorer?'

'I am.'

'So am I,' said the gentleman, evidently rather impressed by the odd
coincidence.

Chapter 12


When two strong men stand face to face, each claiming to be Major
Brabazon-Plank, it is inevitable that there will be a sense of strain,
resulting in a momentary silence. There was on this occasion. Lord
Ickenham was the first to speak.

'Oh, are you?' he said. 'Then you owe me two bob.'

His companion blinked. The turn the conversation had taken seemed to
have surprised him.

'Two bob?'

'If you have nothing but large bills, I can give you change.' Major
Plank's mahogany face took on a richer hue.

'What the devil are you talking about?'

'Two bob.'

'Are you crazy?'

'It is a point on which opinions differ. Some say yes. I maintain no.
Two bob,' said Lord Ickenham patiently. 'It is useless for you to
pretend that you do not owe me that sum, Bimbo. You took it off me
forty-three years ago as we were crossing the cricket field one lovely
summer evening. "Barmy," you said, "would you like to lend me two bob?"
And I said "No, but I suppose I'll have to," and the money changed
hands.'

Major Plank clutched the counter.

'Bimbo? Barmy? Cricket field?' He stared with terrific concentration,
and his face suddenly cleared. 'Good God! You're Barmy Twistleton.'

'I was in those days, but I've come on a lot since then, Bimbo. You see
before you Frederick Altamont Cornwallis, fifth Earl of Ickenham, and
one of the hottest earls that ever donned a coronet. The boy you knew as
a wretched Hon. is now a peer of the realm, looked up to like the
dickens by one


204


and all. Just mention to anyone that you know Lord Ickenham, and
they'll fawn on you and stand you lunch.' Major Plank took an absent sip
from the tankard. 'Barmy Twistleton!' he murmured. It was plain that the
encounter had affected him greatly. 'But why did you tell that girl you
were me?'

'One has to say something to keep the conversation going.' 'Barmy
Twistleton. Well, I'll be damned. After all these years. I wouldn't have
recognized you.'

'Exactly what Mugsy Bostock said when we met. You remember Mugsy
Bostock? Did you know that he lived in these parts?'

'I knew his nephew, Bill Oakshott, did. I motored down to see him.'

'You aren't on your way to Ashenden Manor?'

'Yes.'

'Turn round and go back, Bimbo,' said Lord Ickenham, patting his
shoulder kindly. 'You must not visit Ashenden Manor.'

'Why not?'

'Because I am already in residence there under your name. It would
confuse Mugsy and give him a headache if he were confronted with a
couple of us. No doubt you will say that you can't have too many
Brabazon-Planks about the home, but Mugsy wouldn't look at it that way.
He would get bewildered and fret.'

Major Plank took another sip at the tankard, and when Lord Ickenham
mentioned that he had paid for its contents and that if his old friend
proposed to treat it as a loving cup he would be obliged to charge him a
small fee, seemed disinclined to go into the matter. It was the earlier
portion of the conversation that was engaging his mind.

'You're staying with Mugsy under my name?'

'Exactly.'

'He thinks you're me?'

'Precisely.'

'Why?' said Major Plank, going right to the core of the problem. 'Why
are you staying with Mugsy under my name?'


205


'It's a long story, Bimbo, and would bore you. But have no uneasiness.
Just say to yourself "Would my old crony do this without a motive?" and
"Is his motive bound to be a good one?" The answers to these questions
are "No" to the first, "Yes" to the second.'

Major Plank relapsed into a sandbagged silence. His was a slow mind, and
you could almost hear it creaking as it worked.

'Good God!' he said again.

And then abruptly the full horror of the situation seemed to come home
to him. No doubt he had been diving into the past and had brought
memories of the boy Twistleton to the surface. It was not for nothing
that this man before him had been called 'Barmy' at school. He had
applied himself absently to the tankard once more, and his eyes above it
suddenly grew round and wrathful.

'What the devil do you mean by staying with people under my name?'

'It's a good name, Bimbo. Got a hyphen and everything.'

'You'll ruin my reputation.'

'On the contrary. The image which I have been building up in the minds
of all and sundry is that of what I should describe as a super-Plank or
Plank plus. You ought to think yourself lucky that a man like me has
gone out of his way to shed lustre on your name.'

'Well, I don't. So you had better get back to Mugsy's and start packing,
quick. Because as soon as I've had some more of this excellent beer I'm
coming up there to expose you.'

'Expose me?' Lord Ickenham's eyebrows rose reproachfully. 'Your old
friend?'

'Old friend be damned.'

'A fellow you used to throw inked darts at?'

'Inked darts have nothing to do with the case.'

'And who once lent you two bob?'

'Curse the two bob.'

'You're a hard man, Bimbo.'

'No, I'm not. I've a right to think of my reputation.'

'I have already assured you that it is in safe hands.'

206

'God knows, what you may not have been up to. If I don't act like
lightning, my name will be mud. Listen,' said Major Plank, consulting
his watch. 'I shall start exposing you at five sharp. That gives you
twenty-three minutes. Better look slippy.'

Lord Ickenham did not look slippy. He stood regarding the friend of his
youth with the same gentle commiseration which he had displayed when
dealing, in somewhat similar circumstances, with Constable Potter.
Essentially kindhearted, he disliked being compelled to thwart these
eager spirits who spoke so hopefully of exposing him. But it had to be
done, so with a sigh he embarked on the distasteful task.

'Dismiss all ideas of that sort from your mind, Bimbo. It is hopeless
for you to dream of exposing me. Bill Oakshott has told me all about
you.'

'What do you mean?'

'You are a man with an Achilles heel, a man with a fatal chink in your
armour. You suffer from a strongly marked baby phobia. If anyone points
a baby at you, Bill tells me, you run like a rabbit. Well, if you betray
my little secret to Mugsy, you will immediately find yourself plunging
into a foaming sea of them. A fete is taking place here shortly, and
among its numerous features is a contest for bonny babies. And here is
the point. In my capacity of Major Brabazon-Plank I have undertaken to
act as judge of it. You begin to see the hideous peril confronting you?
Eliminate me, and you automatically step into my place.'

'Why?'

'Because, my dear fellow, some variety of Brabazon-Plank has got to
judge those bonny babies. This has been officially announced and the
whole village is agog. And after my departure you will be the only
Brabazon-Plank available. And if you imagine that Mugsy, a determined
man, and his wife, a still more determined woman, will let you sneak
away, you are living in a fool's paradise. You haven't a hope, Bimbo.
You will be for it."

His pitiless clarity had its effect. Major Plank's tan was so deep that
it was impossible to say whether or not he paled


207


beneath it, but he shuddered violently and in his eyes was the look
that comes into the eyes of men who peer into frightful abysses.

'Why don't they get the curate to do it?' he cried, plainly struggling
with a strong sense of grievance. 'When we had these damned baby
competitions at Lower Shagley, it was always the curate who judged them.
It's what curates are for.'

'The curate has got measles.'

'Silly ass.'

'An unsympathetic thing to say of a man who is lying on a bed of pain
with pink spots all over him, but I can make allowances for your
feelings, appreciating how bitter a moment this must be for you, my poor
old Bimbo. I suppose there is nothing much more sickening than wanting
to expose a fellow and not being able to, and I would love to help you
out if I could. But I really don't know what to suggest. You might...
No, that's no good. Or ... No, I doubt if that would work, either. I'm
afraid you will have to give up the idea. The only poor consolation I
can offer you is that it will be all the same in another hundred years.
Well, my dear chap, it's been delightful running into you again after
all this time, and I wish I could stay and chat, but I fear I must be
pushing along. You know how busy we Brabazon-Planks always are. Look me
up some time at my residence, which is quite near here, and we will have
a long talk about the old school days and Brazil and, of course,' said
Lord Ickenham indulgently, 'any other subject you may wish to discuss.
If you can raise it by then, bring the two bob with you.'

With another kindly pat on the shoulder he went out, and Major Plank,
breathing heavily, reached for the tankard and finished its contents.


The plot of Hermione's novel was coming out well. As so often happens
when an author gets the central idea for a story and starts to jot it
down, all sorts of supplementary ideas had come trooping along,
demanding to be jotted down too. It was not


208


many minutes before the envelope proved quite inadequate to contain the
golden thoughts which were jostling one another in her brain, and she
had just started to use the back of her motor licence when, looking up,
she perceived approaching an elderly man of distinguished appearance,
who raised his hat with an old-world polish.

'Good afternoon,' he said.

In this lax age in which we live, it not infrequently happens to girls
of challenging beauty to find themselves approached by hat-raising
strangers of the opposite sex. When Hermione Bostock had this
experience, her manner was apt to become a little brusque, so much so
that the party of the second part generally tottered off feeling as if
he had incurred the displeasure of a wild cat. It is a tribute,
therefore, to Lord Icken ham's essential respectability that he gave her
pause. Her eyebrows quivered slightly, as if about to rise, but she made
no move to shoot the works.

'Miss Bostock, I believe? My name is Brabazon-Plank. I am a guest at
your father's house.'

This, of course, made it all quite different. One of the gang. Hermione
became cordial.

'Oh, how do you do?"

'How do you do? Could you spare me a moment?'

'Why, of course. How odd that you should have known who I was.'

'Not at all. Yours, if I may say so, are features which, once seen,
cannot be forgotten. I have had the privilege of studying a photograph
of you.'

'Oh, yes, the one in the Taller.'

'Not the one in the Taller. The one which your cousin, William Oakshott,
carries always next to his heart. I should explain,' said Lord Ickenham,
'that I was the leader of the expedition up the Amazon of which Bill
Oakshott was so prominent a member, and every time he got a touch of
fever he would pull your photograph out and kiss it, murmuring in a
faint voice "I love her, I love her, I love her." Very touching, I
thought it, and so did all the rest of the personnel of the expedition.
It made us feel finer, better men.'


u.d.h	209


Hermione was staring. Had she been a less beautiful girl, it might have
been said that she goggled. This revelation of a passion which she had
never so much as suspected had come as a complete surprise. Looking on
Bill as a sort of brother, she had always supposed that he looked on her
as a sort of sister. It was as if she had lived for years beside some
gentle English hill and suddenly discovered one morning that it was a
volcano full to the brim of molten lava.

'And don't get the idea,' proceeded Lord Ickenham, 'that he spoke thus
only when running a temperature. It was rare for half an hour to pass
without him whipping out your photograph and kissing it. So you see he
did not forget you while he was away, as so many young men are apt, once
they are abroad, to forget the girl to whom they are engaged. His heart
was always true. For when he said "I love her, I love her, I love her,"
it seemed to me that there was only one construction that could be
placed on his remarks. He meant that he loved you. And may I be allowed
to say,' went on Lord Ickenham with a paternal smile, 'how delighted I
am to meet you at last and to see at a glance that you are just the girl
for him. This engagement makes me very happy.'

'But '

'He will be getting a prize. And so, my dear, will you. I know few men
whom I respect more than William Oakshott. Of all my circle he is the
one I would choose first to be at my side in the event of unpleasantness
with an alligator. And while it may be argued, and with perfect justice,
that the part which alligators play in the average normal married life
is not a large one, it is no bad thing for a girl to have a husband
capable of putting them in their place. The man who can prop an
alligator's jaws open with a stick and then, avoiding its lashing tail,
dispatch it with a meat axe is a man who can be trusted to help fire the
cook. So no one will rejoice more heartily than I when the bells ring
out in the little village church and you come tripping down the aisle on
Bill Oakshott's sinewy arm. This will happen very shortly, I suppose,
now that he is back with you once more?'

He paused, beaming benevolently, and Hermione, who had


210


made several attempts to speak, at last found herself able to do so.

'But I am not engaged to Bill.'

'Nonsense. You must be. How about all that "I love her. I love her, I
love her" stuff?'

'I am engaged to someone else. If you are staying at the house, you will
have met him.'

Lord Ickenham gasped.

'Not the pinhead Twistleton?'

Something of the chill which hat-raising strangers usually induced crept
into Hermione's manner.

'His name is Reginald Twistleton,' she said, allowing her eyes to flash
for a moment. 'I am sorry you consider him a pinhead.'

'My dear girl, it isn't that / consider him a pinhead. Everyone
considers him a pinhead. Walk into any gathering where he is a familiar
figure and say to the first man you meet, "Do you know Reginald
Twistleton?" and his reply, will be, "Oh, you mean the pinhead?" Good
heavens, child, you musn't dream of marrying Reginald Twistleton. Even
had you not a Bill Oakshott on your waiting list, it would be madness.
How could you be happy with a man who is always getting arrested at dog
races?'

'What!' 'Incessantly, you might say. And giving a false name and
address.'

'You're talking nonsense.'

'My dear, these are well-documented facts. If you don't believe me,
creep up behind this young Twistleton and shout "Yoo-hoo, Edwin Smith,
11, Nasturtium Road, East Dulwich!" in his ear and watch him jump. Well,
I don't know what you think, but to my mind there is something not very
nice in going to dog races at all, for the people you meet there must be
very mixed. But if a young man does go to dog races, I maintain that the
least he can do is to keep from behaving in so disorderly a manner that
he gets scooped in by the constabulary. And if you are going to try to
excuse this Twistleton on the ground that he was intoxicated at the
time, I can only say that I am unable to share your broad-minded
outlook. No


211


doubt he was intoxicated, but I can't see that that makes it any
better. You knew, by the way, I suppose, that he is a dipsomaniac?'

'A whatT

'So your father tells me.'

'But Reginald is a teetotaller."

'While your eye is on him, perhaps. But only then. At other times he
shifts the stuff like a vacuum cleaner. You should have been here last
night. He stole down when everyone was in bed and threw a regular orgy.'

Hermione had been intending to put an end to this conversation by
throwing in her clutch and driving off with a stiff word of farewell,
but now she saw that she would have to start later. A girl who has been
looking on the man of her choice as a pure white soul and suddenly
discovers that he is about as pure and white as a stevedore's undervest
does not say 'Oh, yes? Well, I must be off.' She sits rigid. She gasps.
She waits for more.

'Tell me everything,' she said.

As Lord Ickenham proceeded to do so, the grim expression on Hermione
Bostock's lovely face become intensified. If there is one thing a girl
of ideals dislikes, it is to learn that she has been nursing a viper in
her bosom, and that Reginald Twistle ton was a Grade A viper, with all
the run-of-the-mill viper's lack of frankness and square shooting,
seemed more manifest with every word that was spoken.

'Oh!'she said.

'Well!' she said.

'Go on,' she said.

The story wore to its conclusion. Lord Ickenham ceased to speak, and
Hermione sat gazing before her with eyes of stone. She was doing
something odd with her teeth which may have been that 'grinding' we read
about.

'Of course,' said Lord Ickenham, ever charitable, 'he may simply be off
his head. I don't know if you know anything of his family history, but
he tells me he is the nephew of Lord Ickenham; a fact, surely, fhat
makes one purse the lips dubiously. Do you know Lord Ickenham?'


212


'Only by reputation.'

'And what a reputation! There is a strong body of opinion which holds
that he ought to have been certified years ago. I understand he is
always getting flattering offers from Colney Hatch and similar
establishments. And insanity so often runs in families. When I first met
this young man Twistleton, I received a distinct impression that he was
within a short jump of the loony bin, and that curious incident this
morning, of which Bill Oakshott was telling me, has strengthened this
view.'

Hermione quivered. She had not supposed that there was to be an Act Two.

'Curious incident?'

'It took place shortly after breakfast. Lady Bostock, going to her room,
heard movements within, looked in the wardrobe and found Reginald
Twistleton in it, crouching on the floor. His explanation was that he
had come to borrow her lipstick.'

Hermione gripped her motor licence till the knuckles stood out white
under the strain. Act One had stirred her profoundly, but Act Two had
topped it.

In speaking of the dislike which high-principled girls have for vipers,
we omitted to mention that it becomes still more pronounced when they
discover that they use lipstick. That this erstwhile idol of hers should
have feet of clay was bad, but that in addition to those feet of clay he
should have, at the other end, a mouth that apparently needed touching
up from time to time was the pay-off. People still speak of the great
market crash of 1929, asking you with a shudder if you remember the way
U.S. Steel and Montgomery Ward hit the chutes during the month of
October: but in that celebrated devaluation of once gilt-edged shares
there was nothing comparable to the swift and dizzy descent at this
moment of Twistleton Preferred.

Hermione's teeth came together with a click.

T shall have a talk with Reginald!'

'I should. I think you owe it to yourself to demand an explanation. One
wonders if Reginald Twistleton knows the difference between right and
wrong.'

'I'll tell him,' said Hermione.

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Lord Ickenham watched her drive off, well content with the way she
stepped on the gas. He liked to see her hurrying to the tryst like that.
The right spirit, he considered.

He climbed the five-barred gate at the side of the road and lowered
himself on to the scented grass beyond it. His eyes fixed on the
cloudless sky, he thought how pleasant it was to spread sweetness and
light and how fortunate he ought to reckon himself that he had been
granted this afternoon such ample opportunity of doing so. If for an
instant a pang of pity passed through him as he pictured the meeting
between Pongo and this incandescent girl, he suppressed it. Pongo - if
he survived - would surely feel nothing but a tender gratitude towards
an uncle who had laboured so zealously on his behalf. A drowsiness stole
over him, and his eyelids closed in sleep.

Hermione, meanwhile, had reached the house and come to a halt outside
its front door with a grinding of brakes and a churning of gravel. And
she was about to enter, when from the room to her left she heard her
father's voice.

'get out!' it was saying, and a moment later Constable Potter emerged,
looking like a policeman who has passed through the furnace. She went to
the window.

'Father,' she said, 'do you know where Reginald is?'

'No.'

'I want to see him.'

'Why?' asked Sir Aylmer, as if feeling that such a desire was morbid.

'I intend,' said Hermione, once more grinding her teeth 'to break off
our engagement.'

A slender figure pacing the tennis lawn caught her eye. She hastened
towards it, little jets of flame shooting from her nostrils.


Down at the Bull's Head the girl Myrtle, her conversation with her uncle
concluded, had returned to her post in the saloon bar. The gentleman was
still at the counter, staring fixedly at the empty tankard, but he was
alone.

214

'Hullo,' she said disappointedly, for she had been hoping to hear more
about Brazil, where might is right and the strong man comes into his
own. 'Has Major Plank hopped it?'

The gentleman nodded moodily. A shrewder observer than the barmaid would
have sensed that the subject of Major Plank was distasteful to him.

'Did he tell you about the puma? No? Well, it was very interesting. It
was where he was threading his way-through this trackless forest,
gathering Brazil nuts, when all of a sudden what should come along but
this puma. Pardon?'

The gentleman, who beneath his breath had damned and blasted the puma,
did not repeat his observation, but asked for a pint of bitter.

'Would have upset me, I confess,' proceeded the barmaid. 'Yessir, I
don't mind saying I'd have been scared stiff. Because pumas jump on the
back of your neck and chew you, which you can't say is pleasant. But
Major Plank's what I might call intrepid. He had his gun and his trusty
native bearer '

The gentleman repeated his request for bitter in a voice so forceful
that it compelled attention. Haughtily, for his tone had offended her,
the barmaid pulled the beer handle and delivered the goods, and the
gentleman, having drunk deeply, said 'Ha!' The barmaid said nothing. She
continued piqued.

But pique is never enough to keep a barmaid silent for long. Presently,
having in the meantime polished a few glasses in a marked manner, she
resumed the conversation, this time selecting a topic less calculated to
inflame the passions.

'Uncle John's in a rare old state.'

'Whose Uncle John?'

'My Uncle John. The landlord here. Did you hear him shouting just now?'

The gentleman, mellowed by beer, indicated with an approach to
amiability that Jno. Humphrey's agitation had not escaped his notice.
Yes, he said, he had heard him shouting just now.

'So I should think. You could have heard him at Land's End. All of a
doodah, he is. I must begin by telling you,' said the barmaid, falling
easily into her stride, 'that there's a big

215

fete coming on here soon. It's an annual fete, by which I mean that it
comes on once a year. And one of the things that happens at this annual
fSte is a bonny baby competition. Pardon?'

The gentleman said he had not spoken.

'A bonny baby competition,' resumed the barmaid. 'By which I mean a
competition for bonny babies. If you've got a bonny baby, I mean to say,
you enter it in this bonny baby competition, and if the judge thinks
your bonny baby is a bonnier baby than the other bonny babies, it gets
the prize. If you see what I mean?'

The gentleman said he saw what she meant.

'Well, Uncle John had entered his little Wilfred and was fully expecting
to cop. In fact, he had as much as a hundred bottles of beer on him at
eight to one with sportsmen in the village. And now what happens?'

The gentleman said he couldn't imagine.

'Why, Mr Brotherhood, the curate, goes and gets the measles, and the
germs spread hither and thither, and now there's so many gone down with
it that the Vicar says it isn't safe to have the bonny baby competition,
so it's off.'

She paused, well satisfied with the reception of her tale. Her audience
might have been hard to grip with anecdotes of Major Plank among the
pumas, but he had responded admirably to this simpler narrative of
English village life. Though oddly, considering that the story was in
its essence a tragic one, the emotion under which he was labouring
seemed to be joy. Quite a sunny look had come into his eyes, as if
weights had been removed from his mind.

'Off,' said the barmaid. 'By which I mean that it won't take place. So
all bets are null and void, as the expression is, and Uncle John won't
get his bottles of beer.'

'Too bad,' said the gentleman. 'Can you direct me to Ashenden Manor?'

'Straight along, turning to the right as you leave the door.'

'Thank you,' said the gentleman.

Chapter 13


That Constable Potter, having returned to his cottage and changed into a
dry uniform should then have proceeded without delay to Ashenden Manor
to see Sir Aylmer Bostock was only what might have been expected. Sir
Aylmer was the chairman of the local bench of magistrates, and he looked
upon him as his natural protector. The waters of the pond had scarcely
closed over his head before he was saying to himself that here was
something to which the big chief's attention would have to be drawn.

He was unaware that in seeking an audience at this particular time he
was doing something virtually tantamount to stirring up a bilious tiger
with a short stick. No warning voice whispered in his ear 'Have a care,
Potter!' adding that as the result of having been compelled to withdraw
a suit for damages to which he had been looking forward with bright
anticipation for weeks his superior's soul was a bubbling maelstrom of
black malignity and that he was far more likely to bite a policeman in
the leg than to listen patiently to his tales of woe.

The realization that this was so came, however, almost immediately. He
had been speaking for perhaps a minute when Sir Aylmer, interrupting
him, put a question.

'Are you tight, you bloodstained Potter?" asked Sir Aylmer, regarding
him with a sort of frenzied loathing. When a man has come to his
collection room to be alone with his grief, to brood on the shattering
of his hopes and to think how sweet life might have been had he had one
of those meek, old-fashioned daughters who used to say 'Yes, papa!' the
last thing he wants is policemen clumping in with complicated stories.
'What on earth are you talking about? I can't make head nor tail of it.'

Constable Potter was surprised. He was not conscious of

217

having been obscure. It also came as-a shock to him to discover that he
had misinterpreted the twitching of his audience's limbs and the red
glare in that audience's eye. He had been attributing these phenomena to
the natural horror of a good man who hears from another good man of
outrages committed on his, the second good man's, person and it seemed
now that he had been mistaken.

'It's with ref. to this aggravated assault, sir.'

'What aggravated assault?'

'The one I'm telling you about, sir. I was assaulted by the duck pond.'

The suspicion that the speaker had been drinking grew in Sir Aylmer's
mind. Even Reginald Twistleton at the height of one of his midnight
orgies might have hesitated, he felt, to make a statement like that.

'By the duck pond?' he echoed, his eyes widening.

'Yes, sir.'

'How the devil can you be assaulted by a duck pond?'

Constable Potter saw where the misunderstanding had arisen. The English
language is full of these pitfalls.

'When I said "by the duck pond," I didn't mean "by the duck pond," I
meant "by the duck pond." That is to say,' proceeded Constable Potter,
speaking just in time, ' "near" or "adjacent to," in fact "on the edge
of." I was the victim of an aggravated assault on the edge of the duck
pond, sir. Somebody pushed me in.'

'Pushed you in?'

'Pushed me in, sir. Like as it might have been someone what had a grudge
against me.'

'Who was it?'

'A scarlet woman, sir,* said Constable Potter, becoming biblical. 'Well,
what I mean to say, she was wearing a red jacket and a kind of red
thingummy round her head, like as it might have been a scarf.'

'Was it a scarf?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Then why say "like as it might have been" one? I have had to speak
before, from the bench, of the idiotic, asinine way in


218


which you blasted policemen give your evidence. Did you see this
woman?'

'Yes and no, sir.'

Sir Aylmer closed his eyes. He seemed to be praying for strength.

'What do you mean, yes and no?"

'I mean to say, sir, that I didn't actually see her, like as it might
have been see. I just caught sight of her for a moment as she legged it
away, like as it might have been a glimp.'

'Do you mean glimpse?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Then say glimpse. And if you use that expression "like as it might have
been" once more, just once more, I'll... Could you identify this woman?'

'Establish her identity?' said Constable Potter, gently corrective.
'Yes, sir, if I could apprehend her. But I don't know where she is.'

'Well, I've not got her.'

'No, sir.'

'Then why come bothering me? What do you expect me to do?'

Broadly speaking, Constable Potter expected Sir Aylmer to have the
countryside scoured and the ports watched, but before he could say so
the latter had touched on another aspect of the affair.

'What were you doing by the duck pond?'

'Spitting and thinking, sir. I generally pause there when on my beat,
and I had just paused this afternoon when the outrage occurred. I heard
something behind me, like as it might have been a footstep, and the next
moment something pushed me in the small of the back, like as if it might
have been a hand '

'get out!' said Sir Aylmer.

Constable Potter withdrew. Crossing the terrace, he made for the bushes
on the other side and there, lighting his pipe, stood spitting and
thinking. And we make no secret of the fact that his thoughts were
bitter thoughts and his expectoration disillusioned.

219

Just as a boy's best friend is his mother, so is a policeman's prop and
stay the chairman of the local bench of magistrates. When skies are
dark, it is the thought of the chairman of the local bench of
magistrates that brings the sun smiling through, and it is to the
chairman of the local bench of magistrates that he feels he can always
take his little troubles and be sure of support and sympathy. Who ran to
catch me when I fell and would some pretty story tell and kiss the place
to make it well? The chairman of the local bench of magistrates. That is
the policeman's creed.

Anyone, therefore, who when a boy ever went running to his mother with a
tale of wrongs and injuries and instead of condolences received a kick
in the pants will be able to appreciate this officer's chagrin as he
passed the late scene under mental review. Sir Aylmer's attitude had
hurt and disappointed him. If this was how a constable's legitimate
complaints were received by those whose duty it was to comfort and
console, then Elsie, he felt, was right and the quicker he left the
Force, the better.

If you had approached Harold Potter as he stood there in his bush,
smoking his pipe and spitting bitterly, and had said, 'Well, Constable
Potter, how are you feeling?' he would have replied that he was feeling
fed up. And there is little doubt that this black mood would have grown
in intensity, had not something happened which abruptly wrenched his
thoughts from their contemplation of the policeman's unhappy lot.

Through the branches before him he had a good view of the front of the
house, and at this moment there appeared on the balcony of one of the
windows on the first floor a female figure in a red jacket, wearing upon
its head a red thingummy, like as it might have been a scarf. It came to
the balcony rail, looked left and right, then went back into the room.

The spectacle left Harold Potter gaping. A thrill ran through him from
the base of the helmet to the soles of his regulation boots. He started
to say 'Coo!' but the word froze on his moustache.

Harold Potter was a man who could reason. A mystery


220


woman in a red jacket had pushed him into the duck pond. A mystery
woman in a red jacket was in that room on the first floor. It did not
take him long to suspect that these two mystery women might be one and
the same.

But how to make sure?

It seemed to him that there lay before him the choice between two
courses of action. He could go and report to Sir Aylmer, or he could pop
along to the potting shed, where there was a light ladder, secure this
light ladder, take it to the side of the house, prop it up and climb to
that first floor window and peer in. A steady look at close range would
establish the identity of the red-jacketed figure.

He did not hesitate long between these alternative plans. Rejecting
almost immediately the idea of going and reporting to Sir Aylmer, he
knocked out his pipe and started for the potting shed.


Sally, her tea and buttered toast long since consumed, had begun to feel
lonely. It was quite a time now since Pongo had left her, and she
yearned for his return. Seated on the chaise longue, she thought what a
baa-lamb he was and longed for him to come back so that she could go on
stroking his head and telling him how much she loved him.

An odd thing, this love, and one about which it is futile to argue. If
individual A. finds in individual B. a glamour which escapes the notice
of the general public, the general public has simply got to accept the
situation without protest, just as it accepted without protest, though
perhaps with a silent sigh of regret, the fact of Mr Brotherhood, the
curate» getting measles.

Seeing Sally sitting on the chaise-longue with clasped hands and starry
eyes, her heart overflowing with love for Pongo, it would have been
useless for a discriminating third party to tap her on the shoulder and
try to persuade her that there was nothing in the prospect of a lifelong
union with Reginald Twistleton to get starry-eyed about. Fruitless to
attempt to


221


sketch for her a picture of Reginald Twistleton as seen by the
cooler-headed. She was in love, and she liked it.

The only cloud that darkened her sky was the fear lest a shrewd girl
like Hermione Bostock, having secured such a prize, might refuse to
relinquish it, but she need have had no anxiety. Hermione was
relinquishing the prize at that very moment. When, some twenty minutes
after he had left it, Pongo re-entered the room, there was a dazed look
on his face as if he had recently been mixed up with typhoons,
waterspouts and other Acts of God, but in his eyes shone the light which
comes into the eyes of men who have found the blue bird.

Sally was not able to detect this immediately, her vision being obscured
by the handkerchief with which he was mopping his forehead, and her
first words were reproachful.

'Oh, angel, what a time you've been."

'Sorry.'

'I went out on to the balcony just now to see if I could see you, but
you weren't in sight. I know you had to brood, but need you have brooded
so long?'

Pongo lowered the handkerchief.

'I wasn't brooding,' he said. 'I was chatting with Hermione.'

Sally gave a jump.

'Then you found her?'

'She found me.'

'And what happened?'

Pongo moved to the mirror and inspected himself in it. He seemed to be
looking for grey hairs.

'Well, that I can hardly tell you,' he said. 'The whole thing's a bit of
a blurr. Have you ever been in a really bad motor smash? Or hit by an
atom bomb? No? Then it's hard to explain. Still, the fact that emerges
is that the engagement's off.'

'Oh, Pongo!'

'Oh, Sally!'

'Oh, Pongo darling! Then we can live happy ever after.'

Pongo applied the handkerchief to his forehead once more.

'Yes,' he agreed, 'after a brief interval for picking up the

222

pieces and reassembling the faculties. I don't mind telling you the
recent scene has left me a bit weak.'

'My poor lamb. I wish I had some smelling salts.'

'So do 1.1 could use a bucketful.'

'Was it so awful?'

'Quite an,ordeal.'

'What did you say to her?'

'I didn't get a chance of saying anything to her, except, "Oh, there you
are," right at the start. She bore the burden of the conversash.'

'You don't mean it was she who broke off the engagement?'

'And how! You know, Uncle Fred ought to be in some sort of home.'

'Why?'

'It appears that he met Hermione and spilled the beans with a lavish
hand. He told her so many things about me that I wonder she remembered
them all. But she did.'

'Such as ?'

'Well, getting pinched at the dog races and going down to the
drawing-room last night to get a spot and being caught this morning in
Ma Bostock's wardrobe. Things like that.'

'In the wardrobe? What were you doing there?'

'I had gone to her room to get you a lipstick, and '

'Oh, Pongo! My hero! Did you really do that for me?'

'Not much I wouldn't do for you. Look what you did for me. Pushing
Potter into that pond.'

'I think that's what's so splendid about us. Each helps each. It's the
foundation of a happy married life. So Uncle Fred told her all that
about you? Bless him.'

'Would you put it like that?'

'Well, he saved you from a girl you could never have been happy with.'

'I couldn't be happy with any girl except you. Yes. I suppose he did. I
hadn't looked at it in that way.'

'He never minds how much trouble he takes, if he feels that he's
spreading sweetness and light.'

'No. There have been complaints about it on all sides, and I still
maintain that he ought to be in a padded cell with the

223

board of Lunacy Commissioners sitting on his head. However, I agree
that he has smoothed our path. I mean to say, here we are, what?'

'Here we are.'

'All our problems solved. Nothing to worry about any more.'

'Not a thing.'

'Oh, Sally!'

'Oh,Pongo!'

The embrace into which they fell was a close one, close enough, had it
taken place in Hollywood, to have caused Eric Johnston to shake his head
dubiously and recommend cutting a few hundred feet, but not so close as
to deprive Pongo of a view of the window. And Sally, nestling in his
arms, was concerned to notice that he had suddenly stiffened, as if he
had been turned into a pillar of salt.

'What's the matter?' she asked.

Pongo gave a short gulp. He seemed to find a difficulty in speaking.

'Don't look now," he said, 'but that blighter Potter has just stepped
off a ladder on to the balcony.'


It was at about the moment when Constable Potter, having found the light
ladder, was starting to lift it and Pongo, in the bedroom on the first
floor, had begun his emotional description of the recent conference with
Hermione that Major Plank turned his car in at the gates of Ashenden
Manor and proceeded up the drive at a high rate of speed.

He had been progressing at a high rate of speed ever since leaving the
Bull's Head. He would probably have driven fairly fast in any event, for
he was one of those men who do, but what made him so particularly
disinclined on the present occasion to loiter and look at the scenery
was the fact that the full significance of Lord Ickenham's words in the
saloon bar had just come home to him. He had remembered, that is to say,
that the man whom he had known as Barmy Twistleton had told him that he
was now Lord Ickenham.


224


There were circles in London where the eccentricities of Lord Ickenham
were a favourite topic of conversation, and it was in these circles that
Major Plank, when not among the alligators, was accustomed to mix. His
old schoolmate's character and habits, therefore, were fully known to
him, and he was able to form a vivid picture of what would be the effect
on the reputation of anyone whom the other had decided to impersonate.

How long this public menace had been established at Ashenden Manor he
did not know, but he felt very strongly that even a single day was too
much and that anything like forty-eight hours would have caused •&
stigma to rest upon the grand old name of Brabazon-Plank which it would
take a lifetime to remove.

There is probably no one who moves more slippily than a Brazilian
explorer on his way to expose an impostor who has been causing stigmas
to rest upon his name, and not even Hermione could have made better
speed up the drive than did this fermenting Major. His was a large,
flat, solid foot, admirably adapted for treading on accelerators, and he
pressed it down with a will.

Arriving at the house, he was in far too great a hurry to ring the front
door bell and wait till it was answered. Voices were proceeding from the
open French window to his right, presumably that of the drawing-room,
and he went thither and walked in. He found himself in the presence of
his young subordinate, Bill Oakshott, and a rugged man of an older
vintage who was puffing at a white moustache of the soup-strainer class.
He had a feeling, looking at them, that they were upset about something.

Nor was he mistaken. Both Bill and his Uncle Aylmer had come to the tea
table with their bosoms full of the perilous stuff that weighs upon the
heart. The memory of his craven behaviour during that interview with
Hermione had not ceased to torture Bill, and Sir Aylmer was still in the
grip of the baffled fury which comes to men of imperious nature when
their daughters tell them they must not bring actions against
publishers, a fury which his conversation with Constable Potter

225

had done nothing to alleviate. To say that William Oakshott and Sir
Aylmer Bostock were human powder magazines which it needed but a spark
to explode is not only clever, but true.

It is possible, however, that the soothing influence of tea, muffins and
cucumber sandwiches might have succeeded in averting disaster, allowing
the exchanges to confine themselves to harmless commonplaces, had not
Sir Aylmer, too pleased to keep such splendid news to himself, chanced
to mention that Hermione had told him that, her romance having sprung an
unforeseen leak, he would not have to pass the evening of his life with
Reginald Twistleton as his son-in-law. For this led Bill to exclaim 'Oh,
gosh!' in an enraptured voice and, pressed to explain his elation, to
say that the thought had crossed his mind that if Hermione was back in
circulation again, there might be a chance for a chap who had loved her
with a growing fervour for years and years and years: and this in its
turn led Sir Aylmer to attack him with tooth and claw. There was a smile
on hs nephew's face which he considered a silly smile, and he addressed
himself without delay to the task of wiping it off.

'Gar!' he said, speaking dangerously through a mouthful of muffin, and
added that there was no need for Bill to grin all over his beastly face
like a damned hyena, because whether free or engaged Hermione would not
touch him with a barge pole.

'Why should she?' asked Sir Aylmer. 'You? She looks on you as a '

'I know,' said Bill, with a return of gloom. 'A brother."

'Not brother,' corrected Sir Aylmer. 'Sheep.'

A quiver ran through Bill's massive frame. His jaw fell and his eyes
widenened.

'Sheep?'

'Sheep.'

'Sheep?' said Bill.

'Sheep,' said Sir Aylmer firmly. 'A poor, spineless sheep who can't say
boo to a goose.'

A more practised debater would have turned this charge to his advantage
by challenging the speaker to name three sheep who could say boo to a
goose, but Bill merely stood rigid, his fists clenched, his nostrils
dilated, his face mantled with the 226

blush of shame and indignation, regretting that ties of blood and his
companion's advanced years rendered impossible that slosh in the eye for
which the other seemed to him to be asking, nay pleading, with every
word.

'Sheep,' said Sir Aylrner, winding up the speech for the prosecution.
'She told me so herself.'

It was on this delicate situation that Major Plank intruded.

'Hullo there,' he said, striding in with the calm assurance of a man
accustomed for years to walk uninvited into the huts of native chiefs.
'Hullo, Bill.'

It would be difficult to advance more conclusive proof of the turmoil
into which Bill Oakshott's soul had been thrown by his uncle's words
than by saying that the unexpected entry of the last man he would have
wished to see in the drawing-room of Ashenden Manor did not cause so
much as a gleam of horror to come into his eyes. He regarded him dully,
his mind still occupied by that sheep sequence. Did Hermione, he was
asking himself, really look on him as a sheep? And, arising from that,
had she a prejudice against sheep? The evidence went to show that she
had none against baa-lambs, but sheep, of course, might be a different
matter.

It was left to Sir Aylmer to do the honours.

'Who the hell are you?' he asked, not unthankful that here was another
object on which he could work off some of the spleen induced by the
chit-chat of daughters and policemen.

Major Plank had had far too much experience of this sort of thing to be
abashed by nervous irritability on the part of a host. Many of the
householders on whom he had dropped in in his time had said it with
spears.

'Who the hell are youT he replied agreeably. 'I'm looking for Mugsy
Bostock.'

Sir Aylmer started.

'I am Sir Aylmer Bostock,' he said, and Major Plank stared at him
incredulously.

'You?' he said. 'Don't be an ass. Mugsy Bostock is younger than me, and
you look a million. Have you seen your Uncle Mugsy anywhere, Bill?'

It was at this point that Jane, the parlourmaid, entered bear227



ing strawberries in a bowl, for they did themselves well at tea time at
Ashenden Manor - cucumber sandwiches, muffins, strawberries and
everything. Sir Aylmer addressed her in the carrying voice which was so
characteristic of him.

'jane!'

A lesser girl would have dropped the bowl. Jane merely shook like an
aspen.

'Yes, sir?'

'Tell this son of a ... this gentleman who I am.'

'Sir Aylmer Bostock, sir.'

'Right,' said Sir Aylmer, like the judge of one of those general
knowledge quizzes which are so popular nowadays.

Major Plank said he was dashed.

'It's that ghastly moustache that misled me,' he explained. 'If you go
about the place behind a whacking great white moustache, you can't blame
people for taking you for a centenarian. Well, nice to see you again,
Mugsy, and all that, but, cutting the guff, I came here on business.
Plank's my name.'

'Plank!'

'Brabazon-Plank. You may remember me at school. I've just discovered
that that raving lunatic, Barmy Twistleton - Lord Ickenham he calls
himself now - has been passing himself off as me under your roof, and
it's got to stop. I don't know what made him do it, and I don't care,
the point is I'll be damned if I'm going to have people thinking that
Barmy Twistleton is me. Good God! How would you like it yourself?'

There had been an instant, just after the words, 'Plank's my name,' when
Sir Aylmer had given a quick and extraordinarily realistic impersonation
of a harpooned whale, shaking from stem to stern as if a barb had
entered his flesh. But as the speaker continued, this had given place to
a frozen calm, the dangerous calm that heralds the storm.

'I can tell you what made him do it,' he said, allowing his eyes to play
upon Bill like flame-throwers. 'He wished to be of assistance to my
nephew here. We are holding our annual village fete shortly, and one of
its features is a contest for bonny babies. My nephew was to have acted
as judge.'

'Barmy told me he was going to be the judge.'

228

"That was the latest arrangement. My nephew persuaded him to take his
place.'

'Very sensible of you, Bill,' said Major Plank cordially. 'Dashed
dangerous things, these baby contests. The little beasts are bad enough
themselves, but it's the mothers you want to watch out for. Look,' he
said, baring his leg and indicating a cicatrice on the calf. "That's
what I got once in Peru for being fool enough to let myself be
talked,into judging a competition for bonny babies. The mother of one of
the Hon. Mentions got after me with a native dagger.'

'The problem then arose,' proceeded Sir Aylmer, still speaking evenly
and spacing his words with care, 'of how to introduce Lord Ickenham into
my house. He, was well aware that I would never allow him to enter my
house, if I knew who he was. So he said he was Major Brabazon-Plank, the
explorer, and my nephew endorsed this statement. What do you mean,'
roared Sir Aylmer, suddenly abandoning the calm, judicial method and
becoming a thing of fire and fury, 'what do you mean, you infernal young
scallywag, by introducing impostors into my house?'

He would have spoken further, for it was obvious that the greater part
of his music was still in him, but at this moment Bill exploded.

A good deal is always required to change a mental attitude which has
endured for a number of years. From early boyhood Bill Oakshott had
regarded this uncle of his with respectful awe, much as a nervous young
prehistoric man might have regarded the leader of his tribe. He had
quailed before his wrath, listened obsequiously to his stories, done all
that lay in his power to humour him. And had this scene taken place at a
time when he was in normal mood, there is little doubt that he would
have folded like an accordion and ajlowed himself to be manhandled
without protest.

But Bill was not in normal mood. His soul was seething in rebellion like
a cistern struck by a thunderbolt. The interview with Hermione had left
him raw and wincing. The information that she regarded him as a sheep
had dropped vitriol on the wounds. And now, not once but three times,
this white-mous


229


tached cuckoo in the nest had alluded to Ashenden Manor as 'my house'.
At these emotional moments there is always something, generally trivial
in itself, which fulfils the function of the last straw, and with Bill
now it was this description of Ashenden Manor.

In the automatic, barely conscious fashion of the Englishman at tea-time
he had been continuing to eat and drink throughout his uncle's
exposition, and for an instant a muffin prevented him expressing his
views. He swallowed it, and was at liberty to proceed.

' "My house?" ' he said. 'I like that. Where do you get that "my house"
stuff?'

Sir Aylmer said that that was not the point, and was starting to
indicate once more what the point was, when he was swept away as if by a
tidal wave.

' "My house!" ' repeated Bill, choking on the words like one who chokes
upon a muffin. 'Of all the crust! Of all the nerve! It's about time,
Uncle Aylmer, that we got this thing cleared up about who this ruddy
house belongs to. Let's do it now.'

'Yes, let's,' said Major Plank, interested. A man with five sisters and
seven aunts, he was well versed in family rows and thought that this one
promised to be in the first rank and wanted pushing along. 'Whose house
is it?'

'Mine,' thundered Bill. 'Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine.'

'I see,' said Major Plank, getting his drift. 'Yours. Then where does
Mugsy come in?'

'He planted himself here when I was a mere kid, unable to do anything
about it. I was only sixteen when my father died, and he barged over
from Cheltenham and got into the woodwork.'

'What happened when you came of age?'

'Nothing. He stuck on.'

'You should have booted him out.'

'Of course I should.'

'That was the moment.'

'Yes.'

'Why didn't you?'

'I hadn't the heart.'

230

'Mistaken kindness.'

'Well, I'm going to do it now. I've had enough of this business of being
a ... what's the word?"

'Fathead?'

'Cipher in the home. I'm sick and tired of being a cipher in the home.
You can jolly well clear out, Uncle-Aylmer. You understand me? Buzz off.
Where you buzz to, I don't care, but buzz. Go back to Cheltenham, if you
like. Or Bexhill.'

'Or Bognor Regis," suggested Major Plank.

'Or Bognor Regis. Go anywhere you like, but you're not going to stay
here. Is that clear?'

'Quite clear,' said Major Plank. 'Very well put.'

'Right,' said Bill.

He strode out through the French window, and Major Plank helped himself
to a muffin.

'Nice chap, Bill,' he said. 'I like a young fellow who knows his own
mind. Extraordinarily good muffins, these, Mugsy. I'll have another."


Emerging through the French window, Bill passed along the terrace,
walking rapidly towards the spot where the drive began. His eyes glowed.
He was breathing stertorously.

The appetite grows by what it feeds on. So far from soothing him and
restoring him to everyday placidity, his throwing off of the shackles
had left Bill Oakshott in a mood for fresh encounters. He had tasted
blood, and wanted more. It is often so with quiet young men who at long
last assert themselves.

He was in the frame of mind when he would have liked to meet Joe Louis
and pick a quarrel with him, and as he turned the corner and came into
the drive there caught his eye something which seemed to have been sent
in direct answer to prayer.

It was not Joe Louis, but it was the next best thing. What he had seen
was a stout young man with a pink nose and hornrimmed spectacles in
conversation with Hermione Bostock.

231

Chapter 14


It is never easy for a high-strung young man whose whole future as a
publisher of the book beautiful is being decided at a country house to
sit in an inn two miles from that house, waiting patiently for news to
be brought to him from the front. With each long minute that goes by his
nervousness increases. The limbs twitch, the eyeballs roll, the illusion
that there are ants in his pants becomes more and more pronounced, until
eventually the urge to be closer to the centre of things grows so
imperious that he yields to it.

That was why Otis Painter had been absent from the Bull's Head when
Hermione arrived there. He had started to walk to Ashenden Manor. Like
Edith of the swan's neck after the Battle of Hastings, he wanted to find
out what had been going on.

When we say that Otis had started to walk to Ashenden Manor, it would be
more correct to put it that he thought he had ; in actual fact, having
got his instructions twisted, he had turned to the left instead of to
the right on leaving the inn, and it was only after he had proceeded a
mile and three quarters through delightful country that he discovered
that though he was improving his figure and getting lots of pure air
into his lungs, he was diminishing his chances of reaching his
destination with every step that he took.

Returning to the Bull's Head, he had borrowed a bicycle from the boy who
cleaned the boots, a courteous and obliging lad of the name of Erbut
with blacking all over his face, and after a couple of unpleasant
spills, for it was many years since he had cycled and the old skill had
rather deserted him, had found himself at the top of the drive. There,
feeling that this was as far as it was prudent to penetrate into
territory where


O.D.-I2	233


there was a grave risk of meeting Sir Aylmer Bostock, he deposited his
machine behind a tree, concealed himself in the bushes and resumed his
waiting. And presently Hermione appeared, walking briskly.

As she drew near and he was enabled to get a clear view of her, his
heart sank, for he could see that her lips were tightly set, her bosom
heaving and her eyes bright and stormy. She looked, in a word, like a
daughter who, approaching her father in the matter of withdrawing legal
actions against publishers, has come up against something too hot to
handle.

Actually, of course, Hermione's appearance was simply the normal
appearance of a girl who has just been ticking off a viper. After a
dust-up with a viper the female lips always become tightly set, and it
is rarely that the bosom does not heave. But Otis did not know this, and
it was with a mind filled with the gloomiest forebodings that he stepped
from his hiding place. 'Here comes the bad news,' he was saying to
himself.

'Well?' he said, uttering the monosyllable loudly and raspingly, as so
often happens when the nerves are overstrained.

The briskness of her pace had taken Hermione past him, and it was from
behind that he had addressed her. At the sound of a voice suddenly
splitting the welkin where no voice should have been she left the ground
in an upward direction and came to earth annoyed and ruffled.

'I wish you wouldn't pop out of bushes like that,' she said with a good
deal of asperity.

Otis was too agitated to go into the niceties of etiquette and
procedure.

'What happened?' he asked.

'I bit my tongue.'

4I mean,' said Otis, clicking his, 'when you saw your father.'

Hermione mastered her emotion. Her tongue was still paining her, but she
had remembered that this man was a publisher who believed in column
spreads in all the literate Sunday papers.

'Oh, yes,' she said.

The reply dissatisfied Otis. It seemed to him to lack lucidity,

234

and lucidity was what he desired - or, as a literate Sunday paper would
put it, desiderated.

'What do you mean, Oh, yes? What did he say?'

Hermione's composure was now restored. She still disapproved of her
sponsor's practice of popping out of bushes and speaking like a foghorn
down the back of her neck, but was willing to let bygones be bygones.

'It's quite all right, Mr Painter,' she said, smiling kindly upon Otis.
'Father has withdrawn the suit.'

Otis reeled.

'He hasT

'Yes.'

'Gee!' said Otis, and it was at this point that he folded Hermione in
his embrace and started to kiss her.

The last thing we desire being to cast aspersions on publishers, a most
respectable class of men, we hasten to say that behaviour of this kind
is very unusual with these fine fellows. Statistics show that the number
of authoresses kissed annually by publishers is so small that, if placed
end to end, they would reach scarcely any distance. Otis's action was
quite exceptional, and Hodder and Stoughton, had they observed it, would
have looked askance. So would Jonathan Cape. And we think we speak for
Heinemann, Macmillan, Benn, Gollancz and Herbert Jenkins Ltd when we say
that they, too, would have been sickened by the spectacle.

In defence of Otis there are several extenuating points to be urged. In
the first place, his relief was so intense and his happiness so profound
that he had to kiss something. In the second place, Hermione was a very
beautiful girl (not that that would have weighed with Faber and Faber)
and she had smiled upon him very kindly. And, finally, we cannot judge
men who have lived on the left bank of the Seine by the same standards
which we apply to those whose home is in London. If Eyre and
Spottiswoode had taken a flat in the Rue Jacob, within easy reach of the
Boul' Mich', they would have been surprised how quickly they would have
forgotten the lessons they had learned at their mother's knee.

It was unfortunate that none of these arguments presented

235

themselves to Bill Oakshott as he turned the corner. In Otis Painter he
saw just another libertine, flitting from flower to flower and sipping,
and we are already familiar with his prejudice against libertines. His
impulse on seeing one, we recall, was to pull his head off at the roots
and rip his insides out with his bare hands, and it was with this
procedure in mind that he now advanced on the entwined pair. He gripped
Otis by the coat collar and tore him from the clinch, and he would
almost certainly have started to detach his head, had not Her mione
uttered a piercing cry. 'Don't kill, him, Bill! He's my publisher.' And
then, as she saw him hesitate, she added: 'He's doing my next three
books and giving me twenty per cent rising to twenty-five above three
thousand.' ' It was enough. Practically berserk though Bill was, he
could still reason, and reason told him that publishers of this type
must be nursed along rather than disembowelled. Hermione's literary
career was as dear to him as to herself, and he knew that he could never
forgive himself if he jeopardized it by eviscerating a man capable of
planning contracts on these spacious lines. He released Otis, who
tottered back against a tree and stood there panting and polishing his
spectacles.

Bill, too, was panting. His breath came in loud gasps as he strode up to
Hermione and grabbed her by the wrist. There was in his demeanour now no
trace of that craven diffidence which had marked it during their
previous interview in the hall. Since then William Oakshott, with a
victory over a tyrant under his belt, had become a changed man, and the
man he had changed into was a sort of composite of James Cagney and
Attila the Hun. He felt strong and masterful and in the best possible
vein for trying out the Ickenham system. Otis Painter, peering at him
through his spectacles, which he had now resumed, was reminded of a
Parisian inspecteur who had once arrested him at the Quatz Arts Ball.

Nor was Hermione unimpressed. She was now being waggled about, and she
found the process, though physically unpleasant, giving her a thrill of
ecstasy.

Like all very beautiful girls, Hermione Bostock had received


236

in her time a great deal of homage from the other sex. For years she
had been moving in a world of men who frisked obsequiously about her and
curled up like carbon paper if she spoke crossly to them, and she had
become surfeited with male worship. Even when accepting Pongo's
proposals she had yearned secretly for something rough and tough with a
nasty eye and the soul of a second mate of a tramp steamer. And in the
last quarter where she would have thought of looking she had found him.
She had always been fond of Bill, but in an indulgent, almost
contemptuous fashion, regarding him, as she had once mentioned to her
father, as a sheep. And now the sheep, casting off its clothing, had
revealed itself as one of the wolves and now the worst of them.

Little wonder that Hermione Bostock, as Bill having waggled her about,
clasped her to his bosom and showered kisses on her upturned face, felt
that here was the man she had been looking for since she first read The
Way of an Eagle.

'My mate!' said Bill. Then, speaking from between clenched teeth,
'Hermione!' 'Yes, Bill?'

'You're going to marry me.' 'Yes, Bill.'

'That's clearly understood, is it?' 'Yes, Bill.'

'No more fooling about with these Pongos and what not.' 'No, Bill.'

'Right,' said the dominant male. He turned to Otis, who had been looking
on at the scene with a sort of nostalgia, for it had reminded him of the
old, happy days on the left bank of the Seine. 'So you're going to
publish her books, are you?'

'Yes,' said Otis eagerly. He wanted there to be no mistake about this.
'All of them.'

'Giving her twenty per cent rising to twenty-five above three thousand?'
'Yes.'

'Why not a straight twenty-five?' said Bill, and Otis agreed that that
would be much better. He had been on the point, he said, of suggesting
it himself.


237


'Fine,' said Bill. 'Well, come along in, both of you, and have some
tea.'

Hermione regretfully shook her head.

'I can't, darling. I must be getting back to London. Mother has been
waiting for me at my flat since one o'clock,'and she may be wondering
what has become of me. I shall have to drive like the wind. Can I give
you a lift, Mr Painter?'

Otis shuddered.

'I guess I'll go by train.'

'You'll find it slow.'

'I like it slow.'

'Very well. Good-bye, darling.'

'Good-bye,' said Bill. Til be up in London tomorrow.*

'Splendid. Come and see me to the car. I left it outside the house.'

Otis remained, leaning against his tree. He felt a little faint, but
very happy. Presently the two-seater, with Hermione bent over the wheel,
whizzed round the corner and passed him at a speed which made him close
his eyes and say to himself 'There but for the grace of God goes Otis
Painter.' When he opened them again, he saw Bill approaching.

'Why not thirty?' said Bill.

'Pardon?'

'Per cent. For her books. Not twenty-five.' , 'Oh, ah, yes. Why, sure,'
said Otis. 'Thirty might be nicer.'

'You don't want to skimp.'

That's right. You don't.'

'And publicity. You believe in lots of that, I hope?'

'Oh, sure.'

'Fine. She was always complaining that her last publishers wouldn't push
her books.'

'The poor fish. I mean, fishes.'

'Used to stall her off with a lot of rot about all that counted being
word of mouth advertising.'

'Crazy saps.'

'You intend to advertise largely?'

'In all the literate Sunday papers.'

'How about the literate weeklies?'

238

'In those, too. I also thought of sandwich men and posters on the
walls.'

Bill had not supposed that he would ever be able to regard this man with
affection, but he did so now. He still had him docketed as a libertine,
but indulgence must be accorded to libertines whose hearts are in the
right place.

'Fine,' he said. 'Posters on the walls? Yes, fine.'

'Of course,' said Otis, 'all that kind of thing costs money.'

'Well spent,' Bill pointed out.

'Sure,' agreed Otis. 'Don't get the idea that I'm weakening. But it
begins to look as if I may have to dig up a little more capital from
somewhere. There isn't any too much of it in the old sock. You wouldn't
feel like putting a thousand pounds into my business, would you?'

'That's an idea. Or two?'

'Or three? Or, say, look why not five? Nice round number.'

'Would you call five a round number?'

'I think so.'

'All right,' said Bill. 'Five, then.'

Otis's eyes closed again, this time in silent ecstasy. He had had his
dreams, of course. Somewhere in the world, he had told himself, there
must be angels in human shape willing to put money into a shaky
publishing firm. But never had he really supposed that he would meet
one, and still less that, if he did, such an angel would go as high as
five thousand.

Opening his eyes, he found that he was alone. His benefactor had either
been snatched back to heaven or had gone round the corner to the
terrace. He took his bicycle from behind the tree and flung himself on
the saddle like a gay professional rider. And when half-way down the
drive he had another of those unfortunate spills, he merely smiled
amusedly, as one good naturedly recognizing that the laugh is on him.

Life looked very good to Otis Painter. In the old left bank days he had
been at some pains to cultivate a rather impressive pessimism, but now
he was pure optimism from side-whiskers to shoe sole.

If Pippa had happened to pass at that moment, singing of God being in
His heaven and all right with the world, he


239


would have shaken her by the hand and told her he knew just how she
felt.


Bill had not been snatched up to heaven. It was to the terrace that he
had made his way on leaving Otis, and he had not been there many minutes
when Lord Ickenham appeared, walking jauntily like a man whose forty
winks in a field has refreshed him. At the sight of Bill he hurried
forward with outstretched hand.

'My dear chap, a thousand congratulations.'

Bill gaped. This seemed to him clairvoyance.

'How on earth did you know?'

Lord Ickenham explained that his young friend's ecstatic expression,
rather like that of a cherub or seraph on the point of singing Hosanna,
would alone have been enough to tell him.

'But, as a matter of fact,' he said, 'I had the news from an
acquaintance of mine whom I met bicycling along the road just now. Well,
when I say bicycling along the road, he was lying in a ditch with his
feet in the air, chuckling softly. He told me everything. It seems that
he was a witness of the proceedings, and he speaks highly of your
technique. You strode up and grabbed her by the wrist, eh?'

'Yes.'

'Waggled her about a bit?.'

'Yes.'

'Then clasped her to your bosom and showered kisses on her upturned
face?'

'Yes.'

'With the results that might have been anticipated. I told you the
Ickenham system never fails. Brought up against it, the proudest beauty
wilts and signs on the dotted line. It saddens you a little now, no
doubt, to think of all the years you wasted on timid devotion.'

'It does, rather.'

'Timid devotion gets a lover nowhere. I was chatting with


240


ft


Miss Bean this morning, and she was telling me that she had a good deal
of trouble at one time with Constable Potter owing to his devotion being
so timid. She says that in the early days of his courtship he used to
walk her out and chew his moustache and talk about the situation in
China, but no real action. So one evening she said "Come on, my lad, get
on with it," and he got on with it. And after that everything went like
clockwork.'

Tine,' said Bill absently. He had been thinking of Hermione. Totter?' he
went on, his mind returning from its flights. 'That reminds me. You
haven't a bit of raw steak on you, have you?'

Lord Ickenham felt in his pockets.

'Sorry, no. I seem to have come out without any. Why? You feel peckish?'

'Elsie Bean was out here a moment ago, saying she was in the market for
a bit of raw steak. It's needed for Potter. Apparently someone has been
sloshing him in the eye.'

'Indeed? Who?'

'I didn't gather. Her story was confused. I seemed to catch some mention
of Pongo, but would Pongo punch policemen in the eye?'

'It seems unlikely.'

'I must have got the name wrong. Still, there it is. Someone has given
Potter a shiner, and he's fed to the tonsils. You see, he got pushed
into the duck pond this afternoon, and now on top of that comes this
biff in the eye, so he feels he's had enough of being a policeman. He's
chucking it up and buying a pub, Elsie tells me. She seemed rather
braced about it.'

Lord Ickenham drew a deep, slow breath of contentment and satisfaction.
He looked pleased with himself, and who shall blame him? A man whose
mission in life it is to spread sweetness and light and to bring the
young folk together may surely be forgiven a touch of complacency when
happy endings start going off like crackers all round him and he sees
the young folk coming together in droves.

'Great news, Bill Oakshott,' he said. 'This is ... what is that neat
expression of yours? Ah, yes, "fine 1" ... This is fine. You're all
right. Pongo's all right. And now the divine Bean is


241


alt right. It reminds one of the final spasm of a musical comedy.' He
paused and regarded his companion with some surprise. 'Are you wearing
woolly winter underclothing?' he asked.

The? No. Why?'

'You keep wriggling, as though something were irritating the epidermis.'

Bill blushed.

'Well, as a matter of fact,' he confessed, 'I'm finding it awfully
difficult to keep still. After what's happened, I mean. You know how it
is.'

'I do, indeed. I, too, have lived in Arcady. You would like to go for a
long, rapid walk and work off steam? Of course you would. Push off,
then.'

'You don't mind me leaving you?'

'Well, one hates to lose you, of course, but better a temporary
separation than that you should burst all over the terrace. Au revoir,
then, and once more a thousand congratulations.'

Bill disappeared round the corner like a dog let off the chain,
gathering momentum with every stride. His pace was so good and his
preoccupation so intense .that it was not until he was out in the open
road a mile away that it suddenly came to him that he had omitted to
inform Lord Ickenham of the arrival of Major Plank.

He paused, debated within himself the advisability of going back,
decided that it was too late and walked on. And presently Lord Ickenham
and Major Plank had faded from his mind and he was thinking again
exclusively in terms of wedding bells and honeymoons.


As things turned out, it would have been unnecessary for him to retrace
his steps, for almost immediately after his departure Major Plank came
out of the house, wiping butter from his lips. 'Hullo, Barmy,' he said,
sighting Lord Ickenham. 'You're too

242

L


late for the muffins. I've finished them. And very good they were, too.'
He replaced his handkerchief. 'You're surprised to see me here, aren't
you? Thought you'd baffled me, eh? Well, what happened was that shortly
after you left the pub that well-nourished girl behind the bar told me
the bonny baby contest was off. So along I came.'

Lord Ickenham had given a slight start on seeing his old friend, but his
voice, when he spoke, was as calm and level as ever.

'Off, is it? Why?'

'Outbreak of measles. Thousands stricken.'

'I see. And have you exposed me?'

'Exposed you is right.'

'Did Mugsy seem interested?"

'Most.'

'One sees how he might well be, of course. You're a ruthless old bird,
Bimbo.'

Major Plank bridled.

'Ruthless be blowed. I merely took the necessary steps to protect my
reputation. And what do you mean, "old bird"? I'm a year younger than
you. My idea of an old bird is Mugsy. I was shocked when I saw how he
had aged. He looks like the chap in the Bible, Methuselah, the fellow
who lived to a thousand and ate grass.'

'Methuselah didn't eat grass.'

'Yes, he did.'

'He never ate grass in his life. You're thinking of Nebuchadnezzar.'

'Oh, am I? Well, the principle's the same. And now I suppose you'll be
sliding off. You'd have done better to start packing when I told you to.
Still, you're in luck in one way. You won't run into Mugsy. He's in that
room over there, holding a court martial.'

'A what?'

'Court martial. There have been all sorts of stirring goings on here.
Just as I was finishing the muffins, a policeman with a black eye barged
into the drawing-room with a tall, thin, light haired young chap in one
hand and a dashed pretty girl in a red


243


jacket in the other, and said that the girl had pushed him into a duck
pond and that when he was starting to apprehend her the light-haired
young chap had biffed him in the eye. And Mugsy has taken them into that
room there and is sitting on the case. I gather he's a magistrate or
something and so is entitled to execute summary justice. I'm sorry for
that young couple. It looks like a sticky week-end for them.'

Lord Ickenham gave his moustache a thoughtful twirl.

'Leave me, Bimbo,' he said. 'I would be alone."

'Why?'

'I want to ponder.'

'Oh, ponder? Right ho! I'll go back and have some more strawberries,'
said Major Plank.

He returned to the drawing-room, and Lord Ickenham, left alone, lost no
time in giving himself up to that survey of ways and means which the
other's presence had hindered. For some moments he paced up and down,
his hands behind his back and a concentrated look in his eye. The
tautness of his features showed that his agile brain was not sparing
itself.

And presently it was plain that it had given service. His face cleared.
The lips beneath the trim moustache curved in a contented smile.

He crossed the terrace and went into the collection room.


Only Sir Aylmer was in the collection room when he entered. He, too, was
wearing a contented smile.

For the first time that evening Sir Aylmer was feeling cheerful ; as
cheerful as a Colosseum lion which after a trying day when everything
has gone wrong has found itself unexpectedly presented with a couple of
Christian martyrs and has been able to deal faithfully with them. There
is nothing which so braces up a chairman of a bench of magistrates in
times of despondency as the infliction of a sharp sentence on a pair of
criminals. It would be too much to say that he regarded Lord Ickenham
amiably, but he did not bite him.

'Ha,' he said. 'It's you, is it?'

244

Lord Ickenham preserved his suavity.

'Ah, Mugsy,' he said. 'I understand you've met Bimbo Plank. How did you
think he was looking? He thought you had aged. Where's Sally?'

'Who?'

'Bimbo told me she and my nephew Pongo were in here with you.'

Sir Aylmer started.

'You know that girl?'

'She is my honorary niece."

A warm glow pervaded Sir Aylmer's system, as if he had been taking
Doctor Smythe's Tonic Swamp Juice. This was even better than he had
hoped.

'Oh, is she?' he said. 'Then it may interest you to know that I've just
given her thirty days without the option, and your nephew the same.
Potter's locked them up in the scullery while ,he has his eye bathed,
and in a few minutes he'll be taking them off in custody.'

'A harsh sentence.'

'The only possible sentence. One of the most disgraceful cases that has
ever come before me. She pushed Potter into the duck pond.'

'Well, what does a policeman expect, if he deliberately goes and stands
on the edge of duck ponds? Girls will be girls.'

'Not while I'm sitting on the bench, they won't.'

'And how about the quality of mercy? It isn't strained, you know. It
droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath.'

'Damn the quality of mercy.'

'You'd better not let Shakespeare hear you saying that. Then you won't
reconsider?'

'No, I won't. And now we'll discuss this matter of your coming here
under a false name.'

Lord Ickenham nodded.

'Yes, I was hoping you would be able to spare me a minute to tell you
about that. But before I begin, I would like to have a witness present.'

Lord Ickenham went to the door and called 'Bimbo', and


245


Major Plank came out of the drawing-room chewing strawberries.

'Could you come here a moment, Bimbo. I need you as a witness. I'm going
to tell you a story that will shock you.'

'It isn't the one about the young man of Calcutta, is it? Because I've
heard that.'

Lord Ickenham reassured him.

'When I said "shock," I meant that the tale would revolt your moral
sense rather than bring the blush of shame to the cheek of modesty.
Shall I begin at the beginning?'

'It sounds a good idea.'

'Very well. There was an American girl named Vansittart who came to
London and bought a number of trinkets in Bond Street, her plan being to
take them back to America and wear them. All straight so far?'

'Quite.'

'What -?' began Sir Aylmer, and Lord Ickenham gave him a stern look.

'Mugsy,' he said, 'if you interrupt, I'll put you over that chair and
give you six of the juiciest. I've no doubt Bimbo will be glad to hold
you down.'

'Charmed. Quite like old times.'

'Good. Then I will resume. Where were we?'

'This American wench. Bought jewels in Bond Street.'

'Exactly. Well, when she had got them, the thought flashed upon her that
on arriving with them in New York, she would have to pay heavy customs
duty to the United States Government. She recoiled from this.'

'I don't blame her.'

'So in her innocent, girlish way she decided to smuggle them in.'

'Quite right. Don't pay the bounders a penny, that's what I say. They've
got much too much money as it is.'

'Precisely what Miss Vansittart felt. She held that opinion very
strongly. But how to work this smuggling project?'

'That's always the snag.'

'She mused a while,' said Lord Ickenham, interrupting Major Plank in
what threatened to be rather a long story about how


246


he had once tried to sneak some cigars through at Southampton, 'and was
rewarded with an idea. She had a friend, a young sculptress. She went to
her, got her to make a clay bust and put the jewels in its head, and was
then all set to take them to America in safety and comfort. She reasoned
that when the customs authorities saw a clay bust, they would simply
yawn and say "Ho hum, a clay bust," and let it through.'

'Very shfewd.'

'So that was that. But... this is where you want to hold on 3 your
chair, Bimbo ... unfortunately this young sculptress was at that time
modelling a bust of Mugsy.'

Major Plank was plainly bewildered. He stared at Sir Ayl mer, studying
his features closely and critically.

'What did Mugsy want a bust of himself for?'

'To present to the village club.'

'Good God.'

'During the sittings,' proceeded Lord Ickenham, 'Mugsy and the young
sculptress naturally chatted from time to time, and in the course of
these conversations she was rash enough to show him the bust that
contained the jewels and to tell him that she was leaving it at my house
a few miles from here until Miss Vansittart sailed. And Mugsy ... I
hardly like to tell you this, Bimbo."

'Go on.'

'Well, you will scarcely credit it, but yesterday Mugsy nipped over to
my house, effected an entrance and snitched the bust."

'The one with the jewels in it?"

'The one with the jewels in it.'

Not even the menace of six of the juiciest could keep Sir Aylmer silent
under this charge.

'It's an insane lie!'

Lord Ickenham raised his eyebrows.

'Is there anything to be gained by this bravado, Mugsy? Do you suppose I
would bring such an accusation unless I could prove it to the hilt? Yes,
Bimbo, he nipped over to my house, was admitted by my butler '

'I wasn't. He wouldn't let me in.'

'That is your story, is it? It is not the one Coggs tells. He


247


says he admitted you and that you roamed unwatched all over the
premises. And, what is more, as you were leaving he noticed a suspicious
bulge under your coat. Honestly, Mugsy, I wouldn't bother to persist in
this pretence of innocence. It would be manlier if you came clean and
threw yourself on the mercy of the court.'

'Much manlier,' agreed Major Plank. 'Whiter altogether.'

'I told you I could prove my accusation, and I will now proceed to do
so. You have a nice, large foot, Bimbo. Oblige me by stepping to that
cupboard over there and kicking in the door.'

'Right ho!' said Major Plank.

He approached the cupboard and drove at it with his brogue shoe. The
niceness and largeness of his foot had not been overestimated. The
fragile door splintered with a rending crash.

'Aha!' he said, peering in.

'You see a clay bust?'

'That's right. Bust, clay, one.'

'Bring it here.'

Sir Aylmer was gaping at the bust like one who gapes at snakes in his
path. He sought in vain for an explanation of its presence. His wife
could have given him that explanation, but his wife was in London.

'How the devil did that get there?' he gasped.

Lord Ickenham smiled sardonically.

'Really, Mugsy! Good, that, eh, Bimbo?'

'Very good.'

'Break that thing's head.'

'Bust the bust? Right ho!' said Major Plank, and did so. Lord Ickenham
stooped and picked from the ruins a chamois leather bag. Before Sir
Aylmer's bulging eyes he untied the string and poured forth a glittering
stream.

Major Plank's eyes were bulging, too.

'This must have been one of your best hauls,' he said, looking at Sir
Aylmer with open admiration.

Lord Ickenham replaced the gems in the bag and put the bag in his
pocket.

'Well, there you are,' he said. 'You were asking just now,

248

 1

I I


I

[ugsy, why I had come here under a false name. It was be luse I hoped
that if I could get into the house I might be )le to settle this thing
without a scandal. I knew that you were lortly to stand for Parliament
and that a scandal would ruin jur prospects, and I took the charitable
view that you had elded to a sudden temptation. As far as I am
concerned, I am aw willing to let the thing drop. I have no wish to be
hard on >u, now that 1 have recovered your ill-gotten plunder and can
^store it to its owner. We all understand these irresistible
temptations. Eh, Bimbo?" 'Oh, quite.'

'We need say no more about the matter?' 'Not a word.' 'You won't tell
anyone?' 'Except for a chap or two at the club, not a soul.' 'Then the
whole wretched affair can now be forgotten. Of course, this, monstrous
sentence which you have inflicted on my nephew and Sally Painter must be
quashed. You agree to that, Mugsy?' said Lord Ickenham, raising his
voice, for he saw that his host was distrait.

Sir Aylmer gave that impersonation of his of a harpooned whale.

'What?'he said feebly.

Lord Ickenham repeated his words, and Sir Aylmer, though evidently
finding it difficult to speak, said, 'Yes, certainly.'

'I should think so,' said Lord Ickenham warmly. 'Thirty days without the
option for what was a mere girlish - or, in Pongo's case, boyish -
freak. It recalls the worst excesses of the Star Chamber. The trouble
with you fellows who have been Governors of Crown colonies, Mugsy, is
that you get so accustomed to giving our black brothers the run-around
that you lose all self-restraint. Then let us go and notify Constable
Potter immediately to strike the gyves from the young couple's wrists.
We shall find them, I think you said, in the scullery.'

He linked his arm in Sir Aylmer's and led him out. As they started down
the hall Major Plank could hear him urging his companion in the kindest
way to pull himself together, turn over a new leaf and start life afresh
with a genuine determina


249


tion to go straight in the future. It only needed a little willpower,
said Lord Ickenham, adding that he held it truth with him who sings to
one clear harp in divers tones that men may rise on stepping stones of
their dead selves to higher things;

For some moments after they had left, Major Plank stood where he was,
regarding the African curios with the glazed look of a man whose brain
is taking a complete rest. Then gradually there came upon him a sense of
something omitted, the feeling which he had so often had in the wilds of
Brazil that somewhere there was man's work to be done and that it was
for him to do it.

Then he remembered. The strawberries. He went back to the drawing-room
to finish them.

I


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Four more P. G. Wodehouse books .published simultaneously in Penguins


fr Wodehouse's idyllic world can never stale. e will continue to release
future generations am captivity that may be more irksome man our own. He
has made a world for us to live in and delight in" - Evelyn Waugh in a
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Service with a Smile


* * Lord Emsworth's invitation Uncle Fred _ain intervenes at Blandings
Castle and thwarts another plot of the mad Duke of Dunstable to
eliminate the prize pig.


Heavy Weather


A dubious neighbour's nephew is insinuated into Blandings Castle and
Lord Emsworth scents a plot `?08-' to nobble the pig. Happily brother Gaily is
on hand and fit to foil all corners.


Galahad At Blandings


A major mix-up at Blandings Castle, in which Gaily introduces yet
another impostor to Lord Emsworth's residence and the Empress of
Blandings gets sloshed in her sty.


Lord Emsworth and Others


It was a black moment for the ninth Earl of Emsworth when Rupert Baxter
returned. The subsequent crime wave at Blandings Castle hilariously
heads the stories in this volume.


Not for sale in the U.S.A.


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