Sunset at Blandings

by P. G. Wodehouse

  ‘Pinched,’ said Sergeant Murchison, and would have spelled the word if so desired.

  This completed Jeff’s illusion of having lost his reason . Oh, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown, he might have said to himself if he had remembered the quotation. All he could find to say was a feeble ‘How do you mean pinched?’ and Sergeant Murchison said he meant pinched.

  ‘Who are you?’ Jeff asked. It is always well to know the identity of the officer pinching us.

  ‘Sergeant E. B. Murchison, special representative of Scotland Yard. And I’m taking you to Lord Emsworth, who will decide what’s to be done with you.’

  And so it came about that Lord Emsworth, deep in Whiffle’s On the Care of the Pig, was wrenched from its magic pages by the entry of two intruders, one young Smith, whom he had come to love as a son, the other someone he did not remember having seen before. However, any friend of his friend Smith was a friend of his, and he liked the affectionate way the man was holding on to Smith’s arm, so he welcomed the pair warmly.

  ‘Come in, my dear Smith, come in Mr. er, er. I’m sorry, I keep forgetting your name. You know how one does.’

  ‘Murchison, m’lord.’

  ‘Of course. Murchison. Quite.’

  ‘Of Scotland Yard.’

  This puzzled Lord Emsworth.

  ‘But that’s in London, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, m’lord.’

  ‘Then what are you doing in Shropshire?’ Jeff was able to answer this.

  ‘He’s arresting me.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘Arresting me.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘For making a burglarious entry,’ said Sergeant Murchison.

  Something stirred in Lord Emsworth. His memory might be poor where recent events were concerned, but it was excellent about things that had happened thirty years ago, especially if these were of no importance whatsoever.

  ‘Bless my soul,’ he said, ‘that reminds me of a song in a musical comedy Galahad took me to when we were young men. About the Grenadier Guards guarding the Bank of England at night. How did it go? “If you’ve money or plate in the bank,” sang Lord Emsworth in a reedy tenor like an escape of gas, “we’re the principal parties to thank. Our regiment sends you a squad that defends you from anarchists greedy and lank.”‘

  ‘M’lord,’ said Sergeant Murchison.

  ‘“In the cellars and over the roof,”‘ continued Lord Emsworth, who was not an easy man to stop, ‘“we keep all intruders aloof, and no-one can go in to rob Mr. Bowen of what he describes as the oof.” Bowen must have been the manager of the Bank of England at that time, don’t you think?’

  ‘M’lord,’ said Sergeant Murchison.

  ‘“That’s our right. And if any wicked gentry try by night to make a burglarious entry, they take fright at the sight of the busbied sentry.”‘[43]

  ‘M’lord,’ said Sergeant Murchison, ‘this man was climbing up the castle wall and getting in at one of the windows.’

  ‘I was locked out,’ said Jeff.

  ‘Very sensible of you to climb up the wall, then.’

  ‘I didn’t like to rouse the house.’

  ‘Very considerate of you. Different from Baxter, a former secretary of mine. He was locked out one night and he threw flower pots in at my window. A most unpleasant experience to be asleep in bed and have the air suddenly become thick with flower pots.[44] A flower pot can give you a nasty bruise. But how, my dear Mr. Murchison,’ said Lord Emsworth, reasoning closely, ‘can Smith have been making a burglarious entry when he’s staying here?’

  ‘He’s staying here?’ Scotland Yard trains its sons well. They remain unmoved under the worst of shocks. Sergeant Murchison had seldom received a more disintegrating blow, but he did not so much as totter. ‘You know him?’

  ‘He is the artist who is painting the portrait of my pig.’

  Sergeant Murchison was a man who could face facts. He did not need further evidence to tell him that the pinch of which he had thought so highly had been but a mirage. He turned and left the room.

  ‘I don’t much like your friend Murchison,’ said Lord Emsworth, as the door closed. ‘He reminds me of my sister Constance. The same look on his face, as if he suspected everybody he met. Constance is now in America. You are not American, are you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I thought you might be. So many people are nowadays. Constance married an American. I went out there for the wedding. Do you know that in America they give you boiled eggs mashed up in a glass?’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘I assure you. It takes away all the fun of eating a boiled egg. A most interesting country, though. Galahad used to go there a great deal at one time. Galahad was always the adventurous type. Peanut butter.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘It is much eaten in America. I was told that you put jam on it. If you like jam, of course. And after they have finished eating peanut butter they go out and contact people and have conferences. Which reminds me. That step-daughter of my sister Florence’s, I forget her name but you have probably met her, nice girl, she often gives the Empress a potato, she is trying to contact you. I met her roaming about the place and she asked me if I had seen you, because it was most important that you and she should have a conference. You’re not leaving me, are you, my dear fellow?’

  Jeff was leaving him. He was already at the door. Hope, so recently consigned to the obituary column, had cast off its winding cloths and risen from the grave. Lord Emsworth might see nothing sensational in the fact that Vicky was roaming about the place trying to confer with him, but to Jeff it was so significant that the world suddenly became a thing of joy and laughter and even Lord Emsworth in his old shooting coat and baggy trousers seemed almost beautiful.

  Girls, he knew, changed their minds. They thought things over and reversed decisions. The girl who on Monday hissed that she never wanted to see you again was quite likely to be all smiles and affection on Tuesday — or at the latest at some early hour on Wednesday.

  It came, accordingly, as no surprise to him when he met Vicky not far from Lord Emsworth’s door and she flung herself into his arms with the words ‘Oh, Jeff, darling!’ They stood locked together, the past forgotten, and Lord Emsworth, coming out of his room, eyed them with paternal benevolence.

  Lord Emsworth had come out of his room because he hoped that Jeff was still within reach. He wanted to discuss with him the question, which they had omitted to touch on, of whether Jeff should depict the Empress full face or in profile. He refrained from bringing this up at a moment when the young fellow’s mind was so obviously on other things, so he went back into his room and sat there for some time plunged in thought.

  The result of his thoughts was to send him to the room of his sister Florence.

  ‘Oh, Florence,’ he said, ‘could I have a word with you?’

  ‘I hope it is important, Clarence. I was asleep.’

  ‘It is. Very important. Do you remember coming to me some time ago and kicking up no end of a row because your step-daughter was in love with a fellow named Bennison?’

  ‘I remember mentioning it,’ said Florence with dignity. She disliked his choice of phrases.

  ‘Well, you can make your mind easy. She isn’t in love with Bennison at all. The chap she loves is my friend Smith. I saw them just now hugging and kissing like the dickens.’

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  FLORENCE may have been asleep at the moment when Lord Emsworth knocked on her door, but she was wide awake now. It was her practice to put mud on her face before retiring to rest, and such was her emotion as he delivered what a gossip column writer would have called his exclusive that this mud cracked from side to side like the mirror of Tennyson’s Lady of Shalott.

  ‘Is this a joke, Clarence?’ she demanded, directing at him a look lower in temperature even than those which Jeff had had to face on his arrival. ‘Are you trying to be funny?’

  ‘Certainly not,’ said Lord Emsworth
indignantly. He had not tried to be funny since the remote days of school, when it had taken the form of pulling a chair away from a friend who was about to sit down. ‘I tell you I saw them. I came out of my room and there they were, as close together as the paper on the wall. I was delighted, of course.’

  ‘Delighted?’

  ‘Naturally. I knew how greatly you objected to the chap you thought Victoria was in love with, and what could be better than that she should have had second thoughts while there was still time and taken up with my friend Smith, a charming fellow thoroughly sound on pigs?’

  ‘And a penniless artist who has to take any tuppenny job that’s offered to him.’

  ‘If you consider painting the portrait of Empress of Blandings a tuppenny job, I disagree with you,’ said Lord Emsworth with dignity. ‘And he isn’t a penniless artist. Galahad tells me he is very well off, and only paints pigs because he loves them.’

  At the sound of that name Florence started so violently that more mud fell from her face. Experience had taught her that no good could ever come of anything with which Galahad was connected. She began to feel like the man in the poem who on a lonely road did walk in fear and dread and having once looked back walked on and turned no more his head, because he knew a frightful fiend did close behind him tread. Galahad and frightful fiends, not much to choose between them. She was normally a pale woman, as any woman with a brother like that had a right to be, but now she turned scarlet.

  ‘Galahad!’ she cried.

  ‘Smith’s a friend of his. It was he who arranged for him to come to the castle. I had been trying with no success to get Royal Academicians and people like that to paint the Empress, but Galahad said No, what I wanted was an eager young enthusiastic chap like Smith. So he sounded him about coming here, and fortunately he was at liberty. So he came. But I mustn’t keep you up. You’re anxious to turn in. Is that mud you’ve got on your face? How very peculiar. I always say you never know what women will be up to next. Well, good night, Florence, good night,’ said Lord Emsworth, and he trotted off to renew his interrupted study of Whiffle.

  If he had supposed that on his departure Florence would curl up and go to sleep, he erred. Late though the hour was, nothing was further from her thoughts than slumber. She sat in a chair, her powerful brain working like a dynamo.

  It was of Galahad that she was thinking. It seemed incredible that even he could have had the audacity to introduce into Blandings Castle the infamous Bennison at the thought of whom she had been shuddering for weeks, but he might well have done so. Long association with him had told her that the slogan that ruled his life was Anything Goes.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  BRENDA PIPER, one of those hardy women who do not mind getting up early, caught the 8.30 express to Market Blandings[45] on the following morning, and Jno Robinson took her to the castle in his taxi.

  The last time Jno and his taxi appeared in this chronicle was when he had Gally as a passenger and then, it will be remembered, there was a complete fusion of soul between employer and employed and the most delightful harmony prevailed. It was very different on this occasion. Briefness of acquaintance never deterred Brenda from becoming personal and speaking her mind. If in her opinion someone she had only just met required criticism, criticism was what he got.

  Jno Robinson had not yet shaved. She mentioned this. His costume was informal, of the Lord Emsworth school rather than that of Beau Brummell. This too, was touched on. She also thought poorly of his skill as a driver, and said so. The result was that when they drew up at the front door of Blandings Castle it needed only the discovery that she did not approve of tipping to round out the ruin of Jno Robinson’s day.

  Before going in search of her brother James, Brenda presented herself to her hostess and was concerned to see how pale she was. Florence, as has been indicated, had slept badly.

  ‘Good gracious,’ she exclaimed. ‘What ever is the matter, Florence? Are you ill? If it’s a cold coming on, take two aspirins and go to bed.’

  Florence shook her head. It was not medical advice she needed.

  ‘I had a bad night, but I’m perfectly well. It’s Victoria. You know the trouble I am having with her. That man of hers.’

  ‘Surely not now that she is at the castle?’

  ‘But he is here, too.’

  ‘Here?’

  ‘Galahad sneaked him in. Clarence wanted someone to paint his pig, and Galahad produced this man.’

  ‘You’re sure he’s the one?’

  ‘Quite sure.’

  ‘Then—’

  ‘Why don’t I turn him out? Because I have no proof. You know how often you hear that the police are certain that somebody has done some crime, but they cannot make an arrest until they have proof. It’s the same here.’

  ‘I’d kick him out and chance it.’

  ‘It would mean trouble with Clarence. Of course if I had proof there would be no difficulty. Even Clarence could not object then.’

  Privately Brenda did not attach much importance to any possible objections on Lord Emsworth’s part, but she abstained from her customary candour because she was thinking. The trend of her thoughts became evident a moment later.

  ‘I know what you can do,’ she said. ‘Didn’t you tell me that Victoria told you that this man Bennison had been employed as a drawing instructor at Daphne Wink-worth’s school? Well, ring up Daphne and get a description of him.’

  ‘I’ll do it at once,’ said Florence. She felt that one could always rely on Brenda.

  She hastened to the telephone.

  ‘Daphne.’

  ‘Who is this?’

  ‘Florence.’

  ‘Oh, how are you, Florence dear?’

  ‘Very worried. I rang up to ask you to do something for me.’

  ‘Anything, of course.’

  ‘It’s just to describe a man named Bennison.’

  ‘Do you mean who used to be here as drawing master?’

  ‘Used to be! Aha!’

  ‘Why do you say Aha?’

  ‘Because I suspect Galahad of having sneaked him into Blandings under a false name.’

  ‘Galahad is capable of anything.’

  ‘Anything.’

  ‘I won’t enquire as to his motives. Being Galahad — one can assume that they were bad …’

  ‘They were.’

  ‘Well, Mr. Bennison is about five foot eleven, well built, clean shaven, fair hair, and he has a small scar just under his right eye. A football accident, I believe. I wouldn’t say for certain that his nose hadn’t been broken at some time. Does this meet your requirements?

  ‘It does,’ said Florence. ‘It does indeed. Thank you, Daphne. I am very grateful to you.’

  Armed with this information, she went out into the grounds in search of Gally. She found him in the hammock under the cedar and for once took no offence at his occupancy of it. A sister about to bathe a brother in confusion and, though she could not count on this, bring the blush of shame to his cheek, has no time to bother about hammocks.

  She was all amiability as she opened her attack.

  ‘Having a little sleep, Galahad?’

  ‘Not at the moment. Thinking deep thoughts.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Oh, this and that.’

  ‘Cabbages and kings?’

  ‘That sort of thing.’

  ‘Did you meditate at all on Mr. Smith?’

  ‘Not that I remember.’

  ‘I thought you might have been wondering why he called himself that.’

  ‘Why shouldn’t he? It’s his name.’

  ‘Really? I always thought his name was Bennison.’ Gally’s training at the old Pelican Club stood him in good stead. Membership at that raffish institution always equipped a man with the ability to remain outwardly calm under the impact of nasty surprises. Somebody like Fruity Biffen, taken aback when his Assyrian beard fell off, might register momentary dismay, but most members beneath the slings and arrows of outrageous fort
une were able to preserve the easy nonchalance of a Red Indian at the stake. Gaily did so now. Nobody could have told that he was feeling as though a charge of trinitrotoluol had been touched off under him. His frank open face showed merely the bewilderment of a brother who was at a loss to know what his sister was talking about.

  ‘Why on earth should you think his name was Bennison?’

  ‘Because last night Clarence saw him hugging and kissing Victoria. It seemed to me odd behaviour if they had only known each other about twenty-four hours.’

  Gally was astounded.

  ‘He was kissing her?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You accept Clarence’s unsupported word?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You don’t think he was having one of those hallucinations people have?’

  ‘I do not.’

  ‘I knew a chap at the Pelican who thought he was being followed about by a little man with a black beard. Well, I will certainly speak to Smith about this. But I still think Clarence must have been mistaken.’

  ‘Have you known him long?’

  ‘Ages. We grew up together.’

  ‘You did what?’

  ‘Oh, you mean Smith. I thought you meant Clarence. Yes, I’ve known Smith quite a while. Not so long as I’ve known Clarence, of course, but long enough to be sure he’s just the man Vicky ought to marry.’

  ‘And I’m sure that his name is Bennison and that you brought him to the castle.’

  Gaily shook his head reproachfully. He was not angry, but you could see he was terribly hurt.

  ‘You ought not to say such things, Florence. You have wounded me deeply.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘You have caused me great pain.

  ‘You’ll distribute it.’

  ‘What beats me is where you got this preposterous notion.’

  ‘I ought to have told you that. From my friend Daphne Winkworth, at whose school Mr. Bennison was employed for quite a time. She gave me a most accurate description of him, down to the scar you will have noticed under his right eye. Well, I think that is all, Galahad, and you may go back to your deep thinking. I have of course told Victoria that Mr. Bennison is leaving the castle immediately.’