‘I was.’
‘But you broke it off?’
‘He broke it off.’
‘He did?’
‘Yes. That’s why I came here. You see, Ronnie was here and I was in London and you can’t put things properly in letters, so I thought that if I could get down to Blandings I could see him and explain and put everything right . . . and I’d met Lady Constance in London one day when I was with Ronnie and he had introduced me as Miss Schoonmaker, so that part of it was all right . . . so . . . Well, so I came.’
If this chronicle has proved anything, it has proved by now that the moral outlook of the Hon. Galahad Threepwood was fundamentally unsound. A man to shake the head at. A man to view with concern. So felt his sister, Lady Constance Keeble, and she was undoubtedly right. If final evidence were needed, his next words supplied it.
‘I never heard,’ said the Hon. Galahad, beaming like one listening to a tale of virtue triumphant, ‘anything so dashed sporting in my life.’
Sue’s heart leaped. She had felt all along that Reason, in denying the possibility that this man could ever approve of what she had done, had been mistaken. These pessimists always are.
‘You mean,’ she cried, ‘you won’t give me away?’
‘Me?’ said the Hon. Galahad, aghast at the idea. ‘Of course I won’t. What do you take me for?’
‘I think you’re an angel.’
The Hon. Galahad seemed pleased at the compliment, but it was plain that there was something that worried him. He frowned a little.
‘What I can’t make out,’ he said, ‘is why you want to marry my nephew Ronald.’
‘I love him, bless his heart.’
‘No, seriously!’ protested the Hon. Galahad. ‘Do you know that he once put tin-tacks on my chair?’
‘And he bounces tennis-balls on pigs. All the same, I love him.’
‘You can’t!’
‘I do.’
‘How can you possibly love a fellow like that?’
‘That’s just what he always used to say,’ said Sue softly. And I think that’s why I love him.’
The Hon. Galahad sighed. Fifty years’ experience had taught him that it was no use arguing with women on this particular point, but he had conceived a warm affection for this girl, and it shocked him to think of her madly throwing herself away.
‘Don’t you go doing anything in a hurry, my dear. Think it over carefully. I’ve seen enough of you to know that you’re a very exceptional girl.’
‘I don’t believe you like Ronnie.’
‘I don’t dislike him. He’s improved since he was a boy. I’ll admit that. But he isn’t worthy of you.’
‘Why not?’
‘Well, he isn’t.’
She laughed.
‘It’s funny that you of all people should say that. Lord Ems-worth was telling me just now that Ronnie is exactly like what you used to be at his age.’
‘What!’
‘That’s what he said.’
The Hon. Galahad stared incredulously.
‘That boy like me?’ He spoke with indignation, for his pride had been sorely touched. ‘Ronald like me? Why, I was twice the man he is. How many policemen do you think it used to take to shift me from the Alhambra to Vine Street when I was in my prime? Two! Sometimes three. And one walking behind carrying my hat. Clarence ought to be more careful what he says, dash it. It’s just this kind of loose talk that makes trouble. The fact of the matter is, he’s gone and got his brain so addled with pigs he doesn’t know what he is saying half the time.’
He pulled himself together with a strong effort. He became calmer.
‘What did you and that young poop quarrel about?’ he asked.
‘He is not a poop!’
‘He is. It’s astonishing to me that any one individual can be such a poop. You’d have thought it would have required a large syndicate. How long have you known him?’
‘About nine months.’
‘Well, I’ve known him all his life. And I say he’s a poop. If he wasn’t, he wouldn’t have quarrelled with you. However, we won’t split straws. What did you quarrel about?’
‘He found me dancing.’
‘What’s wrong with that?’
‘I had promised I wouldn’t.’
And is that all the trouble?’
‘It’s quite enough for me.’
The Hon. Galahad made light of the tragedy.
‘I don’t see what you’re worrying about. If you can’t smooth a little thing like that over, you’re not the girl I take you for.’
‘I thought I might be able to.’
‘Of course you’ll be able to. Girls were always doing that sort of thing to me in my young days, and I never held out for five minutes, once the crying started. Go and sob on the boy’s waistcoat. How are you as a sobber?’
‘Not very good, I’m afraid.’
‘Well, there are all sorts of other tricks you can try. Every girl knows a dozen. Falling on your knees, fainting, laughing hysterically, going rigid all over . . . scores of them.’
‘I think it will be all right if I can just talk to him. The difficulty is to get an opportunity.’
The Hon. Galahad waved a hand spaciously.
‘Make an opportunity! Why, I knew a girl years ago – she’s a grandmother now – who had a quarrel with the fellow she was engaged to, and a week or so later she found herself staying at the same country-house with him – Heron’s Hill it was. The Matchelows’ place in Sussex – and she got him into her room one night and locked the door and said she was going to keep him there all night and ruin both their reputations unless he handed back the ring and agreed that the engagement was on again. And she’d have done it, too. Her name was Frederica Something. Red-haired girl.’
‘I suppose you have to have red hair to do a thing like that. I was thinking of a quiet meeting in the rose-garden.’
The Hon. Galahad seemed to consider this tame, but he let it pass.
‘Well, whatever you do, you’ll have to be quick about it, my dear. Suppose old Johnny Schoonmaker’s girl really turns up? She said she was going to.’
‘Yes, but I made Ronnie send her a telegram, signed with Lady Constance’s name, saying that there was scarlet fever at the castle and she wasn’t to come.’
One dislikes the necessity of perpetually piling up the evidence against the Hon. Galahad Threepwood, to show ever more and more clearly how warped was his moral outlook. Nevertheless the fact must be stated that at these words he threw his head up and uttered a high, piercing laugh that sent the thrush, which had just returned to the lawn, starting back as if a bullet had hit it. It was a laugh which, when it had rung out in days of yore in London’s more lively night-resorts, had caused commissionaires to leap like war-horses at the note of the bugle, to spit on their hands, feel their muscles and prepare for action.
‘It’s the finest thing I ever heard!’ cried the Hon. Galahad. ‘It restores my faith in the younger generation. And a girl like you seriously contemplates marrying a boy like . . . Oh, well!’ he said resignedly, seeming to brace himself to make the best of a distasteful state of affairs, ‘It’s your business, I suppose. You know your own mind best. After all, the great thing is to get you into the family. A girl like you is what this family has been needing for years.’
He patted her kindly on the shoulder, and they started to walk towards the house. As they did so, two men came out of it.
One was Lord Emsworth. The other was Percy Pilbeam.
II
There is about a place like Blandings Castle something which, if you are not in the habit of visiting country-houses planned on the grand scale, tends to sap the morale. At the moment when Sue caught sight of him, the proprietor of the Argus Enquiry Agency was not feeling his brightest and best.
Beach, ushering him through the front door, had started the trouble. He had merely let his eye rest upon Pilbeam, but it had been enough. The butler’s eye, through years of insufficient exercise a
nd too hearty feeding, had acquired in the process of time a sort of glaze which many people found trying when they saw it. In Pilbeam it created an inferiority complex of the severest kind.
He could not know that to this godlike man he was merely a blur. To Beach, tortured by the pangs of a guilty conscience, almost everything nowadays was merely a blur. Misinterpreting his gaze, Pilbeam had read into it a shocked contempt, a kind of wincing agony at the thought that things like himself should be creeping into Blandings Castle. He felt as if he had crawled out from under a flat stone.
And it was at this moment that somebody in the dimness of the hall had stepped forward and revealed himself as the young man, name unknown, who had showed such a lively disposition to murder him on the dancing-floor of Mario’s restaurant. And from the violent start which he gave, it was plain that the young man’s memory was as good as his own.
So far, things had not broken well for Percy Pilbeam. But now his luck turned. There had appeared in the nick of time an angel from heaven, effectively disguised in a shabby shooting-coat and an old hat. He had introduced himself as Lord Emsworth, and he had taken Pilbeam off with him into the garden. Looking back over his shoulder, Pilbeam saw that the young man was still standing there, staring after him – wistfully, it seemed to him; and he was glad, as he followed his host out into the fresh air, to be beyond the range of his eye. Between it and the eye of Beach, the butler, there seemed little to choose.
Relief, however, by the time he arrived on the terrace, had not completely restored his composure. That inferiority complex was still at work, and his surroundings intimidated him. At any moment, he felt, on a terrace like this, there might suddenly appear to confront him and complete his humiliation some brilliant shattering creature indigenous to this strange and disturbing world – a Duchess, perhaps – a haughty hunting woman it might be – the dashing daughter of a hundred Earls, possibly, who would look at him as Beach had looked at him and, raising beautifully pencilled eyebrows in aristocratic disdain, turn away with a murmured ‘Most extraordinary!’ He was prepared for almost anything.
One of the few things he was not prepared for was Sue. And at the sight of her he leaped three clear inches and nearly broke a collar stud.
‘Gawl’ he said.
‘I beg your pardon?’ said Lord Emsworth. He had not caught his companion’s remark and hoped he would repeat it. The lightest utterance of a detective with the trained mind is something not to be missed. ‘What did you say, my dear fellow?’
He, too, perceived Sue; and with a prodigious effort of the memory, working by swift stages through Schofield, Maybury, Coolidge and Spooner, recalled her name.
‘Mr Pilbeam, Miss Schoonmaker,’ he said. ‘Galahad, this is Mr Pilbeam. Of the Argus, you remember.’
‘Pilbeam?’
‘How do you do?’
‘Pilbeam?’
‘My brother,’ said Lord Emsworth, exerting himself to complete the introduction. ‘This is my brother Galahad.’
‘Pilbeam?’ said the Hon. Galahad, looking intently at the proprietor of the Argus. ‘Were you ever connected with a paper called Society Spice, Mr Pilbeam?’
The gardens of Blandings Castle seemed to the detective to rock gently. There had, he knew, been a rigid rule in the office of that bright, but frequently offensive, paper that the editor’s name was never to be revealed to callers: but it now appeared only too sickeningly evident that a leakage had occurred. Underlings, he realized too late, can be bribed.
He swallowed painfully. Force of habit had come within a hair’s-breath of making him say ‘Quite.’
‘Never,’ he gasped. ‘Certainly not. No! Never.’
A fellow of your name used to edit it. Uncommon name, too.’
‘Relation, perhaps. Distant.’
‘Well, I’m sorry you’re not the man,’ said the Hon. Galahad regretfully. ‘I’ve been wanting to meet him. He wrote a very offensive thing about me once. Most offensive thing.’
Lord Emsworth, who had been according the conversation the rather meagre interest which he gave to all conversations that did not deal with pigs, created a diversion.
‘I wonder,’ he said, ‘if you would like to see some photographs?’
It seemed to Pilbeam, in his disordered state, strange that anyone should suppose that he was in a frame of mind to enjoy the Family Album, but he uttered a strangled sound which his host took for acquiescence.
‘Of the Empress, I mean, of course. They will give you some idea of what a magnificent animal she is. They will . . .’ He sought for the mot juste. ‘. . . stimulate you. I’ll go to the library and get them out.’
The Hon. Galahad was now his old, affable self again.
‘You doing anything after dinner?’ he asked Sue.
‘There was some talk,’ said Sue, ‘of a game of Bezique with Mr Baxter.’
‘Don’t dream of it,’ said the Hon. Galahad vehemently. ‘The fellow would probably try to brain you with the mallet. I was thinking that if I hadn’t got to go out to dinner I’d like to read you some of my book. I think you would appreciate it. I wouldn’t read it to anybody except you. I somehow feel you’ve got the right sort of outlook. I let my sister Constance see a couple of pages once, and she was too depressing for words. An author can’t work if people depress him. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll give you the thing to read. Which is your room?’
‘The Garden Room, I think it’s called.’
‘Oh yes. Well, I’ll bring the manuscript to you before I leave.’
He sauntered off. There was a moment’s pause. Then Sue turned to Pilbeam. Her chin was tilted. There was defiance in her eye.
‘Well?’she said.
III
Percy Pilbeam breathed a sigh of relief. At the first moment of their meeting, all that he had ever read about doubles had raced through his mind. This question clarified the situation. It put matters on a firm basis. His head ceased to swim. It was Sue Brown and no other who stood before him.
‘What on earth are you doing here?’ he asked.
‘Never mind.’
‘What’s the game?’
‘Never mind.’
‘There’s no need to be so dashed unfriendly.’
‘Well, if you must know, I came here to see Ronnie and try to explain about that night at Mario’s.’
There was a pause.
‘What was that name the old boy called you?’
‘Schoonmaker.’
‘Why did he call you that?’
‘Because that’s who he thinks I am.’
‘What on earth made you choose a name like that?’
‘Oh, don’t keep on asking questions.’
‘I don’t believe there is such a name. And when it comes to asking questions,’ said Pilbeam warmly, ‘what do you expect me to do? I never got such a shock in my life as when I met you just now. I thought I was seeing things. Do you mean to say you’re here under a false name, pretending to be somebody else?’
Yes.’
‘Well, I’m hanged! And as friendly as you please with everybody.’
Yes.’
‘Everybody except me.’
‘Why should I be friendly with you? You’ve done your best to ruin my life.’
‘Eh?’
‘Oh, never mind,’ said Sue impatiently.
There was another pause.
‘Chatty!’ said Pilbeam, wounded again.
He fidgeted his fingers along the wall.
‘That Galahad fellow seems to look on you as a daughter or something.’
‘We are great friends.’
‘So I see. And he’s going to give you his book to read.’
‘Yes.’
A keen, purposeful, Argus-Enquiry-Agent sort of look shot into Pilbeam’s face.
‘Well, this is where you and I get together,’ he said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’ll tell you what I mean. Do you want to make some money?’
‘No,’ sa
id Sue.
‘What! Of course you do. Everybody does. Now listen. Do you know why I’m here?’
‘I’ve stopped wondering why you’re anywhere. You just seem to pop up.’
She started to move away. A sudden, disturbing thought had come to her. At any moment Ronnie might appear on the terrace. If he found her here, closeted, so to speak, with the abominable Pilbeam, what would he think? What, rather, would he not think?
‘Where are you going?’
‘Into the house.’
‘Come back,’ said Pilbeam urgently.
‘I’m going.’
‘But I’ve got something important to say.’
‘Well?’
She stopped.
‘That’s right,’ said Pilbeam approvingly. ‘Now listen. You’ll admit that, if I liked, I could give you away and spoil whatever game it is that you’re up to in this place?’
‘Well?’
‘But I’m not going to do it. If you’ll be sensible.’
‘Sensible?’
Pilbeam looked cautiously up and down the terrace.
‘Now listen,’ he said. ‘I want your help. I’ll tell you why I’m here. The old boy thinks I’ve come down to find his pig, but I haven’t. I’ve come to get that book your friend Galahad is writing.’
‘What!’
‘I thought you’d be surprised. Yes, that’s what I’m after. There’s a man living near here who’s scared stiff that there’s going to be a lot of stories about him in that book, and he came to see me at my office yesterday and offered me . . .’ He hesitated a moment. ‘. . . Offered me,’ he went on, ‘a hundred pounds if I’d get into the house somehow and snitch the manuscript. And you being friendly with the old buster has made everything simple.’
You think so?’
‘Easy,’ he assured her. ‘Especially now he’s going to give you the thing to read. All you have to do is hand it over to me, and there’s fifty quid for you. For doing practically nothing.’
Sue’s eyes lit up. Pilbeam had expected that they would. He could not conceive of a girl whose eyes would not light up at such an offer.
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