Mike and Psmith

by P. G. Wodehouse

  21

  THE DESTROYER OF EVIDENCE

  The shoe became the center of attention, the cynosure of all eyes. Mr.Downing fixed it with the piercing stare of one who feels that his brainis tottering. The headmaster looked at it with a mildly puzzledexpression. Psmith, putting up his eyeglass, gazed at it with a sort ofaffectionate interest, as if he were waiting for it to do a trick ofsome kind.

  Mr. Downing was the first to break the silence.

  "There was paint on this shoe," he said vehemently. "I tell you therewas a splash of red paint across the toe. Smith will bear me out inthis. Smith, you saw the paint on this shoe?"

  "Paint, sir?"

  "What! Do you mean to tell me that you did _not_ see it?"

  "No, sir. There was no paint on this shoe."

  "This is foolery. I saw it with my own eyes. It was a broad splash rightacross the toe."

  The headmaster interposed.

  "You must have made a mistake, Mr. Downing. There is certainly no traceof paint on this shoe. These momentary optical delusions are, I fancy,not uncommon. Any doctor will tell you--"

  "I had an aunt, sir," said Psmith chattily, "who was remarkablysubject--"

  "It is absurd. I cannot have been mistaken," said Mr. Downing. "I ampositively certain the toe of this shoe was red when I found it."

  "It is undoubtedly black now, Mr. Downing."

  "A sort of chameleon shoe," murmured Psmith.

  The goaded housemaster turned on him.

  "What did you say, Smith?"

  "Did I speak, sir?" said Psmith, with the start of one coming suddenlyout of a trance.

  Mr. Downing looked searchingly at him.

  "You had better be careful, Smith."

  "Yes, sir."

  "I strongly suspect you of having something to do with this."

  "Really, Mr. Downing," said the headmaster, "this is surely improbable.Smith could scarcely have cleaned the shoe on his way to my house. Onone occasion I inadvertently spilled some paint on a shoe of my own. Ican assure you that it does not brush off. It needs a very systematiccleaning before all traces are removed."

  "Exactly, sir," said Psmith. "My theory, if I may...?"

  "Certainly Smith."

  Psmith bowed courteously and proceeded.

  "My theory, sir, is that Mr. Downing was deceived by the light-and-shadeeffects on the toe of the shoe. The afternoon sun, streaming in throughthe window, must have shone on the shoe in such a manner as to give it amomentary and fictitious aspect of redness. If Mr. Downing recollects,he did not look long at the shoe. The picture on the retina of the eye,consequently, had not time to fade. I remember thinking myself, at themoment, that the shoe appeared to have a certain reddish tint. Themistake...."

  "Bag!" said Mr. Downing shortly.

  "Well, really," said the headmaster, "it seems to me that that is theonly explanation that will square with the facts. A shoe that is reallysmeared with red paint does not become black of itself in the course ofa few minutes."

  "You are very right, sir," said Psmith with benevolent approval. "May Igo now, sir? I am in the middle of a singularly impressive passage ofCicero's speech _De senectute_."

  "I am sorry that you should leave your preparation till Sunday, Smith.It is a habit of which I altogether disapprove."

  "I am reading it, sir," said Psmith, with simple dignity, "for pleasure.Shall I take the shoe with me, sir?"

  "If Mr. Downing does not want it?"

  The housemaster passed the fraudulent piece of evidence to Psmithwithout a word, and the latter, having included both masters in a kindlysmile, left the garden.

  Pedestrians who had the good fortune to be passing along the roadbetween the headmaster's house and Mr. Outwood's at that moment sawwhat, if they had but known it, was a most unusual sight, the spectacleof Psmith running. Psmith's usual mode of progression was a dignifiedwalk. He believed in the contemplative style rather than the hustling.

  On this occasion, however, reckless of possible injuries to the creaseof his trousers, he raced down the road, and turning in at Outwood'sgate, bounded upstairs like a highly trained professional athlete.

  On arriving at the study, his first act was to remove a shoe from thetop of the pile in the basket, place it in the small cupboard under thebookshelf, and lock the cupboard. Then he flung himself into a chairand panted.

  "Brain," he said to himself approvingly, "is what one chiefly needs inmatters of this kind. Without brain, where are we? In the soup, everytime. The next development will be when Comrade Downing thinks it over,and is struck with the brilliant idea that it's just possible that theshoe he gave me to carry and the shoe I did carry were not one shoe buttwo shoes. Meanwhile ..."

  He dragged up another chair for his feet and picked up his novel.

  He had not been reading long when there was a footstep in the passage,and Mr. Downing appeared.

  The possibility, in fact the probability, of Psmith's having substitutedanother shoe for the one with the incriminating splash of paint on ithad occurred to him almost immediately on leaving the headmaster'sgarden. Psmith and Mike, he reflected, were friends. Psmith's impulsewould be to do all that lay in his power to shield Mike. Feelingaggrieved with himself that he had not thought of this before, he, too,hurried over to Outwood's.

  Mr. Downing was brisk and peremptory.

  "I wish to look at these shoes again," he said. Psmith, with a sigh,laid down his novel, and rose to assist him.

  "Sit down, Smith," said the housemaster. "I can manage without yourhelp."

  Psmith sat down again, carefully tucking up the knees of his trousers,and watched him with silent interest through his eyeglass.

  The scrutiny irritated Mr. Downing.

  "Put that thing away, Smith," he said.

  "That thing, sir?"

  "Yes, that ridiculous glass. Put it away."

  "Why, sir?"

  "Why! Because I tell you to do so."

  "I guessed that that was the reason, sir," sighed Psmith, replacing theeyeglass in his waistcoat pocket. He rested his elbows on his knees, andhis chin on his hands, and resumed his contemplative inspection of theshoe expert, who, after fidgeting for a few moments, lodged anothercomplaint.

  "Don't sit there staring at me, Smith."

  "I was interested in what you were doing, sir."

  "Never mind. Don't stare at me in that idiotic way."

  "May I read, sir?" asked Psmith, patiently.

  "Yes, read if you like."

  "Thank you, sir."

  Psmith took up his book again, and Mr. Downing, now thoroughlyirritated, pursued his investigations in the boot basket.

  He went through it twice, but each time without success. After thesecond search, he stood up, and looked wildly round the room. He was ascertain as he could be of anything that the missing piece of evidencewas somewhere in the study. It was no use asking Psmith point-blankwhere it was, for Psmith's ability to parry dangerous questions withevasive answers was quite out of the common.

  His eye roamed about the room. There was very little cover there, evenfor so small a fugitive as a number nine shoe. The floor could beacquitted, on sight, of harboring the quarry.

  Then he caught sight of the cupboard, and something seemed to tell himthat there was the place to look.

  "Smith!" he said.

  Psmith had been reading placidly all the while.

  "Yes, sir?"

  "What is in this cupboard?"

  "That cupboard, sir?"

  "Yes. This cupboard." Mr. Downing rapped the door irritably.

  "Just a few odd trifles, sir. We do not often use it. A ball of string,perhaps. Possibly an old notebook. Nothing of value or interest.

  "Open it."

  "I think you will find that it is locked, sir."

  "Unlock it."

  "But where is the key, sir?"

  "Have you not got the key?"

  "If the key is not in the lock, sir, you may depend upon it that it willtake a long search to find it."


  "Where did you see it last?"

  "It was in the lock yesterday morning. Jackson might have taken it."

  "Where is Jackson?"

  "Out in the field somewhere, sir."

  Mr. Downing thought for a moment.

  "I don't believe a word of it," he said shortly. "I have my reasons forthinking that you are deliberately keeping the contents of that cupboardfrom me. I shall break open the door."

  Psmith got up.

  "I'm afraid you mustn't do that, sir."

  Mr. Downing stared, amazed.

  "Are you aware whom you are talking to, Smith?" he inquired icily.

  "Yes, sir. And I know it's not Mr. Outwood, to whom that cupboardhappens to belong. If you wish to break it open, you must get hispermission. He is the sole lessee and proprietor of that cupboard. I amonly the acting manager."

  Mr. Downing paused. He also reflected. Mr. Outwood in the general ruledid not count much in the scheme of things, but possibly there werelimits to the treating of him as if he did not exist. To enter his housewithout his permission and search it to a certain extent was all verywell. But when it came to breaking up his furniture, perhaps...!

  On the other hand, there was the maddening thought that if he left thestudy in search of Mr. Outwood, in order to obtain his sanction for thehouse-breaking work which he proposed to carry through, Smith would bealone in the room. And he knew that if Smith were left alone in theroom, he would instantly remove the shoe to some other hiding place. Hethoroughly disbelieved the story of the lost key. He was perfectlyconvinced that the missing shoe was in the cupboard.

  He stood chewing these thoughts for a while, Psmith in the meantimestanding in a graceful attitude in front of the cupboard, staringinto vacancy.

  Then he was seized with a happy idea. Why should he leave the room atall? If he sent Smith, then he himself could wait and make certain thatthe cupboard was not tampered with.

  "Smith," he said, "go and find Mr. Outwood, and ask him to be goodenough to come here for a moment."