Mike and Psmith

by P. G. Wodehouse

  29

  THE ARTIST CLAIMS HIS WORK

  The line of action which Psmith had called Stout Denial is an excellentline to adopt, especially if you really are innocent, but it does notlead to anything in the shape of a bright and snappy dialogue betweenaccuser and accused. Both Mike and the headmaster were oppressed by afeeling that the situation was difficult. The atmosphere was heavy, andconversation showed a tendency to flag. The headmaster had openedbrightly enough, with a summary of the evidence which Mr. Downing hadlaid before him, but after that a massive silence had been the order ofthe day. There is nothing in this world quite so stolid anduncommunicative as a boy who has made up his mind to be stolid anduncommunicative; and the headmaster, as he sat and looked at Mike, whosat and looked past him at the bookshelves, felt awkward. It was a scenewhich needed either a dramatic interruption or a neat exit speech. As ithappened, what it got was the dramatic interruption.

  The headmaster was just saying, "I do not think you fully realize,Jackson, the extent to which appearances ..."--which was practicallygoing back to the beginning and starting again--when there was a knockat the door. A voice without said, "Mr. Downing to see you, sir," andthe chief witness for the prosecution burst in.

  "I would not have interrupted you," said Mr. Downing, "but--"

  "Not at all, Mr. Downing. Is there anything I can ..."

  "I have discovered ... I have been informed ... In short, it was notJackson, who committed the--who painted my dog."

  Mike and the headmaster both looked at the speaker. Mike with a feelingof relief--for Stout Denial, unsupported by any weighty evidence, is awearing game to play--the headmaster with astonishment.

  "Not Jackson?" said the headmaster.

  "No. It was a boy in the same house. Smith."

  Psmith! Mike was more than surprised. He could not believe it. There isnothing which affords so clear an index to a boy's character as the typeof rag which he considers humorous. Between what is a rag and what ismerely a rotten trick there is a very definite line drawn. Masters, as arule, do not realize this, but boys nearly always do. Mike could notimagine Psmith doing a rotten thing like covering a housemaster's dogwith red paint, any more than he could imagine doing it himself. Theyhad both been amused at the sight of Sammy after the operation, butanybody, except possibly the owner of the dog, would have thought itfunny at first. After the first surprise, their feeling had been that itwas a rotten thing to have done and beastly rough luck on the poorbrute. It was a kid's trick. As for Psmith having done it, Mike simplydid not believe it.

  "Smith!" said the headmaster. "What makes you think that?"

  "Simply this," said Mr. Downing, with calm triumph, "that the boyhimself came to me a few moments ago and confessed."

  Mike was conscious of a feeling of acute depression. It did not make himin the least degree jubilant, or even thankful, to know that he himselfwas cleared of the charge. All he could think of was that Psmith wasdone for. This was bound to mean the sack. If Psmith had painted Sammyit meant that Psmith had broken out of his house at night; and it wasnot likely that the rules about nocturnal wandering were less strict atSedleigh than at any other school in the kingdom. Mike felt, ifpossible, worse than he had felt when Wyatt had been caught on a similaroccasion. It seemed as if Fate had a special grudge against his bestfriends. He did not make friends very quickly or easily, though he hadalways had scores of acquaintances--and with Wyatt and Psmith he hadfound himself at home from the first moment he had met them.

  He sat there, with a curious feeling of having swallowed a heavy weight,hardly listening to what Mr. Downing was saying. Mr. Downing was talkingrapidly to the headmaster, who was nodding from time to time.

  Mike took advantage of a pause to get up. "May I go, sir?" he said.

  "Certainly, Jackson, certainly," said the Head. "Oh, and er--if you aregoing back to your house, tell Smith that I should like to see him."

  "Yes, sir."

  He had reached the door, when again there was a knock.

  "Come in," said the headmaster.

  It was Adair.

  "Yes, Adair?"

  Adair was breathing rather heavily, as if he had been running.

  "It was about Sammy--Sampson, sir," he said, looking at Mr. Downing.

  "Ah, we know ... Well, Adair, what did you wish to say?"

  "It wasn't Jackson who did it, sir."

  "No, no, Adair. So Mr. Downing--"

  "It was Dunster, sir."

  Terrific sensation! The headmaster gave a sort of strangled yelp ofastonishment. Mr. Downing leaped in his chair. Mike's eyes opened totheir fullest extent.

  "Adair!"

  There was almost a wail in the headmaster's voice. The situation hadsuddenly become too much for him. His brain was swimming. That Mike,despite the evidence against him, should be innocent, was curious,perhaps, but not particularly startling. But that Adair should informhim, two minutes after Mr. Downing's announcement of Psmith'sconfession, that Psmith, too, was guiltless, and that the real criminalwas Dunster--it was this that made him feel that somebody, in the wordsof an American author, had played a mean trick on him, and substitutedfor his brain a side order of cauliflower. Why Dunster, of all people?Dunster, who, he remembered dizzily, had left the school at Christmas.And why, if Dunster had really painted the dog, had Psmith asserted thathe himself was the culprit? Why--why anything? He concentrated his mindon Adair as the only person who could save him from impendingbrain fever.

  "Adair!"

  "Yes, sir?"

  "What--_what_ do you mean?"

  "It _was_ Dunster, sir. I got a letter from him only five minutes ago,in which he said that he had painted Sammy--Sampson, the dog, sir, for arag--for a joke, and that, as he didn't want anyone here to get into arow--be punished for it, I'd better tell Mr. Downing at once. I tried tofind Mr. Downing, but he wasn't in the house. Then I met Smith outsidethe house, and he told me that Mr. Downing had gone over to seeyou, sir."

  "Smith told you?" said Mr. Downing.

  "Yes, sir."

  "Did you say anything to him about your having received this letter fromDunster?"

  "I gave him the letter to read, sir."

  "And what was his attitude when he had read it?"

  "He laughed, sir."

  "_Laughed_!" Mr. Downing's voice was thunderous.

  "Yes, sir. He rolled about."

  Mr. Downing snorted.

  "But Adair," said the headmaster, "I do not understand how this thingcould have been done by Dunster. He has left the school."

  "He was down here for the Old Sedleighans' match, sir. He stopped thenight in the village."

  "And that was the night the--it happened?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "I see. Well, I am glad to find that the blame can not be attached toany boy in the school. I am sorry that it is even an Old Boy. It was afoolish, discreditable thing to have done, but it is not as bad as ifany boy still at the school had broken out of his house at night todo it."

  "The sergeant," said Mr. Downing, "told me that the boy he saw wasattempting to enter Mr. Outwood's house."

  "Another freak of Dunster's, I suppose," said the headmaster. "I shallwrite to him."

  "If it was really Dunster who painted my dog," said Mr. Downing, "Icannot understand the part played by Smith in this affair. If he did notdo it, what possible motive could he have had for coming to me of hisown accord and deliberately confessing?"

  "To be sure," said the headmaster, pressing a bell. "It is certainly athing that calls for explanation. Barlow," he said, as the butlerappeared, "kindly go across to Mr. Outwood's house and inform Smith thatI should like to see him."

  "If you please, sir, Mr. Smith is waiting in the hall."

  "In the hall!"

  "Yes, sir. He arrived soon after Mr. Adair, sir, saying that he wouldwait, as you would probably wish to see him shortly."

  "H'm. Ask him to step up, Barlow."

  "Yes, sir."

  There followed one of the tensest "stag
e waits" of Mike's experience. Itwas not long, but, while it lasted, the silence was quite solid. Nobodyseemed to have anything to say, and there was not even a clock in theroom to break the stillness with its ticking. A very faint drip-drip ofrain could be heard outside the window.

  Presently there was a sound of footsteps on the stairs. The door wasopened.

  "Mr. Smith, sir."

  The Old Etonian entered as would the guest of the evening who is a fewmoments late for dinner. He was cheerful, but slightly deprecating. Hegave the impression of one who, though sure of his welcome, feels thatsome slight apology is expected from him. He advanced into the room witha gentle half-smile which suggested good will to all men.

  "It is still raining," he observed. "You wished to see me, sir?"

  "Sit down, Smith."

  "Thank you, sir."

  He dropped into a deep armchair (which both Adair and Mike had avoidedin favor of less luxurious seats) with the confidential cosiness of afashionable physician calling on a patient, between whom and himselftime has broken down the barriers of restraint and formality.

  Mr. Downing burst out, like a reservoir that has broken its banks.

  "Smith."

  Psmith turned his gaze politely in the housemaster's direction.

  "Smith, you came to me a quarter of an hour ago and told me that it wasyou who had painted my dog Sampson."

  "Yes, sir."

  "It was absolutely untrue?"

  "I am afraid so, sir."

  "But, Smith ..." began the headmaster.

  Psmith bent forward encouragingly.

  "... This is a most extraordinary affair. Have you no explanation tooffer? What induced you to do such a thing?"

  Psmith sighed softly.

  "The craze of notoriety, sir," he replied sadly. "The curse of thepresent age."

  "What!" replied the headmaster.

  "It is remarkable," proceeded Psmith placidly, with the impersonal touchof one lecturing on generalities, "how frequently, when a murder hasbeen committed, one finds men confessing that they have done it when itis out of the question that they should have committed it. It is one ofthe most interesting problems with which anthropologists are confronted.Human nature--"

  The headmaster interrupted.

  "Smith," he said, "I should like to see you alone for a moment. Mr.Downing, might I trouble...? Adair, Jackson."

  He made a motion toward the door.

  When he and Psmith were alone, there was silence. Psmith leaned backcomfortably in his chair. The headmaster tapped nervously with his footon the floor.

  "Er ... Smith."

  "Sir?"

  The headmaster seemed to have some difficulty in proceeding. He pausedagain. Then he went on.

  "Er ... Smith, I do not for a moment wish to pain you, but have you ...er, do you remember ever having had, as a child, let us say, any ...er ... severe illness? Any ... er ... _mental_ illness?"

  "No, sir."

  "There is no--forgive me if I am touching on a sad subject--there isno ... none of your near relatives have ever suffered in the way I ...er ... have described?"

  "There isn't a lunatic on the list, sir," said Psmith cheerfully.

  "Of course, Smith, of course," said the headmaster hurriedly, "I did notmean to suggest--quite so, quite so. ... You think, then, that youconfessed to an act which you had not committed purely from some suddenimpulse which you cannot explain?"

  "Strictly between ourselves, sir ..."

  Privately, the headmaster found Psmith's man-to-man attitude somewhatdisconcerting, but he said nothing.

  "Well, Smith?"

  "I should not like it to go any further, sir."

  "I will certainly respect any confidence ..."

  "I don't want anybody to know, sir. This is strictly between ourselves."

  "I think you are sometimes apt to forget, Smith, the proper relationsexisting between boy and--Well, never mind that for the present. We canreturn to it later. For the moment, let me hear what you wish to say. Ishall, of course, tell nobody, if you do not wish it."

  "Well, it was like this, sir," said Psmith, "Jackson happened to tell methat you and Mr. Downing seemed to think he had painted Mr. Downing'sdog, and there seemed some danger of his being expelled, so I thought itwouldn't be an unsound scheme if I were to go and say I had done it.That was the whole thing. Of course, Dunster writing created a certainamount of confusion."

  There was a pause.

  "It was a very wrong thing to do, Smith," said the headmaster, at last,"but.... You are a curious boy, Smith. Good night."

  He held out his hand.

  "Good night, sir," said Psmith.

  "Not a bad old sort," said Psmith meditatively to himself, as he walkeddownstairs. "By no means a bad old sort. I must drop in from time totime and cultivate him."

  Mike and Adair were waiting for him outside the front door.

  "Well?" said Mike.

  "You _are_ the limit," said Adair. "What's he done?"

  "Nothing. We had a very pleasant chat, and then I tore myself away."

  "Do you mean to say he's not going to do a thing?"

  "Not a thing."

  "Well, you're a marvel," said Adair.

  Psmith thanked him courteously. They walked on toward the houses.

  "By the way, Adair," said Mike, as the latter started to turn in atDowning's, "I'll write to Strachan tonight about that match."

  "What's that?" asked Psmith.

  "Jackson's going to try and get Wrykyn to give us a game," said Adair."They've got a vacant date. I hope the dickens they'll do it."

  "Oh, I should think they're certain to," said Mike. "Good night."

  "And give Comrade Downing, when you see him," said Psmith, "my very bestlove. It is men like him who make this Merrie England of ours whatit is."

  * * * * *

  "I say, Psmith," said Mike suddenly, "what really made you tell Downingyou'd done it?"

  "The craving for--"

  "Oh, chuck it. You aren't talking to the Old Man now. I believe it wassimply to get me out of a jolly tight corner."

  Psmith's expression was one of pain.

  "My dear Comrade Jackson," said he, "you wrong me. You make me writhe.I'm surprised at you. I never thought to hear those words fromMichael Jackson."

  "Well, I believe you did, all the same," said Mike obstinately. "And itwas jolly good of you, too."

  Psmith moaned.

  30

  SEDLEIGH V. WRYKYN

  The Wrykyn match was three parts over, and things were going badly forSedleigh. In a way one might have said that the game was over, and thatSedleigh had lost; for it was a one-day match, and Wrykyn, who had ledon the first innings, had only to play out time to make the game theirs.

  Sedleigh were paying the penalty for allowing themselves to beinfluenced by nerves in the early part of the day. Nerves lose moreschool matches than good play ever won. There is a certain type ofschool batsman who is a gift to any bowler when he once lets hisimagination run away with him. Sedleigh, with the exception of Adair,Psmith, and Mike, had entered upon this match in a state of the mostazure funk. Ever since Mike had received Strachan's answer and Adair hadannounced on the notice board that on Saturday, July the twentieth,Sedleigh would play Wrykyn, the team had been all on the jump. It wasuseless for Adair to tell them, as he did repeatedly, on Mike'sauthority, that Wrykyn were weak this season, and that on their presentform Sedleigh ought to win easily. The team listened, but were notcomforted. Wrykyn might be below their usual strength, but then Wrykyncricket, as a rule, reached such a high standard that this probablymeant little. However weak Wrykyn might be--for them--there was a veryfirm impression among the members of the Sedleigh first eleven that theother school was quite strong enough to knock the cover off _them_.Experience counts enormously in school matches. Sedleigh had never beenproved. The teams they played were the sort of sides which the Wrykynsecond eleven would play. Whereas Wrykyn, from time immemorial, had beenbeatin
g Ripton teams and Free Foresters teams and M.C.C. teams packedwith county men and sending men to Oxford and Cambridge who got theirblues as freshmen.

  Sedleigh had gone onto the field that morning a depressed side.

  It was unfortunate that Adair had won the toss. He had had no choice butto take first innings. The weather had been bad for the last week, andthe wicket was slow and treacherous. It was likely to get worse duringthe day, so Adair had chosen to bat first.

  Taking into consideration the state of nerves the team was in, this initself was a calamity. A school eleven are always at their worst andnerviest before lunch. Even on their own ground they find thesurroundings lonely and unfamiliar. The subtlety of the bowlers becomesmagnified. Unless the first pair make a really good start, a collapsealmost invariably ensues.

  Today the start had been gruesome beyond words. Mike, the bulwark of theside, the man who had been brought up on Wrykyn bowling, and from whom,whatever might happen to the others, at least a fifty wasexpected--Mike, going in first with Barnes and taking first over, hadplayed inside one from Bruce, the Wrykyn slow bowler, and had beencaught at short slip off his second ball.

  That put the finishing touch on the panic. Stone, Robinson, and theothers, all quite decent punishing batsmen when their nerves allowedthem to play their own game, crawled to the wickets, declined to hit outat anything, and were clean bowled, several of them, playing back tohalf volleys. Adair did not suffer from panic, but his batting was notequal to his bowling, and he had fallen after hitting one four. Sevenwickets were down for thirty when Psmith went in.

  Psmith had always disclaimed any pretensions to batting skill, but hewas undoubtedly the right man for a crisis like this. He had an enormousreach, and he used it. Three consecutive balls from Bruce he turned intofull tosses and swept to the leg boundary, and, assisted by Barnes, whohad been sitting on the splice in his usual manner, he raised the totalto seventy-one before being yorked, with his score at thirty-five. Tenminutes later the innings was over, with Barnes not out sixteen, forseventy-nine.

  Wrykyn had then gone in, lost Strachan for twenty before lunch, andfinally completed their innings at a quarter to four for a hundred andthirty-one.

  This was better than Sedleigh had expected. At least eight of the teamhad looked forward dismally to an afternoon's leather hunting. But Adairand Psmith, helped by the wicket, had never been easy, especiallyPsmith, who had taken six wickets, his slows playing havoc withthe tail.

  It would be too much to say that Sedleigh had any hope of pulling thegame out of the fire; but it was a comfort, they felt, at any rate,having another knock. As is usual at this stage of a match, theirnervousness had vanished, and they felt capable of better things than inthe first innings.

  It was on Mike's suggestion that Psmith and he went in first. Mike knewthe limitations of the Wrykyn bowling, and he was convinced that, ifthey could knock Bruce off, it might be possible to rattle up a scoresufficient to give them the game, always provided Wrykyn collapsed inthe second innings. And it seemed to Mike that the wicket would be sobad then that they easily might.

  So he and Psmith had gone in at four o'clock to hit. And they had hit.The deficit had been wiped off, all but a dozen runs, when Psmith wasbowled, and by that time Mike was set and in his best vein. He treatedall the bowlers alike. And when Stone came in, restored to his properframe of mind, and lashed out stoutly, and after him Robinson and therest, it looked as if Sedleigh had a chance again. The score was ahundred and twenty when Mike, who had just reached his fifty, skied oneto Strachan at cover. The time was twenty-five past five.

  As Mike reached the pavilion, Adair declared the innings closed.

  Wrykyn started batting at twenty-five minutes to six, with sixty-nine tomake if they wished to make them, and an hour and ten minutes duringwhich to keep up their wickets if they preferred to take things easy andgo for a win on the first innings.

  At first it looked as if they meant to knock off the runs, for Strachanforced the game from the first ball, which was Psmith's, and which hehit into the pavilion. But, at fifteen, Adair bowled him. And when, tworuns later, Psmith got the next man stumped, and finished up his overwith a c-and-b, Wrykyn decided that it was not good enough. Seventeenfor three, with an hour all but five minutes to go, was getting toodangerous. So Drummond and Rigby, the next pair, proceeded to play withcaution, and the collapse ceased.

  This was the state of the game at the point at which this chapteropened. Seventeen for three had become twenty-four for three, and thehands of the clock stood at ten minutes past six. Changes of bowling hadbeen tried, but there seemed no chance of getting past the batsmen'sdefence. They were playing all the good balls, and refused to hit atthe bad.

  A quarter past six struck, and then Psmith made a suggestion whichaltered the game completely.

  "Why don't you have a shot this end?" he said to Adair, as they werecrossing over. "There's a spot on the off which might help you a lot.You can break like blazes if only you land on it. It doesn't help my legbreaks a bit, because they won't hit at them."

  Barnes was on the point of beginning to bowl when Adair took the ballfrom him. The captain of Outwood's retired to short leg with an air thatsuggested that he was glad to be relieved of his prominent post. Thenext moment Drummond's off stump was lying at an angle of forty-five.Adair was absolutely accurate as a bowler, and he had dropped his firstball right on the worn patch.

  Two minutes later Drummond's successor was retiring to the pavilion,while the wicket keeper straightened the stumps again.

  There is nothing like a couple of unexpected wickets for altering theatmosphere of a game. Five minutes before, Sedleigh had been lethargicand without hope. Now there was a stir and buzz all around the ground.There were twenty-five minutes to go, and five wickets were down.Sedleigh was on top again.

  The next man seemed to take an age coming out. As a matter of fact, hewalked more rapidly than a batsman usually walks to the crease.

  Adair's third ball dropped just short of the spot. The batsman, hittingout, was a shade too soon. The ball hummed through the air a couple offeet from the ground in the direction of mid off, and Mike, diving tothe right, got to it as he was falling, and chucked it up.

  After that the thing was a walk over. Psmith clean bowled a man in hisnext over: and the tail, demoralized by the sudden change in the game,collapsed uncompromisingly. Sedleigh won by thirty-five runs with eightminutes in hand.

  * * * * *

  Psmith and Mike sat in their study after lockup, discussing things ingeneral and the game in particular. "I feel like a beastly renegade,playing against Wrykyn," said Mike. "Still, I'm glad we won. Adair's ajolly good sort and it'll make him happy for weeks."

  "When I last saw Comrade Adair," said Psmith, "he was going about in asort of trance, beaming vaguely and wanting to stand people things atthe shop."

  "He bowled awfully well."

  "Yes," said Psmith. "I say, I don't wish to cast a gloom over thisjoyful occasion in any way, but you say Wrykyn are going to giveSedleigh a fixture again next year?"

  "Well?"

  "Well, have you thought of the massacre which will ensue? You will haveleft, Adair will have left. Incidentally, I shall have left. Wrykyn willswamp them."

  "I suppose they will. Still, the great thing, you see, is to get thething started. That's what Adair was so keen on. Now Sedleigh has beatenWrykyn, he's satisfied. They can get fixtures with decent clubs, andwork up to playing the big schools. You've got to start somehow. So it'sall right, you see."

  "And, besides," said Psmith, reflectively, "in an emergency they canalways get Comrade Downing to bowl for them, what? Let us now sally outand see if we can't promote a rag of some sort in this abode of wrath.Comrade Outwood has gone over to dinner at the School House, and itwould be a pity to waste a somewhat golden opportunity. Shallwe stagger?"

  They staggered.

 
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