For the first time in the proceedings a spirit of disaffection seemed to manifest itself in the bosom of her assistant. Up till this moment Freddie had taken his orders placidly and executed them with promptness and civility. Even when the first shower of soot had driven him choking from the fire-place, his manly spirit had not been crushed; he had merely uttered a startled ‘Oh, I say!’ and returned gallantly to the attack. But now he obviously hesitated.
‘Go on,’ said Eve impatiently.
‘Yes, but, I say, you know . . .’
‘What’s the matter?’
‘I don’t think the chap would be likely to hide a necklace in the cellar. I vote we give it a miss and try upstairs.’
‘Don’t be silly, Freddie. He may have hidden it anywhere.’
‘Well, to be absolutely honest, I’d much rather not go into any bally cellar, if it’s all the same to you.’
‘Why ever not?’
‘Beetles. Always had a horror of beetles. Ever since I was a kid.’
Eve bit her lip. She was feeling, as Miss Peavey had so often felt when associated in some delicate undertaking with Edward Cootes, that exasperating sense of man’s inadequacy which comes to high-spirited girls at moments such as these. To achieve the end for which she had started out that night she would have waded waist-high through a sea of beetles. But, divining with that sixth sense which tells women when the male has been pushed just so far and can be pushed no farther, that Freddie, wax though he might be in her hands in any other circumstances, was on this one point adamant, she made no further effort to bend him to her will.
‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’ll go down into the cellar. You go and look upstairs.’
‘No. I say, sure you don’t mind?’
Eve took up her lamp and left the craven.
∗∗∗∗∗
For a girl of iron resolution and unswerving purpose, Eve’s inspection of the cellar was decidedly cursory. A distinct feeling of relief came over her as she stood at the top of the steps and saw by the light of the lamp how small and bare it was. For, impervious as she might be to the intimidation of beetles, her armour still contained a chink. She was terribly afraid of rats. And even when the rays of the lamp disclosed no scuttling horrors, she still lingered for a moment before descending. You never knew with rats. They pretended not to be there just to lure you on, and then came out and whizzed about your ankles. However, the memory of her scorn for Freddie’s pusillanimity forced her on, and she went down.
The word ‘cellar’ is an elastic one. It can be applied equally to the acres of bottle-fringed vaults which lie beneath a great pile like Blandings Castle and to a hole in the ground like the one in which she now found herself. This cellar was easily searched. She stamped on its stone flags with an ear strained to detect any note of hollowness, but none came. She moved the lamp so that it shone into every corner, but there was not even a crack in which a diamond necklace could have been concealed. Satisfied that the place contained nothing but a little coal-dust and a smell of damp decay, Eve passed thankfully out.
The law of elimination was doing its remorseless work. It had ruled out the cellar, the kitchen, and the living-room – that is to say, the whole of the lower of the two floors which made up the cottage. There now remained only the rooms upstairs. There were probably not more than two, and Freddie must already have searched one of these. The quest seemed to be nearing its end. As Eve made for the narrow staircase that led to the second floor, the lamp shook in her hand and cast weird shadows. Now that success was in sight, the strain was beginning to affect her nerves.
It was to nerves that in the first instant of hearing it she attributed what sounded like a soft cough in the sitting-room, a few feet from where she stood. Then a chill feeling of dismay gripped her. It could only, she thought, be Freddie, returned from his search; and if Freddie had returned from his search already, what could it mean except that those upstairs rooms, on which she had counted so confidently, had proved as empty as the others? Freddie was not one of your restrained, unemotional men. If he had found the necklace he would have been downstairs in two bounds, shouting. His silence was ominous. She opened the door and went quickly in.
‘Freddie,’ she began, and broke off with a gasp.
It was not Freddie who had coughed. It was Psmith. He was seated on the remains of the horsehair sofa, toying with an automatic pistol and gravely surveying through his monocle the ruins of a home.
§ 3
‘Good evening,’ said Psmith.
It was not for a philosopher like himself to display astonishment. He was, however, undeniably feeling it. When, a few minutes before, he had encountered Freddie in this same room, he had received a distinct shock; but a rough theory which would account for Freddie’s presence in his home-from-home he had been able to work out. He groped in vain for one which would explain Eve.
Mere surprise, however, was never enough to prevent Psmith talking. He began at once.
‘It was nice of you,’ he said, rising courteously, ‘to look in. Won’t you sit down? On the sofa, perhaps? Or would you prefer a brick?’
Eve was not yet equal to speech. She had been so firmly convinced that he was ten miles away at Shifley that his presence here in the sitting-room of the cottage had something of the breath-taking quality of a miracle. The explanation, if she could have known it, was simple. Two excellent reasons had kept Psmith from gracing the County Ball with his dignified support. In the first place, as Shifley was only four miles from the village where he had spent most of his life, he had regarded it as probable, if not certain, that he would have encountered there old friends to whom it would have been both tedious and embarrassing to explain why he had changed his name to McTodd. And secondly, though he had not actually anticipated a nocturnal raid on his little nook, he had thought it well to be on the premises that evening in case Mr Edward Cootes should have been getting ideas into his head. As soon, therefore, as the castle had emptied itself and the wheels of the last car had passed away down the drive, he had pocketed Mr Cootes’s revolver and proceeded to the cottage.
Eve recovered her self-possession. She was not a girl given to collapse in moments of crisis. The first shock of amazement had passed; a humiliating feeling of extreme foolishness, which came directly after, had also passed; she was now grimly ready for battle.
‘Where is Mr Threepwood?’ she asked.
‘Upstairs. I have put him in storage for a while. Do not worry about Comrade Threepwood. He has lots to think about. He is under the impression that if he stirs out he will be instantly shot.’
‘Oh? Well, I want to put this lamp down. Will you please pick up that table?’
‘By all means. But – I am a novice in these matters – ought I not first to say “Hands up!” or something?’
‘Will you please pick up that table?’
‘A friend of mine – one Cootes – you must meet him some time – generally remarks “Hey!” in a sharp, arresting voice on these occasions. Personally I consider the expression too abrupt. Still, he has had great experience . . .’
‘Will you please pick up that table?’
‘Most certainly. I take it, then, that you would prefer to dispense with the usual formalities. In that case, I will park this revolver on the mantelpiece while we chat. I have taken a curious dislike to the thing. It makes me feel like Dangerous Dan McGrew.’
Eve put down the lamp, and there was silence for a moment. Psmith looked about him thoughtfully. He picked up one of the dead bats and covered it with his handkerchief.
‘Somebody’s mother,’ he murmured reverently.
Eve sat down on the sofa.
‘Mr . . .’ She stopped. ‘I can’t call you Mr McTodd. Will you please tell me your name?’
‘Ronald,’ said Psmith. ‘Ronald Eustace.’
‘I suppose you have a surname?’ snapped Eve. ‘Or an alias?’
Psmith eyed her with a pained expression.
‘I may be hyper-sensiti
ve,’ he said, ‘but that last remark sounded to me like a dirty dig. You seem to imply that I am some sort of a criminal.’
Eve laughed shortly.
‘I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings. There’s not much sense in pretending now, is there? What is your name?’
‘Psmith. The p is silent.’
‘Well, Mr Smith, I imagine you understand why I am here?’
‘I took it for granted that you had come to fulfil your kindly promise of doing the place up a bit. Will you be wounded if I say frankly that I preferred it the way it was before? All this may be the last word in ultra-modern interior decoration, but I suppose I am old-fashioned. The whisper flies round Shropshire and adjoining counties, “Psmith is hide-bound. He is not attuned to up-to-date methods.” Honestly, don’t you think you have rather unduly stressed the bizarre note? This soot . . . these dead bats . . .’
‘I have come to get that necklace.’
‘Ah! The necklace!’
‘I’m going to get it, too.’
Psmith shook his head gently.
‘There,’ he said, ‘if you will pardon me, I take issue with you. There is nobody to whom I would rather give that necklace than you, but there are special circumstances connected with it which render such an action impossible. I fancy, Miss Halliday, that you have been misled by your young friend upstairs. No; let me speak,’ he said, raising a hand. ‘You know what a treat it is to me. The way I envisage the matter is thus. I still cannot understand as completely as I could wish how you come to be mixed up in the affair, but it is plain that in some way or other Comrade Threepwood has enlisted your services, and I regret to be obliged to inform you that the motives animating him in this quest are not pure. To put it crisply, he is engaged in what Comrade Cootes, to whom I alluded just now, would call “funny business”.’
‘I . . .’
‘Pardon me,’ said Psmith. ‘If you will be patient for a few minutes more, I shall have finished and shall then be delighted to lend an attentive ear to any remarks you may wish to make. As it occurs to me – indeed, you hinted as much yourself just now – that my own position in this little matter has an appearance which to the uninitiated might seem tolerably rummy, I had better explain how I come to be guarding a diamond necklace which does not belong to me. I rely on your womanly discretion to let the thing go no further.’
‘Will you please . . .’
‘In one moment. The facts are as follows. Our mutual friend Mr Keeble, Miss Halliday, has a stepdaughter who is married to one Comrade Jackson who, if he had no other claim to fame, would go ringing down through history for this reason, that he and I were at school together and that he is my best friend. We two have sported on the green – ooh, a lot of times. Well, owing to one thing and another, the Jackson family is rather badly up against it at the present . . .’
Eve jumped up angrily.
‘I don’t believe a word of it,’ she cried. ‘What is the use of trying to fool me like this? You had never heard of Phyllis before Freddie spoke about her in the train . . .’
‘Believe me . . .’
‘I won’t. Freddie got you down here to help him steal that necklace and give it to Mr Keeble so that he could help Phyllis, and now you’ve got it and are trying to keep it for yourself.’
Psmith started slightly. His monocle fell from its place.
‘Is everybody in this little plot! Are you also one of Comrade Keeble’s corps of assistants?’
‘Mr Keeble asked me to try to get the necklace for him.’
Psmith replaced his monocle thoughtfully.
‘This,’ he said, ‘opens up a new line of thought. Can it be that I have been wronging Comrade Threepwood all this time? I must confess that, when I found him here just now standing like Marius among the ruins of Carthage (the allusion is a classical one, and the fruit of an expensive education), I jumped – 1 may say, sprang – to the conclusion that he was endeavouring to double-cross both myself and the boss by getting hold of the necklace with a view to retaining it for his own benefit. It never occurred to me that he might be crediting me with the same sinful guile.’
Eve ran to him and clutched his arm.
‘Mr Smith, is this really true? Are you really a friend of Phyllis?’
‘She looks on me as a grandfather. Are you a friend of hers?’
‘We were at school together.’
‘This,’ said Psmith cordially, ‘is one of the most gratifying moments of my life. It makes us all seem like one great big family.’
‘But I never heard Phyllis speak about you.’
‘Strange!’ said Psmith. ‘Strange. Surely she was not ashamed of her humble friend?’
‘Her what?’
‘I must explain,’ said Psmith, ‘that until recently I was earning a difficult livelihood by slinging fish about in Billingsgate Market. It is possible that some snobbish strain in Comrade Jackson’s bride, which I confess I had not suspected, kept her from admitting that she was accustomed to hob-nob with one in the fish business.’
‘Good gracious!’ cried Eve.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Smith . . . Fish business . . . Why, it was you who called at Phyllis’s house while I was there. Just before I came down here. I remember Phyllis saying how sorry she was that we had not met. She said you were just my sort of . . . I mean, she said she wanted me to meet you.’
‘This,’ said Psmith, ‘is becoming more and more gratifying every moment. It seems to me that you and I were made for each other. I am your best friend’s best friend and we both have a taste for stealing other people’s jewellery. I cannot see how you can very well resist the conclusion that we are twin-souls.’
‘Don’t be silly.’
‘We shall get into that series of “Husbands and Wives Who Work Together”.’
‘Where is the necklace?’
Psmith sighed.
‘The business note. Always the business note. Can’t we keep all that till later?’
‘No. We can’t.’
‘Ah, well!’
Psmith crossed the room, and took down from the wall the case of stuffed birds.
‘The one place,’ said Eve, with mortification, ‘where we didn’t think of looking!’
Psmith opened the case and removed the centre bird, a depressed-looking fowl with glass eyes which stared with a haunting pathos. He felt in its interior and pulled out something that glittered and sparkled in the lamp-light.
‘Oh!’
Eve ran her fingers almost lovingly through the jewels as they lay before her on the little table.
‘Aren’t they beautiful!’
‘Distinctly. I think I may say that of all the jewels I have ever stolen . . .’
‘HEY!’
Eve let the necklace fall with a cry. Psmith spun round. In the doorway stood Mr Edward Cootes, pointing a pistol.
§ 4
‘Hands up!’ said Mr Cootes with the uncouth curtness of one who has not had the advantages of a refined home and a nice upbringing. He advanced warily, preceded by the revolver. It was a dainty, miniature weapon, such as might have been the property of some gentle lady. Mr Cootes had, in fact, borrowed it from Miss Peavey, who at this juncture entered the room in a black and silver dinner-dress surmounted by a Rose du Barri wrap, her spiritual face glowing softly in the subdued light.
‘Attaboy, Ed,’ observed Miss Peavey crisply.
She swooped on the table and gathered up the necklace. Mr Cootes, though probably gratified by the tribute, made no acknowledgement of it, but continued to direct an austere gaze at Eve and Psmith.
‘No funny business,’ he advised.
‘I would be the last person,’ said Psmith agreeably, ‘to advocate anything of the sort. This,’ he said to Eve, ‘is Comrade Cootes, of whom you have heard so much.’
Eve was staring, bewildered, at the poetess, who, satisfied with the manner in which the preliminaries had been conducted, had begun looking about her with idle curiosity.
‘Miss Peavey!’ cried Eve. Of all the events of this eventful night the appearance of Lady Constance’s emotional friend in the róle of criminal was the most disconcerting. ‘Miss Peavey?
‘Hallo?’ responded that lady agreeably.
‘I . . . I . . .’
‘What, I think, Miss Halliday is trying to say’ cut in Psmith, ‘is that she is finding it a little difficult to adjust her mind to the present development. I, too, must confess myself somewhat at a loss. I knew, of course, that Comrade Cootes had – shall I say an acquisitive streak in him, but you I had always supposed to be one hundred per cent, soul – and snowy white at that.’
‘Yeah?’ said Miss Peavey, but faintly interested.
‘I imagined that you were a poetess.’
‘So I am a poetess,’ retorted Miss Peavey hotly. ‘Just you start in joshing my poems and see how quick I’ll bean you with a brick. Well, Ed, no sense in sticking around here. Let’s go.’
‘We’ll have to tie these birds up,’ said Mr Cootes. ‘Otherwise we’ll have them squealing before I can make a getaway.’
‘Ed,’ said Miss Peavey with the scorn which her colleague so often excited in her, ‘try to remember sometimes that that thing balanced on your collar is a head, not a hubbard squash. And be careful what you’re doing with that gat! Waving it about like it was a bouquet or something. How are they going to squeal? They can’t say a thing without telling everyone they snitched the stuff first.’
‘That’s right,’ admitted Mr Cootes.
‘Well, then, don’t come butting in.’
The silence into which this rebuke plunged Mr Cootes gave Psmith the opportunity to resume speech. An opportunity of which he was glad, for, while he had nothing of definitely vital import to say, he was optimist enough to feel that his only hope of recovering the necklace was to keep the conversation going on the chance of something turning up. Affable though his manner was, he had never lost sight of the fact that one leap would take him across the space of floor separating him from Mr Cootes. At present, that small but effective revolver precluded anything in the nature of leaps, however short, but if in the near future anything occurred to divert his adversary’s vigilance even momentarily. . . . He pursued a policy of watchful waiting, and in the meantime started to talk again.
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