Blanding Castle Omnibus

by P. G. Wodehouse

  She rocked to and fro in an agony of grief. Then an idea seemed to strike her.

  'I wonder if you would care to see me in light comedy? ... No? ... Oh, very well.'

  With a quick droop of the eyelids and a twitch of the muscles of the cheeks she registered resignation.

  'Just as you please,' she said. Then her nostrils quivered and she bared the left canine tooth to indicate Menace. 'But one last word. Wait!'

  'How do you mean, wait?'

  'Just wait. That's all.'

  For an instant Mr Schnellenhamer was conscious of a twinge of uneasiness. Like all motion-picture magnates, he had about forty-seven guilty secrets, many of them recorded on paper. Was it possible that ...

  Then he breathed again. All his private documents were secure in a safe-deposit box. It was absurd to imagine that this girl could have anything on him.

  Relieved, he lay down on the Chesterfield and gave himself up to day-dreams. And soon, as he remembered that that morning he had put through a deal which would enable him to trim the stuffing out of two hundred and seventy-three exhibitors, his lips curved in a contented smile and Vera Prebble was forgotten.

  One of the advantages of life in Hollywood is that the Servant Problem is not a difficult one. Supply more than equals demand. Ten minutes after you have thrown a butler out of the back door his successor is bowling up in his sports-model car. And the same applies to parlourmaids. By the following afternoon all was well once more with the Schnellenhamer domestic machine. A new butler was cleaning the silver: a new parlourmaid was doing whatever parlourmaids do, which is very little. Peace reigned in the home.

  But on the second evening, as Mr Schnellenhamer, the day's tasks over, entered his sitting-room with nothing in his mind but bright thoughts of dinner, he was met by what had all the appearance of a human whirlwind. This was Mrs Schnellenhamer. A graduate of the silent films, Mrs Schnellenhamer had been known in her day as the Queen of Stormy Emotion, and she occasionally saw to it that her husband was reminded of this.

  'Now see what!' cried Mrs Schnellenhamer.

  Mr Schnellenhamer was perturbed.

  'Is something wrong?' he asked nervously.

  'Why did you fire that girl, Vera Prebble?'

  'She went ha-ha-ha-ha-ha at me.'

  'Well, do you know what she has done? She has laid information with the police that we are harbouring alcoholic liquor on our premises, contrary to law, and this afternoon they came in a truck and took it all away.'

  Mr Schnellenhamer reeled. The shock was severe. The good man loves his cellar.

  'Not all?' he cried, almost pleadingly.

  'All.'

  'The Scotch?'

  'Every bottle.'

  'The gin?'

  'Every drop.'

  Mr Schnellenhamer supported himself against the Chesterfield.

  'Not the champagne?' he whispered.

  'Every case. And here we are, with a hundred and fifty people coming to-night, including the Duke.'

  Her allusion was to the Duke of Wigan, who, as so many British dukes do, was at this time passing slowly through Hollywood.

  'And you know how touchy dukes are,' proceeded Mrs Schnellenhamer. 'I'm told that the Lulubelle Mahaffys invited the Duke of Kircudbrightshire for the week-end last year, and after he had been there two months he suddenly left in a huff because there was no brown sherry.'

  A motion-picture magnate has to be a quick thinker. Where a lesser man would have wasted time referring to the recent Miss Prebble as a serpent whom he had to all intents and purposes nurtured in his bosom, Mr Schnellenhamer directed the whole force of his great brain on the vital problem of how to undo the evil she had wrought.

  'Listen,' he said. 'It's all right. I'll get the bootlegger on the 'phone, and he'll have us stocked up again in no time.'

  But he had overlooked the something in the air of Hollywood which urges its every inhabitant irresistibly into the pictures. When he got his bootlegger's number, it was only to discover that that life-saving tradesman was away from home. They were shooting a scene in 'Sundered Hearts' on the Outstanding Screen-Favourites lot, and the bootlegger was hard at work there, playing the role of an Anglican bishop. His secretary said he could not be disturbed, as it got him all upset to be interrupted when he was working.

  Mr Schnellenhamer tried another bootlegger, then another. They were out on location.

  And it was just as he had begun to despair that he bethought him of his old friend, Isadore Fishbein; and into his darkness there shot a gleam of hope. By the greatest good fortune it so happened that he and the president of the Perfecto-Fishbein were at the moment on excellent terms, neither having slipped anything over on the other for several weeks. Mr Fishbein, moreover, possessed as well-stocked a cellar as any man in California. It would be a simple matter to go round and borrow from him all he needed.

  Patting Mrs Schnellenhamer's hand and telling her that there were still blue-birds singing in the sunshine, he ran to his car and leaped into it.

  The residence of Isadore Fishbein was only a few hundred yards away, and Mr Schnellenhamer was soon whizzing in through the door. He found his friend beating his head against the wall of the sitting-room and moaning to himself in a quiet undertone.

  'Is something the matter?' he asked, surprised.

  'There is,' said Mr Fishbein, selecting a fresh spot on the tapestried wall and starting to beat his head against that. 'The police came round this afternoon and took away everything I had.'

  'Everything?'

  'Well, not Mrs Fishbein,' said the other, with a touch of regret in his voice. 'She's up in the bedroom with eight cubes of ice on her forehead in a linen bag. But they took every drop of everything else. A serpent, that's what she is.'

  'Mrs Fishbein?'

  'Not Mrs Fishbein. That parlourmaid. That Vera Prebble. Just because I stopped her when she got to "boots, boots, boots, boots, marching over Africa" she ups and informs the police on me. And Mrs Fishbein with a hundred and eighty people coming to-night, including the ex-King of Ruritania!'

  And, crossing the room, the speaker began to bang his head against a statue of Genius Inspiring the Motion-Picture Industry.

  A good man is always appalled when he is forced to contemplate the depths to which human nature can sink, and Mr Schnellenhamer's initial reaction on hearing of this fresh outrage on the part of his late parlourmaid was a sort of sick horror. Then the brain which had built up the Colossal-Exquisite began to work once more.

  'Well, the only thing for us to do,' he said, 'is to go round to Ben Zizzbaum and borrow some of his stock. How do you stand with Ben?'

  'I stand fine with Ben,' said Mr Fishbein, cheering up. 'I heard something about him last week which I'll bet he wouldn't care to have known.'

  'Where does he live?'

  'Camden Drive.'

  'Then tally-ho!' said Mr Schnellenhamer, who had once produced a drama in eight reels of two strong men battling for a woman's love in the English hunting district.

  They were soon at Mr Zizzbaum's address. Entering the sitting-room, they were shocked to observe a form rolling in circles round the floor with its head between its hands. It was travelling quickly, but not so quickly that they were unable to recognize it as that of the chief executive of the Zizzbaum-Celluloid Corporation. Stopped as he was completing his eleventh lap and pressed for an explanation, Mr Zizzbaum revealed that a recent parlourmaid of his, Vera Prebble by name, piqued at having been dismissed for deliberate and calculated reciting of the works of Mrs Hemans, had informed the police of his stock of wines and spirits and that the latter had gone off with the whole collection not half an hour since.

  'And don't speak so loud,' added the stricken man, 'or you'll wake Mrs Zizzbaum. She's in bed with ice on her head.'

  'How many cubes?' asked Mr Fishbein.

  'Six.'

  'Mrs Fishbein needed eight,' said that lady's husband a little proudly.

  The situation was one that might well have unmanned
the stoutest motion-picture executive, and there were few motion-picture executives stouter than Jacob Schnellenhamer. But it was characteristic of this man that the tightest corner was always the one to bring out the full force of his intellect. He thought of Mrs Schnellenhamer waiting for him at home, and it was as if an electric shock of high voltage had passed through him.

  'I've got it,' he said. 'We must go to Glutz of the Medulla-Oblongata. He's never been a real friend of mine, but if you loan him Stella Svelte and I loan him Orlando Byng and Fishbein loans him Oscar the Wonder-Poodle on his own terms, I think he'll consent to give us enough to see us through to-night. I'll get him on the 'phone.'

  It was some moments before Mr Schnellenhamer returned from the telephone booth. When he did so, his associates were surprised to observe in his eyes a happy gleam.

  'Boys,' he said, 'Glutz is away with his family over the weekend. The butler and the rest of the help are out joy-riding. There's only a parlourmaid in the house. I've been talking to her. So there won't be any need for us to give him those stars, after all. We'll just run across in the car with a few axes and help ourselves. It won't cost us above a hundred dollars to square this girl. She can tell him she was upstairs when the burglars broke in and didn't hear anything. And there we'll be, with all the stuff we need and not a cent to pay outside of overhead connected with maid.'

  There was an awed silence.

  'Mrs Fishbein will be pleased.'

  'Mrs Zizzbaum will be pleased.'

  'And Mrs Schnellenhamer will be pleased,' said the leader of the expedition. 'Where do you keep your axes, Zizzbaum?'

  'In the cellar.'

  'Fetch 'em!' said Mr Schnellenhamer in the voice a Crusader might have used in giving the signal to start against the Paynim.

  In the ornate residence of Sigismund Glutz, meanwhile, Vera Prebble, who had entered the service of the head of the Medulla-Oblongata that morning and was already under sentence of dismissal for having informed him with appropriate gestures that a bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malemute saloon, was engaged in writing on a sheet of paper a short list of names, one of which she proposed as a nom de théâtre as soon as her screen career should begin.

  For this girl was essentially an optimist, and not even all the rebuffs which she had suffered had been sufficient to quench the fire of ambition in her.

  Wiggling her tongue as she shaped the letters, she wrote:

  Ursuline Delmaine

  Theodora Trix

  Uvula Gladwyn

  None of them seemed to her quite what she wanted. She pondered. Possibly something a little more foreign and exotic ...

  Greta Garbo

  No, that had been used ...

  And then suddenly inspiration descended upon her and, trembling a little with emotion, she inscribed on the paper the one name that was absolutely and indubitably right.

  Minna Nordstrom

  The more she looked at it, the better she liked it. And she was still regarding it proudly when there came the sound of a car stopping at the door and a few moments later in walked Mr Schnellenhamer, Mr Zizzbaum and Mr Fishbein. They all wore Homburg hats and carried axes.

  Vera Prebble drew herself up.

  'All goods must be delivered in the rear,' she had begun haughtily, when she recognized her former employers and paused, surprised.

  The recognition was mutual. Mr Fishbein started. So did Mr Zizzbaum.

  'Serpent!' said Mr Fishbein.

  'Viper!' said Mr Zizzbaum.

  Mr Schnellenhamer was more diplomatic. Though as deeply moved as his colleagues by the sight of this traitress, he realized that this was no time for invective.

  'Well, well, well,' he said, with a geniality which he strove to render frank and winning, 'I never dreamed it was you on the 'phone, my dear. Well, this certainly makes everything nice and smooth – us all being, as you might say, old friends.'

  'Friends?' retorted Vera Prebble. 'Let me tell you ...'

  'I know, I know. Quite, quite. But listen. I've got to have some liquor to-night ...'

  'What do you mean, you have?' said Mr Fishbein.

  'It's all right, it's all right,' said Mr Schnellenhamer soothingly. 'I was coming to that. I wasn't forgetting you. We're all in this together. The good old spirit of co-operation. You see, my dear,' he went on, 'that little joke you played on us ... oh, I'm not blaming you. Nobody laughed more heartily than myself...'

  'Yes, they did,' said Mr Fishbein, alive now to the fact that this girl before him must be conciliated. 'I did.'

  'So did I,' said Mr Zizzbaum.

  'We all laughed very heartily,' said Mr Schenellenhamer. 'You should have heard us. A girl of spirit, we said to ourselves. Still, the little pleasantry has left us in something of a difficulty, and it will be worth a hundred dollars to you, my dear, to go upstairs and put cotton-wool in your ears while we get at Mr Glutz's cellar door with our axes.'

  Vera Prebble raised her eyebrows.

  'What do you want to break down the cellar door for? I know the combination of the lock.'

  'You do?' said Mr Schnellenhamer joyfully.

  'I withdraw that expression "Serpent,"' said Mr Fishbein.

  'When I used the term "Viper,"' said Mr Zizzbaum, 'I was speaking thoughtlessly.'

  'And I will tell it you,' said Vera Prebble, 'at a price.'

  She drew back her head and extended an arm, twiddling the fingers at the end of it. She was plainly registering something, but they could not discern what it was.

  'There is only one condition on which I will tell you the combination of Mr Glutz's cellar, and that is this. One of you has got to give me a starring contract for five years.'

  The magnates started.

  'Listen,' said Mr Zizzbaum, 'you don't want to star.'

  'You wouldn't like it,' said Mr Fishbein.

  'Of course you wouldn't,' said Mr Schnellenhamer. 'You would look silly, starring – an inexperienced girl like you. Now, if you had said a nice small part ...'

  'Star.'

  'Or featured ...'

  'Star.'

  The three men drew back a pace or two and put their heads together.

  'She means it,' said Mr Fishbein.

  'Her eyes,' said Mr Zizzbaum. 'Like stones.'

  'A dozen times I could have dropped something heavy on that girl's head from an upper landing, and I didn't do it,' said Mr Schnellenhamer remorsefully.

  Mr Fishbein threw up his hands.

  'It's no use. I keep seeing that vision of Mrs Fishbein floating before me with eight cubes of ice on her head. I'm going to star this girl.'

  'You are?' said Mr Zizzbaum. 'And get the stuff? And leave me to go home and tell Mrs Zizzbaum there won't be anything to drink at her party to-night for a hundred and eleven guests including the Vice-President of Switzerland? No, sir! I am going to star her.'

  'I'll outbid you.'

  'You won't outbid me. Not till they bring me word that Mrs Zizzbaum has lost the use of her vocal chords.'

  'Listen,' said the other tensely. 'When it comes to using vocal chords, Mrs Fishbein begins where Mrs Zizzbaum leaves off.'

  Mr Schnellenhamer, that cool head, saw the peril that loomed.

  'Boys,' he said, 'if we once start bidding against one another, there'll be no limit. There's only one thing to be done. We must merge.'

  His powerful personality carried the day. It was the President of the newly-formed Perfecto-Zizzbaum Corporation who a few moments later stepped forward and approached the girl.

  'We agree.'

  And, as he spoke, there came the sound of some heavy vehicle stopping in the road outside. Vera Prebble uttered a stricken exclamation.

  'Well, of all the silly girls!' she cried distractedly. 'I've just remembered that an hour ago I telephoned the police, informing them of Mr Glutz's cellar. And here they are!'

  Mr Fishbein uttered a cry, and began to look round for something to bang his head against. Mr Zizzbaum gave a short, sharp moan, and started to lower him
self to the floor. But Mr Schnellenhamer was made of sterner stuff.

  'Pull yourselves together, boys,' he begged them. 'Leave all this to me. Everything is going to be all right. Things have come to a pretty pass,' he said, with a dignity as impressive as it was simple, 'if a free-born American citizen cannot bribe the police of his native country.'

  'True,' said Mr Fishbein, arresting his head when within an inch and a quarter of a handsome Oriental vase.

  'True, true,' said Mr Zizzbaum, getting up and dusting his knees.

  'Just let me handle the whole affair,' said Mr Schnellenhamer. Ah, boys!' he went on, genially.

  Three policemen had entered the room – a sergeant, a patrolman, and another patrolman. Their faces wore a wooden, hard-boiled look.

  'Mr Glutz?' said the sergeant.

  'Mr Schnellenhamer,' corrected the great man. 'But Jacob to you, old friend.'

  The sergeant seemed in no wise mollified by this amiability.

  'Prebble, Vera?' he asked, addressing the girl.

  'Nordstrom, Minna,' she replied.

  'Got the name wrong, then. Anyway, it was you who 'phoned us that there was alcoholic liquor on the premises?'

  Mr Schnellenhamer laughed amusedly.

  'You mustn't believe everything that girl tells you, sergeant. She's a great ladder. Always was. If she said that, it was just one of her little jokes. I know Glutz. I know his views. And many is the time I have heard him say that the laws of his country are good enough for him and that he would scorn not to obey them. You will find nothing here, sergeant.'

  'Well, we'll try,' said the other. 'Show us the way to the cellar,' he added, turning to Vera Prebble

  Mr Schnellenhamer smiled a winning smile.

  'Now, listen,' he said. 'I've just remembered I'm wrong. Silly mistake to make, and I don't know how I made it. There is a certain amount of the stuff in the house, but I'm sure you dear chaps don't want to cause any unpleasantness. You're broadminded. Listen. Your name's Murphy, isn't it?'