6 SUE HAS AN IDEA
Sue stared at him, bewildered.
‘Broken off the engagement?’‘Broken off the engagement.’
In moments of stress, the foolish question is always the one that comes uppermost in the mind.
‘Are you sure?’
Hugo emitted a sound which resembled the bursting of a paper bag. He would have said himself, if asked, that he was laughing mirthlessly.
‘Sure? Not much doubt about it.’
‘But why?’
‘She knows all.’
‘All what?’
‘Everything, you poor fish,’ said Hugo, forgetting in a strong man’s agony the polish of the Carmodys. ‘She’s found out that I took you to dinner last night.’
‘What!’
‘She has.’
‘But how?’
The paper bag exploded again. A look of intense bitterness came into Hugo’s face.
‘If ever I meet that slimy, slinking, marcel-waved byproduct Pilbeam again,’ he said, ‘let him commend his soul to God! If he has time,’ he added.
He took the brandy-and-soda from the waiter, and eyed Sue dully.
‘Anything on similar lines for you?’
‘No, thanks.’
‘Just as you like. It’s not easy for a man in my position to realize,’ said Hugo, drinking deeply, ‘that refusing a brandy-and-soda is possible. I shouldn’t have said, off-hand, that it could be done.’
Sue was a warm-hearted girl. In the tragedy of this announcement she had almost forgotten that she had troubles herself.
‘Tell me all about it, Hugo.’
He put down the empty glass.
‘I came up from Blandings yesterday,’ he said, ‘to interview the Argus Enquiry Agency on the subject of sending a man down to investigate the theft of Lord Emsworth’s pig.’
Sue would have liked to hear more about this pig, but she knew that this was no time for questions.
‘I went to the Argus and saw this wen Pilbeam, who runs it.’
Again Sue would have liked to speak. Once more she refrained. She felt as if she were at a sick-bed, hearing a dying man’s last words. On such occasions one does not interrupt.
‘Meanwhile,’ proceeded Hugo tonelessly, ‘Millicent, suspecting – and I am surprised at her having a mind like that. I always looked on her as a pure, white soul – suspecting that I might be up to something in London, got the Argus on the long-distance telephone and told them to follow my movements and report to her. And, apparently, just before she called me up, she had been talking to them on the wire and getting their statement. All this she revealed to me in short, burning sentences, and then she said that if I thought we were still engaged, I could have three more guesses. But, to save me trouble, she would tell me the answer – viz.: No wedding-bells for me. And to think,’ said Hugo, picking up the glass and putting it down again, after inspection, with a hurt and disappointed look, ‘that I actually rallied this growth Pilbeam on the subject of following people and reporting on their movements. Yes, I assure you. Rallied him blithely. Just as I was leaving his office, we kidded merrily back and forth. And then I went out into the world, happy and carefree, little knowing that my every step was dogged by a blasted bloodhound. Well, all I can say is that, if Ronnie wants this Pilbeam’s gore, and I gather that he does, he will jolly well have to wait till I’ve helped myself.’
Sue, womanlike, blamed the woman.
‘I don’t think Millicent can be a very nice girl,’ she said, primly.
An angel,’ said Hugo. ‘Always was. Celebrated for it. I don’t blame her.’
‘I do.’
‘I don’t.’
‘I do.’
‘Well, have it your own way,’ said Hugo handsomely. He beckoned to the waiter. Another of the same, please.’
‘This settles it,’ said Sue.
Her eyes were sparkling. Her chin a resolute tilt.
‘Settles what?’
‘While you were at the telephone, I had an idea.’
‘I have had ideas in my time,’ said Hugo. ‘Many of them. At the moment, I have but one. To get within arm’s length of the yam Pilbeam and twist his greasy neck till it comes apart in my hands. “What do you do here?” I said. “Measure footprints?” “We follow people and report on their movements,” said he. “Ha, ha!” I laughed carelessly. “Ha, ha!” laughed he. General mirth and jollity. And all the while . . .’
‘Hugo, will you listen?’
‘And this is the bitter thought that now strikes me. What chance have I of scooping out the man’s inside with my bare hands? I’ve got to go back to Blandings on the two-fifteen, or I lose my job. Leaving him unscathed in his bally lair, chuckling over my downfall and following some other poor devil’s movements.’
‘Hugo!’
The broken man passed a weary hand over his forehead.
‘You spoke?’
‘I’ve been speaking for the last ten minutes, only you won’t listen.’
‘Say on,’ said Hugo, listlessly starting on the second restorative.
‘Have you ever heard of a Miss Schoonmaker?’
‘I seem to know the name. Who is she?’
‘Me.’
Hugo lowered his glass, pained.
‘Don’t talk drip to a broken-hearted man,’ he begged. ‘What do you mean?’
‘When Ronnie was driving me in his car, we met Lady Constance Keeble.’
A blister,’ said Hugo. Always was. Generally admitted all over Shropshire.’
‘She thought I was this Miss Schoonmaker.’
‘Why?’
‘Because Ronnie said I was.’
Hugo sighed hopelessly.
‘Complex. Complex. My God! How complex.’
‘It was quite simple and natural. Ronnie had just been telling me about this girl – how he had met her at Biarritz and that she was coming to Blandings and so on, and when he saw Lady Constance looking at me with frightful suspicion it suddenly occurred to him to say that I was her.’
‘That you were Lady Constance?’
‘No, idiot. Miss Schoonmaker. And now I’m going to wire her – Lady Constance, not Miss Schoonmaker, in case you were going to ask – saying that I’m coming to Blandings right away.’
‘Pretending to be this Miss Schoonmaker?’
Yes.’
Hugo shook his head.
‘Imposs.’
‘Why?’
‘Absolutely out of the q.’
‘Why? Lady Constance is expecting me. Do be sensible.’
‘I’m being sensible all right. But somebody is gibbering and, naming no names, it’s you. Don’t you realize that, just as you reach the front door, this Miss Schoonmaker will arrive in person, dishing the whole thing?’
‘No, she won’t.’
‘Why won’t she?’
‘Because Ronnie sent her a telegram, in Lady Constance’s name, saying that there’s scarlet fever or something at Blandings and she wasn’t to come.’
Hugo’s air of the superior critic fell from him like a garment. He sat up in his chair. So moved was he that he spilled his brandy-and-soda and did not give it so much as a look of regret. He let it soak into the carpet, unheeded.
‘Sue!’
‘Once I’m at Blandings, I shall be able to see Ronnie and make him be sensible.’
‘That’s right.’
‘And then you’ll be able to tell Millicent that there couldn’t have been much harm in my being out with you last night, because I’m engaged to Ronnie.’
‘That’s right, too.’
‘Can you see any flaws?’
‘Not a flaw.’
‘I suppose, as a matter of fact, you’ll give the whole thing away in the first five minutes by calling me Sue.’
Hugo waved an arm buoyantly.
‘Don’t give the possibility another thought,’ he said. ‘If I do, I’ll cover it up adroitly by saying I meant, “Schoo”. Short for Schoonmaker. And now go and send her ano
ther telegram. Keep on sending telegrams. Leave nothing to chance. Send a dozen and pitch it strong. Say that Blandings Castle is ravaged with disease. Not merely scarlet fever. Scarlet fever and mumps. Not to mention housemaid’s knee, diabetes, measles, shingles, and the botts. We’re on to a big thing, my Susan. Let us push it along.’
7 A JOB FOR PERCY PILBEAM
I
Sunshine, calling to all right-thinking men to come out and revel in its heartening warmth, poured in at the windows of the great library of Blandings Castle. But to Clarence, ninth Earl of Emsworth, much as he liked sunshine as a rule, it brought no cheer. His face drawn, his pince-nez askew, his tie drooping away from its stud like a languorous lily, he sat staring sightlessly before him. He looked like something that had just been prepared for stuffing by a taxidermist.
A moralist, watching Lord Emsworth in his travail, would have reflected smugly that it cuts both ways, this business of being a peer of the realm with large private means and a good digestion. Unalloyed prosperity, he would have pointed out in his offensive way, tends to enervate; and in this world of ours, full of alarms and uncertainties, where almost anything is apt to drop suddenly on top of your head without warning at almost any moment, what one needs is to be tough and alert.When some outstanding disaster happens to the ordinary man, it finds him prepared. Years of missing the eight-forty-five, taking the dog for a run on rainy nights, endeavouring to abate smoky chimneys, and coming down to breakfast and discovering that they have burned the bacon again, have given his soul a protective hardness, so that by the time his wife’s relations arrive for a long visit he is ready for them.
Lord Emsworth had had none of this salutary training. Fate, hitherto, had seemed to spend its time thinking up ways of pampering him. He ate well, slept well, and had no money troubles. He grew the best roses in Shropshire. He had won a first prize for Pumpkins at that county’s Agricultural Show, a thing no Earl of Emsworth had ever done before. And, just previous to the point at which this chronicle opens, his younger son, Frederick, had married the daughter of an American millionaire and had gone to live three thousand miles away from Blandings Castle, with lots of good, deep water in between him and it. He had come to look on himself as Fate’s spoiled darling.
Can we wonder, then, that in the agony of this sudden, treacherous blow he felt stunned and looked eviscerated? Is it surprising that the sunshine made no appeal to him? May we not consider him justified, as he sat there, in swallowing a lump in his throat like an ostrich gulping down a brass door-knob?
The answer to these questions, in the order given, is No, No, and Yes.
The door of the library opened, revealing the natty person of his brother Galahad. Lord Emsworth straightened his pince-nez and looked at him apprehensively. Knowing how little reverence there was in the Hon. Galahad’s composition, and how tepid was his interest in the honourable struggles for supremacy of Fat Pigs, he feared that the other was about to wound him in his bereavement with some jarring flippancy. Then his gaze softened and he was conscious of a soothing feeling of relief. There was no frivolity in his brother’s face, only a gravity which became him well. The Hon. Galahad sat down, hitched up the knees of his trousers, cleared his throat, and spoke in a tone that could not have been more sympathetic or in better taste.
‘Bad business, this, Clarence.’
‘Appalling, my dear fellow.’
‘What are you going to do about it?’
Lord Emsworth shrugged his shoulders hopelessly. He generally did when people asked him what he was going to do about things.
‘I am at a loss,’ he confessed. ‘I do not know how to act. What young Carmody tells me has completely upset all my plans.’
‘Carmody?’
‘I sent him to the Argus Enquiry Agency in London to engage the services of a detective. It is a firm that Sir Gregory Parsloe once mentioned to me, in the days when we were on better terms. He said, in rather a meaning way, I thought, that if ever I had any trouble of any sort that needed expert and tactful handling, these were the people to go to. I gathered that they had assisted him in some matter the details of which he did not confide to me, and had given complete satisfaction.’
‘Parsloe!’ said the Hon. Galahad, and sniffed.
‘So I sent young Carmody to London to approach them about finding the Empress. And now he tells me that his errand proved fruitless. They were firm in their refusal to trace missing pigs.’
‘Just as well.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Save you a lot of unnecessary expense. There’s no need for you to waste money employing detectives.’
‘I thought that possibly the trained mind . . .’
‘I can tell you who’s got the Empress. I’ve known it all along.’
‘What!’
‘Certainly.’
‘Galahad!’
‘It’s as plain as the nose on your face.’
Lord Emsworth felt his nose.
‘Is it?’he said doubtfully.
‘I’ve just been talking to Constance . . .’
‘Constance?’ Lord Emsworth opened his mouth feebly. ‘She hasn’t got my pig?’
‘I’ve just been talking to Constance,’ repeated the Hon. Galahad, ‘and she called me some very unpleasant names.’
‘She does, sometimes. Even as a child, I remember . . .’
‘Most unpleasant names. A senile mischief-maker, among others, and a meddling old penguin. And all because I told her that the man who had stolen Empress of Blandings was young Gregory Parsloe.’
‘Parsloe!’
‘Parsloe. Surely it’s obvious? I should have thought it would have been clear to the meanest intelligence.’
From boyhood up, Lord Emsworth had possessed an intelligence about as mean as an intelligence can be without actually being placed under restraint. Nevertheless, he found his brother’s theory incredible.
‘Parsloe?’
‘Don’t keep saying “Parsloe”.’
‘But, my dear Galahad . . .’
‘It stands to reason.’
‘You don’t really think so?’
‘Of course I think so. Have you forgotten what I told you the other day?’
‘Yes,’ said Lord Emsworth. He always forgot what people told him the other day.
‘About young Parsloe,’ said the Hon. Galahad impatiently. ‘About his nobbling my dog Towser.’
Lord Emsworth started. It all came back to him. A hard expression crept into the eyes behind the pince-nez, which emotion had just jerked crooked again.
‘To be sure. Towser. Your dog. I remember.’
‘He nobbled Towser, and he’s nobbled the Empress. Dash it, Clarence, use your intelligence. Who else except young Parsloe had any interest in getting the Empress out of the way? And, if he hadn’t known there was some dirty work being planned, would that pig-man of his, Brotherhood or whatever his name is, have been going about offering three to one on Pride of Matchingham? I told you at the time it was fishy.’
The evidence was damning, and yet Lord Emsworth found himself once more a prey to doubt. Of the blackness of Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe’s soul he had, of course, long been aware. But could the man actually be capable of the Crime of the Century? A fellow-landowner? A Justice of the Peace? A man who grew pumpkins? A Baronet?
‘But Galahad . . . A man in Parsloe’s position . . .’
‘What do you mean a man in his position? Do you suppose a fellow changes his nature just because a cousin of his dies and he comes into a baronetcy? Haven’t I told you a dozen times that I’ve known young Parsloe all his life? Known him intimately. He was always as hot as mustard and as wide as Leicester Square. Ask anybody who used to go around Town in those days. When they saw young Parsloe coming, strong men winced and hid their valuables. He hadn’t a penny except what he could get by telling the tale, and he always did himself like a prince. When I knew him first, he was living down on the river at Shepperton. His old father, the Dean, had made
an arrangement with the keeper of the pub there to give him breakfast and bed and nothing else. “If he wants dinner, he must earn it,” the old boy said. And do you know how he used to earn it? He trained that mongrel of his, Banjo, to go and do tricks in front of parties that came to the place in steam-launches. And then he would stroll up and hope his dog was not annoying them and stand talking till they went in to dinner and then go in with them and pick up the wine-list, and before they knew what was happening he would be bursting with their champagne and cigars. That’s the sort of fellow young Parsloe was.’
‘But even so . . .’
‘I remember him running up to me outside that pub one afternoon – the Jolly Miller it was called, his face shining with positive ecstasy. “Come in, quick!” he said. “There’s a new barmaid, and she hasn’t found out yet I’m not allowed credit.”’
‘But, Galahad . . .’
And if young Parsloe thinks I’ve forgotten a certain incident that occurred in the early summer of the year ‘95, he’s very much mistaken. He met me in the Haymarket and took me into the Two Goslings for a drink – there’s a hat-shop now where it used to be – and after we’d had it he pulls a sort of dashed little top affair out of his pocket, a thing with numbers written round it. Said he’d found it in the street and wondered who thought of these ingenious little toys and insisted on our spinning it for half-crowns. ‘You take the odd numbers, I’ll take the even,” says young Parsloe. And before I could fight my way out into the fresh air, I was ten pounds seven and sixpence in the hole. And I discovered next morning that they make those beastly things so that if you push the stem through and spin them the wrong way up you’re bound to get an even number. And when I asked him the following afternoon to show me that top again, he said he’d lost it. That’s the sort of fellow young Parsloe was. And you expect me to believe that inheriting a baronetcy and settling down in the country has made him so dashed pure and high-minded that he wouldn’t stoop to nobbling a pig.’
Lord Emsworth uncoiled himself. Cumulative evidence had done its work. His eyes glittered, and he breathed stertorously.
‘The scoundrel!’
‘Tough nut, always was.’
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