Bingo reached The Nook in good time. And he had replaced the links in their box and was about to leave his bedroom, when Mrs Bingo shoved her head in the door.
“Why, Bingo darling,” she said, “aren’t you at the office?”
“I just popped back to see you,” explained Bingo. “How’s your mother?”
“Much better,” said Mrs Bingo. She seemed distrait. “Bingo, darling,” she said after a bit of a pause, revealing the seat of the trouble, “I’m a little worried. About Nannie.”
“About Nannie?”
“Yes. When you were a child, do you remember her as being at all.., eccentric?”
“Eccentric?”
“Well, the most extraordinary thing happened last night. Where were you last night, Bingo?”
“I went to bed early.”
“You didn’t go out?” Bingo stared.
“Go out?”
“No, of course you didn’t,” said Mrs Bingo. “But Nannie declares that at half-past ten she was walking in the garden getting a breath of fresh air, and she saw you jump into a cab.”
Bingo looked grave. He gave a low whistle.
“Started seeing things, eh? Bad. Bad.”
“—and she says she heard you tell the driver to go to Mario’s.”
“Hearing voices, too? Worse. Worse.”
“And she followed you with your woolly muffler. She had to wait a long time before she could get a cab, and when she got to the restaurant they wouldn’t let her in, and there was a lot of trouble about that, and then she found she had no money to pay the cab, and there was a lot of trouble about that, too, and I think in the end she must have lost her temper a little or she would never have boxed the cabman’s ears and bitten that waiter.”
“Bit a waiter, did she?”
“She said she didn’t like his manner. And after that they sent for the police and she was taken to Vine Street, and she telephoned to me to come and bail her out. So I went round to the police station and bailed her out, and she told me this extraordinary story about you. I hurried home and peeped in at your door, and there you were, fast asleep of course.”
“Of course.”
Mrs Bingo chewed the lower lip.
“It’s all very disturbing.”
“Now there, with all due deference to you, my talented old scrivener,” said Bingo, “I think you have missed the mot juste. I would call it appalling. Let me tell you something else that will make you think a bit. You remember all that song and dance she made about my links having been stolen. Well, I’ve just been taking a look, and they’re in their usual box in the usual place on the dressing-table, just where they’ve always been.”
“Really?”
“I assure you. Well,” said Bingo, “suit yourself, of course, but I should have thought we were taking a big chance entrusting our first-born to the care of a Nannie who is loopy to the eyebrows and constantly seeing visions and what not, to make no mention of hearing voices and not being able to see a set of diamond cuff-links when they’re staring her in the face. I threw out the suggestion once before, and it was not well received, but I will make it again. Give her the push, moon of my delight. Pension her off. Slip her a few quid per and a set of your books and let her retire to some honeysuckle-covered cottage where she can’t do any harm.”
“I believe you’re right.”
“I know I’m right,” said Bingo. “You don’t want her suddenly getting the idea that Algernon Aubrey is a pink hippopotamus and loosing off at him with her elephant rifle, do you? Very well, then.”
CHAPTER II
Bramley is So Bracing
A GENERAL meeting had been called at the Drones to decide on the venue for the club’s annual golf rally, and the school of thought that favoured Bramley-on-Sea was beginning to make headway when Freddie Widgeon took the floor. In a speech of impassioned eloquence he warned his hearers not to go within fifty miles of the beastly place. And so vivid was the impression he conveyed of Bramley-on-Sea as a spot where the law of the jungle prevailed and anything could happen to anybody that the voters were swayed like reeds and the counter proposal of Cooden Beach was accepted almost unanimously.
His warmth excited comment at the bar.
“Freddie doesn’t like Bramley,” said an acute Egg, who had been thinking it over with the assistance of a pink gin.
“Possibly,” suggested a Bean, “because he was at school there when he was a kid.”
The Crumpet who had joined the group shook his head.
“No, it wasn’t that,” he said. “Poor old Freddie had a very painful experience at Bramley recently, culminating in his getting the raspberry from the girl he loved.”
“What, again?”
“Yes. It’s curious about Freddie,” said the Crumpet, sipping a thoughtful martini. “He rarely fails to click, but he never seems able to go on clicking. A whale at the Boy Meets Girl stuff, he is unfortunately equally unerring at the Boy Loses Girl.”
“Which of the troupe was it who gave him the air this time?” asked an interested Pieface.
“Mavis Peasmarch. Lord Bodsham’s daughter.”
“But, dash it,” protested the Pieface, “that can’t be right. She returned him to store ages ago. You told us about it yourself. That time in New York when he got mixed up with the female in the pink négligée picked out with ultramarine lovebirds.”
The Crumpet nodded.
“Quite true. He was, as you say, handed his portfolio on that occasion. But Freddie is a pretty gifted explainer, if you give him time to mould and shape his story, and on their return to England he appears to have squared himself somehow. She took him on again—on appro., as it were. The idea was that if he proved himself steady and serious, those wedding bells would ring out. If not, not a tinkle.
“Such was the position of affairs when he learned from this Peasmarch that she and her father were proposing to park themselves for the summer months at the Hotel Magnifique at Bramley-on-Sea.”
Freddie’s instant reaction to this news was, of course (said the Crumpet), an urge to wangle a visit there himself, and he devoted the whole force of his intellect to trying to think how this could be done. He shrank from spending good money on a hotel, but on the other hand his proud soul scorned a boarding-house, and what they call an impasse might have resulted, had he not discovered that Bingo Little and Mrs Bingo had taken a shack at Bramley in order that the Bingo baby should get its whack of ozone. Bramley, as I dare say you have seen mentioned on the posters, is so bracing, and if you are a parent you have to think of these things. Brace the baby, and you are that much ahead of the game.
To cadge an invitation was with Freddie the work of a moment, and a few days later he arrived with suitcase and two-seater, deposited the former, garaged the latter, kissed the baby and settled in.
Many fellows might have objected to the presence on the premises of a bib-and-bottle juvenile, but Freddie has always been a good mixer, and he and this infant hit it off from the start like a couple of sailors on shore leave. It became a regular thing with him to take the half-portion down to the beach and stand by while it mucked about with its spade and bucket. And it was as he was acting as master of the revels one sunny day that there came ambling along a well-nourished girl with golden hair, who paused and scrutinized the Bingo issue with a genial smile.
“Is the baby building a sand castle?” she said.
“Well, yes and no,” replied Freddie civilly. “It thinks it is, but if you ask me, little of a constructive nature will result.”
“Still, so long as it’s happy.”
“Oh, quite.”
“Nice day.”
“Beautiful.”
“Could you tell me the correct time?”
“Precisely eleven.”
“Coo!” said the girl. “I must hurry, or I shall be late. I’m meeting a gentleman friend of mine on the pier at half-past ten.”
And that was that. I mean, just one of those casual encounters which are so common at the seasho
re, with not a word spoken on either side that could bring the blush of shame to the cheek of modesty. I stress this, because this substantial blonde was to become entangled in Freddie’s affairs and I want to make it clear at the outset that from start to finish he was as pure as the driven snow. Sir Galahad could have taken his correspondence course.
It was about a couple of days after this that a picture postcard, forwarded from his London address, informed him that Mavis and her father were already in residence at the Magnifique, and he dashed into the two-seater and drove round there with a beating heart. It was his intention to take the loved one for a spin, followed by a spot of tea at some wayside shoppe.
This project, however, was rendered null and void by the fact that she was out. Old Bodsham, receiving Freddie in the suite, told him that she had gone to take her little brother Wilfred back to his school.
“We had him for lunch,” said the Bod.
“No, did you?” said Freddie. “A bit indigestible, what?” He laughed heartily for some moments at his ready wit; then, seeing that the gag had not got across, cheesed it. He remembered now that there had always been something a bit Wednesday-matineeish about the fifth Earl of Bodsham. An austere man, known to his circle of acquaintances as The Curse of the Eastern Counties. “He’s at school here, is he?”
“At St. Asaph’s. An establishment conducted by an old college friend of mine, the Rev. Aubrey Upjohn.”
“Good Lord!” said Freddie, feeling what a small world it was. “I used to be at St. Asaph’s.”
“Indeed?”
“Absolutely. I served a three years’ sentence there before going on to Eton. Well, I’ll be pushing along, then. Give Mavis my love, will you, and say I’ll be round bright and early in the morning.”
He buzzed off and hopped into the car again, and for the space of half an hour or so drove about Bramley, feeling a bit at a loose end. And he was passing through a spot called Marina Crescent, a sort of jungle of boarding-houses, when he became aware that stirring things were happening in his immediate vicinity.
Along the road towards him there had been approaching a well-nourished girl with golden hair. I don’t suppose he had noticed her—or, if he had, it was merely to say to himself “Ah, the substantial blonde I met on the beach the other morning” and dismiss her from his thoughts. But at this moment she suddenly thrust herself on his attention by breaking into a rapid gallop, and at the same time a hoarse cry rent the air, not unlike that of the lion of the desert scenting its prey, and Freddie perceived charging out of a side street an elderly man with whiskers, who looked as if he might be a retired sea captain or a drysalter or something.
The spectacle perplexed him. He had always known that Bramley was bracing, but he had never supposed that it was as bracing as all this. And he had pulled up in order to get a better view, when the substantial blonde, putting on a burst of speed in the straight, reached the car and hurled herself into it.
“Quick!” she said.
“Quick?” said Freddie. He was puzzled. “In what sense do you use the word ‘Quick’?” he asked, and was about to go further into the thing when the whiskered bird came dashing up and scooped the girl out of the car as if she had been a winkle and his hand a pin.
The girl grabbed hold of Freddie, and Freddie grabbed hold of the steering wheel, and the whiskered bird continued to freeze on to the girl, and for a while the human chain carried on along these lines. Then there was a rending sound, and the girl and Freddie came apart.
The whiskered bozo regarded him balefully.
“If we weren’t in a public place,” he said, “I would horsewhip you. If I had a horsewhip.”
And with these words he dragged the well-nourished girl from the scene, leaving Freddie, as you may well suppose, quite a bit perturbed and a long way from grasping the inner meaning.
The recent fracas had left him half in and half out of the car, and he completed the process by alighting. He had an idea that the whiskered ancient might have scratched his paint. But fortunately everything was all right, and he was leaning against the bonnet, smoking a soothing cigarette, when Mavis Peasmarch spoke behind him.
“Frederick!” she said.
Freddie tells me that at the sound of that loved voice he sprang six feet straight up in the air, but I imagine this to be an exaggeration. About eighteen inches, probably. Still, he sprang quite high enough to cause those leaning out of the windows of Marina Crescent to fall into the error of supposing him to be an adagio dancer practising a new step.
“Oh, hullo, darling!” he said.
He tried to speak in a gay and debonair manner, but he could not but recognize that he had missed his objective by a mile. Gazing at Mavis Peasmarch, he noted about her a sort of rigidity which he didn’t like. Her eyes were stern and cold, and her lips tightly set. Mavis had inherited from her father that austere Puritanism which makes the old boy so avoided by the County, and this she was now exuding at every pore.
“So there you are!” he said, still having a stab at the gay and debonair.
“Yes,” said Mavis Peasmarch.
“I’m here, too,” said Freddie.
“So I see,” said Mavis Peasmarch.
“I’m staying with a pal. I thought I’d come here and surprise you.”
“You have,” said Mavis Peasmarch. She gave a sniff that sounded like a nor’easter ripping the sails of a stricken vessel. “Frederick, what does this mean?”
“Eh?”
“That girl.”
“Oh, that girl?” said Freddie. “Yes, I see what you mean. You are speaking of that girl. Most extraordinary, wasn’t it?”
“Most.”
“She jumped into my car, did you notice?”
“I did. An old friend?”
“No, no. A stranger, and practically total, at that.”
“Oh?” said Mavis Peasmarch, and let go another sniff that went echoing down the street. “Who was the old man?”
“I don’t know. Another stranger, even more total.”
“He said he wanted to horsewhip you.”
“Yes, I heard him. Dashed familiar.”
“Why did he want to horsewhip you?”
“Ah, there you’ve got me. The man’s thought processes are a sealed book to me.”
“The impression I received was that he resented your having made his daughter the plaything of an idle hour.”
“But I didn’t. As a matter of fact, I haven’t had much spare time since I got here.”
“Oh?”
“The solution that suggests itself to me is that we have stumbled up against one of those E. Phillips Oppenheim situations. Yes, that would explain the whole thing. Here’s how I figure it out. The girl is an international spy. She got hold of the plans of the fortifications and was taking them to an accomplice, when along came the whiskered bird, a secret service man. You could see those whiskers were a disguise. He thought I was the accomplice.”
“Oh?”
“How’s your brother Wilfred?” asked Freddie, changing the subject.
“Will you please drive me to my hotel?” said Mavis, changing it again.
“Oh, right,” said Freddie. “Right.”
That night, Freddie lay awake, ill at ease. There had been something in the adored object’s manner, when he dropped her at the hotel, which made him speculate as to whether that explanation of his had got over quite so solidly as he had hoped. He had suggested coming in and having a cosy chat, and she had said No, please, I have a headache. He had said how well she was looking, and she had said Oh? And when he had asked her if she loved her little Freddie, she had made no audible response.
All in all, it looked to Freddie as if what is technically called a lover’s tiff had set in with a good deal of severity, and as he lay tossing on his pillow he pondered quite a bit on how this could be adjusted.
What was needed here, he felt, was a gesture—some spectacular performance on his part which would prove that his heart was in the right p
lace.
But what spectacular performance?
He toyed with the idea of saving Mavis from drowning, only to dismiss it when he remembered that on the rare occasions when she took a dip in the salty she never went in above the waist.
He thought of rescuing old Bodsham from a burning building.
But how to procure that burning building? He couldn’t just set a match to the Hotel Magnifique and expect it to go up in flames.
And then, working through the family, he came to little Wilfred, and immediately got a Grade-A inspiration. It was via Wilfred that he must oil back into Mavis’s esteem. And it could be done, he saw, by going to St. Asaph’s and asking the Rev. Aubrey Upjohn to give the school a half-holiday. This kindly act would put him right back in the money.
He could picture the scene. Wilfred would come bounding in to tea one afternoon. “Coo!” Mavis would exclaim. “What on earth are you doing here? Have you run away from school?”
“No,” Wilfred would reply, “the school has run away from me. In other words, thanks to Freddie Widgeon, that prince of square-shooters, we have been given a half-holiday.”
“Well, I’m blowed!” Mavis would ejaculate. “Heaven bless Freddie Widgeon! I had a feeling all along that I’d been misjudging that bird.”
At this point, Freddie feel asleep.
Often, when you come to important decisions overnight, you find after sleeping on them that they are a bit blue around the edges. But morning, when it came, found Freddie still resolved to go through with his day’s good deed. If, however, I were to tell you that he liked the prospect, I should be deceiving you. It is not too much to say that he quailed at it. Years had passed since his knickerbocker days, but the Rev. Aubrey Upjohn was still green in his memory. A man spiritually akin to Simon Legree and the late Captain Bligh of the Bounty, with whose disciplinary methods his own had much in common, he had made a deep impression on Freddie’s plastic mind, and the thought of breezing in and trying to sting him for a half-holiday was one that froze the blood more than a bit.
But two things bore him on: (a) his great love, and (b) the fact that it suddenly occurred to him that he could obtain a powerful talking point by borrowing Bingo’s baby and taking it along with him.
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