‘I got rid of him.’
‘How?’
‘I thought up a story to tell him.’
‘What story?’
‘Oh, just a story.’
Gally sniffed.
‘Well, whatever it was, I’ll bet he didn’t swallow it.’
‘He seemed to.’
‘He would. Just humouring you, of course. He’s probably squealing to Parsloe at this very moment. Ah, well, this is the end. I’ll have to take the creature back to its sty. The secret of a happy and successful life is to know when things have got too hot and cut your losses. It’s galling. One hates to admit defeat. Still, there it is.’
Jerry hesitated.
‘You won’t want me, will you?’
‘To help with the pig? No, I can manage.’
‘Good. I’m feeling a little unstrung.’
‘You’d better wait here and entertain Beach. He will be arriving shortly.’
‘Walking?’
‘Bicycling,’ said Gally. ‘And it will be a lasting grief to me that I was not able to see him doing it. Well, bung-o.’
With a set face, he opened the door and strode into the kitchen.
It was about ten minutes after he had gone that there came from the great outdoors the unmistakable sound of a butler falling off a bicycle.
3
The years rob us of our boyish accomplishments. There had been a time, back in the distant past, when Sebastian Beach had yielded to none as a performer on the velocipede – once, indeed, actually emerging victorious in the choir boys’ handicap at a village sports meeting, open to all whose voices had not broken before the second Sunday in Epiphany. But those days were gone for ever.
Only the feudal spirit, burning brightly within him, and the thought that Mr Galahad was relying on his co-operation had nerved him to borrow Alfred Voules’s machine and set out on the road to Sunnybrae. Right from the start he had had misgivings, and they had proved to be well founded. It is a widely held belief that once you have learned to ride a bicycle, you never lose the knack. Beach had exploded this superstition. It was a bruised and shaken butler whom Jerry greeted at the front door and escorted to the living-room.
Having deposited him in a chair, Jerry found himself embarrassed. Excluded from Gally’s little group of plotters, he had had no opportunity of seeing this man’s more human side, and to him, throughout this sojourn beneath Lord Emsworth’s roof, Beach had been an aloof, supercilious figure who had paralysed him with his majesty. He was paralysing him now. It is a very intrepid young man who can see an English butler steadily and see him whole without feeling a worm-like humility, and all Jerry’s previous encounters with Beach – in corridors, in the hall, at lunch and at dinner – had left him with the impression that his feet were too large, his ears too red and his social status something in between that of a Dead End kid and a badly dressed leper. There were cats on the premises of Blandings Castle, and those gooseberry eyes had always made him feel that he might have been some unsavoury object dragged in by one of these cats, one of the less fastidious ones.
However, he was a host, and it was for him to set the conversation going.
‘Have a nice ride?’ he asked.
A shudder made the butler’s body ripple like a field of wheat when a summer breeze passes over it.
‘Not very enjoyable, sir,’ he replied in a toneless voice. ‘I have not cycled since I was a small lad, and I found it trying to the leg muscles.’
‘It does catch you in the leg muscles, doesn’t it?’ said Jerry sympathetically.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘In the calves, principally.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘You came a purler, didn’t you?’
‘Sir?’
‘I thought I heard you falling off on arrival.’
‘Yes, sir. I sustained several falls.’
‘Unpleasant, falling off a bicycle. Shakes up the old liver.’
‘Precisely, sir,’ said Beach, closing his eyes.
Rightly feeling that this was about all his guest would wish to hear on the cycling theme, Jerry relapsed into silence, trying to think of some other topic which would interest, elevate and amuse.
‘Mr Threepwood’s taken that pig back,’ he said at length.
He had struck the right note. The butler’s eyes opened, and one could see hope dawning in them.
‘Indeed, sir?’
‘Yes, he deemed it best. Too many people were nosing round the place – policemen, pig men, and so on. He said the wisest move was to cut his losses before things got too hot. He left about a quarter of an hour ago, so the animal’s probably in its sty now.’
Beach expelled a deep breath.
‘I am extremely glad to hear that, sir. I was nervous.’
The news that a man like Beach could be nervous encouraged Jerry and put him at his ease. It was the first intimation he had had that human emotions lurked beneath that bulging waistcoat. Things were going with a swing, he felt, and he became chatty.
‘Have you known Mr Threepwood long?’ he asked.
‘Nearly twenty years, sir.’
‘As long as that? A weird old buster, don’t you think?’
‘Sir?’
‘Well, I mean charging about the place, stealing pigs. Eccentric, wouldn’t you say?’
‘I fear you must excuse me from venturing an opinion, sir. It is scarcely fitting for me to discuss the members of my employer’s household,’ said Beach stiffly, and closed his eyes again.
The hot blush of shame mantled Jerry’s cheek. He had never been snubbed by a butler before, and the novel experience made him feel as if he had been walking in the garden in the twilight and had stepped on a rake and had the handle jump up and hit him on the tip of the nose. It was difficult to know what to say next.
He ran through a few subjects in his mind.
The weather?
The crops?
The prospects at the next General Election?
Lord Emsworth, his treatment in sickness and in health?
Then he saw with profound relief that no further conversational efforts would be needed. A faint snore, followed by a series of louder ones, told him that his visitor was asleep. Worn out by his unaccustomed exertions in the saddle, Beach was knitting up the ravelled sleave of care.
Jerry rose noiselessly, and tiptoed out of the room. He was glad to go. He was a fair-minded young man and realized that he had probably not been seeing the other at his best and sunniest, but he preferred not to wait on the chance of improved relations in the future. What he wanted at the moment was a breath of fresh air.
The air was nice and fresh in the road outside Sunnybrae’s little front garden, and he was drinking it in and gradually becoming restored to something like tranquillity, when the stillness of the summer night was broken by the sound of an approaching car, and Gaily drove up. He was accompanied by a large pig.
It was difficult to be sure in the uncertain light of the moon, but Jerry had the impression that the animal gave him a friendly nod, and the civil thing to have done, of course, would have been to return it. But in moments of agitation we tend to forget the little courtesies of life. He stood staring, his lower jaw drooping on its hinge. Like Othello, he was perplexed in the extreme. That tranquillity to which we alluded a moment ago had been induced by the healing thought that, even if he had had to undergo the spiritual agony of being put in his place by a butler, he was at least free from pigs of every description. And here they were, back in his life again, bigger and better than ever.
He pointed a trembling finger.
‘W – w – w…?’
He had intended to say ‘What?’ but the word would not come. Gally cocked an enquiring monocle at him.
‘W – w – w…?’
‘I had a dog that used to make a noise just like that when he was going to be sick,’ said Gally. ‘A dog named Towser. Parsloe once nobbled him with surreptitious steak and onions on the night when he was to have g
one up against his dog Banjo in a rat contest. I must tell you all about it when we are more at leisure, for it will give you a rough idea of the lengths to which the man can go when he plants his footsteps on the deep and rides upon the storm. There isn’t time now. It’s a longish story, and we have to get the Empress indoors before the enemy discovers she’s here and can do her a mischief. Her life would not be worth a moment’s purchase if Parsloe knew where she was. He would have his goons out after her with sawn-off shot-guns before she could wiggle her tail.’
Jerry was still dazed.
‘I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘Why do you say the Empress?’
‘Why shouldn’t I say the Empress? Oh, I see what you mean. I forgot to tell you, didn’t I? I was just going to when you started making noises like my dog Towser about to give up all. It’s quite simple. This is the Empress I’ve got here. When I got to Matchingham and had sneaked round to the sty, she was the first thing I saw in it. Parsloe, with a cunning for which one feels a reluctant admiration, was keeping her there, right on the premises where nobody would ever have dreamed of looking. Naturally I had been thinking in terms of lonely outhouses and underground cellars, never supposing for an instant that the man would put her practically out in the open. It was the same principle, of course, as Edgar Allan Poe’s Purloined Letter and, as I say, one feels a grudging respect. So I picked her up and brought her along. But we mustn’t waste time standing and talking. Is Beach here?’
‘Yes, he’s asleep in the living-room.’
‘Then we won’t disturb him,’ said Gally considerately. ‘Let the good man get his sleep. We’ll take her in the back way.’
A few minutes later, though to Jerry it seemed longer, he stood rubbing his hands with a contented smile.
‘And now,’ he said, ‘to notify Clarence of the happy ending. If you feel like coming to Blandings and having a word with Penny, I’ll drive you there.’
4
Whatever a critic of aesthetic tastes might have found to say against Sunnybrae, and this was considerable, he would have been obliged to concede that it was a handy place from which to get to Blandings Castle. Only a mile or so of good road separated the two residences, and it was consequently not much more than a few minutes later that Gally’s car drew up again at the Sunnybrae front door, this time with Lord Emsworth aboard.
Lord Emsworth, deeply stirred by Gally’s news, had been twittering with excitement and ecstasy from the start of the journey. He was still twittering as they entered the living-room, and stopped twittering only when, thinking to see Beach, he observed Sir Gregory Parsloe. The Squire of Matchingham was seated in a chair, looking fixedly at the photograph of the speculative builder in the pink frame. He plainly did not think highly of the speculative builder. Indeed, if questioned, he would have said that he had never seen such a bally bounder in his life. And it must be admitted that, as speculative builders go, this one, considered from the angle of personal beauty, was not much of a speculative builder.
As Gally and Lord Emsworth entered, he transferred his gaze to them, and it was an unpleasant gaze, in quality and intentness not unlike the one the policeman had directed at Jerry in the opening stages of their conference on the front steps.
‘Ha!’ he said nastily. ‘The Master of the Vultures! I had an idea you would be coming along. If you’re looking for that bloodstained butler of yours, you’re too late.’
Lord Emsworth replaced his pince-nez, which, pursuing their invariable policy at moments when their proprietor was surprised and startled, had leaped from his nose like live creatures of the wild.
‘Parsloe! What are you doing here?’
‘Yes,’ said Gally warmly. ‘Who invited you to stroll in and make yourself at home? Of all the crust! I rather think this constitutes a trespass, and I shall advise young Vail that an action may lie.’
‘Who’s Vail?’
‘The lessee of this house.’
‘Oh, that chap? Action, did you say? He won’t be bringing any actions. He’ll be in prison, like Beach.’
‘Beach?’ Gally stared. ‘Beach isn’t in prison. You must be thinking of a couple of other fellows.’
‘Constable Evans is probably locking him in his cell at this very moment,’ said Sir Gregory with offensive gusto. ‘He fortunately happened to be at my house when Wellbeloved came with his news.’
‘What news?’
Sir Gregory swelled, like a man who knows that he has a good story to tell.
‘I was sitting in my study,’ he began, ‘enjoying a cigar and chatting with my fiancée, when Binstead, my butler, informed me that Wellbeloved wished to speak to me. I told him to tell him I would see him out on the drive, for I prefer to converse with Wellbeloved in the open air. I joined him there, and he had an amazing story to relate. He said he had been in this house, talking to this fellow Vail, who, I take it, is one of the minor cogs in your organization, and while they were talking, he suddenly heard Queen of Matchingham grunt.’
‘But it isn’t –’
‘Wait, Clarence,’ said Gally. ‘I want to hear this. I can’t make head or tail of it so far. Go on.’
Sir Gregory proceeded.
‘Well, he thought for a moment, quite naturally, that he must have imagined it, but then the sound came again, and it was Queen of Matchingham all right. He recognized her grunt, and this time he was able to locate it. It had come from the kitchen. There was plainly a pig there.’
‘But that’s –’
‘Clarence, please! Yes?’
‘So he said to himself “Oho!”’
‘O what?’
‘Ho.’
‘Right. Carry on.’
‘He had noticed, he said, from the start of their conversation, that this fellow Vail seemed very nervous, and now he appeared to lose his head completely. He attempted to get rid of Wellbeloved with some absurd story about something or other which Wellbeloved says would not have deceived a child. I suppose these inexperienced crooks always do lose their heads in a crisis. No staying power. I don’t know who this Vail is –’
‘He’s my secretary,’ said Lord Emsworth.
‘In your pay, is he? I thought so.’
‘No, he isn’t, now I come to think of it,’ said Lord Emsworth. ‘Connie sacked him.’
‘Well, whether he’s still your secretary or not is beside the dashed point,’ said Sir Gregory impatiently. ‘The thing that matters is that he’s a minion whom you have bought with your gold. To go on with what I was saying, this bally Vail told Wellbeloved this bally story, straining every nerve to get him out of the house, and Wellbeloved very shrewdly pretended to swallow it and then came and reported to me. I drove here immediately with the constable, heard my pig in the kitchen, found Beach on guard, and directed the officer to take him into custody and haul him off to a prison cell. At the next session of the bench of magistrates I shall sentence him to whatever the term of imprisonment is that a bounder gets for stealing pigs. I shall have to look it up. I shall be much surprised if it isn’t six months or a year or something like that. Nor is that all. You, Emsworth, and you, Threepwood, will be up to your necks in the soup as accessories before the fact. With the evidence at my disposal, I shall be able to net the whole gang. That,’ said Sir Gregory, after a keen glance at Lord Emsworth and another keen glance at Gally, ‘is how matters stand, and I don’t wonder you’re trembling like leaves. You’re in a very nasty spot, you two pig purloiners.’
He ceased, and Gally shook his head, perplexed.
‘I don’t get it,’ he said. ‘I thought I was a fairly intelligent man, but this defeats me. It sounds absurd, but the way it looks to me is that you are accusing us of having stolen your pig.’
Sir Gregory stared.
‘You haven’t the nerve to deny it?’
‘Of course I deny it.’
‘You are trying to tell me there isn’t a pig in that kitchen? Listen, dammit! I can hear it grunting now.’
‘My dear fellow, of course you
can. A deaf adder could. But that’s the Empress.’
‘What!’
‘You are surprised to find her here? The explanation is quite simple. It seemed to Clarence that she was looking a bit peaked, and he thought a change of air and scenery might do her good. So he asked Vail to put her up for a day or two, and Vail of course said he would be delighted. That was what happened, wasn’t it, Clarence?’
‘Eh?’
‘He says yes,’ said Gally.
Sir Gregory stood for a moment staring incredulously, then he strode to the kitchen door and flung it open, and Lord Emsworth, unable to restrain himself any longer, shot through. Grunts and endearing exclamations made themselves heard. Gally closed the door on the sacred reunion.
Sir Gregory was puffing in a distraught sort of way.
‘That’s not my pig!’
‘Of course it isn’t,’ said Gally soothingly. ‘That’s what I keep telling you. It’s the Empress. You see now how groundless those charges of yours were. I don’t want to be censorious, Parsloe, but I must say that when you go about accusing the cream of the British aristocracy of pinching pigs purely on the strength of a chap like George Cyril Wellbeloved having heard one grunt, it looks like the beginning of the end. If that sort of thing is to become habitual, it seems to me that the whole fabric of Society must collapse. The thing I can’t understand is how you ever got the idea into your head that Queen of Matchingham had been stolen. Bizarre is the word that springs to the lips. You must have known that she has been in her sty right along.’
‘What!’
‘Well, all I can tell you is that I was round at your place this afternoon, and she was there then. I thought I would look you up and have a friendly chat, because I feel so strongly how important pleasant neighbourly relations are in the country. When I got to Matchingham, you were out, so I took a turn about the grounds, just to see how your flowers were doing, and I noticed her sty. I’d have given her a potato, only I didn’t happen to have one on me. But if you still feel doubtful, let’s go to Matchingham now, and you can see for yourself.’
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