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‘Then you look after that pig of yours, Clarence.’ The Hon. Galahad spoke earnestly. ‘I see what this means. Parsloe’s up to his old games, and intends to queer the Empress somehow.’
‘Queer her?’
‘Nobble her. Or, if he can’t do that, steal her.’
You don’t mean that.’
‘I do mean it. The man’s as slippery as a greased eel. He would nobble his grandmother if it suited his book. Let me tell you I’ve known young Parsloe for thirty years and I solemnly state that if his grandmother was entered in a competition for fat pigs and his commitments made it desirable for him to get her out of the way, he would dope her bran-mash and acorns without a moment’s hesitation.’
‘God bless my soul!’ said Lord Emsworth, deeply impressed.
‘Let me tell you a little story about young Parsloe. One or two of us used to meet at the Black Footman in Gossiter Street in the old days – they’ve pulled it down now – and match our dogs against rats in the room behind the bar. Well, I put my Towser, an admirable beast, up against young Parsloe’s Banjo on one occasion for a hundred pounds a side. And when the night came and he was shown the rats, I’m dashed if he didn’t just give a long yawn and roll over and go to sleep. I whistled him . . . called him . . . Towser, Towser . . . No good . . . Fast asleep. And my firm belief has always been that young Parsloe took him aside just before the contest was to start and gave him about six pounds of steak and onions. Couldn’t prove anything, of course, but I sniffed the dog’s breath and it was like opening the kitchen door of a Soho chophouse on a summer night. That’s the sort of man young Parsloe is.’
‘Galahad!’
‘Fact. You’ll find the story in my book.’
Lord Emsworth was tottering to the door.
‘God bless my soul! I never realized . . . I must see Pirbright at once. I didn’t suspect . . .
It never occurred . . .’
The door closed behind him. The Hon. Galahad, preparing to return to his labours, was arrested by the voice of his nephew Ronald.
‘Uncle Gaily!’
The young man’s pink face had flamed to a bright crimson. His eyes gleamed strangely.
‘Well?’
You don’t really think Sir Gregory will try to steal the Empress?’
‘I certainly do. Known him for thirty years, I tell you.’
‘But how could he?’
‘Go to her sty at night, of course, and take her away.’
‘And hide her somewhere?’
Yes.’
‘But an animal that size. Rather like looking in at the Zoo and pocketing one of the elephants, what?’
‘Don’t talk like an idiot. She’s got a ring through her nose, hasn’t she?’
You mean, Sir Gregory could catch hold of the ring and she would breeze along quite calmly?’
‘Certainly. Puffy Benger and I stole old Wivenhoe’s pig the night of the Bachelors’ Ball at Hammer’s Easton in the year ‘95. We put it in Plug Basham’s bedroom. There was no difficulty about the thing whatsoever. A little child could have led it.’
He withdrew into the small library, and Ronnie slid limply into the chair which Lord Emsworth had risen from so majestically. He felt the need of sitting. The inspiration which had just come to him had had a stunning effect. The brilliance of it almost frightened him. That idea about starting a pig-farm had shown that this was one of his bright mornings, but he had never foreseen that he would be as bright as this.
‘Golly!’ said Ronnie.
Could he . . .?
Well, why not?
Suppose . . .?
No, the thing was impossible.
Was it? Why? Why was it impossible? Suppose he had a stab at it. Suppose, following his Uncle Galahad’s expert hints, he were to creep out to-night, abstract the Empress from her home, hide her somewhere for a day or two and then spectacularly restore her to her bereaved owner? What would be the result? Would Uncle Clarence sob on his neck, or would he not? Would he feel that no reward was too good for his benefactor or wouldn’t he? Most decidedly he would. Fish Preferred would soar immediately. That little matter of the advance of capital would solve itself. Money would stream automatically from the Emsworth coffers.
But could it be done? Ronnie forced himself to examine the scheme dispassionately, with a mind alert for snags.
He could detect none. A suitable hiding place occurred to him immediately – that disused gamekeeper’s cottage in the West Wood. Nobody ever went there. It would be as good as a Safe Deposit.
Risk of Detection? Why should there be any risk of detection? Who would think of connecting Ronald Fish with the affair?
Feeding the animal . . .?
Ronnie’s face clouded. Yes, here at last was the snag. This did present difficulties. He was vague as to what pigs ate, but he knew that they needed a lot of whatever it was. It would be no use restoring to Lord Emsworth a skeleton Empress. The cuisine must be maintained at its existing level, or the thing might just as well be left undone.
For the first time he began to doubt the quality of his recent inspiration. Scanning the desk with knitted brows, he took from the book-rest the volume entitled Pigs, and How to Make Them Pay. A glance at page 61, and his misgivings were confirmed.
‘“Myes,’ said Ronnie, having skimmed through all the stuff about barley meal and maize meal and linseed meal and potatoes and separated milk or buttermilk. This, he now saw clearly, was no one man job. It called not only for a dashing principal but a zealous assistant.
And what assistant?
Hugo?
No. In many respects the ideal accomplice for an undertaking of this nature, Hugo Carmody had certain defects which automatically disqualified him. To enrol Hugo as his lieutenant would mean revealing to him the motives that lay at the back of the venture.
And if Hugo knew that he, Ronnie, was endeavouring to collect funds in order to get married, the thing would be all over Shropshire in a couple of days. Short of putting it on the front page of the Daily Mail or having it broadcast over the wireless, the surest way of obtaining publicity for anything you wanted kept dark was to confide it to Hugo Carmody. A splendid chap, but the real, genuine human colander. No, not Hugo.
Then who? . . .
Ah!
Ronnie Fish sprang from his chair, threw his head back and uttered a yodel of joy so loud and penetrating that the door of the small library flew open as if he had touched a spring.
A tousled literary man emerged.
‘Stop that damned noise! How the devil can I write with a row like that going on?’
‘Sorry, Uncle. I was just thinking of something.’
‘Well, think of something else. How do you spell “intoxicated”?’
‘One “x”.’
‘Thanks,’ said the Hon. Galahad, and vanished again.
V
In his pantry, in shirt-sleeved ease, Beach, the butler, sat taking the well-earned rest of a man whose silver is all done and who has no further duties to perform till lunch-time. A bullfinch sang gaily in a cage on the window-sill, but it did not disturb him, for he was absorbed in the Racing Intelligence page of the Morning Post.
Suddenly he rose, palpitating. A sharp rap had sounded on the door, and he was a man who reacted nervously to sudden noises. There entered his employer’s nephew, Mr Ronald Fish.
‘Hullo, Beach.’
‘Sir?’
‘Busy?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Just thought I’d look in.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘For a chat.’
‘Very good, sir.’
Although the butler spoke with his usual smooth courtesy, he was far from feeling easy in his mind. He did not like Ronnie’s looks. It seemed to him that his young visitor was feverish. The limbs twitched, the eyes gleamed, the blood-pressure appeared heightened, and there was a super-normal pinkness in the epidermis of the cheek.
‘Long time since we had a real, cosy talk, Beach.’<
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‘Yes, sir.’
‘When I was a kid, I used to be in and out of this pantry of yours all day long.’
‘Yes, sir.’
A mood of extreme sentimentality now appeared to grip the young man. He sighed like a centenarian recalling far off, happy things.
‘Those were the days, Beach.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘No problems then. No worries. And even if I had worries, I could always bring them to you, couldn’t I?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Remember the time I hid in here when my Uncle Gaily was after me with a whangee for putting tin-tacks on his chair?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘It was a close call, but you saved me. You were staunch and true. A man in a million.
I’ve always thought that if there were more people like you in the world, it would be a better place.’
‘I do my best to give you satisfaction, sir.’
And how you succeed! I shall never forget your kindness in those dear old days, Beach.’
‘Extremely good of you to say so, sir.’
‘Later, as the years went by, I did my best to repay you, by sharing with you such snips as came my way. Remember the time I gave you Blackbird for the Manchester November Handicap?’
Yes, sir.’
You collected a packet.’
‘It did prove a remarkably sound investment, sir.’
Yes. And so it went on. I look back through the years, and I seem to see you and me standing side by side, each helping each, each doing the square thing by the other. You certainly always did the square thing by me.’
‘I trust I shall always continue to do so, sir.’
‘I know you will, Beach. It isn’t in you to do otherwise. And that,’ said Ronnie, beaming on him lovingly, ‘is why I feel so sure that, when I have stolen my uncle’s pig, you will be there helping to feed it till I give it back.’
The butler’s was not a face that registered nimbly. It took some time for a look of utter astonishment to cover its full acreage. Such a look had spread to perhaps two-thirds of its surface when Ronnie went on.
‘You see, Beach, strictly between ourselves, I have made up my mind to sneak the Empress away and keep her hidden in that gamekeeper’s cottage in the West Wood and then, when Uncle Clarence is sending out SOS’s and offering large rewards, I shall find it there and return it, thus winning his undying gratitude and putting him in the right frame of mind to yield up a bit of my money that I want to dig out of him. You get the idea?’
The butler blinked. He was plainly endeavouring to conquer a suspicion that his mind was darkening. Ronnie nodded kindly at him as he fought for speech.
‘It’s the scheme of a lifetime, you were going to say? You’re quite right. It is. But it’s one of those schemes that call for a sympathetic fellow-worker. You see, pigs like the Empress, Beach, require large quantities of food at frequent intervals. I can’t possibly handle the entire commissariat department myself. That’s where you’re going to help me, like the splendid fellow you are and always have been.’
The butler had now begun to gargle slightly. He cast a look of agonized entreaty at the bullfinch, but the bird had no comfort to offer. It continued to chirp reflectively to itself, like a man trying to remember a tune in his bath.
‘An enormous quantity of food they need,’ proceeded Ronnie. You’d be surprised. Here it is in this book I took from my uncle’s desk. At least six pounds of meal a day, not to mention milk or buttermilk and bran made sloppy with swill.’
Speech at last returned to the butler. It took the form at first of a faint sound like the cry of a frightened infant. Then words came.
‘But, Mr Ronald . . .!’
Ronnie stared at him incredulously. He seemed to be wrestling with an unbelievable suspicion.
‘Don’t tell me you’re thinking of throwing me down, Beach? You? My friend since I was so high?’ He laughed. He could see now how ridiculous the idea was. ‘Of course you aren’t! You couldn’t. Apart from wanting to do me a good turn, you’ve gathered by this time with that quick intelligence of yours, that there’s money in the thing. Ten quid down, Beach, the moment you give the nod. And nobody knows better than yourself that ten quid, invested on Baby Bones for the Medbury Selling Plate at the current odds, means considerably more than a hundred in your sock on settling-day.’
‘But, sir . . . It’s impossible . . . I couldn’t dream . . . If ever it was found out . . . Really, I don’t think you ought to ask me, Mr Ronald . . .’
‘Beach!’
Yes, but, really, sir . . .’
Ronnie fixed him with a compelling eye.
‘Think well, Beach. Who gave you Creole Queen for the Lincolnshire?’
‘But, Mr Ronald . . .’
‘Who gave you Mazzawattee for the Jubilee Stakes, Beach? What a beauty!’
A tense silence fell upon the pantry. Even the bullfinch was hushed.
‘And it may interest you to know,’ said Ronnie, ‘that just before I left London I heard of something really hot for the Goodwood Cup.’
A low gasp escaped Beach. All butlers are sportsmen, and Beach had been a butler for eighteen years. Mere gratitude for past favours might not have been enough in itself to turn the scale, but this was different. On the subject of form for the Goodwood Cup he had been quite unable to reach a satisfying decision. It had baffled him. For days he had been groping in the darkness.
‘Jujube, sir?’he whispered.
‘Not Jujube.’
‘Ginger George?’
‘Not Ginger George. It’s no use your trying to guess, for you’ll never do it. Only two touts and the stable-cat know this one. But you shall know it, Beach, the minute I give that pig back and claim my reward. And that pig needs to be fed. Beach, how about it?’
For a long minute the butler stared before him, silent. Then, as if he felt that some simple, symbolic act of the sort was what this moment demanded, he went to the bullfinch’s cage and put a green-baize cloth over it.
‘Tell me just what it is you wish me to do, Mr Ronald,’ he said.
VI
The dawn of another day crept upon Blandings Castle. Hour by hour the light grew stronger till, piercing the curtains of Ronnie’s bedroom, it woke him from a disturbed slumber. He turned sleepily on the pillow. He was dimly conscious of having had the most extraordinary dream, all about stealing pigs. In this dream . . .
He sat up with a jerk. Like cold water dashed in his face had come the realization that it had been no dream.
‘Gosh!’ said Ronnie, blinking.
Few things have such a tonic effect on a young man accustomed to be a little heavy on waking in the morning as the discovery that he has stolen a prize pig overnight. Usually, at this hour, Ronnie was more or less of an inanimate mass till kindly hands brought him his early cup of tea: but to-day he thrilled all down his pyjama-clad form with a novel alertness. Not since he had left school had he ‘sprung out of bed’, but he did so now. Bed, generally so attractive to him, had lost its fascination. He wanted to be up and about.
He had bathed, shaved, and was slipping into his trousers when his toilet was interrupted by the arrival of his old friend Hugo Carmody. On Hugo’s face there was an expression which it was impossible to misread. It indicated as plainly as a label that he had come bearing news, and Ronnie, guessing the nature of this news, braced himself to be suitably startled.
‘Ronnie!’
‘Well?’
‘Heard what’s happened?’
‘What?’
‘You know that pig of your uncle’s?’
‘What about it?’
‘It’s gone.’
‘Gone?’
‘Gone!’ said Hugo, rolling the word round his tongue. ‘I met the old boy half a minute ago, and he told me. It seems he went down to the pig-bin for a before-breakfast look at the animal, and it wasn’t there.’
‘Wasn’t there?’
‘Wasn’t there.’
‘How do you mean, wasn’t there?’
‘Well, it wasn’t. Wasn’t there at all. It had gone.’
‘Gone?’
‘Gone! Its room was empty and its bed had not been slept in.’
‘Well, I’m dashed!’ said Ronnie.
He was feeling pleased with himself. He felt he had played his part well. Just the right incredulous amazement, changing just soon enough into stunned belief.
‘You don’t seem very surprised,’ said Hugo.
Ronnie was stung. The charge was monstrous.
‘Yes, I do,’ he cried. ‘I seem frightfully surprised. I am surprised. Why shouldn’t I be surprised?’
‘All right. Just as you say. Spring about a bit more, though, another time when I bring you these sensational items. Well, I’ll tell you one thing,’ said Hugo with satisfaction.
‘Out of evil cometh good. It’s an ill wind that has no turning. For me this startling occurrence has been a life-saver. I’ve got thirty-six hours leave out of it. The old boy is sending me up to London to get a detective.’
‘A what?’
A detective.’
A detective!’
Ronnie was conscious of a marked spasm of uneasiness. He had not bargained for detectives.
‘From a place called the Argus Enquiry Agency.’
Ronnie’s uneasiness increased. This thing was not going to be so simple after all. He had never actually met a detective, but he had read a lot about them. They nosed about and found clues. For all he knew, he might have left a hundred clues.
‘Naturally I shall have to stay the night in town. And, much as I like this place,’ said Hugo, ‘there’s no denying that a night in town won’t hurt. I’ve got fidgety feet, and a spot of dancing will do me all the good in the world. Bring back the roses to my cheeks.’
‘Whose idea was it, getting down this blighted detective?’ demanded Ronnie. He knew he was not being nonchalant, but he was disturbed.
‘Mine.’
‘Yours, eh?’
‘All mine. I suggested it.’
‘You did, did you?’ said Ronnie.
He directed at his companion a swift glance of a kind that no one should have directed at an old friend.