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  ‘Oh?’ he said morosely. ‘Well, buzz off. I want to dress.’

  VII

  A morning spent in solitary wrestling with a guilty conscience had left Ronnie Fish thoroughly unstrung. By the time the clock over the stable struck the hour of one, his mental condition had begun to resemble that of the late Eugene Aram. He paced the lower terrace with bent head, starting occasionally at the sudden chirp of a bird, and longed for Sue. Five minutes of Sue, he felt, would make him a new man.

  It was perfectly foul, mused Ronnie, this being separated from the girl he loved. There was something about Sue . . . he couldn’t describe it, but something that always seemed to act on a fellow’s whole system like a powerful pick-me-up. She was the human equivalent of those pink drinks you went and got – or, rather, which you used to go and get before a good woman’s love had made you give up all that sort of thing – at that chemist’s at the top of the Haymarket after a wild night on the moors. It must have been with a girl like Sue in mind, he felt, that the poet had written those lines ‘When something something something brow, a ministering angel thou!’

  At this point in his meditations, a voice from immediately behind him spoke his name.

  ‘I say, Ronnie.’

  It was only his cousin Millicent. He became calmer. For an instant, so deep always is a criminal’s need for a confidant, he had a sort of idea of sharing his hideous secret with this girl, between whom and himself there had long existed a pleasant friendship. Then he abandoned the notion. His secret was not one that could be lightly shared. Momentary relief of mind was not worth purchasing at the cost of endless anxiety.

  ‘Ronnie, have you seen Mr Carmody anywhere?’

  ‘Hugo? He went up to London on the ten-thirty.’

  ‘Went up to London? What for?’

  ‘He’s gone to a place called the Argus Enquiry Agency to get a detective.’

  ‘What, to investigate this business of the Empress?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Millicent laughed. The idea tickled her.

  ‘I’d like to be there to see old man Argus’s face when he finds that all he’s wanted for is to track down missing pigs. I should think he would beat Hugo over the head with a blood-stain.’

  Her laughter trailed away. There had come into her face the look of one suddenly visited by a displeasing thought.

  ‘Ronnie!’

  ‘Hullo?’

  ‘Do you know what?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘This looks fishy to me.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know how it strikes you, but this Argus Enquiry Agency is presumably on the phone. Why didn’t Uncle Clarence just ring them up and ask them to send down a man?’

  ‘Probably didn’t think of it.’

  ‘Whose idea was it, anyway, getting down a man?’

  ‘Hugo’s.’

  ‘He suggested that he should run up to town?’

  Yes.’

  ‘I thought as much,’ said Millicent darkly.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Millicent’s eyes narrowed. She kicked moodily at a passing worm.

  ‘I don’t like it,’ she said. ‘It’s fishy. Too much zeal. It looks very much to me as if our Mr Carmody had a special reason for wanting to get up to London for the night. And I think I know what the reason was. Did you ever hear of a girl named Sue Brown?’

  The start which Ronnie gave eclipsed in magnitude all the other starts he had given that morning. And they had been many and severe.

  ‘It isn’t true?’

  ‘What isn’t true?’

  ‘That there’s anything whatever between Hugo and Sue Brown.’

  ‘Oh? Well, I had it from an authoritative source.’

  It was not the worm’s lucky morning. It had now reached Ronnie, and he kicked at it, too.

  The worm had the illusion that it had begun to rain shoes.

  ‘I’ve got to go in and make a phone call,’ said Millicent, abruptly.

  Ronnie scarcely noticed her departure. He had supposed himself to have been doing some pretty tense thinking all the morning, but, compared with its activity now, his brain hitherto had been stagnant.

  It couldn’t be true, he told himself. Sue had said definitely that it wasn’t, and she couldn’t have been lying to him. Girls like Sue didn’t lie. And yet . . .

  The sound of the luncheon gong floated over the garden.

  Well, one thing was certain. It was simply impossible to remain here at Blandings Castle, getting his mind poisoned with doubts and speculations which for the life of him he could not keep out of it. If he took the two-seater and drove off in it the moment this infernal meal was over, he could be in London before eight. He could call at Sue’s flat; receive her assurance once more that Hugo Carmody, tall and lissom though he might be, expert on the saxophone though he admittedly was, meant nothing to her; take her out to dinner and, while dining, ease his mind of that which weighed upon it. Then, fortified with comfort and advice, he could pop into the car and be back at the castle by lunch-time on the following day.

  It wasn’t, of course, that he didn’t trust her implicitly. Nevertheless . . .

  Ronnie went in to lunch.

  4 NOTICEABLE BEHAVIOUR OF RONALD FISH

  I

  If you go up Beeston Street in the south-western postal division of London and follow the pavement on the right-hand side, you come to a blind alley called Hayling Court. If you enter the first building on the left of this blind alley and mount a flight of stairs, you find yourself facing a door, on the ground-glass of which is the legend: ARGUS

  ENQUIRY

  AGENCY

  LTD

  and below it, to one side, the smaller legend

  P. FROBISHER PILBEAM, MGR

  And if, at about the hour when Ronnie Fish had stepped into his two-seater in the garage of Blandings Castle, you had opened this door and gone in and succeeded in convincing the gentlemanly office-boy that yours was a bonafide visit, having nothing to do with the sale of life insurance, proprietary medicines or handsomely bound sets of Dumas, you would have been admitted to the august presence of the Mgr himself. P. Frobisher Pilbeam was seated at his desk, reading a telegram which had arrived during his absence at lunch.

  This is peculiarly an age of young men starting out in business for themselves; of rare, unfettered spirits chafing at the bonds of employment and refusing to spend their lives working forty-eight weeks in the year for a salary. Quite early in his career Pilbeam had seen where the big money lay, and decided to go after it.

  As editor of that celebrated weekly scandal-sheet, Society Spice, Percy Pilbeam had had exceptional opportunities of discovering in good time the true bent of his genius: with the result that, after three years of nosing out people’s discreditable secrets on behalf of the Mammoth Publishing Company, his employers, he had come to the conclusion that a man of his gifts would be doing far better for himself nosing out such secrets on his own behalf. Considerably to the indignation of Lord Tilbury, the Mammoth’s guiding spirit, he had borrowed some capital, handed in his portfolio, and was now in an extremely agreeable financial position.

  The telegram over which he sat brooding with wrinkled forehead was just the sort of telegram an Enquiry agent ought to have been delighted to receive, being thoroughly cryptic and consequently a pleasing challenge to his astuteness as a detective, but Percy Pilbeam, in his ten minutes’ acquaintance with it, had come to dislike it heartily. He preferred his telegrams easier.

  It ran as follows:

  Be sure send best man investigate big robbery.

  It was unsigned.

  What made the thing particularly annoying was that it was so tantalizing. A big robbery probably meant jewels, with a correspondingly big fee attached to their recovery. But you cannot scour England at random, asking people if they have had a big robbery in their neighbourhood.

  Reluctantly, he gave the problem up; and, producing a pocket mirror, began with the
aid of a pen nib to curl his small and revolting moustache. His thoughts had drifted now to Sue. They were not altogether sunny thoughts, for the difficulty of making Sue’s acquaintance was beginning to irk Percy Pilbeam. He had written her notes. He had sent her flowers. And nothing had happened. She ignored the notes, and what she did with the flowers he did not know. She certainly never thanked him for them.

  Brooding upon these matters, he was interrupted by the opening of the door. The gentlemanly office-boy entered. Pilbeam looked up, annoyed.

  ‘How many times have I told you not to come in here without knocking?’ he asked sternly.

  The office-boy reflected.

  ‘Seven,’ he replied.

  ‘What would you have done if I had been in conference with an important client?’

  ‘Gone out again,’ said the office-boy. Working in a Private Enquiry Agency, you drop into the knack of solving problems.

  ‘Well, go out now.’

  ‘Very good, sir. I merely wished to say that, while you were absent at lunch, a gentleman called.’

  ‘Eh? Who was he?’

  The office-boy, who liked atmosphere, and hoped some day to be promoted to the company of Mr Murphy and Mr Jones, the two active assistants who had their lair on the ground floor, thought for a moment of saying that, beyond the obvious facts that the caller was a Freemason, left-handed, a vegetarian and a traveller in the East, he had made no deductions from his appearance. He perceived, however, that his employer was not in the vein for that sort of thing.

  ‘A Mr Carmody, sir. Mr Hugo Carmody.’

  ‘Ah!’ Pilbeam displayed interest. ‘Did he say he would call again?’

  ‘He mentioned the possibility, sir.’

  ‘Well, if he does, inform Mr Murphy and tell him to be ready when I ring.’

  The office-boy retired, and Pilbeam returned to his thoughts of Sue. He was quite certain now that he did not like her attitude. Her attitude wounded him. Another thing he deplored was the reluctance of stage-door keepers to reveal the private addresses of the personnel of the company. Really, there seemed to be no way of getting to know the girl at all.

  Eight respectful knocks sounded on the door. The office-boy, though occasionally forgetful, was conscientious. He had restored the average.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Mr Carmody to see you, sir.’

  Pilbeam once more relegated Sue to the hinterland of his mind. Business was business.

  ‘Show him in.’

  ‘This way, sir,’ said the office-boy with a graceful courtliness which, even taking into account the fact that he suffered from adenoids, had an old-world flavour, and Hugo sauntered across the threshold.

  Hugo felt, and was looking, quietly happy. He seemed to bring the sunshine with him.

  Nobody could have been more wholeheartedly attached than he to Blandings Castle and the society of his Millicent, but he was finding London, revisited, singularly attractive.

  ‘And this, if I mistake not, Watson, is our client now,’ said Hugo genially.

  Such was his feeling of universal benevolence that he embraced with his good-will even the repellent-looking young man who had risen from the desk. Percy Pilbeam’s eyes were too small and too close together and he marcelled his hair in a manner distressing to right-thinking people, but to-day he had to be lumped in with the rest of the species as a man and a brother, so Hugo bestowed a dazzling smile upon him. He still thought Pilbeam should not have been wearing pimples with a red tie. One or the other if he liked.

  But not both. Nevertheless he smiled upon him.

  ‘Fine day,’ he said.

  ‘Quite,’ said Pilbeam.

  ‘Very jolly, the smell of the asphalt and carbonic gas.’

  ‘Quite.’

  ‘Some people might call London a shade on the stuffy side on an afternoon like this. But not Hugo Carmody.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No. H. Carmody finds it just what the doctor ordered.’ He sat down. ‘Well, sleuth,’ he said, ‘to business. I called before lunch, but you were out.’

  Yes.’

  ‘But here I am again. And I suppose you want to know what I’ve come about?’

  ‘When you’re ready to get round to it,’ said Pilbeam patiently.

  Hugo stretched his long legs comfortably.

  ‘Well, I know you detective blokes always want a fellow to begin at the beginning and omit no detail, for there is no saying how important some seemingly trivial fact may be.

  Omitting birth and early education then, I am at the moment private secretary to Lord Emsworth, at Blandings Castle, in Shropshire. And,’ said Hugo, ‘I maintain, a jolly good secretary. Others may think differently, but that is my view.’

  ‘Blandings Castle?’

  A thought had struck the proprietor of the Argus Enquiry Agency. He fumbled in his desk and produced the mysterious telegram. Yes, as he had fancied, it had been handed in at a place called Market Blandings.

  ‘Do you know anything about this?’ he asked, pushing it across the desk.

  Hugo glanced at the document.

  ‘The old boy must have sent that after I left,’ he said. ‘The absence of signature is, no doubt, due to mental stress. Lord Emsworth is greatly perturbed. A-twitter. Shaken to the core, you might say.’

  About this robbery?’

  ‘Exactly. It has got right in amongst him.’

  Pilbeam reached for pen and paper. There was a stern, set, bloodhound sort of look in his eyes.

  ‘Kindly give me the details.’

  Hugo pondered a moment.

  ‘It was a dark and stormy night . . . No, I’m a liar. The moon was riding serenely in the sky . . .’

  ‘This big robbery? Tell me about it.’

  Hugo raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Big?’

  ‘The telegram says “big”.’

  ‘These telegraph-operators will try to make sense. You can’t stop them editing. The word should be “pig”. Lord Emsworth’s pig has been stolen!’

  ‘Pig!’ cried Percy Pilbeam.

  Hugo looked at him a little anxiously.

  ‘You know what a pig is, surely? If not, I’m afraid there is a good deal of tedious spade work ahead of us.’

  The roseate dreams which the proprietor of the Argus had had of missing jewels broke like bubbles. He was deeply affronted. A man of few ideals, the one deep love of his life was for this Enquiry Agency which he had created and nursed to prosperity through all the dangers and vicissitudes which beset Enquiry Agencies in their infancy. And the thought of being expected to apply its complex machinery to a search for lost pigs cut him, as Millicent had predicted, to the quick.

  ‘Does Lord Emsworth seriously suppose that I have time to waste looking for stolen pigs?’ he demanded shrilly. ‘I never heard such nonsense in my life.’

  Almost the exact words which all the other Hawkshaws used. Finding you not at home,’

  explained Hugo, ‘I spent the morning going round to other Agencies. I think I visited six in all, and every one of them took the attitude you do.’

  ‘I am not surprised.’

  ‘Nevertheless, it seemed to me that they, like you, lacked vision. This pig, you see, is a prize pig. Don’t picture to yourself something with a kink in its tail sporting idly in the mud. Imagine, rather, a favourite daughter kidnapped from her ancestral home. This is heavy stuff, I assure you. Restore the animal in time for the Agricultural Show, and you may ask of Lord Ems-worth what you will, even unto half his kingdom.’

  Percy Pilbeam rose. He had heard enough.

  ‘I will not trouble Lord Emsworth. The Argus Enquiry Agency . . .’

  ‘. . . does not detect pigs? I feared as much. Well, well, so be it. And now,’ said Hugo, affably, ‘may I take advantage of the beautiful friendship which has sprung up between us to use your telephone?’

  Without waiting for permission – for which, indeed, he would have had to wait some time – he drew the instrument to him and gave a number. He
then began to chat again.

  ‘You seem a knowledgeable sort ofbloke,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you can tell me where the village swains go these days when they want to dance upon the green? I have been absent for some little time from the centre of the vortex, and I have become as a child in these matters. What is the best that London has to offer to ayoung man with his blood up and the vine leaves more or less in his hair?’

  Pilbeam was a man of business. He had no wish to converse with this client who had disappointed him and wounded his finest feelings, but it so happened that he had recently bought shares in a rising restaurant.

  ‘Mario’s,’ he replied promptly. ‘It’s the only place.’

  Hugo sighed. Once he had dreamed that the answer to a question like that would have been ‘The Hot Spot’. But where was the Hot Spot now? Gone like the flowers that wither in the first frost. The lion and the lizard kept the courts where Jamshyd gloried and – after hours, unfortunately, which had started all the trouble – drank deep. Ah well, life was pretty complex.

  A voice from the other end of the wire broke in on his reverie. He recognized it as that of the porter of the block of flats where Sue had her tiny abode.

  ‘Hullo? Bashford? Mr Carmody speaking. Will you make a long arm and haul Miss Brown to the instrument. Eh? Miss Sue Brown, of course. No other Browns are any use to me whatsoever. Right ho, I’ll wait.’

  The astute detective never permits himself to exhibit emotion. Pilbeam turned his start of surprise into a grave, distrait nod, as if he were thinking out deep problems. He took up his pen and drew three crosses and a squiggle on the blotting-paper. He was glad that no gentlemanly instinct had urged him to leave his visitor alone to do his telephoning.

  ‘Mario’s, eh?’ said Hugo. ‘What’s the band like?’

  ‘It’s Leopold’s.’

  ‘Good enough for me,’ said Hugo with enthusiasm. He hummed a bar or two, and slid his feet dreamily about the carpet. ‘I’m shockingly out of practice, dash it. Well, that’s that.

  Touching this other matter, you’re sure you won’t come to Blandings?’

  ‘Quite.’