'You said they suited me.'
'They do suit you.'
'You said I looked fine in them.'
'You do look fine in them, but once more you are refusing to meet the issue squarely. The point is ...'
'How many points is that? I seem to have counted about a dozen.'
'There is only one point, and I am endeavouring to make it clear. In a nutshell, what will people say when they find you here?'
'But they won't find me here.'
'You think so? Ha! What about Brinkley?'
'Who's he?'
'My man.'
'Your late man?'
I clicked the tongue.
'My new man. At nine to-morrow morning he will bring me tea.'
'Well, you'll like that.'
'He will bring it to this room. He will approach the bed. He will place it on the table.'
'What on earth for?'
'To facilitate my getting at the cup and sipping.'
'Oh, you mean he will put the tea on the table. You said he would put the bed on the table.'
'I never said anything of the sort.'
'You did. Distinctly.'
I tried to reason with the girl.
'My dear child,' I said, 'I must really ask you to use your intelligence. Brinkley is not a juggler. He is a well-trained gentleman's gentleman, and would consider it a liberty to put beds on tables. And why should he put beds on tables? The idea would never occur to him. He ...'
She interrupted my reasoning.
'But wait a minute. You keep babbling about Brinkley, but there isn't a Brinkley.'
'There is a Brinkley. One Brinkley. And one Brinkley coming into this room at nine o'clock to-morrow morning and finding you in that bed will be enough to start a scandal which will stagger humanity.'
'I mean, he can't be in the house.'
'Of course he's in the house.'
'Well, he must be deaf, then. I made enough noise getting in to wake six gentlemen's gentlemen. Apart from smashing a window at the back ...'
'Did you smash a window at the back?'
'I had to, or I couldn't have got in. It was the window of some sort of bedroom on the ground floor.'
'Why, dash it, that's Brinkley's bedroom.'
'Well, he wasn't in it.'
'Why on earth not? I gave him the evening off, not the night.'
'I can see what has happened. He's away on a toot somewhere, and won't be back for days. Father had a man who did that once. He went out for his evening from our house on East Sixty-Seventh Street, New York, on April the fourth in a bowler hat, grey gloves and a check suit, and the next we heard of him was a telegram from Portland, Oregon, on April the tenth, saying he had overslept himself and would be back shortly. That's what your Brinkley must have done.'
I must say I drew a good deal of comfort from the idea.
'Let us hope so,' I said. 'If he is really trying to drown his sorrows, it ought to take him weeks.'
'So, you see, you've been making a fuss about nothing. I always say...'
But what it was she always said, I was not privileged to learn. For at that moment she broke off with a sharp squeak.
Somebody was knocking on the front door.
8 POLICE PERSECUTION
We looked at each other with a wild surmise, silent upon a first floor back in Chuffnell Regis. That frightful sound, coming unexpectedly like that in the middle of the peaceful summer night, had been enough to strike the chit-chat from anybody's lips. And what rendered it so particularly unpleasant to us, personally, was the fact that we had both jumped simultaneously to the same ghastly conclusion.
'It's father!' Pauline gargled, and with a swift flip of her finger she doused the candle.
'What did you do that for?' I said, a good deal pipped. The sudden darkness seemed to make things worse.
'So that he shouldn't see a light in the window, of course. If he thinks you're asleep he may go away.'
'What a hope!' I retorted, as the knocking, which had eased off for a moment, started again with more follow-through than ever.
'Well, I suppose you had better go down,' said the girl in a subdued sort of voice. 'Or' – she seemed to brighten – 'shall we pour water on him from the staircase window?'
I started violently. She had made the suggestion as if she considered it one of her best and brightest, and I suddenly realized what it meant to play the host to a girl of her temperament and personality. All that I had ever heard or read about the reckless younger generation seemed to come back to me.
'Don't dream of it!' I whispered urgently. 'Dismiss the project utterly and absolutely from your mind.'
I mean to say, a dry J. Washburn Stoker seeking an errant daughter was bad enough. A J. Washburn Stoker stimulated to additional acerbity by a jugful of H2O on his head, I declined to contemplate. Goodness knows, I wasn't keen on going down and passing the time of night with the man, but if the alternative was to allow his loved ones to drench him to the skin and then wait while he tore the walls down with his bare hands I proposed to do so immediately.
'I'll have to see him,' I said.
'Well, be careful.'
'How do you mean, careful?'
'Oh, just careful. Still, of course, he may not have a gun.'
I swallowed a trifle.
'What exactly would you say the odds were, for and against?'
She mused awhile.
'I'm trying to remember if father is a Southerner or not.'
'A what?'
'I know he was born at a place called Carterville, but I can't recollect if it was Carterville, Kentucky, or Carterville, Massachusetts.'
'What the dickens difference does it make?'
'Well, if you smirch the honour of a Southerner's family, he's apt to shoot.'
'Would your father consider it smirched the family honour, your being here?'
'Bound to, I should think.'
I couldn't help agreeing with her. It did seem to me offhand that a purist might consider the smirching pretty good, but I hadn't time to weigh the point, because the knocker got going again with renewed vim.
'Well, dash it,' I said, 'wherever this ghastly parent of yours was born, I shall have to go down and talk to him. That door will be splitting asunder soon.'
'Don't get closer to him than you can help.'
'I won't.'
'He was a great wrestler when he was a young man.'
'You needn't tell me any more about your father.'
'I only meant, I wouldn't let him get hold of you, if you can help. Is there anywhere I can hide?'
'No.'
'Why not?'
'I don't know why not,' I replied, a little curtly. 'They don't build these country cottages with secret rooms and underground passages. When you hear me open the front door, stop breathing.'
'Do you want me to suffocate?'
Well, of course, a Wooster does not put such thoughts into words, but I'm bound to say this struck me as a jolly good idea. Forbearing to reply, I hurried down the stairs and flung open the front door. Well, when I say flung, I opened it a matter of six inches, not omitting to keep it on the chain.
'Hallo?' I said. 'Yes?'
I don't know when I've felt such a chunk of relief as surged over me the next moment.
'Oy!' said a voice. 'Taken your time, haven't you? What's the matter with you, young man? Deaf or something?'
It wasn't in its essentials a musical voice, being on the thick side and a shade roopy. If I'd been its owner, I'd have given more than a little thought to the subject of tonsils. But it had one supreme merit which outweighed all its defects. It wasn't the voice of J. Washburn Stoker.
'Frightfully sorry,' I said. 'I was thinking of this and that. Sort of reverie, if you know what I mean.'
The voice spoke again, not without a pretty goodish modicum of suavity this time.
'Oh, I beg your pardon, sir. I thought you was the young man Brinkley'
'Brinkley's out,' I said, feeling that if he ever
returned I would have a word to say to him about the hours at which his pals paid social calls. 'Who are you?'
'Sergeant Voules, sir.'
I opened the door. It was pretty dark outside, but I could recognize the arm of the Law all right. This Voules was a bird built rather on the lines of the Albert Hall, round in the middle and not much above. He always looked to me as if Nature had really intended to make two police sergeants and had forgotten to split them up.
'Ah, Sergeant!' I said.
Careless, debonair. Not a thing on Bertram's mind, you would have supposed, but his hair.
'Anything I can do for you, Sergeant?'
My eyes were getting accustomed to the darkness by this time, and I was enabled to spot certain objects of interest by the wayside. The principal one was another policeman. Tall and lean and stringy, this one.
'This is my young nephew, sir. Constable Dobson.'
Well, I wasn't exactly in the mood for a social reunion, and I could have wished that the sergeant, if he wanted to make me one of the family and all pals together, so to speak, had selected some other time, but I inclined the bean gracefully in the constable's direction and uttered a kindly 'Ah, Dobson!' I rather think, if I remember, that I also said something about its being a fine night.
But apparently this wasn't just one of those chummy gatherings which recall the old-time salon.
'Are you aware, sir, that there's a window broke at the back of your residence? My young nephew here spotted it and thought best to wake me up and have me investigate. A ground-floor window, sir, with a whole pane of glass gone from it.'
I simpered slightly.
'Oh, that? Yes, Brinkley did that yesterday. Silly ass!'
'You knew about it, then, sir?'
'Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Quite all right, Sergeant.'
'Well, you know best if it's quite all right, sir, but I should say there was a danger of marauders getting through.'
And at this juncture the chump of a constable, who had hitherto not spoken, shoved his oar in.
'I thought I did see a marauder getting through, Uncle Ted.'
'What! Then why didn't you tell me before, you young muttonhead? And don't call me Uncle Ted when we're on duty.'
'No, Uncle Ted.'
'You'd best let us make a search of the 'ouse, sir,' said Sergeant Voules.
Well, I put the presidential veto on this pretty quick.
'Certainly not, Sergeant,' I said. 'Quite out of the q.'
'It would be wiser, sir.'
'I'm sorry,' I said, 'but it can't be done.'
He seemed piqued and discontented.
'Well, please yourself, sir, but you're shackling the police, that's what you're doing. There's too much shackling of the police these days. There was a piece in the Mail about it yesterday. Perhaps you read it?'
'No.'
'On the middle page. Unshackle the police, it said, because public alarm is growing in Great Britain owing to the continuous increase of crime in the lonely rural districts. I clipped it out to paste in my album. The number of indictable offences, it said, has rose from one three four five eight one in 1929 to one four seven nought three one in 1930, with a marked increase of seven per cent in crimes of violence, and is this disturbing state of things due to slackness on the part of the police, it said? No, it said, it's not. It's because the police are shackled.'
The man was obviously cut to the quick. Dashed awkward.
'Well, I'm sorry,' I said.
'Yes, sir, and you're going to be sorrier when you go upstairs to your bedroom and a marauder cuts your throat from ear to ear.'
'Fight against these gloomy views, my dear old police sergeant,' I said. 'I anticipate no such contingency. I've just come from upstairs, and I give you my word there were no marauders.'
'Probably lurking, sir.'
'Biding their time,' suggested Constable Dobson.
Sergeant Voules sighed heavily.
'I wouldn't like nothing to happen to you, sir, seein' you're a close friend of his lordship's. But as you prove obdurate ...'
'Oh, nothing could happen to anyone in a place like Chuffnell Regis.'
'Don't you believe it, sir. Chuffnell Regis is going down. I would never have thought to have seen a troupe of nigger minstrels singing comic songs within a stone's throw of my police station.'
'You view them with concern?'
'There's been fowls missing,' said Sergeant Voules darkly. 'Several fowls. And I have my suspicions. Well, come along, Constable. If we're to be shackled, there's nothing to keep us here. Good night, sir.'
'Good night.'
I shut the door and buzzed back to the bedroom. Pauline was sitting up in bed, more or less agog.
'Who was it?'
'The constabulary.'
'What did they want?'
'Apparently they saw you getting in.'
'What a lot of trouble I'm giving you, Bertie.'
'Oh, no. Only too pleased. Well, I suppose I might as well be pushing along.'
'Are you going?'
'In the circumstances,' I replied a little frigidly, 'I can hardly doss on the premises. I shall withdraw to the garage.'
'Isn't there a sofa downstairs?'
'There is. Noah's. He brought it ashore on Mount Ararat. I shall be better off in the car.'
'Oh, Bertie, I am giving you a lot of trouble.'
I softened slightly. After all, the poor girl was scarcely to be blamed for what had occurred. As Chuffy had remarked earlier in the evening, love's love.
'Don't you worry, old thing. We Woosters can rough it when it is a matter of giving two fond hearts a leg-up. You put your little head on the pillow and curl your little pink toes up and doze off. I shall be all right.'
And, so saying, I uncorked a kindly smile, popped off, trickled down the stairs, opened the front door, and out into the scented night; and I don't suppose I was a dozen yards from the house when a heavy hand fell on my shoulder, occasioning me both mental and physical distress, and a shadowy form said, 'Gotcher!'
'Ouch!' I replied.
The shadowy form now revealed itself as that of Constable Dobson of the Chuffnell Regis police force. He was in apologetic vein.
'I'm sure I beg your pardon, sir. I thought you was the marauder.'
I forced myself to be airy and affable. The young squire setting the lower orders at their ease.
'Quite all right, Constable. Quite all right. Just going for a stroll.'
'I understand, sir. Breath of air.'
'You have put it in a nutshell. A breath, as you astutely observe, of air. The house is quite close.'
'Yes, sir. Just over there.'
'I mean stuffy.'
'Oh, yes, sir. Well, good night, sir.'
'Tra-la, Constable.'
I proceeded on my way, a little shaken. I had left the garage door open, and I felt my way to the old two-seater, glad to be alone once more. In certain moods, no doubt, one would have found Constable Dobson a delightful and stimulating companion, but to-night I preferred his absence. I climbed into the car and, leaning back, endeavoured to compose myself for sleep.
Now, whether I should have been able to achieve the dreamless had the conditions remained right, I cannot say. The point is pretty moot. As two-seaters go, I had always found mine fairly comfortable, but then I had never before tried to get the eight hours in it, and you would be surprised at the number of knobs and protuberances which seem suddenly to sprout out of a car's upholstery when you seek to convert it into a bed.
But, as it happened, I was not given a square chance of making the test. I don't suppose I could have counted more than about a platoon and a half of sheep when a light suddenly flashed on the features and a voice instructed me to come on out of it.
I sat up.
'Ah, Sergeant!' I said.
Another awkward meeting. Embarrassment on both sides.
'Is that you, sir?'
'Yes.'
'Sorry to have disturbed you, sir.'
> 'Not at all.'
'Can't say it occurred to me that it might be you in here, sir.'
'I thought I'd try to get a bit of sleep in the old car, Sergeant.'
'Yes, sir.'
'Such a warm night.'
'Just so, sir.'
His voice was respectful, but I could not conquer a suspicion that he was beginning to look a bit askance. There was something in his manner that gave me the idea that he considered Bertram eccentric.
'Stuffy indoors.'
'Yes, sir?'
'I often park myself in the car in the summertime.'
'Yes, sir?'
'Good night, Sergeant.'
'Good night, sir.'
Well, you know how it is when someone butts in on you just as you are shaping for the beauty sleep. It breaks the spell, if you know what I mean. I curled up again, but I soon saw that all efforts in the direction of the restful night in my present environment would be fruitless. I counted about five more medium-sized flocks, but it was no good. Steps, I realized, would have to be taken through other channels.
I hadn't done a great deal of exploring in these grounds of mine, but it so happened that one morning a sharp shower had driven me to the shelter of a species of shed or outhouse down in the south-west corner of the estate where the gardener-by-the-day stacked his tools and flower-pots and what not. And, unless memory deceived me, there had been in that outhouse or shed a pile of sacking on the floor.
Well, you may say that sacking, considered in the light of a bed, isn't everybody's money, and in saying so you would be perfectly correct. But after half an hour in the seat of a Widgeon Seven, even sacking begins to look pretty good to you. It may be a little hardish on the frame, and it may smell a good deal of mice and the deep-delved earth, but there remains just one point to be put forward in its favour – viz. that it enables one to stretch the limbs. And stretching the limbs was the thing I felt now that I wanted to do most.
In addition to smelling of mice and mould, the particular segment of sacking on which some two minutes later I was reclining had a marked aroma of by-the-day gardener: and there was a moment when I had to ask myself if the mixture wasn't a shade too rich. But these things grow on one in time, and at the end of about a quarter of an hour I was rather enjoying the blend of scents than otherwise. I can recall inflating the lungs and more or less drinking it in. At the end of about half an hour a soothing drowsiness had begun to steal over me.
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