The uncertainty which Freddie had felt as to the newcomer’s status was shared, it appeared, by the Alsatian: for after raising its eyebrows in a puzzled manner it rose and advanced enquiringly. In a tentative way it put out a paw and rolled the intruder over. Then, advancing again, it lowered its nose and sniffed.
It was a course of action against which its best friends would have advised it. These Pekes are tough eggs, especially when, as in this case, female. They look the world in the eye, and are swift to resent familiarity. There was a sort of explosion, and the next moment the Alsatian was shooting out of the room with its tail between its legs, hotly pursued. Freddie could hear the noise of battle rolling away along the passage, and it was music to his ears. Something on these lines was precisely what that Alsatian had been asking for, and now it had got it.
Presently, the Peke returned, dashing the beads of perspiration from its forehead, and came and sat down under the wardrobe, wagging a stumpy tail. And Freddie, feeling that the All Clear had been blown and that he was now at liberty to descend, did so.
His first move was to shut the door, his second to fraternize with his preserver. Freddie is a chap who believes in giving credit where credit is due, and it seemed to him that this Peke had shown itself an ornament of its species. He spared no effort, accordingly, to entertain it. He lay down on the floor and let it lick his face two hundred and thirty-three times. He tickled it under the left ear, the right ear, and at the base of the tail, in the order named. He also scratched its stomach.
All these attentions the animal received with cordiality and marked gratification: and as it seemed still in pleasure-seeking mood and had come to look upon him as the official Master of the Revels, Freddie, feeling that he could not disappoint it but must play the host no matter what the cost to himself, took off his tie and handed it over. He would not have done it for everybody, he says, but where this life-saving Peke was concerned the sky was the limit.
Well, the tie went like a breeze. It was a success from the start. The Peke chewed it and chased it and got entangled in it and dragged it about the room, and was just starting to shake it from side to side when an unfortunate thing happened. Misjudging its distance, it banged its head a nasty wallop against the leg of the bed.
There is nothing of the Red Indian at the stake about a puppy in circumstances like this. A moment later, Freddie’s blood was chilled by a series of fearful shrieks that seemed to ring through the night like the dying cries of the party of the second part to a first-class murder. It amazed him that a mere Peke, and a juvenile Peke at that, should have been capable of producing such an uproar. He says that a Baronet, stabbed in the back with a paper-knife in his library, could not have made half such a row.
Eventually, the agony seemed to abate. Quite suddenly, as if nothing had happened, the Peke stopped yelling and with an amused smile started to play with the tie again. And at the same moment there was a sound of whispering outside, and then a knock at the door.
‘Hullo?’ said Freddie.
‘It is I, sir. Biggleswade.’
‘Who’s Biggleswade?’
‘The butler, sir.’
‘What do you want?’
‘Her ladyship wishes me to remove the dog which you are torturing.’
There was more whispering.
‘Her ladyship also desires me to say that she will be reporting the affair in the morning to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.’
There was another spot of whispering.
‘Her ladyship further instructs me to add that, should you prove recalcitrant, I am to strike you over the head with the poker.’
Well, you can’t say this was pleasant for poor old Freddie, and he didn’t think so himself. He opened the door, to perceive, without, a group consisting of Lady Prenderby, her daughter Dahlia, a few assorted aunts, and the butler, with poker. And he says he met Dahlia’s eyes and they went through him like a knife.
‘Let me explain . . .’ he began.
‘Spare us the details,’ said Lady Prenderby with a shiver. She scooped up the Peke and felt it for broken bones.
‘But listen . . .’
‘Good night, Mr Widgeon.’
The aunts said good night, too, and so did the butler. The girl Dahlia preserved a revolted silence.
‘But, honestly, it was nothing, really. It banged its head against the bed . . .’
‘What did he say?’ asked one of the aunts, who was a little hard of hearing.
‘He says he banged the poor creature’s head against the bed,’ said Lady Prenderby.
‘Dreadful!’ said the aunt.
‘Hideous!’ said a second aunt.
A third aunt opened up another line of thought. She said that with men like Freddie in the house, was anyone safe? She mooted the possibility of them all being murdered in their beds. And though Freddie offered to give her a written guarantee that he hadn’t the slightest intention of going anywhere near her bed, the idea seemed to make a deep impression.
‘Biggleswade,’ said Lady Prenderby.
‘M’lady?’
‘You will remain in this passage for the remainder of the night with your poker.’
‘Very good, m’lady.’
‘Should this man attempt to leave his room, you will strike him smartly over the head.’
‘Just so, m’lady.’
‘But, listen . . .’ said Freddie.
‘Good night, Mr Widgeon.’
The mob scene broke up. Soon the passage was empty save for Biggleswade the butler, who had begun to pace up and down, halting every now and then to flick the air with his poker as if testing the lissomness of his wrist-muscles and satisfying himself that they were in a condition to ensure the right amount of follow-through.
The spectacle he presented was so unpleasant that Freddie withdrew into his room and shut the door. His bosom, as you may imagine, was surging with distressing emotions. That look which Dahlia Prenderby had given him had churned him up to no little extent. He realized that he had a lot of tense thinking to do, and to assist thought he sat down on the bed.
Or, rather, to be accurate, on the dead cat which was lying on the bed. It was this cat which the Alsatian had been licking just before the final breach in his relations with Freddie – the object, if you remember, which the latter had supposed to be a cushion.
He leaped up as if the corpse, instead of being cold, had been piping hot. He stared down, hoping against hope that the animal was merely in some sort of coma. But a glance told him that it had made the great change. He had never seen a deader cat. After life’s fitful fever it slept well.
You wouldn’t be far out in saying that poor old Freddie was now appalled. Already his reputation in this house was at zero, his name mud. On all sides he was looked upon as Widgeon the Amateur Vivisectionist. This final disaster could not but put the tin hat on it. Before, he had had a faint hope that in the morning, when calmer moods would prevail, he might be able to explain that matter of the Peke. But who was going to listen to him if he were discovered with a dead cat on his person?
And then the thought came to him that it might be possible not to be discovered with it on his person. He had only to nip downstairs and deposit the remains in the drawing-room or somewhere and suspicion might not fall upon him. After all, in a super-catted house like this, cats must always be dying like flies all over the place. A housemaid would find the animal in the morning and report to G.H.Q. that the cat strength of the establishment had been reduced by one, and there would be a bit of tut-tutting and perhaps a silent tear or two, and then the thing would be forgotten.
The thought gave him new life. All briskness and efficiency, he picked up the body by the tail and was just about to dash out of the room when, with a silent groan, he remembered Biggleswade.
He peeped out. It might be that the butler, once the eye of authority had been removed, had departed to get the remainder of his beauty-sleep. But no. Service and Fidelity were evidently the w
atchwords at Matcham Scratchings. There the fellow was, still practising half-arm shots with the poker. Freddie closed the door.
And, as he did so, he suddenly thought of the window. There lay the solution. Here he had been, fooling about with doors and thinking in terms of drawing-rooms, and all the while there was the balcony staring him in the face. All he had to do was to shoot the body out into the silent night, and let gardeners, not housemaids, discover it.
He hurried out. It was a moment for swift action. He raised his burden. He swung it to and fro, working up steam. Then he let it go, and from the dark garden there came suddenly the cry of a strong man in his anger.
‘Who threw that cat?’
It was the voice of his host, Sir Mortimer Prenderby.
‘Show me the man who threw that cat!’ he thundered.
Windows flew up. Heads came out. Freddie sank to the floor of the balcony and rolled against the wall.
‘Whatever is the matter, Mortimer?’
‘Let me get at the man who hit me in the eye with a cat.’
‘A cat?’ Lady Prenderby’s voice sounded perplexed. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Sure? What do you mean sure? Of course I’m sure. I was just dropping off to sleep in my hammock, when suddenly a great beastly cat came whizzing through the air and caught me properly in the eyeball. It’s a nice thing. A man can’t sleep in hammocks in his own garden without people pelting him with cats. I insist on the blood of the man who threw that cat.’
‘Where did it come from?’
‘Must have come from that balcony there.’
‘Mr Widgeon’s balcony,’ said Lady Prenderby in an acid voice. ‘As I might have guessed.’
Sir Mortimer uttered a cry.
‘So might I have guessed! Widgeon, of course! That ugly feller. He’s been throwing cats all the evening. I’ve got a nasty sore place on the back of my neck where he hit me with one before dinner. Somebody come and open the front door. I want my heavy cane, the one with the carved ivory handle. Or a horsewhip will do.’
‘Wait, Mortimer,’ said Lady Prenderby. ‘Do nothing rash. The man is evidently a very dangerous lunatic. I will send Biggleswade to overpower him. He has the kitchen poker.’
Little (said the Crumpet) remains to be told. At two-fifteen that morning a sombre figure in dress clothes without a tie limped into the little railway station of Lower-Smattering-on-the-Wissel, some six miles from Matcham Scratchings. At three-forty-seven it departed Londonwards on the up milk-train. It was Frederick Widgeon. He had a broken heart and blisters on both heels. And in that broken heart was that loathing for all cats of which you recently saw so signal a manifestation. I am revealing no secrets when I tell you that Freddie Widgeon is permanently through with cats. From now on, they cross his path at their peril.
6 THE LUCK OF THE STIFFHAMS
THE BAR OF the Drones Club was packed to bursting point. The word had gone round that Pongo Twistleton was standing free drinks, and a man who does that at the Drones can always rely on a full house and the sympathy of the audience. Eggs jostled Crumpets, Crumpets elbowed Beans, and the air was vibrant with the agonized cries of strong men who see their cocktails in danger of being upset.
A couple of Eggs, their thirst slaked, detached themselves from the crowd and made for the deserted smoking-room. They were both morning-coated, spatted and gardeniaed, for like most of those present they had just come from the Stifiham-Spettisbury wedding reception.
For a while they sat in thoughtful silence. In addition to their more recent potations, they had tucked fairly freely into the nuptial champagne provided by the bride’s father, the Earl of Wivelscombe. At length the first Egg spoke.
‘Oofy Prosser’s as sore as a gumboil,’ he said.
‘Who is?’ asked the second Egg, opening his eyes.
‘Oofy Prosser.’
‘As sore as a what?’
‘A gumboil. It’s his money that young Pongo is spending out there. Oofy gave him a hundred to eight that Adolphus Stiffham would never marry Geraldine Spettisbury, and Pongo collected the cash the moment the parson had said, “Wilt thou, Adolphus?” and the All Right flag had gone up.’
‘And Oofy’s sore about losing?’
‘Naturally. He thought he had the event sewn up. At the time when he made the bet, it looked as if Stiffy hadn’t an earthly. Consider the facts. Except for about a couple of hundred a year, the only money Stiffy had in the world was his salary as secretary to old Wivelscombe. And then he lost even that meagre pittance. One morning, happening to stroll into the yew alley at the ancestral seat and finding the young couple locked in a close embrace, the aged parent unlimbered his right leg and kicked Stiffy eleven feet, two inches – a record for the Midland counties. He then lugged Geraldine back to the house, shut her up in her room, handed Stiffy a cheque in lieu of a month’s notice, and told him that if he was within a mile of the premises at the expiration of ten minutes dogs would be set upon him. You can’t say the outlook was promising for Stiffy, and I am not surprised that Oofy regarded the bet as money for jam.’
‘How did it come unstuck?’
‘Nobody knows.’
‘Yes, they do,’ said a fresh young voice. It was a Crumpet who, unperceived, had left the throng about the human drinking-fountain and joined them in their solitude. ‘I do, for one. I had it straight from Stiffy’s own lips, and it has proved to me that what a fellow needs in this world is luck. Without luck, Stiffy would never have made a large fortune in New York.’
‘He didn’t,’ said the first Egg.
‘He did.’
‘He couldn’t have. How could Stiffy have been in New York? He once went to Le Touquet for Whitsun and was so seasick that he swore he would never set foot on a boat again. And you can’t get to New York, I happen to know, without taking a boat. So your story breaks down.’
‘My story jolly well does not break down,’ said the Crumpet warmly, ‘because Stiffy beyond question did go to New York not a week after the painful episode in the yew alley.
‘It was love that nerved him to the ordeal. Geraldine got him on the phone at the club and told him that the only thing for him to do was to go to America and make his fortune, and Stiffy went. And after he had been there about a fortnight he made the acquaintance of a very decent sort of chap with eyes a bit close together and a rather rummy way of talking out of the south-west corner of his mouth, and this bird took him off to a place where a lot of similar blokes were playing a local game they have over there called craps.’
You conduct this pastime, apparently, with dice, though what you aim to do with them remained a mystery to Stiffy from start to finish. However, when one of the blokes was preparing to heave the dice and another bloke offered to bet anybody ten that he wouldn’t make it, he felt the old Stiffham sporting blood stir in his veins. After all, he reasoned, ten dollars wasn’t so much to lose, and a little flutter helped to pass the time and make the evening interesting. So he booked the bet – to discover a moment later that what the chap had really meant was ten thousand.
Stiffy freely confesses that this was a nasty moment. It was too late to back out now, and he watched the proceedings with a bulging eye, fully cognizant of the fact that all that stood between him and a very sticky finish was the luck of the Stiffhams.
It held, of course. Half a minute later, the chap was paying up like a gentleman, and with ten thousand dollars in his pocket Stiffy decided that this was a good thing and should be pushed along. And the upshot of the whole affair was that about an hour afterwards he found himself in the open spaces in possession of a sum amounting to around thirty thousand quid.
He was a good deal bucked, of course, and I don’t blame him. There he was, you see, set up for life and in a position to return to old Wivelscombe riding on a camel laden with gold and precious stones and demand the hand of his daughter. Pretty soft it all looked to old Stiffy at this juncture.
Next day, he bunged the stuff into a bank, and at nightfall left his hot
el and started out to celebrate.
Now, as I have no doubt you know, when Stiffy celebrates, he celebrates. Exactly how and where he did it on this occasion, I couldn’t tell you. He is a bit vague about it himself. He seems to have collected a gang of sorts, for he can distinctly recall, he tells me, that from the very inception of the affair he did not lack for friends: and they apparently roamed hither and thither, getting matier all the time, and the next thing he remembers is waking up in the back premises of some sort of pub or hostelry with nothing on his person except a five-cent stamp, two balloons, three champagne corks, and a rattle.
This evidence of a well-spent evening pleased him a good deal. He popped the balloons, rattled the rattle for a while, and then, feeling that he had better collect a little loose cash for the day’s expenses, toddled off to his bank to draw a cheque.
And conceive his emotion when, arriving there, he found that the bank had closed its doors. There they were, both of them, shut as tight as oysters. Too late, he remembered now having read in the papers that this sort of thing was happening all the time in New York.
For some minutes he stood staring, while everything seemed to go black. Then he tottered back to his hotel and sank into a chair in the lobby, to think things over.
Bim, obviously, had gone his chance of ever marrying the daughter of the haughty Earl of Wivelscombe. That project could be washed right out. And for some time he remained mourning over this fact.
It was only quite a while later that there came into his mind a sudden thought, and for the first time since this hideous disaster had occurred he felt a little better.
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