‘That large girl in the trousers. Looks after the pigs.’
‘Simmons?’
‘Is that the name?’
‘Monica Simmons, the pride of Roedean. Is she having hysterics?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Why is she having hysterics?’
Lord Vosper seemed glad that his companion had put that question.
‘Ah,’ he said, ‘that’s what I asked myself. And, what’s more, I asked her. I happened to be down in the vicinity of the pig bin just now and found her there, and it seemed to me rather peculiar that she should be laughing and crying and wringing her hands and all that, so I put it to her straight. “Is something the matter?” I said.’
‘Came right to the point, didn’t you? And was there?’
‘Yes, as I had suspected from the outset, there was. She was a bit incoherent at first, gasping and gurgling and calling on the name of her Maker and so forth, but the gist gradually emerged. She had had a bereavement. It appears that that pig of Lord Emsworth’s, the one they call the Empress, is missing.’
At any other moment Gally would have said ‘On how many cylinders?’, for he liked his joke of a morning, but these devastating words put whimsical comedy out of the question. It was as though he had been hit over the head with a blunt instrument. He stood yammering speechlessly, and Lord Vosper thought his emotion did him credit.
‘Bad show, what?’ he said. ‘One needs smelling salts.’
Gally spoke in a low, grating voice.
‘You mean the Empress isn’t there? She’s gone?’
‘That’s right. Gone with the wind. Or so this Simmons tells me. According to the Simmons, her room was empty and her bed had not been slept in. The pig’s bed, I mean, not the Simmons’s. I know nothing of the Simmons’s bed. For all I’ve heard to the contrary, it was slept in like billy-o. The point I am making –’
He would have proceeded to elucidate the matter further, rendering it clear to the meanest intelligence, but it would have meant soliloquizing, for Gally had left him. His dapper form was flashing along the terrace, and now it disappeared from view, moving rapidly.
‘Odd,’ thought Lord Vosper. ‘Most extraordinary.’
He went off to see if Lady Constance had smelling salts. He was convinced that in some way smelling salts ought to enter into the thing.
2
Over at Matchingham Hall, Sir Gregory Parsloe was in his study doing The Times crossword puzzle, his brow wrinkled as he tried to think what a word in three letters, beginning with E and signifying a large Australian bird, could possibly be. He liked crossword puzzles, but was not very expert at them. Anything more abstruse than the Sun God Ra generally had him baffled.
To those who recall his overnight anguish, it may seem odd that this jilted lover should have been occupying himself with large Australian birds on the morning after the shattering of his romance. But British Baronets, like British pig men, are resilient. They rise on stepping stones of their dead selves to higher things and are quick to discern the silver lining in the clouds. A night’s sleep had done wonders for the Squire of Matchingham. We left him a broken man. We find him now mended, in fact practically as good as new.
When a man of Sir Gregory’s age and temperament is informed by his prospective bride shortly before the date fixed for their union that she has made other plans and that there will be no wedding bells for him, he is naturally annoyed, but his chagrin is never so deep or so enduring as would be that of someone like Romeo in similar circumstances. Passion, as it is understood by the Romeos, seldom touches the Sir Gregory Parsloes of this world. What passes for love with them is really not much more than a tepid preference. The poet Berlin, seeking material for another ‘What’ll I do?’ would have had to go elsewhere for inspiration, if he had come looking for it from Sir Gregory Parsloe.
Sir Gregory was mildly fond of Gloria Salt, and had been on the whole rather attracted by the idea of marrying her, but it had not taken him long to see that there was a lot to be said in favour of the celibate life. What was enabling him to bear his loss with such fortitude was the realization that, now that she had gone and broken off the dashed engagement, there was no longer any need for all that bally dieting and exercising nonsense. Once more he was the master of his fate, the captain of his soul, and if he felt like widening his waistline, could jolly well widen it, and no kick coming from any quarter. For days he had been yearning for beer with an almost Wellbelovedian intensity, and he was now in a position to yield to the craving. A tankard stood beside him at this very moment, and in the manner in which he raised it to his lips there was something gay and swashbuckling. A woman is only a woman, he seemed to be saying, but a frothing pint is a drink.
And so, even more so, are two frothing pints. He pressed the bell, and Binstead appeared.
‘Hey!’ said Sir Gregory. ‘Another of those.’
‘Very good, sir.’
‘Hey!’ said Sir Gregory, when a few minutes later the butler returned with the life-giving fluid. He had just remembered something. ‘Where did you put that Slimmo stuff?’ he asked.
‘I placed it in the store-room cupboard, sir. Should I fetch a bottle, sir?’
‘No. I don’t want … I’ve heard from my distant connexion, and he doesn’t want the stuff. Pour it down the sink.’
‘Or should I return it to the chemist, sir? He would possibly be willing to refund the money.’
‘All right. Do that, if you like. If you can get anything out of him, you can keep it.’
‘Thank you very much, sir,’ said Binstead. There might not be much in the transaction, but there ought to be something. And every little bit added to what you’ve got makes just a little bit more.
It was now approaching the hour when it was Sir Gregory’s custom to go and pay his respects to Queen of Matchingham, and as he had finished his beer and saw no prospect of ever solving the mystery of that large Australian bird, he rose, lit a fresh cigar with a debonair flourish and made his way to the sty.
The first thing he beheld on arrival was George Cyril Wellbeloved propped up against a tree, obviously in the grip of one of those hangovers that mark epochs, the sort of hangover you tell your grandchildren about when they come clustering round your knee. He looked like the things you find in dust-bins, which are passed over with a disdainful jerk of the head by the discriminating alley cat, and so repellent was his aspect that after a brief ‘Good morning’ – and even that caused the pig man to quiver like a smitten blancmange – Sir Gregory averted his gaze and transferred it to the occupant of the sty.
And as he did so, he suddenly stiffened, blinked, gasped, dropped his cigar and stood staring.
‘What?’ he stammered. ‘What? What? What?’
The next moment, it seemed to George Cyril Wellbeloved that the end of the world had come and Judgement Day set in with unusual severity. Actually, it was only his employer shouting his name, but that was the illusion it created.
‘Sir?’ he whispered feebly, clutching his temples, through which some practical joker was driving white-hot spikes.
‘Come here!’ bellowed Sir Gregory.
George Cyril obeyed his master’s voice, but reluctantly. Sir Gregory, he had not failed to observe, in addition to being yellow in colour and flickering at the edges, was looking like a touchy tribal god who, dissatisfied with the day’s human sacrifice, is preparing to say it with thunderbolts. He feared the shape of things to come.
‘What’s all this?’ the employer roared.
‘Sir?’
‘What’s been going on here?’
‘Sir?’
‘Don’t stand there bleating like a sheep, you loathsome excrescence. You know perfectly well what I mean, blister your insides. Where’s my pig? This isn’t my pig. What’s become of Queen of Matchingham, and what’s this damned animal doing here? You’ve removed my pig and substituted a blasted changeling.’
Except for Lord Emsworth, on whose capabilities in that direct
ion we have already touched, there was not in all Shropshire – and probably not in Herefordshire and South Wales – a more gifted exponent of stout denial than George Cyril Wellbeloved, and in this moment of peril a special effort might have been expected from him. But, in order to deny with the adequate measure of stoutness, a man has to be feeling at the top of his form, and we have been strangely remiss if we have left our public with the impression that George Cyril was at the top of his. He was but a shadow of his former self, his once alert brain a mere mass of inert porridge.
‘WELL?’
George Cyril Wellbeloved cracked beneath the strain. One last futile attempt to find an explanation that would cover the facts, at the same time leaving him with an unsullied reputation, and he was telling all, omitting no detail however slight.
It went considerably better than he had anticipated. True, his audience punctuated the narrative by calling him a number of derogatory names, but he was not torn limb from limb, as at one point had seemed likely. Encouraged, he became fluent, and the story went better than ever. As he told of his journey to Blandings Castle and the theft of the Empress, something like a faint smile of approval seemed to flicker across his employer’s face.
And, indeed, Sir Gregory was not ill pleased. He began to see daylight. It seemed to him that the position of affairs was somewhat similar to that which would have prevailed in the Male-mute saloon if Dangerous Dan McGrew and one of his friends had got the drop on each other simultaneously. And on such occasions compromise and bargaining become possible. Moreover, if he now dispatched this pig man of his to scout around in the grounds of Blandings Castle, it might be possible to ascertain where the hellhounds of the opposition had hidden the Queen. That knowledge acquired, what simpler than to send an expeditionary force to the rescue?
A few minutes later, accordingly, George Cyril Wellbeloved, relieved to find himself still in one piece, was bicycling once more along the old familiar road, while Sir Gregory went to the garage to get out his car. It was his intention to beard Lord Emsworth and that old image, his brother Galahad, in their lair, and tell them one or two things about the facts of life.
‘Lord Emsworth in?’ he asked, having reached journey’s end.
Beach was courtly, but distant.
‘His lordship has gone to Wolverhampton, sir.’
‘Where’s Mr Threepwood?’
‘Mr Galahad is also absent.’
‘H’m,’ said Sir Gregory, wondering what to do for the best, and as he spoke Lady Constance came through the hall.
‘Why, good morning, Sir Gregory,’ said Lady Constance. ‘Have you come to see Clarence?’
‘Eh? Oh, good morning. Yes. Wanted to speak to him about something.’
‘He won’t be back till tonight, I’m afraid. He has gone to Wolverhampton.’
‘So Beach was saying.’
‘He is making a speech there to some sort of pig-breeding society. But you will stay to lunch, won’t you?’
Sir Gregory considered. Lunch? Not a bad idea. He had a solid respect for the artistry of the castle cook, and now that Gloria Salt had given him the old heave-ho, there was no obstacle to his enjoyment of it.
‘Kind of you,’ he said. ‘Delighted.’
He looked forward to filling himself to the brim under Gloria’s eyes, defiantly sailing into the potatoes and generally raising hell with the calories. That, in his opinion, would show her she wasn’t everybody.
3
When Gally had left Lord Vosper so abruptly in the middle of their conversation on the terrace, it was with the intention of hastening to Matchingham Hall and confronting its proprietor, and such was his agitation of spirit that he was half-way there before he realized that a sensible man would have taken the car instead of walking. It being too late to turn back now, he completed the journey on foot, using the short cut across the fields, and reached his destination in a state of considerable warmth.
Binstead’s manner, as he imparted the information that Sir Gregory was not at home, should have cooled him, for it was frigid in the extreme. It was impossible for so young a butler to be as glacial as Beach would have been in similar circumstances, but he was as glacial as he knew how to be, and it disappointed him that this visiting pig stealer appeared quite oblivious to his chilliness. Gally was much too exhausted by his hike to make a close study of butlers and notice whether they were hot or cold.
‘I’ll come in and wait,’ he said, and Binstead, though in inward revolt against the suggestion, did not see what he could do to prevent the intrusion. Reluctantly he conducted Gally to the study, and Gally, making for the sofa, put his feet up with a contented sigh. He then outraged Binstead’s feelings still further by asking for a whisky and soda.
‘A good strong one,’ said Gally, and such was the magic of his personality that the butler, who had stiffened from head to foot, relaxed with a meek ‘Yes, sir’.
When he returned with the restorative, Gally had settled down to The Times crossword puzzle.
‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘You don’t know what a large Australian bird in three letters beginning with E is, do you?’
‘I do not, sir,’ said Binstead icily, and withdrew.
For some minutes after he was alone, Gally gave himself up to the crossword puzzle, concentrating tensely. But crossword puzzles are only a palliative. They do not really cure the aching heart. Soon his mind was straying back to the burden that weighed on it, and he put the paper down with a weary sigh and gave himself up to thought.
It might have been supposed that a man who had himself purloined a pig on the previous night would have looked with an indulgent eye on the pig-stealing activities of others, on the principle that a fellow-feeling makes one wondrous kind. But there was nothing resembling tolerant sympathy in Gally’s mind as he sat there brooding on Sir Gregory Parsloe. The blackness of the other’s villainy appalled him. He could see no excuse for the fellow. Still, there it was and no use thinking about it. He tried to envisage the outcome, were the man to stick to his guns and refuse to restore the Empress.
A superficial thinker would have said in his haste that the thing was a stand-off. If Empress of Blandings had been removed from circulation, he would have reasoned, so had Queen of Matchingham. Here, in other words, were two pigs, both missing, and these two pigs cancelled each other out.
But Gally saw more deeply into the matter, and shuddered at what he saw. What the superficial thinker was overlooking was the fact that while the Empress was the solitary jewel in Lord Emsworth’s crown, the man Parsloe had another pig up his sleeve which he could thrust into the arena at a moment’s notice. In the whirl of recent events, Pride of Matchingham, the original Parsloe entry, had rather receded into the background, but it was still there, a unit in the Parsloe stable, and if necessary it could do its stuff.
And with what hideous effectiveness! For two years Pride of Matchingham had been runner-up in the contest, and in the absence of the Empress its triumph was assured. In other words, all the man Parsloe had to do was to hang on to the Empress, and he would flourish like a green bay tree. If there was a bitterer thought than that, Gally would have been interested to learn what it was. It was the sudden realization of this angle that had caused Sir Gregory to perk up so noticeably towards the end of his interview with George Cyril Wellbeloved.
After a three mile walk on a hot summer morning, followed by a stiffish whisky and soda in a comfortable arm chair, a man who is getting on in years tends to become drowsy, and at this point in his meditations Gally’s head began to nod.
For a long time the study remained hushed and still except for an occasional gurgle, like that of a leaky radiator. Then the telephone bell rang, and Gally sat up with a jerk.
He lifted the receiver. Somebody at the other end of the wire was saying ‘Sir’ – huskily, like a voice speaking from the tomb.
‘Who’s that?’
‘Wellbeloved, Sir Gregory.’
The last mists of sleep cleared from Gally’s mi
nd. He became keen and alert. He was a man of the world, and he knew that pig men do not call their employers on the telephone unless they have something urgent to say. Plainly this Wellbeloved was about to plot, and he was consequently in a position of a Private Eye who is listening in on the intimate agenda of the Secret Nine.
‘Where are you?’
‘I’m phoning from the Beetle and Wedge, Sir Gregory. And I was wondering, Sir Gregory,’ proceeded George Cyril Wellbeloved, a pleading note creeping into his voice, ‘if under the circs, it being such a warm day and me all worn out from toiling in your interests, I might have a glass of beer.’
‘Certainly, certainly,’ said Gally heartily. ‘Have all you want and tell them to charge it to me.’
There was a silence. It seemed for a moment that the pig man had swooned. When he resumed, it was plain from the new animation with which he spoke that he was feeling that there had been a great improvement in his employer since they had last met. This, he seemed to be saying to himself, was something like sweetness and light.
‘Well, sir,’ he said, sunnily, ‘I’ve found her.’
‘Eh?’
‘The Queen, sir.’
Gally reeled. The words had been like a blow between his eyes. He had been so sure that his secret was safe from the world, and here he was, unmasked by a pig man. For a long instant he stood speechless. Then he managed to utter.
‘Good God!’
‘Yes, sir, it took a bit of doing, but I did it, and I came along here to the Beetle and Wedge to apprise you of her whereabouts. Following your instructions, sir, I proceeded to Blandings Castle … About that beer,’ said George Cyril Wellbeloved, digressing for a moment. ‘Would it run to a spot of gin in it, sir?’
‘Yes, yes, yes.’
‘Thank you, sir. I find it improves the flavour. Well, sir, as I was saying, I proceeded to Blandings Castle and proceeded to lurk unseen. What had occurred to me, thinking it over, was that if the Queen was being held in durance vile – that’s an expression they use, sir, I don’t know if it’s familiar to you – somebody would have to be feeding her pretty soon, and this, I presumed, would be done by an underling, if you understand the word, effecting an egress through the back door. So I lurked near the back door, and sure enough out came Mr Beach, the butler, carrying in his hand a substantial pail and glancing very nervous from side to side as much as to say “Am I observed?” Well, sir, to cut a long story short, he proceeded to proceed to what is known as the west wood – which is a wood lying in a westerly direction – and there fetched up at an edifice which I assumed to have been at one time the residence of one of the gamekeepers. He went in. He effected an entrance,’ said George Cyril Wellbeloved, correcting himself, ‘and I crope up secretly and looked in through the window, and there was the Queen, sir, as large as life. And then I took my departure and proceeded here and rang you up on the telephone so as to apprise you of what had transpired and leave it to you to take what steps you may consider germane to the issue, trusting I have given satisfaction as is my constant endeavour. And, now, sir, with your permission, I will be ringing off and going and securing the beer you have so kindly donated. Thank you, sir.’
Pigs Have Wings: Page 13