Uncle Fred in the Springtime

by P. G. Wodehouse

  ‘What agenda?’

  ‘I have a scheme or plan of action which I propose to place before you in due course. Meanwhile, let me relate the sequence of events. As I say, Emsworth entered, and it was plain from his manner that he was in the grip of some strong emotion. His eyes goggled, his pince-nez were adrift and he yammered at me silently for a while, as is his habit when moved. It then came out that his pig had been stolen. He had gone down to refresh himself with an after-tea look at it, and it was not there. Its sty was empty, and its bed had not been slept in.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I should have thought you could have found some more adequate comment on a great human tragedy than a mere “Oh?”‘ said Lord Ickenham reprovingly. ‘Youth is very callous. Yes, the pig had been stolen, and Emsworth’s suspicions immediately leaped, of course, to the Duke. He was considerably taken aback when I pointed out that the latter could scarcely be the guilty person, seeing that he had been in his room all the afternoon. He retired there immediately after lunch, and was not seen again. And he could not have gone out into the garden through his bedroom window, because we find that Baxter was sitting on the lawn from one-thirty onwards. You may recall that Baxter was not with us at lunch. It appears that he had a slight attack of dyspepsia and decided to skip the meal. He testifies that Dunstable did not emerge. The thing, therefore, becomes one of the great historic mysteries, ranking with the Man in the Iron Mask and the case of the Mary Celeste. One seeks in vain for a solution.’

  Pongo, who had been listening to the narrative with growing impatience, denied this. ‘I don’t. I don’t give a single, solitary damn. Dash all pigs, is the way I look at it. You didn’t come here to talk about pigs, did you? What happened about Pott and the card game?’

  Lord Ickenham apologized.

  ‘I’m sorry. I’m afraid we old fellows have a tendency to ramble on. I should have remembered that your interest in the fortunes of Emsworth’s pig is only tepid. Well, I suggested to Emsworth that what he wanted was to take his mind off the thing, and that an excellent method of doing this would be to play cards. Mustard said that curiously enough he happened to have a pack handy, and the next moment they had settled down to the game.’

  Lord Ickenham paused, and drew his breath in reverently.

  ‘It was a magnificent exhibition. Persian Monarchs at its best. I never expect to witness a finer display of pure science than Mustard gave. He was playing for his daughter’s happiness, and the thought seemed to inspire him. Generally, I believe, on these occasions, it is customary to allow the mug to win from time to time as a sort of gesture, but it was clear that Mustard felt that in a crisis like this old-world courtesy would be out of place. Ignoring the traditions, he won every coup, and when they had finished Emsworth got up, thanked him for a pleasant game, said that it was fortunate that they had not been playing for money or he might have lost a considerable sum, and left the room.’

  ‘Oh, my gosh!’

  ‘Yes, it was a little disconcerting. Mustard tells me he was once bitten by a pig, but I doubt if even on that occasion — high spot in his life though it must have been — he can have been more overcome by emotion. For about five minutes after Emsworth’s departure, all he could do was to keep saying in a dazed sort of way that this had never happened to him before. One gets new experiences. And then suddenly I saw his face light up, and he seemed to revive like a watered flower. And, looking round, I found that the Duke had come in.’

  ‘Ah!’

  Lord Ickenham shook his head.

  ‘It’s no good saying “Ah!” my boy. I told you at the beginning that this story hadn’t a happy ending.’

  ‘The Duke wouldn’t play?’

  ‘You keep saying that people wouldn’t play. People always play when Mustard wants them to. He casts a sort of spell. No, the Duke was delighted to play. He said that he had had a boring afternoon, cooped up in his room, and that now he was out for a short breather a game of Persian Monarchs was just what he would enjoy. He said that as a young man he had been very gifted at the pastime. I saw Mustard’s eyes glisten. They sat down.’

  Lord Ickenham paused. He seemed to be torn between the natural desire of a raconteur to make the most of his material and a humane urge to cut it short and put his nephew out of his suspense. The latter triumphed.

  ‘Dunstable’s claim to excellence at the game was proved to the hilt,’ he said briefly. ‘Mark you, I don’t think Mustard was at his best. That supreme effort so short a while before had left him weak and listless. Be that as it may, Dunstable took three hundred pounds off him in ten minutes.’

  Pongo was staring.

  ‘Three hundred pounds?’

  ‘That was the sum.’

  ‘In ready money, do you mean?’

  ‘Paid right across the counter.’

  ‘But if he had all that on him, why didn’t he give it to Miss Pott?’

  ‘Ah, I see what you mean. Well, Mustard is a peculiar chap in some ways. It is difficult enough to get him to part with his winnings. Not even for a daughter’s sake would he give up his working capital. One dimly understands his view-point.’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Well, there it is.

  ‘And now what do we do?’

  ‘Eh? Oh, now, of course, we nip into the Duke’s room and pinch the stuff.’

  That strange nightmare feeling which had grown so familiar to Pongo of late came upon him again. He presumed he had heard aright — his uncle’s enunciation had been beautifully clear — but it seemed incredible that he could have done so.

  ‘Pinch it?’

  ‘Pinch it.’

  ‘But you can’t pinch money.’

  ‘Dashed bad form, of course, I know. But I shall look upon it as a loan, to be paid back at intervals — irregular intervals — each instalment accompanied by a posy of white violets.’

  ‘But, dash it —’

  ‘I know what you are thinking. To that highly trained legal mind of yours it is instantly clear that the act will constitute a tort or misdemeanour, if not actual barratry or socage in fief. But it has got to be done. Folly’s need is paramount. I remember Mustard saying once, apropos of my affection for Polly, that I seemed to look on her more like a daughter than a whatnot, and he was right. I suppose my feelings towards her are roughly those of Emsworth towards his pig, and when I have the chance to ensure her happiness I am not going to allow any far-fetched scruples to stand in my way. I am a mild, law-abiding man, but to make that kid happy I would willingly become one of those fiends with hatchet who seem to spend their time slaying six. So, as I say, we will pinch the stuff.’

  ‘You aren’t proposing to lug me into this?’

  Lord Ickenham was astounded.

  ‘Lug you? What an extraordinary expression. I had naturally supposed that you would be overjoyed to do your bit.’

  ‘You don’t get me mixed up in this sort of game,’ said Pongo firmly. ‘Dog Races, yes. Crashing the gate at castles, right. Burglary, no.’

  ‘But, my dear boy, when you reflect that but for you Polly would have all the money she needs —’

  ‘Oh, golly!’

  Once more, remorse had burst over Pongo like a tidal wave. In the agitation of the moment, he had forgotten this aspect of the affair. He writhed with shame.

  ‘You mustn’t overlook that. In a sense, you are morally bound to sit in.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Then you will?’

  ‘Of course. Rather.’

  ‘Good. I knew you would. You shouldn’t pull the old man’s leg, Pongo. For a minute I thought you were serious. Well, I am relieved, for your co-operation is essential to the success of the little scheme I have roughed out. What sort of voice are you in these days? Ah, but I remember. When we met in the road, you were warbling like a nightingale. I mistook you for Lily Pons. Excellent.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it will be your task — your simple, easy task — I will attend to all the really te
sting work — to flit about the lawn outside Dunstable’s window, singing the “Bonny Bonny Banks of Loch Lomond”.’

  ‘Eh? Why?’

  ‘You do keep saying “Why?” don’t you. It is quite simple. Dunstable, for some reason, is keeping closely to his room. Our first move must be to get him out of it. Even a novice to burglary like myself can see that if you are proposing to ransack a man’s room for money, it is much pleasanter to do it when he is not there. Your rendering of “Loch Lomond” will lure him out. We know how readily he responds to that fine old song. I see your role in this affair as a sort of blend of Lorelei and Will-o’-the-Wisp. You get Dunstable out with your siren singing, and you keep him out by flitting ahead of him through the darkness. Meanwhile, I sneak in and do the needful. No flaws in that?’

  ‘Not so long as nobody sees you.’

  ‘You are thinking of Baxter? Quite right. Always think of everything. If Baxter sees us slip away on some mysterious errand, his detective instincts will undoubtedly be roused. But I have the situation well in hand. I shall give Baxter a knock-out drop.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘Perhaps you are more familiar with it under the name of Mickey Finn.’

  ‘But where on earth are you going to get a knock-out drop?’

  ‘From Mustard. Unless his whole mode of life has changed since I used to know him, he is sure to have one. In the old days, he never moved without them. When he was running that club of his, it was only by a judicious use of knock-out drops that he was able to preserve order and harmony in his little flock.’

  ‘But how do you propose to make him take it?’

  ‘I shall find a way. He would be in his room now, I imagine?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Then after paying a brief call on Mustard I will look in on him and enquire after his dyspepsia. You may leave all this side of the thing to me with every confidence. Your duties will not begin till after dinner. Zero hour is at nine-thirty sharp.’

  It was plain to Lord Ickenham, directly he thrust his unwanted society on him a few minutes later, that Rupert Baxter was far from being the stern, steely young fellow of their previous encounters. The message, conveyed by Beach the butler to Lady Constance shortly after noon, that Mr Baxter regretted he would be unable to lunch today had been no mere ruse on the secretary’s part to enable him to secure the solitude and leisure essential to the man who is planning to steal pigs. The effect of his employer’s assignment had been to induce a genuine disorder of the digestive organs. There is always a weak spot in the greatest men. With Baxter, as with Napoleon, it was his stomach.

  He had felt a little better towards evening, but now the thought that there lay before him the fearful ordeal of removing the Empress from her temporary lodging in the Duke’s bathroom to the car which was to convey her to her new home had brought on another and an even severer attack. At the moment of Lord Ickenham’s entry, wild cats to the number of about eighteen had just begun to conduct a free-for-all in his interior.

  It was not to be expected, therefore, that he should beam upon his visitor. Nor did he. Ceasing for an instant to massage his waistcoat, he glared in a manner which only the dullest person could have failed to recognize as unfriendly.

  ‘Well?’ he said, between clenched teeth.

  Lord Ickenham, who had not expected cordiality, was in no way disconcerted by his attitude. He proceeded immediately to supply affability enough for two, which was the amount required.

  ‘I just dropped in,’ he explained, ‘to make enquiries and offer condolences. You will have been thinking me remiss in not coming before, but you know how it is at a country house. Distractions all the time. Well, my dear fellow, how are you? A touch of the collywobbles, I understand. Too bad, too bad. We all missed you at lunch, and there was a great deal of sympathy expressed — by myself, of course, no less than the others.’

  ‘I can do without your sympathy.’

  ‘Can any of us do without sympathy, Baxter, even from the humblest? Mine, moreover, takes a practical and constructive form. I have here,’ said Lord Ickenham, producing a white tablet, ‘something which I guarantee will make you forget the most absorbing stomach-ache. You take it in a little water.’

  Baxter regarded the offering suspiciously. His knowledge of impostors told him that they seldom act from purely altruistic motives. Examine an impostor’s act of kindness, and you see something with a string attached to it.

  And suddenly there came to him, causing him momentarily to forget bodily anguish, an exhilarating thought.

  Rupert Baxter had no illusions about his employer. He did not suppose that the gruff exterior of the Duke of Dunstable hid a heart of gold, feeling — correctly — that if the Duke were handed a heart of gold on a plate with watercress round it, he would not know what it was. But he did credit him with an elementary sense of gratitude, and it seemed to him that after he, Baxter, had carried through with success the perilous task of stealing a pig on his behalf, the old hound could scarcely sack him for having attended a fancy-dress Ball without permission. In other words, this man before him, beneath whose iron heel he had been supposing himself to be crushed, no longer had any hold over him and could be defied with impunity.

  ‘I see you have a tumbler there. I place the tablet in it — so. I fill with water — thus. I stir. I mix. And there you are. Drink it down, and let’s see what happens.’

  Baxter waved away the cup with a sneer.

  ‘You are very kind,’ he said, ‘but there is no need to beat about the bush. It is obvious that you have come here in the hope of getting round me —’

  Lord Ickenham looked pained.

  ‘Yours is a very suspicious nature, Baxter. You would do well to try to overcome this mistrust of your fellow-men.’

  ‘You want something.’

  ‘Merely to see you your old bonny self again.’

  ‘You are trying to conciliate me, and I know why. You have begun to wonder if the hold you suppose yourself to have over me is quite as great as you imagined.’

  ‘Beautifully expressed. I like the way you talk.’

  ‘Let me tell you at once that it is not. You have no hold over me. Since our conversation in the billiard-room, the whole situation has altered. I have been able to perform a great service for my employer, with the result that I am no longer in danger of being dismissed for having gone to that Ball. So I may as well inform you here and now that it is my intention to have you turned out of the house immediately. Ouch!’ said Baxter, rather spoiling the effect of a dignified and impressive speech by clutching suddenly at his midriff.

  Lord Ickenham eyed him sympathetically.

  ‘My dear fellow, something in your manner tells me you are in pain. You had better drink that mixture.’

  ‘Get out!’

  ‘It will do you all the good in the world.’

  ‘Get out!’

  Lord Ickenham sighed.

  ‘Very well, since you wish it,’ he said and, turning, collided with Lord Bosham in the doorway.

  ‘Hullo!’ said Lord Bosham. ‘Hullo-ullo-ullo! Hullo-ullo-ullo-ullo-ullo!’

  He spoke with a wealth of meaning in his voice. There was, he felt, something pretty dashed sinister about finding the villain of the piece alone with Baxter in his room like this. An acquaintance with mystery thrillers almost as comprehensive as his brother Freddie’s had rendered him familiar with what happened when these chaps got into rooms. On the thin pretext of paying a formal call, they smuggled in cobras and left them there to do their stuff. ‘Well, good afternoon,’ they said, and bowed themselves out. But the jolly old cobra didn’t blow itself out. It stuck around, concealed in the curtain.

  ‘Hullo!’ he added, concluding his opening remarks. ‘Want anything?’

  ‘Only dinner,’ said Lord Ickenham.

  ‘Oh?’ said Lord Bosham. ‘Well, it’ll be ready in a minute. What was that bird after?’ he asked tensely, as the door closed.

  Baxter did not reply for a mome
nt. He was engaged in beating his breast, like the Wedding Guest.

  ‘I kicked him out before he could tell me,’ he said, as the agony abated. ‘Ostensibly, his purpose in coming was to bring me something for my indigestion. A tablet. He put it in that glass. What he was really leading up to, of course, was a request that I would refrain from exposing him.’

  ‘But you can’t expose him, can you? Wouldn’t you lose your job?’

  ‘There is no longer any danger of that.’

  ‘You mean, even if he tells old Dunstable that you were out on a bender that night, you won’t get the boot?’

  ‘Precisely.’

  ‘Then now I know where I stand! Now the shackles have fallen from me, and I am in a position to set about these impostors as impostors should be set about. That’s really official, is it?’

  ‘Quite. Ouch!’

  ‘Anguish?’

  ‘Oo!’

  ‘If I were you,’ said Lord Bosham, ‘I’d drink the stuff the blighter gave you. There’s no reason why it shouldn’t prove efficacious. The fact that a chap is an impostor doesn’t necessarily mean that he can’t spot a good stomach-ache cure when he sees one. Down the hatch with it, my writhing old serpent, with a hey nonny nonny and a hot cha-cha.’

  Another twinge caused Baxter to hesitate no longer. He saw that the advice was good. He raised the glass to his lips. He did not drain it with a hey nonny nonny, but he drained it.

  It was then too late for him to say, ‘Hey, nonny nonny,’ even if he had wished to.

  Down in the hall, like a hound straining at the leash, Beach the butler stood with uplifted stick, waiting for the psychological moment to beat the gong. Lady Constance, as she came downstairs, caught a glimpse of him over the banisters, but she was not accorded leisure to feast her eyes on the spectacle, for along the corridor to her left there came a galloping figure. It was her nephew, Lord Bosham. He reached her, seized her by the wrist and jerked her into an alcove. Accustomed though she was to eccentricity in her nephews, the action momentarily took her breath away.