"That was Mr Chibnall," she said. "The butler at the Hall."
"Oh?" said Mr Duff.
"Fine, strapping fellow, isn't he? It's funny, I always used to think of butlers as fat old men, always drinking port, but Mr Chibnall is a mass of muscle."
"Ah?" said Mr Duff.
"And the best boxer round these parts, they tell me. He beats them all at the Lads' Club. Strong as a lion, I'm told, and as quick on his feet as a panther. You aren't eating your buns."
''I'm not so sure I want them."
"Then I'll bring you some French pastry and assorted cakes," said the waitress indulgently, like one humouring a spoiled child at a school treat. ''Those ones with the cream and pink sugar on the top are the sort you like, aren't they?"
Vera Pym was coming away from the telephone booth, annoyed to learn that the man she sought was not on the premises of Claines Hall, when Chibnall entered the Rose and Crown.
She saw him and ran to him, her copper-coloured hair dancing with excitement.
"There you are! I've just been trying to get you on the phone."
She looked about her and saw that they were alone. "Sidney, it's true!"
"A fat lot more than you are," said Chibnall morosely.
"What do you mean?"
"I saw you."
"When?"
"Just now. In the teashop. With that fellow."
Miss Pym's attractive eyes widened.
"You don't mean you didn't understand?"
"I certainly did," said Chibnall. "Only too well." He laughed a hollow laugh. "And you pretending he was a crook!"
"But he is. That's why I was having tea with him. I wanted to make sure. I was in there by myself, thinking everything over, and suddenly there he was at the next table. Well, I knew I should never have such a good chance again, so I went and sat with him."
"You patted his face."
"I never. I was feeling his moustache."
"It's the same thing."
"It's not. Sidney, it's fastened on with glue!"
"What!"
"Yes."
"You really mean that?"
"I felt it."
"I mean, you weren't flirting with him?"
"Well, the ideal I was detecting him."
Chibnall relaxed. He had been looking like King Arthur interviewing Guinevere in the monastery. He now looked merely like a butler who has had a weight taken off his mind.
"So that was it!"
"Of course it was. Sidney, I've just remembered something. Sidney, do you know what? Yesterday morning, before you came into my bar, he had been asking the way to the Hall!"
"You don't mean it?"
"That's what he had. And didn't you hear that Weatherby fellow say his face was familiar? And didn't Weatherby leave just after he did? I see it all. They're pals. It's as plain as the nose on your face. Weatherby worms his way into the house, and then he lets this chap in at dead of night to burgle all the valuables."
I wonder.
"It's what's known as working the inside stand."
"I believe you're right, Vera. I was thinking things over last night, and I came round to your view that there's something very fishy about that Weatherby. I don't like the way he's acting. He was prowling last night. Looking for nightingales, he said. But I don't know about him and this fellow with the moustache being pals. Wouldn't he have known him?"
"Not if he's put the moustache on since they plotted together, he wouldn't. You take my advice, Sidney, and watch Weatherby like a hawk. Pretty silly you'd look if you suddenly found him murdering you in your bed."
Chibnall flushed. His pride was touched.
''I'd 'like to catch him murdering me in my bed. Feel that," he said, directing her attention to a biceps strengthened to steely hardness by morning exercises and evening boxing at the Lads' Club.
"A lot of use that would be against a tommy gun."
"He hasn't got a tommy gun."
"How do you know he hasn't? You didn't see him unpack. You be careful, that's what I say."
"I will."
"And if he offers you any more of his tainted gold you refuse it."
"Would you go so far as that?" said Chibnall dubiously.
In the Gardenia Tea Shoppe J, B. Duff had unfastened the last three buttons of his waistcoat and was leaning back in his chair, breathing stertorously. Under the vigilant eye of the waitress he had long since finished the French pastry, and she was now bringing him some more fancy cakes. He stared bleakly into a dark future. There would be a heavy price to pay for this-physical as well as financial.
But you cannot go into a tea shoppe and just sit. Nor, if a berserk butler is waiting for you outside, can you leave.
The waitress came back with the fancy cakes. It was plain from her somewhat abstracted manner that she had now come to look upon herself rather in the light of an experimental scientist and upon her customer as a guinea pig.
"I'll tell you what," she said, struck with an idea. "After you've finished those I'll get the cook to do you up some of her pancakes. Shall I?"
"Okay," said Mr Duff in a low voice, but not so low that his stomach wm; not able to overhear the word. It gave an apprehensive leap and cowered miserably. Nothing could surprise it now. It had long since given up trying to understand what was going on in the front office,
Chapter XIV
The afternoon of the garden party, that red-letter day for the nobility and gentry of Sussex, found Sidney Chibnall groaning in spirit.
There are moments in the life of every butler when he is compelled to wonder if flesh and blood can stand the demands made upon them or if they will not be forced to crack beneath the strain, and one of these comes when he holds office under a nervous hostess who is about to give her first important garden party. Chibnall was a man who took a pride in not sparing himself, but by lunch time on the day of Mrs Steptoe's colossal binge the constant ringing of the bell and the agitated enquiries of his employer as to whether all was well concerning the band, the refreshments, the extra help and the like had begun to take their toll.
These, however, were but the normal anxieties unavoidable at such a time. In addition to them there weighed upon his mind the dark menace of the man Weatherby. Joss, he was convinced, intended to start something. And it was the thought of what an admirable opportunity he would have of doing so, with everybody in the place busy out in the grounds, that was causing Chibnall to groan in spirit. It is only when he has a big garden party on his hands and knows that during that garden party a Mayfair Man will be roaming the house with no check upon his movements that a butler really drains .the bitter cup.
The comparative relaxation afforded by luncheon and a couple of quick ones in his pantry at the conclusion of the meal enabled his active brain to hit on a solution of his difficulties. It was with a clever and well-formulated scheme in his mind that he approached Mrs Steptoe as she stood fidgeting on the terrace, watching the sky.
Mrs Steptoe had just discovered that she did not like the look of that sky.
"Well, Chibnall?"
"Might I have a word, madam?"
"There's a cloud over those trees there."
"Yes, madam."
"Oh gosh!" cried Mrs Steptoe emotionally. "And in another minute, I suppose, one might as well be standing under Niagara Falls. I'd like to find the man who invented this English climate and tell him what I think of him. Well, what is it?"
"It is with reference to the young man Weatherby, madam."
"What's he done now?"
"It is rather what he may do in the course of the afternoon that is causing me uneasiness, madam. I confess that I feel dubious about leaving him in occupation of the house while I and my staff are away from it."
His quiet impressiveness was not witl10ut its effect. Mrs Steptoe removed a troubled eye from the cloud, which was now spreading across the sky like an inkstain.
"You really think he's a crook?"
"I am convinced of it, madam."
"Then what's to be done
?"
"What I would advise, madam, is that you instruct me to go to him and inform him that you wish him to help with the service at the 'garden party. He will thus fully be occupied under my personal eye."
"Bright," said Mrs Steptoe. "Very bright. More," she added, relapsing into gloom again, "than the weather is. It's going to pour in a minute. Then what?''
"I fear you will be compelled to receive your guests in the drawing room, madam."
"And a nice Hop that will be. Not that I suppose anyone 'II come if the county's under water. You ever been in California, Chibnall?''
"No, madam. I have never visited the United States of America, though I have often felt a desire to do so."
"What a Paradise!"
"So I was given to understand, madam, by a California gentleman whom I once met in a milk bar in London. He spoke extremely highly of his native state.
"You know what happens in California? You say to yourself: 'I feel like throwing a party. I'll have it in my garden two weeks from next Tuesday,' and you send out the invitations. You don't say: 'Will it be fine?' You know it 'II be fine. You don't even have to wonder about it. But there
. All right, go tell Weatherby."
.
The process of telling Weatherby occupied three minutes of the butler's time. At the end of that period he was back on the terrace.
"I have seen the young man, madam."
"Then everything's all right?"
"No, madam. He refuses to assist with the service."
"What!"
"Yes, madam. I informed him of your wishes, but he merely made some frivolous reply about the rules of the valets' union. No such organization exists."
"Well, of, all the...Listen, you go right back and tell him from me-Mrs Steptoe broke off. She had been on the point of requesting her butler to tell Joss from her that his term of service beneath the roof of Claines Hall was at an end and that he could get out and stay out, but even as she started to speak there emerged from the house a Vision. It was as if one of those full-page coloured advertisements of what the well-dressed man is wearing had detached itself from a monthly magazine and come on to the terrace.
From the suede shoes on his large, Hat feet to the jaunty hat on his pumpkin-shaped head Howard Steptoe was correct in every detail. Birds twittered in admiration of his quiet grey suit; bees drew in their breath sharply as they eyed that faultless shirt; beetles directed one another's attention to the gardenia in the buttonhole.
And Mrs Steptoe, who had been expecting something that looked like a tramp cyclist, revised her views about dispensing with Joss's services. He might be a criminal and as fresh a criminal as ever wisecracked with one hand while pocketing the spoons with the other, but to a man who could turn Howard Steptoe out like that all must be forgiven.
"No, never mind," she said.
At this moment it began to rain.
Joss was in the servants' hall, whiling away the time with a crossword puzzle. If Chibnall had been gifted with second sight he could not have predicted more exactly this young man's plans for the afternoon. It was his intention to wait till tire-house was empty and then carry through the commission he had undertaken on Mr Duff's behalf. He realized now that in attempting that night foray he had been foolishly blind to the advantages offered to the young portrait-stealer by a garden party.
It was as he sat wondering what was the earliest hour at which he might reasonably expect the residents and guests of Claines Hall to have become stupefied by tea and cucumber sandwiches that he became aware of Chibnall brooding over him like a thunder-cloud.
"Ah, Chibnall," he said genially.
The butler's manner was cold.
"Mr Steptoe wants you."
"You mean Mrs Steptoe?"
"I mean Mr Steptoe. He's in his room."
"Or rather on the lawn?"
"In his room," said Chibnall, raising his voice. "If you'd bothered to look out of window you'd have seen it's raining cats and dogs."
Joss directed his gaze at the window and found the statement correct.
"Egad, so it is. I'm afraid this has messed up the garden party to some extent."
Chibnall had not intended to be chatty, but the topic which had been broached was one on which he felt so strongly that he was forced to say a word or two.
"Ruined. Half the guests have telephoned to say they aren't coming, and the ones that have come are squashed into the drawing room. And is Mrs Steptoe in a state!"
"I can readily imagine it," said Joss sympathetically. "It must have stuck the gaff into her up to the hilt. The heart bleeds. So Pop Steptoe has sneaked off to his room, has he? That won't do.
His place is in the forefront of the battle. I'll go and shoo him back."
Complete though his confidence had been both in Charles the footman's judgment in the matter of gala wear and in Mr Steptoe's docile acceptance of the clothes laid out for him, his employer's appearance smote Joss like a blow.
"Steptoe!" he cried, stunned with admiration. "My God! You look like Great Lovers through the Ages!"
Mr Steptoe was in no mood for compliments, however deserved.
"Listen," he said.
"I was wondering when you were going to say that."
"Listen," said Mr Steptoe. ''I'm in a spot." His manner was agitated in the extreme. He plucked nervously at his gardenia.
"Listen," he said. "Aren't you ever going to get around to swiping that portrait?''
''I'm biding my time."
"Well, don't. Do it now. I'm in a spot."
"So I understood you to say. What has happened?"
Mr Steptoe advanced his lips to Joss's ear and spoke in a hissing whisper.
"Listen," he said.
"Well?" said Joss, removing the ear and drying it.
"Listen. I did as you said. I grab me a bunch of those guys, and I take them around the corner and we shoot craps.' '
Excellent.
"What do you mean, excellent? They cleaned me out."
"Cleaned you out?''
"That's what they did. There was a little bozo with pimples-a baronet or something like that-that never stopped pulling out sevens and elevens. I couldn't get started. He come away all loaded down with my IOUs, and I've told him I'll send over the dough tomorrow. And if don't come through, then what? He spreads it around among his gang, and the first thing you know Mrs Steptoe has got the story. Cheese!" said Mr Steptoe, shivering.
"What would she do?"
"Plenty."
"Then I agree with you. There must be no delay. I confess I had anticipated doing the job at a moment when the house was empty, but I don't suppose anyone will come into the breakfast room."
"They're all having tea."
"That'll hold them. May I borrow your manicure set?"
"Eh?"
"I shall need scissors."
"I haven't any scissors."
"Then give me a · razor blade."
A razor blade is not the ideal instrument for removing a canvas from its frame, but Joss made it serve. His task completed, he stood for a moment wondering whether to leave by the door and go to his room or by the french windows and make straight for the Rose and Crown. A rattle of rain against the glass decided him in favour of the former course. He looked up and down the passage. Nothing was stirring. He ran silently up the stairs, and Sally, who had been sent by Mrs Steptoe to her bedroom to fetch her wrist watch, came out onto the landing just as he reached it.
"Oh!" said Sally.
"Ah!" said Joss.
"You made me jump."
"It was your guilty conscience that made you jump," said Joss sternly. "You're just the girl I was looking for, young S. Fairmile.
I've been wanting a word with you for days. One very serious drawback to this place is that it's so difficult to get hold of you for a chat."
"Was there something particular you wanted to chat about?"
"There was. The time has come for a frank round-table conference. In here, if you please.
"
"But this is Mrs Steptoe's bedroom."
"That's fine," said Joss. "Nice and quiet."
Chapter XV
He shut the door.
"Now, then," he said, "what's all this nonsense I hear about you being engaged?"
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