‘She probably thinks Kafka’s a brand of instant coffee with ninety—seven per cent of the caffeine extracted.’
‘Exactly. She’s just a sweet simple English girl with about as much brain as would make a jay bird fly crooked, and that’s the way I want her.’
‘Well, that’s fine.’
‘You bet it’s fine.’
‘When is the wedding to be?’
Tipton looked cautiously over his shoulder, as if to assure himself that they were alone and unobserved.
‘Can you keep a secret?’
‘No.’
‘Well, try to keep this one, because if it gets out, all hell will break loose. Before I left for America, Vee and I fixed the whole thing up. We decided that a big Society wedding was a lot of prune juice and we wanted no piece of it. We’re going to elope. I’m off to London tomorrow, and a couple of days after that we’ll be married at the registrar’s.’
‘What!’
‘Yes, sir, right plumb spang at the registrar’s.’
‘You mean that two days from now—’
‘I’ll be picking the rice out of my hair, if registrars throw rice when they marry you.’
Sandy was breathing emotionally. How wrong, she felt, how terribly misguided she had been in urging Sam to accept the syndicate’s offer, and how thankful she was that it was not too late to tell him so.
‘I think that’s wonderful, Tippy,’ she said, speaking with some difficulty and raising her voice a little so as to be audible over the soft music which was filling the room. ‘I’m sure you’re doing the right thing.’
‘Me, too.
‘Who wants a lot of bishops and assistant clergy?’
‘Just how I feel. Let the bishops bish elsewhere and take the assistant clergy with them.’
‘I know you’ll be happy.’
‘I don’t see how I can miss.
As happy as I’m going to be.’
‘Don’t tell me you’re thinking of jumping off the dock, too?’
‘One of these days. In your wanderings about Blandings Castle have you happened to meet a character called Whipple?’
‘I’ve seen him around. Husky guy with a cauliflower ear. Is he the one?’
‘He’s the one.’
‘He looks all right to me.
‘To me also. You don’t know where he is, do you?’
‘Sure. I heard Willie Allsop telling him old Emsworth wanted to see him down at the pig sty. You’ll find him in the pig sty, you can tell him by his hat,’ quoted Tipton blithely.
‘Thanks, Tippy,’ said Sandy, equally blithely. ‘I’ll be on my way.
II
It is never easy for a young man to be carefree and at his ease when, after having had difficulties with the police, he finds himself immured by them in a smelly shed, and Sam, sitting on a broken wheelbarrow and breathing in the scent of manure and under-gardeners, did not come within measurable distance of achieving this frame of mind. He would have been only too happy to look on the bright side, if there had been a bright side, but as far as he could discern there was not. He viewed the future with the gravest misgivings.
He was not quite sure what was the penalty for the crimes he had committed, but he had an idea that it was something lingering with boiling oil in it, and the thought depressed him. He was also feeling puzzled. Not being a mind reader, he was unaware of Constable Evans’s change of plan and he could not imagine why, having uttered those fateful words ‘You’re pinched’, he had faded so abruptly from the scene.
Rightly concluding that speculation on this point was idle, he turned his mind to thoughts of Sandy, but these merely deepened his despondency. Gally, that blithe optimist, seemed to be under the impression that he had only to meet her and their relations would instantly revert to their original cordiality, but he could not bring himself to share this sunny outlook. To begin with, he had called her in his heat not only a ginger-haired little fathead but other things equally offensive to a girl of spirit. She could hardly be expected to forgive that without straining a sinew.
And secondly there was this matter of the prison term that overshadowed his future. In due course, he presumed, he would come up before some sort of tribunal and be sentenced to whatever it was you got for stealing watches and assaulting the police, and few girls care to marry a jailbird, with all the embarrassments such a union involves. It is never nice for a young bride to have to explain to hosts and hostesses that the reason her husband has not come to the party is that he has just started another stretch in Pentonville.
The poignancy of it all swept over him like a wave, and he heaved a sigh. At least, that was what he had intended to heave, but by some miscalculation it came out like the wail of a banshee, and from somewhere outside a startled voice cried ‘Oo!’, causing hope to stir in a heart that had practically forgotten what the word meant. The voice had sounded feminine, and women, he knew, can generally be relied upon to bring aid and comfort to those in trouble. Poets have stressed this. The lines ‘When pain and anguish wring the brow, a ministering angel thou’ floated into his mind. Scott had written that, and you could rely on a level—headed man like Scott to know what he was talking about. There was a small window in one wall of the shed, its glass long broken and the vacant space given over to spiders’ webs. He approached it, and said:
‘Is that somebody out there?’ and simultaneously the voice said:
‘Is that somebody in there?’ and it was as if he had been seated in an electric chair at its most electric. What he could see of the outer world, which was not much, swam before his eyes.
Even when merely saying ‘Oo!’ the voice had seemed familiar. Now that it had become more talkative, he had no difficulty in recognising it.
‘Is that you, Sandy?’ he said, and then, speaking diffidently, for he had no means of knowing how such a plea would be received by one in whose estimation he had fallen so extremely low, ‘Would you mind letting me out?’
‘Why don’t you come out?’
‘I can’t. He’s bolted the door.’
‘Who has?’
‘The cop. I’m under arrest.
‘Under what?’
‘Arrest. A for apple, R for—’
‘Oh, Sam, darling!’
Again Sam experienced that electric chair illusion. There was something sticking in his throat that seemed about the size of a regulation tennis ball. He swallowed it, and said in a hushed voice:
‘Did you say darling?’ ‘You bet I said darling.’ ‘You mean —?‘
‘Of course I do.’ ‘Everything’s really all right?’ ‘Everything. Sweethearts still.’ Sam drew a deep breath.
‘Thank God! I’ve been feeling suicidal.’
‘Same here.’
‘I wish I had a quid for every time I’ve thought of shoving my head in the gas oven.
‘Me, too.’
‘I’m sorry I called you a ginger-haired little fathead, Sandy.’
‘You were one hundred per cent right. I was a ginger-haired little fathead. Wanting you to take that syndicate offer. I must have been crazy.
‘You mean you’ve changed your mind?’
‘I’ll say I have. I’ve seen Tipton and he’s going to elope with Veronica Wedge the day after tomorrow. He’s practically married already. But we mustn’t stand here talking. I’ll let you out, and then you can tell me what on earth all this cop-arrest stuff is about.’
It took Sam only a few moments to do this after the door had opened, and Sandy listened with growing concern.
‘Oh, Sam!’ she wailed and flung herself into his arms as Gally had recommended, and Gally, coming up as she did so, surveyed them with fatherly approval.
‘Satisfactory,’ he said, ‘but there’s no time for that sort of thing now. You’re on the run, my boy, so start running. Constable Evans should be with us at any moment, and you’ll look silly if he finds you here. He will approach, I presume, when he does approach, via the kitchen garden, so make for the front entrance
and work your way to the billiards room or the smoking-room or wherever else you see fit so long as it offers sanctuary. Sandy and I will wait here to receive him. You are possibly wondering,’ he said after Sam, recognising his advice as good, had taken it, ‘howl happened to pop up out of a trap like this at the centre of things. Very simple. I was trying to find our young friend to tell him I thought you were favourably disposed to a reconciliation, and I looked in at Beach’s pantry to ask if he had seen him. Constable Evans was there, speaking on the telephone, and Beach informed me in an undertone that the zealous officer had locked Sam in the shed by the pig sty and was calling up his reserves. One guesses what was in his mind. At their previous meeting Sam had — rightly or wrongly — plugged him in the eye and he shrank from having it happen again. No doubt it was his prudent intention, when his assistant arrived, to let him go in first and see what would develop. If eyes are to be plugged, your cautious constable always prefers them to be the other fellow’s. And talking of eyes, I think it would be a graceful act and one which would help to make Sam’s day if you were to dispense with those ghastly spectacles of yours.’
‘Don’t you like them?’
‘No, I don’t.’
‘Nor does Sam. He said they made me look like a horror from outer space.’
‘He flattered you. Take them off and jump on them.’
‘Right,’ said Sandy, and did so.
And now,’ said Gally, having viewed the remains with satisfaction, ‘if you glance to your left, you will see Evans and friend heading our way, prowling and prowling like the troops of Midian in the well—known hymn. I think perhaps you had better let me do the talking. It was an axiom in the old Pelican days that in all matters involving the boys in blue it was wisest to leave the pourparlers to Galahad Threepwood. These conferences with the cops call for delicacy and tact. Good evening, officers. Welcome to Blandings Castle and all that sort of thing.’
The two constables made an intimidating pair. A pen portrait of Officer Evans has already been given and it need only be said of Officer Morgan, his brother-in-arms, that he resembled him so closely as to create in the mind of anyone encountering them in each other’s company the illusion that he was seeing double. Only the former’s rich black eye served to distinguish him.
‘Pleasant after the storm, is it not?’ said Gally. ‘So you’re out for a country ramble? Taking it easy among the buttercups and daisies, eh? Having a good loaf, are you?’
Constable Evans, resentful of the implication that the police force of Market Blandings lived for pleasure alone, replied that this was far from being the case. He and his colleague, he said, had come to make an arrest, and Gally raised his eyebrows.
‘Not my brother’s pig, I trust?’
‘No, sir,’ said the constable shortly. ‘Man wanted for theft from the person and obstructing the police in the execution of their duty.’
Any clue as to his whereabouts?’
‘He’s in that shed.’
Gally adjusted his monocle and looked in the direction indicated. He was plainly puzzled.
‘That shed?’
‘Yes, sir.
‘The one over there?’
‘Yes, sir.
‘The one with the tiled roof?’
‘Yes, sir.
Gally shook his head.
‘I think you’re mistaken, my dear fellow. This lady and I were peeping in there only a moment ago, and the place was empty. Well, when I say empty, we noticed an old wheelbarrow and two or three flower pots and, if I remember rightly, a dead rat, but certainly no fugitive from justice. What gives you the impression that he’s there?’
‘I locked him in myself’
‘In that shed?’
‘Yes, sir.
‘Or are you thinking of some other shed?’
‘No, sir, I am not thinking of some other shed.’
‘Well, it’s all very mysterious,’ said Gally. An idea seemed to strike him. ‘He wasn’t a midget, was he?’
‘No, sir.’
‘I thought he might have been hiding behind one of the flower pots, which would have accounted for our not seeing him. Then I must confess myself baffled. How he managed to get out of that shed is beyond me. Door locked, no other exit. It’s the sort of thing Houdini used to do. I wonder… no, that can’t be right. I was thinking he might have been one of those Indian fakirs who dematerialise themselves and reassemble the parts elsewhere, but then he wouldn’t have bothered to unlock the door, and it was open when we looked in. The whole thing’s inexplicable. I doubt if we shall ever get to the bottom of it.’
A dark flush had appeared on Constable Evans’s granite face. He was by no means an unintelligent man, and with a swiftness which Lady Hermione herself could not have exceeded he had reached the conclusion that Gally was responsible for the disappearance of his quarry. But he did not dare to put his conviction into words. Gally, whatever his moral defects, was an inmate in good standing of Blandings Castle, and a respect for Blandings Castle had been instilled into him from his Sunday School days. There was nothing to do but say ‘Ho!’, so he said it. Constable Morgan, a man of deep reserves, said nothing, and after a few more sympathetic comments on a mystery which in his opinion, he said, would rank for ever with those of the Marie Celeste and The Man In The Iron Mask, Gally resumed his progress to the house, apparently unaware of the long lingering looks which both officers of the law were directing at his retreating back.
‘Too bad,’ he said as he and Sandy went on their way. ‘One’s heart bleeds for Constable Evans and his strong silent friend whose name did not crop up in the course of our conversation. I can readily imagine what a disappointment this must have been to them. I have known a great many policemen in my time, and they all told me that nothing gave them that disagreeable feeling of flatness and frustration more surely than the discovery, when they went to make an arrest, that the fellow they were after wasn’t there. It must be like opening your Christmas stocking as a child and finding nothing in it. Still, one must not forget that these setbacks are sent to us for our own good. They make us more spiritual. Tell me,’ said Gally, abandoning a painful subject, ‘about you and Sam. What I saw gave me the impression that your hearts were no longer sundered. Correct?’
‘Quite correct.’
‘Excellent. What was it the poet said about lovers’ reconciliations?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Nor do I, but it was probably something pretty good. I suppose you’re feeling happy?’
‘Floating on air.’
‘Great thing, young love.’
‘Nothing to beat it. Were you ever in love, Gally?’
‘Very seldom out of it.’
‘I mean really in love. Didn’t you ever want to marry someone who was the only thing that mattered to you in the whole world?’
Gally winced a little. She had reopened an old wound.
‘Yes, once,’ he said briefly. ‘Nothing came of it.’
‘What happened?’
‘My old father didn’t approve. She was what was called a serio on the music halls. Sang songs at the Oxford and the Tivoli. Dolly Henderson was her name. He put his foot down. Painful scenes. Raised voices. Tables banged with fists. Not sure a father’s curse wasn’t mentioned. I was shipped off to South Africa, and while I was there she married someone else. Chap named Jack Cotterleigh in the Irish Guards.’
‘Poor Gally!’
‘Yes, I must say I didn’t like it much. But it was a long time ago, and nobody’s going to ship Sam off to South Africa. By the way, I take it that when you were fixing things up with him, you waived your objections about the syndicate?’
‘You bet I did.’
‘Sensible girl. You won’t regret it.’
‘I know I won’t. Tipton’s getting married the day after tomorrow. At the registrar’s.’
‘You don’t say? Is that official?’
‘He told me himself. Dead secret, of course.’
‘Natura
lly. Though I wish I could tell Clarence. It would relieve his mind to know that the big wedding is off’
‘Why?’
‘No wedding, no speech and, above all, no top hat. Clarence has always been allergic to top hats. Strange how tastes differ. I like them myself, particularly when grey. There were days in my youth when the mere sight of a bookie whose account I had not settled would make me shake like a leaf, but slap a grey top hat on my head and I could face him without a tremor. And now, I suppose,’ said Gally, as they came into the house, ‘you will be wanting to go in search of Sam?’
‘I thought I might.’
‘Well, try to cheer him up. For some reason he has seemed to me nervous and depressed since he got here. As for me, I think I’ll go and have a talk with Clarence. I always find his society stimulating.’
III
Gally was humming the refrain of one of Dolly Henderson’s songs as he made for Lord Emsworth’s study. Odd, he was thinking, how after thirty years he could still have that choked-up feeling when he thought of her. Oh well, what had happened had probably been all for the best. Pretty rough it would have been for a nice girl like Dolly to be tied up with a chap like him, he felt, for he had never had any illusions about himself His sisters Constance, Julia, Dora and Hermione had often spoken of him as a waster, and how right they were. His disposition was genial, he made friends easily and as far as he could recall had never let a pal down, but you couldn’t claim that as a life partner he was everybody’s cup of tea. And people who knew them had described Dolly and Jack as a happy and devoted couple, so what was there to get all wistful and dreary about?
Nevertheless, all this marrying and giving in marriage that was going on around one did rather encourage melancholy thoughts of what might have been. Tipton was marrying Veronica, Sam was marrying Sandy, Wilfred Allsop, so Tipton informed him, was marrying that large Simmons girl. Good Lord, he told himself with a sudden twinge of alarm, for all he knew Clarence might have relaxed his vigilance and be in danger of marrying Dame Daphne Winkworth. Once this sort of thing started, you never knew where it would stop.