He pushed off, and I was just finishing my breakfast when Mrs. Beale, my landlady, came in with a letter.
It was from Mabel, reminding me to be sure to come to Ascot. I read it three times while I was consuming a fried egg; and I am not ashamed to say, Corky, that tears filled my eyes. To think of her caring so much that she should send special letters urging me to be there made me tremble like a leaf. It looked to me as though the Bart’s number was up. Yes, at that moment, Corky, I felt positively sorry for the Bart, who was in his way quite a good chap, though pimply.
That night I made my final preparations. I counted the cash in hand. I had just enough to pay my fare to Ascot and back, my entrance fee to the grandstand and paddock, with a matter of fifteen bob over for lunch and general expenses and a thoughtful ten bob to do a bit of betting with. Financially, I was on velvet.
Nor was there much wrong with the costume department. I dug out the trousers, the morning coat, the waistcoat, the shoes and the spats, and I tried on Tuppy’s topper again. And for the twentieth time I wished that old Tuppy, a man of sterling qualities in every other respect, had had a slightly bigger head. It’s a curious thing about old George Tupper. There’s a man who you might say is practically directing the destinies of a great nation—at any rate, he’s in the Foreign Office and extremely well thought of by the Nibs—and yet his size in hats is a small seven. I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed that Tuppy’s head goes up to a sort of point. Mine, on the other hand, is shaped more like a mangel-wurzel, and this made the whole thing rather complex and unpleasant.
As I stood looking in the glass, giving myself a final inspection, I couldn’t help feeling what a difference a hat makes to a man. Bare-headed, I was perfect in every detail; but with a hat on I looked a good deal like a bloke about to go on and do a comic song at one of the halls. Still, there it was, and it was no good worrying about it. I put the trousers under the mattress, to ensure an adequate crease; and I rang the bell for Mrs. Beale and gave her the coat to press with a hot iron. I also gave her the hat and instructed her to rub stout on it. This, as you doubtless know, gives a topper the deuce of a gloss; and when a fellow is up against a Bart, he can’t afford to neglect the smallest detail. And so to bed.
I didn’t sleep very well. At about one in the morning it started to rain in buckets, and the thought suddenly struck me: what the deuce was I going to do if it rained during the day? To buy an umbrella would simply dislocate the budget beyond repair. The consequence was that I tossed pretty restlessly on my pillow.
But all was well. When I woke at eight o’clock the sun was pouring into the room, and the last snag seemed to have been removed from my path. I had breakfast, and then I dug the trouserings out from under the mattress, slipped into them, put on the shoes, buckled the spats, and rang the bell for Mrs. Beale. I was feeling debonair to a degree. The crease in the trousers was perfect.
“Oh, Mrs. Beale,” I said. “The coat and the hat, please. What a lovely morning!”
Now, this Beale woman, I must tell you, was a slightly sinister sort of female, with eyes that reminded me a good deal of my Aunt Julia. And I was now somewhat rattled to perceive that she was looking at me in a rather meaning kind of manner. I also perceived that she held in her hand a paper or document. And there shot through me, Corky, a nameless fear.
It’s a kind of instinct, I suppose. A man who has been up against it as frequently as I have comes to shudder automatically when he sees a landlady holding a sheet of paper and looking at him in a meaning manner.
A moment later it was plain that my sixth sense had not deceived me.
“I’ve brought your little account, Mr. Ukridge,” said this fearful female.
“Right!” I said, heartily. “Just shove it on the table, will you? And bring the coat and hat.”
She looked more like my Aunt Julia than ever.
“I must ask you for the money now,” she said. “Being a week overdue.”
All this was taking the sunshine out of the morning, but I remained debonair.
“Yes, yes,” I said. “I quite understand. We’ll have a good long talk about that later. The hat and coat, please, Mrs. Beale.”
“I must ask you” she was beginning again, but I checked her with one of my looks. If there’s one thing I bar in this world, Corky, it’s sordidness.
“Yes, yes,” I said testily. “Some other time. I want the hat and coat, please.”
At this moment, by the greatest bad luck, her vampire gaze fell on the mantelpiece. You know how it is when you are dressing with unusual care—you fill your pockets last thing. And I had most unfortunately placed my little capital on the mantelpiece. Too late I saw that she had spotted it. Take the advice of a man who has seen something of life, Corky, and never leave your money lying about. It’s bound to start a disagreeable train of thought in the mind of anyone who sees it.
“You’ve got the money there,” said Mrs. Beale.
I leaped for the mantelpiece and trousered the cash.
“No, no,” I said, hastily. “You can’t have that. I need that.”
“Ho?” she said. “So do I.”
“Now listen, Mrs. Beale,” I said. “You know as well as I do”
“I know as well as you do that you owe me two pounds three and sixpence ha’penny.”
“And in God’s good time,” I said, “you shall have it. But just for the moment you must be patient. Why, dash it, Mrs. Beale,” I said warmly, “you know as well as I do that in all financial transactions a certain amount of credit is an understood thing. Credit is the lifeblood of commerce. So bring the hat and coat, and later on we will thresh this matter out thoroughly.”
And then this woman showed a baseness of soul, a horrible low cunning, which, I like to think, is rarely seen in the female sex.
“I’ll either have the money,” she said, “or I’ll keep the coat and hat.” And words cannot express, Corky, the hideous malignity in her voice. “They ought to fetch a bit.”
I stared at her, appalled.
“But I can’t go to Ascot without a top-hat.”
“Then you’d better not go to Ascot.”
“Be reasonable!” I begged. “Reflect!”
It was no good. She stood firm on her demand for two pounds three and sixpence ha’penny, and nothing that I could say would shift her. I offered her double the sum at some future date, but no business was done. The curse of landladies as a class, Corky, and the reason why they never rise to ease and opulence, is that they have no vision. They do not understand high finance. They lack the big, broad, flexible outlook which wins to wealth. The deadlock continued, and finally she went off, leaving me dished once more.
It is only when you are in a situation like that, Corky, that you really begin to be able to appreciate the true hollowness of the world. It is only then that the absolute silliness and futility of human institutions comes home to you. This Ascot business, for instance. Why in the name of Heaven, if you are going to hold a race meeting, should you make a foolish regulation about the sort of costume people must wear if they want to attend it? Why should it be necessary to wear a top-hat at Ascot, when you can go to all the other races in anything you like?
Here was I, perfectly equipped for Hurst Park, Sandown, Gatwick, Ally Pally, Lingfield, or any other meeting you care to name; and, simply because a ghoul of a landlady had pinched my topper, I was utterly debarred from going to Ascot, though the price of admission was bulging in my pocket. It’s just that sort of thing that makes a fellow chafe at our modern civilization and wonder if, after all, Man can be Nature’s last word.
Such, Corky, were my meditations as I stood at the window and gazed bleakly out at the sunshine. And then suddenly, as I gazed, I observed a bloke approaching up the street.
I eyed him with interest. He was an elderly, prosperous bloke with -a yellowish face and a white moustache, and he was looking at the numbers on the doors, as if he were trying to spot a destination. And at this moment he halted outs
ide the front door of my house, squinted up at the number, and then trotted up the steps and rang the bell. And I realized at once that this must be Tuppy’s secretary man, the fellow I was due to go and see at the club in another half-hour. For a moment it seemed odd that he should have come to call on me instead of waiting for me to call on him; and then I reflected that this was just the sort of thing that the energetic, world’s-worker type of man that Tuppy chummed up with at his club would be likely to do. Time is money with these coves, and no doubt he had remembered some other appointment which he couldn’t make if he waited at his club till ten.
Anyway, here he was, and I peered down at him with a beating heart. For what sent a thrill through me, Corky, was the fact that he was much about my build and was brightly clad in correct morning costume with top-hat complete. And though it was hard to tell exactly at such a distance and elevation, the thought flashed across me like an inspiration from above that that top-hat would fit me a dashed sight better than Tuppy’s had done.
In another minute there was a knock on the door, and he came in.
Seeing him at close range, I perceived that I had not misjudged this man. He was shortish, but his shoulders were just about the same size as mine, and his head was large and round. If ever, in a word, a bloke might have been designed by Providence to wear a coat and hat that would fit me, this bloke was that bloke. I gazed at him with a gleaming eye.
“Mr. Ukridge?”
“Yes,” I said. “Come in. Awfully good of you to call.”
“Not at all”
And now, Corky, as you will no doubt have divined, I was, so to speak, at the cross-roads. The finger-post of Prudence pointed one way, that of Love another. Prudence whispered to me to conciliate this bloke, to speak him fair, to comport myself towards him as towards one who held my destinies in his hand and who could, if well disposed, give me a job which would keep the wolf from the door while I was looking round for something bigger and more attuned to my vision and abilities.
Love, on the other hand, was shouting to me to pinch his coat and leg it for the open spaces.
It was the deuce of a dilemma.
“I have called” began the bloke.
I made up my mind. Love got the decision.
“I say,” I said. “I think you’ve got something on the back of your coat.”
“Eh?” said the bloke, trying to squint round and look between his shoulder-blades—silly ass.
“It’s a squashed tomato or something.”
“A squashed tomato?”
“Or something.”
“How would I get a squashed tomato on my coat?”
“Ah!” I said, giving him to understand with a wave of the hand that these were deep matters.
“Very curious,” said the bloke.
“Very,” I said. “Slip off your hat and let’s have a look at it.”
He slid out of the coat, and I was on it like a knife. You have to move quick on these occasions, and I moved quick. I had the coat out of his hand and the top-hat off the table where he had put it, and was out of the door and dashing down the stairs before he could utter a yip.
I put on the coat, and it fitted like a glove. I slapped the top-hat on to my head, and it might have been made for me. And then I went out into the sunshine, as natty a specimen as ever paced down Piccadilly.
I was passing down the front steps when I heard a sort of bellow from above. There was the bloke, protruding from the window; and, strong man though I am, Corky, I admit that for an instant I quailed at the sight of the hideous fury that distorted his countenance.
“Come back!” shouted the bloke.
Well, it wasn’t a time for standing and making explanations and generally exchanging idle chatter. When a man is leaning out of window in his shirt-sleeves, making the amount of noise that this cove was making, it doesn’t take long for a crowd to gather. And my experience has been that, when a crowd gathers, it isn’t much longer before some infernal officious policeman rolls round as well. Nothing was farther from my wishes than to have this little purely private affair between the bloke and myself sifted by a policeman in front of a large crowd.
So I didn’t linger. I waved my hand as much as to say that all would come right in the future, and then I nipped at a fairly high rate of speed round the corner and hailed a taxi. It had been no part of my plans to incur the expense of a taxi, I having earmarked twopence for a ride on the Tube to Waterloo; but there are times when economy is false prudence.
Once in the cab, whizzing along and putting more distance between the bloke and myself with every revolution of the wheels, I perked up amazingly. I had been, I confess, a trifle apprehensive until now; but from this moment everything seemed splendid. I forgot to mention it before, but this final top-hat which now nestled so snugly on the brow was a grey top-hat; and, if there is one thing that really lends a zip and a sort of devilish fascination to a fellow’s appearance, it is one of those grey toppers. As I looked at myself in the glass and then gazed out of window at the gay sunshine, it seemed to me that God was in His Heaven and all was right with the world.
The general excellence of things continued. I had a pleasant journey; and when I got to Ascot I planked my ten bob on a horse I heard some fellows talking about in the train, and, by Jove, it ambled home at a crisp ten to one. So there I was, five quid ahead of the game almost, you might say, before I had got there. It was with an uplifted heart, Corky, that I strolled off to the paddock to have a look at the multitude and try to find Mabel. And I had hardly emerged from that tunnel thing that you have to walk through to get from the stand to the paddock when I ran into old Tuppy.
My first feeling on observing the dear old chap was one of relief that I wasn’t wearing his hat. Old Tuppy is one of the best, but little things are apt to upset him, and I was in no mood for a painful scene. I passed the time of day genially.
“Ah, Tuppy!” I said.
George Tupper is a man with a heart of gold, but he is deficient in tact.
“How the deuce did you get here?” he asked.
“In the ordinary way, laddie,” I said.
“I mean, what are you doing here, dressed up to the nines like this?”
“Naturally,” I replied, with a touch of stiffness, “when I come to Ascot, I wear the accepted morning costume of the well-dressed Englishman.”
“You look as if you had come into a fortune.”
“Yes?” I said, rather wishing he would change the subject. In spite of what you might call the perfect alibi of the grey topper, I did not want to discuss hats and clothes with Tuppy so soon after his recent bereavement. I could see that the hat he had on was a brand-new one and must have set him back at least a couple of quid.
“I suppose you’ve gone back to your aunt?” said Tuppy, jumping at a plausible solution. “Well, I’m awfully glad, old man, because I’m afraid that secretary job is off. I was going to write to you to-night.”
“Off?” I said. Having had the advantage of seeing the bloke’s face as he hung out of window at the moment of our parting, I knew it was off; but I couldn’t see how Tuppy could know.
“He rang me up last night, to tell me that he was afraid you wouldn’t do, as he had thought it over and decided that he must have a secretary who knew shorthand.”
“Oh?” I said. “Oh, did he? Then I’m dashed glad,” I said warmly, “that I pinched his hat. It will be a sharp lesson to him not to raise people’s hopes and shilly-shally in this manner.”
“Pinched his hat? What do you mean?”
I perceived that there was need for caution. Tuppy was looking at me in an odd manner, and I could see that the turn the conversation had taken was once more wakening in him suspicions which he ought to have known better than to entertain of an old school friend.
“It was like this, Tuppy,” I said. “When you came to me and told me about that international spy sneaking your hat from the Foreign Office, it gave me an idea. I had been wanting to come to Ascot, but I ha
d no topper. Of course, if I had pinched yours, as you imagined for a moment I had done, I should have had one; but, not having pinched yours, of course I hadn’t one. So when your friend Bulstrode called on me this morning I collared his. And now that you have revealed to me what a fickle, changeable character he is, I’m very glad I did.”
Tuppy gaped slightly.
“Bulstrode called on you this morning, did you say?”
“This morning at about half-past nine.”
“He couldn’t have done.”
“Then how do you account for my having his hat? Pull yourself together, Tuppy, old horse.”
“The man who came to see you couldn’t have been Bulstrode.”
“Why not?”
“He left for Paris last night.”
“What!”
“He ‘phoned me from the station just before his train started. He had had to change his plans.”
“Then who was the bloke?” I said.
The thing seemed to me to have the makings of one of those great historic mysteries you read about. I saw no reason why posterity should not discuss for ever the problem of the bloke in the grey topper as keenly as they do the man in the iron mask. “The facts,” I said, “are precisely as I have stated. At nine-thirty this morning a bird, gaily apparelled in morning coat, spongebag trousers, and grey top-hat, presented himself at my rooms and…”
At this moment a voice spoke behind me. “Oh, hullo!”
I turned, and observed the Bart. “Hullo!” I said.
I introduced Tuppy. The Bart nodded courteously.
“I say,” said the Bart. “Where’s the old man?”
“What old man?”
“Mabel’s father. Didn’t he catch you?”
I stared at the man. He appeared to me to be gibbering. And a gibbering Bart is a nasty thing to have hanging about you before you have strengthened yourself with a bit of lunch.
“Mabel’s father’s in Singapore,” I said.
“No, he isn’t,” said the Bart. “He got home yesterday, and Mabel sent him round to your place to pick you up and bring you down here in the car. Had you left: before he arrived?”