“Swindling?”
“There is a young woman in the grounds extorting money from the public on the plea that it is Buttercup Day. And here is the point, Mr. Ukridge. Buttercup Day is the flag-day of the National Orthopaedic Institute, and is not to take place for some weeks. This young person is deliberately cheating the public.”
Ukridge licked his lips, with a hunted expression.
“Probably a local institution of the same name,” I suggested.
“That’s it,” said Ukridge gratefully. “Just what I was going to say myself. Probably a local institution. Fresh Air Fund for the poor of the neighbourhood, I shouldn’t wonder. I believe I’ve heard them talk about it, now I come to think.”
The curate refused to consider the theory.
“No,” he said. “If that had been so the young woman would have informed me. In answer to my questions, her manner was evasive and I could elicit no satisfactory reply. She merely smiled and repeated the words ‘Buttercup Day’. I feel that the police should be called in.”
“The police!” gurgled Ukridge pallidly.
“It is our pup-pup duty,” said the curate, looking like a man who writes letters to the Press signed “Pro Bono Publico”.
Ukridge shot out of his chair with a convulsive bound. He grasped my arm and led me to the door.
“Excuse me,” he said. “Corky,” he whispered tensely, dragging me out into the passage, “go and tell her to leg it—quick!”
“Right!” I said.
“You will no doubt find a constable in the road,” roared Ukridge.
“I bet I will,” I replied in a clear, carrying voice.
“We can’t have this sort of thing going on here,” bellowed Ukridge.
“Certainly not,” I shouted with enthusiasm.
He returned to the study, and I went forth upon my errand of mercy. I had reached the front door and was about to open it, when it suddenly opened itself, and the next moment I was gazing into the clear blue eyes of Ukridge’s Aunt Julia.
“Oh—ah—er!” I said.
There are certain people in this world in whose presence certain other people can never feel completely at their ease. Notable among the people beneath. whose gaze I myself experience a sensation of extreme discomfort and guilt is Miss Julia Ukridge, author of so many widely-read novels, and popular after-dinner speaker at the better class of literary reunion. This was the fourth time we had met, and on each of the previous occasions I had felt the same curious illusion of having just committed some particularly unsavoury crime and—what is more—of having done it with swollen hands, enlarged feet, and trousers bagging at the knee on a morning when I had omitted to shave. I stood and gaped. Although she had no doubt made her entry ; by the simple process of inserting a latchkey in the front door and turning it, her abrupt appearance had on me the effect of a miracle.
“Mr. Corcoran!” she observed, without pleasure.
“Er–”
“What are you doing here?” An inhospitable remark; but justified, perhaps, by the circumstances of our previous relations—which had not been of the most agreeable.
“I came to see—er—Stanley.”
“Oh?”
“He wanted me with him this afternoon.”
“Indeed?” she said; and her manner suggested surprise at what she evidently considered a strange and even morbid taste on her nephew’s part.
“We thought—we thought—we both thought you were lecturing up north.”
“When I arrived at the club for luncheon I found a telegram postponing my visit,” she condescended to explain. “Where is Stanley?”
“In your study.”
“I will go there. I wish to see him,”
I began to feel like Horatius at the Bridge. It seemed to me that, foe of the human race though Ukridge was in so many respects, it was my duty as a lifelong friend to prevent this woman winning through to him until the curate was well out of the way. I have a great belief in woman’s intuition, and I was convinced that, should Miss Julia Ukridge learn that there was a girl in her grounds selling paper buttercups for a non-existent charity, her keen intelligence would leap without the slightest hesitation to the fact of her nephew’s complicity in the disgraceful affair. She had had previous experience of Ukridge’s financial methods. In this crisis I thought rapidly.
“Oh, by the way,” I said. “It nearly slipped my mind. The—er—the man in charge of all this business told me he particularly wanted to see you directly you came back.”
“What do you mean by the man in charge of all this business?”
“The fellow who got up the bazaar, you know.”
“Do you mean Mr. Sims, the president of the Temperance League?”
“That’s right. He told me he wanted to see you.”
“How could he possibly know that I should be coming back?”
“Oh, in case you did, I mean.”
I had what Ukridge would have called an inspiration from above. “I think he wants you to say a few words.”
I doubt if anything else would have shifted her. There came into her eyes, softening their steely glitter for a moment, that strange light which is seen only in the eyes of confirmed public speakers who are asked to say a few words.
“Well, I will go and see him.”
She turned away, and I bounded back to the study. The advent of the mistress of the house had materially altered my plans for the afternoon. What I proposed to do now was to inform Ukridge of her arrival, advise him to eject the curate with all possible speed, give him my blessing, and then slide quietly and unostentatiously away, without any further formalities of farewell. I am not unduly sensitive, but there had been that in Miss Ukridge’s manner at our recent meeting which told me that I was not her ideal guest.
I entered the study. The curate was gone, and Ukridge, breathing heavily, was fast asleep in an arm-chair.
The disappearance of the curate puzzled me for a moment. He was rather an insignificant little man, but not so insignificant that I would not have noticed him if he had passed me while I was standing at the front door. And then I saw that the french windows were open.
It seemed to me that there was nothing to keep me. The strong distaste for this house which I had never lost since my first entry into it had been growing, and now the great open spaces called to me with an imperious voice. I turned softly, and found my hostess standing in the doorway.
“Oh, ah!” I said; and once more was afflicted by that curious sensation of having swelled in a very loathsome manner about the hands and feet. I have observed my hands from time to time during my life and have never been struck by anything particularly hideous about them: but whenever I encounter Miss Julia Ukridge they invariably take on the appearance and proportions of uncooked hams.
“Did you tell me, Mr. Corcoran,” said the woman in that quiet, purring voice which must lose her so many friends, not only in Wimbledon but in the larger world outside, “that you saw Mr. Sims and he said that he wished to speak to me?”
“That’s right.”
“Curious,” said Miss Ukridge. “I find that Mr. Sims is confined to his bed with a chill and has not been here today.”
I could sympathize with Mr. Sims’s chills. I felt as if I had caught one myself. I would—possibly—have made some reply, but at this moment an enormous snore proceeded from the armchair behind me, and such was my overwrought condition that I leapt like a young ram.
“Stanley!” cried Miss Ukridge, sighting the chair.
Another snore rumbled through the air, competing with the music of the merry-go-round. Miss Ukridge advanced and shook her nephew’s arm.
“I think,” I said, being in the frame of mind when one does say silly things of that sort, “I think he’s asleep.”
“Asleep!” said Miss Ukridge briefly. Her eye fell on the half-empty glass on the table, and she shuddered austerely.
The interpretation which she obviously placed on the matter seemed incredible to me. On the
stage and in motion-pictures one frequently sees victims of drink keel over in a state of complete unconsciousness after a single glass, but Ukridge was surely of sterner stuff.
“I can’t understand it,” I said.
“Indeed!” said Miss Ukridge.
“Why, I have only been out of the room half a minute, and when I left him he was talking to a curate.”
“A curate?”
“Absolutely a curate. It’s hardly likely, is it, that when he was
talking to a curate he would–”
My speech for the defence was cut short by a sudden, sharp noise which, proceeding from immediately behind me, caused me once more to quiver convulsively.
“Well, sir?” said Miss Ukridge.
She was looking past me; and, turning, I perceived that a stranger had joined us. He was standing in the french windows, and the noise which had startled me had apparently been caused by him rapping on the glass with the knob of a stick.
“Miss Ukridge?” said the newcomer.
He was one of those hard-faced, keen-eyed men. There clung about him, as he advanced into the room, a subtle air of authority. That he was a man of character and resolution was proved by the fact that he met Miss Ukridge’s eye without a tremor.
“I am Miss Ukridge. Might I inquire- -
The visitor looked harder-faced arid more keen-eyed than ever.
“My name is Dawson. From the Yard.”
“What yard?” asked the lady of the house, who, it seemed, did not read detective stories.
“Scotland Yard!”
“Oh!”
“I have come to warn you, Miss Ukridge,” said Mr. Dawson, looking at me as if I were a bloodstain, “to be on your guard. One of the greatest rascals in the profession is hanging about your grounds.”
“Then why don’t you arrest him?” demanded Miss Ukridge.
The visitor smiled faintly.
“Because I want to get him good,” he said.
“Get him good? Do you mean reform him?”
“I do not mean reform him,” said Mr. Dawson, grimly. “I mean that I want to catch him trying on something worth pulling him in for. There’s no sense in taking a man like Stuttering Sam for being a suspected person.”
“Stuttering Sam!” I cried, and Mr. Dawson eyed me keenly once more, this time almost as intently as if I had been the blunt instrument with which the murder was committed.
“Eh?” he said.
“Oh, nothing. Only it’s curious–”
“What’s curious?”
“Oh, no, it couldn’t be. This fellow was a curate. A most respectable man.”
“Have you seen a curate who stuttered?” exclaimed Mr. Dawson.
“Why, yes. He–”
“Hullo!” said Mr. Dawson. “Who’s this?”
“That,” replied Miss Ukridge, eyeing the arm-chair with loathing, “is my nephew Stanley.”
“Sound sleeper.”
“I prefer not to talk about him.”
“Tell me about this curate,” said Mr. Dawson brusquely.
“Well, he came in.”
“Came in? In here?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Well–”
“He must have had some story. What was it?”
I thought it judicious, in the interests of my sleeping friend, to depart somewhat from the precise truth.
“He—er—I think he said something about being interested in Miss Ukridge’s collection of snuff-boxes.”
“Have you a collection of snuff-boxes, Miss Ukridge?”
“Yes.”
“Where do you keep them?”
“In the drawing-room.”
“Take me there, if you please.”
“But I don’t understand.”
Mr. Dawson clicked his tongue in an annoyed manner. He seemed to be an irritable sleuth-hound.
“I should have thought the thing was clear enough by this time. This man worms his way into your house with a plausible story, gets rid of this gentleman here–How did he get rid of you?”
“Oh, I just went, you know. I thought I would like a stroll.”
“Oh? Well, having contrived to be alone with your nephew, Miss Ukridge, he slips knock-out drops in his drink–”
“Knock-out drops?”
“A drug of some kind,” explained Mr. Dawson, chafing at her slowness of intelligence.
“But the man was a curate!”
Mr. Dawson barked shortly.
“Posing as a curate is the thing Stuttering Sam does best. He works the races in that character. Is this the drawing-room?”
It was. And it did not need the sharp, agonized cry which proceeded from its owner’s lips to tell us that the worst had happened. The floor was covered with splintered wood and broken glass.
“They’ve gone!” cried Miss Ukridge.
It is curious how differently the same phenomenon can strike different people. Miss Ukridge was a frozen statue of grief. Mr. Dawson, on the other hand, seemed pleased. He stroked his short moustache with an air of indulgent complacency, and spoke of neat jobs. He described Stuttering Sam as a Tough Baby, and gave it as his opinion that the absent one might justly be considered one of the lads and not the worst of them.
“What shall I do?” wailed Miss Ukridge. I was sorry for the woman. I did not like her, but she was suffering.
“The first thing to do,” said Mr. Dawson briskly, “is to find how much the fellow has got away with. Have you any other valuables in the house?”
“My jewels are in my bedroom.”
“Where?”
“I keep them in a box in the dress-cupboard.”
“Well, it’s hardly likely that he would find them there, but I’d better go and see. You be taking a look round in here and make a complete list of what has been stolen.”
“All my snuff-boxes are gone.”
“Well, see if there is anything else missing. Where is your bedroom?”
“On the first floor, facing the front.”
“Right.”
Mr. Dawson, all briskness and efficiency, left us. I was sorry to see him go. I had an idea that it would not be pleasant being left alone with this bereaved woman. Nor was it.
“Why on earth,” said Miss Ukridge, rounding on me as if I had been a relation, “did you not suspect this man when he came in?”
“Why, I—he–”
“A child ought to have been able to tell that he was not a real curate.”
“He seemed–”
“Seemed!” She wandered restlessly about the room, and suddenly a sharp cry proceeded from her. “My jade Buddha!”
“I beg your pardon?”
“That scoundrel has stolen my jade Buddha. Go and tell the detective.”
“Certainly.”
“Go on! What are you waiting for?” I fumbled at the handle.
“I don’t seem able to get the door open,” I explained meekly.
“Tchah!” said Miss Ukridge, swooping down. One of the rooted convictions of each member of the human race is that he or she is able without difficulty to open a door which has baffled their fellows. She took the handle and gave it a vigorous tug. The door creaked but remained unresponsive.
“What’s the matter with the thing?” exclaimed Miss Ukridge petulantly.
“It’s stuck.”
“I know it has stuck. Please do something at once. Good gracious, Mr. Corcoran, surely you are at least able to open a drawing-room door?”
It seemed, put in that tone of voice, a feat sufficiently modest for a man of good physique and fair general education; but I was reluctantly compelled to confess, after a few more experiments, that it was beyond my powers. This appeared to confirm my hostess in the opinion, long held by her, that I was about the most miserable worm that an inscrutable Providence had ever permitted to enter the world.
She did not actually say as much, but she sniffed, and I interpreted her meaning exactly.
“Ring the bell!”
I rang the bell.
“Ring it again!”
I rang it again.
“Shout!”
I shouted.
“Go on shouting!”
I went on shouting. I was in good voice that day. I shouted ”Hi!”; I shouted “Here!”; I shouted “Help!”; I also shouted in a broad, general way. It was a performance which should have received more than a word of grateful thanks. But all Miss Ukridge said, when I paused for breath, was:
“Don’t whisper!”
I nursed my aching vocal cords in a wounded silence. “Help!” cried Miss Ukridge.
Considered as a shout, it was not in the same class as mine. It lacked body, vim, and even timbre. But, by that curious irony which governs human affairs, it produced results. Outside the door a thick voice spoke in answer.
“What’s up?”
“Open this door!”
The handle rattled.
“It’s stuck,” said a voice, which I now recognized as that of my old friend, Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge.
“I know it has stuck. Is that you, Stanley? See what is causing it to stick.”
A moment of silence followed. Investigations were apparently in progress without.
“There’s a wedge jammed under it.”
“Well, take it out at once.”
‘I’ll have to get a knife or something.”
Another interval for rest and meditation succeeded. Miss Ukridge paced the floor with knit brows; while I sidled into a corner and stood there feeling a little like an inexperienced young animal-trainer who has managed to get himself locked into the lions’ den and is trying to remember what Lesson Three of his correspondence course said he ought to do in such circumstances.
Footsteps sounded outside, and then a wrenching and scratching. The door opened and we beheld on the mat Ukridge, with a carving-knife in his hand, looking headachy and dishevelled, and the butler, his professional poise rudely disturbed and his face stained with coal-dust.
It was characteristic of Miss Ukridge that it was to the erring domestic rather than the rescuing nephew that she turned first.
“Barter,” she hissed, as far as a woman, even of her intellectual gifts, is capable of hissing the word “Barter”, “why didn’t you come when I rang?”