The next moment the rays of the torch, of which I had quickly pressed the button, revealed the well-known features of my Aunt Julia.
VI
There are times in life, Corky, when the man of iron self-control may be excused for momentarily losing his phlegm. It is a very unnerving thing to find an aunt whom you know to be in the south of France nestling in a potting shed in Wimbledon. A sharp “Gor-blimey!” escaped my lips, and it was at once evident that the ear of love had recognized the familiar voice.
“Stanley!” she cried.
Usually when my aunt says “Stanley!” it is a tone of refined exasperation, the ejaculation being preliminary to a thorough ticking-off. But now the general effect was vastly different. Her “Stanley!” on the present occasion was roughly equivalent to the “Gawain!” or “Galahad!” which a distressed damsel in difficulties with a dragon would have uttered on beholding her favourite knight entering the ring with drawn sword.
“Aunt Julia!” I exclaimed. “What on earth are you doing here?”
In broken accents and in a hushed whisper, starting from time to time at sudden noises, she told her story. It was after all, quite simple. At Cannes, it seemed, she had met a friend, a recent arrival on the Riviera, who knew a man who had told her, the friend, that dark doings were in progress in the old home. And so arresting was this crony’s report of the big evenings at The Cedars that my aunt had leaped into the first plane, intent on catching the miscreant responsible on the hop.
“I thought at first it must be you, Stanley.”
I drew myself up with a touch of hauteur. “Indeed?”
“But my friend said no.”
“I should hope so.”
“She said it was the butler.”
“She was right.”
“And I trusted him implicitly!”
“A pity you did not consult me, Aunt Julia. I could have given you the lowdown on the man’s true character.”
“He looks so respectable.”
“Many a man may look respectable, and yet be able to hide at will behind a spiral staircase.”
“You saw through him?”
“Like an X-ray. I suspected that, the moment your back was turned, he would be up to some kind of hell, and I was correct. I came here to-night in the hope of being able to protect your interests.”
“You were gambling?”
I switched on the torch, switching it off again immediately when she asked, with a momentary return to her normal brusque manner, if I wanted to bring every policeman on the premises to the spot.
“If,” I said, “you were able in that brief instant to get a dekko at my person, Aunt Julia, you will have seen that I am not dressed. At functions like the one at which you have been assisting, the soup-and-fish is obligatory. I possess no soup-and-fish. What happened when you got here?”
“I went into the drawing-room and was just going to order those people out, when a policeman came bursting in and told us that we were all under arrest. I promptly jumped out of the window.”
“Stoutly done, Aunt Julia. The true Ukridge resource.”
“And I took refuge here. What am I to do, Stanley? I must not be found. If I am, how can I convince the police that I am not responsible for the whole thing? The scandal will ruin me. Think, Stanley, think.”
I felt that it would be judicious to rub it in a bit.
“It is an unfortunate state of affairs,” I agreed. “And while it is not for me to criticize the arrangements which you may see fit to make where your own house is concerned, I cannot but feel that you have brought this on yourself. If you had placed me in charge during your absence … However, we can go into that later. What I propose to do now is to have a look around to see if the coast is clear. If it is, you will be able to do a quiet sneak over the garden wall. Wait here until I return. If I do not return, you will know that I have fallen a victim to a nephew’s devotion.”
Whether or not she said, “My hero!” I am not certain. It was what she ought to have said, but she is a woman who is apt to miss her cues at times.
However, she did clasp my hand in a fevered clutch, and with a brief word bidding her keep her tail up I went out.
I hadn’t gone more than fifty yards when I barged slap into a substantial body. It was coming around a tree, heading east, and I was going around the tree, heading west. We collided like a couple of mastodons mixing it in a primeval swamp. Recovering its balance, it flashed a torch on me and a moment later spoke.
It said: “Hullo, Ukridge, old top. You here? What a night, what a night, what a night?”
I recognized the voice of Looney Coote. And picture my astonishment, Corky, when, flashing my torch on him, I perceived that he was wearing a policeman’s uniform. When I commented on this, he laughed like a hyæna calling to its mate and told me all.
Chagrined at losing his money on the previous night at The Cedars, he had decided to fit himself out at a costumier’s and go and raid the place: thus, as he himself put it, giving it the salutary lesson it had been asking for and making it think a bit. Such, Corky, is Looney Coote, and always has been, I felt, as I had so often felt in my earlier dealings with him, that his spiritual home was definitely Coley Hatch.
Slowly I adjusted my faculties. “You mean there aren’t any cops here?”
“Only me.”
I had to pause at this to master my emotion. When I thought of the intense nervous strain to which I had been subjected and recalled the way I had been tiptoeing about the place and quaking at sudden noises and not letting a twig snap beneath my feet, and all because of this pie-faced half-wit, the temptation to haul off and bust him in the eye was very powerful.
I succeeded in restraining myself, but my manner was cold and severe. “And the next thing that will happen,” I said, “is that a bevy of genuine constables will blow in, and you’ll get two years hard for impersonating a policeman.”
This rattled him. “I never thought of that.”
“Muse on it now.”
“The Law gets a bit shirty, does it, if you impersonate policemen?”
“It screams with annoyance.”
“Well, well, well, I’d better leg it, you think?”
“I do.”
“I will. Listen, Ukridge, old man,” said Looney, “there’s something you can do for me. I locked an abundant multitude of the blighters in the drawing-room. I should be vastly obliged if, after I’ve gone, you would let them out. Here’s the key. And, by the way, weren’t you saying something this morning about wanting me to lend you money, or something?”
“I was.”
“Would a tenner be enough?”
“I could make it do.”
“Then here you are. Talking of money,” said Looney, “there was a strong movement afoot among the blighters to bribe me to let them go. A good deal of feeling was shown. Amused me, I must confess. Well, good night, old man. It’s been nice seeing you. Do you think, if I’m stopped by a cop, I could get away with it by saying I was on my way to a fancy-dress ball?”
“You might try it.”
“I will. Did I give you that tenner?” he said. “No.”
“Then here you are. Good night, old man, good night.”
I went back to the potting shed and told my aunt that a quick burst from the garden wall was now in order, and she thanked me in a trembling voice and kissed me and said she had misjudged me. She then popped off at a good speed, and I pushed along to the drawing-room, forming my plans and schemes with lightning rapidity as I went. What Looney had said about the inmates trying to bribe him had stirred me not a little.
And I am happy to say that he had not deceived me. I found them most anxious to do business. A few pourparlers through the keyhole and the deal was fixed up at so much per head. The money was placed in my hands by a stately bird with white whiskers— He looked as if he might be the President of the Anti-Gambling League or some equally respectable institution, and there was no doubt that he had been asking himself quite of
ten during his vigil what the harvest would be.
There was champagne on the sideboard. When they had all gone, I sat down and opened a bottle. I felt that I had earned it.
Ukridge paused, and drew luxuriously at his cigar. There was a look of deep and sublime contentment on his face.
“So there you are, Corky. That is why I am now able to stand you lunch in this robber’s den without a thought for the prices in the right-hand column. My aunt is all over me, and I am once more the petted guest in her home. This gives me a base from which I can operate while making up my mind how best to employ my enormous capital. For it is enormous. I’d hate to tell you, old horse, how much I’ve got. It would be tactless. You are a struggling young fellow who considers himself lucky if he snaffles thirty bob for an article in Interesting Bits, on “Famous Lovers of History” or some such rot, and it would be agony to you to know how rolling I am. You would bite your lip and brood and get all sorts of subversive ideas about the unfair distribution of wealth. It wouldn’t be long before we should have you throwing bombs.”
I reassured him. “Don’t worry. I’m not envious. It is enough for me to feel that after this magnificent spread you are going to pay the bill.”
There was a pause. I noticed that behind his gingerbeer-wired pince-nez his eyes had taken on an apologetic look.
“I’m glad you brought that up, Corky,” he said, “for I was just wondering how to break it to you. I’m extraordinarily sorry, old horse, but I find that I have inadvertently left my money at home. You, I fear, will have to settle up. I’ll pay you back next time I see you.”
P. G. Wodehouse, Nothing Serious
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