‘Sir?’
‘Tell me your story again.’
The constable told his story again, even better than before, for he had been able to think of some new words, and Sir Aylmer listened frowningly.
‘Where was this woman?’
‘This Mystery Woman,’ corrected Constable Potter. ‘In the garden, sir.’ ‘What part of the garden?’
‘Near the window of the room where you keep your thingamajigs, sir.’ ‘My what?’
‘Those objects from Africa, sir. Curios is, I believe, the name.’
‘Then call them curios. ‘‘Yes, sir.
‘Not thingamajigs. ‘No, sir.’
‘What was she doing?’ ‘Lying in wait, sir.’
‘What for?’
‘Don’t know, sir.’
Percy flicked the ash off his cigarette.
‘If you arst me,’ he said, throwing out the suggestion for what it was worth, ‘she was expecting the arrival of her accomplice. This is the work of a gang.’
He would have done better to remain in modest obscurity. Compelled by his official status to accept meekly the recriminations of landed proprietors who were also members of the bench of magistrates, Constable Potter could be very terrible when dealing with knives and boots boys, and he had been wanting some form of relief for his feeling ever since Sir Aylmer had called him an ass, a fool, an idiot and an imbecile. To advance and seize Percy by the left ear was with him the work of an instant, to lead him to the door and speed him on his way with a swift kick the work of another. A thud and a yelp, and Percy had ceased to have a seat at the conference table. Constable Potter returned to his place, his air that of a man who has carried out a pleasant task neatly and well.
Percy’s head appeared round the door.
‘And so would I like to give my month’s notice,’ he said, and withdrew once more.
Lord Ickenham, who had been a genial spectator, spoke for the first time.
‘A clean sweep, Mugsy. What, all my pretty chickens at one fell swoop! Too bad. Very difficult these days to get servants in the country.’
Sir Aylmer did not reply. The same thought had come to him independently, and he was beginning to be a little dubious as to the wisdom of his forthright policy in dealing with domestics. It was Constable Potter who now came before the meeting with a few well-judged words.
‘Not but what there ain’t a lot in what the lad said,’ he observed. He was not fond of Percy, suspecting him of being the hidden hand which had thrown half a brick at him the other day as he cycled up the drive, but he could give credit where credit was due. ‘About its being a gang, what I mean. Women don’t conduct burglaries on their own hook. They have pals. Established inside the house as like as not,’ he added with a significant glance.
It was Pongo who spoke next, as if impelled to utterance by a jab in the trouser seat from a gimlet or bradawl. In saying that Constable Potter’s glance was significant, we omitted to state that it was at the last of the Twistletons that it had been directed, nor did we lay anything like sufficient stress on its penetrating qualities. It was silly of us to describe as merely significant something so closely resembling a death ray.
‘What are you looking at me for?’ he asked weakly.
Constable Potter, who could be as epigrammatic as the next man when he wanted to, replied that a cat may look at a king. And he was just smiling at his ready wit, when Sir Aylmer decided that the time for finesse and dissembling was past and that what was required here was direct frontal attack. All the evening he had been irked by the necessity of playing the genial host — or the fairly genial host — to this rat of the underworld, and now not even the thought of possible repercussions from his daughter Hermione could restrain him from speaking out.
‘I’ll tell you why he’s looking at you, my man. Because he happens to be aware that you’re a scoundrel and an impostor.’
‘Who, me?’
‘Yes, you. You thought you had fooled us, did you? Well, you hadn’t. Potter!’
‘Sir?’
‘Tell your story about your previous meeting with this fellow.’
‘Very good, sir,’ said Constable Potter, quickly applying the necessary glaze to his eyes and starting to address the bodiless spirit in mid-air. ‘Here’s what transpired. On the… — Coo! I’ve forgotten when it was, I’d have to look up my scrap album to establish the exact inst., but it was about a year ago, when I was in the C division in the metropolis and they’d put me on duty at the Dog Races down Shepherd’s Bush way. Accused was drawn to my attention along of making himself conspicuous by conduct like as it might have been of a disorderly nature, and I apprehended him. Questioned while in custody, he stated his name was Smith.’
‘Not Twistleton?’
‘No, sir. Edwin Smith, of 11, Nasturtium Road, East Dulwich.’
‘So what have you to say to that?’ demanded Sir Aylmer.
Lord Ickenham intervened.
‘My dear Mugsy, the whole thing is obviously an absurd misunderstanding. One sees so clearly what must have happened. Scooped in by the police and reluctant to stain the fine old Twistleton escutcheon by revealing his true identity, the boy gave a false name. You’ve done it yourself a hundred times.’
‘I haven’t!’
Lord Ickenham shrugged his shoulders.
‘Have it your own way, Mugsy. The point is immaterial, and I would be the last man to awaken painful memories. But I can assure you that this is really Reginald Twistleton. Bill Oakshott happened to mention it only this afternoon. He was telling me that you had gone off your onion —‘He was, was he?’
‘— And when I enquired as to the symptoms, he explained that you had got this extraordinary idea that his old friend Reginald Twistleton was not his old friend Reginald Twistleton, whereas that is in reality what his old friend Reginald Twistleton is nothing else but. You will testify, Bill Oakshott, to the hundred per cent Twistletonity of this Reginald?’
‘Fine. I mean, oh rather.’
‘There you are, then, Mugsy.’
Sir Aylmer blew at his moustache.
‘William on his own statement has not seen Reginald Twistleton for more than twelve years. How can he possibly claim to recognize him? Ha! William!’
‘Hullo?’
‘I see how we can settle this matter. Ask him questions.’
‘Questions?’
‘About your school days.’
‘Pongo and I weren’t at school together. I met him in the holidays at Lord Ickenham’s place.’
‘That alone would seem to be a guarantee of respectability,’ said Lord Ickenham. ‘A very exclusive house, that, I have always understood. By the way, how did you get on there this afternoon, Mugsy?’
‘Never mind,’ said Sir Aylmer shortly. ‘What was he doing at Lord Ickenham’s?’
‘He was staying there.’
Sir Aylmer reflected. An inspiration came to him.
‘Was there a dog there?’
‘Eh?’
‘A dog.’
‘Oh, you mean a dog. Yes, a —‘
‘Don’t tell him, don’t tell him. Ask him.’
Lord Ickenham nodded.
‘I see what you mean, Mugsy. Very shrewd. If he was staying at Ickenham Hall, he would remember the resident dog. Boys always remember dogs. Do you remember that dog, prisoner at the bar?’
‘Of course I remember the dog. It was a sheep dog.’
‘Correct, Bill Oakshott?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Called —‘
‘Mittens.’
‘Accurate, Bill Oakshott?’
‘Definitely. Right on the bull’s eye. Want any more, Uncle Aylmer?’
‘No,’ said Sir Aylmer.
‘I should hope not,’ Lord Ickenham. ‘You’ve been making an ass of yourself, Mugsy.’
‘Oh, have I?’ said Sir Aylmer, stung. ‘Well, let me tell you that I think the time has now come to ask you some questions.’
‘Me?’
‘Yes
. How do I know who you are? You come here claiming to be Plank; and you don’t look a bit like Plank, as I remember him —‘
‘But I explained about the absence of the billowy curves. Slimmo. In the small half-crown or the larger three-and-sixpence bottle. You mix it with your food, and it acts as a gentle, agreeable remedy for hypertrophy of the trouser seat, not habit-forming.’
‘I don’t believe you are Plank. How do I know that William did not pick up the first stranger he met and talk him into coming and judging the Bonny Baby contest, so that he could get out of it himself?’
‘Ridiculous. You have only to look at that pure brow, those candid eyes —‘There are some damned funny things going on here,’ proceeded Sir Aylmer firmly, ‘and I intend to get to the bottom —‘
‘Like Slimmo.’
‘This afternoon a man I don’t remember from Adam comes and insinuates himself into the house, saying he is an old schoolfellow of mine. Tonight Potter catches a woman prowling in my garden —‘
‘Not so much prowling, sir, as lurking.’
‘SHUT UP!’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Potter catches a woman prowling in my garden, obviously trying to establish communication with some man in the house. Who was that man?’
‘Ah.’
‘It wasn’t me.’
‘One hopes not, Mugsy.’
‘It wasn’t William. It wasn’t that boy who was in here just now, the one that cleans the knives and boots —‘
‘How do you know? If I were you, I would watch that boy, watch him closely.’
‘It was presumably not Reginald, seeing that Reginald really is Reginald. That leaves you.’
‘But, Mugsy, this is absurd. You say this woman was trying to establish communication with some man in the house. Why? What possible evidence have you of that? I see her as some poor, homeless waif who wandered into your garden trying to find shelter for the night in the tool shed or the byre, whatever a byre may be —‘
‘Poor, homeless waif be damned. And if she was trying to find shelter in the tool shed, why didn’t she go there, instead of hanging about —‘
‘Loitering suspiciously, sir.’
‘SHUT UP! Instead of hanging about outside the window of my collection room. She was one of a gang of burglars, that’s what she was, and I’m going to find out who the rest of them are. You say you’re Plank. Prove it.’
Lord Ickenham beamed.
‘My dear Mugsy, why didn’t you say so at first? Prove it? Of course I can prove it. But is not the fact that I have been calling you Mugsy from the start in itself a proof?’
‘No. You could have found out somewhere that I used to be called that at school.’
‘Then let us touch on some of the things which I could not have found out except by actual daily contact with you in those far-off days. Who pinched jam sandwiches at the school shop, Mugsy? Who put the drawing-pin on the French master’s chair? Who got six of the best with a fives bat for bullying his juniors? And talking of bullying juniors, do you recollect one term a frail, golden-haired child arriving at the old seminary, a frail, wistful child who looked to you like something sent from heaven? You swooped on that child, Mugsy, as if you had been an Assyrian coming down like a wolf on the fold. You pulled his golden hair. You twisted his slender arm. And just as you had started twisting it, it suddenly uncoiled itself in one of the sweetest left hooks I have ever witnessed and plugged you in the eye. Ten minutes later, after we had helped you to bed, investigation revealed that the child was the previous year’s public-school bantam-weight champion, who had been transferred to us from his former place of education because his father thought the air in our part of the world was better for his lungs. On another occasion —‘
He paused. A horrible cackling sound, like a turkey with laryngitis, had interrupted the flow of his narrative. It was Constable Potter laughing. He was not a man who laughed easily, and he had not wanted to laugh now. He had, indeed, tried not to laugh. But his sense of the humorous had been too much for him.
‘Uck, uck, uck,’ he gurgled, and Sir Aylmer turned on him with all the fury of a bantam-weight champion whose arm has been twisted.
‘POTTER!’
‘S-sir?’
‘Get out! What the devil are you doing, lounging about in here, when you ought to be finding that woman you were fool enough to let escape?’
The rebuke sobered Constable Potter. He saw that he had been remiss.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘What do you mean, Yes, sir?’
‘I mean No, sir. I mean I’ll start instituting a search instanter. It oughtn’t to be so hard to find her. She’ll be practically in the nood, as the expression is, and that,’ said Constable Potter who, when he thought at all, thought clearly, ‘will render her conspicuous.’
With a courteous inclination of the head he passed through the door, stern and vigilant, and Sir Aylmer prepared to follow his example.
‘I’m off to bed,’ he said shortly. ‘It must be two o’clock.’
‘Past two,’ said Lord Ickenham, consulting his watch. ‘How time flies when one is agreeably occupied. Then let us all go to bed.’
He linked his arm in that of Pongo, who was breathing stertorously like a fever patient, and together they made their way up the stairs.
The bedroom which had been allotted to Lord Ickenham was a spacious apartment on the second floor, looking out over the park. It was thither that he conducted Pongo, bringing him to rest on the chaise-longue which stood beside the window.
‘Relax, my boy,’ he said, tidying up his nephew’s legs, which were showing a tendency to straggle, and gently placing a cushion behind his head. ‘You seem a little overwrought. You remind me of an old New York friend of mine named Bream Rockmeteller on the occasion one Fourth of July when somebody touched off a maroon beneath his chair. That same stunned look. Odd. I should have thought that the clearing up of that Edwin Smith misunderstanding would have made you feel as if you had just had a fortnight at Bracing Bognor.’
Pongo sat up, his legs once more shooting out in all directions.
‘Come, come,’ said Lord Ickenham, rearranging them. ‘Are you a man or an octopus? One ought to tie you up with a system of ropes.’
Pongo ignored the rebuke. His eyes were stony.
‘Uncle Fred,’ he said, speaking in a low, metallic voice, ‘I don’t know if you know it, but you’re Public Scourge Number One. You scatter ruin and desolation on every side like a ruddy sower going forth sowing. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness aren’t possible when you’re around. You’re like the Black Death or one of those pestilences of the Middle Ages, taking their toll of thousands.’
His vehemence seemed to occasion Lord Ickenham a mild surprise.
‘But, my dear boy, what have I done?’
‘All that stuff about my giving a false name at the Dog Races.’
‘Well, I’m dashed. I was looking on that as my day’s good deed. But for my timely intervention —
‘I was just going to deny the whole thing, when you butted in.’
Lord Ickenham shook his head.
‘You would never have got away with it. Heaven knows that there are few more fervent apostles of the creed of stout denial than myself — I have been practising it for thirty years with your aunt — but it would not have served here. The copper’s word would have been accepted, and you would have been branded in Mugsy’s eyes as a burglar.’
‘Well, look what I’m branded in his eyes as now. A chap who goes on toots and gets pinched at Dog Races. What’s Hermione going to say when he tells her about it? The moment the facts are placed before her, she’ll sit down and write me a stinker, calling our engagement off.’
‘You think so?’
‘I can see her dipping the pen.’
‘Well, that’ll be good. If I were you, I would give three rousing cheers and let it go at that.’
‘I won’t give three rousing cheers. I worship that girl. Until no
w —‘
‘I know, I know. You have never known what love meant. Quite. Nevertheless, I stick to it that you would be well out of this perilous enterprise of trying to hitch up with a girl who appears to have the austere outlook of the head mistress of a kindergarten and will probably spend most of her married life rapping her husband on the knuckles with a ruler. But we mustn’t sit yarning about your amours now. There are graver matters on which we have to rivet our attention.’
‘Such as —?‘
‘My dear Pongo, Sally. Is it nothing to you that she is at this moment roaming Hampshire in her cami-knickers? Where’s your chivalry?’
Pongo bowed his head in shame. No appeal to the preux chevalier in him was ever wasted. The thought that he had forgotten about Sally was a knife in his bosom.
‘Oh, golly. Yes, that’s right. She’ll catch cold.’
‘If nothing worse.’
‘And may be gathered in by Potter.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Blast him.’
‘Yes, I confess to feeling a little cross with Constable Potter, and in the deepest and truest sense it will be all right with me if he trips over a footprint and breaks his damned neck. In trying to cope with Constable Potter one has the sense of being up against some great natural force. I wouldn’t have thought so much zeal could have been packed into a blue uniform and a pair of number eleven boots. Well, see you shortly, Pongo.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘Out into the great open spaces,’ said Lord Ickenham, picking up a flowered dressing-gown. ‘God knows where Sally is, but she can’t have got far. As Potter said, she will be conspicuous.’
‘Shall I come, too?’
‘No,’ said Lord Ickenham. ‘We don’t want the thing to look like one of those great race movements. You stay here and think calm, healing thoughts.’
He left the room, walking like one who intends not to let a twig snap beneath his feet, and Pongo leaned back against the cushion and closed his eyes.
‘Healing thoughts!’ he said to himself bitterly, and laughed one of his mirthless laughs.
But the human mind is capable of strange feats. You never know where you are with it. If questioned at the moment when the door had closed as to the chances of anything in the nature of a healing thought coming into a mind that was more like a maelstrom than a collection of grey cells, Pongo would have offered a hundred to eight against and been surprised if there had been any takers. Yet now, gradually, he discovered that one was beginning to shape itself.