So far, so good. And yet, despite the fineness of the day, the virtuosity of Mrs Gooch and the joviality of her husband, Lady Bostock’s heart was heavy. In these days in which we live, when existence has become a thing of infinite complexity and fate, if it slips us a bit of goose with one hand, is pretty sure to give us the sleeve across the windpipe with the other, it is rarely that we find a human being who is unmixedly happy. Always the bitter will be blended with the sweet, and in this mélange one can be reasonably certain that it is the former that will predominate.
A severe indictment of our modern civilization, but it can’t say it didn’t ask for it.
As Lady Bostock sat there, doing two plain, two purl, or whatever it is that women do when knitting socks, a sigh escaped her from time to time. She was thinking of Sally Painter.
Budge Street, Chelsea, brief though her visit had been, had made a deep impression on this sensitive woman. She had merely driven up in a cab, rung the bell of Sally’s studio, handed her parcel to the charwoman and driven swiftly off again, but she had seen enough to recognize Budge Street for the sort of place she read about in novels, where impoverished artists eke out a miserable existence, supported only by hope. How thankful, she thought, impoverished Miss Painter must have been to get the commission to model that bust of Aylmer, and what anguish must have been hers on having it thrown back on her hands.
She had mentioned this to Sir Aylmer as they were returning from their conference with the Vicar, and had been snubbed with a good deal of brusqueness. And now, though she was too loyal a wife to criticize her husband even in thought, she could not check a fleeting regret that he was always so splendidly firm.
Was there nothing, she asked herself, as she remembered the admirable luncheon which she had recently consumed and pictured Sally gnawing a dry crust and washing it down with a cup of water, was there nothing that she could do? Useless, of course, to make another attempt to persuade Aylmer to change his mind, but suppose she were to send the girl a secret cheque ….
At this point her musing was interrupted and her despondency increased by the arrival of Bill Oakshott, who came heavily along the terrace smoking a sombre pipe. She eyed him with a sad pity. Ever since she had given him the bad news, the sight of him had made her feel like a soft-hearted Oriental executioner who, acting on orders from the front office, has had to do unpleasant things to an Odalisque with a bow string. It seemed to her sometimes that she would never be able to forget the look of horror and despair which had leaped into his crimson face. Traces of it still lingered on those haggard features.
‘Hullo, Aunt Emily,’ he said in sepulchral tones. ‘Knitting a sock?’
‘Yes, dear. A sock.’
‘Oh?’ said Bill, still speaking like a voice from the tomb. ‘A sock? Fine.’
He stood there, staring before him with unseeing eyes, and she touched his hand gently.
‘I wouldn’t worry about it too much, dear.’
‘I don’t see how one could,’ said Bill. ‘How many of these frightful babies will there be?’
‘There were forty-three last year.’
‘Forty-three!’
‘Be brave, William. If Mr Brotherhood could do it, you can.’
The flaw in this reasoning was so obvious that Bill was able to detect it at once.
‘Curates are different. They train them specially to judge bonny babies. At the theological colleges. Start them off with ventriloquists’ dummies, I shouldn’t wonder. Forty-three, did you say? And probably dozens more this time. These blighters breed like rabbits. Gosh, I wish I was back in Brazil.’
‘Oh, William.’
‘I do. What a country! Nothing but flies and ticks and alligators and snakes and scorpions and tarantulas and a sort of leech that drops on you from trees and sucks your blood. Not a baby to be seen for miles. Listen, Aunt Emily, can’t I get someone else to take this ghastly job on?’
‘But who?’
‘Yes, that’s the snag, of course,’ said Bill morosely. ‘Mugs fatheaded enough to let themselves be talked into judging forty-three bonny babies, all dribbling out of the side of the mouth, must be pretty scarce, pretty scarce. Well, I think I’ll be pushing along, Aunt Emily. It seems to help a little if I keep moving.’
He plodded off, listlessly puffing smoke, leaving behind him an aunt with an aching heart. And it was perhaps because Lady Bostock was now so near the nadir of depression that she thought she might as well make a complete job of it. So she began to think of Pongo.
It frequently happens that prospective sons-in-law come as a rather painful shock to their prospective mothers-in-law, and the case of Lady Bostock had provided no exception to the rule. Immediately on seeing Pongo she had found herself completely at a loss to understand why her daughter should have chosen him as a mate. From the very start she had felt herself to be in the presence of one whose soul was not attuned to hers. At moments, indeed, only her perfect breeding had restrained her from beating him over the head with the sock which she was knitting for the deserving poor.
Analysing his repellent personality, she came to the conclusion that while she disliked his nervous giggle, his lemon-coloured hair and the way he had of drooping his lower jaw and letting his eyes get glassy, the thing about him that particularly exasperated her was his extraordinary jumpiness.
Of this she had witnessed a manifestation only an hour or so ago, as they were leaving the dining-room after lunch. As they started to cross the hall, Aylmer had moved in the direction of that bust of his, as if to give it a flick with his handkerchief, as he sometimes did, and Reginald had bounded in his tracks with a soft, animal yelp, recovering his composure only when Aylmer, abandoning the idea of flicking, had moved on again.
A strange young man. Was he half — or even a quarter — witted? Or was his mind, if had a mind, burdened by some guilty secret?
Speculations like these, indulged in on a warm day after a rather heavy lunch, are apt to induce drowsiness. Her eyelids began to flutter. Somewhere out of sight a lawn-mower was purring hypnotically. The west wind played soothingly on her face.
Lady Bostock slept.
But not for long. Her eyes had scarcely closed when the word ‘EMILY’, spoken at the extreme limit of a good man’s lungs, jerked her from her slumber as if a charge of trinitrotoluol had been exploded beneath her chair.
Sir Aylmer was leaning out of the study window.
‘EMILY!’
‘Yes, dear? Yes, dear?’
‘Come here,’ roared Sir Aylmer, like a bo’sun addressing an able-bodied seaman across the deck in the middle of a hurricane. ‘Wantcher.’
As Lady Bostock made her way to the study, her heart was racing painfully. There had been that in her husband’s manner which caused her to fear unnamed disasters, and her first glance at him as she crossed the threshold told her that her apprehensions had been well founded.
His face was purple, and his moustache, always a barometer of the emotions, was dancing about beneath his laboured breath. She had not beheld such activity in it since the night years ago when the youngest and most nervously giggling of the aides-de-camp, twiddling the nut-crackers during the dessert course at dinner at Government House, had snapped the stem of one of his favourite set of wineglasses.
He was not alone. Standing at a respectful distance in one of the corners, as if he knew his place better than to thrust himself forward, was Constable Harold Potter, looking, as policemen do at such moments, as if he had been stuffed by a good taxidermist. She stared from one to the other bewildered.
‘Aylmer! What is it?’
Sir Aylmer Bostock was not a man who beat about bushes. When he had disturbing news to impart, he imparted it.
‘Emily,’ he said, quivering in every hair, ‘there’s a damned plot afoot.’
‘A what?’
‘A PLOT. An infernal outrage against the public weal. You know Potter?’
Lady Bostock knew Potter.
‘How do you do, Potter?’ s
he said.
‘How do you do, m’lady?’ said Constable Potter, coming unstuffed for an instant in order to play his part in the courteous exchanges and then immediately getting stuffed again.
‘Potter,’ said Sir Aylmer, ‘has just come to me with a strange story. Potter!’
‘Sir?’
‘Tell her ladyship your strange story.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘It’s about Reginald,’ said Sir Aylmer, to whet the interest of the audience. ‘Or, rather,’ he added, exploding his bombshell, ‘the fellow who’s posing as Reginald.’
Lady Bostock’s eyes were already bulging to almost their maximum extent, but at these words they managed to protrude a little further.
‘Posing?’
‘Yes.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘What I say. I can’t put it any plainer. The chap who’s come here pretending to be Reginald Twistleton is an impostor. He isn’t Reginald Twistleton at all. I had my suspicions of him all along. I didn’t like his eye. Sly. Shifty. And that sinister giggle of his. What I’d call a criminal type. Potter!’
‘Sir?’
‘Get on with your strange story.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Constable Potter stepped forward, his helmet balanced against his right hip. A glazed look had come into his eyes. It was the look which they always assumed when he was giving evidence in court. His gaze was directed some two feet above Sir Aylmer’s head, so that his remarks seemed to be addressed to a bodiless spirit hovering over the scene and taking notes in an invisible notebook.
‘On the sixteenth inst. —‘
‘Yesterday.’
‘Yesterday,’ proceeded Constable Potter, accepting the emendation. ‘On the sixteenth inst., which was yesterday, I was proceeding up the drive of Ashenden Manor on my bicycle, when my attention was drawn to a suspicious figure entering the premises through a window.’
‘The window of my collection room.’
‘The window of Sir Aylmer Bostock’s collection room. I immediately proceeded to follow the man and question him. In reply to my enquiries he made the statement that his name was Twistleton and that he was established as a guest at this residence.’
‘Well, so he is,’ said Lady Bostock, speaking a little dazedly.
Sir Aylmer waved an imperious hand.
‘Wait, wait, wait, wait, WAIT. Mark the sequel.’
He paused, and stood puffing at his moustache. Lady Bostock, who had sunk into a chair, picked up a copy of the parish magazine and began to fan herself with it.
‘We’re coming to the part where he turns out not to be Twistleton,’ said Sir Aylmer, allowing his moustache to subside like an angry sea after a storm. ‘Carry on, Potter.’
Constable Potter, who had momentarily removed the glazed look from his eyes, put it back again. Raising his chin, which he had lowered in order to rest the neck muscles, he once more addressed the bodiless spirit.
‘Having taken the man’s statement, I proceeded to put searching questions to him. These appearing to establish his bona fides, I withdrew, leaving him in the company of Bean, a housemaid, whose evidence had assisted me in establishing the conclusion that his bona fides had been’ — Constable Potter paused, searching for the telling verb —‘established,’ he said. ‘But —‘
‘Here comes the sequel.’
‘But I was not wholly satisfied, and I’ll tell you why,’ said Constable Potter, suddenly abandoning the official manner and becoming chatty. ‘The moment I saw this chap, I had a sort of feeling that his face was kind of familiar, but I couldn’t place him. You know how it is. And, what’s more, I could have taken my oath that last time we’d met his name hadn’t been Twistleton —‘
‘Or anything like it,’ said Sir Aylmer, adroitly snatching the conversational ball from the speaker and proceeding to carry it himself. ‘I must start by telling you…. ARE YOU ASLEEP, EMILY?’
‘No, dear. No, dear,’ cried Lady Bostock, who had been rash enough to close her eyes for an instant in order to relieve a shooting pain across the forehead.
‘I must start by telling you that before Potter came to Ashenden Oakshott he used to be a member of the London police force, and this afternoon, as he was smoking a pipe after his lunch —‘
‘Cigarette, sir,’ interpolated the officer respectfully. He knew the importance of exactitude on these occasions. ‘A gasper.’
‘— It suddenly flashed on him,’ went on Sir Aylmer, having given him a dangerous look, ‘that where he had seen this fellow before was at some Dog Races down Shepherd’s Bush way, when he had arrested him, together with an accomplice, and hauled him off in custody.’
‘Aylmer!’
‘You may well say “Aylmer!” It seems that Potter keeps a scrap album containing newspaper clippings having to do with cases with which he has been connected, and he looked up this scrap album and found that the chap’s name, so far from being Twistleton, is Edwin Smith, of 11 Nasturtium Road, East Dulwich. Edwin Smith,’ repeated Sir Aylmer, somehow contriving by his intonation to make it seem a name to shudder at. ‘Now do you believe me when I say he’s an impostor?’
Women, having no moustaches, are handicapped at moments like this. Lady Bostock had begun to pant like a spent horse, but it was not the same thing. She could not hope to rival her husband’s impressiveness.
‘But what is he doing here?’
‘Potter’s view is that he is the advance man of a gang of burglars. I think he’s right. These fellows always try to simplify matters for themselves by insinuating an accomplice into the house to pave the way for them. When the time is ripe, the bounder opens a window and the other bounders creep in. And if you want to know what this gang is after at Ashenden Manor, it sticks out a mile. My collection of African curios. Where did Potter find this chap? In my collection room. Where did I find him? Again in my collection room. My collection fascinates him. He can’t keep away from it. You agree, Potter?’
Constable Potter, though not too well pleased at the way in which he had been degraded from the position of star witness to that of a mere Yes-man, was forced to admit that he agreed.
Lady Bostock was still panting softly.
‘But it seems so extraordinary.’ ‘Why? Its value is enormous.’
‘I mean, that he should take such a risk.’
‘These fellows are used to taking risks. Eh, Potter?’ ‘Yes, sir.’
‘Doing it all the time, aren’t they?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Dangerous devils, what?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Constable Potter, now apparently resigned to his demotion.
‘But he must have known that Reginald was expected here. How could he tell that he was not going to run into him?’
‘My dear Emily, don’t be childish. The gang’s first step would, of course, be to make away. with Reginald.’
‘Make away with him? How?’
‘Good Lord, how do chaps make away with chaps? Don’t you ever read detective stories?’
Constable Potter saw his chance, and took it.
‘They telephone ‘em, m’lady, telling them to come to mined mills, and then lock ‘em up in the cellar. Or they —‘
‘— Slip drugs in their drink and carry them off on yachts,’ said Sir Aylmer, once more seizing the ball. ‘There are a hundred methods. If we looked into it, I expect we should find that the real Reginald is at this moment lying bound and gagged on a pallet bed in Limehouse. Eh, Potter?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Or in the hold of a tramp steamer bound for South America?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I shouldn’t wonder if they weren’t sticking lighted matches between his toes to make him write them cheques,’ said Sir Aylmer dispassionately. ‘Well, all right, Potter, that’s all. We won’t keep you. Would you like a glass of beer?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Constable Potter, this time with real enthusiasm.
‘Go and get one in the kitchen. And
now,’ said Sir Aylmer, as the door closed, ‘to business.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘To confront this impostor and kick him out, of course.’
‘But, Aylmer.’
‘Now what?’
‘Suppose there is some mistake.’
‘How can there be any mistake?’
‘But suppose there is. Suppose this young man is really Reginald, and you turn him out of the house, we should never hear the last of it from Hermione.’
Something of the gallant fire which was animating him seemed to pass out of Sir Aylmer Bostock. He blinked, like some knight of King Arthur’s court, who, galloping to perform a deed of derring-do, has had the misfortune to collide with a tree. Though keeping up a brave front, he, like his wife, had always quelled before Hermione. Native chiefs, accustomed to leap like fawns at a waggle of his moustache, would have marvelled at this weakness in one who had always seemed to them impervious to human emotions, but it existed.
‘‘M, yes,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Yes, I see what you mean.’
‘She would be furious.’
‘That’s true.’
‘I really don’t know what to think myself,’ said Lady Bostock distractedly. ‘Potter’s story did seem very convincing, but it is just possible that he is mistaken in supposing that this man who has come here as Reginald is really Edwin Smith.’
‘I’d bet a million on it.’
‘Yes, dear, I know. And I must say I have noticed something curiously furtive about the young man, as if he had a guilty secret. But —‘
An idea occurred to Sir Aylmer.
‘Didn’t Hermione give some sort of description of this young poop of hers in that letter she wrote you saying she was engaged?’