'Could I have a swim before dinner?' he asked, and Gally said he could if he did not take too long over it.
'You'll find trunks, towels and what not in the bath house. My brother Clarence takes a dip every morning, but whether from motives of health or in order to dilute the scent of the pig sty is not known. I shall be in the hammock on the front lawn when you want me.'
He strolled off—slim, distinguished, wearing eyeglass, as the hat check girl at Oddenino's would have said, and a few minutes later John was in the water, revelling in its thereapeutic properties with a gusto which Lord Emsworth could not have surpassed when taking his morning dip, and Linda Gilpin, returning from her visit to the old school and hurrying to the lake for a quick bathe before dressing for dinner, saw him, stood transfixed, and blinked several times as if to assure herself that she had really seen what she thought she had seen. Then, coming to life, she shot off in the direction of the house. It was her intention to find Gally and take up with him the matter of John's arrival, for her woman's intuition told her that if barristers she particularly disliked wormed their way into Blandings Castle, it must be he who had engineered the outrage.
She boiled with justifiable fury, but she was resolved, when she saw Gally, to be very calm and cool and dignified, making it clear to him that though she had been surprised to see John Halliday, his presence at the castle was a thing of supreme indifference to her. To suppose that it mattered to her one way or another was absurd.
Such were her meditations. They were suddenly interrupted. Over lawn and pasture there came stealing a metallic but musical sound, soft in its early stages, then soaring to a majestic crescendo.
Beach was beating the dressing-for-dinner gong.
3
Beach replaced the gong stick with the quiet glow of satisfaction which this part of his duties always gave him. He loved to hear the music swell to the sound of a great Amen and die away in a pianissimo like the last distant murmur of a passing thunderstorm. It had taken him some years to bring his art to its present state of perfection. At the outset of his career he had been a mere crude banger, but today he was prepared to match his virtuosity against any butler in England. Gally, complimenting him once on a masterly performance, had ventured the opinion that it was the large dorsal muscles that did it. Beach himself attributed his success to wrist work and the follow through.
Usually when he had completed his task a restful silence ensued, but this evening the quiet of the hall was broken by a sudden clattering suggestive of coals being delivered down a coal chute. This was caused by Howard Chesney, who, hurrying from upper regions in quest of a mislaid cigarette case, had slipped and made a rapid descent of the last few stairs. He staggered across the floor, clutched at the table on which the papers and magazines were kept, seized it as he was about to fall and stood looking dazed but thankful that he had been spared a worse disaster.
He found Beach at his side. It was Beach's normal practice, when he encountered Howard Chesney, to freeze him with a glance and pass on his way, but Howard's unexpected impersonation of a Gadarene swine rounding into the straight seemed to call for verbal comment. With just the right touch of reserve in his manner, to make it clear that this momentary unbending must not be taken as implying any promise of future camaraderie, he said:
'I trust you have sustained no injury, sir.'
Howard had already assured himself of this by passing his hands rapidly over his person as policemen had sometimes done to him in his native land. Frisking himself, as one might say. Incredible as it would have seemed to him a moment ago, there appeared to be no broken bones.
'No, I'm okay,' he replied bravely. 'I managed to catch hold of the table. Those stairs are slippery.'
'Yes, sir.'
'Why do they keep them that way?'
'I could not say, sir. I was not consulted in the matter,' said Beach austerely. He was willing to sympathize, but not to chat. He made a stately exit, and Howard Chesney after a brief search found his cigarette case. As he did so, Linda came hurrying in from outside. He would gladly have engaged her in conversation, for it was always his policy to talk as much as possible to girls with blue eyes, chestnut hair and graceful figures, but she flitted by and he was obliged to do the next best thing and light a cigarette. He was crushing this out in an ashtray, when Vanessa came down the stairs.
'Hi there, Mr. Chesney,' she said. 'Just the man I wanted to see.'
Vanessa, it will be recalled, had resolved to devote her time to a study in depth of Howard Chesney, with a view to ascertaining whether his moral code was as low as a first glance had told her it was. 'I'm pretty sure he's a crook,' she had said to Wilbur Trout, 'but I'll have to be certain before I start anything.' She had now satisfied herself that it was even lower, and it was with bright confidence that she was now planning to enlist his services.
'Have you seen Wilbur Trout?' she asked, and as she spoke Wilbur appeared from the direction of the billiard room, where he had been practising solitary cannons. 'Oh, there you are,' she said. 'I hoped you would be along. We're going to have a board meeting.'
'A what?'
It was Wilbur who said this. He was staring at her and thinking how particularly attractive she looked. Vanessa liked to dress for dinner in good time, and when she dressed for dinner she always presented a spectacle that took the eye.
'A spot of plotting I should have said, but board meeting sounds better. Come over here where we shan't be heard.'
She led the way to a corner of the hall the only occupant of which was a suit of armour. Thinking it improbable that anyone would be lurking inside this, she resumed.
'It's about that picture, Willie. I've got an idea that looks good. Simple, too. It's always best to keep things simple if you can,' she said, and Wilbur agreed with her. Get too clever, he said, and you were sunk. This had been borne in upon him, he said, when thinking up stories to tell his wives.
'But as Mr. Chesney comes into it,' said Vanessa, 'the first thing to do is to sound him on how he feels about doing a little lawbreaking with no risks attached. Have you any prejudices in that direction, Mr. Chesney?'
Howard Chesney was a cautious man.
'Well, that depends,' he said.
'With no risks attached, I repeat.'
'Well—'
'In that case—'
'Yes, in that case I might sit in. But I'd like to know what the game is.'
'You shall. You've seen that picture that's up in the portrait gallery, the one the Duke brought with him. Willie wants it the worst way, never mind why, and I've contracted to get it for him. Can we count on your assistance?'
'I don't know why not.'
'Bravely spoken.'
'What do I do?'
'Your first move will be to leave.'
'Leave the castle?'
'That's right. You've got your car here, haven't you?'
'Yes.'
'Then off you go.'
'I don't get it.'
'It'll become plainer as I proceed.'
'Why do I have to leave ?'
'So that you won't be a suspect. When the thing's found missing, nobody can say you took it, because you'll have been gone a couple of days.'
'But if I'm not here—'
'How do you do your bit? That's all arranged for. You leave, but you come back and lurk, and you keep on lurking till zero hour, which will be when Willie and I do our stuff. We go to the portrait gallery, you'll be lurking under the window. We lower the picture down to you on a string, and you drive off to London with it. Next morning there'll be a lot of fuss, with everybody running around in circles and yelling Who-dun-it, but where's it going to get them? The Duke'll think it must have been Willie and he'll go through his room with a fine-tooth comb, but there won't be a scrap of evidence and they'll have to settle for burglars. Willie will come out of it without a stain on his character. Then, when the heat's off, he meets you in London, you hand the thing over to him, and there's your happy ending.'
She paused w
ith the air of one waiting for a round of applause. She got it from Wilbur Trout.
'Swell! What a brain!'
'Nice of you to say so.'
'You know, none of my wives had brains.'
'They hadn't?'
'Looks, yes, but not brains. You're a wonder.'
'Thank you, Willie.'
There was a momentary silence, occupied by Wilbur apparently in turning the thing over in his mind.
'The Duke'll be sore.'
'I shouldn't wonder. Still, into each life some rain must fall. And he deserves it for chiselling you out of the picture the way he did. I'll tell you about that some time, Chesney, and you'll agree that he had it coming to him.'
The voice of conscience seemed still to be whispering in Wilbur's ear. A thought occurred to him.
'I'll send him a cheque for what he paid for the thing.'
'Thus giving yourself away completely. You might as well mail him a written confession.'
'I'd send it anonymously, of course.'
'An anonymous cheque?'
Wilbur said he had not thought of that.
'It'll have to be cash,' he conceded, and Vanessa shrugged her shoulders.
'I wouldn't if it was me,' she said, 'but if that's the way you want it go ahead.'
The board meeting was over. Wilbur went off to dress. His stay at the castle had been of sufficient duration to give him a pronounced awe of his hostess, and he had no wish to incur her displeasure by being late for dinner. Howard Chesney, who feared only Beach and moreover prided himself on being able to array himself in what he called the soup and fish in ten minutes, remained. An item that should have been on the agenda paper was in his mind, and he was anxious to bring it to the attention of the board's chairwoman.
'About terms,' he said. 'You didn't mention terms.'
Vanessa was surprised. This struck her as rather sordid.
'Terms? I'm doing this to oblige an old friend.'
'Well, I'm not doing it to oblige any old friend. What's there in it for me?'
Vanessa saw his point. The labourer is proverbially worthy of his hire, and it was plain that this labourer intended to get it. And his labour was essential to her scheme. She wasted no time in fruitless argument.
'Yes,' she said. 'I suppose you want your cut.'
He assured her that she was not mistaken.
'Well, Willie's very generous. You won't have anything to complain about with him. He scatters gold with a lavish hand. About how much gold had you in mind?'
'A thousand bucks.'
'You certainly think big.'
'That's my figure.'
'You couldn't shade it?'
'No.'
'All right. I'll take it up with Willie.'
'You do that.'
'Though I still think . . .'
She broke off. Gally and John were coming through the hall. She eyed the latter with interest.
'Hello, who's that? Beach, who would the gentleman be who came through a moment ago with Mr. Threepwood?'
Beach, who had entered and was about to place a tray of cocktail glasses on their table, turned courteously.
'A youngish gentleman, madam?'
'And tallish.'
'That is a Mr. Halliday, madam. He arrived this afternoon.'
Beach completed his task, and withdrew, and Vanessa, turning to Howard Chesney, was surprised to see that he was exhibiting all the indications of having received a shock.
'Something the matter?' she asked, noting his fallen jaw and the glassy stare in his eyes.
Howard Chesney writhed in silence for a moment. When speech came to him, it was bitter. He was patently a man with a grievance.
'If this isn't just my luck! Lawyers crawling all over London, thousands of them, and the one that comes here has to be him. Can you beat it?'
'You know him?'
'Do I know him! Say, listen. The last time I was over on this side a job went wrong and I did a stretch in the coop. And that guy Halliday was the attorney who defended me.'
4
Vanessa was a girl of cool nerve, but even girls of cool nerve can be shaken.
'What!' she cried.
'That's who he is.'
'Are you sure?'
'Sure I'm sure. And if you're going to say Will he remember me, you bet he'll remember me. It isn't so long ago, and he saw plenty of me. So where do we go from here?'
It was a good question, and Vanessa found herself at a loss to think of an answer. An intelligent girl, she could see that this unfortunate reunion had dealt a mortal blow to the plan of campaign of which she was so proud. The situation was undeniably one that called for thought, and her brain became active.
'Look,' she said. 'This wants talking over, and we can't do it here, because he'll be coming down in a minute. We'll go to the portrait gallery. There won't be anyone there.'
Howard Chesney said that what he was thinking of doing was sneaking out the back way and getting into his car and driving off without saying goodbye or thanking anyone for a delightful visit, a plan of action rendered additionally attractive because he would not have to tip the butler. Vanessa found it hard to dissuade him from this course, but she managed it at last, and it was to the portrait gallery that they went. And such was the vigour with which she had stimulated her always serviceable brain that by the time they arrived there she was able to announce that she had solved the problem.
'I've got it,' she said. 'What you do is stay in your room and not come down to dinner. I'll tell them you're not feeling well. And tomorrow—'
'Yes, how about tomorrow? I'll meet him then, won't I? And he'll spill the beans, won't he? And the old girl will throw me out on my ear, won't she?'
'If you'll just listen. Tomorrow you leave before breakfast.'
'How do you explain me doing that?'
'You had an early phone call from your lawyer saying it was absolutely vital that you came to London for a conference.'
'You think they'll believe that?'
'Why wouldn't they?'
'Who took the call?'
'I did. I was up early.'
'It sounds thin to me.'
'Well, it's the best we can do.'
'I guess it is, at that. Then what?'
'You go and stay a couple of nights at the Emsworth Arms in Market Blandings.'
Howard showed no enthusiasm for the suggestion. He was a man who liked his creature comforts.
'The beds there are the limit. I was talking to a fellow in the bar yesterday, and he said they were stuffed with rocks.'
'Well, go to London if you like, but leave me your phone number, so that I can tell you which night you're to be under that window. We can't get the picture away without you.'
Howard looked at the reclining nude with something of the lack of appreciation shown by Lady Constance on her introduction to it.
'Why does Trout want the thing so bad?'
'She's like his last wife.'
'She looks to me like a pig.'
'So she does to Lord Emsworth. But it doesn't matter if you don't think she's a Miss America. All you have to do is be under the window and earn your thousand dollars. Is it a deal?'
When she put it that way, Howard said it decidedly was.
'Then that's settled,' said Vanessa briskly. 'And you'd best be getting to your room and into bed as quick as you can, because I'm going to tell them to send you up a tray, and it would look funny if you weren't there.'
Howard weighed the advice, and found it good. Soon after she had left he started to follow it. He went to the door, opened it, and immediately closed it again.
The man Halliday was coming along the corridor. He was accompanied by the Duke. Howard got the door shut just in time.
CHAPTER NINE
John, dressing in the room allotted to him on the second floor, was feeling extraordinarily fit. His swim had invigorated him, and unlike Lord Emsworth, reluctantly donning the soup and fish further along the corridor, he enjoyed dressing fo
r dinner. Physically he could not have been in better shape; nor, he assured himself, was there anything wrong with his mental condition. He would have denied it warmly if anyone had told him he was at all nervous.
Thoughtful, yes. Meditative, certainly. But not nervous. Naturally there was bound to be a certain embarrassment when he and Linda met, but he was confident that the clarity with which he pleaded his case would soon overcome what Gally had called her sales resistance. Linda was a sensible girl. Quite understandably she had been a little annoyed by what had taken place in court when Clutterbuck and Frisby were fighting their legal battle, but now that she had had time to think it over she could hardly fail to see the thing in the right light. He would explain in simple language how he had been placed, love urging him one way, duty another, and she would applaud his integrity, realizing that any girl who got a husband with such high ethical standards was in luck. It would probably end with them having a good laugh together over the whole amusing affair.
It would be ridiculous to describe him as nervous.
Nevertheless, when the door suddenly flew open without warning, he leaped several inches in the direction of the ceiling with a distinct impression that his heart had crashed against his front teeth, nearly dislodging them from their base. Returning to earth, he saw that he had a visitor. A large stout densely moustached man with popping eyes had entered and was scrutinizing him intently, seeming particularly interested in the shirt which he had just pulled over his head. The Duke of Dunstable's inquisitiveness did not confine itself to Lady Constance's correspondence, he could also be intrigued by other people's dress shirts.
'Where you get that?' he enquired.
'I beg your pardon?'
'This,' said the Duke, prodding with a large forefinger, and John replied civilly that he had obtained it at the emporium of Blake and Allsop in the Haymarket; whereupon the Duke, shaking his head reproachfully like one mourning the follies of youth said he ought to have gone to Gooch and Gordon in Regent Street. Better material and cheaper. He, too, he said, had once patronized Blake and Allsop, but had found them too expensive. He advised John to see the error of his ways and go to Gooch and Gordon in future.