Jerry added his weight to the Chippendale cause.
‘I think you’d better, Uncle Crispin.’
‘You bet he’d better.’
‘You might win the toss.’
‘Of course he might.’
‘And even if you don’t win, what’s there to worry about? The thing’ll only take you a minute. Just one good shove.’
‘Easy as dipping a bit of bread into your gravy.
‘And if he catches you, you can say you were merely giving him a friendly pat on the back and your hand slipped.’
To say that these arguments, sound though they were, convinced Crispin would be an exaggeration. He continued to feel as if he were playing a stellar role in a particularly unpleasant nightmare. But Chippendale’s frank statement of what he intended to do if his wishes were not respected carried more weight than the natural reluctance to treat an officer of the law as a bit of bread.
‘Very well,’ he said in a low, husky voice.
‘That’s the spirit,’ said Jerry, and Chippendale, all sunshine again, agreed that that was the spirit.
‘Then away we go,’ he said. ‘I’ll flip, and you call.’
He flipped.
‘Heads,’ muttered Crispin.
‘And tails it is,’ said Chippendale.
‘Tough luck,’ said Jerry. ‘Well, I think what I had better do is nip up to London and acquaint Uncle Bill with the latest developments. He ought to find them not without a certain interest.’
He left with the object of looking up trains. Chippendale remained to give that word of advice which is so essential to a novice in the art of pushing policemen into brooks.
‘Did you ever read those stories about a Red Indian chief called Ching something?’ said Chippendale. ‘I forget his name, but the thing I remember about him is that he never let a twig snap beneath his feet, and that’s what I strongly advise you to do. Don’t go saying to yourself that anyone as fatheaded as Simms is bound to be hard of hearing, because I happen to know he’s not. Only the other day when he was throwing his weight about at the Goose and Gander I alluded to him, speaking to a friend in a quiet undertone, as an overbearing piece of cheese, and he overheard and made quite a thing of it. He’ll be right on the key veeve if you start snapping twigs, so watch your step. Chingachgook, that was the name of that Indian chief, though I admit it doesn’t seem likely. Well, I ask you. Imagine if you were having your baby christened at the church here and when the vicar said “Name this child” you said “Chingachgook”. He’d send for Constable Simms and have you run in for drunk and disorderly. And now we’ve got back to the subject of Simms, bear in mind that he tips the scale at about sixteen stone, so you’ll have to give him a good hard push. Get every ounce of weight and muscle into it.’
And with a cheery ‘Chingachgook’ Chippendale went on his way, leaving Crispin to his thoughts.
3
Barney, returning from tea at the vicarage, was not in her customary light-hearted mood. The vicar had done her well, denying her nothing in the way of buttered toast and cake, but in spite of this she could not help feeling depressed. She was thinking of G. G. F. West and his odd method of passing summer afternoons.
This was her first visit to England, and of course for all she knew it might be the normal practice of young Englishmen to hide in cupboards, possibly with the idea of jumping out and saying ‘Boo!’, but something seemed to tell her that this was an individual case and not just a sample of what was going on all the time all over the country. And this being so, it was difficult not to question Jerry’s sanity. All the evidence appeared to point to his being as nutty as a fruit cake, which saddened her a good deal, for in the brief period in which they had been acquainted she had come to regard him with no little affection. A charming young man, she had told herself. A thousand pities that he should have this one weakness.
The more charitable theory that his activities might be a form of English humour had just presented itself, when her thoughts were diverted by the sight of Crispin. He came out of the house and started to walk in the direction of the lake. She hailed him, and he turned, and as he drew near the look on his face brought all the maternal instinct in her to life. It was the face of a man so weighed down with weight of woe that one wondered how he could navigate. His aspect reminded her of her husband on mornings of bygone January the firsts, when the late Mr Clayborne owing to his habit of seeing the new year in had never been at his most robust.
‘Crips!’ she cried. ‘Heavens to Betsy! You look like one of those bodies-which-have-been-in-the-water-several-days.’
And indeed there was a certain resemblance between Crispin and such a cadaver, for the passage of time had done nothing to diminish the horror of the task that lay before him. He was also experiencing pangs of remorse for the past. ‘Oh, what a tangled web we weave,’ he was saying to himself, ‘when we touch a brother for two hundred and three pounds six and fourpence and then go and lose a hundred of it on a horse that comes in second.’ Half the misery in life, he was thinking, is caused by horses that come in second; the other half by calling Heads when you might have known it was going to come down Tails.
A man cannot muse along these lines for any length of time without it showing in his appearance. All the concern which Barney had been feeling for an eccentric G. G. F. West was transferred to this new claimant for her commiseration. Nor is this to be wondered at. G. G. F. West was after all a mere acquaintance, but Crispin Scrope had become very dear to her. And he was so helpless, so vulnerable, so essentially the sort of man who without a woman’s hand to guide him must inevitably trip over his feet and plunge into one of life’s numerous morasses. Her heart ached for him.
‘What is it, Crips? What’s biting you?’
It was not an easy query for Crispin to answer. He was, as has been shown, far from being an intelligent man, but he was intelligent enough to realize that it would be injudicious to make any reference to the miniature. And yet everything urged him to confide in this angel of sympathy. He wanted to cleanse his stuffed bosom of the perilous stuff that weighs upon the heart, as Shakespeare would have put it.
A moment later he had seen the way. It involved falsifying the facts, but there are times when facts have to be falsified. Diplomats are doing it every day without losing their sleep. He decided to tell all — or a slightly edited version of all.
‘It’s Chippendale,’ he said. ‘He’s blackmailing me.’
‘Speak more clearly, Crips. It sounded just as if you were saying Chippendale was blackmailing you.’
‘I did.’
‘For heaven’s sake! You been going in for crime of some sort?’
‘No, no, of course not. But he says if I don’t do what he wants, he’ll tell the paying guests that he’s a broker’s man. That would be bad?’
‘Fatal. They’d all leave.’
‘I thought you didn’t like the paying guests.’
‘I need their money.’
‘Is that what Chippendale is after, money?’
‘No, he wants me to push Constable Simms into the brook.’
A frown marred the smoothness of Barney’s brow. Unlike Vera Upshaw, she never worried about getting wrinkles. When she suspected that she was being trifled with, she let nature take its course.
‘Are you pulling my leg, Crips?’ she said severely.
‘No, no.’
‘It sounds like it. Pushing Constable Simms into the brook, it doesn’t make sense. Where’s the percentage for Chippendale in that?’
Having successfully passed the point in his narrative where invention had had to take the place of truth, Crispin was now able to become fluent. In a shaking voice but with no pauses or hesitations he reminded her of the bad feeling which existed between Constable Simms and Chippendale, of the latter’s expressed desire to make the former wish he had never been born, and of the difficulty a man weighing a hundred and twenty pounds always has in getting one weighing two hundred and ten into this frame of
mind. He went on to emphasize the trouble the constable had with his feet and his habit of cooling them off in the waters of the brook.
‘He sits on the bank and dabbles them, so it would be easy to push him in.’
‘Easy as pie.’
‘Only—’
‘Only you have qualms about doing it.’
Crispin said that that was just it, and Barney said she quite understood.
‘Doesn’t do for a man in your position, that sort of thing. Didn’t you tell me you were a judge or a magistrate or something?’
‘I am a justice of the peace.
That makes it awkward. If he catches you, you’ll come up before yourself and have to send yourself to the cooler for ninety days, coupled with some strong remarks from the bench. H’m. Not so good. But I see a way out.’
‘You do?’
‘Sure. I’ll take on the job. Much better that way. Much more likely to get results. You’re kind of frail, you mightn’t push hard enough, but I’m the muscular type and if I lean on someone who’s sitting on a bank and dabbling his feet in a brook, he goes into that brook special delivery. I’m glad that’s settled. Takes a weight off your mind, I shouldn’t wonder.’
And as she spoke these words love came to Crispin Scrope. It had come to him twice before in his earlier days and had flickered out, which was what had led to his two breach of promise cases, but this time he knew that it had come to stay.
4
Finding as the result of his researches in the Railway Guide that the last train to London had left ‘some twenty minutes previously and was now well out of reach, Jerry returned to the library, feeling that with the girl he loved away he might as well be there as anywhere.
His mood was buoyant. Any doubts he may have had that he would soon be getting his money and so would be in a position to combine a proposal of marriage with self-respect had vanished. He had no high opinion of his Uncle Crispin’s executive abilities, but surely even he was capable of pushing a policeman into a brook. And the policeman once pushed, the last obstacle to the happy ending would be removed.
These reflections, assisted by one of Crispin’s excellent cigars, had the effect of inducing in him a sort of soppy benevolence towards the whole human race. When the door opened and Homer Pyle entered, he welcomed him with a bright smile. His acquaintance with him had been limited to a few exchanges on the subject of the weather, but he was a member of the human race and as such entitled to be smiled brightly at. In his present euphoric frame of mind he would have smiled brightly at Chippendale.
Knowing how interested Homer was in the weather, he made it the subject of his opening remark.
‘Oh, hullo,’ he said. ‘Nice afternoon.’
‘Yes,’ said Homer.
The sunshine. Good for the crops.’
‘Yes,’ said Homer.
‘Going to hold up, apparently. They tell me there is a ridge of high pressure extending over the greater part of the United Kingdom south of the Shetland Isles. Sounds promising.’
‘Yes,’ said Homer. ‘I am looking for Mr Scrope.’
‘He went out for a stroll. He should be back soon. Was it something important?’
‘Very. There is a mouse in my bedroom. I want to draw it to his attention.’
Jerry was conscious of a feeling of pity for his Uncle Crispin. The paying guests, he supposed, were always coming to him and beefing about something. If it wasn’t mice, it was dripping taps, and if it wasn’t dripping taps, it was funny smells. Very wearing. No wonder the poor blighter had that careworn look.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘No joke having a mouse in your bedroom.’
‘It makes a scratching noise.
‘I’ll bet it does. And you never know it won’t go further and bite your toes. ‘Well, I’ll mention it to my uncle if I see him before you do, and I’m sure he’ll lay on a cat.’
‘If you will. Thank you.’
‘Not at all.’
Homer withdrew, and Jerry was glad to see him go. At any other time he would have welcomed his company, for he was sure that, if drawn out, he would have a lot more interesting stuff to say about mice and bedrooms, a subject on which so far he had merely touched, but he wanted to be alone, to think of Jane.
He rose and began to pace the floor. This took him to the window, and he stood there looking out.
He was thus in a position to see the car which had just driven up to the front door. It was an expensive-looking car. One got the impression that it must belong to somebody who had no need to watch the pennies.
And so it did. The expensive-looking chauffeur alighted and opened the door, and Willoughby Scrope stepped out.
5
Jerry gave him a welcoming ‘Hi!’, adding perhaps unnecessarily ‘I’m up here.’ He was glad to see his Uncle Bill, for his advent had saved him a tedious journey to London. No need now to go to Chelsea Square and make his report. It could be done more comfortably on the premises of Mellingham Hall over a cigar and a drink. He pressed the bell for Chippendale, who entered just as Willoughby was settling himself in an arm chair.
‘Want something, mate?’ said Chippendale.
‘Scotch and soda,’ said Jerry, knowing his uncle’s tastes, and Chippendale in his affable way said, ‘Scotch and soda, mate. Coming right up,’ and withdrew. Willoughby followed him with an enquiring eye.
‘Who’s that?’
‘Chippendale, Uncle Crispin’s butler.’
‘He doesn’t look like a butler to me.
‘I said in my letter, if you remember, that he was a bit unusual.’
‘Where on earth did Crispin dig him up?’
‘I couldn’t tell you.’
‘He looks like a consumptive hen.’
There is a certain resemblance.’
‘Does he always call you mate?’
‘Not invariably. Sometimes chum or pal or cocky.’
‘If he addresses me like that I’ll punch him in the eye.’
‘I’ve often felt like doing it myself. But you’ve got to bear in mind one thing about Chippendale. He has a great brain. He thinks quick. Without him we should never have got your Girl in Blue back. Ah,’ said Jerry, as the man they were discussing entered bearing a loaded tray. ‘Put it down on that little table. Thank you, Chippendale.’
The pleasure is mine, cocky,’ said Chippendale courteously. ‘You’ll like this whisky, chum,’ he added to ‘Willoughby. ‘It’s good stuff. Not a headache in a hog’s head.’
He withdrew again, pleased to have been of service, and Willoughby, though he had been addressed as chum, showed no disposition to speed him on his way with a punch in the eye. He was leaning forward in his chair, the whisky and soda temporarily forgotten, registering joy so competently that any motion-picture magnate who had seen him would have signed him up on a long contract without hesitation.
‘What did you say?’ he gurgled. ‘You’ve got it back?’
‘All but.’
The reply appeared to displease Willoughby. He registered bewilderment and impatience.
‘What the devil do you mean all but? Where is it?’
‘Chippendale has it.’
‘Chippendale? Why Chippendale?’
‘It’s rather a long story. Complex, too. I’d better tell it you from the beginning. You’ll understand as the plot unfolds.’
Watching Willoughby’s face as the plot did this, the motion-picture magnate would have found his favourable opinion confirmed, for Willoughby, who had depicted joy, bewilderment and impatience so efficiently, now showed that he could do you horror, agony and dismay with equal facility.
‘You mean,’ he said, speaking hoarsely, like a Shakespearian actor with tonsillitis, ‘that everything depends on Crispin pushing this policeman into a brook? Crispin couldn’t push a Singer’s midget into a brook. I wouldn’t trust Crispin to squash a wasp with a teaspoon. Ring for this fellow Chippendale.’
‘You want to speak to him?’
‘I want to break
his spine in three places if he doesn’t hand over that miniature before I count ten.’
In Chippendale’s demeanour, as he answered the summons, a physiognomist would have noted a certain deviation from the normal. As a rule he looked like a Wyandotte or Plymouth Rock with nothing particular to occupy its mind. Now, surprisingly, he was registering joy as wholeheartedly as Willoughby had done in his pre-horror and agony phase. Plainly something had occurred to bring the sun smiling through.
Willoughby, in whom years of financial solidity had developed a tendency towards imperiousness, seldom concealed his emotions. Possessing stocks and bonds in large numbers at his bank and money rolling in all the time, he did not have to. When he felt annoyed, he showed that he was annoyed. His manner in addressing Chippendale was curt.
‘You!’
“Who me, cocky?’
‘Yes, you, blister your blasted kidneys. Where’s that miniature?’
‘What miniature?’
It occurred to Jerry that the situation would be greatly clarified if introductions were performed.
This is Mr Willoughby Scrope, Chippendale.’
‘Oh, that’s who you are,’ said Chippendale, relieved. ‘I was hesitating to speak freely in front of you, because how was I to know that you were a bloke I could speak freely, in front of? If you’re the fellow who’s the unseen mastermind behind our little group of workers, there’s no need to seal my lips. Has Mr ‘West been telling you of all that’s transpired?’
‘Yes. Where’s the miniature?’
‘I’ll be coming to that. Did he mention about the necessity arising for bunging the local police officer into the drink? ‘Well, you’ll be happy to hear that it’s been attended to. I was looking out of the window just now, and I saw him squelching along soaked to the eyebrows. Not a dry stitch on him. It reminded me of that song about singing in the rain, not that he was singing, far from it. I’ve never seen a wetter copper except the time when one was trying to pinch my uncle Reggie for street betting and my aunt Myrtle threw a pail of soapy water over him, a wifely act for which she subsequently did thirty days without the option of a fine. So the thing that’s been holding us up has been disposed of, and nothing stands in the way of me delivering the goods, which I shall be glad to do as soon as I can get to my room. The you-know-what is in the chest of drawers there, concealed beneath my socks and summer underwear. I’ll go and get it.’