Reaching the waterfront with something of the emotions of Xenophon's Ten Thousand when they won through to the sea, he was disconcerted to find that Mr Saxby was not awaiting him. Nor was there any boat. He saw what the poet Tennyson has described as the shining levels of the lake, but could detect nothing that would enable him to navigate them. And the hissing sound which he had wrongly attributed to his blood pressure was coming nearer all the time. The swan was not one of those swans that abandon a battle half fought. When it set its hand to the plough, it did not readily sheathe the sword. Casting a hasty glance behind him, Sir Raymond could see it arriving like a United States Marine.
It was a time for quick thinking, and he thought quickly. A split second later he was in the water, swimming strongly for the shore.
At the moment when he was making this dash for life, his sister Phoebe was up in her bedroom, trying her hair a new way.
It has so often been the chronicler's melancholy task to introduce this woman into his narrative in a state of agitation and tears that he finds it pleasant now to be able to show her gay and happy. Not even Sherlock Holmes, seeing her as she stood at her mirror, would have been able to deduce that she had been up all night with a sick cocker spaniel. Her eye was bright, her manner bumps-a-daisy She was humming a light air.
Nor is this to be wondered at. Lord Ickenham's sensational revelation of the fire that burned in the bosom of Albert Pease-march would alone have been enough to lift her to the heights, and on top of that had come his comforting assurance that her brother Raymond was not, as she had supposed, a candidate for the ministrations of Sir Roderick Glossop. Nothing, except possibly the discovery that the ground on which she treads is worshipped by a butler for whom she has long entertained feelings deeper and warmer than those of ordinary friendship, can raise a woman's spirits more than the knowledge that the brother who is the apple of her eye is, in spite of appearances, in full possession of his marbles. One can understand Phoebe Wisdom humming light airs. A weaker woman would have sung.
The mirror was in the window that looked over the lake and, glancing past it as she turned to examine the new hair-do in profile, she found her eye attracted to something singular that was going on in the water. A seal was there, swimming strongly for the shore, and this surprised her, for she had not supposed that there would be seals in an inland lake.
Nor were there. As she watched the creature emerge at journey's end, she saw that she had formed a wrong impression of its species. It was, as Mr Saxby would have said, not so much a seal as her brother Raymond. He was dressed, as always in the country, in a sports coat, grey flannel trousers and a coloured shirt.
She stared, aghast. Her old fears had swept back over her. Do men who have got all their marbles go swimming in lakes with their clothes on? Very seldom, Phoebe felt, and feared the worst.
CHAPTER 18
At the hour of eight forty-five that night Lord Ickenham might have been observed – and was observed by Rupert Morrison, the landlord, licensed to sell ales, wines and spirits, who was polishing glasses behind the counter – sitting in the saloon bar of the village inn, the Beetle and Wedge, with a tankard of home-brew, watching television. Except for an occasional lecture by the vicar on his holiday in the Holy Land, illustrated with lantern slides, there was not a great deal of night life in Dovetail Hammer. The Beetle and Wedge's television set afforded the local pleasure-seekers about their only means of hitting the high spots after sundown.
The statement that Lord Ickenham was watching television is perhaps one calculated to mislead. His eyes, it is true, were directed at the screen, but what was going on there, apparently in a heavy snowstorm, made no impression on his mind. His thoughts were elsewhere. He was reviewing the current crisis in his affairs and turning stones and exploring avenues with a view to deciding how to act for the best.
Although it was his boast that the Ickenhams were not easily baffled, he could not conceal it from himself that the dislocation of his plans by the recent swan had left him in no slight quandary. With a bird as quick on the draw as that doing sentry-go there, burying the letter on the island in the lake was obviously not within the sphere of practical politics, and with two Carlisles and a Cosmo Wisdom prowling and prowling around in the manner popularized by the troops of Midian, any alternative place for its bestowal would have to be a very safe one. It is proof of the knottiness of the problem with which he was wrestling that in a moment of weakness he actually considered doing what he had tried to persuade the sceptical Carlisles that he had done and depositing the document with his bank.
A good deal shocked that he should even for an instant have contemplated a policy so tame and unworthy of an Ickenham, he turned his attention to the television screen. It might, he felt, enable him to come back to the thing with a fresh mind if he gave that mind a temporary rest.
They were doing one of those spy pictures tonight, a repeat performance, and he was interested to observe that by an odd coincidence the hero of it was in precisely the same dilemma as himself. Circumstances had placed this hero – D'Arcy Standish of the Foreign Office – in possession of papers which, if they fell into the hands of an unfriendly power, would make a third world war inevitable, and he was at the moment absolutely dashed if he could think how to hide them from the international spies who were surging around him, all right on their toes and up-and-coming. It was with a sympathetic eye that Lord Ickenham watched D'Arcy running about in circles and behaving generally like a cat on hot bricks. He knew just how the poor chap felt.
And then suddenly he started, violently, as if he had seen a swan entering the saloon bar, and sat up with a jerk, the homebrew trembling in his grasp.
'Egad!' he said.
'M'lord?' said Rupert Morrison.
'Nothing, my dear fellow,' said Lord Ickenham. 'Just Egad.'
As the saloon bar was open for saying Egad in at that hour, Mr Morrison made no further comment. He jerked a thumb at the screen.
'See what he's done?' he said, alluding to D'Arcy Standish. 'He wants to keep those papers safe from all those spies, so he's given 'em to his butler to take care of
Lord Ickenham said Yes, he had noticed.
'I call that clever.'
'Very clever.'
'Never occurs to 'em that the butler could have 'em,' proceeded Mr Morrison, who had seen the drama the previous week, 'so they keep after the fellow same as before. Thinking he's got 'em. See? But he hasn't. See?'
Lord Ickenham said he saw.
'They burgle his house and trap him in a ruined mill and chase him through the sewers,' Mr Morrison continued, giving the whole plot away, 'and all the time he hasn't got the papers, the butler's got 'em. Made me laugh, that did.'
'I'm not surprised. Have you a telephone here? I wonder if I might use it for a moment,' said Lord Ickenham.
Some minutes later, a fruity voice caressed his ear. Albert Peasemarch's mentor, Coggs, had advised making the telephone-answering voice as fruity as possible in the tradition of the great butlers of the past.
'Sir Raymond Bastable's residence. Sir Raymond's butler speaking.'
'Not the Albert Peasemarch there has been so much talk about?'
'Oh, good evening, Mr I. Do you wish to speak to Sir Raymond?'
'No, Bert, I wish to speak to you. I'm at the pub. Can you come here without delay?'
'Certainly, Mr I.'
'Fly like a youthful hart or roe over the hills where spices grow,' said Lord Ickenham, and presently the Beetle and Wedge's picturesque saloon bar was made additionally glamorous by the presence of Albert Peasemarch and his bowler hat. ('Always wear a bowler, chum. It's expected of you' – Coggs.)
'Bert,' said Lord Ickenham, when Rupert Morrison had supplied the ales he was licensed to sell and had withdrawn once more into the background, 'I hated to have to disturb your after-dinner sleep, but I need you in my business. You are probably familiar with the expression "Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party." Well, this i
s where you do it. Let me start the conversational ball rolling by asking you a question. Do you take an active interest in world politics?'
Albert Peasemarch considered this.
'Not very active, Mr I. What with cleaning the silver and brushing the dog—'
'I know, I know. Your time is so full. Let me put it another way. You realize that there are such things as world politics and that a certain section of the community has the job of looking after them?'
'Oh, yes, Mr I. Diplomats they call them.'
'Diplomats is right. Well – can we be overheard?'
'Not unless someone's listening.'
'I'll whisper.'
'I'm a little deaf in the right ear.'
'Then I'll whisper into your left ear. Well, as I was about to say, the thing to bear in mind is that these diplomats can't get anywhere without papers. No, no,' said Lord Ickenham, as his old friend mentioned that he always read the Daily Mirror at breakfast, 'I don't mean that sort of paper, I mean documents. A diplomat without documents is licked from the start. He might just as well turn it up and go back to his crossword puzzle. And you know what I mean when I say documents.'
'Secret documents?'
'Exactly. You follow me like a bloodhound. A diplomat must have secret documents, and he gives these secret documents to trusted underlings to take care of, warning them on no account to let any international spies get their hooks on them. "Watch out for those international spies!" is the cry in what are called the chancelleries.'
This seemed reasonable to Albert Peasemarch.
'You mean if these spies got them, they would start creating?'
'Precisely. Throwing their weight about like nobody's business and making a third world war inevitable.'
'Coo! That would never do, would it?'
'I can imagine nothing more disagreeable. Remember those chilly nights in the Home Guard? I haven't been really warm since. You wouldn't want to go through all that again, would you?'
'I certainly wouldn't.'
'Nor I. Not even for the sake of hearing you sing Drake's Drum round the camp fire. Another beer, Bert?'
'Thank you, Mr I. Though I really shouldn't. I have to watch my figure.'
'If the document now in my possession falls into the hands of the gang that are after it, you won't have any figure to watch. It'll be distributed in little pieces over the countryside.'
To this Albert Peasemarch was prevented from replying immediately by the arrival of Mr Morrison, bringing up supplies. When the cup-bearer had retired and he was able to speak, he did so in the awed voice of a man who is wondering if he can believe his ears.
'What was that, Mr I? Did you say you had a document in your possession?'
'You bet I have, Bert. And it's a pippin.'
'But how—?'
'– did it come into my possession? Very simply. I'm not sure if I ever mentioned to you, when we were comrades of the Home Guard, that I was in the Secret Service. Did I?'
'Not that I can recall, Mr I.'
'Probably slipped my mind. Well, I am, and not long ago the head man sent for me. "Number X 3476," he said – the boys call me Number X 3476 – "you see this document. Top secret, if ever there was one. Guard it day and night," he said, "and don't let those bounders get a smell of it." He was referring, of course, to the international spies.'
Albert Peasemarch drank beer like a man in a trance, if men in trances do drink beer.
'Cor lumme, stone the crows!' he said.
'You may well say "Cor lumme, stone the crows!" In fact, if anything, "Cor lumme, stone the crows" rather understates it.'
Albert Peasemarch drank some more beer, like another man in another trance. His voice, when he spoke, showed how deeply he was intrigued. Like so many of those with whom Lord Ickenham conversed, he was finding new horizons opening before him.
'These spies, Mr I. Are there many of them?'
'More than you could shake a stick at. Professor Moriarty, Doctor Fu Manchu and The Ace of Spades, to name but three. And every one of them the sort of chap who would drop cobras down your chimney or lace your beer with little-known Asiatic poisons as soon as look at you. And the worst of it is that they have got on to it that this document is in my possession, and it is only a question of time before they start chivvying me through the sewers.'
'You won't like that.'
'Exactly the feeling I had. And so, Bert,' said Lord Ickenham, getting down to the res, 'I have decided that the only thing to do is to pass the document on to you and let you take care of it.'
Albert Peasemarch was aware of a curious gulping sound. It reminded him of something. Then he knew what it reminded him of, the preliminary gurglings of the dog Benjy before reacting to that dose of mustard and water. It was only after listening to this odd sound for a moment or two that he realized that it was he who was making it.
'You see the devilish cleverness of the idea, Bert. The blighters will be non-plussed. When they chivvy me through the sewers, they'll just be chasing rainbows.'
'But, Mr I!'
A look compounded of astonishment and incredulity came into Lord Ickenham's face. It was as though he had been a father disappointed in a loved son or an uncle in a loved nephew.
'Bert! Your manner is strange. Don't tell me you are faltering? Don't tell me you are jibbing at taking on this simple assignment? No, no,' said Lord Ickenham, his face clearing. 'I know you better than that. We old Home Guarders don't draw back when we are asked to serve the country we love, do we? This is for England's sake, Bert, and I need scarcely tell you that England expects that every man will do his duty.'
Albert Peasemarch, having gulped again, more like the dog Benjy than ever, raised a point of order.
'But I don't want to be chased through sewers, Mr I.'
'You won't be. I'll attend to the sewer sequence. How on earth are they to know that you have got the thing?'
'You don't think they'll find out?'
'Not a chance. They aren't clairvoyant.'
That a struggle was going on in Albert Peasemarch's soul was plainly to be seen by anyone watching his moonlike face. Lord Ickenham could detect it with the naked eye, and he waited anxiously for the referee's decision. It came after a long pause in four words, spoken in a low, husky voice, similar in its intonation to a voice from the tomb.
'Very well, Mr I.'
'You'll do it? Splendid. Capital. Excellent. I knew you wouldn't fail me. Well, it's no good me giving you the thing now, for the very walls have eyes, so I'll tell you how we'll work it. Where's your bedroom?'
'It's off my pantry.'
'On the ground floor. Couldn't be better. I'll be outside your window at midnight on the dot. I will imitate the cry of the white owl – the white owl, remember, not the brown – and the moment you hear me hooting, you slip out and the document changes hands. It will be in a plain manilla envelope, carefully sealed. Guard it with your life, Bert.'
Albert Peasemarch's manner betrayed a momentary uneasiness.
'How do you mean, my life?'
'Just an expression. Well, that cleans it up, I think, does it not? All you have to do is sit tight and say nothing. And now I ought to be leaving you. We must not be seen together. Hark!' said Lord Ickenham. 'Did you hear a low whistle? No? Then all is well. I thought for a moment those fellows might be lurking outside.'
Albert Peasemarch's uneasiness increased.
'You mean they're here, Mr I? Around these parts?'
'In dozens, my dear fellow, in positive droves. Dovetail Hammer has international spies the way other beauty spots have green fly and wasps. Still, it all adds to the spice of the thing, does it not?' said Lord Ickenham, and went out, leaving Albert Peasemarch staring with haggard eyes at the bottom of his empty tankard, a prey to the liveliest emotion.
Pongo Twistleton, had he been present, would have understood this emotion. He, too, had often experienced that stunned feeling, as if the solid earth beneath his feet had disintegrated, which was so apt to come
to those who associated with the fifth Earl of Ickenham, when that fine old man was going good. And Pongo, in Albert Peasemarch's place, would have pursued precisely the same policy which now suggested itself to the latter.
Another of the same, please, Mr M,' he said, and Rupert Morrison once more became the human St Bernard dog.
The results were instantaneous – indeed, magical would scarcely be too strong a word. Until now, the chronicler has merely hinted at the dynamic properties of the Beetle and Wedge home-brew. The time has come to pay it the marked tribute it deserves. It touched the spot. It had everything. It ran like fire through Albert Peasemarch's veins and made a new man of him. The careworn, timorous Albert Peasemarch ceased to be, and in his place there sat an Albert Peasemarch filled to the brim with the spirit of adventure. A man of regular habits, he would normally have shrunk from playing a stellar role in an E. Phillips Oppenheim story, as he appeared to be doing now, but with the home-brew lapping up against his back teeth he liked it. 'Bring on your ruddy spies!' about summed up his attitude.
He had had his tankard refilled for the fourth time and was telling himself militantly that any spies who attempted to get fresh with him would do so at their own risk, when the door of the saloon bar opened and Johnny Pearce and Cosmo Wisdom came in.
It was obvious at a glance that neither was in festive mood. Johnny was thinking hard thoughts about his old school-fellow, Norbury-Smith, whose attitude toward Belinda Farringdon at lunch had seemed to him far too closely modelled on that of a licentious clubman of the old silent films, and Cosmo was brooding on the letter, asking himself how it could be detached from Lord Ickenham's keeping and unable at the moment to see any means of achieving the happy ending. It was with a distrait listlessness that they put in their order for home-brew.