It was Phoebe who answered his ring.
'Oh, hullo, Phoebe,' he said. 'Is Raymond there?'
'He went out into the garden, Frederick. Shall I fetch him?'
'No, don't bother. Just give him a message. Tell him to stop gathering frogs.'
'Stop what?'
'Gathering frogs.'
'There must be something wrong with this wire. You sound as if you were telling me to tell Raymond to stop gathering frogs.'
'I am.
'Is he gathering frogs?'
'He told me he was going to.'
'But why is he gathering frogs?'
'Ah, who can say? These eccentric barristers, you know. Probably just felt a sudden urge. Goodbye, Phoebe. Where are you at the moment?'
'I'm in Raymond's study.'
'Well, don't forget that Albert Peasemarch worships the very carpet you are standing on,' said Lord Ickenham.
He was humming a gay snatch of melody as he replaced the receiver, for there was no room for doubt in his mind that all things were working together for good. With the letter which had been leaping from vulture to vulture like the chamois of the Alps from crag to crag safely in his coat pocket, he was feeling at the top of his form. Something attempted, something done, had earned a mild cigar, and he was smoking it on the drive and thinking how pleasant it was to be away from Mr Saxby, when he found that he was not. The old gentleman came pottering along, having apparently popped up through a trap.
'Oh, Scriventhorpe.'
'Hullo, Saxby. I was just saying to myself how nice it would be if you were with me.'
'I have been looking for you, Scriventhorpe. I thought it would interest you to hear... A water ousel!'
'Worth hearing, are they, these water ousels?'
'There is a water ousel over there. I must go and look at it in a moment. What I started to say was that I thought it would interest you to hear that that beastly walnut cabinet has gone.'
'Has done what?'
'A couple of men came and took it away after you left. I understand it is to be put up for auction.'
Lord Ickenham started. One of those sudden inspirations of his had come to him.
'Put up for auction, eh?'
'So they told me. But I doubt if anyone in his senses would give more than a pound or two for it,' said Mr Saxby, and toddled away, binoculars in hand, to look at his water ousel.
As a rule, men whom old Mr Saxby relieved of his company were conscious of a wave of relief, coupled with a determination not to let him corner them again in a hurry, but Lord Ickenham hardly noticed that he had gone. His whole attention was riveted on a picture which had risen before his mind's eye, the picture of Beefy and Gordon Carlisle bidding furiously against each other for the imitation walnut cabinet, the proceeds of the winning bid to go to Jonathan Twistleton Pearce, that impoverished young man who had to have five hundred pounds in order to marry his Belinda. Knowing Beefy and knowing Gordon Carlisle – their deep purses and their iron resolve to get hold of the fateful letter – he was confident that considerably more than five hundred of the best and brightest would accrue to Jonathan Twistleton Pearce's bank account.
Though there are, of course, drawbacks to everything. In order to achieve this desirable end it would be necessary for him to depart a little from the truth and inform Beefy that the letter was in the cabinet, but he was a man who rather blithely departed from the truth when the occasion called. An altruist whose mission it is to spread sweetness and light is entitled to allow himself a certain licence.
CHAPTER 22
The auction sale was to be held in the village hall, a red-brick monstrosity erected in the eighties by the Victorian Pearce who had bought that walnut cabinet, and after lunch on the big day Lord Ickenham, in order to avoid old Mr Saxby, who was showing an increasing disposition to buttonhole him and talk about Flannery had taken his cigar to his godson's study, feeling that there, if anywhere, a man might be safe. Johnny, his objective a heart-to-heart talk with Belinda Farringdon, had gone up to London in a car borrowed from Mr Morrison of the Beetle and Wedge, looking grim and resolute. It was his intention to take a firm line about this Norbury-Smith nonsense.
It was cool and peaceful in the study, with its french windows opening on the terrace, but on the fifth Earl's face, as he sat there, a frown might have been observed, as though sombre thoughts were troubling him. Nor would anyone who formed this impression have been in error. He was thinking of Beefy Bastable, that luckless toy of Fate who – for one of his wealth and determination could not fail to outbid Oily Carlisle at their coming contest – would shortly be parting with several hundred pounds for an imitation walnut cabinet worth perhaps fifty shillings.
Chatting with Oily while reclining in the hammock, Lord Ickenham, it will be recalled, had laid considerable stress on the spiritual agonies suffered by the dregs of society when they see the United States Marines arriving. Those of Sir Raymond on opening that cabinet and finding no letter in it would, he could not but feel, be even keener. There is a type of man who, however rich he be, has a sturdy distaste for paying out large sums of money for nothing, and it was to this section of humanity that the eminent barrister belonged. Lord Ickenham mourned in spirit for his old friend's distress. Too bad, he felt, that when you started spreading sweetness and light, you so often found that there was not enough to go round and that somebody had to be left out of the distribution.
On the other hand, if nobody was there to bid against Oily, carrying out the manoeuvre known to Barbara Crowe's man-in-Hollywood as bumping him up, the cabinet would be knocked down to that gentlemanly highbinder for about ten shillings, which would not greatly further the interests of a Jonathan Pearce who needed five hundred pounds. The occasion, in a word, was one of those, so common in this imperfect world, where someone has to get the short end of the stick, and only Beefy was available for the role. Lord Ickenham could see clearly enough that it was necessary to sacrifice Beefy for the good of the cause but that did not mean that he had to be happy about it.
To distract himself for a moment from his sad thoughts, he picked up the copy of that morning's Daily Gazette which Johnny had left lying on the floor beside his desk, and began to glance through it. It was a paper he had never much admired, and he was not surprised that he found little to intrigue him on pages one, two and three. But on page four the interest quickened. His attention was arrested by one of those large headlines in which this periodical specialized.
FRANK, FORTHRIGHT, FEARLESS
it said, and beneath this:
COCKTAIL TIME
Our Powerful New Serial by
COSMO WISDOM
Begin It Today
There was also, inset, a photograph of Phoebe's ewe lamb, all shifty eyes and small black moustache, which might have been that of some prominent spiv who had been detained by the police for questioning in connection with the recent drug-ring raids.
'Cor lumme, stone the crows!' whispered Lord Ickenham, borrowing from Albert Peasemarch's non-copyright material. The scales had fallen from his eyes.
Until this moment it had never occurred to him to regard Cosmo Wisdom in the light of a potential bidder for the cabinet. He had supposed him to be, if not penniless, certainly several hundred poundsless. It was obvious that he must now revise this view. He knew little of the prices prevailing in the marts of literature, but it was to be presumed that for a serial as frank, forthright and fearless as Cocktail Time a paper like the Gazette, making more money than it knew what to do with and always on the look-out for a chance of giving it away to someone, would have loosened up on a pretty impressive scale. Cosmo, in other words, so recently a biter of ears for ten bobs to see him through till next Saturday, was plainly in the chips. If on this sunny summer afternoon his hip pocket was not filled to bursting with the right stuff, he, Lord Ickenham, would be dashed.
What, then, could be a happier thought than to substitute the opulent young man for Beefy?
And scarcely had he rea
ched this most satisfactory solution of his problem when, glancing out of the french window, he saw the opulent young man in person. He was pacing the terrace with bent head and leaden feet, like a Volga boatman.
And if anyone might excusably have impersonated a Volga boatman, it was Cosmo Wisdom at this juncture. Behind the left ear of the head he was bending there was a large lump, extremely painful if he made any sudden movement, and this alone would have been enough to lower the joie de vivre. But far worse than physical distress was the mental anguish caused by the thought that the letter which meant everything to him was now in the custody of Oily Carlisle. It is scarcely to be wondered at that when he heard a voice call his name and, raising his bent head, saw Lord Ickenham beaming at him from the study window, his manner was not cordial. It was, indeed, rather like that of a timber wolf with its foot in a trap.
'Just come in here for a moment, will you, Cosmo? I want to speak to you.'
'What about?'
'Nothing that can be shouted from the house tops or yelled on terraces. I won't keep you long,' said Lord Ickenham as his young friend stepped through the french windows. 'It's about that letter.'
Cosmo's scowl darkened. He had no wish to talk about that letter.
'It is, is it?' he said unpleasantly. 'Well, you're wasting your time. I haven't got it.'
'I am aware of that. Mr Carlisle has it.'
'Curse him!'
'Certainly, if you wish. I don't like the fellow myself We must baffle that man, Cosmo, before he can start throwing his weight about. You don't need to peer into any crystal ball to inform yourself of what the future holds in store, if this letter remains in his possession. Not much of that Hollywood largess of yours will be left after he has staked out his claim, for if ever a man believed in sharing the wealth, it is this same Carlisle. He must be foiled and frustrated.'
'A fat lot of good saying that,' said Cosmo, speaking even more unpleasantly than before. 'How the devil can I foil and frustrate him?'
'Listen attentively and I will tell you.'
The effect of Lord Ickenham's brief resume of the position of affairs on Cosmo was to cause him to start convulsively. And as anything in the nature of a convulsive start makes a man who has recently been struck on the head by a woman's gentle cosh feel as if that head had a red-hot skewer thrust through it, he uttered a yelp of agony, like a Volga boatman stung by a wasp.
'I know, I know,' said Lord Ickenham, nodding sympathetically. 'The after effects of being bust one do linger, don't they? As a young man, in the course of a political argument in a Third Avenue saloon in New York, I was once struck squarely on the topknot by a pewter tankard in the capable hands of a gentleman of the name of Moriarty – no relation of the Professor, I believe – and it was days before I was my old bright self again.'
Cosmo was staring, open-mouthed.
'You mean the letter's in that cabinet?'
'Carlisle certainly put it there.'
'How do you know?'
'I have my ways of getting to know things.'
And it's up for auction?'
'Precisely.'
'I'll go and bid for it!'
'Exactly what I was about to suggest. You will, of course, have to be prepared to bid high. Carlisle is not going to let the thing go without a struggle. But, what with this serial and everything, I imagine that you are rolling in money these days, and a few hundred pounds here and there mean nothing to you. How is your voice?'
'Eh?'
'Say "Mi-mi". Excellent,' said Lord Ickenham. 'Like a silver bell. The auctioneer will hear your every word. So off you go. Bid till your eyes bubble, my boy, and may heaven speed your efforts.'
And now, he was saying to himself, as Cosmo hurried away and a distant howl told that he had incautiously jerked his head again, to find some simple ruse which would remove Beefy from the centre of things. The village hall must not see Beefy this summer afternoon.
It was seldom that Lord Ickenham sought for inspiration in vain. Why, of course, he was thinking a few moments later. Yes, that would do it. How simple these things always were, if you just sat back and closed your eyes and let the little grey cells take over. It needed but a quick telephone call to Albert Peasemarch, instructing him to lock Beefy up in the wine cellar, and the situation would be stabilized.
He was about to reach for the instrument, glowing as men do when their brains are working well, when it rang its bell at him in the abrupt way telephones have. He took up the receiver.
'Hullo?' he said.
It was Phoebe who replied. As nearly always, she appeared agitated.
CHAPTER 23
'Oh, Frederick!' she said, panting like a white rabbit heated in the chase.
'Hullo, Phoebe, my dear,' said Lord Ickenham. 'What's the matter? You seem upset.'
There was a brief pause while she seemed to contemplate the adjective, weighing it as Roget might have done if someone had suggested admitting it into his Thesaurus.
'Well, not upset exactly. But I don't know if I am standing on my head or my heels.'
'Sift the evidence. At which end of you is the ceiling?'
'Oh, don't be silly, Frederick. You know what I mean. Oh dear, I do hope Cossie will approve of this step I'm taking. I mean, it isn't as if I were a young girl. I'm nearly fifty, Frederick. He may think it odd.'
'That you are joining the chorus at the Hippodrome?'
'Whatever are you talking about?'
'Isn't that what you are trying to tell me?'
'Of course it isn't. I'm going to marry again.'
The receiver jumped in Lord Ickenham's right hand, the cigar in his left. This was big stuff. Any popular daily paper would have used it without hesitation as its front page feature story.
'Bert?' he exclaimed. 'Has Bert at last cast off his iron restraint and spoken? Are you going to be Lady Peasemarch?'
'Mrs Peasemarch.'
'For a while, no doubt, yes. But a man of Bert's abilities is bound to get knighted sooner or later. My dear Phoebe, this is news to warm the cockles of the heart. They don't come any truer and stauncher than Bert. You know what Ecclesiastes said about him? He said... No, sorry, it's gone for the moment, but it was something very flattering. There's only one thing you have to watch out for with Albert Peasemarch, the Drake's Drum side of him. Be careful that he doesn't sing it during the wedding ceremony.'
'What, dear?'
'I was saying that if, as you stand at the altar, Bert starts singing Drake's Drum, give him a nudge.'
'We are going to be married at a registrar's.'
'Oh, then that's all right. These registrars are good sports. Yours will probably join in the chorus. What does Raymond think of the proposed union?'
'We haven't told him yet. Albert thought it would be better if he finished his month first.'
'Very sensible. It will save Beefy a lot of embarrassment. It's always difficult for a man to be really at his ease with his butler, if he knows the latter is engaged to be married to his sister. A certain constraint when Bert was handing the potatoes would be inevitable. But aren't we skipping some of the early chapters? Tell me how it all happened. Be frank, forthright and fearless.'
'Well—'
'Yes?'
'I was trying to think where to begin. Well, I had gone to Albert's pantry to talk to him about poor little Benjy, who is ever so much better, you will be glad to hear. Albert says his nose is quite cold.'
'I remember it used to get very cold in our Home Guard days.'
'What, dear?'
'You were saying that Albert Peasemarch's nose was cold.'
'No, no, Benjy's.'
'Oh, Benjy's? Well, that's fine, isn't it?'
And then we got talking, and something Albert said made me think of Raymond. I don't mean I've ever not thought of Raymond, but this something Albert said reminded me of what you had said the other day, about him not having got all his marbles.'
'I said he had got all his marbles.'
'Oh, did you?
I thought you said he hadn't, and it worried me terribly. Thinking of George Winstanley, you know. Because Raymond has been behaving so very oddly this last week or two. I don't mean so much giving me flowers and asking after my rheumatism, but I do think it was strange of him to go swimming in the lake with all his clothes on.'
'Did he do that?'
'I saw him from my window.'
According to Shakespeare, Julius Caesar used to swim with all his clothes on.'
'But he didn't gather frogs.'
'No, you have a point there. One finds it very difficult to see why Beefy should have wanted to gather frogs. Puzzled me a good deal, that.'
'You must admit that I had enough to worry me.'
'Oh, quite.'
'It seemed to me so dreadfully sad.'
'I don't wonder.'
'And I couldn't help it. I broke down and sobbed. And the next thing I knew, Albert was striding up to me and seizing me by the wrist and pulling me about till I felt quite giddy. And then he said "My mate!" and clasped me to him and—' 'Showered burning kisses on your upturned face?' 'Yes. He told me later that something seemed to snap in him.' 'I believe that often happens. Well, I couldn't be more pleased about this, Phoebe. You have done wisely in linking your lot with Bert's. Instinct told you you were on a good thing, and you very sensibly pushed it along. The ideal husband. Where is Bert, by the way? In his pantry?'
'I think so. He was giving Benjy beef extract.' 'Will you bring him to the phone. I would have speech with him.'
'You want to congratulate him?'
'That, of course. But there is also a little business matter I would like to discuss with him. Just one of those things that crop up from time to time. Oh, Bert,' said Lord Ickenham some moments later, 'I've been hearing the great news. Felicitations by the jugful, my old comrade, and a million wishes for your future happiness. Very interesting to learn that yet another success has to be chalked up to the Ickenham System. It seldom fails, if you remember to waggle with sufficient vigour, as I understand you did. The preliminary waggle is everything. That was probably where Cyril McMurdo went wrong. Well, I suppose you're walking on air and strewing roses from your bowler hat?'