'It will take me a quarter of an hour,' he said, 'to get to the Goose and Gander. Five minutes after that—Look about, my dear fellow, and see if you can see a hunting crop with an ivory handle. You can't mistake it. It should be on that chest over by the—Yes, that is it. Thank you, Joe.'
CHAPTER 15
MR Samuel Bulpitt was one of those thinkers whose minds are at their briskest when the body is in gentle motion. He liked to formulate his plans and schemes while strolling to and fro, as if on a quarter-deck, his hands clasped behind his back and some sentimental ballad on his lips. Many of his best coups had been thought out on that bush-bordered gravel path that runs beside the eastern border of Central Park at 59th Street, to the accompaniment of 'Alice Blue Gown' or 'What'll I Do?'
For some considerable time after Lady Abbott had left him, he had been walking up and down the towpath downstream from the houseboat Mignonette, crooning the latter of these two melodies. He was still doing so when Sir Buckstone set out on his punitive expedition to the Goose and Gander.
His mood, as he promenaded, was pensive. Bravely though he had scoffed in his sister's presence at the idea that the problem of establishing contact with a Tubby Vanringham who sat tight under distant cedar trees would present any difficulties to the expert mind, he had not really been so confident as he affected to be. The situation which confronted him, he could see, was different from those which he had handled so triumphantly in his native New York. The methods so effective there would not serve him here. It would be necessary to dish out something new.
Mr Bulpitt, as plasterer, resembled Adrian Peake in that he was a man who was at his best in urban surroundings. He liked to shout 'Fire!' on staircases in order to bring his prospects bolting out of the front doors of flats. He liked to bluff his way into offices under the pretence of being an important customer from the West. If a prominent actress happened to be his quarry, no one knew better than he how to wait at the stage door, a bouquet in one hand, the fatal papers behind his back in the other. ('Oh, how sweet! Are these really for me!' 'No, lady, but this is.') Put Mr Bulpitt in the heart of a big city and he could not go wrong.
But in the English countryside things were different. An Englishman's country home is his castle. It possesses stairs, but only those invited to tread them can use them as a base for shouting 'Fire!' It does not welcome customers from the West. Nor has it a stage door.
'What'll I do?' murmured Mr Bulpitt to his immortal soul. 'What'll I do, ti-um ti-um ti-ay?'
And he had fallen to wondering whether, scornfully though he had rejected the suggestion when it had been made, some form of rude disguise might not, after all, be his best plan, when the whole situation, as is so often the way on these occasions, suddenly lost its complexity. Out of the welter of his thoughts, springing fully armed like Minerva from the brow of Jove, there had emerged a scheme, a simple but ingenious device for the undoing of Tubby, which as a student of human psychology, he felt confident, would bring home the bacon.
He smiled contentedly. His crooning took on a gayer note, changing to 'Happy Days Are Here Again'. And it was at this moment that his attention was diverted by the sight of odd things happening upstream.
Until now, Mr Bulpitt had had this sylvan nook of old Berkshire to himself. Since his sister's departure, no human form had come to mar his peaceful solitude. But now there had appeared abruptly on the river-bank, coming from the direction of the village, a lissom, slender figure. It was approaching at a considerable speed and, as it drew nearer, he recognized it as that of the young man, Peake, his niece Jane's lowly suitor. And he was just about to advance in order to meet and introduce himself to one whose acquaintance he had long desired to make, when the other, reaching the houseboat, leaped up the gangplank and disappeared into the saloon.
Mr Bulpitt made for the Mignonette at his best pace, a puzzled man. He was at a loss to account for all this activity. He could not know that Adrian's actions, apparently so eccentric, were based on the soundest common sense.
When Sir Buckstone arrived at the Goose and Gander, Adrian had been sitting in the front garden. He had not failed to observe the stocky individual with the flushed face and the purposeful eye who went stumping up the path into the inn, but he had given him only a momentary attention before allowing his thoughts to return to Tubby and the interview which, he trusted, would shortly take place. It was only when he heard a resonant voice from within asking for Mr Peake that he recalled that in the stocky individual's right hand there had been a most formidable hunting crop, and realized that for the first time he had set eyes upon the Sir Buckstone Abbott of whom he had heard so much.
There followed upon the realization a moment of paralysed inaction, and Sir Buckstone was already emerging from the inn and advancing on him like a pink-faced puma before he recovered himself sufficiently to begin the race for life.
When he did act, however, he acted promptly. A jackrabbit of the Western prairies could have picked up some useful hints from him. Before the Baronet's first hoarse bellow had died away on the languid summer air, he was over the low hedge that fringed the garden and out in the road. The gate which separated the road from the water meadows he took almost in his stride. He then settled down to some plain, intensive running.
At first, when starting to run, he had had no fixed plan, merely a sort of vague general desire to get away from it all. Then, just as the unaccustomed exercise was beginning to take its toll, the Mignonette came into view, offering a refuge. He supposed it to be still in the possession of Joe Vanringham, and he did not like Joe, but he was in no position to be choosy about refuges. Joe Vanringham might be lacking in many of the finer qualities, but he was sure he was not the man to cast out a fugitive desiring sanctuary. On the Mignonette, he felt, he would be safe.
His emotions, accordingly, when, a few moments after he had dived into the saloon and closed the door behind him, he heard a heavy step on the deck outside, accompanied by the puffing of heavy breath, were distressing. Who, he asked himself pallidly, was this man who puffed without? It could not be Joe, for Joe, whatever his spiritual defects, was in excellent physical condition, but – and here he quaked like a blancmange – it might quite well be his pursuer. With a sickening qualm he told himself that Sir Buckstone Abbott, after a brisk spin along a river-bank, would probably be puffing just like that. He looked about him for a safer hiding-place, but found none. The saloon, as has been said, was simply furnished, and had never been intended to afford cover for its occupants.
With leaden heart and with the flesh crawling upon his body as he thought of that hunting crop, he was preparing to meet his doom, when, from the towpath, a voice shouted: 'Hi! You damned Bulpitt!'
Life began to creep back into Adrian's numbed frame. The situation was still of almost the maximum stickiness, but the actual worst had not yet happened. Whoever the man outside the saloon door might be, he was not Sir Buckstone Abbott. The Baronet's voice, raised in anger, was easily recognizable by one who had once heard it. It was Sir Buckstone who was standing on the towpath, shouting: 'Hi! You damned Bulpitt!'
Many men might have been offended at being addressed in this curt fashion, but the mysterious individual on the deck showed no sign of annoyance. His voice, when he replied, was cheery, even cordial.
'Hello, your lordship! Nice day.'
His affability awoke no echo in Sir Buckstone Abbott.
'Never mind what sort of a day it is, and stop calling me "Your lordship", blast you. I'm a Baronet.'
'Isn't a Baronet a lord?'
'No, he isn't.'
The intricacies of the British system of titles seemed to interest the man who answered to the name of Bulpitt. When he next spoke, there was a genuine desire for knowledge in his voice:
'What's the difference?'
The question appeared to act as an irritant.
'Listen, you ghastly Bulpitt,' roared Sir Buckstone, 'I didn't come here to instruct you in the order of precedence. Where's Peake?'
/> 'He's around.'
'Produce him.'
'Why?'
'I am going to thrash him within an inch of his life.'
That unpleasant feeling of bonelessness which he had experienced in the garden of the Goose and Gander surged once more over Adrian. The moment, it was plain, had come. The crux or nub of the situation had been reached, and his fate was now to be decided. With ashen face, he waited. Would Bulpitt yield? Or would Bulpitt stand firm?
Bulpitt stood firm.
'You're going to do nothing of the kind,' he replied severely. 'Don't you know better than that, a Baronet like you? Baronets,' said Mr Bulpitt, quite rightly, 'ought to be setting an example, not going around trying to beat the tar out of young fellows who can't help it if they're in love, can they?'
The rebuke was one which should have abashed the most hardened holder of a hereditary title, but it seemed merely to increase Sir Buckstone's displeasure. His voice rose.
'Stop drivelling, Bulpitt! And,' he continued with a sudden access of vehemence, 'put that plank back!'
The word 'plank' mystified Adrian for a moment. Then he remembered the strip of wood that linked the Mignonette with the shore, and understood. This admirable Bulpitt, whoever he might be, acting with a resourcefulness which did him credit, had apparently performed the nautical equivalent of raising the drawbridge.
That this was so was made plain by his next words, which were spoken in a tone of rather unctuous complacency:
'Now, if you want him, you'll have to jump.'
Sir Buckstone's reply was not fully audible, for emotion interfered with the precision of his diction, but Adrian understood him to say that this was precisely the feat which he proposed to attempt, and he waited anxiously to hear what his preserver would advance in rebuttal.
He need have had no concern. Mr Bulpitt was fully equal to the situation.
'If you do, I'll bop you.'
'You'll what?'
'I'll bop you over the head with this chair.'
'You won't!'
'I will.'
'You bop me over the head with chairs, and I'll summon you for assault.'
'You start jumping aboard my boat and I'll have you pinched for burglary.'
A silence followed this remark. It appeared to have left Sir Buckstone momentarily breathless.
'What the devil are you talking about?' he demanded at length.
'I know the law. A boat's the same as a house. You bust into a boat and you're a burglar.'
'I never heard such dashed nonsense in my life. It's my boat.'
'It's not any such thing, your boat. It's my boat. I'm the tenant. So you be careful. One jump, and I bop.'
The duel of two strong minds was over. Sir Buckstone Abbott was a lion of physical courage, and it was not from any apprehension of chairs descending on his head that he now decided to give up the struggle and leave the field to the enemy.
What swayed him was the fact that a legal point had arisen and that he was uncertain of his standing. He feared no foe in shining armour, but like all respectable Britons, he shrank from getting mixed up with the law. Rather than run any risk of actions and damages, he preferred to sheath the hunting crop.
Possibly he consoled himself, like so many baffled Baronets in the fiction and drama of an earlier age, with the thought that a time would come. At any rate, he moved off, flicking moodily at the meadowsweet with the thong which he had hoped would have been put to a better use, and Mr Bulpitt, flushed with moral victory, lowered his chair and opened the door of the saloon.
'He's gone,' he said, rightly feeling that this was the point on which his guest would desire immediate assurance. 'Yes, sir. Had the sense to quit while the quitting was good.'
He regarded Adrian with a gaze that was not only kindly but full of admiration. Being naturally in ignorance of the motives which had led the young man back into the danger zone, he assumed that what had brought him was the overwhelming desire to be near Jane and he approved of his gallant hardihood. All the sentiment in Mr Bulpitt responded to the thought of the humble suitor braving fearful risks to contact his loved one. Adrian Peake reminded him of Romeo.
Perceiving that the young hero was still somewhat shaken, he went to the cupboard and produced a bottle, from which, before proceeding further, he poured a heartening draught. While Adrian choked over this, he resumed:
'How did you happen to run into his lordship?'
Adrian related briefly the scene in the inn garden. Mr Bulpitt shook his head. While applauding his companion's knightly courage, he seemed to be deploring his recklessness.
'You shouldn't have hung about there, right out in the open. Taking a big chance. Might have known that his lordship would have been tipped off that you were around and would come gunning for you. Got his spies everywhere, I guess. Well, you'll be all right now. He can't get at you here. You heard us chewing the rag? Well, I meant what I said. If he'd of tried to come aboard, I'd have bopped him. Yessir! It wouldn't have been the first time I'd bopped a guy with a chair. Or with a bottle,' said Mr Bulpitt, his eye dreamy as he mused on the golden past.
It occurred to Adrian that he had not yet thanked his preserver, and he endeavoured now to do so. But Mr Bulpitt waved aside his gratitude with an airy hand.
'Don't give it another thought,' he said. 'I told Imogen I was for you, and I am. It was her that put me wise to your little trouble. I saw you kissing her down here that day, and she told me you were the fellow she was going to marry. I'm her uncle.'
Adrian's eyes widened. The restorative which he had been consuming had been potent, and he was not sure that he had heard aright.
'Her Uncle Sam from America. Mother's brother. Which gets you wondering, maybe, why I'm on this boat, instead of being up at the big house. Well, I'll tell you. There's been a mite of unpleasantness, which we needn't go into now, and they don't seem to kind of want me as one of the family. . . . Have another drink?'
'No, thank you.'
'Sure?'
'No, really; thanks.'
'Well, there isn't one, anyway. That's the last of the bottle. Yes, Imogen told me you were her beau, and then I happened to overhear that young fellow telling you about her father being after you with his horsewhip, so I'd gotten all the facts and was ready for his lordship when he came along. I'm fond of that niece of mine, and anybody she's fond of is my buddy. You stay on this boat as long as you like.'
'It's awfully good of you.'
'Not at all, not-a-tall. I'm for you. I admire the way you came here, just to see her, knowing all the time that peril lurked.'
Adrian perceived that he must dissemble. His companion's hospitality, it was clear, was being offered to him purely in his capacity of Jane's betrothed. Once allow Mr Bulpitt to gather that there was an 'ex' attached to the word, and this sanctuary would be barred to him. And it was imperative that he remain in the neighbourhood until he had been able to get in touch with Tubby.
'Oh, well,' he said modestly.
'It was swell,' said Mr Bulpitt. And now I'll have to leave you for a while. Got to go along to the inn and see someone. Make yourself at home. I'll be back as soon as I can manage.'
CHAPTER 16
THE mellow afternoon was well advanced toward the cool peace of evening when Mr Bulpitt reached the Goose and Gander. He directed his steps to the public bar, and was glad to find it unoccupied except for the blonde young lady who stood behind the counter and played the role of St Bernard dog to the thirsty wayfarers of Walsingford Parva. It was she whom he had come to see.
She greeted his entry with a friendly smile. The daughter of J. B. Attwater's brother, who lived in London, she had been sent down by her parents to make herself pleasant and helpful to the proprietor of the Goose and Gander, who was the wealthy one of the family, and she had conceived a strong distaste for what she termed the dog's island in which she found herself. There seemed to her little to do in Walsingford Parva, and nobody with whom to do it. Her clientele, consisting, as it did,
of worthy sons of the soil, who, after telling her it was a fine day, were inclined to relapse into thoughtful silences running anywhere from ten to twenty minutes, bored her. The one bright spot in her drab life was Mr Bulpitt.
Thirty years spent in kidding waitresses in quick-lunch restaurants from Maine to California had developed in Samuel Bulpitt an unsurpassed technique with the sex, and he had made himself a warm favourite with the Goose and Gander's temporary barmaid.
'The usual, Mr Bulpitt?' she said brightly.
'The usual,' assented Mr Bulpitt. 'Say you've been doing your hair a different way.'
'Faney you noticing that! How does it look?'
'Swell. Like Greta Garbo.'
'Do you really think so?'
'I'll say.'
'Back in London, most of the boys tell me I look more like Myrna Loy.'
'Well, there's a touch of her too. And Ginger Rogers. . . . Got a box of matches?'
'Here you are.'
'Show you a trick,' said Mr Bulpitt.
He did three, to her great satisfaction. An atmosphere of cosy cordiality thus achieved, he sat for some moments, sipping his beer in silence.
'We had some excitement here this afternoon,' said Miss Attwater. 'Missed it, of course, myself, but that's my luck. Myrtle told me about it. She's the girl with the adenoids.'
'Oh, yes?'
'Don't know what it was all about, but it seems Sir Buckstone Abbott was chasing some young fellow with a horsewhip all over the garden.'
'You don't say!'
'And I said to Myrtle, "Well, I'm glad something exciting sometimes happens here," I said, "because of all the dead-and-alive holes—" Don't you find it a bit quiet for you, Mr Bulpitt?'
'When you get to my age, you'll like quiet.'
'Your age!'
'A hundred and four last birthday. I'm not saying I mightn't have found the place kind of motionless when I was going good.'
'I'll bet you've had some rare old times in your day.'
'You're not so far wrong there, girlie.'
'I expect you raised old Harry back in the reign of William the Conqueror.'