Mr Bulpitt, who, during these exchanges, had been debating in his mind how best to approach the subject which he had come to discuss, perceived that he had been given a cue. He allowed a thoughtful look to creep over his face, then emitted a low chuckle.
'What's the joke?'
'Oh, I was just thinking of something. Something that happened in the old days.'
'What?'
'Oh, nothing, really.'
'What was it?'
'Maybe it wouldn't amuse you,' said Mr Bulpitt diffidently. 'It was a sort of practical joke. Some people don't like them.'
'You mean like making an April fool of somebody?'
'That sort of thing.'
'What happened?'
'Well, it was this way' said Mr Bulpitt.
The story which he told was long and rambling, and many might have considered that the characters in it, stated by him to have near died laughing, had been easily amused, but it went over well with his audience. J. B. Attwater's niece giggled heartily.
'You must have had lots of fun in those days,' she said.
'Oh, lots,' said Mr Bulpitt. 'I often look back and think what a barrel of fun we had. But there was a crowd of us then. That's why we could work stunts like that. It was one for all and all for one, like the Three Musketeers. You can't do nothing constructive by yourself. Often and often I wish I'd got some of the old gang around. Why, say, listen; there's a friend of mine up at the Hall I could play a swell joke on right now. Only what's the use? I can't do it alone. I'd need a girl to help me.'
'What sort of a girl?'
'Any sort, just so long as she wasn't dumb.'
'You mean foolish?'
'No, really dumb. I'd want her to talk to the guy over the telephone.'
'Couldn't I do it?'
Mr Bulpitt lowered his glass.
'I hadn't thought of you,' he said, untruly. 'Why, say, that's an idea. Sure you could do it. And it would be a bit of fun for you, seeing you're finding things kind of dull here.'
'What would I have to say?'
'I'd write it all down for you. It's like this. This friend of mine, his name's Vanringham.'
'I know. The gentleman that was staying here.'
'No, his brother. You want to get the right one. This one's T P. Vanringham.'
'I see.'
'And he's a fellow that thinks all the girls are crazy about him. So here's the gag I want to pull on him. I want this girl – you, if you say you'll do it – to call him on the phone and make a date to meet him. Where would be a good place? I know. Say the second milestone on the Walsingford road. I've been there. There's bushes back of it. We'd need bushes.'
'Why?'
'To hide in and spring out of from. It's like this: You don't say who you are, y'understand; you're just a mystery woman that's seen him around and fallen for him in a big way, and you want to make a date. You tell him you'll meet him at the second milestone, and he gets all worked up and patting himself on the back, and along he comes, all in his best clothes, and then, instead of it being a lovely girl, it's me. I jump out from the bushes at him and say, "Hello, there!" And that'll be a big laugh.'
He chuckled richly, and Mr Attwater's niece chuckled, too, but only out of politeness. Privately, she was feeling a little disappointed. It seemed to her that a great deal of trouble was to be taken for a rather disproportionate result. But she could not say so, with Mr Bulpitt smiling his sunny smile and looking like a boy about to be taken to the circus. She was a warmhearted girl, and his childlike innocence touched her.
And listen,' said Mr Bulpitt, scribbling industriously. This is what you say.'
She read the script, and at once thought more highly of the scheme. It now began to seem to her rich in humorous possibilities. Mr Bulpitt's plot might be weak, but she liked his dialogue.
'You are a one,' she said admiringly.
'You'll do it?'
'Rather.'
'Then do it now,' said Mr Bulpitt.
Tubby Vanringham, seated beneath the large cedar which shaded the western end of the terrace of Walsingford Hall, had begun to find it hard to endure with fortitude the life of captivity which had been thrust upon him. A moody frown was on his brow and his gaze, fixed on the river gleaming coolly below him, was a wistful gaze, like that of Moses on the summit of Mount Pisgah. He was conscious of a growing ennui. The sight of those silver waters, in which he longed to be sporting like the porpoise he rather resembled, tantalized him. Missing his two swims a day had tried him sorely.
Nor was this the only deprivation that irked him as a result of the cramped and restricted conditions now governing his life. Jane Abbott, on this very terrace, had told him that he was the sort of man who was lost without a girl, and her intuition had not misled her. Even more than for the daily bathe, he found himself pining for feminine society.
In the matter of feminine society, Walsingford Hall was at the moment a little understaffed. There was Mrs Shepley, who wore spectacles; Mrs Folsom, who had large teeth; Miss Prudence Whittaker, whose extraordinary views on accepting presents from city slickers and deplorable tendency to initiate actions for heart balm ruled her out of consideration; and Jane. And though he would have been perfectly content to pass the last few days in Jane's company, the pleasure had been denied him. She seemed to have become monopolized by his brother Joe.
With the feeling that he might just as well have been on a desert island, Tubby tried again to interest himself in the book which lay open upon his knee. But once more he found it too deep for him. It was entitled 'Murder at Bilbury Manor', and was a whodunit of the more abstruse type, in which everything turns on whether a certain character, by catching the three-forty-three train at Hilbury and changing into the four-sixteen at Milbury, could have reached Silbury by five-twenty-seven, which would have given him just time to disguise himself and be sticking knives into people at Bilbury by six-thirty-eight.
The detective and his friend had been discussing this question for about forty pages with tremendous animation, but Tubby found himself unable to share their eager enthusiasm. The thing left him cold, and he was just wondering if the solution of the whole problem of coping with this interminable afternoon might not be to go to sleep till the dressing gong sounded, when Pollen came to inform him that he was wanted on the telephone, and this time, Sir Buckstone not being present, was able to deliver the message.
'Telephone?' said Tubby, instantly alert. Even this trivial break in the monotony was welcome to him. 'Who is it?'
'The lady did not give a name, sir.'
Tubby started. The terrace flickered before his eyes. Hope, which he had thought long since dead, stirred in its winding cloth.
'Lady?' he said, speaking in a husky, trembling voice. The lady?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Gosh!' said Tubby.
It was at a speed remarkable on so warm a day that he covered the distance to the house. Not even had he been a fiend in human shape trying to make the four-sixteen connection at Milbury, could he had moved more nippily.
'Hello?' he breathed into the instrument. 'Hello. . . . Yes. This is Mr Vanringham.'
A musical voice, faintly Cockney in its timbre, spoke at the other end of the wire:
'Mr T.P. Vanringham?'
'Yup.'
The voice seemed to be combating a disposition to giggle.
'You don't know who I am.'
'Who are you?'
'Ah, that ud be telling.'
'Your voice sounds familiar.'
'I don't know why it should. We've never met.'
'Haven't we?'
'No. But I'd like to.'
'Me too.'
'I've seen you about.'
'Have you?'
'Yes. And,' said the voice coyly, 'I admired you so much.'
'Did you?'
'Oh, I did.'
Tubby was obliged to support himself against the wall. His voice, when he next spoke, shook as his legs were doing. Manna in the wilderness seemed to him b
ut a feeble way of describing this.
'Say! Say, couldn't we meet sometime?'
'I'd love to, if you would. Would you?'
'You betcher.'
'We might go for a walk.'
'That's right.'
'But I don't want people to see me.'
'I get you.'
'They talk so.'
'Yes.'
'So, if you'd really like to—'
'I should say so.'
'Well, then, be at the second milestone on the Walsingford road at three o'clock tomorrow afternoon. I'll be waiting there. And when you come, make a noise like a linnet.'
'Why?'
'Because I'll be hiding, because I don't want people to see me, because they talk so.'
'I see. Sure. Yes, I understand. Like a what?'
'A linnet. The bird, you know. Then I'll know it's you, and I'll come out. Pip-pip,' said the mysterious unknown. The line was not in the script, but the scene had gone so well that she felt entitled to gag.
Tubby hung up the receiver. He was breathing tensely. It is always gratifying to a romantic young man to discover that the mere sight of himself has inspired uncontrollable admiration in a member of the other sex. He looked forward with bright anticipation to this meeting, so particularly attractive at a time when his heart was bruised and life had seemed to hold nothing but gloom and boredom.
It only remained to get straight on this linnet proposition. He took counsel of Pollen, whom he encountered as he was leaving the hall.
'Say, Pollen, do you know anything about birds?'
'Yes, sir. Birds have always been something of a hobby of mine. I find it interesting to observe their habits.'
'How are you on linnets?'
'Sir?'
'I mean, do you happen to know what sort of noise they make?'
'Oh, I beg your pardon. I did not follow you for a moment. Yes, sir. The rough song of the linnet is "Tolic-gow-gow, tolic-joey-fair, tolic-hickey-gee, tolic-equay-quake, tuc-tuc-whizzie, tuc-ruc-joey, equay-quake-a-weet, tuc-tuc-wheet."'
'It is?'
Tubby stood for a moment in thought.
'Oh, hell!' he said. 'I'll whistle.'
CHAPTER 17
IT has been well said of Baronets that, although you may defeat them temporarily, you cannot keep them down. That the reverse which he had sustained at the hands of Mr Bulpitt in their struggle over the body of Adrian Peake would leave Sir Buckstone Abbott permanently crushed, accordingly, was scarcely to be expected. Where a knight or an O.B.E. might have cracked under the humiliating experience of being driven from the field of battle, he merely became fuller of the belligerent feeling that something had got to be done about this Bulpitt blighter, and done immediately.
Brooding on his brother-in-law in bed that night, he saw that the root of the trouble lay in the fact that the latter was as artful as a barrel load of monkeys, and that where he, Sir Buckstone, had make his mistake was in trying to cope unaided with that snaky brain. What he needed, it was now clear to him, was the assistance and co-operation of other brains, equally serpentine, and by noon on the following day his plans were formed. He sought out his daughter Jane and instructed her to have her Widgeon Seven in readiness as soon as possible after lunch, to drive him over to Walsingford. It was his intention to catch the two-fifty-seven express there, and go to London to confer with his lawyers.
He had a solid faith in the acumen of the Messrs. Boles, Boles, Wickett, Widgery and Boles, of Lincoln's Inn Fields, and was rather hoping that they might tell him that it would be quite in order for him to slip a couple of sticks of dynamite under the houseboat Mignonette and blow the bally thing to blazes.
Soon after two, in consequence, Jane was in the stable yard, putting the finishing touches of perfection to her loved one. And she had just twiddled at a nut with her spanner – for like all girls with a proper sense of duty toward their cars, she was a confirmed nut twiddler – and was starting to tighten it again, with a view to leaving it exactly as it had been before she touched it, when a shadow falling upon the flagstones at her side informed her that she was no longer alone and, looking up, she perceived Joe. He was gazing down at her with an expression that was half indulgent, like that of an affectionate father watching his idiot child disport itself, and half worshipping, as of one regarding a goddess.
'So here you are, young Ginger.'
'Yes,' said Jane.
She spoke a little brusquely, for she always disliked to be interrupted when communing with her Widgeon. Moreover, from the very inception of their acquaintance, Joe Vanringham had revealed himself as a man who proposed early and often, and she could see by his face, on which the worshipping expression had now begun to predominate to a rather marked extent, that he was about to propose again. This she wished, if possible, to prevent.
'Busy?'
'Very.'
He lighted a cigarette and surveyed her lovingly.
'What a messy little creature you are, to be sure,' he said. 'I suppose you know you've got a spot of oil on the tip of your nose?'
'I can wash it off.'
'But think of the wear and tear. Why put it there in the first place? What are you doing?'
'Working.'
'To some specific end, or just mucking around?'
'If you really want to know, Buck is going up to London, and I am getting the car ready to take him to Walsingford.'
Joe whistled.
'Walsingford, the Forbidden City? Are you really going to try to get there? No wonder you're tuning up the engine. Well, take plenty of pemmican, and be sure of your water supply. It was owing to the water giving out that Doctor Livingstone failed to get to Walsingford in '66. It's a pity, though.'
'Why?'
'I was hoping that you might have been free this afternoon to help me with a statue or two. The fascination of your society has caused me to fall behind in my work of late. The day before yesterday, snatching a few moments before breakfast, I moustached up as far as the tenth plug-ugly from the end, but yesterday was a blank day. However, the job is progressing.'
'That's nice.'
'I thought you would be pleased. Yes, I'm getting along. Several of them – notably Marcus Aurelius and the god Jupiter – outsmarted me by being already whiskered to the eyebrows, but I have had good results with Julius Caesar and Apollo, and should welcome your critical opinion. And now,' said Joe, 'to a more tender and sentimental subject.'
'Oh, golly!'
'You spoke?'
'I said "Oh, golly!"' Jane rose and tucked the spanner away in its box. Are you really going to start that all over again?'
'I don't know what you mean by "start all over again". I've never stopped. Haven't you noticed how I keep on asking you to marry me? Every day. As regular as clockwork.'
'And haven't you noticed how, every time you do it, I tell you I'm engaged to someone else?'
'That has not escaped me, but I don't pay very much attention to it. In the manuscripts I used to read for dear old Busby, until our paths separated, the heroine was always engaged to someone else at the start. I wish I could have brought along a few of those manuscripts.'
'Good stuff?'
'Terrific. From a man steeped in their contents as I am, no method of ensnaring the female heart is hidden. I know just how it's done. I shall rescue you from a burning house, or from drowning, or from bulls, or from mad dogs, or from tramps, or from runaway horses. Or I might save your kitten.'
'I haven't a kitten.'
'A kitten shall be provided. I tell you, young Ginger—'
'Do. . . not . . . call me Ginger.'
'I tell you, young Jane, it is hopeless for you to try to escape me. You are as good as walking up the aisle already. You shake your head? Just you wait. A time will come – and shortly – when you will be doing so in order to dislodge the deposits of rice and confetti which have gathered in your lovely hair. If I were you, I'd cease to struggle.'
'Oh, I think I'll go on.'
'Just as
you please, of course. But you're wasting your time. I feel that nothing is too good for you, and I intend that you shall have the best of husbands. And, believe me, you're going to get a pippin. One of the nicest chaps I know – loving, devoted, rich, fascinating—'
'Whom did you ever fascinate?'
'Whom didn't I? I bowl them over in their thousands. Did you notice Mrs Folsom at dinner last night?'
'What about her?'
'The way she looked at me when I was doing that balancing trick with the nut crackers and the wineglass. Poor, foolish moth, I said to myself.'
'I noticed the way Buck looked at you. He values that set of wineglasses.'
'It would take more than broken glassware to queer me with Buck.'
'He does seem fond of you, certainly. I wonder why?'
'That could have been phrased more tactfully. Yes, he esteems me as highly as I esteem him. Dear old Buck, there is nothing he would like better than to have me as a son-in-law, bless him.'
'What makes you think that?'
'He told me so, when I approached him yesterday to ask his formal permission to pay my addresses to you.'
'You didn't!'
'I certainly did. I'm old-fashioned. I disapprove of the casual modern practice of letting the girl's father in on the thing only in the vestry after the ceremony. Buck would simply love to have me as a son-in-law. But how can this be managed while you persist in that extraordinary habit of yours of refusing me every time I propose? I think I will now have another pop. You may have changed your mind since I last spoke.'
'I haven't.'
'You will eventually. Shall I draw a little picture for you? It is the opening night of my new play The curtain has fallen to the accompaniment of thunderous applause. The whisper passes from mouth to mouth, "Another Vanringham success! How does the fellow do it?" There are insistent cries of "Author! Author!" and in response a well-knit figure steps on to the stage. This turns out to be me. I advance to the footlights and raise a hand for silence. A hush falls on the crowded house. I speak. "Ladies and gentlemen," I say, "I thank you, I thank you for this wonderful reception. I thank you one and all. But most of all I thank my wife, without whose never-failing sympathy, encouragement and advice, this play would never have been written."'