Mr Bulpitt had a one-track mind.
'Say, look,' he said. 'I don't seem to have any clothes.'
'Gad, yes,' replied Sir Buckstone cheerily. 'That's right, isn't it? You haven't, have you?'
'That butler guy told me you told him I wasn't to have any.'
'That's right, too. My dear old chap, what do you want clothes for? You've gone to bed. Stay there and get a nice rest.'
'Have you got my clothes?'
'Toots has. It was her idea. Now, there's a girl with a brain, my dear Bulpitt. You must be proud that she is your sister. What she felt, you see, was that if you hadn't any clothes, you couldn't be up and about, serving young Vanringham with those papers. Thought it all out herself.'
'But I haven't any papers.'
'Oh, no?'
'I left them at the inn.'
'Oh, yes?'
His host's intonation was so sceptical that Mr Bulpitt bridled.
'Would you doubt my word?' he asked.
'I would,' replied Sir Buckstone.
There seemed to Mr Bulpitt little to be gained from further exploration of this avenue. He turned to another aspect of the situation – one which had been much in his thoughts:
'How long have I got to lie up in this darned room?'
'Till I've sold the house.'
Mr Bulpitt's jaw dropped. He had seen quite a good deal of Walsingford Hall in these last few days and a clear picture of it in all its forbidding hideousness was etched on his mental retina.
'But, gee, that may mean for years! You aren't going to keep me here for years?'
'No worse for you than for the Man in the Iron Mask, my dear chap. However, as a matter of fact,' said Sir Buckstone, relenting, 'I don't expect it will be as long as that. I hope to conclude the negotiations after dinner.'
'Who's buying it?'
'The Princess Dwornitzchek. Von und zu Dwornitzchek, to be absolutely accurate. She's young Vanringham's stepmother. She arrived this evening. That's why Toots felt – and I agreed with her – that you would be better – ha – in cold storage, as it were, than roaming about the house with those papers. No woman likes to see her stepson plastered for breach of promise. It annoys her, takes her mind off buying houses.'
'But I told you I hadn't got any papers.'
'Yes, I remember. You did, didn't you?'
Mr Bulpitt sighed resignedly.
'And when do I eat?' he asked.
'A tray will be sent up to you.'
'Oh, yeah? Raw beef, I suppose, and half-warmed brussels sprouts?'
Sir Buckstone seemed piqued.
'Nothing of the kind. There's a chicken casserole tonight,' he said proudly. And dashed good it will be, no doubt. I heard my daughter instructing the cook. She arranges our menus. It was Jane who brought you here, I understand?'
'Yes,' said Mr Bulpitt. A sweet girl.'
'One of the best,' agreed Sir Buckstone cordially.
Mr Bulpitt was in sore straits, but he was a man who could forget self when he saw an opportunity of saying a seasonable word on behalf of distressed damsels. He removed a bare arm from under the sheet and pointed his finger accusingly at his host.
'You're treating that little girl very badly, Lord Abbott.'
Sir Buckstone stared.
'Who, me? I've never treated Jane badly in my life. Apple of my eye, dash it. What do you mean?'
'Sundering two young hearts in springtime.'
'It isn't springtime. Middle of August.'
'It amounts to the same thing,' said Mr Bulpitt firmly. 'Chasing the man she loves with a horsewhip.'
There had been only one man in Sir Buckstone's past whom he had chased with a horsewhip. He gaped incredulouly.
'You aren't telling me Jane's gone and fallen in love with this blighter Peake?'
'She loves him devotedly. You know that.'
'I don't know anything of the sort. What you say has come as a stupefying shock to me. And I don't believe it, either. Sensible girl like Jane? Nonsense. She couldn't love Peake. Nobody could love Peake.'
'She does. And let me tell you one thing, Lord Abbott. You may boast of the pride of your ancient name, you may dwell in a marble hall, but there's something that's greater than riches and fame—'
'What are you talking about? Marble? Red brick; and glazed, at that.'
'Yeah, Love that conquers all,' concluded Mr Bulpitt. And I'm for her. Get that into your nut. I'm on her side, and when she marries, I intend to—'
He had got thus far when, from the regions below, there proceeded a loud booming noise, and Sir Buckstone started and ceased to listen. No Englishman, whatever the importance of the subject under discussion, will give it his attention when he hears the dinner gong.
'Ha!' cried Sir Buckstone, in much the same manner as the Biblical character who spoke that word among the trumpets, and made for the door more like Jesse Owens than a Baronet.
'Hey, wait!'
'I can't wait.'
'But I'm telling you sump'n.'
'Tell it me later,' said Sir Buckstone. 'Can't wait now. Dinner!'
He disappeared, and Mr Bulpitt was alone with his thoughts once more.
It is impossible for a man of Samuel Bulpitt's astuteness to be alone with his thoughts for long without something happening in the way of plans and schemes. Already, with his razor-like intelligence, he had perceived that, his own clothes having gone, he must somehow contrive to secure others, but it was only now that he saw whence these might be obtained. He might not be universally popular in this house, but he did have one friend at Walsingford Hall, though they had never actually met – Miss Prudence Whittaker, to wit, his exertions on whose behalf had led him into his present trouble. His first move, he decided, must be to get in touch with Miss Whittaker.
He had reached this conclusion, and was debating in his mind the best way of establishing the desired contact, when the door opened and there entered, in the order named, a savoury smell, a large tray and a very small under-housemaid. The smell was floating in front of the tray, and the under-housemaid was attached to the back of it. The procession halted at his bedside.
'Your dinner, sir,' said the midget, unnecessarily, for his inductive sense had already led him to this conclusion.
'Thank you, baby, thank you,' said Mr Bulpitt, releasing all his charm and starting to employ the technique which had made him so beloved throughout America's quick-lunch emporia, and which we have seen winning the heart of Mr Attwater's niece at the Goose and Gander. 'What might your name be, girlie?'
'Millicent, sir. And Mr Pollen says he thought you would like beer.'
Tell Mr Pollen, Millicent, that he hit it in one. Beer is what I wouldn't like anything except. I want lots of beer and Miss Whittaker.'
'Sir?'
'How do I contact Miss Whittaker?'
'She's gorn out, sir,' replied the under-housemaid, charmed by his cordiality.
'What, at dinner-time?'
'She has high tea over at the vicarage Wednesdays. There's a lit'ry society there,' said the under-housemaid, as if she were naming some strange beast. 'Miss Whittaker goes to it Wednesdays and has high tea.'
'Stealing home when?'
'She won't be back before nine. Did you wish to see her, sir?'
'I can't see her. There's a reason. But if you would be a kind little girl and slip her a note—'
'Oh, yes, sir.'
'Atta baby! I'll have it ready for you when you come for the tray.'
It was not immediately that Mr Bulpitt addressed himself to literary composition, for he never allowed anything to come between himself and the fortifying of his inner man. The casserole finished, however, and the beer disposed of, he lost no time in hopping out of bed and going to the writing desk. When the under-housemaid returned, the note was ready for her.
It had not been an easy note to write. Its author, striving for a measured dignity of phrase, had begun by making the mistake of trying to word it in the third person, only to discover an 'I' and a co
uple of 'me's' insinuating themselves into the third sentence. Switching to the more direct form, he had had happier results, and what was now in the under-housemaid's custody was something which would, in his opinion, drag home the gravy.
It wavered in style between the formal and the chummy, beginning 'Dear Madam' and ending 'So you see what a spot I'm in, ducky,' but it did present the facts. An intelligent girl, reading it, would be left in no doubt that Mr Bulpitt had been deprived of his clothes through the machinations of Sir Buck-stone Abbott and his minions and hoped that she would come and discuss the matter with him through the door of his bedroom.
A glance at the clock on the mantelpiece had just told him that the hour was a quarter to nine, when there was a knock on the door and a voice spoke his name in an undertone.
'Mr Bullpott?'
He was out of bed with his lips to the panel in an instant, and a moment later the Pyramus and Thisbe interview had begun.
'Hello?'
'Is that you, Mr Bullpott?'
'—pitt,' corrected Pyramus. 'Miss Whittaker?'
'Yay-ess. I got your note.'
'Can you get the clothes?' asked the practical-minded Mr Bulpitt.
'I will secure them immediatelah. What size?'
This baffled Mr Bulpitt for a moment. In the circumstances, he could scarcely invite the girl to come in and measure him. Then inspiration descended on him.
'Say, look – I mean listen. I'm just around Lord Abbott's build.'
'Sir Buckstone Abbott's?'
'Call him what you like. The point is, we're about the same shape. Go and scoff one of his nibs' reach-me-downs.'
'Sir Buckstone Abbott's?'
'That's right. Still talking about him. Fetch 'em quick and leave them outside on the mat and knock. Get me?'
'Quale.'
'Right,' said Mr Bulpitt, and went back to bed.
Although her voice had been audible through the woodwork, it had, of course, been impossible for Mr Bulpitt to watch the play of expression on the face of his visitor during this conversation. Had he been able to do so, he would have observed that his request that she purloin clothes belonging to Sir Buckstone Abbott had not been well received by Miss Whittaker. Her eyebrows had risen and she had pursed her lips. A well-trained secretary does not rifle her employer's wardrobe, and the suggestion had frankly shocked the girl.
It was for this reason that, leaving the door of the Blue Room, she did not proceed to the Baronet's quarters, but hastened instead to the modest apartment which had been assigned to Tubby Vanringham.
She would have preferred to go elsewhere, for even though she supposed that he was at the dinner table and, so, unlikely to interrupt her search, she disliked the idea of having any association with him, even the somewhat remote one of stealing his clothes. But she had no choice. Mr Bulpitt had specifically stated that in build he resembled Sir Buckstone Abbott, and Tubby was the only other man on the premises who shared this distinction. Colonel Tanner was long and stringy. So was Mr Waugh-Bonner. So was Mr Profitt. And so, oddly enough, was Mr Billing. Only by calling on Tubby's resources could a reasonable fit be secured.
She crept into the room and switched on the light and made her way to the hanging cupboard. Her heart was beating quickly as she plucked a pair of trousers like fruit from the bough, but not so quickly as it was to beat a moment later, when a sudden exclamation from behind her caused her to turn, and she saw their owner standing in the doorway.
Tubby was lightly clad in a towel and a small Union Jack, and he would not have approached even as closely as that to the standards of the well-dressed man, had he not possessed a stronger will than Adrian Peake, and so been able to dominate him when it came to the division of the few wearable objects which Lady Abbott had left behind her after visiting the houseboat Mignonette. Adrian had had to make out with a piece of sacking.
For a long instant, Prudence Whittaker stood staring, as terror wrestled with outraged modesty within her. Then, uttering a low, honking cry like that of some refined creature of the wild caught in a trap, she staggered back against the wall.
CHAPTER 24
INTO the emotions of Tubby Vanringham and Adrian Peake when, returning from their swim, they discovered what had taken place on board the houseboat Mignonette during their absence, it is not necessary for the chronicler to go with any wealth of detailed analysis, for he had already indicated how men react to such discoveries. It is enough to say that both had taken it big. Their sense of loss was, indeed, even deeper than that of Mr Bulpitt, for he had at least had a comfortable bed to which to retire while shaping his plans for the future. Only after a search through the saloon had yielded an unopened bottle of whisky had Tubby been able to face with anything approaching a cool, reasoning mind the situation in which he found himself.
It was rather an inferior brand of whisky, for J. B. Attwater, who had supplied it to Mr Bulpitt, specialized in draught ale and did not bother much about the rest of his cellar, but it had bite and authority. It stimulated the thought processes. And it was not long, in consequence, before Tubby remembered that in his bedroom at Walsingford Hall he had left behind him a large and varied wardrobe, and realized that if he was prepared to wait patiently for the psychological moment and did not shrink from a walk across country in bare feet, it would be possible for him to avail himself of this.
There would, he knew, come a time, between the hours of eight and nine, when the residents of the Hall would be at dinner, leaving nobody loitering about the stairs and corridors to observe the entry of two young men, one in a towel and a Union Jack, the other swathed in sacking. From that moment, it may be said that the sun had begun to shine through the clouds for Tubby Vanringham.
For Adrian Peake, who had not had his fair share of the bottle and shrank from the idea of venturing near Walsingford Hall in any kind of costume, it had shone more faintly Indeed, it was only the horror of the prospect of being left indefinitely on the boat with only a piece of sacking to keep him warm that had finally nerved him to undertake the perilous journey. But in the end he had accompanied Tubby, and was now in retirement in the cupboard in Sir Buckstone's study, awaiting the moment when his leader should return laden with garments. Seated in pitch darkness on a bound volume of the 'Illustrated Country Gentleman's Gazette', he was hoping for the best.
After that first brief exclamation from Tubby and that first sharp scream from his room-mate, there had fallen a silence. Tubby had become anxious about the stability of the Union Jack and was clutching it nervously, and it was Miss Whittaker who eventually opened the conversation. In the struggle between panic and offended modesty, the latter had now gained the upper hand. Lowering the trousers which she had been holding before her like a shield, she drew herself up coldly.
'How dare you come here dressed like that?' she demanded.
In a situation that called above all things for the tactful and conciliatory word, she could scarcely have selected a question less calculated to ease the strain. The injustice of it cut Tubby like a knife. His eyes rolled. His face became a deeper pink. He raised his hands heavenwards in a passionate gesture, to lower them immediately and grab at the Union Jack.
'Well, I'm darned! How dare I come here? I like that. My own room! How dare you come here, is what I want to know. What are you doing in my room?'
'Never mind,' said Prudence Whittaker.
It was another unfortunate remark, and it affected Tubby as powerfully as her previous one. He did not raise his hands, for he had had his lesson, but they twitched, and his eyes revolved as freely as before.
'So that's the attitude you take, is it? After all that has occurred, I come here and find you sauntering coolly about my bedroom as if it belonged to you, and when I ask you civilly what you're doing there, all you reply is— What's that you've got hold of?' he asked, breaking off and eyeing the trousers sharply. He seemed unable to believe his eyes. 'Pants? What are you doing with my pants?'
Even in this supreme moment, Prudenc
e Whittaker could not let this pass.
'Trousers,' she corrected.
'Pants!'
'Don't make such a noise.'
'I will make such a noise. We're going to have a showdown. There's something sinister about this. What are you doing with my pants?'
Prudence Whittaker was beginning to feel the strain. Her tiptilted nose quivered like a rabbit's.
'I – I wanted them,' she said.
'I see.' Tubby's manner became heavily satirical. He sneered unpleasantly. 'Fancy-dress ball, I suppose? You required pants for your costume, eh, and felt that we were such buddies that I wouldn't object if you came and swiped mine? Just strolled in and helped yourself. He won't mind! Of course he won't. I see.'
'I wanted them for someone.'
'Oh, yes? Who did you want them for?'
'Whom,' corrected Miss Whittaker.
'Who,' thundered Tubby.
'Hush!'
'I won't hush. Who did you want them for?'
'Mr Bulpitt.'
'What?'
'He has lost his.'
Once more, she had said the wrong thing. It was impossible for Tubby to register emotion more intensely than he had been doing, but he maintained his previous high level. On the word 'What?' he had quivered as if he had been harpooned, and as he spoke he continued to quiver:
'Bulpitt! You wanted them for Bulpitt? Well, that's the top. That's the pay-off. Don't try to beat that, because you'll never be able to. Bulpitt! That's a honey. You introduce this slavering human bloodhound into my life, you incite him to harry and pursue me till I feel like Eliza crossing the ice, and then you calmly sneak my pants to give to him! A little present, with compliments of T P. Vanringham, eh? A slight testimonial from one of his warmest admirers. Just a trifling something from an old pal to keep among his souvenirs. Of all the—'
He had to pause to master his feelings, and it was as he did so that there flashed upon him an idea so bizarre, so stunning that he choked and could not proceed. He stood there rigid, blinking dazedly and putting two and two together. Then life returned to his paralysed frame and speech to his trembling lips.