22
MAINLY ABOUT SHOES
"Be quick, Smith," he said, as the latter stood looking at him withoutmaking any movement in the direction of the door.
"_Quick_, sir?" said Psmith meditatively, as if he had been asked aconundrum.
"Go and find Mr. Outwood at once."
Psmith still made no move.
"Do you intend to disobey me, Smith?" Mr. Downing's voice was steely.
"Yes, sir."
"What!"
"Yes, sir."
There was one of those you-could-have-heard-a-pin-drop silences. Psmithwas staring reflectively at the ceiling. Mr. Downing was looking as ifat any moment he might say, "Thwarted to me face, ha, ha! And by a verystripling!"
It was Psmith, however, who resumed the conversation. His manner wasalmost too respectful; which made it all the more a pity that what hesaid did not keep up the standard of docility.
"I take my stand," he said, "on a technical point. I say to myself, 'Mr.Downing is a man I admire as a human being and respect as amaster. In--'"
"This impertinence is doing you no good, Smith."
Psmith waved a hand deprecatingly.
"If you will let me explain, sir. I was about to say that in any otherplace but Mr. Outwood's house, your word would be law. I would fly to doyour bidding. If you pressed a button, I would do the rest. But in Mr.Outwood's house I cannot do anything except what pleases me or what isordered by Mr. Outwood. I ought to have remembered that before. Onecannot," he continued, as who should say, "Let us be reasonable," "onecannot, to take a parallel case, imagine the colonel commanding thegarrison at a naval station going on board a battleship and ordering thecrew to splice the jibboom spanker. It might be an admirable thing forthe Empire that the jibboom spanker _should_ be spliced at thatparticular juncture, but the crew would naturally decline to move in thematter until the order came from the commander of the ship. So in mycase. If you will go to Mr. Outwood, explain to him how matters stand,and come back and say to me, 'Psmith, Mr. Outwood wishes you to ask himto be good enough to come to this study,' then I shall be only too gladto go and find him. You see my difficulty, sir?"
"Go and fetch Mr. Outwood, Smith. I shall not tell you again."
Psmith flicked a speck of dust from his coat sleeve.
"Very well, Smith."
"I can assure you, sir, at any rate, that if there is a shoe in thatcupboard now, there will be a shoe there when you return."
Mr. Downing stalked out of the room.
"But," added Psmith pensively to himself, as the footsteps died away, "Idid not promise that it would be the same shoe."
He took the key from his pocket, unlocked the cupboard, and took out theshoe. Then he selected from the basket a particularly battered specimen.Placing this in the cupboard, he relocked the door.
His next act was to take from the shelf a piece of string. Attaching oneend of this to the shoe that he had taken from the cupboard, he went tothe window. His first act was to fling the cupboard key out into thebushes. Then he turned to the shoe. On a level with the sill the waterpipe, up which Mike had started to climb the night before, was fastenedto the wall by an iron band. He tied the other end of the string tothis, and let the shoe swing free. He noticed with approval, when it hadstopped swinging, that it was hidden from above by the windowsill.
He returned to his place at the mantelpiece.
As an afterthought he took another shoe from the basket, and thrust itup the chimney. A shower of soot fell into the grate, blackeninghis hand.
The bathroom was a few yards down the corridor. He went there, andwashed off the soot.
When he returned, Mr. Downing was in the study, and with him Mr.Outwood, the latter looking dazed, as if he were not quite equal to theintellectual pressure of the situation.
"Where have you been, Smith?" asked Mr. Downing sharply.
"I have been washing my hands, sir."
"H'm!" said Mr. Downing suspiciously.
"Yes, I saw Smith go into the bathroom," said Mr. Outwood. "Smith, Icannot quite understand what it is Mr. Downing wishes me to do."
"My dear Outwood," snapped the sleuth, "I thought I had made itperfectly clear. Where is the difficulty?"
"I cannot understand why you should suspect Smith of keeping his shoesin a cupboard, and," added Mr. Outwood with spirit, catching sight of agood-gracious-has-the-man-_no_-sense look on the other's face, "Why heshould not do so if he wishes it."
"Exactly, sir," said Psmith, approvingly. "You have touched the spot."
"If I must explain again, my dear Outwood, will you kindly give me yourattention for a moment. Last night a boy broke out of your house, andpainted my dog Sampson red."
"He painted...!" said Mr. Outwood, round-eyed. "Why?"
"I don't know why. At any rate, he did. During the escapade one of hisshoes was splashed with the paint. It is that shoe which I believe Smithto be concealing in this cupboard. Now, do you understand?"
Mr. Outwood looked amazedly at Psmith, and Psmith shook his headsorrowfully at Mr. Outwood. Psmith's expression said, as plainly as ifhe had spoken the words, "We must humor him."
"So with your permission, as Smith declares that he has lost the key, Ipropose to break open the door of this cupboard. Have you anyobjection?"
Mr. Outwood started.
"Objection? None at all, my dear fellow, none at all. Let me see, _what_is it you wish to do?"
"This," said Mr. Downing shortly.
There was a pair of dumbbells on the floor, belonging to Mike. He neverused them, but they always managed to get themselves packed with therest of his belongings on the last day of the holidays. Mr. Downingseized one of these, and delivered two rapid blows at the cupboard door.The wood splintered. A third blow smashed the flimsy lock. The cupboard,with any skeletons it might contain, was open for all to view.
Mr. Downing uttered a cry of triumph, and tore the shoe from its restingplace.
"I told you," he said. "I told you."
"I wondered where that shoe had got to," said Psmith. "I've been lookingfor it for days."
Mr. Downing was examining his find. He looked up with an exclamation ofsurprise and wrath.
"This shoe has no paint on it," he said, glaring at Psmith. "This is notthe shoe."
"It certainly appears, sir," said Psmith sympathetically, "to be freefrom paint. There's a sort of reddish glow just there, if you look at itsideways," he added helpfully.
"Did you place that shoe there, Smith?"
"I must have done. Then, when I lost the key--"
"Are you satisfied now, Downing?" interrupted Mr. Outwood with asperity,"or is there any more furniture you wish to break?"
The excitement of seeing his household goods smashed with a dumbbell hadmade the archaeological student quite a swashbuckler for the moment. Alittle more, and one could imagine him giving Mr. Downing a good,hard knock.
The sleuth-hound stood still for a moment, baffled. But his brain wasworking with the rapidity of a buzz saw. A chance remark of Mr.Outwood's set him fizzing off on the trail once more. Mr. Outwood hadcaught sight of the little pile of soot in the grate. He bent down toinspect it.
"Dear me," he said, "I must remember to have the chimneys swept. Itshould have been done before."
Mr. Downing's eye, rolling in a fine frenzy from heaven to earth, fromearth to heaven, also focused itself on the pile of soot; and a thrillwent through him. Soot in the fireplace! Smith washing his hands! ("Youknow my methods, my dear Watson. Apply them.")
Mr. Downing's mind at that moment contained one single thought; and thatthought was, "What ho for the chimney!"
He dived forward with a rush, nearly knocking Mr. Outwood off his feet,and thrust an arm up into the unknown. An avalanche of soot fell uponhis hand and wrist, but he ignored it, for at the same instant hisfingers had closed upon what he was seeking.
"Ah," he said. "I thought as much. You were not quite clever enough,after all, Smith."
"No, sir," said Psmith patien
tly. "We all make mistakes."
"You would have done better, Smith, not to have given me all thistrouble. You have done yourself no good by it."
"It's been great fun, though, sir," argued Psmith.
"Fun!" Mr. Downing laughed grimly. "You may have reason to change youropinion of what constitutes--"
His voice failed as his eye fell on the all-black toe of the shoe. Helooked up, and caught Psmith's benevolent gaze. He straightened himselfand brushed a bead of perspiration from his face with the back of hishand. Unfortunately, he used the sooty hand, and the result was that helooked like a chimney sweep at work.
"Did--you--put--that--shoe--there, Smith?" he asked slowly.
"Yes, sir."
"Then what did you _MEAN_ by putting it there?" roared Mr. Downing.
"Animal spirits, sir," said Psmith.
"WHAT?"
"Animal spirits, sir."
What Mr. Downing would have replied to this one cannot tell, though onecan guess roughly. For, just as he was opening his mouth, Mr. Outwood,catching sight of his soot-covered countenance, intervened.
"My dear Downing," he said, "your face. It is positively covered withsoot, positively. You must come and wash it. You are quite black. Reallyyou present a most curious appearance, most. Let me show you the wayto my room."
In all times of storm and tribulation there comes a breaking point, apoint where the spirit definitely refuses to battle any longer againstthe slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Mr. Downing could not bearup against this crowning blow. He went down beneath it. In the languageof the ring, he took the count. It was the knockout.
"Soot!" he murmured weakly. "Soot!"
"Your face is covered, my dear fellow, quite covered."
"It certainly has a faintly sooty aspect, sir," said Psmith.
His voice roused the sufferer to one last flicker of spirit.
"You will hear more of this, Smith," he said. "I say you will hear moreof it."
Then he allowed Mr. Outwood to lead him out to a place where there weretowels, soap, and sponges.
* * * * *
When they had gone, Psmith went to the window, and hauled in the string.He felt the calm afterglow which comes to the general after asuccessfully conducted battle. It had been trying, of course, for a manof refinement, and it had cut into his afternoon, but on the whole ithad been worth it.
The problem now was what to do with the painted shoe. It would take alot of cleaning, he saw, even if he could get hold of the necessaryimplements for cleaning it. And he rather doubted if he would be able todo so. Edmund, the boot-boy, worked in some mysterious cell far from themadding crowd, at the back of the house. In the boot cupboard downstairsthere would probably be nothing likely to be of any use.
His fears were realized. The boot cupboard was empty. It seemed to himthat, for the time being, the best thing he could do would be to placethe shoe in safe hiding, until he would have thought out a scheme.
Having restored the basket to its proper place, accordingly, he went upto the study again, and placed the red-toed shoe in the chimney, atabout the same height where Mr. Downing had found the other. Nobodywould think of looking there a second time, and it was improbable thatMr. Outwood really would have the chimneys swept, as he had said. Theodds were that he had forgotten about it already.
Psmith went to the bathroom to wash his hands again, with the feelingthat he had done a good day's work.