The gap in the wall widened, and Lord Hoddesdon's face grew grimmer. Like his great forebear who had done so well at the Battle of Agincourt, he intended, if necessary, to die fighting.
Round and about the imitation Axminster carpet, meanwhile, the catch-as-catch-can struggle between Berry and his visitor was proceeding briskly and with considerable spirit. J. B. Hoke might have been injudicious in the matter of refreshment that day; he might, during his retirement in London, have allowed the enervating conditions of a peaceful life to spoil his figure and impair his wind; but in his hot youth he had been a pretty formidable bar-room scrapper, with an impressive record of victories from the Barbary Coast of San Francisco to the Tenderloin district of New York: and much of the ancient skill still lingered. You could tell by the way he kicked Berry on the shin and attempted to get tooth-hold on his left ear that this was no novice who sprawled and wriggled on the floor.
Berry perceived this himself, and he put his whole soul into the fray. And for a space the issue hung doubtful. Then Mr Hoke made the grave strategic blunder of rising to his feet.
It was not a thing his best friends would have advised. The mother of whom he had spoken so feelingly would have clicked her tongue and shaken her gentle head, had she seen her boy committing this obvious error. J. B. Hoke was essentially a man who should have stuck to the more free and easy conditions of carpet warfare. Standing up, he offered a too prominent target. Where, on the ground, he had seemed all feet and teeth, he became revealed now as the possessor of a stomach. Berry saw this. He hit Mr Hoke twice, solidly, in the midriff. And Mr Hoke, with a defeated gurgle, folded up like an Arab tent and lay prone. And Berry, jumping for the gat which had been the gage of battle, picked it up and stood, panting.
He was attempting to recover some of the breath of which the recent struggle had deprived him, when a crash from behind, followed by a sharp howl, caused him to turn.
His old friend, Lord Biskerton, was sitting on the floor, nursing a wounded wrist, while his old friend's father, Battling Hoddesdon, stood gazing at his handiwork with surprise and concern.
'Godfrey!'
'Hullo, guv'nor. You here?'
'Godfrey,' cried Lord Hoddesdon. 'I've hurt you, my boy!'
'Guv'nor,' replied the Biscuit, 'you never spoke a truer word. If I hadn't happened to get an arm up in time, the peerage would never have descended through the direct line.'
At this moment, Ann stepped through the hole in the wall.
IV
'Come right in, Ann,' said the Biscuit cordially. 'And thank your stars it wasn't a case of Ladies First. Otherwise you would have caught it on the napper properly. The guv'nor's just been doing his big tent-pegging act.'
This was only Ann's third visit to Valley Fields, and she had, in consequence, but a slight acquaintance with the wholesome give-and-take of life in the suburbs of London. Lord Hoddesdon, entering a sitting-room in Valley Fields and finding two bodies on the floor, would have accepted the phenomenon with philosophic resignation as a perfectly normal and ordinary manifestation of suburban activity. Ann, on the other hand, was surprised.
'What has been happening?' she gasped.
Lord Hoddesdon answered the question with the stolidity of an old habitué.
'Lunatic,' he explained. 'Dangerous. Mr Conway overpowered him.'
Ann gazed at Berry emotionally. Her heart was throbbing with all the old love and esteem. One of his eyes was closed, as eyes will close when smartly jabbed by an elbow, and there was blood trickling down his cheek; but she stared at him as at a beautiful picture.
'Why, it's Hoke,' said the Biscuit, interested. 'When did old Hoke go off his onion? He seemed sane enough at lunch.'
Berry laughed unpleasantly.
'He isn't off his head, Biscuit,' he said. 'He knows what he's doing. Biscuit, you were right. He did do me down over that mine. He's just been telling me all about it.'
'Yes, he told me, too. Do you realize what this means, Berry?'
'Are you hurt, Berry, darling?' said Ann.
Berry stared at her.
'What did you say?'
'I said, are you hurt?'
'You said "darling".'
'Well, of course,' said Ann.
'But . . .'
'Sweethearts still,' explained the Biscuit. 'Recent remarks on her part re never wanting to see you again were made under a misapprehension. The scales have fallen from her eyes.'
'Ann!' said Berry.
'Come here,' said Ann, 'and let mother kiss the place and make it well.'
'But . . . here . . . dash it!'
It was Lord Hoddesdon who spoke. Affairs of greater urgency had caused him to forget for a while the mission which had brought him down to this house, but he remembered it now, and he gazed with consternation at the horrid picture of Ann – the heiress – old Frisby's niece – so obviously going out of the family. He looked piteously round at his son, as if seeking support, but the Biscuit had other things on his mind.
'Just a moment,' said the Biscuit. 'Are you aware, Berry, that Horned Toad Copper, now quoted at one-and-six or something like that, is going to shoot up shortly into the hundreds?'
'I am,' said Berry bitterly. 'Hoke told me. That's why he came here. He sat and held me up with a gun, to prevent me getting to London to buy the stock. Not knowing, poor chump, that I couldn't have bought the stock if he'd sent a motor to fetch me.'
'Why couldn't you?'
'I haven't any money.'
'Yes, you have. You've got two thousand quid, and here it is. Cheque requires endorsement.'
Berry regarded the slip of paper, astounded.
'How did you get this?'
'Never mind. I have my methods.'
'It's signed by Frisby's lawyer.'
'Never mind who it's signed by, so long as he's good for the stuff. Endorse it, and lend me half. A vast fortune stares us in the eye, laddie. Guv'nor,' said the Biscuit, 'if you've any means of collecting a bit of money tomorrow or the next day, bung it into Horned Toad Copper and clean up. It's a pinch.'
Lord Hoddesdon gulped.
'Frisby gave me a cheque for six hundred pounds only yesterday.'
'He did? One of the most pleasing aspects of this whole binge,' said the Biscuit, 'is that that old buccaneer seems to be financing our little venture. Seething the kid in its mother's milk, is what I call it.' He paused, and a look of despairing gloom came into his face. 'Oh, golly!' he moaned.
'What's the matter?'
The Biscuit's exuberance had vanished.
'Berry, old man,' he said, 'I hate to break it to you, old bird, but in the excitement of the moment I forgot.'
'What?'
'We can't get out of here. We're cornered.'
'Why?'
'Hoke's pal's waiting outside.'
Berry snorted.
'I'll soon fix him!'
'But he's got a gun.'
'So have I.'
'Ah,' said Mr Hoke, making his first contribution to the conversation, 'but it isn't loaded.'
'What?'
Berry tested the statement, and found it correct.
'Knew all along,' said Mr Hoke, 'there was something I'd forgotten. And that was it.'
'Tie that blighter up, guv'nor,' said the Biscuit severely, 'and bung him in the cellar. And I hope the mice eat him.'
He regarded Mr Hoke with growing disapproval. Thanks to his slip-shod methods, the garrison of The Nook was helpless. The curse of the age, the Biscuit felt, was this sloppy, careless way of doing things. You would have expected something better from a businessman like J. B. Hoke, even if he had been getting steadily plastered all the afternoon. That was how the Biscuit felt, and the thought depressed him.
In the mind of Mr Hoke, on the other hand, there was nothing but sunshine. All, he realized, was not lost. In fact, nothing was. He himself had been put out of action, but there still remained his excellent friend, Captain Kelly, and Captain Kelly could handle the situation nicely.
'That's all right about tying me up,' he said. 'What good's that going to do you?'
Berry was making for the door.
'Berry!' cried Ann. 'Where are you going?'
Berry stopped.
'Where am I going?' he repeated. 'I'm going to knock the stuffing out of that fellow.'
'And I'd join you,' said the Biscuit warmly, 'only the guv'nor's gone and smashed my arm. Perhaps you'd care to go along, guv'nor, and lend a hand?'
Lord Hoddesdon thought not. The old Crécy spirit had begun to ebb.
'It's young man's work,' he said.
'Berry!' cried Ann.
But Berry had gone.
In the pause that followed, little of note was said, except by Mr Hoke. Mr Hoke, in spite of the Biscuit's well-meant efforts to repress him by kicking him in the ribs, struck an almost lyrical vein on the subject of his partner.
'He's a gorilla,' said Mr Hoke. 'He never misses.'
He subsided for a moment into a thoughtful silence.
'It seems a pity,' he said. 'A nice young fellow like that.'
A scuffling sound outside broke in on his meditations.
'Ah,' said Mr Hoke pensively. 'This'll be the body coming back.'
Through the doorway came Berry. He was not alone. Resting on his shoulder was the form of Captain Kelly.
The Captain appeared to have sustained a wound from some blunt instrument.
'Now,' said Berry, 'put these two fellows in the cellar, and don't let them out till we've done our bit of business tomorrow.'
'I'll guard them,' said Lord Hoddesdon.
'How did you manage it, old man?' cried the Biscuit.
Berry was silent for a moment. He seemed to be thinking.
'I have my methods,' he said.
'Berry!' cried Ann.
Berry regarded her fondly. He had only one eye with which to do it, but it was an eye that did the work of two.
'Shall I see you to your car?' he said.
'Yes, do.'
'Want me to come along?' asked the Biscuit.
'No,' said Berry.
CHAPTER 14
'Darling,' said Berry.
'Yes, darling?' said Ann.
She was seated at the wheel of her car, and he stood, leaning on the side. Mulberry Grove was dark and scented and silent.
'Ann,' said Berry, 'I've something I want to tell you.'
'That you love me?'
'Something else.'
'But you do?'
'I do.'
'In spite of all the beastly things I said to you in the Park?'
'You were quite right.'
'I wasn't.'
'I did lie to you.'
'Well, never mind.'
'But I do mind. Ann.'
'Yes?'
'I've something I want to tell you.'
'Well, go on.'
Berry looked past her at the ornamental water.
'It's about that fellow.'
'What fellow?'
'Hoke's friend.'
'What about him?'
'You've been saying how brave I was.'
'So you were. It was the bravest thing I ever heard of.'
'You're looking on me as a sort of hero.'
'Of course I am.'
'Ann,' said Berry, 'I've something I want to tell you. Do you know what happened when I got out?'
'You jumped on him and stunned him.'
'Ann,' said Berry, 'I did not. When I got out, I found him lying on the ground with his head in a laurel bush.'
'What!'
'Yes.'
'But . . .'
'Wait, I'll tell you. You remember my housekeeper, Mrs Wisdom?'
'The nice old lady who told me about your bed-socks?'
Berry quivered.
'I've never worn bed-socks,' he said vehemently. 'She thinks I do, but I don't.'
'Well, what about Mrs Wisdom?'
'I'll tell you. She is engaged to a local policeman, a man named Finbow.'
'Well?'
'She and Finbow had been to the movies in Brixton.'
'Well?'
'She came back,' proceeded Berry doggedly, 'and she found a strange man lurking in our front garden.'
'Well?'
'She thought he was a burglar.'
'Well?'
'So,' said Berry, 'she hit him on the head with her umbrella and knocked him out, and all I had to do was to carry him in. Now you know.'
There was a silence. Then Ann leaned quickly over the side of the car and kissed the top of his head.
'And you thought I would mind?'
'I thought you would wish you hadn't made quite such a fuss over my reckless courage.'
'But still you told me?'
'Yes.'
Ann kissed the top of his head again.
'Quite right,' she said. 'Mother always wants her little man to tell her the truth.'
THE END
P.G.Wodehouse
IN ARROW BOOKS
If you have enjoyed Big Money, you'll love
Hot Water
FROM
Hot Water
I
THE town of St Rocque stood near the coast of France. The Château Blissac stood near the town of St Rocque. J. Wellington Gedge stood near the Château Blissac. He was reading his letters on the terrace outside the drawing-room.
A passer-by, given the choice between looking at Mr Gedge and at the view beneath him, would have done well to select the latter, for this tubby little man constituted the only blot on an impressive landscape. The Château was on a hill, and from its terrace the ground descended sharply through many-coloured gardens and shrubberies till it reached the lake. Beyond the lake lay sand-dunes, and beyond these glittered the harbour, dotted with boats at anchor.
The town itself was to the left, a straggling huddle of red roofs and white walls in the centre of which, raising a golden dome proudly skywards, stood the building which had made the place the popular resort it was – the Casino Municipale. For St Rocque, once a tiny fishing village, has become in recent years a Mecca for those who enjoy watching their money gathered in with rakes by sad-eyed croupiers.
Mr Gedge, reading his correspondence, did not see the spreading prospect. Nor did he wish to. He was not fond of St Rocque, and this morning it would have seemed less attractive to him than ever, for three of his letters bore Californian postmarks and their contents had aggravated the fever of his homesickness. Ever since his marriage two years ago and the subsequent exodus to Europe he had been pining wistfully for California. The poet speaks of a man whose heart was in the Highlands, a-chasing of the deer. Mr Gedge's was in Glen-dale, Cal., wandering round among the hot dogs and filling-stations.
To him, grieving, there entered a trim and personable young woman whom, after a moment of blinking, he identified as Medway his wife's maid.
'Moddom would like to see you, sir.'
'Eh?' said Mr Gedge. He had already paid his morning visit to the Big Chief. 'Why?'
'I fancy moddom has decided to take the afternoon boat to England to-day'
Mr Gedge started.
'What!'
'Yes, sir.'
'How long is she going to be gone?'
'I could not say, sir.'
It was a point on which Mr Gedge was anxious to obtain early and authoritative information, for much depended on it. St Rocque, normally, he found a boring spot, but there is one day in the year when it pulls itself together and gives of its best. This is on the occasion of its founder's birthday, which is piously celebrated by a Costume Carnival of impressive proportions. The Festival of the Saint was due next week, and until this moment Mr Gedge had had not even a faint hope of contributing his mite to the revels. Now, for the first time, it seemed as if something might be done about it. He stuffed his letters in his pocket and hurried into the Château.
A lover of the old and quaint would have admired the Château, dating as it did from the late fourteenth or early fifteenth century. The only feeling it gave Mr Gedge was th
at its architect must have been cock-eyed. Mouldering stone with spiky turrets stuck on all over it was not his idea of a house. And while its interior had been modernized, or what these French called modernized – electric light and two bathrooms – it was not at all what he had been accustomed to in Glendale, California.
He found Mrs Gedge in the Venetian Suite, a large apartment with a heavily carved ceiling which always looked as if it were going to come down and bean you. She was sitting up in bed, dictating letters to Miss Putnam, her social secretary, a thin, colourless feather-weight with horn-rimmed spectacles and an air of quiet respectability.
Mrs Gedge herself would have fought in the light-heavy division. She was a solidly built, handsome woman a few years younger than her husband, and you could see from a glance at her why he always did what she told him to. Even in repose, her manner was forceful. Of her past life before their marriage, except that she was the widow of a multi-millionaire oil man named Brewster who had left her all his multi-millions, Mr Gedge knew nothing. He sometimes thought she might have been a lion-tamer.
With a slight gesture of her hand she caused Miss Putnam to melt into thin air, and raised herself on the pillows.
'What,' asked Mr Gedge, taking the chair vacated by the secretary, 'is all this about your going to England? Medway tells me you're sailing on the afternoon boat.'
'I have had a letter from my lawyer in London. There has been some trouble about English Income Tax, and he says he must see me.'
'How about your ticket?'
'Miss Putnam is attending to that. I want you to run down to the drug store and buy me some seasick remedy. You had better get Philipson's Mal-de-Mer-o.'
'All right.'
There was a pause. Mr Gedge coughed nonchalantly.
'Going to be gone long?'
'About a week.'
Ah!' said Mr Gedge.
A purposeful gleam lit up his prominent eyes. There and then he had resolved that he would attend the Festival of the Saint, and not only attend it but attend it right. For if anybody thought that he couldn't lay his hands on a pair of pyjama trousers and one of his wife's blouses and wrap a scarf round his head and present a life-like picture of an Oriental potentate, whoever was of that opinion, felt Mr Gedge, was mistaken in the last degree.