‘Don’t call her a poor little girl.’
‘I will call her a poor little girl,’ said Hugo firmly. ‘To me, she is a poor little girl, and I don’t care who knows it. I don’t mind telling you that my heart bleeds for her. Bleeds profusely. And I must say I should have thought . . .’
‘I don’t want to talk about her.’
‘. . . after her doing what she has done . . .’
‘I don’t want to talk about her, I tell you.’
Hugo sighed. He gave it up. The situation was what they called an impasse. Too bad. His best friend and a dear little girl like that parted for ever. Two jolly good eggs sundered for all eternity. Oh, well, that was Life.
‘If you want to talk about anything,’ said Ronnie, ‘you had much better talk about this engagement of yours.’
‘Only too glad, old man. Was afraid it might bore you, or would have touched more freely on subject.’
‘I suppose you realize the Family will squash it flat?’
‘Oh, no, they won’t.’
‘You think my Aunt Constance is going to leap about and bang the cymbals?’
‘The Keeble, I admit,’ said Hugo, with a faint shiver, ‘may make her presence felt to some extent. But I rely on the ninth Earl’s support and patronage. Before long, I shall be causing the ninth to look on me as a son.’
‘How?’
For a moment Hugo almost yielded to the temptation to confide in this friend of his youth. Then he realized the unwisdom of such a course. By an odd coincidence, he was thinking exactly the same of Ronnie as Ronnie at an earlier stage of this history had thought of him. Ronnie, he considered, though a splendid chap, was not fitted to be a repository of secrets. A babbler. A sieve. The sort of fellow who would spread a secret hither and thither all over the place before nightfall.
‘Never mind,’ he said. ‘I have my methods.’
‘What are they?’
‘Just methods,’ said Hugo, ‘and jolly good ones. Well, I’ll be pushing off. I’m late. Sure you won’t come down to dinner? Then I’ll be going. It is imperative that I get hold of Pilbeam with all possible speed. Don’t want the sun to go down on my wrath. All has ended happily in spite of him, but that’s no reason why he shouldn’t be massacred. I look on myself as a man with a public duty.’
For some minutes after the door had closed, Ronnie remained humped up in the chair. Then, in spite of everything, there began to creep upon him a desire for food, too strong to be resisted. Perfect health and a tealess afternoon in the open had given him a compelling appetite. He still shrank from the thought of the dining-room. Fond as he was of Hugo, he simply could not stand his conversation tonight. A chop at the Ems-worth Arms would meet the case. He could get down there in five minutes in his two-seater.
He rose. His mind, as he moved to the door, was not entirely occupied with thoughts of food. Hugo’s parting words had turned it in the direction of Pilbeam again.
What had brought Pilbeam to the castle, he did not know. But, now that he was here, let him look out for himself! A couple of minutes alone with P. Frobisher Pilbeam was just the medicine his bruised soul required. Apparently, from what he had said, Hugo also entertained some grievance against the man. It could be nothing compared with his own.
Pilbeam! The cause of all his troubles. Pilbeam! The snake in the grass. Pilbeam . . .! Yes . . .! His heart might be broken, his life a wreck, but he could still enjoy the faint consolation of dealing faithfully with Pilbeam.
He went out into the corridor. And, as he did so, Percy Pilbeam came out of the room opposite.
II
Pilbeam had dressed for dinner with considerable care. Owing to the fact that Lord Emsworth, in his woollen-headed way, had completely forgotten to inform him of the exodus to Matchingham Hall, he was expecting to meet a gay and glittering company at the meal, and had prepared himself accordingly. Looking at the result in the mirror, he had felt a glow of contentment. This glow was still warming him as he passed into the corridor. As his eyes fell on Ronnie, it faded abruptly.
In the days of his editorship of Society Spice, that frank and fearless journal, P. Frobisher Pilbeam had once or twice had personal encounters with people having no cause to wish him well. They had not appealed to him. He was a man who found no pleasure in physical violence. And that physical violence threatened now was only too sickeningly plain. It was foreshadowed in the very manner in which this small but sturdy young man confronting him had begun to creep forward. Pilbeam, who was an F.R.Z.S, had seen leopards at the Zoo creep just like that.
Years of conducting a weekly scandal-sheet, followed by a long period of activity as a private enquiry agent, undoubtedly train a man well for the exhibition of presence-of-mind in sudden emergencies. One finds it difficult in the present instance to over-praise Percy Pilbeam’s ready resource. Had a great military strategist been present, he would have nodded approval. With the grim menace of Ronnie Fish coming closer and closer, Percy Pilbeam did exactly what Napoleon, Hannibal, or the great Duke of Marlborough would have done. Reaching behind him for the handle and twisting it sharply, he slipped through the door of his bedroom, banged it, and was gone. Many an eel has disappeared into the mud with less smoothness and celerity.
If the leopard which he resembled had seen its prey vanish into the undergrowth just before dinner-time, it would probably have expressed its feelings in exactly the same kind of short, rasping cry as proceeded from Ronnie Fish, witnessing this masterly withdrawal. For an instant he was completely taken aback. Then he plunged for the door and plunged into the room.
He stood, baffled. Pilbeam had vanished. To Ronnie’s astonished eyes the apartment appeared entirely free from detectives in any shape or form whatsoever. There was the bed. There were the chairs. There were the carpet, the dressing-table, and the book-shelf But of private enquiry agents there was a complete shortage.
How long this miracle would have continued to afflict him one cannot say. His mind was still dealing dazedly with it, when there came to his ears a sharp click, as of a key being turned in the lock. It seemed to proceed from a hanging-cupboard at the other side of the room.
Old Miles Fish, Ronnie’s father, might, as Lord Emsworth had asserted, have been the biggest fool in the Brigade of Guards, but his son could reason and deduce. Springing forward, he tugged at the handle of the cupboard door. The door stood fast.
At the same moment there filtered through it the sound of muffled breathing.
Ronnie was already looking grim. He now looked grimmer. He placed his lips to the panel.
‘Come out of that!’
The breathing stopped.
‘All right,’ said Ronnie, with a hideous calm. ‘Right jolly ho! I can wait.’
For some moments there was silence. Then from the beyond a voice spoke in reply.
‘Be reasonable!’ said the voice.
‘Reasonable?’ said Ronnie thickly. ‘Reasonable, eh?’ He choked. ‘Come out! I only want to pull your head off,’ he added, with a note of appeal.
The voice became conciliatory.
‘I know what you’re upset about,’ it said.
‘You do, eh?’
Yes, I quite understand. But I can explain everything.’
‘What?’
‘I say I can explain everything.’
‘You can, can you?’
‘Quite,’ said the voice.
Up till now Ronnie had been pulling. It now occurred to him that pushing might possibly produce more satisfactory results. So he pushed. Nothing, however, happened. Blandings Castle was a house which rather prided itself on its solidity. Its walls were walls and its doors doors. No jimcrack work here. The cupboard creaked, but did not yield.
‘I say!’
‘Well?’
‘I wish you’d listen. I tell you I can explain everything. About that night at Mario’s, I mean. I know exactly how it is. You think Miss Brown is fond of me. I give you my solemn word she can’t stand the sight of me. She told me so
herself.’
A pleasing thought came to Ronnie.
‘You can’t stay in there all night,’ he said.
‘I don’t want to stay in here all night.’
‘Well, come on out, then.’
The voice became plaintive.
‘I tell you she had never set eyes on me before that night at Mario’s. She was dining with that fellow Carmody, and he went out and I came over and introduced myself. No harm in that, was there?’
Ronnie wondered if kicking would do any good. A tender feeling for his toes, coupled with the reflection that his Uncle Clarence might have something to say if he started breaking up cupboard doors, caused him to abandon the scheme. He stood, breathing tensely.
‘Just a friendly word, that’s all I came over to say. Why shouldn’t a fellow introduce himself to a girl and say a friendly word?’
‘I wish I’d got there earlier.’
‘I’d have been glad to see you,’ said Pilbeam courteously.
‘Would you?’
‘Quite.’
‘I shall be glad to see you,’ said Ronnie, ‘when I can get this damned door open.’
Pilbeam began to fear asphyxiation. The air inside the cupboard was growing closer. Peril lent him the inspiration which it so often does.
‘Look here,’ he said, ‘are you Ronnie?’
Ronnie turned pinker.
‘I don’t want any of your dashed cheek.’
‘No, but listen. Is your name Ronnie?’
Silence without.
‘Because, if it is,’ said Pilbeam, ‘you’re the fellow she’s come here to see.’
More silence.
‘She told me so. In the garden this evening. She came here calling herself Miss Shoemaker or some such name, just to see you. That ought to show you that I’m not the man she’s keen on.’
The silence was broken by a sharp exclamation.
‘What’s that?’
Pilbeam repeated his remark. A growing hopefulness lent an almost finicky clearness to his diction.
‘Come out!’cried Ronnie.
‘That’s all very well, but . . .’
‘Come out, I want to talk to you.’
You are talking to me.’
‘I don’t want to bellow this through a door. Come on out. I swear I won’t touch you.’
It was not so much Pilbeam’s faith in the knightly word of the Fishes that caused him to obey the request as a feeling that, if he stayed cooped up in this cupboard much longer, he would get a rush of blood to the head. Already he was beginning to feel as if he were breathing a solution of dust and mothballs. He emerged. His hair was rumpled, and he regarded his companion warily. He had the air of a man who has taken his life in his hands. But the word of the Fishes held good. As far as Ronnie was concerned, the war appeared to be over.
‘What did you say? She’s here?’
‘Quite.’
‘What do you mean, quite?’
‘Certainly. Quite. She got here just before I did. Haven’t you seen her?’
‘No.’
‘Well, she’s here. She’s in the room they call the Garden Room. I heard her tell that old bird Galahad so. If you go there now,’ said Pilbeam insinuatingly, ‘you could have a quiet word with her before she goes down to dinner.’
‘And she said she had come here to see me?’
‘Yes. To explain about that night at Mario’s. And what I say,’ proceeded Pilbeam warmly, ‘is, if a girl didn’t love a fellow, would she come to a place like this, calling herself Miss Shoolbred or something, simply to see him? I ask you!’ said Pilbeam.
Ronnie did not answer. His feelings held him speechless. He was too deep in a morass of remorse to be able to articulate. Indeed, he was in a frame of mind so abased that he almost asked Pilbeam to kick him. The thought of how he had wronged his blameless Sue was almost too bitter to be borne. It bit like a serpent and stung like an adder.
From the surge and riot of his reflections one thought now emerged clearly, shining like a beacon on a dark night. The Garden Room!
Turning without a word, he shot out of the door as quickly as Percy Pilbeam a short while ago had shot in. And Percy Pilbeam, with a deep sigh, went to the dressing-table, took up the brush, and started to restore his hair to a state fit for the eyes of the nobility and gentry. This done, he smoothed his moustache and went downstairs to the drawing-room.
Ill
The drawing-room was empty. And, to Pilbeam’s surprise, it continued to be empty for quite a considerable time. He felt puzzled. He had expected to meet a reproachful host with an eye on the clock and a haughty hostess clicking her tongue. As the minutes crept by and his solitude remained unbroken, he began to grow restless.
He wandered about the room staring at the pictures, straightening his tie and examining the photographs on the little tables. The last of these was one of Lord Emsworth, taken apparently at about the age of thirty, in long whiskers and the uniform of the Shropshire Yeomanry. He was gazing at this with the fascinated horror which it induced in everyone who saw it suddenly for the first time, when the door at last opened; and with a sinking sensation of apprehension Pilbeam beheld the majestic form of Beach.
For an instant he stood eyeing the butler with that natural alarm which comes to all of us when in the presence of a man who a few short hours earlier has given us one look and made us feel like a condemned food product. Then his tension relaxed.
It has been well said that for every evil in this world Nature supplies an antidote. If butlers come, can cocktails be far behind? Beach was carrying a tray with glasses and a massive shaker on it; and Pilbeam, seeing these, found himself regarding their formidable bearer almost with equanimity.
A cocktail, sir?’
‘Thanks.’
He accepted a brimming glass. The darkness of its contents suggested a welcome strength. He drank. And instantaneously all through his system beacon-fires seemed to burst into being.
He drained the glass. His whole outlook on life was now magically different. Quite suddenly he had begun to feel equal to a dozen butlers, however glazed their eyes might be.
And it might have been an illusion caused by gin and vermouth, but this butler seemed to have changed considerably for the better since their last meeting. His eye, though still glassy, had lost the old basilisk quality. There appeared now, in fact, to be something so positively light-hearted about Beach’s whole demeanour that the proprietor of the Argus Enquiry Agency was emboldened to plunge into conversation.
‘Nice evening.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Nice after the storm.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Came down a bit, didn’t it?’
‘The rain was undoubtedly extremely heavy, sir. Another cocktail?’
‘Thanks.’
The re-lighting of the beacons had the effect of removing from Pilbeam the last trace of diffidence and shyness. He saw now that he had been entirely mistaken in this butler. Encountering him in the hall at the moment of his arrival, he had supposed him supercilious and hostile. He now perceived that he was a butler and a brother. More like Old King Cole, that jolly old soul, indeed, than anybody Pilbeam had met for months.
‘I got caught in it,’ he said affably.
‘Indeed, sir?’
‘Yes. Lord Emsworth had been showing me some photographs of that pig of his . . . By the way, in strict confidence . . . what’s your name?’
‘Beach, sir.’
‘In strict confidence, Beach, I know something about that pig.’
‘Indeed, sir?’
‘Yes. Well, after I had seen the photographs, I went for a walk in the park and the rain came on and I got pretty wet. In fact, I don’t mind telling you I had to get under cover and take my trousers off to dry.’
He laughed merrily.
‘Another cocktail, sir?’
‘Making three in all?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Perhaps you’re right,’ said
Pilbeam.
For some moments he sat, pensive and distrait, listening to the strains of a brass band which seemed to have started playing somewhere in the vicinity. Then his idly floating thoughts drifted back to the mystery which had been vexing him before this delightful butler’s entry.
‘I say, Beach, I’ve been waiting here hours and hours. Where’s this dinner I heard you beating gongs about?’
‘Dinner is ready, sir, but I put it back some little while, as gentlemen aren’t punctual in the summer time.’
Pilbeam considered this statement. It sounded to him as if it would make rather a good song-title. Gentlemen aren’t punctual in the summertime, in the summertime (I said, In the summertime), So take me back to that old Kentucky shack . . . He tried to fit it to the music which the brass band was playing, but it did not go very well and he gave it up.
‘Where is everybody?’ he asked.
‘His lordship and her ladyship and Mr Galahad and Miss Threepwood are dining at Matchingham Hall.’
‘What! With old Pop Parsloe?’
‘With Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe, yes, sir.’
Pilbeam chuckled.
‘Well, well, well! Quick worker, old Parsloe. Don’t you think so, Beach? I mean, you advise him to do a thing, to act in a certain way, to adopt a certain course of action, and he does it right away. You agree with me, Beach?’
‘I fear my limited acquaintance with Sir Gregory scarcely entitles me to offer an opinion, sir.’
‘Talking of old Parsloe, Beach . . . you did say your name was Beach?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘With a capital B?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Well, talking of old Parsloe, Beach, I could tell you something about him. Something he’s up to.’
‘Indeed, sir?’
‘But I’m not going to. Respect client’s confidence. Lips sealed. Professional secret.’
‘Yes, sir?’
‘As you rightly say, yes. Any more of that stuff in the shaker, Beach?’
A little, sir, if you consider it judicious.’
‘That’s just what I do consider it. Start pouring.’
The detective sipped luxuriously, fuller and fuller every moment of an uplifting sense of well-being. If the friendship which had sprung up between himself and the butler was possibly a little one-sided, on the one side on which it did exist it was warm, even fervent. It seemed to Pilbeam that for the first time since he had arrived at Blandings Castle he had found a real chum, a kindred soul in whom he might confide. And he was filled with an overwhelming desire to confide in somebody.