And so, going as we say, straight to the heart of the matter, Lord Emsworth, jerking the pince-nez off his face in his emotion, exclaimed:
‘It’s that fellow Baxter!’
Not since a certain day in their mutual nursery many years ago had Lady Constance gone to the length of actually hauling off and smiting her elder brother on the head with the flat of an outraged hand: but she came very near to doing it now. Perhaps it was the presence of Voules that caused her to confine herself to words.
‘Clarence, you’re an idiot!’
Even Voules could not prevent her saying that. After all, she was revealing no secrets. The chauffeur had been in service at the castle quite long enough to have formed the same impression for himself.
Lord Emsworth did not argue the point. The car had drawn up now outside the front door. The front door was open, as always of a summer evening, and the ninth Earl, accompanied by his brother Galahad, hurried up the steps and entered the hall. And, as they did so, there came to their ears the sound of running feet. The next moment, the flying figure of Percy Pilbeam came into view, taking the stairs four at a time.
‘God bless my soul!’ said Lord Emsworth.
If Pilbeam heard the words or saw the speaker, he gave no sign of having done so. He was plainly in a hurry. He shot through the hall and, more like a startled gazelle than a private enquiry agent, vanished down the steps. His shirt-front was dark with dirt-stains, his collar had burst from its stud, and it seemed to Lord Emsworth, in the brief moment during which he was able to focus him, that he had a black eye. The next instant, there descended the stairs and flitted past with equal speed the form of Ronnie Fish.
Lord Emsworth got an entirely wrong conception of the affair. He had no means of knowing what had taken place in the Garden Room when Pilbeam, inspired by alcohol and flushed with the thought that now was the time to get into that apartment and possess himself of the manuscript of the Hon. Galahad’s reminiscences, had climbed the waterspout to put the plan into operation. He knew nothing of the detective’s sharp dismay at finding himself unexpectedly confronted with the menacing form of Ronnie Fish. He was ignorant of the lively and promising mix-up which had been concluded by Pilbeam’s tempestuous dash for life. All he saw was two men fleeing madly for the open spaces, and he placed the obvious interpretation upon this phenomenon.
Baxter, he assumed, had run amok and had done it with such uncompromising thoroughness that strong men ran panic-stricken before him.
Mild though the ninth Earl was by nature, a lover of rural peace and the quiet life, he had, like all Britain’s aristocracy, the right stuff” in him. It so chanced that during the years when he had held his commission in the Shropshire Yeomanry the motherland had not called to him to save her. But, had that call been made, Clarence, ninth Earl of Emsworth, would have answered it with as prompt a ‘Bless my Soul! Of course. Certainly!’ as any of his Crusader ancestors. And in his sixtieth year the ancient fire still lingered. The Hon. Galahad, who had turned to watch the procession through the front door with a surprised monocle, turned back and found that he was alone. Lord Emsworth had disappeared. He now beheld him coming back again. On his amiable face was a look of determination. In his hand was a gun.
‘Eh? What?’ said the Hon. Galahad, blinking.
The head of the family did not reply. He was moving towards the stairs. In just that same silent purposeful way had an Emsworth advanced on the foe at Agincourt.
A sound as of disturbed hens made the Hon. Galahad turn again.
‘Galahad! What is all this? What is happening?’
The Hon. Galahad placed his sister in possession of the facts as known to himself.
‘Clarence has just gone upstairs with a gun.’
‘With a gun!’
‘Yes. Looked like mine, too. I hope he takes care of it.’
He perceived that Lady Constance had also been seized with the urge to climb. She was making excellent time up the broad staircase. So nimbly did she move that she was on the second landing before he came up with her.
And, as they stood there, a voice made itself heard from a room down the corridor.
‘Baxter! Come out! Come out, Baxter, my dear fellow, immediately.’
In the race for the room from which the words had appeared to proceed, Lady Constance, getting off to a good start, beat her brother by a matter of two lengths. She was thus the first to see a sight unusual even at Blandings Castle, though strange things had happened there from time to time.
Her young guest, Miss Schoonmaker, was standing by the window, looking excited and alarmed. Her brother Clarence, pointing a gun expertly from the hip, was staring fixedly at the bed. And from under the bed, a little like a tortoise protruding from its shell, there was coming into view the spectacled head of the Efficient Baxter.
18 PAINFUL SCENE IN A BEDROOM
A man who has been lying under a bed for a matter of some thirty minutes and, while there, has been compelled to listen to the sort of dialogue which accompanies a lovers’ reconciliation seldom appears at his best or feels his brightest. There was fluff in Baxter’s hair, dust on his clothes, and on Baxter’s face a scowl of concentrated hatred of all humanity. Lord Emsworth, prepared for something pretty wild-looking, found his expectations exceeded. He tightened his grasp on the gun, and to ensure a more accurate aim raised the butt of it to his shoulder, closing one eye and allowing the other to gleam along the barrel.
‘I have you covered, my dear fellow,’ he said mildly.
Rupert Baxter had not yet begun to stick straws in his hair, but he seemed on the verge of that final piece of self-expression.
‘Don’t point that damned thing at me!’
‘I shall point it at you,’ replied Lord Emsworth with spirit. He was not a man to be dictated to in his own house. ‘And at the slightest sign of violence . . .’
‘Clarence!’ It was Lady Constance who spoke. ‘Put that gun down.’
‘Certainly not.’
‘Clarence!’
‘Oh, all right.’
‘And now, Mr Baxter,’ said Lady Constance, proceeding to dominate the scene in her masterly way, ‘I am sure you can explain.’
Her agitation had passed. It was not in this strong woman to remain agitated long. She had been badly shaken, but her faith in her idol still held good. Remarkable as his behaviour might appear, she was sure that he could account for it in a perfectly satisfactory manner.
Baxter did not speak. His silence gave Lord Emsworth the opportunity of advancing his own views.
‘Explain?’ He spoke petulantly, for he resented the way in which his sister had thrust him from the centre of the stage. ‘What on earth is there to explain? The thing’s obvious.’
‘Can’t say I’ve quite got to the bottom of it,’ murmured the Hon. Galahad. ‘Fellow under bed. Why? Why under bed? Why here at all?’
Lord Emsworth hesitated. He was a kind-hearted man, and he felt that what he had to say would be better said in Baxter’s absence. However, there seemed no way out of it, so he proceeded.
‘My dear Galahad, think!’
‘Eh?’
‘That flower-pot affair. You remember?’
‘Oh!’ Understanding shone in the Hon. Galahad’s monocle. You mean . . .?’
‘Exactly.’
‘Yes, yes. Of course. Subject to these attacks, you mean?’
‘Precisely.’
This was not the first time Lady Constance Keeble had had the opportunity of hearing a theory ventilated by her brothers which she found detestable. She flushed brightly.
‘Clarence!’
‘My dear?’
‘Kindly stop talking in that offensive way.’
‘God bless my soul!’ Lord Emsworth was stung. ‘I like that. What have I said that is offensive?’
‘You know perfectly well.’
‘If you mean that I was reminding Galahad in the most delicate way that poor Baxter here is not quite . . .’
‘Claren
ce!’
‘All very well to say “Clarence!” like that. You know yourself he isn’t right in the head. Didn’t he throw flower-pots at me? Didn’t he leap out of the window this very afternoon? Didn’t he try to make me think that Beach . . .’
Baxter interrupted. There were certain matters on which he considered silence best, but this was one on which he could speak freely.
‘Lord Emsworth!’
‘Eh?’
‘It has now come to my knowledge that Beach was not the prime mover in the theft of your pig. But I have ascertained that he was an accessory.’
‘A what?’
‘He helped,’ said Baxter, grinding his teeth a little. ‘The man who committed the actual theft was your nephew Ronald.’
Lord Emsworth turned to his sister with a triumphant gesture, like one who has been vindicated.
‘There! Now perhaps you’ll say he’s not potty? It won’t do, Baxter, my dear fellow,’ he went on, waggling a reproachful gun at his late employee. You really mustn’t excite yourself by making up these stories.’
‘Bad for the blood-pressure,’ agreed the Hon. Galahad.
‘The Empress was found this evening in your caravan,’ said Lord Emsworth.
‘What!’
‘In your caravan. Where you put her when you stole her. And, bless my soul,’ said Lord Emsworth, with a start, ‘I must be going and seeing that she is put back in her sty. I must find Pirbright. I must . . .’
‘In my caravan?’ Baxter passed a feverish hand across his dust-stained forehead. Illumination came to him. ‘Then that’s what that fellow Carmody did with the animal!’
Lord Emsworth had had enough of this. Empress of Bland-ings was waiting for him. Counting the minutes to that holy reunion, he chafed at having to stand here listening to these wild ravings.
‘First Beach, then Ronald, then Carmody! You’ll be saying I stole her next, or Galahad here, or my sister Constance. Baxter, my dear fellow, we aren’t blaming you. Please don’t think that. We quite see how it is. You will overwork yourself, and, of course, nature demands the penalty. I wish you would go quietly to your room, my dear fellow, and lie down. All this must be very bad for you.’
Lady Constance intervened. Her eye was aflame, and she spoke like Cleopatra telling an Ethiopian slave where he got off.
‘Clarence, will you kindly use whatever slight intelligence you may possess? The theft of your pig is one of the most trivial and unimportant things that ever happened in this world, and I consider the fuss that has been made about it quite revolting. But whoever stole the wretched animal . . .’
Lord Emsworth blenched. He started as if wondering if he had heard aright.
‘. . . and wherever it has been found, it was certainly not Mr Baxter who stole it. It is, as Mr Baxter says, much more likely to have been a young man like Mr Carmody. There is a certain type of young man, I believe, to which Mr Carmody belongs, which considers practical joking amusing. Do ask yourself, Clarence, and try to answer the question as reasonably as is possible for a man of your mental calibre: What earthly motive would Mr Baxter have for coming to Blandings Castle and stealing pigs?’
It may have been the feel of the gun in his hand which awoke in Lord Emsworth old memories of dashing days with the Shropshire Yeomanry and lent him some of the hot spirit of his vanished youth. The fact remains that he did not wilt beneath his sister’s dominating eye. He met it boldly, and boldly answered back.
‘And ask yourself, Constance,’ he said, ‘what earthly motive Mr Baxter has for anything he does.’
‘Yes,’ said the Hon. Galahad loyally. ‘What motive had our friend Baxter for coming to Blandings Castle and scaring girls stiff by hiding under beds?’
Lady Constance gulped. They had found the weak spot in her defences. She turned to the man who she still hoped could deal efficiently with this attack.
‘Mr Baxter!’ she said, as if she were calling on him for an after-dinner speech.
But Rupert Baxter had had no dinner. And it was perhaps this that turned the scale. Quite suddenly there descended on him a frenzied desire to be out of this, cost what it might. An hour before, half an hour before, even five minutes before, his tongue had been tied by a still lingering hope that he might yet find his way back to Blandings Castle in the capacity of private secretary to the Earl of Emsworth. Now, he felt that he would not accept that post, were it offered to him on bended knee.
A sudden overpowering hatred of Blandings Castle and all it contained gripped the Efficient Baxter. He marvelled that he had ever wanted to come back. He held at the present moment the well-paid and responsible position of secretary and adviser to J. Horace Jevons, the American millionaire, a man who not only treated him with an obsequiousness and respect which were balm to his soul, but also gave him such sound advice on the investment of money that already he had trebled his savings. And it was this golden-hearted Chicagoan whom he had been thinking of deserting, purely to satisfy some obscure sentiment which urged him to return to a house which, he now saw, he loathed as few houses have been loathed since human beings left off living in caves.
His eyes flashed through their lenses. His mouth tightened.
‘I will explain!’
‘I knew you would have an explanation,’ cried Lady Constance.
‘I have. A very simple one.’
And short, I hope?’ asked Lord Emsworth, restlessly. He was aching to have done with all this talk and discussion and to be with his pig once more. To think of the Empress languishing in a beastly caravan was agony to him.
‘Quite short,’ said Rupert Baxter.
The only person in the room who so far had remained entirely outside this rather painful scene was Sue. She had looked on from her place by the window, an innocent bystander. She now found herself drawn abruptly into the maelstrom of the debate. Baxter’s spectacles were raking her from head to foot, and he had pointed at her with an accusing forefinger.
‘I came to this room,’ he said, ‘to try to recover a letter which I had written to this lady who calls herself Miss Schoonmaker.’
‘Of course she calls herself Miss Schoonmaker,’ said Lord Emsworth, reluctantly dragging his thoughts from the Empress. ‘It’s her name, my dear fellow. That,’ he explained gently, ‘is why she calls herself Miss Schoonmaker. God bless my soul!’ he said, unable to restrain a sudden spurt of irritability. ‘If a girl’s name is Schoonmaker, naturally she calls herself Miss Schoonmaker.’
‘Yes, if it is. But hers is not. It is Brown.’
‘Listen, my dear fellow,’ said Lord Emsworth soothingly. ‘You are only exciting yourself by going on like this. Probably doing yourself a great deal of harm. Now, what I suggest is, that you go to your room and put a cool compress on your forehead and lie down and take a good rest. I will send Beach up to you with some nice bread-and-milk.’
‘Rum and milk,’ amended the Hon. Galahad. ‘It’s the only thing. I knew a fellow in the year ‘97 who was subject to these spells – you probably remember him, Clarence. Bellamy. Barmy Bellamy we used to call him – and whenever . . .’
‘Her name is Brown!’ repeated Baxter, his voice soaring in a hysterical crescendo. ‘Sue Brown. She is a chorus-girl at the Regal Theatre in London. And she is apparently engaged to be married to your nephew Ronald.’
Lady Constance uttered a cry. Lord Emsworth expressed his feelings with a couple of tuts. The Hon. Galahad alone was silent. He caught Sue’s eye, and there was concern in his gaze.
‘I overheard Beach saying so in this very room. He said he had had the information from Mr Pilbeam. I imagine it to be accurate. But in any case, I can tell you this much. Whoever she is, she is an impostor who has come here under a false name. While I was in the smoking-room some time back a telegram came through on the telephone from Market Blandings. It was signed Myra Schoonmaker, and it had been handed in in Paris this afternoon. That is all I have to say,’ concluded Baxter. ‘I will now leave you, and I sincerely hope I shall never set eyes o
n any of you again. Good evening!’
His spectacles glinting coldly, he strode from the room and in the doorway collided with Ronnie, who was entering.
‘Can’t you look where you’re going?’ he asked.
‘Eh?’said Ronnie.
‘Clumsy idiot!’ said the Efficient Baxter, and was gone.
In the room he had left, Lady Constance Keeble had become a stony figure of menace. She was not at ordinary times a particularly tall woman, but she seemed now to tower like something vast and awful: and Sue quailed before her.
‘Ronnie!’ cried Sue weakly.
It was the cry of the female in distress, calling to her mate. Just so in prehistoric days must Sue’s cavewoman ancestress have cried to the man behind the club when suddenly cornered by the sabre-toothed tiger which Lady Constance Keeble so closely resembled.
‘Ronnie!’
‘What’s all this?’ asked the last of the Fishes.
He was breathing rather quickly, for the going had been fast. Pilbeam, once out in the open, had shown astonishing form at the short sprint. He had shaken off Ronnie’s challenge twenty yards down the drive, and plunged into a convenient shrubbery, and Ronnie, giving up the pursuit, had come back to Sue’s room to report. It occasioned him some surprise to find that in his absence it had become the scene of some sort of public meeting.
‘What’s all this?’ he said, addressing that meeting.
Lady Constance wheeled round upon him.
‘Ronald, who is this girl?’
‘Eh?’ Ronnie was conscious of a certain uneasiness, but he did his best. He did not like his aunt’s looks, but then he never had. Something was evidently up, but it might be that airy nonchalance would save the day. ‘You know her, don’t you? Miss Schoonmaker? Met her with me in London.’
‘Is her name Brown? And is she a chorus-girl?’
‘Why, yes,’ admitted Ronnie. It was a bombshell, but Eton and Cambridge stood it well. ‘Why, yes,’ he said, ‘as a matter of fact, that’s right.’
Words seemed to fail Lady Constance. Judging from the expression on her face this was just as well.