A Pelican at Blandings (12 page)

Usually when he had completed his task a restful silence
ensued, but this evening the quiet of the hall was broken by a
sudden clattering suggestive of coals being delivered down a
coal chute. This was caused by Howard Chesney, who,
hurrying from upper regions in quest of a mislaid cigarette
case, had slipped and made a rapid descent of the last few
stairs. He staggered across the floor, clutched at the table on
which the papers and magazines were kept, seized it as he was
about to fall and stood looking dazed but thankful that he had
been spared a worse disaster.

He found Beach at his side. It was Beach's normal
practice, when he encountered Howard Chesney, to freeze
him with a glance and pass on his way, but Howard's
unexpected impersonation of a Gadarene swine rounding
into the straight seemed to call for verbal comment.
With just the right touch of reserve in his manner, to
make it clear that this momentary unbending must not be
taken as implying any promise of future camaraderie, he said:

'I trust you have sustained no injury, sir.'

Howard had already assured himself of this by passing his
hands rapidly over his person as policemen had sometimes
done to him in his native land. Frisking himself, as one might
say. Incredible as it would have seemed to him a moment ago,
there appeared to be no broken bones.

'No, I'm okay,' he replied bravely. 'I managed to catch hold
of the table. Those stairs are slippery.'

'Yes, sir.'

'Why do they keep them that way?'

'I could not say, sir. I was not consulted in the matter,' said
Beach austerely. He was willing to sympathize, but not to chat.
He made a stately exit, and Howard Chesney after a brief
search found his cigarette case. As he did so, Linda came
hurrying in from outside. He would gladly have engaged her in
conversation, for it was always his policy to talk as much as
possible to girls with blue eyes, chestnut hair and graceful
figures, but she flitted by and he was obliged to do the next
best thing and light a cigarette. He was crushing this out in an
ashtray, when Vanessa came down the stairs.

'Hi there, Mr. Chesney,' she said. 'Just the man I wanted to
see.'

Vanessa, it will be recalled, had resolved to devote her time
to a study in depth of Howard Chesney, with a view to
ascertaining whether his moral code was as low as a first glance
had told her it was. 'I'm pretty sure he's a crook,' she had said
to Wilbur Trout, 'but I'll have to be certain before I start
anything.' She had now satisfied herself that it was even lower,
and it was with bright confidence that she was now planning
to enlist his services.

'Have you seen Wilbur Trout?' she asked, and as she spoke
Wilbur appeared from the direction of the billiard room,
where he had been practising solitary cannons. 'Oh, there you
are,' she said. 'I hoped you would be along. We're going to
have a board meeting.'

'A what?'

It was Wilbur who said this. He was staring at her and
thinking how particularly attractive she looked. Vanessa liked
to dress for dinner in good time, and when she dressed for
dinner she always presented a spectacle that took the eye.

'A spot of plotting I should have said, but board meeting
sounds better. Come over here where we shan't be heard.'

She led the way to a corner of the hall the only occupant of
which was a suit of armour. Thinking it improbable that
anyone would be lurking inside this, she resumed.

'It's about that picture, Willie. I've got an idea that looks
good. Simple, too. It's always best to keep things simple if you
can,' she said, and Wilbur agreed with her. Get too clever, he
said, and you were sunk. This had been borne in upon him, he
said, when thinking up stories to tell his wives.

'But as Mr. Chesney comes into it,' said Vanessa, 'the first
thing to do is to sound him on how he feels about doing a little
lawbreaking with no risks attached. Have you any prejudices in
that direction, Mr. Chesney?'

Howard Chesney was a cautious man.

'Well, that depends,' he said.

'With no risks attached, I repeat.'

'Well—'

'In that case—'

'Yes, in that case I might sit in. But I'd like to know what
the game is.'

'You shall. You've seen that picture that's up in the portrait
gallery, the one the Duke brought with him. Willie wants it
the worst way, never mind why, and I've contracted to get it for
him. Can we count on your assistance?'

'I don't know why not.'

'Bravely spoken.'

'What do I do?'

'Your first move will be to leave.'

'Leave the castle?'

'That's right. You've got your car here, haven't you?'

'Yes.'

'Then off you go.'

'I don't get it.'

'It'll become plainer as I proceed.'

'Why do I have to leave ?'

'So that you won't be a suspect. When the thing's found
missing, nobody can say you took it, because you'll have been
gone a couple of days.'

'But if I'm not here—'

'How do you do your bit? That's all arranged for. You leave,
but you come back and lurk, and you keep on lurking till zero
hour, which will be when Willie and I do our stuff. We go to
the portrait gallery, you'll be lurking under the window. We
lower the picture down to you on a string, and you drive off to
London with it. Next morning there'll be a lot of fuss, with
everybody running around in circles and yelling Who-dun-it,
but where's it going to get them? The Duke'll think it must
have been Willie and he'll go through his room with a fine-tooth
comb, but there won't be a scrap of evidence and they'll
have to settle for burglars. Willie will come out of it without a
stain on his character. Then, when the heat's off, he meets you
in London, you hand the thing over to him, and there's your
happy ending.'

She paused with the air of one waiting for a round of
applause. She got it from Wilbur Trout.

'Swell! What a brain!'

'Nice of you to say so.'

'You know, none of my wives had brains.'

'They hadn't?'

'Looks, yes, but not brains. You're a wonder.'

'Thank you, Willie.'

There was a momentary silence, occupied by Wilbur
apparently in turning the thing over in his mind.

'The Duke'll be sore.'

'I shouldn't wonder. Still, into each life some rain must fall.
And he deserves it for chiselling you out of the picture the way
he did. I'll tell you about that some time, Chesney, and you'll
agree that he had it coming to him.'

The voice of conscience seemed still to be whispering in
Wilbur's ear. A thought occurred to him.

'I'll send him a cheque for what he paid for the thing.'

'Thus giving yourself away completely. You might as well
mail him a written confession.'

'I'd send it anonymously, of course.'

'An anonymous cheque?'

Wilbur said he had not thought of that.

'It'll have to be cash,' he conceded, and Vanessa shrugged
her shoulders.

'I wouldn't if it was me,' she said, 'but if that's the way you
want it go ahead.'

The board meeting was over. Wilbur went off to dress. His
stay at the castle had been of sufficient duration to give him a
pronounced awe of his hostess, and he had no wish to incur her
displeasure by being late for dinner. Howard Chesney, who
feared only Beach and moreover prided himself on being able
to array himself in what he called the soup and fish in ten
minutes, remained. An item that should have been on the
agenda paper was in his mind, and he was anxious to bring it
to the attention of the board's chairwoman.

'About terms,' he said. 'You didn't mention terms.'

Vanessa was surprised. This struck her as rather sordid.

'Terms? I'm doing this to oblige an old friend.'

'Well, I'm not doing it to oblige any old friend. What's there
in it for me?'

Vanessa saw his point. The labourer is proverbially worthy
of his hire, and it was plain that this labourer intended to get
it. And his labour was essential to her scheme. She wasted no
time in fruitless argument.

'Yes,' she said. 'I suppose you want your cut.'

He assured her that she was not mistaken.

'Well, Willie's very generous. You won't have anything to
complain about with him. He scatters gold with a lavish hand.
About how much gold had you in mind?'

'A thousand bucks.'

'You certainly think big.'

'That's my figure.'

'You couldn't shade it?'

'No.'

'All right. I'll take it up with Willie.'

'You do that.'

'Though I still think . . .'

She broke off. Gally and John were coming through the
hall. She eyed the latter with interest.

'Hello, who's that? Beach, who would the gentleman be
who came through a moment ago with Mr. Threepwood?'

Beach, who had entered and was about to place a tray of
cocktail glasses on their table, turned courteously.

'A youngish gentleman, madam?'

'And tallish.'

'That is a Mr. Halliday, madam. He arrived this afternoon.'

Beach completed his task, and withdrew, and Vanessa,
turning to Howard Chesney, was surprised to see that he was
exhibiting all the indications of having received a shock.

'Something the matter?' she asked, noting his fallen jaw and
the glassy stare in his eyes.

Howard Chesney writhed in silence for a moment. When
speech came to him, it was bitter. He was patently a man with
a grievance.

'If this isn't just my luck! Lawyers crawling all over London,
thousands of them, and the one that comes here has to be him.
Can you beat it?'

'You know him?'

'Do I know him! Say, listen. The last time I was over on this
side a job went wrong and I did a stretch in the coop. And that
guy Halliday was the attorney who defended me.'

Vanessa was a girl of cool nerve, but even girls of cool nerve can
be shaken.

'What!' she cried.

'That's who he is.'

'Are you sure?'

'Sure I'm sure. And if you're going to say Will he remember
me, you bet he'll remember me. It isn't so long ago, and he saw
plenty of me. So where do we go from here?'

It was a good question, and Vanessa found herself at a loss
to think of an answer. An intelligent girl, she could see that
this unfortunate reunion had dealt a mortal blow to the plan of
campaign of which she was so proud. The situation was
undeniably one that called for thought, and her brain became
active.

'Look,' she said. 'This wants talking over, and we can't do it
here, because he'll be coming down in a minute. We'll go to
the portrait gallery. There won't be anyone there.'

Howard Chesney said that what he was thinking of doing
was sneaking out the back way and getting into his car and
driving off without saying goodbye or thanking anyone for a
delightful visit, a plan of action rendered additionally attractive
because he would not have to tip the butler. Vanessa found it
hard to dissuade him from this course, but she managed it at
last, and it was to the portrait gallery that they went. And such
was the vigour with which she had stimulated her always
serviceable brain that by the time they arrived there she was
able to announce that she had solved the problem.

'I've got it,' she said. 'What you do is stay in your room and
not come down to dinner. I'll tell them you're not feeling well.
And tomorrow—'

'Yes, how about tomorrow? I'll meet him then, won't I? And
he'll spill the beans, won't he? And the old girl will throw me
out on my ear, won't she?'

'If you'll just listen. Tomorrow you leave before breakfast.'

'How do you explain me doing that?'

'You had an early phone call from your lawyer saying it was
absolutely vital that you came to London for a conference.'

'You think they'll believe that?'

'Why wouldn't they?'

'Who took the call?'

'I did. I was up early.'

'It sounds thin to me.'

'Well, it's the best we can do.'

'I guess it is, at that. Then what?'

'You go and stay a couple of nights at the Emsworth Arms
in Market Blandings.'

Howard showed no enthusiasm for the suggestion. He was
a man who liked his creature comforts.

'The beds there are the limit. I was talking to a fellow in the
bar yesterday, and he said they were stuffed with rocks.'

'Well, go to London if you like, but leave me your phone
number, so that I can tell you which night you're to be under
that window. We can't get the picture away without you.'

Howard looked at the reclining nude with something of the
lack of appreciation shown by Lady Constance on her
introduction to it.

'Why does Trout want the thing so bad?'

'She's like his last wife.'

'She looks to me like a pig.'

'So she does to Lord Emsworth. But it doesn't matter if you
don't think she's a Miss America. All you have to do is be
under the window and earn your thousand dollars. Is it a deal?'

When she put it that way, Howard said it decidedly was.

'Then that's settled,' said Vanessa briskly. 'And you'd best
be getting to your room and into bed as quick as you can,
because I'm going to tell them to send you up a tray, and it
would look funny if you weren't there.'

Howard weighed the advice, and found it good. Soon after
she had left he started to follow it. He went to the door,
opened it, and immediately closed it again.

The man Halliday was coming along the corridor. He was
accompanied by the Duke. Howard got the door shut just in
time.

John, dressing in the room allotted to him on the second
floor, was feeling extraordinarily fit. His swim had
invigorated him, and unlike Lord Emsworth, reluctantly
donning the soup and fish further along the corridor, he
enjoyed dressing for dinner. Physically he could not have been
in better shape; nor, he assured himself, was there anything
wrong with his mental condition. He would have denied it
warmly if anyone had told him he was at all nervous.

Thoughtful, yes. Meditative, certainly. But not nervous.
Naturally there was bound to be a certain embarrassment
when he and Linda met, but he was confident that the clarity
with which he pleaded his case would soon overcome what
Gally had called her sales resistance. Linda was a sensible girl.
Quite understandably she had been a little annoyed by what
had taken place in court when Clutterbuck and Frisby were
fighting their legal battle, but now that she had had time to
think it over she could hardly fail to see the thing in the right
light. He would explain in simple language how he had been
placed, love urging him one way, duty another, and she would
applaud his integrity, realizing that any girl who got a husband
with such high ethical standards was in luck. It would probably
end with them having a good laugh together over the whole
amusing affair.

It would be ridiculous to describe him as nervous.

Nevertheless, when the door suddenly flew open without
warning, he leaped several inches in the direction of the ceiling
with a distinct impression that his heart had crashed against
his front teeth, nearly dislodging them from their base.
Returning to earth, he saw that he had a visitor. A large stout
densely moustached man with popping eyes had entered and
was scrutinizing him intently, seeming particularly interested
in the shirt which he had just pulled over his head. The Duke
of Dunstable's inquisitiveness did not confine itself to Lady
Constance's correspondence, he could also be intrigued by
other people's dress shirts.

'Where you get that?' he enquired.

'I beg your pardon?'

'This,' said the Duke, prodding with a large forefinger, and
John replied civilly that he had obtained it at the emporium of
Blake and Allsop in the Haymarket; whereupon the Duke,
shaking his head reproachfully like one mourning the follies of
youth said he ought to have gone to Gooch and Gordon in
Regent Street. Better material and cheaper. He, too, he said,
had once patronized Blake and Allsop, but had found them
too expensive. He advised John to see the error of his ways and
go to Gooch and Gordon in future.

'Mention my name.'

He did not give his name. He went on the assumption that
everyone knew it instinctively and that the few who did not
deserved no consideration. Quick thinking, however, told
John that this must be the man who, if all went well at the
coming round table conference with Linda, he would shortly
be calling Uncle Alaric, and there swept over him the same
warm glow of affection which he would have felt for any near
relation of the girl he loved. He might have wished her a
slimmer uncle and one with a smaller moustache and a more
melodious voice, but any uncle of hers was all right with him,
and he thanked him for his advice with a respectful sincerity
which he hoped would be recognized as coming straight from
the heart.

'So you're the head-shrinker.'

On the verge of saying 'I beg your pardon' again, John
remembered the junior partnership which entitled him to that
description. He said he was, and the Duke said he thought all
you fellows had beards.

'You haven't got a beard.'

'No, no beard.'

'That's probably what Connie meant when she was beefing
about you being young. You
are
young. How old would you say
you were actually?'

'I shall be twenty-seven in September.'

'One of my fatheaded nephews is that, the other a bit
younger, but you can't go by age. They would be just as
big fools if they were in the fifties. Married against my
wishes, both of them. I should imagine you are all right, if
you're working with a big pot like Glossop. He's good, isn't
he?'

'Very.'

'Right up there at the top?'

'Oh, decidedly. Nobody to touch him.'

'Pity we couldn't have got him. Still, you'll have to do.'

John said he would do his best to do, and the Duke
proceeded.

'Did Threepwood explain everything to you? About
observing Emsworth and all that?'

'Yes. I understand the situation.'

'You seen him yet?'

'Not yet.'

'You'll be able to run your eye over him at dinner.
Threepwood told you he was definitely off his onion, of
course?'

'I gathered from what he said that Lord Emsworth was
somewhat eccentric.'

The Duke would have none of this evasiveness. Professional
caution, no doubt, but it annoyed him.

'Eccentric be blowed. He's potty to the core. Look at the
way he talks about that pig of his. Anyone with half an eye can
see it's much too fat, and he insists it's supposed to be fat. Says
it's been given medals for being fat, from which you will get a
rough idea how far the malady has spread. What would a pig
do with medals? Threepwood's theory is that he got this way
because someone took his all day sucker from him when he
was six, but I think it goes deeper than that. I think he was
born potty, though he may have been dropped on his head
when a baby, which would have helped the thing along. But
you'll be able to form your own conclusions when you've
observed him for a bit. How do you observe a fellow, by the
way?'

It was an awkward question for one so lacking in experience
as John, but he did his best.

'Well, I . . . how shall I put it? . . . I, as it were, observe him.'

'Ask him things, you mean?'

'That's right.'

'You can't make him lie on a couch. He'd get suspicious.'

'No, we'll be standing up.'

'It works as well that way, does it?'

'I have always found so.'

'Then I'll leave it to you with every confidence that you'll be
able to put your finger on whatever it is that makes him the
way he is. Threepwood tells me he will be paying your bill. Is
that correct?'

'Yes, that's all arranged.'

'I ask because I'm blowed if I'm going to shell out a lot of
money just to be told why Emsworth is potty.'

'Mr. Threepwood will be paying all expenses.'

'Good. I wanted that clearly understood before you start.
And a thought occurs to me. While you're about it, why not
cock an eye at some of the others here? Do you take on these
jobs wholesale, or do you charge so much per person? Not that
it affects me, as I'm not paying, but I'm curious.'

'I would make a reduction for quantity. No doubt I could
come to some arrangement with Mr. Threepwood. You feel
that some of the residents in the castle would be the better for
psychiatric treatment?'

'Practically all of them. Blandings Castle at the moment is
a hot bed of pottiness. Take that niece of mine . . .What's the
matter?'

'Touch of cramp.'

'Thought so when I saw you jump. Used to suffer from
cramp myself. My doctor down in Wiltshire cured me. But I
was telling you about my niece. The night before I came here
she turned up at the hotel humming and giggling, and
wouldn't say why. It occurred to me later that she might have
been in love, but I enquired of her on her arrival here and she
said she wasn't, and she was probably speaking the truth, for I
haven't heard her hum and giggle since. I was rather
disappointed, for I had been hoping she might be in love with
a very fine fellow I know on the Stock Exchange. Very rich.
He's been trying to get her to marry him since last November,
and he's only got to keep at it. It won't take long, not with one
of her branch of the family. Her late father was always falling
in love till he married my late sister, when of course it stopped.
Yes, I'd like you to keep an eye on her, though, as I say, she
hasn't hummed and giggled for some days. One can't be sure
it won't break out again. And while you're at it, take a look at
a Miss Polk who's staying here. One of Connie's friends.
There's something wrong with her. The first day or two after
her arrival she was bright and lively: used to talk sixteen to the
dozen all the time to Threepwood, though what she found
entertaining in him I couldn't tell you: but now she falls into
silences when I'm with her. A sort of film comes over her eyes,
and she makes some excuse and legs it. That happened only
this morning, when she was sitting on a bench in the park and
I came along, and we got into conversation. It's a bad sign.'

'Perhaps you touched on a painful subject.'

'No, it couldn't have been that. I was telling her about a
speech I made at our local town council. Draw her out and find
what the trouble is, and then start observing the others. You
needn't bother with Connie, she's more or less all right
except for marrying a Yank with a head like a Spanish onion,
and you could account for that by the fact that he's got a lot of
money, but there's a fellow called Trout who needs attention
badly. Keeps on marrying blondes. And of course there's
Threepwood.'

'I wouldn't have thought there was anything unbalanced
about him.'

'He wears an eyeglass. No, don't you neglect any of them.
Watch them all closely. Well, that's that. You've got the idea.
Let's go down and have a cocktail. You haven't tied your tie
right. Here, let me,' said the Duke, and with skilful hands he
converted John's cravat into something that looked like a
squashed sock. This done, he led the way to the stairs,
speaking as he went of his doctor down in Wiltshire, who,
though trustworthy as regarded cramp, went all astray in the
matter of ante-dinner aperitifs.

'Says they raise the blood pressure and harden the arteries.
Would like me to drink nothing but barley water and
lemonade. Potty, of course,' said the Duke, and paused at the
head of the stairs to speak further of this misguided physician.

It was at this moment that Howard Chesney, having given
them what he thought sufficient time to pass downstairs,
opened the portrait gallery door once more a cautious six
inches, and peered out. Seeing them still among those present,
he was about to dart back into his retreat like a cuckoo in a
cuckoo clock, when it was as though his guardian angel had
whispered to him that there was a better way. If, said his
guardian angel, he were to creep noiselessly up behind John
and give him a push, John would infallibly fall down these
stairs whose surface had so recently been tested and proved
slippery and probably break a leg. A consummation devoutly
to be wished, for he would be removed to hospital and there
would be no necessity for him, Chesney, to leave the castle in
order to avoid a meeting which could not but be fraught with
embarrassment.

He stole softly forward like a leopard advancing on its
prey.

Gally was in the hall when Linda came down from her room.
He greeted her with a flashing eyeglass.

'Hullo. You back?'

'I'm back.'

'Have a good time?'

'No.'

'Didn't enjoy yourself?'

'No.'

Gally nodded sagely.

'I feared as much when I saw you drive off. I had an idea you
would find the going sticky. I was not educated at a girls'
school myself, but I can picture the sort of thing that goes on
at these reunions. The tedious playing over of bygone hockey
matches, the recapitulation of the rights and wrongs of
Angela's big quarrel with Isobel, reminiscences of dormitory
feeds and all that Will - you - ever - forget - the - night - when
- Flossie -got - so - ill - eating - brown - shoe - polish - spread
- on -bread - when - the - potted - meat - gave - out stuff. The
discriminating popsy wisely avoids that sort of binge. Well,
cheer up, it's over now and you won't be mug enough to go
another year, so let's see that beaming smile of yours of which
I have heard such good reports. I have a surprise for you.'

The marble of Linda's face was disturbed by a momentary
twitch or tremor, but she continued cold and aloof. Gally,
eyeing her narrowly, was reminded of a girl he had known in
the old days who had played the Snow Queen in a ballet at the
Alhambra.

'I know,' she said. 'I went down to the lake.'

'Oh, you've seen him?'

'In the distance.'

'He looks even better close to. Did you shout Yoo-hoo at
him?'

She disdained to reply to this question, unless a quick curl
of the upper lip could be counted as a reply.

'You really need not have gone to all that trouble, Mr.
Threepwood.'

'Call me Gally. What trouble?'

'It must have taken a lot of hard work to get him here.'

'A labour of love.'

'Wasted, because I'm not going to speak to him.'

'No?'

'No.'

'Not even an occasional Good morning?'

'Only if he says it first.'

'You'll hurt his feelings.'

'Good.'

No one could have called her attitude encouraging, but
Gally was always difficult to depress. Many of his interviews
with bookies in the old days had begun on a similarly
unpromising note, and eloquence and persuasiveness had
pulled him through in the end. He saw no reason to suppose
that a man who had bent to his will tough eggs like Honest
Jerry Judson and Tim Simms the Safe Man would be baffled
by a mere girl, sore as a sunburned neck though she
unquestionably was. He proceeded, unruffled.

'I think you're making a great mistake, my dear child. Surely
it's a mug's game to throw away a life's happiness just because
Johnny has made you momentarily a bit hot under the collar.
You know in your heart that he is Prince Charming and
Today's Safety Bet. Do you play golf?'

'Yes. Why?'