Galahad at Blandings (21 page)

‘No,
that was Marcia Ferris. Clarice was the one who made me read Kafka. And the
reason I bring her up is that Vee would never dream of doing a thing like
that.’

‘She
probably thinks Kafka’s a brand of instant coffee with ninety—seven per cent of
the caffeine extracted.’

‘Exactly.
She’s just a sweet simple English girl with about as much brain as would make a
jay bird fly crooked, and that’s the way I want her.’

‘Well,
that’s fine.’

‘You
bet it’s fine.’

‘When
is the wedding to be?’

Tipton
looked cautiously over his shoulder, as if to assure himself that they were
alone and unobserved.

‘Can
you keep a secret?’

‘No.’

‘Well,
try to keep this one, because if it gets out, all hell will break loose. Before
I left for America, Vee and I fixed the whole thing up. We decided that a big
Society wedding was a lot of prune juice and we wanted no piece of it. We’re
going to elope. I’m off to London tomorrow, and a couple of days after that
we’ll be married at the registrar’s.’

‘What!’

‘Yes,
sir, right plumb spang at the registrar’s.’

‘You
mean that two days from now—’

‘I’ll
be picking the rice out of my hair, if registrars throw rice when they marry
you.’

Sandy
was breathing emotionally. How wrong, she felt, how terribly misguided she had
been in urging Sam to accept the syndicate’s offer, and how thankful she was
that it was not too late to tell him so.

‘I
think that’s wonderful, Tippy,’ she said, speaking with some difficulty and
raising her voice a little so as to be audible over the soft music which was
filling the room. ‘I’m sure you’re doing the right thing.’

‘Me,
too.

‘Who
wants a lot of bishops and assistant clergy?’

‘Just
how I feel. Let the bishops bish elsewhere and take the assistant clergy with
them.’

‘I know
you’ll be happy.’

‘I
don’t see how I can miss.

As
happy as I’m going to be.’

‘Don’t
tell me you’re thinking of jumping off the dock, too?’

‘One of
these days. In your wanderings about Blandings Castle have you happened to meet
a character called Whipple?’

‘I’ve
seen him around. Husky guy with a cauliflower ear. Is he the one?’

‘He’s
the one.’

‘He
looks all right to me.

‘To me
also. You don’t know where he is, do you?’

‘Sure.
I heard Willie Allsop telling him old Emsworth wanted to see him down at the
pig sty. You’ll find him in the pig sty, you can tell him by his hat,’ quoted
Tipton blithely.

‘Thanks,
Tippy,’ said Sandy, equally blithely. ‘I’ll be on my way.

II

It is never easy for a
young man to be carefree and at his ease when, after having had difficulties with
the police, he finds himself immured by them in a smelly shed, and Sam,
sitting on a broken wheelbarrow and breathing in the scent of manure and
under-gardeners, did not come within measurable distance of achieving this
frame of mind. He would have been only too happy to look on the bright side, if
there had been a bright side, but as far as he could discern there was not. He
viewed the future with the gravest misgivings.

He was
not quite sure what was the penalty for the crimes he had committed, but he had
an idea that it was something lingering with boiling oil in it, and the
thought depressed him. He was also feeling puzzled. Not being a mind reader, he
was unaware of Constable Evans’s change of plan and he could not imagine why,
having uttered those fateful words ‘You’re pinched’, he had faded so abruptly
from the scene.

Rightly
concluding that speculation on this point was idle, he turned his mind to
thoughts of Sandy, but these merely deepened his despondency. Gally, that
blithe optimist, seemed to be under the impression that he had only to meet her
and their relations would instantly revert to their original cordiality, but he
could not bring himself to share this sunny outlook. To begin with, he had
called her in his heat not only a ginger-haired little fathead but other things
equally offensive to a girl of spirit. She could hardly be expected to forgive
that without straining a sinew.

And
secondly there was this matter of the prison term that overshadowed his future.
In due course, he presumed, he would come up before some sort of tribunal and
be sentenced to whatever it was you got for stealing watches and assaulting
the police, and few girls care to marry a jailbird, with all the embarrassments
such a union involves. It is never nice for a young bride to have to explain to
hosts and hostesses that the reason her husband has not come to the party is
that he has just started another stretch in Pentonville.

The
poignancy of it all swept over him like a wave, and he heaved a sigh. At least,
that was what he had intended to heave, but by some miscalculation it came out
like the wail of a banshee, and from somewhere outside a startled voice cried
‘Oo!’, causing hope to stir in a heart that had practically forgotten what the
word meant. The voice had sounded feminine, and women, he knew, can generally
be relied upon to bring aid and comfort to those in trouble. Poets have
stressed this. The lines ‘When pain and anguish wring the brow, a ministering
angel thou’ floated into his mind. Scott had written that, and you could rely
on a level—headed man like Scott to know what he was talking about. There was a
small window in one wall of the shed, its glass long broken and the vacant
space given over to spiders’ webs. He approached it, and said:

‘Is
that somebody out there?’ and simultaneously the voice said:

‘Is
that somebody in there?’ and it was as if he had been seated in an electric
chair at its most electric. What he could see of the outer world, which was not
much, swam before his eyes.

Even
when merely saying ‘Oo!’ the voice had seemed familiar. Now that it had become
more talkative, he had no difficulty in recognising it.

‘Is
that you, Sandy?’ he said, and then, speaking diffidently, for he had no means
of knowing how such a plea would be received by one in whose estimation he had
fallen so extremely low, ‘Would you mind letting me out?’

‘Why
don’t you
come
out?’

‘I
can’t. He’s bolted the door.’

‘Who
has?’

‘The
cop. I’m under arrest.

‘Under
what?’

‘Arrest.
A for apple, R for—’

‘Oh,
Sam,
darling!’

Again Sam
experienced that electric chair illusion. There was something sticking in his
throat that seemed about the size of a regulation tennis ball. He swallowed it,
and said in a hushed voice:

‘Did
you say darling?’ ‘You bet I said darling.’ ‘You mean —?‘

‘Of course
I do.’ ‘Everything’s really all right?’ ‘Everything. Sweethearts still.’ Sam
drew a deep breath.

‘Thank
God! I’ve been feeling suicidal.’

‘Same
here.’

‘I wish
I had a quid for every time I’ve thought of shoving my head in the gas oven.

‘Me,
too.’

‘I’m
sorry I called you a ginger-haired little fathead, Sandy.’

‘You
were one hundred per cent right. I was a ginger-haired little fathead. Wanting
you to take that syndicate offer. I must have been crazy.

‘You
mean you’ve changed your mind?’

‘I’ll
say I have. I’ve seen Tipton and he’s going to elope with Veronica Wedge the
day after tomorrow. He’s practically married already. But we mustn’t stand here
talking. I’ll let you out, and then you can tell me what on earth all this
cop-arrest stuff is about.’

It took
Sam only a few moments to do this after the door had opened, and Sandy listened
with growing concern.

‘Oh,
Sam!’ she wailed and flung herself into his arms as Gally had recommended, and
Gally, coming up as she did so, surveyed them with fatherly approval.

‘Satisfactory,’
he said, ‘but there’s no time for that sort of thing now. You’re on the run, my
boy, so start running. Constable Evans should be with us at any moment, and
you’ll look silly if he finds you here. He will approach, I presume, when he
does approach, via the kitchen garden, so make for the front entrance and work
your way to the billiards room or the smoking-room or wherever else you see fit
so long as it offers sanctuary. Sandy and I will wait here to receive him. You
are possibly wondering,’ he said after Sam, recognising his advice as good, had
taken it, ‘howl happened to pop up out of a trap like this at the centre of
things. Very simple. I was trying to find our young friend to tell him I
thought you were favourably disposed to a reconciliation, and I looked in at
Beach’s pantry to ask if he had seen him. Constable Evans was there, speaking
on the telephone, and Beach informed me in an undertone that the zealous
officer had locked Sam in the shed by the pig sty and was calling up his reserves.
One guesses what was in his mind. At their previous meeting Sam had — rightly
or wrongly — plugged him in the eye and he shrank from having it happen again.
No doubt it was his prudent intention, when his assistant arrived, to let him
go in first and see what would develop. If eyes are to be plugged, your
cautious constable always prefers them to be the other fellow’s. And talking of
eyes, I think it would be a graceful act and one which would help to make Sam’s
day if you were to dispense with those ghastly spectacles of yours.’

‘Don’t
you like them?’

‘No, I
don’t.’

‘Nor
does Sam. He said they made me look like a horror from outer space.’

‘He
flattered you. Take them off and jump on them.’

‘Right,’
said Sandy, and did so.

And
now,’ said Gally, having viewed the remains with satisfaction, ‘if you glance
to your left, you will see Evans and friend heading our way, prowling and
prowling like the troops of Midian in the well—known hymn. I think perhaps you
had better let me do the talking. It was an axiom in the old Pelican days that
in all matters involving the boys in blue it was wisest to leave the
pourparlers
to Galahad Threepwood. These conferences with the cops call for delicacy
and tact. Good evening, officers. Welcome to Blandings Castle and all that sort
of thing.’

The two
constables made an intimidating pair. A pen portrait of Officer Evans has
already been given and it need only be said of Officer Morgan, his
brother-in-arms, that he resembled him so closely as to create in the mind of
anyone encountering them in each other’s company the illusion that he was
seeing double. Only the former’s rich black eye served to distinguish him.

‘Pleasant
after the storm, is it not?’ said Gally. ‘So you’re out for a country ramble?
Taking it easy among the buttercups and daisies, eh? Having a good loaf, are
you?’

Constable
Evans, resentful of the implication that the police force of Market Blandings
lived for pleasure alone, replied that this was far from being the case. He and
his colleague, he said, had come to make an arrest, and Gally raised his
eyebrows.

‘Not my
brother’s pig, I trust?’

‘No,
sir,’ said the constable shortly. ‘Man wanted for theft from the person and
obstructing the police in the execution of their duty.’

Any
clue as to his whereabouts?’

‘He’s
in that shed.’

Gally
adjusted his monocle and looked in the direction indicated. He was plainly
puzzled.

‘That
shed?’

‘Yes,
sir.

‘The
one over there?’

‘Yes,
sir.

‘The
one with the tiled roof?’

‘Yes,
sir.

Gally
shook his head.

‘I
think you’re mistaken, my dear fellow. This lady and I were peeping in there
only a moment ago, and the place was empty. Well, when I say empty, we noticed
an old wheelbarrow and two or three flower pots and, if I remember rightly, a
dead rat, but certainly no fugitive from justice. What gives you the impression
that he’s there?’

‘I
locked him in myself’

‘In
that shed?’

‘Yes,
sir.

‘Or are
you thinking of some other shed?’

‘No,
sir, I am not thinking of some other shed.’

‘Well,
it’s all very mysterious,’ said Gally. An idea seemed to strike him. ‘He wasn’t
a midget, was he?’

‘No,
sir.’

‘I
thought he might have been hiding behind one of the flower pots, which would
have accounted for our not seeing him. Then I must confess myself baffled. How
he managed to get out of that shed is beyond me. Door locked, no other exit.
It’s the sort of thing Houdini used to do. I wonder… no, that can’t be right.
I was thinking he might have been one of those Indian fakirs who dematerialise
themselves and reassemble the parts elsewhere, but then he wouldn’t have
bothered to unlock the door, and it was open when we looked in. The whole
thing’s inexplicable. I doubt if we shall ever get to the bottom of it.’