Galahad at Blandings (22 page)

A dark
flush had appeared on Constable Evans’s granite face. He was by no means an
unintelligent man, and with a swiftness which Lady Hermione herself could not
have exceeded he had reached the conclusion that Gally was responsible for the
disappearance of his quarry. But he did not dare to put his conviction into
words. Gally, whatever his moral defects, was an inmate in good standing of
Blandings Castle, and a respect for Blandings Castle had been instilled into
him from his Sunday School days. There was nothing to do but say ‘Ho!’, so he
said it. Constable Morgan, a man of deep reserves, said nothing, and after a
few more sympathetic comments on a mystery which in his opinion, he said, would
rank for ever with those of the
Marie Celeste
and The Man In The Iron
Mask, Gally resumed his progress to the house, apparently unaware of the long
lingering looks which both officers of the law were directing at his retreating
back.

‘Too
bad,’ he said as he and Sandy went on their way. ‘One’s heart bleeds for
Constable Evans and his strong silent friend whose name did not crop up in the
course of our conversation. I can readily imagine what a disappointment this
must have been to them. I have known a great many policemen in my time, and
they all told me that nothing gave them that disagreeable feeling of flatness
and frustration more surely than the discovery, when they went to make an arrest,
that the fellow they were after wasn’t there. It must be like opening your
Christmas stocking as a child and finding nothing in it. Still, one must not
forget that these setbacks are sent to us for our own good. They make us more
spiritual. Tell me,’ said Gally, abandoning a painful subject, ‘about you and
Sam. What I saw gave me the impression that your hearts were no longer
sundered. Correct?’

‘Quite
correct.’

‘Excellent.
What was it the poet said about lovers’ reconciliations?’

‘I
don’t know.’

‘Nor do
I, but it was probably something pretty good. I suppose you’re feeling happy?’

‘Floating
on air.’

‘Great
thing, young love.’

‘Nothing
to beat it. Were you ever in love, Gally?’

‘Very
seldom out of it.’

‘I mean
really in love. Didn’t you ever want to marry someone who was the only thing
that mattered to you in the whole world?’

Gally
winced a little. She had reopened an old wound.

‘Yes,
once,’ he said briefly. ‘Nothing came of it.’

‘What
happened?’

‘My old
father didn’t approve. She was what was called a serio on the music halls. Sang
songs at the Oxford and the Tivoli. Dolly Henderson was her name. He put his
foot down. Painful scenes. Raised voices. Tables banged with fists. Not sure a
father’s curse wasn’t mentioned. I was shipped off to South Africa, and while I
was there she married someone else. Chap named Jack Cotterleigh in the Irish
Guards.’

‘Poor
Gally!’

‘Yes, I
must say I didn’t like it much. But it was a long time ago, and nobody’s going
to ship Sam off to South Africa. By the way, I take it that when you were
fixing things up with him, you waived your objections about the syndicate?’

‘You
bet I did.’

‘Sensible
girl. You won’t regret it.’

‘I know
I won’t. Tipton’s getting married the day after tomorrow. At the registrar’s.’

‘You
don’t say? Is that official?’

‘He
told me himself. Dead secret, of course.’

‘Naturally.
Though I wish I could tell Clarence. It would relieve his mind to know that the
big wedding is off’

‘Why?’

‘No
wedding, no speech and, above all, no top hat. Clarence has always been
allergic to top hats. Strange how tastes differ. I like them myself,
particularly when grey. There were days in my youth when the mere sight of a
bookie whose account I had not settled would make me shake like a leaf, but
slap a grey top hat on my head and I could face him without a tremor. And now,
I suppose,’ said Gally, as they came into the house, ‘you will be wanting to go
in search of Sam?’

‘I
thought I might.’

‘Well,
try to cheer him up. For some reason he has seemed to me nervous and depressed
since he got here. As for me, I think I’ll go and have a talk with Clarence. I
always find his society stimulating.’

III

Gally was humming the
refrain of one of Dolly Henderson’s songs as he made for Lord Emsworth’s study.
Odd, he was thinking, how after thirty years he could still have that
choked-up feeling when he thought of her. Oh well, what had happened had
probably been all for the best. Pretty rough it would have been for a nice girl
like Dolly to be tied up with a chap like him, he felt, for he had never had
any illusions about himself His sisters Constance, Julia, Dora and Hermione had
often spoken of him as a waster, and how right they were. His disposition was
genial, he made friends easily and as far as he could recall had never let a
pal down, but you couldn’t claim that as a life partner he was everybody’s cup
of tea. And people who knew them had described Dolly and Jack as a happy and
devoted couple, so what was there to get all wistful and dreary about?

Nevertheless,
all this marrying and giving in marriage that was going on around one did
rather encourage melancholy thoughts of what might have been. Tipton was
marrying Veronica, Sam was marrying Sandy, Wilfred Allsop, so Tipton informed
him, was marrying that large Simmons girl. Good Lord, he told himself with a
sudden twinge of alarm, for all he knew Clarence might have relaxed his
vigilance and be in danger of marrying Dame Daphne Winkworth. Once this sort of
thing started, you never knew where it would stop.

And it was
as this disquieting thought flitted through his mind that the door of the study
opened and he saw Dame Daphne coming out of it. She disappeared along the
corridor and the next moment he was bustling into the study, all brotherly
concern.

‘Ah,
Galahad,’ said Lord Emsworth, glancing up from his pig book, ‘I was hoping you
might look in. A most peculiar thing has happened.’

Gally
was in no mood to hear whatever it was that had struck his brother as peculiar.

Are you
crazy, Clarence?’ he said. ‘Have you forgotten what I told you?’

‘Yes,’
said Lord Emsworth, who always did. ‘What was it you told me, Galahad?’

‘On no
account to allow yourself to be alone with the female whom, but for the luck of
the Emsworths, you might have married twenty years ago. Your old girl friend
Dame Daphne Winkworth. How could you be so criminally rash as to hobnob with
her?’

‘But,
my dear fellow, how could I help it? She came in. I could hardly forcibly eject
her.’

‘What
were you talking about?’

‘Oh,
various things.’

‘The
dear old days?’

‘Not to
my recollection.’

‘Then
what?’

Lord
Emsworth searched a treacherous memory. Recalling what anyone had talked about
two minutes after the conclusion of the conversation was always a taxing task
for him.

‘Was
any mention made of the
Indian Love Lyrics?’

‘I
don’t think so. She was speaking, now that I remember, of someone called …
now what was he called? … yes, I have it, someone called Allsop. The name was
strange to me. Have you ever heard of an Allsop?’

‘You
have a nephew of that name.’

‘Are
you sure?’

‘If you
don’t believe me, look in Debrett. Wilfred Allsop. What was she saying about
Wilfred?’

As far
as I could make out, she is not going to employ him as a music master at her
school. She did not like him getting intoxicated.’

‘Intoxicated?’
Gally was surprised. Even at the old Pelican it had been unusual for members to
get into that condition in the middle of the afternoon. He felt that there must
be more in his nephew Wilfred than he had suspected. ‘Blotto, do you mean? Pie-eyed?’

‘So she
said. It appears that her son… I forget his name…

‘Huxley.’

‘Of
course yes, Huxley. It appears that Huxley was passing along the passage
leading to the Garden Suite and Wilfred Allsop was standing there singing
drunken songs. And only yesterday the boy had found him drinking heavily by the
pig sty. He of course told his mother, and she has cancelled Wilfred Allsop’s
appointment. I am not sure that I altogether blame her. She seemed to fear that
I might be offended, but I quite see her point of view. I have never been the
headmistress of a girls’ school myself, but if I were, I should certainly think
twice before engaging an alcoholic music master. Such a bad example for the
pupils.’

‘And
that was all? She didn’t go on to more tender and sentimental subjects?’

‘Not as
far as I recall. We talked about pigs. She is interested in pigs. I was
surprised how interested she seemed to be.’

Gally’s
monocle sprang from its place. He called loudly on the name of his Maker.

‘The
thin end of the wedge! Clarence, you must get this woman out of the house and
speedily, or you haven’t a hope of avoiding matrimony. It’s the case of Puffy
Benger all over again. The same insidious tactics. With Puffy the girl started
by talking to him about his approach putts — he was a keen golfer — and little
by little and bit by bit she went on till she had him reading
Pale Hands I Loved
Beside The Shalimar
to her, and that was the end. I tell you solemnly that
unless you act promptly and firmly and heave this woman out on the seat of her
pants while there is yet time, you’re a dead snip for the wedding stakes. She’s
closing in on you, Clarence, closing in on you.’

‘You
appal me, Galahad!’

‘That’s
what I’m trying to do. Well, there you are. You have been warned,’ said Gally,
and stumped out, feeling that he had done all that man could do to save a loved
brother from the fate that is worse than death.

Closing
the door, he remembered that at the start of their interview Clarence had said
something that had aroused his curiosity, though at the time more urgent
matters had prevented him giving his mind to it. Something about something
being peculiar or something peculiar having happened or something. He opened
the door and poked his head in.

‘What
was that you said just now?’ he asked.

‘Eh?’
said Lord Emsworth, who appeared dazed.

‘The
peculiar thing?’

‘Eh?’

‘Pull
yourself together, Clarence. You said a peculiar thing had happened.’

‘Oh,
that?’ said Lord Emsworth, coming out of his trance. ‘It was nothing really,
but it struck me as odd. I was looking through my desk, trying to find the
annual report of the Shropshire, Herefordshire and South Wales Pig Breeders’
Association, which Miss Callender must have hidden away somewhere with her
infernal tidying up, and I came on a manila envelope. I opened it, and inside
it was another envelope addressed to Tipton Plimsoll. I couldn’t imagine how it
had come there. So I rang for Miss Callender and asked her to take it to
Tipton. I hope the delay in delivering it will not have caused him any inconvenience.’

CHAPTER 11

I

Sandy, meanwhile, though
she would have preferred to stay talking to Sam in the billiards room in which
he had taken refuge, had gone to her office in the small room off the library
to resume her work. She was a conscientious secretary and had always felt that
as she was paid a salary, she should try to earn it. It was this defect in her
character that so exasperated Lord Emsworth. His ideal secretary would have
been one who breakfasted in bed, dozed in an armchair through the morning, played
golf in the afternoon and took the rest of the day off.

But
though she had sat down at her desk full of zeal and though there was still
plenty to be done in the way of cleaning the Augean stables of her employer’s
correspondence, she found a strange difficulty in concentrating on the task in
hand. And she had fallen into a trance as deep as any of Lord Emsworth’s, when
the bursting open of the door brought her back to the present, and after
blinking once or twice she was able to identify her visitor as Gally. It seemed
to her that he was agitated about something, and her diagnosis was perfectly
correct. It was not easy to make Gally lose his poise. Throughout his long life
a great number of people ranging from schoolmasters and Oxford dons to
three-card trick men on race trains had attempted the feat, but always without
success. It had been left for his brother Clarence to succeed where so many had
failed. He spoke without wasting time on preliminaries.

‘That
letter? Have you got it?’

‘What
letter? I’ve got about a hundred, and all of them ought to have been answered
weeks ago.

‘The
Tipton letter Clarence gave you.