Heavy Weather (28 page)

Pacing the wet grass, he found his mind turning to thoughts of revenge. He was a kindly and good-tempered young man as a general rule, but conduct like that of Percy Pilbeam and Lord Tilbury seemed to him simply to clamour for reprisals. And it embittered him still further to discover at the end of ten minutes that he was totally without ideas on the subject. For all he could do about it, he was regretfully forced to conclude, these wicked men were apparently going to prosper like a couple of bay trees.

In these circumstances there was only one thing that could heal the spirit, viz. to go in and write a long, loving letter of appeal to Gertrude Butterwick, urging her to follow the dictates of her heart and come and spring round with him to the registrar's or Gretna Green or somewhere. With this end in view, he proceeded to the writing-room, where he hoped to be able to devote himself to the task in solitude.

The writing-room of the Emsworth Arms, as of most English rural hotels, was a small, stuffy, melancholy apartment, badly-litand very much in need of new wallpaper. But it was not its meagre dimensions nor its closeness nor its dimness nor the shabbiness of its walls that depressed Monty as he entered. What gave him that grey feeling was the sight of Lord Tilbury seated in one of the two rickety armchairs.

Lord Tilbury was smoking an excellent cigar, and until that moment had been feeling quietly happy. His interview with Bodkin M. before dinner had relieved his mind of a rather sinister doubt which had been weighing on it. Until Monty had informed him of what had occurred, he had been oppressed by a speculation as to whether the voice which had spoken to him on the telephone had been the voice of Pilbeam or merely that of the alcoholic refreshment of which Pilbeam was so admittedly full. Had he, in short, really got the manuscript ? Or had his statement to that effect been the mere inebriated babbling of an investigator who had just been investigating Lord Emsworth's cellar? Monty had made it clear that the former and more agreeable theory was the correct one, and Lord Tilbury was now awaiting the detective's arrival in a frame of mind that blended well with an excellent cigar.

The intrusion of a young man of whom he hoped he had seen the last ruffled his placid mood.

'I have nothing more to say,' he observed irritably. 'I have told you my decision, and I see nothing to be gained by further discussion.'

Monty raised his eyebrows coldly.

'I have no desire to speak to you, my good man,' he said loftily.
‘I
came in here to write a letter.'

'Then go and write it somewhere else. I am expecting a visitor.'

It had been Monty's intention to ignore the fellow and carry on with the job in hand without deigning to bestow another look on him. But having gone to the desk and discovered that it contained no notepaper, no pen, not a single envelope, and in the inkpot only about a quarter of an inch of curious sediment that looked like black honey, he changed his mind.

He toyed for an instant with the idea of taking one of the magazines which lay on the table and sitting down in the other armchair and spoiling the old blighter's evening; but as those magazines were last-year copies of the
Hotel Keepers Register
and
Licensed

Victuallers Gazette
he abandoned the project. With a quiet look of scorn and a meaning sniff he left the room and wandered out into the garden again.

And barely had he strolled down to the river and smoked two cigarettes and thrown a bit of stick at a water-rat and strolled back and thrown another bit of stick at a noise in the bushes, when the significance of Lord Tilbury's concluding remark suddenly flashed upon him.

If Lord Tilbury was expecting a visitor, that visitor obviously must be Pilbeam. And if Pilbeam was coming to the Emsworth Arms to see Lord Tilbury, equally obviously he must be bringing the manuscript with him.

Very well, then, where did one go from there? One went, he perceived, straight to this arresting conclusion - that there the two blisters would be in that writing-room with the manuscript between them, thus offering a perfect sitter of a chance to any man of enterprise who cared to dash in and be a little rough.

A bright confidence filled Monty Bodkin. He felt himself capable of taking on ten Tilburies and a dozen Pilbeams. All he had to do was bide his time and then rush in and snatch the thing. And when he had got it and was dangling it before his eyes, would Lord Tilbury take a slightly different attitude? Would he adopt a somewhat different tone? Would he be likely to reopen the whole matter, approaching it from another angle? The answer was definitely in the affirmative.

But first to spy out the land. He remembered that the window of the writing-room had been open a few inches at the bottom. He tiptoed across the grass with infinite caution. And just as he had reached his objective a voice spoke inside the room.

' You hid it ? But are you sure it is safe ?'

Monty leaned against the wall, holding his breath. He felt like the owner of a home-made radio who has accidentally got San Francisco.

The Pilbeam who had borrowed Voule's motor-bicycle and ridden down to the Emsworth Arms and now faced Lord Tilbury in the writing-room of that hostelry was a very different Pilbeam from the gay telephoner of before dinner. The telephoning Pilbeam had been a man who gave free rein to a jovial exuberance, knowing himself to be sitting on top of the world. The writing-room Pilbeam was a taut and anxious gambler, staking his all on one last throw.

After that painful scene in the drawing-room, it had taken the detective perhaps ten minutes to realize that, though all seemed lost, there did still remain just one chance of saving the day. If he were salesman enough to dispose of that manuscript to Lord Tilbury, sight unseen, without being compelled to mention that it was no longer - except in a greatly transmuted state inside Empress of Blandings - in existence, all would be well.

There might possibly be a little coldness on the other's side next time they met, for Lord Tilbury, he knew, was one of those men who rather readily take umbrage on discovering that they have paid a thousand pounds for nothing, but he was used to people being cold to him and could put up with that.

So here he was, making his last throw.

'You hid it?' said Lord Tilbury, after the detective in a brief opening speech had explained that he had not come to deliver the goods in person. 'But are you sure it is quite safe?'

'Oh, quite.'

'But why did you not bring it with you?'

'Too risky. You don't know what that house is like. There's Lady Constance after the thing and
Gally
Threepwood after the thing and Ronnie Fish and .. . well, as I said to Monty Bodkin this afternoon, a fellow trying to smuggle that manuscript out of the place is rather like a chap in a detective story trapped in the den of the Secret Nine.'

A little gasp of indignation forced itself from Monty's outraged lips. This, he felt, was just that little bit that is too much. He had been modestly proud of that crack about the Secret Nine. Not content with pinching his manuscripts, this dastardly detective was pinching his nifties. It was enough to make a fellow chafe and, Monty chafed a good deal.

'I see,' said Lord Tilbury. 'Yes, I see what you mean. But if you hid it in your bedroom ...'

'I didn't.'

'Then where?'

The crucial moment had arrived, and Pilbeam braced himself to cope with it.

'Ah!' he said.
‘I
think, perhaps, before I tell you that, we had better just get the business end of the thing settled, eh? If you have your cheque-book handy..

'But, my dear Pilbeam, surely you do not expect me to pay before... ?'

'Quite,' said the detective, and held his breath. His stake was on the board and the wheel had begun to spin.

It seemed to Monty that Lord Tilbury also must be holding his breath, for there followed a long silence. When he did speak, his tone was that of a man who has been wounded.

'Well, really, Pilbeam! I think you might trust me.'

"'Trust nobody" is the Pilbeam family motto,' replied the detective with a return of what might be called his telephone manner.

'But how am I to know . . . ?'

' You've
got to trust
me,'
said Pilbeam brightly. 'Of course,' he went on, 'if you don't like that way of doing business, well, in that case, I suppose the deal falls through. No hard feelings on either side. I simply go back to the Castle and take the matter up with Sir Gregory Parsloe and Lady Constance. They want that manuscript just as much as you do, though, of course, their reasons aren't the same as yours. They want to destroy it. Parsloe's original offer was five hundred pounds, but I shall have no difficulty in making him improve on that...'

'Five hundred pounds is a great deal of money,' said Lord Tilbury, as if he were having a tooth out.

'It's not nearly as much as a thousand,' replied Pilbeam, as if he were a light-hearted dentist. 'And you agreed to that on the telephone.'

'Yes, but then I assumed that you would be bringing . ..'

'Well, take it or leave it, Tilbury, take it or leave it,' said the detective, and from the little crackling splutter which followed the words Monty deduced that he was doing what we are so strongly advised to do when we wish to appear nonchalant, lighting a cigarette. 'Good!' he said a moment later.
‘I
think you're wise. Make it open, if you don't mind.'

There was a pause. The heavy breathing that came through the window could only be that of a parsimonious man occupied in writing a cheque for a thousand pounds. It is a type of breathing

which it is impossible to mistake, though in some respects it closely resembles the sound of a strong man's death agony.

'There!'

'Thanks.'

'And now - ?'

"Well, I'll tell you,' said Pilbeam. 'It's like this. I didn't dare hide the thing in the house, so I put it carefully away in a disused pigsty near the kitchen garden. Wait. If you'll lend me your fountain pen, I'll draw you a map. See, here's the wall of the kitchen garden. You go along it, and on your left you will see this sty in a little paddock. You can't mistake it. It's the only building there. You go in and under the straw, where I'm putting this cross, is the manuscript. That's clear?'

'Quite clear.'

' You think you will be able to find it all right ?'

'Perfectly easily.' - 'Good. Well, now, there's just one other thing. The merest trifle, but you want to be prepared for it. I said this pigsty was disused, and when I put the manuscript in it so it was. But since then they've gone and shifted that pig of Lord Emsworth's there, the animal they call the Empress of Blandings.'

'What?'

'I thought I had better mention it, as otherwise it might have given you a surprise when you got there.'

The momentary spasm of justifiable indignation which had attacked Lord Tilbury on hearing this piece of information left him. In its place came, oddly enough, a distinct relief. In some curious way the statement had removed from his mind a doubt which had been lingering there. It made Pilbeam's story seem circumstantial.

'That is quite all right,' he said as cheerfully as could be expected of a man of his views on parting with money so soon after the writing of a thousand-pound cheque. 'That will cause no difficulty.'

'You think you can cope with this pig?'

'Certainly. I am not afraid of pigs. Pigs like me.'

At these words, Monty found his respect for a breed of animal which he had always rather admired waning a good deal. No animal of the right sort, he fe
lt, could like Lord Tilbury.

'Then that's fine,' said Pilbeam. 'I'd start at once if I were you. Are you going to walk?' 'Yes.'

'You'll need a torch.'

'No doubt I can borrow one from the landlord of this inn.' 'Good. Then everything's all right.'

There came to Monty's ears the sound of the opening and closing of a door. Lord Tilbury had apparently left to begin the business of the night. For a moment Monty thought that Pilbeam must have left, too, but after a brief silence there came through the window a muttered oath, and, peeping in, he saw that the detective was leaning over the writing-desk. The ejaculation had presumably been occasioned by his discovery that there was no paper, no envelope, no pen, and only what a dreamer could have described as ink.

And such, indeed, was the case. Percy Pilbeam was a man who believed in prompt action. He intended to dispatch that cheque to his bank without delay.

He rang the bell.

‘I
want some ink,' Monty heard him say. 'And a pen and some paper and an envelope.'