Leave it to Psmith (20 page)

‘I – I—What are you talking about?’

Psmith stretched out a long arm and patted him almost affectionately on the shoulder.

‘It’s lucky you met me before you had to face the others,’ he said. ‘I fear that you undertook this little venture without thoroughly equipping yourself. They would have detected your imposture in the first minute.’

‘What do you mean – imposture? I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

Psmith waggled his forefinger at him reproachfully.

‘My dear comrade, I may as well tell you at once that the genuine McTodd is an old and dear friend of mine. I had a long and entertaining conversation with him only a few days ago. So that, I think we may confidently assert, is that. Or am I wrong?’

‘Oh, hell!’ said the young man. And, flopping bonelessly into a chair, he mopped his forehead in undisguised and abject collapse.

Silence reigned for a while.

‘What,’ inquired the visitor, raising a damp face that shone pallidly in the dim light, ‘are you going to do about it?’

‘Nothing, comrade – by the way, what is your name?’

‘Cootes.’

‘Nothing, Comrade Cootes. Nothing whatever. You are free to leg it hence whenever you feel disposed. In fact, the sooner you do so, the better I shall be pleased.’

‘Say! That’s darned good of you.’

‘Not at all, not at all.’

‘You’re an ace—’

‘Oh, hush!’ interrupted Psmith modestly. ‘But before you go tell me one or two things. I take it that your object in coming here was to have a pop at Lady Constance’s necklace?’

‘Yes.’

‘I thought as much. And what made you suppose that the real McTodd would not be here when you arrived?’

‘Oh, that was all right. I travelled over with that guy McTodd on the boat, and saw a good deal of him when we got to London. He was full of how he’d been invited here, and I got it out of him that no one here knew him by sight. And then one afternoon I met him in the Strand, all worked up. Madder than a hornet. Said he’d been insulted and wouldn’t come down to this place if they came and begged him on their bended knees. I couldn’t make out what it was all about, but apparently he had met Lord Emsworth and hadn’t been treated right. He told me he was going straight off to Paris.’

And did he?’

‘Sure. I saw him off myself at Charing Cross. That’s why it seemed such a cinch coming here instead of him. It’s just my darned luck that the first man I run into is a friend of his. How was I to know that he had any friends this side? He told me he’d never been in England before.’

‘In this life, Comrade Cootes,’ said Psmith, ‘we must always distinguish between the Unlikely and the Impossible. It was unlikely, as you say, that you would meet any friend of McTodd’s in this out-of-the-way spot; and you rashly ordered your movements on the assumption that it was impossible. With what result? The cry goes round the Underworld, “Poor old Cootes has made a bloomer!”’

‘You needn’t rub it in.’

‘I am only doing so for your good. It is my earnest hope that you will lay this lesson to heart and profit by it. Who knows that it may not be the turning-point in your career? Years hence, when you are a white-haired and opulent man of leisure, having retired from the crook business with a comfortable fortune, you may look back on your experience of to-day and realise that it was the means of starting you on the road to Success. You will lay stress on it when you are interviewed for the
Weekly Burglar
on “How I Began” . . . But, talking of starting on roads, I think that perhaps it would be as well if you now had a dash at the one leading to the railway-station. The household may be returning at any moment now.’

‘That’s right,’ agreed the visitor.

‘I think so,’ said Psmith. ‘I think so. You will be happier when you are away from here. Once outside the castle precincts, a great weight will roll offyour mind. A little fresh air will put the roses in your cheeks. You know your way out?’

He shepherded the young man to the door and with a cordial push started him on his way. Then with long strides he ran upstairs to the library to find Eve.

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At about the same moment, on the platform of Market Blandings station, Miss Aileen Peavey was alighting from the train which had left Bridgeford some half an hour earlier. A headache, the fruit of standing about in the hot sun, had caused her to forgo the pleasure of hearing Lord Emsworth deliver his speech: and she had slipped back on a convenient train with the intention of lying down and resting. Finding, on reaching Market Blandings, that her head was much better, and the heat of the afternoon being now over, she started to walk to the castle, greatly refreshed by a cool breeze which had sprung up from the west. She left the town at almost the exact time when the disconsolate Mr Cootes was passing out of the big gates at the end of the castle drive.

§ 3

The grey melancholy which accompanied Mr Cootes like a diligent spectre as he began his walk back to the town of Market Blandings, and which not even the delightful evening could dispel, was due primarily, of course, to that sickening sense of defeat which afflicts a man whose high hopes have been wrecked at the very instant when success has seemed in sight. Once or twice in the life of every man there falls to his lot something which can only be described as a soft snap, and it had seemed to Mr Cootes that this venture of his to Blandings Castle came into that category. He had, like most members of his profession, had his ups and downs in the past, but at last, he told himself, the goddess Fortune had handed him something on a plate with watercress round it. Once established in the castle, there would have been a hundred opportunities of achieving the capture of Lady Constance’s necklace and it had looked as though all he had to do was to walk in, announce himself, and be treated as the honoured guest. As he slouched moodily between the dusty hedges that fringed the road to Market Blandings, Edward Cootes tasted the bitterness that only those know whose plans have been upset by the hundredth chance.

But this was not all. In addition to the sadness of frustrated hope, he was also experiencing the anguish of troubled memories. Not only was the Present torturing him, but the Past had come to life and jumped out and bitten him. A sorrow’s crown of sorrow is remembering happier things, and this was what Edward Cootes was doing now. It is at moments like this that a man needs a woman’s tender care, and Mr Cootes had lost the only woman in whom he could have confided his grief, the only woman who would have understood and sympathised.

We have been introduced to Mr Cootes at a point in his career when he was practising upon dry land; but that was not his chosen environment. Until a few months back his business had lain upon deep waters. The salt scent of the sea was in his blood. To put it more exactly, he had been by profession a card-sharper on the Atlantic liners; and it was during this period that he had loved and lost. For three years and more he had worked in perfect harmony with the lady who, though she adopted a variety of names for purposes of travel, was known to her immediate circle as Smooth Lizzie. He had been the practitioner, she the decoy, and theirs had been one of those ideal business partnerships which one so seldom meets with in a world of cynicism and mistrust. Comradeship had ripened into something deeper and more sacred, and it was all settled between them that when they next touched New York, Mr Cootes, if still at liberty, should proceed to the City Hall for a marriage-licence; when they had quarrelled – quarrelled irrevocably over one of those trifling points over which lovers do quarrel. Some absurd dispute as to the proper division of the quite meagre sum obtained from a cattle millionaire on their last voyage had marred their golden dreams. One word had led to another. The lady, after woman’s habit, had the last of the series, and even Mr Cootes was forced to admit that it was a pippin. She had spoken it on the pier at New York, and then passed out of his life. And with her had gone all his luck. It was as if her going had brought a curse upon him. On the very next trip he had had an unfortunate misunderstanding with an irritable gentleman from the Middle West, who, piqued at what he considered – not unreasonably – the undue proportion of kings and aces in the hands which Mr Cootes had been dealing himself, expressed his displeasure by biting off the first joint of the other’s right index finger – thus putting an abrupt end to a brilliant career. For it was on this finger that Mr Cootes principally relied for the almost magical effects which he was wont to produce with a pack of cards after a little quiet shuffling.

With an aching sense of what might have been he thought now of his lost Lizzie. Regretfully he admitted to himself that she had always been the brains of the firm. A certain manual dexterity he had no doubt possessed, but it was ever Lizzie who had been responsible for the finer work. If they had still been partners, he really believed that she could have discovered some way of getting round the obstacles which had reared themselves now between himself and the necklace of Lady Constance Keeble. It was in a humble and contrite spirit that Edward Cootes proceeded on his way to Market Blandings.

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Miss Peavey, meanwhile, who, it will be remembered, was moving slowly along the road from the Market Blandings end, was finding her walk both restful and enjoyable. There were moments, it has to be recorded, when the society of her hostess and her hostess’s relations was something of a strain to Miss Peavey; and she was glad to be alone. Her headache had disappeared, and she revelled in the quiet evening hush. About now, if she had not had the sense to detach herself from the castle platoon, she would, she reflected, be listening to Lord Emsworth’s speech on the subject of the late Hartley Reddish, J.P., M.P.: a topic which even the noblest of orators might have failed to render really gripping. And what she knew of her host gave her little confidence in his powers of oratory.

Yes, she was well out of it. The gentle breeze played soothingly upon her face. Her delicately modelled nostrils drank in gratefully the scent from the hedgerows. Somewhere out of sight a thrush was singing. And so moved was Miss Peavey by the peace and sweetness of it all that she, too, began to sing.

Had those who enjoyed the privilege of her acquaintance at Blandings Castle been informed that Miss Peavey was about to sing, they would doubtless have considered themselves on firm ground if called upon to make a conjecture as to the type of song which she would select. Something quaint, dreamy, a little wistful . . . that would have been the universal guess . . . some old-world ballad, possibly . . .

What Miss Peavey actually sang – in a soft, meditative voice like that of a linnet waking to greet a new dawn – was that curious composition known as ‘The Beale Street Blues’.

As she reached the last line, she broke off abruptly. She was, she perceived, no longer alone. Down the road toward her, walking pensively like one with a secret sorrow, a man was approaching; and for an instant, as she turned the corner, something in his appearance seemed to catch her by the throat and her breath came sharply.

‘Gee!’ said Miss Peavey.

She was herself again the next moment. A chance resemblance had misled her. She could not see the man’s face, for his head was bent, but how was it possible . . .

And then, when he was quite close, he raised his head, and the county of Shropshire, as far as it was visible to her amazed eyes, executed a sudden and eccentric dance. Trees bobbed up and down, hedgerows shimmied like a Broadway chorus; and from out of the midst of the whirling countryside a voice spoke.

‘Liz!’

‘Eddie!’ ejaculated Miss Peavey faintly, and sat down in a heap on a grassy bank.

§ 4

‘Well, for goodness’ sake!’ said Miss Peavey.

Shropshire had become static once more. She stared at him, wide-eyed.

‘Can you tie it!’ said Miss Peavey.

She ran her gaze over him once again from head to foot.

‘Well, if this ain’t the cat’s whiskers!’ said Miss Peavey. And with this final pronouncement she rose from her bank, somewhat restored, and addressed herself to the task of picking up old threads.

‘Wherever,’ she inquired, ‘did you spring from, Ed?’

There was nothing but affection in her voice. Her gaze was that of a mother contemplating her long-lost child. The past was past and a new era had begun. In the past she had been compelled to describe this man as a hunk of cheese and to express the opinion that his crookedness was such as to enable him to hide at will behind a spiral staircase; but now, in the joy of this unexpected reunion, all these harsh views were forgotten. This was Eddie Cootes, her old side-kick, come back to her after many days, and only now was it borne in upon her what a gap in her life his going had made. She flung herself into his arms with a glad cry.

Mr Cootes, who had not been expecting this demonstration of esteem, staggered a trifle at the impact, but recovered himself sufficiently to return the embrace with something of his ancient warmth. He was delighted at this cordiality, but also surprised. The memory of the lady’s parting words on the occasion of their last meeting was still green, and he had not realised how quickly women forget and forgive, and how a sensitive girl, stirred by some fancied injury, may address a man as a pie-faced plugugly and yet retain in her inmost heart all the old love and affection. He kissed Miss Peavey fondly.

‘Liz,’ he said with fervour, ‘you’re prettier than ever.’

‘Now you behave,’ responded Miss Peavey coyly.

The arrival of a baaing flock of sheep, escorted by a priggish dog and followed by a couple of the local peasantry, caused an intermission in these tender exchanges; and by the time the procession had moved off down the road they were in a more suitable frame of mind to converse quietly and in a practical spirit, to compare notes, and to fill up the blanks.

‘Wherever,’ inquired Miss Peavey again, ‘did you spring from, Ed? You could of knocked me down with a feather when I saw you coming along the road. I couldn’t have believed it was you, this far from the ocean. What are you doing inland like this? Taking a vacation, or aren’t you working the boats any more?’