Uncle Dynamite (10 page)

‘Hullo,
Aunt Emily,’ he said in sepulchral tones. ‘Knitting a sock?’

‘Yes,
dear. A sock.’

‘Oh?’
said Bill, still speaking like a voice from the tomb. ‘A sock? Fine.’

He
stood there, staring before him with unseeing eyes, and she touched his hand
gently.

‘I wouldn’t
worry about it too much, dear.’

‘I
don’t see how one could,’ said Bill. ‘How many of these frightful babies will
there be?’

‘There
were forty-three last year.’

‘Forty-three!’

‘Be
brave, William. If Mr Brotherhood could do it, you can.’

The
flaw in this reasoning was so obvious that Bill was able to detect it at once.

‘Curates
are different. They train them specially to judge bonny babies. At the
theological colleges. Start them off with ventriloquists’ dummies, I shouldn’t
wonder. Forty-three, did you say? And probably dozens more this time. These
blighters breed like rabbits. Gosh, I wish I was back in
Brazil
.’

‘Oh,
William.’

‘I do.
What a country! Nothing but flies and ticks and alligators and snakes and
scorpions and tarantulas and a sort of leech that drops on you from trees and
sucks your blood. Not a baby to be seen for miles. Listen, Aunt Emily, can’t I
get someone else to take this ghastly job on?’

‘But
who?’

‘Yes,
that’s the snag, of course,’ said Bill morosely. ‘Mugs fatheaded enough to let
themselves be talked into judging forty-three bonny babies, all dribbling out
of the side of the mouth, must be pretty scarce, pretty scarce. Well, I think
I’ll be pushing along, Aunt Emily. It seems to help a little if I keep moving.’

He
plodded off, listlessly puffing smoke, leaving behind him an aunt with an
aching heart. And it was perhaps because Lady Bostock was now so near the nadir
of depression that she thought she might as well make a complete job of it. So
she began to think of Pongo.

It
frequently happens that prospective sons-in-law come as a rather painful shock
to their prospective mothers-in-law, and the case of Lady Bostock had provided
no exception to the rule. Immediately on seeing Pongo she had found herself
completely at a loss to understand why her daughter should have chosen him as a
mate. From the very start she had felt herself to be in the presence of one
whose soul was not attuned to hers. At moments, indeed, only her perfect
breeding had restrained her from beating him over the head with the sock which
she was knitting for the deserving poor.

Analysing
his repellent personality, she came to the conclusion that while she disliked
his nervous giggle, his lemon-coloured hair and the way he had of drooping his
lower jaw and letting his eyes get glassy, the thing about him that
particularly exasperated her was his extraordinary jumpiness.

Of this
she had witnessed a manifestation only an hour or so ago, as they were leaving
the dining-room after lunch. As they started to cross the hall,
Aylmer
had moved in the direction of that
bust of his, as if to give it a flick with his handkerchief, as he sometimes
did, and Reginald had bounded in his tracks with a soft, animal yelp,
recovering his composure only when
Aylmer
, abandoning the idea of flicking, had moved on again.

A
strange young man. Was he half — or even a quarter — witted? Or was his mind,
if had a mind, burdened by some guilty secret?

Speculations
like these, indulged in on a warm day after a rather heavy lunch, are apt to
induce drowsiness. Her eyelids began to flutter. Somewhere out of sight a
lawn-mower was purring hypnotically. The west wind played soothingly on her
face.

Lady
Bostock slept.

But not
for long. Her eyes had scarcely closed when the word ‘EMILY’, spoken at the
extreme limit of a good man’s lungs, jerked her from her slumber as if a charge
of trinitrotoluol had been exploded beneath her chair.

Sir
Aylmer was leaning out of the study window.

‘EMILY!’

‘Yes,
dear? Yes, dear?’

‘Come
here,’ roared Sir Aylmer, like a bo’sun addressing an able-bodied seaman across
the deck in the middle of a hurricane. ‘Wantcher.’

As Lady Bostock made her
way to the study, her heart was racing painfully. There had been that in her
husband’s manner which caused her to fear unnamed disasters, and her first
glance at him as she crossed the threshold told her that her apprehensions had
been well founded.

His
face was purple, and his moustache, always a barometer of the emotions, was
dancing about beneath his laboured breath. She had not beheld such activity in
it since the night years ago when the youngest and most nervously giggling of
the aides-de-camp, twiddling the nut-crackers during the dessert course at
dinner at Government House, had snapped the stem of one of his favourite set of
wineglasses.

He was
not alone. Standing at a respectful distance in one of the corners, as if he
knew his place better than to thrust himself forward, was Constable Harold
Potter, looking, as policemen do at such moments, as if he had been stuffed by
a good taxidermist. She stared from one to the other bewildered.

‘
Aylmer
! What is it?’

Sir
Aylmer Bostock was not a man who beat about bushes. When he had disturbing news
to impart, he imparted it.

‘Emily,’
he said, quivering in every hair, ‘there’s a damned plot afoot.’

‘A
what?’

‘A
PLOT. An infernal outrage against the public weal. You know Potter?’

Lady
Bostock knew Potter.

‘How do
you do, Potter?’ she said.

‘How do
you do, m’lady?’ said Constable Potter, coming unstuffed for an instant in
order to play his part in the courteous exchanges and then immediately getting
stuffed again.

‘Potter,’
said Sir Aylmer, ‘has just come to me with a strange story. Potter!’

‘Sir?’

‘Tell
her ladyship your strange story.’

‘Yes,
sir.’

‘It’s
about Reginald,’ said Sir Aylmer, to whet the interest of the audience. ‘Or,
rather,’ he added, exploding his bombshell, ‘the fellow who’s posing as
Reginald.’

Lady
Bostock’s eyes were already bulging to almost their maximum extent, but at
these words they managed to protrude a little further.

‘Posing?’

‘Yes.’

‘What
do you mean?’

‘What I
say. I can’t put it any plainer. The chap who’s come here pretending to be
Reginald Twistleton is an impostor. He isn’t Reginald Twistleton at all. I had
my suspicions of him all along. I didn’t like his eye. Sly. Shifty. And that
sinister giggle of his. What I’d call a criminal type. Potter!’

‘Sir?’

‘Get on
with your strange story.’

‘Yes,
sir.’

Constable
Potter stepped forward, his helmet balanced against his right hip. A glazed
look had come into his eyes. It was the look which they always assumed when he
was giving evidence in court. His gaze was directed some two feet above Sir
Aylmer’s head, so that his remarks seemed to be addressed to a bodiless spirit
hovering over the scene and taking notes in an invisible notebook.

‘On the
sixteenth inst. —‘

‘Yesterday.’

‘Yesterday,’
proceeded Constable Potter, accepting the emendation. ‘On the sixteenth inst.,
which was yesterday, I was proceeding up the drive of Ashenden Manor on my
bicycle, when my attention was drawn to a suspicious figure entering the
premises through a window.’

‘The
window of my collection room.’

‘The
window of Sir Aylmer Bostock’s collection room. I immediately proceeded to
follow the man and question him. In reply to my enquiries he made the statement
that his name was Twistleton and that he was established as a guest at this
residence.’

‘Well,
so he is,’ said Lady Bostock, speaking a little dazedly.

Sir
Aylmer waved an imperious hand.

‘Wait,
wait, wait, wait, WAIT. Mark the sequel.’

He
paused, and stood puffing at his moustache. Lady Bostock, who had sunk into a
chair, picked up a copy of the parish magazine and began to fan herself with
it.

‘We’re
coming to the part where he turns out not to be Twistleton,’ said Sir Aylmer,
allowing his moustache to subside like an angry sea after a storm. ‘Carry on,
Potter.’

Constable
Potter, who had momentarily removed the glazed look from his eyes, put it back
again. Raising his chin, which he had lowered in order to rest the neck
muscles, he once more addressed the bodiless spirit.

‘Having
taken the man’s statement, I proceeded to put searching questions to him. These
appearing to establish his bona fides, I withdrew, leaving him in the company
of Bean, a housemaid, whose evidence had assisted me in establishing the conclusion
that his bona fides had been’ — Constable Potter paused, searching for the
telling verb —‘established,’ he said. ‘But —‘

‘Here
comes the sequel.’

‘But I
was not wholly satisfied, and I’ll tell you why,’ said Constable Potter,
suddenly abandoning the official manner and becoming chatty. ‘The moment I saw
this chap, I had a sort of feeling that his face was kind of familiar, but I
couldn’t place him. You know how it is. And, what’s more, I could have taken my
oath that last time we’d met his name hadn’t been Twistleton —‘

‘Or
anything like it,’ said Sir Aylmer, adroitly snatching the conversational ball
from the speaker and proceeding to carry it himself. ‘I must start by telling
you…. ARE YOU ASLEEP, EMILY?’

‘No,
dear. No, dear,’ cried Lady Bostock, who had been rash enough to close her eyes
for an instant in order to relieve a shooting pain across the forehead.

‘I must
start by telling you that before Potter came to Ashenden Oakshott he used to be
a member of the London police force, and this afternoon, as he was smoking a
pipe after his lunch —‘

‘Cigarette,
sir,’ interpolated the officer respectfully. He knew the importance of
exactitude on these occasions. ‘A gasper.’

‘— It
suddenly flashed on him,’ went on Sir Aylmer, having given him a dangerous look,
‘that where he had seen this fellow before was at some Dog Races down Shepherd’s
Bush way, when he had arrested him, together with an accomplice, and hauled him
off in custody.’

‘
Aylmer
!’

‘You
may well say “
Aylmer
!” It seems
that Potter keeps a scrap album containing newspaper clippings having to do
with cases with which he has been connected, and he looked up this scrap album
and found that the chap’s name, so far from being Twistleton, is Edwin Smith,
of
11 Nasturtium Road, East
Dulwich. Edwin Smith,’ repeated Sir Aylmer, somehow contriving by his
intonation to make it seem a name to shudder at. ‘Now do you believe me when I
say he’s an impostor?’

Women,
having no moustaches, are handicapped at moments like this. Lady Bostock had
begun to pant like a spent horse, but it was not the same thing. She could not
hope to rival her husband’s impressiveness.

‘But
what is he doing here?’

‘Potter’s
view is that he is the advance man of a gang of burglars. I think he’s right.
These fellows always try to simplify matters for themselves by insinuating an
accomplice into the house to pave the way for them. When the time is ripe, the
bounder opens a window and the other bounders creep in. And if you want to know
what this gang is after at Ashenden Manor, it sticks out a mile. My collection
of African curios. Where did Potter find this chap? In my collection room.
Where did I find him? Again in my collection room. My collection fascinates
him. He can’t keep away from it. You agree, Potter?’

Constable
Potter, though not too well pleased at the way in which he had been degraded
from the position of star witness to that of a mere Yes-man, was forced to
admit that he agreed.

Lady
Bostock was still panting softly.

‘But it
seems so extraordinary.’ ‘Why? Its value is enormous.’

‘I
mean, that he should take such a risk.’

‘These
fellows are used to taking risks. Eh, Potter?’ ‘Yes, sir.’

‘Doing
it all the time, aren’t they?’

‘Yes,
sir.’

‘Dangerous
devils, what?’

‘Yes,
sir,’ said Constable Potter, now apparently resigned to his demotion.

‘But he
must have known that Reginald was expected here. How could he tell that he was
not going to run into him?’

‘My
dear Emily, don’t be childish. The gang’s first step would, of course, be to
make away. with Reginald.’

‘Make
away with him? How?’

‘Good
Lord, how do chaps make away with chaps? Don’t you ever read detective
stories?’