Uncle Dynamite (13 page)

Bill
Oakshott laughed one of those hollow, mirthless laughs.

‘Is it!
If that was all I had to worry me, I should be singing like a lark.’

Lord
Ickenham eyed him with concern. In his look, disappointment that he would not
be able to hear his young friend singing like a lark was blended with distress
at the news that he had further reasons for gloom.

‘Don’t
tell me there is more? What else has happened, my ill-starred youth?’

Bill
quivered, and for a moment could not speak.

‘I saw
Pongo kiss the housemaid,’ he said in a low throaty voice.

Lord
Ickenham was perplexed.

‘But
why shouldn’t he?’

‘Why
shouldn’t he? Dash it, he’s engaged to my cousin Hermione.’

Lord
Ickenham’s face cleared.

‘I see.
Ah, yes, I understand. Her happiness is a matter of concern to you, and you do
not like to think that she may be linking her lot with that of a Casanova. My
dear chap, don’t give the matter another thought. He does that sort of thing
automatically. Where you or I would light a cigarette and throw off an epigram,
Pongo kisses the housemaid. It means nothing. A purely unconscious reflex
action.’

‘H’m,’
said Bill.

‘I
assure you,’ said Lord Ickenham. ‘You’ll find it in all the case books. They
have a scientific name for it. Housemaiditis? No. No, it’s gone. But that ends
your catalogue of woe? Apart from your uncle’s strange seizure and this
mannerism of Pongo’s, you have nothing on your mind?’

‘Haven’t
I!’

‘You
have? Is this the head upon which all the sorrows of the world have come? What
is the next item?’

‘Babies!’

‘I beg
your pardon?’

‘Bonny
babies.’

Lord
Ickenham groped cautiously for his meaning.

‘You
are about to become a father?’

‘I’m
about to become a blasted judge.’

‘You
speak in riddles, Bill Oakshott. What do you mean, a judge?’

‘At the
fete.’

‘What
fete?’ said Lord Ickenham. ‘You are forgetting that I am a stranger in these
parts. Tell me the whole story in your own words.’

He
listened with interest while Bill did so, and the latter had no lack of
sympathy to complain of when he had finished revealing the facts in connection
with Sir Aylmer Bostock’s hideous vengeance.

‘Too
bad, too bad,’ said Lord Ickenham. ‘But we might have foreseen something of the
sort. As I warned you, these ex-Governors are tough eggs. They strike like
lightning. So you are for it?’

‘Unless
I can find someone else to take on the job.’ A sudden thought flushed Bill’s
brow. ‘I say, will you do it?’

Lord
Ickenham shook his head.

‘Were
the conditions right,’ he said. ‘I would spring to the task, for I can imagine
no more delightful experience than judging a gaggle of bonny babies at a rural
fete. But the conditions are not right. Mugsy would not accept my nomination.
Between him and myself there is, alas, an unfortunate and I fear insurmountable
barrier. As I told you on the train it is only the other day that he was
curving his person into the posture best adapted for the receipt of six of the
juiciest with a fives bat, and I was the motivating force behind the fives
bat.’

‘But,
dash it, he’ll have forgotten that.’

‘Already?’

‘Wasn’t
it forty years ago?’

‘Forty-two.
But you grievously underestimate the suppleness of my wrist at the age of
eighteen, if you suppose that anyone to whom I administered six with a fives
bat would forget it in forty—two years.’

‘Well,
if he hasn’t forgotten it, what does it matter? You’ll just have a good laugh
together over the whole thing.’

‘I
disagree with you, Bill Oakshott. Why after your recent experience of his dark
malignity you should suppose young Mugsy to be a sort of vat or container for
the milk of human kindness, I cannot imagine. You must know perfectly well that
in the warped soul of Mugsy Bostock there is no room for sweetness and light.
Come now, be honest. Does he not chew broken glass and conduct human sacrifices
at the time of the full moon? Of course he does. And yet you cling to this weak
pretence that, with the old wounds still throbbing, he will forget and
forgive.’

‘We
could try him.’

‘Useless.
He would merely scowl darkly and turn me from his door — or your door, didn’t
you tell me it was? And suppose he did not? Suppose he welcomed me? What then?
It would mean starting an association which would last the rest of our lives.
He would always be popping over to my place, and I would be expected to pop over
here. Wife would meet wife, presents would be exchanged at Christmas, it would
be appalling. Even to oblige you, my dear fellow, I could not contemplate such
a thing. Did you say “Oh, hell!”‘

‘Yes.’

‘I
thought you did, and it wrung my heart.’

There
was a silence. Bill stared moodily at a passing beetle.

‘Then
I’m sunk.’

‘But
why? Have you no friends?’

‘I’ve
lost touch with them all, being away. The only one I could lay my hands on is
Plank.’

‘Who is
Plank? Ah, yes, I remember. The head of the expedition you went on.’

‘That’s
right. Major Brabazon-Plank.’

‘Brabazon-Plank?
You interest me strangely. I was at school with a
fellow named Brabazon-Plank. He still owes me two bob. Is your Brabazon-Plank a
pear-shaped chap, rather narrow in the shoulders and very broad in the beam?’

‘Yes.’

‘Practically
all backside?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then
it must be the same fellow. Bimbo we used to call him. Extraordinary what a
mine of my old schoolmates you are turning out to be. You don’t seem able to
mention a name without it proving that of someone with whom in one way or
another I used once to pluck the gowans fine. And you think you could contact
Bimbo?’

‘I have
his address in
London
. We came
back on the boat together. But it wouldn’t be any use contacting him. If anyone
suggested that he should judge bonny babies, he would run like a rabbit. He has
a horror of them.’

‘Indeed?
The well-known baby fixation. See the case books.’

‘All
the way home on the boat he was moaning that when he got to England he would
have to go and see his sisters, and he didn’t know how he was going to face it,
because all of them were knee-deep in babies which he would be expected to
kiss. No, Plank’s no good.’

‘Then
really,’ said Lord Ickenham, ‘it looks as if you would have to fall back on
me.’ Bill, who had been staring dully at the bettle, transferred his gaze to
his companion. It was a wide-eyed, gaping gaze, speaking eloquently of a mind
imperfectly adjusted to the intellectual pressure of the conversation.

‘Eh?’

‘I say
that you will be compelled, for want of anything better, to avail yourself of
my poor services. Invite me to your home, and in return for this hospitality I
will judge these bonny babies.’

Bill
continued to gape.

‘But
you said you wouldn’t.’

‘Surely
not?’

‘Yes,
you did. Just now.’

Lord
Ickenham’s perplexity vanished.

‘Ah, I
see where the confusion of thought has arisen,’ he said. ‘You misunderstood me.
I merely meant that, for the reasons which I explained to you, it was
impossible for that fine old English aristocrat, Frederick Altamont Cornwallis,
Earl of Ickenham, to come barging in on an establishment of which Mugsy Bostock
formed a part. What I am proposing now is that I shall throw a modest veil over
my glittering identity.’

‘Eh?’

‘You do
keep saying “Eh?” don’t you? It is surely quite simple. I am most anxious to
visit Ashenden Manor, of which I hear excellent reports, and I suggest that I
do so incognito.’

‘Under
another name, do you mean?’

‘Exactly.
What a treat it is to deal with an intelligence like yours, Bill Oakshott.
Under, as you put it so luminously, another name. As a matter of fact, I never
feel comfortable going to stay at houses under my own name. It doesn’t seem
sporting.’

Bill
Oakshott’s was not a mind readily receptive of new ideas. As he stared at Lord
Ickenham, his resemblance to a fish on a slab was more striking than ever.

‘You’ll
call yourself something else?’ he said, for he was a man who liked to approach
these things from every angle.

‘Precisely.’

‘But —

‘I
never like that word “But.”‘

‘You
couldn’t get away with it.’ Lord Ickenham laughed lightly.

‘My
dear fellow, at The Cedars, Mafeking Road, in the suburb of Mitching Hill last
spring I impersonated in a single afternoon and with complete success not only
an official from the bird shop, come to clip the claws of the parrot, but Mr
Roddis, lessee of The Cedars, and a Mr J. G. Bulystrode, a resident of the same
neighbourhood. It has been a lasting grief to me that I was given no
opportunity of impersonating the parrot, which I am convinced I should have
done on broad artistic lines. Have no anxiety about my not being able to get
away with it. Introduce me into the house, and I will guarantee to do the
rest.’

The
clearness with which he had expounded his scheme had enabled Bill to grasp it,
but he was looking nervous and unhappy, like a man who has grasped the tail of
a tiger.

‘It’s
too risky. Suppose my uncle found out.’

‘Are
you afraid of Mugsy?’

‘Yes.’

‘More
than of the bonny babies?’

Bill
quivered. In every limb and feature he betrayed his consciousness of standing
at a young man’s cross-roads.

‘But
what’s the procedure? You mean you just blow in, calling yourself Jones or
Robinson?’

‘Not
Robinson. I have had occasion in the past to call myself Robinson, but it would
not do now. You overlook the fact that the judge of a contest of this
importance must be a man who counts. He must have authority and presence. I
suggest that I come as Major Brabazon-Plank. It would give me genuine pleasure
to impersonate old Bimbo, and I can think of no one more suitable. The whole thing
is so plausible. You run into your old chief Plank, who happens to be passing
by on a motor tour, and what more natural than that you should insist on him
stopping off for a day or two at your home? And, having stopped off, what more
natural than that he, learning of this very important and attractive job, a
job which will render him the cynosure of all eyes and is in addition right up
his street, he being passionately fond of babies, should insist on having it
assigned to him? And the crowning beauty of the scheme is that I don’t see how
Mugsy can do anything about it. We’ve got him cold. It isn’t as if Plank were
just an ordinary man. Plank is a hell of a celebrity, and his wishes have to be
deferred to. If you ask me, Bill Oakshott, if you care to have my unbiased
opinion of the set-up, I think the thing’s in the bag.’

Into
Bill’s fishlike eyes a gleam of enthusiasm had crept. His air was that of a
red-faced young man who has been convinced by the voice of reason. He still
feared the shape of things to come, should he fall in with his benefactor’s
suggestion, but he feared still more the shape of things to come, should he
not.

Stamped
indelibly on his mental retina was the memory of last year’s fete, when he had
watched the Rev. Aubrey Brotherhood preparing to embark on his duties in the
big tent. Intrepid curate though he was, a man who could dominate the rowdiest
Mothers’ Meeting, the Rev. Aubrey had paled visibly at the task confronting
him. Forty-three village matrons, holding in their arms in the hope of catching
the judge’s eye forty-three. babies of almost the maximum repulsiveness….

‘Right!’
he cried with sudden resolution. ‘Fine. Let’s go.’

‘Yes,
let’s,’ said Lord Ickenham. ‘You can carry the suitcase.’

They
walked down the road. Bill, who had begun to think things over again, was a
little silent and thoughtful, but Lord Ickenham was all gaiety and animation.
He talked well and easily of this and that, and from time to time pointed out
objects of interest by the wayside. They had just reached the manor gates, when
the uproar of an approaching car caused Bill to turn his head: and, having
turned it, he paled beneath his tan and tottered slightly.

‘Oh,
golly, here comes my uncle. I say, do you think we really ought —‘

‘Tush,
Bill Oakshott,’ said Lord Ickenham, prompt in the hour of peril to stimulate
and encourage. ‘This is weakness. Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood. Let
us stand our ground firmly, and give him a huge hullo.’

Sir Aylmer Bostock had
spent four minutes at Ickenham Hall, all on the front door-step, and of these
four minutes there had not been one which he had not disliked. Sometimes in our
wanderings about the world we meet men of whom it is said that they have passed
through the furnace. Of Sir Aylmer it would be more correct to say that he had
passed through the frigidaire.