A Few Quick Ones (14 page)

Wissel Hall was a vast Tudor mansion, one of those colossal edifices which retired financiers so often buy on settling in the country and the purchase of which, when they realize what it is going to cost to keep them up, they almost invariably regret. Built in the days when a householder thought home was not home unless one had accommodation for sixty guests and a corresponding number of attendant scurvy knaves and varlets, it towered to the skies rather in the manner of Windsor Castle, and in conversation with other retired financiers Sir Jasper usually referred to it as a white elephant and a pain in the neck.

When Reginald reached the massive front door, the fact that repeated ringing of the bell produced no response suggested that the domestic staff had been given the night off to attend the concert. But he was convinced that the man he sought was somewhere inside, and as he had now thought of five more names to call him, bringing the total to eleven, he had no intention of being foiled by a closed front door. As Napoleon would have done in his place, he hunted around till he had found a ladder. Bringing this back and propping it up against the balcony of one of the rooms on the first floor, he climbed up. He had now thought of a twelfth name, and it was the best of the lot.

Windows of country houses are seldom fastened at night, and he had no difficulty in opening the one outside of which he stood. He found himself in an ornate guest room, and passing through this and down the corridor outside came to a broad gallery looking down on the main hall.

This was at the moment empty, but presently Sir Jasper appeared through a door at the far end. He had presumably been down in the cellar, for he was carrying a large container from which he now proceeded to sprinkle about the floor what from its aroma was evidently paraffin. As he did so, he sang in a soft undertone the hymn which runs "We plough the fields and scatter the good seed o'er the land." The floor, Reginald observed, was liberally strewn with paper and shavings.

Odd, he felt. No doubt one of these newfangled methods of removing stains from carpets. Probably very effective, but had their relations been more cordial, he would have shouted down to the financier, warning him that he was running a
grave risk of starting a
fire. One cannot be too careful with paraffin.

But he was in no mood to give this man kindly warnings. All he wanted to do was start calling him the names, now fourteen in number, which were bubbling in the boiling cauldron of his soul. And he was about to do so, when he chanced to look down at his hand as it rested on the rail, and the sight gave him pause.

I have carelessly omitted to mention - one gets carried away by one's story and tends to overlook small details - that in order to perfect his rendering of Old Man River Reginald had smeared his face and hands with burnt cork. The artist in him had told him that it would be too silly, a chap coming out in faultless evening dress, with a carnation in his buttonhole and a pink face protruding from a
high collar, and trying to persuade an intelligent audience that he was an Afro-American in reduced circumstances who wanted to be taken away from the Mississippi.

This, of course, radically altered the run of the scenario. Though, as has been shown, not very intelligent, he could see that a bimbo - call him Bimbo A - who wants to dominate another bimbo - Bimbo B, as it might be - starts at a serious disadvantage if he is blacked up. The wrong note is struck from the outset. It would be necessary, if he was to render so tough an old bounder as Sir Jasper Todd less than the dust beneath his chariot wheels, to go home and wash.

Tut-tutting, for this hitch made him feel frustrated and disappointed, he returned to the ladder and climbed down it. And his foot was leaving the last rung, when a
heavy hand descended on his shoulder and a voice, gruesomely official in its intonation, observed "Ho!" It was Police Constable Popjoy, the sleepless guardian of the peace of Lower Smattering-On-The-Wissel, who had made this remark. He was one of the few inhabitants of the Village who had not attended the concert. Concerts meant nothing to P. C. Popjoy. Duty, stern daughter of the voice of God, told him, concert or no concert, to walk his beat at night, and he walked it.

His task involved keeping an eye on the home of Sir Jasper Todd, and the eye he had been keeping had detected a
negroid burglar coming down a ladder from a first-floor balcony. It had struck him from the very first as suspicious. Nice goings-on, thought P. C. Popjoy, and he gripped him, as stated, by the shoulder.

"Ho!" he said again. He was a man of few words, and those mostly of one syllable.

And what, meanwhile, of Amanda?

All through Reginald's deeply moving performance she had sat breathless, her mind in a whirl and her soul stirred to her very depths. With each low note that he pulled up from the soles of his shoes she could feel the old affection and esteem surging back into her with a whoosh, and long before he had taken his sixth bow she knew that he was, if one may coin a phrase, the only onion in the stew and that it would be madness to try to seek happiness elsewhere, particularly as the wife of a
man with large ears and no chin, who looked as if he were about to start in the two-thirty race at Kempton Park.

"I love you, I love you!" she murmured, and when Lord Knubble, overhearing the words, beamed and said "At-a-girl, that's the spirit", she had turned on him with a
cold "Not you, you poor fish", and broken their engagement. And now she was driving home, thinking long, sad thoughts of the man she adored, the man lost to her, she feared, for ever.

Could he ever forgive those harsh words she had spoken?

Extremely doubtful.

Would she ever see him again?

Against this second question one can pencil in the word "Yes", for at this moment, having freed himself from his custodian's grasp with a shrewd kick on the left ankle, he came galloping round the corner at 40 m.p.h., and even as she braked her car, speculating on his motives in running along the high road at this brisk speed, along came Police Constable Popjoy, doing approximately 55
m.p.h.

When a man doing 55
m.p.h, pursues a man capable of only 40, the end is merely a question of time. On the present occasion it came somewhat sooner than might have been expected owing to Reginald tripping on a loose pebble and falling like a sack of coals. The constable, coming up, bestrode him like a colossus.

"Ho!" he said, for, as has been indicated, he was a
man of limited conversational resources, and all the woman in Amanda sprang into sudden life. She would have been the last person to affect to know what all this was about, but it was abundantly plain that the man to whom she had given her heart was in the process of getting pinched by the police and only a helpmeet's gentle hand could save him. Reaching in the tool box, she produced a serviceable spanner and, not letting a twig snap beneath her feet, advanced on the officer from behind. There was a dull, chunky sound as he sank to earth, and Reginald, looking up, saw who it was that had popped up through a trap to his aid. A surge of emotion filled him.

"Oh, hullo," he said. "So there you are."

"That's right."

"Nice evening."

"Beautiful. How's everything, Reggie?"

"Smashing, thanks, now that you've socked the flatty."

"I noticed he was in your hair a bit."

"He was, rather. You don't think he’ll suddenly recover and make a spring, do you?"

"He will be out of circulation for some little time, I imagine. In which respect he differs from me, because I'm back in circulation."

"Eh?"

"I've broken my engagement to Percy Knubble."

"Oh, fine."

"You are the man I love."

"Oh, finer."

"And now," said Amanda, "let's have the gen. How did you happen to get snarled up with the constabulary?"

She listened with a thoughtful frown as Reginald related the events of the evening. She found herself particularly intrigued by his account of the activities of her Uncle Jasper.

"You say he was sprinkling paraffin hither and thither?"

“Freely."

"And there were paper and shavings on the floor?"

"In considerable abundance. Rather risky, it seemed to me. You never know when that sort of thing won't start a fire."

"You're quite right. If he had happened to drop a lighted match…Look," said Amanda. "You go home and de-black yourself. I'll stay here and lend the rozzer a helping hand when he comes to."

It was some minutes later that Police Constable Popjoy opened his eyes and said: "Where am I?"

"Right here," said Amanda. "Did you see what hit you?"

"No, I didn't."

"It was that Russian Sputnik thing you've probably read about in the papers."

 "Coo!"

"Coo is correct. They raise a nasty bump, these Sputniks, do they not? That head of yours wants a beefsteak or something slapped on it. Jump into my car and come along with me, and we'll see what the larder of Wissel Hall has to offer."

Sir Jasper, having used up all the paraffin in the cellar, had left the house to go to the garage for petrol and was approaching the front steps when Amanda drove up. His emotion on beholding her was marked.

"Amanda! I was not expecting you for another two hours."

The girl alighted from the car and drew him aside.

"So," she said, "I rather gathered when Reggie Mulliner told me a few moments ago that he had seen you strewing the floor of the hall with paper and shavings and sprinkling paraffin on them."

Sir Jasper had not presided over a hundred general meetings for nothing. He preserved his composure. The closest observer, eyeing his face, could not have known that his heart, leaping into his mouth, had just loosened two front teeth. He spoke with the dignified calm which had so often quelled unruly shareholders.

"Absurd! There are no shavings and paper on the floor."

"Reggie said he saw them."

"An optical illusion, no doubt."

"Perhaps you're right. Still, just for fun, I'll go in and look. And I'll take Constable Popjoy with me. I'm sure he will be interested."

Sir Jasper's heart did another
entrechat,

"Constable Popjoy?" he quavered.

"He's in my car. I thought it would be a sound move to bring him along."

Sir Jasper clutched her arm.

"No, do not go in, particularly in the company of P. C. Popjoy. The fact is, my dear, that there is a certain amount of substance in what young Mulliner told you. I did happen to drop a few shavings and a little paper which I was carrying about with me - I cannot remember for what reason - and I carelessly tripped and upset a container of paraffin. It was the sort of thing that might have happened to anyone, but it is possible that a man like Popjoy would draw a wrong conclusion."

"He might think you were planning to do down the insurance company for a substantial sum."

"It is conceivable. These policemen are so prone to think the worst."

"You wouldn't dream of doing a thing like that?"

"Certainly not."

"Or of sticking poor trusting halfwitted baa-lambs with dud oil stock. Oh, that reminds me, Uncle Jasper. I knew there was something I wanted to talk to you about. Reggie's changed his mind about those Smelly River Ordinaries. He doesn't want them. True," said Amanda in response to Sir Jasper's remark that he had jolly well got them. "But he would like you to buy them back."

"He would, would he?"

"I told him you would be delighted."

"You did, did you?"

"Won't you be delighted?"

"No, I won't."

"Too bad. Oh, Popjoy."

"Miss?"

"Kindly step this way."

"Please!" cried Sir Jasper. "Please, please, please!"

"One moment, Popjoy. You w re saying, Uncle Jasper?"

"If young Mulliner really prefers to sell me back those shares…”

"He does. This is official. He has taken one of those strange unaccountable dislikes for them."

There was silence for a space. Then from Sir Jasper's interior there proceeded a groan not unlike one of the lower notes of Old Man River.

"Very well. I agree."

"Splendid. Popjoy!"

"Miss?"

"Don't step this way."

"Very good, miss."

"And now," said Amanda, "Ho for your study, where I shall require you to write out a cheque, payable to Reginald Mulliner, for a hundred thousand pounds."

Sir Jasper reeled.

"A hundred thousand? He only paid me fifty thousand."

"The stock has gone up. Surely no one understands better than you these market fluctuations. Close the deal at once, is my advice, before it hits a new high. Or would you prefer that I once more asked Constable Popjoy to navigate in this direction?"

"No, no, no, on no account."

Another groan escaped Sir Jasper. He looked at his niece with infinite reproach.

"So this is how you repay my unremitting kindness! For years I have bestowed on you an Uncle's love…"

"And now you're going to bestow on Reggie an uncle's hundred thousand pounds."

A thought struck Sir Jasper.

"I wonder," he said, "if instead of a cheque for that sum young Mulliner would not prefer a block of Deep Blue Atlantic stock of equivalent value? It is a company formed for the purpose of extracting gold from sea water, and its possibilities are boundless. I should be surprised - nay, astounded - if anyone investing in it did not secure a return of ninety per centum on hi…." Sir Jasper broke off as the girl began to speak. "Yes, yes," he said, when she had finished. "Quite, quite. I see what you mean." He heaved a little sigh. "It was merely a suggestion."

7

Leave it to Algy

AS so often happened in August when the citizenry was taking its annual vacation, that popular resort, Bramley-on-Sea, had filled up with ozone-breathers till there was barely standing room. Henry Cuthbert Purkiss, proprietor of the widely read journal for children,
Wee Tots,
was there with Mrs. Purkiss. Oofy Prosser, the Drones Club millionaire, was there, staying at the Hotel Magnifique and looking perfectly foul in a panama hat with a scarlet ribbon. A distinguished visitor from the United States - Wally Judd the cartoonist, the man behind the Dauntless Desmond comic strip which is syndicated in sixteen hundred American papers - was week-ending there. And on the beach in front of the Magnifique an observer, scanning the throng, would have noticed among those present Bingo Little, the able young editor of
Wee Tots,
and his wife Mrs. Bingo, better known as the novelist Rosie M. Banks. They were watching their infant son, Algernon Aubrey, build a sand castle.