Service with a Smile (12 page)

No
morning hour could be smaller than the present one, and in his library, he
knew, there was a paper-knife of the type with which baronets get stabbed in
the back in novels of suspense, and having cut his finger on it only two days
ago he had no doubts of its fitness for the purpose he had in mind. Conditions,
in short, could scarcely have been more favourable.

The
only thing that held him back was the thought of his sister Constance. No one
knew better than he how high was her standard of behaviour for brothers, and if
the pitiless light of day were to be thrown on the crime he was contemplating,
she would undoubtedly extend herself. She could, he estimated, be counted on
for at least ten thousand words of rebuke and recrimination, administered in daily
instalments over the years. In fact, as he put it to himself, for he was given
to homely phrases, he would never hear the end of it.

If
Connie finds out… he thought, and a shudder ran through him.

Then a
voice seemed to whisper in his ear.

‘She
won’t find out,’ said the voice, and he was strong again. Filled with the
crusading spirit which had animated ancestors of his who had done well at the
battles of Acre and Joppa, he rose from his bed and dressed, if putting on an
old sweater and a pair of flannel trousers with holes in the knees could be
called dressing. When he reached the library his mood was definitely that of
those distant forebears who had stropped their battle-axes and sallied out to
fight the Paynim.

As he
left the library, brandishing the paper-knife as King Arthur had once
brandished the sword Excalibur, a sudden hollowness in his interior reminded
him that he had not had his morning cup of tea. Absent-minded though he was, he
realized that this could be remedied by going to the kitchen. It was not a part
of the castle which he ever visited these days, but as a boy he had always been
in and out — in when he wanted cake and out when the cook caught him getting
it, and he had no difficulty in finding his way there. Full of anticipation of
the happy ending, for though he knew he had his limitations he was pretty sure
that he could boil a kettle, he pushed open the familiar door and went in, and
was unpleasantly surprised to see his grandson George there, eating eggs and
bacon.

‘Oh,
hullo, grandpa,’ said George, speaking thickly, for his mouth was full.

‘George!’
said Lord Emsworth, also speaking thickly, but for a different reason. ‘You are
up very early.’

George
said he liked rising betimes. You got two breakfasts that way. He was at the
age when the young stomach wants all that is coming to it.

‘Why
are you up so early, Grandpapa?’

‘I … er…
I was unable to sleep.’

‘Shall
I fry you an egg?’

‘Thank
you, no. I thought of taking a little stroll. The air is so nice and fresh. Er
— good-bye, George.’

‘Good-bye,
Grandpapa.’

‘Little
stroll,’ said Lord Emsworth again, driving home his point, and withdrew,
feeling rather shaken.

2

The big story of the cut
tent ropes broke shortly before breakfast, when a Church Lad who looked as if
he had had a disturbed night called at the back premises of the castle asking
to see Beach. To him he revealed the position of affairs, and Beach dispatched
an underling to find fresh rope to take the place of the severed strands. He
then reported to Lady Constance, who told the Duke, who told his nephew Archie
Gilpin, .who told Lord Ickenham, who said, ‘Well, well well! Just fancy!’

‘The
work of an international gang, do you think?’ he said, and Archie said Well,
anyway, the work of somebody who wasn’t fond of Church Lads, and Lord Ickenham
agreed that this might well be so.

Normally
at this hour he would have been on his way to his hammock, but obviously the
hammock must be postponed till later. His first task was to seek Lord Emsworth
out and offer his congratulations. He was feeling quite a glow as he proceeded
to the library, where he knew that the other would have retired to read Whiffle
On The Care Of The Pig or some other volume of porcine interest, his invariable
procedure after he had had breakfast. It gratified the kindly man to know that
his advice had been taken with such excellent results.

Lord Emsworth
was not actually reading when he entered. He was sitting staring before him,
the book on his lap. There are moments when even Whiffle cannot hold the
attention, and this was one of them. It would be too much, perhaps, to say that
remorse gripped Lord Emsworth, but he was undoubtedly in something of a twitter
and wondering if that great gesture of his had been altogether well-advised.
His emotions were rather similar to those of a Chicago business man of the old
school who has rubbed out a competitor with a pineapple bomb and, while feeling
that that part of it is all right, cannot help speculating on what the F.B.I.
are going to do when they hear about it.

‘Oh — er
— hullo, Ickenham,’ he said. ‘Nice morning.’

‘For
you, my dear Emsworth, a red-letter morning. I’ve just heard the news.’

‘Eh?’

‘The
place is ringing with the story of your exploit.’

‘Eh?’

‘Now
come,’ said Lord Ickenham reproachfully. ‘No need to dissemble with me. You
took my advice, didn’t you, and pulled a sword of Gideon on those tented boys?
And I imagine that you are feeling a better, cleaner man.’

Lord Emsworth
was looking somewhat more guilty and apprehensive than good, clean men usually
do. He peered through his pince-nez at the wall, as if suspecting it of having
ears.

‘I wish
you wouldn’t talk so loudly, Ickenham.’

‘I’ll
whisper.’

‘Yes,
do,’ said Lord Emsworth, relieved.

Lord
Ickenham took a seat and sank his voice.

‘Tell
me all about it.’

‘Well —’

‘I
understand. You are a man of action, and words don’t come to you easily. Like
Bill Bailey.’

‘Bill
Bailey?’

‘Fellow
I know.’

‘There
was a song called “Won’t You Come Home, Bill Bailey?” I used to sing it as a
boy.’

‘It
must have sounded wonderful. But don’t sing it now. I want to hear all about
your last night’s activities.’

‘It was
this morning.’

‘Ah,
yes, that was the time I recommended, wasn’t it? With dawn pinking the eastern
sky and the early bird chirping over its early worm. I had a feeling that you
would be in better shape under those romantic conditions. You thoroughly enjoyed
it, no doubt?’

‘I was
terrified, Ickenham.’

‘Nonsense.
I know you better than that.’

‘I was.
I kept thinking what my sister Constance would say, if she found out.’

‘She
won’t find out.’

‘You
really think so?’

‘How
can she?’

‘She
does find out things.’

‘But
not this one. It will remain one of those great historic mysteries like the Man
in the Iron Mask and the
Mary Celeste.’

‘Have
you seen Constance?’

‘For a
moment.’

‘Was
she — er — upset?’

‘One
might almost say she split a gusset.’

‘I
feared as much.’

‘But
that’s nothing for you to worry about. Your name never came up. Suspicion fell
immediately on the boy who cleans the knives and boots. Do you know him?’

‘No, we
have never met.’

‘Nice
chap, I believe. Percy is his name, and apparently his relations with the
Church Lads have been far from cordial. They tell me he is rather acutely alive
to class distinctions and being on the castle payroll has always looked down on
the Church Lads as social inferiors. This has led to resentment, thrown stones,
the calling of opprobrious names and so forth, so that when the authorities
were apprised of what had happened, he automatically became the logical
suspect. Taken into the squad room and grilled under the lights, however, he
persisted in stout denial and ultimately had to be released for lack of
evidence. That is the thing that is baffling the prosecution, the total lack of
evidence.’

‘I’m
glad of that.’

‘You
ought to be.’

‘But I keep
thinking of Constance.’

‘You’re
not afraid of her?’

‘Yes, I
am. You have no notion how she goes on about a thing. On and on and on. I
remember coming down to dinner one night when we had a big dinner party with a
brass paper-fastener in my shirt front, because I had unfortunately swallowed
my stud, and she kept harping on it for months.’

‘I see.
Well, I’m sure you need have no uneasiness. Why should she suspect you?’

‘She
knows I have a grievance against these boys. They knocked off my top hat at the
school treat and teased the Empress with a potato on a string. She may put two
and two together.’

‘Not a
chance,’ said Lord Ickenham heartily. ‘I’m sure you’re in the clear. But if she
does start anything, imitate the intrepid Percy and stick to stout denial. You
can’t beat it as a general policy. Keep telling yourself that suspicion won’t
get her anywhere, she must have proof, and she knows perfectly well that there
is none that would have a hope of getting past the Director of Public
Prosecutions. If she pulls you in and wants you to make a statement, just look
her in the eye and keep saying “Is zat so?” and “Sez you”, confident that she
can never pin the rap on you. And if she tries any funny business with a rubber
hose, see your lawyer. And now I must be leaving you. I am long overdue at my
hammock.’

Left
alone, Lord Emsworth, though considerably cheered by these heartening words,
still did not feel equal to resuming his perusal of Whiffle On the Care Of The
Pig. He sat staring before him, and so absorbed was he in his meditations that
the knock on the door brought him out of his chair, quivering in every limb.

‘Come
in,’ he quavered, though reason told him that this could not be his sister
Constance, come to ask him to make a statement, for Connie would not have
knocked.

It was
Lavender Briggs who entered. In her bearing, though he was too agitated to
observe it, there was an unaccustomed jauntiness, a jauntiness occasioned by
the fact that after dinner on the previous night the Duke had handed her a cheque
for five hundred pounds and she was going to London for the night to celebrate.
There are few things that so lend elasticity to a girl’s step as the knowledge
that in the bag swinging from her right hand there is a cheque for this sum
payable to herself. Lavender Briggs was not actually skipping like the high
hills, but she came within measurable distance of doing so. On her way to the
library she had been humming a morceau from one of the avant-garde composers
and sketching out preliminary plans for that typewriting bureau for which she
now had the requisite capital.

Her
prospects, she felt, were of the brightest. She could think off-hand of at
least a dozen poets and as many whimsical essayists in her own circle of
friends who were always writing something and having to have it typed. Shade
her prices a little in the first month or so, and all these Aubreys and Lionels
and Lucians and Eustaces would come running, and after them — for the news of
good work soon gets around — the general public. Every red-blooded man in
England, she knew, not to mention the red-blooded women, was writing a novel
and would have to have top copy and two carbons.

It was
consequently with something approaching cheeriness that she addressed Lord Emsworth.

‘Oh,
Lord Emsworth, I am sorry to disturb you, but Lady Constance has given me leave
to go to London for the night. I was wondering if there was anything I could do
for you while I am there?’

Lord Emsworth
thanked her and said No, he could not think of anything, and she went her way,
leaving him to his thoughts. He was still feeling boneless and had asked
himself for the hundredth time if his friend Ickenham’s advice about stout
denial could be relied on to produce the happy ending, when a second knock on
the door brought him out of his chair again.

This
time it was Bill Bailey.

‘Could
I see you for a moment, Lord Emsworth?’ said Bill.

3

Having interviewed
Lavender Briggs and given her permission to go to London for the night, Lady
Constance had retired to her boudoir to look through the letters which had
arrived for her by the morning post. One of them was from her friend James Schoonmaker
in New York, and she was reading it with the pleasure which his letters always
gave her, when from the other side of the door there came a sound like a mighty
rushing wind, and Lord Emsworth burst over the threshold. And she was about to
utter a rebuking ‘Oh, Clarence!’, the customary formula for putting him in his
place, when she caught sight of his face and the words froze on her lips.

He was
a light mauve in colour, and his eyes, generally so mild, glittered behind
their pince-nez with a strange light. It needed but a glance to tell her that
he was in one of his rare berserk moods. These occurred perhaps twice in each
calendar year, and even she, strong woman though she was, always came near to
quailing before them, for on these occasions he ceased to be a human doormat
whom an ‘Oh, Clarence!’ could quell and became something more on the order of
one of those high winds which from time to time blow through the state of Kansas
and send its inhabitants scurrying nimbly to their cyclone cellars. When the
oppressed rise and start setting about the oppressor, their fury is always
formidable. One noticed this in the French Revolution.