This old man, he took and died-a-lum,
Down in Demerara!’
(It was just like that poem by someone or other: ‘Everyone suddenly burst out singing.’)
‘So here we sit like birds in the wilderness,
Birds in the wilderness,
Birds in the wilderness!
Here we sit like birds in the wilderness,
Down in Demerara!’
‘Bravo!’ said Peter.
‘Yes,’ said Mr Goodacre, ‘we rendered that with great spirit.’
‘Ah!’ said Mr Puffett. ‘Nothing like a good song to take your mind off your troubles. Is there, me lord?’
‘Nothing! said Peter. ‘Begone, dull care! Eructavit cor meum.’
‘Come, come,’ protested the vicar, ‘it’s early days to talk about troubles, my dear young people.’
‘When a man’s married,’ said Mr Puffett, sententiously, ‘his troubles begin. Which they may take the form of a family. Or they may take the form of sut.’
‘Soot?’ exclaimed the vicar, as though for the first time he was asking himself what Mr Puffett was doing in the domestic chorus. ‘Why, yes, Tom – you do seem to be having a little trouble with Mr Noakes’s – I should say, Lord Peter’s chimney. What’s the matter with it?’
‘Something catastrophic, I gather,’ said the master of the house.
‘Nothing like that,’ dissented Mr Puffett, reprovingly. ‘Just sut. Corroded sut. Doo to neglect.’
‘I’m sure—’ bleated Miss Twitterton.
‘No call to blame present company,’ said Mr Puffett. ‘I’m sorry for Miss Twitterton, and I’m sorry for his lordship. It’s corroded that ’ard you can’t get the rods through.’
‘That’s bad, that’s bad,’ ejaculated the vicar. He braced himself, as the vicar should, to deal with this emergency occurring in his parish. ‘A friend of mine had sad trouble with corroded soot. But I was able to assist him with an old-fashioned remedy. I wonder now – I wonder – is Mrs Ruddle here? The invaluable Mrs Ruddle?’
Harriet, receiving no guidance from Peter’s politely impassive expression, went to summon Mrs Ruddle, of whom the vicar instantly took charge.
‘Ah, good morning, Martha. Now, I wonder if you could borrow your son’s old shot-gun for us. The one he uses for scaring the birds.’
‘I could pop over and see, sir,’ said Mrs Ruddle, dubiously.
‘Let Crutchley go for you,’ suggested Peter. He turned abruptly as he spoke and began to fill his pipe. Harriet, studying his face, saw with apprehension that he was brimming over with an awful anticipatory glee. Whatever cataclysm impended, he would not put out a finger to stop it, he would let the heavens fall and tread the antic hay on the ruins.
‘Well,’ conceded Mrs Ruddle, ‘Frank’s quicker on his feet nor what I am.’
‘Loaded, of course,’ cried the vicar after her, as she vanished through the door. ‘There’s nothing,’ he explained to the world at large, ‘like one of these old duck-guns, discharged up the chimney, for clearing corroded soot. This friend of mine—’
‘I don’t ’old with that, sir,’ said Mr Puffett, every bulge in his body expressing righteous resentment and a sturdy independence of judgement. ‘It’s the power be’ind the rods as does it.’
‘I assure you, Tom,’ said Mr Goodacre, ‘the shot-gun cleared my friend’s chimney instantly. A most obstinate case.’
‘That may be, sir,’ replied Mr Puffett, ‘but it ain’t a remedy as I should care to apply.’ He stalked gloomily to the spot where he had piled his cast-off sweaters and picked up the top one. ‘If the rods don’t do it, then it’s ladders you want, not ’igh explosive.’
‘But, Mr Goodacre,’ exclaimed Miss Twitterton anxiously, ‘are you sure it’s quite safe? I’m always very nervous about guns in the house. All these accidents—’
The vicar reassured her. Harriet, perceiving that the owners of the house, at any rate, were to be relieved of all responsibility for their own chimneys, nevertheless thought it well to placate the sweep.
‘Don’t desert us, Mr Puffett,’ she pleaded. ‘One can’t hurt Mr Goodacre’s feelings. But if anything happens—’
‘Have a heart, Puffett,’ said Peter.
Mr Puffett’s little twinkling eyes looked into Peter’s, which were like twin grey lakes of limpid clarity and wholly deceptive depth.
‘Well,’ said Mr Puffett, slowly, ‘anything to oblige. But don’t say I didn’t warn you, m’lord. It’s a thing I don’t ’old with.’
‘It won’t bring the chimney down, will it?’ inquired Harriet.
‘Oh, it won’t bring the chimney down,’ replied Mr Puffett. ‘If you likes to ’umour the old gentleman, on your ’ead be it. In a manner of speaking, m’lady.’
Peter had succeeded in getting his pipe to draw, and, with both hands in his trouser-pockets, was observing the actors in the drama with an air of pleased detachment. At the entrance of Crutchley and Mrs Ruddle with the gun, however, he began to retreat, noiselessly and backwards, like a cat who has accidentally stepped in a pool of spilt perfume.
‘My God!’ he breathed delicately. ‘Waterloo year!’
‘Splendid!’ cried the vicar. ‘Thank you, thank you, Martha. Now we are equipped.’
‘You have been quick, Frank!’ said Miss Twitterton. She eyed the weapon nervously. ‘You’re sure it won’t go off of its own accord?’
‘Will an army mule go off of its own accord?’ queried Peter, softly.
‘I never like the idea of fire-arms,’ said Miss Twitterton.
‘No, no,’ said the vicar. ‘Trust me; there will be no ill effects.’ He possessed himself of the gun and examined the lock and trigger mechanism with the air of one to whom the theory of ballistics was an open book.
‘It’s all loaded and ready, sir,’ said Mrs Ruddle, proudly conscious of her Bert’s efficiency.
Miss Twitterton gave a faint squeak, and the vicar, thoughtfully turning the muzzle of the gun away from her, found himself covering Bunter, who entered at that moment from the passage.
‘Excuse me, my lord,’ said Bunter, with superb non-chalance but a wary eye; ‘there is a person at the door—’
‘Just a moment, Bunter,’ broke in his master. ‘The fireworks are about to begin. The chimney is to be cleared by the natural expansion of gases.’
‘Very good, my lord.’ Bunter appeared to measure the respective forces of the weapon and the vicar. ‘Excuse me, sir. Had you not better permit me –?’
‘No, no,’ cried Mr Goodacre. ‘Thank you. I can manage it perfectly.’ Gun in hand, he plunged head and shoulders beneath the chimney-drape.
‘Humph!’ said Peter. ‘You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din.’
He removed his pipe from his mouth and with his free hand gathered his wife to him. Miss Twitterton, having no husband to cling to, flung herself upon Crutchley for protection, uttering a plaintive cry:
‘Oh, Frank! I know I shall scream at the noise.’
‘There’s no occasion for alarm,’ said the vicar, popping out his head like a showman from behind the curtain. ‘Now – are we all ready?’
Mr Puffett put on his bowler hat.
‘Ruat cœlum!’ said Peter; and the gun went off.
It exploded like the crack of doom, and it kicked (as Peter had well foreseen) like a carthorse. Gun and gunman rolled together upon the hearth, entangled inextricably in the folds of the drape. As Bunter leaped to the rescue, the loosened soot of centuries came plunging in a mad cascade down the chimney: it met the floor with a soft and deadly violence and mushroomed up in a Stygian cloud, while with it rushed, in a clattering shower, masonry and mortar, jackdaws’ nests and the bones of bats and owls, sticks, bricks and metal-work, with fragments of tiles and potsherds. The shrill outcry of Mrs Ruddle and Miss Twitterton was drowned by the eruptive rumble and boom that echoed from bend to bend of the forty-foot flue.
‘Oh, rapture!’ cried Peter, with his lady in his arms. ‘Oh, bountiful
Jehovah! Oh, joy for all its former woes a thousand-fold repaid!’
‘There!’ exclaimed Mr Puffett, triumphantly. ‘You can’t say as I didn’t warn yer.’
Peter opened his mouth to reply, when the sight of Bunter, snorting and blind, and black as any Nubian Venus, struck him speechless with ecstasy.
‘Oh, dear!’ cried Miss Twitterton. She fluttered round, making helpless little darts at the swaddled shape that was the vicar. ‘Oh, dear, dear, dear! Oh, Frank! Oh, goodness!’
‘Peter!’ panted Harriet.
‘I knew it!’ said Peter. ‘Whoop! I knew it! You blasphemed the aspidistra and something awful has come down that chimney!’
‘Peter! it’s Mr Goodacre in the sheet.’
‘Whoop!’ said Peter again. He pulled himself together and joined Mr Puffett in unwinding the clerical cocoon; while Mrs Ruddle and Crutchley led away the unfortunate Bunter.
Mr Goodacre emerged in some disorder.
‘Not hurt, sir, I hope?’ inquired Peter with grave concern.
‘Not at all, not at all,’ replied the vicar, rubbing his shoulder. ‘A little arnica will soon put that to rights!’ He smoothed his scanty hair with his hands and fumbled for his glasses. ‘I trust the ladies were not unduly alarmed by the explosion. It appears to have been effective.’
‘Remarkably so,’ said Peter. He pulled a pampas grass from the drain-pipe and poked delicately among the debris, while Harriet, flicking soot from the vicar, was reminded of Alice dusting the White King. ‘It’s surprising the things you find in old chimneys.’
‘No dead bodies, I trust,’ said the vicar.
‘Only ornithological specimens. And two skeleton bats. And eight feet or so of ancient chain, as formerly worn by the mayors of Paggleham.’
‘Ah!’ said Mr Goodacre, filled with antiquarian zeal, ‘an old pot-chain, very likely.’
‘That’s what it’ll be,’ concurred Mr Puffett. ‘ ’Ung up on one of them ledges, as like as not. See ’ere! ’Ere’s a bit of one o’ they roasting-jacks wot they used in the old days. Look, see! That’s the cross-bar and the wheel wot the chain went over, like. My grannie had one, the dead spit of this.’
‘Well,’ said Peter, ‘we seem to have loosened things up a bit, anyhow. Think you can get your rods through the pot now?’
‘If,’ said Mr Puffett, darkly, ‘the pot’s still there.’ He dived beneath the chimney-breast, whither Peter followed him. ‘Mind your ’ead, me lord – there might be some more loose bricks. I will say as you can see the sky if you looks for it, which is more than you’d see this morning.’
‘Excuse me, my lord!’
‘Hey?’ said Peter. He crawled out and straightened his back, only to find himself nose to nose with Bunter, who appeared to have undergone a rough but effective cleansing. He looked his servitor up and down. ‘By God, Bunter, my Bunter, I’m revenged for the scullery pump.’
The shadow of some powerful emotion passed over Bunter’s face; but his training held good.
‘The individual at the door, my lord, is inquiring for Mr Noakes. I have informed him that he is not here, but he refuses to take my word for it.’
‘Did you ask if he would see Miss Twitterton? What does he want?’
‘He says, my lord, that his business is urgent and personal.’
Mr Puffett, feeling his presence a little intrusive, whistled thoughtfully, and began to collect his rods together and secure them with string.
‘What sort of an “individual”, Bunter?’
Mr Bunter lightly shrugged his shoulders and spread forth his palms.
‘A financial individual, my lord, to judge by his appearances.’
‘Ho!’ said Mr Puffett, sotto voce.
‘Name of Moses?’
‘Name of MacBride, my lord.’
‘A distinction without a difference. Well, Miss Twitterton, will you see this financial Scotsman?’
‘Oh, Lord Peter, I really don’t know what to say. I know nothing about Uncle William’s business. I don’t know if he’d like me to interfere. If only Uncle—’
‘Would you rather I tackled the bloke?’
‘It’s too kind of you, Lord Peter. I’m sure I oughtn’t to bother you. But with Uncle away and everything so awkward – and gentlemen always understand so much better about business, don’t they, Lady Peter? Dear me!’
‘My husband will be delighted,’ said Harriet. She was wickedly tempted to add, ‘He knows everything about business,’ but was fortunately forestalled by the gentleman himself.
‘Nothing delights me more,’ pronounced his lordship, ‘than minding other people’s business. Show him in. And, Bunter! Allow me to invest you with the Most Heroic Order of the Chimney, for attempting a rescue against overwhelming odds.’
‘Thank you, my lord,’ said Mr Bunter, woodenly, stooping his neck to the chain and meekly receiving the roasting-jack in his right hand. ‘I am much obliged. Will there be anything further?’
‘Yes. Before you go – take up the bodies. But the soldiers may be excused from shooting. We have had enough of that for one morning.’
Mr Bunter bowed, collected the skeletons in the dustpan and departed. But as he passed behind the settle, Harriet saw him unwind the chain and drop it unobtrusively into the drain-pipe, setting the roasting-jack upright against the wall. A gentleman might have his joke; but a gentleman’s gentleman has his position to keep up. One could not face inquisitive Hebrews in the character of the Mayor of Paggleham and Provincial Grand Master of the Most Heroic Order of the Chimney.
6
BACK TO THE ARMY AGAIN
The days have slain the days
And the seasons have gone by,
And brought me the Summer again;
And here on the grass I lie
As erst I lay and was glad
Ere I meddled with right and with wrong.
WILLIAM MORRIS: The Half of Life Gone.
MR MACBRIDE turned out to be a brisk young man, bowler-hatted, with sharp black eyes that seemed to inventory everything they encountered, and a highly regrettable tie. He rapidly summed up the vicar and Mr Puffett, dismissed them from his calculations, and made a bee-line for the monocle.
‘ ’Morning,’ said Mr MacBride. ‘Lord Peter Wimsey, I believe. Very sorry to trouble your lordship. Understand you’re stopping here. Fact is, I have to see Mr Noakes on a little matter of business.’
‘Just so,’ said Peter, easily. ‘Any fog in Town this morning?’
‘Ow naow,’ replied Mr MacBride. ‘Nice clear day.’
‘I thought so. I mean, I thought you must have come from Town. Bred an’ bawn in a briar-patch, Brer Fox. But you might, of course, have been elsewhere since then, so I asked the question. You didn’t send in your card, I fancy.’
‘Well, you see,’ explained Mr MacBride, whose native accents were, indeed – apart from a trifling difficulty with his sibilants – pure Whitechapel, ‘my business is with Mr Noakes. Personal and confidential.’
At this point, Mr Puffett, finding a long piece of twine on the floor, began to roll it up slowly and methodically, fixing his gaze upon the stranger’s face in no very friendly manner.
‘Well,’ resumed Peter, ‘I’m afraid you have had your journey for nothing. Mr Noakes isn’t here. I only wish he was. But you’ll probably find him over at Broxford.’
‘Oh, no,’ said Mr MacBride again. ‘That won’t work. Not a bit of it.’ A step at the door made him swing round sharply, but it was only Crutchley, armed with a pail and a broom and shovel. Mr MacBride laughed. ‘I’ve been over to Broxford, and they said I should find him here.’
‘Did they indeed?’ said Peter. ‘That’s right, Crutchley. Sweep up this mess and get these papers cleared. Said he was here, did they? Then they were mistaken. He’s not here and we don’t know where he is.’
‘But,’ cried Miss Twitterton, ‘it isn’t possible! Not over at Broxford? Then where can he be? It’s most worrying. Oh, dear, Mr Goodacre, can’t you suggest so
mething?’
‘Sorry to make such a dust,’ said Peter. ‘We have had a slight domestic accident with some soot. Excellent thing for the flower-beds. Garden pests are said to dislike it. Yes. Well now, this is Mr Noakes’s niece, Miss Twitterton. Perhaps you can state your business to her.’
‘Sorry,’ said Mr MacBride, ‘nothing doing. I’ve got to see the old gentleman personally. And it’s no good trying to put me off, because I know all the dodges.’ He skipped nimbly over the broom that Crutchley was plying about his feet, and sat down, uninvited, on the settle.
‘Young man,’ said Mr Goodacre, rebukingly, ‘you had better keep a civil tongue in your head. Lord Peter Wimsey has given you his personal assurance that we do not know where to find Mr Noakes. You do not suppose that his lordship would tell you an untruth?’
His lordship, who had wandered over to a distant what-not, and was hunting through a pile of his personal belongings placed there by Bunter, glanced at his wife and cocked a modest eyebrow.
‘Oh, wouldn’t he, though?’ said Mr MacBride. ‘There’s nobody like the British aristocracy to tell you a good stiff lie without batting an eyelid. His lordship’s face would be a fortune to him in the witness-box.’
‘Where,’ added Peter, extricating a box of cigars from the pile and addressing it in confidence, ‘it is not unknown.’
‘So you see,’ said MacBride, ‘that cock won’t fight.’
He stretched his legs out negligently, to show that he intended to stay where he was. Mr Puffett, groping about his feet, discovered a stray stub of pencil and put it in his pocket with a grunt.
‘Mr MacBride.’ Peter had returned, box in hand. ‘Have a cigar. Now then, who do you represent?’
He stared down at his visitor with an eye so shrewd and a mouth so humorous that Mr MacBride, accepting the cigar and recognising the quality, pulled himself together, sat up and acknowledged his intellectual equal with a conspiratorial wink.
‘Macdonald & Abrahams,’ said Mr MacBride. ‘Bedford Row.’
‘Ah, yes. That clannish old North British firm. Solicitors? I thought so. Something to Mr Noakes’s advantage? No doubt. Well, you want him and so do we. So does this lady here. . . .’