The committee of three evidently felt the same. There was another silence - an awkward silence this time, pulsing with embarrassment and doubt. It is always so embarrassing for well-bred people to tell a fellow human being that they do not believe him. Moreover, any intimation on the part of these particular well-bred people that they thought this man was lying to them would most certainly wound that sensitiveness of his which it was so dangerous to wound.
On the other hand, could they pay out large sums of money to a man with a moustache like that, purely on the off-chance that he might for once be telling the truth? The committee paused on the horns of a dilemma.
'Ha h'r'm'ph!' said Sir Gregory, rather neatly summing up the sentiment of the meeting.
Percy Pilbeam displayed an unforeseen amiability in this delicate situation.
'Of course, I don't expect you to take my word for it,' he said. 'Naturally you want some sort of proof. Well, here's a bit of the thing which I saved to show you. The rest is a pile of ashes.'
From his breast pocket he produced a tattered fragment of paper and handed it to Sir Gregory. Sir Gregory, after wincing with some violence, for by an odd chance the fragment happened to deal with the story of the prawns, passed it to Lady Constance. Lady Constance looked at it, and gave it to Lady Julia. The tension relaxed.
'It is not quite what we intended,' said Lady Constance. 'Naturally we expected you to bring the manuscript to us, so that we could destroy it with our own hands. Still. ..'
'Comes to the same thing,' argued Pilbeam.
' Yes, I suppose it does not really matter.'
Glances flitted to and fro like butterflies. Sir Gregory looked at Lady Constance, seeking guidance. Lady Constance silently consulted Lady Julia. Lady Julia gave a quick nod. Sir Gregory having noted it and looked at Lady Constance again and received a nod from her, went to the writing-table and became busy with pen and ink.
Chattiness ensued. Something of the atmosphere of a Board Room at the conclusion of an important meeting had crept into the air.
'I am sure we are all very much obliged to you,' said Lady Constance.
'But tell me, Mr Pilbeam,' said Lady Julia, 'What caused this sudden change of heart ?' 'Pardon?'
'Well, when you left us before dinner, you seemed so determined to ...'
'Oh, Clarence!' cried Lady Constance, with the exasperation which the head of the family's entry into a room so often caused her. He would, she felt, choose this moment to come in and potter.
But for once in his life Lord Emsworth was in no pottering mood. The tempestuous manner of his irruption should have told Lady Constance that. His demeanour and the tone of his remarks now enabled her to perceive it. Quite plainly, something had occurred to stir him out of his usual dreamy calm.
'Who moves my books?' he demanded fiercely.
'What books?'
‘I keep a little book of telephone numbers on the table in the library, and it's gone. Ha,' said Lord Emsworth. 'Beach would know.'
He leaped to the fireplace and pressed the bell.
'You'll break your neck if you go springing about like that on this parquet floor,' observed Lady Julia languidly. 'Why skip ye so, ye high hills?'
Lord Emsworth returned to the centre of the room. He was glaring in what his sister Constance considered an extremely uppish manner. He seemed to her to have got quite above himself.
'Do go away, Clarence,' she said. 'We are talking about something important.'
'And so am I talking about something important. Once and for all, I insist on having my personal belongings respected. I will not have my things moved. My little book of telephone numbers has gone. I suppose you've got it, Connie. Took it to look up some number or other and couldn't be bothered to put it back. Tchahl' said Lord Emsworth.
‘I have not got your wretched little book,' said Lady Constance
wearily.' What do you want it for ?'
' I want to ring up that fellow.’
'What fellow?'
'That fellow what's-his-name. The vet. It's a matter of life and death. And I've forgotten his number.'
'What do you want the vet. for?' asked Lady Julia. 'Are you ill?'
Lord Emsworth stared.
' What do I want the vet. for ? When the Empress has been eating that paper?'
'What paper does the Empress take in?' said Lady Julia. 'I've often wondered. Something sound and conservative. I suppose. Probably the Morning Post.'
'What are you talking about, Clarence?' said Lady Constance.
'Why, about the Empress eating that book of Galahad's, of course. Hasn't Pilbeam told you ?' 'What!'
'Certainly. Went to her sty just now and found her finishing the last chapters. How the thing got there is more than I can tell you. Ink and paper! Probably poisonous. Ha, Beach!'
'M'lord?'
'Beach, what is that vet.'s telephone number? You know what I mean. The telephone number of what's-his-name, the vet.' 'Matchingham 2-2-1, m'lord.'
'Then get him quickly and put him through to the library. Tell him my pig has just eaten the complete manuscript of my brother Galahad's Reminiscences.'
And, so saying, Lord Emsworth made a dart for the door. Finding Beach in the way, he sprang nimbly to the right. The butler also moved to the right. Lord Emsworth dashed to the left. So did Beach. From above the mantelpiece the portrait of the sixth Earl looked down approvingly on these rhythmical manoeuvres. He, too, had been fond of the minuet in his day.
'Beach!' cried Lord Emsworth, passionate appeal in his voice.
'M'lord?'
' Stand still, man. You aren't a jumping bean.'
'I beg your lordship's pardon. I miscalculated the direction in which your lordship was intending to proceed.'
This delay at such a time had robbed Lord Emsworth of the last vestiges of prudence and self-control. On the polished floor of the drawing-room only a professional acrobat could have executed without disaster the bound which he now gave. There was a slithering crash, and he came to a halt against a china-cabinet, rubbing his left ankle.
'I told you you would come a purler,' said Lady Julia, with the satisfaction of a Cassandra, one of whose prophecies has at last been fulfilled.' Hurt yourself ?'
'I think I've twisted my ankle. Beach, help me to the library.'
'Very good, m'lord.'
'Ronnie has some embrocation, I believe,' said Lady Julia.
'I don't want embrocation,' snarled the wounded man, as he hopped from the room on the butler's supporting arm. 'I want a doctor. Beach, as soon as you've got the vet., get a doctor.'
'Very good, m'lord.'
The door closed. And, as it did so, Lady Constance, her lips set and her eyes gleaming with a fierce light, walked to where Sir Gregory stood gaping, took the cheque from his fingers, and tore it across.
A passionate cry rang through the room. It came from the lips of Percy Pilbeam. 'Hi!'
Lady Constance gave him one of the Keeble looks.
'Surely, Mr Pilbeam, you do not expect to be paid for having done nothing? Your instructions were to deliver the manuscript to myself or to Sir Gregory. You have not done so. The agreement is, therefore, null and void.'
'Spoken like a man, Connie,' said Lady Julia, with approval.
The investigator was staring helplessly.
'But the thing's destroyed.'
'Not by you.'
'Certainly not,' said Sir Gregory, with animation. He could follow an argument as well as the next man. 'Not by you at all. Eaten by that pig.'
'Just an Act of God,' put in Lady Julia.
'Exactly,' agreed Sir Gregory. 'A very good way of putting it. Act of God. No obligation on our part to pay you a penny.' 'But...'
'I am sorry, Mr Pilbeam,' said Lady Constance, becoming queenly. 'I see no reason to discuss the matter further.'
'Especially,' said Lady Julia, 'as we have a very urgent matter to discuss with Clarence, Connie.'
'Why, of course. I was forgetting that.'
'I
wasn't,' said Lady Julia. 'You will forgive us for leaving you, Sir Gregory?'
Sir Gregory Parsloe was looking like a Regency buck who has just won a fortune on the turn of a card at Wattier's.
'By all means, Lady Julia. Certainly. As a matter of fact, I think I'll be getting along.'
'I'll order your car.'
'Don't bother,' said Sir Gregory. 'Don't need a car. Going to walk. The relief of knowing that that infernal book isn't hanging over my head any longer. . . phew! I think I'll walk ten miles.'
His eye fell on the tattered fragment of paper on the table. He gathered it up, tore it in half, and put the pieces in his pocket. Then, with the contented air of a man out of whose life stories of prawns have gone for ever, he strode briskly to the door.
Percy Pilbeam continued to sit where he was, looking like a devastated area.
Chapter Fifteen
While these events were in progress at Blandings Castle, there sat in the coffee-room of the Emsworth Arms in Market Blandings a young man eating turbot. It was the second course of a belated dinner which he was making under the reproachful eye of a large, pale, spotted waiter who had hoped to be off duty half an hour ago.
The first thing anyone entering the coffee-room would have noticed, apart from the ozone-like smell of cold beef, beer, pickles, cabbage, gravy soup, boiled potatoes and very old cheese which characterizes coffee-rooms all England over, would have been this young man's extraordinary gloom. He seemed to have looked on life and seen its hollowness. And so he had. Monty Bodkin - for this decayed wreck was he - was in the depths. It is fortunate that the quality of country hotel turbot is such that you do not notice much difference when it turns to ashes in your mouth, for this is what Monty's turbot was doing now.
He had never, he realized, been exactly what you might call sanguine when making his way to the Emsworth Arms to plead with Lord Tilbury to act like a sportsman and a gentleman. All the ruling of the form-book, he knew, was against him. And yet he had nursed, despite the whisperings of Reason, a sort of thin, sickly hope. This hope the proprietor of the Mammoth had slain dead within five minutes of his arrival.
When Monty had claimed consideration on the ground that it was through no fault of his own that he was not charging in, manuscript in hand, Lord Tilbury had remained mute and stony. When he had gone on to point out that Pilbeam could not have got the thing but for him, Lord Tilbury had uttered a sharp, sneering snort. And when, as happened a little farther on in the scene, Monty had called his former employer a fat, double-crossing wart-hog, the latter had terminated the interview by walking away with his hands under his coat-tails.
So Monty dined broodingly, his heart bowed down with weight of woe. Silence reigned in the coffee-room, broken only by the breathing of the waiter, a man who would have done well to put himself in the hands of some good tonsil specialist.
Optimist though he was by nature, Monty Bodkin could not conceal it from himself that the future looked black. Unless the senior partner of Butterwick Mandelbaum and Price relented - a hundred to one shot - or Gertrude Butterwick jettisoned her sturdy middle-class prejudices and decided to defy her father's wishes - call this one eighty-eight to three - that wedded bliss of which he had dreamed could never be his. It was an unpleasant thought for a man to have to face, and one well calculated to turn to ashes the finest portion of turbot ever boiled, let alone the rather obscene-looking mixture of bones and eyeballs and black mackintosh which the chef of the Emsworth Arms had allotted to him.
Roast mutton succeeded the turbot and became ashes in its turn, as did the potatoes and brussels sprouts which accompanied it. The tapioca pudding, owing to an accident in the kitchen, was mostly ashes already. Monty gave it one look, then flung down his napkin with a Byronic gesture and, declining the waiter's half-hearted suggestion of a glass of port and a bit of Stilton, dragged himself downstairs and out into the garden.
Pacing the wet grass, he found his mind turning to thoughts of revenge. He was a kindly and good-tempered young man as a general rule, but conduct like that of Percy Pilbeam and Lord Tilbury seemed to him simply to clamour for reprisals. And it embittered him still further to discover at the end of ten minutes that he was totally without ideas on the subject. For all he could do about it, he was regretfully forced to conclude, these wicked men were apparently going to prosper like a couple of bay trees.
In these circumstances there was only one thing that could heal the spirit, viz. to go in and write a long, loving letter of appeal to Gertrude Butterwick, urging her to follow the dictates of her heart and come and spring round with him to the registrar's or Gretna Green or somewhere. With this end in view, he proceeded to the writing-room, where he hoped to be able to devote himself to the task in solitude.
The writing-room of the Emsworth Arms, as of most English rural hotels, was a small, stuffy, melancholy apartment, badly-litand very much in need of new wallpaper. But it was not its meagre dimensions nor its closeness nor its dimness nor the shabbiness of its walls that depressed Monty as he entered. What gave him that grey feeling was the sight of Lord Tilbury seated in one of the two rickety armchairs.
Lord Tilbury was smoking an excellent cigar, and until that moment had been feeling quietly happy. His interview with Bodkin M. before dinner had relieved his mind of a rather sinister doubt which had been weighing on it. Until Monty had informed him of what had occurred, he had been oppressed by a speculation as to whether the voice which had spoken to him on the telephone had been the voice of Pilbeam or merely that of the alcoholic refreshment of which Pilbeam was so admittedly full. Had he, in short, really got the manuscript ? Or had his statement to that effect been the mere inebriated babbling of an investigator who had just been investigating Lord Emsworth's cellar? Monty had made it clear that the former and more agreeable theory was the correct one, and Lord Tilbury was now awaiting the detective's arrival in a frame of mind that blended well with an excellent cigar.
The intrusion of a young man of whom he hoped he had seen the last ruffled his placid mood.
'I have nothing more to say,' he observed irritably. 'I have told you my decision, and I see nothing to be gained by further discussion.'
Monty raised his eyebrows coldly.
'I have no desire to speak to you, my good man,' he said loftily. ‘I came in here to write a letter.'
'Then go and write it somewhere else. I am expecting a visitor.'
It had been Monty's intention to ignore the fellow and carry on with the job in hand without deigning to bestow another look on him. But having gone to the desk and discovered that it contained no notepaper, no pen, not a single envelope, and in the inkpot only about a quarter of an inch of curious sediment that looked like black honey, he changed his mind.
He toyed for an instant with the idea of taking one of the magazines which lay on the table and sitting down in the other armchair and spoiling the old blighter's evening; but as those magazines were last-year copies of the Hotel Keepers Register and Licensed
Victuallers Gazette he abandoned the project. With a quiet look of scorn and a meaning sniff he left the room and wandered out into the garden again.
And barely had he strolled down to the river and smoked two cigarettes and thrown a bit of stick at a water-rat and strolled back and thrown another bit of stick at a noise in the bushes, when the significance of Lord Tilbury's concluding remark suddenly flashed upon him.
If Lord Tilbury was expecting a visitor, that visitor obviously must be Pilbeam. And if Pilbeam was coming to the Emsworth Arms to see Lord Tilbury, equally obviously he must be bringing the manuscript with him.
Very well, then, where did one go from there? One went, he perceived, straight to this arresting conclusion - that there the two blisters would be in that writing-room with the manuscript between them, thus offering a perfect sitter of a chance to any man of enterprise who cared to dash in and be a little rough.
A bright confidence filled Monty Bodkin. He felt himself capable of taking on ten Tilbur
ies and a dozen Pilbeams. All he had to do was bide his time and then rush in and snatch the thing. And when he had got it and was dangling it before his eyes, would Lord Tilbury take a slightly different attitude? Would he adopt a somewhat different tone? Would he be likely to reopen the whole matter, approaching it from another angle? The answer was definitely in the affirmative.
But first to spy out the land. He remembered that the window of the writing-room had been open a few inches at the bottom. He tiptoed across the grass with infinite caution. And just as he had reached his objective a voice spoke inside the room.
' You hid it ? But are you sure it is safe ?'
Monty leaned against the wall, holding his breath. He felt like the owner of a home-made radio who has accidentally got San Francisco.
The Pilbeam who had borrowed Voule's motor-bicycle and ridden down to the Emsworth Arms and now faced Lord Tilbury in the writing-room of that hostelry was a very different Pilbeam from the gay telephoner of before dinner. The telephoning Pilbeam had been a man who gave free rein to a jovial exuberance, knowing himself to be sitting on top of the world. The writing-room Pilbeam was a taut and anxious gambler, staking his all on one last throw.