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The hall was quite light now. Every object in it was plainly visible. There was the huge dinner-gong: there was the long leather settee: there was the table which she had upset in the darkness. And there was the sill of the window by the front door. But the flower-pot which had been on it was gone.
12 MORE ON THE FLOWER-POT THEME
I N any community in which a sensational crime has recently been committed, the feelings of the individuals who go to make up that community must of necessity vary somewhat sharply according to the degree in which the personal fortunes of each are affected by the outrage. Vivid in their own way as may be the emotions of one who sees a fellow-citizen sandbagged in a quiet street, they differ in kind from those experienced by the victim himself. And so, though the theft of Lady Constance Keeble’s diamond necklace had stirred Blandings Castle to its depths, it had not affected all those present in quite the same way. It left the house-party divided into two distinct schools of thought – the one finding in the occurrence material for gloom and despondency, the other deriving from it nothing but joyful excitement.
To this latter section belonged those free young spirits who had chafed at the prospect of being herded into the drawing-room on the eventful night to listen to Psmith’s reading of Songs of Squalor. It made them tremble now to think of what they would have missed, had Lady Constance’s vigilance relaxed sufficiently to enable them to execute the quiet sneak for the billiard-room of which even at the eleventh hour they had thought so wistfully. As far as the Reggies, Berties, Claudes, and Archies at that moment enjoying Lord Emsworth’s hospitality were concerned the thing was top-hole, priceless, and indisputably what the doctor ordered. They spent a great deal of their time going from one country-house to another, and as a rule found the routine a little monotonous. A happening like that of the previous night gave a splendid zip to rural life. And when they reflected that, right on top of this binge, there was coming the County Ball, it seemed to them that God was in His heaven and all right with the world. They stuck cigarettes in long holders, and collected in groups, chattering like starlings.
The gloomy brigade, those with hearts bowed down, listened to their effervescent babbling with wan distaste. These last were a small body numerically, but very select. Lady Constance might have been described as their head and patroness. Morning found her still in a state bordering on collapse. After breakfast, however, which she took in her room, and which was sweetened by an interview with Mr Joseph Keeble, her husband, she brightened considerably. Mr Keeble, thought Lady Constance, behaved magnificently. She had always loved him dearly, but never so much as when, abstaining from the slightest reproach of her obstinacy in refusing to allow the jewels to be placed in the bank, he spaciously informed her that he would buy her another necklace, just as good and costing every penny as much as the old one. It was at this point that Lady Constance almost seceded from the ranks of gloom. She kissed Mr Keeble gratefully, and attacked with something approaching animation the boiled egg at which she had been pecking when he came in.
But a few minutes later the average of despair was restored by the enrolment of Mr Keeble in the ranks of the despondent. He had gladsomely assumed overnight that one of his agents, either Eve or Freddie, had been responsible for the disappearance of the necklace. The fact that Freddie, interviewed by stealth in his room, gapingly disclaimed any share in the matter had not damped him. He had never expected results from Freddie. But when, after leaving Lady Constance, he encountered Eve and was given a short outline of history, beginning with her acquisition of the necklace, and ending – like a modern novel – on the sombre note of her finding the flower-pot gone, he too sat him down and mourned as deeply as anyone.
Passing with a brief mention over Freddie, whose morose bearing was the subject of considerable comment among the younger set; over Lord Emsworth, who woke at twelve o’clock disgusted to find that he had missed several hours among his beloved flower-beds; and over the Efficient Baxter, who was roused from sleep at twelve-fifteen by Thomas the footman knocking on his door in order to hand him a note from his employer enclosing a cheque, and dispensing with his services; we come to Miss Peavey.
At twenty minutes past eleven on this morning when so much was happening to so many people, Miss Peavey stood in the Yew Alley gazing belligerently at the stemless mushroom finial of a tree about half-way between the entrance and the point where the alley merged into the west wood. She appeared to be soliloquising. For, though words were proceeding from her with considerable rapidity, there seemed to be no one in sight to whom they were being addressed. Only an exceptionally keen observer would have noted a slight significant quivering among the tree’s tightly-woven branches.
‘You poor bone-headed fish,’ the poetess was saying with that strained tenseness which results from the churning up of a generous and emotional nature, ‘isn’t there anything in this world you can do without tumbling over your feet and making a mess of it? All I ask of you is to stroll under a window and pick up a few jewels, and now you come and tell me . . .’
‘But, Liz!’ said the tree plaintively.
‘I do all the difficult part of the job. All that there was left for you to handle was something a child of three could have done on its ear. And now . . .’
‘But, Liz! I’m telling you I couldn’t find the stuff. I was down there all right, but I couldn’t find it.’
‘You couldn’t find it!’ Miss Peavey pawed restlessly at the soft turf with a shapely shoe. ‘You’re the sort of dumb Isaac that couldn’t find a bass-drum in a telephone-booth. You didn’t look.’
‘I did look. Honest, I did.’
‘Well, the stuff was there. I threw it down the moment the lights went out.’
‘Somebody must have got there first, and swiped it.’
‘Who could have got there first? Everybody was up in the room where I was.
Are you sure?’
Am I sure? Am I . . .’ The poetess’s voice trailed off. She was staring down the Yew Alley at a couple who had just entered. She hissed a warning in a sharp undertone. ‘Hsst! Cheese it, Ed. There’s someone coming.’
The two intruders who had caused Miss Peavey to suspend her remarks to her erring lieutenant were of opposite sexes – a tall girl with fair hair, and a taller young man irreproachably clad in white flannels who beamed down at his companion through a single eyeglass. Miss Peavey gazed at them searchingly as they approached. A sudden thought had come to her at the sight of them. Mistrusting Psmith as she had done ever since Mr Cootes had unmasked him for the impostor that he was, the fact that they were so often together had led her to extend her suspicion to Eve. If might, of course, be nothing but a casual friendship, begun here at the castle; but Miss Peavey had always felt that Eve would bear watching. And now, seeing them together again this morning, it had suddenly come to her that she did not recall having observed Eve among the gathering in the drawing-room last night. True, there had been many people present, but Eve’s appearance was striking, and she was sure that she would have noticed her, if she had been there. And, if she had not been there, why should she not have been on the terrace? Somebody had been on the terrace last night, that was certain. For all her censorious attitude in their recent conversation, Miss Peavey had not really in her heart believed that even a dumb-bell like Eddie Cootes would not have found the necklace if it had been lying under the window on his arrival.
‘Oh, good morning, Mr McTodd,’ she cooed. ‘I’m feeling so upset about this terrible affair. Aren’t you, Miss Halliday?’
‘Yes,’ said Eve, and she had never said a more truthful word.
Psmith, for his part, was in more debonair and cheerful mood even than was his wont. He had examined the position of affairs and found life good. He was particularly pleased with the fact that he had persuaded Eve to stroll with him this morning and inspect his cottage in the woods. Buoyant as was his temperament, he had been half afraid that last night’s interview on the terrace
might have had disastrous effects on their intimacy. He was now feeling full of kindliness and goodwill towards all mankind – even Miss Peavey; and he bestowed on the poetess a dazzling smile.
‘We must always,’ he said, ‘endeavour to look on the bright side. It was a pity, no doubt, that my reading last night had to be stopped at a cost of about twenty thousand pounds to the Keeble coffers, but let us not forget that but for that timely interruption I should have gone on for about another hour. I am like that. My friends have frequently told me that when once I start talking it requires something in the nature of a cataclysm to stop me. But, of course, there are drawbacks to everything, and last night’s rannygazoo perhaps shook your nervous system to some extent?’
‘I was dreadfully frightened,’ said Miss Peavey. She turned to Eve with a delicate shiver. ‘Weren’t you, Miss Halliday?’
‘I wasn’t there,’ said Eve absently.
‘Miss Halliday,’ explained Psmith, ‘has had in the last few days some little experience of myself as orator, and with her usual good sense decided not to go out of her way to get more of me than was absolutely necessary. I was perhaps a trifle wounded at the moment, but on thinking it over came to the conclusion that she was perfectly justified in her attitude. I endeavour always in my conversation to instruct, elevate, and entertain, but there is no gainsaying the fact that a purist might consider enough of my chit-chat to be sufficient. Such, at any rate, was Miss Halliday’s view, and I honour her for it. But here I am, rambling on again just when I can see that you wish to be alone. We will leave you, therefore, to muse. No doubt we have been interrupting a train of thought which would have resulted but for my arrival in a rondel or a ballade or some other poetic morceau. Come, Miss Halliday. A weird and repellent female,’ he said to Eve as they drew out of hearing, ‘created for some purpose which I cannot fathom. Everything in this world, I like to think, is placed there for some useful end: but why the authorities unleashed Miss Peavey on us is beyond me. It is not too much to say that she gives me a pain in the gizzard.’
Miss Peavey, unaware of these harsh views, had watched them out of sight, and now she turned excitedly to the tree which sheltered her ally.
‘Ed!’
‘Hello?’ replied the muffled voice of Mr Cootes.
‘Did you hear?’
‘No.’
‘Oh, my heavens!’ cried his overwrought partner. ‘He’s gone deaf now! That girl – you didn’t hear what she was saying? She said that she wasn’t in the drawing-room when those lights went out. Ed, she was down below on the terrace, that’s where she was, picking up the stuff. And if it isn’t hidden somewheres in that McTodd’s shack down there in the woods I’ll eat my Sunday rubbers.’
Eve, with Psmith prattling amiably at her side, pursued her way through the wood. She was wondering why she had come. She ought, she felt, to have been very cold and distant to this young man after what had occurred between them last night. But somehow it was difficult to be cold and distant with Psmith. He cheered her stricken soul. By the time they reached the little clearing and came in sight of the squat, shed-like building with its funny windows and stained door, her spirits, always mercurial, had risen to a point where she found herself almost able to forget her troubles.
‘What a horrible-looking place!’ she exclaimed. ‘Whatever did you want it for?’
‘Purely as a nook,’ said Psmith, taking out his key. ‘You know how the man of sensibility and refinement needs a nook. In this rushing age it is imperative that the thinker shall have a place, however humble, where he can be alone.’
‘But you aren’t a thinker.’
‘You wrong me. For the last few days I have been doing some extremely brisk thinking. And the strain has taken its toll. The fierce whirl of life at Blandings is wearing me away. There are dark circles under my eyes and I see floating spots.’ He opened the door. ‘Well, here we are. Will you pop in for a moment?’
Eve went in. The single sitting-room of the cottage certainly bore out the promise of the exterior. It contained a table with a red cloth, a chair, three stuffed birds in a glass case on the wall, and a small horsehair sofa. A depressing musty scent pervaded the place, as if a cheese had recently died there in painful circumstances. Eve gave a little shiver of distaste.
‘I understand your silent criticism,’ said Psmith. You are saying to yourself that plain living and high thinking is evidently the ideal of the gamekeepers on the Blandings estate. They are strong, rugged men who care little for the refinements of interior decoration. But shall we blame them? If I had to spend most of the day and night chivvying poachers and keeping an eye on the local rabbits, I imagine that in my off-hours practically anything with a roof would satisfy me. It was in the hope that you might be able to offer some hints and suggestions for small improvements here and there that I invited you to inspect my little place. There is no doubt that it wants doing up a bit, by a woman’s gentle hand. Will you take a look round and give out a few ideas? The wall-paper is, I fear, a fixture, but in every other direction consider yourself untrammelled.’
Eve looked about her.
‘Well,’ she began dubiously, ‘I don’t think . . .’
She stopped abruptly, tingling all over. A second glance had shown her something which her first careless inspection had overlooked. Half hidden by a ragged curtain, there stood on the window-sill a large flower-pot containing a geranium. And across the surface of the flower-pot was a broad splash of white paint.
‘You were saying . . . ?’ said Psmith courteously.
Eve did not reply. She hardly heard him. Her mind was in a confused whirl. A monstrous suspicion was forming itself in her brain.
‘You are admiring the shrub?’ said Psmith. ‘I found it lying about up at the castle this morning and pinched it. I thought it would add a touch of colour to the place.’
Eve, looking at him keenly as his gaze shifted to the flowerpot, told herself that her suspicion had been absurd. Surely this blandness could not be a cloak for guilt.
‘Where did you find it?’
‘By one of the windows in the hall, more or less wasting its sweetness. I am bound to say I am a little disappointed in the thing. I had a sort of idea it would turn the old homestead into a floral bower, but it doesn’t seem to.’
‘It’s a beautiful geranium.’
‘There,’ said Psmith, ‘I cannot agree with you. It seems to me to have the glanders or something.’
‘It only wants watering.’
‘And unfortunately this cosy little place appears to possess no water supply. I take it that the late proprietor when in residence used to trudge to the back door of the castle and fetch what he needed in a bucket. If this moribund plant fancies that I am going to spend my time racing to and fro with refreshments, it is vastly mistaken. To-morrow it goes into the dustbin.’
Eve shut her eyes. She was awed by a sense of having arrived at a supreme moment. She had the sensations of a gambler who risks all on a single throw.
‘What a shame!’ she said, and her voice, though she tried to control it, shook. ‘You had better give it to me. I’ll take care of it. It’s just what I want for my room.’
‘Pray take it,’ said Psmith. ‘It isn’t mine, but pray take it. And very encouraging it is, let me add, that you should be accepting gifts from me in this hearty fashion; for it is well known that there is no surer sign of the dawning of the divine emotion – love,’ he explained, ‘than this willingness to receive presents from the hands of the adorer. I make progress, I make progress.’
‘You don’t do anything of the kind,’ said Eve. Her eyes were sparkling and her heart sang within her. In the revulsion of feeling which had come to her on finding her suspicions unfounded she was aware of a warm friendliness towards this absurd young man.
‘Pardon me,’ said Psmith firmly. ‘I am quoting an established authority – Auntie Belle of Home Gossip.’
‘I must be going,’ said Eve. She took the flower-pot and hugged it to
her. ‘I’ve got work to do.’
‘Work, work, always work!’ sighed Psmith. ‘The curse of the age. Well, I will escort you back to your cell.’
‘No, you won’t,’ said Eve. ‘I mean, thank you for your polite offer, but I want to be alone.’
‘Alone?’ Psmith looked at her, astonished. ‘When you have the chance of being with me? This is a strange attitude.’
‘Good-bye,’ said Eve. ‘Thank you for being so hospitable and lavish. I’ll try to find some cushions and muslin and stuff to brighten up this place.’
‘Your presence does that adequately,’ said Psmith, accompanying her to the door. ‘By the way, returning to the subject we were discussing last night, I forgot to mention, when asking you to marry me, that I can do card-tricks.’
‘Really?’
‘And also a passable imitation of a cat calling to her young. Has this no weight with you? Think! These things come in very handy in the long winter evenings.’
‘But I shan’t be there when you are imitating cats in the long winter evenings.’
‘I think you are wrong. As I visualise my little home, I can see you there very clearly, sitting before the fire. Your maid has put you into something loose. The light of the flickering flames reflects itself in your lovely eyes. You are pleasantly tired after an afternoon’s shopping, but not so tired as to be unable to select a card – any card – from the pack which I offer . . .’
‘Good-bye,’ said Eve.
‘If it must be so – good-bye. For the present. I shall see you anon?’
‘I expect so.’
‘Good! I will count the minutes.’
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Eve walked rapidly away. As she snuggled the flower-pot under her arm she was feeling like a child about to open its Christmas stocking. Before she had gone far, a shout stopped her and she perceived Psmith galloping gracefully in her wake.
‘Can you spare me a moment?’ said Psmith.