‘Muzzles? Oh, rather. In the Cats, Dogs and Domestic Pets.’
‘I’m going to buy one for you, to keep you quiet. Just treat him as if he wasn’t there, Bill, and listen while I tell you the news. The most wonderful thing has happened. An old friend of Mrs Spottsworth’s has turned up, and I’ve invited him to stay.’
‘And old friend?’
‘Another old lover, one presumes.’
‘Do stop it, Rory. Can’t you understand what a marvellous thing this is, Bill! We’ve put her under an obligation. Think what a melting mood she’ll be in after this!’
Her enthusiasm infected Bill. He saw just what she meant.
‘You’re absolutely right. This is terrific.’
‘Yes, isn’t it a stroke of luck? She’ll be clay in your hands now.’
‘Clay is the word. Moke, you’re superb. As fine a bit of quick thinking as I ever struck. Who is the fellow?’
‘His name’s Biggar. Captain Biggar.’
Bill groped for support at a chair. A greenish tinge had spread over his face.
‘What!’ he cried. ‘Captain B-b-b –?’
‘Ha!’ said Rory. ‘Which is bigger, Mr Bigger or Master Bigger? Master Bigger, because he’s a little Bigger. I knew I’d get it,’ he said complacently.
8
* * *
IT WAS A favourite dictum of the late A.B. Spottsworth, who, though fond of his wife in an absent-minded sort of way, could never have been described as a ladies’ man or mistaken for one of those Troubadours of the Middle Ages, that the secret of a happy and successful life was to get rid of the women at the earliest possible opportunity. Give the gentler sex the bum’s rush, he used to say, removing his coat and reaching for the poker chips, and you could start to go places. He had often observed that for sheer beauty and uplift few sights could compare with that of the female members of a dinner party filing out of the room at the conclusion of the meal, leaving the men to their soothing masculine conversation.
To Bill Rowcester at nine o’clock on the night of this disturbing day such an attitude of mind would have seemed incomprehensible. The last thing in the world that he desired was Captain Biggar’s soothing masculine conversation. As he stood holding the dining room door open while Mrs Spottsworth, Monica and Jill passed through on their way to the living room, he was weighed down by a sense of bereavement and depression, mingled with uneasy speculations as to what was going to happen now. His emotions, in fact, were similar in kind and intensity to those which a garrison beleaguered by savages would have experienced, had the United States Marines, having arrived, turned right round and walked off in the opposite direction.
True, all had gone perfectly well so far. Even he, conscience-stricken though he was, had found nothing to which he could take exception in the captain’s small talk up till now. Throughout dinner, starting with the soup and carrying on to the sardines on toast, the White Hunter had confined himself to such neutral topics as cannibal chiefs he had met and what to do when cornered by headhunters armed with poisoned blowpipes. He had told two rather long and extraordinarily dull stories about a couple of friends of his called Tubby Frobisher and the Subahdar. And he had recommended to Jill, in case she should ever find herself in need of one, an excellent ointment for use when bitten by alligators. To fraudulent bookmakers, chases across country and automobile licences he had made no reference whatsoever.
But now that the women had left and two strong men – or three, if you counted Rory – stood face to face, who could say how long this happy state of things would last? Bill could but trust that Rory would not bring the conversation round to the dangerous subject by asking the captain if he went in for racing at all.
‘Do you go in for racing at all, captain?’ said Rory as the door closed.
A sound rather like the last gasp of a dying zebra shot from Captain Biggar’s lips. Bill, who had risen some six inches into the air, diagnosed it correctly as a hollow, mirthless laugh. He had had some idea of uttering something along those lines himself.
‘Racing?’ Captain Biggar choked. ‘Do I go in for racing at all? Well, mince me up and smother me in onions!’
Bill would gladly have done so. Such a culinary feat would, it seemed to him, have solved all his perplexities. He regretted that the idea had not occurred to one of the cannibal chiefs of whom his guest had been speaking.
‘It’s the Derby Dinner tonight,’ said Rory. ‘I’ll be popping along shortly to watch it on the television set in the library. All the top owners are coming on the screen to say what they think of their chances tomorrow. Not that the blighters know a damn thing about it, of course. Were you at the Oaks this afternoon by any chance?’
Captain Biggar expanded like one of those peculiar fish in Florida which swell when you tickle them.
‘Was I at the Oaks? Chang suark! Yes, sir, I was. And if ever a man –’
‘Rather pretty, this Southmoltonshire country, don’t you think, Captain?’ said Bill. ‘Picturesque, as it is sometimes called. The next village to us – Lower Snodsbury – you may have noticed it as you came through – has a –’
‘If ever a man got the ruddy sleeve across the bally wind-pipe,’ proceeded the captain, who had now become so bright red that it was fortunate that by a lucky chance there were no bulls present in the dining room, ‘it was me at Epsom this afternoon. I passed through the furnace like Shadrach, Meshach and Nebuchadnezzar or whoever it was. I had my soul tied up in knots and put through the wringer.’
Rory tut-tutted sympathetically.
‘Had a bad day, did you?’
‘Let me tell you what happened.’
‘– Norman church,’ continued Bill, faint but persevering, ‘which I believe is greatly –’
‘I must begin by saying that since I came back to the old country, I have got in with a pretty shrewd lot of chaps, fellows who know one end of a horse from the other, as the expression is, and they’ve been putting me on to some good things. And today –’
‘– admired by blokes who are fond of Norman churches,’ said Bill. ‘I don’t know much about them myself, but according to the nibs there’s a nave or something on that order –’
Captain Biggar exploded again.
‘Don’t talk to me about knaves! Yogi tulsiram jaginath! I met the king of them this afternoon, blister his insides. Well, as I was saying, these chaps of mine put me on to good things from time to time, and today they advised a double. Lucy Glitters in the two-thirty and Whistler’s Mother for the Oaks.’
‘Extraordinary, Whistler’s Mother winning like that,’ said Rory. ‘The consensus of opinion at Harrige’s was that she hadn’t a hope.’
‘And what happened? Lucy Glitters rolled in at a hundred to six, and Whistler’s Mother, as you may have heard, at thirty-three to one.’
Rory was stunned. ‘You mean your double came off?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘At those odds?’
‘At those odds.’
‘How much did you have on?’
‘Five pounds on Lucy Glitters and all to come on Whistler’s Mother’s nose.’
Rory’s eyes bulged.
‘Good God! Are you listening to this, Bill? You must have won a fortune.’
‘Three thousand pounds.’
‘Well, I’ll be … Did you hear that, Jeeves?’
Jeeves had entered, bearing coffee. His deportment was, as ever, serene. Like Bill, he found Captain Biggar’s presence in the home disturbing, but where Bill quaked and quivered, Jeeves continued to resemble a well-bred statue.
‘Sir?’
‘Captain Biggar won three thousand quid on the Oaks.’
‘Indeed, sir? A consummation devoutly to be wished.’
‘Yes,’ said the captain sombrely. ‘Three thousand pounds I won, and the bookie did a bolt.’
Rory stared. ‘No!’
‘I assure you.’
‘Skipped by the light of the moon?’
‘Exactly.’
/> Rory was overcome.
‘I never heard anything so monstrous. Did you ever hear anything so monstrous, Jeeves? Wasn’t that the frozen limit, Bill?’
Bill seemed to come out of a trance.
‘Sorry, Rory, I’m afraid I was thinking of something else. What were you saying?’
‘Poor old Biggar brought off a double at Epsom this afternoon, and the swine of a bookie legged it, owing him three thousand pounds.’
Bill was naturally aghast. Any good-hearted young man would have been, hearing such a story.
‘Good heavens, Captain,’ he cried, ‘what a terrible thing to have happened. Legged it, did he, this bookie?’
‘Popped off like a jack rabbit, with me after him.’
‘I don’t wonder you’re upset. Scoundrels like that ought not to be at large. It makes one’s blood boil to think of this … this … what would Shakespeare have called him, Jeeves?’
‘This arrant, rascally, beggarly, lousy knave, m’lord.’
‘Ah, yes. Shakespeare put these things well.’
‘A whoreson, beetle-headed, flap-eared knave, a knave, a rascal, an eater of broken meats; a beggarly, filthy, worsted-stocking –’
‘Yes, yes, Jeeves, quite so. One gets the idea.’ Bill’s manner was a little agitated. ‘Don’t run away, Jeeves. Just give the fire a good stir.’
‘It is June, m’lord.’
‘So it is, so it is. I’m all of a doo-dah, hearing this appalling story. Won’t you sit down, Captain? Oh, you are sitting down. The cigars, Jeeves. A cigar for Captain Biggar.’
The captain held up a hand.
‘Thank you, no. I never smoke when I’m after big game.’
‘Big game? Oh, I see what you mean. This bookie fellow. You’re a White Hunter, and now you’re hunting white bookies,’ said Bill with a difficult laugh. ‘Rather good, that, Rory?’
‘Dashed good, old boy. I’m convulsed. And now may I get down? I want to go and watch the Derby Dinner.’
‘An excellent idea,’ said Bill heartily. ‘Let’s all go and watch the Derby Dinner. Come along, Captain.’
Captain Biggar made no move to follow Rory from the room. He remained in his seat, looking redder than ever.
‘Later, perhaps,’ he said curtly. ‘At the moment, I would like to have a word with you, Lord Rowcester.’
‘Certainly, certainly, certainly, certainly, certainly,’ said Bill, though not blithely. ‘Stick around, Jeeves. Lots of work to do in here. Polish an ashtray or something. Give Captain Biggar a cigar.’
‘The gentleman has already declined your lordship’s offer of a cigar.’
‘So he has, so he has. Well, well!’ said Bill. ‘Well, well, well, well, well!’ He lit one himself with a hand that trembled like a tuning fork. ‘Tell us more about this bookie of yours, Captain.’
Captain Biggar brooded darkly for a moment. He came out of the silence to express a wistful hope that some day it might be granted to him to see the colour of the fellow’s insides.
‘I only wish,’ he said, ‘that I could meet the rat in Kuala Lumpur.’
‘Kuala Lumpur?’
Jeeves was his customary helpful self.
‘A locality in the Straits Settlements, m’lord, a British Crown Colony in the East Indies including Malacca, Penang and the province of Wellesley, first made a separate dependency of the British Crown in 1853 and placed under the Governor General of India. In 1887 the Cocos or Keeling Islands were attached to the colony, and in 1889 Christmas Island. Mr Somerset Maugham has written searchingly of life in those parts.’
‘Of course, yes. It all comes back to me. Rather a strange lot of birds out there, I gather.’
Captain Biggar conceded this.
‘A very strange lot of birds. But we generally manage to put salt on their tails. Do you know what happens to a welsher in Kuala Lumpur, Lord Rowcester?’
‘No, I – er – don’t believe I’ve ever heard. Don’t go, Jeeves. Here’s an ashtray you’ve missed. What does happen to a welsher in Kuala Lumpur?’
‘We let the blighter have three days to pay up. Then we call on him and give him a revolver.’
‘That’s rather nice of you. Sort of heaping coals of … You don’t mean a loaded revolver?’
‘Loaded in all six chambers. We look the louse in the eye, leave the revolver on the table and go off. Without a word. He understands.’
Bill gulped. The strain of the conversation was beginning to tell on him.
‘You mean he’s expected to … Isn’t that a bit drastic?’
Captain Biggar’s eyes were cold and hard, like picnic eggs.
‘It’s the code, sir. Code! That’s a big word with the men who live on the frontiers of Empire. Morale can crumble very easily out there. Drink, women and unpaid gambling debts, those are the steps down,’ he said. ‘Drink, women and unpaid gambling debts,’ he repeated, illustrating with jerks of the hand.
‘That one’s the bottom, is it? You hear that, Jeeves?’
‘Yes, m’lord.’
‘Rather interesting.’
‘Yes, m’lord.’
‘Broadens the mind a bit.’
‘Yes, m’lord.’
‘One lives and learns, Jeeves.’
‘One does indeed, m’lord.’
Captain Biggar took a Brazil nut, and cracked it with his teeth.
‘We’ve got to set an example, we bearers of the white man’s burden. Can’t let the Dyaks beat us on code.’
‘Do they try?’
‘A Dyak who defaults on a debt has his head cut off.’
‘By the other Dyaks?’
‘Yes, sir, by the other Dyaks.’
‘Well, well.’
‘The head is then given to his principal creditor.’
This surprised Bill. Possibly it surprised Jeeves, too, but Jeeves’ was a face that did not readily register such emotions as astonishment. Those who knew him well claimed on certain occasions of great stress to have seen a very small muscle at the corner of his mouth give one quick, slight twitch, but as a rule his features preserved a uniform imperturbability, like those of a cigar-store Indian.
‘Good heavens!’ said Bill. ‘You couldn’t run a business that way over here. I mean to say, who would decide who was the principal creditor? Imagine the arguments there would be. Eh, Jeeves?’
‘Unquestionably, m’lord. The butcher, the baker …’
‘Not to mention hosts who had entertained the Dyak for weekends, from whose houses he had slipped away on Monday morning, forgetting the Saturday night bridge game.’
‘In the event of his surviving, it would make such a Dyak considerably more careful in his bidding, m’lord.’
‘True, Jeeves, true. It would, wouldn’t it? He would think twice about trying any of that psychic stuff?’
‘Precisely, m’lord. And would undoubtedly hesitate before taking his partner out of a business double.’
Captain Biggar cracked another nut. In the silence it sounded like one of those explosions which slay six.
‘And now,’ he said, ‘with your permission, I would like to cut the ghazi havildar and get down to brass tacks, Lord Rowcester.’ He paused a moment, marshalling his thoughts. ‘About this bookie.’
Bill blinked.
‘Ah, yes, this bookie. I know the bookie you mean.’
‘For the moment he has got away, I am sorry to say. But I had the sense to memorize the number of his car.’
‘You did? Shrewd, Jeeves.’
‘Very shrewd, m’lord.’
‘I then made inquiries of the police. And do you know what they told me? They said that that car number, Lord Rowcester, was yours.’
Bill was amazed. ‘Mine?’
‘Yours.’
‘But how could it be mine?’
‘That is the mystery which we have to solve. This Honest Patch Perkins, as he called himself, must have borrowed your car … with or without your permission.’
‘Incredulous!’
‘Incredible, m’lord.’
‘Thank you, Jeeves. Incredible! How would I know any Honest Patch Perkins?’
‘You don’t?’
‘Never heard of him in my life. Never laid eyes on him. What does he look like?’
‘He is tall … about your height … and wears a ginger moustache and a black patch over his left eye.’
‘No, dash it, that’s not possible … Oh, I see what you mean. A black patch over his left eye and a ginger moustache on the upper lip. I thought for a moment …’
‘And a check coat and a crimson tie with blue horseshoes on it.’
‘Good heavens! He must look the most ghastly outsider. Eh, Jeeves?’
‘Certainly far from soigné, m’lord.’
‘Very far from soigné. Oh, by the way, Jeeves, that reminds me. Bertie Wooster told me that you once made some such remark to him, and it gave him the idea for a ballad to be entitled ‘Way Down upon the Soigné River’. Did anything ever come of it, do you know?’
‘I fancy not, m’lord.’
‘Bertie wouldn’t have been equal to whacking it out, I suppose. But one can see a song hit there, handled by the right person.’
‘No doubt, m’lord.’
‘Cole Porter could probably do it.’
‘Quite conceivably, m’lord.’
‘Or Oscar Hammerstein.’
‘It should be well within the scope of Mr Hammerstein’s talents, m’lord.’
It was with a certain impatience that Captain Biggar called the meeting to order.
‘To hell with song hits and Cole Porters!’ he said, with an abruptness on which Emily Post would have frowned. ‘I’m not talking about Cole Porter, I’m talking about this bally bookie who was using your car today.’
Bill shook his head.
‘My dear old pursuer of pumas and what-have-you, you say you’re talking about bally bookies, but what you omit to add is that you’re talking through the back of your neck. Neat that, Jeeves.’
‘Yes, m’lord. Crisply put.’
‘Obviously what happened was that friend Biggar got the wrong number.’
‘Yes, m’lord.’
The red of Captain Biggar’s face deepened to purple. His proud spirit was wounded.