Books: The Little Nugget
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P.G. Wodehouse >> The Little Nugget
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The whole strength of the company gathered round the light.
'Thank you, White,' said Mr Abney. 'Excellent. I fear the
scoundrel has escaped.'
'I suspect so, sir.'
'This is a very remarkable occurrence, White.'
'Yes, sir.'
'The man was actually in Master Ford's bedroom.'
'Indeed, sir?'
A shrill voice spoke. I recognized it as that of Augustus
Beckford, always to be counted upon to be in the centre of things
gathering information.
'Sir, please, sir, what was up? Who was it, sir? Sir, was it a
burglar, sir? Have you ever met a burglar, sir? My father took me
to see Raffles in the holidays, sir. Do you think this chap was
like Raffles, sir? Sir--'
'It was undoubtedly--' Mr Abney was beginning, when the identity
of the questioner dawned upon him, and for the first time he
realized that the drive was full of boys actively engaged in
catching their deaths of cold. His all-friends-here-let-us-
discuss-this-interesting-episode-fully manner changed. He became
the outraged schoolmaster. Never before had I heard him speak so
sharply to boys, many of whom, though breaking rules, were still
titled.
'What are you boys doing out of bed? Go back to bed instantly. I
shall punish you most severely. I--'
'Shall I telephone for the police?' asked Glossop. Disregarded.
'I will not have this conduct. You will catch cold. This is
disgraceful. Ten bad marks! I shall punish you most severely if
you do not instantly--'
A calm voice interrupted him.
'Say!'
The Little Nugget strolled easily into the circle of light. He was
wearing a dressing-gown, and in his hand was a smouldering
cigarette, from which he proceeded, before continuing his remarks,
to blow a cloud of smoke.
'Say, I guess you're wrong. That wasn't any ordinary porch-climber.'
The spectacle of his _bete noire_ wreathed in smoke, coming
on top of the emotions of the night, was almost too much for Mr
Abney. He gesticulated for a moment in impassioned silence, his
arms throwing grotesque shadows on the gravel.
'How _dare_ you smoke, boy! How _dare_ you smoke that cigarette!'
'It's the only one I've got,' responded the Little Nugget amiably.
'I have spoken to you--I have warned you--Ten bad marks!--I will
not have--Fifteen bad marks!'
The Little Nugget ignored the painful scene. He was smiling
quietly.
'If you ask _me_,' he said, 'that guy was after something better
than plated spoons. Yes, sir! If you want my opinion, it was Buck
MacGinnis, or Chicago Ed., or one of those guys, and what he was
trailing was me. They're always at it. Buck had a try for me in the
fall of '07, and Ed.--'
'Do you hear me? Will you return instantly--'
'If you don't believe me I can show you the piece there was about
it in the papers. I've got a press-clipping album in my box.
Whenever there's a piece about me in the papers, I cut it out and
paste it into my album. If you'll come right along, I'll show you
the story about Buck now. It happened in Chicago, and he'd have
got away with me if it hadn't been--'
'Twenty bad marks!'
'Mr Abney!'
It was the person standing behind me who spoke. Till now he or she
had remained a silent spectator, waiting, I suppose, for a lull in
the conversation.
They jumped, all together, like a well-trained chorus.
'Who is that?' cried Mr Abney. I could tell by the sound of his
voice that his nerves were on wires. 'Who was that who spoke?'
'Shall I telephone for the police?' asked Glossop. Ignored.
'I am Mrs Sheridan, Mr Abney. You were expecting me to-night.'
'Mrs Sheridan? Mrs Sher--I expected you in a cab. I expected you
in--ah--in fact, a cab.'
'I walked.'
I had a curious sensation of having heard the voice before. When
she had told me not to move, she had spoken in a whisper--or, to
me, in my dazed state, it had sounded like a whisper--but now she
was raising her voice, and there was a note in it that seemed
familiar. It stirred some chord in my memory, and I waited to hear
it again.
When it came it brought the same sensation, but nothing more
definite. It left me groping for the clue.
'Here is one of the men, Mr Abney.'
There was a profound sensation. Boys who had ceased to squeal,
squealed with fresh vigour. Glossop made his suggestion about the
telephone with a new ring of hope in his voice. Mrs Attwell
shrieked. They made for us in a body, boys and all, White leading
with the lantern. I was almost sorry for being compelled to
provide an anticlimax.
Augustus Beckford was the first to recognize me, and I expect he
was about to ask me if I liked sitting on the gravel on a frosty
night, or what gravel was made of, when Mr Abney spoke.
'Mr Burns! What--dear me!--_what_ are you doing there?'
'Perhaps Mr Burns can give us some information as to where the man
went, sir,' suggested White.
'On everything except that,' I said, 'I'm a mine of information. I
haven't the least idea where he went. All I know about him is that
he has a shoulder like the ram of a battleship, and that he
charged me with it.'
As I was speaking, I thought I heard a little gasp behind me. I
turned. I wanted to see this woman who stirred my memory with her
voice. But the rays of the lantern did not fall on her, and she
was a shapeless blur in the darkness. Somehow I felt that she was
looking intently at me.
I resumed my narrative.
'I was lighting my pipe when I heard a scream--' A chuckle came
from the group behind the lantern.
'I screamed,' said the Little Nugget. 'You bet I screamed! What
would _you_ do if you woke up in the dark and found a strong-armed
roughneck prising you out of bed as if you were a clam? He tried to
get his hand over my mouth, but he only connected with my forehead,
and I'd got going before he could switch. I guess I threw a scare
into that gink!'
He chuckled again, reminiscently, and drew at his cigarette.
'How dare you smoke! Throw away that cigarette!' cried Mr Abney,
roused afresh by the red glow.
'Forget it!' advised the Little Nugget tersely.
'And then,' I said, 'somebody whizzed out from nowhere and hit me.
And after that I didn't seem to care much about him or anything
else.' I spoke in the direction of my captor. She was still
standing outside the circle of light. 'I expect you can tell us
what happened, Mrs Sheridan?'
I did not think that her information was likely to be of any
practical use, but I wanted to make her speak again.
Her first words were enough. I wondered how I could ever have been
in doubt. I knew the voice now. It was one which I had not heard
for five years, but one which I could never forget if I lived for
ever.
'Somebody ran past me.' I hardly heard her. My heart was pounding,
and a curious dizziness had come over me. I was grappling with the
incredible. 'I think he went into the bushes.'
I heard Glossop speak, and gathered from Mr Abney's reply; that he
had made his suggestion about the telephone once more.
'I think that will be--ah--unnecessary, Mr Glossop. The man has
undoubtedly--ah--made good his escape. I think we had all better
return to the house.' He turned to the dim figure beside me. 'Ah,
Mrs Sheridan, you must be tired after your journey and the--ah unusual
excitement. Mrs Attwell will show you where you--in fact, your room.'
In the general movement White must have raised the lamp or stepped
forward, for the rays shifted. The figure beside me was no longer
dim, but stood out sharp and clear in the yellow light.
I was aware of two large eyes looking into mine as, in the grey
London morning two weeks before, they had looked from a faded
photograph.
Chapter 5
Of all the emotions which kept me awake that night, a vague
discomfort and a feeling of resentment against Fate more than
against any individual, were the two that remained with me next
morning. Astonishment does not last. The fact of Audrey and myself
being under the same roof after all these years had ceased to
amaze me. It was a minor point, and my mind shelved it in order to
deal with the one thing that really mattered, the fact that she
had come back into my life just when I had definitely, as I
thought, put her out of it.
My resentment deepened. Fate had played me a wanton trick. Cynthia
trusted me. If I were weak, I should not be the only one to
suffer. And something told me that I should be weak. How could I
hope to be strong, tortured by the thousand memories which the
sight of her would bring back to me?
But I would fight, I told myself. I would not yield easily. I
promised that to my self-respect, and was rewarded with a certain
glow of excitement. I felt defiant. I wanted to test myself at
once.
My opportunity came after breakfast. She was standing on the
gravel in front of the house, almost, in fact, on the spot where
we had met the night before. She looked up as she heard my step,
and I saw that her chin had that determined tilt which, in the
days of our engagement, I had noticed often without attaching any
particular significance to it. Heavens, what a ghastly lump of
complacency I must have been in those days! A child, I thought, if
he were not wrapped up in the contemplation of his own magnificence,
could read its meaning.
It meant war, and I was glad of it. I wanted war.
'Good morning,' I said.
'Good morning.'
There was a pause. I took the opportunity to collect my thoughts.
I looked at her curiously. Five years had left their mark on her,
but entirely for the good. She had an air of quiet strength which
I had never noticed in her before. It may have been there in the
old days, but I did not think so. It was, I felt certain, a later
development. She gave the impression of having been through much
and of being sure of herself.
In appearance she had changed amazingly little. She looked as
small and slight and trim as ever she had done. She was a little
paler, I thought, and the Irish eyes were older and a shade
harder; but that was all.
I awoke with a start to the fact that I was staring at her. A
slight flush had crept into her pale cheeks.
'Don't!' she said suddenly, with a little gesture of irritation.
The word and the gesture killed, as if they had been a blow, a
kind of sentimental tenderness which had been stealing over me.
'What are you doing here?' I asked.
She was silent.
'Please don't think I want to pry into your affairs,' I said
viciously. 'I was only interested in the coincidence that we
should meet here like this.'
She turned to me impulsively. Her face had lost its hard look.
'Oh, Peter,' she said, 'I'm sorry. I _am_ sorry.'
It was my chance, and I snatched at it with a lack of chivalry
which I regretted almost immediately. But I was feeling bitter,
and bitterness makes a man do cheap things.
'Sorry?' I said, politely puzzled. 'Why?'
She looked taken aback, as I hoped she would.
'For--for what happened.'
'My dear Audrey! Anybody would have made the same mistake. I don't
wonder you took me for a burglar.'
'I didn't mean that. I meant--five years ago.'
I laughed. I was not feeling like laughter at the moment, but I
did my best, and had the satisfaction of seeing that it jarred
upon her.
'Surely you're not worrying yourself about that?' I said. I
laughed again. Very jovial and debonair I was that winter morning.
The brief moment in which we might have softened towards each
other was over. There was a glitter in her blue eyes which told me
that it was once more war between us.
'I thought you would get over it,' she said.
'Well,' I said, 'I was only twenty-five. One's heart doesn't break
at twenty-five.'
'I don't think yours would ever be likely to break, Peter.'
'Is that a compliment, or otherwise?'
'You would probably think it a compliment. I meant that you were
not human enough to be heart-broken.'
'So that's your idea of a compliment!'
'I said I thought it was probably yours.'
'I must have been a curious sort of man five years ago, if I gave
you that impression.'
'You were.'
She spoke in a meditative voice, as if, across the years, she were
idly inspecting some strange species of insect. The attitude
annoyed me. I could look, myself, with a detached eye at the man I
had once been, but I still retained a sort of affection for him,
and I felt piqued.
'I suppose you looked on me as a kind of ogre in those days?' I
said.
'I suppose I did.'
There was a pause.
'I didn't mean to hurt your feelings,' she said. And that was the
most galling part of it. Mine was an attitude of studied
offensiveness. I did want to hurt her feelings. But hers, it
seemed to me, was no pose. She really had had--and, I suppose,
still retained--a genuine horror of me. The struggle was unequal.
'You were very kind,' she went on, 'sometimes--when you happened
to think of it.'
Considered as the best she could find to say of me, it was not an
eulogy.
'Well,' I said, 'we needn't discuss what I was or did five years
ago. Whatever I was or did, you escaped. Let's think of the
present. What are we going to do about this?'
'You think the situation's embarrassing?'
'I do.'
'One of us ought to go, I suppose,' she said doubtfully.
'Exactly.'
'Well, I can't go.'
'Nor can I.'
'I have business here.'
'Obviously, so have I.'
'It's absolutely necessary that I should be here.'
'And that I should.'
She considered me for a moment.
'Mrs Attwell told me that you were one of the assistant-masters
at the school.'
'I am acting as assistant-master. I am supposed to be learning the
business.'
She hesitated.
'Why?' she said.
'Why not?'
'But--but--you used to be very well off.'
'I'm better off now. I'm working.'
She was silent for a moment.
'Of course it's impossible for you to leave. You couldn't, could
you?'
'No.'
'I can't either.'
'Then I suppose we must face the embarrassment.'
'But why must it be embarrassing? You said yourself you had--got
over it.'
'Absolutely. I am engaged to be married.'
She gave a little start. She drew a pattern on the gravel with her
foot before she spoke.
'I congratulate you,' she said at last.
'Thank you.'
'I hope you will be very happy.'
'I'm sure I shall.'
She relapsed into silence. It occurred to me that, having posted
her thoroughly in my affairs, I was entitled to ask about hers.
'How in the world did you come to be here?' I said.
'It's rather a long story. After my husband died--'
'Oh!' I exclaimed, startled.
'Yes; he died three years ago.'
She spoke in a level voice, with a ring of hardness in it, for
which I was to learn the true reason later. At the time it seemed
to me due to resentment at having to speak of the man she had
loved to me, whom she disliked, and my bitterness increased.
'I have been looking after myself for a long time.'
'In England?'
'In America. We went to New York directly we--directly I had
written to you. I have been in America ever since. I only returned
to England a few weeks ago.'
'But what brought you to Sanstead?'
'Some years ago I got to know Mr Ford, the father of the little
boy who is at the school. He recommended me to Mr Abney, who
wanted somebody to help with the school.'
'And you are dependent on your work? I mean--forgive me if I am
personal--Mr Sheridan did not--'
'He left no money at all.'
'Who was he?' I burst out. I felt that the subject of the dead man
was one which it was painful for her to talk about, at any rate to
me; but the Sheridan mystery had vexed me for five years, and I
thirsted to know something of this man who had dynamited my life
without ever appearing in it.
'He was an artist, a friend of my father.'
I wanted to hear more. I wanted to know what he looked like, how
he spoke, how he compared with me in a thousand ways; but it was
plain that she would not willingly be communicative about him;
and, with a feeling of resentment, I gave her her way and
suppressed my curiosity.
'So your work here is all you have?' I said.
'Absolutely all. And, if it's the same with you, well, here we
are!'
'Here we are!' I echoed. 'Exactly.'
'We must try and make it as easy for each other as we can,' she
said.
'Of course.'
She looked at me in that curious, wide-eyed way of hers.
'You have got thinner, Peter,' she said.
'Have I?' I said. 'Suffering, I suppose, or exercise.'
Her eyes left my face. I saw her bite her lip.
'You hate me,' she said abruptly. 'You've been hating me all these
years. Well, I don't wonder.'
She turned and began to walk slowly away, and as she did so a
sense of the littleness of the part I was playing came over me.
Ever since our talk had begun I had been trying to hurt her,
trying to take a petty revenge on her--for what? All that had
happened five years ago had been my fault. I could not let her go
like this. I felt unutterably mean.
'Audrey!' I called.
She stopped. I went to her.
'Audrey!' I said, 'you're wrong. If there's anybody I hate, it's
myself. I just want to tell you I understand.'
Her lips parted, but she did not speak.
'I understand just what made you do it,' I went on. 'I can see now
the sort of man I was in those days.'
'You're saying that to--to help me,' she said in a low voice.
'No. I have felt like that about it for years.'
'I treated you shamefully.'
'Nothing of the kind. There's a certain sort of man who badly
needs a--jolt, and he has to get it sooner or later. It happened
that you gave me mine, but that wasn't your fault. I was bound to
get it--somehow.' I laughed. 'Fate was waiting for me round the
corner. Fate wanted something to hit me with. You happened to be
the nearest thing handy.'
'I'm sorry, Peter.'
'Nonsense. You knocked some sense into me. That's all you did.
Every man needs education. Most men get theirs in small doses, so
that they hardly know they are getting it at all. My money kept me
from getting mine that way. By the time I met you there was a
great heap of back education due to me, and I got it in a lump.
That's all.'
'You're generous.'
'Nothing of the kind. It's only that I see things clearer than I
did. I was a pig in those days.'
'You weren't!'
'I was. Well, we won't quarrel about it.'
Inside the house the bell rang for breakfast. We turned. As I drew
back to let her go in, she stopped.
'Peter,' she said.
She began to speak quickly.
'Peter, let's be sensible. Why should we let this embarrass us,
this being together here? Can't we just pretend that we're two old
friends who parted through a misunderstanding, and have come
together again, with all the misunderstanding cleared away--friends
again? Shall we?'
She held out her hand. She was smiling, but her eyes were grave.
'Old friends, Peter?'
I took her hand.
'Old friends,' I said.
And we went in to breakfast. On the table, beside my plate, was
lying a letter from Cynthia.
Chapter 6
I
I give the letter in full. It was written from the s.y. _Mermaid_,
lying in Monaco Harbour.
MY DEAR PETER, Where is Ogden? We have been expecting him every
day. Mrs Ford is worrying herself to death. She keeps asking me if
I have any news, and it is very tiresome to have to keep telling
her that I have not heard from you. Surely, with the opportunities
you must get every day, you can manage to kidnap him. Do be quick.
We are relying on you.--In haste,
CYNTHIA.
I read this brief and business-like communication several times
during the day; and after dinner that night, in order to meditate
upon it in solitude, I left the house and wandered off in the
direction of the village.
I was midway between house and village when I became aware that I
was being followed. The night was dark, and the wind moving in the
tree-tops emphasized the loneliness of the country road. Both time
and place were such as made it peculiarly unpleasant to hear
stealthy footsteps on the road behind me.
Uncertainty in such cases is the unnerving thing. I turned
sharply, and began to walk back on tiptoe in the direction from
which I had come.
I had not been mistaken. A moment later a dark figure loomed up
out of the darkness, and the exclamation which greeted me, as I
made my presence known, showed that I had taken him by surprise.
There was a momentary pause. I expected the man, whoever he might
be, to run, but he held his ground. Indeed, he edged forward.
'Get back!' I said, and allowed my stick to rasp suggestively on
the road before raising it in readiness for any sudden development.
It was as well that he should know it was there.
The hint seemed to wound rather than frighten him.
'Aw, cut out the rough stuff, bo,' he said reproachfully in a
cautious, husky undertone. 'I ain't goin' to start anything.'
I had an impression that I had heard the voice before, but I could
not place it.
'What are you following me for?' I demanded. 'Who are you?'
'Say, I want a talk wit youse. I took a slant at youse under de
lamp-post back dere, an' I seen it was you, so I tagged along.
Say, I'm wise to your game, sport.'
I had identified him by this time. Unless there were two men in
the neighbourhood of Sanstead who hailed from the Bowery, this
must be the man I had seen at the 'Feathers' who had incurred the
disapproval of Miss Benjafield.
'I haven't the faintest idea what you mean,' I said. 'What is my
game?'
His voice became reproachful again.
'Ah chee!' he protested. 'Quit yer kiddin'! What was youse
rubberin' around de house for last night if you wasn't trailin' de
kid?'
'Was it you who ran into me last night?' I asked.
'Gee! I fought it was a tree. I came near takin' de count.'
'I did take it. You seemed in a great hurry.'
'Hell!' said the man simply, and expectorated.
'Say,' he resumed, having delivered this criticism on that
stirring episode, dat's a great kid, dat Nugget. I fought it was a
Black Hand soup explosion when he cut loose. But, say, let's don't
waste time. We gotta get together about dat kid.'
'Certainly, if you wish it. What do you happen to mean?'
'Aw, quit yer kiddin'!' He expectorated again. He seemed to be a
man who could express the whole gamut of emotions by this simple
means. 'I know you!'
'Then you have the advantage of me, though I believe I remember
seeing you before. Weren't you at the "Feathers" one Wednesday
evening, singing something about a dog?'
'Sure. Dat was me.'
'What do you mean by saying that you know me?'
'Aw, quit yer kiddin', Sam!'
There was, it seemed to me, a reluctantly admiring note in his
voice.
'Tell me, who do you think I am?' I asked patiently.
'Ahr ghee! You can't string me, sport. Smooth Sam Fisher, is who
you are, bo. I know you.'
I was too surprised to speak. Verily, some have greatness thrust
upon them.
'I hain't never seen youse, Sam,' he continued, 'but I know it's
you. And I'll tell youse how I doped it out. To begin with, there
ain't but you and your bunch and me and my bunch dat knows de
Little Nugget's on dis side at all. Dey sneaked him out of New
York mighty slick. And I heard that you had come here after him.
So when I runs into a guy dat's trailin' de kid down here, well,
who's it going to be if it ain't youse? And when dat guy talks
like a dude, like they all say you do, well, who's it going to be
if it ain't youse? So quit yer kiddin', Sam, and let's get down to
business.'
'Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr Buck MacGinnis?' I said. I
felt convinced that this could be no other than that celebrity.
'Dat's right. Dere's no need to keep up anyt'ing wit me, Sam.
We're bote on de same trail, so let's get down to it.'
'One moment,' I said. 'Would it surprise you to hear that my name
is Burns, and that I am a master at the school?'
He expectorated admirably.
'Hell, no!' he said. 'Gee, it's just what you would be, Sam. I
always heard youse had been one of dese rah-rah boys oncest. Say,
it's mighty smart of youse to be a perfessor. You're right in on
de ground floor.'
His voice became appealing.
'Say, Sam, don't be a hawg. Let's go fifty-fifty in dis deal. My
bunch and me has come a hell of a number of miles on dis
proposition, and dere ain't no need for us to fall scrappin' over
it. Dere's plenty for all of us. Old man Ford'll cough up enough
for every one, and dere won't be any fuss. Let's sit in togedder
on dis nuggett'ing. It ain't like as if it was an ornery two-by-four
deal. I wouldn't ask youse if it wasn't big enough fir de whole
bunch of us.'
As I said nothing, he proceeded.
'It ain't square, Sam, to take advantage of your having education.
If it was a square fight, and us bote wit de same chance, I
wouldn't say; but you bein' a dude perfessor and gettin' right
into de place like dat ain't right. Say, don't be a hawg, Sam.
Don't swipe it all. Fifty-fifty! Does dat go?'
'I don't know,' I said. 'You had better ask the real Sam. Good
night.'
I walked past him and made for the school gates at my best pace.
He trotted after me, pleading.
'Sam, give us a quarter, then.'
I walked on.
'Sam, don't be a hawg!'
He broke into a run.
'Sam!' His voice lost its pleading tone and rasped menacingly.
'Gee, if I had me canister, youse wouldn't be so flip! Listen
here, you big cheese! You t'ink youse is de only t'ing in sight,
huh? Well, we ain't done yet. You'll see yet. We'll fix you! Youse
had best watch out.'
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