Books: The Little Nugget
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P.G. Wodehouse >> The Little Nugget
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If there is anything exciting enough to keep the Englishman or the
English boy from his tea, it has yet to be discovered. The
shouting ceased on the instant. The general feeling seemed to be
that inquiries could be postponed till a more suitable occasion,
but not tea. There was a general movement in the direction of the
dining-room.
Glossop had already gone with the crowd, and I was about to
follow, when there was another ring at the front-door bell.
I gathered that this must be the police, and waited. In the
impending inquiry I was by way of being a star witness. If any one
had been in the thick of things from the beginning it was myself.
White opened the door. I caught a glimpse of blue uniforms, and
came forward to do the honours.
There were two of them, no more. In response to our urgent appeal
for assistance against armed bandits, the Majesty of the Law had
materialized itself in the shape of a stout inspector and a long,
lean constable. I thought, as I came to meet them, that they were
fortunate to have arrived late. I could see Lefty and the
red-moustached man, thwarted in their designs on me, making
dreadful havoc among the official force, as here represented.
White, the simple butler once more, introduced us.
'This is Mr Burns, one of the masters at the school,' he said, and
removed himself from the scene. There never was a man like White
for knowing his place when he played the butler.
The inspector looked at me sharply. The constable gazed into
space.
'H'm!' said the inspector.
Mentally I had named them Bones and Johnson. I do not know why,
except that they seemed to deserve it.
'You telephoned for us,' said Bones accusingly.
'We did.'
'What's the trouble? What--got your notebook?--has been
happening?'
Johnson removed his gaze from the middle distance and produced a
notebook.
'At about half past five--' I began.
Johnson moistened his pencil.
'At about half past five an automobile drove up to the front door.
In it were five masked men with revolvers.'
I interested them. There was no doubt of that. Bones's healthy
colour deepened, and his eyes grew round. Johnson's pencil raced
over the page, wobbling with emotion.
'Masked men?' echoed Bones.
'With revolvers,' I said. 'Now aren't you glad you didn't go to
the circus? They rang the front-door bell; when White opened it,
they stunned him with a sand-bag. Then--'
Bones held up a large hand.
'Wait!'
I waited.
'Who is White?'
'The butler.'
'I will take his statement. Fetch the butler.'
Johnson trotted off obediently.
Left alone with me, Bones became friendlier and less official.
'This is as queer a start as ever I heard of, Mr Burns,' he said.
'Twenty years I've been in the force, and nothing like this has
transpired. It beats cock-fighting. What in the world do you
suppose men with masks and revolvers was after? First idea I had
was that you were making fun of me.'
I was shocked at the idea. I hastened to give further details.
'They were a gang of American crooks who had come over to kidnap
Mr Elmer Ford's son, who is a pupil at the school. You have heard
of Mr Ford? He is an American millionaire, and there have been
several attempts during the past few years to kidnap Ogden.'
At this point Johnson returned with White. White told his story
briefly, exhibited his bruise, showed the marks of the cords on his
wrists, and was dismissed. I suggested that further conversation
had better take place in the presence of Mr Abney, who, I imagined,
would have something to say on the subject of hushing the thing up.
We went upstairs. The broken door of the study delayed us a while
and led to a fresh spasm of activity on the part of Johnson's
pencil. Having disposed of this, we proceeded to Mr Abney's room.
Bones's authoritative rap upon the door produced an agitated
'Who's that?' from the occupant. I explained the nature of the
visitation through the keyhole and there came from within the
sound of moving furniture. His one brief interview with Buck had
evidently caused my employer to ensure against a second by
barricading himself in with everything he could find suitable for
the purpose. It was some moments before the way was clear for our
entrance.
'Cub id,' said a voice at last.
Mr Abney was sitting up in bed, the blankets wrapped tightly about
him. His appearance was still disordered. The furniture of the
room was in great confusion, and a poker on the floor by the
dressing-table showed that he had been prepared to sell his life
dearly.
'I ab glad to see you, Idspector,' he said. 'Bister Burds, what is
the expladation of this extraordinary affair?'
It took some time to explain matters to Mr Abney, and more to
convince Bones and his colleague that, so far from wanting a hue
and cry raised over the countryside and columns about the affair
in the papers, publicity was the thing we were anxious to avoid.
They were visibly disappointed when they grasped the position of
affairs. The thing, properly advertised, would have been the
biggest that had ever happened to the neighbourhood, and their
eager eyes could see glory within easy reach. Mention of a cold
snack and a drop of beer, however, to be found in the kitchen,
served to cast a gleam of brightness on their gloom, and they
vanished in search of it with something approaching cheeriness,
Johnson taking notes to the last.
They had hardly gone when Glossop whirled into the room in a state
of effervescing agitation.
'Mr Abney, Ogden Ford is nowhere to be found!'
Mr Abney greeted the information with a prodigious sneeze.
'What do you bead?' he demanded, when the paroxysm was over. He
turned to me. 'Bister Burds, I understood you to--ah--say that
the scou'drels took their departure without the boy Ford.'
'They certainly did. I watched them go.'
'I have searched the house thoroughly,' said Glossop, 'and there
are no signs of him. And not only that, the Boy Beckford cannot be
found.'
Mr Abney clasped his head in his hands. Poor man, he was in no
condition to bear up with easy fortitude against this succession
of shocks. He was like one who, having survived an earthquake, is
hit by an automobile. He had partly adjusted his mind to the quiet
contemplation of Mr MacGinnis and friends when he was called upon
to face this fresh disaster. And he had a cold in the head, which
unmans the stoutest. Napoleon would have won Waterloo if
Wellington had had a cold in the head.
'Augustus Beckford caddot be fou'd?' he echoed feebly.
'They must have run away together,' said Glossop.
Mr Abney sat up, galvanized.
'Such a thing has never happened id the school before!' he cried.
'It has aldways beed my--ah--codstant endeavour to make my boys
look upod Sadstead House as a happy hobe. I have systebatically
edcouraged a spirit of cheerful codtedment. I caddot seriously
credit the fact that Augustus Beckford, one of the bost charbig
boys it has ever beed by good fortude to have id by charge, has
deliberately rud away.'
'He must have been persuaded by that boy Ford,' said Glossop,
'who,' he added morosely, 'I believe, is the devil in disguise.'
Mr Abney did not rebuke the strength of his language. Probably the
theory struck him as eminently sound. To me there certainly seemed
something in it.
'Subbthig bust be done at once!' Mr Abney exclaimed. 'It
is--ah--ibperative that we take ibbediate steps. They bust
have gone to Londod. Bister Burds, you bust go to Londod by the
next traid. I caddot go byself with this cold.'
It was the irony of fate that, on the one occasion when duty
really summoned that champion popper-up-to-London to the
Metropolis, he should be unable to answer the call.
'Very well,' I said. 'I'll go and look out a train.'
'Bister Glossop, you will be in charge of the school. Perhaps you
had better go back to the boys dow.'
White was in the hall when I got there.
'White,' I said, 'do you know anything about the trains to
London?'
'Are you going to London?' he asked, in his more conversational
manner. I thought he looked at me curiously as he spoke.
'Yes. Ogden Ford and Lord Beckford cannot be found. Mr Abney
thinks they must have run away to London.'
'I shouldn't wonder,' said White dryly, it seemed to me. There was
something distinctly odd in his manner. 'And you're going after
them.'
'Yes. I must look up a train.'
'There is a fast train in an hour. You will have plenty of time.'
'Will you tell Mr Abney that, while I go and pack my bag? And
telephone for a cab.'
'Sure,' said White, nodding.
I went up to my room and began to put a few things together in a
suit-case. I felt happy, for several reasons. A visit to London,
after my arduous weeks at Sanstead, was in the nature of an
unexpected treat. My tastes are metropolitan, and the vision of an
hour at a music-hall--I should be too late for the theatres--with
supper to follow in some restaurant where there was an orchestra,
appealed to me.
When I returned to the hall, carrying my bag, I found Audrey
there.
'I'm being sent to London,' I announced.
'I know. White told me. Peter, bring him back.'
'That's why I'm being sent.'
'It means everything to me.'
I looked at her in surprise. There was a strained, anxious
expression on her face, for which I could not account. I declined
to believe that anybody could care what happened to the Little
Nugget purely for that amiable youth's own sake. Besides, as he
had gone to London willingly, the assumption was that he was
enjoying himself.
'I don't understand,' I said. 'What do you mean?'
'I'll tell you. Mr Ford sent me here to be near Ogden, to guard
him. He knew that there was always a danger of attempts being made
to kidnap him, even though he was brought over to England very
quietly. That is how I come to be here. I go wherever Ogden goes.
I am responsible for him. And I have failed. If Ogden is not
brought back, Mr Ford will have nothing more to do with me. He
never forgives failures. It will mean going back to the old work
again--the dressmaking, or the waiting, or whatever I can manage
to find.' She gave a little shiver. 'Peter, I can't. All the pluck
has gone out of me. I'm afraid. I couldn't face all that again.
Bring him back. You must. You will. Say you will.'
I did not answer. I could find nothing to say; for it was I who
was responsible for all her trouble. I had planned everything. I
had given Ogden Ford the money that had taken him to London. And
soon, unless I could reach London before it happened, and prevent
him, he, with my valet Smith, would be in the Dover boat-train on
his way to Monaco.
Chapter 9
I
It was only after many hours of thought that it had flashed upon
me that the simplest and safest way of removing the Little Nugget
was to induce him to remove himself. Once the idea had come, the
rest was simple. The negotiations which had taken place that
morning in the stable-yard had been brief. I suppose a boy in
Ogden's position, with his record of narrow escapes from the
kidnapper, comes to take things as a matter of course which would
startle the ordinary boy. He assumed, I imagine, that I was the
accredited agent of his mother, and that the money which I gave
him for travelling expenses came from her. Perhaps he had been
expecting something of the sort. At any rate, he grasped the
essential points of the scheme with amazing promptitude. His
little hand was extended to receive the cash almost before I had
finished speaking.
The main outline of my plan was that he should slip away to
London, during the afternoon, go to my rooms, where he would find
Smith, and with Smith travel to his mother at Monaco. I had
written to Smith, bidding him be in readiness for the expedition.
There was no flaw in the scheme as I had mapped it out, and though
Ogden had complicated it a little by gratuitously luring away
Augustus Beckford to bear him company, he had not endangered its
success.
But now an utterly unforeseen complication had arisen. My one
desire now was to undo everything for which I had been plotting.
I stood there, looking at her dumbly, hating myself for being the
cause of the anxiety in her eyes. If I had struck her, I could not
have felt more despicable. In my misery I cursed Cynthia for
leading me into this tangle.
I heard my name spoken, and turned to find White at my elbow.
'Mr Abney would like to see you, sir.'
I went upstairs, glad to escape. The tension of the situation had
begun to tear at my nerves.
'Cub id, Bister Burds,' said my employer, swallowing a lozenge.
His aspect was more dazed than ever. 'White has just bade
an--ah--extraordinary cobbudicatiod to me. It seebs he is in
reality a detective, an employee of Pidkertod's Agedcy, of which
you have, of course--ah--heard.'
So White had revealed himself. On the whole, I was not surprised.
Certainly his motive for concealment, the fear of making Mr Abney
nervous, was removed. An inrush of Red Indians with tomahawks
could hardly have added greatly to Mr Abney's nervousness at the
present juncture.
'Sent here by Mr Ford, I suppose?' I said. I had to say something.
'Exactly. Ah--precisely.' He sneezed. 'Bister Ford, without
codsulting me--I do not cobbedt on the good taste or wisdob of his
actiod--dispatched White to apply for the post of butler at
this--ah--house, his predecessor having left at a bobedt's dotice,
bribed to do so, I strodgly suspect, by Bister Ford himself. I bay
be wrodging Bister Ford, but do dot thig so.'
I thought the reasoning sound.
'All thad, however,' resumed Mr Abney, removing his face from a
jug of menthol at which he had been sniffing with the tense
concentration of a dog at a rabbit-hole, 'is beside the poidt. I
berely bedtiod it to explaid why White will accompady you to
London.'
'What!'
The exclamation was forced from me by my dismay. This was
appalling. If this infernal detective was to accompany me, my
chance of bringing Ogden back was gone. It had been my intention
to go straight to my rooms, in the hope of finding him not yet
departed. But how was I to explain his presence there to White?
'I don't think it's necessary, Mr Abney,' I protested. 'I am sure
I can manage this affair by myself.'
'Two heads are better thad wud,' said the invalid sententiously,
burying his features in the jug once more.
'Too many cooks spoil the broth,' I replied. If the conversation
was to consist of copybook maxims, I could match him as long as he
pleased.
He did not keep up the intellectual level of the discussion.
'Dodseds!' he snapped, with the irritation of a man whose proverb
has been capped by another. I had seldom heard him speak so
sharply. White's revelation had evidently impressed him. He had
all the ordinary peaceful man's reverence for the professional
detective.
'White will accompany you, Bister Burds,' he said doggedly.
'Very well,' I said.
After all, it might be that I should get an opportunity of giving
him the slip. London is a large city.
A few minutes later the cab arrived, and White and I set forth on
our mission.
We did not talk much in the cab. I was too busy with my thoughts
to volunteer remarks, and White, apparently, had meditations of
his own to occupy him.
It was when we had settled ourselves in an empty compartment and
the train had started that he found speech. I had provided myself
with a book as a barrier against conversation, and began at once
to make a pretence of reading, but he broke through my defences.
'Interesting book, Mr Burns?'
'Very,' I said.
'Life's more interesting than books.'
I made no comment on this profound observation. He was not
discouraged.
'Mr Burns,' he said, after the silence had lasted a few moments.
'Yes?'
'Let's talk for a spell. These train-journeys are pretty slow.'
Again I seemed to detect that curious undercurrent of meaning in
his voice which I had noticed in the course of our brief exchange
of remarks in the hall. I glanced up and met his eye. He was
looking at me in a way that struck me as curious. There was
something in those bright brown eyes of his which had the effect
of making me vaguely uneasy. Something seemed to tell me that he
had a definite motive in forcing his conversation on me.
'I guess I can interest you a heap more than that book, even if
it's the darndest best seller that was ever hatched.'
'Oh!'
He lit a cigarette.
'You didn't want me around on this trip, did you?'
'It seemed rather unnecessary for both of us to go,' I said
indifferently. 'Still, perhaps two heads are better than one, as
Mr Abney remarked. What do you propose to do when you get to
London?'
He bent forward and tapped me on the knee.
'I propose to stick to you like a label on a bottle, sonny,' he
said. 'That's what I propose to do.'
'What do you mean?'
I was finding it difficult, such is the effect of a guilty
conscience, to meet his eye, and the fact irritated me.
'I want to find out that address you gave the Ford kid this
morning out in the stable-yard.'
It is strange how really literal figurative expressions are. I had
read stories in which some astonished character's heart leaped
into his mouth. For an instant I could have supposed that mine had
actually done so. The illusion of some solid object blocking up my
throat was extraordinarily vivid, and there certainly seemed to be
a vacuum in the spot where my heart should have been. Not for a
substantial reward could I have uttered a word at that moment. I
could not even breathe. The horrible unexpectedness of the blow
had paralysed me.
White, however, was apparently prepared to continue the chat
without my assistance.
'I guess you didn't know I was around, or you wouldn't have talked
that way. Well, I was, and I heard every word you said. Here was
the money, you said, and he was to take it and break for London,
and go to the address on this card, and your pal Smith would look
after him. I guess there had been some talk before that, but I
didn't arrive in time to hear it. But I heard all I wanted, except
that address. And that's what I'm going to find out when we get to
London.'
He gave out this appalling information in a rich and soothing
voice, as if it were some ordinary commonplace. To me it seemed to
end everything. I imagined I was already as good as under arrest.
What a fool I had been to discuss such a matter in a place like a
stable yard, however apparently empty. I might have known that at
a school there are no empty places.
'I must say it jarred me when I heard you pulling that stuff,'
continued White. 'I haven't what you might call a childlike faith
in my fellow-man as a rule, but it had never occurred to me for a
moment that you could be playing that game. It only shows,' he
added philosophically, 'that you've got to suspect everybody when
it comes to a gilt-edged proposition like the Little Nugget.'
The train rattled on. I tried to reduce my mind to working order,
to formulate some plan, but could not.
Beyond the realization that I was in the tightest corner of my
life, I seemed to have lost the power of thought.
White resumed his monologue.
'You had me guessing,' he admitted. 'I couldn't figure you out.
First thing, of course, I thought you must be working in with Buck
MacGinnis and his crowd. Then all that happened tonight, and I saw
that, whoever you might be working in with, it wasn't Buck. And
now I've placed you. You're not in with any one. You're just
playing it by yourself. I shouldn't mind betting this was your
first job, and that you saw your chance of making a pile by
holding up old man Ford, and thought it was better than
schoolmastering, and grabbed it.'
He leaned forward and tapped me on the knee again. There was
something indescribably irritating in the action. As one who has
had experience, I can state that, while to be arrested at all is
bad, to be arrested by a detective with a fatherly manner is
maddening.
'See here,' he said, 'we must get together over this business.'
I suppose it was the recollection of the same words in the mouth
of Buck MacGinnis that made me sit up with a jerk and stare at
him.
'We'll make a great team,' he said, still in that same cosy voice.
'If ever there was a case of fifty-fifty, this is it. You've got
the kid, and I've got you. I can't get away with him without your
help, and you can't get away with him unless you square me. It's a
stand-off. The only thing is to sit in at the game together and
share out. Does it go?'
He beamed kindly on my bewilderment during the space of time it
takes to select a cigarette and light a match. Then, blowing a
contented puff of smoke, he crossed his legs and leaned back.
'When I told you I was a Pinkerton's man, sonny,' he said, 'I
missed the cold truth by about a mile. But you caught me shooting
off guns in the grounds, and it was up to me to say something.'
He blew a smoke-ring and watched it dreamily till it melted in the
draught from the ventilator.
'I'm Smooth Sam Fisher,' he said.
II
When two emotions clash, the weaker goes to the wall. Any surprise
I might have felt was swallowed up in my relief. If I had been at
liberty to be astonished, my companion's information would no
doubt have astonished me. But I was not. I was so relieved that he
was not a Pinkerton's man that I did not really care what else he
might be.
'It's always been a habit of mine, in these little matters,' he
went on, 'to let other folks do the rough work, and chip in myself
when they've cleared the way. It saves trouble and expense. I
don't travel with a gang, like that bone-headed Buck. What's the
use of a gang? They only get tumbling over each other and spoiling
everything. Look at Buck! Where is he? Down and out. While I--'
He smiled complacently. His manner annoyed me. I objected to being
looked upon as a humble cat's paw by this bland scoundrel.
'While you--what?' I said.
He looked at me in mild surprise.
'Why, I come in with you, sonny, and take my share like a
gentleman.'
'Do you!'
'Well, don't I?'
He looked at me in the half-reproachful half-affectionate manner
of the kind old uncle who reasons with a headstrong nephew.
'Young man,' he said, 'you surely aren't thinking you can put one
over on me in this business? Tell me, you don't take me for that
sort of ivory-skulled boob? Do you imagine for one instant, sonny,
that I'm not next to every move in this game? Are you deluding
yourself with the idea that this thing isn't a perfect cinch for
me? Let's hear what's troubling you. You seem to have gotten some
foolish ideas in your head. Let's talk it over quietly.'
'If you have no objection,' I said, 'no. I don't want to talk to
you, Mr Fisher. I don't like you, and I don't like your way of
earning your living. Buck MacGinnis was bad enough, but at least
he was a straightforward tough. There's no excuse for you.'
'Surely we are unusually righteous this p.m., are we not?' said
Sam suavely.
I did not answer.
'Is this not mere professional jealousy?'
This was too much for me.
'Do you imagine for a moment that I'm doing this for money?'
'I did have that impression. Was I wrong? Do you kidnap the sons
of millionaires for your health?'
'I promised that I would get this boy back to his mother. That is
why I gave him the money to go to London. And that is why my valet
was to have taken him to--to where Mrs Ford is.'
He did not reply in words, but if ever eyebrows spoke, his said,
'My dear sir, really!' I could not remain silent under their
patent disbelief.
'That's the simple truth,' I said.
He shrugged his shoulders, as who would say, 'Have it your own
way. Let us change the subject.'
'You say "was to have taken". Have you changed your plans?'
'Yes, I'm going to take the boy back to the school.'
He laughed--a rich, rolling laugh. His double chin shook
comfortably.
'It won't do,' he said, shaking his head with humorous reproach.
'It won't do.'
'You don't believe me?'
'Frankly, I do not.'
'Very well,' I said, and began to read my book.
'If you want to give me the slip,' he chuckled, 'you must do
better than that. I can see you bringing the Nugget back to the
school.'
'You will, if you wait,' I said.
'I wonder what that address was that you gave him,' he mused.
'Well, I shall soon know.'
He lapsed into silence. The train rolled on. I looked at my watch.
London was not far off now.
'The present arrangement of equal division,' said Sam, breaking a
long silence, 'holds good, of course, only in the event of your
quitting this fool game and doing the square thing by me. Let me
put it plainly. We are either partners or competitors. It is for
you to decide. If you will be sensible and tell me that address, I
will pledge my word--'
'Your word!' I said scornfully.
'Honour among thieves!' replied Sam, with unruffled geniality. 'I
wouldn't double-cross you for worlds. If, however, you think you
can manage without my assistance, it will then be my melancholy
duty to beat you to the kid, and collect him and the money
entirely on my own account. Am I to take it,' he said, as I was
silent, 'that you prefer war to an alliance?'
I turned a page of my book and went on reading.
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