Books: The Intrusion of Jimmy
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P. G. Wodehouse >> The Intrusion of Jimmy
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His lordship gurgled a wordless reply, thrusting the fateful letter
hastily into his pocket. He would break the news anon. Soon--not
yet--later on--in fact, anon!
"Up in your part, my boy?" continued Sir Thomas. "You mustn't spoil
the play by forgetting your lines. That wouldn't do!"
His eye was caught by the envelope that Spennie had dropped. A
momentary lapse from the jovial and benevolent was the result. His
fussy little soul abhorred small untidinesses.
"Dear me," he said, stooping, "I wish people would not drop paper
about the house. I cannot endure a litter." He spoke as if somebody
had been playing hare-and-hounds, and scattering the scent on the
stairs. This sort of thing sometimes made him regret the old days.
In Blunt's Stores, Rule Sixty-seven imposed a fine of half-a-crown
on employees convicted of paper-dropping.
"I--" began his lordship.
"Why"--Sir Thomas straightened himself--"it's addressed to you."
"I was just going to pick it up. It's--er--there was a note in it."
Sir Thomas gazed at the envelope again. Joviality and benevolence
resumed their thrones.
"And in a feminine handwriting," he chuckled. He eyed the limp peer
almost roguishly. "I see, I see," he said. "Very charming, quite
delightful! Girls must have their little romance! I suppose you two
young people are exchanging love-letters all day. Delightful, quite
delightful! Don't look as if you were ashamed of it, my boy! I like
it. I think it's charming."
Undoubtedly, this was the opening. Beyond a question, his lordship
should have said at this point:
"Uncle, I cannot tell a lie. I cannot even allow myself to see you
laboring under a delusion which a word from me can remove. The
contents of this note are not what you suppose. They run as follows-
-"
What he did say was:
"Uncle, can you let me have twenty pounds?"
Those were his amazing words. They slipped out. He could not stop
them.
Sir Thomas was taken aback for an instant, but not seriously. He
started, as might a man who, stroking a cat, receives a sudden, but
trifling scratch.
"Twenty pounds, eh?" he said, reflectively.
Then, the milk of human kindness swept over displeasure like a tidal
wave. This was a night for rich gifts to the deserving.
"Why, certainly, my boy, certainly. Do you want it at once?"
His lordship replied that he did, please; and he had seldom said
anything more fervently.
"Well, well. We'll see what we can do. Come with me."
He led the way to his dressing-room. Like nearly all the rooms at
the castle, it was large. One wall was completely hidden by the
curtain behind which Spike had taken refuge that afternoon.
Sir Thomas went to the dressing-table, and unlocked a small drawer.
"Twenty, you said? Five, ten, fifteen--here you are, my boy."
Lord Dreever muttered his thanks. Sir Thomas accepted the guttural
acknowledgment with a friendly pat on the shoulder.
"I like a little touch like that," he said.
His lordship looked startled.
"I wouldn't have touched you," he began, "if it hadn't been--"
"A little touch like that letter-writing," Sir Thomas went on. "It
shows a warm heart. She is a warm-hearted girl, Spennie. A charming,
warm-hearted girl! You're uncommonly lucky, my boy."
His lordship, crackling the four bank-notes, silently agreed with
him.
"But, come, I must be dressing. Dear me, it is very late. We shall
have to hurry. By the way, my boy, I shall take the opportunity of
making a public announcement of the engagement tonight. It will be a
capital occasion for it. I think, perhaps, at the conclusion of the
theatricals, a little speech--something quite impromptu and
informal, just asking them to wish you happiness, and so on. I like
the idea. There is an old-world air about it that appeals to me.
Yes."
He turned to the dressing-table, and removed his collar.
"Well, run along, my boy," he said. "You must not be late." His
lordship tottered from the room.
He did quite an unprecedented amount of thinking as he hurried into
his evening clothes; but the thought occurring most frequently was
that, whatever happened, all was well in one way, at any rate. He
had the twenty pounds. There would be something colossal in the
shape of disturbances when his uncle learned the truth. It would be
the biggest thing since the San Francisco earthquake. But what of
it? He had the money.
He slipped it into his waistcoat-pocket. He would take it down with
him, and pay Hargate directly after dinner.
He left the room. The flutter of a skirt caught his eye as he
reached the landing. A girl was coming down the corridor on the
other side. He waited at the head of the stairs to let her go down
before him. As she came on to the landing, he saw that it was Molly.
For a moment, there was an awkward pause.
"Er--I got your note," said his lordship.
She looked at him, and then burst out laughing.
"You know, you don't mind the least little bit," she said; "not a
scrap. Now, do you?"
"Well, you see--"
"Don't make excuses! Do you?"
"Well, it's like this, you see, I--"
He caught her eye. Next moment, they were laughing together.
"No, but look here, you know," said his lordship. "What I mean is,
it isn't that I don't--I mean, look here, there's no reason why we
shouldn't be the best of pals."
"Why, of course, there isn't."
"No, really, I say? That's ripping. Shake hands on it."
They clasped hands; and it was in this affecting attitude that Sir
Thomas Blunt, bustling downstairs, discovered them.
"Aha!" he cried, archly. "Well, well, well! But don't mind me, don't
mind me!"
Molly flushed uncomfortably; partly, because she disliked Sir Thomas
even when he was not arch, and hated him when he was; partly,
because she felt foolish; and, principally, because she was
bewildered. She had not looked forward to meeting Sir Thomas that
night. It was always unpleasant to meet him, but it would be more
unpleasant than usual after she had upset the scheme for which he
had worked so earnestly. She had wondered whether he would be cold
and distant, or voluble and heated. In her pessimistic moments, she
had anticipated a long and painful scene. That he should be behaving
like this was not very much short of a miracle. She could not
understand it.
A glance at Lord Dreever enlightened her. That miserable creature
was wearing the air of a timid child about to pull a large cracker.
He seemed to be bracing himself up for an explosion.
She pitied him sincerely. So, he had not told his uncle the news,
yet! Of course, he had scarcely had time. Saunders must have given
him the note as he was going up to dress.
There was, however, no use in prolonging the agony. Sir Thomas must
be told, sooner or later. She was glad of the chance to tell him
herself. She would be able to explain that it was all her doing.
"I'm afraid there's a mistake," she said.
"Eh?" said Sir Thomas.
"I've been thinking it over, and I came to the conclusion that we
weren't--well, I broke off the engagement!"
Sir Thomas' always prominent eyes protruded still further. The color
of his florid face deepened. Suddenly, he chuckled.
Molly looked at him, amazed. Sir Thomas was indeed behaving
unexpectedly to-night.
"I see it," he wheezed. "You're having a joke with me! So this is
what you were hatching as I came downstairs! Don't tell me! If you
had really thrown him over, you wouldn't have been laughing together
like that. It's no good, my dear. I might have been taken in, if I
had not seen you, but I did."
"No, no," cried Molly. "You're wrong. You're quite wrong. When you
saw us, we were just agreeing that we should be very good friends.
That was all. I broke off the engagement before that. I--"
She was aware that his lordship had emitted a hollow croak, but she
took it as his method of endorsing her statement, not as a warning.
"I wrote Lord Dreever a note this evening," she went on, "telling
him that I couldn't possibly--"
She broke off in alarm. With the beginning of her last speech, Sir
Thomas had begun to swell, until now he looked as if he were in
imminent danger of bursting. His face was purple. To Molly's lively
imagination, his eyes appeared to move slowly out of his head, like
a snail's. From the back of his throat came strange noises.
"S-s-so--" he stammered.
He gulped, and tried again.
"So this," he said, "so this--! So that was what was in that letter,
eh?"
Lord Dreever, a limp bundle against the banisters, smiled weakly.
"Eh?" yelled Sir Thomas.
His lordship started convulsively.
"Er, yes," he said, "yes, yes! That was it, don't you know!"
Sir Thomas eyed his nephew with a baleful stare. Molly looked from
one to the other in bewilderment.
There was a pause, during which Sir Thomas seemed partially to
recover command of himself. Doubts as to the propriety of a family
row in mid-stairs appeared to occur to him. He moved forward.
"Come with me," he said, with awful curtness.
His lordship followed, bonelessly. Molly watched them go, and
wondered more than ever. There was something behind this. It was not
merely the breaking-off of the engagement that had roused Sir
Thomas. He was not a just man, but he was just enough to be able to
see that the blame was not Lord Dreever's. There had been something
more. She was puzzled.
In the hall, Saunders was standing, weapon in hand, about to beat
the gong.
"Not yet," snapped Sir Thomas. "Wait!"
Dinner had been ordered especially early that night because of the
theatricals. The necessity for strict punctuality had been straitly
enjoined upon Saunders. At some inconvenience, he had ensured strict
punctuality. And now--But we all have our cross to bear in this
world. Saunders bowed with dignified resignation.
Sir Thomas led the way into his study.
"Be so good as to close the door," he said.
His lordship was so good.
Sir Thomas backed to the mantelpiece, and stood there in the
attitude which for generations has been sacred to the elderly
Briton, feet well apart, hands clasped beneath his coat-tails. His
stare raked Lord Dreever like a searchlight.
"Now, sir!" he said.
His lordship wilted before the gaze.
"The fact is, uncle--"
"Never mind the facts. I know them! What I require is an
explanation."
He spread his feet further apart. The years had rolled back, and he
was plain Thomas Blunt again, of Blunt's Stores, dealing with an
erring employee.
"You know what I mean," he went on. "I am not referring to the
breaking-off of the engagement. What I insist upon learning is your
reason for failing to inform me earlier of the contents of that
letter."
His lordship said that somehow, don't you know, there didn't seem to
be a chance, you know. He had several times been on the point--but--
well, some-how--well, that's how it was.
"No chance?" cried Sir Thomas. "Indeed! Why did you require that
money I gave you?"
"Oh, er--I wanted it for something."
"Very possibly. For what?"
"I--the fact is, I owed it to a fellow."
"Ha! How did you come to owe it?"
His lordship shuffled.
"You have been gambling," boomed Sit Thomas "Am I right?"
"No, no. I say, no, no. It wasn't gambling. It was a game of skill.
We were playing picquet."
"Kindly refrain from quibbling. You lost this money at cards, then,
as I supposed. Just so."
He widened the space between his feet. He intensified his glare. He
might have been posing to an illustrator of "Pilgrim's Progress" for
a picture of "Apollyon straddling right across the way."
"So," he said, "you deliberately concealed from me the contents of
that letter in order that you might extract money from me under
false pretenses? Don't speak!" His lordship had gurgled, "You did!
Your behavior was that of a--of a--"
There was a very fair selection of evil-doers in all branches of
business from which to choose. He gave the preference to the race-
track.
"--of a common welsher," he concluded. "But I won't put up with it.
No, not for an instant! I insist upon your returning that money to
me here and now. If you have not got it with you, go and fetch it."
His lordship's face betrayed the deepest consternation. He had been
prepared for much, but not for this. That he would have to undergo
what in his school-days he would have called "a jaw" was
inevitable, and he had been ready to go through with it. It might hurt
his feelings, possibly, but it would leave his purse intact. A
ghastly development of this kind he had not foreseen.
"But, I say, uncle!" he bleated.
Sir Thomas silenced him with a grand gesture.
Ruefully, his lordship produced his little all. Sir Thomas took it
with a snort, and went to the door.
Saunders was still brooding statuesquely over the gong.
"Sound it!" said Sir Thomas.
Saunders obeyed him, with the air of an unleashed hound.
"And now," said Sir Thomas, "go to my dressing-room, and place these
notes in the small drawer of the table."
The butler's calm, expressionless, yet withal observant eye took in
at a glance the signs of trouble. Neither the inflated air of Sir
Thomas nor the punctured-balloon bearing of Lord Dreever escaped
him.
"Something h'up," he said to his immortal soul, as he moved
upstairs. "Been a fair old, rare old row, seems to me!"
He reserved his more polished periods for use in public. In
conversation with his immortal soul, he was wont to unbend somewhat.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE TREASURE SEEKER
Gloom wrapped his lordship about, during dinner, as with a garment.
He owed twenty pounds. His assets amounted to seven shillings and
four-pence. He thought, and thought again. Quite an intellectual
pallor began to appear on his normally pink cheeks. Saunders,
silently sympathetic--he hated Sir Thomas as an interloper, and
entertained for his lordship, under whose father also he had served,
a sort of paternal fondness--was ever at his elbow with the magic
bottle; and to Spennie, emptying and re-emptying his glass almost
mechanically, wine, the healer, brought an idea. To obtain twenty
pounds from any one person of his acquaintance was impossible. To
divide the twenty by four, and persuade a generous quartette to
contribute five pounds apiece was more feasible.
Hope began to stir within him again.
Immediately after dinner, he began to flit about the castle like a
family specter of active habits. The first person he met was
Charteris.
"Hullo, Spennie," said Charteris, "I wanted to see you. It is
currently reported that you are in love. At dinner, you looked as if
you had influenza. What's your trouble? For goodness' sake, bear up
till the show's over. Don't go swooning on the stage, or anything.
Do you know your lines?"
"The fact is," said his lordship eagerly, "it's this way. I happen
to want--Can you lend me a fiver?"
"All I have in the world at this moment," said Charteris, "is eleven
shillings and a postage-stamp. If the stamp would be of any use to
you as a start--? No? You know, it's from small beginnings like that
that great fortunes are amassed. However--"
Two minutes later, Lord Dreever had resumed his hunt.
The path of the borrower is a thorny one, especially if, like
Spennie, his reputation as a payer-back is not of the best.
Spennie, in his time, had extracted small loans from most of his
male acquaintances, rarely repaying the same. He had a tendency to
forget that he had borrowed half-a-crown here to pay a cab and ten
shillings there to settle up for a dinner; and his memory was not
much more retentive of larger sums. This made his friends somewhat
wary. The consequence was that the great treasure-hunt was a failure
from start to finish. He got friendly smiles. He got honeyed
apologies. He got earnest assurances of good-will. But he got no
money, except from Jimmy Pitt.
He had approached Jimmy in the early stages of the hunt; and Jimmy,
being in the mood when he would have loaned anything to anybody,
yielded the required five pounds without a murmur.
But what was five pounds? The garment of gloom and the intellectual
pallor were once more prominent when his lordship repaired to his
room to don the loud tweeds which, as Lord Herbert, he was to wear
in the first act.
There is a good deal to be said against stealing, as a habit; but it
cannot be denied that, in certain circumstances, it offers an
admirable solution of a financial difficulty, and, if the penalties
were not so exceedingly unpleasant, it is probable that it would
become far more fashionable than it is.
His lordship's mind did not turn immediately to this outlet from his
embarrassment. He had never stolen before, and it did not occur to
him directly to do so now. There is a conservative strain in all of
us. But, gradually, as it was borne in upon him that it was the only
course possible, unless he were to grovel before Hargate on the
morrow and ask for time to pay--an unthinkable alternative--he found
himself contemplating the possibility of having to secure the money
by unlawful means. By the time he had finished his theatrical
toilet, he had definitely decided that this was the only thing to be
done.
His plan was simple. He knew where the money was, in the dressing-
table in Sir Thomas's room. He had heard Saunders instructed to put
it there. What could be easier than to go and get it? Everything was
in his favor. Sir Thomas would be downstairs, receiving his guests.
The coast would be clear. Why, it was like finding the money.
Besides, he reflected, as he worked his way through the bottle of
Mumm's which he had had the forethought to abstract from the supper-
table as a nerve-steadier, it wasn't really stealing. Dash it all,
the man had given him the money! It was his own! He had half a mind-
-he poured himself out another glass of the elixir--to give Sir
Thomas a jolly good talking-to into the bargain. Yes, dash it all!
He shot his cuffs fiercely. The British Lion was roused.
A man's first crime is, as a rule, a shockingly amateurish affair.
Now and then, it is true, we find beginners forging with the
accuracy of old hands, or breaking into houses with the finish of
experts. But these are isolated cases. The average tyro lacks
generalship altogether. Spennie Dreever may be cited as a typical
novice. It did not strike him that inquiries might be instituted by
Sir Thomas, when he found the money gone, and that suspicion might
conceivably fall upon himself. Courage may be born of champagne, but
rarely prudence.
The theatricals began at half-past eight with a duologue. The
audience had been hustled into their seats, happier than is usual in
such circumstances, owing to the rumor which had been circulated
that the proceedings were to terminate with an informal dance. The
castle was singularly well constructed for such a purpose. There was
plenty of room, and a sufficiency of retreat for those who sat out,
in addition to a conservatory large enough to have married off half
the couples in the county.
Spennie's idea had been to establish an alibi by mingling with the
throng for a few minutes, and then to get through his burglarious
specialty during the duologue, when his absence would not be
noticed. It might be that, if he disappeared later in the evening,
people would wonder what had become of him.
He lurked about until the last of the audience had taken their
seats. As he was moving off through the hall, a hand fell upon his
shoulder. Conscience makes cowards of us all. Spennie bit his tongue
and leaped three inches into the air.
"Hello, Charteris!" he said, gaspingly.
Charteris appeared to be in a somewhat overwrought condition.
Rehearsals had turned him into a pessimist, and, now that the actual
moment of production had arrived, his nerves were in a thoroughly
jumpy condition, especially as the duologue was to begin in two
minutes and the obliging person who had undertaken to prompt had
disappeared.
"Spennie," said Charteris, "where are you off to?"
"What--what do you mean? I was just going upstairs."
"No, you don't. You've got to come and prompt. That devil Blake has
vanished. I'll wring his neck! Come along."
Spennie went, reluctantly. Half-way through the duologue, the
official prompter returned with the remark that he had been having a
bit of a smoke on the terrace, and that his watch had gone wrong.
Leaving him to discuss the point with Charteris, Spennie slipped
quietly away.
The delay, however, had had the effect of counteracting the
uplifting effects of the Mumm's. The British Lion required a fresh
fillip. He went to his room to administer it. By the time he
emerged, he was feeling just right for the task in hand. A momentary
doubt occurred to him as to whether it would not be a good thing to
go down and pull Sir Thomas' nose as a preliminary to the
proceedings; but he put the temptation aside. Business before
pleasure.
With a jaunty, if somewhat unsteady, step, he climbed the stairs to
the floor above, and made his way down the corridor to Sir Thomas's
room. He switched on the light, and went to the dressing-table. The
drawer was locked, but in his present mood Spennie, like Love,
laughed at locksmiths. He grasped the handle, and threw his weight
into a sudden tug. The drawer came out with a report like a pistol-
shot.
"There!" said his lordship, wagging his head severely.
In the drawer lay the four bank-notes. The sight of them brought
back his grievance with a rush. He would teach Sir Thomas to treat
him like a kid! He would show him!
He was removing the notes, frowning fiercely the while, when he
heard a cry of surprise from behind him.
He turned, to see Molly. She was still dressed in the evening gown
she had worn at dinner; and her eyes were round with wonder. A few
moments earlier, as she was seeking her room in order to change her
costume for the theatricals, she had almost reached the end of the
corridor that led to the landing, when she observed his lordship,
flushed of face and moving like some restive charger, come
curvetting out of his bedroom in a dazzling suit of tweeds, and make
his way upstairs. Ever since their mutual encounter with Sir Thomas
before dinner, she had been hoping for a chance of seeing Spennie
alone. She had not failed to notice his depression during the meal,
and her good little heart had been troubled by the thought that she
must have been responsible for it. She knew that, for some reason,
what she had said about the letter had brought his lordship into his
uncle's bad books, and she wanted to find him and say she was sorry.
Accordingly, she had followed him. His lordship, still in the war-
horse vein, had made the pace upstairs too hot, and had disappeared
while she was still halfway up. She had arrived at the top just in
time to see him turn down the passage into Sir Thomas's dressing-
room. She could not think what his object might be. She knew that
Sir Thomas was downstairs, so it could not be from the idea of a
chat with him that Spennie was seeking the dressing-room.
Faint, yet pursuing, she followed on his trail, and arrived in the
doorway just as the pistol-report of the burst lock rang out.
She stood looking at him blankly. He was holding a drawer in one
hand. Why, she could not imagine.
"Lord Dreever!" she exclaimed.
The somber determination of his lordship's face melted into a
twisted, but kindly smile.
"Good!" he said, perhaps a trifle thickly. "Good! Glad you've come.
We're pals. You said so--on stairs--b'fore dinner. Very glad you've
come. Won't you sit down?"
He waved the drawer benevolently, by way of making her free of the
room. The movement disturbed one of the bank-notes, which fluttered
in Molly's direction, and fell at her feet.
She stooped and picked it up. When she saw what it was, her
bewilderment increased.
"But--but--" she said.
His lordship beamed--upon her with a pebble-beached smile of
indiscribable good-will.
"Sit down," he urged. "We're pals.--No quol with you. You're good
friend. Quol--Uncle Thomas."
"But, Lord Dreever, what are you doing? What was that noise I
heard?"
"Opening drawer," said his lordship, affably.
"But--" she looked again at what she had in her hand--"but this is a
five-pound note."
"Five-pound note," said his lordship. "Quite right. Three more of
them in here."
Still, she could not understand.
"But--were you--stealing them?"
His lordship drew himself up.
"No," he said, "no, not stealing, no!"
"Then--?"
"Like this. Before dinner. Old boy friendly as you please--couldn't
do enough for me. Touched him for twenty of the best, and got away
with it. So far, all well. Then, met you on stairs. You let cat out
of bag."
"But why--? Surely--!"
His lordship gave the drawer a dignified wave.
"Not blaming you," he said, magnanimously. "Not your fault;
misfortune. You didn't know. About letter."
"About the letter?" said Molly. "Yes, what was the trouble about the
letter? I knew something was wrong directly I had said that I wrote
it."
"Trouble was," said his lordship, "that old boy thought it was love-
letter. Didn't undeceive him."
"You didn't tell him? Why?"
His lordship raised his eyebrows.
"Wanted touch him twenty of the best," he explained, simply.
For the life of her, Molly could not help laughing.
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