Uncle Dynamite (11 page)

Constable
Potter saw his chance, and took it.

‘They
telephone ‘em, m’lady, telling them to come to mined mills, and then lock ‘em
up in the cellar. Or they —‘

‘— Slip
drugs in their drink and carry them off on yachts,’ said Sir Aylmer, once more
seizing the ball. ‘There are a hundred methods. If we looked into it, I expect
we should find that the real Reginald is at this moment lying bound and gagged
on a pallet bed in Limehouse. Eh, Potter?’

‘Yes,
sir.’

‘Or in
the hold of a tramp steamer bound for
South America
?’

‘Yes,
sir.’

‘I
shouldn’t wonder if they weren’t sticking lighted matches between his toes to
make him write them cheques,’ said Sir Aylmer dispassionately. ‘Well, all
right, Potter, that’s all. We won’t keep you. Would you like a glass of beer?’

‘Yes,
sir,’ said Constable Potter, this time with real enthusiasm.

‘Go and
get one in the kitchen. And now,’ said Sir Aylmer, as the door closed, ‘to
business.’

‘Where are
you going?’

‘To
confront this impostor and kick him out, of course.’

‘But,
Aylmer
.’

‘Now
what?’

‘Suppose
there is some mistake.’

‘How
can there be any mistake?’

‘But
suppose there
is.
Suppose this young man is really Reginald, and you
turn him out of the house, we should never hear the last of it from Hermione.’

Something of the gallant
fire which was animating him seemed to pass out of Sir Aylmer Bostock. He
blinked, like some knight of King Arthur’s court, who, galloping to perform a
deed of derring-do, has had the misfortune to collide with a tree. Though
keeping up a brave front, he, like his wife, had always quelled before
Hermione. Native chiefs, accustomed to leap like fawns at a waggle of his
moustache, would have marvelled at this weakness in one who had always seemed
to them impervious to human emotions, but it existed.

‘‘M,
yes,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Yes, I see what you mean.’

‘She
would be furious.’

‘That’s
true.’

‘I
really don’t know what to think myself,’ said Lady Bostock distractedly. ‘Potter’s
story did seem very convincing, but it is just possible that he is mistaken in
supposing that this man who has come here as Reginald is really Edwin Smith.’

‘I’d
bet a million on it.’

‘Yes,
dear, I know. And I must say I have noticed something curiously furtive about
the young man, as if he had a guilty secret. But —‘

An idea
occurred to Sir Aylmer.

‘Didn’t
Hermione give some sort of description of this young poop of hers in that
letter she wrote you saying she was engaged?’

‘Why,
of course. I had forgotten. It’s in my desk. I’ll go and get it.’

‘Well?’
said Sir Aylmer a few moments later. Lady Bostock was skimming through the
document.

‘She
says he is tall and slender, with large, lustrous eyes. ‘‘There you are! This
chap hasn’t got lustrous eyes. ‘‘Wouldn’t you say his eyes were lustrous?’
‘Certainly not. Like a couple of damned poached eggs. What else?’

‘He is
very amusing.’ ‘You see!’

‘Oh!’

‘What?’

‘She
says William used to know him as a boy.’

‘She
does? Then William’s evidence will clinch the thing. Where is he? WILLIAM!
WILLIAM!! WILLIAM!!!’

It is
rarely that this sort of thing does not produce results. Bill Oakshott, who was
still on the terrace, smoking his pipe and pondering over his numerous
misfortunes, came clattering up the stairs as if pulled at the end of a string.

The
fear — or hope — that his uncle was being murdered left him as he entered the
room, but not his bewilderment at the summons.

‘Hullo?’
he said gropingly.

‘Oh,
there you are,’ said Sir Aylmer, who was still bellowing out of the window.
‘William, this fellow who calls himself Reginald Twistleton, how about him?’

‘How
about him?’

‘Exactly.
How about him?’

‘How do
you mean, how about him?’

‘Good
God, boy, can’t you understand plain English? I mean How about him?’

Lady
Bostock explained.

‘We are
terribly upset, William. Your uncle thinks that the man who came yesterday is
not Reginald, but an impostor pretending to be Reginald.’

‘What
on earth gives him that idea?’

‘Never
mind what on earth gives me that idea,’ said Sir Aylmer, nettled. ‘You knew
Reginald Twistleton as a boy?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good.
That’s established,’ said Sir Aylmer, borrowing from Constable Potter’s
non-copyright material. ‘Now, then. When you saw him yesterday, did you
recognize him?’

‘Of
course.’

‘Don’t
say “Of course” in that airy way. When had you seen him last?’

‘About
twelve years ago.’

‘Then
how can you be sure you recognized him?’

‘Well,
he looked about the same. Grown a bit, of course.’

‘Have
you discussed boyhood days with him?’

‘No.’

‘Have
you asked him a single question, the response to which would prove that he had
known you as a boy?’

‘Why,
no.’

‘There
you are, then.’

‘But he
answers to the name of Pongo.’

Sir
Aylmer snorted.

‘Of
course he answers to the name of Pongo. Do you suppose that an impostor, when addressed
as Pongo by somebody claiming to be an old friend of the man he was
impersonating, would not have the elementary intelligence to dissemble? Your
evidence is completely valueless.’

‘Sorry.’

‘No
good being sorry. Well, I shall have to look into the thing for myself. I shall
take the car and go over to Ickenham Hall. The real Reginald is Ickenham’s
nephew, so the old lunatic will presumably have a photograph of him somewhere
on the premises. A glance at that will settle the matter. ‘‘What a splendid
idea,
Aylmer
!’

‘Yes,’
said Sir Aylmer, who thought well of it himself. ‘Just occurred to me.’

He shot
from the room as if propelled from a rude sling in the hands of a Brazilian
native, and hurried down the stairs. In the hall he was obliged to check his progress
for an instant in order to glare at Pongo, who like a murderer returning to the
scene of his crime, had come thither to gaze at the substitute bust and ask
himself for the hundredth time what were its chances of getting by.

‘Ha!’
said Sir Aylmer.

‘Oh,
hullo,’ said Pongo, smiling weakly.

Sir
Aylmer eyed him with that blend of horror and loathing with which honest men
eye those who call themselves Twistleton when they are really Edwin Smith of
11, Nasturtium Road, East Dulwich, especially when these latter smile like
minor gangsters caught in the act of committing some felony. It seemed to him
that if ever he had seen furtive guilt limned on a human face, he had seen it
now.

‘Ha!’
he said again, and went off to get his car.

A few
minutes after he had steered it out into the road, tooting fiercely, for he was
a noisy driver, another car, coming from the opposite direction, drew up
outside the gate.

At its
wheel was Lord Ickenham, and beside him Sally.

6

Lord Ickenham cast an
alert eye up the curving drive, and gave his moustache a carefree twiddle. His
air was that of a man who has arrived at some joyous tryst. A restful night and
a good lunch had brought his always resilient nature to a fine pitch of
buoyancy and optimism. There is an expression in common use which might have
been invented to describe the enterprising peer at moments such as this; the
expression ‘boomps-a-daisy’. You could look askance at his methods, you could
shake your head at him in disapproval and click your tongue in reproof, but you
could not deny that he was boomps-a-daisy.

‘This
might be the place, don’t you think?’ he said.

‘It
is.’

‘You
speak confidently.’

‘Well,
I’ve been here before. When I was doing the bust.’ ‘Didn’t Mugsy come to the
studio?’

‘Of
course not. Great men like him don’t come to the studios of poor working
girls.’

Lord
Ickenham took her point.

‘True,’
he said. ‘I can’t get used to the idea of young Mugsy Bostock being a big pot.
To me he remains permanently a pie-faced stripling bending over a chair while I
assure him that what is about to occur is going to hurt me more than it does
him. A black lie, of course. I enjoyed it. One of the hardest things in life is
to realize that people grow up. Nothing, for instance, can convince me that I
am not a sprightly young fellow of twenty-five, and, as for Pongo, the idea of
him being old enough to contemplate marriage fills me with a perpetual
astonishment. To me, he still wears sailor suits.’

‘He
must have looked sweet in a sailor suit.’

‘No, he
didn’t. He looked foul. Like a ballet girl in a nautical musical comedy. But
enough of this idle chatter. The time has come,’ said Lord Ickenham, ‘to
discuss strategy and tactics.’

He
spoke with the gay lilt in his voice which had so often in the past struck a
chill into the heart of his nephew.

‘Strategy
and tactics,’ he repeated. ‘Here is the house. We have the bust. All that is
needed is to effect an entry into the former, carrying the latter. This,
accordingly, I shall now proceed to do. You spoke?’

‘No, I
only sort of gurgled. I was going to say “How?” but I mustn’t, must I, because
of
Columbus
and the boys in the
back room.’

Lord
Ickenham seemed amazed.

‘My
dear girl, you are surely not worrying yourself about the simple mechanics of
the thing? There are a thousand ways, all child’s play to one of my gifts. If I
droop my moustache, thus, do I look like a man come to inspect the drains?’

‘No.’

‘If I
turn it up at the ends, so, do I suggest the representative of a journal of
rural interest, anxious to obtain Mugsy’s views on the mangel-wurzel
situation?’

‘Not a
bit.’

‘Then I
must try something else. I wonder if Mugsy has a parrot.’

‘I know
he hasn’t. Why?’

‘Didn’t
Pongo ever tell you of our afternoon at The Cedars,
Mafeking
Road
, Mitching Hill?’

‘No.
What was The Cedars,
Mafeking Road
, Mitching Hill?’

‘A
suburban villa, heavily fortified and supposed to be impregnable. But I got in
with absurd ease. One moment, I was outside its barred gates, lashed by an
April shower; the next, in the sitting-room, toasting my toes at the gas. fire.
I told the maid I had come from the bird shop to clip the parrot’s claws and
slipped Pongo in with the statement that he was Mr Walkinshaw, my assistant,
who applied the anaesthetic. I’m surprised he never mentioned it. I don’t like
the way he seems to have kept things from you. An unhealthy spirit. Yes, I
think I may say with all due modesty that I am at my best when impersonating
officials from bird shops who have called to prune the parrot, and I am sorry
to hear you say that Mugsy has not got one. Not that I’m surprised. Only the
gentler, kindlier type of man keeps a parrot and makes of it a constant friend.
Ah, well, no doubt I shall be able to effect an entry somehow.’

‘And
what do you do then?’

‘That’s
the easy part. I have the bust under my coat, I engage Mugsy in conversation,
and at a selected moment I suddenly say “Look behind you!” He looks behind him,
and while his back is turned I switch the busts and come away. So let’s go.’

‘Wait,’
said Sally.

‘Is
this a time for waiting? The Ickenhams have never waited.’

‘Well,
they’re going to start now. I’ve a much better plan.’ ‘Better than mine?’ said
Lord Ickenham incredulously.

‘Better
in every way,’ said Sally firmly. ‘Saner and simpler.’ Lord Ickenham shrugged
his shoulders.

‘Well,
let’s hear it. I’ll bet I’m not going to like it.’

‘You
don’t have to like it. You are going to stay in the car —‘‘Absurd.’

‘—
While I take that bust to the house.’

‘Ridiculous.
I knew it was going to be rotten.’

‘I
shall try, of course, to put the deal through unobserved. But if I am observed,
I shall have my story ready, which is more than you would have done.’

‘I
would have had twenty stories ready, each better than the last.’

‘Each
crazier than the last. Mine will be a good one, carrying conviction in every
syllable. I shall say I came to see Sir Aylmer —‘