Uncle Fred in the Springtime (16 page)

Lord
Ickenham patted his shoulder.

‘My
dear boy, it is what any member of my profession would advise. Do we by any
chance know a beverage called May Queen? It’s full name is “Tomorrow’ll be all
the year the maddest, merriest day, for I’m to be Queen of the May, mother, I’m
to be Queen of the May.” A clumsy title, generally shortened for purposes of
ordinary conversation. Its foundation is any good, dry champagne, to which is
added liqueur brandy, armagnac, kummel, yellow chartreuse and old stout, to
taste. It is a good many years since I tried it myself, but I can thoroughly
recommend it to alleviate the deepest despondency. Ah!’ said Lord Ickenham, as
a mellow booming rose from below. ‘Dinner. Let us be going down. We do not want
to be late for the trough our first night at a house, do we? Creates a bad
impression.’

11

It had been Lord Ickenham’s
intention, directly dinner was over, to seek out his nephew Pongo with a view
to giving him a bracing pep talk. But a lengthy conference with his hostess
delayed him in the drawing-room, and it was only after the subject of the Duke
had been thoroughly threshed out between them that he was able to tear himself
away. He found the young man eventually in the billiard-room, practising
solitary cannons.

Pongo’s
demeanour at dinner had been such as to cause concern to an uncle and a
fellow-conspirator. Solomon in all his glory, arrayed for the banquet, could
not have surpassed him in splendour, but there is no question that he would
have looked happier. Pongo’s tie was right, and his shirt was right, and his
socks were right, and the crease in his trousers was a genuine feast for the
eye, but his resemblance to a fox with a pack of hounds and a bevy of the best
people on its trail, which had been so noticeable all through the day, had
become more pronounced than ever.

It was
the cheerful, stimulating note, accordingly, that Lord Ickenham now set himself
to strike. This wilting object before him was patently in need of all the cheer
and stimulation he could get.

‘Well,
my young ray of sunshine,’ he said, ‘I can see by our expression that we are
feeling that everything is going like a breeze. I hear you put it across Horace
properly.’

Pongo
brightened momentarily, as a veteran of Agincourt might have done at the
mention of the name of Crispian.

‘Yes, I
put it across old H. all right.’

‘You
did indeed. You appear to have conducted yourself with admirable
sang-froid.
I am proud of you.’

‘But
what’s the use?’ said Pongo, subsiding into gloom once more. ‘It can’t last.
Even a goop like Horace, though nonplussed for the moment, is bound to start
figuring things out and arriving at the nub. Directly he sees you —’He has seen
me.’

‘Oh, my
gosh! What happened?’

‘We had
a long and interesting conversation, and I am happy to be able to report that
he is leaving immediately for Bournemouth, merely pausing in London on his way,
like some butterfly alighting on a flower, in order to get pickled to the
tonsils.’

Pongo,
listening attentively to the
précis
of recent events, seemed grudgingly
pleased.

‘Well,
that’s something, I suppose,’ he said. ‘Getting Horace out of the place is
better than nothing.’

His
tone pained Lord Ickenham.

‘You
appear still moody,’ he said reproachfully. ‘I had supposed that my narrative
would have had you dancing about the room, clapping your little hands. Is it
possible that you are still finding Lady Constance a source of anxiety?’

‘And
that man Baxter.’

Lord
Ickenham waved a cue in airy scorn of his hostess and the spectacled secretary.

‘Why do
you bother about Connie and Baxter? A gorilla could lick them both. What has
she been doing to you?’

‘She
hasn’t been doing anything, exactly. She’s been quite matey, as a matter of
fact. But my informants were right. She is the sort of woman who makes you feel
that, no matter how suave her manner for the nonce, she is at heart a
twenty-minute egg and may start functioning at any moment.’

Lord
Ickenham nodded.

‘I know
what you mean. I have noticed the same thing in volcanoes, and the head
mistress of my first kindergarten was just like that. It is several years, of
course, since I graduated from the old place, but I can remember her vividly.
The sweet, placid face … the cooing voice.., but always, like some haunting
strain in a piece of music, that underlying suggestion of the sudden whack over
the knuckles with a ruler. Why did Baxter jar upon you?’

‘He
kept asking me questions about my methods of work.’

‘Ah,
the two secs getting together and swapping shop. I thought that might happen.’

‘Then I
wish you had warned me. That bird gives me the creeps.’

‘He
struck you as sinister, did he? I have felt the same thing myself. Our
conversation on the platform left me not altogether satisfied in my mind about
that young man. It seemed to me that during my explanations with reference to
the poor fellow on the train who thought he was Sir Roderick Glossop I detected
a certain dryness in his manner, a subtle something that suggested that,
lacking our friend Bosham’s Norman blood, he was equally deficient in that
simple faith which the poet ranks even more highly. If you ask me, my dear
Pongo, Baxter suspects.’

‘Then I’m
jolly well going to get out of this!’

‘Impossible.
Have your forgotten that Polly has to fascinate the Duke and will be lost
without you beside her to stimulate and encourage? Where’s your chivalry? A
nice figure you would have cut at King Arthur’s Round Table.’

He had
found the talking point. Pongo said Yes, there was something in that. Lord
Ickenham said he had known that Pongo would arrive at that conclusion, once he
had really given his keen brain to the thing.

‘Yes,’
he said, ‘we have set our hands to the plough, and we cannot sheathe the sword.
Besides, I shall require your help in snitching the pig. But I was forgetting.
You are not abreast of that side of our activities, are you? Emsworth has a
pig. The Duke wants it. Emsworth would like to defy him, but dare not, owing to
that twist in the other’s character which leads him, when defied on any premises,
to give those premises the works with a poker. So, on my advice, he is
resorting to strategy. I have promised him that we will remove the animal from
its sty, and you will then drive it across country to Ickenham, where it can
lie low till the danger is past.’

It was
not often that Pongo Twistleton disarranged his hair, once he had brushed it
for the evening, but he did so now. Such was his emotion that he plunged both
hands through those perfect waves.

‘Ha!’

‘I keep
asking you not to say “Ha!” my boy.’

‘So
that’s the latest, is it? I’m to become a blasted pig’s chauffeur, am I?’

‘A
brilliant summing-up of the situation. Flaubert could not have put it better.’

‘I
absolutely and definitely refuse to have anything to do with the bally scheme.’

‘That is
your last word?’

‘Specifically.’

‘I see.
Well, it’s a pity, for Emsworth would undoubtedly have rewarded you with a
purse of gold. Noblesse would have obliged. He has the stuff in sackfuls, and
this pig is the apple of his eye. And you could do with a purse of gold just
now, could you not?’

Pongo
started. He had missed this angle of the situation.

‘Oh! I
didn’t think of that.’

‘Start
pondering on it now. And while you are doing so,’ said Lord Ickenham, ‘I will
show you how billiards should be played. Watch this shot.’

He had
begun to bend over the table, a bright eye fixed on the object ball, when he
glanced round. The door had opened, and he was aware of something like a death
ray playing about his person.

Rupert
Baxter was there, staring at him through his spectacles.

To most people at whom the
efficient Baxter directed that silent, steely, spectacled stare of his there
was wont to come a sudden malaise, a disposition to shuffle the feet and
explore the conscience guiltily: and even those whose consciences were clear
generally quailed a little. Lord Ickenham, however, continued undisturbed.

‘Ah, my
dear Baxter. Looking for me?’

‘I
should be glad if you could spare me a moment.’

‘Something
you want to talk to me about?’

‘If you
have no objection.’

‘You
have not come to consult me in my professional capacity, I trust? We have not
been suffering from delusions, have we?’

‘I
never suffer from delusions.’

‘No, I
should imagine not. Well, come on in. Push off, Basil.’

‘He can
remain,’ said Baxter sombrely. ‘What I have to say will interest him also.’

It
seemed to Pongo, as he withdrew into the farthest corner of the room and ran a
finger round the inside of his collar, that if ever he had heard the voice of
doom speak, he had heard it then. To him there was something so menacing in the
secretary’s manner that he marvelled at his uncle’s lack of emotion. Lord
Ickenham, having scattered the red and spot balls carelessly about the table,
was now preparing to execute a tricky shot.

‘Lovely
evening,’ he said.

‘Very.
You had a pleasant walk, I hope?’

‘That
is understating it. Ecstatic,’ said Lord Ickenham, making a dexterous cannon, ‘would
be a better word. What with the pure air, the majestic scenery, the old gypsy
feeling of tramping along the high road and the Duke’s conversation, I don’t
know when I have enjoyed a walk more. By the way, the Duke was telling me that
there had been a little friction on your arrival. He said he had handed you the
two weeks’ notice because Horace Davenport told him that he had seen you at a
Ball in London.’

‘Yes.’

‘Everything
satisfactory now, I hope?’

‘Quite.
He discovered that he had been misinformed, and apologized. I am continuing in
his employment.’

‘I’m
glad. You wouldn’t want to lose a job like that. A man can stick on a lot of
side about being secretary to a Duke. Practically as good as being a Duke
himself. I am afraid Basil here has no such excuse for spiritual uplift. Just
an ordinary secretary — Basil.’

‘A very
peculiar one, I should have said.’

‘Peculiar?
In what respect? In the words of the bridegroom of Antigua, is it manners you
mean or do you refer to his figuah?’

‘He
seems ignorant of the very rudiments of his work.’

‘Yes, I
fear poor Basil would strike a man like you as something of an amateur. He has
not had your wide experience. You were Lord Emsworth’s secretary once, were you
not?’

‘I was.’

A flush
deepened the swarthiness of Rupert Baxter’s cheek. He had been Lord Emsworth’s
secretary several times, and on each occasion his employer, aided by the
breaks, had succeeded in throwing him out. He did not care to be reminded of
these flaws in a successful career.

‘And
before that?’

‘I was
with Sir Ralph Dillingworth, a Yorkshire baronet.’

‘Yours
has been a very steady rise in the social scale,’ said Lord Ickenham
admiringly. ‘Starting at the bottom with a humble baronet — slumming, you might
almost call it — you go on to an earl and then to a duke. It does you credit.’

‘Thank
you.’

‘Not at
all. I think I’ve heard of Dillingworth. Odd sort of fellow, isn’t he?’

‘Very.’

‘There
was some story about him shooting mice in the drawing-room with an elephant
gun.

‘Yes.’

‘Painful
for the family. For the mice, too, of course.’

‘Most.’

‘They
should have called me in.’

‘They
did.’

‘I beg
your pardon?’ ‘I say they did.’ ‘I don’t remember it.’ ‘I am not surprised.’

Rupert
Baxter was sitting back in his chair, tapping the tips of his fingers together.
It seemed to Pongo, watching him pallidly from afar, that if he had had a
different-shaped face and had not worn spectacles he would have looked like
Sherlock Holmes.

‘It was
unfortunate for you that I should have met the real Sir Roderick. When I saw
him on the train, he had forgotten me, of course, but I knew him immediately.
He has altered very little!’

Lord
Ickenham raised his eyebrows.

‘Are you
insinuating that I am not Sir Roderick Glossop?’

‘I am.’

‘I see.
You accuse me of assuming another man’s identity, do you, of abusing Lady
Constance’s hospitality by entering her house under false pretences? You
deliberately assert that I am a fraud and an impostor?’

‘I do.’

‘And
how right you are, my dear fellow!’ said Lord Ickenham. ‘How right you are.’
Rupert Baxter continued to tap his fingertips together and to project through
his spectacles as stern a glare as they had ever been called upon to filter,
but he was conscious as he did so of a certain sense of flatness. Unmasked
Guilt, in his opinion, should have taken it rather bigger than this man before
him appeared to be doing. Lord Ickenham was now peering at himself in the
mirror and fiddling with his moustache. He may have been feeling as if the
bottom of his world had dropped out, but he did not look it.