Summer Lightning

by P. G. Wodehouse

  ‘Bad business, this, Clarence.’

  ‘Appalling, my dear fellow.’

  ‘What are you going to do about it?’

  Lord Emsworth shrugged his shoulders hopelessly. He generally did when people asked him what he was going to do about things.

  ‘I am at a loss,’ he confessed. ‘I do not know how to act. What young Carmody tells me has completely upset all my plans.’

  ‘Carmody?’

  ‘I sent him to the Argus Enquiry Agency in London to engage the services of a detective. It is a firm that Sir Gregory Parsloe once mentioned to me, in the days when we were on better terms. He said, in rather a meaning way, I thought, that if ever I had any trouble of any sort that needed expert and tactful handling, these were the people to go to. I gathered that they had assisted him in some matter the details of which he did not confide to me, and had given complete satisfaction.’

  ‘Parsloe!’ said the Hon. Galahad, and sniffed.

  ‘So I sent young Carmody to London to approach them about finding the Empress. And now he tells me that his errand proved fruitless. They were firm in their refusal to trace missing pigs.’

  ‘Just as well.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Save you a lot of unnecessary expense. There’s no need for you to waste money employing detectives.’

  ‘I thought that possibly the trained mind . . .’

  ‘I can tell you who’s got the Empress. I’ve known it all along.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘Certainly.’

  ‘Galahad!’

  ‘It’s as plain as the nose on your face.’

  Lord Emsworth felt his nose.

  ‘Is it?’he said doubtfully.

  ‘I’ve just been talking to Constance . . .’

  ‘Constance?’ Lord Emsworth opened his mouth feebly. ‘She hasn’t got my pig?’

  ‘I’ve just been talking to Constance,’ repeated the Hon. Galahad, ‘and she called me some very unpleasant names.’

  ‘She does, sometimes. Even as a child, I remember . . .’

  ‘Most unpleasant names. A senile mischief-maker, among others, and a meddling old penguin. And all because I told her that the man who had stolen Empress of Blandings was young Gregory Parsloe.’

  ‘Parsloe!’

  ‘Parsloe. Surely it’s obvious? I should have thought it would have been clear to the meanest intelligence.’

  From boyhood up, Lord Emsworth had possessed an intelligence about as mean as an intelligence can be without actually being placed under restraint. Nevertheless, he found his brother’s theory incredible.

  ‘Parsloe?’

  ‘Don’t keep saying “Parsloe”.’

  ‘But, my dear Galahad . . .’

  ‘It stands to reason.’

  ‘You don’t really think so?’

  ‘Of course I think so. Have you forgotten what I told you the other day?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Lord Emsworth. He always forgot what people told him the other day.

  ‘About young Parsloe,’ said the Hon. Galahad impatiently. ‘About his nobbling my dog Towser.’

  Lord Emsworth started. It all came back to him. A hard expression crept into the eyes behind the pince-nez, which emotion had just jerked crooked again.

  ‘To be sure. Towser. Your dog. I remember.’

  ‘He nobbled Towser, and he’s nobbled the Empress. Dash it, Clarence, use your intelligence. Who else except young Parsloe had any interest in getting the Empress out of the way? And, if he hadn’t known there was some dirty work being planned, would that pig-man of his, Brotherhood or whatever his name is, have been going about offering three to one on Pride of Matchingham? I told you at the time it was fishy.’

  The evidence was damning, and yet Lord Emsworth found himself once more a prey to doubt. Of the blackness of Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe’s soul he had, of course, long been aware. But could the man actually be capable of the Crime of the Century? A fellow-landowner? A Justice of the Peace? A man who grew pumpkins? A Baronet?

  ‘But Galahad . . . A man in Parsloe’s position . . .’

  ‘What do you mean a man in his position? Do you suppose a fellow changes his nature just because a cousin of his dies and he comes into a baronetcy? Haven’t I told you a dozen times that I’ve known young Parsloe all his life? Known him intimately. He was always as hot as mustard and as wide as Leicester Square. Ask anybody who used to go around Town in those days. When they saw young Parsloe coming, strong men winced and hid their valuables. He hadn’t a penny except what he could get by telling the tale, and he always did himself like a prince. When I knew him first, he was living down on the river at Shepperton. His old father, the Dean, had made an arrangement with the keeper of the pub there to give him breakfast and bed and nothing else. “If he wants dinner, he must earn it,” the old boy said. And do you know how he used to earn it? He trained that mongrel of his, Banjo, to go and do tricks in front of parties that came to the place in steam-launches. And then he would stroll up and hope his dog was not annoying them and stand talking till they went in to dinner and then go in with them and pick up the wine-list, and before they knew what was happening he would be bursting with their champagne and cigars. That’s the sort of fellow young Parsloe was.’

  ‘But even so . . .’

  ‘I remember him running up to me outside that pub one afternoon – the Jolly Miller it was called, his face shining with positive ecstasy. “Come in, quick!” he said. “There’s a new barmaid, and she hasn’t found out yet I’m not allowed credit.”’

  ‘But, Galahad . . .’

  And if young Parsloe thinks I’ve forgotten a certain incident that occurred in the early summer of the year ‘95, he’s very much mistaken. He met me in the Haymarket and took me into the Two Goslings for a drink – there’s a hat-shop now where it used to be – and after we’d had it he pulls a sort of dashed little top affair out of his pocket, a thing with numbers written round it. Said he’d found it in the street and wondered who thought of these ingenious little toys and insisted on our spinning it for half-crowns. ‘You take the odd numbers, I’ll take the even,” says young Parsloe. And before I could fight my way out into the fresh air, I was ten pounds seven and sixpence in the hole. And I discovered next morning that they make those beastly things so that if you push the stem through and spin them the wrong way up you’re bound to get an even number. And when I asked him the following afternoon to show me that top again, he said he’d lost it. That’s the sort of fellow young Parsloe was. And you expect me to believe that inheriting a baronetcy and settling down in the country has made him so dashed pure and high-minded that he wouldn’t stoop to nobbling a pig.’

  Lord Emsworth uncoiled himself. Cumulative evidence had done its work. His eyes glittered, and he breathed stertorously.

  ‘The scoundrel!’

  ‘Tough nut, always was.’

  ‘What shall I do?’

  ‘Do? Why, go to him right away and tax him.’

  ‘Tax him?’

  ‘Yes. Look him squarely in the eye and tax him with his crime.’

  ‘I will! Immediately.’

  TU come with you.’

  ‘Look him squarely in the eye!’

  And tax him!’

  And tax him.’ Lord Emsworth had reached the hall and was peering agitatedly to right and left. ‘Where the devil’s my hat? I can’t find my hat. Somebody’s always hiding my hat. I will not have my hats hidden.’

  ‘You don’t need a hat to tax a man with stealing a pig,’ said the Hon. Galahad, who was well versed in the manners and rules of good society.

  II

  In his study at Matchingham Hall in the neighbouring village of Much Matchingham, Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe sat gazing at the current number of a weekly paper. We have seen that weekly paper before. On that occasion it was in the plump hands of Beach. And, oddly enough, what had attracted Sir Gregory’s attention was the very item which had interested the butler.

  ‘Th
e Hon. Galahad Threepwood, brother of the Earl of Emsworth. A little bird tells us that “Gaily” is at Blandings Castle, Shropshire, the ancestral seat of the family, busily engaged in writing his Reminiscences. As every member of the Old Brigade will testify, they ought to be as warm as the weather, if not warmer!’

  But whereas Beach, perusing this, had chuckled, Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe shivered, like one who on a country ramble suddenly perceives a snake in his path.

  Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe, of Matchingham Hall, seventh baronet of his line, was one of those men who start their lives well, skid for awhile, and then slide back on to the straight and narrow path and stay there. That is to say, he had been up to the age of twenty a blameless boy and from the age of thirty-one, when he had succeeded to the title, a practically blameless Bart. So much so that now, in his fifty-second year, he was on the eve of being accepted by the local Unionist Committee as their accredited candidate for the forthcoming by-election in the Bridgeford and Shirley Parliamentary Division of Shropshire.

  But there had been a decade in his life, that dangerous decade of the twenties, when he had accumulated a past so substantial that a less able man would have been compelled to spread it over a far longer period. It was an epoch in his life to which he did not enjoy looking back, and years of irreproachable Barthood had enabled him, as far as he personally was concerned, to bury the past. And now, it seemed, this pestilential companion of his youth was about to dig it up again.

  The years had turned Sir Gregory into a man of portly habit; and, as portly men do in moments of stress, he puffed. But, puff he never so shrewdly, he could not blow away that paragraph. It was still there, looking up at him, when the door opened and the butler announced Lord Emsworth and Mr Galahad Threep-wood.

  Sir Gregory’s first emotion on seeing the taxing party file into the room was one of pardonable surprise. Aware of the hard feelings which George Cyril Wellbeloved’s transference of his allegiance had aroused in the bosom of that gifted pig-man’s former employer, he had not expected to receive a morning call from the Earl of Emsworth. As for the Hon. Galahad, he had ceased to be on cordial terms with him as long ago as the winter of the year nineteen hundred and six.

  Then, following quickly on the heels of surprise, came indignation. That the author of the Reminiscences should be writing scurrilous stories about him with one hand and strolling calmly into his private study with, so to speak, the other occasioned him the keenest resentment. He drew himself up and was in the very act of staring haughtily, when the Hon. Galahad broke the silence.

  ‘Young Parsloe,’ said the Hon. Galahad, speaking in a sharp, unpleasant voice, ‘your sins have found you out!’

  It had been the baronet’s intention to inquire to what he was indebted for the pleasure of this visit, and to inquire it icily; but at this remarkable speech the words halted on his lips.

  ‘Eh?’ he said blankly.

  The Hon. Galahad was regarding him through his monocle rather as a cook eyes a black-beetle on discovering it in the kitchen sink. It was a look which would have aroused pique in a slug, and once more the Squire of Matchingham’s bewilderment gave way to wrath.

  ‘What the devil do you mean?’ he demanded.

  ‘See his face?’ asked the Hon. Galahad in a rasping aside.

  ‘I’m looking at it now,’ said Lord Emsworth.

  ‘Guilt written upon it.’

  ‘Plainly,’ agreed Lord Emsworth.

  The Hon. Galahad, who had folded his arms in a menacing manner, unfolded them and struck the desk a smart blow.

  ‘Be very careful, Parsloe! Think before you speak. And, when you speak, speak the truth. I may say, by way of a start, that we know all.’

  How low an estimate Sir Gregory Parsloe had formed of his visitors’ collective sanity was revealed by the fact that it was actually to Lord Emsworth that he now turned as the more intelligent of the pair.

  ‘Emsworth! Explain! What the deuce are you doing here? And what the devil is that old image talking about?’

  Lord Emsworth had been watching his brother with growing admiration. The latter’s spirited opening of the case for the prosecution had won his hearty approval.

  ‘You know,’ he said curtly.

  ‘I should say he dashed well does know,’ said the Hon. Galahad. ‘Parsloe, produce that pig!’

  Sir Gregory pushed his eyes back into their sockets a split second before they would have bulged out of his head beyond recovery. He did his best to think calm, soothing thoughts. He had just remembered that he was a man who had to be careful about his blood-pressure.

  ‘Pig?’

  ‘Pig.’

  ‘Did you say pig?’

  Tig.’

  ‘What pig?’

  ‘He says “What pig?”’

  ‘I heard him,’ said Lord Emsworth.

  Sir Gregory Parsloe again had trouble with his eyes.

  ‘I don’t know what you are talking about.’

  The Hon. Galahad unfolded his arms again and smote the desk a blow that unshipped the cover of the ink-pot.

  ‘Parsloe, you sheep-faced, shambling exile from hell,’ he cried. ‘Disgorge that pig immediately!’

  ‘My Empress,’ added Lord Emsworth.

  ‘Precisely. Empress of Blandings. The pig you stole last night.’

  Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe rose slowly from his chair. The Hon. Galahad pointed an imperious finger at him, but he ignored the gesture. His blood-pressure was now hovering around the hundred-and-fifty mark.

  ‘Do you mean to tell me that you seriously accuse . . .’

  ‘Parsloe, sit down!’

  Sir Gregory choked.

  ‘I always knew, Emsworth, that you were as mad as a coot.’

  ‘As a what?’ whispered his lordship.

  ‘Coot,’ said the Hon. Galahad curtly. ‘Sort of duck.’ He turned to the defendant again. ‘Vituperation will do you no good, young Parsloe. We know that you have stolen that pig.’

  ‘I haven’t stolen any damned pig. What would I want to steal a pig for?’

  The Hon. Galahad snorted.

  ‘What did you want to nobble my dog Towser for in the back room of the Black Footman in the spring of the year ‘97?’ he said. ‘To queer the favourite, that’s why you did it. And that’s what you’re after now, trying to queer the favourite again. Oh, we can see through you all right, young Parsloe. We read you like a book.’

  Sir Gregory had stopped worrying about his blood-pressure. No amount of calm, soothing thoughts could do it any good now.

  ‘You’re crazy! Both of you. Stark, staring mad.’

  ‘Parsloe, will you or will you not cough up that pig?’

  ‘I have not got your pig.’

  ‘That is your last word, is it?’

  ‘I haven’t seen the creature.’

  ‘Why a coot?’ asked Lord Emsworth, who had been brooding for some time in silence.

  ‘Very well,’ said the Hon. Galahad. ‘If that is the attitude you propose to adopt, there is no course before me but to take steps. And I’ll tell you the steps I’m going to take, young Parsloe. I see now that I have been foolishly indulgent. I have allowed my kind heart to get the better of me. Often and often, when I’ve been sitting at my desk, I’ve remembered a good story that simply cried out to be put into my Reminiscences, and every time I’ve said to myself, “No,” I’ve said. “That would wound young Parsloe. Good as it is, I can’t use it. I must respect young Parsloe’s feelings.” Well, from now on there will be no more forbearance. Unless you restore that pig, I shall insert in my book every dashed thing I can remember about you – starting with our first meeting, when I came into Romano’s and was introduced to you while you were walking round the supper-table with a soup tureen on your head and stick of celery in your hand, saying that you were a sentry outside Buckingham Palace. The world shall know you for what you are – the only man who was ever thrown out of the Café de l’Europe for trying to raise the price of a bottle of champagne by r
affling his trousers at the main bar. And, what’s more, I’ll tell the full story of the prawns.’

  A sharp cry escaped Sir Gregory. His face had turned a deep magenta. In these affluent days of his middle age, he always looked rather like a Regency buck who has done himself well for years among the flesh-pots. He now resembled a Regency buck who, in addition to being on the verge of apoplexy, has been stung in the leg by a hornet.

  ‘I will,’ said the Hon. Galahad firmly. ‘The full, true and complete story of the prawns, omitting nothing.’

  ‘What was the story of the prawns, my dear fellow?’ asked Lord Emsworth, interested.

  ‘Never mind. I know. And young Parsloe knows. And if Empress of Blandings is not back in her sty this afternoon, you will find it in my book.’

  ‘But I keep telling you,’ cried the suffering baronet, ‘that I know nothing whatever about your pig.’

  ‘Ha!’

  ‘I’ve not seen the animal since last year’s Agricultural Show.’

  ‘Ho!’

  ‘I didn’t know it had disappeared till you told me.’

  The Hon. Galahad stared fixedly at him through the black-rimmed monocle. Then, with a gesture of loathing, he turned to the door.

  ‘Come, Clarence!’he said.

  Are we going?’

  ‘Yes,’ said the Hon. Galahad with quiet dignity. ‘There is nothing more that we can do here. Let us get away from this house before it is struck by a thunderbolt.’

  Ill

  The gentlemanly office-boy who sat in the outer room of the Argus Enquiry Agency read the card which the stout visitor had handed to him and gazed at the stout visitor with respect and admiration. A polished lad, he loved the aristocracy. He tapped on the door of the inner office.