CHAPTER LI
MAINLY ABOUT BOOTS
"Be quick, Smith," he said, as the latter stood looking at him withoutmaking any movement in the direction of the door.
"_Quick_, sir?" said Psmith meditatively, as if he had been askeda conundrum.
"Go and find Mr. Outwood at once."
Psmith still made no move.
"Do you intend to disobey me, Smith?" Mr. Downing's voice was steely.
"Yes, sir."
"What!"
"Yes, sir."
There was one of those you-could-have-heard-a-pin-drop silences.Psmith was staring reflectively at the ceiling. Mr. Downing waslooking as if at any moment he might say, "Thwarted to me face, ha,ha! And by a very stripling!"
It was Psmith, however, who resumed the conversation. His manner wasalmost too respectful; which made it all the more a pity that what hesaid did not keep up the standard of docility.
"I take my stand," he said, "on a technical point. I say to myself,'Mr. Downing is a man I admire as a human being and respect as amaster. In----'"
"This impertinence is doing you no good, Smith."
Psmith waved a hand deprecatingly.
"If you will let me explain, sir. I was about to say that in anyother place but Mr. Outwood's house, your word would be law. I wouldfly to do your bidding. If you pressed a button, I would do the rest.But in Mr. Outwood's house I cannot do anything except what pleases meor what is ordered by Mr. Outwood. I ought to have remembered thatbefore. One cannot," he continued, as who should say, "Let us bereasonable," "one cannot, to take a parallel case, imagine the colonelcommanding the garrison at a naval station going on board a battleshipand ordering the crew to splice the jibboom spanker. It might be anadmirable thing for the Empire that the jibboom spanker _should_be spliced at that particular juncture, but the crew would naturallydecline to move in the matter until the order came from the commanderof the ship. So in my case. If you will go to Mr. Outwood, and explainto him how matters stand, and come back and say to me, 'Psmith, Mr.Outwood wishes you to ask him to be good enough to come to thisstudy,' then I shall be only too glad to go and find him. You see mydifficulty, sir?"
"Go and fetch Mr. Outwood, Smith. I shall not tell you again."
Psmith flicked a speck of dust from his coat-sleeve.
"Very well, Smith."
"I can assure you, sir, at any rate, that if there is a boot in thatcupboard now, there will be a boot there when you return."
Mr. Downing stalked out of the room.
"But," added Psmith pensively to himself, as the footsteps died away,"I did not promise that it would be the same boot."
He took the key from his pocket, unlocked the cupboard, and took outthe boot. Then he selected from the basket a particularly batteredspecimen. Placing this in the cupboard, he re-locked the door.
His next act was to take from the shelf a piece of string. Attachingone end of this to the boot that he had taken from the cupboard, hewent to the window. His first act was to fling the cupboard-key outinto the bushes. Then he turned to the boot. On a level with the sillthe water-pipe, up which Mike had started to climb the night before,was fastened to the wall by an iron band. He tied the other end of thestring to this, and let the boot swing free. He noticed with approval,when it had stopped swinging, that it was hidden from above by thewindow-sill.
He returned to his place at the mantelpiece.
As an after-thought he took another boot from the basket, and thrustit up the chimney. A shower of soot fell into the grate, blackeninghis hand.
The bathroom was a few yards down the corridor. He went there, andwashed off the soot.
When he returned, Mr. Downing was in the study, and with him Mr.Outwood, the latter looking dazed, as if he were not quite equal tothe intellectual pressure of the situation.
"Where have you been, Smith?" asked Mr. Downing sharply.
"I have been washing my hands, sir."
"H'm!" said Mr. Downing suspiciously.
"Yes, I saw Smith go into the bathroom," said Mr. Outwood. "Smith, Icannot quite understand what it is Mr. Downing wishes me to do."
"My dear Outwood," snapped the sleuth, "I thought I had made itperfectly clear. Where is the difficulty?"
"I cannot understand why you should suspect Smith of keeping his bootsin a cupboard, and," added Mr. Outwood with spirit, catching sight ofa Good-Gracious-has-the-man-_no_-sense look on the other's face,"why he should not do so if he wishes it."
"Exactly, sir," said Psmith, approvingly. "You have touched the spot."
"If I must explain again, my dear Outwood, will you kindly give meyour attention for a moment. Last night a boy broke out of your house,and painted my dog Sampson red."
"He painted--!" said Mr. Outwood, round-eyed. "Why?"
"I don't know why. At any rate, he did. During the escapade one of hisboots was splashed with the paint. It is that boot which I believeSmith to be concealing in this cupboard. Now, do you understand?"
Mr. Outwood looked amazedly at Smith, and Psmith shook his headsorrowfully at Mr. Outwood. Psmith'a expression said, as plainly as ifhe had spoken the words, "We must humour him."
"So with your permission, as Smith declares that he has lost the key,I propose to break open the door of this cupboard. Have you anyobjection?"
Mr. Outwood started.
"Objection? None at all, my dear fellow, none at all. Let me see,_what_ is it you wish to do?"
"This," said Mr. Downing shortly.
There was a pair of dumb-bells on the floor, belonging to Mike. Henever used them, but they always managed to get themselves packed withthe rest of his belongings on the last day of the holidays. Mr.Downing seized one of these, and delivered two rapid blows at thecupboard-door. The wood splintered. A third blow smashed the flimsylock. The cupboard, with any skeletons it might contain, was open forall to view.
Mr. Downing uttered a cry of triumph, and tore the boot from itsresting-place.
"I told you," he said. "I told you."
"I wondered where that boot had got to," said Psmith. "I've beenlooking for it for days."
Mr. Downing was examining his find. He looked up with an exclamationof surprise and wrath.
"This boot has no paint on it," he said, glaring at Psmith. "This isnot the boot."
"It certainly appears, sir," said Psmith sympathetically, "to be freefrom paint. There's a sort of reddish glow just there, if you look atit sideways," he added helpfully.
"Did you place that boot there, Smith?"
"I must have done. Then, when I lost the key----"
"Are you satisfied now, Downing?" interrupted Mr. Outwood withasperity, "or is there any more furniture you wish to break?"
The excitement of seeing his household goods smashed with a dumb-bellhad made the archaeological student quite a swashbuckler for themoment. A little more, and one could imagine him giving Mr. Downing agood, hard knock.
The sleuth-hound stood still for a moment, baffled. But his brain wasworking with the rapidity of a buzz-saw. A chance remark of Mr.Outwood's set him fizzing off on the trail once more. Mr. Outwood hadcaught sight of the little pile of soot in the grate. He bent down toinspect it.
"Dear me," he said, "I must remember to have the chimneys swept. Itshould have been done before."
Mr. Downing's eye, rolling in a fine frenzy from heaven to earth, fromearth to heaven, also focussed itself on the pile of soot; and athrill went through him. Soot in the fireplace! Smith washing hishands! ("You know my methods, my dear Watson. Apply them.")
Mr. Downing's mind at that moment contained one single thought; andthat thought was "What ho for the chimney!"
He dived forward with a rush, nearly knocking Mr. Outwood off hisfeet, and thrust an arm up into the unknown. An avalanche of soot fellupon his hand and wrist, but he ignored it, for at the same instanthis fingers had closed upon what he was seeking.
"Ah," he said. "I thought as much. You were not quite clever enough,after all, Smith."
"No, sir," s
aid Psmith patiently. "We all make mistakes."
"You would have done better, Smith, not to have given me all thistrouble. You have done yourself no good by it."
"It's been great fun, though, sir," argued Psmith.
"Fun!" Mr. Downing laughed grimly. "You may have reason to change youropinion of what constitutes----"
His voice failed as his eye fell on the all-black toe of the boot. Helooked up, and caught Psmith's benevolent gaze. He straightenedhimself and brushed a bead of perspiration from his face with the backof his hand. Unfortunately, he used the sooty hand, and the result waslike some gruesome burlesque of a nigger minstrel.
"Did--you--put--that--boot--there, Smith?" he asked slowly.
"DID--YOU--PUT--THAT--BOOT--THERE, SMITH?"]
"Yes, sir."
"Then what did you _MEAN_ by putting it there?" roared Mr.Downing.
"Animal spirits, sir," said Psmith.
"WHAT!"
"Animal spirits, sir."
What Mr. Downing would have replied to this one cannot tell, thoughone can guess roughly. For, just as he was opening his mouth, Mr.Outwood, catching sight of his Chirgwin-like countenance, intervened.
"My dear Downing," he said, "your face. It is positively covered withsoot, positively. You must come and wash it. You are quite black.Really, you present a most curious appearance, most. Let me show youthe way to my room."
In all times of storm and tribulation there comes a breaking-point, apoint where the spirit definitely refuses, to battle any longeragainst the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Mr. Downing couldnot bear up against this crowning blow. He went down beneath it. Inthe language of the Ring, he took the count. It was the knock-out.
"Soot!" he murmured weakly. "Soot!"
"Your face is covered, my dear fellow, quite covered."
"It certainly has a faintly sooty aspect, sir," said Psmith.
His voice roused the sufferer to one last flicker of spirit.
"You will hear more of this, Smith," he said. "I say you will hearmore of it."
Then he allowed Mr. Outwood to lead him out to a place where therewere towels, soap, and sponges.
* * * * *
When they had gone, Psmith went to the window, and hauled in thestring. He felt the calm after-glow which comes to the general after asuccessfully conducted battle. It had been trying, of course, for aman of refinement, and it had cut into his afternoon, but on the wholeit had been worth it.
The problem now was what to do with the painted boot. It would take alot of cleaning, he saw, even if he could get hold of the necessaryimplements for cleaning it. And he rather doubted if he would be ableto do so. Edmund, the boot-boy, worked in some mysterious cell, farfrom the madding crowd, at the back of the house. In the boot-cupboarddownstairs there would probably be nothing likely to be of any use.
His fears were realised. The boot-cupboard was empty. It seemed to himthat, for the time being, the best thing he could do would be to placethe boot in safe hiding, until he should have thought out a scheme.
Having restored the basket to its proper place, accordingly, he wentup to the study again, and placed the red-toed boot in the chimney, atabout the same height where Mr. Downing had found the other. Nobodywould think of looking there a second time, and it was improbable thatMr. Outwood really would have the chimneys swept, as he had said. Theodds were that he had forgotten about it already.
Psmith went to the bathroom to wash his hands again, with the feelingthat he had done a good day's work.
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