A grave look came into Tipton’s beaming face. He shook his head.
‘She wouldn’t like that.’
‘She didn’t!’
‘She’s strongly opposed to anyone hoisting a few.’
‘We all have our faults.’
‘So what’s Willie going to do?’
‘Precisely what I wanted to see you about. I was thinking that you might come to the rescue and find him something.’
‘Who, me?’
‘You control a number of lucrative businesses, do you not?’
‘Yes, I guess I do.’
‘Such as —?’
‘Well, there’s Tipton’s Stores.’
‘What could he do there?’
‘Only go around in white overalls telling customers where to find the cleansers and detergents.’
‘You can’t think of anything better?’
‘There’s the ranch Uncle Chet left me out in Arizona. But can you see Willie as a cowboy?’
‘Not vividly. But didn’t your Uncle Chet own a music publishing concern in London? I seem to remember him saying something to me about it.’
‘Good Lord, I’d quite forgotten. Sure he did. Aunt Betsy used to write songs, and the only way he could get them published was to buy out the publishers. It cost him a couple of million, but he said it was worth it just to keep harmony in the home. It’s a very good firm, and I believe he’d got most of his money back when he passed on.’
‘Then that’s where Wilfred finds his niche. Unless you have any objections?’
‘No kick from me. A guy who can play the piano like Willie can’t go wrong in a music business. I’ll see to it directly I hit London.’
‘Excellent. Be large-minded when you’re fixing his salary. Don’t forget he wants to get married. And an idea strikes me. You’re taking Wilfred to London. Why not take Miss Simmons, too, and make it a double wedding?’
The suggestion plainly appealed to Tipton. It was, he agreed, a thought.
‘But what will Lord Emsworth say when he finds she’s stood him up?’
‘“Bless my soul!” no doubt, or something like that. No need to worry about Clarence. These shocks are good for him. They keep him alert and on his toes. It’s something to do with the stimulation of the adrenal glands. And have no anxiety about the Empress’s well-being. She’ll be all right. Beach will give her her calories. He’s done it before and can carry on perfectly well till Clarence signs up a professional. Go and sound out La Simmons and see how she feels about it. You’ll probably find her with Wilfred.’
Tipton was convinced. He bounded off and in an incredibly short space of time was back with the news that all was well.
‘I sold her the idea in sixty seconds flat. She’s gone off to pack a suitcase.’
‘Splendid. Then as I am becoming more and more conscious of the parched feeling that steals over one at this time in the evening, I will leave you. With, may I say, my best wishes and heartiest congratulations and all that sort of apple sauce. An uncle by marriage’s blessing on you, Tipton, if you care to have it.’
III
As Gally made his way to the drawing-room, where the cocktails were, he was feeling that mellow glow which comes to men of good will when they have done the square thing by their fellows. It was always his policy, if he could manage it, to strew a little happiness as he went by, and there could be no gainsaying that in the last half-hour or so he had strewn it with a lavish hand. There were those of his acquaintance who had sometimes spoken with bitterness of his habit of playing the guardian angel — or, as they were more inclined to put it, of making a pest of himself by meddling in other people’s affairs, but in this case he felt that he had meddled to good purpose.
As a rule his evening cocktail was a thing Gally liked to linger over, but this was only when he was in congenial company. Today he found himself alone. The drawing-room was empty when he entered it, and after a quick one of a purely medicinal nature he trotted off to enjoy another talk with Sandy Callender. She would, he knew, be interested to hear how his interview with Tipton had come out.
‘Well, young Sandy,’ he said, bustling into her office, ‘your faith in me was justified. Tipton, as you anticipated, was as corn before my sickle. I played on him as on a stringed instrument. He’s giving Wilfred a good job and Wilfred and the Simmons are going to London with him to make a double wedding of it. A nice smooth bit of work, if you ask me. And what have you been doing in my absence? Sweating away and earning your weekly envelope, I trust?’
‘No, I had a slack period.’
‘Sitting and thinking of Sam, no doubt?’
‘As a matter of fact, I was listening to the six o’clock news on the radio.’
‘Anything of interest?’
‘Not much. Austin Phelps has got married.’
‘I hope he’ll be very very happy. Who the hell is Austin Phelps?’
‘The tennis player, my good child. You must have heard of Austin Phelps. The Davis Cup man.
‘Oh, that chap? Yes, I’ve heard of him. Goes around shouting “Forty love” and “Love fifteen” and all that sort of thing. Phelps?’ said Gally, his brow wrinkling. Austin Phelps? There’s something about him I’m trying to remember, something apart from tennis. Somebody was mentioning him to me only a day or two ago in some connection. Was he divorced recently? Did he plunge into the Thames to save a drowning child? Or win a by-election in the Conservative interest? Or get arrested for drunk driving? Maddening how these things slip from one’s mind. Phelps? Phelps? Austin Phelps? Ah, perhaps you can tell me, Sam.’
On Sam’s face, as he came into the room, there had been the purposeful look of a man about to converse with the girl he loves. It faded as he saw Gally. He was very fond of that deplorable character, but there are times when the best of friends are superfluous.
‘Tell you what?’
‘All you know about a man called Austin Phelps.’
‘He plays tennis.’
‘I am aware of that. But what is there about him that gives me the idea that he is somehow significant? Has he a side line of any sort?’
‘I don’t believe so. Just keeps on playing tennis as far as I …
Oh, I know what’s in your mind. The Drones Club sweep. Don’t you remember I told you he was the second favourite? Tipton Plimsoll and he were running neck and neck for a while, but he had some trouble with his girl and the engagement was broken off. Luckily for me.’
‘Good God!’ said Gally, his monocle parting from its moorings, and simultaneously there proceeded from Sandy a cry or scream or wail similar in tone and volume to that of a stepped on cat, and Sam soared some six inches in the direction of the ceiling. That cry or scream or wail or whatever it was had affected him much as if some playful hand had given him a hotfoot. Returning to terra firma, he touched the top of his head to make sure it was still there and stood gaping.
‘W — ?‘ he said. He had intended to say, ‘What’s the matter?’ but the sentence refused to shape itself.
Gally looked at Sandy. Sandy looked at Gally.
‘Shall I tell him, or will you?’
‘I’ll tell him,’ said Sandy. ‘I’m afraid you’re going to get a shock, darling.’
Sam braced himself to receive it. He had been at Blandings Castle only a short while, but it had been long enough to enable him to know that anyone enjoying its hospitality must expect to get shocks. A few possibilities flitted through his mind. The house was on fire? Empress of Blandings had taken to the bottle again? Augustus Whipple was a pleasant visitor? Constable Evans had arrived with a search warrant? There was a wide area of speculation, and he was prepared for bad news in any form.
In any form, that is to say, except the one in which it came.
Austin Phelps is married,’ said Sandy, and it was as though he had been playing for the Possibles in that England trial game and one of the Probables had hurled himself on some particularly tender portion of his anatomy. He tottered and might have f
allen had he not clutched at Gally, who said ‘Ouch!’ and disengaged himself.
‘It can’t be helped,’ said Sandy. ‘It’s just one of those things. You mustn’t take it too hard, angel.’
Sam, as he looked at her, felt his heart swell. He was conscious of a sudden increase of a love which had always been substantial. What a helpmeet, he was saying to himself, what a life partner. Not a word of reproach had she said for his folly in refusing the syndicate’s offer. Was there another woman in the world’s history who would not have touched on that at least briefly? Would Helen of Troy in similar circumstances have been able to restrain herself? Would Cleopatra? Would Queen Victoria? He very much doubted it, and advancing on her he took her in his arms and kissed her reverently. It was some time before either of them became aware that Gally was speaking.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Sam, feeling that an apology was due. ‘I missed that. You were saying —?‘
Gally, momentarily shaken out of his customary calm, was himself again. His monocle was back in its place, and he was once more the Galahad Threepwood whom years of membership in the old Pelican Club had trained to resilience.
‘I was expressing my contrition for having allowed this wallop to ruffle me,’ he said. ‘Twas but a passing weakness. I can now think clearly again. Obviously there is only one thing to be done. Our course is plain. We approach Clarence. How much money were you telling me you had managed to save? Two hundred pounds, was it not? And you require seven. Right. Clarence shall make up the deficit.’
If somebody had told Sam that he was looking like a startled sheep, he would probably have been offended. Nevertheless, that was how he was looking, for he was wondering if he could have heard aright. He had still to learn — what the female members of this man’s family had discovered in their nursery days — that there were few things of which Galahad Threepwood was not capable.
‘You’re going to try to touch Lord Emsworth?’ he gasped.
Gally frowned.
‘I dislike that word “try”. It suggests a lack of confidence in my powers.
‘But you can’t ask him to lend a stranger like me five hundred pounds!’
‘You are perfectly right. I shall make it a thousand. You will need a margin. One always does when one is doing up a house. No sense in trying to run the thing on too slender a budget. And don’t forget that you are not a stranger. You are the author of the book which has been his constant companion for years. He loves you like a son.
Sam remained unconvinced. He had always had a sturdy distaste for being a borrower.
‘I don’t like the idea of cadging money from Lord Emsworth.’
‘I’ll do the cadging. No need for you to appear in the negotiations at all.’
‘I still don’t like it. Do you, Sandy?’
‘Yes,’ said Sandy simply.
‘Of course she does,’ said Gally. ‘She’s got sense. She knows that when you want a thousand quid, you can’t be finicky, you have to go to the man who’s got a thousand quid, no matter what your scruples. And, dash it, my dear fellow, it isn’t as if we are asking Clarence to make you a birthday present of this paltry little sum. You’ll be able to pay him back when you sell the house. But I think I know what’s really bothering you. You’re thinking that being the author of Put Me Among The Pigs isn’t quite enough to sway him, that something else is needed to give him that extra push which will send him racing for his fountain pen and cheque book, and possibly you’re right. Anyway, it’s best to be on the safe side. See you later,’ said Gally, and with the impulsiveness which was so characteristic of him he dashed briskly from the room.
It was some moments before Sam spoke. When he did, it was in a low, rather trembling voice that showed that life in Blandings Castle had begun to take its toll of him.
‘Sandy!’
‘Right here, my king.
‘Have you known Gally long?’
‘Quite a time.’
‘Has he always been as jumpy as this?’
‘More or less.’
‘Where do you think he’s gone?’
‘Who can say? I should imagine he had a sudden inspiration of some kind. His sudden inspirations always make him quick on his feet.’
‘Well, I wish they wouldn’t. He made me bite my tongue.
‘Of course, there’s another angle.’
‘What’s that?’
‘He may just have thought we would like to be alone together for a while.’
‘And how right he was,’ said Sam, instantly forgetting his troubles and problems.
It was a quarter of an hour before Gally returned. There was always something about him that reminded those with whom he mixed of a wire-haired terrier. He was looking now like a wire-haired terrier which after days of fruitless searching for a buried bone has at last managed to locate it. He had the same air of quiet triumph.
‘Sorry to keep you waiting,’ he said.
‘Quite all right,’ said Sandy. ‘We found lots to do.’ ‘You billed?’
And cooed. Shall I tell you something, Gally? Sam’s a lamb.’
‘I dare say, but we need not dwell on that now. What concerns us at the moment is the lurking-in-sheds side of him.’
Sam winced.
‘I would rather you didn’t mention that word “shed” in my presence,’ he said. ‘It does something to me.
And how do sheds enter into it?’ said Sandy ‘What, if anything, are you talking about?’
‘I’ll tell you. You are probably wondering why I left you so abruptly. I went to find that blot on the body politic Huxley Winkworth.’
‘What on earth for?’
‘I found him in the morning—room. He was cataloguing his collection of lepidoptera, and we had a long talk.’
About lepidoptera?’
About letting the Empress out of her sty. You don’t know it, but it is the young thug’s dearest wish to do this and see what happens. Several times he has attempted it, but on each occasion he was foiled by the vigilance of Monica Simmons. Staunch and true, steadfast at her post, she was always there to baffle him.’
‘Lucky she was. Lord Emsworth would have a stroke if the Empress got loose.’
‘Exactly. It would shake him to his foundations. Well, as I say, I found the child busy among the beetles and I put it to him squarely. Now, I said, was his moment. Monica Simmons had gone to London, the angel with the flaming sword was no longer on the spot and the coast was clear. Grasp this opportunity, I said, for it may never come again. I had little difficulty in selling him the idea. Sandy will tell you that I am a man not without a certain persuasive eloquence. To come to the point, he thought well of the scheme and assured me that he would attend to it directly he had completed his cataloguing. He estimated that it would take him about another twenty minutes. So there you are.
He paused as if waiting for a round of applause, but Sam showed no enthusiasm.
‘You’ll probably take a low view of my intelligence,’ he said, ‘but how do you mean “there we are”?’
Gally stared at him incredulously.
‘Don’t tell me you haven’t got it? I’ll bet Sandy has.’
‘Of course. Sam lurks in the shed, Huxley sneaks up on his nefarious errand, Sam pops out and grabs him. He takes him to Lord Emsworth and tells the tale and Lord Emsworth is so grateful that he can deny him nothing. Then you go to Lord Emsworth and ask him to lend his benefactor a thousand pounds and he says “Capital, capital, capital” and there’s your happy ending. Right, professor?’
‘Right to the last drop. You’d better be getting along, Sam, and taking up your station.’
Sam displayed even less enthusiasm than before.
‘You want me to go and sit in that blasted shed?’
‘You’ve grasped it.’
‘There’s a dead rat there.’
‘It’ll be company for you.’
‘And what’s more I’m not at all certain there aren’t live rats, too. When I was there before, I ke
pt hearing a very sinister rustling. I won’t do it.’
‘Of course you will, my pet,’ said Sandy briskly. ‘Think what it means to us.
‘Yes, I know, but—”
‘Sam! Sammy! Samuel, darling!’
‘It’s all very well to say Sam, Sammy, Samuel darling—’
‘For my sake! The woman you love!’
‘Oh, all right.’
‘That’s my brave little man.
‘But I do it under protest,’ said Sam with dignity.
‘Odd,’ said Gally, as the door closed, ‘that a single visit should have left him so prejudiced against that shed. You wouldn’t think to look at him that he was the neurotic type. But you often find these fellows with tough exteriors strangely sensitive. It was the same with Plug Basham that time Puffy Benger and I put the pig in his bedroom.’
‘Why did you do that, if you don’t mind me asking?’
‘To cheer the poor chap up. For several days he had been brooding on something, I forget what, and Puffy and I talked it over and decided that something must be done to take him out of himself He needs fresh interests, I said to Puffy. So we coated a pig liberally with phosphorus and left it at his bedside at about two in the morning. We then beat the gong. The results were excellent. It roused him from his despondency in a flash and gave him all the fresh interests he could do with. But the point I’m making is that it was years after that before he could see a pig without a shudder. He took the same jaundiced view of them that Sam has taken of potting sheds. And Plug was an even tougher specimen than Sam. Curious. Oh, hullo, Beach.’
The butler had loomed up in the doorway, a portentousness in his manner that showed that this was no idle social call.
‘Were you looking for me?’
‘No, sir. For Mr Whipple.’
‘Why do you want Mr Whipple?’
‘Constable Evans and Constable Morgan are anxious to interview him, Mr Galahad. They are waiting in my pantry.’
It was a sensational announcement, and it caused Sandy, the weaker vessel, to give a gasp that reminded Gally of the death rattle of an expiring soda syphon. Gally himself, true to the traditions of the old Pelican Club, remained calm.
Galahad at Blandings Page 17
