P G Wodehouse - Piccadilly Jim

by Piccadilly Jim

  "Pull yourself together, Skinner! You can't monkey about with the employer's library like that." Jimmy restored the books to their places. "Simmer down and tell me more. Postpone the gossip from the diamond. What plans have you made? Have you considered the future at all? You aren't going to hold down this buttling job forever, are you? When do you go back to London?"

  The light died out of Mr. Crocker's face.

  "I guess I shall have to go back some time. But how can I yet, with the Giants leading the league like this?"

  "But did you just light out without saying anything?"

  "I left a note for your step-mother telling her I had gone to America for a vacation. Jimmy, I hate to think what she's going to do to me when she gets me back!"

  "Assert yourself, dad! Tell her that woman's place is the home and man's the ball-park! Be firm!"

  Mr. Crocker shook his head dubiously.

  "It's all very well to talk that way when you're three thousand miles from home, but you know as well as I do, Jim, that your step-mother, though she's a delightful woman, isn't the sort you can assert yourself with. Look at this sister of hers here. I guess you haven't been in the house long enough to have noticed, but she's very like Eugenia in some ways. She's the boss all right, and old Pett does just what he's told to. I guess it's the same with me, Jim. There's a certain type of man that's just born to have it put over on him by a certain type of woman. I'm that sort of man and your stepmother's that sort of woman. No, I guess I'm going to get mine all right, and the only thing to do is to keep it from stopping me having a good time now."

  There was truth in what he said, and Jimmy recognised it. He changed the subject.

  "Well, never mind that. There's no sense in worrying oneself about the future. Tell me, dad, where did you get all the 'dinner-is-served, madam' stuff? How did you ever learn to be a butler?"

  "Bayliss taught me back in London. And, of course, I've played butlers when I was on the stage."

  Jimmy did not speak for a moment.

  "Did you ever play a kidnapper, dad?" he asked at length.

  "Sure. I was Chicago Ed. in a crook play called 'This Way Out.' Why, surely you saw me in that? I got some good notices."

  Jimmy nodded.

  "Of course. I knew I'd seen you play that sort of part some time. You came on during the dark scene and--"

  "--switched on the lights and--"

  "--covered the bunch with your gun while they were still blinking! You were great in that part, dad."

  "It was a good part," said Mr. Crocker modestly. "It had fat. I'd like to have a chance to play a kidnapper again. There's a lot of pep to kidnappers."

  "You -shall- play one again," said Jimmy. "I am putting on a little sketch with a kidnapper as the star part."

  "Eh? A sketch? You, Jim? Where?"

  "Here. In this house. It is entitled 'Kidnapping Ogden' and opens to-night."

  Mr. Crocker looked at his only son in concern. Jimmy appeared to him to be rambling.

  "Amateur theatricals?" he hazarded.

  "In the sense that there is no pay for performing, yes. Dad, you know that kid Ogden upstairs? Well, it's quite simple. I want you to kidnap him for me."

  Mr. Crocker sat down heavily. He shook his head.

  "I don't follow all this."

  "Of course not. I haven't begun to explain. Dad, in your rambles through this joint you've noticed a girl with glorious red-gold hair, I imagine?"

  "Ann Chester?"

  "Ann Chester. I'm going to marry her."

  "Jimmy!"

  "But she doesn't know it yet. Now, follow me carefully, dad. Five years ago Ann Chester wrote a book of poems. It's on that desk there. You were using it a moment back as second-base or something. Now, I was working at that time on the -Chronicle-. I wrote a skit on those poems for the Sunday paper. Do you begin to follow the plot?"

  "She's got it in for you? She's sore?"

  "Exactly. Get that firmly fixed in your mind, because it's the source from which all the rest of the story springs."

  Mr. Crocker interrupted.

  "But I don't understand. You say she's sore at you. Well, how is it that you came in together looking as if you were good friends when I let you in this morning?"

  "I was waiting for you to ask that. The explanation is that she doesn't know that I am Jimmy Crocker."

  "But you came here saying that you were Jimmy Crocker."

  "Quite right. And that is where the plot thickens. I made Ann's acquaintance first in London and then on the boat. I had found out that Jimmy Crocker was the man she hated most in the world, so I took another name. I called myself Bayliss."

  "Bayliss!"

  "I had to think of something quick, because the clerk at the shipping office was waiting to fill in my ticket. I had just been talking to Bayliss on the phone and his was the only name that came into my mind. You know how it is when you try to think of a name suddenly. Now mark the sequel. Old Bayliss came to see me off at Paddington. Ann was there and saw me. She said 'Good evening, Mr. Bayliss' or something, and naturally old Bayliss replied 'What ho!' or words to that effect. The only way to handle the situation was to introduce him as my father. I did so. Ann, therefore, thinks that I am a young man named Bayliss who has come over to America to make his fortune. We now come to the third reel. I met Ann by chance at the Knickerbocker and took her to lunch. While we were lunching, that confirmed congenital idiot, Reggie Bartling, who happened to have come over to America as well, came up and called me by my name. I knew that, if Ann discovered who I really was, she would have nothing more to do with me, so I gave Reggie the haughty stare and told him that he had made a mistake. He ambled away--and possibly committed suicide in his anguish at having made such a bloomer--leaving Ann discussing with me the extraordinary coincidence of my being Jimmy Crocker's double. Do you follow the story of my life so far?"

  Mr. Crocker, who had been listening with wrinkled brow and other signs of rapt attention, nodded.

  "I understand all that. But how did you come to get into this house?"

  "That is reel four. I am getting to that. It seems that Ann, who is the sweetest girl on earth and always on the lookout to do some one a kindness, had decided, in the interests of the boy's future, to remove young Ogden Ford from his present sphere, where he is being spoiled and ruined, and send him down to a man on Long Island who would keep him for awhile and instil the first principles of decency into him. Her accomplice in this admirable scheme was Jerry Mitchell."

  "Jerry Mitchell!"

  "Who, as you know, got fired yesterday. Jerry was to have done the rough work of the job. But, being fired, he was no longer available. I, therefore, offered to take his place. So here I am."

  "You're going to kidnap that boy?"

  "No. You are."

  "Me!"

  "Precisely. You are going to play a benefit performance of your world-famed success, Chicago Ed. Let me explain further. Owing to circumstances which I need not go into, Ogden has found out that I am really Jimmy Crocker, so he refuses to have anything more to do with me. I had deceived him into believing that I was a professional kidnapper, and he came to me and offered to let me kidnap him if I would go fifty-fifty with him in the ransom!"

  "Gosh!"

  "Yes, he's an intelligent child, full of that sort of bright ideas. Well, now he has found that I am not all his fancy painted me, he wouldn't come away with me; and I want you to understudy me while the going is good. In the fifth reel, which will be released to-night after the household has retired to rest, you will be featured. It's got to be tonight, because it has just occurred to me that Ogden, knowing that Lord Wisbeach is a crook, may go to him with the same proposal that he made to me."

  "Lord Wisbeach a crook!"

  "Of the worst description. He is here to steal that explosive stuff of Willie Partridge's. But as I have blocked that play, he may turn his attention to Ogden."

  "But, Jimmy, if that fellow is a crook--how do you know he is?"

&n
bsp; "He told me so himself."

  "Well, then, why don't you expose him?"

  "Because in order to do so, Skinner my man, I should have to explain that I was really Jimmy Crocker, and the time is not yet ripe for that. To my thinking, the time will not be ripe till you have got safely away with Ogden Ford. I can then go to Ann and say 'I may have played you a rotten trick in the past, but I have done you a good turn now, so let's forget the past!' So you see that everything now depends on you, dad. I'm not asking you to do anything difficult. I'll go round to the boarding-house now and tell Jerry Mitchell about what we have arranged, and have him waiting outside here in a car. Then all you will have to do is to go to Ogden, play a short scene as Chicago Ed., escort him to the car, and then go back to bed and have a good sleep. Once Ogden thinks you are a professional kidnapper, you won't have any difficulty at all. Get it into your head that he wants to be kidnapped. Surely you can tackle this light and attractive job? Why, it will be a treat for you to do a bit of character acting once more!"

  Jimmy had struck the right note. His father's eyes began to gleam with excitement. The scent of the footlights seemed to dilate his nostrils.

  "I was always good at that rough-neck stuff," he murmured meditatively. "I used to eat it!"

  "Exactly," said Jimmy. "Look at it in the right way, and I am doing you a kindness in giving you this chance."

  Mr. Crocker rubbed his cheek with his forefinger.

  "You'd want me to make up for the part?" he asked wistfully.

  "Of course!"

  "You want me to do it to-night?"

  "At about two in the morning, I thought."

  "I'll do it, Jim!"

  Jimmy grasped his hand.

  "I knew I could rely on you, dad."

  Mr. Crocker was following a train of thought.

  "Dark wig... blue chin... heavy eyebrows... I guess I can't do better than my old Chicago Ed. make-up. Say, Jimmy, how am I to get to the kid?"

  "That'll be all right. You can stay in my room till the time comes to go to him. Use it as a dressing-room."

  "How am I to get him out of the house?"

  "Through this room. I'll tell Jerry to wait out on the side-street with the car from two o'clock on."

  Mr. Crocker considered these arrangements.

  "That seems to be about all," he said.

  "I don't think there's anything else."

  "I'll slip downtown and buy the props."

  "I'll go and tell Jerry."

  A thought struck Mr. Crocker.

  "You'd better tell Jerry to make up, too. He doesn't want the kid recognising him and squealing on him later."

  Jimmy was lost in admiration of his father's resource.

  "You think of everything, dad! That wouldn't have occurred to me. You certainly do take to Crime in the most wonderful way. It seems to come naturally to you!"

  Mr. Crocker smirked modestly.

  CHAPTER XX

  CELESTINE IMPARTS INFORMATION

  Plit is only as strong as its weakest link. The best-laid schemes of mice and men gang agley if one of the mice is a mental defective or if one of the men is a Jerry Mitchell....

  Celestine, Mrs. Pett's maid--she who was really Maggie O'Toole and whom Jerry loved with a strength which deprived him of even that small amount of intelligence which had been bestowed upon him by Nature--came into the house-keeper's room at about ten o'clock that night. The domestic staff had gone in a body to the moving-pictures, and the only occupant of the room was the new parlourmaid, who was sitting in a hard chair, reading Schopenhauer.

  Celestine's face was flushed, her dark hair was ruffled, and her eyes were shining. She breathed a little quickly, and her left hand was out of sight behind her back. She eyed the new parlour-maid doubtfully for a moment. The latter was a woman of somewhat unencouraging exterior, not the kind that invites confidences. But Celestine had confidences to bestow, and the exodus to the movies had left her in a position where she could not pick and choose. She was faced with the alternative of locking her secret in her palpitating bosom or of revealing it to this one auditor. The choice was one which no impulsive damsel in like circumstances would have hesitated to make.

  "Say!" said Celestine.

  A face rose reluctantly from behind Schopenhauer. A gleaming eye met Celestine's. A second eye no less gleaming glared at the ceiling.

  "Say, I just been talking to my feller outside," said Celestine with a coy simper. "Say, he's a grand man!"

  A snort of uncompromising disapproval proceeded from the thin-lipped mouth beneath the eyes. But Celestine was too full of her news to be discouraged.

  "I'm strong fer Jer!" she said.

  "Huh?" said the student of Schopenhauer.

  "Jerry Mitchell, you know. You ain't never met him, have you? Say, he's a grand man!"

  For the first time she had the other's undivided attention. The new parlour-maid placed her book upon the table.

  "Uh?" she said.

  Celestine could hold back her dramatic surprise no longer. Her concealed left hand flashed into view. On the third finger glittered a ring. She gazed at it with awed affection.

  "Ain't it a beaut!"

  She contemplated its sparkling perfection for a moment in rapturous silence.

  "Say, you could have knocked me down with a feather!" she resumed. "He telephones me awhile ago and says to be outside the back door at ten to-night, because he'd something he wanted to tell me. Of course he couldn't come in and tell it me here, because he'd been fired and everything. So I goes out, and there he is. 'Hello, kid!' he says to me. 'Fresh!' I says to him. 'Say, I got something to be fresh about!' he says to me. And then he reaches into his jeans and hauls out the sparkler. 'What's that?' I says to him. 'It's an engagement ring,' he says to me. 'For you, if you'll wear it!' I came over so weak, I could have fell! And the next thing I know he's got it on my finger and--" Celestine broke off modestly. "Say, ain't it a beaut, honest!" She gave herself over to contemplation once more. "He says to me how he's on Easy Street now, or will be pretty soon. I says to him 'Have you got a job, then?' He says to me 'Now, I ain't got a job, but I'm going to pull off a stunt to-night that's going to mean enough to me to start that health-farm I've told you about.' Say, he's always had a line of talk about starting a health-farm down on Long Island, he knowing all about training and health and everything through having been one of them fighters. I asks him what the stunt is, but he won't tell me yet. He says he'll tell me after we're married, but he says it's sure-fire and he's going to buy the license tomorrow."

  She paused for comment and congratulations, eyeing her companion expectantly.

  "Huh!" said the new parlour-maid briefly, and resumed her Schopenhauer. Decidedly hers was not a winning personality.

  "Ain't it a beaut?" demanded Celestine, damped.

  The new parlour-maid uttered a curious sound at the back of her throat.

  "He's a beaut!" she said cryptically.

  She added another remark in a lower tone, too low for Celestine's ears. It could hardly have been that, but it sounded to Celestine like:

  "I'll fix 'm!"

  CHAPTER XXI

  CHICAGO ED.

  Riverside Drive slept. The moon shone on darkened windows and deserted sidewalks. It was past one o'clock in the morning. The wicked Forties were still ablaze with light and noisy foxtrots; but in the virtuous Hundreds, where Mr. Pett's house stood, respectable slumber reigned. Only the occasional drone of a passing automobile broke the silence, or the love-sick cry of some feline Romeo patrolling a wall-top.

  Jimmy was awake. He was sitting on the edge of his bed watching his father put the finishing touches to his make-up, which was of a shaggy and intimidating nature. The elder Crocker had conceived the outward aspect of Chicago Ed., King of the Kidnappers, on broad and impressive lines, and one glance would have been enough to tell the sagacious observer that here was no white-souled comrade for a nocturnal saunter down lonely lanes and out-of-the-way alleys.

 
Mr. Crocker seemed to feel this himself.

  "The only trouble is, Jim," he said, peering at himself in the glass, "shan't I scare the boy to death directly he sees me? Oughtn't I to give him some sort of warning?"

  "How? Do you suggest sending him a formal note?"

  Mr. Crocker surveyed his repellent features doubtfully.

  "It's a good deal to spring on a kid at one in the morning," he said. "Suppose he has a fit!"

  "He's far more likely to give you one. Don't you worry about Ogden, dad. I shouldn't think there was a child alive more equal to handling such a situation."

  There was an empty glass standing on a tray on the dressing-table. Mr. Crocker eyed this sadly.

  "I wish you hadn't thrown that stuff away, Jim. I could have done with it. I'm feeling nervous."

  "Nonsense, dad! You're all right! I had to throw it away. I'm on the wagon now, but how long I should have stayed on with that smiling up at me I don't know. I've made up my mind never to lower myself to the level of the beasts that perish with the demon Rum again, because my future wife has strong views on the subject: but there's no sense in taking chances. Temptation is all very well, but you don't need it on your dressing-table. It was a kindly thought of yours to place it there, dad, but--"

  "Eh? I didn't put it there."

  "I thought that sort of thing came in your department. Isn't it the butler's job to supply drinks to the nobility and gentry? Well, it doesn't matter. It is now distributed over the neighbouring soil, thus removing a powerful temptation from your path. You're better without it." He looked at his watch. "Well, it ought to be all right now." He went to the window. "There's an automobile down there. I suppose it's Jerry. I told him to be outside at one sharp and it's nearly half-past. I think you might be starting, dad. Oh, by the way, you had better tell Ogden that you represent a gentleman of the name of Buck Maginnis. It was Buck who got away with him last time, and a firm friendship seems to-have sprung up between them. There's nothing like coming with a good introduction."