“Here, you!” said the Efficient Baxter excitedly.
“Sir?”
“The shoes!”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I wish to see the servants’ shoes. Where are they?”
“I expect they have them on, sir.”
“Yesterday’s shoes, man—yesterday’s shoes. Where are they?”
“Where are the shoes of yesteryear?” murmured Ashe. “I should say at a venture, sir, that they would be in a large basket somewhere near the kitchen. Our genial knife-and-shoe boy collects them, I believe, at early dawn.”
“Would they have been cleaned yet?”
“If I know the lad, sir—no.”
“Go and bring that basket to me. Bring it to me in this room.”
* * *
The room to which he referred was none other than the private sanctum of Mr. Beach, the butler, the door of which, standing open, showed it to be empty. It was not Baxter’s plan, excited as he was, to risk being discovered sifting shoes in the middle of a passage in the servants’ quarters.
Ashe’s brain was working rapidly as he made for the shoe cupboard, that little den of darkness and smells, where Billy, the knife-and-shoe boy, better known in the circle in which he moved as Young Bonehead, pursued his menial tasks. What exactly was at the back of the Efficient Baxter’s mind prompting these maneuvers he did not know; but that there was something he was certain.
He had not yet seen Joan this morning, and he did not know whether or not she had carried out her resolve of attempting to steal the scarab on the previous night; but this activity and mystery on the part of their enemy must have some sinister significance. He gathered up the shoe basket thoughtfully. He staggered back with it and dumped it down on the floor of Mr. Beach’s room. The Efficient Baxter stooped eagerly over it. Ashe, leaning against the wall, straightened the creases in his clothes and flicked disgustedly at an inky spot which the journey had transferred from the basket to his coat.
“We have here, sir,” he said, “a fair selection of our various foot coverings.”
“You did not drop any on your way?”
“Not one, sir.”
The Efficient Baxter uttered a grunt of satisfaction and bent once more to his task. Shoes flew about the room. Baxter knelt on the floor beside the basket, and dug like a terrier at a rat hole. At last he made a find and with an exclamation of triumph rose to his feet. In his hand he held a shoe.
“Put those back,” he said.
Ashe began to pick up the scattered footgear.
“That’s the lot, sir,” he said, rising.
“Now come with me. Leave the basket there. You can carry it back when you return.”
“Shall I put back that shoe, sir?”
“Certainly not. I shall take this one with me.”
“Shall I carry it for you, sir?”
Baxter reflected.
“Yes. I think that would be best.”
Trouble had shaken his nerve. He was not certain that there might not be others besides Lord Emsworth in the garden; and it occurred to him that, especially after his reputation for eccentric conduct had been so firmly established by his misfortunes that night in the hall, it might cause comment should he appear before them carrying a shoe.
Ashe took the shoe and, doing so, understood what before had puzzled him. Across the toe was a broad splash of red paint. Though he had nothing else to go on, he saw all. The shoe he held was a female shoe. His own researches in the museum had made him aware of the presence there of red paint. It was not difficult to build up on these data a pretty accurate estimate of the position of affairs.
“Come with me,” said Baxter.
He left the room. Ashe followed him.
In the garden Lord Emsworth, garden fork in hand, was dealing summarily with a green young weed that had incautiously shown its head in the middle of a flower bed. He listened to Baxter’s statement with more interest than he usually showed in anybody’s statements. He resented the loss of the scarab, not so much on account of its intrinsic worth as because it had been the gift of his friend Mr. Peters.
“Indeed!” he said, when Baxter had finished. “Really? Dear me! It certainly seems—It is extremely suggestive. You are certain there was red paint on this shoe?”
“I have it with me. I brought it on purpose to show you.” He looked at Ashe, who stood in close attendance. “The shoe!”
Lord Emsworth polished his glasses and bent over the exhibit.
“Ah!” he said. “Now let me look at—This, you say, is the—Just so; just so! Just—My dear Baxter, it may be that I have not examined this shoe with sufficient care, but—Can you point out to me exactly where this paint is that you speak of?”
The Efficient Baxter stood staring at the shoe with wild, fixed stare. Of any suspicion of paint, red or otherwise, it was absolutely and entirely innocent!
The shoe became the center of attraction, the center of all eyes. The Efficient Baxter fixed it with the piercing glare of one who feels that his brain is tottering. Lord Emsworth looked at it with a mildly puzzled expression. Ashe Marson examined it with a sort of affectionate interest, as though he were waiting for it to do a trick of some kind. Baxter was the first to break the silence.
“There was paint on this shoe,” he said vehemently. “I tell you there was a splash of red paint across the toe. This man here will bear me out in this. You saw paint on this shoe?”
“Paint, sir?”
“What! Do you mean to tell me you did not see it?”
“No, sir; there was no paint on this shoe.”
“This is ridiculous. I saw it with my own eyes. It was a broad splash right across the toe.”
Lord Emsworth interposed.
“You must have made a mistake, my dear Baxter. There is certainly no trace of paint on this shoe. These momentary optical delusions are, I fancy, not uncommon. Any doctor will tell you—”
“I had an aunt, your lordship,” said Ashe chattily, “who was remarkably subject—”
“It is absurd! I cannot have been mistaken,” said Baxter. “I am positively certain the toe of this shoe was red when I found it.”
“It is quite black now, my dear Baxter.”
“A sort of chameleon shoe,” murmured Ashe.
The goaded secretary turned on him.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing, sir.”
Baxter’s old suspicion of this smooth young man came surging back to him.
“I strongly suspect you of having had something to do with this.”
“Really, Baxter,” said the earl, “that is surely the least probable of solutions. This young man could hardly have cleaned the shoe on his way from the house. A few days ago, when painting in the museum, I inadvertently splashed some paint on my own shoe. I can assure you it does not brush off. It needs a very systematic cleaning before all traces are removed.”
“Exactly, your lordship,” said Ashe. “My theory, if I may—”
“Yes?”
“My theory, your lordship, is that Mr. Baxter was deceived by the light-and-shade effects on the toe of the shoe. The morning sun, streaming in through the window, must have shone on the shoe in such a manner as to give it a momentary and fictitious aspect of redness. If Mr. Baxter recollects, he did not look long at the shoe. The picture on the retina of the eye consequently had not time to fade. I myself remember thinking at the moment that the shoe appeared to have a certain reddish tint. The mistake—”
“Bah!” said Baxter shortly.
Lord Emsworth, now thoroughly bored with the whole affair and desiring nothing more than to be left alone with his weeds and his garden fork, put in his word. Baxter, he felt, was curiously irritating these days. He always seemed to be bobbing up. The Earl of Emsworth was conscious of a strong desire to be free from his secretary’s company. He was efficient, yes—invaluable indeed—he did not know what he should do without Baxter; but there was no denying that his company tended after a wh
ile to become a trifle tedious. He took a fresh grip on his garden fork and shifted it about in the air as a hint that the interview had lasted long enough.
“It seems to me, my dear fellow,” he said, “the only explanation that will square with the facts. A shoe that is really smeared with red paint does not become black of itself in the course of a few minutes.”
“You are very right, your lordship,” said Ashe approvingly. “May I go now, your lordship?”
“Certainly—certainly; by all means.”
“Shall I take the shoe with me, your lordship?”
“If you do not want it, Baxter.”
The secretary passed the fraudulent piece of evidence to Ashe without a word; and the latter, having included both gentlemen in a kindly smile, left the garden.
On returning to the butler’s room, Ashe’s first act was to remove a shoe from the top of the pile in the basket. He was about to leave the room with it, when the sound of footsteps in the passage outside halted him.
“I do not in the least understand why you wish me to come here, my dear Baxter,” said a voice, “and you are completely spoiling my morning, but—”
For a moment Ashe was at a loss. It was a crisis that called for swift action, and it was a little hard to know exactly what to do. It had been his intention to carry the paint-splashed shoe back to his own room, there to clean it at his leisure; but it appeared that his strategic line of retreat was blocked. Plainly, the possibility—nay, the certainty—that Ashe had substituted another shoe for the one with the incriminating splash of paint on it had occurred to the Efficient Baxter almost directly the former had left the garden.
The window was open. Ashe looked out. There were bushes below. It was a makeshift policy, and one which did not commend itself to him as the ideal method, but it seemed the only thing to be done, for already the footsteps had reached the door. He threw the shoe out of window, and it sank beneath the friendly surface of the long grass round a wisteria bush.
Ashe turned, relieved, and the next moment the door opened and Baxter walked in, accompanied—with obvious reluctance—by his bored employer.
Baxter was brisk and peremptory.
“I wish to look at those shoes again,” he said coldly.
“Certainly, sir,” said Ashe.
“I can manage without your assistance,” said Baxter.
“Very good, sir.”
Leaning against the wall, Ashe watched him with silent interest, as he burrowed among the contents of the basket, like a terrier digging for rats. The Earl of Emsworth took no notice of the proceedings. He yawned plaintively, and pottered about the room. He was one of Nature’s potterers.
The scrutiny of the man whom he had now placed definitely as a malefactor irritated Baxter. Ashe was looking at him in an insufferably tolerant manner, as if he were an indulgent father brooding over his infant son while engaged in some childish frolic. He lodged a protest.
“Don’t stand there staring at me!”
“I was interested in what you were doing, sir.”
“Never mind! Don’t stare at me in that idiotic way.”
“May I read a book, sir?”
“Yes, read if you like.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Ashe took a volume from the butler’s slenderly stocked shelf. The shoe-expert resumed his investigations in the basket. He went through it twice, but each time without success. After the second search he stood up and looked wildly about the room. He was as certain as he could be of anything that the missing piece of evidence was somewhere within those four walls. There was very little cover in the room, even for so small a fugitive as a shoe. He raised the tablecloth and peered beneath the table.
“Are you looking for Mr. Beach, sir?” said Ashe. “I think he has gone to church.”
Baxter, pink with his exertions, fastened a baleful glance upon him.
“You had better be careful,” he said.
At this point the Earl of Emsworth, having done all the pottering possible in the restricted area, yawned like an alligator.
“Now, my dear Baxter—” he began querulously.
Baxter was not listening. He was on the trail. He had caught sight of a small closet in the wall, next to the mantelpiece, and it had stimulated him.
“What is in this closet?”
“That closet, sir?”
“Yes, this closet.” He rapped the door irritably.
“I could not say, sir. Mr. Beach, to whom the closet belongs, possibly keeps a few odd trifles there. A ball of string, perhaps. Maybe an old pipe or something of that kind. Probably nothing of value or interest.”
“Open it.”
“It appears to be locked, sir—”
“Unlock it.”
“But where is the key?”
Baxter thought for a moment.
“Lord Emsworth,” he said, “I have my reasons for thinking that this man is deliberately keeping the contents of this closet from me. I am convinced that the shoe is in there. Have I your leave to break open the door?”
The earl looked a little dazed, as if he were unequal to the intellectual pressure of the conversation.
“Now, my dear Baxter,” said the earl impatiently, “please tell me once again why you have brought me in here. I cannot make head or tail of what you have been saying. Apparently you accuse this young man of keeping his shoes in a closet. Why should you suspect him of keeping his shoes in a closet? And if he wishes to do so, why on earth should not he keep his shoes in a closet? This is a free country.”
“Exactly, your lordship,” said Ashe approvingly. “You have touched the spot.”
“It all has to do with the theft of your scarab, Lord Emsworth. Somebody got into the museum and stole the scarab.”
“Ah, yes; ah, yes—so they did. I remember now. You told me. Bad business that, my dear Baxter. Mr. Peters gave me that scarab. He will be most deucedly annoyed if it’s lost. Yes, indeed.”
“Whoever stole it upset the can of red paint and stepped in it.”
“Devilish careless of them. It must have made the dickens of a mess. Why don’t people look where they are walking?”
“I suspect this man of shielding the criminal by hiding her shoe in this closet.”
“Oh, it’s not his own shoes that this young man keeps in closets?”
“It is a woman’s shoe, Lord Emsworth.”
“The deuce it is! Then it was a woman who stole the scarab? Is that the way you figure it out? Bless my soul, Baxter, one wonders what women are coming to nowadays. It’s all this movement, I suppose. The Vote, and all that—eh? I recollect having a chat with the Marquis of Petersfield some time ago. He is in the Cabinet, and he tells me it is perfectly infernal the way these women carry on. He said sometimes it got to such a pitch, with them waving banners and presenting petitions, and throwing flour and things at a fellow, that if he saw his own mother coming toward him, with a hand behind her back, he would run like a rabbit. Told me so himself.”
“So,” said the Efficient Baxter, cutting in on the flow of speech, “what I wish to do is to break open this closet.”
“Eh? Why?”
“To get the shoe.”
“The shoe? … Ah, yes, I recollect now. You were telling me.”
“If your lordship has no objection.”
“Objection, my dear fellow? None in the world. Why should I have any objection? Let me see! What is it you wish to do?”
“This,” said Baxter shortly.
He seized the poker from the fireplace and delivered two rapid blows on the closet door. The wood was splintered. A third blow smashed the flimsy lock. The closet, with any skeletons it might contain, was open for all to view.
It contained a corkscrew, a box of matches, a paper-covered copy of a book entitled “Mary, the Beautiful Mill-Hand,” a bottle of embrocation, a spool of cotton, two pencil-stubs, and other useful and entertaining objects. It contained, in fact, almost everything except a paint-splashed shoe, and Baxter ga
zed at the collection in dumb disappointment.
“Are you satisfied now, my dear Baxter,” said the earl, “or is there any more furniture that you would like to break? You know, this furniture breaking is becoming a positive craze with you, my dear fellow. You ought to fight against it. The night before last, I don’t know how many tables broken in the hall; and now this closet. You will ruin me. No purse can stand the constant drain.”
Baxter did not reply. He was still trying to rally from the blow. A chance remark of Lord Emsworth’s set him off on the trail once more. Lord Emsworth, having said his say, had dismissed the affair from his mind and begun to potter again. The course of his pottering had brought him to the fireplace, where a little pile of soot on the fender caught his eye. He bent down to inspect it.
“Dear me!” he said. “I must remember to tell Beach to have his chimney swept. It seems to need it badly.”
No trumpet-call ever acted more instantaneously on old war-horse than this simple remark on the Efficient Baxter. He was still convinced that Ashe had hidden the shoe somewhere in the room, and, now that the closet had proved an alibi, the chimney was the only spot that remained unsearched. He dived forward with a rush, nearly knocking Lord Emsworth off his feet, and thrust an arm up into the unknown. The startled peer, having recovered his balance, met Ashe’s respectfully pitying gaze.
“We must humor him,” said the gaze, more plainly than speech.
Baxter continued to grope. The chimney was a roomy chimney, and needed careful examination. He wriggled his hand about clutchingly. From time to time soot fell in gentle showers.
“My dear Baxter!”
Baxter was baffled. He withdrew his hand from the chimney, and straightened himself. He brushed a bead of perspiration from his face with the back of his hand. Unfortunately, he used the sooty hand, and the result was too much for Lord Emsworth’s politeness. He burst into a series of pleased chuckles.
Blanding Castle Omnibus Page 19
