“Landlords and public houses, my dear Watson, are the finest sources of local gossip one could ask for. Mein host over there told me a most entertaining story of George Cyril Wellbeloved, who while celebrating his birthday the evening of the eighteen of this month, managed to get himself arrested by Police-Constable Evans for being drunk and disorderly in this very room. By the damage done to the furniture, I should say very disorderly. He was very properly jugged by the magistrate the next morning for a term of fourteen days without the option of a fine.”
“But what does that have to do with this case, Holmes?”
“It is elementary, my dear Watson. George Cyril Wellbeloved is employed as the pig-man for Lord Emsworth. He has not been at his post for two days. Empress of Blandings has stopped eating. Obviously she misses him.”
“Holmes!”
“She probably misses his afternoon call.”
“His call?”
“He must have had some special call that he used when he wanted her to come to dinner. Behold the advantage of country squire ancestors, Watson. Life in the country, if experienced only during the school holidays, can teach a young boy a wealth of curious and useful information.
“One of the first things you learn on a farm is hog-calling. Pigs are temperamental. Omit to call them, and they’ll starve rather than put on the nosebag. Call them right, and they will follow you to the ends of the earth with their mouths watering.”
“God bless my soul! Fancy that.”
“A fact, I assure you. Calls can even vary by region. A well-bred Yorkshire hog would never respond to the same call as that which brings a future Smithfield ham to their mutual trough.”
I placed a hand to my throbbing forehead.
“But if there is a wide variety, we have no means of knowing which call Wellbeloved…”
“Ah,” said Sherlock Holmes, “But wait. I haven’t told you all. There is a master-word.”
“A what?”
“Most people don’t know it. It is to the pig world what the Masonic grip is to the human. Sufficient to the day is the pig-calling thereof, Watson. Let’s make an early night of it, and go over to the Castle after dinner tomorrow night. The Earl will have returned by then and an interview with him should prove very profitable.”
Having no plans for the next morning, and having discovered already the cultural wasteland that is Market Blandings, we both slept late the next morning. A long luncheon at the Goat and Feathers and a leisurely stroll down the High Street filled our time until dinner. We lingered over the port as long as we could but as the moon appeared over the Shropshire hills I found a cab and we set forth through the dusk to Blandings Castle.
As we pulled up to the courtyard before that picturesque pile, we saw two figures near the parts adjacent to the rear of the castle. I could identify Angela as one and the other as the same amiable old gentleman wearing the same deplorable old slouch hat I had spied on the train platform when we arrived at Market Blandings the day before.
Holmes dismissed the cab and we walked around the building to join them. It was quite a distance and we overheard part of their conversation as we approached.
The old gentleman spoke first.
“I wish you would go in, my dear. The night air might give you a chill.”
“I won’t go in, Uncle Clarence. I came out here to look at the moon and think of Jimmy. What are you doing out here, if it comes to that?”
“I met young Belford in London today and he says Empress of Blandings will not eat until she hears the proper call or cry. He learned that while working on a pig farm in Nebraska for an applejack-voiced patriarch with strong views on work and a good vocabulary. He learned the call from Fred Patzel, the hog-calling champion of the Western States. It has been known to bring pork chops leaping from their plates. Belford very kindly taught it to me, but unfortunately I have forgotten it.”
“Í wonder that you had the nerve to ask Jimmy to teach you pig-calls, considering the way you are treating him.”
“But-”
“Like a leper, or something. And all I can say is that, if you remember this call of his, and it makes the Empress eat, you ought to be ashamed of yourself if you still refuse to let me marry him.”
“My dear,” said Lord Emsworth earnestly, “if through young Belford’s instrumentality Empress of Blandings is induced to take nourishment once more, there is nothing I will refuse him - nothing.”
“Honour bright?”
“I give you my solemn word. It began with the word ‘pig-”
We stepped up to the old gentleman and his niece. Holmes nodded to Angela and addressed the Earl.
“Lord Emsworth, my name is Sherlock Holmes and this is my friend Dr. Watson. I believe I can help you with your current problem.”
The Earl of Emsworth shook our hands in an absent-minded manner, his brain clearly working on something else. “Yes, I can distinctly remember as much as that. Pig - Pig-”
“Excuse me, Lord Emsworth, could the word you are searching for be “PIG - HOO-o-o-ey?”
Lord Emsworth leaped into the air. It was as if an electric shock had been applied to his person. The peace of the summer night was shattered by a triumphant shout.
“PIG - HOO-o-o-o-ey!”
A window opened. A large, bald head appeared. A dignified voice spoke.
“Who is there? Who is making that noise?”
“Beach!” cried Lord Emsworth. “Come out here at once.”
And presently the beautiful night was made still more lovely by the added attraction of the butler’s presence.
“Beach, listen to this. PIG - HOO-o-o-o-ey! Now you do it.”
“What do you want Beach to do it for?” asked Angela.
“Two heads are better than one. If we both learn this pig-call, it will not matter should I forget it again.”
“By Jove, yes! Come on, Beach. Push it over the thorax,” urged the girl eagerly.
The butler had appeared obdurate at the request, but Angela’s pleadings seemed to soften his attitude.
“Very good, your lordship,” he said in a low voice. “I would merely advance the suggestion, your lordship, that we move a few steps farther away from the vicinity of the servants’ hall. If I were to be overheard by any of the lower domestics, it would weaken my position as a disciplinary force.”
Holmes spoke up. “I would suggest, Lord Emsworth, “that the place to do it is outside the Empress’ sty.”
The sty stood some considerable distance from the castle walls, so Lord Emsworth had ample opportunity to rehearse his little company during the journey. By the time we had arranged ourselves against the rails, Angela, Beach, Sherlock Holmes, the Earl of Emsworth and I were letter-perfect.
“Now,” said his lordship.
“PIG - HOO-o-o-o-ey!” we all sang.
Birds shot off their perches in the trees above like rockets. We paused to listen. Inside the Empress’ boudoir there sounded the movement of a heavy body. There was an inquiring grunt. The next moment the sacking that covered the doorway was pushed aside, and the noble animal emerged.
“Now!” said Lord Emsworth again.
“PIG - HOO-o-o-o-ey!”
Empress of Blandings stood motionless, her nose elevated, her ears hanging down, her eyes everywhere but on the trough where, by rights, she should now have been digging in and getting hers. A chill disappointment crept over Lord Emsworth, to be succeeded by a gust of petulant anger.
“I might have known it,” he said bitterly. “Mr. Holmes, you are a scoundrel. You have been playing a trick on me.”
“He wasn’t,” I said indignantly. “Were you, Holmes?”
“It is possible that the passage of years have dulled my pig-calling skills, Watson. Lord Emsworth, let us try it one more time. I may not have had it quite right. T
he first syllable should be short and staccato, the second long and rising into a falsetto, high but true.”
“Pig - HOO-o-o-o-ey!” we all caroled.
The echoes died away. And as they did a voice spoke.
“Community singing?”
“Jimmy!” cried Angela, whisking around.
“Hullo, Angela. Hullo, Lord Emsworth. Hullo, everybody. I’m spending a few days at the Vicarage with my father. I got down by the five-five from Paddington.”
James Bartholomew Belford had the unmistakable air of one who had spent considerable time in the American Middle West, and in those energetic and forceful surrounding had learned to Talk Quick and Do It Now. Angela performed hasty introductions.
Lord Emsworth cut peevishly in upon these civilities.
“Young man,” he said, “what do you mean by telling me at the Senior Conservative Club that my pig would respond to that cry? It does nothing of the kind.”
“You can’t have done it right.”
“I did it precisely as you instructed me. I remembered everything you said. Mr. Holmes merely jogged my memory. I have had, moreover, the assistance of Dr. Watson, Mr. Holmes, and Beach here and my niece Angela… I would have had Lady Constance in the front row if I thought it would do any good.”
“Let’s hear a sample.”
“PIG - HOO-o-o-o-ey!” We all stretched our vocal chords.
James Belford shook his head.
“Nothing like it,” he said. “You want to begin the “Hoo” in a low minor of two quarter notes in four-four time. From this build gradually to a higher note, until at last the voice is soaring in full crescendo, reaching F sharp on the natural scale and dwelling for two retarded half-notes, then breaking into a shower of accidental grace-notes.”
“Of course,” said Sherlock Holmes.
“God bless my soul!” said Lord Emsworth, appalled. “I shall never be able to do it.”
“Jimmy will do it for you,” said Angela. “Now that he is engaged to me, he’ll be one of the family and always popping about over here. He can do it every day until the show is over.”
James Belford nodded.
“I think that would be the best plan. Like this!”
Resting his hands on the rails before him, James Belford swelled before our eyes like a young balloon. The muscles on his cheekbones stood out, his forehead became corrugated, and his ears seemed to shimmer. Then, at the very heights of the tension, he let it go like, as the poet beautifully puts it, the sound of a great Amen.
“PIG - HOOOOO-OOO-OOO-O-O-ey!”
We looked at him, awed. Slowly, fading off across hill and dale, the vast bellow faded away. And suddenly, as it died, another, softer sound succeeded it. A short of gulpy, gurgly, ploppy, squishy, wofflesome sound like a thousand eager men drinking soup in a foreign restaurant. And, as he heard it, Lord Emsworth uttered a cry of rapture.
The Empress was feeding.
The next day, as Holmes and I traveled back to London on the two o’clock train, I ventured to ask the one question that had burned in my mind since Holmes had returned empty-handed from Blandings Castle that morning.
“Holmes, no one would pay your fee. How can that be justified?”
Holmes rattled his Market Blandings World-Guardian newspaper and coughed.
“Lady Constance put it to me most succinctly, my dear Watson. I did not solve her problem, which was the broken engagement between Angela and Lord Heacham, because Angela is still engaged to James Belford. I did not solve Lord Heacham’s problem, which was the same. Besides, he left yesterday for Monte Carlo and is unavailable to countermand her decision. I did not solve Angela’s problem, since Lord Emsworth promised to give her the inheritance if James Belford was instrumental in getting Empress of Blandings to eat and he said that just before we met him. I did not solve Lord Emsworth’s problem, because I did not teach him the pig-call correctly. It is doubtful if an amateur could ever produce real results. You need a voice that has been trained on the open prairie and that has gathered richness and strength from competing with tornadoes. You need a manly, sunburned, wind-scorched voice with a suggestion in it of the crackling of corn husks and the whisper of evening breezes in the fodder. George Cyril Wellbeloved spent four years on an apprenticeship in Wisconsin before he came to Lord Emsworth.”
“Well, this case does prove your theory, Holmes.”
“My theory?”
“People are unreasonable.”
“A touch, Watson, a distinct touch! I never get your limits. Yes, I must admit that the most reasonable actor in this little comedy has not been a person at all. I must tip my hat to the Empress of Blandings. She knew exactly what she wanted and would accept no substitutes. It is a lesson for us all, Watson.”
With that, Sherlock Holmes retreated behind his newspaper.
The Case of the Pilfered Painting
In one of the accounts I have been privileged to set before you, my readers, I wrote that Holmes’ ideas about art were of the crudest. I must clarify that statement.
Sherlock Holmes was the grandson of a sister of Vernet, the French artist. From childhood he had been instructed in the finer points of oil paintings, watercolors, charcoals and art history. He was thoroughly schooled in the Classics and the Romantics. I agreed with many of his opinions. But he and I disagreed widely on the new school known as “Impressionism”.
He saw genius in the works of Paul Cezanne, Claude Monet and Edgar Degas. Even the American friend of Monet’s, Theodore Robinson, drew Holmes’ praise for his depictions of the French and Dutch countryside.
I saw nothing but dabs and spatters of paint spoiling perfectly fine canvas. My favorite artists were Constable and Landseer. After many an animated talk, we agreed to disagree on the subject and each held to his own thoughts when we found ourselves strolling through various London art galleries.
Thus the matter stood one spring day when Holmes and I evaded a sudden shower by ducking into The Sheppard Gallery just off Bond Street.
The gallery was one large narrow room. A series of six backless benches ran down the center of the space from the front to the back. Under a skylight that filled the ceiling except for a row of oak panels running around its edge hung a single line of Romantic paintings in oil along white plaster walls. Another set of oak panels served as wainscoting under the paintings. As we strolled around the room I noticed one other person. He was short and tended toward embonpoint, dressed in a dark suit and sporting a carefully waxed mustache. His bald head gleamed in the overhead light and he blinked through bright hazel eyes. He stood silently in front of a framed canvas. As we grew nearer I could see that the painting he was looking at differed greatly from all the others.
It was an “Impressionism” work. I could make out a blurry mound of blobby greens beneath a splotched bluish background. Along the lower third of the canvas were dabbed irregular spots of white and grey. He was gazing at it with a great deal of satisfaction.
The man turned and noticed us. “Mr. Holmes! Welcome to my little shop.”
“Mr. Sheppard, I am glad to see you. Watson, this is Mr. Noel Sheppard, the noted art dealer from Brighton. You remember, I told you about that little affair of the counterfeit Napoleonic snuffboxes last year. Mr. Sheppard was very helpful in exposing the fraud and capturing old Felker, wanted in seven countries for misuse of his remarkable talents.”
“Pah! I merely locked the door and signaled the police. The entire honor goes to Mr. Holmes. I am glad to meet you, Dr. Watson. How do you like my latest acquisition?”
I stared at the painting and tried to think of something diplomatic to say. “It is different from the others here.”
“Yes, I am trying something new. My client base is interested in the Romantics, but there is a revolution coming out of the Continent with these “Impressionist School” artis
ts. Since I have expanded to this place in London, I thought I would try to test the new market, especially with American clients. This is the first one on display. It is called “Beau Peak with Sheep” and is by an artist named Vincent Bergstrom.”
“Have you many of his works?”
“Unfortunately, no. He was a poor young man who only painted for four years before dying of consumption in Saint-Remy-de-Provence. Most of his canvases were burned as trash by his landlord when it was discovered he had no money with which to settle his debts. My agent managed to rescue this one from the Philistine’s torch and sent it here last week. I currently have a call out to all my agents in France to be on the lookout for any others he may have left behind in other locales.”
Outside the shower had stopped. Holmes and Sheppard talked for a few more minutes as I toured the rest of the gallery. When we stepped out into the street again, I asked Holmes what he thought of Mr. Sheppard’s new discovery.
“I know your reaction, Watson, and I think you did an excellent job of hiding it. I am intrigued. If more of the young man’s work can be located, he might become one of the most famous artists of the new school. Right now, with only one canvas available, he must rate as only a novelty.”
There the matter rested and I thought no more about the little man or his unique canvas. Then, a few days later, at mid-morning, as Holmes and I were walking past the same door, Mr. Sheppard waved at us urgently through its glass. When we entered we found the little art dealer in an agitated state. He locked the front door behind us and greeted my friend with a shower of words.
“Mr. Holmes! Mr. Holmes! How fortunate to see you now! You must help me! I cannot go to the police! The scandal! The rumours! The press! It would ruin me!” The man held onto Holmes’ hand as if it were a lifeline.
“Is there someplace we can go to talk?” Holmes asked.
“My office is the door on the right, back there.” He waved a hand to the rear of the gallery, where two doors stood side by side against the back wall. We helped him to the office, where he sank into a chair by a cluttered desk. I found a bottle of brandy on a shelf and poured him a glass. He sipped at it and thanked me.
Sherlock Holmes and The Folk Tale Mysteries Page 20
