“I said ‘Good afternoon, Mr. Ukridge,’ ” said the man who had suddenly appeared at our table, and I saw Ukridge’s jaw fall like an express lift going down. And I wasn’t surprised, for this was a tall man with gray hair and a curiously twisted mouth. His eyes, as they bored into Ukridge, were bleak.
“I’ve been looking for you for a long time and hoping to meet you again. I’ll trouble you for sixty pounds.”
“I haven’t got sixty pounds.”
“Spent some of it, eh? Then let’s see what you have got,” said the man, turning the contents of the wallet out on the tablecloth and counting it in an efficient manner. “Fifty-eight pounds, six and threepence. That’s near enough.”
“But who’s going to pay for my lunch?’’
“Ah, that we shall never know,’’ said the man.
But I knew, and it was with a heavy heart that I reached in my hip pocket for the thin little bundle of pound notes which I had been hoping would last me for another week.
THE PURITY OF THE TURF
WHEN THE THING WAS OVER, I MADE MY MIND UP.
“Jeeves,” I said.
“Sir?”
“Never again! The strain is too great. I don’t say I shall chuck betting altogether: if I get hold of a good thing for one of the big races no doubt I shall have my bit on as aforetime: but you won’t catch me mixing myself up with one of these minor country meetings again. They’re too hot.”
“I think perhaps you are right, sir,” said Jeeves.
It was young Bingo Little who lured me into the thing. About the third week of my visit at Twing Hall he blew into my bedroom one morning while I was toying with a bit of breakfast and thinking of this and that.
“Bertie!” he said, in an earnest kind of voice.
I decided to take a firm line from the start. Young Bingo, if you remember, was at a pretty low ebb at about this juncture. He had not only failed to put his finances on a sound basis over the recent Sermon Handicap, but had also discovered that Lady Cynthia Wick loved another. These things had jarred the unfortunate mutt, and he had developed a habit of dropping in on me at all hours and decanting his anguished soul on me. I could stand this all right after dinner, and even after lunch; but before breakfast, no. We Woosters are amiability itself, but there is a limit.
“Now look here, old friend,” I said. “I know your bally heart is broken and all that, and at some future time I shall be delighted to hear all about it, but — ”
“I didn’t come to talk about that.”
“No? Good egg!”
“The past,” said young Bingo, “is dead. Let us say no more about it.”
“Right-o!”
“I have been wounded to the very depths of my soul, but don’t speak about it.”
“I won’t.”
“Ignore it. Forget it.”
“Absolutely!”
I hadn’t seen him so dashed reasonable for weeks.
“What I came to see you about this morning, Bertie,” he said, fishing a sheet of paper out of his pocket, “was to ask if you would care to come in on another little flutter.”
If there is one thing we Woosters are simply dripping with, it is sporting blood. I bolted the rest of my sausage, and sat up and took notice.
“Proceed,” I said. “You interest me strangely, old bird.” Bingo laid the paper on the bed.
“On Monday week,” he said, “you may or may not know, the annual village school-treat takes place. Lord Wickham-mersley lends the Hall grounds for the purpose. There will be games, and a conjuror, and coconut shies, and tea in a tent. And also sports.”
“I know. Cynthia was telling me.”
Young Bingo winced.
“Would you mind not mentioning that name? I am not made of marble.”
“Sorry!”
“Well, as I was saying, this jamboree is slated for Monday week. The question is. Are we on?”
“How do you mean, ‘Are we on’?”
“I am referring to the sports. Steggles did so well out of the Sermon Handicap that he has decided to make a book on these sports. Punters can be accommodated at ante-post odds or starting price, according to their preference.”
Steggles, I don’t know if you remember, was one of the gang of youths who were reading for some examination or other with old Heppenstall down at the Vicarage. He was the fellow who had promoted the Sermon Handicap. A bird of considerable enterprise and vast riches, being the only son of one of the biggest bookies in London, but no pal of mine. I never liked the chap. He was a ferret-faced egg with a shifty eye and not a few pimples. On the whole, a nasty growth.
“I think we ought to look into it,” said young Bingo.
I pressed the bell.
“I’ll consult Jeeves. I don’t touch any sporting proposition without his advice. Jeeves,” I said, as he drifted in, “rally round.”
“Sir?”
“Stand by. We want your advice.”
“Very good, sir.”
“State your case. Bingo.”
Bingo stated his case.
“What about it, Jeeves?” I said. “Do we go in?”
Jeeves pondered to some extent.
“I am inclined to favour the idea, sir.”
That was good enough for me. “Right,” I said. “Then we will form a syndicate and bust the Ring. I supply the money, you supply the brains, and Bingo — what do you supply. Bingo?”
“If you will carry me, and let me settle up later,” said young Bingo, “I think I can put you in the way of winning a parcel on the Mothers’ Sack Race.”
“All right. We will put you down as Inside Information. Now, what are the events?”
Bingo reached for his paper and consulted it.
“Girls’ Under Fourteen Fifty-Yard Dash seems to open the proceedings.”
“Anything to say about that, Jeeves?”
“No, sir. I have no information.”
“What’s the next?”
“Boys’ and Girls’ Mixed Animal Potato Race, All Ages.”
This was a new one to me. I had never heard of it at any of the big meetings.
“What’s that?”
“Rather sporting,” said young Bingo. “The competitors enter in couples, each couple being assigned an animal cry and a potato. For instance, let’s suppose that you and Jeeves entered. Jeeves would stand at a fixed point holding a potato. You would have your head in a sack, and you would grope about trying to find Jeeves and making a noise like a cat; Jeeves also making a noise like a cat. Other competitors would be making noises like cows and pigs and dogs, and so on, and groping about for their potato-holders, who would also be making noises like cows and pigs and dogs and so on —”
I stopped the poor fish.
“Jolly if you’re fond of animals,” I said, “but on the whole — ”
“Precisely, sir,” said Jeeves. “I wouldn’t touch it.”
“Too open, what?”
“Exactly, sir. Very hard to estimate form.”
“Garry on. Bingo. Where do we go from there?”
“Mothers’ Sack Race.”
“Ah! that’s better. This is where you know something.”
“A gift for Mrs. Penworthy, the tobacconist’s wife,” said Bingo, confidently. “I was in at her shop yesterday, buying cigarettes, and she told me she had won three times at fairs in Worcestershire. She only moved to these parts a short time ago, so nobody knows about her. She promised me she would keep herself dark, and I think we could get a good price.”
“Risk a tenner each way, Jeeves, what?”
“I think so, sir.”
“Girls’ Open Egg and Spoon Race,” read Bingo.
“How about that?”
“I doubt if it would be worth while to invest, sir,” said Jeeves. “I am told it is a certainty for last year’s winner, Sarah Mills, who will doubtless start an odds-on favourite.”
“Good, is she?”
“They tell me in the village that she carries a beautiful egg
, sir.”
“Then there’s the Obstacle Race,” said Bingo. “Risky, in my opinion. Like betting on the Grand National. Fathers’ Hat-Trimming Contest — another speculative event. That’s all, except the Choir Boys’ Hundred Yards Handicap, for a pewter mug presented by the vicar — open to all whose voices have not broken before the second Sunday in Epiphany. Willie Chambers won last year, in a canter, receiving fifteen yards. This time he will probably be handicapped out of the race. I don’t know what to advise.”
“If I might make a suggestion, sir.”
I eyed Jeeves with interest. I don’t know that I’d ever seen him look so nearly excited.
“You’ve got something up your sleeve?”
“I have, sir.”
“Red-hot?”
“That precisely describes it, sir. I think I may confidently assert that we have the winner of the Choir Boys’ Handicap under this very roof, sir. Harold, the page-boy.”
“Page-boy? Do you mean the tubby little chap in buttons one sees bobbing about here and there? Why, dash it, Jeeves, nobody has a greater respect for your knowledge of form than I have, but I’m hanged if I can see Harold catching the judge’s eye. He’s practically circular, and every time I’ve seen him he’s been leaning up against something half-asleep.”
“He receives thirty yards, sir, and could win from scratch. The boy is a flier.”
“How do you know?”
Jeeves coughed, and there was a dreamy look in his eye.
“I was as much astonished as yourself, sir, when I first became aware of the lad’s capabilities. I happened to pursue him one morning with the intention of fetching him a clip on the side of the head — ”
“Great Scott, Jeeves! You!”
“Yes, sir. The boy is of an outspoken disposition, and had made an opprobrious remark respecting my personal appearance.”
“What did he say about your appearance?”
“I have forgotten, sir,” said Jeeves, with a touch of austerity. “But it was opprobrious. I endeavoured to correct him, but he out-distanced me by yards, and made good his escape.”
“But, I say, Jeeves, this is sensational. And yet — if he’s such a sprinter, why hasn’t anybody in the village found it out? Surely he plays with the other boys?”
“No, sir. As his lordship’s page-boy, Harold does not mix with the village lads.”
“Bit of a snob, what?”
“He is somewhat acutely alive to the existence of class distinctions, sir.”
“You’re absolutely certain he’s such a wonder?” said Bingo. “I mean, it wouldn’t do to plunge unless you’re sure.”
“If you desire to ascertain the boy’s form by personal inspection, sir, it will be a simple matter to arrange a secret trial.”
“I’m bound to say I should feel easier in my mind,” I said.
“Then if I may take a shilling from the money on your dressing-table — ”
“What for?”
“I propose to bribe the lad to speak slightingly of the second footman’s squint, sir. Charles is somewhat sensitive on the point, and should undoubtedly make the lad extend himself. If you will be at the first-floor passage-window, overlooking the back-door, in half an hour’s time — ”
I don’t know when I’ve dressed in such a hurry. As a rule, I’m what you might call a slow and careful dresser: I like to linger over the tie and see that the trousers are just so; but this morning I was all worked up. I just shoved on my things anyhow, and joined Bingo at the window with a quarter of an hour to spare.
The passage-window looked down on to a broad sort of paved courtyard, which ended after about twenty yards in an archway through a high wall. Beyond this archway you got on to a strip of the drive, which curved round for another thirty yards or so till it was lost behind a thick shrubbery. I put myself in the stripling’s place and thought what steps I would take with a second footman after me. There was only one thing to do — leg it for the shrubbery and take cover; which meant that at least fifty yards would have to be covered — an excellent test. If good old Harold could fight off the second footman’s challenge long enough to allow him to reach the bushes, there wasn’t a choirboy in England who could give him thirty yards in the hundred. I waited, all of a twitter, for what seemed hours, and then suddenly there was a confused noise without and something round and blue and buttony shot through the back-door and buzzed for the archway like a mustang. And about two seconds later out came the second footman, going his hardest.
There was nothing to it. Absolutely nothing. The field never had a chance. Long before the footman reached the half-way mark, Harold was in the bushes, throwing stones. I came away from the window thrilled to the marrow; and when I met Jeeves on the stairs I was so moved that I nearly grasped his hand.
“Jeeves,” I said, “no discussion! The Wooster shirt goes on this boy!”
“Very good, sir,” said Jeeves.
The worst of these country meetings is that you can’t plunge as heavily as you would like when you get a good thing, because it alarms the Ring. Steggles, though pimpled, was, as I have indicated, no chump, and if I had invested all I wanted to he would have put two and two together. I managed to get a good solid bet down for the syndicate, however, though it did make him look thoughtful. I heard in the next few days that he had been making searching inquiries in the village concerning Harold; but nobody could tell him anything, and eventually he came to the conclusion, I suppose, that I must be having a long shot on the strength of that thirty yards start. Public opinion wavered between Jimmy Goode, receiving ten yards, at seven-to-two, and Alexander Bartlett, with six yards start, at eleven-to-four. Willie Chambers, scratch, was offered to the public at two-to-one, but found no takers.
We were taking no chances on the big event, and directly we had got our money on at a nice hundred-to-twelve Harold was put into strict training. It was a wearing business, and I can understand now why most of the big trainers are grim, silent men, who look as though they had suffered. The kid wanted constant watching. It was no good talking to him about honour and glory and how proud his mother would be when he wrote and told her he had won a real cup — the moment blighted Harold discovered that training meant knocking off pastry, taking exercise, and keeping away from the cigarettes, he was all against it, and it was only by unceasing vigilance that we managed to keep him in any shape at all. It was the diet that was the stumbling block. As far as exercise went, we could generally arrange for a sharp dash every morning with the assistance of the second footman. It ran into money, of course, but that couldn’t be helped. Still, when a kid has simply to wait till the butler’s back is turned to have the run of the pantry and has only to nip into the smoking-room to collect a handful of the best Turkish, training becomes a rocky job. We could only hope that on the day his natural stamina would pull him through.
And then one evening young Bingo came back from the links with a disturbing story. He had been in the habit of giving Harold mild exercise in the afternoons by taking him out as a caddie.
At first he seemed to think it humorous, the poor chump! He bubbled over with merry mirth as he began his tale.
“I say, rather funny this afternoon,” he said. “You ought to have seen Steggles’s face!”
“Seen Steggles’s face? What for?”
“When he saw young Harold sprint, I mean.”
I was filled with a grim foreboding of an awful doom.
“Good heavens! You didn’t let Harold sprint in front of Steggles?”
Young Bingo’s jaw dropped.
“I never thought of that,” he said gloomily. “It wasn’t my fault. I was playing a round with Steggles, and after we’d finished we went into the club-house for a drink, leaving Harold with the clubs outside. In about five minutes we came out, and there was the kid on the gravel practising swings with Steggles’s driver and a stone. When he saw us coming, the kid dropped the club and was over the horizon like a streak. Steggles was absolutely dumbfounded. And I mus
t say it was a revelation even to me. The kid certainly gave of his best. Of course, it’s a nuisance in a way; but I don’t see, on second thoughts,” said Bingo, brightening up, “that it matters. We’re on at a good price. We’ve nothing to lose by the kid’s form becoming known. I take it he will start odds on, but that doesn’t affect us.”
I looked at Jeeves. Jeeves looked at me.
“It affects us all right if he doesn’t start at all.”
“Precisely, sir.”
“What do you mean?” asked Bingo.
“If you ask me,” I said, “I think Steggles will try to noble him before the race.”
“Good Lord! I never thought of that.” Bingo blenched. “You don’t think he would really do it?”
“I think he would have a jolly good try. Steggles is a bad man. From now on, Jeeves, we must watch Harold like hawks.”
“Undoubtedly, sir.”
“Ceaseless vigilance, what?”
“Precisely, sir.”
“You wouldn’t care to sleep in his room, Jeeves?”
“No, sir, I should not.”
“No, nor would I, if it comes to that. But dash it all,” I said, “we’re letting ourselves get rattled! We’re losing our nerve. This won’t do. How can Steggles possibly get at Harold, even if he wants to?”
There was no cheering young Bingo up. He’s one of those birds who simply leap at the morbid view, if you give them half a chance.
“There are all sorts of ways of nobbling favourites,” he said, in a sort of death-bed voice. “You ought to read some of these racing novels. In ‘Pipped on the Post’, Lord Jasper Mauleverer as near as a toucher outed Bonny Betsy by bribing the head-lad to slip a cobra into her stable the night before the Derby!”
“What are the chances of a cobra biting Harold, Jeeves?”
“Slight, I should imagine, sir. And in such an event, knowing the boy as intimately as I do, my anxiety would be entirely for the snake.”
“Still, unceasing vigilance, Jeeves.”
“Most certainly, sir.”
Wodehouse On Crime Page 11
