“Who are you?’’ demanded the captain, turning to Archie.
“Well, my name is — ’’
“What are you doing here?’’
“Well, it’s rather a longish story, you know. Don’t want to bore you, and all that.’’
“I’m here to listen. You can’t bore me.”
“Dashed nice of you to put it like that,’’ said Archie, gratefully. “I mean to say, makes it easier and so forth. What I mean is, you know how rotten you feel telling the deuce of a long yarn and wondering if the party of the second part is wishing you would turn off the tap and go home. I mean — ’’
“If,’’ said the captain, “you’re reciting something, stop. If you’re trying to tell me what you’re doing here, make it shorter and easier.’’
Archie saw his point. Of course, time was money—the modern spirit of hustle—all that sort of thing.
“Well, it was this bathing suit, you know,’’ he said.
“What bathing suit?’’
“Mine, don’t you know. A lemon-coloured contrivance. Rather bright and so forth, but in its proper place not altogether a bad egg. Well, the whole thing started, you know, with my standing on a bally pedestal sort of arrangement in a diving attitude—for the cover, you know. I don’t know if you have ever done anything of that kind yourself, but it gives you a most fearful crick in the spine. However, that’s rather beside the point, I suppose—don’t know why I mentioned it. Well, this morning he was dashed late, so I went out — ’’
“What the devil are you talking about?’’
Archie looked at him, surprised.
“Aren’t I making it clear?’’
*‘Well, you understand about the bathing suit, don’t you? The jolly old bathing suit, you’ve grasped that, what?”
“Oh, I say,” said Archie. “That’s rather a nuisance. I mean to say, the bathing suit’s what you might call the good old pivot of the whole dashed affair, you see. Well, you understand about the cover, what? You’re pretty clear on the subject of the cover?”
“What cover?”
“Why, for the magazine.”
“What magazine?”
“Now there you rather have me. One of these bright little periodicals, you know, that you see popping to and fro on the bookstalls.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said the captain. He looked at Archie with an expression of distrust and hostility. “And I’ll tell you straight out I don’t like the looks of you. I believe you’re a pal of his.”
“No longer,” said Archie, firmly. “I mean to say, a chappie who makes you stand on a bally pedestal sort of arrangement and get a crick in the spine, and then doesn’t turn up and leaves you biffing all over the countryside in a bathing suit — ”
The reintroduction of the bathing suit motive seemed to have the worst effect on the captain. He flushed darkly.
“Are you trying to josh me? I’ve a mind to soak you!”
“If ye plaze, sorr,” cried Officer Donahue and Officer Cassidy in chorus. In the course of their professional career they did not often hear their superior make many suggestions with which they saw eye to eye, but he had certainly, in their opinion, spoken a mouthful now.
“No, honestly, my dear old thing, nothing was farther from my thoughts — ”
He would have spoken further, but at this moment the world came to an end. At least, that was how it sounded.
Somewhere in the immediate neighbourhood something went off with a vast explosion, shattering the glass in the window, peeling the plaster from the ceiling, and sending him staggering into the inhospitable arms of Officer Donahue.
The three guardians of the Law stared at one another.
“If ye plaze, sorr,” said Officer Cassidy, saluting.
“Well?”
“May I spake, sorr?”
“Well?”
“Something’s exploded, sorr!”
The information, kindly meant though it was, seemed to annoy the captain.
“What the devil did you think I thought had happened?” he demanded, with not a little irritation. “It was a bomb!”
Archie could have corrected this diagnosis, for already a faint but appealing aroma of an alcoholic nature was creeping into the room through a hole in the ceiling, and there had risen before his eyes the picture of J. B. Wheeler affectionately regarding that barrel of his on the previous morning in the studio upstairs. J. B. Wheeler had wanted quick results, and he had got them. Archie had long since ceased to regard J. B. Wheeler as anything but a tumour on the social system, but he was bound to admit that he had certainly done him a good turn now. Already these honest men, diverted by the superior attraction of this latest happening, appeared to have forgotten his existence.
“Sorr!” said Officer Donahue.
“Well?”
“It came from upstairs, sorr.”
“Of course it came from upstairs. Cassidy!”
“Sorr?”
“Get down into the street, call up the reserves, and stand at the front entrance to keep the crowd back. We’ll have the whole city here in five minutes.”
“Right, sorr.”
“Don’t let anyone in.’’
“No, son.’’
“Well, see that you don’t. Come along,’ Donahue, now. Look slippy.’’
“On the spot, son!’’ said Officer Donahue.
A moment later Archie had the studio to himself. Two minutes later he was picking his way cautiously down the fire-escape after the manner of the recent Mr. Moon. Archie had not seen much of Mr. Moon, but he had seen enough to know that in certain crises his methods were sound and should be followed. Elmer Moon was not a good man; his ethics were poor and his moral code shaky; but in the matter of legging it away from a situation of peril and discomfort he had no superior.
Wodehouse On Crime Page 29
