Beach gave a start which set both his chins quivering.
‘Maudie, Mr Galahad? My niece, Mr Galahad?’
‘None other. Is she Mrs Digby?’
‘No, sir. Mrs Stubbs. Digby is a trade name. But –’
‘But what?’
‘I am in perfect agreement with what you say with regard to the necessity of employing a trained observer to scrutinize Miss Simmons’s movements, Mr Galahad, but you are surely not thinking of bringing my niece Maudie here? Her appearance –’
‘I remember her as looking rather like Mae West.’
‘Precisely, sir. It would never do.’
‘I don’t follow you, Beach.’
‘I was thinking of Lady Constance, sir. I have known her ladyship to be somewhat difficult at times where guests were concerned. I gravely doubt whether her reactions would be wholly favourable, were you to introduce into the castle a private investigator who is the niece of her butler and looks like Miss Mae West.’
‘I am not proposing to do so.’
‘Indeed, sir? I gathered from what you were saying –’
‘The visitor who arrives at Blandings Castle and sings out to the varlets and scurvy knaves within to lower the portcullis and look slippy about it will be a Mrs Bunbury, a lifelong friend of your father, Penny. You remember that charming Mrs Bunbury?’
Penny drew a deep breath.
‘You’re a quick thinker, Gally.’
‘You have to think quick when a man like Gregory Parsloe is spitting on his hands preparatory to going about seeking whom he may devour. By the way, Beach, not a word of all this to Lord Emsworth. We don’t want him worrying himself into a decline, nor do we want him giving the whole thing away in the first ten minutes, as he infallibly would if he knew about it. An excellent fellow, Clarence, but a rotten conspirator. You follow me, Beach?’
‘Oh yes, indeed, Mr Galahad.’
‘Penny?’
‘He shall never learn from me.’
‘Good girl. Too much is at stake for us to take any chances. The hopes and dreams of my brother Clarence depend on Maudie, and so, Beach, does the little bit of stuff which you and I have invested on the Empress. Get her on the telephone at once.’
‘Is the Empress on the telephone?’ asked Penny, surprised, though feeling that something like this might have been expected of that wonder-pig.
Gally frowned.
‘I allude to Maudie Beach Montrose Digby Stubbs Bunbury. Get on to her without delay and instruct her to pack her toothbrush and magnifying glass and be with us at her earliest convenience.’
‘Very good, Mr Galahad.’
‘Pitch it strong. Make her see how urgent the matter is. Play up the attractive aspects of Blandings Castle, and tell her that she will find there not only a loved uncle but one of her warmest admirers of the old Criterion days.’
‘Yes, Mr Galahad.’
‘I will now go and inform my sister Constance that at the urgent request of Miss Penelope Donaldson I am inviting the latter’s father’s close crony Mrs Bunbury to put in a week or two with us. I do not anticipate objections on the part of my sister Constance, but should she give me any lip or back chat I shall crush her as I would a worm.’
‘Do you crush worms?’ asked Penny, interested.
‘Frequently,’ said Gally, and trotted out, to return a few minutes later beaming satisfaction through his monocle.
‘All set. She right-hoed like a lamb. She seems to have an overwhelming respect for your father, Penny, no doubt because of his disgusting wealth. And now,’ said Gally, ‘now that what you might call the preliminary spadework is completed and we are able to relax for a bit, I think a drop more port might be in order. For you, Penny?’
‘Let it flow like water, as far as I’m concerned.’
‘And you, Beach?’
‘Thank you, Mr Galahad. A little port would be most refreshing.’
‘Then reach for the bottle and start pouring. And as you pour,’ said Gally, ‘keep saying to yourself that tempests may lower and storm clouds brood, but if your affairs are in the hands of Galahad Threepwood, you’re all right.’
CHAPTER 3
ALTHOUGH IT IS the fashion in this twentieth century of ours to speak disparagingly of the modern machine age, to sneer at its gadgets and gimmicks and labour-saving devices and to sigh for the days when life was simpler, these gimmicks and gadgets unquestionably have their advantages.
If Penny Donaldson had been a princess in ancient Egypt desirous of communicating with the man she loved, she would have had to write a long letter on papyrus, all animals’ heads and things, and send it off by a Nubian slave, and there is no telling when Jerry Vail would have got it, for the only time those Nubian slaves hurried themselves was when someone was behind them with a spiked stick. Living in modern times, she had been able to telegraph, and scarcely two hours elapsed before Jerry, in his modest flat in Battersea Park Road, London, SW, received the heart-stirring news that she would be with him on the morrow.
Sudden joy affects different people in different ways. Some laugh and sing. Some leap. Others go about being kind to dogs. Jerry Vail sat down and started writing a story designed for one of the American magazines if one of the American magazines would meet him half-way, about a New York private detective who was full of Scotch whisky and sex appeal and got mixed up with a lot of characters with names like Otto the Ox and Bertha the Body.
He was just finishing it on the following afternoon – for stories about New York private detectives, involving as they do almost no conscious cerebration, take very little time to write – when the telephone bell stopped him in the middle of a sentence.
There is always something intriguing and stimulating about the ringing of a telephone bell. Will this, we ask ourselves, be the girl we love, or will it be somebody named Ed, who, all eagerness to establish communication with somebody named Charlie, has had the misfortune to get the wrong number? Jerry, though always glad to chat with people who got the wrong number, hoped it would be Penny.
‘Hullo?’ he said, putting a wealth of pent-up feeling into the word, just in case.
‘Hullo, Jerry. This is Gloria.’
‘Eh?’
‘Gloria Salt, ass,’ said the voice at the other end of the wire with a touch of petulance.
There had been a time when Jerry Vail’s heart would have leaped at the sound of that name. Between Gloria Salt and himself there had been some tender passages in the days gone by, passages which might have been tenderer still if the lady had not had one of those level business heads which restrain girls from becoming too involved with young men who, however attractive, are short of cash. Gloria Salt, though she had little else in common with Mr Donaldson of Donaldson’s Dog Joy, shared that good man’s aloof and wary attitude toward the impecunious suitor.
But though, like the Fairy Queen in lolanthe, on fire that glows with heat intense she had turned the hose of common sense, and though on Jerry’s side that fire had long since become a mere heap of embers, their relations had remained cordial. From time to time they would play a round of golf together, and from time to time they would lunch together. One of these nice unsentimental friendships it had come to be, and it was with hearty good will that he now spoke.
‘Why, hullo, Gloria. I haven’t heard from you for ages. What have you been doing with yourself?’
‘Just messing around. Playing a bit of tennis. Playing a bit of golf. Ridin’ a bit, swimmin’ a bit. Oh yes, and I’ve got engaged,’ said Miss Salt as an afterthought.
Jerry was delighted to hear the news.
‘Well, well. That’s the stuff. I like to see you young folks settling down. Who’s the other half of the sketch? Orlo the Ox, I presume?’
‘Who?’
‘I’m sorry. I was thinking of something else. My lord Vosper, I mean.’
There was a momentary silence. Then Gloria Salt spoke in an odd, metallic voice.
‘No, not my lord Vosper, thank you very muc
h. I wouldn’t marry Orlo by golly Vosper to please a dying grandmother. If I found myself standing with that pill at the altar rails and the clergyman said to me “How about it, Gloria, old sport? Wilt thou, Gloria, take this Orlo?”, I would reply “Not in a million years, laddie, not to win a substantial wager. If you were suggesting that I might like to attend his funeral,” I would proceed, developing the theme, “that would be another matter, but if, as I think, the idea at the back of your mind is that I shall become his wedded wife, let me inform you, my dear old man of God, that I would rather be dead in a ditch.” Orlo Vosper, egad! I should jolly well say not.’
Jerry was concerned. Here was tragedy. Mystery, too. Like most of her circle, he had always supposed that it was only a matter of time before these twain sent out the wedding announcements. Affinities, they had seemed to be, always being ‘seen’ together at Cannes or ‘glimpsed’ together at Ascot or ‘noticed’ together playing in the mixed doubles at some seaside tennis tournament. To hear Gloria Salt talking in this acid strain about Orlo, Lord Vosper, was as surprising as if one had heard Swan knocking Edgar or Rodgers saying nasty things about Hammerstein.
‘But, good Lord, I always thought –’
‘I dare say you did. Nevertheless, the facts are as I have stated. I have returned Orlo Vosper to store and shall shortly – wind and weather permitting – become the bride of Sir Gregory Parsloe, Bart, of Matchingham Hall, Much Matchingham, in the county of Shropshire.’
‘But what happened?’
‘It’s too long to go into over the phone. I’ll tell you when we meet, which will be tonight. I want you to give me dinner at Mario’s.’
‘Tonight, did you say?’
‘Tonight. Are you getting deaf in your old age?’
Jerry was not deaf, but he was deeply agitated, and in the circumstances the toughest baa-lamb might have been excused for being so. This night of nights was earmarked for his dinner with Penny. He had been counting the minutes to that sacred reunion, scrutinizing his boiled shirts, sorting out his white ties, seeing to it that the patent leather shoes and the old top hat had the perfect gloss which such an occasion called for, and what he was thinking now was that, if you have been torn from the only girl that matters and have got an utterly unforeseen chance of having a bite to eat with her at the Savoy, of gazing into her eyes at the Savoy and holding her little hand at the Savoy, it is a pretty state of things when other girls, however old friends they may be, come muscling in, wanting to divert you to Mario’s.
‘But listen, old thing. I can’t possibly manage tonight. Won’t tomorrow do?’
‘No, it won’t. I’m leaving for the country tomorrow. I don’t want to see you just for the pleasure of your society, stupendous though that is. I want to do you a good turn. Do you remember telling me once that you were trying to raise two thousand pounds to buy in on some private loony-bin?’
The actual project for which Jerry required the sum mentioned was not, as we have seen, the securing of a share in the management of a home for the mentally unbalanced, but this was no moment for going into long explanations. He gasped, and the room flickered before his eyes.
‘You don’t mean –?’
‘Yes, I think I can put you in the way of getting it.’
‘Good Lord! Gloria, you’re a marvel. When pain and anguish rack the brow, a ministering angel thou. Let’s have full details.’
‘Tonight. It’s much too long to tell you now. Eight sharp at Mario’s. And I’m going to dress. Because if you aren’t dressed at Mario’s, they shove you up in the balcony, a thing my proud spirit would never endure. Have you a dickey and celluloid cuffs?’
‘But, Gloria, half a second –’
‘That’s all there is, there isn’t any more. Good-bye. I must rush. Got to see a man about a tennis racquet.’
For some time after the line had gone dead, an observer, had one been present in Flat Twenty-three, Prince of Wales Mansions, Battersea Park Road, would have been able to see what a young man standing at the crossroads looked like, for during that period Gerald Anstruther Vail sat wrestling with himself, torn this way and that, a living ganglion of conflicting emotions.
The thought of cancelling his dinner with Penny, of not seeing her after all, of not gazing into her eyes, of not holding her little hand, was about as unpleasing a thought as had ever entered his mind. It is not too much to say that it gashed the very fibres of his being.
On the other hand, if Gloria had meant what she said, if by conferring with her at Mario’s, there was really a chance of learning a method of getting his hooks on that two thousand, would it not be madness to pass it up?
Aeons later he decided that it would. The money was his passport to Paradise, and he knew Gloria Salt well enough to be aware that, though a girl of kind impulses, she was touchy. Spurn her, and she stayed spurned. To refuse to meet her at Mario’s and hear her plan for conjuring two thousand pounds out of thin air, which seemed to be what she had in mind, would mean pique, resentment and dudgeon. She would drop the subject entirely and decline to open it again.
Heavily, for the load on his heart weighed him down, he rose and began to turn the pages of the telephone book. Chez Lady Garland, whoever she might be, Penny had said she would be during her brief stay in the great city, and there was a Garland, Lady with a Grosvenor Square address among the G’s. He dialled the number, and hooked what sounded like a butler.
‘Could I speak to Miss Donaldson?’
He could not. Penny, it appeared, was out having a fit. A what? Oh, a fitting? Yes, I see. Any idea when she will be back? No, sir, I am unable to say. Would you care to leave a message, sir?
‘Yes. Will you tell Miss Donaldson that Mr Gerald Vail is terribly sorry but he will be unable to give her dinner tonight owing to a very important business matter that has come up.’
‘Business matter, sir?’
‘That’s right. A most important business matter.’
‘Very good, sir.’
And that was that. But oh, the agony of it. Replacing the receiver, Jerry slumped into a chair with a distinct illusion that mocking fiends were detaching large portions of his soul with red-hot pincers.
At Wiltshire House, Grosvenor Square, residence of Dora, relict of the late Sir Everard Garland, K.C.B., Lady Constance Keeble was not feeling any too good herself. Jerry had made his call at the moment when Riggs, the butler, was bringing tea for herself and Lord Vosper, who had looked in hoping for buttered toast and a chat with Penny, and it had taken her attention right off the pleasures of the table.
‘Sinister’ was the word that flashed through Lady Constance’s mind. ‘Sir,’ Riggs had said, indicating that the mysterious caller was of the male sex, and she was at a loss to comprehend how – unless the girl had told him – any mysterious male could know that Penny was in London. And if she had told him, it implied an intimacy which froze her blood.
‘Who was that, Riggs?’
‘A Mr Gerald Vail, m’lady, regretting his inability to entertain Miss Donaldson at dinner tonight.’
Training tells. ‘Ladies never betray emotion, Connie dear,’ an early governess of Lady Constance’s had often impressed upon her, and the maxim had guided her through life. Where a woman less carefully schooled might have keeled over in her chair, possibly with a startled ‘Golly!’ she merely quivered a little.
‘I see. Thank you, Riggs.’
She picked up the cake with jam in the middle which had fallen from her nerveless fingers and ate it in a sort of trance. The discovery that, on the pretext of dining with her father’s old friend Mrs Bunbury, Penelope Donaldson had been planning to sneak off and revel with a young man who, from the fact that she had never mentioned his name, must be somebody quite impossible appalled her. It revealed the child as what her brother Galahad would have called a hornswoggling highbinder, and anyone who has anything to do with highbinders knows that that is the very worst sort.
It was with relief that she remembered that by tomorro
w evening Penelope Donaldson would be safely back at Blandings Castle, well away from the Vail sphere of influence.
What a haven and refuge Blandings Castle was, to be sure, felt Lady Constance. It seemed to her to have everything. Bracing air, picturesque scenery, old world peace and – best of all – not a Vail to be seen for miles.
2
When girls like Gloria Salt, planning dinner with an old friend, say they are going to dress, they use the word in its deepest and fullest sense, meaning that they propose to extend themselves and that such of the populace as are sharing the salle-à-manger with them will be well advised to wear smoked glasses. Jerry, waiting in the lobby of Mario’s restaurant some three hours later, was momentarily stunned by what came floating in through the revolving door twenty minutes or so after the time appointed for the tryst. Owing to the fact that their meetings for some years had been confined to the golf links and the luncheon table, he had forgotten how spectacular this girl could be when arrayed for the evening meal.
Gloria Salt was tall and slim and the last word in languorous elegance. Though capable of pasting a golf ball two hundred yards and creating, when serving at tennis, the illusion that it was raining thunderbolts, her dark beauty made her look like a serpent of old Nile. A nervous host, encountering her on her way to dine, might have been excused for wondering whether to offer her a dry martini or an asp.
He would have been wrong in either case. She would have declined the asp, and she now declined Jerry’s suggestion of a cocktail.
‘Never touch ’em. Can’t keep fit if you put that foul stuff into you. That’s what I told my future lord and master,’ said Gloria, as they seated themselves at their table. ‘Lay off those pink gins, Greg, I said, avoid those whisky sours, and while you’re about it cut out the starchy foods and take regular daily exercises, because a girl who marries a man who looks like you do at moment of going to press is going to have an uneasy feeling that she’s committing bigamy.’
Pigs Have Wings: Page 6
