Something New · Chapter 11 (3/4)

Sometimes he would head the list with the name of his Cousin Percy⁠—Lord Stockheath⁠—who refused to talk of anything except his late breach-of-promise case and the effect the verdict had had on his old governor. Freddie was in no mood just now to be sympathetic with others on their breach-of-promise cases.

As he lay in bed reading on Monday morning, the only flaw in his enjoyment of this unaccustomed solitude was the thought that presently the door was bound to open and some kind inquirer insinuate himself into the room.

His apprehensions proved well founded. Scarcely had he got well into the details of an ingenious plot on the part of a secret society to eliminate Gridley Quayle by bribing his cook⁠—a bad lot⁠—to sprinkle chopped-up horsehair in his chicken fricassee, when the doorknob turned and Ashe Marson came in.

Freddie was not the only person who had found the influx of visitors into the sick room a source of irritation. The fact that the invalid seemed unable to get a moment to himself had annoyed Ashe considerably. For some little time he had hung about the passage in which Freddie’s room was situated, full of enterprise, but unable to make a forward move owing to the throng of sympathizers. What he had to say to the sufferer could not be said in the presence of a third party.

Freddie’s sensation, on perceiving him, was one of relief. He had been half afraid it was the bishop. He recognized Ashe as the valet chappie who had helped him to bed on the occasion of his accident. It might be that he had come in a respectful way to make inquiries, but he was not likely to stop long. He nodded and went on reading. And then, glancing up, he perceived Ashe standing beside the bed, fixing him with a piercing stare.

The Honorable Freddie hated piercing stares. One of the reasons why he objected to being left alone with his future father-in-law, Mr. J. Preston Peters, was that Nature had given the millionaire a penetrating pair of eyes, and the stress of business life in New York had developed in him a habit of boring holes in people with them. A young man had to have a stronger nerve and a clearer conscience than the Honorable Freddie to enjoy a tête-à-tête with Mr. Peters.

Though he accepted Aline’s father as a necessary evil and recognized that his position entitled him to look at people as sharply as he liked, whatever their feelings, he would be hanged if he was going to extend this privilege to Mr. Peters’ valet. This man standing beside him was giving him a look that seemed to his sensitive imagination to have been fired red-hot from a gun; and this annoyed and exasperated Freddie.

“What do you want?” he said querulously. “What are you staring at me like that for?”

Ashe sat down, leaned his elbows on the bed, and applied the look again from a lower elevation.

“Ah!” he said.

Whatever may have been Ashe’s defects, so far as the handling of the inductive-reasoning side of Gridley Quayle’s character was concerned, there was one scene in each of his stories in which he never failed. That was the scene in the last chapter where Quayle, confronting his quarry, unmasked him. Quayle might have floundered in the earlier part of the story, but in his big scene he was exactly right. He was curt, crisp and mercilessly compelling.

Ashe, rehearsing this interview in the passage before his entry, had decided that he could hardly do better than model himself on the detective. So he began to be curt, crisp and mercilessly compelling to Freddie; and after the first few sentences he had that youth gasping for air.

“I will tell you,” he said. “If you can spare me a few moments of your valuable time I will put the facts before you. Yes; press that bell if you wish⁠—and I will put them before witnesses. Lord Emsworth will no doubt be pleased to learn that his son, whom he trusted, is a thief!”

Freddie’s hand fell limply. The bell remained untouched. His mouth opened to its fullest extent. In the midst of his panic he had a curious feeling that he had heard or read that last sentence somewhere before. Then he remembered. Those very words occurred in Gridley Quayle, Investigator⁠—The Adventure of the Blue Ruby.

“What⁠—what do you mean?” he stammered.

“I will tell you what I mean. On Saturday night a valuable scarab was stolen from Lord Emsworth’s private museum. The case was put into my hands⁠—”

“Great Scott! Are you a detective?”

“Ah!” said Ashe.

Life, as many a worthy writer has pointed out, is full of ironies. It seemed to Freddie that here was a supreme example of this fact. All these years he had wanted to meet a detective; and now that his wish had been gratified the detective was detecting him!

“The case,” continued Ashe severely, “was placed in my hands. I investigated it. I discovered that you were in urgent and immediate need of money.”

“How on earth did you do that?”

“Ah!” said Ashe. “I further discovered that you were in communication with an individual named Jones.”

“Good Lord! How?”

Ashe smiled quietly.

“Yesterday I had a talk with this man Jones, who is staying in Market Blandings. Why is he staying in Market Blandings? Because he had a reason for keeping in touch with you; because you were about to transfer to his care something you could get possession of, but which only he could dispose of⁠—the scarab.”

The Honorable Freddie was beyond speech. He made no comment on this statement. Ashe continued:

“I interviewed this man Jones. I said to him: ‘I am in the Honorable Frederick Threepwood’s confidence. I know everything. Have you any instructions for me?’ He replied: ‘What do you know?’ I answered: ‘I know that the Honorable Frederick Threepwood has something he wishes to hand to you, but which he has been unable to hand to you owing to having had an accident and being confined to his room.’ He then told me to tell you to let him have the scarab by messenger.”

Freddie pulled himself together with an effort. He was in sore straits, but he saw one last chance. His researches in detective fiction had given him the knowledge that detectives occasionally relaxed their austerity when dealing with a deserving case. Even Gridley Quayle could sometimes be softened by a hard-luck story. Freddie could recall half a dozen times when a detected criminal had been spared by him because he had done it all from the best motives. He determined to throw himself on Ashe’s mercy.

“I say, you know,” he said ingratiatingly, “I think it’s bally marvelous the way you’ve deduced everything, and so on.”

“Well?”

“But I believe you would chuck it if you heard my side of the case.”

“I know your side of the case. You think you are being blackmailed by a Miss Valentine for some letters you once wrote her. You are not. Miss Valentine has destroyed the letters. She told the man Jones so when he went to see her in London. He kept your five hundred pounds and is trying to get another thousand out of you under false pretenses.”

“What? You can’t be right.”

“I am always right.”

“You must be mistaken.”

“I am never mistaken.”

“But how do you know?”

“I have my sources of information.”

“She isn’t going to sue me for breach of promise?”

“She never had any intention of doing so.”

The Honorable Freddie sank back on the pillows.

“Good egg!” he said with fervor. He beamed happily. “This,” he observed, “is a bit of all right.”

For a space relief held him dumb. Then another aspect of the matter struck him, and he sat up again with a jerk.

“I say, you don’t mean to say that that rotter Jones was such a rotter as to do a rotten thing like that?”

“I do.”

Freddie grew plaintive.

“I trusted that man,” he said. “I jolly well trusted him absolutely.”

“I know,” said Ashe. “There is one born every minute.”

“But”⁠—the thing seemed to be filtering slowly into Freddie’s intelligence “what I mean to say is, I⁠—I⁠—thought he was such a good chap.”

“My short acquaintance with Mr. Jones,” said Ashe, “leads me to think that he probably is⁠—to himself.”

“I won’t have anything more to do with him.”

“I shouldn’t.”

“Dash it, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. The very next time I meet the blighter, I’ll cut him dead. I will! The rotter! Five hundred quid he’s had off me for nothing! And, if it hadn’t been for you, he’d have had another thousand! I’m beginning to think that my old governor wasn’t so far wrong when he used to curse me for going around with Jones and the rest of that crowd. He knew a bit, by Gad! Well, I’m through with them. If the governor ever lets me go to London again, I won’t have anything to do with them. I’ll jolly well cut the whole bunch! And to think that, if it hadn’t been for you⁠ ⁠…”

“Never mind that,” said Ashe. “Give me the scarab. Where is it?”

“What are you going to do with it?”

“Restore it to its rightful owner.”

“Are you going to give me away to the governor?”

“I am not.”

“It strikes me,” said Freddie gratefully, “that you are a dashed good sort. You seem to me to have the making of an absolute topper! It’s under the mattress. I had it on me when I fell downstairs and I had to shove it in there.”

Ashe drew it out. He stood looking at it, absorbed. He could hardly believe his quest was at an end and that a small fortune lay in the palm of his hand. Freddie was eyeing him admiringly.

“You know,” he said, “I’ve always wanted to meet a detective. What beats me is how you chappies find out things.”

“We have our methods.”

“I believe you. You’re a blooming marvel! What first put you on my track?”

“That,” said Ashe, “would take too long to explain. Of course I had to do some tense inductive reasoning; but I cannot trace every link in the chain for you. It would be tedious.”

“Not to me.”

“Some other time.”

“I say, I wonder whether you’ve ever read any of these things⁠—these Gridley Quayle stories? I know them by heart.”

With the scarab safely in his pocket, Ashe could contemplate the brightly-colored volume the other extended toward him without active repulsion. Already he was beginning to feel a sort of sentiment for the depressing Quayle, as something that had once formed part of his life.

“Do you read these things?”

“I should say not. I write them.”

There are certain supreme moments that cannot be adequately described. Freddie’s appreciation of the fact that such a moment had occurred in his life expressed itself in a startled cry and a convulsive movement of all his limbs. He shot up from the pillows and gaped at Ashe.

“You write them? You don’t mean, write them!”

“Yes.”

“Great Scott!”

He would have gone on, doubtless, to say more; but at this moment voices made themselves heard outside the door. There was a movement of feet. Then the door opened and a small procession entered.

It was headed by the Earl of Emsworth. Following him came Mr. Peters. And in the wake of the millionaire were Colonel Horace Mant and the Efficient Baxter. They filed into the room and stood by the bedside. Ashe seized the opportunity to slip out.

Freddie glanced at the deputation without interest. His mind was occupied with other matters. He supposed they had come to inquire after his ankle and he was mildly thankful that they had come in a body instead of one by one. The deputation grouped itself about the bed and shuffled its feet. There was an atmosphere of awkwardness.

“Er⁠—Frederick!” said Lord Emsworth. “Freddie, my boy!”

Mr. Peters fiddled dumbly with the coverlet. Colonel Mant cleared his throat. The Efficient Baxter scowled. “Er⁠—Freddie, my dear boy, I fear we have a painful⁠—er⁠—task to perform.”

The words struck straight home at the Honorable Freddie’s guilty conscience. Had they, too, tracked him down? And was he now to be accused of having stolen that infernal scarab? A wave of relief swept over him as he realized that he had got rid of the thing. A decent chappie like that detective would not give him away. All he had to do was to keep his head and stick to stout denial. That was the game⁠—stout denial.

“I don’t know what you mean,” he said defensively.

“Of course you don’t⁠—dash it!” said Colonel Mant. “We’re coming to that. And I should like to begin by saying that, though in a sense it was my fault, I fail to see how I could have acted⁠—”

“Horace!”

“Oh, very well! I was only trying to explain.”

Lord Emsworth adjusted his pince-nez and sought inspiration from the wall paper.

“Freddie, my boy,” he began, “we have a somewhat unpleasant⁠—a somewhat er⁠—disturbing⁠—We are compelled to break it to you. We are all most pained and astounded; and⁠—”

The Efficient Baxter spoke. It was plain he was in a bad temper.

“Miss Peters,” he snapped, “has eloped with your friend Emerson.”

Lord Emsworth breathed a sigh of relief.

“Exactly, Baxter. Precisely! You have put the thing in a nutshell. Really, my dear fellow, you are invaluable.”

All eyes searched Freddie’s face for signs of uncontrollable emotion. The deputation waited anxiously for his first grief-stricken cry.

“Eh? What?” said Freddie.

“It is quite true, Freddie, my dear boy. She went to London with him on the ten-fifty.”

“And if I had not been forcibly restrained,” said Baxter acidly, casting a vindictive look at Colonel Mant, “I could have prevented it.”

Colonel Mant cleared his throat again and put a hand to his mustache.

“I’m afraid that is true, Freddie. It was a most unfortunate misunderstanding. I’ll tell you how it happened: I chanced to be at the station bookstall when the train came in. Mr. Baxter was also in the station. The train pulled up and this young fellow Emerson got in⁠—said goodbye to us, don’t you know, and got in. Just as the train was about to start, Miss Peters exclaiming, ‘George dear, I’m going with you⁠—, dash it,’ or some such speech⁠—proceeded to go⁠—hell for leather⁠—to the door of young Emerson’s compartment. On which⁠—”

“On which,” interrupted Baxter, “I made a spring to try and catch her. Apart from any other consideration, the train was already moving and Miss Peters ran considerable risk of injury. I had hardly moved when I felt a violent jerk at my ankle and fell to the ground. After I had recovered from the shock, which was not immediately, I found⁠—”

“The fact is, Freddie, my boy,” the colonel went on, “I acted under a misapprehension. Nobody can be sorrier for the mistake than I; but recent events in this house had left me with the impression that Mr. Baxter here was not quite responsible for his actions⁠—overwork or something, I imagined. I have seen it happen so often in India, don’t you know, where fellows run amuck and kick up the deuce’s own delight. I am bound to admit that I have been watching Mr. Baxter rather closely lately in the expectation that something of this very kind might happen.

“Of course I now realize my mistake; and I have apologized⁠—apologized humbly⁠—dash it! But at the moment I was firmly under the impression that our friend here had an attack of some kind and was about to inflict injuries on Miss Peters. If I’ve seen it happen once in India, I’ve seen it happen a dozen times.

“I recollect, in the hot weather of the year ’99⁠—or was it ’93?⁠—I think ’93⁠—one of my native bearers⁠—However, I sprang forward and caught the crook of my walking stick on Mr. Baxter’s ankle and brought him down. And by the time explanations were made it was too late. The train had gone, with Miss Peters in it.”

“And a telegram has just arrived,” said Lord Emsworth, “to say that they are being married this afternoon at a registrar’s. The whole occurrence is most disturbing.”

“Bear it like a man, my boy!” urged Colonel Mant.

To all appearances Freddie was bearing it magnificently. Not a single exclamation, either of wrath or pain, had escaped his lips. One would have said the shock had stunned him or that he had not heard, for his face expressed no emotion whatever.