Pigs Have Wings (7 page)

But Beach, as he entered, was not taking the bass. A glance was enough to tell them that he was in no mood for singing. His moon-like face was twisted with mental agony, his gooseberry eyes bulging from their sockets. Even such a man so faint, so spiritless, so dead, so dull in look, so woebegone, drew Priam’s curtain in the dead of night and would have told him half his Troy was burned – or so it seemed to Penny, and she squeaked in amazement. Hers had been a sheltered life, and she had never before seen a butler with the heeby-jeebies.

‘Beach!’ she cried, deeply stirred. ‘What is it? Tell Mother.’

‘Good Lord, Beach,’ said Gally. ‘Then you’ve heard, too?’

‘Sir?’

‘About the Simmons girl being Parsloe’s cousin.’

Beach’s jaw fell another notch.

‘Sir Gregory’s cousin, Mr Galahad?’

‘Didn’t you know?’

‘I had no inkling, Mr Galahad.’

‘Then what are you sticking straws in your hair for?’

With trembling fingers Beach put a green baize cloth over the bullfinch’s cage. It was as if a Prime Minister in the House of Commons had blown the whistle for a secret session.

‘Mr Galahad,’ he said. ‘I can hardly tell you.’

‘What?’

‘No, sir, I can hardly tell you.’

‘Snap into it, Beach,’ said Penny. ‘Have your fit later.’

Beach tottered to a cupboard.

‘I think, Mr Galahad, if you will excuse me, I must take a drop of port.’

‘Double that order,’ said Gally.

‘Treble it,’ said Penny. ‘A beaker of the old familiar juice for each of the shareholders, Beach. And fill mine to the brim.’

Beach filled them all to the brim, and further evidence of his agitation, if such were needed, was afforded by the fact that he drained his glass at a gulp, though in happier times a sipper who sipped slowly, rolling the precious fluid round his tongue.

The restorative had its effect. He was able to speak.

‘Sir … and Madam …’

‘Have another,’ said Penny.

‘Thank you, miss. I believe I will. I think you should, too, Mr Galahad, for what I am about to say will come as a great shock.’

‘Get on, Beach. Don’t take all night about it.’

‘I know a man named Jerry Vail, a young author of sensational fiction,’ said Penny chattily, ‘who starts his stories just like this. You never know till Page Twenty-three what it’s all about. Suspense, he calls it.’

‘Cough it up, Beach, this instant, and no more delay. You hear me? I don’t want to be compelled to plug you in the eye.’

‘Very good, Mr Galahad.’

With a powerful effort the butler forced himself to begin his tale.

‘I have just returned from Market Blandings, Mr Galahad. I went there for the purpose of making a certain purchase. I don’t know if you have happened to notice it, sir, but recently I have been putting on a little weight, due no doubt to the sedentary nature of a butler’s –’

‘Beach!’

‘Let him work up to it,’ said Penny. ‘The Vail method. Building for the climax. Go on, Beach. You’re doing fine.’

‘Thank you, miss. Well, as I say, I have recently become somewhat worried about this increase in my weight, and I chanced to see in the paper an advertisement of a new preparation called Slimmo, guaranteed to reduce superfluous flesh, which was stated to contain no noxious or habit-forming drugs and to be endorsed by leading doctors. So I thought I would look in at Bulstrode’s in the High Street and buy a bottle. It was somewhat embarrassing walking into the shop and asking for it, and I thought I noticed Bulstrode’s young assistant give me a sort of sharp look as much as to say “Oho!” but I nerved myself to the ordeal, and Bulstrode’s young assistant wrapped the bottle up in paper and fastened the loose ends with a little pink sealing wax.’

‘Beach, you have been warned!’

‘Do be quiet, Gally. And that was that, eh?’

A spasm shook Beach.

‘If I may employ a vulgarism, miss, you do not know the half of it.’

‘More coming?’

‘Much, much more, miss.’

‘Well, here I am, Beach, with the old ear trumpet right at the ear.’

‘Thank you, miss.’

Beach closed his eyes for a moment, as if praying for strength.

‘I had scarcely paid for my purchase and received my change when the telephone bell rang. Bulstrode’s young assistant went to the instrument.’

‘And a dead body fell out?’

‘Miss?’

‘Sorry. My mind was on Mr Vail’s stories. Carry on. You have the floor. What happened?’

‘He spoke a few words into the instrument. “Okey-doke”, I remember, was one of them, and “Righty-ho”, from which I gathered that he was speaking to a customer of the lower middle class, what is sometimes called the burjoisy. Then he turned to me with a smile and observed “Well, that is what I call a proper coincidence, Mr Beach. Never rains but it pours, does it? That was Herbert Binstead. And know what he wants? Six bottles of Slimmo, the large economy size.”’

Gally started as if he had been bitten in the leg by Baronets.

‘What!’

‘Yes, Mr Galahad.’

‘That fellow Binstead was buying Slimmo?’

‘Yes, Mr Galahad.’

‘Good God!’

Penny looked from one to the other, perplexed.

‘But why shouldn’t he buy Slimmo? Maybe he’s a leading doctor.’

Gally spoke in a voice of doom.

‘Herbert Binstead is Gregory Parsloe’s butler. And if you have the idea that he may have been buying this anti-fat for his own personal use, correct that view. He’s as thin as a herring. His motive is obvious. One reads the man like a book. Acting under Parsloe’s instructions, he plans to pass this Slimmo on to the accomplice Simmons, who will slip it privily into the Empress’s daily ration, thus causing her to lose weight, thus handing the race on a plate to Queen of Matchingham. Am I right, Beach?’

‘I fear so, Mr Galahad. It was the first thought that entered my mind when Bulstrode’s young assistant revealed to me the gist of his telephone conversation.’

‘No explanation other than the one that I have outlined will fit the facts. I told you Parsloe was mustard, Penny. He moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform.’

Silence fell, one of those deep, uneasy silences which occur when all good men realize that now is the time for them to come to the aid of the party but are unable to figure out just how to set about doing so.

But it was not in the nature of the Hon. Galahad to be baffled for long. A brain like his, honed to razor-like sharpness by years of association with the members of the Pelican Club, is never at a loss for more than a moment.

‘Well, there you are,’ he said. ‘The first shot of the campaign has been fired, and soon the battle will be joined. We must consider our plan of action.’

‘Which is what?’ said Penny. ‘I don’t see where you go from here. I take it the idea is to keep an eye on this Simmons beazel, but how is it to be done? You can’t watch her all the time.’

‘Exactly. So we must engage the services of someone who can, someone trained to the task, someone whose profession it is to keep an eye on the criminal classes, and most fortunately we are able to lay our hand on just such a person. The guiding spirit of Digby’s Day and Night Detectives.’

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.’

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.