Uncle Dynamite (16 page)

‘Ah,
well,’ said Lord Ickenham, always inclined to take the tolerant view, ‘what ate
manners, if the heart be of gold? Goodbye again, Mrs Stubbs. Goodbye, baby. As
I say, we must be moving. May I repeat what a privilege it has been to get
together with this superb child in what I may term his training quarters and
urge you once more, with all the emphasis at my disposal, to put the family
shirt on him for the big event. There could be no sounder investment.
Good-bye,’ said Lord Ickenham, ‘goodbye, goodbye,’ and took his departure,
scattering sweetness and light in all directions.

Out in
the road he paused to light a cigar.

‘How
absurdly simple these things are,’ he said, ‘when you have someone with
elephantiasis of the brain, like myself, directing the operations. A few well-chosen
words, and we baffle the constable just as we baffled Mugsy. Odd that he should
have left us so abruptly. But perhaps he went in to spray his temples with
eau-de-Cologne. I got the impression that he was cracking under the strain a
little when I was dishing out that major and minor stuff.’

‘How
did you come to think of that?’

‘Genius,’
said Lord Ickenham modestly. ‘Pure genius.’

‘I
wonder if he swallowed it.’

‘I
think so. I hope so.’

‘You
laid it on a bit thick about that ruddy baby.’

‘Kind
words are never wasted, Bill Oakshott. And now for Ashenden Manor, I think,
don’t you, and the warm English welcome.’

Bill
seemed uncertain.

‘Do you
know, I believe I could do with some more beer.’

‘You
feel faint?’

‘I do,
rather.’

‘All
right, then, you push on to the pub. I must try to find Pongo. Would he be in
the house?’

‘No, I
saw him going out.’

‘Then I
will scour the countryside for him. It is vital,’ said Lord Ickenham, ‘that I
put him abreast of the position of affairs before he has an opportunity of spilling
the beans. We don’t want him charging in when I am chatting with Mugsy and
calling me “Uncle Fred”. Before we settle down to the quiet home evening to
which I am looking forward so much, he must be informed that he is losing an
uncle but gaining a Brazilian explorer. So for the moment, bung-ho. Where was
it I told Mugsy that we would all meet? Ah, yes, at
Philippi
. See you there, then, when you have drunk your fill.’

In times of spiritual
disturbance there is nothing like a brisk mystery thriller for taking the mind
off its anxieties. Pongo’s first move after parting from Sir Aylmer Bostock had
been to go to his room and get his copy of
Murder in the Fog;
his second
to seek some quiet spot outside the grounds, where there would be no danger of
meeting the ex-Governor on his return, and soothe himself with a good read. He
found such a spot at the side of the road not far from the Manor gates, and
soon became absorbed.

The
treatment proved almost immediately effective. That interview with Sir Aylmer
in the hall had filled him with numbing fears and rendered him all of a
twitter, but now he found his quivering ganglia getting back to mid-season
form: and, unlike the heroine of the tale in which he was immersed, who had
just got trapped in the underground den of one of those Faceless Fiends who
cause so much annoyance, he was feeling quite tranquil, when a shadow fell on
the page, a well-remembered voice spoke his name, and he looked up to see his
Uncle Fred standing before him.

If
there is one occasion more than another when joy might be expected to be unconfined
and happiness to reign supreme, it is surely, one would say, when a nephew in
the course of a country ramble encounters an uncle who in his time has often
dandled him on his knee. At such a moment one would anticipate the quick
indrawing of the breath, the raising of the eyes thankfully to heaven and the
meeting of hand and hand in a fervent clasp.

It is
unpleasant, therefore, to have to record that in Pongo’s bosom, as he beheld
Lord Ickenham, joy was not the predominating emotion. He could scarcely,
indeed, have appeared more disconcerted if the Faceless Fiend from the volume
in his hand had popped from its pages to confront him.

‘Uncle
Fred!’ he ejaculated. The burned child fears the fire, and bitter experience
had taught Pongo Twistleton to view with concern the presence in his midst of
Ickenham’s fifth earl. One recalls the words, quoted in a previous chapter, of
the thoughtful Crumpet. ‘Good Lord, Uncle Fred, what on earth are you doing
here?’

Lord
Ickenham, unlike Sir Aylmer Bostock, was a man who believed in breaking things
gently. With a tale to unfold whose lightest word would harrow up his nephew’s
soul and make his two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres, he decided to
hold it in for the time being and to work round gradually and by easy stages to
what Pongo would have called the nub. With a gentle smile on his handsome face,
he lowered himself to the ground and gave his moustache a twirl.

‘Just
pottering to and fro, my boy, just pottering to and fro. This road is open for
being pottered in at this hour, I believe.’

‘But I
left you at Ickenham.’

‘The
parting was agony.’

‘You
told me you were going to
London
.’

‘So I
did.’

‘You
never said a word about coming here.’

‘No,
but you know how it is. Things happen. One’s plans become modified.’

A
passing ant paused to investigate Pongo’s wrist. He flung it from him, and the
ant, alighting on its head some yards to the sou’-sou’-east, went off to warn
other ants to watch out for earthquakes.

‘I might
have known it,’ he cried passionately. ‘You’re going to start something.’

‘No,
no.’

‘Then
what’s up?’

Lord
Ickenham considered the question.

‘I
don’t know that I would go so far to say that anything was actually
up.
The
word is. too strong. Certain complications have arisen, it is true, but nothing
that cannot be adjusted by a couple of cool, calm men of the world who keep
their heads. Let me begin at the beginning. I went to
London
and gave Sally dinner, and in the course of the meal she revealed
why it was that she had wanted to see me so urgently. It seems that her brother
Otis is in trouble again. She asked me to tell you all about it and endeavour
to enlist your aid.’

As the
story of Otis Painter and Sir Aylmer Bostock’s Reminiscences unfolded itself,
relief poured over Pongo in a healing wave. He blamed himself for having so
readily fallen a prey to the agitation which the unexpected appearance of his
Uncle Fred was so apt to occasion in him. Up to this point he had been
standing. He now sat down with the air of a man who is at his ease. He even
laughed, a thing which he was seldom able to do when in conference with his
uncle.

‘Rather
funny,’ he said.

‘The
matter is not without its humorous aspect,’ Lord Ickenham agreed. ‘But we must
not forget that if the action goes through, Sally stands to lose a lot of
money.’

‘That’s
true. So she wants me to plead with the old boy and get him to settle the thing
out of court. Well, I’ll do what I can.’

‘You
speak doubtfully. Doesn’t he love you like a son?’

‘I wouldn’t
say absolutely like a son. You see, I broke one of his African curios.’

‘You do
break things, don’t you? And this has rankled?’

‘I
fancy it has to some extent. When I met him in the hall just now, he gave me a
nasty look and a couple of distinctly unpleasant “Ha’s!” The slant I got was
that he had been thinking me over and come to the conclusion that I was a bit
of a louse. Still, he may come round.’

‘Of
course he will. You must persevere.’

‘Oh,
rather.’

‘That’s
the spirit. Keep after him, exerting all your charm. Remember what it means to
Sally.’

‘Right
ho. And is that really all you wanted to see me about?’

‘I
think so. Except…. Now what else was it I wanted to see you about?… Ah,
yes, I remember. That bust of Sally’s. The one you borrowed from my place.’

‘Oh,
the old busto? Yes, of course. Well, everything went according to plan. I
sneaked it in all right. A testing experience, though. If you knew what I went
through, beetling across the hall with the thing in my possession, expecting
every moment to feel old Bostock’s hot breath on the back of my neck!’

‘I can
readily imagine it. I wonder,’ said Lord Ickenham, ‘if you know how these busts
are made? Sally has been explaining it to me. It is a most interesting process.
You first model the clay. Then you slap on it a coat of liquid plaster.’

‘Oh,
yes?’

‘After
that you wait a little while until the plaster becomes fairly hard, when you
divide it into two neat halves and throw away the clay. You then fill the mould
with plaster.’

‘Very
jolly, if you like that sort of thing,’ said Pongo tolerantly. ‘How was Sally?’

‘At
first, radiant. Later, somewhat perturbed.’

‘About
Otis, you mean?’

‘About
Otis — and other things. But let me finish telling you about the way busts are
made. You fill the mould with plaster, leaving a small empty space at the top.
This,’ said Lord Ickenham, feeling that he had now broken the thing
sufficiently gently, ‘you utilize as a repository for any jewels that any
friend of yours may wish to smuggle into the
United
States
.’

‘What!’
Pongo shot up in a whirl of arms and legs. Another ant, which climbed on to his
wrist in a rather sceptical spirit, took as impressive a toss as its
predecessor had done, and might have been observed some moments later rubbing
its head and telling a circle of friends that old George had been right when he
had spoken of seismic disturbances. ‘You don’t mean —?‘

‘Yes.
Inadvertently, intending no harm, we appear to have got away with the bust in
which Sally had cached her friend Alice Vansittart’s bit of stuff. The idea
came to her, apparently, shortly after you had refused to help her out. It
seems a pity now that you were not more amenable. Of course, as Hamlet very
sensibly remarked, there’s nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so;
still, a rather sticky situation has unquestionably been precipitated. The
Vansittart sails for
New York
next week.’

‘Oh, my
gosh!’

‘You
see the drama of the thing? I thought you would. Well, there it is. You will
agree with me, I think, that we are in honour bound to return these trinkets.
Can’t go snitching a poor girl’s little bit of jewellery. Not done. Not
cricket.’

Pongo
nodded. Nobody could teach him anything about
noblesse oblige.
He shrank
from repeating the dreadful performance to which he had forced himself on his
arrival at the house, but he quite saw that it had to be done.

‘That’s
right,’ he said. ‘I’ll have to nip over to Ickenham and get another bust. Will
Coggs be able to dig me out one?’

‘No,’
said Lord Ickenham. ‘And if he could, it would not be any good. Another
complication has occurred, which I must now relate to you. You remember the
bust Sally did of Sir Aylmer, the one that was to have been presented to the
village club, poor devils. Piqued as the result of this Otis business, he
returned it to her, and I brought her down here this afternoon in my car and
she crept into the house and substituted it for the one with Miss Vansittart’s
jewels in it. And just as she was getting away with the latter, Lady Bostock
intercepted her, took it away from her and locked it up in a cupboard in the
room where the African curios are. And there it now is. So —‘

Pongo
interrupted, speaking quickly and forcefully. There are limits to what
noblesse
obliges.

‘I know
what you’re going to say,’ he cried. ‘You want me to sneak down in the middle
of the night and break open the cupboard and pinch it. Well, I’m jolly well not
going to do it.’

‘No,
no,’ said Lord Ickenham. ‘Calm yourself, my dear boy. I would not dream of
burdening you with such a responsibility. I will do the pinching.’

‘You?’

‘In
person.’

‘But
you can’t get into the house.’

‘I wish
people wouldn’t tell me I can’t do things. It is all going to be perfectly
simple. My young friend, Bill Oakshott, has invited me to stay at Ashenden
Manor. He wants me to judge the Bonny Babies contest at a fete they are having
here shortly. Why his choice fell upon me, one cannot say. I suppose he knew I
was good. These things get about.’

Pongo
gazed up at the reeling sky and sent his haggard eyes roaming over a country
side that had broken into a sort of Ouled Nail muscle dance. His face was
drawn, and his limbs twitched. Lord Ickenham, watching him, received the
impression that he did not like the idea of his, Lord Ickenham’s, approaching
visit to Ashenden Manor.