Uncle Dynamite (18 page)

As
Pongo paced the floor, from time to time quivering all over like a Brazilian
explorer with a touch of malaria, he was still in faultless evening dress, for
the idea of going to bed on this night of fear had not even occurred to him. A
young man visiting the parents of the girl he loves, and knowing that at one
sharp an uncle of the maximum eccentricity will be starting to burgle the
house, does not hop between the sheets at eleven-fifteen and sink into a
dreamless sleep. He stays up and shudders. Pongo had made one or two attempts
to divert his thoughts by reading
Murder in the Fog,
but without
success. There are moments when even the most faceless of fiends cannot hope to
grip.

In a
past the contemplation of which sometimes affected him as if he had bitten into
a bad oyster, Pongo Twistleton had frequently been called upon to tremble like
an aspen when an unwilling participant in the activities of his Uncle Fred, but
seldom had he done it more wholeheartedly than now. He was feeling rather as
the heroine of
Murder in the Fog
was wont to do when she got trapped in
underground dens, the illusion that his nerves were sticking two inches out of
his body and curling at the ends being extraordinarily vivid. And it is
probable that mental distress would have unstrung him completely, but for the
fact that in addition to suffering agony of the soul he was also in the process
of dying of thirst, and this seemed to act on the counter-irritation principle.

The
thirst of which he was dying was one of those lively young thirsts which seem
to start at the soles of the feet and get worse all the way up. Growing in
intensity ever since his arrival at the house, it had reached its peak at
eleven o’clock
tonight, when Jane, the
parlourmaid, had brought the bedtime decanter and syphon into the drawing-room.
He was no weakling, but having to sit there watching his host, his uncle and
Bill Oakshott getting theirs like so many stags at eve — he himself, in
deference to his known prejudice against alcoholic liquor, having been served
with barley water — had tested his iron control almost beyond endurance.

For
some minutes he continued to pace the floor, cursing the mad impulse which had
led him to tell Hermione that he never touched the stuff and sketching out in
his mind the series of long, cool ones with which, if he ever got out of here
alive, he would correct this thirst of his. And then, as he reached the end of
the carpet and was about to turn and pace back again, he stopped abruptly with
one foot in the air, looking so like
The Soul’s A wakening
that a
seasoned art critic would have been deceived. Two chimes had just sounded from
the church tower, and it was as if they had been the voice of a kindly friend
whispering in his ear.

‘Aren’t
you,’ they seemed to say, ‘overlooking the fact that that decanter is still in
the drawing-room? One merely throws this out as a suggestion.’ And he saw that
here was the solution of what had appeared to be an impasse. His guardian
angel, for he presumed it was his guardian angel, had pointed out the way.
Hats off to the good old guardian angel, was Pongo’s attitude.

A
minute later he was in the corridor. Three minutes later he was in the drawing-room.
Three and a quarter minutes later he was pouring with trembling fingers what
promised to be the snifter of a lifetime. And four minutes later, reclining in
an armchair with his feet on a small table, he had begun to experience that
joy, than which there is none purer, which comes to the unwilling abstainer who
has at last succeeded in assembling the materials, when from immediately behind
him a voice spoke.

All the
voice actually said was ‘Coo!’ but it was enough. Indeed, in the circumstances,
a mere clearing of the throat would have been sufficient. His knotted and
combined locks parted, each particular hair standing on end like quills upon
the fretful porcupine: his heart broke from its moorings and crashed with a
dull thud against his front teeth: and with a wordless cry he shot toward the
ceiling.

It was
only some moments later, after he had hit the ceiling twice and was starting to
descend to terra firma, that the mists cleared from his eyes and he was able to
perceive that the intruder was not, as he had supposed, Sir Aylmer Bostock, but
Elsie Bean, his old playmate of the rude sling days. She was standing by the
door with a hand to her heart, panting a little, as housemaids will when they
enter drawing-rooms at twenty minutes to one in the morning and find them occupied
by the ruling classes.

The
relief was stupendous. Pongo’s equanimity returned, and with it a warm gush of
the milk of human kindness. To a man who had been anticipating an embarrassing
interview with Sir Aylmer Bostock in his dressing-gown Elsie Bean was like
something the doctor had ordered. He had no objection whatever to Elsie Bean
joining him, quite the reverse. A chat with one of the finest minds in
Bottleton East was just what he was in the mood for. He beamed on the girl, and
having released his tongue, which had got entangled with his uvula, spoke in a
genial and welcoming voice.

‘What
ho, Bean.’

‘What
ho, sir.’

‘It’s
you, is it?’

‘Yes,
sir.’

‘You
gave me a start.’

‘You
gave
me
a start, sir.’

‘Making
two starts in all,’ said Pongo, who had taken mathematics at school. ‘You must
forgive me for seeming a little perturbed for a moment. I thought you were mine
host. Thank God you weren’t. Do you remember in your inimitable way describing
him as an overbearing dishpot? You were right. A dishpot he is, and a dishpot
he always will be, and to hell with all dishpots is my view. Well, come along
in, young Bean, and tell me your news. How’s the Harold situation developing?
Any change on the Potter front?’

Elsie
Bean’s face clouded. She tossed her head, plainly stirred.

‘Harold’s
a mess,’ she said, with the frankness which comes naturally to those reared in
the bracing air of Bottleton East. ‘He’s an obstinate, pig-headed, fat-headed,
flatfooted copper. I’ve no patience.’

‘He
still refuses to send in his papers?’

‘R.’

A pang
of pity shot through Pongo. Nothing that he had seen of Constable Potter had
tended to build up in his mind the picture of a sort of demon lover for whom
women might excusably go wailing through the woods, but he knew that his little
friend was deeply attached to this uniformed perisher and his heart bled for
her. He was broad-minded enough to be able to appreciate that if you are
enamoured of a fat-headed copper and obstacles crop up in the way of your union
with him, you mourn just as much as if he were Gregory Peck or Clark Gable.

‘He
came round tonight after supper, and we talked for an hour and a half, but
nothing I could say would move him.’

‘No
dice, eh? Too bad.’

‘It’s
that sister of his. She won’t let him call his soul his own. I don’t know
what’s to come of it, I’m sure.’

A
pearly tear appeared at the corner of Elsie Bean’s eye, and she sniffed in an
overwrought way. Pongo patted her head. It was the least a man of sensibility
could do.

‘I
wouldn’t despair,’ he said. ‘These things seem sticky at the moment, but they
generally iron out straight in the end. Give him time, and you’ll find he’ll be
guided by the voice of love.’

Elsie
Bean, having sniffed again, became calmer. There was good stuff in this girl.

‘What
would guide him a lot better,’ she said, ‘would be being bopped on the nose.’

‘Bopped
on the nose?’

‘R.’

Of the
broad, general principle of bopping Constable Potter on the nose Pongo was, of
course, a warm adherent. It was a thing that he felt should be done early and
often. But he was unable to see how it could pay dividends in the present
circumstances.

‘I
don’t quite follow.’

‘That
would knock some sense into him. Harold’s nervous.’

‘Nervous?’
said Pongo incredulously. He had detected no such basic weakness in the flatty
under advisement. A man of iron, he would have said.

‘That’s
why he got himself shifted to the country from
London
, where he used to be. He found it too hot being a rozzer in
London
. He had some unpleasant experiences
with blokes giving him shiners when he was pinching them, and it shook him. He
come here for peace and quiet. So if he found it was too hot being a rozzer
here as well, he wouldn’t want to be a rozzer anywhere. He’d give his month’s
notice, and we’d all be happy.’

Pongo
saw her point. He could scarcely have done otherwise, for it had been admirably
put.

‘True,’
he said. ‘You speak sooth, Bean.’

‘If
only someone would bop him on the nose, he wouldn’t hesitate not for a moment.
You
wouldn’t bop him on the nose, would you?’

‘No, I
would not bop him on the nose.’

‘Or
squash in his helmet when he wasn’t looking?’

Pongo
was sorry for the idealistic girl, but he felt it due to himself to discourage
this line of thought from the outset.

‘A man
like Harold is always looking,’ he said. ‘No, I wish you luck, young Bean, and
I shall follow your future career with considerable interest, but don’t count
on me for anything more than heartfelt sympathy. Still, I fully concur in your
view that what you require is an up and coming ally, who will drive home to Harold
the risks of the profession, .thus causing him to see the light, and I strongly
recommend featuring your brother Bert in the part. It’s a pity he doesn’t come
out till September. What’s he in for?’

‘Resisting
of the police in the execution of their duty. He sloshed a slop on the napper
with a blunt instrument.’

‘There
you are, then. The People’s Choice. Tails up, my dear old housemaid. Provided,
of course, that his sojourn in the coop has not weakened Bert as a force, you
should be hearing the warbling of the blue bird by early October at the latest.
Meanwhile, switching lightly to another topic, what on earth are you doing
here at this time of night?’

‘I came
to get some whisky.’

All the
host in Pongo sprang to life. He blushed for his remissness.

‘I’m frightfully
sorry,’ he said, reaching for the decanter. ‘Ought to have offered you a spot
ages ago. Can’t imagine what I am thinking of.’

‘For
Harold,’ Elsie Bean explained. ‘He’s lurking in the garden. He chucked a stone
at my window, and when I popped my head out he asked me in a hoarse whisper to
bring him a drop of something. And I remembered Jane always took the whisky in
here last thing before bed. Lurking in the garden!’ she proceeded with
bitterness. ‘What’s he lurking in gardens for? Doing some sort of copper’s job,
I suppose. If he’d give up being a copper, he could stay in bed like other
folks. I’ve no patience.’

She
sniffed, and Pongo, fearing another pearly tear, hastened to apply first aid.

‘There,
there,’ he said. ‘You mustn’t let it get you down. Right will prevail. Have a
cigarette?’

‘Thanks.’

‘Turkish
this side, Virginian that,’ said Pongo.

He had
taken one himself a few moments before, and he proceeded now to light hers from
his own. And it was while their faces were in the close juxtaposition
necessitated by this process that Bill Oakshott entered the room.

Whether one is justified
in describing Bill Oakshott and Pongo Twistleton as great minds is perhaps a
question open to debate. But they had exhibited tonight the quality which is
supposed to be characteristic of great minds, that of thinking alike. Pongo,
yearning for a snootful, had suddenly remembered the decanter in the
drawing-room, and so had Bill.

Ever
since his meeting that afternoon with Lord Ickenham, Bill Oakshott’s emotions
had been rather similar to those which he would have experienced, had he in the
course of a country walk discovered that his coat tails had become attached to
the rear end of the Scotch express en route from
London
to
Edinburgh
. Like
most of those who found themselves associated with the effervescent peer when
he was off the chain and starting to go places, he was conscious of a feeling
of breathlessness, shot through with a lively apprehension as to what was
coming next. This had induced sleeplessness. Sleeplessness had induced thirst.
And with thirst had come the recollection of the decanter in the drawing-room.

With
Bill, as with Pongo, to think was to act, and only in a minor detail of
technique had their procedure differed. Pongo, not knowing whether the bally
things creaked or not, had descended the stairs mincingly, like Agag, while
Bill, more familiar with the terrain, had taken them three at a time, like a
buffalo making for a water hole. He arrived, accordingly, somewhat touched in
the wind, and the affectionate scene that met his eyes as he crossed the
threshold took away what remained of his breath completely. Elsie Bean,
entering the room, had said ‘Coo!’ Bill for the moment was unable to utter at
all. He merely stood and goggled, shocked to the core.