Uncle Dynamite (21 page)

‘But,
sir, I’ve caught a marauder.’

‘A
what?’

‘A
nocturnal marauder, sir.’

‘Then
where is he? Don’t tell me you let him get away?’

‘Well,
yes, sir.’

‘Ass!
Fool! Idiot! Imbecile!’ said Sir Aylmer.

Constable
Potter was wounded.

‘It
wasn’t my fault, sir. The garments give when I clutched them.’

With
the manner of Counsel putting in Exhibit A, he thrust beneath his interlocutor’s
eyes the flimsy fragment which he was holding, and Sir Aylmer inspected it
closely.

‘This
is a woman’s dress,’ he said.

‘A
female’s,’ corrected Constable Potter, always indefatigable in his quest for
exactitude. ‘I observed her engaged in suspicious loitering, and when I up and
apprehended her she come apart in my hands.’

At this
dramatic recital of events which, even if colourlessly related, could scarcely
have failed to chill the spine, there proceeded from the group of female
members of the staff, huddled together for mutual support, a cry, or as
Constable Potter would probably have preferred to put it, an ejaculation,
consisting of the monosyllable ‘OW!’ Weighing the evidence, one would say that
the speaker was not Elsie Bean, who would have said ‘Coo!’ but is more likely
to have been Mrs Gooch or Jane the parlourmaid. The interruption had the
unfortunate effect of attracting Sir Aylmer’s attention to the group, and he
started immediately to make his presence felt.

‘EMILY!’

‘Yes,
dear?’

‘What
are all these women doing here?’ Sir Aylmer’s reddening eye passed from Mrs
Gooch to Jane the parlourmaid, from Jane the parlourmaid to Elsie Bean. ‘Good
God! The place is full of damned woman. Send ‘em to bed.’

‘Yes,
dear.’

‘Dishpot!’
cried a clear young voice, this time unmistakably that of Miss Bean. She had
been looking forward to spending most of the rest of the night in the hall,
listening to tales of stirring events and commenting on them in her friendly
way, and to get the bum’s rush like this in the first five minutes was very
bitter to her independent spirit. Not since the evening of her seventh birthday
when, excitement having induced an attack of retching and nausea, she had been
led out of the Bottleton East Theatre Royal half-way through her first
pantomime, had she experienced such a sense of disappointment and frustration.

Sir
Aylmer started. These were fighting words.

‘Who
called me a dishpot?’

‘I
did,’ replied Elsie Bean with quiet fortitude. ‘An overbearing dishpot, that’s
what you are, and I would like to give my month’s notice.’

‘I
would like to give my month’s notice,’ said Mrs Gooch, struck by the
happy thought.

‘So
would I like to give my month’s notice,’ said Jane the parlourmaid, falling in
with the mob spirit.

Sir
Aylmer clutched his dressing-gown. For a moment it seemed as if it were his
intention to rend it, like a minor prophet of the Old Testament.

‘EMILY!’

‘Yes,
dear?’

‘Are
you or are you not going to throw these women out?’

‘Yes,
dear. At once, dear.’

Briskly,
though with a leaden heart, for none knew better than she the difficulty of
obtaining domestic help in the country, Lady Bostock shepherded the rebels
through the door. Of the wage-earning members of the household only Percy, the
knives and boots boy, remained, a pimpled youth with a rather supercilious
manner. He had lighted a cigarette, and his whole demeanour showed his
satisfaction that the women had gone and that the men could now get together
and thresh the thing out in peace.

Sir
Aylmer drew a deep breath like a speaker at a public meeting after the hecklers
have been ejected.

‘Potter.’

‘Sir?’

‘Tell
me your story again.’

The
constable told his story again, even better than before, for he had been able
to think of some new words, and Sir Aylmer listened frowningly.

‘Where
was this woman?’

‘This
Mystery Woman,’ corrected Constable Potter. ‘In the garden, sir.’ ‘What part of
the garden?’

‘Near
the window of the room where you keep your thingamajigs, sir.’ ‘My
what?’

‘Those
objects from
Africa
, sir.
Curios is, I believe, the name.’

‘Then
call them curios. ‘‘Yes, sir.

‘Not
thingamajigs. ‘No, sir.’

‘What
was she doing?’ ‘Lying in wait, sir.’

‘What
for?’

‘Don’t
know, sir.’

Percy
flicked the ash off his cigarette.

‘If you
arst me,’ he said, throwing out the suggestion for what it was worth, ‘she was
expecting the arrival of her accomplice. This is the work of a gang.’

He
would have done better to remain in modest obscurity. Compelled by his official
status to accept meekly the recriminations of landed proprietors who were also
members of the bench of magistrates, Constable Potter could be very terrible
when dealing with knives and boots boys, and he had been wanting some form of
relief for his feeling ever since Sir Aylmer had called him an ass, a fool, an
idiot and an imbecile. To advance and seize Percy by the left ear was with him
the work of an instant, to lead him to the door and speed him on his way with a
swift kick the work of another. A thud and a yelp, and Percy had ceased to have
a seat at the conference table. Constable Potter returned to his place, his air
that of a man who has carried out a pleasant task neatly and well.

Percy’s
head appeared round the door.

‘And so
would I like to give my month’s notice,’ he said, and withdrew once more.

Lord
Ickenham, who had been a genial spectator, spoke for the first time.

‘A
clean sweep, Mugsy. What, all my pretty chickens at one fell swoop! Too bad.
Very difficult these days to get servants in the country.’

Sir
Aylmer did not reply. The same thought had come to him independently, and he
was beginning to be a little dubious as to the wisdom of his forthright policy
in dealing with domestics. It was Constable Potter who now came before the
meeting with a few well-judged words.

‘Not
but what there ain’t a lot in what the lad said,’ he observed. He was not fond
of Percy, suspecting him of being the hidden hand which had thrown half a brick
at him the other day as he cycled up the drive, but he could give credit where
credit was due. ‘About its being a gang, what I mean. Women don’t conduct
burglaries on their own hook. They have pals. Established inside the house as
like as not,’ he added with a significant glance.

It was
Pongo who spoke next, as if impelled to utterance by a jab in the trouser seat
from a gimlet or bradawl. In saying that Constable Potter’s glance was
significant, we omitted to state that it was at the last of the Twistletons
that it had been directed, nor did we lay anything like sufficient stress on
its penetrating qualities. It was silly of us to describe as merely significant
something so closely resembling a death ray.

‘What
are you looking at
me
for?’ he asked weakly.

Constable
Potter, who could be as epigrammatic as the next man when he wanted to, replied
that a cat may look at a king. And he was just smiling at his ready wit, when
Sir Aylmer decided that the time for finesse and dissembling was past and that
what was required here was direct frontal attack. All the evening he had been
irked by the necessity of playing the genial host — or the fairly genial host —
to this rat of the underworld, and now not even the thought of possible
repercussions from his daughter Hermione could restrain him from speaking out.

‘I’ll
tell you why he’s looking at you, my man. Because he happens to be aware that
you’re a scoundrel and an impostor.’

‘Who,
me?’

‘Yes,
you. You thought you had fooled us, did you? Well, you hadn’t. Potter!’

‘Sir?’

‘Tell
your story about your previous meeting with this fellow.’

‘Very
good, sir,’ said Constable Potter, quickly applying the necessary glaze to his
eyes and starting to address the bodiless spirit in mid-air. ‘Here’s what
transpired. On the… — Coo! I’ve forgotten when it was, I’d have to look up my
scrap album to establish the exact inst., but it was about a year ago, when I
was in the C division in the metropolis and they’d put me on duty at the Dog
Races down Shepherd’s Bush way. Accused was drawn to my attention along of
making himself conspicuous by conduct like as it might have been of a
disorderly nature, and I apprehended him. Questioned while in custody, he
stated his name was Smith.’

‘Not
Twistleton?’

‘No,
sir. Edwin Smith, of 11,
Nasturtium Road, East
Dulwich.’

‘So
what have you to say to that?’ demanded Sir Aylmer.

Lord
Ickenham intervened.

‘My
dear Mugsy, the whole thing is obviously an absurd misunderstanding. One sees
so clearly what must have happened. Scooped in by the police and reluctant to
stain the fine old Twistleton escutcheon by revealing his true identity, the
boy gave a false name. You’ve done it yourself a hundred times.’

‘I
haven’t!’

Lord
Ickenham shrugged his shoulders.

‘Have
it your own way, Mugsy. The point is immaterial, and I would be the last man to
awaken painful memories. But I can assure you that this is really Reginald
Twistleton. Bill Oakshott happened to mention it only this afternoon. He was
telling me that you had gone off your onion —‘He was, was he?’

‘— And
when I enquired as to the symptoms, he explained that you had got this
extraordinary idea that his old friend Reginald Twistleton was not his old
friend Reginald Twistleton, whereas that is in reality what his old friend
Reginald Twistleton is nothing else but. You will testify, Bill Oakshott, to
the hundred per cent Twistletonity of this Reginald?’

‘Fine.
I mean, oh rather.’

‘There
you are, then, Mugsy.’

Sir
Aylmer blew at his moustache.

‘William
on his own statement has not seen Reginald Twistleton for more than twelve
years. How can he possibly claim to recognize him? Ha! William!’

‘Hullo?’

‘I see
how we can settle this matter. Ask him questions.’

‘Questions?’

‘About
your school days.’

‘Pongo
and I weren’t at school together. I met him in the holidays at Lord Ickenham’s
place.’

‘That
alone would seem to be a guarantee of respectability,’ said Lord Ickenham. ‘A
very exclusive house, that, I have always understood. By the way, how did you
get on there this afternoon, Mugsy?’

‘Never
mind,’ said Sir Aylmer shortly. ‘What was he doing at Lord Ickenham’s?’

‘He was
staying there.’

Sir
Aylmer reflected. An inspiration came to him.

‘Was
there a dog there?’

‘Eh?’

‘A
dog.’

‘Oh,
you mean a dog. Yes, a —‘

‘Don’t
tell him, don’t tell him. Ask him.’

Lord
Ickenham nodded.

‘I see
what you mean, Mugsy. Very shrewd. If he was staying at Ickenham Hall, he would
remember the resident dog. Boys always remember dogs. Do you remember that dog,
prisoner at the bar?’

‘Of course
I remember the dog. It was a sheep dog.’

‘Correct,
Bill Oakshott?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘Called
—‘

‘Mittens.’

‘Accurate,
Bill Oakshott?’

‘Definitely.
Right on the bull’s eye. Want any more, Uncle Aylmer?’

‘No,’
said Sir Aylmer.

‘I
should hope not,’ Lord Ickenham. ‘You’ve been making an ass of yourself,
Mugsy.’

‘Oh,
have I?’ said Sir Aylmer, stung. ‘Well, let me tell you that I think the time
has now come to ask
you
some questions.’

‘Me?’

‘Yes.
How do I know who you are? You come here claiming to be Plank; and you don’t
look a bit like Plank, as I remember him —‘

‘But I
explained about the absence of the billowy curves. Slimmo. In the small
half-crown or the larger three-and-sixpence bottle. You mix it with your food,
and it acts as a gentle, agreeable remedy for hypertrophy of the trouser seat,
not habit-forming.’

‘I
don’t believe you are Plank. How do I know that William did not pick up the
first stranger he met and talk him into coming and judging the Bonny Baby
contest, so that he could get out of it himself?’

‘Ridiculous.
You have only to look at that pure brow, those candid eyes —‘There are some
damned funny things going on here,’ proceeded Sir Aylmer firmly, ‘and I intend
to get to the bottom —‘