Uncle Dynamite (27 page)

‘I
changed the name to Meriday House. Crisper. Why, say,’ said Otis with natural
surprise, ‘you speak as if you know all about it. You do? Extraordinary how
these things get around. Well, if you’ve heard what happened, I don’t have to
explain. The point is that this Bostock is showing a very vindictive spirit.
And, as I say, if the thing comes into court, I shall be ruined.’

‘Ah!’
said Hermione.

Lord
Ickenham, looking at this girl’s photograph, had given it as his opinion that
she was a potential eye-flasher. He had been correct. Her eyes were flashing
now, and in that simple ‘Ah!’ there was all the sinister significance of
Constable Potter’s ‘Ho!’

In
earlier portions of this chronicle reference was made to the emotions of wolves
which overtake sleighs and find no Russian peasant aboard and of tigers
deprived of their Indian coolie just as they are sitting down to lunch. More
poignant even than these are the feelings of a young authoress who, having just
been offered twenty per cent rising to twenty-five above three thousand by a
publisher who believes in column spreads in all the literate Sunday papers,
learns that her father is planning to rob that publisher of the means to
publish.

Hermione
rose, grim and resolute.

‘Don’t
worry, Mr Painter. I will see that the suit does not come into court.’

‘Eh?’

‘I
ought to have told you earlier that Gwynneth Gould is merely my pen-name. I am
Hermione Bostock. Sir Aylmer’s daughter.’ Otis was almost too amazed for words.

‘His
daughter?
Well, fancy that. Well, I’ll be darned. What an extraordinary thing.’

‘I will
talk to Father. I will drive down and see him at once.’

‘How
would it be if you took me along? In case you needed help.’

‘I
shall not need help.’

‘Still,
I’d like to be on the spot, to hear the good news as soon as possible.’

‘Very
well. While I am seeing Father, you can wait at the inn. So if you are ready,
Mr Painter, let us be going. My car is outside.’

It was
as they were nearing Guildford at sixty miles an hour, for she was a girl who
believed that accelerators were made to be stepped on, that a thought which for
some time had been groping about the exterior of Hermione’s mind, like an
inebriated householder fumbling with his latch-key, suddenly succeeded in
effecting an entrance, and she gave a gasp.

‘Pardon?’
said Otis, who also had been gasping. He was finding his companion’s driving a
novel and terrifying experience.

‘Nothing,’
said Hermione. ‘Just something I happened to remember.’

It was
the circumstance of her mother’s visit that she had happened to remember, that
devoted mother who had now been waiting three hours at her flat to tell her
something about Reginald. For an instant she was conscious of a twinge of
remorse. Then she told herself that Mother would be all right. She had a comfortable
chair and all the illustrated papers.

She
pressed her foot on the accelerator, and Otis shut his eyes and commended his
soul to God.

11

The afternoon sun,
slanting in through the french window of what until the previous night had been
Pongo’s bedroom, touched Sally’s face and woke her from the doze into which she
had fallen. She rose and stretched herself, yawning.

The
french window opened on a balcony, and she eyed it wistfully. It would have
been pleasant on so fine a summer day to go and sit on that balcony. But girls
who are known, if only slightly, to the police must be prudent. The best she
could do was to stand behind the curtain and from this observation post peer
out at the green and golden world beyond.

Soon
exhausting the entertainment value of a patch of gravel and part of a
rhododendron bush, she was about to return to the chaise-longue, when there
appeared on the patch of gravel the tall, distinguished figure of Lord
Ickenham, walking jauntily and carrying a small suitcase. He passed from view,
and a moment later there was a thud as the suitcase fell on the balcony.

Her
heart leaped. An intelligent girl, she realized that this must mean clothes.
The fifth earl might have his frivolous moments, but he was not the man to
throw suitcases on to balconies in a spirit of mere wantonness. She crawled
cautiously on all fours and possessed herself of the rich gift.

Her
confidence had not been misplaced. It was clothes, and she hastened to put on
what she recognized as a white sports dress and red jacket belonging to Lady
Ickenham with all the eagerness of a girl who likes to look nice and for some
little time has had to get along with a man’s flowered dressing-gown. And it
was as she stood examining herself contentedly in the mirror that Lord Ickenham
entered.

‘So you
got them all right?’ he said. ‘Not a bad shot for a man who has jerked very
little since the old soda days. But if you have once jerked soda, you never
really lose the knack. I like that red coat. Rather dressy.’

Sally
kissed him gratefully.

‘You’re
an angel, Uncle Fred. Nobody saw you, I hope?’

‘Not a
soul. The enemy’s lines were thin and poorly guarded. Your hostess went to
London
soon after breakfast, and Mugsy is
over at a neighbouring village, trying to sell someone a cow, I understand.’

Sally
started.

‘Then
why not do it now? Get the bust, I mean.’

‘My
dear child, you don’t suppose that idea did not occur to me? My first move on
learning that the coast was clear was to make a bee-line for the collection
room, only to discover that Mugsy had locked the door and gone off with the
key. As I was saying to Pongo last night, there is a streak of low cunning in
Mugsy’s nature which one deplores. Still, don’t worry. I’m biding my time.
That’s the sort of man I’m, as the song says. I shall arrange everything to
your full satisfaction quite shortly.’

‘Says
you.’

‘Sally!
Don’t tell me you’re losing confidence in me.’

‘Oh,
darling Uncle Fred, of course not. Why did I speak those harsh words? Consider
them unsaid.’

‘They
are already expunged from my memory. Yes, you look charming in that coat. Quite
a vision. No wonder Pongo loves you.’

‘Not
any more.’

‘More
than ever. I was noticing the way his eyes came popping out last night every
time they rested on you. Did you ever see a prawn in the mating season? Like
that. And one of the last things he said to me was “She looked dashed pretty in
that dressing-gown.” With a sort of catch in his voice. That means love.’

‘If he
thought I looked pretty in a dressing-gown made for a man of six feet two, it
must mean something.’

‘Love,
my dear. Love, I tell you. All the old fervour has started gushing up again
like a geyser. He worships you. He adores you. He would die for one little rose
from your hair. How are conditions at your end?’

‘Oh, I
haven’t changed.’

‘You
love him still?’

‘I’m
crazy about him.’

‘That’s
satisfactory. Though odd. I’m very fond of Pongo. In fact, except for my wife
and you and my dog, George, I can think of nobody of whom I am fonder. But I
can’t understand anyone being crazy about him. How do you do it?’

‘It’s
quite easy, bless his precious heart. He’s a baa-lamb.’

‘You
see him from that angle?’

‘I
always have. A sweet, woolly, baa-lamb that you want to stroke and pet.’

‘Well,
you may be right. You know more about baa-lambs than I do. But this is
official. If I were a girl and he begged me for one little rose from my hair, I
wouldn’t give it him. He’d have a pretty thin time trying to get roses out of
me. Still, the great thing is that you love him, because I have an idea that he
will very soon be at liberty to pay his addresses to you. This engagement of
his can’t last.’

‘You
certainly do spread sweetness and light, don’t you, Uncle Fred?’

‘I try
to.’

‘Tell
me more. I could listen for ever. Why do you think the engagement won’t last?’

‘How can
it? What on earth does a girl like Hermione Bostock want to marry Pongo for?’

‘Maybe
she likes baa-lambs, too.’

‘Nonsense.
I’ve only seen her photograph, but I could tell at a glance that what she needs
is a large, solid, worshipping husband of the huntin’, shootin’ and fishin’
type, not a metropolitan product like Pongo. Her obvious mate is her cousin,
Bill Oakshott, who has been devoted to her for years. But he’s too mild in his
methods. He doesn’t tell his love, but lets concealment like a worm i’ the bud
feed on his damask cheek. You can’t run a business that way. I intend to have a
very serious talk with young William Oakshott next time I see him. In fact,
I’ll go and try to find him now.’

‘No,
don’t go yet. I want to tell you about Pongo.’

‘What
about him?’

‘He’s
worried to death, the poor pet. My heart aches for him. He was in here not long
ago, and he just sat in a chair and groaned.’

‘You’re
sure he wasn’t singing?’

‘I
don’t think so. Would he have buried his face in his hands, if he had been singing?’

‘No.
You’re perfectly right. That is the acid test. I have heard Pongo sing on
several occasions at our village concert, and it is impossible to mistake the
symptoms. He sticks his chin up and throws his head back and lets it go in the
direction of the ceiling at an angle of about forty-five. And very unpleasant
it is, especially when the song is “Oh, My Dolores, Queen of the
Eastern
Sea
”, as too often happens. So he groaned, did he? Why?’

‘He
doesn’t like this idea of pushing the policeman into the duck pond.’

‘Doesn’t
like
it? Not when he knows it’s going to bring happiness and wedding
bells to the divine Bean?’

‘The
impression he gave me was that he wasn’t thinking much about the divine Bean
and her wedding bells.’

‘Looking
at the thing principally in the light of how it was going to affect good old
Twistleton?’ Lord Ickenham sighed. ‘Young men are not what they were in my day,
Sally. We were all Galahads then. Damsels in distress had merely to press a
button, and we would race up with our ears flapping, eager to do their behest.
Well, we can’t have him backing out. We owe a debt of honour to Miss Bean, and
it must be paid. And, dash it, what’s he making such heavy weather about? It
isn’t as if this duck pond were miles away across difficult country.’

A
strange look had come into Sally’s face, the sort of resolute look you might
have surprised on the faces of Joan of Arc or Boadicea.

‘Where
is it?’ she asked. ‘He didn’t tell me.’

‘Outside
the front gate. A mere step. And I was speaking to Miss Bean this morning, and
she tells me that when Potter arrives there on his beat he always stands beside
it for an appreciable space of time, spitting and, one hopes, thinking of her.
What simpler and more agreeable task could there be than to saunter up behind a
spitting policeman, at a moment when he is wrapped in thought, and push him
into a pond? To further the interests of a girl like La Bean, the finest
housemaid that ever flicked a duster, I would have pushed twenty policemen into
twenty ponds when I was Pongo’s age.’

‘But
Pongo has such a rare, sensitive nature.’

‘So had
I a rare, sensitive nature. It was the talk of
New York
. Well, if the thing is to be done today, he ought to be starting.
It is at just about this hour, I am informed, that Potter rolls along. Where is
he?’

‘I
don’t know. He drifted out.’

‘I must
find him at once.’

‘Just a
minute,’ said Sally.

The
resolute expression on her face had become more noticeable than ever. In
addition to looking like Joan of Arc and Boadicea, she could now have been mistaken
in a dim light for Jael, the wife of Heber, and Lord Ickenham, pausing on his
way to the door, was impressed and vaguely disturbed.

‘What’s
the matter?’ he asked. ‘You have a strained air. You aren’t worrying about
Pongo?’

‘Yes, I
am.’

‘But I
keep assuring you that the task before him is both simple and agreeable.’

‘Not
for Pongo. He’s a baa-lamb. I told you that before.’

‘But
why should the circumstance of being a baa-lamb unfit a man for pushing
policemen into ponds?’

‘I
don’t know. But it does. I’ve studied this thing of pushing policemen into
ponds, Uncle Fred, and I’m convinced that what you need, to get the best
results, is a girl whose clothes the policeman tore off on the previous night.’

‘Good
God, Sally! You don’t mean —?‘

‘Yes, I
do. My mind is made up. I’m going to pinch hit for Pongo, and, if it interests
you to know it, it is a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done.
Goodbye, Uncle Fred. See you later.’