Uncle Fred in the Springtime (22 page)

Mr Pott
said he had.

‘Then
that’s all right. That’s all you really need to know. Your job is to keep an
eye on them. See what I mean? You follow them about watchfully, and if you see
them dipping into the till, you shout “Hoy!” and they cheese it. That’s simple
enough? Fine,’ said Lord Bosham. ‘Capital. Excellent. Splendid. Then you can
start in at once. And, by the way, you’d like something in the nature of a
retaining fee, what?’

Mr Pott
said he would, and his employer suddenly began to spray bank-notes like a
fountain. It was Lord Bosham’s prudent practice, when he attended a rural
meeting, as he proposed to do on the morrow, to have plenty of ready cash on
his person.

‘Call
it a tenner?’

‘Thank
you, Lord B.’

‘Here
you are, then.’

Mr Pott’s
eyes were glistening a little, as he trousered the note.

‘You’ve
got a lot of money there, Lord B.’

‘And I
may need it before tomorrow’s sun has set. It’s the first day of the Bridgeford
races, where I usually get skinned to the bone. Very hard to estimate form at
these country meetings. You interested in racing?’

‘I was
at one time a turf commissioner, operating in the Silver Ring.’

‘Good
Lord! Were you really? My young brother Freddie was a partner in a bookie’s
firm once. His father-in-law made him give it up and go over to America and
peddle dog-biscuits. Absorbing work.’

‘Most.’

‘I
expect you miss it, don’t you?’

‘I do
at times, Lord B.’

‘What
do you do for amusement these days?’

‘I like
a quiet little game of cards.’

‘So do
I.’ Lord Bosham regarded this twin soul with a kindly eye. Deep had spoken to
deep. ‘Only the trouble is, it’s a dashed difficult thing for a married man to
get. You a married man?’

‘A
widower, Lord B.’

‘I wish
you wouldn’t keep saying “Lord B.” It sounds as if you had been starting to
call me something improper and changed your mind. Where was I? Oh, yes. When I’m
at home, I don’t get a chance of little games of cards. My wife objects.’

‘Some
wives are like that.’

‘All
wives are like that. You start out in life a willing, eager sportsman, ready to
take anybody on at anything, and then you meet a girl and fall in love, and
when you come out of the ether you find not only that you are married but that
you have signed on for a lifetime of bridge at threepence a hundred.’

‘Too
true,’ sighed Mr Pott.

‘No
more friendly little games with nothing barred except biting and bottles.’

‘Ah!’
said Mr Pott.

‘We
could do far worse,’ said Lord Bosham, ‘while we’re waiting for these impostors
to get up steam, than have a friendly little game now.’

‘As
your lordship pleases.’

Lord
Bosham winced.

‘I wish
you wouldn’t use that expression. It was what counsel for the defence kept saying
to the judge at my breach-of-promise case, every time the latter ticked him off
for talking out of his turn. So don’t do it, if you don’t mind.’

‘Very
good, your lordship.’

‘And
don’t call me “your lordship”, either. I hate all this formality. I like your
face … well, no, that’s overstating it a bit … put it this way, I like your
personality, bloodhound, and feel that we shall be friends. Call me Bosham.’

‘Right
ho, Bosham.’

‘I’ll
ring for some cards, shall I?’

‘Don’t
bother to do that, Bosham. I have some.’

The
sudden appearance of a well-thumbed pack from the recesses of Mr Pott’s costume
seemed to interest Lord Bosham.

‘Do you
always go about with a pack of cards on you?’

‘When I
travel. I like to play Solitaire in the train.’

‘Do you
play anything else?’

‘I am
fond of Snap.’

‘Yes,
Snap’s a good game.’

‘And
Animal Grab.’

‘That’s
not bad, either. But I can tell you something that’s better than both.’

‘Have —’
said Mr Pott.

‘Have
you —’ said Lord Bosham.

‘Have
you ever —’ said Mr Pott.

‘Have
you ever,’ concluded Lord Bosham, ‘heard of a game called Persian Monarchs?’ Mr
Pott’s eyes rolled up to the ceiling, and for an instant he could not speak.
His lips moved silently. He may have been praying.

‘No,’
he said, at length. ‘What is it?’

‘It’s a
thing I used to play a good deal at one time,’ said Lord Bosham, ‘though in
recent years I’ve dropped it a bit. As I say, a married man of the right sort
defers to his wife’s wishes. If she’s around. But now she isn’t around, and it
would be interesting to see if the old skill still lingers.’

‘It’s a
pretty name,’ said Mr Pott, still experiencing some trouble with his vocal
chords. ‘Is it difficult to learn?’

‘I
could teach it you in a minute. In its essentials it is not unlike Blind Hooky.
Here’s the way it goes. You cut a card, if you see what I mean, and the other
fellow cuts a card, if you follow me. Then if the card you’ve cut is higher
than the card the other fellow has cut, you win. While, conversely, if the card
the other fellow’s cut is higher than the card you’ve cut, he wins.

He shot
an anxious glance at Mr Pott, as if wondering if he had been too abstruse. But
Mr Pott appeared to have followed him perfectly.

‘I
think I see the idea,’ he said. ‘Anyway, I’ll pick it up as I go along. Come
on, my noble sportsman. Follow the dictates of your heart and fear nothing.
Roll, bowl or pitch! Ladies half-way and all bad nuts returned! If you don’t
speculate, you can’t accumulate.’

‘You
have a rummy way of expressing yourself,’ said Lord Bosham, ‘but no doubt your heart
is in the right place. Start ho, Pott?’

‘Start
ho, Bosham!’

Twilight had begun to
fall, the soft mysterious twilight of an English spring evening, when a rotund
figure came out of the front door of Blandings Castle and began to walk down
the drive. It was Claude Pott, private investigator, on his way to the Emsworth
Arms to have a couple. The beer, he knew, was admirable there. And if it should
seem strange that one so recently arrived in Market Blandings was in possession
of this local knowledge, it may be explained that his first act on alighting
from the station cab had been to canvass Ed. Robinson’s views on the matter.
Like some canny explorer in the wilds, Mr Pott, on coming to a strange place,
always made sure of his drink supply before doing anything else.

Ed.
Robinson, a perfect encyclopaedia on the subject in hand, had been fluent and
informative. But while he had spoken with a generous warmth of the Wheatsheaf,
the Waggoner’s Rest, the Beetle and Wedge, the Stitch in Time, the Blue Cow,
the Blue Boar, the Blue Dragon and the Jolly Cricketers, for he was always a
man to give credit where credit was due, he had made it quite clear where his
heart lay, and it was thither that Mr Pott was now proceeding.

He
walked slowly, with bowed head, for he was counting ten-pound notes. And it was
because his head was bowed that he did not immediately observe the approach of
his old friend Lord Ickenham, who was coming with springy steps along the drive
towards him. It was only when he heard a surprised voice utter his name that he
looked up.

Lord
Ickenham had been for an afternoon ramble, in the course of which he had seen
many interesting objects of the countryside, but here was one which he had not
expected to see, and in his eyes as he saw it there was no welcoming glow.
Claude Pott’s advent, he could not but feel, added another complication to an
already complicated situation. And even a man who holds that complications lend
spice to life may legitimately consider that enough is enough.

‘Mustard!’

‘Coo!
Lord I.!’

‘What
on earth are you doing in the middle of Shropshire, Mustard?’

Mr Pott
hesitated. For a moment, it seemed that professional caution was about to cause
him to be evasive. Then he decided that so ancient a crony as his companion
deserved to enjoy his confidence.

‘Well,
it’s a secret, Lord I., but I know you won’t let it go any further. I was sent
for.’

‘Sent
for? By Polly?’

‘Polly?
She’s not here?’

‘Yes,
she is.’

‘I
thought she was at your country seat.’

‘No,
she’s at this country seat. Who sent for you?’

‘A
member of the aristocracy residing at Blandings Castle. Name of Bosham. He rang
me up night before last, engaging my professional services. Seems there’s
impostors in the place, and he wants an eye kept on them.’

For the
first time since George, Viscount Bosham, had come into his life, Lord Ickenham
began to feel a grudging respect for that young man’s intelligence stealing
over him. It was clear that he had formed too low an estimate of this
adversary. In lulling suspicion as he had done on the station platform by
looking pink and letting his mouth hang open, while all the time he was
planning to send for detectives, the other had acted, he was forced to confess,
with a shrewdness amounting to the snaky.

‘Does
he, by Jove?’ he said, giving his moustache a thoughtful twirl.

‘Yes, I’m
to take up my residence as an unsuspected guest and keep my eyes skinned to see
that they don’t walk off with the
objets d’art.’

‘I see.
What did he tell you about these impostors? Did he go into details?’

‘Not
what you would call details. But he told me there was three of them — two
m,
one
f
.’

‘Myself,
my nephew Pongo and your daughter Polly.’

‘Eh?’

‘The
impostors to whom Bosham refers are — reading from right to left — your
daughter Polly, my nephew Pongo and myself.’

‘You’re
pulling my leg, Lord I.’

‘No.’

‘Well,
this beats me.’

‘I
thought it might. Perhaps I had better explain.’

Before
starting to do so, however, Lord Ickenham paused for a moment in thought. He
had just remembered that Mr Pott was not an admirer of Ricky Gilpin and did not
approve of his daughter’s desire to marry that ineligible young man. He also
recalled that Polly had said that it was her father’s hope that she would
succumb to the charms of Horace Davenport. It seemed to him, therefore, that if
Mr Pott’s sympathy for and co-operation in their little venture was to be,
secured, it would be necessary to deviate slightly from the actual facts. So he
deviated from them. He was a man who was always ready to deviate from facts
when the cause was good.

‘Polly,’
he began, ‘is in love with Horace Davenport.’

Mr Pott’s
eyes widened to saucerlike dimensions, and such was his emotion that he dropped
a ten-pound note. Lord Ickenham picked it up, and looked at it with interest.

‘Hullo!
Somebody been leaving you a fortune, Mustard?’

Mr Pott
smirked.

‘Tantamount
to that, Lord I. Young Bosham — and a nice young fellow he is — was teaching me
to play Persian Monarchs.’

‘You
seem to have cleaned up.’

‘I had
beginner’s luck,’ said Mr Pott modestly.

‘How
much did you get away with?’

‘Two
hundred and fifty I make it. He had a system which involved doubling up when he
lost.’

‘That
will make a nice little dowry for Polly. Help her to buy her trousseau.’

‘Eh?’

‘But I
shall be coming back to that later. For the moment, I will be putting you
au
courant
with the position of affairs at Blandings Castle. The key to the
whole business, the thing you have to grasp at the outset, is that Polly is in
love with Horace Davenport.’

‘When
you told me that, you could have knocked me down with a feather. I thought the
one she was in love with was young Gilpin.’

‘Oh,
that? A mere passing flirtation. And even if it had been anything deeper, his
behaviour at that Ball would have quenched love’s spark.’

‘Love’s
what?’

‘Spark.’

‘Oh,
spark? Yes, that’s right, too,’ said Mr Pott, beginning to get the whole thing
into perspective. ‘Cursing and swearing and calling her names, all because she
went to a dance with somebody, such as is happening in our midst every day.
Seems he’d told her not to go. A nice way to carry on with a girl of spirit.
What right has he to get bossy and tell my dear daughter what she can do and
what she can’t do? Who does he think he is? Ben Bolt?’

‘Ben
who?’

‘Bolt.
Bloke with the girl called Sweet-Alice-With-Hair-So-Brown who laughed with
delight at his smile and trembled with fear at his frown. Does he expect my
dear daughter to do that? Coo! Whoever heard of such a thing? Is this Greece?’