Leave it to Psmith, Pelham Grenville Wodehouse [best pdf ebook reader for android .txt] 📗

all about how you and he had planned to steal Lady Constance’s necklace.”

“Good Lord!” cried Freddie, and leaped like a stranded fish.

“And I’ve got an idea,” said Eve.

She had, and it was one which had only in this instant come to her. Until now, though she had tilted her chin bravely and assured herself that the game was not over and that she was not yet beaten, a small discouraging voice had whispered to her all the while that this was mere bravado. What, the voice had asked, are you going to do? And she had not been able to answer it. But now, with Freddie as an ally, she could act.

“Told you all about it?” Freddie was muttering pallidly. He had never had a very high opinion of his Uncle Joseph’s mentality, but he had supposed him capable of keeping a thing like that to himself. He was, indeed, thinking of Mr. Keeble almost the identical thoughts which Mr. Keeble in the first moments of his interview with Eve in Market Blandings had thought of him. And these reflections brought much the same qualms which they had brought to the elder conspirator. Once these things got talked about, mused Freddie agitatedly, you never knew where they would stop. Before his mental eye there swam a painful picture of his Aunt Constance, informed of the plot, tackling him and demanding the return of her necklace. “Told you all about it?” he bleated, and, like Mr. Keeble, mopped his brow.

“It’s all right,” said Eve impatiently. “It’s quite all right. He asked me to steal the necklace, too.”

“You?” said Freddie, gaping.

“Yes.”

“My Gosh!” cried Freddie, electrified. “Then was it you who got the thing last night?”

“Yes it was. But . . .”

For a moment Freddie had to wrestle with something that was almost a sordid envy. Then better feelings prevailed. He quivered with manly generosity. He gave Eve’s hand a tender pat. It was too dark for her to see it, but he was registering renunciation.

“Little girl,” he murmured, “there’s no one I’d rather got that thousand quid than you. If I couldn’t have it myself, I mean to say. Little girl . . .”

“Oh, be quiet!” cried Eve. “I wasn’t doing it for any thousand pounds. I didn’t want Mr. Keeble to give me money . . .”

“You didn’t want him to give you money!” repeated Freddie wonderingly.

“I just wanted to help Phyllis. She’s my friend.”

“Pals, pardner, pals! Pals till hell freezes!” cried Freddie, deeply moved.

“What are you talking about?”

“Sorry. That was a sub-title from a thing called ‘Prairie Nell,’ you know. Just happened to cross my mind. It was in the second reel where the two fellows are . . .”

“Yes, yes; never mind.”

“Thought I’d mention it.”

“Tell me . . .”

“It seemed to fit in.”

“Do stop, Freddie!”

“Right-ho!”

“Tell me,” resumed Eve, “is Mr. McTodd going to the ball?”

“Eh? Why, yes, I suppose so.”

“Then, listen. You know that little cottage your father has let him have?”

“Little cottage?”

“Yes. In the wood past the Yew Alley.”

“Little cottage? I never heard of any little cottage.”

“Well, he’s got one,” said Eve. “And as soon as everybody has gone to the ball you and I are going to burgle it.”

“What!”

“Burgle it!”

“Burgle it?”

“Yes, burgle it!”

Freddie gulped.

“Look here, old thing,” he said plaintively. “This is a bit beyond me. It doesn’t seem to me to make sense.”

Eve forced herself to be patient. After all, she reflected, perhaps she had been approaching the matter a little rapidly. The desire to beat Freddie violently over the head passed, and she began to speak slowly, and, as far as she could manage it, in words of one syllable.

“I can make it quite clear if you will listen and not say a word till I’ve done. This man who calls himself McTodd is not Mr. McTodd at all. He is a thief who got into the place by saying that he was McTodd. He stole the jewels from me last night and hid them in his cottage.”

“But, I say!”

“Don’t interrupt. I know he has them there, so when he has gone to the ball and the coast is clear you and I will go and search till we find them.”

“But, I say!”

Eve crushed down her impatience once more.

“Well?”

“Do you really think this cove has got the necklace?”

“I know he has.”

“Well, then, it’s jolly well the best thing that could possibly have happened, because I got him here to pinch it for Uncle Joseph.”

“What!”

“Absolutely. You see, I began to have a doubt or two as to whether I was quite equal to the contract, so I roped in this bird by way of a gang.”

“You got him here? You mean you sent for him and arranged that he should pass himself off as Mr. McTodd?”

“Well, no, not exactly that. He was coming here as McTodd anyway, as far as I can gather. But I’d talked it over with him, you know, before that and asked him to pinch the necklace.”

“Then you know him quite well? He is a friend of yours?”

“I wouldn’t say that exactly. But he said he was a great pal of Phyllis and her husband.”

“Did he tell you that?”

“Absolutely!”

“When?”

“In the train.”

“I mean, was it before or after you had told him why you wanted the necklace stolen?”

“Eh? Let me think. After.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me exactly what happened,” said Eve. “I can’t understand it at all at present.”

Freddie marshalled his thoughts.

“Well, let’s see. Well, to start with, I told Uncle Joe I would pinch the necklace and slip it to him, and he said if I did he’d give me a thousand quid. As a matter of fact, he made it two thousand, and very decent of him, I thought it. Is that straight?”

“Yes.”

“Then I sort of got cold feet. Began to wonder, don’t you know, if I hadn’t bitten off rather more than I could chew.”

“Yes.”

“And then I saw this advertisement in the paper.”

“Advertisement? What advertisement?”

“There was an advertisement in the paper saying if anybody wanted anything done simply apply to this chap. So I wrote him a letter and went up and had a talk with him in the lobby of the Piccadilly Palace. Only, unfortunately, I’d promised the guv’nor I’d catch the twelve-fifty home, so I had to dash off in the middle. Must have thought me rather an ass, it’s sometimes occurred to me since. I mean, practically all I said was, ‘Will you pinch my aunt’s necklace?’ and then buzzed off to catch the train. Never thought I’d see the man again, but when I got into the five o’clock train—I missed the twelve-fifty—there he was, as large as life, and the guv’nor suddenly trickled in from another compartment and introduced him to me as McTodd the poet. Then the guv’nor legged it, and this chap told me he wasn’t really McTodd, only pretending to be McTodd.”

“Didn’t that strike you as strange?”

“Yes, rather rummy.”

“Did you ask him why he was doing such an extraordinary thing?”

“Oh, yes. But he wouldn’t tell me. And then he asked me why I wanted him to pinch Aunt Connie’s necklace, and it suddenly occurred to me that everything was working rather smoothly—I mean, him being on his way to the castle like that. Right on the spot, don’t you know. So I told him all about Phyllis, and it was then that he said that he had been a pal of hers and her husband’s for years. So we fixed it up that he was to get the necklace and hand it over. I must say I was rather drawn to the chappie. He said he didn’t want any money for swiping the thing.”

Eve laughed bitterly.

“Why should he, when he was going to get twenty thousand pounds’ worth of diamonds and keep them? Oh, Freddie, I should have thought that even you would have seen through him. You go to this perfect stranger and tell him that there is a valuable necklace waiting here to be stolen, you find him on his way to steal it, and you trust him implicitly just because he tells you he knows Phyllis—whom he had never heard of in his life till you mentioned her. Freddie, really!”

The Hon. Freddie scratched his beautifully shaven chin.

“Well, when you put it like that,” he said, “I must own it does sound a bit off. But he seemed such a dashed matey sort of bird. Cheery and all that. I liked the feller.”

“What nonsense!”

“Well, but you liked him, too. I mean to say, you were about with him a goodish lot.”

“I hate him!” said Eve angrily. “I wish I had never seen him. And if I let him get away with that necklace and cheat poor little Phyllis out of her money, I’ll—I’ll . . .”

She raised a grimly determined chin to the stars. Freddie watched her admiringly.

“I say, you know, you are a wonderful girl,” he said.

“He shan’t get away with it, if I have to pull the place down.”

“When you chuck your head up like that you remind me a bit of What’s-her-name, the Famous Players star—you know, girl who was in ‘Wed To A Satyr.’ Only,” added Freddie hurriedly, “she isn’t half so pretty. I say, I was rather looking forward to that County Ball, but now this has happened I don’t mind missing it a bit. I mean, it seems to draw us closer together somehow, if you follow me. I say, honestly, all kidding aside, you think that love might some day awaken in . . .”

“We shall want a lamp, of course,” said Eve.

“Eh?”

“A lamp—to see with when we are in the cottage. Can you get one?”

Freddie reluctantly perceived that the moment for sentiment had not arrived.

“A lamp? Oh, yes, of course. Rather.”

“Better get two,” said Eve. “And meet me here about half an hour after everybody has gone to the ball.”