The Little Nugget, P. G. Wodehouse [interesting novels in english .txt] 📗

It was the custom at Sanstead House for each of the assistant masters to take half of one day in every week as a holiday. The allowance was not liberal, and in most schools, I believe, it is increased; but Mr Abney was a man with peculiar views on other people's holidays, and Glossop and I were accordingly restricted.

My day was Wednesday; and on the Wednesday of which I write I strolled towards the village. I had in my mind a game of billiards at the local inn. Sanstead House and its neighbourhood were lacking in the fiercer metropolitan excitements, and billiards at the 'Feathers' constituted for the pleasure-seeker the beginning and end of the Gay Whirl.

There was a local etiquette governing the game of billiards at the 'Feathers'. You played the marker a hundred up, then you took him into the bar-parlour and bought him refreshment. He raised his glass, said, 'To you, sir', and drained it at a gulp. After that you could, if you wished, play another game, or go home, as your fancy dictated.

There was only one other occupant of the bar-parlour when we adjourned thither, and a glance at him told me that he was not ostentatiously sober. He was lying back in a chair, with his feet on the side-table, and crooning slowly, in a melancholy voice, the following words:

'I don't care—if he wears—a crown, He—can't—keep kicking my—dawg aroun'.'

He was a tough, clean-shaven man, with a broken nose, over which was tilted a soft felt hat. His wiry limbs were clad in what I put down as a mail-order suit. I could have placed him by his appearance, if I had not already done so by his voice, as an East-side New Yorker. And what an East-side New Yorker could be doing in Sanstead it was beyond me to explain.

We had hardly seated ourselves when he rose and lurched out. I saw him pass the window, and his assertion that no crowned head should molest his dog came faintly to my ears as he went down the street.

'American!' said Miss Benjafield, the stately barmaid, with strong disapproval. 'They're all alike.'

I never contradict Miss Benjafield—one would as soon contradict the Statue of Liberty—so I merely breathed sympathetically.

'What's he here for I'd like to know?'

It occurred to me that I also should like to know. In another thirty hours I was to find out.

I shall lay myself open to a charge of denseness such as even Doctor Watson would have scorned when I say that, though I thought of the matter a good deal on my way back to the school, I did not arrive at the obvious solution. Much teaching and taking of duty had dulled my wits, and the presence at Sanstead House of the Little Nugget did not even occur to me as a reason why strange Americans should be prowling in the village.

We now come to the remarkable activity of White, the butler.

It happened that same evening.

It was not late when I started on my way back to the house, but the short January day was over, and it was very dark as I turned in at the big gate of the school and made my way up the drive. The drive at Sanstead House was a fine curving stretch of gravel, about two hundred yards in length, flanked on either side by fir trees and rhododendrons. I stepped out briskly, for it had begun to freeze. Just as I caught sight through the trees of the lights of the windows, there came to me the sound of running feet.

I stopped. The noise grew louder. There seemed to be two runners, one moving with short, quick steps, the other, the one in front, taking a longer stride.

I drew aside instinctively. In another moment, making a great clatter on the frozen gravel, the first of the pair passed me; and as he did so, there was a sharp crack, and something sang through the darkness like a large mosquito.

The effect of the sound on the man who had been running was immediate. He stopped in his stride and dived into the bushes. His footsteps thudded faintly on the turf.

The whole incident had lasted only a few seconds, and I was still standing there when I was aware of the other man approaching. He had apparently given up the pursuit, for he was walking quite slowly. He stopped within a few feet of me and I heard him swearing softly to himself.

'Who's that?' I cried sharply. The crack of the pistol had given a flick to my nerves. Mine had been a sheltered life, into which hitherto revolver-shots had not entered, and I was resenting this abrupt introduction of them. I felt jumpy and irritated.

It gave me a malicious pleasure to see that I had startled the unknown dispenser of shocks quite as much as he had startled me. The movement he made as he faced towards my direction was almost a leap; and it suddenly flashed upon me that I had better at once establish my identity as a non-combatant. I appeared to have wandered inadvertently into the midst of a private quarrel, one party to which—the one standing a couple of yards from me with a loaded revolver in his hand—was evidently a man of impulse, the sort of man who would shoot first and inquire afterwards.

'I'm Mr Burns,' I said. 'I'm one of the assistant-masters. Who are you?'

'Mr Burns?'

Surely that rich voice was familiar.

'White?' I said.

'Yes, sir.'

'What on earth do you think you're doing? Have you gone mad? Who was that man?'

'I wish I could tell you, sir. A very doubtful character. I found him prowling at the back of the house very suspiciously. He took to his heels and I followed him.'

'But'—I spoke querulously, my orderly nature was shocked—'you can't go shooting at people like that just because you find them at the back of the house. He might have been a tradesman.'

'I think not, sir.'

'Well, so do I, if it comes to that. He didn't behave like one. But all the same—'

'I take your point, sir. But I was merely intending to frighten him.'

'You succeeded all right. He went through those bushes like a cannon-ball.'

I heard him chuckle.

'I think I may have scared him a little, sir.'

'We must phone to the police-station. Could you describe the man?'

'I think not, sir. It was very dark. And, if I may make the suggestion, it would be better not to inform the police. I have a very poor opinion of these country constables.'

'But we can't have men prowling—'

'If you will permit me, sir. I say—let them prowl. It's the only way to catch them.'

'If you think this sort of thing is likely to happen again I must tell Mr Abney.'

'Pardon me, sir, I think it would be better not. He impresses me as a somewhat nervous gentleman, and it would only disturb him.'

At this moment it suddenly struck me that, in my interest in the mysterious fugitive, I had omitted to notice what was really the most remarkable point in the whole affair. How did White happen to have a revolver at all? I have met many butlers who behaved unexpectedly in their spare time. One I knew played the fiddle; another preached Socialism in Hyde Park. But I had never yet come across a butler who fired pistols.

'What were you doing with a revolver?' I asked.

He hesitated.

'May I ask you to keep it to yourself, sir, if I tell you something?' he said at last.

'What do you mean?'

'I'm a detective.'

'What!'

'A Pinkerton's man, Mr Burns.'

I felt like one who sees the 'danger' board over thin ice. But for this information, who knew what rash move I might not have made, under the assumption that the Little Nugget was unguarded? At the same time, I could not help reflecting that, if things had been complex before, they had become far more so in the light of this discovery. To spirit Ogden away had never struck me, since his arrival at the school, as an easy task. It seemed more difficult now than ever.

I had the sense to affect astonishment. I made my imitation of an innocent assistant-master astounded by the news that the butler is a detective in disguise as realistic as I was able. It appeared to be satisfactory, for he began to explain.

'I am employed by Mr Elmer Ford to guard his son. There are several parties after that boy, Mr Burns. Naturally he is a considerable prize. Mr Ford would pay a large sum to get back his only son if he were kidnapped. So it stands to reason he takes precautions.'

'Does Mr Abney know what you are?'

'No, sir. Mr Abney thinks I am an ordinary butler. You are the only person who knows, and I have only told you because you have happened to catch me in a rather queer position for a butler to be in. You will keep it to yourself, sir? It doesn't do for it to get about. These things have to be done quietly. It would be bad for the school if my presence here were advertised. The other parents wouldn't like it. They would think that their sons were in danger, you see. It would be disturbing for them. So if you will just forget what I've been telling you, Mr Burns—'

I assured him that I would. But I was very far from meaning it. If there was one thing which I intended to bear in mind, it was the fact that watchful eyes besides mine were upon that Little Nugget.

The third and last of this chain of occurrences, the Episode of the Genial Visitor, took place on the following day, and may be passed over briefly. All that happened was that a well-dressed man, who gave his name as Arthur Gordon, of Philadelphia, dropped in unexpectedly to inspect the school. He apologized for not having written to make an appointment, but explained that he was leaving England almost immediately. He was looking for a school for his sister's son, and, happening to meet his business acquaintance, Mr Elmer Ford, in London, he had been recommended to Mr Abney. He made himself exceedingly pleasant. He was a breezy, genial man, who joked with Mr Abney, chaffed the boys, prodded the Little Nugget in the ribs, to that overfed youth's discomfort, made a rollicking tour of the house, in the course of which he inspected Ogden's bedroom—in order, he told Mr Abney, to be able to report conscientiously to his friend Ford that the son and heir was not being pampered too much, and departed in a whirl of good-humour, leaving every one enthusiastic over his charming personality. His last words were that everything was thoroughly satisfactory, and that he had learned all he wanted to know.

Which, as was proved that same night, was the simple truth.

I owed it to my colleague Glossop that I was in the centre of the surprising things that occurred that night. By sheer weight of boredom, Glossop drove me from the house, so that it came about that, at half past nine, the time at which the affair began, I was patrolling the gravel in front of the porch.

It was the practice of the staff of Sanstead House School to assemble after dinner in Mr Abney's study for coffee. The room was called the study, but it was really more of a master's common room. Mr Abney had a smaller sanctum of his own, reserved exclusively for himself.

On this particular night he went there early, leaving me alone with Glossop. It is one of the drawbacks of the desert-island atmosphere of a private school that everybody is always meeting everybody else. To avoid a man for long is impossible. I had been avoiding Glossop as long as I could, for I knew that he wanted to corner me with a view to a heart-to-heart talk on Life Insurance.

These amateur Life Insurance agents are a curious band. The world is full of them. I have met them at country-houses, at seaside hotels, on ships, everywhere; and it has always amazed me that they should find the game worth the candle. What they add to their incomes I do not know, but it cannot be very much, and the trouble they have to take is colossal. Nobody loves them, and they must see it; yet they persevere. Glossop, for