Something New, P. G. Wodehouse [the little red hen ebook .TXT] 📗

you will excuse me, I had better be going to his room. Good night, sir."

He proceeded to mount the stairs. He was sorry for Mr. Peters, so shortly about to be roused from a refreshing slumber; but these were life's tragedies and must be borne bravely.

The Efficient Baxter dogged him the whole way, sprinting silently in his wake and dodging into the shadows whenever the light of an occasional electric bulb made it inadvisable to keep to the open. Then abruptly he gave up the pursuit. For the first time his comparative impotence in this silent conflict on which he had embarked was made manifest to him, and he perceived that on mere suspicion, however strong, he could do nothing. To accuse Mr. Peters of theft or to accuse him of being accessory to a theft was out of the question.

Yet his whole being revolted at the thought of allowing the sanctity of the museum to be violated. Officially its contents belonged to Lord Emsworth, but ever since his connection with the castle he had been put in charge of them, and he had come to look on them as his own property. If he was only a collector by proxy he had, nevertheless, the collector's devotion to his curios, beside which the lioness' attachment to her cubs is tepid; and he was prepared to do anything to retain in his possession a scarab toward which he already entertained the feelings of a life proprietor.

No—not quite anything! He stopped short at the idea of causing unpleasantness between the father of the Honorable Freddie and the father of the Honorable Freddie's fiancee. His secretarial position at the castle was a valuable one and he was loath to jeopardize it.

There was only one way in which this delicate affair could be brought to a satisfactory conclusion. It was obvious from what he had seen that night that Mr. Peters' connection with the attempt on the scarab was to be merely sympathetic, and that the actual theft was to be accomplished by Ashe. His only course, therefore, was to catch Ashe actually in the museum. Then Mr. Peters need not appear in the matter at all. Mr. Peters' position in those circumstances would be simply that of a man who had happened to employ, through no fault of his own, a valet who happened to be a thief.

He had made a mistake, he perceived, in locking the door of the museum. In future he must leave it open, as a trap is open; and he must stay up nights and keep watch. With these reflections, the Efficient Baxter returned to his room.

Meantime Ashe had entered Mr. Peters' bedroom and switched on the light. Mr. Peters, who had just succeeded in dropping off to sleep, sat up with a start.

"I've come to read to you," said Ashe.

Mr. Peters emitted a stifled howl, in which wrath and self-pity were nicely blended.

"You fool, don't you know I have just managed to get to sleep?"

"And now you're awake again," said Ashe soothingly. "Such is life! A little rest, a little folding of the hands in sleep, and then bing!—off we go again. I hope you will like this novel. I dipped into it and it seems good."

"What do you mean by coming in here at this time of night? Are you crazy?"

"It was your suggestion; and, by the way, I must thank you for it. I apologize for calling it thin. It worked like a charm. I don't think he believed it—in fact, I know he didn't; but it held him. I couldn't have thought up anything half so good in an emergency."

Mr. Peters' wrath changed to excitement.

"Did you get it? Have you been after my—my Cheops?"

"I have been after your Cheops, but I didn't get it. Bad men were abroad. That fellow with the spectacles, who was in the museum when I met you there this evening, swooped down from nowhere, and I had to tell him that you had rung for me to read to you. Fortunately I had this novel on me. I think he followed me upstairs to see whether I really did come to your room."

Mr. Peters groaned miserably.

"Baxter," he said; "He's a man named Baxter—Lord Emsworth's private secretary; and he suspects us. He's the man we—I mean you—have got to look out for."

"Well, never mind. Let's be happy while we can. Make yourself comfortable and I'll start reading. After all, what could be pleasanter than a little literature in the small hours? Shall I begin?"

* * *

Ashe Marson found Joan Valentine in the stable yard after breakfast the next morning, playing with a retriever puppy. "Will you spare me a moment of your valuable time?"

"Certainly, Mr. Marson."

"Shall we walk out into the open somewhere—where we can't be overheard?"

"Perhaps it would be better."

They moved off.

"Request your canine friend to withdraw," said Ashe. "He prevents me from marshaling my thoughts."

"I'm afraid he won't withdraw."

"Never mind. I'll do my best in spite of him. Tell me, was I dreaming or did I really meet you in the hall this morning at about twenty minutes after two?"

"You did."

"And did you really tell me that you had come to the castle to steal—"

"Recover."

"—Recover Mr. Peters' scarab?"

"I did."

"Then it's true?"

"It is."

Ashe scraped the ground with a meditative toe.

"This," he said, "seems to me to complicate matters somewhat."

"It complicates them abominably!"

"I suppose you were surprised when you found that I was on the same game as yourself."

"Not in the least."

"You weren't!"

"I knew it directly I saw the advertisement in the Morning Post. And I hunted up the Morning Post directly you had told me that you had become Mr. Peters' valet."

"You have known all along!"

"I have."

Ashe regarded her admiringly.

"You're wonderful!"

"Because I saw through you?"

"Partly that; but chiefly because you had the pluck to undertake a thing like this."

"You undertook it."

"But I'm a man."

"And I'm a woman. And my theory, Mr. Marson, is that a woman can do nearly everything better than a man. What a splendid test case this would make to settle the Votes-for-Women question once and for all! Here we are—you and I—a man and a woman, each trying for the same thing and each starting with equal chances. Suppose I beat you? How about the inferiority of women then?"

"I never said women were inferior."

"You did with your eyes."

"Besides, you're an exceptional woman."

"You can't get out of it with a compliment. I'm an ordinary woman and I'm going to beat a real man."

Ashe frowned.

"I don't like to think of ourselves as working against each other."

"Why not?"

"Because I like you."

"I like you, Mr. Marson; but we must not let sentiment interfere with business. You want Mr. Peters' five thousand dollars. So do I."

"I hate the thought of being the instrument to prevent you from getting the money."

"You won't be. I shall be the instrument to prevent you from getting it. I don't like that thought, either; but one has got to face it."

"It makes me feel mean."

"That's simply your old-fashioned masculine attitude toward the female, Mr. Marson. You look on woman as a weak creature, to be shielded and petted. We aren't anything of the sort. We're terrors! We're as hard as nails. We're awful creatures. You mustn't let my sex interfere with your trying to get this reward. Think of me as though I were another man. We're up against each other in a fair fight, and I don't want any special privileges. If you don't do your best from now onward I shall never forgive you. Do you understand?"

"I suppose so."

"And we shall need to do our best. That little man with the glasses is on his guard. I was listening to you last night from behind the door. By the way, you shouldn't have told me to run away and then have stayed yourself to be caught. That is an example of the sort of thing I mean. It was chivalry—not business."

"I had a story ready to account for my being there. You had not."

"And what a capital story it was! I shall borrow it for my own use. If I am caught I shall say I had to read Aline to sleep because she suffers from insomnia. And I shouldn't wonder if she did—poor girl! She doesn't get enough to eat. She is being starved—poor child! I heard one of the footmen say that she refused everything at dinner last night. And, though she vows it isn't, my belief is that it's all because she is afraid to make a stand against her old father. It's a shame!"

"She is a weak creature, to be shielded and petted," said Ashe solemnly.

Joan laughed.

"Well, yes; you caught me there. I admit that poor Aline is not a shining example of the formidable modern woman; but—" She stopped. "Oh, bother! I've just thought of what I ought to have said—the good repartee that would have crushed you. I suppose it's too late now?"

"Not at all. I'm like that myself—only it is generally the next day when I hit the right answer. Shall we go back? . . . She is a weak creature, to be shielded and petted."

"Thank you so much," said Joan gratefully. "And why is she a weak creature? Because she has allowed herself to be shielded and petted; because she has permitted man to give her special privileges, and generally—No; it isn't so good as I thought it was going to be."

"It should be crisper," said Ashe critically. "It lacks the punch."

"But it brings me back to my point, which is that I am not going to imitate her and forfeit my independence of action in return for chivalry. Try to look at it from my point of view, Mr. Marson. I know you need the money just as much as I do. Well, don't you think I should feel a little mean if I thought you were not trying your hardest to get it, simply because you didn't think it would be fair to try your hardest against a woman? That would cripple me. I should not feel as though I had the right to do anything. It's too important a matter for you to treat me like a child and let me win to avoid disappointing me. I want the money; but I don't want it handed to me."

"Believe me," said Ashe earnestly, "it will not be handed to you. I have studied the Baxter question more deeply than you have, and I can assure you that Baxter is a menace. What has put him so firmly on the right scent I don't know; but he seems to have divined the exact state of affairs in its entirety—so far as I am concerned, that is to say. Of course he has no idea you are mixed up in the business; but I am afraid his suspicion of me will hit you as well. What I mean is that, for some time to come, I fancy that man proposes to camp out on the rug in front of the museum door. It would be madness for either of us to attempt to go there at present."

"It is being made very hard for us, isn't it? And I thought it was going to be so simple."

"I think we should give him at least a week to simmer down."

"Fully that."

"Let us look on the bright side. We are in no hurry. Blandings Castle is quite as comfortable as Number Seven Arundell Street, and the commissariat department is a revelation to me. I had no idea English servants did themselves so well. And, as for the social side, I love it; I revel in it. For the first time in my life I feel as though I am somebody. Did you observe my manner toward the kitchen maid who waited on us at dinner last night? A touch of the old noblesse about it, I fancy. Dignified but not unkind, I think. And I can keep it up. So far as I am concerned, let this life continue indefinitely."

"But what about Mr. Peters? Don't you think there is danger he may change his mind about that five thousand dollars if we keep him waiting too long?"

"Not a chance of it. Being