Three Men and a Maid, P. G. Wodehouse [best books to read in your 20s txt] 📗

time. Mr. Mortimer turned to
Mr. Bennett.

"It's all very well your saying Wilhelmina mustn't go, but, if she doesn't, how can we get the police? The house isn't on the 'phone, and nobody else can drive the car."

"That's true," said Mr. Bennett, wavering.

"I'm going," said Billie resolutely. It occurred to her, as it has occurred to so many women before her, how helpless men are in a crisis. The temporary withdrawal of Jane Hubbard had had the effect which the removal of a rudder has on a boat. "It's the only thing to do. I shall be back in no time."

She stepped firmly to the coat-rack, and began to put on her motoring-cloak. And just then Jane Hubbard came downstairs, shepherding before her a pale and glassy-eyed Bream.

"Right under the bed," she announced cheerfully, "making a noise like a piece of fluff in order to deceive burglars."

Billie cast a scornful look at her fiancee. Absolutely unjustified, in my opinion, but nevertheless she cast it. But it had no effect at all. Terror had stunned Bream Mortimer's perceptions. His was what the doctors call a penumbral mental condition. He was in a sort of trance.

"Bream," said Billie, "I want you to come in the car with me to fetch the police."

"All right," said Bream.

"Get your coat."

"All right," said Bream.

"And cap."

"All right," said Bream.

He followed Billie in a docile manner out through the front door, and they made their way to the garage at the back of the house, both silent. The only difference between their respective silences was that Billie's was thoughtful, while Bream's was just the silence of a man who has unhitched his brain and is getting along as well as he can without it.

In the hall they had left, Jane Hubbard once more took command of affairs.

"Well, that's something done," she said, scratching Smith's broad back with the muzzle of her weapon. "Something accomplished, something done, has earned a night's repose. Not that we're going to get it yet. I think those fellows are hiding somewhere, and we ought to search the house and rout them out. It's a pity Smith isn't a bloodhound. I like you personally, Smithy, but you're about as much practical use in a situation like this as a cold in the head. You're a good cake-hound, but as a watch-dog you don't finish in the first ten."

The cake-hound, charmed at the compliment, frisked about her feet like a young elephant.

"The first thing to do," continued Jane, "is to go through the ground-floor rooms…." She paused to strike a match against the suit of armour nearest to her, a proceeding which elicited a sharp cry of protest from Mrs. Hignett, and lit a cigarette. "I'll go first, as I've got a gun…." She blew a cloud of smoke. "I shall want somebody with me to carry a light, and…."

"Tchoo!"

"What?" said Jane.

"I didn't speak," said Mr. Mortimer. "Who am I to speak?" he went on bitterly. "Who am I that it should be supposed that I have anything sensible to suggest?"

"Somebody spoke," said Jane. "I…."

"Achoo!"

"Do you feel a draught, Mr. Bennett?" cried Jane sharply, wheeling round on him.

"There is a draught," began Mr. Bennett.

"Well, finish sneezing and I'll go on."

"I didn't sneeze!"

"Somebody sneezed."

"It seemed to come from just behind you," said Mrs. Hignett nervously.

"It couldn't have come from just behind me," said Jane, "because there isn't anything behind me from which it could have…." She stopped suddenly, in her eyes the light of understanding, on her face the set expression which was wont to come to it on the eve of action. "Oh!" she said in a different voice, a voice which was cold and tense and sinister. "Oh, I see!" She raised her gun, and placed a muscular forefinger on the trigger. "Come out of that!" she said. "Come out of that suit of armour and let's have a look at you!"

"I can explain everything," said a muffled voice through the vizor of the helmet. "I can—achoo." The smoke of the cigarette tickled Sam's nostrils again, and he suspended his remarks.

"I shall count three," said Jane Hubbard. "One—two—"

"I'm coming! I'm coming!" said Sam petulantly.

"You'd better!" said Jane.

"I can't get this dashed helmet off!"

"If you don't come quick, I'll blow it off."

Sam stepped out into the hall, a picturesque figure which combined the costumes of two widely separated centuries. Modern as far as the neck, he slipped back at that point to the Middle Ages.

"Hands up!" commanded Jane Hubbard.

"My hands are up!" retorted Sam querulously, as he wrenched at his unbecoming head-wear.

"Never mind trying to raise your hat," said Jane. "If you've lost the combination, we'll dispense with the formalities. What we're anxious to hear is what you're doing in the house at this time of night, and who your pals are. Come along, my lad, make a clean breast of it and perhaps you'll get off easier. Are you a gang?"

"Do I look like a gang?"

"If you ask me what you look like…."

"My name is Marlowe … Samuel Marlowe…."

"Alias what?"

"Alias nothing! I say my name is Samuel Marlowe…."

An explosive roar burst from Mr. Bennett. "The scoundrel! I know him! I forbade him the house, and…."

"And by what right did you forbid people my house, Mr. Bennett?" said
Mrs. Hignett with acerbity.

"I've rented the house, Mortimer and I rented it from your son…."

"Yes, yes, yes," said Jane Hubbard. "Never mind about that. So you know this fellow, do you?"

"I don't know him!"

"You said you did."

"I refuse to know him!" went on Mr. Bennett. "I won't know him! I decline to have anything to do with him!"

"But you identify him?"

"If he says he's Samuel Marlowe," assented Mr. Bennett grudgingly, "I suppose he is. I can't imagine anybody saying he was Samuel Marlowe if he didn't know it could be proved against him."

"Are you my nephew Samuel?" said Mrs. Hignett.

"Yes," said Sam.

"Well, what are you doing in my house?"

"It's my house," said Mr. Bennett, "for the summer, Henry
Mortimer's and mine. Isn't that right, Henry?"

"Dead right," said Mr. Mortimer.

"There!" said Mr. Bennett. "You hear? And when Henry Mortimer says a thing, it's so. There's nobody's word I'd take before Henry Mortimer's."

"When Rufus Bennett makes an assertion," said Mr. Mortimer, highly flattered by these kind words, "you can bank on it, Rufus Bennett's word is his bond. Rufus Bennett is a white man!"

The two old friends clasped hands with a good deal of feeling.

"I am not disputing Mr. Bennett's claim to belong to the Caucasian race," said Mrs. Hignett, "I merely maintain that this house is…."

"Yes, yes, yes, yes!" interrupted Jane. "You can thresh all that out some other time. The point is, if this fellow is your nephew, I don't see what we can do. We'll have to let him go."

"I came to this house," said Sam, raising his vizor to facilitate speech, "to make a social call…."

"At this hour of the night!" snapped Mrs. Hignett. "You always were an inconsiderate boy, Samuel."

"I came to enquire after poor Eustace's ankle. I've only just heard that the poor chap was ill."

"He's getting along quite well," said Jane, melting. "If I had known you were so fond of Eustace…."

"All right, is he?" said Sam.

"Well, not quite all right, but he's going on very nicely."

"Fine!"

"Eustace and I are engaged, you know!"

"No, really? Splendid! I can't see you very distinctly—how those Johnnies in the old days ever contrived to put up a scrap with things like this on their heads beats me—but you sound a good sort. I hope you'll be very happy."

"Thank you ever so much, Mr. Marlowe. I'm sure we shall."

"Eustace is one of the best."

"How nice of you to say so."

"All this," interrupted Mrs. Hignett, who had been a chafing auditor of this interchange of courtesies, "is beside the point. Why did you dance in the hall, Samuel, and play the orchestrion?"

"Yes," said Mr. Bennett, reminded of his grievance, "waking people up."

"Scaring us all to death!" complained Mr. Mortimer.

"I remember you as a boy, Samuel," said Mrs. Hignett, "lamentably lacking in consideration for others and concentrated only on your selfish pleasures. You seem to have altered very little."

"Don't ballyrag the poor man," said Jane Hubbard. "Be human! Lend him a can-opener!"

"I shall do nothing of the sort," said Mrs. Hignett. "I never liked him and I dislike him now. He has got himself into this trouble through his own wrong-headedness."

"It's not his fault his head's the wrong size," said Jane.

"He must get himself out as best he can," said Mrs. Hignett.

"Very well," said Sam with bitter dignity. "Then I will not trespass further on your hospitality, Aunt Adeline. I have no doubt the local blacksmith will be able to get this damned thing off me. I shall go to him now. I will let you have the helmet back by parcel-post at the earliest possible opportunity. Good night!" He walked coldly to the front door. "And there are people," he remarked sardonically, "who say that blood is thicker than water! I'll bet they never had any aunts!"

5

Billie, meanwhile, with Bream trotting docilely at her heels, had reached the garage and started the car. Like all cars which have been spending a considerable time in secluded inaction, it did not start readily. At each application of Billie's foot on the self-starter, it emitted a tinny and reproachful sound and then seemed to go to sleep again. Eventually, however, the engines began to revolve and the machine moved reluctantly out into the drive.

"The battery must be run down," said Billie.

"All right," said Bream.

Billie cast a glance of contempt at him out of the corner of her eyes. She hardly knew why she had spoken to him except that, as all automobilists are aware, the impulse to say rude things about their battery is almost irresistible. To an automobilist the art of conversation consists in rapping out scathing remarks either about the battery or the oiling-system.

Billie switched on the head-lights and turned the car down the dark drive. She was feeling thoroughly upset. Her idealistic nature had received a painful shock on the discovery of the yellow streak in Bream. To call it a yellow streak was to understate the facts. It was a great belt of saffron encircling his whole soul. That she, Wilhelmina Bennett, who had gone through the world seeking a Galahad, should finish her career as the wife of a man who hid under beds simply because people shot at him with elephant guns was abhorrent to her. Why, Samuel Marlowe would have perished rather than do such a thing. You might say what you liked about Samuel Marlowe—and, of course, his habit of playing practical jokes put him beyond the pale—but nobody could question his courage. Look at the way he had dived overboard that time in the harbour at New York! Billie found herself thinking hard about Samuel Marlowe.

There are only a few makes of car in which you can think hard about anything except the actual driving without stalling the engines, and Mr. Bennett's Twin-Six Complex was not one of them. It stopped as if it had been waiting for the signal. The noise of the engine died away. The wheels ceased to revolve. The automobile did everything except lie down. It was a particularly pig-headed car and right from the start it had been unable to see the sense in this midnight expedition. It seemed now to have the idea that if it just lay low and did nothing, presently it would be taken back to its cosy garage.

Billie trod on the self-starter. Nothing happened.

"You'll have to get down and crank her," she said curtly.

"All right," said Bream.

"Well, go on," said Billie impatiently.

"Eh?"

"Get out and crank her."

Bream emerged for an instant from his trance.

"All right," he said.

The art of cranking a car is one that is not given to all men. Some of our greatest and wisest stand helpless before the task. It is a job towards the consummation of which a noble soul and a fine brain help not at all. A man may have all the other gifts and yet be unable to accomplish a task the fellow at the