A Gentleman of Leisure, P. G. Wodehouse [speld decodable readers .TXT] 📗

dressing room! What⁠—”

Spike looked somewhat embarrassed. He grinned apologetically and shuffled his feet.

“I’ve got dem, boss,” he said, with a smirk.

“Got them? Got what?”

“Dese.”

He plunged his hand in his pocket and drew forth, in a glittering mass, Lady Julia Blunt’s rope of diamonds.

XXII How Two of a Trade Did Not Agree

“One hundred t’ousand plunks,” murmured Spike, gazing lovingly at them. “I says to meself, ‘De boss ain’t got no time to be gettin’ after dem himself. He’s too busy dese days wit jollyin’ along de swells. So it’s up to me,’ I says, ‘ ’cos de boss’ll be tickled to deat’, all right, all right, if we can git away wit dem.’ So I⁠—”

Jimmy gave tongue with an energy which amazed his faithful follower. The nightmare horror of the situation had affected him much as a sudden blow in the parts about the waistcoat might have done. But now, as Spike would have said, he caught up with his breath. The smirk faded slowly from the other’s face as he listened. Not even in the Bowery, full as it was of candid friends, had he listened to such a trenchant summing-up of his mental and moral deficiencies.

“Boss!” he protested.

“That’s just a sketchy outline,” said Jimmy, pausing for breath. “I can’t do you justice impromptu like this. You’re too vast and overwhelming.”

“But, boss, what’s eatin’ you? Ain’t youse tickled?”

“Tickled!” Jimmy sawed the air. “Tickled! You lunatic! Can’t you see what you’ve done?”

“I’ve got dem,” said Spike, whose mind was not readily receptive of new ideas. It seemed to him that Jimmy missed the main point.

“Didn’t I tell you there was nothing doing when you wanted to take those things the other day?”

Spike’s face cleared. As he had suspected, Jimmy had missed the point.

“Why, say, boss, yes⁠—sure. But dose was little dinky t’ings. Of course, youse wouldn’t stand for swipin’ chickenfeed like dem. But dese is different. Dese di’monds is boids. It’s one hundred thousand plunks fer dese.”

“Spike!” said Jimmy, with painful calm.

“Huh?”

“Will you listen for a moment?”

“Sure.”

“I know it’s practically hopeless. To get an idea into your head one wants a proper outfit⁠—drills, blasting powder, and so on. But there’s just a chance, perhaps, if I talk slowly. Has it occurred to you, Spike⁠—my bonny, blue-eyed Spike⁠—that every other man, more or less, in this stately home of England is a detective who has probably received instructions to watch you like a lynx? Do you imagine that your blameless past is a sufficient safeguard? I suppose you think that these detectives will say to themselves, ‘Now, whom shall we suspect? We must leave out Spike Mullins, of course, because he naturally wouldn’t dream of doing such a thing. It can’t be dear old Spike who’s got the stuff.’ ”

“But, boss,” interposed Spike brightly. “I ain’t! Dat’s right⁠—I ain’t got it. Youse has!”

Jimmy looked at him with reluctant admiration. After all, there was a breezy delirium about Spike’s methods of thought which was rather stimulating when you got used to it. The worst of it was that it did not fit in with practical, everyday life. Under different conditions⁠—say, during convivial evenings at Colney Hatch⁠—he could imagine the Bowery boy being a charming companion. How pleasantly, for instance, such remarks as that last would while away the monotony of a padded cell!

“But, laddie,” he said, with steely affection, “listen once more. Reflect! Ponder! Does it not seep into your consciousness that we are, as it were, subtly connected in this house in the minds of certain bad persons? Are we not imagined by Mr. McEachern, for instance, to be working hand in hand like brothers? Do you fancy that Mr. McEachern, chatting with his tame sleuthhound over their cigars, will have been reticent on this point? I think not. How do you propose to baffle that gentlemanly sleuth, Spike, who, I may mention once again, has rarely moved more than two yards away from me since his arrival?”

An involuntary chuckle escaped Spike.

“Sure, boss, dat’s all right!”

“All right, is it? Well, well! What makes you think it is all right?”

“Why, say, boss, dose sleuts is out of business.” A merry grin split his face. “It’s funny, boss! Gee, it’s got a circus skinned! Listen! Deyse bin an’ arrest each other.”

Jimmy moodily revised his former view. Even in Colney Hatch this sort of thing would be coldly received. Genius must ever walk alone. Spike would have to get along without any hope of meeting a kindred spirit, a fellow being in tune with his brain processes.

“Dat’s right,” chuckled Spike. “Leastways, it ain’t.”

“No, no,” said Jimmy soothingly. “I quite understand.”

“It’s dis way, boss. One of dem has bin an’ arrest de odder mug. Dey had a scrap, each t’inking de odder guy was after de jools, an’ not knowin’ dey was bote sleuts, an’ now one of dem’s bin an’ taken de odder off, an’ ”⁠—there were tears of innocent joy in his eyes⁠—“an’ locked him into de coal cellar.”

“What on earth do you mean?”

Spike giggled helplessly.

“Listen, boss! It’s dis way. Gee, it beat de band. When it’s all dark, ’cos of de storm comin’ on, I’m in de dressin’ room chasin’ around for de jool-box, and just as I gets a line on it⁠—gee!⁠—I hears a footstep coming down de passage, very soft, straight for de door. Was I to de bad? Dat’s right. I says to meself, ‘Here’s one of de sleut guys what’s bin and got wise to me, an’ he’s comin’ in to put de grip on me,’ so I gets up quick, an’ I hides behind a coitain. Dere’s a coitain at de side of de room. Dere’s dude suits an t’ings hangin’ behind it. I chases meself in dere, and stands waitin’ for de sleut to come in, ’cos den, you see, I’m goin’ to try an’ get busy before he can see who I am⁠—it’s pretty dark ’cos of de storm⁠—an’ jolt him one on de point of de jaw, an’ den, while he’s down an’ out,