Uneasy Money, P. G. Wodehouse [little bear else holmelund minarik txt] 📗

envelope showed, had come from England. She had seemed so upset that he had asked her if it contained bad news, and she had replied in the negative with so much irritation that he had desisted from inquiries. But his own idea was that she had had bad news from home. Mr. Pickering still clung to his early impression that her little brother Percy was consumptive, and he thought the child must have taken a turn for the worse. It was odd that she should have looked and spoken like that, and it was odd that she should look and speak like that now. He had been vaguely disturbed then and he was vaguely disturbed now. He had the feeling that all was not well.

“Yes,” said Lady Wetherby. “What on earth are you doing, Dudley?”

“Popping out!” grumbled Lord Wetherby.

“We came here to see Algie’s picture, which has got something wrong with its eyes apparently, and we find you hiding in the dark with a gun. What’s the idea?”

“It’s a long story,” said Mr. Pickering.

“We have the night before us,” said Lady Wetherby. “Push it out.”

“You remember The Man⁠—the fellow I found looking in at the window⁠—The Man who said he knew Claire?”

“You’ve got that man on the brain, Dudley. What’s he been doing to you now?”

“I tracked him here.”

“Tracked him? Where from?”

“From that bee farm place where he’s living. He and that girl you spoke of went into these woods. I thought they were making for the house, but they went into the shack.”

“Studio,” said Lord Wetherby.

“Studio,” said Mr. Pickering.

“What did they do then?” asked Lady Wetherby.

“They came out again.”

“Why?”

“That’s what I was trying to find out.”

Lord Wetherby uttered an exclamation.

“By Jove!” There was apprehension in his voice, but mingled with it a certain pleased surprise. “Perhaps they were after my picture. I’ll light the lamp. Good Lord, picture thieves⁠—Romneys⁠—missing Gainsboroughs⁠—” His voice trailed off as he found the lamp and lit it. Relief and disappointment were nicely blended in his next words. “No, it’s still there.”

The soft light of the lamp filled the studio.

“Well, that’s a comfort,” said Lady Wetherby, sauntering in. ‘We couldn’t afford to lose⁠—Oh!”

Lord Wetherby spun round as her scream burst upon his already tortured nerve centers. Lady Wetherby was kneeling on the floor. Claire hurried in.

“What is it, Polly?”

Lady Wetherby rose to her feet and pointed. Her face had lost its look of patient amusement. It was hard and set. She eyed Mr. Pickering in a menacing way.

“Look!”

Claire followed her finger.

“Good gracious! It’s Eustace!”

“Shot?”

She was looking intently at Mr. Pickering.

“Well, Dudley,” she said coldly, “what about it?”

Mr. Pickering found that they were all looking at him⁠—Lady Wetherby with glittering eyes, Claire with cool scorn, Lord Wetherby with a horror which he seemed to have achieved with something of an effort.

“Well!” said Claire.

“What about it, Dudley?” said Lady Wetherby.

“I must say, Pickering,” said Lord Wetherby, “much as I disliked the animal, it’s a bit thick!”

Mr. Pickering recoiled from their accusing gaze.

“Good heavens! Do you think I did it?”

In the midst of his anguish there flashed across his mind the recollection of having seen just this sort of situation in a moving picture and of having thought it farfetched.

Lady Wetherby’s good-tempered mouth, far from good-tempered now, curled in a devastating sneer. She was looking at him as Claire, in the old days when they had toured England together in road companies, had sometimes seen her look at recalcitrant landladies. The landladies, without exception, had wilted beneath that gaze, and Mr. Pickering wilted now.

“But⁠—but⁠—but⁠—” was all he could contrive to say.

“Why should we think you did it?” said Lady Wetherby bitingly. “You had a grudge against the poor brute for biting you. We find you hiding here with a pistol and a story about burglars which an infant couldn’t swallow. I suppose you thought that, if you planted the poor creature’s body here, it would be up to Algie to get rid of it, and that if he were found with it I should think that it was he who had killed the animal.”

The look of horror which Lord Wetherby had managed to assume became genuine at these words. The gratitude which he had been feeling toward Mr. Pickering for having removed one of the chief trials of his existence vanished.

“Great Scott!” he cried. “So that was the game, was it!”

Mr. Pickering struggled for speech. This was a nightmare.

“But I didn’t! I didn’t! I didn’t! I tell you I hadn’t the remotest notion the creature was there.”

“Oh, come, Pickering!” said Lord Wetherby. “Come, come, come!”

Mr. Pickering found that his accusers were ebbing away. Lady Wetherby had gone. Claire had gone. Only Lord Wetherby remained, looking at him like a pained groom. He dashed from the place and followed his hostess, speaking incoherently of burglars, outhouses and misunderstandings. He even mentioned Chingachgook. But Lady Wetherby would not listen. Nobody would listen.

He found Lord Wetherby at his side, evidently prepared to go deeper into the subject. Lord Wetherby was looking now like a groom whose favorite horse has kicked him in the stomach.

“Wouldn’t have thought it of you, Pickering,” said Lord Wetherby. Mr. Pickering found no words. “Wouldn’t, honestly. Low trick!”

“But I tell you⁠—”

“Devilish low trick!” repeated Lord Wetherby, with a shake of the head. “Laws of hospitality⁠—eaten our bread and salt, what!⁠—all that sort of thing⁠—kill valuable monkey⁠—not done, you know⁠—low, very low!”

And he followed his wife, now in full retreat, with scorn and repulsion written in her very walk.

“Mr. Pickering!”

It was Claire. She stood there, holding something toward him, something that glittered in the moonlight. Her voice was hard and the expression on her face suggested that in her estimation he was a particularly low-grade worm, one of the submerged tenth of the worm world.

“Eh?” said Mr. Pickering dazedly.

He looked at what she had in her hand, but it conveyed nothing to his overwrought mind.

“Take it!”

“Eh?”

Claire stamped.

“Very well,” she said.

She flung something on the ground before him, a small, sparkling object. Then she swept away, his eyes following her, and was lost in the darkness of the trees. Mechanically Mr. Pickering stooped to