Leave It to Psmith, P. G. Wodehouse [novels to read .txt] 📗

these strange clashings of personal taste which constitute what we call Life. I think I will write a poem about it some day. Come, Comrade Baxter, let us be up and doing. I must not disappoint my public.”

For some moments after the two had left her⁠—Baxter silent and chilly, Psmith, all debonair chumminess, kneading the other’s arm and pointing out as they went objects of interest by the wayside⁠—Eve remained on the terrace wall, thinking. She was laughing now, but behind her amusement there was another feeling, and one that perplexed her. A good many men had proposed to her in the course of her career, but none of them had ever left her with this odd feeling of exhilaration. Psmith was different from any other man who had come her way, and difference was a quality which Eve esteemed.⁠ ⁠…

She had just reached the conclusion that life for whatever girl might eventually decide to risk it in Psmith’s company would never be dull, when strange doings in her immediate neighbourhood roused her from her meditations.

The thing happened as she rose from her seat on the wall and started to cross the terrace on her way to the front door. She had stopped for an instant beneath the huge open window of the drawing-room to listen to what was going on inside. Faintly, with something of the quality of a far-off phonograph, the sound of Psmith reading came to her; and even at this distance there was a composed blandness about his voice which brought a smile to her lips.

And then, with a startling abruptness, the lighted window was dark. And she was aware that all the lighted windows on that side of the castle had suddenly become dark. The lamp that shone over the great door ceased to shine. And above the hubbub of voices in the drawing-room she heard Psmith’s patient drawl.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I think the lights have gone out.”

The night air was rent by a single piercing scream. Something flashed like a shooting star and fell at her feet; and, stooping, Eve found in her hands Lady Constance Keeble’s diamond necklace.

V

To be prepared is everything in this life. Ever since her talk with Mr. Joseph Keeble in the High Street of Market Blandings that afternoon Eve’s mind had been flitting nimbly from one scheme to another, all designed to end in this very act of seizing the necklace in her hands and each rendered impracticable by some annoying flaw. And now that Fate in its impulsive way had achieved for her what she had begun to feel she could never accomplish for herself, she wasted no time in bewildered inaction. The miracle found her ready for it.

For an instant she debated with herself the chances of a dash through the darkened hall up the stairs to her room. But the lights might go on again, and she might meet someone. Memories of sensational novels read in the past told her that on occasions such as this people were detained and searched.⁠ ⁠…

Suddenly, as she stood there, she found the way. Close beside her, lying on its side, was the flowerpot which Psmith had overturned as he came to join her on the terrace wall. It might have defects as a cache, but at the moment she could perceive none. Most flowerpots are alike, but this was a particularly easily-remembered flowerpot: for in its journeying from the potting shed to the terrace it had acquired on its side a splash of white paint. She would be able to distinguish it from its fellows when, late that night, she crept out to retrieve the spoil. And surely nobody would ever think of suspecting⁠ ⁠…

She plunged her fingers into the soft mould, and straightened herself, breathing quickly. It was not an ideal piece of work, but it would serve.

She rubbed her fingers on the turf, put the flowerpot back in the row with the others, and then, like a flying white phantom, darted across the terrace and into the house. And so with beating heart, groping her way, to the bathroom to wash her hands.

The twenty-thousand-pound flowerpot looked placidly up at the winking stars.

VI

It was perhaps two minutes later that Mr. Cootes, sprinting lustily, rounded the corner of the house and burst on to the terrace. Late as usual.

XI Almost Entirely About Flowerpots I

The Efficient Baxter prowled feverishly up and down the yielding carpet of the big drawing-room. His eyes gleamed behind their spectacles, his dome-like brow was corrugated. Except for himself, the room was empty. As far as the scene of the disaster was concerned, the tumult and the shouting had died. It was going on vigorously in practically every other part of the house, but in the drawing-room there was stillness, if not peace.

Baxter paused, came to a decision, went to the wall and pressed the bell.

“Thomas,” he said when that footman presented himself a few moments later.

“Sir?”

“Send Susan to me.”

“Susan, sir?”

“Yes, Susan,” snapped the Efficient One, who had always a short way with the domestic staff. “Susan, Susan, Susan.⁠ ⁠… The new parlourmaid.”

“Oh, yes, sir. Very good, sir.”

Thomas withdrew, outwardly all grave respectfulness, inwardly piqued, as was his wont, at the airy manner in which the secretary flung his orders about at the castle. The domestic staff at Blandings lived in a perpetual state of smouldering discontent under Baxter’s rule.

“Susan,” said Thomas when he arrived in the lower regions, “you’re to go up to the drawing-room. Nosey Parker wants you.”

The pleasant-faced young woman whom he addressed laid down her knitting.

“Who?” she asked.

“Mister Blooming Baxter. When you’ve been here a little longer you’ll know that he’s the feller that owns the place. How he got it I don’t know. Found it,” said Thomas satirically, “in his Christmas stocking, I expect. Anyhow, you’re to go up.”

Thomas’s fellow-footman, Stokes, a serious-looking man with a bald forehead, shook that forehead solemnly.

“Something’s the matter,” he asserted. “You can’t tell me