Ukridge Stories, P. G. Wodehouse [books suggested by bill gates txt] 📗

it couldn’t be. This fellow was a curate. A most respectable man.”

“Have you seen a curate who stuttered?” exclaimed Mr. Dawson.

“Why, yes. He⁠—”

“Hullo!” said Mr. Dawson. “Who’s this?”

“That,” replied Miss Ukridge, eyeing the armchair with loathing, “is my nephew Stanley.”

“Sound sleeper.”

“I prefer not to talk about him.”

“Tell me about this curate,” said Mr. Dawson, brusquely.

“Well, he came in⁠—”

“Came in? In here?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Well⁠—”

“He must have had some story. What was it?”

I thought it judicious, in the interests of my sleeping friend, to depart somewhat from the precise truth.

“He⁠—er⁠—I think he said something about being interested in Miss Ukridge’s collection of snuffboxes.”

“Have you a collection of snuffboxes, Miss Ukridge?”

“Yes.”

“Where do you keep them?”

“In the drawing-room.”

“Take me there, if you please.”

“But I don’t understand.”

Mr. Dawson clicked his tongue in an annoyed manner. He seemed to be an irritable sleuthhound.

“I should have thought the thing was clear enough by this time. This man worms his way into your house with a plausible story, gets rid of this gentleman here⁠—How did he get rid of you?”

“Oh, I just went, you know. I thought I would like a stroll.”

“Oh? Well, having contrived to be alone with your nephew, Miss Ukridge, he slips knockout drops in his drink⁠—”

“Knockout drops?”

“A drug of some kind,” explained Mr. Dawson, chafing at her slowness of intelligence.

“But the man was a curate!”

Mr. Dawson barked shortly.

“Posing as a curate is the thing Stuttering Sam does best. He works the races in that character. Is this the drawing-room?”

It was. And it did not need the sharp, agonized cry which proceeded from its owner’s lips to tell us that the worst had happened. The floor was covered with splintered wood and broken glass.

“They’re gone!” cried Miss Ukridge.

It is curious how differently the same phenomenon can strike different people. Miss Ukridge was a frozen statue of grief. Mr. Dawson, on the other hand, seemed pleased. He stroked his short moustache with an air of indulgent complacency, and spoke of neat jobs. He described Stuttering Sam as a Tough Baby, and gave it as his opinion that the absent one might justly be considered one of the lads and not the worst of them.

“What shall I do?” wailed Miss Ukridge. I was sorry for the woman. I did not like her, but she was suffering.

“The first thing to do,” said Mr. Dawson, briskly, “is to find out how much the fellow has got away with. Have you any other valuables in the house?”

“My jewels are in my bedroom.”

“Where?”

“I keep them in a box in the dress-cupboard.”

“Well, it’s hardly likely that he would find them there, but I’d better go and see. You be taking a look round in here and make a complete list of what has been stolen.”

“All my snuffboxes are gone.”

“Well, see if there is anything else missing. Where is your bedroom?”

“On the first floor, facing the front.”

“Right.”

Mr. Dawson, all briskness and efficiency, left us. I was sorry to see him go. I had an idea that it would not be pleasant being left alone with this bereaved woman. Nor was it.

“Why on earth,” said Miss Ukridge, rounding on me as if I had been a relation, “did you not suspect this man when he came in?”

“Why, I⁠—he⁠—”

“A child ought to have been able to tell that he was not a real curate.”

“He seemed⁠—”

“Seemed!” She wandered restlessly about the room, and suddenly a sharp cry proceeded from her. “My jade Buddha!”

“I beg your pardon?”

“That scoundrel has stolen my jade Buddha. Go and tell the detective.”

“Certainly.”

“Go on! What are you waiting for?”

I fumbled at the handle.

“I don’t seem able to get the door open,” I explained, meekly.

“Tchah!” said Miss Ukridge, swooping down. One of the rooted convictions of each member of the human race is that he or she is able without difficulty to open a door which has baffled their fellows. She took the handle and gave it a vigorous tug. The door creaked but remained unresponsive.

“What’s the matter with the thing?” exclaimed Miss Ukridge, petulantly.

“It’s stuck.”

“I know it has stuck. Please do something at once. Good gracious, Mr. Corcoran, surely you are at least able to open a drawing-room door?”

It seemed, put in that tone of voice, a feat sufficiently modest for a man of good physique and fair general education; but I was reluctantly compelled to confess, after a few more experiments, that it was beyond my powers. This appeared to confirm my hostess in the opinion, long held by her, that I was about the most miserable worm that an inscrutable Providence had ever permitted to enter the world.

She did not actually say as much, but she sniffed, and I interpreted her meaning exactly.

“Ring the bell!”

I rang the bell.

“Ring it again!”

I rang it again.

“Shout!”

I shouted.

“Go on shouting!”

I went on shouting. I was in good voice that day. I shouted “Hi!”; I shouted “Here!”; I shouted “Help!” I also shouted in a broad, general way. It was a performance which should have received more than a word of grateful thanks. But all Miss Ukridge said, when I paused for breath, was:

“Don’t whisper!”

I nursed my aching vocal cords in a wounded silence.

“Help!” cried Miss Ukridge.

Considered as a shout, it was not in the same class as mine. It lacked body, vim, and even timbre. But, by that curious irony which governs human affairs, it produced results. Outside the door a thick voice spoke in answer.

“What’s up?”

“Open this door!”

The handle rattled.

“It’s stuck,” said a voice, which I now recognized as that of my old friend, Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge.

“I know it has stuck. Is that you, Stanley? See what is causing it to stick.”

A moment of silence followed. Investigations were apparently in progress without.

“There’s a wedge jammed under it.”

“Well, take it out at once.”

“I’ll have to get a knife or something.”

Another interval for rest and meditation succeeded. Miss Ukridge paced the floor with knit brows; while I sidled into a corner and stood there feeling a little like an inexperienced young animal-trainer who has managed to get himself locked into the lions’ den and is trying to remember what Lesson Three of his correspondence course said he