ALMOST ENTIRELY ABOUT FLOWER-POTS
§ 1
T
HE Efficient Baxter up and the of the big drawing-room. His their spectacles, his dome-like was corrugated. Except for himself, the room was empty. As as the of the was concerned, the and the had died. It was going on in every other part of the house, but in the drawing-room there was stillness, if not peace.
Baxter paused, came to a decision, to the and pressed the bell.
“Thomas,” he said when that presented himself a moments later.
“Sir?”
“Send Susan to me.”
“Susan, sir?”
“Yes, Susan,” the Efficient One, who had always a way with the staff. “Susan, Susan, Susan. . . . The new parlourmaid.”
“Oh, yes, sir. Very good, sir.”
Thomas withdrew, all respectfulness, piqued, as was his wont, at the manner in which the his orders about at the castle. The staff at Blandings in a of under Baxter’s rule.
“Susan,” said Thomas when he in the regions, “you’re to go up to the drawing-room. Nosey Parker wants you.”
The pleasant-faced woman he her knitting.
“Who?” she asked.
“Mister Blooming Baxter. When you’ve been here a little longer you’ll know that he’s the that 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 forehead, that solemnly.
“Something’s the matter,” he asserted. “You can’t tell me that wasn’t a we when them lights was out. Or,” he added weightily, for he was a man who looked at every of a question, “a shriek. It was a or scream. I said so at the time. ‘There,’ I said, ‘listen!’ I said. ‘That’s somebody screaming,’ I said. ‘Or shrieking.’ Something’s up.”
“Well, Baxter hasn’t been murdered, luck,” said Thomas. “He’s up there or for Susan. ‘Send Susan to me!’” Thomas, an always popular imitation. “‘Susan, Susan, Susan.’ So you’d best go, my girl, and see what he wants.”
“Very well.”
“And, Susan,” said Thomas, a note into his voice, for already, as had been her at Blandings, he had the new making a on him, “if it’s a of any . . .”
“Or description,” Stokes.
“Or description,” Thomas, the word, “if ’e’s ’arsh with you for some or other, you come right to me and out your on my chest, see? Lay your little ’ead on my and tell me all about it.”
The new parlourmaid, to reply to this invitation, started on her upstairs; and Thomas, with a not sigh, his game of with Stokes.
* * * * *
The Efficient Baxter had gone to the open window and was out into the night when Susan entered the drawing-room.
“You to see me, Mr. Baxter?”
The round. So had she opened the door, and so had she moved when the room, that it was not until she spoke that he had aware of her arrival. It was a of this girl Susan that she was always to be among those present some time the of the fact.
“Oh, good evening, Miss Simmons. You came in very quietly.”
“Habit,” said the parlourmaid.
“You gave me a start.”
“I’m sorry. What was it,” she asked, in a positively manner the of her companion’s nerves, “that you to see me about?”
“Shut that door.”
“I have. I always doors.”
“Please down.”
“No, thank you, Mr. Baxter. It might look odd if anyone should come in.”
“Of course. You think of everything.”
“I always do.”
Baxter for a moment, frowning.
“Miss Simmons,” he said, “when I it to a private in this house, I on Wragge’s sending you. We had together . . .”
“Sixteenth of December, 1918, to January twelve, 1919, when you were to Mr. Horace Jevons, the American millionaire,” said Miss Simmons as as if he had touched a spring. It was her hobby to with precision.
“Exactly. I upon your being sent I from that you were reliable. At that time I looked on your presence here as a measure. Now, I am sorry to say . . .”
“Did someone Lady Constance’s necklace to-night?”
“Yes!”
“When the lights out just now?”
“Exactly.”
“Well, why couldn’t you say so at once? Good gracious, man, you don’t have to the thing to me.”
The Efficient Baxter, though he to being as “man,” to the solecism.
“The lights out,” he said. “There was a amount of and confusion. Then a . . .”
“I it.”
“And after Lady Constance’s voice that her had been from her neck.”
“Then what happened?”
“Still confusion, which until one of the with a candle. Eventually the lights on again, but of the necklace there was no whatever.”
“Well? Were you the to wear it as a watch-chain or it from his teeth?”
Baxter was his companion’s manner more trying every minute, but he his calm.
“Naturally the doors were and a complete search instituted. And it was. With the single of the who has been himself off as McTodd, all those present were well-known members of Society.”
“Well-known members of Society might not object to of a twenty-thousand necklace. But still, with the McTodd there, you oughtn’t to have had to look. What had he to say about it?”
“He was among the to empty his pockets.”
“Well, then, he must have the thing somewhere.”
“Not in this room. I have assiduously.”
“H’m.”
There was a silence.
“It is baffling,” said Baxter, “baffling.”
“It is nothing of the kind,” Miss Simmons tartly. “This wasn’t a one-man job. How it have been? I should be to call it a three-man job. One to off the lights, one to the necklace, and one to—was that window open all the time? I so—and one to up the necklace when the second it out on to the terrace.”
“Terrace!”
The word from Baxter’s with force. Miss Simmons looked at him curiously.
“Thought of something?”
“Miss Simmons,” said the Efficient One impressively, “everybody was assembled in here waiting for the reading to begin, but the pseudo-McTodd was to be found. I him on the in close talk with the Halliday girl.”
“His partner,” said Miss Simmons, nodding. “We so all along. And let me add my little bit. There’s a in the servants’ that calls himself a valet, and I’ll he didn’t know what a was till he came here. I he was a the moment I set on him. I can tell ’em in the dark. Now, do you know he is? This McTodd fellow’s!”
Baxter to and like a tiger.
“And with my own ears,” he excitedly, “I the Halliday girl to come to the drawing-room to to the reading. She was out on the the whole affair. Miss Simmons, we must act! We must act!”
“Yes, but not like idiots,” the frostily.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you can’t out, as you looked as if you wanted to just then, and these where they sit. We’ve got to go carefully.”
“But meanwhile they will the necklace away!”
“They won’t any necklace away, not while I’m around. Suspicion’s no good. We’ve out a little case against the three of them, but it’s no use unless we catch them with the goods. The thing we have to do is to out where they’ve the stuff. And that’ll take patience. I’ll start by that girl’s room. Then I’ll search the fellow’s room. And if the isn’t there, it’ll they’ve it out in the open somewhere.”
“But this McTodd fellow. This who as McTodd. He may have it all the while.”
“No. I’ll search his room, too, but the won’t be there. He’s the who’s going to it in the end, he’s got that place out in the to it in. But they wouldn’t have had time to it to him yet. That necklace is right here. And if,” said Miss Simmons with facetiousness, “they can it from me, they may keep it as a birthday present.”
§ 2
How wonderful, if we pause to it, is Nature’s law of compensation. Instead of time in of our superiors, we would do well to that these gifts of theirs which our are by penalties. To take an example that to hand, it was the very that he a brain like a buzz-saw that the Efficient Baxter a sleeper. Just as he would be off, bing! would go that brain of his, melting the of sleep like in a furnace.
This was so when life was for him and without excitement. To-night, his mind, the it did, to the question of slumber. The hour of two, from the clock over the stables, him as wide as he was at high noon.
Lying in in the darkness, he the as as he had the data. Shortly he retired, Miss Simmons had her report about the bedrooms. Though to the scrutiny, neither Psmith’s Cootes’s Eve’s little on the third had up of any description. And this, Miss Simmons held, her original view that the necklace must be in what might almost be called a public spot—on some window-ledge, maybe, or in the hall. . . .
Baxter this theory. It did appear to be the only one; but it him by the search a of being some of game like Hunt the Slipper or Find the Thimble. As a child he had from these pastimes, and he being to play them now. Still . . .
He sat up, thinking. He had a noise.
* * * * *
The of the majority of people in the night is one of non-interference. But Rupert Baxter was of stuff. The had to come from somewhere—perhaps from that very where, according to Miss Simmons, the necklace might now be hid. Whatever it was, it must not be ignored. He for the which to his hand on the table him: then out of bed, and, having put on a pair of and opened the door, into the darkness. As as he by his and his ears, all was still from to roof; but he was not satisfied. He to listen. His room was on the second floor, one of a series that ran along a the hall; and he stood, over the rail, a of Vigilance.
* * * * *
The noise which had so upon the Efficient Baxter had been a particularly noisy noise; and only the and the that his door was closed had it to him like an explosion. It had been by the of a small table a vase, a of potpourri, an Indian box of workmanship, and a cabinet-size photograph of the Earl of Emsworth’s son, Lord Bosham; and the table had Eve, en across the in of her flower-pot, had with it while making for the door. Of all sports—and Eve, as she among the ruins, would have been the to this dictum—the one which offers the minimum of to the participant is that of in through the of a country-house. Easily in the daytime, these places at night for the unwary.
Eve paused breathlessly. So had the noise to her ears that every moment she was doors to open all over the castle, men with pistols. But as nothing happened, returned to her, and she her journey. She the great door, ran her along its surface, and the chain. The of the but another instant, and then she was out on the her the of flower-pots.
Up on his balcony, meanwhile, the Efficient Baxter was stopping, looking, and listening. The looking no results, for all was black as pitch; but the proved more fruitful. Faintly from in the well of the there up to him a like something in the darkness. Had he the a moment earlier, he would have the of the and the of the bolts; but these had just he came out of his room. Now all that was was this rustling.
He not the sound, but the that there was any at all in such a place at such an hour his that dark doings were toward which would pay for investigation. With steps he to the of the stairs and descended.
One the “descend” advisedly, for what is is some word activity. About Baxter’s progress from the second to the there was nothing or hesitating. He, so to speak, did it now. Planting his on a golf-ball which the Hon. Freddie Threepwood, who had been in the retiring to bed, had left in his fashion just where the steps began, he took the entire in one majestic, sweep. There were eleven stairs in all his landing from the landing below, and the only ones he were the third and tenth. He came to with a on the landing, and for a moment or two the of the left him.
The that many in their time have at some length on the manner in which Fate is to perform its work must not us now from a survey of this latest of its methods. Had not his with Eve that so the Hon. Freddie as to in him a yet to putt, there would have been no golf-ball waiting for Baxter on the stairs. And had he been permitted to the stairs in a less manner, Baxter would not at this have on the light.
It had not been his original to the theatre of action, but after that Lucifer-like from the second to the he was taking no more chances. “Safety First” was Baxter’s slogan. As soon, therefore, as he had off a of and collapse, to that which comes to the man who steps on the teeth of a and is on the by the handle, he rose with to his and, his way by the banisters, for the and pressed it. And so it came about that Eve, for home with her flower-pot in her arms, was stopped when at the very door by a of light. Another instant, and she would have been across the of disaster.
For a moment her. The light had her like someone and in her ear. Her gave one bound, and she frozen. Then, with a for flight, she like a into the of a of bushes.
* * * * *
Baxter blinking. Gradually his themselves to the light, and they had done so he was by a fresh of zeal. Now that all were visible to him he see that that had been by a in the breeze, and that the which the was in through the open door.
Baxter no time in thought. He and with decision. Straightening his on his nose, he up his and out into the night.
* * * * *
The slept under the stars. To a more man than Baxter it would have to wear that air which a garden always when at hours by people who ought to be in bed. Baxter, fanciful, was to this. He was thinking, thinking. That shaking-up on the stairs had into activity the very of his brain and he was at the fever-point of his powers. A had come like a full-blown rose, his brow. Miss Simmons, plausibly, had that the necklace might be in the hall. Baxter, inspired, not. Whoever it was that had been at work in the just now had been making for the garden. It was not the to which had him—or her—to open the door, for the opening had been done he, Baxter, had come out on to the balcony—otherwise he must have the of the bolts. No. The enemy’s had been the garden. In other words, the terrace. And why? Because on the was the necklace.
Standing there in the starlight, the Efficient Baxter to the scene, and did so with accuracy. He saw the down. He saw them up. But there he stopped. Try as he might, he not see them hidden. And yet that they had been hidden—and that a of where he was now standing—he convinced.
He moved from his position near the door and to restlessly. His over the soft turf.
* * * * *
Eve out from her of bushes. It was not easy to see any great distance, but Fate, her friend, was still with her. There had been a moment that night when Baxter, for bed, had his and his lemon-coloured pyjamas, little of what upon the choice. Fate had his hand to the lemon-coloured, and he had put them on; with the result that he now in the light like the white of Navarre. Eve his movements perfectly, and, when he was away from his to make the enterprise prudent, she out and for home and safety. Baxter at the moment was on the wall, thinking, thinking, thinking.
* * * * *
It was possibly the air, playing about his ankles, that at last the secretary’s mood and the that he was doing something in out here in the open like this. A of are customers, likely to at little when a valuable necklace is at stake, and it came to the Efficient Baxter that in his light he must be a mark for any lurking—say in those bushes. And at the thought, the night, though mild, chilly. With an almost he to re-enter the house. Zeal was well enough, but it was to be rash. He the last yards of his at a of speed.
It was at this point that he that the lights in the had been off and that the door was closed and bolted.
§ 3
It is the opinion of most students of life that in this world on the ability to take as they come. An of one who may be said to have perfected this is to be in the of a Arabian author who tells of a who, to sleep one upon a of an acorn, when he that the of his had the to and that he was now some sixty above the ground in the upper of a oak. Unable to descend, he the equably. “I cannot,” he observed, “adapt to my will: therefore I shall my will to circumstances. I decide to here.” Which he did.
Rupert Baxter, as he the door of Blandings Castle, was very from this philosopher. To locked out of a country-house at half-past two in the in lemon-coloured can be an experience, and Baxter was a man less by nature to it with than most men. His was a and an soul, and he in against the position into which Fate had manœuvred him. He so as to give the door a kick. Finding, however, that this his and no useful end, he himself to the of there was any way of in—short of the and the house, a line of action which did not itself to him. He a of as as possible the type of man of which the was now full, and he had no to meet them at this hour in his present costume. He left the door and to make a of the walls; and his lower. In the Middle Ages, that period of England’s history when were six thick and a window was not so much a window as a place for lead on the of visitors, Blandings had been an fortress. But in all its career it can have looked more of a to anyone than it did now to the Efficient Baxter.
One of the of being a man of action, to the emotions, is that in moments of trial the of Nature are powerless to the heart. Had Baxter been of a and he might now have been all of from the of his surroundings. The air was full of the of things; strange, came and about him as he walked; in the a had to sing; and there was something in the of the as it against the sky. But Baxter had his of smell; he and the strange, creatures; the left him cold; and the only the in him was that it looked as if a would need a of to into it.
Baxter paused. He was now near the spot from which he had started, having two without any of his difficulties. The idea in his mind had been to under somebody’s window and the sleeper’s attention with soft, whistles. But the he had to him in the of early so like a steam that he had timid, mouse-like which the had away the moment they out. He now to for and his making another attempt. He to the and sat down. The clock over the three.
To the type of like Rupert Baxter, the act of is nearly always the for the brain to with more than its energy. The to thought. And Baxter, having for the moment his physical activities—and to do so, for his him—gave himself up to as to the hiding-place of Lady Constance Keeble’s necklace. From the spot where he now sat he was probably, he reflected, actually in a position to see that hiding-place—if only, when he saw it, he were able to it for what it was. Somewhere out here—in or in some in tree—the must have been placed. Or . . .
Something to go off Baxter like a touched spring. One moment, he was limply, of a on the of his left foot; the next, of the blister, he was off the and along the in a of slippers. Inspiration had come to him.
Day early in the months, and already a of had to itself in the sky. It was still from light, but objects in the had to take on shape. And among these there had come into the line of Baxter’s a of fifteen flower-pots.
There they stood, by side, and inviting, each with a in its of mould. Fifteen flower-pots. There had originally been sixteen, but Baxter nothing of that. All he was that he was on the trail.
The for is one which right through the has an spell over humanity. Confronted with a spot where may lurk, men do not upon the order of their digging; they go at it with hands. No for his employer’s came to Rupert Baxter’s researches. To the flower-pot and out its was with him the work of a moment. He his through the little of . . .
Nothing.
A second on the ground . . .
Nothing.
A third . . .
* * * * *
The Efficient Baxter himself painfully. He was to stooping, and his ached. But physical was in the of frustrated. As he there, his with an earth-stained hand, fifteen up at him in the light, it with reproach. But Baxter no remorse. He all geraniums, all thieves, and most of the in one black hatred.
All that Rupert Baxter wanted in this world now was bed. The clock over the had just four, and he was aware of an fatigue. Somehow or other, if he had to through the with his hands, he must into the house. He himself from the of and up at the of above him. He was past now. He for a pebble, and it up at the nearest window.
Nothing happened. Whoever was sleeping up there to sleep. The sky had pink, were in the ivy, other had to sing in the bushes. All Nature, in short, was waking—except the up in that room.
He another . . .
* * * * *
It to Rupert Baxter that he had been there through a eternity. The whole had now in his to that log-like sleeper; and for a left him, away by a of Berserk fury. And there into his mind, as if from some previous existence, a memory of somebody once near where he was now and a flower-pot in at a window at someone. Who it was that had the thing at whom, he not at the moment recall; but the point on which his mind itself was the that the man had had the right idea. This was no time for pebbles. Pebbles were and inadequate. With one voice the birds, the breezes, the grasshoppers, the whole of Nature to another day to to him, “Say it with flower-pots!”
§ 4
The ability to sleep and is the prerogative, as has been pointed out in this of the home-life of the English upper classes, of those who do not think quickly. The Earl of Emsworth, who had not since the occasion in the of 1874 when he had his father’s the stable-loft in which he, a of fifteen, sat his cigar, was an excellent sleeper. He started early and late. It was his that for more than twenty years he had missed his full eight hours. Generally he managed to something nearer ten.
But then, as a rule, people did not flower-pots through his window at four in the morning.
Even under this handicap, however, he to his record. The of Baxter’s missiles, on a settee, produced no in his regular breathing. The second, which the carpet, him to stir. It was the third, with his back, that definitely him. He sat up in and at the thing.
In the moment of his waking, was, enough, his emotion. The had him from a in which he had been with Angus McAllister about early bulbs, and McAllister, verbally, had him in the with a spud. Even in his Lord Emsworth had been as to what his next move ought to be; and when he himself and in his he was at that the for making a had at any been postponed. Angus McAllister might on some occasion him with a spud, but he had not done it yet.
There a period of bewilderment. He looked at the flower-pot. It no message for him. He had not put it there. He took flower-pots to bed. Once, as a child, he had taken a rabbit, but a flower-pot. The whole was inscrutable; and his lordship, unable to solve the mystery, was on the point of taking the of going to sleep again, when something large and solid through the open window and against the wall, where it broke, but not into such small that he not that in its it, too, had been a flower-pot. And at this moment his on the and then on the settee; and the passed still into the of the inexplicable. The Hon. Freddie Threepwood, who had a singing-voice but was a game trier, had been his father of late by a in the words:
“It is not rain at all:
It’s vi-o-lets.”
It to Lord Emsworth now that had gone a step farther. It was flower-pots.
The of the Earl of Emsworth all was one of detachment; but this was so that he himself to a little of and interest. His brain still to with the problem of why should be flower-pots into his room at this hour—or, indeed, at any hour; but it a good idea to go and who this person was.
He put on his and out of and to the window. And it was while he was on his way there that memory in him, as some minutes ago it had in the Efficient Baxter. He that odd of a days back, when that girl, Miss What’s-her-name, had him that his had been flower-pots at that fellow, McTodd. He had been annoyed, he remembered, that Baxter should so have himself. Now, he himself more than annoyed. Just as every dog is permitted one bite without having its questioned, so, if you it in a broad-minded way, may every man be allowed to one flower-pot. But let the thing a habit, and we look askance. This hobby of his appeared to be on Baxter like a drug, and Lord Emsworth did not like it at all. He had his of an mind, but now he mused, as he to the window, that the Baxter of man, the type, was just the that go off his head. Just some such as this, his felt, he might have foreseen. Day in, day out, Rupert Baxter had been his brain since he had come to the castle—and now he had gone and it. Lord Emsworth out from a curtain.
His were realised. It was Baxter, sure enough; and a tousled, wild-eyed Baxter in lemon-coloured pyjamas.
* * * * *
Lord Emsworth from the window. He had sufficient. The had in some way set the coping-stone on his dismay, and he was now in a condition to panic. That Baxter should be so by his as actually to to himself going out on one of these flower-pot-hurling of his to make it all so sad and hopeless. The was no poltroon, but he was past his youth, and it came to him very that the and of who ran was man’s work. He across the room and opened the door. It was his purpose to put this into the hands of an agent. And so it came about that Psmith was some minutes later from by a touch on the arm and sat up to his host’s at him in the light of early morning.
“My dear fellow,” Lord Emsworth.
Psmith, like Baxter, was a light sleeper; and it was only a moment he was wide and himself to do the courtesies.
“Good morning,” he said pleasantly. “Will you take a seat.”
“I am sorry to be to wake you, my dear fellow,” said his lordship, “but the of the is, my secretary, Baxter, has gone off his head.”
“Much?” Psmith, interested.
“He is out in the garden in his pyjamas, flower-pots through my window.”
“Flower-pots?”
“Flower-pots!”
“Oh, flower-pots!” said Psmith, thoughtfully, as if he had it would be something else. “And what steps are you to take? That is to say,” he on, “unless you wish him to continue flower-pots.”
“My dear . . . !”
“Some people like it,” Psmith. “But you do not? Quite so, so. I perfectly. We all have our and dislikes. Well, what would you suggest?”
“I was that you might to go down—er—having possibly with a good stick—and him to and return to bed.”
“A in which I can see no flaw,” said Psmith approvingly. “If you will make at home in here—pardon me for to you in your own house—I will see what can be done. I have always Comrade Baxter a man, to welcome from sources, and I have no that we shall easily be able to some arrangement.”
He got out of bed, and, having put on his slippers, and his monocle, paused the to his hair.
“For,” he explained, “one must be when entering the presence of a Baxter.”
He to the and took from among a number of a Homburg. Then, having from a bowl of flowers on the a white rose, he it in the of his pyjama-suit and himself ready.
§ 5
The of energy which had the Efficient Baxter on to his of had not lasted. Lethargy was on him as he to up the flower-pot which had its on Lord Emsworth’s spine. And, as he there after that final missile, he had that that was his last shot. If that produced no results, he was finished.
And, as as he gather, it had produced no results whatever. No had out of the window. No of had his ears. The place was as still as if he had been marsh-mallows. A from Baxter’s lips. And a moment later he was on the ground with his against the wall, a man.
His closed. Sleep, which he had been to himself for so long, would be no more. When Psmith arrived, the Hon. Freddie Threepwood’s like a cane, he had just to snore.
* * * * *
Psmith was a soul. He did not like Rupert Baxter, but that was no why he should allow him to continue on wet with the dew, thus and sciatica. He Baxter in the with the niblick, and the sat up, blinking. And with returning came a of grievance.
“Well, you’ve been long enough,” he growled. Then, as he his red-rimmed and was able to see more clearly, he who it was that had come to his rescue. The of Psmith of all people at him was an added offence. “Oh, it’s you?” he said morosely.
“I in person,” said Psmith genially. “Awake, beloved! Awake, for in the bowl of night has the that puts the to flight; and lo! the of the East has the Sultan’s in a of light. The Sultan himself,” he added, “you will window, on your for flower-pots at him. Why, if I may the question, did you?”
Baxter was in no mood. Without replying, he rose to his and started to along the to the door. Psmith into step him.
“If I were you,” said Psmith, “and I offer the in the most of goodwill, I would use every to prevent this for flower-pots from upon me. I know you will say that you can take it or it alone; that just one more pot won’t you; but can you stop at one? Isn’t it just that flower-pot that all the mischief? Be a man, Comrade Baxter!” He his hand on the secretary’s shoulder. “The next time the comes on you, it. Fight it! Are you, the of the ages, going to a to a habit? Tush! You know and I know that there is in you than that. Use your will-power, man, use your will-power.”
Whatever reply Baxter might have to make to this powerful harangue—and his as he on his that he had much to say—was by a voice from above.
“Baxter! My dear fellow!”
The Earl of Emsworth, having the secretary’s from the safe observation-post of Psmith’s bedroom, and having noted that he to be no of violence, had to make his presence known. His panic had passed, and he wanted to go into causes.
Baxter up at the window.
“I can everything, Lord Emsworth.”
“What?” said his lordship, out.
“I can everything,” Baxter.
“It out after all,” said Psmith pleasantly, “to be very simple. He was for the Jerking The Geranium event at the next Olympic Games.”
Lord Emsworth his glasses.
“Your is dirty,” he said, at his secretary. “Baxter, my dear fellow, your is dirty.”
“I was digging,” Baxter sullenly.
“What?”
“Digging!”
“The complex,” Psmith. “What,” he asked kindly, to his companion, “were you for? Forgive me if the question an one, but we are naturally curious.”
Baxter hesitated.
“What were you for?” asked Lord Emsworth.
“You see,” said Psmith. “He wants to know.”
Not for the time since they had associated, a of at his employer’s up in Rupert Baxter’s bosom. The old was always about questions. Fury and want of sleep to the secretary’s normal prudence. Dimly he that he was Psmith, the who he was was the of last night’s outrage, valuable information; but anything was than to have to here up at Lord Emsworth. He wanted to it over and go to bed.
“I Lady Constance’s necklace was in one of the flower-pots,” he shrilled.
“What?”
The secretary’s powers of gave out. This inquisition, on top of the night he had had, was too much for him. With a low he one for the door and passed through it to where these voices there was peace.
Psmith, thus of his society, for some moments near the door, in with the fresh of the morning. It was many years since he had been up and about as early as this, and he had how the of a July day can be. Unlike Baxter, on self-centred these had been lost, he in the soft breezes, the birds, the of the sky. He at length from his to that Lord Emsworth had and was him on the arm.
“What did he say?” his lordship. He was like a man who has been cut off in the of an telephone conversation.
“Say?” said Psmith. “Oh, Comrade Baxter? Now, let me think. What did he say?”
“Something about something being in a flower-pot,” his lordship.
“Ah, yes. He said he that Lady Constance’s necklace was in one of the flower-pots.”
“What!”
Lord Emsworth, it should be mentioned, was not in touch with in his home. His of going early to had him to miss the events in the drawing-room: and, as he was a sleeper, the screams—or, as Stokes the would have said, shrieks—had not him. He at Psmith, aghast. For a while the of Baxter had his suspicions, but now they returned with force.
“Baxter my sister’s necklace was in a flower-pot?” he gasped.
“So I him to say.”
“But why should my sister keep her necklace in a flower-pot?”
“Ah, there you take me into waters.”
“The man’s mad,” Lord Emsworth, his last removed. “Stark, mad! I so before, and now I’m of it.”
His was no in the of insanity. Several of his best friends were in those set in and by high with bottles on them, to which the and are to retire when the of modern life too great. And one of his by marriage, who that he was a of bread, had his public on the in the smoking-room of this very castle. What Lord Emsworth did not know about was not knowing.
“I must of him,” he said. And at the the to Lord Emsworth to take on a new beauty. Many a time had he with the idea of his but secretary, but had that man him any to act. Hitherto, moreover, he had his sister’s should he take the plunge. But now . . . Surely Connie, pig-headed as she was, not him for with the services of a who she her in flower-pots, and out into the garden in the early to them at his window.
His took on a buoyancy. He a air.
“Get of him,” he murmured, the his tongue. He Psmith on the shoulder. “Well, my dear fellow,” he said, “I we had be to and if we can’t a little sleep.”
Psmith gave a little start. He had been in thought.
“Do not,” he said courteously, “let me keep you from the if you wish to retire. To me—you know what we are—this has inspiration. I think I will push off to my little in the woods, and a about something.”
He his up the stairs, and they with good will at their doors. Psmith, having his brain with a cold bath, to dress.
As a rule, the of his was a over which he lovingly; but this he his habit. He into his with animation, and but a moment over the of his tie. He was that there was that him which would pay for haste.
Nothing in this world is than the with which we our without just cause. In the of the night before, Psmith had the hand of Edward Cootes. Edward Cootes, he considered, had been in what—in another—he would have as business. Like Miss Simmons, Psmith had at the that the necklace had been out of the drawing-room window by one of those who up the audience at his reading: and it was his that it had been up and by Mr. Cootes. He had been trying to think since where that man have it, and Baxter had provided the clue. But Psmith saw than Baxter. The secretary, having fifteen flower-pots and nothing, had his theory. Psmith further, and the of a sixteenth. And he as soon as he was to in search of it.
He put on his shoes, and left the room, his as he went.
§ 6
The hands of the clock over the were pointing to half-past five when Eve Halliday, furtively, another of the stairs. Her as she were very different from those which had her to jump at every when she had started on this same three hours earlier. Then, she had been a in the and, as such, a object of suspicion: now, if she to into anybody, she was a girl who, unable to sleep, had early to take a in the garden. It was a that all the difference.
Moreover, it the facts. She had not been able to sleep—except for an hour when she had off in a chair by her window; and she to take a in the garden. It was her to the necklace from the place where she had deposited it, and it where no one possibly it. There it until she had a of meeting and talking to Mr. Keeble, and what was the next step he taken.
Two had Eve, after making her panic into the house after in the while Baxter the terrace, to her flower-pot on the of the window the door. She had read in of that for purposes of the most open place is the best place: and, secondly, the nearer the door she put the flower-pot, the less would she have to it when the time came for its removal. In the present condition of the household, with every guest an detective, the of a girl with a flower-pot in her arms would remark.
Eve exhilarated. She was not used to only one hour’s sleep in the of a night, but and the that she had played a difficult game and it against her up so that she was not of fatigue: and so did she that as she the landing above the she her mode of progress and ran the stairs. She had the of being in the last yards of a race.
* * * * *
The was light now. Every object in it was visible. There was the dinner-gong: there was the long leather settee: there was the table which she had in the darkness. And there was the of the window by the door. But the flower-pot which had been on it was gone.
