PSMITH RECEIVES GUESTS
§ 1
B
LANDINGS CASTLE was from to hall. Lights blazed, voices shouted, rang. All over the there a activity like that of a on the of the regiment’s for abroad. Dinner was over, and the Expeditionary Force was making its final starting off in many motor-cars for the County Ball at Shifley. In the on every floor, Reggies, at the last moment about their white ties, were new ones; Berties their already hair; and Claudes to Archies along the passages as to they had been their handkerchiefs. Valets like up and corridors, in and out of rooms in of Beauty in distress. The noise into every and of the house. It the Efficient Baxter, going through his papers in the library to Blandings on the for ever. It Lord Emsworth, who to go ten miles of the County Ball, had retired to his room with a book on Herbaceous Borders. It the peace of Beach the butler, himself after his around the dinner table with a of port in the housekeeper’s room. The only person in the place who paid no attention to it was Eve Halliday.
Eve was too to pay attention to anything but her thoughts. As she walked on the terrace, to which she had in of solitude, her teeth were set and her belligerently. As Miss Peavey would have put it in one of her moods, she was clear through. For Eve was a girl of spirit, and there is nothing your girl of so as being a of, it be by Fate or by a creature. Eve was in the position of having had this put upon her by both. But, while as as Fate was she rebelliously, her Psmith was in the extreme.
A of her as she the with which she had the he had told her in of his presence at Blandings in another man’s name. He had been playing with her all the time—fooling her—and, most of all, he had to that he was of her and—Eve’s again—to make her—almost—fond of him. How he must have laughed . . .
Well, she was not yet. Her up and she to walk quicker. He was clever, but she would be cleverer. The game was not over . . .
“Hallo!”
A white was at her side. Polished shoes on the turf. Light hair, and to the last possible of perfection, in the light of the stars. The Hon. Freddie Threepwood was in her midst.
“Well, Freddie?” said Eve resignedly.
“I say,” said Freddie in a voice in which self-pity with for her. “Beastly you aren’t to the hop.”
“I don’t mind.”
“But I do, it! The thing won’t be anything without you. A wash-out. And I’ve been trying out some new steps with the Victrola.”
“Well, there will be of other girls there for you to step on.”
“I don’t want other girls, them. I want you.”
“That’s very of you,” said Eve. The of her manner had softened. She herself, as she had so often been to herself before, that Freddie meant well. “But it can’t be helped. I’m only an employée here, not a guest. I’m not invited.”
“I know,” said Freddie. “And that’s what makes it so sickening. It’s like that picture I saw once, ‘A Modern Cinderella.’ Only there the girl off to the dance—disguised, you know—and had a most time. I wish life was a more like the movies.”
“Well, it was like the last night when . . . Oh!”
Eve stopped. Her gave a jump. Somehow the presence of Freddie was so in her mind with of marriage that she had that there was another and a more to his nature, that which Mr. Keeble had to her at their meeting in Market Blandings on the previous afternoon. She looked at him with new eyes.
“Anything up?” said Freddie.
Eve took him by the and him away from the house. Not that there was any need to do so, for the unabated.
“Freddie,” she whispered, “listen! I met Mr. Keeble yesterday after I had left you, and he told me all about how you and he had planned to Lady Constance’s necklace.”
“Good Lord!” Freddie, and like a fish.
“And I’ve got an idea,” said Eve.
She had, and it was one which had only in this come to her. Until now, though she had her and herself that the game was not over and that she was not yet beaten, a small voice had to her all the while that this was bravado. What, the voice had asked, are you going to do? And she had not been able to answer it. But now, with Freddie as an ally, she act.
“Told you all about it?” Freddie was pallidly. He had had a very high opinion of his Uncle Joseph’s mentality, but he had him of a thing like that to himself. He was, indeed, of Mr. Keeble almost the which Mr. Keeble in the moments of his with Eve in Market Blandings had of him. And these much the same which they had to the conspirator. Once these got talked about, Freddie agitatedly, you where they would stop. Before his there a painful picture of his Aunt Constance, of the plot, him and the return of her necklace. “Told you all about it?” he bleated, and, like Mr. Keeble, his brow.
“It’s all right,” said Eve impatiently. “It’s all right. He asked me to the necklace, too.”
“You?” said Freddie, gaping.
“Yes.”
“My Gosh!” Freddie, electrified. “Then was it you who got the thing last night?”
“Yes it was. But . . .”
For a moment Freddie had to with something that was almost a envy. Then prevailed. He with generosity. He gave Eve’s hand a pat. It was too dark for her to see it, but he was renunciation.
“Little girl,” he murmured, “there’s no one I’d got that thousand than you. If I couldn’t have it myself, I to say. Little girl . . .”
“Oh, be quiet!” Eve. “I wasn’t doing it for any thousand pounds. I didn’t want Mr. Keeble to give me money . . .”
“You didn’t want him to give you money!” Freddie wonderingly.
“I just wanted to help Phyllis. She’s my friend.”
“Pals, pardner, pals! Pals till freezes!” Freddie, moved.
“What are you talking about?”
“Sorry. That was a sub-title from a thing called ‘Prairie Nell,’ you know. Just to my mind. It was in the second where the two are . . .”
“Yes, yes; mind.”
“Thought I’d mention it.”
“Tell me . . .”
“It to fit in.”
“Do stop, Freddie!”
“Right-ho!”
“Tell me,” Eve, “is Mr. McTodd going to the ball?”
“Eh? Why, yes, I so.”
“Then, listen. You know that little your father has let him have?”
“Little cottage?”
“Yes. In the past the Yew Alley.”
“Little cottage? I of any little cottage.”
“Well, he’s got one,” said Eve. “And as soon as has gone to the you and I are going to it.”
“What!”
“Burgle it!”
“Burgle it?”
“Yes, it!”
Freddie gulped.
“Look here, old thing,” he said plaintively. “This is a me. It doesn’t to me to make sense.”
Eve herself to be patient. After all, she reflected, she had been the a little rapidly. The to Freddie over the passed, and she to speak slowly, and, as as she manage it, in of one syllable.
“I can make it clear if you will and not say a word till I’ve done. This man who calls himself McTodd is not Mr. McTodd at all. He is a who got into the place by saying that he was McTodd. He the from me last night and them in his cottage.”
“But, I say!”
“Don’t interrupt. I know he has them there, so when he has gone to the and the is clear you and I will go and search till we them.”
“But, I say!”
Eve her once more.
“Well?”
“Do you think this has got the necklace?”
“I know he has.”
“Well, then, it’s well the best thing that possibly have happened, I got him here to pinch it for Uncle Joseph.”
“What!”
“Absolutely. You see, I to have a or two as to I was equal to the contract, so I in this bird by way of a gang.”
“You got him here? You you sent for him and that he should pass himself off as Mr. McTodd?”
“Well, no, not that. He was here as McTodd anyway, as as I can gather. But I’d talked it over with him, you know, that and asked him to pinch the necklace.”
“Then you know him well? He is a friend of yours?”
“I wouldn’t say that exactly. But he said he was a great of Phyllis and her husband.”
“Did he tell you that?”
“Absolutely!”
“When?”
“In the train.”
“I mean, was it or after you had told him why you wanted the necklace stolen?”
“Eh? Let me think. After.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me what happened,” said Eve. “I can’t it at all at present.”
Freddie his thoughts.
“Well, let’s see. Well, to start with, I told Uncle Joe I would pinch the necklace and it to him, and he said if I did he’d give me a thousand quid. As a of fact, he it two thousand, and very of him, I it. Is that straight?”
“Yes.”
“Then I of got cold feet. Began to wonder, don’t you know, if I hadn’t off more than I chew.”
“Yes.”
“And then I saw this in the paper.”
“Advertisement? What advertisement?”
“There was an in the paper saying if wanted anything done apply to this chap. So I him a and up and had a talk with him in the of the Piccadilly Palace. Only, unfortunately, I’d promised the guv’nor I’d catch the twelve-fifty home, so I had to off in the middle. Must have me an ass, it’s sometimes to me since. I mean, all I said was, ‘Will you pinch my aunt’s necklace?’ and then off to catch the train. Never I’d see the man again, but when I got into the five o’clock train—I missed the twelve-fifty—there he was, as large as life, and the guv’nor in from another and him to me as McTodd the poet. Then the guv’nor it, and this told me he wasn’t McTodd, only to be McTodd.”
“Didn’t that you as strange?”
“Yes, rummy.”
“Did you ask him why he was doing such an thing?”
“Oh, yes. But he wouldn’t tell me. And then he asked me why I wanted him to pinch Aunt Connie’s necklace, and it to me that was smoothly—I mean, him being on his way to the like that. Right on the spot, don’t you know. So I told him all about Phyllis, and it was then that he said that he had been a of hers and her husband’s for years. So we it up that he was to the necklace and hand it over. I must say I was to the chappie. He said he didn’t want any money for the thing.”
Eve laughed bitterly.
“Why should he, when he was going to twenty thousand pounds’ of diamonds and keep them? Oh, Freddie, I should have that you would have through him. You go to this perfect and tell him that there is a valuable necklace waiting here to be stolen, you him on his way to it, and you trust him just he tells you he Phyllis—whom he had of in his life till you mentioned her. Freddie, really!”
The Hon. Freddie his chin.
“Well, when you put it like that,” he said, “I must own it a off. But he such a of bird. Cheery and all that. I liked the feller.”
“What nonsense!”
“Well, but you liked him, too. I to say, you were about with him a lot.”
“I him!” said Eve angrily. “I wish I had him. And if I let him away with that necklace and little Phyllis out of her money, I’ll—I’ll . . .”
She a to the stars. Freddie her admiringly.
“I say, you know, you are a girl,” he said.
“He shan’t away with it, if I have to the place down.”
“When you your up like that you me a of What’s-her-name, the Famous Players star—you know, girl who was in ‘Wed To A Satyr.’ Only,” added Freddie hurriedly, “she isn’t so pretty. I say, I was looking to that County Ball, but now this has I don’t mind missing it a bit. I mean, it to us closer together somehow, if you me. I say, honestly, all aside, you think that love might some day in . . .”
“We shall want a lamp, of course,” said Eve.
“Eh?”
“A lamp—to see with when we are in the cottage. Can you one?”
Freddie that the moment for had not arrived.
“A lamp? Oh, yes, of course. Rather.”
“Better two,” said Eve. “And meet me here about an hour after has gone to the ball.”
§ 2
The sitting-room of Psmith’s of in the had a high of in its best days; but as Eve paused from her and looked at it in the light of her lamp about an hour after her with Freddie on the terrace, it presented a picture of which would have the plain-living game-keeper to it had once been a home. Even Freddie, though an youth, by the he had helped to create.
“Golly!” he observed. “I say, we’ve the place up a bit!”
It was no over-statement. Eve had come to the to search, and she had thoroughly. The in a against the wall. The table was overturned. Boards had been from the floor, from the chimney-place. The sofa was in ribbons, and the one small in the room in a corner, its north, south, east and west. There was everywhere—on the walls, on the floor, on the fire-place, and on Freddie. A of bats, the result of the latter’s in a which had not been for seven months, in the fender. The sitting-room had been luxurious; it was now not cosy.
Eve did not reply. She was with what she was fair-minded to see was an of irritation, with her and as its object. It was wrong, she knew, to like this. That she should be at her failure to the was excusable, but she had no possible right to be with Freddie. It was not his fault that had from the in of diamonds. If he had asked for a necklace and been a bat, he was surely more to be than censured. Yet Eve, his face, would have very much to have been able to and something at him. The was, the Hon. Freddie to that type of which for in moments of stress.
“Well, the thing isn’t here,” said Freddie. He spoke thickly, as a man will mouth is with soot.
“I know it isn’t,” said Eve. “But this isn’t the only room in the house.”
“Think he might have the upstairs?”
“Or downstairs.”
Freddie his head, a of a third bat.
“Must be upstairs, if it’s anywhere. Mean to say, there isn’t any downstairs.”
“There’s the cellar,” said Eve. “Take your lamp and go and have a look.”
For the time in the a of to itself in the of her assistant. Up till this moment Freddie had taken his orders and them with and civility. Even when the of had him from the fire-place, his had not been crushed; he had a “Oh, I say!” and returned to the attack. But now he hesitated.
“Go on,” said Eve impatiently.
“Yes, but, I say, you know . . .”
“What’s the matter?”
“I don’t think the would be likely to a necklace in the cellar. I vote we give it a miss and try upstairs.”
“Don’t be silly, Freddie. He may have it anywhere.”
“Well, to be honest, I’d much not go into any cellar, if it’s all the same to you.”
“Why not?”
“Beetles. Always had a of beetles. Ever since I was a kid.”
Eve her lip. She was feeling, as Miss Peavey had so often when in some with Edward Cootes, that of man’s which comes to high-spirited girls at moments such as these. To the end for which she had started out that night she would have waist-high through a sea of beetles. But, with that which tells when the male has been pushed just so and can be pushed no farther, that Freddie, though he might be in her hands in any other circumstances, was on this one point adamant, she no to him to her will.
“All right,” she said. “I’ll go into the cellar. You go and look upstairs.”
“No. I say, sure you don’t mind?”
Eve took up her lamp and left the craven.
* * * * *
For a girl of iron and purpose, Eve’s of the was cursory. A of came over her as she at the top of the steps and saw by the light of the lamp how small and it was. For, as she might be to the of beetles, her still a chink. She was of rats. And when the of the lamp no horrors, she still for a moment descending. You with rats. They not to be there just to you on, and then came out and about your ankles. However, the memory of her for Freddie’s her on, and she down.
The word “cellar” is an one. It can be to the of bottle-fringed which a great like Blandings Castle and to a in the ground like the one in which she now herself. This was easily searched. She on its with an ear to any note of hollowness, but none came. She moved the lamp so that it into every corner, but there was not a in which a diamond necklace have been concealed. Satisfied that the place nothing but a little coal-dust and a of decay, Eve passed out.
The law of was doing its work. It had out the cellar, the kitchen, and the living-room—that is to say, the whole of the of the two which up the cottage. There now only the rooms upstairs. There were not more than two, and Freddie must already have one of these. The to be its end. As Eve for the narrow that to the second floor, the lamp in her hand and shadows. Now that success was in sight, the was to affect her nerves.
It was to nerves that in the of it she what like a soft in the sitting-room, a from where she stood. Then a of her. It only, she thought, be Freddie, returned from his search; and if Freddie had returned from his search already, what it that those rooms, on which she had so confidently, had proved as empty as the others? Freddie was not one of your restrained, men. If he had the necklace he would have been in two bounds, shouting. His was ominous. She opened the door and in.
“Freddie,” she began, and off with a gasp.
It was not Freddie who had coughed. It was Psmith. He was seated on the of the sofa, with an pistol and through his the of a home.
§ 3
“Good evening,” said Psmith.
It was not for a like himself to astonishment. He was, however, it. When, a minutes before, he had Freddie in this same room, he had a shock; but a which would account for Freddie’s presence in his home-from-home he had been able to work out. He in for one which would Eve.
Mere surprise, however, was to prevent Psmith talking. He at once.
“It was of you,” he said, courteously, “to look in. Won’t you down? On the sofa, perhaps? Or would you a brick?”
Eve was not yet equal to speech. She had been so that he was ten miles away at Shifley that his presence here in the sitting-room of the had something of the breath-taking quality of a miracle. The explanation, if she have it, was simple. Two excellent had Psmith from the County Ball with his support. In the place, as Shifley was only four miles from the village where he had most of his life, he had it as probable, if not certain, that he would have there old friends to it would have been and to why he had his name to McTodd. And secondly, though he had not actually a on his little nook, he had it well to be on the that in case Mr. Edward Cootes should have been ideas into his head. As soon, therefore, as the had itself and the of the last car had passed away the drive, he had Mr. Cootes’s and to the cottage.
Eve her self-possession. She was not a girl to in moments of crisis. The of had passed; a of foolishness, which came directly after, had also passed; she was now for battle.
“Where is Mr. Threepwood?” she asked.
“Upstairs. I have put him in for a while. Do not worry about Comrade Threepwood. He has to think about. He is under the that if he out he will be shot.”
“Oh? Well, I want to put this lamp down. Will you up that table?”
“By all means. But—I am a in these matters—ought I not to say ‘Hands up!’ or something?”
“Will you up that table?”
“A friend of mine—one Cootes—you must meet him some time—generally ‘Hey!’ in a sharp, voice on these occasions. Personally I the too abrupt. Still, he has had great . . .”
“Will you up that table?”
“Most certainly. I take it, then, that you would to with the formalities. In that case, I will park this on the while we chat. I have taken a to the thing. It makes me like Dangerous Dan McGrew.”
Eve put the lamp, and there was for a moment. Psmith looked about him thoughtfully. He up one of the and it with his handkerchief.
“Somebody’s mother,” he reverently.
Eve sat on the sofa.
“Mr. . . .” She stopped. “I can’t call you Mr. McTodd. Will you tell me your name?”
“Ronald,” said Psmith. “Ronald Eustace.”
“I you have a surname?” Eve. “Or an alias?”
Psmith her with a expression.
“I may be hyper-sensitive,” he said, “but that last to me like a dirty dig. You to that I am some of a criminal.”
Eve laughed shortly.
“I’m sorry if I your feelings. There’s not much in now, is there? What is your name?”
“Psmith. The p is silent.”
“Well, Mr. Smith, I you why I am here?”
“I took it for that you had come to your promise of doing the place up a bit. Will you be if I say that I it the way it was before? All this may be the last word in ultra-modern decoration, but I I am old-fashioned. The Shropshire and counties, ‘Psmith is hide-bound. He is not to up-to-date methods.’ Honestly, don’t you think you have the note? This . . . these . . .”
“I have come to that necklace.”
“Ah! The necklace!”
“I’m going to it, too.”
Psmith his gently.
“There,” he said, “if you will me, I take issue with you. There is nobody to I would give that necklace than you, but there are special with it which such an action impossible. I fancy, Miss Halliday, that you have been by your friend upstairs. No; let me speak,” he said, a hand. “You know what a it is to me. The way I the is thus. I still cannot as as I wish how you come to be mixed up in the affair, but it is plain that in some way or other Comrade Threepwood has your services, and I to be to you that the him in this are not pure. To put it crisply, he is in what Comrade Cootes, to I just now, would call ‘funny business’.”
“I . . .”
“Pardon me,” said Psmith. “If you will be patient for a minutes more, I shall have and shall then be to an ear to any you may wish to make. As it to me—indeed, you as much just now—that my own position in this little has an which to the might rummy, I had how I come to be a diamond necklace which not to me. I on your to let the thing go no further.”
“Will you . . .”
“In one moment. The are as follows. Our friend Mr. Keeble, Miss Halliday, has a who is married to one Comrade Jackson who, if he had no other to fame, would go through history for this reason, that he and I were at together and that he is my best friend. We two have on the green—ooh, a of times. Well, to one thing and another, the Jackson family is up against it at the present . . .”
Eve jumped up angrily.
“I don’t a word of it,” she cried. “What is the use of trying to me like this? You had of Phyllis Freddie spoke about her in the train . . .”
“Believe me . . .”
“I won’t. Freddie got you here to help him that necklace and give it to Mr. Keeble so that he help Phyllis, and now you’ve got it and are trying to keep it for yourself.”
Psmith started slightly. His from its place.
“Is in this little plot! Are you also one of Comrade Keeble’s of assistants?”
“Mr. Keeble asked me to try to the necklace for him.”
Psmith replaced his thoughtfully.
“This,” he said, “opens up a new line of thought. Can it be that I have been Comrade Threepwood all this time? I must that, when I him here just now like Marius among the of Carthage (the is a one, and the fruit of an education), I jumped—I may say, sprang—to the that he was to double-cross myself and the by of the necklace with a view to it for his own benefit. It to me that he might be me with the same guile.”
Eve ran to him and his arm.
“Mr. Smith, is this true? Are you a friend of Phyllis?”
“She looks on me as a grandfather. Are you a friend of hers?”
“We were at together.”
“This,” said Psmith cordially, “is one of the most moments of my life. It makes us all like one great big family.”
“But I Phyllis speak about you.”
“Strange!” said Psmith. “Strange. Surely she was not of her friend?”
“Her what?”
“I must explain,” said Psmith, “that until I was earning a difficult by fish about in Billingsgate Market. It is possible that some in Comrade Jackson’s bride, which I I had not suspected, her from that she was to hob-nob with one in the fish business.”
“Good gracious!” Eve.
“I your pardon?”
“Smith . . . Fish . . . Why, it was you who called at Phyllis’s house while I was there. Just I came here. I Phyllis saying how sorry she was that we had not met. She said you were just my of . . . I mean, she said she wanted me to meet you.”
“This,” said Psmith, “is more and more every moment. It to me that you and I were for each other. I am your best friend’s best friend and we have a taste for other people’s jewellery. I cannot see how you can very well the that we are twin-souls.”
“Don’t be silly.”
“We shall into that series of ‘Husbands and Wives Who Work Together.’”
“Where is the necklace?”
Psmith sighed.
“The note. Always the note. Can’t we keep all that till later?”
“No. We can’t.”
“Ah, well!”
Psmith the room, and took from the the case of birds.
“The one place,” said Eve, with mortification, “where we didn’t think of looking!”
Psmith opened the case and the centre bird, a depressed-looking with which with a pathos. He in its and out something that and in the lamp-light.
“Oh!”
Eve ran her almost through the as they her on the little table.
“Aren’t they beautiful!”
“Distinctly. I think I may say that of all the I have . . .”
“HEY!”
Eve let the necklace with a cry. Psmith round. In the Mr. Edward Cootes, pointing a pistol.
§ 4
“Hands up!” said Mr. Cootes with the of one who has not had the of a home and a upbringing. He warily, by the revolver. It was a dainty, weapon, such as might have been the property of some lady. Mr. Cootes had, in fact, it from Miss Peavey, who at this entered the room in a black and dinner-dress by a Rose du Barri wrap, her in the light.
“Attaboy, Ed,” Miss Peavey crisply.
She on the table and up the necklace. Mr. Cootes, though by the tribute, no of it, but to direct an at Eve and Psmith.
“No business,” he advised.
“I would be the last person,” said Psmith agreeably, “to anything of the sort. This,” he said to Eve, “is Comrade Cootes, of you have so much.”
Eve was staring, bewildered, at the poetess, who, satisfied with the manner in which the had been conducted, had looking about her with curiosity.
“Miss Peavey!” Eve. Of all the events of this night the of Lady Constance’s friend in the rôle of was the most disconcerting. “Miss Peavey!”
“Hallo?” that lady agreeably.
“I . . . I . . .”
“What, I think, Miss Halliday is trying to say,” cut in Psmith, “is that she is it a little difficult to her mind to the present development. I, too, must myself at a loss. I knew, of course, that Comrade Cootes had—shall I say an in him, but you I had always to be one hundred cent. soul—and white at that.”
“Yeah?” said Miss Peavey, but interested.
“I that you were a poetess.”
“So I am a poetess,” Miss Peavey hotly. “Just you start in my and see how quick I’ll bean you with a brick. Well, Ed, no in around here. Let’s go.”
“We’ll have to tie these up,” said Mr. Cootes. “Otherwise we’ll have them I can make a getaway.”
“Ed,” said Miss Peavey with the which her so often in her, “try to sometimes that that thing on your is a head, not a squash. And be what you’re doing with that gat! Waving it about like it was a or something. How are they going to squeal? They can’t say a thing without telling they the first.”
“That’s right,” Mr. Cootes.
“Well, then, don’t come in.”
The into which this Mr. Cootes gave Psmith the opportunity to speech. An opportunity of which he was glad, for, while he had nothing of definitely to say, he was to that his only of the necklace was to keep the going on the of something up. Affable though his manner was, he had of the that one would take him across the space of him from Mr. Cootes. At present, that small but anything in the nature of leaps, short, but if in the near anything to his adversary’s momentarily. . . . He a policy of waiting, and in the meantime started to talk again.
“If, you go,” he said, “you can us a moment of your valuable time, I should be of a words. And, first, may I say that I agree with your of Comrade Cootes’s suggestion. The man is an ass.”
“Say!” Mr. Cootes, to life again, “that’ll be about all from you. If there wasn’t ladies present, I’d you one.”
“Ed,” said Miss Peavey with authority, “shut your trap!”
Mr. Cootes once more. Psmith at him through his monocle, interested.
“Pardon me,” he said, “but—if it is not a question—are you two married?”
“Eh?”
“You to me to talk to him like a wife. Am I Mrs. Cootes?”
“You will be if you around a while.”
“A thousand to Comrade Cootes. Not so many to you, possibly, but that number of good wishes.” He moved the with hand. “I am of married myself shortly.”
“Keep those hands up,” said Mr. Cootes.
“Surely,” said Psmith reproachfully, “these need not be among friends? You will the only I have over there on the mantelpiece. Go and look at it.”
“Yes, and have you jumping on my the moment I took my off you!”
“There is a in your nature, Comrade Cootes,” Psmith, “which I do not like to see. Fight against it.” He to Miss Peavey once more. “To a topic, you will let me know where to send the fish-slice, won’t you?”
“Huh?” said the lady.
“I was hoping,” Psmith, “if you do not think it a on the part of one who has you but a time, to be allowed to send you a small wedding-present in season. And one of these days, perhaps, when I too am married, you and Comrade Cootes will come and visit us in our little home. You will a hearty, welcome. You must not be if, just you say good-bye, we count the spoons.”
One would have Miss Peavey a woman, yet at this an her white forehead. Her careless to wane. She Psmith with a eye.
“You’re talking a dam’ lot,” she coldly.
“An old of mine,” said Psmith apologetically, “and one which there have been complaints. I see now that I have been you, and I that you will allow me to express. . . .”
He off abruptly, not he had the end of his remarks, but at this moment there came from above their a sound, and almost a of plaster from the ceiling, by the of a long, leg, which in space. And from out of there a and oath.
Time and neglect had done their work with the of the room in which Psmith had the Hon. Freddie Threepwood, and, about in the dark, he had had the to go through.
But, as so often in this life, the of one is the good of another. Badly as the accident had Freddie, from the point of view of Psmith it was almost ideal. The of a leg through the at a moment of is to the stoutest-hearted, and Edward Cootes no attempt to his perturbation. Leaping a clear six from the floor, he up his and the of his revolver. A through the plaster.
The leg disappeared. Not for an since he had been in that upper room had Freddie Threepwood to be of Psmith’s that he would be if he to escape, and Mr. Cootes’ to him a of that promise. Wrenching his leg with painful energy out of the abyss, he to a which took him to the wall—at which point, as it was to any away from the centre of events, he was to his retreat. Having rolled himself up into as small a as he manage, he sat where he was, trying not to breathe. His of through the that the entire thing had been a accident, he abandoned. Unintelligent though he had often proved himself in other of his life, he had the now to that the of the was and should be avoided. So, a complete and silence, he there in the darkness, only to be left alone.
And it seemed, as the moments by, that this wish was to be gratified. Noises and the of voices came up to him from the room below, but no more bullets. It would be with the truth to say that this put him at his ease, but still it was something. Freddie’s to return to the normal.
Mr. Cootes’, on the other hand, was with a quickness. Swift and had been to Edward Cootes in that room. His was that the in the plaster above him had been by the of the entire ceiling, but this was a idea. All that had was that Psmith, Mr. Cootes’ and pistol in another direction, had forward, up a chair, the man over the with it, him of his pistol, to the mantelpiece, the which there, and now, in an of menace, was him through a eyeglass.
“No business, Comrade Cootes,” said Psmith.
Mr. Cootes himself up painfully. His was singing. He looked at the revolvers, blinked, opened his mouth and it again. He was with a of defeat. Nature had not him for a man of violence. Peaceful of a pack of cards in the smoke-room of an Atlantic was a thing he and enjoyed: rough-and-tumble were to him and distasteful. As as Mr. Cootes was concerned, the was over.
But Miss Peavey was a woman of spirit. Her was still in the ring. She the necklace in a of steel, and her defiance.
“You think smart, don’t you?” she said.
Psmith her commiseratingly. Her to him. Nevertheless, was business.
“I am afraid,” he said regretfully, “that I must trouble you to hand over that necklace.”
“Try and it,” said Miss Peavey.
Psmith looked hurt.
“I am a child in these matters,” he said, “but I had always that on these occasions the of the man the gun were respected.”
“I’ll call your bluff,” said Miss Peavey firmly. “I’m going to walk out of here with this of ice right now, and I’ll you won’t have the nerve to start any shooting. Shoot a woman? Not you!”
Psmith gravely.
“Your knowledge of is correct. Your trust in my of rests on solid ground. But,” he proceeded, up, “I that I see a way out of the difficulty. An idea has been to me. I shall shoot—not you, but Comrade Cootes. This will of all unpleasantness. If you attempt to out through that door I shall to Comrade Cootes in the leg. At least, I shall try. I am a and may him in some more spot, but at least he will have the of that I did my best and meant well.”
“Hey!” Mr. Cootes. And never, in a life with this of his, had he it more feelingly. He a at Miss Peavey; and, reading in her than that which he had to see, off his of and himself. He was no cave-man, but this was one occasion when he meant to have his own way. With an he Miss Peavey’s side, the necklace from her and it into the enemy’s camp. Eve and it up.
“I thank you,” said Psmith with a in her direction.
Miss Peavey heavily. Her hands and unclenched. Between her her teeth in a thin white line. Suddenly she quickly, as if a of medicine.
“Well,” she said in a low, voice, “that to be about all. Guess we’ll be going. Come along, Ed, up the Henries.”
“Coming, Liz,” Mr. Cootes humbly.
They passed together into the night.
§ 5
Silence their departure. Eve, weak with the from the which she had since her at the cottage, sat on the sofa, her in her hands. She looked at Psmith, who, a light air, was with the toe of his shoe a over the second of the bats.
“So that’s that!” she said.
Psmith looked up with a and smile.
“You have a very happy gift of phrase,” he said. “That, as you say, is that.”
Eve was for awhile. Psmith the and with the air of a man who has done what he can for a friend.
“Fancy Miss Peavey being a thief!” said Eve. She was somehow a to allow the to die down, and yet she had an idea that, unless it was permitted to die down, it might intimate. Subconsciously, she was to her views on this long, person who had so added himself to the list of those who to look upon her with affection.
“I it came as something of a to me also,” said Psmith. “In fact, the that there was this other, to her nature the opinion I had of her. I myself to Miss Peavey. Something that was to respect to me. Indeed, I almost wish that we had not been to her of the jewels.”
“‘We’?” said Eve. “I’m I didn’t do much.”
“Your was right,” Psmith her. “You just the support which a man needs in such a crisis.”
Silence once more. Eve returned to her thoughts. And then, with a which her, she that she had up her mind.
“So you’re going to be married?” she said.
Psmith his thoughtfully.
“I think so,” he said. “I think so. What do you think?”
Eve him steadfastly. Then she gave a little laugh.
“Yes,” she said, “I think so, too.” She paused. “Shall I tell you something?”
“You tell me nothing more than that.”
“When I met Cynthia in Market Blandings, she told me what the trouble was which her husband her. What do you it was?”
“From my with Comrade McTodd, I would the that he to her with the bread-knife. He me as a murderous-looking specimen.”
“They had some people to dinner, and there was chicken, and Cynthia gave all the to the guests, and her husband out of his seat with a wild cry, and, ‘You know I love those than anything in the world!’ from the house, to return!”
“Precisely how I would have him to rush, had I been Mrs. McTodd.”
“Cynthia told me that he had from the house, to return, six times since they were married.”
“May I mention—in passing—” said Psmith, “that I do not like chicken giblets?”
“Cynthia me,” Eve, “if I married, to someone eccentric. She said it was such fun. Well, I don’t I am likely to meet anyone more than you, am I?”
“I think you would be to wait on the chance.”
“The only thing is . . .,” said Eve reflectively. “‘Mrs. Smith’ . . . It doesn’t much, it?”
Psmith encouragingly.
“We must look into the future,” he said. “We must that I am only at the of what I am is to be a career. ‘Lady Psmith’ is . . . ‘Baroness Psmith’ still . . . And—who knows?—‘The Duchess of Psmith’ . . .”
“Well, anyhow,” said Eve, “you were just now, wonderful. The way you one . . .”
“Your words,” said Psmith, “are music to my ears, but we must not that the of the success of the manœuvre were by Comrade Threepwood. Had it not been for the timely of his leg . . .”
“Good gracious!” Eve. “Freddie! I had all about him!”
“The right spirit,” said Psmith. “Quite the right spirit.”
“We must go and let him out.”
“Just as you say. And then he can come with us on the I was about to that we should take through the woods. It is a night, and what be than to have Comrade Threepwood at our side? I will go and let him out at once.”
“No, don’t bother,” said Eve.
