A Pelican at Blandings (9 page)

It drew him like a magnet.

It had also, though of this he was not aware, exercised a
similar attraction for one of the cats which lived in the stables
by day and wandered hither and thither at night. Inquisitive,
as is the way with cats, it had been intrigued by the open
window and wanted to ascertain what lay beyond it. At the
moment when Lord Emsworth tip-toed across the threshold
it was investigating one of the Duke's shoes which had been
left on the floor and not finding much in it to arrest the
attention of a pleasure-seeker.

Lord Emsworth's legs, arriving suddenly beside it, seemed
to offer more in the way of entertainment, lending, as it were,
the human touch. They had a peculiar scent, but, thought the
cat, rather attractive, and being of an affectionate nature it
always liked to have a man to rub itself against. Abandoning
the shoe, it applied its head to Lord Emsworth's dressing
gown with a quick thrusting movement, and Lord Emsworth,
filled with much the same emotions as had gripped him in his
boyhood when a playful schoolmate, creeping up behind him
in the street, had tooted a motor horn in his immediate rear,
executed one of those sideways leaps which Nijinsky used to be
so good at in his prime. It was followed by the sort of crash an
active bull might have produced if let loose in a china shop.

It will be remembered that Lady Constance, having learned
from the Duke that he proposed to occupy the garden suite,
had hastened thither to make sure that everything in it would
be just as he liked it. Among the things she had thought he
would like was a piecrust table containing on its surface a
clock, a bowl of roses, another bowl holding pot-pourri, a
calender, an ashtray and a photograph of James Schoonmaker
and herself in their wedding finery. It was with this that Lord
Esmworth had collided as he made his entrechat, causing the
welkin to ring as described.

It had scarcely ceased to ring, when lights flashed on,
revealing the Duke in lemon-coloured pyjamas with a purple
stripe.

The Duke of Dunstable, though pop-eyed and far too
heavily moustached for most tastes, was no poltroon. Many
men, made aware that their privacy had been invaded by
nocturnal marauders, would have pulled the sheets over their
heads and lain hoping that if they kept quiet the fellows would
go away; but he was made of sterner stuff. He prided himself
on being a man who stood no nonsense from anyone, and he
was certainly not proposing to stand it from a lot of blasted
burglars who got up informal games of football outside his
bedroom door. Arming himself for want of a better weapon
with a bottle which had contained mineral water, he burst
upon the scene with the animation of an Assyrian coming
down like a wolf on the fold, and there was Lord Emsworth.

His militant spirit was offended by the anti-climax. He had
come all keyed up to bean a bevy of burglars with his bottle,
and there were no burglars to bean; only his host with a weak
smile on his face. He was particularly irked by Lord
Emsworth's weak smile. Taken in conjunction with the fact
that the latter had wandered into his room at one in the
morning, apparently with the object of dancing pas seuls in the
dark, it confirmed the impression he had already formed that
the man was potty.

Lord Emsworth, though he would have been glad to let the
whole thing drop, could not but feel that a word of explanation
was called for and that it was for him to open the conversation.
It was, he thought, for though vague he had his code, only
civil. Smiling another weak smile, he said:

'Er—good evening, Alaric.'

The greeting was unfortunately phrased. Even a colloquial
'Hi' or 'Hullo there' would have had a better chance of
mollifying the Duke. It was in no kindly spirit that he replied.

'Good evening? What do you mean good evening? It's the
middle of the blasted night. What the devil are you doing
here?'

Something had told Lord Emsworth that this interview
might prove to be a difficult one, and it was plain to him that
that something had known what it was talking about.

'I was just passing through to my room. I'm afraid I
disturbed you, Alaric.'

'Of course you disturbed me.'

'I'm sorry. I upset a table. It was quite inadvertent. I was
startled by the cat.'

'What cat? I see no cat.'

Lord Emsworth peered about him with the vague stare
which had so often exasperated his sisters Constance, Dora,
Charlotte, Julia and Hermione. It took him rather longer than
the Duke could have wished to discern the catlessness of the
room.

'It must have gone.'

'If it was ever there.'

'Oh, it was there.'

'So you say.'

During these exchanges the Duke, with some idea of
picking up the table, the clock, the bowl, the other bowl, the
ashtray, the calendar and the wedding photograph of Lady
Constance and her mate, had approached nearer to his visitor,
and as he did so the feeling he had had for some time that it
was a little close in here became accentuated. He halted,
sniffed, and made an interesting discovery.

'Emsworth,' he said, 'you smell to heaven.'

Lord Emsworth, too, had been conscious of an aroma. Just
a suspicion of the scent of new-mown hay, he would have said.

'You've been rolling in something.'

Enlightenment came to Lord Emsworth.

'Ah yes. Yes, yes, yes. Yes, quite. I fell in the sty, Alaric.'

'You did what?'

'I had gone to see the Empress, and I tripped and fell in the
sty. It was a little muddy.'

From the very start of this conversation the Duke had been
blowing at his moustache at frequent intervals, but never with
the vigour which this statement provoked. He sent it shooting
up now as if his aim was to loosen it from its foundations. It
has not been stated in this chronicle that he had large
outstanding ears, rather like the handles of a Greek amphora.
We mention them at this juncture because he was feeling that
he could not believe them. It was in an almost awed voice that
he said:

'You went to see that foul pig of yours at this time of night?'

It naturally pained Lord Emsworth to hear the three times
silver medallist at the Shropshire Agricultural Show so
described, but he was in no position to protest.

'That was how I came to be in your room, Alaric. I was
locked out, and your window was open.'

The Duke was still wrestling with the facts placed before
him and trying to make some sense of them.

'
Why
did you go and see your foul pig at this time of night?'

Lord Emsworth was able to answer that.

'I had a dream about her. I dreamed she had been
slimming.'

An odd guttural sound escaped the Duke. His eyes bulged,
and his moustache shot nosewards. He passed a hand over his
forehead.

'And that made you . . . at this time of night . . .' He paused,
as if recognizing that it was hopeless to do justice to the
occasion with mere words. 'You'd better go to bed,' he said at
length.

'Yes, indeed,' said Lord Emsworth. He did not often find
himself agreeing with Alaric, but he did this time. 'Good
night, Alaric. I hope you are comfortable in here.'

'I am when people don't come barging in and upsetting all
the furniture at one in the morning.'

'Quite,' said Lord Emsworth. 'Quite, quite, quite. Yes, of
course, exactly.'

He went out and up the stairs, accompanied by a rich smell
of pig, but he did not immediately go to his room. Half-way
there a thought occurred to him. He would, he realized, have
little chance of sleeping unless he soothed his ruffled spirit by
reading awhile in some good book with a strong pig interest,
and he had left an extremely well-written work on his favourite
subject in the portrait gallery that morning, when he had gone
to look at the picture of the young woman who reminded him
so much of the Empress. It would be pleasant to take another
look at her now.

He went there, and switched on the light.

It was about time, Gally reflected as he returned all fresh and
rosy from the bathroom, to be putting that picture where it
belonged. Then it would be off his mind and he could divert
his thoughts in other directions.

As he made his way along the dark corridor he was feeling
the agreeable glow which is a good man's reward for doing acts
of kindness to his fellows. Admittedly much had still to be
done before Johnny's affairs could be said to be in apple pie
order, but he had removed—or was on the point of
removing—one of the burdens weighing on him. No danger
now of ruin overwhelming the Bender Gallery in which the
poor young fish had so large a financial interest. As far as that
was concerned, there was nothing more to worry about, and a
few well-chosen words from one who in his time had made
bookies cry would soon adjust the matter of the incandescent
popsy.

It was as he meditated with perhaps a touch of smugness on
his godson's luck in having a wise elder to whom he could
always turn when in difficulties that a sight he had not
expected to see brought him to an abrupt halt. Under the door
of the portrait gallery a streak of light was shining, indicating
that others beside himself were abroad in the night.

He drew back. It was plain that he would have to conduct
this mission of his in a less nonchalant spirit than he had
anticipated. It would be necessary to be devious and snaky, and
with this object in mind he retreated some paces to a spot
where darkness would hide him when his fellow prowler
emerged.

As to the identity of this prowler and his motives in visiting
the portrait gallery at such a time he was completely fogged.
The possibility that it might be the Blandings Castle ghost he
rejected. Ghosts do, of course, keep late hours, but they do not
switch on electric lights. The Blandings Castle ghost, moreover,
if he remembered correctly the stories he had heard in
childhood, went about with its head under its arm, which
would be a handicap to a spectre when looking at pictures.

He had just reached the conclusion that the mystery was
insoluble, when the door flew open and Lord Emsworth shot
out and started to descend the stairs at an impressive pace.
Eyeing him, Gally was reminded of the night when, wishing
to take his mind off the troubles on which he had for some
days been brooding, he and a fellow altruist had inserted in
their friend Plug Basham's bedroom after he had retired to rest
a pig covered with phosphorus and had then beaten the gong.
Plug, coming down the stairs three at a time, had shown much
the same agitation as that now exhibited by Lord Emsworth.
He wondered what had occurred to disturb his brother so
deeply.

This, however, was not the time for standing speculating on
first causes. There was work to be done. The portrait gallery
being unoccupied, he hastened there, hung his reclining nude
and returned to his base. And he was relaxing there with a
cigarette and a novel of suspense, when there came a tapping
at the door and the face of Lord Emsworth appeared round it.
He still seemed agitated.

'Oh, Galahad,' he said, 'I am so glad you are awake. I was
afraid you might be asleep.'

'As early as this? Most unusual if I had been. Take a seat,
Clarence. Delighted you dropped in. What's on your mind?'

'I have had a shock, Galahad.'

'Nothing better, they say, for the adrenal glands.'

'And I came to ask your advice.'

'It is at your disposal, as always. What seems to be the
trouble?'

'I was wondering if I ought to tell him tonight.'

'Tell who?'

'Alaric.'

'Tell him what?'

'That his picture has been stolen. I was in the portrait
gallery just now, and it had gone.'

'Gone? You astound me, Clarence. You mean it wasn't
there?'

'Exactly. My first impulse was to go and inform Alaric
immediately.'

'Of course.'

'But when I reached his door, I found myself hesitating.
You see, most unfortunately I had disturbed his sleep a little
earlier, and he had been rather upset about it.'

'How did that happen?'

'I had gone to see the Empress, and while I was in the
sty—'

'In
the sty?'

'Yes, she had gone to bed, and I went in, and I fell in the
sty.'

'I thought I noticed something. You might open the
window another inch or two. But you were saying?'

'When I got back, I found that someone had bolted the
front door.'

'Now who could that have been?'

'And Alaric's french window was open, and all would have
been well, if it had not been for the cat.'

'Cat?'

'A cat bumped my leg with its head, and I jumped and upset
a table. It made a good deal of noise, and Alaric came out of
the bedroom, and he refused to believe that the cat had been
there. It was all very unpleasant.'

'Must have been.'

'And I came to ask you if you think it is absolutely necessary
to wake him again.'

Gally pondered. It would, of course, be simple for him to set
his brother's mind at rest by saying 'First, my dear Clarence, let
us go to the portrait gallery and assure ourselves that you are
not in error in supposing the picture to have gone. Those
optical illusions are not uncommon. It may still be hanging
from its hook as snug as a bug in a rug'. But he could not
conceal it from himself that a good deal of wholesome fun was
to be obtained from waking for a second time an already
hotted-up Duke and observing his reactions. And how good it
would be for his adrenal glands. Living a placid life down in
Wiltshire and seeing nobody but a lot of dull neighbours, his
adrenal glands did not get stimulated from one year's end to
another. It was only humane to take this opportunity of giving
them a prod.

'I think so, Clarence. I feel very strongly that we must tell
him at once.'