Leave it to Psmith (36 page)

‘Lord Emsworth!’

His lordship halted. His was a one-track mind, capable of accommodating only one thought at a time – if that, and he had almost forgotten that Baxter was still there. He eyed his late secretary peevishly.

‘Yes, yes? Is there anything . . . ?’

‘I should like to speak to you for a moment.’

‘I have a most important conference with McAllister . . .’

‘I will not detain you long. Lord Emsworth, I am no longer in your employment, but I think it my duty to say before I go . . .’

‘No, no, my dear fellow, I quite understand. Quite, quite, quite. Constance has been going over all that. I know what you are trying to say. That matter of the flower-pots. Please do not apologise. It is quite all right. I was startled at the time, I own, but no doubt you had excellent motives. Let us forget the whole affair.’

Baxter ground an impatient heel into the carpet.

‘I had no intention of referring to the matter to which you allude,’ he said. ‘I merely wished . . .’

‘Yes, yes, of course.’ A vagrant breeze floated in at the window, languid with summer scents, and Lord Emsworth, sniffing, shuffled restlessly. ‘Of course, of course, of course. Some other time, eh? Yes, yes, that will be capital. Capital, capital, cap—’

The Efficient Baxter uttered a sound that was partly a cry, partly a snort. Its quality was so arresting that Lord Emsworth paused, his fingers on the door-handle, and peered back at him, startled.

‘Very well,’ said Baxter shortly. ‘Pray do not let me keep you. If you are not interested in the fact that Blandings Castle is sheltering a criminal . . .’

It was not easy to divert Lord Emsworth when in quest of Angus McAllister, but this remark succeeded in doing so. He let go of the door-handle and came back a step or two into the room.

‘Sheltering a criminal?’

‘Yes.’ Baxter glanced at his watch. ‘I must go now or I shall miss my train,’ he said curtly. ‘I was merely going to tell you that this fellow who calls himself Ralston McTodd is not Ralston McTodd at all.’

‘Not Ralston McTodd?’ repeated his lordship blankly. ‘But—’ He suddenly perceived a flaw in the argument. ‘But he
said
he was,’ he pointed out cleverly. ‘Yes, I remember distinctly. He said he was McTodd.’

‘He is an impostor. And I imagine that if you investigate you will find that it is he and his accomplices who stole Lady Constance’s necklace.’

‘But, my dear fellow . . .’

Baxter walked briskly to the door.

‘You need not take my word for it,’ he said. ‘What I say can easily be proved. Get this so-called McTodd to write his name on a piece of paper and then compare it with the signature to the letter which the real McTodd wrote when accepting Lady Constance’s invitation to the castle. You will find it filed away in the drawer of that desk there.’

Lord Emsworth adjusted his glasses and stared at the desk as if he expected it to do a conjuring-trick.

‘I will leave you to take what steps you please,’ said Baxter. ‘Now that I am no longer in your employment, the thing does not concern me one way or another. But I thought you might be glad to hear the facts.’

‘Oh, I
am
! responded his lordship, still peering vaguely. ‘Oh, I
am
! Oh, yes, yes, yes. Oh, yes, yes . . .’

‘Good-bye.’

‘But, Baxter . . .’

Lord Emsworth trotted out on to the landing, but Baxter had got offto a good start and was almost out of sight round the bend of the stairs.

‘But, my dear fellow . . .’ bleated his lordship plaintively over the banisters.

From below, out on the drive, came the sound of an automobile getting into gear and moving off, than which no sound is more final. The great door of the castle closed with a soft but significant bang – as doors close when handled by an untipped butler. Lord Emsworth returned to the library to wrestle with his problem unaided.

He was greatly disturbed. Apart from the fact that he disliked criminals and impostors as a class, it was a shock to him to learn that the particular criminal and impostor then in residence at Blandings was the man for whom, brief as had been the duration of their acquaintance, he had conceived a warm affection. He was fond of Psmith. Psmith soothed him. If he had had to choose any member of his immediate circle for the róle of criminal and impostor, he would have chosen Psmith last.

He went to the window again and looked out. There was the sunshine, there were the birds, there were the hollyhocks, carnations, and Canterbury bells, all present and correct; but now they failed to cheer him. He was wondering dismally what on earth he was going to do. What
did
one do with criminals and impostors? Had ’em arrested, he supposed. But he shrank from the thought of arresting Psmith. It seemed so deuced unfriendly.

He was still meditating gloomily when a voice spoke behind him.

‘Good morning. I am looking for Miss Halliday. You have not seen her by any chance? Ah, there she is down there on the terrace.’

Lord Emsworth was aware of Psmith beside him at the window, waving cordially to Eve, who waved back.

‘I thought possibly,’ continued Psmith, ‘that Miss Halliday would be in her little room yonder’ – he indicated the dummy book-shelves through which he had entered. ‘But I am glad to see that the morning is so fine that she has given toil the miss-in-baulk. It is the right spirit,’ said Psmith. ‘I like to see it.’

Lord Emsworth peered at him nervously through his glasses. His embarrassment and his distaste for the task that lay before him increased as he scanned his companion in vain for those signs of villainy which all well-regulated criminals and impostors ought to exhibit to the eye of discernment.

‘I am surprised to find you indoors,’ said Psmith, ‘on so glorious a morning. I should have supposed that you would have been down there among the shrubs, taking a good sniff at a hollyhock or something.’

Lord Emsworth braced himself for the ordeal.

‘Er, my dear fellow . . . that is to say . . .’ He paused. Psmith was regarding him almost lovingly through his monocle, and it was becoming increasingly difficult to warm up to the work of denouncing him.

‘You were observing . . . ?’ said Psmith.

Lord Emsworth uttered curious buzzing noises.

‘I have just parted from Baxter,’ he said at length, deciding to approach the subject in more roundabout fashion.

‘Indeed?’ said Psmith courteously.

‘Yes. Baxter has gone.’

‘For ever?’

‘Er – yes.’

‘Splendid!’ said Psmith. ‘Splendid, splendid.’

Lord Emsworth removed his glasses, twiddled them on their cord, and replaced them on his nose.

‘He made . . . He – er – the fact is, he made . . . Before he went Baxter made a most remarkable statement . . . a charge . . . Well, in short, he made a very strange statement about you.’

Psmith nodded gravely.

‘I had been expecting something of the kind,’ he said. ‘He said, no doubt, that I was not really Ralston McTodd?’

His lordship’s mouth opened feebly.

‘Er – yes,’ he said.

‘I’ve been meaning to tell you about that,’ said Psmith amiably. ‘It is quite true. I am not Ralston McTodd.’

‘You – you admit it!’

‘I am proud of it.’

Lord Emsworth drew himself up. He endeavoured to assume the attitude of stern censure which came so naturally to him in interviews with his son Frederick. But he met Psmith’s eye and sagged again. Beneath the solemn friendliness of Psmith’s gaze hauteur was impossible.

‘Then what the deuce are you doing here under his name?’ he asked, placing his finger in statesmanlike fashion on the very nub of the problem. ‘I mean to say,’ he went on, making his meaning clearer, ‘if you aren’t McTodd, why did you come here saying you were McTodd?’

Psmith nodded slowly.

‘The point is well taken,’ he said. ‘I was expecting you to ask that question. Primarily-1 want no thanks, but primarily I did it to save you embarrassment.’

‘Save me embarrassment?’

‘Precisely. When I came into the smoking-room of our mutual club that afternoon when you had been entertaining Comrade McTodd at lunch, I found him on the point of passing out of your life for ever. It seems that he had taken umbrage to some slight extent because you had buzzed off to chat with the florist across the way instead of remaining with him. And, after we had exchanged a pleasant word or two, he legged it, leaving you short one modern poet. On your return I stepped into the breach to save you from the inconvenience of having to return here without a McTodd of any description. No one, of course, could have been more alive than myself to the fact that I was merely a poor substitute, a sort of synthetic McTodd, but still I considered that I was better than nothing, so I came along.’

His lordship digested this explanation in silence. Then he seized on a magnificent point.

‘Are you a member of the Senior Conservative Club?’

‘Most certainly.’

‘Why, then, dash it,’ cried his lordship, paying to that august stronghold of respectability as striking a tribute as it had ever received, ‘if you’re a member of the Senior Conservative, you can’t be a criminal. Baxter’s an ass!’

‘Exactly.’

‘Baxter would have it that you had stolen my sister’s necklace.’

‘I can assure you that I have not got Lady Constance’s necklace.’

‘Of course not, of course not, my dear fellow. I’m only telling you what that idiot Baxter said. Thank goodness I’ve got rid of the fellow’ A cloud passed over his now sunny face. ‘Though, confound it, Connie was right about one thing.’ He relapsed into a somewhat moody silence.

‘Yes?’ said Psmith.

‘Eh?’ said his lordship.

‘You were saying that Lady Constance had been right about one thing.’

‘Oh, yes. She was saying that I should have a hard time finding another secretary as capable as Baxter.’

Psmith permitted himself to bestow an encouraging pat on his host’s shoulder.

‘You have touched on a matter,’ he said, ‘which I had intended to broach to you at some convenient moment when you were at leisure. If you would care to accept my services, they are at your disposal.’

‘Eh?’

‘The fact is,’ said Psmith, ‘I am shortly about to be married, and it is more or less imperative that I connect with some job which will ensure a moderate competence. Why should I not become your secretary?’

‘You want to be my secretary?’

‘You have unravelled my meaning exactly.’

‘But I’ve never had a married secretary.’

‘I think that you would find a steady married man an improvement on these wild, flower-pot-throwing bachelors. If it would help to influence your decision, I may say that my bride-to-be is Miss Halliday, probably the finest library-cataloguist in the United Kingdom.’

‘Eh? Miss Halliday? That girl down there?’

‘No other,’ said Psmith, waving fondly at Eve as she passed underneath the window. ‘In fact, the same.’

‘But I like her,’ said Lord Emsworth, as if stating an insuperable objection.

‘Excellent.’

‘She’s a nice girl.’

‘I quite agree with you.’

‘Do you think you could really look after things here like Baxter?’

‘I am convinced of it.’

‘Then, my dear fellow – well, really I must say . . . I must say . . . well, I mean, why shouldn’t you?’

‘Precisely,’ said Psmith. ‘You have put in a nutshell the very thing I have been trying to express.’

‘But have you had any experience as a secretary?’

‘I must admit that I have not. You see, until recently I was more or less one of the idle rich. I toiled not, neither did I – except once, after a bump-supper at Cambridge – spin. My name, perhaps I ought to reveal to you, is Psmith – the p is silent – and until very recently I lived in affluence not far from the village of Much Middlefold in this county. My name is probably unfamiliar to you, but you may have heard of the house which was for many years the Psmith headquarters – Corfby Hall.’

Lord Emsworth jerked his glasses off his nose.

‘Corfby Hall! Are you the son of the Smith who used to own Corfby Hall? Why, bless my soul, I knew your father well.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. That is to say, I never met him.’

‘No?’

‘But I won the first prize for roses at the Shrewsbury Flower Show the year he won the prize for tulips.’

‘It seems to draw us very close together,’ said Psmith.

‘Why, my dear boy,’ cried Lord Emsworth jubilantly, ‘if you are really looking for a position of some kind and would care to be my secretary, nothing could suit me better. Nothing, nothing, nothing. Why, bless my soul . . .’

‘I am extremely obliged,’ said Psmith. ‘And I shall endeavour to give satisfaction. And surely, if a mere Baxter could hold down the job, it should be well within the scope of a Shropshire Psmith. I think so, I think so. . . . And now, if you will excuse me, I think I will go down and tell the glad news to the little woman, if I may so describe her.’

∗∗∗∗∗

Psmith made his way down the broad staircase at an even better pace than that recently achieved by the departing Baxter, for he rightly considered each moment of this excellent day wasted that was not spent in the company of Eve. He crooned blithely to himself as he passed through the hall, only pausing when, as he passed the door of the smoking-room, the Hon. Freddie Threepwood suddenly emerged.

‘Oh, I say!’ said Freddie. ‘Just the fellow I wanted to see. I was going off to look for you.’

Freddie’s tone was cordiality itself. As far as Freddie was concerned, all that had passed between them in the cottage in the west wood last night was forgiven and forgotten.

‘Say on, Comrade Threepwood,’ replied Psmith; ‘and, if I may offer the suggestion, make it snappy, for I would be elsewhere. I have man’s work before me.’