Summer Moonshine (25 page)

'No, you shouldn't.'

'Yes, I should.'

'No, you shouldn't. I ought to have trusted you. I ought to have known that you would never—Oh, Prue, I've been so miserable.'

Her head was on his shoulder, and he buried his face in her hair. They clung together, and as they clung something flicked at Tubby's mind. He had a sense that there was something he was forgetting, some task which he was leaving undone.

Not kissing her, because he was kissing her.

Not hugging her, because he was hugging her.

Then he remembered. Adrian Peake was still sitting in the cupboard in Sir Buckstone's study, waiting for him to bring his clothes.

He hesitated. Then an arm stole about his neck, and he hesitated no longer. This golden moment must not be marred by thoughts of Adrian Peake. Adrian was all right. Probably perfectly boop-a-doop. Later on would be plenty of time for thinking about Adrian.

True, listen. I'll never say "Yup" again.'

He had said the one thing needed to complete her happiness, removed the one obstacle that stood between them. Greatly as she loved him, she had always winced at the thought of what he was going to reply at the altar, when the clergyman said, 'Wilt thou, Theodore, take this Prudence?' A 'Yup' at such a moment would have jarred her sensitive soul to its foundations. She raised her lips to his. Continue along these lines, she was feeling, and there might quite conceivably come a time when she would
even be able to persuade him to eat his boiled eggs from the shell instead of broken up in a glass.

'Nor "mustash". And from now on, when I dig into a plate of cold beef, it'll be with tomarto ketchup on the side.'

A sudden quiver ran through Tubby. The words had started a train of thought. It was as if his stomach had been a Sleeping Beauty and that crack about cold beef the kiss that had wakened it to life. For there was no mistake about it having been wakened to life. It was up and shouting. Until this moment, having been practically pure spirit, he had been able to ignore the frequent complaints which it had been endeavouring to communicate with G.H.Q., but now connection was established. He continued to fold her in his arms, but it was with a growing feeling that he wished she had been a steak smothered in onions.

She was nestling against him, her eyes closed, a blissful smile on her lips.

'I could sit like this for ever,' she murmured.

'Me, too,' said Tubby, 'if I wasn't so darned hungry. I haven't had a thing since lunch.'

'What?'

'Not a thing. I got back to that houseboat at haff past – harf parst three, and ever since then—'

Prudence Whittaker could be a dreamer, but she knew when to be practical.

'You must be starving!'

A 'Yup' trembled on Tubby's lips. He crushed it down.

'Yay-ess,' he said. 'How's chances for a bite to eat?'

'We'll go and find Pollen. He will get you something.'

And so it came about that Pollen, relaxing in his pantry over a glass of port after serving coffee to the diners above-stairs, found his sacred moment interrupted. He was uprooted and sent to
forage. And presently he returned with a groaning tray, and Tubby fell on its contents with gleaming eyes.

And it was while the others were standing watching over him, Prudence Whittaker like a mother, and Pollen as much like a father as could be expected of a butler who has had his after-dinner port drinking cut short, that there suddenly came swelling through the house, reverberating, down back stairs and along stone-flagged passages till it reached the pantry, a noise – a brassy, booming noise so like the Last Trump that Prudence Whittaker and Pollen, after looking at each other for an instant with a wild surmise, hurried from the room to investigate.

Tubby remained where he was. In competition with the knuckle end of a ham, plenty of bread and a pitcher of beer, mysterious noises meant nothing to him.

T
HE
momentary impression which the butler and Prudence Whittaker had received that what they had heard was the Last Trump was a mistaken one. The noise had come from the foot of the main staircase which connected the hall with the bedrooms, and what had caused it had been the circumstance of Colonel Percival Tanner beating the gong which stood there. And it may be said at once that the verdict of History will be that he was perfectly justified in doing so. The motivating force behind his action had been the discovery of Adrian Peake in the cupboard in his bedroom.

It is one of the inevitable drawbacks to a narrative like this one that the chronicler, in order to follow the fortunes of certain individuals, is compelled to concentrate his attention on them and so to neglect others equally deserving of notice. As a result of this, Colonel Tanner has until now been somewhat thrust into the background. So much so, indeed, that it is possible that the reader may have forgotten his existence, and it may be necessary at this point to refresh his memory by mentioning that he was the gentleman who, on the morning when the story began, was talking to Mr Waugh-Bonner about life in Poona.

He was a man who talked a great deal about life in Poona, and he liked, when possible, to supplement the spoken word with a
display of photographic snapshots illustrating conditions in those parts. He held, and rightly, that there is nothing like seeing the thing for driving home a description of a banyan tree and that an anecdote about old Boko Paunceford-Smith of the East Surreys gains in point if the auditor is enabled to see old Boko in his habit as he lived; the same thing applying, of course, to an anecdote about young Buffy Vokes of the Bengal Lancers. And it was because he thought that these photographs would interest the Princess Dwornitzchek, to whom he had been talking about life in Poona during dinner, that, at the conclusion of the meal, he had gone to his room to fetch his album.

And the first thing he had seen on opening the door of the cupboard in which he kept it was Adrian Peake. Enough to make a retired Indian Army officer beat a dozen gongs.

The fact that Adrian, who had started the evening in one cupboard, was finishing it in another is readily explained. It was not so much that he was fond of cupboards as because, finding himself in this room and hearing footsteps approaching the door, the cupboard had seemed to him the logical place in which to hide.

In supposing that his vigil in Sir Buckstone's study would leave Adrian Peake in a condition capable of being described as boop-a-doop, Tubby had erred. He had not been there long before he began to have an illusion that he had been sitting on the bound volume of the 'Illustrated Country Gentleman's Gazette' since he was a small child. He became a victim to what Mr Bulpitt would have described as onwee, and more and more it began to impress itself upon him that as a force for supplying him with clothes Tubby was not to be relied on, and that if anything constructive was to be done in that direction, he must do it himself.

He had emerged, accordingly, and made for the stairs. Unacquainted though he was with the topography of Walsingford Hall, he was aware that in every country house the bedrooms are on the upper floors and, hastening upstairs, he had chosen at random the first door that presented itself, hoping that it would contain suits and not frocks.

It had not only contained suits, but suits that might have been made to his measure, and the speed with which he inserted himself into one of them would have drawn favourable comment from a quick-change artist. For the first time since his encounter with Tubby on the deck of the houseboat
Mignonette,
there came to him something which might be termed a lightening of the spirit. It would be an exaggeration to describe it as happiness, for the future, he recognized, was still dark and uncertain. But it was unquestionably relief. T-shaped depressions might be lowering on the horizon, but at least his nakedness was covered.

It was at this point that he heard the footsteps outside.

Adrian Peake was far from being the type that remains cool and calm in every crisis, but a man who has once taken to hiding in cupboards acquires a certain knack. Where another might have stood congealed, he acted. Another moment and he was inside, trying not to breathe. And he was standing there, festooned in summer suits, when the cupboard door opened. A hand came groping in, apparently reaching for the shelf above his head, but before it could arrive there, it touched his face. Upon which, a voice uttered a sound like a paper bag bursting, and the hand drew back as if it had rested on something red-hot. Adrian received the impression that his visitor was startled.

And such was indeed the case. Colonel Tanner was a man who in his years of service under the English raj had grown
accustomed to finding strange objects in his sleeping quarters, accepting without disquietude the tendency of such Indian fauna as Afridis, snakes, scorpions and even tigers to stroll into his tent as if it had been a country club to which they had paid the entrance fee. A cobra, eh?' or 'An Afridi, what?' he had said to himself, and had proceeded to deal with each case on its merits.

But retirement had robbed him of this easy nonchalance. After all these peaceful years in the old homeland, this thing came on him as a complete surprise, and in his emotion he jumped back some six feet, finishing by tripping over a footstool and falling into the fireplace.

It was the crash of his body in the fender and the accompanying clatter of fire-irons that brought to Adrian the reflection that by swift action on his part an embarrassing interview might be avoided. Whoever had touched his face was plainly fully occupied at the moment in sorting himself out from pokers and tongs, and so in no frame of mind to arrest a sudden dash for safety. He had burst from the cupboard and was through the door and in the passage before the colonel had finished taking coal out of his hair. He turned to the right and came, at the end of the passage, to a door. He opened it, and found himself on stairs. Back stairs, apparently, which were just the sort he wanted. He passed through, closing the door behind him.

Colonel Tanner, having at last extricated himself from the fireplace, brushed the coal dust from his trousers and went down the hall and started beating the gong. It seemed to his direct, soldierly mind the simplest and most effective method at his disposal for rousing the house and informing its occupants that there were burglars on the premises.

The beating of the gong in a country house is so exclusively the prerogative of the butler, and so rigidly confined to the half
hour before dinner and the moment when that dinner is ready to be served, that when its note rings out after dinner has been concluded, the natural inference on the part of those who hear it is that the bulter must have gone mad. And as a mad butler is a sight which only the most blasé would ignore, it is not surprising that within a few moments of the commencement of Colonel Tanner's performance the hall had become full of interested spectators.

Mr Chinnery and Mr Waugh-Bonner came from the billiard-room. The drawing-room gave of its plenty in the shape of Mrs Folsom, Mrs Shepley, Mr Profitt and Mr Billing, who had been sitting down to a rubber of bridge.

The discovery of the gongster's identity caused the excitement of the company to turn to bewilderment, tinged a little with disappointment. A mad colonel is always well worth looking at, of course, but he can never have quite the same box-office appeal as a mad butler. And then came the damping revelation that even this poor substitute was perfectly sane. In a few crisp words Colonel Tanner made known the causes that had led up to his apparently eccentric action.

The announcement was variously received by those present. Mrs Shepley, who was a trifle hard of hearing and understood him to say that he had found a bugler in his bedroom cupboard, was frankly puzzled. Mrs Folsom tottered to a chair. Mr Profitt said, 'What ho!' Mr Billing said, 'What price telephoning to the gendarmes?' Mr Waugh-Bonner, with a spirit that did credit to a man of his advancing years, waved his billiard cue menacingly and stated that the only way of dealing with these chaps was to hit them over the head.

It was while he was beginning to tell a rather intricate story about a Malay servant of his who used to steal his cigarettes at
Kuala Lumpur that Mr Chinnery struck an unpleasantly jarring note. He gave it as his opinion that Colonel Tanner must have imagined the whole thing.

'Probably a cat.'

'Cats don't hide in cupboards,' said Colonel Tanner.

'Yes, they do,' said Mr Chinnery.

'Well,' said the colonel, shifting his ground like a good military tactician, 'they aren't nearly six feet tall.'

'How do you mean, six feet tall?'

'That was the height this fellow's face was above the ground. I touched it.'

'You thought you did.'

'Damn it, sir, do you think I don't know a burglar when I see one?'

'Couldn't have been a burglar. Too early.'

The rest of the company murmured approval of this view. Burglars are so essentially creatures of the night watches that there seemed to these well-bred people something indecent in the idea that one could have arrived soon after nine o'clock. There are things that are done and things that are not done, even by burglars. They preferred not to think that a British porch climber could have been guilty of so marked an exhibition of bad form.

'Tell us the story in your own words, colonel,' said Mr Billing.

'Omitting no detail, however slight,' added Mr Profitt, who had read a good many detective stories.

'But why would a bugler be in your cupboard?' asked Mrs Shepley, still not quite abreast of the state of affairs.

'What were you doing, groping in cupboards, anyway?' demanded Mr Chinnery, whose manner now rather offensively resembled that of a heckler at a public meeting.

'I wanted to get some photographs I took in India to show to the Princess. I opened the cupboard door and put my hand in – the album was on the shelf – and I touched a human face.'

'What you thought was a human face.'

'Probably a projecting hook,' said Mr Waugh-Bonner.

'Which you mistook for a nose,' said Mr Billing, who was never very bright during the day, but bucked up amazingly after dinner.

Colonel Tanner drew a deep breath.

'No doubt,' he said. 'Well, the next thing that happened was that the projecting hook came bursting out of the cupboard like billy-be-damned and disappeared.'

The sceptical school of thought headed by Mr Chinnery began to lose disciples. This sounded like the real thing.

'You should have stopped him,' said Mr Profitt.

'Possibly,' said Colonel Tanner. 'But at the moment I was lying in the fireplace. The dashed thing gave me such a shock that I jumped back and tripped over something. And when I got up, the man was half-way down the corridor.'

'Where was he going?' asked Mr Chinnery.

'I didn't ask him,' replied Colonel Tanner shortly. 'But if you are interested,' he continued, 'no doubt he will be able to tell you. Look,' he said, pointing.

Down the stairs a small procession was approaching. It was headed by Adrian Peake and Miss Whittaker, the latter holding the former's left arm in a grip which any student of ju-jitsu would have recognized as the one prescribed for the quelling of footpads. Even seen from a distance, it looked both effective and supremely uncomfortable. Miss Whittaker's face was serene and her demeanour calm and ladylike, but Adrian was not looking his best. The constricted position into which his arm
was being twisted had caused his features to twist in sympathy. One of his eyes, moreover, was closed and swelling.

The rear of the procession was brought up by Pollen. Followed by the bulging eyes of the spectators, it turned off at the foot of the stairs and passed down the corridor that led to Sir Buckstone's study.

Sir Buckstone had gone to his study at the conclusion of dinner to discuss with the Princess Dwornitzchek the details of the purchase of Walsingford Hall, and a man as eager as he was to get those details settled was not to be diverted by gongs, however vigorously beaten. The noise had penetrated to where he sat at his desk and had caused him to shoot an inquiring glance at his companion, but neither had made any move in the direction of an investigation. Sir Buckstone had said 'Hullo, hullo, what's all that?' and the Princess had replied that it sounded like somebody cutting up. Upon which, Sir Buckstone, wrongly attributing what was happening to an outbreak of high spirits on the part of Mr Billing or Mr Profitt, had mumbled something about young idiots, and they had returned to their negotiations.

The entry of Miss Whittaker and her charge occurred just as the Princess Dwornitzchek had begun to talk figures, and the interruption at such a moment caused Sir Buckstone to leap to his feet in justifiable wrath. Then, taking in the details, he changed quickly from anger to amazement.

'What on earth?' he exclaimed. 'Pollen, what's all this, hey?'

The butler was wearing a rather apologetic look, as if he were feeling that it would have been more correct to have brought Adrian in on a salver.

'The burglar, Sir Buckstone,' he announced formally.

And Miss Whittaker had opened her lips to add a few words of explanation when two voices spoke simultaneously.

'Good God! It's Peake!'

'Adrian!'

The Princess was advancing like a tigress about to defend its young.

'Adrian! What has been happening? Let him go, immediately!'

The relaxation of Miss Whittaker's grip enabled Adrian to speak. He indicated Pollen with a shaking finger.

'He hit me in the eye!'

'Is this true?'

'Yes, your highness. I came upon the fellow endeavouring to make good his escape.'

'He was running down the back stayahs,' said Miss Whittaker.

'I ventured in the circumstances to strike him with my fist.'

And I gripped him and made him prisonah,' said Miss Whittaker, completing the evidence.

The Princess Dwornitzchek's teeth came together with a click.