Uncle Dynamite (30 page)

‘Tea,’
said Elsie, and Pongo, soaring ceilingwards, came down and regarded her
wrathfully.

‘Why
the dickens can’t you blow your horn?’ he demanded with a good deal of heat.
Elsie remained unmoved. The passionate scene which she had interrupted had made
little impression upon her. It was the sort of thing that was happening all the
time in Bottleton East.

‘Tea,
toast and a bit-er-cake,’ she said. ‘Have you pushed Harold into the pond yet,
Mr Twistleton?’

Sally
took charge of the situation in her competent way.

‘Of
course he has pushed him into the pond. He said he would, didn’t he? You don’t
suppose Mr Twistleton would fail you?’

‘Did he
go in with a splash?’

‘With a
terrific splash. You could hear it for miles.’

‘Coo.
Well, I’m sure I’m very much obliged to you, Mr Twistleton. Have you seen Miss
Hermione?’

Pongo
leaped an inch or two.

‘She
isn’t here?’

‘Yes,
she is. I saw her drive up in her car.’

Pongo
remained silent for a space. He was clutching his head.

‘I
think I’ll go and walk up and down on the tennis lawn for a while,’ he said.
‘This wants brooding over.’

With a
brief groan he left the room, once more with that suggestion in his manner of a
cat on hot bricks, and Elsie followed him with a critical eye.

‘Nice
young gentleman, Mr Twistleton,’ she said. ‘A bit barmy, isn’t he?’

‘A
bit,’ agreed Sally. ‘I love it.’

The Bull’s Head was still
standing in its old place in the High Street when Hermione drove up, but Otis
was no longer on the premises. She was informed that he had stepped out some
little time previously, but whither he had stepped was not known. Annoyed, for
no girl bringing the good news from Aix to Ghent likes to find Ghent empty when
she gets there, Hermione returned to her two-seater and started to drive back
along the road by which she had come. It had occurred to her that, now that she
was in the Ashenden Manor neighbourhood, she ought to take the opportunity of
exchanging a few words with her betrothed. It was the first time since lunch
that she had given him a thought.

But her
annoyance did not last long, nor did the desire to seek out Pongo. She had just
reached the first milestone when something seemed to hit her between the eyes.
It felt like a thunderbolt, but actually it was the central idea for the first
of that series of three novels at twenty per cent rising to twenty-five above
three thousand which Otis Painter would now be in a position to publish. This
sort of thing is always happening to authors. They are driving along or walking
along or possibly just sitting in a chair, their minds a blank, when all of a
sudden —
bing.

And the
first thing an author learns is that it is fatal on these occasions to
pigeon-hole the inspiration away at the back of the mind, trusting that memory
will produce it when required. Notes must be made immediately. Drawing up her two-seater
at the side of the road, Hermione found an old envelope and began to write. She
wrote rapidly, breathing tensely through the nose.

At
about the same moment Lord Ickenham reached the Bull’s Head and turned in at
the door of the saloon bar.

It was with the easy
assurance of one confident of his welcome that Lord Ickenham entered the saloon
bar, for on his previous visit there he had had an outstanding social success.
The stout blonde behind the counter, her uncle the landlord (Jno. Humphreys, licensed
to sell ales, wines and spirits) and quite a number of the inn’s clients had
hung upon his lips. It is not often given to the natives of remote Hampshire
hamlets to sit at the feet of a man who knows
Brazil
like the back of his hand, who has looked his alligator in the eye
and made it wilt and who can talk of his adventures fluently and well.

Today
he saw that his audience was to be smaller. Indeed, at the moment only the
barmaid was present. He seemed to have struck one of those slack periods which
come to all saloon bars. With the best will in the world English villagers
cannot be drinking all the time, and this appeared to be one of the times when
those of Ashenden Oakshott had decided to allow their gullets a brief respite,
no doubt on the
reculer pour mieux sauter
principle.

But
your true artist will always give of his best, however thin the house. As Lord
Ickenham placed an elbow on the counter and requested the stout blonde to start
pouring, there was no suggestion in his manner that he was going to walk
through his part. He resumed his saga of life on the Lower Amazon as if he had
been addressing a crowded hall, and the barmaid listened with all the
impressment which she had shown on the previous day.

‘Well,
I do call that a pity,’ she said, as he paused for an instant to raise his
tankard.

‘A
pity?’ said Lord Ickenham, a little hurt, for he had been speaking of the
occasion when a puma had only just failed to add him to its bill of fare. ‘Ah,
I see. You are looking at the incident from the puma’s view-point, and your
womanly sympathy has been aroused by its failure to get the square meal for
which it had been budgeting. Yes, it was tough on the puma. I remember noticing
at the time that the animal’s eyes were wet with unshed tears.’

‘A pity
you should have missed that gentleman, I mean. There was a gentleman in here
for a quick one not five minutes ago,’ explained the barmaid, ‘who was telling
me he had just come from
Brazil
.
He’d have liked to meet you.’

Lord
Ickenham gave her to understand that this was an almost universal aspiration on
the part of his fellow men, but privately he was relieved that he had not
arrived five minutes earlier. In his present rather delicate circumstances he
greatly preferred to avoid gentlemen who had just come from
Brazil
.

‘Too
bad,’ he said. ‘One of the boys, eh? It would have been delightful to have got
together and swapped yarns.’

‘Why,
here he is,’ said the barmaid.

The
door had opened, revealing an elderly man of square build with a pugnacious,
sunburned face. Such was the excellence of the Bull’s Head beer that those who
went out after having a quick one nearly always came homing back again to have
another.

‘This
is the gentleman I was speaking of. Excuse me, sir,’ said the barmaid,
addressing the gentleman, who had approached the counter and placed an elbow on
it and was now licking his lips in quiet anticipation, ‘here’s a gentleman you
ought to know, you being from
Brazil
. He knows more about
Brazil
than you could shake a stick at. Major Plank, the great explorer.’

At this
moment a voice from without, recognizable as that of Jno. Humphreys, licensed
to sell ales, wines and spirits, made itself heard. It was bellowing ‘Myrtle’,
and the barmaid, whose parents had inflicted that name on her, vanished with a
brief ‘Excuse me.’ The voice had been urgent, and it was evident that stern
experience had taught this niece that her uncle Jno. was a man who did not like
to be kept waiting.

‘Tell
him about the puma, Major Plank,’ she said, pausing for an instant in her
flight. Normally, Lord Ickenham would have done this without delay, for he
enjoyed telling people about pumas and knew that he was good at it. But one of
the things which a man of the world learns early in his career is that there
are times when it is best to keep silent on the subject of these fascinating
fauna. The gentleman was looking at him fixedly, and in his eye there was no
spark of the encouraging light which indicates a willingness to be informed
about pumas. There have been some bleak and fishy eyes scattered through this
chronicle — those of Coggs, the butler at Ickenham Hall, spring to the mind —
but none bleaker and fishier than the gentleman’s at this juncture.

‘Plank?’
he said, speaking raspingly. ‘Did I hear her call you Major Plank?’

‘That’s
right,’ said Lord Ickenham. ‘Major Plank.’

‘Are
you Major Brabazon-Plank, the explorer?’

‘I am.’

‘So am
I,’ said the gentleman, evidently rather impressed by the odd coincidence.

12

When two strong men stand
face to face, each claiming to be Major Brabazon-Plank, it is inevitable that
there will be a sense of strain, resulting in a momentary silence. There was on
this occasion. Lord Ickenham was the first to speak.

‘Oh,
are you?’ he said. ‘Then you owe me two bob.’

His
companion blinked. The turn the conversation had taken seemed to have surprised
him.

‘Two
bob?’

‘If you
have nothing but large bills, I can give you change. ‘Major Plank’s mahogany
face took on a richer hue.

‘What
the devil are you talking about?’

‘Two
bob.’

‘Are
you crazy?’

‘It is
a point on which opinions differ. Some say yes. I maintain no. Two bob,’ said
Lord Ickenham patiently. ‘It is useless for you to pretend that you do not owe
me that sum, Bimbo. You took it off me forty-three years ago as we were
crossing the cricket field one lovely summer evening. “Barmy,” you said, “would
you like to lend me two bob?” And I said “No, but I suppose I’ll have to,” and
the money changed hands.’

Major
Plank clutched the counter.

‘Bimbo?
Barmy? Cricket field?’ He stared with terrific concentration, and his face
suddenly cleared. ‘Good God! You’re Barmy Twistleton.’

‘I was
in those days, but I’ve come on a lot since then, Bimbo. You see before you
Frederick Altamont Cornwallis, fifth Earl of Ickenham, and one of the hottest
earls that ever donned a coronet. The boy you knew as a wretched Hon. is now a
peer of the realm, looked up to like the dickens by one and all. Just mention
to anyone that you know Lord Ickenham, and they’ll fawn on you and stand you
lunch.’

Major
Plank took an absent sip from the tankard.

‘Barmy
Twistleton!’ he murmured. It was plain that the encounter had affected him
greatly. ‘But why did you tell that girl you were me?’

‘One
has to say something to keep the conversation going.’

‘Barmy
Twistleton. Well, I’ll be damned. After all these years. I wouldn’t have
recognized you.’

‘Exactly
what Mugsy Bostock said when we met. You remember Mugsy Bostock? Did you know
that he lived in these parts?’

‘I knew
his nephew, Bill Oakshott, did. I motored down to see him.’

‘You
aren’t on your way to Ashenden Manor?’

‘Yes.’

‘Turn
round and go back, Bimbo,’ said Lord Ickenham, patting his shoulder kindly.
‘You must not visit Ashenden Manor.’

‘Why
not?’

‘Because
I am already in residence there under your name. It would confuse Mugsy and
give him a headache if he were confronted with a couple of us. No doubt you
will say that you can’t have too many Brabazon-Planks about the home, but Mugsy
wouldn’t look at it that way. He would get bewildered and fret.’

Major
Plank took another sip at the tankard, and when Lord Ickenham mentioned that he
had paid for its contents and that if his old friend proposed to treat it as a
loving cup he would be obliged to charge him a small fee, seemed disinclined to
go into the matter. It was the earlier portion of the conversation that was
engaging his mind.

‘You’re
staying with Mugsy under my name?’

‘Exactly.’

‘He
thinks you’re me?’

‘Precisely.’

‘Why?’
said Major Plank, going right to the core of the problem. ‘Why are you staying
with Mugsy under my name?’

‘It’s a
long story, Bimbo, and would bore you. But have no uneasiness. Just say to
yourself “Would my old crony do this without a motive?” and “Is his motive
bound to be a good one?” The answers to these questions are “No” to the first,
“Yes” to the second.’

Major
Plank relapsed into a sandbagged silence. His was a slow mind, and you could
almost hear it creaking as it worked.

‘Good
God!’ he said again.

And
then abruptly the full horror of the situation seemed to come home to him. No
doubt he had been diving into the past and had brought memories of the boy
Twistleton to the surface. It was not for nothing that this man before him had
been called ‘Barmy’ at school. He had applied himself absently to the tankard
once more, and his eyes above it suddenly grew round and wrathful.

‘What
the devil do you mean by staying with people under my name?’

‘It’s a
good name, Bimbo. Got a hyphen and everything.’

‘You’ll
ruin my reputation.’

‘On the
contrary. The image which I have been building up in the minds of all and
sundry is that of what I should describe as a super-Plank or Plank
plus.
You
ought to think yourself lucky that a man like me has gone out of his way to
shed lustre on your name.’