Uncle Dynamite (37 page)

‘What
did Mugsy want a bust of himself for?’

‘To
present to the village club.’

‘Good
God.’

‘During
the sittings,’ proceeded Lord Ickenham, ‘Mugsy and the young sculptress
naturally chatted from time to time, and in the course of these conversations
she was rash enough to show him the bust that contained the jewels and to tell
him that she was leaving it at my house a few miles from here until Miss
Vansittart sailed. And Mugsy … I hardly like to tell you this, Bimbo.’

‘Go
on.’

‘Well,
you will scarcely credit it, but yesterday Mugsy nipped over to my house,
effected an entrance and snitched the bust.’

‘The
one with the jewels in it?’

‘The
one with the jewels in it.’

Not
even the menace of six of the juiciest could keep Sir Aylmer silent under this
charge.

‘It’s
an insane lie!’

Lord
Ickenham raised his eyebrows.

‘Is
there anything to be gained by this bravado, Mugsy? Do you suppose I would
bring such an accusation unless I could prove it to the hilt? Yes, Bimbo, he
nipped over to my house, was admitted by my butler —‘

‘I
wasn’t. He wouldn’t let me in.’

‘That
is your story, is it? It is not the one Coggs tells. He says he admitted you
and that you roamed unwatched all over the premises. And, what is more, as you
were leaving he noticed a suspicious bulge under your coat. Honestly, Mugsy, I
wouldn’t bother to persist in this pretence of innocence. It would be manlier
if you came clean and threw yourself on the mercy of the court.’

‘Much
manlier,’ agreed Major Plank. ‘Whiter altogether.’

‘I told
you I could prove my accusation, and I will now proceed to do so. You have a
nice, large foot, Bimbo. Oblige me by stepping to that cupboard over there and
kicking in the door.’

‘Right
ho!’ said Major Plank.

He
approached the cupboard and drove at it with his brogue shoe. The niceness and
largeness of his foot had not been overestimated. The fragile door splintered
with a rending crash.

‘Aha!’
he said, peering in.

‘You
see a clay bust?’

‘That’s
right. Bust, clay, one.’

‘Bring
it here.’

Sir
Aylmer was gaping at the bust like one who gapes at snakes in his path. He
sought in vain for an explanation of its presence. His wife could have given
him that explanation, but his wife was in
London
.

‘How
the devil did that get there?’ he gasped. Lord Ickenham smiled sardonically.

‘Really,
Mugsy! Good, that, eh, Bimbo?’

‘Very
good.’

‘Break
that thing’s head.’

‘Bust
the bust? Right ho!’ said Major Plank, and did so. Lord Ickenham stooped and
picked from the ruins a chamois leather bag. Before Sir Aylmer’s bulging eyes
he untied the string and poured forth a glittering stream.

Major
Plank’s eyes were bulging, too.

‘This
must have been one of your best hauls,’ he said, looking at Sir Aylmer with
open admiration.

Lord
Ickenham replaced the gems in the bag and put the bag in his pocket.

‘Well,
there you are,’ he said. ‘You were asking just now, Mugsy, why I had come here
under a false name. It was because I hoped that if I could get into the house I
might be able to settle this thing without a scandal. I knew that you were
shortly to stand for Parliament and that a scandal would ruin your prospects,
and I took the charitable view that you had yielded to a sudden temptation. As
far as I am concerned, I am now willing to let the thing drop. I have no wish
to be hard on you, now that I have recovered your ill-gotten plunder and can
restore it to its owner. We all understand these irresistible temptations. Eh,
Bimbo?’

‘Oh,
quite.’

‘We
need say no more about the matter?’ ‘Not a word.’

‘You
won’t tell anyone?’

‘Except
for a chap or two at the club, not a soul.’

‘Then
the whole wretched affair can now be forgotten. Of course, this monstrous
sentence which you have inflicted on my nephew and Sally Painter must be
quashed. You agree to that, Mugsy?’ said Lord Ickenham, raising his voice, for
he saw that his host was distrait.

Sir
Aylmer gave that impersonation of his of a harpooned whale.

‘What?’
he said feebly.

Lord
Ickenham repeated his words, and Sir Aylmer, though evidently finding it
difficult to speak, said, ‘Yes, certainly.’

‘I
should think so,’ said Lord Ickenham warmly. ‘Thirty days without the option
for what was a mere girlish — or, in Pongo’s case, boyish — freak. It recalls
the worst excesses of the Star Chamber. The trouble with you fellows who have
been Governors of Crown colonies, Mugsy, is that you get so accustomed to
giving our black brothers the run-around that you lose all self-restraint.
Then let us go and notify Constable Potter immediately to strike the gyves from
the young couple’s wrists. We shall find them, I think you said, in the
scullery.’

He
linked his arm in Sir Aylmer’s and led him out. As they started down the hall
Major Plank could hear him urging his companion in the kindest way to pull
himself together, turn over a new leaf and start life afresh with a genuine
determination to go straight in the future. It only needed a little will-power,
said Lord Ickenham, adding that he held it truth with him who sings to one
clear harp in divers tones that men may rise on stepping stones of their dead
selves to higher things.

For
some moments after they had left, Major Plank stood where he was, regarding the
African curios with the glazed look of a man whose brain is taking a complete
rest. Then gradually there came upon him a sense of something omitted, the
feeling which he had so often had in the wilds of
Brazil
that somewhere there was man’s work to be done and that it was for
him to do it.

Then he
remembered. The strawberries. He went back to the drawing-room to finish them.