Biffen's Millions

conclusion of a new novel by P.G. Wodehouse

synopsis:Irresponsible is the adjective that pops to the lips when discussing Edmund Biffen Christopher, whose habit of looking upon the grape when fermented and then pommeling policemen not only has won him incarceration on many occasions, but now threatens to cost him the fortune bequeathed to him by his godfather, the eccentric American millionaire, Edmund Biffen Pyke, on the provision that young Biff stay out of jail until the age of 30. Self-assigned to protect the errant heir are his sister Kay and his best friend, Jerry Shoesmith, who is editor of "Society Spice," a cog in the vast London publishing machinery of Lord Tilbury, irascible brother of the departed Pyke who seeks to acquire the latter's fortune himself. To this end Tilbury has engaged the services of the pimpled but persevering Percy Pilbeam, a private eye with few scruples but fast reflexes. Their aim: to get Biff pinched before his birthday, just one week away. Other fauna on the scene: abstemious William Pilbeam, waiter at Barribault's Hotel and father to the reprehensible Percy; his niece Gwendoline Gibbs, secretary to Tilbury; Linda Rome, Tilbury's niece and the well-beloved of Biff; Henry Blake-Somerset, stuffed-shirt fiancé of Kay; and the cop on the corner with the ginger mustache, key man to the entire proceedings.

As Part I concludes, Tilbury and Percy are plotting to hoodwink Biff into a drinking bout with the redoubtable Murphy, top tippler of Fleet Street. The mind boggles at the thought of what will come next.

The morning following the Tilbury-Pilbeam conference found Biff in tender and sentimental mood. He and Jerry were sitting over the remains of breakfast, and he was telling Jerry, who was trying to read his paper, how deep was his love for Linda Rome. It was a subject on which he had touched a good deal since his decision to lodge with Jerry at Halsey Chambers.

"But it's odd," he said.

"What's odd?"

"The whole setup," said Biff. "Why do I have this extraordinary urge to marry Linda and accept no substitute? The dullest eye can see that it's a thoroughly unsuitable match, and my best friends would try to draw me back from the abyss. 'Don't do it, Biff,' they'd say. 'Be advised while it is not too late. The mate for you is some merry little soul who gets tight and dances on supper tables.' But I don't want any merry little souls, I want Linda and nobody but Linda. How do you account for that?"

"You're getting some sense at last."

"That may be it. Of course, she's an angel in human form and will bring out the best in me. But I sometimes wish her ideals were not so high."

"You think she'll take some living up to?"

"Quite a bit. Not that I blame her. She has her reasons. Did I ever tell you she'd been married before? Guy called Charlie Rome on the stock exchange. He drank like a fish and was always chasing girls."

Jerry wrinkled his forehead.

"Now who does that remind me of? Someone I've met somewhere. No, it's gone. What did she do? Divorce him?"

"Yes. She stuck it as long as she could, and then called it a day and no doubt felt much easier. But the reason I bring Charlie Rome up is that her experience with him has given her extremely rigid views on the subject of behavior in the male sex. It has led to her stepping up her matrimonial requirements."

"The next in line has got to be someone in or around the Sir Galahad class?"

"Or he hasn't a hope. You see, then, what the future holds for me. I shall have to reform myself from the bottom up, do all the things I don't want to do, be respectable, settle down, limit myself to a single cocktail before dinner and one glass of wine during it. Under her gentle guidance I shall grow a double chin, bulge at the waistline till none of my pants fit me, become a blameless stuffed shirt and probably end up as a Congressman. But do I shudder? Have I qualms? No, I like it. I look forward to it. With Linda at my side, I know it'll be worth the discomfort."

"In fact, you're purified by a good woman's love."

"A very neat way of putting it."

"You want to be worthy of her trust."

"Exactly. That's why it's such agony to think how I have deceived her."

"When did you deceive her?"

"Well, I haven't yet, but I'm going to this morning. I'm giving Gwendoline Gibbs lunch today, and one of Linda's wishes, as I think I told you, is that I shall steer clear of blondes. She made me promise I'd never speak to a blonde again, and you can't sit there and say that Gwendoline Gibbs doesn't fall into that category."

"What on earth are you giving her lunch for? Why don't you cancel the date?"

"Impossible. You can't just drop a girl like a hot coal. You've got to taper off. This is a farewell lunch, and one of the things causing me concern is that I'm not by any means sure I've enough money to pay for it. I'm running very short. I shall be all right, of course, directly Kay brings that picture. Linda tells me a Boudin's worth all sorts of money. You said she was expecting to be able to get over here yesterday. Well, where is she? I see no signs of her."

"If she came yesterday, it was probably fairly late and she would be busy getting settled in a hotel."

"She could have phoned. She could have relieved my suspense and anxiety by putting in a simple inexpensive telephone call saying that everything was under control. Well, why didn't she?"

"Didn't think of it, I suppose."

"Exactly. Couldn't be bothered. To hell with a brother's nervous system. Let him eat aspirin. I'll tell you something about Kay which may make you think twice before leading her to the altar, Jerry o' man. She's thoughtless. She doesn't put herself in the other fellow's place. She knows I'm in imminent danger of dying of malnutrition unless she takes the lead out of her pants and gets a move on with that picture; she knows it's my only source of income and without it I shall soon be reduced to sealing the cat's milk and nosing about in ash cans for crusts of bread, but she delays, she dallies, she loiters, she ... Ha!" said Biff as the telephone rang in the hall. "That may be the wench now. Go and hear what she has to say. And don't waste precious time telling her you love her, get die facts."

Some minutes elapsed before Jerry returned from his mission. Biff eyed him eagerly.

"Was it Kay?"

"Yes, it was Kay all right. She couldn't come yesterday. She's arriving tonight."

Biff heaved a sigh of relief.

"Excellent. The sun breaks through the clouds. That means I shall have that Boudin tomorrow."

"It would," said Jerry, correcting this view, "if she were bringing it. But she isn't."

"What! Not bringing it? Don't I get any service and cooperation? Why isn't she bringing it?"

"She told me to tell you you were better without it. She thinks it would be fatal for you to have a lot of money by selling it."

Biff reeled. His were serviceable ears, ears in which hitherto he had had every confidence, but he was looking now as if he could not believe them.

"She said that?"

"She did."

"My own sister! A girl whom I have watched over for years with a brotherly eye."

"And now she's watching over you with a sisterly eye," said Jerry unsym-pathetically. "Surely even you can see she's quite right. You know what you're like. You can't afford to get into trouble at this stage of the proceedings, and you'd certainly do it if you had the necessary funds. You ought to be applauding her sturdy common sense."

The telephone rang once more. This time it was Biff who went to the phone.

"I'll get it. If that's Kay again," he said grimly, "I'll tell her what I think of her sturdy common sense. She'll think the receiver in her hand has jumped up and snapped at her."

He strode out, a cold and haughty figure. When he came back, his drawn face had relaxed and was illuminated by a happy smile. He looked like a man whose faith in his guardian angel had been restored.

"It was Pilbeam," he said. "You remember Pilbeam?"

"I do."

"Nice guy, don't you think?"

"I do not. The original human rat."

Biff clicked his tongue disapprovingly, but more in sorrow than in anger.

"Try to correct this jaundiced outlook, Jerry. He's nothing of the sort. He's the salt of the earth – pimpled, yes, but full to the gills of outstanding merits, and if you want to know how I know, I'll tell you. He's asked me to look in on him this afternoon and says he can put me in the way of making a bit of money. That's the sort of man Percy Pilbeam is."

A chill wave of horror swept over Jerry. His was a vivid imagination, and he could picture what this would mean.

"Don't touch it!" he cried. "Think what you'll be losing."

"I don't follow you."

"You know what'll happen if you get hold of money. You'll go whooping it up and getting pinched."

"Absurd. Don't you think I have any sense?"

"No."

"You're wrong. I'm bursting with it. However, I've no time to go into that now. I'm meeting Gwendoline at the Berkeley at one and I have to make my toilet. I should be glad, by the way, if you would lend me a trifle. In order to finance the farewell lunch I shall need at least three pounds, though if you think five's safer, I shall raise no objections. So let's have them, Jerry o' man, and then Ho for the open road."

&2022; &2022; &2022;

There are few trysts an impecunious young man keeps with more meticulous punctuality than those that hold out the promise of cash changing hands, and Biff was not a moment late for his appointment at the Argus Inquiry Agency. Percy in their telephone conversation had asked him to be there at three, and it lacked but a minute to the hour when he strode blithely into the anteroom and requested the office boy Spenser to inform the big shot that Edmund Biffen Christopher was at his service. Like a flash he fund himself in Percy's presence, the honored guest, and Percy was clasping his hand and offering him a cigar and urging him to take a chair and make himself comfortable. He could scarcely have had a more impressive reception if the Argus Inquiry Agency had laid down a red carpet for him and loosed off a 20-gun salute.

"You told me on the telephone this morning," Percy said, "that you would like to make a bit of money," and Biff replied that a bit of money was the very thing he was wholeheartedly in favor of making. As Percy was aware, he went on to add, his prospects could be described as rosy – or glittering, if Percy preferred that word – but he was at die moment sorely in need of ready cash. The smallest contribution, he said, would be gratefully received.

"You suggested on the phone that you had a job for me."

"I have."

"Something in the private-ocular line?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Detective work, is it?"

"You could call it that."

"Oh?" said Biff, and fingered his chin a little dubiously. He was reluctant to cast a damper on this extraordinarily pleasant chat, but he felt it was only fair to issue a warning. "Well, I wouldn't want you to go into this thing with your eyes shut, so I ought to tell you at the outset that I'm not what you'd call versed in the sleuthing art. I don't suppose I'd recognize a clue if you brought it to me on a salver with full explanatory notes attached. So if you're expecting me to measure bloodstains and analyze cigar ash and find out where someone was on the night of June the fifteenth, you're in for a disappointment. Was it something along those lines that you had in mind?"

"No, no, nothing of that sort. The job I'm thinking of doesn't call for technical skill." Percy rose from his chair, tiptoed to the door, flung it open, satisfied himself that Spenser the office boy was not leaning on it with a gentle-manly ear glued to the keyhole and returned to his desk. Biff followed him with an interested eye, feeling that this was the stuff.

"Top secret?" he queried, impressed.

Percy gave a brief nod which, like Lord Burleigh's, spoke volumes.

"Very much so. I assume I can rely on your complete discretion?"

"Oh, sure."

"Because this is strictly between ourselves ... and, of course, Scotland Yard."

"Scotland Yard, eh?"

"They have called me in. They often do when there is some special work to be done."

"You don't say!"

"The Yard has its limitations. For certain types of crime – murder, arson, burglary, and so forth – their machinery serves them well enough, but when it comes to a delicate matter of this sort, no. I'm sure you agree with me?"

"I probably would if I knew what the hell you were talking about. You haven't told me what the delicate matter is."

"Oh, haven't I? Well, it doesn't need much explanation. I want you to make the acquaintance of a man named Murphy. It's no use Scotland Yard trying to get at him, he would spot a Yard man a mile off. But he would never suspect you. You are so obviously what you make yourself out to be, a young American going about London seeing the sights and having a good time. I'm sure you'll be able to fool him."

"I'll do my best, than which no man can do more. Why do you want me to fool him? Who is this child of unmarried parents?"

Percy put a finger to his lips and sank his voice to a whisper.

(continued on page 144)Biffeim's Millions(continued from page 80)

"Open that door."

"Which door?"

"That door."

"Oh, that door?"

Biff obligingly opened the door and stood awaiting further instructions, but Percy, apparently satisfied, waved him back to his seat.

"I thought Spenser might be listening," he explained, and once more Biff was impressed by these precautions. He was beginning to feel that he was in the secret service and would shortly have to be prepared to find himself addressed as X-1503. "Who is this man, you were saying. Murphy, as he calls himself, though his real name is probably something ending in -sky or -vitch, poses as a free-lance journalist, one of those fellows who drift about Fleet Street picking up jobs, but we know that he's an agent of a certain unfriendly power---"

"Which shall be nameless?"

"No names, no pack drill."

"I'll bet it's Russia."

"Very smart of you to guess it."

"Your saying his name ended with -sky or -vitch gave me the clue."

"Quite. Well, the Yard wants to find out what he's up to. There's something-cooking – they know that – but the question is what, and that's where you come in. He's always at the Rose & Crown in Fleet Street at night. I'll introduce you – I know him fairly well – and then you can sit down with him and become friendly---"

"And find out what he's up to?"

"Exactly."

Biff was silent for a moment.

"May I raise a point?" he said. "One would describe this Murphy roughly as an international spy, I take it?"

"Exactly."

"Well, aren't international spies inclined to be on the cagey side? That's how they always are in the books I've read. Don't think I'm trying to make difficulties, but isn't there just a chance that he'll maintain a cold reserve and refrain from sobbing out his secrets on my shoulder? It's worth considering."

Once more, Percy permitted himself that smile of his which was so like something out of a horror film.

"I was coming to that. You will of course see that he drinks heavily and loses his caution."

"But that means I'll have to drink, too."

"Of course. If you're thinking of the expense, that will be taken care of. Before you leave this office, I will give you ten pounds. Call again tomorrow, and you will find another forty waiting for you, and if you manage to extract anything from this man, anything of value that will give Scotland Yard something to go on, it will be looked on as money well spent."

He paused, and a deep sigh escaped Biff. It sounded like the rustling of bank notes receding into the distance. He was remembering his promise to Linda Rome to confine himself to a single cocktail before dinner and a single glass of wine during the meal and at other times to exercise an austerity as rigid as that of Gwendoline Gibbs' Uncle Willie, the notorious total abstainer. He was at a loss to see how this ascetic regime could be combined with tying on a bundle with international spies in Fleet Street pubs.

And yet ... 50 quid ... at a time when he had never needed a financial shot in the arm more ...

He wavered.

And then Linda's face rose before his eyes, and he was strong again.

"I'm sorry---" he began, and was on the point of making the great renunciation when the telephone rang.

"For you," said Percy Pilbeam, handing him the instrument.

"Biff?" said the telephone.

"Oh, hello, Jerry."

"Listen, Biff," said Jerry, and his voice was urgent. "I've got some disturbing news, I'm afraid. Your Linda Rome rang up a moment ago."

"Ah yes. Wanting to speak to me, of course."

"She thought she was speaking to you, for she started right off, not giving me a chance to say who I was, by stating that she had seen you lunching with a blonde---"

"Death and despair!"

"And when there was a lull, which wasn't immediately, and I said I wasn't you, she said Oh, wasn't I, and wanted to know where she could get in touch with you. I told her you'd gone to the Argus Inquiry Agency, and I imagine she'll be giving you a buzz shortly."

"Despair and death!"

"So I thought I'd better give you this word of warning, so that you'd have time to knock together a story of some kind. Think quick, is my advice, for I can assure you that her voice was frosty. She spoke like a girl who wanted an explanation, and a fairly full one. Well, goodbye and best of luck."

Bad news?" said Percy Pilbeam, as he replaced the receiver. "For you," he added a moment later, as the instrument rang again.

This time, beyond an "Oh, hello, honey" sheepishly spoken by Biff, all the talking was done at the other end of the wire. It was plain to Percy Pilbeam that whoever was doing it was of the female sex, which is celebrated, when on the telephone, for never allowing the party of the second part to get a word in edgeways. He noted the slow drooping of his companion's jaw and the look of dismay that came into his eyes. An able diagnostician, he had no difficulty in deducing that Biff was being properly told off by some unseen ladyfriend, and if he had had a heart, it would have bled for him. He, too, had been told off by ladyfriends in his time.

But business was business, and he was glad when at last – after shouting "But. listen, Linda! Listen! Listen!" – Biff returned the receiver to its place.

"Well, how about it?" he said. "Will you take the job?"

"Sure," he said, "I'll take it," and he strode from the room, a somber, dignified figure who would have reminded a more widely read man than Percy Pilbeam of Shelley's Alastor, and Percy resumed his work, well content. He was skimming through some photostats of letters which would eventually enable Mrs. F. G. Bostock of Green Street, London W. 1, to sever her matrimonial relations with Mr. Bostock, when a thought struck him. He reached for the telephone and called Tilbury House, asking for the office of its proprietor.

"Gwen?"

"Oh, hullo, Perce."

"Listen, Gwen, are you seeing anything of that fellow Christopher these days?"

"Quite a lot. We've just had lunch together. Why?"

"Well, give him a miss."

"But he's a millionaire."

"He's not a millionaire, and he's never going to be one."

"What do you mean?"

"Listen," said Percy.

It had not been his intention to reveal to any outside party the business arrangement into which he had entered with Lord Tilbury, for he considered that these things are better kept in strict confidence between principal and agent, but it had not taken him long to recognize that here was a special case. In language adapted to the meanest intelligence, and there were few meaner intelligences than that of his cousin Gwendoline, he unfolded every detail of that business arrangement, omitting nothing.

"So don't you have anything more to do with the fellow," he concluded. "You wait for Tilbury."

"Coo!" said Gwendoline. "I'm glad you told me."

&2022; &2022; &2022;

It was with a pensive look on her face that Kay, having established herself overnight at a modest hotel in the Blooms-bury neighborhood, rang the bell of Number Three, Halsey Chambers, on the following morning. She was thinking of Henry Blake-Somerset and more particularly of his mother, relict of the late Sir Hubert Blake-Somerset of Lower Barnatoland and The Cedars, Mafeking Road, Cheltenham.

Her frown vanished as the door opened and she saw Jerry. Once again she had that sudden lift of the heart at the sight of him. It gave her the feeling of having come home where she would be understood and appreciated.

"Hello there," she said. "Well, here I am. Why the glassy stare? Weren't you expecting me?"

Jerry had been staring glassily because, as always, there was something about her that affected him like a blow on the base of the skull with a blunt instrument. He recovered himself with an effort, but was not immediately capable of speech.

"I'll go away if you like," said Kay.

"For God's sake, don't say things like that," said Jerry with a shudder. "Welcome to Meadowsweet Hall. What do you think of it?"

"Cozy," said Kay, coming in and looking about her. "I'd have thought an establishment run by a couple of bachelors like you and Biff would have been a shambles, but it looks fine. Where is our Biff, by the way?"

"Still asleep, I imagine. His door's shut."

"Lazy young devil."

"And lucky for you he is asleep."

"Why so, professor?"

"Because if he saw you before he's had time to calm down, he would probably put a brother's curse on you, and brothers' curses are not to be sneezed at. He was very emotional when I told him about the picture."

"Don't you think I was right not to bring it?"

"Of course you were. How much was that picture worth?"

"About ten thousand dollars."

"Can you envisage Biff making the rounds with all that in his hip pocket?"

"My flesh creeps."

"So does mine."

"Gosh, 1 wish it was you and not Biff who had to keep out of trouble. You're the sober, steady type."

"What a revolting thing to say of anyone."

"Meant as a compliment. If you knew the dregs of the underworld Biff has collected around him in Paris, you'd understand. He's so amiable that he can't bring himself to choke off the scrubbiest dead beat who wants to make friends. He comes in and lays them on the mat with a cheery 'Meet old Jules or old Gaston' or whoever it may be, and once they're in the woodwork you can't get them out. Honestly, I don't believe I know a single soul in Paris who isn't a freak of some kind, except my colleagues on the Herald-Trib. And Henry, of course." She broke off abruptly, her eyes round and horrified. "Oh, heavens!" she cried. "Oh, my fur and whiskers!"

"What's the matter?"

"I've just remembered I was supposed to be lunching with Henry today."

A chill fell on Jerry's mood of happiness. He had been looking forward to a cozy lunch with her himself, and while he knew that these disappointments are good for the character, strengthening it, he was unable to enjoy this one. He spoke a little coldly.

"Well, why the agitation? You've plenty of time. He's in London, then?"

"No, in Paris, where he thinks I am. I didn't tell him I was coming here. I was to have lunched at Prunier's with him and his mother."

"He has a mother, has he?"

"And how!"

"You speak as if you didn't like her much."

"I don't, and she doesn't like me."

"She must be crazy."

"But what am I to do? How shall I explain?"

"Oh, tell him you walked in your sleep or got amnesia or something. Why explain at all?"

"But he'll be furious."

"I doubt it. Coldly annoyed, perhaps, but not furious."

"Well, anyway," said Kay, cheering up in the mercurial way habitual with her, "there's nothing to be done about it now. Let's talk about you. I was surprised to find you at home at this hour of the morning. The sergeant told the commissaire's secretary that you described yourself as an editor. Well, why aren't you editing?"

"I've been fired."

"Oh, I'm sorry."

"I'm not. It was a loathsome little rag."

"Who fired you?"

"My Lord Tilbury."

"I've heard about him from Biff. He's Linda Rome's uncle."

"He's also the boss of the Mammoth Publishing Company, which owns Society Spice, which I edited. He didn't like the way I was doing it, so he dispensed with my services."

"Well, I hope he breaks a leg. Oh!"

"Now what?"

"I've just thought what to tell Henry. I'll say the paper sent me over to London about something without warning, and I hadn't time to let him know."

"It sounds thin to me."

"To me, too, on reflection, and I'm afraid it'll sound thin to Henry. He'll be chilly."

"Isn't he always?"

"I don't believe you're really fond of Henry. Don't forget that he very kindly put you up for the night in his pillbox."

"And I wrote him a bread-and-butter letter, thanking him. A charming letter it was, too, considering that his hospitality nearly gave me pneumonia."

"No hot-water bottle?"

"Hot-water bottles didn't enter into it. It was my host who chilled me to the marrow. The man's as cold a fish as I ever encountered off a fishmonger's slab, and how you can contemplate marrying him is a mystery to me. He'll be one of those stiff, starchy husbands, breaking your heart with that embassy manner of his. I shudder at the picture of your home life which my imagination is conjuring up. It'll be like living in a refrigerator. Henry Blake-Somerset has all the charm and warmth of a body that has been in the water several days with the thermometer in the low twenties."

"Mr. Zoosmeet, you are speaking of the man I love!"

"Bah."

"What did you say?"

"I said Bah."

"Well, don't say it again."

"I shall say it every time you talk clotted nonsense about loving that stuffy, supercilious, glass-eyed walking corpse."

"That'll make you entertaining company."

"More entertaining than Henry."

"Will you stop picking on Henry."

"No, I will not. Nothing shall prevent me speaking my mind fearlessly on the subject of that sub-zero drip."

Kay sighed. "Our first quarrel! You're being a bit bossy, aren't you, Zoosmeet? Throwing your weight about somewhat, it seems to me. If I wasn't so refined, I'd toss my curls at you. Not that it isn't very civil of you to be so concerned about me."

"You're the only thing in the world that matters to me, and I simply refuse to accept this delirious stuff about you marrying somebody else. You're going to marry me. Good Lord, can't you see that we were made for each other? You can't have forgotten those days on the boat. We were twin souls. And you babble about marrying Henry Blake-Somerset! One hardly knows whether to laugh or weep. But thank heaven I'm in time to avert the disaster. I have the situation well in hand. Do you know what Biff was saying to me yesterday?"

"Something crazy, I'll bet."

"Not at all. He gave me the soundest advice. There was solid sense in his every word."

"Then it can't have been Biff, it must have been a couple of other fellows."

"He told me the way to cure you of this absurd Henry obsession of yours was to grab you and kiss you and keep on kissing you till you got some sense into your fat little head. And that is precisely what I propose to do here and now, so get set."

"Would you lay your hand upon a woman?"

"You bet I would. Both hands. I'll show you who's a sober, steady type," said Jerry, and as he spoke there came a loud and insistent ringing from the front door.

"Saved by the bell!" said Kay. "I've always heard that Heaven protected the working girl. Who would that be, do you think? Lord Tilbury come to say he's sorry he was cross and you can have your job again?"

It was not Lord Tilbury. It was Biff. He tottered into the room, his aspect so closely resembling that of the waterlogged corpse to which Jerry had recently compared Henry Blake-Somerset that simultaneous gasps of horror proceeded from both his sister and his friend. They had no words.

Nor had Biff many.

"Lost my key," he said. "Oh, hello, Kay. Well, goodnight, all," he said and, sinking into a chair, went to sleep.

&2022; &2022; &2022;

Kay gazed dumbly at Jerry. Jerry gazed dumbly at Kay. The same thought was in both their minds, that this poor piece of human wreckage, so like a beachcomber in a Somerset Maugham short story or the hero of a modern play, must have been on the bender of a lifetime. Even Jerry, who had known him in his New York days when he was at his sprightliest and most uninhibited, was awed. When he spoke, it was in a hushed whisper.

"Golly!"

"Golly is correct."

"Angels and ministers of grace defend us! Are you seeing what I see?"

"I am."

"We'd better get him to bed."

"And keep him there."

"And while you're tucking him in and telling him his bedtime story, I'll be going out and buying bicarbonate of soda. It'll probably only scratch the surface, but it may help."

Kay shrugged her shoulders.

"Get it if you like, but he won't need it. That's what's so maddening about Biff, he has these orgies and they don't do a thing to him. He wakes up as fresh as a daisy and starts planning new excesses with a song on his lips. I think it must be something to do with the glands. If only he'd suffer as he deserves to, I'd be able to bear it, but he doesn't. It makes you feel there's no justice in the world. Still, toddle along on your errand of mercy, if you want to."

When Jerry returned, Biff had disappeared, presumably into his bedroom, and Kay was sitting in the chair he had occupied, on her face the look which made Walter Pater say of another of her sex that this was "the head upon which all 'the ends of the world are come.' " It wrung his heart to see her.

"Cheer up," he said, gently consolatory. "I know how you're feeling, but you mustn't let it get you down. Naturally, this has given you a shock. No sister likes to see a loved brother looking as if he had been celebrating hogmanay in Glasgow. I wouldn't myself, if I were a sister. But things aren't as bad as they might have been. After all, he's back in the fold and not in a prison cell. Everything's all right, it seems to me."

"I'm glad you think so," she said. "I wish I could. What happens when he cuts loose again? His luck can't hold forever."

"He mustn't be allowed to cut loose again."

"How are you going to stop him? I wish there was some way of keeping him in the fold, as you put it, and never letting him go out."

"There is. I'll pinch his trousers."

"What!"

"These simple methods are always the best. His pantaloons, I'll abstract them. That'll stabilize him."

Kay was silent for a moment.

"It's a thought," she agreed. "But won't he bide his time and get hold of a pair of yours?"

"I shan't be here. I shall go and plant myself on my Uncle John, who lives at Putney. He won't like it, nor shall I, but that can't be helped. I can stand Uncle John for a day or two, and he'll damned well have to stand me. It only requires resolution. Here's the setup, as I see it. I move out of here, you move in. I take Biff's garments to Putney, you go back to your hotel and pack. I meet you there and escort you to lunch at Previtali's in Oxford Street," said Jerry, naming one of London's smaller and less expensive restaurants. "And over the meal I shall have much to say to you on the subject we were discussing just now. Any questions?"

"None. You seem to have covered everything."

"I think so."

"How is Biff off for trousers?"

"He has only two pairs. No Beau Brummell he. He tells me he had to skip out of Paris in what he stood up in and on arrival in London he purchased a spare at a secondhand-clothing establishment. You'll have no difficulty in gleaning the full harvest. I think you had better be the one to do it. You tread more softly than I do. Can you sneak into his room without waking him?"

"I imagine nothing will wake him for hours."

"Then let's get cracking. Why are you looking at me like that?"

"I was just drinking you in, wondering if you were always as brilliant as this."

"Nearly always."

"I also wondered why you were grinning like a Cheshire cat."

"You noticed the slight smile? I was thinking of Henry and what a jolt he's going to get when he fetches up at Pru-nier's with his mother and finds you aren't there. I wouldn't be surprised if he raised his eyebrows."

&2022; &2022; &2022;

But all Henry Blake-Somerset's eyebrow raising had been done on the previous evening, when, his mother having decided that she preferred Maxim's to Prunier's, he had telephoned Kay at the Herald-Tribune office to let her know of the change of venue and had been informed that she had already left for London.

His eyebrows then had certainly shot up, and he had come as near to using intemperate language as a member of an embassy staff ever does, for the news had confirmed his worst suspicions. He could think of but one reason why Kay should have left for London. She must have made an assignation with the man Shoesmith. He remembered the night when she had come with Shoesmith to his apartment, the two of them patently on terms of camaraderie as cordial as those of a couple of sailors on shore leave. He remembered Shoesmith's thin story of how he and she had met by pure chance that evening at a police station, not having seen each other for two years. He remembered Shoesmith's furtive telephone call. And he had not forgotten finding Shoesmith with Kay at her apartment that day when he had come to take her to lunch to meet his mother.

It was, he felt, an intolerable state of affairs and one that called for decisive action on his part. He must confront her, and confront her without an instant's delay. It was his intention, in short, to talk to her like a Dutch uncle.

And so, having notified the embassy authorities that he would be unable to be with them that day owing to a severe attack of neuralgia, he had hastened to Orly after his coffee and marmalade and taken the first plane leaving for England.

Like Othello, Henry Blake-Somerset was perplexed in the extreme.

&2022; &2022; &2022;

Lord Tilbury, as was his habit, had got to his desk shortly before ten that morning, but he did not, as he usually did, proceed to concentrate steadily on the work before him. He found himself unable to keep his mind on it. He dictated one or two letters to Gwendoline Gibbs, then dismissed her to the outer office and sat drumming his fingers on the blotting pad. He was waiting tensely to hear from Percy Pilbeam and learn what had happened to Biff on the previous night.

After what seemed a lifetime the telephone rang.

"Tilbury?"

"Lord Tilbury speaking," said Lord Tilbury shortly and with perhaps undue emphasis on the first word. Much as he admired Percy's brains and lack of scruple, he found the air of chummy equality he assumed these days more than a little trying. He sometimes felt that the time was rapidly approaching when his former employee would call him George. "Yes, Pilbeam, yes? Have you news for me?"

"It was a flop," said Percy. He did not believe in wasting breath by trying to break things gently. "Something must have gone wrong, and I can't understand it. I've got Murphy with me now, and he tells me Christopher was cockeyed when he left him, but I've just rung Halsey Chambers and he answered the phone, so he must have got home all right. I'd have bet anything he'd have finished up at a police station," said Percy with the somber gloom of a man who has failed to add two thousand pounds to his bank account, than which there is none more somber, except of course that of the man who has failed to add ten millions.

Lord Tilbury, falling as he did into the latter class, was shaken to the core. It was not for some considerable time after Percy, with a moody "Well, there it is," had hung up the receiver that he achieved anything approaching calm, and when he did, his mind could not have been described as tranquil. He felt low and dispirited, in sore need of something to raise him from the depths, and, as men in drat condition so often do, he yearned for a woman's soothing companionship. He had not intended to go to the length of asking Gwendoline Gibbs to lunch until his courtship had progressed somewhat further, but he recognized that this was an emergency. He rose from his chair and opened the door of the outer office.

"Oh, Miss Gibbs."

"Yes, Lord Tilbury?"

"I was ... er ... it occurred to me ... I was wondering if you would care to join me at luncheon?"

Gwendoline's beautiful face lit up, encouraging him greatly, but a moment later it fell.

"Oh, Lord Tilbury, I should love to, but have you forgotten that you asked Mr. Llewellyn to lunch today?"

If there had not been ladies present, Lord Tilbury would probably have done what old-fashioned novels used to describe as rapping out an oath. The appointment had passed completely from his mind.

"He said today is the only day he can manage, as he is flying to Rome tomorrow. He is calling for you here at one-thirty."

The day was warm, but Lord Tilbury found himself shivering. The thought of Ivor Llewellyn of the Superba-Llewellyn motion-picture corporation calling at Tilbury House and finding that his host had walked out on him without a word of explanation was a chilling one. No proprietor of a morning paper, an evening paper, a Sunday paper and four film magazines can afford to offend the president of a large Hollywood studio with thousands of pounds of advertising at his disposal. And Ivor Llewellyn, he knew, was a touchy man.

"Thank you, Miss Gibbs," he said gratefully. "Thank you for reminding me. Some other time, then, eh?"

"Oh, yes, Lord Tilbury."

"And how is Champion Silverboon of Burrowsdene?"

"Who?" asked Gwendoline blankly. She searched her mind, such as it was. "Oh, you mean Towser."

"Towser?"

"I call him Towser. The other name was so long."

"Of course. Yes, quite. Very sensible."

Back in his office, Lord Tilbury, though regretting that he would share the midday meal with a motion-picture magnate who always bored him a good deal and not with the goddess of his dreams, was elated rather than depressed. He felt he had made progress with his wooing. He had given this girl flowers, chocolates and a boxer dog which he rather wished she had not decided to call Towser, and now he had invited her to lunch. Short of actually asking her to be his, there was, he considered, nothing much more a man could have done.

He was musing thus and wishing the telephone would ring and that it would be Mr. Llewellyn informing him that having just slipped a disc he regretted, like Miss Otis, that he would be unable to lunch today, when the telephone did ring.

The caller, however, was not Ivor Llewellyn, whose discs were in midseason form and who in his room at the Savoy was at this moment taking a bath in order to be fresh and sweet for the Tilbury luncheon, it was Percy Pilbeam again, and he seemed excited.

"Tilbury?"

"Lord Tilbury speaking."

"I've been talking to Murphy, Tilbury. He's just left me."

Lord Tilbury said "Oh?" and there was a wealth of indifference in the word. The mysterious Murphy had ceased to be of value to him and he could not have cared less about his comings and goings.

"And do you know what he said? He said he had been talking to an American newspaper chap, and this newspaper chap had told him that your brother was as loony as a coot. Did you ever think of contesting the will on the ground that he wasn't competent to make one?"

"It was naturally the first idea that occurred to me. I consulted my solicitor, but he was discouraging. He said I had no evidence."

"Well, you will have when you've heard what Murphy's friend told Murphy ---"

"Yes, Pilbeam? Yes? Go on, Pilbeam."

"What did you say, Tilbury? Speak up. Don't mumble."

"What did Murphy's friend tell him?"

"His name's Billingsley."

"Never mind his name."

"And he's on Time or Newsweek or one of those papers. His editor told him to go and interview your brother, so he wrote asking if he could make an appointment, and your brother wrote back naming a day. His letter was written in red chalk."

"In what?"

"Red chalk. Each word outlined in blue chalk. Like Hyman Kaplan."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Let it go. He asked Billingsley to lunch, and when he got there he told him they were going to lunch backward."

Once more Lord Tilbury begged his young friend's pardon. The statement had bewildered him.

"He said it was an experiment he had often wanted to try, because he thought so many lunchers get into a rut. They began with coffee and cigars and worked back through a glass of port, chocolate soufflé' and breaded veal cutlet with potatoes and asparagus, finishing with aperitifs and martini cocktails. Billingsley said it was quite an experience. And after lunch, when he tried to interview the old bird – sorry, your late brother — all the old loony – your late brother, I mean – would do was play records on the Gramophone and tell Billingsley to shut up when he tried to say anything. He just sat there sipping his third cocktail and tucking into the potted shrimps and playing records. He was particularly fond of Dorothy Shay. He played that Mountain Girl song of hers sixteen times and was still playing it when Billingsley left."

The receiver shook in Lord Tilbury's hand. He had been hopeful, but he had never expected anything as promising as this.

"Good gracious, Pilbeam! That story told to a jury---"

"Exactly. That's just what I'm driving at. And there's something else. Over the breaded veal cutlets your brother began talking of Charles Fort and saying he was a disciple of his."

"Who is Charles Fort?"

"Was, you mean. He's dead. I haven't time to tell you about him now, but you have reference books in your office. Look him up. Well, there you are, Tilbury old man. Go and spring your evidence on Christopher and watch him wilt. His address is Three, Halsey Chambers, Halsey Court."

Lord Tilbury drew a deep breath.

"I will go and see him immediately," he said.

&2022; &2022; &2022;

Returning from Putney after depositing his suitcase with its precious freight and looking in at Halsey Chambers to see how Biff was coming along, Jerry was amazed by the spectacle that met his eyes. Kay's prediction that her brother would emerge from his coma as fresh as a daisy he had been regarding as mere poetic imagery, but a glance was enough to tell him she had in no way exaggerated. Except for a spectacular black eye, there was plainly nothing wrong with their wandering boy. Only a very up-and-coming daisy could have been in better shape. He was wearing pajamas and a dressing gown, and he greeted Jerry with a heartiness which could not have been exceeded by the most confirmed teetotaler. He might have been drinking lemonade for a lifetime, like Percy Pilbeam's father.

"Hello, Jerry o' man," he cried buoyantly. "I couldn't think what had become of you. Where you been?"

"I went to Putney."

"The name is new to me. Where's Putney?"

"It's a riverside suburb. My uncle lives there. I'm going to stay with him for a few days. Kay's moving in here. She wants to be on the spot to watch over you. She thinks you need a woman's care."

Biff laughed indulgently.

"These girls! Always fussing."

"Incidentally, how did you come to be in such a state?"

"Couldn't be avoided. I'd been having a night out with an international spy."

"Biff, you're still tight!"

"Not a bit of it. Percy Pilbeam arranged the thing. That was what he called up about. Certain parties not unconnected with Scotland Yard asked him to get hold of someone to go and ply this spy with drink in order to learn his secrets, and Percy wanted me to take on the job. I was about to turn down his offer, because I'd promised Linda to lay off the sauce, but then her call came through and I no longer considered that I was bound by my promise, so I accepted the commission, strongly influenced by the fact that there was a hundred and forty dollars at the current rate of exchange in it for me."

"Did he give you that black eye?"

"Good Lord no, ours was a beautiful friendship throughout. I told him all about Linda's extraordinary behavior, and he told me all about his stamp collection. The black eye came much later, when I was on my way home and entering Halsey Court. I can't tell you exactly what happened, but I do remember having a hell of a fight with someone, or a group of citizens it may have been. It's all a bit vague. You know how it is when you've been hobnobbing with international spies, your memory gets blurred."

At the thought of what could so easily have happened, Jerry's heart congealed.

"You might have been arrested!"

"The same thought occurred to me later. Very fortunate that I wasn't. One feels that there is a Providence that watches over the good man. But we were talking of how I proposed to effect a reconciliation between Linda and self. I shall now go out and contact Linda," said Biff, making for his bedroom.

It was perhaps three minutes later that he appeared again. When he did, his face wore a puzzled expression. He looked like a dachshund trying to remember where it has buried its bone.

"Most extraordinary thing, Jerry o' man. I can't find my pants."

"Your pants. Oh yes, your pants. I forgot to tell you. I took them to Putney."

"You ... what?"

"Kay was a little worried as to what you might get up to if you had them, so I suggested removing them and she thought it an admirable idea. We agreed that we would both be much easier in our minds if we knew you were safe and snug at Halsey Chambers and not running loose about London. You'll get them back on your birthday. Nice birthday present."

"But I've got to go and see Linda!"

"She'll still be there when you rejoin the human herd."

It was plain from Biff's face that he was running what is called the gamut of the emotions. A stunned disbelief seemed for a while to predominate, but it soon yielded to righteous indignation. Owing to his overnight misadventures he had only one eye to glare with, but he made it do the work of two.

"And you call yourself a pal!" he said bitterly.

"The best you ever had, my lad, as you'll realize when you think it over in a calm, reasonable spirit. I'm saving you from yourself, and if you care to look on me as your guardian angel, go right ahead. Not that I want any thanks."

"You damned well won't get them."

"I thought I mightn't. Well, I must be off. I'm picking Kay up and taking her to lunch. Any message I can give her?"

For some moments Biff spoke forcefully. In spite of Jerry's assertion that the initiative in his foul conspiracy had been his, he was convinced that the brains behind it had been Kay's and that Jerry had been a mere instrument or tool. He expressed himself on the subject of Kay as no brother should have expressed himself about a sister.

&2022; &2022; &2022;

The door closed behind Jerry, and Biff stood for some moments as motionless as if he had been posing for an artist anxious to transfer to canvas a portrait of a young man of dachshund aspect clad in a dressing gown and disfigured by a black eye. A wave of self-pity poured

over him, and it would not have taken much to make him break down and sob. It was so vital that he seek Linda out and talk her into a more amenable frame of mind before her present animosity solidified beyond repair.

And then there floated into his mind the thought of the brothers Cohen, and out of the night that covered him, black as the pit from pole to pole, there shone a ray of hope, like the lights of a village are seen after long wandering by a wayworn hiker.

The brothers Cohen, as everybody knows, conduct their secondhand-clothing emporium in the neighborhood of Covent Garden, and it is their boast that they can at a moment's notice supply anyone with any type of garment his fancy may dictate. Their establishment is a mecca for all who unexpectedly find themselves caught short sartorially, whether they be African explorers down to their last sola topee, government officials in the Far East in need of new cummerbunds or merely diners-out requiring instant dinner jackets. Biff's first act on reaching London after leaving Paris without stopping to pack had been to go to them and make a few additions to his wardrobe, and now the memory of that visit came back to him and with it the complacent feeling that those who had plotted against his person were going to be made to look pretty silly. His thoughts, as he went to the telephone and dialed the Cohen number, might have been condensed into the familiar phrase "You can't keep a good man down."

The Cohen brothers were charming. They booked his order with as much enthusiasm as if it had been the first they had had for months. If pants were what he required and if he would supply them with his waist measurement, they said, pants should be at his address just as soon as their Mr. Scarborough could get there in a taxicab. And it was in an incredibly short time that he heard the bell ring and, leaping to the front door, found a beautifully dressed young man with a large parcel standing on the mat.

"Mr. Christopher?"

"That's right."

"My name is Scarborough."

"I was expecting you," said Biff. "Come right in, Scarborough o' man, and if you'd care for a quick one, you'll find the makings in the closet over there."

"Nothing to drink for me, thank you very much," he said in a voice of which even a B.B.C. announcer of the fat stock prices would not have been ashamed. "We at headquarters feel ourselves bound by the same restrictions as policemen when on duty. Nothing in the nature of definite orders, of course, simply an unwritten rule which we all obey. Sort of tradition, you know. You are the gentleman requiring pants?"

Biff said he was, and might have added that the desire for pants of all other gentlemen desiring pants was tepid compared with his.

"I have them here. Your order gave rise to a little indecision at headquarters, for you did not specify the type of pants you required. We have the long in flannel, the short in flannel, the long in linen, the short in linen and also summer zephyrs in mesh knit. As the weather is so warm, it was assumed that you would prefer the knee-length mesh knit."

Biff's one eye was riveted on the contents of the parcel, and an observer would have noted in it bewilderment, frustration and chagrin, It is disconcerting to ask for bread and be given a stone, and it is equally disconcerting to find that your plea for trousers has been answered with knee-length mesh-knit underlinen.

"What on earth are those things?" he demanded.

Mr. Scarborough said they were pants, and Biff uttered a snort of a caliber which put him in the Tilbury class.

"My God, I wish they talked English in England," he moaned. "When I said pants, f meant what you aborigines call trousers."

Mr. Scarborough was openly amused. The misunderstanding brought a smile to his lips, quickly followed by apologies.

"I will return to G.H.Q. immediately and the error shall be rectified."

"Would it be too much to ask you to fly like a bat out of hell? I've a date."

Mr. Scarborough assured him that he would be back in 20 minutes, if not sooner, and his promise was fulfilled. This time there was no frustration or chagrin on Biff's part. He expressed his gratification wholeheartedly.

"Now you're talking," he said. "Now you've got the right idea. I'll take those and those. Oh, by the way, I shall have to ask you to chalk them up on the slate for the time being. I'm a little short of ready cash."

Mr. Scarborough took the blow very well. He showed nothing but gentle sympathy as he rewrapped his parcel. He gave Biff to understand that he mourned for him in spirit, but he was quite definite in his statement that headquarters did not extend credit. Charm of manner, he made it clear, could never be accepted as a substitute for coin of the realm. Presently he was gone, taking his parcel with him, and the slough of despond closed over Biff once more. He sank into a chair and was still sitting there looking and feeling as if he had been sandbagged, when the telephone rang.

"Hello?" he said. "Yes, speaking ... Lord Tilbuiy? ... Why, sure, if you want to ... Where are you? Barribault's?

Then you'll be able to get here quick, which is very desirable, because I shall have to be going out soon. All right, then, I'll be expecting you."

A few minutes later Biff was scrutinizing his visitor, estimating his girth and length of limb. The latter was satisfactory, the former, he felt, did not matter, for one can always take in a reef if necessary.

"Tilbury," he said, "I am a desperate man. Give me those pants of yours."

&2022; &2022; &2022;

The discovery that Biff was safely back in Halsey Chambers and not in the custody of the police, indicating that all his subtle schemes had gone for nothing, had come as a shattering blow to Percy Pilbeam. It had caused the word to go around the Argus Agency that the boss was in ugly mood. The stenographer Lana had warned the stenographer Marlene to expect black looks and harsh words if summoned to the inner office to take dictation, and one of the firm's staff of skilled investigators, a Mr. Jellaby, who had ventured into Percy's presence to make a report, had slunk out complaining of having had his head bitten off. It was what Spenser the office boy, a facile phrasemaker, described as a regular reign of terror.

And then Murphy had spoken of his friend Billingsley and his relations with the late Mr. Pyke, and Percy had realized that all was not lost. It was with his equanimity completely restored that he had put in that second telephone call to Tilbury House. Recalling his own awe of Lord Tilbury in the old days, he was convinced that Biff would never be able to stand up against him if subjected to the full force of his dominant personality. All was well, he felt, and when Spenser the office boy entered to inform him that a gentleman was in the anteroom asking to see him, he greeted him cordially, much to the latter's relief, for he had been anticipating a fate similar to that of the recent Mr. Jellaby.

"Gentleman named Christopher," said Spenser, and Percy twirled his mustache in surprise. He could imagine no reason for this call. That Biff might have come to collect the 40 pounds due him for services rendered did not present itself as a possibility, for the promise to pay this sum had faded completely from Percy's mind. His money was always inclined to be uncertain with regard to agreements not written, signed, witnessed and stamped at Somerset House.

When Biff was ushered in, he was amazed, as Jerry had been, by his air of well-being. Except for the somber puffiness of his right eye and the fact that he was wearing trousers which did not begin to fit him, his visitor's aspect, considering that he had so recently been in session with Murphy, the human suction pump, was positively spruce. Nor was his voice the voice of one who has been wandering over the hot sands.

"Hi, Pilbeam o' man," he said in a clear bell-like tone without a trace of roupiness in it. "How's tricks?"

Percy replied that tricks were more or less as was to be desired, and said he noticed that Biff had sustained an injury to his eye.

"How did that happen?"

"Oh, just one of those things. Unavoidable on a night out."

"I see. By the way, Lord Tilbury was asking for your phone number this morning. Did he ring you up?"

"He not only rang me up, he paid me a personal visit. He wanted to discuss the will of the late Edmund Biffen Pyke. And while on the subject of money, Pilbeam o' man, I've come for mine."

Percy winced. He remembered now that there had been some talk of money, and he braced himself to be strong.

"You said if I plied that international spy with drink, there would be forty pounds waiting for me at your office today. Well, today's today and here I am at your office. Out with the old checkbook, Pilbeam."

Percy winced again, as he generally did when called upon to produce his checkbook.

"There was an agreement, I remember, yes. Did you manage to find out anything from that man?"

Biff was frank and manly about it. He descended to no subterfuges and evasions.

"Not a thing. I warned you I mightn't be able to. I did my best to draw him out. I worked the conversation around to Russia and said it must be most unpleasant there in the winter months when your nose turns blue and comes apart in your hands. He said Yes, he supposed it must be very disagreeable. I then asked him what Khrushchev was really like, and he said he had not met him. He said he never had been in Russia, the only time he had ever left England having been once on a day trip to Boulogne. These international spies are cagey. They play it close to their chests. He wasn't giving anything away. He talked about stamps most of the time."

"Stamps?"

"He collects them. Just a front, of course."

"How a front?"

"Use the loaf, Pilbeam. Naturally, if a guy gives it out that he collects stamps, he lulls suspicion. You write him off as a harmless loony and don't bother any more about him. And all the time he's planning his plans and plotting his plots. Damn clever, these international spies."

"Then what it amounts to is that you accomplished nothing."

"Not my fault."

"I dare say. But in the circumstances, 15

you can hardly expect me to pay you forty pounds."

"You were thinking of making it fifty?"

"I'm not going to pay you a penny."

"You aren't?"

"No."

"But I need it!"

"I can't help that."

"So Jerry was right," said Biff, shocked. "He said you were a human rat and, considering everything, I call that flattering."

"Spenser," said Percy, who had pressed a bell, "show this gentleman out."

Biff did not pursue the argument. All his better feelings urged him to give Percy Pilbeam the shellacking his every action called for, but he realized that this must inevitably result in arrest for assault and battery. The bell, he knew, would scarcely have rung for the conclusion of the final round of the Chris-topher-Pilbeam bout before Percy would be sending out hurry calls for the police, and much as he now disliked Percy and would have enjoyed exterminating him, it was not a pleasure for which he was prepared to sacrifice several million dollars. Hotly as his sister Kay would have contested the statement, there were times when he could behave with prudence, and this was one of them. Seeming to shrink within himself, which was not a safe thing to do while wearing trousers as roomy as those of Lord Tilbury, he gave Percy a cold look and followed Spenser from the room, and Percy had started to give his attention once more to the matrimonial difficulties of Mrs. F. G. Bostock, when the telephone rang.

"Pilbeam?"

"Tilbury?"

"Lord Tilbury speaking. I am at Number Three, Halsey Chambers."

Odd, felt Percy. He would have expected him to have left there long ago.

"Bring me trousers, Pilbeam."

"What?"

"Trousers, and be quick about it."

"Why?"

"Never mind why," said Lord Tilbury, his voice choking a little. "Don't sit there asking questions. Bring me trousers."

&2022; &2022; &2022;

The idea of appealing to Percy for help in the delicate situation in which he found himself had not been the first of those that had occurred to Lord Tilbury after Biff had left him. His initial impulse had been to telephone Gwendoline Gibbs at Tilbury House and request her to go to Barribault's Hotel and, having made a selection from the trouserings in his room on the third floor, to bring her choice to Halsey Chambers. What had caused him to reject this plan had been the thought of how the commission would diminish his stature in her eyes.

He thought next of telephoning to his butler at Wimbledon, and was about to do so when he remembered that he had no butler at Wimbledon. That unfortunate outburst of peevishness which had caused his staff to turn in their portfolios had made a clean sweep of the domestic help. Like Mrs. Bingley the cook, Clara the parlormaid, Jane the housemaid and Erb the boy who cleaned the knives and boots and did odd jobs around the house, Willoughby the butler had left to seek employment elsewhere. He had vanished like the snows of yesteryear.

He was indeed on the point of abandoning hope, when there caught his eye the bright cover of a recent issue of Society Spice which its late editor had chanced one day to bring home with him, and he uttered a sound midway between a gurgle and a snort, a bronchial rendering of Archimedes' "Eureka!" He had been reminded of Percy Pilbeam.

His blood pressure, which had risen dangerously, fell. His mind, which had been a mere maelstrom of mixed emotions, ceased to gyrate. It amazed him that he had not thought of this solution of his difficulties earlier. He could not reveal his predicament to Gwendoline Gibbs, because he valued her opinion of him. He could not send out distress signals to Willoughby the butler, because for all practical purposes he had ceased to exist. But Pilbeam was still available, and for what Pilbeam might think on learning the facts he cared little. Possibly his former underling would be amused. If so, let him be amused. Lord Tilbury could imagine nothing of less consequence.

Thirty seconds later he was at the telephone and had begun the conversation which has just been recorded.

At long last the bell rang and he sprang to the door. It was Percy Pilbeam who stood without, and he was accompanied by a fine dog of the boxer breed which endeavored as far as its leash would allow to leap at him and cover his face with burning kisses, as is the habit of boxers. Eluding its caresses, he spoke with stern approach. He was annoyed, and he did not care if this underling of his knew it.

"What a time you have been, Pilbeam!" he said fretfully.

Percy seemed surprised and pained.

"I got here as soon as I could. I had to go all the way to Valley Fields to get Towser."

"Towser?"

"You said you wanted him. The dog you gave Gwen."

Lord Tilbury started violently.

"Are you by any chance alluding to Miss Gibbs?"

"Of course. Oh, I see what you mean. You're surprised that I call her Gwen. She's my cousin."

It would be idle to pretend that this did not come as a shock to Lord Tilbury. It came as a substantial shock, all the more so because that very morning the waiter who had brought him his breakfast at Barribault's had confided in him how happy his niece Gwendoline was in her position as his, Lord Tilbury's secretary. And it is proof of the depth of the latter's passion that these discoveries, though each had caused him to behave for an instant like a barefoot dancer who has inadvertently stepped on a tin tack, did not weaken it to any noticeable extent. He would have been the first to admit that he would vastly have preferred not to become a cousin by marriage to Percy Pilbeam and not to have to go through life calling Mr. Pilbeam senior Uncle Willie, but if those unpleasantnesses were involved in the package deal, he was prepared to put up with them. He merely registered a resolve that when he and Gwendoline were in their little nest, if you would call The Oaks, Wimbledon Common, that, both this private investigator and this third-floor waiter should be rigorously excluded from it. No open house for the Pilbeams, father and son, was the policy to which he proposed to cling.

"Oh?" he said, stepping back to foil another affectionate leap on the part of Towser, ne Champion Silverboon of Burrowsdene. "Is that so?" and added something about it being a small world. "Pilbeam," he said, returning to the main point from what was, after all, a side issue, "you have made an idiotic blunder."

"Oh?" said Percy, not without stiffness. He disliked being called idiotic.

"I want trousers — trousers!"

"I see you do," said Percy. "I noticed directly I came in that you hadn't any on, and I was wondering why."

Lord Tilbury turned purple, his habit in moments of emotion.

"I will tell you why. That young scoundrel Christopher took mine from me. He threatened to assault me unless I gave them to him."

"Why did he want them? Was he collecting trousers?"

"He had been deprived of his own. He explained that to me before he left. In order to prevent him going out and getting into trouble and forfeiting my brother's money, his sister took them away."

"Ingenious," said Percy Pilbeam, who was a man to give credit where credit was due. The thought crossed his mind that the Christophers were a family to be reckoned with. "And what do you want me to do?"

Lord Tilbury clicked his tongue impatiently. He would have thought it was obvious what he wanted Percy to do.

"I want you to go to my house on Wimbledon Common and bring me another pair. You know my house on Wimbledon Common?"

"I can find it."

"The trousers are in the wardrobe of my bedroom on the first floor," said Lord Tilbury. He went to the table on which Biff had been considerate enough to empty the pockets of the purloined garment. "Here is the front-door key."

Percy took the key and slipped it absently into his vest pocket. His agile brain was busy with schemes for turning this situation to his financial benefit.

"I thought you had moved to Barribault's."

"I have," said Lord Tilbury, shuddering for a moment as he recalled that conversation on the hotel's third floor with the waiter who might ere long be his uncle by marriage. "But most of my things are at Wimbledon. And if you think I am going to send you to Barribault's Hotel to ask at the desk if you may go up to my suite and get me a pair of trousers because I have been forcibly deprived of the ones I was wearing, you are very much mistaken. The story would be all over London in half an hour. So kindly stop talking like a fool, Pilbeam, and go to Wimbledon immediately."

"I haven't time to go to Wimbledon. I've a business to attend to."

"Pilbeam!" said Lord Tilbury awfully. But Percy had thought of a way by which he could reap financial profit from the current situation. He had never to think for long when there was money in the offing.

"Oh, come off it, Tilbury," he said. "The trouble with you is that you've got so used to pushing people around that you think you can do it to everyone you meet, and then you run up against someone like me who doesn't give a tinker's course for what you say or what you don't say and you get what's coming to you. I'll be belowed if I go slogging off to Wimbledon. I'll tell you what I will do, though; as you're an old friend, I'll sell you these trousers of mine. They'll be a tight fit, because you're what I'd call a stylish stout, but you'll be able to navigate in them as far as Barribault's. What do you say to that?"

"How much?" he said.

"A hundred and ten pounds," said Percy.

The shock was severe, and Lord Tilbury had every excuse for tottering. He seemed to see his former underling indistinctly through a heavy mist, which of course was the best way of seeing him. He reeled and might have fallen, had he not clutched at the boxer Towser.

"You're insane!" he gasped.

"Not a bit of it," said Percy equably. "I'm doing you the trousers for ten quid and adding on the hundred I had to pay Christopher for going and drinking with Murphy."

"I'm not going to pay that!"

"You certainly are."

"A hundred pounds!"

"Necessary expense. It's a long story, but I had to make him think he was working for Scotland Yard and that was what they were giving him."

"I won't pay it!"

"Just as you say. Come on, Towser."

In the brief moment before he spoke again, six alternative schemes for resolving this business disagreement darted through Lord Tilbury's mind. Each of them resembled the others in that they all had to do with somehow overpowering this mutinous ex-employee, stripping him of his trousers and going on his way triumphant. He was compelled to reject them all. Percy was no colossus, but then, no more was he. The outcome of a physical struggle would be dubious. If he had had a stout club or a hatchet, something constructive might have been accomplished, but he had no club, no hatchet. As the editorial writers on his morning paper were always saying, it was necessary in these circumstances to bow with as good a grace as possible to the inevitable.

"Make it fifty, Pilbeam."

"I'd be out of pocket."

"Seventy-five."

"No, but seeing you're an old friend, I'll come down to the level hundred."

Lord Tilbury argued no further. The healing thought had come to him that if he left Percy marooned in here, he could call at his bank and stop whatever check he might write. It was like a breath of cool air on his fevered brow.

"Very well," he said, producing checkbook and fountain pen, and Percy was astounded by the cheerfulness of his tone. "There you are," he said, and a minute later, a ghastly sight from the waist downward, he was on his way to the door, to the regret of Champion Silverboon of Burrowsdene, who liked his looks and had hoped for a better acquaintance.

&2022; &2022; &2022;

Lord Tilbury, like other men of substance, employed the services of several banks, dotted here and there about the metropolis. The one on which he had written the check he had given Percy was the Mayfair branch of the National Provincial only a short distance from Halsey Court, and it was thither that he now directed his steps – difficult steps, for the Pilbeam trousers were an unpleasantly snug fit, sticking closer than a brother. There had, indeed, been a moment when, lacking a shoehorn, he had almost despaired of getting into them.

From the bank, the check well and truly stopped, he proceeded to Barribault's Hotel, where he changed his clothes, and from Barribault's Hotel he telephoned his solicitor, commanding him to come immediately and lunch with him in the grillroom. And in a few minutes, for his offices were in the next street, the solicitor presented himself.

London solicitors come in every size and shape, but they have this in common, that with a few negligible exceptions they all look like some species of bird. Jerry Shoesmith's Uncle John, for instance, the guiding spirit of Shoesmith, Shoesmith and Shoesmith of Lincoln's Inn Fields, resembled a cassowary, while elsewhere you would find owls, ducks, sparrows, parrots and an occasional ptarmigan. Lord Tilbury's legal advisor, a Mr. Bunting of Bunting, Satterthwaite and Miles, could have mixed without exciting comment in any gathering of vultures in the Gobi Desert, though his associates would have been able to expose him as an impostor when mealtime came, for, unlike the generality of vultures, he had a weak digestion and had to be careful what he ate. Lord Tilbury, himself a hearty trencherman, never enjoyed breaking bread with him, owing to his habit of bringing medicine bottles to the table and giving a vivid description of what the dish he, Lord Tilbury, was consuming would do to his, Mr. Bunting's, interior organs if he, Mr. Bunting, were ever foolish enough to partake of it.

However, you cannot pick and choose when you are in need of a solicitor, you have to go to the man who knows his law, and Lord Tilbury had implicit faith in Mr. Bunting's legal acumen. He would have preferred not to ask him to lunch, but time pressed, so he issued the invitation, and in due course Mr. Bunting appeared.

"Very fortunate you caught me in time, my dear Tilbury," he said, "I was just going out for my glass of milk when you telephoned. I always take a glass of milk at this hour, sipping it slowly. Am I right in supposing that there is some quillet of the law on which you wish to consult me?"

Lord Tilbury said there was, and led the way to their table. There, declining an offer to sniff at the contents of Mr. Bunting's medicine bottle, the mere smell of which, Mr. Bunting said, would give him some idea of what he had to put up with, he ordered a steak and fried potatoes, tut-tutted sympathetically when Mr. Bunting told him what would happen if he himself ate a fried potato, and got down to what his guest would have called the res.

"An amusing point came up at Tilbury House this morning, Bunting. A short story was submitted to one of my editors in which a character, for reasons into which I need not go, was compelled by another character to give him his trousers."

Mr. Bunting sipped his milk slowly, and put a point.

"You use the word 'compelled.' Am I to understand that force was employed?"

"There were threats of force."

"These trousers, then, were parted with under duress?"

"Exactly."

"I see. Are you really going to drink beer with that steak, Tilbury?"

"Never mind my beer. Please listen."

"Quite, quite. I was only thinking what beer would do to me."

"We like to get these things right in our magazines," said Lord Tilbury, interrupting his guest as he spoke of acid ferment. "Could he – the first man – have the other man arrested?"

"Summarily arrested?"

"Precisely. Go to a policeman and give him in charge."

"The spinach here," said Mr. Bunting, who after finishing his milk and quaffing deeply from his medicine bottle had begun to pick at the vegetable, mentioned, "is exceptionally good. It is one of the few things I know I can digest. Asparagus, on the other hand, I regret to say, is sheer poison to me, while as for peas---"

Lord Tilbury shot him a look which, if it had been directed at some erring minor editor of Tilbury House, would have reduced that unfortunate to a spot of grease.

"I should be obliged if you would listen to me, Bunting."

"I beg your pardon. Certainly, certainly. You were saying?"

"I was asking you if depriving a man of his trousers is a felony for which an arrest can be made."

Mr. Bunting shook his head.

"It would be a matter for a civil action."

"You're sure of that?"

"Quite sure. The case would be on all fours with that of Schwed versus Meredith, L.R. 3 H.L. 330, though there the casus belli was an overcoat. Schwed sued before the magistrate of South Hammersmith sitting in petty court and was awarded damages."

Lord Tilbury choked on his steak. The disappointment had been severe. He had been so confident that his worries were over, his problems solved. He fell into a gloomy silence, from which he was jerked a moment later by a sudden ejaculation from his guest.

"See that fellow over there? See what he's eating? Hungarian goulash. Do you know what would be the effect on my bile ducts if I ate Hungarian goulash?"

For quite a while Mr. Bunting spoke clearly and well on the subject of his bile ducts, but Lord Tilbury was not listening. His interest in his companion's interior was tepid, and in fairness to him it must be said that the revelations the solicitor was making were not of a kind to rivet the attention of any but a medical man. But he would in any case have been distraught, for a sudden idea had sprung into his mind and he was occupied in turning it over and examining it.

"Bunting," he said.

"Eh?" said Mr. Bunting, breaking off in the middle of a description of what he had once suffered in his hot youth when he, too, had eaten Hungarian goulash.

"You remember I consulted you in the matter of contesting my late brother's will."

"Quite. I was of opinion that you had no evidence."

"I think I have some now. If I invited you to lunch and insisted on our lunching backward, what would you say?"

"Lunching backward?"

"Exactly."

"I don't understand you."

"It's very simple. We would begin with coffee and cigars---"

"I never smoke cigars, only a type of health cigarette from which the nicotine has been extracted. They come, I believe, from Bulgaria and are aromatic and not only harmless but actively helpful in curing bronchial asthmas, duodenal ulcer, high blood pressure and---"

"Will you kindly listen!" boomed Lord Tilbury. "I am speaking of this practice of my brother of lunching backward. I consider it strong proof of mental instability."

"Your brother used to do that?"

"I can bring witnesses to testify to it," said Lord Tilbury.

Speaking in measured tones, he told the story of Billingsley of Time or possibly Newsweek and his midday meal at the house of the late Edmund Biffen Pyke. It took some time, for at the mention of almost every item on the menu Mr. Bunting interrupted to give a word picture of what would occur inside him if he ate or drank that. But in due course the recital came to an end, and he put the vital question.

"What would you think if I suggested a lunch like that to you?"

"I should be extremely surprised."

"Would you accept it as proof of insanity? If I died, would you, taking that lunch into consideration, feel that there were grounds for contesting my will?"

Mr. Bunting, who had finished his spinach and was now drinking hot water, demurred.

"My dear Tilbury, I hardly think I would be prepared to go as far as that. I doubt if such an action would stand up in court. A good counsel would argue – and I think successfully – that these were merely a whimsical man's amiable eccentricities. Lunching backward he would dismiss as an amusing pleasantry, and I think he would have the jury with him."

"I'm sure there must have been cases where wills were contested on less evidence and won by the plaintiff."

"On the motion-picture screen, perhaps. Seldom, I imagine, in real life. What's the matter, Tilbury?"

He might well ask. There had proceeded from Lord Tilbury's lips a sort of gasping cry. It had been caused by those words "motion-picture screen." They had acted on him like the stick of dynamite his employees had so often wished they could touch off under him. He had remembered Mr. Llewellyn. So much had been happening to him of late that all thoughts of that sensitive Hollywood magnate had passed from his mind.

He sat for an instant congealed, then rose from his chair like a rocketing pheasant. Although he was a man built for endurance rather than speed, few athletes specializing in the shorter distances could have been out of the grillroom and at the telephone more quickly. Mr. Bunting, gazing after him and remembering the dangerously unwholesome lunch he had made, supposed him to be in quest of a doctor and hoped he would not be too late.

It was with trembling fingers that Lord Tilbury dialed the number of Tilbury House.

"Miss Gibbs!"

"Yes, Lord Tilbury?"

"Did Mr. Llewellyn call for me?"

"Oh yes, Lord Tilbury," said Gwendoline brightly. "He was very punctual."

A sound like the bubbling cry of some strong swimmer in his agony escaped Lord Tilbury. He was picturing a deeply offended Llewellyn haughtily withdrawing pounds and pounds and pounds worth of advertising from the Tilbury papers.

"You did not think of ... think up ... happen to hit on an explanation of my absence?"

"Oh yes, Lord Tilbury. I told Mr. Llewellyn you had suddenly been taken ill and were in bed at your house at Wimbledon."

Relief did not make Lord Tilbury faint, but it came very near to doing so. He was conscious of a tidal wave of love and admiration for this pearl among girls, whose blonde beauty was equaled only by her ready resource. In every office at Tilbury House he had caused to be hung on the wall the legend think on your feet, and it looked to him as if Gwendoline Gibbs must have been studying them for months.

"Thank you, Miss Gibbs, thank you."

"Not at all, Lord Tilbury."

"So he went away quite happy?"

"Oh yes, Lord Tilbury. He was very sorry to hear you weren't well. He said he would be coming to Wimbledon as soon as he had had lunch to see how you were."

"What!"

"That's what he said."

"Oh, my God!"

"So, don't you think you had better go there and be in bed when he arrives?"

Once more that tidal wave of love and admiration poured over Lord Tilbury. This girl, even though she might have an uncle who was a waiter and a cousin who shook one's belief in the theory that man was nature's last word, was fit to be the mate of the highest in the land, which he considered a reasonably good description of himself.

"Of course, of course. The only thing to do. Order the car and tell Watson to bring it to Barribault's without an instant's delay."

"Very good, Lord Tilbury. Have you your key?"

"What key? Oh, the front-door key? Yes, yes, of course I have it. No, by Jove, I haven't," said Lord Tilbury, remembering the moment – how long ago it seemed – when he had given it to Percy Pilbeam. "But there should be a spare one in the drawer of my desk. Would you go and look?"

"Certainly, Lord Tilbury. Yes," said Gwendoline, returning, "it was in the drawer. Shall I give it to Watson?"

"Do, Miss Gibbs, do. And thank you for being such a help."

Lord Tilbury left the telephone booth thinking loving thoughts of Gwendoline Gibbs and hard ones of Ivor Llewellyn, whose persistence in seeking him out he considered tactless and officious. It was only as he was returning to his table in the grillroom that a shattering thought occurred to him. Who was going to admit Mr. Llewellyn to his sickbed when the motion-picture magnate arrived at the front door of The Oaks, Wimbledon Common?

For a moment the problem baffled him. He could not entrust this important assignment to Watson the chauffeur. Watson, like so many chauffeurs, suffered from slow mental processes and would be sure, when asked how his employer was, to reply that he had never been more solidly in the pink.

And then his eye fell on his legal advisor, who was still sipping the glass of hot water, so excellent for the digestive system, with which he always concluded a meal. An aromatic cigarette between his lips showed that he had armed himself well against bronchial asthmas, duodenal ulcers and high blood pressure.

"Bunting!" he cried, inspired.

"Ah, Tilbury. What did the doctor say?" asked Mr. Bunting, all sympathy.

"I've got to go to bed."

"I thought as much. That steak. That beer. Those fried potatoes. Give me your arm, and I'll help you to your room."

"Not here. At my house at Wimbledon. I'll explain on the way there."

"You want me to come with you?"

"Your presence is vital. I am supposed to be sick in bed there and I am expecting a very important advertiser to call in the course of the afternoon. I had a luncheon appointment with him today, and I forgot all about it. When he arrived at Tilbury House, my secretary with great presence of mind told him I had been suddenly taken ill and had had to be removed to Wimbledon, and he said he would be looking in there to see how I was. You understand my predicament?"

"Perfectly, my dear Tilbury. Are you sure this man will be calling at your house?"

"He told my secretary he would. He must find me in bed."

"Quite. But why is my presence vital?"

"Somebody has to let him in. You must pose as the butler."

Mr. Bunting uttered a senile chuckle.

"I see what you mean. Of course I'll do it. You quite restore my youth, my dear Tilbury. As a young man I frequently appeared in amateur theatricals and, oddly enough, nearly always as a butler. Got some good notices, too. 'As Jorkins the butler, Cyril Bunting was adequate,' I remember the Petersfield Sentinel said on one occasion. Yes, you get to bed, Tilbury, and leave everything to me, confident that your affairs are in good hands."

&2022; &2022; &2022;

A private investigator who takes his work with a proper seriousness, as Percy Pilbeam had always done, learns to accustom himself to long periods of waiting and inaction. In the early days of the Argus Agency, before a growing prosperity had enabled him to employ skilled assistants like Mr. Jellaby and others, Percy had often stood for hours outside restaurants in the rain, waiting for some guilty couple to emerge and be followed to the love nest. The experience had given him several nasty colds in the head, but it had taught him patience, and it was in a composed frame of mind that he settled down to his vigil after Lord Tilbury had left him. Sooner or later, he presumed, somebody would be coming along to ease the strain of the situation, and until that happened there was nothing to be done but sit and relax. He took a chair and picked up the copy of Society Spice that had attracted Lord Tilbury's notice, shaking his head over the way the dear old paper had deteriorated since he had resigned the editorship. Dull, he felt. No zip, no ginger. In his time the word spice had meant something. Now it was a misnomer. If pieces like the one on page four about London's private gambling clubs were what modern readers considered spicy, he was sorry for them. The boxer had fallen asleep, and the contents of Society Spice nearly made Percy follow his example.

What kept him from doing so was the uncomfortable feeling that there was a thought fluttering about the outskirts of his mind like a dove seeking entry into a dovecot, and he could not pin it down.

It made him vaguely uneasy. He had the feeling that if this thought took shape and form, he would learn of something to his disadvantage. And then quite suddenly he got it. It was the recollection that in the way his former employer had perked up as he started to write that check there had been a suggestion of the sinister and disturbing. His manner had not been in character. Percy knew his Tilbury. However much the first baron enjoyed writing the name that reminded him that he had acquired a title, he never enjoyed writing it at the bottom of a check for a hundred pounds. Yet on this occasion he had been cheerful, even chirpy. Instead of lingering over the task as if his every move distressed him, he had fairly dashed the thing off. His nib had flown over the paper.

There was, Percy was convinced, something fishy afoot, and abruptly he realized what it was. He had never made a study of extrasensory perception, but he could tell what had been passing in Lord Tilbury's mind as clearly as if the latter had drawn a diagram for him. The old bounder was planning to stop that check, and here he, Percy, was, stuck in this flat and powerless to prevent him. His only hope was that the double-crossing crook would have lunch before he went to the bank, feeling that with his payee confined to the premises of Number Three, Halsey Chambers, there was no need to hurry. That would give him time to reach the bank in advance of Tilbury, always assuming that he could secure trousers in which to make the journey.

But it was, he felt, a frail, sickly hope, and he uttered an expletive which disturbed the boxer's slumber and caused him to raise an inquiring head. Obviously, in order to prevent Biff from leaving the flat, the female Christopher and her associate must have removed everything in the shape of trousers or their scheme would have been null and void. And it was not likely that either of them would return to the flat before they had had lunch. Percy slumped back in his chair, a broken man, and he was trying once more to interest himself in Society Spice, when an imperious hand pressed the front doorbell. He caught up the boxer's lead and went to the door. A slim, elegant young man was standing on the threshold.

"Good morning," said this slim, elegant young man, speaking in a clipped, chilly voice which would have told Percy, if he had been better acquainted with the personnel of embassies, that he was in the presence of a rising young diplomat with a future ahead of him in the diplomatic world. The thing about him that attracted Percy's attention was that he was wearing trousers, and his eyes gleamed covetously. He stared at these trousers. Travelers in India had gazed at the Taj Mahal with a less fascinated intensity.

There was nothing in Henry Blake-Somerset's manner, as he stood in the doorway, to indicate that he was seething with righteous indignation and resentment, for the first thing the authorities teach young diplomats is to look like stuffed frogs on all occasions in order to deceive foreigners. But he was so seething. He burned with a smoldering fury.

His mother, when he had told her of Kay's sudden departure for London, had been insistent that he take a firm line and have nothing more to do with a girl of whom she had disapproved at first sight and who could only be a hindrance to his career, but he was not at the moment prepared to go to quite this length. Love, or rather the tepid preference he felt for Kay, still animated the bosom beneath his well-cut waistcoat, and he proposed merely to give her a good talking-to, showing her the error of her ways and strongly advising her to mend them. The scene he had in mind was to have been along the general lines of the interview between King Arthur and Guinevere at the monastery.

It was for the snake Shoesmith, the serpent who came breaking up homes before they even existed, that the lightning of his wrath was reserved. He intended to speak plainly to the man Shoesmith the moment the door opened. The spectacle, accordingly, of Percy Pilbeam, richly pimpled and wearing no trousers, had a disconcerting effect. His training would not allow him to gape, but he raised an eyebrow.

He was, however, soon himself again. You can startle a diplomat, but you cannot put him out of action.

"Is Mr. Shoesmith in?" he asked, and his voice remained as controlled as ever. Nobody could have guessed how soiled it made him feel to be compelled to utter the name.

Percy Pilbeam did not reply. His gaze was still riveted on the trousers. He seemed to be in a sort of trance.

"This is the address from which he wrote to me," said Henry, his voice becoming bleaker. He was feeling that Percy was just the sort of friend he would have expected Shoesmith to have, but that did not mean that he had to put up with the impersonation he was giving of a deaf-mute. "He lives here, does he not?"

Percy came to himself with a start.

"Eh? Oh yes, he lives here, but he's out at the moment. Won't you come in? He ought to be back soon."

Henry came in, eying Towser nervously as he did so. "Does he bite?" he asked apprehensively.

Percy seized on the question like an actor taking a cue. His agile mind had seen the way.

"Like a serpent," he said. "Always savage in captivity, these boxers."

"I hope you have a tight hold on him."

"For the moment, yes," said Percy. "And it's just possible that I may be able to control him. It all depends on whether you give me your trousers."

At this, Henry raised both eyebrows. It was a thing he did not often do, one generally being enough, but these words had struck him as so bizarre that he felt justified in giving the speaker the full treatment.

"I beg your pardon?"

"I want those trousers. I've got to get out of here and get out quick. There's a man on his way to the bank to stop a check he's given me, and if I don't get there ahead of him, I'll lose a hundred pounds. Put it this way. I need trousers and you don't, at least for the moment. You came here to see Shoesmith, and you can see him just as well without your trousers on. I'll stop in at a shop after I've been to the bank and buy you another pair and send them round. Think on your feet," said Percy, remembering the slogan which had hung on his office wall in the days when he had been the editor of Society Spice.

Henry thought on his feet. He had seldom thought more rapidly. But though he accepted the situation, he made no pretense of liking it.

"I will give you these trousers---"

"That's the way to talk."

"– But under protest."

"That's all right. Give me them under anything you like," said Percy Pilbeam spaciously, and a few minutes later was gone on winged feet, the clog Towser gamboling beside him. They made a cheery pair.

But though the dumb chum's cheeriness continued undiminished, that of Percy expired with a gurgle shortly after he had entered the premises of the May-fair branch of the National Provincial Bank. His jaw and spirits sank simultaneously when the official behind the counter informed him that the check which he was presenting had been stopped on instructions from drawer. He also requested him politely but firmly to remove that dog.

Percy removed the dog. He took Towser to the office of the Argus Agency, deposited him there in the care of Lana and Marlene, the stenographers, curtly ordered Spenser the office boy to go out and buy a pair of trousers and take them to the gentleman at Three, Halsey Chambers, and then, seating himself at his desk, dialed the number of Tilbury House.

His cousin Gwendoline answered the telephone.

"Gwen? Percy."

"Oh, hullo, Perce."

"Put me through to Tilbury."

"He isn't here."

"Where is he?"

"He's gone to Wimbledon. Shall I tell him you were asking for him?"

"No," said Percy, and his voice was full of menace, the voice of a man who intends to have a showdown and stand no nonsense. "I'll see him at Wimbledon."

&2022; &2022; &2022;

It was in black mood that Henry Blake-Somerset now began to pace the floor, what there was of it, walking with a fevered restlessness. Except that such an animal would not have been wearing what to Mr. Scarborough of Cohen Brothers – though not to Biff – were pants, there was a distinct resemblance between him and a caged tiger.

He had been moving to and fro for some time, still in a frame of mind of which a philosopher would have disapproved, when he chanced to look out of the window, and what he saw made him catch his breath in sharply. A taxicab had drawn up at the entrance to Halsey Chambers and from it were alighting the man Shoesmith and Kay.

The sight appalled him. It was only too plain that in another minute or so he would have them with him, and though he had come to London with the express purpose of speaking his mind to both of them, he shrank from doing it in knee-length underlinen. The one thing the mind speaker needs, if he hopes to impress himself on his audience, is to be decently clad from the waist downward. One or two of the old Greek and Roman orators may have got by in tunics, but it cannot have been easy.

The British diplomatic service trains its personnel well. It teaches them to think quickly in an emergency. Where another man in his place would have stood baffled, Henry acted. There was a door to his right, presumably that of a bedroom, and he was through it before one could have said "Agonizing reappraisal." It swung open an inch or two, but he did not risk closing it, for already key had sounded in lock and there were footsteps in the room he had left.

There was also silence, and this surprised him somewhat, for his experience with these two had been that when they got together they were always full of conversation – in his opinion, far too full. He had no means of knowing that all through lunch at Previtali's, Oxford Street, the home wrecker Shoesmith had been pleading with Kay to marry him and that she had told him she was giving the matter thought. A girl who is thinking does not prattle.

It was the home wrecker who was the first to speak.

"Biff seems to be in his room."

"The best place for him."

"Getting a little sleep."

"He's certainly earned it."

"Shall I have a look?"

"No, you might wake him."

Silence again, broken at length by the wrecker of homes.

"Well?"

"Yes?"

"Have you made up your mind?"

"I'm still thinking. Let's hear from you again."

"Very well. I love you, damn it."

"Satisfactory so far. Carry on from there."

It is always unpleasant for a man to have to listen to a comparative stranger proposing marriage to his fiancée, and even aesthetically Henry did not enjoy the performance. When he had proposed to Kay, it had been in a restrained, dignified manner in keeping with the traditions of the British Foreign Office, and this Shoesmith was being loud and incoherent and raucous. A torrent of words proceeded from him, and worse was to follow, for suddenly he ceased to speak and there came to Henry's ears a curious shuffling sound as if a wrestling bout were in progress, causing him first to start, then to quiver in every limb. He tried not to believe his ears, but unsuccessfully. If this man Shoesmith was not embracing Kay, kissing Kay, behaving to Kay in a quite unsuitable manner, he told himself, he, Henry, would be very much surprised.

His diagnosis was correct. When Kay spoke again, it was with the breathlessness of a girl who has been subjected to the type of wooing recommended by that recognized expert, her brother Edmund Biffen.

"Wow!" she said.

It was, in Henry's opinion, the wrong thing to say, and he did not like the tone in which she said it. There was, to his mind, a most uncalled-for suggestion of happiness in the exclamation. It was the "Wow!" of a girl whose dreams have come true and who has found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Incredible though it might seem, it was plain to him that Kay, far from being shocked, horrified and outraged, had been a willing participant in what, from where he stood, had sounded like a Babylonian orgy of the worst type, the sort of thing that got King Belshazzar talked about.

"You can let me go now," she said. "You've made your point."

The conversational exchanges that followed would undoubtedly have nauseated Henry, had he been following them. But he was not giving them his attention. His thoughts were elsewhere. He was remembering what his mother had said. She had warned him against this girl, telling him that it was not too late to extricate himself from a most undesirable entanglement. And though he had protested that she was quite mistaken in her estimate and that a natural nervousness had prevented her from seeing Kay at her best, she had left him half persuaded. He saw now how right her woman's intuition had been, and he was conscious of a sensation not far from relief. He felt he had had an escape. He was a man who liked an orderly existence, and Kay, whatever her superficial charms, was manifestly a girl who preferred her existences disorderly. He may also have had the thought that now he would not have to have Edmund Biffen Christopher as a brother-in-law.

In the other room conversation was still proceeding. The man Shoesmith, after a series of incoherent observations, had become momentarily silent, as if exhausted by his emotions, and it was Kay who spoke.

"I suppose you know we're both crazy."

"I don't follow you."

"Rushing into it like this. You don't know a thing about me, and I don't know a thing about you."

"My life's an open book. Left an orphan at an early age. Sent by my Uncle John in his capacity of guardian to Marlborough and Cambridge. Came down from Cambridge and messed about in Fleet Street for a while. Got that New York correspondent job. Was fired. Became a Tilbury House wage slave and was fired again. Of course, I know what's in your mind. It will have struck you that every time we meet I've just lost my job, and this will have led you to feel that I'm a dubious proposition breadwinnerwise. But conditions will be very different from now on. Biff's going to buy the Thursday Review and put me in as editor, and that's a job I can hardly fail to hold down. I'm not likely to fire myself. If at first I make a mistake or two, I shall be very lenient and understanding."

Kay was looking thoughtful.

"I wish our future didn't depend so on Biff. It makes me uneasy."

Jerry begged her to correct this pessimistic streak of hers. The future, in his opinion, was rosy.

"Biff can't get into trouble now. There are only a few more days to go."

"He can do a lot in a few days."

"Not if he doesn't stir from the flat, and he can't stir from the flat."

"Yes, that's true."

"Don't have a moment's concern about Biff. And talking of Biff, I think we ought to let him know about us."

"But he's asleep."

"He won't be for long."

It had been Jerry's intention, when he flung open the door of his future relative's bedroom, to rouse him from his slumbers with a cheery shout, but this shout was never uttered. What actually emerged from his lips was a gurgling sound like that made by bath water going down a waste pipe.

"He's gone!"

"He can't have gone!"

"Well, look for yourself."

"But how can he have gone?"

It was a question Jerry found himself unable to answer. He had read of Indian fakirs who had acquired the knack of disembodying themselves and reassembling the parts at some distant spot, but he could not bring himself to credit Biff with this very specialized ability. The only solution seemed to be that he had gone out in the demitoilet in which Jerry had left him, and the thought froze the latter's blood. It was, consequently, a relief when Kay put forward another theory.

"You must have overlooked a spare pair he'd hidden somewhere."

"Of course. You're perfectly right. I thought I saw a crafty look in his eye as I went out, as if he had an ace up his sleeve."

"But where can he have gone?" Illumination came to Jerry.

"I know! He was telling me that he had to get out of here so that he could go and see Linda Rome and heal what he called the breach."

"Had he quarreled with Linda?"

"She had quarreled with him. Apparently she saw him having a tête-à-tête lunch with Tilbury's secretary."

"A blonde?"

"Very much so." Kay sighed.

"He's suffered from blonditis all his life. But I did hope he was cured."

"He is. This was just a farewell meeting, designed not to hurt the girl's feelings. He was anxious to go and explain that to Linda Rome."

"I wish you had let him. He couldn't get into any trouble if he was with Linda. She's a sobering influence. I've known Biff to become only half crazy when under her spell."

"She sounds like a nice girl."

"She's very nice, and she's got Biff hypnotized. If she tells him not to make a chump of himself, he doesn't make a chump of himself, though you'd hardly believe such a thing possible. I'll go and ask her if she's seen him. The place where she works is only a block or two away."

"Be careful crossing the street."

"I will."

"Don't get talking to strange men or letting strange women give you candy."

"I won't."

"Watch out for simooms, earthquakes and other acts of God, and hurry back as quick as you can, because every second you're not with me is like an hour. I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you," said Jerry, putting it in a nutshell. "Have you ever been struck by a thunderbolt?"

"Not that I remember. Have you?"

"Oddly enough, no. But every time you look at me with those eyes of yours, I feel as if I'd caught one squarely in the solar plexus. They're like twin stars."

"Well, that's fine."

"I like it," said Jerry.

Nauseating, felt Henry Blake-Somerset, nauseating. He stared bleakly at the wallpaper and began to rub his legs. His wrath remained hot, but his legs were cool and beginning to get chilly.

&2022; &2022; &2022;

It seemed to Jerry, as he sat awaiting Kay's return, that a most unusual number of violets and daffodils were sprouting through the carpet and that the air had become unexpectedly full of soft music, played, if his ears did not deceive him, by those harps and sackbuts of which Biff had spoken in his conversation with the elder Pilbeam. He had been happy before in his life, but he had never touched such heights of ecstasy as now. This, he supposed, was more or less what heaven would be like, though even heaven would have to extend itself in order to compete.

The only thing that marred his feeling of well-being was Kay's absence. She had been gone now, he estimated, about six hours and he yearned to see her again. When the bell rang, he leaped to the front door with a lissome bound, only to have the words of joyous welcome wiped from his lips by the sight of a small boy in a bowler hat, and not a particularly attractive small boy, at that. Spenser of the Argus Inquiry Agency, though of polished manners, was no oil painting. He had a snub nose, and he was heavily spectacled. Jerry, encountering his goggle-eyed gaze, had the illusion that he was being inspected through the glass of an aquarium by some rare fish.

"Good afternoon," said Spenser. "Are you the gentleman?"

This perplexed Jerry.

"Eh?" he said. "What gentleman?"

"The gentleman I've brought the trousers for." Blushing a little at having ended a sentence with a preposition, Spenser corrected himself. "The gentleman for whom I have brought the trousers."

"My name's Shoesmith."

"Mine is Spenser. Lionel Spenser. Pleased to meet you, Mr. Shoesmith."

"I mean, are they for me?"

"That I could not say, sir. I was merely instructed by Mr. Pilbeam to buy trousers and bring them to this address."

"Mr. Pilbeam?"

"Yes, sir. I am in his employment."

"And he told you to bring me trousers?"

"He did not specify the recipient. 'Buy trousers and take them to Three, Halsey Chambers,' were his exact words."

Jerry clutched his forehead. If asked, he would have admitted frankly that the intellectual pressure of the conversation had become too much for him.

"You're sure there's no mistake?"

"Quite sure, sir. Mr. Pilbeam's instructions were most explicit."

"All right. Put them on the table."

"Very good, sir."

"And here," said Jerry, producing a half crown.

"Coo!" said Lionel Spenser, suddenly becoming human. "Thanks a million."

"No, on second thoughts," said Jerry, "better take them back to the shop and get your money refunded."

Nestling in his bedroom retreat, Henry Blake-Somerset had listened to these exchanges with a growing impatience, eager to lay his hands on the manna in the wilderness which had descended so unexpectedly from the skies and resentful of all this chitchat in the doorway which was postponing his hour of release. He had not intended to make his presence known until Lionel Spenser had gone on his way, for he knew that small boys, seeing a man in knee-length mesh-knit underwear, were apt to mock and scoff, but when he heard Jerry make this appalling suggestion, he realized that there was no time for delay. Even at the expense of amusing Lionel, he must issue a statement.

"Those trousers are for me," he said.

There are few things that offer a greater test to the nervous system than a disembodied voice speaking in one's immediate vicinity, and both Jerry and Lionel Spenser leaped several inches from the ground, each suffering a passing illusion that the top of his head had broken loose from its moorings. There was bewilderment in Jerry's eyes as they met Lionel's and an equal bewilderment in Lionel's as they met Jerry's.

"Did you hear something?" said Jerry in a whisper.

"Somebody spoke," said Lionel, his voice hushed.

"I spoke," said Henry Blake-Somerset, emerging from the bedroom with a cold dignity which almost compensated for the peculiarity of his appearance. He took up the parcel, gave Jerry a long, lingering look, and withdrew.

"Crumbs!" said Lionel Spenser, and Jerry agreed that "Crumbs!" was the mot juste.

By the time Henry returned, fully clad and looking, as the song has it, like a specimen of the dressy men you meet up west, Jerry had managed to rid himself of his initial impression that what he had seen had been the Blake-Somerset astral body, but this had not brought ease of mind. What was exercising him now was the problem of finding the right thing to say. It is always difficult to strike just the correct conversational note when meeting a man to whose fiancée you have recently become betrothed. A certain gêne is inevitable.

Fortunately, Henry appeared not to be in the vein for small talk. In silence he passed through the room, in silence he opened the front door. There, turning, he gave Jerry another look which would have lowered the temperature even on the Yukon, and was gone.

It was perhaps five minutes later that the front doorbell rang again.

The visitor this time was a pleasant-faced, capable-looking girl in her late 20s. Jerry liked her at sight.

"Good afternoon," she said. "Are you Mr. Shoesmith?"

After the emotional upheaval caused by his dealings with Lionel Spenser and Henry Blake-Somerset, Jerry might have been excused for not feeling quite sure, but after a moment's thought he was able to reply that he was.

"I hope I'm not interrupting you when you're busy, but I wanted to see you about Biff."

Enlightenment came to Jerry.

"Are you Mrs. Rome?"

"Not at the moment. I used to be, but the name now is Mrs. Christopher."

"What!"

"Biff and I were married this morning at the registrar's. I hope a marriage is legal when the bridegroom has a black eye. The registrar apparently thought it was all right, though from the way he kept looking at Biff and then shooting a glance at me I could see he was feeling we were beginning our married life in the wrong spirit." She regarded Jerry with gentle concern. "You seem stunned."

Jerry admitted that she had surprised him a little.

"I was only thinking it was a bit sudden."

"Why sudden? Biff and I have been engaged for a long time – on and off."

"Of course, yes. But when you were speaking to me on the phone yesterday I should have said off was the operative word."

She laughed. A pleasant laugh, Jerry considered. Not in Kay's class, of course, but, as Mr. Bunting would have said, adequate.

"Oh, was it you I talked to? Yes, I can understand you jumping to conclusions. But ... how long have you known Biff?"

"For years. He's about my best friend."

"Then you must know he's the sort of cheerful idiot child nobody could be furious with for long. He came round to the place where I work this morning, and of course in a couple of minutes I'd forgiven him everything, and when he said 'Let's get married right away,' I said 'Terrific,' so off we went to the registrar's. Biff has a way with him."

"He certainly has. Well, I'm delighted."

"So am I, though I shall be happier when we're safe aboard that boat. We're off to America tomorrow."

"You are?"

"Yes, I thought it was the prudent move."

"I see what you mean. Even Biff can't get himself arrested in mid-ocean. Unless, of course, he goes in for barratry or mutiny on the high seas."

"I'll be very careful to see that he doesn't."

"I'm sure you will. Kay was saying only just now what a good influence you were on him."

"Oh, is Kay in London?"

"She arrived last night to help me keep an eye on Biff. She went to see you. Didn't she find you?"

"No, I was at Wimbledon. I took Biff to my uncle's house. He was rather nervous because he thought the police might be after him and he wanted a hideaway. I thought The Oaks would be as good as any. There's nobody there. I was planning to join him tonight, and tomorrow morning we would have driven to Southampton. But a difficulty has arisen."

"What's that?"

"I happened to want to ask my uncle something just now, and I rang up Tilbury House, and his secretary told me he was on the point of leaving for Wimbledon."

"Oh, my gosh!"

"Yes, it would be an awkward meeting, wouldn't it? So will you take my car and drive down there and bring him back here. I've got the car outside. I can't go myself, because I shall be busy all the afternoon shopping. Biff needs a complete trousseau. He's very short of clothes."

"I have some trousers of his at my uncle's place at Putney. You see, Kay and I thought he would be better without them."

"You have nudist views?"

"We wanted to keep him tied to the flat so that he couldn't go out and get into trouble."

"I see. Well, I don't think we need bother about those. I'll get him everything he needs."

"And you're really sailing tomorrow?"

"We are, if the hand of the law doesn't fall on Biff before then. I've got the tickets, and fortunately I have my visa. Mr. Gish was thinking of sending me to New York, so I got it and everything's fine. By the way, did Biff tell you what it was he did last night?"

"Not a word, except that he got into a fight."

"I gathered that the moment I saw him. Well, I must rush," said Linda, and was gone, leaving Jerry profoundly relieved. Mrs. Edmund Biffen Christopher had made a deep impression on him. She was a girl who inspired confidence.

He was about to go out to the car, when the bell rang.

"Good afternoon, sir," said the policeman who stood on the mat. "Sorry to trouble you, but could you tell me if a gentleman who looks like a dachshund lives here?"

&2022; &2022; &2022;

Standing in the hall of The Oaks, Wimbledon Common, and taking in his surroundings with an appraising eye, Biff had become conscious of a cloud darkening his normally cheerful outlook on life. Alone in this vast, echoing mansion, he had begun to feel like Robinson Crusoe on his island. He had, as he had told Jerry, dined here once or twice, but on those occasions there had been, in addition to other guests, butlers and maids and similar fauna bobbing about. It was the solitude that weighed on his nervous system. He felt apprehensive and in the grip of a despondency of the kind that can be corrected only with the help of a couple of quick ones, and it was not long before the thought floated into his mind that Lord Tilbury, his unconscious host, possessed a cellar and that the key to that cellar would presumably be hanging on its hook in the butler's pantry.

He found the key. He opened the cellar door. And there before him were bottles and bottles nestling in their bins, each one more than capable of restoring his mental outlook to its customary form. And he was in the very act of reaching out for the one nearest to hand, when Linda's face seemed to rise before his eyes and he remembered his promise to her. "Lay off the lotion," she had said to him, or words of that general import, and he had replied that he would. Even if the Archbishop of Canterbury were to come and beg him to join him in a few for the tonsils, he had said, no business would result.

He could not betray her trust. He had pledged his word. Furthermore, it was only too probable that when she joined him that night she would sniff at his breath. With a sigh he turned away and to divert his mind started to explore the house. He found himself in what he remembered to be the drawing room, but greatly changed since his last visit, for its chairs and sofas were now swathed in dust sheets. The spectacle it presented was not exhilarating, and he did not spend much time looking at it. Scarcely had he passed through the door when the fatigue due to insufficient sleep on the previous night swept over him. He was just able to reach the nearest sofa before his eyes closed, and after that a salvo of artillery would probably not have waked him.

The arrival of Percy Pilbeam in a taxicab did not even cause him to stir. Though this was perhaps not remarkable, for Percy, letting himself in with the key Lord Tilbury had given him, made very little noise. From long habit private investigators learn to be quiet in their movements, for when you are shadowing erring husbands to love nests, the less you advertise your presence, the better. Cats prowling at dusk could always have learned much from Percy, and family specters would have benefited by taking his correspondence course. He closed the front door without a sound and, as Biff had done, stood looking about him. As he looked, the militant spirit in which he had embarked on this expedition began to ebb.

Percy, unlike Biff, had never been inside The Oaks, Wimbledon Common, and its gloomy magnificence had an even more lowering effect on him than it had had on his fellow visitor. He had come here full of fire and fury, grimly resolved to extract another check from Lord Tilbury if he had to choke it out of him with his bare hands, but now he was beginning to wonder if he were equal to the task. In his office at the Argus Agency and in the homely surroundings of Number Three, Halsey Chambers, he had had no difficulty in being airy with Lord Tilbury, in defying Lord Tilbury and making it clear to him that a Pilbeam was a man to be reckoned with and not to be put upon, but the conviction was stealing over him that on the other's home grounds such an attitude would be harder to take. To use an expression which Lionel Spenser would never have permitted himself, Percy was beginning to get cold feet.

In these circumstances it was perhaps only natural that his thoughts should have taken the same direction as those of Biff. A voice had whispered to Biff that aid and comfort lay behind that cellar door, and the same voice, or one very like it, whispered the same thing to Percy Pilbeam.

The suggestion was well received. Pausing merely to give his mustache a twirl, he hastened cellarward and rejoiced to find that some careless hand had left the key in the lock. It was as he went in and stood gazing on the bottles that confronted him, trying to decide which one should have his patronage, that Lord Tilbury's Rolls-Royce. chauffeur Watson at the wheel, purred in at the drive gates.

&2022; &2022; &2022;

Mr. Bunting was the first to alight and, having done so, he winced as if he had seen some dreadful sight, as indeed he had.

"Good gracious," he said. "What a perfectly ghastly house. It looks like a municipal swimming bath."

"Well, I didn't build it," said Lord Tilbury shortly. He resented criticism of his belongings. "Take the car back, Watson."

"Isn't the chauffeur going to wait?"

"Of course he isn't going to wait. I'm supposed to be sick in bed, not gallivanting about in cars. I'll go to bed at once. There's no knowing when that damned Llewellyn will get here. Can I rely on you to play your part, Bunting?"

His mood, as he undressed and put on a suit of yellow pajamas with purple stripes, was ruffled and rebellious. A proud man, he resented having to behave like a hunted stag in order to keep on good terms with a mere Hollywood magnate, and the slow passing of time after he was between the sheets did nothing to improve his outlook. Impossible, he felt, even to smoke, and it was with a sigh of relief that after an eternity he heard footsteps approaching. The door opened, and he closed his eyes.

"Ah, Llewellyn," he said in a weak voice. "How good of you to come and see me."

"Wrong number," said Mr. Bunting. "This is Jorkins, the butler."

The tedium of waiting had made Lord Tilbury petulant.

"What did you disturb me for? I was trying to get to sleep."

"After that heavy lunch? Very injudicious. That's how you get liver trouble. It leads to splenic anemia, where the spleen is enlarged and later the liver, from cirrhotic changes. An accumulation of fluid in the abdominal cavity---"

"Go away," said Lord Tilbury.

"You don't want to hear about splenic anemia?"

"No."

"Just as you please. It's an absorbing subject, but if you would prefer not to be informed on it, that is entirely your affair. What I do think will interest you is the discovery I have made that the house is congested with burglars."

He was right. It interested Lord Tilbury extremely. He sat up like a jack-in-the-box.

"What!"

"I am sorry," said Mr. Bunting. "I was guilty of an inexactitude. 'Congested' was perhaps too strong a word, suggesting as it does serried ranks of burglars. I've only found a couple so far. No doubt there are others in every nook and cranny, but the only ones I've managed to locate at present are the fellow in the cellar---"

Lord Tilbury uttered a strangled cry. His cellar was very dear to him and he resented intruders on those sacred precincts.

"There is a burglar in the cellar?"

"He was in the cellar. I locked him in."

"Telephone for the police!"

"I did. They came and took him away just before I looked in on you."

"Excellent, Bunting. Well done."

"I think I was adequate," said Mr. Bunting modestly. "It would have been neater and more dramatically right to have had the police take both men away, but I did not find the other one till I was having a ramble through the house after they had left. He was asleep in the drawing room!"

"Of all the impudence! Did you overpower him?"

"My dear Tilbury, when you get to my age, you don't overpower burglars. I let him sleep on. I hadn't the heart to disturb him."

"I'll disturb him," said Lord Tilbury, leaping from his bed in a flash of yellow and purple, and Mr. Bunting agreed that it was perhaps time that the reveille was sounded. He suggested that Lord Tilbury should arm himself with something solid from the bag of golf clubs which was standing in a corner of the room. He recommended the niblick, and Lord Tilbury felt that it was a wise choice. He had had no previous experience of intimidating a burglar, but instinct told him that it was a niblick shot.

And so it came about that Biff, roused from slumber by a hand that gripped his arm and shook it, opened his eyes drowsily. Seeing a stout man in yellow and purple pajamas, accompanied by a dim something that looked like a vulture, and naturally supposing that this was merely a continuation of the nightmare he had been having, he closed them again and turned over on his side. It was only when his host's niblick descended smartly on an exposed portion of his person that the mists of sleep shredded away and he sat up, blinking.

"Oh, hello," he said, "so there you are."

Lord Tilbury was too overcome to speak. What held him for the moment dumb was not righteous indignation at the discovery that a young man whom he particularly disliked had invaded his home and gone to sleep in his drawing room without so much as by-your-leave or with-your-leave. What was interfering with his vocal cords was the surge of emotion that comes to punters on racecourses who see the long shot on which they have invested their shirts roll in lengths ahead of the field. His enemy had been delivered into his hands. No question of civil actions here. If ever there was a case for summary arrest, this case was that case.

Speech returned to him. He wheeled around on Mr. Bunting.

"Bunting, can I have this man arrested for breaking and entering?"

"Unquestionably, if he did break and enter."

"Well, I didn't," said Biff. "My wife let me in with her key."

"You are a married man?" said Mr. Bunting, interested.

"I was married this morning."

"And may I ask how your wife came to be in possession of a key to my house?" inquired Lord Tilbury.

"She lives here. She's your niece, Linda."

"What!" cried Lord Tilbury, reeling.

"Hell's bells," said Biff, "if a wife can't offer her husband the hospitality of the house where she lives, things have come to a pretty pass. And what the devil are you doing in pajamas at this time of day?"

Lord Tilbury did not reply. The sunshine had been blotted from his life. It was not only the thought of his niece's disastrous marriage that held him silent. He was musing bitterly on Providence. A moment before, he had been telling himself that Providence, always on the side of the good man, had gone out of its way to ensure that he should prosper as he deserved, and Providence, he now saw, was not the Santa Claus he had supposed, but a heartless practical joker who raised the good man's hopes only to dash them to the ground. A moment before, it had seemed that a mere telephone call to the local police station was all that was needed to rule Edmund Biffen Christopher out of the race for the Pyke millions and life had been roses, roses all the way. Now it was dust and ashes. Not for an instant was he able to doubt the truth of Biff's story. What had induced Linda to marry him remained a mystery, and why she should have brought him here he could not say, but she had unquestionably done both of these things, and he shook with baffled fury like the villain in an old-time melodrama.

"Get out!" he shouted.

Biff raised his eyebrows.

"Did I hear you say get out?"

"You did. This house is mine, not Linda's, and I don't want you in it."

"OK, if that's the way you feel. We Christophers never outstay our welcome. But I still fail to understand those pajamas."

"Where did you get that black eye?" asked Mr. Bunting, ever anxious for information.

"Never you mind about my black eye. Who are you?"

"I am Lord Tilbury's solicitor."

"Bunting," thundered Lord Tilbury, "show this young blot out. I'm going back to bed." he said, and without more words hurried up the stairs at speed quite creditable in a man of his build.

Biff followed him with a perplexed eye.

"What's he going to bed for?"

"I would be at as much a loss as yourself," said Mr. Bunting, "had he not explained the situation to me. It appears that he invited an important business associate to lunch today and completely forgot the appointment. A Mr. Llewellyn, a prominent Hollywood magnate, who is a touchy man and takes offense easily. Mr. Llewellyn, I gather, spends a great many thousands of pounds a year advertising in Tilbury's papers, and Tilbury was afraid that if he found out the truth, he would withdraw his advertising. Fortunately, Tilbury's secretary, with great presence of mind, told Mr. Llewellyn that Tilbury had been taken ill and was in bed at his Wimbledon residence, and Mr. Llewellyn said he would make a point of looking in in the course of the afternoon to see how he was. So Tilbury had no option but to go to bed. I think this clears up the mystery of the pajamas satisfactorily. If there are any points you wish touched upon, I shall be delighted to clarify them for you."

It was not easy for Biff to stare with only one eye, but he managed to do so.

"You mean if this Llewellyn guy finds out that Tilbury stood him up, Tilbury'll lose a packet?"

"That is substantially the case."

"Gosh!" said Biff, and he, too, headed for the stairs, followed at a slower and more senile pace by Mr. Bunting, who was finding all this quite absorbing.

"Ah, Llewellyn," said Lord Tilbury as the door opened, speaking in the same weak tone he had used before. Then, as he beheld Biff, his voice strengthened. "I told you to get out!"

"And in due season," said Biff, "I will. But first there is a little business matter to be taken up. I think we can do a deal. I have here an agreement drawn up by my solicitor, whereby ... Is it whereby, Bunting?"

"Quite correct."

"Whereby you consent to waive all claim to the Pyke millions in return for a cut of five percent of the gross."

"You're insane!"

"I'm not so sure, Tilbury," said Mr. Bunting. "It seems a generous enough settlement, and I would advocate its acceptance."

"Sign here," said Biff, "on the dotted line."

"I shall do nothing of the sort."

"You will, if you don't want me to spill the facts to this Llewellyn guy when he arrives."

Lord Tilbury gasped.

"This is blackmail! Can I have him arrested?"

"I never saw a chap with such a passion for arresting people," said Mr. Bunting, amusedly. "Such an action would certainly not lie. Blackmail involves the extortion of money, and far from trying to extort money from you, this gentleman is offering to give you some."

"Well spoken, Bunting."

It was Biff who said this, not Lord Tilbury. The latter's comment, if he had made one, would have been radically different.

"A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, my dear Tilbury," said Mr. Bunting with the air of a man who has invented a happy phrase. "These actions for setting wills aside are always chancy affairs, and from what you have told me, your brother's fortune was quite large enough to make five percent of it well worth having. I recommend the settlement."

"Bunting, you are on the beam. A Daniel come to judgment."

Again it was Biff who spoke, and again Lord Tilbury preserved a gloomy silence. His solicitor's words, so obviously spoken by a man who knew, had crushed the last remains of his spirit. He reached out a hand for the document, and Mr. Bunting obligingly supplied the fountain pen without which he never stirred abroad.

There was something in the slow and painful way in which the head of the Mammoth Publishing Company signed his name that would have reminded Jerry Shoesmith, had he been present, of the sergeant at the Paris police station. But eventually the sad task was completed. Mr. Bunting added his signature as witness, and Biff with a cheery word of farewell withdrew.

&2022; &2022; &2022;

"Nice young fellow," said Mr. Bunting, who had taken quite a fancy to him. "I wonder how he got that black eye."

"I wish I'd given it to him," said Lord Tilbury morosely.

"He seems to have got married to your niece very suddenly. Had she said anything to you of her matrimonial plans?"

"No."

"The thing came on you as a surprise?"

"Yes."

"Ah well, in the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love, and this is no doubt true of young women also. Ah, the telephone," said Mr. Bunting. "Excuse me."

He was absent some minutes. When he returned, he had news.

"That was your friend Llewellyn. He says he is extremely sorry, but he will be unable to be with you this afternoon. Something – he did not tell me what – has, as he expressed it, come up. He sends his kindest regards and hopes you will soon be in your usual robust health once more."

Lord Tilbury quivered inside his yellow and purple pajamas. The words had been a dagger in his heart. As he reflected that if only this fool of a motion-picture magnate had had the sense to call up five minutes sooner, he would not have been compelled to sign that agreement, the iron entered into his soul.

"Must be a nice fellow," said Mr. Bunting, who was liking everyone this afternoon. "Thoughtful. Considerate. Are you getting up?"

"Of course I'm getting up. No sense in lying in bed now."

"True. Very true."

Lord Tilbury climbed out of bed and put on his clothes. He was feeling low and depressed, and precisely as had been the case with Biff and Percy Pilbeam, his thoughts had turned to that well-stocked cellar of his.

"I don't know what you're going to do, Bunting," he said, "but after I've telephoned my secretary to send the car I am going to have a drink."

"I will join you if you have any nonalcoholic elderberry wine."

"I haven't."

Mr. Bunting sighed.

"It's a curious thing that very few people have," he said. "I have often remarked it."

With a cobweb-covered bottle and a glass in the drawing room, Lord Tilbury began to feel a little better, but the restoration of his tissues was interrupted by the ringing of the telephone. Mr. Bunting, ever courteous, went out into the hall to answer it. When he came back, his air was grave. He looked like a vulture whose mind is not at ease.

"Do you know who that was, Tilbury? That was the police."

"The police?"

"Speaking from the local station. Do you by any chance know a man named Pilbeam? You do? Well, a rather unfortunate thing has happened. You recall the burglar I locked in the cellar?"

"Well?"

"It appears that that was Pilbeam, whoever Pilbeam may be. You apparently gave him your key, and he entered through the front door. I imagine he had come to see you about something, possibly some business matter, and nobody was more surprised than he when he found himself arrested and taken off to the police station."

"Served him right."

"Quite. But have you envisaged what will be the outcome?"

"I don't understand you."

"Obviously he has grounds for an action for false arrest and imprisonment, and I cannot see how he can fail to mulct you in very substantial damages. I shall be much surprised if he is not on his way here now."

&2022; &2022; &2022;

Mr. Bunting was perfectly correct. Percy Pilbeam was at that moment approaching The Oaks at the rate of knots, his soul, such as it was, seething like a cistern struck by a thunderbolt. On his previous visit he had not been in any too sunny a frame of mind, but his feelings then were merely tepid compared with his feelings now. He had had a testing time at the local police station, the tendency on the part of the force having been to be skeptical as to his motives for being on what they called enclosed premises. The general disposition had been to classify him as a dangerous member of the underworld caught with the goods.

It was only when he had exhibited the front-door key of The Oaks and the check signed by Tilbury that his story of being a respectable friend of the family paying a social call had begun to receive credence. In the end he had been allowed to depart and had even been offered apologies, but this had done nothing to diminish his animosity and his resolve, as Mr. Bunting had put it, to mulct Lord Tilbury in very substantial damages. Mentally phrasing it in a way which would never have met with the approval of Lionel Spenser, he proposed to soak Lord Tilbury good.

He was passing through the main gate with this purpose in mind when he heard his name called and, turning, perceived an ornate car with an ornate chauffeur at the wheel and was aware of his cousin Gwendoline's lovely head protruding from a side window.

"Percy," said Gwendoline, "what on earth are you doing here?"

"Gwen," said Percy, making the thing a duet, "what on earth are you doing here?"

"Lord Tilbury rang for the car, and I thought I'd come along. He seemed all upset about something. His voice sounded so sad."

"It'll sound sadder when I get hold of him," said Percy grimly. "He'll be lucky if he gets out of this for ten thousand pounds."

"Why, whatever do you mean?"

In burning words Percy related the tale of the wrongs that had been done him, and Gwendoline's beautiful eyes widened as she listened.

"You mean you're going to sue him?"

"Am I going to sue him! You bet I'm going to sue him."

"No, you aren't," said Gwendoline, and there was a steely note in her voice. Her azure eyes, so soft when meeting those of her employer, were hard. "You certainly aren't, and I'll tell you why. You start anything, young Perce, and I'll tell Biff what you told me about plotting his ruin with that Murphy friend of yours. And do you know what Biff'll do? He'll butter you over the pavement. You wouldn't want your block knocked off, would you, Perce? You wouldn't want to wake up in a hospital with nurses smoothing your pillow and doctors asking you where you want the body sent?"

"You couldn't prove I told you that," he said weakly.

"Oh, couldn't I? How could I have heard anything about it, if you hadn't told me? Biff'll believe it, anyway, which is all that matters. Did you know he was what they call an intercollegiate boxing champion when he was at college over in America?"

A coldness came over Percy, starting at the feet.

"Oh, all right," he said bitterly. "Have it your own way."

"Well, don't you forget," said Gwendoline. "OK, Watson, drive on. Home, James, and don't spare the horses."

&2022; &2022; &2022;

The sight of Gwendoline Gibbs always had much the same effect on Lord Tilbury as did that of a rainbow in the sky on the poet Wordsworth, but he had never been gladder to see her than he was now, for seldom had he felt a greater need of being cheered up. No newspaper proprietor likes to be in the toils of a private investigator, and Mr. Bunting had made it distressingly clear that Lord Tilbury was in those of Percy. Percy had a cast-iron case and there was practically no limit, said Mr. Bunting with a sort of horrible relish, to the damages juries dealt out for wrongful arrest and imprisonment.

When, therefore, Gwendoline revealed that she had met Percy and reasoned with him and persuaded him to drop the suit, such a surge of love and gratitude filled the proprietor of the Mammoth Publishing Company that only the thought of Mr. Pilbeam senior kept him from proposing on the spot.

"You are invaluable, Miss Gibbs," he cried. "I don't know what I would do without you."

"I'm afraid you're going to have to do without me, Lord Tilbury. Mr. Llewellyn wants to take me back to Hollywood with him. He said he had never seen anyone so photogenic."

Lord Tilbury's heart stood still. It then throbbed like a dynamo, and a moment later he was laying it at her feet. The thought that if he did not speak now, this girl would be lost to him forever overcame his misgivings about Mr. Pilbeam senior. To win her he was prepared to call Mr. Pilbeam Uncle Willie with every sentence he uttered.

"Don't do it!" he cried. "Don't dream of going to Hollywood!"

"But I'm photogenic. Mr. Llewellyn says so. He says I have a great future in pix."

"Damn Mr. Llewellyn and damn pix! Stay here and be my wife!"

"Oh, Lord Tilbury!"

"Don't call me Lord Tilbury. Call me George."

Gwendoline giggled.

"It sounds so funny."

"What sounds so funny?"

"Calling you George."

"I see nothing funny in it at all."

"Nothing funny in what?" asked Mr. Bunting, appearing from nowhere.

Lord Tilbury regarded him sourly.

"Bunting!"

"Yes, Tilbury?"

"Go for a walk!"

"But I've just been for a walk."

"Go for another."

"Why?"

"Can't you see I want to kiss her?"

Mr. Bunting looked doubtful.

"It is not a thing I should advise on a full stomach."

"Bunting!"

"It has been known to lead to apoplexy. There is a danger of embolism, brought about by a clot or other foreign body which is carried to the brain by the blood stream. I can assure you---"

"Bunting!"

"Yes, my dear fellow?"

"Do you want to be torn limb from limb?"

"Certainly not," said Mr. Bunting, who could imagine nothing less hygienic.

"Then go into the garden and stay in the garden and don't come out of the garden till you're told to."

"Certainly, certainly, certainly."

"Oh, Georgie," said the future Lady Tilbury lovingly, "you're so masterful."

&2022; &2022; &2022;

The uplifted feeling induced by the bulge in his pocket, where the signed agreement lay, had begun to ebb in Biff as he made his way through the grounds of The Oaks, Wimbledon Common. Recollection of last night's happenings was returning to him, and he could not rid himself of the conviction that among those happenings had been a fight, a brawl, a physical encounter between himself and a member of London's police force. It was all still very hazy, but definite enough to cast a shadow on what should have been a moment for joy and self-congratulation.

He had certainly become embroiled with someone last night – his injured eye testified to that – and more and more the impression began to solidify that this someone had worn a helmet, a uniform and a ginger mustache. The afternoon was warm, but as he walked with bowed head, probing into the past, a chill began to pervade his system.

His meditations were interrupted by the tooting of a horn, and looking up he saw Jerry at the wheel of a natty sports-model car whose appearance was vaguely familiar. He stared at him haughtily. After what had occurred he was not at all sure he was on speaking terms with Jerry. But he had now recognized the car as Linda's, and his curiosity as to what Jerry has doing in a car belonging to a girl he had never met was so great that he was compelled to utter. His opening words, oddly enough, were the same as those addressed by Percy Pilbeam to Gwendoline Gibbs and by Gwendoline Gibbs to Percy Pilbeam.

"What on earth are you doing here?" he cried.

"Your wife asked me to look you up," said Jerry. "Congratulations on that, by the way."

"Thanks."

"How does it feel being married?"

"Jerry o' man," said Biff, unbending completely and letting bygones be bygones, "it's the most extraordinary thing. You remember what I told you about how I should become a different man after I'd married Linda. Well, I'd looked on the reforming process as a gradual affair, if you know what I mean. I thought it would set in imperceptibly over the years and that the alterations would take place little by little as time went by, if you're still following me. But the change has been instantaneous, o' man, absolutely instantaneous. Do you know what happened just now?"

"I'm sorry, no. I'm a stranger in these parts."

"I wanted a drink. I found the key of old Tilbury's cellar. I hovered on the threshold and there before me were bottles and bottles, each charged to the brim with the right stuff. But I remembered I'd promised Linda I'd swear off, and I turned on my heel and walked away, leaving them unopened. That's what marriage docs to you. And the amazing thing is that instead of kicking myself for passing up the opportunity of a lifetime I'm pleased, happy, delighted. But how did you come to meet Linda? That's what's puzzling me."

"Oh, that happened quite simply. I was at the flat, thinking of this and that, when she blew in and asked me to come and remove you, because she had heard that Tilbury was on his way here. Did he show up?"

"Oh yes, he arrived."

"And kicked you out?"

"He hinted that I would be better elsewhere. I suppose you've come to take me back to Halsey Chambers?"

"That was the idea. Oh, by the way, talking of Halsey Chambers, a policeman called there just as I was leaving. He wanted to know if a gentleman who looked like a dachshund lived there."

"Holy smoke!"

"Yes, it startled me, I must admit."

"You said, of course, that he didn't?"

"Why, no. I couldn't lie to the police."

Biff clutched his forehead.

"This wants thinking out, Jerry o' man. I can't stay here, because old Tilbury's given me the bum's rush. I can't go back to the flat, because the cops'll be watching it. And if I stay in the open, I'll get pinched for vagrancy. So what's the answer?"

Jerry laughed and, when Biff told him with some asperity that there was nothing to laugh at, assured him that he was mistaken.

"Listen, Biff," he said, "I'm getting a lot of fun out of this and, speaking for myself, I could go on forever, but I suppose the humane thing is to tell you what the cop went on to say. I think you'll be interested. He asked me if I could get hold of you and bring you to the sickbed of the ginger-mustached officer who used to be on duty outside Halsey Court. He wants to thank his brave preserver."

"What are you talking about?"

"It's a stirring story. The ginger-mustached one was on his beat last night when what they call a gang of youths closed in on him, and he was being roughly handled, as the expression is. when suddenly a splendid young fellow who looked like a dachshund came bounding into the fray and saved him."

Biff stared.

"You're kidding."

"No, that's what happened, and I think I can see how it came about. You saw the cop getting massacred by the gang of youths and it infuriated you so to think it wasn't you who was doing the massacring that you sailed in and laid them out."

Biff's one unwounded eye roamed over the grounds of The Oaks, Wimbledon Common, and never to any visitor had their suburban charms seemed so pronounced. Even the house itself looked good to him.

"You mean the cops aren't after me?"

"Only to shake you by the hand."

"They aren't going to pinch me?"

"They'll probably give you a medal. And do you know another thing that'll make your day? You're going to have me as a brother-in-law."

"What!"

"Ask Kay if you're not."

"Ah, well," said Biff, having considered this, "one can't expect life to be all jam. We all have our cross to bear."

"Aren't you rejoicing at the thought of having me for a brother-in-law?"

"Did you say brother-in-law?" asked Mr. Bunting, manifesting himself apparently from thin air in that peculiar way of his. "Are you, too, going to be married?"

"I am."

"So, it appears, is everybody. It's a most extraordinary thing. I have just left Tilbury. He's getting married. Mr. Christopher was married this morning. And now you say you ... I didn't catch the name?"

"My name is Shoesmith."

"And now you, Mr. Shoesmith, are about to be married. It's like some sort of epidemic. Are you gentlemen returning to town?"

"That's right."

"Perhaps you will give me a lift?"

"Delighted."

"And then, if you will allow me," said Mr. Bunting, "I will take you to my club and you shall join me in a cup of cocoa. I do not often drink cocoa, as I find it hard to digest, but this is an occasion."

This is the final installment of a two-part serialization of P. G. Wodehouse's new novel, "Biffen's Millions."