"What-ho!" I said.
The result of this simple greeting was a bit of a shock. Old Bittlesham quivered from head to foot like a poleaxed blanc-mange. His eyes were popping and his face had gone sort of greenish.
"Mr. Wooster!" He seemed to recover somewhat, as if I wasn't the worst thing that could have happened to him. "You gave me a severe start."
"Oh, sorry!"
"My uncle," said young Bingo in a hushed, bedside sort of voice, "isn't feeling quite himself this morning. He's had a threatening letter."
"I go in fear of my life," said old Bittlesham.
"Threatening letter?"
"Written," said old Bittlesham, "in an uneducated hand and couched in terms of uncompromising menace. Mr. Wooster, do you recall a sinister, bearded man who assailed me in no measured terms in Hyde Park last Sunday?"
[Pg 128]
I jumped, and shot a look at young Bingo. The only expression on his face was one of grave, kindly concern.
"Why—ah—yes," I said. "Bearded man. Chap with a beard."
"Could you identify him, if necessary?"
"Well, I—er—how do you mean?"
"The fact is, Bertie," said Bingo, "we think this man with the beard is at the bottom of all this business. I happened to be walking late last night through Pounceby Gardens, where Uncle Mortimer lives, and as I was passing the house a fellow came hurrying down the steps in a furtive sort of way. Probably he had just been shoving the letter in at the front door. I noticed that he had a beard. I didn't think any more of it, however, until this morning, when Uncle Mortimer showed me the letter he had received and told me about the chap in the Park. I'm going to make inquiries."
"The police should be informed," said Lord Bittlesham.
"No," said young Bingo firmly, "not at this stage of the proceedings. It would hamper me. Don't you worry, uncle; I think I can track this fellow down. You leave it all to me. I'll pop you into a taxi now, and go and talk it over with Bertie."
"You're a good boy, Richard," said old Bittlesham, and we put him in a passing cab and pushed off. I turned and looked young Bingo squarely in the eyeball.
"Did you send that letter?" I said.
"Rather! You ought to have seen it, Bertie! One of the best gent's ordinary threatening letters I ever wrote."
"But where's the sense of it?"
"Bertie, my lad," said Bingo, taking me earnestly by the coat-sleeve, "I had an excellent reason.[Pg 129] Posterity may say of me what it will, but one thing it can never say—that I have not a good solid business head. Look here!" He waved a bit of paper in front of my eyes.
"Great Scott!" It was a cheque—an absolute, dashed cheque for fifty of the best, signed Bittlesham, and made out to the order of R. Little.
"What's that for?"
"Expenses," said Bingo, pouching it. "You don't suppose an investigation like this can be carried on for nothing, do you? I now proceed to the bank and startle them into a fit with it. Later I edge round to my bookie and put the entire sum on Ocean Breeze. What you want in situations of this kind, Bertie, is tact. If I had gone to my uncle and asked him for fifty quid, would I have got it? No! But by exercising tact—— Oh! by the way, what do you think of Charlotte?"
"Well—er——"
Young Bingo massaged my sleeve affectionately.
"I know, old man, I know. Don't try to find words. She bowled you over, eh? Left you speechless, what? I know! That's the effect she has on everybody. Well, I leave you here, laddie. Oh, before we part—Butt! What of Butt? Nature's worst blunder, don't you think?"
"I must say I've seen cheerier souls."
"I think I've got him licked, Bertie. Charlotte is coming to the Zoo with me this afternoon. Alone. And later on to the pictures. That looks like the beginning of the end, what? Well, toodle-oo, friend of my youth. If you've nothing better to do this morning, you might take a stroll along Bond Street and be picking out a wedding present."
[Pg 130]
I lost sight of Bingo after that. I left messages a couple of times at the club, asking him to ring me up, but they didn't have any effect. I took it that he was too busy to respond. The Sons of the Red Dawn also passed out of my life, though Jeeves told me he had met Comrade Butt one evening and had a brief chat with him. He reported Butt as gloomier than ever. In the competition for the bulging Charlotte, Butt had apparently gone right back in the betting.
"Mr. Little would appear to have eclipsed him entirely, sir," said Jeeves.
"Bad news, Jeeves; bad news!"
"Yes, sir."
"I suppose what it amounts to, Jeeves, is that, when young Bingo really takes his coat off and starts in, there is no power of God or man that can prevent him making a chump of himself."
"It would seem so, sir," said Jeeves.
Then Goodwood came along, and I dug out the best suit and popped down.
I never know, when I'm telling a story, whether to cut the thing down to plain facts or whether to drool on and shove in a lot of atmosphere, and all that. I mean, many a cove would no doubt edge into the final spasm of this narrative with a long description of Goodwood, featuring the blue sky, the rolling prospect, the joyous crowds of pick-pockets, and the parties of the second part who were having their pockets picked, and—in a word, what not. But better give it a miss, I think. Even if I wanted to go into details about the bally meeting I don't think I'd have the heart to. The thing's too recent. The anguish hasn't had time to pass. You see, what happened was that Ocean Breeze (curse him!) finished absolutely nowhere for the Cup. Believe me, nowhere.
[Pg 131]
These are the times that try men's souls. It's never pleasant to be caught in the machinery when a favourite comes unstitched, and in the case of this particular dashed animal, one had come to look on the running of the race as a pure formality, a sort of quaint, old-world ceremony to be gone through before one sauntered up to the bookie and collected. I had wandered out of the paddock to try and forget, when I bumped into old Bittlesham: and he looked so rattled and purple, and his eyes were standing out of his head at such an angle, that I simply pushed my hand out and shook his in silence.
"Me, too," I said. "Me, too. How much did you drop?"
"Drop?"
"On Ocean Breeze."
"I did not bet on Ocean Breeze."
"What! You owned the favourite for the Cup, and didn't back it!"
"I never bet on horse-racing. It is against my principles. I am told that the animal failed to win the contest."
"Failed to win! Why, he was so far behind that he nearly came in first in the next race."
"Tut!" said old Bittlesham.
"Tut is right," I agreed. Then the rumminess of the thing struck me. "But if you haven't dropped a parcel over the race," I said, "why are you looking so rattled?"
"That fellow is here!"
"What fellow?"
"That bearded man."
It will show you to what an extent the iron had entered into my soul when I say that this was the first time I had given a thought to young Bingo. I suddenly remembered now that he had told me he would be at Goodwood.
[Pg 132]
"He is making an inflammatory speech at this very moment, specifically directed at me. Come! Where that crowd is." He lugged me along and, by using his weight scientifically, got us into the front rank. "Look! Listen!"
* * * * *
Young Bingo was certainly tearing off some ripe stuff. Inspired by the agony of having put his little all on a stumer that hadn't finished in the first six, he was fairly letting himself go on the subject of the blackness of the hearts of plutocratic owners who allowed a trusting public to imagine a horse was the real goods when it couldn't trot the length of its stable without getting its legs crossed and sitting down to rest. He then went on to draw what I'm bound to say was a most moving picture of the ruin of a working man's home, due to this dishonesty. He showed us the working man, all optimism and simple trust, believing every word he read in the papers about Ocean Breeze's form; depriving his wife and children of food in order to back the brute; going without beer so as to be able to cram an extra bob on; robbing the baby's money-box with a hatpin on the eve of the race; and finally getting let down with a thud. Dashed impressive it was. I could see old Rowbotham nodding his head gently, while poor old Butt glowered at the speaker with ill-concealed jealousy. The audience ate it.
"But what does Lord Bittlesham care," shouted Bingo, "if the poor working man loses his hard-earned savings? I tell you, friends and comrades, you may talk, and you may argue, and you may cheer, and you may pass resolutions, but what you need is Action! Action! The world won't be a fit place for honest men to live in till the blood[Pg 133] of Lord Bittlesham and his kind flows in rivers down the gutters of Park Lane!"
Roars of approval from the populace, most of whom, I suppose, had had their little bit on blighted Ocean Breeze, and were feeling it deeply. Old Bittlesham bounded over to a large, sad policeman who was watching the proceedings, and appeared to be urging him to rally round. The policeman pulled at his moustache, and smiled gently, but that was as far as he seemed inclined to go; and old Bittlesham came back to me, puffing not a little.
"It's monstrous! The man definitely threatens my personal safety, and that policeman declines to interfere. Said it was just talk. Talk! It's monstrous!"
"Absolutely," I said, but I can't say it seemed to cheer him up much.
Comrade Butt had taken the centre of the stage now. He had a voice like the Last Trump, and you could hear every word he said, but somehow he didn't seem to be clicking. I suppose the fact was he was too impersonal, if that's the word I want. After Bingo's speech the audience was in the mood for something a good deal snappier than just general remarks about the Cause. They had started to heckle the poor blighter pretty freely when he stopped in the middle of a sentence, and I saw that he was staring at old Bittlesham.
The crowd thought he had dried up.
"Suck a lozenge," shouted some one.
Comrade Butt pulled himself together with a jerk, and even from where I stood I could see the nasty gleam in his eye.
"Ah," he yelled, "you may mock, comrades; you may jeer and sneer; and you may scoff; but[Pg 134] let me tell you that the movement is spreading every day and every hour. Yes, even amongst the so-called upper classes it's spreading. Perhaps you'll believe me when I tell you that here, to-day, on this very spot, we have in our little band one of our most earnest workers, the nephew of that very Lord Bittlesham whose name you were hooting but a moment ago."
And before poor old Bingo had a notion of what was up, he had reached out a hand and grabbed the beard. It came off all in one piece, and, well as Bingo's speech had gone, it was simply nothing compared with the hit made by this bit of business. I heard old Bittlesham give one short, sharp snort of amazement at my side, and then any remarks he may have made were drowned in thunders of applause.
I'm bound to say that in this crisis young Bingo acted with a good deal of decision and character. To grab Comrade Butt by the neck and try to twist his head off was with him the work of a moment. But before he could get any results the sad policeman, brightening up like magic, had charged in, and the next minute he was shoving his way back through the crowd, with Bingo in his right hand and Comrade Butt in his left.
"Let me pass, sir, please," he said, civilly, as he came up against old Bittlesham, who was blocking the gangway.
"Eh?" said old Bittlesham, still dazed.
At the sound of his voice young Bingo looked up quickly from under the shadow of the policeman's right hand, and as he did so all the stuffing seemed to go out of him with a rush. For an instant he drooped like a bally lily, and then shuffled brokenly on. His air was the air of a man who has got it in the neck properly.
[Pg 135]
Sometimes when Jeeves has brought in my morning tea and shoved it on the table beside my bed, he drifts silently from the room and leaves me to go to it: at other times he sort of shimmies respectfully in the middle of the carpet, and then I know that he wants a word or two. On the day after I had got back from Goodwood I was lying on my back, staring at the ceiling, when I noticed that he was still in my midst.
"Oh, hallo," I said. "Yes?"
"Mr. Little called earlier in the morning, sir."
"Oh, by Jove, what? Did he tell you about what happened?"
"Yes, sir. It was in connection with that that he wished to see you. He proposes to retire to the country and remain there for some little while."
"Dashed sensible."
"That was my opinion, also, sir. There was, however, a slight financial difficulty to be overcome. I took the liberty of advancing him ten pounds on your behalf to meet current expenses. I trust that meets with your approval, sir?"
"Oh, of course. Take a tenner off the dressing-table."
"Very good, sir."
"Jeeves," I said.
"Sir?"
"What beats me is how the dickens the thing happened. I mean, how did the chappie Butt ever get to know who he was?"
Jeeves coughed.
"There, sir, I fear I may have been somewhat to blame."
"You? How?"
"I fear I may carelessly have disclosed Mr. Little's identity to Mr. Butt on the occasion when I had that conversation with him."
[Pg 136]
I sat up.
"What!"
"Indeed, now that I recall the incident, sir, I distinctly remember saying that Mr. Little's work for the Cause really seemed to me to deserve something in the nature of public recognition. I greatly regret having been the means of bringing about a temporary estrangement between Mr. Little and his lordship. And I am afraid there is another aspect to the matter. I am also responsible for the breaking off of relations between Mr. Little and the young lady who came to tea here."
I sat up again. It's a rummy thing, but the silver lining had absolutely escaped my notice till then.
"Do you mean to say it's off?"
"Completely, sir. I gathered from Mr. Little's remarks that his hopes in the direction may now be looked on as definitely quenched. If there were no other obstacle, the young lady's father, I am informed by Mr. Little, now regards him as a spy and a deceiver."
"Well, I'm dashed!"
"I appear inadvertently to have caused much trouble, sir."
"Jeeves!" I said.
"Sir?"
"How much money is there on the dressing-table?"
"In addition to the ten-pound note which you instructed me to take, sir, there are two five-pound notes, three one-pounds, a ten-shillings, two half-crowns, a florin, four shillings, a sixpence, and a halfpenny, sir."
"Collar it all," I said. "You've earned it."