Three

I had described Roderick Spode to the butler as a man with an eye that could open an oyster at sixty paces, and it was an eye of this nature that he was directing at me now. I saw that I had been mistaken in supposing him to be seven feet in height. Eight, at least. Also the slowly working jaw muscles.

I hoped he was not going to say “Ha!” but he did. And that concluded the dialogue sequence for the moment. Then, still keeping his eyes glued on me, he shouted: “Sir Atkyn!” There was a distant sound of Eh-yes-here-I-am-what-is-it-ing. “Come here, please. I have something to show you.” Old Bassett appeared in the window, adjusting his pince-nez.

“Look!” said Spode. “Would you have thought such a thing possible?”

Old Bassett was goggling at me with a sort of stunned amazement.

“Good God! It’s the bag-snatcher!”

“Yes. Isn’t it incredible?”

“It’s unbelievable. Why, damn it, I’s persecution. Fellow follows me everywhere. Never a free moment. How did you catch him?”

“I was walking along the drive, and I saw a furtive figure slink in at the window. I hurried up, and covered him with my gun. Just in time. He had already begun to loot the place.”

“Well, I’m most obliged to you, Roderick. But what I can’t understand is the chap’s pertinacity. But no. Well, he will be sorry he did.”

“I suppose this is too serious a case for you to deal with summarily?”

“I can issue a warrant for his arrest. Bring him along to the library, and I’ll do it now. The case will have to go to the Assizes.”

“What will he get, how do you think?”

“Not easy to say. But certainly not less than—”

“Hoy!” I said. I had intended to speak in a quiet, reasonable voice—to explain that I was on these premises as an invited guest, but for some reason the word came out like a thunder. Spode said: “Don’t shout like that! ”

“Nearly broke my ear-drum,” grumbled old Bassett.

“But listen!” I yelled. “Will you listen!”

A certain amount of confused argument then ensued, and in the middle of it all, the door opened and somebody said “Goodness gracious!”

I looked round. Those parted lips… those saucer-like eyes… that slender figure… Madeline Bassett came in. “Goodness gracious!” she repeated. She was definitely the sort of girl who puts her hands over a husband’s eyes, as he is crawling in to breakfast with a morning head, and says: “Guess who!”

I once stayed at the residence of a newly married pal of mine, and his bride had had carved in large letters over the fireplace in the drawing room, where it was impossible to miss it, the legend: “Two Lovers Built This Nest.” Whether Madeline Bassett, on entering the marital state, would do the same, I could not say, but it seemed most probable. She was looking at us with a sort of pretty, wide-eyed wonder. “What is all the noise about?” she said. “Why, Bertie! When did you get here?”

“Oh, hallo. I’ve just arrived.”

“Did you have a nice journey?”

“Oh, rather, thanks.”

“You must be quite exhausted.”

“Oh, no, thanks, rather not.”

“Well, tea will be ready soon. I see you’ve met Daddy.”

“And Mr. Spode.”

“And Mr. Spode. I don’t know where Augustus is, but he’s sure to be in to tea.”

Old Bassett had been listening to these courtesies with a dazed expression on the face. To him, Bertram was a creature of the underworld who stole bags and umbrellas and, what made it worse, didn’t even steal them well.

“You don’t mean you know this man?” he said. Madeline Bassett laughed the tinkling, silvery laugh.

“Why, Daddy, you’re too absurd. Of course I know him. Bertie Wooster is an old, old, a very dear old friend of mine. I told you he was coming here today.”

“This isn’t your friend Mr. Wooster?”

“Of course.”

“But he snatches bags.”

“Umbrellas,” prompted Spode.

“And umbrellas,” assented old Bassett. “And makes daylight raids on antique shops.”

“Daddy!” said Madeline

“He does, I tell you. I’ve caught him at it,” Old Bassett said

“I’ve caught him at it,” said Spode.

“We’ve both caught him at it,” said old Bassett. “All over London. Wherever you go in London, there you will find this fellow stealing bags and umbrellas. And now in the heart of Gloucestershire^[58].”

“Nonsense!” said Madeline. I saw that it was time to put an end to all this rot.

“Of course it’s nonsense,” I thundered. “The whole thing is one of those laughable misunderstandings.”

I must say I was expecting that my explanation would have gone better than it did. But old Bassett, like so many of these police court magistrates, was a difficult man to convince. He kept interrupting and asking questions, and looking at me as he asked them. You know what I mean—questions beginning with “Just one moment—” and “You say—” and “Then you are asking us to believe—” Offensive, very.

However, I managed to get him straight on the umbrella, and he conceded that he might have judged me unjustly about that.

“But how about the bags?”

“There weren’t any bags. ”

“I certainly sentenced you for something at Bosher Street^[59]. I remember it vividly”

“I pinched a policeman’s helmet.”

“That’s just as bad as snatching bags.”

Roderick Spode intervened unexpectedly. He had been standing by, thoughtfully listening to my statements.

“No,” he said, “I don’t think you can go so far as that. When I was at Oxford, I once stole a policeman’s helmet myself.”

I was astounded. It just showed, as I often say, that there is good in the worst of us. But old Bassett said,

“Well, how about that affair at the antique shop? Hey? Didn’t we catch him in the act of running off with my cow-creamer? What has he got to say to that?”

Spode nodded.

“The bloke at the shop had given it to me to look at,” I said shortly. “He advised me to take it outside, where the light was better.”

“You were rushing out.”

“I trod on the cat.”

“What cat?”

“It lives there, I suppose.”

“Hm! I saw no cat. Did you see a cat, Roderick?”

“No, no cat.”

“Ha! But what were you doing with that cow-creamer? You say you were looking at it. You are asking us to believe that you were merely looking at it. Why? What was your motive? What possible interest could it have for a man like you?”

“Exactly,” said Spode. “The very question I was going to ask myself.”

“You say the proprietor of the shop handed it to you. But I say that you snatched it up and were running away. And now Mr. Spode catches you here, with the thing in your hands. How do you explain that? What’s your answer to that? Hey?”

“Why, Daddy!” said Madeline. “Naturally your silver would be the first thing Bertie would want to look at. Of course, he is interested in it. Bertie is Mr. Travers’s nephew.”

“What!”

“Didn’t you know that? Your uncle has a wonderful collection, hasn’t he, Bertie? I suppose he has often spoken to you of Daddy’s.”

There was a pause. Old Bassett was breathing heavily. I didn’t like the look of him at all. He glanced from me to the cow-creamer, and from the cow-creamer to me, then back from me to the cow-creamer again.

“Oh!” he said. Just that. Nothing more. But it was enough.

“I say,” I said, “could I send a telegram?”

“You can telephone it from the library,” said Madeline. “I’ll take you there.”

She conducted me to the instrument and left me, saying that she would be waiting in the hall when I had finished. I established connection with the post office, and after a brief conversation with what appeared to be the village idiot, telephoned as follows:

Mrs Travers, 47, Charles Street^[60], Berkeley Square, London.

I paused for a moment, then proceeded thus:

Deeply regret quite impossible carry out assignment you know what. Atmosphere one of keenest suspicion and any sort of action instantly fatal^[61]. You ought to have seen old Bassett’s eye just now on learning of blood relationship of myself and Uncle Tom. Sorry and all that, but nothing doing.

Love. Bertie

I then went down to the hall to join Madeline Bassett. She was standing by the barometer, which would have been pointing to “Stormy” instead of “Set Fair”. She turned and gazed at me with a tender goggle which sent a thrill of dread creeping down the spine.

“Oh, Bertie,” she said, in a low voice like beer trickling out of a jug, “you ought not to be here!”

My recent interview with old Bassett and Roderick Spode had rather set me thinking along those lines myself. But I hadn’t time to explain that this was no idle social visit, and that if Gussie hadn’t been sending out SOSs I wouldn’t have dreamed of coming here. She went on, looking at me as if I were a rabbit which she was expecting shortly to turn into a gnome.

“Why did you come? Oh, I know what you are going to say. You felt that you had to see me again, just once. You could not resist the urge to take away with you one last memory, which you could cherish down the lonely years. Oh, Bertie, you remind me of Rudel^[62].”

The name was new to me. “Rudel?”

“The Seigneur Geoffrey Rudel, Prince of Blay-en-Saintonge^[63].”

I shook my head. “Never met him, I’m afraid. Pal of yours?”

“He lived in the Middle Ages. He was a great poet. And he fell in love with the wife of the Lord of Tripoli^[64].”

I stirred uneasily.

“For years he loved her, and at last he could resist no longer. He took ship to Tripoli, and his servants carried him ashore. ”

“Not feeling so good?” I said. “Rough crossing?^[65]”

“He was dying. Of love.”

“Oh, ah.”

“They bore him into the Lady Melisande’s^[66] presence on a litter, and he had just strength enough to reach out and touch her hand. Then he died.”

She paused, and heaved a sigh. A silence ensued.

“Terrific,” I said, feeling I had to say something. She sighed again.

“You see now why I said you reminded me of Rudel. Like him, you came to take one last glimpse of the woman you loved. It was dear of you, Bertie, and I shall never forget it. It will always remain with me as a fragrant memory, like a flower pressed between the leaves of an old album. But was it wise? Should you not have been strong? Would it not have been better to have ended it all cleanly, that day when we said goodbye at Brinkley Court, and not to have reopened the wound? We had met, and you have loved me, and I had had to tell you that my heart was another’s. That should have been our farewell.”