Pelham Wodehouse - Spring Fever

"What an admirable idea!"

"I told you I was good. With my other hand I could be choking her."

"I don't think I'd do that."

"It's how I see the scene. Still, just as you please. Tell me," said Mike, the trend of the conversation and certain previous observations on the part of both his host and his host's youngest daughter having suggested a thought to him. "If I am not intruding on delicate family secrets, is your sister Adela what is technically known as a tough baby?"

"None tougher. Her bite spells death."

"I thought as much. Yet here I am, about to stroll calmly into her presence, impersonating an honoured guest, a thing which, if discovered, must infallibly bring her right to the boil. You must be admiring me a good deal."

"Oh, I am."

"'My hero!' you are possibly saying to yourself."

"Those very words."

"So I supposed. Women always admire courage. And how quickly admiration turns to love. Like a flash. It won't be long before you are weeping salt tears and asking me if I can ever forgive you for having tortured me with your coldness. A week at the outside. What is this door before which we have paused?"

"The drawing room. You seem to have forgotten the geography of the house."

"They didn't allow me in the drawing room much, when I was here before. Rightly or wrongly, they considered that my proper place was in the tool shed, playing ha'penny nap with Tony and the second footman. All right, Lord Shortlands, lead on."

Lord Shortlands led on.

There was a moment, when Mike caught his first glimpse of Lady Adela Topping, when even his iron courage faltered a trifle. He had been warned, of course. They had told him that the chatelaine of Beevor Castle was a tough baby. But he had not been prepared for anything quite so formidable as this. Lady Adela had just returned from the garden and was still holding a stout pair of shears, and the thought of what a nasty flesh wound could be inflicted with these had a daunting effect.

And apart from the shears he found her appearance intimidating. She was looking even more like Catherine of Russia than usual, and it is pretty generally agreed that Catherine of Russia, despite many excellent qualities, was not everybody's girl.

However, he rallied quickly and played his part well in the scene of introduction, helped not a little by the fact that his hostess was showing her most affable and agreeable side. His spectacular good looks had made a powerful impression on the woman behind the shears, who noted with approval that Terry also was looking her best. It seemed to Lady Adela that it would be a very young man who could fail to be attracted by so alluring a girl, and that Terry, for her part, unaccountable though she was in many ways, could scarcely remain indifferent for long to such outstanding physical qualities in a man whose father was a millionaire. She was cordiality itself to Mike.

"So delighted that you were able to come, Mr. Cobbold."

"So kind of you to have me, Lady Adela."

"I hope you will like it here. Terry must show you round after tea."

"She was just suggesting it."

"The rose garden—"

"She particularly mentioned the rose garden. She was telling me how romantic and secluded it was. 'We shall be quite alone there,' she said."

"Your window looks out on it. You might show Mr. Cobbold his room, Terry. There is just time before tea. He is in the Blue Room."

The door closed behind Terry and Mike, and Lord Shortlands, who during these polished exchanges had been shuffling his feet with some impatience, opened the subject nearest his heart.

"Where's that stamp?" he demanded.

"Stamp?" Lady Adela seemed to come out of a trance. In moving to the door Mike had shown his profile to her and she had been musing on it in a sort of ecstasy. Surely, she was feeling, a profile like that, taken in conjunction with a father's bank balance . . . "Oh, the stamp? You mean the one Desborough found."

"Yes. I want it in my possession."

"But it's not yours."

"Yes, it is. Certainly it's mine."

"Oh, of course, I had forgotten. You don't know. That wasn't your album. After lunch Clare started hunting around for things for her jumble sale, and she found yours at the back of one of the drawers of the desk in your study. It had your name on it, so there can't be any mistake. So the other one must belong to Spink."

A nightmare feeling that the solid floor was slipping from under him gripped Lord Shortlands.

"Spink!"

The name Spink has qualities—that "s" at the begining, which you can hiss, and that strong, culminating "k"—which render it almost perfect for shouting at the top of his voice. It was at the top of his voice that Lord Shortlands had shouted it, and his daughter quivered as if he had hit her.

"Father! You nearly deafened me."

"Spink?" repeated Lord Shortlands, a little more on the piano side, but still loudly.

"Yes. Desborough was talking about the stamp at lunch, and Clare was telling Mr. Blair how she had found the album in a cupboard, and after lunch Spink came to me and explained that it was one which had been given him by Mr. Rossiter, the son of those Americans who took the castle last summer. He said he had been looking for it everywhere."

Lord Shortlands clutched for support at a chair. He was conscious of a feeling that it was very hard that a man with a high blood pressure should be subjected to this kind of thing. He could not forget that it was the death by apoplectic stroke of his uncle Gervase that had enabled him to succeed to the title.

"Spink said that?"

"Yes."

Lord Shortlands suddenly came to life.

"It's a ramp!" he cried passionately.

Every instinct told him that Mervyn Spink's story was a tissue or, putting it another way, a farrago of falsehood. Do Americans who take castles for summers give butlers stamp albums? Of course they don't. They haven't any, to start with, and if they have they don't give them away. What on earth would they give them away for? And who ever heard of a philatelist butler? Preposterous, felt Lord Shortlands.

"It's a bally try-on!" he thundered.

"I don't know what you mean. Spink tells me he has collected stamps since he was a boy, and I see nothing improbable in his story. Anyhow, he claims the thing."

"I don't care if he claims it till he's blue in the face."

Lady Adela's eyebrows rose.

"Well, really, Father, I can't see why you are making such a fuss."

"Fuss!"

"I mean, it isn't as if there were any chance of it being yours. And it must belong to somebody, so why not Spink? No doubt Mr. Rossiter did give it to him. It's just the sort of thing an American would do."

"Well, I strongly protest against your handing this stamp over to Spink till he produces Rossiter. His statement is that Rossiter gave it to him. All right, then, let him produce Rossiter."

"He's going to."

A faint gleam of hope illumined Lord Shortlands' darkness.

"Then you haven't given it to him?"

"Naturally not on his unsupported word. He says he thinks Mr. Rossiter is in London, and he has gone up to try to find him. In the meantime the stamp will be quite safe. I have got it locked away. Ah, tea," said Lady Adela welcomingly.

Lord Shortlands, though generally fond of his cup at this hour, exhibited no corresponding elation. He was staring before him with unseeing eyes and wishing that the kindly Aloysius McGuffy could have been at his side, to start shaking up six or seven of his justly famous Specials.

A song on his lips and the sparkle of triumph in his eye, opening his throttle gaily and tooting his horn with a carefree exuberance, Mervyn Spink sped home from London on his motorcycle, his air that of a man who sits on top of the world. Only the necessity of keeping both hands on the handle bars prevented him patting himself on the back.