Pelham Wodehouse - Spring Fever

"No," said Mike, proceeding, "it's no use my trying to pretend that I am hep. I am not hep. What is all this Rossiter stuff?"

Terry clicked her tongue impatiently, like a worried schoolmistress with a child of slow intelligence.

"Weren't you listening when Adela said that to Stanwood at dinner?"

"Said what?"

"About the album."

"I'm sorry. I missed it."

"Well, Spink is pretending that the album was given him by the son of some Americans named Rossiter who took the castle last summer—"

"The viper!" interpolated Lord Shortlands.

"—and somehow, I can't imagine how, he has got Stanwood to say he is Mr. Rossiter. And when Adela asked him if had given Spink the album, he said he had. Now do you see?"

Mike whistled. Lord Shortlands, whose nervous system had been greatly impaired by the night's happenings, asked him not to whistle, and Mike said that he would endeavour not to do so in future but that this particular whistle had been forced from him by the intense stickiness of the situation.

"I should say I do see," he said. "Has Spink got the stamp, then?"

"No, not yet. He came to the drawing room after dinner and asked for it, but Adela said that it would be much better for her to keep it till Desborough was well enough to go to London. She said he would be able to get a better price than Spink could, because he knows the right people to go to."

"Very shrewd."

"Spink argued a bit, but Adela squashed him."

"Good for her. Well, this is fine. This gives us a respite."

Lord Shortlands was not to be comforted.

"What's the good of a respite? What the dickens does it matter if the fellow gets the thing tonight or the day after tomorrow?"

"The delay, my dear Shorty, is of the utmost importance. It means everything. I have a plan."

"He has a plan," said Terry.

"I have a plan," said Mike. "No need to be surprised. You know my lightning brain. In the interval which elapses before Desborough Topping's lumbago slackens its grip and he is able to travel, we will act. Boys and girls, we are going to pinch this stamp."

"What!"

"Pinch it," said Mike firmly. "Swipe it. Obtain possession of it by strong-arm tactics. Up against this dark and subtle butler, we cannot afford to be too nice in our methods. He has raised the banner with the strange device 'Anything goes.' Let that slogan be ours."

Terry was a girl who believed in giving praise where praise was due, even though there was the risk that such praise might increase the tendency of its recipient to get above himself.

"What a splendid idea. How nice it is to come across someone with a really criminal mind. I suppose this is one of those hidden depths of yours that you were speaking of?"

"That's right. I'm full of them."

Lord Shortlands' conscience appeared to be less elastic than his daughter's. Where she had applauded, he fingered the chin dubiously.

"But I can't go about pinching things."

"Why not?" ' "Well, dash it."

"Oh, Shorty."

"No, he's quite right," said Mike. "I see what he means. He shrinks from smirching the old escutcheon, and I honor him for his scruples. But have no qualms, my dear Shorty. In pinching this stamp you will simply be restoring it to its rightful owner. That album belongs to Terry."

Terry shook her head.

"Well meant, but no good. Shorty knows I haven't collected stamps since I was in the schoolroom."

"It was in the schoolroom that you collected this one. I was on the point of mentioning it when we were getting out of the car the day I arrived, only Shorty was so sure the thing was his that I had hadn't the heart to. Throw your mind back. A rainy afternoon eight years ago. You were sitting at the schoolroom table, covered with glue, poring over your childish collection. I entered and said 'Hello, looking at your stamps?' You came clean. Yes, you said, you were looking at your stamps. 'You don't seem to have many,' I said. 'Would you like mine?', adding that I had recently been given an album full of the dam' things as a birthday present by an uncle who wasn't abreast of affairs and didn't know that it was considered bad form at the dear old school to collect stamps. A pastime only fit for kids."

"Oh, golly. Yes, I remember now."

"I thought you would. So I wrote for it and presented it to you."

"Little knowing that it was a gold mine."

"It would have made no difference if I had known. We Cardinals are like that. Lavish to those we love. You can imagine what excellent husbands we make."

"Well, we Cobbolds have scruples about accepting gifts worth hundreds of pounds from young men who look like Caesar Romero."

"I don't look in the least like Caesar Romero. And I don't see what you can do about it. You took it."

"I can give it back."

"A happy way out of the difficulty would be to turn it over to Shorty."

"That's a wonderful idea. Yes, I'll do that. So you see the stamp does belong to you, Shorty," said Terry. "Thank the gentleman, dear."

"Thanks," said Lord Shortlands dazedly. Things were happening a little too rapidly tonight for his orderly mind, and he had the sense of having been caught up in a cyclone. He was also conscious of a lurking feeling that there was a catch somewhere, if only he could pin it down.

"You are now able," said Mike, pointing out the happy ending, "to tie a can to your spiritual struggles. Your conscience, satisfied that it is being asked to do nothing raw, can spit on its hands and charge ahead without a tremor. Or don't you agree with me?"

"Oh, quite. Oh, certainly. But—"

"Now what?"

"Well, dash it, this stamp's worth fifteen hundred pounds, Desborough says. I can't take fifteen hundred pounds from you, Terry." This was not actually the catch which Lord Shortlands was trying to pin down—that still eluded him—but it was a point that needed to be touched on. "If you could let me have two hundred as a loan—"

"Nonsense, darling. What's mine is yours."

"Well, it's extremely kind of you, my dear. I hardly know what to say."

"Mike's the one you ought to be grateful to."

"I am. His generosity is princely."

"Yes," said Mike. "What an extraordinarily fine fellow this chap Cardinal is turning out to be. But let's stick to business. The proposal before the meeting is that we pinch this stamp before Spink can get his hooks on it. Carried, unanimously, I fancy? Yes, carried unanimously. It only remains, therefore, to decide on the best means to that end. It should not be difficult. A little cunning questioning of Desborough Topping will inform us where Lady Adela is keeping the things. No doubt in the drawer of her escritoire or somewhere. Having ascertained this, we procure a stout chisel and go to it."

"But—"

"Now, don't make difficulties, Shorty darling," said Terry maternally. "You must see that this is the only way. I'll go and question Desborough cunningly."

She went out, and Lord Shortlands continued to exhibit evidence of the cold foot and the sagging spine. Mike looked at him solicitously.

"I still note a faint shadow on your brow, Shorty," he said. "What seems to be the trouble? Not the conscience again?"

Lord Shortlands had found the catch.

"But, my dear fellow, if Adela finds the drawer of her escritoire broken open and the stamp gone, she'll suspect me."

"Well, what do you care? You'll simply laugh at her. 'What are you going to do about it?' you will say, adding or not adding 'Huh?' according to taste. And she will bite her lip in silence."

"Silence?" said Lord Shortlands dubiously.

"She won't have a thing to say. What can she say?"

"H'm," said Lord Shortlands, and so joyless was his manner that Mike felt constrained to pat him on the back.

"Tails up," he urged.

Lord Shortlands' manner continued joyless.