Pelham Wodehouse - The Intrusion of Jimmy

This was the line of thought that had kept him cheerful during what might otherwise have been a trying interview. He was aware from the first that Sir Thomas would not believe in the purity of his motives; but he was convinced that the knight would be satisfied to secure his silence on the subject of the paste necklace at any price. He had looked forward to baffled rage, furious denunciation, and a dozen other expressions of emotion, but certainly not to collapse of this kind.

The other had begun to make strange, gurgling noises.

"Mind you," said Jimmy, "it's a very good imitation. I'll say that for it. I didn't suspect it till I had the thing in my hands. Looking at it—even quite close—I was taken in for a moment."

Sir Thomas swallowed nervously.

"How did you know?" he muttered.

Again, Jimmy was surprised. He had expected indignant denials and demands for proof, excited reiteration of the statement that the stones had cost twenty thousand pounds.

"How did I know?" he repeated. "If you mean what first made me suspect, I couldn't tell you. It might have been one of a score of things. A jeweler can't say exactly how he gets on the track of fake stones. He can feel them. He can almost smell them. I worked with a jeweler once. That's how I got my knowledge of jewels. But, if you mean, can I prove what I say about this necklace, that's easy. There's no deception. It's simple. See here. These stones are supposed to be diamonds. Well, the diamond is the hardest stone in existence. Nothing will scratch it. Now, I've got a little ruby, out of a college pin, which I know is genuine. By rights, then, that ruby ought not to have scratched these stones. You follow that? But it did. It scratched two of them, the only two I tried. If you like, I can continue the experiment. But there's no need. I can tell you right now what these stones are, I said they were paste, but that wasn't quite accurate. They're a stuff called white jargoon. It's a stuff that's very easily faked. You work it with the flame of a blow-pipe. You don't want a full description, I suppose? Anyway, what happens is that the blow-pipe sets it up like a tonic. Gives it increased specific gravity and a healthy complexion and all sorts of great things of that kind. Two minutes in the flame of a blow-pipe is like a week at the seashore to a bit of white jargoon. Are you satisfied? If it comes to that, I guess you can hardly be expected to be. Convinced is a better word. Are you convinced, or do you hanker after tests like polarized light and refracting liquids?"

Sir Thomas had staggered to a chair.

"So, that was how you knew!" he said.

"That was—" began Jimmy, when a sudden suspicion flashed across his mind. He scrutinized Sir Thomas' pallid face keenly.

"Did you know?" he asked.

He wondered that the possibility had not occurred to him earlier. This would account for much that had puzzled him in the other's reception of the news. He had supposed, vaguely, without troubling to go far into the probabilities of such a thing, that the necklace which Spike had brought to him had been substituted for the genuine diamonds by a thief. Such things happened frequently, he knew. But, remembering what Molly had told him of the care which Sir Thomas took of this particular necklace, and the frequency with which Lady Julia wore it, he did not see how such a substitution could have been effected. There had been no chance of anybody's obtaining access to these stones for the necessary length of time.

"By George, I believe you did!" he cried. "You must have! So, that's how it happened, is it? I don't wonder it was a shock when I said I knew about the necklace."

"Mr. Pitt!"

"Well?"

"I have something to say to you."

"I'm listening."

Sir Thomas tried to rally. There was a touch of the old pomposity in his manner when he spoke.

"Mr. Pitt, I find you in an unpleasant position—"

Jimmy interrupted.

"Don't you worry about my unpleasant position," he said. "Fix your attention exclusively upon your own. Let us be frank with one another. You're in the cart. What do you propose to do about it?"

Sir Thomas rallied again, with the desperation of one fighting a lost cause.

"I do not understand you—" he began.

"No?" said Jimmy. "I'll try and make my meaning clear. Correct me from time to time, if I am wrong. The way I size the thing up is as follows: When you married Lady Julia, I gather that it was, so to speak, up to you to some extent. People knew you were a millionaire, and they expected something special in the way of gifts from the bridegroom to the bride. Now, you, being of a prudent and economical nature, began to wonder if there wasn't some way of getting a reputation for lavishness without actually unbelting to any great extent. Am I right?"

Sir Thomas did not answer.

"I am," said Jimmy. "Well, it occurred to you, naturally enough, that a properly-selected gift of jewelry might work the trick. It only needed a little nerve. When you give a present of diamonds to a lady, she is not likely to call for polarized light and refracting liquids and the rest of the circus. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, she will take the things on trust. Very well. You trotted off to a jeweler, and put the thing to him confidentially. I guess you suggested paste. But, being a wily person, he pointed out that paste has a habit of not wearing well. It is pretty enough when it's new, but quite a small amount of ordinary wear and tear destroys the polish of the surface and the sharpness of the cutting. It gets scratched easily. Having heard this, and reflecting that Lady Julia was not likely to keep the necklace under a glass case, you rejected paste as too risky. The genial jeweler then suggested white jargoon, mentioning, as I have done, that, after an application or so of the blow-pipe, it's own mother wouldn't know it. If he was a bit of an antiquary, he probably added that, in the eighteenth century, jargoon stones were supposed to be actually an inferior sort of diamond. What could be more suitable? 'Make it jargoon, dear heart,' you cried joyfully, and all was well. Am I right? I notice that you have not corrected me so far."

Whether or not Sir Thomas would have replied in the affirmative is uncertain. He was opening his mouth to speak, when the curtain at the end of the room heaved, and Lord Dreever burst out like a cannon-ball in tweeds.

The apparition effectually checked any speech that Sir Thomas might have been intending to make. Lying back in his chair, he goggled silently at the new arrival. Even Jimmy, though knowing that his lordship had been in hiding, was taken aback. His attention had become so concentrated on his duel with the knight that he had almost forgotten they had an audience.

His lordship broke the silence.

"Great Scott!" he cried.

Neither Jimmy nor Sir Thomas seemed to consider the observation unsound or inadequate. They permitted it to pass without comment.

"You old scoundrel!" added his lordship, addressing Sir Thomas. "And you're the man who called me a welsher!" There were signs of a flicker of spirit in the knight's prominent eyes, but they died away. He made no reply.

"Great Scott!" moaned his lordship, in a fervor of self-pity. "Here have I been all these years letting you give me Hades in every shape and form, when all the while—My goodness, if I'd only known earlier!"

He turned to Jimmy.

"Pitt, old man," he said warmly, "I—dash it! I don't know what to say. If it hadn't been for you—I always did like Americans. I always thought it bally rot that that fuss happened in—in—whenever it was. If it hadn't been for fellows like you," he continued, addressing Sir Thomas once more, "there wouldn't have been any of that frightful Declaration of Independence business. Would there, Pitt, old man?"