Pelham Wodehouse - The Girl on the Boat

"Thank heaven!" said Sam.

He was not comfortable, but comfort just then was not his primary need.

Smith the bulldog, well satisfied with the way the entertainment had opened, sat down, wheezing slightly, to await developments.

He had not long to wait. In a few minutes the hall had filled up nicely. There was Mr. Mortimer in his shirt-sleeves, Mr. Bennett in blue pyjamas and a dressing-gown, Mrs. Hignett in a travelling costume, Jane Hubbard with her elephant-gun, and Billie in a dinner dress. Smith welcomed them all impartially.

Somebody lit a lamp, and Mrs. Hignett stared speechlessly at the mob.

"Mr. Bennett! Mr. Mortimer!"

"Mrs. Hignett! What are you doing here?"

Mrs. Hignett drew herself up stiffly.

"What an odd question, Mr. Mortimer! I am in my own house!"

"But you rented it to me for the summer. At least, your son did."

"Eustace let you Windles for the summer!" said Mrs. Hignett incredulously.

Jane Hubbard returned from the drawing-room, where she had been switching off the orchestrion.

"Let us talk all that over cosily to-morrow," she said. "The point now is that there are burglars in the house."

"Burglars!" cried Mr. Bennett aghast. "I thought it was you playing that infernal instrument, Mortimer."

"What on earth should I play it for at this time of night?" said Mr. Mortimer irritably.

"It woke me up," said Mr. Bennett complainingly. "And I had had great difficulty in dropping off to sleep. I was in considerable pain. I believe I've caught the mumps from young Hignett."

"Nonsense! You're always imagining yourself ill," snapped Mr. Mortimer.

"My face hurts," persisted Mr. Bennett.

"You can't expect a face like that not to hurt," said Mr. Mortimer.

It appeared only too evident that the two old friends were again on the verge of one of their distressing fallings-out; but Jane Hubbard intervened once more. This practical-minded girl disliked the introducing of side-issues into the conversation. She was there to talk about burglars, and she intended to do so.

"For goodness sake stop it!" she said, almost petulantly for one usually so superior to emotion. "There'll be lots of time for quarrelling to-morrow. Just now we've got to catch these...."

"I'm not quarrelling," said Mr. Bennett.

"Yes, you are," said Mr. Mortimer.

"I'm not!"

"You are!"

"Don't argue!"

"I'm not arguing!"

"You are!"

"I'm not!"

Jane Hubbard had practically every noble quality which a woman can possess with the exception of patience. A patient woman would have stood by, shrinking from interrupting the dialogue. Jane Hubbard's robuster course was to raise the elephant-gun, point it at the front door, and pull the trigger.

"I thought that would stop you," she said complacently, as the echoes died away and Mr. Bennett had finished leaping into the air. She inserted a fresh cartridge, and sloped arms. "Now, the question is...."

"You made me bite my tongue!" said Mr. Bennett, deeply aggrieved.

"Serve you right!" said Jane placidly. "Now, the question is, have the fellows got away or are they hiding somewhere in the house? I think they're still in the house."

"The police!" exclaimed Mr. Bennett, forgetting his lacerated tongue and his other grievances. "We must summon the police!"

"Obviously!" said Mrs. Hignett, withdrawing her fascinated gaze from the ragged hole in the front door, the cost of repairing which she had been mentally assessing. "We must send for the police at once."

"We don't really need them, you know," said Jane. "If you'll all go to bed and just leave me to potter round with my gun...."

"And blow the whole house to pieces!" said Mrs. Hignett tartly. She had begun to revise her original estimate of this girl. To her, Windles was sacred, and anyone who went about shooting holes in it forfeited her esteem.

"Shall I go for the police?" said Billie. "I could bring them back in ten minutes in the car."

"Certainly not!" said Mr. Bennett. "My daughter gadding about all over the countryside in an automobile at this time of night!"

"If you think I ought not to go alone, I could take Bream."

"Where is Bream?" said Mr. Mortimer.

The odd fact that Bream was not among those present suddenly presented itself to the company.

"Where can he be?" said Billie.

Jane Hubbard laughed the wholesome, indulgent laugh of one who is broad-minded enough to see the humour of the situation even when the joke is at her expense.

"What a silly girl I am!" she said. "I do believe that was Bream I shot at upstairs. How foolish of me making a mistake like that!"

"You shot my only son!" cried Mr. Mortimer.

"I shot at him," said Jane. "My belief is that I missed him. Though how I came to do it beats me. I don't suppose I've missed a sitter like that since I was a child in the nursery. Of course," she proceeded, looking on the reasonable side, "the visibility wasn't good, but it's no use saying I oughtn't at least to have winged him, because I ought." She shook her head with a touch of self-reproach. "I shall get chaffed about this if it comes out," she said regretfully.

"The poor boy must be in his room," said Mr. Mortimer.

"Under the bed, if you ask me," said Jane, blowing on the barrel of her gun and polishing it with the side of her hand. " He's all right! Leave him alone, and the housemaid will sweep him up in the morning."

"Oh, he can't be!" cried Billie, revolted.

A girl of high spirit, it seemed to her repellent that the man she was engaged to marry should be displaying such a craven spirit. At that moment she despised and hated Bream Mortimer. I think she was wrong, mind you. It is not my place to criticise the little group of people whose simple annals I am relating—my position is merely that of a reporter—; but personally I think highly of Bream's sturdy common-sense. If somebody loosed off an elephant-gun at me in a dark corridor, I would climb on to the roof and pull it up after me. Still, rightly or wrongly, that was how Billie felt; and it flashed across her mind that Samuel Marlowe, scoundrel though he was, would not have behaved like this. And for a moment a certain wistfulness added itself to the varied emotions then engaging her mind.

"I'll go and look, if you like," said Jane agreeably. "You amuse yourselves somehow till I come back."

She ran easily up the stairs, three at a time. Mr. Mortimer turned to Mr. Bennett.

"It's all very well your saying Wilhelmina mustn't go, but, if she doesn't, how can we get the police? The house isn't on the 'phone, and nobody else can drive the car."

"That's true," said Mr. Bennett, wavering.

"Of course, we could drop them a post-card first thing to-morrow morning," said Mr. Mortimer in his nasty sarcastic way.

"I'm going," said Billie resolutely. It occurred to her, as it has occurred to so many women before her, how helpless men are in a crisis. The temporary withdrawal of Jane Hubbard had had the effect which the removal of the rudder has on a boat. "It's the only thing to do. I shall be back in no time."

She stepped firmly to the coat-rack, and began to put on her motoring-cloak. And just then Jane Hubbard came downstairs, shepherding before her a pale and glassy-eyed Bream.

"Right under the bed," she announced cheerfully, "making a noise like a piece of fluff in order to deceive burglars."

Billie cast a scornful look at her fiancé. Absolutely unjustified, in my opinion, but nevertheless she cast it. But it had no effect at all. Terror had stunned Bream Mortimer's perceptions. His was what the doctors call a penumbral mental condition.

"Bream," said Billie, "I want you to come in the car with me to fetch the police."