Uncle Dynamite (14 page)

If you
call at a country house where you are not known and try to get the butler to
let you come in and search the premises for photographs of his employer’s
nephew, you will generally find this butler chilly in his manner, and Coggs,
the major-domo of Ickenham Hall, had been rather chillier than the average. He
was a large, stout, moon-faced man with an eye like that of a codfish, and
throughout the proceedings he had kept his eye glued on Sir Aylmer’s, as if
peering into his soul. And anyone who has ever had his soul peered into by a
codfish will testify how extremely unpleasant such an ordeal is.

The
message in that eye had been only too easy to read. Coggs had not actually
accused Sir Aylmer of being after the spoons, but the charge might just as well
have been clothed in words. In a voice of ice he had said, No, sir, I fear I
cannot accede to your request, sir, and had then terminated the interview by
backing a step and shutting the door firmly in the visitor’s face. And when we
say firmly, we mean with a bang which nearly jarred the latter’s moustache
loose from its foundations.

All
this sort of thing is very galling to a proud and arrogant man, accustomed for
years to having his lightest word treated as law, and it was consequently in no
sunny mood that Sir Aylmer heard Lord Ickenham’s huge hello. He was still
snorting and muttering to himself, and a native chief who had, encountered him
in this dangerous mental condition would have called on his protecting ju-ju
for quick service and climbed a tree.

Lord
Ickenham was made of sterner stuff. He stepped out into the road and gave the
huge hello, as planned.

‘Hello,
there, Mugsy,’ he carolled. ‘A very hearty pip-pip to you, my bright and
bounding Bostock.’

It was
probably astonishment at being addressed by a name which he supposed that he
had lived down years ago, rather than the fact that the speaker was blocking
the way, that caused Sir Aylmer to apply the brakes. He brought the car to a
halt and leaned forward, glaring through the windscreen. Close scrutiny of Lord
Ickenham afforded no clue to the latter’s identity. All that Sir Aylmer was
able to say with certainty was that this must be some old schoolfellow of his,
and he wished he had had the moral courage to drive on and run over him.

It was
too late to do this now, for Lord Ickenham had advanced and was standing with a
friendly foot on the running board. With an equally friendly hand he slapped
Sir Aylmer on the back, and his smile was just as friendly as his hand and
foot. Sir Aylmer might not be glad to see this figure from the past, but the
figure from the past was plainly glad to see Sir Aylmer.

‘Mugsy,’
he said with kindly reproach, ‘I believe you’ve forgotten me.’

Sir
Aylmer said he had. He contrived to convey in his manner the suggestion that he
would willingly do so again.

‘Too
bad,’ said Lord Ickenham. ‘How evanescent are youth’s gossamer friendships.
Well, to put you out of your suspense, for I see that you are all keyed up, I’m
Plank.’

‘Plank?’

‘Major
Brabazon-Plank, Uncle Aylmer,’ said Bill, emboldened by the suavity with which
his accomplice was conducting these delicate pourparlers. ‘Major Plank ran that
expedition I went on to
Brazil
.’

Lord
Ickenham was obliged to demur.

‘Don’t
let him mislead you, Mugsy. In a strictly technical sense I suppose you might
say I ran that expedition. Officially, no doubt, I was its head. But the real
big noise was Bill Oakshott here. He was the life and soul of the party, giving
up his water ration to the sick and ailing, conducting himself with cool aplomb
among the alligators and encouraging with word and gesture the weaker brethren
who got depressed because they couldn’t dress for dinner. Chilled Steel
Oakshott, we used to call him. You should be proud of such a nephew.’

Sir
Aylmer appeared not to have heard these eulogies. He was still wrestling with
what might be called the Plank angle of the situation.

‘Plank?’
he said. ‘You can’t be Plank.’ ‘Why not?’

‘The
Plank who was at school with me?’ ‘That very Plank.’

‘That
very Plank.’

‘But he
was a fellow with an enormous trouser seat.’

‘Ah, I
see what is on your mind. Yes, yes. As a boy, quite true, I was bountifully
endowed with billowy curves in the part you have indicated. But since those
days I have been using Slimmo, the sovereign remedy for obesity. The results
you see before you. You ought to try it yourself, Mugsy. You’ve put on weight.’

Sir
Aylmer grunted. There was dissatisfaction in his grunt. Plainly, he was
unwilling to relinquish his memories of a callipygous Plank.

‘Well,
I’m damned if I would have recognized you.’

‘Nor I
you, had not Bill Oakshott given me the office. We’ve both altered quite a bit.
I don’t think you had a white moustache at school, did you? And there’s no ink
on your collar.’

‘You’re
really Plank?’

‘None
other.’

‘And
what are you doing here?’

‘I’m on
a motor tour.’

‘Oh,
are you?’ said Sir Aylmer, brightening. ‘Then you’ll be wanting to get along.
Goodbye, Plank.’

Lord
Ickenham smiled a gentle, reassuring smile.

‘That
sad word will not be required here, Mugsy. Prepare to receive tidings of great
joy. I’m coming to stay.’

‘What!’

‘I had
intended to hurry on, but when Bill Oakshott became pressing, I could not
refuse. Especially when he told me of this fete which is breaking loose shortly
and promised that if I consented to be his guest at Ashenden Manor I might
judge the Bonny Babies contest. That decided me. I would go fifty miles to
judge bonny babies. Sixty,’ said Lord Ickenham. ‘Or make it a hundred.’

Sir
Aylmer started like a tiger that sees its Indian villager being snatched away
from it. His face, already mauve, became an imperial purple.

‘You’re
not going to judge the bonny babies!’

‘Yes, I
am.’

‘No,
you’re not.’

Lord
Ickenham was a genial man, but he could be firm.

‘I
don’t want any lip from you, young Mugsy,’ he said sternly. ‘Let me give you a
word of warning. I see by the papers that you are about to stand for
Parliament. Well, don’t forget that I could swing the voting against you pretty
considerably, if I wanted to, by letting an idealistic electorate in on some of
the shady secrets of your boyhood. You won’t like it, Mugsy, when questions
about your boyhood are thundered at you from the body of the hall while you are
outlining your views on the Tariff problem. Do I judge those bonny babies?’

Sir
Aylmer sat brooding in silence, his Adam’s apple moving up and down as if he
were swallowing something hard and jagged. The stoutest man will quail at the
prospect of having the veil torn from his past, unless that past is one of
exceptional purity. He scowled, but scowling brought no solace. He chewed his
moustache, but gained no comfort thereby.

‘Very
well,’ he said at length, speaking as if the words were being pulled out of him
with a dentist’s forceps. His eye, swivelling round, rested for an instant on
Bill’s, and the young man leaped convulsively. ‘Oh, very well.’

‘Good,’
said Lord Ickenham, his cheery self once more. ‘That’s settled. And now you
shall take me home and show me the model dairy.’

‘What
model dairy?’

‘Haven’t
you a model dairy? The stables, then.’

‘I
don’t keep horses.’

‘Odd. I
was always led to believe that hosts at English country houses were divided
into two classes: those who, when helpless guests were in their power, showed
them the stables and those who showed them the model dairy. There was also, I
understood, a minor sub-division which showed them the begonias, but that is a
technicality into which we need not go. No model dairy, you say? No horses?
Then perhaps I had better be going to the inn, where I have one or two things
to do. These seen to, I will present myself at the house, and the revels can
commence. And as you are doubtless anxious to hurry on and get my room — one
with a southern exposure, if possible — swept and garnished, I won’t detain
you. You coming with me, Bill Oakshott?’

‘I
think I’ll stay here and smoke a pipe.’

‘Just
as you please. We shall all meet then, at
Philippi
, and very jolly it will be, too.’

It was
with a light and elastic step that Lord Ickenham made his way to the Bull’s
Head in Ashenden Oakshott’s High Street. He was well satisfied with the
progress of affairs. Something attempted, something done had, in his opinion,
earned the spot of beer to which he had been looking forward for some
considerable time, for this spreading of sweetness and light is thirsty work.
After putting through a telephone call to his home and speaking to Sally, he
sat down to a tankard, and was savouring its amber contents with quiet relish,
when the door of the saloon bar burst open with a good deal of violence and
Bill Oakshott entered.

That
Bill was not at his serenest and most tranquil was indicated at once to Lord
Ickenham’s experienced eye by his appearance and deportment. His hair was
ruffled, as if he had been passing a fevered hand through it, and that glazed
look was back in his eyes. He was a young man who, when things went awry,
always endeavoured, after the fashion of the modern young man, to preserve the
easy repose of manner of a Red Indian at the stake, but it was plain that
whatever had occurred to upset him now was of a magnitude which rendered
impossible such an exhibition of stoicism.

‘Ah,
Bill Oakshott,’ said Lord Ickenham affably. ‘You could not have arrived at a
more opportune moment. You find me enjoying a well-earned gargle, like Caesar
in his tent the day he overcame the Nervii. I stress the adjective
“well-earned”, for I think you will admit that in the recent exchanges I put it
across the Nervii properly. Have you ever seen an ex-Governor so baffled? I
haven’t, and I doubt if anyone has. But you seem disturbed about something, and
I would recommend some of this excellent beer. It will strengthen you and help
you to look for the silver lining.’

He went
to the counter, remained there a while in conversation with the stout blonde
behind it, and returned bearing a foaming tankard.

‘Nice
girl,’ he said paternally. ‘I’ve been telling her about
Brazil
. Quaff that, Bill Oakshott, and
having quaffed spill what is on your mind.’

Bill,
who had been sitting with his head clasped in his hands, took a deep draught.

‘It’s
about this business of your coming to the house as Plank.’

‘Ah,
yes?’

‘You
can’t go on with it.’

Lord
Ickenham raised his eyebrows.

‘Can’t?
A strange word to use to the last of a proud family. Did my ancestors say
“Can’t” on the stricken fields of the Middle Ages, when told off to go and
fight the Paynim? As a matter of fact,’ said Lord Ickenham confidentially, ‘I
believe lots of them did, as you can verify by turning up Richard Coeur de
Lion’s dispatches, so perhaps it is a pity that I asked the question. Why do
you say I can’t go on with it?’

‘Because
you jolly well can’t. Shall I tell you what’s happened?’

‘Do.
I’m all agog.’

Bill
finished his tankard, and seemed to draw from it strength to continue.

‘After
you went away,’ he said tonelessly, ‘Uncle Aylmer drove off in the car, leaving
me stuck there with the suitcase.’

‘A low
trick.’

‘I
yelled to him to stop and take the damned thing, because it weighed a ton and I
didn’t want to have to lug it all the way up the drive, but he wouldn’t. And I
was just starting off with it, when Potter came along on his bike.’

‘Who is
Potter?’

‘The
policeman.’

‘Ah
yes. Pongo spoke of him, I remember. A zealous officer.’

‘So I
said, “Oh, Potter” and he said “Sir?” and I said “You in a hurry?” and he said
“No, sir,” and I said “Then I wish you’d take this suitcase up to the house.”
And he said “Certainly, sir,” and hoisted it aboard his bike.’

‘I like
your dialogue,’ said Lord Ickenham critically. ‘It’s crisp and good. Do you
ever write?’

‘No.’

‘You
should. You’d make a packet. But I’m interrupting you.’

‘You
are a bit.’

‘It
shall not occur again. You had got to where Potter said “Certainly, sir.” Then
what?’

‘I said
“It belongs to Major Brabazon-Plank. He’s coming to stay.” And Potter said …
Could I have another beer?’

‘Had he
already had some beer?’

‘I
mean, could I have, now? I think it might pull me together.’

Lord
Ickenham repeated his trip to the counter.

‘You
were saying,’ he said, having returned with the life-giving fluid, ‘that you
told Potter that the suitcase belonged to Major Brabazon-Plank. In response to
which?’