CHAPTER XII
BINGO HAS A BAD GOODWOOD
I had promised
to meet young Bingo next day, to tell him what I thought of his infernal
Charlotte, and I was mooching slowly up St. James's Street, trying to think how
the dickens I could explain to him, without hurting his feelings, that I
considered her one of the world's foulest, when who should come toddling out of
the Devonshire Club but old Bittlesham and Bingo himself. I hurried on and
overtook them.
"What-ho!"
I said.
The result of
this simple greeting was a bit of a shock. Old Bittlesham quivered from head to
foot like a poleaxed blanc-mange. His eyes were popping and his face had gone
sort of greenish.
"Mr.
Wooster!" He seemed to recover somewhat, as if I wasn't the worst thing
that could have happened to him. "You gave me a severe start."
"Oh,
sorry!"
"My
uncle," said young Bingo in a hushed, bedside sort of voice, "isn't
feeling quite himself this morning. He's had a threatening letter."
"I go in
fear of my life," said old Bittlesham.
"Threatening
letter?"
"Written,"
said old Bittlesham, "in an uneducated hand and couched in terms of
uncompromising menace. Mr. Wooster, do you recall a sinister, bearded man who
assailed me in no measured terms in Hyde Park last Sunday?"
I jumped, and
shot a look at young Bingo. The only expression on his face was one of grave,
kindly concern.
"Why—ah—yes,"
I said. "Bearded man. Chap with a beard."
"Could you
identify him, if necessary?"
"Well,
I—er—how do you mean?"
"The fact
is, Bertie," said Bingo, "we think this man with the beard is at the
bottom of all this business. I happened to be walking late last night through
Pounceby Gardens, where Uncle Mortimer lives, and as I was passing the house a
fellow came hurrying down the steps in a furtive sort of way. Probably he had
just been shoving the letter in at the front door. I noticed that he had a
beard. I didn't think any more of it, however, until this morning, when Uncle
Mortimer showed me the letter he had received and told me about the chap in the
Park. I'm going to make inquiries."
"The
police should be informed," said Lord Bittlesham.
"No,"
said young Bingo firmly, "not at this stage of the proceedings. It would
hamper me. Don't you worry, uncle; I think I can track this fellow down. You
leave it all to me. I'll pop you into a taxi now, and go and talk it over with
Bertie."
"You're a
good boy, Richard," said old Bittlesham, and we put him in a passing cab
and pushed off. I turned and looked young Bingo squarely in the eyeball.
"Did you
send that letter?" I said.
"Rather!
You ought to have seen it, Bertie! One of the best gent's ordinary threatening
letters I ever wrote."
"But
where's the sense of it?"
"Bertie,
my lad," said Bingo, taking me earnestly by the coat-sleeve, "I had an
excellent reason. Posterity may say of me what it will, but one
thing it can never say—that I have not a good solid business head. Look
here!" He waved a bit of paper in front of my eyes.
"Great
Scott!" It was a cheque—an absolute, dashed cheque for fifty of the best,
signed Bittlesham, and made out to the order of R. Little.
"What's
that for?"
"Expenses,"
said Bingo, pouching it. "You don't suppose an investigation like this can
be carried on for nothing, do you? I now proceed to the bank and startle them
into a fit with it. Later I edge round to my bookie and put the entire sum on
Ocean Breeze. What you want in situations of this kind, Bertie, is tact. If I
had gone to my uncle and asked him for fifty quid, would I have got it? No! But
by exercising tact—— Oh! by the way, what do you think of Charlotte?"
"Well—er——"
Young Bingo
massaged my sleeve affectionately.
"I know,
old man, I know. Don't try to find words. She bowled you over, eh? Left you
speechless, what? I know! That's the effect she has on everybody. Well,
I leave you here, laddie. Oh, before we part—Butt! What of Butt? Nature's worst
blunder, don't you think?"
"I must
say I've seen cheerier souls."
"I think
I've got him licked, Bertie. Charlotte is coming to the Zoo with me this
afternoon. Alone. And later on to the pictures. That looks like the beginning
of the end, what? Well, toodle-oo, friend of my youth. If you've nothing better
to do this morning, you might take a stroll along Bond Street and be picking
out a wedding present."
I lost sight of
Bingo after that. I left messages a couple of times at the club, asking him to
ring me up, but they didn't have any effect. I took it that he was too busy to
respond. The Sons of the Red Dawn also passed out of my life, though Jeeves
told me he had met Comrade Butt one evening and had a brief chat with him. He
reported Butt as gloomier than ever. In the competition for the bulging
Charlotte, Butt had apparently gone right back in the betting.
"Mr.
Little would appear to have eclipsed him entirely, sir," said Jeeves.
"Bad news,
Jeeves; bad news!"
"Yes,
sir."
"I suppose
what it amounts to, Jeeves, is that, when young Bingo really takes his coat off
and starts in, there is no power of God or man that can prevent him making a
chump of himself."
"It would
seem so, sir," said Jeeves.
Then Goodwood
came along, and I dug out the best suit and popped down.
I never know,
when I'm telling a story, whether to cut the thing down to plain facts or
whether to drool on and shove in a lot of atmosphere, and all that. I mean,
many a cove would no doubt edge into the final spasm of this narrative with a
long description of Goodwood, featuring the blue sky, the rolling prospect, the
joyous crowds of pick-pockets, and the parties of the second part who were
having their pockets picked, and—in a word, what not. But better give it a
miss, I think. Even if I wanted to go into details about the bally meeting I
don't think I'd have the heart to. The thing's too recent. The anguish hasn't
had time to pass. You see, what happened was that Ocean Breeze (curse him!)
finished absolutely nowhere for the Cup. Believe me, nowhere.
These are the
times that try men's souls. It's never pleasant to be caught in the machinery
when a favourite comes unstitched, and in the case of this particular dashed
animal, one had come to look on the running of the race as a pure formality, a
sort of quaint, old-world ceremony to be gone through before one sauntered up
to the bookie and collected. I had wandered out of the paddock to try and
forget, when I bumped into old Bittlesham: and he looked so rattled and purple,
and his eyes were standing out of his head at such an angle, that I simply
pushed my hand out and shook his in silence.
"Me,
too," I said. "Me, too. How much did you drop?"
"Drop?"
"On Ocean
Breeze."
"I did not
bet on Ocean Breeze."
"What! You
owned the favourite for the Cup, and didn't back it!"
"I never
bet on horse-racing. It is against my principles. I am told that the animal
failed to win the contest."
"Failed to
win! Why, he was so far behind that he nearly came in first in the next
race."
"Tut!"
said old Bittlesham.
"Tut is
right," I agreed. Then the rumminess of the thing struck me. "But if
you haven't dropped a parcel over the race," I said, "why are you
looking so rattled?"
"That
fellow is here!"
"What
fellow?"
"That
bearded man."
It will show
you to what an extent the iron had entered into my soul when I say that this
was the first time I had given a thought to young Bingo. I suddenly remembered
now that he had told me he would be at Goodwood.
"He is
making an inflammatory speech at this very moment, specifically directed at me.
Come! Where that crowd is." He lugged me along and, by using his weight
scientifically, got us into the front rank. "Look! Listen!"
*
* *
* *
Young Bingo was
certainly tearing off some ripe stuff. Inspired by the agony of having put his
little all on a stumer that hadn't finished in the first six, he was fairly
letting himself go on the subject of the blackness of the hearts of plutocratic
owners who allowed a trusting public to imagine a horse was the real goods when
it couldn't trot the length of its stable without getting its legs crossed and
sitting down to rest. He then went on to draw what I'm bound to say was a most
moving picture of the ruin of a working man's home, due to this dishonesty. He
showed us the working man, all optimism and simple trust, believing every word
he read in the papers about Ocean Breeze's form; depriving his wife and
children of food in order to back the brute; going without beer so as to be able
to cram an extra bob on; robbing the baby's money-box with a hatpin on the eve
of the race; and finally getting let down with a thud. Dashed impressive it
was. I could see old Rowbotham nodding his head gently, while poor old Butt
glowered at the speaker with ill-concealed jealousy. The audience ate it.
"But what
does Lord Bittlesham care," shouted Bingo, "if the poor working man
loses his hard-earned savings? I tell you, friends and comrades, you may talk,
and you may argue, and you may cheer, and you may pass resolutions, but what
you need is Action! Action! The world won't be a fit place for honest men to
live in till the blood of Lord Bittlesham and his kind flows in
rivers down the gutters of Park Lane!"
Roars of
approval from the populace, most of whom, I suppose, had had their little bit
on blighted Ocean Breeze, and were feeling it deeply. Old Bittlesham bounded
over to a large, sad policeman who was watching the proceedings, and appeared
to be urging him to rally round. The policeman pulled at his moustache, and
smiled gently, but that was as far as he seemed inclined to go; and old
Bittlesham came back to me, puffing not a little.
"It's
monstrous! The man definitely threatens my personal safety, and that policeman
declines to interfere. Said it was just talk. Talk! It's monstrous!"
"Absolutely,"
I said, but I can't say it seemed to cheer him up much.
Comrade Butt
had taken the centre of the stage now. He had a voice like the Last Trump, and
you could hear every word he said, but somehow he didn't seem to be clicking. I
suppose the fact was he was too impersonal, if that's the word I want. After
Bingo's speech the audience was in the mood for something a good deal snappier
than just general remarks about the Cause. They had started to heckle the poor
blighter pretty freely when he stopped in the middle of a sentence, and I saw
that he was staring at old Bittlesham.
The crowd
thought he had dried up.
"Suck a
lozenge," shouted some one.
Comrade Butt
pulled himself together with a jerk, and even from where I stood I could see
the nasty gleam in his eye.
"Ah,"
he yelled, "you may mock, comrades; you may jeer and sneer; and you may
scoff; but let me tell you that the movement is spreading
every day and every hour. Yes, even amongst the so-called upper classes it's
spreading. Perhaps you'll believe me when I tell you that here, to-day, on this
very spot, we have in our little band one of our most earnest workers, the
nephew of that very Lord Bittlesham whose name you were hooting but a moment
ago."
And before poor
old Bingo had a notion of what was up, he had reached out a hand and grabbed
the beard. It came off all in one piece, and, well as Bingo's speech had gone,
it was simply nothing compared with the hit made by this bit of business. I
heard old Bittlesham give one short, sharp snort of amazement at my side, and
then any remarks he may have made were drowned in thunders of applause.
I'm bound to
say that in this crisis young Bingo acted with a good deal of decision and
character. To grab Comrade Butt by the neck and try to twist his head off was
with him the work of a moment. But before he could get any results the sad
policeman, brightening up like magic, had charged in, and the next minute he
was shoving his way back through the crowd, with Bingo in his right hand and
Comrade Butt in his left.
"Let me
pass, sir, please," he said, civilly, as he came up against old
Bittlesham, who was blocking the gangway.
"Eh?"
said old Bittlesham, still dazed.
At the sound of
his voice young Bingo looked up quickly from under the shadow of the
policeman's right hand, and as he did so all the stuffing seemed to go out of
him with a rush. For an instant he drooped like a bally lily, and then shuffled
brokenly on. His air was the air of a man who has got it in the neck properly.
Sometimes when
Jeeves has brought in my morning tea and shoved it on the table beside my bed,
he drifts silently from the room and leaves me to go to it: at other times he
sort of shimmies respectfully in the middle of the carpet, and then I know that
he wants a word or two. On the day after I had got back from Goodwood I was
lying on my back, staring at the ceiling, when I noticed that he was still in
my midst.
"Oh,
hallo," I said. "Yes?"
"Mr.
Little called earlier in the morning, sir."
"Oh, by
Jove, what? Did he tell you about what happened?"
"Yes, sir.
It was in connection with that that he wished to see you. He proposes to retire
to the country and remain there for some little while."
"Dashed
sensible."
"That was
my opinion, also, sir. There was, however, a slight financial difficulty to be
overcome. I took the liberty of advancing him ten pounds on your behalf to meet
current expenses. I trust that meets with your approval, sir?"
"Oh, of
course. Take a tenner off the dressing-table."
"Very
good, sir."
"Jeeves,"
I said.
"Sir?"
"What
beats me is how the dickens the thing happened. I mean, how did the chappie
Butt ever get to know who he was?"
Jeeves coughed.
"There,
sir, I fear I may have been somewhat to blame."
"You?
How?"
"I fear I
may carelessly have disclosed Mr. Little's identity to Mr. Butt on the occasion
when I had that conversation with him."
I sat up.
"What!"
"Indeed,
now that I recall the incident, sir, I distinctly remember saying that Mr.
Little's work for the Cause really seemed to me to deserve something in the
nature of public recognition. I greatly regret having been the means of bringing
about a temporary estrangement between Mr. Little and his lordship. And I am
afraid there is another aspect to the matter. I am also responsible for the
breaking off of relations between Mr. Little and the young lady who came to tea
here."
I sat up again.
It's a rummy thing, but the silver lining had absolutely escaped my notice till
then.
"Do you
mean to say it's off?"
"Completely,
sir. I gathered from Mr. Little's remarks that his hopes in the direction may
now be looked on as definitely quenched. If there were no other obstacle, the
young lady's father, I am informed by Mr. Little, now regards him as a spy and
a deceiver."
"Well, I'm
dashed!"
"I appear
inadvertently to have caused much trouble, sir."
"Jeeves!"
I said.
"Sir?"
"How much
money is there on the dressing-table?"
"In
addition to the ten-pound note which you instructed me to take, sir, there are
two five-pound notes, three one-pounds, a ten-shillings, two half-crowns, a
florin, four shillings, a sixpence, and a halfpenny, sir."
"Collar it
all," I said. "You've earned it."
