MONEY FOR NOTHING

Taranaki Daily News, 12 November 1934, Page 13

MONEY FOR NOTHING

By

P. G. Wodehouse

CHAPTER 17 (continued). He. leaned easily against the wall, beaming; and Soapy, with deep concern, became aware that the Last of the Greal < Victorians proposed to make this thine a social gathering. He appeared to be regarding Soapy as the nucleus of a salon. “Don’t let me keep-you,” said Soapy. “You aren’t keeping me. I’ve done my silver. It will be a pleasure to watch you, sir. Quite likely I can give you a hint or two if you’ve never made a robert-hutch before. Many’s the hutch I’ve made in my time. As a lad, I was very handy at that sort of thing.” A dull despair settled upon Soapy. It was plain to h’m now that he had unwittingly delivered himself over into the clutches of a bor' who had probably been pining away for someone on whom to pour out his wealth of stored-up conversation. Words had begun to flutter out of this butler like bats out of a bam. He had become a sort of human Topical Talk on rabbits. He was speaking of rabbits he had known in his hot youth—their manners, customs, and the amount of lettuce they had consumed per diem. To a man interested in rabbits, but too lazy to look the subject up in the Encyclopaedia, the narrative would have been enthralling. It induced in Soapy a feverishness that touched the skirts of homicidal mania. The thought came into his mind that / there are other uses to which a hatchet I may be put besides the making of rab-bit-hutches. England trembled on the verge of being short one butler. Sturgis had now become involved in a long story of his early manhood; and even had Soapy been less distrait he In might have found it difficult to enjoy it to the full. It was about an acquaintance of his who had kept rabbits, and it suffered in lucidity from his unfortunate habit of pronouncing rabbits “roberts,” combined with the fact that by a singular coincidence the acquaintance had been a Mr. Roberts. Roberts, it seemed, had been deeply attached to roberts. In fact his practice of keeping roberts in his bed-room had led to trouble with Mrs. Roberts, and in the end Mrs. Roberts had drowned the roberts in the pond, and Roberts, who thought the world of his roberts and not quite so highly of Mrs. Roberts, had never forgiven her. Here Sturgis paused, apparently for comment. “Is that so?” said Soapy ■ breathing heavily. • “Yes, sir.” • “In the pond?” 9 ‘“ln the pond, sir.” • ' Like some Open SeSame, the word suddenly touched a chord in Soapy’s mind. "Say, listen!” he said. "All the while We’ve been talking I was forgetting that Mr. Carmody is out there on the pond.” "The moat, sir?” “Call it what you like. Anyway, he’s « there fishing, and he told me to tell you to take him out something to drink.” Immediately, Sturgis, . the lecturer, With a' change almost startling in its abruptness, became Sturgis, the butler, once more. The fanatic rabbits-gleam died out of his eyes. ’“Very good, sir.” “I should hurry. His tongue was hanging out when I left him.” For an instant the butler wavered. The words had recalled to his mind a lop-eared doe which he had once owned, whose habit of putting out its tongue and gasping had been the cause of some concern to him in the late seventies. But he recovered himself. Registering a mental resolve to seek out this newmade friend of his later, and put the complete facts before him, he passed through the green-baize door. Soapy, alone at last, did not delay. With all the pent-up energy which had been accumulating ithin him during a quarter of an hour, which had seemed a lifetime, he swung the hatchet, and brought it down. The panel splintered. The lock snapped. The door swung open. There was an electric switch inside the cupboard. He pressed it down and was able to see clearly. And, having seen clearly,, he drew back, his lips trembling with half-spoken words of the regrettable kind which a man picks up in the course of a lifetime spent in the less refined social circles of New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago. The cupboard contained an old raincoat, two hats, a rusty golf-club, six croquet balls, a pamphlet on, stockbreeding, three umbrellas, a copy ( of the Parish Magazine for th. preceding November, a shoe, a mouse, and a smell of apples, but no suit-case. That much Soapy had been able to see in the first avzful, disintegrating instant. No bag, box, portmanteau or suit t-ase of any kind or description whatever. Hope does not readily desert the, human breast. After the first numbing impact of any shock, we most of us haze a tendency to try to persuade ourselves that things may not be so bad as they seem. Some explanation, we feel, will be forthcoming shortly, putting the whole matter in a different light. And so Soapy cheered up a little. He had had, he reflected, no opportunity of private speech with his host this morning. If Mr. Carmody had decided to change his plans and deposit the suitcase in some other hiding-place, he might have done so in quite good faith without Soapy’s knowledge. Feeling calmer, though still anxious, he left the house and started towards the moat. Half-way down the - garden he encountered Sturgis, returning with an empty tray. “You must have misunderstood Mr. Carmody, sir,” said the butler genially, as one rabbit-fancier to another.” ‘‘He says he did not ask for any drink. But he came ashore and had it. If you are looking for him you will find him in the boathouse.” An in the boathouse Mr. Carmody was,, lolling at his ease on the cushions of the punt, sipping the contents of a long S “Hullo,” said Mr. Carmody. “There you are.” Soapy descended the steps. What he had to say was not the kind of thing a prudent man shouts at long range. "Say!” said Soapy, in a cautious undertone. “I’ve been trying to get a word with you all the morning. But that darned policeman was around all the time.” “Yes?”

"I’ve been wondering it, after all, that closet you were going to put the stuff I, in is a safe place. Somebody might be 1, apt to take a look at it. Maybe,” said it Soapy tensely, “that occurred to you?” g “What makes you think that?” e “It, just crossed my mind.” a “Oh? I thought perhaps you might have been having a look in that cup- ’. board yourself.” e Soapy moistened his lips, which had o become uncomfortably dry. e “But you locked it, surely?” he said, e “Yes, I locked it,” said Mr. Carmody, h “But it struck me, that, after you had s go the butler out of the way by telling him to bring me a drink, you might t have thought of breaking the door - open.” e ‘ i CHAPTER 18. o In the Silence which followed this der vastating remark there suddenly made a itself heard an odd, gurgling noise like r a leaking cistern; and Soapy, gazing at his host, was shocked to observe that he 1 had given himself up to an apoplectic ;, spasm of laughter. Mr. Carmody’s ro- / tund body was quivering like a jelly. - His eyes were closed, and he was rockc ing himself to and. fro. And from his 2 lips proceeded those hideous sounds of mirth. t The hope which until this moment had . been sustaining Soapy had never been t a strong, robust hope. From birth it t had been an invalid. And now, as he ■ listened to this laughter, the poor, sickJ ly thing coughed quietly and died. "Oh dear,” said Mr. Carmody, recover--1 ing. “Very funny. Very funny.” 1 “You think it’s funny, do you?” said 2 Soapy. t “T do,” said Mr. Carmody sincerely. “ “I wish I could have see your face when t you looked in that cupboard.” 2 Soapy had nothing to say. He was beaten, crushed, routed, and he knew - it. He stared out hopelessly on a bleak 1 world. Outside the boathouse the sun > was still shining, but not for Soapy. i “I’ve seen through you all along, my i man,” proceeded Mr. Carmody, with uni generous triumph. “Not ' >m the very s beginning, perhaps, because I really did , suppose for a while that you were what f you professed to be. The first thing f that made me suspicious was when I cabled over to New York to make in- ' quiries about a well-known financier named Thomas G. Molloy, and was in- ' formed that no such person existed.” Soapy did not speak. The bitterness of his meditations precluded words. His eyes were fixed on the trees and flowers on the' other side of the water, and he • was disliking these very much. Nature • had done its best for the scene, and he 1 thought Nature a wash-out. t “And then,” proceeded Mr. Carmody, ’ “I listened outside the study window while you and your friends were hav3 ing your little discussion. And I heard 1 all I wanted to hear. Next time you ’ have one of these board meetings of » yours, Mr. Molloy, I suggest that, you 3 close the window and lower your voices.” > “Yeah?” said Soapy. 1 It was not, he forced himself to admit much of a retort, but it was the best he could thing of.’ He was in the ■ depths, and men who are in the depths seldom excel in the matter of rapier- •. like repartee. 1 “I thought the matter over, and de- ’ cided that my best plan was to allow ( matters to proceed. I was disappointed, : of course, to discover that that cheque • of yours for a million, or two million ' or whatever it was, would not be coming my way. But,” said Mr. Carmody ! philosophically, “there is always the inl surance money. It should amount to a nice little sum. Not what .man like • you, accustomed to big transactions with 1 Mr. Schwab and Pierpont Morgan, would 1 call much, of course, but quite satisfactory to me.” 1 “You think so?” said Soapy, goaded • to speech. “You think you’re going to clean up on the insurance?” “I do.” ! “Then, say listen, let me tell you 1 something. The insurance company, is ! going to send a fellow down to inquire, 1 isn’t it? Well, what’s to prevent me spilling the beans?” 1 “I beg your pardon?” 1 “What’s to keep me from telling him the burglary was . put-up job?” Mr. Carmody smiled tranquilly. “Your good sense, I should imagine. • How could you ma’ e such' a Jtory cre- ' dible without involving yourself in more ■ unpleasantness than I should imagine ; you would desire? I think 1 shall be 1 able to rely on you for sympathetic silence,' Mr. Molloy.” 1 ‘‘Yeah?” “I think co.” And Soapy, reflecting, thought so, too. For the process of ’->eans-spilling to be enjoyable, he realised, the conditions have to be rights ' (To be ec itinuedlu