The Intrusion of Jimmy by P. G. Wodehouse (new books to read .txt) 📗
- Author: P. G. Wodehouse
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"But your diamonds, my dear."
"We can take care of them."
"But why should we have the trouble? Now, if we—"
"It's no trouble."
"When we were married, there was a detective—"
"Don't be childish, Thomas. Detectives at weddings are quite customary."
"But—"
"Bah!"
"I paid twenty thousand pounds for that rope of diamonds," said Sir Thomas, obstinately. Switch things upon a cash basis, and he was more at ease.
"May I ask if you suspect any of our guests of being criminals?" inquired Lady Julia, with a glance of chill disdain.
Sir Thomas looked out of the window. At the moment, the sternest censor could have found nothing to cavil at in the movements of such of the house-party as were in sight. Some were playing tennis, some clock-golf, and others were smoking.
"Why, no," he admitted.
"Of course. Absurd—quite absurd!"
"But the servants. We have engaged a number of new servants lately."
"With excellent recommendations."
Sir Thomas was on the point of suggesting that the recommendations might be forged, but his courage failed him. Julia was sometimes so abrupt in these little discussions! She did not enter into his point of view. He was always a trifle inclined to treat the castle as a branch of Blunt's Stores. As proprietor of the stores, he had made a point of suspecting everybody, and the results had been excellent. In Blunt's Stores, you could hardly move in any direction without bumping into a gentlemanly detective, efficiently disguised. For the life of him, Sir Thomas could not see why the same principle should not obtain at Dreever. Guests at a country house do not as a rule steal their host's possessions, but then it is only an occasional customer at a store who goes in for shop-lifting. It was the principle of the thing, he thought: Be prepared against every emergency. With Sir Thomas Blunt, suspiciousness was almost a mania. He was forced to admit that the chances were against any of his guests exhibiting larcenous tendencies, but, as for the servants, he thoroughly mistrusted them all, except Saunders, the butler. It had seemed to him the merest prudence that a detective from a private inquiry agency should be installed at the castle while the house was full. Somewhat rashly, he had mentioned this to his wife, and Lady Julia's critique of the scheme had been terse and unflattering.
"I suppose," said Lady Julia sarcastically, "you will jump to the conclusion that this man whom Spennie is bringing down with him to-day is a criminal of some sort?"
"Eh? Is Spennie bringing a friend?"
There was not a great deal of enthusiasm in Sir Thomas's voice. His nephew was not a young man whom he respected very highly. Spennie regarded his uncle with nervous apprehension, as one who would deal with his short-comings with vigor and severity. Sir Thomas, for his part, looked on Spennie as a youth who would get into mischief unless under his uncle's eye.
"I had a telegram from him just now," Lady Julia explained.
"Who is his friend?"
"He doesn't say. He just says he's a man he met in London."
"H'm!"
"And what does, 'H'm!' mean?" demanded Lady Julia.
"A man can pick up strange people in London," said Sir Thomas, judicially.
"Nonsense!"
"Just as you say, my dear."
Lady Julia rose.
"As for what you suggest about the detective, it is of course absolutely absurd."
"Quite so, my dear."
"You mustn't think of it."
"Just as you say, my dear."
Lady Julia left the room.
What followed may afford some slight clue to the secret of Sir Thomas Blunt's rise in the world. It certainly suggests singleness of purpose, which is one of the essentials of success.
No sooner had the door closed behind Lady Julia than he went to his writing-table, took pen and paper, and wrote the following letter:
To the Manager, Wragge's Detective Agency. Holborn Bars, London E. C.
SIR: With reference to my last of the 28th, ult., I should be glad if you would send down immediately one of your best men. Am making arrangements to receive him. Kindly instruct him to present himself at Dreever Castle as applicant for position of valet to myself. I will see and engage him on his arrival, and further instruct him in his duties.
Yours faithfully,
THOS. BLUNT.
P. S. I shall expect him to-morrow evening. There is a good train leaving Paddington at 2:15.
Sir Thomas read this over, put in a comma, then placed it in an envelope, and lighted a cigar with the air of one who can be checked, yes, but vanquished, never.
CHAPTER IX — FRIENDS, NEW AND OLD
On the night of the day on which Sir Thomas Blunt wrote and dispatched his letter to Wragge's Detective Agency, Jimmy Pitt chanced to stop at the Savoy.
If you have the money and the clothes, and do not object to being turned out into the night just as you are beginning to enjoy yourself, there are few things pleasanter than supper at the Savoy Hotel, London. But, as Jimmy sat there, eying the multitude through the smoke of his cigarette, he felt, despite all the brightness and glitter, that this was a flat world, and that he was very much alone in it.
A little over a year had passed since the merry evening at Police-Captain McEachern's. During that time, he had covered a good deal of new ground. His restlessness had reasserted itself. Somebody had mentioned Morocco in his hearing, and a fortnight later he was in Fez.
Of the principals in that night's drama, he had seen nothing more. It was only when, after walking home on air, rejoicing over the strange chance that had led to his finding and having speech with the lady of the Lusitania, he had reached Fifty-Ninth Street, that he realized how he had also lost her. It suddenly came home to him that not only did he not know her address, but he was ignorant of her name. Spike had called the man with the revolver "boss" throughout—only that and nothing more. Except that he was a police-captain, Jimmy knew as little about the man
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