A Gentleman of Leisure - P. G. Wodehouse (best english books to read for beginners txt) 📗

room with the necklace in his hand, he could not help feeling, as he met Molly’s startled gaze, quite as guilty as if his intentions had been quite different.

His lordship, having by this time pulled himself together to some extent, was the first to speak.

“I say, you know, what ho!” he observed, not without emotion. “What?”

Molly drew back.

“Jimmy! You were⁠—. Oh, you can’t have been!”

“Looks jolly like it!” said his lordship judicially.

“I wasn’t,” said Jimmy. “I was putting them back.”

“Putting them back?”

“Pitt, old man,” said his lordship solemnly, “that sounds a bit thin.”

“Dreever, old man,” said Jimmy, “I know it does. But it’s the truth.”

His lordship’s manner became kindly.

“Now, look here, Pitt, old son,” he said. “There’s nothing to worry about⁠—we’re all pals here⁠—you can pitch it straight to us. We won’t give you away. We⁠—”

“Be quiet!” cried Molly. “Jimmy!”

Her voice was strained; she spoke with an effort; she was suffering torments. The words her father had said to her on the terrace were pouring back into her mind. She seemed to hear his voice now, cool and confident, warning her against Jimmy, saying that he was crooked. There was a curious whirring in her head. Everything in the room was growing large and misty. She heard Lord Dreever begin to say something that sounded as if someone were speaking at the end of a telephone; and then she was aware that Jimmy was holding her in his arms and calling to Lord Dreever to bring water.

“When a girl goes like that,” said his lordship, with an insufferable air of omniscience, “you want to cut her⁠—”

“Come along!” said Jimmy. “Are you going to be a week getting that water?”

His lordship proceeded to soak a sponge without further parley; but as he carried his dripping burden across the room Molly recovered. She tried weakly to free herself.

Jimmy helped her to a chair. He had dropped the necklace on the floor, and Lord Dreever nearly trod on it.

“What ho!” observed his lordship, picking it up. “Go easy with the jewellery!”

Jimmy was bending over Molly. Neither of them seemed to be aware of his lordship’s presence. Spennie was the sort of person whose existence is apt to be forgotten. Jimmy had had a flash of intuition. For the first time it occurred to him that Mr. McEachern might have hinted to Molly something of his own suspicions.

“Molly, dear,” he said, “it isn’t what you think. I can explain everything. Do you feel better now? Can you listen? I can explain everything.”

“Pitt, old boy,” protested his lordship, “you don’t understand. We aren’t going to give you away. We’re all⁠—”

Jimmy ignored him.

“Molly, listen,” he said.

She sat up.

“Go on, Jimmy,” she said.

“I wasn’t stealing the necklace⁠—I was putting it back. The man who came to the castle with me, Spike Mullins, took it this afternoon and brought it to me.”

Spike Mullins! Molly remembered the name.

“He thinks I am a crook⁠—a sort of Raffles. It was my fault. I was a fool. It all began that night in New York when we met at your house. I had been to the opening performance of a play called Love, the Cracksman⁠—one of those burglar plays.”

“Jolly good show!” interpolated his lordship chattily. “It was at the Circle over here. I went twice.”

“A friend of mine, a man named Mifflin, had been playing the hero in it, and after the show, at the club, he started in talking about the art of burglary⁠—he’d been studying it⁠—and I said that anybody could burgle a house. And in another minute it somehow happened that I had made a bet that I would do it that night. Heaven knows whether I ever really meant to; but that same night this man Mullins broke into my flat, and I caught him. We got into conversation, and I worked off on him a lot of technical stuff I’d heard from this actor friend of mine, and he jumped to the conclusion that I was an expert. And then it suddenly occurred to me that it would be a good joke on Mifflin if I went out with Mullins and did break into a house. I wasn’t in the mood to think what a fool I was at the time. Well, anyway, we went out, and⁠—well, that’s how it all happened. And then I met Spike in London, down and out, and brought him here.”

He looked at her anxiously. It did not need his lordship’s owlish expression of doubt to tell him how weak his story must sound. He had felt it even as he was telling it. He was bound to admit that if ever a story rang false in every sentence it was this one.

“Pitt, old man,” said his lordship, shaking his head, more in sorrow than in anger, “it won’t do, old top. What’s the point of putting up any old yarn like that? Don’t you see, what I mean is, it’s not as if we minded. Don’t I keep telling you we’re all pals here? I’ve often thought what a jolly good feller old Raffles was⁠—regular sportsman. I don’t blame a chappie for doing the gentleman burglar touch. Seems to me it’s a dashed sporting⁠—”

Molly turned on him suddenly, cutting short his views on the ethics of gentlemanly theft in a blaze of indignation.

“What do you mean?” she cried. “Do you think I don’t believe every word Jimmy has said?”

His lordship jumped.

“Well, don’t you know, it seemed to me a bit thin. What I mean is⁠—” He met Molly’s eye.

“Oh, well!” he concluded lamely.

Molly turned to Jimmy.

“Jimmy, of course I believe you⁠—I believe every word.”

“Molly!”

His lordship looked on, marvelling. The thought crossed his mind that he had lost the ideal wife. A girl who would believe any old yarn a feller cared to⁠—If it hadn’t been for Katie⁠—For a moment he felt almost sad.

Jimmy and Molly were looking at each other in silence. From the expression on their faces his lordship gathered that his existence had once more been forgotten. He saw