IN HIS pantry, in shirt-sleeved ease, Beach, the butler, sat taking a well-earned rest. Suddenly he rose, palpitating. A sharp rap had sounded on the door, and he was a man who reacted nervously to sudden noises. There entered his employer’s nephew, Mr. Ronald Fish.

“Hullo, Beach. Just thought I’d look in.”

“Yes, sir.”

“For a chat.”

“Very good, sir.”

Although the butler spoke with his usual smooth courtesy, he was far from feeling easy in his mind. He did not like Ronnie’s looks. It seemed to him that his young visitor was feverish. The limbs twitched, the eyes gleamed, the blood pressure appeared heightened, and there was a super-normal pinkness in the epidermis of the cheek.

“Long time since we had a real, cozy talk, Beach.”

“Yes, sir.”

“When I was a kid, I used to be in and out of this pantry of yours all day long.”

“Yes, sir.”

A mood of extreme sentimentality now appeared to grip the young man. He sighed like a centenarian recalling far off, happy things.

“Those were the days, Beach.”

“Yes, sir.”

“No problems then. No worries. And even if I had worries, I could always bring them to you, couldn’t I?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I shall never forget your kindness in those dear old days, Beach.”

“Extremely good of you to say so, sir.”

“Later, as the years went by, I did my best to repay you, by sharing with you such snips as came my way. Remember the time I gave you Blackbird for the Manchester November Handicap?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You collected a packet.”

“It did prove a remarkably sound investment, sir.”

“Yes. And so it went on. I look back through the years, and I seem to see you and me standing side by side, each helping each, each doing the square thing by the other. You certainly always did the square thing by me.”

“I trust I shall always continue to do so, sir.”

“I know you will, Beach. It isn’t in you to do otherwise. And that,” said Ronnie, beaming on him lovingly, “is why I feel so sure that, when I have stolen my uncle’s pig, you will be there helping to feed it till I give it back.”

The butler’s was not a face that registered nimbly. It took some time for a look of utter astonishment to cover its full acreage. Such a look had spread to perhaps two thirds of its surface when Ronnie went on:

“You see, Beach, strictly between ourselves, I have made up my mind to sneak the Empress away and keep her hidden in that game-keeper’s cottage in the west wood; and then, when Uncle Clarence is sending out S. O. S.’s and offering large rewards, I shall find it there and return it, thus winning his undying gratitude and putting him in the right frame of mind to yield up a bit of my money that I want to get out of him. You get the idea?”

The butler blinked. He was plainly endeavoring to conquer a suspicion that his mind was darkening. Ronnie nodded kindlily at him as he fought for speech.

“It’s the scheme of a lifetime, you were going to say? You’re quite right. It is. But it’s one of those schemes that call for a sympathetic fellow-worker. You see, pigs like the Empress, Beach, require large quantities of food at frequent intervals. I can’t possibly handle the entire commissariat department myself. That’s where you’re going to help me, like the splendid fellow you are and always have been.”

The butler had now begun to gargle slightly.

“An enormous quantity of food they need,” proceeded Ronnie. “You’d be surprised. Here it is in this book I took from my uncle’s desk. At least six pounds of meal a day, not to mention milk or buttermilk and bran made sloppy with swill.”

Speech at last returned to the butler. It took the form at first of a faint sound like the cry of a frightened infant. Then words came.

“But, Mr. Ronald . . .”

Ronnie stared at him incredulously. He seemed to be wrestling with an unbelievable suspicion.

“Don’t tell me you’re thinking of throwing me down, Beach? You? My friend since I was so high?” He laughed. He could see now how ridiculous the idea was. “Of course you aren’t! You couldn’t. Apart from wanting to do me a good turn, you’ve gathered by this time with that quick intelligence of yours, that there’s money in the thing. Ten quid down, Beach, the moment you give the nod. And nobody knows better than yourself that ten quid, invested on Baby Bones for the Medbury Selling Plate at the current odds, means considerably more than a hundred in your sock on settling-day.”

“But, sir . . . It’s impossible . . . I couldn’t dream . . . If ever it was found out . . . Really, I don’t think you ought to ask me, Mr. Ronald . . .”

“Beach!”

“Yes, but, really, sir . . .”

RONNIE fixed him with a compelling eye.

“Think well, Beach. Who gave you Creole Queen for the Lincolnshire?”

“But, Mr. Ronald . . .”

“Who gave you Mazzawattee for the Jubilee Stakes, Beach? What a beauty!”

A tense silence fell upon the pantry.

“And it may interest you to know,” said Ronnie, “that just before I left London I heard of something really hot for the Goodwood Cup.”

A low gasp escaped Beach. All butlers are sportsmen, and Beach had been a butler for eighteen years. Mere gratitude for past favors might not have been enough in itself to turn the scale, but this was different. On the subject of form for the Goodwood Cup he had been quite unable to reach a satisfying decision. It had baffled him. For days he had been groping in the darkness.

“Jujube, sir?” he whispered.

“Not Jujube.”

“Ginger George?”

“Not Ginger George. It’s no use your trying to guess, for you’ll never do it. Only two touts and the stable-cat know this one. But you shall know it, Beach, the minute I give that pig back and claim my reward. And that pig needs to be fed. Beach, how about it?”

For a long minute the butler stared before him, silent. Then:

“Tell me just what it is you wish me to do, Mr. Ronald,” he said.

The dawn of another day crept upon Blandings Castle. Hour by hour the light grew stronger till, piercing the curtains of Ronnie’s bedroom, it woke him from a disturbed slumber. He turned sleepily on the pillow. He was dimly conscious of having had the most extraordinary dream, all about stealing pigs. In this dream . . .

He sat up with a jerk. Like cold water dashed in his face had come the realization that it had been no dream.

“Gosh!” said Ronnie, blinking.

Few things have such a tonic effect on a young man accustomed to be a little heavy on waking in the morning as the discovery that he has stolen a prize pig over night. Not since he had left school had Ronnie “sprung out of bed,” but he did so now. Bed, generally so attractive to him, had lost its fascination. He wanted to be up and about.

HE HAD bathed, shaved, and was slipping into his trousers when his toilet was interrupted by the arrival of his old friend Hugo Carmody. On Hugo’s face there was an expression which it was impossible to misread. It indicated as plainly as a label that he had come bearing news, and Ronnie, guessing the nature of this news, braced himself to be suitably startled.

“You know that pig of your uncle’s?”

“What about it?”

“It’s gone.”

“Gone!”

“Gone!” said Hugo, rolling the word round his tongue. “I met the old boy half a minute ago, and he told me. It seems he went down to the pig-bin for a before-breakfast look at the animal, and it wasn’t there.”

“Well, I’m dashed!” said Ronnie.

He was feeling pleased with himself. He felt he had played his part well. Just the right incredulous amazement, changing just soon enough into stunned belief.

“You don’t seem very surprised,” said Hugo.

Ronnie was stung. The charge was monstrous.

“Yes, I do,” he cried. “I seem frightfully surprised. I am surprised. Why shouldn’t I be surprised?”

“All right. Just as you say. Spring about a bit more, though, another time when I bring you these sensational items. Well, I’ll tell you one thing,” said Hugo with satisfaction. “Out of evil cometh good. It’s an ill wind that has no turning. For me this startling occurrence has been a life-saver. I’ve got thirty-six hours’ leave out of it. The old boy is sending me up to London to get a detective.”

“A what?”

“A detective.”

“A detective!”

Ronnie was conscious of a marked spasm of uneasiness. He had not bargained for detectives.

“From a place called the Argus Inquiry Agency.”

Ronnie’s uneasiness increased. This thing was not going to be so simple after all. He had never actually met a detective, but he had read a lot about them. They nosed about and found clues. For all he knew, he might have left a hundred clues.

“Naturally I shall have to stay the night in town. And, much as I like this place,” said Hugo, “there’s no denying that a night in town won’t hurt. I’ve got fidgety feet, and a spot of dancing will do me all the good in the world. Bring back the roses to my cheeks.”

“Whose idea was it, getting down this blighted detective?” demanded Ronnie. He knew he was not being nonchalant, but he was disturbed.

“Mine.”

“Yours, eh?”

“All mine. I suggested it.”

“You did, did you?” said Ronnie.

He directed at his companion a swift glance of a kind that no one should have directed at an old friend.

“Oh?” he said morosely. “Well, buzz off. I want to dress.”

A morning spent in solitary wrestling with a guilty conscience had left Ronnie Fish thoroughly unstrung. By the time the clock over the stable struck the hour of one, his mental condition had begun to resemble that of the late Eugene Aram. He paced the lower terrace with bent head, starting occasionally at the sudden chirp of a bird, and longed for Sue. Five minutes of Sue, he felt, would make him a new man.

It was perfectly foul, mused Ronnie, this being separated from the girl he loved. There was something about Sue . . . he couldn’t describe it, but something that always seemed to act on a fellow’s whole system like a powerful pick-me-up. She was the human equivalent of those pink drinks you went and got—or, rather, which you used to go and get before a good woman’s love had made you give up all that sort of thing—at the chemist’s at the top of the Haymarket after a wild night on the moors. It must have been with a girl like Sue in mind, he felt, that the poet had written those lines “When something something something brow, a ministering angel thou!”

AT THIS point in his meditations, a voice from immediately behind him spoke his name.

“I say, Ronnie.”

It was only his cousin Millicent. He became calmer. For an instant, so deep always is a criminal’s need for a confidant, he had a sort of idea of sharing his hideous secret with this girl, between whom and himself there had long existed a pleasant friendship. Then he abandoned the notion. His secret was not one that could be shared. Momentary relief of mind was not worth purchasing at the cost of endless anxiety.

“Ronnie, have you seen Mr. Carmody anywhere?”

“Hugo? He went up to London on the ten-thirty.”

“Went up to London? What for?”

“He’s gone to a place called the Argus Inquiry Agency to get a detective.”

“What, to investigate this business of the Empress?”

“Yes,” said Ronnie.

Millicent laughed.

“I’d like to be there to see old man Argus’ face when he finds out that all he’s wanted for is to track down missing pigs!”

Her laughter trailed away. There had come into her face the look of one suddenly visited by a displeasing thought.

“I don’t like it,” she said. “It’s fishy. It looks very much to me as if our Mr. Carmody had a special reason for wanting to get up to London for the night. And I think I know what the reason was. Did you ever hear of a girl named Sue Brown?”

The start which Ronnie gave eclipsed in magnitude all the other starts he had given that morning. And they had been many and severe.

“It isn’t true!”

“What isn’t true?”

“That there’s anything whatever between Hugo and Sue Brown.”

“I’ve got to go in and make a phone call,” said Millicent, abruptly.

RONNIE scarcely noticed her departure. It couldn’t be true, he told himself. Sue had said definitely that it wasn’t and she couldn’t have been lying to him. Girls like Sue didn’t lie. And yet . . .

Well, one thing was certain. It was simply impossible to remain here at Blandings Castle, getting his mind poisoned with doubts and speculations. If he took the two-seater he could be in London before eight. He could call at Sue’s flat; receive her assurance once more that Hugo Carmody, tall and lissom though he might be, expert on the saxophone though he admittedly was, meant nothing to her; take her out to dinner and, while dining, ease his mind of that which weighed upon it.

It wasn’t, of course, that he didn’t trust her implicitly. Nevertheless . . .

If you go up Beeston Street in the southwestern postal division of London and follow the pavement on the right-hand side, you come to a blind alley called Hayling Court. If you enter the first building on the left of this blind alley and mount a flight of stairs, you find yourself facing a door, on the ground-glass of which is the legend:

argus inquiry agency ltd.

and below it, to one side, the smaller legend:

P. Frobisher Pilbeam, Mgr.

And if, at about the hour when Ronnie Fish had stepped into his two-seater in the garage of Blandings Castle, you had opened this door and gone in and succeeded in convincing the gentlemanly office-boy that yours was a bona fide visit, having nothing to do with the sale of life insurance, proprietary medicines or handsomely bound sets of Dumas, you would have been admitted to the august presence of the Mgr. himself.

P. Frobisher Pilbeam was seated at his desk, reading a telegram which had arrived during his absence at lunch.

This is peculiarly an age of young men starting out in business for themselves; of rare, unfettered spirits chafing at the bonds of employment and refusing to spend their lives working forty-eight weeks in the year for a salary. Quite early in his career Pilbeam had seen where the big money lay, and decided to go after it.

As editor of that celebrated weekly scandal-sheet, Society Spice, Percy Pilbeam had had exceptional opportunities of discovering in good time the true bent of his genius: with the result that, after three years of nosing out people’s discreditable secrets on behalf of the Mammoth Publishing Company, his employers, he had come to the conclusion that a man of his gifts would be doing far better for himself nosing out such secrets on his own behalf. Considerably to the indignation of Lord Tilbury, the Mammoth’s guiding spirit, he had borrowed some capital, handed in his portfolio, and was now in an extremely agreeable financial position.

The telegram over which he sat brooding with wrinkled forehead ran as follows:

be sure send best man investigate big robbery

It was unsigned.

What made the thing particularly annoying was that it was so tantalizing. A big robbery probably meant jewels, with a correspondingly big fee attached to their recovery. But you cannot scour England at random, asking people if they have had a big robbery in their neighborhood.

Reluctantly, he gave the problem up; and, producing a pocket mirror, began with the aid of a pen nib to curl his small and revolting mustache. His thoughts had drifted now to Sue. They were not altogether sunny thoughts, for the difficulty of making Sue’s acquaintance was beginning to irk Percy Pilbeam. He had written her notes. He had sent her flowers. And nothing had happened. She ignored the notes, and what she did with the flowers he did not know. She certainly never thanked him for them.

Brooding upon these matters, he was interrupted by the opening of the door. The gentlemanly office-boy entered. Pilbeam looked up, annoyed.

“While you were absent at lunch, sir, a gentleman called.”

“Eh? Who was he?”

“A Mr. Carmody, sir. Mr. Hugo Carmody.”

“Ah!” Pilbeam displayed interest. “Did he say he would call again?”

“He mentioned the possibility, sir.”

The office-boy retired, and Pilbeam returned to his thoughts of Sue. He was quite certain now that he did not like her attitude. Her attitude wounded him. Another thing he deplored was the reluctance of stage-door keepers to reveal the private addresses of the personnel of the company. Really, there seemed to be no way of getting to know the girl at all.

The office-boy reappeared.

“Mr. Carmody to see you, sir.”

Pilbeam once more relegated Sue to the hinterland of his mind. Business was business.

“Show him in.”

“This way, sir,” said the office-boy, and Hugo sauntered across the threshold.

HUGO felt, and was looking, quietly happy. He was finding London, revisited, singularly attractive.

“And this, if I mistake not, Watson, is our client now,” said Hugo genially.

Such was his feeling of universal benevolence that he embraced with his goodwill even the repellent-looking young man who had risen from the desk. Percy Pilbeam’s eyes were too small and too close together and he marcelled his hair in a manner distressing to right-thinking people, but today he had to be lumped in with the rest of the species as a man and a brother, so Hugo bestowed a dazzling smile upon him. He still thought Pilbeam should not have been wearing pimples with a red tie. One or the other if he liked. But not both. Nevertheless he smiled upon him.

“Fine day,” he said.

“Quite,” said Pilbeam.

“Some people might call London a shade on the stuffy side on an afternoon like this. But not Hugo Carmody.”

“No?”

“No. H. Carmody finds it just what the doctor ordered.” He sat down. “Well, sleuth,” he said, “to business. I called before lunch, but you were out.”

“Yes.”

“But here I am again. And I suppose you want to know what I’ve come about?”

“When you’re ready to get round to it,” said Pilbeam patiently.

Hugo stretched his long legs comfortably.

“Well, I know you detective blokes always want a fellow to begin at the beginning and omit no detail, for there is no saying how important some seemingly trivial fact may be. Omitting birth and early education then, I am at the moment private secretary to Lord Emsworth at Blandings Castle in Shropshire. And,” said Hugo, “I maintain, a jolly good secretary. Others may think differently, but that is my view.”

A THOUGHT had struck the proprietor of the Argus Inquiry Agency. He fumbled in his desk and produced the mysterious telegram. Yes, as he had fancied, it had been handed in at a place called Market Blandings.

“Do you know anything about this?” he asked, pushing it across the desk.

Hugo glanced at the document.

“The old boy must have sent that after I left,” he said. “The absence of signature is, no doubt, due to mental stress. Lord Emsworth is greatly perturbed. A-twitter. Shaken to the core, you might say.”

“About this robbery?”

“Exactly.”

Pilbeam reached for pen and paper. There was a stern, set, bloodhound sort of look in his eyes.

“Kindly give me the details.”

Hugo pondered for a moment.

“It was a dark and stormy night. No, I’m a liar. The moon was riding serenely in the sky. . . .”

“This big robbery? Tell me about it.”

Hugo raised his eyebrows.

“Big?”

“The telegram says ‘big.’ ”

“These telegraph operators will try to make sense. You can’t stop them editing. The word should be ‘pig.’ Lord Emsworth’s pig has been stolen!”

“Pig!” cried Percy Pilbeam.

Hugo looked at him a little anxiously. “You know what a pig is, surely? If not, I’m afraid there is a good deal of tedious spade work ahead of us.”

The roseate dreams which the proprietor of the Argus had had of missing jewels broke like bubbles. He was deeply affronted. A man of few ideals, the one deep love of his life was for this Inquiry Agency which he had created and nursed to prosperity through all the dangers and vicissitudes which beset Inquiry Agencies in their infancy. And the thought of being expected to apply its complex machinery to a search for lost pigs cut him, as Millicent had predicted, to the quick.

“Does Lord Emsworth seriously suppose that I have time to waste looking for stolen pigs?” he demanded shrilly. “I never heard such nonsense in my life.”

“Almost the exact words which all the other Hawkshaws used. Finding you not at home,” explained Hugo, “I spent the morning going round to other Agencies. I think I visited six in all, and every one of them took the attitude you do.”

“I am not surprised.”

“Nevertheless, it seemed to me that they, like you, lacked vision. This pig, you see, is a prize pig. Don’t picture to yourself, something with a kink in its tail sporting idly in the mud. Imagine, rather, a favorite daughter kidnaped from her ancestral home. This is heavy stuff, I assure you. Restore the animal in time for the Agricultural Show, and you may ask of Lord Emsworth what you will, even unto half his kingdom.”

Percy Pilbeam rose. He had heard enough.

“I will not trouble Lord Emsworth. The Argus Inquiry Agency . . .”

“. . . does not detect pigs? I feared as much. Well, well, so be it. And now,” said Hugo, affably, “may I take advantage of the beautiful friendship which has sprung up between us to use your telephone?”

Without waiting for permission—for which, indeed, he would have had to wait some time—he drew the instrument to him and gave a number. He then began to chat again.

“You seem a knowledgeable sort of bloke,” he said. “Perhaps you can tell me where the village swains go these days when they want to dance upon the green? I have been absent for some little time from the center of the vortex, and I have become as a child in these matters. What is the best that London has to offer to a young man with his blood up and the vine leaves more or less in his hair?”

Pilbeam was a man of business. He had no wish to converse with this client who had disappointed him and wounded his finest feelings, but it so happened that he had recently bought shares in a rising restaurant.

“Mario’s,” he replied promptly. “It’s the only place.”

Hugo sighed. Once he had dreamed that the answer to a question like that would have been “The Hot Spot.” But where was the Hot Spot now? Gone like the flowers that wither in the first frost. The lion and the lizard kept the courts where Jamshyd gloried and—after hours, unfortunately, which had started all the trouble—drank deep. Ah, well, life was pretty complex.

A VOICE from the other end of the wire broke in on his reverie. He recognized it as that of the porter of the block of flats where Sue had her tiny abode.

“Hullo? Bashford? Mr. Carmody speaking. Will you make a long arm and haul Miss Brown to the instrument. Eh? Miss Sue Brown of course. No other Browns are any use to me whatsoever. Right ho, I’ll wait.”

The astute detective never permits himself to exhibit emotion. Pilbeam turned his start of surprise into a grave, distrait nod, as if he were thinking out deep problems. He took up his pen and drew three crosses and a squiggle on the blotting paper. He was glad that no gentlemanly instinct had urged him to leave his visitor alone to do his telephoning.

“Mario’s, eh?” said Hugo. “What’s the band like?”

“It’s Leopold’s.”

“Good enough for me,” said Hugo with enthusiasm. He hummed a bar or two, and slid his feet dreamily about the carpet. “I’m shockingly out of practice, dash it. Well, that’s that. Touching this other matter, you’re sure you won’t come to Blandings?”

“Quite.”

“Nice place. Gravel soil, spreading views, well-laid-out pleasure grounds, Company’s own water. . . . I would strongly advise you to bring your magnifying-glass and spend the summer. However, if you really feel. . . . Sue! Hullo-ullo-ullo! This is Hugo. Yes, just up in town for the night on a mission of extraordinary secrecy and delicacy which I am not empowered to reveal. Speaking from Argus Inquiry Agency, by courtesy of proprietor. I was wondering if you would care to come out and help me restore my lost youth, starting at about eight-thirty. Eh?”

A silence had fallen at the other end of the wire. What was happening was that in the hall of the block of flats Sue’s conscience was fighting a grim battle against heavy odds. Ranged in opposition to it were her loneliness, her love of dancing and her desire once more to see Hugo, who, though he was not a man one could take seriously, always cheered her up and made her laugh. And she had been needing a laugh for days.

HUGO thought he had been cut off.

“Hullo-ullo-ullo-ullo-ullo-ullo!” he barked peevishly.

“Don’t yodel like that,” said Sue. “You’ve nearly made me deaf.”

“Sorry, dear heart. I thought the machine had conked. Well, how do you react? Is it a bet?”

“I do want to see you again,” said Sue, hesitatingly.

“You shall. In person. Clean shirt, white waistcoat, the Carmody studs, and everything.”

“Well . . .”

A psychically gifted bystander, standing in the hall of the block of flats, would have heard at this moment a faint moan. It was Sue’s conscience collapsing beneath an unexpected flank attack. She had just remembered that if she went to dine with Hugo she would learn all the latest news about Ronnie. It put the whole thing in an entirely different light.

Surely Ronnie himself could have no objection to the proposed feast if he knew that all she was going for was to talk about him. She might dance a little, of course, but purely by the way. Her real motive in accepting the invitation, she now realized quite clearly, was to hear all about Ronnie.

“All right,” she said. “Where?”

“Mario’s. They tell me it’s the posh spot these days.”

“Mario’s?”

“Yes. M for mange, A for asthma, R for rheumatism . . . Oh, you’ve got it? All right, then. At eight-thirty.”

Hugo put the receiver back. Once more he allowed his dazzling smile to play upon the Argus’ proprietor.

“Much obliged for use of instrument,” he said. “Thank you.”

“Thank you,” said Pilbeam.

“Well, I’ll be pushing along. Ring us up if you change your mind. Market Blandings 32X. If you don’t take on the job no one will. I suppose there are other sleuths in London besides the bevy that I’ve interviewed today, but I’m not going to see them. I consider that I have done my bit and am through.” He looked about him. “Make a good thing out of this business?” he asked, for he was curious on these points and was never restrained by delicacy from seeking information.

“Quite.”

“What does the work consist of? I’ve often wondered. Measuring footprints and putting the tips of your fingers together and all that, I suppose?”

“We are frequently asked to follow people and report on their movements.”

Hugo laughed amusedly.

“Well, don’t go following me and reporting on my movements. Much trouble might ensue. Bung-oh.”

“Good-by,” said Percy Pilbeam.

He pressed a bell on the desk, and moved to the door to show his visitor out.

(To be continued next week)

Annotations to this novel in book form are on this site.

Printer’s error corrected above:
Magazine, p. 51a, had “and everyone of them took the attitude”; corrected to ‘every one’ as in books.

Editorial intervention not corrected:
Magazine, p. 16c, has “Ronnie nodded kindlily at him”; UK magazine and both books have “Ronnie nodded kindly at him.” ‘Kindly’ has been used both as an adjective and as an adverb since Middle English, so we must blame the Collier’s editor for this hypercorrection to a rare form of the adverb, found less than once per 200 million words in English writing circa 1930, and found nowhere else in Wodehouse.