"Golly!"
"Yes, miss. His lordship was compelled to make a somewhat hurried departure from the course, followed by Captain Biggar, shouting "Welsher!", but when we were able to shake off our pursuer's challenge some ten miles from the Abbey, we were hoping that the episode was concluded and that to Captain Biggar his lordship would remain merely a vague, unidentified figure in a moustache by Clarkson. But it was not to be, miss.
The Captain tracked his lordship here, penetrated his incognito and demanded an immediate settlement."
"But Bill had no money."
"Precisely, miss. His lordship did not omit to stress that point. And it was then that Captain Biggar proposed that his lordship should secure possession of Mrs. Spottsworth's pendant, asserting, when met with a nolle prosequi on his lordship's part, that the object in question had been given by him to the lady some years ago, so that he was morally entitled to borrow it.
The story, on reflection, seems somewhat thin, but it was told with so great a wealth of corroborative detail that it convinced us at the time, and his lordship, who had been vowing that he would ne'er consent, consented. Do I make myself clear, miss?"
"Quite clear. You don't mind my head swimming?"
"Not at all, miss. The question then arose of how the operation was to be carried through, and eventually it was arranged that I should lure Mrs. Spottsworth from her room on the pretext that Lady Agatha had been seen in the ruined chapel, and during her absence his lordship should enter and obtain the trinket.
This ruse proved successful. The pendant was duly handed to Captain Biggar, who has taken it to London with the purpose of pawning it and investing the proceeds on the Irish horse, Ballymore, concerning whose chances he is extremely sanguine.
As regards his lordship's mauve pyjamas, to which you made a derogatory allusion a short while back, I am hoping to convince his lordship that a quiet blue or a pistachio green—"
But Jill was not interested in the Rowcester pyjamas and the steps which were being taken to correct their mauveness. She was hammering on the library door.
"Bill! Bill!" she cried, like a woman wailing for her demon lover, and Bill, hearing that voice, came out with the promptitude of a cork extracted by Jeeves from a bottle.
"Oh, Bill!" said Jill, flinging herself into his arms. "Jeeves has told me everything!"
Over the head that rested on his chest Bill shot an anxious glance at Jeeves.
"When you say everything, do you mean everything?"
"Yes, m'lord. I deemed it advisable."
"I know all about Honest Patch Perkins and your moustache and Captain Biggar and Whistler's Mother and Mrs. Spottsworth and the pendant," said Jill, nestling closely.
It seemed so odd to Bill that a girl who knew all this should be nestling closely that he was obliged to release her for a moment and step across and take a sip of champagne.
"And you really mean," he said, returning and folding her in his embrace once more, "that you don't recoil from me in horror?"
"Of course I don't recoil from you in horror. Do I look as if I were recoiling from you in horror?"
"Well, no," said Bill, having considered this. He kissed her lips, her forehead, her ears and the top of her head. "But the trouble is that you might just as well recoil from me in horror, because I don't see how the dickens we're ever going to get married. I haven't a bean, and I've somehow got to raise a small fortune to pay Mrs. Spottsworth for her pendant.
Noblesse oblige, if you follow my drift. So if I don't sell her the house—"
"Of course you'll sell her the house."
"Shall I? I wonder—I'll certainly try.
Where on earth's she disappeared to? She was in here when I came through into the library just now. I wish she'd show up. I'm all full of that Country Life stuff, and if she doesn't come soon, it will evaporate."
"Excuse me, m'lord," said Jeeves, who during the recent exchanges had withdrawn discreetly to the window. "Mrs. Spottsworth and her ladyship are at this moment crossing the lawn."
With a courteous gesture he stepped to one side, and Mrs. Spottsworth entered, followed by Monica.
"Jill!" cried Monica, halting, amazed. "Good heavens!"
"Oh, it's all right," said Jill. "There's been a change in the situation. Sweethearts still."
"Well, that's fine. I've been showing Rosalinda round the place—"
"—with its avenues of historic oaks, its tumbling streams alive with trout and tench, and its breath-taking vistas lined with flowering shrubs ...
How did you like it?" said Bill.
Mrs. Spottsworth clasped her hands and closed her eyes in an ecstasy.
"It's wonderful, wonderful!" she said. "I can't understand how you can bring yourself to part with it, Billiken."
Bill gulped. "Am I going to part with it?"
"You certainly are," said Mrs.
Spottsworth emphatically, "if I have anything to say about it. This is the house of my dreams.
How much do you want for it—lock, stock and barrel?"
"You've taken my breath away."
"Well, that's me. I never could endure beating about the bush. If I want a thing, I say so and write a note. I'll tell you what let's do. Suppose I pay you a deposit of two thousand, and we can decide on the purchase price later?"
"You couldn't make it three thousand?"
"Sure." Mrs. Spottsworth unscrewed her fountain pen and having unscrewed it, paused.
"There's just one thing, though, before I sign on the dotted line. This place isn't damp, is it?"
"Damp?" said Monica. "Why, of course not."
"You're sure?"
"Dry as a bone."
"That's swell. Damp is death to me.
Fibrositis and sciatica."
Rory came in through the French window, laden with roses.
"A nosegay for you, Moke, old girl, with comps. of R. Carmoyle," he said, pressing the blooms into Monica's hands. "I say, Bill, it's starting to rain."
"What of it?"
"What of it?" echoed Rory, surprised.
"My dear old boy, you know what happens in this house when it rains. Water through the roof, water through the walls, water, water everywhere.
I was merely about to suggest in a kindly Boy Scout sort of spirit that you had better put buckets under the upstairs skylight. Very damp house, this," he said, addressing Mrs.
Spottsworth in his genial, confidential way.
"So near the river, you know. I often say that whereas in the summer months the river is at the bottom of the garden, in the winter months the garden is at the bottom of the—"
"Excuse me, m'lady," said the housemaid Ellen, appearing in the doorway. "Could I speak to Mrs. Spottsworth, m'lady?"
Mrs. Spottsworth, who had been staring, aghast, at Rory, turned, pen in hand.
"Yes?"
"Moddom," said Ellen, "your pendant's been pinched."
She had never been a girl for breaking things gently.
With considerable gratification Ellen found herself the centre of attraction. All eyes were focused upon her, and most of them were bulging. Bill's, in particular, struck her as being on the point of leaving their sockets.
"Yes," she proceeded, far too refined to employ the Bulstrode-Trelawny "Yus", "I was laying out your clothes for the evening, moddom, and I said to myself that you'd probably be wishing to wear the pendant again tonight, so I ventured to look in the little box, and it wasn't there, moddom. It's been stolen."
Mrs. Spottsworth drew a quick breath. The trinket in question was of little intrinsic worth—it could not, as she had said to Captain Biggar, have cost more than ten thousand dollars—but, as she had also said to Captain Biggar, it had a sentimental value for her. She was about to express her concern in words, but Bill broke in.