Plum Punch: Four Short Tales

'Well, JONES,' I said encouragingly, 'what do you make of it?'

'I never form theories, as you are perfectly well aware,' he replied curtly. 'Pass me my bagpipes.'

I passed him his bagpipes and vanished.

It was late when I returned.

I found JONES lying on the floor with his head in a coal-scuttle.

'Well, WUDDUS,' he said, 'so you've come back?'

'My dear JONES, how——?'

'Tush, I saw you come in.'

'Of course,' I said. 'How simple it seems when you explain it! But what is this business of Miss PETTIGREW'S?'

'Just so. A black business, WUDDUS. One of the blackest I have ever handled. The man STANLEY PETTIGREW is making a very deliberate and systematic attempt to bore his unfortunate relative to death!'

I stared at him in silent horror.

* * * *

Two days afterwards JONES told me that he had made all the arrangements. We were to go down to Pettigrew Court by the midnight mail. I asked, Why the midnight mail? Why not wait and go comfortably next day? JONES, with some scorn, replied that if he could not begin a case by springing into the midnight mail, he preferred not to undertake that case. I was silenced.

'I am to go down as a friend of the family,' said he, 'and you are going as a footman.'

'Thanks,' I said.

'Don't mention it,' said JONES. 'You see, you have got to come in some capacity, for I must have a reporter on the spot, and as a bore is always at his worst at meal-times you will be more useful in the way of taking notes if you come as a footman. You follow me, WUDDUS?'

'But even now I don't quite see. How do you propose to treat the case?'

'I shall simply outbore this PETTIGREW. I shall cap all his stories with duller ones. Bring your note-book.'

'Stay, JONES,' I said. 'It seems to me—correct me if I am wrong—that in the exhilaration of the moment you have allowed a small point to escape you.'

'I beg your pardon, WUDDUS?' His face was pale with fury.

'A very small point,' I said hurriedly. 'Simply this, in fact. If you begin outboring STANLEY, surely an incidental effect of your action will be to accelerate the destruction of your suffering host.'

'True,' said JONES thoughtfully. 'True. I had not thought of that. It is at such moments, WUDDUS, that a suspicion steals across my mind that you are not such a fool as you undoubtedly look.' I bowed.

'I must make arrangements with Mr. PETTIGREW. Until I have finished with brother STANLEY he must keep to his room. Let him make some excuse. Perhaps you can suggest one?'

I suggested Asiatic cholera. JONES made a note of it.

On the following night, precisely at twelve o'clock, we sprang into the midnight mail.

II.

I think STANLEY PETTIGREW had his suspicions from the first that all was not thoroughly above board with regard to JONES. Personally, I think it was owing to the latter's disguise. It was one of JONES'S foibles never to undertake a case without assuming a complete disguise. There was rarely any necessity for a disguise, but he always assumed one. In reply to a question of mine on the subject he had once replied that there was a sportsmanlike way of doing these things, and an unsportsmanlike way. And we had to let it go at that.

On the present occasion he appeared in a bright check suit, a 'property' bald head, fringed with short scarlet curls (to match his tie and shirt), and a large pasteboard nose, turned up at the end and painted crimson. Add to this that he elected to speak in the high falsetto of a child of four, and it is scarcely to be wondered at that a man of STANLEY'S almost diabolical shrewdness should suspect that there was something peculiar about him. As regarded my appearance JONES never troubled very much. Except that he insisted on my wearing long yellow side-whiskers, he left my make-up very much to my own individual taste.

I shall never forget dinner on the first night after our arrival. I was standing at the sideboard, trying to draw a cork (which subsequently came out of its own accord, and broke three glasses and part of the butler), when I heard JONES ask STANLEY PETTIGREW to think of a number.

His adversary turned pale, and a gleam of suspicion appeared in his eye.

'Double it,' went on JONES relentlessly. 'Have you doubled it?'

'Yes,' growled the baffled wretch.

'Add two. Take away the number you first thought of. Double it. Add three. Divide half the first number (minus eighteen) by four. Subtract seven. Multiply by three hundred and sixteen, and the result is the number you first thought of minus four hundred and five.'

'Really?' said STANLEY PETTIGREW with assumed indifference.

'My dear JONES, how——?' I began admiringly.

JONES flashed a warning glance at me. Miss PETTIGREW saved the situation with magnificent tact.

'JOHN,' she said, 'you forget yourself. Leave the room.'

I was therefore deprived of the pleasure of witnessing the subsequent struggles which, to judge from the