ought to do in such circumstances.
Footsteps sounded outside, and then a wrenching and scratching. The door opened and we beheld on the mat Ukridge, with a carving-knife in his hand, looking headachy and dishevelled, and the butler, his professional poise rudely disturbed and his face stained with coal-dust.
It was characteristic of Miss Ukridge that it was to the erring domestic rather than the rescuing nephew that she turned first.
“Barter,” she hissed, as far as a woman, even of her intellectual gifts, is capable of hissing the word “Barter,” “why didn’t you come when I rang?”
“I did not hear the bell, madam. I was—”
“You must have heard the bell.”
“No, madam.”
“Why not?”
“Because I was in the coal-cellar, madam.”
“What on earth were you doing in the coal-cellar?”
“I was induced to go there, madam, by a man. He intimidated me with a pistol. He then locked me in.”
“What! What man?”
“A person with a short moustache and penetrating eyes. He—”
A raconteur with a story as interesting as his to tell might reasonably have expected to be allowed to finish it, but butler Barter at this point ceased to grip his audience. With a gasping moan his employer leaped past him, and we heard her running up the stairs.
Ukridge turned to me plaintively.
“What is all this, laddie? Gosh, I’ve got a headache. What has been happening?”
“The curate put knockout drops in your drink, and then—”
I have seldom seen anyone display such poignant emotion as Ukridge did at that moment.
“The curate! It’s a little hard. Upon my Sam, it’s a trifle thick. Corky, old horse, I have travelled all over the world in tramp-steamers and whatnot. I have drunk in waterfront saloons from Montevideo to Cardiff. And the only time anyone has ever succeeded in doctoring the stuff on me it was done in Wimbledon—and by a curate. Tell me, laddie, are all curates like that? Because, if so—”
“He has also pinched your aunt’s collection of snuffboxes.”
“The curate?”
“Yes.”
“Golly!” said Ukridge in a low, reverent voice, and I could see a new respect for the Cloth dawning within him.
“And then this other fellow came along—his accomplice, pretending to be a detective—and locked us in and shut the butler in the coal-cellar. And I rather fancy he has got away with your aunt’s jewels.”
A piercing scream from above rent the air.
“He has,” I said, briefly. “Well, old man, I think I’ll be going.”
“Corky,” said Ukridge, “stand by me!”
I shook my head.
“In any reasonable circumstances, yes. But I will not meet your aunt again just now. In a year or so, perhaps, but not now.”
Hurrying footsteps sounded on the staircase.
“Goodbye,” I said, pushing past and heading for the open. “I must be off. Thanks for a very pleasant afternoon.”
Money was tight in those days, but it seemed to me next morning that an outlay of twopence on a telephone call to Heath House could not be considered an unjustifiable extravagance. I was conscious of a certain curiosity to learn at long range what had happened after I had removed myself on the previous afternoon.
“Are you there?” said a grave voice in answer to my ring.
“Is that Barter?”
“Yes, sir.”
“This is Mr. Corcoran. I want to speak to Mr. Ukridge.”
“Mr. Ukridge is no longer here, sir. He left perhaps an hour ago.”
“Oh? Do you mean left—er—forever?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Oh! Thanks.”
I rang off and, pondering deeply, returned to my rooms. I was not surprised to be informed by Bowles, my landlord, that Ukridge was in my sitting-room. It was this storm-tossed man’s practice in times of stress to seek refuge with me.
“Hullo, laddie,” said Ukridge in a graveyard voice.
“So here you are.”
“Here I am.”
“She kicked you out?”
Ukridge winced slightly, as at some painful recollection.
“Words passed, old horse, and in the end we decided that we were better apart.”
“I don’t see why she should blame you for what happened.”
“A woman like my aunt, Corky, is capable of blaming anybody for anything. And so I start life again, laddie, a penniless man, with no weapons against the great world but my vision and my brain.”
I endeavoured to attract his attention to the silver lining.
“You’re all right,” I said. “You’re just where you wanted to be. You have the money which your buttercup girl collected.”
A strong spasm shook my poor friend, causing, as always happened with him in moments of mental agony, his collar to shoot off its stud and his glasses to fall from his nose.
“The money that girl collected,” he replied, “is not available. It has passed away. I saw her this morning and she told me.”
“Told you what?”
“That a curate came up to her in the garden while she was selling those buttercups and—in spite of a strong stammer—put it to her so eloquently that she was obtaining money under false pretences that she gave him the entire takings for his Church Expenses Fund and went home, resolved to lead a better life. Women are an unstable, emotional sex, laddie. Have as little to do with them as possible. And, for the moment, give me a drink, old horse, and mix it fairly strong. These are the times that try men’s souls.”
The Level Business Head
“Another beaker of port, laddie?” urged Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge, hospitably.
“Thanks.”
“One more stoup of port for Mr. Corcoran, Baxter. You may bring the coffee, cigars, and liqueurs to us in the library in about a quarter of an hour.”
The butler filled my glass and melted away. I looked about me dizzily. We were seated in the spacious dining-room of Ukridge’s Aunt Julia’s house on Wimbledon Common. A magnificent banquet had wound its way to a fitting finish, and the whole thing seemed to me inexplicable.
“I don’t understand this,” I said. “How do I come to be sitting here, bursting with rich food paid for by your aunt?”
“Perfectly simple, laddie. I expressed a desire for your company tonight, and she at once consented.”
“But why? She has never let you invite me here before. She can’t stand me.”
Ukridge sipped his port.
“Well, the fact of the matter is, Corky,” he said, in a burst
