“What-ho!” I said.
The result of this simple greeting was a bit of a shock. Old Bittlesham quivered from head to foot like a poleaxed blancmange. His eyes were popping and his face had gone sort of greenish.
“Mr. Wooster!” He seemed to recover somewhat, as if I wasn’t the worst thing that could have happened to him. “You gave me a severe start.”
“Oh, sorry!”
“My uncle,” said young Bingo in a hushed, bedside sort of voice, “isn’t feeling quite himself this morning. He’s had a threatening letter.”
“I go in fear of my life,” said old Bittlesham.
“Threatening letter?”
“Written,” said old Bittlesham, “in an uneducated hand and couched in terms of uncompromising menace. Mr. Wooster, do you recall a sinister, bearded man who assailed me in no measured terms in Hyde Park last Sunday?”
I jumped, and shot a look at young Bingo. The only expression on his face was one of grave, kindly concern.
“Why—ah—yes,” I said. “Bearded man. Chap with a beard.”
“Could you identify him, if necessary?”
“Well, I—er—how do you mean?”
“The fact is, Bertie,” said Bingo, “we think this man with the beard is at the bottom of all this business. I happened to be walking late last night through Pounceby Gardens, where Uncle Mortimer lives, and as I was passing the house a fellow came hurrying down the steps in a furtive sort of way. Probably he had just been shoving the letter in at the front door. I noticed that he had a beard. I didn’t think any more of it, however, until this morning, when Uncle Mortimer showed me the letter he had received and told me about the chap in the Park. I’m going to make inquiries.”
“The police should be informed,” said Lord Bittlesham.
“No,” said young Bingo firmly, “not at this stage of the proceedings. It would hamper me. Don’t you worry, uncle; I think I can track this fellow down. You leave it all to me. I’ll pop you into a taxi now, and go and talk it over with Bertie.”
“You’re a good boy, Richard,” said old Bittlesham, and we put him in a passing cab and pushed off. I turned and looked young Bingo squarely in the eyeball.
“Did you send that letter?” I said.
“Rather! You ought to have seen it, Bertie! One of the best gent’s ordinary threatening letters I ever wrote.”
“But where’s the sense of it?”
“Bertie, my lad,” said Bingo, taking me earnestly by the coat-sleeve, “I had an excellent reason. Posterity may say of me what it will, but one thing it can never say—that I have not a good solid business head. Look here!” He waved a bit of paper in front of my eyes.
“Great Scott!” It was a cheque—an absolute, dashed cheque for fifty of the best, signed Bittlesham, and made out to the order of R. Little.
“What’s that for?”
“Expenses,” said Bingo, pouching it. “You don’t suppose an investigation like this can be carried on for nothing, do you? I now proceed to the bank and startle them into a fit with it. Later I edge round to my bookie and put the entire sum on Ocean Breeze. What you want in situations of this kind, Bertie, is tact. If I had gone to my uncle and asked him for fifty quid, would I have got it? No! But by exercising tact—Oh! by the way, what do you think of Charlotte?”
“Well—er—”
Young Bingo massaged my sleeve affectionately.
“I know, old man, I know. Don’t try to find words. She bowled you over, eh? Left you speechless, what? I know! That’s the effect she has on everybody. Well, I leave you here, laddie. Oh, before we part—Butt! What of Butt? Nature’s worst blunder, don’t you think?”
“I must say I’ve seen cheerier souls.”
“I think I’ve got him licked, Bertie. Charlotte is coming to the Zoo with me this afternoon. Alone. And later on to the pictures. That looks like the beginning of the end, what? Well, toodle-oo, friend of my youth. If you’ve nothing better to do this morning, you might take a stroll along Bond Street and be picking out a wedding present.”
I lost sight of Bingo after that. I left messages a couple of times at the club, asking him to ring me up, but they didn’t have any effect. I took it that he was too busy to respond. The Sons of the Red Dawn also passed out of my life, though Jeeves told me he had met Comrade Butt one evening and had a brief chat with him. He reported Butt as gloomier than ever. In the competition for the bulging Charlotte, Butt had apparently gone right back in the betting.
“Mr. Little would appear to have eclipsed him entirely, sir,” said Jeeves.
“Bad news, Jeeves; bad news!”
“Yes, sir.”
“I suppose what it amounts to, Jeeves, is that, when young Bingo really takes his coat off and starts in, there is no power of God or man that can prevent him making a chump of himself.”
“It would seem so, sir,” said Jeeves.
Then Goodwood came along, and I dug out the best suit and popped down.
I never know, when I’m telling a story, whether to cut the thing down to plain facts or whether to drool on and shove in a lot of atmosphere, and all that. I mean, many a cove would no doubt edge into the final spasm of this narrative with a long description of Goodwood, featuring the blue sky, the rolling prospect, the joyous crowds of pickpockets, and the parties of the second part who were having their pockets picked, and—in a word, what not. But better give it a miss, I think. Even if I
