Piccadilly Jim P. G. Wodehouse (great book club books .TXT) 📖

A great sigh seemed to sweep through the room. There was a long silence. Then, from the direction of the street, came the roar of a starting automobile. And at that sound the bearded man with the spectacles who had formed part of Miss Trimble’s procession uttered a wailing cry.

“Gee! He’s beat it in my bubble! And it was a hired one!”

The words seemed to relieve the tension in the air. One by one the company became masters of themselves once more. Miss Trimble, that masterly woman, was the first to recover. She raised herself from the floor⁠—for with a confused idea that she would be safer there she had flung herself down⁠—and, having dusted her skirt with a few decisive dabs of her strong left hand, addressed herself once more to business.

“I let ’m bluff me with a fake bomb!” she commented bitterly. She brooded on this for a moment. “Say, shut th’t door ’gain, someone, and t’run this mutt out. I can’t think with th’t yapping going on.”

Mrs. Pett, pale and scared, gathered Aida into her arms. At the same time Ann removed herself from Jimmy’s. She did not look at him. She was feeling oddly shy. Shyness had never been a failing of hers, but she would have given much now to have been elsewhere.

Miss Trimble again took charge of the situation. The sound of the automobile had died away. Gentleman Jack had passed out of their lives. This fact embittered Miss Trimble. She spoke with asperity.

“Well, he’s gone!” she said acidly. “Now we can get down t’ cases again. Say!” She addressed Mrs. Pett, who started nervously. The experience of passing through the shadow of the valley of death and of finding herself in one piece instead of several thousand had robbed her of all her wonted masterfulness. “Say, list’n t’ me. There’s been a double game on here t’night. That guy that’s jus’ gone was th’ first part of th’ entertainment. Now we c’n start th’ sec’nd part. You see these ducks?” She indicated with a wave of the revolver Mr. Crocker and his bearded comrade. “They’ve been trying t’ kidnap y’r son!”

Mrs. Pett uttered a piercing cry.

“Oggie!”

“Oh, can it!” muttered that youth, uncomfortably. He foresaw awkward moments ahead, and he wished to concentrate his faculties entirely on the part he was to play in them. He looked sideways at Chicago Ed. In a few minutes, he supposed, Ed. would be attempting to minimise his own crimes, by pretending that he, Ogden, had invited him to come and kidnap him. Stout denial must be his weapon.

“I had m’ suspicions,” resumed Miss Trimble, “that someth’ng was goin’ t’ be pulled off tonight, ’nd I was waiting outside f’r it to break loose. This guy here,” she indicated the bearded plotter, who blinked deprecatingly through his spectacles, “h’s been waiting on the c’rner of th’ street for the last hour with ’n automobile. I’ve b’n watching him right along. I was onto h’s game! Well, just now out came the kid with this plug-ugly here.” She turned to Mr. Crocker. “Say you! Take off th’t mask. Let’s have a l’k at you!”

Mr. Crocker reluctantly drew the cambric from his face.

“Goosh!” exclaimed Miss Trimble in strong distaste. “Say, ’ve you got some kind of a plague, or wh’t is it? Y’look like a coloured comic supplement!” She confronted the shrinking Mr. Crocker and ran a bony finger over his cheek. “Makeup!” she said, eyeing the stains disgustedly. “Grease paint! Goosh!”

“Skinner!” cried Mrs. Pett.

Miss Trimble scanned her victim more closely.

“So ’tis, if y’ do a bit ’f excavating.” She turned on the bearded one. “ ’nd I guess all this shrubbery is fake, ’f you come down to it!” She wrenched at the unhappy man’s beard. It came off in her hands, leaving a square chin behind it. “If this ain’t a wig, y’ll have a headache t’morrow,” observed Miss Trimble, weaving her fingers into his luxuriant head-covering and pulling. “Wish y’ luck! Ah! ’twas a wig. Gimme those spect’cles.” She surveyed the results of her handiwork grimly. “Say, Clarence,” she remarked, “y’re a wise guy. Y’ look handsomer with ’em on. Does anyone know this duck?”

“It is Mitchell,” said Mrs. Pett. “My husband’s physical instructor.”

Miss Trimble turned, and, walking to Jimmy, tapped him meaningly on the chest with her revolver.

“Say, this is gett’n interesting! This is where y’ ’xplain, y’ng man, how ’twas you happened to be down in this room when th’t crook who’s just gone was monkeyin’ with the safe. L’ks t’ me as if you were in with these two.”

A feeling of being on the verge of one of those crises which dot the smooth path of our lives came to Jimmy. To conceal his identity from Ann any longer seemed impossible. He was about to speak, when Ann broke in.

“Aunt Nesta,” she said, “I can’t let this go on any longer. Jerry Mitchell isn’t to blame. I told him to kidnap Ogden!”

There was an awkward silence. Mrs. Pett laughed nervously.

“I think you had better go to bed, my dear child. You have had a severe shock. You are not yourself.”

“But it’s true! I did tell him, didn’t I, Jerry?”

“Say!” Miss Trimble silenced Jerry with a gesture. “You beat ’t back t’ y’r little bed, honey, like y’r aunt says. Y’ say y’ told this guy t’ steal th’ kid. Well, what about this here Skinner? Y’ didn’t tell him, did y’?”

“I⁠—I⁠—” Ann began confusedly. She was utterly unable to account for Skinner, and it made her task of explaining difficult.

Jimmy came to the rescue. He did not like to think how Ann would receive the news, but for her own sake he must speak now. It would have required a harder-hearted man than himself to resist the mute pleading of his father’s grease-painted face. Mr. Crocker was a game sport: He would not have said a word without the sign from Jimmy, even to save himself