Full Moon (3 page)

'What!'

'Yes.'

'Well, strike me pink!'

'I've got the whole thing worked out. What I feel is that we must confront the family with a ... What's that French expression?'

'Oo la la?'

'
Fait accompli.
What I feel we need here is a
fait accompli.
When you confront people with
fait accompli's
you've got 'em cold. You see, as I was saying, in order to develop this pub of Bill's as it should be developed, we shall need quite a bit of capital. That will have to come from Uncle Clarence.'

'You consider him the people's choice?'

'Well, he's the head of the family. A head of a family can't let his niece down. He's practically got to rally round her. So what I feel is, dish out the
fait accompli,
and then go to Uncle Clarence and say: "Here's this wonderful business opportunity, needing only a mere fraction of your heaped-up wealth to turn it into a bonanza. I'm your niece. Bill's just become your nephew. Blood is thicker than water. So how about it?" It seems to me that we're doing the only sane, prudent thing in getting married at the Brompton Road Registry Office.'

Her girlish enthusiasm had begun to infect Freddie. His, too, he could not but remember, had been a runaway match, and look what a ball of fire that had turned out. As he thought of the day when he and Niagara ('Aggie') Donaldson had skimmed
around the corner and become man and wife, a wave of not unmanly sentiment poured over him.

'I guess you're about right, at that.'

'Oh, Freddie, you're a darling.' Prudence's blue eyes glowed with affection and gratitude for this cousinly support. She told herself that she had always been devoted to this prince of dog-biscuit pedlars, and a spasm of remorse shook her as she recalled that at the age of ten she had once knocked off his top hat with a well-directed half brick. 'Your sympathy and moral support mean so much to us. Are you doing anything this morning?'

'Nothing special. I want to have this conference with Aunt Dora, and then I've got to look in at Aspinall's in Bond Street. Apart from that I'm fairly free.'

'What are you doing at Aspinall's? Buying a birthday present for Vee?'

'I thought of getting her a pendant there. But what I'm really looking in about is Aggie's necklace. A rather unfortunate situation has arisen. She left the damn thing with me to take to Aspinall's to be cleaned, and what with one thing and another it's kept slipping my mind. She needs it, it seems, for the various routs and revels into which she has been plunged since her arrival in the gay city, and she's been wiring about it a good deal. The communication which reached me this morning was rather a stinker, and left me with the impression that further delay might be fatal. Why did you ask if I was doing anything this morning? Do you want me to roll up?'

'If you would. Bill's sure to forget to bring a witness. He's rather got the jumps, poor angel. And I don't want to have the driver of the taxi.'

'I know what you mean. When Aggie and I were put through it, we had to fall back on the charioteer, and he spoiled the party.
A bit too broadly jocular for my taste, besides wanting to muscle in on the wedding breakfast. But won't Uncle Gally be on the spot? He seems to have been more or less the sponsor of this binge.'

'You don't expect Uncle Gally to be up by twelve, do you? He probably didn't get to bed till six or seven, poor lamb. No, it must be you. Do come, Freddie, my beautiful Freddie.'

'I'll be there. We Threepwoods stand by our pals. I shall have to bring a guy named Plimsoll.'

'Oh, why?'

'Imperative. I'm taking him down to Blandings later in the day, and I daren't let him out of my sight during the luncheon hour or he might vanish on a jag. I've got a colossal deal pending with the man.'

'Is he somebody special?'

'You bet he's somebody special. He's Tipton's.'

'What's that?'

'Haven't you ever heard of Tipton's? Shows you've not been in America. Tipton's Stores have branches in every small town throughout the Middle West. They supply the local yokels with everything, including dog biscuits. I should estimate that the dog biscuits sold annually by Tipton's, if placed end to end, would reach from the rock-bound coast of Maine to the Everglades of Florida. Possibly further.'

'And Plimsoll is really Tipton in disguise? When I meet him and say: "Hullo there, Plimsoll," will he tear off his whiskers and shout: "April Fool! I'm Tipton"?'

Freddie was obliged to click his tongue once more.

'Plimsoll owns the controlling interest in Tipton's,' he explained austerely. 'And my aim is to talk him into giving Donaldson's Inc. the exclusive dog-biscuit concession throughout his
vast system of chain stores. If I can swing it, it will be about the biggest thing we've ever pulled off.'

'Your father-in-law will be pretty bucked.'

'He'll go capering about Long Island City like a nautch girl.'

'I should think he would make you ... Is there anything higher than a vice-president?'

'Well, as a matter of fact,' Freddie confessed, in a burst of candour, 'in most of these American concerns, as far as I've been able to make out, vice-president is about where you start. I fancy my guerdon ought to be something more on the lines of assistant sales manager.'

'Well, good luck, anyway. How do the prospects look?'

'Sometimes bright. Sometimes not so bright. You see, old Tippy only got control of his money a couple of months ago, and he has been celebrating almost without a break ever since.'

'He sounds the sort of man Uncle Gally would like. Twin souls.'

'And the difficulty I have had to contend with has been to catch him at the psychological moment for getting him to sign on the dotted line. He's either been too plastered to hold a pen, or else in the grip of the sort of hangover which makes a man lose interest in everything except bicarb of soda. That's why it's such a terrific strategic move having got him to let me take him to Blandings. He won't find the same facilities there as in London.'

'And he won't be able to get away, when you corner him and start yelling about the broad Donaldson highroad.'

'Exactly. I had omitted to take that into my calculations. Well, I mustn't stand talking to you all the morning, young dogface. Where did you say the fixture was?'

'Brompton Road Registry Office. It's just beyond the Park Hotel.'

'And the kick-off is timed for—?'

'Twelve sharp.'

'Fine. That will give me nice time to sow the good seed with Aunt Dora and go to the jewel bin. Then a quick phone call to Tippy, telling him where and when to meet me, and I'll be with you.'

'Don't go dropping any incautious words to Mother.'

'My dear child! You know me. On the subject of your romance
I shall of course seal my lips completely. And when I seal my lips,' said
Freddie, 'they stay sealed.'

It was some twenty minutes later that he came out of Wiltshire House. When he did so, his face was grave and perplexed. The process of sowing the good seed with his aunt Dora had been attended by none of the success to which he had looked forward with such bright anticipation. True to his promise, he had sealed his lips regarding the forthcoming proceedings at the Brompton Road Registry Office, and it seemed to him that he might just as well have sealed them on the subject of dog biscuits.

To say that he had actually been given the sleeve across the windpipe by his relative would perhaps be too much. But he had found her in strange mood, her manner distrait and preoccupied and with more than a suggestion in it of wishing to be alone. The best he had been able to achieve had been an undertaking on her part that, if sent a free sample, she would give it a trial; and, as he returned to his headquarters after fulfilling his wife's commission and giving orders for Veronica's birthday present, he was realizing how those charmers must have felt who suffered from the sales resistance of the deaf adder.

Arrived at his rooms, he established telephonic communication with that haunt of the gilded rich, Barribault's Hotel in Brook Street, and asked to be connected with Mr Plimsoll. And presently a rather hoarse and roopy voice came to him over the wire, the voice of one who at no distant date has been wandering long and far across the hot sands.

'Hello?'

'What ho, Tippy. This is Freddie.'

'Oh, hello, Freddie. You caught me just in time. Another second, and I'd have been gone.'

'Where are you off to?'

'Going to see a doctor.'

Freddie cooed sympathetically.

'Feeling bad?'

'No, as a matter of fact I'm feeling extraordinarily well. Most amazingly well. You would be astounded if you knew how well I'm feeling. But a number of light pink spots appear to have sprouted on my chest. Have you ever had pink spots on your chest?'

'I don't think so.'

'It isn't a question of thinking. You've either got 'em or you haven't. There is no middle course. Mine are a curious rosy colour, like the first flush of the sky on a summer morning. I thought it might be as well to have the medicine man cock an eye at them. I never had measles as a child.'

'Why not?'

'Ah, that's what we would all like to know. I dare say, if the truth came out, it would rock civilization.'

'Well, can you meet me at twelve at the Brompton Road Registry Office? A pal of mine is getting married there.'

'Now, there's a sap's game, if you like. However, I hope he'll
be happy. I don't say he will, mind you. It's just a kindly hope. Okay. Brompton Road Registry Office, twelve o'clock.'

'It's near the Park Hotel. I'll give you lunch there.'

'Excellent.'

'I'll come in the car, so bring your things. Then we can start straight off for Blandings afterwards.'

'Blandings?'

'I'd like to get there for dinner.'

'Blandings,' said Mr Plimsoll. 'Of course, yes, Blandings. I knew there was something I wanted to tell you. I'm not coming to Blandings.'

It was not easy to make Freddie Threepwood shake like an aspen. Usually, in order to shatter his iron composure, you had to praise Peterson's Pup Food in his hearing. But he shook now perceptibly and just like an aspen.

'What!'

'No. Where's the sense in burying myself in the country when I'm feeling so extraordinarily well? The whole point of the scheme, if you remember, was that I should go there and tone up my system by breathing pure air. But now that it's gone and toned itself up, I don't need pure air. In fact, I'd rather not have it.'

'But, Tippy ...'

'It's off,' said Mr Plimsoll firmly. 'We wash the project out. This other idea of yours, however, of standing me a bite of lunch, strikes me as admirable. I'll come dashing up, all fire and ginger. You'll know me by the rosy cheeks. I really am feeling astoundingly well. It's what I've always said – alcohol's a tonic. Where most fellows go wrong is that they don't take enough of it. Twelve o'clock at the what's-its-name. Good. Right. Fine. Swell. Capital. Excellent. Splendid,' said Mr Plimsoll, and rang off.

For some moments Freddie stood motionless. This shattering blow to his hopes and dreams had temporarily stunned him. He toyed with the idea of calling the other back and reasoning with him. Then he reflected that this could be better done quietly and at one's leisure across the luncheon table. He lit a cigarette, and there came into his face a look of stern determination. Donaldson's Inc. trains its vice-presidents well. They may be down, but they are never out.

As for Mr Plimsoll, he picked up hat and umbrella, balanced the latter buoyantly on his chin for an instant, then went out and rang for the elevator. A few minutes later he was being assisted into a taxi by the ex-King of Ruritania who patrolled the sidewalk in front of the main entrance.

'Harley Street,' he said to the driver. 'And don't spare the horses.'

Harley Street, as everybody knows, is where medical men collect in gangs, and almost every door you see has burst out into a sort of eczema of brass plates. At a house about half-way down the thoroughfare the following members of the healing profession had elected to mess in together: Hartley Rampling, P. P. Borstal, G. V. Cheesewright, Sir Abercrombie Fitch-Fitch, and E. Jimpson Murgatroyd. The one Tipton was after was E. Jimpson Murgatroyd.

The great drawback to choosing a doctor at random out of the telephone directory just because you like his middle name – Tipton had once been engaged to a girl called Doris Jimpson – is that until you are in his consulting room and it is too late to back out, you don't know what you are going to get. It may be a kindred soul, or it may be someone utterly alien and unsympathetic. You are taking a leap in the dark.

The moment Tipton set eyes on E. Jimpson Murgatroyd he knew that he had picked a lemon in the garden of medicine. What he had hoped for was a sunny practitioner who would prod him in the ribs with his stethoscope, compliment him on his amazing health, tell him an anecdote about a couple of Irishmen named Pat and Mike, give him some sort of ointment for the spots, and send him away in a whirl of good-fellowship. And E. Jimpson proved to be a gloomy man with side whiskers, who smelled of iodoform and had obviously been looking on the black side of things since he was a slip of a boy.

Seeming not in the least impressed by Tipton's extraordinary fitness, he had asked him in a low, despondent voice to take a seat and show him his spots. And when he had seen them he shook his head and said he didn't like those spots. Tipton said he didn't like them either – which was fine, he pointed out,
because if he was anti-spot and E. J. Murgatroyd was anti-spot, they could get together and do something about them. What brought home the bacon on these occasions, said Tipton, was team spirit and that shoulder-to-shoulder stuff. There was a song, he added, about the Boys of the Old Brigade, which illustrated what he had in mind.

Sighing rather heavily, E. J. Murgatroyd then fastened a sort of rubber contrivance about Tipton's biceps and started tightening it, keeping his eye the while upon what appeared to be some kind of score sheet on his desk. Releasing him from this, he said he didn't like Tipton's blood pressure. Tipton, surprised, for this was the first time he had heard of it, said had he a blood pressure? And E. J. Murgatroyd said yes, and a very high one, and Tipton said that was good, wasn't it, and E. J. Murgatroyd said no, not so good, and began to tap him a good deal. Then, having asked some rather personal and tactless questions concerning Tipton's general scheme of life, he delivered his verdict.

The spots, he said, considered purely as spots, were of no great importance. If there had been nothing wrong with him but the spots, Tipton could have sneered at them. But taken in conjunction with a number of other things which he had noticed in the course of his investigations, they made it clear to him that his patient was suffering from advanced alcoholic poisoning and in serious danger of being written off as a. total loss. It was in vain that Tipton protested that he had never felt better in his life. E. J. Murgatroyd merely came back at him with the moody statement that that was often the way. Such a lull before the storm, he said, generally heralded the final breakdown.

And when Tipton asked him what he meant by 'final breakdown', E. J. Murgatroyd – his first name was Edward – came
right out into the open and stated that if Tipton did not immediately abstain from alcoholic stimulants and retire to some quiet spot where he could live a life of perfect calm, breathing none but the best and purest air and catching up with his sleep, he would start seeing things.

Seeing things?

What sort of things?

Ah, said E. J. Murgatroyd, that was not easy to say. It might be one thing, or it might be another. Lizards ... spiders ... faces.... Well, to give Tipton some sort of idea of what he meant, he instanced the case of a patient of aristocratic lineage who, after cutting much the same wide swath in the night life of the metropolis as Tipton had been cutting, had supposed – erroneously – that he was being followed about by a little man with a black beard.

The interview had concluded with him getting into Tipton's ribs for three guineas.

As Tipton came out through the brass-plated door, there was a cloud on his erstwhile shining face, and he was muttering to himself. What he was muttering was: 'Three smackers. Chucked away. Just like that,' and his intonation was bitter. For, except when scattering it right and left in moments of revelry, he was inclined to be careful with his newly-acquired wealth. With a dark frown he hailed a cab and directed the driver to take him back to Barribault's. Reaching in his pocket for the materials for a soothing smoke, he had just discovered that he had left his cigarette case in his bedroom.

His mood was sceptical and defiant. His had not been a sheltered life, and he supposed that, taking it by and large, he had heard so much apple-sauce talked in his time as most people; but never in a career greatly devoted to listening to apple-sauce
had his ears been affronted by such Grade A apple-sauce as that which E. Jimpson Murgatroyd had just been dishing out.

If E. Jimpson Murgatroyd had pulled a similar line of talk on one of those grey mornings when he had reclined limply in a chair with ice on his forehead and the bicarbonate of soda bottle within easy reach, he might have attached some credence to his wild theories. There had been times during the past two months when, if anyone had told Tipton Plimsoll that his only hope was to go into a monastery, he would have welcomed the suggestion as sound and decided to act upon it.

But to come across with that sort of stuff on a morning when the sun was shining and he was feeling like a million dollars was another matter altogether. And what he was saying to himself, as the cab drew up at the entrance of Barribault's, was that it was his moral duty to teach the man a sharp lesson which would make him more careful another time about talking through his hat in this irresponsible fashion.

Nor did it take him long to divine the correct procedure, to formulate the firm, spirited policy which would bathe E. J. Murgatroyd in confusion and cause him to feel about as silly as any Harley Street practitioner had felt since the invention of medicine bottles. And that was to make straight for Barribault's bar, push four or five nourishing drinks down the hatch, and then go back and confront the man all bursting with health, and say: 'Well, Murgatroyd, dear old chap, it may interest you to learn that since I saw you last I've been mopping up the stuff like a vacuum cleaner, and I feel, if possible, better than ever. As for all that rot you talked about seeing faces, I haven't seen a sign of a face. What have you to say to that, Murgatroyd? Try that on your bazooka, E. Jimpson.'

With Tipton Plimsoll, to think was to act. It was with a song
upon his lips that he established himself at the counter and told the man behind it to limber up his wrists and start pouring, for a big cash customer had arrived.

At about the same moment a young man who had been staring out into the street through the swing doors suddenly swerved away from them and came hurrying towards the bar. He was a massive young man who looked like a kindly gorilla and seemed to be labouring under some sort of nervous strain. His name was Lister, William Galahad, and he had come to Barribault's to book a table for his wedding breakfast.

When large earnest men with simple orderly minds fall desperately in love with small, reckless, impulsive girls whose motto is 'Anything goes,' the result is not infrequently to make them feel as if their souls had been stirred up with a pole; and in conveying the impression that he was labouring under a nervous strain Bill Lister in no way deceived his public. Ever since the tempestuous entry into his life of Prudence Garland, he had been feeling almost without interruption rather as one might imagine a leaf to feel when caught up and whirled about in an autumn gale.

Bill's was essentially a simple, orderly mind. Nature had intended him to be one of those men to whom love, when it comes, comes gently and gradually, progressing in easy stages from the first meeting in rigidly conventional circumstances to the decorous wedding with the ushers showing friends and relatives into the ringside pews. If ever there was a man born to be the morning-coated central figure in a wedding group photograph, it was William Galahad Lister.

And here he was, after a month of hectic secret meetings and passionate secret correspondence, about to sneak off to a clandestine union at a registry office.

Not that he minded, of course. It was all right with him. If Prudence had wanted a Hollywood wedding with brass bands, cameras, and full floodlighting effects, he would have screwed his courage to the sticking point and gone through with it. For he had never lost sight of the fact that the nub of the thing, the aspect of the affair to keep the eye fixed on, was that she was going to be his wife. But there were moments when he could have wished that matters had arranged themselves somewhat differently, and one of the improvements which he could have suggested offhand would have been a change in venue for the wedding breakfast.

It is the boast of Barribault's Hotel, which caters principally to American millionaires and visiting maharajahs, that it can make the wrong sort of client feel more like a piece of cheese – and a cheap yellow piece of cheese at that – than any other similar establishment in the world. The personnel of its staff are selected primarily for their ability to curl the upper lip and raise the eyebrows just that extra quarter of an inch which makes all the difference.

Bill, as his photograph had shown, was a splendidly virile young man, and if you had had a mad bull you wished dealt with, you could have placed it in no better hands. But there are times when this business of being large and muscular pays no dividends, and in the super-aristocratic interior of Barribault's you are better served by a slim elegance and up-to-the-minute tailoring.

By nature diffident, and conscious that his clothes, however admirably suited to some Bohemian revel at a Chelsea studio,
were out of place in this temple of the best people, Bill had been reduced by his interview with a polished plenipotentiary in the dining-room to a state of almost soluble discomfort. It was all too plain to him that the plenipotentiary did not like his tie and was surprised and resentful that anyone in such baggy trousers should be proposing to lunch on the premises. He had tottered out feeling that his hands and feet had been affected by some sort of elephantiasis and that his outer appearance was that of a tramp cyclist.

And when he reached the swing doors which led to the street, there, standing on the sidewalk, was the uniformed exquisite who looked like an ex-King of Ruritania and who had glanced at him as he came in with such an obvious sneer. And it suddenly came over Bill like a wave that he was incapable of passing this man again unless he had a drink first, to fortify him. That was why he had swerved away and headed so abruptly for the bar.

Tipton Plimsoll at this moment had just disposed of his first and was watching the barman shake up another.

The thoughtful soul who built the bar at Barribault's Hotel constructed the upper half of its door of glass, so that young men about town, coming to slake their thirst, should be able to take a preliminary peep into its interior and assure themselves that it contained none of their creditors. Pressing his nose against this, Bill observed with regret that there was a tall thin fellow seated at the counter, and he drew back, thinking this over. He was not at all sure that in his present disordered condition he was capable of enduring the society of tall thin fellows.

A short while later, for the urge to get a couple of quick ones was very keen, he took another look. But once more he found himself unequal to entering. The tall thin fellow gave him the impression of being just the sort of man who would take one
quick stare at the knees of his trousers and turn away with a short, sardonic laugh. He received this impression more strongly the third time he peered in, and still more strongly the fourth time.

It was as he was coming up for the second time that Tipton Plimsoll first became aware of him. Over the bar of Barribault's Hotel, reflecting the door, is a large mirror, tastefully fringed with bottles and advertisements of bottles. And it was suddenly borne in upon Tipton, as he sat sipping his third, that there kept appearing and disappearing in this mirror a hideous face.

At first the phenomenon occasioned him no concern. He directed the barman's attention to it with some amusement.

'Doesn't seem able to make up his mind,' he said.

'Sir?' said the barman.

Tipton explained that a bimbo with a face like a gorilla had started peeping in at the door and vanishing again, and the barman said that he had observed nothing. Tipton said 'Oh, hadn't he?' and for the first time became a little thoughtful. It suddenly occurred to him that the apparition's eyes, meeting his, had seemed to hold in them a sort of message or warning – at any rate, they had gazed at him with a singular fixity; and, recalling E. Jimpson Murgatroyd's words, he was conscious of a thrill of apprehension, faint for the moment, but beginning to gather strength.

'There,' he said, as Bill came into action for the fourth time.

'Where?' said the barman, looking up from his mixing.

'It's gone again,' said Tipton.

'Oh, yes, sir?' said the barman. 'Nice day,' he added, to keep the conversation going.

Tipton sat for a while in thought. That thrill of apprehension had now become quite a definite thrill. Then he reflected that
there was a very simple way of easing his mind. He went to the door and opened it.

In the interval between Bill's fourth inspection and Tipton's courageous investigation a new factor had come into the affair – the awakening of the pride of the Listers. Quite suddenly there had come upon Bill a feeling of revulsion at the ignoble part he was playing. He saw himself for what he was, a poltroon who was allowing himself to be intimidated by a man in uniform. A spirit of defiance awoke in him. Was he, a finalist in the heavyweight division of last year's Amateur Boxing Championship contests, to be scared by a mere doorkeeper, even if the latter was about eight feet in height and richly apparelled? Put like that, the question caused him to burn with shame. In the space of time – about forty seconds – in which Tipton had sat in thought, he had turned away with squared shoulders and pushed masterfully through the swing doors. And his bravery was rewarded. The ex-King happened at the moment to be scooping a duke or a marquess or some such person out of an automobile, so did not see him. Feeling a little like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego after their passage through the burning fiery furnace, Bill strode past and set off in the direction of the Brompton Road and its registry office.