A Pelican at Blandings Read Online Free PDF Page B

Connie,
going off to live in America with a man with a head like a
Spanish onion. Look at those two nephews of mine, both
married to girls I wouldn't have let them so much as whistle at
if I'd been able to stop them. And look at my niece. Came back
to the hotel last night giggling and humming, and wouldn't
tell me what it was all about. Definitely potty.'
    Gally could of course have shed light on the mystery of the
humming niece, but he felt that if she herself had been so
reticent, it was not for him to speak. He allowed the slur of
mental instability to continue to rest upon her.
    'Where is this unbalanced niece? Clarence said she would be
coming with you. Not ill, I hope?'
    'No, she's all right except for all that humming and giggling.
She's got to appear in court today; she's a witness in some case
that comes on this morning. She'll be coming later. Do you
know anything about pictures?' asked the Duke, wearying of
the subject of nieces and changing it with his customary
abruptness.
    'Not much. I heard you had bought one.'
    'Who told you that?'
    'A usually reliable source.'
    'Well, it's quite true. It's what they call a reclining nude.
You know the sort of thing. Girl with no clothes on, lying on
a mossy bank. By some French fellow. I bought it at one of
those art galleries.'
    'I suppose they told you it was a monument to man's attainment
of the unattainable and the work of a Master with his
brush dipped in immortality?'
    'Eh?'
    'Let it go. I was only thinking that that's the way art galleries
generally talk when a mug walks into the shop.'
    The Duke's moustache shot up. His manner showed
resentment.
    'Think I'm a mug, do you? Well, you're wrong. I knew what
I was doing, all right. Shall I tell you why I bought that
reclining nude? Do you know a chap called Trout? Wilbur J.
Trout?'
    'Not had that pleasure. What about him?'
    'He's an American. What the Yanks call a playboy. He's in
London, and I ran into him at the club. He has a guest card.
We got into conversation, and he told me he loved his wife.
Blotto, of course.'
    'What makes you say that?'
    'Well, would a chap tell a chap he loved his wife, if he
wasn't?'
    'He might if the other chap had your charm.'
    'True. Yes, something in that.'
    'Yours is a very winning manner. Invites confidences.'
    'I suppose it does. Yes, I see what you mean. Well, anyway,
as I was saying, he told me he loved his wife. She was his third
wife. Or did he say fourth? Never mind, it's immaterial. The
point is that she recently divorced him, but he still loves her. He
said he was carrying the torch for her, which struck me as a
peculiar expression, but that's what he said. He was crying into
his cocktail as he spoke, and that seemed odd, too, because he
was a big, beefy chap who you'd have thought would have been
above that sort of thing. He told me he used to be a great
footballer, played for Harvard or Yale or one of those places.
Ginger-coloured hair, broken nose which I suppose he got at
football unless one of his wives gave it him, inherited millions
from his father, who was a big business man out in California.'
    Gally stirred uneasily in his seat. He had always been a
better raconteur than listener, and it seemed to him that his
companion was a long time coming to the point, assuming that
there was a point to which he was coming.
    'All this,' he said, 'would be of the greatest help if I were
planning to write a biography of Wilbur Trout or doing The
Trout Story for the films, but how does it link up with
reclining nudes and you as an art collector?'
    'I'm coming to that.'
    'Good. Come as quick as you can.'
    'Where was I?'
    'He told you he loved his wife.'
    'That's right. And then he said something that held me
spell-bound.'
    'Like me. I can hardly wait for the plot to unfold. I'll bet it
turns out that it was the butler who did it.'
    'What do you mean, the butler? What butler? I never
mentioned any butler.'
    'Don't give it another thought. What did he say that
interested you so much?'
    'He