‘How? ‘ I said, asking it.
‘Quite simple. We agreed, I think, that she has no use for a loser. I propose to lose this election.’
Well, it was a thought of course, and I was in complete agreement with his supposition that if the McCorkadale nosed ahead of him in the voting, Florence would in all probability hand him the pink slip, but where it seemed to me that the current went awry was that he had no means of knowing that the electorate would put him in second place. Of course voters are like aunts, you never know what they will be up to from one day to the next, but it was a thing you couldn’t count on. I mentioned this to him, and he repeated his impersonation of a leaky radiator.
‘Don’t you worry, Bertie. I have the situation well in hand. Something happened in a dark corner of the Town Hall after lunch which justifies my confidence.’
‘What happened in a dark corner of the Town Hall after lunch?’
‘Well, the first thing that happened after lunch was that Florence got hold of me and became extremely personal. It was then that I realized that it would be the act of a fathead to marry her.’
I nodded adhesion to this sentiment. That time when she had broken her engagement with me my spirits had soared and I had gone about singing like a relieved nightingale.
One thing rather puzzled me and seemed to call for explanatory notes.
‘Why did Florence draw you into a dark corner when planning to become personal? ‘ I asked. ‘I wouldn’t have credited her with so much tact and consideration. As a rule, when she’s telling people what she thinks of them, an audience seems to stimulate her. I recall one occasion when she ticked me off in the presence of seventeen Girl Guides, all listening with their ears flapping, and she had never spoken more fluently.’
He put me straight on the point I had raised. He said he had misled me.
‘It wasn’t Florence who drew me into the dark corner, it was Bingley.’
‘Bingley?’
‘A fellow who worked for me once.’
‘He worked for me once.’
‘Really? It’s a small world, isn’t it.’
‘Pretty small. Did you know he’d come into money?’
‘He’ll soon be coming into some more.’
‘But you were saying he drew you into the dark corner. Why did he do that?’
‘Because he had a proposition to make to me which demanded privacy. He… but before going on I must lay a proper foundation. You know in those Perry Mason stories how whenever Perry says anything while crossexamining a witness, the District Attorney jumps up and yells “Objection your honour. The S.O.B. has laid no proper foundation”. Well, then, you must know that this man Bingley belongs to a butlers and valets club in London called the Junior Ganymede, and one of the rules there is that members have to record the doings of their employers in the club book.’
I would have told him I knew all too well about that, but he carried on before I could speak.
‘Such a book, as you can imagine, contains a lot of damaging stuff, and he told me he had been obliged to contribute several pages about me which, if revealed, would lose me so many votes that the election would be a gift to my opponent. He added that some men in his place would have sold it to the opposition and made a lot of money, but he wouldn’t do a thing like that because it would be low and in the short time we were together he had come to have a great affection for me. I had never realized before what an extraordinarily good chap he was. I had always thought him a bit of a squirt. Shows hdw wrong you can be about people.’
Again I would have spoken, but he rolled over me like a tidal wave.
‘I should have explained that the committee of the Junior Ganymede, recognizing the importance of this book, had entrusted it to him with instructions to guard it with his life, and his constant fear was that bad men would get wind of this and try to steal it. So what would remove a great burden from his mind, he said, would be if I took it into my possession. Then I could be sure that its contents wouldn’t be used against me. I could return it to him after the election and slip him a few quid, if I wished, as a token of my gratitude. You can picture me smiling my subtle smile as he said this. He little knew that my first act would be to send the thing by messenger to the offices of the Market Snodsbury Argus-Reminder, thereby handing the election on a plate to the McCorkadale and enabling me to free myself from my honourable obligations to Florence, who would of course, on reading the stuff, recoil from me in horror. Do you know the Argus-Reminder? Very far to the left. Can’t stand Conservatives. It had a cartoon of me last week showing me with my hands dripping with the blood of the martyred proletariat. I don’t know where they get these ideas. I’ve never spilled a drop of anybody’s blood except when boxing, and then the other chap was spilling mine, – wholesome give and take. So it wasn’t long before Bingley and I had everything all fixed up. He couldn’t give me the book then, as he had left it at home, and he wouldn’t come and have a drink with me because he had to hurry back because he thought Jeeves might be calling and he didn’t want to miss him. Apparently Jeeves is a pal of his – old club crony, that sort of thing. We’re meeting tomorrow. I shall reward him with a purse of gold, he will give me the book, and five minutes later, if I can find some brown paper and string, it will be on its way to the Argus-Reminder. The material should be in print the day after tomorrow. Allow an hour or so for Florence to get hold of a copy and say twenty minutes for a chat with her after she’s read it, and I ought to be a free man well before lunch. About how much gold do you think I should reward Bingley with? Figures were not named, but I thought at least a hundred quid, because he certainly deserves something substantial for his scrupulous highmindedness. As he said, some men in his place would have sold the book to the opposition and cleaned up big.’