P. G. Wodehouse: Uneasy Money

Chapter 18 (continued)

'Well, that's a comfort,' said Lady Wetherby, sauntering in. 'We couldn't afford to lose--Oh!'

Lord Wetherby spun round as her scream burst upon his already tortured nerve centres. Lady Wetherby was kneeling on the floor. Claire hurried in.

'What is it, Polly?'

Lady Wetherby rose to her feet, and pointed. Her face had lost its look of patient amusement. It was hard and set. She eyed Mr Pickering in a menacing way.

'Look!'

Claire followed her finger.

'Good gracious! It's Eustace!'

'Shot!'

She was looking intently at Mr Pickering. 'Well, Dudley,' she said, coldly, 'what about it?'

Mr Pickering found that they were all looking at him--Lady Wetherby with glittering eyes, Claire with cool scorn, Lord Wetherby with a horror which he seemed to have achieved with something of an effort.

'Well!' said Claire.

'What about it, Dudley?' said Lady Wetherby.

'I must say, Pickering,' said Lord Wetherby, 'much as I disliked the animal, it's a bit thick!'

Mr Pickering recoiled from their accusing gaze.

'Good heavens! Do you think I did it?'

In the midst of his anguish there flashed across his mind the recollection of having seen just this sort of situation in a moving picture, and of having thought it far-fetched.

Lady Wetherby's good-tempered mouth, far from good-tempered now, curled in a devastating sneer. She was looking at him as Claire, in the old days when they had toured England together in road companies, had sometimes seen her look at recalcitrant landladies. The landladies, without exception, had wilted beneath that gaze, and Mr Pickering wilted now.