Luck of the Bodkins by P. G. Wodehouse Read Free Book Online Page B

pretty important like a pearl necklace... I beg your pardon?'
    'Didn't speak,' mumbled Mr Llewellyn.
    ‘ I thought you said something.'
    'No.'
    'Oh? Well, where was I? Oh, yes. This fellow of yours, we'll say, is trying to run a pearl necklace through New York Customs and gets caught. He then finds himself up against a rather stiff situation. Smugglers can be sent to jail, of course, or the authorities may just confiscate the goods and impose a fine of anything up to their full value. Personally, if I may offer a suggestion, I would say, for the purposes of your story, make them confiscate the goods, impose the full fine and send the man to jail as well.'
    Mr Llewellyn swallowed rather painfully.
    'I'd rather keep it true to life.'
    'Oh, that would be quite true to life,' the purser assured him encouragingly. 'It's frequently done. More often than not, I should say. Why I suggest it is that it would give you some prison scenes.'
    'I don't like prison scenes,' said Mr Llewellyn.
    'Highly effective,' argued the purser.
    'I don't care,' said Mr Llewellyn. 'I don't like them. ’
    The purser seemed a little damped for the moment, but soon recovered his enthusiasm. He had always been much interested in the pictures, and he knew that a man in Mr Llewellyn's position would want to see all round a subject before deciding which angle was the best from which to approach it. Possibly, he felt, Mr Llewellyn, with that flair of his in matters of this kind, was not visualizing the thing as drama at all, but more as comedy. He put this to him.
    'It's the funny side of it that appeals to you, perhaps? And I expect you're right. We all like a good laugh, don't we? Well,' said the purser, chuckling that fruity chuckle of his at the visions rising before his mental eye, 'there would certainly be lots of comedy in the scene where they searched the fellow. Especially if he was fat. You get some good fat man - the fatter he is the funnier he'll be - and I'll guarantee that at the Southampton Super-Bijou, at least, they laugh so much you'll be able to hear them over in Portsmouth.'
    The ghoulish tastes of the patrons of the Super-Bijou Cinema at Southampton did not appear to be shared by Ivor Llewellyn. His face remained cold and stodgy. He said he did not see where that would be funny.
    ‘ You don't?'
    'Nothing funny about it to me. ’
    'What, not when they took that fat man's clothes off and gave him an emetic?' 'An emetic?' Mr Llewellyn stared violently. 'Why?' To see if he was hiding anything else.' 'Would they do that?' 'Oh, yes. Almost routine.'
    Mr Llewellyn gazed at him bleakly. He had disliked many continuity writers in his time, but none so much as he now disliked this purser. The unrestrained relish of the man in these revolting details seemed to him quite sickening.
    'I never knew that before.'
    ‘ Oh, yes.'
    'It's monstrous! ‘ said Mr Llewellyn. ‘ In a civilized country! '
    'Well, people ought not to go in for smuggling, ’ said the purser virtuously. 'You would think they would have enough sense to know it was hopeless, wouldn't you?'
    ‘ Is it hopeless?'
    'Oh, quite. They have the most extraordinarily efficient spy system.'
    Mr Llewellyn licked his lips.
    'I was going to ask you about that. How do these spies of theirs operate?'
    'Oh, they're everywhere. They loaf about London and Paris and all over the Continent...'
    'Places like Cannes?'
    'Cannes more than anywhere, I should say, except London and Paris. You see, so many Americans nowadays like to take this new Southern route home, on one of the Italian boats. More sunshine, and it's a novelty. I should think you would find a Customs spy at any of the big hotels at Cannes. I know there's one at the Gigantic and another at the Magnifique .
    'The Magnifique!'
    'That's the name of one of the hotels at Cannes,' explained the purser. 'I've no doubt each of the others has its man, too. It pays the United States Customs people to keep them there, because sooner or later they're