Ask For Ronald Standish Read online

  Copyright & Information

  Ask For Ronald Standish

  First published in 1933

  © Trustees of the Estate of H.C. McNeile; House of Stratus 1933-2010

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  The right of H.C. McNeile (Sapper) to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.

  This edition published in 2010 by House of Stratus, an imprint of

  Stratus Books Ltd., Lisandra House, Fore St., Looe,

  Cornwall, PL13 1AD, UK.

  Typeset by House of Stratus.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library and the Library of Congress.

  EAN ISBN Edition

  1842325574 9781842325575 Print

  0755116739 9780755116737 Print (Alt)

  0755122836 9780755122837 Pdf

  0755123174 9780755123179 Mobi

  0755123352 9780755123353 Epub

  This is a fictional work and all characters are drawn from the author’s imagination.

  Any resemblance or similarities to persons either living or dead are entirely coincidental.

  www.houseofstratus.com

  About the Author

  Herman Cyril McNeile, who wrote under the pseudonym Sapper, was born in Bodmin, Cornwall, on 28 September 1888 to Captain Malcolm McNeile RN and his wife, Christiana Mary. He was educated at Cheltenham College, and then went on to the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, before joining the Royal Engineers in 1907, from which he derived his pseudonym – ‘sappers’ being the nickname of the Engineers.

  During World War One he served first as a Captain, seeing action at both the First and the Second Battle of Ypres, and won the Military Cross before retiring from the army as a Lieutenant-Colonel in 1919. Prior to this, in 1914 he met and married Violet Baird, daughter of a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Cameron Highlanders. They eventually had two sons.

  Somewhat remarkably, he managed to publish a number of books during the war and whilst still serving, (serving officers were not permitted to publish under their own names – hence the need for a pseudonym), commencing with The Lieutenant and Others and Sergeant Michael Cassidy, R.E. in 1915. Lord Northcliff, the owner of the Daily Mail, was so impressed by this writing that he attempted, but failed, to have McNeile released from the army so he could work as a war correspondent.

  McNeile’s first full length novel, Mufti, was published in 1919, but it was in 1920 that his greatest hit Bulldog Drummond, was published. This concerned the exploits of a demobilised officer, Captain Hugh ‘Bulldog’ Drummond, ‘who found peace dull’. This was an immediate and enduring success and has been filmed and performed on stage both in the UK and USA. Further Drummond adventures were to follow, along with other novels, notably those featuring the private detective Ronald Standish.

  Much of his writing is based upon the atmosphere, rather than experiences, he absorbed from public school and London Gentleman’s Clubs. His heroes are most decidedly ‘English’ in character and ‘do the right thing’, whilst his villains are foreign and ‘do not play by the rules’. Ian Fleming once noted that his own hero James Bond was ‘Sapper’ from the waist up.

  McNeile died in 1937 at his home in Sussex, having lived a relatively quiet and content life, in sharp contrast to the characters in his books. His friend Gerard Fairlie, thought to be the model for Drummond, went on to write seven more adventures. Many of his books are collections of short stories, with most having a twist in the tail, usually surprising the reader by totally flawing anticipations with regard to their ending within the last few sentences. They are as popular today as ever and eagerly adopted by succeeding generations as amongst the best of their genre.

  House of Stratus was pleased to gain the right to publish from McNeile’s estate in 1999 and has since continually held his major works in print.

  1: Partial Salvage

  “My Dear Standish,

  “I don’t know if you ever ran across Miles Parker. He died about two years ago, and, to everybody’s surprise, left practically nothing, for we had all thought he was pretty comfortably off. He was a widower, so the only person affected by it was his son Terence, who was up at Cambridge: a darned good lad, as I think you’ll agree when you meet him.

  “It was, of course, impossible for him to stop on at the ’Varsity, and since he has no uncles or near relatives, I suggested he should come and make his headquarters with us, at any rate until he found something to do. But, as you know yourself, jobs are not too easy to come by these days, especially for fellows who have no technical training. And it fridged the lad as month after month went by and nothing turned up: he felt he was sponging on me. At last, however, he answered an advertisement in the paper, and from this point Terence can tell you his own story. I may be several sorts of ass to take up your valuable time, but I’d like your candid opinion. I’m not quite easy in my mind.

  “Yours sincerely,

  “Graham Meridith.

  “PS – Probably wild horses won’t make him admit it, but I don’t think Terence is quite easy himself.”

  Ronald Standish passed the letter over to me and turned to the third occupant of the room – a cheery-faced youngster of about twenty-three.

  “Well, what’s it all about, young feller?” he said with a smile.

  “I feel quite ashamed to worry you, Mr Standish,” said Terence Parker. “But Uncle Graham seemed set on it, so I’ve come along. He’s not really my uncle, of course,” he added.

  “Courtesy title,” cried Ronald. “I see. Let’s hear about this mysterious job of yours.”

  “He’s told you about my father, I suppose?”

  “Yes: I’m wise up to the time when you answered an advertisement.”

  “Good: I’ll start from there,” said our visitor. “It was about three months ago, and I was getting desperate. Uncle Graham has been goodness itself to me, but I felt I couldn’t go on living with him for ever. And suddenly, one morning, I saw this advertisement in the paper.”

  He took a cutting out of his pocket and handed it over to Ronald.

  “Secretary wanted. Must be unmarried man about five feet ten in height: average build. Shorthand unnecessary. Good salary to suitable applicant. Box 231.”

  Without comment Ronald put the cutting on the table, and waited for Parker to continue.

  “As you can imagine, I had an answer in the post within ten minutes, and two days later I received instructions to go to a place called Fordham House, near Woking, where I was to interview a Mr Charles Follitt. I’m afraid I haven’t got the letter with me, as I tore it up when I got the job.

  “I went down at once, and found the house without difficulty. And before I’d had time even to ring the bell the door was flung open and a fellow of about my own age was shown out by an elderly female. He looked a bit glum, so I concluded that he was an unsuccessful competitor, and that the place wasn’t filled yet.

  “‘This way,’ mumbled the old dame. ‘And what’s your name?’

  “I told her, and she announced me. Standing on the hearthrug was a man of about fifty. He was swinging a pair of pince-nez to and fro, and as I came in he put them on and gave me the once over. I did the same to him. He was about my own height, clean shaven, and in his way not bad looking. But there was a shifty sort of look in his eyes that I didn’t very much like.

  “‘Well, Mr Parker,’ he said, ‘you are the thirtieth applicant I have see
n. It is incredible how foolish some people are: no less than ten of them were married, whilst three of them were at least six feet. You are not married, I take it?’

  “‘I am not,’ I assured him.

  “‘And your height, I can see, is satisfactory. So we will proceed to the other points Do you live with your father?’

  “‘My father is dead,’ I told him, ‘and so is my mother.’

  “‘Indeed,’ he said. ‘You have my sympathy. An uncle perhaps?’

  “By this time I was beginning to get a bit stuffy: I couldn’t see what the devil it had to do with him who I lived with. However, I told him quite civilly that my nearest relation was a second cousin whom I’d never seen, and that the man whose house I was in was no relation at all.

  “‘Excellent!’ he cried, rubbing his hands together. ‘I, too, am almost alone in world, and my only relative is a cousin. I feel we shall get on capitally together, Mr Parker.”

  “I stared at him.

  “‘Do you mean you’ve engaged me?’ I cried.

  “‘I think I may say that you will suit me,’ he answered. ‘Subject, of course, to one small condition. There may come an occasion Parker – I don’t say it will, but it may – when I shall have to leave the house, and at the same time let it appear that I am still here. Nothing criminal, I assure you,’ he added with a laugh when he saw me look at him pretty hard; ‘it’s merely a family matter into which I prefer not to go. What I am getting at is this, however. Should such an occasion arise I should want you to wear some suit of mine and appear just once or twice in the window of one of the rooms facing the road, so that only your back is seen.’

  “Well, I must say, Mr Standish, I thought that was a bit odd, but the money side came in and I agreed.

  “‘Splendid,’ he remarked. ‘Now as to salary. Shall we say five pounds a week?’

  “‘That suits me,’ I said promptly. ‘And what are my duties?’

  “‘To start with, I want my library catalogued,’ he said. ‘And there will be a few letters and things of that sort.’

  “At that it was left, and I started work the next day.”

  “One moment, Parker,” said Ronald. “What does the staff consist of?”

  “The old woman who let me in, and she goes home every night.”

  “So you and Mr Follitt slept there alone. I see: go on.”

  “As I say, I started the next day, and having provided myself with pens, ink, and paper, I proceeded to tackle the library. And ten minutes’ inspection was sufficient to show that the thing was simply farcical. I don’t profess to know anything about books, but I can recognise absolute junk when I see it. There were piles of books all over the floor, and shelves full of them, but you’ve never thought of such a collection. To give you an example, there were four copies of that revolting tome, ‘Eric, or Little by Little.’ There were old books of hymns mixed up with a treatise on spherical trigonometry: there was Mrs Beeton’s cookery tome next door to a table of logarithms. And this is what I was supposed to classify!

  “So I interviewed Mr Follitt and asked him how he wanted me to set about it. And then he told me how he had acquired his collection. Apparently one of his hobbies was to buy up the whole of the contents of a second-hand bookshop in the hopes of finding something good. And what he wanted me to do was to arrange and make a list of anything I thought possible and discard the rest. So I started off on those lines, and have been carrying on ever since. As he was doing the paying, he could presumably dictate the job.

  “So much for that side of it: now for the other. After I’d been in the house about four days I was sitting in the smoking-room one night after dinner. Mr Follitt had gone into the place he called his laboratory, a room which was separated from the rest of the house by a green baize door, and I was alone, when suddenly a most queer-looking customer came in. He still had his hat on, and for a time he stood there looking at me with his hands in his pockets. He was wearing dark glasses and had a ragged-looking black moustache.

  “‘Is Charles in his laboratory?’ he asked in a peculiar hissing voice.

  “‘He is,’ I said. ‘May I ask who you are?’

  “‘His cousin. I suppose you’re the secretary?’

  “And it was then I discovered what caused the hiss: his two central front teeth were missing.”

  “‘Damned foolishness,’ he grunted. ‘What’s he want a secretary for?’

  “With which he turned on his heel and left the room. I heard the baize door swing, and picked up my book again with some relief. Mr Follitt’s cousin was not my idea of a pleasant evening. After a while, however, it occurred to me that they might like a drink, so I walked along the passage and knocked at the laboratory. They were talking inside, but when I tried the handle it was locked.

  “‘What is it?’ called out my employer.

  “‘I wondered if you’d like a drink, Mr Follitt.’

  “‘No, no,’ he said testily. ‘Go away, Parker.’

  “Which I thought a bit harsh: I didn’t care a damn if he had a drink or not. However, to do him justice he apologised handsomely later on.

  “‘I fear I seemed a little irritable,’ he said, ‘when you came to the laboratory. But my cousin, James Palliser, and I were having a business discussion, and we could not see eye to eye.’

  “‘Has he gone?’ I asked, for I hadn’t heard him leave.

  “‘Yes: I let him out by the side door. And, by the way, Parker, whenever he comes as he did tonight he always goes straight to the laboratory. And then we never wish to be disturbed.’

  “I refrained from saying that so far as I was concerned nothing would induce me to disturb Mr James Palliser, who had struck me as a positively leprous piece of work; and any time in the future when he came – and it’s been pretty often – I’ve kept religiously out of his way.”

  Young Parker paused and lit a cigarette.

  “I hope I’m not boring you, Mr Standish,” he continued, “but your sufferings are nearly over. About a week ago my bird came to me and said that the occasion he had alluded to when he engaged me had arisen, and that he wanted me to impersonate him that afternoon. He produced a suit he often wore, and in which I, personally, would not have been seen dead drunk in a ditch. But I’d agreed to do it, and so I put it on.

  “‘Show yourself four or five times,’ were his instructions, ‘but don’t be recognised. Also – and this is very important – try and see if anybody appears to be watching the house.’

  “Well, I carried out my orders, and after he’d been gone about an hour I found that somebody was watching the house. No, less a person than Mr James Palliser. I showed him my back view two or three times, and in between kept an eye on him through the curtains. He was passing and repassing the house, and kept lingering by the gate and peering in. And finally I’ll be damned if he didn’t stop a passing policeman and have a talk with him, evidently about the house, for the copper peered in too. Which struck me as pretty rum: what on earth could a policeman tell him with regard to the place or its occupant that he didn’t know already? In fact, the more I thought of it the more extraordinary the whole thing grew. He’d seen what he thought was his cousin inside, and therefore he must have assumed that his cousin had seen him. So what sense was there in popping about outside the gate like an agitated hen?

  “I told Mr Follitt, of course, as soon as he got back, and, to my amazement, he appeared to have expected it.

  “‘I’m not surprised, Parker,’ he said. ‘You think you bluffed him into thinking it was me?’

  “‘I think so,’ I answered. ‘But the whole thing seems so pointless.’

  “‘Not if you knew the facts of the case,’ he told me. ‘A matter of business, my boy, and one thing I can assure you. It was imperative that James Palliser should believe I was here the whole afternoon.’

  “And with that he went off to his laboratory, leaving me to wonder what was at the bottom of it all. It’s all so queer, Mr Standish. This so-called work I�
�m on is complete bunkum. I gave him two long lists and he never even glanced at them. I’m convinced he bought all those books merely as a pretext for giving me something to do.”

  “That,” agreed Ronald, “is fairly obvious. Has he paid you regularly?”

  “Every week,” said Parker. “And that’s another point. He’s a mean man – very mean: at times one literally doesn’t get enough to eat. So why pay a ludicrous salary for absolutely useless work?

  “He isn’t,” answered Ronald. “He’s paying a ludicrous salary in order to keep you in the house. And the point is, why is he doing so? Has anything happened since you impersonated him?”

  “Nothing, except that another avalanche of ‘Erics’ has descended on me,” said the youngster with a grin.

  “Does he know you’ve passed all this on to Meredith?”

  “No: but he’s never told me to keep it dark. What do you make of it, Mr Standish?”

  “Frankly, my dear fellow, I don’t make anything at all of it at present. It’s an odd story, but odd things happen in this world. Clearly his sole object is to have a man in the house who is of right build to impersonate him at a distance. Equally clearly Mr James Palliser would appear to be the audience for the impersonation. But why? What the relations are… By the way, what are their relations? How do they get on together?”

  For a moment or two Parker stared at him.

  “Do you know, Mr Standish,” he said slowly, “it’s a most extraordinary thing, and it’s never struck me until this moment. I’ve never seen ’em together. I’ve heard ’em talking, but I’ve never actually seen ’em together.”

  “Hasn’t Palliser ever stopped for a meal?”

  “Not on your life. Old Follitt is far too stingy. It takes one back to one’s old school days when one went and gorged at the tuckshop. Hashes and muck of that sort every day. Says his teeth hurt him.”