And I was just saying to myself ‘Young man, go West,’ when, happening to glance at the thinker, I observed that his face was wearing the brainy expression which always signifies that there is a hot one coming along.
‘Yes, Jeeves?’
‘I think I have hit on quite a simple solution of your difficulty, sir.’
‘Let me have it, Jeeves, and speedily.’
‘What I would suggest, sir, is that I take the car, drive to London, call at the emporium where her ladyship made her purchase and procure another brooch in place of the one that is missing.’
I weighed this. It sounded promising. Hope began to burgeon.
‘You mean, put on an understudy?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Delivering it to addressee as the original?’
‘Precisely, sir.’
I went on weighing. And the more I did so, the fruitier the idea seemed.
‘Yes, I see what you mean. The mechanism is much the same as that which you employed in the case of Aunt Agatha’s dog McIntosh.’
‘Not dissimilar, sir.’
‘There we were in the position of being minus an Aberdeen terrier, when we should have been plus an Aberdeen terrier. You reasoned correctly that all members of this particular canine family look very much alike, and rang in a ringer with complete success.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Would the same system work with brooches?’
‘I think so, sir.’
‘Is one brooch just like another brooch?’
‘Not invariably, sir. But a few words of inquiry will enable me to obtain a description of the lost trinket and to ascertain the price which her ladyship paid for it. I shall thus be enabled to return with something virtually indistinguishable from the original.’
I was convinced. It was as if a heavy weight had been removed from my soul. I have mentioned that a short while back he had seemed to be thinking of patting me on the shoulder. It was now all I could do to restrain myself from patting him on his.
‘A winner, Jeeves!’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘
Rem
– what is it again?’
‘
Acu tetigisti,
sir.’
‘I might have known that you would find the way.’
‘I am gratified to feel that I enjoy your confidence, sir.’
‘I have an account at Aspinall’s, so you can tell them to chalk it up on the slate.’
‘Very good, sir.’
‘Buzz off instanter.’
‘There is ample time, sir. I shall be able to reach London long before the establishment closes for the day. Before proceeding thither, I think it would be best for me to stop at Mr Fittleworth’s residence, apprise him of what has occurred, deposit the luggage and warn him of your coming.’
‘Is “warn” the word?’
‘“Inform” I should have said, sir.’
‘Well, don’t cut it too fine. The sands are running out, remember. That brooch must be in recipient’s hands to-night. What one aims at is to have it lying alongside her plate at the dinner-table.’
‘I shall undoubtedly be able to reach Steeple Bumpleigh on my return journey at about the dinner hour, sir.’
‘Right ho, Jeeves. I know I can rely on you to run to time. First stop, Boko’s, then. I, meanwhile, will be nosing round here. There is just a chance that I may have dropped the thing somewhere in the open. I can’t remember exactly how the sight of that fire affected me, but I have no doubt that I sprang up and down a bit – quite nimbly enough to jerk packages out of pockets.’
Of course, I didn’t think so, really. My original theory that I had become unbrooched while picking up the suitcase persisted. But on these occasions the instinct is to turn every stone and leave no avenue unexplored.
I nosed round, accordingly, scanning the turf and even going so far as to feel about in the rockery. As I had foreseen, no dice. It wasn’t long before I gave it up and started to stroll along to Boko’s. And I had just reached his gate, when there was the ting of bicycle bell – I noted as a curious phenomenon that the denizens of Steeple Bumpleigh seemed to do practically nothing but ride about on bicycles, tinging bells – and I saw Nobby approaching.
I hastened to meet her, for she was just the girl I wanted to get in touch with. I was anxious to thresh out with her the whole topic of Stilton and his love life.
Part 2
CHAPTER 12
S
he dismounted with lissom grace, beaming welcomingly. Since I had last seen her, she had washed off the stains of travel and changed her frock and was looking spruce and dapper. Why she should have bothered to smarten herself up, when she was only going to meet a bird in patched grey flannel trousers and a turtleneck sweater, I was at a loss to understand, but girls will, of course, be girls.
‘Hullo, Bertie,’ she said. ‘Are you paying a neighbourly call on Boko?’
I replied that that was about what it amounted to, but added that first I required a few moments of her valuable time.
‘Listen, Nobby,’ I said.
She didn’t, of course. I’ve never met a girl yet who did. Say ‘Listen’ to any member of the delicately nurtured sex, and she takes it as a cue to start talking herself. However, as the subject she introduced proved to be the very one I had been planning to ventilate, the desire to beat her brains out with a brick was not so pronounced as it would otherwise have been.
‘What have you been doing to inflame Stilton, Bertie? I met him just now and asked if he had seen you, and he turned vermilion and gnashed every tooth in his head. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more incandescent copper.’
‘He didn’t explain?’
‘No. He simply pedalled on furiously, as if he had been competing in a six-day bicycle race and had just realized he was dropping behind the leaders. What was the trouble?’
I tapped her on the arm with a grave forefinger.
‘Nobby,’ I said, ‘there has been a bit of a mix-up. What’s that word that begins with “con”?’
‘Con?’
‘I’ve heard Jeeves use it. There’s a cat in it somewhere.’
‘What on earth are you drivelling about?’
‘Concatenation,’ I said, getting it. ‘Owing to an unfortunate concatenation of circumstances, Stilton is viewing me with concern. He has got the idea rooted in his bean that I’ve come down here to try to steal Florence from him.’
‘Have you?’
‘My dear young blister,’ I said, with some impatience, ‘would anybody want to steal Florence? Do use your intelligence. But, as I say, this unfortunate concatenation has led him to suspect the worst.’
And in a few simple words I gave her the run of the scenario, featuring the Young Lochinvar aspect of the matter. When I had finished, she made one of those foolish remarks which do so much to confirm a man in his conviction that women as a sex should be suppressed.
‘You should have told him you were guiltless of the charge.’
I tut-tutted impatiently.
‘I did tell him I was guiltless of the charge, and a fat lot he believed me. He continued to hot up, finally reaching a condition of so much Fahrenheit that I was surprised he didn’t run me in on the spot. In which connection, you might have told me he was a cop.’
‘I forgot to.’
‘It would have spared me a very disconcerting shock. When I heard someone calling my name and looked round and saw him cycling towards me in the complete rig-out of a rural policeman, I nearly got the vapours.’
She laughed – a solo effort. Nothing in the prevailing circumstances made me feel like turning it into a duet.
‘Poor old Stilton!’
‘Yes, that’s all very well, but—’
‘I think it’s rather sporting of him, wanting to earn his living, instead of sitting on the knee of that uncle of his and helping himself out of his pockets.’
‘I dare say, but—’
‘Florence doesn’t. And it’s rather funny, because it was she who turned his thoughts in that direction. She talked Socialism to him, and made him read Karl Marx. He’s very impressionable.’
I agreed with her there. I had never forgotten the time at Oxford when somebody temporarily converted him to Buddhism. It led to a lot of unpleasantness with the authorities, I recall, he immediately starting to cut chapel and go and meditate beneath the nearest thing the neighbourhood could provide to a bo tree.
‘She’s furious now, and says he was a fool to take her literally.’
She paused, in order to laugh again, and I seized the opportunity to get a word in edgeways.
‘Exactly. As you state, she is furious. And that’s just the aspect of the matter that I want to discuss. I could put up with a green-eyed Stilton, a Stilton who turns vermilion and gnashes the molars at the mention of my name. I don’t say it could ever be pleasant, going about knowing that the Force was gnashing its teeth at you, but one learns to take the rough with the smooth. The real trouble is that I believe Florence is weakening on him.’
‘What makes you think that?’
‘She’s just been talking to me about him. She used the expression “pigheaded”, and said she was sick and tired of the whole thing and really didn’t know what she was going to do about it. Her whole attitude seemed to me that of a girl on the very verge of giving her heart-throb the raspberry and returning the ring and presents. You spot the frightful menace?’
‘You mean that if she breaks it off with Stilton, she may consider taking you on again?’
‘That’s what I mean. The peril is appalling. Owing to another unfortunate concatenation of circumstances, my stock has recently gone up with her to a fearful extent, and anything may happen at any moment.’
And I briefly outlined the Spindrift-Spinoza affair. When I had concluded, a meditative look came into her face.
‘Do you know, Bertie,’ she said, ‘I’ve often thought that, of all the multitude Florence has been engaged to, you were the one she really wanted?’
‘Oh, my gosh!’
‘It’s your fault for being so fascinating.’
‘I dare say, but too late to do anything about that now.’
‘Still, I don’t see what you’ve got to worry about. If she proposes to you, just blush a little and smile tremulously and say “I’m sorry – so, so sorry. You have paid me the greatest compliment a woman can pay a man. But it cannot be. So shall we be pals – just real pals?” That’ll fix her.’
‘It won’t do anything of the sort. You know what Florence is like. Propose, forsooth! She’ll just notify me that the engagement is on again, like a governess telling a young charge to eat his spinach. And if you think I’ve got the force of character to come back with a
nolle prosequi—
’
‘With a what?’
‘One of Jeeves’s gags. It means roughly “Nuts to you!” If, I say, you think I’m capable of asserting myself and giving her the bird, you greatly overestimate the Wooster fortitude. She must be reconciled to Stilton. It is the only way. Listen, Nobby. I wrote you a letter yesterday, giving my views on Florence and urging you to employ every means in your power to open Stilton’s eyes to what he was in for. Have you read it?’
‘Every syllable. It gripped me tremendously. I never knew you had such a vivid prose style. It reminded me of Ernest Hemingway. You don’t by any chance write under the name of Ernest Hemingway, do you?’
I shook the head.
‘No. The only thing I’ve ever written was an article for “Milady’s Boudoir” on What the Well-Dressed Man is Wearing. It appeared under my own name. But what I want to say is, pay no attention to that letter. I am now wholeheartedly in favour of the match. The wish to save Stilton has left me. The chap I have my eye on for saving purposes is B. Wooster. When chatting with Florence, therefore, boost Stilton in every possible way. Make her see what a prize she has got. And if you have any influence with him, endeavour to persuade him to chuck all this policeman nonsense and stand for Parliament, as she wants him to.’
‘I’d love to see Stilton in Parliament.’
‘So would I, if it means healing this rift.’
‘Wouldn’t he be a scream!’
‘Not necessarily. There are bigger fatheads than Stilton among our legislators – dozens of them. They would probably shove him in the Cabinet. So push it along, young Nobby.’
‘I’ll do what I can. But Stilton isn’t the easiest person to persuade, once the trend of his mind has set in any direction. You remember the deaf adder?’
‘What deaf adder?’
‘The one that stopped its ear, and would not listen to the voice of the charmers, charming never so wisely. That’s Stilton. However, as I say, I’ll do what I can. And now let’s go and rout Boko out. I’m dying to hear what happened at that lunch of his.’
‘You haven’t seen Uncle Percy, then?’
‘Not yet. He was out. Why?’
‘Oh, nothing. I was only thinking that, if you had, you would have got an eye-witness’s report from him,’ I said, and was conscious of a pang of pity for my old friend and a hope that by this time he would have succeeded in thinking up a reasonably good story to cover the binge in question.
The sound of a typewriter greeted us as we crossed the threshold, indicating that Boko was still at work on that letter to Uncle Percy. It ceased abruptly as Nobby yoo-hooed, and when we passed on into the sitting-room, he was hastily dropping a sheet of paper into the basket.
‘Oh, hullo, darling,’ he said brightly. Watching him bound from his chair and fold Nobby in a close embrace, the casual observer would have supposed him to have had nothing on his mind except the hair which he had apparently not brushed for days. ‘I was just roughing out a
morceau.
’
‘Oh, angel, have we interrupted the flow?’
‘Not at all, not a-tall.’
‘I was so anxious to hear how the lunch went off.’
‘Of course, of course. I’ll tell you all about it. By the way, Bertie, Jeeves delivered your effects. They are in the spare room. Delighted to put you up, of course. Too bad about that fire.’
‘What fire?’ asked Nobby.
‘Jeeves tells me that Edwin has succeeded in burning Wee Nooke to the ground. Correct, Bertie?’