The Jeeves Omnibus (151 page)

‘No, sir.’

‘I thought I was right. Yes, Motty went to Boston.’

‘Then how do you account, Mr Wooster, for the fact that when I went yesterday afternoon to Blackwell’s Island prison, to secure material for my book, I saw poor, dear Wilmot there, dressed in a striped suit, seated beside a pile of stones with a hammer in his hands?’

I tried to think of something to say, but nothing came. A fellow has to be a lot broader about the forehead than I am to handle a jolt like this. I strained the old bean till it creaked, but between the collar and the hair parting nothing stirred. I was dumb. Which was lucky, because I wouldn’t have had a chance to get any persiflage out of my system. Lady Malvern collared the conversation. She had been bottling it up, and now it came out with a rush.

‘So this is how you have looked after my poor, dear boy, Mr Wooster! So this is how you have abused my trust! I left him in your charge, thinking that I could rely on you to shield him from evil. He came to you innocent, unversed in the ways of the world, confiding, unused to the temptations of a large city, and you led him astray!’

I hadn’t any remarks to make. All I could think of was the picture of Aunt Agatha drinking all this in and reaching out to sharpen the hatchet against my return.

‘You deliberately –’

Far away in the misty distance a soft voice spoke:

‘If I might explain, your ladyship.’

Jeeves had projected himself in from the dining room and materialized on the rug. Lady Malvern tried to freeze him with a look, but you can’t do that sort of thing to Jeeves. He is look-proof.

‘I fancy, your ladyship, that you may have misunderstood Mr Wooster, and that he may have given you the impression that he was in New York when his lordship was – removed. When Mr Wooster informed your ladyship that his lordship had gone to Boston, he was relying on the version I had given him of his lordship’s movements. Mr Wooster was away, visiting a friend in the country, at the time, and knew nothing of the matter till your ladyship informed him.’

Lady Malvern gave a kind of grunt. It didn’t rattle Jeeves.

‘I feared Mr Wooster might be disturbed if he knew the truth, as he is so attached to his lordship and has taken such pains to look after him, so I took the liberty of telling him that his lordship had gone away for a visit. It might have been hard for Mr Wooster to believe that his lordship had gone to prison voluntarily and from the best motives, but your ladyship, knowing him better, will readily understand.’

‘What!’ Lady Malvern goggled at him. ‘Did you say that Lord Pershore went to prison voluntarily?’

‘If I might explain, your ladyship. I think that your ladyship’s parting words made a deep impression on his lordship. I have frequently heard him speak to Mr Wooster of his desire to do something to follow your ladyship’s instructions and collect material for your ladyship’s book on America. Mr Wooster will bear me out when I say that his lordship was frequently extremely depressed at the thought that he was doing so little to help.’

‘Absolutely, by Jove! Quite pipped about it!’ I said.

‘The idea of making a personal examination into the prison system of the country – from within – occurred to his lordship very suddenly one night. He embraced it eagerly. There was no restraining him.’

Lady Malvern looked at Jeeves, then at me, then at Jeeves again. I could see her struggling with the thing.

‘Surely, your ladyship,’ said Jeeves, ‘it is more reasonable to suppose that a gentleman of his lordship’s character went to prison of his own volition that that he committed some breach of the law which necessitated his arrest?’

Lady Malvern blinked. Then she got up.

‘Mr Wooster,’ she said, ‘I apologize. I have done you an injustice. I should have known Wilmot better. I should have had more faith in his pure, fine spirit.’

‘Absolutely!’ I said.

‘Your breakfast is ready, sir,’ said Jeeves.

I sat down and dallied in a dazed sort of way with a poached egg.

‘Jeeves,’ I said, ‘you are certainly a life-saver.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘Nothing would have convinced my Aunt Agatha that I hadn’t lured that blighter into riotous living.’

‘I fancy you are right, sir.’

I champed my egg for a bit. I was most awfully moved, don’t you know, by the way Jeeves had rallied round. Something seemed to tell me that this was an occasion that called for rich rewards. For a moment I hesitated. Then I made up my mind.

‘Jeeves!’

‘Sir?’

‘That pink tie.’

‘Yes, sir?’

‘Burn it.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘And, Jeeves.’

‘Yes, sir?’

‘Take a taxi and get me that White House Wonder hat, as worn by President Coolidge.’

‘Thank you very much, sir.’

I felt most awfully braced. I felt as if the clouds had rolled away and all was as it used to be. I felt like one of those chappies in the novels who calls off the fight with his wife in the last chapter and decides to forget and forgive. I felt I wanted to do all sorts of other things to show Jeeves that I appreciated him.

‘Jeeves,’ I said, ‘it isn’t enough. Is there anything else you would like?’

‘Yes, sir. If I may make the suggestion – fifty dollars.’

‘Fifty dollars?’

‘It will enable me to pay a debt of honour, sir. I owe it to His Lordship.’

‘You owe Lord Pershore fifty dollars?’

‘Yes, sir. I happened to meet him in the street the night His Lordship was arrested. I had been thinking a good deal about the most suitable method of inducing him to abandon his mode of living, sir. His lordship was a little over-excited at the time, and I fancy that he mistook me for a friend of his. At any rate, when I took the liberty of wagering him fifty dollars that he would not punch a passing policeman in the eye, he accepted the bet very cordially and won it.’

I produced my pocket-book and counted out a hundred.

‘Take this, Jeeves,’ I said; ‘fifty isn’t enough. Do you know, Jeeves, you’re – well, you absolutely stand alone!’

‘I endeavour to give satisfaction, sir,’ said Jeeves.

SOMETIMES OF A
morning, as I’ve sat in bed sucking down the early cup of tea and watched Jeeves flitting about the room and putting out the raiment for the day, I’ve wondered what the deuce I should do if the fellow ever took it into his head to leave me. It’s not so bad when I’m in New York, but in London the anxiety is frightful. There used to be all sorts of attempts on the part of low blighters to sneak him away from me. Young Reggie Foljambe to my certain knowledge offered him double what I was giving him, and Alistair Bingham-Reeves, who’s got a valet who had been known to press his trousers sideways, used to look at him, when he came to see me, with a kind of glittering, hungry eye which disturbed me deucedly. Bally pirates!

The thing, you see, is that Jeeves is so dashed competent. You can spot it even in the way he shoves studs into a shirt.

I rely on him absolutely in every crisis, and he never lets me down. And, what’s more, he can always be counted on to extend himself on behalf of any pal of mine who happens to be to all appearances knee-deep in the bouillon. Take the rather rummy case, for instance, of dear old Bicky and his uncle, the hard-boiled egg.

It happened after I had been in America for a few months. I got back to the flat latish one night, and when Jeeves brought me the final drink he said:

‘Mr Bickersteth called to see you this evening, sir, while you were out.’

‘Oh?’ I said.

‘Twice, sir. He appeared a trifle agitated.’

‘What, pipped?’

‘He gave that impression, sir.’

I sipped the whisky. I was sorry if Bicky was in trouble, but, as a matter of fact, I was rather glad to have something I could discuss freely with Jeeves just then, because things had been a bit strained
between
us for some time, and it had been rather difficult to hit on anything to talk about that wasn’t apt to take a personal turn. You see, I had decided – rightly or wrongly – to grow a moustache, and this had cut Jeeves to the quick. He couldn’t stick the thing at any price, and I had been living ever since in an atmosphere of bally disapproval till I was getting jolly well fed up with it. What I mean is, while there’s no doubt that in certain matters of dress Jeeves’s judgement is absolutely sound and should be followed, it seemed to me that it was getting a bit too thick if he was going to edit my face as well as my costume. No one can call me an unreasonable chappie, and many’s the time I’ve given in like a lamb when Jeeves has voted against one of my pet suits or ties; but when it comes to a valet’s staking out a claim on your upper lip you’ve simply got to have a bit of the good old bulldog pluck and defy the blighter.

‘He said that he would call again later, sir.’

‘Something must be up, Jeeves.’

‘Yes, sir.’

I gave the moustache a thoughtful twirl. It seemed to hurt Jeeves a good deal, so I chucked it.

‘I see by the papers, sir, that Mr Bickersteth’s uncle is arriving on the
Carmantic
.’

‘Yes?’

‘His Grace the Duke of Chiswick, sir.’

This was news to me, that Bicky’s uncle was a duke. Rum, how little one knows about one’s pals. I had met Bicky for the first time at a species of beano or jamboree down in Washington Square, not long after my arrival in New York. I suppose I was a bit homesick at the time, and I rather took to Bicky when I found that he was an Englishman and had, in fact, been up at Oxford with me. Besides, he was a frightful chump, so we naturally drifted together; and while we were taking a quiet snort in a corner that wasn’t all cluttered up with artists and sculptors, he furthermore endeared himself to me by a most extraordinarily gifted imitation of a bull-terrier chasing a cat up a tree. But, though we had subsequently become extremely pally, all I really knew about him was that he was generally hard up, and had an uncle who relieved the strain a bit from time to time by sending him monthly remittances.

‘If the Duke of Chiswick is his uncle,’ I said, ‘why hasn’t he a title? Why isn’t he Lord What-Not?’

‘Mr Bickersteth is the son of His Grace’s late sister, sir, who married Captain Rollo Bickersteth of the Coldstream Guards.’

Jeeves knows everything.

‘Is Mr Bickersteth’s father dead too?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Leave any money?’

‘No, sir.’

I began to understand why poor old Bicky was always more or less on the rocks. To the casual and irreflective observer it may sound a pretty good wheeze having a duke for an uncle, but the trouble about old Chiswick was that, though an extremely wealthy old buster, owning half London and about five counties up north, he was notoriously the most prudent spender in England. He was what Americans call a hard-boiled egg. If Bicky’s people hadn’t left him anything and he depended on what he could prise out of the old duke, he was in a pretty bad way. Not that that explained why he was hunting me like this, because he was a chap who never borrowed money. He said he wanted to keep his pals, so never bit anyone’s ear on principle.

At this juncture the door-bell rang. Jeeves floated out to answer it.

‘Yes, sir. Mr Wooster has just returned,’ I heard him say. And Bicky came beetling in, looking pretty sorry for himself.

‘Hallo, Bicky,’ I said. ‘Jeeves told me you had been trying to get me. What’s the trouble, Bicky?’

‘I’m in a hole, Bertie. I want your advice.’

‘Say on, old lad.’

‘My uncle’s turning up tomorrow, Bertie.’

‘So Jeeves told me.’

‘The Duke of Chiswick, you know.’

‘So Jeeves told me.’

Bicky seemed a bit surprised.

‘Jeeves seems to know everything.’

‘Rather rummily, that’s exactly what I was thinking just now myself.’

‘Well, I wish,’ said Bicky, gloomily, ‘that he knew a way to get me out of the hole I’m in.’

‘Mr Bickersteth is in a hole, Jeeves,’ I said, ‘and wants you to rally round.’

‘Very good, sir.’

Bicky looked a bit doubtful.

‘Well, of course, you know, Bertie, this thing is by way of being a bit private and all that.’

‘I shouldn’t worry about that, old top. I bet Jeeves knows all about it already. Don’t you, Jeeves?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Eh?’ said Bicky, rattled.

‘I am open to correction, sir, but is not your dilemma due to the fact that you are at a loss to explain to His Grace why you are in New York instead of in Colorado?’

Bicky rocked like a jelly in a high wind.

‘How the deuce do you know anything about it?’

‘I chanced to meet His Grace’s butler before we left England. He informed me that he happened to overhear His Grace speaking to you on the matter, sir, as he passed the library door.’

Bicky gave a hollow sort of laugh.

‘Well, as everybody seems to know all about it, there’s no need to try to keep it dark. The old boy turfed me out, Bertie, because he said I was a brainless nincompoop. The idea was that he would give me a remittance on condition that I dashed out to some blighted locality of the name of Colorado and learned farming or ranching, or whatever they call it, at some bally ranch or farm, or whatever it’s called. I didn’t fancy the idea a bit. I should have had to ride horses and pursue cows, and so forth. At the same time, don’t you know, I had to have that remittance.’

‘I get you absolutely, old thing.’

‘Well, when I got to New York it looked a decent sort of place to me, so I thought it would be a pretty sound notion to stop here. So I cabled to my uncle telling him that I had dropped into a good business wheeze in the city and wanted to chuck the ranch idea. He wrote back that it was all right, and here I’ve been ever since. He thinks I’m doing well at something or other over here. I never dreamed, don’t you know, that he would ever come out here. What on earth am I to do?’

‘Jeeves,’ I said, ‘what on earth is Mr Bickersteth to do?’

‘You see,’ said Bicky, ‘I had a wireless from him to say that he was coming to stay with me – to save hotel bills, I suppose. I’ve always given him the impression that I was living in pretty good style. I can’t have him to stay at my boarding-house.’