The Jeeves Omnibus (190 page)

‘Yes, won’t it!’ she said, all sparkle and enthusiasm. ‘How well I remember those days! Lord Rowcester dances so wonderfully,’ she added, addressing Captain Biggar and imparting to him a piece of first-hand information which, of course, he would have been sorry to have missed. ‘I love dancing. The one unpunished rapture left on earth.’

‘What ho!’ said Bill, concurring. ‘The old Charleston … do you remember it?’

‘You bet I do.’

‘Put a Charleston record on the gramophone, Jeeves.’

‘Very good, m’lord.’

When Jill returned from depositing Pomona in Mrs Spottsworth’s sleeping quarters, only Jeeves, Bill and Mrs Spottsworth were present in the living room, for at the very outset of the proceedings Captain Biggar, unable to bear the sight before him, had plunged through the french window into the silent night.

The fact that it was he himself who had suggested this distressing exhibition, recalling, as it did in his opinion the worst excesses of the Carmagnole of the French Revolution combined with some of
the
more risqué features of native dances he had seen in Equatorial Africa, did nothing to assuage the darkness of his mood. The frogs on the lawn, which he was now pacing with a black scowl on his face, were beginning to get the illusion that it was raining number eleven boots.

His opinion of the Charleston, as rendered by his host and the woman he loved, was one which Jill found herself sharing. As she stood watching from the doorway, she was conscious of much the same rising feeling of nausea which had afflicted the White Hunter when listening to the exchanges on the rustic seat. Possibly there was nothing in the way in which Bill was comporting himself that rendered him actually liable to arrest, but she felt very strongly that some form of action should have been taken by the police. It was her view that there ought to have been a law.

Nothing is more difficult than to describe in words a Charleston danced by, on the one hand, a woman who loves dancing Charlestons and throws herself right into the spirit of them, and, on the other hand, by a man desirous of leaving no stone unturned in order to dislodge from some part of his associate’s anatomy a diamond pendant which has lodged there. It will be enough, perhaps, to say that if Major Frobisher had happened to walk into the room at this moment, he would instantly have been reminded of old days in Smyrna or Joppa or Stamboul or possibly Baghdad. Mrs Spottsworth he would have compared favourably with the wife of the Greek consul, while Bill he would have patted on the back, recognizing his work as fully equal, if not superior, to his own.

Rory and Monica, coming out of the library, were frankly amazed.

‘Good heavens!’ said Monica.

‘The old boy cuts quite a rug, does he not?’ said Rory. ‘Come, girl, let us join the revels.’

He put his arm about Monica’s waist, and the action became general. Jill, unable to bear the degrading spectacle any longer, turned and went out. As she made her way to her room, she was thinking unpleasant thoughts of her betrothed. It is never agreeable for an idealistic girl to discover that she has linked her lot with a libertine, and it was plain to her now that William, Earl of Rowcester, was a debauchee whose correspondence course might have been taken with advantage by Casanova, Don Juan and the rowdier Roman Emperors.

‘When I dance,’ said Mrs Spottsworth, cutting, like her partner, quite a rug, ‘I don’t know I’ve got feet.’

Monica winced.

‘If you danced with Rory, you’d know you’ve got feet. It’s the way he jumps on and off that gets you down.’

‘Ouch!’ said Mrs Spottsworth suddenly. Bill had just lifted her and brought her down with a bump which would have excited Tubby Frobisher’s generous admiration, and she was now standing rubbing her leg. ‘I’ve twisted something,’ she said, hobbling to a chair.

‘I’m not surprised,’ said Monica, ‘the way Bill was dancing.’

‘Oh, gee, I hope it is just a twist and not my sciatica come back. I suffer so terribly from sciatica, especially if I’m in a place that’s at all damp.’

Incredible as it may seem, Rory did not say ‘Like Rowcester Abbey, what?’ and go on to speak of the garden which, in the winter months, was at the bottom of the river. He was peering down at an object lying on the floor.

‘Hullo,’ he said. ‘What’s this? Isn’t this pendant yours, Mrs Spottsworth?’

‘Oh, thank you,’ said Mrs Spottsworth. ‘Yes, it’s mine. It must have … Ouch!’ she said, breaking off, and writhed in agony once more.

Monica was all concern.

‘You must get straight to bed, Rosalinda.’

‘I guess I should.’

‘With a nice hot-water bottle.’

‘Yes.’

‘Rory will help you upstairs.’

‘Charmed,’ said Rory. ‘But why do people always speak of a “nice” hot-water bottle? We at Harrige’s say “nasty” hot-water bottle. Our electric pads have rendered the hot-water bottle obsolete. Three speeds … Autumn Glow, Spring Warmth and Mae West.’

They moved to the door, Mrs Spottsworth leaning heavily on his arm. They passed out, and Bill, who had followed them with a bulging eye, threw up his hands in a wide gesture of despair.

‘Jeeves!’

‘M’lord?’

‘This is the end!’

‘Yes, m’lord.’

‘She’s gone to ground.’

‘Yes, m’lord.’

‘Accompanied by the pendant.’

‘Yes, m’lord.’

‘So unless you have any suggestions for getting her out of that room, we’re sunk. Have you any suggestions?’

‘Not at the moment, m’lord.’

‘I didn’t think you would have. After all, you’re human, and the problem is one which is not within … what, Jeeves?’

‘The scope of human power, m’lord.’

‘Exactly. Do you know what I am going to do?’

‘No, m’lord?’

‘Go to bed, Jeeves. Go to bed and try to sleep and forget. Not that I have the remotest chance of getting to sleep, with every nerve in my body sticking out a couple of inches and curling at the ends.’

‘Possibly if your lordship were to count sheep –’

‘You think that would work?’

‘It is a widely recognized specific, m’lord.’

‘H’m.’ Bill considered. ‘Well, no harm in trying it. Goodnight, Jeeves.’

‘Goodnight, m’lord.’

EXCEPT FOR THE
squeaking of mice behind the wainscoting and an occasional rustling sound as one of the bats in the chimney stirred uneasily in its sleep, Rowcester Abbey lay hushed and still. ’Twas now the very witching time of night, and in the Blue Room Rory and Monica, pleasantly fatigued after the activities of the day, slumbered peacefully. In the Queen Elizabeth Room Mrs Spottsworth, Pomona in her basket at her side, had also dropped off. In the Anne Boleyn Room Captain Biggar, the good man taking his rest, was dreaming of old days on the Me Wang river, which, we need scarcely inform our public, is a tributary of the larger and more crocodile-infested Wang Me.

Jill, in the Clock Room, was still awake, staring at the ceiling with hot eyes, and Bill, counting sheep in the Henry VIII Room, had also failed to find oblivion. The specific recommended by Jeeves might be widely recognized but so far it had done nothing toward enabling him to knit up the ravelled sleeve of care.

‘Eight hundred and twenty-two,’ murmured Bill. ‘Eight hundred and twenty-three. Eight hundred and –’

He broke off, leaving the eight hundred and twenty-fourth sheep, an animal with a more than usually vacuous expression on its face, suspended in the air into which it had been conjured up. Someone had knocked on the door, a knock so soft and deferential that it could have proceeded from the knuckle of only one man. It was consequently without surprise that a moment later he perceived Jeeves entering.

‘Your lordship will excuse me,’ said Jeeves courteously. ‘I would not have disturbed your lordship, had I not, listening at the door, gathered from your lordship’s remarks that the stratagem which I proposed had proved unsuccessful.’

‘No, it hasn’t worked yet,’ said Bill, ‘but come in, Jeeves, come in.’ He would have been glad to see anything that was not a sheep. ‘Don’t tell me,’ he said, starting as he noted the gleam of intelligence in his visitor’s eye, ‘that you’ve thought of something?’

‘Yes, m’lord, I am happy to say that I fancy I have found a solution to the problem which confronted us.’

‘Jeeves, you’re a marvel!’

‘Thank you very much, m’lord.’

‘I remember Bertie Wooster saying to me once that there was no crisis which you were unable to handle.’

‘Mr Wooster has always been far too flattering, m’lord.’

‘Nonsense. Not nearly flattering enough. If you have really put your finger on a way of overcoming the superhuman difficulties in our path –’

‘I feel convinced that I have, m’lord.’

Bill quivered inside his mauve pyjama jacket.

‘Think well, Jeeves,’ he urged. ‘Somehow or other we have got to get Mrs Spottsworth out of her room for a lapse of time sufficient to enable me to bound in, find that pendant, scoop it up and bound out again, all this without a human eye resting upon me. Unless I have completely misinterpreted your words owing to having suffered a nervous breakdown from counting sheep, you seem to be suggesting that you can do this. How? That is the question that springs to the lips. With mirrors?’

Jeeves did not speak for a moment. A pained look had come into his finely-chiselled face. It was as though he had suddenly seen some sight which was occasioning him distress.

‘Excuse me, m’lord. I am reluctant to take what is possibly a liberty on my part –’

‘Carry on, Jeeves. You have our ear. What is biting you?’

‘It is your pyjamas, m’lord. Had I been aware that your lordship was in the habit of sleeping in mauve pyjamas, I would have advised against it. Mauve does not become your lordship. I was once compelled, in his best interests, to speak in a similar vein to Mr Wooster, who at that time was also a mauve-pyjama addict.’

Bill found himself at a loss.

‘How have we got on to the subject of pyjamas?’ he asked wonderingly.

‘They thrust themselves on the notice, m’lord. That very aggressive purple. If your lordship would be guided by me and substitute a quiet blue or possibly a light pistachio green –’

‘Jeeves!’

‘M’lord?’

‘This is no time to be prattling of pyjamas.’

‘Very good, m’lord.’

‘As a matter of fact, I rather fancy myself in mauve. But that, as
I
say, is neither here nor there. Let us postpone the discussion to a more suitable moment. I will, however, tell you this. If you really have something to suggest with reference to that pendant and that something brings home the bacon, you may take these mauve pyjamas and raze them to the ground and sow salt on the foundations.’

‘Thank you very much, m’lord.’

‘It will be a small price to pay for your services. Well, now that you’ve got me all worked up, tell me more. What’s the good news? What is this scheme of yours?’

‘A quite simple one, m’lord. It is based on –’

Bill uttered a cry.

‘Don’t tell me. Let me guess. The psychology of the individual?’

‘Precisely, m’lord.’

Bill drew in his breath sharply.

‘I thought as much. Something told me that was it. Many a time and oft, exchanging dry Martinis with Bertie Wooster in the bar of the Drones Club, I have listened to him, rapt, as he spoke of you and the psychology of the individual. He said that, once you get your teeth into the psychology of the individual, it’s all over except chucking one’s hat in the air and doing spring dances. Proceed, Jeeves. You interest me strangely. The individual whose psychology you have been brooding on at the present juncture is, I take it, Mrs Spottsworth? Am I right or wrong, Jeeves?’

‘Perfectly correct, m’lord. Has it occurred to your lordship what is Mrs Spottsworth’s principal interest, the thing uppermost in the lady’s mind?’

Bill gaped.

‘You haven’t come here at two in the morning to suggest that I dance the Charleston with her again?’

‘Oh, no, m’lord.’

‘Well, when you spoke of her principal interest –’

‘There is another facet of Mrs Spottsworth’s character which you have overlooked, m’lord. I concede that she is an enthusiastic Charleston performer, but what principally occupies her thoughts is psychical research. Since her arrival at the abbey, she has not ceased to express a hope that she may be granted the experience of seeing the spectre of Lady Agatha. It was that that I had in mind when I informed your lordship that I had formulated a scheme for obtaining the pendant, based on the psychology of the individual.’

Bill sank back on the pillows, a disappointed man.

‘No, Jeeves,’ he said. ‘I won’t do it.’

‘M’lord?’

‘I see where you’re heading. You want me to dress up in a farthingale and wimple and sneak into Mrs Spottsworth’s room, your contention being that if she wakes and sees me, she will simply say “Ah, the ghost of Lady Agatha”, and go to sleep again. It can’t be done, Jeeves. Nothing will induce me to dress up in women’s clothes, not even in such a deserving cause as this one. I might stretch a point and put on the old moustache and black patch.’

‘I would not advocate it, m’lord. Even on the race-course I have observed clients, on seeing your lordship, start back with visible concern. A lady, discovering such an apparition in her room, might quite conceivably utter a piercing scream.’

Bill threw his hands up with a despondent groan.

‘Well, there you are, then. The thing’s off. Your scheme falls to the ground and becomes null and void.’

‘No, m’lord. Your lordship has not, if I may say so, grasped the substance of the plan I am putting forward. The essential at which one aims is the inducing of Mrs Spottsworth to leave her room, thus rendering it possible for your lordship to enter and secure the pendant. I propose now, with your lordship’s approval, to knock on Mrs Spottsworth’s door and request the loan of a bottle of smelling salts.’

Bill clutched at his hair.

‘You said, Jeeves?’

‘Smelling salts, m’lord.’

Bill shook his head.

‘Counting those sheep has done something to me,’ he said. ‘My hearing has become affected. It sounded to me just as if you had said “Smelling salts”.’