The Jeeves Omnibus (280 page)

‘Eh, what?’ he said, plainly missing the gist.

‘I love you, Percy!’

‘You do?’ His face lit up for an instant. Then there was a black-out. ‘But you’re engaged to Wooster,’ he said moodily, eyeing me in a manner that seemed to suggest that in his opinion it was fellows like me who caused half the trouble in the world.

I moved over to the table and took another slice of toast. Cold, of course, but I rather like cold toast, provided there’s plenty of butter.

‘No, that’s off,’ I said. ‘Carry on, old sport. You have the green light.’

Florence’s voice shook.

‘Bertie has released me, Percy. I was kissing him because I was so grateful. When I told him I loved you, he released me.’

You could see that Percy was impressed.

‘I say! That was very decent of him.’

‘He’s like that. Bertie is the soul of chivalry.’

‘He certainly is. I’m amazed. Nobody would think it, to look at him.’

I was getting about fed up with people saying nobody would think it, to look at me, and it is quite possible that I might at this point have said something a bit biting … I don’t know what, but something. But before I could assemble the makings Florence suddenly uttered something that was virtually tantamount to a wail of anguish.

‘But, Percy, what are we to do? I’ve only a small dress allowance.’

I didn’t follow the trend of her thought. Nor did Percy. Cryptic, I considered it, and I could see he thought so, too.

‘What’s that got to do with it?’ he said.

Florence wrung her hands, a thing I’ve often heard about but never seen done. It’s a sort of circular movement, starting from the wrists.

‘I mean, I haven’t any money and you haven’t any money, except what your stepfather is going to pay you when you join the business. We should have to live in Liverpool. I can’t live in Liverpool!’

Well, of course, lots of people do, or so I have been given to understand, but I saw what she meant. Her heart was in London’s Bohemia – Bloomsbury, Chelsea, sandwiches and absinthe in the old studio, all that sort of thing, and she hated to give it up. I don’t suppose they have studios up Liverpool way.

‘’Myes,’ said Percy.

‘You see what I mean?’

‘Oh, quite,’ said Percy.

He was plainly ill at ease. A strange light had come into his tortoiseshell-rimmed spectacles, and his whiskers quivered gently. For a moment he stood there letting ‘I dare not’ wait upon ‘I would’. Then he spoke.

‘Florence, I have a confession to make. I hardly know how to tell you. The truth is that my financial position is reasonably sound. I am not a rich man, but I have a satisfactory income, quite large enough to support the home. I have no intention of going to Liverpool.’

Florence goggled. I have an idea that she was thinking, early though it was, that he had had one over the eight. Her air was that of a girl on the point of asking him to say ‘Theodore Oswaldtwistle, the thistle sifter, in sifting a sack of thistles thrust three thorns through the thick of his thumb’. However, all she said was:

‘But, Percy darling, you surely can’t make much out of your poetry?’

He twiddled his fingers for a moment. You could see he was trying to nerve himself to reveal something he would much have preferred to keep under his hat. I have had the same experience when had up on the carpet by my Aunt Agatha.

‘I don’t,’ he said. ‘I only got fifteen shillings for that “Caliban at Sunset” thing of mine in
Parnassus
, and I had to fight like a tiger to get that. The editress wanted to beat me down to twelve-and-six. But I have a … an alternative source of revenue.’

‘I don’t understand.’

He bowed his head.

‘You will. My receipts from this – er – alternative source of revenue amounted last year to nearly eight hundred pounds, and this year it
should
be double that, for my agent has succeeded in establishing me in the American market. Florence, you will shrink from me, but I have to tell you. I write detective stories under the pseudonym of Rex West.’

I wasn’t looking at Florence, so I don’t know if she shrank from him, but I certainly didn’t. I stared at him, agog.

‘Rex West? Lord-love-a-duck! Did you write
The Mystery of the Pink Crayfish
?’ I gasped.

He bowed his head again.

‘I did. And
Murder in Mauve, The Case of the Poisoned Doughnut
and
Inspector Biffen Views the Body
.’

I hadn’t happened to get hold of those, but I assured him that I would lose no time in putting them on my library list, and went on to ask a question which had been occupying my mind for quite a while.

‘Then who was it who bumped off Sir Eustace Willoughby Bart, with the blunt instrument?’

In a low, toneless voice he said:

‘Burwash, the butler.’

I uttered a cry.

‘As I suspected! As I suspected from the first!’

I would have probed further into this Art of his, asking him how he thought up these things and did he work regular hours or wait for inspiration, but Florence had taken the floor again. So far from shrinking from him, she was nestling in his arms and covering his face with burning kisses.

‘Percy!’ She was all over the blighter. ‘I think it’s wonderful! How frightfully clever of you!’

He tottered.

‘You aren’t revolted?’

‘Of course I’m not. I’m tremendously pleased. Are you working on something now?’

‘A novelette. I think of calling it
Blood Will Tell
. It will run to about thirty thousand words. My agent says these American magazines like what they call one-shotters – a colloquial expression, I imagine, for material of a length suitable for publication in a single issue.’

‘You must tell me all about it,’ said Florence, taking his arm and heading for the french window.

‘Hey, just a moment,’ I said.

‘Yes?’ said Percy, turning. ‘What is it, Wooster? Talk quickly. I am busy.’

‘May I have your autograph?’

He beamed.

‘You really want it?’

‘I am a great admirer of your work.’

‘That is the boy!’ said Percy.

He wrote it on the back of an envelope, and they went out hand in hand, these two young folks starting on the long journey together. And I, feeling a bit peckish after this emotional scene, sat down and had another go at the sausages and bacon.

I was still thus engaged when the door opened and Aunt Dahlia came in. A glance was enough to tell me that all was well with the aged relative. On a previous occasion I have described her face as shining like the seat of a bus-driver’s trousers. It was doing so now. If she had been going to be Queen of the May, she could not have looked chirpier.

‘Has L.G. Trotter signed the papers?’ I asked.

‘He’s going to, the moment he gets his eyeballs back. How right you were about his eyeballs. When last seen, they were ricochetting from wall to wall, with him in hot pursuit. Bertie,’ said the old ancestor, speaking in an awed voice, ‘what does Jeeves put into those mixtures of his?’

I shook my head.

‘Only he and his God know that,’ I said gravely.

‘They seem powerful stuff. I remember reading somewhere once about a dog that swallowed a bottle of chilli sauce. It was described as putting up quite a performance. Trotter reacted in a somewhat similar manner. I should imagine dynamite was one of the ingredients.’

‘Very possibly,’ I said. ‘But let us not talk of dogs and chilli sauce. Let us rather discuss these happy endings of ours.’

‘Endings? In the plural? I’ve had a happy ending, all right, but you –’

‘Me, too. Florence –’

‘You don’t mean it’s off?’

‘She’s going to marry Percy.’

‘Bertie, my beamish boy!’

‘Didn’t I tell you I had faith in my star? The moral of the whole thing, as I see it, is that you can’t keep a good man down, or’ – I bowed slightly in her direction – ‘a good woman. What a lesson this should be to us, old flesh and blood, never to give up, never to despair. However dark the outlook …’

I was about to add ‘and however black the clouds’ and go on to speak of the sun sooner or later smiling through, but at this moment Jeeves shimmered in.

‘Excuse me, madam. Would it be convenient for you to join Mr. Trotter in the library, madam? He is waiting for you there.’

Aunt Dahlia really needs a horse to help her get up speed, but though afoot she made excellent time to the door.

‘How is he?’ she asked, turning on the threshold.

‘Completely restored to health, madam, I am happy to say. He speaks of venturing on a sandwich and a glass of milk at the conclusion of your conference.’

She gave him a long, reverent look.

‘Jeeves,’ she said, ‘you stand alone. I knew you would save the day.’

‘Thank you very much, madam.’

‘Have you ever tried those mixtures of yours on a corpse?’

‘Not yet, madam.’

‘You should,’ said the old relative, and curvetted out like one of those mettlesome steeds which, though I have never heard one do it myself, say ‘Ha!’ among the trumpets.

A silence followed her departure, for I was plunged in thought. I was debating within myself whether to take a step of major importance or whether, on the other hand, not to, and at such times one does not talk, one weighs the pros and cons. I was, in short, standing at a man’s cross-roads.

That moustache of mine …

Pro
: I loved the little thing. I fancied myself in it. I had hoped to nurse it through the years with top dressing till it became the talk of the town.

Con
: But was it, I asked myself,
safe
? Recalling the effect of its impact on Florence Craye, I saw clearly that it had made me too fascinating. There peril lurked. When you become too fascinating, all sorts of things are liable to occur which you don’t want to occur, if you follow me.

A strange calm descended on me, I had made my decision.

‘Jeeves,’ I said, and if I felt a passing pang, why not? One is but human. ‘Jeeves,’ I said, ‘I’m going to shave my moustache.’

His left eyebrow flickered, showing how deeply the words had moved him.

‘Indeed, sir?’

‘Yes, you have earned this sacrifice. When I have eaten my fill … Good sausages, these.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Made, no doubt, from contented pigs. Did you have some for your breakfast?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Well, as I was saying, when I have eaten my fill, I shall proceed upstairs to my room, I shall lather the upper lip, I shall take razor in hand … and
voilà
!’

‘Thank you very much, sir,’ he said.

JEEVES PLACED THE
sizzling eggs and b. on the breakfast table, and Reginald (‘Kipper’) Herring and I, licking the lips, squared our elbows and got down to it. A lifelong buddy of mine, this Herring, linked to me by what are called imperishable memories. Years ago, when striplings, he and I had done a stretch together at Malvern House, Bramley-on-Sea, the preparatory school conducted by that prince of stinkers, Aubrey Upjohn M.A., and had frequently stood side by side in the Upjohn study awaiting the receipt of six of the juiciest from a cane of the type that biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder, as the fellow said. So we were, you might say, rather like a couple of old sweats who had fought shoulder to shoulder on Crispin’s Day, if I’ve got the name right.

The
plat du jour
having gone down the hatch, accompanied by some fluid ounces of strengthening coffee, I was about to reach for the marmalade, when I heard the telephone tootling out in the hall and rose to attend to it.

‘Bertram Wooster’s residence,’ I said, having connected with the instrument. ‘Wooster in person at this end. Oh hullo,’ I added, for the voice that boomed over the wire was that of Mrs. Thomas Portarlington Travers of Brinkley Court, Market Snodsbury, near Droitwich – or, putting it another way, my good and deserving Aunt Dahlia. ‘A very hearty pip-pip to you, old ancestor,’ I said, well pleased, for she is a woman with whom it is always a privilege to chew the fat.

‘And a rousing toodle-oo to you, you young blot on the landscape,’ she replied cordially. ‘I’m surprised to find you up as early as this. Or have you just got in from a night on the tiles?’

I hastened to rebut this slur.

‘Certainly not. Nothing of that description whatsoever. I’ve been upping with the lark this last week, to keep Kipper Herring company. He’s staying with me till he can get into his new flat. You remember old Kipper? I brought him down to Brinkley one summer. Chap with a cauliflower ear.’

‘I know who you mean. Looks like Jack Dempsey.’

‘That’s right. Far more, indeed, than Jack Dempsey does. He’s on the staff of the
Thursday Review
, a periodical of which you may or may not be a reader, and has to clock in at the office at daybreak. No doubt, when I apprise him of your call, he will send you his love, for I know he holds you in high esteem. The perfect hostess, he often describes you as. Well, it’s nice to hear your voice again, old flesh and blood. How’s everything down Market Snodsbury way?’

‘Oh, we’re jogging along. But I’m not speaking from Brinkley. I’m in London.’

‘Till when?’

‘Driving back this afternoon.’

‘I’ll give you lunch.’

‘Sorry, can’t manage it. I’m putting on the nosebag with Sir Roderick Glossop.’

This surprised me. The eminent brain specialist to whom she alluded was a man I would not have cared to lunch with myself, our relations having been on the stiff side since the night at Lady Wickham’s place in Hertfordshire when, acting on the advice of my hostess’s daughter Roberta, I had punctured his hot-water bottle with a darning needle in the small hours of the morning. Quite unintentional, of course. I had planned to puncture the h-w-b of his nephew Tuppy Glossop, with whom I had a feud on, and unknown to me they had changed rooms. Just one of those unfortunate misunderstandings.

‘What on earth are you doing that for?’

‘Why shouldn’t I? He’s paying.’

I saw her point – a penny saved is a penny earned and all that sort of thing – but I continued surprised. It amazed me that Aunt Dahlia, presumably a free agent, should have selected this very formidable loony-doctor to chew the mid-day chop with. However, one of the first lessons life teaches us is that aunts will be aunts, so I merely shrugged a couple of shoulders.