The Jeeves Omnibus (52 page)

‘Why not?’

‘Well, you saw how they affected Spode. I don’t suppose Pop Bassett is any fonder of reading home truths about himself than Spode is.’

‘But he’s had the home truths already. I told you how I ticked him off.’

‘Yes, but you could have got away with that. Overlook it, please … spoken in hot blood … strangely forgot myself … all that sort of stuff. Coldly reasoned opinions, carefully inscribed day by day in a notebook, are a very different thing.’

I saw that it had penetrated at last. The greenish tinge was back in his face. His mouth opened and shut like that of a goldfish which sees another goldfish nip in and get away with the ant’s egg which it had been earmarking for itself.

‘Oh, gosh!’

‘Yes.’

‘What can I do?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Think, Bertie, think!’

I did so, tensely, and was rewarded with an idea.

‘Tell me,’ I said, ‘what exactly occurred at the conclusion of the vulgar brawl? You handed him the book. Did he dip into it on the spot?’

‘No. He shoved it away in his pocket.’

‘And did you gather that he still intended to take a bath?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then answer me this. What pocket? I mean the pocket of what garment? What was he wearing?’

‘A dressing gown.’

‘Over – think carefully, Fink-Nottle, for everything hangs on this – over shirt and trousers and things?’

‘Yes, he had his trousers on. I remember noticing.’

‘Then there is still hope. After leaving you, he would have gone to his room to shed the upholstery. He was pretty steamed up, you say?’

‘Yes, very much.’

‘Good. My knowledge of human nature, Gussie, tells me that a steamed-up man does not loiter about feeling in his pocket for notebooks and steeping himself in their contents. He flings off the garments, and legs it to the
salle de bain
. The book must still be in the pocket of his dressing gown – which, no doubt, he flung on the bed or over a chair – and all you have to do is nip into his room and get it.’

I had anticipated that this clear thinking would produce the joyous cry and the heartfelt burst of thanks. Instead of which, he merely shuffled his feet dubiously.

‘Nip into his room?

‘Yes.’

‘But dash it!’

‘Now, what?’

‘You’re sure there isn’t some other way?’

‘Of course there isn’t.’

‘I see … You wouldn’t care to do it for me, Bertie?’

‘No, I would not.’

‘Many fellows would, to help an old school friend.’

‘Many fellows are mugs.’

‘Have you forgotten those days at the dear old school?’

‘Yes.’

‘You don’t remember the time I shared my last bar of milk chocolate with you?’

‘No.’

‘Well, I did, and you told me then that if ever you had an opportunity of doing anything for me … However, if these obligations – sacred, some people might consider them – have no weight with you, I suppose there is nothing more to be said.’

He pottered about for a while, doing the old cat-in-an-adage stuff: then, taking from his breast pocket a cabinet photograph of Madeline Bassett, he gazed at it intently. It seemed to be the bracer
he
required. His eyes lit up. His face lost its fishlike look. He strode out, to return immediately, slamming the door behind him.

‘I say, Bertie, Spode’s out there!’

‘What of it?’

‘He made a grab at me.’

‘Made a grab at you?’

I frowned. I am a patient man, but I can be pushed too far. It seemed incredible, after what I had said to him, that Roderick Spode’s hat was still in the ring. I went to the door, and threw it open. It was even as Gussie had said. The man was lurking.

He sagged a bit, as he saw me. I addressed him with cold severity.

‘Anything I can do for you, Spode?’

‘No. No, nothing, thanks.’

‘Push along, Gussie,’ I said, and stood watching him with a protective eye as he sidled round the human gorilla and disappeared along the passage. Then I turned to Spode.

‘Spode,’ I said in a level voice, ‘did I or did I not tell you to leave Gussie alone?’

He looked at me pleadingly.

‘Couldn’t you possibly see your way to letting me do something to him, Wooster? If it was only to kick his spine up through his hat?’

‘Certainly not.’

‘Well, just as you say, of course.’ He scratched his cheek discontentedly. ‘Did you read that notebook, Wooster?’

‘No.’

‘He says my moustache is like the faint discoloured smear left by a squashed blackbeetle on the side of a kitchen sink.’

‘He always was a poetic sort of chap.’

‘And that the way I eat asparagus alters one’s whole conception of Man as Nature’s last word.’

‘Yes, he told me that, I remember. He’s about right, too. I was noticing at dinner. What you want to do, Spode, in future is lower the vegetable gently into the abyss. Take it easy. Don’t snap at it. Try to remember that you are a human being and not a shark.’

‘Ha, ha! “A human being and not a shark.” Cleverly put, Wooster. Most amusing.’

He was still chuckling, though not frightfully heartily I thought, when Jeeves came along with a decanter on a tray.

‘The brandy, sir.’

‘And about time, Jeeves.’

‘Yes, sir. I must once more apologize for my delay. I was detained by Constable Oates.’

‘Oh? Chatting with him again?’

‘Not so much chatting, sir, as staunching the flow of blood.’

‘Blood?’

‘Yes, sir. The officer had met with an accident.’

My momentary pique vanished, and in its place there came a stern joy. Life at Totleigh Towers had hardened me, blunting the gentler emotions, and I derived nothing but gratification from the news that Constable Oates had been meeting with accidents. Only one thing, indeed, could have pleased me more – if I had been informed that Sir Watkyn Bassett had trodden on the soap and come a purler in the bathtub.

‘How did that happen?’

‘He was assaulted while endeavouring to recover Sir Watkyn’s cow-creamer from a midnight marauder, sir.’

Spode uttered a cry.

‘The cow-creamer has not been stolen?’

‘Yes, sir.’

It was evident that Roderick Spode was deeply affected by the news. His attitude towards the cow-creamer had, if you remember, been fatherly from the first. Not lingering to hear more, he galloped off, and I accompanied Jeeves into the room, agog for details.

‘What happened, Jeeves?’

‘Well, sir, it was a little difficult to extract a coherent narrative from the officer, but I gather that he found himself restless and fidgety –’

‘No doubt owing to his inability to get in touch with Pop Bassett, who, as we know, is in his bath, and receive permission to leave his post and come up here after his helmet.’

‘No doubt, sir. And being restless, he experienced a strong desire to smoke a pipe. Reluctant, however, to run the risk of being found to have smoked while on duty – as might have been the case had he done so in an enclosed room, where the fumes would have lingered – he stepped out into the garden.’

‘A quick thinker, this Oates.’

‘He left the french window open behind him. And some little time later his attention was arrested by a sudden sound from within.’

‘What sort of sound?’

‘The sound of stealthy footsteps, sir.’

‘Someone stepping stealthily, as it were?’

‘Precisely, sir. Followed by the breaking of glass. He immediately hastened back to the room – which was, of course, in darkness.’

‘Why?’

‘Because he had turned the light out, sir.’

I nodded. I followed the idea.

‘Sir Watkyn’s instructions to him had been to keep his vigil in the dark, in order to convey to a marauder the impression that the room was unoccupied.’

I nodded again. It was a dirty trick, but one which would spring naturally to the mind of an ex-magistrate.

‘He hurried to the case in which the cow-creamer had been deposited, and struck a match. This almost immediately went out, but not before he had been able to ascertain that the
objet d’art
had disappeared. And he was still in the process of endeavouring to adjust himself to the discovery, when he heard a movement and, turning, perceived a dim figure stealing out through the french window. He pursued it into the garden, and was overtaking it and might shortly have succeeded in effecting an arrest, when there sprang from the darkness a dim figure –’

‘The same dim figure?’

‘No, sir. Another one.’

‘A big night for dim figures.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Better call them Pat and Mike, or we shall be getting mixed.’

‘A and B perhaps, sir?

‘If you prefer it, Jeeves. He was overtaking dim figure A, you say, when dim figure B sprang from the darkness –’

‘– and struck him upon the nose.’

I uttered an exclamash. The thing was a mystery no longer.

‘Old Stinker!’

‘Yes, sir. No doubt Miss Byng inadvertently forgot to apprise him that there had been a change in the evening’s arrangement.’

‘And he was lurking there, waiting for me.’

‘So one would be disposed to imagine, sir.’

I inhaled deeply, my thoughts playing about the constable’s injured beezer. There, I was feeling, but for whatever it is, went Bertram Wooster, as the fellow said.

‘This assault diverted the officer’s attention, and the object of his pursuit was enabled to escape.’

‘What became of Stinker?’

‘On becoming aware of the officer’s identity, he apologized, sir. He then withdrew.’

‘I don’t blame him. A pretty good idea, at that. Well, I don’t know what to make of this, Jeeves. This dim figure. I am referring to dim figure A. Who could it have been? Had Oates any views on the subject?’

‘Very definite views, sir. He is convinced that it was you.’

I stared.

‘Me? Why the dickens has everything that happens in this ghastly house got to be me?’

‘And it is his intention, as soon as he is able to secure Sir Watkyn’s co-operation, to proceed here and search your room.’

‘He was going to do that, anyway, for the helmet.’

‘Yes, sir.’

I couldn’t help smiling. The thing tickled me.

‘This is going to be rather funny, Jeeves. It will be entertaining to watch these two blighters ferret about, feeling sillier and sillier asses as each moment goes by and they find nothing.’

‘Most diverting, sir.’

‘And when the search is over and they are standing there baffled, stammering out weak apologies, I shall get a bit of my own back. I shall fold my arms and draw myself up to my full height –’

There came from without the hoof beats of a galloping relative, and Aunt Dahlia whizzed in.

‘Here, shove this away somewhere, young Bertie,’ she panted, seeming touched in the wind.

And so saying, she thrust the cow-creamer into my hands.

IN MY RECENT
picture of Sir Watkyn Bassett reeling beneath the blow of hearing that I wanted to marry into his family, I compared his garglings, if you remember, to the death-rattle of a dying duck. I might now have been this duck’s twin brother, equally stricken. For some moments I stood there, quacking feebly: then with a powerful effort of the will I pulled myself together and cheesed the bird imitation. I looked at Jeeves. He looked at me. I did not speak, save with the language of the eyes, but his trained senses enabled him to read my thoughts unerringly.

‘Thank you, Jeeves.’

I took the tumbler from him, and lowered perhaps half an ounce of the raw spirit. Then, the dizzy spell overcome, I transferred my gaze to the aged relative, who was taking an easy in the armchair.

It is pretty generally admitted, both in the Drones Club and elsewhere, that Bertram Wooster in his dealings with the opposite sex invariably shows himself a man of the nicest chivalry – what you sometimes hear described as a
parfait gentil
knight. It is true that at the age of six, when the blood ran hot, I once gave my nurse a juicy one over the top knot with a porringer, but the lapse was merely a temporary one. Since then, though few men have been more sorely tried by the sex, I have never raised a hand against a woman. And I can give no better indication of my emotions at this moment than by saying that,
preux chevalier
though I am, I came within the veriest toucher of hauling off and letting a revered aunt have it on the side of the head with a
papier mâché
elephant – the only object on the mantelpiece which the fierce rush of life at Totleigh Towers had left still unbroken.

She, while this struggle was proceeding in my bosom, was at her chirpiest. Her breath recovered, she had begun to prattle with a carefree gaiety which cut me like a knife. It was obvious from her demeanour that, stringing along with the late Diamond, she little knew what she had done.

‘As nice a run,’ she was saying, ‘as I have had since the last time I was out with the Berks and Bucks. Not a check from start to finish. Good clean British sport at its best. It was a close thing though, Bertie. I could feel that cop’s hot breath on the back of my neck. If a posse of curates hadn’t popped up out of a trap and lent a willing hand at precisely the right moment, he would have got me. Well, God bless the clergy, say I. A fine body of men. But what on earth were policemen doing on the premises? Nobody ever mentioned policemen to me.’

‘That was Constable Oates, the vigilant guardian of the peace of Totleigh-in-the-Wold,’ I replied, keeping a tight hold on myself lest I should howl like a banshee and shoot up to the ceiling. ‘Sir Watkyn had stationed him in the room to watch over his belongings. He was lying in wait. I was the visitor he expected.’

‘I’m glad you weren’t the visitor he got. The situation would have been completely beyond you, my poor lamb. You would have lost your head and stood there like a stuffed wombat, to fall an easy prey. I don’t mind telling you that when that man suddenly came in through the window, I myself was for a moment paralysed. Still, all’s well that ends well.’

I shook a sombre head.

‘You err, my misguided old object. This is not an end, but a beginning. Pop Bassett is about to spread a drag-net.’