The Jeeves Omnibus - Vol 2: (Jeeves & Wooster): No. 2 (40 page)

‘I think so. I hope so. Only recently, he was speaking about killing fatted calves. But to return to Uncle Percy and the old salt from America, have you any ideas on the subject of bringing them together?’

‘Not at the moment, sir.’

‘Well, bend the bean to it, because it’s important. You remember me telling you that Boko and young Nobby were betrothed?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘She can’t marry without Uncle Percy’s consent.’

‘Indeed, sir?’

‘Not till she’s twenty-one. Legal stuff. And here’s the nub, Jeeves. I haven’t time to give you the full details now, but Boko, the silly ass, has been making a silly ass of himself, with the result that he has – what’s the word that means making somebody froth at the mouth and chew pieces out of the carpet?’

‘“Alienate”, sir, is, I think, the verb for which you are groping.’

‘That’s it. Alienate. Well, as I say, I’ve no time to give you the inside story now, but Boko has played the goat and alienated Uncle Percy, and not a smell of a guardian’s blessing is the latter prepared to give him. So you see what I mean about this meeting. It is vital that it takes place at the earliest possible date.’

‘In order that his lordship may be brought to a more amiable frame of mind?’

‘Exactly. If that merger comes off, the milk of human kindness will slosh about in him like the rising tide, swamping all animosity. Or don’t you think so?’

‘Undoubtedly, in my opinion, sir.’

‘That’s what I felt. And that is why you found me moody just now, Jeeves. I had just concluded an unpleasant interview with Uncle Percy, in the course of which he came out openly as not one of my admirers, thinking – incorrectly – that I had played an impressive part in the recent spot of arson.’

‘He wronged you, sir?’

‘Completely. I had nothing to do with it. I was a mere cipher in the affair. Edwin attended to the whole thing. But that was what he thought, and he blinded and stiffed with a will.’

‘Unfortunate, sir.’

‘Most. Of course, for the actual vote of censure that was passed I care little. A few poohs and a tush about cover that. Bertram Wooster is not a man who minds a few harsh words. He laughs lightly and snaps the fingers. It is wholly immaterial to me what the old bounder thinks of me, and in any case he didn’t say a tithe of the things Aunt Agatha would have got off in similar circumstances. But the point is that I had promised Nobby that I would plead for her loved one, and what was saddening me when you came along was the thought that my potentialities in that direction had become greatly diminished. As far as Uncle Percy is concerned, I am not the force I was. So push that meeting along.’

‘I will certainly use every endeavour, sir. I fully appreciate the situation.’

‘Right. Now, what else have I to tell you? Oh, yes. Stilton.’

‘Mr Cheesewright?’

‘Police Constable Cheesewright, Jeeves. Stilton turns out to be the village bluebottle.’

He seemed surprised, and I didn’t wonder. To him, of course, on the occasion when they had met at the flat, Stilton had been a mere, ordinary, tweed-suited popper-in. I mean, no uniform, no helmet and not a suggestion of any regulation boots.

‘A policeman, sir?’

‘Yes, and a nasty, vindictive policeman, too. With him, also, I have been having an unpleasant interview. He resents my presence here.’

‘I suppose a great many young gentlemen enter the Force nowadays, sir.’

‘I wish one fewer had. It is a tricky business falling foul of the constabulary, Jeeves.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I shall have to employ ceaseless vigilance, so as to give him no loophole for exercising his official powers. No drunken revels at the village pub.’

‘No, sir.’

‘One false step, and he’ll swoop down on me like the – who was it who came down like a wolf on the fold?’

‘The Assyrian, sir.’

‘That’s right. Well, that is what I have been through since I saw you last. First Stilton, then Edwin, then the fire, and finally Uncle Percy – all in about half an hour. It just shows what Steeple Bumpleigh can do, when it starts setting about you. And, oh my gosh, I was forgetting. You know the brooch?’

‘Sir?’

‘Aunt Agatha’s brooch.’

‘Oh, yes, sir.’

‘I lost it. Oh, it’s all right. I found it again. But what I mean is, picture my embarrassment. My heart stood still.’

‘I can readily imagine it, sir. But you have it safely now?’

‘Oh, rather,’ I said, dipping a hand into the pocket. ‘Or, rather,’ I went on, bringing it out again with ashen face and bulging eyes. ‘Oh, rather not. Jeeves,’ I said, ‘you will scarcely credit this, but the bally thing has gone again!’

It occasionally happens, and I have had to tell him off for doing so, that this man receives announcements that the young master’s world is rocking about him with a mere ‘Most disturbing, sir.’ But now it was plain that he recognized that the thing was too big for that. I don’t think he paled, and he certainly didn’t say ‘Golly!’ or anything of that nature, but he came as near as he ever does to what they call in the movies ‘the quick take ’um’. There was concern in his eyes, and if it hadn’t been that his views are rigid in the matter of the correct etiquette between employee and employer, I have an idea that he would have patted me on the shoulder.

‘This is a serious, disaster, sir.’

‘You are informing me, Jeeves!’

‘Her ladyship will be vexed.’

‘I can picture her screaming with annoyance.’

‘Can you think where you could have dropped it, sir?’

‘That’s just what I’m trying to do. Wait, Jeeves,’ I said, closing my eyes. ‘Let me brood.’

I brooded.

‘Oh, my gosh!’

‘Sir?’

‘I’ve got it.’

‘The brooch, sir?’

‘No, Jeeves, not the brooch. I mean I’ve reconstructed the scene and have now spotted where I must have parted company with it. Here’s the sequence. The place caught fire, and I suddenly remembered I had left the small suitcase in the hall. I need scarcely remind you of its contents. My Sindbad the Sailor costume.’

‘Ah, yes, sir.’

‘Don’t say “Ah, yes”, Jeeves. Just keep on listening. I suddenly remembered, I repeat, that I had left the small suitcase in the hall. Well, you know me. To think is to act. I was inside, gathering it up, without a moment’s delay. This involved stooping. This stooping must have caused the thing to fall out of my pocket.’

‘Then it would still be in the hall, sir.’

‘Yes. And take a look at the hall!’

We both took a look at it. I shook my head. He shook his. Wee Nooke was burning lower now, but its interior was still something which only Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego could have entered with any genuine enjoyment.

‘No hope of getting it, if it’s there.’

‘No, sir.’

‘Then what’s to be done?’

‘May I brood, sir?’

‘Certainly, Jeeves.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

He passed into the silence, and I filled in the time by thinking of what Aunt Agatha was going to say. I did not look forward to getting in touch with her. In fact, it almost seemed as if another of my quick trips to America would be rendered necessary. About the only advantage of having an aunt like her is that it makes one travel, thus broadening the mind and enabling one to see new faces.

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 tonight. 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 forseen, 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 a ting of a 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.

SHE 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 turtle-neck 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 connexion, you might have told me he was a cop.’