The Jeeves Omnibus - Vol 3 (23 page)

‘Jeeves!’

‘Miss?’

‘What on earth are you talking about?’

Jeeves looked a little hurt.

‘I was endeavouring to explain that it was for love of you, miss, that his lordship became a Silver Ring bookmaker.’

‘A
what?
’

‘Having plighted his troth to you, miss, his lordship felt – rightly, in my opinion – that in order to support a wife he would require a considerably larger income than he had been enjoying up to that moment. After weighing and rejecting the claims of other professions, he decided to embark on the career of a bookmaker in the Silver Ring, trading under the name of Honest Patch Perkins. I officiated as his lordship’s clerk. We wore false moustaches.’

Jill opened her mouth, then, as if feeling that any form of speech would be inadequate, closed it again.

‘For a time the venture paid very handsomely. In three days at Doncaster we were so fortunate as to amass no less a sum than four hundred and twenty pounds, and it was in optimistic mood that we proceeded to Epsom for the Oaks. But disaster was lurking in wait for his lordship. To use the metaphor that the tide turned would be inaccurate. What smote his lordship was not so much the tide as a single tidal wave. Captain Biggar, miss. He won a double at his lordship’s expense – five pounds on Lucy Glitters at a hundred to six, all to come on Whistler’s Mother, SP.’

Jill spoke faintly.

‘What was the SP.?’

‘I deeply regret to say, miss, thirty-three to one. And as he had rashly refused to lay the wager off, this cataclysm left his lordship in the unfortunate position of owing Captain Biggar in excess of three thousand pounds, with no assets with which to meet his obligations.’

‘Golly!’

‘Yes, miss. His lordship was compelled to make a somewhat hurried departure from the course, followed by Captain Biggar shouting “Welsher!”, but when we were able to shake off our pursuer’s challenge some ten miles from the abbey, we were hoping that the episode was concluded and that to Captain Biggar his lordship would remain merely a vague, unidentified figure in a moustache by Clarkson. But it was not to be, miss. The captain tracked his lordship here, penetrated his incognito and demanded an immediate settlement.’

‘But Bill had no money.’

‘Precisely, miss. His lordship did not omit to stress that point. And it was then that Captain Biggar proposed that his lordship should secure possession of Mrs Spottsworth’s pendant, asserting, when met with a
nolle prosequi
on his lordship’s part, that the object in question had been given by him to the lady some years ago, so that he was morally entitled to borrow it. The story, on reflection, seems somewhat thin, but it was told with so great a wealth of corroborative detail that it convinced us at the time, and his lordship, who had been vowing that he would ne’er consent, consented. Do I make myself clear, miss?’

‘Quite clear. You don’t mind my head swimming?’

‘Not at all, miss. The question then arose of how the operation was to be carried through, and eventually it was arranged that I should lure Mrs Spottsworth from her room on the pretext that Lady Agatha had been seen in the ruined chapel, and during her absence his lordship should enter and obtain the trinket. This ruse proved successful. The pendant was duly handed to Captain Biggar, who has taken it to London with the purpose of pawning it and investing the proceeds on the Irish horse, Ballymore, concerning whose chances he is extremely sanguine. As regards his lordship’s mauve pyjamas, to which you made a derogatory allusion a short while back, I am hoping to convince his lordship that a quiet blue or a pistachio green –’

But Jill was not interested in the Rowcester pyjamas and the steps which were being taken to correct their mauveness. She was hammering on the library door.

‘Bill! Bill!’ she cried, like a woman wailing for her demon lover, and Bill, hearing that voice, came out with the promptitude of a cork extracted by Jeeves from a bottle.

‘Oh, Bill!’ said Jill, flinging herself into his arms. ‘Jeeves has told me everything!’

Over the head that rested on his chest Bill shot an anxious glance at Jeeves.

‘When you say everything, do you mean
everything
?’

‘Yes, m’lord. I deemed it advisable.’

‘I know all about Honest Patch Perkins and your moustache and Captain Biggar and Whistler’s Mother and Mrs Spottsworth and the pendant,’ said Jill, nestling closely.

It seemed so odd to Bill that a girl who knew all this should be nestling closely that he was obliged to release her for a moment and step across and take a sip of champagne.

‘And you really mean,’ he said, returning and folding her in his embrace once more, ‘that you don’t recoil from me in horror?’

‘Of course I don’t recoil from you in horror. Do I look as if I were recoiling from you in horror?’

‘Well, no,’ said Bill, having considered this. He kissed her lips, her forehead, her ears and the top of her head. ‘But the trouble is that you might just as well recoil from me in horror, because I don’t see how the dickens we’re ever going to get married. I haven’t a bean, and I’ve somehow got to raise a small fortune to pay Mrs Spottsworth for her pendant.
Noblesse oblige
, if you follow my drift. So if I don’t sell her the house –’

‘Of course you’ll sell her the house.’

‘Shall I? I wonder – I’ll certainly try. Where on earth’s she disappeared to? She was in here when I came through into the library just now. I wish she’d show up. I’m all full of that
Country Life
stuff, and if she doesn’t come soon, it will evaporate.’

‘Excuse me, m’lord,’ said Jeeves, who during the recent exchanges had withdrawn discreetly to the window. ‘Mrs Spottsworth and her ladyship are at this moment crossing the lawn.’

With a courteous gesture he stepped to one side, and Mrs Spottsworth entered, followed by Monica.

‘Jill!’ cried Monica, halting, amazed. ‘Good heavens!’

‘Oh, it’s all right,’ said Jill. ‘There’s been a change in the situation. Sweethearts still.’

‘Well, that’s fine. I’ve been showing Rosalinda round the place –’

‘– with its avenues of historic oaks, its tumbling streams alive with trout and tench, and its breath-taking vistas lined with flowering shrubs … How did you like it?’ said Bill.

Mrs Spottsworth clasped her hands and closed her eyes in an ecstasy.

‘It’s wonderful, wonderful!’ she said. ‘I can’t understand how you can bring yourself to part with it, Billiken.’

Bill gulped. ‘Am I going to part with it?’

‘You certainly are,’ said Mrs Spottsworth emphatically, ‘if I have
anything
to say about it. This is the house of my dreams. How much do you want for it – lock, stock and barrel?’

‘You’ve taken my breath away.’

‘Well, that’s me. I never could endure beating about the bush. If I want a thing, I say so and write a note. I’ll tell you what let’s do. Suppose I pay you a deposit of two thousand, and we can decide on the purchase price later?’

‘You couldn’t make it three thousand?’

‘Sure.’ Mrs Spottsworth unscrewed her fountain pen and having unscrewed it, paused. ‘There’s just one thing, though, before I sign on the dotted line. This place isn’t damp, is it?’

‘
Damp?
’ said Monica. ‘Why, of course not.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Dry as a bone.’

‘That’s swell. Damp is death to me. Fibrositis
and
sciatica.’

Rory came in through the french window, laden with roses.

‘A nosegay for you, Moke, old girl, with comps of R. Carmoyle,’ he said, pressing the blooms into Monica’s hands. ‘I say, Bill, it’s starting to rain.’

‘What of it?’

‘What
of
it?’ echoed Rory, surprised. ‘My dear old boy, you know what happens in this house when it rains. Water through the roof, water through the walls, water, water everywhere. I was merely about to suggest in a kindly Boy Scout sort of spirit that you had better put buckets under the upstairs skylight. Very damp house, this,’ he said, addressing Mrs Spottsworth in his genial, confidential way. ‘So near the river, you know. I often say that whereas in the summer months the river is at the bottom of the garden, in the winter months the garden is at the bottom of the –’

‘Excuse me, m’lady,’ said the housemaid Ellen, appearing in the doorway. ‘Could I speak to Mrs Spottsworth, m’lady?’

Mrs Spottsworth, who had been staring, aghast, at Rory, turned, pen in hand.

‘Yes?’

‘Moddom,’ said Ellen, ‘your pendant’s been pinched.’

She had never been a girl for breaking things gently.

WITH CONSIDERABLE GRATIFICATION
Ellen found herself the centre of attraction. All eyes were focused upon her, and most of them were bulging. Bill’s, in particular, struck her as being on the point of leaving their sockets.

‘Yes,’ she proceeded, far too refined to employ the Bulstrode-Trelawny ‘Yus’, ‘I was laying out your clothes for the evening, moddom, and I said to myself that you’d probably be wishing to wear the pendant again tonight, so I ventured to look in the little box, and it wasn’t there, moddom. It’s been stolen.’

Mrs Spottsworth drew a quick breath. The trinket in question was of little intrinsic worth – it could not, as she had said to Captain Biggar, have cost more than ten thousand dollars – but, as she had also said to Captain Biggar, it had a sentimental value for her. She was about to express her concern in words, but Bill broke in.

‘What do you mean, it’s been stolen?’ he demanded hotly. You could see that the suggestion outraged him. ‘You probably didn’t look properly.’

Ellen was respectful, but firm.

‘It’s gone, m’lord.’

‘You may have dropped it somewhere, Mrs Spottsworth,’ said Jill. ‘Was the clasp loose?’

‘Why, yes,’ said Mrs Spottsworth. ‘The clasp was loose. But I distinctly remember putting it in its case last night.’

‘Not there now, moddom,’ said Ellen, rubbing it in.

‘Let’s go up and have a thorough search,’ said Monica.

‘We will,’ said Mrs Spottsworth. ‘But I’m afraid … very much afraid –’

She followed Ellen out of the room. Monica, pausing at the door, eyed Rory balefully for an instant.

‘Well, Bill,’ she said, ‘so you don’t sell the house, after all. And if Big Mouth there hadn’t come barging in prattling about water and buckets, that cheque would have been signed.’

She swept out, and Rory looked at Bill, surprised.

‘I say, did I drop a brick?’

Bill laughed hackingly.

‘If one followed you about for a month, one would have enough bricks to build a house.’

‘
In re
this pendant. Anything I can do?’

‘Yes, keep out of it.’

‘I could nip off in the car and fetch some of the local constabulary.’

‘Keep right out of it.’ Bill looked at his watch. ‘The Derby will be starting in a few minutes. Go in there and get the television working.’

‘Right,’ said Rory. ‘But if I’m needed, give me a shout.’

He disappeared into the library, and Bill turned to Jeeves, who had once again effaced himself. In times of domestic crisis, Jeeves had the gift, possessed by all good butlers, of creating the illusion that he was not there. He was standing now at the extreme end of the room, looking stuffed.

‘Jeeves!’

‘M’lord?’ said Jeeves, coming to life like a male Galatea.

‘Any suggestions?’

‘None of practical value, m’lord. But a thought has just occurred which enables me to take a somewhat brighter view of the situation. We were speaking not long since of Captain Biggar as a gentleman who had removed himself permanently from our midst. Does it not seem likely to your lordship that in the event of Ballymore emerging victorious the captain, finding himself in possession of ample funds, will carry out his original plan of redeeming the pendant, bringing it back and affecting to discover it on the premises?’

Bill chewed his lip.

‘You think so?’

‘It would be the prudent course for him to pursue, m’lord. Suspicion, as I say, must inevitably rest upon him, and failure to return the ornament would place him in the disagreeable position of becoming a hunted man in hourly danger of being apprehended by the authorities. I am convinced that if Ballymore wins, we shall see Captain Biggar again.’

‘
If
Ballymore wins.’

‘Precisely, m’lord.’

‘Then one’s whole future hangs on whether it does.’

‘That is how matters stand, m’lord.’

Jill uttered a passionate cry.

‘I’m going to start praying!’

‘Yes, do,’ said Bill. ‘Pray that Ballymore will run as he has never run before. Pray like billy-o. Pray all over the house. Pray –’

Monica and Mrs Spottsworth came back.

‘Well,’ said Monica, ‘it’s gone. There’s no doubt about that. I’ve just phoned for the police.’

Bill reeled.

‘What!’

‘Yes. Rosalinda didn’t want me to, but I insisted. I told her you wouldn’t dream of not doing everything you could to catch the thief.’

‘You … You think the thing’s been stolen?’

‘It’s the only possible explanation.’

Mrs Spottsworth sighed.

‘Oh, dear! I really am sorry to have started all this trouble.’

‘Nonsense, Rosalinda. Bill doesn’t mind. All Bill wants is to see the crook caught and bunged into the cooler. Isn’t it, Bill?’

‘Yes,
sir!
’ said Bill.

‘For a good long stretch, too, let’s hope.’

‘We mustn’t be vindictive.’

‘No,’ said Mrs Spottsworth. ‘You’re quite right. Justice, but not vengeance.’

‘Well, one thing’s certain,’ said Monica. ‘It’s an inside job.’

Bill stirred uneasily.

‘Oh, do you think so?’

‘Yes, and I’ve got a pretty shrewd idea who the guilty party is.’

‘Who?’

‘Someone who was in a terrible state of nerves this morning.’

‘Oh?’

‘His cup and saucer were rattling like castanets.’

‘When was this?’

‘At breakfast. Do you want me to name names?’

‘Go ahead.’

‘Captain Biggar!’

Mrs Spottsworth started.

‘What!’

‘You weren’t down, Rosalinda, or I’m sure you would have noticed it, too. He was as nervous as a treeful of elephants.’