The Jeeves Omnibus - Vol 3 (52 page)

‘Scarcely your job, Jeeves?’

‘No, sir. But one is glad to stretch a point to oblige a relative.’

‘Blood is thicker than water, you mean?’

‘Precisely, sir.’

He withdrew, and about a minute later Esmond blew in again, looking baffled, like a Master of Hounds who has failed to locate the fox.

‘I can’t find the blighter,’ he said.

‘He has just this moment left. He’s gone to the drawing room to help push around the sandwiches.’

‘And that’s where we ought to be, my lad,’ said Esmond. ‘We’re a bit late.’

He was right. Silversmith, whom we encountered in the hall, informed us that he had just shown out the last batch of alien guests, the Kegley-Bassington gang, and that apart from members of the family only the vicar, Miss Pirbright and what he called ‘the young gentleman’, a very loose way of describing my cousin Thomas, remained on the burning deck. Esmond exhibited pleasure at the news, saying that now we should have a bit of elbow room.

‘Smooth work, missing those stiffs, Gussie. What England needs is fewer and better Kegley-Bassingtons. You agree with me, Silversmith?’

‘I fear I have not formulated an opinion on the subject, sir.’

‘Silversmith,’ said Esmond, ‘you’re a pompous old ass,’ and, incredible as it may seem, he poised a finger and with a cheery ‘Yoicks!’ drove it into the other’s well-covered ribs.

And it was as the stricken butler reeled back and tottered off with an incredulous stare of horror in his gooseberry eyes, no doubt to restore himself with a quick one in the pantry, that Dame Daphne came out of the drawing room.

‘Esmond!’ she said in the voice which in days gone by had reduced so many Janes and Myrtles and Gladyses to tearful pulp in the old study. ‘Where have you been?’

It was a situation which in the pre-Hallo-hallo epoch would have had Esmond Haddock tying himself in apologetic knots and perspiring at every pore: and no better evidence of the changed conditions prevailing in the soul of King’s Deverill’s Bing Crosby could have been afforded than by the fact that his brow remained unmoistened and he met her eye with a pleasant smile.

‘Oh, hallo, Aunt Daphne,’ he said. ‘Where are you off to?’

‘I am going to bed. I have a headache. Why are you so late, Esmond?’

‘Well, if you ask me,’ said Esmond cheerily, ‘I’d say it was because I didn’t arrive sooner.’

‘Colonel and Mrs Kegley-Bassington were most surprised. They could not understand why you were not here.’

Esmond uttered a ringing laugh.

‘Then they must be the most priceless fatheads,’ he said. ‘You’d think a child would have realized that the solution was that I was somewhere else. Come along, Gussie. Loo-loo-loo-loo-loo,’ he added in a dispassionate sort of way, and led me into the drawing room.

Even though the drawing room had been cleansed of Kegley-Bassingtons, it still gave the impression of being fairly well filled up. Four aunts, Corky, young Thos, Gertrude Winkworth and the Rev. Sidney Pirbright might not be absolute capacity, but it was not at all what you would call a poor house. Add Esmond and self and Jeeves and Queenie moving to and fro with the refreshments, and you had quite a quorum.

I had taken a couple of sandwiches (sardine) off Jeeves and was lolling back in my chair, feeling how jolly this all was, when Silversmith appeared in the doorway, still pale after his recent ordeal.

He stood to attention and inflated his chest.

‘Constable Dobbs,’ he announced.

THE REACTIONS OF
a gaggle of coffee and sandwich chewers in the drawing room of an aristocratic home who, just as they are getting down to it, observe the local flatty muscling in through the door, vary according to what Jeeves calls the psychology of the individual. Thus, while Esmond Haddock welcomed the newcomer with a genial ‘Loo-loo-loo’, the aunts raised their eyebrows with a good deal of To-what-are-we-indebted-for-the-honour-of-this-visitness and the vicar drew himself up austerely, suggesting in his manner that one crack out of the zealous officer about Jonah and the Whale and he would know what to do about it. Gertrude Winkworth, who had been listless, continued listless, Silversmith preserved the detached air which butlers wear on all occasions, and the parlourmaid Queenie turned pale and uttered a stifled ‘Oo-er!’ giving the impression of a woman on the point of wailing for her demon lover. I, personally, put in a bit of quick gulping. The mood of
bien être
left me, and I was conscious of a coolness about the feet. When the run of events has precipitated, as Jeeves would say, a situation of such delicacy as existed at Deverill Hall, it jars you to find the place filling up with rozzers.

It was to Esmond Haddock that the constable directed his opening remark.

‘I’ve come on an unpleasant errand, sir,’ he said, and the chill in the Wooster feet became accentuated. ‘But before I go into that there,’ he proceeded, now addressing himself to the Rev. Sidney Pirbright, ‘there’s this here. I wonder if I might have a word with you, sir, on a spiritual subject?’

I saw the sainted Sidney stiffen, and knew that he was saying to himself ‘Here it comes’.

‘It’s with ref to my having seen the light, sir.’

Somebody gave a choking gasp, like a Pekingese that has taken on a chump chop too large for its frail strength, and looking around I saw that it was Queenie. She was staring at Constable Dobbs wide-eyed and parted-lipped.

This choking gasp might have attracted more attention had it not dead-heated with another, equally choking, which proceeded from the thorax of the Rev. Sidney. He, too, was staring wide-eyed. He looked like a vicar who has just seen the outsider on whom he has placed his surplice nose its way through the throng of runners and flash in the lead past the judge’s box.

‘Dobbs! What did you say? You have seen the light?’

I could have told the officer he was a chump to nod so soon after taking that juicy one on the napper from the serviceable rubber instrument, but he did so, and the next thing he said was ‘Ouch!’ But the English policeman is made of splendid stuff, and after behaving for a moment like a man who has just swallowed one of Jeeves’s morning specials he resumed his normal air, which was that of a stuffed gorilla.

‘R,’ he said. ‘And I’ll tell you how it come about, sir. On the evening of the twenty-third inst … well, tonight, as a matter of fact … I was proceeding about my duties, chasing a marauder up a tree, when I was unexpectedly struck by a thunderbolt.’

That, as might have been expected, went big. The vicar said ‘A thunderbolt’, two of the aunts said ‘A
thunderbolt
?’ and Esmond Haddock said ‘Yoicks’.

‘Yes, sir,’ proceeded the officer, ‘a thunderbolt. Caught me on the back of the head, it did, and hasn’t half raised a lump.’

The vicar said ‘Most extraordinary’, the other two aunts said ‘Tch, tch’ and Esmond said ‘Tally ho’.

‘Well, sir, I’m no fool,’ continued Ernest Dobbs. ‘I can take a hint. “Dobbs,” I said to myself, “no use kidding yourself about what
this
is, Dobbs. It’s a warning from above, Dobbs,” I said to myself, “it’s time you made a drawstic revision of your spiritual outlook, Dobbs,” I said to myself. So, if you follow my meaning, sir, I’ve seen the light, and what I wanted to ask you, sir, was Do I have to join the Infants’ Bible Class or can I start singing in the choir right away?’

I mentioned earlier in this narrative that I had never actually seen a shepherd welcoming a strayed lamb back into the fold, but watching Dame Daphne Winkworth on the occasion to which I allude I had picked up a pointer or two about the technique, so was able to recognize that this was what was going to happen now. You could see from his glowing eyes and benevolent smile, not to mention the hand raised as if about to bestow a blessing, that this totally unexpected reversal of form on the part of the local backslider had taken the Rev. Sidney’s mind right off the church organ. I think that in about another couple of ticks he would have come across with something
pretty
impressive in the way of simple, manly words, but, as it so happened, he hadn’t time to get set. Even as his lips parted, there was a noise like a rising pheasant from the outskirts and some solid object left the ranks and hurled itself on Constable Dobbs’s chest.

Closer inspection showed this to be Queenie. She was clinging to the representative of the Law like a poultice, and from the fact that she was saying ‘Oh, Ernie!’ and bedewing his uniform with happy tears I deduced, being pretty shrewd, that what she was trying to convey was that all was forgiven and forgotten and that she was expecting the prompt return of the ring, the letters and the china ornament with ‘A Present From Blackpool’ on it. And as it did not escape my notice that he, on his side, was covering her upturned face with burning kisses and saying ‘Oh, Queenie!’ I gathered that Tortured Souls Preferred had taken another upward trend and that one could chalk up on the slate two more sundered hearts reunited in the springtime.

These tender scenes affect different people in different ways. I myself, realizing Catsmeat’s honourable obligations to this girl might now be considered cancelled, was definitely bucked by the spectacle. But the emotion aroused in Silversmith was plainly a shuddering horror that such goings-on should be going on in the drawing room of Deverill Hall. Pulling a quick Stern Father, he waddled up to the happy pair and with a powerful jerk of the wrist detached his child and led her from the room.

Constable Dobbs, though still dazed, recovered himself sufficiently to apologize for his display of naked emotion, and the Rev. Sidney said he quite, quite understood.

‘Come and see me tomorrow, Dobbs,’ he said benevolently, ‘and we will have a long talk.’

‘Very good, sir.’

‘And now,’ said the Rev. Sidney, ‘I think I will be wending my way homeward. Will you accompany me, Cora?’

Corky said she thought she would stick on for a bit, and Thos, keenly alive to the fact that there were still stacks of sandwiches on tap, also declined to shift, so he beamed his way out of the room by himself, and it was only after the door had closed that I realized that Constable Dobbs was still standing there and remembered that his opening words had been that he had come upon an unpleasant errand. Once more the temperature of the feet fell, and I eyed him askance.

He was not long in getting down to the agenda. These flatties are trained to snap into it.

‘Sir,’ he said, addressing Esmond.

Esmond interrupted to ask him if he would like a sardine sandwich, and he said ‘No, sir, I thank you’, and when Esmond said that he did not insist on sardine but would be equally gratified if the other would wade into the ham, tongue, cucumber or potted meat, explained that he would prefer to take no nourishment of any kind, because of this unpleasant errand he had come on. Apparently, when policemen come on unpleasant errands, they lay off the vitamins.

‘I’m looking for Mr Wooster, sir,’ he said.

In the ecstasy of this recent reunion with the woman he loved I imagine that Esmond had temporarily forgotten how much he disliked Gussie, but at these words it was plain that all the old distaste for one who had made passes at the adored object had come flooding back, for his eyes gleamed, his face darkened and he did a spot of brow-knitting. The sweet singer of King’s Deverill had vanished, leaving in his place the stern, remorseless Justice of the Peace.

‘Wooster, eh?’ he said, and I saw him lick his lips. ‘You wish to see him officially?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘What has he been doing?’

‘Effecting burglarious entries, sir.’

‘Has he, by Jove!’

‘Yes, sir. On the twenty … This evening, sir a burglarious entry was effected by the accused into my police station and certain property of the Crown abstracted – to wit, one dog, what was in custody for having effected two bites. I copped him in the very act, sir,’ said Constable Dobbs, simplifying his narrative style. ‘He was the marauder I was chasing up trees at the moment when I was inadvertently struck by that thunderbolt.’

Esmond continued to knit his brow. It was evident that he took a serious view of the matter. And when Justices of the Peace take serious views of matters, you want to get out from under.

‘You actually found him abstracting this to wit one dog?’ he said keenly, looking like Judge Jeffreys about to do his stuff.

‘Yes, sir. I come into my police station and he was in the act of unloosing it and encouraging it to buzz off. It proceeded to buzz off, and I proceeded to say “Ho!” whereupon, becoming cognizant of my presence, he also proceeded to buzz off, with me after him lickerty-split. I proceeded to pursue him up a tree and was about to effect an arrest, when along come this here thunderbolt, stunning me and depriving me of my senses. When I come to, the accused had departed.’

‘And what makes you think it was Wooster?’

‘He was wearing a green beard, sir, and a check suit. This rendered him conspicuous.’

‘I see. He had not changed after his performance.’

‘No, sir.’

Esmond licked his lips again.

‘Then the first thing to do,’ he said, ‘is to find Wooster. Has anybody seen him?’

‘Yes, sir. Mr Wooster has gone to London in his car.’

It was Jeeves who spoke, and Esmond gave him a rather surprised look.

‘Who are you?’ he asked.

‘My name is Jeeves, sir. I am Mr Wooster’s personal attendant.’

Esmond eyed him with interest.

‘Oh, you’re Jeeves? I’d like a word with you, Jeeves, some time.’

‘Very good, sir.’

‘Not now. Later on. So Wooster has gone to London, has he?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Fleeing from justice, eh?’

‘No, sir. Might I make a remark, sir?’

‘Carry on, Jeeves.’

‘Thank you, sir. I merely wished to say that the officer is mistaken in supposing that the miscreant responsible for the outrage was Mr Wooster. I was continuously in Mr Wooster’s society from the time he left the concert hall. I accompanied him to his room, and we remained together until he took his departure for London. I was assisting him to remove his beard, sir.’

‘You mean you give him an alibi?’