‘She has a very whimsical fancy.’
‘And nothing to be done about it, I suppose. But you were telling me about this second visit of Wooster’s to Totleigh Towers. Did he steal anything this time?’
‘An amber statuette worth a thousand pounds.’
‘He certainly gets around,’ said the camera chap with, I thought, a sort of grudging admiration. ‘I hope you had him arrested?’
‘We did. He spent the night in the local gaol. But next morning Sir Watkyn weakened and let him off.’
‘Mistaken kindness.’
‘So I thought.’
The camera chap didn’t comment further on this, though he was probably thinking that of all the soppy families introduced to his notice the Bassetts took the biscuit.
‘Well, I’m very much obliged to you,’ he said, ‘for telling me about this man Wooster and putting me on my guard. I’ve brought a very valuable bit of old silver with me. I am hoping to sell it to Mr Travers. If Wooster learns of this, he is bound to try to purloin it, and I can tell you, that if he does and I catch him, there will be none of this nonsense of a single night in gaol. He will get the stiffest sentence the law can provide. And now, how about a quick game of billiards before dinner? My doctor advises a little gentle exercise.’
‘I should enjoy it.’
‘Then let us be getting along.’
Having given them time to remove themselves, I went in and sank down on a sofa. I was profoundly stirred, for if you think fellows enjoy listening to the sort of thing Spode had been saying about me, you’re wrong. My pulse was rapid and my brow wet with honest sweat, like the village blacksmith’s. I was badly in need of alcoholic refreshment, and just as my tongue was beginning to stick out and blacken at the roots, shiver my timbers if Jeeves didn’t enter left centre with a tray containing all the makings. St Bernard dogs, you probably know, behave in a similar way in the Alps and are well thought of in consequence.
Mingled with the ecstasy which the sight of him aroused in my bosom was a certain surprise that he should be acting as cup-bearer. It was a job that should rightly have fallen into the province of Seppings, Aunt Dahlia’s butler.
‘Hullo, Jeeves!’ I ejaculated.
‘Good evening, sir. I have unpacked your effects. Can I pour you a whisky and soda?’
‘You can indeed. But what are you doing, buttling? This mystifies me greatly. Where’s Seppings?’
‘He has retired to bed, sir, with an attack of indigestion consequent upon a too liberal indulgence in Monsieur Anatole’s cooking at lunch. I am undertaking his duties for the time being.’
‘Very white of you, and very white of you to pop up at this particular moment. I have had a shock, Jeeves.’
‘I am sorry to hear that, sir.’
‘Did you know Spode was here?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And Miss Bassett?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘We might as well be at Totleigh Towers.’
‘I can appreciate your dismay, sir, but fellow guests are easily avoided.’
‘Yes, and if you avoid them, what do they do? They go about telling men in Panama hats you’re a sort of cross between Raffles and one of those fellows who pinch bags at railway stations,’ I said, and in a few crisp words I gave him a résumé of Spode’s remarks.
‘Most disturbing, sir.’
‘Very. You know and I know how sound my motives were for everything I did at Totleigh, but what if Spode tells Aunt Agatha?’
‘An unlikely contingency, sir.’
‘I suppose it is.’
‘But I know just how you feel, sir. Who steals my purse steals trash; ’tis something, nothing; ’twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands. But he who filches from me my good name robs me of that which not enriches him and makes me poor indeed.’
‘Neat, that. Your own?’
‘No, sir. Shakespeare’s.’
‘Shakespeare said some rather good things.’
‘I understand that he has given uniform satisfaction, sir. Shall I mix you another?’
‘Do just that thing, Jeeves, and with all convenient speed.’
He had completed his St Bernard act and withdrawn, and I was sipping my second rather more slowly than the first, when the door opened and Aunt Dahlia bounded in, all joviality and rosy complexion.
6
* * *
I NEVER SEE this relative without thinking how odd it is that one sister – call her Sister A – can be so unlike another sister, whom we will call Sister B. My Aunt Agatha, for instance, is tall and thin and looks rather like a vulture in the Gobi desert, while Aunt Dahlia is short and solid, like a scrum half in the game of Rugby football. In disposition, too, they differ widely. Aunt Agatha is cold and haughty, though presumably unbending a bit when conducting human sacrifices at the time of the full moon, as she is widely rumoured to do, and her attitude towards me has always been that of an austere governess, causing me to feel as if I were six years old and she had just caught me stealing jam from the jam cupboard; whereas Aunt Dahlia is as jovial and bonhomous as a pantomime dame in a Christmas pantomime. Curious.
I welcomed her with a huge ‘Hello’, in both syllables of which a nephew’s love and esteem could be easily detected, and went so far as to imprint an affectionate kiss on her brow. Later I would take her roundly to task for filling the house with Spodes and Madeline Bassetts and bulging bounders in Panama hats, but that could wait.
She returned my greeting with one of her uncouth hunting cries – ‘Yoicks’, if I remember correctly. Apparently, when you’ve been with the Quorn and the Pytchley for some time, you drop into the habit of departing from basic English.
‘So here you are, young Bertie.’
‘You never spoke a truer word. Up and doing, with a heart for any fate.’
‘As thirsty as ever, I observe. I thought I would find you tucking into the drinks.’
‘Purely medicinal. I’ve had a shock.’
‘What gave you that?’
‘Suddenly becoming apprised of the fact that the blighter Spode was my fellow guest,’ I said, feeling that I couldn’t have a better cue for getting down to my recriminations. ‘What on earth was the idea of inviting a fiend in human shape like that here?’ I said, for I knew she shared my opinion of the seventh Earl of Sidcup. ‘You have told me many a time and oft that you consider him one of Nature’s gravest blunders. And yet you go out of your way to court his society, if court his society is the expression I want. You must have been off your onion, old ancestor.’
It was a severe ticking-off, and you would have expected the blush of shame to have mantled her cheeks, not that you would have noticed it much, her complexion being what it was after all those winters in the hunting field, but she was apparently imp-something, impervious, that’s the word, to remorse. She remained what Anatole would have called as cool as some cucumbers.
‘Ginger asked me to. He wanted Spode to speak for him at this election. He knows him slightly.’
‘Far the best way of knowing Spode.’
‘He needs all the help he can get, and Spode’s one of those silver-tongued orators you read about. Extraordinary gift of the gab he has. He could get into Parliament without straining a sinew.’
I dare say she was right, but I resented any praise of Spode. I made clear my displeasure by responding curtly:
‘Then why doesn’t he?’
‘He can’t, you poor chump. He’s a lord.’
‘Don’t they allow lords in?’
‘No, they don’t.’
‘I see,’ I said, rather impressed by this proof that the House of Commons drew the line somewhere. ‘Well, I suppose you aren’t so much to blame as I had thought. How do you get on with him?’
‘I avoid him as much as possible.’
‘Very shrewd. I shall do the same. We now come to Madeline Bassett. She’s here, too. Why?’
‘Oh, Madeline came along for the ride. She wanted to be near Sp
ode. An extraordinary thing to want, I agree. Morbid, you might call it. Florence Craye, of course, has come to help Ginger’s campaign.’
I started visibly. In fact, I jumped about six inches, as if a skewer or knitting-needle had come through the seat of my chair.
‘You don’t mean Florence is here as well?’
‘With bells on. You seem perturbed.’
‘I’m all of a twitter. It never occurred to me that when I came here I would be getting into a sort of population explosion.’
‘Who ever told you about population explosions?’
‘Jeeves. They are rather a favourite subject of his. He says if something isn’t done pretty soon—’
‘I’ll bet he said, If steps are not taken shortly through the proper channels.’
‘He did, as a matter of fact. He said, If steps aren’t taken shortly through the proper channels, half the world will soon be standing on the other half’s shoulders.’
‘All right if you’re one of the top layer.’
‘Yes, there’s that, of course.’
‘Though even then it would be uncomfortable. Tricky sort of balancing act.’
‘True.’
‘And difficult to go for a stroll if you wanted to stretch the legs. And one wouldn’t get much hunting.’
‘Not much.’
We mused for awhile on what lay before us, and I remember thinking that present conditions, even with Spode and Madeline and Florence on the premises, suited one better. From this to thinking of Uncle Tom was but a step. It seemed to me that the poor old buster must be on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Even a single guest is sometimes too much for him.
‘How,’ I asked, ‘is Uncle Tom bearing up under this invasion of his cabin?’
She stared incredibly or rather incredulously.
‘Did you expect to find him here playing his banjo? My poor halfwitted child, he was off to the south of France the moment he learned that danger threatened. I had a picture postcard from him yesterday. He’s having a wonderful time and wishes I was there.’
‘And don’t you mind all these blighters overrunning the place?’
‘I would prefer it if they went elsewhere, but I treat them with saintly forbearance because I feel it’s all helping Ginger.’
‘How do things look in that direction?’
‘An even bet, I would say. The slightest thing might turn the scale. He and his opponent are having a debate in a day or two, and a good deal, you might say everything, depends on that.’
‘Who’s the opponent?’
‘Local talent. A barrister.’
‘Jeeves says Market Snodsbury is very straitlaced, and if the electors found out about Ginger’s past they would heave him out without even handing him his hat.’
‘Has he a past?’
‘I wouldn’t call it that. Pure routine, I’d describe it as. In the days before he fell under Florence’s spell he was rather apt to get slung out of restaurants for throwing eggs at the electric fan, and he seldom escaped unjugged on Boat Race night for pinching policemen’s helmets. Would that lose him votes?’
‘Lose him votes? If it was brought to Market Snodsbury’s attention, I doubt if he would get a single one. That sort of thing might be overlooked in the cities of the plain, but not in Market Snodsbury. So for heaven’s sake don’t go babbling about it to everyone you meet.’
‘My dear old ancestor, am I likely to?’
‘Very likely, I should say. You know how fat your head is.’
I would have what-d’you-call-it-ed this slur, and with vehemence, but the adjective she had used reminded me that we had been talking all this time and I hadn’t enquired about the camera chap.
‘By the way,’ I said, ‘who would a fat fellow be?’
‘Someone fond of starchy foods who had omitted to watch his calories, I imagine. What on earth, if anything, are you talking about?’
I saw that my question had been too abrupt. I hastened to clarify it.
‘Strolling in the grounds and messuages just now I encountered an obese bird in a Panama hat with a pink ribbon, and I was wondering who he was and how he came to be staying here. He didn’t look the sort of bloke for whom you would be putting out mats with “Welcome” on them. He gave me the impression of being a thug of the first order.’
My words seemed to have touched a chord. Rising nimbly, she went to the door and opened it, then to the French window and looked out, plainly in order to ascertain that nobody – except me, of course – was listening. Spies in spy stories do the same kind of thing when about to make communications which are for your ears only.
‘I suppose I’d better tell you about him,’ she said.
I intimated that I would be an attentive audience.
‘That’s L. P. Runkle, and I want you to exercise your charm on him, such as it is. He has to be conciliated and sucked up to.’
‘Why, is he someone special?’
‘You bet he’s someone special. He’s a big financier, Runkle’s Enterprises. Loaded with money.’
It seemed to me that these words could have but one significance.
‘You’re hoping to touch him?’
‘Such is indeed my aim. But not for myself. I want to get a round sum out of him for Tuppy Glossop.’
Her allusion was to the nephew of Sir Roderick Glossop, the well-known nerve specialist and loony doctor, once a source of horror and concern to Bertram but now one of my leading pals. He calls me Bertie, I call him Roddy. Tuppy, too, is one of my immediate circle of buddies, in spite of the fact that he once betted me I couldn’t swing myself from end to end of the swimming bath at the Drones, and when I came to the last ring I found he had looped it back, giving me no option but to drop into the water in faultless evening dress. This had been like a dagger in the bosom for a considerable period, but eventually Time the great healer had ironed things out and I had forgiven him. He has been betrothed to Aunt Dahlia’s daughter Angela for ages, and I had never been able to understand why they hadn’t got around to letting the wedding bells get cracking. I had been expecting every day for ever so long to be called on to weigh in with the silver fish-slice, but the summons never came.
Naturally I asked if Tuppy was hard up, and she said he wasn’t begging his bread and nosing about in the gutters for cigarette ends, but he hadn’t enough to marry on.
‘Thanks to L. P. Runkle. I’ll tell you the whole story.’
‘Do.’
‘Did you ever meet Tuppy’s late father?’
‘Once. I remember him as a dreamy old bird of the absent-minded professor type.’
‘He was a chemical researcher or whatever they call it, employed by Runkle’s Enterprises, one of those fellows you see in the movies who go about in white coats peering into test tubes. And one day he invented what were afterwards known as Runkle’s Magic Midgets, small pills for curing headaches. You’ve probably come across them.’
‘I know them well. Excellent for a hangover, though not of course to be compared with Jeeves’s patent pick-me-up. They’re very popular at the Drones. I know a dozen fellows who swear by them. There must be a fortune in them.’
‘There was. They sell like warm winter woollies in Iceland.’
‘Then why is Tuppy short of cash? Didn’t he inherit them?’
‘Not by a jugful.’
‘I don’t get it. You speak in riddles, aged relative,’ I said, and there was a touch of annoyance in my voice, for if there is one thing that gives me the pip, it is an aunt speaking in riddles. ‘If these ruddy midget things belonged to Tuppy’s father—’
‘L. P. Runkle claimed they didn’t. Tuppy’s father was working for him on a salary, and the small print in the contract read that all inventions made on Runkle’s Enterprises’ time became the property of Runkle’s Enterprises. So when old Glossop died, he hadn’t much to leave his son, while L. P. Runkle went on flourishing like a green bay tree.’
I had never seen a green bay tree, but I gathered what she
meant.
‘Couldn’t Tuppy sue?’
‘He would have been bound to lose. A contract is a contract.’
I saw what she meant. It was not unlike that time when she was running that weekly paper of hers, Milady’s Boudoir, and I contributed to it an article, or piece as it is sometimes called, on What The Well-Dressed Man Is Wearing. She gave me a packet of cigarettes for it, and it then became her property. I didn’t actually get offers for it from France, Germany, Italy, Canada and the United States, but if I had had I couldn’t have accepted them. My pal Boko Littleworth, who makes a living by his pen, tells me I ought to have sold her only the first serial rights, but I didn’t think of it at the time. One makes these mistakes. What one needs, of course, is an agent.
All the same, I considered that L. P. Runkle ought to have stretched a point and let Tuppy’s father get something out of it. I put this to the ancestor, and she agreed with me.
‘Of course he ought. Moral obligation.’
‘It confirms one’s view that this Runkle is a stinker.’
‘The stinker supreme. And he tells me he has been tipped off that he’s going to get a knighthood in the New Year’s Honours.’
‘How can they knight a chap like that?’
‘Just the sort of chap they do knight. Prominent business man. Big deals. Services to Britain’s export trade.’
‘But a stinker.’
‘Unquestionably a stinker.’
‘Then what’s he doing here? You usually don’t go out of your way to entertain stinkers. Spode, yes. I can understand you letting him infest the premises, much as I disapprove of it. He’s making speeches on Ginger’s behalf, and according to you doing it rather well. But why Runkle?’
She said ‘Ah!’, and when I asked her reason for saying ‘Ah!’, she replied that she was thinking of her subtle cunning, and when I asked what she meant by subtle cunning, she said ‘Ah!’ again. It looked as if we might go on like this indefinitely, but a moment later, having toddled to the door and opened it and to the French window and peered out, she explained.
The Jeeves Omnibus – Vol 5 Page 5
