“Sidney!” she cried.
The chappie who had anchored in our midst was a small, round cove with a face rather like a sheep. He wore pince-nez, his expression was benevolent, and he had on one of those collars which button at the back. A parson, in fact.
“Well, my dear,” he said, beaming pretty freely, “here I am at last.”
“Are you very tired?”
“Not at all. A most enjoyable journey, in which tedium was rendered impossible by the beauty of the scenery through which we passed and the entertaining conversation of my fellow-travellers. But may I be presented to this gentleman?” he said, peering at me through the pince-nez.
“This is Mr. Wooster,” said the girl, “who was very kind to me coming from Paris. Mr. Wooster, this is my brother.”
We shook hands, and the brother went off to get a wash.
“Sidney’s such a dear,” said the girl, “I know you’ll like him.”
“Seems a topper.”
“I do hope he will enjoy his stay here. It’s so seldom he gets a holiday. His vicar overworks him dreadfully,”
“Vicars are the devil, what?”
“I wonder if you will be able to spare any time to show him round the place? I can see he’s taken such a fancy to you. But, of course, it would be a bother, I suppose, so — ”
“Rather not. Only too delighted.” For half a second I thought of patting her hand, then I felt I’d better wait a bit, “I’ll do anything, absolutely anything.”
“It’s awfully kind of you.”
“For you,” I said, “I would — ”
At this point the brother returned, and the conversation became what you might call general.
After lunch I fairly curvetted back to my suite, with a most extraordinary braced sensation going all over me like a rash.
“Jeeves,” I said, “you were all wrong about that cummerbund. It went like a breeze from the start.”
“Indeed, sir?”
“Made an absolutely outstanding hit. The lady I was lunching with admired it. Her brother admired it. The waiter looked as if he admired it. Well, anything happened since I left?”
“Yes, sir. Mrs. Gregson has arrived at the hotel.”
A fellow I know who went shooting, and was potted by one of his brother-sportsmen in mistake for a rabbit, once told me that it was several seconds before he realised that he had contributed to the day’s bag. For about a tenth of a minute everything seemed quite O.K., and then suddenly he got it. It was just the same with me. It took about five seconds for this fearful bit of news to sink in.
“What!” I yelled. “Aunt Agatha here?”
“Yes, sir.”
“She can’t be.”
“I have seen her, sir.”
“But how did she get here?”
“The Express from Paris has just arrived, sir.”
“But, I mean, how the dickens did she know I was here?”
“You left a forwarding-address at the flat for your correspondence, sir. No doubt Mrs. Gregson obtained it from the hall-porter.”
“But I told the chump not to give it away to a soul.”
“That would hardly baffle a lady of Mrs. Gregson’s forceful personality, sir.”
“Jeeves, I’m in the soup.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Right up to the hocks!”
“Yes, sir.”
“What shall I do?”
“I fear I have nothing to suggest, sir.”
I eyed the man narrowly. Dashed aloof his manner was. I saw what was the matter, of course. He was still brooding over that cummerbund.
“I shall go for a walk, Jeeves,” I said.
“Yes, sir?”
“A good long walk.”
“Very good, sir.”
“And if—er—if anybody asks for me, tell ‘em you don’t know when I’ll be back.”
To people who don’t know my Aunt Agatha I find it extraordinarily difficult to explain why it is that she has always put the wind up me to such a frightful extent. I mean. I’m not dependent on her financially, or anything like that. It’s simply personality. I’ve come to the conclusion. You see, all through my childhood and when I was a kid at school she was always able to turn me inside out with a single glance, and I haven’t come out from under the ‘fluence yet. We run to height a bit in our family, and there’s about five-foot-nine of Aunt Agatha, topped off with a beaky nose, an eagle eye, and a lot of grey hair, and the general effect is pretty formidable.
Her arrival in Roville at this juncture had made things more than a bit complicated for me. What to do? Leg it quick before she could get hold of me, would no doubt have been the advice most fellows would have given me. But the situation wasn’t as simple as that. I was in much the same position as the cat on the garden wall who, when on the point of becoming matey with the cat next door, observes the bootjack sailing through the air. If he stays where he is, he gets it in the neck; if he biffs, he has to start all over again where he left off. I didn’t like the prospect of being collared by Aunt Agatha, but on the other hand I simply barred the notion of leaving Roville by the night-train and parting from Aline Hemmingway. Absolutely a man’s crossroads, if you know what I mean.
I prowled about the neighbourhood all the afternoon and evening, then I had a bit of dinner at a quiet restaurant in the town and trickled cautiously back to the hotel. Jeeves was popping about in the suite.
“There is a note for you, sir,” he said, “on the mantelpiece.”
The blighter’s manner was still so cold and unchummy that I bit the bullet and had a dash at being airy.
“A note, eh?”
“Yes, sir. Mrs. Gregson’s maid brought it shortly after you had left.”
“Tra-la-la!” I said.
“Precisely, sir.”
I opened the note.
“She wants me to look in on her after dinner some time.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Jeeves,” I said, “mix me a stiffish brandy-and-soda.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Stiffish, Jeeves. Not too much soda, but splash the brandy about a bit.”
“Very good, sir.”
He shimmered off into the background to collect the materials, and just at that moment there was a knock at the door.
I’m bound to say it was a shock. My heart stood still, and I bit my tongue.
“Come in,” I bleated.
But it wasn’t Aunt Agatha after all. It was Aline Hemmingway, looking rather rattled, and her brother, looking like a sheep with a secret sorrow.
“Oh, Mr. Wooster!” said the girl, in a sort of gasping way.
“Oh, what-ho!” I said. “Won’t you come in? Take a seat or two.”
“I don’t know how to begin.”
“Eh?” I said. “Is anything up?”
“Poor Sidney — it was my fault — I ought never to have let him go there alone.”
At this point the brother, who had been standing by wrapped in the silence, gave a little cough, like a sheep caught in the mist on a mountain-top.’
“The fact is, Mr. Wooster,” he said. “I have been gambling at the Casino.”
“Oh!” I said. “Did you click?”
He sighed heavily.
“If you mean, was I successful, I must answer in the negative. I rashly persisted in the view that the colour red, having appeared no fewer than seven times in succession, must inevitably at no distant date give place to black. I was in error. I lost my little all, Mr. Wooster.”
“Tough luck,” I said.
“I left the Casino, and returned to the hotel. There I encountered one of my parishioners, a Colonel Musgrave, who chanced to be holiday-making over here. I — er — induced him to cash me a cheque for one hundred pounds on my bank in London.”
“Well, that was all to the good, what?” I said, hoping to induce the poor egg to look on the bright side. “I mean bit of luck finding someone to slip it into, first crack out of the box.”
“On
the contrary, Mr. Wooster, it did but make matters worse. I burn with shame as I make the confession, but I went back to the Casino and lost the entire sum.”
“I say!” I said. “You are having a night out!”
“And,” concluded the chappie, “the most lamentable feature of the whole affair is that I have no funds in the bank to meet the cheque, when presented.”
I’m free to confess that I gazed at him with no little interest and admiration. Never in my life before had I encountered a curate so genuinely all to the mustard. Little as he might look like one of the lads of the village, he certainly appeared to be the real tabasco.
“Colonel Musgrave,” he went on, gulping somewhat, “is not a man who would be likely to overlook the matter. He is a hard man. He will expose me to my vic-ah. My vic-ah is a hard man. I shall be ruined if Colonel Musgrave presents that cheque, and he leaves for England to-night.”
“Mr. Wooster,” the girl burst out, “won’t you, won’t you help us? Oh, do say you will. We must have the money to get back that cheque from Colonel Musgrave before nine o’clock — he leaves on the nine-twenty. I was at my wits’ end what to do, when I remembered how kind you had always been and how you had told me at lunch that you had won some money at the Casino last night. Mr. Wooster, will you lend it to us, and take these as security?” And, before I knew what she was doing, she had dived into her bag, produced a case, and opened it. “My pearls,” she said. “I don’t know what they are worth — they were a present from my poor father — but I know they must be worth ever so much more than the amount we want.”
Dashed embarrassing. Made me feel like a pawnbroker. More than a touch of popping the watch about the whole business.
“No, I say, really,” I protested, the haughty old spirit of the Woosters kicking like a mule at the idea. “There’s no need of any security, you know, or any rot of that kind. I mean to say, among pals, you know, what? Only too glad the money’ll come in useful.”
And I fished it out and pushed it across. The brother shook his head.
“Mr. Wooster,” he said, “we appreciate your generosity, your beautiful, heartening confidence in us, but we cannot permit this.”
“What Sidney means,” said the girl, “is that you really don’t know anything about us, when you come to think of it. You mustn’t risk lending all this money without any security at all to two people who, after all, are almost strangers.”
“Oh, don’t say that!”
“I do say it. If I hadn’t thought that you would be quite businesslike about this, I would never have dared to come to you. If you will just give me a receipt, as a matter of form — ”
‘Oh, well.”
I wrote out the receipt and handed it over feeling more or less of an ass.
“Here you are,” I said.
The girl took the piece of paper, shoved it in her bag, grabbed the money and slipped it to brother Sidney, and then, before I knew what was happening, she had darted at me, kissed me, and legged it from the room.
I don’t know when I’ve been so rattled. The whole thing was so dashed sudden and unexpected. Through a sort of mist I could see that Jeeves had appeared from the background and was helping the brother on with his coat; and then the brother came up to me and grasped my hand.
“I can’t thank you sufficiently, Mr. Wooster!”
“Oh, right-ho!”
“You have saved my good name. ‘Good name in man or woman, dear my lord,“ he said, massaging the fin with some fervour, “is the immediate jewel of their souls. Who steals my purse steals trash. ‘Twas mine, ‘tis his, and has been slave to thousands. But he that filches from me my good name robs me of that which not enriches him and makes me poor indeed.’ I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Good night, Mr. Wooster.”
“Good night, old thing,” I said.
“Your brandy-and-soda, sir,” said Jeeves, as the door shut.
I blinked at him.
“Oh, there you are!”
‘Yes, sir.”
‘Rather a sad affair, Jeeves.”
“Lucky I happened to have all that money handy.”
“Well — er — yes, sir.”
“You speak as though you didn’t think much of it.”
“It is not my place to criticize your actions, sir, but I will venture to say that I think you behaved a little rashly.”
“What, lending that money?”
“Yes, sir. These fashionable French watering-places are notoriously infested by dishonest characters.”
This was a bit too thick.
“Now, look here, Jeeves,” I said, “I can stand a lot, but when it comes to your casting asp-whatever-the-word-is on the sweetest girl in the world and a bird in Holy Orders — ”
“Perhaps I am over-suspicious, sir. But I have seen a great deal of these resorts. When I was in the employment of Lord Frederick Ranelagh, shortly before I entered your service, his lordship was very neatly swindled by a criminal known, I believe, by the sobriquet of Soapy Sid, who scraped acquaintance with us in Monte Carlo with the assistance of a female accomplice. I have never forgotten the circumstance.”
“I don’t want to butt in on your reminiscences, Jeeves,” I said coldly, “but you’re talking through your hat. How can there have been anything fishy about this business? They’ve left me the pearls, haven’t they? Very well, then, think before you speak. You had better be tooling down to the desk now and having these things shoved in the hotel safe.” I picked up the case and opened it. “Oh, Great Scot!”
The bally thing was empty!
“Oh, my Lord!” I said, staring, “don’t tell me there’s been dirty work at the cross-roads, after all!”
“Precisely, sir. It was in exactly the same manner that Lord Frederick was swindled on the occasion to which I have alluded. While his female accomplice was gratefully embracing his lordship. Soapy Sid substituted a duplicate case for the one containing the pearls, and went off with the jewels, the money, and the receipt. On the strength of the receipt he subsequently demanded from his lordship the return of the pearls, and his lordship, not being able to produce them, was obliged to pay a heavy sum in compensation. It is a simple but effective ruse.”
I felt as if the bottom had dropped out of things with a jerk. I mean to say. Aline Hemmingway, you know. What I mean is, if Love hadn’t actually awakened in my heart, there’s no doubt it was having a jolly good stab at it, and the thing was only a question of days. And all the time — well, I mean, dash it, you know.
“Soapy Sid? Sid! Sidney! Brother Sidney! Why, by Jove, Jeeves, do you think that parson was Soapy Sid?’’
“Yes, sir.”
“But it seems so extraordinary. Why, his collar buttoned at the back — I mean, he would have deceived a bishop. Do you really think he was Soapy Sid?”
“Yes, sir. I recognised him directly he came into the room.”
I stared at the blighter.
“You recognised him?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then, dash it all,” I said, deeply moved, “I think you might have told me.”
“I thought it would save disturbance and unpleasantness if I merely abstracted the case from the man’s pocket as I assisted him with his coat, sir. Here it is.”
He laid another case on the table beside the dud one, and, by Jove, you couldn’t tell them apart. I opened it, and there were the good old pearls, as merry and bright as dammit, smiling up at me. I gazed feebly at the man. I was feeling a bit overwrought.
“Jeeves,” I said, “you’re an absolute genius!”
“Yes, sir.”
Relief was surging over me in great chunks by now. I’d almost forgotten that a woman had toyed with my heart and thrown it away like a worn-out tube of tooth-paste and all that sort of thing. What seemed to me the important item was the fact that, thanks to Jeeves, I was not going to be called on to cough up several thousand quid.
“It looks to me as though you had saved the old home. I mean, even a chappi
e endowed with the immortal rind of dear old Sid is hardly likely to have the nerve to come back and retrieve these little chaps.”
“I should imagine not, sir.”
“Well, then — Oh, I say, you don’t think they are just paste or anything like that?”
“No, sir. These are genuine pearls, and extremely valuable.”
“Well, then dash it. I’m on velvet. Absolutely reclining on the good old plush! I may be down a hundred quid, but I’m up a jolly good string of pearls. Am I right or wrong?”
“Hardly that, sir. I think that you will have to restore the pearls.”
“What! To Sid? Not while I have my physique!”
“No, sir. To their rightful owner.”
“But who is their rightful owner?”
“Mrs. Gregson, sir.”
“What! How do you know?”
“It was all over the hotel an hour ago that Mrs. Gregson’s pearls had been abstracted. The man Sid travelled from Paris in the same train as Mrs. Gregson, and no doubt marked them down. I was speaking to Mrs. Gregson’s maid shortly before you came in, and she informed me that the manager of the hotel is now in Mrs. Gregson’s suite.”
“And having a devil of a time, what?”
“So I should be disposed to imagine, sir.”
The situation was beginning to unfold before me.
“I’ll go and give them back to her, eh? It’ll put me one up, what?”
“If I might make the suggestion, sir, I think it would strengthen your position if you were to affect to discover the pearls in Mrs. Gregson’s suite — say, in a bureau drawer.”
“I don’t see why.”
“I think I am right, sir.”
“Well, I stand on you. If you say so. I’ll be popping, what?”
“The sooner the better, sir.”
Long before I reached Aunt Agatha’s lair I could tell that the hunt was up. Divers chappies in hotel uniform and not a few chambermaids of sorts were hanging about in the corridor, and through the panels I could hear a mixed assortment of voices, with Aunt Agatha’s topping the lot. I knocked, but no one took any notice, so I trickled in. Among those present I noticed a chambermaid in hysterics. Aunt Agatha with her hair bristling, and a whiskered cove who looked like a bandit, as no doubt he was, being the proprietor of the hotel.
Wodehouse On Crime Page 22
