But, as so often happens on these occasions, the fixture was not played to a finish. Pausing for a moment before starting on lap thirteen, we were interrupted by the entry of Seppings, Aunt Dahlia's butler, who came toddling in, looking rather official.
I was glad to see him myself, for some sort of interruption was just what I had been hoping for, but this turning of the thing into a threesome plainly displeased Stilton, and I could understand why. The man's presence hampered him and prevented him from giving of his best. I have already explained that the Cheesewright code prohibits brawling if there are females around. The same rule holds good when members of the domestic staff appear at the ringside. If butlers butt in while they are in the process of trying to ascertain the colour of some acquaintance's insides, the Cheesewrights cheese it.
But, mark you, they don't like cheesing it, and it is not to be wondered at that, compelled by this major-domo's presence to suspend hostilities, Stilton should have eyed him with ill-concealed animosity. His manner, when he spoke, was brusque.
'What do you want?'
'The door, sir.'
Stilton's ill-concealed animosity became rather worse concealed. So packed indeed, with deleterious animal magnetism was the glance he directed at Seppings that one felt that there was a considerable danger of Aunt Dahlia at no distant date finding herself a butler short.
'What do you mean, you want the door? Which door? What door? What on earth do you want a door for?'
I saw that it was most improbable that he would ever get the thing straight in his mind without a word of explanation, so I supplied it. I always like, if I can, to do the square thing by one and all on these occasions. Scratch Bertram Wooster, I sometimes say, and you find a Boy Scout.
The front door, Stilton, old dance partner, is what one presumes Pop Seppings has in mind,' I said. 'I would hazard the guess that the bell rang. Correct, Seppings?'
'Yes, sir,' he replied with quiet dignity. 'The front door bell rang, and in pursuance of my duties I came to answer it.'
And, his manner suggesting that that in his opinion would hold Stilton awhile, he carried on as planned.
'What I'll bet has happened, Stilton, old scone,' I said, clarifying the whole situation, 'is that some visitor waits without.'
I was right. Seppings flung wide the gates, there was a flash of blonde hair and a whiff of Chanel Number Five and a girl came sailing in, a girl whom I was able to classify at a single glance as a pipterino of the first water.
Those who know Bertram Wooster best are aware that he is not a man who readily slops over when speaking of the opposite sex. He is cool and critical. He weighs his words. So when I describe this girl as a pipterino, you will gather that she was something pretty special. She could have walked into any assembly of international beauty contestants, and the committee of judges would have laid down the red carpet. One could imagine fashionable photographers fighting to the death for her custom.
Like the heroine of The Mystery of the Pink Crayfish and, indeed, the heroines of all the thrillers I have ever come across, she had hair the colour of ripe corn and eyes of cornflower blue. Add a tiptilted nose and a figure as full of curves as a scenic railway, and it will not strike you as strange that Stilton, sheathing the sword, should have stood gaping at her dumbly, his aspect that of a man who has been unexpectedly struck by a thunderbolt.
'Is Mrs Travers around?' inquired this vision, addressing herself to Seppings. 'Will you tell her Miss Morehead has arrived.'
I was astounded. For some reason, possibly because she had three names, the picture I had formed in my mind of Daphne Dolores Morehead was that of an elderly female with a face like a horse and gold-rimmed pince-nez attached to her top button with a black string. Seeing her steadily and seeing her whole, I found myself commending Aunt Dahlia's sagacity in inviting her to Brinkley Court, presumably to help promote the sale of the Boudoir. A word from her, advising its purchase, would, I felt, go a long way with L. G. Trotter. He was doubtless a devoted and excellent husband, true as steel to the wife of his b., but even devoted and excellent husbands are apt to react powerfully when girls of the D. D. Morehead type start giving them Treatment A.
Stilton was still goggling at her like a bulldog confronted with a pound of steak, and now, her eyes of cornflower blue becoming accustomed to the dim light of the hall, she took a dekko at him and uttered an exclamation that seemed – oddly, considering what Stilton was like – one of pleasure.
'Mr Cheesewright!' she said. 'Well, fancy! I thought your face was familiar.' She took another dekko. 'You are B'Arcy Cheese-wright, who used to row for Oxford?'
Stilton inclined the bean dumbly. He seemed incapable of speech.
'I thought so. Somebody pointed you out to me at the Eights Week ball one year. But I almost didn't recognize you. You look so much handsomer without it. I do think moustaches are simply awful. I always say that a man who can lower himself to wearing a moustache might just as well grow a beard.'
I could not let this pass.
'There are moustaches and moustaches,' I said, twirling mine. Then, seeing that she was asking herself who this slim, distinguished-looking stranger might be, I tapped myself on the wishbone. 'Wooster, Bertram,' I said. 'I'm Mrs Travers's nephew, she being my aunt. Should I lead you into her presence? She is probably counting the minutes.'
She pursed the lips dubiously, as if the programme I had suggested deviated in many respects from the ideal.
'Yes, I suppose I ought to be going and saying Hello, but what I would really like would be to explore the grounds. It's such a lovely place.'
Stilton, who was now a pretty vermilion, came partially out of the ether, uttering odd, strangled noises like a man with no roof to his mouth trying to recite 'Gunga Din'. Finally something coherent emerged.
'May I show you round?' he said hoarsely.
'I'd love it.'
'Ho!' said Stilton. He spoke quickly, as if feeling he had been remiss in not saying that earlier, and a moment later they were up and doing. And I, with something of the emotions of Daniel passing out of the stage door of the lion's den, went to my room.
It was cool and restful there. Aunt Dahlia is a woman who believes in doing her guests well in the matter of armchairs and chaises-longues, and the chaise-longue allotted to me yielded gratefully to the form. It was not long before a pleasant drowsiness stole over me. The weary eyelids closed. I slept.
When I woke up half an hour later, my first act was to start with some violence. The brain cleared by slumber, I had remembered the cosh.
I rose to my feet, appalled, and shot from the room. It was imperative that I should recover possession of that beneficent instrument with all possible speed, for though in our recent encounter I had outgeneralled Stilton in round one, foiling him with my superior footwork and ring science, there was no knowing when he might not be feeling ready for round two. A set-back may discourage a Cheesewright for the moment, but it does not dispose of him as a logical contender.
The cosh, you will recall, had flashed through the air like a shooting star, to wind up its trip somewhere near Uncle Tom's safe, and I proceeded to the spot on winged feet. And picture my concern on finding on arrival that it wasn't there. The way things disappeared at Brinkley Court... ladders, coshes and what not... was enough to make a man throw in his hand and turn his face to the wall.
At this moment I actually did turn my face to the wall, the one the safe was wedged into, and having done so gave another of those violent starts of mine.
And what I saw was enough to make a fellow start with all the violence at his disposal. For two or three ticks I simply couldn't believe it. 'Bertram,' I said to myself, 'the strain has been too much for you. You are cockeyed.' But no. I blinked once or twice to clear the vision, and when I had finished blinking there it was, just as I had seen it the first time.
The safe door was open.
CHAPTER 18
It is at moments like this that you catch Bertram Wooster at his s
uperb best, his ice-cold brain working like a machine. Many fellows, I mean to say, seeing that safe door open, would have wasted precious time standing goggling at it, wondering why it was open, who had opened it and why whoever had opened it hadn't shut it again, but not Bertram. Hand him something on a plate with watercress round it, and he does not loiter and linger. He acts. A quick dip inside and a rapid rummaging, and I had the thing all sewed up.
There were half a dozen jewel-cases stowed away on the shelves, and it took a minute or two to open them and examine contents, but investigation revealed only one pearl necklace, so I was spared anything in the nature of a perplexing choice. Swiftly trouser-pocketing the bijouterie, I shot off to Aunt Dahlia's den like the jack rabbit I had so closely resembled at my recent conference with Stilton. She should, I thought, be there by now, and it was a source of considerable satisfaction to me to feel that I was about to bring the sunshine back into the life of this deserving old geezer. When last seen, she had so plainly been in need of a bit of sunshine.
I found her in status quo, as foreseen, smoking a gasper and spelling her way through her Agatha Christie, but I didn't bring the sunshine into her life, because it was there already. I was amazed at the change in her demeanour since she had gone off droopingly to see if Uncle Tom had finished talking to Spode about old silver. Then, you will recall, her air had been that of one caught in the machinery. Now, she conveyed the impression of having found the blue bird. As she looked up on discovering me in her midst, her face was shining like the seat of a bus driver's trousers, and it wouldn't have surprised me much if she had started yodelling. Her whole aspect was that of an aunt who on honeydew has fed and drunk the milk of Paradise, and the thought crossed my mind that if she was feeling as yeasty as this before hearing the good news, she might quite easily, when I spilled same, explode with a loud report.
I was not able, however, to reveal the chunk of secret history which I had up my sleeve, for, as so often happens when I am closeted with this woman, she made it impossible for me to get a syllable in edgeways. Even as I crossed the threshold, words began to flutter from her like bats out of a barn.
'Bertie!' she boomed. Just the boy I wanted to see. Bertie, my pet, I have fought the good fight. Do you remember the hymn about "See the troops of Midian prowl and prowl around"? It goes on "Christian, up and smite them", and that is what I have done, in spades. Let me tell you what happened. It will make your eyes pop.'
'I say' I said, but was able to get no further. She rolled over me like a steam-roller.
'When we parted in the hall not long ago, you will remember, I was bewitched, bothered, and bewildered because I couldn't get hold of Spode to put the bite on him about Eulalie Sœurs, and was going to the collection room on the off chance of there having been a lull. But he continued to take it without a murmur, and Tom went rambling on. And then suddenly my bones were turned to water and the collection room swam before my eyes. Without any warning Tom suddenly switched to the subject of the necklace. "You might like to look at it now," he said. "Certainly," said Spode, and off they went.'
She paused for breath, as even she has to do sometimes.
'I say–'I said.
The lungs refilled, she carried on again.
'I wouldn't have thought my limbs would have been able to support me to the door, much less down a long passage into the hall, but they did. I followed in the wake of the procession, giving at the knees but somehow managing to navigate. What I thought I was doing, joining the party, I don't know, but I suppose I had some vague idea of being present when Tom got the bad news and pleading brokenly for forgiveness. Anyway, I went. Tom opened the safe, and I stood there as if I had been turned into a pillar of salt, like Lot's wife.'
I recalled the incident to which she referred, it having happened to come up in the examination paper that time I won that prize for Scripture Knowledge at my private school, but it's probably new to you, so I will give a brief synopsis. For some reason which has escaped my memory they told this Mrs Lot, while out walking one day, not to look round or she would be turned into a pillar of salt, so of course she immediately did look round and by what I have always thought an odd coincidence she was turned into a pillar of salt. It just shows you, what? I mean to say, you never know where you are these days.
'Time marched on. Tom took out the jewel-case and passed it over to Spode, who said "Ah, this is it, is it?" or some damn silly remark like that, and at that moment, with the hand of doom within a toucher of descending, Seppings appeared, probably sent by my guardian angel, and told Tom he was wanted on the phone. "Eh? What? What?" said Tom, his invariable practice when told he is wanted on the phone, and legged it, followed by Seppings. Woof!' she said, and paused for breath again.
'I say–' I said.
'You can imagine how I felt. That stupendous bit of luck had changed the whole aspect of affairs. For hours I had been wondering how on earth I could get Spode alone, and now I had got him alone. You can bet I didn't waste a second. "Just think, Lord Sidcup," I said winningly, "I haven't had a moment yet to talk to you about all our mutual friends and those happy days at Totleigh Towers. How is dear Sir Watkyn Bassett?" I asked, still winningly. I fairly cooed to the man.'
'I say–'I said.
She squelched me with an imperious gesture.
'Don't interrupt, curse you! I never saw such a chap for wanting to collar the conversation. Gabble, gabble, gabble. Listen, can't you, when I'm telling you the biggest story that has broken around these parts for years. Where was I? Oh, yes. "How is dear Sir Watkyn?" I said, and he said dear Sir Watkyn was pretty oojah-cum-spiff. "And dear Madeline?" I said, and he said dear Madeline was ticking over all right. And then I drew a deep breath and let him have it. "And how is that ladies' underclothing place of yours getting along?" I said. "Eulalie Sœurs, isn't it called? Still coining money, I trust?" And next moment you could have knocked me down with a feather. For with a jolly laugh he replied, "Eulalie Sœurs? Oh, I haven't anything to do with that any longer. I sold out ages ago. It's a company now." And as I stood gaping at him, my whole plan of campaign in ruins, he said, "Well, I may as well have a look at this necklace. Mr Travers says he is anxious to have my opinion of it." And he pressed his thumb to the catch and the jewel-case flew open. And I was just commending my soul to God and saying to myself that this was the end, when I stubbed my foot against something and looked down and there, lying on the floor... you'll scarcely believe this... was a cosh.'
She paused again, took on a cargo of breath quickly, and resumed.
'Yessir, a cosh! You wouldn't know what a cosh is, of course, so I'll explain. It's a small rubber instrument, much used by the criminal classes for socking their friends and relations. They wait till their mother-in-law's back is turned and then let her have it on the tortoiseshell comb. It's all the rage in underworld circles, and there it was, as I say, lying at my feet.'
'I say–' I said.
I got the imperious gesture between the eyes once more.
'Well, for a moment, it rang no bell. I picked it up automatically, the good housewife who doesn't like to see things lying around on floors, but it held no message for me. It simply didn't occur to me that my guardian angel had been directing my footsteps and was showing me the way out of my troubles and perplexities. And then suddenly, in a blinding flash, I got it. I realized what that good old guardian angel was driving at. He had at last succeeded in penetrating the bone and getting it into my fat head. There was Spode, with his back turned, starting to take the necklace out of the case...'
I gasped gurglingly
'You didn't cosh him?'
'Certainly I coshed him. What would you have had me do? What would Napoleon have done? I took a nice easy half-swing and let go with lots of follow-through, and he fell to earth he knew not where.'
I could readily believe it. Just so had Constable Dobbs fallen at Deverill Hall.
'He's in bed now, convinced that he had a touch of vertigo and hit his head on the floo
r. Don't worry about Spode. A good night's rest and a bland diet, and he'll be as right as rain tomorrow. And I've got the necklace, I've got the necklace, I've got the bally necklace, and I feel as if I could pick up a couple of tigers and knock their heads together!'
I gaped at her. The bean was swimming. Through the mist that had risen before the eyes she appeared to be swaying like an aunt caught in a high wind.
'You say you've got the necklace?' I quavered.
'I certainly have.'
'Then what,' I said, in about as hollow a voice as ever proceeded from human lips, 'is this one I've got?'
And I produced my exhibit.
For quite a while it was plain that she had failed to follow the story sequence. She looked at the necklace, then at me, then at the necklace again. It was not until I had explained fully that she got the strength of it.
'Of course, yes,' she said, her brow clearing. 'I see it all now. What with yelling for Tom and telling him Spode had had some sort of seizure and listening to him saying "Oh, my God! Now we'll have to put the frightful fellow up for the night!" and trying to comfort him and helping Seppings tote the remains to bed and all that, I forgot to suggest shutting the safe door. And Tom, of course, never thought of it. He was much too busy tearing his hair and saying this was certainly the last time he would invite a club acquaintance to his house, by golly, it being notorious for the first thing club acquaintances do on finding themselves in somebody's home is to have fits and take advantage of them to stay dug into the woodwork for weeks. And then you came along –'
Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit Page 15
