He groaned in spirit. A sorrow’s crown of sorrow is remembering happier things, and he proceeded to torture himself with the recollection of how her neck had felt beneath his fingers as he fastened her pen–
Captain Biggar uttered a short, sharp exclamation. It was in Swahili, a language which always came most readily to his lips in moments of emotion, but its meaning was as clear as if it had been the ‘Eureka!’ of Archimedes.
Her pendant! Yes, now he saw daylight. Now he could start handling the situation as it should be handled.
Two minutes later, he was at the front door. Two minutes and twenty-five seconds later, he was in the living room, eyeing the backs of Honest Patch Rowcester and his clerk as they stood – for some silly reason known only to themselves – crouching beside the curtains which they had pulled across the french window.
‘Hi!’ he cried. ‘I want to have another word with you two.’
The effect of the observation on his audience was immediate and impressive. It is always disconcerting, when you are expecting a man from the north-east, to have him suddenly bark at you from the south-west, especially if he does so in a manner that recalls feeding time in a dog hospital, and Bill went into his quaking and leaping routine with the smoothness that comes from steady practice. Even Jeeves, though his features did not lose their customary impassivity, appeared – if one could judge by the fact that his left eyebrow flickered for a moment as if about to rise – to have been stirred to quite a considerable extent.
‘And don’t stand there looking like a dying duck,’ said the captain, addressing Bill, who, one is compelled to admit, was giving a rather close impersonation of such a bird in articulo mortis. ‘Since I saw you two beauties last,’ he continued, helping himself to another whisky and soda, ‘I have been thinking over the situation, and I have now got it all taped out. It suddenly came to me, quick as a flash. I said to myself “The pendant!”’
Bill blinked feebly. His heart, which had crashed against the back of his front teeth, was slowly returning to its base, but it seemed to him that the shock which he had just sustained must have left his hearing impaired. It had sounded exactly as if the captain had said ‘The pendant!’ which, of course, made no sense whatever.
‘The pendant?’ he echoed, groping.
‘Mrs Spottsworth is wearing a diamond pendant, m’lord,’ said Jeeves. ‘It is to this, no doubt, that the gentleman alludes.’
It was specious, but Bill found himself still far from convinced.
‘You think so?’
‘Yes, m’lord.’
‘He alludes to that, in your opinion?’
‘Yes, m’lord.’
‘But why does he allude to it, Jeeves?’
‘That, one is disposed to imagine, m’lord, one will ascertain when the gentleman has resumed his remarks.’
‘Gone on speaking, you mean?’
‘Precisely, m’lord.’
‘Well, if you say so,’ said Bill doubtfully. ‘But it seems a … what’s the expression you’re always using?’
‘Remote contingency, m’lord?’
‘That’s right. It seems a very remote contingency.’
Captain Biggar had been fuming silently. He now spoke with not a little asperity.
‘If you have quite finished babbling, Patch Rowcester –’
‘Was I babbling?’
‘Certainly you were babbling. You were babbling like a … like a … well, like whatever the dashed things are that babble.’
‘Brooks,’ said Jeeves helpfully, ‘are sometimes described as doing so, sir. In his widely read poem of that name, the late Lord Tennyson puts the words “Oh, brook, oh, babbling brook” into the mouth of the character Edmund, and later describes the rivulet, speaking in its own person, as observing “I chatter over stony ways in little sharps and trebles, I bubble into eddying bays, I babble on the pebbles”.’
Captain Biggar frowned.
‘Ai deng hahp kamoo for the late Lord Tennyson,’ he said impatiently. ‘What I’m interested in is this pendant.’
Bill looked at him with a touch of hope.
‘Are you going to explain about that pendant? Throw light upon it, as it were?’
‘I am. It’s worth close on three thousand quid, and,’ said Captain Biggar, throwing out the observation almost casually, ‘you’re going to pinch it, Patch Rowcester.’
Bill gaped.
‘Pinch it?’
‘This very night.’
It is always difficult for a man who is feeling as if he has just been struck over the occiput by a blunt instrument to draw himself to his full height and stare at someone censoriously, but Bill contrived to do so.
‘What!’ he cried, shocked to the core. ‘Are you, a bulwark of the Empire, a man who goes about setting an example to Dyaks, seriously suggesting that I rob one of my guests?’
‘Well, I’m one of your guests, and you robbed me.’
‘Only temporarily.’
‘And you’ll be robbing Mrs Spottsworth only temporarily. I shouldn’t have used the word “pinch”. All I want you to do is borrow that pendant till tomorrow afternoon, when it will be returned.’
Bill clutched his hair.
‘Jeeves!’
‘M’lord?’
‘Rally round, Jeeves. My brain’s tottering. Can you make any sense of what this rhinoceros-biffer is saying?’
‘Yes, m’lord.’
‘You can? Then you’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din.’
‘Captain Biggar’s thought processes seem to me reasonably clear, m’lord. The gentleman is urgently in need of money with which to back the horse Ballymore in tomorrow’s Derby, and his proposal, as I take it, is that the pendant shall be abstracted and pawned and the proceeds employed for that purpose. Have I outlined your suggestion correctly, sir?’
‘You have.’
‘At the conclusion of the race, one presumes, the object in question would be redeemed, brought back to the house, discovered, possibly by myself, in some spot where the lady might be supposed to have dropped it, and duly returned to her. Do I err in advancing this theory, sir?’
‘You do not.’
‘Then, could one be certain beyond the peradventure of a doubt that Ballymore will win –’
‘He’ll win all right. I told you he had twice broken the course record.’
‘That is official, sir?’
‘Straight from the feed-box.’
‘Then I must confess, m’lord, I see little or no objection to the scheme.’
Bill shook his head, unconvinced.
‘I still call it stealing.’
Captain Biggar clicked his tongue.
‘It isn’t anything of the sort, and I’ll tell you why. In a way, you might say that that pendant was really mine.’
‘Really … what was that last word?’
‘Mine. Let me,’ said Captain Biggar, ‘tell you a little story.’
He sat musing for a while. Coming out of his reverie and discovering with a start that his glass was empty, he refilled it. His attitude was that of a man, who, even if nothing came of the business transaction which he had proposed, intended to save something from the wreck by drinking as much as possible of his host’s whisky. When the refreshing draught had finished its journey down the hatch, he wiped his lips on the back of his hand, and began.
‘Do either of you chaps know the Long Bar at Shanghai? No? Well, it’s the Café de la Paix of the East. They always say that if you sit outside the Café de la Paix in Paris long enough, you’re sure sooner or later to meet all your pals, and it’s the same with the Long Bar. A few years ago, chancing to be in Shanghai, I had dropped in there, never dreaming that Tubby Frobisher and the Subahdar were within a thousand miles of the place, and I’m dashed if the first thing I saw wasn’t the two old bounders sitting on a couple of stools as large as life. “Hullo, there, Bwana, old boy,” they said when I rolled up, and I said “Hullo, there, Tubby! Hullo there, Subahdar, old chap,” and Tubby
said “What’ll you have, old boy?” and I said, “What are you boys having?” and they said stingahs, so I said that would do me all right, so Tubby ordered a round of stingahs, and we started talking about chowluangs and nai bahn rot fais and where we had all met last and whatever became of the poogni at Lampang and all that sort of thing. And when the stingahs were finished, I said “The next are on me. What for you, Tubby, old boy?” and he said he’d stick to stingahs. “And for you, Subahdar, old boy?” I said, and the Subahdar said he’d stick to stingahs, too, so I wig-wagged the barman and ordered stingahs all round, and, to cut a long story short, the stingahs came, a stingah for Tubby, a stingah for the Subahdar, and a stingah for me. “Luck, old boys!” said Tubby. “Luck, old boys!” said the Subahdar. “Cheerio, old boys!” I said, and we drank the stingahs.’
Jeeves coughed. It was a respectful cough, but firm.
‘Excuse me, sir.’
‘Eh?’
‘I am reluctant to interrupt the flow of your narrative, but is this leading somewhere?’
Captain Biggar flushed. A man who is telling a crisp, well-knit story does not like to be asked if it is leading somewhere.
‘Leading somewhere? What do you mean, is it leading somewhere? Of course it’s leading somewhere. I’m coming to the nub of the thing now. Scarcely had we finished this second round of stingahs, when in through the door, sneaking along like a chap that expects at any moment to be slung out on his fanny, came this fellow in the tattered shirt and dungarees.’
The introduction of a new and unexpected character took Bill by surprise.
‘Which fellow in the tattered shirt and dungarees?’
‘This fellow I’m telling you about.’
‘Who was he?’
‘You may well ask. Didn’t know him from Adam, and I could see Tubby Frobisher didn’t know him from Adam. Nor did the Subahdar. But he came sidling up to us and the first thing he said, addressing me, was “Hullo, Bimbo, old boy”, and I stared and said “Who on earth are you, old boy?” because I hadn’t been called Bimbo since I left school. Everybody called me that there, God knows why, but out East it’s been “Bwana” for as long as I can remember. And he said “Don’t you know me, old boy? I’m Sycamore, old boy.” And I stared again, and I said “What’s that, old boy? Sycamore? Sycamore? Not Beau Sycamore that was in the Army Class at Uppingham with me, old boy?” and he said “That’s right, old boy. Only it’s Hobo Sycamore now.”’
The memory of that distressing encounter unmanned Captain Biggar for a moment. He was obliged to refill his glass with Bill’s whisky before he could proceed.
‘You could have knocked me down with a feather,’ he said, resuming. ‘This chap Sycamore had been the smartest, most dapper chap that ever adorned an Army Class, even at Uppingham.’
Bill was following the narrative closely now.
‘They’re dapper in the Army Class at Uppingham, are they?’
‘Very dapper, and this chap Sycamore, as I say, the most dapper of the lot. His dapperness was a byword. And here he was in a tattered shirt and dungarees, not even wearing a school tie.’ Captain Biggar sighed. ‘I saw at once what must have happened. It was the old, old story. Morale can crumble very easily out East. Drink, women and unpaid gambling debts …’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Bill. ‘He’d gone under, had he?’
‘Right under. It was pitiful. The chap was nothing but a bally beachcomber.’
‘I remember a story of Maugham’s about a fellow like that.’
‘I’ll bet your friend Maugham, whoever he may be, never met such a derelict as Sycamore. He had touched bottom, and the problem was what was to be done about it. Tubby Frobisher and the Subahdar, of course, not having been introduced, were looking the other way and taking no part in the conversation, so it was up to me. Well, there isn’t much you can do for these chaps who have let the East crumble their morale except give them something to buy a couple of drinks with, and I was just starting to feel in my pocket for a baht or a tical, when from under that tattered shirt of his this chap Sycamore produced something that brought a gasp to my lips. Even Tubby Frobisher and the Subahdar, though they hadn’t been introduced, had to stop trying to pretend there wasn’t anybody there and sit up and take notice. “Sabaiga!” said Tubby. “Pom bahoo!” said the Subahdar. And I don’t wonder they were surprised. It was this pendant which you have seen tonight on the neck …’ Captain Biggar faltered for a moment. He was remembering how that neck had felt beneath his fingers. ‘… on the neck,’ he proceeded, calling all his manhood to his aid, ‘of Mrs Spottsworth.’
‘Golly!’ said Bill, and even Jeeves, from the fact that the muscle at the side of his mouth twitched briefly, seemed to be feeling that after a slow start the story had begun to move. One saw now that all that stingah stuff had been merely the artful establishing of atmosphere, the setting of the stage for the big scene.
‘“I suppose you wouldn’t care to buy this, Bimbo, old boy?” this chap Sycamore said, waggling the thing to make it glitter. And I said “Fry me in olive oil, Beau, old boy, where did you get that?”’
‘That’s just what I was going to ask,’ said Bill, all agog. ‘Where did he?’
‘God knows. I ought not to have inquired. It was dashed bad form. That’s one thing you learn very early out East of Suez. Never ask questions. No doubt there was some dark history behind the thing … robbery … possibly murder. I didn’t ask. All I said was “How much?” and he named a price far beyond the resources of my purse, and it looked as though the thing was going to be a washout. But fortunately Tubby Frobisher and the Subahdar – I’d introduced them by this time – offered to chip in, and between us we met his figure and he went off, back into the murk and shadows from which he had emerged. Sad thing, very sad. I remember seeing this chap Sycamore make a hundred and forty-six in a house cricket match at school before being caught low down in the gully off a googly that dipped and swung away late. On a sticky wicket, too,’ said Captain Biggar, and was silent for a while, his thoughts in the past.
He came back into the present.
‘So there you are,’ he said, with the air of one who has told a well-rounded tale.
‘But how did you get it?’ said Bill.
‘Eh?’
‘The pendant. You said it was yours, and the way I see it is that it passed into the possession of a syndicate.’
‘Oh, ah, yes, I didn’t tell you that, did I? We shook dice for it and I won. Tubby was never lucky with the bones. Nor was the Subahdar.’
‘And how did Mrs Spottsworth get it?’
‘I gave it her.’
‘You gave it her?’
‘Why not? The dashed thing was no use to me, and I had received many kindnesses from Mrs Spottsworth and her husband. Poor chap was killed by a lion and what was left of him shipped off to Nairobi, and when Mrs Spottsworth was leaving the camp on the following day I thought it would be a civil thing to give her something as a memento and all that, so I lugged out the pendant and asked her if she’d care to have it. She said she would, so I slipped it to her, and she went off with it. That’s what I meant when I said you might say that the bally thing was really mine,’ said Captain Biggar, and helped himself to another whisky.
Bill was impressed.
‘This puts a different complexion on things, Jeeves.’
‘Distinctly, m’lord.’
‘After all, as Pop Biggar says, the pendant practically belongs to him, and he merely wants to borrow it for an hour or two.’
‘Precisely, m’lord.’
Bill turned to the captain. His mind was made up.
‘It’s a deal,’ he said.
‘You’ll do it?’
‘I’ll have a shot.’
‘Stout fellow!’
‘Let’s hope it comes off.’
‘It’ll come off all right. The clasp is loose.’
‘I meant I hoped nothing would go wrong.’
Captain Biggar scouted the idea. He was all buoyanc
y and optimism.
‘Go wrong? What can possibly go wrong? You’ll be able to think of a hundred ways of getting the dashed thing, two brainy fellers like you. Well,’ said the captain, finishing his whisky, ‘I’ll be going out and doing my exercises.’
‘At this time of night?’
‘Breathing exercises,’ explained Captain Biggar. ‘Yoga. And with it, of course, communion with the Jivatma or soul. Toodle-oo, chaps.’
He pushed the curtains aside, and passed through the french window.
13
* * *
A LONG AND thoughtful silence followed his departure. The room seemed very still, as rooms always did when Captain Biggar went out of them. Bill was sitting with his chin supported by his hand, like Rodin’s Penseur. Then he looked at Jeeves and, having looked, shook his head.
‘No, Jeeves,’ he said.
‘M’lord?’
‘I can see that feudal gleam in your eye, Jeeves. You are straining at the leash, all eagerness to lend the young master a helping hand. Am I right?’
‘I was certainly feeling, m’lord, that in view of our relationship of thane and vassal it was my duty to afford your lordship all the assistance that lay within my power.’
Bill shook his head again.
‘No, Jeeves, that’s out. Nothing will induce me to allow you to go getting yourself mixed up in an enterprise which, should things not pan out as planned, may quite possibly culminate in a five year stretch at one of our popular prisons. I shall handle this binge alone, and I want no back-chat about it.’
‘But, m’lord –’
‘No back-chat, I said, Jeeves.’
‘Very good, m’lord.’
‘All I require from you is advice and counsel. Let us review the position of affairs. We have here a diamond pendant which at the moment of going to press is on the person of Mrs Spottsworth. The task confronting me – I said me, Jeeves – is somehow to detach this pendant from this person and nip away with it unobserved. Any suggestions?’
The Jeeves Omnibus - Vol 3 Page 13