She disappeared at some forty m.p.h., and Percy followed her retreating form with an indulgent eye.
‘A quaint character,’ he said.
I agreed that the old relative was quaint in spots.
‘She reminds me a little of the editress of Parnassus. The same tendency to wave her hands and shout, when stirred. But about this drive of yours to London, Wooster. What made you go there?’
‘Oh, just one or two things I had to attend to.’
‘Well, I am thankful that you got back safely. The toll of the roads is so high these days. I trust you always drive carefully, Wooster? No speeding? No passing on blind corners? Capital, capital. But we were all quite anxious about you. We couldn’t think where you could have got to. Cheesewright was particularly concerned. He appeared to think that you had vanished permanently and he said there were all sorts of things he had been hoping to discuss with you. I must let him know you are back. It will relieve his mind.’
He trotted off, and I lit a nonchalant cigarette, calm and collected to the eyebrows. I was perhaps half-way through it and had just blown quite a goodish smoke-ring, when clumping footsteps made themselves heard and Stilton loomed up on the skyline.
I reached a hand into my pocket and got a firm grasp on the old Equalizer.
17
* * *
I DON’T KNOW if you have ever seen a tiger of the jungle drawing a deep breath preparatory to doing a swan dive and landing with both feet on the backbone of one of the minor fauna. Probably not, nor, as a matter of fact, have I. But I should imagine that a t. of the j. at such a moment would look … allowing, of course, for the fact that it would not have a pink face and a head like a pumpkin … exactly as G. D’Arcy Cheesewright looked as his eyes rested on the Wooster frame. For perhaps a couple of ticks he stood there inflating and deflating his chest. Then he said, as I had rather supposed he would:
‘Ho!’
His signature tune, as you might say.
My nonchalance continued undiminished. It would have been idle to pretend that the blister’s attitude was not menacing. It was about as menacing as it could jolly well stick. But with my hand on the cosh I faced him without a tremor. Like Caesar’s wife, I was ready for anything. I gave him a careless nod.
‘Ah, Stilton,’ I said. ‘How are tricks?’
The question appeared to set the seal on his hotted-up-ness. He gnashed a tooth or two.
‘I’ll show you how tricks are! I’ve been looking for you all day.’
‘You wished to see me about something?’
‘I wished to pull your head off at the roots and make you swallow it.’
I nodded again, carelessly as before.
‘Ah, yes. You rather hinted at some such desire last night, did you not? It all comes back to me. Well, I’m sorry, Stilton, but I’m afraid it’s off. I have made other plans. Percy Gorringe will no doubt have told you that I ran up to London this morning. I went to get this,’ I said, and producing the man of slender physique’s best friend, gave it a suggestive waggle.
There is one drawback to not wearing a moustache, and that is that if you don’t have one, you’ve got nothing to twirl when baffled. All you can do is stand with your lower jaw drooping like a tired lily, looking a priceless ass, and that is what Stilton was doing now. His whole demeanour was that of an Assyrian who, having come down like a wolf on the fold, finds in residence not lambs but wild cats, than which, of course, nothing makes an Assyrian feel sillier.
‘Amazingly effective little contrivances, these,’ I proceeded, rubbing it in. ‘You read about them a good deal in mystery thrillers. Coshes they are called, though black-jack is, I believe, the American term.’
He breathed stertorously, his eyes bulging. I suppose he had never come up against anything like this. One gets new experiences.
‘You put that thing down!’ he said hoarsely.
‘I propose to put it down,’ I replied, quick as a flash. ‘I propose to put it down jolly dashed hard, the moment you make a move, and though I am the merest novice in the use of the cosh, I don’t see how I can help hitting a head the size of yours somewhere. And then where will you be, Cheesewright? On the floor, dear old soul, that’s where you will be, with me carelessly dusting my hands and putting the instrument back in my pocket. With one of these things in his possession the veriest weakling can lay out the toughest egg colder than a halibut on ice. To put it in a word, Cheesewright, I am armed, and the set-up, as I see it, is this. I take a comfortable stance with the weight balanced on both feet, you make a spring, and I, cool as some cucumbers …’
It was a silly thing to say, that about making springs, because it put ideas into his head. He made one on the word ‘cucumbers’ with such abruptness that I was caught completely unawares. That’s the trouble with beefy fellows like Stilton. They are so massive that you don’t credit them with the ability to get off the mark like jack rabbits and fly through the air with the greatest of ease. Before I knew what had happened, the cosh, wrenched from my grasp, was sailing across the hall, to come to rest on the floor near Uncle Tom’s safe.
I stood there defenceless.
Well, ‘stood’ is putting it loosely. In crises like this we Woosters do not stand. It was soon made abundantly clear that Stilton was not the only one of our little circle who could get off marks like jack rabbits. I doubt if in the whole of Australia, where this species of animal abounds, you could have found a jack rabbit capable of a tithe of the swift smoothness with which I removed myself from the pulsating centre of things. To do a backward jump of some eleven feet and install myself behind the sofa was with me the work of an instant, and there for awhile the matter rested, because every time he came charging round to my side like a greyhound I went whizzing round to his side like an electric hare, rendering his every effort null and void. Those great Generals, of whom I was speaking earlier, go in for this manœuvre quite a bit. Strategic retreat is the technical term.
How long this round-and-round-the-mulberry-bush sequence would have continued, it is not easy to say, but probably not for any great length of time, for already my partner in the rhythmic doings was beginning to show signs of feeling the pace. Stilton, like so many of these beefy birds, is apt, when not in training for some aquatic contest, to yield to the lure of the flesh pots. This takes its toll. By the end of the first dozen laps, while I remained as fresh as a daisy, prepared to fight it out on this line if it took all summer, he was puffing quite considerably and his brow had become wet with honest sweat.
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 for 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 blond 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 D’Arcy Cheesewright, 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 had a moustache then. I’m so glad you haven’t any longer. 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 lions’ 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 setback 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.
18
* * *
IT IS AT moments like this that you catch Bertram Wooster at his superb 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 the 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 statu 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 when I arrived, I found Tom still gassing away, so I took a seat and sat there hoping that Spode would eventually make a break for the open and give me a chance of having a word with him. 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. “It’s in the safe in the hall,” said Tom. “Let’s go,” said Spode, and off they went.’
The Jeeves Omnibus - Vol 4: (Jeeves & Wooster): No.4 Page 15