‘Say “British constitution.”’
I did so.
‘And now “She sells sea shells by the sea shore.”’
I reeled it off in a bell-like voice.
‘Well, you seem all right,’ she said grudgingly. ‘How do you mean he isn’t Mary? Mary who?’
‘I don’t think she had a surname, had she? I was alluding to the child who had a little lamb with fleece as white as snow, and everywhere that Mary went the lamb was sure to go. Now I’m not saying that I have fleece as white as snow, but I am going everywhere that Wilbert Cream goes, and one speculates with some interest as to what the upshot will be. He resents my constant presence.’
‘Has he said so?’
‘Not yet. But he gives me nasty looks.’
‘That’s all right. He can’t intimidate me.’
I saw that she was missing the gist.
‘Yes, but don’t you see the peril that looms?’
‘I thought you said it lurked.’
‘And looms. What I’m driving at is that if I persist in this porous plastering, a time must inevitably come when, feeling that actions speak louder than words, he will haul off and bop me one. In which event, I shall have no alternative but to haul off and bop him one. The Woosters have their pride. And when I bop them, they stay bopped till nightfall.’
She bayed like a foghorn, showing that she was deeply stirred.
‘You’ll do nothing of the sort, unless you want to have an aunt’s curse delivered on your doorstep by special messenger. Don’t you dare to start mixing it with that man, or I’ll tattoo my initials on your chest with a meat axe. Turn the other cheek, you poor fish. If my nephew socked her son, Adela Cream would never forgive me. She would go running to her husband –’
‘– and Uncle Tom’s deal would be dished. That’s the very point I’m trying to make. If Wilbert Cream is bust by anyone, it must be by somebody having no connection with the Travers family. You must at once engage a substitute for Bertram.’
‘Are you suggesting that I hire a private detective?’
‘“Eye” is the more usual term. No, not that, but you must invite Kipper Herring down here. Kipper is the man you want. He will spring to the task of dogging Wilbert’s footsteps, and if Wilbert bops him and he bops Wilbert, it won’t matter, he being outside talent. Not that I anticipate that Wilbert will dream of doing so, for Kipper’s mere appearance commands respect. The muscles of his brawny arms are strong as iron bands, and he has a cauliflower ear.’
There was a silence of some moments, and it was not difficult to divine that she was passing my words under review, this way and that dividing the swift mind, as I have heard Jeeves put it. When she spoke, it was in quite an awed voice.
‘Do you know, Bertie, there are times – rare, yes, but they do happen – when your intelligence is almost human. You’ve hit it. I never thought of young Herring. Do you think he could come?’
‘He was saying to me only the day before yesterday that his dearest wish was to cadge an invitation. Anatole’s cooking is green in his memory.’
‘Then send him a wire. You can telephone it to the post office. Sign it with my name.’
‘Right ho.’
‘Tell him to drop everything and come running.’
She rang off, and I was about to draft the communication, when, as so often happens to one on relaxing from a great strain, I became conscious of an imperious desire for a little something quick. Oh, for a beaker full of the warm south, as Jeeves would have said. I pressed the bell, accordingly, and sank into a chair, and presently the door opened and a circular object with a bald head and bushy eyebrows manifested itself, giving me quite a start. I had forgotten that ringing bells at Brinkley Court under prevailing conditions must inevitably produce Sir Roderick Glossop.
It’s always a bit difficult to open the conversation with a blend of brain specialist and butler, especially if your relations with him in the past have not been too chummy, and I found myself rather at a loss to know how to set the ball rolling. I yearned for that drink as the hart desireth the water-brook, but if you ask a butler to bring you a whisky-and-soda and he happens to be a brain specialist, too, he’s quite apt to draw himself up and wither you with a glance. All depends on which side of him is uppermost at the moment. It was a relief when I saw that he was smiling a kindly smile and evidently welcoming this opportunity of having a quiet chat with Bertram. So long as we kept off the subject of hot-water bottles, it looked as if all would be well.
‘Good afternoon, Mr. Wooster. I had been hoping for a word with you in private. But perhaps Miss Wickham has already explained the circumstances? She has? Then that clears the air, and there is no danger of you incautiously revealing my identity. She impressed it upon you that Mrs Cream must have no inkling of why I am here?’
‘Oh, rather. Secrecy and silence, what? If she knew you were observing her son with a view to finding out if he was foggy between the ears, there would be umbrage on her part, or even dudgeon.’
‘Exactly.’
‘And how’s it coming along?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘The observing. Have you spotted any dippiness in the subject?’
‘If by that expression you mean have I formed any definite views on Wilbert Cream’s sanity, the answer is no. It is most unusual for me not to be able to make up my mind after even a single talk with the person I am observing, but in young Cream’s case I remain uncertain. On the one hand, we have his record.’
‘The stink bombs?’
‘Exactly.’
‘And the cheque-cashing with levelled gat?’
‘Precisely. And a number of other things which one would say pointed to a mental unbalance. Unquestionably Wilbert Cream is eccentric.’
‘But you feel the time has not yet come to measure him for the strait waistcoat?’
‘I would certainly wish to observe further.’
‘Jeeves told me there was something about Wilbert Cream that someone had told him when we were in New York. That might be significant.’
‘Quite possibly. What was it?’
‘He couldn’t remember.’
‘Too bad. Well, to return to what I was saying, the young man’s record appears to indicate some deep-seated neurosis, if not actual schizophrenia, but against this must be set the fact that he gives no sign of this in his conversation. I was having quite a long talk with him yesterday morning, and found him most intelligent. He is interested in old silver, and spoke with a great deal of enthusiasm of an eighteenth-century cow-creamer in your uncle’s collection.’
‘He didn’t say he was an eighteenth-century cow-creamer?’
‘Certainly not.’
‘Probably just wearing the mask.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I mean crouching for the spring, as it were. Lulling you into security. Bound to break out sooner or later in some direction or other. Very cunning, these fellows with deep-seated neuroses.’
He shook his head reprovingly.
‘We must not judge hastily, Mr. Wooster. We must keep an open mind. Nothing is ever gained by not pausing to weigh the evidence. You may remember that at one time I reached a hasty judgment regarding your sanity. Those twenty-three cats in your bedroom.’
I flushed hotly. The incident had taken place several years previously, and it would have been in better taste, I considered, to have let the dead past bury its dead.
‘That was explained fully.’
‘Exactly. I was shown to be in error. And that is why I say I must not form an opinion prematurely in the case of Wilbert Cream. I must wait for further evidence.’
‘And weigh it?’
‘And, as you say, weigh it. But you rang, Mr. Wooster. Is there anything I can do for you?’
‘Well, as a matter of fact, I wanted a whisky-and-soda, but I hate to trouble you.’
‘My dear Mr. Wooster, you forget that I am, if only temporarily, a butler and, I hope, a conscientious
one. I will bring it immediately.’
I was wondering, as he melted away, if I ought to tell him that Mrs. Cream, too, was doing a bit of evidence-weighing, and about him, but decided on the whole better not. No sense in disturbing his peace of mind. It seemed to me that having to answer to the name of Swordfish was enough for him to have to cope with for the time being. Given too much to think about, he would fret and get pale.
When he returned, he brought with him not only the beaker full of the warm south, on which I flung myself gratefully, but a letter which he said had just come for me by the afternoon post. Having slaked the thirst, I glanced at the envelope and saw that it was from Jeeves. I opened it without much of a thrill, expecting that he would merely be informing me that he had reached his destination safely and expressing a hope that this would find me in the pink as it left him at present. In short, the usual guff.
It wasn’t the usual guff by a mile and a quarter. One glance at its contents and I was Gosh-ing sharply, causing Pop Glossop to regard me with a concerned eye.
‘No bad news, I trust, Mr. Wooster?’
‘It depends what you call bad news. It’s front page stuff, all right. This is from Jeeves, my man, now shrimping at Herne Bay, and it casts a blinding light on the private life of Wilbert Cream.’
‘Indeed? This is most interesting.’
‘I must begin by saying that when Jeeves was leaving for his annual vacation, the subject of W. Cream came up in the home, Aunt Dahlia having told me he was one of the inmates here, and we discussed him at some length. I said this, if you see what I mean, and Jeeves said that, if you follow me. Well, just before Jeeves pushed off, he let fall that significant remark I mentioned just now, the one about having heard something about Wilbert and having forgotten it. If it came back to him, he said, he would communicate with me. And he has, by Jove! Do you know what he says in this missive? Give you three guesses.’
‘Surely this is hardly the time for guessing games?’
‘Perhaps you’re right, though they’re great fun, don’t you think? Well, he says that Wilbert Cream is a … what’s the word?’ I referred to the letter. ‘A kleptomaniac,’ I said. ‘Which means, if the term is not familiar to you, a chap who flits hither and thither pinching everything he can lay his hands on.’
‘Good gracious!’
‘You might even go so far as “Lor’ lumme!”’
‘I never suspected this.’
‘I told you he was wearing a mask. I suppose they took him abroad to get him away from it all.’
‘No doubt.’
‘Overlooking the fact that there are just as many things to pinch in England as in America. Does any thought occur to you?’
‘It most certainly does. I am thinking of your uncle’s collection of old silver.’
‘Me, too.’
‘It presents a grave temptation to the unhappy young man.’
‘I don’t know that I’d call him unhappy. He probably thoroughly enjoys lifting the stuff.’
‘We must go to the collection room immediately. There may be something missing.’
‘Everything except the floor and ceiling, I expect. He would have had difficulty in getting away with those.’
To reach the collection room was not the work of an instant with us, for Pop Glossop was built for stability rather than speed, but we fetched up there in due course and my first emotion on giving it the once-over was one of relief, all the junk appearing to be in statu quo. It was only after Pop Glossop had said ‘Woof!’ and was starting to dry off the brow, for the going had been fast, that I spotted the hiatus.
The cow-creamer was not among those present.
7
* * *
THIS COW-CREAMER, IN case you’re interested, was a silver jug or pitcher or whatever you call it shaped, of all silly things, like a cow with an arching tail and a juvenile-delinquent expression on its face, a cow that looked as if it were planning, next time it was milked, to haul off and let the milkmaid have it in the lower ribs. Its back opened on a hinge and the tip of the tail touched the spine, thus giving the householder something to catch hold of when pouring. Why anyone should want such a revolting object had always been a mystery to me, it ranking high up on the list of things I would have been reluctant to be found dead in a ditch with, but apparently they liked that sort of jug in the eighteenth century and, coming down to more modern times, Uncle Tom was all for it and so, according to the evidence of the witness Glossop, was Wilbert. No accounting for tastes is the way one has to look at these things, one man’s caviar being another man’s major-general, as the old saw says.
However, be that as it may and whether you liked the bally thing or didn’t, the point was that it had vanished, leaving not a wrack behind, and I was about to apprise Pop Glossop of this and canvass his views, when we were joined by Bobbie Wickham. She had doffed the shirt and Bermuda-shorts which she had been wearing and was now dressed for her journey home.
‘Hullo, souls,’ she said. ‘How goes it? You look a bit hot and bothered, Bertie. What’s up?’
I made no attempt to break the n. gently.
‘I’ll tell you what’s up. You know that cow-creamer of Uncle Tom’s?’
‘No, I don’t. What is it?’
‘Sort of cream jug kind of thing, ghastly but very valuable. One would not be far out in describing it as Uncle Tom’s ewe lamb. He loves it dearly.’
‘Bless his heart.’
‘It’s all right blessing his heart, but the damn thing’s gone.’
The still summer air was disturbed by a sound like beer coming out of a bottle. It was Pop Glossop gurgling. His eyes were round, his nose wiggled, and one could readily discern that this news item had come to him not as rare and refreshing fruit but more like a buffet on the base of the skull with a sock full of wet sand.
‘Gone?’
‘Gone.’
‘Are you sure?’
I said that sure was just what I wasn’t anything but.
‘It is not possible that you may have overlooked it?’
‘You can’t overlook a thing like that.’
He re-gurgled.
‘But this is terrible.’
‘Might be considerably better, I agree.’
‘Your uncle will be most upset.’
‘He’ll have kittens.’
‘Kittens?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Why kittens?’
‘Why not?’
From the look on Bobbie’s face, as she stood listening to our cross-talk act, I could see that the inner gist was passing over her head. Cryptic, she seemed to be registering it as.
‘I don’t get this,’ she said. ‘How do you mean it’s gone?’
‘It’s been pinched.’
‘Things don’t get pinched in country houses.’
‘They do if there’s a Wilbert Cream on the premises. He’s a klep-whatever-it-is,’ I said, and thrust Jeeves’s letter on her. She perused it with an interested eye and having mastered its contents said, ‘Cor chase my Aunt Fanny up a gum tree,’ adding that you never knew what was going to happen next these days. There was, however, she said, a bright side.
‘You’ll be able now to give it as your considered opinion that the man is as loony as a coot, Sir Roderick.’
A pause ensued during which Pop Glossop appeared to be weighing this, possibly thinking back to coots he had met in the course of his professional career and trying to estimate their dippiness as compared with that of W. Cream.
‘Unquestionably his metabolism is unduly susceptible to stresses resulting from the interaction of external excitations,’ he said, and Bobbie patted him on the shoulder in a maternal sort of way, a thing I wouldn’t have cared to do myself though our relations were, as I have indicated, more cordial than they had been at one time, and told him he had said a mouthful.
‘That’s how I like to hear you talk. You must tell Mrs Travers that when she gets back. It’ll put her in a strong position to cope
with Upjohn in this matter of Wilbert and Phyllis. With this under her belt, she’ll be able to forbid the banns in no uncertain manner. “What price his metabolism?” she’ll say, and Upjohn won’t know which way to look. So everything’s fine.’
‘Everything,’ I pointed out, ‘except that Uncle Tom is short one ewe lamb.’
She chewed the lower lip.
‘Yes, that’s true. You have a point there. What steps do we take about that?’
She looked at me, and I said I didn’t know, and then she looked at Pop Glossop, and he said he didn’t know.
‘The situation is an extremely delicate one. You concur, Mr. Wooster?’
‘Like billy-o.’
‘Placed as he is, your uncle can hardly go to the young man and demand restitution. Mrs. Travers impressed it upon me with all the emphasis at her disposal that the greatest care must be exercised to prevent Mr and Mrs Cream taking –’
‘Umbrage?’
‘I was about to say offence.’
‘Just as good, probably. Not much in it either way.’
‘And they would certainly take offence, were their son to be accused of theft.’
‘It would stir them up like an egg whisk. I mean, however well they know that Wilbert is a pincher, they don’t want to have it rubbed in.’
‘Exactly.’
‘It’s one of the things the man of tact does not mention in their presence.’
‘Precisely. So really I cannot see what is to be done. I am baffled.’
‘So am I.’
‘I’m not,’ said Bobbie.
I quivered like a startled what-d’you-call-it. She had spoken with a cheery ring in her voice that told an experienced ear like mine that she was about to start something. In a matter of seconds by Shrewsbury clock, as Aunt Dahlia would have said, I could see that she was going to come out with one of those schemes or plans of hers that not only stagger humanity and turn the moon to blood but lead to some unfortunate male – who on the present occasion would, I strongly suspected, be me – getting immersed in what Shakespeare calls a sea of troubles, if it was Shakespeare. I had heard that ring in her voice before, to name but one time, at the moment when she was pressing the darning-needle into my hand and telling me where I would find Sir Roderick Glossop’s hot-water bottle. Many people are of the opinion that Roberta, daughter of the late Sir Cuthbert and Lady Wickham of Skeldings Hall, Herts., ought not to be allowed at large. I string along with that school of thought.
The Jeeves Omnibus - Vol 4: (Jeeves & Wooster): No.4 Page 25