‘Well, I’m going to do something. I’m going to pinch the damn thing.’
I stared at her, astounded. I uttered no verbal rebuke, but there was a distinct ‘Tut, tut!’ in my gaze. Even though the provocation was, I admitted, severe, I could not approve of these strong-arm methods. And I was about to try to awaken her dormant conscience by asking her gently what the Quorn would think of these goings-on – or, for the matter of that, the Pytchley – when she added:
‘Or, rather, you are!’
I had just lighted a cigarette as she spoke these words, and so, according to what they say in the advertisements, ought to have been nonchalant. But it must have been the wrong sort of cigarette, for I shot out of my chair as if somebody had shoved a bradawl through the seat.
‘Who, me?’
‘That’s right. See how it all fits in. You’re going to stay at Totleigh. You will have a hundred excellent opportunities of getting your hooks on the thing –’
‘But, dash it!’
‘– and I must have it, because otherwise I shall never be able to dig a cheque out of Tom for that Pomona Grindle serial. He simply won’t be in the mood. And I signed the old girl up yesterday at a fabulous price, half the sum agreed upon to be paid in advance a week from current date. So snap into it, my lad. I can’t see what you’re making all this heavy weather about. It doesn’t seem to me much to do for a loved aunt.’
‘It seems to me a dashed lot to do for a loved aunt, and I’m jolly well not going to dream –’
‘Oh, yes you are, because you know what will happen, if you don’t.’ She paused significantly. ‘You follow me, Watson?’
I was silent. She had no need to tell me what she meant. This was not the first time she had displayed the velvet hand beneath the iron glove – or, rather, the other way about – in this manner.
For this ruthless relative has one all-powerful weapon which she holds constantly over my head like the sword of – who was the chap? – Jeeves would know – and by means of which she can always bend me to her will – viz the threat that if I don’t kick in she will bar me from her board and wipe Anatole’s cooking from my lips. I shall not lightly forget the time when she placed sanctions on me for a whole month – right in the middle of the pheasant season, when this superman is at his incomparable best.
I made one last attempt to reason with her.
‘But why does Uncle Tom want this frightful cow-creamer? It’s a ghastly object. He would be far better without it.’
‘He doesn’t think so. Well, there it is. Perform this simple, easy task for me, or guests at my dinner table will soon be saying: “Why is it that we never seem to see Bertie Wooster here any more?” Bless my soul, what an amazing lunch that was that Anatole gave us yesterday! “Superb” is the only word. I don’t wonder you’re fond of his cooking. As you sometimes say, it melts in the mouth.’
I eyed her sternly.
‘Aunt Dahlia, this is blackmail!’
‘Yes, isn’t it?’ she said, and beetled off.
I resumed my seat, and ate a moody slice of cold bacon.
Jeeves entered.
‘The bags are packed, sir.’
‘Very good, Jeeves,’ I said. ‘Then let us be starting.’
‘Man and boy, Jeeves,’ I said, breaking a thoughtful silence which had lasted for about eighty-seven miles, ‘I have been in some tough spots in my time, but this one wins the mottled oyster.’
We were bowling along in the old two-seater on our way to Totleigh Towers, self at the wheel, Jeeves at my side, the personal effects in the dickey. We had got off round about eleven-thirty, and the genial afternoon was now at its juiciest. It was one of those crisp, sunny, bracing days with a pleasant tang in the air, and had circumstances been different from what they were, I should no doubt have been feeling at the peak of my form, chatting gaily, waving to passing rustics, possibly even singing some light snatch.
Unfortunately, however, if there was one thing circumstances weren’t, it was different from what they were, and there was no suspicion of a song on the lips. The more I thought of what lay before me at these bally Towers, the bowed-downer did the heart become.
‘The mottled oyster,’ I repeated.
‘Sir?’
I frowned. The man was being discreet, and this was no time for discretion.
‘Don’t pretend you don’t know all about it, Jeeves,’ I said coldly. ‘You were in the next room throughout my interview with Aunt Dahlia, and her remarks must have been audible in Piccadilly.’
He dropped the mask.
‘Well, yes, sir, I must confess that I did gather the substance of the conversation.’
‘Very well, then. You agree with me that the situation is a lulu?’
‘Certainly a somewhat sharp crisis in your affairs would appear to have been precipitated, sir.’
I drove on, brooding.
‘If I had my life to live again, Jeeves, I would start it as an orphan without any aunts. Don’t they put aunts in Turkey in sacks and drop them in the Bosphorus?’
‘Odalisques, sir, I understand. Not aunts.’
‘Well, why not aunts? Look at the trouble they cause in the world. I tell you, Jeeves, and you may quote me as saying this – behind every poor, innocent, harmless blighter who is going down for the first time in the soup, you will find, if you look carefully enough, the aunt who shoved him into it.’
‘There is much in what you say, sir.’
‘It is no use telling me that there are bad aunts and good aunts. At the core, they are all alike. Sooner or later, out pops the cloven hoof. Consider this Dahlia, Jeeves, As sound an egg as ever cursed a foxhound for chasing a rabbit, I have always considered her. And she goes and hands me an assignment like this. Wooster, the pincher of policemen’s helmets, we know. We are familiar with Wooster, the supposed bag-snatcher. But it was left for this aunt to present to the world a Wooster who goes to the houses of retired magistrates and, while eating their bread and salt, swipes their cow-creamers. Faugh!’ I said, for I was a good deal overwrought.
‘Most disturbing, sir.’
‘I wonder how old Bassett will receive me, Jeeves.’
‘It will be interesting to observe his reactions, sir.’
‘He can’t very well throw me out, I suppose, Miss Bassett having invited me?’
‘No, sir.’
‘On the other hand, he can – and I think he will – look at me over the top of his pince-nez and make rummy sniffing noises. The prospect is not an agreeable one.’
‘No, sir.’
‘I mean to say, even if this cow-creamer thing had not come up, conditions would be sticky.’
‘Yes, sir. Might I venture to inquire if it is your intention to endeavour to carry out Mrs Travers’s wishes?’
You can’t fling the hands up in a passionate gesture when you are driving a car at fifty miles an hour. Otherwise, I should have done so.
‘That is the problem which is torturing me, Jeeves. I can’t make up my mind. You remember that fellow you’ve mentioned to me once or twice, who let something wait upon something? You know who I mean – the cat chap.’
‘Macbeth, sir, a character in a play of that name by the late William Shakespeare. He was described as letting “I dare not” wait upon “I would”, like the poor cat i’ th’ adage.’
‘Well, that’s how it is with me. I wobble, and I vacillate – if that’s the word?’
‘Perfectly correct, sir.’
‘I think of being barred from those menus of Anatole’s, and I say to myself that I will take a pop. Then I reflect that my name at Totleigh Towers is already mud and that old Bassett is firmly convinced that I am a combination of Raffles and a pea-and-thimble man and steal everything I come upon that isn’t nailed down –’
‘Sir?’
‘Didn’t I tell you about that? I had another encounter with him yesterday, the worst to date. He now looks upon me as the dregs of the criminal world – if not Public Enemy Number One, certainly Number Two or
Three.’
I informed him briefly of what had occurred, and conceive my emotion when I saw that he appeared to be finding something humorous in the recital. Jeeves does not often smile, but now a distinct simper had begun to wreathe his lips.
‘A laughable misunderstanding, sir.’
‘Laughable, Jeeves?’
He saw that his mirth had been ill-timed. He reassembled the features, ironing out the smile.
‘I beg your pardon, sir. I should have said “disturbing”.’
‘Quite.’
‘It must have been exceedingly trying, meeting Sir Watkyn in such circumstances.’
‘Yes, and it’s going to be a dashed sight more trying if he catches me pinching his cow-creamer. I keep seeing a vision of him doing it.’
‘I quite understand, sir. And thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought, and enterprises of great pitch and moment in this regard their currents turn awry and lose the name of action.’
‘Exactly. You take the words out of my mouth.’
I drove on, brooding more than ever.
‘And here’s another point that presents itself, Jeeves. Even if I want to steal cow-creamers, how am I going to find the time? It isn’t a thing you can just take in your stride. You have to plan and plot and lay schemes. And I shall need every ounce of concentration for this business of Gussie’s.’
‘Exactly, sir. One appreciates the difficulty.’
‘And, as if that wasn’t enough to have on my mind, there is that telegram of Stiffy’s. You remember the third telegram that came this morning. It was from Miss Stephanie Byng, Miss Bassett’s cousin, who resides at Totleigh Towers. You’ve met her. She came to lunch at the flat a week or two ago. Smallish girl of about the tonnage of Jessie Matthews.’
‘Oh, yes, sir. I remember Miss Byng. A charming young lady.’
‘Quite. But what does she want me to do for her? That’s the question. Probably something completely unfit for human consumption. So I’ve got that to worry about, too. What a life!’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Still, stiff upper lip, I suppose, Jeeves, what?’
‘Precisely, sir.’
During these exchanges, we had been breezing along at a fairish pace, and I had not failed to note that on a signpost which we had passed some little while back there had been inscribed the words ‘Totleigh-in-the-Wold, 8 miles’. There now appeared before us through the trees a stately home of E.
I braked the car.
‘Journey’s End, Jeeves?’
‘So I should be disposed to imagine, sir.’
And so it proved. Having turned in at the gateway and fetched up at the front door, we were informed by the butler that this was indeed the lair of Sir Watkyn Bassett.
‘Childe Roland to the dark tower came, sir,’ said Jeeves, as we alighted, though what he meant I hadn’t an earthly. Responding with a brief ‘Oh, ah,’ I gave my attention to the butler, who was endeavouring to communicate something to me.
What he was saying, I now gathered, was that if desirous of mixing immediately with the inmates I had chosen a bad moment for hitting the place. Sir Watkyn, he explained, had popped out for a breather.
‘I fancy he is somewhere in the grounds with Mr Roderick Spode.’
I started. After that affair at the antique shop, the name Roderick was, as you may imagine, rather deeply graven on my heart.
‘Roderick Spode? Big chap with a small moustache and the sort of eye that can open an oyster at sixty paces?’
‘Yes, sir. He arrived yesterday with Sir Watkyn from London. They went out shortly after lunch. Miss Madeline, I believe, is at home, but it may take some little time to locate her.’
‘How about Mr Fink-Nottle?’
‘I think he has gone for a walk, sir.’
‘Oh? Well, right ho. Then I’ll just potter about a bit.’
I was glad of the chance of being alone for a while, for I wished to brood. I strolled off along the terrace, doing so.
The news that Roderick Spode was on the premises had shaken me a good deal. I had supposed him to be some mere club acquaintance of old Bassett’s, who confined his activities exclusively to the metropolis, and his presence at the Towers rendered the prospect of trying to unnerve the stoutest, twice as intimidating as it had been before, when I had supposed that I should be under the personal eye of Sir Watkyn alone.
Well, you can see that for yourself, I mean to say. I mean, imagine how some unfortunate Master Criminal would feel, on coming down to do a murder at the old Grange, if he found that not only was Sherlock Holmes putting in the weekend there, but Hercule Poirot, as well.
The more I faced up to the idea of pinching that cow-creamer, the less I liked it. It seemed to me that there ought to be a middle course, and that what I had to do was explore avenues in the hope of finding some formula. To this end, I paced the terrace with bent bean, pondering.
Old Bassett, I noted, had laid out his money to excellent advantage. I am a bit of a connoisseur of country houses, and I found this one well up to sample. Nice façade, spreading grounds, smoothly shaven lawns, and a general atmosphere of what is known as old-world peace. Cows were mooing in the distance, sheep and birds respectively bleating and tootling, and from somewhere near at hand there came the report of a gun, indicating that someone was having a whirl at the local rabbits. Totleigh Towers might be a place where Man was vile, but undoubtedly every prospect pleased.
And I was strolling up and down, trying to calculate how long it would have taken the old bounder, fining, say, twenty people a day five quid apiece, to collect enough to pay for all this, when my attention was arrested by the interior of a room on the ground floor, visible through an open french window.
It was a sort of minor drawing-room, if you know what I mean, and it gave the impression of being overfurnished. This was due to the fact that it was stuffed to bursting point with glass cases, these in their turn stuffed to bursting point with silver. It was evident that I was looking at the Bassett collection.
I paused. Something seemed to draw me through the french window. And the next moment, there I was, vis-à-vis, as the expression is, with my old pal the silver cow. It was standing in a smallish case over by the door, and I peered in at it, breathing heavily on the glass.
It was with considerable emotion that I perceived that the case was not locked.
I turned the handle. I dipped in, and fished it out.
Now, whether it was my intention merely to inspect and examine, or whether I was proposing to shoot the works, I do not know. The nearest I can remember is that I had no really settled plans. My frame of mind was more or less that of a cat in an adage.
However, I was not accorded leisure to review my emotions in what Jeeves would call the final analysis, for at this point a voice behind me said ‘Hands up!’ and, turning, I observed Roderick Spode in the window. He had a shotgun in his hand, and this he was pointing in a negligent sort of way at my third waistcoat button. I gathered from his manner that he was one of those fellows who like firing from the hip.
3
* * *
I HAD DESCRIBED Roderick Spode to the butler as a man with an eye that could open an oyster at sixty paces, and it was an eye of this nature that he was directing at me now. He looked like a Dictator on the point of starting a purge, and I saw that I had been mistaken in supposing him to be seven feet in height. Eight, at least. Also the slowly working jaw muscles.
I hoped he was not going to say ‘Ha!’ but he did. And as I had not yet mastered the vocal cords sufficiently to be able to reply, that concluded the dialogue sequence for the moment. Then, still keeping his eyes glued on me, he shouted:
‘Sir Watkyn!’
There was a distant sound of Eh-yes-here-I-am-what-is-it-ing.
‘Come here, please, I have something to show you.’
Old Bassett appeared in the window, adjusting his pince-nez.
I had seen this man before only in
the decent habiliments suitable to the metropolis, and I confess that even in the predicament in which I found myself I was able to shudder at the spectacle he presented in the country. It is, of course, an axiom, as I have heard Jeeves call it, that the smaller the man, the louder the check suit, and old Bassett’s apparel was in keeping with his lack of inches. Prismatic is the only word for those frightful tweeds and, oddly enough, the spectacle of them had the effect of steadying my nerves. They gave me the feeling that nothing mattered.
‘Look!’ said Spode. ‘Would you have thought such a thing possible?’
Old Bassett was goggling at me with a sort of stunned amazement.
‘Good God! It’s the bag-snatcher!’
‘Yes. Isn’t it incredible?’
‘It’s unbelievable. Why, damn it, it’s persecution. Fellow follows me everywhere, like Mary’s lamb. Never a free moment. How did you catch him?’
‘I happened to be coming along the drive, and I saw a furtive figure slink in at the window. I hurried up, and covered him with my gun. Just in time. He had already begun to loot the place.’
‘Well, I’m most obliged to you, Roderick. But what I can’t get over is the chap’s pertinacity. You would have thought that when we foiled that attempt of his in the Brompton Road, he would have given up the thing as a bad job. But no. Down he comes here next day. Well, he will be sorry he did.’
‘I suppose this is too serious a case for you to deal with summarily?’
‘I can issue a warrant for his arrest. Bring him along to the library, and I’ll do it now. The case will have to go to the Assizes or the Sessions.’
‘What will he get, do you think?’
‘Not easy to say. But certainly not less than –’
‘Hoy!’ I said.
I had intended to speak in a quiet, reasonable voice – going on, after I had secured their attention, to explain that I was on these premises as an invited guest, but for some reason the word came out like something Aunt Dahlia might have said to a fellow member of the Pytchley half a mile away across a ploughed field, and old Bassett shot back as if he had been jabbed in the eye with a burned stick.
The Jeeves Omnibus - Vol 1: Page 25