The Jeeves Omnibus - Vol 1: (Jeeves & Wooster): No.1

by P. G. Wodehouse

  ‘No, sir.’

  She dismissed my protestations with a wave of the hand.

  ‘So you’re having your troubles, too, are you? Well, I don’t know what new developments there have been at your end, but there has been a new development at mine, and it’s a stinker. That’s why I’ve come down here in such a hurry. The most rapid action has got to be taken, or the home will be in the melting-pot.’

  I began to wonder if even the Mona Lisa could have found the going so sticky as I was finding it. One thing after another, I mean to say.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked. ‘What’s happened?’

  She choked for a moment, then contrived to utter a single word.

  ‘Anatole!’

  ‘Anatole?’ I took her hand and pressed it soothingly. ‘Tell me, old fever patient,’ I said, ‘what, if anything, are you talking about? How do you mean, Anatole?’

  ‘If we don’t look slippy, I shall lose him.’

  A cold hand seemed to clutch at my heart.

  ‘Lose him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Even after doubling his wages?’

  ‘Even after doubling his wages. Listen, Bertie. Just before I left home this afternoon, a letter arrived for Tom from Sir Watkyn Bassett. When I say “just before I left home”, that was what made me leave home. Because do you know what was in it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It contained an offer to swap the cow-creamer for Anatole, and Tom is seriously considering it!’

  I stared at her.

  ‘What? Incredulous!’

  ‘Incredible, sir.’

  ‘Thank you, Jeeves. Incredible! I don’t believe it. Uncle Tom would never contemplate such a thing for an instant.’

  ‘Wouldn’t he? That’s all you know. Do you remember Pomeroy, the butler we had before Seppings?’

  ‘I should say so. A noble fellow.’

  ‘A treasure.’

  ‘A gem. I never could think why you let him go.’

  ‘Tom traded him to the Bessington-Copes for an oviform chocolate pot on three scroll feet.’

  I struggled with a growing despair.

  ‘But surely the delirious old ass – or, rather, Uncle Tom – wouldn’t fritter Anatole away like that?’

  ‘He certainly would.’

  She rose, and moved restlessly to the mantelpiece. I could see that she was looking for something to break as a relief to her surging emotions – what Jeeves would have called a palliative – and courteously drew her attention to a terra cotta figure of the Infant Samuel at Prayer. She thanked me briefly, and hurled it against the opposite wall.

  ‘I tell you, Bertie, there are no lengths to which a really loony collector will not go to secure a coveted specimen. Tom’s actual words, as he handed me the letter to read, were that it would give him genuine pleasure to skin old Bassett alive and personally drop him into a vat of boiling oil, but that he saw no alternative but to meet his demands. The only thing that stopped him wiring him there and then that it was a deal was my telling him that you had gone to Totleigh Towers expressly to pinch the cow-creamer, and that he would have it in his hands almost immediately. How are you coming along in that direction, Bertie? Formed your schemes? All your plans cut and dried? We can’t afford to waste time. Every moment is precious.’

  I felt a trifle boneless. The news, I saw, would now have to be broken, and I hoped that that was all there would be. This aunt is a formidable old creature, when stirred, and I could not but recall what had happened to the Infant Samuel.

  ‘I was going to talk to you about that,’ I said. ‘Jeeves, have you that document we prepared?’

  ‘Here it is, sir.’

  ‘Thank you, Jeeves. And I think it might be a good thing if you were to go and bring a spot more brandy.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  He withdrew, and I slipped her the paper, bidding her read it attentively. She gave it the eye.

  ‘What’s all this?’

  ‘You will soon see. Note how it is headed. “Wooster, B. – position of.” Those words tell the story. They explain,’ I said, backing a step and getting ready to duck, ‘why it is that I must resolutely decline to pinch that cow-creamer.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘I sent you a telegram to that effect this afternoon, but, of course, it missed you.’

  She was looking at me pleadingly, like a fond mother at an idiot child who has just pulled something exceptionally goofy.

  ‘But, Bertie, dear, haven’t you been listening? About Anatole? Don’t you realize the position?’

  ‘Oh, quite.’

  ‘Then have you gone cuckoo? When I say “gone”, of course –’

  I held up a checking hand.

  ‘Let me explain, aged r. You will recall that I mentioned to you that there had been some recent developments. One of these is that Sir Watkyn Bassett knows all about this cow-creamer-pinching scheme and is watching my every movement. Another is that he has confided his suspicions to a pal of his named Spode. Perhaps on your arrival here you met Spode?’

  ‘That big fellow?’

  ‘Big is right, though perhaps “supercolossal” would be more the mot juste. Well, Sir Watkyn, as I say, has confided his suspicions to Spode, and I have it from the latter personally that if that cow-creamer disappears, he will beat me to a jelly. That is why nothing constructive can be accomplished.’

  A silence of some duration followed these remarks. I could see that she was chewing on the thing and reluctantly coming to the conclusion that it was no idle whim of Bertram’s that was causing him to fail her in her hour of need. She appreciated the cleft stick in which he found himself and, unless I am vastly mistaken, shuddered at it.

  This relative is a woman who, in the days of my boyhood and adolescence, was accustomed frequently to clump me over the side of the head when she considered that my behaviour warranted this gesture, and I have often felt in these days that she was on the point of doing it again. But beneath this earhole-sloshing exterior there beats a tender heart, and her love for Bertram is, I know, deep-rooted. She would be the last person to wish to see him get his eyes bunged up and have that well-shaped nose punched out of position.

  ‘I see,’ she said, at length. ‘Yes. That makes things difficult, of course.’

  ‘Extraordinarily difficult. If you care to describe the situation as an impasse, it will be all right with me.’

  ‘Said he would beat you to a jelly, did he?’

  ‘That was the expression he used. He repeated it, so that there should be no mistake.’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t for the world have you manhandled by that big stiff. You wouldn’t have a chance against a gorilla like that. He would tear the stuffing out of you before you could say “Pip-pip”. He would rend you limb from limb and scatter the fragments to the four winds.’

  I winced a little.

  ‘No need to make a song about it, old flesh and blood.’

  ‘You’re sure he meant what he said?’

  ‘Quite.’

  ‘His bark may be worse than his bite.’

  I smiled sadly.

  ‘I see where you’re heading, Aunt Dahlia,’ I said. ‘In another minute you will be asking if there wasn’t a twinkle in his eye as he spoke. There wasn’t. The policy which Roderick Spode outlined to me at our recent interview is the policy which he will pursue and fulfil.’

  ‘Then we seem to be stymied. Unless Jeeves can think of something.’ She addressed the man, who had just entered with the brandy – not before it was time. I couldn’t think why he had taken so long over it. ‘We are talking of Mr Spode, Jeeves.’

  ‘Yes, madam?’

  ‘Jeeves and I have already discussed the Spode menace,’ I said moodily, ‘and he confesses himself baffled. For once, that substantial brain has failed to click. He has brooded, but no formula.’

  Aunt Dahlia had been swigging the brandy gratefully, and there now came into her face a thoughtful look.

  ‘You know what has just o
ccurred to me?’ she said.

  ‘Say on, old thicker than water,’ I replied, still with that dark moodiness. ‘I’ll bet it’s rotten.’

  ‘It’s not rotten at all. It may solve everything. I’ve been wondering if this man Spode hasn’t some shady secret. Do you know anything about him, Jeeves?’

  ‘No, madam.’

  ‘How do you mean, a secret?’

  ‘What I was turning over in my mind was the thought that, if he had some chink in his armour, one might hold him up by means of it, thus drawing his fangs. I remember, when I was a girl, seeing your Uncle George kiss my governess, and it was amazing how it eased the strain later on, when there was any question of her keeping me in after school to write out the principal imports and exports of the United Kingdom. You see what I mean? Suppose we knew that Spode had shot a fox, or something? You don’t think much of it?’ she said, seeing that I was pursing my lips dubiously.

  ‘I can see it as an idea. But there seems to me to be one fatal snag – viz that we don’t know.’

  ‘Yes, that’s true.’ She rose. ‘Oh well, it was just a random thought, I merely threw it out. And now I think I will be returning to my room and spraying my temples with eau-de-Cologne. My head feels as if it were about to burst like shrapnel.’

  The door closed. I sank into the chair which she had vacated, and mopped the b.

  ‘Well, that’s over,’ I said thankfully. ‘She took the blow better than I had hoped, Jeeves. The Quorn trains its daughters well. But, stiff though her upper lip was, you could see that she felt it deeply, and that brandy came in handy. By the way, you were the dickens of a while bringing it. A St Bernard dog would have been there and back in half the time.’

  ‘Yes, sir. I am sorry. I was detained in conversation by Mr Fink-Nottle.’

  I sat pondering.

  ‘You know, Jeeves,’ I said, ‘that wasn’t at all a bad idea of Aunt Dahlia’s about getting the goods on Spode. Fundamentally, it was sound. If Spode had buried the body and we knew where, it would unquestionably render him a negligible force. But you say you know nothing about him.’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘And I doubt if there is anything to know, anyway. There are some chaps, one look at whom is enough to tell you that they are pukka sahibs who play the game and do not do the things that aren’t done, and prominent among these, I fear, is Roderick Spode. I shouldn’t imagine that the most rigorous investigation would uncover anything about him worse than that moustache of his, and to the world’s scrutiny of that he obviously has no objection, or he wouldn’t wear the damned thing.’

  ‘Very true, sir. Still, it might be worth while to institute inquiries.’

  ‘Yes, but where?’

  ‘I was thinking of the Junior Ganymede, sir. It is a club for gentlemen’s personal gentlemen in Curzon Street, to which I have belonged for some years. The personal attendant of a gentleman of Mr Spode’s prominence would be sure to be a member, and he would, of course, have confided to the secretary a good deal of material concerning him, for insertion in the club book.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Under Rule Eleven, every new member is required to supply the club with full information regarding his employer. This not only provides entertaining reading, but serves as a warning to members who may be contemplating taking service with gentlemen who fall short of the ideal.’

  A thought struck me, and I started. Indeed, I started rather violently.

  ‘What happened when you joined?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Did you tell them all about me?’

  ‘Oh, yes, sir.’

  ‘What, everything? The time when old Stoker was after me and I had to black up with boot polish in order to assume a rudimentary disguise?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And the occasion on which I came home after Pongo Twistleton’s birthday-party and mistook the standard lamp for a burglar?’

  ‘Yes, sir. The members like to have these things to read on wet afternoons.’

  ‘They do, do they? And suppose some wet afternoon Aunt Agatha reads them? Did that occur to you?’

  ‘The contingency of Mrs Spenser Gregson obtaining access to the club book is a remote one.’

  ‘I dare say. But recent events under this very roof will have shown you how women do obtain access to books.’

  I relapsed into silence, pondering on this startling glimpse he had accorded me of what went on in institutions like the Junior Ganymede, of the existence of which I had previously been unaware. I had known, of course, that at nights, after serving the frugal meal, Jeeves would put on the old bowler hat and slip round the corner, but I had always supposed his destination to have been the saloon bar of some neighbouring pub. Of clubs in Curzon Street I had had no inkling.

  Still less had I had an inkling that some of the fruitiest of Bertram Wooster’s possibly ill-judged actions were being inscribed in a book. The whole thing to my mind smacked rather unpleasantly of Abou ben Adhem and Recording Angels, and I found myself frowning somewhat.

  Still, there didn’t seem much to be done about it, so I returned to what Constable Oates would have called the point at tissue.

  ‘Then what’s your idea? To apply to the Secretary for information about Spode?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘You think he’ll give it to you?’

  ‘Oh, yes, sir.’

  ‘You mean he scatters these data – these extraordinarily dangerous data – these data that might spell ruin if they fell into the wrong hands – broadcast to whoever asks for them?’

  ‘Only to members, sir.’

  ‘How soon could you get in touch with him?’

  ‘I could ring him up on the telephone immediately, sir.’

  ‘Then do so, Jeeves, and if possible chalk the call up to Sir Watkyn Bassett and don’t lose your nerve when you hear the girl say “Three minutes”. Carry on regardless. Cost what it may, ye Sec. must be made to understand – and understand thoroughly – that now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party.’

  ‘I think I can convince him that an emergency exists, sir.’

  ‘If you can’t, refer him to me.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  He started off on his errand of mercy.

  ‘Oh, by the way, Jeeves,’ I said, as he was passing through the door, ‘did you say you had been talking to Gussie?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Had he anything new to report?’

  ‘Yes, sir. It appears that his relations with Miss Bassett have been severed. The engagement is broken off.’

  He floated out, and I leaped three feet. A dashed difficult thing to do, when you’re sitting in an armchair, but I managed it.

  ‘Jeeves!’ I yelled.

  But he had gone, leaving not a wrack behind.

  From downstairs there came the sudden booming of the dinner gong.

  6

  * * *

  IT HAS ALWAYS given me a bit of a pang to look back at that dinner and think that agony of mind prevented me sailing into it in the right carefree mood, for it was one which in happier circumstances I would have got my nose down to with a will. Whatever Sir Watkyn Bassett’s moral shortcomings, he did his guests extraordinarily well at the festive board, and even in my preoccupied condition it was plain to me in the first five minutes that his cook was a woman who had the divine fire in her. From a Grade A soup we proceeded to a toothsome fish, and from the toothsome fish to a salmi of game which even Anatole might have been proud to sponsor. Add asparagus, a jam omelette and some spirited sardines on toast, and you will see what I mean.

  All wasted on me, of course. As the fellow said, better a dinner of herbs when you’re all buddies together than a regular blow-out when you’re not, and the sight of Gussie and Madeline Bassett sitting side by side at the other end of the table turned the food to ashes in my m. I viewed them with concern.

  You know what engaged couples are like in mixed company, as a rule. They put their
heads together and converse in whispers. They slap and giggle. They pat and prod. I have even known the female member of the duo to feed her companion with a fork. There was none of this sort of thing about Madeline Bassett and Gussie. He looked pale and corpse-like, she cold and proud and aloof. They put in the time for the most part making bread pills and, as far as I was able to ascertain, didn’t exchange a word from start to finish. Oh, yes, once – when he asked her to pass the salt, and she passed the pepper, and he said ‘I meant the salt,’ and she said ‘Oh, really?’ and passed the mustard.

  There could be no question whatever that Jeeves was right. Brass rags had been parted by the young couple, and what was weighing upon me, apart from the tragic aspect, was the mystery of it all. I could think of no solution, and I looked forward to the conclusion of the meal, when the women should have legged it and I would be able to get together with Gussie over the port and learn the inside dope.

  To my surprise, however, the last female had no sooner passed through the door than Gussie, who had been holding it open, shot through after like a diving duck and did not return, leaving me alone with my host and Roderick Spode. And as they sat snuggled up together at the far end of the table, talking to one another in low voices, and staring at me from time to time as if I had been a ticket-of-leave man who had got in by crashing the gate and might be expected, unless carefully watched, to pocket a spoon or two, it was not long before I, too, left. Murmuring something about fetching my cigarette case, I sidled out and went up to my room. It seemed to me that either Gussie or Jeeves would be bound to look in their sooner or later.

  A cheerful fire was burning in the grate, and to while away the time I pulled the armchair up and got out the mystery story I had brought with me from London. As my researches in it had already shown me, it was a particularly good one, full of crisp clues and meaty murders, and I was soon absorbed. Scarcely, however, had I really had time to get going on it, when there was a rattle at the door handle, and who should amble in but Roderick Spode.