‘I hope you will keep this to yourself, Wooster? You will keep it to yourself, won’t you, Wooster?’
‘I will –’
‘Thank you, Wooster.’
‘– provided,’ I continued, ‘that we have no more of these extraordinary exhibitions on your part of – what’s the word?’
He sidled a bit closer.
‘Of course, of course. I’m afraid I have been acting rather hastily.’ He reached out a hand and smoothed my sleeve. ‘Did I rumple your coat, Wooster? I’m sorry. I forgot myself. It shall not happen again.’
‘It had better not. Good Lord! Grabbing fellows’ coats and saying you’re going to break chaps’ bones. I never heard of such a thing.’
‘I know, I know. I was wrong.’
‘You bet you were wrong. I shall be very sharp on that sort of thing in the future, Spode.’
‘Yes, yes, I understand.’
‘I have not been at all satisfied with your behaviour since I came to this house. The way you were looking at me at dinner. You may think people don’t notice these things, but they do.’
‘Of course, of course.’
‘And calling me a miserable worm.’
‘I’m sorry I called you a miserable worm, Wooster. I spoke without thinking.’
‘Always think, Spode. Well, that is all. You may withdraw.’
‘Good night, Wooster.’
‘Good night, Spode.’
He hurried out with bowed head, and I turned to Aunt Dahlia, who was making noises like a motor-bicycle in the background. She gazed at me with the air of one who has been seeing visions. And I suppose the whole affair must have been extraordinarily impressive to the casual bystander.
‘Well, I’ll be –’
Here she paused – fortunately, perhaps, for she is a woman who, when strongly moved, sometimes has a tendency to forget that she is no longer in the hunting-field, and the verb, had she given it utterance, might have proved a bit too fruity for mixed company.
‘Bertie! What was all that about?’
I waved a nonchalant hand.
‘Oh, I just put it across the fellow. Merely asserting myself. One has to take a firm line with chaps like Spode.’
‘Who is this Eulalie?’
‘Ah, there you’ve got me. For information on that point you will have to apply to Jeeves. And it won’t be any good, because the club rules are rigid and members are permitted to go only just so far. Jeeves,’ I went on, giving credit where credit was due, as is my custom, ‘came to me some little while back and told me that I had only to inform Spode that I knew all about Eulalie to cause him to curl up like a burnt feather. And a burnt feather, as you have seen, was precisely what he did curl up like. As to who the above may be, I haven’t the foggiest. All that one can say is that she is a chunk of Spode’s past – and, one fears, a highly discreditable one.’
I sighed, for I was not unmoved.
‘One can fill in the picture for oneself, I think, Aunt Dahlia? The trusting girl who learned too late that men betray … the little bundle … the last mournful walk to the riverbank … the splash … the bubbling cry … I fancy so, don’t you? No wonder the man pales beneath the tan a bit at the idea of the world knowing of that.’
Aunt Dahlia drew a deep breath. A sort of Soul’s Awakening look had come into her face.
‘Good old blackmail! You can’t beat it. I’ve always said so and I always shall. It works like magic in an emergency. Bertie,’ she cried, ‘do you realize what this means?’
‘Means, old relative?’
‘Now that you have got the goods on Spode, the only obstacle to your sneaking that cow-creamer has been removed. You can stroll down and collect it tonight.’
I shook my head regretfully. I had been afraid she was going to take that view of the matter. It compelled me to dash the cup of joy from her lips, always an unpleasant thing to have to do to an aunt who dandled one on her knee as a child.
‘No,’ I said. ‘There you’re wrong. There, if you will excuse me saying so, you are talking like a fathead. Spode may have ceased to be a danger to traffic, but that doesn’t alter the fact that Stiffy still has the notebook. Before taking any steps in the direction of the cow-creamer, I have got to get it.’
‘But why? Oh, but I suppose you haven’t heard. Madeline Bassett has broken off her engagement with Spink-Bottle. She told me so in the strictest confidence just now. Well, then. The snag before was that young Stephanie might cause the engagement to be broken by showing old Bassett the book. But if it’s broken already –’
I shook the bean again.
‘My dear old faulty reasoner,’ I said, ‘you miss the gist by a mile. As long as Stiffy retains that book, it cannot be shown to Madeline Bassett. And only by showing it to Madeline Bassett can Gussie prove to her that his motive in pinching Stiffy’s legs was not what she supposed. And only by proving to her that his motive was not what she supposed can he square himself and effect a reconciliation. And only if he squares himself and effects a reconciliation can I avoid the distasteful necessity of having to marry this bally Bassett myself. No, I repeat. Before doing anything else, I have got to have that book.’
My pitiless analysis of the situation had its effect. It was plain from her manner that she had got the strength. For a space, she sat chewing the lower lip in silence, frowning like an aunt who has drained the bitter cup.
‘Well, how are you going to get it?’
‘I propose to search her room.’
‘What’s the good of that?’
‘My dear old relative, Gussie’s investigations have already revealed that the thing is not on her person. Reasoning closely, we reach the conclusion that it must be in her room.’
‘Yes, but, you poor ass, whereabouts in her room? It may be anywhere. And wherever it is, you can be jolly sure it’s carefully hidden. I suppose you hadn’t thought of that.’
As a matter of fact, I hadn’t, and I imagine that my sharp ‘Oh ah!’ must have revealed this, for she snorted like a bison at the water trough.
‘No doubt you thought it would be lying out on the dressing table. All right, search her room, if you like. There’s no actual harm in it, I suppose. It will give you something to do and keep you out of the public houses. I, meanwhile, will be going off and starting to think of something sensible. It’s time one of us did.’
Pausing at the mantelpiece to remove a china horse which stood there and hurl it to the floor and jump on it, she passed along. And I, somewhat discomposed, for I had thought I had got everything neatly planned out and it was a bit of a jar to find that I hadn’t, sat down and began to bend the brain.
The longer I bent it the more I was forced to admit that the flesh and blood had been right. Looking round this room of my own, I could see at a glance a dozen places where, if I had had a small object to hide like a leather-covered notebook full of criticisms of old Bassett’s method of drinking soup, I could have done so with ease. Presumably, the same conditions prevailed in Stiffy’s lair. In going thither, therefore, I should be embarking on a quest well calculated to baffle the brightest bloodhound, let alone a chap who from childhood up had always been rotten at hunt-the-slipper.
To give the brain a rest before having another go at the problem, I took up my gooseflesher again. And, by Jove, I hadn’t read more than half a page when I uttered a cry. I had come upon a significant passage.
‘Jeeves,’ I said, addressing him as he entered a moment later, ‘I have come upon a significant passage.’
‘Sir?’
I saw that I had been too abrupt and that footnotes would be required.
‘In this thriller I’m reading,’ I explained. ‘But wait. Before showing it to you, I would like to pay you a stately tribute on the accuracy of your information re Spode. A hearty vote of thanks, Jeeves. You said the name Eulalie would make him wilt, and it did. Spode, qua menace … is it qua?’
‘Yes, sir. Quite correct.’
‘I thought so. Well, Spo
de, qua menace, is a spent egg. He has dropped out and ceased to function.’
‘That is very gratifying, sir.’
‘Most. But we are still faced by this Becher’s Brook, that young Stiffy continues in possession of the notebook. That notebook, Jeeves, must be located and re-snitched before we are free to move in any other direction. Aunt Dahlia has just left in despondent mood, because, while she concedes that the damned thing is almost certainly concealed in the little pimple’s sleeping quarters, she sees no hope of fingers being able to be laid upon it. She says it may be anywhere and is undoubtedly carefully hidden.’
‘That is the difficulty, sir.’
‘Quite. But that is where this significant passage comes in. It points the way and sets the feet upon the right path. I’ll read it to you. The detective is speaking to his pals, and the “they” refers to some bounders at the present unidentified, who have been ransacking a girl’s room, hoping to find the missing jewels. Listen attentively, Jeeves. “They seem to have looked everywhere, my dear Postlethwaite, except in the one place where they might have expected to find something. Amateurs, Postlethwaite, rank amateurs. They never thought of the top of the cupboard, the thing any experienced crook thinks of at once, because” – note carefully what follows – “because he knows it is every woman’s favourite hiding-place.”’
I eyed him keenly.
‘You see the profound significance of that, Jeeves?’
‘If I interpret your meaning aright, sir, you are suggesting that Mr Fink-Nottle’s notebook may be concealed at the top of the cupboard in Miss Byng’s apartment?’
‘Not “may”, Jeeves, “must”. I don’t see how it can be concealed anywhere else but. That detective is no fool. If he says a thing is so, it is so. I have the utmost confidence in the fellow, and am prepared to follow his lead without question.’
‘But surely, sir, you are not proposing –’
‘Yes, I am. I’m going to do it immediately. Stiffy has gone to the Working Men’s Institute, and won’t be back for ages. It’s absurd to suppose that a gaggle of Village Mothers are going to be sated with coloured slides of the Holy Land, plus piano accompaniment, in anything under two hours. So now is the time to operate while the coast is clear. Gird up your loins, Jeeves, and accompany me.’
‘Well, really, sir –’
‘And don’t say “Well, really, sir”. I have had occasion to rebuke you before for this habit of yours of saying “Well, really, sir” in a soupy sort of voice, when I indicate some strategic line of action. What I want from you is less of the “Well, really, sir” and more of the buckling-to spirit. Think feudally, Jeeves. Do you know Stiffy’s room?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Then Ho for it!’
I cannot say, despite the courageous dash which I had exhibited in the above slab of dialogue, that it was in any too bobbish a frame of mind that I made my way to our destination. In fact, the nearer I got, the less bobbish I felt. It had been just the same the time I allowed myself to be argued by Roberta Wickham into going and puncturing that hot-water bottle. I hate these surreptitious prowlings. Bertram Wooster is a man who likes to go through the world with his chin up and both feet on the ground, not to sneak about on tiptoe with his spine tying itself into reefer knots.
It was precisely because I had anticipated some such reactions that I had been so anxious that Jeeves should accompany me and lend moral support, and I found myself wishing that he would buck up and lend a bit more than he was doing. Willing service and selfless co-operation were what I had hoped for, and he was not giving me them. His manner from the very start betrayed an aloof disapproval. He seemed to be dissociating himself entirely from the proceedings, and I resented it.
Owing to this aloofness on his part and this resentment on mine, we made the journey in silence, and it was in silence that we entered the room and switched on the light.
The first impression I received on giving the apartment the once-over was that for a young shrimp of her shaky moral outlook Stiffy had been done pretty well in the matter of sleeping accommodation. Totleigh Towers was one of those country houses which had been built at a time when people planning a little nest had the idea that a bedroom was not a bedroom unless you could give an informal dance for about fifty couples in it, and this sanctum could have accommodated a dozen Stiffys. In the rays of the small electric light up in the ceiling, the bally thing seemed to stretch for miles in every direction, and the thought that if that detective had not called his shots correctly, Gussie’s notebook might be concealed anywhere in these great spaces, was a chilling one.
I was standing there, hoping for the best, when my meditations were broken in upon by an odd, gargling sort of noise, something like static and something like distant thunder, and to cut a long story short this proved to proceed from the larynx of the dog Bartholomew.
He was standing on the bed, stropping his front paws on the coverlet, and so easy was it to read the message in his eyes that we acted like two minds with but a single thought. At the exact moment when I soared like an eagle on to the chest of drawers, Jeeves was skimming like a swallow on to the top of the cupboard. The animal hopped from the bed and, advancing into the middle of the room, took a seat, breathing through the nose with a curious whistling sound, and looking at us from under his eyebrows like a Scottish elder rebuking sin from the pulpit.
And there for a while the matter rested.
8
* * *
JEEVES WAS THE first to break a rather strained silence.
‘The book does not appear to be here, sir.’
‘Eh?’
‘I have searched the top of the cupboard, sir, but I have not found the book.’
It may be that my reply erred a trifle on the side of acerbity. My narrow escape from those slavering jaws had left me a bit edgy.
‘Blast the book, Jeeves! What about this dog?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘What do you mean – “Yes, sir”?’
‘I was endeavouring to convey that I appreciate the point which you have raised, sir. The animal’s unexpected appearance unquestionably presents a problem. While he continues to maintain his existing attitude, it will not be easy for us to prosecute the search for Mr Fink-Nottle’s notebook. Our freedom of action will necessarily be circumscribed.’
‘Then what’s to be done?’
‘It is difficult to say, sir.’
‘You have no ideas?’
‘No, sir.’
I could have said something pretty bitter and stinging at this – I don’t know what, but something – but I refrained. I realized that it was rather tough on the man, outstanding though his gifts were, to expect him to ring the bell every time, without fail. No doubt that brilliant inspiration of his which had led to my signal victory over the forces of darkness as represented by R. Spode had taken it out of him a good deal, rendering the brain for the nonce a bit flaccid. One could wait and hope that the machinery would soon get going again, enabling him to seek new high levels of achievement.
And, I felt as I continued to turn the position of affairs over in my mind, the sooner, the better, for it was plain that nothing was going to budge this canine excrescence except an offensive on a major scale, dashingly conceived and skilfully carried out. I don’t think I have ever seen a dog who conveyed more vididly the impression of being rooted to the spot and prepared to stay there till the cows – or, in this case, his proprietress – came home. And what I was going to say to Stiffy if she returned and found me roosting on her chest of drawers was something I had not yet thought out in any exactness of detail.
Watching the animal sitting there like a bump on a log, I soon found myself chafing a good deal. I remember Freddie Widgeon, who was once chased on to the top of a wardrobe by an Alsatian during a country house visit, telling me that what he had disliked most about the thing was the indignity of it all – the blow to the proud spirit, if you know what I mean – the feeling, in fine, that he, the Heir of
the Ages, as you might say, was camping out on a wardrobe at the whim of a bally dog.
It was the same with me. One doesn’t want to make a song and dance about one’s ancient lineage, of course, but after all the Woosters did come over with the Conqueror and were extremely pally with him: and a fat lot of good it is coming over with Conquerors, if you’re simply going to wind up being given the elbow by Aberdeen terriers.
These reflections had the effect of making me rather peevish, and I looked down somewhat sourly at the animal.
‘I call it monstrous, Jeeves,’ I said, voicing my train of thought, ‘that this dog should be lounging about in a bedroom. Most unhygienic.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Scotties are smelly, even the best of them. You will recall how my Aunt Agatha’s McIntosh niffed to heaven while enjoying my hospitality. I frequently mentioned it to you.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And this one is even riper. He should obviously have been bedded out in the stables. Upon my Sam, what with Scotties in Stiffy’s room and newts in Gussie’s, Totleigh Towers is not far short of being a lazar house.’
‘No, sir.’
‘And consider the matter from another angle,’ I said, warming to my theme. ‘I refer to the danger of keeping a dog of this nature and disposition in a bedroom, where it can spring out ravening on anyone who enters. You and I happen to be able to take care of ourselves in an emergency such as has arisen, but suppose we had been some highly strung house-maid.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I can see her coming into the room to turn down the bed. I picture her as a rather fragile girl with big eyes and a timid expression. She crosses the threshold. She approaches the bed. And out leaps this man-eating dog. One does not like to dwell upon the sequel.’
‘No, sir.’
I frowned.
‘I wish,’ I said, ‘that instead of sitting there saying “Yes, sir” and “No, sir”, Jeeves, you would do something.’
The Jeeves Omnibus - Vol 1: (Jeeves & Wooster): No.1 Page 35