‘That is what it is so hard to induce him to explain with any precision. With all his good points, your poor Uncle George is apt to become incoherent when strongly moved. As far as I could gather, he appears to have been the victim of a burglary.’
‘Burglary!’
‘He says that a strange man with whiskers and a peculiar nose entered his rooms in Jermyn Street during his absence and stole some of his property. He says that he came back and found the man in his sitting-room. He immediately rushed out of the room and disappeared.’
‘Uncle George?’
‘No, the man. And, according to your Uncle George, he had stolen a valuable cigarette-case. But, as I say, I am inclined to think that the whole thing was imagination. He has not been himself since the day when he fancied that he saw Eustace in the street. So I should like you, Bertie, to be prepared to start for Harrogate with him not later than Saturday.’
She popped off, and Eustace crawled out from under the sofa. The blighter was strongly moved. So was I, for the matter of that. The idea of several weeks with Uncle George at Harrogate seemed to make everything go black.
‘So that’s where he got that cigarette-case, dash him!’ said Eustace bitterly. ‘Of all the dirty tricks! Robbing his own flesh and blood! That fellow ought to be in chokey.’
‘He ought to be in South Africa,’ I said. ‘And so ought you.’
And with an eloquence which rather surprised me, I hauled up my slacks for perhaps ten minutes on the subject of his duty to his family and what not. I appealed to his sense of decency. I boosted South Africa with vim. I said everything I could think of, much of it twice over. But all the blighter did was to babble about his dashed brother’s baseness in putting one over on him in the matter of the cigarette-case. He seemed to think that Claude, by slinging in the handsome gift, had got right ahead of him: and there was a painful scene when the latter came back from Hurst Park. I could hear them talking half the night, long after I had tottered off to bed. I don’t know when I’ve met fellows who could do with less sleep than those two.
After this, things became a bit strained at the flat owing to Claude and Eustace not being on speaking terms. I’m all for a certain chumminess in the home, and it was wearing to have to live with two fellows who wouldn’t admit that the other one was on the map at all.
One felt the thing couldn’t go on like that for long, and, by Jove, it didn’t. But, if anyone had come to me the day before and told me what was going to happen, I should simply have smiled wanly. I mean, I’d got so accustomed to thinking that nothing short of a dynamite explosion could ever dislodge those two nestlers from my midst that, when Claude sidled up to me on the Friday morning and told me his bit of news, I could hardly believe I was hearing right.
‘Bertie,’ he said, ‘I’ve been thinking it over.’
‘What over?’ I said.
‘The whole thing. This business of staying in London when I ought to be in South Africa. It isn’t fair,’ said Claude warmly. ‘It isn’t right. And the long and the short of it is, Bertie, old man, I’m leaving tomorrow.’
I reeled in my tracks.
‘You are?’ I gasped.
‘Yes. If,’ said Claude, ‘you won’t mind sending old Jeeves out to buy a ticket for me. I’m afraid I’ll have to stick you for the passage money, old man. You don’t mind?’
‘Mind!’ I said, clutching his hand fervently.
‘That’s all right, then. Oh, I say, you won’t say a word to Eustace about this, will you?’
‘But isn’t he going, too?’
Claude shuddered.
‘No, thank heaven! The idea of being cooped up on board a ship with that blighter gives me the pip just to think of it. No, not a word to Eustace. I say, I suppose you can get me a berth all right at such short notice?’
‘Rather!’ I said. Sooner than let this opportunity slip, I would have bought the bally boat.
‘Jeeves,’ I said, breezing into the kitchen. ‘Go out on first speed to the Union-Castle offices and book a berth on tomorrow’s boat for Mr Claude. He is leaving us, Jeeves.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Mr Claude does not wish any mention of this to be made to Mr Eustace.’
‘No, sir. Mr Eustace made the same proviso when he desired me to obtain a berth on tomorrow’s boat for himself.’
I gaped at the man.
‘Is he going, too?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘This is rummy.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Had circumstances been other than they were, I would at this juncture have unbent considerably towards Jeeves. Frisked round him a bit and whooped to a certain extent, and what not. But those spats still formed a barrier, and I regret to say that I took the opportunity of rather rubbing it in a bit on the man. I mean, he’d been so dashed aloof and unsympathetic, though perfectly aware that the young master was in the soup and that it was up to him to rally round, that I couldn’t help pointing out how the happy ending had been snaffled without any help from him.
‘So that’s that, Jeeves,’ I said. ‘The episode is concluded. I knew things would sort themselves out if one gave them time and didn’t get rattled. Many chaps in my place would have got rattled, Jeeves.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Gone rushing about, I mean, asking people for help and advice and so forth.’
‘Very possibly, sir.’
‘But not me, Jeeves.’
‘No, sir.’
I left him to brood on it.
Even the thought that I’d got to go to Harrogate with Uncle George couldn’t depress me that Saturday when I gazed about the old flat and realized that Claude and Estace weren’t in it. They had slunk off stealthily and separately immediately after breakfast, Eustace to catch the boat-train at Waterloo, Claude to go round to the garage where I kept my car. I didn’t want any chance of the two meeting at Waterloo and changing their minds, so I had suggested to Claude that he might find it pleasanter to drive down to Southampton.
I was lying back on the old settee, gazing peacefully up at the flies on the ceiling and feeling what a wonderful world this was, when Jeeves came in with a letter.
‘A messenger-boy has brought this, sir.’
I opened the envelope, and the first thing that fell out was a five-pound note.
‘Great Scott!’ I said. ‘What’s all this?’
The letter was scribbled in pencil, and was quite brief;
Dear Bertie,
Will you give enclosed to your man, and tell him I wish I could make it more. He has saved my life. This is the first happy day I’ve had for a week.
Yours,
M.W.
Jeeves was standing holding out the fiver, which had fluttered to the floor.
‘You’d better stick to it,’ I said. ‘It seems to be for you.’
‘Sir?’
‘I say that fiver is for you, apparently. Miss Wardour sent it.’
‘That was extremely kind of her, sir.’
‘What the dickens is she sending you fivers for? She says you saved her life.’
Jeeves smiled gently.
‘She over-estimates my services, sir.’
‘But what were your services, dash it?’
‘It was in the matter of Mr Claude and Mr Eustace, sir. I was hoping that she would not refer to the matter, as I did not wish you to think that I had been taking a liberty.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I chanced to be in the room while Miss Wardour was complaining with some warmth of the manner in which Mr Claude and Mr Eustace were thrusting their society upon her. I felt that in the circumstances it might be excusable if I suggested a slight ruse to enable her to dispense with their attentions.’
‘Good Lord! You don’t mean to say you were at the bottom of their popping off, after all!’
Silly ass it made me feel. I mean, after rubbing it in to him like that about having clicked without his assistance.
‘It occurred to me that,
were Miss Wardour to inform Mr Claude and Mr Eustace independently that she proposed sailing for South Africa to take up a theatrical engagement, the desired effect might be produced. It appears that my anticipations were correct, sir. The young gentlemen ate it, if I may use the expression.’
‘Jeeves,’ I said – we Woosters may make bloomers, but we are never too proud to admit it – ‘you stand alone!’
‘Thank you very much, sir.’
‘Oh, but I say!’ A ghastly thought had struck me. ‘When they get on the boat and find she isn’t there, won’t they come buzzing back?’
‘I anticipated that possibility, sir. At my suggestion, Miss Wardour informed the young gentlemen that she proposed to travel overland to Madeira and join the vessel there.’
‘And where do they touch after Madeira?’
‘Nowhere, sir.’
For a moment I just lay back, letting the idea of the thing soak in. There seemed to me to be only one flaw.
‘The only pity is,’ I said, ‘that on a large boat like that they will be able to avoid each other. I mean, I should have liked to feel that Claude was having a good deal of Eustace’s society and vice versa.’
‘I fancy that that will be so, sir. I secured a two-berth state-room. Mr Claude will occupy one berth, Mr Eustace the other.’
I sighed with pure ecstasy. It seemed a dashed shame that on this joyful occasion I should have to go off to Harrogate with my Uncle George.
‘Have you started packing yet, Jeeves?’ I asked.
‘Packing, sir?’
‘For Harrogate. I’ve got to go there today with Sir George.’
‘Of course, yes, sir. I forgot to mention it. Sir George rang up on the telephone this morning while you were still asleep, and said that he had changed his plans. He does not intend to go to Harrogate.’
‘Oh, I say, how absolutely topping!’
‘I thought you might be pleased, sir.’
‘What made him change his plans? Did he say?’
‘No, sir. But I gather from his man, Stevens, that he is feeling much better and does not now require a rest-cure. I took the liberty of giving Stevens the recipe for that pick-me-up of mine, of which you have always approved so much. Stevens tells me that Sir George informed him this morning that he is feeling a new man.’
Well, there was only one thing to do, and I did it. I’m not saying it didn’t hurt, but there was no alternative.
‘Jeeves,’ I said, ‘those spats.’
‘Yes, sir?’
‘You really dislike them?’
‘Intensely, sir.’
‘You don’t think time might induce you to change your views?’
‘No, sir.’
‘All right, then. Very well. Say no more. You may burn them.’
‘Thank you very much, sir. I have already done so. Before breakfast this morning. A quiet grey is far more suitable, sir. Thank you, sir.’
17
* * *
Bingo and The Little Woman
IT MUST HAVE been a week or so after the departure of Claude and Eustace that I ran into young Bingo Little in the smoking-room of the Senior Liberal Club. He was lying back in an armchair with his mouth open and a sort of goofy expression in his eyes, while a grey-bearded cove in the middle distance watched him with so much dislike that I concluded that Bingo had pinched his favourite seat. That’s the worst of being in a strange club – absolutely without intending it, you find yourself constantly trampling upon the vested interests of the Oldest Inhabitants.
‘Hallo, face,’ I said.
‘Cheerio, ugly,’ said young Bingo, and we settled down to have a small one before lunch.
Once a year the committee of the Drones decides that the old club could do with a wash and brush-up, so they shoo us out and dump us down for a few weeks at some other institution. This time we were roosting at the Senior Liberal, and personally I had found the strain pretty fearful. I mean, when you’ve got used to a club where everything’s nice and cheery, and where, if you want to attract a chappie’s attention, you heave a piece of bread at him, it kind of damps you to come to a place where the youngest member is about eighty-seven and it isn’t considered good form to talk to anyone unless you and he were through the Peninsular War together. It was a relief to come across Bingo. We started to talk in hushed voices.
‘This club,’ I said, ‘is the limit.’
‘It is the eel’s eyebrows,’ agreed young Bingo. ‘I believe that old boy over by the window has been dead three days, but I don’t like to mention it to anyone.’
‘Have you lunched here yet?’
‘No. Why?’
‘They have waitresses instead of waiters.’
‘Good Lord! I thought that went out with the armistice.’ Bingo mused a moment, straightening his tie absently. ‘Er – pretty girls?’ he said.
‘No.’
He seemed disappointed, but pulled round.
‘Well, I’ve heard that the cooking’s the best in London.’
‘So they say. Shall we be going in?’
‘All right. I expect,’ said young Bingo, ‘that at the end of the meal – or possibly at the beginning – the waitress will say, “Both together, sir?” Reply the affirmative. I haven’t a bean.’
‘Hasn’t your uncle forgiven you yet?’
‘Not yet, confound him!’
I was sorry to hear the row was still on. I resolved to do the poor old thing well at the festive board, and I scanned the menu with some intentness when the girl rolled up with it.
‘How would this do you, Bingo?’ I said at length. ‘A few plovers’ eggs to weigh in with, a cup of soup, a touch of cold salmon, some cold curry, and a splash of gooseberry tart and cream with a bite of cheese to finish?’
I don’t know that I had expected the man actually to scream with delight, though I had picked the items from my knowledge of his pet dishes, but I had expected him to say something. I looked up, and found that his attention was elsewhere. He was gazing at the waitress with the look of a dog that’s just remembered where its bone was buried.
She was a tallish girl with sort of soft, soulful brown eyes. Nice figure and all that. Rather decent hands, too. I didn’t remember having seen her about before, and I must say she raised the standard of the place quite a bit.
‘How about it, laddie?’ I said, being all for getting the order booked and going on to the serious knife-and-fork work.
‘Eh?’ said young Bingo absently.
I recited the programme once more.
‘Oh, yes, fine!’ said Bingo. ‘Anything, anything.’ The girl pushed off, and he turned to me with protruding eyes. ‘I thought you said they weren’t pretty, Bertie!’ he said reproachfully.
‘Oh, my heavens!’ I said. ‘You surely haven’t fallen in love again – and with a girl you’ve only just seen?’
‘There are times, Bertie,’ said young Bingo, ‘when a look is enough – when, passing through a crowd, we meet somebody’s eye and something seems to whisper –’
At this point the plovers’ eggs arrived, and he suspended his remarks in order to swoop on them with some vigour.
‘Jeeves,’ I said that night when I got home, ‘stand by.’
‘Sir?’
‘Burnish the old brain and be alert and vigilant. I suspect that Mr Little will be calling round shortly for sympathy and assistance.’
‘Is Mr Little in trouble, sir?’
‘Well you might call it that. He’s in love. For about the fifty-third time. I ask you, Jeeves, as man to man, did you ever see such a chap?’
‘Mr Little is certainly warm-hearted, sir.’
‘Warm-hearted! I should think he has to wear asbestos vests. Well, stand by, Jeeves.’
‘Very good, sir.’
And sure enough, it wasn’t ten days before in rolled the old ass, bleating for volunteers to step one pace forward and come to the aid of the party.
‘Bertie,’ he said, ‘if you are a pal of mine, now is the time to s
how it.’
‘Proceed, old gargoyle,’ I replied. ‘You have our ear.’
‘You remember giving me lunch at the Senior Liberal some days ago. We were waited on by a –’
‘I remember. Tall, lissom, female.’
He shuddered somewhat.
‘I wish you wouldn’t talk of her like that, dash it all. She’s an angel.’
‘All right. Carry on.’
‘I love her.’
‘Right-o! Push along.’
‘For goodness’ sake don’t bustle me. Let me tell you the story in my own way. I love her, as I was saying, and I want you, Bertie, old boy, to pop round to my uncle and do a bit of diplomatic work. That allowance of mine must be restored, and dashed quick, too. What’s more, it must be increased.’
‘But look here,’ I said, being far from keen on the bally business, ‘why not wait a while?’
‘Wait? What’s the good of waiting?’
‘Well, you know what generally happens when you fall in love. Something goes wrong with the works and you get left. Much better tackle your uncle after the whole thing’s fixed and settled.’
‘It is fixed and settled. She accepted me this morning.’
‘Good Lord! That’s quick work. You haven’t known her two weeks.’
‘Not in this life, no,’ said young Bingo. ‘But she has a sort of idea that we must have met in some previous existence. She thinks I must have been a king in Babylon when she was a Christian slave. I can’t say I remember it myself, but there may be something in it.’
‘Great Scott!’ I said. ‘Do waitresses really talk like that?’
‘How should I know how waitresses talk?’
‘Well, you ought to by now. The first time I ever met your uncle was when you hounded me on to ask him if he would rally round to help you marry that girl Mabel in the Piccadilly bun-shop.’
Bingo started violently. A wild gleam came into his eyes. And before I knew what he was up to he had brought down his hand with a most frightful whack on my summer trousering, causing me to leap like a young ram.
‘Here!’ I said.
‘Sorry,’ said Bingo. ‘Excited. Carried away. You’ve given me an idea, Bertie.’ He waited till I had finished massaging the limb, and resumed his remarks. ‘Can you throw your mind back to that occasion, Bertie? Do you remember the frightfully subtle scheme I worked? Telling him you were What’s-her-name, the woman who wrote those books, I mean?’
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