Bill kicked petulantly at a footstool.
‘How do you expect me to carry conviction, feeling the way I do?’
‘I can readily appreciate that your lordship is disturbed.’
‘I’m all of a twitter. Have you ever seen a jelly hit by a cyclone?’
‘No, m’lord, I have never been present on such an occasion.’
‘It quivers. So do I.’
‘After such an ordeal your lordship would be unstrung.’
‘Ordeal is the right word, Jeeves. Apart from the frightful peril one is in, it was so dashed ignominious having to leg it like that.’
‘I should hardly describe our recent activities as legging it, m’lord. “Strategic retreat” is more the mot juste. This is a recognised military manoeuvre, practised by all the greatest tacticians when the occasion seemed to call for such a move. I have no doubt that General Eisenhower has had recourse to it from time to time.’
‘But I don’t suppose he had a fermenting punter after him, shouting “Welsher!” at the top of his voice.’
‘Possibly not, m’lord.’
Bill brooded.
‘It was that word “Welsher” that hurt, Jeeves.’
‘I can readily imagine it, m’lord. Objected to as irrelevant, incompetent and immaterial, as I believe the legal expression is. As your lordship several times asseverated during our precarious homeward journey, you have every intention of paying the gentleman.’
‘Of course I have. No argument about that. Naturally I intend to brass up to the last penny. It’s a case of… what, Jeeves?’
‘Noblesse oblige, m’lord.’
‘Exactly. The honour of the Rowcesters is at stake. But I must have time, dash it, to raise three thousand pounds two and six.’
‘Three thousand and five pounds two and six, m’lord. Your lordship is forgetting the gentleman’s original five-pound note.’
‘So I am. You trousered it and came away with it in your pocket.’
‘Precisely, m’lord. Thus bringing the sum total of your obligations to this Captain Biggar—’
‘Was that his name?’
‘Yes, m’lord. Captain C. G. Brabazon-Biggar, United Rovers Club, Northumberland Avenue, London WC2. In my capacity as your lordship’s clerk I wrote the name and address on the ticket which he now has in his possession. The note which he handed to me and which I duly accepted as your lordship’s official representative raises your commitments to three thousand and five pounds two shillings and sixpence.’
‘Oh, gosh!’
‘Yes, m’lord. It is not an insignificant sum. Many a poor man would be glad of three thousand and five pounds two shillings and sixpence.’
Bill winced.
‘I would be grateful, Jeeves, if you could see your way not to keep on intoning those words.’
‘Very good, m’lord.’
‘They are splashed on my soul in glorious Technicolor.’
‘Quite so, m’lord.’
‘Who was it who said that when he or she was dead, the word something would be found carved on his or her heart?’
‘Queen Mary, m’lord, the predecessor of the great Queen Elizabeth. The word was “Calais”, and the observation was intended to convey her chagrin at the loss of that town.’
‘Well, when I die, which will be very shortly if I go on feeling as I do now, just cut me open, Jeeves—’
‘Certainly, m’lord.’
‘—and I’ll bet you a couple of bob you’ll find carved on my heart the words “Three thousand and five pounds two and six”.’
Bill rose and paced the room with fevered steps.
‘How does one scrape together a sum like that, Jeeves?’
‘It will call for thrift, m’lord.’
‘You bet it will. It’ll take years.’
‘And Captain Biggar struck me as an impatient gentleman.’
‘You needn’t rub it in, Jeeves.’
‘Very good, m’lord.’
‘Let’s keep our minds on the present.’
‘Yes, m’lord. Remember that man’s life lies all within this present, as ’twere but a hair’s breadth of time. As for the rest, the past is gone, the future yet unseen.’
‘Eh?’
‘Marcus Aurelius, m’lord.’
‘Oh? Well, as I was saying, let us glue our minds on what is going to happen if this Biggar suddenly blows in here. Do you think he’ll recognise me?’
‘I am inclined to fancy not, m’lord. The moustache and the patch formed a very effective disguise. After all, in the past few months we have encountered several gentlemen of your lordship’s acquaintance—’
‘And not one of them spotted me.’
‘No, m’lord. Nevertheless, facing the facts, I fear we must regard this afternoon’s episode as a set-back. It is clEarly impossible for us to function at the Derby tomorrow.’
‘I was looking forward to cleaning up on the Derby.’
‘I, too, m’lord. But after what has occurred, one’s entire turf activities must, I fear, be regarded as suspended indefinitely.’
‘You don’t think we could risk one more pop?’
‘No, m’lord.’
‘I see what you mean, of course. Show up at Epsom tomorrow, and the first person we’d run into would be this Captain Biggar—’
‘Straddling, like Apollyon, right across the way. Precisely, m’lord.’
Bill passed a hand through his disordered hair.
‘If only I had frozen on to the money we made at Newmarket!’
‘Yes, m’lord. “Of all sad words of tongue or pen the saddest are these—It might have been.” Whittier.’
‘You warned me not to let our capital fall too low.’
‘I felt that we were not equipped to incur any heavy risk. That was why I urged your lordship so vehemently to lay Captain Biggar’s second wager off. I had misgivings. True, the probability of the double bearing fruit at such odds was not great, but when I saw Whistler’s Mother pass us on her way to the starting-post, I was conscious of a tremor of uneasiness. Those long legs, that powerful rump…’
‘Don’t, Jeeves!’
‘Very good, m’lord.’
‘I’m trying not to think of Whistler’s Mother.’
‘I quite understand, m’lord.’
‘Who the dickens was Whistler, anyway?’
‘A figure, landscape and portrait painter of considerable distinction, m’lord, born in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1834. His Portrait of my Mother, painted in 1872, is particularly esteemed by the cognoscenti and was purchased by the French Government for the Luxembourg Gallery, Paris, in 1892. His works are individual in character and notable for subtle colour harmony.’
Bill breathed a little stertorously.
‘It’s subtle, is it?’
‘Yes, m’lord.’
‘I see. Thanks for telling me. I was worrying myself sick about his colour harmony.’ Bill became calmer. ‘Jeeves, if the worst comes to the worst and Biggar does catch me bending, can I gain a bit of time by pleading the Gaming Act?’
‘I fear not, m’lord. You took the gentleman’s money. A cash transaction.’
‘It would mean choky, you feel?’
‘I fancy so, m’lord.’
‘Would you be jugged, too, as my clerk?’
‘In all probability, m’lord. I am not quite certain on the point. I should have to consult my solicitor.’
‘But I would be for it?’
‘Yes, m’lord. The sentences, however, are not, I believe, severe.’
‘But think of the papers. The ninth Earl of Rowcester, whose ancestors held the field at Agincourt, skipped from the field at Epsom with a slavering punter after him. It’ll be jam for the newspaper boys.’
‘Unquestionably the circumstance of your lordship having gone into business as a Silver Ring bookmaker would be accorded wide publicity.’
Bill, who had been pacing the floor again, stopped in mid-stride and regarded the speaker with an accusing eye.
‘And who was it suggested that I should go into business as a Silver Ring bookie? You, Jeeves. I don’t want to be harsh, but you must own that the idea came from you. You were the—’
‘Fons et origo mali, m’lord? That, I admit, is true. But if your lordship will recall, we were in something of a quandary. We had agreed that your lordship’s impending marriage made it essential to augment your lordship’s slender income, and we went through the Classified Trades section of the telephone directory in quest of a possible profession which your lordship might adopt. It was merely because nothing of a suitable nature had presented itself by the time we reached the T’s that I suggested Turf Accountant faute de mieux.’
‘Faute de what?’
‘Mieux, m’lord. A French expression. We should say “for want of anything better”.’
‘What asses these Frenchmen are! Why can’t they talk English?’
‘They are possibly more to be pitied than censured, m’lord. Early upbringing no doubt has a good deal to do with it. As I was saying, it seemed to me a happy solution of your lordship’s difficulties. In the United States of America, I believe, bookmakers are considered persons of a somewhat low order and are, indeed, suppressed by the police, but in England it is very different. Here they are looked up to and courted. There is a school of thought which regards them as the new aristocracy. They make a great deal of money, and have the added gratification of not paying income-tax.’
Bill sighed wistfully.
‘We made a lot of money up to Newmarket.’
‘Yes, m’lord.’
‘And where is it now?’
‘Where, indeed, m’lord?’
‘I shouldn’t have spent so much doing up the place.’
‘No, m’lord.’
‘And it was a mistake to pay my tailor’s bill.’
‘Yes, m’lord. One feels that your lordship did somewhat overdo it there. As the old Roman observed, ne quid nimis.’
‘Yes, that was rash. Still, no good beefing about it now, I suppose.’
‘No, m’lord. The moving finger writes, and having writ—’
‘Hoy!’
‘—moves on, nor all your piety and wit can lure it back to cancel half a line nor all your tears wash out one word of it. You were saying, m’lord?’
‘I was only going to ask you to cheese it.’
‘Certainly, m’lord.’
‘Not in the mood.’
‘Quite so, m’lord. It was only the appositeness of the quotation—from the works of the Persian poet Omar Khayyám—that led me to speak. I wonder if I might ask a question, m’lord?’
‘Yes, Jeeves?’
‘Is Miss Wyvern aware of your lordship’s professional connection with the turf?’
Bill quivered like an aspen at the mere suggestion.
‘I should say not. She would throw fifty-seven fits if she knew. I’ve rather given her the idea that I’m employed by the Agricultural Board.’
‘A most respectable body of men.’
‘I didn’t actually say so in so many words. I just strewed the place with Agricultural Board report forms and took care she saw them. Did you know that they issue a hundred and seventy-nine different blanks other than the seventeen questionnaires?’
‘No, m’lord. I was not aware. It shows zeal.’
‘Great zeal. They’re on their toes, those boys.’
‘Yes, m’lord.’
‘But we’re wandering from the point, which is that Miss Wyvern must never learn the awful truth. It would be fatal. At the outset of our betrothal she put her foot down firmly on the subject of my tendency to have an occasional flutter, and I promised her faithfully that I would never punt again. Well, you might argue that being a Silver Ring bookie is not the same thing as punting, but I doubt if you would ever sell that idea to Miss Wyvern.’
‘The distinction is certainly a nice one, m’lord.’
‘Let her discover the facts, and all would be lost.’
‘Those wedding bells would not ring out.’
‘They certainly wouldn’t. She would return me to store before I could say “What ho”. So if she comes asking questions, reveal nothing. Not even if she sticks lighted matches between your toes.’
‘The contingency is a remote one, m’lord.’
‘Possibly. I’m merely saying, whatever happens, Jeeves, secrecy and silence.’
‘You may rely on me, m’lord. In the inspired words of Pliny the Younger—’
Bill held up a hand.
‘Right ho, Jeeves.’
‘Very good, m’lord.’
‘I’m not interested in Pliny the Younger.’
‘No, m’lord.’
‘As far as I’m concerned, you may take Pliny the Younger and put him where the monkey put the nuts.’
‘Certainly, m’lord.’
‘And now leave me, Jeeves. I have a lot of heavy brooding to do. Go and get me a stiffish whisky and soda.’
‘Very good, m’lord. I will attend to the matter immediately.’
Jeeves melted from the room with a look of respectful pity, and Bill sat down and put his head between his hands. A hollow groan escaped him, and he liked the sound of it and gave another.
He was starting on a third, bringing it up from the soles of his feet, when a voice spoke at his side.
‘Good heavens, Bill. What on earth’s the matter?’
Jill Wyvern was standing there.
Chapter 5
In the interval which had elapsed since her departure from the living room, Jill had rubbed American ointment on Mike the Irish terrier, taken a look at a goldfish belonging to the cook, which had caused anxiety in the kitchen by refusing its ants’ eggs, and made a routine tour of the pigs and cows, giving one of the latter a bolus. She had returned to the house agreeably conscious of duty done and looking forward to a chat with her loved one, who, she presumed, would by now be back from his Agricultural Board rounds and in a mood for pleasant dalliance. For even when the Agricultural Board know they have got hold of an exceptionally good man and wish (naturally) to get every possible ounce of work out of him, they are humane enough to let the poor peon call it a day round about the hour of the evening cocktail.
To find him groaning with his head in his hands was something of a shock.
‘What on earth’s the matter?’ she repeated.
Bill had sprung from his chair with a convulsive leap. That loved voice, speaking unexpectedly out of the void when he supposed himself to be alone with his grief, had affected him like a buzz-saw applied to the seat of his trousers. If it had been Captain C. G. Brabazon-Biggar, of the United Rovers Club, Northumberland Avenue, he could not have been much more perturbed. He gaped at her, quivering in every limb. Jeeves, had he been present, would have been reminded of Macbeth seeing the ghost of Banquo.
‘Matter?’ he said, inserting three m’s at the beginning of the word.
Jill was looking at him with grave, speculative eyes. She had that direct, honest gaze which many nice girls have, and as a rule Bill liked it. But at the moment he could have done with something that did not pierce quite so like a red-hot gimlet to his inmost soul. A sense of guilt makes a man allergic to direct, honest gazes.
‘Matter?’ he said, getting the word shorter and crisper this time. ‘What do you mean, what’s the matter? Nothing’s the matter. Why do you ask?’
‘You were groaning like a foghorn.’
‘Oh, that. Touch of neuralgia.’
‘You’ve got a headache?’
‘Yes, it’s been coming on for some time. I’ve had rather an exhausting afternoon.’
‘Why, aren’t the crops rotating properly? Or are the pigs going in for smaller families?’
‘My chief problem today,’ said Bill dully, ‘concerned horses.’
A quick look of suspicion came into Jill’s gaze. Like all nice girls, she had, where the man she loved was concerned, something of the Private Eye about her.
‘Have you been bett
ing again?’
Bill stared.
‘Me?’
‘You gave me your solemn promise you wouldn’t. Oh, Bill, you are an idiot. You’re more trouble to look after than a troupe of performing seals. Can’t you see it’s just throwing money away? Can’t you get it into your fat head that the punters haven’t a hope against the bookmakers? I know people are always talking about bringing off fantastic doubles and winning thousands of pounds with a single fiver, but that sort of thing never really happens. What did you say?’
Bill had not spoken. The sound that had proceeded from his twisted lips had been merely a soft moan like that of an emotional red Indian at the stake.
‘It happens sometimes,’ he said hollowly. ‘I’ve heard of cases.’
‘Well, it couldn’t happen to you. Horses just aren’t lucky for you.’
Bill writhed. The illusion that he was being roasted over a slow fire had become extraordinarily vivid.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I see that now.’
Jill’s gaze became more direct and penetrating than ever.
‘Come clean, Bill. Did you back a loser in the Oaks?’
This was so diametrically opposite to what had actually occurred that Bill perked up a little.
‘Of course I didn’t.’
‘You swear?’
‘I may begin to at any moment.’
‘You didn’t back anything in the Oaks?’
‘Certainly not.’
‘Then what’s the matter?’
‘I told you. I’ve got a headache.’
‘Poor old thing. Can I get you anything?’
‘No, thanks. Jeeves is bringing me a whisky and soda.’
‘Would a kiss help, while you’re waiting?’
‘It would save a human life.’
Jill kissed him, but absently. She appeared to be thinking.
‘Jeeves was with you today, wasn’t he?’ she said.
‘Yes. Yes, Jeeves was along.’
‘You always take him with you on these expeditions of yours.’
‘Yes.’
‘Where do you go?’
‘We make the rounds.’
‘Doing what?’
‘Oh, this and that.’
‘I see. How’s the headache?’
‘A little better, thanks.’
‘Good.’
Ring For Jeeves Page 4