The Jeeves Omnibus (14 page)

In my experience, there are two kinds of elderly American. One, the stout and horn-rimmed, is matiness itself. He greets you as if you were a favourite son, starts agitating the cocktail shaker before you know where you are, slips a couple into you with a merry laugh, claps you on the back, tells you a dialect story about two Irishmen named Pat and Mike, and, in a word, makes life one grand, sweet song.

The other, which runs a good deal to the cold, grey stare and the square jaw, seems to view the English cousin with concern. It is not Elfin. It broods. It says little. It sucks in its breath in a pained way. And every now and again you catch its eye, and it is like colliding with a raw oyster.

Of this latter class or species J. Washburn Stoker has always been the perpetual vice-president.

It was with considerable relief, therefore, that I found that tonight he had eased off a bit. While not precisely affable, he gave a distinct impression of being as nearly affable as he knew how.

‘I hope you have no objection to a quiet family dinner, Mr Wooster?’ he said, having shaken the hand.

‘Rather not. Dashed good of you to ask me,’ I replied, not to be outdone in the courtesies.

‘Just you and Dwight and myself. My daughter is lying down. She has a headache.’

This was something of a jar. In fact, it seemed to me to take what you might describe as the whole meaning out of this expedition.

‘Oh?’ I said.

‘I am afraid she found her exertions last night a little too much for her,’ said Pop Stoker, with something of the old fishlike expression in the eye: and, reading between the lines, I rather gathered that Pauline had been sent to bed without her supper, in disgrace. Old Stoker was not one of your broadminded, modern parents. There was, as I had had occasion to notice before, a distinct touch of the stern and rockbound old Pilgrim Father about him. A man, in short, who, in his dealings with his family, believed in the firm hand.

Observing that eye, I found it a bit difficult to shape the kindly inquiries.

‘Then you – er … she – er –?’

‘Yes. You were quite right, Mr Wooster. She had gone for a swim.’

And once more, as he spoke, I caught a flash of the fishlike. I could see that Pauline’s stock was far from high this
PM
, and I would have liked to put in a word for the poor young blighter. But beyond an idea of saying that girls would be girls, which I abandoned, I could think of nothing.

At this moment, however, a steward of sorts announced dinner, and we pushed in.

I must say that there were moments during that dinner when I regretted that occurrences which could not be overlooked had resulted in the absence from the board of the Hall party. You will question this statement, no doubt, inclining to the view that all a dinner-party needs to make it a success is for Sir Roderick Glossop, the Dowager Lady Chuffnell, and the latter’s son, Seabury, not to be there. Nevertheless, I stick to my opinion. There was a certain
uncomfortable
something about the atmosphere which more or less turned the food to ashes in my mouth. If it hadn’t been that this man, this Stoker, had gone out of his way to invite me, I should have said that I was giving him a pain in the neck. Most of the time he just sat and champed in a sort of dark silence, like a man with something on his mind. And when he did speak it was with a marked what-d’you-call-it. I mean to say, not actually out of the corner of his mouth, but very near it.

I did my best to promote a flow of conversation. But it was not till young Dwight had left the table and we were lighting the cigars that I seemed to hit on a topic that interested, elevated, and amused.

‘A fine boat, this, Mr Stoker,’ I said.

For the first time, something approaching animation came into the face.

‘Not many better.’

‘I’ve never done much yachting. And, except at Cowes one year, I’ve never been on a boat this size.’

He puffed at his cigar. An eye came swivelling round in my direction, then pushed off again.

‘There are advantages in having a yacht.’

‘Oh, rather.’

‘Plenty of room to put your friends up.’

‘Heaps.’

‘And, when you’ve got ’em, they can’t get away so easy as they could ashore.’

It seemed a rummy way of looking at it, but I supposed a man like Stoker would naturally have a difficulty in keeping guests. I mean, I took it that he had had painful experiences in the past. And nothing, of course, makes a host look sillier than to have somebody arrive at his country house for a long visit and then to find, round about lunch-time the second day, that he has made a quiet sneak for the railway station.

‘Care to look over the boat?’ he asked.

‘Fine,’ I said.

‘I’d be glad to show it to you. This is the main saloon we’re in.’

‘Ah,’ I said.

‘I’ll show you the state-rooms.’

He rose, and we went along passages and things. We came to a door. He opened it and switched on the light.

‘This is one of our larger guest-rooms.’

‘Very nice, too.’

‘Go in and take a look round.’

Well, there wasn’t much to see that I couldn’t focus from the threshold, but one has to do the civil thing on these occasions. I toddled over and gave the bed a prod.

And, as I did so, the door slammed. And when I nipped round, the old boy had disappeared.

Rather rummy, was my verdict. In fact, distinctly rummy. I went across and gave the handle a twist.

The bally door was locked.

‘Hoy!’ I called.

No answer.

‘Hey!’ I said. ‘Mr Stoker.’

Only silence, and lots of it.

I went and sat down on the bed. This seemed to me to want thinking out.

I CAN’T SAY
I liked the look of things. In addition to being at a loss and completely unable to follow the scenario, I was also distinctly on the uneasy side. I don’t know if you ever read a book called
The Masked Seven
? It’s one of those goose-fleshers and there’s a chap in it, Drexdale Yeats, a private investigator, who starts looking for clues in a cellar one night, and he’s hardly collected a couple when –
bingo
– there’s a metallic clang and there he is with the trapdoor shut and someone sniggering nastily on the other side. For a moment his heart stood still, and so did mine. Excluding the nasty snigger (which Stoker might quite well have uttered without my hearing it), it seemed to me that my case was more or less on all fours with his. Like jolly old Drexdale, I sensed some lurking peril.

Of course, mark you, if something on these lines had occurred at some country house where I was staying, and the hand that had turned the key had been that of a pal of mine, a ready explanation would have presented itself. I should have set it down as a spot of hearty humour. My circle of friends is crammed with fellows who would consider it dashed diverting to bung you into a room and lock the door. But on the present occasion I could not see this being the solution. There was nothing roguish about old Stoker. Whatever view you might take of this fishy-eyed man, you would never call him playful. If Pop Stoker put his guests in cold storage, his motive in so doing was sinister.

Little wonder, then, that as he sat on the edge of the bed pensively sucking at his cigar, Bertram was feeling uneasy. The thought of Stoker’s second cousin, George, forced itself upon the mind. Dotty, beyond a question. And who knew but what that dottiness might not run in the family? It didn’t seem such a long step, I mean to say, from a Stoker locking people in state-rooms to a Stoker with slavering jaws and wild, animal eyes coming back and doing them a bit of no good with the meat axe.

When, therefore, there was a click and the door opened, revealing
mine
host on the threshold, I confess that I rather drew myself together somewhat and pretty well prepared myself for the worst.

His manner, however, was reassuring. Puff-faced, yes, but not fiend-in-human-shape-y. The eyes were steady and the mouth lacked foam. And he was still smoking his cigar, which I felt was promising. I mean, I’ve never met any homicidal loonies, but I should imagine that the first thing they would do before setting about a fellow would be to throw away their cigars.

‘Well, Mr Wooster?’

I never have known quite what to answer when blokes say ‘Well?’ to me, and I don’t now.

‘I must apologize for leaving you so abruptly,’ proceeded Stoker, ‘but I had to get the concert started.’

‘I’m looking forward to the concert,’ I said.

‘A pity,’ said Pop Stoker. ‘Because you’re going to miss it.’

He eyed me musingly.

‘There was a time, when I was younger, when I would have broken your neck,’ he said.

I didn’t like the trend the conversation was taking. After all, a man is as young as he feels, and there was no knowing that he wouldn’t suddenly get one of these – what do you call them? – illusions of youth. I had an uncle once, aged seventy-six, who, under the influence of old crusted port, would climb trees.

‘Look here,’ I said civilly but with what you might call a certain urgency, ‘I know it’s trespassing on your time, but could you tell me what all this is about?’

‘You don’t know?’

‘No, I’m hanged if I do.’

‘And you can’t guess?’

‘No, I’m dashed if I can.’

‘Then I had best tell you from the beginning. Perhaps you recall my visiting you last night?’

I said I hadn’t forgotten.

‘I thought my daughter was in your cottage. I searched it. I did not find her.’

I twiddled a hand magnanimously.

‘We all make mistakes.’

He nodded.

‘Yes. So I went away. And do you know what happened after I left you, Mr Wooster? I was coming out of the garden gate when your local police sergeant stopped me. He seemed suspicious.’

I waved my cigar sympathetically.

‘Something will have to be done about Voules,’ I said. ‘The man is a pest. I hope you were pretty terse with him.’

‘Not at all. I supposed he was only doing his duty. I told him who I was and where I lived. On learning that I came from this yacht, he asked me to accompany him to the police station.’

I was amazed.

‘What bally cheek! You can’t mean he pinched you?’

‘No, he was not arresting me. He wished me to identify someone who was in custody.’

‘Bally cheek, all the same. What on earth did he bother you with that sort of job for? Besides, how on earth could you identify anyone? I mean, a stranger in these parts, and all that sort of thing.’

‘In this instance it was simple. The prisoner happened to be my daughter, Pauline.’

‘What!’

‘Yes, Mr Wooster. It seems that this man Voules was in his back garden late last night – it adjoins yours, if you recollect – and he saw a figure climbing out of one of the lower windows of your house. He ran down the garden and caught this individual. It was my daughter Pauline. She was wearing a swimming suit and an overcoat belonging to you. So, you see, you were right when you told me she had probably gone for a swim.’

He knocked the ash carefully off his cigar. I didn’t need to do it to mine.

‘She must have been with you a few moments before I arrived. Now, perhaps, Mr Wooster, you can understand what I meant when I said that, when I was a younger man, I would have broken your neck.’

I hadn’t anything much to say. One hasn’t sometimes.

‘Nowadays, I’m more sensible,’ he proceeded. ‘I take the easier way. I say to myself that Mr Wooster is not the son-in-law I would have chosen personally, but if my hand has been forced that is all there is to it. Anyway, you’re not the gibbering idiot I thought you at one time, I’m glad to say. I have heard since that those stories which caused me to break off Pauline’s engagement to you in New York were untrue. So we can consider everything just as it was three months ago. We will look upon that letter of Pauline’s as unwritten.’

You can’t reel when you’re sitting on a bed. Otherwise, I would have done so, and right heartily. I was feeling as if a hidden hand had socked me in the solar plexus.

‘Do you mean –?’

He let me have an eye squarely in the pupil. A beastly sort of eye, cold and yet hot, if you follow me. If this was the Boss’s Eye you read so much about in the advertisements in American magazines, I was dashed if I could see why any ambitious young shipping clerk should be so bally anxious to catch it. It went clean through me, and I lost the thread of my remarks.

‘I am assuming that you wish to marry my daughter?’

Well, of course … I mean, dash it … I mean, there isn’t much you can say to an observation like that. I just weighed in with a mild ‘Oh, ah!’

‘I am not quite sure if I understand the precise significance of the expression “Oh, ah!”’ he said, and, by Jove, I wonder if you notice a rather rummy thing. I mean to say, this man had had the advantage of Jeeves’s society for only about twenty-four hours, and here he was – except that Jeeves would have said ‘wholly’ instead of ‘quite’ and stuck in a ‘sir’ or two – talking just like him. I mean, it just shows. I remember putting young Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright up at the flat for a week once, and the very second day he said something to me about gauging somebody’s latent potentialities. And Catsmeat a fellow who had always thought you were kidding him when you assured him that there were words in the language that had more than one syllable. As I say, it simply goes to show …

However, where was I?

‘I am not quite sure if I understand the precise significance of the expression “Oh, ah!”’ said this Stoker, ‘but I will take it to mean that you do. I won’t pretend that I’m delighted, but one can’t have everything. What are your views upon engagements, Mr Wooster?’

‘Engagements?’

‘Should they be short or long?’

‘Well –’

‘I prefer them short. I feel that we had best put this wedding through as quickly as possible. I shall have to find out how soon that is on this side. I believe you cannot simply go to the nearest minister, as in my country. There are formalities. While these are being attended to, you will, of course, be my guest. I’m afraid I can’t offer you the freedom of the boat, because you are a pretty slippery young gentleman and might suddenly remember a date elsewhere – some unfortunate appointment which would necessitate your leaving. But I shall do my best to make you comfortable in this room for the next
few
days. There are books on that shelf – I assume you can read? – and cigarettes on the table. I will send my man along in a few minutes with some pyjamas and so on. And now I will wish you good night, Mr Wooster. I must be getting back to the concert. I can’t stay away from my son’s birthday-party, can I, even for the pleasure of talking to you?’