The Jeeves Omnibus (310 page)

‘You?’ I said.

‘That’s me,’ he replied. ‘My last year at school. I skippered the side that season. That’s old Scrubby Willoughby sitting next to me. Fast wing threequarter, but never would learn to give the reverse pass.’

‘He wouldn’t?’ I said, shocked. I hadn’t the remotest what he was talking about, but he had said enough to show me that this Willoughby must have been a pretty dubious character, and when he went on to tell me that poor old Scrubby had died of cirrhosis of the liver in the Federal Malay States, I wasn’t really surprised. I imagine these fellows who won’t learn to give the reverse pass generally come to a fairly sticky end.

‘Chap on my other side is Smiler Todd, prop forward.’

‘Prop forward, eh?’

‘And a very good one. Played for Cambridge later on. You fond of Rugger?’

‘I don’t think I know him.’

‘Rugby football.’

‘Oh, ah. No, I’ve never gone in for it.’

‘You haven’t?’

‘No.’

‘Good God!’

I could see that I had sunk pretty low in his estimation, but he was a host and managed to fight down the feeling of nausea with which my confession had afflicted him.

‘I’ve always been mad keen on Rugger. Didn’t get much of it after leaving school, as they stationed me in West Africa. Tried to teach the natives there the game, but had to give it up. Too many deaths, with the inevitable subsequent blood feuds. Retired now and settled down here. I’m trying to make Hockley-cum-Meston the best football village in these parts, and I will say for the lads that they’re coming on nicely. What we need is a good prop forward, and I can’t find one. But you don’t want to hear all this. You want to know about my
Brazilian
expedition.’

‘Oh, have you been to Brazil?’

I seemed to have said the wrong thing, as one so often does. He stared.

‘Didn’t you know I’d been to Brazil?’

‘Nobody tells me anything.’

‘I should have thought they’d have briefed you at the office. Seems silly to send a reporter all the way down here without telling him what they’re sending him for.’

I’m pretty astute, and I saw there had been a mix-up somewhere.

‘Were you expecting a reporter?’

‘Of course I was. Aren’t you from the
Daily Express
?’

‘Sorry, no.’

‘I thought you must be the chap who was coming to interview me about my Brazilian explorations.’

‘Oh, you’re an explorer?’

Again I had said the wrong thing. He was plainly piqued.

‘What did you think I was? Does the name Plank mean nothing to you?’

‘Is your name Plank?’

‘Of course it is.’

‘Well, what a very odd coincidence,’ I said, intrigued. ‘I’m looking for a character called Plank. Not you, somebody else. The bimbo I want is a sturdy tiller of the soil, probably gnarled, with a sailor son. As you have the same name as him, you’ll probably be interested in the story I’m about to relate. I have here,’ I said, producing the black amber thing, ‘a what-not.’

He gaped at it.

‘Where did you get that? That’s the bit of native sculpture I picked up on the Congo and then sold to Sir Watkyn Bassett.’

I was amazed.

‘
You
sold it to him?’

‘Certainly.’

‘Well, shiver my timbers!’

I was conscious of a Boy Scoutful glow. I liked this Plank, and I rejoiced that it was in my power to do him as good a turn as anyone had ever done anybody. God bless Bertram Wooster, I felt he’d be saying in another couple of ticks. For the first time I was glad that Stiffy had sent me on this mission.

‘Then I’ll tell you what,’ I said. ‘If you’ll just give me five pounds –’

I broke off. He was looking at me with a cold, glassy stare, as no doubt he had looked at the late lions, leopards and gnus whose remains
were
to be viewed on the walls of the outer hall. Fellows at the Drones who have tried to touch Ooofy Prosser, the club millionaire, for a trifle to see them through till next Wednesday have described him to me as looking just like that.

‘Oh, so that’s it!’ he said, and even Pop Bassett could not have spoken more nastily. ‘I’ve got your number now. I’ve met your sort all over the world. You won’t get any five pounds, my man. You sit where you are and don’t move. I’m going to call the police.’

‘It will not be necessary, sir,’ said a respectful voice, and Jeeves entered through the french window.

HIS ADVENT DREW
from me a startled goggle and, I rather think, a cry of amazement. Last man I’d expected to see, and how he had got here defeated me. I’ve sometimes felt that he must dematerialize himself like those fellows in India – fakirs, I think they’re called – who fade into thin air in Bombay and turn up five minutes later in Calcutta or points west with all the parts reassembled.

Nor could I see how he had divined that the young master was in sore straits and in urgent need of his assistance, unless it was all done by what I believe is termed telepathy. Still, here he was, with his head bulging at the back and on his face that look of quiet intelligence which comes from eating lots of fish, and I welcomed his presence. I knew from experience what a wizard he was at removing the oppressed from the soup, and the soup was what I was at this point in my affairs deeply immersed in.

‘Major Plank?’ he said.

Plank, too, was goggling.

‘Who on earth are you?’

‘Chief Inspector Witherspoon, sir, of Scotland Yard. Has this man been attempting to obtain money from you?’

‘Just been doing that very thing.’

‘As I suspected. We have had our eye on him for a long time, but till now have never been able to apprehend him in the act.’

‘Notorious crook, is he?’

‘Precisely, sir. He is a confidence man of considerable eminence in the underworld, who makes a practice of calling at houses and extracting money from their owners with some plausible story.’

‘He does more than that. He pinches things from people and tries to sell them. Look at that statuette he’s holding. It’s a thing I sold to Sir Watkyn Bassett, who lives at Totleigh-in-the-Wold, and he had the cool cheek to come here and try to sell it to me for five pounds.’

‘Indeed, sir? With your permission I will impound the object.’

‘You’ll need it as evidence?’

‘Exactly, sir. I shall now take him to Totleigh Towers and confront him with Sir Watkyn.’

‘Yes, do. That’ll teach him. Nasty hangdog look the fellow’s got. I suspected from the first he was wanted by the police. Had him under observation for a long time, have you?’

‘For a very long time, sir. He is known to us at the Yard as Alpine Joe, because he always wears an Alpine hat.’

‘He’s got it with him now.’

‘He never moves without it.’

‘You’d think he’d have the sense to adopt some rude disguise.’

‘You would indeed, sir, but the mental processes of a man like that are hard to follow.’

‘Then there’s no need for me to phone the local police?’

‘None, sir. I will take him into custody.’

‘You wouldn’t like me to hit him over the head first with a Zulu knobkerrie?’

‘Unnecessary, sir.’

‘It might be safer.’

‘No, sir, I am sure he will come quietly.’

‘Well, have it your own way. But don’t let him give you the slip.’

‘I will be very careful, sir.’

‘And shove him into a dungeon with dripping walls and see to it that he is well gnawed by rats.’

‘Very good, sir.’

What with all the stuff about reverse passes and prop forwards, plus the strain of seeing gentlemen’s personal gentlemen appear from nowhere and of having to listen to that loose talk about Zulu knobkerries, the Wooster bean was not at its best as we moved off, and there was nothing in the way of conversational give-and-take until we had reached my car, which I had left at the front gate.

‘Chief Inspector
who
?’ I said, recovering a modicum of speech as we arrived at our objective.

‘Witherspoon, sir.’

‘Why Witherspoon? On the other hand,’ I added, for I like to look on both sides of a thing, ‘why not Witherspoon? However, that is not germane to the issue and can be reserved for discussion later. The real point – the nub – the thing that should be threshed out immediately – is how on earth do you come to be here?’

‘I anticipated that my arrival might occasion you a certain surprise, sir. I hastened after you directly I learned of the revelation Sir Watkyn had made to Miss Byng, for I foresaw that your interview with Major
Plank
would be embarrassing, and I hoped to be able to intercept you before you could establish communication with him.’

Practically all of this floated past me.

‘How do you mean, the revelation Pop Bassett made to Stiffy?’

‘It occurred shortly after luncheon, sir. Miss Byng informs me that she decided to approach Sir Watkyn and make a last appeal to his better feelings. As you are aware, the matter of the statuette has always been one that affected her deeply. She thought that if she reproached Sir Watkyn with sufficient vehemence, something constructive might result. Greatly to her astonishment, she had hardly begun to speak when Sir Watkyn, chuckling heartily, asked her if she could keep a secret. He then revealed that there was no foundation for the story he had told Mr. Travers and that in actual fact he had paid Major Plank a thousand pounds for the object.’

It took me perhaps a quarter of a minute to sort all this out.

‘A thousand quid?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Not a fiver?’

‘No, sir.’

‘You mean he lied to Uncle Tom?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘What on earth did he do that for?’

I thought he would say he hadn’t a notion, but he didn’t.

‘I think Sir Watkyn’s motive was obvious, sir.’

‘Not to me.’

‘He acted from a desire to exasperate Mr. Travers. Mr. Travers is a collector, and collectors are never pleased when they learn that a rival collector has acquired at an insignificant price an
objet d’art
of great value.’

It penetrated. I saw what he meant. The discovery that Pop Bassett had got hold of a thousand-quid thingummy for practically nothing would have been gall and w. to Uncle Tom. Stiffy had described him as writhing like an egg whisk, and I could well believe it. It must have been agony for the poor old buster.

‘You’ve hit it, Jeeves. It’s just what Pop Bassett would do. Nothing would please him better than to spoil Uncle Tom’s day. What a man, Jeeves!’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Would you like to have a mind like his?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Nor me. It just shows how being a magistrate saps the moral fibre. I remember thinking as I stood before him in the dock that he had a
shifty
eye and that I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw an elephant. I suppose all magistrates are like that.’

‘There may be exceptions, sir.’

‘I doubt it. Twisters, every one of them. So my errand was…what, Jeeves?’

‘Bootless, sir.’

‘Bootless? It doesn’t sound right, but I suppose you know. Well, I wish the news you’ve just sprung could have broken before I presented myself
chez
Plank. I would have been spared a testing ordeal.’

‘I can appreciate the nervous strain you must have undergone, sir. It is unfortunate that I was not able to arrive earlier.’

‘How did you arrive at all? That’s what’s puzzling me. You can’t have walked.’

‘No, sir. I borrowed Miss Byng’s car. I left it some little distance down the road and proceeded to the house on foot. Hearing voices, I approached the french window and listened, and was thus enabled to intervene at the crucial moment.’

‘Very resourceful.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘I should like to express my gratitude. And when I say gratitude, I mean heartfelt gratitude.’

‘Not at all, sir. It was a pleasure.’

‘But for you, Plank would have had me in the local calaboose in a matter of minutes. Who is he, by the way? I got the impression that he was an explorer of sorts.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Pretty far-flung, I gathered.’

‘Extremely, sir. He has recently returned from an expedition into the interior of Brazil. He inherited the house where he resides from a deceased godfather. He breeds cocker spaniels, suffers somewhat from malaria and eats only non-fattening protein bread.’

‘You seem to have got him taped all right.’

‘I made inquiries at the post office, sir. The person behind the counter was most informative. I also learned that Major Plank is an enthusiast on Rugby football and is hoping to make Hockley-cum-Meston invincible on the field.’

‘Yes, so he was telling me. You aren’t a prop forward, are you, Jeeves?’

‘No, sir. Indeed, I do not know what the term signifies.’

‘I don’t, either, except that it’s something a team has to have if it’s hoping to do down the opposition at Rugby football. Plank, I believe, has searched high and low for one, but his errand has been bootless.
Rather
sad, when you come to think of it. All that money, all those cocker spaniels, all that protein bread, but no prop forward. Still, that’s life.’

‘Yes indeed, sir.’

I slid behind the steering wheel, and told him to hop in.

‘But I was forgetting. You’ve got Stiffy’s car. Then I’ll be driving on. The sooner I get this statuette thing back into her custody, the better.’

He didn’t shake his head, because he never shakes his head, but he raised the south-east corner of a warning eyebrow.

‘If you will pardon the suggestion, sir, I think it would be more advisable for me to take the object to Miss Byng. It would scarcely be prudent for you to enter the environs of Totleigh Towers with it on your person. You might encounter his lordship … I should say Mr. Spode.’

I well-I’ll-be-dashed. He had surprised me.

‘Surely you aren’t suggesting that he would frisk me?’

‘I think it highly possible, sir. In the conversation which I overheard, Mr. Spode gave me the impression of being prepared to stop at nothing. If you will give me the object, I will see that Miss Byng restores it to the collection room at the earliest possible moment.’