The Jeeves Omnibus (43 page)

‘What is this joint?’ she was demanding heatedly. ‘A loony bin? Has everybody gone crazy? First I meet Spink-Bottle racing along the corridor like a mustang. Then you try to walk through me as if
I
were thistledown. And now the gentleman in the burnous has started tickling my ankle – a thing that hasn’t happened to me since the York and Ainsty Hunt Ball of the year nineteen-twenty-one.’

These protests must have filtered through to Spode, and presumably stirred his better nature, for he let go, and she got up, dusting her dress.

‘Now, then,’ she said, somewhat calmer. ‘An explanation, if you please, and a categorical one. What’s the idea? What’s it all about? Who the devil’s that inside the winding-sheet?’

I made the introductions.

‘You’ve met Spode, haven’t you? Mr Roderick Spode, Mrs Travers.’

Spode had now removed the sheet, but the picture was still in position, and Aunt Dahlia eyed it wonderingly.

‘What on earth have you got that thing round your neck for?’ she asked. Then, in more tolerant vein: ‘Wear it if you like, of course, but it doesn’t suit you.’

Spode did not reply. He was breathing heavily. I didn’t blame him, mind you – in his place, I’d have done the same – but the sound was not agreeable, and I wished he wouldn’t. He was also gazing at me intently, and I wished he wouldn’t do that, either. His face was flushed, his eyes were bulging, and one had the odd illusion that his hair was standing on end – like quills upon the fretful porpentine, as Jeeves once put it when describing to me the reactions of Barmy Fotheringay-Phipps on seeing a dead snip, on which he had invested largely, come in sixth in the procession at the Newmarket Spring Meeting.

I remember once, during a temporary rift with Jeeves, engaging a man from the registry office to serve me in his stead, and he hadn’t been with me a week when he got blotto one night and set fire to the house and tried to slice me up with a carving knife. Said he wanted to see the colour of my insides, of all bizarre ideas. And until this moment I had always looked on that episode as the most trying in my experience. I now saw that it must be ranked second.

This bird of whom I speak was a simple, untutored soul and Spode a man of good education and upbringing, but it was plain that there was one point at which their souls touched. I don’t suppose they would have seen eye to eye on any other subject you could have brought up, but in the matter of wanting to see the colour of my insides their minds ran on parallel lines. The only difference seemed to be that whereas my employee had planned to use a carving knife
for
his excavations, Spode appeared to be satisfied that the job could be done all right with the bare hands.

‘I must ask you to leave us, madam,’ he said.

‘But I’ve only just come,’ said Aunt Dahlia.

‘I am going to thrash this man within an inch of his life.’

It was quite the wrong tone to take with the aged relative. She has a very clannish spirit and, as I have said, is fond of Bertram. Her brow darkened.

‘You don’t touch a nephew of mine.’

‘I am going to break every bone in his body.’

‘You aren’t going to do anything of the sort. The idea! … Here, you!’

She raised her voice sharply as she spoke the concluding words, and what had caused her to do so was the fact that Spode at this moment made a sudden move in my direction.

Considering the manner in which his eyes were gleaming and his moustache bristling, not to mention the gritting teeth and the sinister twiddling of the fingers, it was a move which might have been expected to send me flitting away like an adagio dancer. And had it occurred somewhat earlier, it would undoubtedly have done so. But I did not flit. I stood where I was, calm and collected. Whether I folded my arms or not, I cannot recall, but I remember that there was a faint, amused smile upon my lips.

For that brief monosyllable ‘you’ had accomplished what a quarter of an hour’s research had been unable to do – viz the unsealing of the fount of memory. Jeeves’s words came back to me with a rush. One moment, the mind a blank: the next, the fount of memory spouting like nobody’s business. It often happens this way.

‘One minute, Spode,’ I said quietly. ‘Just one minute. Before you start getting above yourself, it may interest you to learn that I know all about Eulalie.’

It was stupendous. I felt like one of those chaps who press buttons and explode mines. If it hadn’t been that my implicit faith in Jeeves had led me to expect solid results, I should have been astounded at the effect of this pronouncement on the man. You could see that it had got right in amongst him and churned him up like an egg whisk. He recoiled as if he had run into something hot, and a look of horror and alarm spread slowly over his face.

The whole situation recalled irresistibly to my mind something that had happened to me once up at Oxford, when the heart was young. It was during Eights Week, and I was sauntering on the
riverbank
with a girl named something that has slipped my mind, when there was a sound of barking and a large, hefty dog came galloping up, full of beans and buck and obviously intent on mayhem. And I was just commending my soul to God, and feeling that this was where the old flannel trousers got about thirty bob’s worth of value bitten out of them, when the girl, waiting till she saw the whites of its eyes, with extraordinary presence of mind suddenly opened a coloured Japanese umbrella in the animal’s face. Upon which, it did three back somersaults and retired into private life.

Except that he didn’t do any back somersaults, Roderick Spode’s reactions were almost identical with those of this nonplussed hound. For a moment, he just stood gaping. Then he said ‘Oh?’ Then his lips twisted into what I took to be his idea of a conciliatory smile. After that, he swallowed six – or it may have been seven – times, as if he had taken aboard a fish bone. Finally, he spoke. And when he did so, it was the nearest thing to a cooing dove that I have ever heard – and an exceptionally mild-mannered dove, at that.

‘Oh, do you?’ he said.

‘I do,’ I replied.

If he had asked me what I knew about her, he would have had me stymied, but he didn’t.

‘Er – how did you find out?’

‘I have my methods.’

‘Oh?’ he said.

‘Ah,’ I replied, and there was silence again for a moment.

I wouldn’t have believed it possible for so tough an egg to sidle obsequiously, but that was how he now sidled up to me. There was a pleading look in his eyes.

‘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
?’