The Jeeves Omnibus (74 page)

I pressed the bell.

‘I’ll consult Jeeves. I don’t touch any sporting proposition without his advice. Jeeves,’ I said, as he drifted in, ‘rally round.’

‘Sir?’

‘Stand by. We want your advice.’

‘Very good, sir.’

‘State your case, Bingo.’

Bingo stated his case.

‘What about it, Jeeves?’ I said. ‘Do we go in?’

Jeeves pondered to some extent.

‘I am inclined to favour the idea, sir.’

That was good enough for me. ‘Right,’ I said. ‘Then we will form a syndicate and bust the Ring. I supply the money, you supply the brains, and Bingo – what do you supply, Bingo?’

‘If you will carry me, and let me settle up later,’ said young Bingo, ‘I think I can put you in the way of winning a parcel on the Mothers’ Sack Race.’

‘All right. We will put you down as Inside Information. Now what are the events?’

Bingo reached for his paper and consulted it.

‘Girls’ Under Fourteen Fifty-Yard Dash seems to open the proceedings.’

‘Anything to say about that, Jeeves?’

‘No, sir. I have no information.’

‘What’s the next?’

‘Boys’ and Girls’ Mixed Animal Potato Race, All Ages.’

This was a new one to me. I had never heard of it at any of the big meetings.

‘What’s that?’

‘Rather sporting,’ said young Bingo. ‘The competitors enter in couples, each couple being assigned an animal cry and a potato. For instance, let’s suppose that you and Jeeves entered. Jeeves would stand at a fixed point holding a potato. You would have your head in a sack, and you would grope about trying to find Jeeves and making a noise like a cat; Jeeves also making a noise like a cat. Other competitors would be making noises like cows and pigs and dogs, and so on, and groping about for
their
potato-holders, who would also be making noises like cows and pigs and dogs and so on –’

I stopped the poor fish.

‘Jolly if you’re fond of animals,’ I said, ‘but on the whole –’

‘Precisely, sir,’ said Jeeves. ‘I wouldn’t touch it.’

‘Too open, what?’

‘Exactly, sir. Very hard to estimate form.’

‘Carry on, Bingo. Where do we go from there?’

‘Mothers’ Sack Race.’

‘Ah! That’s better. This is where you know something.’

‘A gift for Mrs Penworthy, the tobacconist’s wife,’ said Bingo confidently. ‘I was in at her shop yesterday, buying cigarettes, and she told me she had won three times at fairs in Worcestershire. She only moved to these parts a short time ago, so nobody knows about her. She promised me she would keep herself dark, and I think we could get a good price.’

‘Risk a tenner each way, Jeeves, what?’

‘I think so, sir.’

‘Girls’ Open Egg and Spoon Race,’ read Bingo.

‘How about that?’

‘I doubt if it would be worthwhile to invest, sir,’ said Jeeves. ‘I am told it is a certainty for last year’s winner, Sarah Mills, who will doubtless start an odds-on favourite.’

‘Good, is she?’

‘They tell me in the village that she carries a beautiful egg, sir.’

‘Then there’s the Obstacle Race,’ said Bingo. ‘Risky, in my opinion. Like betting on the Grand National. Fathers’ Hat-Trimming Contest – another speculative event. That’s all except for the Choir-Boys’ Hundred Yards Handicap, for a pewter mug presented by the vicar – open to all whose voices have not broken before the second Sunday in Epiphany. Willie Chambers won last year, in a canter, receiving fifteen yards. This time he will probably be handicapped out of the race. I don’t know what to advise.’

‘If I might make a suggestion, sir.’

I eyed Jeeves with interest. I don’t know that I’d ever seen him look so nearly excited.

‘You’ve got something up your sleeve?’

‘I have, sir.’

‘Red-hot?’

‘That precisely describes it, sir. I think I may confidently assert that we have the winner of the Choir-Boys’ Handicap under this very roof, sir. Harold, the page-boy.’

‘Page-boy? Do you mean the tubby little chap in buttons one sees bobbing about here and there? Why, dash it, Jeeves, nobody has a greater respect for your knowledge of form than I have, but I’m hanged if I can see Harold catching the judge’s eye. He’s practically circular, and every time I’ve seen him he’s been leaning up against something, half asleep.’

‘He receives thirty yards, sir, and could win from scratch. The boy is a flier.’

‘How do you know?’

Jeeves coughed, and there was a dreamy look in his eye.

‘I was as much astonished as yourself, sir, when I first became aware of the lad’s capabilities. I happened to pursue him one morning with the intention of fetching him a clip on the side of the head –’

‘Great Scott, Jeeves! You?’

‘Yes, sir. The boy is of an outspoken disposition, and had made an opprobrious remark respecting my personal appearance.’

‘What did he say about your appearance?’

‘I have forgotten, sir,’ said Jeeves, with a touch of austerity. ‘But it was opprobrious. I endeavoured to correct him, but he outdistanced me by yards and made good his escape.’

‘But, I say, Jeeves, this is sensational. And yet – if he’s such a
sprinter
, why hasn’t anybody in the village found it out? Surely he plays with the other boys?’

‘No, sir. As his lordship’s page-boy, Harold does not mix with the village lads.’

‘Bit of a snob, what?’

‘He is somewhat acutely alive to the existence of class distinctions, sir.’

‘You’re absolutely certain he’s such a wonder?’ said Bingo. ‘I mean, it wouldn’t do to plunge unless you’re sure.’

‘If you desire to ascertain the boy’s form by personal inspection, sir, it will be a simple matter to arrange a secret trial.’

‘I’m bound to say I should feel easier in my mind,’ I said.

‘Then if I may take a shilling from the money on your dressing-table –’

‘What for?’

‘I propose to bribe the lad to speak slightingly of the second footman’s quint, sir. Charles is somewhat sensitive on the point, and should undoubtedly make the lad extend himself. If you will be at the first-floor passage-window, overlooking the back door, in half an hour’s time –’

I don’t know when I’ve dressed in such a hurry. As a rule, I’m what you might call a slow and careful dresser: I like to linger over the tie and see that the trousers are just so; but this morning I was all worked up. I just shoved on my things anyhow, and joined Bingo at the window with a quarter of an hour to spare.

The passage-window looked down on to a broad sort of paved courtyard, which ended after about twenty yards in an archway through a high wall. Beyond this archway you got to a strip of the drive, which curved round for another thirty yards or so, till it was lost behind a thick shrubbery. I put myself in the stripling’s place and thought what steps I would take with a second footman after me. There was only one thing to do – leg it for the shrubbery and take cover; which meant that at least fifty yards would have to be covered – an excellent test. If good old Harold could fight off the second footman’s challenge long enough to allow him to reach the bushes, there wasn’t a choir-boy in England who could give him thirty yards in the hundred. I waited, all of a twitter, for what seemed like hours, and then suddenly there was a confused noise without, and something round and blue and buttony shot through the back door and buzzed for the archway like a mustang. And about two seconds later out came the second footman, going his hardest.

There was nothing to it. Absolutely nothing. The field never had a chance. Long before the footman reached the half-way mark, Harold was in the bushes, throwing stones. I came away from the window thrilled to the marrow; and when I met Jeeves on the stairs I was so moved that I nearly grasped his hand.

‘Jeeves,’ I said, ‘no discussion! The Wooster shirt goes on this boy!’

‘Very good, sir,’ said Jeeves.

The worst of these country meetings is that you can’t plunge as heavily as you would like when you get a good thing, because it alarms the Ring. Steggles, though pimpled, was, as I have indicated, no chump, and if I had invested all I wanted to he would have put two and two together. I managed to get a good solid bet down for the syndicate, however, though it did make him look thoughtful. I heard in the next few days that he had been making searching inquiries in the village concerning Harold; but nobody could tell him anything, and eventually he came to the conclusion, I suppose, that I must be having a long shot on the strength of that thirty-yards start. Public opinion wavered between Jimmy Goode, receiving ten yards, at seven-to-two, and Alexander Bartlett, with six yards start, at eleven-to-four. Willie Chambers, scratch, was offered to the public at two-to-one but found no takers.

We were taking no chances on the big event, and directly we had got our money on at a nice hundred-to-twelve, Harold was put into strict training. It was a wearing business, and I can understand now why most of the big trainers are grim, silent men, who look as though they had suffered. The kid wanted constant watching. It was no good talking to him about honour and glory and how proud his mother would be when he wrote and told her he had won a real cup – the moment blighted Harold discovered that training meant knocking off pastry, taking exercise, and keeping away from the cigarettes, he was all against it, and it was only by unceasing vigilance that we managed to keep him in any shape at all. It was the diet that was the stumbling-block. As far as exercise went, we could generally arrange for a sharp dash every morning with the assistance of the second footman. It ran into money, of course, but that couldn’t be helped. Still, when a kid has simply to wait till the butler’s back is turned to have the run of the pantry, and has only to nip into the smoking-room to collect a handful of the best Turkish, training
becomes
a rocky job. We could only hope that on the day his natural stamina would pull him through.

And then one evening young Bingo came back from the links with a disturbing story. He had been in the habit of giving Harold mild exercise in the afternoons by taking him out as a caddie.

At first he seemed to think it humorous, the poor chump! He bubbled over with merry mirth as he began his tale.

‘I say, rather funny this afternoon,’ he said. ‘You ought to have seen Steggles’s face.’

‘Seen Steggles’s face? What for?’

‘When he saw young Harold sprint, I mean.’

I was filled with a grim foreboding of an awful doom.

‘Good heavens! You didn’t let Harold sprint in front of Steggles?’

Young Bingo’s jaw dropped.

‘I never thought of that,’ he said, gloomily. ‘It wasn’t my fault. I was playing a round with Steggles, and after we’d finished we went into the club-house for a drink, leaving Harold with the clubs outside. In about five minutes we came out, and there was the kid on the gravel practising swings with Steggle’s driver and a stone. When he saw us coming, the kid dropped the club and was over the horizon like a streak. Steggles was absolutely dumbfounded. And I must say it was a revelation to me. The kid certainly gave of his best. Of course, it’s a nuisance in a way; but I don’t see, on second thoughts,’ said Bingo, brightening up, ‘what it matters. We’re in at a good price. We’ve nothing to lose by the kid’s form becoming known. I take it he will start odds-on, but that doesn’t affect us.’

I looked at Jeeves. Jeeves looked at me.

‘It affects us all right if he doesn’t start at all.’

‘Precisely, sir.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Bingo.

‘If you ask me,’ I said, ‘I think Steggles will try to nobble him before the race.’

‘Good Lord! I never thought of that!’ Bingo blenched. ‘You don’t think he would really do it?’

‘I think he would have a jolly good try. Steggles is a bad man. From now on, Jeeves, we must watch Harold like hawks.’

‘Undoubtedly, sir.’

‘Ceaseless vigilance, what?’

‘Precisely, sir.’

‘You wouldn’t care to sleep in his room, Jeeves?’

‘No, sir, I should not.’

‘No, nor would I, if it comes to that. But dash it all,’ I said, ‘we’re letting ourselves get rattled! We’re losing our nerve. This won’t do. How can Steggles possibly get at Harold, even if he wants to?’

There was no cheering young Bingo up. He’s one of those birds who simply leap at the morbid view, if you give them half a chance.

‘There are all sorts of ways of nobbling favourites,’ he said, in a sort of death-bed voice. ‘You ought to read some of the racing novels. In
Pipped on the Post
Lord Jasper Maulevereras near as a toucher outed Bonny Betsy by bribing the head lad to slip a cobra into her saddle the night before the Derby!’

‘What are the chances of a cobra biting Harold, Jeeves?’

‘Slight, I should imagine, sir. And in such an event, knowing the boy as intimately as I do, my anxiety would be entirely for the snake.’

‘Still, unceasing vigilance, Jeeves.’

‘Most certainly, sir.’

I must say I got a bit fed up with young Bingo in the next few days. It’s all very well for a fellow with a big winner in his stable to exercise proper care, but in my opinion Bingo overdid it. The blighter’s mind appeared to be absolutely saturated with racing fiction; and in stories of that kind, as far as I could make out, no horse is ever allowed to start in a race without at least a dozen attempts to put it out of action. He stuck to Harold like a plaster. Never let the unfortunate kid out of his sight. Of course, it meant a lot to the poor old egg if he could collect on this race, because it would give him enough money to chuck his tutoring job and get back to London; but all the same, he needn’t have woken me up at three in the morning twice running – once to tell me we ought to cook Harold’s food ourselves to prevent doping: the other time to say that he had heard mysterious noises in the shrubbery. But he reached the limit, in my opinion, when he insisted on my going to evening service on Sunday, the day before the sports.

‘Why on earth?’ I said, never being much of a lad for evensong.

‘Well, I can’t go myself. I shan’t be here. I’ve got to go to London today with young Egbert.’ Egbert was Lord Wickhammersley’s son, the one Bingo was tutoring. ‘He’s going for a visit down in Kent, and I’ve got to see him off at Charing Cross. It’s an infernal nuisance. I shan’t be back till Monday afternoon. In fact, I shall miss most of the sports, I expect. Everything, therefore, depends on you, Bertie.’