The Jeeves Omnibus - Vol 1: (Jeeves & Wooster): No.1 (47 page)

‘I don’t like him.’

‘No, sir. But the important thing is that he has conceived a strong distaste for you, and would consequently sustain a severe shock, were you to inform him that you and Miss Byng were betrothed and were anxious to be united in matrimony.’

‘What! You want me to tell him that Stiffy and I are that way?’

‘Precisely, sir.’

I shook the head.

‘I see no percentage in it, Jeeves. All right for a laugh, no doubt – watching the old bounder’s reactions I mean – but of little practical value.’

Stiffy, too, seemed disappointed. It was plain that she had been hoping for better things.

‘It sounds goofy to me,’ she said. ‘Where would that get us, Jeeves?’

‘If I might explain, miss. Sir Watkyn’s strong reactions would, as Mr Wooster suggests, be of a strongly defined character.’

‘He would hit the ceiling.’

‘Exactly, miss. A very colourful piece of imagery. And if you were then to assure him that there was no truth in Mr Wooster’s statement, adding that you were, in actual fact, betrothed to Mr Pinker, I think the overwhelming relief which he would feel at the news would then lead him to look with a kindly eye on your union with that gentleman.’

Personally, I had never heard anything so potty in my life, and my manner indicated as much. Stiffy, on the other hand, was all over it. She did the first few steps of a spring dance.

‘Why, Jeeves, that’s marvellous!’

‘I think it would prove effective, miss.’

‘Of course, it would. It couldn’t fail. Just imagine, Bertie, darling, how he would feel if you told him I wanted to marry you. Why, if after that I said “Oh, no, it’s all right, Uncle Watky. The chap I really want to marry is the boy who cleans the boots,” he would fold me in his arms and promise to come and dance at the wedding. And when he finds that the real fellow is a splendid, wonderful, terrific man like Harold, the thing will be a walk-over. Jeeves, you really are a specific dream-rabbit.’

‘Thank you, miss. I am glad to have given satisfaction.’

I rose. It was my intention to say goodbye to all this. I don’t mind people talking rot in my presence, but it must not be utter rot. I turned to Stiffy, who was now in the later stages of her spring dance, and addressed her with curt severity.

‘I will now take the book, Stiffy.’

She was over by the cupboard, strewing roses. She paused for a moment.

‘Oh, the book. You want it?’

‘I do. Immediately.’

‘I’ll give it to you after you’ve seen Uncle Watkyn.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes. It isn’t that I don’t trust you, Bertie, darling, but I should feel much happier if I knew that you knew I had still got it, and I’m sure you want me to feel happy. You toddle off and beard him, and then we’ll talk.’

I frowned.

‘I will toddle off,’ I said coldly, ‘but beard him, no. I don’t seem to see myself bearding him!’

She stared.

‘But, Bertie, this sounds as if you weren’t going to sit in.’

‘It was how I meant it to sound.’

‘You wouldn’t fail me, would you?’

‘I would. I would fail you like billy-o.’

‘Don’t you like the scheme?’

‘I do not. Jeeves spoke a moment ago of his gladness at having given satisfaction. He has given me no satisfaction whatsoever. I consider that the idea he has advanced marks the absolute zero in human goofiness, and I am surprised that he should have entertained it. The book, Stiffy, if you please – and slippily.’

She was silent for a space.

‘I was rather asking myself,’ she said, ‘if you might not take this attitude.’

‘And now you know the answer,’ I riposted. ‘I have. The book, if you please.’

‘I’m not going to give you any book.’

‘Very well. Then I go to Stinker and tell him all.’

‘All right. Do. And before you can get within a mile of him, I shall be up in the library, telling Uncle Watkyn all.’

She waggled her chin, like a girl who considers that she has put over a swift one: and, examining what she had said, I was compelled
to
realize that this was precisely what she had put over. I had overlooked this contingency completely. Her words gave me pause. The best I could do in the way of a come-back was to utter a somewhat baffled ‘H’m!’ There is no use attempting to disguise the fact – Bertram was nonplussed.

‘So there you are. Now, how about it?’

It is never pleasant for a chap who has been doing the dominant male to have to change his stance and sink to ignoble pleadings, but I could see no other course. My voice, which had been firm and resonant, took on a melting tremolo.

‘But, Stiffy, dash it! You wouldn’t do that?’

‘Yes, I would, if you don’t go and sweeten Uncle Watkyn.’

‘But how can I go and sweeten him? Stiffy, you can’t subject me to this fearful ordeal.’

‘Yes, I can. And what’s so fearful about it? He can’t eat you.’

I conceded this.

‘True. But that’s about the best you can say.’

‘It won’t be any worse than a visit to the dentist.’

‘It’ll be worse than six visits to six dentists.’

‘Well, think how glad you will be when it’s over.’

I drew little consolation from this. I looked at her closely, hoping to detect some signs of softening. Not one. She had been as tough as a restaurant steak, and she continued as tough as a restaurant steak. Kipling was right. D. than the m. No getting round it.

I made one last appeal.

‘You won’t recede from your position?’

‘Not a step.’

‘In spite of the fact – excuse me mentioning it – that I gave you a dashed good lunch at my flat, no expense spared?’

‘No.’

I shrugged my shoulders, as some Roman gladiator – one of those chaps who threw knotted sheets over people, for instance – might have done on hearing the call-boy shouting his number in the wings.

‘Very well, then,’ I said.

She beamed at me maternally.

‘That’s the spirit. That’s my brave little man.’

At a less preoccupied moment, I might have resented her calling me her brave little man, but in this grim hour it scarcely seemed to matter.

‘Where is this frightful uncle of yours?’

‘He’s bound to be in the library now.’

‘Very good. Then I will go to him.’

I don’t know if you were ever told as a kid that story about the fellow whose dog chewed up the priceless manuscript of the book he was writing. The blow-out, if you remember, was that he gave the animal a pained look and said: ‘Oh, Diamond, Diamond, you – or it may have been thou – little know – or possibly knowest – what you – or thou – has – or hast – done.’ I heard it in the nursery, and it has always lingered in my mind. And why I bring it up now is that this was how I looked at Jeeves as I passed from the room. I didn’t actually speak the gag, but I fancy he knew what I was thinking.

I could have wished that Stiffy had not said ‘Yoicks! Tally-ho!’ as I crossed the threshold. It seemed to me in the circumstances flippant and in dubious taste.

IT HAS BEEN
well said of Bertram Wooster by those who know him best that there is a certain resilience in his nature that enables him as a general rule to rise on stepping-stones of his dead self in the most unfavourable circumstances. It isn’t often that I fail to keep my chin up and the eye sparkling. But as I made my way to the library in pursuance of my dreadful task, I freely admit that Life had pretty well got me down. It was with leaden feet, as the expression is, that I tooled along.

Stiffy had compared the binge under advisement to a visit to the dentist, but as I reached journey’s end I was feeling more as I had felt in the old days of school when going to keep a tryst with the headmaster in his study. You will recall my telling you of the time I sneaked down by night to the Rev. Aubrey Upjohn’s lair in quest of biscuits and found myself unexpectedly cheek by jowl with the old bird, I in striped non-shrinkable pyjamas, he in tweeds and a dirty look. On that occasion, before parting, we had made a date for half-past-four next day at the same spot, and my emotions now were almost exactly similar to those which I had experienced on that far-off afternoon, as I tapped on the door and heard a scarcely human voice invite me to enter.

The only difference was that while the Rev. Aubrey had been alone, Sir Watkyn Bassett appeared to be entertaining company. As my knuckles hovered over the panel, I seemed to hear the rumble of voices, and when I went in I found that my ears had not deceived me. Pop Bassett was seated at the desk, and by his side stood Constable Eustace Oates.

It was a spectacle that rather put the lid on the shrinking feeling from which I was suffering. I don’t know if you have ever been jerked before a tribunal of justice, but if you have you will bear me out when I say that the memory of such an experience lingers, with the result that when later you are suddenly confronted by a sitting
magistrate
and a standing policeman, the association of ideas gives you a bit of a shock and tends to unman.

A swift, keen glance from old B. did nothing to still the fluttering pulse.

‘Yes, Mr Wooster?’

‘Oh – ah – could I speak to you for a moment?’

‘Speak to me?’ I could see that a strong distaste for having his sanctum cluttered up with Woosters was contending in Sir Watkyn Bassett’s bosom with a sense of the obligations of a host. After what seemed a nip-and-tuck struggle, the latter got its nose ahead. ‘Why, yes … That is … If you really … Oh, certainly … Pray take a seat.’

I did so, and felt a good deal better. In the dock, you have to stand. Old Bassett, after a quick look in my direction to see that I wasn’t stealing the carpet, turned to the constable again.

‘Well, I think that is all, Oates.’

‘Very good, Sir Watkyn.’

‘You understand what I wish you to do?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And with regard to that other matter, I will look into it very closely, bearing in mind what you have told me of your suspicions. A most rigorous investigation shall be made.’

The zealous officer clumped out. Old Bassett fiddled for a moment with the papers on his desk. Then he cocked an eye at me.

‘That was Constable Oates, Mr Wooster.’

‘Yes.’

‘You know him?’

‘I’ve seen him.’

‘When?’

‘This afternoon.’

‘Not since then?’

‘No.’

‘You are quite sure?’

‘Oh, quite.’

‘H’m.’

He fiddled with the papers again, then touched on another topic.

‘We were all disappointed that you were not with us in the drawing-room after dinner, Mr Wooster.’

This, of course, was a bit embarrassing. The man of sensibility does not like to reveal to his host that he has been dodging him like a leper.

‘You were much missed.’

‘Oh, was I? I’m sorry. I had a bit of a headache, and went and ensconced myself in my room.’

‘I see. And you remained there?’

‘Yes.’

‘You did not by any chance go for a walk in the fresh air, to relieve your headache?’

‘Oh, no. Ensconced all the time.’

‘I see. Odd. My daughter Madeline tells me that she went twice to your room after the conclusion of dinner, but found it unoccupied.’

‘Oh, really? Wasn’t I there?’

‘You were not.’

‘I suppose I must have been somewhere else.’

‘The same thought had occurred to me.’

‘I remember now. I did saunter out on two occasions.’

‘I see.’

He took up a pen and leaned forward, tapping it against his left forefinger.

‘Somebody stole Constable Oates’s helmet tonight,’ he said, changing the subject.

‘Oh, yes.’

‘Yes. Unfortunately he was not able to see the miscreant.’

‘No?’

‘No. At the moment when the outrage took place, his back was turned.’

‘Dashed difficult, of course, to see miscreants, if your back’s turned.’

‘Yes.’

‘Yes.’

There was a pause. And as, in spite of the fact that we seemed to be agreeing on every point, I continued to sense a strain in the atmosphere, I tried to lighten things with a gag which I remembered from the old
in statu pupillari
days.

‘Sort of makes you say to yourself
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes
, what?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Latin joke,’ I explained. ‘
Quis
– who –
custodiet
– shall guard –
ipsos custodes
– the guardians themselves? Rather funny, I mean to say,’ I proceeded, making it clear to the meanest intelligence, ‘a chap who’s supposed to stop chaps pinching things from chaps having a chap come along and pinch something from him.’

‘Ah, I see your point. Yes, I can conceive that a certain type of mind might detect a humorous side to the affair. But I can assure you, Mr Wooster, that that is not the side which presents itself to me as a Justice of the Peace. I take the very gravest view of the matter, and this, when once he is apprehended and placed in custody, I shall do my utmost to persuade the culprit to share.’

I didn’t like the sound of this at all. A sudden alarm for old Stinker’s well-being swept over me.

‘I say, what do you think he would get?’

‘I appreciate your zeal for knowledge, Mr Wooster, but at the moment I am not prepared to confide in you. In the words of the late Lord Asquith, I can only say “Wait and see”. I think it is possible that your curiosity may be gratified before long.’

I didn’t want to rake up old sores, always being a bit of a lad for letting the dead past bury its dead, but I thought it might be as well to give him a pointer.

‘You fined me five quid,’ I reminded him.

‘So you informed me this afternoon,’ he said, pince-nezing me coldly. ‘But if I understood correctly what you were saying, the outrage for which you were brought before me at Bosher Street was perpetrated on the night of the annual boat race between the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, when a certain licence is traditionally granted by the authorities. In the present case, there are no such extenuating circumstances. I should certainly not punish the wanton stealing of Government property from the person of Constable Oates with a mere fine.’