'Answer that, would you mind, Jeeves, and say I've gone for a brisk walk, as recommended by my medical adviser. It'll be Aunt Dahlia, and though she was in a reasonable frame of mind at the conclusion of our recent talk, there's no telling how long these reasonable frames of mind will last.'
'Very good, sir.'
'You know what women are.'
'I do, indeed, sir.'
'Especially aunts.'
'Yes, sir. My aunt –'
'Tell me all about her later.'
'Any time you wish, sir.'
I remember Jeeves once saying of my friend Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright – it was when a long shot he had backed had come in first by a head, only to be disqualified owing to some infringement of the rules by its jockey – that melancholy had marked him for her own, and it was the same with me now as I sat totting up the score and realizing how extraordinarily deeply I had been plunged in the soup.
Compared with other items on the list of my troubles it was perhaps a minor cause for melancholy that the old ancestor should be trying to get me on the telephone. Nevertheless, it added one more thing to worry about. It could only mean, I felt, that she had come out of the amiable mood she had been in when last heard from and had thought of a lot more nasty cracks to make on the subject of my failure to reach the standard which she considered adequate in a nephew. And I was in no shape to listen to destructive criticism when we next met, especially when delivered by a voice trained by years of shouting 'Gone away' at foxes to reduce the hearer's nervous system to pulp.
When, therefore, Jeeves returned, my first observation was:
'What did she say?'
'It was not Mrs Travers, sir, it was Mr Porter.'
I was more thankful than ever that I had got him to answer the phone.
'Well, what did he say?' I asked, though I could have made a rough guess.
'I regret that I am not able to report the entire conversation verbatim, sir. I found the gentleman incoherent at the outset. I gathered that he was under the impression that he was addressing you, and emotion interfered with the clarity of his diction. I informed him of my identity, and he moderated his verbal speed. I was thus enabled to follow him. He gave me several messages to give to you.'
'Messages?'
'Yes, sir, embodying what he proposed to do to you when next you met. His remarks were in the main of a crudely surgical nature, and many of the plans he outlined would be extremely difficult to put into practice. His threat, for instance, to pull off your head and make you swallow it.'
'He said that?'
'Among other things more or less on the same trend. But you need have no apprehension, sir.'
It shows the state to which the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, as somebody called them, had reduced me that I didn't laugh a hacking laugh at this. I didn't even utter a sardonic 'Oh, yeah' or 'Says you'. I merely buried the face in the hands, and he continued:
'Before I left the room you were speaking of the necessity of drawing Mr Porter's fangs, as you very aptly put it. It gives me great pleasure to say that I have succeeded in doing this.'
I thought I couldn't have heard him correctly, and asked him to repeat his amazing statement. He did so, and I looked at him astounded. You might suppose that I would have been used by this time to seeing him pull rabbits out of a hat with a flick of the wrist and solve in a flash problems which had defied the best efforts of the finest minds, but it always comes fresh to me, depriving me of breath and causing the eyeballs to rotate in the parent sockets.
Then I saw what must be behind the easy confidence with which he had spoken.
'So you remembered the cosh?' I said.
'Sir?'
'And you have it in your possession.'
'I do not quite understand you, sir.'
'I thought you meant that you still had that cosh which you took away from Aunt Dahlia's Bonzo and were going to give it to me so that I would be armed when Porter made his spring.'
'Oh, no, sir. The instrument to which you refer is among my effects at our London residence.'
'Then how did you draw his fangs?'
'By reminding him that you have taken out an accident policy with him and drawing his attention to the inevitable displeasure of his employers if through him they were mulcted in a substantial sum of money. I had little difficulty in persuading the gentleman that anything in the nature of aggressive action on his part would be a mistake.'
I repeated the stare. His resource and ingenuity had stunned me.
'Jeeves,' I said, 'your resource and ingenuity have stunned me. Porter is baffled.'
'Yes, sir.'
'Unless you would prefer "thwarted".'
'Baffled I think is stronger.'
'Talk of drawing his fangs. His dentist will have to fit him with a completely new set.'
'Yes, sir, but we must not forget that the removal of Mr Porter as a menace is only half a battle. I hesitate to touch on a delicate subject . . .'
'Touch on, Jeeves.'
'But I gathered, partly from what you were saying and partly from the tone of your voice as you said it when you were speaking of her plans for your future, that the idea of marriage with Miss Cook is not wholly agreeable to you, and it occurred to me that much unpleasantness would be avoided, were the lady and Mr Porter to be reconciled.'
'It would indeed. But –'
'You were about to say, sir, that in your opinion the rift is too serious for that?'
'Well, isn't it?'
'I think not.'
'Your blow by blow description of the hostilities certainly gave me the impression that they had parted brass rags pretty finally. How about that lily-livered poltroon?'
'You have placed your finger on the real trouble, sir. Miss Cook applied that term to Mr Porter because of his refusal to approach her father and demand the money which the latter is holding in trust for him.'
'Well, according to you he said he wouldn't approach her father in a million years.'
'The situation has been changed by your becoming affianced to the woman he loves. To restore himself to Miss Cook's esteem he would face perils from which formerly he shrank.'
I got what he meant, but I didn't buy the idea. I still saw Orlo shrinking.
'Furthermore, sir, if you were to go to Mr Porter and point out to him that success might crown his efforts if he were to choose a moment shortly after dinner to approach Mr Cook, he would take the risk. A gentleman mellowed by a good dinner is always more amenable to overtures of any kind than one who is waiting for his food, as I understood from his conversation that Mr Cook was when Mr Porter discussed business with him on a former occasion.'
I started visibly. He had electrified me.
'Jeeves,' I said, 'I believe you've got something.'
'I think so, sir.'
'I'll go and see Porter at once. He's probably at the Goose and Grasshopper drowning his sorrows in gin and ginger ale. And let me say once more that you stand alone. You have made my day. I wish there was something I could do for you by way of return.'
'There is, sir.'
'It's yours, even unto half my kingdom. Give me a name.'
'I should be extremely grateful if you would allow me to spend the night at my aunt's.'
'You want to go to Liverpool? A long journey.'
'No, sir. My aunt returned this morning and is at her home in the village.'
'Then go to her, Jeeves, and heaven smile upon your reunion.'
'Thank you very much, sir. Should you have need of my services, the address is Balmoral, Mafeking Road, care of Mrs P. B. Pigott.'
'Oh, she isn't a Jeeves?'
'No, sir.'
He shimmered out, to return a moment later with the information that Mr Graham was in the kitchen and would be glad of a word with me. And it shows the extent to which the strain and rush of life at Maiden Eggesford had taken its toll that for a moment the name conveyed nothing to me. Then memory returned to its throne, and I felt as anxious to see
Mr Graham as he apparently was to see me. Such was my confidence in him as a returner of cats that I could not imagine him failing in his mission, but I was naturally anxious to have the full details.
'In the kitchen, you say?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Then bung him in, Jeeves. There is no one I'd rather give audience to.'
And the hour, which was getting on for six o'clock, produced the man.
I was struck, as before, by the intense respectability of his appearance. He looked as though no rabbit or pheasant need entertain the slightest tremors in his presence, and one could readily picture him as the backbone of the choir when anthem time came along. His gentle 'Good evening, sir' was a treat to listen to.
'Good evening,' I said in my turn. 'Well? You accomplished your mission? The cat is back at the old stand?'
His eyes darkened, as if I had brought to the surface a secret sorrow.
'Well, yes and no, sir.'
'How do you mean, yes and no?'
'To the first of your questions the answer is in the affirmative. I did accomplish my mission. But unfortunately the cat is not at the old stand.'
'I don't get you.'
'It is here, sir, in your kitchen. I took it to Eggesford Court as per contract and released it near the stables and started on my homeward journey, happy to have earned the money which you so generously paid me for my services. Picture my astonishment and dismay when on reaching the village I discovered that the cat had followed me. It is a very affectionate animal, and we had become great friends. Would you wish me to take it back again? Of course I should not feel justified in charging my full fee, so shall we say ten pounds?'
If you want to know how this proposition affected me, I can put it in a nutshell by saying that I read him like a book. Many people are led by my frank and open countenance into thinking that I am one of the mugs, but I know a twister when I see one and I was in no doubt that one of these stood before me now.
What stopped me drawing myself to my full height and denouncing him was the reflection that the blighter had me in a cleft stick. Refusal to come across would mean him going to Pop Cook and getting a handsome fee from him for revealing that the aged relative had paid him to purloin the cat, and in spite of what she had said about her popularity in Maiden Eggesford, resulting from her rendering 'Every Nice Girl Loves A Sailor' in a sailor suit, I knew that her name would be mud. I still wasn't sure she couldn't even be jugged, and what a sock in the eye that would give Uncle Tom's digestion.
I disbursed the tenner. Not blithely, but I disbursed it, and he went on his way.
For some little time after he had left I sat wrapped in thought. And then, just as I was getting up to go and see Orlo, in came Vanessa Cook.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
She was accompanied by a dog of about the size of a young elephant, yellow in colour and with large ears sticking up, with whom I would willingly have fraternized, but after drinking in the delicious scent of my trouser legs for a brief moment it saw something out in the street which aroused its interest and left us.
Vanessa, meanwhile, had picked up my By Order Of The Czar, and I could see by the way she sniffed that she was about to become critical. There had always been a strong strain of book-reviewer blood in her.
'Trash,' she said. 'It really is time you began reading something worth while. I don't expect you to start off with Turgenev and Dostoievsky' she said, evidently alluding to a couple of Russian exiles she had met in London who did a bit of writing on the side, 'but there are plenty of good books which are easier and at the same time educational. I have brought one with me,' she went on, and I saw that she was holding a slim volume bound in limp purple leather with some sort of decoration in gold on the cover, and I shuddered strongly. To a man who has seen as much of life as I have there is always something sinister in a book bound in limp purple leather. 'It is a collection of whimsical essays, The Prose Ramblings Of A Rhymester, by Reginald Sprockett, a brilliant young poet from whom the critics expect great things. His style has been much praised, but it is the thought in these little gems to which I particularly call your attention. I will leave them here. I must be off. I only came to bring you the book . . .'
You probably think I reeled beneath this blow, but actually my heart was not so heavy as it might have been, for my quick brain had perceived how this would do me a bit of good. The revolting object would make an admirable Christmas present for my Aunt Agatha, always a difficult person to find Yule- Tide gifts for. I was warming myself with this thought, when Vanessa continued.
'Be very careful not to lose it. It has Reginald's autograph in it,' and glancing at the title page I saw that this was indeed so, which would have bucked Aunt Agatha up no little, but in addition to inscribing the slim volume with his own foul name the blighter had inscribed Vanessa's. 'To Vanessa, the fairest of the fair, from a devoted admirer,' he had written, dishing my plans completely. That was when my heart got heavy again. For though she hadn't definitely said so, something told me that later on I would be expected to pass an examination on the little opus, and failure would have the worst effects.
Having said she must be off, she naturally stayed on for another half-hour, much of which time was devoted to pointing out additional defects in my spiritual make-up which had occurred to her since our last meeting. It just showed how strong the missionary spirit can be in women that she could contemplate the idea of teaming up with a dubious character like B. Wooster. Her best friends would have warned her against it. 'Cast him into outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth,' they would have said. 'No good trying to patch him up, he's hopeless.'
It was my membership of the Drones Club that now formed the basis of her observations. She didn't like the Drones Club, and she made it quite clear that at the conclusion of the honeymoon I would cross its threshold only over her dead body.
So, reckoning up the final score, the Bertram Wooster who signed the charge sheet in the vestry after the wedding ceremony would be a non-smoker, a teetotaller (for I knew it would come to that) and an ex-member of the Drones, in other words a mere shell of his former self. Little wonder that, as I listened to her, I gulped as Plank's native bearer must have done when they were getting ready to bury him before sundown.
The prospect appalled me, and while it was appalling me Vanessa moved to the door, this time apparently really intending to be off. And she had opened the door, Bertram much too much of a shell of his former self to open it for her, when she started back with a gasping cry.
'Father!' she cried gaspingly. 'He's coming up the garden path.'
'He's coming up the garden path?' I said. I was at a loss to imagine why Pop Cook should be calling on me. I mean to say we weren't on those terms.
'He's stopped to tie his boot lace,' she cried, gaspingly as before, and that concluded her share of the dialogue. With no further words she bounded into the kitchen like a fox pursued by both the Quorn and the Pytchley, slamming the door behind her.
I could appreciate her emotion. She was aware of her parent's distaste for the last of the Woosters, a distaste so marked that he turned mauve and swallowed his lunch the wrong way at the mention of my name, and chez me was the last place he would wish to find her. Orlo Porter had thought the worst on learning of what he called her clandestine visits to the Wooster home, and a father would, of course, think worse than Orlo. Pure though I was as the driven s., a fat chance I had of persuading him that I wasn't a modern Casa something. Not Casabianca. That was the chap who stood on the burning deck. Casanova. I knew I'd get it.
And what he would do to Vanessa in his wrath would be plenty. She was, as I have made clear, a proud beauty, but a father of the calibre of Pop Cook can make even a proud beauty wish she had thought twice before blotting her copybook. He may not be able any longer to whale the tar out of her with his walking stick as in the good old days, but he can cut off her pocket money and send her to stay with her grandmother at Tunbridge Wells, where she will have to l
ook after seven cats and attend divine service three times on Sunday. Yes, one could understand her being perturbed on seeing him tying up his boot lace outside Wee Nooke, which, I forgot to mention earlier, was the name of my GHQ. (It had been built, I learned subsequently, for a female cousin of Mrs Briscoe's who painted water colours.)
And if she was perturbed, I was on the perturbed side, too. It was with some trepidation – in fact, quite a lot of it – that I awaited my visitor's arrival, a trepidation that was not diminished when I saw that he had brought his hunting crop with him.
I hadn't taken to him much at our previous meeting, and I had the feeling that I wasn't going to get very fond of him now, but I will say this for him, that he didn't waste time. He was a man of quick, decisive speech who had no use for tedious preliminaries but came to the point at once. I suppose you have to in order to run a big business successfully.
'Well, Mr Wooster, as I understand you are calling yourself now, it may interest you to know that Major Plank, who had lost his memory, recovered it last night, and he told me all about you.'
It was a nasty knock, and the fact that I had been expecting it didn't make it any better. Oddly enough, I felt no animosity towards Cook, holding Plank the bloke responsible for this awkward situation. Roaming through Africa knee-deep in poisonous snakes of every description and with more man-eating pumas around than you could shake a stick at, he could so easily have passed away, regretted by all. Instead of which, he survived and went about making life tough for harmless typical young men about town who simply wanted to be left alone to restore their delicate health.
Cook was continuing, and getting nastier every moment.
'You are a notorious crook, known to your associates as Alpine Joe, and your latest crime was to try to sell Major Plank a valuable statuette which you had stolen from Sir Watkyn Bassett of Totleigh Towers. You were arrested by Inspector Witherspoon of Scotland Yard, fortunately before you had accomplished your nefarious ends. I presume from the fact that you are at large that you have served your sentence, and you are now in the pay of Colonel Briscoe, who has employed you to steal my cat. Have you anything to say?'