‘I beg your pardon?’ she said.
He repeated the key words.
‘Oh?’ said the relative, and went off with a pop. I could have told Upjohn he was asking for it. Normally as genial a soul as ever broke biscuit, this aunt, when stirred, can become the haughtiest of grandes dames before whose wrath the stoutest quail, and she doesn’t, like some, have to use a lorgnette to reduce the citizenry to pulp, she does it all with the naked eye. ‘Oh?’ she said. ‘So you have decided to revise my guest list for me? You have the nerve, the – the –’
I saw she needed helping out.
‘Audacity,’ I said, throwing her the line.
‘The audacity to dictate to me who I shall have in my house.’
It should have been ‘whom’, but I let it go.
‘You have the –’
‘Crust.’
‘– the immortal rind,’ she amended, and I had to admit it was stronger, ‘to tell me whom’ – she got it right that time – ‘I may entertain at Brinkley Court and who’ – wrong again – ‘I may not. Very well, if you feel unable to breathe the same air as my friends, you must please yourself. I believe the “Bull and Bush” in Market Snodsbury is quite comfortable.’
‘Well spoken of in the Automobile Guide,’ I said.
‘I shall go there,’ said Upjohn. ‘I shall go there as soon as my things are packed. Perhaps you will be good enough to tell your butler to pack them.’
He strode off, and she went into Uncle Tom’s study, me following, she still snorting. She rang the bell.
Jeeves appeared.
‘Jeeves?’ said the relative, surprised. ‘I was ringing for –’
‘It is Sir Roderick’s afternoon off, madam.’
‘Oh? Well, would you mind packing Mr. Upjohn’s things, Jeeves? He is leaving us.’
‘Very good, madam.’
‘And you can drive him to Market Snodsbury, Bertie.’
‘Right ho,’ I said, not much liking the assignment, but liking less the idea of endeavouring to thwart this incandescent aunt in her current frame of mind.
Safety first, is the Wooster slogan.
19
* * *
IT ISN’T MUCH of a run from Brinkley Court to Market Snodsbury, and I deposited Upjohn at the ‘Bull and Bush’ and started m-p-h-ing homeward in what you might call a trice. We parted, of course, on rather distant terms, but the great thing when you’ve got an Upjohn on your books is to part and not be fussy about how it’s done, and had it not been for all this worry about Kipper, for whom I was now mourning in spirit more than ever, I should have been feeling fine.
I could see no happy issue for him from the soup in which he was immersed. No words had been exchanged between Upjohn and self on the journey out, but the glimpses I had caught of his face from the corner of the eyes had told me that he was grim and resolute, his supply of the milk of human kindness plainly short by several gallons. No hope, it seemed to me, of turning him from his fell purpose.
I garaged the car and went to Aunt Dahlia’s sanctum to ascertain whether she had cooled off at all since I had left her, for I was still anxious about that blood pressure of hers. One doesn’t want aunts going up in a sheet of flame all over the place.
She wasn’t there, having, I learned later, withdrawn to her room to bathe her temples with eau de Cologne and do Yogi deep-breathing, but Bobbie was, and not only Bobbie but Jeeves. He was handing her something in an envelope, and she was saying ‘Oh, Jeeves, you’ve saved a human life,’ and he was saying ‘Not at all, miss.’ The gist, of course, escaped me, but I had no leisure to probe into gists.
‘Where’s Kipper?’ I asked, and was surprised to note that Bobbie was dancing round the room on the tips of her toes uttering animal cries, apparently ecstatic in their nature.
‘Reggie?’ she said, suspending the farmyard imitations for a moment. ‘He went for a walk.’
‘Does he know that Upjohn’s found out he wrote that thing?’
‘Yes, your aunt told him.’
‘Then we ought to be in conference.’
‘About Upjohn’s libel action? It’s all right about that. Jeeves has pinched his speech.’
I could make nothing of this. It seemed to me that the beasel spoke in riddles.
‘Have you an impediment in your speech, Jeeves?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Then what, if anything, does the young prune mean?’
‘Miss Wickham’s allusion is to the typescript of the speech which Mr Upjohn is to deliver tomorrow to the scholars of Market Snodsbury Grammar School, sir.’
‘She said you’d pinched it.’
‘Precisely, sir.’
I started.
‘You don’t mean –’
‘Yes, he does,’ said Bobbie, resuming the Ballet Russe movements. ‘Your aunt told him to pack Upjohn’s bags, and the first thing he saw when he smacked into it was the speech. He trousered it and brought it along to me.’
I raised an eyebrow.
‘Well, really, Jeeves!’
‘I deemed it best, sir.’
‘And did you deem right!’ said Bobbie, executing a Nijinsky what-ever-it’s-called. ‘Either Upjohn agrees to drop that libel suit or he doesn’t get these notes, as he calls them, and without them he won’t be able to utter a word. He’ll have to come across with the price of the papers. Won’t he, Jeeves?’
‘He would appear to have no alternative, miss.’
‘Unless he wants to get up on that platform and stand there opening and shutting his mouth like a goldfish. We’ve got him cold.’
‘Yes, but half a second,’ I said.
I spoke reluctantly. I didn’t want to damp the young ball of worsted in her hour of joy, but a thought had occurred to me.
‘I see the idea, of course. I remember Aunt Dahlia telling me about this strange inability of Upjohn’s to be silver-tongued unless he has the material in his grasp, but suppose he says he’s ill and can’t appear.’
‘He won’t.’
‘I would.’
‘But you aren’t trying to get the Conservative Association of the Market Snodsbury division to choose you as their candidate at the coming by-election. Upjohn is, and it’s vitally important for him to address the multitude tomorrow and make a good impression, because half the selection committee have sons at the school and will be there, waiting to judge for themselves how good he is as a speaker. Their last nominee stuttered, and they didn’t discover it till the time came for him to dish it out to the constituents. They don’t want to make a mistake this time.’
‘Yes, I get you now,’ I said. I remembered that Aunt Dahlia had spoken to me of Upjohn’s political ambitions.
‘So that fixes that,’ said Bobbie. ‘His future hangs on this speech, and we’ve got it and he hasn’t. We take it from there.’
‘And what exactly is the procedure?’
‘That’s all arranged. He’ll be ringing up any moment now, making inquiries. When he does, you step to the telephone and outline the position of affairs to him.’
‘Me?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Why me?’
‘Jeeves deems it best.’
‘Well, really, Jeeves! Why not Kipper?’
‘Mr Herring and Mr Upjohn are not on speaking terms, sir.’
‘So you can see what would happen if he heard Reggie’s voice. He would hang up haughtily, and all the weary work to do again. Whereas he’ll drink in your every word.’
‘But, dash it –’
‘And, anyway, Reggie’s gone for a walk and isn’t available. I do wish you wouldn’t always be so difficult, Bertie. Your aunt tells me it was just the same when you were a child. She’d want you to eat your cereal, and you would stick your ears back and be stubborn and non-cooperative, like Jonah’s ass in the Bible.’
I could not let this go uncorrected. It’s pretty generally known that when at school I won a prize for Scripture Knowledge.
‘Balaam’s ass.
Jonah was the chap who had the whale. Jeeves!’
‘Sir?’
‘To settle a bet, wasn’t it Balaam’s ass that entered the nolle prosequi?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I told you so,’ I said to Bobbie, and would have continued grinding her into the dust, had not the telephone at this moment tinkled, diverting my mind from the point at issue. The sound sent a sudden chill through the Wooster limbs, for I knew what it portended.
Bobbie, too, was not unmoved.
‘Hullo!’ she said. ‘This if I mistake not, is our client now. In you go, Bertie. Over the top and best of luck.’
I have mentioned before that Bertram Wooster, chilled steel when dealing with the sterner sex, is always wax in a woman’s hands, and the present case was no exception to the r. Short of going over Niagara Falls in a barrel, I could think of nothing I wanted to do less than chat with Aubrey Upjohn at this juncture, especially along the lines indicated, but having been requested by one of the delicately nurtured to take on the grim task, I had no option. I mean, either a chap’s preux or he isn’t, as the Chevalier Bayard used to say.
But as I approached the instrument and unhooked the thing you unhook, I was far from being at my most nonchalant, and when I heard Upjohn are-you-there-ing at the other end my manly spirit definitely blew a fuse. For I could tell by his voice that he was in the testiest of moods. Not even when conferring with me at Malvern House, Bramley-on-Sea, on the occasion when I put sherbet in the ink, had I sensed in him a more marked stirred-up-ness.
‘Hullo? Hullo? Hullo? Are you there? Will you kindly answer me? This is Mr. Upjohn speaking.’
They always say that when the nervous system isn’t all it should be the thing to do is to take a couple of deep breaths. I took six, which of course occupied a certain amount of time, and the delay noticeably increased his umbrage. Even at this distance one could spot what I believe is called the deleterious animal magnetism.
‘Is that Brinkley Court?’
I could put him straight there. None other, I told him.
‘Who are you?’
I had to think for a moment. Then I remembered.
‘This is Wooster, Mr. Upjohn.’
‘Well, listen to me carefully, Wooster.’
‘Yes, Mr. Upjohn. How do you like the “Bull and Bush”? Everything pretty snug?’
‘What did you say?’
‘I was asking if you like the “Bull and Bush”.’
‘Never mind the “Bull and Bush”.’
‘No, Mr. Upjohn.’
‘This is of vital importance. I wish to speak to the man who packed my things.’
‘Jeeves.’
‘What?’
‘Jeeves.’
‘What do you mean by Jeeves?’
‘Jeeves.’
‘You keep saying “Jeeves” and it makes no sense. Who packed my belongings?’
‘Jeeves.’
‘Oh, Jeeves is the man’s name?’
‘Yes, Mr. Upjohn.’
‘Well, he carelessly omitted to pack the notes for my speech at Market Snodsbury Grammar School tomorrow.’
‘No, really! I don’t wonder you’re sore.’
‘Saw whom?’
‘Sore with an r.’
‘What?’
‘No, sorry. I mean with an o-r-e.’
‘Wooster!’
‘Yes, Mr. Upjohn.’
‘Are you intoxicated?’
‘No, Mr. Upjohn.’
‘Then you are drivelling. Stop drivelling, Wooster.’
‘Yes, Mr. Upjohn.’
‘Send for this man Jeeves immediately and ask him what he did with the notes for my speech.’
‘Yes, Mr. Upjohn.’
‘At once! Don’t stand there saying “Yes, Mr. Upjohn”.’
‘No, Mr. Upjohn.’
‘It is imperative that I have them in my possession immediately.’
‘Yes, Mr. Upjohn.’
Well, I suppose, looking at it squarely, I hadn’t made much real progress and a not too close observer might quite possibly have got the impression that I had lost my nerve and was shirking the issue, but that didn’t in my opinion justify Bobbie at this point in snatching the receiver from my grasp and bellowing the word ‘Worm!’ at me.
‘What did you call me?’ said Upjohn.
‘I didn’t call you anything,’ I said. ‘Somebody called me something.’
‘I wish to speak to this man Jeeves.’
‘You do, do you?’ said Bobbie. ‘Well, you’re going to speak to me. This is Roberta Wickham, Upjohn. If I might have your kind attention for a moment.’
I must say that, much as I disapproved in many ways of this carrot-topped Jezebel, as she was sometimes called, there was no getting away from it that she had mastered the art of talking to retired preparatory schoolmasters. The golden words came pouring out like syrup. Of course, she wasn’t handicapped, as I had been, by having sojourned for some years beneath the roof of Malvern House, Bram-ley-on-Sea, and having at a malleable age associated with this old Frankenstein’s monster when he was going good, but even so her performance deserved credit.
Beginning with a curt ‘Listen, Buster,’ she proceeded to sketch out with admirable clearness the salient points in the situation as she envisaged it, and judging from the loud buzzing noises that came over the wire, clearly audible to me though now standing in the background, it was evident that the nub was not escaping him. They were the buzzing noises of a man slowly coming to the realization that a woman’s hand had got him by the short hairs.
Presently they died away, and Bobbie spoke.
‘That’s fine,’ she said. ‘I was sure you’d come round to our view. Then I will be with you shortly. Mind there’s plenty of ink in your fountain pen.’
She hung up and legged it from the room, once more giving vent to those animal cries, and I turned to Jeeves as I had so often turned to him before when musing on the activities of the other sex.
‘Women, Jeeves!’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Were you following all that?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I gather that Upjohn, vowing … How does it go?’
‘Vowing he would ne’er consent, consented, sir.’
‘He’s withdrawing the suit.’
‘Yes, sir. And Miss Wickham prudently specified that he do so in writing.’
‘Thus avoiding all ranygazoo?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘She thinks of everything.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I thought she was splendidly firm.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘It’s the red hair that does it, I imagine.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘If anyone had told me that I should live to hear Aubrey Upjohn addressed as “Buster”…’
I would have spoken further, but before I could get under way the door opened, revealing Ma Cream, and he shimmered silently from the room. Unless expressly desired to remain, he always shimmers off when what is called the Quality arrive.
20
* * *
THIS WAS THE first time I had seen Ma Cream today, she having gone off around noon to lunch with some friends in Birmingham, and I would willingly not have seen her now, for something in her manner seemed to suggest that she spelled trouble. She was looking more like Sherlock Holmes than ever. Slap a dressing-gown on her and give her a violin, and she could have walked straight into Baker Street and no questions asked. Fixing me with a penetrating eye, she said:
‘Oh, there you are, Mr. Wooster. I was looking for you.’
‘You wished speech with me?’
‘Yes. I wanted to say that now perhaps you’d believe me.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘About that butler.’
‘What about him?’
‘I’ll tell you about him. I’d sit down, if I were you. It’s a long story.’
I sat down. Glad to, as a matter of fact, for the legs were feeling
weak.
‘You remember I told you I mistrusted him from the first?’
‘Oh ah, yes. You did, didn’t you?’
‘I said he had a criminal face.’
‘He can’t help his face.’
‘He can help being a crook and an imposter. Calls himself a butler, does he? The police could shake that story. He’s no more a butler than I am.’
I did my best.
‘But think of those references of his.’
‘I am thinking of them.’
‘He couldn’t have stuck it out as major-domo to a man like Sir Roderick Glossop, if he’d been dishonest.’
‘He didn’t.’
‘But Bobbie said –’
‘I remember very clearly what Miss Wickham said. She told me he had been with Sir Roderick Glossop for years.’
‘Well, then.’
‘You think that puts him in the clear?’
‘Certainly.’
‘I don’t, and I’ll tell you why. Sir Roderick Glossop has a large clinic down in Somersetshire at a place called Chuffnell Regis, and a friend of mine is there. I wrote to her asking her to see Lady Glossop and get all the information she could about a former butler of hers named Swordfish. When I got back from Birmingham just now, I found a letter from her. She says that Lady Glossop told her she had never employed a butler called Swordfish. Try that one on for size.’
I continued to do my best. The Woosters never give up.
‘You don’t know Lady Glossop, do you?’
‘Of course I don’t, or I’d have written to her direct.’
‘Charming woman, but with a memory like a sieve. The sort who’s always losing one glove at the theatre. Naturally she wouldn’t remember a butler’s name. She probably thought all along it was Fotheringay or Binks or something. Very common, that sort of mental lapse. I was up at Oxford with a man called Robinson, and I was trying to think of his name the other day and the nearest I could get to it was Fosdyke. It only came back to me when I saw in The Times a few days ago that Herbert Robinson (26) of Grove Road, Ponder’s End, had been had up at Bosher Street police court, charged with having stolen a pair of green and yellow checked trousers. Not the same chap, of course, but you get the idea. I’ve no doubt that one of these fine mornings Lady Glossop will suddenly smack herself on the forehead and cry “Sword-fish! Of course! And all this time I’ve been thinking of the honest fellow as Catbird!”’