‘It might be possible for you to reason with Miss Bassett, sir. You would have a talking point. Medical research has established that the ideal diet is one in which animal and vegetable foods are balanced. A strict vegetarian diet is not recommended by the majority of doctors, as it lacks sufficient protein and in particular does not contain the protein which is built up of the amino-acids required by the body. Competent observers have traced some cases of mental disorder to this shortage.’
‘You’d tell her that?’
‘It might prove helpful, sir.’
‘I doubt it,’ I said, blowing a despondent smoke ring. ‘I don’t think it would sway her.’
‘Nor on consideration do I, sir. The poet Shelley regarded the matter from the humanitarian standpoint rather than that of bodily health. He held that we should show reverence for other life forms, and it is his views that Miss Bassett has absorbed.’
A hollow groan escaped me.
‘Curse the poet Shelley! I hope he trips over a loose shoelace and breaks his ruddy neck.’
‘Too late, sir. He is no longer with us.’
‘Blast all vegetables!’
‘Yes, sir. Your concern is understandable. I may mention that the cook expressed herself in a somewhat similar vein when I informed her of Mr. Fink-Nottle’s predicament. Her heart melted in sympathy with his distress.’
I was in no mood to hear about cooks’ hearts, soluble or otherwise, and I was about to say so, when he proceeded.
‘She instructed me to apprise Mr. Fink-Nottle that if he were agreeable to visiting the kitchen at some late hour when the household had retired for the night, she would be happy to supply him with cold steak and kidney pie.’
It was as if the sun had come smiling through the clouds or the long shot on which I had placed my wager had nosed its way past the opposition in the last ten yards and won by a short head. For the peril that had threatened to split the Bassett-Fink-Nottle axis had been averted. I knew Gussie from soup to nuts. Cut him off from the proteins and the amino-acids, and you soured his normally amiable nature, turning him into a sullen hater of his species who asked nothing better than to bite his n. and dearest and bite them good. But give him this steak and kidney pie outlet, thus allowing him to fulfil what they call his legitimate aspirations, and chagrin would vanish and he would become his old lovable self once more. The dark scowl would be replaced by the tender simper, the acid crack by the honeyed word, and all would be hotsy-totsy once more with his love life. My bosom swelled with gratitude to the cook whose quick thinking had solved the problem and brought home the bacon.
‘Who is she, Jeeves?’
‘Sir?’
‘This life-saving cook. I shall want to give her a special mention in my evening prayers.’
‘She is a woman of the name of Stoker, sir.’
‘Stoker? Did you say Stoker?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Odd!’
‘Sir?’
‘Nothing. Just a rather strange coincidence. Have you told Gussie?’
‘Yes, sir. I found him most co-operative. He plans to present himself in the kitchen shortly after midnight. Cold steak and kidney pie is, of course, merely a palliative –’
‘On the contrary. It’s Gussie’s favourite dish. I’ve known him to order it even on curry day at the Drones. He loves the stuff.’
‘Indeed, sir? That is very gratifying.’
‘Gratifying is the word. What a lesson this teaches us, Jeeves, never to despair, never to throw in the towel and turn our face to the wall, for there is always hope.’
‘Yes, sir. Would you be requiring anything further?’
‘Not a thing, thanks. My cup runneth over.’
‘Then I will be saying good night, sir.’
‘Good night, Jeeves.’
After he had gone, I put in about half an hour on my Erle Stanley Gardner, but I found rather a difficulty in following the thread and keeping my attention on the clues. My thoughts kept straying to this epoch-making cook. Strange, I felt, that her name should be Stoker. Some relation, perhaps.
I could picture the woman so exactly. Stout, red-faced, spectacled, a little irritable, perhaps, if interrupted when baking a cake or thinking out a sauce, but soft as butter at heart. No doubt something in Gussie’s wan aspect had touched her. ‘That boy needs feeding up, poor little fellow’, or possibly she was fond of goldfish and had been drawn to him because he reminded her of them. Or she may have been a Girl Guide. At any rate, whatever the driving motive behind her day’s good deed, she had deserved well of Bertram, and I told myself that a thumping tip should reward her on my departure. Purses of gold should be scattered, and with a lavish hand.
I was musing thus and feeling more benevolent every minute, when who should blow in but Gussie in person, and I had been right in picturing his aspect as wan. He wore the unmistakable look of a man who has been downing spinach for weeks.
I took it that he had come to ask me what I was doing at Totleigh Towers, a point on which he might naturally be supposed to be curious, but that didn’t seem to interest him. He plunged without delay into as forceful a denunciation of the vegetable world as I’ve ever heard, oddly enough being more bitter about Brussels sprouts and broccoli than about spinach, which I would have expected him to feature. It was some considerable time before I could get a word in, but when I did my voice dripped with sympathy.
‘Yes, Jeeves was telling me about that,’ I said, ‘and my heart bled for you.’
‘And so it jolly well ought to have done – in buckets – if you’ve a spark of humanity in you,’ he retorted warmly. ‘Words cannot describe the agonies I’ve suffered, particularly when staying at Brinkley Court.’
I nodded. I knew just what an ordeal it must have been. With Aunt Dahlia’s peerless chef wielding the skillet, the last place where you want to be on a vegetarian diet is Brinkley. Many a time when enjoying the old relative’s hospitality I’ve regretted that I had only one stomach to give to the evening’s bill of fare.
‘Night after night I had to refuse Anatole’s unbeatable eatables, and when I tell you that two nights in succession he gave us those Mignonettes de Poulet Petit Duc of his and on another occasion his Timbales de Ris de Veau Toulousiane, you will appreciate what I went through.’
It being my constant policy to strew a little happiness as I go by, I hastened to point out the silver lining in the c’s.
‘Your sufferings must have been terrible,’ I agreed. ‘But courage, Gussie. Think of the cold steak and kidney pie.’
I had struck the right note. His drawn face softened.
‘Jeeves told you about that?’
‘He said the cook had it all ready and waiting for you, and I remember thinking at the time that she must be a pearl among women.’
‘That is not putting it at all too strongly. She’s an angel in human shape. I spotted her solid merits the moment I saw her.’
‘You’ve seen her?’
‘Of course I’ve seen her. You can’t have forgotten that talk we had when I was in the cab, about to start off for Paddington. Though why you should have got the idea that she looks like a Pekinese is more than I can imagine.’
‘Eh? Who?’
‘Emerald Stoker. She doesn’t look in the least like a Pekinese.’
‘What’s Emerald Stoker got to do with it?’
He seemed surprised.
‘Didn’t she tell you?’
‘Tell me what?’
‘That she was on her way here to take office as the Totleigh Towers cook.’
I goggled. I thought for a moment that the privations through which he was passing must have unhinged this newt-fancier’s brain.
‘Did you say cook?’
‘I’m surprised she didn’t tell you. I suppose she felt that you weren’t to be trusted to keep her secret. She would, of course, have spotted you as a babbler from the outset. Yes, she’s the cook all right.’
‘But why is she the cook?’ I said
, getting down to the res in that direct way of mine.
‘She explained that fully to me on the train. It appears that she’s dependent on a monthly allowance from her father in New York, and normally she gets by reasonably comfortably on this. But early this month she was unfortunate in her investments on the turf. Sunny Jim in the three o’clock at Kempton Park.’
I recalled the horse to which he referred. Only prudent second thoughts had kept me from having a bit on it myself.
‘The animal ran sixth in a field of seven and she lost her little all. She was then faced with the alternative of applying to her father for funds, which would have necessitated a full confession of her rash act, or of seeking some gainful occupation which would tide her over till, as she put it, the United States Marines arrived.’
‘She could have touched me or her sister Pauline.’
‘My good ass, a girl like that doesn’t borrow money. Much too proud. She decided to become a cook. She tells me she didn’t hesitate more than about thirty seconds before making her choice.’
I wasn’t surprised. To have come clean to the paternal parent would have been to invite hell of the worst description. Old Stoker was not the type of father who laughs indulgently when informed by a daughter that she has lost her chemise and foundation garments at the races. I don’t suppose he has ever laughed indulgently in his life. I’ve never seen him even smile. Apprised of his child’s goings-on, he would unquestionably have blown his top and reduced her to the level of a fifth-rate power. I have been present on occasions when the old gawd-help-us was going good, and I can testify that his boiling point is low. Quite rightly had she decided that silence was best.
It was quite a load off my mind to be able to file away the Emerald Stoker mystery in my case book as solved, for I dislike being baffled and the thing had been weighing on me, but there were one or two small points to be cleared up.
‘How did she happen to come to Totleigh?’
‘I must have been responsible for that. During our talk at that studio party I remember mentioning that Sir Watkyn was in the market for a cook, and I suppose I must have given her his address, for she applied for the post and got it. These American girls have such enterprise.’
‘Is she enjoying her job?’
‘Thoroughly, according to Jeeves. She’s teaching the butler Rummy.’
‘I hope she skins him to the bone.’
‘No doubt she will when he is sufficiently advanced to play for money. And she tells me she loves to cook. What’s her cooking like?’
I could answer that. She had once or twice given me dinner at her flat, and the browsing had been impeccable.
‘It melts in the mouth.’
‘It hasn’t melted in mine,’ said Gussie bitterly. ‘Ah well,’ he added, a softer light coming into his eyes, ‘there’s always that steak and kidney pie.’
And on this happier note he took his departure.
8
* * *
IT WAS PRETTY late when I finished the perusal of my Erle Stanley Gardner and later when I woke from the light doze into which I had fallen on closing the volume. Totleigh Towers had long since called it a day, and all was still throughout the house except for a curious rumbling noise proceeding from my interior. After bending an ear to this for awhile I was able to see what was causing it. I had fed sparsely at the dinner table, with the result that I had become as hungry as dammit.
I don’t know if you have had the same experience, but a thing I’ve always found about myself is that it takes very little to put me off my feed. Let the atmosphere at lunch or dinner be what you might call difficult, and my appetite tends to dwindle. I’ve often had this happen when breaking bread with my Aunt Agatha, and it had happened again at tonight’s meal. What with the strain of constantly catching Pop Bassett’s eye and looking hastily away and catching Spode’s and looking hastily away and catching Pop’s again, I had done far less than justice to Emerald Stoker’s no doubt admirable offerings. You read stories sometimes where someone merely toys with his food or even pushes away his plate untasted, and that substantially was what I had done. So now this strange hollow feeling, as if some hidden hand had scooped out my insides with a tablespoon.
This imperative demand for sustenance had probably been coming on during my Erle Stanley Gardnering, but I had been so intent on trying to keep tabs on the murder gun and the substitute gun and the gun which Perry Mason had buried in the shrubbery that I hadn’t noticed it. Only now had the pangs of hunger really started to throw their weight about, and more and more clearly as they did so there rose before my eyes the vision of that steak and kidney pie which was lurking in the kitchen, and it was as though I could hear a soft voice calling to me ‘Come and get it.’
It’s odd how often you find that out of evil cometh good, as the expression is. Here was a case in point. I had always thought of my previous visit to Totleigh Towers as a total loss. I saw now that I had been wrong. It had been an ordeal testing the nervous system to the utmost, but there was one thing about it to be placed on the credit side of the ledger. I allude to the fact that it had taught me the way to the kitchen. The route lay down the stairs, through the hall, into the dining-room and through the door at the end of the last named. Beyond the door I presumed that there was some sort of passage or corridor and then you were in the steak and kidney pie zone. A simple journey, not to be compared for complexity with some I had taken at night in my time.
With the Woosters to think is to act, and scarcely more than two minutes later I was on my way.
It was dark on the stairs and just as dark, if not darker, in the hall. But I was making quite satisfactory progress and was about half-way through the latter, when an unforeseen hitch occurred. I bumped into a human body, the last thing I had expected to encounter en route, and for an instant … well, I won’t say that everything went black, because everything was black already, but I was considerably perturbed. My heart did one of those spectacular leaps Nijinsky used to do in the Russian Ballet, and I was conscious of a fervent wish that I could have been elsewhere.
Elsewhere, however, being just where I wasn’t, I had no option but to grapple with this midnight marauder, and when I did so I was glad to find that he was apparently one who had stunted his growth by smoking as a boy. There was a shrimp-like quality about him which I found most encouraging. It seemed to me that it would be an easy task to throttle him into submission, and I was getting down to it with a hearty good will when my hand touched what were plainly spectacles and at the same moment a stifled ‘Hey, look out for my glasses!’ told me my diagnosis had been all wrong. This was no thief in the night, but an old crony with whom in boyhood days I had often shared my last bar of milk chocolate.
‘Oh, hullo, Gussie,’ I said. ‘Is that you? I thought you were a burglar.’
There was a touch of asperity in his voice as he replied:
‘Well, I wasn’t.’
‘No, I see that now. Pardonable mistake, though, you must admit.’
‘You nearly gave me heart failure.’
‘I, too, was somewhat taken aback. No one more surprised than the undersigned when you suddenly popped up. I thought I had a clear track.’
‘Where to?’
‘Need you ask? The steak and kidney pie. If you’ve left any.’
‘Yes, there’s quite a bit left.’
‘Was it good?’
‘Delicious.’
‘Then I think I’ll be getting along. Good night, Gussie. Sorry you were troubled.’
Continuing on my way, I think I must have lost my bearings a little. Shaken, no doubt, by the recent encounter. These get-togethers take their toll. At any rate, to cut a long story s., what happened was that as I felt my way along the wall I collided with what turned out to be a grandfather clock, for the existence of which I had not budgeted, and it toppled over with a sound like the delivery of several tons of coal through the roof of a conservatory. Glass crashed, pulleys and things parted from their moorings
, and as I stood trying to separate my heart from the front teeth in which it had become entangled, the lights flashed on and I beheld Sir Watkyn Bassett.
It was a moment fraught with embarrassment. It’s bad enough to be caught by your host prowling about his house after hours even when said host is a warm admirer and close personal friend, and I have, I think, made it clear that Pop Bassett was not one of my fans. He could barely stand the sight of me by daylight, and I suppose I looked even worse to him at one o’clock in the morning.
My feeling of having been slapped between the eyes with a custard pie was deepened by the spectacle of his dressing-gown. He was a small man … you got the impression, seeing him, that when they were making magistrates there wasn’t enough material left over when they came to him … and for some reason not easy to explain it nearly always happens that the smaller the ex-magistrate, the louder the dressing-gown. His was a bright purple number with yellow frogs, and I am not deceiving my public when I say that it smote me like a blow, rendering me speechless.
Not that I’d have felt chatty even if he had been upholstered in something quiet in dark blue. I don’t believe you can ever be completely at your ease in the company of someone before whom you’ve stood in the dock saying ‘Yes, your worship’ and ‘No, your worship’ and being told by him that you’re extremely lucky to get off with a fine and not fourteen days without the option. This is particularly so if you have just smashed a grandfather clock whose welfare is no doubt very near his heart. At any rate, be that as it may, he was the one to open the conversation, not me.
‘Good God!’ he said, speaking with every evidence of horror. ‘You!’
A thing I never know, and probably never will, is what to say when somebody says ‘You!’ to me. A mild ‘Oh, hullo’ was the best I could do on this occasion, and I felt at the time it wasn’t good. Better, of course, than ‘What ho, there, Bassett!’ but nevertheless not good.
‘Might I ask what you are doing here at this hour, Mr. Wooster?’
Well, I might have laughed a jolly laugh and replied ‘Upsetting grandfather clocks’, keeping it light, as it were, if you know what I mean, but something told me it wouldn’t go so frightfully well. I had what amounted to an inspiration.