‘Why does everything depend on that?’
‘Should he have done so, the matter becomes quite simple. All that is necessary is that Miss Wickham shall present herself at the hotel at five o’clock. She will go up to the suite. You will also have arrived at the hotel at five, sir, and will have made your way to the corridor outside the suite. If Mr and Master Blumenfeld have not returned, Miss Wickham will open the door and come out and you will go in, secure the dog, and take your departure.’
I stared at the man.
‘How many tins of sardines did you eat, Jeeves?’
‘None, sir. I am not fond of sardines.’
‘You mean, you thought of this great, this ripe, this amazing scheme entirely without the impetus given to the brain by fish?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘You stand alone, Jeeves.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘But I say!’
‘Sir?’
‘Suppose the dog won’t come away with me? You know how meagre his intelligence is. By this time, especially when he’s got used to a new place, he may have forgotten me completely and will look on me as a perfect stranger.’
‘I had thought of that, sir. The most judicious move will be for you to sprinkle your trousers with aniseed.’
‘Aniseed?’
‘Yes, sir. It is extensively used in the dog-stealing industry.’
‘But, Jeeves … dash it … aniseed?’
‘I consider it essential, sir.’
‘But where do you get the stuff?’
‘At any chemist’s, sir. If you will go out now and procure a small bottle, I will be telephoning to Miss Wickham to apprise her of the contemplated arrangements and ascertain whether she is to be admitted to the suite.’
I don’t know what the record is for popping out and buying aniseed, but I should think I hold it. The thought of Aunt Agatha getting nearer and nearer to the Metropolis every minute induced a rare burst of speed. I was back at the flat so quick that I nearly met myself coming out.
Jeeves had good news.
‘Everything is perfectly satisfactory, sir. Mr Blumenfeld did leave instructions that Miss Wickham was to be admitted to his suite. The young lady is now on her way to the hotel. By the time you reach it, you will find her there.’
You know, whatever you may say against old Jeeves – and I, for one, have never wavered in my opinion that his views on shirts for evening wear are hidebound and reactionary to a degree – you’ve got to admit that the man can plan a campaign. Napoleon could have taken his correspondence course. When he sketches out a scheme, all you have to do is to follow it in detail, and there you are.
On the present occasion everything went absolutely according to plan. I had never realized before that dog-stealing could be so simple, having always regarded it rather as something that called for the ice-cool brain and the nerve of steel. I see now that a child can do it, if directed by Jeeves. I got to the hotel, sneaked up the stairs, hung about in the corridor trying to look like a potted palm in case anybody came along, and presently the door of the suite opened and Bobbie appeared, and suddenly, as I approached, out shot McIntosh, sniffing passionately, and the next moment his nose was up against my Spring trouserings and he was drinking me in with every evidence of enjoyment. If I had been a bird that had been dead about five days, he could not have nuzzled me more heartily. Aniseed isn’t a scent that I care for particularly myself, but it seemed to speak straight to the deeps in McIntosh’s soul.
The connection, as it were, having been established in this manner, the rest was simple. I merely withdrew, followed by the animal in the order named. We passed down the stairs in good shape, self reeking to heaven and animal inhaling the bouquet, and after a few anxious moments were safe in a cab, homeward bound. As smooth a bit of work as London had seen that day.
Arrived at the flat, I handed McIntosh to Jeeves and instructed him to shut him up in the bathroom or somewhere where the spell cast by my trousers would cease to operate. This done, I again paid the man a marked tribute.
‘Jeeves,’ I said, ‘I have had occasion to express the view before, and I now express it again fearlessly – you stand in a class of your own.’
‘Thank you very much, sir. I am glad that everything proceeded satisfactorily.’
‘The festivities went like a breeze from start to finish. Tell me, were you always like this, or did it come on suddenly?’
‘Sir?’
‘The brain. The grey matter. Were you an outstandingly brilliant boy?’
‘My mother thought me intelligent, sir.’
‘You can’t go by that. My mother thought me intelligent. Anyway, setting that aside for the moment, would a fiver be any use to you?’
‘Thank you very much, sir.’
‘Not that a fiver begins to cover it. Figure to yourself, Jeeves – try to envisage, if you follow what I mean, the probable behaviour of my Aunt Agatha if I had gone to her between the hours of six and seven and told her that McIntosh had passed out of the picture. I should have had to leave London and grow a beard.’
‘I can readily imagine, sir, that she would have been somewhat perturbed.’
‘She would. And on the occasions when my Aunt Agatha is perturbed heroes dive down drain-pipes to get out of her way. However, as it is, all has ended happily … Oh, great Scott!’
‘Sir?’
I hesitated. It seemed a shame to cast a damper on the man just when he had extended himself so notably in the cause, but it had to be done.
‘You’ve overlooked something, Jeeves.’
‘Surely not, sir?’
‘Yes, Jeeves, I regret to say that the late scheme or plan of action, while gilt-edged as far as I am concerned, has rather landed Miss Wickham in the cart.’
‘In what way, sir?’
‘Why, don’t you see that, if they know that she was in the suite at the time of the outrage, the Blumenfelds, father and son, will instantly assume that she was mixed up in McIntosh’s disappearance, with the result that in their pique and chagrin they will call off the deal about the play? I’m surprised at you not spotting that, Jeeves. You’d have done much better to eat those sardines, as I advised.’
I waggled the head rather sadly, and at this moment there was a ring at the front-door bell. And not an ordinary ring, mind you, but one of those resounding peals that suggest that somebody with a high blood-pressure and a grievance stands without. I leaped in my tracks. My busy afternoon had left the old nervous system not quite in mid-season form.
‘Good Lord, Jeeves!’
‘Somebody at the door, sir.’
‘Yes.’
‘Probably Mr Blumenfeld, senior, sir.’
‘What!’
‘He rang up on the telephone, sir, shortly before you returned, to say that he was about to pay you a call.’
‘You don’t mean that?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Advise me, Jeeves.’
‘I fancy the most judicious procedure would be for you to conceal yourself behind the settee, sir.’
I saw that his advice was good. I had never met this Blumenfeld socially, but I had seen him from afar on the occasion when he and Cyril Bassington-Bassington had had their falling out, and he hadn’t struck me then as a bloke with whom, if in one of his emotional moods, it would be at all agreeable to be shut up in a small room. A large, round, fat, overflowing bird, who might quite easily, if stirred, fall on a fellow and flatten him to the carpet.
So I nestled behind the settee, and in about five seconds there was a sound like a mighty, rushing wind and something extraordinarily substantial bounded into the sitting-room.
‘This guy Wooster,’ bellowed a voice that had been strengthened by a lifetime of ticking actors off at dress-rehearsals from the back of the theatre. ‘Where is he?’
Jeeves continued suave.
‘I could not say, sir.’
‘He’s sneaked my son’s dog.’
‘Indeed, sir??
??
‘Walked into my suite as cool as dammit and took the animal away.’
‘Most disturbing, sir.’
‘And you don’t know where he is?’
‘Mr Wooster may be anywhere, sir. He is uncertain in his movements.’
The bloke Blumenfeld gave a loud sniff.
‘Odd smell here!’
‘Yes, sir?’
‘What is it?’
‘Aniseed, sir.’
‘Aniseed?’
‘Yes, sir. Mr Wooster sprinkles it on his trousers.’
‘Sprinkles it on his trousers?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘What on earth does he do that for?’
‘I could not say, sir. Mr Wooster’s motives are always somewhat hard to follow. He is eccentric.’
‘Eccentric? He must be a loony.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘You mean he is?’
‘Yes, sir!’
There was a pause. A long one.
‘Oh?’ said old Blumenfeld, and it seemed to me that a good deal of what you might call the vim had gone out of his voice.
He paused again.
‘Not dangerous?’
‘Yes, sir, when roused.’
‘Er – what rouses him chiefly?’
‘One of Mr Wooster’s peculiarities is that he does not like the sight of gentlemen of full habit, sir. They seem to infuriate him.’
‘You mean, fat men?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Why?’
‘One cannot say, sir.’
There was another pause.
‘I’m fat!’ said old Blumenfeld in a rather pensive sort of voice.
‘I would not have ventured to suggest it myself, sir, but as you say so … You may recollect that, on being informed that you were to be a member of the luncheon party, Mr Wooster, doubting his power of self-control, refused to be present.’
‘That’s right. He went rushing out just as I arrived. I thought it odd at the time. My son thought it odd. We both thought it odd.’
‘Yes, sir. Mr Wooster, I imagine, wished to avoid any possible unpleasantness, such as has occurred before … With regard to the smell of aniseed, sir, I fancy I have now located it. Unless I am mistaken it proceeds from behind the settee. No doubt Mr Wooster is sleeping there.’
‘Doing what?’
‘Sleeping, sir.’
‘Does he often sleep on the floor?’
‘Most afternoons, sir. Would you desire me to wake him?’
‘No!’
‘I thought you had something that you wished to say to Mr Wooster, sir.’
Old Blumenfeld drew a deep breath. ‘So did I,’ he said. ‘But I find I haven’t. Just get me alive out of here, that’s all I ask.’
I heard the door close, and a little while later the front door banged. I crawled out. It hadn’t been any too cosy behind the settee, and I was glad to be elsewhere. Jeeves came trickling back.
‘Gone, Jeeves?’
‘Yes, sir.’
I bestowed an approving look on him.
‘One of your best efforts, Jeeves.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘But what beats me is why he ever came here. What made him think that I had sneaked McIntosh away?’
‘I took the liberty of recommending Miss Wickham to tell Mr Blumenfeld that she had observed you removing the animal from his suite, sir. The point which you raised regarding the possibility of her being suspected of complicity in the affair, had not escaped me. It seemed to me that this would establish her solidly in Mr Blumenfeld’s good opinion.’
‘I see. Risky, of course, but possibly justified. Yes, on the whole, justified. What’s that you’ve got there?’
‘A five-pound note, sir.’
‘Ah, the one I gave you?’
‘No, sir. The one Mr Blumenfeld gave me.’
‘Eh? Why did he give you a fiver?’
‘He very kindly presented it to me on my handing him the dog, sir.’
I gaped at the man.
‘You don’t mean to say—?’
‘Not McIntosh, sir. McIntosh is at present in my bedroom. This was another animal of the same species which I purchased at the shop in Bond Street during your absence. Except to the eye of love, one Aberdeen terrier looks very much like another Aberdeen terrier, sir. Mr Blumenfeld, I am happy to say, did not detect the innocent subterfuge.’
‘Jeeves,’ I said – and I am not ashamed to confess that there was a spot of chokiness in the voice – ‘there is none like you, none.’
‘Thank you very much, sir.’
‘Owing solely to the fact that your head bulges in unexpected spots, thus enabling you to do about twice as much bright thinking in any given time as any other two men in existence, happiness, you might say, reigns supreme. Aunt Agatha is on velvet, I am on velvet, the Wickhams, mother and daughter, are on velvet, the Blumenfelds, father and son, are on velvet. As far as the eye can reach, a solid mass of humanity, owing to you, all on velvet. A fiver is not sufficient, Jeeves. If I thought the world thought that Bertram Wooster thought a measly five pounds an adequate reward for such services as yours, I should never hold my head up again. Have another?’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘And one more?’
‘Thank you very much, sir.’
‘And a third for luck?’
‘Really, sir, I am exceedingly obliged. Excuse me, sir, I fancy I heard the telephone.’
He pushed out into the hall, and I heard him doing a good deal of the ‘Yes, madam,’ ‘Certainly, madam!’ stuff. Then he came back.
‘Mrs Spenser Gregson on the telephone, sir.’
‘Aunt Agatha?’
‘Yes, sir. Speaking from Victoria Station. She desires to communicate with you with reference to the dog McIntosh. I gather that she wishes to hear from your own lips that all is well with the little fellow, sir.’
I straightened the tie. I pulled down the waistcoat. I shot the cuffs. I felt absolutely all-righto.
‘Lead me to her,’ I said.
6 THE SPOT OF ART
I WAS LUNCHING at my Aunt Dahlia’s, and despite the fact that Anatole, her outstanding cook, had rather excelled himself in the matter of the bill-of-fare, I’m bound to say the food was more or less turning to ashes in my mouth. You see, I had some bad news to break to her – always a prospect that takes the edge off the appetite. She wouldn’t be pleased, I knew, and when not pleased Aunt Dahlia, having spent most of her youth in the hunting-field, has a crispish way of expressing herself.
However, I supposed I had better have a dash at it and get it over.
‘Aunt Dahlia,’ I said, facing the issue squarely.
‘Hullo?’
‘You know that cruise of yours?’
‘Yes.’
‘That yachting-cruise you are planning?’
‘Yes.’
‘That jolly cruise in your yacht in the Mediterranean to which you so kindly invited me and to which I have been looking forward with such keen anticipation?’
‘Get on, fathead, what about it?’
I swallowed a chunk of cotelette-suprême-aux-choux-fleurs and slipped her the distressing info’.
‘I’m frightfully sorry, Aunt Dahlia,’ I said, ‘but I shan’t be able to come.’
As I had foreseen, she goggled.
‘What!’
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘You poor, miserable hell-hound, what do you mean, you won’t be able to come?’
‘Well, I won’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘Matters of the most extreme urgency render my presence in the Metropolis imperative.’
She sniffed.
‘I suppose what you really mean is that you’re hanging round some unfortunate girl again?’
I didn’t like the way she put it, but I admit I was stunned by her penetration, if that’s the word I want. I mean the sort of thing detectives have.
‘Yes, Aunt Dahlia,’ I said, ‘
you have guessed my secret. I do indeed love.’
‘Who is she?’
‘A Miss Pendlebury. Christian name, Gwladys. She spells it with a “w”.’
‘With a “g”, you mean.’
‘With a “w” and a “g”.’
‘Not Gwladys?’
‘That’s it.’
The relative uttered a yowl.
‘You sit there and tell me you haven’t enough sense to steer clear of a girl who calls herself Gwladys? Listen, Bertie,’ said Aunt Dahlia earnestly, ‘I’m an older woman than you are – well, you know what I mean – and I can tell you a thing or two. And one of them is that no good can come of association with anything labelled Gwladys or Ysobel or Ethyl or Mabelle or Kathryn. But particularly Gwladys. What sort of girl is she?’
‘Slightly divine.’
‘She isn’t that female I saw driving you at sixty miles p.h. in the Park the other day. In a red two-seater?’
‘She did drive me in the Park the other day. I thought it rather a hopeful sign. And her Widgeon Seven is red.’
Aunt Dahlia looked relieved.
‘Oh well, then, she’ll probably break your silly fat neck before she can get you to the altar. That’s some consolation. Where did you meet her?’
‘At a party in Chelsea. She’s an artist.’
‘Ye gods!’
‘And swings a jolly fine brush, let me tell you. She’s painted a portrait of me. Jeeves and I hung it up in the flat this morning. I have an idea Jeeves doesn’t like it.’
‘Well, if it’s anything like you I don’t see why he should. An artist! Calls herself Gwladys! And drives a car in the sort of way Segrave would if he were pressed for time.’ She brooded awhile. ‘Well, it’s all very sad, but I can’t see why you won’t come on the yacht.’
I explained.
‘It would be madness to leave the metrop. at this juncture,’ I said. ‘You know what girls are. They forget the absent face. And I’m not at all easy in my mind about a certain cove of the name of Lucius Pim. Apart from the fact that he’s an artist, too, which forms a bond, his hair waves. One must never discount wavy hair, Aunt Dahlia. Moreover, this bloke is one of those strong, masterful men. He treats Gwladys as if she were less than the dust beneath his taxi wheels. He criticizes her hats and says nasty things about her chiaroscuro. For some reason, I’ve often noticed, this always seems to fascinate girls, and it has sometimes occurred to me that, being myself more the parfait gentle knight, if you know what I mean, I am in grave danger of getting the short end. Taking all these things into consideration, then, I cannot breeze off to the Mediterranean, leaving this Pim a clear field. You must see that?’