Jeeves in the offing

'My very words.'

'And if you have an imagination, you can't help imagining. Can you, Bertie?'

'Dashed difficult.'

Her honeyed words were wasted. The Cream continued to dig her toes in like Balaam's ass, of whom you have doubtless heard.

'I'm not imagining that that butler is up to something fishy,' she said tartly. 'And I should have thought it was pretty obvious what that something was. You seem to have forgotten that Mr Travers has one of the finest collections of old silver in England.'

This was correct. Owing possibly to some flaw in his mental make-up, Uncle Tom has been collecting old silver since I was so high, and I suppose the contents of the room on the ground floor where he parks the stuff are worth a princely sum. I knew all about that collection of his, not only because I had had to listen to him for hours on the subject of sconces, foliation, ribbon wreaths in high relief and gadroon borders, but because I had what you might call a personal interest in it, once having stolen an eighteenth-century cow-creamer for him. (Long story. No time to go into it now. You will find it elsewhere in the archives.)

'Mrs Travers was showing it to Willie the other day, and he was thrilled. Willie collects old silver himself.'

With each hour that passed I was finding it more and more difficult to get a toe-hold on the character of W. Cream. An in-and-out performer, if ever there was one. First all that poetry, I mean, and now this. I had always supposed that playboys didn't give a hoot for anything except blondes and cold bottles. It just showed once again that half the world doesn't know how the other three-quarters lives.

'He says there are any number of things in Mr Travers's collection that he would give his back teeth for. There was an eighteenth-century cow-creamer he particularly coveted. So keep your eye on that butler. I'm certainly going to keep mine. Well,' said the Cream, rising, 'I must be getting back to my work. I always like to rough out a new chapter before finishing for the day.'

She legged it, and for a moment silence reigned. Then Bobbie said, 'Phew!' and I agreed that 'Phew!' was the mot juste.

'We'd better get Glossop out of here quick,' I said.

'How can we? It's up to your aunt to do that, and she's away.'

'Then I'm jolly well going to get out myself. There's too much impending doom buzzing around these parts for my taste. Brinkley Court, once a peaceful country-house, has become like something sinister out of Edgar Allan Poe, and it makes my feet cold. I'm leaving.'

'You can't till your aunt gets back. There has to be some sort of host or hostess here, and I simply must go home tomorrow and see Mother. You'll have to clench your teeth and stick it.'

'And the severe mental strain to which I am being subjected doesn't matter, I suppose?'

'Not a bit. Does you good. Keeps your pores open.'

I should probably have said something pretty cutting in reply to this, if I could have thought of anything, but as I couldn't I didn't.

'What's Aunt Dahlia's address?' I said.

'Royal Hotel, Eastbourne. Why?'

'Because,' I said, taking another cucumber sandwich, 'I'm going to wire her to ring me up tomorrow without fail, so that I can apprise her of what's going on in this joint.'

6

I forget how the subject arose, but I remember Jeeves once saying that sleep knits up the ravelled sleave of care. Balm of hurt minds, he described it as. The idea being, I took it, that if things are getting sticky, they tend to seem less glutinous after you've had your eight hours.

Apple sauce, in my opinion. It seldom pans out that way with me, and it didn't now. I had retired to rest taking a dim view of the current situation at Brinkley Court and opening my eyes to a new day, as the expression is, I found myself taking an even dimmer. Who knew, I asked myself as I practically pushed the breakfast egg away untasted, what Ma Cream might not at any moment uncover? And who could say how soon, if I continued to be always at his side, Wilbert Cream would get it up his nose and start attacking me with tooth and claw? Already his manner was that of a man whom the society of Bertram Wooster had fed to the tonsils, and one more sight of the latter at his elbow might quite easily make him decide to take prompt steps through the proper channels.

Musing along these lines, I had little appetite for lunch, though Anatole had extended himself to the utmost. I winced every time the Cream shot a sharp, suspicious look at Pop Glossop as he messed about at the sideboard, and the long, loving looks her son Wilbert kept directing at Phyllis Mills chilled me to the marrow. At the conclusion of the meal he would, I presumed, invite the girl to accompany him again to that leafy glade, and it was idle to suppose that there would not be pique on his part, or even chagrin, when I came along, too.

Fortunately, as we rose from the table, Phyllis said she was going to her room to finish typing Daddy's speech, and my mind was eased for the nonce. Even a New York playboy, accustomed from his earliest years to pursue blondes like a bloodhound, would hardly follow her there and press his suit.

Seeming himself to recognize that there was nothing constructive to be done in that direction for the moment, he said in a brooding voice that he would take Poppet for a walk. This, apparently, was his invariable method of healing the stings of disappointment, and an excellent thing of course from the point of view of a dog who liked getting around and seeing the sights. They headed for the horizon and passed out of view; the hound gambolling, he not gambolling but swishing his stick a good deal in an overwrought sort of manner, and I, feeling that this was a thing that ought to be done, selected one of Ma Cream's books from Aunt Dahlia's shelves and took it out to read in a deck chair on the lawn. And I should no doubt have enjoyed it enormously, for the Cream unquestionably wielded a gifted pen, had not the warmth of the day caused me to drop off into a gentle sleep in the middle of Chapter Two.

Waking from this some little time later and running an eye over myself to see if the ravelled sleave of care had been knitted up � which it hadn't � I was told that I was wanted on the telephone. I hastened to the instrument, and Aunt Dahlia's voice came thundering over the wire.

'Bertie?'

'Bertram it is.'

'Why the devil have you been such a time? I've been hanging on to this damned receiver a long hour by Shrewsbury clock.'

'Sorry. I came on winged feet, but I was out on the lawn when you broke loose.'

'Sleeping off your lunch, I suppose?'

'My eyes may have closed for a moment.'

'Always eating, that's you.'

'It is customary, I believe, to take a little nourishment at about this hour,' I said rather stiffly. 'How's Bonzo?'

'Getting along.'

'What was it?'

'German measles, but he's out of danger. Well, what's all the excitement about? Why did you want me to phone you? Just so that you could hear Auntie's voice?'

'I am always glad to hear Auntie's voice, but I had a deeper and graver reason. I thought you ought to know about all these lurking perils in the home.'

'What lurking perils?'

'Ma Cream for one. She's hotting up. She entertains suspicions.'

'What of ?'

'Pop Glossop. She doesn't like his face.'

'Well, hers is nothing to write home about.'

'She thinks he isn't a real butler.'

From the fact that my ear-drum nearly split in half I deduced that she had laughed a jovial laugh.

'Let her think.'

'You aren't perturbed?'

'Not a bit. She can't do anything about it. Anyway, Glossop ought to be leaving in about a week. He told me he didn't think it would take longer than that to make up his mind about Wilbert. Adela Cream doesn't worry me.'