I could see trembling on Wilbert Cream's lips a suggestion as to where Daddy could stick himself and his views on respect to elders, but with a powerful effort he held it back.
'I shall take Poppet for a walk,' he said, chirruping to the dachshund, who was sniffing at my legs, filling his lungs with the delicious Wooster bouquet.
'No tea?' I said.
'No.'
'There are muffins.'
'Tchah!' he ejaculated, if that's the word, and strode off, followed by the low-slung dog, and it was borne in upon me that here was another source from which I could expect no present at Yule-Tide. His whole demeanour made it plain that I had not added to my little circle of friends. Though going like a breeze with dachshunds, I had failed signally to click with Wilbert Cream.
When Phyllis and I reached the lawn, only Bobbie was at the tea table, and this surprised us both.
'Where's Daddy?' Phyllis asked.
'He suddenly decided to go to London,' said Bobbie.
'To London?'
'That's what he said.'
'Why?'
'He didn't tell me.'
'I must go and see him,' said Phyllis, and buzzed off.
Bobbie seemed to be musing.
'Do you know what I think, Bertie?'
'What?'
'Well, when Upjohn came out just now, he was all of a doodah, and he had this week's Thursday Review in his hand. Came by the afternoon post, I suppose. I think he had been reading Reggie's comment on his book.'
This seemed plausible. I number several authors among my aquaintance the name of Boko Fittleworth is one that springs to the mind and they invariably become all of a doodah when they read a stinker in the press about their latest effort.
'Oh, you know about that thing Kipper wrote?'
'Yes, he showed it to me one day when we were having lunch together.'
'Very mordant, I gathered from what he told me. But I don't see why that should make Upjohn bound up to London.'
'I suppose he wants to ask the editor who wrote the thing, so that he can horsewhip him on the steps of his club. But of course they won't tell him, and it wasn't signed so Oh, hullo, Mrs Cream.'
The woman she was addressing was tall and thin with a hawk-like face that reminded me of Sherlock Holmes. She had an ink spot on her nose, the result of working on her novel of suspense. It is virtually impossible to write a novel of suspense without getting a certain amount of ink on the beezer. Ask Agatha Christie or anyone.
'I finished my chapter a moment ago, so I thought I would stop for a cup of tea,' said this literateuse. 'No good overdoing it.'
'No. Quit when you're ahead of the game, that's the idea. This is Mrs Travers's nephew Bertie Wooster,' said Bobbie with what I considered a far too apologetic note in her voice. If Roberta Wickham has one fault more pronounced than another, it is that she is inclined to introduce me to people as if I were something she would much have preferred to hush up. 'Bertie loves your books,' she added, quite unnecessarily, and the Cream started like a Boy Scout at the sound of a bugle.
'Oh, do you?'
'Never happier than when curled up with one of them,' I said, trusting that she wouldn't ask me which one of them I liked best.
'When I told him you were here, he was overcome.'
'Well, that certainly is great. Always glad to meet the fans. Which of my books do you like best?'
And I had got as far as 'Er' and was wondering, though not with much hope, if 'All of them' would meet the case, when Pop Glossop joined us with a telegram for Bobbie on a salver. From her mother, I presumed, calling me some name which she had forgotten to insert in previous communications. Or, of course, possibly expressing once more her conviction that I was a guffin, which, I thought, having had time to ponder over it, would be something in the nature of a bohunkus or a hammerhead.
'Oh, thank you, Swordfish,' said Bobbie, taking the 'gram.
It was fortunate that I was not holding a tea cup as she spoke, for hearing Sir Roderick thus addressed I gave another of my sudden starts and, had I had such a cup in my hand, must have strewn its contents hither and thither like a sower going forth sowing. As it was, I merely sent a cucumber sandwich flying through the air.
'Oh, sorry,' I said, for it had missed the Cream by a hair's breadth.
I could have relied on Bobbie to shove her oar in. The girl had no notion of passing a thing off.
'Excuse it, please,' she said. 'I ought to have warned you. Bertie is training for the Jerk The Cucumber Sandwich event at the next Olympic Games. He has to be practising all the time.'
On Ma Cream's brow there was a thoughtful wrinkle, as though she felt unable to accept this explanation of what had occurred. But her next words showed that it was not on my activities that her mind was dwelling but on the recent Swordfish. Having followed him with a keen glance as he faded from view, she said:
'This butler of Mrs Travers's. Do you know where she got him, Miss Wickham?'
'At the usual pet shop, I think.'
'Had he references?'
'Oh, yes. He was with Sir Roderick Glossop, the brain specialist, for years. I remember Mrs Travers saying Sir Roderick gave him a super colossal reference. She was greatly impressed.'
Ma Cream sniffed.
'References can be forged.'
'Good gracious! Why do you say that?'
'Because I am not at all easy in my mind about this man. He has a criminal face.'
'Well, you might say that about Bertie.'
'I feel that Mrs Travers should be warned. In my Blackness at Night the butler turned out to be one of a gang of crooks, planted in the house to make it easy for them to break in. The inside stand, it's called. I strongly suspect that this is why this Swordfish is here, though of course it is quite possible that he is working on his own. One thing I am sure of, and that is that he is not a genuine butler.'
'What makes you think that?' I asked, handkerchiefing my upper slopes, which had become considerably bedewed. I didn't like this line of talk at all. Let the Cream get firmly in her nut the idea that Sir Roderick Glossop was not the butler, the whole butler and nothing but the butler, and disaster, as I saw it, loomed. She would probe and investigate, and before you could say 'What ho' would be in full possession of the facts. In which event, bim would go Uncle Tom's chance of scooping in a bit of easy money. And ever since I've known him failure to get his hooks on any stray cash that's floating around has always put him out of touch with the blue bird. It isn't that he's mercenary. It's just that he loves the stuff.
Her manner suggested that she was glad I had asked her that.
'I'll tell you what makes me think it. He betrays his amateurishness in a hundred ways. This very morning I found him having a long conversation with Wilbert. A real butler would never do that. He would feel it was a liberty.'
I contested this statement.
'Now there,' I said, 'I take issue with you, if taking issue means what I think it means. Many of my happiest hours have been passed chatting with butlers, and it has nearly always happened that it was they who made the first advances. They seek me out and tell me about their rheumatism. Swordfish looks all right to me.'
'You are not a student of criminology, as I am. I have the trained eye, and my judgment is never wrong. That man is here for no good.'
I could see that all this was making Bobbie chafe, but her better self prevailed and she checked the heated retort. She is very fond of T. Portarlington Travers, who, she tells me, is the living image of a wire-haired terrier now residing with the morning stars but at one time very dear to her, and she remembered that for his sake the Cream had to be deferred to and handled with gloves. When she spoke, it was with the mildness of a cushat dove addressing another cushat dove from whom it was hoping to borrow money.
'But don't you think, Mrs Cream, that it may be just your imagination? You have such a wonderful imagination. Bertie was saying only the other day that he didn't know how you did it. Write all those frightfully imaginative books, I mean. Weren't you, Bertie?'