‘It’s with ref to that book you pinched from the Junior Ganymede.’
He had been drinking a whisky and soda as I spoke, and he drained his glass before replying.
‘I wish you wouldn’t use that word “pinch”,’ he said, looking puff-faced. It was plain that I had given offence. ‘I simply borrowed it because I needed it in my business. They’ll get it back all right.’
‘Mrs. McCorkadale told my aunt you tried to sell it to her.’
His annoyance increased. His air was that of a man compelled to listen to a tactless oaf who persisted in saying the wrong thing.
‘Not sell. I would have had a clause in the agreement saying that she was to return it when she had done with it. The idea I had in mind was that she would have photostatic copies made of the pages dealing with young Winship without the book going out of my possession. But the deal didn’t come off. She wouldn’t co- operate. Fortunately I have other markets. It’s the sort of property there’ll be a lot of people bidding for. But why are you so interested, old man? Nothing to do with you, is it?’
‘I’m a pal of Ginger Winship’s.’
‘And I’ve no objection to him myself. Nice enough young fellow he always seemed to me, though the wrong size.’
‘Wrong size?’ I said, not getting this.
‘His shirts didn’t fit me. Not that I hold that against him. These things are all a matter of luck. Don’t run away with the idea that I’m a man with a grievance, trying to get back at him for something he did to me when I was staying at his place. Our relations were very pleasant. I quite liked him, and if it didn’t matter to me one way or the other who won this election, I’d just as soon he came out on top. But business is business. After studying form I did some pretty heavy betting on McCorkadale, and I’ve got to protect my invest- ments, old man. That’s only common sense, isn’t it?’
He paused, apparently expecting a round of applause for his prudence. When I remained sotto voce and the silent tomb, he proceeded.
‘If you want to get along in this world, Wooster old chap, you’ve got to grasp your opportunities. That’s what I do. I examine each situation that crops up, and I ask myself “What is there in this for me? How”, I ask myself, “can I handle this situation so as to do Rupert Bingley a bit of good?”, and it’s not often I don’t find a vay. This time I didn’t even have to think. There was young Winship trying to get into Parliament, and here was I standing to win something like a couple of hundred quid if he lost the election, and there was the club book with all the stuff in it which would make it certain he did lose. I recognized it at once as money for jam. The only problem was how to get the book, and I soon solved that. I don’t know if you noticed, that day we met at the Junior Ganymede, that I had a large brief case with me? And that I said I’d got to see the secretary about something? Well, what I wanted to see him about was borrowing the book. And I wouldn’t have to find some clever way of getting him looking the other way while I did it, because I knew he’d be out to lunch. So I popped in, popped the book in the brief case and popped off. Nobody saw me go in. Nobody saw me come out. The whole operation was like taking candy from a kid.’
There are some stories which fill the man of sensibility with horror, repugnance, abhorrence and disgust. I don’t mean anecdotes like the one Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright, told me at the Drones, I am referring to loathsome revelations such as the bit of autobiography
to which I had just been listening. To say that I felt as if the Wooster soul had been spattered with mud by a passing car would not be putting it at all too strongly. I also felt that nothing was to be gained by continuing this distasteful interview. I had had some idea of going into the possibility of Aunt Agatha reading the contents of the club book and touching on the doom, desolation and despair which must inevitably be my portion if she did, but I saw that it would be fruitless or bootless. The man was without something and pity… ruth, would it be? I know it begins with r… and would simply have given me the horse’s laugh. I was now quite certain that he had murdered his uncle and forged the will. Such a performance to such a man would have been mere routine.