‘It must have been. His first move on getting the low-down from you about the book would be to go and see Bingley. I wonder if he’s back yet.’
‘Not likely. I was driving, he was walking. There wouldn’t be time.’
‘I’ll ring for Seppings and ask. Oh, Seppings,’ I said, when he answered the bell, ‘Is Jeeves downstairs?’
‘No, sir. He went out and has not yet returned.’
‘When he does, tell him to come and see me, will you.’
‘Very good, sir.’ I thought of asking if Jeeves, when he left, had had the air of a man going to Number 5 Ormond Crescent, but decided that this might be trying Seppings too high, so let it go. He withdrew, and we sat for some time talking about Jeeves. Then, feeling that this wasn’t going to get us anywhere and that nothing constructive could be accomplished till he returned, we took up again the matter of L. P. Runkle. At least, the aged relative took it up, and I put the question I had been wanting to put at an earlier stage.
‘You say,’ I said, ‘that you felt today was the day for approaching him. What gave you that idea? ‘
‘The way he tucked into his lunch and the way he talked about it afterwards. Lyrical was the only word for it, and I wasn’t surprised. Anatole had surpassed himself.’
‘The Supreme de Foie Gras au Champagne?’
‘And the Neige aux Perles des Alpes.’
I heaved a silent sigh, thinking of what might have been. The garbage I had had to insult the Wooster stomach with at the pub had been of a particularly lethal nature. Generally these rural’ pubs are all right in the matter of browsing, but I had been so unfortunate as to pick one run by a branch of the Borgia family. The thought occurred to me as I ate that if Bingley had given his uncle lunch there one day, he wouldn’t have had to go to all the bother and expense of buying little-known Asiatic poisons.
I would have told the old relative this, hoping for sympathy, but at this moment the door opened, and in came Jeeves. Opening the conversation with that gentle cough of his that sounds like a very old sheep clearing its throat on a misty mountain top, he said:
‘You wished to see me, sir?’ He couldn’t have had a warmer welcome if he had been the prodigal son whose life story I had had to bone up when I won that Scripture Knowledge prize. The welkin, what there was of it in the drawing- room, rang with our excited yappings.
‘Come in, Jeeves,’ bellowed the aged relative.
‘Yes, come in, Jeeves, come in,’ I cried. ‘We were waiting for you with… with what?’
‘Bated breath,’ said the ancestor.
‘That’s right. With bated breath and-‘
‘Tense, quivering nerves. Not to mention twitching muscles and bitten finger nails. Tell me, Jeeves, was that you I saw coming away from 5 Ormond Crescent about an hour ago?’
‘Yes, madam.’
‘You had been seeing Bingley?’
‘Yes, madam.’
‘About the book?’
‘Yes, madam.’
‘Did you tell him he had jolly well got to return it?’
‘No, madam.’
‘Then why on earth did you go to see him? ‘
‘To obtain the book, madam.’
‘But you said you didn’t tell him-‘
‘There was no necessity to broach the subject, madam. He had not yet recovered consciousness. If I might explain. On my arrival at his residence he offered me a drink, which I accepted. He took one himself. We talked for awhile of this and that. Then I succeeded in diverting his attention for a moment, and while his scrutiny was elsewhere I was able to insert a chemical substance in his beverage which had the effect of rendering him temporarily insensible. I thus had ample time to make a search of the room. I had assumed that he would be keeping the book there, and I had not been in error. It was in a lower drawer of the desk. I secured it, and took my departure.’
Stunned by this latest revelation of his efficiency and do-it-yourself-ness, I was unable to utter, but the old ancestor gave the sort of cry or yowl which must have rung over many a hunting field, causing members of the Quorn and the Pytchley to leap in their saddles like Mexican jumping beans.