‘Then that settles that. But we have wandered from the point, which is that Aunt Dahlia is up to her neck in this enterprise of great pith and moment. It’s about Tuppy Glossop.’
‘Indeed, sir?’
‘It ought to interest you, because I know you’ve always liked Tuppy.’
‘A very pleasant young gentleman, sir.’
‘When he isn’t looping back the last ring over the Drones swimming-pool, yes. Well, it’s too long a story to tell you at the moment, but the gist of it is this. L. P. Runkle, taking advantage of a legal quibble… is it quibble?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Did down Tuppy’s father over a business deal… no, not exactly a business deal, Tuppy’s father was working for him, and he took advantage of the small print in their contract to rob him of the proceeds of something he had invented.’
‘It is often the way, sir. The financier is apt to prosper at the expense of the inventor.
‘And Aunt Dahlia is hoping to get him to cough up a bit of cash and slip it to Tuppy.’
‘Actuated by remorse, sir ? ‘
‘Not just by remorse. She’s relying more on the fact that for quite a time he has been under the spell of Anatole’s cooking, and she feels that this will have made him a softer and kindlier financier, readier to oblige and do the square thing. You look dubious, Jeeves. Don’t you think it will work? She’s sure it will.’
‘I wish I could share Madam’s confidence, but-‘
‘But, like me, you look on her chance of playing on L. P. Runkle as on a stringed instrument as… what? A hundred to eight shot?’
‘A somewhat longer price than that, sir. We have to take into consideration the fact that Mr. Runkle is…’
‘Yes? You hesitate, Jeeves, Mr. Runkle is what?’
‘The expression I am trying to find eludes me, sir. It is one I have sometimes heard you use to indicate a deficiency of sweetness and light in some gentleman of your acquaintance. You have employed it of Mr. Spode or, as I should say, Lord Sidcup and, in the days before your association with him took on its present cordiality, of Mr. Glossop’s uncle, Sir Roderick. It is on the tip of my tongue.’
‘A stinker?’ No, he said, it wasn’t a stinker. ‘A tough baby ? ‘
‘No.’
‘A twenty minute egg?’
‘That was it, sir. Mr. Runkle is a twenty minute egg.’
‘But have you seen enough of him to judge? After all, you’ve only just met him.’
‘Yes, sir, that is true, but Bingley, on learning that he was a guest of Madam’s, told me a number of stories illustrative of his hardhearted and implacable character. Bingley was at one time in his employment.’
‘Good lord, he seems to have been employed by everyone.’
‘Yes, sir, he was inclined to flit. He never remained in one post for long.’
‘I don’t wonder.’
‘But his relationship with Mr. Runkle was of more extended duration. He accompanied him to the United States of America some years ago and remained with him for several months.’
During which period he found him a twenty minute egg?’
‘Precisely, sir. So I very much fear that Madam’s efforts will produce no satisfactory results. Would it be a large sum of money that she is hoping to persuade Mr. Runkle to part with?’
‘Pretty substantial, I gather. You see, what Tuppy’s father invented were those Magic Midget things, and Runkle must have made a packet out of them. I suppose she aims at a fifty-fifty split.’
‘Then I am forced to the opinion that a hundred to one against is more the figure a level-headed turf accountant would place upon the likelihood of her achieving her objective.’
Not encouraging, you’ll agree. In fact, you might describe it as definitely damping. I would have called him a pessimist, only I couldn’t think of the word, and while I was trying to hit on something other than ‘Gloomy Gus’, which would scarcely have been a fitting way to address one of his dignity, Florence came in through the french window and he of course shimmered off. When our conversations are interrupted by the arrival of what you might call the quality, he always disappears like a family spectre vanishing at dawn.