‘Jeeves,’ I said, ‘a somewhat peculiar situation has popped up out of a trap, and I would be happy to have your comments on it. I am sorry to butt in when you are absorbed in your Spinoza and have probably just got to the part where the second corpse is discovered, but what I have to say is of great pith and moment, so listen attentively.’
‘Very good, sir.’
‘The facts are these,’ I said, and without further preamble or whatever they call it I embarked on my narrative. ‘Such,’ I concluded some minutes later, ‘is the position of affairs, and I think you will agree that the problem confronting us presents certain points of interest.’
‘Undeniably, sir.’
‘Somehow Ginger has got to lose the election.’
‘Precisely, sir.’
‘But how?’
‘It is difficult to say on the spur of the moment, sir. The tide of popular opinion appears to be swaying in Mr. Winship’s direction. Lord Sidcup’s eloquence, is having a marked effect on the electorate and may well prove the deciding factor. Mr. Seppings, who obliged as an extra waiter at the luncheon, reports that his lordship’s address to the members of the Market Snodsbury Chamber of Commerce was sensational in its brilliance. He tells me that, owing entirely to his lordship, the odds to be obtained in the various public houses, which at one time favoured Mrs. McCorkadale at ten to six, have now sunk to evens.’
‘I don’t like that, Jeeves.’
‘No, sir, it is ominous.’
‘Of course, if you were to release the club book-‘
‘I fear I cannot do that, sir.’
‘No, I told Ginger you regarded it as a sacred trust. Then nothing can be done except to urge you to get the old brain working.’
‘I will certainly do my utmost, sir.’
‘No doubt something will eventually emerge. Keep eating lots of fish. And meanwhile stay away from Ginger as much as possible, for he is in ugly mood.’
‘I quite understand, sir. Stockish, hard and full of rage.’
‘Shakespeare ? ‘
‘Yes, sir. His Merchant of Venice.’
I left him then, pleased at having got one right for a change, and headed for the drawing-room, hoping for another quiet go at the Rex Stout which the swirling rush of events had forced me to abandon. I was, however, too late. The old ancestor was on the chaise longue with it in her grasp, and I knew that I had small chance of wresting it from her. No one who has got his or her hooks on a Rex Stout lightly lets it go.
Her presence there surprised me. I had supposed that she was still brooding over the hammock and its contents.
‘Hullo,’ I said, ‘have you finished with Runkle?’
She looked up, and I noted a trace of annoyance in her demeanour. I assumed that Nero Wolfe had come down from the orchid room and told Archie Goodwin to phone Saul Panzar and Orrie what’s his name and things were starting to warm up. In which event she would naturally resent the intrusion of even a loved nephew whom she had often dandled on her knee – not recently, I don’t mean, but when I was a bit younger.
‘Oh, it’s you,’ she said, which it was of course.
‘No, I haven’t finished with Runkle. I haven’t even begun. He’s still asleep.’
She gave me the impression of being not much in the mood for chit-chat, but one has to say something on these occasions. I brought up a subject which I felt presented certain points of interest.
‘Have you ever noticed the remarkable resemblance between L. P. Runkle’s daily habits and those of the cat Augustus? They seem to spend all their time sleeping. Do you think they’ve got traumatic symplegia?’
‘What on earth’s that?’ ‘I happened to come on it in a medical book I was reading. It’s a disease that makes you sleep all the time. Has Runkle shown no signs of waking?’
‘Yes, he did, and just as he was beginning to stir Madeline Bassett came along. She said could she speak to me, so I had to let her. It wasn’t easy to follow what she was saying, because she was sobbing all the time, but I got it at last. It was all about the rift with Spode. I told you they had had a tiff. It turns out to be more serious than that. You remember me telling you he couldn’t be a member of Parliament because he was a peer. Well, he wants to give up his title so that he will be eligible.’