‘I couldn’t tell you. I know it wasn’t Smith or Jones or Robinson, and that’s as far as I go. But what’s all this in aid of? What does it matter if the stand is of tazza form or if the palin top has an upcurved rim?’
‘Exactly,’ I said, thoroughly concurring, ‘Or if the credit for these tazza forms and palin tops has to be chalked up to Hans Conrael Brechtel of the Hague. The point, Jeeves, is not what particular porringer the ancestor has pinched, but how far she was justified in pinching any porringer at all when its owner was a guest of hers. I hold that it was a breach of hospitality and the thing must be returned. Am I right? ‘
‘Well, sir…’
‘Go on, Jeeves,’ said the ancestor. ‘Say I’m a crook who ought to be drummed out of the Market Snodsbury Ladies Social and Cultural Garden Club.’
‘Not at all, madam.’
‘Then what were you going to say when you hesitated?’
‘Merely that in my opinion no useful end will be served by retaining the object.’
‘I don’t follow you. How about that bargaining point?’
‘It will, I fear, avail you little, madam. As I understand Mr. Wooster, the sum you are hoping to obtain from Mr. Runkle amounts to a good many thousand pounds.’
‘Fifty at least, if not a hundred.’
‘Then I cannot envisage him complying with your demands. Mr. Runkle is a shrewd financier -‘
‘Born out of wedlock.’
‘Very possibly you are right, madam, nevertheless he is a man well versed in weighing profit and loss. According to Sotheby’s catalogue the price at which the object was sold at the auction sale was nine thousand pounds. He will scarcely disburse a hundred or even fifty thousand in order to recover it.’
‘Of course he won’t,’ I said, as enchanted with his lucidity, as he had been with mine. It was the sort of thing you have to pay topnotchers at the Bar a king’s ransom for. ‘He’ll simply say “Easy come, easy go” and write it off as a business loss, possibly consulting his legal adviser as to whether he can deduct it from his income tax. Thank you, Jeeves. You’ve straightened everything out in your customary masterly manner. You’re a… what were you saying the other day about Daniel somebody ? ‘
‘A Daniel come to judgment, sir?’
‘That was it. You’re a Daniel come to judgment.’
‘It is very kind of you to say so, sir.’
‘Not at all. Well-deserved tribute.’
I shot a glance at the aged relative. It is notoriously difficult to change the trend of an aunt’s mind when that mind is made up about this or that, but I could see at a g that Jeeves had done it. I hadn’t expected her to look pleased, and she didn’t, but it was evident that she had accepted what is sometimes called the inevi- table. I would describe her as not having a word to say, had she not at this moment said one, suitable enough for the hunting field but on the strong side for mixed company. I registered it in my memory as something to say to Spode some time, always provided it was on the telephone.
‘I suppose you’re right, Jeeves,’ she said, heavy-hearted, though bearing up stoutly. ‘It seemed a good idea at the time, but I agree with you that it isn’t as watertight as I thought it. It’s so often that way with one’s golden dreams. The -‘
‘- best-laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley,’ I said helping her out. ‘See the poet Burns. I’ve often wondered why Scotsmen say “gang”. I asked you once, Jeeves, if you recall, and you said they had not confided in you. You were saying, ancestor?’
‘I was about to say -‘
‘Or, for that matter, “agley”.’
‘I was about to say -‘
‘Or “aft” for “often”.’
‘I was about to say,’ said the relative, having thrown her Rex Stout at me, fortunately with a less accurate aim than the other time, ‘that there’s nothing to be done but for me to put the thing back in Runkle’s room where I took it from.’