A fellow with the excess weight of L. P. Runkle finds it difficult to stiffen all over when offended, but he stiffened as far as he could. It was as if some shareholder at the meeting had said the wrong thing.
‘Blackmail? ‘
‘That’s what I said.’
‘It is not blackmail. It is nothing of the sort.’
‘He is quite right, madam,’ said Jeeves, appearing from nowhere. I’ll swear he hadn’t been there half a second before.
‘Blackmail implies the extortion of money. Mr. Runkle is merely extorting a cook.’
‘Exactly. A purely business transaction,’ said Runkle, obviously considering him a Daniel come to judgment.
‘It would be very different,’ said Jeeves, ‘were somebody to try to obtain money from him by threatening to reveal that while in America he served a prison sentence for bribing a juror in a case in which he was involved.’
A cry broke from L. P. Runkle’s lips, somewhat similar to the one the cat Gus had uttered when the bag of cat food fell on him. He tottered and his face would, I think, have turned ashy white if his blood pressure hadn’t been the sort that makes it pretty tough going for a face to turn ashy white. The best it could manage was something Florence would have called sallow.
The ancestor, on the other hand, had revived like a floweret beneath the watering-can. Not that she looks like a floweret, but you know what I mean.
‘What ! ‘ she ejaculated.
‘Yes, madam, the details are all in the club book. Bingley recorded them very fully. His views were very far to the left at the time, and I think he derived considerable satisfaction from penning an expose of a gentleman of Mr. Runkle’s wealth. It is also with manifest gusto that he relates how Mr. Runkle, in grave danger of a further prison sentence in connection with a real estate fraud, forfeited the money he had deposited as security for his appearance in court and disappeared.’
‘Jumped his bail, you mean?’
‘Precisely, madam. He escaped to Canada in a false beard.’
The ancestor drew a deep breath. Her eyes were glowing more like twin stars than anything. Had not her dancing days been long past, I think she might have gone into a brisk buck-and-wing. The lower limbs twitched just as if she were planning to.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘A nice bit of news that’ll be for the fellows who dole out knighthoods. “Runkle?” they’ll say. “That old lag? If we made a man like that a knight, we’d never hear the last of it. The boys on the Opposition benches would kid the pants off us”. We were discussing, Runkle, yesterday that little matter of the money you ought to have given Tuppy Glossop years ago. If you will step into my boudoir, we will go into it again at our leisure.’
CHAPTER Seventeen
The following day dawned bright and clear, at least I suppose it did, but I wasn’t awake at the time. When eventually I came to life, the sun was shining, all Nature appeared to be smiling, and Jeeves was bringing in the breakfast tray. Gus the cat, who had been getting his eight hours on an adjacent armchair, stirred, opened an eye and did a sitting high jump on to the bed, eager not to miss anything that was going.
‘Good morning, Jeeves.’
‘Good morning, sir.’
‘Weather looks all right.’
‘Extremely clement, sir.’
‘The snail’s on the wing and the lark’s on the thorn, or rather the other way round, as I’ve sometimes heard you say. Are those kippers I smell?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Detach a portion for Gus, will you. He will probably like to take it from the soap dish, reserving the saucer for milk.’
‘Very good, sir.
‘ I sat up and eased the spine into the pillows. I was conscious of a profound peace.
‘Jeeves,’ I said, ‘I am conscious of a profound peace. I wonder if you remember me telling you a few days ago that I was having a sharp attack of euphoria? ‘
‘Yes, sir. I recall your words clearly. You said you were sitting on top of the world with a rainbow round your shoulder.’