I could picture the woman so exactly. Stout, red-faced, spectacled, a little irritable, perhaps, if interrupted when baking a cake or thinking out a sauce, but soft as butter at heart. No doubt something in Gussie’s wan aspect had touched her. ‘That boy needs feeding up, poor little fellow’, or possibly she was fond of goldfish and had been drawn to him because he reminded her of them. Or she may have been a Girl Guide. At any rate, whatever the driving motive behind her day’s good deed, she had deserved well of Bertram, and I told myself that a thumping tip should reward her on my departure. Purses of gold should be scattered, and with a lavish hand.
I was musing thus and feeling more benevolent every minute, when who should blow in but Gussie in person, and I had been right in picturing his aspect as wan. He wore the unmistakable look of a man who has been downing spinach for weeks.
I took it that he had come to ask me what I was doing at Totleigh Towers, a point on which he might naturally be supposed to be curious, but that didn’t seem to interest him. He plunged without delay into as forceful a denunciation of the vegetable world as I’ve ever heard, oddly enough being more bitter about Brussels sprouts and broccoli than about spinach, which I would have expected him to feature. It was some considerable time before I could get a word in, but when I did my voice dripped with sympathy.
‘Yes, Jeeves was telling me about that,’ I said, ‘and my heart bled for you.’
‘And so it jolly well ought to have done – in buckets – if you’ve a spark of humanity in you,’ he retorted warmly. ‘Words cannot describe the agonies I’ve suffered, particularly when staying at Brinkley Court.’
I nodded. I knew just what an ordeal it must have been. With Aunt Dahlia’s peerless chef wielding the skillet, the last place where you want to be on a vegetarian diet is Brinkley. Many a time when enjoying the old relative’s hospitality I’ve regretted that I had only one stomach to give to the evening’s bill of fare.
‘Night after night I had to refuse Anatole’s unbeatable eatables, and when I tell you that two nights in succession he gave us those Mignonettes de Poulet Petit Due of his and on another occasion his Timbales de Ris de Veau Toulousiane, you will appreciate what I went through.’
It being my constant policy to strew a little happiness as I go by, I hastened to point out the silver lining in the c’s.
‘Your sufferings must have been terrible,’ I agreed. ‘But courage, Gussie. Think of the cold steak and kidney pie.’
I had struck the right note. His drawn face softened.
‘Jeeves told you about that?’
‘He said the cook had it all ready and waiting for you, and I remember thinking at the time that she must be a pearl among women.’
‘That is not putting it at all too strongly. She’s an angel in human shape. I spotted her solid merits the moment I saw her.’
‘You’ve seen her?’
‘Of course I’ve seen her. You can’t have forgotten that talk we had when I was in the cab, about to start off for Paddington. Though why you should have got the idea that she looks like a Pekinese is more than I can imagine.’
‘Eh? Who?’
‘Emerald Stoker. She doesn’t look in the least like a Pekinese.’
‘What’s Emerald Stoker got to do with it?’
He seemed surprised.
‘Didn’t she tell you?’
‘Tell me what?’
‘That she was on her way here to take office as the Totleigh Towers cook.’
I goggled. I thought for a moment that the privations through which he was passing must have unhinged this newt-fancier’s brain.
‘Did you say cook?”1
‘I’m surprised she didn’t tell you. I suppose she felt that you weren’t to be trusted to keep her secret. She would, of course, have spotted you as a babbler from the outset. Yes, she’s the cook all right.’
‘But why is she the cook?’ I said, getting down to the res in that direct way of mine.