‘You would prefer that I recalled Bartholomew and told him to go on where he left off?’
She had what Jeeves had called a talking point.
‘Very well. Tell me all. But briefly.’
‘It won’t take long, and then you can be off to beddy-bye. You remember that little black statuette thing on the table at dinner.’
‘Ah yes, the eyesore.’
‘Uncle Watkyn bought it from a man called Plank.’
‘So I gathered.’
‘Well, do you know what he paid him for it?’
‘A thousand quid, didn’t you say?’
‘No, I didn’t. I said it was worth that. But he got it out of this poor blighter Plank for a fiver.’
‘You’re kidding.’
‘No, I’m not. He paid him five pounds. He makes no secret of it. When we were at Brinkley, he was showing the thing to Mr. Travers and telling him all about it… how he happened to see it on Plank’s mantelpiece and spotted how valuable it was and told Plank it was worth practically nothing but he would give him five pounds for it because he knew how hard up he was. He gloated over how clever he had been, and Mr. Travers writhed like an egg whisk.’
I could well believe it. If there’s one thing that makes a collector spit blood, it’s hearing about another collector getting a bargain.
‘How do you know Plank was hard up?’
‘Well, would he have let the thing go for a fiver if he wasn’t?’
‘Something in that.’
‘You can’t say Uncle Watkyn isn’t a dirty dog.’
‘I would never dream of saying he isn’t – and always has been -the dirtiest of dogs. It bears out what I have frequently maintained, that there are no depths to which magistrates won’t stoop. I don’t wonder you look askance. Your Uncle Watkyn stands revealed as a chiseller of the lowest type. But nothing to be done about it, of course.’
‘I don’t know so much about that.’
‘Why, have you tried doing anything?’
‘In a sort of way. I arranged that Harold should preach a very strong sermon on Naboth’s Vineyard. Not that I suppose you’ve ever heard of Naboth’s Vineyard.’
I bridled. She had offended my amour propre.
‘I doubt if there’s a man in London and the home counties who has the facts relating to Naboth’s Vineyard more thoroughly at his fingertips than me. The news may not have reached you, but when at school I once won a prize for Scripture Knowledge.’
‘I bet you cheated.’
‘Not at all. Sheer merit. Did Stinker co-operate?’
‘Yes, he thought it was a splendid idea and went about sucking throat pastilles for a week, so as to be in good voice. The set-up was the same as the play in Hamlet. You know. With which to catch the conscience of the king and all that.’
‘Yes, I see the strategy all right. How did it all work out?’
‘It didn’t. Harold lives in the cottage of Mrs. Bootle, the postman’s wife, where they only have oil lamps, and the sermon was on a table with a lamp on it, and he bumped into the table and upset the lamp and it burned the sermon and he hadn’t time to write it out again, so he had to dig out something on another topic from the old stockpile. He was terribly disappointed.’
I pursed my lips, and was on the point of saying that of all the web-footed muddlers in existence H.P. Pinker took the well-known biscuit, when it occurred to me that it might possibly hurt her feelings, and I desisted. The last thing I wanted was to wound the child, particularly when I remembered that crack of hers about recalling Bartholomew.
‘So we’ve got to handle the thing another way, and that’s where you come in.’
I smiled a tolerant smile.
‘I can see where you’re heading,’ I said. ‘You want me to go to your Uncle Watkyn and slip a jack under his better self. “Play the game, Bassett,” you want me to say, “Let conscience be your guide, Bassett,” trying to drive it into his nut how wrong it is to put over a fast one on the widow and the orphan. I am assuming for purposes of argument that Plank is an orphan, though possibly not a widow. But my misguided young shrimp, do you really suppose that Pop Bassett looks on me as a friend and counsellor to whom he is always willing to lend a ready ear? You yourself were stressing only a moment ago how allergic he was to the Wooster charm. It’s no good me talking to him.’