I nodded.
‘Yes, we got together in the hall at, I suppose, about one a.m. I had gone down to see if I could get a bit of that steak and kidney pie.’
‘I quite understand, sir. It was an injudicious thing to do, if I may say so, but the claims of steak and kidney pie are of course paramount. It was immediately after this that Sir Watkyn fell in with Mr. Spode’s suggestion that the statuette be placed under lock and key in the collection room. I presume that it is now there, and when it is explained to Miss Byng that only by means of burglar’s tools or a flask of trinitrotoluol could you obtain access to it and that neither of these is in your possession, I am sure the lady will see reason and recede from her position.’
Only the circumstance of my being in bed at the moment kept me from dancing a few carefree steps.
‘You speak absolute sooth, Jeeves. This lets me out.’
‘Completely, sir.’
‘Perhaps you wouldn’t mind going and explaining the position of affairs to Stiffy now. You can tell the story so much better than I could, and she ought to be given the low-down as soon as possible. I don’t know where she is at this time of day, but you’ll find her messing about somewhere, I’ve no doubt.’
‘I saw Miss Byng in the garden with Mr. Pinker, sir. I think she was trying to prepare him for his approaching ordeal.’
‘Eh?’
‘If you recall, sir, owing to the temporary indisposition of the vicar, Mr. Pinker will be in sole charge of the school treat tomorrow, and he views the prospect with not unnatural qualms. There is a somewhat lawless element among the school children of Totleigh-in-the-Wold, and he fears the worst.’
‘Well, tell Stiffy to take a couple of minutes off from the pep talk and listen to your communique.’
‘Very good, sir.’
He was absent quite a time – so long, in fact, that I was dressed when he returned.
‘I saw Miss Byng, sir.’
‘And – ?’
‘She is still insistent that you restore the statuette to Mr. Plank.’
‘She’s cuckoo. I can’t get into the collection room.’
‘No, sir, but Miss Byng can. She informs me that not long ago Sir Watkyn chanced to drop his key, and she picked it up and omitted to apprise him. Sir Watkyn had another key made, but the original remains in Miss Byng’s possession.’
I clutched the brow.
‘You mean she can get into the room any time she feels like it?’
‘Precisely, sir. Indeed, she has just done so.’
And so saying he fished the eyesore from an inner pocket and handed it to me.
‘Miss Byng suggests that you take the object to Mr. Plank after luncheon. In her droll way she said the meal – I quote her words -would put the necessary stuffing into you and nerve you for the . . . It is somewhat early, sir, but shall I get you a little brandy?’
‘Not a little, Jeeves,’ I said. ‘Fetch the cask.’
I don’t know how Emerald Stoker was with brush and palette, never having seen any of her output, but she unquestionably had what it takes where cooking was concerned, and any householder would have been glad to sign her up for the duration. The lunch she provided was excellent, everything most toothsome.
But with this ghastly commission of Stiffy’s on the agenda paper, I had little appetite for her offerings. The brow was furrowed, the manner distrait, the stomach full of butterflies.
‘Jeeves,’ I said as he accompanied me to my car at the conclusion of the meal, speaking rather peevishly, perhaps, for I was not my usual sunny self, ‘doesn’t it strike you as odd that, with infant mortality so rife, a girl like Stiffy should have been permitted to survive into the early twenties? Some mismanagement there. What’s the tree I read about somewhere that does you in if you sit under it?’
‘The Upas tree, sir.’
‘She’s a female Upas tree. It’s not safe to come near her. Disaster on every side is what she strews. And another thing. It’s all very well for her to say . . . glibly?’