It took me perhaps a quarter of a minute to sort all this out.
‘A thousand quid?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Not a fiver?’
‘No, sir.’
‘You mean he lied to Uncle Tom?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘What on earth did he do that for?’
I thought he would say he hadn’t a notion, but he didn’t.
‘I think Sir Watkyn’s motive was obvious, sir.’
‘Not to me.’
‘He acted from a desire to exasperate Mr. Travers. Mr. Travers is a collector, and collectors are never pleased when they learn that a rival collector has acquired at an insignificant price an objet d’art of great value.’
It penetrated. I saw what he meant. The discovery that Pop Bassett had got hold of a thousand-quid thingummy for practically nothing would have been gall and w. to Uncle Tom. Stiffy had described him as writhing like an egg whisk, and I could well believe it. It must have been agony for the poor old buster.
‘You’ve hit it, Jeeves. It’s just what Pop Bassett would do. Nothing would please him better than to spoil Uncle Tom’s day. What a man, Jeeves!’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Would you like to have a mind like his?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Nor me. It just shows how being a magistrate saps the moral fibre. I remember thinking as I stood before him in the dock that he had a
shifty eye and that I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw an elephant. I suppose all magistrates are like that.’
‘There may be exceptions, sir.’
‘I doubt it. Twisters, every one of them. So my errand was…what, Jeeves?’
‘Bootless, sir.’
‘Bootless? It doesn’t sound right, but I suppose you know. Well, I wish the news you’ve just sprung could have broken before I presented myself chez Plank. I would have been spared a testing ordeal.’
‘I can appreciate the nervous strain you must have undergone, sir. It is unfortunate that I was not able to arrive earlier.’
‘How did you arrive at all? That’s what’s puzzling me. You can’t have walked.’
‘No, sir. I borrowed Miss Byng’s car. I left it some little distance down the road and proceeded to the house on foot. Hearing voices, I approached the french window and listened, and was thus enabled to intervene at the crucial moment.’
‘Very resourceful.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘I should like to express my gratitude. And when I say gratitude, I mean heartfelt gratitude.’
‘Not at all, sir. It was a pleasure.’
‘But for you, Plank would have had me in the local calaboose in a matter of minutes. Who is he, by the way? I got the impression that he was an explorer of sorts.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Pretty far-flung, I gathered.’
‘Extremely, sir. He has recently returned from an expedition into the interior of Brazil. He inherited the house where he resides from a deceased godfather. He breeds cocker spaniels, suffers somewhat from malaria and eats only non-fattening protein bread.’
‘You seem to have got him taped all right.’
‘I made inquiries at the post office, sir. The person behind the counter was most informative. I also learned that Major Plank is an enthusiast on Rugby football and is hoping to make Hockley-cum-Meston invincible on the field.’
‘Yes, so he was telling me. You aren’t a prop forward, are you, Jeeves?’
‘No, sir. Indeed, I do not know what the term signifies.’
‘I don’t, either, except that it’s something a team has to have if it’s hoping to do down the opposition at Rugby football. Plank, I believe, has searched high and low for one, but his errand has been bootless.
Rather sad, when you come to think of it. All that money, all those cocker spaniels, all that protein bread, but no prop forward. Still, that’s life.’
‘Yes indeed, sir.’
I slid behind the steering wheel, and told him to hop in.
‘But I was forgetting. You’ve got Stiffy’s car. Then I’ll be driving on. The sooner I get this statuette thing back into her custody, the
better.’
He didn’t shake his head, because he never shakes his head, but he raised the south-east corner of a warning eyebrow.
‘If you will pardon the suggestion, sir, I think it would be more advisable for me to take the object to Miss Byng. It would scarcely be prudent for you to enter the environs of Totleigh Towers with it on your person. You might encounter his lordship … I should say Mr. Spode.’