And so speaking she produced the black amber eyesore from the recesses of her costume like a conjuror taking a rabbit out of a hat.
22
It was as if she had suddenly exhibited a snake of the lowest order. I gazed at the thing, appalled. It needed but this to put the frosting on the cake.
‘Where did you get that?’ I asked in a voice that was low and trembled.
‘I pinched it.’
‘What on earth did you do that for?’
‘Perfectly simple. The idea was to go to Uncle Watkyn and tell him he wouldn’t get it back unless he did the square thing by Harold. Power politics, don’t they call it, Jeeves?’
‘Or blackmail, miss.’
‘Yes, or blackmail, I suppose. But you can’t be too nice in your methods when you’re dealing with the Uncle Watkyns of this world. But now that Plank has eased the situation and made our paths straight, of course I shan’t need it, and I suppose the shrewd thing is to return it to store before its absence is noted. Go and put it in the collection room, Bertie. Here’s the key.’
I recoiled as if she had offered me the dog Bartholomew. Priding myself as I do on being a preux chevalier, I like to oblige the delicately nurtured when it’s feasible, but there are moments when only a nolle prosequi will serve, and I recognized this as one of them. The thought of making the perilous passage she was suggesting gave me goose pimples.
‘I’m not going near the ruddy collection room. With my luck, I’d find your Uncle Watkyn there, arm in arm with Spode, and it wouldn’t be too easy to explain what I was doing there and how I’d got in. Besides, I can’t go roaming about the place with Plank on the premises.’
She laughed one of those silvery ones, a practice to which, as I have indicated, she was far too much addicted.
‘Jeeves told me about you and Plank. Very funny.’
‘I’m glad you think so. We personally were not amused.’
Jeeves, as always, found the way.
‘If you will give the object to me, miss, I will see that it is restored to its place.’
‘Thank you, Jeeves. Well, good-bye all. I’m off to find Harold,’ said Stiffy, and she withdrew, dancing on the tips of her toes.
I shrugged a shoulder.
‘Women, Jeeves!’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘What a sex!’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Do you remember something I said to you about Stiffy on our previous visit to Totleigh Towers?’
‘Not at the moment, no, sir.’
‘It was on the occasion when she landed me with Police Constable Oates’s helmet just as my room was about to be searched by Pop Bassett and his minions. Dipping into the future, I pointed out that Stiffy, who is pure padded cell from the foundations up, was planning to marry the Rev. H.P. Pinker, himself as pronounced a goop as ever preached about the Hivites and Hittites, and I speculated, if you recall, as to what their offspring, if any, would be like.’
‘Ah yes, sir, I recollect now.’
‘Would they, I asked myself, inherit the combined loopiness of two such parents?’
‘Yes, sir, you were particularly concerned, I recall, for the well-being of the nurses, governesses, private schoolmasters and public schoolmasters who would assume the charge of them.’
‘Little knowing that they were coming up against something hotter than mustard. Exactly. The thought still weighs heavy upon me. However, we haven’t leisure to go into the subject now. You’d better take that ghastly object back where it belongs without delay.’
‘Yes, sir. If it were done when ’twere done, then ’twere well it were done quickly,’ he said, making for the door, and I thought, as I had so often thought before, how neatly he put these things.
It seemed to me that the time had now come to adopt the strategy which I had had in mind right at the beginning – viz. to make my getaway via the window. With Plank at large in the house and likely at any moment to come winging back to where the drinks were, safety could be obtained only by making for some distant yew alley or rhododendron walk and remaining ensconced there till he had blown over. I hastened to the window, accordingly, and picture my chagrin and dismay on finding that Bartholomew, instead of continuing his stroll, had decided to take a siesta on the grass immediately below. I had actually got one leg over the sill before he was drawn to my attention. In another half jiffy I should have dropped on him as the gentle rain from heaven upon the spot beneath.