Jeeves and the Wedding Bells(60)

‘The old girl must have changed her mind,’ interrupted Freddie Oaker, who had not been much gripped by the above exchange. ‘No great mystery. Anyone fancy a frame of snooker pool?’

It was a pensive Bertram who strolled through Berkeley Square an hour or so later. From the day I had returned from my spring holiday on the Côte d’Azur I’d felt a bit like the sidekick in one of those detective stories – the fellow who’s always one step behind the famous sleuth and whose function is to ask questions on behalf of the dimmer class of reader. It was almost as though some master criminal was orchestrating something in which I was a hapless pawn – if a pawn can be orchestrated. But perhaps you see what I’m driving at: a lurking sense that there were Forces at Work of which I Understood Little.

The first thing I wanted to do when back at the flat was to telephone Woody and find out how things stood. I didn’t fear the squashed nose or the broken rib so much as I had after Plan A came a cropper because in this second fiasco Georgiana was as much to blame as I was – and so was Woody himself, come to that. Also it was not the Beeching–Hackwood wedding plans that had suffered; it was the Meadowes–Venables team that had been laid a stymie.

After an update on that front, I would come to the Case of the Missing Aunt. I must have been pondering all this pretty deeply when the sound of a motor horn made me leap back on to the pavement from an ill-advised attempt to cross the road. What was nagging at the edge of the Wooster brain was an inkling that all these loose ends could in some odd way be tied together.

‘What ho, Jeeves,’ I called out on re-entering the domicile. ‘Any chance of a cupful of the fragrant Darjeeling?’

‘The kettle has just boiled, sir.’

‘Dashed odd thing,’ I said, as he set the tray down beside me. ‘I bumped into Boko Fittleworth at the Drones and he told me he had spent the weekend at Steeple Bumpleigh. With Aunt Agatha.’

‘Indeed, sir. It appears that her ladyship was waylaid. I could find no trace of her visit.’

‘Or of young Thomas?’

‘Still less, sir. One might have expected the young gentleman to have left a calling card, as it were.’

‘An apple-pie bed, a broken window or two. A plague of frogs.’

‘Indeed, sir.’

‘A murrain of cattle.’

‘Less likely in the—’

‘Stopping only at the slaughter of the firstborn. But why on earth didn’t did she let me know?’

‘I dare say her ladyship telephoned to apprise you of her change of plan, sir, but if you remember we left London with considerable despatch.’

I did remember. ‘Are you suggesting there were panic stations, Jeeves?’

‘I recall more of an air of decisiveness on your part, sir: a sense that if it were done then ’twere well it were done quickly. Did Mr Fittleworth mention the building work at Bumpleigh Hall?’

‘No. And I forgot to ask. I hope nothing’s amiss.’

‘Would you like me to establish a connection by telephone so that you can speak to her ladyship yourself, sir?’

I swallowed some hot tea rather faster than I meant. As I sponged down the shirt front with a pocket handkerchief, I said: ‘I think not, Jeeves. In the circumstances, better just to let sleeping dogs lie, don’t you think?’

‘As you wish, sir. Will there be anything else?’

The next day, I met Woody for dinner at an oyster bar near Victoria Station, with sawdust on the floorboards – Woody’s choice, it being not far from his flat in Elizabeth Street. He had got there before me and instructed the barman in the making of two zonkers that stood ready on the table between us, winking up invitingly.

I had taken along the copy of the Melbury Courier to remind him of his triumph at the crease.

‘Gosh, what a crew!’ he said. ‘Who’s the shifty-looking one?’

‘Liddle,’ I said. ‘He was out on parole, as it were. Jeeves looks the part, doesn’t he?’

‘Gifted spinner,’ said Woody. ‘Bowling must run in the family. It says here Lord Etringham took two wickets, but I’m sure he had three.’

‘Sir Henry warned us the report wasn’t up to much.’

A waiter came alongside with a variety of shellfish. ‘I went to see Rupert Venables at lunchtime,’ said Woody. ‘That was brave.’

‘I thought it was the right thing to do. He took me to his club in Brook Street. He’s a rum cove.’

‘What did he say about Georgiana? Is he going to hand her the mitten?’

‘He was a bit … elusive. What do you make of Venables, Bertie?’