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“Jeeves,” I said, “may I speak frankly?”
“Certainly, sir.”
“What I have to say may wound you.”
“Not at all, sir.”
“Well, then----”
No--wait. Hold the line a minute. I’ve gone off the rails.
I don’t know if you have had the same experience, but the snag I always
come up against when I’m telling a story is this dashed difficult
problem of where to begin it. It’s a thing you don’t want to go wrong
over, because one false step and you’re sunk. I mean, if you fool about
too long at the start, trying to establish atmosphere, as they call it,
and all that sort of rot, you fail to grip and the customers walk out
on you.
Get off the mark, on the other hand, like a scalded cat, and your
public is at a loss. It simply raises its eyebrows, and can’t make out
what you’re talking about.
And in opening my report of the complex case of Gussie Fink-Nottle,
Madeline Bassett, my Cousin Angela, my Aunt Dahlia, my Uncle Thomas,
young Tuppy Glossop and the cook, Anatole, with the above spot of
dialogue, I see that I have made the second of these two floaters.
I shall have to hark back a bit. And taking it for all in all and
weighing this against that, I suppose the affair may be said to have
had its inception, if inception is the word I want, with that visit of
mine to Cannes. If I hadn’t gone to Cannes, I shouldn’t have met the
Bassett or bought that white mess jacket, and Angela wouldn’t have met
her shark, and Aunt Dahlia wouldn’t have played baccarat.
Yes, most decidedly, Cannes was the _point d’appui_.
Right ho, then. Let me marshal my facts.
I went to Cannes--leaving Jeeves behind, he having intimated that he
did not wish to miss Ascot--round about the beginning of June. With
me travelled my Aunt Dahlia and her daughter Angela. Tuppy Glossop,
Angela’s betrothed, was to have been of the party, but at the last
moment couldn’t get away. Uncle Tom, Aunt Dahlia’s husband, remained at
home, because he can’t stick the South of France at any price.
So there you have the layout--Aunt Dahlia, Cousin Angela and self off
to Cannes round about the beginning of June.
All pretty clear so far, what?
We stayed at Cannes about two months, and except for the fact that Aunt
Dahlia lost her shirt at baccarat and Angela nearly got inhaled by a
shark while aquaplaning, a pleasant time was had by all.
On July the twenty-fifth, looking bronzed and fit, I accompanied aunt
and child back to London. At seven p.m. on July the twenty-sixth we
alighted at Victoria. And at seven-twenty or thereabouts we parted
with mutual expressions of esteem--they to shove off in Aunt Dahlia’s
car to Brinkley Court, her place in Worcestershire, where they were
expecting to entertain Tuppy in a day or two; I to go to the flat, drop
my luggage, clean up a bit, and put on the soup and fish preparatory to
pushing round to the Drones for a bite of dinner.
And it was while I was at the flat, towelling the torso after a
much-needed rinse, that Jeeves, as we chatted of this and that--picking
up the threads, as it were--suddenly brought the name of Gussie
Fink-Nottle into the conversation.
As I recall it, the dialogue ran something as follows:
SELF: Well, Jeeves, here we are, what?
JEEVES: Yes, sir.
SELF: I mean to say, home again.
JEEVES: Precisely, sir.
SELF: Seems ages since I went away.
JEEVES: Yes, sir.
SELF: Have a good time at Ascot?
JEEVES: Most agreeable, sir.
SELF: Win anything?
JEEVES: Quite a satisfactory sum, thank you, sir.
SELF: Good. Well, Jeeves, what news on the Rialto? Anybody been phoning
or calling or anything during my abs.?
JEEVES: Mr. Fink-Nottle, sir, has been a frequent caller.