“Well, Jeeves,” I said, “you see how I am taking hold. You notice the
grip I am getting on this case. No doubt you realize now that it would
pay you to study my methods.”
“No doubt, sir.”
“And even now you aren’t on to the full depths of the extraordinary
sagacity I’ve shown. Do you know what brought Aunt Dahlia up here this
morning? She came to tell me I’d got to distribute the prizes at some
beastly seminary she’s a governor of down at Market Snodsbury.”
“Indeed, sir? I fear you will scarcely find that a congenial task.”
“Ah, but I’m not going to do it. I’m going to shove it off on to
Gussie.”
“Sir?”
“I propose, Jeeves, to wire to Aunt Dahlia saying that I can’t get
down, and suggesting that she unleashes him on these young Borstal
inmates of hers in my stead.”
“But if Mr. Fink-Nottle should decline, sir?”
“Decline? Can you see him declining? Just conjure up the picture in
your mind, Jeeves. Scene, the drawing-room at Brinkley; Gussie wedged
into a corner, with Aunt Dahlia standing over him making hunting
noises. I put it to you, Jeeves, can you see him declining?”
“Not readily, sir. I agree. Mrs. Travers is a forceful personality.”
“He won’t have a hope of declining. His only way out would be to slide
off. And he can’t slide off, because he wants to be with Miss Bassett.
No, Gussie will have to toe the line, and I shall be saved from a job
at which I confess the soul shuddered. Getting up on a platform and
delivering a short, manly speech to a lot of foul school-kids! Golly,
Jeeves. I’ve been through that sort of thing once, what? You remember
that time at the girls’ school?”
“Very vividly, sir.”
“What an ass I made of myself!”
“Certainly I have seen you to better advantage, sir.”
“I think you might bring me just one more of those dynamite specials of
yours, Jeeves. This narrow squeak has made me come over all faint.”
I suppose it must have taken Aunt Dahlia three hours or so to get
back to Brinkley, because it wasn’t till well after lunch that her
telegram arrived. It read like a telegram that had been dispatched in a
white-hot surge of emotion some two minutes after she had read mine.
As follows:
_Am taking legal advice to ascertain whether strangling an idiot
nephew counts as murder. If it doesn’t look out for yourself.
Consider your conduct frozen limit. What do you mean by planting
your loathsome friends on me like this? Do you think Brinkley Court
is a leper colony or what is it? Who is this Spink-Bottle? Love.
Travers._