It really was rummy the way the Hemmingway family had taken to me. I wouldn't have said off-hand that there was anything particularly fascinating about me—in fact, most people look on me as rather an ass; but there was no getting away from the fact that I went like a breeze with this[Pg 39] girl and her brother. They didn't seem happy if they were away from me. I couldn't move a step, dash it, without one of them popping out from somewhere and freezing on. In fact, I'd got into the habit now of retiring to my room when I wanted to take it easy for a bit. I had managed to get a rather decent suite on the third floor, looking down on to the promenade.
I had gone to earth in my suite one evening and for the first time that day was feeling that life wasn't so bad after all. Right through the day from lunch time I'd had the Hemmingway girl on my hands, Aunt Agatha having shooed us off together immediately after the midday meal. The result was, as I looked down on the lighted promenade and saw all the people popping happily about on their way to dinner and the Casino and what not, a kind of wistful feeling came over me. I couldn't help thinking how dashed happy I could have contrived to be in this place if only Aunt Agatha and the other blisters had been elsewhere.
I heaved a sigh, and at that moment there was a knock at the door.
"Someone at the door, Jeeves," I said.
"Yes, sir."
He opened the door, and in popped Aline Hemmingway and her brother. The last person I had expected. I really had thought that I could be alone for a minute in my own room.
"Oh, hallo!" I said.
"Oh, Mr. Wooster!" said the girl in a gasping sort of way. "I don't know how to begin."
Then I noticed that she appeared considerably rattled, and as for the brother, he looked like a sheep with a secret sorrow.
This made me sit up a bit and take notice. I had supposed that this was just a social call, but[Pg 40] apparently something had happened to give them a jolt. Though I couldn't see why they should come to me about it.
"Is anything up?" I said.
"Poor Sidney—it was my fault—I ought never to have let him go there alone," said the girl. Dashed agitated.
At this point the brother, who after shedding a floppy overcoat and parking his hat on a chair had been standing by wrapped in the silence, gave a little cough, like a sheep caught in the mist on a mountain top.
"The fact is, Mr. Wooster," he said, "a sad, a most deplorable thing has occurred. This afternoon, while you were so kindly escorting my sist-ah, I found the time hang a little heavy upon my hands and I was tempted to—ah—gamble at the Casino."
I looked at the man in a kindlier spirit than I had been able to up to date. This evidence that he had sporting blood in his veins made him seem more human, I'm bound to say. If only I'd known earlier that he went in for that sort of thing, I felt that we might have had a better time together.
"Oh!" I said. "Did you click?"
He sighed heavily.
"If you mean was I successful, I must answer in the negative. I rashly persisted in the view that the colour red, having appeared no fewer than seven times in succession, must inevitably at no distant date give place to black. I was in error. I lost my little all, Mr. Wooster."
"Tough luck," I said.
"I left the Casino," proceeded the chappie, "and returned to the hotel. There I encountered one of my parishioners, a Colonel Musgrave, who [Pg 41]chanced to be holiday-making over here. I—er—induced him to cash me a cheque for one hundred pounds on my little account in my London bank."
"Well, that was all to the good, what?" I said, hoping to induce the poor fish to look on the bright side. "I mean, bit of luck finding someone to slip it into first crack out of the box."
"On the contrary, Mr. Wooster, it did but make matters worse. I burn with shame as I make the confession, but I immediately went back to the Casino and lost the entire sum—this time under the mistaken supposition that the colour black was, as I believe the expression is, due for a run."
"I say!" I said. "You are having a night out!"
"And," concluded the chappie, "the most lamentable feature of the whole affair is that I have no funds in the bank to meet the cheque when presented."
I'm free to confess that, though I realised by this time that all this was leading up to a touch and that my ear was shortly going to be bitten in no uncertain manner, my heart warmed to the poor prune. Indeed, I gazed at him with no little interest and admiration. Never before had I encountered a curate so genuinely all to the mustard. Little as he might look like one of the lads of the village, he certainly appeared to be the real tabasco, and I wished he had shown me this side of his character before.
"Colonel Musgrave," he went on, gulping somewhat, "is not a man who would be likely to overlook the matter. He is a hard man. He will expose me to my vic-ah. My vic-ah is a hard man. In short, Mr. Wooster, if Colonel Musgrave presents that cheque I shall be ruined. And he leaves for England to-night."
The girl, who had been standing by biting her handkerchief and gurgling at intervals while the[Pg 42] brother got the above off his chest, now started in once more.
"Mr. Wooster," she cried, "won't you, won't you help us? Oh, do say you will! We must have the money to get back the cheque from Colonel Musgrave before nine o'clock—he leaves on the nine-twenty. I was at my wits' end what to do when I remembered how kind you had always been. Mr. Wooster, will you lend Sidney the money and take these as security?" And before I knew what she was doing she had dived into her bag, produced a case, and opened it. "My pearls," she said. "I don't know what they are worth—they were a present from my poor father——"
"Now, alas, no more—" chipped in the brother.
"But I know they must be worth ever so much more than the amount we want."
Dashed embarrassing. Made me feel like a pawnbroker. More than a touch of popping the watch about the whole business.
"No, I say, really," I protested. "There's no need of any security, you know, or any rot of that kind. Only too glad to let you have the money. I've got it on me, as a matter of fact. Rather luckily drew some this morning."
And I fished it out and pushed it across. The brother shook his head.
"Mr. Wooster," he said, "we appreciate your generosity, your beautiful, heartening confidence in us, but we cannot permit this."
"What Sidney means," said the girl, "is that you really don't know anything about us when you come to think of it. You mustn't risk lending all this money without any security at all to two people who, after all, are almost strangers. If I hadn't thought that you would be quite business-like about this I would never have dared to come to you."
[Pg 43]
"The idea of—er—pledging the pearls at the local Mont de Piété? was, you will readily understand, repugnant to us," said the brother.
"If you will just give me a receipt, as a matter of form——"
"Oh, right-o!"
I wrote out the receipt and handed it over, feeling more or less of an ass.
"Here you are," I said.
The girl took the piece of paper, shoved it in her bag, grabbed the money and slipped it to brother Sidney, and then, before I knew what was happening, she had darted at me, kissed me, and legged it from the room.
I'm bound to say the thing rattled me. So dashed sudden and unexpected. I mean, a girl like that. Always been quiet and demure and what not—by no means the sort of female you'd have expected to go about the place kissing fellows. Through a sort of mist I could see that Jeeves had appeared from the background and was helping the brother on with his coat; and I remember wondering idly how the dickens a man could bring himself to wear a coat like that, it being more like a sack than anything else. Then the brother came up to me and grasped my hand.
"I cannot thank you sufficiently, Mr. Wooster!"
"Oh, not at all."
"You have saved my good name. Good name in man or woman, dear my lord," he said, massaging the fin with some fervour, "is the immediate jewel of their souls. Who steals my purse steals trash. 'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands. But he that filches from me my good name robs me of that which enriches not him and makes me poor indeed. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Good night, Mr. Wooster."
[Pg 44]
"Good night, old thing," I said.
I blinked at Jeeves as the door shut. "Rather a sad affair, Jeeves," I said.
"Yes, sir."
"Lucky I happened to have all that money handy."
"Well—er—yes, sir."
"You speak as though you didn't think much of it."
"It is not my place to criticise your actions, sir, but I will venture to say that I think you behaved a little rashly."
"What, lending that money?"
"Yes, sir. These fashionable French watering places are notoriously infested by dishonest characters."
This was a bit too thick.
"Now look here, Jeeves," I said, "I can stand a lot but when it comes to your casting asp-whatever-the-word-is on a bird in Holy Orders——"
"Perhaps I am over-suspicious, sir. But I have seen a great deal of these resorts. When I was in the employment of Lord Frederick Ranelagh, shortly before I entered your service, his lordship was very neatly swindled by a criminal known, I believe, by the sobriquet of Soapy Sid, who scraped acquaintance with us in Monte Carlo with the assistance of a female accomplice. I have never forgotten the circumstances."
"I don't want to butt in on your reminiscences, Jeeves," I said, coldly, "but you're talking through your hat. How can there have been anything fishy about this business? They've left me the pearls, haven't they? Very well, then, think before you speak. You had better be tooling down to the desk now and having these things shoved in the hotel safe." I picked up the case and opened it. "Oh, Great Scott!"
[Pg 45]
The bally thing was empty!
"Oh, my Lord!" I said, staring. "Don't tell me there's been dirty work at the crossroads after all!"
"Precisely, sir. It was in exactly the same manner that Lord Frederick was swindled on the occasion to which I have alluded. While his female accomplice was gratefully embracing his lordship, Soapy Sid substituted a duplicate case for the one containing the pearls and went off with the jewels, the money and the receipt. On the strength of the receipt he subsequently demanded from his lordship the return of the pearls, and his lordship, not being able to produce them, was obliged to pay a heavy sum in compensation. It is a simple but effective ruse."
I felt as if the bottom had dropped out of things with a jerk.
"Soapy Sid? Sid! Sidney! Brother Sidney! Why, by Jove, Jeeves, do you think that parson was Soapy Sid?"
"Yes, sir."
"But it seems so extraordinary. Why, his collar buttoned at the back—I mean, he would have deceived a bishop. Do you really think he was Soapy Sid?"
"Yes, sir. I recognised him directly he came into the room."
I stared at the blighter.
"You recognised him?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then, dash it all," I said, deeply moved, "I think you might have told me."
"I thought it would save disturbance and unpleasantness if I merely abstracted the case from the man's pocket as I assisted him with his coat, sir. Here it is."
[Pg 46]
He laid another case on the table beside the dud one, and, by Jove, you couldn't tell them apart. I opened it and there were the good old pearls, as merry and bright as dammit, smiling up at me. I gazed feebly at the man. I was feeling a bit overwrought.
"Jeeves," I said. "You're an absolute genius!"
"Yes, sir."
Relief was surging over me in great chunks by now. Thanks to Jeeves I was not going to be called on to cough up several thousand quid.
"It looks to me as though you had saved the old home. I mean, even a chappie endowed with the immortal rind of dear old Sid is hardly likely to have the nerve to come back and retrieve these little chaps."
"I should imagine not, sir."
"Well, then—— Oh, I say, you don't think they are just paste or anything like that?"
"No, sir. These are genuine pearls and extremely valuable."
"Well, then, dash it, I'm on velvet. Absolutely reclining on the good old plush! I may be down a hundred quid but I'm up a jolly good string of pearls. Am I right or wrong?"
"Hardly that, sir. I think that you will have to restore the pearls."
"What! To Sid? Not while I have my physique!"
"No, sir. To their rightful owner."
"But who is their rightful owner?"
"Mrs. Gregson, sir."
"What! How do you know?"
"It was all over the hotel an hour ago that Mrs. Gregson's pearls had been abstracted. I was speaking to Mrs. Gregson's maid shortly before you[Pg 47] came in and she informed me that the manager of the hotel is now in Mrs. Gregson's suite."
"And having a devil of a time, what?"
"So I should be disposed to imagine, sir."
The situation was beginning to unfold before me.
"I'll go and give them back to her, eh? It'll put me one up, what?"
"Precisely, sir. And, if I may make the suggestion, I think it might be judicious to stress the fact that they were stolen by——"
"Great Scott! By the dashed girl she was hounding me on to marry, by Jove!"
"Exactly, sir."
"Jeeves," I said, "this is going to be the biggest score off my jolly old relative that has ever occurred in the world's history."
"It is not unlikely, sir."
"Keep her quiet for a bit, what? Make her stop snootering me for a while?"
"It should have that effect, sir."
"Golly!" I said, bounding for the door.
* * * * *
Long before I reached Aunt Agatha's lair I could tell that the hunt was up. Divers chappies in hotel uniform and not a few chambermaids of sorts were hanging about in the corridor, and through the panels I could hear a mixed assortment of voices, with Aunt Agatha's topping the lot. I knocked but no one took any notice, so I trickled in. Among those present I noticed a chambermaid in hysterics, Aunt Agatha with her hair bristling, and the whiskered cove who looked like a bandit, the hotel manager fellow.
"Oh, hallo!" I said. "Hallo-allo-allo!"
Aunt Agatha shooshed me away. No welcoming smile for Bertram.
[Pg 48]
"Don't bother me now, Bertie," she snapped, looking at me as if I were more or less the last straw.
"Something up?"
"Yes, yes, yes! I've lost my pearls."
"Pearls? Pearls? Pearls?" I said. "No, really? Dashed annoying. Where did you see them last?"
"What does it matter where I saw them last? They have been stolen."
Here Wilfred the Whisker King, who seemed to have been taking a rest between rounds, stepped into the ring again and began to talk rapidly in French. Cut to the quick he seemed. The chambermaid whooped in the corner.
"Sure you've looked everywhere?" I said.
"Of course I've looked everywhere."
"Well, you know, I've often lost a collar stud and——"
"Do try not to be so maddening, Bertie! I have enough to bear without your imbecilities. Oh, be quiet! Be quiet!" she shouted in the sort of voice used by sergeant-majors and those who call the cattle home across the Sands of Dee. And such was the magnetism of her forceful personality that Wilfred subsided as if he had run into a wall. The chambermaid continued to go strong.
"I say," I said, "I think there's something the matter with this girl. Isn't she crying or something? You may not have spotted it, but I'm rather quick at noticing things."
"She stole my pearls! I am convinced of it."
This started the whisker specialist off again, and in about a couple of minutes Aunt Agatha had reached the frozen grande-dame stage and was putting the last of the bandits through it in the voice she usually reserves for snubbing waiters in restaurants.
[Pg 49]
"I tell you, my good man, for the hundredth time——"
"I say," I said, "don't want to interrupt you and all that sort of thing, but these aren't the little chaps by any chance, are they?"
I pulled the pearls out of my pocket and held them up.
"These look like pearls, what?"
I don't know when I've had a more juicy moment. It was one of those occasions about which I shall prattle to my grandchildren—if I ever have any, which at the moment of going to press seems more or less of a hundred-to-one shot. Aunt Agatha simply deflated before my eyes. It reminded me of when I once saw some chappies letting the gas out of a balloon.
"Where—where—where——" she gurgled.
"I got them from your friend, Miss Hemmingway."
Even now she didn't get it.
"From Miss Hemmingway. Miss Hemmingway! But—but how did they come into her possession?"
"How?" I said. "Because she jolly well stole them. Pinched them! Swiped them! Because that's how she makes her living, dash it—palling up to unsuspicious people in hotels and sneaking their jewellery. I don't know what her alias is, but her bally brother, the chap whose collar buttons at the back, is known in criminal circles as Soapy Sid."
She blinked.
"Miss Hemmingway a thief! I—I——" She stopped and looked feebly at me. "But how did you manage to recover the pearls, Bertie dear?"
"Never mind," I said crisply. "I have my methods." I dug out my entire stock of manly courage, breathed a short prayer and let her have it right in the thorax.
"I must say, Aunt Agatha, dash it all," I said severely, "I think you have been infernally careless.[Pg 50] There's a printed notice in every bedroom in this place saying that there's a safe in the manager's office where jewellery and valuables ought to be placed, and you absolutely disregarded it. And what's the result? The first thief who came along simply walked into your room and pinched your pearls. And instead of admitting that it was all your fault, you started biting this poor man here in the gizzard. You have been very, very unjust to this poor man."
"Yes, yes," moaned the poor man.
"And this unfortunate girl, what about her? Where does she get off? You've accused her of stealing the things on absolutely no evidence. I think she would be jolly well advised to bring an action for—for whatever it is and soak you for substantial damages."
"Mais oui, mais oui, c'est trop fort!" shouted the Bandit Chief, backing me up like a good 'un. And the chambermaid looked up inquiringly, as if the sun was breaking through the clouds.
"I shall recompense her," said Aunt Agatha feebly.
"If you take my tip you jolly well will, and that eftsoons or right speedily. She's got a cast-iron case, and if I were her I wouldn't take a penny under twenty quid. But what gives me the pip most is the way you've unjustly abused this poor man here and tried to give his hotel a bad name——"
"Yes, by damn! It's too bad!" cried the whiskered marvel. "You careless old woman! You give my hotel bad names, would you or wasn't it? To-morrow you leave my hotel, by great Scotland!"
And more to the same effect, all good, ripe stuff. And presently having said his say he withdrew, taking the chambermaid with him, the latter with a crisp tenner clutched in a vice-like grip. I suppose she and the bandit split it outside. A French hotel[Pg 51] manager wouldn't be likely to let real money wander away from him without counting himself in on the division.
I turned to Aunt Agatha, whose demeanour was now rather like that of one who, picking daisies on the railway, has just caught the down express in the small of the back.
"I don't want to rub it in, Aunt Agatha," I said coldly, "but I should just like to point out before I go that the girl who stole your pearls is the girl you've been hounding me on to marry ever since I got here. Good heavens! Do you realise that if you had brought the thing off I should probably have had children who would have sneaked my watch while I was dandling them on my knee? I'm not a complaining sort of chap as a rule, but I must say that another time I do think you might be more careful how you go about egging me on to marry females."
I gave her one look, turned on my heel and left the room.
* * * * *
"Ten o'clock, a clear night, and all's well, Jeeves," I said, breezing back into the good old suite.
"I am gratified to hear it, sir."
"If twenty quid would be any use to you, Jeeves——"
"I am much obliged, sir."
There was a pause. And then—well, it was a wrench, but I did it. I unstripped the cummerbund and handed it over.
"Do you wish me to press this, sir?"
I gave the thing one last, longing look. It had been very dear to me.
"No," I said, "take it away; give it to the deserving poor—I shall never wear it again."
"Thank you very much, sir," said Jeeves.