Pelham Wodehouse - The Return of Jeeves

"—and Moke the Second moving up."

"That's mine," said Monica, andwitha strange, set look on her face began to move toward the radio.

"Looks quite as though Gordon Richards might be going to win the Derby at last. They're down the hill and turning Tattenham Corner, Moke the Second in front, with Gordon up. Only three and a half furlongs to go ..."

"Yes, sir," said Jeeves, completely unmoved, "there is a gardener, an old man named Percy Wellbeloved."

The radio suddenly broke into a frenzy of excitement.

"Oo! ... Oo! ... There's a horse coming up on the outside. It's coming like an express train. I can't identify ..."

"Gee, this is exciting, isn't it!" said Mrs. Spottsworth.

She went to the radio. Jeeves alone remained at the Chief Constable's side.

Colonel Wyvern was writing laboriously in his note-book.

"It's Ballymore. The horse on the outside is Ballymore. He's challenging the Moke.

Hear that crowd roaring "Come on, Gordon!"."

"Moke ... The Moke ... Gordon," wrote Colonel Wyvern.

"Come on, Gordon!" shouted Monica.

The radio was now becoming incoherent.

"It's Ballymore ... No, it's the Moke ... No, Ballymore ... No, the Moke ...

No ..."

"Make up your mind," advised Rory.

For some moments Colonel Wyvern had been standing motionless, his note-book frozen in his hand.

Now a sort of shudder passed through him, and his eyes grew wide and wild. Brandishing his pencil, he leaped toward the radio.

"Come on, Gordon!" he roared. "COME ON, GORDON!!!"

"Come on, Ballymore," said Jeeves with quiet dignity.

The radio had now given up all thoughts of gentlemanly restraint. It was as though on honeydew it had fed and drunk the milk of Paradise.

"Photo finish!" it shrieked. "Photo finish! Photo finish! First time in the history of the Derby. Photo finish. Escalator in third place."

Rather sheepishly the Chief Constable turned away and came back to Jeeves.

"The gardener's name you said was what? Clarence Wilberforce, was it?"

"Percy Wellbeloved, sir."

"Odd name."

"Shropshire, I believe, sir."

"Ah? Percy Wellbeloved. Does that complete the roster of the staff?"

"Yes, sir, except for myself."

Rory came away from the radio, mopping his forehead.

"Well, that Taj Mahal let me down with a bang," he said bitterly. "Why is it one can never pick a winner in this bally race?"

""The Moke" didn't suggest a winner to you?" said Monica.

"Eh? No. Why? Why should it?" "God bless you, Roderick Carmoyle."

Colonel Wyvern was himself again now.

"I would like," he said, in a curt, official voice, "to inspect the scene of the robbery."

"I will take you there," said Mrs.

Spottsworth. "Will you come too, Monica?"

"Yes, yes, of course," said Monica.

"Listen in, some of you, will you, and see what that photo shows."

"And I'll send this down to the station," said Colonel Wyvern, picking up the jewel-case by one corner, "and find out what it shows."

They went out, and Rory moved to the door of the library.

"I'll go and see if I really have damaged that T.v. set," he said. "All I did was twiddle a thingummy." He stretched himself with a yawn. "Dam dull Derby," he said. "Even if Moke the Second wins, the old girl's only got ten bob on it at eights."

The library door closed behind him.

"Jeeves," said Bill, "I've got to have a drink."

"I will bring it immediately, m'lord."

"No, don't bring it. I'll come to your pantry."

"And I'll come with you," said Jill. "But we must wait to hear that result. Let's hope Ballymore had sense enough to stick out his tongue."

"Ha!" cried Bill.

The radio had begun to speak.

"Hundreds of thousands of pounds hang on what that photograph decides," it was saying in the rather subdued voice of a man recovering from a hangover. It seemed to be a little ashamed of its recent emotion. "The number should be going up at any moment. Yes, here it is ..."

"Come on, Ballymore!" cried Jill.

"Come on, Ballymore!" shouted Bill.

"Come on, Ballymore," said Jeeves reservedly.

"Moke the Second wins," said the radio.

"Hard luck on Ballymore. He ran a wonderful race. If it hadn't been for that bad start, he would have won in a canter. His defeat saves the bookies a tremendous loss. A huge sum was bet on the Irish horse ten minutes before starting time, obviously one of those S.p. jobs which are so ..."

Dully, with something of the air of a man laying a wreath on the tomb of an old friend, Bill turned the radio off.

"Come on," he said. "After all, there's still champagne."

Mrs. Spottsworth came slowly down the stairs. Monica and the Chief Constable were still conducting their examination of the scene of the crime, but they had been speaking freely of Captain Biggar, and the trend of their remarks had been such as to make her feel that knives were being driven through her heart. When a woman loves a man with every fibre of a generous nature, it can never be pleasant for her to hear this man alluded to as a red-faced thug (monica) and as a scoundrel who can't possibly get away but must inevitably ere long be caught and slapped into the jug (colonel Wyvern). It was her intention to make for that rustic seat and there sit and think of what might have been.

The rustic seat stood at a junction of two moss-grown paths facing the river which lay—though only, as we have seen, during the summer months— at the bottom of the garden. Flowering bushes masked it from the eye of one approaching, and it was not till she had turned the last corner that Mrs.

Spottsworth was able to perceive that it already had an occupant. At the sight of that occupant she stood for a moment transfixed. Then there burst from her lips a cry so like that of a zebu calling to its mate that Captain Biggar, who had been sitting in a deep reverie, staring at a snail, had the momentary illusion that he was back in Africa.

He sprang to his feet, and for a long instant they stood there motionless, gazing at each other wide-eyed while the various birds, bees, wasps, gnats and other insects operating in the vicinity went about their business as if nothing at all sensational had happened. The snail, in particular, seemed completely unmoved.

Mrs. Spottsworth did not share its detached aloofness. She was stirred to her depths.

"You!" she cried. "Oh, I knew you would come. They said you wouldn't, but I knew."

Captain Biggar was hanging his head. The man seemed crushed, incapable of movement. A rhinoceros, seeing him now, would have plucked up heart and charged on him without a tremor, feeling that this was going to be easy.

"I couldn't do it," he muttered.

"I got to thinking of you and of the chaps at the club, and I couldn't do it."

"The club?"

"The old Anglo-Malay Club in Kuala Lumpur, where men are white and honesty goes for granted. Yes, I thought of the chaps. I thought of Tubby Frobisher. Would I ever be able to look him again in that one good eye of his? And then I thought that you had trusted me because ... because I was an Englishman. And I said to myself, it isn't only the old Anglo-Malay and Tubby and the Subahdar and Doc and Squiffy, Cuthbert Biggar—you're letting down the whole British Empire."

Mrs. Spottsworth choked.

"Did ... did you take it?"

Captain Biggar threw up his chin and squared his shoulders. He was so nearly himself again, now that he had spoken those brave words, that the rhinoceros, taking a look at him, would have changed its mind and decided to remember an appointment elsewhere.

"I took it, and I brought it back," he said in a firm, resonant voice, producing the pendant from his hip pocket. "The idea was merely to borrow it for the day, as security for a gamble. But I couldn't do it. It might have meant a fortune, but I couldn't do it."