The Case of the Missing Valet
by Jem's Bird

Chapter Seven

I’ve had some pretty unpleasant awakenings, some even in jail cells, most merely perpetrated by the blighters I had before Jeeves came into my life, but none matched being shaken awake by Constable Oates upon the cold gravel of the Totleigh Towers’ grounds. This awakening could, I hope, be counted as the absolute nadir of my existence, so to speak.

It wasn’t because the ground was cold; I am here to tell you that no ground was colder. It wasn’t because the gravel was rough, though I am hard pressed to imagine rougher. It wasn’t even because of the scowling countenance of Constable Oates not six inches from my face. It was of the … thing.

It was the last thing to come before the Wooster eyes before a grey mist had overtaken them, the thing that caused yours truly to flop pathetically to the ground like a landed herring, the thing that had led to me being carried unconscious to the aforementioned cold g. behind the old tool shed and dumped like a sack of inconvenient potatoes.

Now, I have seen my share of mortal remains, including those of my own mater and pater, but said m. r. had hitherto been encountered at a funeral, properly dressed up and looking ready to greet the afterlife in style. Not so for the former Lord Sidcup; he would require a closed casket, presumably. I had never seen eye to eye with the man, but I had not imagined that I would see those eyes set in a head that had been –

I rolled over and was heartily sick upon the c. gravel.

A rough hand grabbed my shoulder. “Come on, you. I’ve been told to make sure Mr. Holmes has all the suspects for interviewin’, and you’re top of his list, I reckon.”

I looked up at the man in shock. The blighter seemed to be enjoying himself. I pulled myself up to my knees, gazing blankly around me. No less than twenty policemen strolled around the grounds, chatting excitedly; apparently even the murder of an earl couldn’t compare with the arrival of a living legend. I shook free of Oates’ arm and stood up, trying to keep the vision of Lord Sidcup out of my mind. Someone had cracked the man’s skull open like an egg –

I leaned over and retched once more, though there was precious little left to bring up. I pulled out my handkerchief and wiped my mouth, bleakly considering that it would be a long time before an egg would be welcome at the Wooster table.

“Sick with remorse, eh, lad?” Oates said with a cruel laugh. “You’ll swing for this one, Wooster. Of course, I always knew you’d hang one day. Ever since you stole that cow creamer –”

“That will be enough, Constable!”

I never thought I’d be glad to see Sir Watkyn Basset. Compared to the execrable Oates, his face was as a vision to the Wooster heart. Sir Watkyn, on his part, however, had not seemed to alter his opinion of me in any way, and glared at me as if I were a tarnish mark upon his prize silver that refused to be buffed away no matter how hard he scrubbed.

“What ho, Sir Watkyn,” I said weakly.

“I would order you off the grounds, Wooster, but the police want everyone in the drawing-room while they figure out what happened. Did you bring any luggage with you?”

“It’s in the car.”

“I’ll have my man come out and get it. You go to your usual room and get cleaned up, then come to the drawing-room and keep your damned mouth shut, do you understand?”

“But, Sir Wat—”

“You are capable of getting washed up and dressed for dinner without that nursemaid of yours doing it for you, aren’t you?”

“Of course, but –”

“Not another word, Wooster,” Sir Watkyn snapped, and turned on his heel, heading back into the house. I stared after him, my spirits about as low as they have ever been.

“Jeeves, where the hell are you?” I whispered. I squared my shoulders and followed Sir Watkyn into the house; what else could I do?

“The tricky bit is pouring the tea and the milk together,” I laugh. “That shall need a bit of practice.”

“It does take a certain amount of dexterity, admittedly,” Jeeves replies with a warm smile, “but I have seen you play tennis and hold no doubt that you should soon be able to master this skill.”

“You know, I think I could get used to this cookery thing,” I say, “especially if I get to see you smile like that.”

“I regret the mask that I had to sustain for so long,” he answers, his cheeks reddening somewhat.

“How long did you feel this way about me?” It might seem strange that in the week since we’ve become lovers, this question has not come to the surface before, but it’s been a busy week, what with going to Madeline’s wedding, getting engaged to Florence Craye, and then getting engaged to Madeline again while sill engaged to Florence. Once again, Jeeves had to rescue me from imminent matrimony; back in our cosy flat and unencumbered by spouting sewage and stolen club books, we can finally talk.

Jeeves considers the question, watching the rim of flame beneath the kettle, a slight frown curving his lips. “I am not sure when I first realized that my feelings for you had moved beyond the platonic,” he says eventually, “but I do know that it was shortly after I came to be in your service.”

“That must have made parts of your assignment jolly awkward,” I say.

“Not at all. You were chosen specifically because we knew that you were involved in nothing more irregular than a few boyish pranks,” he tells me, and my heart goes all fluttery at the crinkle at his eye, accompanied by the tone of his voice. I’ve always suspected that Jeeves was amused by my antics; it’s nice to know that my suspicions are true.

“I must tell you, Bertram,” he continues, and the Wooster heart gives another flutter at hearing him say my name, “that it was not my intention to fall in love with you when I chose your household as the perfect vantage-point for my operation. I had hoped that you would prove an amenable companion; in this respect, you have exceeded my expectations. You are a kind and warm-hearted soul who truly wishes no one any harm. It has never occurred to you, for instance, simply to tell any of the young ladies to whom you have been engaged that you did not wish to marry them.”

“Well, it’s damned hard getting a word in edgewise to tell a girl you don’t want to marry her,” I say. “They tend to start talking about cakes and dresses before a chap’s got a chance to open his mouth, and then it’s just a little late to say ‘here now, you’ve got the wrong end of the stick there’ without hurting anyone’s feelings. You see, Jeeves, as much as I would rather eat live coals than marry Madeline Basset, similarly, I would rather marry her, and do my best to be the best bally husband possible to her, than ever to break her dear heart. Only a cur would act otherwise.”

Jeeves frowns at this, still staring at the rim of flame heating the kettle. “I do not wish to sound disapproving, but did you ever consider that the frankly momentary heartbreak Miss Basset would feel – for she is a resilient young lady – might be substantially less damaging to her in the long run than a loveless marriage? And what of your needs, Bertram? I would not for the world have you suffer the dreary existence that awaited you as Madeline Basset’s husband.” He turns to face me, running a finger along my jaw. “And I do not for a moment wish to lose you – to anyone,” he continues in a low purr.

“I’ve just never been able to say ‘no’ very well,” I say, as he draws me into a tender kiss. Our lips slide pleasurably together for a while, and I snuggle into his arms with a sigh. “I certainly could never say no to you.”

I am more than a little nonplussed when Jeeves draws back from me, his face set as grimly as if I’d just breezed in sporting an electric blue boater with a fuchsia ribbon.

“I say, is there something wrong?”

“I must regret to inform you, Bertram, that I must leave for Manila in the morning.”

It’s amazing how a pleasant flutter in the heart can turn sour as it heads right to one’s stomach. “Manila? But – hold a mo, that’s in Java, right?”

“The Philippine Islands, in fact. I was going to refuse the assignment and let my cousin Minerva go instead, but if you are, as you maintain, unable to refuse me, you should have no problem waiting for me.”

“Your cousin Minerva?” For some reason, my mouth isn’t letting me say what I desperately want to say. “Isn’t she the one that –”

“—the one that your friend Mr. Little was courting a while ago, yes. She is also in the Service, and we were both being considered for this assignment in Manila. Since I have become emotionally involved with you, she kindly volunteered to go instead, saying that she would be glad to get as far away as possible from Mr. Little. But since you are willing to wait, I shall go and spare her the danger. If I live, I should be back within five or six years –”

“Five or six – if you live? What do you mean if? You – you can’t go,” I sputter.

“But if you cannot refuse anything I ask –”

“What is this, some kind of twisted object-lesson? Jeeves, I don’t want you to go. Please.”

He kisses me softly. “Tell me I can’t go,” he whispers.

“I absolutely forbid it,” I say against his lips. “If Minerva Vernet wants to get away from Bingo, she can go swat mosquitoes with the diplomats.”

Jeeves pulls away once more. “My dear Bertram, I need you to understand that you must learn to stand up for yourself, especially to me. If you cannot say ‘no’ to your lover, then who can you say ‘no’ to?”

“Well, I think I can learn to say ‘no’ to you,” I smile, “but saying ‘no’ to Madeline Basset, or, God forbid, even Aunt Agatha, might be a bit more sticky.”

“We shall work on it together,” he says, kissing me again. This time we do not pull apart, even when the kettle begins to whistle. As we sink to the kitchen floor, Jeeves manages to turn the burner off with one hand while undoing my waistcoat with the other.

I shall not be saying “no” that evening, or “yes,” or anything else, for that matter. What’s more, it will be another week before I learn how to make a decent cup of tea.

I don’t think I’ve ever had a more uncomfortable supper; even when Anatole, Aunt Dahlia’s chef, gave notice, there wasn’t a dead body hanging over us, so to speak.

Old Spode couldn’t have been more monstrously present if he had in fact been hanging over the table. Although Sir Watkyn had thoughtfully had Lord Sidcup’s chair removed, it was still a grisly meal, and I was glad to retreat with the others to the drawing-room, where I used the piano to barricade myself away from Aunt Agatha, Sir Watkyn, and the rest of the house party, excepting Madeline, whom I heard had gone to bed shortly after her interview with Mr. Holmes. Everyone seemed to be shaken from their recent questioning by the famous detective; Tuppy and Angela huddled together on one sofa, while Stinker stood gazing hopelessly into the fire, and Aunt Agatha fumed silently over her embroidery while shooting me disgusted looks from time to time. Sir Watkyn was also making eyes like daggers at me, but did so while pacing back and forth from end to end of the room. Aunt Dahlia seemed the best-resigned to the situation, buried in a thick leather-bound volume, ignoring and ignored by all. Stiffy was nowhere to be seen, but I assumed that she was upstairs comforting Madeline. I shuddered a bit, thinking of what poor comfort Stiffy might offer, but put the thing out of my mind. There was enough sorrow right here in this drawing-room to worry about what was happening upstairs.

I could not imagine for a moment that all this lack of joie de vivre came from the unfortunate passing of Lord Sidcup; even his closest friend, Sir Watkyn, had merely tolerated the man. But the idea that one of us could be a murderer definitely cast a pall over the gathering. Of course, most of those gathered seemed to think that I was the murderer, but I knew I could rely on Sherlock Holmes to find the truth.

He had not even looked at me during my interview, and instead of questioning me upon my whereabouts at the time of the murder, he had asked me some bally awkward questions about the Ganymede Club book. I had told him what I knew, of course, but still something nagged at me, some little thing I’d forgotten. I stared down at the piano keys blankly, trying to remember what it was. Something Jeeves had said just before he disappeared –

Stiffy Byng strode into the room. “I’ve arranged it all,” she said simply. “The great detective will be favouring us with a musical selection or two.”

Sir Watkyn scowled at his niece. “Really, Stephanie, I don’t think –”

“Oh, he doesn’t mind, Uncle Watkyn,” she said, smiling easily. “I was very persuasive.”

“But –”

The knight’s protests were cut short by the entrance of Mr. Holmes and Doctor Watson, the former carrying a violin case, the latter glaring acidly at Stiffy. I wondered briefly just what sort of persuasion she’d used upon Mr. Holmes to get him to perform for a lot of strangers, but this speculation did not last long as the detective approached me, frowning at me as if it were all my fault.

“Do you play?” he asked brusquely. “Or are you just using it to hide behind?”

“Bit of both, actually,” I admitted sheepishly.

“And can you in fact play anything worthwhile, or just the latest popular songs?”

I opened my mouth to answer, but Aunt Agatha spoke up. “Oh, he can play piano, Mr. Holmes. It’s about the only thing he can do competently; he plays beautifully, when he’s not indulging his tastes in that disgusting music hall drivel.”

Mr. Holmes did not look round, but laid his case upon the piano, flipping open the buckles with every show of annoyance. “Do you know the Saint-Saëns Rondo Capriccioso?” he asked, pulling out his violin and tucking it under his chin.

“I should jolly well say so. It was my final recital piece at school, in fact. Piggy Hamilton played the violin, and I –”

“Give me an A, please.”

I played the required notes – not just the A, you understand, but also a scrolled D minor chord, second inversion, which is what a violinist really means when he asks you to give him an A, and some of them get quite sharp if you don’t bally well give them what they want. These things are jolly useful to know in certain circs, but no one ever thinks to tell anyone.

Mr. Holmes nodded curtly to let me know that he’d gotten the correct pitch, and then proceeded to tune up his instrument while we all watched in silence. He scraped the bow across the strings slowly, as if there were not a full parlour of people watching him, and then nodded a second time to let me know he’d tuned to his satisfaction.

“Any time you’re ready, Mr. Wooster.”

The Saint-Saëns Rondo is a devilishly tricky little number in A minor; the introduction starts off with the piano playing a few rolling chords while the violin plays a slowish, pensive sort of melody, as if the two instruments are checking each other out, feeling out each others’ mood, that sort of thing. There’s a trippingly fast bit that follows that leads to a wonderful run that Mr. Holmes played perfectly. Now, I usually prefer not to accompany a soloist; all too often they cannot figure out their tempo, or don’t make it clear to a chap where they wish one to put the beat. Mr. Holmes, however, was beautifully clear. He gave me a good medium tempo for the main theme, a playful gypsy sort of tune, which he played with just the hint of a smile. When we got to the second theme, a wonderfully dancy little thingummy with trills that suddenly go all stormy, he sped up for some amazingly hard arpeggios, his smile widening to the absolutely angelic.

By the time we got to the bit where the violin and the piano trade back and forth chords, I completely forgot that I was a separate being. It happens, you know, in performance. I’ve played in orchestras in school, and a fellow tends to meld into what that Jung chappie calls the collective unconscious. As Mr. Holmes led me through the variations, I became an extension of him, with him playing the music through me, just like his Stradivarius.

When the final repeat of the main theme came round – the place where the piano plays the melody and the violin rolls over some dashed difficult arpeggios, Mr. Holmes became a blur of energy, his eyes blazing, his entire being transformed. The scowling old cove with the receding hairline and the limp was gone; in his place, a living sculpture of pure spirit stood before me. Jeeves once told me about the genus loci, but this man had become not the spirit of a place, but rather the spirit of the music itself.

The cadenza was breathtaking – the man took two and three strings at a time and made them cry in anguish, the mournful harmonies ripping all of our hearts out and into the music with him. I was not the only one in that room that had become completely under the sway of Mr. Sherlock Holmes, master performer; every last one of us in that room had become his instrument as time stood still and he played his final solo.

Just at that moment, my line of vision happened to light upon Doctor Watson. At the time, I barely noticed him, what with being under the sway of the master and all, but since that night my mind has replayed the vision thousands of times. The doctor sat transfixed, his eyes bright, his whole face alight with –

Dash it all, alight with what? Anything word I can think of sounds bally awkward, stupid, or just plain wrong. There was an indefinable thingness that shone in the man’s expression as he watched his lover play, a glow about him that still haunts me to this day.

Then he reached the last chord of his solo, and I had to once again take up the harmony as he proceeded to carry us up and over the edge, ripping through the string of arpeggios as I played the simplest of chords underneath. His melody ascended into the stratosphere, rapidly scrolling up the final chords to the ending note, played high upon the fingerboard, a scream of triumph that left us all breathless.

The last note rang for a while in the air, and then the master lifted the bow from the string and the spell was broken. The audience jumped to their feet as one; even Sir Watkyn could not keep from applauding as Mr. Holmes turned to acknowledge their cheers, bowing stiffly as a tiny smile curled the corner of his mouth upwards.

For all the adulation surrounding him, he only looked to one person, the one person who wasn’t applauding. Doctor Watson merely stood among the others, a beatific smile transforming his features. Mr. Holmes arched an eyebrow at his friend; a silent question asked amid a cacophony of praise.

The doctor nodded, the slight inclination of his head giving Mr. Holmes all the praise he ever needed or wanted. Thus satisfied, the great detective turned to me, holding out a thin white hand.

“Well played, Mr. Wooster,” he murmured, flashing me another one of those lightning-quick smiles as he shook my hand.

And then it came to me in a flash. I remembered exactly what it was that Jeeves had said.

“Mr. Holmes,” I whispered, tightening my grip on the detective’s hand, “I need to talk to you and Dr. Watson, right away. And that inspector chap, if he’s still around.”

Mr. Holmes shot me a look. “What nonsense are you spouting, lad?”

“It’s not nonsense, Mr. Holmes.” I looked around at the people in the room, keeping my glance away from the one person who, if I were correct, would soon be swinging at the gallows because of what I’d just remembered. My stomach started doing all sorts of horrible twists, and my face must’ve shown what I was feeling, because suddenly Mr. Holmes looked like he believed me.

I just hoped to hell I was wrong.

 
Chapter Eight