My Man Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse (best book club books of all time TXT) 📗

was Elizabeth, looking just the same as in the old days.

“Is that you, Reggie? I’m so glad you were able to come. I was afraid you might have forgotten all about it. You know what you are. Come along in and have some tea.”

Have you ever been turned down by a girl who afterwards married and then been introduced to her husband? If so you’ll understand how I felt when Clarence burst on me. You know the feeling. First of all, when you hear about the marriage, you say to yourself, “I wonder what he’s like.” Then you meet him, and think, “There must be some mistake. She can’t have preferred this to me!” That’s what I thought, when I set eyes on Clarence.

He was a little thin, nervous-looking chappie of about thirty-five. His hair was getting grey at the temples and straggly on top. He wore pince-nez, and he had a drooping moustache. I’m no Bombardier Wells myself, but in front of Clarence I felt quite a nut. And Elizabeth, mind you, is one of those tall, splendid girls who look like princesses. Honestly, I believe women do it out of pure cussedness.

“How do you do, Mr. Pepper? Hark! Can you hear a mewing cat?” said Clarence. All in one breath, don’t you know.

“Eh?” I said.

“A mewing cat. I feel sure I hear a mewing cat. Listen!”

While we were listening the door opened, and a white-haired old gentleman came in. He was built on the same lines as Clarence, but was an earlier model. I took him correctly, to be Mr. Yeardsley, senior. Elizabeth introduced us.

“Father,” said Clarence, “did you meet a mewing cat outside? I feel positive I heard a cat mewing.”

“No,” said the father, shaking his head; “no mewing cat.”

“I can’t bear mewing cats,” said Clarence. “A mewing cat gets on my nerves!”

“A mewing cat is so trying,” said Elizabeth.

“I dislike mewing cats,” said old Mr. Yeardsley.

That was all about mewing cats for the moment. They seemed to think they had covered the ground satisfactorily, and they went back to pictures.

We talked pictures steadily till it was time to dress for dinner. At least, they did. I just sort of sat around. Presently the subject of picture-robberies came up. Somebody mentioned the “Monna Lisa,” and then I happened to remember seeing something in the evening paper, as I was coming down in the train, about some fellow somewhere having had a valuable painting pinched by burglars the night before. It was the first time I had had a chance of breaking into the conversation with any effect, and I meant to make the most of it. The paper was in the pocket of my overcoat in the hall. I went and fetched it.

“Here it is,” I said. “A Romney belonging to Sir Bellamy Palmer——”

They all shouted “What!” exactly at the same time, like a chorus. Elizabeth grabbed the paper.

“Let me look! Yes. ‘Late last night burglars entered the residence of Sir Bellamy Palmer, Dryden Park, Midford, Hants——’”

“Why, that’s near here,” I said. “I passed through Midford——”

“Dryden Park is only two miles from this house,” said Elizabeth. I noticed her eyes were sparkling.

“Only two miles!” she said. “It might have been us! It might have been the ‘Venus’!”

Old Mr. Yeardsley bounded in his chair.

“The ‘Venus’!” he cried.

They all seemed wonderfully excited. My little contribution to the evening’s chat had made quite a hit.

Why I didn’t notice it before I don’t know, but it was not till Elizabeth showed it to me after dinner that I had my first look at the Yeardsley “Venus.” When she led me up to it, and switched on the light, it seemed impossible that I could have sat right through dinner without noticing it. But then, at meals, my attention is pretty well riveted on the foodstuffs. Anyway, it was not till Elizabeth showed it to me that I was aware of its existence.

She and I were alone in the drawing-room after dinner. Old Yeardsley was writing letters in the morning-room, while Bill and Clarence were rollicking on the half-size billiard table with the pink silk tapestry effects. All, in fact, was joy, jollity, and song, so to speak, when Elizabeth, who had been sitting wrapped in thought for a bit, bent towards me and said, “Reggie.”

And the moment she said it I knew something was going to happen. You know that pre-what-d’you-call-it you get sometimes? Well, I got it then.

“What-o?” I said nervously.

“Reggie,” she said, “I want to ask a great favour of you.”

“Yes?”

She stooped down and put a log on the fire, and went on, with her back to me:

“Do you remember, Reggie, once saying you would do anything in the world for me?”

There! That’s what I meant when I said that about the cheek of Woman as a sex. What I mean is, after what had happened, you’d have thought she would have preferred to let the dead past bury its dead, and all that sort of thing, what?

Mind you, I had said I would do anything in the world for her. I admit that. But it was a distinctly pre-Clarence remark. He hadn’t appeared on the scene then, and it stands to reason that a fellow who may have been a perfect knight-errant to a girl when he was engaged to her, doesn’t feel nearly so keen on spreading himself in that direction when she has given him the miss-in-baulk, and gone and married a man who reason and instinct both tell him is a decided blighter.

I couldn’t think of anything to say but “Oh, yes.”

“There’s something you can do for me now, which will make me everlastingly grateful.”

“Yes,” I said.

“Do you know, Reggie,” she said suddenly, “that only a few months ago Clarence was very fond of cats?”

“Eh! Well, he still seems—er—interested in them, what?”

“Now they get on his nerves. Everything gets on his nerves.”

“Some fellows swear by that stuff you see advertised all over the——”

“No, that wouldn’t help him. He doesn’t need to take anything. He wants to get rid of something.”

“I don’t quite follow. Get rid of something?”

“The ‘Venus,’” said Elizabeth.

She looked up and caught my bulging eye.

“You saw the ‘Venus,’” she said.

“Not that I remember.”

“Well, come into the dining-room.”

We went into the dining-room, and she switched on the lights.

“There,” she said.

On the wall close to the door—that may have been why I hadn’t noticed it before; I had sat with my back to it—was a large oil-painting. It was what you’d call a classical picture, I suppose. What I mean is—well, you know what I mean. All I can say is that it’s funny I hadn’t noticed it.

“Is that the ‘Venus’?” I said.

She nodded.

“How would you like to have to look at that every time you sat down to a meal?”

“Well, I don’t know. I don’t think it would affect me much. I’d worry through all right.”

She jerked her head impatiently.

“But you’re not an artist,” she said. “Clarence is.”

And then I began to see daylight. What exactly was the trouble I didn’t understand, but it was evidently something to do with the good old Artistic Temperament, and I could believe anything about that. It explains everything. It’s like the Unwritten Law, don’t you know, which you plead in America if you’ve done anything they want to send you to chokey for and you don’t want to go. What I mean is, if you’re absolutely off your rocker, but don’t find it convenient to be scooped into the luny-bin, you simply explain that, when you said you were a teapot, it was just your Artistic Temperament, and they apologize and go away. So I stood by to hear just how the A.T. had affected Clarence, the Cat’s Friend, ready for anything.

And, believe me, it had hit Clarence badly.

It was this way. It seemed that old Yeardsley was an amateur artist and that this “Venus” was his masterpiece. He said so, and he ought to have known. Well, when Clarence married, he had given it to him, as a wedding present, and had hung it where it stood with his own hands. All right so far, what? But mark the sequel. Temperamental Clarence, being a professional artist and consequently some streets ahead of the dad at the game, saw flaws in the “Venus.” He couldn’t stand it at any price. He didn’t like the drawing. He didn’t like the expression of the face. He didn’t like the colouring. In fact, it made him feel quite ill to look at it. Yet, being devoted to his father and wanting to do anything rather than give him pain, he had not been able to bring himself to store the thing in the cellar, and the strain of confronting the picture three times a day had begun to tell on him to such an extent that Elizabeth felt something had to be done.

“Now you see,” she said.

“In a way,” I said. “But don’t you think it’s making rather heavy weather over a trifle?”

“Oh, can’t you understand? Look!” Her voice dropped as if she was in church, and she switched on another light. It shone on the picture next to old Yeardsley’s. “There!” she said. “Clarence painted that!”

She looked at me expectantly, as if she were waiting for me to swoon, or yell, or something. I took a steady look at Clarence’s effort. It was another Classical picture. It seemed to me very much like the other one.

Some sort of art criticism was evidently expected of me, so I made a dash at it.

“Er—‘Venus’?” I said.

Mark you, Sherlock Holmes would have made the same mistake. On the evidence, I mean.

“No. ‘Jocund Spring,’” she snapped. She switched off the light. “I see you don’t understand even now. You never had any taste about pictures. When we used to go to the galleries together, you would far rather have been at your club.”

This was so absolutely true, that I had no remark to make. She came up to me, and put her hand on my arm.

“I’m sorry, Reggie. I didn’t mean to be cross. Only I do want to make you understand that Clarence is suffering. Suppose—suppose—well, let us take the case of a great musician. Suppose a great musician had to sit and listen to a cheap vulgar tune—the same tune—day after day, day after day, wouldn’t you expect his nerves to break! Well, it’s just like that with Clarence. Now you see?”

“Yes, but——”

“But what? Surely I’ve put it plainly enough?”

“Yes. But what I mean is, where do I come in? What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to steal the ‘Venus.’”

I looked at her.

“You want me to——?”

“Steal it. Reggie!” Her eyes were shining with excitement. “Don’t you see? It’s Providence. When I asked you to come here, I had just got the idea. I knew I could rely on you. And then by a miracle this robbery of the Romney takes place at a house not two miles away. It removes the last chance of the poor old man suspecting anything and having his feelings hurt. Why, it’s the most wonderful compliment to him. Think! One night thieves steal a splendid Romney; the next the same gang take his ‘Venus.’ It will be the proudest moment of his life. Do it to-night, Reggie. I’ll give you a sharp knife. You simply cut the canvas out of the frame, and it’s done.”

“But one moment,” I said. “I’d be delighted to be of any use to you, but in a purely family affair like this, wouldn’t it be better—in fact, how about tackling old Bill on the subject?”

“I have asked Bill already. Yesterday. He refused.”

“But if I’m caught?”

“You can’t be. All you have to do is to take the picture, open one of the windows, leave it open, and go back to your room.”

It sounded simple enough.

“And as to the picture itself—when I’ve got it?”

“Burn it. I’ll see that you have a good fire in your room.”

“But——”

She looked at me. She always did have the most wonderful eyes.

“Reggie,” she said; nothing more. Just “Reggie.”

She looked at me.

“Well, after all, if you see what I mean—The days that are no more, don’t you know. Auld Lang Syne, and all that sort of thing. You follow me?”

“All right,” I said. “I’ll do it.”

I don’t know if you happen to be one of those Johnnies who are steeped in crime, and so forth, and think nothing of pinching diamond necklaces. If you’re not, you’ll understand that I felt a lot less keen on the job I’d taken on when I sat in my room, waiting to get busy, than I had done when I promised to tackle it in the dining-room. On paper it all seemed easy enough, but I couldn’t help feeling there was a catch somewhere, and I’ve never known