As Stinker had predicted, Madeline Bassett placed no obstacle in the way of my visiting Totleigh Towers. In response to my invitation-cadging missive she gave me the green light, and an hour or so after her telegram had arrived Aunt Dahlia rang up from Brinkley, full of eagerness to ascertain what the hell, she having just received my wire saying that owing to absence from the metropolis I would be unable to give her the lunch for which she had been budgeting.
Her call came as no surprise. I had anticipated that there might be a certain liveliness on the Brinkley front. The old flesh-and-blood is a genial soul who loves her Bertram dearly, but she is a woman of imperious spirit. She dislikes having her wishes thwarted, and her voice came booming at me like a pack of hounds in full cry.
'Bertie, you foul young blot on the landscape!'
'Speaking.'
'I got your telegram.'
'I thought you would. Very efficient, the gramming service.'
'What do you mean, you're leaving town? You never leave town except to come down here and wallow in Anatole's cooking.'
Her allusion was to her peerless French chef, at the mention of whose name the mouth starts watering automatically. God's gift to the gastric juices I have sometimes called him.
'Where are you going?'
My mouth having stopped watering, I said I was going to Totleigh Towers, and she uttered an impatient snort.
'There's something wrong with this blasted wire. It sounded as if you were saying you were going to Totleigh Towers.'
'I am.'
'To Totleigh Towers?
'I leave this afternoon.'
'What in the world made them invite you?'
'They didn't. I invited myself.'
'You mean you're deliberately seeking the society of Sir Watkyn Bassett? You must be more of an ass than even I have ever thought you. And I speak as a woman who has just had the old bounder in her hair for more than a week.'
I saw her point, and hastened to explain.
'I admit Pop Bassett is a bit above the odds,' I said, 'and unless one is compelled by circumstances it is always wisest not to stir him, but a sharp crisis has been precipitated in my affairs. All is not well between Gussie Fink- Nottle and Madeline Bassett. Their engagement is tottering toward the melting pot, and you know what that engagement means to me. I'm going down there to try to heal the rift.'
'What can you do?'
'My role, as I see it, will be that of what the French call the raisonneur?
'And what does that mean?'
'Ah, there you have me, but that's what Jeeves says I'll be.'
'Are you taking Jeeves with you?'
'Of course. Do I ever stir foot without him?'
'Well, watch out, that's all I say to you, watch out. I happen to know that Bassett is making overtures to him.'
'How do you mean, overtures?'
'He's trying to steal him from you.'
I reeled, and might have fallen, had I not been sitting at the time.
'Incredulous!'
'If you mean incredible, you're wrong. I told you how he had fallen under Jeeves's spell when he was here. He used to follow him with his eyes as he buttled, like a cat watching a duck, as Anatole would say. And one morning I heard him making him a definite proposition. Well? What's the matter with you? Have you fainted?'
I told her that my momentary silence had been due to the fact that her words had stunned me, and she said she didn't see why, knowing Bassett, I should be so surprised.
'You can't have forgotten how he tried to steal Anatole. There isn't anything to which that man won't stoop. He has no conscience whatsoever. When you get to Totleigh, go and see someone called Plank and ask him what he thinks of Sir Watkyn ruddy Bassett. He chiselled this poor devil Plank out of a ... Oh, hell!' said the aged relative as a voice intoned 'Thur-ree minutes', and she hung up, having made my flesh creep as nimbly as if she had been my guardian angel, on whose talent in that direction I have already touched.
It was still creeping with undiminished gusto as I steered the sports model along the road to Totleigh-in-the- Wold that afternoon. I was convinced, of course, that Jeeves would never dream of severing
relations with the old firm, and when urged to do so by this blighted Bassett would stop his ears like the deaf adder, which, as you probably know, made a point of refusing to hear the voice of the charmer, charm he never so wisely. But the catch is that you can be convinced about a thing and nevertheless get pretty jumpy when you muse on it, and it was in no tranquil mood that I eased the Arab steed through the gates of Totleigh Towers and fetched up at the front door.
