'Sorry, no.'
'I thought you must be the chap who was coming to interview me about my Brazilian explorations.'
'Oh, you're an explorer?'
Again I had said the wrong thing. He was plainly piqued.
'What did you think I was? Does the name Plank mean nothing to you?'
'Is your name Plank?'
'Of course it is.'
'Well, what a very odd coincidence,' I said, intrigued. 'I'm looking for a character called Plank. Not you, somebody else. The bimbo I want is a sturdy tiller of the soil, probably gnarled, with a sailor son. As you have the same name as him, you'll probably be interested in the story I'm about to relate. I have here,' I said, producing the black amber thing, 'a what-not.'
He gaped at it.
'Where did you get that? That's the bit of native sculpture I picked up on the Congo and then sold to Sir Watkyn Bassett.'
I was amazed.
'You sold it to him?'
'Certainly.'
'Well, shiver my timbers!'
I was conscious of a Boy Scoutful glow. I liked this Plank, and I rejoiced that it was in my power to do him as good a turn as anyone had ever done anybody. God bless Bertram Wooster, I felt he'd be saying in another couple of ticks. For the first time I was glad that Stiffy had sent me on this mission.
'Then I'll tell you what,' I said. 'If you'll just give me five pounds -'
I broke off. He was looking at me with a cold, glassy stare, as no doubt he had looked at the late lions, leopards and gnus whose remains
were to be viewed on the walls of the outer hall. Fellows at the Drones who have tried to touch Ooofy Prosser, the club millionaire, for a trifle to see them through till next Wednesday have described him to me as looking just like that.
'Oh, so that's it!' he said, and even Pop Bassett could not have spoken more nastily. 'I've got your number now. I've met your sort all over the world. You won't get any five pounds, my man. You sit where you are and don't move. I'm going to call the police.'
'It will not be necessary, sir,' said a respectful voice, and Jeeves entered through the french window.
11
His advent drew from me a startled goggle and, I rather think, a cry of amazement. Last man I'd expected to see, and how he had got here defeated me. I've sometimes felt that he must dematerialize himself like those fellows in India - fakirs, I think they're called - who fade into thin air in Bombay and turn up five minutes later in Calcutta or points west with all the parts reassembled.
Nor could I see how he had divined that the young master was in sore straits and in urgent need of his assistance, unless it was all done by what I believe is termed telepathy. Still, here he was, with his head bulging at the back and' on his face that look of quiet intelligence which comes from eating lots of fish, and I welcomed his presence. I knew from experience what a wizard he was at removing the oppressed from the soup, and the soup was what I was at this point in my affairs deeply immersed in.
'Major Plank?' he said.
Plank, too, was goggling.
'Who on earth are you?'
'Chief Inspector Witherspoon, sir, of Scotland Yard. Has this man been attempting to obtain money from you?'
'Just been doing that very thing.'
'As I suspected. We have had our eye on him for a long time, but till now have never been able to apprehend him in the act.'
'Notorious crook, is he?'
'Precisely, sir. He is a confidence man of considerable eminence in the underworld, who makes a practice of calling at houses and extracting money from their owners with some plausible story.'
'He does more than that. He pinches things from people and tries to sell them. Look at that statuette he's holding. It's a thing I sold to Sir Watkyn Bassett, who lives at Totleigh-in-the-Wold, and he had the cool cheek to come here and try to sell it to me for five pounds.'
'Indeed, sir? With your permission I will impound the object.'
'You'll need it as evidence?'
'Exactly, sir. I shall now take him to Totleigh Towers and confront him with Sir Watkyn.'
'Yes, do. That'll teach him. Nasty hangdog look the fellow's got. I suspected from the first he was wanted by the police. Had him under observation for a long time, have you?'
'For a very long time, sir. He is known to us at the Yard as Alpine Joe, because he always wears an Alpine hat.'
