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indeedsir_backupI promise! The good Dame Christie shall appear soon. If not in the next chapter, most definitely the one following. I'm already laying out the meeting in my head. Great flying spaghetti monsters, I have no idea where the inspiration for this little thingummy is coming from, but I do hope the well keeps flowing... knock on wood.
Title: Jeeves and the Missing Manuscript
Chapter: 3/16
Pairing: Jeeves/Bertie
Rating for Chapter: PG
Summary: Bertie meets a young Agatha Christie and hits it off with her at a garden party. She even offers to let him read and comment on her latest manuscript, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, before she posts it to her publisher. Of course, mayhem ensues when the manuscript is stolen and Jeeves and Bertie must find and return it to the rightful owner. Mix in a dash of danger, anger, angst, and unrequited feeling, and it's the perfect storm for 'certain whatsits' to come to light.
Disclaimer: Jeeves, Bertie, and all characters associated with their idyllic world belong to P.G. Wodehouse. Mrs. Christie belongs to herself last I checked.
The rest of the week ambled along, taking its time about the remainder of Tuesday, reconsidering Wednesday more than once, dawdling past Thursday, and finally arriving on Friday at full snail’s tilt. Tuesday morning’s... incident did not repeat itself, though I did sense a something-or-other about Jeeves as he ushered me into the bath each day. He tended to linger, I think, longer than was his wont. Thursday I had to actually dismiss the man so that I could take care of a certain issue that had arisen as I’d watched him watching me.
In any case, I’d been down to the Drones, as well, and was delighted to learn that Bingo, Tuppy, and Stinker would be at Lady Wickhammersley's party with their respective beazels. I asked after Gussie, but no one had heard from him in a dragon’s age. No doubt he was off Fink-Nottling in the fens and briars of England, pursuing of some rare specimen of newt with the youngest of the Stoker brood in tow. I endeavored to stop thinking about Gussie after that given that the idea of a girl – even one with so lovely a profile as Ms. Emerald Stoker – Fink-Nottling anywhere rather puts a chap off his lunch.
I drummed my fingers impatiently across the piano’s lid, tossing back the rest of a w. and s., and glancing at the clock every ten seconds or so just to make sure the little chap was pressing forward at the appropriate pace. I had finished re-reading my collection of Christie novels and short stories some time ago, having consumed them one after the other whilst not taking in the requisite number of social hours at my club.
“Perhaps if you were to play the piano, sir, it might alleviate some of your agitation,” came Jeeves’ voice from my right side.
Let me tell you, I nearly put a dent in the ceiling as I jumped and twisted around in midair, the tumbler in my paw making a bid for freedom in the direction of the Chesterfield. I ignored the resultant shatter and instead focused on my man. He blinked at me, a silver salver containing a replacement w. and s. positioned perfectly on its well-polished center held in front of him.
“Good Lord, Jeeves!” I cried. “Stop that!”
One eyebrow tilted just so. “Sir?”
Eyebrow or not, I wasn’t going to let the chap off that easy. “The shimmering, the oozing, the oiling, Jeeves! You’re liable to give the young master a heart attack at the tender age of twenty-five!”
A sheep coughed somewhere on a nearby hillside, alerting its fellows to a particularly recalcitrant blade of grass. “Twenty-eight, sir.”
I glared. “I was rounding down, Jeeves.”
“As you say, sir.”
“Anyway, it’s to stop right this moment. From now until we leave there shall be no biffing about silently by anyone in the Wooster abode. You are to clomp, Jeeves.”
The slight Jeevesian air of amusement vanished in the space of a blink, replaced by a bristling of the valeting aura. “I do apologize, sir. It was not my intention to startle you. Perhaps if I announced my presence upon entering the room, clomping,” he said the word as one might utter a curse against kith and kin, “would not be necessary.”
Well, he had a point. I let the shoulders relax a bit and drew in a deep breath to calm the nerves. “Very well, Jeeves, but make sure you do so. Now, are we fully prepared to leave after lunch?”
“Of course, sir,” he said, returning to his favored neutral tone. “I took the liberty of filling the car’s tank this morning before you awoke. All that remains is to load the luggage, which I shall attend to directly.”
“Talking of luggage, Jeeves,” I said, finally plucking the drink from the salver, “you’ll have packed my plaid trousers as I requested?”
“What plaid trousers would those be, sir?” He asked with such an air of innocent curiosity that I might actually have believed he’d forgotten about them if I didn’t know my Jeeveses.
“You know very well which plaid trousers those would be, Jeeves. They’re the ones your eyes watered at the sight of when I brought them home the other day. They are quite striking, I grant you, but Bingo has assured me they’re absolutely the fashion for the young gent heading out to the country these days.”
“Was Mr. Little perhaps referring to the Scottish countryside, sir, where such a tartan design might find itself in more suitable company?”
“You approve of wearing plaid up in Scotland, Jeeves?” I asked, mirroring his raised brow. “That’s very progressive of you.”
“Merely speculation on my part, sir,” he supplied. “While a noble race, the Scots do hold particularly abstruse sensibilities in matters of dress. It may be traced to their barbarous roots-”
“Yes, well, speculate in the direction of the luggage, Jeeves,” I ordered, waving my free hand toward the bedroom. “I should like my plaid trousers to accompany us to Twing Hall.”
“Would that be wise, sir?” my man pressed in his most persuasive lilt. “We would not wish for your outfit to clash with the color scheme of Lady Wickhammersley’s garden.”
I almost gave in. Almost. But we Woosters are men of iron will, and while I’m the first chap to grovel, beg, and cringe before my man, I most certainly will not raise the white flag on matters sartorial without a fight. I told him from the first: I’m not the sort of chap who becomes a slave to his valet, no matter how marvelous said v. might be. “You may pack the trousers or you may clomp, Jeeves. Far be it from me to pick which, but you will do one.”
The stuffed frog expression came into full effect, and I quickly gulped down the rest of my w. and s. to fortify my spirit against the waves of Jeevesian displeasure lashing in my direction.
“Very good, sir. If you would sit down on the piano bench, sir.”
Of all the requests he might have made at that point, this one was the least expected. I might have guessed something more along the lines of: ‘Stuff it, sir.’, ‘Says you, sir.’, or – perhaps most unlikely, but still a possibility – ‘I would advise you, sir, to engage in a perambulation about the metropolis in search of the services of a female of ill repute who also happens to be a blood relation for such a period of time as might be required for me to find a suitable replacement valet.’
“I don’t feel like playing, Jeeves, really,” I put forth tentatively.
“Merely a precaution until I am able to remove the glass, sir,” he indicated my shattered tumbler with a flick of his dark blue eyes. Had they always been blue? They’d looked closer to black in the bathroom the other day. A trick of the light, perhaps?
“Ah... right. Well.” I planted the Wooster corpus upon the b. in question and drew my legs up. It was all quite nostalgic. I could remember sitting as such in various cupboards in my youth whilst avoiding the fire and fangs of my nephew-crushing aunts. “This is all quite nostalgic, Jee–”
I looked up, but he was gone. “Jeeves?”
“I am now entering the room, sir,” he announced, shimmering in from the kitchen with a dustpan and broom.
I smiled. Mrs. Christie would get to see my plaid trousers.
(Back to Chapter 2)
(Onward to Chapter 4)
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