Chapter 10

“If it suits you, miss, this morning would be admirable. I can ask Miss Frobisher to come along as a chaperone.”

“Chaperone? For me? Or for you, Jeeves?”

“Either, Miss Catherine. May I go and speak to her now?”

“All right, then. Try to set it up for an hour from now. That will give me time to tidy my bedroom before you invade it.”

I found my way to Miss Frobisher’s office, and tapped on the door. She answered it, and I said,

“Miss F, I propose to use Miss Catherine’s telescope mounting with an adapter for camera work around the house. My appointment at her bedroom is scheduled for an hour from now. Would you be so kind as to agree to coming with me as a chaperone for that event?”

Miss Frobisher was taken aback at this request, but her interest was aroused, and she replied, “I think I can manage that, Jeeves. Where do we meet?”

“Outside Miss Catherine’s bedroom door, Miss F. I think the timing is not of an exact nature.”

She glanced at me, commenting, “That’s the second time you’ve called me ‘Miss F’. What’s with that, Jeeves?”

“Well, you ARE Miss F., aren’t you?”

“Jeeves, you are not being consistent. ‘Miss Catherine’ is using her first name, nut ‘Miss F.’ is using my surname. That is not consistent.”

“You mean, your first name doesn’t start with an F, is that what you are alluding to?”

“My first name?”

“Yes, that’s what I asked.”

“Hmm ... it might.”

“Ah. Then calling you ‘Miss F.’ is accurate?”

“if you are correct, then yes. If you are correct.”

“You are not saying? Do I have to ‘flick’ through all the F names ... Faith, Fanny, Faye, Felicia, Felicity?”

Miss Frobisher gasped. She did not know what to say.

“I am delaying you, Miss Frobisher. I shall see you at Miss Catherine’s room, as arranged.” I turned and walked off, leaving her still confused by our conversation.

I was ready and waiting next to Miss Catherine’s door at the appointed time. Miss Frobisher arrived in a bit of a rush, but on time. She was in full make-up and in a fashionable business suit. The skirt was of excellent cut, and as she stood beside me, I patted her rump in approval.

She stiffened, and I thought she would turn on me, but she relaxed and ignored my action. Fine, I thought.

The door swung open, and Miss Catherine stood there, in her jeans and a serviceable top, much more suited to heavy work. She invited us in, and we entered, with Miss Frobisher accepting my gesture to go first. She moved swiftly, possibly to avoid my hand as she passed in front of me. I smiled to myself, and followed her into the room.

Miss Catherine had tidied her bedroom in preparation for visitors. She guided us over to the telescope, and explained matters.

“The main telescope has to be lifted from the mounting at the top of the tripod. It is quite heavy, so if you could do that, Jeeves?”

I steeped forward and lifted the unit up. An armchair was ready and waiting, with a blanket over it, to receive the equipment, so I laid the telescope down carefully, then moved back to stand beside Miss Frobisher. Catherine moved to the tripod and started detaching the telescope mounting head.

As I stood watching her do this, I moved my hand back to rest comfortably on Miss Frobisher’s bottom, giving it a slight squeeze.

She froze at this, turning her head to stare at me. I smiled cheerfully at her, while Catherine detached the mounting head and laid it beside the Celestron telescope, then faced me and gestured.

“Jeeves, the camera convertor head sits just here, and has a screw mounting on top to fit the camera. You see?”

“I do indeed, Miss.” I removed my hand from Miss Frobisher’s behind, and stepped forward to examine the tripod. “The steel legs appear to be simple sliding extensions with a screw fixing to hold them into place. Rubber-tipped feet, for a good grip of the flooring, too. A very sleek but sturdy design, if I may say so, Miss.”

“It was not cheap, Jeeves, so please take good care of it.”

“Yes, Miss.” I picked up the solidly-built tripod and prepared to depart with it. I urged Miss Frobisher, “If you will excuse me, Miss F.?”

She glared at me and spat out, “Excuse you, Jeeves? Really?”

I gave her a weak smile. “In a manner of speaking, my dear. I DO have to carry this equipment out to the corridor.”

She continued to glare, but stepped to one side to allow me to pass. Miss Catherine had a puzzled look on her face at the antagonism coming from Miss Frobisher, then shrugged. “I’ll get the door for you, Jeeves.” The bedroom door had swung to the closed position after we had entered, so she now held it open for me and my burden.

I manfully exited and carried it a little way along the corridor, so it was away from any doorway. I then parked it next to the wall. My hearing picked up a few words from the bedroom before the door swung close again. “Frobisher?” and the reply, “Nothing, Miss Catherine. Personal between me and...” The door closed off the rest.

I grinned, and went on my way, to confirm that my camera would indeed fit the mount. I expected it would, but I wanted to be certain.

That done, I had to attend to other duties, but after lunch I would have some time to start on the photography. When our art appraiser was in attendance, he had made no comment to indicate that he was other than satisfied that the artworks had proper provenance, but that did not guarantee anything. There so many artworks in the world that there are times when even an expert has trouble spotting fakes, or recognising stolen paintings, unless they are well-known.

There was no way I could do better, but passing a set of my pictures to the Company might produce a result of some kind. However, I still felt that only the ancient Egyptian carvings had any possibility of being identified as illegal objects in Dawes’ possession. That set were already in the company’s hands, so presumably were already being examined minutely.

By early afternoon, I was clear and ready to start. I moved the tripod to one side of the corridor, to face a painting, then screwed the camera into place before raising the legs to get it to the correct height. I checked the view through the lens and the camera auto-focussed on the picture. Examining what I could see, there was a light reflection in one corner. The ceiling lights were clearly not entirely satisfactory, so I tried angling the camera instead of a full-on view, and the reflection disappeared. Great.

The painting seemed clear enough to my eyes, so I snapped the shot. Next, I tried it at a slightly different angle, from the other side of full-on, and took that shot. Now I viewed both pics and was happy with both.

I moved the tripod along to the next painting, and set up again. The overhead light was in a changed position, vis-à-vis the painting, but again there was a reflection, but in a different part of this picture. I could now see that every painting would be a new task, requiring adjustment every time. As I cogitated, I spotted Miss Frobisher striding down the corridor in my direction, so I stood up to acknowledge her presence. As she reached me, she swung her arm round to slap me, but I took a step back so that she missed. I whipped my own arm up and grabbed her wrist as she regained her stance.

“May I assist, Miss Frobisher? You seemed off balance there.”

“You ... you ... beast!” she spat out.

“My dear lady! I was merely paying homage to your charms in a friendly way. You surely do not wish to be ignored?”

She retorted, “Jeeves, I do not know what you are up to, and I don’t think I want to know.”

“Up to, Miss Frobisher? Why should I be ‘up to’ anything? I am simply acknowledging that you are a lovely woman. Do you not want to be regarded as an attractive woman? Are you trying to hide your true self beneath a façade of the eternal businesswoman?”

“You ... you ... you ... fiend! You are changing the subject, man.”

“Oh? I thought the subject was your good self. You know, you would look nice with your hair let down. Your tresses would be shown off to effect. Is your hair shoulder length, Felicity?”

“Yes it is, but...” she tailed off as she twigged that I had used her first name, and finally came up with, “How did you know what my name was?”

I smiled gently. “An inspired but educated guess, based on the initial letter and research on the frequency of each possibility. Felicity appears to have been revived in the late 1990s, so once I added your middle-class background to the mix - hey presto!”

She looked dismayed at this revelation of my research capabilities, and became suddenly shy.

“I do not much like the name, Jeeves, so can we stick with ‘Miss Frobisher’?”

“If that is your preference, Miss Frobisher; though that seems a trifle formal when we are having social conversation.”

She recovered somewhat. “Jeeves, that was more than ‘social conversation’ in Miss Catherine’s room!”

“I agree. That was more ‘social interaction’. You and I have had so little in the way of interaction of any kind. I though we could improve matters a little.”

“Improve? You call that improving matters?”

“A small introduction towards getting to know you, my dear. I have been without a female friend for so long.”

“And I can guess what was the cause of it, if you introduce yourself like that!”

“Unfortunately not, Miss Frobisher. I was injured and in hospital for months. That is not conducive to finding a female friend. The nurses were friendly enough and quite competent, but not the sort of friend I sought.”

“Oh. Sorry about that. What happened?”

“I was injured while in the army. My leg was badly hurt. I still have a plate in it to support the bone. I retrained for this job, but it all took a good deal of dedicated time.”

“I can appreciate that, Jeeves. Why didn’t you mention this before?”