Chapter 17

“Did you not hear my words, Mr. Jones?”

“I did, Jeeves, but I could not make sense of them.”

“It was a conversation performed using a social code, Mr. Jones; a pattern of words where nothing is said outright, merely assumed.”

“How do you mean?”

“We agreed that should the teenage thugs get up to more trouble, their details would get to me and I will deal with them clandestinely.”

“Clandestinely?”

“Secretly, in such a way as to their attacker being unrecognised.”

“Oh, I see. You would duff them up without them knowing who you were?”

“Not quite, Mr. Jones. They would know perfectly well who I was, but be unable to prove it, especially from their hospital beds, or perhaps coffins.”

“Oh.” He decided he did not want to know more, and swiftly vanished from my sight. I hadn’t thought that Jones might be squeamish. It is amazing how supposedly tough men were less than happy at the thought of them or someone similar to them, getting their comeuppance. Men like that did not last long in the army. The army preferred men who were prepared to take it as well as dish it out.

Getting injured in a battle was part of the job, as far as us soldiers were concerned. It was when an injury forced us out of the army; that was what hurt, as I had experienced. Going up against a bunch of untrained toughs was nothing to me, as long as it was a fair fight; and I decided what was a fair fight.

Later, Dawes called me in.

“Jeeves, Miss Frobisher leaves tomorrow. She is packing all non-essentials at the moment into boxes or some such containers. You will take them and deliver them to wherever she specifies.”

“Yes, sir. Delivery today, or with her tomorrow?”

“Go and see what the quantity is, and decide for yourself. Either suits me, as I do not require the car today.” He paused. “I will check first with Mrs Dawes; in case she needs to be taken to her aerobics class or such. After all, it is her car, and she has first call on it.”

Like me, he could never keep track of his wife’s social calendar. She was a law unto herself that way.

Half an hour later, he buzzed me. “The car is available any time today, Jeeves.”

“Thank you, sir. I shall consult Miss Frobisher about her luggage quantity.”

It was still afternoon, and too early to start preparing the table, so I buzzed her office. There was no reply, so I next buzzed her room. She answered.

“Frobisher.”

“Ma’am, I have been instructed to assist you, should you have a large quantity of luggage to be moved to another destination. Otherwise, we do the removal tomorrow in its entirety.”

“Thanks, Jeeves. Let me see, and ring you back.”

It took her some time before she got back to me, and this would mean today’s move, if it happened, would be after the evening meal.

I answered the phone, and she spoke. “Jeeves, I have rung my brother to see if we could do a run today. He will be working late at his job, but his wife will be able to receive my stuff, so we could do a run this evening, as soon as the meal is cleared.”

“That will suit admirably, Miss Frobisher. The approximate destination being?”

“Oh. Wimbledon, Jeeves. Does that suit your timetable?”

“It does indeed. We can get there without having to use the ring road. It is the same destination tomorrow; I presume?”

“Yes, Jeeves. Thank you for giving up your time to this jaunt.”

“I am pleased to be able to assist, my dear. Just give me an approximate time for your move tomorrow afternoon, and we shall fit it in. Today will give me a rough timing for tomorrow’s move, so the household schedule does not get interrupted.”

As we had arranged, I and Jones helped Miss Frobisher with her bags and boxes down the lift and out to the car, where we packed the rear seat. Miss Frobisher would occupy the front seat to be able to issue directions. She said little apart from directions, as if embarrassed at the situation.

When we arrived at Wimbledon it was still daylight, which helped with the unloading and carrying. Miss Frobisher called out to the lady of the house standing at the doorstep, “Deirdre! It is lovely to see you again.”

As we approached, the other lady declared in a soft voice, “Welcome to our house, Constable Frobisher. You know you are always welcome.” Miss Frobisher coughed slightly, and motioned with her head towards me, where I was pretending I hadn’t heard. Deirdre made her mouth into an “O” and looked embarrassed.

I intervened. “Deirdre, I do not know, officially, so please take care. MISS Frobisher is a dear friend and work colleague.”

Deirdre glanced at both of us in turn, as if assessing this, but did not know what to say, so just bustled about, indicating where the luggage should be placed. “You arrive properly tomorrow, my dear?”

“During the afternoon, Deirdre. I hope not to be staying too long. I know what an inconvenience this must be for you.”

Deirdre brushed this off. “I know what it means to you, Miss Frobisher.”

I intervened again. “Enough of the formality, Deirdre. If you want her to stay in cover, you should be using her first name – much though she may dislike it; eh, Felicity?”

Felicity grimaced, but declared, “He is quite right, Deirdre. Please use my first name for the present.”

Deirdre gestured towards me. “Who IS he, Felicity?” She was clearly concerned at how much I knew. Felicity answered, “I am not sure, Deirdre. He is officially our butler at the house, but I think he is undercover as well. Who for, I have no idea.” She raised her eyebrows to me in query.

I shrugged. “No-one you need be concerned about, is all I can say. I am a properly trained butler; I can assure you. I cannot say more.”

Felicity told her, “We have to get back to the house, Deirdre. See you tomorrow.”

We re-embarked and I drove us home. We were remarkably quiet once again, as if neither of us wanted to admit to anything. It felt tense, with only the occasional bit of chit-chat about traffic or weather.

Once back at the Dawes residence, we split up after agreeing on tomorrow’s final trip. I was hardly back to my own quarters to change back to my butler uniform, when my phone rang again.

Curiously, it was The Personalia. “Jeeves, can we ask you what you talked about in the car today, in both directions?”

“A curious question. Actually, not very much. On the way there, we mostly talked about the directions to our destination, and on the way back, we talked inconsequential things. Why do you ask?”

“It was sheer coincidence that one of us had a look down at your vehicle today, out of interest in the operation of such surface conveyances. Our Person noticed that the car was making radio transmissions, so took a closer look at what was being transmitted at the time.”

I surmised, “Probably a satnav unit, though I haven’t noticed such a thing in the car’s front panel.”

“It was not that. It was sending voice transmissions from time to time, so it appears that your car is fitted with microphones, linked to a communications unit that sends out signals of what is spoken in the car. We suspect that it was installed to monitor passengers, but might also have monitored your own conversations in the front seat. We wished to warn you about this, and to query what you might have said inadvertently.”

“I see. No, I don’t think anything either of us said in the car had any significance.”

“We suggest you keep it that way. As yet, we do not know the destination for these transmissions, so take precautions, Jeeves.”

“I will. Thank you.”

I was astonished, not so much at the eavesdropping, but that The Personalia could pinpoint one car among millions and listen in to that one car! That was a hellova powerful capability.

I closed the phone, and returned to my preparations.

Once suitably attired, I went to the kitchen, to see how chef was doing regarding the evening meal. She was satisfied with progress, and was keeping an eye on the news channel as she worked. Something caught her interest.

“Mr. Jeeves, did I not hear you say something about Egyptian objects recently?”

“Yes, chef. That is true. What of it?”

“It appears some odd occurrence has happened outside the British Museum, and it has to do with Egyptian things, or bombs.”

“Oh? Is it still on?”

“Not at the moment, but most of these stories get repeated ad nauseam throughout the day on the news channel.”

“Thank you, chef. I should pay more attention to the news, I suppose.”

“Oh, look. They have a camera there now.”

I watched, and the TV channel had a camera on site, focussed on a decrepit white van parked on the pavement, with police surrounding it at a distance. It looked as if they were treating it like a car bomb. The reporter was preparing to speak, so I switched the sound back on.

“This is a most peculiar event, Steve [the anchor man in the studio]. The Museum got a phone call to say that there were some ancient objects in a van on their doorstep, and when they looked outside, there was this van that must have been parked on the ‘no parking’ section overnight, but no-one had paid attention to it until now.

They had no means of seeing what was inside, so as a precaution they called the police. The police then gathered their men and surrounded the van with a wide cordon in case it is loaded with explosives. There seemed to have been some considerable delay before the bomb squad could come. It has been suggested that a couple of other suspicious vehicles were reported this morning, so their hands were full.

The bomb squad are on their way; I have been told. In fact, one man with the police now, is apparently the bomb squad liaison man. He got here earlier in a car, to suss out the situation before the squad with all their equipment were able to arrive. No one was willing to get too close in the meantime, quite understandably. The police have detoured the rush hour traffic for the moment, until the situation is clarified.”

“So it is a waiting game until the bomb squad get their hands on the van, Terry?” said the link man in the studio.

“I am afraid so, Steve. I will report further when there is more action.”

“Weird!” I exclaimed. “If it is ancient objects, why would there be a bomb?”

Chef gave a short laugh. “They take great precautions, Mr. Jeeves, just in case.”

“But I just don’t see the point of their being a bomb, then sending a warning, if they intended to harm a lot of people, Mrs. Hargreaves. And then, phoning the B.M. instead of the police; that is another oddity.”

“Perhaps hoping to excite curiosity, to tempt security people to come close, Mr. Jeeves?”

“But they won’t. They will send a robot machine to blow open the back door, so they can see inside. The museum people will be shitting themselves when they hear about that plan, if it really is ancient objects! Oops, sorry, Mrs. Hargreaves, for my unfortunate language.”