Chapter 9

“Jennifer mentioned that she had seen you with Miss Catherine, and that there seemed to be something between you. Jennifer may be young, but she is acutely conscious of personal interactions that she sees. She was concerned for you, Jeeves. Be careful of any social entanglements, is all I will say.”

“Why, Mrs. Hargreaves! Nothing has transpired other than some minor banter between us. There is no need for concern, as far as I can see.”

“That may be the case from your viewpoint, Jeeves, but the young lady may have ulterior motives. Just take care, young man.”

On the morning, I rushed to cover all the essentials for the household duties during my absence with Mr. Dawes. I was ready with the car at the door by ten a.m.

As I opened his door for him, I enquired, “Where to, sir?”

“Tube station, Jeeves. I neither want to fight the traffic in the city centre, nor have to wonder about a parking space.”

Thus it was that we joined the other passengers on the Underground rail line. At the other end, when we had reached the station Dawes had selected, we decanted and went up the escalator to ground level. Apparently we were close enough to our destination to walk the remaining distance.

We came to a strong-looking but otherwise unprepossessing doorway, sandwiched between two shops. Dawes applied a standard door key to the lock, and we found ourselves in a well-lit corridor directly ahead. We went to the end, and reached another door. This one appeared unlocked, and we entered. We were in a vestibule area, staffed by one guard.

Dawes produced another key, and offered it to the guard. That man laid it on a horizontal screen, and the screen told him its number. He unfastened what was effectively a safe, and unhooked a matching key.

Returning the original to Dawes, he proceeded through to an inner sanctum, a large room lined with safe deposits of many sizes. The man looked at his hand-held unit for data, and asked Dawes, “Which box do you require, sir?”

“Unlock all of them, today. We are doing an inventory of the contents.”

“Yes, sir.” The man inserted his key at an initial box, and Dawes did the same, opening the door. The same procedure happened with what I thought was ten other boxes; it may have been eleven. I had neglected to count.

When all the boxes identified by his unit had been unlocked, the man said, “You can use the central carrels to lay out things, sir. Let me know if you need assistance: just give me a call, or raise a hand. I will see it in my monitor.”

“Thank you, but my man will assist me.”

The guard left for his monitoring station, and Dawes reached into the first of the large boxes. He brought out a bubble-wrapped object, quite heavy by the way he held it. It was hefted over to one of the central bays, and Dawes carefully peeled off the bubble plastic, revealing an ancient object which appeared to be of polished stone.

Dawes commented, “This is from ancient Egypt. I have a collection of examples from various periods, that I have picked up over the years at sales.”

I admired the rare object, a black granite head of a pharaoh by the looks of it. I came back with, “Excellent choice. Your auction record will give us a good provenance for valuation purposes, sir.”

Dawes hesitated before replying. “Umm, Jeeves, this was a PRIVATE arrangement, where the owner was needing to sell quickly to raise the cash. He didn’t have provenance for the formal auction house process, so I was able to buy fairly cheaply.”

I waited a moment before commenting, “Just this one, sir?”

“No, Jeeves. I bought his whole collection of non-attributable artefacts. I got the lot for what was a wholesale price. It was a good deal, but one I have to sit on for the present. That is why they are here, and not on display. Too sensitive for that, you see.”

“Sir, I fully understand. Sometimes a great deal cannot be resisted, even where you cannot display your purchases. We may be able to make our own valuation, working from the photographs we take then comparing the items with similar examples found online.”

“Jeeves, I see I made the right decision to involve you in this trip. Get snapping, and we can rewrap this one and get to the next, which is a miniature sphinx.”

I did as I was bid, and we worked our way through the contents of the safety deposit boxes. It took us well over an hour, but finally it was complete, and I had a file of notes and at least two images of each item; sometimes three; and occasionally a close-up of an incised cartouche which should help identify the pharaoh to which the item related, and thus put an approximate date to it.

When we concluded the work, I made a point of extracting the memory card and handing it over to Dawes.

“Sir? You should hold this for safekeeping in the ... awkward circumstances. I shall consult you about adding images to the data file when I have it ready. It will be a separate, discreet, file, which I will protect with a special password.”

Dawes was almost overwhelmingly grateful.

“Good man! I shall look through all the photos, and select what I am happy to use as a reference photo.”

I demurred. “Sir, one has to use several images of each item, so that there is no confusion with other items. What I can do is use your preferred choice as the major image, with the others as subsidiary identifiers which have to be called up should an insurance claim be made, for example.”

“All right, Jeeves, I accept that. What about valuation? Any ideas without being too public?”

“I would suggest a comparison with similar pieces found online. There are so many ancient Egyptian artefacts out in the world that there are bound to be similar ones to those in your collection. That comparison can give us a ball park figure, and you can work from there should you feel the need for further accuracy.”

“Oh, a rough estimate will do me, Jeeves. I keep my collection as a “rainy day” asset. Probably my family will get the value out of it.”

“A wise plan, sir. One should consider the future with care.”

Everything went back into the boxes, and the guard was summoned to supervise the locking of the drawers. Dawes checked his watch and decided that lunch together was not on. Inviting one’s butler to lunch with the master of the house was still not a good option, he assured himself.

“Jeeves?”

“Yes, sir?”

“I shall go for lunch at the Ritz. Can you deal with your own lunch break, and we can meet outside this door in ninety minutes’ time?”

“Indeed, sir. We are not far from the Jeeves and Company offices, so I may make use of the staff lunch facility there.”

“Good man. See you then.”

We parted at the front door of the safety deposit facility, and I oriented myself to head from the Company. I was there in less than ten minutes, and went in the vestibule, which I knew would be monitored. I announced,

“Jeeves (Dawes) on a visit.”

After a slight pause, when whoever was on duty checked his files, I was told, “Enter and go to the fifth door on your right.”

I did so, and found it unlocked. I entered and sitting facing me from behind a desk was the Mr. Jeeves I had met before. I declared,

“Nice to see you again, Mr. Jeeves!”

“Likewise, Jeeves. Any specific reason for your visit?”

He was very business-like and to the point. I was also.

“Partly seeking a snack lunch while Mr. Dawes goes upmarket; partly to hand over a memory stick.” I pulled the digital camera from my pocket and extracted the flash card.

Mr. Jeeves held out his hand, and I deposited the card there. Without saying a word, he turned to the small computer sitting on the desk, and plugged in the stick. He called up the images, and flicked through them while I explained,

“These are the items that Mr. Dawes stores in safety deposit boxes not far from here. No provenance at all; claimed to have been purchased cheap as a job lot. All seem to be ancient Egyptian.”

Mr. Jeeves commented, “I do not have the expertise to be sure, but these appear high quality. They are either stolen items from a major collection, or smuggled in from Egypt – as so many have been. Opinion?”

I knew what he meant.

“Almost impossible to get hold of them while they are in the safety deposit vault, Mr. Jeeves. The only avenue is to persuade him to move them elsewhere, and that will not be easy. He sees them as in long term storage for his old age or for his family to inherit.”

“That is what I thought may be the case, Jeeves. Now bring me up to date with what has been happening in your employer’s household.”

As he spoke, the door opened, and a man appeared with a tray, setting it down on the desk with some care, then removing the cloth cover. Mr. Jeeves thanked him, and said to me, “Lunch is served, Jeeves. We shall continue our discussion as we eat.”

I brought him up to date on all the activity at the house. He listened intently, making no comment as I recounted my activities and interactions with all the members of the household. When I concluded my account, he remarked, “Miss Frobisher, Jeeves. Concentrate some attention on this woman. She is pivotal to the family activity, because of her position of trust.”

“Yes, sir. I am afraid I don’t even know her first name. She is always ‘Miss Frobisher’ in the household.”

“We have done some checking for you. Her first name is Felicity, but apparently she didn’t like the name, as being too girlish, so she was known at school as “Flick”, by her own request. Both that, and her propensity to be solely Miss Frobisher to everyone, suggests that she is unsure of herself under the brash and determined exterior that she puts on.”

“Could be, Mr. Jeeves. Her bedroom is full of femininity in its decoration.”

“That aside, you should remain cautious around Catherine Dawes. Her behaviour is unsettling, when you consider her parentage. Do not remain standoffish, Jeeves, but at the same time do not allow yourself to become too entranced by her approaches.”

“I am aware of the problem, Mr. Jeeves. I may still be young, but I am mature enough to be wary of pitfalls in front of me. Miss Catherine is young enough to be a trifle careless, but I shall try to be protective of her in my reactions.”