WHAT THE BUTLER SAW ......
IN THE STUDY
Completely overwhelmed by the night's events, Zelda allowed herself to be propelled up the frigid stone staircase (what had happened to the carpet she wondered), clinging to Jeeves's elbow in the dim pool of candle light.
As they reached the top of the staircase, the study door was flung violently open, and VintageSeason stormed out waving his fists back into the softly lit room. "You've gone too far this time Colonel Alex" he roared, tugging at his unruly beard, "Your arbitrary decisions and rules will cost you dearly! And all those around you! I swear you'll pay for what you've done!" Trying to slam the six-inch-thick oak door proved futile, so he settled for storming away in a high dudgeon.
He wheeled round and blinked abruptly as he caught sight of the two figures on the landing. "Oh, Hi Zelda. What are you doing out on a night like this?" Not waiting for an answer, he turned and continued "Say Jeeves, think you can rustle up a cab for me?"
"Indubitably sir," replied the unruffled manservant, "If you would just wait here a moment please."
Jeeves conveyed Zelda into the study, across an immense Turkish carpet, up to a mahogany desk the size of Kansas. Behind it, in a leather executive chair with heat AND massage, sat Colonel Alex, the ruler of all things MR. Encased in a scarlet smoking jacket and wearing a matching fez, he was just lighting up a cheroot.
Looking up in apparent surprise, Colonel Alex lazily inquired "Why Zelda, what brings you to our humble abode? Aren't you still busy working on your shum eradication plan in gay old Paree?"
"What?" shrilled Zelda "Non mais je rêve ! C'est une blague non ? Tu te fiches de moi là ? Et puis laisse tranquille les shums, je m'en occupe.
"I got your farking note ... something about "an emergency meeting of all MR mods ... a life or death situation ... come at all costs"
So I came .... and boy did it cost me! Have you priced out air fares lately? And the strip searches at both airports ... just because I was dressed all in black and carrying a black parasol!"
Before she could continue, Colonel Alex leaned back in his luxurious chair, palmed on both heat and massage, and began to chuckle in a particularly annoying avuncular fashion. "Zelda, Zelda, Zelda! I fear you've been the victim of an extremely vicious practical joke! I sent no note ... to anyone. There's no emergency situation, apart from this pesky power outage, that is. I've had to commandeer all the emergency flashlights in the building just to have enough batteries to power my chair - doctor's orders you know ... for my back, harumph, war injury you know. Leading the charge, and all that rot."
"Rot is right!" screamed Zelda. "There's a dead body in your hallway downstairs! In a huge pool of blood! Haven't you seen it? Pshrynk has gotten himself murdered again! Again! How does the man do it?"
Colonel Alex "tut-tutted" in a soothing fashion, which only infuriated the French fugitive even more. "Zelda, Zelda, Zelda! No one's been murdered tonight, least of all Pshrynk! Everyone knows lightning never strikes twice in the same place, and all that rot. Why should anyone want to murder him again? Eh?
Unless, or course, you accidentally murdered him yourself during your somewhat awkward ingress into our locked building? Hmmm... did you? And failed to notice it in the dark?
Is that what happened?"
"Quel âne. Tu pârles d'une idée de génie : mais bien sûr, en passant par la fenêtre, les mains vides et depuis l'autre côté de la pièce, j'ai réussi à estourbir pshrynk jusqu'à ce que mort s'ensuive. Sûrement, oui. Ou bien, c'est peut-être que j'ai des visions ! Mais oui ! bon, pour la prochaine, j'espère que ça sera Elvis qui m'apparaîtra. Jeune, de préférence. Pfff. N'importe quoi, franchement.
Zelda fell into a chair as if she had been pole-axed, totally but temporarily flummoxed by the Colonel's astute yet asinine questioning.
"Just how long have you been heating and shaking your brains?" snapped Zelda. "Whatever powers of reasoning you ever possessed seem to have been pureed, par-boiled, and poached!"
"I don't have to put up with these kinds of insults" roared the Colonel! "Jeeves! Jeeves!" he shouted as he furiously rang the flawlessly silver bell on his desk.
"You rang Sir?" inquired a discreet voice just behind Zelda's left shoulder.
Zelda leapt from her chair ... Jeeves had entered so quietly she had had no idea he was behind her.
"Remove this, this .... Person! from my presence! Immediately!" roared the Colonel.
"Very good Sir," murmured Jeeves as he clasped Zelda's left elbow and turned her to the door.
"I'll get to the bottom of this farrago" shouted Zelda, as she was politely but firmly removed to the study door. "I'll find out who murdered Pshrynk!" "DaleDe will help me, won't you?"
"Whom are you referring to?" inquired the imperturbable manservant.
Zelda looked up and gasped "Nate! What are you doing dressed up like DaleDe?"
Jeeves' left eyebrow crept up his forehead exactly one-eighth of an inch as he replied "Beg pardon mum, my name is Jeeves. Always has been. Jeeves. At your service."
The astonished Zelda was removed from the study, back into the flickering candle-lit world of the dank hallway. She heard the study door close softly but firmly behind her, and the soft thunk of a latch being thrown and the muted click of a key turning in a well-oiled lock, leaving her in the dark literally, figuratively, and completely!
[This cannot but be continued.]
[Will Zelda be arrested for murder?]
[Is Pshrynk really murdered?]