Work Text:
There was a tray of coffee waiting when I came home, though the valet who had laid it out was nowhere to be seen.
"Dreadful things afoot, Johnson," I said, slumping back into my flat some time after dawn, falling face-down across the chesterfield.
"Indeed, sir?" said my valet, materializing at the kitchen door. He had been waiting up for me, but he doesn't like me to think he cares, or anything sappy like that.
"Miss Mavis DeWintour has got the whole of the Pumpkin Club engaged to her, and half of the visiting Drones. That isn't American hospitality, Johnson, allowing your British pals to get engaged to dangerous European dames."
"Your concern for your social duties makes you a credit to your generation, sir," said Johnson, gliding to my side, like whatever it is that goes on little cat's feet. Tigers, I think. "Fortunately, there are several small ways in which the problem can be made to disappear."
"See here, now, Johnson. No disappearing." When a gentleman has been supporting the illusion that his family name is still solvent by gambling, a few small glamours that his flat is bigger than it is, and monthly magic acts at the Kitty Cat Cabaret, said gentleman cannot be choosy about the nature of his personal gentleman.
I'd been quite lucky in Johnson, and in particularly dire straits he'll admit he's been lucky in me; he'd just been let go from his old job, which is the sort of job they don't usually give you a gold watch for, and he slipped neatly into my lifestyle and enthusiastically aided in the betting as well as helping me into my costume for the Cabaret. If I could only get him to stop thinking that a little murder was a practical solution for everyday problems.
His face didn't flinch an inch, of course, but in his currency-colored eyes I saw the disappointment.
"You'll get to run a confidence game, and fleece some bright young Englishmen out of their pocket money," I coaxed him, reaching out from my prone position to get a hand around the coffee cup. It smelled like just the thing; three sugars, and maybe a little coffee with my cream please. "One of the Drones, sweet guy from London, he's got a valet too. Big man. Extra brilliantine and a big serving of disapproval on the side. Reminds me a little of your pal Nathan. I bet if you put your heads together, you and this Jeeves guy can unstick us from this sticky matrimonial jam."
"You're using food metaphors again, sir. Should I make something for breakfast?"
"Everything," I groaned. When man is faced with the machinations of Miss Mavis and the disapproval of her terrifying mother, Mabel DeWintour, a man needs fortification.
"Will the leftover ham from the gala opening suffice, if supplemented with, say, half a dozen eggs?"
And what other young man in my social set has a valet that'll tolerate him sneaking food from parties, let alone abet? I lifted my limp frame off the couch and slurped at the cooling coffee.
"Couldn't do without you, Johnson."
"Indeed, sir."