He laid another case on the table beside the dud one, and, by Jove, you couldn’t tell them apart. I opened it and there were the good old pearls, as merry and bright as dammit, smiling up at me. I gazed feebly at the man. I was feeling a bit overwrought.

“Jeeves,” I said. “You’re an absolute genius!”

“Yes, sir.”

Relief was surging over me in great chunks by now. Thanks to Jeeves I was not going to be called on to cough up several thousand quid.

“It looks to me as though you had saved the old home. I mean, even a chappie endowed with the immortal rind of dear old Sid is hardly likely to have the nerve to come back and retrieve these little chaps.”

“I should imagine not, sir.”

“Well, then⁠—Oh, I say, you don’t think they are just paste or anything like that?”