Leave it to Psmith - a teaser

Lord Emsworth has lost his glasses… As he is now as blind as a bat, they must be found before he’s off to London to collect Mr Ralston McTodd, the great Canadian poet, who has been kindly invited to Blandings by Clarence’s sister Lady Connie Keeble, now chatelaine of the stately pile. Meanwhile, Freddie asks his uncle Keeble for 1,000 quid to buy a share in a bookie’s business. Poor Uncle Joe! Still blinded by love on his honeymoon, he decided to give his wife control of everything, including the marital finances! He can’t even present his beloved stepdaughter Phyllis with £2,000 to buy a farm with her doting but penniless schoolmaster husband Jackson. Connie has decided not to... Though when Freddie suggests to ‘steal’ Aunt Connie’s £20,000 diamond necklace, so Uncle Joe can give everybody their dues and keep the rest in a black fund for himself, he eagerly accepts the plan… Back in London Ronald Eustace Psmith (with a silent p, like ‘pshrimp’) has told his uncle to stick his job in the fish business. Indeed, trapesing knee-deep in dead fish around Billingsgate market all day is nothing for this genteel and witty youth. His father may have lost all his money, but he can make his own way in the world, thank you very much! He has advertised in the newspaper already, with an ad termed ridiculous by his old school friend Jackson. Of course who should reply but the Hon. Freddie Threepwood. After all, it did say crime was no problem. Thus situated, Psmith goes for lunch at the Senior Conservatives Club when he spots the love of his life, Eve Halliday, sheltering for the rain on her way to the employment agency from tea at her old school friend Phyllis Jackson’s. He hands her an umbrella, not even his own, and thinks he will never see her again… until an insulted McTodd storms out of the Club, cancels his stay at Blandings and Psmith learns by accident from an unsuspecting and once more spectacle-less Lord Emsworth that Miss Halliday is cataloguing the Blandings library from tomorrow. The great McTodd arrives after all and joins many other guests including fellow poetess Miss Peavey… Everything is in place for the necklace to be stolen presently and quite correctly, only there seem to be more people after it than first anticipated. In the end it does disappear, but not as planned. Though in the happy and pottering world of Blandings, everything turns out well of course. Especially for the witty, lovely and happy-go-lucky Psmith who swans through life, getting everything he wants, with no fish involved.