Money in the Bank (novel)

Money in the Bank is a novel by P. G. Wodehouse, first published in the United States on 9 January 1942 by Doubleday, Doran, New York, and in the United Kingdom on 27 May 1946 by Herbert Jenkins, London.[1] UK publication was delayed while Wodehouse was under suspicion of collaboration during the Second World War. The book was published in English in Germany in August 1949 by Tauchnitz.

First edition (US)

The country house Shipley Hall, which features in this novel and Something Fishy (1957), was based on a real house, Fairlawne, where Wodehouse's daughter Leonora lived after she married in 1932.[2]

Plot summary

J G Miller, Jeff to his friends, takes on his first case at law with the aid of the father of his fiancée Myrtle Shoesmith. Miller’s performance questioning a witness is so lively that it is reported in the newspapers. Myrtle visits him to end their engagement, giving up on her project of moulding him. Jeff is relieved and happy. He celebrates with a drink, not tea, and tosses the rock cakes into the office across the way, which appears to be empty. He did not want to hurt his landlady’s feelings because he did not eat them. When the occupant of the office shows himself present and angry, Jeff races over to apologise. Chimp Twist, the detective in the office of J Sheringham Adair, thinks Jeff is coming to attack him and hides in a closet. Jeff arrives to the empty office, sits in the chair, and is present when Anne Benedick arrives to engage a detective. He falls in love with her on the spot and agrees to the job, as Jeff Adair.

Her uncle George, Lord Uffenham, follows his niece. Niece and uncle explain how Shipley Hall is rented presently to Clarissa Cork, employer of Anne, and a woman on a crusade to get people to eat a vegetarian diet, excluding even chocolates, as the African tribe she admires did not eat them. Lord Uffenham has turned the family wealth into a stash of diamonds, and following a car crash, he has yet to recall where he last hid the diamonds. He is known as Cakebread the butler to Mrs Cork, and she cannot fire Cakebread as a term of the lease. Cakebread spends time searching the Hall, including guest rooms, which has led Mrs Cork to hire a detective. Anne does not want Jeff to reveal that Cakebread is her uncle. Once at the Hall, Mrs Cork expands Jeff's tasks to watching her nephew Lionel Green and Anne Benedick, as she fears they are romantically involved. Lionel Green was the witness Jeff questioned with such unlawyer-like verve. To work with this man he dislikes, Jeff uses his gifts for quick thinking and talking to make terms with Green, including a few meat meals for Lionel. Lord Uffenham likes Jeff, and tells him about Anne’s engagement to Green, and encourages him to pursue Anne.

Mrs Cork sought a detective at J Sheringham Adair because Dolly Molloy, a guest at the Hall, recommended the firm. Dolly and her husband know Chimp Twist personally, and tell Jeff they are surprised to see him. Jeff says he bought the practice that day. The next day, Mrs Molloy goes to London to learn Chimp is still in business and that he heard the whole story about the mislaid stash of diamonds. The three plan to find the diamonds first, being small time crooks from Chicago. Mr Soapy Molloy has talked Mrs Cork into buying the phony oil stock he sells. Jeff makes terms with the Molloys; neither will expose the other. Nevertheless, Mrs Molloy drops heavy items that just miss Jeff, so he purchases accident insurance.

Jeff talks with Anne often in the days he is at the Hall, professing his love. She recalls having seen him somewhere, and finally realizes it was at a rugby football game the previous fall where he played for England, and the program listed him as J G Miller. She is quite angry at J G Miller for making a fool of her fiancé in court. Jeff kisses her once before she can walk away.

Mrs Cork sees Jeff kissing Anne. This scene persuades her that her nephew is not seeing Anne and Mrs Cork then heads to tell her nephew she will give him the loan he wants to buy to become a partner in the interior decorator shop with Mr Tarvin. Lionel has kept the engagement secret, wanting that loan more than he wants his fiancée. Anne is not pleased with him, especially when she discovers the deal Lionel made with Jeff, explaining why Lionel had not revealed Jeff's true name.

The crisis arises when Chimp Twist arrives at the Hall. Mrs Molloy sets up Chimp Twist to be caught by Cakebread, but Twist eludes capture by Cakebread and meets Mrs Cork when she calls him out of the wardrobe in Mr Trumper's room.

Jeff tells Mrs Cork that he came to the Hall under false pretenses because he is in love with Anne, and Mrs Cork allows him to stay. Then when she learns his correct name from her nephew, she orders him out. He then asks her to autograph his copy of her book, and she relents.

Cakebread leads the Molloys to think he left the diamonds in a jar with Pond's tobacco, as they find him and Jeff in the process of finding that jar. A tussle with a gun happens, Jeff is hit on the head, and Anne cries out for Jeff's sake. After the Molloys drive away with the jar, Uffenham comes up after releasing Mrs Cork and Mr Trumper from the cellar. While in the cellar, the two got engaged. The true location of the diamonds occurs to Lord Uffenham, the bank of the pond at the Hall and he retrieves them from that spot. Anne agrees to marry Jeff.

Characters
  • J G Miller: Called Jeff. He has just completed his studies as a barrister. He also is a player of rugby football (a scrum half) and a writer of thrillers. When the novel opens, he is engaged to Myrtle Shoesmith, and is not quite sure how they became engaged.
  • Lionel Green: He is a witness for the opposing side in Jeff's first appearance as a barrister. He is Clarissa's nephew, an interior decorator whom Jeff hated at private school and called Stinker. He is a conventionally handsome man.
  • Orlo Tarvin: Successful interior decorator who is willing to take Lionel in as a partner, if Lionel can invest enough cash.
  • Ernest Pennefather: He is a taxicab driver suing Tarvin and who is represented by Jeff.
  • Myrtle Shoesmith: Strong-willed young woman who is engaged to Jeff.
  • Mr Shoesmith: He is Myrtle's father and a solicitor.
  • Ma Balsam: Jeff's motherly housekeeper who makes rock cakes to serve with tea.
  • Anne Benedick: She is 23 years old and secretary-companion to Clarissa. In secret, she is engaged to Lionel.
  • George, Viscount Uffenham: Owner of Shipley Hall and uncle to Anne Benedick. He lets his mind go where it wanders, and he does not like banks as a place to keep the family money. He has moved the stash of diamonds almost daily, until he is in a car accident, which makes his memory erratic. He feels that if he never does remember where he hid the diamonds, he must marry the wealthy Mrs Cork, as honour demands he give his niece her portion. It is a heavy weight on him, as he does not like her. He is known as Cakebread when working as the butler at Shipley Hall.
  • J Sheringham Adair: Name of the detective agency for Chimp Twist, which Jeff uses as his pseudonym at Shipley Hall.
  • Dolly Molloy: Brassy, golden-haired shoplifting wife of Soapy, the brains of the couple.
  • Soapy Molloy: Con man who tries to sell phony oil stocks to anyone who will listen to him.
  • Alexander "Chimp" Twist: Crony of the Molloys who runs a detective agency in London, having left America behind. Small man with a large, waxed moustache.
  • Clarissa Cork — Tall and energetic widow and a big game hunter who wrote the book, 'A Woman in the Wilds'. She rented Shipley Hall to run it as a place for plain living and higher thinking. She is the aunt of Lionel Green.
  • Eustace Trumper: Small man who loves Clarissa Cork, and is staying at the Hall.
  • Mrs Cleghorn: Guest at the Hall who wants to learn Mrs Cork's teachings.
  • Mr Shepperson: Guest at the Hall who wants to learn Mrs Cork's teachings. He likes the vegetarian meals and he bathes in the pond.
  • Cakebread: Lord Uffenham's pseudonym as the Shipley Hall butler

Reviews

One contemporary review found this novel "very good Wodehouse" and "stopping just this side of being side-splitting."[3]

Allusions to other novels

George, sixth viscount Uffenham, a typically impecunious and absent-minded Wodehousian aristocrat appears later in the novel Something Fishy (1957), where he helps Anne’s sister Jane.

The story also features the crooks Alexander "Chimp" Twist and "Dolly" and "Soapy" Molloy, who had earlier appeared in Sam the Sudden (1925) and Money for Nothing (1928).

Publication history

The novel was first published as a serial in The Saturday Evening Post in November-December 1941. It was published in the US in 1942, but not in the UK until 1946 due to war time tensions between the UK and Wodehouse. Neither the US nor the UK editions had a dedication.

The edition published in Stuttgart, Germany in 1949 by Tauchnitz was dedicated to Bert Hoskins, with whom Wodehouse had been interned in Germany early in the Second World War. Wodehouse sent a gift of each of his later novels to Mr Hoskins. The novel was written in Germany, while Wodehouse was held at Tost.[4]

A collector's edition of the novel was issued in 2005 by Abrams Press, ISBN 978-1-58567-657-6.

References
  1. McIlvaine, E; Sherby, L S and; Heineman, J H (1990). P G Wodehouse: A comprehensive bibliography and checklist. New York: James H Heineman. pp. 79–80. ISBN 087008125X.
  2. Murphy, N T P (2015). The P. G. Wodehouse Miscellany. Stroud, Gloucestershire: The History Press. p. 97. ISBN 978-0750959643.
  3. Sherman, Beatrice (18 January 1942). "More Wodehouse". The New York Times. p. 7.
  4. Phelps, Barry (1992). P G Wodehouse: Man and Myth. London: Constable and Co Ltd.
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