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Published in 1974.
Bertie's physician suggested him to go and rest in the countryside. Bertie
decides to rent a cottage at Maidens Eggesford, where his Aunt Dahlia is
staying with friends of hers, the Briscoes. Colonel Briscoe breeds horses, and
his horse's only serious competitor is Mr. Cook's horse, his arch-rival. On
his first day at the village, Bertie accidentally meets Cook, who, learning
that Bertie knows Briscoe, is convinced he has come to sabotage the training
of his horse by pinching the cat. The cat appeared one day and since then,
Cook's horse refuses to train if she is not around. Moreover, Major Plank is
staying at Cook's place and, although an attack of malaria prevents him from
remembering in what circumstances he had previously met Bertie, there is a
risk in the future that he would remember that he is convinced Bertie is a
thief. When Aunt Dahlia, who had bet a very large sum of money on Briscoe's
horse, learns about the cat, she asks Briscoe's niece to help her pinch the
cat. Thanks to a local poacher of her accointance, the cat is stolen and
delivered to Bertie. Bertie then pays the poacher to take it back, but the cat
follows him back to Bertie's place and refuses to leave. At the same time,
Cook's daughter Vanessa, whom Bertie had met once at a party a year ago,
quarrels with her fiance Orlo, the son of Cook's former business partner, who has
entrusted the control of Orlo's inheritance to Cook. The reason of the quarrel
is that she finds Orlo didn't ask her father hard enough for the release oh
his money. Orlo needs the money to be able to marry Vanessa, but her father
refuses her to marry the communist he is. Vanessa therefore announces Bertie
they are now engaged, and that she will make him loose all his bad habits
(smoking, drinking cocktails, going do the Drones' club and reading light
books). Orlo is of course furious and threatens Bertie, but since the former,
an insurance salesman by trade, managed to sell Bertie a life insurance,
killing him would be bad business. Bertie manages to convince Orlo that
Vanessa actually still loves him, and encourages him to ask again for his
money. When Jeeves comes back from visiting his aunt at a nearby place, he
tells Bertie that the cat is actually his aunt's, and they use the animal to
force Cook into releasing Orlo's money and dropping the charges agains Bertie
for cat-theft (Plank having meanwhile remembered his first meeting with
Bertie). Briscoe's horse eventually wins the race and everything ends well.