‘Jeeves,’ I faltered, ‘this thing . . . this what-you-may-call-it . . . this costume of which you speak . . . what is it?’
‘A policeman’s uniform, sir.’
I collapsed into a chair as if the lower limbs had been mown off with a scythe. The s. had been well founded.
‘It has occurred to me since that it may possibly have been the property of Mr Cheesewright, sir. I observed him disporting himself in the water not far away.’
I rose from the chair. It wasn’t an easy thing to do, but I managed it.
‘Jeeves,’ I said, or perhaps it would be mot juster to say I thundered, ‘you will go and restore that dashed uniform to its bally owner instanter!’
Boko and Nobby, who had been slapping each other’s backs in the foreground, halted in mid-slap and stared at me, Boko as if he couldn’t believe his ears, Nobby as if she couldn’t believe hers.
‘Restore it?’ cried Nobby.
‘To its bally owner?’ gasped Boko. ‘I simply fail to follow you, Bertie.’
‘Me, too,’ said Nobby. ‘If you had been a Israelite in the wilderness, you wouldn’t have passed up your plateful of manna, would you?’
‘Exactly,’ said Boko. ‘Here, at the eleventh hour, just when the total downfall of all our hopes and dreams seemed to stare us in the eyeball because we were unable to lay our hooks on a fancy dress costume, an admirable costume has been sent from Heaven, as you might say, and you appear to be suggesting that we shall give it the go-by. You can’t realize what you are saying. Reflect, Bertie. Consider.’
I preserved my iron front.
‘That uniform,’ I said, ‘goes back to its proprietor by special messenger at the earliest possible date. My dear Boko, my good Nobby, have you the slightest conception of the bitterly anti-Wooster sentiments which prevail in Stilton’s bosom? The man specifically stated to me not half an hour ago that his dearest wish was to catch Bertram bending. Let him discover that I have been pinching his uniforms, and I can hope for no mercy. Three months in the second division will be the best I can expect.’
Nobby started to say something about three months soon passing, but Boko shushed her.
‘Why on earth should he discover anything of the sort?’ he said. ‘You aren’t proposing to parade Steeple Bumpleigh day in and day out in this uniform. You’re only going to wear it tonight.’
I corrected this view.
‘I am not going to wear it to-night.’
‘Oh, aren’t you?’ cried Nobby. ‘Well, then, I’m jolly well not going to show that letter of yours to Florence.’
‘Good girl,’ said Boko. ‘Well spoken, young light of my life. Laugh that off, Bertie.’
I made no endeavour to do so. Her words had chilled the spine. I don’t suppose there is a man living who is swifter than Bertram Wooster to perceive when someone has got him by the short hairs, and it was clear to me that this was what had happened now. However fearful the perils that confronted me if I accepted Jeeves’s loathsome gift, they must be faced.
A moment’s struggle for utterance, and I bowed the onion and right-hoed.
‘Splendid fellow!’ said Boko. ‘I knew you would see the light.’
‘Bertie’s always so reasonable,’ said Nobby.
‘Clear-thinking chap. Very level-headed,’ agreed Boko. ‘Then we’re all set, eh? You come to the ball – of which in such a costume you can scarcely fail to be the belle – and you lurk till you have ascertained that old Worplesdon has had a satisfactory conference with Clam. If all has gone well, you buttonhole him and give me a build up. As soon as he is in melting mood, you give me the high sign, and I carry on from there, while you come home and turn in with an easy mind. I doubt if the whole thing – your part of it – will take more than half an hour. And now I think I had better be stepping along and taking Stilton a raincoat. No doubt he has a spare uniform at his residence, but one would like to get him there without causing comment. We can’t have chaps roaming the countryside in the nude. All right for the Riviera, no doubt, but thank God we have a stricter code in Steeple Bumpleigh.’
He pushed off, taking Nobby with him, and I turned to Jeeves, who during these exchanges had been standing completely motionless, looking like a stuffed owl, his habit on occasions when he is among those present but has not been invited to join in the chit-chat.
‘Jeeves,’ I said.
‘Sir?’ he responded, coming to life in a deferential sort of way.
I did not mince my words.
‘Well, Jeeves,’ I said, and my face was hard and cold, ‘you appreciate the set-up, I trust? Thanks to you, I am as properly up against it as I can remember being in the course of a not uneventful career. My position, as I see it, is roughly that of one who has removed a favourite cub from the custody of a rather more than usually short-tempered tigress, and is obliged to carry it on his person in the animal’s immediate neighbourhood. I am not a weak man, Jeeves, but when I think of what will happen if Stilton cops me while I am draped in that uniform, it makes my knotted and combined locks . . . what was that gag of yours?’
‘Part, sir, and each particular hair—’
‘Stand on end, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes, sir. Like quills upon the fretful porpentine.’
‘That’s right. And that brings me back to it. What the dickens is a porpentine?’
‘A porcupine, sir.’
‘Oh, a porcupine? Why didn’t you say that at first? It’s been worrying me all day. Well, that, as I say, is the posish, Jeeves, and it is you who have brought it about.’
‘I acted from the best motives, sir. It seemed to me that at all costs it was essential that you take part in to-night’s festivities.’
I saw his point. If there’s one thing the Woosters are, it’s fairminded. We writhe, but we are just.
‘Yes,’ I assented with a moody nod, ‘I suppose you meant well. And no doubt, in a sense, you did the right and judicious thing. But you can’t get away from it that mine is a fearful predicament. One false step, and Stilton will be on the back of my neck, shouting for Justices of the Peace to come and sentence me to a long spell in the cooler. And, apart from that, has it occurred to you that this Cheesewright is about forty inches more round the chest and eight inches more round the head than me? Clad in his uniform, and especially wearing his helmet, I shall look like a Keystone Kop. Why, dash it, I’d rather go to this binge as the meanest Pierrot. Still, I suppose my bally preferences don’t count.’
‘I fear not, sir. For know, rash youth – if you will pardon me, sir – the expression is Mr Bernard Shaw’s, not my own . . . For know, rash youth, that in this star crost world Fate drives us all to find our chiefest good in what we can, and not in what we would.’
Again, I saw his point.
‘Quite,’ I responded. ‘Yes, I suppose the bullet must be bitten. Right ho, Jeeves,’ I said, summoning to my aid all the splendid Wooster fortitude, ‘lead me to it.’
CHAPTER 26
It had been Boko’s idea that he and I should make the journey to East Wibley in his car, he at the wheel, I at his side, so that if there were any minor details to be settled which we had overlooked, we could get them ironed out before arrival, thus achieving a perfect preparedness and avoiding any chance of last minute stymies.
To this suggestion, though admitting its basic soundness, I demurred. In fact, when I say I demurred, I ought to put it stronger. I more or less recoiled in horror. I had been Boko’s passenger on a previous occasion, and it was not an experience one would wish to repeat. Put an author in the driver’s seat of a car, and his natural goofiness seems to become intensified. Not only did Boko persistently overtake on blind corners, but he did it with a dreamy, faraway look in his eyes, telling one the plot of his next novel the while and not infrequently removing both hands from the wheel in order to drive home some dramatic point with gestures.
Another reason why I preferred to travel in the Wooster two-seater was that I was naturally anxious to get home and
out of that uniform as speedily as possible. And, of course, it would be necessary, if all went well, for Boko to linger on and talk turkey to Uncle Percy.
My qualms regarding spending the evening in Stilton’s plumage had in no way diminished with the passage of time. I still viewed the ordeal with concern.
Boko, returning from his errand of mercy to the zealous officer, had reported that the latter had seemed a bit upset about it all and inclined to suspect me of being the motivating force behind the outrage. To this, Boko had rather cleverly replied by saying that it was far more likely to have been young Edwin who had done the horrid deed. There comes a moment, he had pointed out, in the life of every Boy Scout when he suddenly feels fed up with doing acts of kindness and allows his human side to get uppermost. On such occasions, the sight of a policeman’s uniform lying on the river bank would, he maintained, call to such a Scout like deep calling to deep and prove practically irresistible. He told me he thought he had lulled Stilton’s suspicions, all right.
This, of course, was all very well, as far as it went, but I could not conceal it from myself that if Stilton were to see me wearing the uniform, his suspicions would pretty damn’ soon come unlulled. He might or might not have what it takes to make a man a master-mind of Scotland Yard, but he unquestionably had sufficient intelligence, should such a contingency occur, to put two and two together, as the expression is. I mean to say, a policeman who has had his uniform pinched and later in the day comes on someone swathed in it is practically bound to fall into a certain train of thought.
‘No, Boko,’ I said. ‘I proceed to the tryst under my own steam, and I come away the moment I have completed my share in the proceedings, driving like the wind.’
And so it was arranged.
Well, of course, it being so essential for me to get to the scene of operations in good time, you might have known what would happen. At about the half-way mark, the old two-seater suddenly faded out, coming to a placid standstill in prettily wooded country miles from anywhere. And as I don’t know the first thing about fixing a car, my talents being limited to twisting the wheel and tooting the tooter, I had to wait there till the United States Marines arrived.
These took the shape – at about a quarter to twelve – of a kindly bird in a lorry who, on being hailed, put everything right with a careless twiddle of the fingers so rapidly that he had occasion to spit only twice from start to finish. I thanked him, flung him a purse of gold and proceeded on my way, fetching up at journey’s end just as the local clocks were striking midnight.
The interior of the East Wibley Town Hall presented a gay and fairylike appearance. Coloured lanterns hung from the roof, there was a good deal of smilax here and there, and on all sides the eye detected fair women and brave men. One of the latter, a footballer in the striking colours of the Borstal Rovers, detached himself from the throng and arrested my progress, full of recriminations.
‘Bertie, you outstanding louse,’ said Boko, for it was he, ‘where the devil have you been? I was expecting you hours ago.’
I explained the reasons for my delay, and he said peevishly that I was just the sort of chap whose car would break down when every moment was precious, adding that it was a lucky thing that it hadn’t been me they sent to bring the good news from Aix to Ghent, because, if it had been, Ghent would have got it first in the Sunday papers.
‘It’s going to be touch and go, Bertie,’ he proceeded. ‘A wholly unforeseen situation has arisen. Old Worplesdon has gone to earth in the bar and is lowering the stuff by the pailful.’
‘But that’s fine,’ I said. ‘The significance of his actions has probably escaped you, but I can read between the lines. It means that he has seen Clam and that everything is satisfactorily fixed up.’
He clicked his tongue impatiently.
‘Of course it does. But the frightful danger is that at any moment he may pass completely out, and then where are we?’
I saw what he meant, and it was as if a hand of ice had been placed on my heart. No wonder he had used the words, ‘frightful danger’. The peril was hideous. Our whole plan of strategy called for an Uncle Percy in whom the neap tide of the milk of human kindness was at its height. A blind and speechless Uncle P., stacked up against the wall in a corner of the bar like an umbrella in an umbrella stand, would defeat all our aims.
‘Go to him without a second’s delay,’ said Boko, urgently. ‘Pray Heaven it may not be too late!’
The words had scarcely left his lips before I was skimming barwards like a greyhound released from the slips. And it was with profound relief that I saw that I was in time. Uncle Percy had not passed out. He was still up and doing, playing the genial host to a platoon of friends and admirers who had plainly come to look on him in the light of a public drinking fountain.
I was just starting to head in his direction, when the band struck up another tune and his pals swallowed theirs quick and streamed out, leaving the old relative leaning back in his chair with his feet on the table. I lost no time in stepping up and fraternizing.
‘What ho, Uncle Percy,’ I said.
Ah, Bertie,’ he replied. He shut one eye and scrutinized me narrowly. ‘I am right,’ he queried, ‘in supposing that that is Bertram Wooster rattling about inside that helmet?’
‘It is,’ I replied shortly. The uniform and helmet were proving even roomier than I had feared they would be, and I was about fed up with them. The almost universal merriment which had greeted me, as I passed through the crowd of revellers, had been hard to bear. The Woosters are not accustomed to getting the horse’s laugh when they lend their presence to fancy dress dances.
‘It doesn’t fit. It’s too large. You should change your hatter, or your armourer, or whatever it is. Still, be that as it may, tiddly-om-pom-pom. Sit down and have some of this disgusting champagne, Bertie. I’ll join you.’
I thought it best to speak the word in season.
‘Haven’t you had enough, Uncle Percy?’
He weighed this.
‘If what you mean by that question is, am I stinko,’ he replied, ‘in a broad, general sense you are right. I am stinko. But everything is relative, Bertie . . . You, for instance, are my relative, and I am your relative . . . and the point I want to make is that I am not one bit as stinko as I’m going to be later on. This is a night for unstinted rejoicing, my dear boy, and if you think I am not going to rejoice – and unstintedly, at that – then I reply “Watch me!” That is all I say. Watch me!’
The spectacle of an uncle, even if only an uncle by marriage, going down for the third time in a sea of dance champagne can never be an agreeable one. But though I mourned as a nephew, I’m bound to say I found myself pretty bucked in my capacity of ambassador for Boko. Pie-eyed, even plastered, this man might be, but there was no mistaking his geniality. It was like something out of Dickens, and I saw that he was going to be clay in my hands.
‘I’ve seen Clam,’ he proceeded.
‘You have?’
‘With the naked eye. And I refuse to believe that Edward the Confessor really looked like that. Nobody presenting such an obscene appearance as J. Chichester Clam could possibly have held the throne of England for five minutes. Lynching parties would have been organized, knights sent out to cope with the nuisance with battleaxes.’
‘Is everything all right?’
‘Everything’s fine, except that I am beginning to see two of you. And one was ample.’
‘I mean, you’ve had your conference?’
‘Oh, our conference? Yes, we had that, and I don’t mind telling you, if you can hear me from inside that helmet, that I put it all over him. When he looks at that agreement we sketched out on the back of the wine list – an agreement, I may mention, legally witnessed by the chap behind the bar and impossible to get out of – he’ll realize that he’s practically given me his bally shipping line. That is why I say – and with all the emphasis at my disposal – tiddly-om-pom-pom. Fill your glass, Bertie. Don’t spare the vitriol.’ r />
I felt that a word of praise would not be amiss. However mellowed a man may be, it never hurts to mellow him a bit more by giving him the old oil.
‘Smooth work, Uncle Percy.’
‘You may well say so, my boy.’
‘There can’t be many fellows about with brains like yours.’
‘There aren’t.’
‘Very creditable to you, the whole thing. I mean, considering your condition.’
‘You allude to my being tight? Quite, quite. But I wasn’t tight when I was dealing with Clam. Though my shoes were. I seem,’ he said, his lips contorted by a spasm of pain, ‘to have come out in a pair of shoes about eleven sizes too small, and they’re nipping me like nobody’s business. I’m going to look for a quiet spot where I can take them off for a bit.’
I drew my breath in sharply. I had seen the way. I suppose this is how great generals win battles, by suddenly spotting the right course to pursue and immediately pulling up their socks and snapping into it.
You see, what I had been alive to all along had been the danger that this man, as soon as I switched the conversation to the subject of Boko, would turn on his heel and stalk off, leaving me flat. Catch him with his shoes off, and this problem would not arise. An uncle by marriage with only socks on finds it dashed difficult to turn on his heel, especially if he’s sitting in a car. And it was into a car that I proposed to decant this Percy.
‘What you want,’ I said, ‘is to go and sit in a car.’
‘I haven’t got a car. I tooled over on my push bike, and a hell of a sweat it was, taxing the unaccustomed calf muscles like billy-o.’
‘I’ll find a car.’
‘Not that rotten little two-seater of yours, I trust? I shall require space. I want to stretch my legs out and relax. The calves are still throbbing.’
‘No, this is a bigger, better car altogether. The property of a friend of mine.’