I started, pursing the lips a bit.
‘Not quite playing the game, Stinker.’
‘Yes, it was,’ said Stiffy, with a good deal of warmth. ‘I call it very clever of him.’
I could not recede from my position. At the Drones, we hold strong views on these things.
‘There is a right way and a wrong way of pinching policemen’s helmets,’ I said firmly.
‘You’re talking absolute nonsense,’ said Stiffy. ‘I think you were wonderful, darling.’
I shrugged my shoulders.
‘How do you feel about it, Jeeves?’
‘I scarcely think that it would be fitting for me to offer an opinion, sir.’
‘No,’ said Stiffy. ‘And it jolly well isn’t fitting for you to offer an opinion, young pie-faced Bertie Wooster. Who do you think you are,’ she demanded, with renewed warmth, ‘coming strolling into a girl’s bedroom, sticking on dog about the right way and wrong way of pinching helmets? It isn’t as if you were such a wonder at it yourself, considering that you got collared and hauled up next morning at Bosher Street, where you had to grovel to Uncle Watkyn in the hope of getting off with a fine.’
I took this up promptly.
‘I did not grovel to the old disease. My manner throughout was calm and dignified, like that of a Red Indian at the stake. And when you speak of me hoping to get off with a fine –’
Here Stiffy interrupted, to beg me to put a sock in it.
‘Well, all I was about to say was that the sentence stunned me. I felt so strongly that it was a case for a mere reprimand. However, this is beside the point – which is that Stinker in the recent encounter did not play to the rules of the game. I consider his behaviour morally tantamount to shooting a sitting bird. I cannot alter my opinion.’
‘And I can’t alter my opinion that you have no business in my bedroom. What are you doing here?’
‘Yes, I was wondering that,’ said Stinker, touching on the point for the first time. And I could see, of course, how he might quite well be surprised at finding this mob scene in what he had supposed the exclusive sleeping apartment of the loved one.
I eyed her sternly.
‘You know what I am doing here. I told you. I came –’
‘Oh, yes. Bertie came to borrow a book, darling. But’ – here her eyes lingered on mine in a cold and sinister manner – ‘I’m afraid I can’t let him have it just yet. I have not finished with it myself. By the way,’ she continued, still holding me with that compelling stare, ‘Bertie says he will be delighted to help us with that cow-creamer scheme.’
‘Will you, old man?’ said Stinker eagerly.
‘Of course he will,’ said Stiffy. ‘He was saying only just now what a pleasure it would be.’
‘You won’t mind me hitting you on the nose?’
‘Of course he won’t.’
‘You see, we must have blood. Blood is of the essence.’
‘Of course, of course, of course,’ said Stiffy. Her manner was impatient. She seemed in a hurry to terminate the scene. ‘He quite understands that.’
‘When would you feel like doing it, Bertie?’
‘He feels like doing it tonight,’ said Stiffy. ‘No sense in putting things off. Be waiting outside at midnight, darling. Everybody will have gone to bed by then. Midnight will suit you, Bertie? Yes, Bertie says it will suit him splendidly. So that’s all settled. And now you really must be going, precious. If somebody came in and found you here, they might think it odd. Good night, darling.’
‘Good night, darling.’
‘Good night, darling.’
‘Good night, darling.’
‘Wait!’ I said, cutting in on these revolting exchanges, for I wished to make a last appeal to Stinker’s finer feelings.
‘He can’t wait. He’s got to go. Remember, angel. On the spot, ready to the last button, at twelve pip emma. Good night, darling.’
‘Good night, darling.’
‘Good night, darling.’
‘Good night, darling.’
They passed on to the balcony, the nauseous endearments receding in the distance, and I turned to Jeeves, my face stern and hard.
‘Faugh, Jeeves!’
‘Sir?’
‘I said “Faugh!” I am a pretty broadminded man, but this has shocked me – I may say to the core. It is not so much the behaviour of Stiffy that I find so revolting. She is a female, and the tendency of females to be unable to distinguish between right and wrong is notorious. But that Harold Pinker, a clerk in Holy Orders, a chap who buttons his collar at the back, should countenance this thing appals me. He knows she has got that book. He knows that she is holding me up with it. But does he insist on her returning it? No! He lends himself to the raw work with open enthusiasm. A nice look-out for the Totleigh-in-the-Wold flock, trying to keep on the straight and narrow path with a shepherd like that! A pretty example he sets to this Infants’ Bible Class of which he speaks! A few years of sitting at the feet of Harold Pinker and imbibing his extraordinary views on morality and ethics, and every bally child on the list will be serving a long stretch at Wormwood Scrubs for blackmail.’
I paused, much moved. A bit out of breath, too.
‘I think you do the gentleman an injustice, sir.’
‘Eh?’
‘I am sure that he is under the impression that your acquiescence in the scheme is due entirely to goodness of heart and a desire to assist an old friend.’
‘You think she hasn’t told him about the notebook?’
‘I am convinced of it, sir. I could gather that from the lady’s manner.’
‘I didn’t notice anything about her manner.’
‘When you were about to mention the notebook, it betrayed embarrassment, sir. She feared lest Mr Pinker might inquire into the matter and, learning the facts, compel her to make restitution.’
‘By Jove, Jeeves, I believe you’re right.’
I reviewed the recent scene. Yes, he was perfectly correct. Stiffy, though one of those girls who enjoy in equal quantities the gall of an army mule and the calm insouciance of a fish on a slab of ice, had unquestionably gone up in the air a bit when I had seemed about to explain to Stinker my motives for being in the room. I recalled the rather feverish way in which she had hustled him out, like a small bouncer at a pub ejecting a large customer.
‘Egad, Jeeves!’ I said, impressed.
There was a muffled crashing sound from the direction of the balcony. A few moments later, Stiffy returned.
‘Harold fell off the ladder,’ she explained, laughing heartily. ‘Well, Bertie, you’ve got the programme all clear? Tonight’s the night!’
I drew out a gasper and lit it.
‘Wait!’ I said. ‘Not so fast. Just one moment, young Stiffy.’
The ring of quiet authority in my tone seemed to take her aback. She blinked twice, and looked at me questioningly, while I, drawing in a cargo of smoke, expelled it nonchalantly through the nostrils.
‘Just one moment,’ I repeated.
In the narrative of my earlier adventures with Augustus Fink-Nottle at Brinkley Court, with which you may or may not be familiar, I mentioned that I had once read a historical novel about a Buck or Beau or some such cove who, when it became necessary for him to put people where they belonged, was in the habit of laughing down from lazy eyelids and flicking a speck of dust from the irreproachable Mechlin lace at his wrists. And I think I stated that I had had excellent results from modelling myself on this bird.
I did so now.
‘Stiffy,’ I said, laughing down from my lazy eyelids and flicking a speck of cigarette ash from my irreproachable cuff, ‘I will trouble you to disgorge that book.’
The questioning look became intensified. I could see that all this was perplexing her. She had supposed that she had Bertram nicely ground beneath the iron heel, and here he was, popping up like a two-year-old, full of the fighting spirit.
‘What do you mean?’
I laughed down a bit m
ore.
‘I should have supposed,’ I said, flicking, ‘that my meaning was quite clear. I want that notebook of Gussie’s, and I want it immediately, without any more back chat.’
Her lips tightened.
‘You will get it tomorrow – if Harold turns in a satisfactory report.’
‘I shall get it now.’
‘Ha jolly ha!’
‘“Ha jolly ha!” to you, young Stiffy, with knobs on,’ I retorted with quiet dignity. ‘I repeat, I shall get it now. If I don’t, I shall go to old Stinker and tell him all about it.’
‘All about what?’
‘All about everything. At present, he is under the impression that my acquiescence in your scheme is due entirely to goodness of heart and a desire to assist an old friend. You haven’t told him about the notebook. I am convinced of it. I could gather that from your manner. When I was about to mention the notebook, it betrayed embarrassment. You feared lest Stinker might inquire into the matter and, learning the facts, compel you to make restitution.’
Her eyes flickered. I saw that Jeeves had been correct in his diagnosis.
‘You’re talking absolute rot,’ she said, but it was with a quaver in the v.
‘All right. Well, toodle-oo. I’m off to find Stinker.’
I turned on my heel and, as I expected, she stopped me with a pleading yowl.
‘No, Bertie, don’t! You mustn’t!’
I came back.
‘So! You admit it? Stinker knows nothing of your …’ The powerful phrase which Aunt Dahlia had employed when speaking of Sir Watkyn Bassett occurred to me – ‘of your underhand skulduggery.’
‘I don’t see why you call it underhand skulduggery.’
‘I call it underhand skulduggery because that is what I consider it. And that is what Stinker, dripping as he is with high principles, will consider it when the facts are placed before him.’ I turned on the h. again. ‘Well, toodle-oo once more.’
‘Bertie, wait!’
‘Well?’
‘Bertie, darling –’
I checked her with a cold wave of the cigarette-holder.
‘Less of the “Bertie, darling”. “Bertie, darling”, forsooth! Nice time to start the “Bertie, darling”-ing.’
‘But, Bertie darling, I want to explain. Of course I didn’t dare tell Harold about the book. He would have had a fit. He would have said it was a rotten trick, and of course I knew it was. But there was nothing else to do. There didn’t seem any other way of getting you to help us.’
‘There wasn’t.’
‘But you are going to help us, aren’t you?’
‘I am not.’
‘Well, I do think you might.’
‘I dare say you do, but I won’t.’
Somewhere about the first or second line of this chunk of dialogue, I had observed her eyes begin to moisten and her lips to tremble, and a pearly one had started to steal down the cheek. The bursting of the dam, of which that pearly one had been the first preliminary trickle, now set in with great severity. With a brief word to the effect that she wished she were dead and that I would look pretty silly when I gazed down at her coffin, knowing that my inhumanity had put her there, she flung herself on the bed and started going oomp.
It was the old uncontrollable sob-stuff which she had pulled earlier in the proceedings, and once more I found myself a bit unmanned. I stood there irresolute, plucking nervously at the cravat. I had already alluded to the effect of a woman’s grief on the Woosters.
‘Oomp,’ she went.
‘But, Stiffy –’ I said.
‘Oomp … Oomp …’
‘But, Stiffy, old girl, be reasonable. Use the bean. You can’t seriously expect me to pinch that cow-creamer.’
‘It oomps everything to us.’
‘Very possibly. But listen. You haven’t envisaged the latent snags. Your blasted uncle is watching my every move, just waiting for me to start something. And even if he wasn’t, the fact that I would be co-operating with Stinker renders the thing impossible. I have already given you my views on Stinker as a partner in crime. Somehow, in some manner, he would muck everything up. Why, look at what happened just now. He couldn’t even climb down a ladder without falling off.’
‘Oomp.’
‘And, anyway, just examine this scheme of yours in pitiless analysis. You tell me the wheeze is for Stinker to stroll in all over blood and say he hit the marauder on the nose. Let us suppose he does so. What ensues? “Ha!” says your uncle, who doubtless knows a clue as well as the next man. “Hit him on the nose, did you? Keep your eyes skinned, everybody, for a bird with a swollen nose.” And the first thing he sees is me with a beezer twice the proper size. Don’t tell me he wouldn’t draw conclusions.’
I rested my case. It seemed to me that I had made out a pretty good one, and I anticipated the resigned ‘Right ho. Yes, I see what you mean. I suppose you’re right.’ But she merely oomped the more, and I turned to Jeeves, who hitherto had not spoken.
‘You follow my reasoning, Jeeves?’
‘Entirely, sir.’
‘You agree with me, that the scheme, as planned, would merely end in disaster?’
‘Yes, sir. It undoubtedly presents certain grave difficulties. I wonder if I might be permitted to suggest an alternative one.’
I stared at the man.
‘You mean you have found a formula?’
‘I think so, sir.’
His words had de-oomped Stiffy. I don’t think anything else in the world would have done it. She sat up, looking at him with a wild surmise.
‘Jeeves! Have you really?’
‘Yes, miss.’
‘Well, you certainly are the most wonderful wooly baa-lamb that ever stepped.’
‘Thank you, miss.’
‘Well, let us have it, Jeeves,’ I said, lighting another cigarette and lowering self into a chair. ‘One hopes, of course, that you are right, but I should have thought personally that there were no avenues.’
‘I think we can find one, sir, if we approach the matter from the psychological angle.’
‘Oh, psychological?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘The psychology of the individual?’
‘Precisely, sir.’
‘I see. Jeeves,’ I explained to Stiffy, who, of course, knew the man only slightly, scarcely more, indeed, than as a silent figure that had done some smooth potato-handing when she had lunched at my flat, ‘is and always has been a whale on the psychology of the individual. He eats it alive. What individual, Jeeves?’
‘Sir Watkyn Bassett, sir.’
I frowned doubtfully.
‘You propose to try to soften that old public enemy? I don’t think it can be done, except with a knuckleduster.’
‘No, sir. It would not be easy to soften Sir Watkyn, who, as you imply, is a man of strong character, not easily moulded. The idea I have in mind is to endeavour to take advantage of his attitude towards yourself. Sir Watkyn does not like you, sir.’
‘I don’t like him.’
‘No, sir. But the important thing is that he has conceived a strong distaste for you, and would consequently sustain a severe shock, were you to inform him that you and Miss Byng were betrothed and were anxious to be united in matrimony.’
‘What! You want me to tell him that Stiffy and I are that way?’
‘Precisely, sir.’
I shook the head.
‘I see no percentage in it, Jeeves. All right for a laugh, no doubt – watching the old bounder’s reactions I mean – but of little practical value.’
Stiffy, too, seemed disappointed. It was plain that she had been hoping for better things.
‘It sounds goofy to me,’ she said. ‘Where would that get us, Jeeves?’
‘If I might explain, miss. Sir Watkyn’s strong reactions would, as Mr Wooster suggests, be of a strongly defined character.’
‘He would hit the ceiling.’
‘Exactly, miss. A very colourful piece of imagery. And
if you were then to assure him that there was no truth in Mr Wooster’s statement, adding that you were, in actual fact, betrothed to Mr Pinker, I think the overwhelming relief which he would feel at the news would then lead him to look with a kindly eye on your union with that gentleman.’
Personally, I had never heard anything so potty in my life, and my manner indicated as much. Stiffy, on the other hand, was all over it. She did the first few steps of a spring dance.
‘Why, Jeeves, that’s marvellous!’
‘I think it would prove effective, miss.’
‘Of course, it would. It couldn’t fail. Just imagine, Bertie, darling, how he would feel if you told him I wanted to marry you. Why, if after that I said “Oh, no, it’s all right, Uncle Watky. The chap I really want to marry is the boy who cleans the boots,” he would fold me in his arms and promise to come and dance at the wedding. And when he finds that the real fellow is a splendid, wonderful, terrific man like Harold, the thing will be a walk-over. Jeeves, you really are a specific dream-rabbit.’
‘Thank you, miss. I am glad to have given satisfaction.’
I rose. It was my intention to say goodbye to all this. I don’t mind people talking rot in my presence, but it must not be utter rot. I turned to Stiffy, who was now in the later stages of her spring dance, and addressed her with curt severity.
‘I will now take the book, Stiffy.’
She was over by the cupboard, strewing roses. She paused for a moment.
‘Oh, the book. You want it?’
‘I do. Immediately.’
‘I’ll give it to you after you’ve seen Uncle Watkyn.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yes. It isn’t that I don’t trust you, Bertie, darling, but I should feel much happier if I knew that you knew I had still got it, and I’m sure you want me to feel happy. You toddle off and beard him, and then we’ll talk.’
I frowned.
‘I will toddle off,’ I said coldly, ‘but beard him, no. I don’t seem to see myself bearding him!’
She stared.
‘But, Bertie, this sounds as if you weren’t going to sit in.’
‘It was how I meant it to sound.’
‘You wouldn’t fail me, would you?’