‘You’re sure there isn’t some other way?’
‘Of course there isn’t.’
‘I see … You wouldn’t care to do it for me, Bertie?’
‘No, I would not.’
‘Many fellows would, to help an old school friend.’
‘Many fellows are mugs.’
‘Have you forgotten those days at the dear old school?’
‘Yes.’
‘You don’t remember the time I shared my last bar of milk chocolate with you?’
‘No.’
‘Well, I did, and you told me then that if ever you had an opportunity of doing anything for me … However, if these obligations – sacred, some people might consider them – have no weight with you, I suppose there is nothing more to be said.’
He pottered about for a while, doing the old cat-in-an-adage stuff: then, taking from his breast pocket a cabinet photograph of Madeline Bassett, he gazed at it intently. It seemed to be the bracer he required. His eyes lit up. His face lost its fishlike look. He strode out, to return immediately, slamming the door behind him.
‘I say, Bertie, Spode’s out there!’
‘What of it?’
‘He made a grab at me.’
‘Made a grab at you?’
I frowned. I am a patient man, but I can be pushed too far. It seemed incredible, after what I had said to him, that Roderick Spode’s hat was still in the ring. I went to the door, and threw it open. It was even as Gussie had said. The man was lurking.
He sagged a bit, as he saw me. I addressed him with cold severity.
‘Anything I can do for you, Spode?’
‘No. No, nothing, thanks.’
‘Push along, Gussie,’ I said, and stood watching him with a protective eye as he sidled round the human gorilla and disappeared along the passage. Then I turned to Spode.
‘Spode,’ I said in a level voice, ‘did I or did I not tell you to leave Gussie alone?’
He looked at me pleadingly.
‘Couldn’t you possibly see your way to letting me do something to him, Wooster? If it was only to kick his spine up through his hat?’
‘Certainly not.’
‘Well, just as you say, of course.’ He scratched his cheek discontentedly. ‘Did you read that notebook, Wooster?’
‘No.’
‘He says my moustache is like the faint discoloured smear left by a squashed blackbeetle on the side of a kitchen sink.’
‘He always was a poetic sort of chap.’
‘And that the way I eat asparagus alters one’s whole conception of Man as Nature’s last word.’
‘Yes, he told me that, I remember. He’s about right, too. I was noticing at dinner. What you want to do, Spode, in future is lower the vegetable gently into the abyss. Take it easy. Don’t snap at it. Try to remember that you are a human being and not a shark.’
‘Ha, ha! “A human being and not a shark.” Cleverly put, Wooster. Most amusing.’
He was still chuckling, though not frightfully heartily I thought, when Jeeves came along with a decanter on a tray.
‘The brandy, sir.’
‘And about time, Jeeves.’
‘Yes, sir. I must once more apologize for my delay. I was detained by Constable Oates.’
‘Oh? Chatting with him again?’
‘Not so much chatting, sir, as staunching the flow of blood.’
‘Blood?’
‘Yes, sir. The officer had met with an accident.’
My momentary pique vanished, and in its place there came a stern joy. Life at Totleigh Towers had hardened me, blunting the gentler emotions, and I derived nothing but gratification from the news that Constable Oates had been meeting with accidents. Only one thing, indeed, could have pleased me more – if I had been informed that Sir Watkyn Bassett had trodden on the soap and come a purler in the bathtub.
‘How did that happen?’
‘He was assaulted while endeavouring to recover Sir Watkyn’s cow-creamer from a midnight marauder, sir.’
Spode uttered a cry.
‘The cow-creamer has not been stolen?’
‘Yes, sir.’
It was evident that Roderick Spode was deeply affected by the news. His attitude towards the cow-creamer had, if you remember, been fatherly from the first. Not lingering to hear more, he galloped off, and I accompanied Jeeves into the room, agog for details.
‘What happened, Jeeves?’
‘Well, sir, it was a little difficult to extract a coherent narrative from the officer, but I gather that he found himself restless and fidgety –’
‘No doubt owing to his inability to get in touch with Pop Bassett, who, as we know, is in his bath, and receive permission to leave his post and come up here after his helmet.’
‘No doubt, sir. And being restless, he experienced a strong desire to smoke a pipe. Reluctant, however, to run the risk of being found to have smoked while on duty – as might have been the case had he done so in an enclosed room, where the fumes would have lingered – he stepped out into the garden.’
‘A quick thinker, this Oates.’
‘He left the french window open behind him. And some little time later his attention was arrested by a sudden sound from within.’
‘What sort of sound?’
‘The sound of stealthy footsteps, sir.’
‘Someone stepping stealthily, as it were?’
‘Precisely, sir. Followed by the breaking of glass. He immediately hastened back to the room – which was, of course, in darkness.’
‘Why?’
‘Because he had turned the light out, sir.’
I nodded. I followed the idea.
‘Sir Watkyn’s instructions to him had been to keep his vigil in the dark, in order to convey to a marauder the impression that the room was unoccupied.’
I nodded again. It was a dirty trick, but one which would spring naturally to the mind of an ex-magistrate.
‘He hurried to the case in which the cow-creamer had been deposited, and struck a match. This almost immediately went out, but not before he had been able to ascertain that the objet d’art had disappeared. And he was still in the process of endeavouring to adjust himself to the discovery, when he heard a movement and, turning, perceived a dim figure stealing out through the french window. He pursued it into the garden, and was overtaking it and might shortly have succeeded in effecting an arrest, when there sprang from the darkness a dim figure –’
‘The same dim figure?’
‘No, sir. Another one.’
‘A big night for dim figures.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Better call them Pat and Mike, or we shall be getting mixed.’
‘A and B perhaps, sir?
‘If you prefer it, Jeeves. He was overtaking dim figure A, you say, when dim figure B sprang from the darkness –’
‘– and struck him upon the nose.’
I uttered an exclamash. The thing was a mystery no longer.
‘Old Stinker!’
‘Yes, sir. No doubt Miss Byng inadvertently forgot to apprise him that there had been a change in the evening’s arrangement.’
‘And he was lurking there, waiting for me.’
‘So one would be disposed to imagine, sir.’
I inhaled deeply, my thoughts playing about the constable’s injured beezer. There, I was feeling, but for whatever it is, went Bertram Wooster, as the fellow said.
‘This assault diverted the officer’s attention, and the object of his pursuit was enabled to escape.’
‘What became of Stinker?’
‘On becoming aware of the officer’s identity, he apologized, sir. He then withdrew.’
‘I don’t blame him. A pretty good idea, at that. Well, I don’t know what to make of this, Jeeves. This dim figure. I am referring to dim figure A. Who could it have been? Had Oates any views on the subject?’
‘Very definite views, sir. He is convinced that it was you.’
I stared.
; ‘Me? Why the dickens has everything that happens in this ghastly house got to be me?’
‘And it is his intention, as soon as he is able to secure Sir Watkyn’s co-operation, to proceed here and search your room.’
‘He was going to do that, anyway, for the helmet.’
‘Yes, sir.’
I couldn’t help smiling. The thing tickled me.
‘This is going to be rather funny, Jeeves. It will be entertaining to watch these two blighters ferret about, feeling sillier and sillier asses as each moment goes by and they find nothing.’
‘Most diverting, sir.’
‘And when the search is over and they are standing there baffled, stammering out weak apologies, I shall get a bit of my own back. I shall fold my arms and draw myself up to my full height –’
There came from without the hoof beats of a galloping relative, and Aunt Dahlia whizzed in.
‘Here, shove this away somewhere, young Bertie,’ she panted, seeming touched in the wind.
And so saying, she thrust the cow-creamer into my hands.
12
* * *
IN MY RECENT picture of Sir Watkyn Bassett reeling beneath the blow of hearing that I wanted to marry into his family, I compared his garglings, if you remember, to the death-rattle of a dying duck. I might now have been this duck’s twin brother, equally stricken. For some moments I stood there, quacking feebly: then with a powerful effort of the will I pulled myself together and cheesed the bird imitation. I looked at Jeeves. He looked at me. I did not speak, save with the language of the eyes, but his trained senses enabled him to read my thoughts unerringly.
‘Thank you, Jeeves.’
I took the tumbler from him, and lowered perhaps half an ounce of the raw spirit. Then, the dizzy spell overcome, I transferred my gaze to the aged relative, who was taking an easy in the armchair.
It is pretty generally admitted, both in the Drones Club and elsewhere, that Bertram Wooster in his dealings with the opposite sex invariably shows himself a man of the nicest chivalry – what you sometimes hear described as a parfait gentil knight. It is true that at the age of six, when the blood ran hot, I once gave my nurse a juicy one over the top knot with a porringer, but the lapse was merely a temporary one. Since then, though few men have been more sorely tried by the sex, I have never raised a hand against a woman. And I can give no better indication of my emotions at this moment than by saying that, preux chevalier though I am, I came within the veriest toucher of hauling off and letting a revered aunt have it on the side of the head with a papier mâché elephant – the only object on the mantelpiece which the fierce rush of life at Totleigh Towers had left still unbroken.
She, while this struggle was proceeding in my bosom, was at her chirpiest. Her breath recovered, she had begun to prattle with a carefree gaiety which cut me like a knife. It was obvious from her demeanour that, stringing along with the late Diamond, she little knew what she had done.
‘As nice a run,’ she was saying, ‘as I have had since the last time I was out with the Berks and Bucks. Not a check from start to finish. Good clean British sport at its best. It was a close thing though, Bertie. I could feel that cop’s hot breath on the back of my neck. If a posse of curates hadn’t popped up out of a trap and lent a willing hand at precisely the right moment, he would have got me. Well, God bless the clergy, say I. A fine body of men. But what on earth were policemen doing on the premises? Nobody ever mentioned policemen to me.’
‘That was Constable Oates, the vigilant guardian of the peace of Totleigh-in-the-Wold,’ I replied, keeping a tight hold on myself lest I should howl like a banshee and shoot up to the ceiling. ‘Sir Watkyn had stationed him in the room to watch over his belongings. He was lying in wait. I was the visitor he expected.’
‘I’m glad you weren’t the visitor he got. The situation would have been completely beyond you, my poor lamb. You would have lost your head and stood there like a stuffed wombat, to fall an easy prey. I don’t mind telling you that when that man suddenly came in through the window, I myself was for a moment paralysed. Still, all’s well that ends well.’
I shook a sombre head.
‘You err, my misguided old object. This is not an end, but a beginning. Pop Bassett is about to spread a drag-net.’
‘Let him.’
‘And when he and the constable come and search this room?’
‘They wouldn’t do that.’
‘They would and will. In the first place, they think the Oates helmet is here. In the second place, it is the officer’s view, relayed to me by Jeeves, who had it from him first hand as he was staunching the flow of blood, that it was I whom he pursued.’
Her chirpiness waned. I had expected it would. She had been beaming. She beamed no longer. Eyeing her steadily, I saw that the native hue of resolution had become sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought.
‘H’m! This is awkward.’
‘Most.’
‘If they find the cow-creamer here, it may be a little difficult to explain.’
She rose, and broke the elephant thoughtfully.
‘The great thing,’ she said, ‘is not to lose our heads. We must say to ourselves: “What would Napoleon have done?” He was the boy in a crisis. He knew his onions. We must do something very clever, very shrewd, which will completely baffle these bounders. Well, come on, I’m waiting for suggestions.’
‘Mine is that you pop off without delay, taking that beastly cow with you.’
‘And run into the search party on the stairs! Not if I know it. Have you any ideas, Jeeves?’
‘Not at the moment, madam.’
‘You can’t produce a guilty secret of Sir Watkyn’s out of the hat, as you did with Spode?’
‘No, madam.’
‘No, I suppose that’s too much to ask. Then we’ve got to hide the thing somewhere. But where? It’s the old problem, of course – the one that makes life so tough for murderers – what to do with the body. I suppose the old Purloined Letter stunt wouldn’t work?’
‘Mrs Travers is alluding to the well-known story by the late Edgar Allan Poe, sir,’ said Jeeves, seeing that I was not abreast. ‘It deals with the theft of an important document, and the character who had secured it foiled the police by placing it in full view in a letter-rack, his theory being that what is obvious is often overlooked. No doubt Mrs Travers wishes to suggest that we deposit the object on the mantelpiece.’
I laughed a hollow one.
‘Take a look at the mantelpiece! It is as bare as a windswept prairie. Anything placed there would stick out like a sore thumb.’
‘Yes, that’s true,’ Aunt Dahlia was forced to admit.
‘Put the bally thing in the suitcase, Jeeves.’
‘That’s no good. They’re bound to look there.’
‘Merely as a palliative,’ I explained. ‘I can’t stand the sight of it any longer. In with it, Jeeves.’
‘Very good, sir.’
A silence ensued, and it was just after Aunt Dahlia had broken it to say how about barricading the door and standing a siege that there came from the passage the sound of approaching footsteps.
‘Here they are,’ I said.
‘They seem in a hurry,’ said Aunt Dahlia.
She was correct. These were running footsteps. Jeeves went to the door and looked out.
‘It is Mr Fink-Nottle, sir.’
And the next moment Gussie entered, going strongly.
A single glance at him was enough to reveal to the discerning eye that he had not been running just for the sake of the exercise. His spectacles were glittering in a hunted sort of way, and there was more than a touch of the fretful porpentine about his hair.
‘Do you mind if I hide here till the milk train goes, Bertie?’ he said. ‘Under the bed will do. I shan’t be in your way.’
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Or, still better, the knotted sheet. That’s the stuff.’
A snort like a minute-gun showed that Aunt Dah
lia was in no welcoming mood.
‘Get out of here, you foul Spink-Bottle,’ she said curtly. ‘We’re in conference. Bertie, if an aunt’s wishes have any weight with you, you will stamp on this man with both feet and throw him out on his ear.’
I raised a hand.
‘Wait! I want to get the strength of this. Stop messing about with those sheets, Gussie and explain. Is Spode after you again? Because, if so –’
‘Not Spode. Sir Watkyn.’
Aunt Dahlia snorted again, like one giving an encore in response to a popular demand.
‘Bertie –’
I raised another hand.
‘Half a second, old ancestor. How do you mean Sir Watkyn? Why Sir Watkyn? What on earth is he chivvying you for?’
‘He’s read the notebook.’
‘What!’
‘Yes.’
‘Bertie, I am only a weak woman –’
I raised a third hand. This was no time for listening to aunts.
‘Go on, Gussie,’ I said dully.
He took off his spectacles and wiped them with a trembling handkerchief. You could see that he was a man who had passed through the furnace.
‘When I left you, I went to his room. The door was ajar, and I crept in. And when I had got in, I found that he hadn’t gone to have a bath, after all. He was sitting on the bed in his underwear, reading the notebook. He looked up, and our eyes met. You’ve no notion what a frightful shock it gave me.’
‘Yes, I have. I once had a very similar experience with the Rev. Aubrey Upjohn.’
‘There was a long, dreadful pause. Then he uttered a sort of gurgling sound and rose, his face contorted. He made a leap in my direction. I pushed off. He followed. It was neck and neck down the stairs, but as we passed through the hall he stopped to get a hunting crop, and this enabled me to secure a good lead, which I –’
‘Bertie,’ said Aunt Dahlia, ‘I am only a weak woman, but if you won’t tread on this insect and throw the remains outside, I shall have to see what I can do. The most tremendous issues hanging in the balance … Our plan of action still to be decided on … Every second of priceless importance … and he comes in here, telling us the story of his life. Spink-Bottle, you ghastly goggle-eyed piece of gorgonzola, will you hop it or will you not?’