There is a compelling force about the old flesh and blood, when stirred, which generally gets her listened to. People have told me that in her hunting days she could make her wishes respected across two ploughed fields and a couple of spinneys. The word ‘not’ had left her lips like a high-powered shell, and Gussie, taking it between the eyes, rose some six inches into the air. When he returned to terra firma, his manner was apologetic and conciliatory.
‘Yes, Mrs Travers. I’m just going, Mrs Travers. The moment we get the sheet working, Mrs Travers. If you and Jeeves will just hold this end, Bertie –’
‘You want them to let you down from the window with a sheet?’
‘Yes, Mrs Travers. Then I can borrow Bertie’s car and drive to London.’
‘It’s a long drop.’
‘Oh, not so very, Mrs Travers.’
‘You may break your neck.’
‘Oh, I don’t think so, Mrs Travers.’
‘But you may,’ argued Aunt Dahlia. ‘Come on, Bertie,’ she said, speaking with real enthusiasm, ‘hurry up. Let the man down with the sheet, can’t you? What are you waiting for?’
I turned to Jeeves. ‘Ready, Jeeves?’
‘Yes, sir.’ He coughed gently. ‘And perhaps if Mr Fink-Nottle is driving your car to London, he might take your suitcase with him and leave it at the flat.’
I gasped. So did Aunt Dahlia. I stared at him. Aunt Dahlia the same. Our eyes met, and I saw in hers the same reverent awe which I have no doubt she viewed in mine.
I was overcome. A moment before, I had been dully conscious that nothing could save me from the soup. Already I had seemed to hear the beating of its wings. And now this!
Aunt Dahlia, speaking of Napoleon, had claimed that he was pretty hot in an emergency, but I was prepared to bet that not even Napoleon could have topped this superb effort. Once more, as so often in the past, the man had rung the bell and was entitled to the cigar or coconut.
‘Yes, Jeeves,’ I said, speaking with some difficulty, ‘that is true. He might, mightn’t he?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘You won’t mind taking my suitcase, Gussie. If you’re borrowing the car, I shall have to go by train. I’m leaving in the morning myself. And it’s a nuisance hauling about a lot of luggage.’
‘Of course.’
‘We’ll just loose you down on the sheet and drop the suitcase after you. All set, Jeeves?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Then upsy-daisy!’
I don’t think I have ever assisted at a ceremony which gave such universal pleasure to all concerned. The sheet didn’t split, which pleased Gussie. Nobody came to interrupt us, which pleased me. And when I dropped the suitcase, it hit Gussie on the head, which delighted Aunt Dahlia. As for Jeeves, one could see that the faithful fellow was tickled pink at having been able to cluster round and save the young master in his hour of peril. His motto is ‘Service’.
The stormy emotions through which I had been passing had not unnaturally left me weak, and I was glad when Aunt Dahlia, after a powerful speech in which she expressed her gratitude to our preserver in well-phrased terms, said that she would hop along and see what was going on in the enemy’s camp. Her departure enabled me to sink into the armchair in which, had she remained, she would unquestionably have parked herself indefinitely. I flung myself on the cushioned seat and emitted a woof that came straight from the heart.
‘So that’s that, Jeeves!’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Once again your swift thinking has averted disaster as it loomed.’
‘It is very kind of you to say so, sir.’
‘Not kind, Jeeves. I am merely saying what any thinking man would say. I didn’t chip in while Aunt Dahlia was speaking, for I saw that she wished to have the floor, but you may take it that I was silently subscribing to every sentiment she uttered. You stand alone, Jeeves. What size hat do you take?’
‘A number eight, sir.’
‘I should have thought larger. Eleven or twelve.’
I helped myself to a spot of brandy, and sat rolling it round my tongue luxuriantly. It was delightful to relax after the strain and stress I had been through.
‘Well, Jeeves, the going has been pretty tough, what?’
‘Extremely, sir.’
‘One begins to get some idea of how the skipper of the Hesperus’s little daughter must have felt. Still, I suppose these tests and trials are good for the character.’
‘No doubt, sir.’
‘Strengthening.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘However, I can’t say I’m sorry it’s all over. Enough is always enough. And it is all over, one feels. Even this sinister house can surely have no further shocks to offer.’
‘I imagine not, sir.’
‘No, this is the finish. Totleigh Towers has shot its bolt, and at long last we are sitting pretty. Gratifying, Jeeves.’
‘Most gratifying, sir.’
‘You bet it is. Carry on with the packing. I want to get it done and go to bed.’
He opened the small suitcase, and I lit a cigarette and proceeded to stress the moral lesson to be learned from all this rannygazoo.
‘Yes, Jeeves, “gratifying” is the word. A short while ago, the air was congested with V-shaped depressions, but now one looks north, south, east and west and descries not a single cloud on the horizon – except the fact that Gussie’s wedding is still off, and that can’t be helped. Well, this should certainly teach us, should it not, never to repine, never to despair, never to allow the upper lip to unstiffen, but always to remember that, no matter how dark the skies may be, the sun is shining somewhere and will eventually come smiling through.’
I paused. I perceived that I was not securing his attention. He was looking down with an intent, thoughtful expression on his face.
‘Something the matter, Jeeves?’
‘Sir?’
‘You appear preoccupied.’
‘Yes, sir. I have just discovered that there is a policeman’s helmet in this suitcase.’
13
* * *
I HAD BEEN right about the strengthening effect on the character of the vicissitudes to which I had been subjected since clocking in at the country residence of Sir Watkyn Bassett. Little by little, bit by bit, they had been moulding me, turning me from a sensitive clubman and boulevardier to a man of chilled steel. A novice to conditions in this pest house, abruptly handed the news item which I had just been handed, would, I imagine, have rolled up the eyeballs and swooned where he sat. But I, toughened and fortified by the routine of one damn thing after another which constituted life at Totleigh Towers, was enabled to keep my head and face the issue.
I don’t say I didn’t leave my chair like a jack-rabbit that has sat on a cactus, but having risen I wasted no time in fruitless twitterings. I went to the door and locked it. Then, tight-lipped and pale, I came back to Jeeves, who had now taken the helmet from the suitcase and was oscillating it meditatively by its strap.
His first words showed me that he had got the wrong angle on the situation.
‘It would have been wiser, sir,’ he said with faint reproach, ‘to have selected some more adequate hiding-place.’
I shook my head. I may even have smiled – wanly, of course. My swift intelligence had enabled me to probe to the bottom of this thing.
‘Not me, Jeeves. Stiffy.’
‘Sir?’
‘The hand that placed that helmet there was not mine, but that of S. Byng. She had it in her room. She feared lest a search might be instituted, and when I last saw her was trying to think of a safer spot. This is her idea of one.’
I sighed.
‘How do you imagine a girl gets a mind like Stiffy’s, Jeeves?’
‘Certainly the young lady is somewhat eccentric in her actions, sir.’
‘Eccentric? She could step straight into Colney Hatch, and no questions asked. They would lay down the red carpet for her. The more the thoughts dwell on that young shrimp, the
more the soul sickens in horror. One peers into the future, and shudders at what one sees there. One has to face it, Jeeves – Stiffy, who is pure padded cell from the foundations up, is about to marry the Rev. H. P. Pinker, himself about as pronounced a goop as ever broke bread, and there is no reason to suppose – one has to face this, too – that their union will not be blessed. There will, that is to say, ’ere long be little feet pattering about the home. And what one asks oneself is – Just how safe will human life be in the vicinity of those feet, assuming – as one is forced to assume – that they will inherit the combined loopiness of two such parents? It is with a sort of tender pity, Jeeves, that I think of the nurses, the governesses, the private-school masters and the public-school masters who will lightly take on the responsibility of looking after a blend of Stephanie Byng and Harold Pinker, little knowing that they are coming up against something hotter than mustard. However,’ I went on, abandoning these speculations, ‘all this, though of absorbing interest, is not really germane to the issue. Contemplating that helmet and bearing in mind the fact that the Oates–Bassett comedy duo will be arriving at any moment to start their search, what would you recommend?’
‘It is a little difficult to say, sir. A really effective hiding place for so bulky an object does not readily present itself.’
‘No. The damn thing seems to fill the room, doesn’t it?’
‘It unquestionably takes the eye, sir.’
‘Yes. The authorities wrought well when they shaped this helmet for Constable Oates. They aimed to finish him off impressively, not to give him something which would balance on top of his head like a peanut, and they succeeded. You couldn’t hide a lid like this in an impenetrable jungle. Ah, well,’ I said, ‘we will just have to see what tact and suavity will do. I wonder when these birds are going to arrive. I suppose we may expect them very shortly. Ah! That would be the hand of doom now, if I mistake not, Jeeves.’
But in assuming that the knocker who had just knocked on the door was Sir Watkyn Bassett, I had erred. It was Stiffy’s voice that spoke.
‘Bertie, let me in.’
There was nobody I was more anxious to see, but I did not immediately fling wide the gates. Prudence dictated a preliminary inquiry.
‘Have you got that bally dog of yours with you?’
‘No. He’s being aired by the butler.’
‘In that case, you may enter.’
When she did so, it was to find Bertram confronting her with folded arms and a hard look. She appeared, however, not to note my forbidding exterior.
‘Bertie, darling –’
She broke off, checked by a fairly animal snarl from the Wooster lips.
‘Not so much of the “Bertie, darling”. I have just one thing to say to you, young Stiffy, and it is this: Was it you who put that helmet in my suitcase?’
‘Of course it was. That’s what I was coming to talk to you about. You remember I was trying to think of a good place. I racked the brain quite a bit, and then suddenly I got it.’
‘And now I’ve got it.’
The acidity of my tone seemed to surprise her. She regarded me with girlish wonder – the wide-eyed kind.
‘But you don’t mind, do you, Bertie, darling?’
‘Ha!’
‘But why? I thought you would be so glad to help me out.’
‘Oh, yes?’ I said, and I meant it to sting.
‘I couldn’t risk having Uncle Watkyn find it in my room.’
‘You preferred to have him find it in mine?’
‘But how can he? He can’t come searching your room.’
‘He can’t, eh?’
‘Of course not. You’re his guest.’
‘And you suppose that that will cause him to hold his hand?’ I smiled one of those bitter, sardonic smiles. ‘I think you are attributing to the old poison germ a niceness of feeling and a respect for the laws of hospitality which nothing in his record suggests that he possesses. You can take it from me that he definitely is going to search the room, and I imagine that the only reason he hasn’t arrived already is that he is still scouring the house for Gussie.’
‘Gussie?’
‘He is at the moment chasing Gussie with a hunting crop. But a man cannot go on doing that indefinitely. Sooner or later he will give it up, and then we shall have him here, complete with magnifying glass and bloodhounds.’
The gravity of the situash had at last impressed itself upon her. She uttered a squeak of dismay, and her eyes became a bit soup-platey.
‘Oh, Bertie! Then I’m afraid I’ve put you in rather a spot.’
‘That covers the facts like a dust-sheet.’
‘I’m sorry now I ever asked Harold to pinch the thing. It was a mistake. I admit it. Still, after all, even if Uncle Watkyn does come here and find it, it doesn’t matter much, does it?’
‘Did you hear that, Jeeves?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘So did I. I see. It doesn’t matter, you feel?’
‘Well, what I mean is your reputation won’t really suffer much, will it? Everybody knows that you can’t keep your hands off policemen’s helmets. This’ll be just another one.’
‘Ha! And what leads you to suppose, young Stiffy, that when the Assyrian comes down like a wolf on the fold I shall meekly assume the guilt and not blazon the truth – what, Jeeves?’
‘Forth to the world, sir.’
‘Thank you, Jeeves. What makes you suppose that I shall meekly assume the guilt and not blazon the truth forth to the world?’
I wouldn’t have supposed that her eyes could have widened any more, but they did perceptibly. Another dismayed squeak escaped her. Indeed, such was its volume that it might perhaps be better to call it a squeal.
‘But, Bertie!’
‘Well?’
‘Bertie, listen!’
‘I’m listening.’
‘Surely you will take the rap? You can’t let Harold get it in the neck. You were telling me this afternoon that he would be unfrocked. I won’t have him unfrocked. Where is he going to get if they unfrock him? That sort of thing gives a curate a frightful black eye. Why can’t you say you did it? All it would mean is that you would be kicked out of the house, and I don’t suppose you’re so anxious to stay on, are you?’
‘Possibly you are not aware that your bally uncle is proposing to send the perpetrator of this outrage to chokey.’
‘Oh, no. At the worst, just a fine.’
‘Nothing of the kind. He specifically told me chokey.’
‘He didn’t mean it. I expect there was –’
‘No, there was not a twinkle in his eye.’
‘Then that settles it. I can’t have my precious, angel Harold doing a stretch.’
‘How about your precious, angel Bertram?’
‘But Harold’s so sensitive.’
‘So am I sensitive.’
‘Not half so sensitive as Harold. Bertie, surely you aren’t going to be difficult about this? You’re much too good a sport. Didn’t you tell me once that the Code of the Woosters was “Never let a pal down”?’
She had found the talking point. People who appeal to the Code of the Woosters rarely fail to touch a chord in Bertram. My iron front began to crumble.
‘That’s all very fine –’
‘Bertie, darling!’
‘Yes, I know, but, dash it all –’
‘Bertie!’
‘Oh, well!’
‘You will take the rap?’
‘I suppose so.’
She yodelled ecstatically, and I think that if I had not sidestepped she would have flung her arms about my neck. Certainly she came leaping forward with some such purpose apparently in view. Foiled by my agility, she began to tear off a few steps of that spring dance to which she was so addicted.
‘Thank you, Bertie, darling. I knew you would be sweet about it. I can’t tell you how grateful I am, and how much I admire you. You remind me of Carter Paterson … no, that’s not it … Nick Carter … no, not
Nick Carter … Who does Mr Wooster remind me of, Jeeves?’
‘Sidney Carton, miss.’
‘That’s right. Sidney Carton. But he was smalltime stuff compared with you, Bertie. And, anyway, I expect we are getting the wind up quite unnecessarily. Why are we taking it for granted that Uncle Watkyn will find the helmet, if he comes and searches the room? There are a hundred places where you can hide it.’
And before I could say ‘Name three!’ she had pirouetted to the door and pirouetted out. I could hear her dying away in the distance with a song on her lips.
My own, as I turned to Jeeves, were twisted in a bitter smile.
‘Women, Jeeves!’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Well, Jeeves,’ I said, my hand stealing towards the decanter, ‘this is the end!’
‘No, sir.’
I started with a violence that nearly unshipped my front uppers.
‘Not the end?’
‘No, sir.’
‘You don’t mean you have an idea?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘But you told me just now you hadn’t.’
‘Yes, sir. But since then I have been giving the matter some thought, and am now in a position to say “Eureka!”’
‘Say what?’
‘Eureka, sir. Like Archimedes.’
‘Did he say Eureka? I thought it was Shakespeare.’
‘No, sir. Archimedes. What I would recommend is that you drop the helmet out of the window. It is most improbable that it will occur to Sir Watkyn to search the exterior of the premises, and we shall be able to recover it at our leisure.’ He paused, and stood listening. ‘Should this suggestion meet with your approval, sir, I feel that a certain haste would be advisable. I fancy I can hear the sound of approaching footsteps.’
He was right. The air was vibrant with their clumping. Assuming that a herd of bison was not making its way along the second-floor passage of Totleigh Towers, the enemy were upon us. With the nippiness of a lamb in the fold on observing the approach of Assyrians, I snatched up the helmet, bounded to the window and loosed the thing into the night. And scarcely had I done so, when the door opened, and through it came – in the order named – Aunt Dahlia, wearing an amused and indulgent look, as if she were joining in some game to please the children, Pop Bassett, in a purple dressing gown, and Police Constable Oates, who was dabbing at his nose with a pocket-handkerchief.