‘Oh?’ he said, and gave a sort of whistling sigh like the last whoosh of a dying soda-water syphon. ‘The same dancing class? The same dancing class, eh?’
He brooded a while. When he spoke again, his voice was hoarse and rumbling.
‘Tell me about this fellow Wooster, Gussie. He is a friend of yours?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘Known him long?’
‘We were at school together.’
‘I suppose he was a pretty loathsome boy? The pariah of the establishment?’
‘Oh, no.’
‘Changed after he grew up, eh? Well, he certainly made up leeway all right, because of all the slinking snakes it has ever been my misfortune to encounter, he is the slimiest.’
‘Would you call him a slinking snake?’
‘I did call him a slinking snake, and I’ll do it again as often as you wish. The fishfaced trailing arbutus!’
‘He’s not a bad chap.’
‘That may be your opinion. It is not mine, nor, I should imagine, that of most decent-minded people. Hell is full of men like Wooster. What the devil does she see in him?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Nor anyone else. I’ve studied the fellow carefully and without bias, and he seems to me entirely lacking in charm. Have you ever turned over a flat stone?’
‘From time to time.’
‘And what came crawling out? A lot of obscene creatures that might have been his brothers. I tell you, Gussie, if you were to put a bit of gorgonzola cheese on the slide of a microscope and tell me to take a look, the first thing I’d say on getting it focused would be: “Why, hallo, Wooster!”’
He brooded Byronically for a moment.
‘I know the specious argument you are going to put forward, Gussie,’ he proceeded. ‘You are going to say that it is not Wooster’s fault that he looks like a slightly enlarged cheesemite. Very true. One strives to be fair. But it is not only the man’s revolting appearance that distresses the better element. He is a menace to the community.’
‘Oh, come.’
‘What do you mean, “Oh, come”? You heard what my Aunt Daphne was telling us at dinner the night you arrived. About this ghastly Wooster perpetually stealing policemen’s helmets.’
‘Not perpetually. Just as a treat on Boat Race night.’
He frowned.
‘I don’t like the way you stick up for the fellow, Gussie. You probably consider that you are being broad-minded, but you want to be careful how you let that so-called broad-mindedness grow on you. It is apt to become mere moral myopia. The facts are well documented. Whenever Wooster has a spare moment, he goes about London persecuting unfortunate policemen, assaulting them, hampering them in their duties, making their lives a hell on earth. That’s the kind of man Wooster is.’
He paused, and became for a moment lost in thought. Then there flitted across his map another of those quick twitches which he seemed to be using nowadays, on the just-as-good principle, as a substitute for smiles.
‘Well, I’ll tell you one thing, Gussie. I only hope he intends to start something on those lines here, because we’re ready for him.’
‘Eh?’
‘Ready and waiting. You know Dobbs?’
‘The flatty?’
‘Our village constable, yes. A splendid fellow, tireless in the performance of his duties.’
‘I’ve not met him. I hear his engagement is broken off.’
‘So much the better, for it will remove the last trace of pity and weakness from his heart. I have told Dobbs all about Wooster and warned him to be on the alert. And he is on the alert. He is straining at the leash. Let Wooster so much as lift a finger in the direction of Dobbs’s helmet, and he’s for it. You might not think so at a casual glance, Gussie, but I’m a Justice of the Peace. I sit on the Bench at our local Sessions and put it across the criminal classes when they start getting above themselves. It is my earnest hope that the criminal streak in Wooster will come to the surface and cause him to break out, because in that event Dobbs will be on him like a leopard and he will come up before me and I shall give him thirty days without the option, regardless of his age or sex.’
I didn’t like the sound of this.
‘You wouldn’t do that, Esmond?’
‘I would. I’m looking forward to it. Let Wooster stray one inch from the straight and narrow path – just one inch – and you can kiss him goodbye for thirty days. Well, I’ll be moving along, Gussie. I find it helps a little to keep walking.’
He disappeared over the horizon at five mph, and I stood there aghast. The sense of impending peril was stronger on the wing than ever. ‘Oh, that Jeeves were here!’ I said to myself.
I found he was. For some little time past I had been conscious of some substance in the offing that was saying ‘Good morning, sir’, and, turning to see where the noise was coming from, I beheld him at my side, looking bronzed and fit, as if his visit to Bramley-on-Sea had done him good.
20
* * *
‘GOOD MORNING, SIR,’ he said. ‘May I make a remark?’
‘Certainly, Jeeves. Carry on. Make several.’
‘It is with reference to your appearance, sir. If I might take the liberty of suggesting –’
‘Go on. Say it. I look like something the cat found in Tutankhamen’s tomb, do I not?’
‘I would not go so far as that, sir, but I have unquestionably seen you more soigné.’
It crossed my mind for an instant that with a little thought one might throw together something rather clever about ‘Way down upon the soigné river’, but I was too listless to follow it up.
‘If you will allow me, sir, I will take the suit which you are wearing and give it my attention.’
‘Thank you, Jeeves.’
‘I will sponge and press it.’
‘Thank you, Jeeves.’
‘Very good, sir. A beautiful morning, is it not, sir?’
‘Thank you, Jeeves.’
He raised an eyebrow.
‘You appear distrait, sir.’
‘I am distrait, Jeeves. About as distrait as I can stick. And there’s enough to make me distrait.’
‘But surely, sir, matters are proceeding most satisfactorily. I delivered Master Thomas at the Vicarage. And I learn from my Uncle Charlie that her ladyship, your aunt, has postponed her visit to the hall.’
‘Quite. But these things are mere side issues. I don’t say they aren’t silver linings in their limited way, but take a look at the clouds that lower elsewhere. First and foremost, that man is in again.’
‘Sir?’
I pulled myself together with a strong effort, for I saw that I was being obscure.
‘Sorry to speak in riddles, Jeeves,’ I said. ‘What I meant was that Gussie had once more become a menace of the first water.’
‘Indeed, sir? In what way?’
‘I will tell you. What started all this rannygazoo?’
‘The circumstances of Mr Fink-Nottle being sent to prison, sir.’
‘Exactly. Well, it’s an odds-on bet that he’s going to be sent to prison again.’
‘Indeed, sir?’
‘I wish you wouldn’t say “Indeed, sir?” Yes, the shadow of the Pen is once more closing in on Augustus Fink-Nottle. The Law is flexing its muscles and waiting to pounce. One false step – and he’s bound to make at least a dozen in the first minute – and into the coop he goes for thirty days. And we know what’ll happen then, don’t we?’
‘We do indeed, sir.’
‘I don’t mind you saying “Indeed, sir” if you tack it on to something else like that. Yes, we know what will happen, and the flesh creeps, what?’
‘Distinctly, sir.’
I forced myself to a sort of calm. Only a frozen calm, but frozen calms are better than nothing.
‘Of course, it may be, Jeeves, that I am mistaken in supposing that this old lag is about to resume his life of crime, but I don’t think so. Here are the facts. Just now I encounter
ed Miss Pirbright in the station yard. We naturally fell into conversation, and after a while the subject of Gussie came up. And we had been speaking of him for some moments when she let fall an observation that filled me with a nameless fear. She said there was a little job she was getting him to do for her. And when I said “What job?” she replied “Oh, just a trivial little job about the place”. And her manner was evasive. Or shall I say furtive?’
‘Whichever you prefer, sir.’
‘It was the manner of a girl guiltily conscious of being in the process of starting something. “What ho!” I said to myself. “Hallo, hallo, hallo, hallo!”’
‘If I might interrupt for a moment, sir, I am happy to inform you that my efforts to secure a claque for Mr Esmond Haddock at the concert have been crowned with gratifying success. The back of the hall will be thronged with his supporters and well-wishers.’
I frowned.
‘This is excellent news, Jeeves, but I’m dashed if I can see what it’s got to do with the res under discussion.’
‘No, sir. I am sorry. It was your observing “Hallo, hallo, hallo, hallo”, that put the matter into my mind. Pardon me, sir. You were saying –’
‘Well, what was I saying? I’ve forgotten.’
‘You were commenting on Miss Pirbright’s furtive and evasive manner, sir.’
‘Ah, yes. It suggested that she was in the process of starting something. And the thought that smote me like a blow was this. If Corky is starting something, it’s a hundred to eight it’s something in the nature of reprisals against Constable Dobbs. Am I right or wrong, Jeeves?’
‘The probability certainly lies in that direction, sir.’
‘I know Corky. Her psychology is an open book to me. Even in the distant days when she wore rompers and had a tooth missing in front, hers was always a fiery and impulsive nature, quick to resent anything in the shape of oompus-boompus. And it is inevitably as oompus-boompus that she will have classed the zealous officer’s recent arrest of her dog. And if she had it in for him merely on account of their theological differences, how much more will she have it in for him now. The unfortunate hound is languishing in a dungeon with gyves upon his wrists, and a girl of her spirit is not likely to accept such a state of things supinely.’
‘No, sir.’
‘You’re right, No, sir. The facts are hideous, but we must face them. Corky is planning direct action against Constable Dobbs, taking we cannot say what form, and it seems only too sickeningly certain that Gussie, whom it is so imperative to keep from getting embroiled again with the Force, is going to lend himself as an instrument to her sinister designs. And here’s something that’ll make you say “Indeed, sir?” I’ve just been talking to Esmond Haddock, and he turns out to be a JP. He has the powers of the High, the Middle and the Low Justice in King’s Deverill, and is consequently in a position to give anyone thirty days without the option as soon as look at them. And what’s more, he has taken a violent dislike to Gussie and told me in so many words that it is his dearest wish to see the darbies clapped on him. Try that one on your pianola, Jeeves.’
He seemed about to speak, but I raised a restraining hand.
‘I know what you’re going to say, and I quite agree. Left to himself, with Conscience as his guide, Gussie is the last person likely to commit a tort or malfeasance and start JPs ladling out exemplary sentences. Quite true. From boyhood up, his whole policy, instilled into him, no doubt, at his mother’s knee, has been to give the primrose path a solid miss and sedulously avoid those rash acts which put wilder spirits in line for thirty days in the jug. But one knows that he is easily swayed. Catsmeat, for instance, swayed him in Trafalgar Square by threatening to bean him with a bottle. I shall be vastly surprised if Corky doesn’t sway him, too. And I know from personal experience,’ I said, thinking of that orange at the dancing school, ‘that when Corky sways people, the sky is the limit.’
‘You think that Mr Fink-Nottle will lend a willing ear to the young lady’s suggestions?’
‘Her word is law to him. He will be wax in her hands. I tell you, Jeeves, the spirits are low. I don’t know if you have ever been tied hand and foot to a chair in front of a barrel of gunpowder with an inch of lighted candle on top of it?’
‘No, sir, I have not had that experience.’
‘Well, that’s how I am feeling. I’m just clenching the teeth and waiting for the bang.’
‘Would you wish me to speak a word to Mr Fink-Nottle, sir, warning him of the inadvisability of doing anything rash?’
‘There’s nothing I’d like better. He might listen to you.’
‘I will make a point of doing so at the earliest opportunity, sir.’
‘Thank you, Jeeves. It’s a black business, isn’t it?’
‘Extremely, sir.’
‘I don’t know when I’ve come across a blacker. Very, very murky everything is.’
‘With perhaps the exception of the affairs of Mr Pirbright, sir?’
‘Ah, yes, Catsmeat. I was informed of his lucky strike. His hat is on the side of his head, they tell me.’
‘It was distinctly in that position when I last saw him, sir.’
‘Well, that’s something. Yes, that cheers the heart a bit,’ I said, for even when preoccupied with the stickiness of their own concerns, the Woosters can always take time out to rejoice over a buddy’s bliss. ‘One may certainly chalk up Catsmeat’s happy ending as a ray of light. And you say that the village toughs are going to rally round Mr Haddock this evening?’
‘In impressive numbers, sir.’
‘Well, dash it, that’s two rays of light. And if you can talk Gussie out of making an ass of himself, that’ll be three. We’re getting on. All right, Jeeves, push off and see what you can do with him. I should imagine you will find him at the Vicarage.’
‘Very good, sir.’
‘Oh, and, Jeeves, most important. When at the Vicarage, get in touch with young Thos and remove from his possession a blunt instrument known as a cosh, which he has managed to acquire. It’s a species of rubber bludgeon, and you know as well as I do how reluctantly one would trust him with such a thing. You could go through the telephone book from A to Z without hitting on the name of anyone one wouldn’t prefer to see with his hooks on a rubber bludgeon. You will get an idea of what I mean when I tell you that he speaks freely of beaning Constable Dobbs with the weapon. So choke it out of him without fail. I shan’t be easy in my mind till I know you’ve got it.’
‘Very good, sir. I will give the matter my attention,’ he said and we parted with mutual civilities, he to do his day’s good deed at the Vicarage, I to resume my hoofing in the opposite direction.
And I had hoofed perhaps a matter of two hundred yards, when I was jerked out of the reverie into which I had fallen by a sight which froze the blood and caused the two eyes, like stars, to start from their spheres. I had seen Gussie coming out of a gate of a picturesque cottage standing back from the road behind a neat garden.
King’s Deverill was one of those villages where picturesque cottages breed like rabbits, but what distinguished this picturesque cottage from the others was that over its door were the Royal Arms and the words
POLICE STATION
And evidence that the above legend was not just a gag was supplied by the fact that accompanying Gussie, not actually with a hand on his collar and another gripping the seat of his trousers but so nearly so that the casual observer might have been excused for supposing that this was a pinch, was a stalwart figure in a blue uniform and a helmet, who could be no other than Constable Ernest Dobbs.
21
* * *
IT WAS THE first time I had been privileged to see this celebrated rozzer, of whom I had heard so much, and I think that even had the circumstances been less tense I would have paused to get an eyeful, for his, like Silversmith’s, was a forceful personality, arresting the attention and causing the passer-by to draw the breath in quite a bit.
The sleepless guardian of the peace of
King’s Deverill was one of those chunky, nobbly officers. It was as though Nature, setting out to assemble him, had said to herself ‘I will not skimp’. Nor had she done so, except possibly in the matter of height. I believe that in order to become a member of the Force you have to stand five feet nine inches in your socks, and Ernest Dobbs can only just have got his nose under the wire. But this slight perpendicular shortage had the effect of rendering his bulk all the more impressive. He was plainly a man who, had he felt disposed, could have understudied the village blacksmith and no questions asked, for it could be seen at a glance that the muscles of his brawny arms were strong as iron bands.
To increase the similarity, his brow at the moment was wet with honest sweat. He had the look of a man who has recently passed through some testing emotional experience. His eyes were aglow, his moustache a-bristle and his nose a-wiggle.
‘Grrh!’ he said and spat. Only that and nothing more. A man of few words, apparently, but a good spitter.
Gussie, having reached the great open spaces, smiled weakly. He, too, appeared to be in the grip of some strong emotion. And as I was, also, that made three of us.
‘Well, good day, officer,’ he said.
‘Good day, sir,’ said the constable shortly.
He went back into the cottage and banged the door, and I sprang at Gussie like a jumping bean.
‘What’s all this?’ I quavered.
The door of the cottage opened, and Constable Dobbs reappeared. He had a shovel in his hand, and in this shovel one noted what seemed to be frogs. Yes, on a closer inspection, definitely frogs. He gave the shovel a jerk, shooting the dumb chums through the air as if he had been scattering confetti. They landed on the grass and went about their business. The officer paused, directed a hard look at Gussie, spat once more with all the old force and precision and withdrew, and Gussie, removing his hat, wiped his forehead.