Chapter V: Part 5

Still, you couldn't be sure that this rule always worked, and after a while the suspense began to get in amongst me a bit. To divert the mind, I fetched the old putter out of its bag and began to practice putts into a glass. After all, even if the Slingsby turned out to be all that I had pictured her in my gloomier moments, I should have improved my close-to-the-hole work on the green and be that much up, at any rate.

It was while I was shaping for a trick shot that the doorbell went.

I picked up the glass and shoved the putter behind the settee. It struck me that if the woman found me engaged on what you might call a frivolous pursuit she might take it to indicate lack of remorse and proper feeling.

I straightened the collar, pulled down the waistcoat, and managed to fasten on the face a sort of sad half smile which was welcoming without being actually jovial. It looked all right in the mirror, and I held it as the door opened.

"Mr. Slingsby," announced Jeeves.

And having spoken these words, he closed the door and left us together.

For quite a time there wasn't anything in the way of chit-chat. The shock of expecting Mrs. Slingsby and finding myself confronted by something entirely different--in fact, not the same thing at all--seemed to have affected the vocal cords.

And the visitor didn't appear to be disposed to make light conversation himself. He stood there looking strong and silent. I suppose you have to be like that if you want to manufacture a really convincing soup.

Slingsby's Superb Soups was a Roman-emperor-looking sort of bird, with keen, penetrating eyes and one of those jutting chins. The eyes seemed to me to be fixed on me in a dashed unpleasant stare and, unless I was mistaken, he was grinding his teeth a trifle. For some reason he appeared to have taken a strong dislike to me at sight, and I'm bound to say this rather puzzled me.

I don't pretend to have one of those Fascinating Personalities which you get from studying the booklets advertised in the back pages of the magazines, but I couldn't recall another case in the whole of my career where a single glimpse of the old map had been enough to make anyone look as if he wanted to foam at the mouth. Usually, when people meet me for the first time, they don't seem to know I'm there.

However, I exerted myself to play the host. "Mr. Slingsby?"

"That is my name."

"Just got back from America?"

"I landed this morning."

"Sooner than expected, what?"

"So I imagine."

"Very glad to see you."

"You will not be long."

I took time off to do a bit of gulping. I saw now what had happened. This bloke had been home, seen his wife, heard the story of the accident, and had hastened round to slip it across me.

Evidently those roses had not sweetened the female of the species. The only thing to do now seemed to be to take a stab at sweetening the male.

"Have a drink?" I said.

"No!"

"A cigarette?"

"No!"

"A chair?"

"No!"

I went into the silence once more. These non-drinking, non-smoking, non-sitters are hard birds to handle.

"Don't grin at me, sir!"

I shot a glance at myself in the mirror and saw what he meant. The sad half smile _had_ slopped over a bit. I adjusted it, and there was another pause.

"Now, sir," said the Superb Souper, "to business. I think I need scarcely tell you why I am here."

"No. Of course. Absolutely. It's about that little matter----"

He gave a snort which nearly upset a vase on the mantelpiece. "Little matter? You consider it a little matter, do you?"

"Well----"

"Let me tell you, sir, that when I find that during my absence from the country a man has been annoying my wife with his importunities I regard it as anything but a little matter. And I shall endeavour," said the Souper, as he rubbed his hands together in a hideous, menacing way, "to make you see the thing in the same light."

I couldn't make head or tail of this. I simply couldn't follow him. The lemon began to swim.

"Eh?" I said. "Your wife?"

"You heard me."

"There must be some mistake."

"There is. You made it."

"But I don't know your wife."

"Ha!"

"I've never even met her."

"Pshaw!"

"Honestly, I haven't."

"Bah!" He drank me in for a moment. "Do you deny you sent her flowers?"

I felt the heart turn a double somersault. I began to catch his drift.

"Flowers!" he proceeded. "Roses, sir. Great, fat, beastly roses. Enough of them to sink a ship. Your card was attached to them by a small pin."

His voice died away in a sort of gurgle, and I saw that he was staring at something behind me. I spun round, and there, in the doorway--I hadn't seen it open, because during the last spasm of dialogue I had been backing cautiously toward it--stood a female.

One glance was enough to tell me who she was. No woman could look so like Lucius Pim who hadn't the misfortune to be related to him. It was Sister Beatrice, the tough egg.

I saw all. She had left her home before the flowers arrived; she had sneaked, unsweetened, into the flat while I was fortifying the system at the Drones'; and here she was.

"Er----" I said.

"Alexander!" said the female.

"Goo!" said the Souper. Or it may have been "Coo!"

Whatever it was, it was in the nature of a battle cry or slogan of war. The Souper's worst suspicions had obviously been confirmed. His eyes shone with a strange light. His chin pushed itself out another couple of inches. He clenched and unclenched his fingers once or twice, as if to make sure that they were working properly and could be relied on to do a good clean job of strangling.

Then, once more observing "Coo!" (or "Goo!") he sprang forward, trod on the golf ball I had been practising putting with, and took one of the finest tosses I have ever witnessed. The purler of a lifetime. For a moment the air seemed to be full of arms and legs, and then, with a thud that nearly dislocated the flat, he made a forced landing.

And feeling I had had about all I wanted, I oiled from the room and was in the act of grabbing my hat from the rack in the hall, when Jeeves appeared.

"I fancied I heard a noise, sir," said Jeeves.

"Possibly," I said. "It was Mr. Slingsby."

"Sir?"

"Mr. Slingsby practising Russian dances," I explained. "I rather think he has fractured an assortment of limbs. Better go in and see."

"Very good, sir."

"If he is the wreck I imagine, put him in my room and send for a doctor. The flat is filling up nicely with the various units of the Pim family and its connections, eh, Jeeves?"

"Yes, sir."

"I think the supply is about exhausted, but should any aunts or uncles by marriage come along and break their limbs, bed them out on the Chesterfield."

"Very good, sir."

"I, personally, Jeeves," I said, opening the front door and pausing on the threshold, "am off to Paris. I will wire you the address. Notify me in due course when the place is free from Pims and completely purged of Slingsbys, and I will return. Oh, and Jeeves."

"Sir?"

"Spare no effort to mollify these birds. They think--at least, Slingsby (female) thinks--that it was I who ran over Mr. Pim in my car. Endeavour during my absence to sweeten them."

"Very good, sir."

"And now, perhaps you had better be going in and viewing the body. I shall proceed to the Drones', where I shall lunch, subsequently catching the two-o'clock train at Charing Cross. Meet me there with an assortment of luggage."

* * * * *

It was a matter of three weeks or so before Jeeves sent me the "All clear" signal. I spent the time pottering pretty perturbedly about Paris and environs. It is a city I am fairly fond of, but I was glad to be able to return to the old home.

I hopped on a passing airplane and a couple of hours later was bowling through Croydon on my way to the centre of things. It was somewhere in the Sloane Square neighbourhood that I first caught sight of the posters.

A traffic block had occurred, and I was glancing idly this way and that, when suddenly my eye was caught by something that looked familiar. And then I saw what it was.

Pasted on a blank wall and measuring about a hundred feet each way was an enormous poster, mostly red and blue. At the top of it were the words:

SLINGSBY'S SUPERB SOUPS

and at the bottom:

SUCCULENT AND STRENGTHENING

And in between, me. Yes, dash it, Bertram Wooster in person. A reproduction of the Pendlebury portrait, perfect in every detail.

Of all the absolutely foul sights I have ever seen, this took the biscuit with ridiculous ease. The thing was a bally libel on the Wooster face, and yet it was as unmistakable as if it had had my name under it.

I saw now what Jeeves had meant when he said that the portrait had given me a hungry look. In the poster this look had become one of bestial greed.

There I sat, absolutely slavering through a monocle about six inches in circumference at a plateful of soup, looking as if I hadn't had a meal for weeks. The thing seemed to take one into a different and a dreadful world.

I awoke from a species of trance or coma to find myself at the door of my flat. To buzz upstairs and charge into the home was the work of a moment.

Jeeves came shimmering down the hall, the respectful beam of welcome on the face. "I am glad to see you back, sir."

"Never mind about that," I yipped. "What about----?"

"The posters, sir? I was wondering if you might have observed them."

"I observed them!"

"Striking, sir?"

"Very striking. Now, perhaps you'll kindly explain."

"You instructed me, if you recollect, sir, to spare no effort to mollify Mr. Slingsby."

"Yes, but----"

"It proved a somewhat difficult task, sir. For some time Mr. Slingsby, on the advice and owing to the persuasion of Mrs. Slingsby, appeared to be resolved to institute an action in law against you--a procedure which I knew you would find most distasteful."

"Yes, but----"

"And then, the first day he was able to leave his bed, he observed the portrait, and it seemed to me judicious to point out to him its possibilities as an advertising medium. He readily fell in with the suggestion and on my assurance that, should he abandon the projected action in law, you would willingly permit the use of the portrait, he entered into negotiations with Miss Pendlebury for the purchase of the copyright."

"Oh? Well, I hope she got something out of it, at any rate?"

"Yes, sir. Mr. Pim, acting as Miss Pendlebury's agent, drove, I understand, an extremely satisfactory bargain."

"He acted as her agent, eh?"

"Yes, sir. In his capacity as fiancé to the young lady, sir."

"Fiancé!"

"Yes, sir."

It shows how the sight of that poster had got into my ribs when I state that instead of being laid out cold by this announcement I merely said, "Ha!" or "Ho!" or it may have been "H'm." After the poster, nothing seemed to matter.

"After that poster, Jeeves," I said, "nothing seems to matter."

"No, sir?"

"No, Jeeves. A woman has tossed my heart lightly away, but what of it?"

"Exactly, sir."

"The voice of Love seemed to call to me, but it was a wrong number. Is that going to crush me?"

"No, sir."

"No, Jeeves. It is not. But what does matter is this ghastly business of my face being spread from end to end of the metropolis with the eyes fixed on a plate of Slingsby's Superb Soup. I must leave London. The lads at the Drones' will kid me without ceasing."

"Yes, sir. And Mrs. Spenser Gregson----"

I paled visibly. I hadn't thought of Aunt Agatha and what she might say about letting down the family prestige.

"You don't mean she has been ringing up?"

"Several times daily, sir."

"Jeeves, flight is the only recourse. Back to Paris, what?"

"I should not recommend the move, sir. The posters are, I understand, shortly to appear in that city also. Advertising the Bouillon Suprême. Mr. Slingsby's products command a large sale in France. The sight would be painful for you, sir."

"Then where?"

"If I might make a suggestion, sir, why not adhere to your original intention of cruising in Mrs. Travers's yacht in the Mediterranean? On the yacht you would be free from the annoyance of these advertising displays."

The man seemed to me to be drivelling. "But the yacht started weeks ago. It may be anywhere by now."

"No, sir. The cruise was postponed for a month owing to the illness of Mrs. Travers's chef, Anatole, who contracted influenza. Mrs. Travers refused to sail without him."

"You mean they haven't started?"

"Not yet, sir. The yacht sails from Southampton on Tuesday next."

"Why, dash it, nothing could be sweeter."

"No, sir."

"Ring up Aunt Dahlia and tell her we'll be there."

"I ventured to take the liberty of doing that before you arrived, sir."

"You did?"

"Yes, sir. I thought it probable that the plan would appeal to you."

"It does! I've wished all along I was going on that cruise."

"I, too, sir. It should be extremely pleasant."

"The tang of the salt breezes, Jeeves!"

"Yes, sir."

"The moonlight on the water!"

"Precisely, sir."

"The gentle heaving of the waves!"

"Exactly, sir."

I felt absolutely in the pink. Gwladys--pah! The posters--bah! That was the way I looked at it.

"Yo-ho-ho, Jeeves!" I said.

"Yes, sir."

"In fact, I will go further. Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!"

"Very good, sir. I will bring it immediately."

Jeeves and the Kid Clementina

It has been well said of Bertram Wooster by those who know him best that, whatever other sporting functions he may see fit to oil out of, you will always find him battling to his sixteen handicap at the annual golf tournament of the Drones' Club. Nevertheless, when I heard that this year they were holding it at Bingley-on-Sea, I confess I hesitated; and as I stood gazing out of the window of my suite at the Splendide on the morning of the opening day the brow was a bit knitted. I was not exactly atwitter, if you understand me, but I couldn't help feeling I might have been rather rash.

"Jeeves," I said, "now that we have actually arrived I find myself wondering if it was quite prudent to come here."

"It is a pleasant spot, sir."

"Where every prospect pleases," I agreed. "But though the spicy breezes blow fair o'er Bingley-on-Sea, we must never forget that this is where my aunt Agatha's old friend, Miss Mapleton, runs a girls' school. If the relative knew I was here she would expect me to call on Miss Mapleton."

"Very true, sir."

I shivered somewhat.

"I met her once, Jeeves. 'Twas on a summer evening in my tent, the day I overcame the Nervii. Or, rather, at lunch at Aunt Agatha's a year ago come Lammas Eve. It is not an experience I would willingly undergo again. The Mapleton struck me then, and I have had no reason to alter my opinion since, as one of those women best seen through a telescope.

"She wears steel-rimmed spectacles, and the effect she has on the sensitive male, when faced at close quarters, is to make him feel as if he were being disembowelled. I can't imagine anything I should enjoy less than calling on her."

"Indeed, sir?"

"Besides, you remember what happened last time I got into a girls' school?"

"Yes, sir."

"Secrecy and silence, then. My visit here must be strictly incog. If Aunt Agatha happens to ask you where I spent this week, tell her I went to Harrogate for the cure."

"Very good, sir. Pardon me, sir, are you proposing to appear in those garments in public?"

Up to this point our conversation had been friendly and cordial, but I now perceived that the jarring note had been struck. I had been wondering when my new plus-fours would come under discussion, and I was prepared to battle for them like a tigress for her young.

"Certainly, Jeeves," I said. "Why? Don't you like them?"

"No, sir."

"You think them on the bright side?"

"Yes, sir."

"A little vivid, they strike you as?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, I think highly of them, Jeeves," I said firmly. "Apart from the fact that on the links a certain dash, a certain gayety of exterior, is expected of one, these plus-fours give me confidence. With their assistance I anticipate going through the opposition like a devouring flame. They cannot but exercise an impressive effect on my play. I shall wear these plus-fours, Jeeves."

"Very good, sir."

There already being a certain amount of chilliness in the air, it seemed to me a suitable moment for springing another item of information which I had been keeping from him for some time.

"Er--Jeeves," I said.

"Sir?"

"I ran into Miss Wickham the other day. After chatting of this and that, she invited me to join a party she is getting up to go to Antibes this summer."

"Indeed, sir?"

He now looked definitely squiggle-eyed. Jeeves does not approve of Bobbie Wickham. He thinks her a menace to the community and holds that any extended association with her inevitably leads ere long to the sickening plunge into the soup. And to a certain extent, I'm bound to say, events have borne him out. You may remember my having told you of the perils I had to face owing to her activities in connection with the Episode of the Dog McIntosh and the Sinister Affair of the Punctured Hot-Water Bottle.

There was what you might call a tense silence. I braced myself for an exhibition of the good old Wooster determination. I mean to say, one has got to take a firm stand from time to time.

The trouble with Jeeves is that he tends occasionally to get above himself. Just because he has surged round and--I admit it freely--done the young master a bit of good in one or two crises, he has a nasty way of conveying the impression that he looks on Bertram Wooster as a sort of idiot child who, but for him, would conk in the first chukker. I resent this.

"I accepted, Jeeves," I said in a quiet, level voice, lighting a cigarette with a careless flick of the wrist.

"Indeed, sir?"

"You will like Antibes."

"Yes, sir?"

"So shall I."

"Yes, sir?"

"That's settled, then." I was pleased. The firm stand, I saw, had done its work. It was plain that the man was crushed beneath the iron heel--cowed, if you know what I mean.

"Right ho, then, Jeeves."

"Very good, sir."

* * * * *

I had not expected to return from the arena until well on in the evening, but circumstances so arranged themselves that it was barely three o'clock when I found myself back again and doing a bit of ozone sniffing on the pier. I was wandering moodily to and fro when I observed Jeeves shimmering toward me.

"Good-afternoon, sir," he said. "I had not supposed that you would be returning quite so soon, or I should have remained at the hotel."

"I had not supposed that I should be returning quite so soon myself, Jeeves," I said, sighing somewhat. "I was outed in the first round, I regret to say."

"Indeed, sir? I am sorry to hear that."

"And to increase the mortification of defeat, Jeeves, by a blighter who had not spared himself at the luncheon table and was quite noticeably sozzled. I couldn't seem to do anything right."

"Possibly you omitted to keep your eye on the ball with sufficient assiduity, sir?"

"Something of that nature, no doubt. Anyway, here I am, a game and popular loser and----" I paused, and scanned the horizon with some interest. "Great Scott, Jeeves! Look at that girl just coming onto the pier. I never saw anybody so extraordinarily like Miss Wickham. How do you account for these resemblances?"

"In the present instance, sir, I attribute the similarity to the fact that the young lady _is_ Miss Wickham."

"Eh?"

"Yes, sir. If you notice, she is waving to you now."

"But what on earth is she doing down here?"

"I am unable to say, sir."

His voice was chilly and seemed to suggest that whatever had brought Bobbie Wickham to Bingley-on-Sea, it could not, in his opinion, be anything good. He dropped back into the offing, registering alarm and despondency, and I removed the old Homburg and waggled it genially.

"What ho?" I said.

Bobbie came to anchor alongside.

"Hullo, Bertie," she said. "I didn't know you were here."

"I am," I assured her.

"In mourning?" she asked, eying the trouserings.

"Rather natty, aren't they?" I said, following her gaze. "Jeeves doesn't like them, but then he's notoriously hidebound in the matter of leg-wear. What are you doing in Bingley?"

"My cousin Clementina is at school here. It's her birthday and I thought I would come down to see her. I'm just off there now. Are you staying here to-night?"

"Yes. At the Splendide."

"You can give me dinner there if you like."

Jeeves was behind me, and I couldn't see him, but at these words I felt his eye slap warningly against the back of my neck. I knew what it was that he was trying to broadcast: viz., that it would be tempting Providence to mix with Bobbie Wickham even to the extent of giving her a bite to eat. Dashed absurd, was my verdict. Get entangled with young Bobbie in the intricate life of a country house, where almost anything can happen, and I'm not saying. But how any doom or disaster could lurk behind the simple pronging of a spot of dinner together, I failed to see. I ignored the man.

"Of course. Certainly. Rather. Absolutely," I said.

"That'll be fine. I've got to get back to London to-night for revelry of sorts at the Berkeley, but it doesn't matter if I'm a bit late. We'll turn up at about seven-thirty, and you can take us to the movies afterward."

"We? Us?"

"Clementina and me."

"You don't mean you intend to bring your ghastly cousin?"

"Of course I do. Don't you want the child to have a little pleasure on her birthday? And she isn't ghastly. She's a dear. She won't be any trouble. All you'll have to do is take her back to the school afterward. You can manage that without straining a sinew, can't you?"

I eyed her keenly. "What does it involve?"

"How do you mean, 'What does it involve'?"

"There will be no rot," I said, continuing to give her the eye, "about getting lugged in and having to make a speech? The last time I was lured into a girls' school a head mistress with an eye like a gimlet insisted on my addressing the chain gang on Ideals and the Life to Come. This will not happen to-night?"

"Of course not. You just go to the front door, ring the bell, and bung her in."

I mused. "That would appear to be well within our scope. Eh, Jeeves?"

"I should be disposed to imagine so, sir."

The man's tone was cold and soupy; and, scanning his face, I observed on it an If-you-would-only-be-guided-by-me expression which annoyed me intensely. There are moments when Jeeves looks just like an aunt.

"Right," I said, ignoring him once more--and rather pointedly, at that. "Then I'll expect you at seven-thirty. Don't be late. And see," I added, just to show the girl that beneath the smiling exterior I was a man of iron, "that the kid has her hands washed and does not sniff."

I had not, I confess, looked forward with any great keenness to hobnobbing with Bobbie Wickham's cousin Clementina, but I'm bound to admit that she might have been considerably worse. Small girls, as a rule, I have noticed, are inclined, when in the presence, to giggle a good deal. They snigger and they stare. I look up and find their eyes glued on me in an incredulous manner, as if they were reluctant to believe that I was really true. I suspect them of being in the process of memorizing any little peculiarities of deportment that I may possess, in order to reproduce them later for the entertainment of their fellow inmates.

With the kid Clementina there was nothing of this description. She was a quiet, saintlike child of about thirteen--in fact, seeing that this was her birthday, exactly thirteen--and her gaze, when she was confronted with me, revealed only silent admiration. Her hands were spotless; she had not a cold in the head; and at dinner, during which her behaviour was unexceptionable, she proved a sympathetic listener, hanging on my lips, so to speak, when with the aid of a fork and two peas I explained to her how my opponent that afternoon had stymied me on the tenth.

She was equally above criticism at the movies, and at the conclusion of the proceedings thanked me for the treat with visible emotion. I was pleased with the child, and said as much to Bobbie while assisting her into her two-seater.

"Yes, I told you she was a dear," said Bobbie, treading on the self-starter in preparation for the dash to London. "I always insist that they misjudge her at that school. They're always misjudging people. They misjudged me when I was there."

"Misjudge her? How?"

"Oh, in various ways. But then, what can you expect of a dump like St. Ethelburga's?"

I started. "St. Ethelburga's?"

"That's the name of the place."

"You don't mean the kid is at Miss Mapleton's school?"

"Why shouldn't she be?"

"But Miss Mapleton is my aunt Agatha's oldest friend."

"I know. It was your aunt Agatha who got Mother to send me there when I was a kid."

"I say," I said earnestly, "when you were there this afternoon you didn't mention having met me here?"

"No."

"That's all right." I was relieved. "You see, if Miss Mapleton knew I was in Bingley she would expect me to call. I shall be leaving to-morrow morning, so all will be well. But, dash it," I said, spotting the snag, "how about to-night?"

"What about to-night?"

"Well, shan't I have to see her? I can't just ring the front doorbell, sling the kid in, and leg it. I should never hear the last of it from Aunt Agatha."

Bobbie looked at me in an odd, meditative sort of way. "As a matter of fact, Bertie," she said, "I had been meaning to touch on that point. I think, if I were you, I wouldn't ring the front doorbell."

"Eh? Why not?"

"Well, it's like this, you see. Clementina is supposed to be in bed. They sent her there just as I was leaving this afternoon. Think of it! On her birthday--right plumb spang in the middle of her birthday--and all for putting sherbet in the ink to make it fizz!"

I reeled. "You aren't telling me that this foul kid came out without leave?"

"Yes, I am. That's exactly it. She got up and sneaked out when nobody was looking. She had set her heart on getting a square meal. I suppose I really ought to have told you right at the start, but I didn't want to spoil your evening."

As a general rule, in my dealings with the delicately nurtured, I am the soul of knightly chivalry--suave, genial, and polished. But I can on occasion say the bitter, cutting thing, and I said it now.

"Oh?" I said.

"But it's all right."

"Yes," I said, speaking, if I recollect, between my clenched teeth; "nothing could be sweeter, could it? The situation is one which it would be impossible to view with concern, what? I shall turn up with the kid, get looked at through steel-rimmed spectacles by the Mapleton, and after an agreeable five minutes shall back out, leaving the Mapleton to go to her escritoire and write a full account of the proceedings to my aunt Agatha. And contemplating what will happen after that, the imagination totters. I confidently expect Aunt Agatha to beat all previous records."

The girl clicked her tongue chidingly. "Don't make such heavy weather, Bertie. You must learn not to fuss so."

"I must, must I?"

"Everything's going to be all right. I'm not saying it won't be necessary to exercise a little strategy in getting Clem into the house, but it will be perfectly simple if you'll only listen carefully to what I'm going to tell you. First, you will need a long piece of string."

"String?"

"String. Surely even you know what string is?"

I stiffened rather haughtily. "Certainly," I said. "You mean string."

"That's right. String. You take this with you----"

"And soften the Mapleton's heart by doing tricks with it, I suppose?"

Bitter, I know. But I was deeply stirred.

"You take this string with you," proceeded Bobbie patiently, "and when you get into the garden you go through it till you come to a conservatory near the house. Inside it you will find a lot of flower pots. How are you on recognizing a flower pot when you see one, Bertie?"

"I am thoroughly familiar with flower pots. If, as I suppose, you mean those sort of pot things they put flowers in."

"That's exactly what I do mean. All right, then. Grab an armful of these flower pots and go around the conservatory till you come to a tree. Climb this, tie a string to one of the pots, balance it on a handy branch which you will find overhangs the conservatory, and then, having stationed Clem near the front door, retire into the middle distance and jerk the string. The flower pot will fall and smash the glass; someone in the house will hear the noise and come out to investigate, and while the door is open and nobody is near Clem will sneak in and go up to bed."

"But suppose no one comes out?"

"Then you repeat the process with another pot. You have the night before you."

It seemed sound enough.

"You're sure it will work?"

"It's never failed yet. That's the way I always used to get in after lock-up when I was at St. Ethel's. Now, you're sure you've got it clear, Bertie? Let's have a quick run-through to make certain, and then I must be off. String."

"String."

"Conservatory."

"Or greenhouse."

"Flower pot."

"Flower pot."

"Tree. Climb. Branch. Climb down. Jerk. Smash. And then off to beddy-by. Got it?"

"I've got it. But," I said sternly, "let me tell you just one thing."

"I haven't time. I must rush. Write to me about it, using one side of the paper only. Good-bye."

She rolled off, and after following her with burning eyes for a moment I returned to Jeeves, who was in the background showing the kid Clementina how to make a rabbit with a pocket handkerchief. I drew him aside. I was feeling a little better now, for I perceived that an admirable opportunity had presented itself for putting the man in his place and correcting his view that he is the only member of our establishment with brains and resource.

"Jeeves," I said, "you will doubtless be surprised to learn that something in the nature of a hitch has occurred."

"Not at all, sir."

"No?"

"No, sir. In matters where Miss Wickham is involved I am, if I may take the liberty of saying so, always on the alert for hitches. If you recollect, sir, I have frequently observed that Miss Wickham, while a charming young lady, is apt----"

"Yes, yes, Jeeves. I know."

"What would the precise nature of the trouble be this time, sir?"

I explained the circs.

"The kid is A.W.O.L. They sent her to bed for putting sherbet in the ink, and in bed they imagine her to have spent the evening. Instead of which, she was out with me, wolfing the eight-course table-d'hôte dinner at seven and six and then going on to the Marine Plaza to enjoy an entertainment on the silver screen. It is our task to get her back into the house without anyone knowing. I may mention, Jeeves, that the school in which this young excrescence is serving her sentence is the one run by my aunt Agatha's old friend, Miss Mapleton."

"Indeed, sir?"

"A problem, Jeeves, what?"

"Yes, sir."

"In fact, one might say a pretty problem?"

"Undoubtedly, sir. If I might suggest----"

I was expecting this. I raised a hand. "I do not require any suggestions, Jeeves. I can handle this matter myself."

"I was merely about to propose----"

I raised the hand again.

"Peace, Jeeves. I have the situation well under control. I have had one of my ideas. It may interest you to hear how my brain worked. It occurred to me, thinking the thing over, that a house like St. Ethelburga's would be likely to have near it a conservatory containing flower pots. Then, like a flash, the whole thing came to me.

"I propose to procure some string, to tie it to a flower pot, to balance the pot on a branch--there will, no doubt, be a tree near the conservatory with a branch overhanging it--and to retire to a distance, holding the string. You will station yourself with the kid near the front door, taking care to keep carefully concealed. I shall then jerk the string, the pot will smash the glass, the noise will bring someone out, and while the front door is open you will shoot the kid in and leave the rest to her personal judgment.

"Your share in the proceedings, you will notice, is simplicity itself. How about it?"

"Well, sir----"

"Jeeves, I have had occasion before to comment on this habit of yours of saying 'Well, sir' whenever I suggest anything in the nature of a ruse or piece of strategy. I dislike it more every time you do it. But I shall be glad to hear what possible criticism you can find to make."

"I was about to express the opinion, sir, that the plan seems elaborate."

"In a place as tight as this you have got to be elaborate."

"Not necessarily, sir. The alternative scheme I was about to propose----"

I shushed the man.

"There will be no need for alternative schemes, Jeeves. We will carry on along the lines I have indicated. I shall give you ten minutes' start. That will enable you to take up your position near the front door and self to collect the string. At the conclusion of that period I shall come along and do all the difficult part. So no more discussion. Snap into it, Jeeves."

"Very good, sir."

* * * * *

I felt pretty bucked as I tooled up the hill to St. Ethelburga's and equally bucked as I pushed open the front gate and stepped into the dark garden. But just as I started to cross the lawn there came upon me a rummy sensation, as if all my bones had been removed and spaghetti substituted, and I paused.

I don't know if you have ever had the experience of starting off on a binge filled with a sort of glow of exhilaration, if that's the word I want, and then, without a moment's warning, having it disappear as if somebody had pressed a switch. That is what happened to me at this juncture, and a most unpleasant feeling it was.

The truth came to me like a bit of ice down the neck. I remember reading somewhere that it is a defect of generous and high-spirited natures that they are apt to allow themselves to be carried away by what you might call the exuberance of the moment. I can't recollect the exact words, but that was the nub of the thing, and I could see now what the fellow who wrote it meant. What he was driving at was that blokes like myself tend, when stirred, to spread themselves a trifle excessively, with the result that before they know where they are they find themselves committed, if you follow me, to a course of action which, when contemplated in cold blood, doesn't look any too juicy.

This was what had happened to me. I perceived that I had been a dashed sight too impulsive. Purely in order to score off Jeeves, I had gone and let myself in for what promised to be the mouldiest ordeal of a lifetime.

You see, it wasn't as if I really liked doing this sort of thing. The world may be divided broadly into two classes: fellows who enjoy prowling through other people's gardens in the dark in order to climb trees and tie string to flower pots, and fellows who do not.

The nearer I got to the house, the more clearly was it revealed to me that I belonged to the second class, and I'm bound to say I wished more and more that I had been a bit less haughty with Jeeves when he had tried to outline that alternative scheme of his. An alternative scheme was just what I felt I could have done with.

At this point I found myself at the conservatory door, and a few moments later I was inside, scooping up the pots.

Then ho! for the tree, bearing 'mid snow and ice the banner with the strange device "Excelsior!"

I will say for that tree that it might have been placed there for the purpose. My views on the broad, general principle of leaping from branch to branch in a garden belonging to Aunt Agatha's closest friend remained unaltered; but I had to admit that, if it was to be done, this was undoubtedly the tree to do it on. It was a cedar of sorts, and almost before I knew where I was, I was sitting on top of the world with the conservatory roof gleaming below me. I balanced the flower pot on my knee and began to tie the string round it.

And, as I tied, my thoughts turned in a moody way to the subject of Woman.

I was suffering from a considerable strain of the old nerves at the moment, of course, and, looking back, it may be that I was too harsh: but the way I felt in that dark roosting hour was that you can say what you like, but the more a thoughtful man has to do with women, the more extraordinary it seems to him that such a sex should be allowed to clutter up the earth.

Women, the way I looked at it, simply wouldn't do. Take the females who were mixed up in this present business. Aunt Agatha, to start with, better known as the Pest of Point Street, the human snapping turtle. Aunt Agatha's closest friend, Miss Mapleton, of whom I can only say that on the single occasion on which I had met her she had struck me as just the sort of person who would be Aunt Agatha's closest friend. Bobbie Wickham, a girl who went about the place letting the pure in heart in for the sort of thing I was doing now. And Bobbie Wickham's cousin Clementina, who, instead of sticking sedulously to her studies, spent the springtime of her life filling inkpots with sherbet....

What a crew! What a crew!

I mean to say, what a _crew_!

I had just worked myself up into rather an impressive state of moral indignation and was preparing to go even further, when a bright light shone upon me from below and a voice spoke.

"Ho!" it said.

It was a policeman. Apart from the fact of his having a lantern, I knew it was a policeman because he had said "Ho!" I don't know if you recollect my telling you of the time I broke into Bingo Little's house to pinch the dictaphone record of the mushy article his wife had written about him and sailed out of the study window right into the arms of the Force? On that occasion the guardian of the Law had said "Ho!" and kept on saying it, so evidently policemen are taught this as part of their training. And, after all, it's not a bad way of opening conversation in the sort of circs. in which they generally have to chat with people.

"You come on down out of that," he said.

I came on down. I had just got the flower pot balanced on its branch, and I left it there, feeling rather as if I had touched off the time fuse of a bomb. Much seemed to me to depend on its stability and poise, as it were. If it continued to balance, an easy nonchalance might still get me out of this delicate position. If it fell, I saw things being a bit hard to explain. In fact, even as it was, I couldn't see my way to any explanation which sounded convincing.

However, I had a stab at it.

"Ah, officer," I said.

It sounded weak. I said it again, this time with the emphasis on the "Ah!" It sounded weaker than ever. I saw that Bertram would have to do better.

"It's all right, officer," I said.

"Ho!"

"Oh, yes. Oh, yes."

"Ho! What you doing up there?"

"Me, officer?"

"Yes, you."

"Nothing, Sergeant."

"Ho!"

We eased into the silence, but it wasn't one of those restful silences that occur in talks between old friends. Embarrassing. Awkward.

"What you doing up that tree?"

"Tree?"

"Yes. Tree."

"Well, it's like this----"

"Ho?"

"It's rather hard to explain, but----"

"Ho!"

"It's quite all right, though."

"Ho!"

There was another lull in the conversation.

"You'd better come along with me," said the gendarme.

The last time I had heard those words from a similar source had been in Leicester Square one Boat Race Night when, on my advice, my old pal Oliver Randolph Sipperley had endeavoured to steal a policeman's helmet at a moment when the policeman was inside it. On that occasion they had been addressed to young Sippy, and they hadn't sounded any too good, even so. Addressed to me, they more or less froze the marrow.

"No, I say, dash it!" I said.

And it was at this crisis, when Bertram had frankly shot his bolt and could have been described as nonplussed, that a soft step sounded beside us and a soft voice broke the silence.

"Have you got them, officer? No, I see. It is Mr. Wooster."

The policeman switched the lantern round. "Who are you?"

"I am Mr. Wooster's personal gentleman's gentleman."

"Whose?"

"Mr. Wooster's."

"Is this man's name Wooster?"

"This gentleman's name is Mr. Wooster. I am in his employment as gentleman's personal gentleman."

I think the cop was awed by the man's majesty of demeanour, but he came back strongly. "Ho!" he said. "Not in Miss Mapleton's employment?"

"Miss Mapleton does not employ a gentleman's personal gentleman."

"Then what are you doing in her garden?"

"I was in conference with Miss Mapleton inside the house, and she desired me to step out and ascertain whether Mr. Wooster had been successful in apprehending the intruders."

"What intruders?"

"The suspicious characters whom Mr. Wooster and I had observed passing through the garden as we entered it."

"And what were you doing entering it?"

"Mr. Wooster had come to pay a call on Miss Mapleton, who is a close friend of his family. We noticed suspicious characters crossing the lawn. On perceiving these suspicious characters, Mr. Wooster dispatched me to warn and reassure Miss Mapleton, he himself remaining to investigate."

"I found him up a tree."

"If Mr. Wooster was up a tree, I have no doubt he was actuated by excellent motives and had only Miss Mapleton's best interests at heart."

The policeman brooded.

"Ho!" he said. "Well, if you want to know, I don't believe a word of it. We had a telephone call at the station saying there was somebody in Miss Mapleton's garden, and I found this fellow up a tree. It's my belief you're both in this, and I'm going to take you in to the lady for identification."

Jeeves inclined his head gracefully.

"I shall be delighted to accompany you, officer, if such is your wish. And I feel sure that in this connection I may speak for Mr. Wooster also. He, too, I am confident, will interpose no obstacle in the way of your plans. If you consider that circumstances have placed Mr. Wooster in a position that may be termed equivocal, or even compromising, it will naturally be his wish to exculpate himself at the earliest----"

"Here!" said the policeman, slightly rattled. "What's all this?"

"Officer?"

"Less of it."

"Just as you say, officer."

"Switch it off and come along."

"Very good, officer."

* * * * *

I must say that I have enjoyed functions more than that walk to the front door. It seemed to me that the doom had come upon me, so to speak, and I thought it hard that a gallant effort like Jeeves's should have failed to click.

Even to me his story had rung almost true in spots, and it was a great blow that the man behind the lantern had not sucked it in without question. There's no doubt about it: being a policeman warps a man's mind and ruins that sunny faith in his fellow human beings which is the foundation of a lovable character.

I could see no gleam of light in the situation. True, the Mapleton would identify me as the nephew of her old friend, thus putting the stopper on the night in the prison cell, but, when you came right down to it, a fat lot of use that was.

The kid Clementina was presumably still out in the night somewhere, and she would be lugged in and the full facts revealed, and then the burning glance, the few cold words, and the long letter to Aunt Agatha. I wasn't sure that a good, straight term of penal servitude wouldn't have been a happier ending.

So, what with one consideration and another, the heart, as I toddled in through the front door, was more or less bowed down with weight of woe. We went along the passage and into the study, and there, standing behind a desk with the steel-rimmed spectacles glittering nastily, was the boss in person. I gave her one look, then shut my eyes.

"Ah!" said Miss Mapleton.

Now, uttered in a certain way--dragged out, if you know what I mean, and starting high up and going down into the lower register--the word "Ah!" can be as sinister and devastating as the word "Ho!" In fact, it is a very moot question which is the scalier.

But what stunned me was that this wasn't the way she had said it. It had been, or my ears deceived me, a genial "Ah!" A matey "Ah!" The "Ah!" of one old buddy to another. And this startled me so much that I ventured to look at her again. And a stifled exclamation burst from Bertram's lips.

The breath-taking exhibit before me was in person a bit on the short side. I mean to say, she didn't tower above one, or anything like that. But, to compensate for this lack of inches, she possessed to a remarkable degree that sort of quiet air of being unwilling to stand any rannygazoo which females who run schools always have. When _in statu pupillari_, I had noticed the same thing in my old head master, one glance from whose eye had invariably been sufficient to make me confess all. Sergeant majors are like that, too. Also traffic cops and some post-office girls. It's something in the way they purse up their lips and look through you.

In short, through years of disciplining the young--ticking off Isabel and speaking with quiet severity to Gertrude and that sort of thing--Miss Mapleton had acquired in the process of time rather the air of a female lion tamer. But now, though she still resembled a lion tamer, her bearing had most surprisingly become that of a chummy lion tamer--a tamer who, after tucking the lions in for the night, relaxes in the society of the boys.

"So you did not find them, Mr. Wooster?" she said. "I am sorry. But I am none the less grateful for the trouble you have taken, nor lacking in appreciation of your courage. I consider that you have behaved splendidly."

I felt the mouth opening feebly and the vocal cords twitching, but I couldn't manage to say anything. I was simply unable to follow her train of thought. I was astonished. Amazed. In fact, "dumbfounded" about sums it up.

The hellhound of the Law gave a sort of yelp, rather like a wolf that sees its Russian peasant getting away.

"You identify this man, ma'am?"

"Identify him? In what way identify him?"

Jeeves joined the symposium.

"I fancy the officer is under the impression, madam, that Mr. Wooster was in your garden for some unlawful purpose. I informed him that Mr. Wooster was the nephew of your friend, Mrs. Spenser Gregson, but he refused to credit me."

There was a pause. Miss Mapleton eyed the constable for an instant as if she had caught him sucking acid drops during the Scripture lesson.

"Do you mean to tell me, officer," she said, in a voice that hit him just under the third button of the tunic and went straight through to the spinal column, "that you have had the imbecility to bungle this whole affair by mistaking Mr. Wooster for a burglar?"

"He was up a tree, ma'am."

"And why should he not be up a tree? No doubt you had climbed the tree in order to watch the better, Mr. Wooster?"

I could answer that. The first shock over, the old sang-froid had returned.

"Yes. Rather. That's it. Of course. Certainly. Quite. Absolutely," I said. "Watch the better. That's it in a nutshell."

"I took the liberty of suggesting that to the officer, madam, but he declined to accept the theory as tenable."

"The officer is a fool," said Miss Mapleton. It seemed a close thing for a moment whether or not she would rap him on the knuckles with a ruler. "By this time, no doubt, owing to his idiocy, the miscreants have made good their escape. And it is for this," said Miss Mapleton, "that we pay rates and taxes!"

"Awful!" I said.

"Iniquitous."

"A bally shame."

"A crying scandal," said Miss Mapleton.

"A grim show," I agreed.

In fact, we were just becoming more like a couple of love birds than anything, when through the open window there suddenly breezed a noise.

* * * * *

I'm never at my best at describing things. At school, when we used to do Essays and English Composition, my report generally read, "Has little or no ability, but does his best," or words to that effect. True, in the course of the years I have picked up a vocabulary of sorts from Jeeves, but even so I'm not nearly hot enough to draw a word picture that would do justice to that extraordinarily hefty crash.

Once, when I was in New York, I stopped at a hotel about six yards from where they were putting up that new Grand Central building, and I thought that had taught me all there was to know about noise. But it was only now that I discovered what noise could really be. Try to imagine the Albert Hall falling on the Crystal Palace and you will have got the rough idea.

All four of us, even Jeeves, sprang several inches from the floor.

Miss Mapleton was her calm, masterful self again in a second.

"One of the men appears to have fallen through the conservatory roof," she said. "Perhaps you will endeavour at the eleventh hour to justify your existence, officer, by making investigations."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Try not to bungle matters this time."

"No, ma'am."

"Please hurry, then. Do you intend to stand there gaping all night?"

"Yes, ma'am. No, ma'am. Yes, ma'am."

It was pretty to hear him.

"It is an odd coincidence, Mr. Wooster," said Miss Mapleton, becoming instantly matey once more as the outcast removed himself. "I had just finished writing a letter to your aunt when you arrived. I shall certainly reopen it to tell her how gallantly you have behaved to-night.

"I have not in the past entertained a very high opinion of the modern young man, but you have caused me to alter it. To track these men unarmed through a dark garden argues courage of a high order. And it was most courteous of you to think of calling upon me. I appreciate it. Are you making a long stay in Bingley?"

This was another one I could answer.

"No," I said. "Afraid not. Must be in London to-morrow."