Of course, mark you, if something on these lines had occurred at some country house where I was staying, and the hand that had turned the key had been that of a pal of mine, a ready explanation would have presented itself. I should have set it down as a spot of hearty humour. My circle of friends is crammed with fellows who would consider it dashed diverting to bung you into a room and lock the door. But on the present occasion I could not see this being the solution. There was nothing roguish about old Stoker. Whatever view you might take of this fishy-eyed man, you would never call him playful. If Pop Stoker put his guests in cold storage, his motive in so doing was sinister.
Little wonder, then, that as he sat on the edge of the bed pensively sucking at his cigar, Bertram was feeling uneasy. The thought of Stoker's second cousin, George, forced itself upon the mind. Dotty, beyond a question. And who knew but what that dottiness might not run in the family? It didn't seem such a long step, I mean to say, from a Stoker locking people in staterooms to a Stoker with slavering jaws and wild, animal eyes coming back and doing them a bit of no good with the meat axe.
When, therefore, there was a click and the door opened, revealing mine host on the threshold, I confess that I rather drew myself together somewhat and pretty well prepared myself for the worst.
His manner, however, was reassuring. Puff-faced, yes, but not fiend-in-human-shape-y. The eyes were steady and the mouth lacked foam. And he was still smoking his cigar, which I felt was promising. I mean, I've never met any homicidal loonies, but I should imagine that the first thing they would do before setting about a fellow would be to throw away their cigars.
'Well, Mr Wooster?'
I never have known quite what to answer when blokes say 'Well?' to me, and I didn't now.
'I must apologize for leaving you so abruptly,' proceeded the Stoker, 'but I had to get the concert started.'
'I'm looking forward to the concert,' I said.
'A pity,' said Pop Stoker. 'Because you're going to miss it.'
He eyed me musingly.
'There was a time, when I was younger, when I would have broken your neck,' he said.
I didn't like the trend the conversation was taking. After all, a man is as young as he feels, and there was no knowing that he wouldn't suddenly get one of these – what do you call them? – illusions of youth. I had an uncle once, aged seventy-six, who, under the influence of old crusted port, would climb trees.
'Look here,' I said civilly but with what you might call a certain urgency, 'I know it's trespassing on your time, but could you tell me what all this is about?'
'You don't know?'
'No, I'm hanged if I do.'
'And you can't guess?'
'No, I'm dashed if I can.'
'Then I had best tell you from the beginning. Perhaps you recall my visiting you last night?'
I said I hadn't forgotten.
'I thought my daughter was in your cottage. I searched it. I did not find her.'
I twiddled a hand magnanimously.
'We all make mistakes.'
He nodded.
'Yes. So I went away. And do you know what happened after I left you, Mr Wooster? I was coming out of the garden gate when your local police sergeant stopped me. He seemed suspicious.'
I waved my cigar sympathetically.
'Something will have to be done about Voules,' I said. 'The man is a pest. I hope you were pretty terse with him.'
'Not at all. I supposed he was only doing his duty. I told him who I was and where I lived. On learning that I came from this yacht, he asked me to accompany him to the police station.'
I was amazed.
'What bally cheek! You mean he pinched you?'
'No, he was not arresting me. He wished me to identify someone who was in custody.'
'Bally cheek, all the same. What on earth did he bother you with that sort of job for? Besides, how on earth could you identify anyone? I mean, a stranger in these parts, and all that sort of thing.'
'In this instance it was simple. The prisoner happened to be my daughter, Pauline.'
'What!'
'Yes, Mr Wooster. It seems that this man Voules was in his back garden late last night – it adjoins yours, if you recollect – and he saw a figure climbing out of one of the lower windows of your house. He ran down the garden and caught this individual. It was my daughter Pauline. She was wearing a swimming suit and an overcoat belonging to you. So, you see, you were right when you told me she had probably gone for a swim.'
He knocked the ash carefully off his cigar. I didn't need to do it to mine.
'She must have been with you a few moments before I arrived. Now, perhaps, Mr Wooster, you can understand what I meant when I said that, when I was a younger man, I would have broken your neck.'
I hadn't anything much to say. One hasn't sometimes.
'Nowadays, I'm more sensible,' he proceeded. 'I take the easier way. I say to myself that Mr Wooster is not the son-in-law I would have chosen personally, but if my hand has been forced that is all there is to it. Anyway, you're not the gibbering idiot I thought you at one time, I'm glad to say. I have heard since that those stories which caused me to break off Pauline's engagement to you in New York were untrue. So we can consider everything just as it was three months ago. We will look upon that letter of Pauline's as unwritten.'
You can't reel when you're sitting on a bed. Otherwise, I would have done so, and right heartily. I was feeling as if a hidden hand had socked me in the solar plexus.
'Do you mean—?'
He let me have an eye squarely in the pupil. A beastly sort of eye, cold and yet hot, if you follow me. If this was the Boss's Eye you read so much about in the advertisements in American magazines, I was dashed if I could see why any ambitious young shipping clerk should be so bally anxious to catch it. It went clean through me, and I lost the thread of my remarks.
'I am assuming that you wish to marry my daughter?'
Well, of course ... I mean, dash it ... I mean, there isn't much you can say to an observation like that. I just weighed in with a mild 'Oh, ah'.
'I am not quite sure if I understand the precise significance of the expression "Oh, ah",' he said, and, by Jove, I wonder if you notice a rather rummy thing. I mean to say, this man had had the advantage of Jeeves's society for only about twenty-four hours, and here he was – except that Jeeves would have said 'wholly' instead of 'quite' and stuck in a 'Sir' or two – talking just like him. I mean, it just shows. I remember putting young Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright up at the flat for a week once, and the very second day he said something to me about gauging somebody's latent potentialities. And Catsmeat a fellow who had always thought you were kidding him when you assured him that there were words in the language that had more than one syllable. As I say, it simply goes to show....
However, where was I?
'I am not quite sure if I understand the precise significance of the expression "Oh, ah",' said this Stoker, 'but I will take it to mean that you do. I won't pretend that I'm delighted, but one can't have everything. What are your views upon engagements, Mr Wooster?'
'Engagements?'
'Should they be short or long?'
'Well ...'
'I prefer them short. I feel that we had best put this wedding through as quickly as possible. I shall have to find out how soon that is on this side. I believe you cannot simply go to the nearest minister, as in my country. There are formalities. While these are being attended to, you will, of course, be my guest. I'm afraid I can't offer you the freedom of the boat, because you are a pretty slippery young gentleman and might suddenly remember a date elsewhere – some unfortunate appointment which would necessitate your leaving. But I shall do my best to make you comfortable in this room for the next few days. There are books on that shelf – I assume you can read? – and cigarettes on the table. I will send my man along in a few minutes with some pyjamas and so on. And now I will wish you good night, Mr Wooster. I must be getting back to the concert. I can't stay away f
rom my son's birthday party, can I, even for the pleasure of talking to you?'
He slipped through the door and oozed out, and I was alone.
Now, it so happened that twice in my career I had had the experience of sitting in a cell and listening to keys turning in locks. The first time was the one to which Chuffy had alluded, when I had been compelled to assure the magistrate that I was one of the West Dulwich Plimsolls. The other – and both, oddly enough, had occurred on Boat Race night – was when I had gone into partnership with my old friend, Oliver Sipperley, to pick up a policeman's helmet as a souvenir, only to discover that there was a policeman inside it. On both these occasions I had ended up behind the bars, and you might suppose that an old lag like myself would have been getting used to it by now.
But this present binge was something quite different. Before, I had been faced merely with the prospect of a moderate fine. Now, a life sentence stared me in the eyeball.
A casual observer, noting Pauline's pre-eminent pulchritude and bearing in mind the fact that she was heiress to a sum amounting to more than fifty million fish, might have considered that in writhing, as I did, in agony of spirit at the prospect of having to marry her, I was making a lot of fuss about nothing. Such an observer, no doubt, would have wished that he had half my complaint. But the fact remains that I did writhe, and writhe pretty considerably.
Apart from the fact that I didn't want to marry Pauline Stoker, there was the dashed serious snag that I knew jolly well that she didn't want to marry me. She might have ticked him off with great breadth and freedom at their recent parting, but I was certain that deep down in her the old love for Chuffy still persisted and only needed a bit of corkscrew work to get it to the surface again. And Chuffy, for all that he had hurled himself downstairs and stalked out into the night, still loved her. So that what it amounted to, when you came to tot up the pros and cons, was that by marrying this girl I should not only be landing myself in the soup but breaking both her heart and that of the old school friend. And if that doesn't justify a fellow in writhing, I should very much like to know what does.
Only one gleam of light appeared in the darkness – viz. that old Stoker had said that he was sending his man along with the necessaries for the night. It might be that Jeeves would find the way.
Though how even Jeeves could get me out of the current jam was more than I could envisage. It was with the feeling that no bookie would hesitate to lay a hundred to one against that I finished my cigar and threw myself on the bed.
I was still picking at the coverlet when the door opened and a respectful cough informed me that he was in my midst. His arms were full of clothing of various species. He laid these on a chair and regarded me with what I might describe as commiseration.
'Mr Stoker instructed me to bring your pyjamas, sir.'
I emitted a hollow g.
'It is not pyjamas I need, Jeeves, but the wings of a dove. Are you abreast of the latest development?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Who told you?'
'My informant was Miss Stoker, sir.'
'You've been having a talk with her?'
'Yes, sir. She related to me an outline of the plans which Mr Stoker had made.'
The first spot of hope I had had since the start of this ghastly affair now shot through my bosom.
'By Jove, Jeeves, an idea occurs to me. Things aren't quite as bad as I thought they were.'
'No, sir?'
'No. Can't you see? It's all very well for old Stoker to talk – er—
'Glibly, sir?'
'Airily.'
'Airily or glibly, sir, whichever you prefer.'
'It's all very well for old Stoker to talk with airy glibness about marrying us off, but he can't do it, Jeeves. Miss Stoker will simply put her ears back and refuse to co-operate. You can lead a horse to the altar, Jeeves, but you can't make it drink.'
'In my recent conversation with the young lady, sir, I did not receive the impression that she was antagonistic to the arrangements.'
'What!'
'No, sir. She seemed, if I may say so, resigned and defiant.'
'She couldn't be both.'
'Yes, sir. Miss Stoker's attitude was partly one of listlessness, as if she felt that nothing mattered now, but I gathered that she was also influenced by the thought that in contracting a matrimonial alliance with you, she would be making – shall I say, a defiant gesture at his lordship.'
'A defiant gesture?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Scoring off him, you mean?'
'Precisely, sir.'
'What a damn silly idea. The girl must be cuckoo.'
'Feminine psychology is admittedly odd, sir. The poet Pope ...'
'Never mind about the poet Pope, Jeeves.'
'No, sir.'
'There are times when one wants to hear all about the poet Pope and times when one doesn't.'
'Very true, sir.'
'The point is, I seem to be up against it. If that's the way she feels, nothing can save me. I am a pipped man.'
'Yes, sir. Unless—'
'Unless?'
'Well, I was wondering, sir, if on the whole it would not be best if you were to obviate all unpleasantness and embarrassment by removing yourself from the yacht.'
'What!'
'Yacht, sir.'
'I know you said "Yacht". And I said "What!" Jeeves,' I went on, and there was a quiver in the voice, 'it is not like you to come in here at a crisis like this with straws in your hair and talk absolute drip. How the devil can I leave the yacht?'
'The matter could be readily arranged, if you are agreeable, sir. It would, of course, involve certain inconveniences ...'
'Jeeves,' I said, 'short of squeezing through the port-hole, which can't be done, I am ready to undergo any little passing inconvenience if it will get me off this bally floating dungeon and restore me to terra firma.' I paused and regarded him anxiously. 'This is not mere gibbering, is it? You really have a scheme?'
'Yes, sir. The reason I hesitated to advance it was that I feared you might not approve of the idea of covering your face with boot polish.'
'What!'
'Time being of the essence, sir, I think it would not be advisable to employ burnt cork.'
I turned my face to the wall. It was the end.
'Leave me, Jeeves,' I said. 'You've been having a couple.'
And I'm not sure that what cut me like a knife, more even than any agony at my fearful predicament, was not the realization that my original suspicions had been correct and that, after all these years, that superb brain had at last come unstuck. For, though I had tactfully affected to set all this talk of burnt cork and boot polish down to mere squiffiness, in my heart I was convinced that the fellow had gone off his onion.
He coughed.
'If you will permit me to explain, sir. The entertainers are just concluding their performance. In a short time they will be leaving the boat.'
I sat up. Hope dawned once more, and remorse gnawed me like a bull pup worrying a rubber bone at the thought that I should have so misjudged this man. I saw what that giant brain was driving at.
'You mean—?'
'I have a small tin of boot polish here, sir. I brought it with me in anticipation of this move. It would be a simple task to apply it to your face and hands in such a manner as to create the illusion, should you encounter Mr Stoker, that you were a member of this troupe of negroid entertainers.'
'Jeeves!'
'The suggestion I would make, sir, is that, if you are amenable to what I propose, we should wait until these black-faced persons have left for the shore. I could then inform the captain that one of them, a personal friend of mine, had lingered behind to talk with me and so had missed the motor launch. I have little doubt that he would accord me permission to row you ashore in one of the smaller boats.'
I stared at the man. Years of intimate acquaintance, the memory of swift ones he had pulled in the past, the knowledge that he lived largely on fish, thus causing
his brain to be about as full of phosphorus as the human brain can jolly well stick, had not prepared me for this supreme effort.
'Jeeves,' I said, 'as I have so often had occasion to say before, you stand alone.'
'Thank you, sir.'
'Others abide our question. Thou art free.'
'I endeavour to give satisfaction, sir.'
'You think it would work?'
'Yes, sir.'
'The scheme carries your personal guarantee?'
'Yes, sir.'
'And you say you have the stuff handy?'
'Yes, sir.'
I flung myself into a chair and turned the features ceiling-wards.
'Then start smearing, Jeeves,' I said, 'and continue to smear till your trained senses tell you that you have smeared enough.'
13 A VALET EXCEEDS HIS DUTIES
I must say, as a general rule, I always bar stories where the chap who's telling them skips lightly from point to point and leaves you to work it out for yourself as best you can just what has happened in the interim. I mean to say, the sort of story where Chapter Ten ends with the hero trapped in the underground den and Chapter Eleven starts with him being the life and soul of a gay party at the Spanish Embassy. And, strictly speaking, I suppose, I ought at this juncture to describe step by step the various moves which led me to safety and freedom, if you see what I mean.
But when a tactician like Jeeves is in charge of the arrangements, it all seems so unnecessary. Simply a waste of time. If Jeeves sets out to shift a fellow from Spot A to Spot B, from a state-room on a yacht, for instance, to the shore in front of his cottage, he just does it. No hitches. No difficulties. No fuss. No excitement. Absolutely nothing to report. I mean, one just reaches for the nearest tin of boot polish, blacks one's face, strolls across the deck, saunters down the gangway, waves a genial farewell to such members of the crew as may be leaning over the side, spitting into the water, steps into a boat, and in about ten minutes there one is, sniffing the cool night air on the mainland. A smooth bit of work.
Thank You, Jeeves Page 11