Wodehouse On Crime

by P. G. Wodehouse

  “Shut up!” said William.

  “Just as you say, sir,” replied Mr. Delancey, courteously.

  Rodney Spelvin drew himself up, and in spite of her loathing for his villainy Jane could not help feeling what a noble and romantic figure he made. His face was pale, but his voice did not falter.

  “You are right,” he said. “I am not a golfer. But with the help of this splendid girl here, I hope humbly to be one some day. Ah, I know what you are going to say,” he went on, raising a hand. “You are about to ask how a man who has wasted his life as I have done can dare to entertain the mad dream of ever acquiring a decent handicap. But never forget,” proceeded Rodney, in a low, quivering voice, “that Walter J. Travis was nearly forty before he touched a club, and a few years later he won the British Amateur.”

  “True,” murmured William.

  “True, true,” said Mr. Delancey and Mr. Brown. They lifted their bowler hats reverently.

  “I am thirty-three years old,” continued Rodney, “and for fourteen of those thirty-three years I have been writing poetry — aye, and novels with a poignant sex-appeal, and if ever I gave a thought to this divine game it was but to sneer at it. But last summer I saw the light.”

  “Glory! Glory!” cried Mr. Brown.

  “One afternoon I was persuaded to try a drive. I took the club with a mocking, contemptuous laugh.” He paused, and a wild light came into his eyes. “I brought off a perfect pip,” he said, emotionally. “Two hundred yards and as straight as a whistle. And, as I stood there gazing after the ball, something seemed to run up my spine and bite me in the neck. It was the golf-germ.”

  “Always the way,” said Mr. Brown. “I remember the first drive I ever made. I took a nice easy stance — ”

  “The first drive I made,” said Mr. Delancey, “you won’t believe this, but it’s a fact, was a full — ”

  “From that moment,” continued Rodney Spelvin, “I have had but one ambition — to somehow or other, cost what it might, get down into single figures.” He laughed bitterly. “You see,” he said, “I cannot even speak of this thing without splitting my infinitives. And even as I split my infinitives, so did I split my drivers. After that first heavenly slosh I didn’t seem able to do anything right.”

  He broke off, his face working. William cleared his throat awkwardly.

  “Yes, but dash it,” he said, “all this doesn’t explain why I find you alone with my sister in what I might call your lair.”

  “The explanation is simple,” said Rodney Spelvin. “This sweet girl is the only person in the world who seems able to simply and intelligently and in a few easily understood words make clear the knack of the thing. There is none like her, none. I have been to pro after pro, but not one has been any good to me. I am a temperamental man, and there is a lack of sympathy and human understanding about these professionals which jars on my artist soul. They look at you as if you were a half-witted child. They click their tongues. They make odd Scotch noises. I could not endure the strain. And then this wonderful girl, to whom in a burst of emotion I had confided my unhappy case, offered to give me private lessons. So I went with her to some of those indoor practising places. But here, too, my sensibilities were racked by the fact that unsympathetic eyes observed me. So I fixed up a room here where we could be alone.”

  “And instead of going there,” said Anastatia, “we are wasting half the afternoon talking.”

  William brooded for a while. He was not a quick thinker.

  “Well, look here,” he said at length, “this is the point. This is the nub of the thing. This is where I want you to follow me very closely. Have you asked Anastatia to marry you?”

  “Marry me?” Rodney gazed at him, shocked. “Have I asked her to marry me? I, who am not worthy to polish the blade of her niblick! I, who have not even a thirty handicap, ask a girl to marry me who was in the semi-final of last year’s Ladies’ Open! No, no, Bates, I may be a vers-libre poet, but I have some sense of what is fitting. I love her, yes. I love her with a fervour which causes me to frequently and for hours at a time lie tossing sleeplessly upon my pillow. But I would not dare to ask her to marry me.”

  Anastatia burst into a peal of girlish laughter.

  “You poor chump!” she cried. “Is that what has been the matter all this time! I couldn’t make out what the trouble was. Why, I’m crazy about you. I’ll marry you any time you give the word.”

  Rodney reeled.

  “What!”

  “Of course I will.”

  “Anastatia!”

  “Rodney!”

  He folded her in his arms.

  “Well, I’m dashed,” said William. “It looks to me as if I had been making rather a lot of silly fuss about nothing. Jane, I wronged you.”

  “It was my fault.”

  “No, no!”

  “Yes, yes.”

  “Jane!”

  “William!”

  He folded her in his arms. The two detectives, having entered the circumstances in their notebooks, looked at one another with moist eyes.

  “Cyril!” said Mr. Brown.

  “Reggie!” said Mr. Delancey.

  Their hands met in a brotherly clasp.

  “And so,” concluded the Oldest Member, “all ended happily. The storm-tossed lives of William Bates, Jane Packard, and Rodney Spelvin came safely at long last into harbour. At the subsequent wedding William and Jane’s present of a complete golfing outfit, including eight dozen new balls, a cloth cap, and a pair of spiked shoes, was generally admired by all who inspected the gifts during the reception.”

  “From that time forward the four of them have been inseparable. Rodney and Anastatia took a little cottage close to that of William and Jane, and rarely does a day pass without a close foursome between the two couples. William and Jane being steady tens and Anastatia scratch and Rodney a persevering eighteen, it makes an ideal match.”

  “What does?” asked the secretary, waking from his reverie.

  “This one.”

  “Which?”

  “I see,” said the Oldest Member, sympathetically, “that your troubles, weighing on your mind, have caused you to follow my little narrative less closely than you might have done. Never mind, I will tell it again.”

  “The story” (said the Oldest Member) “which I am about to relate begins at a time when — ”

  WITHOUT THE OPTION

  THE EVIDENCE WAS ALL IN. THE MACHINERY OF the law had worked without a hitch. And the beak, having adjusted a pair of pince-nez which looked as though they were going to do a nose dive any moment, coughed like a pained sheep and slipped us the bad news.

  “The prisoner, Wooster,” he said — and who can paint the shame and agony of Bertram at hearing himself so described? — “will pay a fine of five pounds.”

  “Oh, rather!” I said. “Absolutely! Like a shot!”

  I was dashed glad to get the thing settled at such a reasonable figure. I gazed across what they call the sea of faces till I picked up Jeeves, sitting at the back. Stout fellow, he had come to see the young master through his hour of trial.

  “I say, Jeeves,” I sang out, “have you got a fiver? I’m a bit short.”

  “Silence!” bellowed some officious blighter.

  “It’s all right,” I said; “just arranging the financial details. Got the stuff, Jeeves?”

  “Yes, sir. “Good egg!”

  “Are you a friend of the prisoner?” asked the beak.

  “I am in Mr. Wooster’s employment, Your Worship, in the capacity of gentleman’s personal gentleman.”

  “Then pay the fine to the clerk.”

  “Very good. Your Worship.”

  The beak gave a coldish nod in my direction, as much as to say that they might now strike the fetters from my wrists; and having hitched up the pince-nez once more, proceeded to hand poor old Sippy one of the nastiest looks ever seen in Bosher Street Police Court.

  “The case of the prisoner Leon Trotzky — which,” he said, givin
g Sippy the eye again, “I am strongly inclined to think an assumed and fictitious name — is more serious. He has been convicted of a wanton and violent assault upon the police. The evidence of the officer has proved that the prisoner struck him in the abdomen, causing severe internal pain, and in other ways interfered with him in the execution of his duties. I am aware that on the night following the annual aquatic contest between the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge a certain licence is traditionally granted by the authorities, but aggravated acts of ruffianly hooliganism like that of the prisoner Trotzky cannot be overlooked or palliated. He will serve a sentence of thirty days in the Second Division without the option of a fine.”

  “No, I say — here — hi — dash it all!” protested poor old Sippy.

  “Silence!” bellowed the officious blighter.

  “Next case,” said the beak. And that was that.

  The whole affair was most unfortunate. Memory is a trifle blurred; but as far as I can piece together the facts, what happened was more or less this:

  Abstemious cove though I am as a general thing, there is one night in the year when, putting all other engagements aside, I am rather apt to let myself go a bit and renew my lost youth, as it were. The night to which I allude is the one following the annual aquatic contest between the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge; or, putting it another way.

  Boat-Race Night. Then, if ever, you will see Bertram under the influence. And on this occasion, I freely admit, I had been doing myself rather juicily, with the result that when I ran into old Sippy opposite the Empire I was in quite fairly bon-homous mood. This being so, it cut me to the quick to perceive that Sippy, generally the brightest of revellers, was far from being his usual sunny self. He had the air of a man with a secret sorrow.

  “Bertie,” he said as we strolled along toward Piccadilly Circus, “the heart bowed down by weight of woe to weakest hope will cling.” Sippy is by way of being an author, though mainly dependent for the necessaries of life on subsidies from an old aunt who lives in the country, and his conversation often takes a literary turn. “But the trouble is that I have no hope to cling to, weak or otherwise. I am up against it, Bertie.”

  “In what way, laddie?”

  “I’ve got to go to-morrow and spend three weeks with some absolutely dud — I will go further — some positively scaly friends of my Aunt Vera. She has fixed the thing up, and may a nephew’s curse blister every bulb in her garden.”

  “Who are these hounds of hell?” I asked.

  “Some people named Pringle. I haven’t seen them since I was ten, but I remember them at that time striking me as England’s premier warts.”

  “Tough luck. No wonder you’ve lost your morale.”

  “The world,” said Sippy, “is very grey. How can I shake off this awful depression?”

  It was then that I got one of those bright ideas one does get round about 11.30 on Boat-Race Night.

  “What you want, old man,” I said, “is a policeman’s helmet.”

  “Do I, Bertie?”

  “If I were you. I’d just step straight across the street and get that one over there.”

  “But there’s a policeman inside it. You can see him distinctly.”

  “What does that matter?” I said. I simply couldn’t follow his reasoning.

  Sippy stood for a moment in thought.

  “I believe you’re absolutely right,” he said at last. “Funny I never thought of it before. You really recommend me to get that helmet?”

  “I do, indeed.”

  “Then I will,” said Sippy, brightening up in the most remarkable manner.

  So there you have the posish, and you can see why, as I left the dock a free man, remorse gnawed at my vitals. In his twenty-fifth year, with life opening out before him and all that sort of thing, Oliver Randolph Sipperley had become a jailbird, and it was all my fault. It was I who had dragged that fine spirit down into the mire, so to speak, and the question now arose: What could I do to atone?

  Obviously the first move must be to get in touch with Sippy and see if he had any last messages and what not. I pushed about a bit, making inquiries, and presently found myself in a little dark room with whitewashed walls and a wooden bench. Sippy was sitting on the bench with his head in his hands.

  “How are you, old lad?” I asked in a hushed, bedside voice.

  “I’m a ruined man,” said Sippy, looking like a poached egg.

  “Oh, come,” I said, “it’s not so bad as all that. I mean to say, you had the swift intelligence to give a false name. There won’t be anything about you in the papers.”

  “I’m not worrying about the papers. What’s bothering me is, how can I go and spend three weeks with the Pringles, starting to-day, when I’ve got to sit in a prison cell with a ball and chain on my ankle?”

  “But you said you didn’t want to go.”

  “It isn’t a question of wanting, fathead. I’ve got to go. If I don’t my aunt will find out where I am. And if she finds out that I am doing thirty days, without the option, in the lowest dungeon beneath the castle moat — well, where shall I get off?”

  I saw his point.

  “This is not a thing we can settle for ourselves,” I said gravely. “We must put our trust in a higher power. Jeeves is the man we must consult.”

  And having collected a few of the necessary data, I shook his hand, patted him on the back and tooled off home to Jeeves.

  “Jeeves,” I said, when I had climbed outside the pick-me-up which he had thoughtfully prepared against my coming, “I’ve got something to tell you; something important; something that vitally affects one whom you have always regarded with — one whom you have always looked upon — one whom you have — well, to cut a long story short, as I’m not feeling quite myself — Mr. Sipperley.”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Jeeves, Mr. Souperley is in the sip.”

  “Sir?”

  “I mean, Mr. Sipperley is in the soup.”

  “Indeed, sir?”

  “And all owing to me. It was I who, in a moment of mistaken kindness, wishing only to cheer him up and give him something to occupy his mind, recommended him to pinch that policeman’s helmet.”

  “Is that so, sir?”

  “Do you mind not intoning the responses, Jeeves?” I said. “This is a most complicated story for a man with a headache to have to tell, and if you interrupt you’ll make me lose the thread. As a favour to me, therefore, don’t do it. Just nod every now and then to show that you’re following me.”

  I closed my eyes and marshalled the facts.

  “To start with then, Jeeves, you may or may not know that Mr. Sipperley is practically dependent on his Aunt Vera.”

  “Would that be Miss Sipperley of the Paddock, Beckley-on-the-Moor, in Yorkshire, sir?”

  “Yes. Don’t tell me you know her!”

  “Not personally, sir. But I have a cousin residing in the village who has some slight acquaintance with Miss Sipperley. He has described her to me as an imperious and quick-tempered old lady… . But I beg your pardon, sir, I should have nodded.”

  “Quite right, you should have nodded. Yes, Jeeves, you should have nodded. But it’s too late now.”

  I nodded myself. I hadn’t had my eight hours the night before, and what you might call a lethargy was showing a tendency to steal over me from time to time.

  “Yes, sir?” said Jeeves.

  “Oh — ah — yes,” I said, giving myself a bit of a hitch up. “Where had I got to?”

  “You were saying that Mr. Sipperley is practically dependent upon Miss Sipperley, sir.”

  “Was I?”

  “You were, sir.”

  “You’re perfectly right; so I was. Well, then, you can readily understand, Jeeves, that he has got to take jolly good care to keep in with her. You get that?”

  Jeeves nodded.

  “Now mark this closely: The other day she wrote to old Sippy, telling him to come down and sing at her village concert. It was equ
ivalent to a royal command, if you see what I mean, so Sippy couldn’t refuse in so many words. But he had sung at her village concert once before and had got the bird in no uncertain manner, so he wasn’t playing any return dates. You follow so far, Jeeves?”

  Jeeves nodded.

  “So what did he do, Jeeves? He did what seemed to him at the moment a rather brainy thing. He told her that, though he would have been delighted to sing at her village concert, by a most unfortunate chance an editor had commissioned him to write a series of articles on the colleges of Cambridge and he was obliged to pop down there at once and would be away for quite three weeks. All clear up to now?”

  Jeeves inclined the coco-nut.

  “Whereupon, Jeeves, Miss Sipperley wrote back, saying that she quite realised that work must come before pleasure — pleasure being her loose way of describing the act of singing songs at the Beckley-on-the-Moor concert and getting the laugh from the local toughs; but that, if he was going to Cambridge, he must certainly stay with her friends, the Pringles, at their house just outside the town. And she dropped them a line telling them to expect him on the twenty -eighth, and they dropped another line saying right-ho, and the thing was settled. And now Mr. Sipperley is in the jug, and what will be the ultimate outcome or upshot? Jeeves, it is a problem worthy of your great intellect. I rely on you.”

  “I will do my best to justify your confidence, sir.”

  “Carry on, then. And meanwhile pull down the blinds and bring a couple more cushions and heave that small chair this way so that I can put my feet up, and then go away and brood and let me hear from you in — say, a couple of hours, or maybe three. And if anybody calls and wants to see me, inform them that I am dead.”