I don’t know if the name of Lot’s wife is familiar to you, and if you were told about her rather remarkable finish. I may not have got the facts right, but the story, as I heard it, was that she was advised not to look round at something or other or she would turn into a pillar of salt, so, naturally imagining that they were simply pulling her leg, she looked round, and—bing—a pillar of salt. And the reason I mention this now is that the very same thing seemed to have happened to Uncle Percy. Crouching there with his fingers riveted to the marmalade jar, he appeared to have turned into a pillar of salt. If it hadn’t been that the ginger whiskers were quivering gently, you would have said that life had ceased to animate the rigid limbs.
‘It appears that Master Thomas is now out of danger, m’lord, and no longer has need of her ladyship’s ministrations.’
The whiskers continued to quiver, and I didn’t blame them. I knew just how the old relative must be feeling, for, as I have already indicated, he had made no secret when chatting with me of his apprehensions concerning the shape of things to come, should Aunt Agatha ever learn that he had been attending fancy dress dances in her absence.
The poignant drama of it all had not escaped Nobby, either.
‘Golly, Uncle Percy,’ she said, a womanly pity in her voice that became her well, ‘this is a bit awkward, is it not? You’ll have to devote a minute or two, when you see her, to explaining why you were out all night, won’t you?’
Her words had the effect of bringing the unhappy man out of his trance or coma as if she had touched off a stick of dynamite under him. He moved, he stirred, he seemed to feel the rush of life along his keel.
‘Jeeves,’ he said hoarsely.
‘M’lord?’
‘Jeeves.’
‘M’lord?’
Uncle Percy shoved out his tongue about an inch, moistening the lips with the tip of it. It was plain that he was finding it no easy matter to get speech over the larynx.
‘Her ladyship, Jeeves…Tell me…Is she…Has she…Is she by any chance aware of my absence?’
‘Yes, m’lord. She was apprised of it by the head housemaid. I left them in conference. “You tell me his lordship’s bed has not been slept in?” her ladyship was saying. Her agitation was most pronounced.’
I caught Uncle Percy’s eye. It had swivelled round at me with a dumb, pleading look in it, as if saying that suggestions would be welcomed.
‘How would it be,’ I said—well, one had to say something, ‘if you told her the truth?’
‘The truth?’ he repeated dazedly, and you could see he thought the idea a novel one.
‘That you went to the ball to confer with Clam.’
He shook his head.
‘I could never convince your aunt that I had gone to a fancy dress ball from purely business motives. Women are so prone to think the worst.’
‘Something in that.’
‘And it’s no good trying to make them see reason, because they talk so damn’ quick. No,’ said Uncle Percy, ‘this is the end. I can only set my teeth and take my medicine like an English gentleman.’
‘Unless, of course, Jeeves has something to suggest.’
This perked him up for an instant. Then the drawn, haggard look came back into his face, and he shook the lemon again, slowly and despondently.
‘Impossible. The situation is beyond Jeeves.’
‘No situation is beyond Jeeves,’ I said, with quiet rebuke. ‘In fact,’ I went on, scrutinizing the man closely, ‘I believe something is fermenting now inside that spacious bean. Am I wrong, Jeeves, in supposing that I can see the light of inspiration in your eye?’
‘No, sir. You are quite correct. I think that I may perhaps be able to offer a satisfactory solution of his lordship’s difficulty.’
Uncle Percy inhaled sharply. An awed look came into the unoccupied areas of his face. I heard him murmur something under his breath about fish.
‘You mean that, Jeeves?’
‘Yes, m’lord.’
‘Then let us have it,’ I said, feeling rather like some impresario of performing fleas who watches the star member of his troupe advance to the footlights. ‘What is this solution of which you speak?’
‘Well, sir, it occurred to me that as his lordship has, as I understand, given his consent to the union of Mr Fittleworth and Miss Hopwood—’
Uncle Percy uttered an animal cry.
‘I haven’t! Or, if I did, I’ve withdrawn it.’
‘Very good, m’lord. In that case, I have nothing to suggest.’
There was a silence. One could sense the struggle proceeding in Uncle Percy’s bosom. I saw him look at Boko, and quiver. Then a strong shudder passed through the frame, and I knew he was recalling what Jeeves had said about Aunt Agatha’s agitation being most pronounced. When Aunt Agatha’s agitation is pronounced, she has a way of drawing her eyebrows together and making her nose look like an eagle’s beak. Strong men have quailed at the spectacle, repeatedly.
‘May as well hear what you’ve got to say, I suppose,’ he said, at length.
‘Quite,’ I agreed. ‘No harm in having a—what, Jeeves?’
‘Academic discussion, sir.’
‘Thank you, Jeeves.’
‘Not at all, sir.’
‘Carry on, then.’
‘Very good, sir. It merely occurred to me that, had his lordship consented to the union, nothing would have been more natural than that he should have visited Mr Fittleworth at his house for the purpose of talking the matter over and making arrangements for the wedding. Immersed in this absorbing subject, his lordship would quite understandably have lost count of time—’
I yipped intelligently. I had got the set-up.
‘And when he looked at his watch and found how late it was—’
‘Precisely, sir. When his lordship looked at his watch and found how late it was, Mr Fittleworth hospitably suggested that he should pass the remainder of the night beneath his roof. His lordship agreed that this would be the most convenient course, and so it was arranged.’
I looked at Uncle Percy, confidently expecting the salvo of applause, and was amazed to find him shaking the bean once more.
‘It wouldn’t work,’ he said.
‘Why on earth not? It’s a pip.’
He kept on oscillating the lozenge.
‘No, Bertie, the scheme is not practical. Your aunt, my dear boy, is a suspicious woman. She probes beneath the surface and asks questions. And the first one she would ask on this occasion would be, Why, merely in order to discuss wedding arrangements with my ward’s future husband, did I dress up as Sindbad the Sailor? You can see for yourself how awkward that question would be, and how difficult to answer.’
The point was well taken.
‘A snag, Jeeves. Can you get round it?’
‘Quite easily, sir. Before returning to the Hall, his lordship could borrow a suit of clothes from you, sir.’
‘Of course he could. Clad in the herring-bone tweed which is in the cupboard in my bedroom, Uncle Percy, you could look Aunt Agatha in the eye without a tremor.’
I dare say you have frequently, when strolling in your garden, seen a parched flower beneath a refreshing downpour. It was of such a flower that Uncle Percy now irresistibly reminded me. He seemed to swell and burgeon, as it were, and the strained eyes lost that resemblance to the under side of a dead fish which had been so noticeable since the beginning of this sequence.
‘Good Lord!’ he exclaimed. ‘You’re quite right. So I could. Jeeves,’ he went on, emotionally, ‘you must have that brain of yours pickled and presented to some national museum.’
‘Very good, m’lord.’
‘When you’ve done with it, of course. Come on, Bertie, action, action! Ho for the herring-bone tweed!’
‘This way, Uncle Percy,’ I said, and we started for the door, to find our path barred by Boko. He was looking a bit green about the gills, but firm and resolute.
‘Just a minute,’ said Boko. ‘Not so jolly fast, if you don’t mind. How about that guardian’s blessing? Do I cop?’
‘Of course you do, old bird,’ I said soothingly. ‘That’s all budgeted for in the estimates, Uncle Percy?’
‘Eh? What?’
‘The guardian’s b. You’re dishing that out?’
Once more there was that silent struggle. Then he nodded sombrely.
‘It seems unavoidable.’
‘It is unavoidable.’
‘Then I won’t try to avoid it.’
‘Okay, Boko, you’re all set.’
‘Good,’ said Boko. ‘I’ll just have that in writing, if you don’t mind, my dear Worplesdon. I don’t want to carp or criticize, but there’s been a lot of in-and-out running about this business to present date, and one would welcome a few words in black and white. You will find pen and ink on the table in the corner. Sing out, my dear Worplesdon, if the nib doesn’t suit you, and I will provide you with another.’
Uncle Percy went to the table in the corner, and took pen in hand. It would be too much to say that his demeanour, as he did so, was rollicking. I fancy that up to this moment he had been entertaining a faint hope that, if his luck held, he might somehow derive the benefits from Jeeves’s scheme without having to sit in on its drawbacks. However, as I say, he took pen in hand and, having scribbled for a minute or so, handed the result to Boko, who read it through and handed it to Nobby, who read it through and tucked it away with a satisfied ‘Okay-doke’ in some safe deposit in the recesses of her costume.
She had scarcely done so, when heavy, official footsteps sounded without, and Stilton came clumping in.
You will scarcely believe me, but it is a fact that I had been so tensely gripped by the drama of the last quarter of an hour that the Stilton angle had been completely expunged from my mind, and it was only now, as I watched him heave to, that the thought of the Wooster personal peril came back to me. The first thing he did on entering the room was to give me one of those looks of his, and it chilled my insides like a quart of ice cream.
I had a shot at an airy ‘Ah, there you are, Stilton,’ but my heart was not in it, and it elicited no response except a short ‘Ho!’ Having got off this ‘Ho!’ which, as I have explained, was in the nature of a sort of signature tune, he addressed himself to Boko.
‘You were right about that warrant,’ he said. ‘The sergeant says I’ve got to have one. I’ve brought it along. It has to be signed by a Justice of the Peace.’ Here, for the first time, he appeared to become aware of Uncle Percy’s identity, which, of course, had been shrouded from him by the whiskers. ‘Why, hullo, Lord Worplesdon,’ he said, ‘you’re just the man I was looking for. If you will shove your name on the dotted line, we can go ahead. So you went to that fancy dress ball last night?’ he said, giving him the eye.
I think he had merely intended to be chatty and to show a kindly interest, as it were, in the relative’s affairs, but he had said the wrong thing. Uncle Percy stiffened haughtily.
‘What do you mean, I went to the fancy dress ball last night? I did nothing of the kind, and I shall be glad if you will refrain from making loose statements of that description. Went to the fancy dress ball, indeed! What fancy dress ball? Where? It is news to me that there has been a fancy dress ball.’
His generous indignation seemed to take Stilton aback.
‘Oh, sorry,’ he said. ‘I just thought…The costume, I mean.’
‘And what about the costume? If my ward and her future husband are planning an evening of amateur theatricals and asked me as a personal favour to put on the costume of Sindbad the Sailor, to see if I was the type for the part, is it so singular that I should good-humouredly have acceded to their wishes? And is it any business of yours? Does it entitle you to jump to idiotic conclusions about fancy dress balls? Have I got to explain every simple little action of mine to every flatfooted copper who comes along and can’t keep his infernal nose out of my business?’
These were not easy questions to answer, and the best Stilton could do was to shuffle his feet and say ‘Oh, ah.’
‘Well, anyway,’ he said, after a rather painful pause, changing the subject and getting back to the res, ‘would you mind signing this warrant?’
‘Warrant? What warrant? What’s it all about? What’s all this nonsense about warrants?’
There was a sound in the background like a distant sheep coughing gently on a mountainside. Jeeves sailing into action.
‘If I might explain, your lordship. It appears that in the course of yesterday afternoon the officer’s uniform was purloined as he bathed in the river. He accuses Mr Wooster of the crime.’
‘Mr Wooster? Bertie? My nephew?’
‘Yes, m’lord. To me, a most bizarre theory. One seeks in vain for a motive which could plausibly have led Mr Wooster to perpetrate such an outrage. The constable, I understand, alleges that Mr Wooster desired the uniform in order to be able to attend the fancy dress ball.’
This seemed to interest Uncle Percy.
‘There really was a fancy dress ball, was there?’
‘Yes, m’lord. At the neighbouring town of East Wibley.’
‘Odd. I never heard about it.’
‘A very minor affair, m’lord, I gather. Not at all the sort of entertainment in which a gentleman of Mr Wooster’s position would condescend to participate.’
‘Of course not. I wouldn’t have gone to it myself. Just one of those potty little country affairs, eh?’
‘Precisely, m’lord. Nobody, knowing Mr Wooster, would suppose for a moment that he would waste his sweetness on such desert air.’
‘Eh?’
‘A quotation, m’lord. The poet Gray.’
‘Ah. But you say the officer sticks to it that he did?’
‘Yes, m’lord. It is fortunate, therefore, that your lordship passed the night in this house, and so is able to testify that Mr Wooster never left the premises.’
‘Dashed fortunate. Settles the whole thing.’
I never know, when I am telling a story where a couple of fellows are talking and a third fellow is trying to shove his oar in, whether to interpolate the last named’s gulps and gurgles in the run of the dialogue or to wait till it’s all over and then chalk up these gulps and gurgles to their utterer’s score. I think it works out smoother the second way, and that is why, in recording the above exchanges, I have left out Stilton’s attempts to chip in. All through this Jeeves—Worplesdon exchange of ideas he had been trying to catch the Speaker’s eye, only to be ‘Tchah’-ed and ‘Be quiet, officer’-ed by Uncle Percy. A lull in the conversation having occurred at the word ‘thing’, he was now able to speak his piece.
‘I tell you the accused Wooster did pinch my uniform!’ he cried, his eyes bulging more than ever and his cheeks a pretty scarlet.
‘It was seen on his bed by the witness Edwin.’
Things were going so well that I felt equal to raising the eyebrows and coming through with a light, amused laugh.
‘Edwin, Uncle Percy! One smiles, does one not?’
The relative backed me up nobly.
‘Smiles? Certainly one smiles. Like the dickens. Are you trying to tell me,’ he said, letting Stilton have the eye in no uncertain measure, ‘that this preposterous accusation of yours is based on the unsupported word of my son Edwin? I can scarcely credit it. Can you, Jeeves?’
‘Most extraordinary, m’lord. But possibly the officer is not aware that Mr Wooster inflicted a personal assault upon Master Edwin yesterday, and so does not realize how biased any statement on the part of the young gentleman regarding Mr Wooster must inevitably be.’
‘Don’t make excuses for him. The man’s a fool. And I should like to say,’ said Uncle Percy, swelling like a balloon and starting to give Stilton the strong remarks from the bench, ‘that we have had in my opinion far too much of late of these wild and irresponsible accusations on the part of the police. A deplorable spirit is creeping into the Force, and as long as I remain a Justice of the Peace I shall omit no word or act to express my strongest disapproval of it. I shall stamp it out, root and branch, and see to it that the liberty of the subject is not placed in jeopardy by officers of the Law who so far forget their—yes, dash it, their sacred obligations as to bring trumped-up charges right and left in a selfish desire to secure promotion. I have nothing further to add except to express my profound regret that you should have been subjected to this monstrous persecution, Bertie.’
‘Quite all right, Uncle Percy.’
‘It is not all right. It is outrageous. I advise you in future, officer, to be careful, very careful. And as for that warrant of yours, you can take it and stick it…However, that is neither here nor there.’
It was good stuff. Indeed, I can’t remember ever having heard better, except once, when I was a stripling and Aunt Agatha was ticking me off for breaking a valuable china vase with my catapult. I confidently expected Stilton to cower beneath it like a worm in a thunderstorm. But he didn’t. it was plain that he burned, not with shame and remorse but with the baffled fury of the man who, while not quite abreast of the run of the scenario, realizes that dirty work is afoot at the crossroads and that something swift is being slipped across him.
‘Ho!’ he said, and paused for a moment to wrestle with his feelings. Then, with generous emotion: ‘It’s a bally conspiracy,’ he cried. ‘It’s a lowdown, hornswoggling plot to defeat the ends of justice. For the last time, Lord Worplesdon, will you sign this warrant?’
Nothing could have been more dignified than Uncle Percy’s demeanour. He drew himself up, and his voice was quiet and cold.
‘I have already indicated what you can do with that warrant. I think, officer, that it would be well if you were to go and sleep it off. For the kindest interpretation which I can place upon your extraordinary behaviour is that you are intoxicated. Bertie, show the constable the door.’
I showed Stilton the door, and he took a sort of dazed look at it, as if it was the first time he had seen the bally thing. Then he navigated slowly through, and disappeared, not even pausing to say ‘Ho’ over his shoulder. The impression I received was that his haughty spirit was at last crushed. Presently we heard the sound of his violin cases tramping away down the garden path.
‘And now, my boy,’ said Uncle Percy, as the last echoes died away, ‘for the herring-bone tweed. Also a bath and a shave and a cup of strong black coffee with perhaps the merest suspicion of brandy in it. And perhaps it would be as well, when I am ready to start for the Hall, if you were to accompany me, to add your testimony to mine regarding my spending last night under this roof. You will not falter, will you? You will support my statement, will you not, in a strong resonant voice, carrying conviction in every syllable? Nothing on these occasions creates so unfortunate an impression as the pause for thought, the hesitating utterance, the nervous twiddling of the fingers. Above all things, remember not to stand on one leg. Right, my boy. Let us go.’
I escorted him to my room, dug out the suit, showed him the bathroom and left him to it. When I got back to the dining-room, Boko had gone, but Nobby was still there, chatting with Jeeves. She greeted me warmly.
‘Boko’s gone to fetch his car,’ she said. ‘We’re going to run up to London and get married. Wonderful how everything has come out, isn’t it? I thought Uncle Percy was terrific.’
‘Most impressive,’ I agreed.
‘And what words that tongue could utter could give even a sketchy idea of how one feels about you, Jeeves.’
‘I am deeply gratified, miss, if I have been able to give satisfaction.’
‘I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again—there’s nobody like you.’
‘Thank you very much, miss.’
I think this might have gone on for some time, for Nobby was plainly filled to the back teeth with girlish enthusiasm, but at this point I interrupted. I would be the last man ever to deprive Jeeves of his meed of praise, but I had a question of compelling interest to put.
‘Have you shown Florence that letter of mine, Nobby?’ I asked.
A sudden cloud came over her eager map, and she made a clicking noise.
‘I knew there was something I had forgotten. Oh, Bertie, I’m so sorry.’
‘Sorry?’ I said, filled with a nameless fear.
‘I’ve been meaning to tell you. When I got up this morning, I couldn’t find that letter anywhere, and I was looking for it, when Edwin came along and told me he had done an act of kindness last night by tidying my room. I think he must have destroyed the letter. He generally does destroy all correspondence when he tidies rooms. I’m most awfully sorry, but I expect you’ll find some other way of coping with Florence. Ask Jeeves. He’s sure to think of something. Ah,’ she said, as a booming voice came from the great open spaces, ‘there’s Boko calling me. Good-bye, Bertie. Good-bye, Jeeves. I must rush.’
She was gone with the wind, and I turned to Jeeves with a pale, set face.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Can you think of a course to pursue?’
‘No, sir.’
‘You are baffled?’
‘For the moment, sir, unquestionably. I fear that Miss Hopwood overestimated my potentialities.’
‘Come, come, Jeeves. It is not like you to be a…what’s the word…it’s on the tip of my tongue.’
‘Defeatist, sir?’
‘That’s right. It is not like you to be a defeatist. Don’t give it up. Go and brood in the kitchen. There may be some fish there. Did you notice any, when you were there yesterday?’
‘Only a tin of anchovy paste, sir.’
My heart sank a bit. Anchovy paste is a slender reed on which to lean in a major crisis. Still, it was fish within the meaning of the act, and no doubt contained its quota of phosphorus.
‘Go and wade into it.’
‘Very good, sir.’
‘Don’t spare the stuff. Dig it out with a spoon,’ I said, and dismissed him with a moody gesture.
Moody was the word which would have described my aspect, as a few moments later I left the house and proceeded to the garden, feeling in need of a bit of air. I had kept up a brave front, but I had little real hope that anchovy paste would bring home the bacon. As I stood at the garden gate, staring sombrely before me, I was at a pretty low ebb.
I mean to say, I had been banking everything on that letter. I had counted on it to destroy the Wooster glamour in Florence’s eyes. And, lacking it, I couldn’t see how she was going to be persuaded that I was not a king among men. Not for the first time, I found myself musing bitterly on young Edwin, the fons et origo—a Latin expression—of all my troubles.
And I was just regretting that we were not in China, where it would have been a simple matter to frame up something against the child, thus putting him in line for the Death of the Thousand Cuts, when my reverie was interrupted by the ting of a bicycle bell, and Stilton came wheeling up.
After what had passed, of course, it was not agreeable to be closeted with this vindictive copper, and I am not ashamed to say that I backed a pace. In fact, I would probably have gone on backing, had he not reached out a hand like a ham and grabbed me by the slack of my coat.
‘Stand still, you blasted object,’ he said. ‘I have something to say to you.’
‘You couldn’t write?’
‘No, I could not write. Don’t wriggle. Listen.’
I could see that the man was wrestling with some strong emotion, and could only hope that it was not homicidal. The eyes were glittering, and the face flushed.
‘Listen,’ he said again. ‘You know that engagement of yours?’
‘To Florence?’
‘To Florence. It’s off.’
‘Off?’
‘Off,’ said Stilton.
A sharp exclamation passed my lips. I clutched at the gate for support. The sun, which a moment before had gone behind a cloud, suddenly came shooting out like a rabbit and started shining like the dickens. On every side, it seemed to me, birds began to tootle their songs of joy. It will give you some rough indication of my feelings when I tell you that not only did all Nature become beautiful, but even for an instant Stilton.
Through a sort of pink mist, I heard myself asking faintly what he meant. The question caused him to frown with some impatience.
‘You can understand words of one syllable, can’t you? I tell you your engagement is off. Florence is going to marry me. I met her, as I came away from this pest house, and had it out with her. After that revolting exhibition of fraud and skullduggery in there, I had decided to resign from the Force, and I told her so. It removed the only barrier there had ever been between us. Questioned, she broke down and came clean, admitting that she had always loved me, and had got engaged to you merely to score off me for something I had said about modern enlightened thought. I withdrew the remark, and she fell into my arms. She seemed not to like the idea of breaking the news to you, so I said I would do it. “And if young blasted Wooster has anything to say,” I told her, “I will twist his head off and ram it down his throat.” Have you anything to say, Wooster?’
I paused for a moment to listen to the tootling birds. Then I raised the map, and allowed the beaming sun to play on it.
‘Not a thing,’ I assured him.
‘You realize the position? She has returned you to store. No ruddy wedding bells for you.’
‘Quite.’
‘Good. You will be leaving here fairly soon, I take it?’
‘Almost at once.’
‘Good,’ said Stilton, and sprang on his bicycle as if it had been a mettlesome charger.
Nor did I linger. I did the distance from the gate to the kitchen in about three seconds flat. From the window of the bathroom, as I passed, there came the voice of Uncle Percy as he sluiced the frame. He was singing some gay air. A sea chanty, probably, which he had learned from Clam or one of the captains in his employment.
Jeeves was pacing the kitchen floor, deep in thought. He looked round, as I entered, and his manner was apologetic.
‘It appears, sir, I regret to say, that there is no anchovy paste. It was finished yesterday.’
I didn’t actually slap him on the back, but I gave him the dickens of a beaming smile.
‘Never mind the anchovy paste, Jeeves. It will not be required. I’ve just seen Stilton. A reconciliation has taken place between him and Lady Florence, and they are once more headed for the altar rails. So, there being nothing to keep us in Steeple Bumpleigh, let’s go.’
‘Very good, sir. The car is at the door.’
I paused.
‘Oh, but, dash it, we can’t.’
‘Sir?’
‘I’ve just remembered I promised Uncle Percy to go to the Hall with him and help him cope with Aunt Agatha.’
‘Her ladyship is not at the Hall, sir.’
‘What! But you said she was.’
‘Yes, sir. I fear I was guilty of a subterfuge. I regretted the necessity, but it seemed to me essential in the best interests of all concerned.’
I goggled at the man.
‘Egad, Jeeves!’
‘Yes, sir.’
Faintly from the distance there came the sound of Uncle Percy working through his chanty.
‘How would it be,’ I suggested, ‘to zoom off immediately, without waiting to pack?’
‘I was about to suggest such a course myself, sir.’
‘It would enable one to avoid tedious explanations.’
‘Precisely, sir.’
‘Then shift ho, Jeeves,’ I said.
It was as we were about half-way between Steeple Bumpleigh and the old metrop, that I mentioned that there was an expression on the tip of my tongue which seemed to me to sum up the nub of the recent proceedings.
‘Or, rather, when I say an expression, I mean a saying. A wheeze. A gag. What, I believe, is called a saw. Something about Joy…’
But we went into all that before, didn’t we?