I bent down. My diagnosis had been correct. It was Sir Roderick Glossop.
I was just going to introduce myself and institute inquiries, when the back door swung open again and another figure appeared.
'And stay out!' it observed, with a good deal of bitterness.
The voice was Brinkley's. It was some small pleasure to me at a none too festive time to note that he was rubbing his left shin.
The door slammed, and I heard the bolts shot. The next moment, a tenor voice rendering 'Rock of Ages' showed that, as far as Brinkley was concerned, the episode was concluded.
Sir Roderick had scrambled to his feet, and was standing puffing a good bit, as if touched in the wind. I was not surprised, for the going had been fast.
It struck me as a good moment to start the dialogue.
'What ho, what ho!' I said.
It seemed to be rather my fate on this particular night to stir up my fellow man, not to mention my fellow scullery-maid. But, judging by results, the magnetic force of my personality appeared to be a bit on the wane. I mean to say, while the scullery-maid had had hysterics and Chuffy had jumped a foot, this Glossop merely quivered like something in aspic when joggled on the dish. But this, of course, may have been because that was all he was physically able to do. These breathers with Brinkley take it out of a man.
'It's all right,' I continued, anxious to set him at his ease and remove the impression that what was murmuring in his ear was some fearful creature of the night. 'Only B. Wooster—'
'Mr Wooster!'
'Absolutely.'
'Good God!' he said, becoming a little more tranquil, though still far from the life and soul of the party. 'Woof!'
And there the matter rested, while he took in a supply of life-giving air. I remained silent. We Woosters do not intrude at such a time.
Presently the puffing died away to a soft whiffle. He took about another minute and a half off. And, when he spoke, there was something so subdued, so what you might call quavering, about his voice that I came within a toucher of placing a kindly arm round his shoulder and telling him to cheer up.
'No doubt you are wondering, Mr Wooster, what is the explanation of all this?'
I still wasn't quite equal to the kindly arm, but I did bestow a sort of encouraging pat.
'Not a bit,' I said. 'Not a bit. I know all. I am abreast of the whole situation. I heard what had happened at the Hall, and directly I saw you shoot out of that door I knew what must have occurred here. You were planning to spend the night in the Dower House, weren't you?'
'I was. If you have really been apprised of what took place at Chuffnell Hall, Mr Wooster, you are aware that I am in the unfortunate position of...'
'... being blacked out. I know. So am I.'
'You!'
'Yes. It's a long story, and I couldn't tell you, anyway, because it's by way of being secret history, but you can take it from me that we are both in the same fix.'
'But this is astonishing!'
'You can't go back to your hotel, and I can't get up to London till we have taken the make-up off.'
'Good God!'
'It seems to bring us very close together, what?'
He breathed deeply.
'Mr Wooster, we have had our differences in the past. The fault may have been mine. I cannot say. But in this crisis we must forget them and – er—'
'Stick together?'
'Precisely.'
'We will,' I said cordially. 'Speaking for myself, I decided to let the dead past bury its dead when I heard that you had been giving little Seabury one or two on the spot indicated.'
I heard him snort.
'You are aware what that abominable boy did to me, Mr Wooster?'
'Rather. And what you did to him. I am thoroughly posted up to the time you left the Hall. What happened after that?'
'Almost immediately after I had done so, the realization of my terrible position came upon me.'
'Nasty jar, I imagine?'
'The shock was of the severest. I was at a complete loss. The only course it seemed possible to pursue was to seek refuge somewhere for the night. And, knowing the Dower House to be unoccupied, I repaired thither.' He shuddered. 'Mr Wooster, that house is – I speak in all seriousness – an Inferno.'
He puffed awhile.
'I am not alluding to the presence on the premises of what appeared to me to be a dangerous lunatic. I mean that the whole place is congested with living organisms. Mice, Mr Wooster! And small dogs. And I think I saw a monkey.'
'Eh?'
'I remember now that Lady Chuffnell informed me that her son had started to maintain an establishment of these creatures, but at the moment it had slipped my mind, and the experience came upon me without warning or preparation.'
'Of course, yes. Seabury breeds things. I remember him telling me. And you were snootered by the menagerie?'
He stirred in the darkness. I fancy he was mopping the b.
'Shall I tell you of my experiences beneath that roof, Mr Wooster?'
'Do,' I said cordially. 'We have the night before us.'
He handkerchiefed the brow once more.
'It was a nightmare. I had scarcely entered the place when a voice addressed me from a dark corner of the kitchen, which was the room in which I first found myself. "I see you, you old muddler," was the phrase it employed.'
'Dashed familiar.'
'I need scarcely tell you what consternation it occasioned me. I bit my tongue severely. Then, divining that the speaker was merely a parrot, I hastened from the room. I had scarcely reached the stairs when I observed a hideous form. A little, short, broad, bow-legged individual with long arms and a dark, wizened face. He was wearing clothes of some description and he walked rapidly, lurching from side to side and gibbering. In my present cool frame of mind I realize that it must have been a monkey, but at the time ...'
'What a home!' I said sympathetically. 'Add little Seabury, and what a home! How about the mice?'
'They came later. Allow me, if you will, to adhere to the chronological sequence of my misadventures, or I shall be unable to relate the story coherently. The room in which I next found myself appeared to be completely filled with small dogs. They pounced upon me, snuffling and biting at me. I escaped and entered another room. Here at last, I was saying to myself, even in this sinister and ill-omened house, there must be peace. Mr Wooster, I had hardly framed the thought when something ran up my right trouser leg. I sprang to one side, and in so doing upset what appeared to be a box or cage of some kind. I found myself in a sea of mice. I detest the creatures. I endeavoured to brush them off. They clung the more. I fled from the room, and I had scarcely reached the stairs when this lunatic appeared and pursued me. He pursued me up and down stairs, Mr Wooster!'
I nodded understandingly.
'We all go through it,' I said. 'I had the same experience.'
'You?'
'Rather. He nearly got me with a carving knife.'
'As far as I could discern, the weapon he carried was more of the order of a chopper.'
'He varies,' I explained. 'Now the carving knife, anon the chopper. Versatile chap. It's the artistic temperament, I suppose.'
'You speak as if you knew this man.'
'I do more than know him. I employ him. He's my valet.'
'Your valet?'
'Fellow named Brinkley. He won't be my valet long, mind you. If he ever simmers down enough for me to get near him and give him the sack. Ironical, that, when you come to think of it,' I said, for I was in philosophic mood. 'I mean, do you realize that I'm giving this chap a salary all this time? In other words, he's actually being paid to chivy me about with carving knives. If that's not Life,' I said thoughtfully, 'what is?'
It seemed to take the old boy a moment or two to drink this in.
'Your valet? Then what is he doing in the Dower House?'
'Oh, he's a mobile sort of fellow, you know. Now here, now there. He flits. He was at the Hall not long ago.'
'I never heard of such a thing.'
'New to me, too, I must confess. Well, you're certainly having a lively night. This'll last you, what? I mean, you won't need any more excitement for months and months and months.'
'Mr Wooster, my earnest hope is that the entire remainder of my existence will be one round of unruffled monotony. To-night I have seemed to sense the underlying horror of life. You do not suppose that there could possibly be mice on my person still?'
'You must have shaken them off, I should say. You were pretty active, you know. I could only hear you, of course, but you seemed to be leaping from crag to crag, as it were.'
'Certainly I spared no effort to elude this man Brinkley. It was merely that I fancied I felt something nibbling at my left shoulder blade.'
'You've had quite a night, haven't you?'
'A truly terrible night. I shall not readily recover a normal tranquillity of mind. My pulse is still high, and I do not like the way my heart is beating. However, by a merciful good fortune, all has ended well. You will be able to give me the shelter I so sorely need in your cottage. And there with the assistance of a little soap and water I shall be able to wash off this distasteful blacking.'
I saw that this was where I had to start breaking things gently to him.
'You can't get that stuff off with soap and water. I've tried. You have to have butter.'
'The point strikes me as immaterial. You can provide butter, no doubt?'
'Sorry. No butter.'
'There must be butter in your cottage.'
'There isn't. And why? Because there isn't a cottage.'
'I cannot understand you.'
'It's burned down.'
'What?'
'Yes. Brinkley did it.'
'Good God!'
'A nuisance in many ways, I must confess.'
He was silent for a space. Turning the thing over in his mind. Looking at it from this angle and that.
'Your cottage is really burned down?'
'Heap of ashes.'
'Then what is to be done?'
It seemed time to point out the silver lining.
'Be of good cheer,' I said. 'We may not be so well off for cottages, but the butter situation, I am happy to say, is reasonably bright. We can't get any to-night, but it cometh in the morning, so to speak. Jeeves is going to bring me some as soon as the dairyman delivers.'
'But I cannot remain in this condition till morning.'
'Only course to pursue, I'm afraid.'
He brooded. Hard to see in the darkness, but discontentedly, I thought, as if his haughty spirit fretted somewhat. He must have been doing some good, solid thinking, too, because suddenly he came to life with an idea.
'This cottage of yours – had it a garage?'
'Oh, yes.'
'Was that burned down also?'
'No, I fancy it escaped the holocaust. It was well away from the scene of conflagration.'
'Is there petrol in it?'
'Oh, yes. Lots of petrol.'
'Why, then all is well, Mr Wooster. I am convinced that petrol will prove a cleansing agent equally as efficacious as butter.'
'But, dash it, you can't go to my garage.'
'Why not, pray?'
'Well, yes, you could, if you liked, I suppose. Not me, though. For reasons which I am not prepared to divulge, I propose to spend the rest of the night in the summer-house on the main lawn of the Hall.'
'You will not accompany me?'
'Sorry. No.'
'Then good night, Mr Wooster. I will not keep you any longer from your rest. I am greatly obliged to you for the assistance you have accorded me in a trying situation. We must see more of one another. Let us lunch together one of these days. How do I obtain access to this garage of yours?'
'You'll have to bust a window.'
'I will do so.'
He pushed off, full of buck and determination, and I, with a dubious shake of the old onion, trickled along towards the summer-house.
17 BREAKFAST-TIME AT THE HALL
I don't know if you have ever spent the night in a summer-house. If not, avoid making the experiment. It's not a thing I would advise any friend of mine to do. On the subject of sleeping in summer-houses I will speak out fearlessly. As far as I have been able to ascertain, such a binge doesn't present a single attractive feature. Apart from the inevitable discomfort in the fleshy parts, there's the cold, and apart from the cold there's the mental anguish. All the ghost stories you've ever read go flitting through the mind, particularly any you know where fellows are found next morning absolutely dead, without a mark on them but with such a look of horror and fear in their eyes that the search party draw in their breath a bit and gaze at each other as much as to say 'What ho!' Things creak. You fancy you hear stealthy footsteps. You receive the impression that a goodish quota of skinny hands are reaching out for you in the darkness. And, as I say, the cold extremely severe and much discomfort in the fleshy parts. The whole constituting a pretty sticky experience and one to be avoided by the knowledgeable.
And what made the thing so dashed poignant in my case was the thought that if I had only had the nerve to accompany intrepid old Glossop to the garage there would have been no need for me to stay marooned in this smelly structure, listening to the wind howling through the chinks in the woodwork. Once at the garage, I mean to say, I could not only have scoured the face but could have hopped into the old two-seater, which was champing at its bit there, and tooled off to London by road, singing a gipsy song, as it were.
And I simply couldn't muster up the nerve to take a pop at it. The garage, I reflected, was right in the danger zone, well inside the Voules and Dobson belt, and I absolutely could not face the possibility of running into Police Sergeant Voules and being detained and questioned. Those meetings with him the night before had shattered my moral, causing me to look upon this hellhound of the Law as a sleepless prowler who rambled incessantly and was bound to appear out of a trap just at the moment when you could best have done without him.
So I stayed where I was. I hitched myself into position forty-six in the hope that it would be easier on the f.p's than the last forty-five, and had another shot at the dreamless.
The thing that always beats me is how on these occasions one ever gets to sleep at all. Personally, I abandoned all idea of it at an early stage, and no one, accordingly, could have been more surprised than myself when, just as I was endeavouring to give the miss to a leopard which was biting me rather shrewdly in the seat of the trousers, I suddenly awoke to discover that it had been but a dream, that in reality no leopards were to be noticed among those present, that the sun was up and another day had begun, and that on the greensward without the early bird was already breakfasting and making the dickens of a noise about it, too.
I went to the door and looked out. I could hardly believe that it was really morning. But it was, and a dashed good morning, at that. The air was cool and fresh, there were long shadows across the lawn, and everything combined to give the soul such a kick that many fellows in my position would have taken off their socks and done rhythmic dances in the dew. I did not actually do that, but I certainly felt uplifted to no little extent, and you might say that I was simply so much pure spirit, without any material side to me whatsoever, when suddenly it was as if the old turn had come out of a trance with a jerk, and the next moment I was feeling that nothing mattered in this world or the next except about a quart of coffee and all the eggs and b. you could cram on to a dish.
It's a rummy thing about breakfast. When you've only to press a bell to have the domestic staff racing in with everything on the menu from oatmeal to jams, marmalades, and potted meats, you find that all you can look at is a glass of soda water and a rusk. When you can't get it, you feel like a python when the Zoo officials have just started to bang the luncheon gong. Speaking for myself, I have, as a rule, to be more or less lured to the feast. I mean to say, I don't as a general thing become what you might call breakfast-conscious till I've had
my morning tea and rather thought things over a bit. And I can give no better indication of the extraordinary change which had come over my viewpoint now than by mentioning that there was a young fowl of sorts not far away engaged in getting outside a large, pink worm, and I could willingly have joined it at the board. In fact, I would have taken pot luck at this juncture with a buzzard.
My watch had stopped, so I couldn't tell what time it was: and another thing I didn't know was when Jeeves was planning to go to the Dower House to keep our tryst. The thought that he might even now be on his way there and that, if he didn't find me, he would give the thing up as a bad job and retire to some impregnable fastness in the back parts of the Hall gave me a very nasty turn. I left the summer-house and, taking to the bushes, began to work my way through them, treading like a Red Indian on the trail and keeping well under cover throughout.
And I was just navigating round the side of the house and making ready for the dash into the open, when through the French window of the morning-room I saw a spectacle which affected me profoundly. In fact, you'd be about right if you said that it seemed to speak to my very depths.
Inside the room, a parlourmaid was placing a large tray on a table.
The sunlight, streaming in, lit up this parlourmaid's hair: and, noting its auburn hue, I deduced that she must be Mary, the betrothed of Constable Dobson: and at any other time the fact would have been of interest. But I was in no mood now to subject the girl to a critical scrutiny with a view to ascertaining whether the constable had picked a winner or not. My whole attention was earmarked for that tray.
It was a well-laden tray. There was a coffee-pot on it, also toast in considerable quantity, and furthermore a covered dish. It was this last that touched the spot. Under that cover there might be eggs, there might be bacon, there might be sausages, there might be kidneys, or there might be kippers. I could not tell. But whatever there was it was all right with Bertram.
For I had laid my plans and formed my schemes. The girl was on her way out by this time, and I estimated that I had possibly fifty seconds for the stern task before me. Allow twenty for nipping in, three for snaffling the works, and another twenty-five for getting back into the bushes again, and one had all the makings of a successful enterprise.