‘Have you yet paid a visit to Wembley, Charles?’ he asked. ‘No? Precisely as I suspected. Well, that is the mission on which I am here this afternoon. Honoria wishes me to take you to Wembley. She says it will broaden your mind, in which view I am at one with her. We will start immediately after luncheon.’
Biffy cast an imploring look at me.
‘You’ll come too, Bertie?’
There was such agony in his eyes that I only hesitated for a second. A pal is a pal. Besides, I felt that, if only the bulb fulfilled the high expectations I had formed of it, the merry expedition would be cancelled in no uncertain manner.
‘Oh, rather,’ I said.
‘We must not trespass on Mr Wooster’s good nature,’ said Sir Roderick, looking pretty puff-faced.
‘Oh, that’s all right,’ I said. ‘I’ve been meaning to go to the good old exhibish for a long time. I’ll slip home and change my clothes and pick you up here in my car.’
There was a silence. Biffy seemed too relieved at the thought of not having to spend the afternoon alone with Sir Roderick to be capable of speech, and Sir Roderick was registering silent disapproval. And then he caught sight of the bouquet by Biffy’s plate.
‘Ah, flowers,’ he said. ‘Sweet peas, if I am not in error. A charming plant, pleasing alike to the eye and the nose.’
I caught Biffy’s eye across the table. It was bulging, and a strange light shone in it.
‘Are you fond of flowers, Sir Roderick?’ he croaked.
‘Extremely.’
‘Smell these.’
Sir Roderick dipped his head and sniffed. Biffy’s fingers closed slowly over the bulb. I shut my eyes and clutched the table.
‘Very pleasant,’ I heard Sir Roderick say. ‘Very pleasant indeed.’
I opened my eyes, and there was Biffy leaning back in his chair with a ghastly look, and the bouquet on the cloth beside him. I realised what had happened. In that supreme crisis of his life, with his whole happiness depending on a mere pressure of the fingers, Biffy, the poor spineless fish, had lost his nerve. My closely-reasoned scheme had gone phut.
Jeeves was fooling about with the geraniums in the sitting-room window-box when I got home.
‘They make a very nice display, sir,’ he said, cocking a paternal eye at the things.
‘Don’t talk to me about flowers,’ I said. ‘Jeeves, I know now how a general feels when he plans out some great scientific movement and his troops let him down at the eleventh hour.’
‘Indeed, sir?’
‘Yes,’ I said, and told him what had happened.
He listened thoughtfully.
‘A somewhat vacillating and changeable young gentleman, Mr Biffen,’ was his comment when I had finished. ‘Would you be requiring me for the remainder of the afternoon, sir?’
‘No. I’m going to Wembley. I just came back to change and get the car. Produce some fairly durable garments which can stand getting squashed by the many-headed, Jeeves, and then ’phone to the garage.’
‘Very good, sir. The grey cheviot lounge will, I fancy, be suitable. Would it be too much if I asked you to give me a seat in the car, sir? I had thought of going to Wembley myself this afternoon.’
‘Eh? Oh, all right.’
‘Thank you very much, sir.’
I got dressed, and we drove round to Biffy’s flat. Biffy and Sir Roderick got in at the back and Jeeves climbed into the front seat next to me. Biffy looked so ill-attuned to an afternoon’s pleasure that my heart bled for the blighter and I made one last attempt to appeal to Jeeves’s better feelings.
‘I must say, Jeeves,’ I said, ‘I’m dashed disappointed in you.’
‘I am sorry to hear that, sir.’
‘Well, I am. Dashed disappointed. I do think you might rally round. Did you see Mr Biffen’s face?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Well, then.’
‘If you will pardon my saying so, sir, Mr Biffen has surely only himself to thank if he has entered upon matrimonial obligations which do not please him.’
‘You’re talking absolute rot, Jeeves. You know as well as I do that Honoria Glossop is an Act of God. You might just as well blame a fellow for getting run over by a truck.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Absolutely yes. Besides, the poor ass wasn’t in a condition to resist. He told me all about it. He had lost the only girl he had ever loved, and you know what a man’s like when that happens to him.’
‘How was that, sir?’
‘Apparently he fell in love with some girl on the boat going over to New York, and they parted at the Customs sheds, arranging to meet next day at her hotel. Well, you know what Biffy’s like. He forgets his own name half the time. He never made a note of the address, and it passed clean out of his mind. He went about in a sort of trance, and suddenly woke up to find that he was engaged to Honoria Glossop.’
‘I did not know of this, sir.’
‘I don’t suppose anybody knows of it except me. He told me when I was in Paris.’
‘I should have supposed it would have been feasible to make inquiries, sir.’
‘That’s what I said. But he had forgotten her name.’
‘That sounds remarkable, sir.’
‘I said that, too. But it’s a fact. All he remembered was that her Christian name was Mabel. Well, you can’t go scouring New York for a girl named Mabel, what?’
‘I appreciate the difficulty, sir.’
‘Well, there it is, then.’
‘I see. sir.’
We had got into a mob of vehicles outside the Exhibition by this time, and, some tricky driving being indicated, I had to suspend the conversation. We parked ourselves eventually and went in. Jeeves drifted away, and Sir Roderick took charge of the expedition. He headed for the Palace of Industry, with Biffy and myself trailing behind.
Well, you know, I have never been much of a lad for exhibitions. The citizenry in the mass always rather puts me off, and after I have been shuffling along with the multitude for a quarter of an hour or so I feel as if I were walking on hot bricks. About this particular binge, too, there seemed to me a lack of what you might call human interest. I mean to say, millions of people, no doubt, are so constituted that they scream with joy and excitement at the spectacle of a stuffed porcupine-fish or a glass jar of seeds from Western Australia – but not Bertram. No; if you will take the word of one who would not deceive you, not Bertram. By the time we had tottered out of the Gold Coast village and were working towards the Palace of Machinery, everything pointed to my shortly executing a quiet sneak in the direction of that rather jolly Planters’ Bar in the West Indian section. Sir Roderick had whizzed us past this at a high rate of speed, it touching no chord in him; but I had been able to observe that there was a sprightly sportsman behind the counter mixing things out of bottles and stirring them up with a stick in long glasses that seemed to have ice in them, and the urge came upon me to see more of this man. I was about to drop away from the main body and become a straggler, when something pawed at my coat-sleeve. It was Biffy, and he had the air of one who has had about sufficient.
There are certain moments in life when words are not needed. I looked at Biffy, Biffy looked at me. A perfect understanding linked our two souls.
‘?’
‘!’
Three minutes later we had joined the Planters.
I have never been in the West Indies, but I am in a position to state that in certain of the fundamentals of life they are streets ahead of our European civilisation. The man behind the counter, as kindly a bloke as I ever wish to meet, seemed to guess our requirements the moment we hove in view. Scarcely had our elbows touched the wood before he was leaping to and fro, bringing down a new bottle with each leap. A planter, apparently, does not consider he has had a drink unless it contains at least seven ingredients, and I’m not saying, mind you, that he isn’t right. The man behind the bar told us the things were called Green Swizzles; and, if ever I marry and have a son, Green Swi
zzle Wooster is the name that will go down on the register, in memory of the day his father’s life was saved at Wembley.
After the third, Biffy breathed a contented sigh.
‘Where do you think Sir Roderick is?’ he said.
‘Biffy, old thing,’ I replied frankly, ‘I’m not worrying.’
‘Bertie, old bird,’ said Biffy, ‘nor am I.’
He sighed again, and broke a long silence by asking the man for a straw.
‘Bertie,’ he said, ‘I’ve just remembered something rather rummy. You know Jeeves?’
I said I knew Jeeves.
‘Well, a rather rummy incident occurred as we were going into this place. Old Jeeves sidled up to me and said something rather rummy. You’ll never guess what it was.’
‘No. I don’t believe I ever shall.’
‘Jeeves said,’ proceeded Biffy earnestly, ‘and I am quoting his very words – Jeeves said, “Mr Biffen” – addressing me, you understand—’
‘I understand.’
‘“Mr Biffen,” he said, “I strongly advise you to visit the—”’
‘The what?’ I asked as he paused.
‘Bertie, old man,’ said Biffy, deeply concerned, ‘I’ve absolutely forgotten!’
I stared at the man.
‘What I can’t understand,’ I said, ‘is how you manage to run that Herefordshire place of yours for a day. How on earth do you remember to milk the cows and give the pigs their dinner?’
‘Oh, that’s all right. There are divers blokes about the place – hirelings and menials, you know – who look after all that.’
‘Ah!’ I said. ‘Well, that being so, let us have one more Green Swizzle, and then hey for the Amusement Park.’
When I indulged in those few rather bitter words about exhibitions, it must be distinctly understood that I was not alluding to what you might call the more earthy portion of these curious places. I yield to no man in my approval of those institutions where on payment of a shilling you are permitted to slide down a slippery run-way sitting on a mat. I love the Jiggle-Joggle, and I am prepared to take on all and sundry at Skee Ball for money, stamps, or Brazil nuts.
But, joyous reveller as I am on these occasions, I was simply not in it with old Biffy. Whether it was the Green Swizzles or merely the relief of being parted from Sir Roderick, I don’t know, but Biffy flung himself into the pastimes of the proletariat with a zest that was almost frightening. I could hardly drag him away from the Whip, and as for the Switchback, he looked like spending the rest of his life on it. I managed to remove him at last, and he was wandering through the crowd at my side with gleaming eyes, hesitating between having his fortune told and taking a whirl at the Wheel of Joy, when he suddenly grabbed my arm and uttered a sharp animal cry.
‘Bertie!’
‘Now what?’
He was pointing at a large sign over a building.
‘Look! Palace of Beauty!’
I tried to choke him off. I was getting a bit weary by this time. Not so young as I was.
‘You don’t want to go in there,’ I said. ‘A fellow at the club was telling me about that. It’s only a lot of girls. You don’t want to see a lot of girls.’
‘I do want to see a lot of girls,’ said Biffy firmly. ‘Dozens of girls, and the more unlike Honoria they are, the better. Besides, I’ve suddenly remembered that that’s the place Jeeves told me to be sure and visit. It all comes back to me. “Mr Biffen,” he said, “I strongly advise you to visit the Palace of Beauty.” Now, what the man was driving at or what his motive was, I don’t know; but I ask you, Bertie, is it wise, is it safe, is it judicious ever to ignore Jeeves’s lightest word? We enter by the door on the left.’
I don’t know if you know this Palace of Beauty place? It’s a sort of aquarium full of the delicately-nurtured instead of fishes. You go in, and there is a kind of cage with a female goggling out at you through a sheet of plate glass. She’s dressed in some weird kind of costume, and over the cage is written ‘Helen of Troy.’ You pass on to the next, and there’s another one doing jiu-jitsu with a snake. Sub-title, Cleopatra. You get the idea – Famous Women Through the Ages and all that. I can’t say it fascinated me to any great extent. I maintain that lovely woman loses a lot of her charm if you have to stare at her in a tank. Moreover, it gave me a rummy sort of feeling of having wandered into the wrong bedroom at a country house, and I was flying past at a fair rate of speed, anxious to get it over, when Biffy suddenly went off his rocker.
At least, it looked like that. He let out a piercing yell, grabbed my arm with a sudden clutch that felt like the bite of a crocodile, and stood there gibbering.
‘Wuk!’ ejaculated Biffy, or words to that general import.
A large and interested crowd had gathered round. I think they thought the girls were going to be fed or something. But Biffy paid no attention to them. He was pointing in a loony manner at one of the cages. I forget which it was, but the female inside wore a ruff, so it may have been Queen Elizabeth or Boadicea or someone of that period. She was rather a nice-looking girl, and she was staring at Biffy in much the same pop-eyed way as he was staring at her.
‘Mabel!’ yelled Biffy, going off in my ear like a bomb.
I can’t say I was feeling my chirpiest. Drama is all very well, but I hate getting mixed up in it in a public spot; and I had not realised before how dashed public this spot was. The crowd seemed to have doubled itself in the last five seconds, and, while most of them had their eye on Biffy, quite a goodish few were looking at me as if they thought I was an important principal in the scene and might be expected at any moment to give of my best in the way of wholesome entertainment for the masses.
Biffy was jumping about like a lamb in the spring-time – and, what is more, a feeble-minded lamb.
‘Bertie! It’s her! It’s she!’ He looked about him wildly. ‘Where the deuce is the stage-door?’ he cried. ‘Where’s the manager? I want to see the house-manager immediately.’
And then he suddenly bounded forward and began hammering on the glass with his stick.
‘I say, old lad!’ I began, but he shook me off.
These fellows who live in the country are apt to go in for fairly sizable clubs instead of the light canes which your well-dressed man about town considers suitable for metropolitan use; and down in Herefordshire, apparently, something in the nature of a knobkerrie is de rigueur. Biffy’s first slosh smashed the glass all to a hash. Three more cleared the way for him to go into the cage without cutting himself. And, before the crowd had time to realise what a wonderful bob’s-worth it was getting in exchange for its entrance-fee, he was inside, engaging the girl in earnest conversation. And at the same moment two large policemen rolled up.
You can’t make policemen take the romantic view. Not a tear did these two blighters stop to brush away. They were inside the cage and out of it and marching Biffy through the crowd before you had time to blink. I hurried after them, to do what I could in the way of soothing Biffy’s last moments, and the poor old lad turned a glowing face in my direction.
‘Chiswick, 60873,’ he bellowed in a voice charged with emotion. ‘Write it down, Bertie, or I shall forget it. Chiswick, 60873. Her telephone number.’
And then he disappeared, accompanied by about eleven thousand sightseers, and a voice spoke at my elbow.
‘Mr Wooster! What – what – what is the meaning of this?’
Sir Roderick, with bigger eyebrows than ever, was standing at my side.
‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘Poor old Biffy’s only gone off his crumpet.’
He tottered.
‘What?’
‘Had a sort of fit or seizure, you know.’
‘Another!’ Sir Roderick drew a deep breath. ‘And this is the man I was about to allow my daughter to marry!’ I heard him mutter.
I tapped him in a kindly spirit on the shoulder. It took some doing, mark you, but I did it.
‘If I were you,’ I said, ‘I should call that off. Scratc
h the fixture. Wash it out absolutely, is my advice.’
He gave me a nasty look.
‘I do not require your advice, Mr Wooster! I had already arrived independently at the decision of which you speak. Mr Wooster, you are a friend of this man – a fact which should in itself have been sufficient warning to me. You will – unlike myself – be seeing him again. Kindly inform him, when you do see him, that he may consider his engagement at an end.’
‘Right ho,’ I said, and hurried off after the crowd. It seemed to me that a little bailing-out might be in order.
It was about an hour later that I shoved my way out to where I had parked the car. Jeeves was sitting in the front seat, brooding over the cosmos. He rose courteously as I approached.
‘You are leaving, sir?’
‘I am.’
‘And Sir Roderick, sir?’
‘Not coming. I am revealing no secrets, Jeeves, when I inform you that he and I have parted brass rags. Not on speaking terms now.’
‘Indeed, sir? And Mr Biffen? Will you wait for him?’
‘No. He’s in prison.’
‘Really, sir?’
‘Yes. I tried to bail him out, but they decided on second thoughts to coop him up for the night.’
‘What was his offence, sir?’
‘You remember that girl of his I was telling you about? He found her in a tank at the Palace of Beauty and went after her by the quickest route, which was via a plate-glass window. He was then scooped up and borne off in irons by the constabulary.’ I gazed sideways at him. It is difficult to bring off a penetrating glance out of the corner of your eye, but I managed it. ‘Jeeves,’ I said, ‘there is more in this than the casual observer would suppose. You told Mr Biffen to go to the Palace of Beauty. Did you know the girl would be there?’
‘Yes, sir.’
This was most remarkable and rummy to a degree.
‘Dash it, do you know everything?’
‘Oh, no, sir,’ said Jeeves with an indulgent smile. Humouring the young master.
‘Well, how did you know that?’
‘I happen to be acquainted with the future Mrs Biffen, sir.’