The Jeeves Omnibus (217 page)

‘There’s nothing I’d like better. He might listen to you.’

‘I will make a point of doing so at the earliest opportunity, sir.’

‘Thank you, Jeeves. It’s a black business, isn’t it?’

‘Extremely, sir.’

‘I don’t know when I’ve come across a blacker. Very, very murky everything is.’

‘With perhaps the exception of the affairs of Mr Pirbright, sir?’

‘Ah, yes, Catsmeat. I was informed of his lucky strike. His hat is on the side of his head, they tell me.’

‘It was distinctly in that position when I last saw him, sir.’

‘Well, that’s something. Yes, that cheers the heart a bit,’ I said, for even when preoccupied with the stickiness of their own concerns, the Woosters can always take time out to rejoice over a buddy’s bliss. ‘One may certainly chalk up Catsmeat’s happy ending as a ray of light. And you say that the village toughs are going to rally round Mr Haddock this evening?’

‘In impressive numbers, sir.’

‘Well, dash it, that’s two rays of light. And if you can talk Gussie out of making an ass of himself, that’ll be three. We’re getting on. All right, Jeeves, push off and see what you can do with him. I should imagine you will find him at the Vicarage.’

‘Very good, sir.’

‘Oh, and, Jeeves, most important. When at the Vicarage, get in touch with young Thos and remove from his possession a blunt instrument known as a cosh, which he has managed to acquire.
It’s
a species of rubber bludgeon, and you know as well as I do how reluctantly one would trust him with such a thing. You could go through the telephone book from A to Z without hitting on the name of anyone one wouldn’t prefer to see with his hooks on a rubber bludgeon. You will get an idea of what I mean when I tell you that he speaks freely of beaning Constable Dobbs with the weapon. So choke it out of him without fail. I shan’t be easy in my mind till I know you’ve got it.’

‘Very good, sir. I will give the matter my attention,’ he said and we parted with mutual civilities, he to do his day’s good deed at the Vicarage, I to resume my hoofing in the opposite direction.

And I had hoofed perhaps a matter of two hundred yards, when I was jerked out of the reverie into which I had fallen by a sight which froze the blood and caused the two eyes, like stars, to start from their spheres. I had seen Gussie coming out of a gate of a picturesque cottage standing back from the road behind a neat garden.

King’s Deverill was one of those villages where picturesque cottages breed like rabbits, but what distinguished this picturesque cottage from the others was that over its door were the Royal Arms and the words

And evidence that the above legend was not just a gag was supplied by the fact that accompanying Gussie, not actually with a hand on his collar and another gripping the seat of his trousers but so nearly so that the casual observer might have been excused for supposing that this was a pinch, was a stalwart figure in a blue uniform and a helmet, who could be no other than Constable Ernest Dobbs.

IT WAS THE
first time I had been privileged to see this celebrated rozzer, of whom I had heard so much, and I think that even had the circumstances been less tense I would have paused to get an eyeful, for his, like Silversmith’s, was a forceful personality, arresting the attention and causing the passer-by to draw the breath in quite a bit.

The sleepless guardian of the peace of King’s Deverill was one of those chunky, nobbly officers. It was as though Nature, setting out to assemble him, had said to herself ‘I will not skimp’. Nor had she done so, except possibly in the matter of height. I believe that in order to become a member of the Force you have to stand five feet nine inches in your socks, and Ernest Dobbs can only just have got his nose under the wire. But this slight perpendicular shortage had the effect of rendering his bulk all the more impressive. He was plainly a man who, had he felt disposed, could have understudied the village blacksmith and no questions asked, for it could be seen at a glance that the muscles of his brawny arms were strong as iron bands.

To increase the similarity, his brow at the moment was wet with honest sweat. He had the look of a man who has recently passed through some testing emotional experience. His eyes were aglow, his moustache a-bristle and his nose a-wiggle.

‘Grrh!’ he said and spat. Only that and nothing more. A man of few words, apparently, but a good spitter.

Gussie, having reached the great open spaces, smiled weakly. He, too, appeared to be in the grip of some strong emotion. And as I was, also, that made three of us.

‘Well, good day, officer,’ he said.

‘Good day, sir,’ said the constable shortly.

He went back into the cottage and banged the door, and I sprang at Gussie like a jumping bean.

‘What’s all this?’ I quavered.

The door of the cottage opened, and Constable Dobbs reappeared. He had a shovel in his hand, and in this shovel one
noted
what seemed to be frogs. Yes, on a closer inspection, definitely frogs. He gave the shovel a jerk, shooting the dumb chums through the air as if he had been scattering confetti. They landed on the grass and went about their business. The officer paused, directed a hard look at Gussie, spat once more with all the old force and precision and withdrew, and Gussie, removing his hat, wiped his forehead.

‘Let’s get out of this,’ he urged, and it was not until we were some quarter of a mile distant that he regained a certain measure of calm. He removed his glasses, polished them, replaced them on his nose and seemed the better for it. His breathing became more regular.

‘That was Constable Dobbs,’ he said.

‘So I deduced.’

‘From the uniform, no doubt?’

‘That and the helmet.’

‘Quite,’ said Gussie. ‘I see. Quite. I see. Quite. I see.’

It seemed possible that he would go rambling on like this for a goodish while, but after saying ‘Quite’ about another six times and ‘I see’ about another seven he snapped out of it.

‘Bertie,’ he said, ‘you have frequently been in the hands of the police, haven’t you?’

‘Not frequently. Once.’

‘It is a ghastly experience, is it not? Your whole life seems to rise before you. By Jove, I could do with a drink of orange juice!’

I paused for a moment, to allow a dizzy feeling to pass.

‘What was happening?’ I asked, when I felt stronger.

‘Eh?’

‘What had you been doing?’

‘Who, me?’

‘Yes, you.’

‘Oh,’ said Gussie in an offhand way, as if it were only what might have been expected of an English gentleman, ‘I had been strewing frogs.’

I goggled.

‘Doing
what
?’

‘Strewing frogs. In Constable Dobbs’s boudoir. The Vicar suggested it.’

‘The Vicar?’

‘I mean it was he who gave Corky the idea. She had been brooding a lot, poor girl, on Dobbs’s high-handed behaviour in connection with her dog, and last night the Vicar happened to speak of Pharaoh and all those Plagues he got when he wouldn’t let the Children of Israel go. You probably recall the incident? His words started a train of thought.
It
occurred to Corky that if Dobbs were visited by a Plague of Frogs, it might quite possibly change his heart and make him let Sam Goldwyn go. So she asked me to look in at his cottage and attend to the matter. She said it would please her and be good for Dobbs and would only take a few minutes of my time. She felt that the Plague of Lice might be even more effective, but she is a practical, clear-thinking girl and realized that lice are hard to come by, whereas you can find frogs in any hedgerow.’

Every mouse in my interior sprang into renewed life. With a strong effort I managed to refrain from howling like a lost soul. It seemed incredible to me that this super-goof should have gone through life all this while without fetching up in some loony bin. You would have thought that some such establishment as Colney Hatch, with its talent scouts out all over the place, would have snapped him up years ago.

‘Tell me exactly what happened. He caught you?’

‘Fortunately, no. He came in about half a minute too late. I had bided my time, and having ascertained that the cottage was empty I went in and distributed my frogs.’

‘And he was somewhere round the corner?’

‘Exactly. In a sort of shed place by the back door, where I think he must have been potting geraniums or something, for his hands were all covered with mould. I suppose he had come in to wash them. It was a most embarrassing moment. One didn’t quite know how to begin the conversation. Eventually I said “Oh, hallo, there you are!” and he stared at the frogs for some time, and then he said, “What’s all this?” They were hopping about a bit. You know how frogs hop.’

‘Hither and thither, you mean?’

‘That’s right. Hither and thither. Well, I kept my presence of mind. I said “What’s all what, officer?” And he said “All these frogs”. And I said “Ah, yes, there do seem to be quite a few frogs in here. You are fond of them?” He then asked if these frogs were my doing. And I said “In what sense do you use the word ‘doing’, officer?” and he said “Did you bring these frogs in here?” Well, then, I’m afraid, I wilfully misled him, for I said No. It went against the grain to tell a deliberate falsehood, of course, but I do think there are times when one is justified in –’

‘Get on!’

‘You bustle me so, Bertie. Where was I? Ah, yes. I said No, I couldn’t account for their presence in any way. I said it was just one of those things we should never be able to understand. Probably, I said, we were not meant to understand. And, of course, he could prove
nothing
. I mean, anyone could wander innocently into a room where there happened to be some frogs hopping about – the Archbishop of Canterbury or anyone. I think he must have appreciated this, for all he did was mutter something about it being a very serious offence to bring frogs into a police station and I said I supposed it was and what a pity one could never hope to catch the fellow who had done it. And then he asked me what I was doing there, and I said I had come to ask him to release Sam Goldwyn, and he said he wouldn’t because he had now established that the bite Sam had given him was his second bite and that the animal was in a very serious position. So I said “Oh, well, then, I think I’ll be going”, and I went. He came with me, as you saw, growling under his breath. I can’t say I liked the man. His manner is bad. Brusque. Abrupt. Not at all the sort of chap likely to win friends and influence people. Well, I suppose I had better be getting along and reporting to Corky. That stuff about the second bite will worry her, I’m afraid.’

Repeating his remark about being in the vein for a drink of orange juice, he set a course for the Vicarage and pushed off, and I resumed my progress to the Deverilleries, speculating dully as to what would be the next horror to come into my life. It only needed a meeting with Dame Daphne Winkworth, I felt sombrely, to put the tin hat on this dark day.

My aim was to sneak in unobserved, and it seemed at first as though luck were with me. From time to time, as I slunk through the grounds, keeping in the shelter of the bushes and trying not to let a twig snap beneath my feet, I could hear the distant baying of aunts, but I wasn’t spotted. With something approaching a ‘Tra-la’ on my lips I passed through the front door into the hall, and –
bing
– right in the middle of the fairway, arranging flowers at a table, Dame Daphne Winkworth.

Well, I suppose Napoleon or Attila the Hun or one of those fellows would just have waved a hand and said ‘Aha, there!’ and hurried on, but the feat was beyond me. Her eye, swivelling round, stopped me like a bullet. The Wedding Guest, if you remember, had the same trouble with the Ancient Mariner.

‘Ah, there you are, Augustus.’

It was fruitless to deny it. I stood on one leg and dashed a bead of persp from the brow.

‘I had no time to ask you last night. Have you written to Madeline?’

‘Oh, yes, rather.’

‘I hope you were properly apologetic.’

‘Oh, rather, yes.’

‘And why are you looking as if you had slept in your clothes?’ she asked, giving the upholstery a look of distaste.

The thing about the Woosters is that they know when to speak out and when not to speak out. Something told me that here was where manly frankness might pay dividends.

‘Well, as a matter of fact,’ I said, ‘I did. I ran up to Wimbledon last night on the milk train. To see Madeline, don’t you know. You know how it is. You can’t say all you want to in letters, and I thought … well, the personal touch, if you see what I mean.’

It couldn’t have gone better. I have never actually seen a shepherd welcoming a strayed lamb back into the fold, but I should imagine that his manner on such an occasion would closely parallel that of this female twenty-minute egg as she heard my words. The eyes softened. The face split in a pleased smile. That wrinkling of the nose which had been so noticeable a moment before, as if I had been an escape of gas or a not-quite-up-to-sample egg, disappeared totally. It would not be putting it too strongly to say that she beamed.

‘Augustus!’

‘I think it was a good move.’

‘It was, indeed. It is just the sort of thing that would appeal to Madeline’s romantic nature. Why, you are quite a Romeo, Augustus. In the
milk
train? You must have been travelling all night.’

‘Pretty well.’

‘You poor boy! I can see you’re worn out. I will ring for Silversmith to bring you some orange juice.’

She pressed the bell. There was a stage wait. She pressed it again, and there was another stage wait. She was on the point of giving it a third prod, when the hour produced the man. Uncle Charlie entered left, and I was amazed to see that there was an indulgent smile on his face. It is true that he switched it off immediately and resumed his customary aspect of a respectful chunk of dough, but the facial contortion had unquestionably been there.

‘I must apologize for my delay in answering the bell, m’lady,’ he said. ‘When your ladyship rang, I was in the act of making a speech, and it was not until some moments had elapsed that I became aware of the summons.’