obdurate ...'
'Oh, nothing could happen to anyone in a place like Chuffnell Regis.'
'Don't you believe it, sir. Chuffnell Regis is going down. I would never have thought to have seen a troupe of nigger minstrels singing comic songs within a stone's throw of my police station.'
'You view them with concern?'
'There's been fowls missing,' said Sergeant Voules darkly. 'Several fowls. And I have my suspicions. Well, come along, Constable. If we're to be shackled, there's nothing to keep us here. Good night, sir.'
'Good night.'
I shut the door and buzzed back to the bedroom. Pauline was sitting up in bed, more or less agog.
'Who was it?'
'The constabulary.'
'What did they want?'
'Apparently they saw you getting in.'
'What a lot of trouble I'm giving you, Bertie.'
'Oh, no. Only too pleased. Well, I suppose I might as well be pushing along.'
'Are you going?'
'In the circumstances,' I replied a little frigidly, 'I can hardly doss on the premises. I shall withdraw to the garage.'
'Isn't there a sofa downstairs?'
'There is. Noah's. He brought it ashore on Mount Ararat. I shall be better off in the car.'
'Oh, Bertie, I
I softened slightly. After all, the poor girl was scarcely to be blamed for what had occurred. As Chuffy had remarked earlier in the evening, love's love.
'Don't you worry, old thing. We Woosters can rough it when it is a matter of giving two fond hearts a leg-up. You put your little head on the pillow and curl your little pink toes up and doze off. I shall be all right.'
And, so saying, I uncorked a kindly smile, popped off, trickled down the stairs, opened the front door, and out into the scented night; and I don't suppose I was a dozen yards from the house when a heavy hand fell on my shoulder, occasioning me both mental and physical distress, and a shadowy form said, 'Gotcher!'
'Ouch!' I replied.
The shadowy form now revealed itself as that of Constable Dobson of the Chuffnell Regis police force. He was in apologetic vein.
'I'm sure I beg your pardon, sir. I thought you was the marauder.'
I forced myself to be airy and affable. The young squire setting the lower orders at their ease.
'Quite all right, Constable. Quite all right. Just going for a stroll.'
'I understand, sir. Breath of air.'
'You have put it in a nutshell. A breath, as you astutely observe, of air. The house is quite close.'
'Yes, sir. Just over there.'
'I mean stuffy.'
'Oh, yes, sir. Well, good night, sir.'
'Tra-la, Constable.'
I proceeded on my way, a little shaken. I had left the garage door open, and I felt my way to the old two- seater, glad to be alone once more. In certain moods, no doubt, one would have found Constable Dobson a delightful and stimulating companion, but to-night I preferred his absence. I climbed into the car and, leaning back, endeavoured to compose myself for sleep.
Now, whether I should have been able to achieve the dreamless had the conditions remained right, I cannot say. The point is pretty moot. As two-seaters go, I had always found mine fairly comfortable, but then I had never before tried to get the eight hours in it, and you would be surprised at the number of knobs and protuberances which seem suddenly to sprout out of a car's upholstery when you seek to convert it into a bed.
But, as it happened, I was not given a square chance of making the test. I don't suppose I could have counted more than about a platoon and a half of sheep when a light suddenly flashed on the features and a voice instructed me to come on out of it.
I sat up.
'Ah, Sergeant!' I said.
Another awkward meeting. Embarrassment on both sides.
'Is that you, sir?'
'Yes.'
'Sorry to have disturbed you, sir.'
'Not at all.'
'Can't say it occurred to me that it might be you in here, sir.'
'I thought I'd try to get a bit of sleep in the old car, Sergeant.'
'Yes, sir.'
'Such a warm night.'
'Just so, sir.'
His voice was respectful, but I could not conquer a suspicion that he was beginning to look a bit askance. There was something in his manner that gave me the idea that he considered Bertram eccentric.
'Stuffy indoors.'
'Yes, sir?'
'I often park myself in the car in the summertime.'
'Yes, sir?'
'Good night, Sergeant.'
'Good night, sir.'
Well, you know how it is when someone butts in on you just as you are shaping for the beauty sleep. It breaks the spell, if you know what I mean. I curled up again, but I soon saw that all efforts in the direction of the restful night in my present environment would be fruitless. I counted about five more medium-sized flocks, but it was no good. Steps, I realized, would have to be taken through other channels.
I hadn't done a great deal of exploring in these grounds of mine, but it so happened that one morning a sharp shower had driven me to the shelter of a species of shed or outhouse down in the south-west corner of the estate where the gardener-by-the-day stacked his tools and flower-pots and what not. And, unless memory deceived me, there had been in that outhouse or shed a pile of sacking on the floor.
Well, you may say that sacking, considered in the light of a bed, isn't everybody's money, and in saying so you would be perfectly correct. But after half an hour in the seat of a Widgeon Seven, even sacking begins to look pretty good to you. It may be a little hardish on the frame, and it may smell a good deal of mice and the deep- delved earth, but there remains just one point to be put forward in its favour – viz. that it enables one to stretch the limbs. And stretching the limbs was the thing I felt now that I wanted to do most.
In addition to smelling of mice and mould, the particular segment of sacking on which some two minutes later I was reclining had a marked aroma of by-the-day gardener: and there was a moment when I had to ask myself if the mixture wasn't a shade too rich. But these things grow on one in time, and at the end of about a quarter of an hour I was rather enjoying the blend of scents than otherwise. I can recall inflating the lungs and more or less drinking it in. At the end of about half an hour a soothing drowsiness had begun to steal over me.
And at the end of about thirty-five minutes the door flew open and there was the old, familiar lantern shining in again.
'Ah!' said Sergeant Voules.
And Constable Dobson said the same.
I realized that the time had come to strike a forceful note with these two pests. I am all for not shackling the police, but what I maintain is that if the police come dodging about a householder's garden all night, routing him out every time he is on the point of snatching a little repose, they have jolly well got to be shackled.
'Yes?' I said, and there was a touch of the imperious old aristocrat in my manner. 'What is it now?'
Constable Dobson had been saying something in a pretty self-satisfied sort of way about having seen me
