Thank You, Jeeves

It was a note from Pauline Stoker.

Dear Bertie,

You were right about it being cold. I couldn't face the swim. But there's a boat down by the landing stage. I shall row to the yacht and set it adrift. I've come back to borrow your overcoat. I didn't want to disturb you, so I climbed in through the window. I'm afraid you will have to sacrifice the coat, as of course I shall have to throw it overboard when I get to the yacht. Sorry.

P.S.

You notice the style? Curt. Staccato. Evidence of the wounded heart and the heavy mind. I felt sorrier for her than ever, but glad she probably wasn't going to get a cold in the head. As for the coat, a careless shrug of the shoulders covered that. I did not grudge it her, though new and silk-lined. Only too pleased, about summed up my attitude in the matter.

I tore up the note and returned to my spot.

There is nothing like a strong w-and-s for calming the system. In about another quarter of an hour I was feeling so soothed that I could contemplate bed once more, this time confident that the betting was at least eight to three that a refreshing slumber would be my portion.

I rose accordingly, and was just about to ankle upstairs, when for the second time that night there was the dickens of a knocking on the front door.

I don't know that you would call me an irascible man. I rather think not. Ask them about me at the Drones, and they will probably tell you that Bertram Wooster, wind and weather permitting, is as a general rule suavity itself. But, as I had been compelled to show Jeeves in the matter of the banjolele, I can be pushed too far. It was with drawn brow and cold eye that I now undid the chain. I was just about ready to give Sergeant Voules – for I assumed that it was he – the ticking-off of a lifetime.

'Voules,' I was preparing to say, 'enough is enough. This police persecution must stop. It is monstrous and uncalled-for. We are not in Russia, Voules. There are such things, I would have you remember, Voules, as strong letters to The Times!

That, or something like it, is what I would have said to Sergeant Voules: and what caused me to refrain was not weakness or pity, but the fact that the man attached to the knocker wasn't Voules at all. It was J. Washburn Stoker, and he was regarding me with a sort of hard-boiled fury which, but for the fact that I had just finished a life-giving snort and knew that his daughter Pauline was safely off the premises, would undoubtedly have tickled me up not a little.

As it was, I remained tranquil.

'Yes?' I said.

I had packed so much cold surprise and hauteur into the word that a lesser man might well have keeled over backwards as if hit by a bullet. J. W. Stoker took it without blinking. He pushed past me into the house, then turned and grabbed me by the shoulder.

'Now, then!' he said.

I disengaged myself coldly. I had to wriggle out of my pyjama jacket to do so, but I managed it.

'I beg your pardon?'

'Where's my daughter?'

'Your daughter Pauline?'

'I have only one daughter.'

'And you ask me where this one daughter is?'

'I know where she is.'

'Then why did you ask?'

'She's here.'

'Then give me my pyjama jacket and tell her to come in,' I said.

I've never actually seen a man grind his teeth, so I wouldn't care to state definitely that this is what J. Washburn Stoker did at this juncture. He may have done. He may not have done. All I can say authoritatively is that the muscles stood out on his cheeks and his jaws began to work as if he were chewing gum. It was not a pleasant spectacle, but thanks to the fact that I had mixed that whisky and splash particularly strong so as to facilitate sleep I was enabled to endure it with fortitude and phlegm.

'She's in this house!' he said, continuing to grind, if he was grinding.

'What makes you think that?'

'I'll tell you what makes me think that. I went to her stateroom half an hour ago, and it was empty.'

'But why on earth should you suppose she's come here?'

'Because I know she's infatuated with you.'

'Not at all. She regards me as a sister.'

'I am going to search this house.'

'Charge right ahead.'

He dashed upstairs and I returned to my spot. Not the same spot. Another one. I felt that in the circumstances a repeat was justified. And presently my visitor, who had gone up like a lion, came down like a lamb. I suppose a parent who has barged into a comparative stranger's cottage in the small hours in search of a missing daughter and finds the place completely free from daughters, feels more or less of a silly ass. I know I should, and apparently this Stoker did, for he shuffled a bit and I could see that a lot of the steam or motive force had gone out of him.

'I owe you an apology, Mr Wooster.'

'Don't give it a thought.'

'I took it for granted when I found Pauline gone ...'

'Dismiss the whole thing from your mind. Might have happened to anybody. Faults on both sides and so forth. You'll have a certain something before you go?'

It seemed to me that it would be a prudent move to detain him on the premises for as long as possible, so as to give Pauline plenty of time to get back to the old boat. But he wouldn't be tempted. His mind was evidently too occupied for spots.

'It beats me where she can have gone,' he said, and you would have been astounded at the mildness and even chummy pathos with which he spoke. It was as if Bertram had been some wise old friend to whom he was bringing his little troubles. The man seemed positively punctured. A child could have played with him.

I endeavoured to throw out a word of cheer.

'I expect she's gone for a swim.'

'At this time of night?'

'Girls do rummy things.'

'And she's a curious girl. This infatuation of hers for you, for instance.'

This seemed to me lacking in tact, and I would have frowned slightly, had I not remembered that I wished to disabuse him, if disabuse is what I'm driving at, of the idea that any such infatuation existed.

'Correct this notion that Miss Stoker is under my fatal spell,' I urged him. 'She laughs herself sick at the sight of me.'

'I did not get that impression this afternoon.'

'Oh, that? Just brother and sister stuff. It shan't occur again.'

'It had better not,' he said, returning for a moment to what I might call his earlier manner. 'Well, I won't keep you up, Mr Wooster. I apologize again for making a darned fool of myself

I did not quite slap him on the back, but I made a sort of back-slapping gesture.

'Not at all,' I said. 'Not at all. I wish I had a quid for every time I've made a darned fool of myself.'

And on these cordial terms we parted. He went down the garden path, and I, having waited up about ten minutes on the chance that somebody else might come paying a social call, drained my glass and popped up to bed.

Something attempted, something done, had earned a night's repose, or as near as you can get to a night's repose in a place full of Stokers and Paulines and Vouleses and Chuffys and Dobsons. It was not long before the weary eyelids closed and I was off.