question. Recalling our encounters of the previous night, he would view with concern. He would insist on my accompanying him to the police station while he sent for Chuffy to come and advise what to do for the best. Doctors would be summoned, ice packs applied. With the result that I would most certainly be confined to the neighbourhood quite long enough for old Stoker to discover that my room was empty and my bed had not been slept in and to come rushing ashore to scoop me up and carry me back to the yacht again.
On second thoughts, therefore, I said nothing. Merely breathed softly through the nose.
Outside the door, snappy dialogue was in progress; and I give you my honest word that, if I hadn't had authoritative information to the contrary, I should have said that this extraordinary bird, Brinkley, was as sober as a teetotal Girl Guide. All that one of the biggest toots in history had done to him was to put a sort of precise edge on his speech and cause him to articulate with a crystal clearness which was more like a silver bell than anything.
'The Devil is in there, murdering Mr Wooster, sir,' he was saying. And, except in radio announcers, I've never heard anything more beautifully modulated.
You would call that a fairly sensational announcement, I suppose; but it didn't seem to register immediately with Sergeant Voules. The sergeant was one of those men who like to take things in their proper order and tidy up as they go along; and for the moment, it seemed, he was interested exclusively in the carving knife.
'What are you doing with that knife?' he inquired.
Nothing could have been more civil and deferential than Brinkley's response.
'I caught it up to attack the Devil, sir.'
'What devil?' asked Sergeant Voules, taking the next point in rotation.
'A black devil, sir.'
'Black?'
'Yes, sir. He is in this room, murdering Mr Wooster.'
Now that he had at last got round to it, Sergeant Voules seemed interested.
'In this room?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Murdering Mr Wooster?'
'Yes, sir.'
'We can't have that sort of thing,' said Sergeant Voules, rather austerely. And I heard him click his tongue.
There was an authoritative rap on the door.
'Oy!'
I preserved a prudent silence.
'Excuse me, sir,' I heard Brinkley say, and from the sound of feet on the stairs I took it that he was leaving our little symposium. Possibly to have another go at the clock.
Knuckles smote the woodwork again.
'In there. Oy!'
I made no remark.
'Are you in there, Mr Wooster?'
I was beginning to feel that this conversation was a bit one- sided, but I didn't see what could be done about it. I moved to the window and looked out, more with the idea of just doing something to pass the time than anything else, and it was now – and only now, if you'll believe me – that the idea came to me that it might be possible to edge away from this distasteful scene. It wasn't so much of a drop to the ground, and with a good deal of relief I started to tie knots in a sheet with a view to the getaway.
It was at this moment that I heard Sergeant Voules suddenly give tongue.
'Oy!'
And from down below Brinkley's voice.
'Sir?'
'Look out what you're doing with that lamp.'
'Yes, sir.'
'You'll upset it.'
'Yes, sir.'
'Oy!'
'Sir?'
'You'll set the house on fire.'
'Yes, sir.'
And then there came a far-off crash of glass, and the sergeant went bounding down the stairs. This was followed by a sound which gave me the impression that Brinkley, feeling that he had done his bit, had galloped to the front door and slammed it after him. And after that another slam, as if the sergeant, too, had made a break for the open. And then, filtering through the keyhole, came a little puff of smoke.
I don't suppose there is anything that makes much better burning than one of these old country cottages. You just put a match to them – or upset a lamp in the hall, as the case may be – and up they go. It couldn't have been more than half a minute before a merry crackling came to my ears and a bit of the floor over in the corner suddenly burst into a cheerful flame.
It was enough for Bertram. A moment before, I had been messing about with knotted sheets with a view to what you might call the departure
I remember reading in a paper once one of those Interesting Problem things about Suppose You were in a Burning House, what would you save? If I recollect rightly, a baby entered into it. Also a priceless picture and, if I am not mistaken, a bedridden aunt. I know there was a wide choice, and you were supposed to knit the brow and think the thing out from every angle.
On the present occasion I did not hesitate. I looked round immediately for my banjolele. Conceive my dismay when I remembered that I had left it in the sitting-room.
Well, I wasn't going down to that sitting-room even for the faithful old musical instrument. Already it was beginning to be a very moot point whether I wouldn't get cooked to a crisp, because that genial glow over in the corner had now spread not a little. With a regretful sigh I hopped hurriedly to the window, and the next moment I was dropping like the gentle dew upon the place beneath.
Or is it rain? I always forget.
Jeeves would know.
I made a smooth landing and shot silently through the hedge at the junction between my back garden and Sergeant Voules's little bit, and continued to leg it till I was in a sort of wood – I suppose about half a mile from the pulsing centre of affairs. The sky was all lit up, and in the distance I could hear the sound of the local fire brigade going about its duties.
I sat down on a stump, and took time off to pass the situation under review.
Wasn't it Robinson Crusoe or someone who, when things were working out a bit messily for him, used to draw up a sort of Credit and Debit account, in order to see exactly where he stood and ascertain whether he was behind or ahead of the game at that particular moment? I know it was someone, and I had always thought it rather a sound idea.
This was what I did now. In my head, of course, and keeping a wary eye out for possible pursuers.
The thing came out about as follows:
