about right if you said that it seemed to speak to my very depths.
Inside the room, a parlourmaid was placing a large tray on a table.
The sunlight, streaming in, lit up this parlourmaid's hair: and, noting its auburn hue, I deduced that she must be Mary, the betrothed of Constable Dobson: and at any other time the fact would have been of interest. But I was in no mood now to subject the girl to a critical scrutiny with a view to ascertaining whether the constable had picked a winner or not. My whole attention was earmarked for that tray.
It was a well-laden tray. There was a coffee-pot on it, also toast in considerable quantity, and furthermore a covered dish. It was this last that touched the spot. Under that cover there might be eggs, there might be bacon, there might be sausages, there might be kidneys, or there might be kippers. I could not tell. But whatever there was it was all right with Bertram.
For I had laid my plans and formed my schemes. The girl was on her way out by this time, and I estimated that I had possibly fifty seconds for the stern task before me. Allow twenty for nipping in, three for snaffling the works, and another twenty-five for getting back into the bushes again, and one had all the makings of a successful enterprise.
The moment the door closed I was speeding on my way. I recked little whether anybody saw me, and I should imagine that, had there been eyewitnesses, all they would have seen would have been a sort of blur. I did the first leg of the journey well inside the estimated time, and I had just laid hand on the tray and was about to lift and remove, when there came from outside the door the sound of footsteps.
It was a moment for swift thought, and such moments find Bertram Wooster at his best.
This morning-room, I should mention, was not the small morning-room where Dwight and little Seabury had had their epoch-making turn-up. In fact, I am rather misleading my public in alluding to it as a morning-room at all. It was really a study or office, being the place where Chuffy did his estate business, totted up his bills, brooded over the growing cost of agricultural apparatus, and gave the tenants the bird when they called to ask him to knock a bit off their rent. And as you can't get very far with that sort of thing unless you have a pretty good-sized desk, Chuffy had most fortunately had one put in. It stood across one whole corner of the room, and it seemed to beckon to me.
Two and a half seconds later, I was behind it, crouching on the carpet and trying to breathe solely through the pores.
The next moment, the door opened and somebody came in. Feet crossed the floor, right up to the desk, and I heard the click as the hidden hand removed the telephone receiver.
'Chuffnell Regis, two-niyun-four,' said a voice, and conceive the sudden rush of relief when I recognized it as one that I had many a time shaken hands with in the past – the voice, in short, of a friend in need.
'Oh, Jeeves,' I said, popping up like a jack-in-the-box.
You can't rattle Jeeves. Where scullery-maids had had hysterics and members of the Peerage had leaped and quivered, he simply regarded me with respectful serenity and, after a civil good morning, went on with the job in hand. He is a fellow who likes to do things in their proper order.
'Chuffnell Regis two-niyun-four? The Seaview Hotel? Could you inform me if Sir Roderick Glossop is in his room? ... Not yet returned? ... Thank you.'
He hung up the receiver, and was now at liberty to give the late young master a spot of attention.
'Good morning, sir,' he said again. 'I was not expecting to see you here.'
'I know, but ...'
'I had supposed that the arrangement was that we should meet at the Dower House.'
I shuddered a bit.
'Jeeves,' I said, 'one brief word about the Dower House, and then I should like the subject shelved indefinitely. I know you meant well. I know that when you sent me there your motives were pure to the last drop. But the fact remains that you were dispatching me to a nasty salient. Do you know who was lurking in that House of Fear? Brinkley. Complete with chopper.'
'I am very sorry to hear that, sir. Then I assume that you did not sleep there last night?'
'No, Jeeves, I did not. I slept – if you can call it sleeping – in a summer-house. And I was just creeping round through the bushes to try to find you, when I saw that parlourmaid setting out food on the table in here.'
'His lordship's breakfast, sir.'
'Where is he?'
'He should be down shortly, sir. It is a most fortunate chance that her ladyship should have instructed me to ring up the Seaview Hotel. Otherwise we might have experienced some difficulty in establishing connection.'
'Yes. What was all that, by the way? That Seaview Hotel stuff.'
'Her ladyship is somewhat exercised in her mind about Sir Roderick, sir. I fancy that on reflection she has reached the conclusion that she did not treat him well last night.'
'Mother Love not so hot this morning?'
'No, sir.'
'And it's a case of 'Return and all will be forgiven'?'
'Precisely, sir. But unfortunately, Sir Roderick appears to be missing, and we can secure no information as to what has become of him.'
I was in a position, of course, to explain and clarify, and I did so without delay.
'He's all right. After an invigorating session with Brinkley, he went to my garage to get petrol. Was he correct in supposing that that would clean him as well as butter?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Then I should think he was on his way to London by now, if not actually in the Metropolis.'
'I will notify her ladyship at once, sir. I imagine that the information will serve sensibly to lessen her anxiety.'
'You really think she loves him still and wishes to extend the
'Or olive branch? Yes, sir. So, at least, I divined from her demeanour. I was left with the impression that all the old love and esteem were in operation once more.'
'And I'm very glad to hear it,' I said cordially. 'For I must tell you, Jeeves, that since we last got together I have completely changed my mind about the above Glossop. I see now that there is much good in him. In the silent watches of the night we formed what you wouldn't be far out in describing as a beautiful friendship. We discovered each other's hidden merits, and he left showering invitations to lunch.'
'Indeed, sir?'
'Absolutely. From now on, there will always be a knife and fork for Bertram at the Glossop lair, and the same for Roddy
'Very gratifying, sir.'
'Most. So if you're chatting with Lady Chuffnell in the near future, you can tell her that the match now has my full approval and sanction. But all this, Jeeves,' I proceeded, striking the practical note, 'is beside the point. The main issue is that I am sorely in need of nourishment, and I want that tray. So hand it across and look slippy.'
'You are proposing to eat his lordship's breakfast, sir?'
'Jeeves,' I said emotionally, and was about to go on to add that, if he had any doubts as to what I was proposing to do to that breakfast, he could remove them by standing to one side and watching me get action, when once more I heard footsteps in the passage outside.
Instead of speaking along these lines, accordingly, I blenched, as near as a fellow can blench when his face is all covered with boot polish, and broke off with a brief heart cry. Once more I perceived that it had become imperative that I vanish from the scene.
These footsteps, I must mention, were of the solid, sturdy, shoe-number-eleven type. It was natural, therefore, that I should assume that it was Chuffy who now stood without. And to encounter Chuffy, I need scarcely say, would have been foreign to my policy. I have already indicated with, I think, sufficient clearness, that he was not in sympathy with my aims and objects. That interview we had had on the previous night had shown me that he was to be reckoned as essentially one of the opposition – a hostile element and a menace. Let him discover me here, and the first thing I knew he would be locking me up somewhere in a spirit of chivalrous zeal and sending messengers to old Stoker to drop round and collect.
Long, therefore, before the handle had turned I was down in the depths like a diving duck.
