Thank You, Jeeves

potting-shed of Constable Dobson.'

'Very true, Jeeves.'

'He represents the crux, if I may say so.'

'Certainly you may say so, Jeeves. Another way of putting it would be 'the snag'?'

'Precisely, sir. Our first move, accordingly, must be to eliminate Constable Dobson.'

'That's what I said,' put in old Stoker rather querulously. And you wouldn't listen to me.'

I squelched him.

'You wanted to hit him over the head with a spade or something. All wrong. What is needed here is ... what's the word, Jeeves?'

'Finesse, sir.'

'Exactly. Carry on, Jeeves.'

'This, in my opinion, may be readily accomplished by sending word to him that the parlourmaid, Mary, wishes to see him in the raspberry bushes.'

I was stunned by the man's sagacity, but not so stunned as to be unable to turn to the others and add an explanatory footnote.

'This Mary, this parlourmaid,' I said, 'is betrothed to the blighter Dobson, and while I have only seen her in the distance, I can testify that she is exactly the sort of girl any red-blooded constable would come leaping into the raspberry bushes to meet. Full of sex appeal, eh, Jeeves?'

'An exceedingly attractive young woman, sir. And I think that we might make matters even more certain by including in the message a word to the effect that she had a cup of coffee and a ham sandwich for him. The constable, I find, has not yet breakfasted.'

I winced.

'Skim lightly over this bit, Jeeves. I am not made of marble.'

'I beg your pardon, sir. I was forgetting.'

'Quite all right, Jeeves. You will have to square Mary, of course?'

'No, sir. I have been canvassing her views, and I find that she is extremely eager to convey refreshment to the officer. I would suggest giving her a message – ostensibly from the latter – to the effect that he is waiting at the spot indicated.'

I had to interrupt.

'A snag, Jeeves. A crux, in fact. If he wanted food, why wouldn't he come straight to the house?'

'He would be apprehensive of being observed by Sergeant Voules, sir. He is under strict orders from his superior to remain at his post.'

'Then would he leave it?' asked Chuffy.

'My dear old man,' I said. 'He has not yet breakfasted. And this girl will be dripping with coffee and ham sandwiches. Don't hold up the run of the dialogue with foolish questions. Yes, Jeeves?'

'In his absence, sir, it would be a simple task to remove Sir Roderick and lead him to some place of concealment. His lordship's bedroom suggests itself

'And Dobson wouldn't have the nerve to confess that he had abandoned the post of duty. That's what you're driving at?'

'Precisely, sir, his lips would be sealed.'

Old Stoker shoved himself forward again.

'No good,' he said. 'Wouldn't work. I'm not saying we couldn't get Glossop away, but the cops would see that there had been funny business. Their man would have gone, and they'd figure it out that somebody had got him away. They would put two and two together and get wise to us having done it. Last night, for example, on my yacht ...'

He stopped, not wishing, I suppose, to disinter the dead past, but I saw what he meant. When I had got away from the yacht, it hadn't taken him long to see that Jeeves must have been at the bottom of it.

'It's a point, Jeeves,' I was bound to say. 'The constabulary might not be able to do anything definite, but they would talk about it, and before we knew where we were, the story would be out that Sir Roderick had been roaming around with his face blacked up. The local paper would get hold of it. One of those gossip-writers you find at the Drones, always waiting with their ears flapping for good stuff about the eminent, would hear of it, and then we should be just as badly off as if the old boy went and picked oakum at Dartmoor or somewhere for years.'

'No, sir. The officers would find a prisoner in the shed. I would advocate substituting you for Sir Roderick.'

I stared at the man.

'Me?'

'It is vital, if I may be allowed to point it out, sir, that a black-faced prisoner be found in the shed when the moment arrives for the accused to be conducted before his lordship.'

'But I don't look like old Glossop. We're built on different lines. Me – slender and willowy; him ... well, I don't wish to say anything derogatory concerning one who is bound to the aunt of an old friend by ties warmer than those of ... well, what I'm driving at is that you couldn't by any stretch of the imag. call him slender and willowy.'

'You are forgetting, sir, that only Constable Dobson has actually seen the prisoner; and his lips, as I say, will be sealed.'

It was true. I had forgotten that.

'Yes, but, Jeeves, dash it, anxious as I am to bring aid and comfort to this stricken home, I'm not so bally keen on doing five years in the jug for burglary.'

'There is no danger of that, sir. The building into which Sir Roderick was breaking at the moment of his arrest was your own garage.'

'But, Jeeves. Reflect. Consider. Review the position. Am I supposed to have allowed myself to be pinched for breaking into my own garage and shut up in a shed all night without saying a word? It isn't ... what is it ... it isn't plausible.'

'It is only necessary to induce Sergeant Voules to believe it, sir. What the constable may think is immaterial, owing to the fact that his lips are sealed.'

'But Voules wouldn't believe it for a minute.'

'Oh, yes, sir. I fancy that he is under the impression that it is a frequent practice of yours to sleep in sheds.'

Chuffy uttered a glad cry.

'Of course. He'll just take it for granted that you've been mopping it up again.'

I was frigid.

'Oh?' I said, and you couldn't have described my voice as anything but caustic. 'So I am to go down in the history of Chuffnell Regis as one of our leading dipsomaniacs?'

'He may just think him potty,' suggested Pauline.

'That's right,' said Chuffy. He turned to me pleadingly. 'Bertie,' he said, 'you aren't going to tell me at this time of day that you have any objection to being considered ...'

'... Mentally negligible,' said Pauline.

'Exactly,' said Chuffy. 'Of course you'll do it. What, Bertie Wooster? Sacrifice himself to a little temporary inconvenience to save his friends? Why, he jumps at that sort of job.'

'Springs at it,' said Pauline.

'Leaps at it,' said Chuffy.

'I've always thought he was a fine young fellow,' said old Stoker. 'I remember thinking so the first time I met him.'

'So did I,' said Lady Chuffnell. 'So different from so many of these modern young men.'

'I liked his face.'

'I have always liked his face.'

My head was swimming a bit. It isn't often I get as good a Press as this, and the old salve was beginning to unman me. I tried feebly to stem the tide.

'Yes, but listen ...'

'I was at school with Bertie Wooster,' said Chuffy. 'I like to think of it. At private school and also at Eton and