“Yes, sir?” said Jeeves.
“Oh—ah—yes,” I said, giving myself a bit of a hitch up. “Where had I got to?”
“You were saying that Mr. Sipperley is practically dependent upon Miss Sipperley, sir.”
“Was I?”
“You were, sir.”
“You’re perfectly right. So I was. Well, then, you can readily understand, Jeeves, that he has got to take jolly good care to keep in with her. You get that?”
Jeeves nodded.
“Now mark this closely: The other day she wrote to old Sippy, telling him to come down and sing at her village concert. It was equivalent to a royal command, if you see what I mean, so Sippy couldn’t refuse in so many words. But he had sung at her village concert once before and had got the bird in no uncertain manner, so he wasn’t playing any return dates. You follow so far, Jeeves?”
Jeeves nodded.
“So what did he do, Jeeves? He did what seemed to him at the moment a rather brainy thing. He told her that, while he would have been delighted to sing at her village concert, by a most unfortunate chance an editor had commissioned him to write a series of articles on the Colleges of Cambridge, and he was obliged to pop down there at once and would be away for quite three weeks. All clear up to now?”
Jeeves inclined the coconut.
“Whereupon, Jeeves, Miss Sipperley wrote back saying that she quite realized that work must come before pleasure—pleasure being her loose way of describing the act of singing songs at the Beckley-on-the-Moor concert and getting the laugh from the local toughs; but that, if he was going to Cambridge, he must certainly stay with her friends, the Pringles, at their house just outside the town. And she dropped them a line telling them to expect him on the twenty-eighth, and they dropped another line saying right-ho, and the thing was settled. And now, Mr. Sipperley is in the jug, and what will be the ultimate outcome or upshot? Jeeves, it is a problem worthy of your great intellect. I rely on you.”
“I will do my best to justify your confidence, sir.”
“Carry on, then. And, meanwhile, pull down the blinds and bring a couple more cushions and heave that small chair this way so that I can put my feet up, and then go away and brood and let me hear from you in—say—a couple of hours. Or, maybe, three. And if anybody calls and wants to see me, inform them that I am dead.”
“Dead, sir?”
“Dead. You won’t be so far wrong.”
It must have been well towards evening when I woke up with a crick in my neck, but otherwise somewhat refreshed. I pressed the bell.
“I looked in twice, sir,” said Jeeves, “but on each occasion you were asleep and I did not like to disturb you.”
“The right spirit, Jeeves. … Well?”
“I have been giving close thought to the little problem which you indicated, sir, and I can see only one solution.”
“One is enough. What do you suggest?”
“That you go to Cambridge in Mr. Sipperley’s place, sir.”
I stared at the man. Certainly I was feeling a good deal better than I had been a few hours before, but I was far from being in a fit condition to have rot like this talked to me.
“Jeeves,” I said, sternly, “pull yourself together. This is mere babble from the sickbed.”
“I fear I can suggest no other plan of action, sir, which will extricate Mr. Sipperley from his dilemma.”
“But think! Reflect! Why, even I, in spite of having had a disturbed night and a most painful morning with the minions of the Law, can see that the scheme is a loony one. To put the finger on only one leak in the thing, it isn’t me these people want to see, it’s Mr. Sipperley. They don’t know me from Adam.”
“So much the better, sir. For what I am suggesting is that you go to Cambridge affecting actually to be Mr. Sipperley.”
This was too much.
“Jeeves,” I said, and I’m not half sure there weren’t tears in my eyes, “surely you can see for yourself that this is pure banana-oil. It is not like you to come into the presence of a sick man and gibber.”
“I think the plan I have suggested would be practicable, sir. While you were sleeping I was able to have a few words with Mr. Sipperley, and he informed me that Professor and Mrs. Pringle have not set eyes upon him since he was a lad of ten.”
“No, that’s true. He told me that. But, even so, they would be sure to ask him questions about my aunt—or, rather, his aunt. Where would I be then?”
“Mr. Sipperley was kind enough to give me a few facts respecting Miss Sipperley, sir, which I jotted down. With these, added to what my cousin has told me of the lady’s habits, I think you would be in a position to answer any ordinary question.”
There is something dashed insidious about Jeeves. Time and again since we first came together he has stunned me with some apparently drivelling suggestion or scheme or ruse or plan of campaign, and after about five minutes has convinced me that it is not only sound, but fruity. It took nearly a quarter of an hour to reason me into this particular one, it being considerably the weirdest to date; but he did it. I was holding out pretty firmly, when he suddenly clinched the thing.
“I would certainly suggest, sir,” he said, “that you left London as soon as possible and remained hid for some little time in some retreat where you would not be likely to be found.”
“Eh? Why?”
“During the last hour Mrs. Spencer has been on the telephone three times, sir, endeavouring to get into communication with you.”
“Aunt Agatha!” I cried, paling beneath my tan.
“Yes, sir. I gathered from her remarks that she had been reading in the evening paper a report of this morning’s proceedings in the police court.”
I hopped from the chair like a jackrabbit of the prairie. If Aunt Agatha was out with her hatchet,
