“Bingo,” I said, as we pushed forth to do our bit in the first doubles, “I wonder what young Thos will be up to this afternoon, with the eye of authority no longer on him?”
“Eh?” said Bingo, absently. Already the tennis look had come into his face, and his eye was glazed. He swung his racket and snorted a little.
“I don’t see him anywhere,” I said.
“You don’t what?”
“See him.”
“Who?”
“Young Thos.”
“What about him?”
I let it go.
The only consolation I had in the black period of the opening of the tourney was the fact that the Right Hon. had taken a seat among the spectators and was wedged in between a couple of females with parasols. Reason told me that even a kid so steeped in sin as young Thomas would hardly perpetrate any outrage on a man in such a strong strategic position. Considerably relieved, I gave myself up to the game; and was in the act of putting it across the local curate with a good deal of vim when there was a roll of thunder and the rain started to come down in buckets.
We all stampeded for the house, and had gathered in the drawing-room for tea, when suddenly Aunt Agatha, looking up from a cucumber-sandwich, said:—
“Has anybody seen Mr. Filmer?”
It was one of the nastiest jars I have ever experienced. What with my fast serve zipping sweetly over the net and the man of God utterly unable to cope with my slow bending return down the centre-line, I had for some little time been living, as it were, in another world. I now came down to earth with a bang: and my slice of cake, slipping from my nerveless fingers, fell to the ground and was wolfed by Aunt Agatha’s spaniel, Robert. Once more I seemed to become conscious of an impending doom.
For this man Filmer, you must understand, was not one of those men who are lightly kept from the tea-table. A hearty trencherman, and particularly fond of his five o’clock couple of cups and bite of muffin, he had until this afternoon always been well up among the leaders in the race for the food-trough. If one thing was certain, it was that only the machinations of some enemy could be keeping him from being in the drawing-room now, complete with nosebag.
“He must have got caught in the rain and be sheltering somewhere in the grounds,” said Aunt Agatha. “Bertie, go out and find him. Take a raincoat to him.”
“Right-ho!” I said. And I meant it. My only desire in life now was to find the Right Hon. And I hoped it wouldn’t be merely his body.
I put on a raincoat and tucked another under my arm, and was sallying forth, when in the hall I ran into Jeeves.
“Jeeves,” I said, “I fear the worst. Mr. Filmer is missing.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I am about to scour the grounds in search of him.”
“I can save you the trouble, sir. Mr. Filmer is on the island in the middle of the lake.”
“In this rain? Why doesn’t the chump row back?”
“He has no boat, sir.”
“Then how can he be on the island?”
“He rowed there, sir. But Master Thomas rowed after him and set his boat adrift. He was informing me of the circumstances a moment ago, sir. It appears that Captain Flint was in the habit of marooning people on islands, and Master Thomas felt that he could pursue no more judicious course than to follow his example.”
“But, good Lord, Jeeves! The man must be getting soaked.”
“Yes, sir. Master Thomas commented upon that aspect of the matter.”
It was a time for action.
“Come with me, Jeeves!”
“Very good, sir.”
I buzzed for the boathouse.
My Aunt Agatha’s husband, Spenser Gregson, who is on the Stock Exchange, had recently cleaned up to an amazing extent in Sumatra Rubber; and Aunt Agatha, in selecting a country estate, had lashed out on an impressive scale. There were miles of what they call rolling parkland, trees in considerable profusion well provided with doves and whatnot cooing in no uncertain voice, gardens full of roses, and also stables, outhouses, and messuages, the whole forming a rather fruity tout ensemble. But the feature of the place was the lake.
It stood to the east of the house, beyond the rose garden, and covered several acres. In the middle of it was an island. In the middle of the island was a building known as the Octagon. And in the middle of the Octagon, seated on the roof and spouting water like a public fountain, was the Right Hon. A. B. Filmer. As we drew nearer, striking a fast clip with self at the oars and Jeeves handling the tiller-ropes, we heard cries of gradually increasing volume, if that’s the expression I want; and presently, up aloft, looking from a distance as if he were perched on top of the bushes, I located the Right Hon. It seemed to me that even a Cabinet Minister ought to have had more sense than to stay right out in the open like that, when there were trees to shelter under.
“A little more to the right, Jeeves.”
“Very good, sir.”
I made a neat landing.
“Wait here, Jeeves.”
“Very good, sir. The head gardener was informing me this morning, sir, that one of the swans had recently nested on this island.”
“This is no time for natural history gossip, Jeeves,” I said, a little severely, for the rain was coming down harder than ever and the Wooster trouser-legs were already considerably moistened.
“Very good, sir.”
I pushed my way through the bushes. The going was sticky and took about eight and elevenpence off the value of my Sure-Grip tennis shoes in the first two yards: but I persevered and presently came out in the open and found myself in a sort of clearing facing the Octagon.
This building was run up somewhere in the last century, I have been told, to enable the grandfather of the late owner to have some quiet place out of earshot of the house where he
