"She gave me a couple of dances at the Oriel ball."
"So she did me. She said my dancing was so much better than the
average young man's."
"She told me I must have had a great deal of practice at waltzing."
"In the matter of photographs," said Tom, "she gave me one."
"Me, too."
"Do you mean 'also' or 'a brace'?" inquired Tom anxiously.
"'Also,'" confessed Dick with reluctance.
"Signed?"
"Rather!"
A third pause.
"I tell you what it is," said Tom; "we must agree on something, or we
shall both get left. All we're doing now is to confuse the poor girl.
She evidently likes us both the same. What I mean is, we're both so
alike that she can't possibly make a choice unless one of us chucks
it. You don't feel like chucking it, Dick. What?"
"You needn't be more of an idiot than you can help."
"I only asked. So we are evidently both determined to stick to it. We
shall have to toss, then, to settle which is to back out and give the
other man a show."
"Toss!" shouted Dick. "For Dolly! Never!"
"But we must do something. You won't back out like a sensible man. We
must settle it somehow."
"It's all right," said Dick. "I've got it. We both seem to have come
here and let ourselves in for this rotten little village match, on a
wicket which will probably be all holes and hillocks, simply for
Dolly's sake. So it's only right that we should let the match decide
this thing for us. It won't be so cold-blooded as tossing. See?"
"You mean - - ?"
"Whichever of us makes the bigger score today wins. The loser has to
keep absolutely off the grass. Not so much as a look or a remark about
the weather. Then, of course, after the winner has had his innings, if
he hasn't brought the thing off, and she has chucked him, the loser
can have a look in. But not a moment before. Understand?"
"All right."
"It'll give an interest to a rotten match," said Dick.
Tom rose to a point of order.
"There's one objection. You, being a stodgy sort of bat, and having a
habit of sitting on the splice, always get put in first. I'm a hitter,
so they generally shove me in about fourth wicket. In this sort of
match the man who goes in fourth wicket is likely to be not out half a
dozen at the end of the innings. Nobody stays in more than three
balls. Whereas you, going in first, will have time for a decent knock
before the rot starts. Follow?"
"I don't want to take any advantage of you," said Dick
condescendingly. "I shan't need it. We'll see Drew after breakfast and
get him to put us both in first."
The Rev. Henry Drew, cricketing curate, was the captain of the side.
Consulted on the matter after breakfast, the Rev. Henry looked grave.
He was taking this match very seriously, and held decided views on the
subject of managing his team.
"The point is, my dear Ellison," he said, "that I want the bowling
broken a bit before you go in. Then your free, aggressive style would
have a better chance. I was thinking of putting you in fourth wicket.
Would not that suit you?"
"I thought so. Tell him, Dick."
"Look here, Drew," said Dick; "you'll regard what I'm going to say as
said under seal of the confessional and that sort of thing, won't
you?"
"I shall, of course, respect any confidence you impart to me, my dear
Henley. What is this dreadful secret?"
Dick explained.
"So you see," he concluded, "it's absolutely necessary that we should
start fair."
The Rev. Henry looked as disturbed as if he had suddenly detected
symptoms of Pelagianism in a member of his Sunday-school class.
"Is such a contest quite - - ? Is it not a little - um?" he said.
"Not at all," said Dick, hastening to justify himself and friend. "We
must settle the thing somehow, and neither of us will back out. If we
didn't do this we should have to toss."
"Heaven forbid!" said the curate, shocked.
"Well, is it a deal? Will you put us in first?"
"Very well."
"Thanks," said Tom.
"Good of you," said Dick.
"Don't mention it," said Harry.
* * * * *
There are two sorts of country cricket. There is the variety you get
at a country-house, where the wicket is prepared with a care as
meticulous as that in fashion on any county ground; where red marl and
such-like aids to smoothness have been injected into the turf all
through the winter; and where the out-fielding is good and the
boundaries spacious. And there is the village match, where cows are
apt to stroll on to the pitch before the innings and cover-point
stands up to his neck in a furze-bush.
The game which was to decide the fate of Tom and Dick belonged to the
latter variety. A pitch had been mown in the middle of a meadow
(kindly lent by Farmer Rollitt on condition that he should be allowed
to umpire, and his eldest son Ted put on to bowl first). The team
consisted of certain horny-handed sons of toil, with terrific
golf-shots in the direction of square-leg, and the enemy's ranks were
composed of the same material. Tom and Dick, in ordinary
circumstances, would have gone in to bat in such a match with a
feeling of lofty disdain, as befitting experts from the civilised
world, come to teach the rustic mind what was what.
But on the present occasion the thought of all that depended on their
bats induced a state of nerves which would have done credit to a test
match.
"Would you mind taking first b-b-ball, old man?" said Tom.
"All r-right," said Dick. He had been on the point of making the
request himself, but it would not do to let Tom see that he was
nervous.
He took guard from Farmer Rollitt, and settled himself into position
to face the first delivery.
Whether it is due to the pure air of the country or to daily manual
toil is not known, but the fact remains that bowlers in village
matches, whatever their other shortcomings, seldom fall short in the
matter of speed. The present trundler, having swung his arm round like
a flail, bounded to the crease and sent down a ball which hummed in
the air. It pitched halfway between the wickets in a slight hollow
caused by the foot of a cow and shot. Dick reached blindly forward,
and the next moment his off-stump was out of the ground.
A howl of approval went up from the supporters of the enemy, lying
under the trees.
Tom sat down, limp with joy. Dick out for a duck! What incredible good
fortune! He began to frame in his mind epigrammatic sentences for use
in the scene which would so shortly take place between Miss Dolly Burn
and himself. The next man came in and played flukily but successfully
through the rest of the over. "Just a single," said Tom to himself as
he faced the bowler at the other end. "Just one solitary single. Miss
Burn - may I call you Dolly? Do you remember that moonlight night? On
the Char? In my Canadian canoe? We two?"
"'S THAT?" shrieked bowler and wicket-keeper as one man.
Tom looked blankly at them. He had not gone within a mile and a half
of the ball, he was certain. And yet - there was the umpire with his
hand raised, as if he were the Pope bestowing a blessing.
He walked quickly back to the trees, flung off his pads, and began to
smoke furiously.
"Well?" said a voice.
Dick was standing before him, grinning like a gargoyle.
"Of all the absolutely delirious decisions - - " began Tom.
"Oh, yes," said Dick rudely, "I know all about that. Why, I could hear
the click from where I was sitting. The point is, what's to be done
now? We shall have to settle it on the second innings."
"If there is one."
"Oh, there'll be a second innings all right. There's another man out.
On a wicket like this we shall all be out in an hour, and we'll have
the other side out in another hour, and then we'll start again on this
business. I shall play a big game next innings. It was only that
infernal ball shooting that did me."
"And I," said Tom; "if the umpire has got over his fit of delirium
tremens, or been removed to Colney Hatch, shall almost certainly make
a century."
It was four o'clock by the time Tom and Dick went to the wickets for
the second time. Their side had been headed by their opponents by a
dozen on the first innings - 68 to 56.
A splendid spirit of confidence animated the two batsmen. The umpire
who had effected Tom's downfall in the first innings had since
received a hard drive in the small of the back as he turned coyly away
to avoid the ball, and was now being massaged by strong men in the
taproom of the village inn. It was the sort of occurrence, said Tom,
which proved once and for all the existence of an all-seeing,
benevolent Providence.
As for Dick, he had smoothed out a few of the more important
mountain-ranges which marred the smoothness of the wicket, and was
feeling that all was right with the world.
The pair started well. The demon bowler of the enemy, having been
feted considerably under the trees by enthusiastic admirers during the
innings of his side, was a little incoherent in his deliveries. Four
full-pitches did he send down to Dick in his first over, and Dick had
placed 16 to his credit before Tom, who had had to look on anxiously,
had opened his account. Dick was a slow scorer as a rule, but he knew
a full-pitch to leg when he saw one.
From his place at the other crease Tom could see Miss Burn and her
mother sitting under the trees, watching the game.
The sight nerved him. By the time he had played through his first over
he had reduced Dick's lead by half. An oyster would have hit out in
such circumstances, and Tom was always an aggressive batsman. By the
end of the third over the scores were level. Each had made 20.
Enthusiasm ran high amongst the spectators, or such of them as were
natives of the village. Such a stand for the first wicket had not been
seen in all the matches ever played in the neighbourhood. When Tom,
with a nice straight drive (which should have been a 4, but was
stopped by a cow and turned into a single), brought up the century,
small boys burst buttons and octogenarians wept like babes.
The bowling was collared. The demon had long since retired grumbling
to the deep field. Weird trundlers, with actions like nothing else on
earth, had been tried, had fired their ringing shot, and passed. One
individual had gone on with lobs, to the acute delight of everybody
except the fieldsmen who had to retrieve the balls and the
above-mentioned cow. And still Tom and Dick stayed in and smote, while
in the west the sun slowly sank.
The Rev. Henry looked anxious. It was magnificent, but it must not be
overdone. A little more and they would not have time to get the foe
out for the second time. In which case the latter would win on the
first innings. And this thought was as gall to him.
He walked out and addressed the rival captain.
"I think," said he, "we will close our innings."
Tom and Dick made two bee-lines for the scorer and waited
palpitatingly for the verdict.
"What's my score?" panted Tom.
"Fifty-fower, sur."
"And mine?" gasped Dick.
"Fifty-fower, too, sur."
* * * * *
"You see, my dear fellows," said the Rev. Henry when they had
finished - and his voice was like unto oil that is poured into a
wound - "we had to win this match, and if you had gone on batting we
should not have had time to get them out. As it is, we shall have to
hurry."
"But, hang it - - " said Tom.
"But, look here - - " said Dick.
"Yes?"
"What on earth are we to do?" said Tom.
"We're in precisely the same hole as we were before," said Dick.
"We don't know how to manage it."
"We're absolutely bunkered."
"Our competition, you see."
"About Miss Burn, don't you know."
"Which is to propose first?"
"We can't settle it."
The Rev. Henry smiled a faint, saintly smile and raised a protesting
hand.
"My advice," he said, "is that both of you should refrain from
proposing."
"What?" said Dick.
"_Wha-at_?" said Tom.
"You see," purred the Rev. Henry, "you are both very young fellows.
Probably you do not know your own minds. You take these things too
seri - - "
"Now, look here," said Tom.
"None of that rot," said Dick.
"I shall propose tonight."
"I shall propose this evening."
"I shouldn't," said the Rev. Henry. "The fact is - - "
"Well?"
"Well?"
"I didn't tell you before, for fear it should put you off your game;
but Miss Burn is engaged already, and has been for three days."
The two rivals started.
"Engaged!" cried Tom.
"Whom to?" hissed Dick.
"Me," murmured Harry.
JEEVES TAKES CHARGE
Now, touching this business of old Jeeves - my man, you know - how do we
stand? Lots of people think I'm much too dependent on him. My Aunt
Agatha, in fact, has even gone so far as to call him my keeper. Well,
what I say is: Why not? The man's a genius. From the collar upward he
stands alone. I gave up trying to run my own affairs within a week of
his coming to me. That was about half a dozen years ago, directly
after the rather rummy business of Florence Craye, my Uncle
Willoughby's book, and Edwin, the Boy Scout.
The thing really began when I got back to Easeby, my uncle's place in
Shropshire. I was spending a week or so there, as I generally did in
the summer; and I had had to break my visit to come back to London to
get a new valet. I had found Meadowes, the fellow I had taken to
Easeby with me, sneaking my silk socks, a thing no bloke of spirit
could stick at any price. It transpiring, moreover, that he had looted
a lot of other things here and there about the place, I was
reluctantly compelled to hand the misguided blighter the mitten and go
to London to ask the registry office to dig up another specimen for my
approval. They sent me Jeeves.
I shall always remember the morning he came. It so happened that the
night before I had been present at a rather cheery little supper, and
I was feeling pretty rocky. On top of this I was trying to read a book
Florence Craye had given me. She had been one of the house-party at
Easeby, and two or three days before I left we had got engaged. I was
due back at the end of the week, and I knew she would expect me to
have finished the book by then. You see, she was particularly keen on
boosting me up a bit nearer her own plane of intellect. She was a girl
with a wonderful profile, but steeped to the gills in serious purpose.
I can't give you a better idea of the way things stood than by telling
you that the book she'd given me to read was called "Types of Ethical
Theory," and that when I opened it at random I struck a page
beginning: -
_The postulate or common understanding involved in speech is
certainly co-extensive, in the obligation it carries, with the
social organism of which language is the instrument, and the
ends of which it is an effort to subserve._
All perfectly true, no doubt; but not the sort of thing to spring on a
lad with a morning head.
I was doing my best to skim through this bright little volume when the
bell rang. I crawled off the sofa and opened the door. A kind of
darkish sort of respectful Johnnie stood without.
"I was sent by the agency, sir," he said. "I was given to understand
that you required a valet."
I'd have preferred an undertaker; but I told him to stagger in, and he
floated noiselessly through the doorway like a healing zephyr. That
impressed me from the start. Meadowes had had flat feet and used to
clump. This fellow didn't seem to have any feet at all. He just
streamed in. He had a grave, sympathetic face, as if he, too, knew
what it was to sup with the lads.
"Excuse me, sir," he said gently.
Then he seemed to flicker, and wasn't there any longer. I heard him
moving about in the kitchen, and presently he came back with a glass
on a tray.
"If you would drink this, sir," he said, with a kind of bedside
manner, rather like the royal doctor shooting the bracer into the sick
prince. "It is a little preparation of my own invention. It is the
Worcester Sauce that gives it its colour. The raw egg makes it
nutritious. The red pepper gives it its bite. Gentlemen have told me
they have found it extremely invigorating after a late evening."
I would have clutched at anything that looked like a life-line that
morning. I swallowed the stuff. For a moment I felt as if somebody had
touched off a bomb inside the old bean and was strolling down my
throat with a lighted torch, and then everything seemed suddenly to
get all right. The sun shone in through the window; birds twittered in
the tree-tops; and, generally speaking, hope dawned once more.
"You're engaged!" I said, as soon as I could say anything.
I perceived clearly that this cove was one of the world's wonders, the
sort no home should be without.
"Thank you, sir. My name is Jeeves."
"You can start in at once?"
"Immediately, sir."
"Because I'm due down at Easeby, in Shropshire, the day after
tomorrow."
"Very good, sir." He looked past me at the mantelpiece. "That is an
excellent likeness of Lady Florence Craye, sir. It is two years since
I saw her ladyship. I was at one time in Lord Worplesdon's employment.
I tendered my resignation because I could not see eye to eye with his
lordship in his desire to dine in dress trousers, a flannel shirt, and
a shooting coat."
He couldn't tell me anything I didn't know about the old boy's
eccentricity. This Lord Worplesdon was Florence's father. He was the
old buster who, a few years later, came down to breakfast one morning,
lifted the first cover he saw, said "Eggs! Eggs! Eggs! Damn all eggs!"
in an overwrought sort of voice, and instantly legged it for France,
never to return to the bosom of his family. This, mind you, being a
bit of luck for the bosom of the family, for old Worplesdon had the
worst temper in the county.
I had known the family ever since I was a kid, and from boyhood up
this old boy had put the fear of death into me. Time, the great
healer, could never remove from my memory the occasion when he found
me - then a stripling of fifteen - smoking one of his special cigars in
the stables. He got after me with a hunting-crop just at the moment
when I was beginning to realise that what I wanted most on earth was
solitude and repose, and chased me more than a mile across difficult
country. If there was a flaw, so to speak, in the pure joy of being
engaged to Florence, it was the fact that she rather took after her
father, and one was never certain when she might erupt. She had a
wonderful profile, though.
"Lady Florence and I are engaged, Jeeves," I said.
"Indeed, sir?"
You know, there was a kind of rummy something about his manner.
Perfectly all right and all that, but not what you'd call chirpy. It
somehow gave me the impression that he wasn't keen on Florence. Well,
of course, it wasn't my business. I supposed that while he had been
valeting old Worplesdon she must have trodden on his toes in some way.
Florence was a dear girl, and, seen sideways, most awfully
good-looking; but if she had a fault it was a tendency to be a bit
imperious with the domestic staff.
At this point in the proceedings there was another ring at the front
door. Jeeves shimmered out and came back with a telegram. I opened it.
It ran:
_Return immediately. Extremely urgent. Catch first train.
Florence._
"Rum!" I said.
"Sir?"
"Oh, nothing!"
It shows how little I knew Jeeves in those days that I didn't go a bit
deeper into the matter with him. Nowadays I would never dream of
reading a rummy communication without asking him what he thought of
it. And this one was devilish odd. What I mean is, Florence knew I was
going back to Easeby the day after to-morrow, anyway; so why the hurry
call? Something must have happened, of course; but I couldn't see what
on earth it could be.
"Jeeves," I said, "we shall be going down to Easeby this afternoon.
Can you manage it?"
"Certainly, sir."
"You can get your packing done and all that?"
"Without any difficulty, sir. Which suit will you wear for the
journey?"
"This one."
I had on a rather sprightly young check that morning, to which I was a
good deal attached; I fancied it, in fact, more than a little. It was
perhaps rather sudden till you got used to it, but, nevertheless, an
extremely sound effort, which many lads at the club and elsewhere had
admired unrestrainedly.
"Very good, sir."
Again there was that kind of rummy something in his manner. It was the
way he said it, don't you know. He didn't like the suit. I pulled
myself together to assert myself. Something seemed to tell me that,
unless I was jolly careful and nipped this lad in the bud, he would be
starting to boss me. He had the aspect of a distinctly resolute
blighter.
Well, I wasn't going to have any of that sort of thing, by Jove! I'd
seen so many cases of fellows who had become perfect slaves to their
valets. I remember poor old Aubrey Fothergill telling me - with
absolute tears in his eyes, poor chap! - one night at the club, that he
had been compelled to give up a favourite pair of brown shoes simply
because Meekyn, his man, disapproved of them. You have to keep these
fellows in their place, don't you know. You have to work the good old
iron-hand-in-the-velvet-glove wheeze. If you give them a
what's-its-name, they take a thingummy.
"Don't you like this suit, Jeeves?" I said coldly.
"Oh, yes, sir."
"Well, what don't you like about it?"
"It is a very nice suit, sir."
"Well, what's wrong with it? Out with it, dash it!"
"If I might make the suggestion, sir, a simple brown or blue, with a
hint of some quiet twill - - "
"What absolute rot!"
"Very good, sir."
"Perfectly blithering, my dear man!"
"As you say, sir."
I felt as if I had stepped on the place where the last stair ought to
have been, but wasn't. I felt defiant, if you know what I mean, and
there didn't seem anything to defy.
"All right, then," I said.
"Yes, sir."
And then he went away to collect his kit, while I started in again on
"Types of Ethical Theory" and took a stab at a chapter headed
"Idiopsychological Ethics."
* * * * *
Most of the way down in the train that afternoon, I was wondering what
could be up at the other end. I simply couldn't see what could have
happened. Easeby wasn't one of those country houses you read about in
the society novels, where young girls are lured on to play baccarat
and then skinned to the bone of their jewellery, and so on. The
house-party I had left had consisted entirely of law-abiding birds
like myself.
Besides, my uncle wouldn't have let anything of that kind go on in his
house. He was a rather stiff, precise sort of old boy, who liked a
quiet life. He was just finishing a history of the family or
something, which he had been working on for the last year, and didn't
stir much from the library. He was rather a good instance of what they
say about its being a good scheme for a fellow to sow his wild oats.
I'd been told that in his youth Uncle Willoughby had been a bit of a
rounder. You would never have thought it to look at him now.
When I got to the house, Oakshott, the butler, told me that Florence
was in her room, watching her maid pack. Apparently there was a dance
on at a house about twenty miles away that night, and she was motoring
over with some of the Easeby lot and would be away some nights.
Oakshott said she had told him to tell her the moment I arrived; so I
trickled into the smoking-room and waited, and presently in she came.
A glance showed me that she was perturbed, and even peeved. Her eyes
had a goggly look, and altogether she appeared considerably pipped.
"Darling!" I said, and attempted the good old embrace; but she
sidestepped like a bantam weight.
"Don't!"
"What's the matter?"
"Everything's the matter! Bertie, you remember asking me, when you
left, to make myself pleasant to your uncle?"
"Yes."
The idea being, of course, that as at that time I was more or less
dependent on Uncle Willoughby I couldn't very well marry without his
approval. And though I knew he wouldn't have any objection to
Florence, having known her father since they were at Oxford together,
I hadn't wanted to take any chances; so I had told her to make an
effort to fascinate the old boy.
"You told me it would please him particularly if I asked him to read
me some of his history of the family."
"Wasn't he pleased?"
"He was delighted. He finished writing the thing yesterday afternoon,
and read me nearly all of it last night. I have never had such a shock
in my life. The book is an outrage. It is impossible. It is horrible!"
"But, dash it, the family weren't so bad as all that."
"It is not a history of the family at all. Your uncle has written his
reminiscences! He calls them 'Recollections of a Long Life'!"
I began to understand. As I say, Uncle Willoughby had been somewhat on
the tabasco side as a young man, and it began to look as if he might
have turned out something pretty fruity if he had started recollecting
his long life.
"If half of what he has written is true," said Florence, "your uncle's
youth must have been perfectly appalling. The moment we began to read
he plunged straight into a most scandalous story of how he and my
father were thrown out of a music-hall in 1887!"
"Why?"
"I decline to tell you why."
It must have been something pretty bad. It took a lot to make them
chuck people out of music-halls in 1887.
"Your uncle specifically states that father had drunk a quart and a
half of champagne before beginning the evening," she went on. "The
book is full of stories like that. There is a dreadful one about Lord
Emsworth."
"Lord Emsworth? Not the one we know? Not the one at Blandings?"
A most respectable old Johnnie, don't you know. Doesn't do a thing
nowadays but dig in the garden with a spud.
"The very same. That is what makes the book so unspeakable. It is full
of stories about people one knows who are the essence of propriety
today, but who seem to have behaved, when they were in London in the
'eighties, in a manner that would not have been tolerated in the
fo'c'sle of a whaler. Your uncle seems to remember everything
disgraceful that happened to anybody when he was in his early
twenties. There is a story about Sir Stanley Gervase-Gervase at
Rosherville Gardens which is ghastly in its perfection of detail. It
seems that Sir Stanley - but I can't tell you!"
"Have a dash!"
"No!"
"Oh, well, I shouldn't worry. No publisher will print the book if it's
as bad as all that."
"On the contrary, your uncle told me that all negotiations are settled
with Riggs and Ballinger, and he's sending off the manuscript tomorrow
for immediate publication. They make a special thing of that sort of
book. They published Lady Carnaby's 'Memories of Eighty Interesting
Years.'"
"I read 'em!"
"Well, then, when I tell you that Lady Carnaby's Memories are simply
not to be compared with your uncle's Recollections, you will
understand my state of mind. And father appears in nearly every story
in the book! I am horrified at the things he did when he was a young
man!"
"What's to be done?"
"The manuscript must be intercepted before it reaches Riggs and
Ballinger, and destroyed!"
I sat up.
This sounded rather sporting.
"How are you going to do it?" I enquired.
"How can I do it? Didn't I tell you the parcel goes off to-morrow? I
am going to the Murgatroyds' dance to-night and shall not be back till
Monday. You must do it. That is why I telegraphed to you."
"What!"
She gave me a look.
"Do you mean to say you refuse to help me, Bertie?"
"No; but - I say!"
"It's quite simple."
"But even if I - What I mean is - Of course, anything I can do - but - if
you know what I mean - - "
"You say you want to marry me, Bertie?"
"Yes, of course; but still - - "
For a moment she looked exactly like her old father.
"I will never marry you if those Recollections are published."
"But, Florence, old thing!"
"I mean it. You may look on it as a test, Bertie. If you have the
resource and courage to carry this thing through, I will take it as
evidence that you are not the vapid and shiftless person most people
think you. If you fail, I shall know that your Aunt Agatha was right
when she called you a spineless invertebrate and advised me strongly
not to marry you. It will be perfectly simple for you to intercept the
manuscript, Bertie. It only requires a little resolution."
"But suppose Uncle Willoughby catches me at it? He'd cut me off with a
bob."
"If you care more for your uncle's money than for me - - "
"No, no! Rather not!"
"Very well, then. The parcel containing the manuscript will, of
course, be placed on the hall table to-morrow for Oakshott to take to
the village with the letters. All you have to do is to take it away
and destroy it. Then your uncle will think it has been lost in the
post."
It sounded thin to me.
"Hasn't he got a copy of it?"
"No; it has not been typed. He is sending the manuscript just as he
wrote it."
"But he could write it over again."
"As if he would have the energy!"
"But - - "
"If you are going to do nothing but make absurd objections, Bertie - - "
"I was only pointing things out."
"Well, don't! Once and for all, will you do me this quite simple act
of kindness?"
The way she put it gave me an idea.
"Why not get Edwin to do it? Keep it in the family, kind of, don't you
know. Besides, it would be a boon to the kid."
A jolly bright idea it seemed to me. Edwin was her young brother, who
was spending his holidays at Easeby. He was a ferret-faced kid, whom I
had disliked since birth. As a matter of fact, talking of
Recollections and Memories, it was young blighted Edwin who, nine
years before, had led his father to where I was smoking his cigar and
caused all of the unpleasantness. He was fourteen now and had just
joined the Boy Scouts. He was one of those thorough kids, and took his
responsibilities pretty seriously. He was always in a sort of fever
because he was dropping behind schedule with his daily acts of
kindness. However hard he tried, he'd fall behind; and then you would
find him prowling about the house, setting such a clip to try and
catch up with himself that Easeby was rapidly becoming a perfect hell
for man and beast.
The idea didn't seem to strike Florence.
"I shall do nothing of the kind, Bertie. I wonder you can't appreciate
the compliment I am paying you - trusting you like this."
"Oh, I see that all right, but what I mean is, Edwin would do it so
much better than I would. These Boy Scouts are up to all sorts of
dodges. They spoor, don't you know, and take cover and creep about,
and what not."
"Bertie, will you or will you not do this perfectly trivial thing for
me? If not, say so now, and let us end this farce of pretending that
you care a snap of the fingers for me."
"Dear old soul, I love you devotedly!"
"Then will you or will you not - - "
"Oh, all right," I said. "All right! All right! All right!"
And then I tottered forth to think it over. I met Jeeves in the
passage just outside.
"I beg your pardon, sir. I was endeavouring to find you."
"What's the matter?"
"I felt that I should tell you, sir, that somebody has been putting
black polish on our brown walking shoes."
"What! Who? Why?"
"I could not say, sir."
"Can anything be done with them?"
"Nothing, sir."
"Damn!"
"Very good, sir."
* * * * *
I've often wondered since then how these murderer fellows manage to
keep in shape while they're contemplating their next effort. I had a
much simpler sort of job on hand, and the thought of it rattled me to
such an extent in the night watches that I was a perfect wreck next
day. Dark circles under the eyes - I give you my word! I had to call on
Jeeves to rally round with one of those life-savers of his.
From breakfast on I felt like a bag-snatcher at a railway station. I
had to hang about waiting for the parcel to be put on the hall table,
and it wasn't put. Uncle Willoughby was a fixture in the library,
adding the finishing touches to the great work, I supposed, and the
more I thought the thing over the less I liked it. The chances against
my pulling it off seemed about three to two, and the thought of what
would happen if I didn't gave me cold shivers down the spine. Uncle
Willoughby was a pretty mild sort of old boy, as a rule, but I've
known him to cut up rough, and, by Jove, he was scheduled to extend
himself if he caught me trying to get away with his life work.
It wasn't till nearly four that he toddled out of the library with the
parcel under his arm, put it on the table, and toddled off again. I
was hiding a bit to the south-east at the moment, behind a suit of
armour. I bounded out and legged it for the table. Then I nipped
upstairs to hide the swag. I charged in like a mustang and nearly
stubbed my toe on young blighted Edwin, the Boy Scout. He was standing
at the chest of drawers, confound him, messing about with my ties.
"Hallo!" he said.
"What are you doing here?"
"I'm tidying your room. It's my last Saturday's act of kindness."
"Last Saturday's?"
"I'm five days behind. I was six till last night, but I polished your
shoes."
"Was it you - - "
"Yes. Did you see them? I just happened to think of it. I was in here,
looking round. Mr. Berkeley had this room while you were away. He left
this morning. I thought perhaps he might have left something in it
that I could have sent on. I've often done acts of kindness that way."
"You must be a comfort to one and all!"
It became more and more apparent to me that this infernal kid must
somehow be turned out eftsoons or right speedily. I had hidden the
parcel behind my back, and I didn't think he had seen it; but I wanted
to get at that chest of drawers quick, before anyone else came along.
"I shouldn't bother about tidying the room," I said.
"I like tidying it. It's not a bit of trouble - really."
"But it's quite tidy now."
"Not so tidy as I shall make it."
This was getting perfectly rotten. I didn't want to murder the kid,
and yet there didn't seem any other way of shifting him. I pressed
down the mental accelerator. The old lemon throbbed fiercely. I got an
idea.
"There's something much kinder than that which you could do," I said.
"You see that box of cigars? Take it down to the smoking-room and snip
off the ends for me. That would save me no end of trouble. Stagger
along, laddie."
He seemed a bit doubtful; but he staggered. I shoved the parcel into a
drawer, locked it, trousered the key, and felt better. I might be a
chump, but, dash it, I could out-general a mere kid with a face like a
ferret. I went downstairs again. Just as I was passing the
smoking-room door, out curveted Edwin. It seemed to me that if he
wanted to do a real act of kindness he would commit suicide.
"I'm snipping them," he said.
"Snip on! Snip on!"
"Do you like them snipped much, or only a bit?"
"Medium."
"All right. I'll be getting on, then."
"I should."
And we parted.
Fellows who know all about that sort of thing - detectives, and so
on - will tell you that the most difficult thing in the world is to get
rid of the body. I remember, as a kid, having to learn by heart a poem
about a bird by the name of Eugene Aram, who had the deuce of a job in
this respect. All I can recall of the actual poetry is the bit that
goes:
_Tum-tum, tum-tum, tum-tumty-tum,
I slew him, tum-tum-tum!_
But I recollect that the poor blighter spent much of his valuable time
dumping the corpse into ponds and burying it, and what not, only to
have it pop out at him again. It was about an hour after I had shoved
the parcel into the drawer when I realised that I had let myself in
for just the same sort of thing.
Florence had talked in an airy sort of way about destroying the
manuscript; but when one came down to it, how the deuce can a chap
destroy a great chunky mass of paper in somebody else's house in the
middle of summer? I couldn't ask to have a fire in my bedroom, with
the thermometer in the eighties. And if I didn't burn the thing, how
else could I get rid of it? Fellows on the battle-field eat dispatches
to keep them from falling into the hands of the enemy, but it would
have taken me a year to eat Uncle Willoughby's Recollections.
I'm bound to say the problem absolutely baffled me. The only thing
seemed to be to leave the parcel in the drawer and hope for the best.
I don't know whether you have ever experienced it, but it's a dashed
unpleasant thing having a crime on one's conscience. Towards the end
of the day the mere sight of the drawer began to depress me. I found
myself getting all on edge; and once when Uncle Willoughby trickled
silently into the smoking-room when I was alone there and spoke to me
before I knew he was there, I broke the record for the sitting high
jump.
I was wondering all the time when Uncle Willoughby would sit up and
take notice. I didn't think he would have time to suspect that
anything had gone wrong till Saturday morning, when he would be
expecting, of course, to get the acknowledgment of the manuscript from
the publishers. But early on Friday evening he came out of the library
as I was passing and asked me to step in. He was looking considerably
rattled.
"Bertie," he said - he always spoke in a precise sort of pompous kind
of way - "an exceedingly disturbing thing has happened. As you know, I
dispatched the manuscript of my book to Messrs. Riggs and Ballinger,
the publishers, yesterday afternoon. It should have reached them by
the first post this morning. Why I should have been uneasy I cannot
say, but my mind was not altogether at rest respecting the safety of
the parcel. I therefore telephoned to Messrs. Riggs and Ballinger a
few moments back to make enquiries. To my consternation they informed
me that they were not yet in receipt of my manuscript."
"Very rum!"
"I recollect distinctly placing it myself on the hall table in good
time to be taken to the village. But here is a sinister thing. I have
spoken to Oakshott, who took the rest of the letters to the post
office, and he cannot recall seeing it there. He is, indeed,
unswerving in his assertions that when he went to the hall to collect
the letters there was no parcel among them."
"Sounds funny!"
"Bertie, shall I tell you what I suspect?"
"What's that?"
"The suspicion will no doubt sound to you incredible, but it alone
seems to fit the facts as we know them. I incline to the belief that
the parcel has been stolen."
"Oh, I say! Surely not!"
"Wait! Hear me out. Though I have said nothing to you before, or to
anyone else, concerning the matter, the fact remains that during the
past few weeks a number of objects - some valuable, others not - have
disappeared in this house. The conclusion to which one is irresistibly
impelled is that we have a kleptomaniac in our midst. It is a
peculiarity of kleptomania, as you are no doubt aware, that the
subject is unable to differentiate between the intrinsic values of
objects. He will purloin an old coat as readily as a diamond ring, or
a tobacco pipe costing but a few shillings with the same eagerness as
a purse of gold. The fact that this manuscript of mine could be of no
possible value to any outside person convinces me that - - "
"But, uncle, one moment; I know all about those things that were