Very Good, Jeeves

by P. G. Wodehouse

  ‘Not at all, sir.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No, sir. In matters where Miss Wickham is involved, I am, if I may take the liberty of saying so, always on the alert for hitches. If you recollect, sir, I have frequently observed that Miss Wickham, while a charming young lady, is apt—’

  ‘Yes, yes, Jeeves. I know.’

  ‘What would the precise nature of the trouble be this time, sir?’

  I explained the circs.

  ‘The kid is A.W.O.L. They sent her to bed for putting sherbet in the ink, and in bed they imagine her to have spent the evening. Instead of which, she was out with me, wolfing the eight-course table-d’hôte dinner at seven and six, and then going on to the Marine Plaza to enjoy an entertainment on the silver screen. It is our task to get her back into the house without anyone knowing. I may mention, Jeeves, that the school in which this young excrescence is serving her sentence is the one run by my Aunt Agatha’s old friend, Miss Mapleton.’

  ‘Indeed, sir?’

  ‘A problem, Jeeves, what?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘In fact, one might say a pretty problem?’

  ‘Undoubtedly, sir. If I might suggest—’

  I was expecting this. I raised a hand.

  ‘I do not require any suggestions, Jeeves. I can handle this matter myself.’

  ‘I was merely about to propose—’

  I raised the hand again.

  ‘Peace, Jeeves. I have the situation well under control. I have had one of my ideas. It may interest you to hear how my brain worked. It occurred to me, thinking the thing over, that a house like St Monica’s would be likely to have near it a conservatory containing flower-pots. Then, like a flash, the whole thing came to me. I propose to procure some string, to tie it to a flowerpot, to balance the pot on a branch – there will, no doubt, be a tree near the conservatory with a branch overhanging it – and to retire to a distance, holding the string. You will station yourself with the kid near the front door, taking care to keep carefully concealed. I shall then jerk the string, the pot will smash the glass, the noise will bring someone out, and while the front door is open you will shoot the kid in and leave the rest to her personal judgement. Your share in the proceedings, you will notice, is simplicity itself – mere routine-work – and should not tax you unduly. How about it?’

  ‘Well, sir—’

  ‘Jeeves, I have had occasion before to comment on this habit of yours of saying “Well, sir” whenever I suggest anything in the nature of a ruse or piece of strategy. I dislike it more every time you do it. But I shall be glad to hear what possible criticism you can find to make.’

  ‘I was merely about to express the opinion, sir, that the plan seems a trifle elaborate.’

  ‘In a place as tight as this you have got to be elaborate.’

  ‘Not necessarily, sir. The alternative scheme which I was about to propose—’

  I shushed the man.

  ‘There will be no need for alternative schemes, Jeeves. We will carry on along the lines I have indicated. I will give you ten minutes’ start. That will enable you to take up your position near the front door and self to collect the string. At the conclusion of that period I will come along and do all the difficult part. So no more discussion. Snap into it, Jeeves.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  I felt pretty bucked as I tooled up the hill to St Monica’s and equally bucked as I pushed open the front gate and stepped into the dark garden. But, just as I started to cross the lawn, there suddenly came upon me a rummy sensation as if all my bones had been removed and spaghetti substituted, and I paused.

  I don’t know if you have ever had the experience of starting off on a binge filled with a sort of glow of exhilaration, if that’s the word I want, and then, without a moment’s warning, having it disappear as if somebody had pressed a switch. That is what happened to me at this juncture, and a most unpleasant feeling it was – rather like when you take one of those express elevators in New York at the top of the building and discover, on reaching the twenty-seventh floor, that you have carelessly left all your insides up on the thirty-second, and too late now to stop and fetch them back.

  The truth came to me like a bit of ice down the neck. I perceived that I had been a dashed sight too impulsive. Purely in order to score off Jeeves, I had gone and let myself in for what promised to be the mouldiest ordeal of a lifetime. And the nearer I got to the house, the more I wished that I had been a bit less haughty with the man when he had tried to outline that alternative scheme of his. An alternative scheme was just what I felt I could have done with, and the more alternative it was the better I would have liked it.

  At this point I found myself at the conservatory door, and a few moments later I was inside, scooping up the pots.

  Then ho, for the tree, bearing ’mid snow and ice the banner with the strange device ‘Excelsior!’

  I will say for that tree that it might have been placed there for the purpose. My views on the broad, general principle of leaping from branch to branch in a garden belonging to Aunt Agatha’s closest friend remained unaltered; but I had to admit that, if it was to be done, this was undoubtedly the tree to do it on. It was a cedar of sorts; and almost before I knew where I was, I was sitting on top of the world with the conservatory roof gleaming below me. I balanced the flower-pot on my knee and began to tie the string round it.

  And, as I tied, my thoughts turned in a moody sort of way to the subject of Woman.

  I was suffering from a considerable strain of the old nerves at the moment, of course, and, looking back, it may be that I was too harsh; but the way I felt in that dark, roosting hour was that you can say what you like, but the more a thoughtful man has to do with women, the more extraordinary it seems to him that such a sex should be allowed to clutter up the earth.

  Women, the way I looked at it, simply wouldn’t do. Take the females who were mixed up in this present business. Aunt Agatha, to start with, better known as the Pest of Pont Street, the human snapping-turtle. Aunt Agatha’s closest friend, Miss Mapleton, of whom I can only say that on the single occasion on which I had met her she had struck me as just the sort of person who would be Aunt Agatha’s closest friend. Bobbie Wickham, a girl who went about the place letting the pure in heart in for the sort of thing I was doing now. And Bobbie Wickham’s cousin Clementina, who, instead of sticking sedulously to her studies and learning to be a good wife and mother, spent the springtime of her life filling inkpots with sherbet—

  What a crew! What a crew!

  I mean to say, what a crew!

  I had just worked myself up into rather an impressive state of moral indignation, and was preparing to go even further, when a sudden bright light shone upon me from below and a voice spoke.

  ‘Ho!’ it said.

  It was a policeman. Apart from the fact of his having a lantern, I knew it was a policeman because he had said ‘Ho!’ I don’t know if you recollect my telling you of the time I broke into Bingo Little’s house to pinch the dictaphone record of the mushy article his wife had written about him and sailed out of the study window right into the arms of the Force? On that occasion the guardian of the Law had said ‘Ho!’ and kept on saying it, so evidently policemen are taught this as part of their training. And after all, it’s not a bad way of opening conversation in the sort of circs in which they generally have to chat with people.

  ‘You come on down out of that,’ he said.

  I came on down. I had just got the flower-pot balanced on its branch, and I left it there, feeling rather as if I had touched off the time-fuse of a bomb. Much seemed to me to depend on its stability and poise, as it were. If it continued to balance, an easy nonchalance might still get me out of this delicate position. If it fell, I saw things being a bit hard to explain. In fact, even as it was, I couldn’t see my way to any explanation which would be really convincing.

  However, I had a stab at it.

  ‘Ah, officer,’ I said.

  It sounded
weak. I said it again, this time with the emphasis on the ‘Ah!’ It sounded weaker than ever. I saw that Bertram would have to do better than this.

  ‘It’s all right, officer,’ I said.

  ‘All right, is it?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Oh, yes.’

  ‘What you doing up there?’

  ‘Me, officer?’

  ‘Yes, you.’

  ‘Nothing, sergeant.’

  ‘Ho!’

  We eased into the silence, but it wasn’t one of those restful silences that occur in talks between old friends. Embarrassing. Awkward.

  ‘You’d better come along with me,’ said the gendarme.

  The last time I had heard those words from a similar source had been in Leicester Square one Boat Race night when, on my advice, my old pal Oliver Randolph Sipperley had endeavoured to steal a policeman’s helmet at a moment when the policeman was inside it. On that occasion they had been addressed to young Sippy, and they hadn’t sounded any too good, even so. Addressed to me, they more or less froze the marrow.

  ‘No, I say, dash it!’ I said.

  And it was at this crisis, when Bertram had frankly shot his bolt and could only have been described as nonplussed, that a soft step sounded beside us and a soft voice broke the silence.

  ‘Have you got them, officer? No, I see. It is Mr Wooster.’

  The policeman switched the lantern round.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I am Mr Wooster’s personal gentleman’s gentleman.’

  ‘Whose?’

  ‘Mr Wooster’s.’

  ‘Is this man’s name Wooster?’

  ‘This gentleman’s name is Mr Wooster. I am in his employment as gentleman’s personal gentleman.’

  I think the cop was awed by the man’s majesty of demeanour, but he came back strongly.

  ‘Ho!’ he said. ‘Not in Miss Mapleton’s employment?’

  ‘Miss Mapleton does not employ a gentleman’s personal gentleman.’

  ‘Then what are you doing in her garden?’

  ‘I was in conference with Miss Mapleton inside the house, and she desired me to step out and ascertain whether Mr Wooster had been successful in apprehending the intruders.’

  ‘What intruders?’

  ‘The suspicious characters whom Mr Wooster and I had observed passing through the garden as we entered it.’

  ‘And what were you doing entering it?’

  ‘Mr Wooster had come to pay a call on Miss Mapleton, who is a close friend of his family. We noticed suspicious characters crossing the lawn. On perceiving these suspicious characters, Mr Wooster despatched me to warn and reassure Miss Mapleton, he himself remaining to investigate.’

  ‘I found him up a tree.’

  ‘If Mr Wooster was up a tree, I have no doubt he was actuated by excellent motives and had only Miss Mapleton’s best interests at heart.’

  The policeman brooded.

  ‘Ho!’ he said. ‘Well, if you want to know, I don’t believe a word of it. We had a telephone call at the station saying there was somebody in Miss Mapleton’s garden, and I found this fellow up a tree. It’s my belief you’re both in this, and I’m going to take you in to the lady for identification.’

  Jeeves inclined his head gracefully.

  ‘I shall be delighted to accompany you, officer, if such is your wish. And I feel sure that in this connection I may speak for Mr Wooster also. He too, I am confident, will interpose no obstacle in the way of your plans. If you consider that circumstances have placed Mr Wooster in a position that may be termed equivocal, or even compromising, it will naturally be his wish to exculpate himself at the earliest possible—’

  ‘Here!’ said the policeman, slightly rattled.

  ‘Officer?’

  ‘Less of it.’

  ‘Just as you say, officer.’

  ‘Switch it off and come along.’

  ‘Very good, officer.’

  I must say that I have enjoyed functions more than that walk to the front door. It seemed to me that the doom had come upon me, so to speak, and I thought it hard that a gallant effort like Jeeves’s, well reasoned and nicely planned, should have failed to click. Even to me his story had rung almost true in spots, and it was a great blow that the man behind the lantern had not sucked it in without question. There’s no doubt about it, being a policeman warps a man’s mind and ruins that sunny faith in his fellow human beings which is the foundation of a lovable character. There seems no way of avoiding this.

  I could see no gleam of light in the situation. True, the Mapleton would identify me as the nephew of her old friend, thus putting the stopper on the stroll to the police station and the night in the prison cell, but, when you came right down to it, a fat lot of use that was. The kid Clementina was presumably still out in the night somewhere, and she would be lugged in and the full facts revealed, and then the burning glance, the few cold words and the long letter to Aunt Agatha. I wasn’t sure that a good straight term of penal servitude wouldn’t have been a happier ending.

  So, what with one consideration and another, the heart, as I toddled in through the front door, was more or less bowed down with weight of woe. We went along the passage and into the study, and there, standing behind a desk with the steel-rimmed spectacles glittering as nastily as on the day when I had seen them across Aunt Agatha’s luncheon-table, was the boss in person. I gave her one swift look, then shut my eyes.

  ‘Ah!’ said Miss Mapleton.

  Now, uttered in a certain way – dragged out, if you know what I mean, and starting high up and going down into the lower register, the word ‘Ah!’ can be as sinister and devastating as the word ‘Ho!’ In fact, it is a very moot question which is the scalier. But what stunned me was that this wasn’t the way she had said it. It had been, or my ears deceived me, a genial ‘Ah!’. A matey ‘Ah!’. The ‘Ah!’ of one old buddy to another. And this startled me so much that, forgetting the dictates of prudence, I actually ventured to look at her again. And a stifled exclamation burst from Bertram’s lips.

  The breath-taking exhibit before me was in person a bit on the short side. I mean to say, she didn’t tower above one, or anything like that. But, to compensate for this lack of inches, she possessed to a remarkable degree that sort of quiet air of being unwilling to stand any rannygazoo which females who run schools always have. I had noticed the same thing when in statu pupillari, in my old head master, one glance from whose eye had invariably been sufficient to make me confess all. Sergeant-majors are like that, too. Also traffic-cops and some post office girls. It’s something in the way they purse up their lips and look through you.

  In short, through years of disciplining the young – ticking off Isabel and speaking with quiet severity to Gertrude and that sort of thing – Miss Mapleton had acquired in the process of time rather the air of a female lion-tamer; and it was this air which had caused me after the first swift look to shut my eyes and utter a short prayer. But now, though she still resembled a lion-tamer, her bearing had most surprisingly become that of a chummy lion-tamer – a tamer who, after tucking the lions in for the night, relaxes in the society of the boys.

  ‘So you did not find them, Mr Wooster?’ she said. ‘I am sorry. But I am none the less grateful for the trouble you have taken, nor lacking in appreciation of your courage. I consider that you have behaved splendidly.’

  I felt the mouth opening feebly and the vocal cords twitching, but I couldn’t manage to say anything. I was simply unable to follow her train of thought. I was astonished. Amazed. In fact, dumbfounded about sums it up.

  The hell-hound of the Law gave a sort of yelp, rather like a wolf that sees its Russian peasant getting away.

  ‘You identify this man, ma’am?’

  ‘Identify him? In what way identify him?’

  Jeeves joined the symposium.

  ‘I fancy the officer is under the impression, madam, that Mr Wooster was in your garden for some unlawful purpose. I informed him that Mr Wooster was the nephew of your frien
d, Mrs Spenser Gregson, but he refused to credit me.’

  There was a pause. Miss Mapleton eyed the constable for an instant as if she had caught him sucking acid-drops during the Scripture lesson.

  ‘Do you mean to tell me, officer,’ she said, in a voice that hit him just under the third button of the tunic and went straight through to the spinal column, ‘that you have had the imbecility to bungle this whole affair by mistaking Mr Wooster for a burglar?’

  ‘He was up a tree, ma’am.’

  ‘And why should he not be up a tree? No doubt you had climbed the tree in order to watch the better, Mr Wooster?’

  I could answer that. The first shock over, the old sang-froid was beginning to return.

  ‘Yes. Rather. That’s it. Of course. Certainly. Absolutely,’ I said. ‘Watch the better. That’s it in a nutshell.’

  ‘I took the liberty of suggesting that to the officer, madam, but he declined to accept the theory as tenable.’

  ‘The officer is a fool,’ said Miss Mapleton. It seemed a close thing for a moment whether or not she would rap him on the knuckles with a ruler. ‘By this time, no doubt, owing to his idiocy, the miscreants have made good their escape. And it is for this,’ said Miss Mapleton, ‘that we pay rates and taxes!’

  ‘Awful!’ I said.

  ‘Iniquitous.’

  ‘A bally shame.’

  ‘A crying scandal,’ said Miss Mapleton.

  ‘A grim show,’ I agreed.

  In fact, we were just becoming more like a couple of lovebirds than anything, when through the open window there suddenly breezed a noise.

  I’m never at my best at describing things. At school, when we used to do essays and English composition, my report generally read ‘Has little or no ability, but does his best,’ or words to that effect. True, in the course of years I have picked up a vocabulary of sorts from Jeeves, but even so I’m not nearly hot enough to draw a word-picture that would do justice to that extraordinarily hefty crash. Try to imagine the Albert Hall falling on the Crystal Palace, and you will have got the rough idea.

  All four of us, even Jeeves, sprang several inches from the floor. The policeman uttered a startled ‘Ho!’