Wodehouse On Crime

by P. G. Wodehouse

  The new-comer was a stout man with a complexion that matched the wall-paper. He was puffing slightly, as if he had found the stairs trying. He had broad, slab-like features; and his face was split in the middle by a walrus moustache. Somewhere and in some place, Clarence was convinced, he had seen this man before.

  And then it all came back to him. An open window with a pleasant summer breeze blowing in; a stout man in a cocked hat trying to climb through this window; and he, Clarence, doing his best to help him with the sharp end of a tripod. It was Jno. Horatio Biggs, the Mayor of Tooting East.

  A shudder of loathing ran through Clarence.

  “Traitor!” he cried.

  “Eh?” said the Mayor.

  “If anybody had told me that a son of Tooting, nursed in the keen air of freedom which blows across the Common, would sell himself for gold to the enemies of his country, I would never have believed it. Well, you may tell your employers — ”

  “What employers?”

  “Power A.”

  “Oh, that?” said the Mayor. “I am afraid my secretary, whom I instructed to bring you to this house, was obliged to romance a little in order to ensure your accompanying him, Mr. Mulliner. All that about Power A. and Power B. was just his little joke. If you want to know why you were brought here — ”

  Clarence uttered a low groan.

  “I have guessed your ghastly object, you ghastly object,” he said quietly. “You want me to photograph you.”

  The Mayor shook his head.

  “Not myself. I realise that that can never be. My daughter.”

  “Your daughter?”

  “My daughter.”

  “Does she take after you?”

  “People tell me there is a resemblance.”

  “I refuse,” said Clarence.

  “Think well, Mr. Mulliner.”

  “I have done all the thinking that is necessary. England — or, rather. Great Britain — looks to me to photograph only her fairest and loveliest; and though, as a man, I admit that I loathe beautiful women, as a photographer I have a duty to consider that is higher than any personal feelings. History has yet to record an instance of a photographer playing his country false, and Clarence Mulliner is not the man to supply the first one. I decline your offer.”

  “I wasn’t looking on it exactly as an offer,” said the Mayor, thoughtfully. “More as a command, if you get my meaning.”

  “You imagine that you can bend a lens-artist to your will and make him false to his professional reputation?”

  “I was thinking of having a try.”

  “Do you realise that, if my incarceration here were known, ten thousand photographers would tear this house brick from brick and you limb from limb?”

  “But it isn’t,” the Mayor pointed out. “And that, if you follow me, is the whole point. You came here by night in a closed car. You could stay here for the rest of your life, and no one would be any the wiser. I really think you had better reconsider, Mr. Mulliner.”

  “You have had my answer.”

  “Well, I’ll leave you to think it over. Dinner will be served at seven-thirty. Don’t bother to dress.”

  At half-past seven precisely the door opened again and the Mayor reappeared, followed by a butler bearing on a silver salver a glass of water and a small slice of bread. Pride urged Clarence to reject the refreshment, but hunger overcame pride. He swallowed the bread which the butler offered him in small bits in a spoon and drank the water.

  “At what hour would the gentleman desire breakfast sir?” asked the butler.

  “Now,” said Clarence, for his appetite, always healthy, seemed to have been sharpened by the trials which he had undergone.

  “Let us say nine o’clock,” suggested the Mayor. “Put aside another slice of that bread. Meadows. And no doubt Mr. Mulliner would enjoy a glass of this excellent water.”

  For perhaps half an hour after his host had left him, Clarence’s mind was obsessed to the exclusion of all other thoughts by a vision of the dinner he would have liked to be enjoying. All we Mulliners have been good trenchermen, and to put a bit of bread into it after it had been unoccupied for a whole day was to offer to Clarence’s stomach an insult which it resented with an indescribable bitterness. Clarence’s only emotion for some considerable time, then, was that of hunger. His thoughts centred themselves on food. And it was to this fact, oddly enough, that he owed his release.

  For, as he lay there in a sort of delirium, picturing himself getting outside a medium-cooked steak smothered in onions, with grilled tomatoes and floury potatoes on the side, it was suddenly borne in upon him that this steak did not taste quite so good as other steaks which he had eaten in the past. It was tough and lacked juiciness. It tasted just like rope.

  And then, his mind clearing, he saw that it actually was rope. Carried away by the anguish of hunger, he had been chewing the cord which bound his hands; and he now discovered that he had bitten into it quite deeply.

  A sudden flood of hope poured over Clarence Mulliner.

  Carrying on at this rate, he perceived, he would be able ere long to free himself. It only needed a little imagination. After a brief interval to rest his aching jaws, he put himself deliberately into that state of relaxation which is recommended by the apostles of Suggestion.

  “I am entering the dining-room of my club,” murmured Clarence. “I am sitting down. The waiter is handing me the bill of fare. I have selected roast duck with green peas and new potatoes, lamb cutlets with Brussels sprouts, fricassee of chicken, porterhouse steak, boiled beef and carrots, leg of mutton, haunch of mutton, mutton chops, curried mutton, veal, kidneys saute, spaghetti Caruso, and eggs and bacon, fried on both sides. The waiter is now bringing my order. I have taken up my knife and fork. I am beginning to eat.”

  And, murmuring a brief grace, Clarence flung himself on the rope and set to.

  Twenty minutes later he was hobbling about the room, restoring the circulation to his cramped limbs.

  Just as he had succeeded in getting himself nicely limbered up, he heard the key turning in the door.

  Clarence crouched for the spring. The room was quite dark now, and he was glad of it, for darkness well fitted the work which lay before him. His plans, conceived on the spur of the moment, were necessarily sketchy, but they included jumping on the Mayor’s shoulders and pulling his head off. After that, no doubt, other modes of self-expression would suggest themselves.

  The door opened. Clarence made his leap. And he was just about to start on the programme as arranged, when he discovered with a shock that this was no O.B.E. that he was being rough with, but a woman. And no photographer worthy of the name will ever lay a hand upon a woman, save to raise her chin and tilt it a little more to the left.

  “I beg your pardon!” he cried.

  “Don’t mention it,” said his visitor, in a low voice. “I hope I didn’t disturb you.”

  “Not at all,” said Clarence.

  There was a pause.

  “Rotten weather,” said Clarence, feeling that it was for him, as the male member of the sketch, to keep the conversation going.

  “Yes, isn’t it?”

  “A lot of rain we’ve had this summer.”

  “Yes. It seems to get worse every year.”

  “Doesn’t it?”

  “So bad for tennis.”

  “And cricket.”

  “And polo.”

  “And garden parties.”

  “I hate rain.”

  “So do I.”

  “Of course, we may have a fine August.”

  “Yes, there’s always that.”

  The ice was broken, and the girl seemed to become more at her ease.

  “I came to let you out,” she said. “I must apologise for my father. He loves me foolishly and has no scruples where my happiness is concerned. He has always yearned to have me photographed by you, but I cannot consent to allow a photographer to be coerced into abandoning his principles. If you will follow me, I will let y
ou out by the front door.”

  “It’s awfully good of you,” said Clarence, awkwardly. As any man of nice sentiment would have been, he was embarrassed. He wished that he could have obliged this kind-hearted girl by taking her picture, but a natural delicacy restrained him from touching on this subject. They went down the stairs in silence.

  On the first landing a hand was placed on his in the darkness and the girl’s voice whispered in his ear.

  “We are just outside father’s study,” he heard her say. “We must be as quiet as mice.”

  “As what?” said Clarence.

  “Mice.”

  “Oh, rather,” said Clarence, and immediately bumped into what appeared to be a pedestal of some sort.

  These pedestals usually have vases on top of them, and it was revealed to Clarence a moment later that this one was no exception. There was a noise like ten simultaneous dinner-services coming apart in the hands of ten simultaneous parlour-maids; and then the door was flung open, the landing became flooded with light, and the Mayor of Tooting East stood before them. He was carrying a revolver and his face was dark with menace.

  “Ha!” said the Mayor.

  But Clarence was paying no attention to him. He was staring open-mouthed at the girl. She had shrunk back against the wall, and the light fell full upon her.

  “You!” cried Clarence.

  “This — ” began the Mayor.

  “You! At last!”

  “This is a pretty — ”

  “Am I dreaming?”

  “This is a pretty state of af — ”

  “Ever since that day I saw you in the cab I have been scouring London for you. To think that I have found you at last!”

  “This is a pretty state of affairs,” said the Mayor, breathing on the barrel of his revolver and polishing it on the sleeve of his coat. “My daughter helping the foe of her family to fly.”

  “Flee, father,” corrected the girl, faintly.

  “Flea or fly — this is no time for arguing about insects. Let me tell you — ”

  Clarence interrupted him indignantly.

  “What do you mean,” he cried, “by saying that she took after you?”

  “She does.”

  “She does not. She is the loveliest girl in the world, while you look like Lon Chaney made up for something. See for yourself.” Clarence led them to the large mirror at the head of the stairs. “Your face — if you can call it that — is one of those beastly blobby squashy sort of faces — “

  “Here!” said the Mayor.

  “ — whereas hers is simply divine. Your eyes are bulbous and goofy — ”

  “Hey!” said the Mayor.

  “ — while hers are sweet and soft and intelligent. Your ears —”

  “Yes, yes,” said the Mayor, petulantly. “Some other time, some other time. Then am I to take it, Mr. Mulliner — ”

  “Call me Clarence.”

  “I refuse to call you Clarence.”

  “You will have to very shortly, when I am your son-in-law.” The girl uttered a cry. The Mayor uttered a louder cry.

  “My son-in-law!”

  “That,” said Clarence, firmly, “is what I intend to be — and speedily.” He turned to the girl. “I am a man of volcanic passions, and now that love has come to me there is no power in heaven or earth that can keep me from the object of my love. It will be my never-ceasing task — er — ”

  “Gladys,” prompted the girl.

  “Thank you. It will be my never-ceasing task, Gladys, to strive daily to make you return that love — ”

  “You need not strive, Clarence,” she whispered, softly. “It is already returned.”

  Clarence reeled.

  “Already?” he gasped.

  “I have loved you since I saw you in that cab. When we were torn asunder, I felt quite faint.”

  “So did I. I was in a daze. I tipped my cabman at Waterloo three half-crowns. I was aflame with love.”

  “I can hardly believe it.”

  “Nor could I, when I found out. I thought it was threepence. And ever since that day — ”

  The Mayor coughed.

  “Then am I to take it — er — Clarence,” he said, “that your objections to photographing my daughter are removed?”

  Clarence laughed happily.

  “Listen,” he said, “and I’ll show you the sort of son-in-law I am. Ruin my professional reputation though it may, I will take a photograph of you too!”

  “Me!”

  “Absolutely. Standing beside her with the tips of your fingers on her shoulder. And what’s more, you can wear your cocked hat.”

  Tears had begun to trickle down the Mayor’s cheeks.

  “My boy!” he sobbed, brokenly. “My boy!”

  And so happiness came to Clarence Mulliner at last. He never became President of the Bulb-Squeezers, for he retired from business the next day, declaring that the hand that had snapped the shutter when taking the photograph of his dear wife should never snap it again for sordid profit. The wedding, which took place some six weeks later, was attended by almost everybody of any note in Society or on the Stage; and was the first occasion on which a bride and bridegroom had ever walked out of church beneath an arch of crossed tripods.

  AUNT AGATHA TAKES THE COUNT

  “JEEVES,” I SAID, “WE’VE BACKED A WINNER.”

  “Sir?”

  “Coming to this place, I mean. Here we are in a topping hotel, with fine weather, good cooking, golf, bathing, gambling of every variety, and my Aunt Agatha miles away on the other side of the English Channel. I ask you, what could be sweeter?”

  I had had to leg it, if you remember, with considerable speed from London because my Aunt Agatha was on my track with a hatchet as the result of the breaking-off of my engagement to Honoria Glossop. The thing hadn’t been my fault, but I couldn’t have convinced Aunt Agatha of that if I’d argued for a week: so it had seemed to me that the judicious course to pursue was to buzz briskly off while the buzzing was good. I was standing now at the window of the extremely decent suite which I’d taken at the Hotel Splendide at Roville on the French coast, and, as I looked down at the people popping to and fro in the sunshine, and reflected that in about a quarter of an hour I was due to lunch with a girl who was the exact opposite of Honoria Glossop in every way, I felt dashed uplifted. Gay, genial, happy-go-lucky, and devil-may-care, if you know what I mean.

  I had met this girl — Aline Hemmingway her name was — for the first time on the train coming from Paris. She was going to Roville to wait there for a brother who was due to arrive from England. I had helped her with her baggage, got into conversation, had a bite of dinner with her in the restaurant-car, and the result was we had become remarkably chummy. I’m a bit apt, as a rule, to give the modern girl a miss, but there was something different about Aline Hemmingway.

  I turned round, humming a blithe melody, and Jeeves shied like a startled mustang.

  I had rather been expecting some such display of emotion on the man’s part, for I was trying out a fairly fruity cummerbund that morning — one of those silk contrivances, you know, which you tie round your waist, something on the order of a sash, only more substantial. I had seen it in a shop the day before and hadn’t been able to resist it, but I’d known all along that there might be trouble with Jeeves. It was a pretty brightish scarlet.

  “I beg your pardon, sir,” he said, in a sort of hushed voice. “You are surely not proposing to appear in public in that thing?”

  “What, Guthbert the Gummerbund?” I said in a careless, debonair way, passing it off. “Rather!”

  “I should not advise it, sir, really I shouldn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “The effect, sir, is loud in the extreme.”

  I tackled the blighter squarely. I mean to say, nobody knows better than I do that Jeeves is a mastermind and all that, but, dash it, a fellow must call his soul his own. You can’t be a serf to your valet.

  “You know, the trouble w
ith you, Jeeves,” I said, “is that you’re too — what’s the word I want? — too bally insular.

  You can’t realise that you aren’t in Piccadilly all the time. In a place like this, simply dripping with the gaiety and joie-de-vivre of France, a bit of colour and a touch of the poetic is expected of you. Why, last night at the Casino I saw a fellow in a full evening suit of yellow velvet.”

  ‘‘Nevertheless, sir — ”

  “Jeeves,” I said, firmly, “my mind is made up. I’m in a foreign country; it’s a corking day; God’s in his heaven and all’s right with the world and this cummerbund seems to me to be called for.”

  “Very good, sir,” said Jeeves, coldly.

  Dashed upsetting, this sort of thing. If there’s one thing that gives me the pip, it’s unpleasantness in the home; and I could see that relations were going to be pretty fairly strained for a while. I suppose the old brow must have been a bit furrowed or something, for Aline Hemmingway spotted that things were wrong directly we sat down to lunch.

  “You seem depressed, Mr. Wooster,” she said. “Have you been losing money at the Casino?”

  “No,” I said. “As a matter of fact, I won quite a goodish sum last night.”

  “But something is the matter. What is it?”

  “Well, to tell you the truth,” I said, “I’ve just had rather a painful scene with my man, and it’s shaken me a bit. He doesn’t like this cummerbund.”

  “Why, I’ve just been admiring it. I think it’s very becoming.”

  “No, really?”

  “It has rather a Spanish effect.”

  “Exactly what I thought myself. Extraordinary you should have said that. A touch of the hidalgo, what? Sort of Vincente y Blasco What’s-his-name stuff. The jolly old hidalgo off to the bull-fight, what?”

  “Yes. Or a corsair of the Spanish Main.”

  “Absolutely! I say, you know, you have bucked me up. It’s a rummy thing about you — how sympathetic you are, I mean. The ordinary girl you meet to-day is all bobbed hair and gaspers, but you — ”

  I was about to continue in this strain, when somebody halted at our table, and the girl jumped up.