I saw, too, what Jeeves meant about Boko having selected an unfortunate moment for his enterprise.
‘Half an hour after midnight? It must be nearly that now.’
‘Exactly that, sir.’
‘Then Uncle Percy will be manifesting himself at any moment.’
‘If I am not mistaken, sir, this would be his lordship whom you can hear approaching.’
And, sure enough, from somewhere to the nor’-nor’-east there came the sound of some solid object shuffling through the night.
I inhaled in quick concern.
‘Egad, Jeeves!’
‘Sir?’
‘’Tis he!’
‘Yes, sir.’
I mused a moment.
‘Well,’ I said, though not liking the prospect and wishing that the civility could have been avoided, ‘I suppose I’d better pass the time of day. What ho,’ I continued, as he came abreast. ‘What ho, what ho!’
I must say the results were not unpleasing – to a man, I mean, who, like myself, had twice tonight been forced to skip like the hills on finding himself unexpectedly addressed from the shadows. Watching the relative soar skywards with a wordless squeak, obviously startled out of a year’s growth, I was conscious of a distinct sensation of getting a bit of my own back. I felt that, whatever might befall, I was at least that much to the good.
In introducing this uncle by marriage, I showed him to be a man who, in moments of keen emotion, had a tendency to say ‘What?’ and keep on saying it. He did so now.
‘What? What? What? What? What?’ he ejaculated, making five in all. ‘What?’ he added, bringing it up to the round half dozen.
‘Lovely evening, Uncle Percy,’ I said, hoping by the exercise of suavity to keep the conversation on an amicable plane. ‘Jeeves and I were just talking about the stars. What was it you said about the stars, Jeeves?’
‘I alluded to the fact that there was not the smallest orb which did not sing in its motion like an angel, still quiring to the young-eyed cherubims, sir.’
‘That’s right. Worth knowing, that, eh, Uncle Percy?’
During these exchanges, the relative had been going on saying ‘What?’ in a sort of strangled voice, as if still finding it a bit hard to cope with the pressure of events. He now came forward and peered at me, feasting the eyes as far as was possible in the uncertain light.
‘You!’ he said, with a kind of gasp, like some strong swimmer in his agony. ‘What the devil are you doing here?’
‘Just sauntering.’
‘Then go and saunter somewhere else, damn it.’
The Woosters are quick to take a hint, and are generally able to spot when our presence is not desired. Reading between the lines, I could see that he was wishing me elsewhere.
‘Right ho, Uncle Percy,’ I said, still maintaining the old suavity, and was about to withdraw, when another of those voices which seemed to be so common in these parts spoke in my immediate rear, causing me to equal, if not to improve upon, the old relative’s recent standing high jump.
‘What’s all this?’ it said, and with what is sometimes called a sickening qualm I perceived that it was Stilton who had joined our little group. Boko had been completely wrong about the man. Rosy though his cheeks may have been, here was no eight-hour slumberer, who had to be brought to life by alarm clocks, but a vigilant guardian of the peace who was always up and doing, working while others slept.
Stilton was looking gruesomely official. His helmet gleamed in the starlight. His regulation boots had settled themselves solidly into the turf. I rather think he had got his notebook out.
‘What’s all this?’ he repeated.
I suppose Uncle Percy was still feeling a bit edgy. Nothing else could have explained the crisp, mouth-filling expletive which now proceeded from him like a shot out of a gun. It sounded to me like something he must have picked up from one of the sea captains in his employment. These rugged mariners always have excellent vocabularies, and no doubt they frequently drop in at the office on their return from a voyage and teach them something new.
‘What the devil do you mean, what’s all this? And who the devil are you to come trespassing in my grounds, asking what’s all this? What’s all this yourself? What,’ proceeded Uncle Percy, warming to his work, ‘are you doing here, you great oaf? I suppose you’re just sauntering, too? Good God! I try to enjoy a quiet stroll in my garden, and before I can so much as inhale a breath of air I find it crawling with nephews and policemen. I come out to be alone with Nature, and the first thing I know I can’t move for the crowd. What is this place? Piccadilly Circus? Hampstead Heath on Bank Holiday? The spot chosen for the annual outing of the police force?’
I saw his point. Nothing is more annoying to a man who is seeking privacy than to discover that, without knowing it, he had thrown his grounds open to the public. In addition to which, of course, Chichester Clam was waiting for him in the potting shed.
The acerbity of his tone had not been lost on Stilton. Well, I mean to say, it couldn’t very well have been. That expletive alone would have been enough to tell him that he was not a welcome visitor. I could see that he was piqued. His was in many ways a haughty spirit, and it was plain that he resented this brusqueness. From the fact that the top of his helmet moved sharply in the direction of the stars, I knew that he had drawn himself to his full height.
He found himself, however, in a somewhat embarrassing position. He could not come back with anything really snappy, Uncle Percy being a Justice of the Peace and, as such, able to put it across him like the dickens if he talked out of his turn. Besides being his future father-in-law. He was compelled, accordingly, to temper his resentment with a modicum of reserve and to take it out in stiffness of manner.
‘I am sorry –’
‘No use being sorry. Thing is not to do it, blast it.’
‘– to intrude –’
‘Then stop intruding.’
‘– but I am here in the performance of my duty.’
‘What do you mean? Never heard such nonsense.’
‘I received a telephone call just now, desiring me to proceed to the Hall immediately.’
‘Telephone call? Telephone call? What rot! At this time of night? Who telephoned you?’
I suppose that stiff, official manner is difficult to keep up. Quite a bit of a strain, probably. At any rate, Stilton now lapsed from it.
‘Young ruddy Edwin,’ he replied sullenly.
‘My son Edwin?’
‘Yes. He said he had seen a burglar in the grounds.’
A spasm seemed to pass through Uncle Percy. The word ‘burglar’ had plainly touched a chord. He spun round with passionate gesture.
‘Jeeves!’
‘M’lord?’
‘Did you post that letter?’
‘Yes, m’lord.’
‘Phew!’ said Uncle Percy, and mopped his brow.
He was still mopping it, when there came the sound of galloping feet and somebody started giving tongue in the darkness.
‘Hi! Hi! Hi! Wake up, everybody. Turn out the guard. I’ve caught a burglar in the potting shed.’
The voice was Boko’s, and with another pang of pity I realized that J. Chichester Clam’s troubles had begun. He knew now what happened to people who came to Steeple Bumpleigh.
15
* * *
IN THE BRIEF interval which elapsed before Boko sighted us and came to join our little circle, I fell to musing on this Clam and thinking how different he must be feeling all this from what he had been accustomed to.
Here, I mean to say, was one of those solid businessmen who are America’s pride, whose lives are as regular and placid as that of a bug in a rug. On my visits to New York I had met dozens of them, so I could envisage without difficulty a typical Clam day.
Up in the morning bright and early in his Long Island home. The bath. The shave. The eggs. The cereal. The coffee. The drive to the station. The 8.15. The cigar. The New York Times. The arrival at the Pennsy
lvania terminus. The morning’s work. The lunch. The afternoon’s work. The cocktail. The 5.50. The drive from the station. The return home. The kiss for the wife and tots, the pat for the welcoming dog. The shower. The change into something loose. The well-earned dinner. The quiet evening. Bed.
That was the year in, year out routine of a man like Chichester Clam, Sundays and holidays excepted, and it was one ill calculated to fit him for the raw excitements and jungle conditions of Steeple Bumpleigh. Steeple Bumpleigh must have come upon him as a totally new experience, causing him to wonder what had hit him – like a man who, stooping to pluck a nosegay of wild flowers on a railway line, is unexpectedly struck in the small of the back by the Cornish Express. As he now sat in the potting shed, listening to Boko’s view halloos, he was probably convinced that all this must be that Collapse of Civilization, of which he had no doubt so often spoken at the Union League Club.
In spite of the floor of heaven being thick inlaid with patines of bright gold, it was, as I have said, a darkish night, not easy to see things in. The visibility was, however, quite good enough to enable one to perceive that Boko was pretty pleased with himself. Indeed, it would not be overstating it to say that he had got it right up his nose. That this was so was borne in upon me by the fact that he started right away calling Uncle Percy ‘my dear Worplesdon’ – a thing which in his calmer moments he wouldn’t have done on a bet.
‘Ah, my dear Worplesdon,’ he said, having peered into the relative’s face and identified him, ‘so you’re up and about, are you? Capital, capital. Stilton, too? And Jeeves? And Bertie? Fine. Between the five of us, we ought to be well able to overpower the miscreant. I don’t know if you were listening to what I was saying just now, but I’ve locked a burglar up in the potting shed.’
He spoke these words with the air of a man getting ready to receive the thanks of the nation, tapping Uncle Percy’s chest the while as if to suggest that the latter was a lucky chap to have Boko Fittleworths working day and night in his interests. It did not surprise me to observe the relative’s growing restiveness under the treatment.
‘Will you stop prodding me, sir!’ he cried, plainly stirred. ‘What’s all this nonsense about burglars?’
Boko seemed taken aback. One could see that he was feeling that this was not quite the tone.
‘Nonsense, Worplesdon?’
‘How do you know the fellow’s a burglar?’
‘My dear Worplesdon! Would anybody but a burglar be lurking in potting sheds at this time of night? But, if you still need convincing, let me tell you that I was passing the scullery window just now, and I noticed that it was covered with a piece of brown paper.’
‘Brown paper?’
‘Brown paper. Pretty sinister, eh?’
‘Why?’
‘My dear Worplesdon, it proves to the hilt the man’s criminal intentions. You were possibly not aware of it, but when these fellows plan to enter a house and snaffle contents, they always stick a bit of brown paper on a window with treacle and then smash it with a blow of the fist. It’s the regular procedure. The fragments of glass adhere to the paper, and they were thus enabled to climb in without mincing themselves to hash. Oh, no, my dear Worplesdon, there can be no doubt concerning the scoundrel’s guilty purpose. I bottled him up in the nick of time. I heard something moving in the potting shed, peeped in, saw a dark form, and slammed the door and fastened it, thus laying him a dead stymie and foiling all his plans.’
This statement drew a word of professional approbation from the sleepless guardian of the law.
‘Good work, Boko.’
‘Thanks, Stilton.’
‘You showed great presence of mind.’
‘Nice of you to say so.’
‘I’ll go and pinch him.’
‘Just what I was about to suggest.’
‘Has he a gun?’
‘I don’t know. You’ll soon find out.’
‘I don’t care if he has.’
‘The right spirit.’
‘I shall just make a quick spring –’
‘That’s the idea.’
‘– and disarm him.’
‘We will hope so. We will certainly hope so. Yes, let us hope for the best. Still, whatever happens, you will have the satisfaction of knowing that you have done your duty.’
Throughout these exchanges, starting at the words ‘Good work’ and continuing right through to the tab line ‘done your duty’, Uncle Percy had been exhibiting much of the frank perturbation of a cat on hot bricks. Nor could one blame him. He had invited J. Chichester Clam for a quiet talk in the potting shed, and the thought of constables making quick springs at him must have been a very bitter one. You can’t conduct delicate business negotiations with that sort of thing going on. In his agony of spirit, he now began saying ‘What?’ again, leading Boko to apply that patronizing finger to his brisket once more.
‘It’s quite all right, my dear Worplesdon,’ said Boko, tapping like a woodpecker. ‘Have no concern about Stilton. He won’t get hurt. At least, I don’t think so. One may be wrong, of course. Anyway, he is paid to take these risks. Ah, Florence,’ he added, addressing the daughter of the house, who had just come alongside in a dressing-gown, with her hair in curling pins.
It was plain that Florence was not her usual calm and equable self. When she spoke, one noted a testiness.
‘Never mind the “Ah, Florence”. What is going on out here? What is all this noise and disturbance? I was woken up by someone shouting.’
‘Me,’ said Boko, and even in the uncertain light I could see that he was smirking. I doubt if in all Hampshire that night you could have found a fellow more thoroughly satisfied with himself. He had got it firmly rooted in his mind that he was the popular hero, beloved of all – little knowing that Uncle Percy’s favourite reading would have been his name on a tombstone. Rather saddening, the whole thing.
‘Well, I wish you wouldn’t. It is perfectly impossible to sleep, with people romping all over the garden.’
‘Romping? I was catching a burglar.’
‘Catching a burglar?’
‘You never spoke a truer word. A great desperate brute of a midnight marauder, who may or may not be armed to the teeth. That question we shall be able to answer better after Stilton has got together with him.’
‘But how did you catch a burglar?’
‘Oh, it’s just a knack.’
‘I mean, what were you doing here at this time of night?’
It was as if Uncle Percy had been waiting for someone to come along and throw him just that cue.
‘Exactly,’ he cried, having snorted the snort of a lifetime. ‘The very thing I want to know. The precise question I was about to ask myself. What the devil are you doing here? I am not aware that I invited you to infest my private grounds and go charging about them like a buffalo, making an appalling din and rendering peace and quiet impossible. You have a garden of your own, I believe? If you must behave like a buffalo, kindly go and do so there. And the idea of locking people in my potting shed! I never heard of anything so officious in my life.’
‘Officious?’
‘Yes, damned officious.’
Boko was patently stunned. One sensed that thoughts about birds biting the hand that fed them were racing through his mind. He stuttered a while before speaking.
‘Well!’ he said, as length, having ceased to imitate a motor bicycle. ‘Well, I’m dashed! Well, I must say! Well, I’m blowed! Officious, eh? That is the attitude you take, is it? Ha! One desires no thanks, of course, for these little good turns one does people – at some slight inconvenience to oneself, one might perhaps mention – but I should have thought that in the circumstances one was entitled to expect at least decent civility. Jeeves!’
‘Sir?’
‘What did Shakespeare say about ingratitude?’
‘“Blow, blow, thou winter wind”, sir, “thou art not so unkind as man’s ingratitude”. He also alludes to the quality as “thou marble-hearted fi
end”.’
‘And he wasn’t so dashed far wrong! I brood over his house like a guardian angel, sacrificing my sleep and leisure to its interests. I sweat myself to the bone, catching burglars –’
Uncle Percy turned in again.
‘Burglars, indeed! All silly nonsense. The man is probably some harmless wayfarer, who had taken refuge in my potting shed from the storm –’
‘What storm?’
‘Never mind what storm.’
‘There isn’t a storm.’
‘All right, all right!’
‘It’s a lovely night. No suggestion of a storm.’
‘All right, all right! We aren’t talking about the weather. We’re talking about this poor waif in my potting shed. I say he is probably just some harmless wayfarer, and I refuse to persecute the unfortunate fellow. What harm has he done? All the riff-raff for miles around have been using my garden as if it were their own, so why shouldn’t he? This is Liberty Hall, damn it – or seems to be.’
‘So you don’t think he’s a burglar?’
‘No, I do not.’
‘Worplesdon, you’re a silly ass. How about the brown paper? What price the treacle?’
‘Damn the treacle. Curse the brown paper. And how dare you call me a silly ass? Jeeves!’
‘M’lord?’
‘Here’s ten shillings. Go and give it to the poor chap and let him go. Tell him to buy himself a warm bed and supper.’
‘Very good, m’lord.’
Boko uttered a sharp, yapping sound, like a displeased hyena.
‘And, Jeeves!’ he said.
‘Sir?’
‘When he’s got the warm bed, better tuck him up and see that he has a hot water bottle.’
‘Very good, sir.’
‘Ten shillings, eh? Supper, egad? Warm bed, forsooth? Well, this lets me out,’ said Boko. ‘I wash my hands of the whole affair. This is the last occasion on which you may expect my help when you have burglars in this loony bin. Next time they come flocking round, I shall pat them on the back and hold the ladder for them.’
He strode off into the darkness, full to the brim of dudgeon, and I can’t say I was much surprised. The way things had panned out had been enough to induce dudgeon in the mildest of men, let alone a temperamental young author, accustomed to calling on his publishers and raising hell at the smallest provocation.
The Jeeves Omnibus Vol. 2: Right Ho, Jeeves / Joy in the Morning / Carry On, Jeeves Page 35
