"Jeeves," I said, "not another word. Stick, one, and needle, darning,
good, sharp, one, without fail, in this room at eleven-thirty to-night."
"Very good, sir."
"Have you any idea where young Tuppy sleeps?"
"I could ascertain, sir."
"Do so, Jeeves."
In a few minutes he was back with the necessary informash.
"Mr. Glossop is established in the Moat Room, sir."
"Where's that?"
"The second door on the floor below, sir."
"Right ho, Jeeves. Are the studs in my shirt?"
"Yes, sir."
"And the links also?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then push me into it."
* * * * *
The task to which I had set myself was one that involved hardship and
discomfort, for it meant sitting up till well into the small hours, and
then padding down a cold corridor. But I did not shrink from it. After
all, there is a lot to be said for family tradition. We Woosters did
our bit in the Crusades.
It being Christmas Eve, there was, as I had foreseen, a good deal of
revelry and what not; so that it wasn't till past one that I got to my
room. Allowing for everything, it didn't seem that it was going to be
safe to start my little expedition till half-past two at the earliest;
and I'm bound to say that it was only the utmost resolution that kept
me from snuggling into the sheets and calling it a day. I'm not much of
a lad now for late hours.
However, by half-past two everything appeared to be quiet. I shook off
the mists of sleep, grabbed the good old stick and needle, and was off
along the corridor. And presently, pausing outside the Moat Room, I
turned the handle, found the door wasn't locked, and went in.
At first, when I had beetled in, the room had seemed as black as a coal
cellar; but after a bit things began to lighten. The curtains weren't
quite drawn over the window, and I could see a trifle of the scenery
here and there.
The bed was opposite the window, with the head against the wall and
the end where the feet were jutting out toward where I stood, thus
rendering it possible, after one had sown the seed, so to speak, to
make a quick get-away.
There only remained now the rather tricky problem of locating the old
hot-water bottle. I mean to say, the one thing you can't do if you want
to carry a job like this through with secrecy and dispatch is to stand
at the end of a fellow's bed, jabbing at random.
I was a good deal cheered, at this juncture, to hear a fruity snore
from the direction of the pillows. Reason told me that a bloke who
could snore like that wasn't going to be awakened by a trifle. I edged
forward and ran a hand in a gingerly sort of way over the coverlet.
A moment later I had found the bulge. I steered the good old darning
needle on to it, gripped the stick, and shoved. Then, pulling out the
weapon, I sidled toward the door, and in an another moment would have
been outside, buzzing for home and the good night's rest, when suddenly
there was a crash that sent my spine shooting up through the top of my
head, and the contents of the bed sat up like a jack-in-the-box and
said:
"Who's that?"
It just shows how your most careful strategic moves can be the very
ones that dish your campaign. In order to facilitate the orderly
retreat according to plan, I had left the door open, and the beastly
thing had slammed like a bomb.
But I wasn't giving much thought to the causes of the explosion. What
was disturbing me was the discovery that, whoever else the bloke in
the bed might be, he was not young Tuppy. Tuppy has one of those high,
squeaky voices that sound like the tenor of the village choir failing
to hit a high note. This one was something in between the last trump
and a tiger calling for breakfast after being on a diet for a day or
two. It was the sort of nasty, rasping voice you hear shouting "Fore!"
when you're one of a slow foursome on the links and are holding up a
couple of retired colonels.
I did not linger. Getting swiftly off the mark, I dived for the door
handle, and was off and away, banging the door behind me. I may be a
chump in many ways, as my aunt Agatha will freely attest, but I know
when and when not to be among those present.
And I was just about to do the stretch of corridor leading to the
stairs in a split second under the record time for the course, when
something brought me up with a sudden jerk. An irresistible force was
holding me straining at leash, as it were.
You know, sometimes it seems to me as if Fate were going out of its
way to such an extent to snooter you that you wonder if it's worth
while to struggle. The night being a trifle chillier than the dickens,
I had donned for this expedition a dressing gown. It was the tail of
this infernal garment that had caught in the door and pipped me at the
eleventh hour.
The next moment the door had opened, light was streaming through it,
and the bloke with the voice had grabbed me by the arm.
It was Sir Roderick Glossop.
For about three and a quarter seconds, or possibly more, we just stood
there, drinking each other in, so to speak, the old boy still attached
with a limpetlike grip to my elbow. If I hadn't been in a dressing
gown and he in pink pajamas with a blue stripe, and if he hadn't been
glaring quite so much as if he were shortly going to commit a murder,
the tableau would have looked rather like one of those advertisements
you see in the magazines, where the experienced elder is patting the
young man's arm and saying to him: "My boy, if you subscribe to the
Mutt-Jeff Correspondence School of Oswego, Kansas, as I did, you
may some day, like me, become Third Assistant Vice President of the
Schenectady Consolidated Nail File and Eyebrow Tweezer Corporation."
"You!" said Sir Roderick finally. And in this connection I want to
state that it's all rot to say you can't hiss a word that hasn't an _s_
in it. The way he pushed out that "You!" sounded like an angry cobra.
By rights, I suppose, at this point I ought to have said something. The
best I could manage, however, was a faint, soft, bleating sound.
"Come in here," he said, lugging me into the room. "We don't want to
wake the whole house. Now," he said, depositing me on the carpet and
closing the door, and doing a bit of eyebrow work, "kindly inform me
what is this latest manifestation of insanity?"
It seemed to me that a light and cheery laugh might help. So I had a
pop at one.
"Don't gibber!" said my genial host. And I'm bound to admit that the
light and cheery hadn't come out quite as I'd intended.