"Awfully sorry about all this," I said in a hearty sort of voice. "The
fact is, I thought you were Tuppy."
"Kindly refrain from inflicting your idiotic slang on me. What do you
mean by the adjective 'tuppy'?"
"It isn't so much an adjective, don't you know. More of a noun, I
should think, if you examine it squarely. What I mean to say is, I
thought you were your nephew."
"You thought I was my nephew? Why should I be my nephew?"
"What I'm driving at is, I thought this was his room."
"My nephew and I changed rooms. I have a great dislike for sleeping on
an upper floor. I am nervous about fire."
For the first time since this interview had started I braced up a
trifle. I lost that sense of being a toad under the harrow which had
been cramping my style up till now. I even went so far as to eye this
pink-pajamaed poltroon with a good deal of contempt and loathing. Just
because he had this craven fear of fire and this selfish preference for
letting Tuppy be cooked instead of himself, should the emergency occur,
my nicely reasoned plans had gone up the spout. I gave him a look, and
I think I may even have snorted a bit.
"I should have thought that your manservant would have informed you,"
said Sir Roderick, "that we contemplated making this change. I met him
shortly before luncheon and told him to tell you."
This extraordinary statement staggered me. That Jeeves had been
aware all along that this old crumb would occupy the bed which I was
proposing to prod with darning needles and had let me rush upon my doom
without a word of warning was almost beyond belief. You might say I was
aghast. Yes, practically aghast.
"You told Jeeves that you were going to sleep in this room?" I gasped.
"I did. I was aware that you and my nephew were on terms of intimacy,
and I wished to spare myself the possibility of a visit from you.
I confess that it never occurred to me that such a visit was to be
anticipated at three o'clock in the morning. What the devil do you
mean," he barked, suddenly hotting up, "by prowling about the house at
this hour? And what is that thing in your hand?"
I looked down, and found that I was still grasping the stick. I give
you my honest word that, what with the maelstrom of emotions into which
his revelation about Jeeves had cast me, the discovery came as an
absolute surprise.
"This?" I said. "Oh, yes."
"What do you mean, 'Oh, yes'? What is it?"
"Well, it's a long story."
"We have the night before us."
"It's this way: I will ask you to picture me some weeks ago, perfectly
peaceful and inoffensive, after dinner at the Drones', smoking a
thoughtful cigarette and----"
I broke off. The man wasn't listening. He was goggling in a rapt sort
of way at the end of the bed, from which there had now begun to drip on
to the carpet a series of drops.
"Good heavens!"
"--thoughtful cigarette and chatting pleasantly of this and that----"
I broke off again. He had lifted the sheets and was gazing at the
corpse of the hot-water bottle.
"Did you do this?" he said in a low, strangled sort of voice.
"Er--yes. As a matter of fact, yes. I was just going to tell you----"
"And your aunt tried to persuade me that you were not insane!"
"I'm not. Absolutely not. If you'll just let me explain----"
"I will do nothing of the kind."
"It all began----"
"Silence!"
"Right ho."
He did some deep-breathing exercises.
"My bed is drenched!"
"The way it all began----"
"Be quiet!" He heaved somewhat for a while. "You wretched, miserable
idiot," he said, "kindly inform me which bedroom you are supposed to be
occupying."
"It's on the floor above. The Clock Room."
"Thank you. I will find it."
"Eh?"
He gave me the eyebrow.
"I propose," he said, "to pass the remainder of the night in your room,
where, I presume, there is a bed in a condition to be slept in. You
may bestow yourself as comfortably as you can here. I will wish you
good-night."
He buzzed off, leaving me flat.
Well, we Woosters are old campaigners. We can take the rough with
the smooth. But to say that I liked the prospect now before me would
be paltering with the truth. One glance at the bed told me that any
idea of sleeping there was out. A goldfish could have done it, but
not Bertram. After a bit of a look round I decided that the best
chance of getting any night's rest was to doze as well as I could in
the armchair. I pinched a couple of pillows off the bed, shoved the
hearthrug over my knees, and sat down and started counting sheep.
But it wasn't any good. The old lemon was sizzling much too much to
admit of anything in the nature of slumber. This hideous revelation of
the blackness of Jeeves's treachery kept coming back to me every time
I nearly succeeded in dropping off. I was just wondering if I would
ever get to sleep again in this world when a voice at my elbow said,
"Good-morning, sir," and I sat up with a jerk.
I could have sworn I hadn't so much as dozed off for even a minute; but
apparently I had. For the curtains were drawn back and daylight was
coming in through the window, and there was Jeeves with a cup of tea on
a tray.
"Merry Christmas, sir!"
I reached out a feeble hand for the restoring brew. I swallowed a
mouthful or two, and felt a little better. I was aching in every limb,
and the dome felt like lead; but I was now able to think with a certain
amount of clearness, and I fixed the man with a stony eye and prepared
to let him have it.
"You think so, do you?" I said. "Much, let me tell you, depends on what
you mean by the adjective 'merry.' If, moreover, you suppose that it is
going to be merry for you, correct that impression. Jeeves," I said,
taking another half oz. of tea and speaking in a cold, measured voice,
"I wish to ask you one question. Did you or did you not know that Sir
Roderick Glossop was sleeping in this room last night?"
"Yes, sir."
"You admit it!"
"Yes, sir."
"And you didn't tell me!"
"No, sir. I thought it would be more judicious not to do so."
"Jeeves----"
"If you will allow me to explain, sir."
"Explain!"
"I was aware that my silence might lead to something in the nature of
an embarrassing contretemps, sir----"
"You thought that, did you?"
"Yes, sir."
"You were a good guesser," I said, sucking down further bohea.
"But it seemed to me, sir, that whatever might occur was all for the
best."
I would have put in a crisp word or two here, but he carried on without
giving me the opp.
"I thought that possibly, on reflection, sir, your views being what
they are, you would prefer your relations with Sir Roderick Glossop and
his family to be distant rather than cordial."
"My views? What do you mean, 'my views'?"
"As regards a matrimonial alliance with Miss Honoria Glossop, sir."
Something like an electric shock seemed to zip through me. The man had
opened up a new line of thought. I suddenly saw what he was driving
at, and realized all in a flash that I had been wronging this faithful
fellow. All the while I supposed he had been landing me in the soup he
had really been steering me away from it.
It was like those stories one used to read as a kid, about the
traveller going along on a dark night, and his dog grabs him by the leg
of his trousers, and he says, "Down, sir! What are you doing, Rover?"
And the dog hangs on, and he gets rather hot under the collar and
curses a bit, but the dog won't let him go, and then suddenly the moon
shines through the clouds and he finds he's been standing on the edge
of a precipice and one more step would have--well, anyway, you get the
idea. And what I'm driving at is that much the same thing seemed to be
happening now.
I give you my honest word, it had never struck me till this moment that
my aunt Agatha had been scheming to get me in right with Sir Roderick
so that I should eventually be received back into the fold, if you see
what I mean, and subsequently pushed off on Honoria.
"My God, Jeeves!" I said, paling.
"Precisely, sir."
"You think there was a risk?"
"I do, sir. A very grave risk."
A disturbing thought struck me.
"But, Jeeves, on calm reflection, won't Sir Roderick have gathered
by now that my objective was young Tuppy, and that puncturing his
hot-water bottle was just one of those things that occur when the
Yuletide spirit is abroad--one of those things that have to be
overlooked and taken with the indulgent smile and the fatherly shake of
the head? What I mean is, he'll realize that I wasn't trying to snooter
him, and then all the good work will have been wasted."
"No, sir. I fancy not. That might possibly have been Sir Roderick's
mental reaction, had it not been for the second incident."
"The second incident?"
"During the night, sir, while Sir Roderick was occupying your bed,
somebody entered the room, pierced his hot-water bottle with some sharp
instrument, and vanished in the darkness."