"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 dispatched
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----"
"Here!" said the policeman, slightly rattled. "What's all this?"
"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 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.
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 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 nastily, was
the boss in person. I gave her one 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
I 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. When _in
statu pupillari_, I had noticed the same thing 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. 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 hellhound 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 friend, 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 had
returned.
"Yes. Rather. That's it. Of course. Certainly. Quite. 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 love birds 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 the 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.
Once, when I was in New York, I stopped at a hotel about six yards
from where they were putting up that new Grand Central building, and
I thought that had taught me all there was to know about noise. But
it was only now that I discovered what noise could really be. 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.
Miss Mapleton was her calm, masterful self again in a second.
"One of the men appears to have fallen through the conservatory roof,"
she said. "Perhaps you will endeavour at the eleventh hour to justify
your existence, officer, by making investigations."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Try not to bungle matters this time."
"No, ma'am."
"Please hurry, then. Do you intend to stand there gaping all night?"
"Yes, ma'am. No, ma'am. Yes, ma'am."
It was pretty to hear him.
"It is an odd coincidence, Mr. Wooster," said Miss Mapleton, becoming
instantly matey once more as the outcast removed himself. "I had just
finished writing a letter to your aunt when you arrived. I shall
certainly reopen it to tell her how gallantly you have behaved
to-night.
"I have not in the past entertained a very high opinion of the modern
young man, but you have caused me to alter it. To track these men
unarmed through a dark garden argues courage of a high order. And it
was most courteous of you to think of calling upon me. I appreciate it.
Are you making a long stay in Bingley?"
This was another one I could answer.
"No," I said. "Afraid not. Must be in London to-morrow."
"Perhaps you could lunch before your departure?"
"Afraid not. Thanks most awfully. Very important engagement that I
can't get out of. Eh, Jeeves? Have to catch the ten-thirty train, what?"
"Without fail, sir."
"I am sorry," said Miss Mapleton. "I had hoped that you would be able
to say a few words to my girls. Some other time, perhaps?"
"Absolutely."
"You must let me know when you are coming to Bingley again."
"When I come to Bingley again," I said, "I shall certainly let you
know."
"If I remember your plans correctly, sir, you are not likely to be in
Bingley for some little time, sir."
"Not for some considerable time, Jeeves," I said.
* * * * *
The front door closed. I passed a hand across the brow.
"Tell me all, Jeeves," I said. "I am fogged."
"It is quite simple, sir. I ventured to take the liberty, on my own
responsibility, of putting into operation the alternative scheme which,
if you remember, I wished to outline to you."
"What was it?"
"It occurred to me, sir, that it would be most judicious for me to
call at the back door and desire an interview with Miss Mapleton.
This, I fancied, would enable me, while the maid had gone to convey my
request to Miss Mapleton, to introduce the young lady into the house
unobserved."
"And did you?"
"Yes, sir. She proceeded up the back stairs and is now safely in bed."