'You would have seen it if you had done your dusting more
conscientiously,' I said severely. And I meant it to sting, by Jove!
'It is not a parlourmaid's place to dust the drawing-room,' she sniffed
haughtily.
'No,' I said bitterly. 'It seems to be a parlourmaid's place to
lurk about and hang about and--er--waste her time fooling about in
the garden with policemen who ought to be busy about their duties
elsewhere.'
'It's a parlourmaid's place to open the front door to visitors. Them
that don't come in through windows.'
I perceived that I was getting the loser's end of the thing. I tried to
be conciliatory.
'My dear old parlourmaid,' I said, 'don't let us descend to vulgar
wrangling. All I'm driving at is that there is a photograph of me in
the drawing-room, cared for and dusted by whom I know not; and this
photograph will, I think, prove to you that I am an old friend of the
family. I fancy so, officer?'
'If it's there,' said the man in a grudging way.
'Oh, it's there all right. On, yes, it's there.'
'Well, we'll go to the drawing-room and see.'
'Spoken like a man, my dear old policeman,' I said.
* * * * *
The drawing-room was on the first floor, and the photograph was on
the table by the fireplace. Only, if you understand me, it wasn't.
What I mean is there was the fireplace, and there was the table by the
fireplace, but, by Jove, not a sign of any photograph of me whatsoever.
A photograph of Bingo, yes. A photograph of Bingo's uncle, Lord
Bittlesham, right. A photograph of Mrs Bingo, three-quarter face, with
a tender smile on her lips, all present and correct. But of anything
resembling Bertram Wooster, not a trace.
'Ho!' said the policeman.
'But, dash it, it was there the night before last.'
'Ho!' he said again. 'Ho! Ho!' As if he were starting a drinking-chorus
in a comic opera, confound him.
Then I got what amounted to the brain-wave of a lifetime.
'Who dusts these things?' I said, turning on the parlourmaid.
'I don't.'
'I didn't say you did. I said who did.'
'Mary. The housemaid, of course.'
'Exactly. As I suspected. As I foresaw. Mary, officer, is notoriously
the worst smasher in London. There have been complaints about her on
all sides. You see what has happened? The wretched girl has broken the
glass of my photograph and, not being willing to come forward and admit
it in an honest, manly way, has taken the thing off and concealed it
somewhere.'
'Ho!' said the policeman, still working through the drinking-chorus.
'Well, ask her. Go down and ask her.'
'You go down and ask her,' said the policeman to the parlourmaid. 'If
it's going to make him any happier.'
The parlourmaid left the room, casting a pestilential glance at me over
her shoulder as she went. I'm not sure she didn't say 'Ho!' too. And
then there was a bit of a lull. The policeman took up a position with a
large beefy back against the door, and I wandered to and fro and hither
and yonder.
'What are you playing at?' demanded the policeman.
'Just looking round. They may have moved the thing.'
'Ho!'
And then there was another bit of a lull. And suddenly I found myself
by the window, and, by Jove, it was six inches open at the bottom. And
the world beyond looked so bright and sunny and--Well, I don't claim
that I am a particularly swift thinker, but once more something seemed
to whisper 'Outside for Bertram!' I slid my finger nonchalantly under
the sash, gave a hefty heave, and up she came. And the next moment I
was in a laurel bush, feeling like the cross which marks the spot where
the accident occurred.
A large red face appeared in the window. I got up and skipped lightly
to the gate.
'Hi!' shouted the policeman.
'Ho!' I replied, and went forth, moving well.
'This,' I said to myself, as I hailed a passing cab and sank back on
the cushions, 'is the last time I try to do anything for young Bingo!'
* * * * *
These sentiments I expressed in no guarded language to Jeeves when I
was back in the old flat with my feet on the mantelpiece, pushing down
a soothing whisky-and.
'Never again, Jeeves!' I said. 'Never again!'
'Well, sir--'
'No, never again!'
'Well, sir--'
'What do you mean, "Well, sir"? What are you driving at?'
'Well, sir, Mr Little is an extremely persistent young gentleman, and
yours, if I may say so, sir, is a yielding and obliging nature--'
'You don't think that young Bingo would have the immortal rind to try
to get me into some other foul enterprise?'
'I should say that it was more than probable, sir.'
I removed the dogs swiftly from the mantelpiece, and jumped up, all of
a twitter.
'Jeeves, what would you advise?'
'Well, sir, I think a little change of scene would be judicious.'
'Do a bolt?'
'Precisely, sir. If I might suggest it, sir, why not change your mind
and join Mr George Travers at Harrogate?'
'Oh, I say, Jeeves!'
'You would be out of what I might describe as the danger zone there,
sir.'
'Perhaps you're right, Jeeves,' I said thoughtfully. 'Yes, possibly
you're right. How far is Harrogate from London?'
'Two hundred and six miles, sir.'
'Yes, I think you're right. Is there a train this afternoon?'
'Yes, sir. You could catch it quite easily.'
'All right, then. Bung a few necessaries in a bag.'
'I have already done so, sir.'
'Ho!' I said.
* * * * *
It's a rummy thing, but when you come down to it Jeeves is always
right. He had tried to cheer me up at the station by saying that I
would not find Harrogate unpleasant, and, by Jove, he was perfectly
correct. What I had overlooked, when examining the project, was the
fact that I should be in the middle of a bevy of blokes who were taking
the cure and I shouldn't be taking it myself. You've no notion what a
dashed cosy, satisfying feeling that gives a fellow.
I mean to say, there was old Uncle George, for instance. The
medicine-man, having given him the once-over, had ordered him to
abstain from all alcoholic liquids, and in addition to tool down the
hill to the Royal Pump-Room each morning at eight-thirty and imbibe
twelve ounces of warm crescent saline and magnesia. It doesn't sound
much, put that way, but I gather from contemporary accounts that it's
practically equivalent to getting outside a couple of little old last
year's eggs beaten up in sea-water. And the thought of Uncle George,
who had oppressed me sorely in my childhood, sucking down that stuff
and having to hop out of bed at eight-fifteen to do so was extremely
grateful and comforting of a morning.
At four in the afternoon he would toddle down the hill again and repeat
the process, and at night we would dine together and I would loll back
in my chair, sipping my wine, and listen to him telling me what the
stuff had tasted like. In many ways the ideal existence.
I generally managed to fit it in with my engagements to go down and
watch him tackle his afternoon dose, for we Woosters are as fond of a
laugh as anyone. And it was while I was enjoying the performance in the
middle of the second week that I heard my name spoken. And there was
Aunt Dahlia.
'Hallo!' I said. 'What are you doing here?'
'I came down yesterday with Tom.'
'Is Tom taking the cure?' asked Uncle George, looking up hopefully from
the hell-brew.
'Yes.'
'Are you taking the cure?'
'Yes.'
'Ah!' said Uncle George, looking happier than I had seen him for days.
He swallowed the last drops, and then, the programme calling for a
brisk walk before his massage, left us.
'I shouldn't have thought you would have been able to get away from
the paper,' I said. 'I say,' I went on, struck by a pleasing idea. 'It
hasn't bust up, has it?'
'Bust up? I should say not. A pal of mine is looking after it for me
while I'm here. It's right on its feet now. Tom has given me a couple
of thousand and says there's more if I want it, and I've been able
to buy the serial rights of Lady Bablockhythe's _Frank Recollections
of a Long Life_. The hottest stuff, Bertie. Certain to double the
circulation and send half the best-known people in London into
hysterics for a year.'
'Oh!' I said. 'Then you're pretty well fixed, what? I mean, what with
the Frank Recollections and that article of Mrs Little's.'
Aunt Dahlia was drinking something that smelled like a leak in the
gas-pipe, and I thought for a moment that it was that that made her
twist up her face. But I was wrong.
'Don't mention that woman to me, Bertie!' she said. 'One of the worst.'
'But I thought you were rather pally.'
'No longer. Will you credit it that she positively refuses to let me
have that article--'
'What!'
'--purely and simply on account of some fancied grievance she thinks
she has against me because her cook left her and came to me.'