Thank You, Jeeves

'I'd be glad to show it to you. This is the main saloon we're in.'

'Ah,' I said.

'I'll show you the state-rooms.'

He rose, and we went along passages and things. We came to a door. He opened it and switched on the light.

'This is one of our larger guest-rooms.'

'Very nice, too.'

'Go in and take a look round.'

Well, there wasn't much to see that I couldn't focus from the threshold, but one has to do the civil thing on these occasions. I toddled over and gave the bed a prod.

And, as I did so, the door slammed. And when I nipped round, the old boy had disappeared.

Rather rummy, was my verdict. In fact, distinctly rummy. I went across and gave the handle a twist.

The bally door was locked.

'Hoy!' I called.

No answer.

'Hey!' I said. 'Mr Stoker.'

Only silence, and lots of it.

I went and sat down on the bed. This seemed to me to want thinking out.

12 START SMEARING, JEEVES!

I can't say I liked the look of things. In addition to being at a loss and completely unable to follow the scenario, I was also distinctly on the uneasy side. I don't know if you ever read a book called 'The Masked Seven'? It's one of those goose-fleshers and there's a chap in it, Drexdale Yeats, a private investigator, who starts looking for clues in a cellar one night, and he's hardly collected a couple when – bingo – there's a metallic clang and there he is with the trapdoor shut and someone sniggering nastily on the other side. For a moment his heart stood still, and so did mine. Excluding the nasty snigger (which Stoker might quite well have uttered without my hearing it), it seemed to me that my case was more or less on all fours with his. Like jolly old Drexdale, I sensed some lurking peril.

Of course, mark you, if something on these lines had occurred at some country house where I was staying, and the hand that had turned the key had been that of a pal of mine, a ready explanation would have presented itself. I should have set it down as a spot of hearty humour. My circle of friends is crammed with fellows who would consider it dashed diverting to bung you into a room and lock the door. But on the present occasion I could not see this being the solution. There was nothing roguish about old Stoker. Whatever view you might take of this fishy-eyed man, you would never call him playful. If Pop Stoker put his guests in cold storage, his motive in so doing was sinister.

Little wonder, then, that as he sat on the edge of the bed pensively sucking at his cigar, Bertram was feeling uneasy. The thought of Stoker's second cousin, George, forced itself upon the mind. Dotty, beyond a question. And who knew but what that dottiness might not run in the family? It didn't seem such a long step, I mean to say, from a Stoker locking people in staterooms to a Stoker with slavering jaws and wild, animal eyes coming back and doing them a bit of no good with the meat axe.

When, therefore, there was a click and the door opened, revealing mine host on the threshold, I confess that I rather drew myself together somewhat and pretty well prepared myself for the worst.

His manner, however, was reassuring. Puff-faced, yes, but not fiend-in-human-shape-y. The eyes were steady and the mouth lacked foam. And he was still smoking his cigar, which I felt was promising. I mean, I've never met any homicidal loonies, but I should imagine that the first thing they would do before setting about a fellow would be to throw away their cigars.

'Well, Mr Wooster?'

I never have known quite what to answer when blokes say 'Well?' to me, and I didn't now.

'I must apologize for leaving you so abruptly,' proceeded the Stoker, 'but I had to get the concert started.'

'I'm looking forward to the concert,' I said.

'A pity,' said Pop Stoker. 'Because you're going to miss it.'

He eyed me musingly.

'There was a time, when I was younger, when I would have broken your neck,' he said.

I didn't like the trend the conversation was taking. After all, a man is as young as he feels, and there was no knowing that he wouldn't suddenly get one of these – what do you call them? – illusions of youth. I had an uncle once, aged seventy-six, who, under the influence of old crusted port, would climb trees.

'Look here,' I said civilly but with what you might call a certain urgency, 'I know it's trespassing on your time, but could you tell me what all this is about?'

'You don't know?'

'No, I'm hanged if I do.'

'And you can't guess?'

'No, I'm dashed if I can.'

'Then I had best tell you from the beginning. Perhaps you recall my visiting you last night?'

I said I hadn't forgotten.

'I thought my daughter was in your cottage. I searched it. I did not find her.'

I twiddled a hand magnanimously.

'We all make mistakes.'

He nodded.

'Yes. So I went away. And do you know what happened after I left you, Mr Wooster? I was coming out of the garden gate when your local police sergeant stopped me. He seemed suspicious.'

I waved my cigar sympathetically.

'Something will have to be done about Voules,' I said. 'The man is a pest. I hope you were pretty terse with him.'

'Not at all. I supposed he was only doing his duty. I told him who I was and where I lived. On learning that I came from this yacht, he asked me to accompany him to the police station.'

I was amazed.

'What bally cheek! You mean he pinched you?'

'No, he was not arresting me. He wished me to identify someone who was in custody.'

'Bally cheek, all the same. What on earth did he bother you with that sort of job for? Besides, how on earth could you identify anyone? I mean, a stranger in these parts, and all that sort of thing.'

'In this instance it was simple. The prisoner happened to be my daughter, Pauline.'

'What!'

'Yes, Mr Wooster. It seems that this man Voules was in his back garden late last night – it adjoins yours, if you recollect – and he saw a figure climbing out of one of the lower windows of your house. He ran down the garden and caught this individual. It was my daughter Pauline. She was wearing a swimming suit and an overcoat belonging to you. So, you see, you were right when you told me she had probably gone for a swim.'

He knocked the ash carefully off his cigar. I didn't need to do it to mine.

'She must have been with you a few moments before I arrived. Now, perhaps, Mr Wooster, you can understand what I meant when I said that, when I was a younger man, I would have broken your neck.'

I hadn't anything much to say. One hasn't sometimes.

'Nowadays, I'm more sensible,' he proceeded. 'I take the easier way. I say to myself that Mr Wooster is not the son-in-law I would have chosen personally, but if my hand has been forced that is all there is to it. Anyway, you're not the gibbering idiot I thought you at one time, I'm glad to say. I have heard since that those stories which caused me to break off Pauline's engagement to you in New York were untrue. So we can consider everything just as it was three months ago. We will look upon that letter of Pauline's as unwritten.'

You can't reel when you're sitting on a bed. Otherwise, I would have done so, and right heartily. I was feeling as if a hidden hand had socked me in the solar plexus.

'Do you mean—?'

He let me have an eye squarely in the pupil. A beastly sort of eye, cold and yet hot, if you follow me. If this was the Boss's Eye you read so much about in the advertisements in American magazines, I was dashed if I could see why any ambitious young shipping clerk should be so bally anxious to catch it. It went clean through me, and I lost the thread of my remarks.

'I am assuming that you wish to marry my daughter?'

Well, of course ... I mean, dash it ... I mean, there isn't much you can say to an observation like that. I just weighed in with a mild 'Oh, ah'.