Thank You, Jeeves

'Good God!'

Jeeves coughed.

'If you will pardon me for intruding the observation, sir, I think I can tell you where Sir Roderick is. If I am right in supposing that it is Sir Roderick Glossop that you are anxious to find?'

'Of course it is. How many Sir Rodericks do you think I know? Where is he, then?'

'In the garden, sir.'

'This garden, do you mean?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Then go and ask him to come here at once. Say that Mr Stoker wishes to see him immediately on a matter of the utmost importance. No, stop. Don't you go. I'll go myself. Whereabouts in the garden did you see him?'

'I did not see him, sir. I was merely informed that he was there.'

Old Stoker clicked the tongue a bit.

'Well, damn it, whereabouts in the garden did whoever merely informed you that he was in the garden merely inform you that he was?'

'In the potting-shed, sir.'

'The potting-shed?'

'Yes, sir.'

'What's he doing in the potting-shed?'

'Sitting, sir, I imagine. As I say, I do not speak from first-hand observation. My informant is Constable Dobson.'

'Eh? What? Constable Dobson? Who's he?'

'The police officer who arrested Sir Roderick last night, sir.'

He bowed slightly from the hips and left the room.

21 JEEVES FINDS THE WAY

Jeeves!' bellowed Chuffy.

'Jeeves!' screamed Pauline.

'Jeeves!' I shouted.

'Hey!' yelled old Stoker.

The door had closed, and I'll swear it hadn't opened again. Nevertheless, there was the man in our midst once more, an expression of courteous inquiry on his face.

'Jeeves!' cried Chuffy.

'M'lord?'

'Jeeves!' shrieked Pauline.

'Miss?'

'Jeeves!' I vociferated.

'Sir?'

'Hey, you!' boomed old Stoker.

Whether Jeeves liked being called 'Hey, you!' I could not say. His well-moulded face betrayed no resentment.

'Sir?' he said.

'What do you mean by going off like that?'

'I was under the impression that his lordship, occupied with more vital matters, was not at leisure to attend to the communication I desired to make, sir. I planned to return later, sir.'

'Well, stay put for a second, won't you?'

'Certainly, sir. Had I been aware that you were desirous of speaking to me, sir, I would not have withdrawn from the room. It was merely the apprehension lest I might be intruding at a moment when my presence was not desired ...'

'All right, all right, all right!' I noted, not for the first time, that there was something about Jeeves's conversational methods that seemed to jar upon old Stoker. 'Never mind all that.'

'Your presence is of the essence, Jeeves,' I said.

'Thank you, sir.'

Chuffy took the floor, Stoker being occupied for the nonce with making a noise like a wounded buffalo.

'Jeeves.'

'M'lord?'

'Did you say that Sir Roderick Glossop had been arrested?'

'Yes, m'lord. It was on that point that I wished to speak to your lordship. I came to inform you that Sir Roderick had been apprehended by Constable Dobson last night and placed in the potting-shed in the Hall grounds, the constable remaining on guard at the door. The larger potting-shed, m'lord, not the smaller one. The potting-shed to which I allude is the potting-shed on the right as you enter the kitchen garden. It has a red-tiled roof, in contradistinction to the smaller potting-shed, the roof of which is constructed of...'

I had never been, as you might say, frightfully fond of J. Washburn Stoker, but it seemed only neighbourly at this moment to try to save him from apoplexy.

'Jeeves,' I said.

'Sir?'

'Never mind which potting-shed.'

'No, sir.'

'Not of the essence.'

'I quite understand, sir.'

'Then carry on, Jeeves.'

He cast a glance of respectful commiseration at old Stoker, who seemed to be having a good deal of trouble with his bronchial tubes.

'It appears, m'lord, that Constable Dobson arrested Sir Roderick at an advanced hour last night. He was then in something of a quandary as to what means to take for his disposal. You must understand, m'lord, that in the conflagration which destroyed Mr Wooster's cottage that of Sergeant Voules, which is contiguous, was also burned down. And as this cottage of Sergeant Voules's is also the local police station, Constable Dobson was not unnaturally somewhat at a loss to know where to place his prisoner – the more so as Sergeant Voules was not there to advise him, he, in fighting the flames, having sustained an unfortunate injury to his head and having been removed to the house of his aunt. I refer to his Aunt Maud, who resides in Chuffnell Regis, not ...'

I did the square thing again.

'Never mind which aunt, Jeeves.'

'No, sir.'

'Scarcely germane.'

'Quite so, sir.'

'Then carry on, Jeeves.'

'Very good, sir. So in the end, acting upon his own initiative, the constable arrived at the conclusion that as secure a place as any would be the potting-shed, the larger potting-shed ...'

'We understand, Jeeves. The one with the tiled roof

'Precisely, sir. He, therefore, placed Sir Roderick in the larger potting-shed, and remained on guard there throughout the remainder of the night. Some little time ago, the gardeners came on duty and the constable, summoning one of them – a young fellow named ...'

'All right, Jeeves.'

'Very good, sir. Summoning this young fellow, he dispatched him to the temporary residence of Sergeant Voules in the hope that the latter would now be sufficiently restored to be able to interest himself in the matter. Such, it appears, was the case. A night's sleep, acting in conjunction with a naturally robust constitution, had enabled Sergeant Voules to rise at his usual hour and partake of a hearty breakfast.'

'Breakfast!' I couldn't help murmuring in spite of my iron self-control. The word had touched an exposed nerve in Bertram.

'On receiving the communication, Sergeant Voules hastened to the Hall to interview his lordship.'

'Why his lordship?'

'His lordship is a Justice of the Peace, sir.'

'Of course, yes.'

'And, as such, has the power to commit the prisoner to incarceration in a more recognized prison. He is waiting in the library now, m'lord, till your lordship is at leisure to see him.'

If the word 'breakfast' was, as it were, the key word that had the power to set Bertram Wooster a-quiver, it appeared that 'prison' was the one that tickled old Stoker up properly. He uttered a hideous cry.

'But how can he be in prison? What's he got to do with prisons? Why does this fool of a cop think he ought to be in prison?'

'The charge, I understand, sir, is one of burglary.'

'Burglary!'

'Yes, sir.'

Old Stoker looked so piteously at me – why me, I don't know, but he did – that I nearly patted him on the head. In fact, I might quite easily have done so, had not my hand been stayed by a sudden noise in my rear like that made by a frightened hen or a rising pheasant. The Dowager Lady Chuffnell had come charging into the room.

'Marmaduke!' she cried, and I can give no better indication of her emotion than by saying that as she spoke her eyes rested on my face and it made no impression on her whatsoever. For all the notice she took of it, I might have been the Great White Chief. 'Marmaduke, I have the most terrible news. Roderick ...'

'All right,' said Chuffy, a little petulantly, I thought. 'We've had it too. Jeeves is just telling us.'

'But what are we to do?'

'I don't know.'

'And it is all my fault, all my fault.'

'Oh, don't say that, Aunt Myrtle,' said Chuffy, rattled but still preux. 'You couldn't have helped it.'