tructive to
be  done in that direction for the moment, he said in a brooding  voice
that  he  would  take  Poppet  for a walk. This,  apparently,  was  his
invariable  method  of  healing the stings of  disappointment,  and  an
excellent  thing of course from the point of view of a  dog  who  liked
getting  around and seeing the sights. They headed for the horizon  and
passed  out  of  view;  the hound gambolling,  he  not  gambolling  but
swishing his stick a good deal in an overwrought sort of manner, and I,
feeling that this was a thing that ought to be done, selected one of Ma
Cream's books from Aunt Dahlia's shelves and took it out to read  in  a
deck  chair  on  the  lawn.  And I should  no  doubt  have  enjoyed  it
enormously, for the Cream unquestionably wielded a gifted pen, had  not
the  warmth of the day caused me to drop off into a gentle sleep in the
middle of Chapter Two.
     Waking  from this some little time later and running  an  eye  over
myself  to  see if the ravelled sleave of care had been  knitted  up  -
which  it  hadn't  - I was told that I was wanted on the  telephone.  I
hastened  to  the  instrument, and Aunt Dahlia's voice came  thundering
over the wire.
     'Bertie?'
     'Bertram it is.'
     'Why  the devil have you been such a time? I've been hanging on  to
this damned receiver a long hour by Shrewsbury clock.'
     'Sorry.  I came on winged feet, but I was out on the lawn when  you
broke loose.'
     'Sleeping off your lunch, I suppose?'
     'My eyes may have closed for a moment.'
     'Always eating, that's you.'
     'It  is customary, I believe, to take a little nourishment at about
this hour,' I said rather stiffly. 'How's Bonzo?'
     'Getting along.'
     'What was it?'
     'German  measles,  but he's out of danger.  Well,  what's  all  the
excitement  about? Why did you want me to phone you? Just so  that  you
could hear Auntie's voice?'
     'I  am  always glad to hear Auntie's voice, but I had a deeper  and
graver  reason.  I  thought you ought to know about all  these  lurking
perils in the home.'
     'What lurking perils?'
     'Ma Cream for one. She's hotting up. She entertains suspicions.'
     'What of ?'
     'Pop Glossop. She doesn't like his face.'
     'Well, hers is nothing to write home about.'
     'She thinks he isn't a real butler.'
     From the fact that my ear-drum nearly split in half I deduced  that
she had laughed a jovial laugh.
     'Let her think.'
     'You aren't perturbed?'
     'Not a bit. She can't do anything about it. Anyway, Glossop ought to
be  leaving  in about a week. He told me he didn't think it would  take
longer than that to make up his mind about Wilbert. Adela Cream doesn't
worry me.'
     'Well, if you say so, but I should have thought she was a menace.'
     'She doesn't seem so to me. Anything else on your mind?'
     'Yes, this Wilbert-Cream-Phyllis-Mills thing.'
     'Ah, now you're talking. That's important. Did young Bobbie Wickham
tell you that you'd got to stick to Wilbert closer than -'
     'A brother?'
     'I  was going to say porous plaster, but have it your own way.  She
explained the position of affairs?'
     'She  did, and it's precisely that that I want to thresh  out  with
you.'
     'Do what out?'
     'Thresh.'
     'All right, start threshing.'
     Having  given the situation the best of the Wooster brain for  some
considerable  time, I had the res all clear in my mind. I proceeded  to
decant it.
     'As  we  go through this life, my dear old ancestor,' I  said,  'we
should  always strive to see the other fellow's side of  a  thing,  the
other  fellow in the case under advisement being Wilbert Cream. Has  it
occurred  to  you  to  put yourself in Wilbert Cream's  place  and  ask
yourself how he's going to feel, being followed around all the time? It
isn't as if he was Mary.'
     'What did you say?'
     'I  said it wasn't as if he was Mary. Mary, as I remember,  enjoyed
the experience of being tailed up.'
     'Bertie, you're tight.'
     'Nothing of the kind.'
     'Say "British constitution."'
     I did so.
     'And now "She sells sea shells by the sea shore."'
     I reeled it off in a bell-like voice.
     'Well, you seem all right,' she said grudgingly. 'How do you mean he
isn't Mary? Mary who?'
     'I  don't think she had a surname, had she? I was alluding  to  the
child  who  had  a  little  lamb with fleece  as  white  as  snow,  and
everywhere  that Mary went the lamb was sure to go. Now I'm not  saying
that  I  have  fleece as white as snow, but I am going everywhere  that
Wilbert  Cream goes, and one speculates with some interest as  to  what
the upshot will be. He resents my constant presence.'
     'Has he said so?'
     'Not yet. But he gives me nasty looks.'
     'That's all right. He can't intimidate me.'
     I saw that she was missing the gist.
     'Yes, but don't you see the peril that looms?'
     'I thought you said it lurked.'
     'And looms. What I'm driving at is that if I persist in this porous
plastering,  a  time  must inevitably come when, feeling  that  actions
speak  louder  than words, he will haul off and bop me  one.  In  which
event, I shall have no alternative but to haul off and bop him one. The
Woosters  have their pride. And when I bop them, they stay bopped  till
nightfall.'
     She bayed like a foghorn, showing that she was deeply stirred.
     'You'll  do nothing of the sort, unless you want to have an  aunt's
curse  delivered on your doorstep by special messenger. Don't you  dare
to  start mixing it with that man, or I'll tattoo my initials  on  your
chest  with  a  meat axe. Turn the other cheek, you poor  fish.  If  my
nephew socked her son, Adela Cream would never forgive me. She would go
running to her husband -'
     ' - and Uncle Tom's deal would be dished. That's the very point I'm
trying  to  make. If Wilbert Cream is bust by anyone,  it  must  be  by
somebody having no connection with the Travers family. You must at once
engage a substitute for Bertram.'
     'Are you suggesting that I hire a private detective?'
     '"Eye"  is  the more usual term. No, not that, but you must  invite
Kipper Herring down here. Kipper is the man you want. He will spring to
the task of dogging Wilbert's footsteps, and if Wilbert bops him and he
bops  Wilbert,  it won't matter, he being outside talent.  Not  that  I
anticipate  that  Wilbert will dream of doing  so,  for  Kipper's  mere
appearance commands respect. The muscles of his brawny arms are  strong
as iron bands, and he has a cauliflower ear.'
     There  was  a silence of some moments, and it was not difficult  to
divine  that she was passing my words under review, this way  and  that
dividing the swift mind, as I have heard Jeeves put it. When she spoke,
it was in quite an awed voice.
     'Do  you  know, Bertie, there are times - rare, yes,  but  they  do
happen - when your intelligence is almost human. You've hit it. I never
thought of young Herring. Do you think he could come?'
     'He was saying to me only the day before yesterday that his dearest
wish  was  to  cadge an invitation. Anatole's cooking is green  in  his
memory.'
     'Then send him a wire. You can telephone it to the post office. Sign
it with my name.'
     'Right-ho.'
     'Tell him to drop everything and come running.'
     She rang off, and I was about to draft the communication, when,  as
so  often  happens  to one on relaxing from a great  strain,  I  became
conscious of an imperious desire for a little something quick. Oh,  for
a  beaker full of the warm south, as Jeeves would have said. I  pressed
the  bell, accordingly, and sank into a chair, and presently  the  door
opened  and  a  circular  object with a bald head  and  bushy  eyebrows
manifested  itself,  giving  me quite a start.  I  had  forgotten  that
ringing  bells  at  Brinkley  Court under  prevailing  conditions  must
inevitably produce Sir Roderick Glossop.
     It's always a bit difficult to open the conversation with a blend of
brain  specialist and butler, especially if your relations with him  in
the  past have not been too chummy, and I found myself rather at a loss
to  know how to set the ball rolling. I yearned for that drink  as  the
hart  desireth the water-brook, but if you ask a butler to bring you  a
whisky-and-soda  and  he happens to be a brain  specialist,  too,  he's
quite  apt to draw himself up and wither you with a glance. All depends
on which side of him is uppermost at the moment. It was a relief when I
saw  that  he  was smiling a kindly smile and evidently welcoming  this
opportunity of having a quiet chat with Bertram. So long as we kept off
the subject of hot-water bottles, it looked as if all would be well.
     'Good afternoon, Mr Wooster. I had been hoping for a word with  you
in  private.  But  perhaps  Miss  Wickham  has  already  explained  the
circumstances?  She  has? Then that clears the air,  and  there  is  no
danger of you incautiously revealing my identity. She impressed it upon
you that Mrs Cream must have no inkling of why I am here?'
     'Oh,  rather.  Secrecy and silence, what?  If  she  knew  you  were
observing  her  son with a view to finding out if he was foggy  between
the ears, there would be umbrage on her part, or even dudgeon.'
     'Exactly.'
     'And how's it coming along?'
     'I beg your pardon?'
     'The observing. Have you spotted any dippiness in the subject?'
     'If by that expression you mean have I formed any definite views on
Wilbert Cream's sanity, the answer is no. It is most unusual for me not
to  be able to make up my mind after even a single talk with the person
I  am  observing, but in young Cream's case I remain uncertain. On  the
one hand, we have his record.'
     'The stink bombs?'
     'Exactly.'
     'And the cheque-cashing with levelled gat?'
     'Precisely. And a number of other things which one would say pointed
to a mental unbalance. Unquestionably Wilbert Cream is eccentric.'
     'But  you  feel the time has not yet come to measure  him  for  the
strait waistcoat?'
     'I would certainly wish to observe further.'
     'Jeeves told me there was something about Wilbert Cream that someone
had told him when we were in New York. That might be significant.'
     'Quite possibly. What was it?'
     'He couldn't remember.'
     'Too  bad.  Well, to return to what I was saying, the  young  man's
record  appears to indicate some deep-seated neurosis,  if  not  actual
schizophrenia, but against this must be set the fact that he  gives  no
sign  of this in his conversation. I was having quite a long talk  with
him yesterday morning, and found him most intelligent. He is interested
in  old  silver,  and  spoke  with a great deal  of  enthusiasm  of  an
eighteenth-century cow-creamer in your uncle's collection.'
     'He didn't say he was an eighteenth-century cow-creamer?'
     'Certainly not.'
     'Probably just wearing the mask.'
     'I beg your pardon?'
     'I  mean  crouching for the spring, as it were.  Lulling  you  into
security.  Bound  to  break out sooner or later in  some  direction  or
other. Very cunning, these fellows with deep-seated neuroses.'
     He shook his head reprovingly.
     'We  must not judge hastily, Mr Wooster. We must keep an open mind.
Nothing  is ever gained by not pausing to weigh the evidence.  You  may
remember  that  at one time I reached a hasty judgment  regarding  your
sanity. Those twenty-three cats in your bedroom.'
     I  flushed  hotly.  The  incident had  taken  place  several  years
previously,  and it would have been in better taste, I  considered,  to
have let the dead past bury its dead.
     'That was explained fully.'
     'Exactly. I was shown to be in error. And that is why I say I  must
not  form an opinion prematurely in the case of Wilbert Cream.  I  must
wait for further evidence.'
     'And weigh it?'
     'And,  as  you  say, weigh it. But you rang, Mr Wooster.  Is  there
anything I can do for you?'
     'Well, as a matter of fact, I wanted a whisky-and-soda, but I  hate
to trouble you.'
     'My  dear Mr Wooster, you forget that I am, if only temporarily,  a
butler and, I hope, a conscientious one. I will bring it immediately.'
     I was wondering, as he melted away, if I ought to tell him that Mrs
Cream,  too, was doing a bit of evidence-weighing, and about  him,  but
decided  on the whole better not. No sense in disturbing his  peace  of
mind.  It  seemed to me that having to answer to the name of  Swordfish
was  enough for him to have to cope with for the time being. Given  too
much to think about, he would fret and get pale.
     When  he returned, he brought with him not only the beaker full  of
the  warm south, on which I flung myself gratefully, but a letter which
he  said had just come for me by the afternoon post. Having slaked  the
thirst,  I  glanced at the envelope and saw that it was from Jeeves.  I
opened  it without much of a thrill, expecting that he would merely  be
informing  me that he had reached his destination safely and expressing
a  hope  that this would find me in the pink as it left him at present.
In short, the usual guff.
     It wasn't the usual guff by a mile and a quarter. One glance at its
contents  and I was Gosh-ing sharply, causing Pop Glossop to regard  me
with a concerned eye.
     'No bad news, I trust, Mr Wooster?'
     'It  depends  what  you call bad news. It's front-page  stuff,  all
right. This is from Jeeves, my man, now shrimping at Herne Bay, and  it
casts a blinding light on the private life of Wilbert Cream.'
     'Indeed? This is most interesting.'
     'I must begin by saying that when Jeeves was leaving for his annual
vacation,  the  subject of W. Cream came up in the  home,  Aunt  Dahlia
having told me he was one of the inmates here, and we discussed him  at
some length. I said this, if you see what I mean, and Jeeves said that,
if you follow me. Well, just before Jeeves pushed off, he let fall that
significant  remark  I mentioned just now, the one about  having  heard
something  about Wilbert and having forgotten it. If it  came  back  to
him, he said, he would communicate with me. And he has, by Jove! Do you
know what he says in this missive? Give you three guesses.'
     'Surely this is hardly the time for guessing games?'
     'Perhaps  you're right, though they're great fun, don't you  think?
Well,  he says that Wilbert Cream is a ... what's the word?' I referred
to  the letter. 'A kleptomaniac,' I said. 'Which means, if the term  is
not  familiar  to  you,  a chap who flits hither and  thither  pinching
everything he can lay his hands on.'
     'Good gracious!'
     'You might even go so far as "Lor' lumme!"'
     'I never suspected this.'
     'I told you he was wearing a mask. I suppose they took him abroad to
get him away from it all.'
     'No doubt.'
     'Overlooking the fact that there are just as many things to pinch in
England as in America. Does any thought occur to you?'
     'It most certainly does. I am thinking of your uncle's collection of
old silver.'
     'Me, too.'
     'It presents a grave temptation to the unhappy young man.'
     'I  don't  know  that I'd call him unhappy. He probably  thoroughly
enjoys lifting the stuff.'
     'We  must  go  to  the collection room immediately.  There  may  be
something missing.'
     'Everything except the floor and ceiling, I expect. He  would  have
had difficulty in getting away with those.'
     To reach the collection room was not the work of an instant with us,
for  Pop  Glossop  was built for stability rather than  speed,  but  we
fetched  up there in due course and my first emotion on giving  it  the
once-over was one of relief, all the junk appearing to be in statu quo.
It  was only after Pop Glossop had said 'Woof!' and was starting to dry
off the brow, for the going had been fast, that I spotted the hiatus.
     The cow-creamer was not among those present.


        7
     This  cow-creamer, in case you're interested, was a silver  jug  or
pitcher or whatever you call it shaped, of all silly things, like a cow
with  an arching tail and a juvenile-delinquent expression on its face,
a  cow that looked as if it were planning, next time it was milked,  to
haul  off  and  let the milkmaid have it in the lower  ribs.  Its  back
opened  on  a  hinge and the tip of the tail touched  the  spine,  thus
giving  the  householder something to catch hold of when  pouring.  Why
anyone should want such a revolting object had always been a mystery to
me,  it  ranking  high  up  on the list of things  I  would  have  been
reluctant  to be found dead in a ditch with, but apparently they  liked
that  sort  of jug in the eighteenth century and, coming down  to  more
modern  times,  Uncle  Tom  was all for it and  so,  according  to  the
evidence of the witness Glossop, was Wilbert. No accounting for  tastes
is  the  way  one has to look at these things, one man's  caviar  being
another man's major-general, as the old saw says.
     However, be that as it may and whether you liked the bally thing or
didn't, the point was that it had vanished, leaving not a wrack behind,
and  I  was about to apprise Pop Glossop of this and canvass his views,
when  we  were joined by Bobbie Wickham. She had doffed the  shirt  and
Bermuda-shorts which she had been wearing and was now dressed  for  her
journey home.
     'Hullo,  souls,' she said. 'How goes it? You look  a  bit  hot  and
bothered, Bertie. What's up?'
     I made no attempt to break the n. gently.
     'I'll tell you what's up. You know that cow-creamer of Uncle Tom's?'
     'No, I don't. What is it?'
     'Sort  of  cream jug kind of thing, ghastly but very valuable.  One
would not be far out in describing it as Uncle Tom's ewe lamb. He loves
it dearly.'
     'Bless his heart.'
     'It's all right blessing his heart, but the damn thing's gone.'
     The still summer air was disturbed by a sound like beer coming  out
of a bottle. It was Pop Glossop gurgling. His eyes were round, his nose
wiggled, and one could readily discern that this news item had come  to
him not as rare and refreshing fruit but more like a buffet on the base
of the skull with a sock full of wet sand.
     'Gone?'
     'Gone.'
     'Are you sure?'
     I said that sure was just what I wasn't anything but.
     'It is not possible that you may have overlooked it?'
     'You can't overlook a thing like that.'
     He re-gurgled.
     'But this is terrible.'
     'Might be considerably better, I agree.'
     'Your uncle will be most upset.'
     'He'll have kittens.'
     'Kittens?'
     'That's right.'
     'Why kittens?'
     'Why not?'
     From the look on Bobbie's face, as she stood listening to our cross-
talk  act,  I could see that the inner gist was passing over her  head.
Cryptic, she seemed to be registering it as.
     'I don't get this,' she said. 'How do you mean it's gone?'
     'It's been pinched.'
     'Things don't get pinched in country-houses.'
     'They  do if there's a Wilbert Cream on the premises. He's a  klep-
whatever-it-is,' I said, and thrust Jeeves's letter on her. She perused
it  with an interested eye and having mastered its contents said,  'Cor
chase my Aunt Fanny up a gum tree,' adding that you never knew what was
going to happen next these days. There was, however, she said, a bright
side.
     'You'll be able now to give it as your considered opinion that  the
man is as loony as a coot, Sir Roderick.'
     A  pause  ensued during which Pop Glossop appeared to  be  weighing
this,  possibly thinking back to coots he had met in the course of  his
professional career and trying to estimate their dippiness as  compared
with that of W. Cream.
     'Unquestionably  his metabolism is unduly susceptible  to  stresses
resulting  from the interaction of external excitations,' he said,  and
Bobbie patted him on the shoulder in a maternal sort of way, a thing  I
wouldn't have cared to do myself though our relations were, as  I  have
indicated, more cordial than they had been at one time, and told him he
had said a mouthful.
     'That's how I like to hear you talk. You must tell Mrs Travers that
when  she  gets back. It'll put her in a strong position to  cope  with
Upjohn in this matter of Wilbert and Phyllis. With this under her belt,
she'll be able to forbid the banns in no uncertain manner. "What  price
his  metabolism?" she'll say, and Upjohn won't know which way to  look.
So everything's fine.'
     'Everything,' I pointed out, 'except that Uncle Tom is short one ewe
lamb.'
     She chewed the lower lip.
     'Yes,  that's true. You have a point there. What steps do  we  take
about that?'
     She looked at me, and I said I didn't know, and then she looked  at
Pop Glossop, and he said he didn't know.
     'The  situation  is  an  extremely delicate  one.  You  concur,  Mr
Wooster?'
     'Like billy-o.'
     'Placed  as  he is, your uncle can hardly go to the young  man  and
demand  restitution.  Mrs Travers impressed it upon  me  with  all  the
emphasis  at  her disposal that the greatest care must be exercised  to
prevent Mr and Mrs Cream taking -'
     'Umbrage?'
     'I was about to say offence.'
     'Just as good, probably. Not much in it either way.'
     'And they would certainly take offence, were their son to be accused
of theft.'
     'It would stir them up like an egg whisk. I mean, however well they
know that Wilbert is a pincher, they don't want to have it rubbed in.'
     'Exactly.'
     'It's  one of the things the man of tact does not mention in  their
presence.'
     'Precisely.  So  really I cannot see what  is  to  be  done.  I  am
baffled.'
     'So am I.'
     'I'm not,' said Bobbie.
     I quivered like a startled what-d'you-call-it. She had spoken with a
cheery  ring in her voice that told an experienced ear like  mine  that
she  was about to start something. In a matter of seconds by Shrewsbury
clock,  as Aunt Dahlia would have said, I could see that she was  going
to  come  out with one of those schemes or plans of hers that not  only
stagger  humanity  and  turn  the  moon  to  blood  but  lead  to  some
unfortunate  male  -  who  on the present occasion  would,  I  strongly
suspected, be me -getting immersed in what Shakespeare calls a  sea  of
troubles,  if  it was Shakespeare. I had heard that ring in  her  voice
before,  to name but one time, at the moment when she was pressing  the
darning  needle  into my hand and telling me where  I  would  find  Sir
Roderick  Glossop's hot-water bottle. Many people are  of  the  opinion
that  Roberta,  daughter of the late Sir Cuthbert and Lady  Wickham  of
Skeldings Hall, Herts, ought not to be allowed at large. I string along
with that school of thought.
     Pop Glossop, having only a sketchy acquaintance with this female of
the  species  and so not knowing that from childhood up her  motto  had
been 'Anything goes', was all animation and tell-me-more.
     'You have thought of some course of action that it will be feasible
for us to pursue, Miss Wickham?'
     'Certainly.  It  sticks out like a sore thumb. Do  you  know  which
Wilbert's room is?'
     He said he did.
     'And do you agree that if you snitch things when you're staying at a
country-house, the only place you can park them in is your room?'
     He said that this was no doubt so.
     'Very well, then.'
     He looked at her with what I have heard Jeeves call a wild surmise.
     'Can you be ... Is it possible that you are suggesting... ?'
     'That  somebody nips into Wilbert's room and hunts  around?  That's
right.  And  it's  obvious who the people's choice is. You're  elected,
Bertie.'
     Well,  I wasn't surprised. As I say, I had seen it coming. I  don't
know why it is, but whenever there's dirty work to be undertaken at the
crossroads,  the cry that goes round my little circle  is  always  'Let
Wooster do it.' It never fails. But though I hadn't much hope that  any
words  of  mine  would accomplish anything in the way of  averting  the
doom, I put in a rebuttal.
     'Why me?'
     'It's young man's work.'
     Though with a growing feeling that I was fighting in the last ditch,
I continued rebutting.
     'I  don't  see  that,'  I said. 'I should have  thought  a  mature,
experienced man of the world would have been far more likely  to  bring
home the bacon than a novice like myself, who as a child was never  any
good at hunt-the-slipper. Stands to reason.'
     'Now  don't  be difficult, Bertie. You'll enjoy it,'  said  Bobbie,
though  where she got that idea I was at a loss to understand. 'Try  to
imagine you're someone in the Secret Service on the track of the  naval
treaty  which  was  stolen  by a mysterious veiled  woman  diffusing  a
strange  exotic scent. You'll have the time of your life. What did  you
say?'
     'I said "Ha!" Suppose someone pops in?'
     'Don't be silly. Mrs Cream is working on her book. Phyllis is in her
room,  typing Upjohn's speech. Wilbert's gone for a walk. Upjohn  isn't
here.  The only character who could pop in would be the Brinkley  Court
ghost.  If  it does, give it a cold look and walk through  it.  That'll
teach it not to come butting in where it isn't wanted, ha ha.'
     'Ha ha,' trilled Pop Glossop.
     I thought their mirth ill-timed and in dubious taste, and I let them
see  it  by my manner as I strode off. For of course I did stride  off.
These  clashings of will with the opposite sex always end with  Bertram
Wooster  bowing  to the inev. But I was not in jocund  mood,  and  when
Bobbie, speeding me on my way, called me her brave little man and  said
she  had  known all along I had it in me, I ignored the remark  with  a
coldness which must have made itself felt.
     It  was  a  lovely afternoon, replete with blue sky,  beaming  sun,
buzzing insects and what not, an afternoon that seemed to call  to  one
to  be  out  in  the  open with God's air playing  on  one's  face  and
something cool in a glass at one's side, and here was I, just to oblige
Bobbie Wickham, tooling along a corridor indoors on my way to search  a
comparative stranger's bedroom, this involving crawling on  floors  and
routing  under beds and probably getting covered with dust  and  fluff.
The  thought  was a bitter one, and I don't suppose I  have  ever  come
closer to saying 'Faugh!' It amazed me that I could have allowed myself
to  be  let in for a binge of this description simply because  a  woman
wished  it.  Too  bally chivalrous for our own good, we  Woosters,  and
always have been.
     As  I  reached  Wilbert's door and paused outside doing  a  bit  of
screwing the courage to the sticking point, as I have heard Jeeves call
it,  I  found the proceedings reminding me of something, and I suddenly
remembered  what. I was feeling just as I had felt in  the  old  Malvem
House epoch when I used to sneak down to Aubrey Upjohn's study at  dead
of  night in quest of the biscuits he kept there in a tin on his  desk,
and  there came back to me the memory of the occasion when, not letting
a twig snap beneath my feet, I had entered his sanctum in pyjamas and a
dressing-gown,  to  find  him seated in his  chair,  tucking  into  the
biscuits  himself. A moment fraught with embarrassment. The  What-does-
this-mean-Wooster-ing that ensued and the aftermath next morning -  six
of  the best on the old spot - had always remained on the tablets of my
mind, if that's the expression I want.
     Except for the tapping of a typewriter in a room along the corridor,
showing  that Ma Cream was hard at her self-appointed task of  curdling
the  blood  of the reading public, all was still. I stood  outside  the
door  for a space, letting 'I dare not' wait upon 'I would', as  Jeeves
tells  me  cats do in adages, then turned the handle softly,  pushed  -
also  softly  -  and,  carrying  on into  the  interior,  found  myself
confronted  by  a girl in housemaid's costume who put  a  hand  to  her
throat  like  somebody  in  a play and leaped  several  inches  in  the
direction of the ceiling.
     'Coo!' she said, having returned to terra firma and taken aboard  a
spot of breath. 'You gave me a start, sir!'
     'Frightfully sorry, my dear old housemaid,' I responded  cordially.
'As  a  matter of fact, you gave me a start, making two starts in  all.
I'm looking for Mr Cream.'
     'I'm looking for a mouse.'
     This opened up an interesting line of thought.
     'You feel there are mice in these parts?'
     'I  saw  one this morning, when I was doing the room. So I  brought
Augustus,' she said, and indicated a large black cat who until then had
escaped  my  notice. I recognized him as an old crony with whom  I  had
often breakfasted, I wading into the scrambled eggs, he into the saucer
of milk.
     'Augustus will teach him,' she said.
     Now,  right from the start, as may readily be imagined, I had  been
wondering  how  this housemaid was to be removed,  for  of  course  her
continued presence would render my enterprise null and void. You  can't
search rooms with the domestic staff standing on the sidelines, but  on
the  other  hand it was impossible for anyone with any claim  to  be  a
preux  chevalier to take her by the slack of her garment and heave  her
out. For a while the thing had seemed an impasse, but this statement of
hers that Augustus would teach the mouse gave me an idea.
     'I doubt it,' I said. 'You're new here, aren't you?'
     She  conceded this, saying that she had taken office  only  in  the
previous month.
     'I thought as much, or you would be aware that Augustus is a broken
reed  to  lean  on in the matter of catching mice. My own  acquaintance
with  him is a longstanding one, and I have come to know his psychology
from  soup to nuts. He hasn't caught a mouse since he was a slip  of  a
kitten. Except when eating, he does nothing but sleep. Lethargic is the
word that springs to the lips. If you cast an eye on him, you will  see
that he's asleep now.'
     'Coo! So he is.'
     'It's  a  sort of disease. There's a scientific name for it.  Trau-
something.  Traumatic  symplegia, that's it.  This  cat  has  traumatic
symplegia. In other words, putting it in simple language adapted to the
lay  mind,  where  other  cats are content to get  their  eight  hours,
Augustus  wants his twenty-four. If you will be ruled by me,  you  will
abandon  the  whole  project and take him back to the  kitchen.  You're
simply wasting your time here.'
     My  eloquence  was not without its effect. She said  'Coo!'  again,
picked  up  the cat, who muttered something drowsily which  I  couldn't
follow, and went out, leaving me to carry on.


        8
     The first thing I noticed when at leisure to survey my surroundings
was  that the woman up top, carrying out her policy of leaving no stone
unturned in the way of sucking up to the Cream family, had done Wilbert
well where sleeping accommodation was concerned. What he had drawn when
clocking  in at Brinkley Court was the room known as the Blue  Room,  a
signal  honour to be accorded to a bachelor guest, amounting  to  being
given star billing, for at Brinkley, as at most country-houses, any old
nook  or  cranny is considered good enough for the celibate contingent.
My  own apartment, to take a case in point, was a sort of hermit's cell
in  which  one would have been hard put to it to swing a  cat,  even  a
smaller  one  than Augustus, not of course that one often wants  to  do
much  cat-swinging. What I'm driving at is that when I blow in on  Aunt
Dahlia,  you  don't catch her saying 'Welcome to Meadowsweet  Hall,  my
dear  boy. I've put you in the Blue Room, where I am sure you  will  be
comfortable.' I once suggested to her that I be put there, and all  she
said was 'You?' and the conversation turned to other topics.
     The furnishing of this Blue Room was solid and Victorian, it having
been  the  GHQ  of  my  Uncle  Tom's  late  father,  who  liked  things
substantial.  There was a four-poster bed, a chunky  dressing-table,  a
massive  writing table, divers chairs, pictures on the walls of fellows
in  cocked hats bending over females in muslin and ringlets and over at
the  far  side a cupboard or armoire in which you could have  hidden  a
dozen corpses. In short, there was so much space and so many things  to
shove  things behind that most people, called on to find a silver  cow-
creamer there, would have said 'Oh, what's the use?' and thrown in  the
towel.
     But where I had the bulge on the ordinary searcher was that I am  a
man  of wide reading. Starting in early boyhood, long before they  were
called  novels  of  suspense, I've read more mystery stories  than  you
could  shake a stick at, and they have taught me something  -viz.  that
anybody with anything to hide invariably puts it on top of the cupboard
or,  if you prefer it, the armoire. This is what happened in Murder  at
Mistleigh Manor, Three Dead on Tuesday, Excuse my Gat, Guess Who and  a
dozen  more standard works, and I saw no reason to suppose that Wilbert
Cream would have deviated from routine. My first move, accordingly, was
to  take a chair and prop it against the armoire, and I had climbed  on
this  and  was  preparing to subject the top to a close scrutiny,  when
Bobbie  Wickham,  entering on noiseless feet and  speaking  from  about
eighteen inches behind me, said:
     'How are you getting on?'
     Really,  one  sometimes  despairs of the modern  girl.  You'd  have
thought that this Wickham would have learned at her mother's knee  that
the  last thing a fellow in a highly nervous condition wants, when he's
searching  someone's room, is a disembodied voice in his immediate  ear
asking  him how he's getting on. The upshot, I need scarcely  say,  was
that  I came down like a sack of coals. The pulse was rapid, the  blood
pressure high, and for awhile the Blue Room pirouetted about me like an
adagio dancer.
     When  Reason returned to its throne, I found that Bobbie, no  doubt
feeling after that resounding crash that she was better elsewhere,  had
left  me  and  that I was closely entangled in the chair,  my  position
being  in some respects similar to that of Kipper Herring when  he  got
both  legs  wrapped round his neck in Switzerland. It seemed improbable
that I would ever get loose without the aid of powerful machinery.
     However, by pulling this way and pushing that, I made progress, and
I'd  just  contrived  to de-chair myself and was about  to  rise,  when
another voice spoke.
     'For  Pete's sake!' it said, and, looking up, I found that  it  was
not,  as  I  had for a moment supposed, from the lips of  the  Brinkley
Court  ghost that the words had proceeded, but from those of Mrs  Homer
Cream.  She  was  looking at me, as Sir Roderick Glossop  had  recently
looked  at Bobbie, with a wild surmise, her whole air that of  a  woman
who  is  not abreast. This time, I noticed, she had an ink spot on  her
chin.
     'Mr Wooster!' she yipped.
     Well,  there's nothing much you can say in reply to  'Mr  Wooster!'
except 'Oh, hullo,' so I said it.
     'You are doubtless surprised,' I was continuing, when she hogged the
conversation  again, asking me (a) what I was doing in her  son's  room
and (b) what in the name of goodness I thought I was up to.
     'For the love of Mike,' she added, driving her point home.
     It  is frequently said of Bertram Wooster that he is a man who  can
think on his feet, and if the necessity arises he can also use his loaf
when  on  all fours. On the present occasion I was fortunate in  having
had  that get-together with the housemaid and the cat Augustus, for  it
gave me what they call in France a point d'appui. Removing a portion of
chair  which had got entangled in my back hair, I said with  a  candour
that became me well:
     'I was looking for a mouse.'
     If she had replied, 'Ah, yes, indeed. I understand now. A mouse, to
be  sure. Quite,' everything would have been nice and smooth,  but  she
didn't.
     'A mouse?' she said. 'What do you mean?'
     Well,  of  course, if she didn't know what a mouse was,  there  was
evidently  a  good deal of tedious spadework before us, and  one  would
scarcely have known where to start. It was a relief when her next words
showed  that that 'What do you mean?' had not been a query but more  in
the nature of a sort of heart-cry.
     'What makes you think there is a mouse in this room?'
     'The evidence points that way.'
     'Have you seen it?'
     'Actually, no. It's been lying what the French call perdu.'
     'What made you come and look for it?'
     'Oh, I thought I would.'
     'And why were you standing on a chair?'
     'Sort of just trying to get a bird's-eye view, as it were.'
     'Do you often go looking for mice in other people's rooms?'
     'I  wouldn't  say often. Just when the spirit moves me,  don't  you
know?'
     'I see. Well...'
     When people say 'Well' to you like that, it usually means that they
think  you  are outstaying your welcome and that the time has  come  to
call  it  a day. She felt, I could see, that Woosters were not required
in  her  son's  sleeping apartment, and realizing that there  might  be
something in this, I rose, dusted the knees of the trousers, and  after
a  courteous word to the effect that I hoped the spine-freezer on which
she  was  engaged was coming out well, left the presence. Happening  to
glance  back  as I reached the door, I saw her looking after  me,  that
wild  surmise still functioning on all twelve cylinders. It  was  plain
that she considered my behaviour odd, and I'm not saying it wasn't. The
behaviour  of  those who allow their actions to be  guided  by  Roberta
Wickham is nearly always odd.
     The  thing  I wanted most at this juncture was to have a  heart-to-
heart  talk with that young femme fatale, and after roaming hither  and
thither for a while I found her in my chair on the lawn, reading the Ma
Cream book in which I had been engrossed when these doings had started.
She greeted me with a bright smile, and said:
     'Back already? Did you find it?'
     With  a strong effort I mastered my emotion and replied curtly  but
civilly that the answer was in the negative.
     'No,' I said, 'I did not find it.'
     'You can't have looked properly.'
     Again  I  was compelled to pause and remind myself that an  English
gentleman  does  not  slosh  a  sitting redhead,  no  matter  what  the
provocation.
     'I  hadn't time to look properly. I was impeded in my movements  by
half-witted females sneaking up behind me and asking how I was  getting
on.'
     'Well, I wanted to know.' A giggle escaped her. 'You did come down a
wallop, didn't you? How art thou fallen from heaven, oh Lucifer, son of
the morning, I said to myself. You're so terribly neurotic, Bertie. You
must  try  to be less jumpy. What you need is a good nerve  tonic.  I'm
sure  Sir  Roderick  would shake you up one,  if  you  asked  him.  And
meanwhile?'
     'How do you mean, "And meanwhile"?'
     'What are your plans now?'
     'I  propose to hoik you out of that chair and seat myself in it and
take that book, the early chapters of which I found most gripping,  and
start catching up with my reading and try to forget.'
     'You mean you aren't going to have another bash?'
     'I  am not. Bertram is through. You may give this to the press,  if
you wish.'
     'But  the  cow-creamer. How about your Uncle Tom's grief and  agony
when he learns of his bereavement?'
     'Let Uncle Tom eat cake.'
     'Bertie! Your manner is strange.'
     'Your manner would be strange if you'd been sitting on the floor of
Wilbert Cream's sleeping apartment with a chair round your neck, and Ma
Cream had come in.'
     'Golly! Did she?'
     'In person.'
     'What did you say?'
     'I said I was looking for a mouse.'
     'Couldn't you think of anything better than that?'
     'No.'
     'And how did it all come out in the end?'
     'I  melted  away, leaving her plainly convinced that I was  off  my
rocker. And so, young Bobbie, when you speak of having another bash,  I
merely  laugh  bitterly,' I said, doing so. 'Catch me going  into  that
sinister  room again! Not for a million pounds sterling, cash  down  in
small notes.'
     She made what I believe, though I wouldn't swear to it, is called a
moue. Putting the lips together and shoving them out, if you know  what
I  mean. The impression I got was that she was disappointed in Bertram,
having  expected  better things, and this was borne  out  by  her  next
words.
     'Is this the daredevil spirit of the Woosters?'
     'As of even date, yes.'
     'Are you man or mouse?'
     'Kindly do not mention that word "mouse" in my presence.'
     'I do think you might try again. Don't spoil the ship for a ha'porth
of tar. I'll help you this time.'
     'Ha!'
     'Haven't I heard that word before somewhere?'
     'You m