Free The Jeeves Omnibus by P. G. Wodehouse Page A

may be had in Bristol. And there ought to be a show of some kind playing there, don’t you think? It’s one of the Number One touring towns.’
    He sighed slightly. All this talk of my going to shows was distressing him. What he really wanted was to see me sprinting down Park Lane with the mob after me with dripping knives.
    ‘I shall take the car and drive over there. You can have the evening off.’
    ‘Very good, sir,’ he moaned.
    I gave it up. The man annoyed me. I hadn’t the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie, but I was dashed if I could see why he couldn’t do it with a bright and cheerful smile. Dismissing him with a gesture, I went round to the garage and got the car out.
    It was only a matter of thirty miles or so to Bristol, and I got there in nice time for a comfortable bite before the theatre. The show was a musical comedy which I had seen on several occasions during its London run, but it stood up quite well on a further visit, and altogether I was feeling rested and refreshed when I started back home.
    I suppose it would have been getting on for midnight when I fetched up at the rural retreat: and, being about ready for sleep by now, I lost no time in lighting a candle and toddling upstairs. As I opened the door of my room, I recollect I was thinking how particularly well a dollop of slumber would go: and I was just making for the bed with a song on my lips, so to speak, when something suddenly sat up in it.
    The next moment I had dropped the candle and the room was plunged in darkness. But not before I had seen quite enough to be getting along with.
    Reading from left to right, the contents of the bed consisted of Pauline Stoker in my heliotrope pyjamas with the old gold stripe.

7
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A Visitor for Bertie
    THE ATTITUDE OF fellows towards finding girls in their bedroom shortly after midnight varies. Some like it. Some don’t. I didn’t. I suppose it’s some old Puritan strain in the Wooster blood. I drew myself up censoriously and shot a sternish glance in her direction. Absolutely wasted, of course, because it was pitch dark.
    ‘What … What … What –?’
    ‘It’s all right.’
    ‘All right?’
    ‘Quite all right.’
    ‘Oh?’ I said, and I don’t pretend to disguise the fact that I spoke bitterly. I definitely meant it to sting.
    I stooped to pick up the candle, and the next moment I had uttered a startled cry.
    ‘Don’t make such a noise!’
    ‘But there’s a corpse on the floor.’
    ‘There isn’t. I should have noticed it.’
    ‘There is, I tell you. I was groping about for the candle, and my fingers touched something cold and still and clammy.’
    ‘Oh, that’s my swimming suit.’
    ‘Your swimming suit?’
    ‘Well, do you think I came ashore by aeroplane?’
    ‘You swam here from the yacht?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘When?’
    ‘About half an hour ago.’
    In that level-headed, practical way of mine, I went straight to the root of the matter.
    ‘Why?’ I asked.
    A match scratched and a candle by the bed flamed up and lent a bit of light to the scene. Once more I was able to observe those pyjamas, and I’m bound to admit they looked extraordinarily dressy. Pauline was darkish in her general colour scheme, and heliotrope suited her. I said as much, always being ready to give credit where credit is due.
    ‘You look fine in that slumber-wear.’
    ‘Thanks.’
    She blew out the match, and gazed at me in a sort of wondering way.
    ‘You know, Bertie, steps should be taken about you.’
    ‘Eh?’
    ‘You ought to be in some sort of a home.’
    ‘I am,’ I replied coldly and rather cleverly. ‘My own. The point I wish to thresh out is, what are you doing in it?’
    Womanlike, she evaded the issue.
    ‘What on earth did you want to kiss me like that for in front of Father? You needn’t tell me you were carried away by my radiant beauty. No, it was just plain, straight goofiness, and I can quite understand now why Sir Roderick