The Jeeves Omnibus (160 page)

But, joyous reveller as I am on these occasions, I was simply not in it with old Biffy. Whether it was the Green Swizzles or merely the relief of being parted from Sir Roderick, I don’t know, but Biffy flung himself into the pastimes of the proletariat with a zest that was almost frightening. I could hardly drag him away from the Whip, and as for the Switchback, he looked like spending the rest of his life on it. I managed to remove him at last, and he was wandering through the crowd at my side with gleaming eyes, hesitating between having his fortune told and taking a whirl at the Wheel of Joy, when he suddenly grabbed my arm and uttered a sharp animal cry.

‘Bertie!’

‘Now what?’

He was pointing at a large sign over a building.

‘Look! Palace of Beauty!’

I tried to choke him off. I was getting a bit weary by this time. Not so young as I was.

‘You don’t want to go in there,’ I said. ‘A fellow at the club was telling me about that. It’s only a lot of girls. You don’t want to see a lot of girls.’

‘I do want to see a lot of girls,’ said Biffy firmly. ‘Dozens of girls, and the more unlike Honoria they are, the better. Besides, I’ve suddenly
remembered
that that’s the place Jeeves told me to be sure and visit. It all comes back to me. “Mr Biffen,” he said, “I strongly advise you to visit the Palace of Beauty.” Now, what the man was driving at or what his motive was, I don’t know; but I ask you, Bertie, is it wise, is it safe, is it judicious ever to ignore Jeeves’s lightest word? We enter by the door on the left.’

I don’t know if you know this Palace of Beauty place? It’s a sort of aquarium full of the delicately-nurtured instead of fishes. You go in, and there is a kind of cage with a female goggling out at you through a sheet of plate glass. She’s dressed in some weird kind of costume, and over the cage is written ‘Helen of Troy’. You pass on to the next, and there’s another one doing jiu-jitsu with a snake. Sub-title, ‘Cleopatra’. You get the idea – Famous Women Through the Ages and all that. I can’t say it fascinated me to any great extent. I maintain that a lovely woman loses a lot of her charm if you have to stare at her in a tank. Moreover, it gave me a rummy sort of feeling of having wandered into the wrong bedroom at a country house, and I was flying past at a fair rate of speed, anxious to get it over, when Biffy suddenly went off his rocker.

At least, it looked like that. He let out a piercing yell, grabbed my arm with a sudden clutch that felt like the bite of a crocodile, and stood there gibbering.

‘Wuk!’ ejaculated Biffy, or words to that general import.

A large and interested crowd had gathered round. I think they thought the girls were going to be fed or something. But Biffy paid no attention to them. He was pointing in a loony manner at one of the cages. I forget which it was, but the female inside wore a ruff, so it may have been Queen Elizabeth or Boadicea or someone of that period. She was a rather nice-looking girl, and she was staring at Biffy in much the same pop-eyed way as he was staring at her.

‘Mabel!’ yelled Biff, going off in my ear like a bomb.

I can’t say I was feeling my chirpiest. Drama is all very well, but I hate getting mixed up in it in a public spot; and I had not realized before how dashed public this spot was. The crowd seemed to have doubled itself in the last five seconds, and, while most of them had their eye on Biffy, quite a goodish few were looking at me as if they thought I was an important principal in the scene and might be expected at any moment to give of my best in the way of wholesome entertainment for the masses.

Biffy was jumping about like a lamb in the springtime – and, what is more, a feeble-minded lamb.

‘Bertie! It’s her! It’s she!’ He looked about him wildly. ‘Where the
deuce
is the stage-door?’ he cried. ‘Where’s the manager? I want to see the house-manager immediately.’

And then he suddenly bounded forward and began hammering on the glass with his stick.

‘I say, old lad!’ I began, but he shook me off.

These fellows who live in the country are apt to go in for fairly sizable clubs instead of the light canes which your well-dressed man about town considers suitable for metropolitan use; and down in Herefordshire, apparently, something in the nature of a knobkerrie is
de rigueur
. Biffy’s first slosh smashed the glass all to a hash. Three more cleared the way for him to go into the cage without cutting himself. And, before the crowd had time to realize what a wonderful bob’s-worth it was getting in exchange for its entrance fee, he was inside, engaging the girl in earnest conversation. And at the same moment two large policemen rolled up.

You can’t make policemen take the romantic view. Not a tear did these two blighters stop to brush away. They were inside the cage and out of it and marching Biffy through the crowd before you had time to blink. I hurried after them, to do what I could in the way of soothing Biffy’s last moments, and the poor old lad turned a glowing face in my direction.

‘Chiswick, 60873,’ he bellowed in a voice charged with emotion. ‘Write it down, Bertie, or I shall forget it. Chiswick, 60873. Her telephone number.’

And then he disappeared, accompanied by about eleven thousand sightseers, and a voice spoke at my elbow.

‘Mr Wooster! What – what – what is the meaning of this?’

Sir Roderick, with bigger eyebrows than ever, was standing at my side.

‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘Poor old Biffy’s only gone off his crumpet.’

He tottered.

‘What?’

‘Had a sort of fit or seizure, you know.’

‘Another!’ Sir Roderick, drew a deep breath. ‘And this is the man I was about to allow my daughter to marry!’ I heard him mutter.

I tapped him in a kindly spirit on the shoulder. It took some doing, mark you, but I did it.

‘If I were you,’ I said, ‘I should call that off. Scratch the fixture. Wash it out absolutely, is my advice.’

He gave me a nasty look.

‘I do not require your advice, Mr Wooster! I had already arrived independently at the decision of which you speak. Mr Wooster, you
are
a friend of this man – a fact which should in itself have been sufficient warning to me. You will – unlike myself – be seeing him again. Kindly inform him, when you do see him, that he may consider his engagement at an end.’

‘Right-ho,’ I said, and hurried off after the crowd. It seemed to me that a little bailing-out might be in order.

It was about an our later that I shoved my way out to where I had parked the car. Jeeves was sitting in the front seat, brooding over the cosmos. He rose courteously as I approached.

‘You are leaving, sir?’

‘I am.’

‘And Sir Roderick, sir?’

‘Not coming. I am revealing no secrets, Jeeves, when I inform you that he and I have parted brass rags. Not on speaking terms now.’

‘Indeed, sir? And Mr Biffen? Will you wait for him?’

‘No. He’s in prison.’

‘Really, sir?’

‘Yes. I tried to bail him out, but they decided on second thoughts to coop him up for the night.’

‘What was his offence, sir?’

‘You remember that girl of his I was telling you about? He found her in a tank at the Palace of Beauty and went after her by the quickest route, which was via a plate-glass window. He was then scooped up and borne off in irons by the constabulary.’ I gazed sideways at him. It is difficult to bring off a penetrating glance out of the corner of your eye, but I managed it. ‘Jeeves,’ I said, ‘there is more in this than the casual observer would suppose. You told Mr Biffen to go to the Palace of Beauty. Did you know the girl would be there?’

‘Yes, sir.’

This was most remarkable and rummy to a degree.

‘Dash it, do you know everything?’

‘Oh, no, sir,’ said Jeeves with an indulgent smile. Humouring the young master.

‘Well, how did you know that?’

‘I happen to be acquainted with the future Mrs Biffen, sir.’

‘I see. Then you knew all about that business in New York?’

‘Yes, sir. And it was for that reason that I was not altogether favourably disposed towards Mr Biffen when you were first kind enough to suggest that I might be able to offer some slight assistance. I mistakenly supposed that he had been trifling with the girl’s affections, sir. But when you told me the true facts of the case I
appreciated
the injustice I had done to Mr Biffen and endeavoured to make amends.’

‘Well, he certainly owes you a lot. He’s crazy about her.’

‘That is very gratifying, sir.’

‘And she ought to be pretty grateful to you, too. Old Biffy’s got fifteen thousand a year, not to mention more cows, pigs, hens, and ducks than he knows what to do with. A dashed useful bird to have in any family.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Tell me, Jeeves,’ I said, ‘how did you happen to know the girl in the first place?’

Jeeves looked dreamily out into the traffic.

‘She is my niece, sir. If I might make a suggestion, sir, I should not jerk the steering wheel with quite such suddenness. We very nearly collided with that omnibus.’

THE EVIDENCE WAS
all in. The machinery of the law had worked without a hitch. And the beak, having adjusted a pair of pince-nez which looked as though they were going to do a nosedive any moment, coughed like a pained sheep and slipped us the bad news. ‘The prisoner, Wooster,’ he said – and who can paint the shame and agony of Bertram at hearing himself so described? – ‘will pay a fine of five pounds.’

‘Oh, rather!’ I said. ‘Absolutely! Like a shot!’

I was dashed glad to get the thing settled at such a reasonable figure. I gazed across what they call the sea of faces till I picked up Jeeves, sitting at the back. Stout fellow, he had come to see the young master through his hour of trial.

‘I say, Jeeves,’ I sang out, ‘have you got a fiver? I’m a bit short.’

‘Silence!’ bellowed some officious blighter.

‘It’s all right,’ I said, ‘just arranging the financial details. Got the stuff, Jeeves?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Good egg!’

‘Are you a friend of the prisoner?’ asked the beak.

‘I am in Mr Wooster’s employment, Your Worship, in the capacity of gentleman’s personal gentleman.’

‘Then pay the fine to the clerk.’

‘Very good, Your Worship.’

The beak gave a coldish nod in my direction, as much as to say that they might now strike the fetters from my wrists; and having hitched up the pince-nez once more, proceeded to hand poor old Sippy one of the nastiest looks ever seen in Bosher Street Police Court.

‘The case of the prisoner Leon Trotzky – which,’ he said, giving Sippy the eye again, ‘I am strongly inclined to think an assumed and fictitious name – is more serious. He has been convicted of a wanton and violent assault upon the police. The evidence of the officer has proved that the prisoner struck him in the abdomen, causing severe internal pain, and in other ways interfered with him
in
the execution of his duties. I am aware that on the night following the annual aquatic contest between the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge a certain licence is traditionally granted by the authorities, but aggravated acts of ruffianly hooliganism like that of the prisoner Trotzky cannot be overlooked or palliated. He will serve a sentence of thirty days in the Second Division without the option of a fine.’

‘No, I say – here – hi – dash it all!’ protested poor old Sippy.

‘Silence!’ bellowed the officious blighter.

‘Next case,’ said the beak. And that was that.

The whole affair was most unfortunate. Memory is a trifle blurred; but as far as I can piece together the facts, what happened was more or less this:

Abstemious cove though I am as a general thing there is one night in the year when, putting all other engagements aside, I am rather apt to let myself go a bit and renew my lost youth, as it were. The night to which I allude is the one following the annual aquatic contest between the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge; or, putting it another way, Boat-Race Night. Then, if ever, you will see Bertram under the influence. And on this occasion, I freely admit, I had been doing myself rather juicily, with the result that when I ran into old Sippy opposite the Empire I was in quite fairly bonhomous mood. This being so, it cut me to the quick to perceive that Sippy, generally the brightest of revellers, was far from being his usual sunny self. He had the air of a man with a secret sorrow.

‘Bertie,’ he said as we strolled along towards Piccadilly Circus, ‘the heart bowed down by the weight of woe to weakest hope will cling.’ Sippy is by way of being an author, though mainly dependent for the necessaries of life on subsidies from an old aunt who lives in the country, and his conversation often takes a literary turn. ‘But the trouble is that I have no hope to cling to, weak or otherwise. I am up against it, Bertie.’

‘In what way, laddie?’

‘I’ve got to go tomorrow and spend three weeks with some absolutely dud – and I go further – some positively scaly friends of my Aunt Vera. She has fixed the thing up, and may a nephew’s curse blister every bulb in her garden.’

‘Who are these hounds of hell?’ I asked.

‘Some people named Pringle. I haven’t seen them since I was ten, but I remember them at that time striking me as England’s premier warts.’

‘Tough luck. No wonder you’ve lost your morale.’

‘The world,’ said Sippy, ‘is very grey. How can I shake off this awful depression?’

It was then that I got one of those bright ideas one does get round about 11.30 on Boat-Race Night.

‘What you want, old man,’ I said, ‘is a policeman’s helmet.’

‘Do I, Bertie?’

‘If I were you, I’d just step straight across the street and get that one over there.’

‘But there’s a policeman inside it. You can see him distinctly.’

‘What does that matter?’ I said. I simply couldn’t follow his reasoning.

Sippy stood for a moment in thought.

‘I believe you’re absolutely right,’ he said at last. ‘Funny I never thought of it before. You really recommend me to get that helmet?’

‘I do, indeed.’