Carry On Jeeves Page #4

Carry On, Jeeves is a collection of ten short stories by P. G. Wodehouse. It was first published in the United Kingdom on 9 October 1925 by Herbert Jenkins, London, and in the United States on 7 October 1927 by George H. Doran, New York.

• Short story

								


'Last Saturday's.'

'I'm five days behind. I was six till last night, but I polished your
shoes.'

'Was it you--'

'Yes. Did you see them? I just happened to think of it. I was in here,
looking round. Mr Berkeley had this room while you were away. He left
this morning. I thought perhaps he might have left something in it that
I could have sent on. I've often done acts of kindness that way.'

'You must be a comfort to one and all!'

It became more and more apparent to me that this infernal kid must
somehow be turned out eftsoons or right speedily. I had hidden the
parcel behind my back, and I didn't think he had seen it; but I wanted
to get at that chest of drawers quick, before anyone else came along.

'I shouldn't bother about tidying the room,' I said.

'I like tidying it. It's not a bit of trouble--really.'

'But it's quite tidy now.'

'Not so tidy as I shall make it.'

This was getting perfectly rotten. I didn't want to murder the kid, and
yet there didn't seem any other way of shifting him. I pressed down the
mental accelerator. The old lemon throbbed fiercely. I got an idea.

'There's something much kinder than that which you could do,' I said.
'You see that box of cigars? Take it down to the smoking-room and snip
off the ends for me. That would save me no end of trouble. Stagger
along, laddie.'

He seemed a bit doubtful; but he staggered. I shoved the parcel into
a drawer, locked it, trousered the key, and felt better. I might be a
chump, but, dash it, I could out-general a mere kid with a face like a
ferret. I went downstairs again. Just as I was passing the smoking-room
door out curveted Edwin. It seemed to me that if he wanted to do a real
act of kindness he would commit suicide.

'I'm snipping them,' he said.

'Snip on! Snip on!'

'Do you like them snipped much, or only a bit?'

'Medium.'

'All right. I'll be getting on, then.'

'I should.'

And we parted.

       *       *       *       *       *

Fellows who know all about that sort of thing--detectives, and so
on--will tell you that the most difficult thing in the world is to get
rid of the body. I remember, as a kid, having to learn by heart a poem
about a bird by the name of Eugene Aram, who had the deuce of a job in
this respect. All I can recall of the actual poetry is the bit that
goes:

    Tum-tum, tum-tum, tum-tumty-tum,
    I slew him, tum-tum tum!

But I recollect that the poor blighter spent much of his valuable time
dumping the corpse into ponds and burying it, and what-not, only to
have it pop out at him again. It was about an hour after I had shoved
the parcel into the drawer when I realized that I had let myself in for
just the same sort of thing.

Florence had talked in an airy sort of way about destroying the
manuscript; but when one came down to it, how the deuce can a chap
destroy a great chunky mass of paper in somebody else's house in the
middle of summer? I couldn't ask to have a fire in my bedroom, with the
thermometer in the eighties. And if I didn't burn the thing, how else
could I get rid of it? Fellows on the battlefield eat dispatches to
keep them from falling into the hands of the enemy, but it would have
taken me a year to eat Uncle Willoughby's Recollections.

I'm bound to say the problem absolutely baffled me. The only thing
seemed to be to leave the parcel in the drawer and hope for the best.

I don't know whether you have ever experienced it, but it's a dashed
unpleasant thing having a crime on one's conscience. Towards the end
of the day the mere sight of the drawer began to depress me. I found
myself getting all on edge; and once when Uncle Willoughby trickled
silently into the smoking-room when I was alone there and spoke to me
before I knew he was there, I broke the record for the sitting high
jump.

I was wondering all the time when Uncle Willoughby would sit up and
take notice. I didn't think he would have time to suspect that anything
had gone wrong till Saturday morning, when he would be expecting,
of course, to get the acknowledgement of the manuscript from the
publishers. But early on Friday evening he came out of the library as
I was passing and asked me to step in. He was looking considerably
rattled.

'Bertie,' he said--he always spoke in a precise sort of pompous kind
of way--'an exceedingly disturbing thing has happened. As you know, I
dispatched the manuscript of my book to Messrs Riggs and Ballinger, the
publishers, yesterday afternoon. It should have reached them by the
first post this morning. Why I should have been uneasy I cannot say,
but my mind was not altogether at rest respecting the safety of the
parcel. I therefore telephoned to Messrs Riggs and Ballinger a few
moments back to make inquiries. To my consternation they informed me
that they were not yet in receipt of my manuscript.'

'Very rum!'

'I recollect distinctly placing it myself on the hall table in good
time to be taken to the village. But here is a sinister thing. I have
spoken to Oakshott, who took the rest of the letters to the post
office, and he cannot recall seeing it there. He is, indeed, unswerving
in his assertions that when he went to the hall to collect the letters
there was no parcel among them.'

'Sounds funny!'

'Bertie, shall I tell you what I suspect?'

'What's that?'

'The suspicion will no doubt sound to you incredible, but it alone
seems to fit the facts as we know them. I incline to the belief that
the parcel has been stolen.'

'Oh, I say! Surely not!'

'Wait! Hear me out. Though I have said nothing to you before, or to
anyone else, concerning the matter, the fact remains that during the
past few weeks a number of objects--some valuable, others not--have
disappeared in this house. The conclusion to which one is irresistibly
impelled is that we have a kleptomaniac in our midst. It is a
peculiarity of kleptomania, as you are no doubt aware, that the subject
is unable to differentiate between the intrinsic values of objects. He
will purloin an old coat as readily as a diamond ring, or a tobacco
pipe costing but a few shillings with the same eagerness as a purse of
gold. The fact that this manuscript of mine could be of no possible
value to any outside person convinces me that--'

'But, uncle, one moment; I know all about those things that were
stolen. It was Meadowes, my man, who pinched them. I caught him
snaffling my silk socks. Right in the act, by Jove!'

He was tremendously impressed.

'You amaze me, Bertie! Send for the man at once and question him.'

'But he isn't here. You see, directly I found that he was a
sock-sneaker I gave him the boot. That's why I went to London--to get a
new man.'

'Then, if the man Meadowes is no longer in the house it could not be he
who purloined my manuscript. The whole thing is inexplicable.'

After which we brooded for a bit. Uncle Willoughby pottered about the
room, registering baffledness, while I sat sucking at a cigarette,
feeling rather like a chappie I'd once read about in a book, who
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