" Well, Mr. Wooster ? " I never have known quite what to answer when blokes say " Well ? " to me, and I didn't now. " I must apologize for leaving you so abruptly," proceeded the Stoker, " but I had to get the concert started." " I'm looking forward to the concert," I said. " A pity," said Pop Stoker. " Because you're going to miss it." He eyed me musingly. " There was a time, when I was younger, when I would have broken your neck," he said. I didn't like the trend the conversation was taking. After all, a man is as young as he feels, and there was no knowing that he wouldn't suddenly get one of these-what do you call them ?-illusions of youth. I had an uncle once, aged seventy-six, who, under the influence of old crusted port, would climb trees. " Look here," I said civilly but with what you might call a certain urgency, " I know it's trespassing on your time, but could you tell me what all this is about ? " " You don't know ? " " No, I'm hanged if I do." " And you can't guess ? " " No, I'm dashed if I can." " Then I had best tell you from the beginning. Perhaps you recall my visiting you last night ? " I said I hadn't forgotten. " I thought my daughter was in your cottage. I searched it. I did not find her."
I twiddled a hand magnanimously. " We all make mistakes." He nodded. "
Yes. So I went away. And do you know what happened after I left you, Mr.
Wooster ? I was coming out of the garden gate when your local police sergeant stopped me. He seemed suspicious." I waved my cigar sympathetically. " Something will have to be done about Voules," I said.
" The man is a pest. I hope you were pretty terse with him." " Not at all. I supposed he was only doing his duty. I told him who I was and where I lived. On learning that I came from this yacht, he asked me to accompany him to the police station.'' I was amazed. " What bally cheek I You mean he pinched you ? " " No, he was not arresting me. He wished me to identify someone who was in custody." " Bally cheek, all the same.
What on earth did he bother you with that sort of job for ? Besides, how on earth could you identify anyone ? I mean, a stranger in these parts, and all that sort of thing." " In this instance it was simple. The prisoner happened to be my daughter, Pauline." " What! " " Yes, Mr.
Wooster. It seems that this man Voules was in his back garden late last night -it adjoins yours, if you recollect-and he saw
a figure climbing out of one of the lower windows of your house. He ran down the garden and caught this individual. It was my daughter Pauline.
She was wearing a swimming suit and an overcoat belonging to you. So, you see, you were right when you told me she had probably gone for a swim." He knocked the ash carefully off his cigar. I didn't need to do it to mine. " She must have been with you a few moments before I arrived. Now, perhaps, Mr. Wooster, you can understand what I meant when I said that, when I was a younger man, I would have broken your neck." I hadn't anything much to say. One hasn't sometimes. " Nowadays, I'm more sensible," he proceeded. " I take the easier way. I say to myself that Mr. Wooster is not the son-in-law I would have chosen personally, but if my hand has been forced that is all there is to it. Anyway, you're not the gibbering idiot I thought you at one time, I'm glad to say. I have heard since that those stories which caused me to break off Pauline's engagement to you in New York were untrue. So we can consider everything just as it was three months ago. We will look upon that letter of Pauline's as unwritten." You can't reel when you're sitting on a bed.
Otherwise, I would have done so, and right heartily. I was feeling as if a hidden hand had socked me in the solar plexus.
from my son's birthday party, can I, even for the pleasure of talking to you ? " He slipped through the door and oozed out, and I was alone.
Now, it so happened that twice in my career I had had the experience of sitting- in a cell and listening to keys turning in locks. The first time was the one to which Chuffy had alluded, when I had been compelled to assure the magistrate that I was one of the West Dulwich Plimsolls.
