and chatting like old friends, when I found that I had arrived at the outskirts of the Dower House. This bin or depository for the widows of deceased Lords Chuffnell was a medium-sized sort of shack standing in what the advertisements describe as spacious and commodious grounds. You entered by a five-barred gate set in a box hedge and approached by a short gravel drive- unless you were planning to break 'in through a lower window, in which case you sneaked along a grass border, skipping silently from tree to tree. Thii:' is what I did, though at a casual glance it didn't .^eem really necessary. The place looked deserted.
Still, so far, of course, I had only seen the front of it: and if the gardener in charge had changed his policy of going down to the local pub for a refresher at this hour and was still on the premises, he would be round at the back. It was thither, therefore, that I now directed the footsteps, making them as snaky as possible. I can't say I liked the prospect before me. Jeeves had spoken airily-or glibly-of busting / in and making myself at home for the night; but my experience has been that whenever I try to do a bit of burgling something always goes wrong. I had not yet forgotten that time Bingo Little persuaded me to break into his house and pinch the dictaphone record of the mushy article his wife, nee Rosie M. Banks, the well-known female novelist, had written about him for my Aunt Dahlia's paper. Milady's Boudoir. Pekingese, parlourmaids, and policemen had entered into the affair, you may remember, causing me despondency and alarm : and I didn't want anything of that nature happening again. So it was with a pretty goodish amount of caution that I now sidled round to the back: and when the first thing the eye fell on was the kitchen door standing ajar, I did not rush in with the vim I would have displayed a year or so earlier, before Life had made me the grim, suspicious man I am to-day : but stood there cocking a wary eye at it. It might be all right. On the other hand, it might not be all right. Time alone could tell. The next moment, I was dashed glad I had held off, because I suddenly heard someone whistling in the house, and I saw what that meant. It meant that the gardener bloke, instead of going down to the " Chuffnell Arms " for a snifter, had decided to stay home and have a quiet evening among his books. So much for Jeeves's authoritative inside information. I drew back into the shadows like a leopard, feeling pretty peeved. I felt that Jeeves had no right to say that fellows went down to the village for a spot at such and such a time when they didn't. And then suddenly something happened that threw an entirely new light on the position of affairs, and I saw that I had misjudged the honest fellow. The whistling stopped, there was a single, brief hiccough, and then from inside came the sound of somebody singing " Lead, Kindly Light." The occupant of the Dower House was no mere gardener. It was Moscow's Pride, the unspeakable Brinkley, who lurked therein. The situation seemed to me to call for careful, unhurried thought.
The whole trouble with fellows like Brinkley is that in dealing with them you cannot go by the form book. They are such in-and-out performers. To-night, for instance, within the space of little more than an hour, I had seen this man ravening to and fro with a carving knife and also tolerantly submitting to having himself kicked by Chuffy practically the whole length of the Chuffnell Hall drive. It all seemed to be a question of what mood he happened to be in at the time. If, therefore, I was compelledto ask myself, I were to walk boldly into the Dower House now, which manifestation of this many-sided man would greet me ? Should I find a deferential lover of peace whom it would be both simple and agreeable to take by the slack of the trousers and bung out ?
Or should I have to spend the remainder of the night racing up and downstairs with him a short head behind me ? And, arising out of this, what had become of that carving knife of his ? As far as I could ascertain, he did not appear to have it on his person during the interview with Chuffy. But then, on the other hand, he might simply have left it somewhere and collected it again by now. Reviewing the matter from every angle, I decided to remain where I was ; and the next moment the trend of events showed that the decision had been a wise one.
