The Jeeves Omnibus - Vol 4: (Jeeves & Wooster): No.4 Read Online Free PDF Page B

Bohemian circles – Chelsea studios and the rooms of the intelligentsia in Bloomsbury and places like that – where the repartee is always of a high order.
    ‘So that was that,’ proceeded Stilton, having brooded for a space. ‘One thing led to another, hot words passed to and fro, and it was not long before she was returning the ring and saying she would be glad to have her letters back at my earliest convenience.’
    I tut-tutted. He asked me rather abruptly not to tut-tut, so I stopped tut-tutting, explaining that my reason for having done so was that his tragic tale had moved me deeply.
    ‘My heart aches for you,’ I said.
    ‘It does, does it?’
    ‘Profusely.’
    ‘Ho!’
    ‘You doubt my sympathy?’
    ‘You bet I doubt your ruddy sympathy. I told you just now that I was trying to make up my mind, and what I’m trying to make it up about is this. Had you foreseen that that would happen? Did your cunning fiend’s brain spot what was bound to occur if you grew a moustache and flashed it on Florence?’
    I tried to laugh lightly, but you know how it is with these light laughs, they don’t always come out just the way you would wish. Even to me it sounded more like a gargle.
    ‘Am I right? Was that the thought that came into your cunning fiend’s brain?’
    ‘Certainly not. As a matter of fact, I haven’t got a cunning fiend’s brain.’
    ‘Jeeves has. The plot could have been his. Was it Jeeves who wove this snare for my feet?’
    ‘My dear chap! Jeeves doesn’t weave snares for feet. He would consider it a liberty. Besides, I told you he is the spearhead of the movement which disapproves of my moustache.’
    ‘I see what you mean. Yes, on second thoughts I am inclined to acquit Jeeves of complicity. The evidence points to your having thought up the scheme yourself.’
    ‘Evidence? How do you mean, evidence?’
    ‘When we were at your flat and I said I was expecting Florence, I noticed a very significant thing – your face lit up.’
    ‘It didn’t.’
    ‘Pardon me. I know when a face lights up and when it doesn’t. I could read you like a book. You were saying to yourself, “This is the moment! This is where I spring it on her!”’
    ‘Nothing of the sort. If my face lit up – which I gravely doubt – it was merely because I reasoned that as soon as she arrived you would be leaving.’
    ‘You wanted me to leave?’
    ‘I did. You were taking up space which I required for other purposes.’
    It was plausible, of course, and I could see it shook him. He passed a hamlike hand, gnarled with toiling at the oar, across his brow.
    ‘Well, I shall have to think it over. Yes, yes, I shall have to think it over.’
    ‘Go away and start now, is what I would suggest.’
    ‘I will. I shall be scrupulously fair. I shall weigh this and that. But if I find my suspicions are correct, I shall know what to do about it.’
    And with these ominous words he withdrew, leaving me not a little bowed down with weight of woe. For apart from the fact that when a bird of Stilton’s impulsive temperament gets it into his nut that you have woven snares for his feet, practically anything can happen in the way of violence and mayhem, it gave me goose pimples to think of Florence being at large once more. It was with heavy heart that I finished my whisky and splash and tottered home. ‘Wooster,’ a voice seemed to be whispering in my ear, ‘things are getting hot, old sport.’
    Jeeves was at the telephone when I reached the sitting-room.
    ‘I am sorry,’ he was saying, and I noticed that he was just as suave and firm as I had been at our recent get-together. ‘No, please, further discussion is useless. I am afraid you must accept my decision as final. Good night.’
    From the fact that he had not chucked in a lot of ‘sirs’ I presumed that he had been talking to some pal of his, though from the curtness of his tone probably not the one whose strength was as the strength of ten.
    ‘What was that, Jeeves?’ I