The Greatest Works of P. G. Wodehouse. P. G. Wodehouse
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“You’d gather in a thousand of the best.; Give you a nice start in life.”
“I’m not talking about your rotten puzzle.”
“What are you talking about?”
“That ass Downing.; I believe he’s off his nut.”
“Then your chat with Comrade Downing was not of the old-College-chums-meeting-unexpectedly-after-years’-separation type?; What has he been doing to you?”
“He’s off his nut.”
“I know.; But what did he do?; How did the brainstorm burst?; Did he jump at you from behind a door and bite a piece out of your leg, or did he say he was a tea-pot?”
Mike sat down.
“You remember that painting Sammy business?”
“As if it were yesterday,” said Psmith.; “Which it was, pretty nearly.”
“He thinks I did it.”
“Why?; Have you ever shown any talent in the painting line?”
“The silly ass wanted me to confess that I’d done it.; He as good as asked me to.; Jawed a lot of rot about my finding it to my advantage later on if I behaved sensibly.”
“Then what are you worrying about?; Don’t you know that when a master wants you to do the confessing-act, it simply means that he hasn’t enough evidence to start in on you with?; You’re all right.; The thing’s a stand-off.”
“Evidence!” said Mike, “My dear man, he’s got enough evidence to sink a ship.; He’s absolutely sweating evidence at every pore.; As far as I can see, he’s been crawling about, doing the Sherlock Holmes business for all he’s worth ever since the thing happened, and now he’s dead certain that I painted Sammy.”
“Did you, by the way?” asked Psmith.
“No,” said Mike shortly, “I didn’t.; But after listening to Downing I almost began to wonder if I hadn’t.; The man’s got stacks of evidence to prove that I did.”
“Such as what?”
“It’s mostly about my boots.; But, dash it, you know all about that.; Why, you were with him when he came and looked for them.”
“It is true,” said Psmith, “that Comrade Downing and I spent a very pleasant half-hour together inspecting boots, but how does he drag you into it?”
“He swears one of the boots was splashed with paint.”
“Yes.; He babbled to some extent on that point when I was entertaining him.; But what makes him think that the boot, if any, was yours?”
“He’s certain that somebody in this house got one of his boots splashed, and is hiding it somewhere.; And I’m the only chap in the house who hasn’t got a pair of boots to show, so he thinks it’s me.; I don’t know where the dickens my other boot has gone.; Edmund swears he hasn’t seen it, and it’s nowhere about.; Of course I’ve got two pairs, but one’s being soled.; So I had to go over to school yesterday in pumps.; That’s how he spotted me.”
Psmith sighed.
“Comrade Jackson,” he said mournfully, “all this very sad affair shows the folly of acting from the best motives.; In my simple zeal, meaning to save you unpleasantness, I have landed you, with a dull, sickening thud, right in the cart.; Are you particular about dirtying your hands?; If you aren’t, just reach up that chimney a bit?”
Mike stared, “What the dickens are you talking about?”
“Go on.; Get it over.; Be a man, and reach up the chimney.”
“I don’t know what the game is,” said Mike, kneeling beside the fender and groping, “but—Hullo!”
“Ah ha!” said Psmith moodily.
Mike dropped the soot-covered object in the fender, and glared at it.
“It’s my boot!” he said at last.
“It is,” said Psmith, “your boot.; And what is that red stain across the toe?; Is it blood?; No, ’tis not blood.; It is red paint.”
Mike seemed unable to remove his eyes from the boot.
“How on earth did—By Jove!; I remember now.; I kicked up against something in the dark when I was putting my bicycle back that night.; It must have been the paint-pot.”
“Then you were out that night?”
“Rather.; That’s what makes it so jolly awkward.; It’s too long to tell you now——”
“Your stories are never too long for me,” said Psmith.; “Say on!”
“Well, it was like this.”; And Mike related the events which had led up to his midnight excursion.; Psmith listened attentively.
“This,” he said, when Mike had finished, “confirms my frequently stated opinion that Comrade Jellicoe is one of Nature’s blitherers.; So that’s why he touched us for our hard-earned, was it?”
“Yes.; Of course there was no need for him to have the money at all.”
“And the result is that you are in something of a tight place.; You’re absolutely certain you didn’t paint that dog?; Didn’t do it, by any chance, in a moment of absent-mindedness, and forgot all about it?; No?; No, I suppose not.; I wonder who did!”
“It’s beastly awkward.; You see, Downing chased me that night.; That was why I rang the alarm bell.; So, you see, he’s certain to think that the chap he chased, which was me, and the chap who painted Sammy, are the same.; I shall get landed both ways.”
Psmith pondered.
“It is a tightish place,” he admitted.
“I wonder if we could get this boot clean,” said Mike, inspecting it with disfavour.
“Not for a pretty considerable time.”
“I suppose not.; I say, I am in the cart.; If I can’t produce this boot, they’re bound to guess why.”
“What exactly,” asked Psmith, “was the position of affairs between you and Comrade Downing when you left him?; Had you definitely parted brass-rags?; Or did you simply sort of drift apart with mutual courtesies?”
“Oh, he said I was ill-advised to continue that attitude, or some rot, and I said I didn’t care, I hadn’t painted his bally dog, and he said very well, then, he must take steps, and—well, that was about all.”
“Sufficient, too,” said Psmith, “quite sufficient.; I take it, then, that he is now on the war-path, collecting a gang, so to speak.”
“I suppose he’s gone to the Old Man about it.”
“Probably.; A very worrying time our headmaster is having, taking it all round, in connection with this painful affair.; What do you think his move will be?”
“I suppose he’ll send for me, and try to get something out of me.”
“He’ll want you to confess, too.; Masters are all whales on confession.; The worst of it is, you can’t prove an alibi, because at about the time the foul act was perpetrated, you were playing Round-and-round-the-mulberry-bush with Comrade Downing.; This needs thought.; You had better put the case in my hands, and go out and watch the dandelions growing.; I will think over the matter.”
“Well, I hope you’ll be able to think of something.; I can’t.”
“Possibly.; You never know.”
There was a tap at the door.