‘Oh, by the way,’ I said, ‘where did you get the Swordfish?’
He smiled indulgently.
‘That was Miss Wickham’s suggestion.’
‘I thought as much.’
‘She informed me that she had always dreamed of one day meeting a butler called Swordfish. A charming young lady. Full of fun.’
‘It may be fun for her,’ I said with one of my bitter laughs, ‘but it isn’t so diverting for the unfortunate toads beneath the harrow whom she plunges so ruthlessly in the soup. Let me tell you what occurred after I left you this afternoon.’
‘Yes, I am all eagerness to hear.’
‘Then pin your ears back and drink it in.’
If I do say so, I told my story well, omitting no detail however slight. It had him Bless-my-soul-ing throughout, and when I had finished he t’ck-t’ck-t’ck-ed and said it must have been most unpleasant for me, and I said that ‘unpleasant’ covered the facts like the skin on a sausage.
‘But I think that in your place I should have thought of an explanation of your presence calculated to carry more immediate conviction than that you were searching for a mouse.’
‘Such as?’
‘It is hard to say on the spur of the moment.’
‘Well, it was on the spur of the m. that I had to say it,’ I rejoined with some heat. ‘You don’t get time to polish your dialogue and iron out the bugs in the plot when a woman who looks like Sherlock Holmes catches you in her son’s room with your rear elevation sticking out from under the dressing-table.’
‘True. Quite true. But I wonder…’
‘Wonder what?’
‘I do not wish to hurt your feelings.’
‘Go ahead. My feelings have been hurt so much already that a little bit extra won’t make any difference.’
‘I may speak frankly?’
‘Do.’
‘Well, then, I am wondering if it was altogether wise to entrust this very delicate operation to a young fellow like yourself. I am coming round to the view you put forward when we were discussing the matter with Miss Wickham. You said, if you recall, that the enterprise should have been placed in the hands of a mature, experienced man of the world and not in those of one of less ripe years who as a child had never been expert at hunt-the-slipper. I am, you will agree, mature, and in my earlier days I won no little praise for my skill at hunt-the- slipper. I remember one of the hostesses whose Christmas parties I attended comparing me to a juvenile bloodhound. An extravagant encomium, of course, but that is what she said.’
I looked at him with a wild surmise. It seemed to me that there was but one meaning to be attached to his words.
‘You aren’t thinking of having a pop at it yourself?’
‘That is precisely my intention, Mr Wooster.’
‘Lord love a duck!’
‘The expression is new to me, but I gather from it that you consider my conduct eccentric.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that, but do you realize what you are letting yourself in for? You won’t enjoy meeting Ma Cream. She has an eye like … what are those things that have eyes? Basilisks, that’s the name I was groping for. She has an eye like a basilisk. Have you considered the possibility of having that eye go through you like a dose of salts?’
‘Yes, I can envisage the peril. But the fact is, Mr Wooster, I regard what has happened as a challenge. My blood is up.’
‘Mine froze.’
‘And you may possibly not believe me, but I find the prospect of searching Mr Cream’s room quite enjoyable.’
‘Enjoyable?’
‘Yes. In a curious way it restores my youth. It brings back to me my preparatory school days, when I would often steal down at night to the headmaster’s study to eat his biscuits.’
I started. I looked at him with a kindling eye. Deep had called to deep, and the cockles of the heart were warmed.
‘Biscuits?’
‘He kept them in a tin on his desk.’
‘You really used to do that at your prep school?’
‘Many years ago.’
‘So did I,’ I said, coming within an ace of saying, ‘My brother!’