‘Shackling the police, that’s what I call it,’ he said, and I think he spat on the floor. I couldn’t see him, of course, but I was aware of a spit-like sound.
Stiffy whooped, well pleased, and I whooped myself, if I remember correctly. For all the bold front I had been putting up, I had never in my heart really liked the idea of rotting for twenty-eight days in a dungeon cell. Prison is all right for a night, but you don’t want to go overdoing the thing.
‘Then what are we waiting for?’ said Stiffy. ‘Get a move on, officer. Fling wide those gates.’
Oates flung them, not attempting to conceal his chagrin and disappointment, and I passed with Stiffy into the great world outside the prison walls.
‘Goodbye, Oates,’ I said as we left, for one always likes to do the courteous thing. ‘It’s been nice meeting you. How are Mrs. Oates and the little ones?’
His only reply was a sound like a hippopotamus taking its foot out of the mud on a river bank, and I saw Stiffy frown, as though his manner offended her.
‘You know,’ she said, as we reached the open spaces, ‘we really ought to do something about Oates, something that would teach him that we’re not put into this world for pleasure alone. I can’t suggest what offhand, but if we put our heads together, we could think of something. You ought to stay on, Bertie, and help me bring his ginger hairs in sorrow to the grave.’
I raised an eyebrow.
‘As the guest of your Uncle Watkyn?’
‘You could muck in with Harold. There’s a spare room at that cottage place of his.’
‘Sorry, no.’
‘You won’t stay on?’
‘I will not. I intend to put as many miles as possible in as short a time as possible between Totleigh-in-the-Wold and myself. And it’s no good your using that expression “lily-livered poltroon”, because I am adamant.’
She made what I believe is called a moue. It’s done by pushing the lips out and drawing them in again.
‘I thought it wouldn’t be any use asking you. No spirit, that’s your trouble, no enterprise. I’ll have to get Harold to do it.’
And as I stood shuddering at the picture her words conjured up, she pushed off, exhibiting dudgeon. And I was still speculating as to what tureen of soup she was planning to land the sainted Pinker in and hoping that he would have enough sense to stay out of it, when Jeeves drove up in the car, a welcome sight.
‘Good morning, sir,’ he said. ‘I trust you slept well.’
‘Fitfully, Jeeves. Those plank beds are not easy on the fleshy parts.’
‘So I would be disposed to imagine, sir. And your disturbed night has left you ruffled, I am sorry to see. You are far from soigne.”
I could, I suppose, have said something about ‘Way down upon the soigne river,’ but I didn’t. My mind was occupied with deeper thoughts. I was in pensive mood.
‘You know, Jeeves,’ I said, ‘one lives and learns.’
‘Sir?’
‘I mean, this episode has been a bit of an eye-opener to me. It has taught me a lesson. I see now what a mistake one makes in labelling someone as a ruddy Gawd-help-us just because he normally behaves like a ruddy Gawd-help-us. Look closely, and we find humanity in the unlikeliest places.’
‘A broadminded view, sir.’
‘Take this Sir W. Bassett. In my haste, I have always pencilled him in as a hellhound without a single redeeming quality. But what do I find? He has this softer side to him. Having got Bertram out on a limb, he does not, as one would have expected, proceed to saw it off, but tempers justice with mercy, declining to press the charge. It has touched me a good deal to discover that under that forbidding exterior there lies a heart of gold. Why are you looking like a stuffed frog, Jeeves? Don’t you agree with me?’
‘Not altogether, sir, when you attribute Sir Watkyn’s leniency to sheer goodness of heart. There were inducements.’
‘I don’t dig you, Jeeves.’
‘I made it a condition that you be set at liberty, sir.’