‘I fear it is inevitable, sir.’
I drew in a pensive one and let it out again slowly between the front teeth. ‘What do you suggest?’
‘It has been our wont on previous occasions, sir, to avail ourselves of a small cottage, there to observe and await developments.’
‘Like Wee Nooke, you mean.’
‘Yes, sir.’
I shuddered. ‘Though less likely to go up in flames, I hope.’
‘A lack of such combustibility would be a decided advantage, sir. I took the liberty while you were at luncheon of making some inquiries by telephone. A local agent has offered use of a three-bedroom dwelling by the name of Seaview Cottage. It is within walking distance of Melbury Hall and enjoys fine views to the south.’
I drained the last of the reviving cup and put it firmly back in the saucer. I had made up my mind. ‘Jeeves,’ I said. ‘All roads lead west. Please compose a gracious telegram to Aunt Agatha, giving her the run of the whole bally place. And apologising for my absence on urgent business. Key to be left with Mrs Tinkler-Moulke.’
‘As you wish, sir.’
A thought struck me. ‘I say, Jeeves, won’t you mind missing Ascot?’
‘I feel my duty lies elsewhere, sir.’
‘Jolly decent of you. I’m sure we can find a bookmaker in Sherborne or somewhere. Pack at least two bags. We could be in for the long haul.’
‘I have already done so, sir.’
‘Good. We leave at dawn. Or ten-ish, anyway. And, Jeeves?’
‘Yes, sir?’
‘I suppose you’d better bung in a pair of cricket flannels, if I still have any. Just in case.’
‘The item was among the first to go into the suitcase, sir.’
Whether it was the fear that Aunt Agatha might arrive early or for some other reason I couldn’t say, but the sole of the right brogue was no more than an inch from the floor of the two-seater when Stonehenge slid past to our right. Jeeves was giving me the lowdown on the novels of Thomas Hardy as we turned off and motored over Cranborne Chase into the depths of Dorsetshire.
‘Sounds a pretty gloomy sort of bird,’ I said, as he reached the big finale of Jude the Obscure.
‘His is undoubtedly not the sunniest of dispositions, sir. The poetry to which he has returned in later life has—’
‘Shall we leave the poetry for another day, Jeeves?’
‘As you wish, sir.’
We broke our journey with a ham sandwich and a glass of ale in the small and silent village of Darston. Although we were his only customers, the innkeeper eyed us with a wariness that verged on the hostile. It can’t have been the appearance, since we were both wearing simple clothes to let us pass as holidaymakers at our destination. The beer took an age to trickle from the barrel and the ham seemed to have been cut from a porker ill-fated enough to have featured in the novels of T. Hardy.
We did not linger, and with the help of the Gazeteer and a letter from the house agent, it was not long before Jeeves guided us into the village of Kingston St Giles and thence the gravelled area in front of Seaview Cottage. Here I let the faithful motor take a blow while Jeeves unloaded the bags.
Seaview Cottage had a thatched roof and whitewashed walls. The accommodations were on the modest side, though adequate for our purposes. While Jeeves unpacked, I pottered round a pleasant patch of garden with some roses just coming out and a few rows of beans. As for a view of the sea, we appeared to be a good twenty miles inland, though I daresay a hawk with a strong telescope hovering a few feet above the chimney pot might have made out a smudge of distant ocean.
In the village, we had driven past a post office, a grocer and a butcher as well as a brace of inns, and I now dispatched Jeeves to send a telegram to Woody at Melbury Hall, advising of our arrival. As I may have mentioned, Woody, though brainy, is about as highly strung as Suzanne Lenglen’s tennis racquet. I didn’t want him letting off a startled, ‘Blow me down, it’s Bertie Wooster!’ if he bumped into me in lane or meadow. I also instructed Jeeves to bring in some supplies and see what either of the public houses might provide by way of dinner.
Then I took a deckchair into the garden, removed the tie, rolled up the sleeves and opened By Pullman to Peking, by Rupert Venables, which I had had sent round from the bookshop before we left. I had been surprised to find that it was signed by the author on the title page, but Jeeves told me it was common for authors to scribble in as many copies as they could, since this meant the bookshop could not return them unsold to the publisher.
It knocked me back a bit. I suppose I had expected something of a yarn or an adventure, but this Venables recounted his journey from first idea, to booking office, to tram, to terminus, in the same tone. He reminded me of someone – though for a moment I struggled to remember who. It was on page thirty-four, in the boat train from Victoria, in which Venables described each of the passengers in his compartment, that it came to me: it was ‘Stodgy’ Stoddard, the club bore at the Drones, around whom there was always a blast area where other lunchers had evacuated the vicinity. ‘The next person to come into the compartment, was a nondescript middle-aged man of oriental or perhaps Eurasian descent,’ wrote Venables; but it wasn’t worth finding out about this chap because it turned out that after Boulogne he slung his hook and disappeared.