"Then will you or will you not----"

"Oh, all right," I said. "All right! All right! All right!"

And then I tottered forth to think it over. I met Jeeves in the pa.s.sage just outside.

"I beg your pardon, sir. I was endeavouring to find you."

"What"s the matter?"

"I felt that I should tell you, sir, that somebody has been putting black polish on our brown walking shoes."

"What! Who? Why?"

"I could not say, sir."

"Can anything be done with them?"

"Nothing, sir."

"d.a.m.n!"

"Very good, sir."

I"ve often wondered since then how these murderer fellows manage to keep in shape while they"re contemplating their next effort. I had a much simpler sort of job on hand, and the thought of it rattled me to such an extent in the night watches that I was a perfect wreck next day. Dark circles under the eyes--I give you my word! I had to call on Jeeves to rally round with one of those life-savers of his.

From breakfast on I felt like a bag-s.n.a.t.c.her at a railway station. I had to hang about waiting for the parcel to be put on the hall table, and it wasn"t put. Uncle Willoughby was a fixture in the library, adding the finishing touches to the great work, I supposed, and the more I thought the thing over the less I liked it. The chances against my pulling it off seemed about three to two, and the thought of what would happen if I didn"t gave me cold shivers down the spine. Uncle Willoughby was a pretty mild sort of old boy, as a rule, but I"ve known him to cut up rough, and, by Jove, he was scheduled to extend himself if he caught me trying to get away with his life work.

It wasn"t till nearly four that he toddled out of the library with the parcel under his arm, put it on the table, and toddled off again. I was hiding a bit to the south-east at the moment, behind a suit of armour. I bounded out and legged it for the table. Then I nipped upstairs to hide the swag. I charged in like a mustang and nearly stubbed my toe on young blighted Edwin, the Boy Scout. He was standing at the chest of drawers, confound him, messing about with my ties.

"Hallo!" he said.

"What are you doing here?"

"I"m tidying your room. It"s my last Sat.u.r.day"s act of kindness."

"Last Sat.u.r.day"s?"

"I"m five days behind. I was six till last night, but I polished your shoes."

"Was it you----"

"Yes. Did you see them? I just happened to think of it. I was in here, looking round. Mr. Berkeley had this room while you were away. He left this morning. I thought perhaps he might have left something in it that I could have sent on. I"ve often done acts of kindness that way."

"You must be a comfort to one and all!"

It became more and more apparent to me that this infernal kid must somehow be turned out eftsoons or right speedily. I had hidden the parcel behind my back, and I didn"t think he had seen it; but I wanted to get at that chest of drawers quick, before anyone else came along.

"I shouldn"t bother about tidying the room," I said.

"I like tidying it. It"s not a bit of trouble--really."

"But it"s quite tidy now."

"Not so tidy as I shall make it."

This was getting perfectly rotten. I didn"t want to murder the kid, and yet there didn"t seem any other way of shifting him. I pressed down the mental accelerator. The old lemon throbbed fiercely. I got an idea.

"There"s something much kinder than that which you could do," I said.

"You see that box of cigars? Take it down to the smoking-room and snip off the ends for me. That would save me no end of trouble. Stagger along, laddie."

He seemed a bit doubtful; but he staggered. I shoved the parcel into a drawer, locked it, trousered the key, and felt better. I might be a chump, but, dash it, I could out-general a mere kid with a face like a ferret. I went downstairs again. Just as I was pa.s.sing the smoking-room door, out curveted Edwin. It seemed to me that if he wanted to do a real act of kindness he would commit suicide.

"I"m snipping them," he said.

"Snip on! Snip on!"

"Do you like them snipped much, or only a bit?"

"Medium."

"All right. I"ll be getting on, then."

"I should."

And we parted.

Fellows who know all about that sort of thing--detectives, and so on--will tell you that the most difficult thing in the world is to get rid of the body. I remember, as a kid, having to learn by heart a poem about a bird by the name of Eugene Aram, who had the deuce of a job in this respect. All I can recall of the actual poetry is the bit that goes:

_Tum-tum, tum-tum, tum-tumty-tum, I slew him, tum-tum-tum!_

But I recollect that the poor blighter spent much of his valuable time dumping the corpse into ponds and burying it, and what not, only to have it pop out at him again. It was about an hour after I had shoved the parcel into the drawer when I realised that I had let myself in for just the same sort of thing.

Florence had talked in an airy sort of way about destroying the ma.n.u.script; but when one came down to it, how the deuce can a chap destroy a great chunky ma.s.s of paper in somebody else"s house in the middle of summer? I couldn"t ask to have a fire in my bedroom, with the thermometer in the eighties. And if I didn"t burn the thing, how else could I get rid of it? Fellows on the battle-field eat dispatches to keep them from falling into the hands of the enemy, but it would have taken me a year to eat Uncle Willoughby"s Recollections.

I"m bound to say the problem absolutely baffled me. The only thing seemed to be to leave the parcel in the drawer and hope for the best.

I don"t know whether you have ever experienced it, but it"s a dashed unpleasant thing having a crime on one"s conscience. Towards the end of the day the mere sight of the drawer began to depress me. I found myself getting all on edge; and once when Uncle Willoughby trickled silently into the smoking-room when I was alone there and spoke to me before I knew he was there, I broke the record for the sitting high jump.

I was wondering all the time when Uncle Willoughby would sit up and take notice. I didn"t think he would have time to suspect that anything had gone wrong till Sat.u.r.day morning, when he would be expecting, of course, to get the acknowledgment of the ma.n.u.script from the publishers. But early on Friday evening he came out of the library as I was pa.s.sing and asked me to step in. He was looking considerably rattled.

"Bertie," he said--he always spoke in a precise sort of pompous kind of way--"an exceedingly disturbing thing has happened. As you know, I dispatched the ma.n.u.script of my book to Messrs. Riggs and Ballinger, the publishers, yesterday afternoon. It should have reached them by the first post this morning. Why I should have been uneasy I cannot say, but my mind was not altogether at rest respecting the safety of the parcel. I therefore telephoned to Messrs. Riggs and Ballinger a few moments back to make enquiries. To my consternation they informed me that they were not yet in receipt of my ma.n.u.script."

"Very rum!"

"I recollect distinctly placing it myself on the hall table in good time to be taken to the village. But here is a sinister thing. I have spoken to Oakshott, who took the rest of the letters to the post office, and he cannot recall seeing it there. He is, indeed, unswerving in his a.s.sertions that when he went to the hall to collect the letters there was no parcel among them."