fire affected me, but I have no doubt that I sprang up and down a bit – quite nimbly enough to jerk packages out of pockets.’
Of course, I didn’t think so, really. My original theory that I had become unbrooched while picking up the suitcase persisted. But on these occasions the instinct is to turn every stone and leave no avenue unexplored.
I nosed round, accordingly, scanning the turf and even going so far as to feel about in the rockery. As I had foreseen, no dice. It wasn’t long before I gave it up and started to stroll along to Boko’s. And I had just reached his gate, when there was the ting of bicycle bell – I noted as a curious phenomenon that the denizens of Steeple Bumpleigh seemed to do practically nothing but ride about on bicycles, tinging bells – and I saw Nobby approaching.
I hastened to meet her, for she was just the girl I wanted to get in touch with. I was anxious to thresh out with her the whole topic of Stilton and his love life.
Part 2
CHAPTER 12
S he dismounted with lissom grace, beaming welcomingly. Since I had last seen her, she had washed off the stains of travel and changed her frock and was looking spruce and dapper. Why she should have bothered to smarten herself up, when she was only going to meet a bird in patched grey flannel trousers and a turtleneck sweater, I was at a loss to understand, but girls will, of course, be girls.
‘Hullo, Bertie,’ she said. ‘Are you paying a neighbourly call on Boko?’
I replied that that was about what it amounted to, but added that first I required a few moments of her valuable time.
‘Listen, Nobby,’ I said.
She didn’t, of course. I’ve never met a girl yet who did. Say ‘Listen’ to any member of the delicately nurtured sex, and she takes it as a cue to start talking herself. However, as the subject she introduced proved to be the very one I had been planning to ventilate, the desire to beat her brains out with a brick was not so pronounced as it would otherwise have been.
‘What have you been doing to inflame Stilton, Bertie? I met him just now and asked if he had seen you, and he turned vermilion and gnashed every tooth in his head. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more incandescent copper.’
‘He didn’t explain?’
‘No. He simply pedalled on furiously, as if he had been competing in a six-day bicycle race and had just realized he was dropping behind the leaders. What was the trouble?’
I tapped her on the arm with a grave forefinger.
‘Nobby,’ I said, ‘there has been a bit of a mix-up. What’s that word that begins with “con”?’
‘Con?’
‘I’ve heard Jeeves use it. There’s a cat in it somewhere.’
‘What on earth are you drivelling about?’
‘Concatenation,’ I said, getting it. ‘Owing to an unfortunate concatenation of circumstances, Stilton is viewing me with concern. He has got the idea rooted in his bean that I’ve come down here to try to steal Florence from him.’
‘Have you?’
‘My dear young blister,’ I said, with some impatience, ‘would anybody want to steal Florence? Do use your intelligence. But, as I say, this unfortunate concatenation has led him to suspect the worst.’
And in a few simple words I gave her the run of the scenario, featuring the Young Lochinvar aspect of the matter. When I had finished, she made one of those foolish remarks which do so much to confirm a man in his conviction that women as a sex should be suppressed.
‘You should have told him you were guiltless of the charge.’
I tut-tutted impatiently.
‘I did tell him I was guiltless of the charge, and a fat lot he believed me. He continued to hot up, finally reaching a condition of so much Fahrenheit that I was surprised he didn’t run me in on the spot. In which connection, you might have told me he was a cop.’
‘I forgot to.’
‘It would have spared me a very disconcerting shock. When I heard someone calling my name and looked round and saw him cycling towards me in the
Of course, I didn’t think so, really. My original theory that I had become unbrooched while picking up the suitcase persisted. But on these occasions the instinct is to turn every stone and leave no avenue unexplored.
I nosed round, accordingly, scanning the turf and even going so far as to feel about in the rockery. As I had foreseen, no dice. It wasn’t long before I gave it up and started to stroll along to Boko’s. And I had just reached his gate, when there was the ting of bicycle bell – I noted as a curious phenomenon that the denizens of Steeple Bumpleigh seemed to do practically nothing but ride about on bicycles, tinging bells – and I saw Nobby approaching.
I hastened to meet her, for she was just the girl I wanted to get in touch with. I was anxious to thresh out with her the whole topic of Stilton and his love life.
Part 2
CHAPTER 12
S he dismounted with lissom grace, beaming welcomingly. Since I had last seen her, she had washed off the stains of travel and changed her frock and was looking spruce and dapper. Why she should have bothered to smarten herself up, when she was only going to meet a bird in patched grey flannel trousers and a turtleneck sweater, I was at a loss to understand, but girls will, of course, be girls.
‘Hullo, Bertie,’ she said. ‘Are you paying a neighbourly call on Boko?’
I replied that that was about what it amounted to, but added that first I required a few moments of her valuable time.
‘Listen, Nobby,’ I said.
She didn’t, of course. I’ve never met a girl yet who did. Say ‘Listen’ to any member of the delicately nurtured sex, and she takes it as a cue to start talking herself. However, as the subject she introduced proved to be the very one I had been planning to ventilate, the desire to beat her brains out with a brick was not so pronounced as it would otherwise have been.
‘What have you been doing to inflame Stilton, Bertie? I met him just now and asked if he had seen you, and he turned vermilion and gnashed every tooth in his head. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more incandescent copper.’
‘He didn’t explain?’
‘No. He simply pedalled on furiously, as if he had been competing in a six-day bicycle race and had just realized he was dropping behind the leaders. What was the trouble?’
I tapped her on the arm with a grave forefinger.
‘Nobby,’ I said, ‘there has been a bit of a mix-up. What’s that word that begins with “con”?’
‘Con?’
‘I’ve heard Jeeves use it. There’s a cat in it somewhere.’
‘What on earth are you drivelling about?’
‘Concatenation,’ I said, getting it. ‘Owing to an unfortunate concatenation of circumstances, Stilton is viewing me with concern. He has got the idea rooted in his bean that I’ve come down here to try to steal Florence from him.’
‘Have you?’
‘My dear young blister,’ I said, with some impatience, ‘would anybody want to steal Florence? Do use your intelligence. But, as I say, this unfortunate concatenation has led him to suspect the worst.’
And in a few simple words I gave her the run of the scenario, featuring the Young Lochinvar aspect of the matter. When I had finished, she made one of those foolish remarks which do so much to confirm a man in his conviction that women as a sex should be suppressed.
‘You should have told him you were guiltless of the charge.’
I tut-tutted impatiently.
‘I did tell him I was guiltless of the charge, and a fat lot he believed me. He continued to hot up, finally reaching a condition of so much Fahrenheit that I was surprised he didn’t run me in on the spot. In which connection, you might have told me he was a cop.’
‘I forgot to.’
‘It would have spared me a very disconcerting shock. When I heard someone calling my name and looked round and saw him cycling towards me in the
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