'I beg your pardon?'

'The observing. Have you spotted any dippiness in the subject?'

'If by that expression you mean have I formed any definite views on Wilbert Cream's sanity, the answer is no. It is most unusual for me not to be able to make up my mind after even a single talk with the person I am observing, but in young Cream's case I remain uncertain. On the one hand, we have his record.'

'The stink bombs?'

'Exactly.'

'And the cheque-cashing with levelled gat?'

'Precisely. And a number of other things which one would say pointed to a mental unbalance. Unquestionably Wilbert Cream is eccentric.'

'But you feel the time has not yet come to measure him for the strait waistcoat?'

'I would certainly wish to observe further.'

'Jeeves told me there was something about Wilbert Cream that someone had told him when we were in New York. That might be significant.'

'Quite possibly. What was it?'

'He couldn't remember.'

'Too bad. Well, to return to what I was saying, the young man's record appears to indicate some deep-seated neurosis, if not actual schizophrenia, but against this must be set the fact that he gives no sign of this in his conversation. I was having quite a long talk with him yesterday morning, and found him most intelligent. He is interested in old silver, and spoke with a great deal of enthusiasm of an eighteenth-century cow-creamer in your uncle's collection.'

'He didn't say he was an eighteenth-century cow-creamer?'

'Certainly not.'

'Probably just wearing the mask.'

'I beg your pardon?'

'I mean crouching for the spring, as it were. Lulling you into security. Bound to break out sooner or later in some direction or other. Very cunning, these fellows with deep-seated neuroses.'

He shook his head reprovingly.

'We must not judge hastily, Mr Wooster. We must keep an open mind. Nothing is ever gained by not pausing to weigh the evidence. You may remember that at one time I reached a hasty judgment regarding your sanity. Those twenty-three cats in your bedroom.'

I flushed hotly. The incident had taken place several years previously, and it would have been in better taste, I considered, to have let the dead past bury its dead.

'That was explained fully.'

'Exactly. I was shown to be in error. And that is why I say I must not form an opinion prematurely in the case of Wilbert Cream. I must wait for further evidence.'

'And weigh it?'

'And, as you say, weigh it. But you rang, Mr Wooster. Is there anything I can do for you?'

'Well, as a matter of fact, I wanted a whisky-and-soda, but I hate to trouble you.'

'My dear Mr Wooster, you forget that I am, if only temporarily, a butler and, I hope, a conscientious one. I will bring it immediately.'

I was wondering, as he melted away, if I ought to tell him that Mrs Cream, too, was doing a bit of evidence-weighing, and about him, but decided on the whole better not. No sense in disturbing his peace of mind. It seemed to me that having to answer to the name of Swordfish was enough for him to have to cope with for the time being. Given too much to think about, he would fret and get pale.

When he returned, he brought with him not only the beaker full of the warm south, on which I flung myself gratefully, but a letter which he said had just come for me by the afternoon post. Having slaked the thirst, I glanced at the envelope and saw that it was from Jeeves. I opened it without much of a thrill, expecting that he would merely be informing me that he had reached his destination safely and expressing a hope that this would find me in the pink as it left him at present. In short, the usual guff.

It wasn't the usual guff by a mile and a quarter. One glance at its contents and I was Gosh-ing sharply, causing Pop Glossop to regard me with a concerned eye.

'No bad news, I trust, Mr Wooster?'

'It depends what you call bad news. It's front-page stuff, all right. This is from Jeeves, my man, now shrimping at Herne Bay, and it casts a blinding light on the private life of Wilbert Cream.'

'Indeed? This is most interesting.'

'I must begin by saying that when Jeeves was leaving for his annual vacation, the subject of W. Cream came up in the home, Aunt Dahlia having told me he was one of the inmates here, and we discussed him at some length. I said this, if you see what I mean, and Jeeves said that, if you follow me. Well, just before Jeeves pushed off, he let fall that significant remark I mentioned just now, the one about having heard something about Wilbert and having forgotten it. If it came back to him, he said, he would communicate with me. And he has, by Jove! Do you know what he says in this missive? Give you three guesses.'

'Surely this is hardly the time for guessing games?'

'Perhaps you're right, though they're great fun, don't you think? Well, he says that Wilbert Cream is a … what's the word?' I referred to the letter. 'A kleptomaniac,' I said. 'Which means, if the term is not familiar to you, a chap who flits hither and thither pinching everything he can lay his hands on.'

'Good gracious!'

'You might even go so far as «Lor' lumme!"'

'I never suspected this.'

'I told you he was wearing a mask. I suppose they took him abroad to get him away from it all.'

'No doubt.'

'Overlooking the fact that there are just as many things to pinch in England as in America. Does any thought occur to you?'

'It most certainly does. I am thinking of your uncle's collection of old silver.'

'Me, too.'

'It presents a grave temptation to the unhappy young man.'

'I don't know that I'd call him unhappy. He probably thoroughly enjoys lifting the stuff.'

'We must go to the collection room immediately. There may be something missing.'

'Everything except the floor and ceiling, I expect. He would have had difficulty in getting away with those.'

To reach the collection room was not the work of an instant with us, for Pop Glossop was built for stability rather than speed, but we fetched up there in due course and my first emotion on giving it the once-over was one of relief, all the junk appearing to be in statu quo. It was only after Pop Glossop had said 'Woof!' and was starting to dry off the brow, for the going had been fast, that I spotted the hiatus.

The cow-creamer was not among those present.

7

This cow-creamer, in case you're interested, was a silver jug or pitcher or whatever you call it shaped, of all silly things, like a cow with an arching tail and a juvenile-delinquent expression on its face, a cow that looked as if it were planning, next time it was milked, to haul off and let the milkmaid have it in the lower ribs. Its back opened on a hinge and the tip of the tail touched the spine, thus giving the householder something to catch hold of when pouring. Why anyone should want such a revolting object had always been a mystery to me, it ranking high up on the list of things I would have been reluctant to be found dead in a ditch with, but apparently they liked that sort of jug in the eighteenth century and, coming down to more modern times, Uncle Tom was all for it and so, according to the evidence of the witness Glossop, was Wilbert. No accounting for tastes is the way one has to look at these things, one man's caviar being another man's major-general, as the old saw says.

However, be that as it may and whether you liked the bally thing or didn't, the point was that it had vanished, leaving not a wrack behind, and I was about to apprise Pop Glossop of this and canvass his views, when we were joined by Bobbie Wickham. She had doffed the shirt and Bermuda-shorts which she had been wearing and was now dressed for her journey home.

'Hullo, souls,' she said. 'How goes it? You look a bit hot and bothered, Bertie. What's up?'