Expecting Jeeves Read Free Page A

able to produce them, was obliged to pay a heavy sum in compensation. It is a simple but effective ruse.”
    I felt as if the bottom had dropped out of things with a jerk. I mean to say, Aline Hemmingway, you know. What I mean is, if Love hadn’t actually awakened in my heart, there’s no doubt it was having a jolly good stab at it, and the thing was only a question of days. And all the time—well, I mean, dash it, you know.
    â€œSoapy Sid? Sid!
Sidney!
Brother Sidney! Why, by Jove, Jeeves, do you think that parson was Soapy Sid?”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    â€œ But it seems so extraordinary. Why, his collar buttoned at the back—I mean, he would have deceived a bishop. Do you really think he was Soapy Sid?”
    â€œYes, sir. I recognized him directly he came into the room.”
    I stared at the blighter.
    â€œYou recognized him?”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    â€œThen, dash it all,” I said, deeply moved, “I think you might have told me.”
    â€œI thought it would save disturbance and unpleasantness if I merely abstracted the case from the man’s pocket as I assisted him with his coat, sir. Here it is.”
    He laid another case on the table beside the dud one, and, by Jove, you couldn’t tell them apart. I opened it, and there were the good old pearls, as merry and bright as dammit, smiling up at me. I gazed feebly at the man. I was feeling a bit overwrought.
    â€œJeeves,” I said, “you’re an absolute genius!”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    Relief was surging over me in great chunks by now. I’d almost forgotten that a woman had toyed with my heart and thrown it away like a worn-out tube of tooth-paste and all that sort of thing. What seemed to me the important item was the fact that, thanks to Jeeves, I was not going to be called on to cough up several thousand quid.
    â€œIt looks to me as though you had saved the old home. I mean, even a chappie endowed with the immortal rind of dear old Sid is hardly likely to have the nerve to come back and retrieve these little chaps.”
    â€œI should imagine not, sir.”
    â€œWell, then——Oh, I say, you don’t think they are just paste or anything like that?”
    â€œNo, sir. These are genuine pearls, and extremely valuable.”
    â€œWell, then, dash it, I’m on velvet. Absolutely reclining on the good old plush! I may be down a hundred quid, but I’m up a jolly good string of pearls. Am I right or wrong?”
    â€œHardly that, sir. I think that you will have to restore the pearls.”
    â€œWhat! To Sid? Not while I have my physique!”
    â€œ No, sir. To their rightful owner.”
    â€œBut who is their rightful owner?”
    â€œMrs. Gregson, sir.”
    â€œWhat! How do you know?”
    â€œIt was all over the hotel an hour ago that Mrs. Gregson’s pearls had been abstracted. The man Sid travelled from Paris in the same train as Mrs. Gregson, and no doubt marked them down. I was speaking to Mrs. Gregson’s maid shortly before you came in, and she informed me that the manager of the hotel is now in Mrs. Gregson’s suite.”
    â€œAnd having a devil of a time, what?”
    â€œSo I should be disposed to imagine, sir.”
    The situation was beginning to unfold before me.
    â€œI’ll go and give them back to her, eh? It’ll put me one up, what?”
    â€œIf I might make the suggestion, sir, I think it would strengthen your position if you were to affect to discover the pearls in Mrs. Gregson’s suite—say, in a bureau drawer.”
    â€œI don’t see why.”
    â€œI think I am right, sir.”
    â€œWell, I stand on you. If you say so— I’ll be popping, what?”
    â€œThe sooner the better, sir.”
    Long before I reached Aunt Agatha’s lair I could tell that the hunt was up.
    Divers chappies in hotel uniform and not a few chambermaids of sorts were hanging about in the corridor, and