6—The Rummy Affair of Old Biffy (3)

    I don't know if you know this Palace of Beauty place? It's a sort of aquarium full of the delicately nurtured instead of fishes. You go in, and there is a kind of cage with a female goggling out at you through a sheet of plate glass. She's dressed in some weird kind of costume, and over the cage is written 'Helen of Troy'. You pass on to the next, and there's another one doing jiu-jitsu with a snake. Sub-title, Cleopatra. You get the idea—Famous Women Through the Ages and all that. I can't say it fascinated me to any great extent. I maintain that lovely woman loses a lot of her charm if you have to stare at her in a tank. Moreover, it gave me a rummy sort of feeling of having wandered into the wrong bedroom at a country house, and I was flying past at a fair rate of speed, anxious to get it over, when Biffy suddenly went off his rocker.
    At least, it looked like that. He let out a piercing yell, grabbed my arm with a sudden clutch that felt like the bite of a crocodile, and stood there gibbering.
    'Wuk!' ejaculated Biffy, or words to that general import.
    A large and interested crowd had gathered round. I think they thought the girls were going to be fed or something. But Biffy paid no attention to them. He was pointing in a loony manner at one of the cages. I forget which it was, but the female inside wore a ruff, so it may have been Queen Elizabeth or Boadicea or someone of that period. She was rather a nice-looking girl, and she was staring at Biffy in much the same pop-eyed way as he was staring at her.
    'Mabel!' yelled Biffy, going off in my ear like a bomb.
    I can't say I was feeling my chirpiest. Drama is all very well, but I hate getting mixed up in it in a public spot; and I had not realized before how dashed public this spot was. The crowd seemed to have doubled itself in the last five seconds, and, while most of them had their eye on Biffy, quite a goodish few were looking at me as if they thought I was an important principal in the scene and might be expected at any moment to give of my best in the way of wholesome entertainment for the masses.
    Biffy was jumping about like a lamb in the springtime—and, what is more, a feeble-minded lamb.
    'Bertie! It's her! It's she!' He looked about him wildly. 'Where the deuce is the stage-door?' he cried. 'Where's the manager? I want to see the house-manager immediately.'
    And then he suddenly bounded forward and began hammering on the glass with his stick.
    'I say, old lad!' I began, but he shook me off.
    These fellows who live in the country are apt to go in for fairly sizable clubs instead of the light canes which your well-dressed man about town considers suitable for metropolitan use; and down in Herefordshire, apparently, something in the nature of a knobkerrie is de rigueur. Biffy's first slosh smashed the glass all to a hash. Three more cleared the way for him to go into the cage without cutting himself. And, before the crowd had time to realize what a wonderful bob's-worth it was getting in exchange for its entrance fee, he was inside, engaging the girl in earnest conversation. And at the same moment two large policemen rolled up.
    You can't make policemen take the romantic view. Not a tear did these two blighters stop to brush away. They were inside the cage and out of it and marching Biffy through the crowd before you had time to blink. I hurried after them, to do what I could in the way of soothing Biffy's last moments, and the poor old lad turned a glowing face in my direction.
    'Chiswick, 60873,' he bellowed in a voice charged with emotion. 'Write it down, Bertie, or I shall forget it. Chiswick, 60873. Her telephone number.'
    And then he disappeared, accompanied by about eleven thousand sightseers, and a voice spoke at my elbow.
    'Mr Wooster! What—what—what is the meaning of this?'
    Sir Roderick, with bigger eyebrows than ever, was standing at my side.
    'It's all right,' I said. 'Poor old Biffy's only gone off his crumpet.'
    He tottered.
    'What?'
    'Had a sort of fit or seizure, you know.'
    'Another!' Sir Roderick drew a deep breath. 'And this is the man I was about to allow my daughter to marry!' I heard him mutter.
    I tapped him in a kindly spirit on the shoulder. It took some doing, mark you, but I did it.
    'If I were you,' I said, 'I should call that off. Scratch the fixture. Wash it out absolutely, is my advice.'
    He gave me a nasty look.
    'I do not require your advice, Mr Wooster! I had already arrived independently at the decision of which you speak. Mr Wooster, you are a friend of this man—a fact which should in itself have been sufficient warning to me. You will—unlike myself—be seeing him again. Kindly inform him, when you do see him, that he may consider his engagement at an end.'
    'Right-ho,' I said, and hurried off after the crowd. It seemed to me that a little bailing-out might be in order.
    It was about an hour later that I shoved my way out to where I had parked the car. Jeeves was sitting in the front seat, brooding over the cosmos. He rose courteously as I approached.
    'You are leaving, sir?'
    'I am.'
    'And Sir Roderick, sir?'
    'Not coming. I am revealing no secrets, Jeeves, when I inform you that he and I have parted brass rags. Not on speaking terms now.'
    'Indeed, sir? And Mr Biffen? Will you wait for him?'
    'No. He's in prison.'
    'Really, sir?'
    'Yes. I tried to bail him out, but they decided on second thoughts to coop him up for the night.'
    'What was his offence, sir?'
    'You remember that girl of his I was telling you about? He found her in a tank at the Palace of Beauty and went after her by the quickest route, which was via a plate-glass window. He was then scooped up and borne off in irons by the constabulary.' I gazed sideways at him. It is difficult to bring off a penetrating glance out of the corner of your eye, but I managed it. 'Jeeves,' I said, 'there is more in this than the casual observer would suppose. You told Mr Biffen to go to the Palace of Beauty. Did you know the girl would be there?'
    'Yes, sir.'
    This was most remarkable and rummy to a degree.
    'Dash it, do you know everything?'
    'Oh, no, sir,' said Jeeves with an indulgent smile. Humouring the young master.
    'Well, how did you know that?'
    'I happen to be acquainted with the future Mrs Biffen, sir.'
    'I see. Then you knew all about that business in New York?'
    'Yes, sir. And it was for that reason that I was not altogether favourably disposed towards Mr Biffen when you were first kind enough to suggest that I might be able to offer some slight assistance. I mistakenly supposed that he had been trifling with the girl's affections, sir. But when you told me the true facts of the case I appreciated the injustice I had done to Mr Biffen and endeavoured to make amends.'
    'Well, he certainly owes you a lot. He's crazy about her.'
    'That is very gratifying, sir.'
    'And she ought to be pretty grateful to you, too. Old Biffy's got fifteen thousand a year, not to mention more cows, pigs, hens, and ducks than he knows what to do with. A dashed useful bird to have in any family.'
    'Yes, sir.'
    'Tell me, Jeeves,' I said, 'how did you happen to know the girl in the first place?'
    Jeeves looked dreamily out into the traffic.
    'She is my niece, sir. If I might make the suggestion, sir, I should not jerk the steering wheel with quite such suddenness. We very nearly collided with that omnibus.'