#I wanted to make Jeeves smile and give Bertie a chance to get dressed

[idanit]

pipped!

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Jeeves Gets Sick - Part 2

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A small warning: This installment includes some referenced/implied past violence and the resulting scars.

The next morning, I awoke with a rummy feeling that not all was well with the world, call it a premonition, if you will. My dreams had been restless ones that had me tossing and turning in the night and I awoke none too cheerily to the morning sun streaming in through the window. I took only a minute or two to blearily blink into awareness, hoping, but not expecting Jeeves to come rippling in through the door at any moment, tea in hand, but I could have told myself it was all in vain, and I believe I very well did say to myself that Jeeves would not appear.

All was probably well with the man - as well as it had been the night before, that is. In fact, it was a good sign that he was still sleeping, resting away his illness, but I couldn’t shake the suspicion that the man had taken a turn for the worse in the night. I slipped out of bed, flung on a dressing gown, and toed it to the man’s quarters, just to be sure. I didn’t pause to knock, perhaps that was my first mistake. I pulled the door open and found myself face to face with the broad, sturdy back of my man, Jeeves.

Now you may be saying to yourself, what’s so remarkable about the sight of Jeeves’s backside, certainly he must occasionally turn away from his employer in the course of his usual duties? To answer that, a few points must be clarified; it was not merely Jeeves’s back, but his bare back, not precisely in front of me, but only a couple feet away - plainly I had caught the man mid-dressing. But it was not the bareness of his back that really caught my attention, but the scars. Every inch of his skin was covered in scratches - most long and thin, but some deeper and more contorted - as though the surface had been cut up and reassembled.

I did not stare for long. Jeeves didn’t so much as have a chance to turn around and greet me with a weary “Sir?” I stumbled back away and shut the door behind me with rather more force than was strictly necessary. I may have shouted an apology as I retreated.

I hobbled back to my room and was myself in the middle of fumbling with a tie when Jeeves rippled in, as silent and sure as ever. He put aside the tea tray and deftly took the tie from my hands to tie it into a perfect knot. I tried to stand dignified and unaffected, but my eyes acted of their own accord, flickering back to Jeeves’s torso, now glaringly aware of what lay beneath his starched suit. I could only wonder how he moved so effortlessly despite the fabric chafing against raw skin.

“My apologies, sir, for my tardy appearance. I assure you it will not happen again.”

I waved it off eagerly, relieved to be back on familiar ground. “Not at all, Jeeves. You’re sure you’re clear to be up and about? I don’t want to run any risk of relapse, what?”

“Yes, sir.”

I tried to subject the chap to my strictest scrutiny, but the man was inscrutable as ever. By all appearances, he seemed to be back to his usual self, the very image of health without a single hair out of place. His movements were silent and efficient. But now I knew there was something lurking beneath his impeccable appearance, that even though his illness had passed, all was not right with Jeeves.

“Why don’t you take it easy today, what? Just to be certain, I mean.”

“Sir, that is hardly necessary.”

I shushed him. “No, Jeeves,” I said firmly, “you should rest. Work a little if you must, but take it easy, will you?”

“Very good, sir.”

After breakfast, I went for a long rambling walk, echoing the shape of my thoughts. I wandered to and fro, eventually, inevitably winding up at the Drones for a rather earlier lunch than is my usual wont. The place was on the quiet side, most of the Drones presumably not yet out of bed, but Bingo was in on account of Mrs. Bingo Little - the celebrated novelist of romantic drivel known to her public as Rosie M. Banks - being occupied with authorly duties, as Bingo had informed us at the revels the night before.

“What ho!” I shouted upon seeing him, and he shouted back the same, and waved me over to his table.

Bingo and I, if you don’t know, are old chums, going back years and years, and as such know each other only as such pals do. He was truly a sight for sore eyes, especially under such circs. He was just the chap to lend a sympathetic ear in a fellow’s time of need.

“Tish,” I declared as I took a seat, by way of letting him know things were less than rosy in the life of Bertram W.

“Girl trouble?” Bingo asked with a knowing smile.

I shook my head. “Jeeves.”

“Dictating your wardrobe again? What’s it this time, a tie? Or those trousers?”

“My trousers are perfectly fine, thank you. I’ll have you know Jeeves picked them out himself.”

“What is it then, if it’s not a girl and not clothing?”

I hummed and hawed a little over this part. Bingo is a lifelong pal and all, but there are some things a chap doesn’t even tell to a pal like that. I knew well enough to tell that I wasn’t supposed to see Jeeves’s injuries, I couldn’t very well go telling the rest of the world.

“Jeeves came down with a horrible illness!” I said at last, sticking to the truth, just not all of it. “Well, he’s better now, but it was touch and go for a time.”

“Oh! No wonder you were so mopey last night. The lads had a bet going after you left. Gussie’ll be disappointed; I convinced him to put his money on you having fallen in love at last.”

“No, nothing like that,” I insisted.

“But if Jeeves is back to his problem-solving self, then what’s there to beef about?”

“I’m just worried about the chap, that’s all. Getting sick isn’t like him, you know? What if he’s been out over-exerting himself or somesuch?”

“Jeeves, over-exerting himself?” Bingo asked skeptically.

“I know, but there must be something! Maybe he’s been sneaking out at night fighting bears in the woods.”

“What, and he caught the flu from the bear?”

I hastily added, “What if it rained while he was out? Or maybe he’s a secret agent and got attacked by enemy spies - in the rain!”

Bingo gave me a skeptical l., “Bertie, what’s gotten into you? Jeeves is a remarkable cove and all, but I doubt he’s doing any of all that. What does it matter anyway, if he’s back to form already? Nothing’s ever gotten in the way of his work before.”

“I suppose not. But it’s my responsibility, isn’t it? He does the feudal thing and gets me out of the soup, and I’m supposed to do the feudal thing and give him a fiefdom and what not.”

“A fiefdom, Bertie? In your London flat? I know it’s spacious, but that’s a bit much.”

“Not exactly, but you know, all the things you’re supposed to give a vassal, protection and justice and all that. And I know his quarters aren’t exactly the height of luxury, but I have plans to fix that.”

“And he’ll go fight for you in the Crusades?”

“Bingo,” I protested.

“So not fighting for you in the Crusades. But so Jeeves got sick once in - how many years has he worked for you? And?”

“It’s-” I stopped myself short of revealing Jeeves’s secret, whatever it meant. “Oh, it’s nothing,” I said moodily.

“That’s the spirit! Now, you have to hear what happened last night after you left! I’m sorry you missed it, leaving early.”

Bingo chatted eagerly about the later part of the previous night’s revelries, but my heart just wasn’t in it. After we finished eating and such what, I made my excuses and set out across the city - while half-listening to Bingo prattle, I’d come to a decision.

It wasn’t too far from the Drones to Dr. Watson’s practice. I knocked haltingly at the door, still rather out of my depths, but no longer in such a frantic rush as when I stood on that very spot the morning before. Again, the maid ushered me in.

“What ho!” I said as she directed me to a little waiting room of sorts. “Dr. Watson about?”

“No, sir,” she said. ”He’s on his rounds, but he should be back shortly, or I can take a message for him.”

I settled in to wait and the maid biffed off for some tea. It felt like a rather long while before the good doctor returned, but in fact, the clock informed me that it wasn’t more than half an hour that I waited, sipping at a cooling cup of merely passable tea - when a fellow is accustomed to Jeeves, any alternative seems rather lackluster in comparison.

“Mr. Wooster, to what do I owe the pleasure?” Dr. Watson asked as he appeared at long last.

I jumped to my feet to greet him. “It’s Jeeves,” I explained without even a “what ho” in greeting.

“It may take him a day or two to recover,” the doctor cautioned.

I shook my head. “It’s not that. He’s all better now, but well-” I hesitated.

The doctor showed me into his office and took a seat behind the desk. I belatedly perched on the seat across from him, too keyed up to make myself comfortable as he suggested.

“Now, what was it you were concerned about?” the doctor asked patiently, though he seemed a little wary of what I might say.

“Well, it all started when I woke up this morning. You see, Jeeves didn’t come in with the tea - thinking back on it now I suppose I was up a bit earlier than my usual fashion, but after everything, well, you can understand my being a bit worried about the chap. So, I went to check on him, I know I shouldn’t have barged in, but-” - I faltered a little in embarrassment, my cheeks flushed red - “well, I’m afraid I caught him in the middle of changing. I didn’t see anything, just his back, but it was covered in the most horrible scratches, and I don’t know what’s caused it; if he’s fighting bears or secret agents or what not, but dash it all! Plainly something’s wrong with the man and I don’t know what to do. But you’re his doctor, you must have seen them when you checked on him the other day - it was only yesterday, wasn’t it? So much has happened between then and now that it feels like it’s been a bally week.”

Dr. Watson nodded as though he’d somehow managed to follow the outburst - a remarkable feat given that I wasn’t even sure I could follow everything I was saying. It seemed to take him a bit of a while to compose his thoughts, however, before, at last, he said, “I am aware of Jeeves’s scars and I don’t believe there’s any cause for concern. To my knowledge, none of them are recent; he’s had nothing more than ordinary scrapes and bruises in the past ten years. I doubt he’s been fighting bears or secret agents.” He gave me a somewhat indulgent smile, but I let it slide.

“You mean to say they’re all old wounds? From long before I met him even?”

“I would say so,” the doctor answered.

It should have been comforting, but I found I only had more questions. “That’s an awful lot of them. What was he doing?”

The doctor sighed. “I’m sorry, Mr. Wooster, but I can’t say.”

“You mean to say you know?” I demanded.

He grimaced. “Yes, I know. But it’s up to Jeeves to tell you if he wants to, and I doubt he’ll want to, not if he’s anything like…” the doctor trailed off. After a moment’s thought he picked back up the thread not too far from where he left off, “It’s not a pleasant thing, but thankfully it’s all in the past; there’s nothing to worry about any more.”

“But what is it?”

The doctor only shook his head. “Try not to worry about it, Mr. Wooster, and don’t worry Jeeves about it either. He’s come a long way since then, his fondness for you is a clear enough indication of that.”

I nodded and agreed not to trouble too much about it, but I was still very much troubled when I left the doctor’s office. I took a meandering way back home, torn between wondering what horrible accident had befallen the man and trying to pluck up my courage for what I knew must come next.

When I arrived back at the flat, my slippers were waiting for me at the door and everything else was back in its place, bearing all the tell-tale evidence of Jeeves’s renewed efforts, though the man himself was nowhere to be seen - the chap could never be heard, his recent illness notwithstanding. I stopped at the door to the kitchens with some trepidation, but it was too serious a matter to let I dare not wait upon I would - or whatever the expression is exactly - like the cat in the adage. Still, keenly aware of my fraught errand, I knocked at the door.

Jeeves opened it with a curious, “Sir?” With the door open, I could still smell the aroma of a recently lit gasper, and the Spinoza sat bookmarked on the table, no doubt interrupted in the middle of the scene where the detective discovered the second body.

“What ho, Jeeves,” I said without my usual pomp.

“Is there anything you require, sir?”

“Well, um, actually, I was rather wondering if I could perhaps have a word,” I managed to stumble out the words.

“Very good, sir.” He waved me into his lair, where I had spent an awful lot of time of late - I found myself almost missing the place, though I was happier than anyone to have Jeeves back up and about.

I stood about awkwardly, shifting my weight from foot to foot as I cast about the room in search of a place to start. It’s not an easy thing to talk about, walking in on your valet while he’s changing and finding that he’s got more scars than a fellow who ended up on the wrong side of a tiger.

At last, I blurted out, “I went to see Dr. Watson.”

“Sir?” Jeeves asked, sounding a bit concerned now. His eyebrow raised about a quarter of an inch.

“About those scratches, those scars, I mean. I know I shouldn’t have walked in on you without knocking, but once I did, well, I just had to know what was wrong - to do something, what?” I stopped short, preoccupied with Jeeves’s expression and out of words besides. He was watching me warily, with an actual frown rather than that usual stuffed frog expression he does sometimes.

When it was clear I was finished, he asked, more composed, “May I ask, sir, what Dr. Watson told you?”

“Nothing. He said I had to ask you and not to bother if you didn’t want to tell me.”

He nodded. He seemed relieved, though it was hard to tell behind that mask of his - figuratively speaking, of course. “If I may say so, sir, Dr. Watson is a very honourable gentleman.”

I could tell I was trying my luck, but still I had to ask, “But what happened? What gave you all those scars?”

“I prefer not to speak of it, sir.” Jeeves spoke with a solemn air of finality that made it perfectly clear that further inquiry was not welcome.

“Oh. Right-o, then.” I didn’t bother to hide my disappointment, but I knew better than to harp. “Been taking it easy, what?”

“Yes, sir.” Jeeves’s lips twitched a fraction of an inch upward, signifying his approval of the change in topic, and I didn’t have the heart to begrudge him it - or anything for that matter.

One morning, some days later, I was sitting, picking at my breakfast, when Jeeves shimmered over to the table.

“What is it, Jeeves?” I asked.

“I have procured something which may be of interest to you, sir.” He held out a bound manuscript, written in an unfamiliar hand.

I took it from him and read aloud the title, “An Unpublished Adventure of Sherlock Holmes, what?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You mean to say this is the real thing?”

“Yes, sir, penned by Dr. John H. Watson himself.”

“Jeeves this really is the top! How did you manage a bally thing like that?” I stopped. “Are you saying that old doctor is the Dr. Watson?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Of all the rummy things, Jeeves! How did you get to know a chap like that?”

“As I said, sir, he’s my family physician.”

“Does that mean you know Sherlock Holmes too?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Why, Jeeves, this is beyond belief! How did you get Dr. Watson to part with one of his manuscripts?”

“I asked him, sir. Given your appreciation for his work, I thought it would be a fitting expression of gratitude for your assistance during my brief illness, and Dr. Watson was happy to oblige.”

“I say, Jeeves! I don’t know what I could ever do to thank you enough.” It seemed a little thick to me that Jeeves was going so far out of his way to thank me for doing practically nothing when I already owed him so much for everything he does for me. I added a little belatedly, “And it’s awfully kind of Dr. Watson to give me a peek at a Sherlock Holmes story.”

“Dr. Watson has taken something of a liking to you, sir. However, he did request that you not distribute the manuscript, as he has deemed it unsuitable for publication for personal reasons.”

“Personal reasons, Jeeves?”

“Yes, sir.”

I delicately paged through the manuscript, all the more intrigued at what it might hold that Dr. Watson had deemed suitable for my eyes only. Probably nothing terribly interesting, but a fellow could only wonder.

“Will that be all, sir?” Jeeves asked, the corner of his lips turned up just a smidge in the suggestion of a fond smile.

I beamed back. “Yes, Jeeves, thank you!”

“Thank you, sir.”

Part of The Mysterious Mr. Jeeves

[v-thinks-on]

Thieves in the Night

Part 1 of Jeeves and the Amateur Cracksman

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Jeeves - my man, you know - is a truly remarkable cove. He comes up with all kinds of brainy ideas to help out a chappie in a pinch and has all kinds of pinch-getting-out-of skills besides. He gives a sort of unchanging impression, as though he had sprung into being fully formed, like how the good old ancient Greeks and Romans and what not thought their goddess Athena (or rather Diana) had burst straight out of her old guv’nor’s head without any of that growing-up nonsense. Not that Jeeves would ever cause such a stir as bursting out of anyone’s head, being rather more inclined to simply project himself out.

But when it comes down to it, Jeeves is a mere mortal like all the rest of us, and so he must have come from somewhere - if perhaps somewhere a little brainier and with rather more fish than the common lot. I’ve often wondered over the long years of our acquaintance how he got those marvelous brains of his and why a fellow like him would want to work for a chappie like Bertram Wooster. It’s one of those grand mysteries of life, but this one happens to have an answer.

I suppose it all begins with my old pal Bunny Manders. It started not long after Jeeves had joined the Wooster household and, well, Bunny’s more of a writer than I am really, so I’ll let him tell it to start:

It was a cold night. Raffles and I stood outside for what felt like hours in our heavy coats, staring up into a third floor flat of the illustrious Berkeley Mansions, not a few blocks from Raffles’s own lodgings at the Albany. We looked like any decent gentlemen passing on the street even at such a late hour, perhaps standing around to wait for a friend, but our errand was a much less gregarious one.

“Are you sure you want to try it?” I asked him for certainly not the first time that evening. “What if he’s caught on? He isn’t just one of your ordinary marks, you know, he’s-”

At that point, Raffles cut me off. “That’s exactly why we must!” he exclaimed in a sharp whisper. “I couldn’t forgive myself if I’d passed up the chance. No, we’ll go in there and what’s more we’ll go in tonight!”

I glanced up at the darkened windows, each one seeming to hide someone lurking in the shadows, just out of sight. Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I glimpsed a tall, dark figure looming in the shadows between the streetlamps’ golden glow.

“Not to worry, Bunny,” Raffles insisted, “I’ve got the joint cased from top to bottom. But you can stay behind and stand watch if that would put your mind at ease.”

“Not at all! I mean, of course I’ll come.”

“Good old Bunny!” He clapped me on the shoulder.

I smiled back at him, but his attention had returned to his mark. My eyes darted up and down the street again and back up at the window. All seemed quiet for the time being, but I had a creeping feeling we were being watched.

Casually as you please, Raffles started to meander across the silent and empty street toward the darkened apartments, all of their inhabitants no doubt fast asleep - or so I hoped. I hastily hurried after him.

I jumped at the sound of something rustling in the bushes behind us.

“Bunny!” Raffles exclaimed impatiently, again in a whisper. He turned to see what I was staring at and gave a low laugh. “It’s just a rabbit, nothing to be afraid of.”

And he was right, for just at the moment he had turned to look, a little bunny rabbit had come hopping out of the bushes, minding its own business nibbling at the grass around it. My face turned beet red with embarrassment.

Raffles took it with a smile. “With any luck, that’ll be the worst of it tonight. Come along.” He beckoned me to follow him around to the alleyway that ran along the side of the building, wedged between one grand residence and the next.

It was there, in the dark alleyway, that we slipped on our masks. Then, I helped Raffles unfurl his ingenious rope ladder.

“We’ll have to do it in parts,” he muttered as he tossed it up to a second story window.

He gave the ladder a single solid tug to be certain the hook held, and then we began our first ascent. Raffles went first, of course, and I sluggishly took up the rear, clinging to the thin, dangling ropes for dear life. At last, Raffles hauled me up onto a window sill, and I plastered myself to the wall as I caught my breath, my poor hands stinging where the rough ropes had dug into them.

I didn’t have long to rest - if it could be called that, balancing on a window sill - before Raffles finished pulling up the ladder and had re-anchored it a story up, and we resumed our ascent. That one more story was all we had left to climb, and as we approached the window, I could feel my heart pounding in my chest, not just from the exertion. I wondered if we had been heard already, I could feel eyes peering out at us from the darkness, watching as we charged blindly into a trap.

But it was too late to protest. Raffles helped me up again and put a finger to his lips as he began to work on the window. It was slow going and even the tiniest squeak was deafening to my ears. My blood ran cold like the icy wind. Finally, Raffles pried the window open so it was just barely wide enough for him to squeeze through and I followed after with some difficulty.

I tumbled out into Raffles’s arms. Somehow he managed to cushion my fall as to mute my landing, but still I cringed at the din in the otherwise silent, seemingly abandoned flat. We hastily picked ourselves up and stopped cold.

From the shadows emerged the form of a man, as though he had materialized from the darkness itself. His features were pale white in the moonlight as he stood, staring at us, stern and silent, like a statue of marble or wax, meticulously dressed with not a thing out of place. He gave no impression of having been startled or stirred from any manner of slumber; he had been expecting us.

Now, at this time, old Bertram Wooster was supposedly lost in dreamland, getting his requisite forty winks. But maybe it was the weather, or something I’d had at dinner, or perhaps an odd premonition, or maybe Bunny and his pal weren’t quite so stealthy as they thought, but whatever the case was, something roused me from my slumber. I was dazedly blinking the sleep from my eyes when I most certainly heard something that sounded rather like talking coming from the other room.

If I’d had guests at the time, take Claude and Eustace, for example, the sort of nightliving chappies who would have been remiss to be asleep by three in the morning, or even myself in my younger days, well, then it would have been different, but I knew for a fact - or rather thought I knew - that there wasn’t anyone aside from me and Jeeves in that flat and if anyone had come bursting in at some ungodly hour in the night, they at least ought have had the decency to keep their voices down, or I had every right to tell them what was what.

I stumbled into my slippers and crept out of the bedroom intent on doing just that. I could hear them speaking, though I couldn’t quite make out the words. I thought I heard Jeeves among them, and two higher voices, and it didn’t sound like they were politely but firmly being shown to the door. It didn’t matter to me what secret meetings Jeeves held in the middle of the night, but if he thought I was going to let them keep me from getting my good twelve hours of the dreamless, he had another thing coming.

I burst into the room with all the ire of a fellow who had been rudely jolted from slumber and was quite keen on getting back to it. There, I found Jeeves face to face with a pair of masked chappies. They looked like they could have been out on their way back from any fashionable to do, except for the thick black masks pulled over their faces that gave them a rather more ruffian-like appearance.

“Sir,” Jeeves said, his voice clipped as though he had some dispute with my taste in sleepwear, which would have been quite absurd as he had suggested it himself.

“What’s the meaning of all this?” I demanded, quite reasonably so.

“I am afraid we have burglars, sir,” Jeeves replied, very much in the way he would have said that we had mice.

“Oh!” One read about burglars of course, but it wasn’t exactly the sort of thing a fellow expected to happen to himself, but I supposed that was that. “I’ll hold them while you step out and call the police, what?”

“Sir, perhaps it would be best if I kept an eye on them while you went to call the police.”

“Oh, very well.”

I was about to get to it when the smaller of the burglars shouted from a foot or so behind his companion, “Wait! We’re J’s cousins!”

I stopped in my tracks and turned to Jeeves. “Are they really?”

He looked none too happy with this revelation of his connection to such persons.

“Well, Raffles and I are old school chums,” the burglar attempted, sounding uncertain about the whole thing, “but J’s our cousin!”

Finally, with all eyes on him, Jeeves relented. “In a manner of speaking, sir.”

“Then this is just some childish prank?” I asked - that was a much more likely thing to happen to a chap than a burglary, after all.

“Exactly,” the taller of the burglars exclaimed, pulling off his mask and stepping forward with an outstretched hand. “I’m afraid things got a little out of hand.” 

I accepted it, though my eyes were still on Jeeves, looking at him in something of a new light. “I wouldn’t have expected it of you, Jeeves.”

“No, sir. I would not condone such behavior.” He gave the man in front of me a severe look.

I followed Jeeves’s gaze and found to my surprise that I recognized the fellow and it was easy enough to put a name to the face. “Why, you’re A.J. Raffles! Jeeves, I had no idea you’re related to one of the best cricketers in England!”

“No, sir,” Jeeves said with some disdain.

But I was not to be discouraged. “What ho! I’m a great fan! Your latest inning was just the stuff! I’m Bertam Wooster, by the way, but my pals call me Bertie.”

“It’s my pleasure.” Raffles said with a thin, crooked smile. He waved his smaller companion forward. “This is Bunny Manders, as he says, an old school friend of mine.”

Bunny held out a hand and only belatedly remembered to pull off his own mask, revealing a friendly, youthful face. “Nice to meet you.”

“What ho!” I exclaimed again, giving his hand a solid shake.

Raffles eyed the exchange. “You’ve found your own Bunny?” he remarked to Jeeves, sounding incredulous.

I couldn’t very well see what he meant; I didn’t see much in common between myself and Jeeves’s nervous young cousin.

Jeeves seemed to be thinking along the same lines because he stood a little taller and replied, “Mr. Wooster is my employer.”

“Of course,” said Raffles sardonically. “Just a mercenary arrangement.”

“Now, just a minute there!” I protested. “I haven’t known him for very long, but I’ll have you know that my man Jeeves is the very embodiment of the feudal spirit!”

Raffles turned his sharp, cold grey eyes on me as though he had entirely forgotten that I was there. I vividly remember for an instant feeling absolutely certain that his gaze could bore straight into a man’s very soul. And then it was gone, replaced by a benign smile, and I was left to chalk it all up to the rummy circs. of our little late night gathering playing tricks on my sleep-addled mind.

“I had no intention of implying otherwise,” Raffles said. “It’s always a pleasure to meet a fellow sporting man. But I’m afraid Bunny and I must be going; we wouldn’t want to intrude on your hospitality any longer, especially not at such a late hour.”

Before I had a chance to insist that it wasn’t any inconvenience to me, Jeeves cut in, “Shall I show Mr. Raffles and Mr. Manders to the door?”

It was only then that I abruptly remembered that it was still the middle of the night and I did have quite a bit of sleep to catch up on. “Right you are, Jeeves,” I said, fighting back a yawn. “Pleasure to meet the both of you.”

I followed them to the door as Jeeves showed Raffles and Manders out.

“We should do this again sometime,” I said, “just make it a touch earlier - or rather later.”

“Thank you, that’s very kind,” Raffles said, stepping out into the hall.

“Yes, thank you!” Manders added as he followed hastily after.

Jeeves shut the door behind them, leaving the flat empty, dark and silent.

I yawned again, this time not bothering to stifle it. Heavy sleep began to weigh upon my tired eyelids. “G’night, then Jeeves. And no more midnight reunions, what?”

“Certainly, sir. Goodnight, sir.” Jeeves saw that I was comfortable back in bed and then rippled off into the night.

Part of The Mysterious Mr. Jeeves