Chapter Text
I jumped so high I nearly banged my head on the ceiling, while simultaneously twisting around to try and see over my shoulder; my chair toppled to the floor. Columbo, who sat facing the door, merely gave a surprised blink. Jeeves entered the room, dragging a rather bedraggled thing by what, on closer examination, appeared to be its arm.
“My deepest apologies for the wallpaper, sir,” he said. “And for the door, sir. And for the chair, sir.” Then, as the thing dripped continuously at his side: “And for the carpet, sir.”
“Jeeves,” I said. “What on earth is this pond creature you’ve brought us?”
Jeeves shook the thing by the arm, gently but firmly. “If you’d care to state your particulars, sir.”
White eyes stared at me through a mask of brown sludge. “Er,” was the hesitant answer. “Richard Little?”
“Bingo!” I cried. “You’re alive?”
From the hallway there were cries of What? and How? and Where? Obviously the racket Jeeves had made entering the room had roused the interest of the household. A moment later, a curious crowd poured through the door and perched upon various pieces of my furniture. They were all here, even Beckett standing on tip toes behind the others.
I turned back to the lieutenant, expecting the confused befuddlement of the bumbling but honest constable—or perhaps, I’m not quite sure why, the glowering stare of the frustrated predator. Instead the look on his face was as unexpected as it was breathtaking: all the lines of his weary, fatigued face had inverted themselves into radiant, delighted surprise. He looked like a child on, well, Christmas day.
“Mr. Little?” he said, rising to his feet.
“Yes?” said the mud statue, obviously fearful and confused before this unshaven, shabbily dressed, American little man who appeared to have Brinkley Court wrapped around his finger.
Columbo reached out and energetically shook his hand. “It’s a great pleasure to meet you, sir,” he said, and all could hear the vibrant sincerity in his voice. “A great pleasure. You see, I thought you were dead,” he added, cordially.
“Cheers?” Bingo answered in tones of utter confusion.
“We all thought you were dead, you scallywag!” Aunt Dahlia cried. “Explain yourself this minute!”
“Not just dead, but muh-murdered!” stammered the Bassett, before bursting into tears.
The others went abuzz into a Greek chorus of concern and consternation. Jeeves, I noticed, was breathing a little heavily—had he run up the steps?—which was peculiar enough I studied him for a few moments; he noticed my staring, seemed arrested by the young master’s face for a second and, silently, proffered a handkerchief. At first the offer confused me, but as I took it from him, the realisation came upon me that I actually needed it: though I couldn’t tell you when it had happened, I could feel distinct tear tracks on my face, and the Wooster frame was shaking slightly. It was all quite befuddling, really.
I discreetly wiped the beak while all and sundry remained engaged in loudly discussing Bingo’s apparent resurrection. The only one whose attention was drawn by the gesture was Columbo, but by the time I glanced up at him, his eyes had already flickered away, back on Bingo. The lighting must have changed, for now they only looked to be a very ordinary brown. Truly the strangest thing.
“Will someone tell us what’s been going on?” Aunt Agatha exploded.
I would have ducked to avoid the whizzing shrapnel, but between Columbo and Jeeves, I actually felt rather safe even in the relative’s presence. When the latter spoke, his voice lowered the temperature in the room by enough degrees that the mud coating Bingo appeared to frost over slightly.
“I believe I have the explanation you seek, if you’ll allow me to expose the facts,” he said, ostensibly to the company—and yet he didn’t seem surprised when Columbo was the one to answer him.
“Expose away, Mr. Jeeves, expose away,” he said jovially, lighting up a cigar and shaking out the match with every evidence of enjoyment. He seemed on the brink of resting his feet on the table, the man was that relaxed.
“At 6pm precisely, Mr. Wooster went to bed, for reasons that shall remain strictly private,” Jeeves began smoothly. “Around 7pm, after he was done conferring with various members of the household, Mr. Little decided to venture out into the storm to—what was it again, sir?”
“To… to vent my dreadful sorrows as the poets of old, Jeeves,” was the cautious answer on Bingo’s part.
“Precisely. He took with him a bottle of single malt, no doubt as a preventative against the weather conditions—”
“Hah!” said Aunt Dahlia.
“—and, I’m sorry to say, shortly became quite inebriated. Having grown quite cold and muddy around the garden, he then took it upon himself to re-enter the house and call—who was it again, sir?”
“I… Perhaps there isn’t a need to mention her name,” Bingo said faintly.
“Very well, sir. He then took it upon himself to call a certain young lady from Mr. Travers’ office. We can only surmise that the operator, being unable to make sense of what she was hearing, and aware that the 25th of December is statistically the most criminal night of the year—”
“What, really?” I said.
Columbo nodded, puffing out smoke. “That’s a fact, sir.”
“—we can only surmise,” Jeeves repeated, “that she connected him to the police station just to be on the safe side of things, as Mr. Little kept repeating that he had been stabbed in the heart.”
Everyone looked at Bingo, who cleared his throat and mumbled: “I—I was speaking metaphorically, of course.”
“Having ascertained the location of the complaint, the operator ended the call and, believing himself thwarted by the object of his affections once more, Mr. Little threw a bound edition of Dante’s Inferno directly into the window—”
“Oh dear!”
“My goodness!”
“I’m amazed!”
“—and cut himself badly enough on the broken glass to scream, attracting attention. Fearing consequences, Mr. Little then climbed out of the window and proceeded towards the only shelter he could think of: I refer of course to the gardener’s shack by the hedge.”
“Incredible!”
“By Jove!”
“I say!”
“His traces were promptly wiped by the ongoing storm, and the whiskey lulled him into a deep sleep, to the point that he could not hear the anxious calls of the company. Lieutenant Columbo arrived shortly thereafter and began his sterling work; having pondered the situation and deducted Mr. Little’s position from the clues Lieutenant Columbo was kind enough to share with me, I unfortunately had to trouble Mr. Little to come back inside, the better to establish the truth.”
“And what a fantastic job you’ve done of it, Mr. Jeeves,” Columbo said, with that same ringing sincerity. “Do you know, usually I'm the one wrapping up the evening with a little speech just like yours?” He smiled again around his cigar. “But then, usually there’s been an actual murder.”
Everyone proceeded to apologise profusely to the lieutenant, begging him not to reveal the details of the matter to his superiors, who’d be sure to besmirch the Travers name undeservedly. He courteously assured Aunt Dahlia he had no intention of sullying her pristine reputation for a prank call, and not even quite that, as Bingo hadn’t been intending to mislead the police. In fact he thanked us for brightening his Christmas evening and, as the company finally filed out of my rooms—the better to collectively throttle Bingo in private, no doubt—he rose to follow them.
But at the door, he turned. “Just one last thing, Mr. Wooster.”
I had rallied somewhat in the interval and was able to answer him in a firm, even tone. “What is it, lieutenant?”
“I would like to apologise to you,” he said seriously. “I can’t say it fancy as you like, but the truth is I treated you unkindly, Mr. Wooster, and I’m sorry.”
When I spoke again, my voice had lost all firmness and had grown quite uneven. Oh well, you can’t win them all. “On the contrary,” I gulped. “You’ve been too kind. You said you’d listen to me, and I could tell you meant it.”
“I always mean it, Mr. Wooster,” he said. “I always mean it. That’s how I get them to talk.” He nodded to Jeeves, the brief nod of a craftsman acknowledging another’s work, and turned to leave.
“Hold—hold on—one more thing!” I said, leaping to my feet.
“What is it, Mr. Wooster?” He looked amused by this interruption, yet the underlying weariness was back. This was a tired man. “Tell me, then I’ll have a car sent from the station. It’s a fairly long drive.”
“Well, you simply must stay the night,” I said.
I can’t say what possessed me to make the offer; certainly not a sense of obligation, as I’ve had my own trouble with the law. How lucky I was that the case of the policeman’s helmet hadn’t come to light during his interviews—or I should have been jailed before Jeeves’ timely return! No, Bertram was not a friend of the constables. And yet I obscurely felt that if I let the lieutenant go, he would never again enjoy an occasion like this one. There would always be a murder.
And I must have been right, because for the first and only time, he looked taken aback.
“Stay?” he repeated, as if wondering whether the word held a different meaning in the Queen’s English.
“Sir?” Jeeves said.
“It’s Christmas, for Pete’s sake,” I insisted. “You’re far away from home. And it’s a dark and stormy night, what? I’ll drive you back in the morning; I’ve been meaning to make my escape anyway. There’s your chance to learn what that was all about.”
Columbo blinked, then, oddly, glanced at Jeeves.
Jeeves appeared to ponder the matter. I could almost see the gears turning in that bulging head. Then he made his final pronouncement. “I’m sure I can find something suitable for the lieutenant to wear at breakfast.”
So we all wished each other a happy Christmas, I let Jeeves lead our guest to rooms of his own, and, awash in relief, I proceeded down to the kitchens to seek out the salmon mayonnaise.
And that, as they say, was that.