The Code of the Woosters

Jeeves politely declines his master’s suggestion that he spring from his perch on the cupboard and envelop the angry dog in a bedsheet, so the two are forced to remain in place until Stiffy’s return, which is sooner than expected. Giving the two intruders a blasé look, she explains that the slideshow was cancelled because Harold Pinker accidentally dropped the slides after she broke off their engagement. She can’t marry a man too selfish, she says, to steal a police officer’s helmet for her. Now that Gussie’s notebook is no longer useful to her, she’s just about to tell Wooster its whereabouts when Harold appears in the window, brandishing the stolen helmet. As Harold falls into the room, Wooster notes from his gracelessness that he has changed little since their college days. Harold explains to them that he grabbed the helmet when Constable Oates momentarily took it off and was able to escape with it unseen. The engagement is back on, but unfortunately for Wooster, this gives Stiffy’s extortion scheme new legs. When he begins to ask her for the notebook, she interrupts him to say that she needs “the book” a while longer, and then tells Harold that Wooster would be delighted to steal the cow creamer to help put him in her uncle’s good graces.

Once they’re alone, Jeeves suggests to Wooster that he try a little extortion himself to get out of this jam: It seems to him, from Stiffy’s nervous interruption, that Harold doesn’t know about her theft of the notebook, nor does she want him to. Trying this angle, Wooster catches Stiffy alone and demands the notebook, on the threat of telling Harold everything. He expounds for her Jeeves’s deductive reasoning, though he takes credit for it himself. Starting to cry, Stiffy begs him not to tell Harold and seems at a complete loss about what to do. Sensing an impasse, Jeeves weighs in with a “psychological” idea for softening up Sir Watkyn: Before they mention Harold, they should tell Watkyn that Stiffy is engaged to Wooster. Watkyn so dislikes Wooster, he says, that he might happily embrace any alternative, even Harold. Wooster isn’t keen on the idea, but, with the notebook on the line, lets himself be persuaded.

Entering Sir Watkyn’s study to play his role in the “softening,” Wooster finds the ex-judge conferring with Constable Oates, the police officer who recently lost his helmet to an unseen thief. At Wooster’s behest, Watkyn asks Oates to leave and then mentions to Wooster that he was “missed” after dinner, and wasn’t found in his room. He clearly suspects Wooster of being the helmet thief, but Wooster, preoccupied with his task, doesn’t seem to grasp this. Watkyn says that the thief in question won’t be fined a mere five pounds, as was Wooster for the same offense during boating day, when such offenses are taken lightly, but will go to jail this time. Wooster winces with sympathy for Harold but then moves the conversation on to Stiffy. Awkwardly and circuitously, he announces that he and Watkyn’s niece have “plucked the gowans fine” (173) and plan to marry. Watkyn is deeply shaken. He sends at once for his niece, who reassures him that Wooster has got the wrong end of the stick and that Harold Pinker has won her heart. Watkyn isn’t thrilled by the idea of Stiffy marrying a mere curate, either, but after a heated discussion, he consents, with the haunted but slightly relieved look of a convict whose death sentence has just been commuted to life.

Once they’re alone, Wooster asks the exuberant Stiffy to hand over the notebook, as she promised, but she wants to talk only about Harold’s theft of the helmet, which she thinks may cause trouble for her down the road because he dropped one of her gloves at the scene. She asks Wooster for suggestions on where to hide the helmet before Oates can search her room, but he brushes her off, wanting only to discuss the hiding place of Gussie’s notebook. Finally, she tells him that it’s hidden in her uncle’s cow creamer. As Wooster racks his brain for ways to retrieve it without being caught, the butler informs him that Madeline Bassett requests a word. Knowing that the subject will be matrimony, Wooster walks to the meeting with the doomed bravado of a condemned man.