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occasion of Boat Race night—’
    ‘All right, all right, it wouldn’t be the first time. I supposeEustace H. Plimsoll, of The Laburnums, Alleyn Road could make a comeback by popular demand. For one night only. At a pinch. But it’s not a pinch I intend to feel.’
    ‘Such an expedient might be wise, sir. I feel it would be most unfortunate were Sir Henry to discover that an intruder in his house was the same person as the gentleman whose social activities on the Côte d’Azur had threatened to block his path to financial salvation.’
    I put my foot down. ‘Damn it, Jeeves, I simply can’t go through with this. Woody or no Woody.’
    I was still protesting silently when I found myself slinking up the back drive of Melbury Hall some ten minutes later.
    I am something of a connoisseur of the country pile and I must say old Sir Henry had done himself remarkably well. At a guess I would say it was from the reign of Queen Anne and had been bunged up by a be-wigged ancestor awash with loot from the War of the Spanish Succession or some such lucrative away fixture. This ancient Hackwood had stinted himself on neither grounds nor messuages. The ensemble reached as far as the eye could see, taking in deer park, cricket pitch, lawns and meadows as well as walled kitchen gardens and a stable block that could have quartered the Household Cavalry. The staff needed for such a place must have drawn on every household in Kingston St Giles and I could see that whoever signed the yearly cheque to the electricity company would need a tumblerful of something strong to nerve him for the task.
    I got a good squint at the pile itself, a handsome affair in reddish brick with stone bits here and there and a parapet above the second-floor bedrooms. A wide terrace faced south, and I guessed that if I could get there unobserved I could quickly ascertain which of the ground-floor rooms contained the library. Fortunately, the Hackwoods were fond of trees – cedars in particular – and it was easy enough for a chap who had so often played Red Indian scout to Woody Beeching’s Masked Cowboy to approach unobserved.
    It would be an exaggeration to say that I was enjoying myself, but the sinews were stiffened up like anything as I ducked down beneath the first windowsill. After a pause to regain the breath, I risked a glance inside. It was a half-acre drawing room, with two wooden columns either side of a broad flight of three wooden steps. It also contained three elderly women, one younger one, possibly Amelia, a spindly fellow of about forty, an old codger in full flow and a butler of solemn aspect handing round the teacups. I ducked down sharpish and stole forwards to the next opening.
    Raising the beak cautiously over the sill, I was rewarded by a glimpse of books, and plenty of them. I risked another look and got a full snapshot. There was only one thing I wanted more than a library and that was a library devoid of Hackwoods; it seemed that I had hit the bullseye at the second attempt. Gently, I tested the lower section of window. It rose. I looked down to make sure the footing was adequate to heave myself through the opening. As I did so, I noticed a small box attached to the outer wall at ankle height. The Wooster fortunes seemedto be getting juicier by the moment, for unless I was mistaken this was the telephone connection. I have never been much of a one for the practical aspects of life and I feared that if I used the implement that Jeeves had given me to snip the flex I might go up in smoke. I judged it wiser to give the cable a firm upward yank, and to my delight it yielded at once. I concealed the disconnected wires as best I could behind the box and moved on to part two of the operation.
    Effecting an entrance was simple enough; finding the relevant brace of volumes looked an altogether trickier prospect. A complete set of Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack took up one bookcase. Another comprised stud books devoted to matters of livestock