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64 pages

English

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Comprising of seven works of short fiction, ranging in genres from crime to tender romance, Death at the Excelsior and Other Stories depict tales of mystery and love with humor. Featuring some of P.G Wodehouse’s most famous characters, four of the seven stories follow the misadventures of Jeeves and Bertie or Reggie Pepper. When a friend needs help convincing his uncle to approve of his bride-to-be, Jeeves and Bertie concoct a plan that includes the use of romance novels in Jeeves in the Springtime. Reggie Pepper’s trouble takes center stage in The Test Case, when his lover voices her doubts that they could ever marry. Other stories within the collection introduce new characters, including a clever and witty young woman named Eve in The Best Sauce. Working as a paid companion to a woman with a stormy temper, Eve is unhappy but is settled in her bleak condition. However, when a man from her past, Peter Rayner, shows up in hopes to marry Eve, she devises a plan of petty pranks to scare him out of the house. Finally, in the title story, Death at the Excelsior, depicts a thrilling murder-mystery. When a previously healthy sailor is found dead in the Excelsior boarding house, Detective Snyder and his assistant, Oakes, must catch the killer before they strike again.

Assembled posthumously, Death at the Excelsior and Other Stories features classic works of P.G Wodehouse’s short fiction, sampling from each genre he mastered. With simple language and excellent description, Death at the Excelsior and Other Stories serves as a perfect introduction to P.G Wodehouse and his beloved characters.

This edition of Death at the Excelsior and Other Stories is now presented in an easy-to-read font and with a fun, eye-catching cover to cater to contemporary audiences.

Sujets

Humorous

British humour

Wooster

Jeeves

Fiction

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Publié par	Mint Editions
Date de parution	12 janvier 2021
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781513275765
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0350€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Death at the Excelsior and Other Stories
P.G. Wodehouse

The stories in this volume were first published as follows: Death at the Excelsior : 1914; Misunderstood : 1910; The Best Sauce : 1911; Concealed Art : 1915; The Test Case : 1915; Jeeves and the Chump Cyril : 1918; Jeeves in the Springtime : 1921.
This edition published by Mint Editions 2021.
ISBN 9781513270760 | E-ISBN 9781513275765
Published by Mint Editions®
minteditionbooks .com
Publishing Director: Jennifer Newens
Design & Production: Rachel Lopez Metzger
Typesetting: Westchester Publishing Services

C ONTENTS D EATH AT THE E XCELSIOR M ISUNDERSTOOD T HE B EST S AUCE C ONCEALED A RT T HE T EST C ASE J EEVES AND THE C HUMP C YRIL J EEVES IN THE S PRINGTIME

D EATH AT THE E XCELSIOR
I
T HE ROOM WA S THE TYPICAL bedroom of the typical boarding-house, furnished, insofar as it could be said to be furnished at all, with a severe simplicity. It contained two beds, a pine chest of drawers, a strip of faded carpet, and a wash basin. But there was that on the floor which set this room apart from a thousand rooms of the same kind. Flat on his back, with his hands tightly clenched and one leg twisted oddly under him and with his teeth gleaming through his grey beard in a horrible grin, Captain John Gunner stared up at the ceiling with eyes that saw nothing.
Until a moment before, he had had the little room all to himself. But now two people were standing just inside the door, looking down at him. One was a large policeman, who twisted his helmet nervously in his hands. The other was a tall, gaunt old woman in a rusty black dress, who gazed with pale eyes at the dead man. Her face was quite expressionless.
The woman was Mrs. Pickett, owner of the Excelsior Boarding-House. The policeman’s name was Grogan. He was a genial giant, a terror to the riotous element of the waterfront, but obviously ill at ease in the presence of death. He drew in his breath, wiped his forehead, and whispered: “Look at his eyes, ma’am!”
Mrs. Pickett had not spoken a word since she had brought the policeman into the room, and she did not do so now. Constable Grogan looked at her quickly. He was afraid of Mother Pickett, as was everybody else along the waterfront. Her silence, her pale eyes, and the quiet decisiveness of her personality cowed even the tough old salts who patronized the Excelsior. She was a formidable influence in that little community of sailormen.
“That’s just how I found him,” said Mrs. Pickett. She did not speak loudly, but her voice made the policeman start.
He wiped his forehead again. “It might have been apoplexy,” he hazarded.
Mrs. Pickett said nothing. There was a sound of footsteps outside, and a young man entered, carrying a black bag.
“Good morning, Mrs. Pickett. I was told that—Good Lord!” The young doctor dropped to his knees beside the body and raised one of the arms. After a moment he lowered it gently to the floor, and shook his head in grim resignation.
“He’s been dead for hours,” he announced. “When did you find him?”
“Twenty minutes back,” replied the old woman. “I guess he died last night. He never would be called in the morning. Said he liked to sleep on. Well, he’s got his wish.”
“What did he die of, sir?” asked the policeman.
“It’s impossible to say without an examination,” the doctor answered. “It looks like a stroke, but I’m pretty sure it isn’t. It might be a coronary attack, but I happen to know his blood pressure was normal, and his heart sound. He called in to see me only a week ago, and I examined him thoroughly. But sometimes you can be deceived. The inquest will tell us.” He eyed the body almost resentfully. “I can’t understand it. The man had no right to drop dead like this. He was a tough old sailor who ought to have been good for another twenty years. If you want my honest opinion—though I can’t possibly be certain until after the inquest—I should say he had been poisoned.”
“How would he be poisoned?” asked Mrs. Pickett quietly.
“That’s more than I can tell you. There’s no glass about that he could have drunk it from. He might have got it in capsule form. But why should he have done it? He was always a pretty cheerful sort of old man, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, sir,” said the Constable. “He had the name of being a joker in these parts. Kind of sarcastic, they tell me, though he never tried it on me.”
“He must have died quite early last night,” said the doctor. He turned to Mrs. Pickett. “What’s become of Captain Muller? If he shares this room he ought to be able to tell us something about it.”
“Captain Muller spent the night with some friends at Portsmouth,” said Mrs. Pickett. “He left right after supper, and hasn’t returned.”
The doctor stared thoughtfully about the room, frowning.
“I don’t like it. I can’t understand it. If this had happened in India I should have said the man had died from some form of snakebite. I was out there two years, and I’ve seen a hundred cases of it. The poor devils all looked just like this. But the thing’s ridiculous. How could a man be bitten by a snake in a Southampton waterfront boarding-house? Was the door locked when you found him, Mrs. Pickett?”
Mrs. Pickett nodded. “I opened it with my own key. I had been calling to him and he didn’t answer, so I guessed something was wrong.”
The Constable spoke: “You ain’t touched anything, ma’am? They’re always very particular about that. If the doctor’s right, and there’s been anything up, that’s the first thing they’ll ask.”
“Everything’s just as I found it.”
“What’s that on the floor beside him?” the doctor asked.
“Only his harmonica. He liked to play it of an evening in his room. I’ve had some complaints about it from some of the gentlemen, but I never saw any harm, so long as he didn’t play it too late.”
“Seems as if he was playing it when—it happened,” Constable Grogan said. “That don’t look much like suicide, sir.”
“I didn’t say it was suicide.”
Grogan whistled. “You don’t think—”
“I’m not thinking anything—until after the inquest. All I say is that it’s queer.”
Another aspect of the matter seemed to strike the policeman. “I guess this ain’t going to do the Excelsior any good, ma’am,” he said sympathetically.
Mrs. Pickett shrugged her shoulders.
“I suppose I had better go and notify the coroner,” said the doctor.
He went out, and after a momentary pause the policeman followed him. Constable Grogan was not greatly troubled with nerves, but he felt a decided desire to be somewhere where he could not see the dead man’s staring eyes.
Mrs. Pickett remained where she was, looking down at the still form on the floor. Her face was expressionless, but inwardly she was tormented and alarmed. It was the first time such a thing as this had happened at the Excelsior, and, as Constable Grogan had hinted, it was not likely to increase the attractiveness of the house in the eyes of possible boarders. It was not the threatened pecuniary loss which was troubling her. As far as money was concerned, she could have lived comfortably on her savings, for she was richer than most of her friends supposed. It was the blot on the escutcheon of the Excelsior—the stain on its reputation—which was tormenting her.
The Excelsior was her life. Starting many years before, beyond the memory of the oldest boarder, she had built up the model establishment, the fame of which had been carried to every corner of the world. Men spoke of it as a place where you were fed well, cleanly housed, and where petty robbery was unknown.
Such was the chorus of praise that it is not likely that much harm could come to the Excelsior from a single mysterious death but Mother Pickett was not consoling herself with such reflections.
She looked at the dead man with pale, grim eyes. Out in the hallway the doctor’s voice further increased her despair. He was talking to the police on the telephone, and she could distinctly hear his every word.
II
T HE OFFICES OF M R . P AUL S NYDER’S Detective Agency in New Oxford Street had grown in the course of a dozen years from a single room to an impressive suite bright with polished wood, clicking typewriters, and other evidences of success. Where once Mr. Snyder had sat and waited for clients and attended to them himself, he now sat in his private office and directed eight assistants.
He had just accepted a case—a case that might be nothing at all or something exceedingly big. It was on the latter possibility that he had gambled. The fee offered was, judged by his present standards of prosperity, small. But the bizarre facts, coupled with something in the personality of the client, had won him over. He briskly touched the bell and requested that Mr. Oakes should be sent in to him.
Elliot Oakes was a young man who both amused and interested Mr. Snyder, for though he had only recently joined the staff, he made no secret of his intention of revolutionizing the methods of the agency. Mr. Snyder himself, in common with most of his assistants, relied for results on hard work and plenty of common sense. He had never been a detective of the showy type. Results had justified his methods, but he was perfectly aware that young Mr. Oakes looked on him as a dull old man who had been miraculously favored by luck.
Mr. Snyder had selected Oakes for the case in hand principally because it was one where inexperience could do no harm, and where the brilliant guesswork which Oakes preferred to call his inductive reasoning might achieve an unexpected success.
Another motive actuated Mr. Snyder in his choice. He had a strong suspicion that the conduct of this case was going to have the beneficial result of lowering Oakes’ self-esteem. If failure achieved this end, Mr. Snyder felt that failure, though it would not help the Agency, would not be an unmixed ill.
The door opened and Oakes entered tensely. He did everything tensely, partly from a natural nervous energy, and partly as a pose. He was a lean young man, with dark eyes and a th