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‘A book, sir?’ he said, with ill-concealed astonishment.

‘Spinoza,’ I replied, specifying.

This had him rocking back on his heels.

‘Did you say Spinoza, sir?’

‘Spinoza was what I said.’

He seemed to be feeling that if we talked this thing out long enough as man to man, we might eventually hit upon a formula.

‘You do not mean “The Spinning Wheel”?’

‘No.’

‘It would not be “The Poisoned Pin”?’

‘It would not.’

‘Or “With Gun and Camera in Little Known Borneo”?’ he queried, trying a long shot.

‘Spinoza,’ I repeated firmly. That was my story, and I intended to stick to it.

He sighed a bit, like one who feels that the situation has got beyond him.

‘I will go and see if we have it in stock, sir. But possibly this may be what you are requiring. Said to be very clever.’

He pushed off, Spinoza-ing under his breath in a hopeless sort of way, leaving me clutching a thing called ‘Spindrift’.

It looked pretty foul. Its jacket showed a female with a green, oblong face sniffing at a purple lily, and I was just about to fling it from me and start a hunt for that ‘Poisoned Pin’

of which he had spoken, when I became aware of someone Good-gracious-Bertie-ing

and, turning, found that the animal cries proceeded from a tall girl of commanding aspect who had oiled up behind me.

‘Good gracious, Bertie! Is it really you?’

I emitted a sharp gurgle, and shied like a startled mustang. It was old Worplesdon’s daughter, Florence Craye.

And I’ll tell you why, on beholding her, I shied and gurgled as described. I mean, if there’s one thing I bar, it’s the sort of story where people stagger to and fro, clutching their foreheads and registering strong emotion, and not a word of explanation as to what it’s all about till the detective sums up in the last chapter.

Briefly, then, the reason why this girl’s popping up had got in amongst me in this fashion was that we had once been engaged to be married, and not so dashed long ago, either.

And though it all came out all right in the end, the thing being broken off and self saved from the scaffold at the eleventh hour, it had been an extraordinarily narrow squeak and the memory remained green. The mere mention of her name was still enough to make me call for a couple of quick ones, so you can readily appreciate my agitation at bumping into her like this absolutely in the flesh.

I swayed in the breeze, and found myself a bit stumped for the necessary dialogue.

‘Oh, hullo,’ I said.

Not good, of course, but the best I could do.

Also available in Arrow

The Mating Season

P.G. Wodehouse

A Jeeves and Wooster novel

At Deverill Hall, an idyllic Tudor manor in the picture-perfect village of King’s Deverill, impostors are in the air. The prime example is man-about-town Bertie Wooster, doing a good turn to Gussie Fink-Nottle by impersonating him while he enjoys fourteen days away from society after being caught taking an unscheduled dip in the fountains of Trafalgar Square. Bertie is of course one of nature’s gentlemen, but the stakes are high: if all is revealed, there’s a danger that Gussie’s simpering fiancée Madeline may turn her wide eyes on Bertie instead.

It’s a brilliant plan – until Gussie himself turns up, imitating Bertram Wooster. After that, only the massive brain of Jeeves (himself in disguise) can set things right.

Also available in Arrow

The Clicking of Cuthbert

P.G. Wodehouse

A Golf collection

The Oldest Member knows everything that has ever happened on the golf course – and a great deal more besides.

Take the story of Cuthbert, for instance. He’s helplessly in love with Adeline, but what use are his holes in one when she’s in thrall to Culture and prefers rising young writers to winners of the French Open? But enter a Great Russian Novelist with a strange passion, and Cuthbert’s prospects are transformed. Then look at what happens to young Mitchell Holmes, who misses short putts because of the uproar of the butterflies in the adjoining meadows. His career seems on the skids – but can golf redeem it?

The kindly but shrewd gaze of the Oldest Member picks out some of the funniest stories Wodehouse ever wrote.

Also available in Arrow

Piccadilly Jim

P.G. Wodehouse

A P. G. Wodehouse novel

It takes a lot of effort for Jimmy Crocker to become Piccadilly Jim – nights on the town roistering, headlines in the gossip columns, a string of broken hearts and breaches of promise. Eventually he becomes rather good at it and manages to go to pieces with his eyes open.

But no sooner has Jimmy cut a wild swathe through fashionable London than his terrifying Aunt Nesta decides he must mend his ways. He then falls in love with the girl he has hurt most of all, and after that things get complicated.

In a dizzying plot, impersonations pile on impersonations so that (for reasons that will become clear, we promise) Jimmy ends up having to pretend he’s himself. Does he deserve a happy ending? Read and find out.

Also available in Arrow

Something Fresh

P.G. Wodehouse

A Blandings novel

This is the first Blandings novel, in which P.G. Wodehouse introduces us to the delightfully dotty Lord Emsworth, his bone-headed younger son, the Hon. Freddie Threepwood, his long-suffering secretary, the Efficient Baxter, and Beach the Blandings butler.

As Wodehouse wrote, ‘without at least one impostor on the premises, Blandings Castle is never itself. In
Something Fresh
there are two, each with an eye on a valuable scarab which Lord Emsworth has acquired without quite realizing how it came into his pocket.

But of course things get a lot more complicated than this . . .

Also available in Arrow