P. G. Wodehouse: Uneasy Money

Chapter 16 (continued)

'This is the most hideous thing on earth,' said Elizabeth casually, 'but it will do to sit on. Now tell me: why did you go to Lady Wetherby's this afternoon?'

It was all so remote, it seemed so long ago that he had wanted to find an excuse for meeting Claire again, that for a moment Bill hesitated in actual perplexity, and before he could speak Elizabeth had answered the question for him.

'I suppose you went out of kindness of heart to relieve the poor lady's mind,' she said. 'But you certainly did the wrong thing. You started something!'

'I didn't tell her the animal was here.'

'What did you tell her?'

'I said I had seen it, don't you know.'

'That was enough.'

'I'm awfully sorry.'

'Oh, we shall pull through all right, but we must act at once. We must be swift and resolute. We must saddle our chargers and up and away, and all that sort of thing. Show a flash of speed,' she explained kindly, at the sight of Bill's bewildered face.

'But what has happened?'

'The press is on our trail. I've been interviewing reporters all the afternoon.'

'Reporters!'

'Millions of them. The place is alive with them. Keen, hatchet-faced young men, and every one of them was the man who really unravelled some murder mystery or other, though the police got the credit for it. They told me so.'

'But, I say, how on earth--'

'--did they get here? I suppose Lady Wetherby invited them,'

'But why?'