"If you will throw your mind back to the evening of our arrival, sir. You
were good enough to inquire of me if I had any plan to put forward with a
view to bringing Miss Angela and Mr. Glossop together, and I ventured to
suggest----"

"Good Lord! Not the old fire-alarm thing?"

"Precisely, sir."

"You're still sticking to that?"

"Yes, sir."

It shows how much the ghastly blow I had received had shaken me when I
say that, instead of dismissing the proposal with a curt "Tchah!" or
anything like that, I found myself speculating as to whether there might
not be something in it, after all.

When he had first mooted this fire-alarm scheme of his, I had sat upon
it, if you remember, with the maximum of promptitude and vigour. "Rotten"
was the adjective I had employed to describe it, and you may recall that
I mused a bit sadly, considering the idea conclusive proof of the general
breakdown of a once fine mind. But now it somehow began to look as if it
might have possibilities. The fact of the matter was that I had about
reached the stage where I was prepared to try anything once, however
goofy.

"Just run through that wheeze again, Jeeves," I said thoughtfully. "I
remember thinking it cuckoo, but it may be that I missed some of the
finer shades."

"Your criticism of it at the time, sir, was that it was too elaborate,
but I do not think it is so in reality. As I see it, sir, the occupants
of the house, hearing the fire bell ring, will suppose that a
conflagration has broken out."

I nodded. One could follow the train of thought.

"Yes, that seems reasonable."

"Whereupon Mr. Glossop will hasten to save Miss Angela, while Mr.
Fink-Nottle performs the same office for Miss Bassett."

"Is that based on psychology?"

"Yes, sir. Possibly you may recollect that it was an axiom of the late
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes, that the
instinct of everyone, upon an alarm of fire, is to save the object
dearest to them."

"It seems to me that there is a grave danger of seeing Tuppy come out
carrying a steak-and-kidney pie, but resume, Jeeves, resume. You think
that this would clean everything up?"

"The relations of the two young couples could scarcely continue distant
after such an occurrence, sir."

"Perhaps you're right. But, dash it, if we go ringing fire bells in the
night watches, shan't we scare half the domestic staff into fits? There
is one of the housemaids--Jane, I believe--who a