“Only giving the whole bally show away to me, that’s all,” said Freddie feverishly. He clutched Psmith’s arm violently, causing that exquisite to utter a slight moan and smooth out the wrinkles thus created in his sleeve. “Listen! I’ve just been talking to the blighter. I was passing the library just now, when he popped out of the door and hauled me in. And, dash it, he hadn’t been talking two seconds before I realised that he has seen through the whole dam’ thing practically from the moment you got here. Though he doesn’t seem to know that I’ve anything to do with it, thank goodness.”
“I should imagine not, if he makes you his confidant. Why did he do that, by the way? What made him select you as the recipient of his secrets?”
“As far as I can make out, his idea was to form a gang, if you know what I mean. He said a lot of stuff about him and me being the only two able-bodied young men in the place, and we ought to be prepared to tackle you if you started anything.”
“I see. And now tell me how our delightful friend ever happened to begin suspecting that I was not all I seemed to be. I had been flattering myself that I had put the little deception over with complete success.”
“Well, in the first place, dash it, that dam’ fellow McTodd—the real one, you know—sent a telegram saying that he wasn’t coming. So it seemed rummy to Baxter bang from the start when you blew in all merry and bright.”
“Ah! That was what they all meant by saying they were glad I had come ‘after all.’ A phrase which at the moment, I confess, rather mystified me.”
“And then you went and wrote in the Peavey female’s autograph-book.”
“In what way was that a false move?”
“Why, that was the biggest bloomer on record, as it has turned out,” said Freddie vehemently. “Baxter apparently keeps every letter that comes to the place on a file, and he’d skewered McTodd’s original letter with the rest. I mean, the one he wrote accepting the invitation to come here. And Baxter compared his handwriting with what you wrote in the Peavey’s album, and, of course, they weren’t a dam’ bit alike. And that put the lid on it.”
Psmith lit another cigarette and drew at it thoughtfully. He realised that he had made a tactical error in underestimating the antagonism of the Efficient One.