"Jeeves raised no eyebrow when his master hadn't returned that morning. It was not his place, after all, and gentlemen of Mr Wooster's age were not unknown to stay out until daybreak at times of special revelry. He was most probably drunk and confused on the sofa of some other young gentleman, or perhaps he had even encountered some other young person with whom to find a diverting way to while away the small hours.

Timing, too, placed an important restrain on Jeeves's concerns. Relations between employer and employed were not over-cordial at present, owing to the former's recent acquisition of a black fedora with a purple band. Being thus unmoved, Jeeves merely re-made the un-slept in bed and laid the breakfast in the living room for it's owner's return. The running of an affluent household presented one with enough tasks to easily fill a morning - ordering groceries, washing linens, sharpening knives and paying accounts - that when Jeeves returned several hours later to clear the breakfast things, it came as some surprise to him that they were still there. No matter how enticing an evening's entertainment could be, it was unlike any gentleman of 24 that Jeeves had ever known, to deliberately go without his tea and bacon.

Nonetheless, this was cause for surprise rather than concern. The Jeevsian eyebrows remained unraised. He was, he liked to think, not a vindictive man, but he couldn't help thinking that the hangover Mr Wooster was undoubtedly undergoing would teach him to go out in public with a purple-banded hat. Nor did he so much as scratch his head when lunch came to a similar fate. Not long after, however, the cataclysm began: Jeeves answered the phone.

"Oh hello, Jeeves," came the sunny tones of Mr Little, the young master's childhood friend. "Bertie about?"

"No, sir," replied Jeeves. "I was given to understand that he was with you."

"With me? No; no I was just ringing, I have something dashed important to tell him about this new brand of cigarettes-"

All of a sudden, Jeeves felt the normally vigorous feudal spirit flicker momentarily, as though the class divide could not quite cover the futility of this young man's ramblings. He cut across him. "You mean to say he's not with you?"

"Definitely not, Jeeves. I waved goodbye to him last night at the Drones and he has been decidedly not with me ever since."

"Then where is he?"

Bingo was not at all taken with this lapse in courtesy. "How should I know? I told you, I left early. Why, what's the matter?"

After he had allowed his mouth to droop very slightly, very momentarily, Jeeves picked himself back up. There was no use letting standards slip. "I fear, sir, that Mr Wooster has not returned to the flat all evening. I made so bold as to assume he was lodging with you, as he does on some occasions."

A slight shiver was heard at the other end of the line. Bingo knew with acute shame the inference that had been launched against him. It was not at all uncommon for he and Bertie to fall in together in the early hours, wine-sodden, and find themselves re-enacting scenes from their schooldays that would have them shunned from polite society, and, Jeeves often sighed to himself, probably serving ten years. Neither Bertie nor Bingo ever meant it to lead anywhere, but at the same time, was sure that this last shred of childish reassurance was something they could hardly live without. Bingo gathered himself. "Jeeves, Mr Wooster certainly didn't spend the night here; for if he did, I would not have attempted to contact him there."

"Very good, sir. Might I enquire if you have any idea where he might be?"

"No." Both voices lost some of their fortitude. "How long has he been gone?"

"Since eight o'clock last night, sir."

"Well I can vouch for him until ten; we were together at the Drones. Then I left for an early night, and Bertie was talking to an Oxford pal of his."

Feeling encouraged, Jeeves said "Indeed, sir?"

"Indeed. I'm sorry, I couldn't tell you who it was – I didn't know him myself. I remember he wasn't a member, he was signed in by a pal of his, who was. Er, I'm sorry, now I think of it, I can't think who the pal's pal was, either... Dreadfully sorry."

"Not at all, sir," said Jeeves, although his tones levelled to their former sobriety. "I am sure Mr Wooster can look after himself."

There was a dead silence. Clearly both men had thought the same thing. Despite Bertram Wooster's many wonderful traits, he'd never been accused of being independently-minded or overly-scrupulous. They exchanged light-hearted goodbyes, but it was not an hour later when the police arrived at the door. They had been sent, they said, by a Mr Richard Little, who had appealed to them about a missing friend. They were two men – an older one, and a younger. Inviting them in listlessly, Jeeves could not help but be struck by the younger's resemblance to his master: not so much in appearance, but in that same, open, unabashed clumsiness of manner that Jeeves had found so endearing, that day last year when he first stood on the doormat. Constable Linton was the name of this over-grown adolescent, and Inspector Graham his senior. They prodded the flat for a lethargic half-hour, disrupting Jeeves' careful utopia of cleanliness one mis-placed-object-that-proved-not-to-be-evidence at a time. When they had decided to leave the coal scuttle where it was for now, but told it not to leave the country, Graham announced wearily that no evidence was to be found.

"Could you describe this Mr Wooster for us please, sir?" he drawled, while the younger one fumbled open his notebook.

"Jeeves coughed slightly. The way in which he identified his master was scarcely likely to be of any good to the police. How he could he tell them to search for an amusingly gangly child-like man with a smile that lit up the room? "Mr Wooster is a tall gentleman, of six-foot-two-inches tall, and a light build, taking trousers in a twenty-eight-inch waist. His hair is blonde, erring very slightly on the auburn and his eyes are blue. He has an exceedingly pleasant demeanour," he tailed off.

"Blonde hair, blue eyes, pleasant dem-eee-nor," muttered Constable Linton, scribbling hard.

"Does it all check out with Mr Little's description?" barked Graham, with, Jeeves thought, a baffling overtone of suspicion.

"Sir, yesssir."

"Right then. Mr Jeeves, thank you for your help. We must emphasise the importance of keeping a, a..." Words seemed to fail him.

"Perspective, inspector?" Jeeves offered.

"Perspective, yeah," grunted Graham.

The officers turned to leave, but just as he was showing them out, Jeeves's conscience pricked at him.

"Inspector," he addressed Graham. "I perhaps should not venture to say this in my station, but I feel that the investigation, if any, may warrant a little more detail into the-"

"You got something else to say, sir?" Graham cut across him.

Jeeves saw that Graham was no devotee of propriety. For the first time, in many years, Jeeves stammered. "Sir. Mr Wooster is a very good man. May I say, an uncommonly kind gentleman. But, I mean to say, he is not altogether intelligent." He awaited some sort of repercussion, but the faces of the policeman were stony. "The summation of these two qualities is that Mr Wooster is frequently given to be very open with persons unknown to him – put very simply, he believes everyone is as good and as honest as he is himself. If you'll pardon my presumption to say so, I believe this may make him vulnerable to dubious characters he meets in a social situation. You are aware that Mr Wooster had been drinking last night?"

"We got the full story from Mr Little, yes, sir," said Graham.

Had he been in a more indulgent mood, Jeeves may have given way to a regretful sigh. As it was, he held his resolve, and bowed the policemen out.

The sweltering summer's day gave way to night, and Mr Wooster did not come home. There were no telephone calls, but he reminded himself not to be disappointed about this – he was a servant, after all. If the police had any news, it would first go to Mr Little and to the Wooster clan (Mrs Travers, he hoped, for Mrs Gregson would scarcely think to keep Jeeves in the loop).

At eleven forty-five, when the young master usually retired, Jeeves switched off the lights. As he did, he looked around the room, lingering, inexplicably, at the empty piano, where the young master might at this hour be singing "Goodnight, Vienna. Goodnight, Jeeves." He turned away quickly: thinking of that lead him to thinking of where he might be sitting now, and the endless pit of possibilities was unbearable. He found himself wishing that the last words he had said to Mr Wooster had not been "By all means wear that hat if you wish to be taken for an effeminate New York gangster, sir."

That night he slept uneasily. Dreams in which Mr Wooster came in from a storm played and replayed across his closed eyelids. Fitfully he would wake every hour and from his inexplicable sense of the thing, know that Bertie was still gone.