What I Did Between Work Today

[titusnowl]

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"I've got a plan," Simon began grandly.

"No you haven't," interrupted Roger rather irritably; for which he can be charitably forgiven, as he had not gotten much sleep the night before for reasons directly attributable to the Saint.  "The day you've got a plan any sooner than five minutes after the start of whatever your plan's about - "

"You wrong me, my Roger," said Simon, every inch the wrongfully accused.

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It came to pass that Mr. R. E. Psmith, Esq., took the job of defending one Alfred Barrow-Purbright.  Mr. Barrow-Purbright was generally known as a Bad Egg, and he was in this case as in many previous cases indubitably guilty.  However, he had always before made a habit of calling the Crown's evidence into sufficient question to secure his own release; and although the charge in this instance was a bit stickier, and liable to land him three to five years as the King's especial guest, the record and reputation of his representative put him quite at ease regarding his future.

Certainly Psmith had every intention of securing a favourable verdict; but had Mr. Barrow-Purbright been privy to the other intentions harboured within that well-tailored breast, he may have chosen incarceration.

Concerns regarding publicity precluded meeting in any of the usual choices for socialisation amongst the Well-Off Young Gentlemen; and so Psmith had come to be a rather frequent caller at Simon Templar's flat in Brook Street, not far from his own fashionable address.
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On September 4 at 6:35 pm John Meredith of Omaha, Nebraska registered in room 24.  He was a salesman travelling a line of carpet sweepers on a freelance basis; he and his car, a Ford of no particular distinction, were coated uniformly with a layer of grey road-dust.  This puffed out from his shoes and shook from his sleeves not ostentatiously but noticeably, and so Miss Clay's initial impression of him was not favorable.

At 7:02 pm he returned to the lobby, his hair shower-damp and bearing the soft gleam of a dab of Wildroot.  Dustless and fresh, his impression was better; Miss Clay decided that, although he was not handsome (his chin, in her opinion, was too weak; and her gaze lingered, perhaps unfairly, upon the unpressed road-weariness of his clothing), he was at least decent.  He had one of his samples slung over his shoulder, like a soldier at rifle drill, and he smiled apologetically as he swung it neatly down, handling it as lightly as if it were made of wishes and feathers.  "I'm really sorry about the mess," he said.  "You know how it is driving through this desert.  If you keep the window up you suffocate, and if you put it down you strangle." 

The carpet, beneath his ministrations, was rapidly improving.  "You don't have to - " she began, and he cut in with a friendly shake of his head.

"I don't mind it.  Why, if I didn't clean up after myself you'd have to do it - and don't think it's all altruistic."  He laid a finger alongside his nose and smiled in a way which made Miss Clay second-guess her thoughts about his chin.  "You'd have to use an electric vacuum, probably, and you can hear those things all the way down at the end of the hall.  I like some quiet in a motel, myself."