some day Mr. Sipperley may fall under a truck or something. > No! The programme will be as I have sketched it out, Jeeves. After breakfast, kindly step out and purchase about a pound and a half of the best flour. The rest you may leave to
“Very good, sir.”
The first thing you need in matters of this kind, as every general knows, is a thorough knowledge of the terrain. Not know the terrain, and where are you?
Look at Napoleon and that sunken road at Waterloo. Silly ass!
I had a thorough knowledge of the terrain of Sippy’s office, and it ran as follows.
I won’t draw a plan, because my experience is that, when you’re reading one of those detective stories and come to the bit where the author draws a plan of the Manor, showing room where body was found, stairs leading to passageway, and all the rest of it, one just skips. I’ll simply explain in a few brief words.
The offices of The Mayfair Gazette were on the first floor of a mouldy old building off Covent Garden. You went in at a front door and ahead of you was a passage leading to the premises of Bellamy Bros. , dealers in seeds and garden produce. Ignoring the Bros. Bellamy, you proceeded upstairs and found two