'What?'
'He wrote back thanking me for the five grand and saying he couldn't make it, as his mother didn't want him to leave her. Said she had palpitations or something. It made me so mad that I did what I can see now was the wrong thing. I said to myself, "All right, Joe, if you can do without me, I can do without you," and I stayed on in America six solid years. By that time I suppose we had both taken it for granted that the marriage was washed up.'
'You didn't get a divorce?'
'Never occurred to me. I'm a one-man woman. I wouldn't have wanted to marry anyone, after having Joe. I just let things drift. Three years ago I ran into him in the street and we talked for a while. I asked him if he was all right for money, and he said he was. He had written a play that was being taken on tour, he said, and I wished him luck and he wished me luck, and I asked after his mother and he said she was living with him and still had the snakes, and I said that was fine, and I came away and cried all night.'
It cost Sally an effort to break the silence which followed. Speech seemed intrusive.
'And you saw him again today?'
'Yes,' said Leila Yorke. 'He was one of the waiters at the luncheon.' Sally gasped.
'A waiter!'
'That's what I said. They always get in a lot of extra waiters for these affairs, and he was one of them.'
'But that must mean---‘
‘---that he's absolutely broke. Of course it does, and I've got to find him. But how the devil do you find an extra waiter in the whole of London?'
Inside the house, as they wrestled with this problem, the telephone began to ring.
'Answer it, will you, Sally,' said Leila Yorke wearily. 'If it's that man Cornelius, say I'm dead.'
'It's somebody from Time,' said Sally, returning. 'They want to interview you about your new book.'
'Tell them to go and…No, better not. Male or female?'
'Female.'
'All right, tell the pest she can come tomorrow at five,' said Leila Yorke. 'That gives me twenty-four hours. Perhaps by then she'll have been run over by a bus or something.'
13
TUESDAY began well for Freddie's cousin George. Leaning over the Nook-Peacehaven fence as the other fed his rabbits, he not only sold Mr. Cornelius two of the five-shilling tickets for the forthcoming concert in aid of the Policemen's Orphanage but received from him the information that Castlewood was now occupied by a famous female novelist, a piece of news that stirred him like a police whistle. All female novelists, he knew, were wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice, and he was convinced that if this one were to be properly approached, with just the right organ note in the voice, business could not fail to result. Before starting on his beat, accordingly, he gave his uniform a lick with the clothes brush, said 'Mi, mi,' once or twice to himself in an undertone and clumping over to Castlewood in his official boots rang the bell.
Sally opened the door to him, and he gazed at her with undisguised admiration. Being betrothed to a charming girl who was something secretarial in a shipping office, a Miss Jennifer Tibbett, he took, of course, only an academic interest in the appearance of such others of her sex as he encountered, but his eye was not dimmed and he was able to see that here was something rather special in the way of nymphery. He approved whole-heartedly of this exhibit's trim little figure, her slightly tiptilted nose, her copper-coloured hair and the blue eyes that gazed into his. The last-named seemed to him to be shining like twin stars, as he believed the expression was, and he was not mistaken in thinking so. Sally, while preparing breakfast for her employer, had been meditating on Freddie and how much she loved him, and thoughts of that nature always give the eyes a sparkle.
'Oh, hullo,' he said. 'I mean What ho. I mean Good morning.'
The subject being one that he considered too sacred to be discussed with cousins, especially cousins who, he knew from experience, had a tendency to greet, his tales of love with uncouth guffaws, Freddie had not mentioned Sally to George. He shrank from having his idyll soiled by ribald criticism, and something told him that ribald was what George would inevitably be if informed that he, Freddie, had found the real thing at last. Intimate with the last of the Widgeons since their kindergarten days, George knew how volatile were his affections. It had, indeed, though Sally was not aware of it, been he who at that cocktail party had uttered those words about Piccadilly Circus and Hyde Park Corner which she had found so disturbing.
All that George knew of Sally, therefore, was what he had learned from Mr. Cornelius - to wit, that Miss Yorke in her descent on Valley Fields had been accompanied by a secretary. A rather attractive girl, the house agent had said, and to George, drinking her in, this seemed an understatement of the first water. She was, in his opinion, a Grade A pippin, and he could see Freddie, if and when he made her acquaintance, straightening his tie, shooting his cuffs and, like the horse to which allusion was made earlier, saying, 'Ha, ha' among the trumpets.
'I say,' he proceeded, 'do take a lenient view of this unwarrantable intrusion, as I've sometimes heard it called. I live next door, and I thought it would be neighbourly if I looked in and passed the time of day.'
'Oh?' Sally's smile was of such a calibre that, if he had not been armoured by his great love for Miss Tibbett, it would have gone through him like a bullet through blancmange. As it was, it made him totter for a moment. 'You're Freddie's cousin, the policeman. He was telling me about you.'
George was conscious of a feeling of awed respect for his kinsman's enterprise. He had always known that he was a quick worker, never letting the grass grow beneath his feet in his dealings with the young and beautiful, but in not only introducing himself to but in getting to be on such familiar terms with a girl who hadn't been around for more than about twenty-four hours he had, in George's opinion, excelled himself. 'Freddie' already! ‘Quick service, that. Why, in his own case it had been a matter of three weeks before he had got past the surname stage. It was a gift, of course, and Freddie had it and he hadn't.
'That's right,' he said. 'Great chap, Freddie. Always reminds me of one of those fellows who bound on stage with a racquet at the beginning of a play and say, "Tennis, anyone?" '
Sally stiffened.
'He isn't in the least like that.'
She spoke coldly, and George saw that he had said the wrong thing. He hastened to correct himself.
'I only meant he's not a beefy bird like me, but slim and graceful and all that.'
'Yes, you're right there.'
'Svelte, shall we call him?'
'If you like.'
'Fine,' said George, relieved. 'We pencil Freddie in as svelte. And now, for I shall have to be popping off in a moment to discourage the local crime wave, could I have a word with Miss Leila Yorke?'
'She's breakfasting in bed. Can I give her a message?'
George fingered his chin.
'Well, it might work that way,' he said dubiously, 'but I had hoped to come face to face with her and give her the old personality, if you understand what I mean. You see, I'm trying to sell tickets for the annual concert in aid of the Policemen's Orphanage, to be held at the Oddfellows Hall in Ogilvy Street next month, and my chances of success are always much brighter if I can get hold of the prospect by the coat button and give him - or as in this case, her - all that stuff about supporting a charitable organization which is not only most deserving in itself but is connected with a body of men to whom - or she - as a householder will be the first to admit that he or she owes the safety of his or her person and the tranquillity of his or her home - in other words, to cut a long story short and get right down to the nub, the police. There's a lot more of it, but you will have got the idea.'
'Yes. I've got it. Did you think all that up by yourself?'
'Good Lord, no. It's written out for us by the big shots, and we memorize it. All over Valley Fields and adjoining suburbs at this moment a hundred flatties are intoning it in the ears of the rate-paying public'
'It must sound heavenly. Will it be a go
od concert?'
'Sensational.'
'How much are the tickets?'
'They vary. The five-shilling ones are five shillings, the half-crown ones half a crown, the two-shilling ones---'
'Two shillings?'
'You guessed it right off,' said George, regarding her with an increase of his previous admiration, as if stunned by this blending of brains and beauty. ‘And the shilling ones are a shilling and the sixpenny ones sixpence. The last named, those at a tanner, I don't recommend very highly, because all they draw is standing-room. They are traditionally reserved for the canaille and the underprivileged, the poor slobs who can't afford anything better.'
Sally had made a discovery.
'You do talk beautifully,' she said.
'I do, rather,' George agreed.
'And just like Freddie.'
'Better than Freddie, I should have said. Well, will you toddle off like a dear little soul and see if you can work Miss Yorke up to the five-bob standard. A woman of her eminence ought to be in the first three rows.'
Sally went upstairs and found Leila Yorke sipping tea and looking moody. Her air was that of one who is thinking of extra waiters.
'Did I hear the front door bell?' she asked.
'Yes, it was a caller.'
'Cornelius?'
'Not this time. It was Freddie's cousin George, the cop. He's selling tickets for the concert in aid of the Policemen's Orphanage.'
'Oh, a touch?'
'On a very modest scale. Ten bob will cover it, and you
will be supporting a charitable organization which is not only
most deserving in itself---'
'Oh, all right. Look in my bag. On the dressing table.'
Leila Yorke had spoken listlessly, but now she suddenly sat up and became animated.
'Did you say this bird was a policeman?'
'Complete with helmet and regulation boots. Why?'
'Wouldn't a policeman know all about private eyes?'
'Oh! You mean---?'
'To look for Joe. Go back and ask him if he can recommend somebody for the job.'
It was an idea, but to Sally's mind not a very good one.
'Do you think a private detective could do anything? I know they make enquiries and all that, but wouldn't it be rather like looking for a needle in a haystack?'
'Well, that's what private eyes are for. Go and ask him. I've got to find Joe, and this is the only way.'
'I suppose it is,' said Sally, and returned to the front steps, where George was standing like a large blue statue, thinking, apparently, of absolutely nothing, unless, of course, as it may well have been, his mind was on Miss Jennifer Tibbett. Tapped on the arm and hearing the words 'Hi, officer!', he came out of his coma and the light of hope flashed into his face.
'Any luck?'
'Two of the five-bob.'
'You're terrific! Was it a fearful struggle? Did you have to twist her arm?'
'Oh, no, she was a cheerful giver. Well, fairly cheerful. She's a bit down at the moment because she's lost her husband.'
George clicked his tongue, sympathetically.
'I say, rather a bad show, that. Enough to give any woman the pip. Not but what we've all of us got to go some time. What is it they say all flesh is as? Grass, isn't it?'
'Oh, he isn't dead, he's an extra waiter.'
'I'm not sure I quite got that. An extra what?'
Sally explained the position of affairs, and George said Oh, he saw now. For a moment, he added, he had not completely grasped the gist.
'And she asked me to ask you,' said Sally, 'if you knew any private eyes.'
'You mean shamuses?'
'That's right.'
'I don't, and I don't want to. Frightful bounders, all of them, from what I've heard. Always watching husbands and wives and trying to get the necessary evidence. We of the Force look down on them like anything. Does Miss Yorke want to scoop one in to try and find her husband?'
'That's the idea.'
'He'll have his work cut out for him.'
'So I told her.'
'He'll be looking for a needle in a haystack.'
'I said that, too.'
'Well, I wish I could help you. I'll tell you what I think her best plan would be. She ought to ask her solicitor.'
'Why, of course. A solicitor would probably know dozens of private detectives.'
'I think so. Solicitors always have oodles of shady work to be done - documents stolen from rival firms, heirs kidnapped, wills pinched and destroyed and so on. Trot along and put it up to her. And now, if you'll excuse me,' said George, 'I must be buzzing off on my official duties, or heaven knows what the denizens of Valley Fields will be getting up to in my absence. Awfully nice to have seen you.'
Sally returned to Leila Yorke, who had finished her breakfast and was enjoying one of her mild cigars.
'He says he doesn't know any private eyes, but he thinks a solicitor would.'
'I wonder.'
'It's worth trying.'
'I suppose so. All right, go and see Johnny Shoesmith.'
'Very well. I'd better wait till the afternoon. There are a lot of supplies to be got in, and if I'm not here to cook lunch for you, you'll try to do an omelette and make a frightful hash of it. Remember last time? I can't think why you never learned to cook. Didn't you have to get your own meals when you were a sob sister?'
'Me? You are speaking of the time when I was young and beautiful and men lined up in queues to feed me. Your Freddie's Uncle Rodney alone was good for six or seven dinners a week. And when I married, Joe did the cooking. He could cook anything, that boy. We had a little flat in Prince of Wales's Mansions, Battersea, and every night.’
A tear stole into Leila Yorke's eye, and Sally left the room hastily. Taking her shopping bag, she went out into Mulberry Grove and met George, who was emerging from the gate of Peacehaven. He had postponed his grappling with the criminal element of Valley Fields in order to return home and get his cigarettes, one—or possibly more - of which he hoped to be able to smoke when the sergeant's eye was not on him.
'Hullo,' he said. 'We meet again.'
'We do,' said Sally. 'I'm going shopping. Oh, by the way did you find your friend when you got back yesterday?'
George cocked an enquiring eye.
'What friend would that be?'
'I only caught a glimpse of her as I went by in the car. A tallish, fair girl. She was leaning on the gate of Peacehaven.'
George's face cleared.
'Oh, ah, yes. I know the girl you mean. I met her and we chatted of this and that. But she was a friend of Freddie's, not of mine. I had never seen her before in my life. Well, pip-pip once more,' said George, and with a courteous salute went on his way.
14
THE day which had turned out so well for Freddie's cousin George had proved less enjoyable for Mr. Shoesmith of Lincoln's Inn Fields. At breakfast a usually meticulous cook had served up to him boiled eggs which should have been taken from the saucepan at least a minute earlier and not content with this tort or misdemeanour had scorched the toast to the consistency of leather. At lunch at his club, the Demosthenes, he had been cornered by old Mr. Lucas-Gore, whose conversation was always a bleating melange of anecdotes about Henry James, an author in whom the solicitor's interest had never been anything but tepid. Towards the middle of the afternoon the weather had become close and oppressive, with thunder threatening. And at four o'clock Leila Yorke's secretary had appeared, babbling of private detectives.
A wholesome awe of Leila Yorke, bred in him from the days of his youth, had kept him from throwing the girl out on her ear, as he had wished to do, but he had got rid of her as quickly as possible, and scarcely had she gone when his daughter Myrtle arrived, interrupting him at a moment when he had hoped to be free to attend to the tangled affairs of Freddie's uncle, Lord Blicester, who was having his annual trouble with the income tax authorities. It was almost, Mr. Shoesmith felt, as if Providence were going out of its way
to persecute him, and he was reminded of the case of Job, who had been the victim of a somewhat similar series of misfortunes.
Myrtle was not looking her sunniest. Her eyes smouldered, her lips were drawn in a tight line and her general aspect resembled that of the thunder-clouds which were banking up in the sky outside. She was a human replica of one of those V-shaped depressions extending over the greater part of the United Kingdom south of the Hebrides which are such a feature of the English summer, and Mr. Shoesmith gazed at her wanly. Knowing her moods, he could recognize the one now gripping her. She had a grievance, and experience had taught him that when she had a grievance, she sat and talked for hours, taking up time which could have been more profitably employed on lucrative work such as the tangled affairs of Lord Blicester. Wrenched from these, he felt like a dog deprived of a bone.
'Ah, Myrtle,' he said, resisting a temptation to strike his child with the Blicester dossier. 'Take a chair. Unpleasant weather. How is Alexander?'
He was not really interested in the health of his son-in-law, whose only merit in his eyes was his colossal wealth, but one must start a conversation somehow.
Myrtle, who had already taken a chair and looked to her father's anxious eyes as if she had glued herself to it, sat for a space breathing tempestuously through her nose. Her resemblance to a thundercloud had become more noticeable.
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