"What's this about the Duke of Edgehill?" demanded George sternly.
"Me and Bingo? We're engaged."
"But then - what you said just now -"
"Oh, that," said Mary Montresor. "You see, I haven't made up my mind who I shall actually marry."
"Then why did you get engaged to him?"
"Just to see if I could. Everybody seemed to think it would be frightfully difficult, and it wasn't a bit!"
"Very rough luck on - er - Bingo," said George, mastering his embarrassment at calling a real live duke by a nickname. "Not at all," said Mary Montresor. "It will be good for Bingo, if anything could do him good - which I doubt."
George made another discovery - again aided by a convenient poster.
"Why, of course, it's cup day at Ascot. I should have thought that was the one place you were simply bound to be today."
Mary Montresor sighed.
"I wanted a holiday," she said plaintively.
"Why, so did I," said George, delighted. "And as a result my uncle has kicked me out to starve."
"Then in case we marry," said Mary, "my twenty thousand a year may come in useful?"
"It will certainly provide us with a few home comforts," said George.
"Talking of homes," said Mary, "let's go in the country and find a home we would like to live in."
It seemed a simple and charming plan. They negotiated Putney Bridge, reached the Kingston by-pass and with a sigh of satisfaction Mary pressed her foot down on the accelerator. They got into the country very quickly. It was half an hour later that with a sudden exclamation Mary shot out a dramatic hand and pointed.
On the brow of a hill in front of them there nestled a house of what house agents describe (but seldom truthfully) as "old-world charm." Imagine the description of most houses in the country really come true for once, and you get an idea of this house.
Mary drew up outside a white gate.
"We'll leave the car and go up and look at it. It's our house!"
"Decidedly, it's our house," agreed George. "But just for the moment other people seem to be living in it."
Mary dismissed the other people with a wave of her hand. They walked up the winding drive together. The house appeared even more desirable at close quarters.
"We'll go and peep in at all the windows," said Mary.
George demurred.
"Do you think the other people -"
"I shan't consider them. It's our house - they're only living in it by a sort of accident. Besides, it's a lovely day and they're sure to be out. And if anyone does catch us, I shall say - I shall say - that I thought it was Mrs - Mrs Pardonstenger's house, and that I am so sorry I made a mistake."
"Well, that ought to be safe enough," said George reflectively.
They looked in through windows. The house was delightfully furnished. They had just got to the study when footsteps crunched on the gravel behind them and they turned to face a most irreproachable butler.
"Oh!" said Mary. And then putting on her most enchanting smile, she said, "Is Mrs Pardonstenger in? I was looking to see if she was in the study."
"Mrs Pardonstenger is at home, madam," said the butler. "Will you come this way, please."
They did the only thing they could. They followed him. George was calculating what the odds against this happening could possibly be. With a name like Pardonstenger he came to the conclusion it was about one in twenty thousand. His companion whispered, "Leave it to me. It will be all right."
George was only too pleased to leave it to her. The situation, he considered, called for feminine finesse.
They were shown into a drawing room. No sooner had the butler left the room than the door almost immediately reopened and a big florid lady with peroxide hair came in expectantly.
Mary Montresor made a movement towards her, then paused in well-stimulated surprise.
"Why!" she exclaimed. "It isn't Amy! What an extraordinary thing!"
"It is an extraordinary thing," said a grim voice.
A man had entered behind Mrs Pardonstenger, an enormous man with a bulldog face and a sinister frown. George thought he had never seen such an unpleasant brute. The man closed the door and stood with his back against it.
"A very extraordinary thing," he repeated sneeringly. "But I fancy we understand your little game!" He suddenly produced what seemed an outsize in revolvers. "Hands up. Hands up, I say. Frisk 'em, Bella."
George in reading detective stories had often wondered what it meant to be frisked. Now he knew. Bella (alias Mrs P.) satisfied herself that neither he nor Mary concealed any lethal weapons on their persons.
"Thought you were mighty clever, didn't you?" sneered the man.
"Coming here like this and playing the innocents. You've made a mistake this time - a bad mistake. In fact, I very much doubt whether your friends and relations will ever see you again. Ah! You would, would you?" as George made a movement. "None of your games. I'd shoot you as soon as look at you."
"Be careful, George," quavered Mary.
"I shall," said George with feeling. "Very careful."
"And now march," said the man. "Open the door, Bella. Keep your hands above your heads, you two. The lady first - that's right. I'll come behind you both. Across the hall. Upstairs..."
They obeyed. What else could they do? Mary mounted the stairs, her hands held high. George followed. Behind them came the huge ruffian, revolver in hand.
Mary reached the top of the staircase and turned the corner. At the same moment, without the least warning, George lunged out a fierce backward kick. He caught the man full in the middle and he capsized backwards down the stairs. In a moment George had turned and leaped down after him, kneeling on his chest. With his right hand, he picked up the revolver which had fallen from the other's hand as he fell.
Bella gave a scream and retreated through a baize door. Mary came running down the stairs, her face as white as paper.
"George, you haven't killed him?"
The man was lying absolutely still. George bent over him.
"I don't think I've killed him," he said regretfully. "But he's certainly taken the count all right."
"Thank God." She was breathing rapidly.
"Pretty neat," said George with permissible self-admiration. "Many a lesson to be learnt from a jolly old mule. Eh, what?"
Mary pulled at his hand.
"Come away," she cried feverishly. "Come away quick."
"If we had something to tie this fellow up with," said George, intent on his own plans. "I suppose you couldn't find a bit of rope or cord anywhere?"
"No, I couldn't," said Mary. "And come away, please - please - I'm so frightened."
"You needn't be frightened," said George with manly arrogance.
"I'm here."
"Darling George, please - for my sake. I don't want to be mixed up in this. Please let's go."
The exquisite way in which she breathed the words "for my sake" shook George's resolution. He allowed himself to be led forth from the house and hurried down the drive to the waiting car. Mary said faintly: "You drive. I don't feel I can." George took command of the wheel.
"But we've got to see this thing through," he said. "Heaven knows what blackguardism that nasty-looking fellow is up to. I won't bring the police into it if you don't want me to - but I'll have a try on my own. I ought to be able to get on their track all right."
"No, George, I don't want you to."
"We have a first-class adventure like this, and you want me to back out of it? Not on my life."
"I'd no idea you were so bloodthirsty," said Mary tearfully.
"I'm not bloodthirsty. I didn't begin it. The damned cheek of the fellow - threatening us with an outsize revolver. By the way - why on earth didn't that revolver go off when I kicked him downstairs?"
He stopped the car and fished the revolver out of the side pocket of the car where he had placed it. After examining it, he whistled.
"Well, I'm damned! The thing isn't loaded.
If I'd known that -" He paused, wrapped in thought. "Mary, this is a very curious business."
"I know it is. That's why I'm begging you to leave it alone."
"Never," said George firmly.
Mary uttered a heart-rending sigh.
"I see," she said, "that I shall have to tell you. And the worst of it is that I haven't the least idea how you'll take it."
"What do you mean - tell me?"
"You see, it's like this." She paused. "I feel girls should stick together nowadays - they should insist on knowing something about the men they meet."
"Well?" said George, utterly fogged.
"And the most important thing to a girl is how a man will behave in an emergency - has he got presence of mind - courage - quickwittedness? That's the kind of thing you can hardly ever know until it's too late. An emergency mightn't arise until you'd been married for years. All you do know about a man is how he dances and if he's good at getting taxis on a wet night."
"Both very useful accomplishments," George pointed out.
"Yes, but one wants to feel a man is a man."
"The great wide-open spaces where men are men," George quoted absently.
"Exactly. But we have no wide-open spaces in England. So one has to create a situation artificially. That's what I did."
"Do you mean -"
"I do mean. That house, as it happens, actually is my house. We came to it by design - not by chance. And the man - that man that you nearly killed -"
"Yes?"
"He's Rube Wallace - the film actor. He does prize fighters, you know. The dearest and gentlest of men. I engaged him. Bella's his wife. That's why I was so terrified that you'd killed him. Of course the revolver wasn't loaded. It's a stage property. Oh, George, are you very angry?"
"Am I the first person you have - er - tried this test on?"
"Oh, no. There have been - let me see - nine and a half!"
"Who was the half?" inquired George with curiosity.
"Bingo," replied Mary coldly.
"Did any of them think of kicking like a mule?"
"No - they didn't. Some tried to bluster and some gave in at once, but they all allowed themselves to be marched upstairs and tied up, and gagged. Then, of course, I managed to work myself loose from my bonds - like in books - and I freed them and we got away finding the house empty."
"And nobody thought of the mule trick or anything like it?"
"No."
"In that case," said George graciously, "I forgive you."
"Thank you, George," said Mary meekly.
"In fact," said George, "the only question that arises is: Where do we go now? I'm not sure if it's Lambeth Palace or Doctor's Commons, wherever that is."
"What are you talking about?"
"The license. A special license, I think, is indicated. You're too fond of getting engaged to one man and then immediately asking another one to marry you."
"I didn't ask you to marry me!"
"You did. At Hyde Park Corner. Not a place I should choose for a proposal myself, but everyone has their idiosyncrasies in these matters."
"I did nothing of the kind. I just asked, as a joke, whether you would care to marry me? It wasn't intended seriously."
"If I were to take counsel's opinion, I am sure that he would say it constituted a genuine proposal. Besides, you know you want to marry me."
"I don't."
"Not after nine and a half failures? Fancy what a feeling of security it will give you to go through life with a man who can extricate you from any dangerous situation."
Mary appeared to weaken slightly at this telling argument. But she said firmly: "I wouldn't marry any man unless he went on his knees to me."
George looked at her. She was adorable. But George had other characteristics of the mule besides its kick. He said with equal firmness:
"To go on one's knees to any woman is degrading. I will not do it."
Mary said with enchanting wistfulness: "What a pity."
They drove back to London. George was stern and silent. Mary's face was hidden by the brim of her hat. As they passed Hyde Park Corner, she murmured softly: "Couldn't you go on your knees to me?"
George said firmly: "No."
He felt he was being a superman. She admired him for his attitude.
But unluckily he suspected her of mulish tendencies herself. He drew up suddenly.
"Excuse me," he said.
He jumped out of the car, retraced his steps to a fruit barrow they had passed and returned so quickly that the policeman who was bearing down upon them to ask what they meant by it, had not had time to arrive.
George drove on, lightly tossing an apple into Mary's lap.
"Eat more fruit," he said. "Also symbolical."
"Symbolical?"
"Yes, originally Eve gave Adam an apple. Nowadays Adam gives Eve one. See?"
"Yes," said Mary rather doubtfully.
"Where shall I drive you?" inquired George formally.
"Home, please."
He drove to Grosvenor Square. His face was absolutely impassive.
He jumped out and came round to help her out. She made a last appeal.
"Darling George - couldn't you? Just to please me?"
"Never," said George.
And at that moment it happened. He slipped, tried to recover his balance and failed. He was kneeling in the mud before her. Mary gave a squeal of joy and clapped her hands.
"Darling George! Now I will marry you. You can go straight to Lambeth Palace and fix up with the Archbishop of Canterbury about it."
"I didn't mean to," said George hotly. "It was a bl - er - a banana skin." He held the offender up reproachfully.
"Never mind," said Mary. "It happened. When we quarrel and you throw it in my teeth that I proposed to you, I can retort that you had to go on your knees to me before I would marry you. And all because of that blessed banana skin! It was a blessed banana skin you were going to say?"
"Something of the sort," said George.
At five-thirty that afternoon, Mr Leadbetter was informed that his nephew had called and would like to see him.
"Called to eat humble pie," said Mr Leadbetter to himself. "I dare say I was rather hard on the lad, but it was for his own good."
And he gave orders that George should be admitted. George came in airily.
"I want a few words with you, Uncle," he said. "You did me a grave injustice this morning. I should like to know whether, at my age, you could have gone out into the street, disowned by your relatives, and between the hours of eleven-fifteen and five-thirty acquire an income of twenty thousand a year. That is what I have done!"
"You're mad, boy."
"Not mad; resourceful! I am going to marry a young, rich, beautiful society girl. One, moreover, who is throwing over a duke for my sake."
"Marrying a girl for her money? I'd not have thought it of you."
"And you'd have been right. I would never have dared to ask her if she hadn't - very fortunately - asked me. She retracted afterwards, but I made her change her mind. And do you know, Uncle, how all this was done? By a judicious expenditure of twopence and a grasping of the golden ball of opportunity." "Why the tuppence?" asked Mr Leadbetter, financially interested. "One banana - off a barrow. Not everyone would have thought of that banana. Where do you get a marriage license? Is it Doctor's Commons or Lambeth Palace?"
THE RAJAH'S EMERALD
With a serious effort James Bond bent his attention once more on the little yellow book in his hand. On its outside the book bore the simple but pleasing legend, "Do you want your salary increased by £300 per annum?" Its price was one shilling. James had just finished reading two pages of crisp paragraphs instructing him to look his boss in the face, to cultivate a dynamic personality, and to radiate an atmosphere of efficiency. He had now arrived at subtler matter, "There is a time for frankness, there is a time for discretion," the little yellow book informed him. "A strong man does not always blurt out all he knows." James let the
little book close and, raising his head, gazed out over a blue expanse of ocean. A horrible suspicion assailed him, that he was not a strong man. A strong man would have been in command of the present situation, not a victim to it. For the sixtieth time that morning James rehearsed his wrongs.
This was his holiday. His holiday ! Ha, ha! Sardonic laughter. Who had persuaded him to come to that fashionable seaside resort, Kimpton-on-Sea? Grace. Who had urged him into an expenditure of more than he could afford? Grace. And he had fallen in with the plan eagerly. She had got him here, and what was the result?
While he was staying in an obscure boarding house about a mile and a half from the sea front, Grace, who should have been in a similar boarding house (not the same one - the proprieties of James's circle were very strict), had flagrantly deserted him and was staying at no less than the Esplanade Hotel upon the sea front.
It seemed that she had friends there. Friends! Again James laughed sardonically. His mind went back over the last three years of his leisurely courtship of Grace. Extremely pleased she had been when he lust singled her out for notice. That was before she had risen to heights of glory in the millinery salons at Messrs.
Bartles in the High Street. In those early days it had been James who gave himself airs; now, alas! the boot was on the other leg.
Grace was what is technically known as "earning good money." It had made her uppish. Yes, that was it, thoroughly uppish. A confused fragment out of a poetry book came back to James's mind, something about "thanking heaven fasting, for a good man's love." But there was nothing of that kind of thing observable about Grace. Well-fed on an Esplanade Hotel breakfast, she was ignoring the good man's love utterly. She was indeed accepting the attentions of a poisonous idiot called Claud Sopworth, a man, James felt convinced, of no moral worth whatsoever.
James ground a heel into the earth and scowled darkly at the horizon. Kimpton-on-Sea. What had possessed him to come to such a place? It was pre-eminently a resort of the rich and fashionable, it possessed two large hotels, and several miles of picturesque bungalows belonging to fashionable actresses, rich merchants and those members of the English aristocracy who had married wealthy wives. The rent, furnished, of the smallest bungalow was twenty-five guineas a week. Imagination boggled at what the rent of the large ones might amount to. There was one of these palaces immediately behind James's seat. It belonged to that famous sportsman Lord Edward Campion, and there were staying there at the moment a houseful of distinguished guests including the Rajah of Maraputna, whose wealth was fabulous.
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