“What advice?”
“Don’t count the cost if Nancy’s the prize, and don’t waste your time imagining that she’ll give up thirty-five quid a week for a husband and a fifth of that sum. But I do want an invitation to your wedding.” He chuckled with all the force of his ever-present good humour. “I know—we all know, Mr. Cheldon—that you’re a bit above us. You belong to the upper ten and we’re just—well just ordinary people. You would raise Nancy to your level, and she’s ambitious, believe me, yes, sir.” He held out his hand again, and Bobbie animated by the flattery he had had poured into him, pressed it gratefully.
“Good night, Mr. Ruslin,” he said in a shaky voice, “and if I may I will have another chat with you before I go down to my uncle’s place at the weekend.”
Nosey vanished into the darkness of the entrance to Ambassador Mansions and Bobbie strode homewards keenly alive to the soothing properties of the wind that blew gently on his face. His thoughts took him in turn from the extremes of triumph to the depths of despair and in between he found innumerable reasons for doubts and fears which clamoured for remedies. By the time he reached Galahad Mansions they had grown in number and strengthened in persistence.
“Anyhow I’ve got a real pal in Mr. Ruslin,” he muttered to himself by way of escape from his worries.
By a coincidence Mr. Ruslin was at that moment discussing Bobbie, who might have been troubled had he known that when Nosey climbed the stairs to his third-floor flat a shadow congealed and became Billy Bright.
“I saw you on the other side of the street,” said Nosey cheerfully, opening the door with his latchkey. “Once I thought that young fool would have spotted you.”
“He’d never have recognised me,” said Billy, entering the living-room which with a bedroom comprised ninety per cent of the flat. Without troubling to ask permission he began to operate with the whisky decanter and the soda siphon. “What happened, Nosey?”
His host rubbed his hands.
“Planted the seed, my dear Billy, planted the seed,” he exclaimed with enthusiasm. “Dropped a hint that he ought to scrag his uncle and the next moment laughed at the notion. Then I flattered him. Compared him to you to your disadvantage.”
The dancer grinned.
“I’ve never met a bigger ass in my life,” he said, but without heat or jealousy. “But what can you expect from a chap who’s been brought up in a hothouse by his darling mamma? You heard Nancy’s description of the old lady?”
“A scream. Billy,” he lowered his voice not because there could be any danger of an eavesdropper but in order to impress on his companion the seriousness of his words. “Billy, it’s a cinch. I thought when we first mentioned the affair that there was going to be some risk for us, but now I know there won’t. He believes everything, even that hundred quid a week tour on the continent.”
Billy laughed spontaneously.
“If he believes that he’ll believe anything,” he remarked, unconsciously paraphrasing Macaulay.
“He’s so much in love with Nancy that he’d believe the crowned heads of Europe were fighting one another to secure her for their state theatres. He can’t see that at her best she’s only second-rate. Billy, don’t yell when I tell you that he believes it’s her dancing that makes the partnership—that if you lost her you’d never get another engagement.”
Billy, lounging in an armchair, did no more than wink.
“Poor Nancy!” he said pityingly. “I haven’t told her yet that when our engagement with the ‘Frozen Fang’ ends next Saturday week there’s nothing more. I don’t want to chuck her unless—”
“You can get someone better,” Nosey added. “My dear Billy, she’s a rotten dancer. Her youth and good looks have helped her, but there are so many girls with looks and youth who can dance better that there’s no future for her.”
“Unless I married her,” said the dancer lazily.
“Billy.” Nosey’s voice was almost stern. “It’s no use going on with our little scheme unless you stick to business. I can’t have you working in Nancy’s camp as well as in mine. You understand? Marry her by all means, but let’s finish here and now.”
Billy stared at him in surprise.
“Now you’re the fool!” he growled. “How can I marry Nancy or anyone else? I’m up to my neck in debts; next week I may be kicked out of my flat; there’s not a restaurant in London that’ll give me credit, and the agents are getting so tired of me that they send the office boy out to say that there’s nothing doing at the moment. Nosey, when agents do that it’s as good as a signed statement that I’m not worth a cent in the dancing market, that no one wants me.”
“What about me?” asked Nosey dolefully. “I’ve been fighting to stave off bankruptcy for months and—” he paused and forced a smile.
Billy nodded understandingly.
“That little affair with Jack Fraddon? Still worrying about the money he invested in that theatrical agency?”
Nosey became positively grim.
“The last letter I had from his solicitor hinted at criminal proceedings.” He raised the growl to something akin to a shout. “What if I did use the partnership money to pay off a private debt; does it amount to theft? Of course not. Fraddon’s solicitor may say that I forged his client’s signature to three partnership cheques, but—”
“Don’t worry about that,” said Billy. “Keep all your energy and brains for the scheme that’s to make us rich.”
Nosey’s equanimity returned. Optimism suited him better than pessimism.
“He’s weak and he thinks he’s strong. I worked on his passion for Nancy, hinted that she was in danger from you, and appealed to his sense of chivalry without letting him guess my object. ‘You’re above us in class’ I said, and, Billy, he swallowed it all. He’ll go down to see his uncle or he’ll get at him in some way and all the time he’ll be thinking that it’s his uncle’s life against Nancy’s. That’s how I dropped a seed here and there, my boy.” He leaned back to chuckle appreciation of his finesse and subtlety.
“But supposing he doesn’t do the uncle in?” asked Billy doubtfully.
“I’ll lay any odds he won’t,” was the surprising answer.
“But I thought everything depended on that.”
Nosey Ruslin solemnly secured further liquid refreshment.
“Billy, you don’t know the world like I do,” he said, poising the glass in front of his face. “Didn’t I tell you this fellow Cheldon is weak but that he considers himself strong—the strong, silent man type?” He laughed before drinking. “He’s just the sort to make for the family mansion breathing fire and thunder and then to collapse. A talker, Billy, and not a worker. No pluck. Still, he could be driven to doing it, though he’d do it so clumsily that they’d have him in quod before he was home again. And in that event all our trouble would go for nothing.”
“Exactly.” Billy looked discontented. “Nosey, it’s useless going on with this unless there’s cash and a lot of it at the end. We must put Cheldon in possession of the property so that he can pay us our little share for our—er—help.”
Nosey smiled to himself.
“He says it’s worth ten thousand a year,” he murmured. “And a quarter of that each, Billy, would suit us nicely.”
“Two thousand five hundred a year!” Billy pronounced the words with a solemn hush. “Two thousand five hundred a year.”
“But we’ve got to have him so fixed that he won’t be able to wriggle out,” said Nosey with unusual earnestness. “We’re aiming high, Billy, very high, and everything will depend on our proof. Should it happen that Cheldon doesn’t remove his uncle and we arrange for a substitute there must be written proof, or at any rate something in writing, that can guarantee Cheldon forking out. Personally I prefer a lump sum. No quarterly or half-yearly payments for me. You never can tell what may happen to upset an arrangement of
that sort.”
“It ought to be easy to raise money on the property.” Billy laughed. “That young fool has talked so much of his rich uncle and of the property he must inherit when the uncle dies that although I’ve never seen it I seem to know every inch of it. Broadbridge Manor—that’s the name of the place. It must be about the size of Buckingham Palace. And the way he’s spouted to Nancy about his ancestors!” His expression darkened, and Nosey, watching him closely, saw disturbing signs.
“Billy.” The voice was peremptory.
“What’s the matter now?” The dancer’s manner was embarrassed.
“First, last and always you’ve got to remember that Nancy is not for you—at least, not until we’ve received every shilling we’ll be entitled to for keeping to ourselves the exact method by which Cheldon so unexpectedly inherited his uncle’s estate.”
“But you said yourself this evening that I was to make love to her,” he protested weakly.
“Exactly, and only for the purpose of keeping Cheldon’s jealousy at boiling point. He must be reminded every moment that Nancy is wanted by someone else. My little lie about a contract helped, but there must be a rival besides the continental tour, and you can be that.”
Billy’s expression cleared.
“It’s the part of the scheme I like best.” Then his face clouded again. “But somehow Nancy isn’t the same to me as she used to be.”
“Why should she? Here’s a good-looking johnnie with ten thousand a year in prospect who is willing to lick her boots. What can you offer her? She knows too much about poverty to see any romance in it. Cheldon thinks poverty is wonderful. That’s the difference between the three of you. But mind you, Billy, there’s one other thing.”
“Yes?” Billy yawned. Excitement was passing and there was nothing else to keep in subjection his physical exhaustion.
“Nancy must never be told of our plan.”
“Do you take me for a fool?”
“Yes, I do,” was the blunt retort. “You’re in love with Nancy. It’s because you’re in love with her that you’ve kept her as your dancing partner. Don’t I know that if you weren’t so desperately hard up you wouldn’t lift a finger to help Cheldon to marry her? But you want money more than you want her, and to get the money you’ve got to help me to make it possible for Cheldon to engage a church and parson.”
“She’s too good for him,” he muttered.
“Does Nancy think so? But we’re old enough, Billy, to be sensible—at least I am. Now listen to me before you biff off. I hinted to Cheldon that he could see me at any time, and that means he’ll be looking for me before I’m a dozen hours older. When we do meet I’ll drop a few more seeds.” The simile always amused him. “And by the time he’s starting for the mansion he’ll be thinking only of the quickest way to arrange for his rich uncle’s funeral.”
“But how will you trick him into providing proof—the proof that we must have?”
“Leave that to me.” Nosey looked excessively sly. “Billy, he’ll go down to Broadway—”
“Broadbridge Manor,” his companion corrected.
“To this whatever-you-call-it full of zeal for helping Uncle Tom—”
“That’s not the name. It’s Mally or—”
“What on earth does the name matter?” Nosey was almost testy. “And don’t interrupt. As I was saying, he’ll arrive at Broadway Mansion with a knife in one pocket and a packet of poison in the other, both birthday presents for Uncle Algy. But do you think he’ll take ’em out of his pockets when he’s welcomed to the ancestral halls? Not on your life. He’ll be too frightened to do more than look a bigger fool than he actually is and keep awake all night thinking about the hangman.”
“A fat lot of good that’ll do us,” Billy grumbled.
“My boy,” said Nosey who from the neck downwards bore some resemblance to Napoleon and who now assumed a Napoleonic pose, “it’s your profession to think with your feet—mine to think with my head. Leave the conduct of the campaign to me. I’ll produce the goods if you’ll promise to do as I tell you.”
“I don’t want any fireworks,” the dancer protested.
“They burn your fingers if you’re clumsy or unlucky.”
“No one will be any the wiser except ourselves,” was the re-assuring reply. “Can’t you see that I’m rehearsing Cheldon for the weekend at Broadway—Broad Haven—Oh, never mind! I never was good at remembering names. I’ll prime him up just for a trial run. He’ll do nothing except eat and sleep at his uncle’s house, but when he returns to us and to Nancy he’ll have been readied. Savvy?”
Billy sought the sofa.
“I’ll sleep here, Nosey,” he said in a tired voice. “Dead beat.”
A minute later his host was standing over him and watching his unconscious form, smiling to himself all the while as though he had just recalled a joke which had hitherto escaped his memory.
“If I had fifty quid it’ud be a certainty,” he murmured as he wended his way to his bedroom.
They had a noonday breakfast of kippers and coffee, and Billy Bright, unshaven and unoiled, ate with the appetite of a healthy schoolboy.
“Wonder if Cheldon will phone you,” he remarked, after removing the contents of a marmalade pot.
“Can’t do it here,” said Nosey drily, glancing sideways at the apparatus on the small table near the door. “Cut off three days ago. Matter of six quid.” He laughed shortly. “And for hours I’ve been trying to think of a scheme for raising fifty.”
“I don’t believe there’s so much money in London—at least not in the West End. But why fifty?”
“Want to lend young Cheldon most of it. Know why?”
“That’s easy. He’s hard up and he’ll be grateful.”
“Not exactly. He’ll have to acknowledge the money and with a bit of finesse I can get him to refer to his uncle’s early passing from a world of sorrow to a world of bliss.”
“A hundred to one against that,” said Billy, drawing his chair away from the table and searching his pockets for a cigarette.
“No, only about five to one.” Nosey frowned. “You’re forgetting that I’m in charge, Billy.”
“You don’t give me a chance to forget. But fire away. Any matches?”
“Fifty quid.” Nosey relieved his pockets of their contents, eight shillings and ninepence chiefly in coins of contemptible value. “I can’t remember a pal I don’t owe money to. Fifty quid,” he repeated.
A knock on the door startled him. Knocks on the door always had done so for nearly three weeks now.
“Another summons,” muttered Nosey. The knock was repeated. “You open the door, Billy. I’m not here of course.”
The dancer’s laughter instantly banished the tension.
“It’s only a note from Nancy,” said Billy, tearing open the envelope. “She says—what does she say?” He glanced through the letter quickly. “Tell her Mr. Ruslin will be there,” he called to the boy, and tossed the letter across the table to his fellow-conspirator.
“‘Bobbie has just phoned to say he wants you to lunch with him at the Villafranche,’” Nosey read. “‘I can’t come, and Bobbie says don’t be later than half-past one. Nancy.’”
“There you are, Billy, didn’t I tell you?” he cried triumphantly. “I knew I’d made an impression.”
“You’re a regular wonder, Nosey,” said Billy Bright admiringly. “This fellow Cheldon’s been haughty all along with me and the other chaps at the ‘Frozen Fang’. How did you manage it?”
“Ah, my boy, that’s only to be explained by what I once heard a bloke call magnetic charm and personality.” He laughed. “But that fifty quid, Billy. Fifty quid and it’s a certainty. What’s the time?” He went to the window and by straining his neck saw sufficient of a public house clock on the other side of the street to learn that it was a quarter to one
. “I’ll run along and try and tap Buddy Rogers,” he murmured to himself. He disappeared into the bedroom and as one was striking somewhere reappeared dressed for the expedition.
“Don’t hurry away, Billy, if it doesn’t suit your book,” he said genially “And if the brokers arrive while you’re here don’t let them grab your overcoat. I’m off to begin the campaign.” With unexpected seriousness he seized Billy’s right arm. “You promise you will back me up—take your orders from me?”
“Of course,” said Billy, staring at him. “Two thousand five hundred a year of the best—after this.” He shuddered, but he was alone now.
Chapter Four
“The matter with a chap like me,” said Nosey Ruslin across the luncheon table in the Villafranche, “is that he has more money than education. Mind you, I don’t say brains—education’s the word. Now you have brains and education, but no money.”
“I wish I had your ability to make money, Mr. Ruslin,” said Bobbie, with a wistful earnestness that carried its own conviction.
“It can be useful.” The tone was condescending. “But it isn’t everything, Mr. Cheldon.” He smiled knowingly. “It isn’t Nancy, for example.”
“Without money it won’t be Nancy,” the younger man rejoined uneasily.
The expansive form leaned heavily towards him and a fat hand patted his arm almost affectionately.
“Nancy knows you may come in for ten thousand a year any day,” he said consolingly. “Haven’t I told her that a score of times since she let me know she was keen on you.”
Bobbie flushed with pleasure.
“She said that, did she?”
“A hundred times if once, Mr. Cheldon. Do you know what I said? ‘Nancy, you can bank on the boy friend—he’s a winner. I know how to spot ’em and I’ve never made a mistake yet’. That’s what I said, Mr. Cheldon, when I’d only seen you in the ‘Frozen Fang’, and now that I know you personally I’m certain I didn’t make a bloomer.”
Murder in Piccadilly Page 8