Mr. Zero

by Patricia Wentworth

  Gay said, “Hully, Algy!” ran down the steps, jumped into the taxi, and settled herself, all in one quick flash.

  Algy Somers was one of the very kind-hearted people who helped to make life with Aunt Agatha endurable by taking her out. The fact that she was wearing the same old black dress in which she had dined and danced ever since the parents had departed to Madeira was not to interfere in any way with her enjoyment, neither did she mean to lose a single minute of it. That was another nice thing about Gay, she enjoyed everything so much. Her eyes shone and her cheeks glowed as she turned to Algy and enquired,

  “Where are we going?”

  Algy looked at her admiringly, and then looked away, because he was a careful young man and girls were apt to get wind in the head if looked at like that. Gay, of course, wasn’t like other girls, but still you had to watch your step. He said,

  “I’m awfully sorry about dinner. I had to stay over time. Carstairs had a lot of stuff he wanted typed-confidential stuff, you know, so I couldn’t take it home and do it later.”

  Gay looked away. She looked straight out in front of her over the bonnet of the car and along the dark street. It was one of those quiet streets where the houses look as if everyone in them always went to bed at ten o’clock. She said in a small, vague voice,

  “Mr. Carstairs is Mr. Lushington’s private secretary, isn’t he?”

  Algy stared at her profile.

  “Well, you ought to know that by now.”

  Gay laughed suddenly.

  “If you’d been talking to the sort of person I’ve been talking to this afternoon, you wouldn’t be sure you knew anything. I wouldn’t have sworn to my own name by the time I got away. I hope you don’t expect me to be bright and sparkling, because that sort of thing leaves you as dull as ditchwater.”

  Algy was going to say that she couldn’t be dull if she tried, but he thought better of it. An ambitious young man who has hopes of a political career cannot be too careful. He had begun to find Gay a trifle unbalancing. He proceeded to steady himself by talking about the career.

  “I think Carstairs is getting a bit reconciled to having me about,” he said. “He’s Lushington’s right hand of course, and he’s so appallingly efficient himself that he can’t stand anyone who isn’t a hundred per cent punctual, orderly, accurate, discreet, and all the rest of the official virtues. Brewster, who’s been there ten years, is the model-a frightfully brainy chap, and knows the job from A to Z. Well, when I came in, and when Carstairs knew that I was a sort of umpteenth cousin of Lushington’s, he naturally made up his mind that I was going to be completely useless, and it’s only by keeping the nose on the grindstone in the most unremitting manner that I have managed to allay his foul suspicions. Do you know that I’ve only been late once in eighteen solid months?”

  “Marvellous!” said Gay. “How do you do it?”

  “Well, the once was quite early on, and Carstairs looked at me with a cold, penetrating eye and said in a voice like a north-east wind, ‘This must not occur again, Somers.’ And, my child, I saw to it that it didn’t occur. Look here, I thought we’d dance-and then what about a spot of supper and a cabaret? They’ve got a marvellous show at the Ducks and Drakes.”

  “Lovely,” said Gay.

  The Ducks and Drakes had a very good floor. People were telling each other that it was the best floor in London. There was a new sort of cocktail, and a new coloured dancer-“Simply too marvellous, my dear-her boa-constrictor dance-well, no bones at all! The most amazing thing!” This being the case, the floor was, naturally, so crowded that for the most part you did not so much dance as oscillate gently to the strains of the latest swing tune.

  Gay and Algy oscillated with the rest. A saxophone moaned like a wounded siren. The rhythm drummed and thrummed and beat its way through the commonplace melody. The most archaic sense of all awoke to it, thrilled to it, kept time to it. The soloist lifted up a nasal tenor and sang with swooning sweetness, “Heaven’s in your arms, and I’m there.”

  When the music stopped they found two chairs and one of the little red and black striped tables. There were quite a lot of well known people in the room, and Algy was much gratified at being able to do showman.

  “That’s Mrs. Parkington who broke the woman’s altitude record the other day. They say she’s an awfully good sort. And that’s Parkington with her. They’re the most devoted couple, but he never stops being sick in a plane, so she has to leave him behind-she says he unnerves her. And that’s Jessie Lanklater, the new tap-dancer, and the man with her is Lew Levinsky who wrote the music of Up She Goes Again. And the woman with red hair who has just come in is Poppy Wessex-Gardner.”

  Gay pricked up her ears. She saw a very tall, very thin woman with flaming hair and flaming lipstick in a long sheath-like garment which looked as it if was made of sheet cooper. Strands of copper wire were wound about her arms from shoulder to wrist. Her open sandals disclosed orange toe-nails.

  “Does she always dress like that?”

  “Or more so,” said Algy. “The little fat, bald man is the husband who provides the cash-masses, and masses, and masses of cash. And the fellow who looks as if he’d just bought us all at a jumble sale is one Danvers. I don’t know anything about him except his name, and I don’t want to.”

  “I shouldn’t think you did.”

  “I don’t. I say, there’s Cyril Brewster, the chap I was telling you about. I don’t know who the lovely he’s talking to is, but she’s something to write home about, isn’t she?”

  Mr. Brewster was a thin, dark young man with a pince-nez and an earnest expression. Gay looked at him, and set him down as a bromide. Then she looked past him to a vision in blue and silver. She said,

  “He’s talking to my cousin, Sylvia Colesborough.”

  Algy gazed.

  “I say-is she really your cousin?”

  Gay laughed without quite knowing why. Why should you laugh when your best young man is quite obviously struck all of a heap by someone else? She laughed and said,

  “I suppose she is.”

  “How do you mean, you suppose?”

  Gay laughed again.

  “Well, she and Marcia and I were at school together, and when we were pleased with each other we were cousins, and when we quarrelled we weren’t. I think we had the same great-great-grandfather.”

  “Definitely a cousin,” said Algy. “I say, she’s marvellous-isn’t she? Will you introduce me? I’d like to cut out Brewster, and I’d like to be able to say I’d danced with anything as marvellous as that.”

  Gay flew a little scarlet flag in either cheek, a little scarlet danger flag. She said in a small, meek voice,

  “And what happens to me, darling? Do I practice being a wallflower, or do I dance with Cyril?”

  “You dance with Cyril,” said Algy firmly. Then he grinned, and with the grin went back to being the schoolboy of ten years ago. “Unless you’d rather be a wallflower. You’d be awfully decorative, but I don’t suppose you’ve had enough practice to do it really well. I say, you don’t mind, do you? I expect it did sound a bit curt, but I would like to dance with her-just once-just to say I’d done it.”

  “All right, you shall. She dances beautifully too, but your Cyril Brewster’s got her for this one.”

  “Do you want to dance it?”

  Gay shook her head.

  “I’d rather look on, then we can catch them as soon as they stop. Besides, I want to talk to you.”

  Algy’s eyes followed the blue and silver vision.

  “She’s wasted on Brewster,” he said with regret. “He’ll bore her.”

  Gay suppressed a giggle.

  “He won’t. The man doesn’t live who can bore Sylvia.”

  Algy looked at her darkly.

  “You don’t know Brewster. He’d bore anyone, and he’d do it as perseveringly and efficiently as he does everything else.”

  “Then I’d rather be a wallflower,” said Gay.

  Algy smiled upon
her kindly.

  “Oh, no, you wouldn’t. But I’ll rescue you after one dance-I swear I will. Anyhow, he’s quite an efficient dancer.”

  “Algy, I want to talk to you.”

  “All right, I’m here. What do you want to talk about?”

  “I want to ask you something.”

  “All right, ask away, I haven’t got a kingdom, but if I had one, you could have half of it. I can’t say fairer than that.”

  And he hadn’t meant to say that. It just slipped out. There was something about Gay sitting up rather straight and looking rather earnest that made it slip out. The blue and silver lovely was a godsend, because be mustn’t, he really mustn’t slip over the edge of being in love with Gay, and when she looked at him with something young and a little forlorn behind the sparkle in her eyes, the edge was dangerously near.

  “Algy, what would you do if someone tried to blackmail you?”

  “I should tell him to go to blazes,” said Algy promptly.

  Gay considered this. It seemed to her a simple and efficacious method, but it was no use commending it to Sylvia. She sighed and said,

  “Suppose you couldn’t-I mean, suppose you weren’t like that-I mean some people can’t tell people to go to blazes-they just can’t.”

  Algy’s agreeable features took on an expression of gravity.

  “I think they had better try,” he said. “And if they can’t manage it themselves, I think they had better go to the police. After all, that’s what the police are for, you know.”

  “That’s all very well,” said Gay, “but suppose the blackmailer wouldn’t go to blazes, and you couldn’t go to the police.”

  “Why couldn’t you?” said Algy quickly.

  Gay looked serious too.

  “The thing you were being blackmailed about might be the sort of thing you couldn’t go and chat about to a policeman.”

  Algy began to feel dreadfully perturbed.

  “Look here, is this a hypothetical case, or is somebody blackmailing you?”

  Gay flashed into brilliance. Her eyes sparkled, and the red flags danced in a brisk, angry breeze.

  “What do you think I’ve done?”

  “I didn’t think you’d done anything.”

  “Well, you don’t get blackmailed for nothing-do you?”

  “I don’t know-I’ve never tried.”

  “Nor have I!”

  There was anger between them under the wordplay-quick cut and thrust of anger, quick unreasoning cut and thrust. It surprised them both. It surprised Gay so much that she caught her breath and said,

  “We’re quarrelling. I don’t know why. We’ve never quarrelled before.”

  “It’s never too late to mend.” He looked at her with laughing eyes. “You’re awfully funny to quarrel with.”

  “Funny?”

  “Like a robin pecking.”

  “Robins are fierce. They fight like anything.”

  “All right, I’ll be careful. Let’s get back to the blackmailer. What does he want? It’s absolutely fatal to start giving money. The horse-leech isn’t in it-the more you give, the more he’ll want, and the more he’ll get. Seriously, Gay, if you know anyone who is being blackmailed, tell them that.”

  “It isn’t money-he doesn’t want money.”

  “What is it then?”

  Gay’s lively colour died. She looked uncertain, pale, frightened.

  “I don’t think I can tell you. It’s something-it might be something dreadful.”

  “Gay!”

  She jumped up. The music was stopping-just in time-just in time-just in time. For what had she been going to say? And why was it so dreadfully easy to say things to Algy? It scared her. She spoke a little breathlessly.

  “Come along with me and meet Sylvia if you want to. She’ll be snapped up in a second.”

  Sylvia looked surprised and pleased when Gay slipped a hand under her arm.

  “Gay-darling! How did you get here?”

  Gay’s other hand indicated the slightly abashed Mr. Somers.

  “He brought me. He’s one of the kind hearts, and it was his scout deed for the day. His name is Algy Somers, and as a reward he would like very much to dance with you. Algy-Lady Colesborough. He knows Francis-a little.”

  “I don’t think-” began Sylvia. Then she met Algy’s admiring gaze and wavered. “Mr. Brewster-and then I’m dancing with Mr. Wessex-Gardner-”

  “I shouldn’t,” said Algy-“I really, really shouldn’t. I know seventeen women in London who are crippled for life because they were reckless enough to dance with him. He’s a confirmed toe-treader and ankle-kicker. He’s known at his club as the Bonesetter’s Friend. Brewster, this is Miss Gay Hardwicke, and she will be kind enough to give you the next dance if you ask her very nicely.” He gazed at Sylvia, offered her his arm, and when after a moment of indecision she took it, he bore her away in triumph, leaving behind him a darkly annoyed Mr. Brewster, and Gay Hardwicke, who smiled prettily and had a horrid little jabbing pain in her mind.

  Cyril Brewster was a polite young man. He said, “May I have the pleasure?” and Gay said, “Yes,” and the music struck up again and they danced.

  It was a very efficient performance on Mr. Brewster’s part, but it lacked thrill. There was plenty of swing in the music, but what is the good of swing in the music if there isn’t any swing in your partner? Gay caught a glimpse of Sylvia floating in Algy’s arms. Sylvia really did float-like a cloud, like a wave, like a leaf in the wind.

  The crooner lifted up his voice and crooned:

  “You’re mine this minute.

  That’s all that’s in it and there’s no limit

  To my ecstasy.”

  Cyril Brewster said, in the voice which indicated that a remark has been repeated for the second time,

  “Have you known Lady Colesborough for long?”

  “I’m so sorry,” said Gay-“I was thinking about something else. What did you say?”

  Mr. Brewster repeated his remark for the third time-patiently.

  “I said, ‘Have you known Lady Colesborough for long?’ ”

  “Twenty years,” said Gay, and then giggled because he looked as if he didn’t believe her. “She’s a cousin, you know, and we bit each other in the nursery-at least I did the biting and Sylvia did the kissing and making friends afterwards.”

  “She must have been a lovely child,” said Cyril Brewster earnestly.

  “Everyone says so. I expect that was why I bit.”

  Cyril put his pince-nez straight. He did this constantly, but it never stayed put.

  “I have only met her three times,” he said. “I think she is extremely beautiful.”

  “Everyone thinks so,” said Gay firmly.

  “It is unusual to find anyone with so many attractions. As a rule there is something lacking, but Lady Colesborough has everything. Of course, I do not know her well enough to speak of anything but externals. If it is possible to judge by those, her disposition should be as charming as her face.”

  “She has a very amiable disposition,” said Gay.

  Algy was perfectly right. Brewster was a most efficient bore, and, like all bores, there was no stopping him. He wanted to talk about Sylvia, and he intended to talk about Sylvia. He went on talking about Sylvia.

  “The first time I met her was not really a meeting at all. She was walking with Mrs. Wessex-Gardner, and I bowed-to Mrs. Wessex-Gardner. And the second time she was also walking in the park-”

  “With Mrs. Wessex-Gardner?”

  “No-she was alone, so of course I couldn’t bow. But tonight Mrs. Wessex-Gardner very kindly asked me to join her party, and I was introduced to her. As you are her cousin, perhaps you will tell me a little more about her. Is she a widow?”

  “Certainly not. She’s only been married for a year.”

  “And her husband?”

  “He is Sir Francis Colesborough, because his father made a lot of money in-well, I think it was timber-and gave away parks, and playgroun
ds, and things, so they made him a baronet. He bought a most lovely old place called Cole Lester. I believe he bought it because of the name being like his own, and of course it belongs to Francis now.”

  “I see,” said Cyril. “And do they live there a good deal?”

  “I don’t think so. Sylvia likes London. She was brought up in the country, you know, so she’s had enough of it. Francis seems to go away a lot on business.”

  “Ah, yes,-I suppose he would.” He went on talking about Sylvia and asking questions. The crooner’s voice came through again:

  “I’m feeling lazy.

  My mind’s all hazy

  Because I’m crazy

  With my ecstasy.”

  VI

  It was rather a disappointing evening, because Algy when he came back would do nothing but talk about Sylvia too. Even in the taxi going home he was still saying how lovely she was. And of course it was all quite true. Sylvia was lovely, and that was all there was about it. And Gay wasn’t lovely at all, and no one would ever feel rewarded by winning a dance from her. She wasn’t a bad little thing, and she had her points of course-good hair, and-yes, really good eyes-and a good colour too, though nowadays when everyone could put it on that didn’t go for so much-and good teeth-oh, yes, really good teeth. Gay would stick up for Gay on all these points, but what was the good if Algy had no eyes for anyone but Sylvia?

  She caught a glimpse of herself in the glass at the side of the taxi, and saw a plain little Gay with no colour at all and the sparkle gone from her eyes. They were very nearly home, and she was glad.

  She turned, and saw Algy beside her like a shadow. The light that had showed her her own face was gone. They were in Hunt Street again and it was fast asleep, not a light in any one of the crowded houses, and the street-lamps few and dim and far between. Miss Hardwicke’s house was No. 36.

  The taxi drew up. Algy paid it off and came up the steps with Gay. He said,

  “I’ll walk home. I’m short of fresh air and exercise.”