Audrey opened the envelopes and found in them vouchers for the Grand Stand.
“You’re a dear,” she said vaguely, her thoughts rather aloof.
“The first three days Brighton, the second three Lewes,” he explained. “The Brighton week, you know.”
“Races?” cried Audrey Lane suddenly.
“Yes.”
“That’s it! Of course that’s it,” she exclaimed. “And that’s Tasmanian Jim.”
Mr. Giscombe was puzzled for a moment. But he prided himself on being a man of the world.
“Tasmanian Jim!” he replied. “Oh, I see. A horse.”
“A pig of a horse,” said Miss Lane with violence.
“You have lost money on him, I’m afraid,” said Mr. Giscombe.
“No, but I have on Roddy,” said Miss Lane.
“I see,” Mr. Giscombe remarked. “They’re both from the same stable, I suppose.”
Now, no man objects to be thought a wit even if he only achieves his witticism by accident. Mr. Giscombe had not the remotest idea why Miss Lane’s eyes danced and why her laugh was so hearty. But it was his doing and he rewarded her for her appreciation.
“Brighton races are not Ascot,” he remarked. “There will probably be undesirable people present.”
“Tough babies,” said Miss Lane sedately.
“Tough, certainly, but babies only in the matter of bottles,” Mr. Giscombe returned. “So I think that if during this week you take a car from the hotel and keep it to bring you back, we should reckon it under legitimate expenses.”
“I said you were a darling,” Miss Lane observed. She had not, but Mr. Giscombe did not correct her. It was the more attractive word of the two. He looked at his watch. In twenty minutes the Chief Organizer of his Party would arrive at the Railway Station.
“I must be off,” he said, “and please, Miss Lane” — he smiled. Oh, he could talk the vernacular as naturally as anyone— “Don’t put your shirt on Tasmanian Jim. He might be scratched.”
“I’d willingly go without my shirt if I could do the scratching,” said Miss Lane, and her fingers curved suddenly in the most illustrative fashion.
To Mr. Giscombe that morning his secretary was rather cryptic, but in fact she had never been more natural. For on the opposite side of the most expensive restaurant in Brighton sat the man who should have been waiting on trippers at Dreamland in Mr. Giscombe’s old dress-suit. Roddy was elegantly clothed in pale grey, he was eating sumptuous food and between courses was consulting privately with a small, elderly, sharp man.
“Wait till Roddy catches sight of me,” said Miss Lane to herself. “I shan’t see him for dust.”
She walked out of the restaurant and straight to the office counter in the hall. On the counter stood the Visitors’ Book. Miss Lane looked down the list of arrivals — and there the names were written not as lasting but certainly as bold as brass.
Mr. James Kershaw. Hobart, Tasmania.
Mr. Roderick Garrow. London.
As she turned away she saw Roddy. He too was on his way to the Visitors’ Book. Audrey Lane was in his path and she remained in his path, savouring delightedly the moment of triumph which must be hers when Roddy recognized her. But the moment never came. Audrey with her fair hair prettily waved, her shining brown eyes, her lips properly varnished, Audrey wearing a modish blue hat, a white frock and smart shoes, was not to be identified with the little pale grub of a secretary who wore an eyeshade and horn spectacles. All the return she got for standing in Roddy’s way was a glad eye — or rather half a glad eye, for Roddy was bent upon serious business and not even a prepossessing young woman must interfere with that.
Audrey plumped herself down in a chair and quivered with rage. She had an impulse to seek the hotel manager and tell him about Roddy in revenge. But she would probably not be believed.
“Oh, if I could only show him,” — it was curious how exactly the American idioms expressed her moods, “ — if I could only show him where he gets off!”
And her chance came that evening. She was sitting in the lounge, a novel upon her lap, a cigarette between her lips. She had chosen that particular seat because Roddy and Mr. Kershaw occupied a settee close by. Suddenly Mr. Kershaw sat up straight and touched his companion on the sleeve.
“By Jingo, if that isn’t Carstairs!” he cried in a voice unnecessarily loud. “Over there! Just coming out of the dining-room.”
Audrey looked as well as Roddy and her heart exulted within her. A tiny man with a wide mouth, a short chin and an air indefinably horsey was standing by the dining-room door. Now, Carstairs was the name of the leading jockey of the day, but it was more than that to Audrey. It was a key-word, a revelation. Roddy the good story-teller had ingeniously woven fact with fiction when he had melted the clasp of Audrey’s purse. The big crime and the red Judge were fiction, but the squalid little swindles were taken from life — Roddy’s life. If Miss Lane did not yet know where Roddy got off, she at all events knew where she was; and she settled herself in her chair like a visitor at the play.
Mr. James Kershaw’s voice rose again.
“Why not ask him to play you a hundred up, my boy?” and Roddy moved obediently off.
Miss Lane asked herself for whom the little scene was staged. The young couple obviously on their honeymoon? No! The stout Hebrew on his holiday? It might be. He looked wealthy — and then she saw the intended victim, to make sure of whose arrival Roddy had been hurrying to the Visitors’ Book that afternoon. An ingenuous and lonely young man was sitting within earshot, a newspaper folded at the sporting page upon his knees, a little book with a brown-paper cover on the floor beside his chair. From the cut of his clothes, the packet of Camel cigarettes which he held in his hand and his eager, puzzled air, she classified him as one of the minor plutocrats from one of the smaller towns of America curious to learn something of the cultures and pleasures of Europe. The name of Carstairs had set him on fire. He watched Roddy pilot the little horsey man to the settee. He heard Mr. Kershaw boom:
“Yes, you two run along! I’ll join you in a minute.”
He saw the two wander off, and he began to shift in his seat. The American desire to make friends was fighting the tradition of the Englishman’s inaccessibility. But just when he was resigning himself to his paper and his brown book, Mr. Kershaw’s eyes swept round the hall, embracing the whole company with a smiling benevolence. The young man plunged, or as Audrey put it, was hooked. In a second he was at the settee.
“May I speak to you, sir?”
“Of course, my boy.” Mr. Kershaw could have sat for a statue of geniality. “Sit down!” and he patted the settee at his side.
The young man sat down.
“My name’s Conroy,” he said. “Henry Conroy. I am from Dallas in the United States.”
“Ah! Your first visit to us?”
“Yes. I know no one here at all.”
“You’ll make friends when you wish for them, Mr. Conroy.”
“I was wondering — was that Mr. Carstairs, the famous jockey?” he asked.
Kershaw shook his head and laughed indulgently.
“Oh, no, no! Carstairs the jockey is probably sitting in the hot room of a Turkish Bath. He rides to-morrow, you know. Still, you weren’t so far wrong,” and Mr. Kershaw had a look of admiration in his eyes and a note of admiration in his voice. “You were very near to it, in fact. He’s the jockey’s brother. We’ll join him if you like.”
The two men got up and followed Roddy and Carstairs to the billiard-room. But before they were out of sight Mr. Kershaw stopped his new young friend and said something to him in a whisper, something serious like a warning.
A little while after they had gone, Audrey noticed that the little brown book with the paper cover was still lying upon the carpet by the side of Conroy’s chair. She moved unobtrusively and picked it up. It was entitled Form at a Glance. Holding it in her hand she looked at the clock. It was half-past ten and it was precisely at half-past ten
that she decided to become a vamp.
II
The next morning after the routine letters had been written and Mr. Giscombe packed off to his meeting, Miss Lane descended to the hall with Form at a Glance in her hand. She was fortunate enough to find Mr. Conroy busy with the morning papers. She went straight up to him. She was wearing a dress of pale yellow with a big white straw hat and she looked like a summer morning. Mr. Conroy could not believe that it was breaking upon him.
“This is yours, I think,” she said, with a smile. “I thought that if I didn’t retrieve it for you, you’d never see it again.”
“Oh, say!” Conroy exclaimed. How kind people were! “I’m ashamed to have caused you the trouble.”
Audrey laughed away his apologies.
“As a matter of fact, I rather jumped at the opportunity of looking up some of those horses’ records myself.”
“Then you’re going to the races?”
“I am.”
At this point Audrey should have turned away, but she did not.
“Of course, you’re with a party,” said Mr. Conroy.
“I’m alone,” Miss Lane replied. She told him who she was and why she would be alone.
“Look at here!” exclaimed Mr. Conroy. “Do you think — I mean — would you mind if I came up and spoke to you?”
“I shan’t call for the police if you do,” Audrey returned.
Heaven, it seemed, was opening for this young man.
“We might have some tea together,” he said.
“If you’re allowed,” said Audrey coldly.
Heaven seemed to be closing. Nevertheless, at half-past four that afternoon — just after a horse at three to one on had won a race, Henry found the lonely Miss Lane in the Paddock.
“May I offer you some tea?” he asked, and Miss Lane, who was hot and bored stiff into the bargain, responded with alacrity.
Across the tea-table Mr. Conroy burst into enthusiasm.
“It’s wonderful, Miss Lane. Yesterday I could have cut my throat. I landed in England three weeks ago and I’ve done nothing ever since but play solitaire. Now I’ve had the honour of meeting you — that’s first, of course — and three quite charming gentlemen.”
Miss Lane’s lips twitched and a dimple showed in each cheek.
“By the way,” she said. “I take it that you backed that horse at three to one on.”
Mr. Conroy’s eyes grew round with amazement at her sagacity.
“How in the wide world did you know. Miss Lane? I did. I won thirty-three shillings in your coinage. But,” and after a look this way and that, he continued in a whisper, “I’m promised a big tip for to-morrow.”
“I am sure you are,” said Miss Lane.
“I’ll tell you about it as soon as I know,” he went on.
“I think I’ll tell you about it first,” Miss Lane said dryly.
Henry Conroy became subtle and wily, but there was never anything so obvious as his subtlety and wiliness.
“You couldn’t tell me about it this evening, could you? If perhaps — you won’t think it impertinent, will you — if perhaps you would dine with me?”
Miss Lane shook her head.
“I won’t dine with you, Mr. Conroy, but you might dine at my table,” she said. “And now I’m going back to the hotel.”
Conroy found her car for her and she drove away.
Miss Lane had a cunning little black velvet frock which she reserved for what her circle called soirees. She put it on that evening and she allowed Mr. Conroy to order champagne, chiefly because Mr. Kershaw and his companions across the room were watching them with goggle-eyed dismay.
“And how do you like Tasmanian Jim?” she asked, towards the end of dinner.
Conroy stared.
“I beg your pardon.”
“Mr. Kershaw I mean, of course,” she explained carelessly.
“Tasmanian Jim!” young Conroy repeated. “Do you know, Miss Lane, that sounds as if he wasn’t straight.”
“It does and he isn’t,” said Miss Lane.
“But how can you know?”
“I’ve had some,” said Miss Lane.
Conroy leaned back in his chair.
“But really—”
“Please don’t look round, they are watching us.”
“I won’t,” and young Conroy gladly leaned forward over the table, for Audrey’s eyes were getting to work at the vamp business. “But I’m sure you must be mistaken.”
“You’re not from Dallas,” Miss Lane remarked. “You’re from Missouri and I’m showing you — that is, if I’m allowed,” she added hastily. For she detected signs of haste across the room.
Mr. Kershaw’s little wee lamb was being stolen from him, was being vamped by a yellow-haired siren. Tasmanian Jim wouldn’t stand for it. He had made his plans and they mustn’t be interfered with. Miss Goldilocks must pick up somebody else. Kershaw demanded his bill so that he might initial it and demanded it urgently. Miss Lane decided that that formality should be postponed at her table.
“Let’s slip out on to the Parade quickly. You don’t want a hat with all that hair” — Conroy had just the ordinary amount of hair, but he smoothed it with a smile— “and my wrap’s on the back of my chair.”
They were only just in time, but they were in time. They found a dark shelter where only the whiteness of their faces was visible. The sea was spread in front of them, placid as a lagoon; overhead the stars moved in their slow procession across a clear sky; Audrey sighed with contentment.
“That was a pleasant sound,” said the young man; and Audrey was a little disturbed. She had a strong suspicion that her sigh was no part of her vamping but an honest-to-goodness sigh.
“Give me a Camel,” she said, and as he held the lighted match to it, her eyes looked at him over the flame and danced.
“Let us be serious!” she said. “Here is a true account of your acquaintance with Tasmanian Jim. When he stopped you last night on the way to the billiard-room it was to warn you not to refer to the jocky at all. Carstairs was very sensitive about it, for the moment it got known he was the jockey’s brother, he was surrounded by undesirable people clamouring for information.”
“That’s just what Kershaw did say,” cried young Conroy, round-eyed with amazement.
“Of course Carstairs’ real name isn’t Carstairs at all,” she continued. “Tasmanian Jim probably told you also that Roddy’s business was to buy blood stock for Lord Derby in the Argentine, but that mustn’t be mentioned either.”
“That’s all true,” said Mr. Conroy. “But you don’t know—”
“But I do know,” Audrey Lane insisted. “You were warned off betting. You were told it’s a mug’s game. You were very reluctantly allowed to give Carstairs a five-pound note to put on a horse if he could find his brother to tip him a winner. Carstairs stayed away until a horse was three to one on. Then he returned and gave you back your fiver and one pound thirteen shillings and told you you had won it. Ground bait, Mr. Conroy.”
Mr. Conroy sat without speaking. He was shaken and hurt. But he had a young man’s stubborn faith in his knowledge of the world. Audrey had, however, a master stroke of an argument.
“Did you, by any chance, go into Mr. Kershaw’s bedroom? she asked.
“Yes, we all went up with him and had a final drink.”
“Did you notice that he had a set of silver-backed toilet things spread out rather elaborately on his dressing-table?”
“I did,” cried Conroy.
“Now listen!” She explained to him how Roddy Garrow had come to tell her some of the tricks of his gang. He had to collect some money — not so very much — but enough to pay their single railway fares, their entrances into Tattersall’s Ring and a good second-hand dressing-case with solid silver fittings to inspire confidence in the hotel staff. The silver fittings were essential. They made it sure that the bill would not be presented until the end of the week.
“But at the end of the week it would
still be presented,” Conroy argued.
“And they would have your money to pay it with,” said Audrey. She turned quickly towards him. “I take it that you have a certain amount of money which you can afford to lose.”
“I have.”
Audrey nodded.
“Tasmanian Jim has two specialities. One is to know what a given victim can afford to lose without squealing and to be content with just that. So he seldom gets into trouble.”
Young Conroy was convinced. But he was very downcast.
“No one took me for a sucker in Dallas,” he said, and he stared gloomily out over the black sea. “I suppose I go back to solitaire unless you’d let me go to the races with you to-morrow.”
“But I’m not going to the races to-morrow,” she returned. “I’m going to take the loveliest drive in the world. Through Arundel and across the Downs to a little old sleepy town called Midhurst, and back again in the cool of the evening.”
There was quite a pause when she had ended. Audrey was conscious of disappointment. It began to look as if there was a flaw in her vamping. But at last he spoke.
“I’ve heard of your Arundel Castle.”
He called it Arundel Castle with the accent on the run, but the accent was not more noticeable than the wistfulness in his voice. Audrey cheered up.
“Would you care to come with me?” she asked.
“Oh!” said Mr. Conroy, clasping his hands together. So he went.
III
The car was descending Bury Hill on the following afternoon when Miss Lane said accusingly:
“You have something on your mind, Mr. Conroy.”
Mr. Conroy grew red.
“I ought to have knocked him down,” said he.
“Which one?” Miss Lane asked.
“Roddy Garrow.”
Miss Lane set her lips together.
“What did he say about me?” she asked, and Conroy jumped in his seat.
“You are quick!” he exclaimed. “I didn’t do a thing because I didn’t want a scandal and—”
“What did he say?” Miss Lane interrupted.
“I could never tell you.”
And then he told her.
“When I said to him in the lounge that I wasn’t going to the races, he answered nastily. I really ought to have hit him. He said — oh, I can’t repeat it — he said, ‘You’ve fallen for the bird who tried to pick me up in the hall on Sunday.’”
Complete Works of a E W Mason Page 824