'It's very late.'
'Shank of the evening.'
'And drinks are still being served.'
'What's your objection to that?'
I'm thinking of the police.'
‘Mr. Llewellyn would have none of this defeatist outlook.
'Absurd. A level-headed man like Otto Flannery is bound to have squared the police. It would have been his first move on opening a night club.'
'You can't square English police.'
Mr. Llewellyn looked more than ever as though there were a credibility gap between himself and his ears.
'Ridiculous. You're talking wildly, Bodkin. England's a civilized country, isn't it? Flannery is certain to have seen the right people. Pity he's not here tonight. I wanted to ask him how he was making out with that third wife of mine, and I hadn't time when I met him at Butterwick's club.'
'Satisfactorily, I hope,' said Monty, grateful for the princely hospitality which Mr. Flannery had provided. The least he felt he could do in return was to wish him happiness in his married life.
Mr. Llewellyn had doubts.
'I wonder.’ he said. 'Gloria isn't an easy woman to get along with. Temperamental. It doesn't take much to bring her to the boil. Or usedn't to when I knew her. The merest suggestion that you didn't like a hat was enough to set her off. I remember one night we'd had some people in for Bridge, and when they'd left I happened to mention—quite casually, simply making conversation—that if she had bid me a club instead of a diamond in that last game, I'd have made my contract and won the rubber instead of going down three and loosing the rubber. She went straight out to the kitchen, came back with a pail of water, and poured it all over me and the cat, who happened to be there. Did. you know that a cat's tail becomes double the size when it gets wet?'
Monty said he did not. His had been in the main a sheltered life, and he could not remember having met any wet cats.
'A fact. Cookie was this cat's name, not that it affects the story in any way. And then there was that other time . . . What's the matter, young Miller? You're very quiet.'
It had indeed been quite a time since Sandy had spoken. She had been sitting there with a faraway look on her face. Nursing her wounds, Monty thought. She emerged with a start from her reverie.
'I was thinking,' she said. 'About those wives of yours.'
'What about them?'
'Mrs. Llewellyn must be the fourth.'
'Fifth. You're overlooking Bernadine Friganza.'
'It seems rather a lot.'
'That's Hollywood. You sort of drift into it. There's nothing much to do after office hours, so you go out and get married.'
Monty said he supposed there was a sporting interest attached to the thing. Competition came into it. When you found yourself getting into the big figures, you tried for the record. And a most absorbing discussion of married life in Hollywood might have followed, had not a finely built young man wearing an Old Etonian tie stopped at the table and addressed himself to Monty.
'Why, hullo, Bodkin,' he said.
'Cheeser!' cried Monty.
He had not spoken immediately, for the passage of the years had caused him to forget the name of this old schoolmate. It came back to him, and he uttered it in a tone made ringing by relief and champagne. It was with the utmost animation that he introduced him to Mr. Llewellyn and Sandy.
'Mr. Llewellyn, Mr. Chisholm. Miss Miller, Mr. Chisholm. Chap I was at school with.’ he explained.
Mr. Llewellyn's effusiveness rivalled his.
'Any chap who was at school with my friend Bodkin is a friend of mine. Sit down, Mr. Chisholm and have some champagne.'
'Sorry, sir, I don't drink.'
'Don't drink?' said Mr. Llewellyn incredulously. 'What do you do when you come to a joint like this?'
'I dance. Would you care to, Miss Miller?'
He moved on to the dance floor with Sandy, and Mr. Llewellyn followed him with a pitying eye.
'Sad to see a young man wasting his youth like that. Think what he misses. Bad for his health, too. Champagne has a nutritive value. If somebody had offered me some when I was his age, I would have leaped to play my part in the festivities, taking the stuff in a bucket if necessary. But he just stands there and says "I don't drink".'
'Perhaps he promised his mother he wouldn't.’
'It's possible. Mothers are peculiar. So are wives, for that matter. Mine to take a case in point. Why does she go dashing off to Shropshire like that? Very fortunate she did, of course, but one seeks in vain for the reason.'
'Have you heard from Mrs. Llewellyn?'
'Not a word.’
'You don't know when she'll be back?'
'Haven't a notion. She just goes off and leaves me with the burden of entertaining the Molloys.’
Except for a 'Good morning' at breakfast Monty had not noticed Mr. Llewellyn doing much to entertain the Molloys, but it was not for him to criticise his employer.
'Who are they?' he asked. 'I was wondering how you come to know them.'
'We met them in Cannes. At the Casino. Which reminds me, Bodkin, I owe you a thousand pounds. I can't repay it immediately.’
'Oh, that's all right.'
'I rashly played chemmy instead of roulette, and lost a bundle.'
'I'm sorry.'
'Yes, it was a blow. I had half a mind to ask you if you could manage another couple of hundred.'
'Of course.'
'Thank you. Bodkin. You're a true friend.'
'That's what I called you when you took that splendid stand with J. B. Butterwick.'
'So you did. Both true friends and getting truer every minute.’ said Mr. Llewellyn, on whom the champagne with its nutritive value was beginning to have its effect. I’ll tell you why I want that two hundred. It's essential to my well-being. Have you happened to see during your residence at Mellingham Hall a fellow who looks like a monkey suffering from an ingrowing toenail?'
'I know the man you mean.'
'His name's Adair, and he's my valet. I approached him on the matter of providing me with food, and he expressed his willingness to oblige, provided the thing was put on a business basis. He drives a hard bargain. We started our arrangement the day before yesterday, and he charged me five pounds for a Mars Bar.'
'Monstrous!'
'Shook me a good deal, I must confess.'
'The worst type of profiteering.'
'I suppose a critic with high moral standards would call it that. Still, one can't help feeling a sort of respect for a man who sees his opportunities and grasps them with vigour and decision. He would do well in Hollywood.'
The total abstainer Chisholm brought Sandy back to the table and again declined Mr. Llewellyn's offer of refreshment. He must, he said, rejoin his friends. 'You're here with a party?'
'A sort of party.’ said Chisholm mysteriously, and withdrew.
'Probably all teetotallers like himself.’ said Mr. Llewellyn. 'They tend to flock together. So you were at school with him, were you? Not the sort of young man I could ever make a true friend of. Not my type.’
'He's a dream of a dancer.’ said Sandy. 'I've never known anyone who danced so well.'
Once again Monty had that curious feeling which had come upon him when he was lunching with this girl at Barribault's hotel and she had been telling him about the man she was in love with, the feeling that she had shown a lack of tact. He had danced with her several times himself since coming to The Happy Prawn, and he resented her enthusiasm for a rival performer.
He fought down his pique. With his usual fairmindedness he told himself that, his circumstances being what they were—engaged to Gertrude and all that—he had no right to expect to be top man in the life of a girl as much in demand as Sandy was bound to be. She was looking particularly attractive tonight. The female patrons of The Happy Prawn were for the most part hard of face and painted to the eyebrows. She was simple and wholesome, like a primrose among orchids he felt, for champagne brings out the poetry in a man.
/> But the depression her words had induced still lingered. He was conscious of a Hamlet-like moodiness. He longed for home and bed.
'We really ought to be leaving.’ he said.
Mr. Llewellyn chuckled merrily.
'Bodkin thinks there's going to be a raid.’ he told Sandy. 'Not a chance. Otto Flannery will have seen to that. A little palm-greasing here, a little palm-greasing there, and everything will have been satisfactorily arranged. In my younger days.’ said Mr. Llewellyn, becoming autobiographical, 'there wasn't this same wholesome give-and-take spirit. The cops had an unpleasant way of being zealous and incompatible. As a young man I was frequently involved in police raids, and many is the fine I have paid to the clerk of the court next day. But I soon learned the lesson which ought to be taught in the schools, and that is that when a bunch of flatfeet burst in with their uncouth cry of "Everybody keep their seats, please," the thing to do is to iris out unobtrusively through the kitchen. Outside the kitchen there is always a yard where they put ash cans and so forth, and you just climb over the wall into the street and walk away to safety. I always adopted this policy. I am confident that Otto will have slipped the local Gestapo their cut and that we are in no danger of being the victims of zeal; nevertheless I lost no time after we were at our table in locating the door through which the waiters were coming and going with the food, which incidentally was excellent. When I write to Otto thanking him I must make a point of congratulating him on the outstanding merits of his chef. It's the door behind you, Bodkin, a mere step from where we sit, so I think I may say that even if the worst should happen . . .’
But what he thought he might say even if the worst should happen was lost to posterity, for at this moment the popping of corks and the musical activities of Herman Zilch and his What-Nots were overtopped by a stentorian voice speaking with something of the timbre of a drill sergeant of the Scots Guards addressing recruits.
'Everybody keep their seats, please.’ it said.
'Everybody kindly keep his or her seat, please.’ would have been more in accordance with the principles laid down by Mr. Fowler in his book on English usage, but the speaker got his meaning over, which is the great thing. With the exception of Ivor Llewellyn, Montrose Bodkin and Alexandra Miller, the patrons of The Happy Prawn froze where they sat like one patron.
2
It was no idle boast that Mr. Llewellyn had made when he had spoken of his skill at irising out through kitchens. He was on the further side of the door to which he had directed Monty's attention while the Voice was uttering the second syllable of the word 'everybody'. A man of his wide experience needed no more than the 'ev' to set him in motion. Like the daring young man on the flying trapeze, he flew through the air with the greatest of ease. Monty and Sandy followed close behind him.
It was plainly the kitchen into which they had penetrated, a long room full of smells and noises and men in white caps. These last paid little attention to their visitors beyond a cursory glance. Most of them had served under Otto Flannery's banner when The Happy Prawn had been The Giddy Goat and before that The Oo-La-La, and police raids were no novelty to them. One white-capped man said to Monty as he whizzed by 'Cops, Mac?', and when Monty replied in the affirmative wagged his head and said 'Well, that's how it goes', but apart from that the interest of the Kitchen Staff in the proceedings was tepid.
The yard and the dustbins were there, just as Mr. Llewellyn had predicted. Monty seated himself on the nearest bin and drew a deep breath. After the stuffiness of The Happy Prawn the air seemed to him to rival the ozone advertised by Frinton, Skegness and other seashore resorts. He would have been willing to sit breathing it into his lungs indefinitely, but Mr. Llewellyn, the man of action, would not permit this.
'Don't sit there puffing like a stranded porpoise, Bodkin,' he said severely. 'We've got to get out of here before they start searching the joint. Gimme a leg-up over that wall.'
Monty gave him the leg-up, and paused for a space on top of the wall like Humpty Dumpty. In spite of his demand for haste he could not refrain from speaking a few words on the subject of Otto Flannery.
‘I cannot understand it.’ he said. 'I simply cannot understand it. Otto, when I knew him, was as shrewd a man as you could shake a stick at in a month of Sundays, and yet he omits to take the elementary precaution of sweetening the police. I can only suppose it to have been Gloria's doing. She always had a parsimonious streak in her. I can hear her saying "Why waste the money, Otto? You're having enough expense with this old night club as it is without bumping up the bank-rolls of a bunch of cops who've probably got large fortunes stashed away already. The odds are all against them busting in, so take a chance". And Otto foolishly let himself be persuaded. Gloria was like that with me when we were married. Grudged every dollar I spent on squaring the guys who had to be squared. I remember one time . . .’
At this point Mr. Llewellyn suddenly overbalanced— he ought never to have gesticulated when speaking of his third wife—and fell on the other side of the wall. But any anxiety his companions might have had for his well-being was dispelled when his voice announced that he had sustained no damage from the descent beyond a slight abrasion of the left shinbone and would meet them at the car, which was parked in a neighbouring street.
It was as he prepared to help Sandy mount the wall that Monty became aware of footsteps approaching from the direction of the kitchen, and his heart gave a leap of the kind that used to excite such universal applause when Nijinsky did them in the Russian ballet. It so happened that this was his first encounter with the police, and his nervous system was not at its best.
His relief when a moment later the newcomer turned out to be only good old Cheeser was stupendous. He welcomed him with a glad cry.
'Cheeser!'
'Oh, there you are, Bodkin. I had an idea you might be.'
'We were just going to get over the wall.'
'So I supposed.'
'It seems to have been put there for the purpose.'
'Quite.'
'My goodness, Cheeser, I'm glad to see you. When I heard you coming, I nearly swooned.'
'You thought it was a cop?'
'Yes.'
'It was.'
This, Monty presumed, was a joke. It was not much of one, but he laughed civilly. There being no hurry now, he felt disposed to chat.
'You're looking very fit, Cheeser.'
'Thanks.'
'Put on a bit of weight, haven't you?'
'A pound or two.’
'Suits you.'
'Thanks.'
'What are you doing these days?'
‘I’m a policeman.'
'What!'
'I am a member of the plain-clothes division of the Metropolitan Police Force. And you're arrested. Step this way, please.'
Monty stepped that way, stunned. If old Cheeser was really what he claimed to be, and if the old school spirit burned so feebly in him that he was prepared to arrest a chap who had been in the second cricket eleven with him, it seemed to him that there was nothing to do but step.
Sandy, womanlike, had other views. She took it that she had been included in the Chisholm invitation, but she had no intention of meekly accepting it. A situation like the present one brings out all the Joan of Arc and Boadicea in a girl of spirit. She was standing at the moment within easy reach of one of the smaller dustbins. Seizing this with a lissom pounce and swinging it as the third Mrs. Llewellyn had swung her pail of water, she took advantage of the officer having turned his back to envelope his head and shoulders with its contents.
Nothing could have been more effective. It was a state of things which obviously could not last indefinitely, but for the moment Police Constable Chisholm was out of action. It took but that moment for her to scale the wall, on top of which she was joined by Monty. They dropped to the other side and ran on winged feet to the car.
Mr. Llewellyn was leaning against it, smoking a cigar.
'So here you are at last.’ he said. "What kept you?
'
Monty did not reply. He felt incapable of speech. Love had come to him this night. It had come to him several times before in the course of his career, notably when at the age of twelve he had been taken to the Drury Lane pantomime and had become enamoured of the Principal Girl, but these had been mere passing fancies. This was the real thing. If any man could fail to fall in love with a girl who had just exhibited such outstanding qualities as had Sandy, that man was not Montrose Bodkin.
3
By the time they were in the car and speeding homewards with Sandy asleep on the back seat, Mr. Llewellyn, who had remembered how the song 'Barney Google' went, had begun to sing it. He had a pleasant baritone voice, though a little uncertain in the upper register, and at any other moment Monty would have been glad to listen and possibly, having memorised the words and music, to join in the chorus. But now his thoughts were devoted exclusively to the girl curled up on the seat behind him. His whole soul went out to her. How, he was asking himself, could he have been for so long oblivious to her splendid gifts of character and personality, so blind as not to have spotted that what he had mistaken for brotherly affection had really been, simply waiting to be uncorked, molten passion, the sort of thing in which the fifth Mrs. Ivor Llewellyn had specialised when a panther woman on the silver screen?
After a while Mr. Llewellyn, ceasing to sing, became conversational. Monty had given him a brief resume of what had occurred in the yard outside the kitchen, and he spoke sternly of the part old Cheeser had played in the proceedings.
'I am shocked.’ he said. If a man won't stretch a point on behalf of an old schoolmate, one wonders what the world is coming to. But that's the police all over. The sacred ties of friendship weigh nothing with them as long as they can get a word of commendation from their sergeant. However, let us not waste our breath condemning his iniquity. Let us rather turn to the magnificent behaviour of the Miller half-portion. What adroitness, Bodkin!'
Pearls, Girls and Monty Bodkin Page 9