Ice in the Bedroom (8 page)

'No, she went to get this shot-gun of hers. She came back with it, and pointed it at my wishbone. "Listen, rat!" she said. "Your kind attention for a moment, please. You have just three seconds to get out of here."'

'For Pete's sake! Why?'

'The very question I asked her. And she said, "So you made your money out of oil, did you? I'll say you did, my rugged millionaire, and a thousand pounds of it was donated by me. Le Touquet three years ago. Remember?" Baby, she was the dame in the Casino I told you about, the one I sold that Silver River to. Naturally I hadn't placed her. When we did our deal, she was wearing dark glasses, and one meets so many people. But she remembered me all right. "I shall count three," she said, "and if by the time I say 'ee' you aren't half-way back to America, you'll get a charge of shot in the seat of the pants." Well, I can take a hint. I didn't stand loitering about. I left. So there you are, honey. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred that line of talk of mine would have dragged home the gravy, but this was the one time it didn't. Too bad, but nobody to blame.'

Dolly was all wifely sympathy.

'I'm not blaming, you, sweetie. You did all that man could do…unless…You couldn't have beaned her with a chair, I suppose?'

'Not a hope. If I'd made a move or so much as stirred a finger, I wouldn't be sitting down like this. I'd be lying on my face with you picking shot out of me with your eyebrow tweezers. She meant business,' said Soapy, and stirred uneasily in his chair as he thought of what might have been. He was a highly-strung man, and vivid mental pictures came easily to him.

Dolly sat frowning thoughtfully. A lesser woman would have been crushed by this tale of disaster, but she never allowed a temporary setback to make her forget the lesson of the story of Bruce and the spider. Like the poet, she held it truth with him who sings to one clear harp in divers tones that men - or, in her case, women - can rise on stepping stones of their dead selves to higher things.

'We must have another try,' she said, and Soapy started as if Leila Yorke and her shot-gun had materialized themselves before him.

'You aren't suggesting I go to Castlewood again?'

'Not you, sweetie, me.'

'But what sort of spiel can you give her?'

'Ah, that wants thinking out. But I'll dig up something. The thought of all that ice laying there on top of that wardrobes when at any moment someone might get the idea of dusting there and put their hooks on it, goes right against my better nature. Come on, honey, let's lunch. You need some nourishing food inside you after going through that…what's the word?'

'Ordeal,' said Mr. Molloy, whose life work had given him a good vocabulary. 'When you're up against a dame with glittering eyes and one ringer on the trigger of a shot-gun, that's an ordeal, and don't let anyone tell you different.'

There is something about lunch at a place like Barribault's that raises the spirits and stimulates the brain. The hors d'oeuvres seem to whisper that the sun will some day shine once more, the cold salmon with tartare sauce points out that though the skies are dark, the silver lining will be along at any moment, and with the fruit salad or whatever it may be that tops off the meal, there comes a growing conviction that the bluebird, though admittedly asleep at the switch of late, has not formally gone out of business. These optimistic reflections did not occur to Soapy, who remained downcast and moody throughout, but Dolly had scarcely taken two bites out of her peche Melba when she uttered a glad cry.

‘Soapy, I’ve got it!'

Mr. Molloy, who was toying with a strawberry ice, jerked a spoonful into space. It fell to earth, he knew not where. 'Got what, baby? Not an idea?'

'Yay, and a darned good one.'

The gloom which had been enveloping Soapy lightened a little. He had a solid respect for his wife's ingenuity.

'Look, honey, you told me there was no help at Castlewood. Well, look, this Yorke dame and the secretary have got to go out some time, haven't they? To do the shopping and all that.'

‘I guess so.'

'So the place'll be empty. Well, what's to stop me going down there and hanging around till the coast's clear and slipping in? The Widgeon guy goes off to his office in the morning, so I can wait in the front garden of Peacehaven till I see them leave.'

'Suppose they don't leave?'

'For heaven's sake, they've got to do it some time or other. As a matter of fact, I think the balloon'll go up tomorrow, because I read a thing in the paper about how Leila Yorke was due to speak at some luncheon or other, and I guess she'll take the secretary with her. Even if she doesn't, the secretary's sure to play hooky when she's not around. Ask me, the thing'll be handed to us on a plate. I'll go there tomorrow right after breakfast. Unless you'd rather?'

Mr. Molloy, shuddering strongly, said he would not rather.

'All right, then, me. I don't see how it can fail. The back door won't be locked. I can just slip in. Any questions?'

'Not a one. Baby,' said Mr. Molloy devoutly, 'I've said it before and I'll say it again, There's no one like you.'

10

The function at which Leila Yorke had committed herself to speak was the bi-monthly lunch of the women's branch of the Pen and Ink Club, and she had completely forgotten the engagement till Sally reminded her of it. On learning that the curse had come upon her, she uttered one of those crisp expletives which were too sadly often on her lips and said that that was what you got for letting your guard down for a single moment with these darned organising secretaries. Iron unremitting firmness was what you needed if you were not to be a puppet in their hands.

'They're cunning. That's the trouble. They write to you in December asking you to do your stuff in the following June, and you, knowing that June will never arrive, say you will, and blister my internal organs if June doesn't come around after all.'

'Suddenly it's Spring.'

'Exactly. And you wake up one fine morning and realize you're for it. You ever been to one of these fêtes that are worse than death, Sally?'

'No, I'm not a member of the Pen and Ink. Mine has been a very sheltered life.'

'Avoid them,' Leila Yorke advised, 'especially the all-women ones. Yes, I know you're going to argue that it's better to be confronted with a gaggle of female writers in ghastly hats and pince-nez than a roomful of male writers with horn-rimmed glasses and sideburns, but I disagree with you. The female of the species is far deadlier than the male. What am I to say to these gargoyles?'

' "Good afternoon, gargoyles"?'

'And then sit down? Not a bad idea. I don't think it's ever been done. Well, go and get the car out. I've some shopping to do, so we'll make an early start.'

'We?'

'Oh, I'm not going to drag you into the lunch. One has one's human feelings. I want you to go and see Saxby and tell him of the changes of plans about the new book. As my literary agent, I suppose he's entitled to be let in on the thing. Break it to him gently. Better take a flask of brandy with you in case he swoons.'

'He'll be upset, all right.'

'And so will my poor perishing publishers. I've a contract for six books with them, and if I have my strength, those books are going to get starker and starker right along, and the starker they become, the lower will those unhappy blighters' jaws drop. But I can't help their troubles. Suppose they do lose their shirts? Money isn't everything.'

'You can't take it with you.'

'Exactly. After seeing Saxby, look in on them and tell them that. It'll cheer them up. But do you know who's going to howl like a timber wolf about this?'

'The whole firm, I should say. They rely on you for their annual holiday-at-Blackpool expenses.'

'Prosser, that's who. He's got a wad of money in the business, and when he finds I'm putting it in jeopardy, he'll hit the ceiling. Oh, well, no good worrying about Prosser. Into each life some rain must fall. Go and get the car.'

Sally got the car, and as they drove off and were passing Peacehaven startled her employer by uttering a sudden exclamation.

'Now what?' said Leila Yorke.

'Nothing,' said Sally.

But it had not been nothing. What had caused her to exclaim had been the sight of a spectacular blonde leaning on the Peacehaven front gate, as if, so it seemed to her jaundiced eye, the place belonged to her. The last thing a girl likes to see leaning in this manner on the gate of the man she loves, especially when she knows him to be one of the opposite sex's greatest admirers, is a blonde of that description. Even a brunette would have been enough to start a train of thought in Sally's mind, and she passed the remainder of the short journey to the metropolis in silence, a prey to disturbing reflections on the subject of leopards and spots and the well-known inability of the former to change the latter. It was only when the car had been housed at a garage near Berkeley Square and she and Leila Yorke had parted, the one to do her shopping, the other to go and ruin the morning of Mr. Saxby, the literary agent, and of the Messrs. Popgood and Grooly, Miss Yorke's poor perishing publishers, that there came to her a consoling reflection - to wit, that Freddie had told her that he shared Peacehaven with his cousin George, the sleepless guardian of the law. Policemen, she knew, have their softer side and like, when off duty, to sport with Amaryllis in the shade. No doubt the spectacular one was a friend of George's. As she entered the premises of the Saxby literary agency, Freddie having thus been dismissed without a stain on his character, she was feeling quite happy.

So, as she leaned on the gate of Peacehaven and watched the car disappear round the corner, was Dolly Molloy. Everything, as she envisaged it, was now hunkadory. There remained only the task of walking a few yards, slipping in through a back door, mounting a flight of stairs, picking up a chamois leather bag and going home, a simple programme which she was confident would be well within her scope. And she was opening the gate as a preliminary to the first stage of the venture, when from immediately behind her a voice spoke, causing her to skip like the high hills and swallow the chewing gum with which she had been refreshing herself.

'Oh, hullo,' it said, and turning she perceived a tall, superbly muscled young man, at the sight of whom her hazel eyes, which had been shining with a glad light, registered dismay and horror. This was not because she disliked tall, superbly muscled young men or because the Oxford accent in which he had spoken jarred upon her transatlantic ear; it was due to the circumstance that the other was wearing the uniform and helmet of a policeman, and if there was one thing a checkered life had taught her to shrink from, it was the close proximity of members of the force. No good, in her experience, ever came of it.

'You waiting for Freddie Widgeon? I'm afraid he's gone up to London.'

'Oh?' said Dolly. It was all she found herself able to say. The society of coppers, peelers, flatfeet, rozzers and what are known in the newest argot of her native land as 'the fuzz' always affected her with an unpleasant breathlessness.

'He works in an office, poor devil, and has to leave pretty soon after the morning repast. Around six p.m. is the time to catch him. Is there anything I can do for you? I'm his cousin George.'

'But…' Dolly's breath was slowly returning. The lack of menace in her companion's attitude had reassured her. Too many policemen in the past, notably in the Chicago days, had shown her their rather brusquer side, generally starting their remarks with the word 'Hey!', and she found the easy polish of this one comforting. She was, of course, still in something of a twitter, for the conscience of a girl who has recently purloined several thousand pounds' worth of jewellery is always sensitive, but she had ceased to entertain the idea that her personal well-being was in danger.

'But you're a cop,' she said.

'That's right. Somebody has to be, what?'

'I mean, you don't talk like one.'

'Oh, that? Oh, well, Eton, you know. Oxford, you know. All that sort of rot, you know.'

'I didn't know the bulls over here went to Oxford.'

'Quite a few of them don't, I believe, but I did. And when I came down, it was a choice between going into an office or doing something else, so I became a flattie. Nice open-air life and quite a chance, they tell me, of rising to great heights at Scotland Yard, though they were probably pulling my leg. What I need to set my foot on the ladder of success is a good pinch, and how that is to be achieved in Valley Fields is more than I can tell you, for of all the unenterprising law-abiding blighters I ever saw the locals take the well-known biscuit. It discourages a chap. But I say, I’m awfully sorry to be gassing about myself like this. Must be boring you stiff. Did you want to see Freddie on some matter of import? Because, if so, you'll find him at Shoesmith, Shoesmith, Shoesmith and Shoesmith in Lincoln's Inn Fields, if you know where that is. They're a legal firm. Freddie works for them. At least,' said Cousin George, appearing to share the doubts expressed on a previous occasion by Mr. Shoesmith, 'he goes there and sits. Head for Fleet Street and ask a policeman. He'll direct you.'

'Oh, no, it's nothing important, thanks. I just wanted to say Hello.'

'Then I'll be off, if you don't mind. We of the constabulary mustn't be late at the trysting place, or we get properly told off by our superiors. Pip-pip, then, for the nonce. Oh, there's just one other thing before I go. You wouldn't care to buy a couple of tickets for the annual concert of the Policemen's Orphanage, would you?'

'Who, me?'

'Sounds silly, I know, but the men up top issue bundles of the beastly things to us footsloggers, and we're supposed to unload them on the local residents. They come, nicely graded, to suit all purses - the five-shilling, the half-crown, the two-shilling, the shilling and the sixpenny, only the last-named means standing up at the back. Anything doing?'

'Not a thing.'

'Think well. You'll never forgive yourself if you miss hearing Sergeant Banks sing "Asleep In The Deep", or, for the matter of that, Constable Bodger doing imitations of footlight favourites who are familiar to you all. So, on reflection shall we say a brace of the five-bobs?'