‘Wah?' said Mr. Llewellyn. 'Wah?'
'Wake up,' said Grayce. 'Sleeping!' she added. 'At a time like this.'
Mr. Llewellyn was sufficiently removed from dreamland by now to be capable of resentment.
'One's lucky to get any sleep at all in this house. Dragging me out of bed in the middle of the night to sit on dining-room chairs.'
'We need not go into that.'
'Gave me a crick in the back.'
'I said we need not go into it. I don't know what to do,' said Grayce. 'I simply don't know what to do.'
A stronger man might have offered the suggestion that the thing for her to do was to get out of here and leave him to catch up with his sleep, but Mr. Llewellyn, though resentful, was not quite capable of that. Now that he was awake he was able to recognize in his mate's demeanour the signs that indicated that something had upset her; and when Grayce was upset those who knew her best, her daughter Mavis always excepted, were careful to watch their words.
Quite mildly, accordingly, he said:
'What's your problem?'
'Adair has got a pain in his inside.'
Mr. Llewellyn, though once more in possession of his faculties, found himself unequal to the intellectual pressure of the conversation.
'Who's got a what where?'
'Adair. A pain. He's doubled up with it.'
The name had registered with Mr. Llewellyn, and it was perhaps natural that the dismay he felt was not excessive. The man who charges us five pounds for a bar of milk chocolate and ten pounds for a pork pie automatically forfeits our concern. We receive with indifference the news that his inside is not all it should be.
'Oh, is he?' he said.
'So he can't go to Brighton.'
Again Mr. Llewellyn had the dreamlike feeling that he was missing the gist.
'Does he want to go to Brighton?'
'I was sending him to the bank with my pearls. It's the only sensible thing with all these burglars around.'
As she spoke, the telephone rang in the hall. She went out to answer it, leaving Mr. Llewellyn staring at the jewel case she had left behind her. He was feeling relief comparable to that which had come to Chimp Twist when he had heard the foreman of the jury say 'Not guilty'. True, he had not emerged entirely from the soup which threatened to engulf him, but he had been granted a respite. Pearls taken to banks are beyond human reach, but now that, thanks to this merciful pain in his valet's interior, they were remaining on the premises, there was always the chance that another and more successful marauder might pay Mellingham Hall a visit. Slight, perhaps, but nevertheless something to hope for, and, as was emphasized earlier, hope is what the heart bowed down with weight of woe needs in its business.
He was thinking kindly thoughts of Chimp's gastric juices, which had certainly done the right thing at the right time, when the proprietor of those juices suddenly appeared at the open window and poked his head in. It surprised Mr. Llewellyn considerably. When a man has been widely publicized as being doubled up with pain, one does not expect to find him strolling about and poking his head through windows.
He would probably have expressed his astonishment verbally, had not Chimp spoken first.
'Hey, cocky,' said Chimp. Now that he and Mr. Llewellyn had got to know one another better he dropped, when they were alone, the rotund form of speech which he employed in conversation with Grayce. His business relations with Mr. Llewellyn seemed to him to render formality unnecessary. 'Are you in the market for a snifter?'
If an underling had addressed him in this fashion at the S-L studio, Mr. Llewellyn's way with him would have been a short one, but in the trying circumstances in which he now found himself he was loath to alienate anyone who mentioned the word 'snifter'. Deprived of alcoholic refreshment since that night at the Happy Prawn, he had panted for it as the hart pants for cooling streams when heated in the chase. He did not like Chimp's manner, but then nobody did. He replied most cordially that he was indeed in the market.
'Got a bot of champagne,' said Chimp. ‘I can do you it for forty quid.'
It was perhaps only natural that Mr. Llewellyn should have hesitated for a moment. Forty pounds a bottle was rather more than he was accustomed to pay for this wine and his little stock of ready money was shrinking. But he remembered how good champagne can taste, and as regarded the money end of it he could always rely on his friend Bodkin's bottomless purse. A loan of another hundred or two would mean nothing to his friend Bodkin.
He put a tentative query.
'Small bottle?'
'Big bottle.'
‘It's a deal.'
'I've taken it up to your room and stowed it away in the top drawer of the chest of drawers along with your socks and handkerchiefs.'
‘Ice?'
‘In the bathroom.'
'Did anyone see you.'
'Nobody ever sees me. They call me The Shadow.’ Business concluded, Mr. Llewellyn thought it only civil to enquire after the other's health, 'Feeling better?' he asked.
'Pardon?'
'I was told you were doubled up with pain.' A cloud passed over Chimp's repulsive brow. He did not like to be reminded of that interview with Dolly. 'Oh, the pain. It comes and goes.'
'Always the way.'
'Right now I'm feeling fine.'
It occurred to Mr. Llewellyn that he ought to be, after selling a bottle of champagne for forty pounds. However, he remained pacific.
‘I get pains, too, sometimes.'
'You do?'
'Catch me right here.'
'They say bismuth is good.'
'Yes, I've heard that.'
One would have said that a delightful point of camaraderie had been reached between these two and one had been looking forward to further exchanges on these pleasant lines, but Chimp destroyed the harmony by striking a sordid note.
'Well, where are they?' he asked.
'Eh?'
'My forty smackers.’
‘I’ll pay you later.'
'Not me you won't. Cash down, or no bet.'
'But I have to get the money from my secret hiding place.'
‘I'll wait.'
'And see my secret hiding place? No, sir.'
Chimp saw the justice of this. He, too, had had safe deposits which were not for the public eye.
'All right,' he said. Til come back for the money. Have it ready.'
'I will.'
Left alone, Mr. Llewellyn wandered to the window. From it one got an extensive view of the Hall grounds, including the drive. Up and down this Monty was pacing with bent head and furrowed brow, as is customary with men who are brooding on their tangled love lives. The sight of him gave Mr. Llewellyn one of those sudden inspirations which had so stunned his co-workers at conferences in Llewellyn City. He gave tongue.
'Hey, Bodkin. Cummers.'
Monty came there. He and Mr. Llewellyn had parted last night on somewhat strained terms, but the voice uttering the summons had not been an unfriendly voice, and he assumed that bygones were to be regarded as bygones. Mr. Llewellyn might have let the sun go down on his wrath, but daylight had apparently adjusted matters.
Moreover, even if hostile sentiments still burned in his bosom, these, Monty was convinced, would speedily cool off when he heard what he, Monty, had to say. Sandy that morning had outlined a course of action for the stricken man to follow which, if adopted, could not fail to be box-office. It was one of those simple, straightforward plans of campaign which occur only to minds like Sandy's, and Monty had no hesitation in classing it as brilliant. Mr. Llewellyn had been baffled, he himself had been baffled, and probably Machiavelli would have been baffled if he had been there, but Sandy had found the way. He inserted his head through the window, eager to impart the great news.
It was Mr. Llewellyn, however, who spoke first.
'Got an idea, Bodkin.'
'So have I,’ said Monty. 'Or, rather, so has Sandy, and you won't be far out in describing it as an inspiration. Her gentle heart has been much
touched by your distress, and she has devoted considerable thought to trying to find a solution to your problems. This morning she got it. Look. You're wondering what you'll say when Mrs. Llewellyn finds out those pearls are Japanese cultured and thinks that you made the switch.'
The day was warm, but a shiver passed through Mr. Llewellyn's ample frame.
'I doubt if I'll say much. She'll do the talking.'
'But when she pauses for breath.'
'She probably won't.'
'Let us assume that she does. Do you know what you will do then? You will accuse her of making the switch herself, her idea being that as she's got to hand the pearls over to Mavis she could put herself ahead of the game by selling them and pouching the money. You know how fond she is of money. The beauty of this scheme is, of course, that she can't deny it. At least, she can, but denial won't do her any good.'
There was a long silence; to Monty a disappointing silence. He had anticipated from his companion something in the nature of three rousing cheers. And so far from bursting into applause he was looking as he had so often looked during conferences at the Superba-Llewellyn studio when somebody had been slow off the mark in saying ‘Yes' to one of his suggestions.
At length he spoke.
'The half measure thought that up?'
'Yes, it was her own unaided work.'
'She ought to have her head examined.'
'You don't like it?' said Monty, taken aback.
'I don't want any piece of it. Who does she think I am? One of those dauntless death-defying guys who go into cages at the circus and look murderous man-eating monarchs of the jungle in the eye and make them wilt? I wouldn't have the nerve to talk to Grayce like that on the long-distance telephone. No, sir, not if I was in Paris, France, and she was in Honolulu.'
Monty preserved a prudent silence. There had been an instant when he had thought of saying 'Are you man or mouse, Llewellyn?', but he decided not to. Pleasant though their relations had been of late, he had never lost the awe with which the other had inspired him during his sojourn in Hollywood. He had commented to Sandy on the resemblance, as seen by an employee at Llewellyn City, between this man and the less lovable fauna of the Book of Revelation, and he had always felt that there was no knowing when the similarity might not become noticeable again. He said nothing, therefore, and Mr. Llewellyn proceeded, now in more pacific vein.
'Don't get me wrong, Bodkin. I'm not saying the half portion's idea is a bad one for the right man, but I'm not the right man. Telling Grayce she switched those pearls calls for someone more the Orlando Mulligan type, though I doubt if even he would have been equal to it unless pickled to the gills, as he so often was. Where young pint size is at a disadvantage is in never having seen Grayce when she was really rolling. I've heard former husbands of hers say there has been nothing like it since the San Francisco earthquake of nineteen-six. Why, when we were doing Passion in Paris she used up three directors, two assistant directors and a script girl. Never themselves again. No, we give pint size an E for Effort, but we pigeonhole her treatment as unworkable and start shooting mine. I told you I had an idea. It is the fruit of long hours of intense thinking, but I have no hesitation in predicting that it will bring home the bacon. It is this. You take the jewel case, ostensibly to leave it with the bank, and on the way there you throw it into some convenient pond or river, where it will remain unseen till the cows come home. Or you might bury the damned thing.'
He paused, plainly satisfied that he had found a solution where all others had failed. He was so manifestly pleased with himself that Monty hardly liked to put a query which might offend by seeming a criticism of his brain-child. He nerved himself, however, to do so. He said:
'And then what?'
'I don't follow you, Bodkin.'
'You speak of cows coming home. What happens when I do?'
'I still don't dig you.'
'How do I explain? I start out with the jewel case. I come back without it, and without a receipt from the bank. Won't Mrs. Llewellyn ask why?'
Mr. Llewellyn dismissed the dilemma with a careless wave of the hand. He had always prided himself on being a man who thought on his feet.
'Oh, that. You put up a story.'
'Er . . . What story?'
'You say you were attacked by a gang of thugs. They held you up and swiped the jewel case.'
'How did they know I had it?'
'These thugs have their spies everywhere.'
Monty's mind was still not at ease.
'You think Mrs. Llewellyn will believe that?'
'She can't disprove it.'
'There'll be trouble.'
'Isn't it there always?'
'As I see it from where I sit I shall be arrested and sent to choky.
Mr. Llewellyn waved away this objection with another of his careless gestures.
'Well, what do you care? You can't get more than a year or two, and they tell me prisons are more like country clubs these days. Concerts, lectures, movies. You'll enjoy it. And there's another thing. You've been beefing about how you can't slide out of your engagement to the hockey-knocker so that you can team up with the half portion. How long do you suppose the hockey-knocker is going to hold you to it when she hears you're in the calaboose? There isn't a chance she'll take up your option.’
A thrill passed through Monty from butter-coloured hair to shoe sole. He thought he had examined all the angles, but that one had escaped his notice. He gazed at Mr. Llewellyn reverently. Satirists, he was thinking, were very funny at the expense of the men who ran the big motion picture studios, but it was. to the latter that you had to go when you wanted hardheaded practical commonsense. In a voice trembling with emotion he said:
'By Jove, I believe you're right.'
‘I’m always right.'
'She wouldn't want to marry a convict.'
'She wouldn't marry one on a bet.'
‘I’ll do it.'
'That's my boy. That's the spirit we breed at old S-L.'
'Give me the jewel case. I'll go and get the car out,' said Monty, and Chimp, who had been approaching in his noiseless way with a view to receiving the forty pounds which Mr. Llewellyn owed him for the champagne, halted and stood spellbound. He was thus in a position to hear Mr. Llewellyn say 'No hurry. Let's run over the scenario first, to make sure it adds up right.'
Chimp had heard enough. Those words could have but one meaning. Monty had been entrusted with the job for which he himself had been the first choice and which but for Dolly's unethical behaviour he would even now have been carrying out.
Mr. Llewellyn, commenting on Chimp at the Happy Prawn, had said of him that he was a man who could grasp his opportunities, and no critique could have been truer. When the chance of picking up money presented itself, he thought and acted like lightning. On the present occasion his strategy and tactics were complete in an incredibly short space of time.
He derived comfort from those last words of Mr. Llewellyn, that there was no need for Monty to hurry in going to the garage, for it was imperative that he, Chimp, get there first. Monty, driving to Brighton, would make the journey in the Cadillac. The Cadillac, therefore, must be put out of action so that he would be compelled to use the station wagon. For while he, Chimp, though a small man, could never hope to hide successfully in a Cadillac, to lurk unobserved at the back of the station wagon would in the best and deepest sense of the words be duck soup.
Returning to the house and taking the stairs three at a time, he reached his room and found his gun. Then once more at express speed he proceeded to the garage to attend to the Cadillac.
Chapter Eleven
The name of the caller on the telephone was strange to Grayce and she had to ask him to repeat it. She got it at last, it was Butterwick. It would have pleased her more if it had had a Lord in front of it, but she was a woman who always enjoyed a telephone conversation, and it was a nice change from having to talk to her husband, especially when he was half asleep.
'Oh, y
es, Mr. Butterwick?'
'Is that Mrs. Llewellyn?'
'It is.'
'Atishoo!'
'I beg your pardon?'
‘I have a cold.’
'Oh, I'm sorry.’
'I am somewhat subject to them.’
The day had started badly for Mr. Butterwick. His cold, on the previous night a mere tickling in the throat, had so increased in virulence as to make it injudicious for him to go to the office, and when he was unable to go to the office melancholy marked him for its own. Like all importers and exporters, he counted that day lost on which he was not importing this or exporting that. An importer and exporter whose heart is in his work feels like the Prisoner of Chillon when he is kept at home with a cold in the head.
He might have borne up better if Gertrude had been there, but Gertrude had gone to a committee meeting of her hockey club, and in her absence it seemed impossible to find anything to do. A musician in his place could have played the piano or the electric guitar or the shawms or the cymbals or something, but he had never had a musical training. He could have read a good book, but there were none about nowadays. It really seemed as though he would be reduced to twiddling his fingers as recommended by the late Count Tolstoi as an alternative to smoking, when there suddenly flashed into his mind the thought of the letter Montrose Bodkin had written to his daughter Gertrude.
Owing to Gertrude having come back with the Alka-Seltzer when he was only giving the communication its first reading his recollection of its contents was a sketchy one, but he did remember that it had contained a passage alluding to Mrs. Llewellyn as the Fuhrer of the Llewellyn home, and if this was so he had of course made a mistake in approaching her husband with his anti-Bodkin propaganda. A lifetime in business had taught him always to go to the man—in this case the woman—up top.
He went to Gertrude's desk. Yes, there in its pigeonhole was the letter. He took it out and found that his supposition had been perfectly correct. Monty's observations concerning himself caused a momentary wince, but he read the vile thing through and came on the lines he was looking for.