'No, no, of course not.'
When Dolly returned, she was carrying her bag, and in the bag the .38 Colt, an indispensable property for the scene she had in mind.
She found Monty peering into the interior of the Cadillac. Whatever he was seeing there was plainly not to his taste.
‘I say.’ he said, 'I hate to break it to you, but something's gone wrong with this car. It won't start.'
'It was all right this morning.'
'Oh, were you out in it this morning?'
'I took my husband to the station.'
'Well, you won't take anyone to any stations now. I can't get a murmur out of it. I'm one of those fellows who are not bad at driving, but that lets me out. I don't
know the first thing about the way the machine works. 'Me neither.'
'If there's a breakdown, I just sit and howl for the garage man.'
'Me, too.'
'And he tells me the exhaust box has been short-circuiting with the commutator, or whatever it may be. and I go on my way rejoicing, but still without the foggiest idea of what the hell he's been talking about, if you will pardon the word hell.'
'That's all right. I've heard it before.'
'In the matter currently under advisement I would say the ruddy car was in a trance of some kind.'
'Cataleptic?'
'If that's what it's called. It looks as if I'll have to go in the station wagon. Do you still want to come?'
'Sure. What's the matter with station wagons?'
Her cheerful acceptance of a state of affairs which might have occasioned peevishness in many women charmed Monty. His heart warmed to her. He saw that he was going to enjoy this trip to Brighton, for there are few things more pleasant than a tete a tete with a vivacious and intelligent female companion. He foresaw light sparkling conversation flowing between them like ginger ale out of a bottle.
And so it did for quite a while.
'Have you known the Llewellyns long?' he asked, as they drove off.
'Only a month or so. We met them in Cannes.'
'Oh, you've been to Cannes? Now there's a place I like.'
'Swell.'
'The sea. The mountains.'
'You betcher.'
'Did you play at the Casino at all?'
'Not much. We were there more on business. My husband has large oil interests, and he was establishing contacts. Seeing people, what I mean, and fixing up deals.'
‘I’ve often wondered how you fix up a deal.'
'Oh, you talk a lot and wave your hands a lot.'
‘Fine, provided you know what to say.'
'Yes, you have to know what to say.'
'Business,' said Monty thoughtfully, 'is a thing I've never been able to get the hang of. I know a man who makes an annual packet by importing and exporting, but what that actually consists of I haven't found out. I should imagine he ships half a dozen grand pianos to a bloke in West Africa, and the bloke in West Africa sends him apes, ivory and peacocks in exchange. Would that be it?'
'I shouldn't wonder. Your guess is as good as mine.'
'He then sends these to a bloke in Hawaii in return for a cargo of tuning-forks.'
'The bloke in Hawaii having more tuning-forks than he knows what to do with and wondering for weeks where he could get hold of a few apes and peacocks'
'Exactly.'
'It's called Trade.'
'Yes, so I've heard.'
They were now passing through deserted country roads, but soon, Dolly realised, they would be coming to more populous regions where it would not be easy to operate unobserved. And so agreeable had each found the other's personality and so fraught with interest had their conversation been that it cost her a pang to think that her business interests would 'ere long compel her to produce the .38 Colt and order him to alight, leaving the jewel case behind him. By way of consolation she told herself that the more she postponed the painful scene the longer would be his walk back to Mellingham Hall, and it was only humane to make that walk as short as possible. If what she contemplated were done, and it had to be done, then 'twere well, as Shakespeare would have put it, 'twere done quickly.
She reached in her bag and produced the Colt.
'Would you mind stopping a moment, Mr. Bodkin?' she said.
The thought behind this request escaped Monty completely.
'Stop?' he said. 'Why? Do you want to pick a nosegay of wild flowers?'
'Not so much a nosegay of wild flowers.’ said Dolly, 'as those pearls you've got there.'
It was as she spoke that he noticed that her shapely hand was advancing a hefty-looking firearm in the direction of his ribs, and he leaped in his seat as far as a sitting man can leap. Memories of Mavis flitted into his mind, and he found himself wondering dully if every member of the opposite sex whom he met was going to behave in this disturbing manner. Were they all, he asked himself, in the words of a song he had sometimes sung in his bath, pistol-packing Mommas, or was it just that he had bad luck in the women he associated with? Mrs. Molloy was perhaps to be preferred to Mavis as a pistol-packer, for she had not locked him up in a smelly cupboard as had the future Mrs. James Ponder, but only in that respect was there a preference. His opinion of her as a charming and entertaining companion for a jaunt through the countryside in an automobile had undergone a radical change. To say that he looked at her askance would be no exaggeration.
She, on her side, seemed to be feeling that her behaviour called for something in the nature of explanation and apology.
'You're probably thinking this all kind of rather strange and unusual.’ she said, 'and I wouldn't do it if it wasn't absolutely necessary, because you're a good Joe and I like you, but business is business. It's what we were saying just now about Trade. You give me the jewel case, and I give you a nice country walk which'll do you all the good in the world.’
Monty had been perplexed in the extreme, but all things were now made clear to him.
'Good Lord!' he explained. 'You're a crook.'
'Well, we've all got to be something.'
'You ought to be ashamed of yourself. What's a nice girl like you doing shoving guns against people's waists coats?'
'I get your point, and I quite agree that it's not the sort of thing that's done in the best sets, but listen, honey, we're just wasting time, chewing the fat like this. Leave me, I would be alone, as the fellow said. In other words get out of the car.’
'Both of you get out of the car,' said Chimp Twist, appearing behind them as if shot out of a trap. 'And make it slippy, because I haven't got all day. And Dolly, drop the heater and leave that jewel case where it is, I don't want any unpleasantness.’
Nobody is so persuasive as the man behind the gun. The greatest orator in Chimp's position might have reasoned for hours and failed to convert his audience to his point of view, but Dolly and Monty fell in with his wishes with the minimum of delay. Silently they stood watching the car as it disappeared down the road. Only when it was out of sight did Dolly speak.
The word she uttered was so crisp and forceful that it raised the butter-coloured hair on Monty's head. Strong language was no novelty to him—he had once been present when somebody had slammed a car door on the finger of D'Arcy ('Stilton') Cheesewright of the Drones—but this particular ejaculation was new to him and it had the effect which things have on us when we hear them for the first time.
Even Dolly seemed conscious that she had expressed herself too freely.
'Sorry,' she said. 'It slipped out.’
'Quite all right.'
‘If you knew how I'm feeling.'
'Not too bumps-a-daisy, I imagine.’
'I could yell and shriek and scream.'
'Go ahead if you want to.'
'You really are a good Joe.’ said Dolly emotionally. 'Aren't you sore at me for holding you up that way?'
'Not a bit.’ said Monty, 'and I'll tell you why. Can you keep a secret?'
'I doubt it.'
'Well, try to keep this one. Those pearls
are fakes.’
‘What!'
'Fakes. F for Ferdinand, A for Archibald, K for kidney trouble, and so on. They're cultured Japanese.'
'You're pulling my leg.'
'I wouldn't dream of it.'
'You mean they aren't valuable?'
'Barely worth the paper they're written on.’
'I can't believe it.'
'Of course you can't, but you will when you have heard all.'
It took some time for Dolly to hear all, and they had nearly reached Mellingham village before she was in possession of the full facts. It was perhaps characteristic of her that her first comment on Monty's narrative should have been a marked tribute to Mr. Llewellyn for his sagacity in thinking up such an admirable scheme for adjusting his financial troubles.
'You'd never think he had the brains.'
'Oh, he's very shrewd really. I have a high opinion of Ivor Llewellyn's intelligence. I know of no man whom I would rather have at my side during a police raid on a night club. Good solid brains there.’
‘I should think Mrs. Llewellyn would spill them on the living-room carpet if she finds out what he's been up to.'
'How can she find out? The gentleman who was with us just now has gone off with the evidence. By the way, who was he? He seemed to know you, and I had a sort of idea I had seen him before.'
'He's a guy of the name of Twist. Calls himself a detective. Mrs. Lewellyn must have got him in to guard her pearls. He's been working as Mr. Lewellyn's valet.'
'Oh my God! You don't mean he'll take them back to her?'
'Don't make me laugh. Anything Chimp Twist gets his hooks on goes out of circulation. And talking of laughing, a brief pause while I do it. When I think of Chimp trying to collect fifty thousand bones for a rope of pearls which turn out to be worth around ten dollars I feel like laughing my head off. And here we part, brother Bodkin,' said Dolly as they entered the little main street of Mellingham village. I've got to go to the post office to wire the good news to Soapy, and you will probably want to be getting along and having a chat with Mrs. Llewellyn.'
Chapter Twelve
Mr. Llewellyn was feeling extraordinarily fit. He had not quite finished the bottle of champagne, but he had imbibed enough of it to put him at the top of his form. One remarkable result of his potations was that the fear with which Grayce inspired him had completely disappeared. Grayce (his thoughts ran) pooh. Less than the dust beneath his chariot wheels, if he remembered the quotation correctly from his school-marm days. If she came into the room at this moment, he was convinced that he would look her in the eye and make her wilt with the easy nonchalance of one of those dauntless death-defying characters he had mentioned to Monty who had so calming an effect on murderous man-eating monarchs of the jungle.
The afternoon had reached the peak of its beauty. The skies were even bluer than before, the breezes even more gentle, and bees which had buzzed and birds which had tootled did so now with just that little extra vim and brio which makes all the difference. It would perhaps be too much to say that Mr. Llewellyn, looking out of his bedroom window, felt the call of the wild, but it did occur to him that it would be rather nice to be out of doors. Having concealed the bottle beneath the bed, he made his way downstairs and into the open spaces. Shortly afterwards he was on the rustic bench on which Dolly Molloy had sat, where almost immediately his eyes closed in sleep.
He woke to find that he had been joined by Sandy. She was sitting beside him, and a glance at her profile told him that all was not well with her. She had the unmistakable air of a girl whom Fate had recently kicked in the teeth. As she turned her head, he saw that her eyes were dull, her face strained. She reminded him of his fourth wife, who had looked like that whenever he told her a funny story.
'I'm sorry,’ said Sandy. 'I didn't mean to wake you.’
'Had I dropped off for a moment? I had a tough night last night. Grayce made me sit up all night in a dining-room chair. What's the matter, half portion? You look kind of low.'
'I'm feeling low. I've just been fired.'
'Grayce fired you?'
'Yes.'
Mr. Llewellyn frowned.
'Grayce is too fond of throwing her weight about. We shall have to correct that,' he said, or rather the champagne speaking in his voice. 'What was the trouble?'
'She found out that Monty hasn't any titled relations.’
'Well, why should he have? I haven't, and I venture to believe I'm as good as the next man.'
'But I told her he had. That was how I got him the job.'
'Ah,' said Mr. Llewellyn, understanding. His wife's esteem for the aristocracy was no secret to him.
'So now I'll have to go back to America.’
'Well, what's wrong with America? Land of the free and home of the brave.’
'But Monty will stay on in England and I'll never see him again.’ said Sandy, and the tears she had been trying to hold back burst their bonds. 'Don't pat my head,' she added.
'I will pat your head,' said Mr. Llewellyn stoutly. 'If I can't pat your head when it needs patting, whose head can I pat? My heart bleeds for you, pint size, bleeds profusely. Not that I can see what all the fuss is about. What makes you think that if you go to America, Bodkin won't come after you?'
'Why should he? He doesn't love me.'
'Of course he loves you, you silly little sap.'
'What!'
'Told me so himself. Oh to clasp her in my arms and fade out with her on the embrace, he said, or words to that effect. And as I had already told him you were crazy about him—'
'You didn't!'
'I certainly did. Men like to hear these things. It was as we were driving home from that night club.'
'You promised you wouldn't.'
'You can't go by what a man in my position promises. You don't really suppose, do you, that you can run a big studio successfully if you go about keeping your promises all the time? If you want me to keep a promise, have me put it in writing and take it to a public notary and get it stamped. And even after that you'll have my lawyers to deal with. But we mustn't wander from the point. What I was saying when you sidetracked me on to the subject of promises was that Bodkin regards you as the best thing that's happened since sliced bread and would give half his kingdom to have your slippers laid out beside his on the bedroom floor, and the only thing that's holding up the merger is the fact that he's tied up elsewhere.'
'He's engaged to a girl called Gertrude Butterwick.’
'I know all about her. Bodkin confided in me. She is the daughter of J. B. Butterwick, a man who invites you to lunch and gives you carrots and mock duck, and a girl with a father like that cannot be anything but a pill of the first water. The sooner he gets out of it, the better.'
'How can he get out of it? He's much too honourable. He keeps his promises.'
'He's young yet. He'll know better when he's older.'
'He can't tell Gertrude Butterwick he loves me.'
'Why not? A couple of words on the telephone. But you needn't worry. He's bound to do something sooner or later that'll make the girl give him the air.'
'I wish I could think so.'
'You'd darned well better think so. We can't have you crying all over the place. As a matter of fact, between ourselves, he's working on a treatment this afternoon. He hopes to get sent to prison, which of course would solve everything neatly.'
'Prison!'
'He's gone off in the car with those fake pearls and will lose them somewhere on the journey. When he comes back without them and with a story about having been held up by hijackers, Mrs. Llewellyn will undoubtedly have him put in the cooler. Matter of fact, she said as much when we were chatting just now. This will cause the Butterwick beasel to give him the bum's rush, and all will end happily. He won't get a long stretch, and you can go and see him on visiting days.'
For the last few minutes Mr. Llewellyn had been articulating drowsily, and now he dozed off again. A man accustomed to getting his eight hours never holds up
well after a wakeful night in a dining-room chair. He was dimly aware that his companion was speaking at some length, but machine guns would not have kept him awake.
When consciousness returned, he was alone and the air had the touch of chilliness which makes sitting in the open lose its charm. Feeling that his time would be better occupied in finishing the rest of the champagne, he went to his room and completed his work on the bottle. This done, he went downstairs with a heart for any fate. It was really remarkable how the elixir had changed his whole outlook. It will be remembered that Monty, enjoying Mr. Flannery's hospitality at The Happy Prawn, had had the same experience. Evidently there is some magic property in the better brands of this wine that not only enlivens the body but braces up the soul.
He became aware that there was an unpleasant noise going on somewhere. Concentrating his faculties, he was able to pin it down as proceeding from the drawing-room and a moment later he had recognized it. Grayce was in there, rebuking someone.
It did not require deep thought to tell him who this someone was. Evidently it was his friend Bodkin who was on the receiving end, and as he realised this the champagne boiled in his veins and he frowned darkly. He could not have his friend Bodkin subjected to this sort of thing.
He opened the drawing-room door and strode in.
It was as he had supposed. Grayce was standing in the centre of the room looking like the Statue of Liberty and Monty was standing before her looking filleted, as well he might considering that this was his first introduction to the great emotional actress in one of her louder roles. He had anticipated that when he returned to the fold without the pearls and with what he knew was an inadequate explanation of their absence, a certain liveliness would ensue, but his imagination of the coming scene had fallen far short of the stark reality. His air in consequence was that of a man who has been trying to locate a leak in a gas pipe with a lighted candle.
Mr. Llewellyn, on the other hand, was calm, cool and collected, as befitted one who had been assured by a quart of Bollinger that he was master in his own home and as such entitled to resent anything that disturbed the peace of it.
‘What's all this?' he asked.