Cocktail Time

  And having done so, Sir Raymond returned to the smoking-room to tell Lord Ickenham that the thing, as he had predicted it would be, was in the bag.

  CHAPTER 6

  As might have been expected, the announcement, appearing in the papers two days later, that Cosmo Wisdom was the author of the novel Cocktail Time, now at the height of its notoriety, did not pass unnoticed. One of the first to notice it was J. P. Boots of Boots and Brewer, and it was the work of an instant for him, on arriving at his office in St Mary Axe, to summon the young man to his presence and inform him that his services, such as they were, would no longer be required. Import and export merchants, whether of St Mary Axe or elsewhere, have the reputation of the firm to think of and cannot afford to retain in their entourage employees capable of writing Chapter 13 of that work. J. P. Boots did not in so many words bid Cosmo go and sin no more, but this was implied in his manner.

  It was, however, only this importer and exporter who struck the jarring note. Elsewhere the reactions were uniformly pleasant. Alfred Tomkins Ltd wrote Cosmo an affectionate letter, telling him to come up and see them some time, and an equally affectionate letter came from Howard Saxby of Edgar Saxby and Sons, the literary agents, recommending him to place his affairs in the hands of the Saxby organization (offices in London, New York and Hollywood). This Cosmo, feeling that the situation in which he had been placed was one of those where a fellow needs a friend, decided to do, though wincing a little at the thought of that ten per cent commission.

  Two little girls, Ava Rackstraw, aged ten, and Lana Cootes (12) wrote asking for his autograph, saying that he had long been their favourite author and they had read all his books. He was invited to address the Herne Hill Literary Society on 'Some Aspects of the Modern Novel'. Six unpublished authors sent him their unpublished works with a request for a detailed criticism. And Ivor Llewellyn, president of the Superba-Llewellyn motion picture company of Hollywood, about to return to California after a visit to London, told his secretary to go out and buy a copy of the book for him to read on the plane. Mr Llewellyn was always on the lookout for material which, if he could ease it past the Johnston office, would excite the clientele, and Cocktail Time, from what everyone was saying about it, seemed likely to be just the sort of thing he wanted.

  And, finally, Mrs Gordon Carlisle, breakfasting in the sitting-room of the flat which she shared with her husband, opened her morning paper, looked at page one, started, said something that sounded like 'Cheese!' and lifting her attractive head shouted 'Hey, Oily!'

  'Yes, sweetie?'

  'Cummere,' said Mrs Carlisle, and there entered from the bedroom a tall, slender, almost excessively gentlemanly man in a flowered dressing-gown, who might have been the son of some noble house or a Latin-American professional dancer.

  Actually, he was neither. He was a confidence trick artist whose virtuosity won him considerable respect in the dubious circles in which he moved. American by birth and residence, he had brought his wife to Europe on a pleasure trip. After years of strenuous work he proposed to take a sabbatical, though of course if something really good came up, he was always prepared to get back into harness again. The Carlisles did not spare themselves.

  'Yay?' he said, hoping that his loved one had not summoned him to tell him he must wear his thick woollies. She had a way of doing so when the English summer was on the chilly side, and they tickled him.' 'Smarter, sweetie?'

  'Want to show you somef'n.'

  Gertrude ('Sweetie') Carlisle was a strapping young woman with bold hazel eyes and a determined chin. These eyes were now flashing, and the chin protruded. It was plain that what she had read had stirred her.

  'Listen, Oily. Didn't you tell me you won fifty pounds from a guy named Cosmo Wisdom the other night?'

  Mr Carlisle nodded. It was the sombre nod of a man reluctant to be reminded of a sad experience.

  'I did, yes. But he didn't pay me. He turned out to be one of these forty-dollar-a-week city clerks. The woods are full of them over here. They fool you by dressing like dukes, and when it's too late you find they're office boys or something. That's what you get for coming to a strange country. It would never have happened back home.'

  'What did you do?'

  'I didn't do anything.'

  'I'd have busted him one.'

  Mr Carlisle could well believe it. Impulsiveness and a sturdy belief in direct action were the leading features of his mate's interesting character. Some time had passed since the incident occurred and the bump had gone down now, but there still remained green in his memory the occasion when a fancied misdemeanour on his part had led her to hit him on the back of the head with a large vase containing gladioli. It had, in his opinion, spoiled the honeymoon.

  'Well, too late to do anything now,' he said moodily. 'Just got to write it off as a bad debt.'

  'Bad debt nothing. He was playing you for a sucker.'

  Mr Carlisle started. His amour-propre was wounded.

  'A sucker? Me?'

  'Certainly he was. He was holding out on you. Read this.'

  'Read what?'

  'This.'

  'Which?'

  'This stuff in the paper here about him having written this book they're all talking about. He's got oodles of money. It's a best seller.'

  Mr Carlisle took the paper, scanned it and said 'Well, I'll be darned!' Gentlemanliness was his aim in life, for he had found it his best professional asset, and he seldom used any stronger expletive.

  'Looks like you're right.'

  'Sure, I'm right.'

  'Unless,' said Oily, struck by a damping thought, 'it's some other Cosmo Wisdom.'

  His wife scoffed at the theory. Even in England, she reasoned, there couldn't be two men with a name like that.

  'Where does he live, this guy?'

  'Down Chelsea way. One of those side streets off the King's Road.'

  'Then have a bite of breakfast and go see him.'

  'I will.'

  'Don't come back without those fifty smackers.'

  'I won't.'

  'Get tough.'

  'You betcher.'

  'And wear your thick woollies.'

  'Oh, sweetie! Must I?'

  'Certainly you must. There's a nasty east wind.'

  'But they make me want to scratch.'

  'Well, go ahead, then. They can't jail you for scratching.'

  'Oh, hell!' said Oily.

  It was not a word he often employed, but it seemed to him that the circumstances justified it.

  It was getting on for lunch time when he returned to the little nest, and there was nothing in his face to indicate whether his mission had had a happy ending or the reverse. The better to succeed in his chosen career, Oily Carlisle had trained his features to a uniform impassivity which often caused his wife annoyance. Though recognizing the professional value of a dead pan, she wished that he would not carry it into the life of the home.

  'Well?' she said.

  'Rustle me up an old-fashioned, will you, sweetie?' said Oily. 'My tongue's hanging out.'

  Mrs Carlisle rustled him up an old-fashioned, and having done so said 'Well?' again.

  'Did you see him?'

  'I saw him.'

  'What did he say?'

  'Plenty.'

  'Did you get the fifty?'

  'No. Matter of fact, I lent him another twenty.'

  'For heaven's sake!'

  'But I got something a darned sight better than fifty pounds.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'I'll tell you.'

  In Oily's demeanour as he took another sip of his cocktail and prepared to speak there was a suggestion of that Ancient Mariner of whom the poet Coleridge wrote. Like him, he knew he had a good story to relate, and he did not intend to hurry it.

  'Yes, I saw him, and I said I'd been expecting to hear from him before this, because wasn't there a little matter of a hundred and fifty dollars or so he owed me, and he said Yes, that was right, and I said it would be righter, if he'd come
through with it, and he said he hadn't got it.'

  'The nerve!'

  Oily took in the last drops of his old-fashioned, lit a cigarette and put his feet on the table.

  'And he couldn't raise it, he said. Oh, no? I said. How about this book of yours you can't pick up a paper without seeing all that stuff about it? I said. The money must be pouring in like a tidal wave, I said.'

  'What did he say to that?'

  'Said it wasn't any such thing. These publishers pay up twice a year, he said, and it would be months before he could touch. I said Well, why didn't he get something from them in advance, and he said he'd just been trying to and they'd told him it would be foreign to their policy to anticipate the customary half-yearly statement.'

  'Do what?'

  'They wouldn't bite. Said he'd have to wait.'

  'So what did you say?'

  'I said "Too bad".'

  A bitter sneer marred the beauty of Gertrude Carlisle's face.

  'Got all fierce, didn't you? Scared the pants off him, I shouldn't wonder.'

  'I said "Too bad",' proceeded Oily equably, 'and I said "Sweetie will be vexed", I said, and he said "Who's Sweetie?" and I said "Mrs Carlisle". And when Sweetie's vexed, I said, she generally hits people over the head with a bottle. And I told him about you and me and the vase.'

  'Oh, honey, we've forgotten all that.'

  'I haven't. Forgiven, yes. Forgotten, no. I can remember, just the same as if it had been yesterday, how it feels to get hit on the back of the head with a vase containing gladioli, and I described the symptoms to him. He turned greenish.'

  And then?'

  'Then I came away.'

  Mrs Carlisle's lips had closed in a tight line, and there was a sombre glow in her fine eyes. Her air was that of a woman thinking in terms of bottles and making a mental note to set aside the next one that became empty.

  'What's this guy's address?'

  'Why?'

  'I thought I'd call around and say Hello.'

  'You won't need to. Relax, sweetie. You ain't heard nothing yet. When I told you I came away, I ought to have said I started to come away, because he called me back. Seemed worried, I thought. He was gulping quite a good deal.'

  'I'll gulp him!'

  And then he came clean and spilled the whole works. You know what he said? He said he didn't write that book at all.'

  And you believed him?'

  'Sure I believed him, after I'd heard the rest of it. He said his uncle wrote it. His uncle's a guy called Sir Raymond Bastable. Big lawyer and going in for politics and knew that if it came out that he had written this Cocktail Time thing, he'd be ruined.'

  'Why?'

  'Seems in England you can't mix writing that sort of book with standing for parliament, which is what he's set on. So he got our Mr Wisdom to say he'd done it. Well, I needn't tell you what I said to myself when I heard that.'

  'Yes, you need. What did you say to yourself?'

  'I said "Here's where I touch the big money."'

  'I don't get it.'

  Oily smiled an indulgent smile.

  'Look, sweetie. Use your bean. You're this Bastable character. You write a book, and it's too hot to handle, so you get your nephew to take the rap, and the papers run a big story about it's him that wrote it. All straight so far?'

  'Sure, but—'

  'Well, what do you do when you get a letter from the nephew saying he's been thinking it over and his conscience won't let him go on with the ramp, so he's going to tell the world it wasn't him who done it, it was you? Here's what you do – you pay up. You say "How much do you want, to keep this under your hat?" And you get charged as much as the traffic will bear.'

  Mrs Carlisle's eyes widened. Her lips parted. She might have known, she was feeling, that she could have trusted her Oily. Gazing at him reverently, she expressed her emotion in a quick 'Gosh!'

  'But will he do it?'

  'Will who do what?'

  'This Wisdom fellow. Will he write the letter?'

  'He's done it. I've got it right here in my pocket. I said I'd mail it for him. I explained the idea, and he saw it at once.

  58

  Very enthusiastic he was. He said his uncle's got all the money in the world – you know what they pay these big lawyers – and there isn't a chance that he won't cough up prac'lly anything.'

  'Protection money.'

  'That's right, protection money. So I dictated the letter and brought it away with me. That's when I loaned him that twenty pounds. He said he wanted to celebrate. Now what?' asked Oily, noting that a cloud had passed over the face of the moon of his delight.

  'I was only feeling what a pity it is you'll have to split with him. You will, I guess?'

  'That's what he guesses, too, but, ask me, he's guessing wrong. I'm taking the letter to this Bastable after lunch – he's living in the country at a place called Dovetail Hammer – and I shall want the money right down on the counter. Well, of course, it's just possible I may decide to give Wisdom his half of it, but I doubt it, sweetie, I doubt it very much indeed.'

  'Oily,' said Mrs Carlisle, her eyes shining with a soft light, 'there's no one like you. You're wonderful.'

  'I'm pretty good,' agreed Mr Carlisle modestly.

  CHAPTER 7

  The 3.26, Oily decided, having consulted the railway guide, was the train to take to Dovetail Hammer. It would, he pointed out, give them nice time for lunch at the Ritz and Gertie, all enthusiasm, begged him to lead her to it. Too often in her past luncheon had had to be a thing of sandwiches and dill pickles on the home premises, and she was a girl who, like the fifth Earl of Ickenham, enjoyed stepping high, wide and plentiful.

  It was at about the moment when they were sipping their coffee and Oily had lighted a seven-and-sixpenny cigar that Lord Ickenham, who had been taking the mid-day meal with his nephew Pongo at the Drones preparatory to going and visiting his godson at Hammer Hall, looked out of the smoking-room window at the Demosthenes across the way and heaved a sigh.

  'Boo!' said Pongo.

  'I beg your pardon?'

  'Just trying to scare you. Said to be good for hiccups.'

  'It would take a lot more than that to scare an intrepid man like me. Chilled Steel Ickenham they used to call me in the old regiment. And, anyway, that was not a hiccup, it was a sigh.'

  'Why were you sighing?'

  'Because I felt a pang. No, sorry, three pangs. What caused one of them was the thought that, going off to stay with Johnny, I shall be deprived for quite a time of your society and those pleasant and instructive afternoons we have so often had together. It would have been delightful to have remained in London, seeing the sights with you.'

  'You don't see any ruddy sights with me. I know you when you're seeing sights.'

  'My second pang – Pang B you might call it – was occasioned by looking across the street at the Demosthenes Club, for it brought my semi-brother-in-law, Beefy Bastable, to my mind. I found myself thinking of something that happened last summer. You have probably forgotten the incident, but about a year ago, seated in this window, I shot his topper off with a Brazil nut.'

  'Gosh!'

  'Ah, I see you remember. Well, I had hoped that the experience would have proved a turning point in his life, making him a gentler, kinder Beefy, a sweeter, softer Bastable, more patient with and tolerant of his sister Phoebe. I was too sanguine.'

  'Isn't he patient with and tolerant of his sister Phoebe?'

  'Far from it. My well-meant effort appears to have had no effect whatsoever. According to Peasemarch, his butler, with whom I correspond, his manner toward her is still reminiscent of that of Captain Bligh of the Bounty displeased with the behaviour of one of the personnel of the fo'c'stle. Of course, he could make out a case for himself, I suppose. Phoebe, poor lost soul, has a way of putting her head on one side like a canary and saying "What, dear?" when spoken to which must be very annoying to a man accustomed to having one and all hang upon his lightest word. It is when she has done thi
s some six or seven times in the course of a breakfast or luncheon that, according to Peasemarch, he shoots up to the ceiling in a sheet of flame and starts setting about her regardless of her age and sex. Yes, I can see his side of the thing, but it must be very bad for his blood pressure and far from pleasant for all concerned. Peasemarch says it wrings his heart to listen with his ear to the keyhole. You don't know Bert Peasemarch, do you?

  'No.'

  'Splendid chap. About as much brain as you could put comfortably into an aspirin bottle, but what are brains if the heart be of gold? I first met him when he was a steward on the Cunard-White Star. Later, he came into some house property and left the sea and settled down in a village near Ickenham. Then, if you remember, war broke out and there was all that bother about the invasion of England, and I joined the Home Guard, and whom should I find standing shoulder to shoulder with me but Bert Peasemarch. We saw it through together, sitting up all night at times, chilled to the bone, but with our upper lips as stiff as our hip joints. Well, two men don't go through all that without becoming buddies. I grew to love Bert like a brother, and he grew to love me like a brother. Two brothers in all. I got him his job with Beefy.'

  'I thought you said he came into house property.'

  'Quite a bit of it, I understand.'

  'Then why did he want to buttle?'

  'Ennui, my dear boy, the ennui that always attacks all these fellows who retire in their prime. He missed the brave tang of the old stewarding days. Years of life on the ocean wave had left him ill-fitted to sit on his fat trouser seat and do nothing. Well, a steward is practically a butler, so I advised him to make a career of that. My Coggs down at Ickenham coached him, and when Coggs said the time was ripe, I unloaded him on Beefy.'

  'How did he get on with him?'

  'I think he found him something of a trial. But that was before Beefy moved to the country. Who knows that living in the country will not improve him out of all knowledge. The quiet rural life does have a wonderful effect on people. Take me. There are times, I admit, when being cooped up at Ickenham makes me feel like a caged skylark, though not of course looking like one, but there is no question that it has been the making of me. I attribute to it the fact that I have become the steady, sensible, perhaps rather stodgy man I am today. I beg your pardon?'