The Girl in Blue (9 page)

‘It
would be,’ he said churlishly. ‘You would come ringing up when I’ve about five
minutes to get to the station.’

‘Are
you off somewhere?’

‘Sandwich.
Golfing.’

‘Well,
I won’t keep you a minute. It’s a girl. I’m giving her dinner on Saturday.’

‘Doesn’t
your Vera object?’

‘No,
that’s all right. Vera’s broken the engagement.’

‘I’m
delighted to hear it. She’s no good to man or beast.’

‘And
this other girl’s wonderful.’

‘Then
what’s your problem?’

‘I don’t
know her name.’

‘Didn’t
you ask her?’

‘No.’

‘Why
not?’

‘We got
talking of other things and I sort of overlooked it.

A sigh
came over the wire.

‘I’ve
been afraid something like this would happen ever since you were dropped on
your head as a baby. Goodbye, Jerry.’

‘No,
no, wait, Uncle Bill, don’t hang up. You know this girl. She came to see you
this afternoon about a letter you wrote her. You told her that if she got in
touch with you, she would learn of something to her advantage.’

A snort
at the other end of the wire told Jerry that he had at last succeeded in
enchaining his uncle’s interest.

‘Good
Lord! Was that the one? I remember now she said something about having met you.
Her name’s Hunnicut. Jane Hunnicut. She’s an air hostess.’

‘I
know.’

‘But I
don’t suppose she’ll be one much longer. She’s come unto money.

‘I
thought she might.’

‘From
some old man of the name of Donahue she appears to have met in the course of
her air-hostessing. He died the other day. I haven’t all the particulars, but I’ve
been on the phone with the New York lawyers, and they tell me he had no near
relations, so no chance of the will being contested. The whole pile comes to
Jane, and good luck to her. She struck me as a very nice girl, who thoroughly
deserves to hit the jackpot. She’ll get between one and two million dollars.
Goodbye, curse you, I must rush, or I’ll miss that blasted train.’

3

Thus spoke Willoughby, and
with no further delay he bounded off with his suitcase and his golf clubs.

He left
an affectionate nephew staring before him with unseeing eyes, his general
aspect that of one who, like Lot’s wife, has been unexpectedly turned into a
pillar of salt.

Jerry
was frankly appalled. To Jane Hunnicut, he presumed, these pennies from heaven,
if that was where old Mr Donahue had gone, had brought happiness and rejoicing,
for even in this era of depressed currencies between one and two million
dollars is always well worth having, but he saw in her sudden access to the
higher income tax brackets the crashing of all his hopes and dreams.

Everyone’s
squeamishness starts somewhere, and his sprang into life at the thought of
becoming that familiar figure of farce, the impecunious suitor who is trying to
marry the heiress. For no matter how sincere the love of such a man may be, if
he shows a disposition to woo a millionairess, the world sniggers: and anyone
who has had a world sniggering at him will testify that the experience is a
most disagreeable one.

We
pencil Jerry in, then, as a soul in torment and turn to Mabel the receptionist.

CHAPTER SEVEN

For
the greater part of the day Mabel sat at her desk thinking of
absolutely nothing, coming out of her coma only when some caller arrived and it
was necessary to ask his name; but towards the end of the afternoon it was as
if new life had been breathed into the inert frame. Her thoughts had turned to
tea. Today this moment had coincided with Willoughby’s dash through the
waiting-room and disappearance into the world beyond. As his flying coat tails
vanished and all was still again a strong yearning filled her for the evening
cuppa.

Usually
she sent Percy the office boy out for it, but with her employer absent it
seemed an excellent opportunity to refresh herself for once from a china cup
instead of one of those cardboard things. She welcomed, too, the chance of
doing a little window shopping.

Percy,
when not running errands, spent his tine in a small cubbyhole down the corridor
reading the comics. He-could be summoned by a bell, and she went into
Willoughby’s office to press the requisite button.

‘I’m
going out, young Perce,’ she said when he appeared. ‘I shan’t be long. Park
yourself at my desk and take any telephone calls. Tell anyone who wants Mr
Scrope that he’s gone off for a short holiday and would they care to leave a
message. And be careful when you answer the phone to say “Office of Scrope,
Ashby and Pemberton” and not “Yus?”. I’ve had to speak to you about that
before.’

She was
gone some twenty minutes. Returning all tuned up and ready for another spell of
sitting and thinking of nothing, she was pleased to see Percy at his post. Full
of tea, buns and the milk of human kindness, she might have patted him on the
head, had it not been for the peculiarly repellent brand of hair oil which he
affected.

‘Any
calls?’ she asked, and Percy replied that there had been only one.

‘For Mr
Scrope?’

‘Yus.’

‘I hope
you didn’t say “Yus”. Who was it?’

‘Sounded
like Bile. He was drunk.’

‘What!’

‘You
heard. He was as stewed as a prune.

‘Why do
you think that?’

‘Because
of what he said. I wasn’t on to him at first. He was all right when he asked
for the boss, didn’t hiccup or anything. I said the boss had hopped it and
would he care to leave a message. Then guess what.’

‘What?’

‘He
said “Yus, tell him I put Minnie Shaw in the middle drawer of the desk”.’

‘Percy,
you’re making this up.’

‘Honest
to God I’m not. That’s what he said. I wrote it down.’

‘Minnie
Shaw?’

‘Yus.’

‘Put
her in the middle drawer of the desk?’

‘Yus.’

‘How do
you put a girl in the middle drawer of a desk? There wouldn’t be room.’

There
would if you chopped her up first. But I could see it was just the drunken
babble of someone who had been mopping it up all day like a vacuum cleaner, so
I dismissed the thing from my mind.’

‘Well,
it certainly takes all sorts to make a world, doesn’t it,’ said Mabel
disapprovingly. ‘Imagine anyone getting into such a state. I’m not going to
bother Mr Scrope with nonsense like that when he comes back; it wouldn’t mean a
thing to him. Just forget it, Perce.’

And
Percy agreed that that was the only thing to do.

CHAPTER EIGHT

In
 English villages as small as Mellingham-in-the-Vale, which was so
small that the post office sold sweets and balls of worsted and there was only
one oasis, the Goose and Gander, where you could get a drink, the man who
matters is always the owner of the big house. It is he who, even if he is a
Crispin Scrope, is supposed to have a head wiser than the ordinary; it is to
him that the residents bring their problems and grievances.

As
Constable Ernest Simms, the local police force, was about to do on the day
following Crispin’s return from London.’ He trudged up the drive of Mellingham Hall,
an impressive figure well calculated to strike terror into the hearts of
evildoers, and was admitted by Crispin’s butler, at whom he cast a stony look,
returned with one even stonier.’ They were not on good terms.’

‘Hullo,
ugly,’ said the butler. ‘And what might you be wanting?’

‘Not
any of your impertinence,’ was the frigid reply. ‘I wish to see Mr Scrope.”

‘Does
he wish to see
you,’
said the butler, ‘that’s the question.’ All right,
go on up and spoil his day. He’s in the library.”

The
library was on the second floor, a large sombre room brooded over by hundreds
of grim calf-bound books assembled in the days when the reading public went in
for volumes of collected sermons and had not yet acquired a taste for anything
with spies and a couple of good murders in it.’ It had always oppressed
Crispin, but it had this one great advantage, that it was never invaded by
paying guests. Once there, a man could meditate without fear of interruption.’

A
recent financial venture from which he was hoping that large profits would
result had provided Crispin since his return with much food for meditation.
Inflamed by Barney’s enthusiasm for its prospects and telling himself that if
you do not speculate you cannot accumulate, he had placed one hundred pounds of
his brother Bill’s two hundred and three pounds six shillings and fourpence on
the nose of the horse Brotherly Love in the coming two-thirty race at
Newmarket.

He had
told Barney that he did not bet nowadays, but this could scarcely be described
as a bet, so certain was the outcome.’ Consider the facts. Not only had
Willoughby just given a notable example of brotherly love, but the animal was
owned by a man he had been at school with and was to be ridden by a jockey
whose first name was Bill. What red-blooded punter could have been expected to
ignore a combination of omens so obviously proceeding from heaven?

And the
seal was set on his confidence when Constable Simms entered, for the surname of
the jockey whose parents had christened him Bill was Copper.’ Really, it seemed
to Crispin, it was hardly worthwhile going through the formality of running the
race. It would be simpler if his turf accountants just mailed him their cheque
right away.

‘Come
in, Simms, come in,’ he cried sunnily. ‘You want to see me about something?’

The
officer gave no outward indication of sharing his exuberance. His aspect was
grave. He looked, as always, as if he had been carved from some durable form of
wood by someone who was taking a correspondence course in sculpture and had
just reached his third lesson.’

‘Yes,
sir,’ he replied, and his voice was curt and official. One would have said that
he was anxious to impress on his overlord that this was no mere social visit.’

‘It’s
with ref to your butler, sir.

Crispin’s
cheerfulness diminished sharply. The word seemed to have touched an exposed
nerve. A moment before, he had been glad, glad, glad, like a male Polyanna:
this ebullience no longer prevailed. He looked anxious and wary.’

‘My
butler?’ he echoed. ‘What’s he been doing?’

Ernest
Simms’s manner took on the portentousness which always came into it when he
gave evidence in court.

‘It has
been drawn to my attention that he inaugurates games of chance at the Goose and
Gander, contrary to the law. When I warned him that if he persisted in these
practices I should be compelled to take steps, he called me an opprobrious
name.’

Having
given his audience time to shudder, he resumed, and it seemed to Crispin that
he was changing the subject, for his next words took the form of a statement
that yesterday had been his mother’s birthday.

‘She
lives at Hunstanton in Norfolk, and I always send her a telegram on her
birthday.’

Crispin
continued fogged.’ At the sentiment behind this filial act nobody could cavil,
for a policeman’s best friend is admittedly his mother, but he could think of
nothing to say except possibly that it did him credit.’ He remained silent.’

‘I went
into the post office, leaving my bicycle propped up outside, and despatched my
telegram, and when I came out.’.’.’ Here Ernest Simms paused and seemed to
choke, as if, man of chilled steel though he was, his feelings had become too
much for him. ‘And when I came out,’ he repeated, conquering his momentary
malaise, ‘there was that butler giving young Marlene Hibbs a bicycle lesson on
my
bicycle.’

This
time Crispin felt obliged to comment, and it is a matter for regret that his
critique should have been so inadequate.’

‘He
shouldn’t have done that,’ he said.

‘You’re
right he shouldn’t,’ Ernest Simms agreed, speaking with the asperity of a man whose
finest sensibilities have been outraged, ‘and so I told him. I told him that
bicycle was Crown property and when he gave girls rides on it, he was
deliberately insulting Her Majesty the Queen. I said if I caught him doing such
a thing once again, I’d have him locked up so quick it would jar his back
teeth.’

‘That
should have impressed him.’

‘It
didn’t. He talked about being fed up with police persecution. And he uttered
threats.’