At Bertram's Hotel mm-12 Page 5

  "Nobody but you ever called me Bessie. It's a revolting name. What have you been doing all these years?"

  "This and that," said Micky with some reserve. "I've not been in the news like you have. I've read of your doings in the paper time and again."

  Bess Sedgwick laughed. "Anyway, I've worn better than you have," she said. "You drink too much. You always did."

  "You've worn well because you've always been in the money."

  "Money wouldn't have done you any good. You'd have drunk even more and gone to the dogs completely. Oh yes, you would! What brought you here? That's what I want to know. How did you ever get taken on at this place?"

  "I wanted a job. I had these-" His hand ificked over the row of medals.

  "Yes, I see." She was thoughtful. "All genuine too, aren't they?"

  "Sure they're genuine. Why shouldn't they be?"

  "Oh I believe you. You always had courage. You've always been a good fighter. Yes, the Army suited you. I'm sure of that."

  "The Army's all right in time of war, but it's no good in peacetime."

  "So you took to this stuff. I hadn't the least idea-" She stopped.

  "You hadn't the least idea what, Bessie?"

  "Nothing. It's queer seeing you again after all these years."

  "I haven't forgotten," said the man. "I've never forgotten you, little Bessie. Ah, a lovely girl you were! A lovely slip of a girl."

  "A damn fool of a girl, that's what I was," said Lady Sedgwick.

  "That's true now. You hadn't much sense. if you had, you wouldn't have taken up with me. What hands you had for a horse. Do you remember that mare- what was her name now?-Molly O'Flynn. Ah, she was a wicked devil, that one was."

  "You were the only one that could ride her," said Lady Sedgwick.

  "She'd have had me off if she could! When she found she couldn't, she gave in. Ah, she was a beauty, now. But talking of sitting a horse, there wasn't one lady in those parts better than you. A lovely seat you had, lovely hands. Never any fear in you, not for a minute! And it's been the same ever since, so I judge. Aeroplanes, racing cars."

  Bess Sedgwick laughed. "I must get on with my letters."

  She drew back from the window.

  Micky leaned over the railing. "I've not forgotten Ballygowlan," he said with meaning. "Sometimes I've thought of writing to you-"

  Bess Sedgwick's voice came out harshly. "And what do you mean by that, Mick Gorman?"

  "I was just saying as I haven't forgotten-anything. I was just-reminding you like."

  Bess Sedgwick's voice still held its harsh note. "If you mean what I think you mean, I'll give you a piece of advice. Any trouble from you, and I'd shoot you as easily as I'd shoot a rat. I've shot men before-"

  "In foreign parts, maybe-"

  "Foreign parts or here-it's all the same to me."

  "Ah, good Lord, now, and I believe you would do just that!" His voice held admiration. "In Ballygowlan-"

  "In Ballygowlan," she cut in, "they paid you to keep your mouth shut and paid you well. You took the money. You'll get no more from me so don't think it."

  "It would be a nice romantic story for the Sunday papers…

  "You heard what I said."

  "Ah," he laughed, "I'm not serious, I was just joking. I'd never do anything to hurt my little Bessie. I'll keep my mouth shut."

  "Mind you do," said Lady Sedgwick.

  She shut down the window. Staring down at the desk in front of her she looked at her unfinished letter on the blotting paper. She picked it up, looked at it, crumpled it into a ball and slung it into the wastepaper basket. Then abruptly she got up from her seat and walked out of the room. She did not even cast a glance around her before she went.

  The smaller writing rooms at Bertram's often had an appearance of being empty even when they were not. Two well-appointed desks stood in the windows, there was a table on the right that held a few magazines, on the left were two very high-backed armchairs turned towards the fire. These were favourite spots in the afternoon for elderly military or naval gentlemen to ensconce themselves and fall happily asleep until teatime. Anyone coming in to write a letter did not usually even notice them. The chairs were not so much in demand during the morning.

  As it happened, however, they were on this particular morning both occupied. An old lady was in one and a young girl in the other. The young girl rose to her feet. She stood a moment looking uncertainly towards the door through which Lady Sedgwick had passed out, then she moved slowly towards it. Elvira Blake's face was deadly pale.

  It was another five minutes before the old lady moved. Then Miss Marple decided that the little rest which she always took after dressing and coming downstairs had lasted quite long enough. It was time to go out and enjoy the pleasures of London. She might walk as far as Piccadilly, and take a No. 9 bus to High Street, Kensington, or she might walk along to Bond Street and take a 25 bus to Marshall and Snelgrove's or she might take a 25 the other way which as far as she remembered would land her up at the Army and Navy Stores. Passing through the swing doors she was still savouring these delights in her mind. The Irish commissionaire, back on duty, made up her mind for her.

  "You'll be wanting a taxi, ma'am," he said with firmness.

  "I don't think I do," said Miss Marple. "I think there's a twenty-five bus I could take quite near here-or a two from Park Lane."

  "You'll not be wanting a bus," said the commission- aire firmly. "It's very dangerous springing on a bus when you're getting on in life. The way they start and stop and go on again. Jerk you off your feet, they do. No heart at all, these fellows, nowadays. I'll whistle you along a taxi and you'll go to wherever you want to like a queen."

  Miss Marple considered and fell.

  "Very well then," she said, "perhaps I had better have a taxi."

  The commissionaire had no need even to whistle. He merely clicked his thumb and a taxi appeared like magic. Miss Marple was helped into it with every possible care and decided on the spur of the moment to go to Robinson and Cleaver's and look at their splendid offer of real linen sheets. She sat happily in her taxi feeling indeed as the commissionaire had promised her, just like a queen. Her mind was filled with pleasurable anticipation of linen sheets, linen pillow cases, and proper dish and kitchen cloths without pictures of bananas, figs, or performing dogs and other pictorial distractions to annoy you when you were washing up.

  Lady Sedgwick came up to the reception desk. "Mr. Humfries in his office?"

  "Yes, Lady Sedgwick." Miss Gorringe looked startled.

  Lady Sedgwick passed behind the desk, tapped on the door and went in without waiting for any response.

  Mr. Humfries looked up. "What-"

  "Who engaged that man Michael Gorman?"

  Mr. Humfries spluttered a little.

  "Parfitt left-he had a car accident a month ago. We had to replace him quickly. This man seemed all right. References O.K.-ex-Army-quite good record. Not very bright perhaps, but that's all the better sometimes. You don't know anything against him, do you?"

  "Enough not to want him here."

  "If you insist," Humfries said, "we'll give him his notice-"

  "No," said Lady Sedgwick slowly. "No-it's too late for that. Never mind."

  6

  "Elvira."

  "Hello, Bridget."

  The Honourable Elvira Blake pushed her way through the front door of 180 Onslow Square, which her friend Bridget had rushed down to open for her, having been watching through the window.

  "Let's go upstairs," said Elvira.

  "Yes, we'd better. Otherwise we'll get entangled by Mummy."

  The two girls rushed up the stairs, thereby circumventing Bridget's mother, who came out on to the landing from her own bedroom just too late.

  "You really are lucky not to have a mother," said Bridget, rather breathlessly as she took her friend into her bedroom and shut the door firmly. "I mean, Mummy's quite a pet and all that, but the questions she asks! Morning, noon, and night. Where are you
going, and who have you met? And are they cousins of somebody else of the same name in Yorkshire? I mean, the futility of it all."

  "I suppose they have nothing else to think about," said Elvira vaguely. "Look here, Bridget, there's something terribly important I've got to do, and you've got to help me."

  "Well, I will if I can. What is it-a man?"

  "No, it isn't, as a matter of fact." Bridget looked disappointed. "I've got to get away to Ireland for twenty-four hours or perhaps longer, and you've got to cover up for me."

  "To Ireland? Why?"

  "I can't tell you all about it now. There's no time. I've got to meet my guardian, Colonel Luscombe, at Prunier's for lunch at half-past one."

  "What have you done with the Carpenter?"

  "Gave her the slip in Debenham's."

  Bridget giggled.

  "And after lunch they're taking me down to the Melfords. I'm going to live with them until I'm twenty-one."

  "How ghastly!"

  "I expect I shall manage. Cousin Mildred is fearfully easy to deceive. It's arranged I'm to come up for classes and things. There's a place called World of Today. They take you to lectures and to museums and to picture galleries and the House of Lords, and all that. The whole point is that nobody will know whether you're where you ought to be or not! We'll manage lots of things."

  "I expect we will." Bridget giggled. "We managed in Italy, didn't we? Old Macaroni thought she was so strict. Little did she know what we got up to when we tried."

  Both girls laughed in the pleasant consciousness of successful wickedness.

  "Still, it did need a lot of planning," said Elvira.

  "And some splendid lying," said Bridget. "Have you heard from Guido?"

  "Oh yes, he wrote me a long letter signed Ginevra as though he was a girl friend. But I do wish you'd stop talking so much, Bridget. We've got a lot to do and only about an hour and a half to do it in. Now first of all just listen. I'm coming up tomorrow for an appointment with the dentist. That's easy, I can put it off by telephone-or you can from here. Then, about midday, you can ring up the Melfords pretending to be your mother and explain that the dentist wants to see me again the next day and so I'm staying over with you here."

  "That ought to go down all right. They'll say how very kind and gush. But supposing you're not back the next day?"

  "Then you'll have to do some more ringing up."

  Bridget looked doubtful.

  "We'll have lots of time to think up something before then," said Elvira impatiently. "What's worrying me now is money. You haven't got any, I suppose?" Elvira spoke without much hope.

  "Only about two pounds."

  "That's no good. I've got to buy my air ticket. I've looked up the flights. It only takes about two hours. A lot depends upon how long it takes me when I get there."

  "Can't you tell me what you're going to do?"

  "No, I can't. But it's terribly, terribly important."

  Elvira's voice was so different that Bridget looked at her in some surprise.

  "Is anything really the matter, Elvira?"

  "Yes, it is."

  "Is it something nobody's got to know about?"

  "Yes, that's the sort of thing. It's frightfully, frightfully secret. I've got to find out if something is really true or not. It's a bore about the money. What's maddening is that I'm really quite rich. My guardian told me so. But all they give me is a measly dress allowance. And that seems to go as soon as I get it."

  "Wouldn't your guardian-Colonel Thingummybob- lend you some money?"

  "That wouldn't do at all. He'd ask a lot of questions and want to know what I wanted it for."

  "Oh dear, I suppose he would. I can't think why everybody wants to ask so many questions. Do you know that if somebody rings me up, Mummy has to ask who it is? When it really is no business of hers!"

  Elvira agreed, but her mind was on another tack.

  "Have you ever pawned anything, Bridget?"

  "Never. I don't think I'd know how to."

  "It's quite easy, I believe," said Elvira. "You go to the sort of jeweller who has three balls over the door, isn't that right?"

  "I don't think I've got anything that would be any good taking to a pawnbroker," said Bridget.

  "Hasn't your mother got some jewellery somewhere?"

  "I don't think we'd better ask her to help."

  "No, perhaps not. But we could pinch something perhaps."

  "Oh, I don't think we could do that," said Bridget, shocked.

  "No? Well, perhaps you're right. But I bet she wouldn't notice. We could get it back before she missed it. I know. We'll go to Mr. Bollard."

  "Who's Mr. Bollard?"

  "Oh, he's a sort of family jeweller. I take my watch there always to have it mended. He's known me ever since I was six. Come on, Bridget, we'll go there right away. We'll just have time."

  "We'd better go out the back way," said Bridget, "and then Mummy won't ask us where we're going."

  Outside the old established business of Bollard and Whitley in Bond Street the two girls made their final arrangements.

  "Are you sure you understand, Bridget?"

  "I think so," said Bridget in a far from happy voice. "First," said Elvira, "we synchronize our watches." Bridget brightened up a little. This familiar literary phrase had a heartening effect. They solemnly synchronized their watches, Bridget adjusting hers by one minute.

  "Zero hour will be twenty-five past exactly," said Elvira. "That will give me plenty of time. Perhaps even more than I need, but it's better that way about."

  "But supposing-" began Bridget.

  "Supposing what?" asked Elvira.

  "Well, I mean, supposing I really got run over?"

  "Of course you won't get run over," said Elvira. "You know how nippy you are on your feet, and all London traffic is used to pulling up suddenly. It'll be all right."

  Bridget looked far from convinced.

  "You won't let me down, Bridget, will you?"

  "All right," said Bridget, "I won't let you down."

  "Good," said Elvira.

  Bridget crossed to the other side of Bond Street and Elvira pushed open the doors of Messrs. Bollard and Whitley, old established jewellers and watchmakers. Inside there was a beautiful and hushed atmosphere. A frock-coated nobleman came forward and asked Elvira what he could do for her.

  "Could I see Mr. Bollard?"

  "Mr. Bollard. What name shall I say?"

  "Miss Elvira Blake."

  The nobleman disappeared and Elvira drifted to a counter where, below plate glass, brooches, rings and bracelets showed off their jewelled proportions against suitable shades of velvet. In a very few moments Mr. Bollard made his appearance. He was the senior partner of the firm, an elderly man of sixty odd. He greeted Elvira with warm friendliness.

  "Ah, Miss Blake, so you are in London. It's a great pleasure to see you. Now what can I do for you?"

  Elvira produced a dainty little evening wristwatch.

  "This watch doesn't go properly," said Elvira. "Could you do something to it?"

  "Oh yes, of course. There's no difficulty about that." Mr. Bollard took it from her. "What address shall I send it to?"

  Elvira gave the address.

  "And there's another thing," she said. "My guardian-Colonel Luscombe you know-"

  "Yes, yes, of course."

  "He asked me what I'd like for a Christmas present," said Elvira. "He suggested I should come in here and look at some different things. He said would I like him to come with me, and I said I'd rather come along first-because I always think it's rather embarrassing, don't you? I mean, prices and all that."

  "Well, that's certainly one aspect," said Mr. Bollard, beaming in an avuncular manner. "Now what had you in mind, Miss Blake? A brooch, bracelet-a ring?"

  "I think really brooches are most useful," said Elvira. "But I wonder-could I look at a lot of things?" She looked up at him appealingly. He smiled sympathetically.

  "Of course, of course. No pleas
ure at all if one has to make up one's mind too quickly, is it?"

  The next five or six minutes were spent very agreeably. Nothing was too much trouble for Mr. Bollard. He fetched things from one case and another, brooches and bracelets piled up on the piece of velvet spread in front of Elvira. Occasionally she turned aside to look at herself in a mirror, trying the effect of a brooch or a pendant. Finally, rather uncertainly, a pretty little bangle, a small diamond wristwatch and two brooches were laid aside.

  "We'll make a note of these," said Mr. Bollard, "and then when Colonel Luscombe is in London next, perhaps he'll come in and see what he decides himself he'd like to give you."

  "I think that way will be very nice," said Elvira. "Then he'll feel more that he's chosen my present himself, won't he?" Her limpid blue gaze was raised to the jeweller's face. That same blue gaze had registered a moment earlier that the time was now exactly twenty-five minutes past the hour.

  Outside there was the squealing of brakes and a girl's loud scream. Inevitably the eyes of everyone in the shop turned towards the windows of the shop giving on Bond Street. The movement of Elvira's hand on the counter in front of her and then to the pocket of her neat tailor-made coat and skirt was so rapid and unobtrusive as to be almost unnoticeable, even if anybody had been looking.

  "Tcha, tcha," said Mr. Bollard, turning back from where he had been peering out into the street. "Very nearly an accident. Silly girl! Rushing across the road like that."

  Elvira was already moving towards the door. She looked at her wristwatch and uttered an exclamation.

  "Oh dear, I've been far too long in here. I shall miss my train back to the country. Thank you so much, Mr. Bollard, and you won't forget which the four things are, will you?"

  In another minute she was out of the door. Turning rapidly to the left and then to the left again, she stopped in the arcade of a shoe shop until Bridget, rather breathless, rejoined her.

  "Oh," said Bridget, "I was terrified. I thought I was going to be killed. And I've torn a hole in my stocking, too."

  "Never mind," said Elvira and walked her friend rapidly along the street and round yet another corner to the right. "Come on."

  "Is it-was it-all right?"