Ice in the Bedroom (20 page)

Leila Yorke spoke in a whisper. Her words were hard to catch, but Sally understood her to say that this, whatever it was, was of a nature to beat the band.

'I might have guessed. Who else would have snakes?'

'You mean you know this man?'

'Do I know him!'

Sally gasped. She saw now why the visitor's face had seemed familiar. There were six photographs of him in her employer's bedroom.

'It isn't---?’

'Yes, that's who it is. Looking just the same as ever. Of all the darned things! I want a drink.'

 'You're feeling faint?'

'I'm feeling as if some hidden hand had scooped out all my insides and removed every fibre of muscle from the lower limbs.'

'There's some cooking sherry in the kitchen.’

'Lead me to it. Ha!' said Leila Yorke some minutes later, putting down her glass. 'I think that was rat poison, but it's done me a world of good. I feel myself again. Let's go!'

She led the way to the living-room, and paused in the doorway.

'Hullo, Joe,' she said.

At the moment of her entry, the visitor had taken up one of the snakes with which the room was so liberally provided and was running it pensively through his fingers, like a man whose thoughts were elsewhere. Hearing her voice, he started violently and stood staring, the snake falling from his nerveless grasp.

'Bessie!' he cried.

Now that she was able to examine him more closely, Sally could see the justice in her employer's criticism of him as weak. His was a pleasant, amiable face, the sort of face one likes at first sight, but it was not a strong one. Weakness showed in the mild eyes, the slightly receding chin and the indecisive lines of the mouth. It would, as Leila Yorke had suggested, have had to be a very non-belligerent goose to which this man could have said 'Bo!', and Sally found herself wondering, like everybody else on meeting an attractive woman's husband, why she had married him. Wherein lay the powerful spell he exercised on such a dominant character?

She sensibly reminded herself that it is fruitless ever to try to find the answer to a question of this sort. Love, as a thinker once said, is blind, and these things have to be accepted. She supposed that somebody like Rodney, Lord Blicester, would seek in vain for an explanation of why she loved his nephew Freddie. Joe Bishop was still staring.

'Bessie!' he gasped again, and ran a finger round the inside of his collar, as he must have done a hundred times when registering agitation on the stage. 'Is it you?'

'It's me. Pick up those damned snakes,' said Leila Yorke briskly. Sally, who had sometimes wondered what lovers say when meeting after long separation, felt that now she knew. 'The same old faces!' said Leila Yorke, eyeing the reptiles with disfavour. 'That one's Clarice, isn't it?'

'Yes, Bessie.'

'And Rupert over there?'

'Yes, Bessie.'

'Well, pick them up and put them back in their basket. They remind me of your mother. How is your mother, by the way?'

'She passed on last year, Bessie.'

'Oh,' said Leila Yorke, and it was so obvious that only with difficulty had she checked herself from adding the word 'good' that for a moment there was an embarrassing silence. 'I'm sorry,' she said, breaking it. 'You must miss her.'

'Yes.'

'Well, now you've got me.'

Joe Bishop's spaniel eyes widened.

'But, Bessie, you don't want me back?'

'Of course I want you back. I've been pining away to a shadow without you. I've got octopi spreading their tentacles for you all over London. Why didn't you let me know you were hard up?'

'I didn't like to.'

'You an extra waiter with half a dozen snakes to support, all wanting their hardboiled eggs of a morning. It is hard-boiled eggs the beastly reptiles eat, isn't it?'

'Yes, Bessie.'

'Runs into money, that. Took all your tips to foot the bill, I should imagine. I do think you might have come to me.'

'But, Bessie, I couldn't. We moved in different worlds. I was down and out, and you were rich and famous.'

'Rich, yes, but as for famous, make it notorious. There isn't a critic in England who doesn't shudder at the sound of my name.'

'I think your books are beautiful. Do you know something, Bessie? I started to make a play of one of them.'

‘Which one was that?'

'Heather of the Hills.’

Leila Yorke frowned thoughtfully, a finger to her chin.

'There might be a play in that. How's it coming along?'

'I couldn't go on with it. I hadn't time.'

'Well, you'll have plenty of time now. I'm going to take you down to Loose Chippings in my car right away. Five minutes for you to round up your snakes and ten for me to pack a bag, and we're off.'

Sally uttered a cry of anguish.

'But the guinea-hen!'

'What guinea-hen would that be?'

'I was going to cook you one for dinner.'

Leila Yorke was firm.

'It would take more than a guinea-hen to make me stay another hour in this lazar house. Give it to the cats. There must be some of them still around. If they don't want it, you eat it.'

'I'm dining with Freddie in London.'

'Well, that's fine. Then what you do now is trot around to The Nook and tell Cornelius I'm leaving and he's at liberty to sublet Castlewood as soon as he likes. You stay on tonight and tomorrow close the place up and come to Claines with the bags and baggage. All clear?'

'All clear, colonel.'

'Then pick up your feet and get going. If Cornelius wants to know why I'm pulling up stakes, tell him I think this Valley Fields he's so fond of is a pain in the neck and I wouldn't go on living here if the London County Council came and begged me on their bended knees. He'll probably have an apoplectic fit and expire, but what of that? It'll be just one more grave among the hills. Well, Joe,' said Leila Yorke, as the door closed behind Sally, 'here we are, eh?'

'Yes, Bessie.'

'Together again.'

'Yes, Bessie.'

'Gosh, how I've missed you all these years, Joe! Remember that flat in Prince of Wales's Mansions, Battersea. And now everything's all right. You can't give me anything but love, baby, but that just happens to be all I require. By the way, I hope I'm not taking things too much for granted when I assume that you do love me as of yore? Well, that's fine. I thought I'd better ask. Do you know what we're going to do, Joe? I'm going to take you for a Continental tour, starting in Paris and wandering around from there wherever the fancy takes us.'

'Sort of second honeymoon.'

'Second, my foot! We never had a first one. I couldn't leave my sob-sistering, and you were out touring the number two towns with some frightful farce or other.'

'Mystery drama.'

'Was it? Well, whatever it was, we certainly didn't have a honeymoon. It's going to be very different this time. You've never been abroad, have you, Joe?'

'Once, to Dieppe.'

'Well, I've nothing against Dieppe. But wait till you see Marvellous Madrid and Lovely Lucerne, not to mention Beautiful Barcelona and Gorgeous Greece. And when we get back, you can start working on that play.'

When Sally returned, she found the exodus well under way. Leila Yorke was at the wheel of her car, and her husband was putting her bag and the snake basket on the back seat.

'All set,' said Sally. 'I told him

'How did he take it?'

'He seemed stunned. He couldn't grasp the idea of anyone wanting to leave Valley Fields.'

Leila Yorke said it took all sorts to make a world and Mr. Cornelius was to be pitied rather than censured, if he was weak in the head, and the car drove off. It was nearing open country, when Joe Bishop uttered an exclamation.

'Bessie!'

'Hullo?'

'Do you know what?'

'What?'

'I believe I forgot to pack Mabel!'

'You talk like an absent-minded trunk murderer. Who's Mabel?'

'You remember Mabel. The green one with the spots.'

Oh, one of those darned snakes. Are you sure?'

'Not sure, but I think so.'

'Well, never mind. She'll be company for Molloy,' said Leila Yorke.

22

A
T
Mr. Cornelius's residence. The Nook, that night prevailing conditions were not any too good. A cloud seemed to have settled on the premises, turning what had been a joyous suburban villa equipped with main drainage, company's own water, four bed, two sit and the usual domestic offices into a house of mourning. Sombre is the word that springs to the lips.

When Sally, speaking of Mr. Cornelius at the moment when she had informed him of her employer's abrupt departure, had described him as stunned, she had been guilty of no over-statement. The news had shaken him profoundly, dealing a heavy blow to his civic pride. It seemed scarcely credible to him that anyone having the opportunity of living in Valley Fields should wantonly throw that opportunity away. Leila Yorke was, of course, a genius who laid bare the heart of woman as with a scalpel, but even geniuses, he considered, ought to draw the line somewhere. As he sat with Mrs. Cornelius at their evening meal - a rather ghastly repast in which cocoa, kippered herrings and pink blancmange played featured roles - he was still ruffled.

Mrs. Cornelius, too, appeared to have much on her mind. She was a stout, comfortable woman, as a rule not given to strong emotions, but now she was in the grip of one so powerful that the kippered herring trembled as she raised it to her lips. Even Mr. Cornelius, though not an observant man, noticed it, and when later in the proceedings she pushed the pink blancmange away untasted, he knew that the time had come to ask questions. Only a spiritual upheaval on the grand scale could have made her reject what, though it tastes like jellied blotting-paper, had always been one of her favourite foods.

'You seem upset, my dear,' he said.

A tear stole into Mrs. Cornelius's eye. She gulped. It had been her intention to remain silent till a more suitable moment, but this solicitude was too much for her.

'I'm terribly upset, Percy. I'm simply furious. I hadn't meant to tell you while you were eating, because I know how little it takes to give you indigestion, but I can't keep it in. It's about Mr. Widgeon.'

'Oh, yes? He was groaning in the garden, poor fellow.'

'So you told me. Well, I've found out why. I was talking to his cousin, the policeman, before you came back from your office, and he told me all about it. That man Molloy!'

'Are you speaking of Mr. Molloy of Castlewood?'

'Yes, I am, and he ought to be Mr. Molloy of Wormwood Scrubs. He's nothing but a common swindler. Mr. Widgeon told his cousin the whole story. He persuaded Mr. Widgeon to put all the money he had into a worthless oil stock, and now Mr. Widgeon is penniless.'

'You mean that Silver River of which he spoke so enthusiastically has no value at all?'

'None. And Molloy knew it. He deliberately stole Mr. Widgeon's money, every penny he had in the world.'

Mr. Cornelius's brow darkened. His beard wagged censoriously. He was very fond of Freddie.

'I feared this,' he said. 'I never trusted Molloy. I remember shaking my head when young Widgeon was telling me about him selling him these oil shares. I found it hard to believe that an American business man would have sacrificed a large financial gain merely because he liked somebody's face. Things look very bad, I'm afraid. Widgeon, I know, needs three thousand pounds to put into some coffee concern in Kenya. He was relying on a substantial increase in the value of these Silver River shares to provide the money.'

'And he's engaged to that nice girl, Miss Yorke's secretary.

But now of course they won't be able to get married. And you're surprised I can't eat blancmange. I wonder
you
can.'

Mr. Cornelius, who had been punctuating his remarks with liberal segments from his heaped-up plate, lowered his spoon guiltily; and a somewhat embarrassing silence followed. It was broken by the sound of the telephone ringing in the hall. He went to answer it, and came back breathing heavily. Behind his beard his face was stern. He looked like a Druid priest who has discovered schism in his flock.

That was Molloy,' he said. 'He wanted to know if there was any chance of Miss Yorke vacating Castlewood, because, if so, he might like to take the house again. I gave him a very short answer.'

'I should think so!'

'I told him that Miss Yorke had already left, and he expressed pleasure and said that he would let me know definitely about his plans in a day or two, and then I said that in no circumstances would I even consider his application. "I know all, Mr. Molloy," I said. "Castlewood," I said, "is not for such as you." I then proceeded to tell him just what I thought of him.'

'And what did he say?'

1 seemed to catch something that sounded like "Ah, nerts!" and then he hung up.'

'How splendid of you, Percy! I wish I could have heard you.'

'I wish you could.' There was a pause.

'I think I'll have a little blancmange, after all,' said Mrs. Cornelius.

In holding the view that his denunciation of Soapy had been of a nature calculated to bring the blush of shame to the most hardened cheek, Mr. Cornelius had been perfectly correct. Only once in his life had he expressed himself more forcibly, on the occasion when he had caught the son of the family which had occupied Peacehaven in pre-Widgeon days, a bright lad of some nine summers, shooting with a catapult at his rabbits. But bitter though his words had been, they left Soapy, who had often been denounced by experts, quite unmoved. He was not a man who ever worried much about harsh words or even physical violence. The falling-out with Oofy Prosser at Barribault's restaurant, for instance, had seemed to him so trivial that he had scarcely mentioned it to his wife on his return from lunch. He classed that sort of thing under the heading of occupational risks, and dismissed it from his mind. All that had interested him in the house agent's observations was the statement that Leila Yorke had left Castlewood. Having replaced the receiver, he sat waiting eagerly for Dolly to return and hear the news. Finding herself short of one or two little necessities, she had gone out earlier to do some shopping.