Plum Pie (30 page)

"This Pinkney beazel asked you to be her bodyguard?"

"That's what it amounted to."

"Well, fry me for an oyster! This opens up a new line of thought. Wait here," said Freddie. 'I’ll be back in a minute. I just want to have a word with Juddy."

His search for Judson ended in the bar, which curiously enough was the first place he tried. Declining the other's invitation to join him in one for the tonsils, he came without delay to the res.

"Juddy," he said, "I want you to throw your mind back for a moment. You remember what we were talking about the day You came on board, about enlisting the services of a bodyguard?"

Judson said he had not forgotten. "You went ahead with the scheme?"

"Sure, After you let me down I got Dinah Biddle to take on the assignment."

"And that was the only reason you've been closeted with her throughout?"

"That's right."

"No question of the sex motif? No idea in your mind of starring her in your next breach of promise case?"

"Certainly not, I explained the whole situation to her at the outset, and she thoroughly understood my motives. I owe that girl more than I can say, Freddie, and I'd like to give her some little present as a reward for her services. But what little present? She's not the sort of girl who would accept anything that cost a lot. Do you think I could get something at the ship's shop?"

"You mean chocolates?"

"I was thinking more of those weird animal things they sell there—toy dogs and cats and Mickey Mice and so on. Girls like those. My second breach of promise case had a whole collection, and when I told her everything was off and there would be no centre aisleing she threw them at me one by one. Would that be all right for Dinah, do you think?"

"Make her day, I should imagine. Have you any idea where I can find her?"

"She's on the boat deck. What do you want her for?"

"I am hoping to adjust a rather tricky tangled hearts sequence."

"I don't follow you."

"You don't have to. So long, Juddy."

"So long. Oh, by the way, about that necklace of Julie's. I shall have to give it to Pinkney tonight. I hope it doesn't upset your plans."

"Don't worry about that," said Freddie bitterly. "I've no further interest in Pinkney. I've written him off as a prospect. If a man can't listen to reason, there's no sense in bothering about him. One crosses him off the list."

Joe, sitting in the lounge after Freddie had left him, woke a few moments later from a dark reverie to find his cousin Arlene at his side. Her presence surprised him, for he had supposed that she had retired for the night.

It had always puzzled him a little that in all the years he had known her he had never fallen in love with this cousin of his, for he could see that it was the logical thing for any young man to do. But there had always existed between them a pleasant camaraderie, and while he would have preferred to be alone he was not displeased to see her.

"I thought you had gone to bed," he said.

"No, I went to see Father."

She settled herself on the settee beside him and plunged into the subject she had come to discuss with a directness which would have won the approval of Mr. Donaldson of Donaldson's Dog Joy.

"That money of yours he's holding. You've had several tries at getting it out of him, haven't you?"

"One or two."

"But no luck?"

"None."

"Do you know why?"

The answer to that was simple—viz. that Mr. Pinkney was a pigheaded old bohunkus to whose finer feelings it was futile to appeal, because he had not got any, but he forbore to explain this lest he wound a possibly loving daughter. He said No, he did not know why.

"I'll tell you. Because you probably saw him during office hours. That was your strategic error. What you didn't realise was that Father during office hours and Father after a good dinner are two substantially different personalities. I don't approve of his dining habits and if I've told him so once I've told him a hundred times, but there's no getting away from it that six courses including caviare have a remarkable effect on him. After such a meal, accompanied by champagne and topped off with old brandy, he becomes so mellowed that a child could play with him. Whereas if the child was ass enough to try to touch him for a trifle before the dinner bell rang, he would probably bite a piece out of its leg. I imagine you have grasped where all this is heading. Condensing it from a drive to a short putt, I went to him just now and told him that if you were starting out in a strange country and in a city like New York where everything is twice as expensive as in London, you would need some extra cash, and he said he would give you that money that’s coming to you. I don’t say he said it immediately. I had to reason with him. But I was so grateful to you for keeping Judson Phipps out of my hair these last days that I didn’t spare myself in the way of eloquence. So that’s the final score. He’s parting.”

For a long moment Joe sat speechless. He was thinking, as the late Thomas Hardy used to do, how ironical life was. Life's little ironies always exasperated Thomas Hardy, and they exasperated Joe. For years he had been looking forward to the day when he would get that money, and now that he had got it, what was the use of it? Girls like Dinah Biddle, -when they have Phipps Suspender millions in view, do not turn from them to men who have inherited comparatively small legacies from their aunts; they do the sensible, practical thing and stick to the source of those millions like, to borrow Freddie's powerful image, Scotch tape.

But though what Arlene had been instrumental in securing for him was nothing but Dead Sea fruit, it was only polite to thank her, and he did so.

"Just the Pinkney service. Do you want to tread the measure again?"

"I don't think so."

"Then I'll be getting along," said Arlene. "I always like to do some practice putting into a tooth glass before turning in,

She had scarcely departed with this praiseworthy end in view, when Freddie appeared.

Freddie's hair was a little disordered by the breeze on the boat deck, and on his face was the self-satisfied look which go-getters wear when they have go-got.

"Well, Joe," he said, coming to the point with a promptness equal to Arlene's. "you'll be glad to hear that I have made your path straight. You have the green light. Carry on and fear nothing."

Joe found him obscure. He expressed a wish to know what he was talking about.

"I'll tell you what I'm talking about. You and young Dinah Biddle. I've just been revealing to her your motives in attaching yourself to Arlene Pinkney. I have also seen Juddy, and have cleared up that angle. She was merely bodyguarding him as you were bodyguarding Arlene P. One of those laughable misunderstandings."

"What!"

"You may well say 'What!' "

"Do you mean---?"

"I don't see how I can put it plainer. You will find La Biddle on the boat deck, and I rather gathered from the way she looked and the emotional nature of her breathing that she will be in co-operative mood. But before you go there are one or two things we ought to thresh out in debate. First, we must ask ourselves if you are really doing the square thing in asking her to marry you. Do you mind me being frank?"

'What are you going to be frank about?"

"Your financial position."

"Oh, that?"

"Yes, that. Let's face it. You've no job and no money, and you won't have any money for another three years. Is it fair to ask her to wait all that time? Why do you smile?"

"I wasn't smiling, I was beaming. Stirring things have been happening since you left me, Freddie. Condensing it from a drive to a short putt, Arlene has persuaded Pinkney to release my money. I shan't be rich, but I shall be able to afford matrimony on a modest scale."

Freddie gaped.

"Is this official?"

"Arlene said it was. And now, if you will excuse me---" 'But wait. There's another thing we ought to give a thought to—your method of wooing. Don't forget that you will have to cram into a few short hours the suit-pressing which should have been stretched over five days. You'll have to work quick, and this being so I strongly recommend the Ickenham System."

"The what?"

"As outlined by old Ickenham, Pongo Twistleton's Uncle Fred. Pongo explained it to me once, and I think I can quote the old buster's words verbatim. Stride up to the subject, Ickenham said, and grab her by the wrist. Then, ignoring her struggles, if any, clasp her to your bosom and shower kisses on her upturned face. You needn't say much—just 'My mate' or something of that sort. And in grabbing her by the wrist don't behave as if you were handling a delicate piece of china. Grip firmly and waggle her about a bit."

Joe had never had the pleasure of meeting the fifth Earl of Ickenham, Pongo Twistleton's redoubtable Uncle Fred, and he was sorry not to have done so, for it was plain to him that they were kindred souls who thought along the same lines. Grabbing Dinah Biddle and waggling her about a bit was the very mode of approach he had had in mind. With no further words he hurried away, and when we say hurried, we mean precisely that. Freddie, watching him disappear, was reminded of a jack rabbit he had once encountered while selling dog biscuits out Nebraska way, and as he adjusted himself comfortably to the cushions of the settee he was conscious of feeling all in a glow. There is nothing that so induces this sensation as the knowledge that one has done one's day's good deed. Boy Scouts, habituated to performing acts of kindness, probably in time grow blasé and lose that first electric thrill, but to the novice it is as if a soothing mustard plaster had been applied to his soul.

He was still glowing when a 'Say, Freddie' at his elbow jerked him out of his pleasant thoughts, and he saw that he had Judson Phipps with him.

Judson was carrying, tucked under his arm, a furry object which was probably its creator's idea of a cinnamon bear, and. on his face in addition to his hornrimmed spectacles there was a look that suggested that something had occurred to perplex him.

"Got a moment, Freddie?" he said, and Freddie replied that he had no immediate calls on his time and would be happy to give Judson audience.

"What's on your mind, Juddy?"

"It's this fellow Cardinal."

"What about him?"

"He's been acting very strangely. I went up to the boat deck to give this bear or whatever it is to Dinah Biddle and there he was kissing her."

"I see nothing unbalanced in that."

"I do. It struck me as odd. Considering that he came on this boat simply in order to press his suit with Arlene Pinkney."

"What gave you that idea?"

"You said so yourself."

"I didn't say anything of the sort. His objective from the kick-off was the Biddle."

"But he's been with Arlene ever since we left Cherbourg."

"Oh, I can explain that. There's a man on board whom she wanted to keep away from her and she drafted Joe to act as interference. Same idea as you had when you engaged Dinah Biddle s services."

Judson was astounded. His spectacles trembled on their base.

"You're kidding! "

"No. Joe told me."

"Well, I'll be darned. Who was the man?"

"Ah, that we shall probably never know."

"Must be a repulsive sort of specimen."

"So one would suppose." Judson lit a relieved cigarette.

"You've taken a weight off my mind. I'm very fond of Dinah, and I wouldn't like to think she had fallen under the spell of a smooth operator who would play her up and break her heart. But Cardinal's okay, isn't he? He'll---"

"Do right by our Nell? Yes, nothing to worry about in that respect."

Judson was looking grave. A thought had struck him.

"What about the money end of it? When you were selling me that picture of his, you told me he hadn't a nickel."

"He hadn't then. He's getting some from Pinkney."

"Pinkney?" Judson could make nothing of this. "Are you sure you haven't got the name wrong? Pinkney's one-way pockets are a byword in the circles in which he moves. I can't see him handing out money."

"It's Joe's money. Pinkney's his trustee."

"Oh, I see."

"For years he's refused to let Joe have the stuff, but tonight he agreed to come across."

"You don't say! "

"So I learn from a source close to him."

"Very remarkable."

"Very."

"But does him credit."

"Yes. And now, Juddy, I must ask you to leave me. You're interrupting my glowing."

"Your what?"

"When you came up, I was glowing."

"What about?"

"Oh, nothing special," said Freddie. "Just glowing."

Judson, as he removed himself, was also feeling quite a glow. ' It was caused by the discovery that his future brother-in-law Arnold Pinkney, whom he had always supposed to be totally lacking in the milk of human kindness, was in reality well stocked up with it. He had told Freddie that he and Mr. Pinkney 'got on all right', but this was merely because he kept out of the latter's way as much as he could. Privately he considered Mr. Pinkney a dangerous specimen and had never suspected him of having a softer side. As Freddie had said, he was a sentimentalist, and what a motion picture magnate would have called The Cardinal Story had touched him. This evidence that it had also touched Mr. Pinkney warmed his heart and it seemed to him that it would be a graceful act to seek him out and tell him how greatly his magnanimity was appreciated.

He found him in his stateroom reading a balance sheet.

"Oh, it's you," said Mr. Pinkney, plainly resentful at being interrupted in this congenial task and by Judson of all people.

In becoming betrothed to Judson's sister, Mr. Pinkney had realised that he must accept Judson as part of the package deal, but that did not mean that he had to give him an effusive welcome when he came uninvited to his stateroom.

"What's that damned thing?" he asked, eyeing the cinnamon bear with obvious dislike.

"Just a small tribute of my esteem for Dinah Biddle," Judson explained. "I think she'll like it, don't you? It's head screws off and you put candy inside and pass it around at parties, causing great fun and laughter."