‘Um–yes.’
‘I expect you do, too,’ said Mrs Packington kindly. ‘The great thing is to be happy, isn’t it? I remember your saying so one morning at breakfast, about ten days ago.’
Her husband looked at her sharply, but her expression was devoid of sarcasm. She yawned.
‘I must go to bed. By the way, George, I’ve been dreadfully extravagant lately. Some terrible bills will be coming in. You don’t mind, do you?’
‘Bills?’ said Mr Packington.
‘Yes. For clothes. And massage. And hair treatment. Wickedly extravagant I’ve been–but I know you don’t mind.’
She passed up the stairs. Mr Packington remained with his mouth open. Maria had been amazingly nice about this evening’s business; she hadn’t seemed to care at all. But it was a pity she had suddenly taken to spending Money. Maria–that model of economy!
Women! George Packington shook his head. The scrapes that girl’s brothers had been getting into lately. Well, he’d been glad to help. All the same–and dash it all, things weren’t going too well in the city.
Sighing, Mr Packington in his turn slowly climbed the stairs.
Sometimes words that fail to make their effect at the time are remembered later. Not till the following morning did certain words uttered by Mr Packington really penetrate his wife’s consciousness.
Lounge lizards; middle-aged women; awful fools of themselves.
Mrs Packington was courageous at heart. She sat down and faced facts. A gigolo. She had read all about gigolos in the papers. Had read, too, of the follies of middle-aged women.
Was Claude a gigolo? She supposed he was. But then, gigolos were paid for and Claude always paid for her. Yes, but it was Mr Parker Pyne who paid, not Claude–or, rather, it was really her own two hundred guineas.
Was she a middle-aged fool? Did Claude Luttrell laugh at her behind her back? Her face flushed at the thought.
Well, what of it? Claude was a gigolo. She was a middle-aged fool. She supposed she should have given him something. A gold cigarette case. That sort of thing.
A queer impulse drove her out there and then to Asprey’s. The cigarette case was chosen and paid for. She was to meet Claude at Claridge’s for lunch.
As they were sipping coffee she produced it from her bag. ‘A little present,’ she murmured.
He looked up, frowned. ‘For me?’
‘Yes. I–I hope you like it.’
His hand closed over it and he slid it violently across the table. ‘Why did you give me that? I won’t take it. Take it back. Take it back, I say.’ He was angry. His dark eyes flashed.
She murmured, ‘I’m sorry,’ and put it away in her bag again.
There was constraint between them that day.
The following morning he rang her up. ‘I must see you. Can I come to your house this afternoon?’
She told him to come at three o’clock.
He arrived very white, very tense. They greeted each other. The constraint was more evident.
Suddenly he sprang up and stood facing her. ‘What do you think I am? That is what I’ve come to ask you. We’ve been friends, haven’t we? Yes, friends. But all the same, you think I’m–well, a gigolo. A creature who lives on women. A lounge lizard. You do, don’t you?’
‘No, no.’
He swept aside her protest. His face had gone very white. ‘You do think that! Well, it’s true. That’s what I’ve come to say. It’s true! I had my orders to take you about, to amuse you, to make love to you, to make you forget your husband. That was my job. A despicable one, eh?’
‘Why are you telling me this?’ she asked.
‘Because I’m through with it. I can’t carry on with it. Not with you. You’re different. You’re the kind of woman I could believe in, trust, adore. You think I’m just saying this; that it’s part of the game.’ He came closer to her. ‘I’m going to prove to you it isn’t. I’m going away–because of you. I’m going to make myself into a man instead of the loathsome creature I am because of you.’
He took her suddenly in his arms. His lips closed on hers. Then he released her and stood away.
‘Goodbye. I’ve been a rotter–always. But I swear it will be different now. Do you remember once saying you liked to read the advertisements in the Agony column? On this day every year you’ll find there a message from me saying that I remember and am making good. You’ll know, then, all you’ve meant to me. One thing more. I’ve taken nothing from you. I want you to take something from me.’ He drew a plain gold seal ring from his finger. ‘This was my mother’s. I’d like you to have it. Now goodbye.’
George Packington came home early. He found his wife gazing into the fire with a faraway look. She spoke kindly but absently to him.
‘Look here, Maria,’ he jerked out suddenly. ‘About that girl?’
‘Yes, dear?’
‘I–I never meant to upset you, you know. About her. Nothing in it.’
‘I know. I was foolish. See as much as you like of her if it makes you happy.’
These words, surely, should have cheered George Packington. Strangely enough, they annoyed him. How could you enjoy taking a girl about when your wife fairly urged you on? Dash it all, it wasn’t decent! All that feeling of being a gay dog, of being a strong man playing with fire, fizzled out and died an ignominious death. George Packington felt suddenly tired and a great deal poorer in pocket. The girl was a shrewd little piece.
‘We might go away together somewhere for a bit if you like, Maria?’ he suggested timidly.
‘Oh, never mind about me. I’m quite happy.’
‘But I’d like to take you away. We might go to the Riviera.’
Mrs Packington smiled at him from a distance.
Poor old George. She was fond of him. He was such a pathetic old dear. There was no secret splendour in his life as there was in hers. She smiled more tenderly still.
‘That would be lovely, my dear,’ she said.
Mr Parker Pyne was speaking to Miss Lemon. ‘Entertainment account?’
‘One hundred and two pounds, fourteen and sixpence,’ said Miss Lemon.
The door was pushed open and Claude Luttrell entered. He looked moody.
‘Morning, Claude,’ said Mr Parker Pyne. ‘Everything go off satisfactorily?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘The ring? What name did you put in it, by the way?’
‘Matilda,’ said Claude gloomily. ‘1899.’
‘Excellent. What wording for the advertisement?’
‘“Making good. Still remember. Claude.”’
‘Make a note of that, please, Miss Lemon. The Agony column. November third for–let me see, expenses a hundred and two pounds, fourteen and six. Yes, for ten years, I think. That leaves us a profit of ninety-two pounds, two and fourpence. Adequate. Quite adequate.’
Miss Lemon departed.
‘Look here,’ Claude burst out. ‘I don’t like this. It’s a rotten game.’
‘My dear boy!’
‘A rotten game. That was a decent woman–a good sort. Telling her all those lies, filling her up with this sob-stuff, dash it all, it makes me sick!’
Mr Parker Pyne adjusted his glasses and looked at Claude with a kind of scientific interest. ‘Dear me!’ he said drily. ‘I do not seem to remember that your conscience ever troubled you during your somewhat–ahem!–notorious career. Your affairs on the Riviera were particularly brazen, and your exploitation of Mrs Hattie West, the Californian Cucumber King’s wife, was especially notable for the callous mercenary instinct you displayed.’
‘Well, I’m beginning to feel different,’ grumbled Claude. ‘It isn’t–nice, this game.’
Mr Parker Pyne spoke in the voice of a headmaster admonishing a favourite pupil. ‘You have, my dear Claude, performed a meritorious action. You have given an unhappy woman what every woman needs–a romance. A woman tears a passion to pieces and gets no good from it, but a romance can be laid up in lavender and looked at all through the
long years to come. I know human nature, my boy, and I tell you that a woman can feed on such an incident for years.’ He coughed. ‘We have discharged our commission to Mrs Packington very satisfactorily.’
‘Well,’ muttered Claude, ‘I don’t like it.’ He left the room.
Mr Parker Pyne took a new file from a drawer. He wrote:
‘Interesting vestiges of a conscience noticeable in hardened Lounge Lizard. Note: Study developments.’
The Case of the Discontented Soldier
I
Major Wilbraham hesitated outside the door of Mr Parker Pyne’s office to read, not for the first time, the advertisement from the morning paper which had brought him there. It was simple enough:
The major took a deep breath and abruptly plunged through the swing door leading to the outer office. A plain young woman looked up from her typewriter and glanced at him inquiringly.
‘Mr Parker Pyne?’ said Major Wilbraham, blushing.
‘Come this way, please.’
He followed her into an inner office–into the presence of the bland Mr Parker Pyne.
‘Good-morning,’ said Mr Pyne. ‘Sit down, won’t you? And now tell me what I can do for you.’
‘My name is Wilbraham–’ began the other.
‘Major? Colonel?’ said Mr Pyne.
‘Major.’
‘Ah! And recently returned from abroad? India? East Africa?’
‘East Africa.’
‘A fine country, I believe. Well, so you are home again–and you don’t like it. Is that the trouble?’
‘You’re absolutely right. Though how you knew–’
Mr Parker Pyne waved an impressive hand. ‘It is my business to know. You see, for thirty-five years of my life I have been engaged in the compiling of statistics in a government office. Now I have retired and it has occurred to me to use the experience I have gained in a novel fashion. It is all so simple. Unhappiness can be classified under five main heads–no more I assure you. Once you know the cause of a malady, the remedy should not be impossible.
‘I stand in the place of the doctor. The doctor first diagnoses the patient’s disorder, then he recommends a course of treatment. There are cases where no treatment can be of any avail. If that is so, I say quite frankly that I can do nothing about it. But if I undertake a case, the cure is practically guaranteed.
‘I can assure you, Major Wilbraham, that ninety-six per cent of retired empire builders–as I call them–are unhappy. They exchange an active life, a life full of responsibility, a life of possible danger, for–what? Straitened means, a dismal climate and a general feeling of being a fish out of water.’
‘All you’ve said is true,’ said the major. ‘It’s the boredom I object to. The boredom and the endless tittle-tattle about petty village matters. But what can I do about it? I’ve got a little money besides my pension. I’ve a nice cottage near Cobham. I can’t afford to hunt or shoot or fish. I’m not married. My neighbours are all pleasant folk, but they’ve no ideas beyond this island.’
‘The long and short of the matter is that you find life tame,’ said Mr Parker Pyne.
‘Damned tame.’
‘You would like excitement, possibly danger?’ asked Mr Pyne.
The soldier shrugged. ‘There’s no such thing in this tinpot country.’
‘I beg your pardon,’ said Mr Pyne seriously. ‘There you are wrong. There is plenty of danger, plenty of excitement, here in London if you know where to go for it. You have seen only the surface of our English life, calm, pleasant. But there is another side. If you wish it, I can show you that other side.’
Major Wilbraham regarded him thoughtfully. There was something reassuring about Mr Pyne. He was large, not to say fat; he had a bald head of noble proportions, strong glasses and little twinkling eyes. And he had an aura–an aura of dependability.
‘I should warn you, however,’ continued Mr Pyne, ‘that there is an element of risk.’
The soldier’s eye brightened. ‘That’s all right,’ he said. Then, abruptly: ‘And–your fees?’
‘My fee,’ said Mr Pyne, ‘is fifty pounds, payable in advance. If in a month’s time you are still in the same state of boredom, I will refund your money.’
Wilbraham considered. ‘Fair enough,’ he said at last. ‘I agree. I’ll give you a cheque now.’
The transaction was completed. Mr Parker Pyne pressed a buzzer on his desk.
‘It is now one o’clock,’ he said. ‘I am going to ask you to take a young lady out to lunch.’ The door opened. ‘Ah, Madeleine, my dear, let me introduce Major Wilbraham, who is going to take you out to lunch.’
Wilbraham blinked slightly, which was hardly to be wondered at. The girl who entered the room was dark, languorous, with wonderful eyes and long black lashes, a perfect complexion and a voluptuous scarlet mouth. Her exquisite clothes set off the swaying grace of her figure. From head to foot she was perfect.
‘Er–delighted,’ said Major Wilbraham.
‘Miss de Sara,’ said Mr Parker Pyne.
‘How very kind of you,’ murmured Madeleine de Sara.
‘I have your address here,’ announced Mr Parker Pyne. ‘Tomorrow morning you will receive my further instructions.’
Major Wilbraham and the lovely Madeleine departed.
It was three o’clock when Madeleine returned.
Mr Parker Pyne looked up. ‘Well?’ he demanded.
Madeleine shook her head. ‘Scared of me,’ she said. ‘Thinks I’m a vamp.’
‘I thought as much,’ said Mr Parker Pyne. ‘You carried out my instructions?’
‘Yes. We discussed the occupants of the other tables freely. The type he likes is fair-haired, blue-eyed, slightly anaemic, not too tall.’
‘That should be easy,’ said Mr Pyne. ‘Get me Schedule B and let me see what we have in stock at present.’ He ran his finger down a list, finally stopping at a name. ‘Freda Clegg. Yes, I think Freda Clegg will do excellently. I had better see Mrs Oliver about it.’
II
The next day Major Wilbraham received a note, which read:
On Monday morning next at eleven o’clock go to Eaglemont, Friars Lane, Hampstead, and ask for Mr Jones. You will represent yourself as coming from the Guava Shipping Company.
Obediently on the following Monday (which happened to be Bank Holiday), Major Wilbraham set out for Eaglemont, Friars Lane. He set out, I say, but he never got there. For before he got there, something happened.
All the world and his wife seemed to be on their way to Hampstead. Major Wilbraham got entangled in crowds, suffocated in the tube and found it hard to discover the whereabouts of Friars Lane.
Friars Lane was a cul-de-sac, a neglected road full of ruts, with houses on either side standing back from the road. They were largish houses which had seen better days and had been allowed to fall into disrepair.
Wilbraham walked along peering at the half-erased names on the gate-posts, when suddenly he heard something that made him stiffen to attention. It was a kind of gurgling, half-choked cry.
It came again and this time it was faintly recognizable as the word ‘Help!’ It came from inside the wall of the house he was passing.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Major Wilbraham pushed open the rickety gate and sprinted noiselessly up the weed-covered drive. There in the shrubbery was a girl struggling in the grasp of two enormous Negroes. She was putting up a brave fight, twisting and turning and kicking. One Negro held his hand over her mouth in spite of her furious efforts to get her head free.
Intent on their struggle with the girl, neither of the blacks had noticed Wilbraham’s approach. The first they knew of it was when a violent punch on the jaw sent the man who was covering the girl’s mouth reeling backwards. Taken by surprise, the other man relinquished his hold of the girl and turned. Wilbraham was ready for him. Once again his fist shot out, and the Negro reeled backwards and fell. Wilbraham turned on the other man, who was closing in behind him.
But the two men
had had enough. The second one rolled over, sat up; then, rising, he made a dash for the gate. His companion followed suit. Wilbraham started after them, but changed his mind and turned towards the girl, who was leaning against a tree, panting.
‘Oh, thank you!’ she gasped. ‘It was terrible.’
Major Wilbraham saw for the first time who it was he had rescued so opportunely. She was a girl of about twenty-one or two, fair-haired and blue-eyed, pretty in a rather colourless way.
‘If you hadn’t come!’ she gasped.
‘There, there,’ said Wilbraham soothingly. ‘It’s all right now. I think, though, that we’d better get away from here. It’s possible those fellows might come back.’
A faint smile came to the girl’s lips. ‘I don’t think they will–not after the way you hit them. Oh, it was splendid of you!’
Major Wilbraham blushed under the warmth of her glance of admiration. ‘Nothin’ at all,’ he said indistinctly. ‘All in day’s work. Lady being annoyed. Look here, if you take my arm, can you walk? It’s been a nasty shock, I know.’
‘I’m all right now,’ said the girl. However, she took the proffered arm. She was still rather shaky. She glanced behind her at the house as they emerged through the gate. ‘I can’t understand it,’ she murmured. ‘That’s clearly an empty house.’
‘It’s empty, right enough,’ agreed the major, looking up at the shuttered windows and general air of decay.
‘And yet it is Whitefriars.’ She pointed to a half-obliterated name on the gate. ‘And Whitefriars was the place I was to go.’
‘Don’t worry about anything now,’ said Wilbraham. ‘In a minute or two we’ll be able to get a taxi. Then we’ll drive somewhere and have a cup of coffee.’
At the end of the lane they came out into a more frequented street, and by good fortune a taxi had just set down a fare at one of the houses. Wilbraham hailed it, gave an address to the driver and they got in.
‘Don’t try to talk,’ he admonished his companion. ‘Just lie back. You’ve had a nasty experience.’
She smiled at him gratefully.
‘By the way–er–my name is Wilbraham.’