Such were the thoughts that flashed through Monty's mind as he gazed at his companion, who was now singing 'Love Me And The World Is Mine'. The remote possibility occurred to him that he might have heard the name incorrectly.
'Did you say J. B. Butterwick?' he gurgled.
'When?'
'When you were telling me about the letter.'
'What letter?'
'The one from the man you're going to lunch with. Was he J B. Butterwick?'
'Still is, for all I know. That's how he signed the thing. He wrote from West Dulwich, wherever that may be.'
'It's a suburb of London.'
'Lots of suburbs around London?'
'Quite a few.'
'Well, good luck to them,' said Mr. Llewellyn tolerantly. 'Do you know a song called "Barney Google"?'
'No.'
'Not many people do today. It's an old one.'
'But about this letter.'
'Came when my wife was out, fortunately. That's how I was able to describe it to her as a telephone call from my lawyer. It just shows how my circumstances have changed that I read it twice, every word, and clutched it to my bosom, as manna in the wilderness. If I had received a letter like that at Llewellyn City, perfect stranger asking me to lunch, I'd have instructed my secretary to write a curt note in reply telling the fellow to go boil his head, but in these hard times anyone who asks me to lunch gets V.I.P. treatment, especially if it's at a London club. I remember lunching at a club years ago on one of my visits to London, and it happened to be curry day. It was an experience I shall never forget. Chicken curry it was, and I had three helpings. Those were the days, Bodkin, those were the days.’
'They must have been.’
'They were.’
'But returning to the subject of J. B. Butterwick.'
'Do I gather from the quiver in your voice that the name is familiar to you?'
'He's the father of Gertrude Butterwick.'
'That may well be so, but I don't see that it gets us any further. Who the hell is Gertrude Butterwick?'
'I told you about her. The girl I'm engaged to.'
'Ah, yes, the one who tiptoes through the tulips.'
'I didn't say she tiptoed through the tulips. You did. As a matter of fact I don't believe she has ever tiptoed through any tulips.’
Mr. Llewellyn's exuberance abated sufficiently to allow him to frown.
'One thing you will learn, Bodkin, as your association with me continues, is that I am seldom wrong. If I say a girl tiptoes through tulips, you can rest assured that that is what she does. Everything you have told me about this tomato points to the fact that . . . Wait! Don't speak. Memory is returning. Yes, I have it. This Gertrude is the one whose father won't let her marry you unless you earn your living for a year.'
'Exactly. And he's asked you to lunch in the hope of talking you into giving me the sock in the eye on which his heart is set.'
‘I don't follow you, Bodkin. Clarify the script.'
'He's going to try to persuade you to terminate my employment.'
'When you say "terminate my employment", do you mean give you the bum's rush?'
'Just that. His Machiavellian mind has got the whole thing worked out. He thinks, if you fire me, I haven't a hope of getting another job. He knows I'm rather hard to place.'
Mr. Llewellyn snorted with such violence that for an instant Monty thought that something had gone wrong with the machinery of the car. He shook in every limb, and his face could not have registered wrath and disgust more accurately if he had been taking a screen test.
'Fire you?' he said, wrestling with feelings. 'Why, you're the only person in the world as it is at present constituted on whom I can rely for sympathy and understanding. Who else have I to tell my troubles to? Don't think I'm forgetting the signal services the Miller half-portion has rendered me. I'm not. That Bavarian cream. And last night she brought me the leg of a chicken and a piece of apple pie. But I can't talk to her. She oozes silently into my room like oil, delivers the nourishment and is off again as if she had a train to catch. You're different. You stay put, and you listen. Fire you? I wouldn't fire you if the President of the United States and his entire Cabinet fell on their knees and begged me to. If this son of a Butterwick thinks he can get to first base with me, he's very much mistaken. "Butterwick", I shall say to him—after I've had my lunch, of course—"You're a low hound, and you've as much chance of wheedling me into giving young Bodkin the pink slip as I have of getting my wife to let me eat a chocolate éclair. Drop dead, Butterwick", I shall say.'
'Thank you, Mr. Llewellyn,' said Monty, much moved.
'How many times have I told you to call me Jumbo?' said Ivor Llewellyn.
It was with uplifted heart that Monty, having dropped his friend and benefactor at the Senior Conservative Club, went off to take his midday meal at the Drones. There he was interested to learn that a book on his chances of winning through to marriage had been started by his fellow member Oofy Prosser and that the current odds against were now a hundred to eight. Having invested a considerable sum at this figure, he returned to the Senior Conservative Club, and after a short wait Mr. Llewellyn appeared.
But a very different Mr. Llewellyn from the gay songster of the journey to London. Gone was the effervescence which had lent such zip to his rendition of 'Happy Days Are Here Again* and 'Love Me And The World Is Mine' and would have lent to 'Barney Google’ if he could have remembered how it went. His face was sombre, his eyes dull and glazed. In response to Monty's courteous hope that he had enjoyed his lunch he uttered the sort of laugh sometimes described as hollow, sometimes as mirthless.
'I'm not a rabbit.’ he said.
Monty could make nothing of this cryptic remark. He conceded that the head of the Superba-Llewellyn studio did not look like a rabbit—so little indeed that the fact that he was not one seemed hardly worth mentioning. His resemblance to a rabbit was even less marked than his similarity to a caged skylark.
'Did someone say you were?' he asked, groping.
'Butterwick appeared to think so. Carrots!' said Mr. Llewellyn morosely. 'Bran pudding. Lettuce. I ordered something which he told me was duck, and it turned out to be what they called mock duck, consisting almost entirely of nuts. Nuts to you, J. B. Butterwick, I ought to have said, only I was too polite. And the only alternative was those carrots and that bran pudding.’
Illumination came to Monty. He remembered his future father-in-law's peculiar views on what the human frame required to keep body and soul together. He himself had on one occasion experienced Mr. Butterwick's hospitality, and the taste had lingered for days.
'Did he take you to that health food place of his?'
'He did, blister his insides.’
'He's a vegetarian.’
'He's a pain in the neck.’
Monty's spirits were soaring. He realised now that even after that encouraging speech in the car he had had doubts as to his employer's ability to withstand the subtle arguments which Gertrude's father would put forward in his effort to induce him to de-Bodkin himself. Had J. B. Butterwick provided the roast beef and Yorkshire pudding of Ivor Llewellyn's dreams, the latter, full to the brim and mellowed, might well have felt himself obliged to show his gratitude by falling in with his benefactor's every wish, especially if lunch had been followed by port and a good cigar. An Ivor Llewellyn, on the other hand, with only mock duck inside him would not have been easily swayed.
To make sure, he said:
'Did my name happen to come up in the course of lunch?'
'I wish you wouldn't call it lunch. It was a mockery.'
‘A mock duckery.’
'Eh?'
'Nothing, nothing, just a passing thought. But was my name mentioned?'
'Ha!'
'It was?'
‘He had lots to say about you. He kept urging me—'
'To kiss me goodbye and tie a can to me?'
'Precisely. I'll say this for him, that he didn't really start in on you ti
ll we'd finished lunch, if you can call it lunch. During the meal he was too busy chewing his food fifty times and what conversation there was was on neutral topics. But when we got back to his club he opened up. He said you were a worthless young waster and a lot of other things. Made my blood boil. "Butterwick", I said, "You have maligned a splendid young man whom I love like a son. Go into the silence, Butterwick, I'm not speaking to you. I wouldn't speak to you if your shirt was on fire. I regard you as a louse of the first water, and I hope that on your way back to West Dulwich you get run over by an omnibus".'
'Magnificent!’
'I could have put it stronger, but the man was my host. One has to be civil.'
'Of course, Jumbo. What you said was just right, Jumbo. You're a true friend, Jumbo. I don't know when I've met a truer, Jumbo.’ said Monty.
During most of the journey home silence reigned in the car. It was plain to Monty that his companion was reliving the past, and tact forbade any interruption of his reverie. But as they turned into the road that led to Mellingham he gave another of his mirthless laughs.
'Ironical,' he said.
'I beg your pardon?' said Monty.
'At that club of Butterwick's I ran into a man I used to know in Hollywood. Fellow named Flannery. He was an agent then. He made his pile and came to London. He runs a night club.'
'Oh, yes?'
'We're sort of connected in a way. He married my third wife.’
'Really?'
'Yes, poor slob. And he's invited me to come to his night club any night, with friends, and the club will pick up the tab.’
'Free food!'
'And free drinks.'
'Wonderful!'
'But ironical,' said Mr. Llewellyn with a sigh. 'Because with my wife watching me like a cop all the time, how am I to get away?'
3
Arriving at their destination, Mr. Llewellyn left Monty to take the car to the garage, and trudged slowly upstairs to his bedroom, a prey to gloom. Chimp Twist was there, going about his duties.
'Good evening, sir,' said Chimp.
'Grrrh,' said Mr. Llewellyn like a tiger of the jungle.
‘I trust you had a pleasant day, sir.'
'Arrrh.’ said Mr. Llewellyn like another tiger.
'Madam left a message for you, sir. She wishes you to forward her wrist watch. She omitted to take it with her.'
'What are you talking about? Take it where?'
'To Shropshire, sir.'
'Shropshire?'
'Yes, sir. Madam received a telephone call from Miss Mavis shortly after you had left, urging her to join her immediately in Shropshire.’
'You mean she's gone?'
'Yes, sir. She expects to be away for several days.' A long silence followed. Eventually Mr. Llewellyn spoke.
'I do believe in fairies!' he said. 'Yessir, I do believe in fairies.'
4
Monty, returning to the house after putting the car away, found himself to his surprise confronted by an Ivor Llewellyn differing in every respect from the moody man so recently talking of things being ironical. In the brief interval of their separation the sun had apparently come smiling through in no uncertain manner.
'Hey, Bodkin,' said Mr. Llewellyn. 'Remember me telling you that my friend Flannery had invited me to his night club, everything free including drinks?'
Monty's memory was not so treacherous that he had forgotten this.
'I also dwelt on my difficulty in taking advantage of his hospitality.'
'Mrs. Llewellyn?'
'Mrs. Llewellyn is correct. She would never have allowed it. But do you know what I have just learned from a reliable source?'
'I'm all agog.'
'You're what?'
'Agog.'
'Oh, agog. Well, I'll tell you. This reliable source has just informed me that Mrs. Llewellyn has gone to Shropshire and will be away several days. Where is Shropshire?'
'Up north.'
'Not near here?'
'Good heavens, no. A train journey of three or four hours.'
'So no chance of her suddenly popping back?'
'None.’
'Then be prepared, Bodkin, to get the car out tomorrow after dinner, and ho for the open spaces. You will drive us to London. I use the word "us" because we shall be taking the Miller half-portion along. She deserves a treat, and she will be somebody for me to dance with. I have always been fond of dancing. Some years ago I took a course of lessons from Arthur Murray.'
'Best man in the business, they tell me.'
'He is.'
'You'll have a ball.'
'Nothing but, Bodkin, nothing but.'
It appeared, however, that there was one crumpled rose leaf.
It's a pity it won't be a fancy dress affair,' said Mr. Llewellyn pensively. 'I have a Captain Kidd costume I would have liked to wear.'
Chapter Seven
The band (Herman Zilch and his Twelve Whatnots), which had hitherto restricted itself to the more modern type of music, had begun to play one of those old-fashioned waltzes, and each saccharine note seemed to go through Monty's heart like a dagger. By an unfortunate coincidence Herman had selected a melody to which he—Monty, not Herman—had so often danced with his arm about the substantial waist of Gertrude Butterwick, and if that wasn't putting the frosting on the cake and rubbing salt into the wound, he—still Monty—would have been glad to know what was.
Earlier in the day he had been re-reading for the fourth time the letter he had received from Gertrude, and its every word had stung like a serpent and bitten like an adder. When a girl as strict a disciplinarian as she was writes chiding her betrothed, she chides. She had assured her father that there would be no verbal mincing, and she had fulfilled her promise . . . as Mr. Llewellyn would have said, in spades. Short of beginning 'Sir' and ending 'Yrs faithfully' or being written throughout in the third person the missive had everything. Little wonder that Monty, giving it its first reading, had felt as if a powerful hand had struck him on the base of the skull with a cosh or blackjack.
He was alone at the table, for Mr. Llewellyn was on the dance floor with Sandy, and had his mood been less sombre he might have derived entertainment from watching them. There was a piquant difference between their styles. Sandy moved like a feather in a gentle breeze, but it was plain that Arthur Murray had taught Mr. Llewellyn dancing in a hurry—in such a hurry, indeed that he had omitted to tell him not to tread on his partner's feet.
Monty's pity for Sandy, however, was lost in pity for himself. Herman was singing the lyric now, and this constituted the last straw.
'We've drifted apart.'
'How true,' thought Monty.
'You've broken my heart.'
'Absolutely correct.'
'As I knew from the start it would be.’ howled Herman. 'As I knew from the ster-art it would be.’
There was only one thing to do, Monty decided, and that was to reach for the bottle in the ice bucket and drink more of the champagne provided by Mr. Flannery, of which he had already drunk a good deal. He did so, and was surprised to find after the second glassful that his mental outlook had undergone a change. Where before he had been a mere toad beneath the harrow, under the influence of the generous fluid he had been converted into and up-and-coming toad which seethed with rebellion and intended to take a strong line with girls who did not mince their words when seated at their writing desks.
Gertrude, he told himself, needed a sharp corrective. Getting a bit above herself, he considered. Seemed to think she was everybody, he would have muttered if he had been in the habit of muttering when there was no one there to mutter to. It was his opinion that she ought to be thanking heaven fasting for a good man's love instead of going about the place ticking fellows off for expressing themselves in the most temperate way on the subject of her father.
In short, when Mr. Llewellyn curvetted and Sandy limped back to the table, they found him in dangerous mood. Had Gertrude Butterwick been present, only the innate chivalry of an Ol
d Etonian would have deterred him from plugging her in the eye.
Mr. Llewellyn was in the best of spirits. Even now he did not look like a skylark, but he had all the animation of one. He would have got on well with Shelley.
'Nice place, this.’ he said buoyantly. 'Class. Elegance. Refinement. What the French call chic'
Monty could not endorse this opinion. In the days before Gertrude had put her veto on them he had been something of a connoisseur of night clubs. He had not been obsessed by them as were some members of the Drones—the name of Oofy Prosser springs to the mind—but he had gone to enough of them to be able to distinguish between the respectable kind and the ones liable at any moment to have the police piling on the backs of their necks for selling alcoholic liquor after hours. To the experienced eye the garishness of the latter tells the story. The name helps, too. Your virtuous night club labels itself Ciro's or Les Ambassadeurs: the other sort prefer The Hot Cha-Cha, The Frozen Limits or The Mottled Oyster.
The one presided over by the husband of the third Mrs. Ivor Llewellyn was called The Happy Prawn, and was definitely garish. Its decor appeared to have been the work of an intoxicated surrealist. It was dimly lit, always a bad sign. And Herman and his What-Nots were so obviously the dregs of Society that one wondered what they were doing outside Wormwood Scrubs. It seemed to Monty that the shadow of the constabulary brooded over the place like a living presence.
He mentioned this to his host.
'Don't you think we ought to be leaving soon?' he said, and Mr. Llewellyn looked at him in shocked amazement.
'Leaving?' he ejaculated as if he could not believe his ears, which as the result of his exertions on the dance floor were now a bright red. He was wearing a paper hat provided by the management, and in other ways was making plain his determination to be the life and soul of the party.