He handed it to her with a distinct twinkle in his eye.
“You give it to me,” said Bundle, “because you know it’s not going to be the slightest use to me. Do you want me to leave the whole thing alone?”
“I should prefer it,” said Battle. “You see—if you go messing around all these places—well, it’s going to give us a lot of trouble.”
“Looking after me, you mean?”
“Looking after you, Lady Eileen.”
Bundle had risen to her feet. Now she stood undecided. So far the honours lay with Superintendent Battle. Then she remembered one slight incident, and she based her last appeal upon it.
“I said just now that an amateur could do some things which a professional couldn’t. You didn’t contradict me. That’s because you’re an honest man, Superintendent Battle. You knew I was right.”
“Go on,” said Battle quickly.
“At Chimneys you let me help. Won’t you let me help now?”
Battle seemed to be turning the thing over in his mind. Emboldened by his silence, Bundle continued.
“You know pretty well what I’m like, Superintendent Battle. I butt into things. I’m a Nosy Parker. I don’t want to get in your way or to try and do things that you’re doing and can do a great deal better. But if there’s a chance for an amateur, let me have it.”
Again there was a pause, and then Superintendent Battle said quietly:
“You couldn’t have spoken fairer than you have done, Lady Eileen. But I’m just going to say this to you. What you propose is dangerous. And when I say dangerous, I mean dangerous.”
“I’ve grasped that,” said Bundle. “I’m not a fool.”
“No,” said Superintendent Battle. “Never knew a young lady who was less so. What I’ll do for you, Lady Eileen, is this. I’ll just give you one little hint. And I’m doing it because I never have thought much of the motto ‘Safety First.’ In my opinion all the people who spend their lives avoiding being run over by buses had much better be run over and put safely out of the way. They’re no good.”
This remarkable utterance issuing from the conventional lips of Superintendent Battle quite took Bundle’s breath away.
“What was that hint you were going to give me?” she asked at last.
“You know Mr. Eversleigh, don’t you?”
“Know Bill? Why, of course, But what—?”
“I think Mr. Bill Eversleigh will be able to tell you all you want to know about Seven Dials.”
“Bill knows about it? Bill?”
“I didn’t say that. Not at all. But I think, being a quick-witted young lady, you’ll get what you want from him.
“And now,” said Superintendent Battle firmly, “I’m not going to say another word.”
Eleven
DINNER WITH BILL
Bundle set out to keep her appointment with Bill on the following evening full of expectation.
Bill greeted her with every sign of elation.
“Bill really is rather nice,” thought Bundle to herself. “Just like a large, clumsy dog that wags its tail when it’s pleased to see you.”
The large dog was uttering short staccato yelps of comment and information.
“You look tremendously fit, Bundle. I can’t tell you how pleased I am to see you. I’ve ordered oysters—you do like oysters, don’t you? And how’s everything? What did you want to go mouldering about abroad so long? Were you having a very gay time?”
“No, deadly,” said Bundle. “Perfectly foul. Old diseased colonels creeping about in the sun, and active, wizened spinsters running libraries and churches.”
“Give me England,” said Bill. “I bar this foreign business—except Switzerland. Switzerland’s all right. I’m thinking of going this Christmas. Why don’t you come along?”
“I’ll think about it,” said Bundle. “What have you been doing with yourself lately, Bill?”
It was an incautious query. Bundle had merely made it out of politeness and as a preliminary to introducing her own topics of conversation. It was, however, the opening for which Bill had been waiting.
“That’s just what I’ve been wanting to tell you about. You’re brainy, Bundle, and I want your advice. You know that musical show, ‘Damn Your Eyes?’ ”
“Yes.”
“Well, I’m going to tell you about one of the dirtiest pieces of work imaginable. My God! the theatrical crowd. There’s a girl—a Yankee girl—a perfect stunner—”
Bundle’s heart sank. The grievances of Bill’s lady friends were always interminable—they went on and on and there was no stemming them.
“This girl, Babe St. Maur her name is—”
“I wonder how she got her name?” said Bundle sarcastically.
Bill replied literally.
“She got it out of Who’s Who. Opened it and jabbed her finger down on a page without looking. Pretty nifty, eh? Her real name’s Goldschmidt or Abrameier—something quite impossible.”
“Oh, quite,” agreed Bundle.
“Well, Babe St. Maur is pretty smart. And she’s got muscles. She was one of the eight girls who made the living bridge—”
“Bill,” said Bundle desperately. “I went to see Jimmy Thesiger yesterday morning.”
“Good old Jimmy,” said Bill. “Well, as I was telling you, Babe’s pretty smart. You’ve got to be nowadays. She can put it over on most theatrical people. If you want to live, be high-handed, that’s what Babe says. And mind you, she’s the goods all right. She can act—it’s marvellous how that girl can act. She’d not much chance in ‘Damn Your Eyes’—just swamped in a pack of good-looking girls. I said why not try the legitimate stage—you know, Mrs. Tanqueray—that sort of stuff—but Babe just laughed—”
“Have you seen Jimmy at all?”
“Saw him this morning. Let me see, where was I? Oh, yes, I hadn’t got to the rumpus yet. And mind you it was jealousy—sheer, spiteful jealousy. The other girl wasn’t a patch on Babe for looks and she knew it. So she went behind her back—”
Bundle resigned herself to the inevitable and heard the whole story of the unfortunate circumstances which had led up to Babe St. Maur’s summary disappearance from the cast of “Damn Your Eyes.” It took a long time. When Bill finally paused for breath and sympathy, Bundle said:
“You’re quite right, Bill, it’s a rotten shame. There must be a lot of jealousy about—”
“The whole theatrical world’s rotten with it.”
“It must be. Did Jimmy say anything to you about coming down to the Abbey next week?”
For the first time, Bill gave his attention to what Bundle was saying.
“He was full of a long rigmarole he wanted me to stuff Codders with. About wanting to stand in the Conservative interest. But you know, Bundle, it’s too damned risky.”
“Stuff,” said Bundle. “If George does find him out, he won’t blame you. You’ll just have been taken in, that’s all.”
“That’s not it at all,” said Bill. “I mean it’s too damned risky for Jimmy. Before he knows where he is, he’ll be parked down somewhere like Tooting East, pledged to kiss babies and make speeches. You don’t know how thorough Codders is and how frightfully energetic.”
“Well, we’ll have to risk that,” said Bundle. “Jimmy can take care of himself all right.”
“You don’t know Codders,” repeated Bill.
“Who’s coming to this party, Bill? Is it anything very special?”
“Only the usual sort of muck. Mrs. Macatta for one.”
“The M.P.?”
“Yes, you know, always going off the deep end about Welfare and Pure Milk and Save the Children. Think of poor Jimmy being talked to by her.”
“Never mind Jimmy. Go on telling me.”
“Then there’s the Hungarian, what they call a Young Hungarian. Countess something unpronounceable. She’s all right.”
He swallowed as though embarrassed, and Bundle observed that he was crumbling his bread nervously.
“Young and beautiful?” she inquired delicately.
“Oh, rather.”
“I didn’t know George went in for female beauty much.”
“Oh, he doesn’t. She runs baby feeding in Buda Pesth —something like that. Naturally she and Mrs. Macatta want to get together.”
“Who else?”
“Sir Stanley Digby—”
“The Air Minister?”
“Yes. And his secretary, Terence O’Rourke. He’s rather a lad, by the way—or used to be in his flying days. Then there’s a perfectly poisonous German chap called Herr Eberhard. I don’t know who he is, but we’re all making the hell of a fuss about him. I’ve been twice told off to take him out to lunch, and I can tell you, Bundle, it was no joke. He’s not like the Embassy chaps, who are all very decent. This man sucks in soup and eats peas with a knife. Not only that, but the brute is always biting his fingernails—positively gnaws at them.”
“Pretty foul.”
“Isn’t it? I believe he invents things—something of the kind. Well, that’s all. Oh, yes, Sir Oswald Coote.”
“And Lady Coote?”
“Yes, I believe she’s coming too.”
Bundle sat lost in thought for some minutes. Bill’s list was suggestive, but she hadn’t time to think out various possibilities just now. She must get on to the next point.
“Bill,” she said, “what’s all this about Seven Dials?”
Bill at once looked horribly embarrassed. He blinked and avoided her glance.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he said.
“Nonsense,” said Bundle. “I was told you know all about it.”
“About what?”
This was rather a poser. Bundle shifted her ground.
“I don’t see what you want to be so secretive for,” she complained.
“Nothing to be secretive about. Nobody goes there much now. It was only a craze.”
This sounded puzzling.
“One gets so out of things when one is away,” said Bundle in a sad voice.
“Oh, you haven’t missed much,” said Bill. “Everyone went there just to say they had been. It was boring really, and, my God, you can get tired of fried fish.”
“Where did everyone go?”
“To the Seven Dials Club, of course,” said Bill, staring. “Wasn’t that what you were asking about?”
“I didn’t know it by that name,” said Bundle.
“Used to be a slummy sort of district round about Tottenham Court Road way. It’s all pulled down and cleaned up now. But the Seven Dials Club keeps to the old atmosphere. Fried fish and chips. General squalor. Kind of East End stunt, but awfully handy to get at after a show.”
“It’s a nightclub, I suppose,” said Bundle. “Dancing and all that?”
“That’s it. Awfully mixed crowd. Not a posh affair. Artists, you know, and all sorts of odd women and a sprinkling of our lot. They say quite a lot of things, but I think that that’s all bunkum myself, just said to make the place go.”
“Good,” said Bundle. “We’ll go there tonight.”
“Oh! I shouldn’t do that,” said Bill. His embarrassment had returned. “I tell you it’s played out. Nobody goes there now.”
“Well, we’re going.”
“You wouldn’t care for it, Bundle. You wouldn’t really.”
“You’re going to take me to the Seven Dials Club and nowhere else, Bill. And I should like to know why you are so unwilling?”
“I? Unwilling?”
“Painfully so. What’s the guilty secret?”
“Guilty secret?”
“Don’t keep repeating what I say. You do it to give yourself time.”
“I don’t,” said Bill indignantly. “It’s only—”
“Well? I know there’s something. You never can conceal anything.”
“I’ve got nothing to conceal. It’s only—”
“Well?”
“It’s a long story—You see, I took Babe St. Maur there one night—”
“Oh! Babe St. Maur again.”
“Why not?”
“I didn’t know it was about her—” said Bundle, stifling a yawn.
“As I say, I took Babe there. She rather fancied a lobster. I had a lobster under my arm—”
The story went on—When the lobster had been finally dismembered in a struggle between Bill and a fellow who was a rank outsider, Bundle brought her attention back to him.
“I see,” she said. “And there was a row?”
“Yes, but it was my lobster. I’d bought it and paid for it. I had a perfect right—”
“Oh, you had, you had,” said Bundle hastily. “But I’m sure that’s all forgotten now. And I don’t care for lobsters anyway. So let’s go.”
“We may be raided by the police. There’s a room upstairs where they play baccarat.”
“Father will have to come and bail me out, that’s all. Come on, Bill.”
Bill still seemed rather reluctant, but Bundle was adamant and they were soon speeding to their destination in a taxi.
The place, when they got to it, was much as she imagined it would be. It was a tall house in a narrow street, 14 Hunstanton Street; she noted the number.
A man whose face was strangely familiar opened the door. She thought he started slightly when he saw her, but he greeted Bill with respectful recognition. He was a tall man, with fair hair, a rather weak, anaemic face and slightly shifty eyes. Bundle puzzled to herself where she could have seen him before.
Bill had recovered his equilibrium now and quite enjoyed doing showman. They danced in the cellar, which was very full of smoke—so much so that you saw everyone through a blue haze. The smell of fried fish was almost overpowering.
On the wall were rough charcoal sketches, some of them executed with real talent. The company was extremely mixed. There were portly foreigners, opulent Jewesses, a sprinkling of the really smart, and several ladies belonging to the oldest profession in the world.
Soon Bill led Bundle upstairs. There the weak-faced man was on guard, watching all those admitted to the gambling room with a lynx eye. Suddenly recognition came to Bundle.
“Of course,” she said. “How stupid of me. It’s Alfred who used to be second footman at Chimneys. How are you, Alfred?”
“Nicely, thank you, your Ladyship.”
“When did you leave Chimneys, Alfred? Was it long before we got back?”
“It was about a month ago, m’lady. I got a chance of bettering myself, and it seemed a pity not to take it.”
“I suppose they pay you very well here,” remarked Bundle.
“Very fair, m’lady.”
Bundle passed in. It seemed to her that in this room the real life of the club was exposed. The stakes were high, she saw that at once, and the people gathered round the two tables were of the true type. Hawkeyed, haggard, with the gambling fever in their blood.
She and Bill stayed here for about half an hour. Then Bill grew restive.
“Let’s get out of this place, Bundle, and go on dancing.”
Bundle agreed. There was nothing to be seen here. They went down again. They danced for another half hour, had fish and chips, and then Bundle declared herself ready to go home.
“But it’s so early,” Bill protested.
“No, it isn’t. Not really. And, anyway, I’ve got a long day in front of me tomorrow.”
“What are you going to do?”
“That depends,” said Bundle mysteriously. “But I can tell you this, Bill, the grass is not going to grow under my feet.”
“It never does,” said Mr. Eversleigh.
Twelve
INQUIRIES AT CHIMNEYS
Bundle’s temperament was certainly not inherited from her father, whose prevailing characteristic was a wholly amiable inertia. As Bill Eversleigh had very justly remarked, the grass never did grow under Bundle’s feet.
On the morning following her dinner with Bill, Bundle woke full of energy. She had three distinct plans which she m
eant to put into operation that day, and she realized that she was going to be slightly hampered by the limits of time and space.
Fortunately she did not suffer from the affliction of Gerry Wade, Ronny Devereux and Jimmy Thesiger—that of not being able to get up in the morning. Sir Oswald Coote himself would have had no fault to find with her on the score of early rising. At half past eight Bundle had breakfasted and was on her way to Chimneys in the Hispano.
Her father seemed mildly pleased to see her.
“I never know when you’re going to turn up,” he said. “But this will save me ringing up, which I hate. Colonel Melrose was here yesterday about the inquest.”
Colonel Melrose was Chief Constable of the county, and an old friend of Lord Caterham.
“You mean the inquest of Ronny Devereux? When is it to be?”
“Tomorrow. Twelve o’clock. Melrose will call for you. Having found the body, you’ll have to give evidence, but he said you needn’t be at all alarmed.”
“Why on earth should I be alarmed?”
“Well, you know,” said Lord Caterham apologetically, “Melrose is a bit old-fashioned.”
“Twelve o’clock,” said Bundle. “Good. I shall be here, if I’m still alive.”
“Have you any reason to anticipate not being alive?”
“One never knows,” said Bundle. “The strain of modern life—as the newspapers say.”
“Which reminds me that George Lomax asked me to come over to the Abbey next week. I refused, of course.”
“Quite right,” said Bundle. “We don’t want you mixed up in any funny business.”
“Is there going to be any funny business?” asked Lord Caterham with a sudden awakening of interest.
“Well—warning letters and all that, you know,” said Bundle.
“Perhaps George is going to be assassinated,” said Lord Caterham hopefully. “What do you think, Bundle—perhaps I’d better go after all.”
“You curb your bloodthirsty instincts and stay quietly at home,” said Bundle. “I’m going to talk to Mrs. Howell.”
Mrs. Howell was the housekeeper, that dignified, creaking lady who struck terror to the heart of Lady Coote. She had no terror for Bundle, whom, indeed, she always called Miss Bundle, a relic of the days when Bundle had stayed at Chimneys, a long-legged, impish child, before her father had succeeded to the title.