The Girl in Blue (17 page)

‘Which
you are, of course,’ she said tartly.

‘I don’t
know what you mean.’

‘Yes,
you do. All that apple sauce about loving that girl, and not being able to tell
her so because she’s rich and you aren’t.’

‘Oh,
that?’

‘Yes,
that.’

‘I can’t
help the way I feel, can I?’

‘Of
course you can. It only needs will-power.’

‘Wouldn’t
she think I was just after her money?’

‘Of
course she wouldn’t.’

‘Everybody
else would.’

‘Well,
what do you care about everybody else? Let ‘em eat cake. What does it matter if
a lot of fatheads think you’re on the make? And in passing why don’t you give a
thought to the poor girl?’

‘You
mean the rich girl.’

‘Well,
whatever she is, why don’t you take her agony into your calculations?’

‘Her
what?’

‘Agony
was what I said. Distress, misery and torment, if you prefer it. Or anguish.’

She had
opened up a new line of thought, one which had not occurred to Jerry. A modest
young man, it had never struck him before that he was a sort of demon lover for
whom women wailed. He stared at her, aghast.

‘Do you
really think she feels like that?’

‘Of
course she does. There she is, unfortunate little rat, yearning for you, pining
for you, looking on you as her official Prince Charming, saying to herself
every morning “Perhaps today he will come riding upon his white horse and put
his arms round me and tell me he loves me”, and what happens? Not a yip out of
you. I should imagine she would be in a horrible state, crying buckets,
refusing nourishment, reducing herself to skin and bone and biting large holes
in her pillow every night.’

She had
made her point. Just as she had convinced him when using her eloquence on
behalf of the Lincolnshire and Eastern Counties Glass Bottling Corporation, she
convinced him now. How right she was, he felt, in saying that he ought to be
certified. Any man who could behave as he had been behaving — to all intents
and purposes like that base Indian who was such a poor judge of jewellery —
could step straight into the most exclusive lunatic asylum and they would show
him off to visitors as their star exhibit.

His
scruples, of which he had been so proud, had gone with the wind. He advanced on
her and breathed her name passionately.

‘Jane…Jane,
will you—’

‘Half a
mo’, cocky.’

It was
not she who had spoken. Seeming to have popped up out of a trap, Chippendale
had joined them.

‘Sorry
to intrude, chum,’ said Chippendale with a courteous wink, ‘but the boss would
like a word with you.

2

Although it had been said
of Crispin Scrope with considerable justice that if men were dominoes, he would
be the double blank, he was not without a certain intelligence and the ability
to deduce and draw conclusions. Informed that his nephew Gerald had been found
crouched in a cupboard in Mrs Bernadette Clayborne’s bedroom, it had occurred
to him almost immediately that he must have had some reason for being there.
Nephews, he told himself, do not crouch in cupboards merely to satisfy an idle
whim, and a few moments ‘intensive thought had brought the solution of the
mystery. He had written to Willoughby to tell him to disregard their telephone
conversation, for since then he had changed his mind and was now heart and soul
in favour of de-miniatureizing Mrs Clayborne, but Willoughby, feeling in his
practical way that two heads were better than one, must have added Gerald to
his corps of minions. It was only what might have been expected of a man so
eager to get results.

Hope,
crushed to earth by Chippendale’s withdrawal from the hunt, began to stir once
more. Gerald had failed as a searcher of rooms, but he was a bright young
fellow and might have other ideas, and ideas were what were particularly
needed, for he himself had none.

‘Wasting
no time on arguments and pleadings with Chippendale, for Barney’s prowess with
statuettes had plainly impressed him so deeply that he could see they would be
futile, he said:

‘Do you
know where Mr West is?’

‘Probably
putting his head under the tap somewhere.’

‘Find
him and tell him to come and see me immediately,’ said Crispin, and disdained
to answer Chippendale’s enquiry as to whether it was his intention to kiss the
place and make it well.

Jerry’s
mood as he entered was not sunny. That of a man who has sustained a head wound
and has subsequently been interrupted in a proposal of marriage seldom is. He
eyed Crispin bleakly and shot out a surly ‘Yes?’

Crispin
did not fail to notice the absence of bonhomie, and bearing in mind the urgency
of conciliating his only ally he set himself to supply bonhomie enough for two.

‘Sit
down, Gerald. Will you have a cigar, Gerald?’

‘No,
thanks.’

‘A
drink?’

‘No,
thanks,’ said Jerry.

His
manner was damping, but Crispin persevered. ‘I asked you to come here, Gerald,
because I have something to discuss with you.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes,
something very important. Chippendale has been telling me of your unpleasant
encounter with Mrs Clayborne.’

‘Oh?’

‘I hope
your head is less painful?

‘It isn’t.’

‘Still
aching?’

‘More
than ever.

‘I am
sorry. A nasty thing to have happened. Mrs Clayborne is very robust. She found
you in her cupboard, I understand. You were looking for your Uncle Willoughby’s
miniature, of course?’

Jerry’s
mood of resentment changed to one of bewilderment. His estimate of Crispin’s
intelligence had always been more or less identical with that of the critic
with the dominoes metaphor. Certainly he had never credited him with
clairvoyance.

‘I
should mention,’ Crispin continued as he stared dumbly, ‘that Willoughby rang
me up on the telephone informing me of the theft of the miniature and urging me
to do everything in my power to recover it. He wanted me to search Mrs
Clayborne’s suite. I was somewhat taken aback, but naturally I wished to do
what I could to help him, so I confided in Chippendale and promised him a
substantial emolument if he would undertake what you might describe as the
active work.’

‘So
that was why Chippendale was there!’

‘Exactly.
He was searching. He is an experienced searcher. As a boy, when his father won
money at the dog races and hid it to prevent his mother finding it, he used to
track it down on his mother’s behalf, and always, I understand, successfully. I
gather that it is a gift, and I was relying on him absolutely, but being an
eyewitness of your encounter with Mrs Clayborne has unfortunately had a
lowering effect on his morale. He has just told me that he wishes to have
nothing further to do with a woman of such direct methods. His actual
expression was a woman with such a wallop.’

‘He’s
including himself out?’

‘Precisely.’

‘And
you want me to take up the torch from where he has dropped it?’

‘You
put it poetically but accurately.’

It
seemed to Jerry that before anything in the nature of a partnership could be
formed a strict understanding must be arrived at. There were limits to what he
was prepared to do to oblige his Uncle Bill, even though success would mean so
much to himself. Nor could such an attitude be considered unreasonable. If Barney’s
direct methods had had such a pronounced effect on Chippendale, a mere
onlooker, it is not surprising that the actual recipient of her attentions
should hesitate to come within arm’s reach of her again.

‘You
aren’t expecting me to play a return date in her suite, are you?’ he said. ‘Because
if so…’

‘No,
no,’ said Crispin, though that was what he had been hoping for. ‘Once bitten,
twice shy.’

‘And
the burned child dreads the fire.’

‘Precisely.
Though if some afternoon I were to take her for a long country walk?’

‘Not
even then.’

‘Or to
Salisbury to see the cathedral?’

‘The
car would break down before it got out of the gates, and she would be back,
complete with statuette.’

‘And
she has already seen the cathedral. No, we must hit on something else. Let us
think.’

They
thought.

‘Have
you any ideas?’ asked Crispin after a pause.

‘One.’

‘I
have, too.’

‘Two?’

‘I am
sorry. I should have said “also”. I should be glad to hear yours.

‘It’s
just a suggestion.’

‘Quite.
Proceed.’

‘Well,
I remembered a detective story I read as a kid. There was a kleptomaniac who
was always pinching things from people, and one day he took a packet of bank
notes from the overcoat pocket of a man named Gibbs. He was dining with Gibbs
and the coat was hanging in the hall and Gibbs had forgotten to take the stuff
out, and the fellow got away with it.’

‘Interesting.
But how does it help us?’

‘I’m
coming to that. The detective called on the fellow and said, “Could you let me
have the package you took from Mr Gibbs’s overcoat pocket on the night of
January the twenty-third?”, and the fellow said, “He wishes it returned, does he?”
and handed it over.’

There
was a somewhat lengthy silence. Watching Crispin fingering his moustache, Jerry
had the uneasy feeling that he had not been as bright as he could have wished.
It was a long time since he had read the story he had mentioned, and he rather
fancied he had left something out.

‘H’m,’
said Crispin.

‘You
don’t think much of it?’

‘Not a
great deal. The kleptomaniac seems to have been of a singularly easygoing
disposition. I doubt if Mrs Clayborne would prove so amenable.’

‘Perhaps
you’re right. Yes, I suppose she would be more likely to bean you with the
nearest statuette.’

‘Me?’

‘I was
assuming that you, as an older man whose personality carries more weight, would
undertake the negotiations.’

‘You
were mistaken,’ said Crispin.

There
was another silence. Jerry resumed the conversation.

‘You
said you had an idea.’

‘Ah
yes. Mine oddly enough also derives from a detective story. You are familiar
with the exploits of Sherlock Holmes?’

‘Know
them by heart, but which of them would be any use to us? Would it be the
Adventure
of the Five Orange Pips?
Are you planning to intimidate Mrs Clayborne by
sending her five orange pips, with a message telling her to put the miniature
on the sun dial?’

That
had not occurred to me.’

‘It
might work. It would depend, of course, on whether she’s allergic to orange
pips. Many people aren’t.’

‘My
plan is based not so much on a story as on something Holmes said in one of the
stories. He said, if you recall, that when a house is on fire, everyone’s
impulse is to carry out from the flames the thing most precious to them; in Mrs
Clayborne’s case, I think we may assume, the miniature. That seems to me a
correct statement of human psychology.’

Jerry,
having no moustache to finger, fingered his chin.

‘Let’s
get this straight. For the moment I’m a little fogged. Are you proposing to set
fire to Mellingham Hall?’

Crispin
could not repress a wistful sigh. The picture of a heavily insured Mellingham
Hall in flames was a very attractive one.

That
will not be necessary. You will simply ring the fire alarm.’

‘I
will?’

‘It is
young man’s work.’

‘I don’t
know where the fire alarm is.

‘I can
show you.

‘I just
press a button, do I?’

‘You
pub a rope. This rings a bell.’

‘And
out will pop Mrs Clayborne?’

‘I
think we can rely on that.’

‘With
the miniature on her?’

‘Presumably.’

‘How
does one find out? Does one frisk her?’

‘I beg
your pardon?’

‘Do I
pass my hands up and down her person, as in the movies?’

‘I
never thought of that.’

‘And if
she has got the thing on her, do I knock her down and grab it?’

‘I did
not think of that, either. No, I am afraid my suggestion does not prove to be
very fruitful.’

‘I
wouldn’t call it frightfully hot.’

‘It’s
just as good as yours,’ said Crispin with spirit.

‘Just
about,’ Jerry had to agree. ‘You haven’t anything better?’