Luck of the Bodkins (41 page)

'Send him right in,' he said, and leaned back in his chair, assembling on his face a smile of welcome.

The next moment, the smile had disappeared. It was not Reggie Tennyson who stood before him, but the spy, Bodkin. Mr Llewellyn tilted his chair forward again, cocked his cigar at a militant angle, and looked at this Bodkin.

The difference between the way in which a motion-picture magnate looks at a Customs spy when he is on an ocean liner and has his wife's fifty-thousand-dollar necklace in his state-room and the way in which he looks at him when he is in his office on shore and knows that the necklace is on shore, too, is subtle but well-defined. In Mr Llewellyn's case, more well-defined than subtle. He directed at Monty a glare so grim and hostile that even he was able to notice it. Preoccupied though he was with his broken heart, Monty perceived that something had wrought a change in the president of the Superba-Llewellyn. This was not the effervescent, chummy man who had buttonholed him in the smoking-room of the R.M.S.
Atlantic
and complimented him so cordially on his technique in the difficult arts of cigarette-lighting and whisky-drinking. The person before him looked like the bad brother of that man.

He felt a little damped.

'Er - hullo,' he said tentatively.

Mr Llewellyn said: 'Well?'

‘I
- er - thought I'd look in,' said Monty.

Mr Llewellyn said 'Well?' again.

'So - er - here I am,' said Monty.

'And what the hell,' inquired Mr Llewellyn, 'do you want here?'

The question could have been more cordially worded. Even off-hand, Monty was able to think of several ways in which the speaker could have lent to it a greater suavity and polish. But the main thing was that it had been asked, for it placed him in a position to get down to cases without further delay.

Tve been thinking it over,' he said, 'and
I’ll
sign that contract
’

Mr Llewellyn switched his cigar across his face, starting in the left hand-corner and finishing in the right-hand corner.

‘
Oh, yes?' he said. 'Well, I've been thinking it over, and you won't sign any contracts in
my
office.
’

'Well, where would you like me to sign it?
’
asked Monty agreeably.

Mr Llewellyn's cigar travelled back across his face, clipping a fraction of a second off its previous time. 'Listen,' he said, 'you can forget about contracts.
’
'Forget about them?'

There ain't going to be any contracts,' said Mr Llewellyn, making his meaning clearer. Monty was at a loss. 'I thought you said on the boat -
’
'Never mind what I said on the boat.
’
'I thought you wanted me to be a production expert.
’
'Well, I don't
’

'You don't want me to be a production expert?'

'I don't want you to be a dish-washer in the commissary -not the Superba-Llewellyn commissary.
’

Monty thought this over. He rubbed his nose. Sombre meditation had left his mind in rather a clouded state, but he was beginning to gather that the other was not in the market for his services.

'Oh?
’
he said.

'No,' said Mr Llewellyn.

Monty scratched his chin.

‘
I see.'

'I'm glad you see.'

Monty rubbed his nose, scratched his chin and fingered bis left ear.

'Well, right ho,' he said.

Mr Llewellyn did not speak, merely looked at Monty as if he had been a beetle in the salad and sent his cigar off on another exercise gallop.

'Well, right ho,' said Monty. 'And how about Ambrose?'

'Huh?'

'Ambrose Tennyson.
’
'What about him?' 'Will you give him a job?
’
'Sure.' That's fine.
’

'He can go. up to the top of the Empire State Building and jump off,' said Mr Llewellyn. 'I'll pay him for his time.' 'You mean you don't want Ambrose, either?'
‘I
me
an just that.' ‘
I see.'

Monty rubbed his nose, scratched his chin, fingered his left ear and rubbed the toe of one shoe against the heel of the other.

'Well, in that case - er - pip-pip.'

'You'll find your way out,' said Mr Llewellyn. 'The door's just behind you. You turn the handle.'

The mechanics of getting out of the office of the president of the Superba-Llewellyn proved to be just as simple and uncomplicated as its proprietor had stated, and Monty, though feeling as if strong men had been hitting him on the head with sand-bags, had no difficulty in making his departure. After he had gone, Mr Llewellyn left his chair and began to strut up and down the room, satisfaction in every ripple of his chins. He felt as if he had just ground a rattlesnake under his heel, and nothing tones up the system like a brisk spell of rattlesnake-grinding.

He was still strutting when Mabel Spence was announced, and not even the fact that Mabel had brought with her and proceeded immediately to submit to his attention a heavily sealed contract, drawn up by one partner in New York's hardest boiled legal firm and inspected and approved by two other partners, was able to take the sparkle out of his eyes and the elasticity from his bearing. Given a choice, he would have preferred not to be compelled to commit himself so irrevocably to becoming Reginald Tennyson's employer, but he had long since resigned himself to the fact that he was not given a choice. Reggie, he recognized, was the pill that went with the jam. Calmly, if not actually with a merry bonhomie, he attached his signature to the document.

'Thanks,' said Mabel, when the four witnesses on whose collaboration she had insisted had withdrawn. 'Well, that fixes Reggie all right. For though you're a better man than most, Gunga Din, I'll defy you to wriggle out of this one.
’

'Who wants to wriggle out of it?' demanded Mr Llewellyn, with some indignation.

'Oh, well, you never know. All I'm saying is that it's nice to feel you can't. If ever you need good lawyers, Ikey, these are the people to go to. Most thorough and conscientious. You would have laughed at the way they kept thinking up penalty clauses. They didn't seem able to stop. The way they had it by the time they
were through, I believe Reggie'll
be able to soak you for substantial damages if you don't give him a good night kiss and tuck him up in bed. Swell,' said Mabel, placing the document in her vanity-bag with a light-hearted gaiety which Mr Llewellyn could not bring himself to share. 'Well, Ikey, what's the news? Seen Reggie yet?'

'No,' said Mr Llewellyn querulously. 'And I can't think why. He ought to have been here half an hour ago.'

'Oh, I know. Of course. He stopped to talk to his cousin, Miss Butterwick.'

'What for? He'd no business -'

'Well, it doesn't matter, anyway. He got the necklace through.' 'How do you know?'

'I was with him when his baggage was examined,
and
the
y let it by without a murmur.' ‘
Where did he put the thing?' 'He wouldn't te
ll me. Very secretive he was.' ‘
Well, I wish -'

His remark was interrupted by the ringing of the telephone. He took up the receiver. 'Is that Reggie?' said Mabel.

Mr Llewellyn nodded briefly. He was listening intently. And, as he listened, his eyes slowly protruded from his face and his complexion took on that purple tinge which always made it so pretty to look at in times of great emotion. Presently he began to splutter incoherently.

'What on earth is the matter, Ikey?' asked Mabel Spence in

some alarm. She was not fond of her brother-in-law, but when he showed signs of being about to perish of apoplexy in her presence she became concerned.

Mr Llewellyn replaced the receiver and sagged back in his chair. He breathed stertorously.

'That was your Reggie 1'

'Bless his heart!
’

'Blast his kidneys,' corrected Mr Llewellyn. He spoke thickly: 'Do you know what he's done?' 'Something clever?
‘

Mr Llewellyn quivered. His cigar, which during these moments had been clinging to his lower lip by a thread, relaxed its hold and fell into his lap.

'Clever! Yes, darned clever. He says he thought and thought of the best way of getting that necklace through the Customs, and in the end he decided to put it in a brown plush Mickey Mouse belonging to that fellow Bodkin. And Bodkin's got it now!'

Chapter
23

The fury which had burned in Gertrude Butterwick's bosom in the Customs sheds was still burning briskly when she arrived at the Hotel Piazza, engaged a room, and went up to it and took off her hat. Placid by nature, she was disturbed as a rule only by venal and prejudiced hockey referees who said she was offside when she was nowhere near offside; but the mildest girl may be excused for breathing flame through the nostrils under the provocation which she had received.

The calm crust of Montague Bodkin in returning that Mickey Mouse to her after what had occurred, and dashing away before she could hurl it scornfully back at him, afflicted her like a physical pain. She accepted ice-water at the bell-boy's hands because he seemed to wish it, but her thoughts were not with ice-water. She had ascertained at the desk the number of Monty's suite, and she was telling herself that as soon as this uniformed child had made himself scarce she would step down there - it was only on the next floor - and deliver that mouse as it should be delivered. The one look which she proposed to give Monty as she placed it in his hands would, in her opinion, be quite sufficient to put him where he belonged and indicate even to his weak mind his standing in the estimation of G. Butterwick, of the All England Ladies' Hockey team.

Directly the bell-boy had died away in the distance, accordingly, she took the Mickey Mouse and set out. And presently she was knocking at the door which she had been told was his.

In spite of herself, the sound of footsteps from within caused her heart to beat a little more quickly. And she was telling herself that she must be strong and resolute, when the door opened and she found herself face to face with Lottie Blossom,

'Hello, there,' said Lottie, in the friendliest possible manner, as if Gertrude had been a welcome guest whom she had long been expecting. 'Come on in.'

And such was the compelling power of her personality that Gertrude went on in. Take a chair.'

Gertrude took a chair. She was still incapable of speech. For all that Monty was nothing to her, it was as if that smouldering fire within her had blazed up into a searing flame. The sight of this woman at her ease in Monty's suite, behaving absolutely like a hostess, did not surprise her. It merely confirmed all the existing evidence. Nevertheless, it was agony. She clutched the Mickey Mouse and suffered.

'Bodkin's out,
’
said Lottie. 'He's gone to see Ikey Llewellyn about a contract for Ambrose. Hell be tickled pink when he comes back and finds you here. I'm tickled, too, if you don't mind me saying so. Brother Bodkin is not one of my intimate circle, of course, but he's a good sort and Reggie's told me how worked up he got about your giving him the air the way you did. So I'm glad you've thought it over and decided to forget those cruel words. Hell's bells,' said Lottie warmly, "where's the sense in having fights with the man you love? I've had them with Ambrose, but I'm never going to have any more. I'm cured. They're a barrel of fun at the time, but they're not worth it. When you've come as near as I have to losing the adored object, you begin to think. By the beard of Sam Gold-wyn, I'll say you do. An hour ago it looked as if there wasn't a chance on earth of me and Ambrose setting up house, and I could have howled like a dog. I kept thinking how mean I'd been to him at times, and I suppose that's what you've been feeling about Brother Bodkin.' She broke off. An eager light had come into her eyes. 'Say, you wouldn't consider parting with that mouse, would you?'

At length, Gertrude was able to speak.

'I came to give it back.
’

To Bodkin?' Lottie nodded resignedly. 'Then I guess there's no chance. He won't let it go. Anyways, he wouldn't before. He told you about me swiping it, I suppose?'

Gertrude started. Up to the present, she had scarcely heard what her companion had been saying, but here was something that really struck home.

'What!
’

‘
Yes, I swiped it. Didn't you know? Ambrose
made me give it back to him.' ‘
What!'