Luck of the Bodkins Read online

  'Not at all. Any other words you are interested in? I could do you "parallelogram" or "metempsychosis", if you wished, and Ikey here is a wizard at anything under two syllables. No? Just as you say.'

  She watched him with a kindly eye as he crossed the terrace, then, turning to her brother-in-law, became aware that he was apparently in the throes of an emotional crisis. His eyes were bulging more than ever, and he had produced a handkerchief and was mopping his face with it.

  'Something the matter?' she asked.

  It was not immediately that Mr Llewellyn found speech. When he did. the speech he found was crisp and to the point. 'Listen!' he said hoarsely. 'It's off!' 'What's off?'

  'That necklace. I'm not going to touch it’

  'Oh, Ikey, for goodness' sake!'

  That's all right, "Oh, Ikey, for goodness' sake." That guy heard what we were saying.' 'I don't think so.' ‘I do.'

  'Well, what of it?'

  Mr Llewellyn snorted, but in an undertone, as if the shadow of Monty still brooded over him. He was much shaken.

  'What of it? You forgotten what I told you about these Customs people having their spies everywhere? That bird's one of them.'

  'Oh, be yourself.'

  'That's a lot of use, saying "Be myself".'

  ‘I admit it's an awful thing to ask you to be.'

  'Think you're smart, don't you?' said Mr Llewellyn, piqued.

  'I know I'm smart.'

  'Not smart enough to understand the first thing about the way these Customs people work. A hotel like this is just the place where they would plant a spy.'

  'Why?'

  'Why? Because they know there would be certain to be some damn-fool woman coming along sooner or later shouting out at the top of her voice about smuggling necklaces.'

  'You were the one who was shouting.'

  'I was not.'

  'Oh, well, let it go. What does it matter? That fellow wasn't a Customs spy.' 'I tell you he was.' 'He didn't look like one.'

  'So you're so dumb you think a spy looks like a spy, are you? Why, darn it, the first thing he does is to see that he doesn't look like a spy. He sits up nights, studying. If that guy wasn't a spy, what was he doing listening in on us? Why was he there?'

  'He wanted to know how to spell "sciatica",’ ‘Pshaw!'

  'Must you say "Pshaw"?'

  'Why wouldn't I say "Pshaw"?' demanded Mr Llewellyn, with an obvious sense of grievance. 'What on earth would a man - at twelve o'clock on a summer morning in the South of France - want to spell "sciatica" for? He saw we had seen him, and he had to say the first thing he could think of. Well, this lets me out. If Grayce imagines after this that I'm going to so much as look at that necklace of hers, she's got another guess coming. I wouldn't handle the thing for a million.'

  He leaned back in his chair, breathing heavily. His sister-in-law eyed him with disfavour. Mabel Spence was by profession an osteopath with a large clientele among the stars of Beverly Hills, and this made her something of a purist in the matter of physical fitness.

  'The trouble with you, Ikey,' she said, 'is that you're out of condition. You eat too much, and that makes you weigh too much, and that makes you nervous. I'd like to give you a treatment right now.'

  Mr Llewellyn came out of his trance.

  'You touch me I' he said warningly. 'That time I was weak enough to let Grayce talk me into letting you get your hands on me, you near broke my neck. Never you mind what I eat or what I don't eat...'

  'There isn't much you don't eat' .. Never you mind whether I want a treatment or whether I don't want a treatment. You listen to what I say. And that is that I'm out of this sequence altogether. I don't put a finger on that necklace.'

  Mabel rose. There seemed to her little use in continuing the discussion.

  'Well,' she said, 'use your own judgement. It's got nothing to do with me, one way or the other. Grayce told me to tell you, and I've told you. It's up to you. You know best how you stand with her. All I say is that I shall be joining the boat at Cherbourg with the thing, and Grayce is all in favour of your easing it through. The way she feels is that it would be sinful wasting money paying it over to -the United States Government, because they've more than is good for them already and would only spend it. Still, please yourself.'

  She moved away, and Ivor Llewellyn, with a pensive frown, for her words had contained much food for thought, put a cigar in his mouth and began to chew it

  Monty, meanwhile, ignorant of the storm which his innocent request had caused, was proceeding with his letter. He had got now to the part where he was telling Gertrude how much he loved her, and the stuff was beginning to flow a bit. So intent, indeed, had he become that the voice of the waiter at his elbow made him jump and spray ink. He turned, annoyed.

  'Well? Que est-il maintenant? Que voulez-vous?'

  It was no idle desire for conversation that had brought the waiter to his side. He was holding a blue envelope.

  'Ah,' said Monty, understanding. 'Une telegramme pour moi, eh? Tout droit. Donnez le ici.'

  To open a French telegram is always a matter of some little time. It is stuck together in unexpected places. During the moments while his fingers were occupied, Monty chatted pleasantly to his companion about the weather, featuring le soleil and the beauty of le ciel. Gertrude, he felt, would have wished this. And so carefree was his manner while giving out his views on these phenomena that it came as all the more of a shock to the waiter when that awful cry sprang from his lips.

  It was a cry of agony and amazement, the stricken yowl of a man who has been pierced to the heart. It caused the waiter to leap a foot. It made Mr Llewellyn bite his cigar in half. A drinker in the distant bar spilled his Martini.

  And well might Montague Bodkin cry out in such a manner. For this telegram, this brief telegram, this curt, cold, casual telegram which had descended upon him out of a blue sky was from the girl he loved.

  In fewer words than one would have believed possible and without giving any explanation whatsoever, Gertrude Butterwick had broken their engagement.

  Chapter 2

  On a pleasant, sunny morning, about a week after the events which the historian has just related, a saunterer through Waterloo Station in the city of London, would have noticed a certain bustle and activity in progress on platform number eleven. The boat train for the liner Atlantic, sailing from Southampton at noon, was due to leave shortly after nine; and, the hour being now eight-fifty, the platform was crowded with intending voyagers and those who had come to see them off.

  Ivor Llewellyn was there, talking to the reporters about Ideals and the Future of the Screen. The members of the All England Ladies' Hockey Team were there, saying good-bye to friends and relations before embarking on their tour of the United States. Ambrose Tennyson, the novelist, was there, asking the bookstall clerk if he had anything by Ambrose Tennyson. Porters were wheeling trucks; small boys with refreshment baskets were trying to persuade passengers that what they needed at nine o'clock in the morning was a slab of milk chocolate and a bath bun; a dog with a collecting-box attached to its back was going the rounds in the hope of making a quick touch in aid of the Railwaymen's Orphanage before it was too late. The scene, in short, presented a gay and animated appearance.

  In this, it differed substantially from the young man with the dark circles under his eyes who was propping himself up against a penny-in-the-slot machine. An undertaker, passing at that moment, would have looked at this young man sharply, scenting business. So would a buzzard. It would have seemed incredible to them that life still animated that limp frame. The Drones Club had given Reggie Tennyson a farewell party on the previous night, and the effects still lingered.

  That the vital spark, however, was not quite extinct was proved an instant later. A clear, hearty feminine voice suddenly said: 'Why, hello, Reggie!' about eighteen inches from his left ear, and a sharp spasm shook him from head to foot, as if he had been struck by some blunt instrument. Opening his eyes, which he had closed in orde
r not to be obliged to see Mr Llewellyn - who, even when you were at the peak of your form, was no Taj Mahal - he gradually brought into focus a fine, upstanding girl in heather-mixture tweed and recognized in her his cousin, Gertrude Butterwick. Her charming face was rose-flushed, her hazel eyes shining. She was a delightful picture of radiant health. It made him feel sick to look at her.

  'Well, Reggie, I do call this nice of you.'

  ‘Eh?’

  'Coming to see me off.'

  A wounded, injured expression came into Reggie Tennyson's ashen face. He felt that his sanity had been impugned. And not without reason. Few young men would care to have it supposed that they had got up at half-past seven in the morning to say good-bye to their cousins.

  'See you off?'

  'Didn't you come to see me off?'

  'Of course I didn't come to see you off. I didn't know you were going anywhere. Where are you going, anyway?'

  It was Gertrude's turn to look injured.

  'Didn't you know I had been chosen for the England Hockey Team? We're playing a series of matches in America.'

  'Good God!' said Reggie, wincing. He was aware, of course, that his cousin was addicted to these excesses, but it was not pleasant to have to hear about them.

  A sudden illumination came to Gertrude.

  'Why, how silly of me. You're sailing, too, aren't you?'

  'Well, would I be up at a ghastly hour like this, if I wasn't?'

  'Of course, yes. The family are sending you off to Canada, to work in an office. I remember hearing father talking about it.'

  'He,' said Reggie coldly, 'was the spearhead of the movement.'

  'Well, it's about time. Work is what you want,'

  ‘Work is not what I want. I hate the thought of it’ 'You needn't be so cross.'

  ‘Yes, I need,' said Reggie. 'Crosser, if I could manage it. Work is what I want, forsooth 1 Of all the silly, drivelling, fat’ headed remarks ...'

  'Don't be so rude.’

  Reggie passed a careworn hand across his forehead.

  'Sorry,' he said, for the Tennysons did not war upon women, 'I apologize. The fact is, I'm not quite myself this morning. I have rather a severe headache. I expect you've suffered in the same way yourself after a big binge. I overdid it last night in the society of a few club cronies, and this morning, as I say, I have rather a severe headache. It starts somewhere down at the ankles and gets worse all the way up. I say, have you noticed a rummy thing? I mean, how a really bad headache affects the eyes?'

  'Yours look like boiled oysters.'

  'It isn't how they look. It's what I see with them. I've been having - well, I wouldn't attempt to pronounce the word at a moment like this, but I dare say you know what I mean. Begins with "hal".'

  'Hallucinations?'

  'That's right. Seeing chaps who aren't there.’ 'Don't drool, Reggie.'

  'I'm not drooling. Just now I opened my eyes - why, one cannot say - and I saw my brother Ambrose. There was no possibility of error. I saw him plainly. Shook me a bit, I don't mind confessing. You don't think i't's a sign that one of us is going to die, do you? If so, I hope it'll be Ambrose.'

  Gertrude laughed. She had a nice, musical laugh. The fact that it sent Reggie tottering back against his penny-in-the-slot machine cannot be regarded as evidence to the contrary. A fly clearing its throat would have had a powerful effect on Reginald Tennyson this morning.

  'You are a chump,' she said. 'Ambrose is here.'

  'You aren't going to tell me,' said Reggie, stunned, 'that he's come to see me off?'

  'Of course not. He's sailing himself.'

  'Sailing?

  Gertrude regarded him with surprise. 'Of course. Haven't you heard?' ‘Heard what?'

  'Ambrose is off to Hollywood.'

  ‘What!'

  ‘Yes.’

  It hurt Reggie to stare, but he did so.

  To Hollywood?'

  'Yes.'

  ‘But what about his job at the Admiralty?’ 'He's given it up.’

  'Given up his job - his nice, soft, cushy job bringing in a steady so much per and a pension at the end of the term of sentence - to go to Hollywood? Well, I'm -’

  Words failed Reggie. He could but gurgle. The monstrous unfairness of it all robbed him of speech. For years now, the family, so prone to view him with concern, had been pointing at Ambrose with pride. To Ambrose and himself had been specifically allotted the roles of the Good Brother and the Bad Brother - the Diligent Apprentice, so to speak, and the Idle Apprentice. 'If only you could be sensible and steady like Ambrose 1' had been the family slogan. If he'd heard them say that once, he had heard them say it a hundred times. 'Sensible and steady, like Ambrose.' And all the while the man had been saving this up for them!

  Then there came to him a more brotherly and creditable emotion - that of compassion for this poor ass who was heading straight for the soup. Speech returned to him like a tidal wave.

  'He's cuckoo! The man's absolutely cuckoo. He hasn't a notion what he's letting himself in for. I know all about Hollywood. I saw a lot at one time of a girl who's in the pictures, and she told me what things were like there. The outsider hasn't a dog's chance. The place is simply congested with people trying to break in. Authors especially. They starve in their thousands. They're dying off like flies all the time. This girl said that if you make a noise like a mutton chop anywhere within a radius of ten miles of Hollywood Boulevard, authors come bounding out of every nook and cranny, howling like wolves.

  ‘My gosh, that poor boob has dished himself properly. Is it too late for him to ring up the Admiralty blokes and tell them that he was only kidding when he sent in that resignation?'

  'But Ambrose isn't going there on the chance of finding work. He's got a contract’

  ‘What!'

  'Certainly. You see that fat man standing over there, talking to the reporters. That's Mr Llewellyn, one of the big picture men. He's paying Ambrose fifteen hundred dollars a week to write scenarios for him.'

  Reggie blinked.

  ‘I must have fallen into a light doze,’ he said. ‘I dreamed,' he went on, smiling a little at the quaint conceit, 'that you told me somebody had offered Ambrose fifteen hundred dollars a week to write scenarios.'

  ‘Yes, Mr Llewellyn did.'

  ‘It's true?’

  'Certainly. I believe the contract actually has to be signed in New York, but it's all settled.’ 'Well, I'm dashed.'

  A thoughtful look came into Reggie's face. 'Has he touched the stuff yet?' 'Not yet.'

  'No advance payment? Nothing in the shape of a few hundred quid which he might feel like blueing at the moment?' 'No.'

  'I see,' said Reggie, ‘I see. And when does the balloon actually go up? When does he expect to connect?'

  'Not till he gets to California, I suppose.'

  'By which time I shall be in Canada. I see,' said Reggie, 'I see.'

  He relapsed for a moment into gloom. But only for a moment. There was fine stuff in Reginald Tennyson. He was a man who could rejoice in the good fortune of others, even though he himself might not be in on the distribution. It may be, also, that the thought had crossed his mind that there is a good postal service between Canada and California and that much of his best work had been done with pen in hand.

  'Well, this is wonderful,’ he said. 'Good old Ambrose! I'll tell you what I'll do. I’ll give him a letter of introduction to that girl I was speaking of. She'll see that he has a pleasant...'

  His voice trailed away. He seemed to swallow with some difficulty. He was staring at something over his cousin's shoulder.

  'Gertrude,' he said in a dry whisper.

  'What's the matter?'

  ‘I was right about those hal - what you said. That may have been Ambrose in the flesh all right that first time, but I've got them now beyond a doubt.'

  'What do you mean?'

  Reggie blinked three or four times in rapid succession. Then, convinced, he bent towards her and lowered his voice still further.
r />   'I've just seen the astral body of a pal of mine who, I know for a fact, is at this moment in the South of France. A fellow named Monty Bodkin.’

  'What!'

  'Don't look now,' said Reggie, 'but the spectre is standing right behind you.’ A voice spoke. 'Gertrude!'

  So hollow was this voice - so pale, so wan, so croaking -that it might well have proceeded from a disembodied spirit. It caused Gertrude Butterwick to turn sharply. Having turned, she subjected the speaker to a long, cold, hard stare. Then, not deigning to reply, she jerked a haughty shoulder and turned away again, her eyes stony, her chin tilted; and the wraith, having stood for a moment on one leg, smiling in a weak and propitiatory manner, seemed to recognize defeat. It slunk away and was lost in the crowd.

  Reggie Tennyson had watched this drama with protruding eyes. He saw now that he had been mistaken in his hastily formed diagnosis. This was no unsubstantial creature of the imagination but his old friend Montague Bodkin in person. And Gertrude Butterwick had just given him the raspberry as completely as he, Reggie, in a fairly wide experience of raspberry-giving, had ever seen it administered. He could make nothing of all this. He was puzzled, perplexed, mystified, bewildered and at a loss, and gave expression to these emotions with a plaintive ‘I say!'

  Gertrude was breathing tensely.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I say, what's all this?' ‘What's all what?' 'That was Monty.’ ‘Yes.'

  'He spoke to you.' 'I heard him.'

  'But you didn't speak to him.’ ‘No.'

  ‘Why not?'

  'I have no wish to speak to Mr Bodkin.’ ‘Why not?' 'Oh, Reggie!'

  Another facet of this many-sided mystery presented itself to the wondering young man. How the dickens, he was asking himself, did Gertrude and old Monty come to be in this position of giving and receiving the raspberry on station platforms? He had not supposed that they had so much as met one another.

  'Do you know Monty, then?'