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  However, he didn’t waste much time musing on that. This, he perceived, was a moment for rapid action. There was a door just behind where he had been sitting, which from the fact that waiters had been going in and out he took to be the entrance to the service quarters. To press a couple of quid into Valerie Twistleton’s hand to pay the bill with and leave her flat and do a swan dive backwards and shoot through this emergency exit and slip a friendly native half a crown to show him the way to the street was with him the work of an instant.

  Five minutes later he was in a taxi, bowling off to The Nook, Wimbledon Common. Forty minutes later he was shinning up the water-pipe. Ten minutes later, clad in pyjamas and a dressing-gown, he was at the telephone trying to get Horace.

  But Horace’s number was the silent tomb. The girl at the exchange said she had rung and rung and rung, and Bingo said well, ring and ring and ring again. So she rang and rang and rang again, but there was still no answer, and eventually Bingo had to give it up and go to bed.

  But it was by no means immediately that he fell into a dreamless sleep. The irony of the thing was like ants in the pants, causing him to toss restlessly on the pillow.

  I mean to say, he had so nearly clicked. That was the bitter thought. He had achieved the object which he had set out to achieve—viz, the bringing together of the sundered hearts of V. Twistleton and H. Davenport, but unless he could get Horace on the ‘phone in the morning and put him abreast before the Darts tourney began, all would be lost. It was a fat lot of consolation to feel that a couple of days from now Horace Davenport would be going about with his hat on the side of his head, slapping people on the back and standing them drinks. What was of the essence was to have him in that condition to-morrow morning.

  He brooded on what might have been. If only he had been able to give Valerie Twistleton the heart-melting talk he had been planning. If only Nannie Byles had postponed her appearance for another quarter of an hour. Bingo is a pretty chivalrous chap and one who, wind and weather permitting, would never lay a hand upon a woman save in the way of kindness, but if somebody at that moment had given him a blunt knife and asked him to skin Nannie Byles with it and drop her into a vat of boiling oil, he would have sprung to the task with his hair in a braid.

  The vital thing, he was feeling, as he at last dozed off, was to be up bright and early next day, so as to connect with Horace in good time.

  Which being so, you as a man who knows life will not be surprised to hear that what happened was that he overslept himself. When he finally came out of the ether and hared to the telephone, it was the same old story. The girl at the exchange rang and rang and rang, but there was no answer. Bingo tried the Drones, but was informed that Horace had not yet arrived. There seemed nothing for it but to get dressed and go to the club.

  By the time he got there the Darts tourney would, of course, be in full swing, and he could picture the sort of Horace Davenport that would be competing. A limp, listless Horace Davenport, looking like a filleted sole.

  It was hardly worth going in, he felt, when he reached the club, but something seemed to force him through the doorway: and he was approaching the smoking-room on leaden feet, when the door opened and out came Barmy Fotheringay-Phipps and Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright.

  “A walkover,” Barmy was saying.

  A sudden irrational hope stirred in Bingo’s bosom like a jumping bean. It was silly, of course, to think that Barmy had been speaking about Horace, but the level of form at the Drones, except for that pre-eminent expert, is so steady that he could not picture any of the other competitors having a walkover. He clutched Barmy’s coat sleeve in a feverish grip.

  “Who for?” he gasped.

  “Oh, hullo, Bingo,” said Barmy. “The very chap we wanted to see. Catsmeat and I have collaborated in an article for that paper of yours entitled ‘Some Little-Known Cocktails.’ We were just going round to the office to give it to you.”

  Bingo accepted the typewritten sheets absently. In his editorial capacity he was always glad to consider unsolicited contributions (though these, he was careful to point out, must be submitted at their authors’ risk), and a thesis on such a subject by two such acknowledged authorities could scarcely fail to be fraught with interest, but at the moment his mind was far removed from the conduct of Wee Tots.

  “Who’s it a walkover for?” he said hoarsely.

  “Horace Davenport, of course,” said Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright. “He has been playing inspired Darts. If you go in quick, you may be able to catch a glimpse of his artistry.”

  But Bingo was too late. When he entered the smoking-room, the contest was over and Horace Davenport, the centre of an eager group of friends and admirers, was receiving congratulations, a popular winner—except with Oofy Prosser, who was sitting in a corner pale and haggard beneath his pimples. Seeing Bingo, the champion detached himself and came over to him.

  “Oh, hullo, Bingo,” said Horace, “I was hoping you would look in. I wanted a word with you. You remember that broken heart of mine? Well, it’s all right. Not broken, after all. A complete reconciliation was effected shortly before midnight last night at Mario’s.”

  Bingo was amazed.

  “You came to Mario’s?”

  “Thanks to you,” said Horace Davenport, massaging his arm gratefully. “I must mention, Bingo, that after I had told you about my broken heart yesterday, I suddenly remembered that there were one or two things about it which I had forgotten to touch on. So I came back. They said you had been seen going to the ‘phone booth, so I pushed along there. You had left the door ajar, and picture my horror on hearing you talking to Valerie and making an assignation with her at Mario’s.”

  “I simply wanted—” began Bingo, but Horace continued.

  “I reeled away blindly. I was distraught. I had been telling myself that Valerie was being false to me with another, but I had never for an instant suspected that this snake in the grass was my old friend Richard Little, a chap with whom when at school I had frequently shared my last acid drop.”

  “But listen. I simply wanted—”

  “Well, I said to myself ‘I’ll give them about half an hour, and then I’ll go to Mario’s and stride in and confront them. This,’ I said to myself, ‘will make them feel pretty silly.’ So I did. But when I got there, you had legged it and were not there to be confronted. So I confronted Valerie.”

  “Listen, Horace, old egg,” said Bingo, insisting on being heard, “I simply wanted to shoot a bit of nourishment into her for mellowing purposes and then plead your cause.”

  “I know. She told me. She said you had talked to her like a kindly elder brother. What arguments you used I cannot say, but they dragged home the gravy plenteously. I found her in melting mood. We came together with a click, and the wedding is fixed for the twenty-third prox. And now, Bingo,” said Horace, looking at his watch, “I shall have to be leaving you. I promised Valerie I would drop in directly the Darts contest was over and let her cocker spaniel nibble my nose. The animal seems to wish it, and I think we all ought to do our best to spread sweetness and light, even at some slight personal inconvenience. Good-bye, Bingo, and a thousand thanks. I can give you a lift, if you are coming my way.”

  “Thanks,” said Bingo, “but I must collect that thirty-three pound ten. After that I have one or two little things to do, and then I must be nipping home.”

  Bingo reached The Nook in good time. And he had replaced the links in their box and was about to leave his bedroom, when Mrs Bingo shoved her head in the door.

  “Why, Bingo darling,” she said, “aren’t you at the office?”

  “I just popped back to see you,” explained Bingo. “How’s your mother?”

  “Much better,” said Mrs Bingo. She seemed distrait. “Bingo, darling,” she said after a bit of a pause, revealing the seat of the trouble, “I’m a little worried. About Nannie.”

  “About Nannie?”

  “Yes. When you were a child, do you remember her as being at all.., ecc
entric?”

  “Eccentric?”

  “Well, the most extraordinary thing happened last night. Where were you last night, Bingo?”

  “I went to bed early.”

  “You didn’t go out?” Bingo stared.

  “Go out?”

  “No, of course you didn’t,” said Mrs Bingo. “But Nannie declares that at half-past ten she was walking in the garden getting a breath of fresh air, and she saw you jump into a cab.”

  Bingo looked grave. He gave a low whistle.

  “Started seeing things, eh? Bad. Bad.”

  “—and she says she heard you tell the driver to go to Mario’s.”

  “Hearing voices, too? Worse. Worse.”

  “And she followed you with your woolly muffler. She had to wait a long time before she could get a cab, and when she got to the restaurant they wouldn’t let her in, and there was a lot of trouble about that, and then she found she had no money to pay the cab, and there was a lot of trouble about that, too, and I think in the end she must have lost her temper a little or she would never have boxed the cabman’s ears and bitten that waiter.”

  “Bit a waiter, did she?”

  “She said she didn’t like his manner. And after that they sent for the police and she was taken to Vine Street, and she telephoned to me to come and bail her out. So I went round to the police station and bailed her out, and she told me this extraordinary story about you. I hurried home and peeped in at your door, and there you were, fast asleep of course.”

  “Of course.”

  Mrs Bingo chewed the lower lip.

  “It’s all very disturbing.”

  “Now there, with all due deference to you, my talented old scrivener,” said Bingo, “I think you have missed the mot juste. I would call it appalling. Let me tell you something else that will make you think a bit. You remember all that song and dance she made about my links having been stolen. Well, I’ve just been taking a look, and they’re in their usual box in the usual place on the dressing-table, just where they’ve always been.”

  “Really?”

  “I assure you. Well,” said Bingo, “suit yourself, of course, but I should have thought we were taking a big chance entrusting our first-born to the care of a Nannie who is loopy to the eyebrows and constantly seeing visions and what not, to make no mention of hearing voices and not being able to see a set of diamond cuff-links when they’re staring her in the face. I threw out the suggestion once before, and it was not well received, but I will make it again. Give her the push, moon of my delight. Pension her off. Slip her a few quid per and a set of your books and let her retire to some honeysuckle-covered cottage where she can’t do any harm.”

  “I believe you’re right.”

  “I know I’m right,” said Bingo. “You don’t want her suddenly getting the idea that Algernon Aubrey is a pink hippopotamus and loosing off at him with her elephant rifle, do you? Very well, then.”

  CHAPTER II

  Bramley is So Bracing

  A GENERAL meeting had been called at the Drones to decide on the venue for the club’s annual golf rally, and the school of thought that favoured Bramley-on-Sea was beginning to make headway when Freddie Widgeon took the floor. In a speech of impassioned eloquence he warned his hearers not to go within fifty miles of the beastly place. And so vivid was the impression he conveyed of Bramley-on-Sea as a spot where the law of the jungle prevailed and anything could happen to anybody that the voters were swayed like reeds and the counter proposal of Cooden Beach was accepted almost unanimously.

  His warmth excited comment at the bar.

  “Freddie doesn’t like Bramley,” said an acute Egg, who had been thinking it over with the assistance of a pink gin.

  “Possibly,” suggested a Bean, “because he was at school there when he was a kid.”

  The Crumpet who had joined the group shook his head.

  “No, it wasn’t that,” he said. “Poor old Freddie had a very painful experience at Bramley recently, culminating in his getting the raspberry from the girl he loved.”

  “What, again?”

  “Yes. It’s curious about Freddie,” said the Crumpet, sipping a thoughtful martini. “He rarely fails to click, but he never seems able to go on clicking. A whale at the Boy Meets Girl stuff, he is unfortunately equally unerring at the Boy Loses Girl.”

  “Which of the troupe was it who gave him the air this time?” asked an interested Pieface.

  “Mavis Peasmarch. Lord Bodsham’s daughter.”

  “But, dash it,” protested the Pieface, “that can’t be right. She returned him to store ages ago. You told us about it yourself. That time in New York when he got mixed up with the female in the pink négligée picked out with ultramarine lovebirds.”

  The Crumpet nodded.

  “Quite true. He was, as you say, handed his portfolio on that occasion. But Freddie is a pretty gifted explainer, if you give him time to mould and shape his story, and on their return to England he appears to have squared himself somehow. She took him on again—on appro., as it were. The idea was that if he proved himself steady and serious, those wedding bells would ring out. If not, not a tinkle.

  “Such was the position of affairs when he learned from this Peasmarch that she and her father were proposing to park themselves for the summer months at the Hotel Magnifique at Bramley-on-Sea.”

  Freddie’s instant reaction to this news was, of course (said the Crumpet), an urge to wangle a visit there himself, and he devoted the whole force of his intellect to trying to think how this could be done. He shrank from spending good money on a hotel, but on the other hand his proud soul scorned a boarding-house, and what they call an impasse might have resulted, had he not discovered that Bingo Little and Mrs Bingo had taken a shack at Bramley in order that the Bingo baby should get its whack of ozone. Bramley, as I dare say you have seen mentioned on the posters, is so bracing, and if you are a parent you have to think of these things. Brace the baby, and you are that much ahead of the game.

  To cadge an invitation was with Freddie the work of a moment, and a few days later he arrived with suitcase and two-seater, deposited the former, garaged the latter, kissed the baby and settled in.

  Many fellows might have objected to the presence on the premises of a bib-and-bottle juvenile, but Freddie has always been a good mixer, and he and this infant hit it off from the start like a couple of sailors on shore leave. It became a regular thing with him to take the half-portion down to the beach and stand by while it mucked about with its spade and bucket. And it was as he was acting as master of the revels one sunny day that there came ambling along a well-nourished girl with golden hair, who paused and scrutinized the Bingo issue with a genial smile.

  “Is the baby building a sand castle?” she said.

  “Well, yes and no,” replied Freddie civilly. “It thinks it is, but if you ask me, little of a constructive nature will result.”

  “Still, so long as it’s happy.”

  “Oh, quite.”

  “Nice day.”

  “Beautiful.”

  “Could you tell me the correct time?”

  “Precisely eleven.”

  “Coo!” said the girl. “I must hurry, or I shall be late. I’m meeting a gentleman friend of mine on the pier at half-past ten.”

  And that was that. I mean, just one of those casual encounters which are so common at the seashore, with not a word spoken on either side that could bring the blush of shame to the cheek of modesty. I stress this, because this substantial blonde was to become entangled in Freddie’s affairs and I want to make it clear at the outset that from start to finish he was as pure as the driven snow. Sir Galahad could have taken his correspondence course.

  It was about a couple of days after this that a picture postcard, forwarded from his London address, informed him that Mavis and her father were already in residence at the Magnifique, and he dashed into the two-seater and drove round there with a beating heart. It was his intention to take the loved one for a sp
in, followed by a spot of tea at some wayside shoppe.

  This project, however, was rendered null and void by the fact that she was out. Old Bodsham, receiving Freddie in the suite, told him that she had gone to take her little brother Wilfred back to his school.

  “We had him for lunch,” said the Bod.

  “No, did you?” said Freddie. “A bit indigestible, what?” He laughed heartily for some moments at his ready wit; then, seeing that the gag had not got across, cheesed it. He remembered now that there had always been something a bit Wednesday-matineeish about the fifth Earl of Bodsham. An austere man, known to his circle of acquaintances as The Curse of the Eastern Counties. “He’s at school here, is he?”

  “At St. Asaph’s. An establishment conducted by an old college friend of mine, the Rev. Aubrey Upjohn.”

  “Good Lord!” said Freddie, feeling what a small world it was. “I used to be at St. Asaph’s.”

  “Indeed?”

  “Absolutely. I served a three years’ sentence there before going on to Eton. Well, I’ll be pushing along, then. Give Mavis my love, will you, and say I’ll be round bright and early in the morning.”

  He buzzed off and hopped into the car again, and for the space of half an hour or so drove about Bramley, feeling a bit at a loose end. And he was passing through a spot called Marina Crescent, a sort of jungle of boarding-houses, when he became aware that stirring things were happening in his immediate vicinity.

  Along the road towards him there had been approaching a well-nourished girl with golden hair. I don’t suppose he had noticed her—or, if he had, it was merely to say to himself “Ah, the substantial blonde I met on the beach the other morning” and dismiss her from his thoughts. But at this moment she suddenly thrust herself on his attention by breaking into a rapid gallop, and at the same time a hoarse cry rent the air, not unlike that of the lion of the desert scenting its prey, and Freddie perceived charging out of a side street an elderly man with whiskers, who looked as if he might be a retired sea captain or a drysalter or something.