by Jack Iams
“It’s very simple,” said Millie. “Ruth Royce says something cute and then you say something cute. Anything you say in that accent will be cute. That’s all.”
“Do I get paid?”
“Gosh, no!” Millie looked shocked. “People give their back teeth to appear with Ruth Royce.”
“Oh,” said Sybil. “Sorry. Anyway, it sounds like fun. When do the doings take place?”
“Tomorrow. Tomorrow afternoon at four. It’s pretty short notice but it’s taken me quite a while to track you all down.”
“I’d rather like to have a go at it,” said Sybil. “You wouldn’t object, would you, Tim?”
“Wouldn’t matter much if I did, would it?”
“Why, Mr. Ludlow!” said Millie reprovingly. “Most husbands would be honored.”
“Indeed?”
“Why, certainly.” Her blue eyes dwelt on his face, wounded to the quick to think that such a nice gentleman could say such heartless things.
“Okay,” said Tim, thawing. “I’m honored.”
Sybil’s voice was slightly metallic. “Now that my husband has been won over,” she said, “I think we may consider the matter settled. The next question is, how do Racy Ruth, or whatever, and I get together?”
“We’d like to have you at the studio no later than three,” said Millie. “That gives us an hour to line the thing up.”
“It’s not extemporaneous?”
“Well, it is and it isn’t. Ruth Royce maps the program out in a general way and she gives you a rough idea of how it’s supposed to go. That way you avoid unpleasant surprises.”
“Such as?”
“Well, supposing Ruth Royce is asking the girls what they did in England and one of ’em turns out to have been a street walker. It wouldn’t sound very well on the air.”
“What would you do? Throw her off the program?”
“Oh, no,” said Millie. “But we’d make her a hiker. What did you do, Mrs. Ludlow, back in England?”
“Hiked,” said Sybil. “Are you planning to drive back tonight?”
Millie nodded.
“I was thinking,” went on Sybil, “that it might be a rather good notion if I drove back with you.”
“Fine,” said Millie. “Be glad of the company.”
“Where would you stay?” asked Tim. “You don’t just walk into a hotel these days, you know.”
“That’s no problem,” said Millie. “Not for Ruth Royce. She’s already got rooms for some of the other brides.”
“In that case,” said Sybil briskly, “we might as well start before it gets any darker. Why don’t you have a drink, Miss Friday, while I throw some things into a bag?”
“Marsden,” said Millie.
“You distinctly said your name was Girl Friday,” said Sybil. “I’ll admit I’ve never heard of anyone being called Girl, but men are frequently called Boy in England. Always, in Evelyn Waugh.”
“I’m getting confused,” said Millie, “but I’m darned sure I heard somebody offer me a drink. Have I said ‘yes’ yet?”
“Perhaps you’d like to tidy up,” said Sybil, “while Tim fixes the drinks.”
Tim scowled after them as they went into the hall and upstairs. Sure, good old Tim, he’d fix the drinks. And after that he could sit by himself in this House of Usher while Sybil was up to God knew what in New York. She’d certainly jumped at the chance with alacrity, too. With more alacrity than was justified by a silly damned radio program.
He stalked into the kitchen and yanked open the refrigerator door as if he expected to find at the very least a hiding lover.
Above the sound of water running over the ice tray he heard footsteps on the back staircase and Sybil entered the kitchen. Pier eyes were suspicious and angry. “Tim,” she said, “that note has disappeared.”
“Note? Which note?”
“You know bloody well which note.”
“Where did you leave it?”
“On my dresser. Did you take it?”
“Of course not.”
“Have you any idea who did?”
“How could I?”
“That wasn’t the question. Do you?”
Tim concentrated on the ice tray.
“Well?” said Sybil.
“I don’t think I’ll answer that question,” said Tim. “I’m not getting answers to many of mine.”
Sybil was silent, tapping her foot. Then she said, “Very well. But if you have gone behind my back to the police, I will never forgive you.” She went out, and her feet on the stairs sounded weary.
Tim carried glasses, bottles, and ice back to the living-room and poked up the fire. Millie Marsden came downstairs and he poured her a drink, showing more solicitude than was altogether necessary for just the right amount of ice and soda. He poured himself one and they clinked glasses.
“Happy days,” said Millie.
There was an impudence in her face that reminded him of the occasional dimpled co-ed among his students—disruptive, out of place in the course, but nice to have around the classroom.
Sybil appeared a few minutes later, wearing her tweed coat and carrying a light suitcase. “All set?” she asked.
“All set,” said Millie. “Be sure and listen in tomorrow, Mr. Ludlow.” Just you dare and not listen, the blue eyes added.
“I’ll listen,” said Tim. “Have a good time.”
“Thank you,” said Sybil. Millie looked from one to the other at the chill in their voices. “By the way,” added Sybil, “I’m going to look in on Mr. Squareless before we leave, A neighbor of ours who’s had an accident,” she explained to Millie. “You don’t mind?”
“Neighbor?” said Millie. “You mean other people live in this jumping-off place?”
“A few,” said Sybil. “This particular one is lucky to live at all.”
“If you can call it living,” muttered Millie. “Me, I’m a simple little city girl and I can hardly wait to get back.”
“Give my regards to Broadway,” said Tim.
“Good-by,” said Sybil.
“Good-by.”
For a moment they looked at one another, then Sybil crossed the room and kissed him, with cool lips, on the cheek. The front door closed behind the tweed coat and the plaid.
Tim finished his drink with a growing sense of loneliness. The dusk was deep outside the windows, and he walked around the room, turning on lamps and drawing the green curtains. While these were not onerous chores, they suggested to him, insidiously, that men got married to have this sort of thing done for them. Fie suddenly realized that Sybil had gone off without a single mention of what he was to do about his dinner.
“By God, it’s too much!” he said aloud in a hot rush of anger and then he had to laugh at himself. It was as if he were telling a divorce court judge that not only was his wife mysteriously involved in a gambler’s murder but she had actually left him to feed himself.
His laughter died at the double thought of divorce and murder, conceptions that only a few days before were as foreign to him as relativity. What had happened, anyway, since their joyous reunion in the hotel? Or had it really been joyous on Sybil’s part? Was it possible that she had been acting a cunning and wanton role?
He poured himself another drink.
So deeply was he sunk in gloomy thought that for several seconds he was unable to grasp the fact that somebody was knocking at the door. His mind brushed the sound aside like a mosquito, then, persistently, it permeated. With a start, half uneasy, half glad of diversion, he went to answer it.
Millie Marsden was standing there, smiling at him trustfully. “Change of signals,” she said. “This note explains it.”
She handed him a folded slip of paper and took off her coat while he tried to read without looking at her yellow sweater. The note said:
&nb
sp; Tim—Mr. Squareless is running a temperature and, I think I had better stay with him for a bit, at least until he gets to sleep. Miss Whosit will stop the night. The bed’s ready if she doesn’t mind Mrs. B.’s sheets and she better hadn’t. You and she can no doubt manage supper between you. Also between you, I’d advise space. I’ll walk back later on—S.
“Humph,” said Tim. Then he said, “Hullo!”
“Is something wrong?” asked Millie.
“Nothing important,” said Tim. He had just noticed that the message was written on the same kind of lined tablet paper as the inquest advice of the evening before.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Reddylocks And The Little Bear
“Well, aren’t you glad to see me back?” asked Millie.
Tim put the note in his pocket and out of his mind, which was easy in the face of Millie’s bright-lipped smile. “I sure am,” he said, more vehemently than he had intended.
“That’s nice,” said Millie. “How about a little drinkie?”
“Why not?” said Tim.
She walked past him into the living-room, brushing him with her shoulder. “I’ll bet you’re not really an old crosspatch,” she said, turning by the fireplace and warming her behind.
“Me a crosspatch?” said Tim, pouring drinks. “I’m one of the best-natured people you ever met.”
“I thought so,” said Millie.
“Any other impression you may have received,” Tim went on, feeling suave, “can be blamed on a slight domestic disagreement that arose before your arrival.” He handed her a highball.
“Tsk, tsk,” reproved Millie. “And you all only married a week or so.”
“Damn it, we’ve been married two years.”
“Oh,” said Millie. “That explains it.”
“Explains me being a crosspatch?”
“No, no. It explains why your wife’s willing to trust a handsome man like you with a lonesome little girl like me.”
“You lonesome?” asked Tim with gallant disbelief.
“’Course I am,” said Millie. “No wonder, with all the attractive American men falling for English lassies. Mind you, I don’t blame you but we American gals can’t help being jealous, can we?”
Tim leaned an elbow against the mantelpiece beside her. “I can hardly believe you have much reason to be jealous.”
“Aren’t you sweet?” smiled Millie. The smile seemed to say that they both knew he didn’t mean it but, even so, it did a girl’s heart good.
“As a matter of fact,” Tim went on, “most men would be jealous of me, spending an evening in front of a cozy fire with you.”
“I know one who would,” admitted Millie, chuckling. “The one who expected to spend the evening with me in a cozy night club. I’m not complaining, though,” she added quickly.
“You might well,” said Tim. “It can’t be much fun for you to be stuck in this jumping-off place, as you call it.”
“Oh, I don’t mind,” said Millie. “I take things as they come. Although I must say, it is a little like the traveling salesman at the farmhouse, isn’t it? In reverse, I mean.”
“That makes me the farmer’s daughter, I suppose.”
“Yes,” said Millie. “It does.” She tilted her face toward him, the blue eyes dancing, daring him.
Tim cleared his throat and studied his drink. “Actually,” he said, grasping for a change of subject, “this place isn’t as dull as you might think.”
“Who said it was dull? Not the salesman.”
“This neighbor of ours,” he plowed on, “the one who had the accident—what really happened was that he got shot.”
“Really? How?”
“Somebody drew a bead on him through the window. Missed his brains by an inch.”
“How exciting!” exclaimed Millie, although her tone suggested that it wasn’t quite as exciting as the previous topic. “Do they know who did it?”
“No. But whoever it was, I had my hands on him. Briefly.”
“But how thrilling!” cried Millie. “Tell me.” The blue eyes, accepting the new tack, were wide with interest. Tim told her about it, modestly.
The eyes became pools of admiration. “But you were so brave,” said Millie.
“I sort of thought so, myself,” grinned Tim, basking in her gaze. “At least, it scares hell out of me now.”
“You must have been petrified.”
“I was in a sense. I was knocked cold.”
“You poor thing. You might have been killed.”
Tim gave a little shrug, a devil-may-care shrug, he hoped. “You can still feel the lump,” he said.
“Oh, let me,” said Millie. She stood on tiptoe, putting her left hand on his shoulder to brace herself while her right reached around his bowed head, stroking his hair as it sought the tender knob. “Oh,” she exclaimed, “you certainly can feel it. It’s enormous. You poor boy.”
Her fingers continued to caress the spot while her other hand tightened almost imperceptibly on his shoulder. Her face was so close to his he could feel her warm breath. The fuzzy yellow sweater touched him.
Tim straightened abruptly. “Let’s have one more drink,” he said, “and then see what there is to eat.”
“Scaredy cat,” murmured Millie.
“What was that?”
“I said I’d love another little drinkie.”
The little drinkie was duly drunk and then they investigated the kitchen. Millie said why didn’t they just make some sandwiches instead of fussing around with a whole big meal and they could have another drink with the sandwiches in front of the fire. That would suit him, said Tim.
They sat on the hearthrug with the platter of sandwiches between them. The wind rattled the windows and they could hear the spatter of the rain behind the drawn curtains. In the shadowy room the ruddy glow of the fire enfolded them in its light.
Millie lit a cigarette. “When do you think your wife’ll be back?” she asked.
“Hard to tell. She said she’d stay with Squareless—the neighbor—until he goes to sleep, and he goes to sleep late.”
“Even when he’s been shot?”
“I don’t know how that affects his habits. Not much, from what I know of ’em.”
“The reason I ask,” said Millie, “is because I really ought to stay up for her, out of politeness. But to tell you the truth, I’m just as sleepy as I can be. Must be the sea air.”
“That’ll do it,” said Tim. “Sea air and whisky.”
“Here’s to ‘em,” said Millie, finishing her drink. She stood up, brushing her skirt. “Guess you’ll have to show me where I sleep. I can trust you to, can’t I?”
“As you would St. Anthony.”
“I wonder,” murmured Millie. “Anyway, even if I couldn’t trust you, I wouldn’t go to that spooky upstairs all by myself.”
“You prefer the known evil, do you?”
“I’ll have to think that over,” said Millie. “I’m not sure it’s not an insult. A nice one, though.”
She reached down for his arm. “Come on,” she said, “you be the old lamplighter and go first.”
The upstairs looked pretty spooky to Tim, too, as he went first up the sagging staircase. Windows were rattling behind the closed doors and the upper hall was deep in shadow. Behind him, Millie’s footsteps were gingerly.
“Hurry up and lamplight,” she said. “I’m getting scareder by the second.”
“What of?” asked Tim with hollow cheerfulness. He opened the door to the dark bedroom and groped for the switch. It took him an uneasy moment or two to find it.
“It doesn’t matter if you can’t find any,” called Millie. “I’m used to sleeping raw.”
“You’d better have some,” Tim called back. “It’s a bitter night.” He sounded like a mother-hen, he thought, and
he wondered if it was a form of defense mechanism. In the next room, he heard Millie moving about and a rustling that he interpreted as clothes coming off.
“Goodness me,” said Millie, “I forgot the door was open. Don’t you dare peek.”
“I’m looking for pajamas,” said Tim. The only ones he could find were the pale blue pair that Sybil had already been wearing. He held them up dubiously and decided they would hardly do for a guest. As he put them back, a sheet of paper fell out of the pocket and fluttered to the floor.
“Don’t worry about the old pajamas,” called Millie. Tim didn’t answer. He picked up the bit of paper and read what was written on it in ink:
Imperative I see you alone as soon as possible. Strictly alone. Call me at MU8-1239. Don’t worry about a place to stay. I’m taking care of it. Watch your step.
Dimly he heard the soft pad of Millie’s bare feet near the door. “I said don’t worry about the pajamas,” she called again.
“What?” asked Tim numbly.
“Never mind. Are you going to tuck me in?”
“Uh huh,” said Tim. Then he blinked and looked up. “You’re damned right I am.”
“Whoa, hold it, St. Anthony,” cried Millie. “Give me a chance to get under the covers.”
“I’ll count ten by fives,” said Tim. His voice was harsh. He heard the squeak of bedsprings and strode into the other room just as Millie snuggled under the blankets, clutching them to her shoulders which were pink and slightly freckled.
He sat down on the bed. “I’m going to tell you a bedtime story,” he said. “Once there was a little girl named Reddylocks who found a house in the woods and climbed into bed. Pretty soon, three bears came in.”
“Bears?” said Millie. “Not wolves?”
“That was Red Riding Hood. Different story. So the first bear, the big one, said, ‘Hey, who’s sleeping in my bed?’ and he pulled back the covers to find out.”
“Ooh,” squealed Millie, tugging at the blankets but not too hard.
“And the second bear, the medium-sized one, said, ‘Whoever it is, I’m going to give her a big bear hug.’”
“Oh,” cried Millie, “what a naughty bear he was!”
