by Joyce Porter
‘Yes, dear, but I don’t think that’s going to stop them.’
The Hon. Con wondered if she should smash a chair over Mr Smithers’s head, just to make absolutely sure. No, p’raps not. She might hit too hard and kill him and that would spoil everything. ‘OK,’ she said, ‘let’s go and sort Jack the John out! Where’s the telephone?’
‘Telephone, dear? I haven’t seen any telephone.’
‘You wouldn’t see a twelve-storey block of flats if you tripped over it!’ snapped the Hon. Con. ‘ Well, go and find the telephone and ring up the police. And’ – she added, forestalling the objection that Miss Jones was already opening her mouth to make – ‘if you don’t know the number, ask the filming operator!’ She withdrew the revolver from the top of her pants. ‘Meanwhile, I shall prepare to repel invaders!’
The Hon. Con took up action stations by the dining-room window. It commanded an excellent view of the garden from the front gate to the front door. She arrived just in time to see Pimp emerge from the huddle on-the doorstep and move forward to ring the front door bell. Jack the John was watching him with a confident smirk on his face while the other three louts who made up the party contented themselves with looking half-witted.
Miss Jones, not showing up at all well under pressure, popped her head round the dining-room door. ‘You don’t want me to answer it, do you, dear?’
The Hon. Con’s blood pressure rose. ‘ I want you to get the police!’ she howled. ‘Haven’t you found that blasted phone yet?’
‘I’m afraid not, dear. Do you think it would be all right if I just had a little peep upstairs? Some people do keep their phones in their bedrooms, though of course in normal circumstances one wouldn’t dream …’
‘Bones!’ bellowed the Hon. Con. ‘Pull yourself together, woman! If those louts break in here before the police arrive, the consequences won’t bear contemplation.’
Miss Jones went pale. ‘They won’t kill us, dear, will they?’
‘Only afterwards,’ said the Hon. Con darkly.
‘Oh?’ Miss Jones stifled an excited little giggle just in time. ‘Oh, how awful!’ she added quickly and trotted off upstairs. Well, if at last one was going to meet a fate worse than death, a bedroom was as good a place as any to be trapped in!
The Hon. Con turned back to the window. Pimp had now got his flick knife out and was making a determined attack on the front door lock. The Hon. Con rapped sharply on the window. ‘Stop that!’ she called.
All the heads swung round and Jack the John waved cheerfully. ‘Come on, Butch!’ he shouted. ‘ Let us in!’
‘Not likely!’ retorted the Hon. Con. ‘Smithers has made a full confession and I shall be handing him over to the police as soon as they arrive. My associate is just on the phone to them now.’
‘Little Miss Beautiful? She’ll be lucky! We cut the wires five minutes ago, didn’t we, Pimp?’
Pimp grinned his really quite revolting grin and nodded his head.
‘You might as well pack it in, Butch,’ advised Jack the John. ‘We’ll look after Smithers now.’
‘Never!’ roared the Hon. Con.
Jack the John shrugged his shoulders. ‘Don’t say we didn’t warn you.’ He nodded casually at Pimp who temporarily abandoned his flick knife and went and dug up a large stone from the nearby rockery. He weighed it thoughtfully in his hand and glanced at Jack the John for further instructions. Jack the John nodded again and Pimp, taking careful aim, pitched his stone through the dining-room window.
‘Vandals!’ bellowed the Hon. Con who’d ducked behind the sideboard when she’d seen what was coming. ‘Huns! Hooligans!’ She stepped forward and, making sure that her audience could see every move, snapped back the safety catch on Mr Smithers’s revolver. Then she poked the barrel through the hole in the window. ‘One move,’ she shouted, ‘and I’ll fire!’
Only Jack the John stood his ground. ‘Aw, come on back!’ he laughed as his mates dived for the shrubbery. ‘The old cow won’t dare shoot!’
‘Oh, won’t I?’ snorted the Hon. Con. And did.
Jack the John headed the stampede for the front gate. They crashed heedlessly through rose bushes and flower beds, screaming wildly to each other as they went. The Hon. Con speeded them on their way with a loud whoopee and a couple more rounds. This was the life, what? The youths flew over the hedge at the bottom of the garden and fought savagely amongst themselves as they struggled to get into their car. They were in such a hurry that Pimp didn’t even have time to slash the Hon. Con’s tyres before I they left – an omission he bitterly regretted ever afterwards. From then he made a point of never putting off till tomorrow the evil he could do today.
The car roared off down the road and the Hon. Con did a bit of mental arithmetic. Three bullets that she’d fired and one that Mr Smithers had let off. If this was a six-shooter, there should be a couple left. Seemed a pity to waste them.
The Hon. Con’s euphoria was reaching boiling point. She chucked all restraint to the winds. Damn it all – she’d solved her murder, hadn’t she? And caught the murderer? Nobody else had believed that Rodney Burberry had been killed – well, only his dreadful mother and the Hon. Con didn’t count her. No, by golly, if the Hon. Con wasn’t more than entitled to a bit of a celebration, she’d blooming well like to know who was!
Thus fortified, the Hon. Con looked round. In the garden next door there was an expensive looking sun-dial. Marble probably, though the Hon. Con didn’t really give the matter much thought. All she saw was a highly attractive target. Grinning like a Cheshire cat, she drew a bead on it.
Though she was reckoned to be a pretty good shot with a cricket ball, the Hon. Con had never handled a gun before in her life. It must have been beginner’s luck.
The marble sun-dial fragmented into a million satisfying pieces just as the police car, which had been summoned by irate and terrified neighbours, drew up in the road outside.
‘Oh, heck!’ groaned the Hon. Con.
Mr Smithers was never brought to trial. His lawyers pleaded insanity and the police were only too happy to agree. They showed considerably less easy-going tolerance where the Hon. Con was concerned. She got fourteen days on an assortment of charges, including being in the unauthorized possession of a firearm and ammunition, possessing an offensive weapon with intent to commit grievous bodily barm, causing malicious damage to property, causing a breach of the peace, resisting arrest and using insulting words and behaviour to the police in the execution of their duty and (under the Road Traffic Act) causing an obstruction in Stocker Road.
The magistrates claimed that they had taken all the extenuating circumstances into consideration. The Hon. Con, who had to be removed from the dock by force, didn’t believe it.
Neither did Miss Jones, and she’d only been bound over for six months.
Copyright
First published in 1970 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson
This edition published 2013 by Bello
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Copyright © Joyce Porter, 1970
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