Nothing Venture

by Patricia Wentworth

  “Fazackerley!” he cried.

  The little man puffed harder.

  “I’ll tell the world! This is the best thing I’ve struck since—well, there isn’t any since about it. I’d liefer have run up against you than have gotten an invitation to tea with Mussolini with carte blanche to print every word he said and film him whilst he said it—and I can’t say more than that. So far he’s eluded me. I’ve interviewed President Hoover, and Ramsay Macdonald, and Clemenceau, and Trotzky, and the unfortunate late Czar, and Gene Tunney, and Dean Inge, and Don Bradman, and Al Capone; but so far Mussolini has eluded me. I’m not making him my life-work, but I’d like to get him; so when I say I’d rather have run up against you—well, there it is—right from the heart—straight from the pulsating fount of the emotions!”

  Jervis continued to smile.

  “You’ll collect a crowd, F.F.”

  “What else do I live for?” said Mr Fazackerley. He turned, holding Jervis by the arm. “I’ve got to apologize for butting in—” His bright brown eyes darted a question at Nan; his manner intimated plainly that he awaited an introduction.

  Nan wanted to run away. She wondered what Jervis would say if she did. Then she wondered what he was going to say if she didn’t. There was, actually, only one bewildered moment before he said,

  “Let me introduce, Mr Ferdinand Fazackerley.”

  The next moment Nan’s hand was being shaken by one that felt very thin and very strong, and Mr Fazackerley’s high-pitched voice was saying earnestly,

  “I’m very pleased to meet you—but he hasn’t told me who I’m being very pleased to meet.”

  Before Jervis could speak, Nan said,

  “Mrs Weare.”

  She said it on the impulse that would have prompted her to do anything disagreeable herself rather than leave Jervis to do it. To feel like that about it, and to proclaim herself his wife, thrust at her with such a sharply pointed pain that it was all that she could do not to cry out. The effort she made brought a flush to her cheeks.

  The darting brown eyes went from her to Jervis, and back again to her flushed face. Mr Fazackerley still had his left hand on Jervis’ sleeve; with his right he continued to shake Nan’s hand.

  “If that isn’t great!” he said. “Mrs Weare, I’ve just got to say all over again how pleased I am. If this isn’t just the greatest thing that ever happened! Where can we go and talk?”

  “I’ve got an appointment with my solicitor,” said Jervis. “But after that—”

  “You’ll both dine with me. If you’re engaged, just telephone them and say you’re dead. What’s the good of a beneficent invention like the telephone if it can’t get you out of an engagement? We’ll dine at the Luxe in our gladdest rags. I’ve a tuxedo in my trunk—I’ve a claw-hammer somewhere—I’ll go the whole hog and buy a white tie. We’ve just got to celebrate!” He beamed brightly upon Nan. “If you knew what a lot I’ve heard about Rosamund, and how badly I’ve wanted to meet you—”

  Mr Fazackerley stopped there, because his left hand felt the sudden jerk with which Jervis drew back, whilst to his right was communicated a tremor. Nan’s hand quivered for a moment in his and then stiffened.

  Mr Fazackerley released it, stepped back a pace, darted a searching glance from a pale girl to a horrified young man, and exclaimed,

  “Great Wall Street! Have I dropped a brick?”

  He looked so alarmed and disconcerted that Nan stopped being embarrassed.

  “I’m not Rosamund,” she said quite simply. “My name’s Nan. Please don’t mind—it wasn’t your fault a bit.”

  Mr Fazackerley recovered himself. It took a good deal to disconcert him, and he possessed recuperative powers of the first order. He congratulated Jervis in a manner quite un-tinged with self-consciousness. He congratulated Nan on having married one of the best fellows in a tight place that he ever wanted to see.

  “He won’t tell you how we fought twenty brigands in Anatolia, or the story of the one-eyed commissar—but I will some day. I’ve no false modesty—it don’t pay in my profession.”

  Nan smiled at him, the smile that brought the dimples.

  “What is it?” she said. “Your profession, I mean. What are you?”

  “A Rolling Stone,” said Ferdinand Fazackerley with a flourish.

  He picked up the tin hat-box and the Gladstone bag.

  “Lord, F.F.!” said Jervis. “Where did you get that relic? I thought the last Gladstone bag faded out before the war.”

  “It’s a good little grip,” said Ferdinand, “and a real antique into the bargain. If I was to tell you that I got this grip from a man that got it from Enrico Caruso with a dossier showing it had belonged way back in Victoria’s day to the late William Ewart Gladstone himself—what would you say?”

  Nan saw Jervis laugh, and felt the thrill of a young mother whose child does something new. She hadn’t seen him laugh before. It changed his face; it softened it. It made Nan’s heart dance.

  “What would you say?” said Mr Fazackerley.

  “I should say you were a first-class liar, F.F.,” said Jervis.

  IX

  Mr Fazackerley left Nan and Jervis standing where he had found, them. He shook them both warmly by the hand, adjured them to remember that they were dining with him at the Luxe at a quarter to eight, and left them, to be instantly engulfed by a stream of outgoing passengers exactly like the one from which he had been, as it were, thrown up. An eddy caught him, and he and his rucksack, his Gladstone bag, his camera, and his bright yellow boots were absorbed.

  Nan and Jervis looked at each other, and for a moment a shared glint of humour gave to each of them a sense of intimacy. To be able to laugh at the same things is one of the three indissoluble bonds. If only for a moment, it linked them.

  Nan said, “What a lamb!”

  And Jervis said, “Good old F.F.!”

  And then the moment passed. The laughter went out of Nan’s eyes.

  “You’ll explain about my not being able to dine with him—won’t you?” she said.

  Jervis put his head back a little; it made his chin jut out. It was an obstinate chin.

  “Why can’t you dine with him?”

  If Nan had assumed that she was going dine with them, Jervis would probably have felt annoyed. Since she assumed that she was not going to make an unwanted third, he at once discovered a number of good reasons why she should do so.

  “You’ll have heaps to say to each other. I should be in the way.”

  “Well, if you don’t come, he’ll think you’re offended.”

  Nan considered this for a moment.

  “Do you want me to come?” she said when the moment was over.

  Jervis relaxed, smiled quite unexpectedly, and answered,

  “Well, I do—if it wouldn’t bore you too much.”

  “Oh, it wouldn’t bore me.”

  “You see,” he said, “if you don’t come, he’ll think it odd, or he’ll think you’re angry. I’m very fond of F.F. and I’d hate to have his feelings hurt that way, and—” He hesitated, then flashed her a look of something like appeal. “I—it struck me there isn’t really any reason why he should think there’s anything unusual about—us.”

  “I’ll come if you want me to,” said Nan.

  Their eyes met, and Jervis felt something that he had not felt before. He could not have said quite what it was. It came, and was gone again. It was as if something had touched, very lightly touched, some sensitive spot so deep down in his consciousness that he could not tell what it was that was stirred.

  Both of them came out of that moment with a faint sense of shock. Jervis caught sight of the station clock and exclaimed.

  “Poor old Page will be cursing me!”

  With a queer leap of the pulses Nan realized that she had forgotten, actually forgotten, why she had come to meet Jervis.

  He was crossing the platform.

  “I’ll call for you if you will tell me your address. I don’t know why I
didn’t ask you for it. I ought to have it.”

  She said, “Please”; and then, “I haven’t told you why I came to meet you. It’s very important.”

  He turned half round, frowning.

  “Can’t you tell me at dinner?”

  “No, I can’t. It’s urgent.”

  He stopped, faced her, and said,

  “What is it? Page will curse me”

  The colour burned in Nan’s cheeks. How can you tell an impatient, champing man that you believe someone is going to try and kill him in the open street in broad daylight?

  She said with a gasp, “It’s no good—you won’t believe me”; and could have said nothing that would so instantly have caught his attention.

  “Why—what’s up?”

  “Will you believe me?” said Nan.

  “Well, you might give me a chance one way or the other.”

  They were within a few feet of an empty bench. Nan put her hand on his arm and pointed to it. They went over to the bench and sat down.

  “I don’t see how you’re going to believe me,” said Nan desperately.

  Jervis stared at her. What on earth was she going to say? He decided that it wouldn’t hurt old Page to wait.

  “Go on!” he said.

  “People do get run over,” said Nan breathlessly.

  “Oh, constantly.”

  “Someone’s going to try and run you over.”

  “What for?”

  “Five hundred pounds,” said Nan in a shred of a voice.

  Jervis stared harder. She was awfully pale. Her eyes were wide, and solemn, and frightened.

  “My dear girl, what are you talking about?”

  Nan began to tell him as well as she could. Now that she had to put the thing into words, it set not only her voice but the whole of her shaking.

  “I don’t understand,” said Jervis. “You heard these two men talking?”

  Nan nodded.

  “How could you? Why didn’t they see you?”

  She showed him with a finger set at right angles to another finger.

  “It was a c-corner. I came up behind the t-taxi. The driver had his b-back to me.”

  “Tell me exactly what you heard.”

  She said it all over again.

  “He said, ‘It’s the four-fifteen all right. You’ll have to hurry.’ He said, ‘Let him come out of the station and get well away.’ He said you were sure to walk because you had a craze for exercise.”

  Jervis was bending forward looking at her intently.

  “You heard my name?”

  “No—not your name.”

  “Then what does all this amount to?”

  “Please, please listen.”

  He moved impatiently.

  Nan went on.

  “The driver said, suppose you took a taxi; and he said, ‘Then you must do the best you can.’ And the driver said he wasn’t keen; and he said, ‘Take it or leave it!’ And the driver said that five hundred pounds was five hundred pounds, and that ‘jug’ was ‘jug’—that’s prison, isn’t it? And then they talked about his getting two months for dangerous driving; and the driver was afraid it might be a lot more, but in the end he said, ‘All right, I’ll do it,’” She stopped and clenched one hand upon the other.

  “And what’s all this got to do with me?” said Jervis.

  “I knew they were talking about you.”

  “But why? What made you think of it? Who were these people? Did you know them? What made you listen to what they were saying?”

  “I knew them,” said Nan in a small steadfast voice.

  “Who were they?”

  It was like being pushed when he spoke in that quick, impatient way.

  “She got out of the taxi. I knew her at once.” Nan didn’t look at him; she looked down at her clenched hands.

  “She? This is the first time you’ve mentioned a woman.”

  Nan nodded.

  “She got out of the taxi and went into the house.”

  “But who?”

  “Rosamund Carew,” said Nan.

  Jervis sprang to his feet, then, as suddenly, sat down again.

  “What d’you mean by saying a thing like that?”

  Nan lifted her chin a little. She wasn’t a bit afraid of him when he was angry.

  “I’m telling you what happened.”

  He threw back his head and laughed incredulously.

  “Go on with the fairy tale!”

  A fire of pure rage burned in Nan’s cheeks and brightened her eyes. She stopped looking at her hands and let Jervis have the full benefit of the blaze.

  “Mr Leonard got out after her and went into the house. That was when I got behind the taxi. I wasn’t going to listen—I wasn’t thinking about listening—I just didn’t want him to see me. Then he came out of the house and talked to the driver. I told you what they said—and I told you before I began that you wouldn’t believe me.”

  Stinging tears rushed to her eyes. Jervis saw the blaze go out, saw the grey darken, soften, deepen. He said in an angry voice,

  “What have you got against Leonard? Good Lord—the thing’s absurd! Why, you admit that I wasn’t even mentioned.”

  “They were talking about you,” said Nan. “They were.”

  He burst out laughing.

  “My dear girl—what a mare’s nest! What conceivable motive could there be?”

  Nan looked up at him, white and steady.

  “Who would come in for your property if you were killed in an accident today?” she said.

  Jervis did not start, he stiffened. There was a tingling pause. Nan felt as if she had hit a lump of dynamite. She waited for the explosion, but it did not come. The silence went on. She could not take her breath while it went on like that; and just as she was feeling as if something must give way, he said in a low, concentrated tone,

  “What a perfectly foul thing to say!”

  This time Nan felt as if it was she who had been hit. She said,

  “Yes, it’s foul—” She paused. “But not because I said it.”

  He became vividly aware of her. There was a bright stain of colour high up in her cheeks—a round bright stain. Her eyes were bright and wide. There was something in them that winced and yet held firm. In his own consciousness an impulse flared—the impulse to beat down that wincing, resisting something. It flared, and went out.

  He rose abruptly to his feet.

  “I expect there’s some explanation. Bits of a conversation are very misleading. Thank you for taking so much trouble about it.”

  Nan got up too. His being polite was worse than anything. It made her feel giddy with pain. The colour went quite out of her face. She said,

  “Good-bye—I’d better not come tonight.”

  It was a relief to see him frown.

  “Of course you’ll come! We settled that. Give me your address, and I’ll call for you.”

  He wrote it down on the back of an envelope with a scrap of pencil which he fished out of a trouser pocket.

  “Old Page will be cursing me!” he said, and turned to go.

  When he had gone a couple of yards he became aware of Nan running to keep up with him.

  “I’m sorry—but what’s a tuxedo?”

  He looked over his shoulder at her and said,

  “Dinner-jacket.”

  “Oh—but he said something about a clawhammer. What’s that?”

  “American for tail-coat. I must be getting along.”

  She was still running.

  “Yes, I know—but—oh, you will be careful, won’t you?”

  This time she got a black frown. And then suddenly he laughed.

  “I’ll take a policeman along to pick up the bits!” he said, and was gone.

  X

  Nan had had no answer to her question. She did not need one. She knew very well what would happen to Jervis Weare’s property if he died without children. Everything would go to Rosamund Carew—Rosamund Veronica Leonard Carew. She had typed old Amb
rose Weare’s will, and she remembered its provisions. If Jervis wasn’t married within three months and a day of his grandfather’s death, everything went to Rosamund. And if Jervis died without leaving a child, everything went to Rosamund.

  Rosamund Veronica Leonard Carew.…. Nan was unshaken in her conviction that she had heard Robert Leonard arranging for an accident to happen to Jervis. Perhaps Rosamund didn’t know. She had gone on into the house, and Robert Leonard had come back to speak to the driver. A faint cold shudder ran over Nan. Rosamund Carew couldn’t know. Only a week ago she and Jervis were engaged—they were going to be married. They must have planned their life together—they must have kissed. The shudder came again. She saw Jervis stooping his dark head to kiss beautiful Rosamund Carew. Rosamund could not know.

  She began to walk, and came out of the station. What was she going to do next?

  There wasn’t anything for her to do. The affair had passed out of her hands. She had warned Jervis, and he didn’t believe her. She wondered if he truly didn’t believe her, or if he just wouldn’t believe her. Whether he believed her or not, he couldn’t un-know what she had told him. A man who has been warned can never go back to where he was before the warning. The weight that had been upon her lifted. A little of Jervis’ own scepticism touched her. After all, she might have made a mistake. No, she hadn’t. Then again, chill and reasonable, that “Suppose it was a mistake.”

  She had a vehement revulsion. She had been a fool to be frightened. There was nothing to be frightened of. She began to think about the evening. If she hadn’t got to be frightened about Jervis, how frightfully exciting it would be to look forward to dining at the Luxe with Ferdinand Fazackerley. How extraordinary to meet him after all these years! She had always wondered whether she would know him again.

  She got into a bus and sat there thinking how strange life was, and how interesting. Ten years ago Ferdinand Fazackerley, walking on Croyston rocks, had chanced on an unconscious young man and a frantic child of twelve. She shut her eyes and saw the rocks, the low grey sky, and the sea coming up, coming nearer, with its frightful irresistible force. It was a picture that had never faded. Like the scar on her arm, it no longer hurt. If she looked at the scar, she could see its triangular shape and the white crinkling of the skin; and if she looked into her mind, she could see the flooding pool, Jervis ghastly white, the stain of his blood on her shoulder, and her straining agonized efforts to keep his head above water. Then F.F.—Ferdinand Fazackerley—and the high, kind voice with its unfamiliar accent going right on through her half-consciousness … She was most terribly pleased to have met him again. But not for the world was he ever to guess that they were meeting again. a grown-up Mrs Weare couldn’t possibly evoke any memory of the half-drowned child of ten years ago.