Except For One Thing

by John Russell Fearn

  “It’ll do,” he told Hardisty. “Here are five pounds to hold it for me. Tomorrow you’ll get a cheque. I’ll be down to fix it up.”

  “Good!” Hardisty enthused. “You’ll like it there.”

  “Who is a good house furnisher around here?” Richard asked. “Somebody who can do the job from top to bottom?”

  “Draycott’s, in the main street,” Hardisty replied promptly. “They’ll do all that’s necessary.”

  Richard thanked him briefly, and left. He called in Draycott’s, gave them the house key and told them to look over the place and decide what it needed to be furnished just enough without elaboration. Then with the promise to be back on the morrow for the estimate he began the trip back to London.

  It was dark when he arrived. He garaged the car in a public garage near Euston, reclaimed his parcel from the luggage office, reappearing from the waiting room as himself with the brown paper parcel under his arm. Next he took the Underground back to Belsize Park and emerged into the dim lights of the gloomy street leading from the station.

  Next he detoured to the public garage where he kept his Jaguar. Into it he put his brown paper parcel, behind the movable part of the back seat, relocked the doors, nodded to the garage owner whom he knew intimately, and then set off for home. A vague sense of elation was upon him as Baxter took his coat and told him that the building contractors had delivered the necessities for the impending garage.

  *

  As Richard ate his dinner he reflected that he had created the character of Rixton Williams from Lancashire with entire conviction, and far enough away from Belsize Park to escape all possibility of connection with himself.

  Ending his meal he went outside to see what the contractors had brought. The light from the kitchen doorway streamed out on to a hill of clean new bricks, neatly stacked timber beams and planks, sacks of concrete powder and sand, and grey and battered amidst the array stood the concrete mixer with its generator waiting to be plugged into the power supply.

  Richard went back inside to his study. Here he drew the plans of the garage from his desk and studied them. It was to have a concrete floor, brick walls, a properly slated roof, and a plaster ceiling after the fashion of a room in a house. It was to be a perfect garage.

  He rolled the plans up again, put them back in the drawer, and sat thinking.

  “Next, the bank. Take out two thousand and deposit it in a Twickenham bank under the name of Rixton Williams. Must be in one pound notes though. Simple enough. Then generally convince people around that place in Twickenham that I am living in their neighbourhood…Have to think up an excuse for the Baxters. Urgent business to keep me away should do.”

  Richard went back to the desk, made several notes for his own personal guidance, memorised them, then threw them away in the fire along with the five blank sheets of the scratch-pad immediately under them. Glancing at his watch, he decided there was time for a walk before an early retirement…

  CHAPTER V

  He returned home towards half-past eleven. As usual the Baxters had gone to bed.

  He went to sleep happily, was untouched by dreams, and climbed out of bed again at seven-thirty the following morning.

  “I shall be away until evening,” he told Mrs. Baxter, after breakfast “I have some business to attend to in the city. Dinner at the usual time.”

  Then, smiling genially, he departed with a small attaché case and made the local bank his first stopping place.

  “In one pound notes, if you please,” he told the clerk, presenting his cheque made out to “Self”.

  The clerk looked up in vague wonder after he had scrutinised the “Two thousand pounds…”

  “Just a moment, please.”

  Richard waited impatiently, trying to appear civil when the bank manager invited him into his private office.

  “Nothing wrong, Mr. Harvey,” he explained. “It’s just you’re here early and we haven’t that much cash in one pound notes on hand at the moment. It’ll be here in a few minutes. I thought you’d prefer to come in and sit down.”

  “Oh…I see.” Richard tried to look mollified, and took the cigarette from the case proffered him.

  “Business good, Mr. Harvey?” the manager asked him, with that polite detachment usually shown to a wealthy client.

  “Good enough,” Richard answered briefly. “But I’m likely to lose a good deal of it if your clerk doesn’t hurry up!”

  The manager gave up the effort at small talk and turned to his morning correspondence. Five minutes later the clerk announced that everything was in order now. How would it be taken?

  “In this case,” Richard answered, handing it over.

  “Yes, Mr. Harvey, with pleasure.”

  The clerk went, and returned, waited while Richard checked the amount.

  Finally he nodded and snapped the case shut, got to his feet. Nodding a farewell to the manager he strolled out of the bank and commenced the short walk to the garage where he kept his Jaguar.

  “Fill her up, George,” he said to the mechanic, busy repairing a Ford. “And check the oil. I’ve a good bit of travelling to do.”

  “Right you are, Mr. Harvey!”

  Richard drove out by way of Haverstock Hill to the city centre. When he reached Charing Cross he garaged the Jaguar in an underground park, took out his parcel and attaché case, and went into Charing Cross Station to change into Mr. Rixton Williams. Thus attired, and again with parcel and attaché case he collected his old car and drove it to the nearest florists.

  “I want a bunch of those pink roses,” he told the girl who hovered amidst the steamy warmth and exotic perfumes. “And give me a card, will you? I want to write a few words.”

  “With pleasure, sir.” She handed a blank piece of pasteboard across the counter and, bending his hand round so it completely altered his normal style of handwriting — and wearing his woollen gloves too, to the secret amazement of the florist’s assistant — Richard wrote laboriously:

  To that lovely actress Valerie Hadfield from a man who admires her from far off and whose name is Rixton Williams.

  He slipped the card amidst the roses as they were handed to him in a dunce’s cap of tissue paper, paid for them, and went out. In another ten minutes he was drawing to a halt a block away from the stage door of the Paragon Theatre.

  Clasping the roses he made his way limpingly through a familiar alley and entered the stage doorway between two posters proclaiming VALERIE HADFIELD in JINGLE BELLS.

  The doorman stopped him, just as he’d expected.

  “Hey now, where do you think you’re goin’? Bit early with your flowers, aren’t you?”

  “Maybe I am,” Richard acknowledged, aware that those short-sighted eyes were peering at him through the dense spectacles. “I don’t want to go in, anyway. Just see that Miss Hadfield gets these, will you?”

  “Well, I — ”

  “And here’s a tip.”

  The doorman took the roses, looked at the money in his palm, squinted at the man who had given him both, and then he nodded.

  “Right, y’are, sir. I’ll see to it.”

  Richard mused as he walked haltingly back to his car. “That short-sighted old fool will verify that there is such a person as Rixton Williams but he’ll only remember a hard voice and a raincoat maybe. Good enough…”

  He drove to a restaurant for lunch, and then afterwards repeated the journey of the previous day. By late afternoon he had completed most of his business — deposited his two thousand in a branch bank in Twickenham under the alias of Rixton Williams, which signature he gave in his backhanded style; signed the conveyance for the house and paid out the cheque; approved the furniture estimate right down to the draperies and paid for these by cheque also, leaving the key with the furniture company so they could put the stuff in as quickly as possible. Then he finished the afternoon off by arranging for the water and electricity to be put on.

  His return trip merely repeated the previous day’s actions,
changing from one personality to the other, using the same garages again. He had got his plan moving without a soul suspecting that Richard Harvey and Rixton Williams were one and the same person…

  On his way home he called on Joyce Prescott and found her, after the housekeeper had allowed him in, in the midst of helping her father in the preparation of one of his periodic lectures on philosophy.

  “I didn’t think I’d be disturbing you,” Richard said with a smile as the girl clasped his hands eagerly in the brightly lighted study. “Only I thought I’d let you know I’m still in the land of the living…Hello, Doctor, how are you? Hope I’m not taking your valuable time.”

  Dr. Howard Prescott, Ph.D., got up from his desk and smiled cordially. He was a venerable looking man of perhaps fifty, retired now from University lecturing, wealthy through inheritance, and with the fate of orphans his main concern in life. His once red-brown hair was grey now.

  “Of course I can spare time for a future member of the family…And I suppose,” Prescott finished, “that is what you will become?”

  Richard grinned. “No doubt of it!”

  “So everything’s all right now?” Joyce sank down on the edge of an armchair.

  Richard glanced at her, then back to her father.

  “Yes,” the Doctor said, interpreting Richard’s look, “I know all about your difficulty. Joyce tells me everything that worries her.”

  “I suppose,” Richard said with a dubious smile, “you think I’m pretty unethical?”

  “You are only answerable to yourself, Richard,” Prescott smiled. “If you prefer Joyce to a woman with whom you know you can never find happiness then by all means remove the opposition, amicably of course. My own married life, up to the death of my dear wife, was extremely happy — but in the beginning I had a similar trouble to yours. I was in love with another woman. Fortunately for me she switched her affections to another man and left the way clear. Your case, I understand, isn’t quite so easy as that?”

  “No,” Richard sighed. “It isn’t.”

  “Still keeping her identity a secret?” Joyce asked with a touch of grimness.

  “Yes,” Richard agreed; then he brisked up a little. “As a matter of fact, Joyce, I dropped in to tell you personally that I’m liable to fade out of sight for about a week.”

  “So you said over the telephone.”

  “I only said I’d be irregular in seeing you. Now I know it will be for a week. I’ve business out of town. If I come home at all it will only be very late at night. I’ll ring you if I think you’ll not have retired.”

  “All right,” she said somewhat indifferently, and he patted her hand.

  “Incidentally, Richard,” Howard Prescott said, “I went past your place this morning on a trip from a sick friend. I see you’re having some building done, or else are going to. Bricks, timber, and stuff…What’s it for? New lab?”

  “It’s for Joyce’s special benefit as a matter of fact. Material for a garage I’m intending to build myself. I built my own laboratory, you know.”

  “I’m more of a believer in every man to his trade, I’m afraid. For instance, I should hate to start doing chemical experiments the way you do, just as you’d be at sea, I expect, in preparing a lecture on philosophy.”

  “Well,” Richard said, “I’d better be on my way.”

  “See you again,” Prescott acknowledged — and the girl saw Richard to the door. He kissed her and went down the path to his car parked in front of the house.

  He drove homewards, had dinner in the usual way and then drove back to London again, drawing up finally in Kensington outside Valerie Hadfield’s apartment building. Here he sat waiting for the time when her big black Daimler would appear round the corner.

  “It’s her last chance,” he muttered. “If she’ll let me go for the sake of the unknown Rixton Williams and a monetary consideration, all well and good. But if she won’t…”

  The girl’s Daimler glided round the distant corner, drawing up outside the building in front of his own car, bonnet to bonnet. He got out to the pavement and stood waiting as the girl alighted.

  “What’s the programme this time? Another string of insults like the night before last?”

  Without giving him a chance to reply she hurried up the steps towards the glass panelled doors. Richard turned to Peter as he closed the Daimler’s rear door.

  “As usual, Peter, you know nothing,” he said, parting with a Treasury note. “Whoever asks you — at anytime, anywhere.”

  “You know me, sir,” Peter said, grinning, and put the note in the breast pocket of his uniform.

  Richard turned and hurried up the steps into the building, across the hall, and into the lift. Richard and Valerie’s actions were a repetition of the night before last — the lift, the corridor, the door of flat no. 7; then they were in the apartment with the lights on.

  “Ellen following on?” Richard inquired.

  “Naturally.”

  Valerie went through to the bedroom, came back presently in a creation of black and gold that clung faultlessly to her curves. She went to the drinks on the sideboard, prepared one, then raised questioning eyes.

  “Not for me,” Richard said. “I’m still keeping my head clear. I thought I’d see if you’ve changed your mind about us. There’s been time for reflection since.”

  “I’ve no need to reflect, Ricky. We’re going to be married and we announce the fact immediately my contract expires a week tomorrow, Saturday, October twenty-second…Give me a cigarette, will you?”

  Richard opened his case, flicked his lighter. “You haven’t thought any more kindly about a cash settlement and a parting with a handshake, then?” he asked, lighting his own cigarette.

  “You can’t buy me off, Ricky. I don’t need the money, only the position you can give me as my husband. And if you want to break with me because you have some other woman in tow, then forget it. I saw you first, and I’m sticking to you!”

  Richard sighed. “I suppose I’m something unique really — the only man you ever had, or are likely to have…”

  The girl blew smoke through her sensitive nostrils. “You are the man I want because you have the right position for an actress like me — but don’t think you’re unique! I had flowers from an admirer only this morning.”

  “Nothing unusual for an actress to receive flowers, is it? It doesn’t necessarily mean anything…”

  “This did! He wrote a note…I liked it well enough to keep it!” She hurried through into her bedroom. She returned to hand Richard the pasteboard upon which he had written in the florist’s shop that morning.

  ““To that lovely actress Valerie Hadfield from a man who admires her from far off and whose name is Rixton Williams”,” Richard murmured, taking care to hold the card edgewise. Then he handed it back.

  “What does he look like?” Richard asked casually.

  “I don’t know, nor can I tell you from the stage doorman’s story whether the man who brought the flowers was a messenger or the real sender. He appears to have been stooped-shouldered, dressed just so-so, and having a hard voice.”

  Richard smiled. “If he was the real thing I should forget him. If, though, he was only the messenger and the real Rixton Williams is somewhere around, waiting to give you his address, what are you going to do?”

  “Absolutely nothing! He can send all the letters he likes…”

  “But surely you’ll inform the police if he becomes a nuisance with his loving notes?”

  “Why should I? Loving notes are useful sometimes. Look how they’ve tied me to you, for instance! I’ve merely produced this card to show you you are not so unique as you think. But I’m going to marry you.”

  Richard thought: Valerie has just signed her death warrant!

  Valerie turned away from him, went back into her bedroom and parted with the visiting card. When she came back she found Richard by the door.

  “Going?” she inquired in surprise. “But we haven’t discus
sed anything yet.”

  “I only came at all to find out if you’d suffered a change of heart. Now I know that you haven’t there’s nothing more to be said. I can make my arrangements from here on.”

  “Arrangements? What arrangements?”

  “Marriage changes the life course of a bachelor,” he explained dryly. “I’ll have to cancel a lot of things. For the next week, until your contract ends, you’ll probably see nothing of me. I’ve a lot to do.”

  The girl shrugged. “All right, but do you have to be so infernally judicial about it?”

  He kissed her painted mouth, looking for a moment deep into those faintly mocking blue eyes. Then he went off down the corridor to the lift.

  “The fool!” he whispered, as he left the lift and strode out into the night to his car. “The damned, over-painted little fool! If only she realised what she’s done…”

  CHAPTER VI

  On reaching home he went straight to his study, locked the door, slipped on his rubber gloves, and then on plain paper wrote three letters, each in the cramped backhanded style of Rixton Williams. The first one said —

  Saturday.

  Dear Lady,

  I sent you flowers to show admiration for your lovely acting. Now I want you to know that I want to meet you sometime. I’ll be waiting outside the theatre on Monday night. I wear glasses and a fawn raincoat.

  Rixton Williams.

  The second —

  Dearest Valerie,

  What a wonderful time we had last night and how fine it is when two people love each other as much as we do. There is nothing to stop us going away in secret if you want.

  Rixton

  And the third —

  Wednesday.

  Dearest Val,

  We must have tea together on Friday at my home. I’m sending you this letter because of the danger of phone calls upsetting you. Say you’ll come to my home to tea on Friday.

  Rix.

  He put each one in an envelope of cheap quality and addressed them back-handedly to “Miss Valerie Hadfield, c/o The Paragon Theatre, Central Street, W.C.”, and in the left top corner he wrote “Strictly Confidential.”