A Voice Like Velvet

by Donald Henderson

  He thought: ‘It looks like being an all-in day for Russia!’ He had heard a good deal about Sudbury and his interest in gems.

  She said: ‘And your safe has come, dear.’

  The cuckoo was trying out an old tune. He watched it fly from a clump of pine trees. The sky was a crystal blue with only one very white cloud in the entire expanse of it. He was sitting on the wooden seat by the rose path. A tall yew hedge was behind him, cut into peacocks. In front of him was the rambling house which always made him think of Hans Andersen. Marjorie called it their ginger-bread house. Wisteria, purple and white, would colour it a bit later on, and meanwhile the green foliage clung from window to window as high as the Leemans’ bedroom. A large rook sat on the chimney stack. He could see it blinking.

  In the next garden a motor lawn-mower was at work. At intervals it stopped at their fence and there was the drone of voices. Shorter liked to chat, and he stood by the fence with bits of bass sticking out of his pockets. Marjorie had discovered Shorter somewhere in the village. He walked about all day with bits of bass sticking out of his pockets, and on Saturdays with bits of boys pushing loaded wheelbarrows. He was resolved that most of the garden should be given up to vegetables, but he allowed Marjorie some flowers because of the local soldiers’ hospital.

  Ernest Bisham was wondering how he would get his collection to Russia, and how soon. And he was wondering what would happen if and when Russia discovered who the original owners had been. It was a delicate point and a point that would have to wait. There was no particular reason to assume the point would arise, for the gems would probably be broken down for many uses. Diamonds were used for many things in wartime. How would he get them there? By air, probably. It was surely not an insuperable problem? It could wait too, but not for too long. While they were in his possession there was constant danger.

  There was the pleasant sound of Marjorie’s scissors. She was clipping red and yellow roses with very long stems. He got the scent of them. Bombers droned across the sky towards France. He watched them for a time and then dropped his eyes from the glare. On the seat was Marjorie’s newspaper. There was a colourful account of the latest cat-burglary in London, and she had evidently been reading it. He had read several versions in the train coming down. He asked her if she had read about it and she said she had. She seemed amused at the idea of a burglar having the nerve to take your jewels from you while you slept. Her eyes laughed and she seemed rather to admire it. The necklace was worth about ten thousand pounds. As he sat smiling at her, his fingers touched it. What would she say if he pulled the necklace from his pocket and said quietly: ‘For you, my dear!’ He sighed. He dropped his eyes to the paper again. Mrs Mansfield defended herself with an article called ‘Why I Always Sleep In My Jewellery’. She said: ‘I have never believed in safes. Almost anybody who studies the subject can get to work on a safe, either with, well, brains or dynamite. But I never thought a cat-burglar would dare to take jewellery from a sleeping woman. He must be a very unusual man, and it was a man, it was a man in a mask.’ Mr Bisham was amused to see that he was now called in all the papers the Man In The Mask. They had dug up other exploits in which victims recalled getting a glimpse of the mysterious man in the mask. But he always got away. It sounded romantic. ‘My necklace,’ Mrs Mansfield explained, ‘was insured for ten thousand pounds. My husband bought it for me from the late Duchess of Manse. The clasp alone is worth fifteen hundred pounds.’

  Marjorie was calling Lucas, who was chasing the cat in and out of the greenhouse. ‘Lucas, Lucas …!’

  He suddenly thought she looked so much happier.

  As she turned to him, she made a noticeable picture, holding the basket of roses. She still had a confused notion of colour, with her brown hat, and her large red blouse, and an oddly cut green skirt. She had no stockings and had made rather a hash of browning her legs, and she had on grey sandals with her long, square toes sticking through the tops.

  She was getting taller, wasn’t she, and just a bit larger in the body?

  He suddenly asked her if she was happy.

  She exploded, just like a schoolgirl: ‘Oh yes, Ernest! Very happy …!’

  He felt a little embarrassed by her reply and dropped his eyes. Three little lines at once appeared above the bridge of her large nose. He knew she was thinking: ‘But … are you happy?’

  He went indoors.

  He would have a bath and change into something comfortable.

  The safe was in his room and he crossed to it excitedly, as to a new toy. He locked the door of his room and spent fully an hour transferring his collection from the locked drawers. They were imposing on strips of black velvet and sometimes in their cases; cases were often too bulky for the pocket. There were emeralds and sapphires and diamonds and rubies and jade, and they glistened from bangles, necklaces, earrings, tiaras and rings. He crouched before them, a pleased, bulky figure, and decided to lose no time in finding means to get them sent on their mission of goodwill. Perhaps he would send some to Poland. The sooner, the better—on the floor a piece of torn newspaper said: ‘Five years for cat-burglar.’ He locked the safe. The combination he chose was ‘Marjorie Russia.’

  He went whistling into the bathroom. He had a new craze for whistling a modern tune, ‘When I Look at You, I Think of an Angel!’ It was attractive. Marjorie hummed it too; it had become ‘their song’. He recalled that when he and Seal had been married ‘their song’ had been ‘Stormy Weather’. It had been fitting. Amused, now that it was all far away in the dim and shady past, he smiled to himself and recalled too that Marjorie said the tune she and Captain Bud had considered their song, for about a week, anyway, was ‘I Am Chu Chin Chow from China’. They had been to a revival.

  Mr Bisham was very fond of bathrooms. He liked marble or alabaster bathrooms, with plenty of crystal glass. He liked large bath towels too, and not those little thin things that tore in shreds the moment you tried to do your back. Marjorie had arranged all these and other points soon after their honeymoon. They had spent their honeymoon here at Tredgarth, but had gone to London for shopping and to see all the musical shows. Marjorie liked dancing too, and when they were dancing he felt they made a very sedate couple. Everyone else seemed wildly abandoned by comparison, though Marjorie said he was the best partner she had ever had. Marjorie went off into dreams when she danced, gazing at the gold ceiling, and being a bit heavy on the feet. She smelt nice and was always pleased with everything. When he remarked that he thought they must seem sedate, she teased him by saying it was his self-consciousness. Lying in the green bath he reflected that she teased him a good deal in a quiet way. She did it with her large eyes. She had a trick of saying things with her eyes and a half-smile, and she had quite a trick, especially at dinner parties at home, of conveying all sorts of amusing thoughts. She was a marvellous woman, wasn’t she! You did want a sense of humour in a woman. Seal had never seen the funny side of anything, least of all of herself. Marjorie had all sorts of little jokes and often he felt she was secretly laughing when he didn’t know what the joke was. It had been her idea to have toy yachts to sail in the bath. She had made him admit, during the honeymoon, that his childhood had been a lonely one, and he admitted that one of his chief disappointments had been in not having boats for his bath. Well—now he had four! They had little red sails and they shot across the green, soapy water just above his stomach in the most thrilling manner. He pretended that the loofah was a large rock, and the nail brush was a Nazi submarine. Then he pretended that each yacht carried a cargo of stolen gems to allied countries, to aid the war effort. They had been stolen only from people who could really afford this little extra donation from their safes and chests of drawers. The little ships got through all right, and finally sailed back with the news of the gems’ true origin. It raised such a laugh in the press that the owners had to put a brave face on it and present their gems to Russia as a gift. Of course, thought Mr Bisham, it was all very childish, this yacht business. The mirrors around him
reflected the picture of himself which he imagined everyone else would get if they were snooping in at the window there—of a thoroughly eccentric and middle-aged gentleman with greying hair. Nobody would dream of thinking it could be Ernest Bisham, the announcer. Playing with boats in his bath at Woking—it just didn’t come over in his voice! He lay flat and stared, pleased, at his yachts. Marjorie had got them with great difficulty at Hamley’s in Regent Street. She’d been amusing about it, waiting until the Leemans were out of earshot and then producing the parcel. ‘I had to tell Hamley’s it was for my four-year-old son,’ she told him. And when the Leemans had gone up to bed, she and Ernest had hurried to the bathroom and filled the bath. It had been fun. He wondered if Marjorie had played with them much when she had a bath. She was rather prim about her baths and locked the door—‘Well, I’m getting rather plump, Ernest.’ Her bathroom craze seemed to be bath salts. There were rows of large square bottles full of purple crystals. He reached out and took a handful from the nearest bottle. He thought: ‘I shall miss all this if I ever find myself in prison. You don’t get boats or bath salts there! Or large bath towels!’ He thought silently of some of the things you did get. A little warning shudder touched his spine. He stood up, humming, ‘When I look at you I hear lovely music’. Then he started to think about the speech he would have to make at Lord Sudbury’s affair. A tedious affair it would have been in the ordinary way, but his little hobby threw a new light on it. He had heard plenty about Sudbury’s little habits, and about how he treated Lady Sudbury. It was quite certain Sudbury had plenty of gems to spare for Russia, apart from the ones he was putting up for sale. Lord Sudbury was a retired pawnbroker, though he called it something else. It would probably be a tougher nut to crack than any of the others. Though, you never knew.

  The day of the sale happened to be the day of Mrs Mansfield’s broadcast, and he bumped into her in front of Broadcasting House. She was exceedingly distrait. She said the police were still hunting high and low for the Man In The Mask, and they never ceased riddling her with endless and most ridiculous questions. Where had she been, and exactly whom had she met the few days before? As if that mattered. ‘Why, I even had to mention you, Mr Bisham!’ She declared that the mere idea of being asked such a stupid thing made her feel quite ill. ‘I said, but he’s at the BBC, Mr Hood!’ She said Scotland Yard was absolutely hopeless, particularly Mr Hood, who was supposed to be in charge of the case. ‘I ask you! He’s been after the Man In The Mask for years, he says so himself. Why on earth don’t they put somebody younger on the case?’ She looked puffier than ever, but she was still coy. She was mortified when Mr Bisham said he could not announce her broadcast because he was opening Lord Sudbury’s sale of gems to raise cash for Russia. ‘Lord Sudbury!’ she exclaimed disparagingly. ‘Don’t talk to me about that man. I hate mean, grasping men, and his wife is the nicest person, plain but quite sweet!’ She said Lady Sudbury was supposed to have gems and jewels by the dozen. ‘He gave her I can’t tell you how many, a collection it was, for a wedding present. Wedding present!’ She rolled her eyes heavenwards. ‘My dear Mr Bisham, she’s never been allowed to lay a finger on one of them! They’ve never been out of their cases; she told me so herself!’

  Mr Bisham felt oddly pleased.

  ‘Indeed …?’

  ‘Now, if the Man In The Mask paid a visit to him,’ said Mrs Mansfield venomously.

  ‘Perhaps he will,’ said Mr Bisham thoughtfully.

  He was very thoughtful when he entered the house in Belgrave Square.

  And on the platform, waiting to make his speech, he stared thoughtfully and carefully about him. Deep in his overcoat pocket, his fingers rested on something hard.

  The use and mis-use of a loaded revolver was, to Mr Bisham, a matter of psychological interest and consideration. A man might sit and feel unusually secure because his right hand touched a revolver in his pocket; but it didn’t follow that he would use it should the occasion arise. Indeed, there had been interesting moments in the past when he had had occasion to study the reaction of man to a revolver thrust in his face. He had not yet come across the man who would challenge it. The man who was thus threatened had but a little time to make up his mind on two things: was the pistol, staring at him, loaded? If it was, would the man really be likely to fire it? In all cases, prudence was the safest guide. Besides, if the man wore a mask, you could not judge him by his expression.

  Mr Bisham passed the time thinking about it. Lord and Lady Sudbury made quite a fuss of him. Before mounting the platform with them, he had been introduced to endless rows of people, all of whom thought his radio voice ‘too marvellous, Mr Bisham! We always listen in when you are on the air.’ Once on the platform, Lord Sudbury made a long and rambling speech in praise of the BBC and its announcers. His lordship looked an artful customer. He looked rather like a restless farmer and wore loose-fitting clothes. He had a ruddy face and leaned forward as if he had been at the plough all day long. The gems were arranged in attractive tiers at the foot of the platform and were roped off. A beautiful chandelier lit the proceedings, a little unnecessarily, for it was not yet dark, but the effect on the gems was delightful. It was like liquid fire shot with silver and gold. There was a wide staircase forming a background to the proceedings, at the foot of it an auctioneer’s dais. There were rather a lot of packing cases about, for there were statues for sale as well as gems. The place was extremely crowded, unusually so, when you thought of income tax. Who could afford jewellery nowadays? A bracelet for three hundred and fifty pounds ten?

  Inspector Hood was wondering.

  Mr Hood, as he preferred to be called, was leaning against a stone pillar a little way up the staircase. He felt rather like a journalist who has covered this sort of thing a thousand times before, but doesn’t want to miss anything just through being bored and cynical. His mack was undone and he had his hands in his trousers’ pockets. His hat was on the banisters beside him.

  Now and again he smoothed his silver hair with a restless hand, and his eyes roamed restlessly from the auctioneer to the figures on the platform—and back to the table full of such valuable gems. He had seen the same scene a thousand times before, and no doubt he would see it many times yet. But still, you never knew, there might be some little point to fasten onto. There might even be a robbery here, it was what he was supposed to watch for, but he felt it was unlikely. It wouldn’t be exactly easy. It was a well-dressed gathering, wasn’t it? Very smart. A couple of the War Cabinet here too. Not to mention others … All the same, he would have much preferred being at home in his little house in Shepherd’s Bush. Yet there was something about this particular gathering which was out of the ordinary, at any rate so far as he was concerned! Ernest Bisham was here! It wasn’t that announcers impressed him—but they impressed Mrs Hood! She was absolutely balmy about them, and when, at their daughter’s wedding celebrations, a game had been played in which you had to choose whom, out of all past and present history, you would like to go out to dinner with, Mrs Hood had chosen Ernest Bisham! Well, it made you think, and there must be something to it or they wouldn’t have caught the public fancy like they had! For his part, he would sooner have gone out to dinner with Crippen so as to have got the real low-down about Belle Elmore. But Mrs Hood had chosen Ernest Bisham, the announcer! And there he was over there!

  Mr Hood gave him a bit of a once-over. The reason he really did so was because he knew quite well Mrs Hood would fairly riddle him with questions about what he looked like ‘close to’. Was he like his voice? Was he like his photographs?

  Well, he wasn’t really like either. Or was he? He looked pretty decent. Genial, anyway. Photographs were misleading. Usually people only published photographs of themselves when they were younger. He looked kind of distinguished, didn’t he? But so had Patrick Mahon! Smart, anyhow. If Mrs Hood thought Mr Bisham was young, though, she was sadly mistaken, never mind what his voice might sound like. If she thought he was young and flighty. He was very stolid, wasn’t h
e?

  Mr Hood felt rather glad. He had been getting rather jealous of Ernest Bisham in recent months.

  He turned away.

  ‘Shall we begin, ladies and gentlemen?’ hammered the auctioneer. He thumped with his hammer and said more loudly: ‘My lords, ladies and gentlemen; before we do begin, I am asked to stress that Lord Sudbury is of course only offering for sale part of his wonderful collection of valuable gems. But he and Lady Sudbury have very kindly consented, as a surprise, to permit, on the first floor, in the Jewel Room there, a private view of Lady Sudbury’s own collection, given her by Lord Sudbury as a wedding present. There will be a special money-box collection, outside the Jewel Room, in aid of Russia.

  ‘My lords, ladies and gentlemen, Lot Number One: a diamond tiara, once in possession of the Italian Royal Family.’

  CHAPTER XIV

  LADY SUDBURY was charming to Mr Bisham. She was a gentle creature, and a small bit frightened in manner. She wore a veil and behind it she could be seen taking a nervous interest in the proceedings. When she lifted her veil and pinned it up, her blue eyes showed a lost look, and her mouth said that life had long since died on her. The whole thing was now too pitiful to be true. She said to Mr Bisham in the saddest way: ‘My life has been spent amongst gems!’ And she said: ‘I’m afraid we don’t have the radio.’ She smiled apologetically about it. She went on to say that her father, who had been fond of her husband, had also been an enthusiastic collector of jewels. But she looked bored to death with jewels as she took him up to the Jewel Room to show him ‘one or two pendants; there is one in particular of almost priceless value.’ She seemed amused at his interest in how she and Lord Sudbury safeguarded themselves against thieves. So many people were curious about that, weren’t they? It was natural. But, she explained, Lord Sudbury had his own ideas. He didn’t disbelieve in safes, but he regarded them as ‘a temporary convenience—whilst you go into the next room, so to speak!’ She took him into the Jewel Room, where a long table was roped off and laden with gems, and she said: ‘We just keep everything here exactly as you see them. We close the cases, of course, because of the dust.’ Then she smiled and said: ‘There is our real safe, over there!’ Mr Bisham had been looking at a pendant on the table. It was a magnificent piece of work. It outrivalled anything at present in his possession. So did several other pieces he could see there. When she said, ‘There is our real safe, over there,’ he followed her glance. A lot of people were standing excitedly and admiringly about the long table. At the entrance door, a girl in spectacles was standing with a collection box. Lady Sudbury’s private secretary, no doubt. Following the direction of her glance, he could see no safe. There was no safe to be seen in any part of the rectangular, high-ceilinged room. Except for the table of gems, there was no furniture in the room of any kind. Where there had once been windows, there were now nailed boards which had been painted green. He heard himself saying perplexedly: ‘I don’t see any safe, Lady Sudbury.’ But she smiled and said: ‘He has been with us for some years now,’ and Mr Bisham found himself looking at a thick-set man of singularly unprepossessing appearance. He was like a gorilla, with long, swinging arms, and a sloping forehead with sticky black hair shooting upwards from it. Lady Sudbury said: ‘His name’s Bardner. He’s talking to Inspector Hood, from Scotland Yard. Mr Hood always comes on these occasions.’ Mr Bisham gave Hood a quick look. He had often wished to meet him. So that was Hood! He didn’t dislike him. He looked a sentimentalist—though doubtless he would deny such an accusation to the last ditch, if you said it of him. He became aware that every now and again Hood glanced at him with some slight interest. A little later on, Lady Sudbury rejoined him and said: ‘Mr Bisham, Inspector Hood very much wants to meet you. He says Mrs Hood is a great admirer of your voice on the radio!’