The Proprietor's Daughter

by Lewis Orde

  “It’s just this Ginger, that’s all. If I’ve beaten the fear of God into him, then I’m okay. But if I haven’t, then it could turn very sticky. Christ help me if those madmen I saw there tonight thought I was spying for the Daily Eagle.” He took a sip of tea. “I’ll take it one day at a time. If I think I’m in trouble, I’ll be on my bike so quick they won’t see me for dust.” A fleeting smile appeared on his face. “Make my grandpa proud of me, wouldn’t it, if I helped to break up a mob like this? Have to put another display case on the wall just for my medals.”

  Katherine recalled the first time she had seen Brian Waters, the surly youth who had opened the door for her at Cadmus Court. She’d had no idea then just what a complicated young man he was. On the surface, he was brash, prone to find trouble without looking too hard. Beneath skin level, he was intelligent, possessing a shrewdness you learned on the streets, not in any school. He had the ability to lead, and he knew how to take care of himself, with his wits and with his fists.

  But the real key to the young man, Katherine now saw, lay in his relationship with his grandfather. How proud the old man would be if Brian could help to break up the League. More than anything, Brian wanted his grandfather’s approval.

  Katherine realized that Brian had come to mean more to her than just an employee of her father’s. He was a person she cared about very much.

  *

  Katherine felt a moment of guilt when she rode in Archie Waters’s elevator the following morning. This was the nice old man whose grandson she had sent into danger. How would Archie react if, God forbid, something happened to Brian? She flushed the unwelcome notion from her mind, thinking, instead, of the display case that would be needed for Brian’s commendations, and the pride his grandfather would feel.

  When Gerald Waller came in at midday, Katherine was waiting. She told him of the meeting Brian had attended the previous night, the decision to form the British Brigade and go ahead with what Franz had termed the dual-track strategy.

  Waller thought it over before saying, “We can write a story now, claiming that the League is following this path. They, of course, will deny it, and it’ll be our word against theirs. They’ll claim it’s another part of a vendetta we have against them. The alternative, of which I’m more in favor, is to wait —”

  “For how long? Until these lunatics hurt someone? As well as a responsibility for keeping people informed, don’t we have an ethical responsibility?”

  “If you’re so concerned about ethics, go to the police.”

  “They’d laugh me out of the station,” Katherine said.

  “At least, you’d get a reaction. Which is more than we’d get from our readers if we printed such a weak story.”

  Torn two ways, Katherine returned to her desk. With a journalist’s ambition, she wanted the biggest story she could get. At the same time, her conscience pricked her. Someone could be injured, or worse, and she could have avoided it. Most of all, she was still concerned about Brian Waters.

  “You had a phone call,” Heather Harvey told her. “Raymond Barnhill from the International Press Agency.”

  “Thank you.” Katherine dialed the number of the IPA and asked for Barnhill.

  “I wrote thirty last night,” the wire-service reporter greeted Katherine. “Finished the damned book and airmailed it this morning to an agent in New York.”

  “Congratulations.” Katherine guessed that she was the first person Barnhill had called with his good news. “Have you thought of a way to spend your millions yet?”

  “Millions? If I’m lucky, it’ll be thousands. And I won’t get those until some publisher decides his list won’t be complete without it.”

  “Any publisher who knows what’s good for him will jump at having you as an author.”

  “Want to be my press agent?”

  “I’d only get you mentions in the Eagle.”

  “Okay, then how about a celebration dinner tonight?”

  “Sorry again, Raymond. I’m busy.” She was meeting John Saxon that evening.

  Barnhill’s voice softened. “Guess I’ll just have to do my celebrating on my own.”

  “Instead of sounding so mournful, why don’t you start work on the second book of the trilogy, the war through the eyes of the noncommissioned officers? That way, when your agent makes a sale, you’ll have the next part all ready to go.”

  Barnhill bucked up immediately. “You’re right.”

  “We’ll have dinner when you sell the book.”

  “I’m writing it in my diary now.”

  Smiling, Katherine hung up. When he wasn’t making her mad, Raymond Barnhill always seemed to amuse her.

  It was almost seven-thirty when Katherine parked the Porsche outside John Saxon’s London home. Opening the door, he kissed her and said, “Do you mind eating a little late tonight? I want to watch a television program first.”

  “Since when do you watch television?”

  “Very infrequently. Tonight, I want to see ‘Fightback.’”

  The program came on. For five years, “Fightback” had been a weekly success, starting out as a half-hour consumer-action show before being expanded to an hour. Katherine had met Jeffrey Dillard, “Fightback” ’s host. He was a gentleman, one of those men whose charm seems to expand as they grow older. Now in his early sixties, he had been a celebrity for as long as the country had had television, beginning as a newscaster, working his way up until he’d found a home at “Fightback.” His co-host, Elaine Cowdrey, was in her twenties, an attractive redhead who had come to “Fightback” from a provincial newspaper.

  As Katherine watched the tall, white-haired Jeffrey Dillard welcome viewers, an amusing idea occurred to her. “Are they pillorying you, John? Have you been an unreasonable landlord again?”

  Laughing, Saxon shook his head. “I’m very choosy about whom I allow to pillory me. So far, you’re the only one to qualify.”

  Katherine followed the entire show. The format combined live television and film clips. In folksy, conversational tones, Dillard and Elaine Cowdrey took turns in describing the problems they’d been asked to resolve. Film clips showed them reaching the solution, whether it was badgering a nationwide furniture chain to make good on shoddy work, or cutting a way through a mass of bureaucracy to learn why an abstemious seventy-year-old woman had been cited for driving under the influence.

  “Well?” Saxon asked when the program finished. He stood up, ready to go out for dinner.

  “Reminds me of ‘Satisfaction Guaranteed!’” Katherine said.

  “That’s what it reminds me of as well.” Saxon drove to a small Italian restaurant at the top of Regent Street. They were shown to a table at the back. Katherine sat down, straightening the skirt of the wool-and-cashmere tweed suit she’d worn to work that day. Saxon was very considerate that way. If he’d made plans to eat somewhere fancy, he would tell Katherine beforehand, and give her to opportunity to change. Tonight, they were eating at a pleasant, but really very average, Italian restaurant, where her working ensemble was not out of place.

  An hour later, as they finished dinner, Katherine was wishing that she was wearing something more glamorous. For walking toward the table she shared with Saxon, wearing the same navy blue double-breasted suit he had worn two hours earlier on “Fightback,” was the tall, elegant figure of Jeffrey Dillard. And Saxon, not in the least surprised, was standing, hand outstretched, to greet the television personality.

  “John, how nice to see you. And Katherine too.” Dillard’s hand was warm and dry as it enclosed Katherine’s. “If only half of what John’s told me about you is true, my dear, then I want you on my show.”

  As Dillard sat down, Katherine caught Saxon’s gaze. He grinned at her and gave a half wink. “You want me on your show as what?”

  “Hasn’t John told you anything?”

  “Only to watch ‘Fightback’ tonight.” Unlike most television celebrities, Katherine decided, Dillard looked as good off the set as on it. There were
more lines to his face than had been noticeable during the show, but his blue eyes had the same sparkle, his hair was just as thick and snowy white.

  “Elaine Cowdrey, my co-host, is leaving. She’s pregnant and wants to stay home with her baby. We’re going to need someone for when the next series starts in January of ’seventy-nine. John, who’s been a dear friend of mine for many years, put forward your name. Of course, I’m familiar with that column you had at the Eagle, and I think your approach would translate very well onto the small screen.”

  Katherine could feel her heartbeat increase. She’d love to get back into a consumer-action role again, especially where she had the exposure of a successful television show. But there was much more to be considered. “I’m very flattered, but it’s not a decision I could make immediately.”

  “Think about it by all means. But please, don’t take too long. Unlike newspapers, television shows don’t write today what you see tomorrow. We aren’t that flexible. We used to be,” he added with a trace of sentimentality, “but that was twenty-five years ago, when I read the news wearing a dinner jacket and bow tie, while under the desk, where viewers couldn’t see, I had on gray flannel trousers and a pair of tennis shoes.”

  “You must have a lot of influence with Jeffrey Dillard,” Katherine told Saxon as they drove back to Marble Arch.

  “We’re good friends, that’s all. When I heard he was losing his partner, I thought you’d be an obvious replacement. After all, sticking up for the little person is your game, isn’t it?”

  “John, believe me, it took a lot of willpower not to jump up and kiss Jeffrey Dillard when he made the offer.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “I don’t like leaving jobs unfinished. I’ve started this investigation into the British Patriotic League, and I won’t quit until I’ve found out all there is to know. Whether you agree with my doing it or not.”

  “I see. There is one other thing. It’s off the record, but it bears thinking about. Elaine Cowdrey’s not the only one who’s leaving ‘Fightback.’ Jeffrey is thinking of retiring in a year or two. That would leave you with a show of your own. If you’re capable of handling it, of course.”

  “Don’t try to needle me into taking the job, John.”

  “Sorry.”

  Despite the reprimand, the extra snippet of information tantalized Katherine. To be in charge of a prime-time show like “Fightback” . . . she’d be able to redress every wrong in the whole damned world! But there was still the League. “I’ll have to give it a lot of thought, John. Talk to a few people about it.”

  “Go ahead, but just don’t take too long.”

  The first person Katherine spoke to was Franz. She told him that Dillard had approached her directly with an offer to work with him on “Fightback.” “Stay at the Eagle,” Franz answered without the least hesitation. “Your probe of the British Patriotic League is worth a million solutions to people’s problems.”

  Franz’s answer set the tone. When Katherine sought Sally Roberts’s guidance, the older woman was frank. “You took a big fall here not long ago, Katherine. You’re just getting back on track. Why in heaven’s name would you want to chuck it all up?”

  “Vanity? To be known wherever I go? To be a household face instead of just a household word?”

  “Couldn’t you continue at the Eagle while you worked on ‘Fightback’?” Sally asked. “It certainly wouldn’t hurt our circulation to have that kind of arrangement.”

  “No. ‘Fightback’ is a full-time job.”

  “Too bad. Don’t take it.”

  Two votes against, and no votes for, Katherine told herself as she left Sally’s office.

  Soon, it was three votes against. That was after Gerald Waller arrived and spoke to Sally. He telephoned Katherine with some blunt advice. “You’re a good journalist, Katherine. Don’t waste your talent.”

  The fourth vote against was cast by Katherine’s father, when he telephoned midway through the afternoon to advise her to remain with Eagle Newspapers.

  The final, and most eloquent, vote belonged to Lawrie Stimkin. At five-thirty, he came by Katherine’s desk and asked her to join him for a drink. They went to El Vino’s. Stimkin paid for the drinks — in itself a first — and brought them to where Katherine sat. Solemnly he raised his Scotch and water. “Take it from me, Katherine, you’re a good reporter. Too bloody good to be writing the kind of junk that people watch on the idiot box while they’re sitting at the supper table, stuffing their faces with cod and chips and pickled onions.”

  Five to zero against. Katherine telephoned Jeffrey Dillard the next morning to regretfully refuse his offer.

  “You’re still my first choice, Katherine,” Dillard told her. “Remember that in case you change your mind.”

  “Thank you, I will remember that.” After finishing with Dillard, she dialed the number of Saxon Holdings, and told John Saxon that she was staying at the Eagle. “Are you going to call me a damned little fool again?”

  “No. Perhaps I’ll think it, but I’ve learned it’s not wise to tell you such things to your face.”

  “Jeffrey Dillard did say that should I change my mind I was still his first choice.”

  “I hope you do change it,” Saxon said. “You’d be marvelous in a show like that.”

  *

  Edna Griffiths and Jimmy Phillips were married on the third Saturday in June, in a civil service at a local registry office. Katherine and Franz acted as witnesses. Henry and Joanne stood behind the wedding couple in the position of bridesmaid and pageboy, although Edna wore nothing fancier than a navy blue crepe dress, which finished, quite modestly, midway down her paddle-shaped calves. Phillips, for the first time in Katherine’s memory, wore a suit. It was dark gray, the twin of fifty thousand other suits throughout the country. He had purchased it hurriedly the previous day from one of the menswear chain stores, after Edna had told him that the man she married was expected to wear a suit, a white shirt, a tie, and a carnation in his buttonhole!

  Katherine had offered to host a wedding party. “Invite as many people as you like,” she told the couple two weeks before the wedding. “Your family, your friends, anyone you want to share this day with.”

  With tears brimming in her eyes, Edna had assured Katherine that such a gesture was unnecessary. “The only people Jimmy and I have to invite to a party are right here, Mrs. Kassler.”

  Katherine tried another tack. “You’re going away on a honeymoon, aren’t you?”

  “Making babies at our age? Be away with you!”

  “Who said anything about that? I’m talking about a real holiday, a trip to somewhere you and Jimmy have never been. That’ll be our wedding gift, Franz’s and mine.”

  “Who’ll be here, then, to look after the house?”

  “Don’t worry, Edna. There are agencies that specialize in temporary help, you know.”

  “Just as long as I get to approve, Mrs. Kassler.”

  “Of course,” Katherine had answered, knowing it could be no other way. Edna was too jealous of her power within the house to yield it easily, even if it were only for a couple of weeks . . . .

  Following the ceremony, Phillips, with a gold ring gleaming on the third finger of his left hand, helped Franz back into the silver Jaguar and folded the wheelchair into the trunk. The wedding group returned to the house in Hampstead. In the afternoon, before leaving with her new husband for the airport and a two-week honeymoon in Spain, Edna gave her replacement final instructions. “Don’t forget, the children are up by six each morning, and they like their breakfast early. Mrs. Kassler works late some nights, and is not to be disturbed —”

  “Edna!” shouted Katherine, who was driving Phillips and the housekeeper to the airport. “We’re going to be late!”

  At the front door, where Franz waited in his wheelchair, Edna did something Katherine had never seen her do before. She bent down and kissed Franz, and thanked him for the part he had played in making this day unforge
ttable. When the housekeeper moved on, Phillips exchanged a long handshake with Franz.

  “I’ve left the new man a complete list of what he’s got to do, Mr. Kassler. Don’t worry about a thing.”

  “The only worry I have is that you will miss your flight. Go, Jimmy. Have a wonderful honeymoon.”

  The two men held the handshake a moment longer before Phillips broke it. All the way to the airport, with the newlyweds holding hands in the back of the Jaguar, Katherine replayed that parting scene in her mind. There had been emotion in Franz’s voice that she did not understand. Franz was as close to Phillips as he was to anyone these days. Even to herself, Katherine admitted. So what had choked him up? Was it jealousy? That possibility intrigued her. Was Franz jealous of Edna? Katherine lifted her eyes to peek into the rearview mirror. The housekeeper sat there, eyes almost closed, moon face relaxed in a wide, contented smile. Now who could be jealous of that?

  Katherine stayed at home for the remainder of the weekend, keeping a tactful eye on Anne Blyton and Harry Foster, the replacement housekeeper and attendant. Both had come highly recommended from an agency. Nonetheless, Katherine was very choosy about whom she made responsible for her invalid husband and her children.

  When she left for work on Monday morning, she was no longer concerned. Anne Blyton, a middle-aged woman with a perpetual smile, had won over Henry and Joanne by giving them each a painting set, and Harry Foster had settled in quickly with Franz. Katherine was confident that the two weeks would pass without incident.

  Chapter Fourteen

  THE GROUP COMMANDERS of the British Brigade were summoned ten days later to an early-evening meeting. Brian Waters’s stomach was trembling as he entered Patriot House. Was this a proper meeting, to discuss British Brigade business? Or was Alan Venables about to announce that they had a traitor in their midst, and throw Brian to the mercy of the men he was betraying?

  Brian’s worries were unfounded. Duplicity was far from Venables’s mind. The chairman of the British Patriotic League had ten padded envelopes, one for each group commander.