A Few Quick Ones (12 page)

"Good heavens!"

"I don't wonder you're shocked. We don't want that sort of thing going on in Magnolia Road."

"I should say not. Disgraceful.'

"But how curious that you should have heard nothing."

"I sleep very soundly."

"You must, because Mrs. Simmons says there was a great deal of whistling and shouting going on. I expect Mr. Quintin was furious. People were running about his garden half the night, and you know how fussy he is. He complained about Algy crying, and your ukelele and everything. He's always complaining. Are you off to the office ?"

"Just leaving."

"Won't you be very late? I hope Mr. Purkiss won't be annoyed."

"Oh, that's all right. I have a thorough understanding with Purkiss, who knows a good man when he sees one. Be sure always to get a good night's rest,' he has often said to me."

"You don't look as if you had had a good night's rest. You're a sort of funny yellow colour."

"Intellectual pallor," said Bingo, and withdrew.

Arrived at the office, he listlessly tried to bring his mind to bear on the letters which had come in for the Correspondence page ('Uncle Percy's Post-Bag'), but he found it difficult to concentrate. The standard of pure reason reached by the little subscribers who wrote to the editor of
Wee Tots
about their domestic pets was never a high one, but today it seemed to him that either he or they must have got water on the brain. There was one communication about a tortoise called Rupert which, in his opinion, would have served as a passport for its young author to any padded cell in the kingdom.

The only thing that enabled him to win through to closing time was the fact that Purkiss was absent. He had telephoned to say that he was nursing a sick headache. Purkiss at this juncture would have been more than he could have coped with.

It was with a feeling of relief that he started homeward at the end of the long day, and he had just unlatched the front door with his latchkey and was standing his hat on the hatstand, when Mrs. Bingo spoke from the drawing-room.

"Will you come here a moment, please, Bingo."

His heart, already low, sank lower. He had a sensitive ear, and he did not like the timbre of her voice. Usually Mrs. Bingo's voice seemed to him like the tinkling of silver bells across a scented meadow at sunset, but now it was on the flat side, and he fancied that he detected in it that metallic note which married men dislike so much.

She was standing in mid-carpet, looking cold and stern. She had a paper of some kind in her hand.

"Bingo," she said, "where were you last night?"

Bingo passed a finger round the inside of his collar. His brow was wet with honest sweat. But he told himself that he must be calm…cool…nonchalant.

"Last night?" he said, frowning thoughtfully. "Let me see, that would be the night of June the fifteenth, would it not? H'm. Ha. The night of…"

"I see you have forgotten," said Mrs. Bingo. "Let me refresh your memory. You were fleeing from the police because they had caught you gambling at Number Forty-Three."

"Who me? You're sure you mean me?"

"Read this," said Mrs. Bingo, and thrust at him the document she was holding. It was a letter, and ran as follows: -

Picasso Lodge 41
Magnolia Road  St. John's Wood London, N.8

Madam:

While sympathizing with your husband's desire to avoid being arrested by the police for gambling on enclosed premises, I would be glad if you would ask him next time not to take refuge in my water barrel, as he and some unidentified female did last night.

I remain,

Yours faithfully,

Dante Gabriel Quintin.

"Well?" said Mrs. Bingo.

Bingo's spine had turned to gelatine. It seemed useless to struggle further. His gallant spirit was broken. And he was about to throw in the towel and confess all, when there was a sound outside like a mighty rushing wind and Algernon Aubrey's nanny came tottering in. Her eyes were wide and glassy, she breathed stertorously, and it was obvious that she was in the grip of some powerful emotion.

"Oh, ma'am!" she cried. "The baby!"

All the Mother in Mrs. Bingo awoke. She forgot Bingo and police and water barrels and everything else. She gasped. Bingo gasped. The nanny was already gasping. A stranger, entering the room, would have supposed himself to have strayed into a convention of asthma patients.

"Is he ill?"

"No, ma'am, but he just said 'Cat'."

"Cat?"

"Yes, ma'am, as plain as I'm standing here now. I was showing him his little picture book, and we'd come to the rhinoceros, and he pointed his finger at it and looked up at me and said 'Cat'."

A footnote is required here for the benefit of those who are not family men. 'Cat', they are probably feeling, is not such a tremendously brilliant and epigrammatic thing to say. But what made Algernon Aubrey's utterance of the word so sensational was that it was his first shot at saying anything. Up till now he had been one of those strong silent babies, content merely to dribble at the side of the mouth and emit an occasional gurgle. It can readily be understood, therefore, that the effect of this piece of hot news on Mrs. Bingo was about the same as
that of the arrival of Talkies on the magnates of Hollywood. She left the room as if shot out of a gun. The nanny hurried after her. And Bingo was alone.

His first emotion, of course, was one of stunned awe at having been saved from the scaffold at the eleventh hour, but he soon saw that he had been accorded but a brief respite and that on Mrs. Bingo's
return he would have to have some good, watertight story in readiness for her: and, try as he might, he could think of nothing that would satisfy her rather exacting taste. He toyed with the idea of saying that he had been in conference with Purkiss last night, discussing matters of office policy, but was forced to dismiss it.

For one thing, Purkiss would never abet his innocent deception. All that Bingo had seen of the man told him that the proprietor of
Wee Tots
was one of those rigidly upright blisters who, though possibly the backbone of England, are no earthly use to a chap in an emergency. Purkiss was the sort of fellow who, if approached on the matter of bumping up a
pal’s
alibi, would stare fishily and say "Am I to understand, Mr. Little, that you are suggesting that I sponsor a lie?"

Besides, Purkiss was at his home nursing a sick headache, which meant that negotiations would have to be conducted over the telephone, and you cannot swing a thing like that by remote control. You want the pleading eye and the little pats on the arm.

No, that was no good, and there appeared nothing to be done except groan hollowly, and he was doing this when the door opened and the maid announced "Mr. and Mrs. Purkiss".

As they entered. Bingo, who was pacing the room with unseeing eyes, knocked over a table with a vase, three photograph frames and a bowl of potpourri on it. It crashed to the floor with a noise like a bursting shell, and Purkiss soared silently to the ceiling. As he returned to position one, Bingo saw that his face was Nile green in colour and that there were dark circles beneath his eyes.

"Ah, Mr. Little," said Purkiss.

"Oh, hullo," said Bingo.

Mrs. Purkiss did not speak. She seemed to be brooding on something.

Purkiss proceeded. He winced as he spoke, as if articulation hurt him.

"We are not disturbing you, I hope, Mr. Little?"

"Not at all," said Bingo courteously. "But I thought you were at home with a sick headache."

"I was at home with a sick headache," said Purkiss, "the result, I think, of sitting in a draught and contracting some form of tic or migraine. But my wife was anxious that you should confirm my statement that I was in your company last night. You have not forgotten that we sat up till a late hour at my club? No doubt you will recall that we were both surprised when we looked at our watches and found how the time had gone?"

There came to Bingo, listening to these words, the illusion that a hidden orchestra had begun to play soft music, while somewhere in the room he seemed to smell the scent of violets and mignonette. His eye, which had been duller than that of Purkiss, suddenly began to sparkle, and what he had supposed to be a piece of spaghetti in the neighbourhood of his back revealed itself as a spine, and a good spine, too.

"Yes," he said, drawing a deep breath, "that's right. We were at your club."

"How the time flew!"

"Didn't it! But then, of course, we were carried away by the topics we were discussing."

"Quite. We were deep in a discussion of office policy."

"Absorbing subject."

"Intensely gripping."

"You said so-and-so, and I said such-and-such."

"Precisely."

"One of the points that came up," said Bingo, "was, if you recollect, the question of payment for that story of mine."

"Was it?" said Purkiss doubtfully.

"Surely you haven't forgotten that?" said Bingo. "You told me you had been thinking it over and were now prepared to pay me ten quid for it. Or," he went on, his gaze fixed on the other with a peculiar intensity, "am I wrong?"

"No, no. It all comes back to me."

"I may as well take it now," said Bingo. "Save a lot of book-keeping."

Purkiss groaned, perhaps not quite so hollowly as Bingo had been doing before his entrance, but distinctly hollowly.

"Very well," he said, and as the money changed hands, Mrs. Bingo came in. "Oh, how do you do, Mr. Purkiss," she said. "Julia," she cried, turning to Mrs. Purkiss, "you'll never believe! Algy has just said 'Cat’.

It was plain that Mrs. Purkiss was deeply moved.

"Cat?"

"Yes, isn't it wonderful! Come on up to the nursery, quick. We may be able to get him to say it again."

Bingo spoke. He made a strangely dignified figure as he stood there looking rather like King Arthur about to reproach Guinevere.

"I wonder, Rosie, if I might have a moment of your valuable time?"

"Well?"

"I shall not detain you long. I merely wish to say what I was about to say just now when you dashed off like a jack rabbit of the western prairies. If you ask Mr. Purkiss, he will tell you that, so far from eluding the constabulary by hiding in water barrels, I was closeted with him at his club till an advanced hour. We were discussing certain problems of interest which had arisen in connection with the conduct of
Wee Tots.
For Mr. Purkiss and I are not clock-watchers. We put in overtime. We work while others sleep!"

There was a long silence. Mrs. Bingo seemed to sag at the knees, as if some unseen hand had goosed her. Tears welled up in her eyes. Remorse was written on every feature.

"Oh, Bingo!"

"I thought I would just mention it."

"Oh, sweetie-pie, what can I say? I'm sorry."

"Quite all right, quite all right. I am not angry. Merely a little hurt."

Mrs. Bingo flung herself into his arms.

"I'm going to sue Mr. Quintin for libel!"

"Oh, I wouldn't bother to do that. Just treat him with silent contempt. I doubt if you would get as much as a tenner out of a man like that. Oh, by the way, talking of tenners, here is the one I have been meaning to pay in to Algy's account. You had better take it. I keep forgetting these things. Overwork at the office, no doubt. But I must not detain you, Mrs. Purkiss. You will be wishing to go to the nursery."

Mrs. Bingo and Mrs. Purkiss passed from the room. Bingo turned to Purkiss, and his eye was stern.

"Purkiss," he said, "where
were
you on the night of June the fifteenth?"

"I was with you," said Purkiss. "Where were you?"

"I was with you," said Bingo, "and a most entertaining companion you were, if you will allow me to say so. But come, let us go and listen to Algernon Aubrey on the subject of Cats. They tell me he is well worth hearing."

6

Big Business

IN a corner of the bar parlour of the Angler's Rest a rather heated dispute had arisen between a Small Bass and a Light Lager. Their voices rose angrily.

"Old," said the Small Bass.

"Ol’," said the Light Later.

"Bet you a million pounds it's Old."

"Bet you a million trillion pounds it's Ol’'."

Mr. Mulliner looked up indulgently from his hot Scotch and lemon. On occasions like this he is usually called in to arbitrate.

"What is the argument, gentlemen?"

"It's about that song Old Man River," said the Small Bass.

"Ol’ Man River," insisted the Light Lager. "He says it's Old Man River, I say it's Ol' Man River. Who's right?"

"In my opinion," said Mr. Mulliner, "both of you. Mr. Oscar Hammerstein, who wrote that best of all lyrics, preferred Ol’, but I believe the two readings are considered equally correct. My nephew sometimes employed one, sometimes the other, according to the whim of the moment."

"Which nephew was that?"

"Reginald, the son of my late brother. He sang the song repeatedly, and at the time of that sudden change in his fortunes was billed to render it at the annual village concert at Lower-Smattering-on-the-Wissel in Worcestershire, where he maintained a modest establishment."

"His fortunes changed, did they?"

"Quite remarkably. He was rehearsing the number in an undertone over the breakfast eggs and bacon one morning, when he heard the postman's knock and went to the door.

"Oh, hullo, Bagshot," he said. "Shift that trunk."

"Sir?"

"Lift that bale."

"To what bale do you refer, sir?"

"Get a little drunk and you…Oh, sorry," said Reginald, "I was thinking of something else. Forget I spoke. Is that a letter for me?"

"Yes, sir. Registered."

Reginald signed for the letter and, turning it over, saw that the name and address on the back of the envelope were those of Watson, Watson, Watson, Watson and Watson of Lincoln's Inn Fields. He opened it, and found within a communication requesting him to call on the gang at his earliest convenience, when he would hear of something to his advantage.