Money in the Bank (28 page)

"One of these days," she said, "I'm going to bean you, Chimp Twist, and bean you good!"

"Now, honey," pleaded the pacific Mr. Molloy.

"Well, what does he want to sit there making cracks like that for, when he ought to be thanking me on his bended knees?"

The reproach had little effect on Mr. Twist. The blush of shame did not mantle his cheek.

"I don't believe the old guy told you a darned thing about where the stuff was."

All the woman in Dolly flashed from her eyes.

"He did, too, tell me where the stuff was. At least---"

Chimp Twist uttered a short laugh, and repeated the last two words in a dry, unpleasant voice. And even Soapy's confidence seemed shaken.

"How do you mean, 'at least,' honey?" he asked anxiously.

"Well, natch'lly he wouldn't come straight out with it. He'd be too cagey for that. Here's what happens. I go in, see, and he's sitting there, chinning with the straw-haired guy. The straw-haired guy fades out soon as he seen me, on account of course he's sore at me for trying to crown him this afternoon with a antique vase, and Lord Cakebread sets 'em up and we both has a glass of port. And pretty soon I seen where he's grinning all over his pan, so I say 'Hello,' I say, 'you're looking mighty peart. Somebody been leaving you money?' And he says, 'It amounts to that, dear lady, it amounts to that.' And then he says he had some little savings, the fruit of years of being a butler, and he stowed them away somewheres and forgot where, and now he remembers they're in Mrs. Cork's study. And he's going to get them d'rectly alter dinner, he says, soon as this lecture on the Ugubus gets started. Well, I don't know how you feel, but that was good enough for me."

The anxious expression faded from Soapy's face.

"He must have meant the ice."

"Sure, he meant the ice. What else could he have meant?"

Mr. Twist, the heckler, had another question to ask. "Whereabouts in the study?"

Dolly made no attempt to disguise her exasperation.

"Say, listen," she cried, "if you're wanting to know did he give me full written instructions and a map marked with a cross and a team of bloodhounds and a valise to fetch the stuff away in, he didn't. But if it's in the study, and he's going there soon as this lecture starts, there's nothing to it. It's in the bag. All we have to do is you lurk around in the garden, Soapy, outside the window till you see him come in, and when he's gone to the place where the stuff's hid and dug it out, you sim'ly step forward and stick him up."

No instructions from a commander-in-chief could have been simpler or more clearly set forth. It was not lack of comprehension that  caused  Mr.  Molloy's fine forehead to wrinkle. "Me?"

"Sure, you. I and Chimp'll be busy somewheres else."

Mr. Molloy continued to brood doubtfully. In his distaste for the more spirited forms of action, he resembled Lionel Green.

"Stick him up?"

"Yay."

"What
with?"

Dolly crossed the room, and took from the drawer of the dressing-table a serviceable-looking pistol.

"Here you are. Here's the old equalizer."

In her husband's gaze, as it lingered on the lethal object, there was both horror and astonishment. He looked at it not only as if it had been a poisonous snake but a poisonous snake which he had not expected to be called upon to meet.

"I didn't know you had a gun, pettie."

"Sure, honeybunch. I always carry it around. You never know when it mayn't come in useful. Put it in your pocket."

Mr. Molloy did so, but with that same brooding expression on his face. He admitted frankly that he did not like guns, and Dolly, ever practical, said that there was no necessity for any such affection on his part.

"All you got to do," she explained, "is push it in the old bimbo's stomach. That's not difficult."

Soapy was obliged to concede that the operation she had outlined was in essence a simple one. Lord Uffenham's stomach was a target which one could scarcely miss. Nevertheless, his objections were not yet satisfied.

"But what do I say?"

"You say 'Stick 'em up!"

"But I can't."

"Why not?"

"It sounds so silly."

"Then just point it at him. He'll understand.”

"Well, all right, sugar.' said Soapy, still plainly unhappy.”Okay, if that's the way you see it. But I'd a lot rather you'd ask me to sell him oil stock. What's Chimp doing all this while?"

"Chimp's holding up the gang in the drawing-room, so's they don't come busting out and muscling in on you."

It seemed that there was better, braver stuff in Mr. Twist than in Mr. Molloy. He advanced no far-fetched objections to this scheme, but was on his feet in an instant with outstretched hand.

"Swell," he said. "Gimme a gun."

"That's the only one I got," said Dolly. "What do you think I'm doing—running a shooting gallery?"

"Then what do I use?"

"You don't use nothing. Just stick your finger in your coat pocket, so's they'll think you've gotten a Roscoe there. What you looking like that for?"

Chimp Twist was looking like that because the plan, as outlined, seemed to him fundamentally unsound.

"That's the idea, is it?"

"What's wrong with it?"

"It's cuckoo."

"It isn't, too, cuckoo. A bunch of prunes like that isn't going to try and rush you."

"And how about the Cork dame?"

"Are you scared of a woman?"

"You betcher I'm scared of that woman," said Chimp, with decision. What little he had seen of Mrs. Cork had impressed him enormously. "And lemme tell ya sump'n. If I've got to stick up an eat-'em-alive baby like her with nothing but a finger in my pocket, I want an extra cut. Yes, ma'am," he proceeded firmly, ignoring Dolly's stricken cry and her husband's gasp of pain, "you can forget that fifty-fifty stuff. Either I have a rod, or it's seventy-five-twenty-five."

A lesser woman than Dolly Molloy might well have been nonplussed. But this sudden crisis, threatening a deadlock at the eleventh hour, found her equal to it. A few moments of thoughtful silence, punctuated by little moans from Mr. Molloy, and she had found the solution.

"Well, listen," she said, holding up a hand to check her husband, who was asking Mr. Twist if this was nice. "Here's what, then. I'll lock her in the cellar before you start your act. I guess that'll satisfy you?"

"How you going to do that?"

"I can swipe the key. It's hanging on a nail in Lord Cakebread's pantry."

"But how you going to get her to the cellar?"

"Tell her Lord Cakebread's inside, raising Cain. That'll make her come running."

Dolly turned to her husband, silently seeking his applause, and he gave it without stint. Even Chimp Twist was forced to admit that the scheme was pretty much of a ball of fire. At the prospect of not having to cope with his formidable hostess, he had brightened noticeably.

"All straight now? You've got the set-up? Soapy sticks up Lord Cakebread. You stick up the prunes. I ease the Corko into the cellar and lock her in, and then I go to the garage and get a car out and have it waiting on the drive, all ready for the getaway. Anybody anything to say?"

Both men had. Mr. Molloy said:

"Pettie, they ought to make you a General in the United States Army."

Chimp Twist said:

"Juss a minute, juss a minute, juss a minute!"

The other members of the Syndicate looked at him apprehensively. His tone had had that flat note which they had observed in it on a previous occasion when he had made use of the same expression, and it seemed plain that he was about to go on to say something which would mar the harmony and interfere with the pull-together spirit.

"Eh?" said Mr. Molloy.

"Now what?" said Dolly.

Chimp made himself clear,

"What happens then?"' he asked. "Here's the scenario, as I see it. Soapy’ll have the ice. You'll be outside with the car. I'll be in the drawing-room with the prunes. How do I contact you? I wouldn't want you," said Chimp, that flat note still in his voice, "to drive away with the stuff, and then look at each other after you'd gone fifty miles and say 'Why, hello! Where's Chimp? I clean forgot about him!'"

Dolly sighed

"We won't, forget about you."

"Oh, no?"

"I'll fire off the gun, when we're set to start. Then you take it on the lam and join us. Oke?"

"Oke," said Chimp, though a little dubiously. "You won't let it slip your mind?"

"You can trust the madam," said Mr. Molloy coldly.

"Oh, yeah?" said Chimp, and on these always unpleasant words took his departure.

As the door closed, Dolly drew a deep breath.

"If I don't bean that little cheese mite before I'm much older," she said, "something'll crack. My constitution won't stand it,"

CHAPTER
XXVI

These bi-weekly lectures of Mrs. Cork's, the eleventh of which she was to deliver this evening, were among the most delightful features of life at Shipley Hail. Their range was wide. One night you might find yourself assisting from a distance at a native wedding; three days later enthralled by a Walter Winchell peep at the home life of the rhinoceros. And their appeal was not only to the ear, but also, for they were accompanied by the exhibition of home-made cinematograph films, to the eye.

It was with the gratifying feeling, accordingly, that she was about to give pleasure that she always approached her task, and it never failed to wound and exasperate her when she discovered that members of her flock, who did not know what was good for them, had sneaked off while her eye was elsewhere.

This very seldom happened, for the strength of personality which enabled her to get rid of copies of A Woman In The Wilds served also to intimidate would-be backsliders, but it was not absolutely unknown, and to-night provided the worst case on record. Counting heads before settling down to business, she was shocked to note that no fewer than three of her audience were missing. Mr. Molloy was not there. Nor was Mrs. Molloy. And the keenest scrutiny failed to reveal J. G. Miller. It topped the black evening when Mr. Wix and Mr. Henderson, absent from parade without leave, had been found in the latter's bedroom, drinking whisky and discussing the future of dog-racing.

Mrs. Cork was not the woman to remain supine under this sort of thing.

"Miss Benedick?"

"Yes, Mrs. Cork?"

"I do not see Mr. and Mrs. Molloy, nor Mr. Miller. They may be out in the garden. Go and find them and tell them that we are waiting to begin."

Anne hurried out, and Mr. Trumper, hovering at the lecturer's side, clicked his tongue.

"Most annoying, Clarissa."

"Most."

"People should be here at the proper time."

"Yes."

"I always am."

A tender look crept into Mrs. Cork's eyes. Her frown vanished. For the hundredth time, she was thinking that Eustace was wonderful. Standing by, switching or. the lights, switching off the lights, leading the applause, keeping her glass of water filled, picking up her wand if she dropped it ... whatever the demand made upon him, Eustace Trurnper was equal to it.

"You are exceptional," she said. "I often feel that I don't know how I could get along without you."

Something seemed to go off like a spring in Eustace Trurnper. It was as if a voice had whispered to him that now was the time to put his fate to the test, to
win or lose it all.
They were standing outside the drawing-room, well removed from earshot of the docile disciples settling themselves in their seats, so that conditions could not have been better. And, as he quite rightly felt, if you have worshipped a woman for twelve years, you cannot be condemned as precipitate if at the end »f that period you mention it.

Left to himself, his instinct would have been to edge into his theme with a cough or two and perhaps half a dozen assorted squeaks and bleats, but he saw that these bronchial preliminaries were out of the question new. Footsteps could be heard approaching along the corridor, and at any moment the owner of these feet would be coming into view.

"Clarissa," he said, "I love you. Will you be my wife?"

The words were crisp and to the point. He could hardly have made them crisper and still kept his meaning clear. But, even so, he had cut it too fine. Before Mrs. Cork could reply, Dolly Molloy appeared. It was she whose footsteps had obliged Mr. Trurnper to speed up his declaration, and he eyed her, as she drew up beside them, with no little annoyance.

"Golly!" said Dolly.

She spoke breathlessly. It was evident that the even tenor of her life had been interrupted by some untoward happening. Mr. Trumper's annoyance gave way to curiosity.

"Is something the matter, Mrs. Molloy?" he asked. To Mrs. Cork, this agitation seemed only natural. She took it for the decent remorse of a woman who has suddenly realised that she is late for a lecture and has been keeping everybody waiting.

"It is quite all right, Mrs. Molloy," she said graciously. "I have not started."

"Then that's where you're different from me," said Dolly. "I started plenty. Gee! I jumped six feet."

Mrs. Cork froze a little.

"I beg your pardon?"

"When that bottle came whizzing past my bean."

"Bottle?"

Dolly laughed—hysterically, it seemed to Mr. Trumper.

"I'm starting the story at the wrong end," she said. "Here's how it was. I'm on my way here, see, and I'm going through the hall, when one of the help comes up and tells me Cakebread's acting sort of peculiar, and they don't like to disturb you, so would I step along and see could I do anything about it."

Mrs. Cork's eyes hardened.

"Cakebread?"

She spoke grimly. Her views on her eccentric employee had come of late to resemble those entertained by King Henry the Second towards Thomas a Becket. The words "Will no one rid me of this turbulent butler?" seemed to be trembling on her lips.

"Cakebread?  What has he been doing now?"

"Getting pie-eyed."

"Pie-eyed?"

"Sozzled."