Chapter 2

A pretty, dark-haired maid opened the door of “Pook’s Hill” with a twitch of the hip that was wasted on Bedford Hills.

“Oh, it’s you!” She remarked conversationally. “Shall I tell Mrs. Tompkins you are here?”

“And why not?” I asked.

She looked at me slant-eyed. “Why not, sir? She must have forgotten to eat an apple this morning. That’s why.”

“Where shall I dump my hat and coat, Mary?” I asked guessing wildly at her name. Suburban maids were named Mary as often as not.

“The name is Myrtle, Mr. Tompkins,” she replied, and did not bother to add the “as well you know” she implied.

“From now on, Myrtle, you shall be Mary so far as I am concerned. And where, Mary, shall I leave my hat and coat?”

“In the den, sir, of course. Come, I’ll lend a hand. You’ve been drinking again.”

The girl moved quite close to me, in helping me off with my things and it was only by a distinct effort of will that I refrained from giving that provocative hip the tweak it so openly invited.

“This way, Mr. Tompkins,” she said sarcastically, so I rewarded her with a half-hearted smack which brought the requisite “Oh!”--you never can tell when you will need a friend below stairs and it was obvious that Winnie, the dog! had been trifling with her young buttocks if not her affections. That sort of thing must stop, if I was going to get anywhere in my run through the maze. Too abrupt a change in the manners and morals of Winfred Tompkins, however, might arouse suspicion.

“Any news today, Mary?” I asked.

“Nothing, sir. The kennels telephoned to say that Ponto had made a miraculous recovery and could come home tomorrow. I had them send word to the Club to tell you. And Mrs. Tompkins, as I said, forgot to eat her apple.”

I looked at her. This was a cue. I mustn’t miss it.

“And the doctor didn’t keep away?” I asked.

“Him? I should say not! Mrs. Tompkins felt quite unsettled right after lunch and phoned Dr. Rutherford to come over. He’s with her now, upstairs, giving her an examination.” She rolled her eyes significantly in the direction of the second story.

“Wait a few minutes till I catch my breath and get my bearings, Mary,” I said, “and then tell Mrs. Tompkins most discreetly, if you know what I mean, that I have returned and am waiting in my--” I waved vaguely at the room.

“In your den, sir,” she agreed. “The name is Myrtle.”

The den was one of those things I have never attained, perhaps because I never wanted to. There was a field-stone fireplace, over which the antlered head of a small stag presided with four upturned feet--like a calf in a butcher shop--that held two well dusted shotguns. The walls were lined with books up to a dado--books in sets, with red morocco and gilt bindings: Dickens, Thackeray, Surtees, Robert Louis Stevenson, Dumas, Balzac and similar standard authors--all highly respectable and mostly unread. On the table, beside a humidor and cigarette cases, was a formidable array of unused pipes. Above the shelves, the walls were adorned with etchings of ducks: ducks sitting, ducks swimming, ducks nesting, ducks flying and ducks hanging dead. It was as though Winnie’s conscience or attorney had advised him: “You can’t go wrong on ducks, old boy!” Instead, he had gone wild.

In one corner of the den my unregenerate Navy eye discerned a small portable bar, with gleaming glasses, decanters and syphons. Further investigation was rewarded by the makings of a very fair Scotch-and-soda. To my annoyance, the cigarette box contained only de luxe Benson & Hedges--it would!--while I am a sucker for Tareytons. Still, any cigarette is better than no cigarette. A little mooching around the fireplace revealed the switch which turned on an electric fire, ingeniously contrived to represent an expensive Manhattan architect’s idea of smouldering peat. The whole effect was very cosy in the “Town and Country” sense--a gentleman’s gun-room--and I had settled down most comfortably on the broad leather divan in front of this synthetic blaze when I was interrupted by an angry, tenor voice.

“I say, Tompkins,” soared the voice. “I thought we had agreed to be civilized about this thing.”

I raised my head to see a lean, dark-haired, dapper little man, with a dinky little British Raj mustache and a faint odor of antiseptics, glaring at me from the doorway.

“Dr. Rutherford, I presume!” I remarked.

“Yes, Winnie,” came a pleasant but irritated womanly voice from somewhere behind the doctor, “and I too would like to know what this means.”

“Is that you, Jimmie?” I guessed.

“Of course it’s me! Who else did you expect? One of those flashy blondes from your office?”

“Sh!” shushed the doctor reprovingly. “What about Virginia? What have you done with her?”

This required serious thought. The glass of Scotch was a good alibi for amnesia. “To whom do you refer?” I asked, putting a slight thickness into my voice.

“To Virginia, my wife!” he snapped. “We agreed--it was understood between the four of us--”

I shook my head virtuously. “I haven’t set eyes on her all day,” I said. “I don’t know where she is and I refuse to be held responsible for her in any particular. She’s your look-out, not mine.”

“Why, you!--” The doctor started forward, menacing me with his surgical little fists.

“Wait a minute, Jerry,” the contralto voice ordered. “Let me handle this!”

Germaine Tompkins stepped forward into the room and stood in the flickering light of the electric peat. “Tell me, Winnie,” she asked, “has anything gone wrong?”

My wife was a tall, slim girl, with dark eyes, dark hair parted sleekly in the 1860 style, and a cool, slender neck. She was wearing something low-cut in black velvet, with a white cameo brooch at the “V” of a bodice which suggested a potentially undemure Quakeress. I noticed that she had angry eyes, a sulky mouth and a puzzled expression.

“I’m sorry, Jimmie,” I replied, after a good look at her, “but I have decided that I simply couldn’t go through with it.”

“Do you mean to say--” Dr. Rutherford began, only to be hushed by Germaine. “Let me handle him, Jerry,” she whispered. “You’d better go. He’s tight. I’ll phone you in the morning.”