She answered immediately.
“Hello, this is your U.S. romance speaking to you from the Savoy
Hotel,” I said. “I received your note and think your suggestion an
excellent one. Where do we meet and when?”
“Come and pick me up at my place,” she said, gave me an address
in Hertford Street.
“I thought you said you lived with your father-the guy who stuffs
birds.”
“Oh, I’m nearly as big a kidder as you are,” she giggled, hung up.
I arrived at her flat a few minutes after seven. It was over an
antique furniture shop, and after climbing red-carpeted stairs
I came on a small landing which served as a kitchen.
Crystal popped her corn-coloured head out of a door close by,
blew me a kiss.
“Go in there,” she said, pointing a bare arm at another door. “I’ll
join you in two twos.”
“Too long to wait,” I said promptly. “I’m coming in here.”
She hurriedly closed the door, said through the panels that she
had on only her vest, and she didn’t receive gentlemen dressed like
that.
“Who told you I was a gentleman?” I demanded, pounding on the
door. “It’s those sort of mistakes that gets a girl into trouble.”
She had turned the key, but I could hear her giggling.
“Go into the sitting-room and behave,” she commanded.
“Okay,” I said, went into the room, flopped down on the big
settee. I thought the room was nice. It was comfortable, bright, full of
flowers. The kind of room a man and a maid could get awfully matey
in.
By my elbow was a table on which stood a bottle of whisky, a
bottle of gin, a bottle of dry Vermouth, a soda syphon and a cocktail
shaker.
I mixed two martinis, lit a cigarette, waited patiently.
Crystal came in after a while, wearing a scarlet house-coat, white
mules and an expectant expression on her face.
“Here I am,” she said, sitting beside me. She patted my hand,
smiled.
I thought she looked a cute trick, gave her a martini, raised my
own.
“May the bends in your figure never straighten,” I said, drank half
the martini, found it good. “So that stuff about your father was just a
gag?”
“Not really. I have a father and he does stuff things, but I’ve given
up living with him. I just couldn’t stand it, and he couldn’t stand me. I
always tell my boy friends I live with him; it saves a lot of trouble
when they want to see me home.”
“How come I’m invited to your nest?” I asked, smiling. She
fluttered her eyelids at me. “Well, if you must know, I have designs on
you.”
“My mother says no nice girls have designs on men.”
“But who says I’m nice?” she returned, put down her glass,
twined her arms around my neck.
We became intimate for the next five minutes, then I levered off
her arm, pushed her away.
“Remember the
“I’ve got beyond the
ruinous fun.” She put her head on my shoulder, draped my arm
around her.
“In a little while,” I promised, “but don’t let’s rush it. I meant to
tell you: I saw Bradley this morning. For some reason or other he’s
taken a dislike to me. He won’t let me into the Club any more.”
She sat up, her eyes indignant. “Why?”
I pulled her down, pushed her head back on my shoulder. “He
thinks I’m too inquisitive,” I said. “I don’t care, so why should you?”
“I don’t know if I want to go to the club again, if he’s going to
treat you like that,” she said crossly. “Only I don’t know what else I
could do. You wouldn’t think of keeping me, would you? I’ve always
wanted to be a kept woman.”
“I don’t believe in keeping women. I think they should keep me.”
“Oh, you’re kidding again,” she said, thumped my knee. “But
seriously, wouldn’t you like to keep me? “
“I’d hate it,” I said gravely. “It’s as much as I can do to keep
myself.”
She sighed. “Well, all right. I never seem to have any luck. I don’t
think I’ll go to the club to-night. I have a chicken in the refrigerator.
Let’s have that and spend the evening together.”
“That sounds swell.”
She got up. “You sit there and look decorative. I’ll fix supper.”
That suited me. I was good at looking decorative. I filled my glass,
lit a cigarette, relaxed. It was nice to watch her moving about the
room. I decided suddenly that it mightn’t be a bad idea to keep her at
that.
“Tell me, sugar,” I said, “have you been keeping your eyes and
ears open at the club?”
“Oh, yes. The trouble is I don’t know what to listen for. I’ll tell you
something though.” She paused in laying the table, turned to look at
me. “I was at the club this afternoon and an odd sort of man came in
asking for Bradley. He reminded me a little of the man I saw with
Netta — the one I was telling you about with the Bentley.”
“Go on,” I said, interested.
“I don’t know if it was the same man, but he was the same build,
and there was something familiar about him that rang a bell. He was
big and fat and fair. I thought he looked a bit of a pansy.”
“Had he a habit of wagging his head? Did you notice that? And
was his hair cut very short?”
She nodded. “Do you know him?”
“It sounds like my old pal Julius Cole,” I said. “What happened?”
“Well, Bradley came out of his office, glared at him, said, ‘What
the hell do you want?’ This man said, ‘I’ve got to see you, Jack, it’s
important’. Bradley looked sort of put out, then he took Cole into his
