“No,” said Tommy, “I said the Crackler first and I stick to it.”
“I shall enjoy this case,” said Tuppence. “Lots of Night Clubs and cocktails in it. I shall buy some eyelash black tomorrow.”
“Your eyelashes are black already,” objected her husband.
“I could make them blacker,” said Tuppence, “and cherry lipstick would be useful too. That ultra bright kind.”
“Tuppence,” said Tommy, “you’re a real rake at heart. What a good thing it is that you are married to a sober steady middle-aged man like myself.”
“You wait,” said Tuppence. “When you have been to the Python Club a bit you mayn’t be so sober yourself.”
Tommy produced from a cupboard various bottles, two glasses, and a cocktail shaker.
“Let’s start now,” he said. “We are after you, Crackler, and we mean to get you.”
II
Making the acquaintance of the Laidlaws proved an easy affair. Tommy and Tuppence, young, well dressed, eager for life and with apparently money to burn, were soon made free of that particular coterie in which the Laidlaws had their being.
Major Laidlaw was a tall fair man, typically English in appearance, with a hearty sportsmanlike manner, slightly belied by the hard lines round his eyes and the occasional quick sideways glance that assorted oddly with his supposed character.
He was a very dexterous card player, and Tommy noticed that when the stakes were high he seldom rose from the table a loser.
Marguerite Laidlaw was quite a different proposition. She was a charming creature, with the slenderness of a wood nymph and the face of a Greuze picture. Her dainty broken English was fascinating, and Tommy felt that it was no wonder most men were her slaves. She seemed to take a great fancy to Tommy from the first, and playing his part, he allowed himself to be swept into her train.
“My Tommee,” she would say. “But positively I cannot go without my Tommee. His ’air, eet ees the color of the sunset, ees eet not?”
Her father was a more sinister figure. Very correct, very upright, with his little black beard and his watchful eyes.
Tuppence was the first to report progress. She came to Tommy with ten one pound notes.
“Have a look at these. They’re wrong ’uns, aren’t they?”
Tommy examined them and confirmed Tuppence’s diagnosis.
“Where did you get them from?”
“That boy, Jimmy Faulkener. Marguerite Laidlaw gave them to him to put on a horse for her. I said I wanted small notes, and gave him a tenner in exchange.”
“All new and crisp,” said Tommy thoughtfully. “They can’t have passed through many hands. I suppose young Faulkener is all right?”
“Jimmy? Oh! he’s a dear. He and I are becoming great friends.”
“So I have noticed,” said Tommy coldly. “Do you really think it is necessary?”
“Oh! it isn’t business,” said Tuppence cheerily. “It’s pleasure. He’s such a nice boy. I’m glad to get him out of that woman’s clutches. You’ve no idea of the amount of money she’s cost him.”
“It looks to me as though he were getting rather a pash for you, Tuppence.”
“I’ve thought the same myself sometimes. It’s nice to know one’s still young and attractive, isn’t it?”
“Your moral tone, Tuppence, is deplorably low. You look at these things from the wrong point of view.”
“I haven’t enjoyed myself so much for years,” declared Tuppence shamelessly. “And anyway, what about you? Do I ever see you nowadays? Aren’t you always living in Marguerite Laidlaw’s pocket?”
“Business,” said Tommy crisply.
“But she is attractive, isn’t she?”
“Not my type,” said Tommy. “I don’t admire her.”
“Liar,” laughed Tuppence. “But I always did think I’d rather marry a liar than a fool.”
“I suppose,” said Tommy, “that there’s no absolute necessity for a husband to be either?”
But Tuppence merely threw him a pitying glance and withdrew.
Amongst Mrs. Laidlaw’s train of admirers was a simple but extremely wealthy gentleman of the name of Hank Ryder.
Mr. Ryder came from Alabama, and from the first he was disposed to make a friend and confidant of Tommy.
“That’s a wonderful woman, sir,” said Mr. Ryder, following the lovely Marguerite with reverential eyes. “Plumb full of civilisation. Can’t beat la gaie France, can you? When I’m near her, I feel as though I was one of the Almighty’s earliest experiments. I guess He’d got to get His hand in before He attempted anything so lovely as that perfectly lovely woman.”
Tommy agreeing politely with these sentiments, Mr. Ryder unburdened himself still further.
“Seems kind of a shame a lovely creature like that should have money worries.”
“Has she?” asked Tommy.
“You betcha life she has. Queer fish, Laidlaw. She’s skeered of him. Told me so. Daren’t tell him about her little bills.”
“Are they little bills?” asked Tommy.
“Well—when I say little! After all, a woman’s got to wear clothes, and the less there are of them the more they cost, the way I figure it out. And a pretty woman like that doesn’t want to go about in last season’s goods. Cards too, the poor little thing’s been mighty unlucky at cards. Why, she lost fifty to me last night.”
“She won two hundred from Jimmy Faulkener the night before,” said Tommy drily.
“Did she indeed? That relieves my mind some. By the way, there seems to be a lot of dud notes floating around in your country just now. I paid in a bunch at my bank this morning, and twenty-five of them were down and outers, so the polite gentleman behind the counter informed me.”
“That’s rather a large proportion. Were they new looking?”
“New and crisp as they make ’em. Why, they were the ones Mrs. Laidlaw paid over to me, I reckon. Wonder where she got ’em from. One of these toughs on the race course as likely as not.”
“Yes,” said Tommy. “Very likely.”
“You know, Mr. Beresford, I’m new to this sort of high life. All these swell dames, and the rest of the outfit. Only made my pile a short while back. Came right over to Yurrop to see life.”
Tommy
