“You’re lucky I didn’t break your neck, Gwendoline Fell.”
As he repeated the name, he realised why it was familiar. She had
The realisation of her identity made him laugh.
“So you’ve realised who I am,” she said in a tart voice.
“Yes,” he said. “I can’t wait to read your column tomorrow. Is the
“I never ‘happen along’,” stated Gwendoline Fell, dryly.
“So you went with malice aforethought.”
“Will you tell me why?” asked Rollison.
At the back of his mind there was the thought that she might have been puzzled by Webberson’s disappearance, even that she might have some knowledge of the trouble at Smith Hall. She was just the columnist to sniff out any kind of scandal, and if there was one at Smith Hall she would make a righteous best of it, for she was a great champion of the young and the poor and the defenceless. “Yes, I’ll tell you why,” she said. “I think you’re a parasite.”
“You think I’m a what?” asked Rollison, and stared open-mouthed.
“You see, you can hardly believe your ears,” she said sardonically. “You’re so accustomed to your special kind of inherited divine right that when anyone tells you the truth about yourself, you don’t even recognise it. You are a
“Parasite,” interjected Rollison, recovering.
“That time I was going to say, an anachronism.”
“Oh. Out of date, you mean.”
“You know
“Er—” began Rollison.
“Have you?”
“Er—”
“You know perfectly well that you haven’t. You live off inherited money, you dabble in a few good deeds and make a few donations to good causes, you employ a fully able-bodied man who has pampered you all your life. You are a—”
“I cooked my own supper tonight,” stated Rollison, defensively.
“As I was about to say, you are an anachronism and a parasite in today’s world.”
“Until you told me, I didn’t realise it,” Rollison assured her. “Tell me, do you always interview your victims this way? And do you always gather your evidence from hearsay and unreliable sources and then add a few fancy touches and consider the subject damned?”
“In the two years since I left university,” said Gwendoline Fell, with great deliberatio, “I have done more work and helped society—people,
“Do you know,” said Rollison. “You’ve actually got one thing right. Don’t forget to include that in your column, will you?”
“You no doubt think that’s funny,” said Gwendoline, in an acid voice. “I don’t. Any man who seizes upon the murder of a friend to help him win more cheap popularity with people whom he has fooled for years is incapable of amusing me. I—what
“Proving how funny I can be,” said Rollison, con-trolling his sudden anger. He slid one arm at the back of Gwendoline’s waist, and bent her double over his knee: and then six times in slow, deliberate succession, he spanked her with the flat of his hand—hard enough, he knew, to sting but not hard enough to hurt. She was taken so much by surprise that not until the fifth spank did she begin to wriggle, and at the sixth he picked her up and placed her on her feet again.
“But that in your column, Gwendoline,” he said. “And if you ever sneak up on me again, I’ll repeat the dose!
“My God!” she breathed in a voice choked with rage, “I’ll make you pay for this. I’ll make you pay!”
She spun round and almost ran out of the foyer, and he stood staring after her, smiling, half-glad that he had acted so; but already half-sorry.
Then it came to his mind that for ten minutes or more she had made him forget all about Angela.
At least she hadn’t been able to follow him to Smith Hall.
CHAPTER 7
ROLLISON drove more slowly than usual back to town, keeping a very sharp lookout, giving every car which
