'I've admitted it's foolish. But how many things, the closest things, are governed by reason? Answer me that'
'You were both in uniform,' Ruth persisted gently. 'It was in that scramble and hectic whirl just after D-Day. You don't know anything about her, except that she wore a Wren's uniform. You don't even know her name, except the first and she admitted that was a nickname.'
It was as though, in remonstrance, Ruth attempted to press and prod with every detail.
'A station buffet at Edinburgh!' she said. 'A station platform! A train tearing through the blackout, with you two,' her voice strengthened, 'kissing and swearing you loved each other. Martin! Lots and lots of people have had adventures like that'
Martin Drake's face was white. Ruth, with her consummate tact should have noticed this.
'It wasn't an adventure,' he said quietly.
'No. Of course not I didn't mean that Only — suppose you do find her, and she's married?'
'Curiously enough,' retorted the other, with a brief return to his mocking air, 'that possibility had occurred to me in the course of three years, one month, and five days.' He lifted his shoulders. 'What could I do? Murder the husband?'
'Well, but… suppose she's engaged. What would you do then?'
'Try to cut him out,' Drake answered instantly. 'Not that I could, probably. But—' he lifted a clenched fist, dropped it, and then cleared his throat—'use every trick, fair or unfair, to cut the swine out and get her back again. That needn't lead as far as murder, of course.'
There was a silence. Still Ruth did not look round. The doubt the indecision in her eyes, had grown stronger.
'Ruth!' her guest began apologetically.
'Yes?'
He went across to her, stood beside her at the piano, and put his hand on her bare shoulder. 'Thanks,' he added, 'for not asking the obvious question.'
'What obvious question?'
'How many Wrens,' he went on, — with a kind of fierce and shaky cheerfulness, 'how many Wrens, at a time like that, must have said, 'Oh, just call me Jenny.' Jenny! Jenny! I know it So do several of my friends, who think it's funny. But it's not funny. That's the trouble.'
Ruth reached up and disengaged his hand from her shoulder; rather quickly, he thought She did not admit or deny that she had thought of asking any such question. She looked straight ahead, unseeingly, at the music on the piano-rack.
'What did you think,' she asked, 'of our friend tonight?'
'Stannard?' Martin Drake's face clouded. 'Stannard's a damn good fellow. I'm sorry I called him pompous. Nerves. If he can really get permission to spend the night in the execution shed at that prison…'
'If you two go there,' Ruth interrupted quickly, 'I'm going too. Did you notice that Mr. Stannard seemed rather-embarrassed?'
Drake was startled.
'The Great Defender? Embarrassed? Why?'
'Oh, no reason,' said Ruth, with a lift of her head that-made the soft brown hair gleam. 'No reason! No reason at all!'
And again her fingers moved over the piano-keys.
Downstairs, under the moon, the sleek black car still waited before the door of number 16. Inside the car, his thick arms round the steering-wheel, John Stannard sat where he bad been sitting for some time. Once more he heard the strains of
This time Stannard trod on the starter. As the motor throbbed into life, he revved it to a hum which deepened into a roar. Then, very gently, he put the car in gear and drove off towards Kensington High Street.
Chapter 2
On the following morning, Friday July 11th, the blue-and-white flag was up at Willaby's in Bond Street to show that there would be an auction that day.
Martin Drake saw it as he turned out of Brook Street at a quarter to eleven. London in 1947, dazzling under its first really warm summer since the beginning of the war, winked with show-windows against dingy brick or stone. It heated the body and strengthened the spirits. Martin, freshly shaven and as well-dressed — as clothes- coupons permitted, felt his own spirits lift.
But that always happened on a sunny morning. It was the night he dreaded.
He hadn't, Martin reflected, been drunk at Ruth Callice's flat last night. Merely a trifle muzzy, and blackly depressed. He had an impression that some remark, some reference made by Stannard (he could not remember it now) ought to have had significance. But his mind was closed to so many things. He had almost become maudlin in the presence of Ruth Callice's obvious sympathy. He was so fond of Ruth that under any other circumstances… but there were no other circumstances.
Jenny!
The silent oration he addressed to himself ran something like this:
You are London's prize fool. You admit that At the age of thirty-four you have had, to put it very conservatively, some slight experience. Your conduct is not made more supportable by those people, two or three friends at the Savage Club, who know about it
'My dear old boy,' one of them had said, 'all you need is thus-and-so. With so many willing dames about…'
Or old Hook, with his touch of grey side-whisker and his twinkling eyeglass, who always quoted Leigh Hunt:
And this, though you had to smile, touched a raw spot It was, in so many ways, expressive of Jenny, Jenny, blonde and, slender, in the blue uniform and hat which at first glance made her seem unapproachable. Jenny's eagerness, her sincerity, almost her naivete.
Hell!
When such things happened to other people, Martin reflected, or even happened in stories, they had at least a trace of dignity. This hadn't
In the hush just before dawn on a summer morning, the express from Edinburgh stops at Rugby. Heavy boots clump and bumble along the wooden platform. Misshapen shadows, interweaving, loom up against the dim blue station lights and the faint glow from the services' tea-canteen. Captain Drake of the Gloucesters, and (rank and unit unknown) Jenny, hand in hand, stumble out to get a cup of vile tea. In the confusion and milling on that dark platform — every private's kit seems to swing and bang for a yard in each direction — you lose Jenny's hand.
That was all.
Eight minutes later, when the whistle blew and the doors slammed, Martin jumped into the train. He staggered along the corridors, over kit and luggage and bodies, calling Jenny's name. Two or three times he was answered, not seriously. There were cheers. The drugged dawn-wind blew drowsily. When they reached King's Cross, be swore to himself, it would be all right But, when that mob charged through the barriers, he couldn't find her either.
That was all too, except for the long waiting.
Ahead of him now, on this brilliant morning of July 11th, loomed the dun-coloured premises of Willaby's. Sedate and solid, hushed and holy, Willaby's yet wore an air of expectancy. How many treasures from the houses of the great and the near-great, of furniture and china and silver, of tapestries and pictures and armour: how many of these have passed under the hammer at Willaby's, perhaps, no man can compute. The porter — who recognized Mr.
