The Secret of Chimneys (Superintendent Battle 1)

“Oh, I say, sir, I’ve just remembered. Her line’s out of order. Mrs. Revel’s, I mean. I was trying to ring her up just now.”

George Lomax frowned.

“Annoying,” he said, “distinctly annoying.” He tapped the table undecidedly.

“If it’s anything important, sir, perhaps I might go round there now in a taxi. She is sure to be in at this time in the morning.”

George Lomax hesitated, pondering the matter. Bill waited expectantly, poised for instant flight, should the reply be favourable.

“Perhaps that would be the best plan,” said Lomax at last. “Very well, then, take a taxi there, and ask Mrs. Revel if she will be at home this afternoon at four o’clock as I am very anxious to see her about an important matter.”

“Right, sir.”

Bill seized his hat and departed.

Ten minutes later, a taxi deposited him at 487 Pont Street. He rang the bell and executed a loud rat-tat on the knocker. The door was opened by a grave functionary to whom Bill nodded with the ease of long acquaintance.

“Morning, Chilvers, Mrs. Revel in?”

“I believe, sir, that she is just going out.”

“Is that you, Bill?” called a voice over the banisters. “I thought I recognized that muscular knock. Come up and talk to me.”

Bill looked up at the face that was laughing down on him, and which was always inclined to reduce him—and not him alone—to a state of babbling incoherency. He took the stairs two at a time and clasped Virginia Revel’s outstretched hands tightly in his.

“Hullo, Virginia!”

“Hullo, Bill!”

Charm is a very peculiar thing; hundreds of young women, some of them more beautiful than Virginia Revel, might have said “Hullo, Bill,” with exactly the same intonation, and yet have produced no effect whatever. But those two simple words, uttered by Virginia, had the most intoxicating effect upon Bill.

Virginia Revel was just twenty-seven. She was tall and of an exquisite slimness—indeed, a poem might have been written to her slimness, it was so exquisitely proportioned. Her hair was of real bronze, with the greenish tint in its gold; she had a determined little chin, a lovely nose, slanting blue eyes that showed a gleam of deepest cornflower between the half-closed lids, and a delicious and quite indescribable mouth that tilted ever so slightly at one corner in what is known as “the signature of Venus.” It was a wonderfully expressive face, and there was a sort of radiant vitality about her that always challenged attention. It would have been quite impossible ever to ignore Virginia Revel.

She drew Bill into the small drawing room which was all pale mauve and green and yellow, like crocuses surprised in a meadow.

“Bill, darling,” said Virginia, “isn’t the Foreign Office missing you? I thought they couldn’t get on without you.”

“I’ve brought a message for you from Codders.”

Thus irreverently did Bill allude to his chief.

“And by the way, Virginia, in case he asks, remember that your telephone was out of order this morning.”

“But it hasn’t been.”

“I know that. But I said it was.”

“Why? Enlighten me as to this Foreign Office touch.” Bill threw her a reproachful glance.

“So that I could get here and see you, of course.”

“Oh, darling Bill, how dense of me! And how perfectly sweet of you!”

“Chilvers said you were going out.”

“So I was—to Sloane Street. There’s a place there where they’ve got a perfectly wonderful new hip band.”

“A hip band?”

“Yes, Bill, H-I-P hip, B-A-N-D band. A band to confine the hips. You wear it next the skin.”

“I blush for you Virginia. You shouldn’t describe your underwear to a young man to whom you are not related. It isn’t delicate.”

“But, Bill dear, there’s nothing indelicate about hips. We’ve all got hips—although we poor women are trying awfully hard to pretend we haven’t. This hip band is made of red rubber and comes to just above the knees, and it’s simply impossible to walk in it.”

“How awful!” said Bill. “Why do you do it?”

“Oh, because it gives one such a noble feeling to suffer for one’s silhouette. But don’t let’s talk about my hip band. Give me George’s message.”

“He wants to know whether you’ll be in at four o’clock this afternoon.”

“I shan’t. I shall be at Ranelagh. Why this sort of formal call? Is he going to propose to me, do you think?”

“I shouldn’t wonder.”

“Because, if so, you can tell him that I much prefer men who propose on impulse.”

“Like me?”

“It’s not an impulse with you, Bill. It’s habit.”

“Virginia, won’t you ever—”

“No, no, no, Bill. I won’t have it in the morning before lunch. Do try and think of me as a nice motherly person approaching middle age who has your interests thoroughly at heart.”

“Virginia, I do love you so.”

“I know, Bill, I know. And I simply love being loved. Isn’t it wicked and dreadful of me? I should like every nice man in the world to be in love with me.”

“Most of them are, I expect,” said Bill gloomily.

“But I hope George isn’t in love with me. I don’t think he can be. He’s so wedded to his career. What else did he say?”

“Just that it was very important.”

“Bill, I’m getting intrigued. The things that George thinks important are so awfully limited. I think I must chuck Ranelagh. After all, I can go to Ranelagh any day. Tell George that I shall be awaiting him meekly at four o’clock.”

Bill looked at his wristwatch.

“It seems hardly worthwhile to go back before lunch. Come out and chew something, Virginia.”

“I’m going out to lunch somewhere or other.”

“That doesn’t matter. Make a day of it, and chuck everything all round.”

“It would be rather nice,” said Virginia, smiling at him.

“Virginia, you’re a darling. Tell me, you do like me rather, don’t you? Better than other people.”

“Bill, I adore you. If I had to marry someone—simply had to—I mean if it was in a book and a wicked mandarin said to me, ‘Marry someone or die by slow torture,’ I should choose you at once—I should indeed.

I should say, ‘Give me little Bill.’ ”

“Well, then—”

“Yes, but I haven’t got to marry anyone. I love being a wicked widow.”

“You could do all the same things still. Go about, and all that. You’d hardly notice me about the house.”

“Bill, you don’t understand. I’m the kind of person who marries enthusiastically if they marry at all.”

Bill gave a hollow groan.

“I shall shoot myself one of these days, I expect,” he murmured gloomily.

“No, you won’t, Bill darling. You’ll take a pretty girl out to supper—like you did the night before last.”

Mr. Eversleigh was momentarily confused.

“If you mean Dorothy Kirkpatrick, the girl who’s in Hooks and Eyes, I—well, dash it all, she’s a thoroughly nice girl, straight as they make ’em. There was no harm in it.”

“Bill darling, of course there wasn’t. I love you to enjoy yourself. But don’t pretend to be dying of a broken heart, that’s all.”

Mr. Eversleigh recovered his dignity.

“You don’t understand at all, Virginia,” he said severely. “Men—”

“Are polygamous! I know they are. Sometimes I have a shrewd suspicion that I am polyandrous. If you really love me, Bill, take me out to lunch quickly.”

Five

FIRST NIGHT IN LONDON

There is often a flaw in the best-laid plans. George Lomax had made one mistake—there was a weak spot in his preparations. The weak spot was Bill.

Bill Eversleigh was an extremely nice lad. He was a good cricketer and a scratch golfer, he had pleasant manners, and an amiable disposition, but his position in the Foreign Office had been gained, not by brains, but by good connexions. For the work he had to do he was quite suitable. He was more or less George’s dog. He did no responsible or brainy work. His part was to be constantly at George’s elbow, to interview unimportant people whom George didn’t want to see, to run errands, and generally to make himself useful. All this Bill carried out faithfully enough. When George was absent, Bill stretched himself out in the biggest chair and read the sporting news, and in so doing he was merely carrying out a time-honoured tradition.