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‘That’s it!’ said Dorothy.
‘Oh, Edward, you’re splendid!’
She handed over the necklace and he dropped it into his pocket. He felt worked up, exalted, the very devil of a fellow! In this mood he started the Austin. They were both too excited to remember tea. They drove back to London in silence. Once at a cross-roads, a policeman stepped towards the car, and Edward’s heart missed a beat. By a miracle, they reached home without mishap.
Edward’s last words to Dorothy were imbued with the adventurous spirit.
‘We’ll go through with this. Fifty thousand pounds! It’s worth it!’
He dreamt that night of broad arrows and Dartmoor, and rose early, haggard and unrefreshed. He had to set about finding a fence – and how to do it he had not the remotest idea!
His work at the office was slovenly and brought down upon him two sharp rebukes before lunch.
How did one find a ‘fence’? Whitechapel, he fancied, was the correct neighbourhood – or was it Stepney?
On his return to the office a call came through for him on the telephone. Dorothy’s voice spoke – tragic and tearful.
‘Is that you, Ted? I’m using the telephone, but she may come in any minute, and I’ll have to stop. Ted, you haven’t done anything, have you?’
Edward replied in the negative. ‘Well, look here, Ted, you mustn’t. I’ve been lying awake all night. It’s been awful. Thinking of how it says in the Bible you mustn’t steal. I must have been mad yesterday – I really must. You won’t do anything, will you, Ted, dear?’
Did a feeling of relief steal over Mr Palgrove? Possibly it did – but he wasn’t going to admit any such thing.
‘When I say I’m going through with a thing, I go through with it,’ he said in a voice such as might belong to a strong superman with eyes of steel.
‘Oh, but, Ted, dear, you mustn’t. Oh, Lord, she’s coming. Look here, Ted, she’s going out to dinner tonight. I can slip out and meet you. Don’t do anything till you’ve seen me. Eight o’clock. Wait for me round the corner.’ Her voice changed to a seraphic murmur. ‘Yes, ma’am, I think it was a wrong number. It was Bloomsbury 0234 they wanted.’
As Edward left the office at six o’clock, a huge headline caught his eye.
JEWEL ROBBERY. LATEST DEVELOPMENTS
Hurriedly he extended a penny. Safely ensconced in the Tube, having dexterously managed to gain a seat, he eagerly perused the printed sheet. He found what he sought easily enough.
A suppressed whistle escaped him. ‘Well – I’m –’
And then another adjacent paragraph caught his eye. He read it through and let the paper slip to the floor unheeded.
Precisely at eight o’clock, he was waiting at the rendezvous. A breathless Dorothy, looking pale but pretty, came hurrying along to join him.
‘You haven’t done anything, Ted?’
‘I haven’t done anything.’ He took the ruby chain from his pocket. ‘You can put it on.’
‘But, Ted –’
‘The police have got the rubies all right – and the man who pinched them. And now read this!’
He thrust a newspaper paragraph under her nose. Dorothy read:
NEW ADVERTISING STUNT
A clever new advertising dodge is being adopted by the All-English Fivepenny Fair who intend to challenge the famous Woolworths. Baskets of fruit were sold yesterday and will be on sale every Sunday. Out of every fifty baskets, one will contain an imitation necklace in different coloured stones. These necklaces are really wonderful value for the money. Great excitement and merriment was caused by them yesterday and EAT MORE FRUIT will have a great vogue next Sunday. We congratulate the Fivepenny Fair on their resource and wish them all good luck in their campaign of Buy British Goods.
‘Well –’ said Dorothy.
And after a pause: ‘Well!’
‘Yes,’ said Edward. ‘I felt the same.’
A passing man thrust a paper into his hand.
‘Take one, brother,’ he said. ‘The price of a virtuous woman is far above rubies.’
‘There!’ said Edward. ‘I hope that cheers you up.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Dorothy doubtfully. ‘I don’t exactly want to look like a good woman.’
‘You don’t,’ said Edward. ‘That’s why the man gave me that paper. With those rubies round your neck you don’t look one little bit like a good woman.’
Dorothy laughed.
‘You’re rather a dear, Ted,’ she said. ‘Come on, let’s go to the pictures.’
Chapter 30
The Golden Ball
‘The Golden Ball’ was first published as ‘Playing the Innocent’ in the Daily Mail, 5 August 1929.
George Dundas stood in the City of London meditating.
All about him toilers and money-makers surged and flowed like an enveloping tide. But George, beautifully dressed, his trousers exquisitely creased, took no heed of them. He was busy thinking what to do next.
Something had occurred! Between George and his rich uncle (Ephraim Leadbetter of the firm of Leadbetter and Gilling) there had been what is called in a lower walk of life ‘words’. To be strictly accurate the words had been almost entirely on Mr Leadbetter’s side. They had flowed from his lips in a steady stream of bitter indignation, and the fact that they consisted almost entirely of repetition did not seem to have worried him. To say a thing once beautifully and then let it alone was not one of Mr Leadbetter’s mottos.
The theme was a simple one – the criminal folly and wickedness of a young man, who has his way to make, taking a day off in the middle of the week without even asking leave. Mr Leadbetter, when he had said everything he could think of and several things twice, paused for breath and asked George what he meant by it.
George replied simply that he had felt he wanted a day off. A holiday, in fact.
And what, Mr Leadbetter wanted to know, were Saturday afternoon and Sunday? To say nothing of Whitsuntide, not long past, and August Bank Holiday to come?
George said he didn’t care for Saturday afternoons, Sundays or Bank Holidays. He meant a real day, when it might be possible to find some spot where half London was not assembled already.
Mr Leadbetter then said that he had done his best by his dead sister’s son – nobody could say he hadn’t given him a chance. But it was plain that it was no use. And in future George could have five real days with Saturday and Sunday added to do with as he liked.
‘The golden ball of opportunity has been thrown up for you, my boy,’ said Mr Leadbetter in a last touch of poetical fancy. ‘And you have failed to grasp it.’
George said it seemed to him that that was just what he had done, and Mr Leadbetter dropped poetry for wrath and told him to get out.
Hence George – meditating. Would his uncle relent or would he not? Had he any secret affection for George, or merely a cold distaste?
It was just at that moment that a voice – a most unlikely voice – said, ‘Hallo!’
A scarlet touring car with an immense long bonnet had drawn up to the curb beside him. At the wheel was that beautiful and popular society girl, Mary Montresor. (The description is that of the illustrated papers who produced a portrait of her at least four times a month.) She was smiling at George in an accomplished manner.
‘I never knew a man could look so like an island,’ said Mary Montresor. ‘Would you like to get in?’
‘I should love it above all things,’ said George with no hesitation, and stepped in beside her.
They proceeded slowly because the traffic forbade anything else. ‘I’m tired of the city,’ said Mary Montresor. ‘I came to see what it was like. I shall go back to London.’
Without presuming to correct her geography, George said it was a splendid idea. They proceeded sometimes slowly, sometimes with wild bursts of speed when Mary Montresor saw a chance of cutting in. It seemed to George that she was somewhat optimistic in the latter view, but he reflected that one could only die once. He thought it best,
however, to essay no conversation. He preferred his fair driver to keep strictly to the job in hand.
It was she who reopened the conversation, choosing the moment when they were doing a wild sweep round Hyde Park Corner.
‘How would you like to marry me?’ she inquired casually.
George gave a gasp, but that may have been due to a large bus that seemed to spell certain destruction. He prided himself on his quickness in response.
‘I should love it,’ he replied easily.
‘Well,’ said Mary Montresor, vaguely. ‘Perhaps you may some day.’ They turned into the straight without accident, and at that moment George perceived large new bills at Hyde Park Corner tube station. Sandwiched between GRAVE POLITICAL SITUATION and COLONEL IN DOCK, one said SOCIETY GIRL TO MARRY DUKE and the other DUKE OF EDGEHILL AND MISS MONTRESOR.
‘What’s this about the Duke of Edgehill?’ demanded George sternly.
‘Me and Bingo? We’re engaged.’
‘But then – what you said just now –’
‘Oh, that,’ said Mary Montresor. ‘You see, I haven’t made up my mind who I shall actually marry.’
‘Then why did you get engaged to him?’
‘Just to see if I could. Everybody seemed to think it would be frightfully difficult, and it wasn’t a bit!’
