Luck of the Bodkins (22 page)

'Good morning, Mr Llewellyn,' he said cheerily. 'I hear you want to see me. About Bodkin again, I suppose? Mr Llewellyn,
’
he explained to Reggie, beaming upon his worried junior, 'has got it into his head for some reason that Monty Bodkin would make a good picture actor.'

This amazing statement succeeded in diverting Reggie's mind from its fraternal solicitude.

'What!' he cried. 'Monty?'

'Yes,' said Ambrose, laughing heartily. 'Can you imagine? He wants to make p
oor old Monty a star.' ‘
Well, I'm dashed.'

'I shouldn't think Monty has ever acted in his life, has he?' ·Not that I know of.'

'Oh, yes, now I come to remember, he told me he had once - at his first kindergarten.' 'Ill bet he was a flop.
’
'I expect so. Extraordinary, isn't it?
’
'It's inexplicable.
’

Mr Llewellyn broke in on this brotherly duologue. He would have done so earlier, but had had a little difficulty with his vocal cords. Ambrose's ebullient gaiety was affecting
him
like some sort of skin complaint, causing him to tingle all over.

'Stop that babbling!' he shouted. 'It's got nothing to do with Bodkin. Listen, you! Keep that trap of yours shut for half
a
minute, if you know how, and attend to me.
’

Ambrose stared at him, astonished. It was not thus that the other had been wont to address him in previous interviews. Hitherto, he had found the president of the Superba-Llewellyn quiet and respectful.

'I hear you're not the right Tennyson.'

Ambrose's bewilderment increased. He looked at Reggie, as if wondering if anyone could suppose him to occupy that position.

'I'm afraid I don't quite understand.
’
'I'm talking English, ain't I?'

Ambrose's manner lost something of its bonhomie. His tone became a little acid.

'You are - of a kind. But I still don't understand you.'

'Why have you been keeping it under your hat all this time that you aren't the right Tennyson?'

'You keep using that peculiar expression. If you will kindly explain what you mean by "the right Tennyson", I may be able to answer you.'

‘
You know what I mean. The Tennyson who wrote books.'

Ambrose eyed Mr Llewellyn frostily. He was now definitely stiff. He might have been back at the Admiralty, rebuking a subordinate for allowing the veiled adventuress to steal the naval plans.

‘
I was under the impression,' he said, an Oxford chill creeping into his voice, 'that I was the Tennyson who wrote books. I know of nobody else of my name who does literary work. Of course, there was a not uncelebrated poet called Tennyson, but I presume you did not suppose -'

The time had come, Reggie felt, to break the news.

'Yes, he did, old boy. That's precisely what he did suppose. Misled by his brother-in-law George, who appears to be a little ball of fun and the life and soul of Hollywood, he got the wires crossed. He took you for the genuine half-a-league, half-a-league, half-a-league onward bloke.'

'You don't mean that?
‘

‘
I do.'

'Not really?' 'Positively.'

Ambrose's good humour was completely restored. Any passing annoyance that he may have felt at the oddness of Ivor Llewellyn's manner, disappeared. He threw his head back and laughed a loud, jolly laugh that went rumbling about the stateroom like thunder.

Its effect was to remove the last traces of Mr Llewellyn's reserve. The face above the pink pyjamas turned purple. Mr Llewellyn's eyes did not actually start out of his head, but it was rather a near thing. He spoke in a thick, strangled voice.

'You think it funny, do you?'

Ambrose was trying to restrain his chuckles. It was unkind, he felt, to laugh.

'You must admit,' he gurgled apologetically, 'that it is
a
little.'

'Okay,' said Mr Llewellyn. 'Well, snicker at this one. You're fired. As soon as we hit New York, you can take the next boat back to England or jump off the dock and drown yourself or do anything you darn please. What you aren't going to do is come to Llewellyn City and have a good time on my money.'

Ambrose had ceased to chuckle. Reggie, watching the smile fade from his face, wished there was something he could do by way of showing brotherly sympathy, but could think of nothing. Sorrowfully, he helped himself to another of Mr Llewellyn's cigarettes.

'What!'

That's what.'

'But - but you engaged me.
’

‘
When?'

'Our contract -
’

'When did I ever sign any contract?
’

‘
But, damn it -'

‘
All right, all right.'

'You can't let me down like this.
’

'Watch me.'

'I'll bring an action.'

'Sure,' said Mr Llewellyn. 'Come up and sue me some time.'

Ambrose's fresh complexion had lost its colour. He was staring, wide-eyed. Reggie, too, was much disturbed. 'Crikey, Ikey,' he said with emotion. 'This is pretty raw.
’
Mr Llewellyn turned like a bull on a picador. 'Who asked you to butt in?'

'It is not a question,' said Reggie with quiet dignity, 'of who
asked
me to butt in. The point does not arise. One is scarcely called upon to feel that one requires a formal invitation to induce one to give it as one's opinion that one ... now I've forgotten what I was going to say.'

'Good,' said Mr Llewellyn.

Ambrose choked.

'But you don't understand, Mr Llewellyn.
’
‘
Eh?'

‘
On the strength of your promise to employ me to write scenarios I gave up my p
osition. I resigned from the Ad
miralty.'

'Well, go back to the Admiralty.
’

‘
But... I can't.
’

It was precisely this fact that had caused Reggie to feel so disturbed. Right from the start he had spotted this snag and recognized it for the Class A snag it was.

Reggie's views on jobs were peculiar, but definite. There were some men - he himself was one of them - who, he considered, had no need for a job. A fair knowledge of racing form, a natural gift for bridge and poker, an ability to borrow money with an easy charm which made the operation a positive pleasure to the victim - these endowments, he held, were all that a chap like himself required, and it was with a deep sense of injury that he had allowed his loved ones to jockey him into the loathsome commercial enterprise to which he was now on his way. A little patience on their part, a little of the purse-strings to help him over a bad patch, and he could have carried on in such perfect comfort. For Reggie Tennyson was one of those young men whom the ravens feed.

But - and this was the point - the ravens do not feed the Ambroses of this world. The Ambroses need their steady job. And if they lose it they find it dashed hard to get another.

'Reflect, Llewellyn!' said Reggie. 'Consider! You cannot do this thing.'

Mabel Spence stepped into the arena. She was aghast now that those careless words of hers, spoken merely with a sister-in-law's natural desire to lower a brother-in-law's self-esteem, should have precipitated this appalling disaster. Ambrose Tennyson's haggard face was a silent reproach. She was rather vague as to what the Admiralty was, but she gathered that it was the source from which Ambrose drew his means of livelihood, and those means of livelihood, it was clear, she had caused him to lose.

'Reggie's quite right, Ikey.'

'Now, don't
you
begin,' urged Mr Llewellyn.

‘
You can't do this.'

‘I
s
that so?'

‘
You know perfectly well that, even if you hadn't signed the contract, there was a verbal agreement' 'To hell with verbal agreements.'

‘
And why do you want to do it? Where's the sense in ditching Mr Tennyson like this? He may not be Shakespeare, but I'll bet he writes well enough for the Superba-Llewellyn.'

'Shrewdly spoken, girl,' said Reggie approvingly. 'Ambrose will do the Superba-Llewellyn proud.'

'Not the Superba-Llewellyn,
he won't,' corrected the presi
dent of that organization.
‘I
want no piece of him.'

'But what is he going to do?'

'Don't ask me. I'm not interested.'

'Why not at least give him a trial?'

‘I
won't give him a trial.
’

'He might be just the man you want.
’

'He isn't.'

Reggie crushed out his cigarette and took another. His face was cold and stern.

'Llewellyn,' he said, 'your behaviour is inexplicab
le.' 'Will you stop horning in!
'

'No, Llewellyn, I will not stop horning in. Your behaviour,
I
say, is inexplicable. You don't seem to know the first thing about running your business.'

'Is that so?'

'Don't interrupt, Llewellyn. You do not, I repeat, appear to know the first thing about running your business. You tumble over yourself trying to secure the services of a chap like Monty Bodkin who - excellent egg though he is in other respects - has never acted in his life and couldn't play the pin in
Pinafore,
and in the same breath, as it were, you decline those of an Ambrose Tennyson, who is a recognized comer in the writing world. About myself I will say nothing, beyond observing that when you were offered the chance of getting hold of a really knowledgeable bird to put you straight on your English sequences you failed to catch the bus - thereby placing yourself in a position where you will no doubt find yourself flooding the world with screen dramas in which Ascot occurs in mid-winter and the Derby is portrayed as a greyhound race taking place on Plumstead Marshes towards the end of October. That's the position you've gone and placed yourself in, Llewellyn,' said Reggie. 'Silly idiot,' he added, summing it all up.

'Yes,' resumed Mabel. 'Listen to me, Ikey -'

The greatest generals are those who know when to make, and
are not ashamed to make, a strategic retreat. Reggie by himself Mr Llewellyn might have endured. Mabel by herself he might have faced undaunted. But Reggie supplemented by Mabel broke his spirit There was a sort of earthquake among the bedclothes, the leap and rush of a flying pink-pyjamaed form, and the next moment he was in the bathroom, with the door locked. The sound of a gushing tap told that he was protecting his ears from further assaults.

Mabel did her best. Reggie did his best.

'Ikey!
' cried Mabel, pounding on the bathroom door
8

‘
Ikey!' cried Reggie, doing the same.

As suddenly as they had begun, they ceased. It was only too plain that the man was entrenched beyond their reach
.
Reggie turned to commiserate with his stricken brother.

'Ambrose, old boy -
’

He stopped. Ambrose Te
nnyson was no longer among those
present.

Chapter 15

That neither Reggie Tennyson nor Mabel Spence should have observed Ambrose's departure affords striking proof of the whole-heartedness with which they had addressed themselves to the task of trying to secure Mr Llewellyn's attention. For it had been the reverse of noiseless.

At the moment when the novelist decided to remove himself from the state-room, Albert Peasemarch had been resting easily against the door with one large red ear in close juxtaposition to the woodwork, absorbed in the drama within. Doors on ocean liners open inward, and the sudden
opening of that of State-room C
31 caught him unprepared. Abruptly deprived of support, he fell into the room rather in the manner of a dead body tumbling out of a cupboard in a mystery play and, colliding with Ambrose, clasped him in a close embrace, so that for an instant the thing resembled the meeting after long separation of a couple of Parisian boulevardiers of the old school
’