Plum Pie (26 page)

He had had a most enjoyable lunch, and he did not disguise it from himself that one of the things that had made it so agreeable was that his daughter Arlene had not been there to share it. Too often a meal taken in her society resolved itself into a battle of wills, he ordering rich foods, she telling him he 0ught not to, because one should eat lightly and so keep oneself fir. It was pleasant to think that she would not be sailing with him on the
Atlantic
, for her criticisms following the nightly dinner at the Captain's table would have been hard to bear. She had a depressing way of saying 'Father,
really
!' whenever he was trying to enjoy one of those simple forms of nourishment which a man needs if he is to keep body and soul together.

The waiter was bringing him his coffee now and with it the tray of petits fours to which he had been looking forward. And he was concentrating his powerful mind on the problem of which to select, when a voice spoke behind him.

"Father,
really
!" it said, and having jumped in his seat like a rising trout he turned belligerently.

"Oh, it's you?" he said. "What do you mean, 'Father,
really
'?"

"You know what pastry does to your tummy."

"Never mind about my tummy."

"You ought to avoid everything like sugar, custards, cakes, pies, rich gravies, fat meats, nuts, cream, fried foods and creamed soups, and particularly those petits fours things."

It is frequently assumed that stout men are easygoing and quiet. Mr. Pinkney exploded this theory. No slender man could have exceeded the irascibility with which he addressed the attendant waiter.

"Gimme that one with the chocolate on it and that one there," he said in a voice that rang out like the Last Trump. "What," he asked, now addressing his child, "was that you said?"

"The observation I made was, 'Oh, well, if you don't mind looking like Nero Wolfe'."

"It was, was it?"

"It was."

Mr. Pinkney champed sullenly at that one with the chocolate on it, and there was silence for a space.

"You mustn't eat too much on the boat," said Arlene, seeming to have been following a train of thought, and Mr. Pinkney, who had now consumed not only the one with chocolate on it but also that one there and was feeling in consequence: that he had won a moral victory, decided to be amiable. He considered the remark offensive and he detected in her manner the bossiness of which Judson Phipps had complained, but he told himself that women say these things. His late wife had said them frequently, and Arlene took after her.

"It's a pity," he said with something approaching-if not very closely-geniality, "that you won't be there to watch over me.

"Oh, but I shall," said Arlene. "That's what I came to tell you. I've got to sail right away. The Curtis Cup people want me."

"The what people?"

"Haven't you ever heard of the Curtis Cup? Golf. British females versus American females. I had expected to be picked by the selectors, but they passed me over, the fatheads. And now one of the team has broken a leg and they've cabled me to hurry across and fill in."

Mr. Pinkney stared at her dumbly. Not even Judson Phipps's jaw could have fallen more limply at this news than did his.

It was at about the moment when Mr. Pinkney was receiving the bad news that Joe Cardinal entered the lobby of Barribault's Hotel and made his way to the desk. Barnbault's that Mecca of the rich, was not a customary haunt of his, but he had come to leave a note for Freddie Threepwood, who had made the place his headquarters while in London, giving him his address. He delivered the note and having done so returned as quickly as possible to the street outside, for the lobby was full of Texas millionaires and Duchesses with miniature poodles, and their presence seemed to mock his honest poverty. They gave him the feeling that he was wearing trousers that bagged at the knees and shoes that had been polished, if they ever had been polished, somewhere in the distant past.

Out in the street, he lit a cigarette and stood thinking, as he did almost incessantly these days, of Dinah Biddle.

With regard to their one and only meeting he had total recall. Every detail of it was imprinted on his memory in letters of fire. He had called at Mr. Pinkney's office, gone in, seen what looked like an angel of the better sort sitting behind a typewriter, and instantly there had permeated his system a peculiar tingling sensation accompanied by the ringing of cow bells in his ears. It was the suddenness and unexpectedness of the vision that had unmanned him. The last time he had visited his uncle, some months previously, he had been received by the other's elderly secretary, a Miss Prebble, and nobody had told him that she had recently retired to Bournemouth on a pension and that her place had been taken by a girl who. he saw at a glance, was the girl he had been looking for all his life. Joe stood staring at her, entranced. It was improbable, he knew, that an unseen hand had struck him behind the ear with a stuffed eelskin, but the illusion that it had done so was perfect. The following dialogue had then taken place:

HE : Er

SHE: Good morning. Do you want to see Mr. Pinkney?

He's out, I'm afraid. What name shall I say?

HE:  Eh? Oh, Cardinal.

He had then withdrawn.

It is a very unintelligent voting man who after an interview like that does not have the feeling that he has failed to show himself at his best, and Joe required no one to point out to him how widely in these conversational exchanges he had differed from the debonair Joe he would have liked to present to this girl's attention. She had probably told her friends that evening that she had met the weirdest man that morning. A Trappist monk I think he must have been, she had probably said, he just stood there not uttering. No doubt a mental case, the friends would have suggested, and she would have agreed that there might be a good deal in the theory.

He yearned for an opportunity of showing her his better and more attractive side and was wondering wistfully if he would ever see her again, when he did. She came through the swing door, leading a dachshund on a leash.

In addition to the dachshund she was accompanied by a rich-looking young man with a large nose and horn-rimmed spectacles, at the sight of whom a shudder of disgust ran through him. The thought that she had any male acquaintances but himself revolted him, and the last male acquaintances he would have wished to see in her company were rich-looking young men, whether spectacled or not spectacled.

Addressing this obvious multimillionaire, she said:

"Thanks for that wonderful lunch, Judson. Where are you headed for now?"

"I thought I'd look in at the steamship office and see if they can't give me a better stateroom."

"What's wrong with the one you've got? No swimming pool?"

"Ha ha." said the plutocrat and passed on his way, and the girl, turning, saw Joe and a look of pleased surprise came into her face.

"Oh, hullo," she said.

In describing Joe to Mr. Bunting as shy Dinah had erred. Normally he was quite the reverse, and his taciturnity at their previous meeting had been merely a passing weakness. Any man is entitled to have trouble with his vocal cords when the girl he has been looking for all his life suddenly pops up out of a trap at him without a word of warning. He was now himself again, and that self was an exuberant one. To say that he beamed would be understating it. His smile of gratification nearly split his face in half. A miniature poodle which was passing sneered at him, but he did not even notice it.

The dachshund, however, did and took instant offence at the sneer-directed, he mistakenly supposed, at himself. A rasping sound like that of someone gargling mouth wash burst from his lips, and the next moment battle had been joined.

Most people, seeing Joe Cardinal, would have put him down as an ordinary young man, and he was an ordinary young man, but it so happened that in the matter of stopping dog fights he was rather exceptional. He owned an animal of mixed ancestry whose touchy disposition led it to become embroiled with others of its kind at the drop of a bone. A good deal of his leisure had been spent in detaching it from the throats of a variety of antagonists. So now, where many a man would have hesitated, he acted. There was a rending sound, and the two belligerents came apart in his hands.

Dinah for the next few moments was busy apologising to the poodle's Duchess owner, but when the latter had gone off in her limousine, she turned to Joe with shining eyes. She did not actually say 'My hero!' but her manner implied it.

"That was very adroit," she said. "You must have had a lot of practice”

"A good deal, yes-but these brawls never amount to much. Fighting to a dog is just the normal way of passing the time of day. It's his way of saying 'Hello, there'."

"You seem to understand dogs."

"They have few secrets from me."

"You must be fond of them."

"I am. Are you fond of dogs?"

"Yes, very."

"So am I. There's something about dogs."

"Yes."

"Of course, there's something about cats, too."

"Yes."

"But, still, cats aren't dogs."

"No."

Dinah was feeling a little bewildered. The discovery that Joe, who at their first meeting had seemed to be giving an impersonation of Lot's wife when turned into a pillar of salt, was in reality a brilliant conversationalist, gave her the sensation of being in the presence of a changeling. It was as if a statue had suddenly become loquacious. Her surprise was increased when his next remark was an invitation to her to lunch with him.

"But I've just had lunch."

Joe winced. He was only too well aware of this, and a spasm of jealousy shook him as he thought who her host had been.

"Well, some other day?"

"I'd love to."

"Tomorrow?"

"All right. Where?"

"Here," said Joe. "I'll book a table."

His guardian angel whispered to him that he was being rash, for pay day was not for another two weeks and it would mean digging deeply into his little savings, but he had his answer to that. No lesser place than Barribault's was worthy of a girl like this, he told his guardian angel, and his guardian angel agreed that he had a point there.

The directors of Barribault's Hotel, knowing how fastidious are the Duchesses, the Maharajahs and the Texas oil millionaires on whom they rely for patronage, had spared no expense on its lobby. The result had been something that would have satisfied Kubla Khan when passing the specifications for the stately pleasure dome which he had decreed in Xanadu, and on his previous visit Joe, as we have seen, had found its magnificence oppressive. It amazed him as he sat waiting there on the following afternoon that he could ever have disliked it. In excellent taste he considered its decorations. He liked the faces of his fellow lunchers, too. Duchesses passed, and he thought what nice Duchesses they were. Texas millionaires came by, and he hoped their latest gushers were working out satisfactorily. He had an indulgent eye for the Maharajahs and the miniature poodles. He was in a mood of overflowing benevolence towards all created things.

He had been sitting there for perhaps ten minutes when a blast of sunshine filled the lobby, harpsichords and sackbuts began to play soft music, and he saw Dinah coming through the swing door.

”Am I late?" she said.

"Not a bit," said Joe. "Beautiful day."

"Except for the rain."

"Is it raining?"

"Rather hard."

"Probably all for the best. I hear the farmers need it."

"Are you fond of farmers?"

"I love them."

They went into the grillroom, and a waiter took their order.

“Nice-looking fellow," said Joe, following him with an appreciative eye. "I like the way he walks."

"You seem to be liking everything this morning."

"I am."

Dinah's conscience was troubling her.

"You know,"' she said, "this is all wrong."

"All wrong?" said Joe. "I don't see how it could be righter."

"I mean you ought not to be taking me to lunch at. a place like this."

"Why not?"

"Too expensive. You can't afford it."

"Who told you that?"

"Mr. Bunting."

A wave of emotion at the thought that she had felt enough interest in him to make her discuss him with Mr. Bunting

"What did he tell you?"

"That you were in a bank. Do you like it?"

"Not much. Do you like being a secretary?"

"Yes, though I wish the job carried a bit more money. I love money as much as you love dogs and farmers. Not that I've ever had any."

"Tell me about yourself."

"There's nothing much to tell."

"Well, we might start with your name."

"Biddle," said Dinah, and Joe thought he had never heard anything so musical. "Dinah Biddle. Though it ought to be Dinah Micawber." She gave a little laugh. "My father was just like Mr. Micawber. I suppose he was about the most impractical man who ever lived. When he died, I was brought up by an aunt and learned shorthand and typing, and here I am. Now tell me the story of your life."

"It's rather dull."

"I won't be bored."

"Well, like you, I was brought up by an aunt."

"Were you fond of her?"

"Very."'

"I was of mine."

"Nobody could have done more for me than she did. She paid all my expenses at school, Cambridge, art school in Paris."

"Oh, were you an artist?"

"I started out as one, but I didn't make much of a go of it. I thought I would do better in time, but I couldn't get my uncle to see eye to eye with me."

"Mr. Pinkney?"

"Yes. And he insisted on my going into a bank."

"But what had he to do with it?"

"Unfortunately, when my aunt made her will, leaving all she had to me, he persuaded her to leave it in trust, making him my trustee. So he was in a position to dictate. He said I was wasting my time painting pictures which nobody would buy and ought to be embarking on a business career like every other young man. So he put me in the New Asiatic Bank, of which he is a director. I could see his point of view. I'm not saying I liked it, but I could see it."