Plum Pie (27 page)

"But don't you ever get your money?"

"Not for another three years, unless he cares to give it to me. I can be released at the discretion of the trustee, but so far he's shown no signs of having reached years of discretion."

Dinah felt her heart warming to him. He had spoken cheerfully and with no trace of self-pity, a weakness for which she had little tolerance. During the worst of the crises which her Micawber-like father had brought on the home in the old days she had never felt sorry for herself.

"What will you do when you get it? Go back to painting?"

"You bet."

"Well, three years isn't so long to wait."

It was, Joe felt, if you wanted to get married in the next week or so, but this was not the moment to mention it.

"Well, that's the life story you asked for. I hope it didn't bore you."

"I told you I wouldn't be bored. Oh, heavens!" said Dinah, looking at her watch.

"What's the matter?"

"I'd no idea it was so late."

She reached for her bag, and rose. Joe uttered a cry of protest.

“You aren't going?"

"I must, I'm afraid. We're in a terrible rush now that we're sailing."

"Sailing?"

"Mr. Pinkley is leaving for New York on Thursday."

A horrible thought chilled Joe to the marrow.

"You're not going, too?"

"Yes."

Joe had often heard the expression 'Everything went black', and now he knew what it meant.

"How long will you be in New York?"

“I don't know. A long time, I expect."

"What boat are you sailing on?"

"The
Atlantic.
So I have to get back to Mr. Pinkney to see if he wants me for anything."

They were in the lobby now. She held out her hand.

"Goodbye."

She was gone, and Joe roused himself from the coma which had gripped him and started to walk to Chelsea. It was a long walk, but in his present state of mental turmoil he needed it.

Arriving at the studio which was still his home, he was further depressed, when he entered it, to find Freddie Threepwood there. He was fond of Freddie, but a man who has been told by the girl he loves that she is sailing for New York on Thursday for an indefinite visit wants solitude.

"I've been looking at your pictures, Joe," said Freddie.

"Oh?" said Joe.

"I like that one where the girl's lying on a mossy bank and the fellow's bending over to kiss her."

Joe regarded it with an eye that could not have been less enthusiastic if he had been an art critic.

"That's a rotten thing I did years ago. I thought I had burned it. It wouldn't be a bad idea to burn the whole damn lot of them," he said, and so charged with gloom was his voice that Freddie looked at him, concerned.

"What's wrong, Joe?"

"Nothing."

"Don't try to fool me. At Donaldson's Dog Joy we are trained to observe. What's the matter?"

Except in the older type of musical comedy a man in love seldom pours out his heart in confidences to a friend or chorus of friends, but Joe's morale at the moment was extremely low and the urge to cry on someone's shoulder imperative. There was, moreover, something in Freddie's personality, the quality of persuasiveness which had enabled him to sell dog biscuits to Wilks Brothers of Manchester and Beatle Beatle and Beatle of Liverpool, that made him hard to resist. With some surprise Joe found himself telling all, and Freddie scratched his chin thoughtfully with the handle of his umbrella.

"You love this girl?"

"Yes."

“And she spurns your suit?"

'There hasn't been any suit."

"Then there had better begin to be, or you won't get anywhere. You can't just stand there. Now in the matter of pressing one's suit," said Freddie, "there are various schools of thought. Aggie and I," he said, alluding to the daughter of Mr. Donaldson of Donaldson's Dog Joy, to whom he had been happily married for some years, "clicked with such rapidity that there wasn't any need for finesse and science, but in most cases, I imagine, something in the nature of a systematic approach; would be required. One of my colleagues at Dog Joy, who was recently distributing cigars to celebrate the coming on the scene of his bouncing first-born, told me that he had ensnared the little woman by means of what he called the Rockmeteller Method. His name is Bream Rockmeteller. His plan was to go at it gradually. Having located the prospect, he started by looking at her."

"Looking at her?"

"Yearningly. Wherever she went, there would be Bream Rockmeteller getting the daily eyeful, and of course it wasn't long before she was saying to herself 'What's all this in aid of?', Her initial supposition that her slip must be showing soon passed and the conviction began to steal over her that this nonstop goggling meant something. Then he began to send her flowers, books of poetry and what not, and when she was thoroughly softened up, he proposed. The whole operation took about six weeks. Why do you laugh?"

It was intelligent of Freddie to have diagnosed the sound had proceeded from Joe as a laugh. By a less acute ear it might have been mistaken for the groan of a fiend in torment,

"I was amused by your suggesting a system that takes six weeks. I told you she was sailing for New York on Thursday."

"But of course you're sailing too?"

"How can I? I haven't got the money for the fare."

Freddie was astounded.

"But I always thought you had a wad of money. Didn't an aunt of yours leave you a packet?"

"Yes, in trust. Pinkney's my trustee. I don't get it till I'm thirty."

"And you can't touch him for a bit in advance?"

"No."

"H'm. This complicates things. Can't you sell one of your pictures?"

"No."

"I could."

"Then you must be a marvel as a salesman."

"So the boys at Dog Joy often tell me. Yes, I think I know the very man on whom to unload that girl-on-mossy-bank one. If I go now, I shall probably catch him at the Drones. Shall I take (he picture along with me and give him the hard sell?"

"If you like," said Joe.

Anything that removed Freddie from his presence suited him. He wanted to be alone with his sombre thoughts.

Half an hour or so after Freddie had departed on his mission Judson Phipps came into the Drones Club to have a look at the smokingroom tape. He wanted to see what had won the fifth race at Hurst Park that afternoon. As he was passing through the bar, the man behind it addressed him.

“Mr. Threepwood was looking for you, Mr. Phipps."

“Freddie Threepwood? But he's in America."

"He wasn't ten minutes ago."

Though Mr. Bunting would have denied it hotly, Judson Phipps was capable at times of ratiocination. He showed this now.

'He must be over in England."

“That's what I thought."

“Is he in the smokingroom?"

“He was headed that way."

“I’ll go and say Hello. Old Freddie with us again! Fancy that. What won the fifth at Hurst Park?"

“Aspidistra."

“Hell,” said Judson, who had wagered on the speed and endurance of a horse named Lemon Drop.

“Freddie," he was saying a few moments later, and Freddie came out of a waking dream about dog biscuits.

“Oh, there you are, Juddy. I was looking for you."

“McGarry told me. You're back in London, are you?"

"In person."

In the short space of time it had taken him to move from bar to smokingroom the obvious explanation of his friend's presence in England's metropolis had come to Judson.

"So they've fired you?" he said.

"Eh?" '

"Those dog biscuit guys of yours. I thought it was only a question of time."

It was with considerable dignity that Freddie corrected this mistaken view.

"What do you mean, fired me? Of course they haven't fired me. I was sent over by the big chief to buck up the English end of the business, and I don't mind telling you I've booked some orders which'll make him do the dance of the seven veils all over Long Island City. The only blot on my escutcheon is that I haven't been able to contact Pinkney of Pinkney's Stores, and that brings me to what I want to talk to you about."

"What's that thing you've got there on the floor?"

"A picture. Never mind that for the moment. We'll be touching on it later. The item at the top of the agenda paper is Pinkney. Is it true what I hear about him being going to marry your sister?"

“Sure.”

"So I take it that you stand fairly high in his estimation? The brother of the woman he loves."

“Well, I wouldn't say we were bosom buddies, but we get along all right."

"Then you can do me a signal service by introducing me to him so that I can bend him to my will in the matter of stocking up Dog Joy in his emporium. I only need ten minutes of undivided time to make him see the light. You'll do this for me Juddy?"

"But I'm leaving for Paris tomorrow morning."

"Then when you get back?"

"I won't be back. I'm sailing for New York on Thursday. I get aboard at Cherbourg.”

“Can't you go by a later boat?"

"Impossible. That fight."

"What fight?"

"There's the lightheavyweight fight at Madison Square Garden a day or two after I land. If I went by a later boat, I'd miss it, and I've been looking forward to it for months."

"You could fly."

"Me? I wouldn't go up in one of those things if you paid me."

"Not to help a pal?"

"Not to help a hundred and forty-seven pals. My sister Julie's flying over the week after next, but you don't catch me doing it. And anyway it wouldn't do you any good me cancelling my passage, because Pinkney's sailing, too."

All the go-getter in Freddie sprang to life. He could not be said to have been thinking on his feet as recommended by the memoranda which hung on the wall of every office at Donaldson's Dog Joy, for he was seated, but it was plain that a thought had come like a full-blown rose, flushing his brow.

"He'll be on your boat?"

"Yes."

"Then so will I. I wasn't meaning to leave for another three weeks, but this is an opportunity that may not occur again. You're sailing on the what?"

"The
Atlantic
."

"I'll book a passage tomorrow. This'll bring the roses to Aggie's cheeks. She wasn't expecting me till the middle of next month. She'll go singing in the streets. How long does it take the
Atlantic
to get across?"

"About five days."

"Five days during which I shall be constantly at Pinkney's side guiding his thoughts in the right direction. If by the time we land I haven't got him signing on the dotted line, I'm not the man I think I am."

"Well, I wish you luck."

"Thanks."

"You'll need it."

It was apparent that something was amusing Judson. A sound like water going down the waste pipe of a bath showed that he was chuckling.

"And I'll tell you why," he said. "Because once the voyage has started I doubt if Pinkney will be in the mood to give his mind to dog biscuits. Want to hear something funny, Freddie' I told you my sister was flying to New York in a week or so. Well, by way of filling in the time before she leaves she has been buying out most of the Paris stores, concentrating particularly on the jewellers. One of the things she's bought, she tells me, is a diamond necklace costing about thirty thousand dollars. Well, you know what that means when you get to the other end."

"Lot of duty to pay."

"Yes. And she doesn't approve of paying duty."

"Many people don't."

"So she's giving me the thing to give to Pinknev to smuggle through. I can just see his face when I slip it to him," said Judson, once more chuckling.

Freddie was staring, aghast. His friend had described this appalling piece of news as 'something funny', but its humour eluded him. Only too clearly could he see that, as Judson had said, his prospect would not be in the mood to concentrate his mind on dog biscuits.

"When are you planning to give him the thing. '

"As soon as I get on board."

"No! Do me a favour, Juddy."

"Such as?"

"Wait till the last day of the voyage. That'll give me time to make my sales talk."

"Yes, I could do that."

"Apart from anything else, it would be the humane course to pursue. You don't want to spoil the poor blighter's trip, do you?"

"I see what you mean."

"So you'll do it? Last day of voyage?"

"Sure."

"That's a promise?"

”Sure.

Freddie drew a relieved breath.

"Thanks, Juddy. I knew you wouldn't let me down. And now a very important point. Has Pinkney any hobbies?"

"Hobbies?"

"In working on a prospect my first move is always to find out what he's interested in, so that I can endear myself to him by bringing the subject up. P. P. Wilks of Wilks Brothers Manchester, for instance, from whom I obtained a substantial order, is a staunch supporter of the Manchester United Football team. My spies informed me of this and I attribute my success entirely to my shrewdness in asking around till I had all the facts relevant to the United's recent performance at my fingertips and was able to discuss them intelligently. By the time we parted we were like ham and eggs. He patted me on the back and showered cigars on me."

"Pinkney won't do that."

"Not pat?"

"Not shower. He's a big wheel in the Anti-Tobacco League."

"How fortunate you told me this. I might have approached him blowing smoke rings. Well, many thanks for your invaluable co-operation, Juddy. You have clarified the whole picture. And talking of pictures," said Freddie, remembering his mission. "You were asking just now about this one. Take a glance at it."

In the matter of pictures, J Nelson, if questioned, would have said that he did not know much about them, but he knew what he liked, and it was plain from his expression that this one of Joe's did not fall into that category. It doesn't look much."

Freddie had forseen some such reaction.

"At first sight, no," he agreed. "A doll asleep on a mossy bank and a guy bending over her to kiss her. Corny, you say to your self, the kind of thing that went out in the Victorian age. But think again. The guy is wearing a sort of bath robe, right?"