Patricia Wentworth: Wicked Uncle

“Don’t you have lunch?”

“Well, I do as a rule, but I hadn’t time today because she showed me the advertisement and I rushed straight round to the address, which was Claridge’s-and when I got there, there were about six other girls waiting there too, and no one very pleased about it, if you know what I mean. So I thought, ‘Well, if this has been going on all day, I haven’t got an earthly.’ ”

“And had it?”

“Well, I think it had, because I was the last to go up, and Mrs. Oakley said it was making her feel quite giddy. There was a red-haired girl coming out as I went in, and she stamped her foot at me in the corridor and said in one of those piercing whispers you can hear all over the place, ‘Pure poison-I wouldn’t take it for a thousand a year.’ Then she grinned and said, ‘Well, I suppose I should, but I should end by cutting her throat and my own, and anybody else’s who was handy.’ ”

Justin sounded quite interested-for him.

“What does one say to a total stranger who bursts into confidences about throat-cutting in a corridor at Claridge’s? These exciting things don’t happen to me. You intrigue me. What did you say?”

“I said, ‘Why?’ ”

“How perfectly to the point!”

“And she said, ‘Go and see for yourself. I shouldn’t touch it unless you’re absolutely on your uppers.’ And I said, ‘Well, I am.’ ”

“And are you?”

In a tone of undiminished cheerfulness Dorinda said,

“Just about.”

“Is that the reason why there wasn’t time for lunch?”

He heard her laugh.

“Oh, well, it doesn’t matter now, because I’ve got the job. I went in, and Mrs. Oakley was lying on a sofa with most of the blinds down, all except one which made a spotlight where you had to go and sit and be looked at. It gave me the sort of feeling of being on the stage without any of the proper clothes, or make-up, or anything.”

“Continue.”

“I couldn’t see much to start with, but she sounded fretty. When I got used to the light, she had a lot of fair hair which she was being rather firm with-not letting it go grey, you know. Fortyish, I thought. And she hadn’t ever got out of being a spoilt child-that sort. And the most heavenly pale pink negligée, the kind people have in films, and a little gold bottle of smelling-salts.”

“Who is she?”

“Mrs. Oakley. Her husband’s name is Martin, and he’s a financier. They’ve got pots of money and a little boy of five. His name is Martin too, but they call him Marty, which is pretty frightful for a boy, don’t you think?”

“I do. Go on.”

Dorinda went on.

“Well, first she moaned at me and said all these girls were making her giddy. And I said didn’t any of them do? And she said no-their voices were wrong. She had to have a voice that didn’t jar her nerves, and the last girl was a volcano. I said what about my voice, because I thought if it jarred her like the others, it wasn’t any good my sitting in a spotlight wasting time. She had a good sniff at the smelling-salts and said she thought I had a soothing personality. After that we never looked back, and she’s giving me three pounds a week!”

Justin showed a disappointing lack of enthusiasm.

“What is this job-what are you supposed to do?”

Dorinda giggled.

“She calls it being her secretary. I think I do all the things she’s too fragile to do herself-writing notes, doing the flowers, answering the telephone when it’s someone who insists on speaking to her. She took quite a long time telling me about that. There are times when it jars her too much even to hear the voice of an intimate friend, and she has to be fresh for Martin in the evenings. And then I keep an eye on Marty when his nursery governess gets an afternoon off, and-oh, well, that sort of thing.”

“And where does all this go on-at Claridge’s?”

“Oh, no. She’s got what she calls a country cottage in Surrey. As there’s her, and him, and Marty, and the nursery governess, and me, and a staff of servants, and they mean to have house parties every week end, I expect it’s something pretty vast. Anyhow it’s called the Mill House, and we go down there tomorrow.”

After a pause Justin said with notable restraint,

“It sounds damp-water in the cellars, and mildew on your shoes in the morning.”

Dorinda shook her head.

“It’s not that kind of mill-she said so. It’s on the top of a hill. There used to be a windmill, but it fell down and somebody built this house. I’ll write and tell you all about it. Did you hear me say I was going down tomorrow?”

“Yes. You’d better dine with me tonight.”

Dorinda laughed.

“I don’t know that I can.”

“Why don’t you know?”

“Well, I was dining with Tip, but I told him I wouldn’t unless he let Buzzer come too, and I don’t really know-”

Justin said in his most superior voice,

“Cut it out! I’ll call for you at half past seven.”

Martin Oakley came out of Gregory Porlock’s office and shut the door. He stood with his hand on the knob for about half a minute as if he were half inclined to turn it again and go back. A tall man of a loose, rangy build, with a sallow skin, receding hair, and dark, rather veiled eyes. As he presently made up his mind and went on down the stairs without waiting for the lift he was frowning. If Dorinda Brown had been there she would have been struck by his resemblance to the cross dark little boy whom she had encountered briefly as she came away from Mrs. Oakley’s suite. But Dorinda wasn’t there-she was telephoning ecstatically to Justin Leigh from the Heather Club. There was, therefore, no one to remark on the likeness.

Inside the room which Martin Oakley had just left, Gregory Porlock, with everything handsome about him, was holding a telephone receiver to his ear and waiting for Mr. Tote to say “Hullo!” at the other end of the line. Everything in the office was suavely and comfortably the best of its kind. Mr. Porlock called himself a General Agent, and nobody who entered this room could doubt that he made his agency pay. From the carpet on the floor to the three or four paintings on the walls, everything declared that solid balance at the bank which needs no vulgar advertisement but makes itself felt along the avenues of taste. The richness was a subdued richness. Gregory Porlock’s. clothes were part of it. Admirable in themselves, they not only did not have to atone for nature’s defects, but actually gained from nature’s bounty. He was an exceedingly personable man, rather florid of complexion, in marked and becoming contrast to the colour of his dark eyes and a head of very thick iron-grey hair. He might be in his middle forties, and he might be, and probably was, a couple of stone heavier than he had been ten years before, but it was not unbecoming and he carried it with an air.

The line crackled and Mr. Tote said, “ ’Ullo!”

It is not to be supposed that Mr. Tote was in the habit of dropping his h’s. If he had ever done so, it was a long time ago, but like a great many other people he still said “ ’Ullo!” when confronted by a telephone.

Gregory Porlock smiled as affably as if Mr. Tote could see him.

“Hullo, Tote-how are you? Gregory Porlock speaking.” The telephone crackled. “And Mrs. Tote? I want you both to come down for the week end… My dear fellow, I simply won’t take no for an answer.”

The telephone crackled again. With the receiver at his ear, Gregory Porlock was aware of Mr. Tote excusing himself.

“I don’t see that we really can-the wife’s none too well-”

“My dear fellow, I’m sorry to hear that But you know, sometimes a change-and though the Grange is an old house, we’ve got central heating everywhere and I can promise to keep her warm. There will be a pleasant party too. Do you know the Martin Oakleys?”