Dennis Wheatley: Black August

Somehow his quiet, almost mocking assurance made a refusal seem stupid and childish. She turned the key and felt him behind her in the close darkness of the tiny hall.

'This way,' she whispered, stretching back one hand to guide him as they reached the landing and, with the other, softly opening the sitting room door.

In the faint light that penetrated through the half drawn curtains the arm chairs and settee were just visible as outlines of a deeper blackness. She put out her hand to press the electric switch, then hesitated, remembering suddenly the worn shoddiness of the room but Kenyon's fingers closed over hers and bore them swiftly downwards as he drew her to him.

Her arms stretched up and closed round his neck, drawing his face down to hers. Something outside her consciousness seemed to impel her movements. She closed her eyes, her heart hammering in her breast as her soft mouth melted into his; standing on tip toe, straining to him, she returned his breathless kisses with almost savage passion.

As in a dream she found herself lifted held in the air and then laid gently on the long settee. He was kneeling beside her, fondling her hands, and repeating over and over again, 'Ann Ann Ann.' Then his arms were tight about her once more.

How long they remained fast in each other's arms, while the silent night wended its way towards the dawn, Ann did not know or care. Her mouth was sore with the strain of repeated kissing yet his fevered lips seemed insatiable of her caresses.

With a sudden devastating unexpectedness the light was on Gregory Sallust stood, framed in the doorway, returned from his night's work. His paper was even now thundering from the presses, going North, South, East and West, to carry the news of the moratorium to the breakfast tables of the millions.

'Hullo!' he said. 'So sorry had no idea you were still up only came in for my nightcap won't be a second.' Then he walked over to the cupboard where he kept his whisky.

Ann noticed through a sort of haze that Kenyon was standing up with his back to the mantelpiece. His hair was rather ruffled, but he looked remarkably self possessed.

'It is I who should apologise,' he said. 'I've been rottenly ill ate something at supper that didn't agree with me I think. Anyhow, Miss Croome insisted that I should come in and lie down in the dark for a bit, and I'm feeling ever so much better now.'

'Oh?' Gregory nodded. To Ann's relief he showed no shadow of disbelief in this preposterous story; 'how rotten for you may I suggest that a whisky and soda wouldn't do you any harm buck you up a bit before you go home!'

'Thanks, that's nice of you.' Kenyon drew his tongue quickly across his burning lips, 'I could do with a drink!'

'Good, here we are say when.' Gregory squirted a siphon into an extra glass he had already filled a quarter full with whisky, and Kenyon picked it up. Ann stood there marvelling at their quiet, easy behaviour, as they talked casually of the moratorium for a moment. By some mysterious freemasonry they already seemed to be on the best of terms, although she had forgotten even to introduce them.

'Well, I must get along,' Kenyon set down his glass.

'You'll find a taxi at the end of the road,' said Gregory affably.

'Thanks thanks too for the drink. I'll give you a ring, Ann, if I may sorry to have been such a nuisance to you.'

Kenyon was standing by the door, but Ann felt that he might have been a thousand miles away. By the time she had reached the landing he was half way down the stairs.

'Don't bother to come down,' he called. 'I can easily let myself out.'

The front door banged while she was still upon the second step. 'He might have waited,' she thought, 'but of course the darling was trying to make it seem ordinary and natural. Anyhow Gregory couldn't have seen much!' She yawned, suddenly realising how tired she was and went back into the sitting room to fetch her coat.

Gregory stood there grinning like a fiend. 'Ann,' he said, 'Ann how could you be such a little idiot?'

'What do you mean?' she cried, her eyelids lowering angrily.

'I never meant you to go and overstep the mark like that!'

Misunderstanding his meaning completely she flushed scarlet. 'Thank you, Gregory, what I choose to do is entirely my own affair.'

'Of course,' he was serious now, 'but why in God's name pick on a man like that?'

'He's worth a thousand like you!' she snapped.

'Perhaps, but he won't be any earthly good to you if we all have to get out in a hurry and that's what it is coming to, you believe me!'

'Why?' Ann demanded truculently.

'Because he'll be too busy with his own crowd.'

'What exactly do you mean?' she said slowly.

'Well, you're a typist secretary aren't you?'

'What about it? He knows that.'

Gregory set down his glass with slow deliberation; his mouth hung slightly open. 'Does he? Well, do you seriously think he'll give a damn what happens to you when the crash comes? You've just been an excellent amusement for the evening that's all. A little quiet fun which will be forgotten in the morning. Surely you realise that, unless… Good God! perhaps you don't know who he is?'

'I do his name is Kenyon Wensleadale. I was telling you about him only this evening, and that he was getting some sort of Government job.' Ann shivered slightly, feeling for the first time the chill of the night air.

'Government job, eh? that's pretty rich.' He shook his head whimsically. 'You poor little fool, hadn't you the sense to realise that Wensleadale is the family name of the Dukes of Burminster? The young man is the candidate for mid Suffolk, Ann and he is known officially as my Lord the Marquis of Fane!'

Love, Cocktails, and the Shadow of Fear

'Darling! How divine of you to come!' Lady Veronica Wensleadale was stretched at full length on the comfortable sofa in her private sitting room. It was on the third floor of the Burminster house in Grosvenor Square, a friendly, well lit and exquisitely furnished room.

'My dear! I've been simply dying to see you.' Fiona Hetherington stretched out both her hands. She was Veronica's closest friend and from their greetings one might have imagined that they had met after a separation of months. Actually they had seen each other less than ten days before, exchanged letters, and held two long conversations on the telephone in the meantime.

'Sit down, my sweet, and tell me everything.' Veronica pulled the other girl down beside her. She was darker than her brother Kenyon, but a suggestion of red lit the almost black hair on her small and shapely head. As she lay back her slim body was half buried in the cushions and her pale oval face only just appeared above her knees. A thin spiral of smoke rose from a cigarette in her slender jade holder.

'I suppose you've heard all these ghastly rumours which are floating round,' Fiona said.

'Yes, too nauseating, my dear why don't they have their absurd revolution and get it over! but tell me about the Tweekenhams' dance?'

'It was an awful flop, half the people failed to turn up!'

'But, darling, they were completely loppy to give a party in August, anyhow.'

'I don't know,' Fiona remonstrated, 'as Parliament is still sitting everybody has stayed on in London this year, but even Peter tried to back out at the last moment said it was such damned bad taste with the King ill and everything but we had to go in the end, I couldn't let Angela down.'

'Poor Angela! she is a complete nit wit, but such a sweet. It was hellish to have to refuse her, but I couldn't get away from Holkenham until yesterday.'

Fiona pulled off her hat and shook back her fair hair. 'Was it amusing?'

'Grim, my dear grim.' Veronica cast her eyes up to the ceiling. 'The house was Strawberry Hill Gothic, not enough bathrooms, and a vast brown tiled hall real Neo Lavatorial!'