J.T. Edson - Blonde Genius

“Are you all right, Rosalie?” Anacropolis inquired, while Fiorelli strolled to the french windows to investigate.

“Oh, my head!” the “housewife” groaned.

“It’s all right,” Fiorelli remarked, returning to the desk. “The dogs both broke loose.”

“Have they been caught again?” Anacropolis inquired, glancing nervously at the open french windows.

“Sure. But we need a new assistant kennelman, they’ve made the old one a bit frayed at the edges. What’s wrong Rosalie. Have you got a hangover?”

“And over, and over, and over. ” Rosalie confessed and there was no faking of her emotions. “Does there have to be all this noise, Alfie?”

“Yes,” Fiorelli answered, just too bluntly.

“Ooh!” Rosalie groaned, holding her head. “It’ll drive me round the twist.”

“Perhaps you’d better run into Nicosia and do some shopping,” Anacropolis suggested. “That’s how Ariadne cures her headaches’ although she never buys aspirins. Besides, you might see something you’d like to wear tonight.”

“We’ve been invited to a party on that Greek shipping magnates yacht,” Fiorelli elaborated. “Unless you don’t feel like going, that is.”

“Just try to keep me away,” Rosalie enthused. “That’s just what they—I need.”

“If you don’t feel up to driving yourself,” Anacropolis said, attaching no importance to the last words spoken by Rosalie, “take one of the chauffeurs.”

“I wondered if Anton’s available?” Rosalie said pensively, mentioning the most handsome of the chauffeurs.

Just as she had expected, Fiorelli scowled at hearing her selection.

“Use the Lotus and drive it yourself,” her “husband” suggested. “The fresh air will do you good.”

“Can’t I let Anton drive me?” Rosalie pouted.

“No!” Fiorelli barked, then softened his refusal. “I need him and all the other chauffeurs here.”

Pouting a little, although she was secretly delighted, Rosalie left the room. An old Benkinsopian would never stoop to dalliance, or mild flirtation, with an employee; but Fiorelli’s previous “wives” had not attended such high-quality schools. So he based his assumptions upon their standards. Rosalie did not care, for his suspicions had given her the chance she needed. Leaving the men, she hurried to her room.

Dressing hurriedly. Rosalie left the villa by a rear door and collected the elegant powder-blue Lotus Elite Gran Turismo convertible. She drove from the grounds and down the track. Passing the two Greek-Cypriot policemen who sat in their patrol car and kept the house under observation, she held her speed to a legal level until out of their range of vision.

“Do we follow her?” the driver asked, hopefully, knowing that their Inspector had promised promotion to any officers who managed to arrest one or more of the villa’s occupants.

“What for?” his companion asked. “There’s nothing we could do her for. Now if she’d only been speeding—”

“Then we’d have had her,” the driver agreed.

“Yes, then we’d have had her,” agreed the second officer. “One of these days, George, we’ll get our chance.”

Once out of sight of the police officers, Rosalie increased the car’s speed. Although all a-tremble with emotion, she retained sufficient presence of mind to drive carefully. On reaching Nicosia, she left the Lotus in the Ledra Palace Hotel’s car park. Going into the luxurious building, she obtained change and entered one of its telephone booths. Obtaining the operator, she sucked in a deep breath.

“Put me through to Benkinsop’s Academy for the Daughters of Gentlefolk, at Upper Grebe, England, please,” she requested. “And could you hurry, it’s urgent.”

The clock on the wall showed the time to be the equivalent of ten-past-nine in England. Rosalie hoped that she would reach Miss Benkinsop soon enough to be of assistance.

CHAPTER TEN

Entering the teachers’ common-room, Miss Benkinsop was surprised to find all the staff, Amanda and Penelope present. They all rose politely as she entered and she read, from their strained expressions, that they knew something was very wrong. After glancing at the others, she turned her gaze towards Amanda.

“I hope you don’t mind, Miss Benkinsop,” the School Swot said apologetically. “But I took the liberty of telling the ladies what has happened.”

“I agreed that it was the fing to do,” Penelope declared loyally.

“That dirty, no good slag, Gus Saunders,” Miss Panchez growled, before the headmistress could comment. “I’d like to wring his neck.”

“Hoo!” Penelope went on, casually drawing open to their fullest extent the four powerful strands of a chest expander which she was using to improve her technique as a Debater. “I don’t arf wish ’e’d got a daughter ’ere.”

“And if he had, young lady,” Miss Benkinsop warned severely, “I most certainly would not countenance anybody bullying her.”

“I didn’t mean I’ d do any-fing. ma’am,” Penelope explained, oozing innocence. “I only fought me little sister, in the Lower Third, could teach her some Debating.”

“Oh, how kind of you!” Miss Benkinsop replied with cold, biting sarcasm.

At that moment, Penelope’s “little sister in the Lower Third”—a charming child some eight inches taller and almost twice as heavy as the head girl—was in the gymnasium. Dressed in a Debating costume, she was lifting a two hundred and fifty pound bar-bell and being exhorted by the prefect in charge to:

“Put your back into it, Parkerhouse Minor. Good heavens, Penelope wouldn’t be puffing and blowing over such a small weight.”

“Well,” Lavinia Parkerhouse protested indignantly. “Our Penelope’s a lot older than me.”

“Us girls’ve been talking the situation over, Miss B.,” Miss Dinks announced, wriggling uncomfortably.

“Is something the matter, Miss Dinks?” asked the headmistress.

“Me ‘hoisting knickers’ feel like they’re made of sandpaper, they don’t half irritate,” the English teacher answered, bringing a little, hastily suppressed titter from Miss Pedlar. Making an effort to control herself, she continued, “Us girls have been talking it over and we’ve decided to go out and so some grafting.”

“I think I can get a booking Folk Dancing at the Penthouse Club,” Miss Pedlar said hurriedly, conscious of the headmistress’s coldly accusative gaze on her.

“Amanda’s showed me how to do Charlie Clore’s signature so well the computer at his bank’d be took in,” Miss McCoy went on.

Eager to make an offer of assistance, Penelope was too well-bred to merely shout it out. So she raised her right hand and awaited Miss Benkinsop’s attention with what little patience she could muster.

“Do you wish to go somewhere, Penelope?” Miss Benkinsop inquired, drawing an incorrect conclusion from the manner in which the head girl was squirming on her seat.

“Not that way, ma’am,” Penelope replied. “I was just finking. If I could ’ave a ’oliday, I could go on tour with an American professional Debating Society. It’d be ever such good experience for me.”

“You’re just trying to skive out of your history and arithmetic classes,” Miss Pedlar said, with a grin at the girl who had once been her fag.

“It ain’t that, ’onest!” Penelope protested, showing that her feelings had been hurt by the accusation. Scholastic subjects had never been her strong point. “It’s my fault that Miss Benkinsop’s in the muck like this.”

“Don’t take it to heart, love,” Miss Panchez advised. “Peac—Miss Pedlar’s only kidding and none of us blame you for what’s happened.”