MARIE BELLOC LOWNDES - British Murder Mysteries Collection: 17 Books in One Edition. Marie Belloc Lowndes
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eager to start work at once.”
The lights were now being turned off one by one, so Ivy smiled across at Lady Dale, and rose from the chair which touched that on which Rushworth was still sitting as if lost in a dream.
As, a few moments later, they all stood together outside in the cool night air—all, that is, but Roger Gretorex who, after having uttered a curt good-night, had gone back to the now fast-emptying restaurant to pay his bill—Miles Rushworth exclaimed: “We can all squeeze into my car, or, if not, I’ll go outside.”
Ivy was delighted. She very much disliked the spending of any unnecessary ready money just now; and the thought of going home in a crowded omnibus on this fine July night had been unbearable.
In the end it was Jervis Lexton who sat outside by the chauffeur, while inside the car the other four discussed their coming yachting tour.
At last the Rolls–Royce drew up before the shabby-looking, stucco-fronted house in Pimlico, and Rushworth helped Ivy Lexton out of his car with a strong, careful hand.
“Don’t ring,” she said hurriedly; “Jervis has a latchkey. This house belongs to an old servant of the Lexton family; that’s why we are living here.”
As Ivy’s husband opened the door, Ivy’s new friend caught a glimpse of the dirty, gaslit hall, and his heart swelled with mingled disgust and pity. He must get this sweet, dainty little woman out of this horrible place at once—at once. Taking her hand in his, he held it just a thought longer than is perhaps usual even when a man is bidding good-night to an exceptionally pretty woman.
Long, long after Jervis Lexton was fast asleep in his crowded little back room, Ivy lay awake on the hard, lumpy, small double bed which took up most of the space in the front room.
She was tired, and with fatigue had come a feeling of depression. Miles Rushworth had said nothing as to their next meeting. He had forgotten her before—he might forget her again. As for Mrs. Thrawn—all that woman had told her might be fudge. The hard, shrewd side of Ivy’s nature came uppermost, and whispered that she had probably been very silly to spend a pound on a fortune-teller, and sillier still to believe in her predictions.
As she lay there, moving restlessly about, for it was a hot night, there came over her a feeling of revolt, almost of despair, at the conditions of her present day-to-day life. She was vividly aware of her own beauty—what beautiful young woman is not? In a certain set, the world of the smart night clubs, she was known as “the lovely Mrs. Lexton.” Further, she was popular, well liked by all sorts of people, women as well as men, and dowered by nature with a keen appreciation of all that makes civilised life decorous, orderly, and attractive.
Unlike some of her friends, she hated and despised Bohemian ways. She had tasted something of what Bohemia can offer her subjects during the few weeks she had spent in the chorus of a musical comedy. Yet now she was condemned—she sincerely believed through no fault of her own—to lead an existence full of sordid shifts, and of expedients so ignoble that even she sometimes shrank from them, while always on her slender shoulders lay the dead weight of her husband, a completely idle, extravagant, and yes, well she knew it, very stupid young man.
With angry distress she now asked herself a question of immediate moment. How was she to procure even the very simplest clothes suitable for life on a yacht? For a long time, now, she had had to pay ready money where she had once been welcome to unlimited credit.
Then in the darkness her face lightened. She had remembered Roger Gretorex! Poor though he was, he could always find money for her at a pinch. He had done so this very morning, and would of course do so again.
Then her face shadowed. Though Roger had his uses, he was becoming a tiresome, even a dangerous, complication in her life. Yet had it not been for him, had he not taken them to the Savoy to-night, she might never again have seen the man on whom now all her hopes centred.
Ivy Lexton had an intimate knowledge of the ugly, sinister sides of human nature. Her own father, a big man of business, had failed when she was seventeen. He had killed himself to avoid legal proceedings which would have led to a term of imprisonment. Their large circle of acquaintances (of real friends they had none) were some kind, some cruel, to the feckless, foolish, still pretty widow, and her lovely young daughter. The widow had soon married again, to die within a year. Ivy, after drifting about rudderless for a while, had obtained the “walking-on” part which had introduced her to an idle, pleasure-seeking, rich class of young men. By the time she was twenty she could have married half a dozen times. Her choice finally fell on Jervis Lexton, partly because he was of a superior social world to the other men who made love to her, but far more because at that time he had been undisputed owner of what had seemed to her a large fortune. Yet that fortune had melted like snow, lasting the two of them barely six years . . . .
Tossing about in her hot bed, Ivy reminded herself with a dawning feeling of hope, almost of security, that dull Lady Flora, who was no gossip, had said, during the week-end they had first met, that Miles Rushworth’s income was over a hundred thousand a year . . . .
As she was drinking her cup of tea the next morning, there was brought up to her an envelope, marked “Personal,” which had come by hand.
Eagerly tearing it open, at once she saw that, in addition to a letter, it contained a small plain envelope:
The Albany, Friday morning.
My Dear Mrs. Lexton,
I have already thought of a job for your husband, but the earliest moment he can begin work would be the third week in September, say a week after our return from our yachting trip. This being so, I hope you will forgive me for sending you the enclosed cheque for a hundred pounds, which he can pay me back at his convenience after he has begun to draw his salary.
I shall be so pleased if you and he will lunch with me tomorrow at the Carlton Grill. We can then make our final arrangements as to meeting at Southampton on August 5th.
Yours very sincerely, Miles Rushworth.
As Ivy drew out of the smaller envelope an uncrossed cheque made out to “self,” and endorsed “Miles Rushworth,” tears of joy rose to her eyes.
She ran into the next room, and excitedly told her husband the good news. But she said that the cheque their generous new friend had sent them “on account” was for fifty pounds.
Jervis Lexton leapt out of bed. “How splendid!” he exclaimed. And then, seizing her in his arms, he pirouetted in the tiny space left in the middle of the garret. “You are the cleverest as well as the prettiest little woman in the whole world!” he cried.
Chapter three
“Do look at Mrs. Lexton! Isn’t she absolutely lovely, Miles?”
“Yes, Bella—and as good as she is pretty, I really do believe,” was the half-joking answer.
Look at her? Rushworth had done very little else since Ivy had come out of her state-room this morning.
The two speakers were standing on the deck of the Dark Lady, and three yards away Ivy Lexton, lying back in a deck-chair, was talking animatedly to one of her fellow-guests, a good-looking young man named Quirk, who after having done well in the war, had been very nearly down and out by 1921, when he had been found and succoured by Rushworth. He now had his own ‘plane, his air-taxi as he called it, and, thanks again to Rushworth, he never lacked good customers.
It was true that Mrs. Lexton looked lovely today. All the lovelier because she was thoroughly enjoying her new rôle, that of a perfectly turned out yachts-woman.
But Miles Rushworth had already told himself more than once, in the last hour, that he would be cool, detached, impartial, when considering this special guest.
“I