Doctor On Toast Page 13

  I agreed. Nature hasn’t provided many female panthers, either, but you didn’t go out of your way looking for them.

  ‘A girl worthy of a future, Grim.’

  ‘She isn’t doing badly. She was on the cover of Reveille last week.’

  ‘I mean the richer and fuller future that can come only to a happily married woman.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’

  ‘Let’s face it, dear chappie – we did behave rather badly in her direction.’

  ‘We did? Dash it! You were the one officially lined up to provide the richer and fuller future completely off your own bat.’

  ‘There may have been some sort of informal arrangement.’ Basil absently twisted a gold signet ring. ‘But I’m thinking only of Ophelia’s happiness. When you come down to it, I was nothing more than a mere strolling player. She would be far better off with a steady professional man like yourself.’

  I said nothing.

  ‘But don’t you understand?’ he insisted. ‘I have given you Ophelia.’

  ‘And I dashed well don’t want her.’

  Basil looked surprised. ‘I thought you loved her?’

  ‘She was merely another viper in my well-bitten bosom.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’

  He sat staring at the toes of his new shoes.

  ‘A pity, because I was rather relying on you to get her out of my hair… I mean, to ensure her future happiness. Dear chappie, let me be perfectly frank. Our little Ophelia, as you know, is sometimes a rather headstrong girl.’

  I nodded. ‘Personally, I think she makes Salome look like Mrs Beeton.’

  ‘And just before leaving the ship, when I dropped into her cabin to say goodbye, she did happen to mention…well, she said if I ever actually married Sybil van Barn, she’d come to the wedding and when they got to that awkward bit about knowing cause or just impediment why these two should not be joined together–’

  ‘Stand up with a few well chosen words?’

  ‘Exactly.’ Basil nodded solemnly. ‘It would be terribly damaging to my reputation on the stage. And to Sybil’s feelings, of course. So I was wondering if you could possibly go round to have a word with the dear girl, and hand her this little present from Asprey’s?’

  He pulled out a blue leather case stuffed with diamonds. ‘It would never do for Sybil to find I’d seen Ophelia myself, of course. In fact, she mustn’t even know about this bracelet. Sybil’s the most generous and understanding of women, but she does make me file a sort of expense sheet every month, I’ve put this down as fertilizer for the estate.’

  I didn’t know what to say. If I hadn’t much wanted to see Basil after leaving the ship, I certainly never wanted to see Ophelia again at all. But as Basil and I had blown the whistle on our little feud I supposed I ought to help the idiot to give a smooth performance at his wedding, if only for the sake of the dear old digs.

  ‘All right,’ I agreed. ‘I’ll give her a ring tomorrow.’

  ‘Dear chappie, that’s absolutely splendid of you. How often have I said I could rely on Grimsdyke as a real true friend?’ He glanced at his new wristwatch. ‘I say, you’ll have to get cracking with my examination. I’m due at an agency in Bond Street at four to interview some butlers. It’s so terribly difficult to find the right type of English servant these days. I absolutely insist on paying for the treatment this time, of course. And by the way, dear chappie,’ he added, as he started to unknot his new silk tie, ‘on this occasion, perhaps you’d better send me the result of the laboratory test by post.’

  19

  ‘I gathered from Potter-Phipps in the St Swithin’s private block yesterday that you have condescended to do a little medical work for a change,’ said my cousin Miles.

  ‘That’s right,’ I replied. ‘Medicine is my legal spouse and literature my mistress. When I get tired of one I go and sleep with the other.’

  ‘I suppose I should have expected you to make some stupid remark like that.’

  ‘I didn’t. It was Chekhov.’

  Miles frowned. ‘I do wish you’d grow out of this practice of scoring feeble points off me, Gaston. It was bad enough at school, when I recall you deliberately set out to undermine my authority as a prefect.’

  I made no reply, while Miles drove his Alvis through the free-for-all round Hyde Park Corner. The trouble with my cousin, of course, was having no sense of humour. He still couldn’t see the funny side of those cricket boots.

  ‘I must really ask you to show some consideration for me,’ Miles went on bitterly. ‘Here am I, one of Her Majesty’s Royal Commissioners, and you, my cousin, pursue a Bohemian existence in some squalid basement in Paddington.’

  ‘Not out of choice, let me add,’ I returned smartly. ‘I’m not one for the crust of bread and your-tiny-hand-is-frozen stuff at all. If you’d only cough up some of that cash for me, I’d start wallowing in the shocking luxury of regular meals and a bit of fresh air.’

  Miles tightened his lips. ‘That is totally out of the question. You would merely squander it on some woman.’

  ‘My dear old lad! I haven’t seen the woman you mean for months, and I wouldn’t much care if I never did again.’

  ‘Indeed? I thought when we met a little earlier you had an appointment to visit her this evening?’

  ‘Of course I did, dash it! But that was in quite a different connection–’

  ‘Please do not insult my intelligence with more of these feeble excuses.’

  Miles swung his car round the policeman in Vauxhall Bridge Road, and pulled up sharply in the forecourt of Victoria Station.

  I’d been having a difficult day of it. In the week since seeing Basil Beauchamp I’d had no luck ringing Ophelia’s flat, but that morning I’d managed to catch her in her bath.

  ‘Darling, I’m simply dripping,’ she’d explained over the wire. ‘But where on earth have you been? I haven’t heard from you for ages and ages.’

  ‘Overwork, you know. Terribly busy.’

  ‘Yes, I’m utterly frantic, too.’

  ‘I say, old girl,’ I went on, coming briskly to business. ‘How about a little drink together? Just for old time’s sake.’

  ‘But darling! I don’t know when I’ll ever have a spare evening again.’

  ‘I’ve a rather important message for you,’ I added urgently. ‘Not to mention a jolly little present that will bring a sparkle to your life.’

  ‘Oh, all right, darling.’ She sounded doubtful. ‘I think I can manage a quick one if you pick me up here at six.’

  By doing without lunch I’d bought a bunch of flowers, and I was just leaving my basement when I noticed Miles’ car crawling along the gutter.

  ‘Gaston!’ he called through the window. ‘Do you realise I have been looking for you half over London? What conceivably made you hide yourself in this atrocious district?’

  ‘Oh, hello, Miles. It’s really quite attractive when the sun goes down over Wormwood Scrubs–’

  ‘You are to accompany me to Sir Lancelot’s house at once.’

  ‘Sir Lancelot’s house? But I’m afraid I’ve a rather pressing engagement–’

  ‘You will simply have to put the lady off.’ Miles glared at the flowers. ‘Sir Lancelot particularly wishes you to come to dinner. We are informally entertaining the Home Secretary.’

  ‘The Home Secretary?’ I looked a bit blank. ‘Good Lord! What on earth makes Sir Lancelot think he’s anxious to get chummy with a chap like me?’

  ‘Don’t stand there making idiotic remarks. Please get in the car.’

  ‘Oh, all right. I’ll phone Ophelia and put her off. You can have the flowers for Bartholomew’s nursery.’

  I got the hang of my invitation as soon as we arrived at Sir Lancelot’s house, when the surgeon opened the door himself in his shirt-sleeves and frilly apron.

  ‘Delighted you’re able to give us a hand in the crisis, my boy,’ he greeted me. ‘Can you cook?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, sir, I do rather fancy my touch with an o
melette,’ I admitted.

  ‘As a bachelor doing for himself you can presumably mix salad dressing? Then you will kindly accompany me to the kitchen and try. Miles, lay the table. And don’t forget to polish the champagne glasses.’

  ‘Haven’t you got a maid yet, sir?’ I asked, rather mystified as I followed Sir Lancelot through the house.

  ‘It may interest you to know that the past two months of my life have been plagued by a succession of females, who have enjoyed in common a striking inability to master the rudiments of the English language and a morbidly hysterical personality. That is not to mention a lady from some obscure corner of the Alps, who arrived solely to have her infant at the expense of our over-solicitous Health Service. Fortunately, I have an eye for such things. All this has understandably tried the patience of both our excellent cook and myself. Our cook enjoyed the advantage of being able to pack up and leave.’

  ‘Oh, I see, sir.’

  I felt rather narked at being roped in for the evening as Sir Lancelot’s skivvy instead of loading Ophelia with diamonds, but I remembered again that except for the old boy I’d have left St Swithin’s before Christmas in one of the tasteful plain vans they keep for the purpose.

  ‘My wife is at this very moment down at the agency, trying to discover where the devil our specially recommended mademoiselle from Paris has got to,’ Sir Lancelot continued. ‘As the woman appears to be lost in transit and we can hardly put off a Cabinet minister, we have no alternative but to cook and bottle-wash ourselves.’

  In the kitchen I found the Bishop, with his jacket off and black in the face.

  ‘Confound it, Charles! Haven’t you got the boiler working yet?’

  ‘I fear, Lancelot, it is somewhat beyond me. It is really a most recalcitrant piece of apparatus. It seems quite to possess a personality of its own.’

  ‘If you don’t get the ruddy boiler going you’ll have no hot water,’ said Sir Lancelot shortly. ‘And you know it’s your turn to wash up.’

  ‘I was just going to mention I have a rather nasty cut on my hand. I did it with the cucumber slicer. As you know, my flesh festers so easily, and I fear immersion in hot soapy water–’

  ‘I don’t give a damn whether you develop acute gas gangrene of the upper limb. It’s still your turn to wash up.’

  ‘You might show a little sympathy,’ complained the Bishop.

  ‘It was clearly understood weeks ago that whoever gets the early tea doesn’t wash up. And this morning you chose to wallow in bed.’

  ‘I tell you I woke with a most unpleasant headache–’

  ‘So I had to boil your breakfast egg. And you pinched the ruddy Times–’

  ‘I don’t see why you can’t order two copies of The Times,’ returned the Bishop testily. ‘You always make such a fuss about it.’

  ‘So, you would lead me down the paths of gross extravagance?’

  ‘There was something I particularly wanted to read about the Commission.’

  ‘You didn’t. You did the crossword. It was my morning for the crossword.’

  ‘It wasn’t your morning at all. You did the crossword yesterday.’

  ‘Of course I did. You can hardly fail to remember you swapped an extra crossword for my cleaning the baths.’

  ‘I am going to my room,’ said the Bishop curtly. ‘Apart from everything else, I have my headache again. Not to mention a considerable quantity of soot down my neck.’

  ‘If that feller stays here any longer I’ll sell the house to the demolition squad and take furnished lodgings.’ Sir Lancelot handed me a salad bowl. ‘You can’t imagine how intolerable it is, with Maud pampering him at every turn. Only my natural good breeding prevents my dropping the hint that he has outstayed his welcome. The man has a hide like a – Ah, there you are, my dear. Any luck with the girl?’

  ‘Everything’s perfectly all right, Lancelot,’ announced Lady Spratt breathlessly. ‘Mademoiselle’s boat was held up, that’s all. She’s due at Victoria in fifteen minutes.’

  ‘Good,’ exclaimed Sir Lancelot. ‘Grimsdyke – cherchez la femme.’

  ‘Me, sir?’ I looked alarmed. ‘But how would I recognise her, sir?’

  ‘She’ll be wearing lily of the valley and carrying a copy of Paris Match,’ explained Lady Spratt quickly. ‘Of course, she doesn’t speak any English–’

  ‘I’m not really much cop at the défense d’afficher stuff once I’m off a menu,’ I told them doubtfully.

  ‘Then for God’s sake take someone with you,’ directed Sir Lancelot impatiently. ‘Take Miles. He once spent a fortnight at Dinard, and for months after seemed to imagine it made him an honorary member of the French Academy.’

  As Miles had got into a frightful muddle with the fish forks, anyway, he was pleased enough to drive me to Victoria. Particularly as it gave a chance for one of those little lectures of his en route.

  ‘It is really most unfortunate that Sir Lancelot cannot handle staff better,’ he complained finally, as we got out of the car at the station. ‘It will be highly distressing if the Home Secretary notices anything amiss. The Bishop and I are at pains to have him in the right frame of mind for discussing our minority views on the Commission.’

  ‘How’s the old immorality going?’ I asked.

  Miles looked pained. ‘There is no need for you to be flippant, Gaston. You don’t seem to realise what extremely arduous and distasteful work it is. I am obliged almost daily to observe things that surprise even me. Who could have imagined that all over London men sit for hours watching a succession of girls removing their clothing? Our modern civilisation is gripped by a vast epidemic of voyeurism.’

  I nodded. ‘I remember the first case. It was reported in the year 1040, from Coventry–’

  ‘You’re an idiot,’ said Miles, slamming the car door.

  Personally, I’ve always found Victoria rather a jolly station. While other London termini lead nowhere more exciting than Glasgow, it’s always a pretty sight on a winter’s evening watching the happy-faced young holidaymakers tripping on to the departure platform with their skis on their shoulders, and hobbling off the arrival one with their plaster casts and crutches. And in summer there’s the buckets and spades and bare knees and kiddies being sick in the booking office, and all the year round, come aeroplanes, come space rockets, I bet nobody fails to tingle a bit inside on spotting the sign CONTINENTAL DEPARTURES while running after a train for Balham.

  ‘The boat train seems to be in already,’ observed Miles, as we made our way through the crowd at the barrier.

  ‘If you’re feeling rocky on the lingo, the Man from Cook’s over there is bursting to hold forth like Robespierre,’ I mentioned.

  ‘My dear Gaston, I do wish you would give me the credit for a little intelligence. We should anyway be able to identify the young woman perfectly easily. Lily of the valley is a fairly unusual flower.’

  I nodded. ‘She must be that grey-haired old dear over there with the hampers.’

  Miles frowned.

  ‘Or that kid sucking a stick of toffee. Or perhaps the bird with the moustache and the astrakhan collar? He’s carrying a bunch of the stuff.’ I gave a laugh. ‘Do you know what day it is?’

  ‘Day? May the first, of course.’

  ‘Yes, the day the French buy it by the basketful and stick it all over themselves, except that they call it muguet.’

  Miles bit his lip. ‘How remarkably awkward.’

  ‘Don’t worry, there’s still the magazine diagnosis.’ I searched the crowd. ‘I say, how about that blonde over there?’

  I began to feel I wouldn’t mind doing Sir Lancelot’s washing up after all.

  ‘I doubt it. Lady Spratt explained she was a mature woman and most respectable, being the daughter of some minor fonctionnaire.’

  My cousin looked on bleakly as a couple of nuns came through the barrier, followed by a file of schoolgirls covered with muguet. Then he started approaching unaccompanied females, raising his hat, and trying his ‘Est-ce qu
e vous êtes la bonne de Sir Lancelot Spratt?’ stuff, but this didn’t get him more than a few dirty looks.

  ‘You might do something to help,’ he said impatiently, ‘instead of just standing there putting pennies in the slot machines.’

  ‘Bit peckish,’ I explained. ‘No lunch.’

  ‘Blast you,’ muttered Miles.

  As a matter of fact, I was getting rather anxious as well, the platform now being empty except for some African chaps in robes, who obviously wouldn’t have done at all. But just then a respectable looking middle-aged woman in a teddy-bear coat appeared round a pile of mail-bags, carrying a magazine and sprouting lily of the valley luxuriously.

  ‘Pardonnez-moi,’ Miles began again. ‘Mais êtes vous engagé à Sir Lancelot Spratt?’

  She gave a nice smile. ‘Ce que vous êtes gentil.’

  ‘Thank God for that!’ exclaimed Miles. ‘Gaston, take the lady’s case. Par ici, mademoiselle. Nous avons l’auto dans the qu’est-ce que c’est outside.’

  ‘Comment? Vous êtes venus me chercher en auto?’

  ‘Seulement le meilleur est assez bon pour la bonne,’ I told her, feeling rather proud of myself on the spur of the moment.

  We all three piled into the Alvis and bustled back to Harley Street.

  20

  ‘Morality is, after all, merely a matter of geographical latitude,’ declared Sir Lancelot Spratt airily. ‘What passes in polite society in Bali would never do in Berkeley Square.’

  ‘Um, ah,’ said the Bishop.

  Miles had lit the boiler and cleaned him up a bit, and the four of us were taking a glass of sherry in the drawing-room while Lady Spratt installed the new maid upstairs.

  ‘The unfortunate British public has been much exposed to moralists.’ Sir Lancelot stood stroking his beard before the fireplace. ‘Indeed, the population has hardly been allowed to pursue its natural instincts in peace since the arrival of Oliver Cromwell. No wonder our clinics are cluttered with the diseases of mass repression.’

  Miles seemed to be fidgeting rather.

  ‘I should have thought as a nation we were proud of our respectability, Lancelot.’