style="font-size:15px;"> ‘Oh, F-f-fuxbridge.’
‘Don’t worry,’ says Mrs B., sliding out of bed and grabbing a robe. ‘I’ll see who it is.’
‘Tell them I nipped out to buy some aspirins,’ I call after her. I snuggle back in the sheets, pleasantly exhausted and look forward to Sadie’s return. It is very satisfying to turn someone on like that. Not bad on the strictly personal level, either. I hear Mrs B. drawling away to someone and then the door closing. Good. Then a male voice approaching. Bad! I am halfway under the sheets when the bedroom door is pushed open.
‘Henry,’ calls Mrs B. ‘Oh, Henry, I’ve got a surprise for you.’ Whoever she means, she can’t be kidding. Before I can do anything, a big guy with a crewcut is walking towards the bed with his hand outstretched. I examine it closely to see if there is a gun nestling in it. Luckily it is empty.
‘You could probably kill me for bursting in at a moment like this.’ He is right. ‘But I was passing through on my way back to the States and I bumped into one of Sadie’s buddies at the airport. You could have knocked me down with a feather.’ I would prefer to use a sledgehammer and do the job properly. ‘I put my flight back a few hours, hired a car and here I am. Couldn’t miss the opportunity to pay my respects to dear old Sadie and her new Mr Right. Put it there, pardner.’
‘Pleased to meet you. Ouch!’ I say as the Yank crushes my knuckles in his giant mitt.
‘I hear you’re some kind of noble?’
‘Um, well in a manner of speaking I–er,’ I Mumble trying to move my accent up three social classes. Sadie comes to the rescue swiftly.
‘Hiram! You just don’t ask questions like that over here. It’s bad enough pushing me out of the way and rushing into the bedroom on our wedding night.’
‘I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t mean no offence. It’s just that I feel I have some special rights as far as you’re concerned. After all, we were married.’
‘But only for five weeks, Hiram. It doesn’t give you the right to rush in here like it’s a press show.’
‘Don’t get mad at me, honey. And, you sir, please forgive me. I only wanted to say howdy do and bring you your present.’ He dives into his pocket and produces what looks like a handful of silver fire.
‘Hiram! It’s beautiful.’
‘I got it back from my fifth wife last week and I don’t really want it. I’d like you to have it. You were my favourite, Sadie. Too bad we married too young.’
‘But you were forty-two, Hiram.’
‘I was slow maturing. Anyhow, I’m glad you like it.’ He turns back to me. ‘Delighted to have made your acquaintance, sir. I hope I weather half as well as you. I was expecting you to be much older.’
‘I’m working at it.’
‘Very amusing, sir. Well, I must be off. I’m still living in the old place, Sadie. So when you’re both in New York you must look me up.’
‘That’s real nice of you, Hiram.’
‘Absolutely topping,’ I say, deciding he deserves a slice of genuine upper class lingo,
‘So long.’
‘ ’Bye.’
‘Toodle pip!’
The great toilet brush goes out and gives an Oliver Hardy wave as he closes the door gently behind him.
‘Blimey, I hope he doesn’t bump into your Henry.’
‘It’s very unlikely, sweetheart. If he does, he’ll think you were another husband.’
She fastens the necklace round her neck and studies herself in the wardrobe mirror. It hangs down in layers like chain mail.
‘Do you think it suits me?’
I come up behind her and ease the robe off her shoulder so that she is naked again. ‘I think you set it off a treat.’
She turns and her big, warm body presses against mine. Her hands start to go up to her neck but I pull them down again.
‘Keep it on,’ I say. ‘And get on to that bed.’
‘Alright, Henry. Anything you say.’
‘Hey, you. Where can I find Noggett?’
It is a week after the Beechams have left–he looking a bit worse than when he went into hospital; God knows what she was doing to the poor old sod–and I am standing in for Sandra who is having a bash on the tennis court–or more likely–in the long grass behind it! Every time she comes back she is covered in burrs. Everywhere but on her knickers, as I found out once when she bent down. Funny, that.
The bloke who is addressing me is about my age and has shoulder-length hair worn over the collar of his smart suit. He is carrying a pig-skin attaché case. Apart from his manner I don’t like his shifty eyes which are darting round the foyer as if trying to memorise every feature.
‘Do you mean “Mr Noggett”?’ I say primly.
‘There’s only one, isn’t there?’ The tone is only slightly less than a snarl.
‘I’ll see if he is available. Who shall I say wants to see him?’
‘Edward Rigby.’ The bloke is now tapping the walls. ‘And hurry up, will you? I’m a busy man. I haven’t got time to hang around this morgue.’
When I find Sidney he is in Miss Ruperts’ office cocking his little finger over a cup of tea.
‘Miss Ruperts has surpassed herself,’ he pipes. ‘The Pendulum Society are going to hold their convention here. Every room in the hotel booked Friday to Sunday. Isn’t she a clever girl?’
Sidney coming the smarmer makes me want to puke, but I manage to control myself. ‘Great,’ I say. ‘There’s a nasty looking Herbert in the foyer who wants to speak to you. He didn’t say what it was about.’
‘Oh, well, better see him, I suppose.’
I notice, as we leave, that Miss Ruperts has a bottle of brandy under the tea cosy. She does not change.
When we get into the foyer, Rigby looks Sid up and down like he is measuring him for a coffin.
‘Mr Noggett?’
‘That’s right. What can I do for you?’
‘I’d like to have a few words with you–in private.’
He looks at me like I came off the bottom of his shoe after a walk around Battersea Dogs’ Home.
‘Mr Lea is my personal assistant. You can speak freely
