Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine #097v018 (1951-12)

You only live once by Michael Arlen[6]

How many writers have the extraordinary talent, precocious or otherwise, to have their first book published while they are still in their teens? Not many surely, but Michael Arlen is one. He was only eighteen when his first novel saw the light of print. He was only twenty four when these charming people, that highly sophisticated book of short stories, brought him a modest success. And he was still under thirty when THE GREEN HAT made him an international celebrity. It is said that THE GREEN HAT earned Michael Aden half a million dollars in book royalties alone, and the motion picture [starring Greta Garbo) and the play (starring Katharine Cornell) must have added substantially to the book’s income. Today, the critics speak airily of THE GREEN HAT as “superficial” and “dated” — yes, those harsh words about the most talked-of novel of its lime; but the critics, it is well known, have often borrowed the womanly prerogative of changing their minds, and no matter what harsh words have been flung in Mr. Alien’s direction in the past, no critic ever had the courage to deny that “Mike” has wit and imagination, that. “he knows how to tell a story”...

At ten o’clock one evening not long ago there was not, in the considered opinion of the famous amateur golfer Johnnie (“Jock”) Winterser, a more happily married man, a prouder father, and a more contented husband than Jock Winterset.

By ten fifteen of the same evening it was, in an emphatic and moving statement he made to his wife Stella, established beyond all doubt that there was not in all the United Kingdom a man, husband, and father lower down in the scale of happiness than poor Jock Winterset.

Preparing to leave the house in the grand manner, his parting words to Stella, touched with the dignity of melancholy self-criticism, were also in the grand manner. For Jock Winterset, surprisingly enough in an Englishman with a good eye for a ball, could speak English with reasonable facility, if not perhaps quite fluently.

As a youth he had been a martyr to the grunting habit, a malady which annually claims innumerable victims in England and America, but he had outgrown this. In due course he had mastered all the better-known labials and vowel sounds, and had even won a certain reputation among grunters as an able speechmaker in his triumphant career as Captain of the School, a Blue, a Walker Cup player, and Amateur Champion (twice).

He said to Stella: “You have let me live in a fool’s paradise for the nine years of our married life. I thought you loved me. I thought, like a fathead, that you were even proud of me sometimes.”

He said: “I realize now that you have been acting and pretending all the time — out of pity, not to hurt my feelings. I have never loved anyone but you, Stella — anyway, not since I met you. But you tell me I love only myself.”

He said: “I know I’m not clever. I know I’m no good at anything except games. But I’m not fool enough to think that there can be any happiness in a marriage when — when the teamwork has broken down — that is, when a fellow’s wife tells him in so many words that she has no respect for him at all.”

He said: “I shall have to think this out, Stella. We have to think above all of our boy. I am going now, and—”

“You were going,” Stella pointed out, “anyway.” Then, quite unlike herself, she suddenly giggled. “Just suppose you missed the 11:10 at Euston — then some other big thinker would win the North of England Championship tomorrow.”

“I don’t suppose,” he said bitterly, “that I shall even qualify, with this on my mind.”

“Why not?” said Stella with surprise. “Just think of nothing but the ball. You’ll find it quite easy, since you have thought of nothing else for the nine years we’ve been married.”

Whereupon Jock Winterset, forgetting all about the grand manner, picked up his small suitcase and large bag of clubs, and banged out of the house into the waiting taxi.

“Ever heard,” he said savagely to the taxidriver, “of lightning?”

“Yessir. My missus uses it regular on our Bill. It works wunnerful.”

“Go,” said Jock with restraint, “like lightning in the general-direction of Euston Station.”

He had ample time, in point of fact. But his nerves called for hurry, speed.

His thoughts sped faster than the taxi. The row with Stella had arisen from an argument about their son Gerald, then just on seven years old. Jerry had been laid up the last day or so with a slightly cut finger which had become inflamed.

Jock had suggested — casually, not dreaming of any opposition — that young Jerry should start taking golf lessons from a good professional as soon as his finger was better. “My father,” he said, “had me learn the feel of a club when I was Jerry’s age, and I have never regretted it.”

“Yes, dear,” said Stella. She was knitting.

“In fact,” said Jock, “that’s what made me.”

“Yes, dear,” said Stella.

She was slender and dark-haired, with wide, gray, thoughtful eyes. She was much loved by her friends, and silly people were rather frightened of her.

“There’s nothing,” said Jock, “like learning to swing a club in a natural way when you’re a kid. Like the caddies.”

“Jerry,” said Stella, going on knitting, “isn’t going to be a caddy.”

“You know what I mean, Stella. A really first-class amateur — someone who might win the Open. Golly, I’d be proud if a son of mine—”

“Ours, dear,” said Stella.

“Of course, darling. But wouldn’t it be marvelous if Jerry were really in the top class? You can see now that he’s got a pretty good eye, and—”

Stella put down her knitting and looked up at him. She did this very deliberately, and suddenly Jock felt uncomfortable. For a second he could not understand why. Then he realized uneasily that a stranger, cold and unfamiliar, was measuring him from the depths of the wide gray eyes he knew so well.

“It is time I told you something, Jock. Perhaps I should have told you before, but I have been trying not to hurt your feelings. Jerry — our son — is not going to take golf lessons now. In due course he is going to learn how to play golf and tennis and other games in the normal undistinguished way, and when he grows up he is going to play them — I hope — in the normal undistinguished way.

“He is not going to play golf or tennis like a first-class amateur. I do not want our son to be a first-class amateur but a tenth-class amateur. Or eleventh-class. That will be much better for him and his character.

“For I hope that our son will grow up to be a reasonably thoughtful; hard-working young man who will be able to get a decent job for himself on his own merits and not because other good chaps admire him because he is plus three.

“Also, I hope that in due course he will be able to support a wife and children with his own work, and not with the money his dear proud old daddy gives him because he can regularly break 70 at Addington. And that reminds me, Jock, that you had better play your best tomorrow. The quarter’s rent is due very soon and if your dear proud old daddy doesn’t stump up once again-”

Jock, sitting taut in the whirling taxi, could not remember what he had said then. He had been too shocked, too bewildered, too astounded, too flummoxed. He had always thought that she had taken their occasional financial troubles gaily — like a good sport — the way he had.

It was only gradually that the real meaning of her words had penetrated his bewildered mind. So she didn’t want Jerry to be like his father. She wanted their son to be like anyone else but his father. She wanted Jerry to be a decent, hard-working man whom she could respect. That meant she didn’t respect him, Jock, and never had. That meant...

Whereupon he had made his farewell speech in the grand manner.

As the taxi crossed Tottenham Court Road on the final lap to Euston, he realized bitterly that in some things she was right but that in the main ones she was wrong. He saw that he ought not to have given up so much time — so many weekdays as well as weekends — to golf. He saw that he ought to have done better for himself than be just a half-commission man in a broker’s office.

But that hadn’t been really all his fault. Everybody had always been so nice to him, made things easy for him, let him in on the inside of good market rises. Of course, Stella had been disappointed recently when he had refused the job of being manager and steward of Lord Teale’s estate in Northumberland. She had wanted to bring up Jerry in the country, far from London. The job had been right down his street, too. Good money, comfortable house and grounds rent free, first-class horses, this and that — but an all-week job, day by day, with only a weekend here and there for golf. He couldn’t be expected to keep up his game with only a day’s golf here and there. It wasn’t reasonable. After all, you only live once.

And what about love? What marks did Stella give him there? What about a chap being a good husband? A jolly good husband. Considerate to all. Very little to drink. Never a fling. Not like some fellows he knew.

Not by a long chalk like some fellows he knew. Always offered to take Stella with him to Le Touquet for the Buck’s and White’s weekends, even though she hadn’t lately come with him. In fact, he’d been on the up-and-up from dawn till dusk for nearly ten years.

And was she glad? Was she grateful?

She was so thumping glad and grateful that she had landed him such a resounding sock on the jaw that he’d never be the same man again. Anyway, not to her. Not likely.

He’d start batting an eye around now. He’d bat two. He’d hit the high spots, he’d hit the hot spots. Like other chaps. There wasn’t any lack of high-stepping Snow Whites who didn’t despise a man just because he had been Amateur Champion. Not likely.

The taxi curved into Gordon Square. It curved spiritedly, and the front left wheel crashed smartly into the rear of a large handsome car at the curb, parked too near the corner. The taxi, rocking enormously, bounced indignantly sideways and stood shuddering.

Jock found himself, he didn’t in the least know how, crouching on his hands and knees in the middle of the road. He must have jumped out. He was crouching intently, like a man about to sprint, a ridiculous position.

Stunned, but quite unhurt, blinking at the lamplight, he took in the half-wrecked taxi, which somehow looked idiotically proud of itself at still being on all four wheels. Then he took in the taxidriver, also apparently unhurt and still at the wheel, looking around him with an air of profound astonishment. And then he saw his bag of clubs, also spilled on the road near him.

That decided him. He’d go while the going was good. Or he’d never catch his train. It was the work of a moment to snap at the still astonished and speechless driver to go back to his house for payment of his fare, snatch up his suitcase and golf-bag, and leg it towards the station.

Lucky it hadn’t been worse. A nice thing it would have been to have to scratch from tomorrow’s fixture. He could see the newspapers.

Thanks a lot, he thought. Thank you, God.

Glancing back over his shoulder, he saw a small crowd already around the taxidriver, who appeared to be addressing them indignantly. Then he turned into the brightly lit Euston Road, just opposite Euston Station.

If anyone had told Jock Winterset that something called his subconscious mind could govern his actions, he would have thought his leg was being pulled in some tiresome, highbrow way. But it could have been only his subconscious mind which made him do what he now did, for it was done without any previous deliberation. As he hurried under the archway to Euston Station he suddenly slewed right round and strode back towards the Euston Road.

He wasn’t going to catch that train or any train. His mind had suddenly been made up for him. And he wasn’t going to play golf tomorrow. Just like that.

Putting his suitcase and clubs down at a corner, he waited for a passing taxi. One soon came. He was going straight back home to Stella. Straight back — bungo.

That taxi accident had been a sign. He hadn’t been hurt, but it had been a sign, all right. It had been the writing on the wall, and the writing had said: Go back home. And so he was going back home.

Providence had tipped him the wink, and no mistake. No use kidding himself. Providence had seen him leave Stella in anger, had aimed a shrewd blow at his taxi, thrown him out on his ear, and had tipped him off in so many words to leg it back to Stella and tell her that he, J. Winterset, had forgotten to thank her for all the love and care and unselfishness she had expended during their married lives, in taking care of him and their son.

And what had he done all these years but sit back and admire himself and wait for her to admire him? Had he ever — sincerely, deep down in himself — given thanks for his undeserved good fortune in being married to a dear companion, a good wife, an unselfish mother, and a beautiful woman? No, sir. All he’d done had been to take everything in his stride, for granted, as his right.

Sitting in the taxi, he felt very cool and calm. He seemed to stand at an open window and watch himself walking outside, walking down the years since he had left school as Captain of Cricket, Captain of the Fifteen, head school-prefect, and Captain of the School. A good man, Winterset. Sound chap, Jock. For he’s a jolly good fellow.

And he had been Captain of the School ever since: never failing to say “sir” to his elders or superiors with the proper inflection of respect mingled with man-to-man good-humor; always considerate to his inferiors in that brusque smiling way which takes for granted that lesser men will forgive you for making exacting demands on them; always ready to throw a word of praise to a fag who had done well; always good-humoredly expecting ordinary daily chores to be done for him by people who would only be too glad to do them for him; always a little remote and isolated in even the most intimate companionship — in fact, the Captain of the School. That is, neither boy nor man.

Neither boy nor man.

He understood now why he had so often caught Stella looking at him with a kind of puzzled thoughtfulness. She had been thinking, “Neither boy nor man. How am I to live my life out with someone who is neither? What shall we talk about as we grow older? Shall we always talk, as we do now, of games and who-will-beat-whom and competitive trivialities and why-can’t-we-putt-like-the-Americans?

“He is a dear and kind man, and I love him, but I can’t trust him to be a responsible man and I can’t rely on him to teach his son anything of the responsibilities of life. He will be happy as long as he has got fags around him, and he will always be kind to his fags. Poor Jock, he is going to be so unhappy one day when his fags suddenly turn on him. I am head-fag, and I must try my hardest never to turn on him, as he will be so hurt.”

Well, she had tried her hardest, clear Stella, and she had broken down for the first time only that evening — after nine years.

And hadn’t he been hurt? Crumbs, he’d nearly taken the count. Just because the fag had dared to speak her mind to the Captain of the School without man-to-man good humor.

A minute or two more, and he’d fix all that. He was going to take that job of old Teale’s, which he knew was still open. From now on he would earn his own keep and he would play golf like normal busy men played golf, not sacrificing their lives to it. Then he realized that it was a long time since he had seen Stella smile with all her heart. He could see her dear gray eyes light up and the happiness ripple and flash across her sensitive, often too-serious face.

Only a few minutes later Jock was laughing bitterly to himself about these thoughts, these dreams. There was no one to hear him laugh. Stella had gone. out. All dressed up and fit to kill in her best evening frock, Stella had been about to go out when he arrived back unexpectedly. There was a young man with her, a pleasant athletic-looking young fellow called Guy something, and they were standing around in the sitting-room like people waiting for a taxi.

Stella’s surprise at his unexpected return was no more than casual.

“Jock, you missed the train!”

He stared. She looked lovely in that white frock, with her dark hair curled severely back.

“Yes,” he said. “Just.”

“But how? You- allowed yourself plenty of time.”

“My taxi.” He fumbled. “Caught a wing in another wheel — argument, and so on — and here I am.” He warmed to his story. Well, it was a good let-out. “I left him still arguing — he will be round tomorrow for his fare.”

“Bad luck,” she said.

A taxi stopped outside.

“Here’s our cab,” said the pleasant youth. “Want to dress and join us later, Winterset?”

Stella picked up her little white bag. The small S on it, in paste diamonds, twinkled happily and Jock blinked intently at it.

“I rang up Guy when you had gone, to take me out to dance somewhere. I feel like dancing tonight, and Barbara is giving a supper at the Embassy. Join us later, Jock. Since, you are not playing tomorrow you can stay up late for once. We haven’t danced for ages.”

He saw them towards the door. The dry familiar perfume she always used when going out at night, dimly bitter-sweet like a faint echo of the tuberoses she loved, seemed suddenly to penetrate his nerves as something unfamiliar and hateful.

“Think I’ll go to bed,” he said. “Give my love to Barbara. Jerry all right?”

“Nurse took his temperature again just after you left. Normal. Good night, dear.”

All he could think of, when he was alone, was to thank his stars that he hadn’t made a prize fool of himself by blurting out the real reason why he had come back. Well, Providence had handed him a lemon, all right. Thrown it slap in his face, what’s more.

All the same, he could not make it out. It was so unlike Stella. For one thing, Barbara wasn’t a favorite friend by a long chalk; for another, she didn’t enjoy casually arranged supper-parties; and above all, it was absolutely contrary to character for Stella to leave the house at night if Jerry was not absolutely well. Particularly when a temporary nurse was in charge. For their own nurse, good old Pye, had been called away to her sister, who was seriously ill, a week ago, and this one was a temporary until she came back in a day or so.

Pacing about his dressing-room, he suddenly felt himself smiling. Of course, there was an answer. Stella would come back any minute. That was the answer. In a fit of resentment, she had arranged to go out. Then he had returned unexpectedly, and she had felt she just had to go on with it. But she would come back now, any minute. He’d take a bet on it. His money was on Stella first, last, and all the time.

The door started opening softly.

Jock stared at it, hardly breathing. The world stood still. One, two, three. Please make it Stella. Please.

Stella peeped in, her dear face unhappy-happy, doubtful, uncertainly smiling. His breath came in a gasp. Well, it was a knockout. Trust the old girl to do the right thing.

“Hello, beautiful,” she said. Suddenly her eyes were alight.

“Knew you’d come back,” he said. He felt himself grinning frantically. He wanted to cry. She ran to him, climbed over him, pressed her cheek to his.

“Knew you hadn’t missed your train,” she whispered.

“Knew you’d come back,” he said. He blinked quickly. Well, this was life, all right. This was the stuff.

She nibbled his car. “Listen,” she whispered, “it stuck out a mile that you hadn’t missed your train. Jerry could give you points at fibbing. Listen, fish-face. I was so mad with you for leaving me for the station without any goodbye kiss, I arranged to go out. Then you came back, looking as though you had just lost a jujube. Just like Jerry, maybe younger. Knew you hadn’t missed your train. Listen, mister. Sorry about what I said before you left. Apologize humbly, cross my heart.”

“I’ll tell you,” he said.

“All,” she said. She nibbled his ear. “Tell me All. Came the dawn.”

So he told her why he had suddenly turned back at the station, and he told her all his thoughts in the taxi coming back home.

“That bit of an accident,” she said, “was Providence, all right.”

“You bet,” he said.

“We would never have been the same two people again, Jock, if we had had this unmade-up row between us for even two days. Unmade-up rows get very septic, no matter what you do to heal them later on. I am much obliged to you, mister, for coming back. I’ve always thought very highly of you as a husband, cross my heart. But now — crumbs, it’s just miraculous, after nearly ten years of marriage to fancy a fellow so much.”

“Stella, I am looking forward like anything to living up north. I can’t think why I hesitated a moment. Imagine how Jerry will love having a pony of his own.”

They were happy. He couldn’t remember when he had been so happy. This was the stuff, all right. Stella said he would miss playing good golf. Well, what of it? A chap had to make the best of life. You had to do your best all round, not just in one thing.

You only live once.

Then Stella tiptoed upstairs to the nursery landing on her usual nightly visit. Every night before turning in she would listen for a moment on the dark landing outside Jerry’s door, just to be comforted by his breathing. Jerry slept very noisily, so it was quite easy to hear him through the closed door. Once his adenoids were removed it would be different, of course, but meanwhile Stella and Jock were inclined to be quite proud of their son’s manly snores.

Jock was in the act of starting to untie his tic when he went to the half-open door.

“Jock!” It was Stella’s whisper from the dark landing above.

“What is it?”

“Come up here a minute.”

When he had joined her on the dark, narrow landing, she whispered, “Listen.”

It took him a second or two to realize that there was nothing to listen to except Stella’s quick breathing beside him. Her fingers, icy cold, twined round his wrist. Staring at the dim shape of die closed door, they listened frantically. Then with one movement he flung the door open and switched on the light. Stella gave a cry.

Jerry wasn’t there.

The bed was rumpled, empty. The room was empty. The curtains flapped in the draft. He dashed, Stella still clinging to his wrist, across the landing to Nurse’s room, the day-nursery. It was empty, neat, the bed unslept in. Stella gave a little whimper. She kept on digging the knuckles of one hand into the palm of the other, staring at Jock.

He said: “This can’t happen in England.” It didn’t sound like his own voice. His heart seemed to be flopping against his chest, like a half-dead fish. He licked his lips, and said: “There must be some explanation.”

Suddenly Stella screamed, “But he’s not here, Jock! Jerry’s not here!”

She put her bent thumb between her teeth, biting it. He dashed back to Jerry’s room. The draft from the open window had blown a piece of paper to the floor at the foot of the dressing-table.

The note in his hand, he stared fixedly at the back of Jerry’s hairbrush on the small green dressing-table. It was an ivory one Stella had had as a girl, with an austere black S on it. Jerry didn’t like it because it had a handle. He wanted one like his daddy’s, without a handle and very bristly. Stella had promised to get him one soon...

Stella stumbled blindly out of the room, holding one arm stretched out in front of her. Staring after her, he suddenly felt calm and reasonable. One had to be reasonable. This was England. Things like this didn’t happen in England. Kidnaping, threatening letters, and so on. It must be a joke.

He found he was staring at an untidy heap of colored pegs on Jerry’s little bedside table. Red, black, yellow, blue. No, gray. They were the pegs of his game Peggity, at which he beat all comers. A red one had dropped to the floor.

Of course, this must be some kind of a joke. That idiotic note. Darn it, this was England. Anyway, he was going to call the police.

What was Stella doing? He strode out onto the landing. He’d talk sense to the old girl.

“Stella! Stella!”

She wasn’t there. Then he saw her on the landing below, half-kneeling at the head of the stairs.

“It must be a joke,” he called down. “Anyway, I’m going to call the police.”

She did not seem to hear. But he could see, from the look of her back, that she was crying. And the sight of her kneeling figure overwhelmed him with love. He ran down to her.

“Look!” she whispered. Blindly, she held something up to him. It was a small red peg.

“Lord!” he said. Well, it was a knockout.

She clung to his knees, sobbing. “The clever mite! He dropped it — to tell us something. The trail of the Mohawks.”

In a frantic hurry, he grabbed her wrist. “Come on, quick.” He dashed down, switching on lights as he went.

“Look, another!”

There was a black peg, scarcely visible on the rug at the foot of the stairs. He dashed to the front door, but was not given time to open it.

“Here!” Stella shouted, as though he was deaf. She was by the door leading down to the basement, a yellow peg in her hand. She kept on sniffing and sniveling.

“Gimme your hankie,” she said.

“Come on!” he said impatiently, stumbling down the dark stairs to the kitchen. “Where are the darn lights down here?”

She brushed past him to the foot of the stairs and switched on the lights. They stared frantically up and down the stone passage to the back door. It gave out onto a mews — Cherry Pond Mews. Bending down, they found a black peg in the dusty corner by the door.

“Clever chap, our Jerry!” Stella whispered.

“Bet this door is open,” he said. It should have been locked and bolted. It was unlocked, all right.

Cherry Pond Mews, a roughly cobbled roadway, was lit by a lamp at each end. They stared excitedly up and down. Then Stella pointed dumbly. There was a peg bang in the middle of the cobbled passage.

“Must have thrown it,” he said, “out of the car in which they took him away.”

Stella was looking frantically around. There were a few garage-doors, but mostly ordinary house-doors. Some were painted fancy. All sorts of people had tiny houses and tiny flats in Cherry Pond Mews — artists, lonely women, whatnots. In fact, very few cars were kept there, the neighborhood having “gone down.” There were dim lights here and there behind curtained first-story windows.

“Jock!” she whispered frantically.

He had gone a few steps down towards the Cherry Square opening, peering intently for more colored pegs. He was so proud of Jerry, it gave him a lump in the throat. He had a man for a son, and no mistake. He must have read in one of his adventure books about captives “leaving marked trails” and so on.

“Jock!”

Reluctantly, he went back to Stella. Her eyes were dry now; she was quivering with excitement and at the same time trying to talk sensibly, so it wasn’t easy to make out what she was saying.

“Listen, I’ve got an idea, Jock. That ‘temporary’ is in this, of course — working with some man. She must have had forged references. They thought you had gone away for the night. Then I went out, suddenly. The woman saw her chance, and must have made a signal to someone out here in the mews. You came back unexpectedly, but in your dressing-room you didn’t hear her slip downstairs with Jerry muffled in her arms. Listen, I’m sure I’m right. I don’t think they took Jerry away in a car at all — scarcely any cars come here at night — it would have attracted notice. So they’re somewhere here, in the mews — in one of the houses. What could be a safer place — from us — from the police — than right under our noses?”

Her excitement communicated itself to him. Heavens, she might be right. Why not? Bang under their noses. The heartless swine. They looked up and down the mews. There were faint lights behind curtains in an upper window about fifteen yards away, towards Hamlet Road.

“Who lives there?” he whispered. “Don’t know. People here come and go. Wait a minute — I’ve seen a dark sort of man near that door.”

“English?”

“Don’t know. Just dark — big, youngish, stoutish.”

They were tiptoeing towards the door beneath the faintly-lighted window. A few yards from it, Stella bent down with a gasp — another peg.

“Maybe you’re right,” Jock said. “It’s unlikely he could have thrown this out of a car without being spotted.”

Searching frantically, they could not find any more pegs near the door.

“He had no more,” Jock whispered. “Anyhow, he couldn’t have grabbed up more than a few in his fist. But this last one is pretty near that door. He might easily have dropped it at the door and it rolled here.”

“Shall we get a policeman?” Stella said. “There’s always one near the square.”

Jock scarcely heard her. He was staring at the door of the small house, and he felt murderous. Heavens, what a relief it would be to get his hands on someone. Just show him someone, that’s all.

“I’m barging in there,” he whispered.

“Me, too,” she said.

“We’ve just got to risk it,” he said.

“But if we’re wrong?” she whispered.

“That will be just too bad.”

He could not think clearly of anything but that he must get into that house. There was a bell-push. He pressed it savagely. They could hear the bell. Nobody came.

Jock, his fingers just aching to get a grip on something, was going to press the bell again, when Stella whispered: “Light’s out upstairs.”

“Then we are right,” he said. He grinned, flexing his fingers. He pressed the bell again, and at that moment the door was flung wide open and a man, a big shape against the darkness behind, asked angrily:

“What you want, you?”

“It’s like this,” Jock began apologetically, “we saw a light upstairs and we wanted to ask you—”

On that word Jock landed his right on the man’s jaw and drove a left at his heart. As the man sagged backwards he hit him viciously again, and he crashed on his back into the dark passage.

“Leave the door open,” he said to Stella, as he pushed past the man’s body in the narrow hall. But he had to stop, baffled by the darkness ahead. She pushed against his back.

“There’s always a switch in a hall,” she whispered.

His fingers were rapidly feeling both walls of the narrow hall. He found the switch and as he pressed it down he heard Stella gasp behind him. Halfway down the narrow stain ahead a man stood with a heavy revolver pointed at Jerry. His face was thin and hard.

“Okay,” the man said. “The snatch is off. It beats me how you found us so quick. You can have your kid back. But don’t move. You and the lady and the kid will just stay here quietly till we make our getaway, see?”

Behind him a woman’s dim shape moved uneasily.

“The nurse!” Stella said bitterly. “Jock, that beastly nurse!”

“Don’t move!” the man said. The gun in his hand was very steady. “There’s a door to your right, Winterset. Get into that room, you and the lady. I’ll bring the kid down to you. Start moving, but not this way.”

Jock moved, but not to the door on his right. Not likely. He heard Stella behind him cry something frantically, but he went on. He had a job of work on hand. All his being was concentrated on getting his hands round that thin man’s throat. He went on step by step, into the mouth of the big automatic.

“I’m going to shoot!” the man yelled.

Jock laughed. His foot was on the stairs now. He was going to shoot, was he? Shoot or not, he was going to have his foul neck wrung. He was going to learn it was dangerous to monkey with a man’s son. There was a roaring in his ears, and a sudden livid scream from Stella far away behind him. He scarcely felt the stabbing pain high up in his left arm. His hands were round the man’s throat now; he was laughing into the terrified sobbing face beneath him as he swung him down the narrow stairs. The whole world seemed to roar in his ears as, his hands tight round the man’s throat, they fell together through a sickening screaming void to the foot of the stairs.

Jock fell on his left arm, and felt himself fainting, but suddenly the pain was so awful that he heard himself yell. “My arm!” he yelled, opening his eyes wide. Stella was bending over him, her eyes streaming with tears. That pulled him together. He remembered where he was.

“Jerry all right?” he whispered.

“Yes, darling, yes!”

“Get the police,” he said faintly. “And then a doctor. My arm...”

“Darling, don’t worry — everything’s all right.” She was sobbing pitifully. There were other shapes behind her. He peered painfully at the long white room he was in. His left arm, from the shoulder down, was screaming with pain.

“Jerry’s all right then?” he whispered.

“You’ve been dreaming, sweet,” Stella said, trying to smile through her tears. “Such dreams! But now they’re putting you to sleep again. You had a bad taxi accident on the way to Euston, and they had to operate...”

“Lucky you’re alive,” a voice said gruffly. His father. Lord, quite a party.

“Better let him rest now,” he heard a white shape say from somewhere far away. “The morphine should be taking effect...”

Drifting off, he heard Stella say: “His arm — his poor arm!”

Jock simply couldn’t help trying to grin up at her from inside deep waves of lovely drifting clouds.

“He’s dreaming again!” someone said.

But the old girl knew better. Trust her. Love — a dream? Not likely. She bent down and nibbled his ear.

“I’m with you, mister,” she whispered.

She put her ear to his lips. “Don’t worry, Stella,” he tried to say. “You, me, Jerry — we’ll manage fine... you only live once... one arm’s enough — with you and Jerry.”