The British Mysteries Edition: 14 Novels & 70+ Short Stories. Sapper
warmed to the exact temperature by the paragon Soames, there came the glint of a smile into his eyes. Dimly he was aware that near at hand the impossible Percy was drivelling on, but it seemed as far removed from him as the buzzing of an insect outside a mosquito curtain. White tie, white waistcoat, boiled shirt—and six weeks ago...London: the solidity, the respectability of his club—and six weeks ago...
"Have you ever hit a man on the base of the skull with a full bottle of French vermouth, Percy?" he said suddenly. "I suppose you haven't. You'd wait for an introduction, wouldn't you, before taking such a liberty?"
"I don't believe you've heard a word I've said, Jim," answered his cousin plaintively.
"I haven't, thank God! I heard a continuous droning noise somewhere: was that you?"
"Are you coming to-night?"
"Coming where?"
"I knew you hadn't been listening. To this meeting of the chaps in Hampstead."
"Nothing would induce me to. I don't want to see them, and they don't want to see me."
"But they do, dear old lad. I've told 'em about you, and they're all simply crazy to meet you."
"What have you told 'em about me?"
"All sorts of things. You see, I sort of swore I'd bring you along the first possible chance I had, and what could be fairer than this?"
And in the end Jim Maitland had allowed himself to be persuaded. Though he ragged him unmercifully for the good of his soul, he was really quite fond of his cousin: moreover, he was possessed of a genuine curiosity to gaze upon the post-war young in bulk. Since 1918 he had spent exactly seven months in England, so that his knowledge of the genus was confined to what he had read in books.
Presumably they were much the same as the young have ever been au fond. Only conditions to-day afforded them so much more freedom. Certainly the lad Percy could drive a motor-car all right, he reflected. He had one of the big Bentleys. Providence in the shape of a defunct aunt of doubtful sanity endowed him with more money than he knew what to do with. But he drove it magnificently, and Jim Maitland was a man who loathed inefficiency.
The traffic was thinning as they spun across Oxford Street, and Percy who had been silent for nearly five minutes began to give tongue again. He rattled off a string of names—the blokes, as he called them, who would probably be there. And then he paused suddenly.
"By Jove! That reminds me. I wonder if she'll roll up. The last of these shows I went to," he explained, "a girl beetled in who was a new one on me. Came with Pamela Greystone and her bunch. And I happened to be talking about you at the time. Well, as soon as this wench heard that you knew something about South America she was all over it."
"I should think there must be quite a number of people who know something about South America," said Jim, mildly sarcastic.
"Yes, but I was telling 'em, you see, that you knew all about the interior."
"All about the interior!" Jim laughed. "My dear old Percy, draw it mild."
"Anyway, she's damned keen to meet you. Got a brother out there or something."
"As long as she doesn't feel certain that I must have met him as we were both out there at the same time, I can bear it. What's her name, by the way?"
"Haven't an earthly, old lad. As far as I remember, Pamela called her Judy. But I'm not even certain about that. Here we are!"
They drew up in front of a largish house standing in its own grounds. Half a dozen other cars were already there, and two more were in the drive. A large notice board proclaimed that the place was for sale, and Jim remarked on it to his cousin.
"Been for sale for months, old lad. Belongs to the father of one of our push, and he lets us use it. Let's get in: there's most of 'em here already."
He approached the front door and knocked twice, upon which the top of the letter-box was lifted.
"Pink Gin with guest," said Percy.
"Pass Pink Gin and guest," answered a voice, and the door opened.
"To prevent gate crashing," explained Percy solemnly. "We have a different pass-word each time, and it's always the name of some drink."
"I see," said Jim gravely. "A most necessary precaution. What do we do now?"
"Go below to the cellar and drink beer."
"Excellent," remarked Jim. "But why the cellar?"
"My dear old lad, why not?"
With which unanswerable remark Percy led the way.
The cellar was a big room, and Jim looked round him curiously. Some thirty people were there, and every one of them seemed to be talking at the top of their voices. The air was blue with cigarette smoke, and a strong aroma of kipper smote the nostrils.
"That's the filly I was telling you about, Jim," said Percy in his ear. "The girl in grey over there in the corner."
She was talking to two men, one of whom was evidently a licensed buffoon; and Jim glanced at her idly. Then once again his gaze travelled round the room. It all seemed very harmless, and very uncomfortable, and rather stupid. Why a large number of presumably wealthy young people should elect to sit in a cellar in Hampstead and drink beer, when they could have done so in comfort anywhere else they liked, defeated him.
He realised that Percy was introducing him to various girls, and he grinned amiably. Now that he had come he had better make the best of it. And then suddenly he found himself looking into a pair of level blue eyes—eyes with a faintly mocking challenge in them. The buffoon had drifted away: for the moment the girl in grey and he were alone.
"And what," she remarked, "brings the celebrated Jim Maitland into this galaxy?"
"Curiosity," he answered simply. "But why, in Heaven's name, celebrated?"
"Our little Percy has insisted so long and so often that you are, that we've got to believe him in common politeness. Well—what do you think of it?"
"Frankly, I think it's all rather childish," he said. "Does it really amuse you?"
She shrugged her shoulders.
"It's a change," she answered. "Let's go into that corner and sit down. I want to talk to you. Rescue some cushions from somewhere."
He studied her thoughtfully as she sat down with legs tucked under her. A slightly tip-tilted nose; a complexion, unaided as far as he could see, that only the word Perfect could do justice to: a slim, delicious figure. Her hands were capable but beautifully kept: her hair clung tightly to a boyish head.
"Well," she said calmly, "do you approve?"
He smiled: said as she said it the remark rang natural.
"Entirely," he answered. "But before we go any further, has it occurred to you that the egregious Percy has omitted the small formality of telling me your name."
"Draycott. Judy Draycott."
She took a cigarette from her case, and Jim held a match for her.
"Tell me, Mr. Maitland, are we very different to the pre-war vintage?"
"That's rather a poser," he said, sitting down beside her. "You see, I've been so little in England since the war that I'm not a very good judge."
"But—this." She waved her hand at the room.
"Good Lord!" he laughed, "what has this got to do with it? This is nothing: a tiny symptom in a tiny set."
"You know you are of what I always call the lost generation," she said. "What Daddy would call the senior subaltern brand."
He stared at her in silence, a little nonplussed by her serious tone.
"You were our age just before the war," she went on, "and you're still young enough to play. But there are so few of you left."
"True," he said gravely. "I suppose