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Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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Britannia and Eve, January 1941, with "Love Can Be Wonderful"
SORRY to trouble you, but anyone who says women can't take it in wartime is nuts, and if you've five minutes to spare I'll prove it.
Carlos always said that if there were any justice in the world I'd have been born a hyena, but then, Carlos always was—. But never mind; I won't tell you what I think about Carlos. Let's try and keep this party clean.
It would perhaps be fairer to one and all if I attempted to give you a "close-up" of myself. My name is Vilma Soucheaux, and I come of a very old Huguenot family—I don't think! My name is, in fact, Elsie Strevens, and I've had so many aliases in my time that I've often had quite a little difficulty in remembering who I was at any given moment. But so far as this business is concerned I was Vilma Soucheaux, and so Vilma I'll be—for the moment, anyhow.
War is a funny thing. Possibly you've heard that before. It upsets businesses and lives. It's a ruthless process. It's certainly upset me and it's definitely upset Carlos, who, I imagine, is still running.
To return to the "close-up." I'm thirty-three, and very good-looking, they tell me. In point of fact, it has been said that I'm quite beautiful. Carlos always said that my main charm was my figure. He said my figure was one of those things you had to look at—and go on looking. I am slim, five feet eight inches in height. I take a small four in shoes and I've got a husky voice. If I have vivacity and energy it is because I have always had good health, though why I've still got it, I don't know.
Incidentally, I know quite a bit about clothes. I have always liked good clothes. I know how to put them on and how to wear them, and I can listen to men talking about themselves and look as if I was interested. Morals— I've never been fearfully interested in morals, but I've never let a man that I didn't like kiss me—well, not often and not unless his bank balance was big enough.
So now you know.
It was a beautiful October morning and I was sitting in my very indifferent sitting-room in an even more indifferent rooming-house in Bayswater, wondering when I was going to see the inside of a first-class hotel again, when the telephone rang. This in itself was rather amazing, having regard to the fact that the account hadn't been paid. But it did ring. It was Carlos.
I'm not going to waste a great deal of time telling you about Carlos, except to say that Carlos is a very fast number indeed. There are no flies on that boy. I've heard it said of him that he would even descend to stealing the gold stopping out of a sleeping baby's tooth. That may be libel, but anyhow, Carlos is an extremely tough proposition. He is very clever, invariably has money which he makes in the strangest ways, but can always do with a little more of it. Carlos and I have worked as a team on half a dozen different occasions and it's always come off. He takes a lot of care, and when Carlos puts a confidence trick over, believe you, my children, it is a confidence trick.
Carlos said: "Is that you, Palsie? How's it going?"
"It isn't, Carlos," I replied. "It's gone. Where did you get my telephone number from?"
"At Max's Bar," he said. "Now, listen. How 're you fixed these days?
"I'm not," I said. "The last three cheques I've given are going to bounce good and plenty when someone tries to pay 'em into a bank. All my jewellery's in pawn, and life is generally quite fearful. But why the interest?"
He said: "Listen, Vilma. This is where we go to town. This time there's some real money floating about. You'd better meet me to-night at the Savoy. I'll give you dinner and tell you about it. Put on a pretty frock."
"Oh, yes, sir!" I said. "And what do I use for money? Also, I don't like the idea of going to the Savoy on a bus."
He whistled.
He said: "No? It's not as bad as that, is it?"
I said it was.
He said: "All right. I'll stake you. I'll send somebody round with a little dough on account. Get yourself fixed up and get some good clothes—everything you want for a killing."
"I see," I said. "What is it—love stuff again? Some tired business man?"
He said: "No. This is a unique proposition, baby. And there's money in it."
"Oh, yes." I said. "What sort of money, and how much do I get?"
Carlos said: "Listen. If we play this right—that is, if you play it right—there's twenty thousand in it, and because so much depends on you, I propose to give you half as and when we get our hooks on it. Is that O.K.?"
"It's marvellous," I said. "Can I have Suprême de Volaille and champagne to-night?"
Carlos said: "You can have anything you like, and I'll be waiting for you at eight o'clock."
I said I'd be there. When he'd hung up I gave myself a cigarette and thought of all the things I could do with ten thousand pounds.
THE Savoy is still the Savoy, even if there is a war on. I must say Carlos had done the right thing by me.
When I tell you that that boy sent round three hundred in really good Bank of England notes, you'll realise that he meant business. I got some of my best bits of jewellery out of hock, did some quick shopping, and I think I can honestly say I looked definitely good. I've always found that a rather severe but very well-cut black frock goes with my style and my hair. I'm a real ash-blonde, by the way.
I had that glow that comes to a woman when she knows she is really well dressed, is eating a very good dinner and that a lot of people's eyes are on her—the men's saying one thing and the women's just hating—you know.
When we were drinking our brandy Carlos said:
"Listen, baby, and listen carefully. Don't make any slip-ups. This is the way we're going to play it. A man has arrived to-day at the Parkside Apartments. He's living in No. 6 by himself. He's a Canadian—his name is Justin McCall. He's twenty-nine years of age."
"Ah ha!" I said.
I quietly sipped a little more brandy.
"There are four very interesting things about this Justin McCall," Carlos went on. "The first is that he's over here on behalf of the Canadian Purchasing Commission. They deal in big war contracts. The second thing is he's one of the cleverest business men in Canada. The third thing is that he doesn't like his wife a bit, and she's not with him, and the fourth is that while he's in some ways rather a repressed sort of individual, there is one type that he goes for—your type."
"I see," I said. I sighed. "I'm beginning to understand you, chief."
"All right," said Carlos. "Now listen some more. McCall has been trying to get his wife to consent to a quiet divorce for a couple of years, but she's not having any. She's just dug her toes in and insists on staying Mrs. McCall. Well, that puts Justin in rather a bad spot. He's such a big man that he has to behave —in Canada. But over here might be a different proposition."
"I follow you, Carlos," I said. "And where does the money thing come into this?"
"This way," said Carlos. "If McCall was to fall for you in a big way, I think he'd pay plenty to keep the fact quiet. He's got one or two enemies in Canada, people who'd get to work on Mrs. McCall before you could say knife."
"And do you think he'd pay as much as twenty thousand to keep that quiet?" I asked.
Carlos grinned some more. "He's got to," he said. "Just at this moment he's in the middle of a big deal, in which the Governments of Canada, this country and America are concerned. He just can't have any scandal, more especially if you were a married woman."
"But I'm not," I said.
Carlos said. "He's not to know that. I'm suggesting, for the purposes of this little job, that you're my wife—Mrs. Carlos Wayne. Only in name, of course," he said.
"You're telling me, Carlos," I told him. "Any time I really have to get hooked up with you I'll certainly get myself bitten by a rattlesnake first."
"That's all right, baby," he said. "We understand each other. Now let's get down to a little definite scheming, shall we?"
I said, "If I had another glass of brandy, I think I could be good at scheming."
Carlos told the waiter to leave the bottle.
I BELIEVE I have suggested that when Carlos and I get down to a proposition we work fast. Well, this time we positively hurried. Let it suffice, mes enfants, that I was installed in a very charming suite on the second floor of the Parkside Apartments at three o'clock the next afternoon, with some very nice clothes.
Carlos, in that mysterious way of his, had elicited the fact that McCall was dining with some big-wigs at seven o'clock and would be returning to the Parkside Apartments at eight. Carlos suggested that if I could pull it off pretty quickly it would be a good thing— that we didn't want to waste any time. He also suggested to me that Mr. Hitler's Blitzkrieg usually starts round about dusk and that I might even take advantage of that fact. I did.
I got myself all dolled up in a negligée that was so alluring that it even made me gasp. I'd had my hair specially done, and I was wearing a very carefully selected line in shoes and stockings. By opening the door of my apartment very slightly, I could keep an eye on the corridor.
Well, if ever a girl had luck it was I. Carlos had given me a vague description of McCall, but when I saw that big, six-foot, rather slim man, very well dressed and with the sort of moustache that I really like, walking down the corridor towards his apartment, I knew it was McCall. and I knew it was going to be easy.
And then, just at the right moment, the siren went, and also, just to give me another little hand, the Hyde Park guns started loosing off. I waited two or three seconds. I gave him just time to get to the door of his apartment, and then I leapt out into the corridor like a startled fawn, staggered blindly but charmingly, and with what I intended to be a delightful wiggle, down the corridor, gave a delightful shriek and collapsed in a dead faint at McCall's feet.
I should like to point out to you that this act was very well done and that Hollywood will probably snap me up any time I can get the fare to get there. However, to return to our muttons, McCall stooped down and carried me into his flat.
I didn't mind the process. The man was extraordinarily strong, and I felt nice and safe and comfortable while I was being carried. You, I am certain, have read, or been told at some time or other, that war, with its attendant risks, brings us all much closer together. You're telling me! Well, it brought Justin McCall and myself pretty close together, because it was quite a while before I left his apartment, still a little shaken but bearing up bravely, having absorbed one very small brandy and soda, disclosed to him my fears of air raids, due to the effect of a terrible bombing I had experienced whilst I was in Barcelona—which I thought was a good line to pull, and generally put the 'fluence on him.
I felt his eyes following me down the corridor as I went back to my own apartment, and when I tell you that I had already made a date to dine with him the next night so that he could be with me during the raid, you will realise that I am no laggard.
NOW I am going to make an admission. I am going to admit definitely that I enjoyed the next three days. Justin gave me the most marvellous time. I must say that the description of his character which Carlos had originally given me was entirely correct. Justin seemed to me to be one of those two-sided men. At his own job I imagine he'd be wonderful, and tough, brilliant and very hard to take, but, believe me, where women were concerned, that man was the most utter and complete mug that ever a scheming momma cocked her cap at.
I didn't see him on the fourth evening. I said I had to visit a relative.. He was shattered, because even by now he'd got into the habit of seeing me every day. I hadn't, of course, suggested in any way that I was a "married woman." I was going to leave all that to Carlos, although the idea of Carlos being an aggrieved husband made me laugh heartily.
Anyway, on the fourth evening I went round and saw Carlos. We had a little drink. Then he said:
"Well, how's it going? "
"Carlos," I said, "it's not only going, it's gone. This man is nuts about me. Every time he looks at me his eyes are so filled with love that it positively hurts. He's told me all about his wife, quite a lot about his business, and is that boy rich! He's doing this job for the Purchasing Commission as a sort of hobby. Do you know, I believe he's nearly a millionaire! "
Carlos grinned. He said:
"You're telling me. Twenty thousand doesn't mean a thing to that boyo."
We did a little more talking and then we got down to hard tacks.
We arranged the set-up, and even if it was a very old act we were both perfectly certain that it would work.
Next night I dined with Justin. He looked more soulful than ever. We had an excellent dinner, after which we returned to the Parkside Apartments. At nine o'clock I made him tea in his flat. At nine-thirty I began to tell him the story of my life, a special edition that Carlos and I had thought up the night before. At ten o'clock, whilst Justin was in the dining-room getting me a little drink to make me feel better, I took the catch off the front door of the flat. At ten-five I continued with the life story. At ten-fifteen I was in tears, having come to the most dramatic part of the job— and I may tell you that the life story was so pathetic that it would have frozen the heart of a brass monkey—and at ten-twenty I was in Justin's arms. He was kissing my lips, nose, forehead and hair, telling me that I was to worry about nothing, that I was his little honeypot.
This dénouement synchronised with the arrival of Carlos, who stood in the entrance way of the drawing-room, his evening overcoat folded across his arm, looking the perfect picture of a trusting husband who has been taken for a ride by his naughty little wife Vilma. Carlos was very good. He looked at me and he said in an icy voice:
"I thought something like this was going on. I have had you watched for the last few days, you—"
Justin said, "Just a minute." His voice was very steely. Then he said to me, "Vilma, who is this man?"
I looked at the floor. One great big tear splashed on the Aubusson carpet. I said in a hoarse, broken voice:
"Justin, I should have told you. This is Carlos Wayne, my husband." Then I looked at Carlos and said in a strangled voice, "My God, how I hate you!"
Carlos said, "Possibly. At the same time, this matter is not going to remain where it is." He looked at Justin. "Mr. McCall," he said, "I think you and I should talk. I propose to divorce my wife and cite you as the co-respondent. Perhaps you'd like to discuss the matter with me to-morrow morning. I shall be free at eleven o'clock."
He stood there looking at Justin like a bad-tempered snake. Justin was quite unperturbed. He lit a cigarette and said: "Very well. I'll be expecting you."
I thought this was my cue for exit. Somehow I didn't want to stay on there after Carlos had gone and listen to anything that Justin wanted to say. I staggered—it was a very attractive stagger —out of the room, went along to my own apartment and locked myself in.
HALF an hour later, Carlos rang up and said: "Honey, are you good or are you good! I think I'm going to put the price up to twenty-five thousand. I'll be seeing you."
When I put the telephone down, I sat on the bed and looked at the floor. I'm now going to make a confession to you, boys and girls. For some unknown reason I was not feeling at all elated. For some unknown reason the idea of Carlos making a most successful tap next morning, getting away with that money and splitting it with me, didn't seem in the remotest degree attractive. I think I have already explained to you that I am not a sentimental sort of woman. In point of fact, I am supposed to be quite fairly tough. But I didn't feel at all good. I went over to the sideboard and mixed myself a really stiff brandy and soda, and asked myself one straight question. I asked myself whether I was slipping, whether I was losing my technique or what was the reason for this strange feeling that had come over me.
And then I got it. It hit me like a well-aimed brick, that for the first and only time in a life which had not been entirely without incident I had actually fallen in love with a man.
I was in love with McCall. Can you beat it? You all know the scene on the movies where the bad girl of the family, faced with the choice of doing the wrong thing and being rich and the right thing and being miserable, walks up and down her bedroom chewing her handkerchief and fighting with her soul. We've all seen that scene so many times that I don't propose to enlarge on it. But that's just what I did. I'm telling you one and all that Joan Crawford had nothing on me for the next hour or so, but at the end of that time I had come to a definite conclusion. I had come to the conclusion that I was going to stop this nonsense, that I was going to tell Justin the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, and that even if after I'd done this Carlos liked to get really angry, even to the extent of slamming me around, I was going to stand for it.
I assure you I had no delusions. I knew what it meant. It meant that I should be "out" with Carlos, who was the only person in the world that I could call anything resembling a friend; that I should be back in the rooming house in Bayswater and that, unless something really miraculous turned up, I should probably be telling the landlady funny stories about not paying the rent within the next month.
And the joke was I somehow didn't care.
At midnight I got out of the evening frock and put on a little black suit, packed all the rest of my new clothes—I thought I'd stick to them anyway—and having done all this I went along and rang the doorbell of Justin's apartment.
He opened the door himself. He was smoking a cigarette and when I tell you that his smile was just as tender, just as affectionate as ever, you'll realise that maybe I wasn't quite so nutty to be stuck on him. I said:
"Justin, I want to talk to you. I want to talk to you for exactly fifteen minutes, after which you're probably going to kick me out, but when you do kick me out I shall feel a very much better woman than I do at the present moment. Please don't laugh."
He said. "My dearest, I don't feel a bit like laughing. I've been worrying too much about you. Come in. And why have you changed into that suit?"
"For an excellent reason, Justin," I said. "When I've finished talking to you, I'm going."
He led the way into the sitting-room. He was still smiling.
"No, you're not, sweet," he said. "Sit down."
HE rang the service bell and told them to send up a pot of really strong tea, which shows you that Justin definitely knows something about women. When the tea arrived and I was comfortably settled in the corner of the big settee, with a cigarette, he said:
"All right, Vilma. Now go ahead. Let's know all about it."
I gave him the works. I carefully prised open the whole bag of tricks. I told him all about me. all about Carlos, how we'd planned to take him. I told him everything. When I'd finished I said:
"Now, what are you going to do, Justin? Are you going to be nice and just tell me to get out or are you going to telephone for the police?"
He said, "I'm not going to do either of those things."
He came over to me, took me by the shoulders and gave me one of the most intense kisses I have ever had in my life. When he pushed me back into the corner of the settee I was gasping. He went back to his chair, sat down. He lit a fresh cigarette slowly. When he looked at me he was grinning like a schoolboy. He said:
"Now look, Vilma, listen to me very carefully. I think you're a very clever woman, and I think Carlos has a certain amount of brains too, but there was just one little point that you overlooked. Neither of you realised that a man doesn't get the sort of job I'm doing because he's a complete and utter fool. I'm going to give you a surprise. I knew all about you and all about Carlos. I've had women try to get at me before, in Canada and the States, for all sorts of purposes, usually because they'd been put in to find out something about the job I was on at the time. So I always make it my business to find out something about very charming and attractive strangers who cross my path."
I gulped. I said: "Oh dear!"
He went on. "But that doesn't matter. There's only one thing that does matter." I asked him what it was. He said: "The only thing that matters to me is that you came in here to-night and, off your own bat, told me the whole truth. You knew when you did it that you were damning yourself in my eyes. You must have thought that the best thing that could happen to you was for me to tell you to get out. In other words you've proved definitely to me that you are very fond of me. You were prepared to make an enemy of Carlos, to leave here and go back to the Bayswater ménage, simply in order to protect me. That," said Justin, "is the only thing that matters to me." I asked why.
"Because, my dear delightful brat," said he, "I'm going to marry you."
I sat back in the corner of the settee, looking at him with eyes that felt as if they wanted to pop out of their sockets. My mouth opened but no words came out.
He said, "You've got lovely teeth, haven't you, Vilma?"
I made gasping noises. I couldn't speak. He said:
"That's just how it is." He lit another cigarette. "You see," he went on, "Carlos made a mistake. His information about me was pretty good, I must say. But he slipped up on one point about my wife.
"You know," Justin continued, "she and I haven't been friends for years, and she refused to consider any sort of divorce. But luckily for me two months before I left Canada she fell with a bump for some man she met and we arranged a quiet divorce. She's an American and her suit in New York will be recognised in Canada." He grinned. "I shall be a free man in a month's time, Vilma," he said, "and then you'll be Mrs. Justin McCall. And how do you like that?"
He came over to me and took me in his arms. I didn't say anything. There wasn't anything to say, was there?
A quarter of an hour afterwards my brain began to work. I said:
"Look here, Justin, there's one thing that's worrying me terribly."
He asked what it was.
"Carlos," I said. "It's not going to be very nice for you to be married to me and to have Carlos running around telling his friends that your wife was rather a cheap crook that he put in to take you for twenty thousand, is it? Have you thought of that angle?"
He held up his hand.
"I wish you'd leave these things to me, sweet," he said.
He went over to the sideboard and poured a little glass of brandy. He held the glass up to the light and stood looking through the amber coloured liquid. Then he drank it with relish.
"I've been thinking about Carlos," he said. "I don't think I like Carlos very much, and I agree with you that his mouth has got to be stopped. I'll tell you how I'm going to do it."
I sat there all ears. I was just beginning to realise that Justin was clever, but really clever—a different sort of cleverness to the cheap, meretricious scheming of Carlos. Justin turned back to the sideboard and put the glass down.
"Carlos will be here at eleven o'clock tomorrow morning, and he will state that the best thing for all purposes is for me to give him twenty thousand pounds, and that he will then go away and I shan't be worried any more. I propose," he went on "to give it to him. I shall give him an open cheque payable to bearer. I have large funds at my disposal in several banks here. He will take the cheque along to the bank and cash it. I shall arrange that when he goes into the bank he's identified." He came over to me and stood looking down at me. "You see, my dear," he said, "I want you to remember that you came into this job as Carlos's partner. I'm not going to allow you to let him down. He's going to have his twenty thousand. But having had it, if ever he crosses our path again, God help him.
"Now, it's much too late for you to be here. You've got to start a new sort of life from now on. You're going to be the sort of woman who's going to be Mrs. Justin McCall. Go back to your apartment and sleep. Oh, by the way," he went on, "there's something I want you to do for me."
He went over to the bureau in the corner, came back. He held a hundred pound note in his fingers.
"I want you to get rid of all those clothes and things," he said, "that Carlos staked you to. I want you to get yourself some new things and a very swell dinner frock. I don't want to see you again until to-morrow night. I want you to dine with me at the Savoy. I'll be waiting for you in the vestibule. You and I are going to start all over again."
He folded up the banknote with long strong fingers and slipped it into the neck of my shirt blouse. Then he kissed me on the lips.
"Good night, honey," he said.
I woke up the next morning at eleven-thirty, sat up in bed and proceeded to do a little quiet thinking.
I was trying to think of some way in which I could prove to Justin how mad I was about him. I got an idea. I thought it out this way: I imagined that when Carlos had had his interview with Justin at eleven o'clock, the conversation would be kept to the business in hand. Justin would give Carlos the twenty thousand pounds, but it was a certainty that he wouldn't discuss me.
In other words, if I got busy quickly, I could collect my ten thousand from Carlos and hand it back to Justin. Anyhow I thought there'd be no harm in trying. So I rang through to Carlos. Directly I heard him I knew I was right.
"Well, honey," he said, "it's come off. That big mug gave me an open cheque for twenty thousand. I walked straight round to the bank and cashed it, and there we are. Any time you like to come round here you can collect your ten thousand, less the three hundred I advanced."
I was round at Carlos's place in half an hour, and a quarter of an hour after that, having put my nine thousand, seven hundred pounds in a stout envelope, I drove back to Parkside Apartments, rang the bell of Justin's flat, pushed the packet into his hand when he opened the door, said all girlishly, "I'll see you to-night, darling," and ran back to my apartment.
I HAD my hair done again that afternoon in a new way. I thought it even better than my old style. I bought a really marvellous frock. At six-thirty punctually I walked into the foyer of the Savoy. I looked round. There was no sign of Justin.
But Carlos was sitting at a table finishing a brandy and soda. He looked just like the wreck of the Hesperus. When he saw me he came over to me and said:
"Just sit down quietly at a table. I want to talk to you."
I started to say something, but Carlos said, "Shut up!" in such an ominous tone of voice that I obeyed immediately.
We sat down at one of the tables in the lounge. Carlos took out his cigarette case and lit a cigarette. I noticed his fingers were trembling. He said:
"Now listen to me, baby. You and I have got to get out of here and quickly. I don't know where you're going to but I think that the wilds of Scotland are going to be the healthiest place I can think of for a bit."
I pulled myself together. I said:
"Carlos, exactly what does this mean?"
"This is what it means," said Carlos. "This afternoon, after I'd seen you and given you that dough, I had a telephone call from McCall. He told me that when I called to see him this morning to collect that money, he had two men from his lawyer's office in the next room on the end of a dictaphone. He said I could either hand back the money or he'd send for a policeman." Carlos sighed heavily. "He meant it too," he said.
He shrugged his shoulders.
"What could I do?" he went on. "I gave him back the ten thousand, f told him you'd had your half. He said that was all right; you'd already cashed in. Is that right?"
I nodded weakly.
"Then I went back to my flat," said Carlos. "When I arrived there was a cable waiting for me. It was from my pal in Canada, the man who gave me the original dope about McCall. Head it."
He handed me the cable. It read:
JUSTIN MCCALL HAS NOT YET LEFT CANADA. HAVE JUST DISCOVERED THE GUY I PUT YOU ON TO IN ERROR IS WILLIE MACK A CON MAN WHO IS GOING TO FRONT AS MCCALL IN LONDON AND PULL SOME FUNNY BUSINESS, BE CAREFUL.
I put the cable back on the table. I said: "My god, what do you know about that? And I thought I was in love with that guy."
Under the table my knees were almost knocking together with rage.
"All right," said Carlos. "Well, we're the mugs, that's all. We've been taken, but I'm getting out of here quick."
I said. "What's the idea? What's all this business about running away?"
Carlos looked at me.
"Don't be a fool, honey," he said. "Don't you realise what we've done? We've cashed a forged cheque drawn by this fellow Mack, and the bank have paid it out of one of the real Justin McCall accounts. That makes you and me accessories to forgery before and after. Haven't you got that, stupid?"
I said, "I've got it." I gulped a little. "Can I have a brandy and soda, Carlos," I asked, "before I go back to Bayswater?"
He said, "Yes, but it's to be a small one."
Well, that's that. Love can be wonderful, can't it?
Roy Glashan's Library
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