“No.” He gave her what Edward had once called one of his leery looks and added: “Although you might put it that way. I’m gettin’ ready for my big moment.” He jerked his hand towards a small table that stood at his elbow. Carlisle saw that a number of cartridges lay there. “Just goin’ to draw the bullets,” said Lord Pastern, “to make them into blanks, you know. I like to attend to things myself.”
“But what is your big moment?”
“You’ll see, to-night. You and Fée are to come. It ought to be a party. Who’s your best young man?”
“I haven’t got one.”
“Why not?”
“Arst yourself.”
“You’re too damn’ stand-offish, me gel. Wouldn’t be surprised if you had one of those things — Oedipus and all that. I looked into psychology when I was interested in companionate marriage.”
Lord Pastern inserted his eyeglass, went to his desk and rummaged in one of the drawers.
“What’s happening to-night?”
“Special extension night at the Metronome. I’m playin’. Floor show at eleven o’clock. My first appearance in public. Breezy engaged me. Nice of him, wasn’t it? You’ll enjoy yourself, Lisle.”
He returned with a drawer filled with a strange collection of objects — pieces of wire, a fret-saw, razor blades, candle-ends, wood-carving knives, old photographs, electrical gear, plastic wood, a number of tools and quantities of putty in greasy paper. How well Carlisle remembered that drawer. It had been a wet-day solace of her childhood visits. From its contents, Lord Pastern, who was dextrous in such matters, had concocted manikins, fly-traps and tiny ships.
“I believe,” she said, “I recognize almost everything in the collection.”
“Y’ father gave me that revolver,” Lord Pastern remarked. “It’s one of a pair. He had ’em made by his gunsmith to take special target ammunition. Couldn’t be bored having to reload with every shot like you do with target pistols, y’know. Cost him a packet, these did. We were always at it, he and I. He scratched his initials one day on the butt of this one. We’d had a bit of a row about differences in performance in the two guns, and shot it out. Have a look.”
She picked up the revolver gingerly. “I can’t see anything.”
“There’s a magnifying glass somewhere. Look underneath near the trigger guard.”
Carlisle rummaged in the drawer and found a lens. “Yes,” she said. “I can make them out now. C.D.W.”
“We were crack shots. He left me the pair. The other’s in the case, somewhere in that drawer.”
Lord Pastern took out a pair of pliers and picked up one of the cartridges. “Well, if you haven’t got a young man,” he said, “we’ll have Ned Manx. That’ll please your aunt. No good asking anyone else for Fée. Carlos cuts up rough.”
“Uncle George,” Carlisle ventured as he busied himself over his task, “do you approve of Carlos? Really?”
He muttered and grunted. She caught disjointed phrases: “ — take their course — own destiny — goin’ the wrong way to work. He’s a damn’ fine piano-accordionist,” he said loudly and added, more obscurely: “They’d much better leave things to me.”
“What’s he like?”
“You’ll see him in a minute. I know what I’m about,” said Lord Pastern, crimping the end of a cartridge from which he had extracted the bullet.
“Nobody else seems to. Is he jealous?”
“She’s had things too much her own way. Make her sit up a bit and a good job, too.”
“Aren’t you making a great number of blank cartridges?” Carlisle asked idly.
“I rather like making them. You never know. I shall probably be asked to repeat my number lots of times. I like to be prepared.”
He glanced up and saw the journal which Carlisle still held in her lap. “Thought you had a mind above that sort of stuff,” said Lord Pastern, grinning.
“Are you a subscriber, darling?”
“Y’ aunt is. It’s got a lot of sound stuff in it. They’re not afraid to speak their minds, b’God. See that thing on drug-runnin’? Names and everything and if they don’t like it they can damn’ well lump it. The police,” Lord Pastern said obscurely, “are no good; pompous incompetent lot. Hidebound. Ned,” he added, “does the reviews.”
“Perhaps,” Carlisle said lightly, “he’s G.P.F., too.”
“Chap’s got brains,” Lord Pastern grunted bewilderingly. “Hog sense in that feller.”
“Uncle George,” Carlisle demanded suddenly, “you don’t know by any chance if Fee’s ever consulted G.P.F.?”
“Wouldn’t let on if I did, m’dear. Naturally.”
Carlisle reddened. “No, of course you wouldn’t if she’d told you in confidence. Only usually Fée can’t keep anything to herself.”
“Well, ask her. She might do a damn’ sight worse.”
Lord Pastern dropped the bullets he had extracted into the waste-paper basket and returned to his desk. “I’ve been doin’ a bit of writin’ myself,” he said. “Look at this, Lisle.”
He handed his niece a sheet of music manuscript. An air had been set down, with many rubbings out, it seemed, and words had been written under the appropriate notes. “This Hot Guy,” Carlisle read, “does he get mean? This Hot Gunner with his accord-een. Shoots like he plays an’ he tops the bill. Plays like he shoots an’ he shoots to kill. Hi-de oh hi. Yip. Ho de oh do. Yip. Shoot buddy, shoot and we’ll sure come clean. Hot Guy, Hot Gunner on your accord-een. Bo. Bo. Bo.”
“Neat,” said Lord Pastern complacently. “Ain’t it?”
“It’s astonishing,” Carlisle murmured and was spared the necessity of further comment by the sound of voices in the drawing-room.
“That’s the Boys,” said Lord Pastern briskly. “Come on.”
The Boys were dressed in their professional dinner suits. These were distinctive garments, the jackets being double-breasted with the famous steel pointed buttons and silver revers. The sleeves were extremely narrow and displayed a great deal of cuff. The taller of the two, a man whose rotundity was emphasized by his pallor, advanced, beaming upon his host.
“Well, well, well,” he said. “Look who’s here.”
It was upon his companion that Carlisle fixed her attention. Memories of tango experts, of cinema near-stars with cigarette holders and parti-coloured shoes, of armoured women moving doggedly round dance floors in the grasp of young men — all these memories jostled together in her brain.
“ — and Mr. Rivera — ” her uncle was saying. Carlisle withdrew her hand from Mr. Bellairs’s encompassing grasp and it was at once bowed over by Mr. Rivera.
“Miss Wayne,” said Félicité‘s Carlos.
He rose from his bow with grace and gave her a look of automatic homage. “So we meet, at last,” he said. “I have heard so much.” He had, she noticed, a very slight lisp.
Lord Pastern gave them all sherry. The two visitors made loud conversation. “That’s very fine,” Mr. Breezy Bellairs pronounced and pointed to a small Fragonard above the fireplace. “My God, that’s beautiful, you know, Carlos. Exquisite.”
“In my father’s hacienda,” said Mr. Rivera, “there is a picture of which I am vividly reminded. This picture to which I refer is a portrait of one of my paternal ancestors. It is an original Goya.” And while she was still wondering how a Fragonard could remind Mr. Rivera of a Goya, he turned to Carlisle. “You have visited the Argentine, Miss Wayne, of course?”
“No,” said Carlisle.
“But you must. It would appeal to you enormously. It is a little difficult, by the way, for a visitor to see us, as it were, from the inside. The Spanish families are very exclusive.”
“Oh.”
“Oh, yes. An aunt of mine, Doña Isabella de Manuelos-Rivera, used to say ours was the only remaining aristocracy.” He inclined towards Lord Pastern and laughed musically. “But, of course, she had not visited a certain charming house in Duke’s Gate, London.”
“What? I wasn’t listening,” said Lord Pastern. “Look here, Bellairs, about to-night — ”