Free Kiss Kiss by Roald Dahl

this time,” he said as he settled
himself beside her in the car.
      
“Hurry, please,” she said to the chauffeur. “Don’t bother
about the rug. I’ll arrange the rug. Please get going. I’m late.”
      
The man went back to his seat behind the wheel and started
the engine.
      
“ Just a moment!” Mr Foster said suddenly. “Hold it a
moment, chauffeur, will you?”
      
“What is it, dear?” She saw him searching the pockets of
his overcoat.
      
“I had a little present I wanted you to take to Ellen,” he said.
“Now, where on earth is it? I’m sure I had it in my hand as I
came down.”
      
“I never saw you carrying anything. What sort of present?”
      
“A little box wrapped up in white paper. I forgot to give it
to you yesterday. I don’t want to forget it today.”
      
“A little box!” Mrs Foster cried. “I never saw any little box!”
She began hunting frantically in the back of the car.
      
Her husband continued searching through the pockets of
his coat. Then he unbuttoned the coat and felt around in his
jacket. “Confound it,” he said, “I must’ve left it in my bedroom.
I won’t be a moment.”
      
“Oh, please! ” she cried. “We haven’t got time! Please leave
it! You can mail it. It’s only one of those silly combs anyway.
You’re always giving her combs.”
      
“And what’s wrong with combs, may I ask?” he said, furious
that she should have forgotten herself for once.
      
“Nothing, dear, I’m sure. But . . .”
      
“Stay here!” he commanded. “I’m going to get it.”
      
“Be quick, dear! Oh, please be quick!”
      
She sat still, waiting and waiting.
      
“Chauffeur, what time is it?”
      
The man had a wristwatch, which he consulted. “I make it
nearly nine thirty.”
      
“Can we get to the airport in an hour?”
      
“Just about.”
      
At this point, Mrs Foster suddenly spotted a corner of something
white wedged down in the crack of the seat on the side
where her husband had been sitting. She reached over and

pulled out a small paper-wrapped box, and at the same time
she couldn’t help noticing that it was wedged down firm and
deep, as though with the help of a pushing hand.
      
“Here it is!” she cried. “I’ve found it! Oh dear, and now he’ll
be up there for ever searching for it! Chauffeur, quickly—run
in and call him down, will you please?”
      
The chauffeur, a man with a small rebellious Irish mouth,
didn’t care very much for any of this, but he climbed out of
the car and went up the steps to the front door of the house.
Then he turned and came back. “Door’s locked,” he announced.
“You got a key?”
      
“Yes—wait a minute.” She began hunting madly in her purse.
The little face was screwed up tight with anxiety, the lips
pushed outward like a spout.
      
“Here it is! No—I’ll go myself. It’ll be quicker. I know
where he’ll be.”
      
She hurried out of the car and up the steps to the front
door, holding the key in one hand. She slid the key into the
keyhole and was about to turn it—and then she stopped. Her
head came up, and she stood there absolutely motionless, her
whole body arrested right in the middle of all this hurry to
turn the key and get into the house, and she waited—five, six,
seven, eight, nine, ten seconds, she waited. The way she was
standing there, with her head in the air and the body so tense,
it seemed as though she were listening for the repetition of
some sound that she had heard a moment before from a place
far away inside the house.
      
Yes—quite obviously she was listening. Her whole attitude
was a listening one. She appeared actually to be moving one
of her ears closer and closer to the door. Now it was right up
against the door, and for still another