Free Publish and Be Murdered by Ruth Dudley Edwards Page B

looked at him – ‘the sooner you go off with Mary Lou for a long, long idyll of madness and passion, the better.’
    The look of embarrassment on Pooley’s face as he contemplated this prospect made her rock with laughter so vigorously that she almost drove the car off the road.

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    9
    « ^ »
    Henry Potbury’s bulbous face peered around Amiss’s door. ‘A word with you, my dear chap.’
    ‘Of course, Henry.’
    Amiss installed Potbury in the leather armchair. ‘Coffee? I’m afraid I’ve nothing stronger.’
    ‘No, no, my dear chap. Even I draw the line at drinking alcohol before noon.’ He stopped and considered that statement. ‘Well, that is, in the normal course of events I do.’
    ‘So what’s on your mind?’
    ‘I think Willie’s finally gone potty.’
    ‘How can you tell?’
    ‘Rang me up six sheets to the wind last night, raved at me for about five minutes about the iniquities of Dwight Winterton, whom he described as a treacherous kike, told me I was a drunken oaf and made some disparaging reference to you as the northern fellow who counts the spoons.’
    ‘How…?’ asked Amiss.
    Potbury snorted. ‘How was I sober enough to know this? Because my ferocious Aunt Hortense was staying last night, that’s why, and fear of her tongue always reduces my alcohol intake by about eighty per cent.’
    ‘That wasn’t my question. I wanted to know how you identified me as the chap who counts the spoons?’
    ‘Because you are really when it comes to it,’ said Potbury in a reasonable tone. ‘Not a bad description of you, at all, if I may say so.’
    ‘So how did you respond to all this?’
    ‘There wasn’t really time to say much. I expostulated a couple of times, but the flood just continued.’
    ‘Doesn’t sound very like Willie.’
    ‘No, he’s usually pretty ept at keeping his temper. But I’d say the general praise for that piece of Dwight’s he tried to spike last week sent him to the bottle.’
    ‘Kike’s a bit much, though. I wouldn’t have put him down as anti-semitic’
    ‘Scratch Willie and you find a shit.’
    ‘And what had I done to upset him?’
    ‘Oh nothing, it was just because you, along with Dwight, had had a pat on the back from m’Lud Papworth. If there’s one thing Willie can’t stand, it’s Charlie Papworth saying anything nice about anyone else.’
    ‘But why was he ringing you to carry on about it?’
    ‘Who else has he got, my dear boy?’
    ‘Mrs Willie?’
    ‘Come on, surely you know that Mrs Willie – or rather, to be precise, the Honourable Mrs Willie – departed airhead held high several years ago because she couldn’t put up with Willie’s insufferable superciliousness, sexlessness and God knows what else. Knowing how loudly and widely she complained about him within the smart set, those whom he would consider eligible haven’t exactly been queuing up to succeed her. It’s not, after all, as if he were rich or well connected.’
    ‘Is there no little Lambie Crump?’
    Potbury shuddered. ‘Oh, really. What an unpleasant thought. Can’t you see it? Blond ringlets and a lace collar.’ He pulled himself out of the chair. ‘Drink later? Something I’d like to talk to you about at leisure. And I’ve got something to knock off before lunch.’
    ‘Sure. I’ll call in during the afternoon.’
     
    A full-scale row was in progress as Amiss put his head around the door of the midden shared by Marcia and Ben.
    ‘Rubbish, it’s Robert Peel.’
    ‘You silly old woman!’ screamed Ben. ‘How often do I have to tell you your knowledge of the nineteenth century is so bloody ’opeless as to be a national scandal. That was never said by Robert fuckin’ Peel. It was said twenty bleedin’ years later by Benjamin shaggin’ Disraeli.’
    A tennis ball flew from Marcia’s desk and whizzed by Ben’s ear. ‘You’ve got amnesia again, you stupid bugger.’ Marcia’s voice rose to a screech. ‘Don’t you remember in Gash’s biography where it