Free Black August by Dennis Wheatley Page B

Suffolk village, but it was impossible unless she sacrificed her job. She had spoken of it the day before to her immediate superior, the fussy, pot-bellied Mr. Crumper, and she could hear his sharp rejoinder now.
    â€˜Nonsense, Miss Croome—nonsense. Business as usual will be our motto. The rioting will not affect us in the City you may be sure and we shall weather this crisis just as we did the one last winter.’
    It would have been useless to argue with the man and most of the other members of the firm seemed to share his view. ‘Who would prove correct,’ she wondered, ‘Mr. Crumper and the office staff or Gregory Sallust and Kenyon—Damn Kenyon!—anyhowif the trouble blew over after all she would never get another job with things in their present state, so she must cling on to this one.’
    â€˜
A life on the Oceon Wave,
’ chanted a husky voice which she recognised as Rudd’s, and a moment later he knocked loudly on her door. ‘Yer wanted on the ‘phone, Miss.’
    Ann rolled over. ‘Who is it?’ she called.
    â€˜Gentleman—name of Fane.’
    â€˜Tell him I do not wish to speak to him.’
    â€˜â€™E said as ’ow I was to say it was urgent.’
    â€˜I don’t care—do as I tell you, and say I shall be grateful if he will not bother me by ringing up again!’
    â€˜Orlright, Miss.’ Rudd’s heavy boots clumped away, and Ann turned over again with a set expression on her face. She hated weakness in other people and scorned it in herself. It was bad enough that she was half in love with the man already. To go on with the affair would only be to pile up endless misery for the future. Far better cut it out altogether.
    Rudd obediently delivered her message, and Kenyon, wrapped in a thin silk dressing-gown, hung up the receiver with an angry grunt.
    The night before they had told him that she was out, and now she refused even to speak to him. In his bath he thought the matter over and admitted that he had not quite played the game. To talk of himself as seeking a Government position at £400 a year might be accurate, but it was certainly misleading, and to describe his father as a farmer with a few investments was hardly in accordance with Debrett. His quick decision to conceal his title had been governed by his comparatively small experience with girls of the upper middle class. He had discovered in his Oxford days that they were apt to affect strange mannerisms which they believed to be socially correct as soon as they knew that he was heir to a Dukedom; whereas if they remained in ignorance they continued to be natural and amusing.
    He wondered how she had found him out, and put it down to her seeing one of his photographs in the illustrated papers. Hardly a week passed without his appearing in one of them—grimly smirking in a flashlight snap at some party, or with one enormous foot stretched out as he made for the paddock at a race-meeting.
    His mind leapt back to the darkened sitting-room, visualisingagain fragmentary episodes of that unforgettable hour. His pulses quickened at the thought—he had got to see her again somehow—there wasn’t a doubt about that. The best way would be to slip down to Gloucester Road and catch her before she left for the office. He scrambled out of his bath.
    Breakfast, he decided, could wait, and having hurried through his dressing he telephoned for his car to be brought round.
    In Gloucester Road, Rudd answered his ring, and with a quick grasp of his business clumped upstairs to the communal sitting-room, leaving him below.
    Two minutes later he came down again, shaking his yellow head: ‘I’m sorry, sir, but Miss Croome sez she don’t want ter see yer—an’ yer ter go away at once.’
    Kenyon produced a pound note from his pocket book and displayed it to Mr. Rudd. ‘Look here,’ he said, ‘I want to see Miss Croome very badly indeed,