Then one morning I had a letter from Joan Merrow, which I give you without the alteration of a single word. If you yourself have a modern young Anthea who may command you anything and does not hesitate to do so I accept your sympathy in advance. The letter ran:— "Dear Old Thing, "Do be an angel and do one or two little things for me. I'd rather ask you than anybody else because you're the kindest person I know. If you're too busy of course you'll say so straight out, but what I want first of all is for you to get me the addresses of a few nice small houses or convenient flats."
In course of time I had recovered my breath. This, remember, was in 1919. It was not the Crown Jewels her ladyship wanted, merely "a nice small house"; not the sun, moon and stars, only "a convenient flat." I think my nerves might be spared shocks of this kind at my time of life. "Of course, I know rents have gone up," she continued, "but Chummy thinks there ought to be plenty of quite nice little places for about £70, but you could go up to £75 for a really nice house with a garden, rates and taxes included, of course. There are some sweet little houses right on the edge of the Heath at Hampstead with trees all round them and dear little brass knockers on the doors, but I don't know if any of those are empty, but you might ask."
I seemed to remember those sweet little houses. If I am right, your father puts his name down for one of them on his coming of age, and, with luck in the matter of intervening deaths, your son may end his days there. I have never had the impiety to ask the rent of them. "There wouldn't have to be any premium, and there must be a telephone. Speaking of telephones, I do wish you could persuade Philip to have that one of his moved, as where it is everybody can hear every word you say. The house needn't be Hampstead, of course, Wimbledon or Richmond would do if you wouldn't mind having a look round. If you went on the top of a bus you'd be out in the fresh air and the blow would do you good. Then there would be the question of a maid, but we shouldn't want her for a month or two yet."
At this point a little fanning with the letter refreshed me considerably. "And now," the joyous thing continued, "if you happen to be anywhere near Regent Street it would be so kind if you would call at Morny's and get me some soap, I like Chaminade best, and some tooth-powder, any good sort. I know how busy you are, but it is so difficult to get things here. I tried to get some Petrole Hahn the other day, but they'd never heard of it. I'd ask Mrs. Cunningham, but I hear she's away, and you carry colors so well in your head. That's why I wonder if you'd call at that little bead-shop in Oxford Street, nearly opposite Frascati's, and see if they have any amber beads, not the real amber, of course, iron-amber I think they call it. Chummy wants me to have some because of my hair. Not the huge ones, please, but from about the size of a pea to as big as a marble."
"Or a 7.65 mm. bullet," I murmured to myself. "The weather here is lovely and we're out all day long, and I do wish you were here. But my bathing-costume is a perfect rag. I hate the skirted ones and always wear a plain club one, either navy blue or black; but I'm afraid it won't run to a silk one, though you might ask the price. And now here's something that isn't for me at all. You know Hamley's, either in Regent Street or Holborn, but they have a better selection in Regent Street. The boys want two pairs of water-wings, and they'd better be of different colors or they'll get them mixed up and be always quarreling. And oh, Chummy says it's awful neck, seeing he doesn't know you, but there are some pipes, 'Captanide' they're called, and you get them at Loewe's in the Haymarket. There are two sizes, and he would like the smaller size, two of them, please. You can add them to my bill as they're my present to him and he's giving me the beads, and he'd better have some tobacco for the pipes. His number at Dunhills' is 06369. A pipe is better for him than cigarettes, though I allow him six cigarettes a day and you can only get gaspers here. Any nice kind would do as long as they're Turkish. Thanks so much. How is the novel getting on? We're both so looking forward to reading it. Is it a love story? I do hope it is, as I'm sure you'd do that so beautifully. Do be a pet about the house. I'm sending you some flowers to-morrow. "Joan."
With a light sigh I folded the letter and put it into my pocket. At any rate, there seemed to be two people on whom our Case did not weigh too heavily.
[Pg 208]
[Pg 209]
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