Ukridge Stories · First Aid for Dora (3/3)

“Now we are quite cosy,” said Ukridge’s aunt.

“Yes, yes,” I agreed. Dash it, I liked this woman.

“Tell me, Mr. Corcoran,” said Ukridge’s aunt, “are you on the staff of Woman’s Sphere? It is one of my favourite papers. I read it every week.”

“The outside staff.”

“What do you mean by the outside staff?”

“Well, I don’t actually work in the office, but the editor gives me occasional jobs.”

“I see. Who is the editor now?”

I began to feel slightly less debonair. She was just making conversation, of course, to put me at my ease, but I wished she would stop asking me these questions. I searched desperately in my mind for a name⁠—any name⁠—but as usual on these occasions every name in the English language had passed from me.

“Of course. I remember now,” said Ukridge’s aunt, to my profound relief. “It’s Mr. Jevons, isn’t it? I met him one night at dinner.”

“Jevons,” I burbled. “That’s right. Jevons.”

“A tall man with a light moustache.”

“Well, fairly tall,” I said, judicially.

“And he sent you here to interview me?”

“Yes.”

“Well, which of my novels do you wish me to talk about?”

I relaxed with a delightful sense of relief. I felt on solid ground at last. And then it suddenly came to me that Ukridge in his woollen-headed way had omitted to mention the name of a single one of this woman’s books.

“Er⁠—oh, all of them,” I said hurriedly.

“I see. My general literary work.”

“Exactly,” I said. My feeling towards her now was one of positive affection.

She leaned back in her chair with her fingertips together, a pretty look of meditation on her face.

“Do you think it would interest the readers of Woman’s Sphere to know which novel of mine is my own favourite?”

“I am sure it would.”

“Of course,” said Ukridge’s aunt, “it is not easy for an author to answer a question like that. You see, one has moods in which first one book and then another appeals to one.”

“Quite,” I replied. “Quite.”

“Which of my books do you like best, Mr. Corcoran?”

There swept over me the trapped feeling one gets in nightmares. From six baskets the six Pekingese stared at me unwinkingly.

“Er⁠—oh, all of them,” I heard a croaking voice reply. My voice, presumably, though I did not recognise it.

“How delightful!” said Ukridge’s aunt. “Now, I really do call that delightful. One or two of the critics have said that my work was uneven. It is so nice to meet someone who doesn’t agree with them. Personally, I think my favourite is The Heart of Adelaide.”

I nodded my approval of this sound choice. The muscles which had humped themselves stiffly on my back began to crawl back into place again. I found it possible to breathe.

“Yes,” I said, frowning thoughtfully, “I suppose The Heart of Adelaide is the best thing you have written. It has such human appeal,” I added, playing it safe.

“Have you read it, Mr. Corcoran?”

“Oh yes.”

“And you really enjoyed it?”

“Tremendously.”

“You don’t think it is a fair criticism to say that it is a little broad in parts?”

“Most unfair.” I began to see my way. I do not know why, but I had been assuming that her novels must be the sort you find in seaside libraries. Evidently they belonged to the other class of female novels, the sort which libraries ban. “Of course,” I said, “it is written honestly, fearlessly, and shows life as it is. But broad? No, no!”

“That scene in the conservatory?”

“Best thing in the book,” I said stoutly.

A pleased smile played about her mouth. Ukridge had been right. Praise her work, and a child could eat out of her hand. I found myself wishing that I had really read the thing, so that I could have gone into more detail and made her still happier.

“I’m so glad you like it,” she said. “Really, it is most encouraging.”

“Oh, no,” I murmured modestly.

“Oh, but it is. Because I have only just started to write it, you see. I finished chapter one this morning.”

She was still smiling so engagingly that for a moment the full horror of these words did not penetrate my consciousness.

“The Heart of Adelaide is my next novel. The scene in the conservatory, which you like so much, comes towards the middle of it. I was not expecting to reach it till about the end of next month. How odd that you should know all about it!”

I had got it now all right, and it was like sitting down on the empty space where there should have been a chair. Somehow the fact that she was so pleasant about it all served to deepen my discomfiture. In the course of an active life I have frequently felt a fool, but never such a fool as I felt then. The fearful woman had been playing with me, leading me on, watching me entangle myself like a fly on flypaper. And suddenly I perceived that I had erred in thinking of her eyes as mild. A hard gleam had come into them. They were like a couple of blue gimlets. She looked like a cat that had caught a mouse, and it was revealed to me in one sickening age-long instant why Ukridge went in fear of her. There was that about her which would have intimidated the Sheik.

“It seems so odd, too,” she tinkled on, “that you should have come to interview me for Woman’s Sphere. Because they published an interview with me only the week before last. I thought it so strange that I rang up my friend Miss Watterson, who is the editress, and asked her if there had not been some mistake. And she said she had never heard of you. Have you ever heard of Mr. Corcoran, Muriel?”

“Never,” said the hawk, fixing me with a revolted eye.

“How strange!” said Ukridge’s aunt. “But then the whole thing is so strange. Oh, must you go, Mr. Corcoran?”

My mind was in a slightly chaotic condition, but on that one point it was crystal-clear. Yes, I must go. Through the door if I could find it⁠—failing that, through the window. And anybody who tried to stop me would do well to have a care.

“You will remember me to Mr. Jevons when you see him, won’t you?” said Ukridge’s aunt.

I was fumbling at the handle.

“And, Mr. Corcoran.” She was still smiling amiably, but there had come into her voice a note like that which it had had on a certain memorable occasion when summoning Ukridge to his doom from the unseen interior of his Sheep’s Cray Cottage. “Will you please tell my nephew Stanley that I should be glad if he would send no more of his friends to see me. Good afternoon.”

I suppose that at some point in the proceedings my hostess must have rung a bell, for out in the passage I found my old chum, the butler. With the uncanny telepathy of his species he appeared aware that I was leaving under what might be called a cloud, for his manner had taken on a warder-like grimness. His hand looked as if it was itching to grasp me by the shoulder, and when we reached the front door he eyed the pavement wistfully, as if thinking what splendid spot it would be for me to hit with a thud.

“Nice day,” I said, with the feverish instinct to babble which comes to strong men in their agony.

He scorned to reply, and as I tottered down the sunlit street I was conscious of his gaze following me.

“A very vicious specimen,” I could fancy him saying. “And mainly due to my prudence and foresight that he hasn’t got away with the spoons.”

It was a warm afternoon, but to such an extent had the recent happenings churned up my emotions that I walked the whole way back to Ebury Street with a rapidity which caused more languid pedestrians to regard me with a pitying contempt. Reaching my sitting room in an advanced state of solubility and fatigue, I found Ukridge stretched upon the sofa.

“Hallo, laddie!” said Ukridge, reaching out a hand for the cooling drink that lay on the floor beside him. “I was wondering when you would show up. I wanted to tell you that it won’t be necessary for you to go and see my aunt after all. It appears that Dora has a hundred quid tucked away in a bank, and she’s been offered a partnership by a woman she knows who runs one of these typewriting places. I advised her to close with it. So she’s all right.”

He quaffed deeply of the bowl and breathed a contented sigh. There was a silence.

“When did you hear of this?” I asked at length.

“Yesterday afternoon,” said Ukridge. “I meant to pop round and tell you, but somehow it slipped my mind.”