SHALL EXPECT ROAST VEAL FOR DINNER.
LANCE.
Inspector Neele raised his eyebrows.
“So the Prodigal Son had been summoned
home,” he said.
59
6
A’ the moment when Rex Fortescue had
been drinking his last cup of tea,
Lance Fortescue and his wife had been
sitting under the trees on the Champs Elysees
watching the people walking past.
“It’s all very well to say ‘describe him,’ Pat.
I’m a rotten hand at descriptions. What do
you want to know? The Guvnor’s a bit of an
old crook, you know. But you won’t mind
that? You must be used to that more or less.”
“Oh yes,” said Pat. “Yes–as you say–I’m
acclimatised.”
She tried to keep a certain forlornness out
other voice. Perhaps, she reflected, the whole
world was really crooked–or was it just that
she herself had been unfortunate?
She was a tall, long-legged girl, not beautiful
but with a charm that was made up of
vitality and a warm-hearted personality. She
moved well, and had lovely gleaming chestnut
brown hair. Perhaps from a long association
with horses, she had acquired the look
of a thoroughbred filly.
60
Crookedness in the racing world she knew
about—now, it seemed, she was to encounter
crookedness in the financial world. Though
for all that, it seemed that her father-in-law
whom she had not yet met, was, as far as the
law was concerned, a pillar of rectitude. All
these people who went about boasting of
“smart work” were the same—technically
they always managed to be within the law.
Yet it seemed to her that her Lance, whom
she loved, and who had admittedly strayed
outside the ringed fence in earlier days, had
an honesty that these successful practitioners
of the crooked lacked.
“I don’t mean,” said Lance, “that he’s a
swindler—not anything like that. But he
knows how to put over a fast one.”
“Sometimes,” said Pat, “I feel I hate
people who put over fast ones.” She added:
“You’re fond of him.” It was a statement, not
a question.
Lance considered it for a moment, and then
said in a surprised kind of voice:
“Do you know, darling, I believe I am.”
Pat laughed. He turned his head to look at
her. His eyes narrowed. What a darling she
was! He loved her. The whole thing was
worth it for her sake.
61
“In a way, you know,” he said, “it’s Hell
going back. City life. Home on the 5.18. It’s
not my kind of life. I’m far more at home
among the down and outs. But one’s got to
settle down sometime, I suppose. And with
you to hold my hand the process may even be
quite a pleasant one. And since the old boy
has come round, one ought to take advantage
of it. I must say I was surprised when I got
his letter. . . . Percival, of all people, blotting
his copybook. Percival, the good little boy.
Mind you, Percy was always sly. Yes, he was
always sly.”
“I don’t think,” said Patricia Fortescue,
“that I’m going to like your brother
Percival.”
“Don’t let me put you against him. Percy
and I never got on—that’s all there is to it. I
blued my pocket money, he saved his. I had
disreputable but entertaining friends, Percy
made what’s called ‘worth while contacts.’
Poles apart we were, he and I. I always
thought him a poor fish, and he—sometimes,
you know, I think he almost hated me. I don’t
know why exactly. …”
“I think I can see why.”
“Can you, darling? You’re so brainy. You
62
know I’ve always wondered–it’s a fantastic
thing to say–but—-”
“Well? Say it.”
“I’ve wondered if it wasn’t Percival who
was behind that cheque business–you know, when the old man kicked me out–and was he
mad that he’d given me a share in the firm
and so he couldn’t disinherit me! Because the
queer thing was that I never forged that
cheque–though of course nobody would believe
that after that time I swiped funds out of
the till and put it on a horse. I was dead sure I
could put it back, and anyway it was my own
cash in a manner of speaking. But that cheque