The Cat Burglar and Other Stories ebook

Contents

1. THE CAT BURGLAR

2. THE PICK-UP

3. DISCOVERING REX

5. THE MAN IN THE GOLF HUT

4. THE CLUE OF MONDAY'S SETTLING

5. ESTABLISHING CHARLES BULLIVANT

6. SENTIMENTAL SIMPSON

7. WHITE STOCKING

1. THE CAT BURGLAR

Old Tom Burkes used to say to Elsah, his daughter: “Easy grabbing is good grabbing. Nobody was ever ruined by taking small profits.”

After his eighth whisky old Tom was rather oracular. He would sit before the fire in the shabby little dining-room at Elscombe Crescent (Mayfair by telephone, Bayswater by bus), and pass across such cultured pearls of wisdom.

“You can’t expect millionaires to marry–especially if they’ve been married before. This Poynting’s got money and a family. Families are always a just cause an’ impediment. If he wants to make you happy by givin’ me a directorship–let him.”

So that when, in a moment of mental aberration, Colonel J.C. Poynting pressed upon her for acceptance the emerald bar which caused all the trouble, Elsah accepted. She made some faint protest... One shouldn’t (she murmured) accept such a present even from so dear a friend unless... unless...

Colonel Poynting did not fill the gap. He was an infatuated old gentleman, but for the moment infatuation was held in check by an uneasy-sense of family.

“You’d better insure that,” said Elsah’s wise father. “It’s worth three thousand if it is worth a cent.”

Prudently, Elsah followed his advice–which was also unfortunate.

Most unfortunate of all, a few weeks later Colonel Poynting very nervously requested her to return the bar–his daughter had asked to see it... he would return it to Elsah.

“Perhaps,” said her cynical parent.

That night the bar was stolen. It was taken from her dressing-table by some person or persons unknown. This information she conveyed to the Colonel by express letter. The Colonel replied in person, arriving in a taxi and a state of nervous perspiration. Accompanying him was a detective.

And that was where the real trouble started. For the detective asked horrid questions, and Elsah wept pitifully, and the Colonel not only comforted her but proposed marriage. On the whole, it would have been better if he had been content with the loss of the emeralds.

Now, here is a point for all mystery-mongers to note. Up to the moment the loss of the emerald bar was reported. Miss Dorothy Poynting had never considered Elsah as anything more than a safe dancing partner for fathers, and knew nothing whatever about the bar having been given to that enterprising lady.

The two shocks came almost simultaneously. Dorothy Poynting’s reactions to the announcement were rather inhuman and wholly at variance with Colonel Poynting’s ideas of what a daughter’s attitude should be when he condescends–there is no other word for it, or at any rate the Colonel could find no other word–to inform her that he contemplated marrying again.

He told her this at dinner, stammering and coughing and talking quite fiercely at moments, though at other moments he was pleading.

“She’s rather young, but she’s a real good sort. If you feel... um...that you’d be happier away... elsewhere... living somewhere else, you can have the flat in Portland Place, and of course Sonningstead is yours...”

Dorothy surveyed her father thoughtfully. He was good-looking, in a way–pink of skin, white-haired, slim, invariably tailor-right. She wished he was fat; there is nothing quite as effective as a noticeable rotundity for reducing the conscious ego.

He was very vain about his waist and his small feet and nicely modeled hands. They were twiddling now with the spotless gardenia in his buttonhole.

“Elsah Burkes is a dear girl,” defiantly. “You may not like her: I hardly expected that you would. It is a tremendous compliment to me that she should, so to speak, sacrifice her–um–youth...”

“It may also be a tremendous compliment to the Poynting Traction Company,” said Dorothy gently.

He was infuriated. He told her so. He was so mild a man that she had no other means of knowing.

“I’m simply furious with you! Because a gel’s poor... I’m sorry I consulted you...”

She smiled at this. How annoyingly she could smile! And she dusted her white georgette lap before she rose, took a cigarette from the table and lit it.

“Dear old darling,” she said, waving the smoking thing airily, “would you have told me if you had not to explain how dear Elsah came to be robbed of a large emerald bar–mother’s bar? You had to explain that away–”

“There is no need whatever “ he began, with well-modulated violence.

She waved him to comparative quiet.

“It was in all the newspapers. The moment I saw that Elsah had lost an emerald bar I was suspicious. When I saw the photographs, I knew. With all your money, daddy, you might have bought her a bushel of emeralds. It was intensely heartless and vulgar to give away a jewel that was my mother’s. That is all.” She flicked ash into the fireplace. “Also–don’t get vexed with me–it was singularly prudent of Elsah to insure the bar the moment it came into her possession.”

“You are going too far,” said her father in his awful voice.

“As far as Portland Place, if you go on with this absurd marriage. Or perhaps I’ll go out into the world and do something romantic, such as work for my living.”

John Venner came in at that moment. Elsah and he arrived together.

She was rather tall and Junoesque–which means on the way to plumpness–red- haired, white-skinned, flashing-eyed.

“That woman,” said Dorothy, in a critical mood, “has made radiance a public nuisance.”

She said this to John Venner: he was rather charitable. Nothing quite exasperates a woman so much as misapplied charity. And it is invariably misapplied when employed in the defense of another woman.

John was a Guardsman, a nicely mannered young man who had so much money that he could never marry well.

“I think you’re deuced unkind to old Elsah,” he said.

With difficulty Dorothy remembered that she was a lady.

Elsah had similar views. She asked her future step-daughter whether they might go to Dorothy’s bedroom and have a real heart-to-heart talk. Dorothy checked an inclination to suggest the meat pantry.

“Because you see, darling”–Elsah sat picturesquely on the bed and exhibited her nice legs–“I must get right with you! I know you loathe me, and I told Clarence–”

“Who’s Clarence?” asked the dazed Dorothy.

“Your dear daddy,” cooed Elsah.

“Good God!” said Dorothy, shocked. “I never realized that! Well, you told Clarence–”

Elsah swallowed something.

“I told your dear father that he mustn’t expect you to... well...”

“Hang out the flags?” suggested Dorothy.

“That’s rather vulgar, isn’t it!” Elsah would not have been human if she had failed to protest. “I do hope you and I are going to be great friends. Won’t you come round and dine one night with father and me? He’s such a dear...”

All that sort of stuff.

This is a free sample. Please purchase full version of the book to continue.

This is a free sample. Please purchase full version of the book to continue.

This is a free sample. Please purchase full version of the book to continue.

This is a free sample. Please purchase full version of the book to continue.

This is a free sample. Please purchase full version of the book to continue.

This is a free sample. Please purchase full version of the book to continue.

This is a free sample. Please purchase full version of the book to continue.

This is a free sample. Please purchase full version of the book to continue.

This is a free sample. Please purchase full version of the book to continue.