Enter jimmy strange, p.1
Enter Jimmy Strange, page 1
Contents
THE JIMMY STRANGE SERIES
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
DEDICATION
THE FAT MAN
THE JUDGE’S DAUGHTER
THE JEALOUS HUSBAND
THE FORGIVING FINANCIER
THE MAN AT THE PIANO
THE BODY IN THE CALLBOX
THE VANISHING DIAMONDS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR, by Philip Harbottle
THE JIMMY STRANGE SERIES
Meet Jimmy Strange
Enter Jimmy Strange
Borgo Press Books by Ernest Dudley
The Amazing Martin Brett: Classic Crime Stories
Department of Spooks: Stories of Suspense and Mystery
Enter Jimmy Strange: Classic Crime Stories
More Cases of a Private Eye: Classic Crime Stories
The Private Eye: Classic Crime Stories
The Return of Sherlock Holmes: A Classic Crime Tale
To Love and Perish: A Classic Crime Novel
THE DR. MORELLE CLASSIC CRIME SERIES
Dr. Morelle and the Doll: A Classic Crime Novel
Dr. Morelle at Midnight: A Classic Crime Novel
Dr. Morelle Investigates: Two Classic Crime Tales
Dr. Morelle Meets Murder: Classic Crime Stories
The Mind of Dr. Morelle: A Classic Crime Novel
New Cases for Dr. Morelle: Classic Crime Stories
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
Copyright © 1948 by Ernest Dudley
Copyright © 2015 by Susan Dudley-Allen
Published by Wildside Press LLC
www.wildsidebooks.com
DEDICATION
For Jane
THE FAT MAN
It began with a bump outside the Regis Hotel, that enormous and somewhat elaborately architectured edifice which domineeringly overlooks the Green Park in Piccadilly.
The day was warm and sunny, with a light breeze that fluttered the trees all the way down from Knightsbridge and went airily on until it lost itself somewhere in the eddies of petrol fumes, mechanical cacophony of the traffic and bitterly colourful profanity of taxi-drivers swirling round Piccadilly Circus.
Jimmy and Sandra had strolled through the Park, enjoying the sunshine that brightened the greenness of the trees and foliage and experiencing that certain zip in the air, which is London’s own individual characteristic, no other city knows. Their conversation was light-heartedly inconsequent, and a glance at his watch told Jimmy they had timed the end of their sauntering to coincide neatly with a pleasurably anticipatory sensation in the region of the larynx and the immediate proximity of the Regis Hotel American Bar.
With the prospect of pre-lunch apéritif bringing a decided lightness to his step, Jimmy, with Sandra on his arm, crossed over to the hotel and was about to urge her towards the great swing doors when a man, turning quickly from the taxi he had just paid off, cannoned into them. Fortunately for Sandra, Jimmy was between her and the man, his lean frame warding off the other, who was a large rotund individual. In fact it was the latter’s stomach, that region of his anatomy being expansive and vulnerable, which took the full blame of the impact. Its owner emitted a cry of not inconsiderable distress, and rocking backwards on his feet, clasped expensively gloved hands over his injured protuberance, opening and shutting his mouth, fish-like, as he tried to regain her breath, all this to the accompaniment of a sustained rumbling groan.
Sandra moved towards him with impulsive sympathy. “Are you all right?” she asked anxiously.
The man could only gasp and nod his head affirmatively, still unable to produce any words. Jimmy had grasped his arm to steady him, and was now patting his thick shoulder sympathetically. “Sorry I happened to be in the way,” he said.
“My—my fault—” the corpulent individual managed to wheeze. “My fault—entirely.” He began to move towards the hotel entrance, Jimmy still keeping a firm hand on his arm.
“I should park yourself for a minute,” he suggested.
“No—no.” The other contrived to force a wan smile. “I’m all right, thanks.”
By now, the commissionaire, witnessing the incident, had come forward solicitously, and with him lending a hand, the trio moved into the hotel vestibule, Sandra following.
“What about a spot of—er—tonic to help pull yourself together?” Jimmy asked, as they paused on the other side of the swing doors.
The fat man’s face brightened at the suggestion. “Couldn’t think of a better idea,” he said.
He was obviously very much recovered from the effects of the collision, his breathing was less stertorous and his plump features were regaining their colour. The commissionaire pocketed the generous tip that was placed in his waiting palm and withdrew. Jimmy, with regard for the other’s corpulence and present incapacitated state, indicated the lifts that bore seekers after prospective libations down to the lower ground floor where the American Bar was located. The man’s progress was rather more active now, though he still continued, gently, to massage his stomach with one hand, as Jimmy and Sandra accompanied him towards the down lift.
“American Bar.”
“Yessir.”
The lift-doors slid together with a sibilant murmur and down they went.
They found a quiet corner in the crowded bar and, while the large man relaxed with a sigh of contentment in a luxurious plush chair and Sandra made some bright small-talk, Jimmy attended to the important business of procuring the drinks. The white-coated waiter returned promptly with his order and placed the drinks on the table before them. Gin-and-orange for Sandra and a Scotch for Jimmy and the other.
Followed the usual necessary pause in the conversation. Then, his chubby face pink and shining and his eyes bright, the big man lowered his glass to observe:
“Just what the doctor ordered, eh?”
Jimmy grinned at him in agreement. He said:
“Makes the world look brighter all right.”
The other said: “Well, the way we met was a bit on the painful side for me, but anyway I’m mighty glad to make your acquaintance.” And he gave Sandra a smile composed of friendliness and admiration.
“You’re really feeling all right now?” she queried.
He nodded. “Knocked the wind out of my sails for the moment, but I’m okay now.” He turned to Jimmy. “Of course, as I expect you’ve noticed, I’m not exactly what you might call a local boy.” He chuckled and continued; “No, I’m a few miles away from my hometown all right. New Zealand’s where I hail from, little place near Auckland.” He leaned back, a thumb in his waistcoat, his face taking on a reminiscent expression. “Yes…made my little packet—sheep, y’know—and thought I’d like to come over and take a look at the Old Country. Parents were English, North Country folk, as a matter of fact.”
Sandra contrived to look suitably interested and impressed by the fat man’s success-story, while Jimmy idly waited for the opportune moment when, without betraying his impatience too obviously, he and Sandra could beat a retreat to the restaurant.
The man from New Zealand was saying: “By the way, my name’s Hodson, Sam Hodson.”
Jimmy introduced Sandra and himself.
“Arrived here yesterday, I did,” the other went on. “So haven’t had much time to see around. But from what I have glimpsed of it, London’s quite a town. Eh?”
Jimmy murmured something to the effect that the place had its moments.
“Got a young nephew over here,” Hodson said. “Only relative I have—y’see, I’m not married.”
“Aren’t you?” said Sandra, her eyebrows raised flatteringly to convey she found it difficult to understand how anyone so eligible had managed to keep clear of the scores of designing charmers who must have swarmed around him. Jimmy’s glance derisively mocked at her efforts to keep the conversation going. He knew she was bored too, and wanted to beat it to the restaurant as urgently as he did.
Hodson burbled on in his fat voice: “Yes, Charles—my nephew—is studying to be a chemist. Clever boy, too. Doing well. And believe me or believe me not, we hadn’t met until this morning. ’Course we’ve corresponded since he was so high.”
Sandra said: “Really?”
Jimmy followed up with: “Amazing!”
The other glanced at his opulent-looking watch. “Just on one. Should be here any minute. Like you to meet him.”
Jimmy realized the chap would feel disappointed and sadly hurt if he and Sandra made their impatience to escape appear too apparent—and he wasn’t a bad sort, well-meaning and eagerly anxious to talk to someone in a strange country. At the same time, Jimmy didn’t want he and Sandra to get involved in several rounds of drinks with the fat man and his cherished nephew. At that moment he happened to catch the eye of the barman, who was an acquaintance of long standing—or leaning. Hodson being engrossed in giving Sandra further details from his life-story, Jimmy was able to convey by winks, assorted graphic facial expressions, and nods in the direction of the telephone-booth in the corner an indication of the subterfuge he had in mind.
The barman, sharp-witted and imaginative, caught on almost at once. He answered with a sly grin and nod which said: “Leave it to me, I’ll take care of it,” and Jimmy relaxed and left it to him.
He turned back to Sandra and Hodson just as the latter broke off his conversation to call out to a ma n wearing horn-rims and a wide smile who was approaching: “Hello, Turner—what are you going to have?”
The man called Turner’s smile stretched wider. Hodson muttered to Sandra and Jimmy: “Friend of mine, met him here last night. We got really pally. Good sort.” And beaming expansively upon the newcomer, who gave him a hearty slap on the shoulder, reiterated: “What’s yours?”
Jimmy caught Sandra’s fleeting expression of despair before she replaced it with the same fixed smile she’d been wearing for the last ten tedious minutes.
“I could use a sherry, thanks,” the man in horn-rims was saying to Hodson, who screwed up his face in disapproval of the other’s choice of apéritif.
“Sherry, bah! Never drink it—”
“No?” was the smiling response. “Sherry before lunch—or dinner—port afterwards, one of my rules.”
“Port—filthy stuff! Never drink it. You ought to stick to this”— indicating his glass and Jimmy’s, to whom he looked for agreement. “Eh?”
Jimmy shrugged. “One man’s treat is another man’s poison,” he smiled. The fat man chortled and the other’s eyes twinkled behind his glasses. Hodson ordered his drink from the waiter, then introduced Sandra and Jimmy, launching into a description of the circumstances of their meeting with him outside the hotel. He had reached the end of his account, when a youngish man strode briskly towards them from the direction of the lift, and hailed him as “Uncle”.
Sandra flashed Jimmy a glance of appeal that carried a touch of desperation in it. Her look told him if he didn’t get them out of this and make it snappy, she would never have any faith in him again over anything. He grinned back at her reassuringly, before eyeing Hodson’s nephew who was being introduced by his uncle in a voice that fairly quivered with pride. His name was Charles Vernon. Jimmy privately thought he was a not particularly prepossessing specimen of young manhood. Maybe it was the too-close set of his eyes or the weak droop of his mouth, but he instantly summed him up as not much good. There was something almost pathetic about the fat man as he eulogistically praised his nephew’s qualities.
Any further speculations Jimmy may have indulged in regarding young Vernon, however, were brushed aside by the interruption he had been awaiting arriving in the person of the barman, who had hurried over, his face clouded with a harassed expression.
“Excuse me, sir,” he said to Jimmy, “but they’ve just phoned down from the restaurant to say Mr. North has been waiting for you over ten minutes.”
Sandra stared at the barman wide-eyed. Then she saw Jimmy reacting as if the message was causing him the gravest concern. He glanced at his watch and clicking his tongue impatiently exclaimed:
“Dear me, I didn’t realize it was so late. Ask them to apologize to Mr. North for us and say we’re coming right up.”
“Very good, sir.”
The barman bowed gravely, pocketed the tip Jimmy slipped him and hurried off. With raised eyebrows Sandra stared at his departing white-coated back—which seemed to suggest that its owner was concentrated on delivering a message of the most vital importance—and returned her puzzled gaze to Jimmy. He took her arm, giving it a little extra pressure as he turned to the three men.
“Afraid we must be moving,” he said to Hodson, his smile including the other two; “old friend of mine up from Cornwall—really mustn’t keep him waiting any longer.”
“Of course, of course,” the fat man said, using Jimmy’s hand like a pump-handle. “Very glad to have met you, and—” beaming at Sandra—“this very charming young lady.”
She beamed back, there followed appropriate murmurings from Turner and the nephew, then Jimmy and Sandra headed like arrows for the lifts. As they waited for the lift-doors to slide together after them, Sandra breathed an eloquently thankful sigh and said: “I can hardly wait to meet your pal from Cornwall!”
Jimmy’s attention seemed attracted for the moment by the liftboy, who appeared not to have noticed them and was deep in rapt contemplation of a small object he was holding.
The youngster, conscious of his look, glanced up at him and said cheekily: “Crikey! Some fellers gets all the fun, don’t they? See what I mean—”
Jimmy found himself regarding a snapshot of two men and two girls. The girls were pretty and pert in the briefest of swimsuits. The men also wore swimsuits and their arms were twined affectionately around the girls’ waists, which, by their wide smiles, both lovelies seemed to find eminently enjoyable.
“That young one just dropped it,” the liftboy said, jerking a grimy thumb towards the trio from whom Jimmy and Sandra had just made their escape.
Jimmy said: “You’d better give it him back. May be a souvenir of his most romantic memory.”
The youngster giggled. “I’ll take you up first,” he said, pushing the snapshot into his pocket, adding with a knowing look: “Crikey, but I bet he’s a one, sir—don’t you?”
“Shouldn’t wonder,” responded Jimmy, though somewhat absently, “shouldn’t wonder at all.”
The lift bore them smoothly towards the restaurant.
After the waiter had disappeared with their order, Sandra said: “Frightfully witty of you thinking of Mr. North from Cornwall— but how did the barman know about him too?”
“He’s psychic.”
“And—?” Sandra encouraged him.
“While the fat boy from the sheep-farm was engrossing your attention, I went into a trance.” Jimmy smiled at her tenderly.
She said: “I was practically sleep-walking myself I was so bored. But do go on… So you went into a trance.”
Jimmy pressed a hand to his brow in a mock dramatic attitude of concentration.
“It’s difficult to remember after that,” he murmured, “everything became misty, dark…”
She was laughing now, in that delightfully attractive way of hers, so Jimmy paused and looked at her and forgot the comedy, forgot every little thing except how adorable she was.
“Well, anyway,” she was saying, “thank heavens the barman was psychic. I was terrified we were going to get involved in the dreariest party—” She caught his glance and broke off to study him with a quizzical little smile.
She said: “Which would it be, darling? Do I look like hell, or have you gone into another of your trances?”
“I was just thinking about you.”
“In the nicest kind of way, of course?”
“It always is that way when I think about you.”
She sighed, as if to say it was old stuff and she didn’t believe it; but her eyes were bright. He made it sound new and difficult not to believe, the way he said it.
He put his head slightly on one side. He said: “Want to know something, darling?”
She said: “I might as well.”
“That fat geezer and those two with him—something a trifle off-key about ’em.”
“Forgive me, darling,” she said sweetly, “but you have me just the tiniest bit confused. Your brain’s too agile, it gets around so. I thought for the moment I was on your mind, not the fat man.”
“Just remembered noticing the way you kind of recoiled when that nephew character breezed his way in,” he said.
“Was it so obvious as that?”
“I merely happened to catch your first fleeting reaction, that’s all. You covered up.”
“Expect my face had got so tired of that fixed smile I’d been wearing, it felt it simply had to be itself for a moment or scream. Anyway, I took a poor view of the nephew—sly-looking piece I thought.”
He nodded.
She said: “But why are we talking about them? We could talk about the weather, or what we’re going to do this afternoon, or—” She broke off to ask suddenly: “Jimmy, d’you think he isn’t really his nephew, that he’s one of those confidence tricksters or something, after the fat man’s money that he’s made out of all his sheep?”
Jimmy said with certainty: “He’s not a ‘con’ man.” He didn’t think it necessary to add that he knew, by sight and reputation, pretty nearly every operator in London working that line of business, and was in fact acquainted with several of those smooth and polished gentlemen. He added: “Whether he’s a relation or not is something else. Though I imagine old Hodson must have good reasons for believing he is. After all, they’ve been corresponding with each other for years.”
