Bones in London - Edgar Wallace [63]
“Well, dear old athlete,” he said unnecessarily loudly, “I was thinking of asking my – er–”
“Your – er – what? I gather it’s an er,” said Hamilton seriously, “but which er?”
“My old typewriter, frivolous one,” said Bones truculently. “Any objection?”
“Of course not,” said Hamilton calmly. “Miss Whitland is a most charming girl, and Vera will be delighted to meet her.”
Bones choked his gratitude and wrung the other’s hand for fully two minutes.
He spent the rest of the week in displaying to Hamilton the frank ambitions of his mind toward Miss Marguerite Whitland. Whenever he had nothing to do – which seemed most of the day – he strolled across to Hamilton’s desk and discoursed upon the proper respect which all right-thinking young officers have for old typewriters. By the end of the week Hamilton had the confused impression that the very pretty girl who ministered to the literary needs of his partner, combined the qualities of a maiden aunt with the virtues of a grandmother, and that Bones experienced no other emotion than one of reverential wonder, tinctured with complete indifference.
On the sixty-fourth lecture Hamilton struck.
“Of course, dear old thing,” Bones was saying, “to a jolly old brigand like you, who dashes madly down from his mountain lair and takes the first engaging young person who meets his eye–”
Hamilton protested vigorously, but Bones silenced him with a lordly gesture.
“I say, to a jolly old rascal like you it may seem – what is the word?”
“‘Inexplicable,’ I suppose, is the word you are after,” said Hamilton.
“That’s the fellow; you took it out of my mouth,” said Bones. “It sounds inexplicable that I can be interested in a platonic, fatherly kind of way in the future of a lovely old typewriter.”
“It’s not inexplicable at all,” said Hamilton bluntly. “You’re in love with the girl.”
“Good gracious Heavens!” gasped Bones, horrified. “Ham, my dear old boy, Dicky Orum, Dicky Orum, old thing!”
Sunday morning brought together four solemn people, two of whom were men, who felt extremely awkward and showed it, and two of whom behaved as though they had known one another all their lives.
Bones, who stood alternately on his various legs, was frankly astounded that the meeting had passed off without any sensational happening. It was an astonishment shared by thousands of men in similar circumstances. A word of admiration for the car from Vera melted him to a condition of hysterical gratitude.
“It’s not a bad old ’bus, dear old – Miss Vera,” he said, and tut-tutted audibly under his breath at his error. “Not a bad old ’bus at all, dear old – young friend. Now I’ll show you the gem of the collection.”
“They are big, aren’t they?” said Vera, properly impressed by the lamps.
“They never go out,” said Bones solemnly. “I assure you I’m looking forward to the return journey with the greatest eagerness – I mean to say, of course, that I’m looking forward to the other journey – I don’t mean to say I want the day to finish, and all that sort of rot. In fact, dear old Miss Vera, I think we’d better be starting.”
He cranked up and climbed into the driver’s seat, and beckoned Marguerite to seat herself by his side. He might have done this without explanation, but Bones never did things without explanation, and he turned back and glared at Hamilton.
“You’d like to be alone, dear old thing, wouldn’t you?” he said gruffly. “Don’t worry about me, dear old lad. A lot of people say you can see things reflected in the glass screen, but I’m so absorbed in my driving–”
“Get on with it!” snarled Hamilton.
It was, nevertheless, a perfect day, and Bones, to everybody’s surprise, his own included, drove perfectly. It had been his secret intention to drive to Brighton; but nobody suspected this plan, or cared very much what his intentions had been, and the car was running smoothly across Salisbury Plain.
When they stopped for afternoon tea, Hamilton did remark that he thought Bones had said something about Brighton, but Bones just smiled. They left Andover that night in the dusk; but