her glass to the absent Doctor C. and knocks back a Bogart-sized swig. Sid winces. ‘Now, what I have been vainly trying to tell you for the last few days is that I have inherited an extraordinarily large sum of money,’ she pauses while Sid and I gulp. ‘Some relation I hardly knew I had. Made a fortune in rubber. Quite remarkable what he did with it. The rubber I mean.’ Sid nods understandingly. ‘Now, I am very happy here, and so is my friend Mrs Caitley, but neither of us is getting any younger,’ she takes another giant swig, ‘and what I was thinking is that it might well be a good idea to turn the hotel into a clinic under the supervision of Doctor Carboy. In that way the interests of many of the more elderly members of the staff could be preserved and you would still have a profitable investment. Possibly a much more profitable investment.’
‘And you would be prepared to put some of your money into the venture, would you, Miss Ruperts?’ Sid’s tone could be described as pleading.
‘With Doctor Carboy at the helm I would have no qualms about putting my money into anything.’
‘It sounds a marvellous idea, Miss Ruperts. I have considered something like it myself. But are you certain that Doctor Carboy is the right man? Does he really have the–’
‘Without Doctor Carboy I would not consider putting up a penny.’ Miss Ruperts bangs down her empty glass on the table and the ice cubes land in it a couple of seconds later.
‘Well, it’s certainly a very interesting idea, isn’t it, Timmy?’
‘Very interesting, Sid.’
‘We’d better go and have a word about it, hadn’t we, Timmy?’
‘Yes, Sid.’
‘Have you–er, mentioned your idea to Doctor Carboy yet, Miss Ruperts?’
‘No. I thought it right that I should speak with you first.’
‘Very thoughtful of you. Does he–er, know about your good fortune?’
‘The inheritance? No. I didn’t want to appear ostentatious.’
‘Very sensible,’ says Sid, having no idea what she is on about. ‘Well, we’ll come back to you very soon.’
When we get to Carboy’s room it is empty–and I mean empty. Even the toothmugs have gone and there is no trace of all the booze we have carted up there.
‘Oh my gawd.’ Sid sinks down on the bed, a beaten man.
‘Hey, Sid, look!’ A freshly stubbed fag end is still smoking in one of the ash trays. ‘He must have only just left.’
Sid beats me to the door leading to the back stairs by a short head and it is a good race to lose. He storms through and promptly dives over a bulky suitcase waiting on the top step. At the same instant an empty-handed Carboy appears, presumably coming back to collect his last load of swag. He is a cool bastard because he carefully steps over the suitcase and extends a helping hand to Sid.
‘My goodness me. You nearly took a nasty tumble, didn’t you? Very unpleasant.’ He indicates the suitcase. ‘I rather think that this case contains some of the items that were stolen from my room.’
‘Really,’ says Sid.
‘Yes, I returned a few minutes ago to find it ransacked. You really will have to tighten up on your security precautions.’
‘We have it very much in mind,’ says Sid, wincing as he tries to lift the suitcase. ‘Blimey, the bloke certainly stashed some stuff away, didn’t he?’
‘Indeed, indeed. But I suspect that there is even more somewhere. I think I’ll take another look round the yard to see if I can spot what he’s done with it.’
‘We’ll come with you,’ says Sid quickly. ‘Mr Lea is our house detective, you know.’
‘Really. You want to keep on your toes, young man. Wouldn’t it be better if you–er, rang the police?’
‘We’ll do that later.’
Directly outside the back entrance is a Cortina Estate with the boot packed roof-high with suitcases.
‘I think we might just have found where the rest of the stuff is,’ says Sid drily.
‘All that? It never occurred to me–’
‘Doctor Carboy, or whatever your name is, you’re not fooling anybody. We know you lifted that stuff.’
‘What?’ Carboy’s display of indignant outrage is worth a government subsidy. ‘How dare you! Do you know what you’re suggesting?’
‘I’m suggesting we have a little chat,’ says Sid. ‘Believe it or not, I’ve got a proposition to make to you.’
It is about two o’clock in the morning when I go to bed and Carboy is still maintaining that somebody else nicked all the stuff from the rooms. Yes, it turns out that about half a dozen rooms have been turned over. He is, not surprisingly, very interested in Miss Ruperts’ proposition and when I leave Sid and him they are on the point of going off to see the old bag. One thing that does cheer and amaze me is that Carboy really is a doctor. At least he says he is and he has a very impressive piece of paper to back his words. It carries more swirls and squiggles than the label on a vermouth bottle.
The next morning I come down to find that Carboy and Miss Ruperts have left for London.
‘That’s it,’ I tell Sid. ‘He’s probably married her by now. We’ll be right in the S – H one T.’
‘Whether he has or hasn’t he can’t do us too much harm. I still own this hotel and if he gets nasty I’ll tell Miss Ruperts what he was up to last night. He’ll find it difficult to talk his way out of that.’
‘Don’t bet on it. He hasn’t been doing badly so far. That geezer could dive into a cesspool and come up smelling like a poof’s bedroom. Why have they gone to London?’
‘She wants him to get all the gen on her financial affairs.’
‘Bleeding heck! He’ll take her to the cleaners. Why didn’t you go?’
‘She didn’t want me to. I don’t have the same pull that he does. Let’s face it. Any deal we fix up is because she reckons him.’
Much as it pains me to admit it, I know that Sid is right and that there is nothing we can do except twiddle our thumbs and wait for Carboy and Ruperts to turn up again–if they ever do. Even as I think about it I have a horrible vision of them climbing the gang-plank of the QE II, arm in arm …
Luckily there are other things to take my mind off my immediate problems. Things like Mrs Fatso. She willows up to me, removing a crumb from the corner of her beautiful mouth and fixing me with an eye that glows like a night-watchman’s brazier.
‘There’s another game this afternoon,’ she says pointedly.
‘Your old man going to be up to it?’
‘Wild horses wouldn’t drag him away.’
‘And you’re not going?’
‘He might get hurt again. I couldn’t bear to watch that.’ She smoothes a non-existent ruckle out of her slacks. Slacks! There’s a ridiculous word for them. There is more tension going on down there than at a meeting of the Labour Party Executive. ‘I was thinking that it might be fun to organise a little team activity of our own. Quite a number of the girls aren’t all that keen on rugger.’
Hello, hello! What’s all this then? Do I detect intimations of immorality? (It’s wonderful what a course at the Polytechnic can do for your vocabulary, isn’t it?)
‘Oh, yes,’ I say, dead casual. ‘I saw you talking to one of your friends.’
‘Judy? Yes, she was very keen on the idea. She feels the fish market has little more to offer her.’
‘Very understandable.