suggested.
“Well, if you write to please yourself you can’t expect people to pay for it, can you?” she argued reasonably. “Which did you want?”
“I think perhaps I’ll take this.” His grip on Say It With Blood tightened. “I’ve got a bit of a cold coming on and I may have to spent a day in bed.”
He gave his name and address and went away with the book in his hand. He was vaguely troubled. He might pretend he didn’t care what the public reaction to his work was, but the fact remained that if his sales didn’t go up a bit he’d find himself without a publisher for his new work.
The day after he visited Garrods, John Sherren went to dine in Chelsea with some very distinguished people, who all wrote and painted to satisfy some inward urge and whose work was, of course, like his own, over the heads of the public. They lived comfortably on overdrafts and their artistic failures, and John was inclined to envy them. His private income, never very substantial, was now worth considerably less than it had been a few years earlier, and and though his salary at M.I.5. had been extremely helpful, that came to an end with the end of hostilities and the cost of living was rising all the time. As for his books, he was lucky if he broke even at the end of the year, when typing and stationery and postage were accounted for.
During dinner he took advantage of a lull in the conversation to speak of Miss Pettigrew, under the heading of Quaint Old Survivals.
“She comes out of the same era, though not precisely the same world, as my Aunt Clara,” he observed. “She and this old penguin would make a splendid couple. They could be Blimps together, agreeing how radio had vulgarized the world.”
“What did you say she was like?” inquired his hostess. “She sounds to me exactly like an old governess attached to my aunts—a Miss Pettigrew.”
John looked up in amazement. “But that’s who she was. Talk about coincidence. We should never dare use that in our books. She looks a perfect gorgon, by the way.”
“All those old governesses were. They ruled every one with a rod of iron. I believe Granny had to ask for permission to enter her own schoolroom. Fancy her still being alive.”
“Alive and contemplating murder,” amended John.
“If she did, I’m sure she’d pull it off. I’d back her against the entire Home Office.”
That was the second time he heard her name, and, oddly enough, in the same connection—murder.
7
A FTER that John really did start his new book and worked at it with commendable zeal for about six weeks. Then he discovered he needed distraction and on the spur of the moment he decided to visit his last surviving relative. Miss Clara Bond. He made all his preparations with his normal spinsterish care; he booked a room at the Railway Hotel, and bought a first-class ticket and packed overnight and made a list of all the details he mustn’t forget and ticked them off as he attended to them, and then destroyed the list in case someone else should find it. And then at the eleventh hour some tiresome fellow rang him up and he just lacked the necessary brutality to ring the fellow off. He was the assistant to his agent, and John wasn’t sufficiently successful to be terse with agents. When at last the fellow rang off, John picked up his bag and hurried downstairs. He’d have to take a taxi now, which he couldn’t really afford—he always traveled first class to Brakemouth to give the impression that he was doing pretty well—and he scanned the street nervously for a vacant one. When he reached the station he sprinted like mad for the platform, but even so the train was just beginning to draw out as he dashed past the ticket collector.
“Stand back there,” roared the guard, but he didn’t pay any heed. This was the only quick train of the day. He snatched at a door handle, twisted it and managed to hump himself and the bag inside the carriage, landing in an ungraceful tangle on
“Well, if you write to please yourself you can’t expect people to pay for it, can you?” she argued reasonably. “Which did you want?”
“I think perhaps I’ll take this.” His grip on Say It With Blood tightened. “I’ve got a bit of a cold coming on and I may have to spent a day in bed.”
He gave his name and address and went away with the book in his hand. He was vaguely troubled. He might pretend he didn’t care what the public reaction to his work was, but the fact remained that if his sales didn’t go up a bit he’d find himself without a publisher for his new work.
The day after he visited Garrods, John Sherren went to dine in Chelsea with some very distinguished people, who all wrote and painted to satisfy some inward urge and whose work was, of course, like his own, over the heads of the public. They lived comfortably on overdrafts and their artistic failures, and John was inclined to envy them. His private income, never very substantial, was now worth considerably less than it had been a few years earlier, and and though his salary at M.I.5. had been extremely helpful, that came to an end with the end of hostilities and the cost of living was rising all the time. As for his books, he was lucky if he broke even at the end of the year, when typing and stationery and postage were accounted for.
During dinner he took advantage of a lull in the conversation to speak of Miss Pettigrew, under the heading of Quaint Old Survivals.
“She comes out of the same era, though not precisely the same world, as my Aunt Clara,” he observed. “She and this old penguin would make a splendid couple. They could be Blimps together, agreeing how radio had vulgarized the world.”
“What did you say she was like?” inquired his hostess. “She sounds to me exactly like an old governess attached to my aunts—a Miss Pettigrew.”
John looked up in amazement. “But that’s who she was. Talk about coincidence. We should never dare use that in our books. She looks a perfect gorgon, by the way.”
“All those old governesses were. They ruled every one with a rod of iron. I believe Granny had to ask for permission to enter her own schoolroom. Fancy her still being alive.”
“Alive and contemplating murder,” amended John.
“If she did, I’m sure she’d pull it off. I’d back her against the entire Home Office.”
That was the second time he heard her name, and, oddly enough, in the same connection—murder.
7
A FTER that John really did start his new book and worked at it with commendable zeal for about six weeks. Then he discovered he needed distraction and on the spur of the moment he decided to visit his last surviving relative. Miss Clara Bond. He made all his preparations with his normal spinsterish care; he booked a room at the Railway Hotel, and bought a first-class ticket and packed overnight and made a list of all the details he mustn’t forget and ticked them off as he attended to them, and then destroyed the list in case someone else should find it. And then at the eleventh hour some tiresome fellow rang him up and he just lacked the necessary brutality to ring the fellow off. He was the assistant to his agent, and John wasn’t sufficiently successful to be terse with agents. When at last the fellow rang off, John picked up his bag and hurried downstairs. He’d have to take a taxi now, which he couldn’t really afford—he always traveled first class to Brakemouth to give the impression that he was doing pretty well—and he scanned the street nervously for a vacant one. When he reached the station he sprinted like mad for the platform, but even so the train was just beginning to draw out as he dashed past the ticket collector.
“Stand back there,” roared the guard, but he didn’t pay any heed. This was the only quick train of the day. He snatched at a door handle, twisted it and managed to hump himself and the bag inside the carriage, landing in an ungraceful tangle on
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