A Change of Heir Read Free

so to speak, Mrs Lapin’s back quarters on the way to her lower ones. ‘I’ve let him fix things up for me from time to time.’
    Mrs Lapin made no reply. Her glance had returned to the suitcase. Gadberry remembered with relief that he’d locked it. Ma Lapin, of course, might go up and take a look at his room. But by the time she had wheezed her way up there and down again, there was a good chance that he would have concluded his business with Falsetto and beaten it. This, indeed, might well be in Ma Lapin’s mind now.
    He made his way to the telephone and picked up the receiver.

 
     
2
     
    ‘George – yes?’
    ‘Yes – George.’ Gadberry wasn’t aware that he’d ever given Mr Falsetto permission to George him. In fact he resented it. But then, despite his necessarily Bohemian life, he frequently found himself resenting things that would have been judged censurable either in the vicarage in which he had been born or in the school at which he had been educated. Such resentments weren’t much good when you had just reduced your capital assets by sixpence and knew that they now stood at eight shillings. ‘Nice of you to call me,’ Gadberry said firmly. This George business, after all, might be of good omen. Perhaps Peter Hall had been showing interest. Perhaps the author of The Rubbish Dump was out of jail and had written another play. Gadberry tried to remember Mr Falsetto’s Christian name, and had to decide that it had never been communicated to him. Perhaps it might be possible to take a guess at it. If one were unfortunate enough to be a Falsetto, what would it occur to one to call one’s darling boy? Well, there were Scottish names almost as outlandish: Colkitto and Patullo, for instance. So one might dower him with an ancient Scottish lineage by calling him Donald or Dugald. Gadberry decided to try one of these. ‘Dugald, old boy,’ he said, ‘you’ve got a show for me?’
    ‘Falsetto here.’
    ‘Yes, I know.’ Gadberry, although anxious to get down to business, wasn’t going to be put off. ‘Old boy,’ he reiterated chattily, ‘you have the advantage of me. In this business of names I mean. What do your intimates call you?’
    ‘Intimates?’ Mr Falsetto sounded suspicious and offended. ‘You kidding? I’m a family man.’
    ‘Yes, of course.’ Gadberry had been rather pleased with his turn of phrase, which he recalled as having been used by his father. But it had set Mr Falsetto on a wrong track. ‘I mean, old boy, what’s your Christian name? If you’re to call me–’
    ‘Christian name?’ Mr Falsetto’s voice conveyed a kind of blank interrogation. The concept appeared to be one with which he could do nothing.
    ‘First name. Given name. The kind of name you’re naming when you call me George.’
    ‘Okay, okay. I get. Norval. My name is Norval. You call me that.’
    ‘Thank you. I’d like to.’
    Gadberry was naturally pleased that his guess had been within the target area. Now he could get down to brass tacks. ‘Norval, old chap,’ he said, ‘what’s the show? What’s the part? Spill it. I can take it.’
    ‘Search me, George. But you go to see this Smith.’
    ‘Smith?’
    ‘Sure. John Smith. Now – at the Chester Court. That’s a hotel somewhere Kensington way, I guess.’
    ‘What’s this Smith – an impresario?’
    ‘I’d say not, George. Not with that name. And not in that hotel.’
    ‘Then why–’
    ‘Better call him a client, I guess. He paid my fee, and that makes him a client, don’t it? And then he went through all the files. Only I reckon it was only the photographs he was interested in. He wasn’t really digging the text.’
    ‘But that’s absurd!’ Gadberry was indignant. ‘You don’t think I’m going to go modelling, do you – posing in somebody’s raincoat or light summer suiting beside a lion in Trafalgar Square?’
    ‘I can’t say, George. It’s over to you.’
    ‘That’s the sort of thing this Smith must want, isn’t it?