Hot Water Read Free

she said soothingly. 'It's just a matter of money. If you have money and there are important people like the Vicomtesse de Blissac and Senator Opal behind you...'
    A very faint ray of hope illuminated Mr Gedge's darkness.
    'I suppose you know,' he said, 'that old Opal hates my insides? We had a fuss over a golf game once and he's never forgotten it.'
    'I heard about that. But I think you'll find that he will use all his influence in your support.'
    'Why?'
    'I had a letter from him this morning which gave me that impression.'
    'What did he say?'
    'It was not so much what he said. It was the general tone of the letter.'
    Mr Gedge looked at his wife sharply. Her face was wearing that disquieting half-smile which always indicated that she had something up her sleeve.
    'What do you mean?'
    'Oh, nothing,' said Mrs Gedge. She was, as her husband had frequently had occasion to notice, a secretive woman. 'I am going to see him when I get to London to-morrow, and I think you will find that everything will be all right.'
    'But why in the name of everything infernal do you want me to be an Ambassador?'
    'I will tell you. When I married you, my late husband's sister Mabel made herself extremely unpleasant. She seemed to consider that a woman who had been Mrs Wilmot Brewster ought to be satisfied for life. I'm not sure that when Wilmot died she would not have liked me to commit suttee .'
    'Do what?'
    'I was only joking. Commit suicide. When an Indian dies, his widow burns herself on the grave. They call it suttee .'
    A rather wistful look came into Mr Gedge's face. It was just his luck, he seemed to be thinking, that an unkind fate had made the late Wilmot Brewster a Californian and not an Indian.
    'So I made up my mind that you should be the next American Ambassador to France. I should like to see Mabel's face when she reads the announcement in the papers. A nobody, she called you. Well, the Ambassador to France isn't a nobody.'
    Despite the fact that his chin receded and his eyes bulged, J. Wellington Gedge had a certain rude sagacity. There might be things of which he was ignorant, but this he did know, that if a man is a pawn in a row between women it is futile for him to struggle. For a few tense moments he sat picking at the coverlet and staring silently into a grey future. Then he heaved himself out of his chair.
    'I'll go get that Mal-de-Mer-o,' he said.
3
    At about the time when Mr Gedge was starting to toddle down to the drug store, a tough-looking man in one of those tight suits which somehow seem to suggest dubious morals had entered the cocktail bar of the Hotel des Etrangers.
    The Hotel des Etrangers is not far from the Casino Municipale. In fact, it is so close that a good sprinter can lose his money at the tables, rush over and get some more at the desk, and dash back and lose that all in a few minutes. St Rocque is proud of the Hotel des Etrangers, and justly. It has all the latest improvements, including a garden for the convenience of guests wishing to commit suicide, a first-class orchestra and cuisine, telephones in the bedrooms, and on the ground floor an up-to-date cocktail bar presided over by Gustave, late of Chez Jimmy, Paris.
    The bar at the moment of the tough man's arrival was empty except for a dark, slender, beautifully dressed person of refined and distinguished appearance who was reading the Continental edition of the New York Herald. It was as he lowered the paper for an instant to knock the ash off his cigarette that the tough man uttered the pleased whoop of one who has sighted a familiar face.
    'Oily!' he cried.
    'Soup!' exclaimed the other.
    They shook hands warmly. In their native America they had perhaps been more acquaintances than friends, but there is always enthusiasm when exiles meet in a foreign land.
    'Well, you darned old horse-thief!' said the tough man.
    In describing his companion thus, he had spoken figuratively. Gordon Carlisle did not steal horses. A specialist in the Confidence Trick,