Luck of the Bodkins Read Free Page A

she's got another guess coming. I wouldn't handle the thing for a million.'
    He leaned back in his chair, breathing heavily. His sister-in-law eyed him with disfavour. Mabel Spence was by profession an osteopath with a large clientele among the stars of Beverly Hills, and this made her something of a purist in the matter of physical fitness.
    'The trouble with you, Ikey,' she said, 'is that you're out of condition. You eat too much, and that makes you weigh too much, and that makes you nervous. I'd like to give you a treatment right now.'
    Mr Llewellyn came out of his trance.
    'You touch me I' he said warningly. 'That time I was weak enough to let Grayce talk me into letting you get your hands on me, you near broke my neck. Never you mind what I eat or what I don't eat...'
    'There isn't much you don't eat' .. Never you mind whether I want a treatment or whether I don't want a treatment. You listen to what I say. And that is that I'm out of this sequence altogether. I don't put a finger on that necklace.'
    Mabel rose. There seemed to her little use in continuing the discussion.
    'Well,' she said, 'use your own judgement. It's got nothing to do with me, one way or the other. Grayce told me to tell you, and I've told you. It's up to you. You know best how you stand with her. All I say is that I shall be joining the boat at Cherbourg with the thing, and Grayce is all in favour of your easing it through. The way she feels is that it would be sinful wasting money paying it over to -the United States Government, because they've more than is good for them already and would only spend it. Still, please yourself.'
    She moved away, and Ivor Llewellyn, with a pensive frown, for her words had contained much food for thought, put a cigar in his mouth and began to chew it
    Monty, meanwhile, ignorant of the storm which his innocent request had caused, was proceeding with his letter. He had got now to the part where he was telling Gertrude how much he loved her, and the stuff was beginning to flow a bit. So intent, indeed, had he become that the voice of the waiter at his elbow made him jump and spray ink. He turned, annoyed.
    'Well? Que est-il maintenant? Que voulez-vous?'
    It was no idle desire for conversation that had brought the waiter to his side. He was holding a blue envelope.
    'Ah,' said Monty, understanding. 'Une telegramme pour moi, eh? Tout droit. Donnez le ici.'
    To open a French telegram is always a matter of some little time. It is stuck together in unexpected places. During the moments while his fingers were occupied, Monty chatted pleasantly to his companion about the weather, featuring le soleil and the beauty of le ci el. Gertrude, he felt, would have wished this. And so carefree was his manner while giving out his views on these phenomena that it came as all the more of a shock to the waiter when that awful cry sprang from his lips.
    It was a cry of agony and amazement, the stricken yowl of a man who has been pierced to the heart. It caused the waiter to leap a foot. It made Mr Llewellyn bite his cigar in half. A drinker in the distant bar spilled his Martini.
    And well might Montague Bodkin cry out in such a manner. For this telegram, this brief telegram, this curt, cold, casual telegram which had descended upon him out of a blue sky was from the girl he loved.
    In fewer words than one would have believed possible and without giving any explanat ion whatsoever, Gertrude Butter wi ck had broken their engagement.
    Chapter 2
    On a pleasant, sunny morning, about a week after the events which the historian has just related, a saunterer through Waterloo Station in the city of London, would have noticed a certain bustle and activity in progress on platform number eleven. The boat train for the liner Atlantic, sailing from Southampton at noon, was due to leave shortly after nine; and, the hour being now eight-fifty, the platform was crowded with intending voyagers and those who had come to see them off.
    Ivor Llewellyn was there,