Fast Buck

‘Don’t keep assuming I’m going to sponge on you, damn you!’ he said. ‘I’m asking you how much longer you can keep this apartment on now you haven’t Kile to pay the bil s?’

‘I shall go back to the Follies,’ she said. ‘I shan’t stay here. If you want any money, I can let you have fifty dollars.’

‘I don’t want your money,’ he said shortly. ‘Now look, let’s be sensible about this. There’s no point in going back to the Follies. Besides, you don’t know if they’l have you back.’ He got up and poured himself another whisky. ‘As a matter of fact, the Rajah has taken a fancy to you.’

Eve stood motionless, looking at Gillis.

‘What did you say?’

‘The Rajah’s taken a fancy to you,’ Gil is said, his smile becoming fixed. ‘He would like you to go back with him to Chittabad. I promised to talk it over with you.’

Eve went a shade paler.

‘I don’t understand. Do you know him? How did you come to meet him?’

Gillis waved an airy hand.

‘Why, of course I know him. I met him in India. As a mat er of fact, I did him one or two lit le services: nothing very grand, but he was impressed by my usefulness.’

‘You mean you introduced him to some white women who were accommodating?’

Gillis lost his smile.

‘There’s no need to be sarcastic,’ he said curtly. ‘I just happened to be useful. I forget what I did. We became friendly and he told me about the collection. Between us we engineered the plan to get hold of Hater.’

‘Oh, I see. Then why did you bring Preston and me into it? I always thought it was odd the Rajah saw me so easily. You had arranged all that before you told me to go and see him?’

‘Of course,’ Gil is said, poured whisky into his glass and sipped it. ‘We decided it would be safer to have a stooge in case things went sour on us. That’s why we picked on Kile. We were just safeguarding ourselves. That’s al .’

‘I see.’ She began to move around the room again. ‘You didn’t bother about what would happen to me if things went sour, as you call it.’

‘Oh, rot! Nothing was likely to happen to you. We knew that. The police wouldn’t be interested in you.’

‘If Preston had told them it was my idea – as he thought it was – they might have been,’ Eve said, going to the window and pushing back the curtain to look down at the rain-soaked street.

‘I knew Kile was too much of a gentleman to implicate you,’ Gil is said easily. ‘I had it all planned pretty neatly. It was just bad luck it flopped. Anyway, that’s al ancient history now. You’ve got your future to think of. The Rajah will make you a settlement.’

She didn’t say anything or look round.

‘Did you hear what I said?’ Gil is demanded, raising his voice.

‘Yes.’

‘I’ve persuaded him to be pret y generous. Of course he’s not as rich as he was, and this Hater business has rather put a spoke in his wheel, but he’s stil got plenty,’ Gil is went on. ‘You’l like the life out there. Of course women don’t get quite so much freedom as here, but there are other compensations.

He’s got a magnificent palace, and he stil owns a lot of diamonds and jewel ery. He’l want you to wear them.’

‘I was under the impression he was married,’ Eve said, stil with her back turned.

Gillis laughed.

‘Well, you know what these Rajahs are,’ he said. ‘It won’t make any difference to you. They look on these things differently out there. There’s nothing for you to worry about. Anyway, his present wife’s not a patch on you.’

She didn’t say anything.

‘He’s going to stay here for one more week in the hope Baird’l get in touch with him. He’ll be sailing on the 30th. We’l travel with him. You’l enjoy it, Eve. Everything first class, and he’l give you a pretty substantial cheque for an outfit. He likes his women to look smart.’

‘He is giving you a job, then, Adam?’

‘Wel , of course. I’m going to be his confidential secretary. The pickings should be pret y good.

You’l find that out, too. Of course it won’t be a permanent thing. I don’t think the chap wil last much more than five or six years at the rate he’s spending his money. But you and I wil be able to feather our nests pretty well by then.’

‘I’m glad you’ve got a job, Adam. I hope you’l be very successful, and have a lot of pickings.’

He looked at her slim back suspiciously.

‘I’ll take good care I am successful,’ he said shortly. ‘But never mind about me. I told him you’d cal at his hotel tomorrow and have lunch with him. Naturally he’s anxious to get to know you as soon as possible.’

‘I’m sorry to disappoint him, but I won’t be able to go,’ Eve said, stil with her back turned.

‘But you can’t have anything more important to do than to see him,’ Gil is said sharply. ‘You must go.’

She turned then, and he was startled to see how white she was, and how her eyes glittered.

‘Do you realise what you are suggesting?’ she asked, in a cold, level ed voice. ‘Do you realise this man’s coloured?’

‘Now, please don’t be ridiculous,’ Gil is said. ‘The Rajah’s a high-born gentleman. He was educated at Eton and Cambridge.’