Flashman And The Tiger

I told her if she’d had enough of it we could be away on the morning train. "Now that the Leger’s run, I doubt if H.R.H. will linger. But I thought you’d been enjoying yourself, old girl, what with cheering on the winners, and sporting your glad rags—and most becoming you look, I may tell you—and being the life and soul, and charming Dirty Bertie …"

Mention of her appearance had inevitably brought her to a halt at a mirror in the corridor, and now she gave me a reproachful blue eye in the reflection.

"I trust I know what is due to royal rank," says she primly. "And I may tell you that mere polite affability is not charming in the odious way you mean it." She patted her gilded tresses complacently and touched a gloved finger to her plump pink cheek, sighing. "Anyway, I doubt my charming days are gone lang syne—"

"You don’t think anything of the sort … and neither does Billy Cumming, by all accounts. Oh, I’ve heard all about that—flirting over the baccarat cards, the two of you!"

Now was there, or was there not, an instant flicker in those glorious eyes before she widened them at me in mock indignation?

"Flirrr-ting! I? Upon my word!" She tossed her head. "The very idea—at my time of life! Flirting, quo' he! Goodness me—"

"I had a touch of your time of life t’other night—remember?" We were alone in the corridor, and I stepped close behind her and gave ’em a loving squeeze. She exclaimed "Oh!" and hit me with her fan.

"That was not flirting," says she. "I was a helpless victim—a poor defenceless old buddy, and you should think shame of your-self." She gave her hair a last touch, and turned to peck me on the cheek. "And who says I tried to fetch Billy Cumming, I should like to know? No—stop it, you bad old man, and tell me!"

"Owen Williams—an officer an' a gent, so there! Very jolly over the cards together you were, he tells me."

"He’s an auld haver," says she elegantly. "Just because a gentle-man helps a lady to make her bets—well, you know I cannae count—"

"Except at backgammon, apparently."

"Backgammon or no, I’m a duffer at cards, as well you know, and I dare say I said something exceptionally foolish, and made him laugh. As for flirting, Harry Flashman, who are you to talk? Do I not remember Mrs Leo Lade—and Kitty Stevens?" Names from fifty years ago, God help me, still green in her eccentric memory—and I didn’t even know who Kitty Stevens was! "Uhhuh, that’s your eye on a plate, my lad," says she, slipping her arm through mine as we passed on. "What else did that blether Williams tell you?"

Now that was odd; lightly asked—too lightly. "Oh, just that," says I. "I guess he was trying to take a rise out of me, knowing I can’t stand Cumming—but not knowing that you can’t stand him either." I gave her hand a squeeze, reassuring like. "Why, you crossed him off our list years ago."

"Did I? I don’t recollect." And that was odder still, for if there’s an elephantine memory in London W.I. it resides in the otherwise wayward mind of Elspeth, Lady Flashman (as she had just proved by reference to Mrs Leo Lade and that other bint, whoever she may have been). Suddenly, I knew that something was up. For all her banter, she’d been on the q.v. from the moment Cumming’s name was mentioned: the quick wary glint in the mirror, her artless inquiry about what Williams had said, and the indifferent "Did I? I don’t recollect" told me she was keeping something from me. Was it possible that Cumming had been trying his lecherous hand again? At her age? Damned unlikely … yet then again, Queen Ranavalona had been a grandmother, and that hadn’t stopped me. By God, if he had, I’d see to it that he came out of his present pickle with his name and fame in the gutter. But that could wait; I’d another fish to fry at the moment, and as we neared the drawing-room door I paused, assuming a frown.

"Hold on, though—yes, Williams did say another thing … Yes … At baccarat, last night, did you notice anything … well, out o' the way about Cumming’s play?"

She looked bewildered—but then, on any subject that hasn’t to do with money or erotic activity, she usually is.

"Why, Harry, whatever do you mean?"

"Was there anything remarkable about … his placing of the stakes?"

"My stakes, d’you mean? I told you he was helping me—"

"No, his stakes! How did he put ’em on the table?"

She looked at me as though I were simple-minded. "Why, with his hand, of course. He just put them … down …"

"Yes, dearest," says I, keeping a firm grip on myself, "but that’s not quite what I mean—"