No Business of Mine

“This is the most exciting moment in my life,” he said, taking her hand. “You’re not really his property, are you? A dish as lovely as you wouldn’t waste herself on a half-dead numskull like him, surely?”

I unfastened their hands, took Crystal firmly by her elbow.

“Paws off,” I said. “This is the one blonde I intend to keep for myself. Away to your own hunting-ground.” I convoyed Crystal across the lobby into the grill-room. “Come on, let’s eat,” I continued. “And, Fred, keep that woman-snatcher out of range.”

“Why you fellows make such a fuss about women defeats me,” Ullman said sourily. “All my life I’ve kept away from women, and look at me.”

“You look; I’ve seen you,” Crystal said tartly.

When we had all settled down at a corner table and had ordered a meal, Harry Bix said, “We are gathered together here tonight, not to be fed from any charitable reasons, but because Arsene Lupin here,” he waved in my direction, “wishes to shoot off his mouth on the subject of his own cleverness, and has naturally to bribe us to listen.”

Crystal tugged at my sleeve, asked me in a whisper why Bix called me Arsene Lupin, and wasn’t Lupin French for rabbit?

I whispered back that the French for rabbit was lapin, and that Arsene Lupin was one of the world’s greatest detectives.

She then wanted to know what that had to do with me.

“Shush, woman,” I said, annoyed. “You’re showing your ignorance.”

“As a newspaper man I have to make sacrifices,” Ullman said wearily. “I am prepared to eat his food and to suffer the sound of his voice so long as he’ll explain in detail the story behind Corridan’s arrest. That is something the great British public wish to know, and it’s my painful duty to tell them.”

“Not in detail,” Bix pleaded. “There’re so many more interesting things to do than to listen to details,” and he leered suggestively at Crystal, who leered back.

I tapped him on the shoulder. “That blonde is my property,” I reminded him. “If it wasn’t in such an inaccessible spot I’d show you where I’ve branded her with my personal seal, so paws off and I’ll trouble you to keep your dirty looks to yourself.”

Crystal said she liked his dirty looks, and could she have a few more please?

“Can’t you control these two?” Ullman demanded. “I want the story if they don’t. Why you bring a blonde to a meeting like this beats me. Blondes are a menace to society.”

“That’s not very polite,” Crystal said, a little hurt.

Ullman eyed her coldly. “The only woman I’ve ever been polite to was my mother,” he told her.

Crystal said she was surprised to hear he ever had a mother, and did the old lady die of a broken heart?

“Quiet,” I said hurriedly as Ullman began to grow hot.

Bix said would it be an idea if Crystal and he went for a walk along the hotel corridor while Ullman and I bored each other to death?

“Will you please pipe down,” I growled, thumping the table.

“Well, come on,” Ullman said impatiently. “You’ve run me ragged these last days digging up information. How did you get on to Corridan?”

“Suppose I tell you the setup from the beginning?” I suggested. “Then even Crystal, dumb as she is, will be able to follow. Ouch!”

I massaged my shin, told Crystal to behave herself, hurried on before there were more interruptions.

“As you know, Jack Bradley, to recoup his losses, installed two roulette tables in the Club,” I began. “There’s no future in that kind of racket unless you have adequate protection. Bradley was smart enough to realize that, and he looked around for a likely bird in the police force who’d give him this protection.”

“And he picked on Corridan?” Ullman said.

“Don’t interrupt,” Crystal reproved him. “My father says that people who interrupt...”

“Never mind your father now,” I broke in hastily. “Just pipe down, honey, and let me do the talking.” I looked over at Bix. “And that’s my knee you’re fondling under the table just in case you thought it was Crystal’s.”

Bix snatched his hand away, had the grace to blush. He looked at Crystal reproachfully. She giggled.

“Yes, he picked on Corridan,” I went on as Ullman began to scowl again. “Corridan was, at that time, a rising star at the Yard, and was handling the club rackets. Bradley offered him a big cut of his profits if he’d tip him when a raid was likely to be made. It was easy money; Corridan fell for it. Then George Jacobi appeared on the scene...”

“How much better this’d be if it was illustrated with lantern slides,” Bix said regretfully. “Imagine a slide depicting the arrival of George Jacobi in a snowstorm. How gripping that’d be.”

“Especially if the slide was upside-down,” Crystal said, giggling over the hors d’oeuvre.

“I’ll turn you upside-down and...” I snarled.

“Never mind these cretins,” Ullman said. “Go on, for God’s sake.”

“Jacobi was an expert jewel thief and was planning to steal Allenby’s anti-invasion nest-egg, worth fifty thousand pounds,” I said, scowling at Crystal, who made faces at me. “But Jacobi knew he couldn’t handle a job as big as that on his own...”