Except For One Thing Read online

  EXCEPT FOR ONE THING

  John Russell Fearn

  © John Russell Fearn 1947; Philip Harbottle 2008.

  John Russell Fearn has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1947 by Stanley Paul Ltd.

  This edition published in 2017 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER I

  CHAPTER II

  CHAPTER III

  CHAPTER IV

  CHAPTER V

  CHAPTER VI

  CHAPTER VII

  CHAPTER VIII

  CHAPTER IX

  CHAPTER X

  CHAPTER XI

  CHAPTER XII

  CHAPTER XIII

  CHAPTER XIV

  CHAPTER XV

  CHAPTER XVI

  CHAPTER XVII

  CHPTER XVIII

  CHAPTER XIX

  CHAPTER I

  The musical comedy was over. Valerie Hadfield stood before the stage curtains, her left hand raised to still the applause.

  “Thank you so much, ladies and gentlemen.” Her voice seemed tiny in the swelling quiet, yet every word was distinct. “You have been very kind. I hope I shall continue to please you.”

  She had recited this line countless times, bowing with easy feminine grace at the close of it — then she stepped back between the curtains. Her allure and air of modest reserve disappeared. She became cold, hard, and unprepossessing.

  She crossed the stage amidst shirtsleeved property men, half-clad chorines, and so into the vista of whitewashed brick labelled “No Smoking!” which went into the dressing rooms.

  Nobody congratulated her upon her fine soprano singing or delicious sense of comedy. Once the uninitiated had praised her unstintingly but no longer.

  Entering her dressing room she sat down before the mirror. Shimmering blonde hair, straight fleshless nose, pointed chin. She was definitely good-looking — except for the hard light in her blue eyes.

  Valerie looked beyond her reflection to her maid at the back of the dressing room. She tugged the paste jewellery from her slender bare arms and threw it in the lacquered box before her. “What are you doing, Ellen?”

  “Just setting out your clothes, m’m.”

  “You should have done that hours ago! Give me a hand out of this strait-jacket!”

  Ellen set to work with nimble fingers. The girl pulled herself free of her dress impatiently, then, when she had creamed away her stage make-up and applied instead a shadowy mask of rouge and mascara, she began donning her normal clothes.

  “Nobody called while I was out front, I suppose?”

  “No, Miss Hadfield. Nobody ever does, do they?”

  “No,” Valerie admitted bitterly. “Except those confounded reporters who can’t keep their noses out of anything.”

  “I’m puzzled, Miss Hadfield,” Ellen reflected. “An attractive lady like you, and famous too, yet nobody ever seems to come — ”

  “Shut up! When I want an analysis of my affairs I’ll ask for it! Now help me on with my coat!”

  Valerie left the dressing room and walked swiftly down the stone-walled corridor to the outdoors.

  “’Night, Miss ‘Adfield,” the stage doorman called from his warm little cubby hole.

  “’Night,” Valerie answered briefly. She wondered how the myopic old fool even recognised her — or anybody else for that matter.

  In the main street beyond the short alleyway leading from the stage door stood a black Daimler limousine. The moment Valerie appeared a liveried chauffeur snatched the rear door open for her.

  “Home,” Valerie ordered, and clambered onto the soft upholstery.

  “Hello!” said the average-sized man in the further corner of the car.

  “This is like your nerve, Ricky!” Valerie exclaimed angrily.

  “Don’t blame that poor devil of a chauffeur of yours. I told him I’d take the responsibility for being here.”

  The car glided forward.

  “Why did you risk it?” Valerie demanded at last.

  “Why not? We’re engaged, aren’t we?”

  “But suppose somebody had seen you getting into my car?”

  “They didn’t. I took good care of that.” The man’s face was partly in shadow, but without seeing him in detail, Valerie knew his eyes were grey, always seemingly secretly laughing at her misanthropic attitude towards life; that the mouth was broad and the chin square. She knew he was a research chemist, mainly on his own account but working for the Government or Scotland Yard now and again. She knew a lot about Richard Harvey, except why he was now lounging beside her analysing her as a doctor might his patient.

  “I suppose,” he said presently, “you’re a perfect example of dual personality, Val — schizophrenia. I saw you on the stage tonight for about the twentieth time in the two-year run of this show and I thought, “That’s Valerie Hadfield, believe it or not! To see her laughing and singing, making love, you just wouldn’t credit she’s the same woman you are officially engaged to!” One carefree and joyous — and the other cold, hard, and carved out of a glacier…”

  “Just what are you getting at, Ricky?”

  “I’m summing you up as dispassionately as I can. I find it easier than telling you to your face that you’re really a stinking piece of femininity.”

  “Ricky! You’ve no need to be so vulgar! And you promised to keep away from the theatre. You could have just telephoned and I’d have met you or — ”

  “I decided on the spur of the moment. I came to the show tonight with the full intention of visiting your dressing room afterwards; then I decided against it in case it upset things for you. I don’t suppose that short-sighted doorman would have even seen me, but then I remembered your maid Ellen.”

  Valerie gazed out of the window on the bright lights of London. It was a damp, raw night in late autumn. The chauffeur brought the car to a sighing halt at last outside a modern block of flats in South Kensington.

  “Garage the car, Peter,” Valerie instructed the chauffeur briefly, alighting. “Same time tomorrow morning — and don’t be late. I have shopping to do.”

  “Very good, Miss Hadfield.”

  Valerie crossed swiftly to the bright glass-panelled entrance doors of the building. Richard Harvey stood up thankfully.

  “I appreciate good driving, Peter,” he said rather dryly, slipping money in the chauffeur’s palm. “And I also appreciate sealed lips. Thank you — and good night.”

  “Good night, sir — and I quite understand.”

  Richard followed the girl into the building and across a soft-carpeted expanse of entrance hall dotted with dried palms, and so to the self-service lift. He stood beside Valerie inside it and smiled crookedly as she pressed button 4.

  The lift halted at the fourth floor. Together they stepped out into a deserted corridor with polished doors set at regular intervals all the way down it.

  “Ellen not home yet, I suppose?” Richard asked casually, as she searched her handbag for a bunch of keys.

  “She’ll be here in an hour, but only to bring some stuff in from the theatre. She lives out, don’t forget — and I prefer it that way.”

  Valerie swung the door of flat 7 open, switched on the light, and walked inside. Richard followed her, closed the door, then stood looking round the familiar room while Valerie went across it to be rid of her hat and coat.

  Richard laid his gloved hands on the central heating radiator and warmed them. He knew the place well enough — the definite air of femininity that hung about the cosy furniture. All of it so soft and sleek, so mathematical in its orderliness it was nearly as unapproachable as its owner.

/>   Valerie returned from her bedroom, slender in her pale green gown, her pallid beauty showing to perfection. Richard looked at her analytically.

  “Drink?” the girl asked him, going over the sideboard.

  “Thanks, no.” He took his gloves off and strolled over to her.

  “On the water wagon?” she questioned dryly, squeezing the siphon jet into her half-filled glass of whisky.

  “I just don’t want to feel muddled.”

  The girl shrugged, swallowed the drink down steadily, then began to prepare a second one. To her surprise Richard’s lean, strong hand closed on her wrist.

  “Hold it,” he said quietly. “Hear what I have to say first. Come and sit down.” They crossed the room, settled on the divan.

  “You’re not going to like this, Val,” he said. “I’ll give it to you neat so you’ll get it down quicker…I’m breaking our engagement!”

  “Oh you are, eh? Why?”

  “You’re not a woman — you’re an iceberg! You drink too much, you go about as though the whole world owes you something. As far as I can trace you’ve never done one really decent, unselfish act in your life. And it won’t do for me.”

  Valerie gave an acid smile. “Stop clowning and come to the point!”

  “It was the girl on the stage with whom I fell in love, two years ago,” Richard mused. “I decided to discover the places you frequented — the cafes, the salons, and so forth. And so, gradually, we got to know each other. All the time, Val, I was looking for the girl I’d seen on the stage. I thought perhaps you were tired and overworked and that it accounted for your hard outlook. I sent you flowers; I wrote you letters: took you everywhere I could when we could be sure of not being seen together — because of the publicity. But it dawned on me finally that the granite was just you yourself and that the adorable girl of the stage was just a dream, something I could never possess…” Richard sighed. “During this current musical comedy I have been thinking that Valerie Hadfield, the actress, and Valerie Hadfield, the woman, are totally distinct…Tonight I realised it as never before. And I made up my mind to end our association.”

  Valerie went to the table in the centre of the room. From it she picked up a small silver box, opened the lid.

  ““To Val, from Ricky, with all my love”,” she quoted dryly. “Remember?” She took a cigarette out of the box, lighted it, and then stood contemplating the box in her hand.

  “Of course I remember it!” Richard rose and came over to her. “I gave that to the girl I once thought I loved. It doesn’t mean a thing any more — not a thing!”

  He snatched it from her abruptly and hurled it across the room. It struck the far wall and dropped, scattering cigarettes. The lid had snapped from the hinges and lay a little distance away.

  “You idiot!” Valerie reproved. “All right! You’ve told me your side of the story: now I’ll tell you mine! I’ll sue you for breach of promise.”

  “I thought your sort preferred a cash settlement.”

  “My sort!” Venom came in the blue eyes. “I don’t need the money! You’ve made me smart tonight, and I’m going to make you smart in return. I refuse to break the engagement, and later on I shall inform the Press, and whomever else it may concern, that I shall be marrying Richard Harvey, the wealthy and distinguished chemist, in the near future.”

  “I’ll deny it, Val. The whole thing will descend to the level of an alley fight.”

  “Perhaps!” Valerie drew quickly at her cigarette. “Let me remind you of certain things, Ricky. I have all your passionate letters to me — I have that inscribed cigarette box you’ve just smashed; I have the diamond ring you gave me and which I do not wear in public just yet. If you persist in denying our engagement I shall sell your letters to me to the editor who offers the highest price. I’ll start a scandal, an intimate exposure of your feelings towards me, which will embarrass you in every club and scientific association in town. There is nothing a man of your position values more than his prestige. I know. I haven’t lived for nothing.”

  “That,” Richard said, “I am inclined to question.”

  “Are you?” Valerie’s smile looked painted. “On the other hand, Ricky, I am prepared to admit that you have not perhaps had the chance to judge me properly. We have seen so little of each other with both of us having been so busy.”

  “I’m not busy any more — except for my own research. My Government contract finished three days ago.”

  “Look, Ricky — we both have a certain fame and position: we both have money. Our marriage would simply mean a union of our — our respective arts.”

  “You mean that you want to triumph over everybody as Mrs. Richard Harvey, wife of the celebrated chemist, don’t you? You mean you have to stick to me because no other man will even bother with you? It’s me — or nothing. Right?”

  “My God, Ricky, what a gift you have for being a pig!”

  “Face facts!” he snapped. “I’m the only man you ever hooked. Other men may have looked at you, with you being a famous musical comedy star with a perfect stage manner, but I’m the only one who went far enough to fall for you completely. It’s desperation that makes you want to stick to me! You know you can’t nail anybody else!”

  “Who can’t?” she blazed. “If men don’t run after me it’s because I don’t give them any encouragement. Didn’t that ever occur to you? I’ve found the only man I want — you!”

  “So you’ve got a lot of useful weapons on your side which I hadn’t reckoned you’d be rotten enough to use…” He faced her, unsmiling. “I can’t afford to have my career smashed up just to gratify your spite. I shouldn’t have written those letters.”

  “I intend to marry the man who has been secretly engaged to me for the past two years. But if — ”

  “I think,” Richard interrupted, thinking, “I’ll accept your proposition. We’ll marry — and live happily never afterwards.” Valerie went to the sideboard and took up the whisky decanter again. “Have a drink on the strength of it?”

  “No thanks.”

  She shrugged, siphoned the soda water. “I only wish I dared let the public into our secret. Nobody knows as yet that I am engaged, and it’s most annoying.”

  “That’s your own fault!” Richard’s voice was cold. “You said you couldn’t announce it for fear of your stage career.”

  “That’s right.” Valerie drained the glass. “My contract insists that I remain single, but it expires in about the next ten days when the present show ends. Then I can tell everything to the world — and shall I tell! Be a relief to me, too. Even my maid keeps pointing out that there are no men in my life and — well, I don’t like being thought of as a kind of social leper. My contract for the new show for which I’m rehearsing doesn’t contain any marital clause. I took care of that. I’ll be able to do as I like.”

  “So because of your contract you’ve refused ever to see me in or near the theatre? How do you think I’ve felt about that?”

  “I just don’t care.” The girl’s fine brows were raised insolently. “I had my career to think of, but soon now it won’t matter anymore.” An expression close to satisfaction crossed her features.

  “I’ll actually be able to wear the engagement ring you gave me instead of having to keep it hidden! It seals our bargain, remember, and I’ve got it neatly tucked away. And incidentally, Ricky, your selfishness isn’t exactly a negligible quality, you know.”

  “Okay, announce your engagement when your contract’s expired and we’ll be married as soon as you like after that.” He glanced at his watch. “Now I’ve got to go. It’s gone eleven and we don’t want that maid of yours to arrive and find us together. Maids talk — sometimes.”

  “But not Ellen,” Valerie declared. “She knows when she’s well off.”

  “That chauffeur of yours? Can he be trusted not to reveal our association? It occurs to me that he’s the only one who knows of it.”

  “He can be trusted implicitly,” Valerie assured him. “
You’ve developed a sudden concern for my security, haven’t you?”

  “I’m thinking about your contract. I wouldn’t like your career to be cut short at the eleventh hour. I tipped Peter tonight. I’d better do it again next time just to seal his lips entirely.”

  As Valerie said nothing, Richard added, “I’ll see you again tomorrow night or maybe the night after. You know me: I come and go.”

  “You’re certainly a man of surprises,” she acknowledged, opening the door for him. Without a sound he crossed the soft carpet to the lift.

  Deeply preoccupied, he left the building and walked into the stiffening wind. He walked on steadily, only subconsciously aware of his direction and his need to reach the Underground station.

  The realisation that he was passing a telephone box halted him. Quickly he turned into it and dialled a number from memory and waited, listening to the eerie call sign burring through the night. He pictured it impulsing along dark wires through the biting winds and finally ringing a dove-grey telephone in a comfortable residence near Belsize Park.

  He imagined an auburn-haired girl with a bright, intelligent face coming to answer it. Or perhaps it would be her father, or the housekeeper…

  It was Joyce Prescott herself. “Hello! You’re late, Ricky.”

  “It took me longer than I expected, Joyce,” he answered. “I didn’t keep you up, did I?”

  “Why, no.” Joyce Prescott laughed. “I was waiting for you. You promised to ring, and I know you always keep your promises. Well, how did things go?”

  “They didn’t! She won’t release me. I’ve got to go through with it and marry her.”

  There was a long silence. “And are you going to?”

  “It takes thinking about, dear. Tell you what: I have to leave early for the city tomorrow — so why not meet for lunch at the Blue Shadow? We can talk the thing over. There are more ways of killing a cat than hanging it!”

  CHAPTER II

  The Blue Shadow restaurant lying off the Haymarket, was one of Richard Harvey’s favourite haunts.