The Umbrella Man and Other Stories Read online

  “If you want me to, yes.”

  “You know, I’m sort of hoping it’ll be something for you, Cyril. I’d much rather it was for you than for me.”

  “That’s very generous of you, my dear. Now I must run.”

  About an hour later, when the telephone rang, Mrs. Bixby was across the room so fast she had the receiver off the hook before the first ring had finished.

  “I got it!” he said.

  “You did! Oh, Cyril, what was it? Was it something good?”

  “Good!” he cried. “It’s fantastic! You wait till you get your eyes on this! You’ll swoon!”

  “Darling, what is it? Tell me quick!”

  “You’re a lucky girl, that’s what you are.”

  “It’s for me, then?”

  “Of course it’s for you. Though how in the world it ever got to be pawned for fifty dollars I’ll be damned if I know. Someone’s crazy.”

  “Cyril! Stop keeping me in suspense! I can’t bear it!”

  “You’ll go mad when you see it.”

  “What is it?”

  “Try to guess.”

  Mrs. Bixby paused. Be careful, she told herself. Be very careful now.

  “A necklace,” she said.

  “Wrong.”

  “A diamond ring.”

  “You’re not even warm. I’ll give you a hint. It’s something you can wear.”

  “Something I can wear? You mean like a hat?”

  “No, it’s not a hat,” he said, laughing.

  “For goodness’ sake, Cyril! Why don’t you tell me?”

  “Because I want it to be a surprise. I’ll bring it home with me this evening.”

  “You’ll do nothing of the sort!” she cried. “I’m coming right down there to get it now!”

  “I’d rather you didn’t do that.”

  “Don’t be so silly, darling. Why shouldn’t I come?”

  “Because I’m too busy. You’ll disorganize my whole morning schedule. I’m half an hour behind already.”

  “Then I’ll come in the lunch hour. All right?”

  “I’m not having a lunch hour. Oh well, come at one-thirty then, while I’m having a sandwich. Good-bye.”

  At half past one precisely, Mrs. Bixby arrived at Mr. Bixby’s place of business and rang the bell. Her husband, in his white dentist’s coat, opened the door himself.

  “Oh, Cyril, I’m so excited!”

  “So you should be. You’re a lucky girl, did you know that?” He led her down the passage and into the surgery.

  “Go and have your lunch, Miss Pulteney,” he said to the assistant, who was busy putting instruments into the sterilizer. “You can finish that when you come back.” He waited until the girl had gone, then he walked over to a closet that he used for hanging up his clothes and stood in front of it, pointing with his finger. “It’s in there,” he said. “Now—shut your eyes.”

  Mrs. Bixby did as she was told. Then she took a deep breath and held it, and in the silence that followed she could hear him opening the cupboard door and there was a soft swishing sound as he pulled out a garment from among the other things hanging there.

  “All right! You can look!”

  “I don’t dare to,” she said, laughing.

  “Go on. Take a peek.”

  Coyly, beginning to giggle, she raised one eyelid a fraction of an inch, just enough to give her a dark blurry view of the man standing there in his white overalls holding something up in the air.

  “Mink!” he cried. “Real mink!”

  At the sound of the magic word she opened her eyes quick, and at the same time she actually started forward in order to clasp the coat in her arms.

  But there was no coat. There was only a ridiculous little fur neckpiece dangling from her husband’s hand.

  “Feast your eyes on that!” he said, waving it in front of her face.

  Mrs. Bixby put a hand up to her mouth and started backing away. I’m going to scream, she told herself. I just know it. I’m going to scream.

  “What’s the matter, my dear? Don’t you like it?” He stopped waving the fur and stood staring at her, waiting for her to say something.

  “Why yes,” she stammered. “I . . . I . . . think it’s . . . it’s lovely . . . really lovely.”

  “Quite took your breath away for a moment there, didn’t it?”

  “Yes, it did.”

  “Magnificent quality,” he said. “Fine colour, too. You know something, my dear? I reckon a piece like this would cost you two or three hundred dollars at least if you had to buy it in a shop.”

  “I don’t doubt it.”

  There were two skins, two narrow mangy-looking skins with their heads still on them and glass beads in their eye sockets and little paws hanging down. One of them had the rear end of the other in its mouth, biting it.

  “Here,” he said. “Try it on.” He leaned forward and draped the thing around her neck, then stepped back to admire. “It’s perfect. It really suits you. It isn’t everyone who has mink, my dear.”

  “No, it isn’t.”

  “Better leave it behind when you go shopping or they’ll all think we’re millionaires and start charging us double.”

  “I’ll try to remember that, Cyril.”

  “I’m afraid you mustn’t expect anything else for Christmas. Fifty dollars was rather more than I was going to spend anyway.”

  He turned away and went over to the basin and began washing his hands. “Run along now, my dear, and buy yourself a nice lunch. I’d take you out myself but I’ve got old man Gorman in the waiting room with a broken clasp on his denture.”

  Mrs. Bixby moved towards the door.

  I’m going to kill that pawnbroker, she told herself. I’m going right back there to the shop this very minute and I’m going to throw this filthy neckpiece right in his face and if he refuses to give me back my coat I’m going to kill him.

  “Did I tell you I was going to be late home tonight?” Cyril Bixby said, still washing his hands.

  “No.”

  “It’ll probably be at least eight-thirty the way things look at the moment. It may even be nine.”

  “Yes, all right. Good-bye.” Mrs. Bixby went out, slamming the door behind her.

  At that precise moment, Miss Pulteney, the secretary-assistant, came sailing past her down the corridor on her way to lunch.

  “Isn’t it a gorgeous day?” Miss Pulteney said as she went by, flashing a smile. There was a lilt in her walk, a little whiff of perfume attending her, and she looked like a queen, just exactly like a queen in the beautiful black mink coat that the Colonel had given to Mrs. Bixby.

  As soon as George Cleaver had made his first million, he and Mrs. Cleaver moved out of their small suburban villa into an elegant London house. They acquired a French chef called Monsieur Estragon and an English butler called Tibbs, both wildly expensive. With the help of these two experts, the Cleavers set out to climb the social ladder and began to give dinner parties several times a week on a lavish scale.

  But these dinners never seemed quite to come off. There was no animation, no spark to set the conversation alight, no style at all. Yet the food was superb and the service faultless.

  “What the heck’s wrong with our parties, Tibbs?” Mr. Cleaver said to the butler. “Why don’t nobody never loosen up and let themselves go?”

  Tibbs inclined his head to one side and looked at the ceiling. “I hope, sir, you will not be offended if I offer a small suggestion.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s the wine, sir.”

  “What about the wine?”

  “Well, sir, Monsieur Estragon serves superb food. Superb food should be accompanied by superb wine. But you serve them a cheap and very odious Spanish red.”

  “Then why in heaven’s name didn’t you say so before, you twit?” cried Mr. Cleaver. “I’m not short of money. I’ll give them the best flipping wine in the world if that’s what they want! What is the best wine in the world?”