Ice in the Bedroom by P. G. Wodehouse Read Free Book Online

Molloy breathed devoutly.
    'Honey, there's no one like you.'
    'I thought you'd be pleased.'
    'I feel like dancing a skirt dance. Where are they?'
    'Oh, they're tucked away somewhere quite safe.' Dolly looked about her. 'Everyone seems to have gone. We'd better be moving before they throw us out.'
    'What do you feel like doing now?'
    'I thought I might look in at Selfridge's.'
    'I wouldn't, baby.'
    'I need some new stockings awful bad.'
    'But not this afternoon. Look, what I suggest is we go to Barribault's and…well, sort of loll around. We'll think of something to do.'
    'Where? In the lobby?'
    'In my suite.'
    'In your what?’
    'I've taken a suite there. You'll like it. It's got…What's the matter, honey? Why are you looking like that?'
    He spoke anxiously, for into his wife's face there had come a look of horror and dismay, suggesting to him for a moment that the shrimps, the sole, the chicken and the French pastry which had followed them had been too much for an interior enfeebled by prison fare. But this diagnosis was erroneous. It was not Dolly's internal mechanism that was troubling her.
    'Soapy! You're not telling me you've left Castlewood?'
    'Sure. I'm not saying the way I've cleaned up is anything like the way you've cleaned up, but I have cleaned up pretty good, and when you've cleaned up pretty good, you don't want to be horsing around down in the suburbs. You feel like splurging.'
    'Oh, my Gawd!'
    'Why, what is it, sweetie?'
    Dolly's face had a twisted look, as if she had swallowed something acid.
    ‘I’ll tell you what it is,' she said, seeming to experience some difficulty in articulating. 'The Prosser ice is at Castlewood.'
    'What!'
    'On top of the wardrobe in our bedroom, that's what.’
    Soapy could understand now why his honey was looking like that, as he had expressed it. He was looking like that himself.
    'On top of the wardrobe?' he gurgled weakly.
    'Seemed to me the safest place to put it, Yessir, there it is, and not a chance of getting at it, because by this time some-body'll have moved in.'
    'Not already.'
    'I shouldn't wonder. That fellow Cornelius, the guy with the full set of white whiskers, was telling me that houses like Castlewood never stay vacant for more than a day or two. Say, listen, go call him up.'
    'Cornelius?'
    'Yay. Ask him what the score is."
    Mr. Molloy rose as if a bradawl had pierced the seat of his chair. He hurried out.
    'You're right,' he said lugubriously, returning some minutes later. 'The joint's been rented.'
    'I thought as much.'
    'To Leila Yorke, the novelist. She clocked in this morning,' said Soapy, and beckoning a waiter ordered double brandies for two. They both felt they needed them.
    It was some time after before either of them spoke. Then Dolly emerged from the fog of silent gloom which had been enveloping her. Women are more resilient than men.
    'You'll have to go down there and see this dame and make a spiel.'
    'How do you mean, honey?'
    'Why, tell her some story that'll make her let us have the house back.'
    'You think she would?'
    'She might, if you're as good as you always were. Everyone says there's no one can pull a line of talk the way you can.’ Mr. Molloy, though still far from being his usual hearty self, became a little more cheerful. On the horizon of his mind there was shining a tiny spark of hope, like a lighted match seen at the end of a tunnel. 'Worth trying,' he agreed.
    'Sure it is. We're not licked. Because don't forget that this dame writes books, and there never was an author yet who had enough sense to cross the street with. All these novelists are half-way around the bend.'
    Mr. Molloy nodded. There was, he knew, much in what she said.
     
     

 
    7
     
    LEILA YORKE was breakfasting in bed. Sally had boiled the eggs and toasted the toast and taken them up to her, still a good deal dazed by the swiftness with which she had been uprooted and transferred from the old home to this new environment. On Friday her employer had told her to pack,