The Trouble With Harry by Jack Trevor Story Read Free Book Online

her insignificant face. Mrs Wiggs had come to expect certain things of certain people and Miss Graveley was buying out of character. She had bought a big, ugly cup and now she was talking about ribbon.
    ‘What kind of ribbon?’
    Miss Graveley studied her face and hair in the scrap of chromium. ‘I think blue—’ She turned suddenly to Sam. ‘You’re an artist, Mr Marlow. What colour ribbon shall I have?’
    ‘Red’s always a good colour,’ Sam said, ‘if it’s for an Easter egg or a parcel of some kind.’
    ‘It’s for my hair,’ said Miss Graveley.
    Mrs Wiggs’ bunion began to throb, which was a sign that things were getting a little beyond her. ‘I think I’ve got a lemonade customer,’ she said, catching the last notes from the Rolls-Royce again.
    Sam took Miss Graveley by the arm. ‘How can you talk of lemonade at a time like this?’ He spoke to Mrs Wiggs over his shoulder. He then addressed Miss Graveley. ‘You want some coloured ribbon for your hair?’
    Miss Graveley nodded.
    Sam’s eyes rested for a moment on the wrapped cup and saucer. ‘Something special going to happen?’ he hazarded.
    Miss Graveley blushed and laid her eyelashes on her cheeks in a way she had not done for some twenty years. ‘
Somebody’s coming to tea
,’ she said.
    ‘A man?’
    Miss Graveley nodded, mutely.
    ‘You old tease!’ said Sam, in a congratulatory tone.
    ‘Old!’
    Mrs Wiggs peered out of the window and set the glossy-haired young man to rights. Outside, the man had got out of the Rolls-Royce and was looking more closely at the paintings.
    ‘That was figurative,’ said Sam gallantly.
    ‘How old do you think I am, young man?’ said Miss Graveley, a little apprehensively.
    ‘Fifty-five,’ said Sam. ‘How old do
you
think you are?’
    ‘Forty-two,’ said Miss Graveley. ‘I can show you my certificate.’
    Sam looked at her and sighed. ‘You’ll have to show more than your certificate to prove that. You should have your hair cut. A nice bob.’
    ‘I think I’ll just go out and see what that gentleman wants,’ said Mrs Wiggs.
    ‘You stay here, Mrs Wiggs,’ said Miss Graveley, digesting the artist’s constructive remark. She once again looked at herself in the bacon machine. Shecould see herself now with a bob. She looked very beautiful. She leant towards Mrs Wiggs. ‘Could you bob my hair, Wiggy?’
    Mrs Wiggs shuffled. ‘I don’t know, I’m sure,’ she said.
    ‘
I
know, I’m sure,’ said Sam. ‘Take her in the back parlour, Wiggy. I’ll go and get the scissors from the stall.’
    Mrs Wiggs dithered. ‘Well, all right, Miss Graveley. Come through.’
    Miss Graveley, with the air of a crusader, followed the proprietress of Wiggs’ Emporium into the back parlour. Sam Marlow went to the stall outside. The man in the horn-rimmed glasses had just replaced a picture against the stall and was looking at his watch.
    ‘I say …’ he said, when he saw Sam.
    Sam poured out a glass of lemonade and thrust it into the man’s hand. He took the scissors up and strode back to the ivy-covered cottage.
    The man began to follow him. Then he looked at his watch again, gulped the lemonade, and got back into his car. As Sam went in to cut off Miss Graveley’s hair, the Rolls-Royce purred away.

LET’S GET THIS STRAIGHT
    Sam Marlow, the artist, climbed the same woodland path that Abie, the small boy, had climbed some two hours earlier. Instead of a gun, however, under his arm he carried an easel and the things with which to make coloured pictures of what he saw and felt and believed. The woodland came to Sam as a series of separate pictures. He looked to the left and to the right; he looked up and down and sometimes he stopped and looked back the way he had come and saw the steep path framed by the trees with, right at the bottom, the front gate of the first bungalow.
    He came out on to the heath and continued hisslow walk. He walked as slowly and silently as little Abie had walked, and he might