I took the cosh because otherwise she would probably have pushed it down my throat, and I looked at Hartsell and MacGraw, who stared back at me like two pigs waiting to have their throats slit.
“Hit them!” she repeated, her voice rising. “It’s time someone did. They’ll take it. I’ll see to that.”
It was an extraordinary thing, but I was pretty sure they would have stood there and let me beat their heads off.
I tossed the cosh on to the settee.
“Not me, Lady, that’s not the way I get my fun,” I said, my voice sounding like a record being played with a blunt gramophone needle.
“Hit them!” she commanded furiously. “What are you frightened of? They won’t dare touch you again. Beat them up!”
“Sorry,” I said. “It wouldn’t amuse me. Let’s turn them out. They’re lousing up the room.”
She turned, snatched up the cosh and walked up to MacGraw. His white face turned yellow, but he didn’t move. Her arm flashed up and she hit him across his face. An ugly red weal sprang up on his flabby cheek. He gave a whimpering grunt, but he still didn’t move.
As her arm flashed up again I grabbed her wrist and snatched the cosh out of her hand. The effort cost me a stab of pain through the head and a hard-stinging slap across the face from Miss Spitfire. She tried to get the cosh from me, but I held on to her wrists and yelled: “Beat it, you two lugs! Beat it before she knocks the hell out of you!”
Holding her was like holding an angry tigress. She was surprisingly strong. As I wrestled with her MacGraw and Hartsell charged out of the room as if the devil was after them. They fell down the steps in their hurry to get away. When I heard their car start up I released her wrists and stepped away.