‘Rory—my brother’s boy—was mad to go exploring in Arabia—though why anyone should want to go exploring in Arabia I can’t imagine—all dust and dates—anyway, Rory wanted to go with Heron Lloyd, but it seems that Lloyd travels only with Arabs. Rory, who is a nice child, says that that is because Lloyd is so Arabian that he is plus royaliste que le roi, but I think myself—being a low-minded creature and a rogue and vagabond—that he is just suffering from Ronnie’s trouble and wants the whole stage.’
‘What is Rory doing now?’ Grant asked, skating away from Heron Lloyd.
‘Oh, he’s in Arabia. The other man took him. Kinsey-Hewitt. Oh, yes, Rory wouldn’t be put off by a little thing like a snub. Can you make it Tuesday: the supper?’
Yes, he would make it Tuesday. Before Tuesday he would be back at work, and the matter of Bill Kenrick, who had come to England full of excitement about Arabia and had died as Charles Martin in a train going to the Highlands, would have to be put behind him. He had only a day or two more.
He went out to have a hair-cut, and to think in that relaxed hypnotic atmosphere of anything that they had left undone. Tad Cullen was lunching with his boss. ‘Richards won’t accept anything for this,’ he had said to Tad, ‘so take him out to lunch and give him a thundering good one and I’ll pay for it.’
‘I’ll take him out all right and be glad to,’ Tad said, ‘but I’m damned if I’ll let you pay for it. Bill Kenrick was my buddy, not yours.’
So he sat in the warm, aromatic air of the barber’s shop, half dive half clinic, and tried to think of something that they could still do to find Bill Kenrick’s suitcases. But it was the returning Tad who provided the suggestion.
Why, said Tad, not Agony-advertise for this girl.
‘What girl?’
‘The girl who has his luggage. She has no reason to be shy—unless she’s been helping herself to the contents, which wouldn’t be unknown. But Bill is a—was a better picker than that. Why don’t we say in capital letters: “BILL KENRICK”—to catch the eye, get it? — and then just: “Any friend get in touch with Number what’s-it.” Is there anything against that?’