Nothing Venture by Patricia Wentworth Page A

They were twinkling, but under the twinkle he was dead serious. She looked down into her lap, and then of her own free will she tilted her head and looked back at him.
    â€œWell?” she said. Her lips just parted on the word, and then closed in a firm, sweet curve that was not quite a smile.
    â€œIf you’ll go back in your mind,” said Mr Fazackerley, “maybe you’ll remember that after I’d picked Jervis out of that pool on Croyston rocks, I came back for the plucky kid who’d saved his life by holding him up in the water. She’d got herself out without my help, and she was standing there wringing out her skirt and dripping as if she’s just come out of the Flood. Perhaps you can remember what I said.”
    â€œMe?” said Nan. “No.”
    â€œWell,” said Ferdinand, “I put my arm around her and I said, ‘You’re the durned pluckiest kid I’ve ever struck—and that’s the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.’ And she said—you know what she said.”
    Nan shook her head.
    â€œSupposed to be suffering from loss of memory,” murmured Mr Fazackerley. “She grabbed me with both hands and said, ‘Is he dead?’ And I said, ‘Not within eighty years of it, thanks to you.’ Come—you remember that.”
    â€œI?” said Nan.
    â€œYes, you. I said, ‘I’d like to know your name,’ and she said, ‘Nan.’ And when you said ‘I’m Nan,’ this afternoon at twenty past four at Victoria Station—well, I knew you at once—so what’s the good of all this in and out fighting? I’m not an inquisitive man, but I’d like to know what’s behind all this, and why Jervis don’t know you saved his life.”
    â€œWell, I think you saved it,” said Nan.
    Ferdinand shook his head.
    â€œHe’d have been gone long before I got him out of the water if it hadn’t been for you.” The bright darting eyes went through her armour. “You were clever at dinner, but I saw the scar before you moved your arm—just where I knew it was bound to be. Well, now I’m being impertinent—but why doesn’t Jervis know?”
    Nan was silent for a moment. He was certainly impertinent, but she wasn’t angry. He cared about Jervis, and that was all that mattered. She said quite simply,
    â€œI don’t want him to know.” Then, as if putting all that on one side, “Mr Fazackerley, I want to talk to you. I—I must talk to someone, and—perhaps Jervis will listen to you.”
    â€œWon’t he listen to you? I should have thought—”
    â€œNo. Please don’t talk to me like that. It’s serious—it’s very serious.”
    â€œWhat is it, Mrs Weare?”
    Nan clasped her hands in her lap.
    â€œI’m very frightened about Jervis,” she said. “He’s in danger, but he won’t believe it.”
    â€œDanger?” said Ferdinand. “That has a very intriguing sound.”
    â€œYou’re laughing at me,” said Nan in a despairing voice.
    â€œHow can I, when I don’t know the first thing about the situation? What’s the matter with it anyway?”
    â€œYou don’t believe me,” said Nan. “But it’s true. He tried to kill Jervis ten years ago, and he tried to kill him again today.”
    â€œGreat Wall Street!” said Mr Fazackerley; and then, “Who did?”
    â€œRobert Leonard did.”
    Mr Fazackerley beat with the flat of his hand upon his knee.
    â€œIs that so?” he said. “The guy with the bulging brain-box and the jaw-bone of an ass?”
    â€œYes, he did,” said Nan.
    â€œGreat Bronx!” said Mr Fazackerley with simple fervour. “He did , did he? Why?”
    â€œRosamund would get all the money,” said Nan.
    Mr Fazackerley sat back.
    â€œMrs Weare, you’re not handing it to me