Dolly And The Cookie Bird - Dorothy Dunnett - Johnson Johnson 03 Read Online Free PDF

saying in Giller Lloyd’s voice, “A little bird tells me you’re drinking champers, sweetie. Do tell me there’s a drop for a friend.”
    Janey always told me I react the old-fashioned way. It isn’t true. At least, I don’t mean to. It’s just that you’re brought up to act like a lady and it sticks. I said, “Get the bloody hell out of here Gilmore Lloyd,” and heaved a towel into the bath just as the door opened, the light came on, and another masculine voice said mildly, “Excuse me, is this your handbag?”
    I honked. I couldn’t help it. First there was Giller caught knees up on the windowsill in his bare skin and two hundred watts of Phillips’ best. And then in the doorway stood this poor, poleaxed Charlie in seventeen-inch bags and woolly sweater and bifocal glasses He ran his eye over Gilmore and then over me and said again, his voice half an octave lower, “Excuse me, is this your handbag? It’s got birth pills in it, popped out to Sunday?”
    Poor, poleaxed Charlie, hell. I knew him. It was the man with the Seat. The wag who’d found Austin being overkeen in the ditch and had offered to help. It
was
my bag. “Don’t you knock,” I said freezingly, “when…”
    “
He
didn’t,” said Bifocals, surprised, looking at Greek God. “And I’m dressed.”
    “Not for long,” said Gilmore Lloyd coldly. “What bloody manners.” He wasn’t jealous, I think. He was just asserting his territory. He launched himself from the sill and adopting a classical and rather beautiful stance, drove to the jaw with his right.
    Bifocals sort of didn’t wait for it. I saw Giller’s jaw crack against the white marble wall, then he fell down it, and Bifocals stepped over him very carefully and said, “If you don’t mind… I’ll need to take the bag back, if it isn’t yours, in case someone is looking for it. It may be a regular…”
    “It’s mine,” I said. “And thank you for bringing it. Although I really don’t see why you had to walk into my room. Mr. Lloyd would be…”
    “Mr. Lloyd told me to go right up,” said Bifocals. He put one foot on Gilmore’s rising chest and immobilized him. “Didn’t you hear the last bell for dinner? He didn’t know you were getting sloshed under the hot tap.”
    “I’m not!” I said. I nearly sat up.
    “Say
cessation
,” said Bifocals.
    I changed my ground. “That,” I said coldly, “is Mr. Lloyd’s son.”
    “He didn’t hear the last bell either, did he?” said Bifocals. “Did Mr. Lloyd send him right up too?”
    He removed his foot and Gilmore, rising like Cary Grant, said, “Do I have to ask you again to leave this lady’s room?”
    “You didn’t ask me the first time,” Bifocals pointed out. “But that’s all right. I hear the tiny voices of dry martinis calling.” He looked over Giller’s shoulder at me. “Why didn’t you pop Monday’s pill?”
    “I forgot,” I said.
    “Mistakes,” said Bifocals firmly, “are expensive. You’ll be late for dinner.”
    Gilmore grabbed both his arms.
    “So shall I,” said Bifocals. “I shouldn’t do anything dashing. I’ve just rung for Helmuth.”
    Gilmore dropped his hands and said, “Are you dining with Father?”
    “He did ask me,” said Bifocals. “He’s rather keen. In fact, he’s just offered me twelve hundred pounds to do a portrait of Janey. Miss Cassells, you’re stoned.” He leaned forward and turned on the cold shower; then leaving me under it, walked through my bedroom and got to the door just as Helmuth tapped on the outside. The door closed. By the time I got the tap off and the freezing water out of my eyes, Gilmore also had gone. I dressed and went down to dinner. I’d been in Ibiza two hours and I’d had a near rape and two uninvited men in my bathroom. It was better than cooking for dentists.

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CHAPTER 3
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    THAT WAS THE WAY I first met Johnson Johnson, and after the drinks and the introductions, I had a good look at him, bifocals and all, over the