Murder Makes an Entree Read Online Free PDF Page B

the veil, ‘to quote from the same immortal work, “will make a lovely
     corpse” if you compare me to Mrs Gamp.’
    Oliver laughed. ‘Very well. Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day, instead, dear Angelina?’
    She shuddered. ‘This evening, Oliver,’ she remarked firmly, ‘I fear Mr Shakespeare is
not
a welcome thought.’
    ‘Very well, let us beard the Lions in their den, and meet our end with dignity.’ Offering her his arm, he escorted her into
     the foyer of Gwynne’s Hotel.
    ‘The female of the species,’ Gwendolen Figgis-Hewett muttered to herself in the hansom cab.
    She had no escort. Even when Mr Figgis-Hewett was alive, she had frequently had no escort, for his interests outside making
     money were not hers. Drinking and gambling were no occupations for a lady of literary talent. Her poem had been accepted by
     the
Ladies’ Companion
. True, they had not published it, but acceptance was the important thing. Mr Figgis-Hewett had been dead five years now,
     and his widow was tired of being alone, however pleasant it was to be so wealthy. Since Sir Thomas was a widower of about
     the same duration, she had seen no reason why they should not pool their common grief. Even now she could not quitebelieve what had happened on that dreadful evening after the Prince of Wales’s dinner.
    Mr Rudyard Kipling never wrote a truer word. Now she felt much deadlier than the male.
    ‘We’re here, sir.’ The disembodied voice of the cab driver boomed through Lord Beddington’s dreams, as he reclined dozily
     on his way to Gwynne’s. The Garrick dinner had been pleasantly relaxing and only with difficulty did he recall that he was
     bound for Gwynne’s and not the Reform this evening. He was not quite sure what all the fuss was about, but he had no doubt
     Sir Thomas was right. Anyway it was more sensible to vote for him, for matters were more quickly concluded that way. It was
     probably only that fellow Pipkin making a mountain out of a molehill. Sitting on committees was rather like the Lords or the
     magistrate’s bench; you could think your own thoughts, and just wake up for the vote.
    ‘Oh me, oh my. Your time is nigh,’ said Samuel Pipkin triumphantly to himself, his mind full of Thomas Throgmorton.
    The secretary of the committee of the Society of Literary Lionisers almost bounced down in glee from his cab outside Gwynne’s
     Hotel. The time of reckoning had come. With the enthusiasm of a Pickwick in pursuit of a Jingle, he launched his corpulent
     frame through the doors of the hotel, eager for combat. Like Angelina, however, he would not have welcomed the Dickensian
     comparison, for Samuel Pipkin was not a Dickens man. Far from it. He was through and through dedicated to the works and memory
     of William Makepeace Thackeray. He disliked Dickens and everything to do with him, and in particular his own undeniable resemblance
     to Mr Pickwick. This was merely physical, however, for it is by no means an infallible rule that all fatmen must be benevolent and Samuel was seldom benevolent. Resemblance to cartoons of Thackeray he deemed an honour, references
     to Pickwick an insult.
    Since the choice of Charles Dickens in preference to his own idol, Mr Thackeray, as this year’s Lion, relations between himself
     and Sir Thomas had reached a low only equalled by those that existed for many years between their respective heroes. Sir Thomas
     was of course a Dickens man, deliberately cultivating the grave aspect of the author presented in his later portraits and
     ignoring all evidence of the younger, sprightly, exuberant writer. The thought of what Sir Thomas was now proposing was beyond
     endurance for Samuel Pipkin. Outrageous! Greater even than the affront to the immortal Mr Thackeray by that common upstart
     Dickens. ‘Tis strange what a man may do, and a woman yet think him an angel,’ he mused. How truly Mr Thackeray spoke when
     he wrote that. He might have had Sir Thomas in mind. Throgmorton must