No Time For Love (Bantam Series No. 40) Read Online Free PDF Page B

not know what you are talking about,” Gary said. “Who is this woman? I have never heard of her.”
    “Does it matter whether we have heard of her or not?” Harvey asked. “She has heard of Elvin all right, and I suspect she has heard of me too. It is blackmail, dear boy! Blackmail—and we will have to pay it!”
    “For what?” Gary asked.
    “For her silence—for those letters. Do not be half-witted, Gary! It is obvious that Elvin has put her in the family way and she is having a baby.”
    “Elvin?” Gary exclaimed. “He has been ill—desperately ill—for years!”
    “With consumption, Gary! We all know what consumptives are like sexually, although I did not think it of Elvin.” He put up both his arms towards the ceiling and cried: “How could he have done this to me at this moment?” Gary bent to the floor to pick up the envelope in which the cable had arrived.
    After a moment he said a little tentatively:
    “Whatever Elvin may or may not have done, it appears to me that she does not know who he is. Otherwise why should she address him as Farren rather than Vanderfeld?”
    Harvey was still for a moment.
    “There is some point in that,” he said slowly. “If she does not know, there is hope!”
    He appeared suddenly to make up his mind and walked across the room to tug at the bell-pull.
    The door opened almost instantly.
    “Yes, Mr. Harvey?” the Butler enquired.
    “Ask Mr. Wynstan to come here immediately!” Harvey said. “If he is not in the Drawing-Room he will be with Mrs. Vanderfeld.”
    “I’ll tell him you want him, Mr. Harvey,” the Butler replied in his grave voice.
    He closed the door and Harvey once again walked agitatedly across the thick carpet towards the Regency desk and back again.
    “I cannot believe it!” he said. “I cannot credit my brother, my own brother, could treat me in such a manner!”
    “Elvin cannot have intended to involve you personally in this,” Gary said, with just a hint of a smile on his lips.
    “But I am involved!” Harvey replied. “You know that as well as I do! Can you imagine what the papers will make of it? It will be a front-page scandal, and how the Republicans will love it! I can just imagine Theodore Roosevelt enjoying every word and making full use of it in his campaign.”
    “There must be something we can do,” Gary said feebly.
    As if it might give him inspiration he finished off his drink in one gulp and went to the side-table to pour himself another.
    The two brothers were silent until a few moments later the door opened and Wynstan Vanderfeld came in.
    At twenty-eight Wynstan was so good-looking that, as his sister Tracy had told him often enough, it was ‘unfair on women’!
    Tall, broad-shouldered and with square-cut features, he was the Cosmopolitan of the family and had spent in the last seven years of his life more time abroad than he had in America.
    “Wynstan,” someone once said, “is traditionally American, overlaid with English and under-sprung with French!”
    But Tracy had summed it up more aptly when she said:
    “Wynstan is the entire creation of Mama without any help from Papa!”
    He certainly was unlike his brothers, Harvey and Gary, in that his body was slim and he had the look of an athlete.
    He was in fact an outstanding Polo player, had won many horse races, and at College had made his name on the baseball field.
    As he came into the room now it was noticeable that he had a twinkle in his eye as if his brothers, like all his other relatives amused him and he found it difficult to take them seriously. “Hudson tells me you need me urgently,” he said. “What has happened?”
    In answer Harvey held out the cable. Wynstan took it from him and noticed in surprise that his brother’s hand was trembling.
    He read it carefully and then the twinkle in his eye was even more pronounced as he said:
    “If it means what I think it means—good for Elvin! I am glad he had a little fun before he died.”
    Harvey let