Mr. Zero Read Online Free Page A

head out into the foggy, frosty air. Sylvia was exactly like a jelly, a beautiful, bright, quivering jelly with plenty of sweet whipped cream round it. If you had to talk to her for any length of time, you began to feel as if you were sinking into the jelly and smothering there. The warm room, Marcia’s fripperies, Sylvia’s violet scent, and all that rose colour were suddenly too much for her. The carpet had begun to wave up and down in a horrid pink mist. She much preferred the January fog outside with the lights shining through it like orange moons, and the hard smell of soot and frost. It was cold though. Her head steadied and she drew back with a shiver, but she left an open handsbreath to keep the carpet steady.
    Sylvia was doing her mouth with a pale pink lipstick. She gazed earnestly at her own reflection in the little platinum-backed mirror which belonged to the bag, and said in a plaintive voice,
    â€œDarling—such a draught!”
    â€œYou made my head go round,” said Gay. “You’d make anyone’s head go round. Now, Sylvia, put all that rubbish away and listen!”
    â€œRubbish?” said Sylvia. She turned the mirror to show the diamond S on the back. “Why, it cost masses of money.”
    Gay pounced, removed the lipstick and mirror, put them into the grey suede bag, and shut it with a snap.
    â€œNow, Sylvia, listen . You say you were told all about stealing this paper on the telephone, but here—” she put the blue-pencilled message down on Sylvia’s knee,—“here it says, ‘Same time—same place—same money.’ What does that mean? It doesn’t fit in. What time? What place?”
    Sylvia looked at the torn piece of paper. Then she looked at Gay.
    â€œWell, he wanted me to go there again, but I wouldn’t.”
    â€œHe wanted you to go where? Where had you gone?”
    â€œWell, it was at Cole Lester, you know.”
    â€œYou were at Cole Lester when the man rang you up about stealing the paper?”
    Sylvia looked surprised.
    â€œOh, no, darling, that was in London, but we were just going down to Cole Lester, and he said to wait till it was dark and then go and walk in the yew alley. It’s very old, you know, hundreds and hundreds of years, and it meets overhead, so that it’s like being in a tunnel. I didn’t like it very much, but I thought I’d better go, and when I got to the end he said, ‘Is that you?’ And I said, ‘Yes, and please be quick,’ because that sort of place always has spiders and earwigs in it, and he hurried up and told me how to get the paper.”
    â€œHe was in the alley?”
    â€œOh, no, darling—outside. I was the one who was in the alley. He was outside. There’s a sort of window, and we talked through it, all whispery. I didn’t like it a bit, and Francis might have thought the most dreadful things, so when he wanted me to go again I wouldn’t. And now he says he’ll tell Francis I took the paper, and if he does, Francis will know about the five hundred pounds, and I don’t know what he’ll say.”
    Gay tried to keep her head.
    â€œYou say this person wants another paper. How do you know he does?”
    Sylvia’s eyes widened.
    â€œDarling, he told me.”
    Gay put a hand on her shoulder—a firm and angry little hand.
    â€œSylly, I shall shake you in about half a minute. How many times have you talked to this man?”
    Sylvia began to count on her fingers.
    â€œThere was the time he rang up—that was the first time. And there was the time I’ve been telling you about at Cole Lester, and the time I was just starting for Wellings. And then I took the paper, and gave it to him, and he gave me the money—I don’t know if you count that.”
    â€œCount everything,” said Gay. “That’s four. Now what is five?”
    â€œI suppose it was when he rang me up