Tales of the Unexpected

nowadays – she with her hat and coat and purse, he in a curiously cut Edwardian jacket with high lapels.
    ‘Your luggage?’
    ‘It’s at the airport.’
    ‘Ah yes,’ he said. ‘Of course. And if you’re going to take me to the club first, I suppose we’d better get going fairly soon, hadn’t we?’
    ‘Yes!’ she cried. ‘Oh, yes –
please
!’
    ‘I’m just going to get a few cigars. I’ll be right with you. You get in the car.’
    She turned and went to where the chauffeur was standing, and he opened the car door for her as she approached.
    ‘What time is it?’ she asked him.
    ‘About nine-fifteen.’
    Mr Foster came out five minutes later, and watching him as he walked slowly down the steps, she noticed that his legs were like goat’s legs in those narrow stovepipe trousers that he wore. As on the day before, he paused half-way down to sniff the air and to examine the sky. The weather was still not quite clear, but there was a wisp of sun coming through the mist.
    ‘Perhaps you’ll be lucky this time,’ he said as he settled himself beside her in the car.
    ‘Hurry, please,’ she said to the chauffeur. ‘Don’t bother about the rug. I’ll arrange the rug. Please get going. I’m late.’
    The man went back to his seat behind the wheel and started the engine.
    ‘
Just
a moment!’ Mr Foster said suddenly. ‘Hold it a moment, chauffeur, will you?’
    ‘What is it, dear?’ She saw him searching the pockets of his overcoat.
    ‘I had a little present I wanted you to take to Ellen,’ he said. ‘Now, where on earth is it? I’m sure I had it in my hand as I came down.’
    ‘I never saw you carrying anything. What sort of present?’
    ‘A little box wrapped up in white paper. I forgot to give it to you yesterday. I don’t want to forget it today.’
    ‘A little box!’ Mrs Foster cried. ‘I never saw any little box!’ She began hunting frantically in the back of the car.
    Her husband continued searching through the pockets of his coat. Then he unbuttoned the coat and felt around in his jacket. ‘Confound it,’ he said, ‘I must’ve left it in my bedroom. I won’t be a moment.’
    ‘Oh,
please
!’ she cried. ‘We haven’t got time!
Please
leave it! You can mail it. It’s only one of those silly combs anyway. You’re always giving her combs.’
    ‘And what’s wrong with combs, may I ask?’ he said, furious that she should have forgotten herself for once.
    ‘Nothing, dear, I’m sure. But…’
    ‘Stay here!’ he commanded. ‘I’m going to get it.’
    ‘Be quick, dear! Oh,
please
be quick!’
    She sat still, waiting and waiting.
    ‘Chauffeur, what time is it?’
    The man had a wristwatch, which he consulted. ‘I make it nearly nine-thirty.’
    ‘Can we get to the airport in an hour?’
    ‘Just about.’
    At this point, Mrs Foster suddenly spotted a corner of something white wedged down in the crack of the seat on the side where her husband had been sitting. She reached over and pulled out a small paper-wrapped box, and at the same time she couldn’t help noticing that it was wedged down firm and deep, as though with the help of a pushing hand.
    ‘Here it is!’ she cried. ‘I’ve found it! Oh dear, and now he’ll be up there for ever searching for it! Chauffeur, quickly – run in and call him down, will you please?’
    The chauffeur, a man with a small rebellious Irish mouth, didn’t care very much for any of this, but he climbed out of the car and went up the steps to the front door of the house. Then he turned and came back. ‘Door’s locked,’ he announced. ‘You got a key?’
    ‘Yes – wait a minute.’ She began hunting madly in her purse. The little face was screwed up tight with anxiety, the lips pushed outward like a spout.
    ‘Here it is! No – I’ll go myself. It’ll be quicker. I know where he’ll be.’
    She hurried out of the car and up the steps to the front door, holding the key in one hand. She slid the key into the keyhole and was about to turn it – and then she stopped. Her head came up, and she stood there absolutely motionless, her whole body arrested right in the middle of all this hurry to turn the key and get into the house, and she waited – five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten seconds, she waited. The way she was standing there, with her head in the air and the body so tense, it seemed as though she were listening for the repetition of some sound that she had heard a moment before from a place far away inside the