Ngaio Marsh
Death in a White Tie

The Characters in the Tale

Chief Detective-Inspector Roderick Alleyn, CID |
Lady Alleyn | His mother
Sarah Alleyn | His débutante niece
Miss Violet Harris | Secretary to Lady Carrados
Lady Evelyn Carrados | A London hostess
Bridget O’Brien | Her daughter
Sir Herbert Carrados | Her husband
Lord Robert Gospell (‘Bunchy’) | A relic of Victorian days
Sir Daniel Davidson | A fashionable London physician
Agatha Troy, RA | A painter
Lady Mildred Potter | Lord Robert’s widowed sister
Donald Potter | Her son—a medical student
Mrs Halcut-Hackett | A social climber
General Halcut-Hackett | Her husband
Miss Rose Birnbaum | Her protégée
Captain Maurice Withers (‘Wits’) | A man about town
Colombo Dimitri | A fashionable caterer
Lucy, Dowager Marchioness of Lorrimer | An eccentric old lady
A Taxi-driver |
Miss Smith | A friend of Miss Harris
Detective-Inspector Fox, CID |
Percy Percival | A young man about town
Mr Trelawney-Caper | His friend
James d’Arcy Carewe | A detective-constable
François Dupont | Dimitri’s servant
Mr Cuthbert | Manager of the Matador
Vassily | Alleyn’s servant
The Reverend Walter Harris | A retired clergyman
Mrs Walter Harris | His wife
The Assistant Commissioner |

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

The Characters in the Tale

Chapter 1 The Protagonists

Chapter 2 Bunchy

Chapter 3 Sequence to a Cocktail-party

Chapter 4 Blackmail to Music

Chapter 5 Unqualified Success

Chapter 6 Bunchy Goes Back to the Yard

Chapter 7 Stop Press News

Chapter 8 Troy and Alleyn

Chapter 9 Report from Mr Fox

Chapter 10 Donald

Chapter 11 Captain Withers at Home

Chapter 12 Report from a Waiter

Chapter 13 Dimitri Cuts His Fingers

Chapter 14 Davidson Digresses

Chapter 15 Simple Soldier-man

Chapter 16 Lady Carrados Looks Back

Chapter 17 The Element of Youth

Chapter 18 Predicament of a Secretary

Chapter 19 The General

Chapter 20 Rose Birnbaum

Chapter 21 Statement by Lucy Lorrimer

Chapter 22 Night Club

Chapter 23 Donald on Wits

Chapter 24 The Dance Is Wound Up

Chapter 25 Benefit of Clergy

Chapter 26 Alleyn Plots a Denouement

Chapter 27 Interlude for Love

Chapter 28 Alleyn Marshals the Protagonists

Chapter 29 Climax

Chapter 30 Confessions from Troy

Epilogue

Copyright

About the Publisher

CHAPTER 1 The Protagonists

‘Roderick,’ said Lady Alleyn, looking at her son over the top of her spectacles, ‘I am coming out.’

‘Out?’ repeated Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn vaguely. ‘Out where, mama? Out of what?’

‘Out into the world. Out of retirement. Out into the season. Out. Dear me,’ she added confusedly, ‘how absurd a word becomes if one says it repeatedly. Out.’

Alleyn laid an official-looking document on the breakfast-table and stared at his mother.

‘What can you be talking about?’ he said.

‘Don’t be stupid, darling. I am going to do the London season.’

‘Have you taken leave of your senses?’

‘I think perhaps I have. I have told George and Grace that I will bring Sarah out this coming season. Here is a letter from George and here is another from Grace. Government House, Suva. They think it charming of me to offer.’

‘Good Lord, mama,’ said Alleyn, ‘you must be demented. Do you know what this means?’

‘I believe I do. It means that I must take a flat in London. It means that I must look up all sorts of people who will turn out to be dead or divorced or remarried. It means that I must give little luncheon-parties and cocktail-parties and exchange cutlets with hard-working mothers. It means that I must sit in ballrooms praising other women’s grand-daughters and securing young men for my own. I shall be up until four o’clock five nights out of seven and I’m afraid, darling, that my black lace and my silver charmeuse will not be quite equal to the strain. So that in addition to buying clothes for Sarah I shall have to buy some for myself. And I should like to know what you think about that, Roderick?’

‘I think it is all utterly preposterous. Why the devil can’t George and Grace bring Sarah out themselves?’

‘Because they are in Fiji, darling.’

‘Well, why can’t she stay in until they return?’

‘George’s appointment is for four years. In four years your niece will be twenty-two. An elderly sort of débutante.’

‘Why has Sarah got to come out? Why can’t she simply emerge?’

‘That I cannot tell you, but George and Grace certainly could. I rather see it, I must say, Roderick. A girl has such fun doing her first season. There is nothing like it, ever again. And now we have gone back to chaperones and all the rest of it, it really does seem to have some of the old glamour.’

‘You mean débutantes have gone back to being treated like hothouse flowers for three months and taking their chance as hardy perennials for the rest of their lives?’

‘If you choose to put it like that. The system is not without merit, my dear.’

‘It may be quite admirable, but isn’t it going to be a bit too exhausting for you? Where is Sarah, by the way?’

‘She is always rather late for breakfast. How wonderfully these children sleep, don’t they? But we were talking about the season, weren’t we? I think I shall enjoy it, Rory. And really and truly it won’t be such hard work. I’ve heard this morning from Evelyn Carrados. She was Evelyn O’Brien, you know. Evelyn Curtis, of course, in the first instance, but that’s so long ago nobody bothers about it. Not that she’s as old as that, poor girl. She can’t be forty yet. Quite a chicken, in fact. Her mother was my greatest friend. We did the season together when we came out. And now here’s Evelyn bringing her own girl out and offering to help with Sarah. Could anything be more fortunate?’

‘Nothing,’ responded Alleyn dryly. ‘I remember Evelyn O’Brien.’

‘I should hope you do. I did my best to persuade you to fall in love with her.’

‘Did I fall in love with her?’

‘No. I could never imagine why, as she was quite lovely and very charming. Now I come to think of it, you hadn’t much chance as she herself fell madly in love with Paddy O’Brien who returned suddenly from Australia.’

‘I remember. A romantic sort of bloke, wasn’t he?’

‘Yes. They were married after a short engagement. Five months later he was killed in a motor accident. Wasn’t it awful?’

‘Awful.’

‘And then in six months or so along came this girl, Bridget. Evelyn called her Bridget because Paddy was Irish. And then, poor Evelyn, she married Herbert Carrados. Nobody ever knew why.’

‘I’m not surprised. He’s a frightful bore. He must be a great deal older than Evelyn.’

‘A thousand years and so pompous you can’t believe he’s true. You know him evidently.’

‘Vaguely. He’s something pretty grand in the City.’

Alleyn lit his mother’s cigarette and his own. He walked over to the french window and looked across the lawn.

‘Your garden is getting ready to come out, too,’ he said. ‘I wish I hadn’t to go back to the Yard.’

‘Now, darling? This minute?’

‘Afraid so. It’s this case.’ He waved some papers in his hand. ‘Fox rang up late last night. Something’s cropped up.’

‘What sort of case is it?’

‘Blackmail, but you’re not allowed to ask questions.’

‘Rory, how exciting. Who’s being blackmailed? Somebody frightfully important, I hope?’

‘Do you remember Lord Robert Gospell?’

‘Bunchy Gospell, do you mean? Surely he’s not being blackmailed. A more innocent creature—’

‘No, mama, he isn’t. Nor is he a blackmailer.’

‘He’s a dear little man,’ said Lady Alleyn emphatically. ‘The nicest possible little man.’

‘Not so little nowadays. He’s very plump and wears a cloak and a sombrero like GKC.’

‘Really?’

‘You must have seen photographs of him in your horrible illustrated papers. They catch him when they can. “Lord Robert (‘Bunchy’) Gospell tells one of his famous stories.” That sort of thing.’

‘Yes, but what’s he got to do with blackmail?’

‘Nothing. He is, as you say, an extremely nice little man.’

‘Roderick, don’t be infuriating. Has Bunchy Gospell got anything to do with Scotland Yard?’

Alleyn was staring out into the garden.

‘You might say,’ he said at last, ‘that we have a very great respect for him at the Yard. Not only is he charming—he is also, in his own way, a rather remarkable personage.’

Lady Alleyn looked at her son meditatively for some seconds.

‘Are you meeting him today?’ she asked.

‘I think so.’

‘Why?’

‘Why, darling, to listen to one of his famous stories, I suppose.’

II

It was Miss Harris’s first day in her new job. She was secretary to Lady Carrados and had been engaged for the London season. Miss Harris knew quite well what this meant. It was not, in a secretarial sense, by any means her first season. She was a competent young woman, almost frighteningly unimaginative, with a brain that was divided into neat pigeon-holes, and a mind that might be said to label all questions ‘answered’ or ‘unanswered’. If a speculative or unconventional idea came Miss Harris’s way, it was promptly dealt with or promptly shut up in a dark pigeon-hole and never taken out again. If Miss Harris had not been able to answer it immediately, it was unanswerable and therefore of no importance. Owing perhaps to her intensive training as a member of the large family of a Buckinghamshire clergyman she never for a moment asked herself why she should go through life organising fun for other people and having comparatively little herself. That would have seemed to Miss Harris an irrelevant and rather stupid speculation. One’s job was a collection of neatly filed duties, suitable to one’s station in life, and therefore respectable. It had no wider ethical interest of any sort at all. This is not to say Miss Harris was insensitive. On the contrary, she was rather touchy on all sorts of points of etiquette relating to her position in the houses in which she was employed. Where she had her lunch, with whom she had it, and who served it, were matters of great importance to her and she was painfully aware of the subtlest nuances in her employers’ attitude towards herself. About her new job she was neatly optimistic. Lady Carrados had impressed her favourably, had treated her, in her own phrase, like a perfect lady. Miss Harris walked briskly along an upstairs passage and tapped twice, not too loud and not too timidly, on a white door.

‘Come in,’ cried a far-away voice.

Miss Harris obeyed and found herself in a large white bedroom. The carpet, the walls and the chairs were all white. A cedar-wood fire crackled beneath the white Adam mantelpiece, a white bearskin rug nearly tripped Miss Harris up as she crossed the floor to the large white bed where her employer sat propped up with pillows. The bed was strewn about with sheets of notepaper.

‘Oh, good morning, Miss Harris,’ said Lady Carrados. ‘You can’t think how glad I am to see you. Do you mind waiting a moment while I finish this note? Please sit down.’

Miss Harris sat discreetly on a small chair. Lady Carrados gave her a vague, brilliant smile, and turned again to her writing. Miss Harris with a single inoffensive glance had taken in every detail of her employer’s appearance.

Evelyn Carrados was thirty-seven years old, and on her good days looked rather less. She was a dark, tall woman with little colour but a beautiful pallor. Paddy O’Brien had once shown her a copy of the Madonna di San Sisto and had told her that she was looking at herself. This was not quite true. Her face was longer and had more edge and character than Raphael’s complacent virgin, but the large dark eyes were like and the sleek hair parted down the centre. Paddy had taken to calling her ‘Donna’ after that and she still had his letters beginning: ‘Darling Donna.’ Oddly enough, Bridget, his daughter, who had never seen him, called her mother ‘Donna’ too. She had come into the room on the day Miss Harris was interviewed and had sat on the arm of her mother’s chair. A still girl with a lovely voice. Miss Harris looking straight in front of her remembered this interview now while she waited. ‘He hasn’t appeared yet,’ thought Miss Harris, meaning Sir Herbert Carrados, whose photograph faced her in a silver frame on his wife’s dressing-table.

Lady Carrados signed her name and hunted about the counterpane for blotting-paper. Miss Harris instantly placed her own pad on the bed.

‘Oh,’ said her employer with an air of pleased astonishment, ‘you’ve got some! Thank you so much. There, that’s settled her, hasn’t it?’

Miss Harris smiled brightly. Lady Carrados licked the flap of an envelope and stared at her secretary over the top.

‘I see you’ve brought up my mail,’ she said.

‘Yes, Lady Carrados. I did not know if you would prefer me to open all—’

‘No, no. No, please not.’

Miss Harris did not visibly bridle, she was much too competent to do anything of the sort, but she was at once hurt in her feelings. A miserable, a hateful, little needle of mortification jabbed her thin skin. She had overstepped her mark.

‘Very well, Lady Carrados,’ said Miss Harris politely.

Lady Carrados bent forward.

‘I know I’m all wrong,’ she said quickly. ‘I know I’m not behaving a bit as one should when one is lucky enough to have a secretary but, you see, I’m not used to such luxuries, and I still like to pretend I’m doing everything myself. So I shall have all the fun of opening my letters and all the joy of handing them over to you. Which is very unfair, but you’ll have to put up with it, poor Miss Harris.’

She watched her secretary smile and replied with a charming look of understanding.

‘And now,’ she said, ‘we may as well get it done, mayn’t we?’

Miss Harris laid the letters in three neat heaps on the writing-pad and soon began to make shorthand notes of the answers she was to write for her employer. Lady Carrados kept up a sort of running commentary.

‘Lucy Lorrimer. Who is Lucy Lorrimer, Miss Harris? I know, she’s that old Lady Lorrimer who talks as if everybody was deaf. What does she want? “Hear you are bringing out your girl and would be so glad—” Well, we’ll have to see about that, won’t we? If it’s a free afternoon we’d be delighted. There you are. Now, this one. Oh, yes, Miss Harris, now this is most important. It’s from Lady Alleyn, who is a great friend of mine. Do you know who I mean? One of her sons is a deadly baronet and the other is a detective. Do you know?’

‘Is it Chief Inspector Alleyn, Lady Carrados? The famous one?’

That’s it. Terribly good-looking and remote. He was in the Foreign Office when the war broke out and then after the war he suddenly became a detective. I can’t tell you why. Not that it matters,’ continued Lady Carrados, glancing at the attentive face of her secretary, ‘because this letter is nothing to do with him. It’s about his brother George’s girl whom his mother is bringing out and I said I’d help. So you must remember, Miss Harris, that Sarah Alleyn is to be asked to everything. And Lady Alleyn to the mothers’ lunches and all those games. Have you got that? There’s her address. And remind me to write personally. Now away we go again and—’

She stopped so suddenly that Miss Harris glanced up in surprise. Lady Carrados was staring at a letter which she held in her long white fingers. The fingers trembled slightly. Miss Harris with a sort of fascination looked at them and at the square envelope. There was a silence in the white room—a silence broken only by the hurried inconsequent ticking of a little china clock on the mantelpiece. With a sharp click the envelope fell on the heap of letters.

‘Excuse me, Lady Carrados,’ said Miss Harris, ‘but are you feeling unwell?’

‘What? No. No, thank you.’

She put the letter aside and picked up another. Soon Miss Harris’s pen was travelling busily over her pad. She made notes for the acceptance, refusal and issuing of invitations. She made lists of names with notes beside them and she entered into a long discussion about Lady Carrados’s ball.

‘I’m getting Dimitri—the Shepherd Market caterer, you know—to do the whole thing,’ explained Lady Carrados. ‘It seems to be the—’ she paused oddly ‘—safest way.’

‘Well, he is the best,’ agreed Miss Harris. ‘You were speaking of expense, Lady Carrados. Dimitri works out at about twenty-five shillings a head. But that’s everything. You do know where you are and he is good.’

‘Twenty-five? Four hundred, there’ll be, I think. How much is that?’

‘Five hundred pounds,’ said Miss Harris calmly.

‘Oh, dear, it is a lot, isn’t it? And then there’s the band. I do think we must have champagne at the buffet. It saves that endless procession to the supper-room which I always think is such a bore.’

‘Champagne at the buffet,’ said Miss Harris crisply. ‘That will mean thirty shillings a head, I’m afraid.’

‘Oh, how awful!’

‘That makes Dimitri’s bill six hundred. But, of course, as I say, Lady Carrados, that will be every penny you pay.’

Lady Carrados stared at her secretary without replying. For some reason Miss Harris felt as if she had made another faux pas. There was, she thought, such a very singular expression in her employer’s eyes.

‘I should think a thousand pounds would cover the whole of the expenses, band and everything,’ she added hurriedly.

‘Yes, I see,’ said Lady Carrados. ‘A thousand.’

There was a tap at the door and a voice called: ‘Donna!’

‘Come in, darling!’

A tall, dark girl carrying a pile of letters came into the room. Bridget was very like her mother but nobody would have thought of comparing her to the Sistine Madonna. She had inherited too much of Paddy O’Brien’s brilliance for that. There was a fine-drawn look about her mouth. Her eyes, set wide apart, were deep under strongly marked brows. She had the quality of repose but when she smiled all the corners of her face tipped up and then she looked more like her father than her mother. ‘Sensitive,’ thought Miss Harris, with a mild flash of illumination. ‘I hope she stands up to it all right. Nuisance when they get nerves.’ She returned Bridget’s punctilious ‘Good morning’ and watched her kiss her mother.

‘Darling Donna,’ said Bridget, ‘you are so sweet.’

‘Hullo, my darling,’ said Lady Carrados, ‘here we are plotting away for all we’re worth. Miss Harris and I have decided on the eighth for your dance. Uncle Arthur writes that we may have his house on that date. That’s General Marsdon, Miss Harris. I explained, didn’t I, that he is lending us Marsdon House in Belgrave Square? Or did I?’

‘Yes, thank you, Lady Carrados. I’ve got all that.’

‘Of course you have.’

‘It’s a mausoleum,’ said Bridget, ‘but it’ll do. I’ve got a letter from Sarah Alleyn, Donna. Her grandmother, your Lady Alleyn, you know, is taking a flat for the season. Donna, please, I want Sarah asked for everything. Does Miss Harris know?’

‘Yes, thank you, Miss Carrados. I beg pardon,’ said Miss Harris in some confusion, ‘I should have said, Miss O’Brien, shouldn’t I?’

‘Help, yes! Don’t fall into that trap whatever you do,’ cried Bridget. ‘Sorry, Donna darling, but really!’

‘Ssh!’ said Lady Carrados mildly. ‘Are those your letters?’

‘Yes. All the invitations. I’ve put a black mark against the ones I really do jib at and all the rest will just have to be sorted out. Oh, and I’ve put a big Y on the ones I want specially not to miss. And—’

The door opened again and the photograph on the dressing-table limped into the room.

Sir Herbert Carrados was just a little too good to be true. He was tall and soldierly and good-looking. He had thin sandy hair, a large guardsman’s moustache, heavy eyebrows and rather foolish light eyes. You did not notice they were foolish because his eyebrows gave them a spurious fierceness. He was not, however, a stupid man but only a rather vain and pompous one. It was his pride that he looked like a soldier and not like a successful financier. During the Great War he had held down a staff appointment of bewildering unimportance which had kept him in Tunbridge Wells for the duration and which had not hampered his sound and at times brilliant activities in the City. He limped a little and used a stick. Most people took it as a matter of course that he had been wounded in the leg, and so he had—by a careless gamekeeper. He attended military reunions with the greatest assiduity and was about to stand for Parliament.

Bridget called him Bart, which he rather liked, but he occasionally surprised a look of irony in her eyes and that he did not at all enjoy.

This morning he had The Times under his arm and an expression of forbearance on his face. He kissed his wife, greeted Miss Harris with precisely the correct shade of cordiality, and raised his eyebrows at his stepdaughter.

‘Good morning, Bridget. I thought you were still in bed.’

‘Good morning, Bart,’ said Bridget. ‘Why?’

‘You were not at breakfast. Don’t you think perhaps it would be more considerate to the servants if you breakfasted before you started making plans?’

‘I expect it would,’ agreed Bridget and went as far as the door.

‘What are your plans for today, darling?’ continued Sir Herbert, smiling at his wife.

‘Oh—everything. Bridget’s dance. Miss Harris and I are—are going into expense, Herbert.’

‘Ah, yes?’ murmured Sir Herbert. ‘I’m sure Miss Harris is a perfect dragon with figures. What’s the total, Miss Harris?’

‘For the ball, Sir Herbert?’ Miss Harris glanced at Lady Carrados who nodded a little nervously. ‘It’s about a thousand pounds.’

‘Good God!’ exclaimed Sir Herbert and let his eyeglass fall.

‘You see, darling,’ began his wife in a hurry, ‘it just won’t come down to less. Even with Arthur’s house. And if we have champagne at the buffet—’

‘I cannot see the smallest necessity for champagne at the buffet, Evelyn. If these young cubs can’t get enough to drink in the supper-room all I can say is, they drink a great deal too much. I must say,’ continued Sir Herbert with an air of discovery, ‘that I do not understand the mentality of modern youths. Gambling too much, drinking too much, no object in life—look at that young Potter.’

‘If you mean Donald Potter,’ said Bridget dangerously, ‘ I must—’

‘Bridgie!’ said her mother.

‘You’re wandering from the point, Bridget,’ said her step-father.

‘Me!’

‘My point is,’ said Sir Herbert with a martyred glance at his wife, ‘that the young people expect a great deal too much nowadays. Champagne at every table—’

‘It’s not that—’ began Bridget from the door.

‘It’s only that it saves—’ interrupted her mother.

‘However,’ continued Sir Herbert with an air of patient courtesy, ‘if you feel that you can afford to spend a thousand pounds on an evening, my dear—’

‘But it isn’t all Donna’s money,’ objected Bridget. ‘It’s half mine. Daddy left—’

‘Bridget, darling,’ said Lady Carrados, ‘breakfast.’

‘Sorry, Donna,’ said Bridget. ‘All right.’ She went out.

Miss Harris wondered if she too had better go, but nobody seemed to remember she was in the room and she did not quite like to remind them of her presence by making a move. Lady Carrados with an odd mixture of nervousness and determination was talking rapidly.

‘I know Paddy would have meant some of Bridgie’s money to be used for her coming out, Herbert. It isn’t as if—’

‘My dear,’ said Sir Herbert with an ineffable air of tactful reproach, and a glance at Miss Harris. ‘Of course. It’s entirely for you and Bridget to decide. Naturally. I wouldn’t dream of interfering. I’m just rather an old fool and like to give any help I can. Don’t pay any attention.’

Lady Carrados was saved the necessity of making any reply to this embarrassing speech by the entrance of the maid.

‘Lord Robert Gospell has called, m’lady, and wonders if—’

‘’Morning, Evelyn,’ said an extraordinarily high-pitched voice outside the door. ‘I’ve come up. Do let me in.’

‘Bunchy!’ cried Lady Carrados in delight. ‘How lovely! Come in!’

And Lord Robert Gospell, panting a little under the burden of an enormous bunch of daffodils, toddled into the room.

III

On the same day that Lord Robert Gospell called on Lady Carrados, Lady Carrados herself called on Sir Daniel Davidson in his consulting-rooms in Harley Street. She talked to him for a long time and at the end of half an hour sat staring rather desperately across the desk into his large black eyes.

‘I’m frightfully anxious, naturally, that Bridgie shouldn’t get the idea that there’s anything the matter with me,’ she said.

‘There is nothing specifically wrong with you,’ said Davidson, spreading out his long hands. ‘Nothing, I mean, in the sense of your heart being overworked or your lungs at all unsound or any nonsense of that sort. I don’t think you are anaemic. The blood test will clear all that up. But’—and he leant forward and pointed a finger at her—‘ but you are very tired. You’re altogether too tired. If I was an honest physician I’d tell you to go into a nursing-home and lead the life of a placid cow for three weeks.’

‘I can’t do that.’

‘Can’t your daughter come out next year? What about the little season?’

‘Oh, no, it’s impossible. Really. My uncle has lent us his house for the dance. She’s planned everything. It would be almost as much trouble to put things off as it is to go on with them. I’ll be all right, only I do rather feel as if I’ve got a jellyfish instead of a brain. A wobbly jellyfish. I get these curious giddy attacks. And I simply can’t stop bothering about things.’

‘I know. What about this ball? I suppose you’re hard at it over that?’

‘I’m handing it all over to my secretary and Dimitri. I hope you’re coming. You’ll get a card.’

‘I shall be delighted, but I wish you’d give it up.’

‘Truly I can’t.’

‘Have you got any particular worry?’

There was a long pause.

‘Yes,’ said Evelyn Carrados, ‘but I can’t tell you about that.’

‘Ah, well,’ said Sir Daniel, shrugging his shoulders. ‘Les maladies suspendent nos vertus et nos vices.’

She rose and he at once leapt to his feet as if she was royalty.

‘You will get that prescription made up at once,’ he said, glaring down at her. ‘And, if you please, I should like to see you again. I suppose I had better not call?’

‘No, please. I’ll come here.’

‘C’est entendu,’

Lady Carrados left him, wishing vaguely that he was a little less florid and longing devoutly for her bed.

IV

Agatha Troy hunched up her shoulders, pulled her smart new cap over one eye and walked into her one-man show at the Wiltshire Galleries in Bond Street. It always embarrassed her intensely to put in these duty appearances at her own exhibitions. People felt they had to say something to her about her pictures and they never knew what to say and she never knew how to reply. She became gruff with shyness and her incoherence was mistaken for intellectual snobbishness. Like most painters she was singularly inarticulate on the subject of her work. The careful phrases of literary appreciation showered upon her by highbrow critics threw Troy into an agony of embarrassment. She minded less the bland commonplaces of the philistines though for these also she had great difficulty in finding suitable replies.

She slipped in at the door, winked at the young man who sat at the reception desk and shied away as a large American woman bore down upon him with a white-gloved finger, firmly planted on a price in her catalogue.

Troy hurriedly looked away and in a corner of the crowded room, sitting on a chair that was not big enough for him, she saw a smallish round gentleman whose head was aslant, his eyes closed and his mouth peacefully open. Troy made for him.

‘Bunchy!’ she said.

Lord Robert Gospell opened his eyes very wide and moved his lips like a rabbit.

‘Hullo!’ he said. ‘What a scrimmage, ain’t it? Pretty good.’

‘You were asleep.’

‘May have been having a nap.’

‘That’s a pretty compliment,’ said Troy without rancour.

‘I had a good prowl first. Just thought I’d pop in,’ explained Lord Robert. ‘Enjoyed myself.’ He balanced his glasses across his nose, flung his head back and with an air of placid approval contemplated a large landscape. Without any of her usual embarrassment Troy looked with him.

‘Pretty good,’ repeated Bunchy. ‘Ain’t it?’

He had an odd trick of using Victorian colloquialisms; legacies, he would explain, from his distinguished father. ‘Lor’!’ was his favourite ejaculation. He kept up little Victorian politenesses, always leaving cards after a ball and often sending flowers to the hostesses who dined him. His clothes were famous—a rather high, close-buttoned jacket and narrowish trousers by day, a soft wide hat and a cloak in the evening. Troy turned from her picture to her companion. He twinkled through his glasses and pointed a fat finger at the landscape.

‘Nice and clean,’ he said. ‘I like ‘em clean. Come and have tea.’

‘I’ve only just arrived,’ said Troy, ‘but I’d love to.’

‘I’ve got the Potters,’ said Bunchy. ‘My sister and her boy. Wait a bit. I’ll fetch ‘em.’

‘Mildred and Donald?’ asked Troy.

‘Mildred and Donald. They live with me, you know, since poor Potter died. Donald’s just been sent down for some gambling scrape or other. Nice young scamp. No harm in him. Only don’t mention Oxford.’

‘I’ll remember.’

‘He’ll probably save you the trouble by talking about it himself. I like having young people about. Gay. Keeps one up to scratch. Can you see ’em anywhere? Mildred’s wearing a puce toque.’

‘Not a toque, Bunchy,’ said Troy. ‘There she is. It’s a very smart purple beret. She’s seen us. She’s coming.’

Lord Robert’s widowed sister came billowing through the crowd followed by her extremely good-looking son. She greeted Troy breathlessly but affectionately. Donald bowed, grinned and said: ‘We have been enjoying ourselves. Frightfully good!’

‘Fat lot you know about it,’ said Troy good-humouredly. ‘Mildred, Bunchy suggests tea.’

‘I must say I should be glad of it,’ said Lady Mildred Potter. ‘Looking at pictures is the most exhausting pastime, even when they are your pictures, dear.’

‘There’s a restaurant down below,’ squeaked Lord Robert. ‘Follow me.’

They worked their way through the crowd and downstairs. Donald who was separated from them by several strangers, shouted: ‘I say, Troy, did you hear I was sent down?’ This had the effect of drawing everyone’s attention first to himself and then to Troy.

‘Yes, I did,’ said Troy severely.

‘Wasn’t it awful?’ continued Donald, coming alongside and speaking more quietly. ‘Uncle Bunch is furious and says I’m no longer The Heir. It’s not true, of course. He’s leaving me a princely fortune, aren’t you, Uncle Bunch, my dear?’

‘Here we are,’ said Lord Robert thankfully as they reached the door of the restaurant. ‘Will you all sit down. I’m afraid I must be rather quick.’ He pulled out his watch and blinked at it. ‘I’ve an appointment in twenty minutes.’

‘Where?’ said Troy. ‘I’ll drive you.’

‘Matter of fact,’ said Lord Robert, ‘it’s at Scotland Yard. Meeting an old friend of mine called Alleyn.’

CHAPTER 2 Bunchy

‘Lord Robert Gospell to see you, Mr Alleyn,’ said a voice in Alleyn’s desk telephone.

‘Bring him up, please,’ said Alleyn.

He pulled a file out of the top drawer and laid it open before him. Then he rang through to his particular Assistant Commissioner.

‘Lord Robert has just arrived, sir. You asked me to let you know.’

‘All right, Rory, I’ll leave him to you, on second thoughts. Fox is here with the report on the Temple case and it’s urgent. Make my apologies. Say I’ll call on him any time that suits him if he thinks it would be any good. You know him, don’t you? Personally, I mean?’

‘Yes. He’s asked for me.’

‘That’s all right, then. Bring him along here if it’s advisable, of course, but I’m snowed under.’

‘Very good, sir,’ said Alleyn. A police sergeant tapped, and opened the door. ‘Lord Robert Gospell, sir.’

Lord Robert entered twinkling and a little breathless.

‘Hullo, Roderick. How-de-do,’ he said.

‘Hullo, Bunchy. This is extraordinarily good of you.’

‘Not a bit. Like to keep in touch. Enjoy having a finger in the pie, you know. Always did.’ He sat down and clasped his little hands over his stomach. ‘How’s your mother?’ he asked.

‘She’s very well. She knows we are meeting today and sent you her love.’

‘Thank yer. Delightful woman, your mother. Afraid I’m a bit late. Took tea with another delightful woman.’

‘Did you indeed?’

‘Yes. Agatha Troy. Know her?’

There was a short silence.

‘Yes,’ said Alleyn.

‘Lor’, yes. Of course you do. Didn’t you look after that case where her model was knifed?’

‘Yes, I did.’

‘Charming,’ said Lord Robert. ‘Ain’t she?’

‘Yes,’ said Alleyn, ‘she is.’

‘I like her awfully. M’sister Mildred and her boy Donald and I had been to Troy’s show. You know m’sister Mildred, don’t you?’

‘Yes,’ said Alleyn, smiling.

‘Yes. No end of a donkey in many ways but a good woman. The boy’s a young dog.’

‘Bunchy,’ said Alleyn, ‘you’re better than Victorian, you’re Regency.’

‘Think so? Tell you what, Roderick, I’ve got to come out of my shell and do the season a bit.’

‘You always do the season, don’t you?’

‘I get about a bit. Enjoy myself. Young Donald’s paying his addresses to a gel called Bridget O’Brien. Know her?’

‘That’s funny,’ said Alleyn. ‘My mama is bringing out brother George’s girl and it appears she’s the bosom friend of Bridget O’Brien. She’s Evelyn and Paddy O’Brien’s daughter, you know.’

‘I know. Called on Evelyn this morning. She married that ass Carrados. Pompous. Clever in the City, I’m told. I had a look at the gel. Nice gel, but there’s something wrong somewhere in that family. Carrados, I suppose. D’you like the gel?’

‘I don’t know her. My niece Sarah likes her.’

‘Look here,’ said Lord Robert, spreading out his hands and staring at them in mild surprise. ‘Look here. Dine with us for Lady C’s dance. Will you? Do.’

‘My dear Bunchy, I’m not asked.’

‘Isn’t your niece goin’?’

‘Yes, I expect she is.’

‘Get you a card. Easy as winking. Do come. Troy’s dining too. Donald and I persuaded her.’

‘Troy,’ said Alleyn. ‘Troy.’

Lord Robert looked sharply at him for about two seconds.

‘Never mind if you’d rather not,’ he said.

‘I can’t tell you how much I should like to come,’ said Alleyn slowly, ‘but you see I’m afraid I might remind Miss Troy of—of that very unpleasant case.’

‘Oh. ‘m. Well, leave it open. Think it over. You’re sure to get a card. Now—what about business?’

He made a funny eager grimace, pursed his lips, and with a deft movement of his hand slung his glasses over his nose. ‘What’s up?’ he asked.

‘We rather think blackmail,’ said Alleyn.

‘Lor’,’ said Lord Robert. ‘Where?’

‘Here, there and everywhere in high society.’

‘How d’yer know?’

‘Well.’ Alleyn laid a thin hand on the file. ‘This is rather more than usually confidential, Bunchy.’

‘Yes, yes, yes. All right. I’ll be as silent,’ said Lord Robert, ‘as the grave. Mum’s the word. Let’s have the names and all the rest of it. None of your Mr and Mrs Xes.’

‘All right. You know Mrs Halcut-Hackett? Old General Halcut-Hackett’s wife?’

‘Yes. American actress. Twenty years younger than H-H. Gorgeous creature.’

‘That’s the one. She came to us last week with a story of blackmail. Here it is in this file. I’ll tell you briefly what she said, but I’m afraid you’ll have to put up with one Madame X.’

‘Phoo!’ said Lord Robert.

‘She told us that a very great woman-friend of hers had confided in her that she was being blackmailed. Mrs H-H wouldn’t give this lady’s name so there’s your Mrs X.’

‘Um,’ said Lord Robert doubtfully. ‘Otherwise Mrs ‘Arris?’

‘Possibly,’ said Alleyn, ‘but that’s the story and I give it to you as Mrs H-H gave it to me. Mrs X, who has an important and imperious husband, received a blackmailing letter on the first of this month. It was written on Woolworth paper. The writer said he or she had possession of an extremely compromising letter written to Mrs X by a man-friend. The writer was willing to sell it for £500. Mrs X’s account is gone into very thoroughly every month by her husband and she was afraid to stump up. In her distress (so the story went) she flew to Mrs Halcut-Hackett who couldn’t provide £500 but persuaded Mrs X to let her come to us with the whole affair. She gave us the letter. Here it is.’

Alleyn laid the file on Lord Robert’s plump little knees. Lord Robert touched his glasses and stared for quite thirty seconds at the first page in the file. He opened his mouth, shut it again, darted a glance at Alleyn, touched his glasses again and finally read under his breath:

‘ “If you would care to buy a letter dated April 20th, written from the Bucks Club addressed to Darling Dodo and signed M., you may do so by leaving £500 in notes of small denomination in your purse behind the picture of the Dutch funeral above the fireplace in the ballroom of Comstock House on the evening of next Monday fortnight.” ’

Lord Robert looked up.

‘That was the night the Comstocks ran their charity bridge-party,’ he said. ‘Big show. Thirty tables. Let’s see, it was last Monday.’

‘It was. On the strength of this letter we saw the Comstocks, told them a fairy-story and asked them to let us send in a man dressed as a waiter. We asked Mrs H-H to get her distressed friend to put the purse full of notes, which we dusted with the usual powder, behind the Dutch funeral. Mrs H-H said she would save her friend much agony and humiliation by doing this office for her.’ Alleyn raised one eyebrow and bestowed a very slow wink upon Lord Robert.

‘Poor thing,’ said Lord Robert.

‘Did she suppose she’d taken you in?’

‘I don’t know. I kept up a polite pretence. Our man, who I may say is a good man, attended the party, saw Mrs H-H tuck away the bag, and waited to see what would happen.’

‘What did happen?’

‘Nothing. Our man was there all night and saw a maid discover the bag next morning, put it unopened on the mantelpiece and call Mrs Comstock’s attention to it. Mrs Comstock, in the presence of our man and the maid, opened it, saw the paper, was surprised, could find nothing to indicate the owner and told the maid to put it aside in case it was asked for.’

‘And what,’ asked Lord Robert, suddenly hugging himself with his short arms, ‘what do you deduce from that, my dear Roderick?’

‘They rumbled our man.’

‘Is it one of the Comstocks’ servants?’

‘The whole show was done by Dimitri, the Shepherd Market caterer. You know who I mean, of course. He does most of the big parties nowadays. Supplies service, food and everything.’

‘One of Dimitri’s men?’

‘We’ve made extremely careful enquiries. They’ve all got splendid references. I’ve actually spoken to Dimitri himself. I told him that there had been one or two thefts lately at large functions and we were bound to make enquiries. He got in no end of a tig, of course, and showed me a mass of references for all his people. We followed them up. They’re genuine enough. He employs the best that can be found in the world. There’s a strict rule that all objects left lying about at these shows should be brought at once to him. He then, himself, looks to see if he can find the owner and in the case of a lost purse or bag returns it in person or else, having seen the contents, sends it by one of his men. He explained that he did this to protect both his men and himself. He always asks the owner to examine a bag the moment it is handed to her.’

‘Still—’

‘I know it’s by no means watertight but we’ve taken a lot of trouble over the Dimitri staff and in my opinion there’s not a likely man among ‘em.’

‘Dimitri himself?’

Alleyn grimaced.

‘Wonders will never cease, my dear Bunchy, but—’

‘Yes, yes, of course, I quite see. He’s a bit too damn grand for those capers, you’d imagine. Anything else?’

‘We’ve been troubled by rumours of blackmail from other sources. You can see the file if you like. Briefly they all point to someone who works in the way suggested by Mrs Halcut-Hackett alias Mrs X. There’s one anonymous letter sent to the Yard, presumably by a victim. It simply says that a blackmailer is at work among society people. Nothing more. We haven’t been able to trace it. Then young Kremorn shot himself the other day and we found out that he had been drawing very large sums in bank-notes for no known reason. His servant said he’d suspected blackmail for some time.’ Alleyn rubbed his nose. ‘It’s the devil. And of all the filthy crimes this to my mind is the filthiest. I don’t mind telling you we’re in a great tig over it.’

‘Bad!’ said Lord Robert, opening his eyes very wide. ‘Disgusting! Where do I come in?’

‘Everywhere, if you will. You’ve helped us before and we’ll be damn glad if you help us again. You go everywhere, Bunchy,’ said Alleyn with a smile at his little friend. ‘You toddle in and out of all the smart houses. Lovely ladies confide in you. Heavy colonels weep on your bosom. See what you can see.’

‘Can’t break confidences, you know, can I! Supposing I get ‘em.’

‘Of course you can’t, but you can do a little quiet investigation on your own account and tell us as much as—’ Alleyn paused and added quickly: ‘As much as a man of integrity may. Will you?’

‘Love to!’ said Lord Robert with a great deal of energy. ‘Matter of fact, but it’d be a rum go if it was—coincidence.’

‘What?’

‘Well. Well, see here, Roderick, this is between ourselves. Thing is, as I told you, I called on Evelyn Carrados this morning. Passing that way and saw a feller selling daffodils so thought I’d take her some. Damn pretty woman, Evelyn, but—’ He screwed up his face. ‘Saddish. Never got over Paddy’s death, if you ask me. Devoted to the gel and the gel to her, but if you ask me Carrados comes the high horse a bit. Great pompous exacting touchy sort of feller, ain’t he? Evelyn was in bed. Snowed under with letters. Secretary. Carrados on the hearth-rug looking injured. Bridget came in later on. Well now. Carrados said he’d be off to the City. Came over to the bed and gave her the sort of kiss a woman doesn’t thank you for. Hand each side of her. Right hand under the pillow.’

Lord Robert’s voice suddenly skipped an octave and became high-pitched. He leant forward with his hands on his knees, looking very earnestly at Alleyn. He moved his lips rather in the manner of a rabbit and then said explosively:

‘It was singular. It was damned odd. He must have touched a letter under her pillow because when he straightened up it was in his right hand—a common-looking envelope addressed in a sort of script—letters like they print ‘em only done by hand.’

Alleyn glanced quickly at the file but said nothing.

‘Carrados said: “Oh, one of your letters, m’dear,” squinting at it through his glass and then putting it down on the counterpane. “Beg pardon,” or something. Thing is, she turned as white as the sheet. I promise you as white as anything, on my honour. And she said: “It’s from one of my lame ducks. I must deal with it,” and slid it under the others. Off he went, and that was that. I talked about their ball and so on and paid my respects and pretended I’d noticed nothing, of course, and, in short, I came away.’

Still Alleyn did not speak. Suddenly Lord Robert jabbed at the letter in the file with his fat finger.

‘Thing is,’ he said most emphatically. ‘Same sort of script.’

‘Exactly the same? I mean, would you swear to the same writer?’

‘No, no! ‘Course not. Only got a glimpse of the other, but I rather fancy myself on handwriting, you know.’

‘We rather fancy you, too.’

‘It was very similar,’ said Lord Robert. ‘It was exceedingly similar. On my honour.’

‘Good Lord,’ said Alleyn mildly. ‘That’s what the Americans call a break. Coincidence stretches out a long arm. So does the law. “Shake,” says Coincidence. Not such a very long arm, after all, if this pretty fellow is working among one class only and it looks as if he is.’ He shoved a box of cigarettes in Lord Robert’s direction. ‘We had an expert at that letter—the Mrs H-H one you’ve got there. Woolworth paper. She didn’t show us the envelope, of course. Woolworth ink and the sort of nib they use for script writing. It’s square with a feeder. You notice the letters are all neatly fitted between the ruled lines. That and the script nib and the fact that the letters are careful copies of ordinary print completely knocks out any sort of individuality. There were no finger-prints and Mrs Halcut-Hackett hadn’t noticed the postmark. Come in!’

A police constable marched in with a packet of letters, laid them on the desk and marched out again.

‘Half a moment while I have a look at my mail, Bunchy; there may just be—yes, by gum, there is!’

He opened an envelope, glanced at a short note, unfolded an enclosure, raised his eyebrows and handed it to Lord Robert.

‘Wheeoo!’ whistled Lord Robert.

It was a sheet of common ruled paper. Three or four rows of script were fitted neatly between the lines. Lord Robert read aloud:

‘ “Unforeseen circumstances prevented collection on Monday night. Please leave bag with same sum down between seat and left-hand arm of blue sofa in concert-room, 57 Constance Street, next Thursday afternoon.” ’

‘Mrs Halcut-Hackett,’ said Alleyn, holding out the note, ‘explains that her unfortunate friend received this letter by yesterday evening’s post. What’s happening on Thursday at 57 Constance Street? Do you know?’

‘Those new concert-rooms. Very smart. It’s another charity show. Tickets on sale everywhere. Three guineas each. Chamber music. Bach. Sirmione Quartette. I’m going.’

‘Bunchy,’ said Alleyn, ‘let nothing wean you from the blue sofa. Talk to Mrs Halcut-Hackett. Share the blue sofa with her and when the austere delights of Bach knock at your heart pay no attention but with the very comment of your soul—’

‘Yes, yes, yes. Don’t quote now, Roderick, or somebody may think you’re a detective.’

‘Blast you!’ said Alleyn.

Lord Robert gave a little crowing laugh and rose from his chair.

‘I’m off,’ he said. Alleyn walked with him into the corridor. They shook hands. Alleyn stood looking after him as he walked away with small steps, a quaint out-of-date figure, black against a window at the end of the long passage. The figure grew smaller and smaller, paused for a second at the end of the passage, turned the corner and was gone.

CHAPTER 3 Sequence to a Cocktail-party

A few days after his visit to the Yard, Lord Robert Gospell attended a cocktail-party given by Mrs Halcut-Hackett for her plain protégée. Who this plain protégée was, nobody seemed to know, but it was generally supposed that Mrs Halcut-Hackett’s object in bringing her out was not entirely philanthropic. At the moment nobody ever remembered the girl’s name but merely recognized her as a kind of coda to Mrs Halcut-Hackett’s social activities.

This was one of the first large cocktail-parties of the season and there were as many as two hundred and fifty guests there. Lord Robert adored parties of all kinds and was, as Alleyn had pointed out, asked everywhere. He knew intimately that section of people to whom the London season is a sort of colossal hurdle to be taken in an exhilarating leap or floundered over as well as may be. He was in tremendous demand as a chaperone’s partner, could be depended on to help with those unfortunate children of seventeen who, in spite of all the efforts of finishing schools, dressmakers, hairdressers, face-specialists and their unflagging mothers, were apt to be seen standing alone nervously smiling on the outskirts of groups. With these unhappy débutantes Lord Robert took infinite trouble. He would tell them harmless little stories and when they laughed would respond as if they themselves had said something amusing. His sharp little eyes would search about for younger men than himself and he would draw them into a group round himself and the girl. Because of his reputation as a gentle wit, the wariest and most conceited young men were always glad to be seen talking to Lord Robert, and soon the débutante would find herself the only girl in a group of men who seemed to be enjoying themselves. Her nervous smile would vanish and a delicious feeling of confidence would inspire her. And when Lord Robert saw her eyes grow bright and her hands relax, he would slip away and join the cluster of chaperones where he told stories a little less harmless and equally diverting.

But in the plain protégée of General and Mrs Halcut-Hackett he met his Waterloo. She was not so very plain but only rather disastrously uneventful. Every inch of this unhappy child had been prepared for the cocktail-party with passionate care and at great expense by her chaperone—one of those important American women with lovely faces and cast-iron figures. Lord Robert was greeted by Mrs Halcut-Hackett, who looked a little older than usual, and by her husband the General, a notable fire-eater who bawled ‘What!’ two or three times and burst into loud surprising laughter which was his method of circulating massed gaiety. Lord Robert twinkled at him and passed on into the thick of the party. A servant whom he recognized as the Halcut-Hacketts’ butler gave him a drink. ‘Then they’re not having Dimitri or anybody like that,’ thought Lord Robert. He looked about him. On the right-hand side of the enormous room were collected the débutantes, and the young men who, in the last analysis, could make the antics of the best dance-bands in London, all the efforts of all the Dimitris, Miss Harrises, and Mrs Halcut-Hacketts to the tune of a thousand pounds, look like a single impotent gesture. Among them were the young men who were spoken of, in varying degrees of irony, as ‘The Debs’ Delight.’ Lord Robert half suspected his nephew Donald of being a Debs’ Delight. There he was in the middle of it all with Bridget O’Brien, making himself agreeable. Very popular, evidently. ‘He’ll have to settle down,’ thought Lord Robert. ‘He’s altogether too irresponsible and he’s beginning to look dissipated. Don’t like it.’

Then he saw the plain protégée of Mrs Halcut-Hackett. She had just met a trio of incoming débutantes and had taken them to their right side of the room. He saw how they all spoke politely and pleasantly to her but without any air of intimacy. He saw her linger a moment while they were drawn into the whirlpool of high-pitched conversation. Then she turned away and stood looking towards the door where her chaperone dealt faithfully with the arrivals. She seemed utterly lost. Lord Robert crossed the room and greeted her with his old-fashioned bow.

‘How-de-do. This is a good party,’ he said, with a beaming smile.

‘Oh! Oh—I’m so glad.’

‘I’m an old hand, y’know,’ continued Lord Robert, ‘and I always judge a cocktail-party by the time that elapses between one’s paying one’s respects and getting a drink. Now this evening I was given this excellent drink within two minutes of shaking hands with the General. Being a thirsty, greedy old customer, I said to myself: “Good party.” ’

‘I’m so glad,’ repeated the child.

She was staring, he noticed, at her chaperone, and he saw that Mrs Halcut-Hackett was talking to a tall smooth man with a heavy face, lack-lustre eyes and a proprietary manner. Lord Robert looked fixedly at this individual.

‘Do tell me,’ he said, ‘who is that man with our hostess?’

The girl started violently and without taking her gaze off Mrs Halcut-Hackett, said woodenly: ‘It’s Captain Withers.’

‘Ah,’ thought Lord Robert, ‘I fancied it was.’ Aloud he said: ‘Withers? Then it’s not the same feller. I rather thought I knew him.’

‘Oh,’ said the protégée. She had turned her head slightly and he saw that she now looked at the General. ‘Like a frightened rabbit,’ thought Lord Robert. ‘For all the world like a frightened rabbit.’ The General had borne down upon his wife and Captain Withers. Lord Robert now witnessed a curious little scene. General Halcut-Hackett glared for three seconds at Captain Withers who smiled, bowed, and moved away. The General then spoke to his wife and immediately, for a fraction of a second, the terror—Lord Robert decided that terror was not too strong a word—that shone in the protégée’s eyes was reflected in the chaperone’s. Only for a second, and then with her husband she turned to greet a new arrival who Lord Robert saw with pleasure was Lady Alleyn. She was followed by a thin girl with copper-coloured hair and slanting eyebrows that at once reminded him of his friend Roderick. ‘Must be the niece,’ he decided. The girl at his side suddenly murmured an excuse and hurried away to greet Sarah Alleyn. Lord Robert finished his drink and was given another. In a few minutes he was surrounded by acquaintances and was embarked upon one of his new stories. He made his point very neatly, drifted away on the wave of laughter that greeted it, and found Lady Alleyn.

‘My dear Bunchy,’ she said, ‘you are the very person I hoped to see. Come and gossip with me. I feel like a phoenix.’

‘You look like a princess,’ he said. ‘Why do we meet so seldom? Where shall we go?’

‘If there is a corner reserved for grandmothers I ought to be in it. Good heavens, how everybody screams. How old are you, Bunchy?’

‘Fifty-five, m’dear.’

‘I’m sixty-five. Do you find people very noisy nowadays or are you still too much of a chicken?’

‘I enjoy parties, awfully, but I agree that there ain’t much repose in modern intercourse.’

‘That’s it,’ said Lady Alleyn, settling herself in a chair. ‘No repose. All the same I like the moderns, especially the fledgelings. As Roderick says, they finish their thoughts. We only did that in the privacy of our bedrooms and very often asked forgiveness of our Creator for doing it. What do you think of Sarah?’

‘She looks a darling,’ said Lord Robert emphatically.

‘She’s a pleasant creature. Amazingly casual but she’s got character and, I think, looks,’ said her grandmother. ‘Who are those young things she’s talking to?’

‘Bridget O’Brien and my young scapegrace of a nephew.’

‘So that’s Evelyn Carrados’s girl. She’s like Paddy, isn’t she?’

‘She’s very like both of ‘em. Have you seen Evelyn lately?’

‘We dined there last night for the play. What’s the matter with Evelyn?’

‘Eh?’ exclaimed Lord Robert. ‘You’ve spotted it, have you? You’re a wise woman, m’dear.’

‘She’s all over the place. Does Carrados bully her?’

‘Bully ain’t quite the word. He’s devilish grand and patient, though. But—’

‘But there’s something more. What was the reason for your meeting with Roderick the other day?’

‘Hi!’ expostulated Lord Robert in a hurry. ‘What are you up to?’

‘I shouldn’t let you tell me if you tried. I trust,’ said Lady Alleyn untruthfully but with great dignity, ‘that I am not a curious woman.’

‘That’s pretty rich.’

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Lady Alleyn grandly. ‘But I tell you what, Bunchy. I’ve got neurotic women on the brain. Nervous women. Women that are on their guard. It’s a most extraordinary thing,’ she continued, rubbing her nose with a gesture that reminded Lord Robert of her son, ‘but there’s precisely the same look in our hostess’s mascaraed eyes as Evelyn Carrados had in her naturally beautiful ones. Or has this extraordinary drink gone to my head?’

‘The drink,’ said Lord Robert firmly, ‘has gone to your head.’

‘Dear Bunchy,’ murmured Lady Alleyn. Their eyes met and they exchanged smiles. The cocktail-party surged politely about them. The noise, the smoke, the festive smell of flowers and alcohol, seemed to increase every moment. Wandering parents eddied round Lady Alleyn’s chair. Lord Robert remained beside her listening with pleasure to her cool light voice and looking out of the corner of his eye at Mrs Halcut-Hackett. Apparently all the guests had arrived. She was moving into the room. This was his chance. He turned round and suddenly found himself face to face with Captain Withers. For a moment they stood and looked at each other. Withers was a tall man and Lord Robert was obliged to tilt his head back a little. Withers was a fine arrogant figure, Lord Robert a plump and comical one. But oddly enough it was Lord Robert who seemed the more dominant and more dignified of these two men and before his mild glare the other suddenly looked furtive. His coarse, handsome face became quite white. Some seconds elapsed before he spoke.

‘Oh—ah—how do you do?’ said Captain Withers very heartily.

‘Good evening,’ said Lord Robert and turned back to Lady Alleyn. Captain Withers walked quickly away.

‘Why, Bunchy,’ said Lady Alleyn softly, ‘I’ve never seen you snub anybody before.’

‘D’you know who that was?’

‘No.’

‘Feller called Maurice Withers. He’s a throw-back to my Foreign Office days.’

‘He’s frightened of you.’

‘I hope so,’ said Lord Robert. ‘I’ll trot along and pay my respects to my hostess. It’s been charming seeing you. Will you dine with me one evening? Bring Roderick. Can you give me an evening? Now?’

‘I’m so busy with Sarah. May we ring you up? If it can be managed—’

‘It must be. Au ‘voir, m’dear.’

‘Good-bye, Bunchy.’

He made his little bow and picked his way through the crowd to Mrs Halcut-Hackett.

‘I’m on my way out,’ he said, ‘but I hoped to get a word with you. Perfectly splendid party.’

She turned all the headlights of her social manner full on him. It was, he decided compassionately, a bogus manner. An imitation, but what a good imitation. She called him ‘dear Lord Robert’ like a grande dame in a slightly dated comedy. Her American voice, which he remembered thinking charming in her theatrical days, was now much disciplined and none the better for it. She asked him if he was doing the season very thoroughly and he replied with his usual twinkle that he got about a bit.

‘Are you going to the show at the Constance Street Rooms on Thursday afternoon?’ he asked. ‘I’m looking forward to that awfully.’

Her eyes went blank but she scarcely paused before answering yes, she believed she was.

‘It’s the Sirmione Quartette,’ said Lord Robert. ‘Awfully good, ain’t they? Real top-notchers.’

Mrs Halcut-Hackett said she adored music, especially classical music.

‘Well,’ said Lord Robert, ‘I’ll give myself the pleasure of looking out for you there if it wouldn’t bore you. Not so many people nowadays enjoy Bach.’

Mrs Halcut-Hackett said she thought Bach was marvellous.

‘Do tell me,’ said Lord Robert with his engaging air of enjoying a gossip. ‘I’ve just run into a feller whose face looked as familiar as anything, but I can’t place him. Feller over there talking to the girl in red.’

He saw patches of rouge on her cheeks suddenly start up in hard isolation and he thought: ‘That’s shaken her, poor thing.’

She said: ‘Do you mean Captain Maurice Withers?’

‘Maybe. The name don’t strike a chord, though. I’ve got a shocking memory. Better be getting along. May I look out for you on Thursday? Thank you so much. Good-bye.’

‘Good-bye, dear Lord Robert,’ said Mrs Halcut-Hackett.

He edged his way out and was waiting patiently for his hat and umbrella when someone at his elbow said:

‘Hullo, Uncle Bunch, are you going home?’

Lord Robert turned slowly and saw his nephew.

‘What? Oh, it’s you, Donald! Yes, I am! Taking a cab. Want a lift?’

‘Yes, please,’ said Donald.

Lord Robert looked over his glasses at his nephew and remarked that he seemed rather agitated. He thought: ‘What the deuce is the matter with everybody?’ but he only said: ‘Come along, then,’ and together they went out into the street. Lord Robert held up his umbrella and a taxi drew in to the kerb.

‘’Evening, m’lord,’ said the driver.

‘Oh, it’s you, is it?’ said Lord Robert. ‘’Evening. We’re going home.’

‘Two hundred Cheyne Walk. Very good, m’lord,’ wheezed the driver. He was a goggle-eyed, grey-haired, mottle-faced taximan with an air of good-humoured truculence about him. He slammed the door on them, jerked down the lever of his meter, and started up his engine.

‘Everybody knows you, Uncle Bunch,’ said Donald in a voice that was not quite natural. ‘Even the casual taxi-driver.’

‘This feller cruises about in our part of the world,’ said Lord Robert. He twisted himself round in his seat and again looked at his nephew over the top of his glasses. ‘What’s up?’ he asked.

‘I—well—nothing. I mean, why do you think anything’s up?’

‘Now then,’ said Lord Robert. ‘No jiggery-pokery. What’s up?’

‘Well, as a matter of fact,’ answered Donald, kicking the turned-up seat in front of him, ‘I did rather want a word with you. I—I’m in a bit of a tight corner, Uncle Bunch.’

‘Money?’ asked his uncle.

‘How did you guess?’

‘Don’t be an ass, my boy. What is it?’

‘I—well, I was wondering if you would mind—I mean, I know I’ve been a bit extravagant. I’m damn sorry it’s happened. I suppose I’ve been a fool but I’m simply draped in sackcloth and steeped in ashes. Never again!’

‘Come, come, come,’ said Lord Robert crisply. ‘What is it? Gambling?’

‘Well—yes. With a slight hint of riotous living. Gambling mostly.’

‘Racing? Cards?’

‘A bit, but actually I dropped the worst packet at roulette.’

‘Good Gad!’ exclaimed Lord Robert with surprising violence. ‘Where the devil do you play roulette?’

‘Well, actually it was at a house out at Leatherhead. It belongs to a man who was at that party. Some people I know took me there. It turned out to be a rather enterprising sort of gamble with a roulette-table and six fellows doing croupier. All in order, you know. I mean it’s not run for anything but fun naturally, and Captain Withers simply takes on the bank—’

‘Who?’

‘The person’s name is Withers.’

‘When was this party?’

‘Oh, a week or so ago. They have them fairly regularly. I paid all right, but—but it just about cleaned me up. I had the most amazing bad luck, actually. Would you believe it, there was a run of seventeen against me on the even chances? Bad. Very bad,’ said Donald with an unconvincing return to his lighter manner. ‘Disastrous, in fact.’

‘You’re shying about,’ said Lord Robert. ‘What’s the real trouble?’

‘One of my cheques has been returned R/D. I’m bust.’

‘I paid your Oxford debts and started you off with five hundred as a yearly allowance. Are you telling me you’ve gone through five hundred since you came down?’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Donald. ‘Yes.’

‘Your mother gives you four pounds a week, don’t she?’

‘Yes.’

Lord Robert suddenly whisked out a notebook.

‘How much was this returned cheque?’

‘Fifty quid. Awful, isn’t it?’ He glanced at his uncle’s profile and saw that his lips were pursed in a soundless whistle. Donald decided that it was not as bad as he had feared and said more hopefully: ‘Isn’t it a bore?’

Lord Robert, his pencil poised, said: ‘Who was it made out to?’

‘To Wits—Withers—everyone calls him Wits. You see, I had a side bet with him.’

Lord Robert wrote, turned, and looked over his spectacles at his nephew.

‘I’ll send Withers a cheque tonight,’ he said.

‘Thank you so much, Uncle Bunch.’

‘What’s the address?’

‘Shackleton House, Leatherhead. He’s got a flat in town but the Leatherhead address is all right.’

‘Any other debts?’

‘One or two shops. They seem to be getting rather testy about it. And a restaurant or two.’

‘Here we are,’ said Lord Robert abruptly.

The taxi drew up outside the house he shared with his sister. They got out. Lord Robert paid and tipped the driver.

‘How’s the lumbago?’ he asked.

‘Not too bad, m’lord, thank you, m’lord.’

‘Good. ‘Evening to you.’

‘Good evening, m’lord.’

They entered the house in silence. Lord Robert said over his shoulder: ‘Come to my room.’

He led the way, a small, comic, but somehow a rather resolute figure. Donald followed him into an old-fashioned study. Lord Robert sat at his desk and wrote a cheque with finicky movements of his fat hands. He blotted it meticulously and swung round in his chair to face his nephew.

‘You still of the same mind about this doctoring?’ he asked.

‘Well, that’s the big idea,’ said Donald.

‘Passed some examinations for it, didn’t you?’

‘Medical prelim,’ said Donald easily. ‘Yes, I’ve got that.’

‘Before you were sent down for losing your mother’s money. And mine.’

Donald was silent.

‘I’ll get you out of this mess on one condition. I don’t know the way you set about working for a medical degree. Our family’s been in the diplomatic for a good many generations. High time we did something else, I dare say. You’ll start work at Edinburgh as soon as they’ll have you. If that’s not at once I’ll get a coach and you’ll go to Archery and work there. I’ll show you as much as the usual medical student gets and I’ll advise your mother to give you no more. That’s all.’

‘Edinburgh! Archery!’ Donald’s voice was shrill with dismay. ‘But I don’t want to go to Edinburgh for my training. I want to go to Thomas’s.’

‘You’re better away from London. There’s one other thing I must absolutely insist upon, Donald. You are to drop this feller Withers.’

‘Why should I?’

‘Because the feller’s a bad ‘un. I know something about him. I have never interfered in the matter of your friendships before, but I’d be neglectin’ my duty like anything if I didn’t step in here.’

‘I won’t give up a friend simply because you choose to say he’s no good.’

‘I give you my word of honour this man’s a rotter—a criminal rotter. I was amazed when I recognized Withers this afternoon. My information dates from my Foreign Office days. It’s unimpeachable. Very bad record. Come now, be sensible. Make a clean break and forget all about him. Archery’s a nice old house. Your mother can use it as a pied-à-terre and see you sometimes. It’s only ten miles out of Edinburgh.’

‘But—’

‘Afraid it’s definite.’

‘But—I don’t want to leave London. I don’t want to muck about with a lot of earnest Scots from God knows where. I mean the sort of people who go there are just simply The End!’

‘Why?’ asked Lord Robert.

‘Well, because, I mean, you know what I mean. They’ll be the most unspeakable curiosities. No doubt perfectly splendid but—’

‘But not in the same class with young men who contract debts of honour which they cannot meet and do the London season on their mother’s money?’

‘That’s not fair,’ cried Donald hotly.

‘Why?’ repeated Lord Robert.

‘I’ll bet you got into the same sort of jams when you were my age.’

‘You’re wrong,’ said Lord Robert mildly. ‘I did as many silly things as most young men of my day. But I did not contract debts that I was unable to settle. It seemed to me that sort of thing amounted to theft. I didn’t steal clothes from my tailor, drink from my hotel, or money from my friends.’

‘But I knew it would be all right in the end.’

‘You mean, you knew I’d pay?’

‘I’m not ungrateful,’ said Donald angrily.

‘My dear fellow, I don’t want you to be grateful.’

‘But I won’t go and stay in a deserted mausoleum of a Scotch house in the middle of the season. There’s—there’s Bridget.’

‘Lady Carrados’s gel? Is she fond of you?’

‘Yes.’

‘She seems a nice creature. You’re fortunate. Not one of these screeching rattles. She’ll wait for you.’

‘I won’t go.’

‘M’dear boy, I’m sorry, but you’ve no alternative.’

Donald’s face was white but two scarlet patches burned on his cheek-bones. His lips trembled. Suddenly he burst out violently.

‘You can keep your filthy money,’ he shouted. ‘By God, I’ll look after myself. I’ll borrow from someone who’s not a bloody complacent Edwardian relic and I’ll get a job and pay them back as I can.’

‘Jobs aren’t to be had for the asking. Come now—’

‘Oh, shut up!’ bawled Donald and flung out of the room.

Lord Robert stared at the door which his nephew had not neglected to slam. The room was very quiet. The fire settled down with a small whisper of ashes and Lord Robert’s clock ticked on the mantelpiece. It ticked very loudly. The plump figure, only half-lit by the lamp on the desk, was quite still, the head resting on the hand. Lord Robert sighed, a slight mournful sound. At last he pulled an envelope towards him and in his finicky writing addressed it to Captain Withers, Shackleton House, Leatherhead. Then he wrote a short note, folded a cheque into it and put them both in the envelope. He rang for his butler.

‘Has Mr Donald gone out?’

‘Yes, m’lord. He said he would not be returning.’

‘I see,’ said Lord Robert. ‘Thank you. Will you see that this letter is posted immediately?’

CHAPTER 4 Blackmail to Music

Lord Robert had sat on the blue sofa since two-fifteen but he was not tired of it. He enjoyed watching the patrons of music arriving and he amused himself with idle speculations on the subject of intellectual snobbishness. He also explored the blue sofa, sliding his hands cautiously over the surface of the seat and down between the seat and the arms. He had taken the precaution of leaving his gloves on a chair on the left of the sofa and a little behind it. A number of people came and spoke to him, among them Lady Carrados, who was looking tired.

‘You’re overdoing it, Evelyn,’ he told her. ‘You look charming—that’s a delightful gown, ain’t it?—but you’re too fragile, m’dear.’

‘I’m all right, Bunchy,’ she said. ‘You’ve got a nice way of telling a woman she’s getting older.’

‘No, I say! It wasn’t that. Matter of fact it rather suits you bein’ so fine-drawn, but you are too thin, you know. Where’s Bridgie?’

‘At a matinee.’

‘Evelyn, do you know if she sees anything of my nephew?’

‘Donald Potter? Yes. We’ve heard all about it, Bunchy.’

‘He’s written to his mother who no doubt is giving him money. I suppose you know he’s sharing rooms with some other feller?’

‘Yes. Bridgie sees him.’

‘Does Bridgie know where he is?’

‘I think so. She hasn’t told me.’

‘Is she fond of the boy, Evelyn?’

‘Yes.’

‘What do you think of him?’

‘I know. He’s got a lot of charm, but I wish he’d settle down.’

‘Is it botherin’ you much?’

‘That?’ She caught her breath. ‘A little, naturally. Oh, there’s Lady Alleyn! We’re supposed to be together.’

‘Delightful woman, ain’t she? I’m waiting for Mrs Halcut-Hackett.’

‘I shouldn’t have thought her quite your cup of tea, said Lady Carrados vaguely.

Lord Robert made his rabbit-face and winked.

‘We go into mutual raptures over Bach,’ he said.

‘I must join Lady Alleyn. Good-bye, Bunchy.’

‘Good-bye, Evelyn. Don’t worry too much—over anything.’

She gave him a startled look and went away. Lord Robert sat down again. The room was nearly full and in ten minutes the Sirmione Quartette would appear on the modern dais.

‘Is she waiting for the lights to go down?’ wondered Lord Robert. He saw Agatha Troy come in, tried to catch her eye, and failed. People were beginning to settle down in the rows of gilt chairs and in the odd armchairs and sofas round the walls. Lord Robert looked restlessly towards the door and saw Sir Daniel Davidson. Davidson made straight for him. Sir Daniel had once cured Lord Robert’s sister of indigestion and Mildred, who was an emotional woman, had asked him to dinner. Lord Robert had been amused and interested by Davidson. His technique as a fashionable doctor was superb. ‘If Disraeli had taken to medicine instead of primroses,’ Lord Robert had said, ‘he would have been just such another.’ And he had encouraged Davidson to launch out on his favourite subject, The Arts, with rather emphatic capitals. He had capped Davidson’s Latin tags, quoted Congreve against him, and listened with amusement to a preposterous parallel drawn between Rubens and Dürer. ‘The extrovert and the introvert of Art,’ Davidson had cried, waving his beautiful hands, and Lord Robert had twinkled and said: ‘You are talking above my head.’ ‘I’m talking nonsense,’ Davidson had replied abruptly, ‘and you know it.’ But in a minute or two he had been off again as flamboyantly as ever and had left at one o’clock in the morning, very pleased with himself and overflowing with phrases.

‘Ah!’ he said now as he shook hands. ‘I might have guessed I should find you here. Doing the fashionable thing for the unfashionable reason. Music! My God!’

‘What’s wrong?’ asked Lord Robert.

‘My dear Lord Robert, how many of these people will know what they are listening to, or even listen? Not one in fifty.’

‘Oh, come now!’

‘Not one in fifty! There goes that fellow Withers whose aesthetic appreciation is less than that of a monkey on a barrel-organ. What’s he here for? I repeat, not one in fifty of these humbugs knows what he’s listening to. And how many of the forty-nine have the courage to confess themselves honest philistines?’

‘Quite a number, I should have thought,’ said Lord Robert cheerfully. ‘Myself for one. I’m inclined to go to sleep.’

‘Now, why say that? You know perfectly well—What’s the matter?’

‘Sorry. I was looking at Evelyn Carrados. She looks damn seedy,’ said Lord Robert. Davidson followed his glance to where Lady Carrados sat beside Lady Alleyn. Davidson watched her for a moment and then said quietly:

‘Yes. She’s overdoing it. I shall have to scold her. My seat is somewhere over there, I believe.’ He made an impatient gesture. ‘They all overdo it, these mothers, and the girls overdo it, and the husbands get rattled and the young men neglect their work and then there are half a dozen smart weddings, as many nervous breakdowns and there’s your London season.’

‘Lor’!’ said Lord Robert mildly.

‘It’s the truth. In my job one sees it over and over again. Yes, yes, yes, I know! I am a smart West End doctor and I encourage all these women to fancy themselves ill. That’s what you may very well think, but I assure you, my dear Lord Robert, that one sees cases of nervous exhaustion that are enough to make a cynic of the youngest ingénue. And they are so charming, these mamas. I mean really charming. Women like Lady Carrados. They help each other so much. It is not all a cutlet for a cutlet. But’—he spread out his hands—‘what is it for? What is it all about? The same people meeting eachother over and over again at great expense to the accompaniment of loud negroid noises of jazz bands. For what?’

‘Damned if I know,’ said Lord Robert cheerfully. ‘Who’s that feller who came in behind Withers? Tall, dark feller with the extraordinary hands. I seem to know him.’

‘Where? Ah.’ Davidson picked up his glasses which he wore on a wide black ribbon. ‘Who is it, now! I’ll tell you who it is. It’s the catering fellow, Dimitri. He’s having his three guineas’ worth of Bach with the haute monde and, by God, I’ll wager you anything you like that he’s got more appreciation in his extraordinary little finger—you are very observant, it is an odd hand—than most of them have in the whole of their pampered carcasses. How do you do, Mrs Halcut-Hackett?’

She had come up so quietly that Lord Robert had actually missed her. She looked magnificent. Davidson, to Lord Robert’s amusement, kissed her hand.

‘Have you come to worship?’ he asked.

‘Why, certainly,’ she said and turned to Lord Robert. ‘I see you have not forgotten.’

‘How could I?’

‘Now isn’t that nice?’ asked Mrs Halcut-Hackett, looking slantways at the blue sofa. Lord Robert moved aside and she at once sat down, spreading her furs.

‘I must find my seat,’ said Davidson. ‘They are going to begin.’

He went to a chair beside Lady Carrados on the far side of the room. Mrs Halcut-Hackett asked Lord Robert if he did not think Sir Daniel a delightful personality. He noticed that her American accent was not quite so strictly repressed as usual and that her hands moved restlessly. She motioned him to sit on her right.

‘If you don’t mind,’ he said, ‘I’ll stick to my chair. I like straight backs.’

He saw her glance nervously at his chair which was a little behind the left arm of the sofa. Her bag was on her lap. It was a large bag and looked well filled. She settled her furs again so that they fell across it. Lord Robert perched on his hideously uncomfortable chair. He noticed that Dimitri had sat down at the end of a row of seats close by. He found himself idly watching Dimitri. ‘Wonder what he thinks of us. Always arranging food for our parties and he could buy most of us up and not notice it, I shouldn’t mind betting. They are rum hands and no mistake. The little finger’s the same length as the third.’

A flutter of polite clapping broke out and the Sirmione String Quartette walked on to the dais. The concealed lights of the concert chamber were dimmed into darkness, leaving the performers brilliantly lit. Lord Robert experienced that familiar thrill that follows the glorious scrape of tuning strings. But he told himself he had not come to listen to music and he was careful not to look towards the dais lest his eyes should be blinded by the light. Instead he looked towards the left-hand arm of the blue sofa. The darkness gradually thinned and presently he could make out the dim sheen of brocade and the thick depth of blackness that was Mrs Halcut-Hackett’s furs. The shape of this blackness shifted. Something glinted. He bent forward. Closer than the exquisite pattern of the music he caught the sound made by one fabric rubbed against another, a sliding rustle. The outline of the mass that was Mrs Halcut-Hackett went tense and then relaxed. ‘She’s stowed it away,’ thought Lord Robert.

Nobody came near them until the lights went up for the interval and then Lord Robert realized how very well the blackmailer had chosen when he lit upon the blue sofa as a post-box, for the side door beyond it was thrown open during the interval and instead of going out into the lounge by the main entrance many people passed behind the blue sofa and out by this side door. And as the interval drew to a close people came in and stood behind the sofa gossiping. Lord Robert felt sure that his man had gone into the lounge. He would wait until the lights were lowered and come in with the rest of the stragglers, pass behind the sofa and slip his hand over the arm. Most of the men and many of the women had gone out to smoke, but Lord Robert remained uncomfortably wedded to his chair. He knew very well that Mrs Halcut-Hackett writhed under the pressure of conflicting desires. She wished to be alone when the bag was taken and she dearly loved a title. She was to have the title. Suddenly she murmured something about powdering her nose. She got up and left by the side door.

Lord Robert rested his head on his hand and devoted the last few minutes of the interval to a neat imitation of an elderly gentleman dropping off to sleep. The lights were lowered again. The stragglers, with mumbled apologies, came back. There was a little group of people still standing in the darkness behind the sofa. The performers returned to the dais.

Someone had advanced from behind Lord Robert and stood beside the sofa.

Lord Robert felt his heart jump. He had placed his chair carefully, leaving a space between himself and the left-hand arm of the sofa. Into this space the shadowy figure now moved. It was a man. He stood with his back to the lighted dais and he seemed to lean forward a little as though he searched the darkness for something. Lord Robert also leant forward. He emitted the most delicate hint of a snore. His right hand propped his head. Through the cracks of his fat fingers he watched the left arm of the sofa. Into this small realm of twilight came the shape of a hand. It was a curiously thin hand and he could see quite clearly that the little finger was as long as the third.

Lord Robert snored.

The hand slid over into the darkness and when it came back it held Mrs Halcut-Hackett’s bag.

As if in ironic appreciation the music on the dais swept up a sharp crescendo into a triumphant blare. Mrs Halcut-Hackett returned from powdering her nose.

CHAPTER 5 Unqualified Success

The ball given by Lady Carrados for her daughter Bridget O’Brien was an unqualified success. That is to say that from half-past ten when Sir Herbert and Lady Carrados took up their stand at the head of the double staircase and shook hands with the first guests until half-past three the next morning when the band, white about the gills and faintly glistening, played the National Anthem, there was not a moment when it was not difficult for a young man to find the débutantes with whom he wished to dance and easy for him to avoid those by whom he was not attracted. There was no ominous aftermath when the guests began to slide away to other parties, to slip through the doors with the uncontrollable heartlessness of the unamused. The elaborate structure, built to pattern by Lady Carrados, Miss Harris and Dimitri, did not slide away like a sandcastle before a wave of unpopularity, but held up bravely till the end. It was, therefore, an unqualified success.

In the matter of champagne Lady Carrados and Miss Harris had triumphed. It flowed not only in the supper-room but also at the buffet. In spite of the undoubted fact that débutantes did not drink, Dimitri’s men opened two hundred bottles of Heidsieck ‘28 that night, and Sir Herbert afterwards took a sort of well-bred pride in the rows of empty bottles he happened to see in a glimpse behind the scenes.

Outside the house it was unseasonably chilly. The mist made by the breathing of the watchers mingled with drifts of light fog. As the guests walked up the strip of red carpet from their cars to the great door they passed between two wavering masses of dim faces. And while the armth and festive smell of flowers and expensive scents reached the noses of the watchers, through the great doors was driven the smell of mist so that footmen in the hall told each other from time to time that for June it was an uncommonly thickish night outside.

By midnight everybody knew the ball was a success and was able when an opportunity presented itself to say so to Lady Carrados. Leaving her post at the stairhead she came into the ballroom looking very beautiful and made her way towards the far end where most of the chaperones were assembled. On her way she passed her daughter dancing with Donald Potter. Bridget smiled brilliantly at her mother, and raised her left hand in gay salute. Her right hand was crushed against Donald’s chest and round the misty white nonsense of her dress was his black arm and his hard masculine hand was pressed against her ribs. ‘She’s in love with him,’ thought Lady Carrados. And up through the maze of troubled thoughts that kept her company came the remembrance of her conversation with Donald’s uncle. She wondered suddenly if women ever fainted from worry alone and as she smiled and bowed her way along the ballroom she saw herself suddenly crumpling down among the dancers. She would lie there while the band played on and presently she would open her eyes and see people’s legs and then someone would help her to her feet and she would beg them to get her away quickly before anything was noticed. Her fingers tightened on her bag. Five hundred pounds! She had told the man at the bank that she wanted to pay some of the expenses of the ball in cash. That had been a mistake. She should have sent Miss Harris with the cheque and made no explanation to anybody. It was twelve o’clock. She would do it on her way to supper. There was that plain Halcut-Hackett protégée without a partner again. Lady Carrados looked round desperately and to her relief saw her husband making his way towards the girl. She felt a sudden wave of affection for her husband. Should she go to him tonight and tell him everything? And just sit back and take the blow? She must be very ill indeed to dream of such a thing. Here she was in the chaperones’ corner and there, thank God, was Lady Alleyn with an empty chair beside her.

‘Evelyn!’ cried Lady Alleyn. ‘Come and sit down, my dear, in all your triumph. My granddaughter has just told me this is the very pinnacle of all balls. Everybody is saying so.’

‘I’m so thankful. It’s such a toss-up nowadays. One never knows.’

‘Of course one doesn’t. Last Tuesday at the Gainscotts’ by one o’clock there were only the three Gainscott girls, a few desperate couples who hadn’t the heart to escape, and my Sarah and her partner whom I had kept there by sheer terrorism. Of course, they didn’t have Dimitri, and I must say I think he is a perfect magician. Dear me,’ said Lady Alleyn, ‘I am enjoying myself.’

‘I’m so glad.’

‘I hope you are enjoying yourself, too, Evelyn. They say the secret of being a good hostess is to enjoy yourself at your own parties. I have never believed it. Mine always were a nightmare to me and I refuse to admit they were failures. But they are so exhausting. I suppose you wouldn’t come down to Danes Court with me and turn yourself into an amiable cow for the weekend?’

‘Oh,’ said Lady Carrados, ‘I wish I could.’

‘Do.’

‘That’s what Sir Daniel Davidson said I should do—lead the life of a placid cow for a bit.’

‘It’s settled, then.’

‘But—’

‘Nonsense. There is Davidson, isn’t it? That dark flamboyant-looking man talking to Lucy Lorrimer. On my left.’

‘Yes.’

‘Is he clever? Everyone seems to go to him. I might show him my leg one of these days. If you don’t promise to come, Evelyn, I shall call him over here and make a scene. Here comes Bunchy Gospell,’ continued Lady Alleyn with a quick glance at her hostess’s trembling fingers, ‘and I feel sure he’s going to ask you to sup with him. Why, if that isn’t Agatha Troy with him!’

‘The painter?’ said Lady Carrados faintly. ‘Yes. Bridgie knows her. She’s going to paint Bridgie.’

‘She did a sketch portrait of my son Roderick. It’s amazingly good.’

Lord Robert, looking, with so large an expanse of white under his chin, rather like Mr Pickwick, came beaming towards them with Troy at his side. Lady Alleyn held out her hand and drew Troy down to a stool beside her. She looked at the short dark hair, the long neck and the spare grace that was Troy’s and wished, not for the first time, that it was her daughter-in-law that sat at her feet. Troy was the very wife she would have chosen for her son, and, so she believed, the wife that he would have chosen for himself. She rubbed her nose vexedly. ‘If it hadn’t been for that wretched case!’ she thought. And she said:

‘I’m so pleased to see you, my dear. I hear the exhibition is the greatest success.’

Troy gave her a sideways smile.

‘I wonder,’ continued Lady Alleyn, ‘which of us is the most surprised at seeing the other. I have bounced out of retirement to launch my granddaughter.’

‘I was brought by Bunchy Gospell,’ said Troy. ‘I’m so seldom smart and gay that I’m rather enjoying it.’

‘Roderick had actually consented to come but he’s got a tricky case on his hands and has to go away again tomorrow at the crack of dawn.’

‘Oh,’ said Troy.

Lord Robert began to talk excitedly to Lady Carrados.

‘Gorgeous!’ he cried, pitching his voice very high in order to top the band which had suddenly begun to make a terrific din. ‘Gorgeous, Evelyn! Haven’t enjoyed anything—ages—superb!’ He bent his knees and placed his face rather close to Lady Carrados’s. ‘Supper!’ he squeaked. ‘Do say you will! In half an hour or so. Will you?’

She smiled and nodded. He sat down between Lady Carrados and Lady Alleyn and gave them each a little pat. His hand alighted on Lady Carrados’s bag. She moved it quickly. He was beaming out into the ballroom and seemed lost in a mild ecstasy.

‘Champagne!’ he said. ‘Can’t beat it! I’m not inebriated, my dears, but I am, I proudly confess, a little exalted. What I believe is nowadays called nicely thank you. How-de-do? Gorgeous, ain’t it?’

General and Mrs Halcut-Hackett bowed. Their smiling lips moved in a soundless assent. They sat down between Lady Alleyn and Sir Daniel Davidson and his partner, Lady Lorrimer.

Lucy, Dowager Marchioness of Lorrimer, was a woman of eighty. She dressed almost entirely in veils and untidy jewellery. She was enormously rich and not a little eccentric. Sir Daniel attended to her lumbago. She was now talking to him earnestly and confusedly and he listened with an air of enraptured attention. Lord Robert turned with a small bounce and made two bobs in their direction.

‘There’s Davidson,’ he said delightedly, ‘and Lucy Lorrimer. How are you, Lucy?’

‘What?’ shouted Lucy Lorrimer.

‘How are yer?’

‘Busy. I thought you were in Australia.’

‘Why?’

‘What?’

‘Why?’

‘Don’t interrupt,’ shouted Lucy Lorrimer. ‘I’m talking.’

‘Never been there,’ said Lord Robert; ‘the woman’s mad.’

The Halcut-Hacketts smiled uncomfortably. Lucy Lorrimer leant across Davidson and bawled: ‘Don’t forget tomorrow night!’

‘Who? Me?’ asked Lord Robert. ‘Of course not.’

‘Eight-thirty sharp.’

‘I know. Though how you could think I was in Australia—’

‘I didn’t see it was you,’ screamed Lucy Lorrimer. ‘Don’t forget now.’ The band stopped as abruptly as it had begun and her voice rang out piercingly. ‘It wouldn’t be the first night you had disappointed me.’

She leant back chuckling and fanning herself. Lord Robert took the rest of the party in with a comical glance.

‘Honestly, Lucy!’ said Lady Alleyn.

‘He’s the most absent-minded creature in the world,’ added Lucy Lorrimer.

‘Now to that,’ said Lord Robert, ‘I do take exception. I am above all things a creature of habit, upon my honour. I could tell you, if it wasn’t a very boring sort of story, exactly to the minute what I shall do with myself tomorrow evening and how I shall ensure my punctual arrival at Lucy Lorrimer’s party.’

‘Suddenly remember it at a quarter to nine and take a cab,’ said Lucy Lorrimer.

‘Not a bit of it.’

Mrs Halcut-Hackett suddenly joined in the conversation.

‘I can vouch for Lord Robert’s punctuality,’ she said loudly. ‘He always keeps his appointments.’ She laughed a little too shrilly and for some unaccountable reason created an uncomfortable atmosphere. Lady Alleyn glanced sharply at her. Lucy Lorrimer stopped short in the middle of a hopelessly involved sentence; Davidson put up his glass and stared. General Halcut-Hackett said, ‘What!’ loudly and uneasily. Lord Robert examined his fat little hands with an air of complacent astonishment. The inexplicable tension was relieved by the arrival of Sir Herbert Carrados with the plain protégée of the Halcut-Hacketts. She held her long chiffon handkerchief to her face and she looked a little desperately at her chaperone. Carrados who had her by the elbow was the very picture of British chivalry.

‘A casualty!’ he said archly. ‘Mrs Halcut-Hackett, I’m afraid you are going to be very angry with me!’

‘Why, Sir Herbert!’ said Mrs Halcut-Hackett; ‘that’s surely an impossibility.’

The General said ‘What!’

‘This young lady,’ continued Carrados, squeezing her elbow, ‘no sooner began to dance with me than she developed toothache. Frightfully bad luck—for both of us.’

Mrs Halcut-Hackett eyed her charge with something very like angry despair.

What’s the matter,’ she said, ‘darling?’

‘I’m afraid I’d better go home.’

Lady Carrados took her hand.

‘That is bad luck,’ she said. ‘Shall we see if we can find something to—’

‘No, no, please,’ said the child. ‘I think really, I’d better go home. I—I’m sure I’d better. Really.’

The General suddenly became human. He stood up, took the girl by the shoulders, and addressed Lady Carrados.

‘Better at home,’ he said. ‘What? Brandy and oil of cloves. Damn bad show. Will you excuse us?’ He addressed his wife. ‘I’ll take her home. You stay on. Come back for you.’ He addressed his charge: ‘Come on, child. Get your wrap.’

‘You need not come back for me, dear,’ said Mrs Halcut-Hackett. ‘I shall be quite all right. Stay with Rose.’

‘If I may,’ squeaked Lord Robert, ‘I’ll give myself the pleasure of driving your wife home, Halcut-Hackett.’

‘No, no,’ began Mrs Halcut-Hackett, ‘I—please—’

‘Well,’ said the General. ‘Suit splendidly. What? Say good night. What?’ They bowed and shook hands. Sir Herbert walked away with both of them. Mrs Halcut-Hackett embarked on a long polite explanation and apology to Lady Carrados.

‘Poor child!’ whispered Lady Alleyn.

‘Poor child, indeed,’ murmured Troy.

Mrs Halcut-Hackett had made no further reply to Lord Robert’s offer. Now, as he turned to her, she hurriedly addressed herself to Davidson.

‘I must take the poor lamb to a dentist,’ she said. ‘Too awful if her face should swell half-way through the season. Her mother is my dearest friend but she’d never forgive me. A major tragedy.’

‘Quite,’ said Sir Daniel rather dryly.

‘Well,’ said Lucy Lorrimer beginning to collect her scarves, ‘I shall expect you at eight twenty-seven. It’s only me and my brother, you know. The one that got into difficulties. I want some supper. Where is Mrs Halcut-Hackett? I suppose I must congratulate her on her ball, though I must say I always think it’s the greatest mistake—’

Sir Daniel Davidson hurriedly shouted her down.

‘Let me take you down and give you some supper,’ he suggested loudly with an agonized glance at Mrs Halcut-Hackett and Lady Carrados. He carried Lucy Lorrimer away.

‘Poor Lucy!’ said Lady Alleyn. ‘She never has the remotest idea where she is. I wish, Evelyn, that he hadn’t stopped her. What fault do you suppose she was about to find in your hospitality?’

‘Let’s follow them, Evelyn,’ said Lord Robert, ‘and no doubt we shall find out. Troy, m’dear, there’s a young man making for you. May we dance again?’

‘Yes, of course, Bunchy dear,’ said Troy, and went off with her partner.

Lady Carrados said she would meet Lord Robert in the supper-room in ten minutes. She left them, threading her way down the ballroom, her fingers clutching her bag. At the far end she overtook Sir Daniel and Lucy Lorrimer.

Lady Alleyn, looking anxiously after her, saw her sway a little. Davidson stepped up to her quickly and took her arm, steadying her. Lady Alleyn saw him speak to her with a quick look of concern. She saw Evelyn Carrados shake her head, smiling at him. He spoke again with emphasis and then Lucy Lorrimer shouted at him and he shrugged his shoulders and moved away. After a moment Lady Carrados, too, left the ballroom.

Lord Robert asked Mrs Halcut-Hackett if she would ‘take a turn’ with him once round the room. She excused herself, making rather an awkward business of it:

‘I fancy I said that I would keep this one for—I’m so sorry—Oh, yes—here he comes right now.’

Captain Withers had come from the farther side of the ballroom. Mrs Halcut-Hackett hurriedly got up and went to meet him. Without a word he placed his arm round her and they moved off together, Withers looking straight in front of him.

‘Where’s Rory?’ Lord Robert asked Lady Alleyn. ‘I expected to find him here tonight. He refused to dine with us.’

‘Working at the Yard. He’s going north early tomorrow. Bunchy, that was your Captain Withers, wasn’t it? The man we saw at the Halcut-Hacketts’ cocktail-party?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is she having an affair with him, do you suppose? They’ve got that sort of look.’

Lord Robert pursed his lips and contemplated his hands.

‘It’s not malicious curiosity,’ said Lady Alleyn. ‘I’m worried about those women. Especially Evelyn.’

‘You don’t suggest Evelyn—?’

‘Of course not. But they’ve both got the same haunted look. And if I’m not mistaken Evelyn nearly fainted just then. Your friend Davidson noticed it and I think he gave her the scolding she needs. She’s at the end of her tether, Bunchy.’

‘I’ll get hold of her and take her into the supper-room.’

‘Do. Go after her now, like a dear man. There comes my Sarah.’

Lord Robert hurried away. It took him some time to get round the ballroom and as he edged past dancing couples and over the feet of sitting chaperones he suddenly felt as if an intruder had thrust open all the windows of this neat little world and let in a flood of uncompromising light. In this cruel light he saw the people he liked best and they were changed and belittled. He saw his nephew Donald, who had turned aside when they met in the hall, as a spoilt, selfish boy with no honesty or ambition. He saw Evelyn Carrados as a woman haunted by some memory that was discreditable, and hag-ridden by a blackmailer. His imagination leapt into extravagance, and in many of the men he fancied he saw something of the unscrupulousness of Withers, the pomposity of Carrados, and the stupidity of old General Halcut-Hackett. He was plunged into a violent depression that had a sort of nightmarish quality. How many of these women were what he still thought of as ‘virtuous’? And the débutantes? They had gone back to chaperones and were guided and guarded by women, many of whose own private lives would look ugly in this flood of hard light that had been let in on Lord Robert’s world. The girls were sheltered by a convention for three months but at the same time they heard all sorts of things that would have horrified and bewildered his sister Mildred at their age. And he wondered if the Victorian and Edwardian eras had been no more than freakish incidents in the history of society and if their proprieties had been as artificial as the paint on a modern woman’s lips. This idea seemed abominable to Lord Robert and he felt old and lonely for the first time in his life. ‘It’s the business with Donald and this blackmailing game,’ he thought as he twisted aside to avoid a couple who were dancing the rumba. He had reached the door. He went into the lounge which opened off the ballroom, saw that Evelyn Carrados was not there, and made for the staircase. The stairs were covered with couples sitting out. He picked his way down and passed his nephew Donald who looked at him as if they were strangers.

‘No good trying to break that down,’ thought Lord Robert. ‘Not here. He’d only cut me and someone would notice.’ He felt wretchedly depressed and tired, and was filled with a premonition of disaster that quite astonished himself. ‘Good God,’ he thought suddenly, ‘I must be going to be ill.’ And oddly enough this comforted him a little. In the lower hall he found Bridget O’Brien with a neat, competent-looking young woman whose face he dimly remembered.

‘Now, Miss Harris,’ Bridgie was saying, ‘are you sure you’re getting on all right? Have you had supper?’

‘Well, thank you so much, Miss O’Brien, but really it doesn’t matter—’

Of course, it was Evelyn’s secretary. Nice of Evelyn to ask her. Nice of Bridgie to take trouble. He said:

‘Hullo, m’dear. What a grand ball. Has your mother come this way?’

‘She’s in the supper-room,’ said Bridget without looking at him, and he realized that of course she had heard Donald’s side of their quarrel. He said:

‘Thank you, Bridgie, I’ll find her.’ He saw Miss Harris was looking a little like a lost child so he said: ‘Wonder if you’d be very nice and give me a dance later on? Would you?’

Miss Harris turned scarlet and said she would be very pleased thank you, Lord—Lord Gospell.

‘Got it wrong,’ thought Lord Robert. ‘Poor things, they don’t get much fun. Wonder what they think of it all. Not much, you may depend upon it.’

He found Lady Carrados in the supper-room. He took her to a corner table, made her drink champagne and tried to persuade her to eat.

‘I know what you’re all like,’ he told her. ‘Nothing all day in your tummies and then get through the night on your nerves. I remember mama used to have the vapours whenever she gave a big party. She always came round in time to receive the guests.’

He chattered away, eating a good deal himself and getting over his own unaccountable fit of depression in his effort to help Lady Carrados. He looked round and saw that the supper-room was inhabited by only a few chaperones and their partners. Poor Davidson was still in Lucy Lorrimer’s toils. Withers and Mrs Halcut-Hackett were tucked away in a corner. She was talking to him earnestly and apparently with great emphasis. He glowered at the table and laughed unpleasantly.

‘Lor’!’ thought Lord Robert, ‘she’s giving him his marching orders. Now why’s that? Afraid of the General or of—what? Of the blackmailer? I wonder if Withers is the subject of those letters. I wonder if Dimitri has seen her with him some time. I’ll swear it was Dimitri’s hand. But what does he know about Evelyn? The least likely woman in the world to have a guilty secret. And, damme, there is the fellow as large as you please, running the whole show.’

Dimitri had come into the supper-room. He gave a professional look round, spoke to one of his waiters, came across to Lady Carrados and bowed tentatively and then went out again.

‘Dimitri is a great blessing to all of us,’ said Lady Carrados. She said it so simply that he knew at once that if Dimitri was blackmailing her she had no idea of it. He was hunting in his mind for something to reply when Bridget came into the supper-room.

She was carrying her mother’s bag.

Everything seemed to happen at the same moment. Bridget calling gaily: ‘Really, Donna darling, you’re hopeless. There was your bag, simply preggy with banknotes, lying on the writing-table in the green boudoir. And I bet you didn’t know where you’d left it.’ Then Bridget, seeing her mother’s face and crying out: ‘Darling, what’s the matter?’ Lord Robert himself getting up and interposing his bulk between Lady Carrados and the other tables. Lady Carrados half-laughing, half-crying and reaching out frantically for the bag. Himself saying: ‘Run away, Bridget, I’ll look after your mother.’ And Lady Carrados, in a whisper: ‘I’m all right. Run upstairs, darling, and get my smelling-salts.’

Somehow they persuaded Bridget to go. The next thing that happened was Sir Daniel Davidson, who stood over Evelyn Carrados like an elegant dragon.

‘You’re all right,’ he said. ‘Lord Robert, see if you can open that window.’

Lord Robert succeeded in opening the window. A damp hand seemed to be laid on his face. He caught sight of street lamps blurred by impalpable mist.

Davidson held Lady Carrados’s wrist in his long fingers and looked at her with a sort of compassionate exasperation.

‘You women,’ he said. ‘You impossible women.’

‘I’m all right. I simply felt giddy.’

‘You ought to lie down. You’ll faint and make an exhibition of yourself.’

‘No I won’t. Has anybody—?’

‘Nobody’s noticed anything. Will you go up to your room for half an hour?’

‘I haven’t got a room. It’s not my house.’

‘Of course it’s not. The cloakroom, then.’

‘I—yes. Yes, I’ll do that.’

‘Sir Daniel!’ shouted Lucy Lorrimer in the corner. ‘For Heaven’s sake go back to her,’ implored Lady Carrados, ‘or she’ll be here.’

‘Sir Daniel!’

‘Damn!’ whispered Davidson. ‘Very well, I’ll go back to her. I expect your maid’s here, isn’t she? Good. Lord Robert, will you take Lady Carrados?’

‘I’d rather go alone. Please!’

‘Very well. But please go.’

He made a grimace and returned to Lucy Lorrimer.

Lady Carrados stood up, holding her bag. ‘Come on,’ said Lord Robert. ‘Nobody’s paying any attention.’

He took her elbow and they went out into the hall. It was deserted. Two men stood just in the entrance to the cloakroom. They were Captain Withers and Donald Potter. Donald glanced round, saw his uncle, and at once began to move upstairs. Withers followed him. Dimitri came out of the buffet and also went upstairs. The hall was filled with the sound of the band and with the thick confusion of voices and sliding feet.

‘Bunchy,’ whispered Lady Carrados. ‘You must do as I ask you. Leave me for three minutes. I—’

‘I know what’s up, m’dear. Don’t do it. Don’t leave your bag. Face it and let him go to the devil.’

She pressed her hand against her mouth and looked wildly at him.

‘You know?’

‘Yes, and I’ll help. I know who it is. You don’t, do you? See here—there’s a man at the Yard—whatever it is—’

A look of something like relief came into her eyes. ‘But you don’t know what it’s about. Let me go. I’ve got to do it. Just this once more.’

She pulled her arm away and he watched her cross the hall and slowly climb the stairs. After a moment’s hesitation he followed her.

CHAPTER 6 Bunchy Goes Back to the Yard

Alleyn closed his file and looked at his watch. Two minutes to one. Time for him to pack up and go home. He yawned, stretched his cramped fingers, walked over to the window and pulled aside the blind. The row of lamps hung like a necklace of misty globes along the margin of the Embankment.

‘Fog in June,’ muttered Alleyn. ‘This England!’

Out there in the cold, Big Ben tolled one. At that moment three miles away at Lady Carrados’s ball, Lord Robert Gospell was slowly climbing the stairs to the top landing and the little drawing-room.

Alleyn filled his pipe slowly and lit it. An early start tomorrow, a long journey, and a piece of dull routine at the end of it. He held his fingers to the heater and fell into a long meditation. Sarah had told him Troy was going to the ball. She was there now, no doubt.

‘Oh, well!’ he thought and turned off his heater.

The desk telephone rang. He answered it.

‘Hullo?’

‘Mr Alleyn? I thought you were still there, sir. Lord Robert Gospell.’

‘Right.’

A pause and then a squeaky voice:

‘Rory?’

‘Bunchy?’

‘You said you’d be at it till late. I’m in a room by myself at the Carrados’s show. Thing is, I think I’ve got him. Are you working for much longer?’

‘I can.’

‘May I come round to the Yard?’

‘Do!’

‘I’ll go home first, get out of this boiled shirt and pick up my notes.’

‘Right. I’ll wait.’

‘It’s the cakes-and-ale feller.’

‘Good Lord! No names, Bunchy.’

‘‘Course not. I’ll come round to the Yard. Upon my soul it’s worse than murder. Might as well mix his damn’ brews with poison. And he’s working with—Hullo! Didn’t hear you come in.’

‘Is someone there?’ asked Alleyn sharply.

‘Yes.’

‘Good-bye,’ said Alleyn, ‘I’ll wait for you.’

‘Thank you so much,’ squeaked the voice. ‘Much obliged. Wouldn’t have lost it for anything. Very smart work, officer. See you get the reward.’

Alleyn smiled and hung up his receiver.

II

Up in the ballroom Hughie Bronx’s Band packed up. Their faces were the colour of raw cod and shone with a fishy glitter, but the hair on their heads remained as smooth as patent leather. The four experts who only ten minutes ago had jigged together with linked arms in a hot rhythm argued wearily about the way to go home. Hughie Bronx himself wiped his celebrated face with a beautiful handkerchief and lit a cigarette.

‘OK, boys,’ he sighed. ‘Eight-thirty tomorrow and if any—calls for “My Girl’s Cutie” more than six times running we’ll quit and learn anthems.’

Dimitri crossed the ballroom.

‘Her ladyship particularly asked me to tell you,’ he said, ‘that there is something for you gentlemen at the buffet.’

‘Thanks a lot, Dim,’ said Mr Bronx. ‘We’ll be there.’

Dimitri glanced round the ballroom, walked out and descended the stairs.

Down in the entrance hall the last of the guests were collected. They looked wan and a little raffish but they shouted cheerfully, telling each other what a good party it had been. Among them, blinking sleepily through his glasses, was Lord Robert. His celebrated cape hung from his shoulders and in his hands he clasped his broad-brimmed black hat. Through the open doors came wreaths of mist. The sound of people coughing as they went into the raw air was mingled with the noise of taxi engines in low gear and the voices of departing guests.

Lord Robert was among the last to go.

He asked several people, rather plaintively, if they had seen Mrs Halcut-Hackett. ‘I’m supposed to be taking her home.’

Dimitri came up to him.

‘Excuse me, my lord, I think Mrs Halcut-Hackett has just left. She asked me if I had seen you, my lord.’

Lord Robert blinked up at him. For a moment their eyes met.

‘Oh. Thank you,’ said Lord Robert. ‘I’ll see if I can find her.’ Dimitri bowed.

Lord Robert walked out into the mist.

His figure, looking a little like a plump antic from one of Verlaine’s poems, moved down the broad steps. He passed a crowd of stragglers who were entering their taxis. He peered at them, watched them go off, and looked up and down the street. Lord Robert walked slowly down the street, seemed to turn into an insubstantial wraith, was hidden for a moment by a drift of mist, reappeared much farther away, walking steadily into nothingness, and was gone.

III

In his room at the Yard Alleyn woke with a start, rushing up on a wave of clamour from the darkness of profound sleep. The desk telephone was pealing. He reached out for it, caught sight of his watch and exclaimed aloud. Four o’clock! He spoke into the receiver.

‘Hullo?’

‘Mr Alleyn?’

‘Yes.’

He thought: ‘It’s Bunchy. What the devil—!’

But the voice in the receiver said:

‘There’s a case come in, sir. I thought I’d better report to you at once. Taxi with a fare. Says the fare’s been murdered and has driven straight here with the body.’

‘I’ll come down,’ said Alleyn.

He went down thinking with dismay that another case would be most unwelcome and hoping that it would be handed on to someone else. His mind was full of the blackmail business. Bunchy Gospell wouldn’t have said he’d found his man unless he was damn certain of him. The cakes-and-ale fellow. Dimitri. Well, he’d have opportunities, but what sort of evidence had Bunchy got? And where the devil was Bunchy? A uniformed sergeant waited for Alleyn in the entrance hall.

‘Funny sort of business, Mr Alleyn. The gentleman’s dead all right. Looks to me as if he’d had a heart attack or something, but the cabby insists it was murder and won’t say a word till he sees you. Didn’t want me to open the door. I did, though, just to make sure. Held my watch-glass to the mouth and listened to the heart. Nothing! The old cabby didn’t half go off pop. He’s a character.’

‘Where’s the taxi?’

‘In the yard, sir. I told him to drive through.’

They went out to the yard.

‘Dampish,’ said the sergeant and coughed.

It was very misty down there near the river. Wreaths of mist that were almost rain drifted round them and changed on their faces into cold spangles of moisture. A corpse-like pallor had crept into the darkness and the vague shapes of roofs and chimneys waited for the dawn. Far down the river a steamer hooted. The air smelt dank and unwholesome.

A vague huge melancholy possessed Alleyn. He felt at once nerveless and over-sensitized. His spirit seemed to rise thinly and separate itself from his body. He saw himself as a stranger. It was a familiar experience and he had grown to regard it as a precursor of evil. ‘I must get back,’ cried his mind and with the thought the return was accomplished. He was in the yard. The stones rang under his feet. A taxi loomed up vaguely with the overcoated figure of its driver standing motionless by the door as if on guard.

‘Cold,’ said the sergeant.

‘It’s the dead hour of the night,’ said Alleyn.

The taxi-driver did not move until they came right up to him.

‘Hullo,’ said Alleyn, ‘what’s it all about?’

‘’Morning, governor.’ It was the traditional hoarse voice. He sounded like a cabby in a play. ‘Are you one of the inspectors?’

‘I am.’

‘I won’t make no report to any copper. I got to look after meself, see? What’s more, the little gent was a friend of mine, see?’

‘This is Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn, daddy,’ said the sergeant.

‘All right. That’s the stuff. I got to protect meself, ain’t I? Wiv a blinking stiff for a fare.’

He suddenly reached out a gloved hand and with a quick turn flung open the door.

‘I ain’t disturbed ‘im,’ he said. ‘Will you switch on the glim?’

Alleyn’s hand reached out into the darkness of the cab. He smelt leather, cigars and petrol. His fingers touched a button and a dim light came to life in the roof of the taxi.

He was motionless and silent for so long that at last the sergeant said loudly:

‘Mr Alleyn?’

But Alleyn did not answer. He was alone with his friend. The small fat hands were limp. The feet were turned in pathetically, like the feet of a child. The head leant sideways, languidly, as a sick child will lean its head. He could see the bare patch on the crown and the thin ruffled hair.

‘If you look froo the other winder,’ said the driver, ‘you’ll see ‘is face. ‘E’s dead all right. Murdered!’

Alleyn said: ‘I can see his face.’

He had leant forward and for a minute or two he was busy. Then he drew back. He stretched out his hand as if to close the lids over the congested eyes. His fingers trembled.

He said: ‘I mustn’t touch him any more.’ He drew his hand away and backed out of the taxi. The sergeant was staring in astonishment at his face.

‘Dead,’ said the taxi-driver. ‘Ain’t he?’

‘—you!’ said Alleyn with a violent oath. ‘Can’t I see he’s dead without—’

He broke off and took three or four uncertain steps away from them. He passed his hand over his face and then stared at his fingers with an air of bewilderment.

‘Wait a moment, will you?’ he said.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Alleyn at last. ‘Give me a moment.’

‘Shall I get someone else, sir?’ asked the sergeant. ‘It’s a friend of yours, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ said Alleyn. ‘It’s a friend of mine.’

He turned on the taxi-driver and took him fiercely by the arm.

‘Come here,’ he said and marched him to the front of the car.

‘Switch on the headlights,’ he said.

The sergeant reached inside the taxi and in a moment the driver stood blinking in a white flood of light.

‘Now,’ said Alleyn. ‘Why are you so certain it was murder?’

‘Gorblimy, governor,’ said the driver, ‘ain’t I seen wiv me own eyes ’ow the ovver bloke gets in wiv ‘im, and ain’t I seen wiv me own eyes ‘ow the ovver bloke gets out at ‘is lordship’s ‘ouse dressed up in ‘is lordship’s cloak and ‘at and squeaks at me in a rum little voice same as ’is lordship: “Sixty-three Jobbers Row, Queens Gate”? Ain’t I driven ’is corpse all the way there, not knowing? ‘Ere! You say ‘is lordship was a friend of yours. So ‘e was o’ mine. This is bloody murder, this is, and I want to see this Mr Clever, what’s diddled me and done in as nice a little gent as ever I see, swing for it. That’s me.’

‘I see,’ said Alleyn. ‘All right. I’ll get a statement from you. We must get to work. Call up the usual lot. Get them all here. Get Dr Curtis. Photograph the body from every angle. Note the position of the head. Look for signs of violence. Routine. Case of homicide. Take the name, will you? Lord Robert Gospell, two hundred Cheyne Walk—’

CHAPTER 7 Stop Press News

LORD ROBERT GOSPELL DIES IN TAXI

Society Shocked. Foul Play Suspected

Full Story of Ball on Page 5

Evelyn Carrados let the paper fall on the counterpane and stared at her husband.

‘The papers are full of it,’ she said woodenly.

‘Good God, my dear Evelyn, of course they are! And this is only the ten o’clock racing edition brought in by a damn pup of a footman with my breakfast. Wait till we see the evening papers! Isn’t it enough, my God, that I should be rung up by some jack-in-office from Scotland Yard at five o’clock in the morning and cross-exam-ined about my own guests without having the whole thing thrust under my nose in some insulting bloody broadsheet!’

He limped angrily about the room.

‘It’s perfectly obvious that the man has been murdered. Do you realize that at any moment we’ll have some damned fellow from Scotland Yard cross-questioning us and that all the scavengers in Fleet Street will be hanging about our door for days together? Do you realize—’

‘I think he was perhaps my greatest friend,’ said Evelyn Carrados.

‘If you look at their damned impertinent drivel on page five you will see the friendship well advertised. My God, it’s intolerable. Do you realize that the police rang up Marsdon House at quarter-past four—five minutes after we’d gone, thank God!—and asked when Robert Gospell left? Some fellow of Dimitri’s answered them and now a blasted snivelling journalist has got hold of it. Do you realize—’

‘I only realize,’ said Evelyn Carrados, ‘that Bunchy Gospell is dead.’

Bridget burst into the room, a paper in her hands.

‘Donna! Oh, Donna—it’s our funny little Bunchy. Our funny little Bunchy’s dead! Donna!’

‘Darling—I know.’

‘But, Donna—Bunchy!’

‘Bridget,’ said her stepfather, ‘please don’t be hysterical. The point we have to consider is—’

Bridget’s arm went round her mother’s shoulders.

‘But we mind’ she said. ‘Can’t you see—Donna minds awfully.’

Her mother said: ‘Of course we mind, darling, but Bart’s thinking about something else. You see, Bart thinks there will be dreadful trouble—’

‘About what?’

Bridget’s eyes blazed in her white face as she turned on Carrados.

‘Do you mean Donald? Do you? Do you dare to suggest that Donald would—would—’

‘Bridgie!’ cried her mother, ‘what are you saying!’

‘Wait a moment, Evelyn,’ said Carrados. ‘What is all this about young Potter?’

Bridget pressed the back of her hand against her mouth, looked distractedly from her mother to her stepfather, burst into tears and ran out of the room.

II

‘BUNCHY’ GOSPELL DEAD

Mysterious death in Taxi

Sequel to the Carrados Ball

Mrs Halcut-Hackett’s beautifully manicured hands closed like claws on the newspaper. Her lips were stretched in a smile that emphasized the carefully suppressed lines from her nostrils to the corners of her mouth. She stared at nothing.

General Halcut-Hackett’s dressing-room door was flung open and the General, wearing a dressing-gown but few teeth, marched into the room. He carried a copy of a ten o’clock sporting edition.

‘What!’ he shouted indistinctly. ‘See here! By God!’

‘I know,’ said Mrs Halcut-Hackett. ‘Sad, isn’t it?’

‘Sad! Bloody outrage! What!’

‘Shocking,’ said Mrs Halcut-Hackett.

‘Shocking!’ echoed the General. ‘Preposterous!’ and the explosive consonants pronounced through the gap in his teeth blew his moustache out like a banner. His bloodshot eyes goggled at his wife. He pointed a stubby forefinger at her.

‘He said he’d bring you home,’ he spluttered.

‘He didn’t do so.’

‘When did you come home?’

‘I didn’t notice. Late.’

‘Alone?’

Her face was white but she looked steadily at him. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Don’t be a fool.’

III

STRANGE FATALITY

Lord Robert Gospell dies

after Ball

Full Story

Donald Potter read the four headlines over and over again. From the centre of the page his uncle’s face twinkled at him. Donald’s cigarette-butt burnt his lips. He spat it into his empty cup, and lit another. He was shivering as if he had a rigor. He read the four lines again. In the next room somebody yawned horribly.

Donald’s head jerked back.

‘Wits!’ he said. ‘Wits! Come here!’

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Come here!’

Captain Withers, clad in an orange silk dressing-gown, appeared in the doorway. ‘What the hell’s the matter with you?’ he enquired. ‘Look here.’

Captain Withers, whistling between his teeth, strolled up and looked over Donald’s shoulder. His whistling stopped. He reached out his hand, took the newspaper, and began to read. Donald watched him.

‘Dead!’ said Donald. ‘Uncle Bunch! Dead!’

Withers glanced at him and returned to the paper. Presently he began again to whistle through his teeth.

IV

DEATH OF LORD ROBERT GOSPELL

Tragic end to a distinguished career

Suspicious Circumstances

Lady Mildred Potter beat her plump hands on the proofs of the Evening Chronicle obituary notice and turned upon Alleyn a face streaming with tears.

‘But who could have wanted to hurt Bunchy, Roderick? Everyone adored him. He hadn’t an enemy in the world. Look what the Chronicle says—and I must say I think it charming of them to let me see the things they propose to say about him—but look what it says. “Beloved by all his friends!” And so he was. So he was. By all his friends.’

‘He must have had one enemy, Mildred,’ said Alleyn.

‘I can’t believe it. I’ll never believe it. It must be an escaped lunatic.’ She pressed her handkerchief to her eyes and sobbed violently. ‘I shall never be able to face all this dreadful publicity. The police! I don’t mean you, Roderick, naturally. But everything—the papers, everyone poking and prying. Bunchy would have detested it. I can’t face it. I can’t.’

‘Where’s Donald?’

‘He rang up. He’s coming.’

‘From where?’

‘From this friend’s flat, wherever it is.’

‘He’s away from home?’

‘Didn’t Bunchy tell you? Ever since that awful afternoon when he was so cross with Donald. Bunchy didn’t understand.’

‘Why was Bunchy cross with him?’

‘He had run into debt rather. And now, poor boy, he is no doubt feeling too dreadfully remorseful.’

Alleyn did not answer immediately. He walked over to the window and looked out.

‘It will be easier for you,’ he said at last, ‘when Donald gets here. I suppose the rest of the family will come too?’

‘Yes. All our old cousins and aunts. They have already rung up. Broomfield—Bunchy’s eldest nephew, you know—I mean my eldest brothers son is away on the Continent. He’s the head of the family, of course. I suppose I shall have to make all the arrangements and—and I’m so dreadfully shaken.’

‘I’ll do as much as I can. There are some things that I must do. I’m afraid, Mildred, I shall have to ask you to let me look at Bunchy’s things. His papers and so on.’

‘I’m sure,’ said Lady Mildred, ‘he would have preferred you to anyone else, Roderick.’

‘You make it very easy for me. Shall I get it done now?’

Lady Mildred looked helplessly about her.

‘Yes. Yes, please. You’ll want his keys, won’t you?’

‘I’ve got the keys, Mildred,’ said Alleyn gently.

‘But—where—?’ She gave a little cry. ‘Oh, poor darling. He always took them with him everywhere.’ She broke down completely. Alleyn waited for a moment and then he said:

‘I shan’t attempt the impertinence of condoling phrases. There is small comfort in scavenging in this mess for crumbs of consolation. But I tell you this, Mildred, if it takes me the rest of my life, and if it costs me my job, by God! if I have to do the killing myself, I’ll get this murderer and see him suffer for it.’ He paused and made a grimace. ‘Good Lord, what a speech! Bunchy would have laughed at it. It’s a curious thing that when one speaks from the heart it is invariably in the worst of taste.’

He looked at her grey hair arranged neatly and unfashionably and enclosed in a net. She peered at him over the top of her drenched handkerchief and he saw that she had not listened to him.

‘I’ll get on with it,’ said Alleyn, and made his way alone to Lord Robert’s study.

V

LORD ROBERT GOSPELL

DIES IN TAXI

Last night’s shocking Fatality

Who was the Second Passenger?

Sir Daniel Davidson arrived at his consulting-rooms at half-past ten. At his front door he caught sight of the news placard and, for the first time in his life, bought a sporting edition. He now folded the paper carefully and laid it on top of his desk. He lit a cigarette, and glanced at his servant.

‘I shan’t see any patients,’ he said. ‘If anybody rings up—I’m out. Thank you.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ said the servant and removed himself.

Sir Daniel sat thinking, He had trained himself to think methodically and he hated slipshod ideas as much as he despised a vague diagnosis. He was, he liked to tell his friends, above all things, a creature of method and routine. He prided himself upon his memory. His memory was busy now with events only seven hours old. He closed his eyes and saw himself in the entrance-hall of Marsdon House at four o’clock that morning. The last guests, wrapped in coats and furs, shouted cheerfully to each other and passed through the great doors in groups of twos and threes. Dimitri stood at the foot of the stairs. He himself was near the entrance to the men’s cloakroom. He was bent on avoiding Lucy Lorrimer, who had stayed to the bitter end, and would offer to drive him home if she saw him. There she was, just going through the double doors. He hung back. Drifts of fog were blown in from the street. He remembered that he had wrapped his scarf over his mouth when he noticed the fog. It was at that precise moment he had seen Mrs Halcut-Hackett, embedded in furs, slip through the entrance alone. He had thought there was something a little odd about this. The collar of her fur wrap turned up, no doubt against the fog, and the manner in which she slipped, if so majestic a woman could be said to slip, round the outside of the group! There was something furtive about it. And then he himself had been jostled by that fellow Withers, coming out of the cloakroom. Withers had scarcely apologized, but had looked quickly round the melting group in the hall and up the stairs.

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