Hand in Glove

CHAPTER TWO Luncheon

Mr. Pyke Period made much of Nicola. He took her round, introducing her to Mr. Cartell and all over again to “Lady Bantling” and Mr. Dodds; to Miss Connie Cartell; and, with a certain lack of enthusiasm, to the adopted niece, Mary or Moppett, and her friend, Mr. Leonard Leiss.

Miss Cartell shouted: “Been hearing all about you, ha, ha!”

Mr. Cartell said: “Afraid I disturbed you just now. Looking for P.P. So sorry.”

Moppett said: “Hullo. I suppose you do shorthand? I tried but my squiggles looked like rude drawings. So I gave up.” Young Mr. Leiss stared damply at Nicola and then shook hands — also damply. He was pallid and had large eyes, a full mouth and small chin. The sleeves of his violently checked jacket displayed an exotic amount of shirt-cuff and link. He smelt very strongly of hair oil. Apart from these features it would have been hard to say why he seemed untrustworthy.

Mr. Cartell was probably by nature a dry and pedantic man. At the moment he was evidently much put out. Not surprising, Nicola thought, when one looked at the company: his stepson with whom, presumably, he had just had a flaring row; his divorced wife and her husband; his noisy sister; her “niece,” whom he obviously disliked; and Mr. Leiss. He dodged about, fussily attending to drinks.

“May Leonard fix mine, Uncle Hal?” Moppett asked. “He knows my kind of wallop.”

Mr. Period, overhearing her, momentarily closed his eyes, and Mr. Cartell saw him do it.

Miss Cartell shouted uneasily: “The things these girls say, nowadays! Honestly!” and burst into her braying laugh. Nicola could see that she adored Moppett.

Leonard adroitly mixed two treble martinis.

Andrew had brought Nicola her tomato juice. He stayed beside her. They didn’t say very much but she found herself glad of his company.

Meanwhile, Mr. Period, who, it appeared, had recently had a birthday, was given a present by Lady Bantling. It was a large brass paperweight in the form of a fish rampant. He seemed to Nicola to be disproportionately enchanted with this trophy, and presently she discovered why.

“Dearest Désirée,” he exclaimed. “How wonderfully clever of you: my crest, you know! The form, the attitude, everything! Connie! Look! Hal, do look.”

The paperweight was passed from hand to hand and Andrew was finally sent to put it on Mr. Period’s desk.

When he returned Moppett bore down upon him. “Andrew!” she said. “You must tell Leonard about your painting. He knows quantities of potent dealers. Actually, he might be jolly useful to you. Come and talk to him.”

“I’m afraid I wouldn’t know what to say, Moppett.”

“I’ll tell you. Hi, Leonard! We want to talk to you.”

Leonard advanced with drinks. “All right, all right,” he said. “What about?”

“Which train are you going back by?” Andrew asked Nicola.

“I don’t know.”

“When do you stop typing?”

“Four o’clock, I think.”

“There’s a good train at twenty past. I’ll pick you up. May I?”

His mother had joined them. “We really ought to be going,” she said, smiling amiably at Nicola. “Lunch is early today, Andrew, on account we’re having a grand party tonight. You’re staying for it, by the way?”

“I don’t think I can.”

“I’m sure you can if you set your mind to it. We need you badly. I’d have warned you, but we only decided last night. It’s an April Fool party: that makes the excuse. Bimbo’s scarcely left the telephone since dawn.”

“We ought to go, darling,” said Bimbo over her shoulder.

“I know. Let’s. Good-bye.” She held out her hand to Nicola. “Are you coming lots of times to type for P.P.?”

“I think, fairly often.”

“Make him bring you to Baynesholme. We’re off, Harold. Thank you for our nice drinks. Good-bye, P.P. Don’t forget you’re dining, will you?”

“How could I?”

“Not possibly.”

“It was — I wondered, dearest Désirée, if you’d perhaps rather…? Still — I suppose…”

“My poorest sweet, what are you talking about?” said Lady Bantling and kissed him. She looked vaguely at Moppett and Leonard. “Good-bye. Come along, boys.”

Andrew muttered to Nicola: “I’ll ring you up about the train.” He said good-bye cordially to Mr. Period and very coldly to his stepfather.

Moppett said: “I had something fairly important to ask you, you gorgeous Guardee, you.”

“How awful never to know what it was,” Andrew replied and, with Bimbo, followed his mother out of the room.

Watching Désirée go, Nicola thought: “Moppett would probably like to acquire that manner, but she never will. She hasn’t got the style.”

Mr. Period, in a fluster, extended his hands. “Désirée can’t know!” he exclaimed. “Neither can he or Andrew! How extraordinary!”

“Know what?” asked Miss Cartell.

“About Ormsbury. Her brother. It was in the Telegraph.”

“If Désirée is giving one of her parties,” said Mr. Cartell, “she is not likely to put it off for her brother’s demise. She hasn’t heard of him since he went out to the Antipodes, where I understand he’d been drinking like a fish for the last twenty years.”

“Really, Hal!” Mr. Period exclaimed.

Moppett and Leonard Leiss giggled and retired into a corner with their drinks.

Miss Cartell was launched on an account of some local activity. “…So I said to the Rector: ‘We all know damn well what that means,’ and he said like lightning: ‘We may know but we don’t let on.’ He’s got quite a respectable sense of humour, that man.”

“Pause for laugh,” Moppett said very offensively.

Miss Cartell, who had in fact thrown back her head to laugh, blushed painfully and looked at her ward with such an air of baffled vulnerability that Nicola, who had been thinking how patronizing and arrogant she was, felt sorry for her and furious with Moppett.

So, evidently, did Mr. Period. “My dear Mary,” he said. “That was not the prettiest of remarks.”

“Quite so. Precisely,” Mr. Cartell agreed. “You should exercise more discipline, Connie.”

Leonard said: “The only way with Moppett is to beat her like a carpet.”

“Care to try?” she asked him.

Alfred announced luncheon.

It was the most uncomfortable meal Nicola had ever eaten. The entire party was at cross purposes. Everybody appeared to be up to something indefinable.

Miss Cartell had bought a new car. Leonard spoke of it with languid approval. Moppett said they had seen a Scorpion for sale in George Copper’s garage. Leonard spoke incomprehensibly of its merits.

“Matter of fact,” he said, “I’d quite like to buy it. Trade in my own heap with him, of course.” He leant back in his chair and whistled quietly through his teeth.

“Shall we look at it again?” Moppett suggested, grandly.

“No harm in looking, is there?”

Nicola suddenly thought: That was a pre-planned bit of dialogue. Alfred returned with an envelope which he placed before Mr. Period.

“What’s this?” Mr. Period asked pettishly. He peered through his eyeglass.

“From the Rectory, sir. The person suggested it was immediate.”

“I do so dislike interruptions at luncheon,” Mr. Period complained. “ ’Scuse, everybody?” he added playfully.

His guests made acquiescent noises. He read what appeared to be a very short letter and changed colour.

“No answer,” he said to Alfred. “Or rather-say I’ll call personally upon the Rector.”

Alfred withdrew. Mr. Period, after a fidgety interval and many glances at Mr. Cartell, said: “I’m very sorry, Hal, but I’m afraid your Pixie has created a parochial crise.”

Mr. Cartell said: “Oh, dear. What?”

“At the moment she, with some half-dozen other — ah — boon companions, is rioting in the Vicar’s seed beds. There is a Mothers’ Union luncheon in progress, but none of them has succeeded in catching her. It couldn’t be more awkward.”

Nicola had an uproarious vision of mothers thundering fruitlessly among rectorial flower beds. Miss Cartell broke into one of her formidable gusts of laughter.

“You always were hopeless with dogs, Boysie,” she shouted. “Why you keep that ghastly bitch!”

“She’s extremely well bred, Connie. I’ve been advised to enter her for the parish dog show.”

“My God, who by? The Rector?” Miss Cartell asked with a bellow of laughter.

“I have been advised,” Mr. Cartell repeated stuffily.

“We’ll have to have a freak class.”

“Are you entering your Pekingese?”

“They’re very keen I should, so I might as well, I suppose. Hardly fair to the others, but she’d be a draw, of course.”

“For people that like lapdogs, no doubt.”

Mr. Period intervened: “I’m afraid you’ll have to do something about it, Hal,” he said. “Nobody else can control her.”

“Alfred can.”

“Alfred is otherwise engaged.”

“She’s on heat, of course.”

“Really, Connie!”

Mr. Cartell, pink in the face, rose disconsolately, but at that moment there appeared in the garden a disheveled clergyman dragging the overexcited Pixie by her collar. They were watched sardonically by a group of workmen.

Mr. Cartell hurried from the room and reappeared beyond the windows with Alfred.

“It’s too much,” Mr. Period said. “Forgive me!”

He, too, left the room and joined the group in the garden.

Leonard and Moppett, making extremely uninhibited conversation, went to the window and stood there, clinging to each other in an ecstasy of enjoyment. They were observed by Mr. Period and Mr. Cartell. There followed a brief scene in which the Rector, his Christian forbearance clearly exercised to its limit, received the apologies of both gentlemen, patted Mr. Period, but not Mr. Cartell, on the shoulder, and took his leave. Alfred lugged Pixie, who squatted back on her haunches in protest, out of sight, and the two gentlemen returned — very evidently in high dudgeon with each other. Leonard and Moppett made little or no attempt to control their amusement.

“Well!” Mr. Period said with desperate savoir faire. “What were we talking about?”

Moppett spluttered noisily. Connie Cartell said: “You’ll have to get rid of that mongrel, you know, Hal.” Her brother glared at her. “You can’t,” Connie added, “make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.”

“I entirely agree,” Mr. Cartell said, very nastily indeed, “and have often said so much, I believe, to you.”

There was a quite dreadful silence, broken at last by Mr. Period.

“Strange,” he observed, “how, even in the animal kingdom, breeding makes itself felt.” And he was off, in a very big way, on his favourite topic. Inspired, perhaps, by what he would have called Pixie’s lack of form, he went to immoderate lengths in praising this quality. He said, more than once, that he knew the barriers had been down for twenty years but nevertheless…On and on he went, all through the curry and well into the apple flan. He became, Nicola had regretfully to admit, more than a little ridiculous.

It was clear that Mr. Cartell thought so. He himself grew more and more restive. Nicola guessed that he was fretted by divided loyalties and even more by the behaviour of Leonard Leiss, who, having finished his lunch, continued to lean back in his chair and whistle softly through his teeth. Moppett asked him, sardonically, how the chorus went. He raised his eyebrows and said, “Oh, pardon me — I just can’t seem to get that little number out of my system,” and smiled generally upon the table.

“Evidently,” said Mr. Cartell.

Mr. Period said he felt sure that he himself made far too much of the niceties of civilized behaviour and told them how his father had once caused him to leave the dining-room for using his fishknife.

Mr. Cartell listened with mounting distaste. Presently he wiped his lips, leant back in his chair and said: “My dear P.P., that sort of thing is no doubt very well in its way, but surely one can make a little too much of it?”

“I happen to feel rather strongly about such matters,” Mr. Period said, with a small deprecating smile at Nicola.

Miss Cartell, who had been watching her adopted niece with anxious devotion, suddenly shouted: “I always say that when people start fussing about family and all that, it’s because they’re a bit hairy round the heels themselves, ha ha!”

She seemed to be completely unaware of the implications of her remark or its effect upon Mr. Period.

“Well, really, Connie!” he said. “I must say!”

“What’s wrong?”

Mr. Cartell gave a dry little laugh. “After all,” he said. “When Adam delved, you know.”

“ ‘Dolve,’ I fancy, not ‘delved,’ ” Mr. Period corrected rather smugly. “Oh, yes. The much-quoted Mr. Ball, who was afterwards hanged for his pains, wasn’t he? Who was then the gentleman? The answer is, of course, ‘Nobody.’ It takes several generations to evolve the genuine article, don’t you agree?”

“I’ve known it to be effected in less than no time,” Mr. Cartell said dryly. “It’s quite extraordinary to what lengths some people will go. I heard on unimpeachable authority of a man who forged his name in a parish register in order to establish descent from some ancient family or another.”

Miss Cartell laughed uproariously.

Mr. Period dropped his fork into his pudding.

Leonard asked with interest: “Was there any money in it?”

Moppett said: “How was he found out? Tell us more.”

Mr. Cartell said, “There has never been a public exposure. And there’s really no more to tell.”

Conversation then became desultory. Leonard muttered something to Moppett, who said: “Would anybody mind if we were excused? Leonard’s car is having something done to its guts and the chap in the garage seemed to be quite madly moronic. We were to see him again at two o’clock.”

“If you mean Copper,” Mr. Period observed, “I’ve always understood him to be a thoroughly dependable fellow.”

“He’s a sort of half-pie, broken-down gent or something, isn’t he?” Leonard asked casually.

“Jolly good man, George Copper,” Miss Cartell said.

“Certainly,” Mr. Period faintly agreed. He was exceedingly pale.

“Oh,” Leonard said, stretching his arms easily, “I think I can manage Mr. George Copper quite successfully.” He glanced round the table. “Smoking allowed?” he asked.

Miss Cartell swallowed her last fragment of cheese and her brother looked furious. Mr. Period murmured: “Since you are leaving us, why not?”

Leonard groped in his pockets. “I’ve left mine in the car,” he said to Moppett. “Hand over, Sexy, will you?”

Mr. Period said: “Please,” and offered his gold case. “These are Turks,” he said. “I’m so sorry if you don’t like them. Old-fogyishly, I can’t get used to the others.”

“Makes a change,” Leonard said, obligingly. He took a cigarette, looked at the case and remarked: “That’s nice.” It was extraordinary how off-key his lightest observations could sound.

“Do let me see,” Moppett asked, and took the case.

“It was left me,” Mr. Period said, “by dear old Lady Barsington. An eighteenth-century cardcase. The jewelled clasp is said to be unique. There’s an inscription, but it’s very faint. If you take it to the light….”

Moppett took it to the window, and Leonard joined her there. He began to hum and then to sketch in the words of his little number: “If you mean what I think you mean, O.K. by me. Things aren’t always what they seem. O.K. by me.” Moppett gaily joined in.

Alfred came in to say that Mr. Period was wanted on the telephone, and he bustled out, after a pointedly formal apology.

Leonard strolled back to the table. He had evidently decided that some conventional apology was called for. “So sorry to break up the party,” he said winningly. “But if it’s all the same, I think we’d better toddle.”

“By all means. Please,” said Mr. Cartell.

“What P.P. and Uncle Hal will think of your manners, you two!” Miss Cartell said, and laughed uneasily.

They got up. Moppett said good-bye to Mr. Cartell quite civilly and was suddenly effusive in her thanks. Leonard followed her lead, but with an air of finding it only just worth while to do so.

“Be seeing you, ducks,” Moppett said in Cockney to Miss Cartell, and they went out.

There followed a rather deadly little silence.

Mr. Cartell addressed himself to his sister. “My dear Connie,” he said, “I should be failing in my duty if I didn’t tell you I consider that young man to be an unspeakable bounder.”

Mr. Period returned.

“Shall we have our coffee in the drawing-room?” he asked in the doorway.

Nicola would have dearly liked to excuse herself and go back to the study, but Mr. Period took her gently by the arm and led her to the drawing-room. His fingers, she noticed, were trembling. “I want,” he said, “to show you a newly acquired treasure.”

Piloting her into a far corner, he unfolded a brown-paper parcel. It turned out to be a landscape in water colour: the distant view of a manor house.

“It’s charming,” Nicola said.

“Thought to be an unsigned Cotman, but the real interest for me is that it’s my great-grandfather’s house at Ribblethorpe. Destroyed, alas, by fire. I came across it in a secondhand shop. Wasn’t that fun for me?”

Alfred took round the coffee tray. Nicola pretended she couldn’t hear Mr. Cartell and his sister arguing. As soon as Alfred had gone, Miss Cartell tackled her brother.

“I think you’re jolly prejudiced, Boysie,” she said. “It’s the way they all talk nowadays. Moppett tells me he’s brilliantly clever. Something in the City.”

“Too clever by half if you ask me. And what in the City?”

“I don’t know exactly what. He’s got rather a tragic sort of background, Moppett says. The father was killed in Bangkok and the mother’s artistic.”

“You’re a donkey, Connie. If I were you I should put a stop to the friendship. None of my business, of course. I am not,” Mr. Cartell continued with some emphasis, “Mary’s uncle, despite the courtesy title she is good enough to bestow upon me.”

“You don’t understand her.”

“I make no attempt to do so,” he replied in a fluster.

Nicola murmured: “I think I ought to get back to my job.” She said good-bye to Miss Cartell.

“Typin’, are you?” asked Miss Cartell. “P.P. tells me you’re Basil Maitland-Mayne’s gel. Used to know your father. Hunted with him.”

“We all knew Basil,” Mr. Period said with an attempt at geniality.

“I didn’t,” Mr. Cartell said, crossly.

They glared at each other.

“You’re very smart all of a sudden, P.P.,” Miss Cartell remarked. “Private secretary! You’ll be telling us next that you’re going to write a book.” She laughed uproariously.

Nicola returned to the study.

Nicola had a ridiculously overdeveloped capacity for feeling sorry. She was sorry now for Mr. Period, because he had been upset and had made a silly of himself; and for Miss Cartell, because she was boisterous and vulnerable and besotted with her terrible Moppett who treated her like dirt. She was sorry for Mr. Cartell, because he had been balanced on a sort of tightrope of irritability. He had been angry with his guests when they let him down, and angry with Mr. Period out of loyalty to his own sister.

Even Nicola was unable to feel sorry for either Moppett or Leonard.

She ordered herself back to work and was soon immersed in the niceties of polite behaviour. Every now and then she remembered Andrew Bantling and wondered what the row with his stepfather had been about. She hoped she would meet him on the train, though she supposed Lady Bantling would insist on his staying for the party.

She had worked solidly for about half an hour when her employer came in. He was still pale, but he smiled at her, and tiptoed with playful caution to his desk.

“Pay no attention to me,” he whispered. “I’m going to write another little note.”

He sat at his desk and applied himself to this task. Presently he began dismally to hum an erratic version of Leonard Leiss’s song: If you mean what I think you mean, O.K. by me. He made a petulant little sound. “Now, why in the world,” he cried, “should that distressingly vulgar catch come into my head? Nicola, my dear, what a perfectly dreadful young man! That you should be let in for that sort of party! Really!”

Nicola reassured him. By-and-by he sighed, so heavily that she couldn’t help glancing at him. He had folded his letter and addressed an envelope and now sat with his head on his hand. “Better wait a bit,” he muttered. “Cool down.”

Nicola stopped typing and looked out of the window. Riding up the drive on a bicycle was a large policeman.

He dismounted, propped his machine against a tree trunk and removed his trouser clips. He then approached the house.

“There’s a policeman outside.”

“What? Oh, really? Noakes, I suppose. Splendid fellow, old Noakes. I wonder what he wants. Tickets for a concert, I misdoubt me.”

Alfred came in. “Sergeant Noakes, sir, would like to see you.”

“What’s it all about, Alfred?”

“I don’t know, I’m sure, sir. He says it’s important.”

“All right. Show him in, if I must.”

“Thank you, sir.”

The impressive things about Sergeant Noakes were his size and his mildness. He was big, even for a policeman, and he was mild beyond belief. When Mr. Period made him known to Nicola, he said: “Good afternoon, Miss,” in a loud but paddy voice and added that he hoped she would excuse them for a few minutes. Nicola took this as a polite dismissal and was about to conform, when Mr. Period said that he wouldn’t dream of it. She must go on typing and not let them bore her. Please. He insisted.

Poor Nicola, fully aware of Sergeant Noakes’s wishes to the contrary, sat down again and banged away at her machine. She couldn’t help hearing Mr. Period’s airy and inaccurate assurance that she was entirely in his confidence.

“Well,” Sergeant Noakes said, “sir…in that case…”

“Sit down, Noakes.”

“Thank you, sir. I’ve dropped in to ask if you can help me in a small matter that has cropped up.”

“Ah, yes? More social activities, Noakes?”

“Not exactly, this time, sir. More of a routine item, really. I wonder if you’d mind telling me if a certain name is known to you.” He lowered his voice.

“Leiss!” Mr. Period shrilly ejaculated. “Did you say Leonard Leiss?”

“That was the name, yes.”

“I encountered him for the first time this morning.”

“Ah,” said Sergeant Noakes warmly. “That makes everything much easier, sir. Thank you. For the first time…So you are not at all familiar with Mr. Leiss?”

“Familiar!”

“Quite so, sir. And Mr. Cartell?”

“Nor is Mr. Cartell. Until this morning Mr. Leiss was a complete stranger to both of us. He may be said to be one still.”

“Perhaps I could see Mr. Cartell?”

“Look here, Noakes, what the deuce are you talking about? — Nicola, my dear, pray stop typing, will you be so good? But don’t go.”

Nicola stopped.

“Well, sir,” Sergeant Noakes said. “The facts are as follows. George Copper happened to mention to me, about half an hour ago, that he’s selling a Scorpion sports model to a young gentleman called Leonard Leiss and he stated, further, that the customer had given your name and Mr. Cartell’s and Miss Cartell’s as references.”

“Good God!”

“Now, sir, in the Service there’s a regular system by which all stations are kept informed about the activities of persons known to be operating in a manner contrary to the law, or if not contrary within the meaning of the Act, yet in a suspicious and questionable manner. You might describe them,” Sergeant Noakes said with a flash of imagery, “as ripening fruit. Just about ready for the picking.”

“Noakes, what in heaven’s name — Well. Go on.”

“The name of Leonard Sydney Leiss appears on the most recent list. Two previous convictions. Obtaining goods under fake pretenses. The portry-parly coincides. It’s a confidential matter, Mr. Period, but seeing that the young man gave your name with such assurance and seeing he was very warmly backed up by the young lady, who is Miss Constance Cartell’s adopted niece, I thought I would come and mention it quietly. Particularly, sir, as there’s a complication.”

Mr. Period stared dismally at him. “Complication?” lie said.

“Well, sir, yes. You see, for some time Leiss has been working in collusion with a young female who — I’m very sorry, I’m sure, sir — but the description of this young female does tally rather closely with the general appearance of Miss Cartell’s aforesaid adopted niece.”

There was a long silence. Then Mr. Period said: “This is all rather dreadful.”

“I take it, sir, you gave the young man no authority to use your name?”

“Merciful Heavens — NO.”

“Then perhaps we may just have a little chat with Mr. Cartell?”

Mr. Period rang the bell.

Mr. Cartell behaved quite differently from Mr. Period. He contracted into the shell of what Nicola supposed to be his professional manner as a solicitor. He looked pinched. Two isolated spots of colour appeared on his cheekbones. Nicola thought he was very angry indeed.

“I am much obliged to you, Sergeant,” he said at last, “for bringing this affair to my attention. You have acted very properly.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Very properly. If I may suggest a course of action it will be this. I shall inform my sister of the undesirability of having any further communication with this person, and she will see that his acquaintance with Miss Mary Ralston is terminated. Copper, of course, must be advised at once and he may then, if he thinks it proper, decline any further negotiations.”

Sergeant Noakes opened his mouth, but Mr. Cartell raised a finger and he shut it again.

“I need not add,” Mr. Cartell said crisply, “that no undertaking of any kind whatever was given by Mr. Period or by myself. Permission was not asked, and would certainly have been declined, for the use of our names. It might be as well, might it not, if I were to telephone Copper at once and suggest that he rids himself of Leiss and the other car, which he left, I understand, to be repaired at the garage. I shall then insist that Miss Ralston, who I imagine is there, returns at once…What’s the matter, Noakes?”

“The matter,” Sergeant Noakes said warmly, “is this, sir. George Copper can’t be told not to make the sale and Miss Ralston can’t be brought back to be warned.”

“My dear Noakes, why not?”

“Because George Copper has been fool enough to let young Leiss get away with it. And he has got away with it. With the sports car, sir, and the young lady inside it. And where they’ve gone, sir, is, to use the expression, nobody’s business.”

Who can form an objective view of events with which, however lightly, he has been personally involved? Not Nicola. When, after the climax, she tried to sort out her impressions of these events she found that in every detail they were coloured by her own preferences and sympathies.

At the moment, for instance, she was concerned to notice that, while Mr. Period had suffered a shrewd blow to his passionate snobbery, Mr. Cartell’s reaction was more disingenuous and resourceful. And while Mr. Period was fretful, Mr. Cartell, she thought, was nipped with bitter anger.

He made a complicated noise in his throat and then said sharply: “They must be traced, of course. Has Copper actually transacted the sale? Change of ownership and so on?”

“He’s accepted Mr. Leiss’s car, which is a souped-up old bag of a job, George reckons, in part payment. He’s let Mr. Leiss try out the Scorpion on the understanding that, if he likes it, the deal’s on.”

“Then they will return to the garage?”

“They ought to,” Sergeant Noakes said with some emphasis. “The point is, sir, will they? Likely enough, he’ll drive straight back to London. He may sell the car before he’s paid for it and trust to his connection here to get him out of the red if things become awkward. He’s played that caper before, and he may play it again.”

Mr. Cartell said: “May I, P.P.?” and reached for the telephone.

“If it’s all the same with you, gentlemen, I think I’ll make the call,” Sergeant Noakes said unexpectedly.

Mr. Cartell said: “As you wish,” and moved away from the desk.

Mr. Period began feeling, in an agitated way, in his pockets. He said fretfully: “What have I done with my cigarettes?”

Nicola said: “I think the case was left in the dining-room. I’ll fetch it.”

As she hurried out she heard the telephone ring.

The dining-room table was cleared and the window opened. The cigarette case was nowhere to be seen. She was about to go in search of Alfred, when he came in. He had not seen the case, he said. Nicola remembered very clearly that, as she stood back at the door for Miss Cartell, she had noticed it on the window sill, and she said as much to Alfred.

A shutter came down over Alfred’s face.

“It wasn’t there when I cleared, Miss.”

Nicola said: “Oh well! I expect, after all, Mr. Period—” And then remembered that Mr. Period had left the dining-room to answer the telephone and had certainly not collected the cigarette case when he briefly returned.

Alfred said: “The window was on the latch, as it is now, when I cleared, Miss. I’d left it shut, as usual.”

Nicola looked at it. It was a casement window and was hooked open to the extent of some eight inches. Beyond it were the rose garden, the side gate and the excavations in the lane. As she stared out of it a shovelful of earth was thrown up; derisively, she might almost have thought, by one of the workmen, invisible in the trench.

“Never mind,” she said. “We’ll find it. Don’t worry.”

“I hope so, I’m sure, Miss. It’s a valuable object.”

“I know.”

They were staring doubtfully at each other when Mr. Period came in looking exceedingly rattled.

“Nicola, my dear: Andrew Bantling on the telephone, for you. Would you mind taking it in the hall? We are un peu occupé, in the study. I’m so sorry.”

“Oh dear!” Nicola said. “So am I — that you’ve been bothered. Mr. Period, your cigarette case isn’t in here, I’m afraid.”

“But I distinctly remember—” Mr. Period began. “Well, never mind. Your telephone call, child.”

Nicola went into the hall.

Andrew Bantling said: “Oh, there you are at last! What goes on in the Lay-by? P.P. sounded most peculiar.”

“He’s awfully busy.”

“You’re being discreet and trustworthy. Never mind, I shall gimlet it out of you in the train. You couldn’t make the 3:30, I suppose?”

“Not possibly.”

“Then I shall simply have to lurk in the lane like a follower. There’s nowhere for me to be in this district. Baynesholme has become uninhabitable on account—” He lowered his voice and evidently put his mouth very close to the receiver, so that consonants popped and sibilants hissed in Nicola’s eardrum.

“What did you say?”

“I said the Moppett and her Leonard have arrived in a smashing Scorpion under pretense of wanting to see the family portraits. What’s the matter?”

“I’ve got to go. Sorry. Good-bye,” Nicola said, and rushed to the library.

Mr. Cartell and Mr. Period broke off their conversation as she entered. Sergeant Noakes was dialling a number.

She said: “I thought I should tell you at once. They’re at Baynesholme. They’ve driven there in the Scorpion.”

Mr. Cartell went into action. “Noakes,” he said, “tell Copper I want him here immediately in the car.”

“Which car, sir?” Noakes asked, startled, the receiver at his ear.

“The Bloodbath,” Mr. Period said impatiently. “What else? Really, Noakes!”

“He’s to drive me to Baynesholme as fast as the thing will go. At once, Noakes.”

Sergeant Noakes began talking into the telephone.

“Be quick,” Mr. Cartell said, “and you’d better come too.”

“Yes, George,” said Sergeant Noakes into the telephone. “That’s correct. Now.”

“Come along, Noakes. My hat and coat!” Mr. Cartell went out. “Alfred! My topcoat.”

“And you might ask them, Harold, while you’re about it,” Mr. Period quite shouted after him, “what they did with my cigarette case.”

“What?” the retreating voice asked.

“Lady Barsington’s cardcase. Cigarettes.”

There was a shocked pause. Mr. Cartell returned, half in and half out of an overcoat, a tweed hat cocked over one eye.

“What do you mean, P.P.? Surely you don’t suggest…?”

“God knows! But ask them. Ask!”

Désirée, Lady Bantling (ex-Cartell, factually Dodds), sat smiling to herself in her drawing-room.

She smoked incessantly and listened to Moppett Ralston and Leonard Leiss, and it would have been impossible for anyone to say what she thought of them. Her ravaged face, with its extravagant make-up, and her mop of orange hair made a flagrant statement against the green background of her chair. She was possibly not unamused.

Moppett was explaining how interested Leonard was in art and what a lot he knew about the great portrait painters.

“So I do hope,” Moppett was saying, “you don’t think it too boring and bold of us to ask if we may look. Leonard said you would, but I said we’d risk it and if we might just see the pictures and creep away again…?”

“Yes, do,” Désirée said. “They’re all Bantling ancestors. Gentlemen in skin-tight breeches, and ladies with high foreheads and smashing bosoms. Andrew could tell you all about them, but he seems to have disappeared. I’m afraid I’ve got to help poor Bimbo make up pieces of poetry for a treasure hunt and in any case I don’t know anything about them. I want my pictures to be modern and gay and, if possible, rude.”

“And, of course, you’re so right, Lady Bantling,” Leonard said eagerly. He leant forward with his head on one side sending little waves of hair oil towards her. Désirée watched him and accepted everything he said without comment. When he had talked himself to an ingratiating standstill, she remarked that, after all, she didn’t think she was all that interested in painting.

“Andrew has done a portrait of me which I do quite fancy,” she said. “I look like the third witch in Macbeth before she gave up trying to make the best of herself. Hullo, my darling, how’s your muse?”

Bimbo had come in. He threw an extremely cold glance at Leonard.

“My muse,” he said, “is bitching on me. You must help me, Désirée; there ought to be at least seven clues and it’s more amusing if they rhyme.”

“Can we help?” Moppett suggested. “Leonard’s quite good at really improper ones. What are they for?”

“A treasure hunt,” he said, without looking at her.

“Treasure hunts are my vintage,” Désirée said. “I thought it might be fun to revive them. So we’ve having one tonight.”

Moppett and Leonard cried excitedly. “But I’m utterly sold on them,” Moppett said. “They’re quite the gayest way of having parties. How exactly are you working it?” she asked Bimbo. He said shortly that they were doing it the usual way.

Désirée stood up. “Bimbo’s planting a bottle of champagne somewhere and the leading-up clues will be dotted about the landscape. If you don’t mind just going on your picture crawl under your own steam we’d better begin racking our brains for rhymes. Please do look wherever you like.” She held out her hand to Moppett. “I’m sorry not to be more hospitable, but we are, as you see, in a taking-on. Good-bye.” She looked at Leonard. “Good-bye.”

“My God!” Bimbo suddenly ejaculated. “The food from Magnums! It’ll be at the station.”

Moppett and Leonard stopped short and looked passionately concerned.

“Can’t you pick it up,” Désirée asked, “when you lay your trail of clues?”

“I can’t start before we’ve done the clues, can I?”

“They’re too busy to send anyone from the kitchen and they want the stuff. Madly. We’d better get the Bloodbath to collect it.”

“Look!” Moppett and Leonard said together and then gaily laughed at each other. “ ‘Two minds with butter…’ ” Moppett quipped. “But please — please do let us collect the things from Magnums. We’d adore to.”

Désirée said: “Jolly kind, but the Bloodbath will do it.”

Bimbo much more emphatically added: “Thank you, but we wouldn’t dream of it.”

“But why not?” Moppett protested. “Leonard’s longing to drive that thing out there, aren’t you, sweetie?”

“Of course. And, as a matter of fact,” Leonard said, “I happen to know the Bloodbath — if that’s George Copper’s crate — is out of commission. It won’t take us any time.”

“Do let us, or we’ll think,” Moppett urged engagingly, “that we really are being hideously in the way. Please.”

“Well—” Désirée said, not looking at her husband, “if you really don’t mind it would, I must say, be the very thing.”

“Andrew!” Bimbo ejaculated. “He’ll do it. Where is he?”

“He’s gone. Do you know, darling, I’m afraid we’d better accept the kind offer.”

“Of course!” Moppett cried. “Come on, Face! Is there anything else to be picked up, while we’re about it?”

Désirée said, with a faint twist in her voice: “You think of everything, don’t you? I’ll talk to the kitchen.”

When she had gone, Bimbo said: “Isn’t that the Scorpion Copper had in his garage?”

“The identical job,” Leonard agreed, man-to-man. “Not a bad little heap by and large, and the price is O.K. Like to have a look at her, Mr. Dodds? I’d appreciate your opinion.”

Bimbo, with an air of mingled distaste and curiosity, intimated that he would, and the two men left Moppett in the drawing-room. Standing well back from the French window, she watched them at the car: Leonard talking, Bimbo with his hands in his pockets. Trying, thought Moppett, not to be interested, but he is interested. He’s a car man. He’s married her for his Bentley and his drinks and the grandeur and fun. She’s old. She can’t have all that much of what it takes. Or, by any chance, can she?

A kind of contempt possessed her: a contempt for Désirée and Bimbo and anybody who was not like herself and Leonard. Living dangerously, she thought, that’s us. She wondered if it would be advisable to ask Leonard not to say “appreciate,” “O.K.,” “Pardon me,” and “appro.” She herself didn’t mind how he talked, she even enjoyed their rows when he would turn foul-mouthed, adderlike, and brutal. Still, if they were to crash the County — They’ll have to ask us, she thought, after this. They can’t not. We’ve been clever as clever.

She continued to peer slantways through the window.

When Désirée returned, Moppett was looking with respect at a picture above the fireplace.

Désirée said there would be a parcel at the grocer’s in Little Codling. “Your quickest way to the station is to turn right, outside the gates,” she said. “We couldn’t be more obliged to you.”

She went out with Moppett to the car, and when it had shot out of sight down the avenue, linked her arm in her husband’s.

“Shockers,” she said, “aren’t they?”

“Honestly, darling, I can’t think what you’re about.”

“Can’t you?”

“None of my business, of course,” he muttered. She looked at him with amusement.

“Don’t you like them?” she asked.

“Like them!”

“I find myself quite amused by them,” she said, and added indifferently, “They do know what they want, at least.”

“It was perfectly obvious from the moment they crashed their way in that they were hell-bent on getting asked for tonight.”

“I know.”

“Are you going to pretend not to notice their hints?”

“Oh,” she said with a faint chuckle, “I don’t think so. I expect I’ll ask them.”

Bimbo said: “Of course I never interfere—”

“Of course,” she agreed. “And how wise of you, isn’t it?” He drew away from her. “You don’t usually sulk either.”

“You let people impose on you.”

“Not,” she said gently, “without realizing it,” and he reddened.

“That young man,” he said, “is a monster. Did you smell him?”

“In point of fact, he’s got quite a share of what it takes.”

“You can’t mean it!”

“Yes, I do. I never tell lies about sex, as such. I should think he’s probably a bad hat, wouldn’t you?”

“I would. As shifty as they make them.”

“P’raps he’s a gangster and Moppett’s his moll.”

“Highly probable,” he said angrily.

“I can’t wait to hear Leonard being the life and soul of my party.”

“I promise you, if you do ask them, you’ll regret it.”

“Should we hire a detective to keep an eye on the spoons?”

“At least you can come in and help me with the bloody poetry.”

“I think I shall ask them,” she said, in her rather hoarse voice. “Don’t you think it could be fun? Would you really not want it?”

“You know damn’ well what I want,” he muttered, staring at her.

She raised her eyebrows. “I forgot to tell you,” she said. “Ormsbury’s dead.”

“Your brother?”

“That’s right. In Australia.”

“Ought you to—”

“I haven’t seen him for thirty years, and I never liked him. A horrid, dreary fellow.”

Bimbo said: “Good God, who’s this?”

“The Bloodbath,” Désirée said calmly. “So it isn’t out of commission. Bad luck for Leonard.”

It came slowly roaring and boiling up the long drive with George Copper at the wheel and Noakes beside him.

“Do you see who’s in the back seat?” Désirée asked her husband. “It’s Harold.”

“It can’t be.”

“But it is. His first visit since we had our final row and he shook my dust from his boots forever. Perhaps he’s going to claim me back from you after all these years.”

“What the hell can he want?”

“Actually I’m livid with him. He’s being beastly to Andrew about that money. I shall pitch into him.”

“Why’s he got Noakes? I’ll never get my clues done,” Bimbo complained.

“You bolt indoors. I’ll cope.”

Bimbo said: “Fair enough,” and did so.

The car drew up with a jerk. Sergeant Noakes got out and opened the rear door for Mr. Cartell, who was clearly flustered.

“Harold!” Désirée said with amusement. “How are you? I recognized your hat. Good afternoon, Mr. Copper. Good afternoon, Mr. Noakes.”

“I wonder,” Mr. Cartell began as he removed his hat, “if you could spare me a moment.”

“Why not? Come in.”

Bareheaded, baldish and perturbed, he followed her distrustfully into the house.

“What do we do?” Mr. Copper asked Noakes.

“Wait. What else? The Scorpion’s not here, George.”

“You don’t say,” Mr. Copper bitterly rejoined, looking round the open expanse of drive.

Noakes walked to the front of the Bloodbath and looked at the surface of the drive. He laid his hand pontifically on the bonnet and snatched it away with an oath.

“She’s boiling,” Mr. Copper observed.

“Ta for the information.”

“You would insist on the hurry. She can’t take it.”

“All right. All right. I said I ought to come on the bike. Stay where you are, George.”

Mr. Copper watched him with resentment. Doubled forward, he cast about the drive.

“The Scorpion,” he said, “drips her grease rather heavy, doesn’t she?”

“That’s right.”

“And she’s shod on three feet with Griprich and on the off hind with Startread. Correct?”

“Yes.”

“She’s came,” Sergeant Noakes said, “and went. Look for yourself.”

Mr. Copper said: “So what do we do? Roar after her with the siren screaming? If we had a siren.”

“We’ll follow it up for you through the usual channels. Don’t worry.”

“What’ll I say to the owner? Tell me that. I’m selling her on commission, mind! I’m responsible!”

“No need to panic. They might come back.”

“More likely to be halfway to London with changed number plates. Who started the panic, anyway? You, with your police records. Come back? Them!”

The front door opened and Mr. Cartell appeared, white-faced, in the entrance.

“Oh — Noakes,” he said. “I’ve a little further business to discuss indoors, but will join you in a moment. Will you stay where you are and deal with the car situation when they return?”

“Sir?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Cartell. “There’s no immediate need for alarm. They are coming back.”

With a sharp look at both of them he returned indoors.

“There you are,” Sergeant Noakes said. “What did I tell you? You leave this one to me.”

“What I can’t see,” Désirée said, turning her enormous lacklustre eyes upon her former husband, “is why you’ve got yourself into such a state. Poor Mr. Copper’s been told that you and P.P. and Connie won’t guarantee the sale. All he’s got to do is take the car away from them.”

“If they return it,” Mr. Cartell amended. “I hope, Harold darling, you’re not suggesting that they’ll make a break for Epping Forest and go native on Magnums’ smoked salmon! That really would be too tiresome. But I’m sure they won’t. They’re much too anxious to worm their way into my party.”

“You can’t,” Mr. Cartell said in a hurry, “possibly allow that, of course.”

“So everybody keeps telling me.”

“My dear Désirée—”

“Harold, I want to tackle you about Andrew.”

Mr. Cartell gave her one sharp glance and froze. “Indeed,” he said.

“He tells me you won’t let him have his money.”

“He will assume control of his inheritance at the appointed time, which is on the sixth of October next.”

“He did explain, didn’t he, why he needs it now? About the Grantham Gallery for sale and wanting to buy it?”

“He did. He also explained that he wishes to leave the Brigade in order to manage the Gallery.”

“And go on with his own painting.”

“Precisely. I cannot agree to anticipating his inheritance for these purposes.”

“He’s gone into it very carefully and he’s not a baby or a fool. He’s twenty-four and extremely levelheaded.”

“In this matter I cannot agree with you.”

“Bimbo’s been into it, too. He’s prepared to put up some of the cash and go in as a partner.”

“Indeed. I am surprised to learn he is in a position to do so.”

She actually changed colour at this. There was a short silence, and then she said: “Harold, I ask you very seriously to let Andrew have his inheritance.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You may remember,” she said, with no change of manner, “that when I do fight, it’s no holds barred.”

“In common with most—”

“Don’t say ‘with most of my delightful sex,’ Harold.”

“One can always omit the adjective,” said Mr. Cartell.

“Ah, well,” Désirée said pleasantly and stood up. “I can see there’s no future in sweet reasonableness. Are you enjoying life in P.P.’s stately cottage?”

Mr. Cartell also rose. “It’s a satisfactory arrangement,” he said stiffly, “for me. I trust, for him.”

“He won’t enjoy the Moppett-Leonard crise, will he? Poor P.P., such a darling as he is and such a Godalmighty snob. Does he know?”

“Know what?” Mr. Cartell asked unguardedly.

“About your niece and her burglar boyfriend?”

Mr. Cartell turned scarlet and closed his eyes. “She is NOT,” he said in the trembling voice of extreme exasperation, “my niece.”

“How do you know? I’ve always thought Connie might have popped her away to simmer, and then adopted her back, as you might say.”

“That is a preposterous and possibly an actionable statement, Désirée. The girl — Mary Ralston — came from an extremely reputable adoption centre.”

“Connie might have put her there.”

“If you will forgive me, I’ll have a word with Noakes. I regret very much that I have troubled you.”

“P.P. is dining with us. He and I are going to have a cozy old chum’s gossip before my treasure hunt party arrives.”

Mr. Cartell said: “I am not susceptible to moral blackmail, Désirée. I shall not reconsider my decision about Andrew.”

“Look,” Désirée said. “I fancy you know me well enough to realize that I’m not a sentimental woman.”

“That,” said Mr. Cartell, “I fully concede. A woman who gives a large party on the day her brother’s death is announced—”

“My dear Hal, you know you looked upon Ormsbury as a social scourge and so did I. By and large, I’m not madly fond of other people. But I am fond of Andrew. He’s my son and I like him very much indeed. You watch out for yourself, Harold. I’m on the warpath.”

A motor horn sounded distantly. They both turned to the windows.

“And here,” Désirée said, “are your friends. I expect you want to go to meet them. Good-bye.”

When Mr. Cartell had left her, she moved into the French window and, unlike Moppett, very openly watched the scene outside.

The Scorpion came up the drive at a great pace, but checked abruptly. Then it moved on at a more decorous speed and pulled up. Leonard and Moppett got out simultaneously. Sergeant Noakes advanced and so did they, all smiles and readiness, but with the faintest suggestion of self-consciousness, Désirée considered, in their joints. It’s people’s elbows, she reflected, that give them away.

They approached the group of three. Moppett, with girlish insouciance, linked her arm through Mr. Cartell’s, causing him to become rigid with distaste.

First blood to Moppett, thought Désirée with relish.

Leonard listened to Sergeant Noakes with an expression that progressed from bonhomie through concern towards righteous astonishment. He bowed ironically and indicated the Scorpion. Catching sight of Désirée, he shook his head slowly from side to side as if inviting her to share his bewilderment. He then removed two large packages from the Scorpion.

Désirée opened the French window and strolled down the steps towards them. Mr. Cartell furiously disengaged himself from Moppett.

“I think,” he said, “that we should get back, Noakes. If Copper drives the other car, you, I suppose—”

Sergeant Noakes glanced at Moppett and muttered something.

“Don’t let us keep you,” Leonard said quickly and with excessive politeness. “Please.”

They touched their hats to Désirée and mounted their respective cars. They drove away, inexplicably at a disadvantage.

“Well,” Désirée asked cheerfully, “did you find my tiresome food?”

Moppett and Leonard, all smiles, began to chatter and give way to each other.

Finally Moppett said: “Dear Lady Bantling — yes. We’ve got it all, but, as you see, we ran into a muddle of sorts. Mr. Copper’s made a nonsense about the Scorpion, and we’ve missed buying it.”

“Inefficient,” Leonard said. “It appears somebody else had first refusal.”

“How very disappointing.”

“Isn’t it!” Moppett agreed. “Too sickening.” She gave a little scream and put her hand to her mouth. “Leonard!” she cried. “Fools that we are!”

“What, darling?”

“We ought to have gone back with them. Look at us! Now what do we do?”

Leonard allowed the slightest possible gap to occur before he said: “I’m afraid Mr. George Copper will have to make a return trip in my car. Too bad!”

“What will you think of us?” Moppett asked Désirée.

“Oh,” she said lightly, “the worst,” and they laughed with possibly a shade less conviction.

“At least,” Moppett said, “we can bring the food in, can’t we? And if we might ring up for some sort of transport…”

Bimbo came out of the house and fetched up short when he saw them. Désirée grinned at him.

“Why not stay?” she said very distinctly to Moppett. “After fetching all our food, the least we can do is to ask you to eat it. Do stay.”