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“I have the key,” said Pratt, “and I locked it.”
“That sounds as if you’re Leicester Pratt.”
“I am.”
“You might have warned me. Now I shall spend the rest of the evening trying to recall our conversation to see if I’ve put my foot in it! Or p’r’aps you’ll save me the trouble? Have I?”
There was something cheap, almost insulting, in Chater’s coolness, which appeared to have been deliberately acquired, whereas the sangfroid of Pratt was a natural inheritance. The artist answered:
“You have not even put your foot in my studio. Or—have you?”
“What, put my foot in your studio?” exclaimed Chater. “How could I have, if it’s locked?”
“It wasn’t locked ten minutes ago.”
Chater’s expression changed slightly. It was still cool, but a watchful quality entered into it.
“Ten minutes ago I was saying good-evening to a maid,” he said.
A clock struck seven as he spoke. It was a clock over the stables.
“I see,” murmured Pratt. “Then you have not been out here ten minutes?”
“I’d just come out when I met you.”
“Did you meet anybody else?”
“Excuse me, Mr. Pratt, but what’s all this about?”
Pratt shrugged his shoulders.
“Nothing important,” he replied. “See you at dinner.”
Chater turned his head as Pratt began to resume his way.
“Do we like each other?” he asked.
“Not a bit,” answered Pratt.
That was also Chater’s conviction as, after watching the artist disappear into the house, he himself turned back to the flagged path and walked towards the studio. If Pratt had not locked the studio door, he would not have seen the thirteenth guest at dinner.
Bultin was fixing an over-large white tie round his collar when Pratt rejoined him. Bultin liked large things. His soft felt hat was of Italian dimensions, although it came from a shop in Piccadilly.
“Enjoy your walk?” asked Bultin, without turning his head.
“Immensely,” answered Pratt, throwing off his coat, “though not quite as much as Edyth Fermoy-Jones would have enjoyed it in my place. ‘Why?’ the famous journalist refused to inquire. Because, my dear Lionel, Edyth Fermoy-Jones would have made a most sensational discovery, and would have torn up the first chapter of that novel of hers.”
“The one thing I have never learned to do without an effort,” said Bultin, “is to tie a white tie.”
“And she would have started her story afresh, you vile pretender! Yes, Lionel, I made a mistake when I described her plot to you just now. It will certainly contain the marvellous necklace round the neck of the attractive widow—a double rope of pearls worth—you like to quote figures, don’t you?—worth every penny of ten thousand pounds. You can make it twenty, if you like. Edyth Fermoy-Jones will make it fifty. But it won’t be stolen! Not, at least, for several chapters—till her editor has put the wind up her by shouting for more drama. No, a picture will be mutilated, instead. Less hackneyed idea, isn’t it? With first-rate possibilities for development, and an unimpeachable setting. Studio—model’s screen—artist’s lay figure—strange pictures on large easels—somebody hiding behind one of ’em—” He paused, arrested by a thought, then continued: “The mutilated picture in Miss Fermoy-Jones’s studio will be of a baron’s daughter. Value—no, price—one thousand guineas. Smeared over with paint, my boy. Smeared over with paint.”
“I thought that was the fate of all pictures,” remarked Bultin.
“The fate is bearable when there is only one artist,” answered Pratt. “But here there are two. The first artist’s smear has been smeared out by the second. I wonder how Epstein feels when people daub his statues? Scornful? Callous? Cynical? Or just bloody angry? I must ask him.”
Bultin’s nose for a true scent was as accurate as any hound’s. He paused for a moment in his struggle with his tie.
“Like that?” he said quietly.
“I don’t suppose, Lionel,” replied Pratt, kicking off his shoes, “there’s a soul alive without his vulnerable spot. An elephant’s got one behind his ear. I’ve got one behind my paint. Where’s yours?”
“You’ll have to paint me, as you paint other people, to find out,” answered Bultin, almost humanly.
“Perhaps I’ve found out already, without using my brushes.”
“Or perhaps I haven’t got one? Or perhaps the only individual who will ever find it out is the unpleasant old man with the scythe.”
“Death,” mused Pratt. “I’m not thinking of Death. That’s miles away....”
He stopped abruptly. Bultin loosened his tie, pulled it off, and began again.
“Are you sure, Leicester?” he inquired. “Are you quite sure—with your mutilated picture only a few yards away? There may be murder committed in Miss Fermoy-Jones’s novel yet—eh? By an artist?”
“I don’t kill,” said Pratt. Then he recalled the moment when he had seen red in the passage, and again when he had found himself trembling in the studio. He held up his hand. It was perfectly steady. He smiled. “No; I don’t kill. The murder may appear in Miss Fermoy-Jones’s shocker, but it won’t be reported in Monday’s newspaper. I’m afraid I won’t be giving you that paragraph. Just the same, Lionel,” he went on contemplatively, “there’s a lot beneath a quiet surface. The person who spoilt my picture may have been a quiet sort of a person. He may have been more surprised than any one at his action. A sudden moment of passion, eh? A sudden dizziness? It can happen.” He raised a slender finger. “Listen! Dead quiet, isn’t it? Not a sound! But if we could really hear, Lionel? Storms brewing in the silence? There’s silence in the passage outside this door here—silence in the hall below—silence on the lawn, silence in the studio—silence in a room where an invalid lies. A brooding silence, my boy—that’s not going to last!”
Bultin looked at Pratt, whose hand now dropped into a pocket to emerge with two small objects. One was a cigarette-end. State Express 555. The other was the key to the studio.
“Damn this tie,” said Bultin, and chose another.
Chapter VIII. How Things Happen
John looked up quickly as Nadine entered the ante-room, and there was something apprehensive in his eye.
A feeling of peace had come to him when, shortly before dinner, his couch had been rolled in here from the hall and he had escaped temporarily from social responsibilities. Nadine, dressed early, had herself supervised the removal and the arranging of the room, assuming responsibility for his comfort, but she had only lingered for a moment or two afterwards. He gained an impression—it was correct—that she had originally intended to stay longer, and had then abruptly changed her mind.
A perfect dinner had followed. Its character gave no hint that it had been designed and cooked by a Chinaman. He had had one visitor during the meal. Anne had left her table to make sure that everything was all right. “I suppose I really ought to have watched you being shoved in here,” she had said, “but I’m afraid I never do half the things I ought to do, and anyway Mrs. Leveridge was looking after you, wasn’t she? She’s terribly nice, isn’t she? I love her. Be sure to give a view-halloa if you want anything, won’t you?” The idea that any one in Bragley Court should have to shout for service made John smile.
The dark lawn outside the window sheltered by the long ballroom wing—had the ballroom been a lecture-hall and the ante-room less luxuriously furnished, he might have fancied himself back in college, staring out into the dark quadrangle where studious figures flitted not always with studious thoughts—had contributed to the sense of mental repose.
Then the peace had been broken. Guests, impelled by kindness or curiosity, had paid him short visits, or popped their heads in to give him a word or a smile. Apart from Harold Taverley, the men had fought rather shy of him, but the women had formed an intermittent procession. Mrs. Rowe had introduced her daughter, Ruth, who had been thoroughly unmodern and had blushed rather painfully. Miss Fermoy-Jones, on the other hand, had been quite unblushing, and during ten boring minutes had contrived to mention the titles of six of the sixteen mystery novels she had written. “Of course, they’re terrible stuff, really,” she had gushed, when she had become mistakenly convinced that she would not be believed, “but if people demand a thing, what are you to do? And just as you can write a bad psychological novel, I suppose you can write a good detective story. Lift your readers up, I say, and it doesn’t really matter where you start from—if you understand what I mean, Mr. Foss. But I mustn’t make your head ache by talking literature!” Lady Aveling had introduced Zena Wilding. Maybe she had hoped Zena would stay, but this interview had ended rather abruptly when the actress had suddenly noticed Lord Aveling in the doorway, and had whispered confidentially, “I’m so sorry, I’ve got to go and talk shop, but perhaps I’ll see you again later.” Anne, too, had paid him a second visit.
But Nadine Leveridge had kept away, and during the intervals of the procession John had visualised her in the ballroom, from which music faintly floated. He visualised her with painful clearness and struggled not to.... And he was struggling not to now, when she appeared, and caught his expression.
If she had been dancing, there was little sign of it.
She looked as neat as when he had last seen her, and the double row of pearls lay against smooth, cool skin.
“Shall I go?” she asked with disarming bluntness.
“Go? Good Lord, no!” he exclaimed. “Why on earth?”
“You look worried.” His mind raced for the right answer, but her mind raced his. “I expect your foot’s still giving you the devil.”
“Just a bit.”
“So I will go. You’d rather be alone. I know you’ve had a string of visitors. Good-night.”
“I say—you’re not—wait a minute—you’re not really going, are you?”
“You’re quite sure you don’t want me to?”
“I should hate you to!”
“Well, after all, I didn’t really come here just to turn round and go back again,” she smiled.
She entered the room and walked towards the window. A dog across the dark lawn was barking.
“Haig’s a bit restless to-night,” she remarked. “Haig is our watch-dog, and Lord Aveling’s method of keeping the Great War green. Though why anybody wants to keep a war green I’ve never learned.” She pulled the long curtains across the window, shutting out the lawn and muffling Haig’s war-cry. Then she rolled a large green silk pouffe towards the couch and sat beside him. “What do we talk about, Mr. Foss? Things that matter, or things that don’t?”
“I’ll leave the choice to you,” he hedged. “But perhaps cabbages and kings would be the safest.”
“Safest?”
He turned red. What a fool he was! What a blundering ass! Usually he was rather good at conversation, but now he could not even talk of cabbages and kings without putting his foot in it. He did not realise that there are some women with whom it is almost impossible for a man to talk insignificantly. Beneath their trivial words they are telling him all the while that they like him or dislike him, love him or loathe him. The personal equation is all that lives behind their conversation.
“Have a cigarette, and don’t worry,” said Nadine. She produced a tiny gold case and held it out to him. “Forgive their idiotic size.”
She struck a match. As the light flickered on her features, their perfection almost hurt him. Of course, it was beauty-parlour perfection. Therefore, not really perfection at all. He held on to that thought while he advanced his head to the light. She blew the match out as soon as he had used it, then struck another and lit her own cigarette from a greater distance.
They smoked for a few moments in silence. He had an agonising sensation that valuable seconds were slipping away, dropping irreclaimably into the void of time. Suddenly she raised her head.
“Yes,—I remember—one can just hear the music from this room,” she exclaimed. “Has it tantalised you, as it tantalised me when I was lying on that couch two years ago?”
“I’m not a great dancer,” he answered, “but I like it.”
“You’re cut out for the diplomatic service,” she smiled, “you answer questions so tactfully! I could hardly lie still! There were better dancers that time than this. Apart from Mr. Taverley—and even he trod on my foot once”—She advanced a shoe and regarded the gold-sandalled toe—“there’s not a good dancer here. Well, Lord Aveling’s not bad—but the rest! Sir James dances with a sort of pompous caution. Mr. Pratt seems to have the one object of preventing you from knowing what steps he’s going to do next. I can usually follow anybody, but he beats me. I’m sure it’s on purpose. Of course, his bosom companion, Mr. Bultin, doesn’t dance at all. Or, if he does, he won’t. He just watches with a kind of insulting boredom. So I escaped him. Also Mr. Rowe. But Mr. Chater—oh, my God! We almost came to blows!”
“How does Mr. Chater dance?” inquired John, feeling that all this conversation was mere prelude. “I can’t imagine him dancing attractively.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, you’re right, anyway. He—how can one describe it?—he seems to press, and yet he doesn’t. I think it’s because he is pressing with his mind. He was asking questions—quite quietly and casually—all the time we danced.” She laughed. “He even asked a question about us.”
“What—you and me?”
“You and me. He wanted to know whether we’d known each other a long while.”
“Confound the fellow! It wasn’t his business!”
“So I implied. Although he did it quite nicely. Shall I tell you what he reminds me of? A fairly intelligent worm—and after talking with fairly intelligent worms, I always feel I want a bath!”
“I suppose it was when you implied that it wasn’t his business that you nearly came to blows?” asked John.
“No—we just survived that one. It was when he said, ‘Did I hear somebody say your husband’s in the army?’”
“I—see,” murmured John.
“I believe you do,” she answered.
A wave of anger swept through him.
“The man’s a cad!” he exclaimed. “What’s he doing here?”
“That’s what I’m wondering, Mr. Foss,” replied Nadine thoughtfully. “Lord Aveling sometimes collects queer folk, but he’s rather excelled himself this week-end—I’ve not come across Mr. Chater’s type here before. By the way—do you know my husband isn’t in the army?”
John nodded, and hoped he was not flushing as he recalled the information Taverley had given him.
“Would it be cricket to ask who told you?”
“But you know that, don’t you?”
“Yes, of course. Harold Taverley. He was one of my husband’s best friends.”
“He still is.”
She looked at him quizzically, then smiled.
“You put that rather nicely,” she said. “And is Harold Taverley still my friend? No, never mind. I’m asking unfair questions.” She paused. She gave a queer little sigh. “Well, we’ve exhausted the cabbages and kings!”
She checked a movement to rise from the pouffe, and hunched her shoulders instead. The green wrap slipped from her back. As she half-turned to pick it up, a bare shoulder touched his sleeve.
“Your first impulse was right,” he said.
“What impulse?” she answered.
“Weren’t you going?”
“Yes. And then I decided not to.”
“Well—I think you’d better!”
“You’re not afraid of Mr. Chater?”
“Hell, no! I beg your pardon.”
“I like honest swearing, and hell’s a good word. Mr. Leveridge used it constantly. Are you afraid of me?”
