perhaps you’d walked up. And your wife?”
His face set in a rather grim line. Lance
said:
“My wife won’t be coming. At least, not
just yet.”
“I see. Come this way, will you, Mr.
Fortescue. Everyone is in the library, having
tea.”
She took him to the library door and left
him there. She thought to herself that
Lancelot Fortescue was a very attractive
person. A second thought followed the first.
Probably a great many other women thought
so, too.
117
Ill
“Lance!”
Elaine came hurrying forward towards
him. She flung her arms round his neck and
hugged him with a schoolgirl abandon that
Lance found quite surprising.
“Hallo. Here I am.”
He disengaged himself gently.
“This is Jennifer?”
Jennifer Fortescue looked at him with eager
curiosity.
“I’m afraid Val’s been detained in town,”
she said. “There’s so much to see to, you
know. All the arrangements to make and
everything. Of course it all comes on Val. He
has to see to everything. You can really have
no idea what we’re all going through.”
“It must be terrible for you,” said Lance
gravely.
He turned to the woman on the sofa, who
was sitting with a piece of scone and honey in
her hand, quietly appraising him.
“Of course,” cried Jennifer, “you don’t
know Adele, do you?”
Lance murmured, “Oh yes, I do,” as he
took Adele Fortescue’s hand in his. As he
looked down at her, her eyelids fluttered. She
118
set down the scone she was eating with her
left hand and just touched the arrangement of
her hair. It was a feminine gesture. It marked
her recognition of the entry to the room of a
personable man. She said in her thick, soft
voice:
“Sit down here on the sofa beside me,
Lance.” She poured out a cup of tea for him.
“I’m so glad you’ve come,” she went on.
“We badly need another man in the house.”
Lance said:
“You must let me do everything I can to
help.”
“You know—but perhaps you don’t know—we’ve had the police here. They think—they
think——” she broke off and cried out
passionately: “Oh, it’s awful! Awful!”
“I know.” Lance was grave and
sympathetic. “As a matter of fact they met
me at London Airport.”
“The police met you?”
“Yes.”
“What did they say?”
“Well,” Lance was deprecating. “They
told me what had happened.”
“He was poisoned,” said Adele, “that’s
what they think, what they say. Not food
poisoning. Real poisoning, by someone. I
119
believe, I really do believe they think it’s one
of us.^
Lance gave her a sudden quick smile.
“That’s their pigeon,’ he said consolingly.
“It’s no good our worrying. What a
scrumptious tea! It’s a long time since I’ve
seen a good English tea.”
The others fell in with his mood soon
enough. Adele said suddenly:
“But your wife—haven’t you got a wife,
Lance?”
“I’ve got a wife, yes. She’s in London.”
“But aren’t you—hadn’t you better bring
her down here?”
“Plenty of time to make plans,” said
Lance. “Pat—oh, Pat’s quite all right where
she is.”
Elaine said sharply:
“You don’t mean—you don’t think——”
Lance said quickly:
“What a wonderful looking chocolate cake.
I must have some.”
Cutting himself a slice, he asked:
“Is Aunt Effie alive still?”
“Oh, yes. Lance. She won’t come down
and have meals with us or anything, but she’s
quite well. Only she’s getting very peculiar.”
120
“She always was peculiar,” said Lance. “I
must go up and see her after tea.”
Jennifer Fortescue murmured:
“At her age one does really feel that she
ought to be in some kind of home. I mean
somewhere where she will be properly looked
after.”
“Heaven help any old ladies’ home that got
Aunt Effie in their midst,” said Lance. He
added, “Who’s the demure piece of goods
who let me in?”
Adele looked surprised.
“Didn’t Crump let you in? The butler? Oh
no, I forgot. It’s his day out to-day. But surely
Gladys——”
Lance gave a description. “Blue eyes, hair
parted in the middle, soft voice, butter
wouldn’t melt in the mouth. What goes on
behind it all, I wouldn’t like to say.”
“That,” said Jennifer, “would be Mary
Dove.”