Hush – here comes Sylvia.’ Mrs Bassington-ffrench joined them, observing: ‘Have you been very energetic?’ ‘Three sets,’ said Frankie. ‘And I was beaten every time.’ ‘You play a very good game,’ said Roger.
‘I’m terribly lazy about tennis,’ said Sylvia. ‘We must ask the Nicholsons over one day. She’s very fond of a game. Why what is it?’ She had caught the glance the other two had exchanged.
‘Nothing – only I happened to be talking about the Nicholsons to Lady Frances.’ ‘You’d better call her Frankie like I do,’ said Sylvia. ‘Isn’t it odd how whenever one talks of any person or thing, somebody else does the same immediately afterwards?’ ‘They are Canadians, aren’t they?’ inquired Frankie.
‘He is, certainly. I rather fancy she is English, but I’m not sure. She’s a very pretty little thing – quite charming with the most lovely big wistful eyes. Somehow or other, I fancy she isn’t terribly happy. It must be a depressing life.’ ‘He runs a kind of sanatorium, doesn’t he?’ ‘Yes – nerve cases and people who take drugs. He’s very successful, I believe. He’s rather an impressive man.’ ‘You like him?’ ‘No,’ said Sylvia abruptly, ‘I don’t.’ And rather vehemently, after a moment or two, she added: ‘Not at all.’ Later on, she pointed out to Frankie a photograph of a charming large-eyed woman which stood on the piano.
‘That’s Moira Nicholson. An appealing face, isn’t it? A man who came down here with some friends of ours some time ago was quite struck with it. He wanted an introduction to her, I think.’ She laughed.
‘I’ll ask them to dinner tomorrow night. I’d like to know what you think of him.’ ‘Him?’ ‘Yes. As I told you, I dislike him, and yet he’s quite an attractive-looking man.’ Something in her tone made Frankie look at her quickly, but Sylvia Bassington-ffrench had turned away and was taking some dead flowers out of a vase.
‘I must collect my ideas,’ thought Frankie, as she drew a comb through her thick dark hair when dressing for dinner that night. ‘And,’ she added resolutely, ‘it’s time I made a few experiments.’ Was, or was not, Roger Bassington-ffrench the villain she and Bobby assumed him to be?
She and Bobby had agreed that whoever had tried to put the latter out of the way must have easy access to morphia. Now in a way this held good for Roger Bassington-ffrench. If his brother received supplies of morphia by post, it would be easy enough for Roger to abstract a packet and use it for his own purposes.
‘Mem.,’ wrote Frankie on a sheet of paper:
‘(1) Find out where Roger was on the 16th – day when Bobby was poisoned.’ She thought she saw her way to doing that fairly clearly.
‘(2),’ she wrote. ‘Produce picture of dead man and observe reactions if any. Also noteifR.B.F. admits being in Marchbolt then.’ She felt slightly nervous over the second resolution. It meant coming out into the open. On the other hand, the tragedy had happened in her own part of the world, and to mention it casually would be the most natural thing in the world.
She crumpled up the sheet of paper and burnt it.
She managed to introduce the first point fairly naturally at dinner.
‘You know,’ she said frankly to Roger. ‘I can’t help feeling that we’ve met before. And it wasn’t very long ago, either. It wasn’t, by any chance, at that party of Lady Shane’s at Claridges. On the 16th it was.’ ‘It couldn’t have been on the 16th,’ said Sylvia quickly.
‘Roger was here then. I remember, because we had a children’s party that day and what I should have done without Roger I simply don’t know.’ She gave a grateful glance at her brother-in-law and he smiled back at her.
‘I don’t feel I’ve ever met you before,’ he said thoughtfully to Frankie, and added: ‘I’m sure if I had I’d remember it.’ He said it rather nicely.
‘One point settled,’ thought Frankie. ‘Roger Bassingtonffrench was not in Wales on the day that Bobby was poisoned.’ The second point came up fairly easily later. Frankie led the talk to country places, the dullness thereof, and the interest aroused by any local excitement.