Hand in Glove (5 page)

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.