Читать книгу Tragedy at Beechcroft - A. Fielding - Страница 3

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VICTOR GOODENOUGH was shown at once into the studio where Santley was painting the Moncrieff twins. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man in the middle thirties, who looked as though he would do anything efficiently to which he set his hand—a well-kept, muscular hand, browner even than his face, and with the palms calloused by the swinging of golf clubs. He was a "plus" man. For the rest, he was handsome, with regular features of a rather wooden type, lit up now and then by a pleasant smile.

The artist was about his age, but belonged to another world. Nervous, diffident, shy, the youngest R.A. was rarely to be met anywhere but at his studio out here by Putney Bridge, where he lived as well as worked. He had a scholarly face, with deep-set, brooding eyes, that looked as though they would go through life seeking for something just beyond their vision.

"Good sitters?" Goodenough asked, waving a hand at the two children just now squirming a welcome to him.

Oliver Santley groaned. He had never tried to paint children before, but he needed a couple for part of a panel design, and Lavinia Moncrieff had suggested the twins, Cordelia and Dorothy—Dilly and Dolly in everyday life—aged five. They were the wards of her husband, Major Moncrieff, and only distantly related even to him, but they were orphans, and lived with her and her husband down in the country.

Santley went across now, and once again arranged them back to back on the white rug, their daffodil-yellow muslin frocks no brighter than their curls, a gay rag picture-book in each lap.

"Children give one no chance to paint what's inside the shell," he said now, returning to his easel, "and that's all I really care for. Kids are all shell."

"Except that shells stay where you put them," Goodenough said pointedly, and Santley yet once again put his models into position.

"I'll go into the lounge," Goodenough volunteered. "I only came on the chance of meeting Ann."

"Chance is likely!" murmured Santley; and Goodenough acknowledged the hit with a laugh. Ann Bladeshaw was the twins' governess, though it seemed quaint to call vital, impulsive Ann Bladeshaw by a name that suggested anything repressed or repressive.

"She's coming for them in half an hour," Santley said, looking gloomily at the clock high up on the studio wall, "But Mrs. Phillimore promised to stay during the sitting."

Mrs. Phillimore was Lavinia Moncrieff's mother, and a sort of adopted grandmother to the twins.

"I think I hear her just coming in. Well, so long then, Santley, I'll blow in again after half an hour. Don't let Ann go before I get back."

Goodenough paused in the lounge outside, to shake hands with a tall, grey-haired woman. Mrs. Phillimore looked ill, he thought, and rather blown about, as though she had just got off a long journey on a train.

She clung to his hand for a moment.

"Victor, I want to ask a favour of you! But later will do. I must have a word with Oliver first," and with a forced, apologetic smile, she hurried on into the studio.

Goodenough wondered what the trouble was, apparently it was trouble, then he went on out to his car. He could just do a small affair of business in the neighbourhood and get back in time to go on somewhere for lunch with Ann.

Mrs. Phillimore came in so quietly that Santley thought she must be afraid of starting the twins off, and gave her a grateful look which she did not seem to see, as, sinking into a deep chair at the farther end, she leant her cheek on one long shapely hand, sitting so that her face was in the shadow.

"I's growing pains!" Dilly suddenly announced triumphantly, scrambling to her feet.

"I stopped growing months ago!" Dolly said scornfully, "when I stopped biting my nails," she added. Dolly was fond of giving precise details.

"You didn't!" came indignantly from Dilly. "You haven't. Why, you've lots to grow yet!"

"I haven't! I did! I did!"

The artist expected to see them tearing each other's hair in another second, but Mrs. Phillimore, usually so alert in such cases, seemed to notice nothing. She sat with her head still bent, apparently engaged in meditation.

"Here's Nanny!" said Santley with relief. After all, there is nothing like a woman about the place, he thought, as nurse entered, picked up the two rag-books, placed them neatly on a table, and had each little girl tidied and straightened out, and held by one hand, all in a moment.

It was a miracle, Santley thought humbly.

"They're not themselves this morning, sir," she said primly. "The gentleman chauffeur he took us down to the station at a rate which must have made them feel as though they had left their little insides behind them." She looked over at Mrs. Phillimore, who did not seem to notice that nurse was in the room.

"I liked it!" said Dolly. "I thoughted a wheel was coming off!"

"Didn't!" squeaked Dilly.

"Did!" snapped Dolly.

The nurse shook them both like a couple of tambourines. "What will Mr. Santley think of you! It's a good thing Miss Bladeshaw isn't here! Shall I take them to the shops, Madam? I was to get them new slippers."

"Pink!" squeaked Dolly.

"Blue!" came from Dilly. Both in one breath.

"Not blue, pink!" clamoured Dolly.

"Not pink, blue!" Dilly insisted.

Considering that the twins always were dressed alike, Santley did not envy nurse, but that good soul merely retorted, "You'll wear what's bought for you. Black slippers as usual. Madam!" She almost had to touch Mrs. Phillimore before that lady looked up, and Santley was disturbed by the lost look on her face and by the pallor of it.

"Oh, by all means, nurse, and when you've finished, take them back down to Beechcroft," Mrs. Phillimore spoke as though in a sort of dream. "I shall have to stay in town for at least a week, it seems. I must have a thorough overhauling by the dentist."

"Very good, ma'am. Miss Bladeshaw said not to wait for her. If she wasn't here, we could pick her up at her club. Miss Dilly, don't drag your feet! Miss Dolly, don't prance! And say good-bye nicely. I'm sure the gentleman will be glad to be rid of such naughty little girls."

"I'm not a naughty little girl!" came virtuously from Dolly.

"I'm ever so good, really," came from Dilly, and Santley laughingly was about to see the two paragons and their Nannie off his studio floor, when again the front door opened, to admit a young and very charming girl who swooped down on the two children, hugged them, and then turned to the woman still sitting in the shadow.

"Will it be all right if we go on Madame Tussaud's?"

"I shan't be able to come, Ann," Mrs. Phillimore said in a low, tired voice. "I've been to the dentist, and shall have to go again. In fact, I shall have to stay up in town for at least a week for a thorough overhauling. As Lavinia knows."

Ann glanced at the elder woman with sympathy. She herself looked the picture of fitness in her red and white dotted frock, her big red hat aslant on her shining brown hair, her fresh, slightly sunburnt face, with its white teeth and dancing brown eyes.

"Then suppose you do any shopping you have on your list, Nannie, and meet me at the old Fullers, upstairs on the first floor, at one o'clock."

"'scream sodas!" begged Dolly promptly, and for once Dilly gave an echoing "'scream sodas!" and, clasping hands, the imps jumped up and down in beatific expectation.

"Perhaps!" Ann said with a laugh.

"I think I must have a moment outside in the air!" Mrs. Phillimore said unexpectedly, and brushing past the merry little group, was out of the door before Santley could reach it. They all stared at one another. Mrs. Phillimore was a gentle soul, but she had plenty of poise and a great deal of quiet dignity as a rule.

The nurse without another word pried the twins loose from Ann, and got them out of the door and into the waiting taxi.

Ann stood a moment as though about to make some remark on Mrs. Phillimore, but Santley said, "Your young man came along, hoping to meet you here. I told him to come back in half an hour. You've got to stay till then, or he will shoot me on sight."

"I think I see Victor shooting!" Ann said, and began making the tour of the pictures on the walls. Her comments amused Santley. Ann had done well at college and then gone in for a course of child psychology before starting on her first job—the Moncrieff twins. But she was very young herself, not at all astute, very gullible, very self-confident. Her father, a brilliant scholar, had not troubled even to insure his life, and had spent every penny of his very comfortable income on explorations of the Matto Grosso. But, apart from necessity, Ann's choice would have made her earn her own living for at least a couple of years. This was the reason for putting him off which she had given to Victor Goodenough when he had asked her, a month ago, to marry him. He said that it did not sound very adequate to him, but Ann had only laughed and refused to give a more encouraging answer. In reality she was very much in love with him.

"I wonder you don't paint Lavinia, she's so lovely," Ann said, as she finished her tour.

Santley did not tell her that there had been a time when he had painted little else, but that that had passed. Lavinia Moncrieff had changed, or he had changed. Probably both had, and somehow her face no longer lured him to try to explain it on canvas. It was still a very subtle face, however.

"I hear that you're coming down to Beechcroft Thursday week to help with the tableaux."

He said that, in a weak moment, he had agreed to this.

"Unlike Victor, I have little else but weak moments," he added whimsically. "By the way, when I was last down at Beechcroft to talk over the tableaux with Lavinia and the Major, who was the lad I saw dancing attendance on you so persistently?" Santley asked with a grin that said his question had a meaning. "Name of Edward Hope Pusey," he added as though to jog her memory.

"Nobody in particular," Ann said promptly, "Came down to see the Major really. On business."

"I never should have guessed it," Santley assured her. "I thought he had come down for the express purpose of getting to know the twins."

She laughed outright.

"Has Victor been talking to you? Is he jealous?" she asked almost eagerly.

"You heartless creature! Do yon know there's no torment like jealousy? As a matter of fact, I think Goodenough did feel that though we had both come down together, I, about the pictures, he to see you, I had got what I wanted, but he hadn't."

"If so, it was good for him," Ann said promptly, "But now about the pictures—"

The Moncrieffs were helping to raise funds for the purchase of a Children's Convalescent Home near them at Totteridge. They were staging a set of tableaux of Famous Pictures, and Santley was helping them.

"Coming down on Thursday week, I shall have ample time over the week-end to watch you at work on the twins," he said a trifle maliciously. "You're not leaving for the seaside till the Monday after, are you?"

She shook her head. "That's put off. We were hoping to stay with Nannie's sister, but she's chosen measles instead."

Goodenough came in just then. He looked pleased at the sight of Ann, as well he might, but anything but pleased at what she was saying.

"But look here, I counted on Cromer...on running down there!" he protested indignantly.

"Why not? Cromer's still on the map," she said laughing.

"It's not a laughing matter," he said shortly. "I counted on seeing a lot of you down there. The children would be off in a boat or paddling with the nurse. I hoped to have you practically all to myself."

"You wouldn't have," she said to that. "The Mishes would have been there."

"The who?" he asked in surprise.

"Missionaries. A Mr. and Mrs. Dexter-Smith. The twins call them 'the Mishes.' They're over in Europe on their holiday, studying child education. They had a letter to an aunt of mine, and she passed them on to me. Nice people. Really keen on doing the best they can for the children on their island."

"I thought only giant tortoises lived there," Santley threw in.

"No, there are peons, and settlers—quite a lot, comparatively. The Mishes are going to be at the waxworks this afternoon. Do come, Victor, you'd enjoy meeting them."

"I would love to, but for an engagement at Buckingham Palace," he assured her gravely. "Are they often down at Beechcroft?"

"Yes, she's taken a fancy to the twins. They love her. I'm passing on to her all my ideas about how to treat children."

"Well, don't introduce me, if I should run across them with you," he warned her.

"I shan't. Though Mr. Pusey likes them, so why shouldn't you?"

"Pusey? Is that the name of the chap who seems to haunt Beechcroft lately?"

She nodded with a glint in her eye.

He followed her out after she had said good-bye to Santley, and came in again a few minutes later looking distinctly glum.

"Pusey, indeed!" he said under his breath. "Silly young bounder without an idea in his head! Ann's always talking about him lately. I can't think what she sees in him!"

Santley smiled, unnoticed by the other.

"The trouble with Ann is that she's too fond of improving people," Goodenough went on, feeling for the matches. He knew the studio quite well.

Santley murmured that there weren't too many girls nowadays with that complaint.

"Oh, quite! But it's apt to spread. I mean, a girl begins by wanting to improve the young. Well, that's all right. We had to suffer as kids, so why not the present generation? But she's liable to carry it a step further, and want to improve her friends, and—well—you never know where that sort of thing will stop."

He so obviously wanted it to stop short of himself, that Santley chaffed him, but Goodenough refused to let his gloom be lightened.

"I had counted a lot on Cromer," he said finally, "a lot! I should have had Ann all to myself—"

"—except for the Mishes—charming name that!" Santley reminded him.

Goodenough gave a sort of contemptuous grunt that said that he would have made short work of them. "Whereas down at Beechcroft lately...who is this booby Pusey? D'ye know?"

"Ann spoke of some connection with the Major's business affairs."

Goodenough snorted, and took his leave on that, looking thoroughly disgruntled. The next minute the artist forgot him and his woes, for he had a French buyer coming to look over his pictures, a buyer whose approval conferred a cachet even on Oliver Santley.

Mrs. Phillimore came back just as he had finished his selection. There was still half an hour before the expert would arrive, and Santley solicitously drew a chair forward for her. The air did not seem to have done her any good. She looked very ill.

"Oliver, I must have a word with you! I couldn't bear to hear the laughter of those children. It quite upset me. For what I want to talk to you about is so terrible."

"Yes?" he asked in genuine concern. Mrs. Phillimore had dandled him on her knee as a baby, and he was very much attached to her.

"It's about my son-in-law, about Major Moncrieff," she said and her face paled still more.

Now, though not clever, Mrs. Phillimore was a very shrewd, sensible woman. For her to turn white when she spoke Moncrieff's name meant a great deal.

"It's in strict confidence," she began, and actually waited for his assurance.

He wondered, as he gave it, what was coming. But he was not prepared for her next words.

"Harry Moncrieff is going mad—raving mad. Or else he takes drugs and is not always responsible for his actions." She spoke almost in a whisper, her eyes dilated. "My poor Lavinia! No wonder she has changed into something so white and frightened. And the twins! No one at Beechcroft can be safe with that man. I thought he was going to murder me this morning. I think he would have, had we been alone in the house. As it was, though he chased me round the breakfast table, I managed to get out of the room and away from the house. I couldn't find Lavinia...Ann Bladeshaw had left with the twins and Nannie...The chauffeur refused to drive me to the station..." She stopped and seemed unable to go on.

Santley felt as though he were in a dream. She gratefully took the glass of water that he held out to her. He was too dumbfounded to ask any questions. Mrs. Phillimore looked her usual truthful self, though very upset. He eyed her almost fearfully. She read his glance.

"Oh no, I'm not romancing. I wish I were! I've been as fond of Harry as though he were in truth my son. But—" she hesitated, took another sip of water, and then the words came out in a flood. This was the second time that she had stayed with the Moncrieffs since their marriage now nearly five years old. The first time, some three years ago, had deepened still more the ties between them all. They had asked her to make her permanent home with them, but Mrs. Phillimore lived in Switzerland with an invalid niece, who took so much of her time and care that she could only rarely get free. She had, however, intended to stay at Beechcroft for six weeks in the autumn, but as her niece had to have a sudden operation and a long convalescence in a medical home, she had written to say that she would come now, and had arrived at the same time as her letter, taking her daughter and the Major by surprise.

She had had a feeling from the first that she was not welcome, that her son-in-law did not want her, and that even her daughter wished that she had kept to the time on which they had originally settled. But Mrs. Phillimore was badly off. Her niece's operation had left her momentarily high and dry, and she had made all her arrangements. She had let her little chalet at Montreux. She could not afford hotels in England, and boarding-houses were out of the question. There was nothing for it but not to notice trifles, she thought.

"Not that Lavinia loves me any the less, Oliver, but she's so completely under his thumb these days. Completely. My laughing, pretty, gay Lavinia is changed almost out of knowledge. Why didn't you tell me? Where were your eyes this last year?"

Now Santley had noticed that Lavinia Moncrieff was a great deal thinner and paler and more silent of late than she used to be. But he had attributed it all to the craze for slimming. He had seen so many laughing girls changed into morose cigarette-fiends for the sake of a figure, that he had not given the alteration in Lavinia a thought. Nor had he seen as much of her as her mother assumed to have been the case.

"She's changed out of all knowledge," Mrs. Phillimore went on passionately. "She looks as though she cries a great deal more than she laughs nowadays. She's grown pale and haggard. She jumps, too, at any sound, and goes quite white when she hears a bang outside, if it's only a tyre bursting."

"But this morning...the reason for your leaving Beechcroft so hurriedly—" prompted Santley. He thought that he must have misunderstood her before.

"I'm coming to that, but I want to explain that, in the three days of my visit, things have steadily got worse and worse. Or rather Harry has. At first he tried simply to show me that I wasn't particularly welcome." She flushed. "Next day, he was frightfully rude to me when we were alone. When Lavinia or any one else is present, he simply ignores me, or even—at times—pretends to his old affection for me. Or no!" She put a hand to her head. "Poor, unhappy man! I don't think it's pretence. He is himself at those times, and not himself at the other times. I think he knows that. And I think Lavinia suspects the truth. Else why is it they see so little of their old friends, and never seem to have any one to stay with them nowadays?"

Santley, with a slight start, realised that the Moncrieffs had rather withdrawn from things this last year. He hardly ever saw either of them. Or heard of them. And it was true that, until these tableaux came up, he hadn't been asked to Beechcroft. They had only had the house a little over a year. And, thinking quickly, he did not remember having heard of any one else staying down there.

"Perhaps they're hard up," he suggested. "If you're hard up, as Goodenough says, you've dashed few friends."

"On the contrary," Mrs. Phillimore said. And added, to his great surprise, "They're much better off than they've any right to be. I mean the kind of table they set in such a forlornly furnished house, staffed by a couple of untidy maids. It might be Claridges from the food you get. And as for wines—I assure you that a guinea a bottle would be cheap for what is drunk every day there at lunch as well as dinner."

"Does Moncrieff drink?" Santley asked bluntly.

"Not openly. That's what makes the wines handed round odder still. He takes one glass, or at the outside two. Never more. But it's possible that he drinks in secret. I saw his hand yesterday trembling like this, Oliver—" and she gave an imitation of palsy. "Lavinia saw it too, and went quite white. But she said nothing, only shot a sort of frightened glance at me as though wondering if I had noticed it, and he too turned his head and looked at me in a sort of watchful, furtive way..."

She was silent for a moment. "But about this morning," she went on; "he chased me round the room. And that brute of a chauffeur of theirs stood by and grinned. I felt as though in another moment he would join in too and help to batter me senseless."

"Chased you! Moncrieff chased you! But what caused it?" Santley asked. The story seemed to him utterly incredible, yet Mrs. Phillimore was a most truthful woman.

"Nothing whatever. Lavinia and I breakfasted alone, and she looked more than usually grave and worried. She said that she had to rush away to see people about the arrangements for the tableaux, and I had gone up to my room and written a couple of notes before I discovered that I had left a letter on the table. I went back to the breakfast room. Major Moncrieff and this chauffeur of his, a man of the name of Edwards, were talking together. I took my letter from the table, and choosing a chair by the window, I opened it, sat down to read it, and said to Harry that it was a fine morning. He ground his teeth at me. He looked—oh, horrible! 'I'll teach you to call the weather fine before noon!' he yelled, and snatching up the first thing close to his hand, it was a big silver teapot—part of my wedding present to Lavinia—he made a rush for me. I managed to get to the door somehow after running right around the table with him after me—" Mrs. Phillimore went white again. "I got to Lavinia's room, but she had gone. Perhaps it was just as well. I might have said things we would both have been sorry for. Irreparable things. As it was, I left a note saying that I had to hurry up to town to see the dentist. I am going to see him, of course—" Mrs. Phillimore broke off to look earnestly at Santley as though to reassure him as to her truthfulness. "But before coming here to see you and talk to you, I sent her a wire saying 'Unable to finish my visit. Please have my things packed and sent to Thackeray Hotel. Writing.' That will give me time to think of what I can do! It's a frightful position. I can't, won't, leave Lavinia with that brute. Yet to separate husband and wife! I know Lavinia is living in terror of him, but she won't hear a word against him. Yesterday when I suggested her coming out with me to Montreux, she said that she wouldn't leave him alone just now for worlds. And she meant it, too, Oliver. And said it in a tone that generally only signifies one thing."

Mrs. Phillimore looked at him with troubled eyes. They were still very pretty eyes.

"What thing?" Santley asked.

"When a woman says that, in that tone, it usually means that there's another woman somewhere. That's why I can't insist on her leaving Beechcroft immediately. If she thinks, or rather knows, that that sort of thing may happen, well, it's easier to leave a husband than to get back to him! And though he's been a brute to me this last week, I too know how fond one can be of him. How charming one side of him is. It's possible that a doctor...that some treatment...or if he stopped taking whatever it is that makes him act like a madman, he would be himself again—his charming, dear, self. I was so fond of him when he married her, and when I stayed with them before. They were poor, but as happy as the day was long—and it was midsummer!" she added with a laugh up at him through the tears. "Now both of them are living under some sort of a dark shadow. A black cloud. Something that makes both of them all nerves."

There was a short silence. The telephone rang. The French buyer could not come till the afternoon at four, would Mr. Santley excuse him, and be at that hour in his studio? Oliver said that he would do both, and hung up.

"What I want of you is this—" Mrs. Phillimore had recovered something of her usual calm. "You promised Lavinia a canvas as a wedding present, the subject to be chosen by her, and she asked you some months ago, as I happen to know, to paint her a picture of her husband."

"Yes. I hope to make the sketches for it when I go down next week," he said.

"Don't wait for next week. Go this week. Go now! I know you always study your subject beforehand, to get under their skin, as you call it. Well, do just that. Study the Major and let me know your verdict. Whether, as I fear, he's going really insane, or whether he's taken to drugs, or if it's drinking bouts..."

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Phillimore. I'm truly very sorry, but I can't possibly leave town this week. Not a day before next Thursday. Besides, I'm an artist, not a medical expert!" Santley began. Yet he knew that the idea of painting a potential madman, or drug-taker, or even a secret drinker, had its horrid fascination. He only cared for putting on canvas what lay hidden from most men's eyes—the soul of the sitter; or if not that, then the key in which his nature moved, by which its harmonies could be best understood.

"It's my daughter I'm concerned about," Mrs. Phillimore said simply. "It's Lavinia, Oliver. I can't stay there to help her—perhaps to save her," her voice trembled, "and I very much fear that she will need help, and possibly saving, from that husband of hers before very long, unless something pulls him up. You really can't go down before next week—a week from this coming Thursday?"

"I'm so sorry. I definitely can't. But meanwhile, perhaps Lavinia will be able to give him a hand over the stile," Santley suggested.

"She's completely under his thumb," the mother replied sadly. "She's hypnotised...like the bird and the snake."

"Did any one see you leave?" Santley asked, to get her on to more common-sense subjects, he hoped.

"He did. And it wasn't easy to get away. That dreadful man Edwards answered the telephone to the garage when I said I would like a car to take me to the station. He replied that there wasn't any one who could drive me." Again her face flushed, this time with indignation. "So I rang up and got a car from outside to fetch me. I waited by the gate for it. I felt, as I climbed in, as though I were escaping. Heaven knows what. And I saw both the man Edwards and the Major watching me go. The Major actually started after me, as though to stop me. He had an iron bar in his hand, but Edwards laid a hand on his arm, and the car drove off before anything worse happened."

"It's the most amazing story I've ever heard," Santley said, walking to and fro in front of her in his absorption.

She nodded sadly.

"When did it begin? I mean the change in him?" he asked.

She could only say that she had no idea.

"But I'm afraid you'll hear of a worse change yet," she said. "Beechcroft is so lonely. He chose the house, though Lavinia's money went to buy it. It's surrounded by trees...murder might be done there and no one would know for weeks..."

"Oh come, Mrs. Phillimore!" Santley strove for a lighter tone. "Strong word—murder!"

"I saw murder in his face this morning," she said simply. "Well may Lavinia spend hours crying. She does! In secret. You used to care for her once, Oliver."

Yes, he had once wanted to marry Lavinia very much indeed. But that was six years ago. His life had gone on. Widened. Deepened. He now felt merely faint surprise at the intensity of his old feeling. But Lavinia had the gift of arousing violent, if swift, passion. He remembered how he had felt her refusal, her marriage...and he was very kind to Mrs. Phillimore.

"I can do nothing," the mother went on. "The Major was ever so much worse when we were alone. I think he realised that I was watching him. Whereas my poor Lavinia—as I say, whatever her doubts and terrors—and she has plenty of both, she pretends that everything is as it used to be. Oliver," she leant forward and laid one of her hands on his arm, "Oliver, I'm sending her in you the best of protectors—though I wish you could go at once. However, you'll soon see what's wrong with the Major, and once I know that, I shall know how to safeguard her."

"I can't stay but over the week-end," he said reluctantly.

"Make it longer!" she begged. "Lavinia is so alone in the world!"

"But what about these tableaux," he said. "I understand that every one for miles around is coming. That doesn't look like a desire to keep out of the light?"

"I've been pondering that as I sat here," she said. "I think he wants to be able to show himself to all the world, with Lavinia, as a devoted young couple, with a happy home...Somehow, thinking about it, makes it seem rather sinister—to me." She eyed him with anxious eyes, eyes which he had always thought so cheerful and placid.

"Look here, Mrs. Phillimore," he said next, "what you need is a private detective. Not a painter. I shan't be any earthly good for what you want."

"Perhaps not," she said slowly, "but you're the best that I can do. They themselves have asked you down. I can't send them a stranger. You're on Lavinia's side, if there should be trouble. I know you will be better than your words, and try to help me."

"But what can I do?" protested Santley, half in pity, half in vexation. "Apart from the fact that I shall be his guest—"

"Not a bit of it," Mrs. Phillimore said promptly. "The house is Lavinia's, and it's her money—entirely—that runs it. Up till this last quarter I've always had to help her. The Major put his few hundreds into some car gadget—a patent gear change, I believe—anyway, it's something that isn't finished even yet. Oh no, Oliver, you'll be Lavinia's guest entirely. Now one more thing...you may need extra help...oh yes, you may! Victor Goodenough will be there. I shall have a word with him, but it will have to be so guarded—just wondering what's wrong with Lavinia—that it may not do much good. Besides, selfish people are always optimists where other people's troubles are concerned, and Victor is frightfully selfish. Then too, he's so wrapped up in Ann just now that, except at night, I don't suppose you'll find him easy to get hold of, for she and the children and their Nannie live in the cottage, quite apart from the house. I wish I could think of another ally for you." She smoothed the tips of her gloves on her fingers as she sat thinking. The way in which she took it for granted that she had carried the day with him amused Santley. But she had, or rather, his own curiosity had.

"I have it!" she said triumphantly. "Favelle Bruton is back in England!"

Santley blinked. Favelle Bruton...she was making quite a name for her mosaic work. Favelle Bruton...a handsome young woman with extraordinary eyes. You never knew if they were bright green, or bright blue, or hazel, so rapidly and utterly did they change. It was at Favelle's studio that he had first met Major Moncrieff. Major Moncrieff, not married then nor even engaged. Lavinia was Favelle's great friend, and all but lived with her. He remembered a vicious tempered female, Favelle's aunt. Favelle had gone to Paris, where her work had made quite a sensation. And now she was back from Spain, where she had been working on some government buildings. But why Mrs. Phillimore should think that Favelle Bruton would be any use...

"She hates Harry Moncrieff," Mrs. Phillimore said half to herself. "She always did. I met her in Montreux last year, and she still can't bear the man. And she adores Lavinia. Well, that's what I want. I'm going on at once to see her. She's staying at Dalmany Court, I saw in the papers. I'll get her to go down at once, on the plea of—" she paused and seemed to think.

Santley wondered how she would set to work.

"She's just had the 'flu, it seems. Well, Beechcroft is an ideal place in which to recover. I shall take her a message from Lavinia to spend this coming week with them."

"But will the Moncrieffs back up the invitation?" Santley asked, open-eyed. He was not used to such highhanded doings.

"Oh, I shall, of course, speak to Lavinia as though Favelle had practically asked herself down, and as though I wasn't able to get out of it...After all, one has to manage these things. The point is, I couldn't have sharper eyes and a clearer brain than Favelle Bruton's to watch for me. Just a hint will be dropped her that the two don't get on well together, that I am dreadfully worried—"

Mrs. Phillimore's eyes filled with tears, but she blinked them back. "Yes, from one point of view, she's admirable," she murmured, "if only she is clever enough to find out what the trouble is. She used to be very dreamy in the old days at her studio. Only half alive except as regarded her work. But I thought her very much improved when I met her last, alert, and quick, and clear-brained...Between the three of you I shall feel that Lavinia really has faithful guards...And obviously there'll be no trouble until after the tableaux...oh, he's clever, is Harry! But once I know where the trouble lies, and what is wrong, I can take the proper measures."

"And lawless enough they'll be," Santley could not help saying with a grin.

"Oh law! There always has been one for women and one for men!" And with that Mrs. Phillimore held out her hand.