Читать книгу The Case of the Two Pearl Necklaces - A. Fielding - Страница 4

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THREE weeks later Mrs. Finch was giving a dance, and apparently at the same time giving the lie to current rumours of her being absolutely on the rocks. True, it was to celebrate her daughter's engagement to Arthur Walsh, that wealthy catch, but, even so, it was very lavish.

There was dancing in two splendid ballrooms, there was bridge in half a dozen card-rooms, and there would be supper such as only the Merveille Hotel could supply in its spacious supper-room. And there was also a Sicilian Marionette show which had caught her guests' fancy.

Kitty Walsh had just been watching the marionettes. At first with keen amusement; but suddenly they had become not funny at all—instead, a sort of ghastly parody on life. They looked so incredibly alive, their actions seemed too intelligent, and yet they were only puppets that were dancing, and making love, and even committing murders with such energy and dash. She shot a glance at Ronald Mills beside her it had been his idea that in lieu of another dance they should watch the Show for a while. He caught her eye and followed her back into the ballroom.

"What do you think of them, Miss Walsh? Good, eh?"

Ronald Mills always spoke in a loud voice as though any one, near or far, must be interested in his opinions, his questions, his lightest utterance.

He was a long, thin man with a long, thin face, long, thin lips, long, thin teeth, and a very cynical smile. Well turned out, he always slouched, whether walking or sitting, and whenever possible had a cigarette dangling from his lip.

In age he looked around thirty, but an extremely ripe thirty. His voice was unexpectedly big and booming.

She did not reply. What did she think of them?

"You seen them, Walsh?" Mills called to her cousin, as the latter passed them with his fiance.

They stopped at the question and came towards Kitty. Arthur's blue eyes were twinkling like a mischievous schoolboy's below the sandy eyebrows that seemed to begin indefinitely nowhere and end vaguely nowhere—like his chin.

"Yes, funny show. Clever, and all that..."

"Did you like them?" Mills asked carelessly.

"I dunno. What did you think of them, Vi?"

"Lousy," came the instant answer, as Miss Finch surveyed herself complacently over Arthur's shoulder in a wall-mirror. Afterwards, Kitty thought that the two ropes of pearls around Violet's throat should have been rubies, like drops of blood, so singular and so sinister a part did they play in the tragedy that followed. Violet Finch was handsome, in a heavy way. She had a masterful eye, but she was looking her flamboyant best to-night.

"I didn't care much for them, either," echoed Arthur. And Mills laughed.

Mrs. Finch came up. She had married a man called Gray, a year ago, but she remained Mrs. Finch to every one but the registrar. She was a little woman with deep-set eyes that were far too bright and unwinking. She was very plain, and used no make-up. Her dress was expensive enough, but carelessly put on. Her hands were restless, always fingering things on herself or on anything near her. She looked as though possessed of boundless determination and driving power.

"I thought them positively frightening," she said, joining in the talk, "actually sinister. I shouldn't like to be jerked about by a string, would you, Artie?" She laughed at her own words, and Mrs. Finch-Gray was more than plain, she was an ugly woman when she laughed. Her sharp chin poked forward, her mouth looked loose and frog-like.

Kitty was claimed for the dance and moved away. Arthur shook his head vaguely. "Depends," he said cautiously.

"On what Vi thinks?" Mills asked with studied carelessness.

Mrs. Finch—as people continued to call her—gave him a sharply warning look that suggested anger. Mills was her business partner.

"Naturally, any man's guided by what his fiance thinks," she said smoothly.

"Guided like the marionettes?" Mills flashed back at her with a suggestion of snapping his fingers at her vexation, as he strode forward to a woman in purple and silver and eagerly asked her to let him take her in to supper. This was Mrs. Yerkes, and Mills hoped very much to marry Mrs. Yerkes.

Arthur wrinkled his forehead and looked after him, then at Mrs. Finch.

"You two always sound to me as though you were sparring," he murmured. "Well, Vi, I must let that tiresome Lady Brygitte trample about on my toes for another round of the room." He moved away. But Violet, too, stood looking after Mills.

"He's a bit too clever," she said darkly.

"—And so sharp that he'll cut himself one of these days," finished her mother. For the moment the two were alone in a corner.

"You've got Arthur well broken in," Mrs. Finch murmured in a tone of grudging praise—as to a pupil.

Violet tossed her head.

"And we don't need your cracking the whip all the time, either!" she said ungratefully. "You and your marionettes I If it had been any one but Arthur he might have turned nasty!"

"And that's the thanks I get, is it?" Mrs. Finch demanded in a fierce whisper, as she thrust her face almost into her daughter's.

"I suppose you think you could have brought it off by yourself! It would be just like your conceit! No, no, my fine lady! It's your mother who's put you where you are, and don't you forget it!"

"You don't!" came from Violet, "and a nice fat sum of money you managed to borrow on the strength of my engagement to a rich man. Don't you suppose I know that?"

"And why not?" whispered her mother again. Then she fell silent, a tired look coming over her face. "And not a penny of it that I can stick to—yet," she went on. "These damned debts I They're enough to break down a horse. Debts everywhere, and you spending money like water. Who's to pay for that new car of yours?"

"Oh, I dunno," Violet said indifferently. "What about your new Daimler?"

"I only 'bought' that for this dance!" Mrs. Finch spoke meaningly and both women laughed outright. "I don't want dear Artie to smell a rat, and know just how deeply in the soup we really are, or would be, but for my having handled him just the way I did. The Daimler will be taken back to-morrow. It's all arranged. But I want a private word with you, Vi." Taking a key from her jewelled bag, she led her daughter into an empty card-room which she unlocked, and closed the door, standing against it.

"That sapphire pendant business was silly," she said then. "Luckily I made you find it before things got serious." Her words were light, but her eyes glittered. "By God!" She spoke with a sudden outflaming of fury. "If you think I've climbed up almost into safety to let you wreck me on its threshold, you don't know me even yet, my girl!" Her face was a daunting revelation of what she might be capable. Violet Finch stared at it in real fear. Then the face changed. Her mother hung up the curtains again, as it were, and spoke smoothly. "That aunt of his would be only too glad to ferret out anything against you."

"She can't!" Violet said, chin in air.

"No, I've seen to that," her mother retorted. "But you would have made a fool of yourself over Ronald Mills, if I hadn't stopped you."

"That's past," Violet said sullenly, picking up a paper from the table beside her.

"To go back, now, to the pendant," Mrs. Finch continued. "If I ever catch you trying games of that kind again before you're safely married to Arthur, you'll be sorry for yourself!" Again that look of latent ferocity swept up for a second, glowed like a red danger signal, and then dropped out of sight.

"Oh, all right!" Violet said sullenly. And then in a tone of intense surprise: "But what's my name doing here, on this paper?"

Mrs. Finch would have snatched it from her, but in physical strength Violet was her mother's superior.

"Why, it's something to do with my death!" She stared blankly at the paper in her hands.

"Oh, that!" Mrs. Finch said casually. "You knew, months ago, that I was going to sell the Reversion to the thousand your father left you a life interest in, which I bought from you last year. Well, I'm selling it to Gray." She and Violet always referred to her present husband by his surname. "For I must scrape every possible farthing together just now. What are you fussing about?"

"I'm not fussing—I'm asking." Violet laid the paper down again as she spoke. "What a funny thing to be doing to-night!"

"My affairs come up for hearing in the Bankruptcy Court to-morrow," her mother replied with really amazing indifference. "And I want to get rid of all I can to Gray first." She did not add that that was precisely why she had married again. Violet knew as much. So did Henry Gray.

"Well, it's not likely to do Gray much good," Violet laughed. After all, she was too well satisfied to-night to be vexed for long. "I feel as though I should live for another century." And before going back to the ballroom she paused to adjust the pearls afresh.

"They're to be mine," her mother said with a covetous look at their lustre.

"No, they're to be heirlooms," Arthur says.

"That's why he doesn't give them outright to me," Violet grumbled.

"I'll have a talk with him about them. 'Heirlooms,' indeed!" Mrs. Finch snorted.

"You'll find out that there's a stone wall in Arthur that you can't always climb over, mother. Even I can't," warned Violet as she opened the door again and returned to the dancing.

Over and over she fingered the superb pearls around her throat. She lifted her dark head still more proudly, and she had an arrogant carriage at all times. There were plenty of young women in the room, many of them prettier, most of them better born. But it was she, Violet Finch, who had captured the rich prize, Arthur Walsh.

Take Ann Lovelace, for instance, floating by at that minute in one of the newest dances. She made you feel as though your smartest clothes came from Woolworth's, yet she hadn't been able to get Arthur away, though she had tried hard enough.

Ann raised her eyes as she was passing, and paused a moment. They were light grey eyes, very clear and tranquil.

"How well you're looking to-night, Violet," she said kindly. "Of course, those exquisite pearls are a joy in themselves, but it isn't only the pearls, is it?" she murmured with a smile of comprehension.

Ann had a heart-shaped face, beautifully featured, and framed in light golden hair. She was a niece of the Duchess of Axminster—a favourite niece, it was said. She looked the part. Slender, witty, always charmingly dressed—she had an air of fragile grace, every glimpse of which Violet detested because it made her feel like a farmer's daughter in comparison. And she had an uneasy doubt as to what lay behind that appearance of friendliness which Ann had shown her since their meeting at Friars Halt a fortnight before.

Kitty Walsh could have told her, but Kitty was no mischief maker. She was, indeed, one of the very few people in the room that evening who thought that her cousin was not making a bad match. For Kitty rather liked Violet, though the liking did not extend to Violet's mother—nor to Ronald Mills, the young man who helped Mrs. Finch run the night-clubs that had once been so incredibly profitable to her.

"Cleaned everybody out?" Kitty asked her uncle as he suddenly appeared beside her.

Colonel Walsh was known to be a formidable bridge player He smiled a little. Kitty could always get that tribute from him. "What are you staying on here for?" he asked genially. "You look as though you belonged in the schoolroom, you know." And he tweaked an end of the ribbon she wore round her long, full silk gown.

"Ah, my looks are deceptive—like Ann's!" she said lightly, and then coloured with vexation. The last words had slipped out.

"How you do dislike Ann!" her uncle teased, But his eyes were a little wistful as he glanced across at Ann's lovely figure in its dress of silver and jade.

"I do," Kitty said frankly. "She never gives herself away; and I hate people who never give themselves away!" She made a little face at him as she changed the subject. "I suppose there's no chance of Aunt Caroline altering her mind and turning up?" she queried as she caught sight of her aunt's intimate friend coming towards them.

Colonel Walsh shook his head. His sister had refused to come. The Colonel regretted the engagement, too. But he was no tyrant, though he had cut his eldest son off with a shilling—or, to be strictly accurate, with a hundred pounds.

"Your aunt fears that Arthur's making a sad mistake. So does Ambrose. So do I. But Arthur's been frank and straightforward about the whole thing, so I don't intend to interfere."

Colonel Walsh and Kitty were close confidantes.

"What's the mother like?" he asked now, glancing that way. "Looks like a respectable elderly governess. But what's she really like?"

"I detested her when I spent those three days with her, you know—when the flat had to have a new system of lighting put in."

The Colonel nodded.

"Do you mean she was offensive?" He bristled.

"Oh, dear, no! On the contrary. She was awfully pleasant to me. But I don't think I've ever disliked any one quite so much without any reason."

"Except Ann!" he chaffed back.

"Ann!" she said under her breath. "Violet Finch mayn't be all you would like Arthur's wife to be," she continued softly, "but she's ever so much better than Ann Lovelace. Ann's selfish. She has a horrid temper. You remember that we were at Bedington together, she and I. Oh, yes, she was 'Head Girl' in her last year. But none the less there were plenty of others who felt just as I did. Ann always intended to be 'Head Girl,' and so, of course, she pulled it off."

"I think your aunt hopes she will still draw Arthur away from Violet Finch."

"Not a chance!" Kitty said at once. "Arthur adores Violet. Absolutely!" There was a something in her young voice that made her uncle look away. It sounded like very far-off, very repressed pain.

"Anyway, those pearls that Ann helped her choose look superb ones," the Colonel said hurriedly. "On loan to-night, I take it, as they're to be his wedding present?"

"Yes, they're lent to her till then. She asked Ann to help her choose them." Kitty did not add that the two strings of pearls in question had been a staggering extravagance, even for so rich a lover as was Arthur Walsh.

Lady Norton came up to them just then. She was the close friend of her aunt whom Kitty had noticed a few moments before.

The Colonel soon went back to the card tables and Lady Norton drew Kitty down into a chair beside her. "I must say the cocktails are worth coming for," she said with a grin, "as one would expect. But who is the handsome man hovering around Mrs. Finch?"

"That's Ronald Mills. He's a sort of manager of hers. Looks after her night-clubs for her and so on..."

The other grunted and patted some fresh rouge on her cheek. "Funny relations you're going to have, my child!" she said frankly.

Kitty moved restlessly in her chair. "I think that's ungenerous!" she said warmly. "Arthur isn't marrying to please us. Why should he? He's most tremendously in love. And why not? Violet has all sorts of sterling qualities. She'll make him a splendid wife. He's been inclined to drift, you know, to take life easy...Violet's a good fighter. She'll make him do his bit. And that's what Arthur needs."

"You mean to tell me you like the girl?" Lady Norton demanded incredulously. "Your aunt considers her impossible."

"But she's not impossible," Kitty said firmly. "She is not, really! She's very outspoken—and forthright. Uncle will love that in her. She's unselfish, too. She took no end of trouble when I lost my sapphire pendant while I stayed over a week-end with them. And it was Violet who finally unearthed it, caught fast in a curtain fringe, just before I left."

"And do you also like her mother?" demanded Lady Norton sarcastically. Kitty was silent.

"I wonder what Ann's mother, Lady Rosemary, would say about her," Lady Norton went on meditatively—and meaningly. "She was, you know, the cause of Ann's step-brother shooting himself. Those night-clubs of hers were sinks of iniquity. I wanted to go to one, out of curiosity. But we were stationed at Malta while they were the rage. And now, of course, they've gone out completely. I hear that Mrs. Finch won't have a bean left when they're finally wound up." Lady Norton added with relish.

Kitty fidgeted silently. She did not care to be connected even distantly with Mrs. Finch. And, as another partner came up to release her, she took good care to keep away from her aunt's friends for the rest of the evening.