The Unfinished Clue (2 page)

As Dinah stepped out on to the terrace a big man in rough tweeds got up from his seat and took the teapot from Fay, saying in a deep voice that somehow matched his tweeds: "Let me do that for you. It's too heavy for you to hold."

Dinah recognised Stephen Guest, and smiled. In repose her face had a youthful gravity; her smile dispelled that completely. It was a friendly, infectious smile, crinkling the corners of her eyes. If Dinah smiled you had to smile back, as Stephen Guest did now. His rugged, curiously square face softened. "Hullo, Dinah!" He said, and went back to his task of pouring out the tea for Fay.

A tall and slender young man with sleekly shining black hair, thin lips under a tiny moustache, and quite incredibly immaculate tennis flannels, got up with the grace of muscles under perfect control, and pulled forward another chair. "Ah, Dinah, light of my eyes!" he drawled. "Come and sit beside me, darling, and comfort me."

"Hullo!" said Dinah discouragingly.

There were two other people on the terrace, to whom Fay proceeded to make her sister known. Basil Halliday was a thin man in the late thirties, with a face prematurely lined through ill health. He had very deepset, almost sunken eyes and a way of twitching his brows over them that indicated nerves on edge. His wife Dinah regarded with more interest. Camilla Halliday was a pretty woman. She had corn-coloured hair, shingled and perfectly waved, a pair of shallow blue eyes, and a predatory little mouth sharply outlined by scarlet lipstick. She was lounging in a long chair, a cigarette between her lips, and made no effort to get up. Removing the cigarette with one hand, she extended the other towards Dinah. "Oh, how do you do? Do forgive me, but I'm quite too exhausted to move."

Dinah noticed that the pointed finger-nails were polished lacquer red. She shook hands, and turned to receive her cup and saucer from Fay. "What exhausted you?" she inquired.

Francis Billington-Smith, who had exerted himself to bring a plate of sandwiches to Dinah, raised his brows. "My dear, didn't you hear me ask you to comfort me? I have been ignominiously beaten at tennis. It's what people write letters to the Daily Mirror about. "What is wrong with the Men of Today?" So belittling."

"Oh, but you let me win!" said Camilla, throwing him a glance which Dinah felt to be mechanically provocative.

"Rubbish!" pronounced Sir Arthur loudly. "No stamina in these modern young men. You play a fine game, Camilla. Pleasure to watch you! Now what do you say to taking me on after tea?"

Camilla smiled up at him. "Tisn't fair to make fun of poor little me. You know you could give me thirty and beat me with your horribly terrifying service."

"Oh, come, come!" said Sir Arthur, visibly gratified. "It isn't as terrifying as that, surely?"

"Why not have a mixed doubles?" suggested Fay in her gentle voice. "You'll play, won't you, Dinah?" She looked across at her husband, and said timidly: "Francis and Dinah against Camilla and Basil, don't you think, Arthur? You haven't forgotten that Geoffrey and - and Miss de Silva are coming?"

"Whether they come or do not is not my affair," said Sir Arthur. "I may remind you, my dear, that you asked them, and I suggest that it is for you to entertain them when they are to arrive. Dinah, you can play with Francis against Camilla here, and me. How will that be, Camilla?"

"You'll have to be very kind to me, then, and takee all the difficult balls," said Camilla. "But perhaps Miss Fawcett doesn't want to play?"

"As a matter of fact I don't, much," replied Dinah, accepting another sandwich.

"Hm! I suppose this is a specimen of the modern frankness we hear so much about!" remarked Sir Arthur I belligerently. "Personally, I should have thought that common politeness -"

"You wouldn't," interrupted Dinah, quite unperturbed. "You told me last time I came that you'd ceased to expect ordinary courtesy from me."

"Upon my word -!"began the General.

Camilla laid a hand on his arm. "Oh, but I do frightfully agree with Miss Fawcett. I know I offend lots of people, I'm so dreadfully outspoken myself."

"I'm quite sure," said the General gallantly, "that you could never offend anyone, my dear lady. But you shall have your tennis. My wife will play instead of her sister."

"Arthur, really I'd rather not!" Fay said. "I've got things to do before dinner, and - and one of us must be ready to receive Miss de Silva."

This slightly tactless reference to his son's betrothed provoked the General into saying with a rasp in his voice: "I've already told you I've no interest in the young woman, and I don't want her name dinned in my ears all day long. Go and put your tennis shoes on, and for God's sake consider your guests' wishes for once in a way!"

There was a moment's uncomfortable silence. Fay got up, her cheeks flushed, and her eyes downcast to hide the sudden, startled tears. Stephen Guest rose also, his gaze fixed on her.

Camilla gave an affected little shriek. "Really, you are the most dreadfully masterful man I've ever met!" she said. "I should be terrified of being your partner now. I know you'd bark at me in that paralysing parade voice of yours every time I missed a shot, and I should be simply petrified with fear. And it isn't I who want to play at all. I'm completely exhausted, and I'd far rather stay where I am, and - now don't be cross with me! Promise you won't be?"

"That's a very easy promise," said the General.

"Then I'll confess that I'm simply dying to meet the de Silva!" said Camilla audaciously. "I think it's just too thrilling!"

"Who is this Miss de Silva?" asked Stephen Guest in a low voice.

"Geoffrey's intended," replied Dinah, finishing what was left of her tea. "Cabaret dancer. Said to be Mexican."

"Good heavens! Is he bringing her here? Young fool!" He glanced towards Fay, who had seated herself again behind the tea-table, and added, almost beneath his breath: "I suppose you realise who it is who will be made to suffer?"

"Let us go and look at the roses," said Dinah. "Come on!"

He looked down at her, his eyes still smouldering, but considerably puzzled. "What?"

"Go and look at the roses," repeated Dinah firmly, and got up. "We're going for a stroll in the rose garden, Fay."

Mrs. Halliday overheard this, and gave her brittle laugh. "How too romantic!"

"My husband is a very keen gardener," Fay said. "You must get him to show you round some time."

Camilla Halliday sent her a quick look under her lashes, weighing her. "I should adore it!" she murmured. "Will you, dear Sir Arthur?"

"Delighted!" he assured her. "Any time! I can only say that I should like my roses to see you."

Dinah looked back over her shoulder. "And even that isn't original," she said pensively. "Come on, Stephen."

They descended the shallow steps on to the lawn, and began to stroll across it. Once they were out of earshot Dinah said: "You were an awful ass to come, you know."

"Maybe."

"It's no use trying to shut me up," said Dinah. "Ask Arthur. And if you don't mind my saying so, you won't make matters any better by doing the strong, silent man stuff whenever Arthur goes for Fay."

He smiled rather reluctantly. "Do I?"

"Rather! Like a western hero."

"I've been out west," he remarked inconsequently.

"I should think you were a huge success," said Dinah with great cordiality.

"Africa too," he ruminated. "Then I struck Australia for a spell. It's a great country."

"So I've been told. Is there anywhere you haven't been?"

"I've knocked round most of the tough spots in this world," he admitted. "You learn quite a lot, rolling round."

"What you don't seem to learn," said Dinah, "is a little ordinary sense. It's just dam' silliness to come and stay here. All it does is to make you want to take Arthur into a wide, open space and knock his teeth down his throat. I know."

Stephen Guest's large,, capable hands clenched slowly. "By God, it does!" he said, and drew a long breath.

"Well, you can't go knocking people's teeth out when they're as old as Arthur," Dinah pointed out.

"I don't know that that would worry me a lot," replied Guest. "It wouldn't take much from him to make me see red."

"Then you jolly well oughtn't to come here."

"Fay wanted me," he said.

"Your job," said Dinah, "is to make Fay want you much more than that. I've been advising her to run away with you."

He reddened under his tan, and said gruffly: "You're a good sort, Dinah. She won't, though."

"No, not while she can get you to come down here every time she feels like it."

Stephen Guest considered this. "I see," he said presently. "Thanks for the advice. Don't know that I shall take it." He paused under an arbour, and frowningly regarded a cluster of pink blooms. "Ever seen Lola de Silva?"

"That pleasure is yet to come. Have you?"

"M'm." A gleam of satisfaction shone in his eye. "Saw her at the Cafe Grecque once."

Dinah waited for more, but as Guest seemed to have relapsed into his habitual taciturnity she urged him kindly not to keep anything back.

Thus adjured, he replied: "Oh, I don't know anything about her! I only thought she'd be a bit out of place here - from what I saw."

Nothing further could be elicited from him. Dinah gave it up, and led the way back to the terrace.

Chapter Two

It was not until nearly six o'clock that the sound of a car driving up the long gravel sweep heralded the arrival of Geoffrey Billington-Smith and his proposed bride. Stephen Guest and Basil Halliday had gone into the billiard-room, and through the open windows at the other end of the terrace came the intermittent click of the balls. Fay also had left the terrace, on some murmured pretext. There remained Camilla, languorous in her long chair, holding an idly flirtatious conversation with the General, and Dinah, talking in a desultory fashion to Captain Billington-Smith.

"Would you like me to make love to you, darling?" inquired Francis.

"Do just as you like; I needn't listen," replied Dinah. "It seems to be the order of the day," he said softly.

"You don't like me a bit, do you, my sweet?" "No, not much."

He accepted this with his faintly mocking smile, and continued to smoke for a minute or two in silence. "I'm not entirely sure that I like you," he remarked presently. "I've been trying to make up my mind about it. Let us change the subject. This is really very tiresome of Geoffrey, don't you agree?"

"Yes, but it ought to be rather good value. Do you know Lola?"

"I haven't taken her out to dinner, if that is what you mean. I've seen her dance. She wore feathers — not very many of them, but so artfully placed. No, I don't think Uncle will be pleased." He glanced towards her, and added affably: "How right you are, darling! Naturally I should be delighted if Geoffrey were disinherited in favour of me, but one must never bank on the future, must one? It is so like Geoffrey to put his father in a bad temper just when I want him mellow. Do not look so warningly at me: neither of them is paying the least heed to us. I am always careful not to offend Uncle."

"I thought you must have come to make a touch," said Dinah.

"You mustn't pride yourself on your intuition, howcver. It was quite obvious. I cannot conceive any other reason for wishing to come here. Or rather I can, of course, but there's a law — Mosaic, I fancy — against making love to one's aunts."

It was at this moment that the car-wheels were heard. They did not penetrate to the General's consciousness, but in another few minutes Fay came out on to the terrace from the drawing-room and interrupted his tete-a-tete with the news that Geoffrey had arrived.

"Well, what of it?" demanded the General. "Does he expect me to wait for him on the door-step?"

"Arthur — Miss de Silva!" said Fay, on a note of entreaty.

The General turned as his son's betrothed stepped out on to the terrace.

Miss de Silva made her entrance as one accustomed to being received by volleys of applause.

It was not difficult to see why Geoffrey, who was standing smiling nervously and a little fatuously over her shoulder, had fallen in love with her. She was a most striking lady, even beautiful, with enormous dark eyes, an enchanting nose, a lovely, petulant mouth, and clusters of black curls springing from under the very latest thing in hats - a tiny confection, daringly worn over one-half of her head.

Her orange and black and jade suit (though labelled "Sports Wear' by the genius who designed it) might have been considered by some people to be unsuitable for a drive into the country, nor, on a warm June afternoon, did an immensely long stole of silver fox furs all clipped together, heads to tails, seem really necessary. But no one could deny that Miss de Silva carried these well.

Until her arrival Camilla Halliday had seemed a little overdressed, a little too heavily made up, but no other woman's dress or make-up could appear remarkable when Miss de Silva was present.

The General got up, blinking, and his prospective daughter-in-law at once introduced herself, "I am Lola," she said. "You know me, perhaps, but still I present myself."

The General shook hands with her, as one in honour bound. "No, I can't say that I do," he replied stiffly.

A slightly austere look crept over Miss de Silva's face. "That is to me extraordinary," she said. "But it is seen that you live retired, and I am not at all offended. I have a mind extremely large. It is impossible to offend me. But I must tell you that I find myself in great distraction, and at once the affair must be arranged, if you please."

"What affair?" said the General, casting a goaded look towards his wife.

"It's all right, Arthur. I've given orders about it," Fay said placatingly. "There wasn't room in Geoffrey's car for Miss de Silva's maid, and she is coming by train. Miss de Silva wants her to be met."

"And if she has not arrived on the train, which is a thing one must fear, for she is a great fool, Geoffrey must go at once to London, for it is quite his fault, and he has behaved with a stupidity which is remarkable, to think that my luggage can be put in his little car."

"Shouldn't have thought there was the least difficulty about it myself," said Sir Arthur. "Ridiculous nonsense!"

Fay, resolutely refusing to catch her sister's eye, laid a hand on Miss de Silva's arm. "Please don't worry about it!" she begged. "I'm sure she will arrive quite safely. I want to introduce you to Mrs. Halliday, and to my sister, Miss Fawcett." Miss de Silva summed up both these ladies in one cursory glance, and bestowed on them her hashing smile. "And to my husband's nephew, Captain Billington-Smith," added Fay.

Francis rose superbly to the occasion and gracefully kissed the fair Lola's hand. "Need I say that this is a much-longed-for moment?" he said. "I have had the inestimable pleasure of seeing you dance."

Miss de Silva accepted this. "I dance very well," she stated. "All over the world people say how well I dance."

"I'm afraid we don't go in for that sort of thing down here," said Sir Arthur crushingly. "Though I've seen the Russians. Marvellous! Most perfect dancing!"

"I dance better than the Russians," said Miss de Silva simply.

Once more Fay intervened. "We shall hope to see you one day. But won't you sit down? I'm sure you'd like some tea after your drive, wouldn't you?"

Lola disposed herself in one of the wicker-chairs, and allowed the silver fox stole to fall to the ground. "I do not drink tea, and it is too late now. I will have instead one little cocktail."

This was too much for Sir Arthur, growing steadily redder in the face. "In this house, my dear young lady, cocktails are not served at six o'clock," he announced.

"Then it is better that Geoffrey shall mix it for me," decided Lola, quite unruffled. "I shall not make any trouble for you then, and besides Geoffrey knows how it is I like my cocktail, and that is important too."

Sir Arthur's voice took on a peculiarly harsh note. "Cocktails," he said, "will be served in the drawing-room at a quarter to eight, and not, let me assure you, one moment earlier."

At this moment, before Lola, who was gazing at her host in an inquiring and quite uncomprehending manner, could reply, Guest and Halliday came out of the billiard-room, and a diversion was thus created. Under cover of fresh introductions Dinah whispered to Geoffrey that he must take Lola into the house. She had discovered that her week-end was to be a strenuous one, but she was not the girl to shirk an obvious duty. Since Geoffrey seemed incapable of moving Lola from the terrace, she announced that she was sure she had caught the sound of a car. "It's probably your maid," she told Lola. "Shall we go and see?"

"Ah yes, that I must see at once," agreed Miss de Silva.

"I'or if it is not Concetta, Geoffrey must instantly go to find her."

"Yes, of course," nodded Dinah, and shepherded her into the house. Geoffrey followed, bringing the silver fox stole.

"The future Mrs. Billington-Smith," murmured Francis, taking a cigarette from his flat gold case.

The General rounded on him. "Hold your tongue, sir!"

"Of course, I think she's too marvellous!" said Camilla, giggling. "But I do utterly understand how you feel, Sir Arthur. I think it's terribly sweet of you to let him bring her."

"He won't bring her a second time," said the General grimly. "Brazen, painted hussy! Cocktails! Fay, you'll kindly make that young woman understand that in this house my word is law! I don't want to have any unpleasantness, so I'm warning you! You asked her here, and I'll thank you to see that she conforms to the rules of the place. Now I don't want to hear another word on the subject, and I'm sure your guests don't either. Come, Camilla, let me take you round the gardens: the roses are at their best, I flatter myself."

Once inside the house Dinah tried to explain to Lola. At first Lola could not be brought to heed anything beyond the fact that Concetta had not yet arrived, but when it had been made plain to her that the train from London was not due at Ralton Station for another ten minutes, she consented to postpone Geoffrey's departure a little longer, and to go up to her bedroom with Dinah.

"It is very well thought of," she approved. "Geoffrey has been very selfish to bring me in an open car which will not take my luggage, and perhaps I am untidy from the wind. I shall arrange myself, and Geoffrey shall bring my cocktail up to me. And there must not be any gin, Geoffrey, but absinthe, for gin is a thing that makes me completely sick."

"I shouldn't think there's any absinthe in the house," said Dinah. "Still, I daresay Finch will think of something.

I'll carry the fur, Geoffrey: you attend to the drink question. I wonder which room you're having, Miss de Silva? We'd better inspect."

Happily there was a housemaid on the landing who had just finished unpacking Miss de Silva's advance baggage, and she was able to direct them. She eyed Lola with the envious admiration she accorded only to film stars, and when Dinah saw the results of her unpacking she was not surprised. The dressing-table was loaded with innumerable toilet jars, scent flagons, brushes, rouge-pots, and powder-bowls, all with opulent enamel fittings. A negligee, very like the one worn by Dawson's favourite star in her last film, was laid reverently over a chair, and in the big mahogany wardrobe was hanging an evening frock that might have come straight from Hollywood.

"Oh, I'm sure she's on the films!" Dawson breathed to Mrs. Moxon in the kitchen. "You never saw anything to equal the dresses she's got. Oh, they're lovely, Mrs. Moxon! they are really! She's like Lupe Velez, that's who she's like. Oo, I wonder if it could be her, under an assumed name - you know how they do?"

"Films!" snorted Mrs. Moxon, banging the rolling-pin on the board with unnecessary force. "She's one of them good-for-nothing cabaret girls, that's what she is. And when you've been in service a bit longer nor what you live, Joan Dawson, you'll have more sense than to go goggling at her sort. Get out of my way, do!"

Upstairs in the sunny bedroom Miss de Silva had thrown the negligee on to the bed, tossed her hat after it, and sat herself down at the dressing-table, anxiously surveying her face in the mirror. "It is terrible!" she announced, and snatched the lid from one of the powder-bowls. "It is not polite to make a complaint, and I therefore I say nothing, for I have very good manners, I assure you, but it should not be permitted that a man should demand of anyone that they motor in an open car. Naturally there must be a wind. I am not unreasonable, and I do not expect there to be no wind, but Geoffrey should have a car which is not open and which will take Concetta as well."