"Then you were really in the thick of it all!" said Lady Tamplin
enviously. "My dear, how thrilling!" She opened her china blue eyes
very wide and gave a little sigh.
"A real murder," said Mr. Evans gloatingly.
"Of course Chubby had no idea of anything of the kind," went on Lady
Tamplin; "he simply could _not_ imagine why the police wanted you. My
dear, what an opportunity! I think, you know--yes, I certainly think
something might be made out of this."
A calculating look rather marred the ingenuousness of the blue eyes.
Katherine felt slightly uncomfortable. They were just finishing lunch,
and she looked in turn at the three people sitting round the table.
Lady Tamplin, full of practical schemes; Mr. Evans, beaming with naïve
appreciation, and Lenox with a queer crooked smile on her dark face.
"Marvellous luck," murmured Chubby; "I wish I could have gone along
with you--and seen--all the exhibits."
His tone was wistful and childlike.
Katherine said nothing. The police had laid no injunctions of secrecy
upon her, and it was clearly impossible to suppress the bare facts or
try to keep them from her hostess. But she did rather wish it had been
possible to do so.
"Yes," said Lady Tamplin, coming suddenly out of her reverie, "I do
think something might be done. A little account, you know, cleverly
written up. An eye-witness, a feminine touch: '_How I chatted with the
dead woman, little thinking_--' that sort of thing, you know."
"Rot!" said Lenox.
"You have no idea," said Lady Tamplin in a soft, wistful voice, "what
newspapers will pay for a little titbit! Written, of course, by some
one of really unimpeachable social position. You would not like to do
it yourself, I dare say, Katherine dear, but just give me the bare
bones of it, and _I_ will manage the whole thing for you. Mr. de
Haviland is a special friend of mine. We have a little understanding
together. A most delightful man--not at all reporterish. How does the
idea strike you, Katherine?"
"I would much prefer to do nothing of the kind," said Katherine bluntly.
Lady Tamplin was rather disconcerted at this uncompromising refusal.
She sighed and turned to the elucidation of further details.
"A very striking-looking woman, you said? I wonder now who she could
have been. You didn't hear her name?"
"It was mentioned," Katherine admitted, "but I can't remember it. You
see, I was rather upset."
"I should think so," said Mr. Evans; "it must have been a beastly
shock."
It is to be doubted whether, even if Katherine had remembered the
name, she would have admitted the fact. Lady Tamplin's remorseless
cross-examination was making her restive. Lenox, who was observant in
her own way, noticed this, and offered to take Katherine upstairs to
see her room. She left her there, remarking kindly before she went:
"You mustn't mind Mother; she would make a few pennies' profit out of
her dying grandmother if she could."
Lenox went down again to find her mother and her step-father discussing
the newcomer.
"Presentable," said Lady Tamplin, "quite presentable. Her clothes are
all right. That grey thing is the same model that Gladys Cooper wore in
_Palm Trees in Egypt_."
"Have you noticed her eyes--what?" interposed Mr. Evans.
"Never mind her eyes, Chubby," said Lady Tamplin tartly; "we are
discussing the things that really matter."
"Oh, quite," said Mr. Evans, and retired into his shell.
"She doesn't seem to me very--malleable," said Lady Tamplin, rather
hesitating to choose the right word.
"She has all the instincts of a lady, as they say in books," said
Lenox, with a grin.
"Narrow-minded," murmured Lady Tamplin. "Inevitable under the
circumstances, I suppose."
"I expect you will do your best to broaden her," said Lenox, with a
grin, "but you will have your work cut out. Just now, you noticed, she
stuck down her fore feet and laid back her ears and refused to budge."
"Anyway," said Lady Tamplin hopefully, "she doesn't look to me at all
mean. Some people, when they come into money, seem to attach undue
importance to it."
"Oh, you'll easily touch her for what you want," said Lenox; "and,
after all, that is all that matters, isn't it? That is what she is here
for."
"She is my own cousin," said Lady Tamplin, with dignity.
"Cousin, eh?" said Mr. Evans, waking up again. "I suppose I call her
Katherine, don't I?"
"It is of no importance at all what you call her, Chubby," said Lady
Tamplin.
"Good," said Mr. Evans; "then I will. Do you suppose she plays tennis?"
he added hopefully.
"Of course not," said Lady Tamplin. "She has been a companion, I tell
you. Companions don't play tennis--or golf. They might possibly play
golf-croquet, but I have always understood that they wind wool and wash
dogs most of the day."
"O God!" said Mr. Evans; "do they really?"
Lenox drifted upstairs again to Katherine's room. "Can I help you?" she
asked rather perfunctorily.
On Katherine's disclaimer, Lenox sat on the edge of the bed and stared
thoughtfully at her guest.
"Why did you come?" she said at last. "To us, I mean. We're not your
sort."
"Oh, I am anxious to get into Society."
"Don't be an ass," said Lenox promptly, detecting the flicker of a
smile. "You know what I mean well enough. You are not a bit what I
thought you would be. I say, you _have_ got some decent clothes." She
sighed. "Clothes are no good to me. I was born awkward. It's a pity,
because I love them."
"I love them too," said Katherine, "but it has not been much use my
loving them up to now. Do you think this is nice?"
She and Lenox discussed several models with artistic fervour.
"I like you," said Lenox suddenly. "I came up to warn you not to be
taken in by Mother, but I think now that there is no need to do that.
You are frightfully sincere and upright and all those queer things, but
you are not a fool. Oh hell! what is it now?"
Lady Tamplin's voice was calling plaintively from the hall:
"Lenox, Derek has just rung up. He wants to come to dinner to-night.
Will it be all right? I mean, we haven't got anything awkward, like
quails, have we?"
Lenox reassured her and came back into Katherine's room. Her face
looked brighter and less sullen.
"I'm glad old Derek is coming," she said; "you'll like him."
"Who is Derek?"
"He is Lord Leconbury's son, married a rich American woman. Women are
simply potty about him."
"Why?"
"Oh, the usual reason--very good-looking and a regular bad lot. Every
one goes off their head about him."
"Do you?"
"Sometimes I do," said Lenox, "and sometimes I think I would like to
marry a nice curate and live in the country and grow things in frames."
She paused a minute, and then added, "An Irish curate would be best,
and then I should hunt."
After a minute or two she reverted to her former theme. "There is
something queer about Derek. All that family are a bit potty--mad
gamblers, you know. In the old days they used to gamble away their
wives and their estates, and did most reckless things just for the love
of it. Derek would have made a perfect highwayman--debonair and gay,
just the right manner." She moved to the door. "Well, come down when
you feel like it."
Left alone, Katherine gave herself up to thought. Just at present she
felt thoroughly ill at ease and jarred by her surroundings. The shock
of the discovery in the train and the reception of the news by her
new friends jarred upon her susceptibilities. She thought long and
earnestly about the murdered woman. She had been sorry for Ruth, but
she could not honestly say that she had liked her. She had divined only
too well the ruthless egoism that was the keynote of her personality,
and it repelled her.
She had been amused and a trifle hurt by the other's cool dismissal of
her when she had served her turn. That she had come to some decision,
Katherine was quite certain, but she wondered now what that decision
had been. Whatever it was, death had stepped in and made all decisions
meaningless. Strange that it should have been so, and that a brutal
crime should have been the ending of that fateful journey. But suddenly
Katherine remembered a small fact that she ought, perhaps, to have told
the police--a fact that had for the moment escaped her memory. Was it
of any real importance? She had certainly thought that she had seen a
man going into that particular compartment, but she realized that she
might easily have been mistaken. It might have been the compartment
next door, and certainly the man in question could be no train robber.
She recalled him very clearly as she had seen him on those two
previous occasions--once at the Savoy and once at Cook's office. No,
doubtless she had been mistaken. He had not gone into the dead woman's
compartment, and it was perhaps as well that she had said nothing to
the police. She might have done incalculable harm by doing so.
She went down to join the others on the terrace outside. Through the
branches of mimosa, she looked out over the blue of the Mediterranean,
and, whilst listening with half an ear to Lady Tamplin's chatter, she
was glad that she had come. This was better than St. Mary Mead.
That evening she put on the mauvy pink dress that went by the name of
_soupir d'automne_, and after smiling at her reflection in the mirror,
went downstairs with, for the first time in her life, a faint feeling
of shyness.
Most of Lady Tamplin's guests had arrived, and since noise was the
essential of Lady Tamplin's parties, the din was already terrific.
Chubby rushed up to Katherine, pressed a cocktail upon her, and took
her under his wing.
"Oh, here you are, Derek," cried Lady Tamplin, as the door opened to
admit the last comer. "Now at last we can have something to eat. I am
starving."
Katherine looked across the room. She was startled. So this--was Derek,
and she realized that she was not surprised. She had always known that
she would some day meet the man whom she had seen three times by such
a curious chain of coincidences. She thought, too, that he recognized
her. He paused abruptly in what he was saying to Lady Tamplin, and
went on again as though with an effort. They all went into dinner, and
Katherine found that he was placed beside her. He turned to her at once
with a vivid smile.
"I knew I was going to meet you soon," he remarked, "but I never dreamt
that it would be here. It had to be, you know. Once at the Savoy and
once at Cook's--never twice without three times. Don't say you can't
remember me or never noticed me. I insist upon your pretending that you
noticed me, anyway."
"Oh, I did," said Katherine; "but this is not the third time. It is the
fourth. I saw you on the Blue Train."
"On the Blue Train!" Something undefinable came over his manner; she
could not have said just what it was. It was as though he had received
a check, a setback. Then he said carelessly:
"What was the rumpus this morning? Somebody had died, hadn't they?"
"Yes," said Katherine slowly; "somebody had died."
"You shouldn't die on a train," remarked Derek flippantly. "I believe
it causes all sorts of legal and international complications, and it
gives the train an excuse for being even later than usual."
"Mr. Kettering?" A stout American lady, who was sitting opposite,
leaned forward and spoke to him with the deliberate intonation of her
race. "Mr. Kettering, I do believe you have forgotten me, and I thought
you such a perfectly lovely man."
Derek leaned forward, answering her, and Katherine sat almost dazed.
Kettering! That was the name, of course! She remembered it now--but
what a strange, ironical situation! Here was this man whom she had seen
go into his wife's compartment last night, who had left her alive and
well, and now he was sitting at dinner, quite unconscious of the fate
that had befallen her. Of that there was no doubt. He did not know.
A servant was leaning over Derek, handing him a note and murmuring in
his ear. With a word of excuse to Lady Tamplin, he broke it open, and
an expression of utter astonishment came over his face as he read; then
he looked at his hostess.
"This is most extraordinary. I say, Rosalie, I am afraid I will have to
leave you. The Prefect of Police wants to see me at once. I can't think
what about."
"Your sins have found you out," remarked Lenox.
"They must have," said Derek; "probably some idiotic nonsense, but I
suppose I shall have to push off to the Prefecture. How dare the old
boy rout me out from dinner? It ought to be something deadly serious to
justify that," and he laughed as he pushed back his chair and rose to
leave the room.