Winnie was a plain child with large gold-rimmed spectacles. When she spoke she revealed that two of her front teeth were missing.
``I hope you don't imagine she's coming with us.''
``Yes, that's the idea,'' said Milly. ``She won't be any trouble--she's got her puzzle.''
Tony bent down to speak to the little girl. ``Listen,'' he said. ``You don't want to come to a nasty big hotel. You go with this kind gentleman here. He'll take you to a shop and let you choose the biggest doll you can find and then he'll drive you back in his motor to your home. You'll like that, won't you?''
``No,'' said Winnie. ``I want to go to the seaside. I won't go with that man. I don't want a doll. I want to go to the seaside with my mummy.''
Several people besides the detectives were beginning to take notice of the oddly assorted group.
``Oh God!'' said Tony, ``I suppose she's got to come.'' The detectives followed at a distance down the platform. Tony settled his companions in a pullman car. ``Look,'' said Milly, ``we're travelling first class. Isn't that fun? We can have tea.''
``Can I have an ice?''
``I don't expect they've got an ice. But you can have some nice tea.''
``But I want an ice.''
``You shall have an ice when you get to Brighton. Now be a good girl and play with your puzzle or mother won't take you to the seaside again.''
``The Awful Child of popular fiction,'' said Jock as he left Tony.
Winnie sustained the part throughout the journey to Brighton. She was not inventive but she knew the classic routine thoroughly, even to such commonplace but alarming devices as breathing heavily, grunting and complaining of nausea.
Room at the hotel had been engaged for Tony by the solicitors. It was therefore a surprise to the reception clerk when Winnie arrived. ``We have reserved in your name double and single communicating rooms, bathroom and sitting room,'' he said. ``We did not understand you were bringing your daughter. Will you require a further room?''
``Oh Winnie can come in with me,'' said Milly.
The two detectives who were standing nearby at the counter, exchanged glances of disapproval.
Tony wrote Mr. and Mrs. Last in the Visitors' Book. ``And daughter,'' said the clerk with his finger on the place.
Tony hesitated. ``She is my niece,'' he said, and inscribed her name on another line, as Miss Smith.
The detective, registering below, remarked to his colleague, ``He got out of that all right. Quite smart. But I don't like the look of this case. Most irregular. Sets a nasty, respectable note bringing a kid into it. We've got the firm to consider. It doesn't do them any good to get mixed up with the King's Proctor.''
``How about a quick one?'' said his colleague indifferently.
Upstairs, Winnie said, ``Where's the sea?''
``Just there across the street.''
``I want to go and see it.''
``But it's dark now, pet. You shall see it tomorrow.''
``I want to see it tonight.''
``You take her to see it now,'' said Tony.
``Sure you won't be lonely?''
``Quite sure.''
``We won't be long.''
``That's all right. You let her see it properly.''
Tony went down to the bar where he was pleased to find the two detectives. He felt the need of male company. ``Good evening,'' he said.
They looked at him askance. Everything in this case seemed to be happening as though with deliberate design to shock their professional feelings. ``Good evening,'' said the senior detective. ``Nasty, raw evening.''
``Have a drink.''
Since Tony was paying their expenses in any case, the offer seemed superfluous but the junior detective brightened instinctively and said, ``Don't mind if I do.''
``Come and sit down. I feel rather lonely.''
They took their drinks to a table out of hearing of the bar man. ``Mr. Last, sir, this is all wrong,'' said the senior detective. ``You haven't no business to recognize us at all. I don't know what they'd say at the office.''
``Best respects,'' said the junior detective.
``This is Mr. James, my colleague,'' said the senior detective. ``My name is Blenkinsop. James is new to this kind of work.''
``So am I,'' said Tony.
``A pity we've such a nasty week-end for the job,'' said Blenkinsop, ``very damp and blowy. Gets me in the joints.''
``Tell me,'' said Tony. ``Is it usual to bring children on an expedition of this kind?''
``It is not.''
``I thought it couldn't be.''
``Since you ask me, Mr. Last, I regard it as most irregular and injudicious. It looks wrong, and cases of this kind depend very much on making the right impression. Of course as far as James and I are concerned, the matter is O.K. There won't be a word about it in our evidence. But you can't trust the servants. You might very likely happen to strike one who was new to the courts, who'd blurt it out, and then where would we be? I don't like it, Mr. Last, and that's the truth.''
``You can't feel more strongly about it than I do.''
``Fond of kids myself,'' said James, who was new to this kind of work. ``How about one with us.''
``Tell me,'' said Tony, when they had been at their table some little time. ``You must have observed numerous couples in your time, qualifying for a divorce; tell me, how do they get through their day?''
``It's easier in the summer,'' said Blenkinsop, ``the young ladies usually bathe and the gentlemen read the papers on the esplanade; some goes for motor drives and some just hangs around the bar. They're mostly glad when Monday comes.''
Milly and her child were in the sitting room when Tony came up.
``I've ordered an ice,'' said Milly.
``Quite right.''
``I want late dinner. I want late dinner.''
``No, dear, not late dinner. You have an ice up here.'' Tony returned to the bar. ``Mr. James,'' he said. ``Did I understand you to say you were fond of children?''
``Yes, in their right place.''
``You wouldn't I suppose consider dining tonight with the little girl who has accompanied me? I should take it as a great kindness.''
``Oh no, sir, hardly that.''
``You would not find me ungrateful.''
``Well, sir, I don't like to appear unobliging, but it's not part of my duties.''
He seemed to be wavering but Blenkinsop interposed. ``Quite out of the question, sir.''
When Tony left them Blenkinsop spoke from the depth of his experience; it was the first job that he and James had been on together, and he felt under some obligation to put his junior wise. ``Our trouble is always the same--to make the clients realize that divorce is a serious matter.''
Eventually extravagant promises for the morrow, two or three ices and the slight depression induced by them, persuaded Winnie to go to bed.
``How are we going to sleep?'' asked Milly.
``Oh, just as you like.''
``Just as you like.''
``Well perhaps Winnie would be happier with you ... she'll have to go into the other room tomorrow morning when they bring in breakfast, of course.''
So she was tucked up in a corner of the double bed and to Tony's surprise was asleep before they went down to dinner.
A change of clothes brought to both Tony and Milly a change of temper. She, in her best evening frock, backless and vermilion, her face newly done and her bleached curls brushed out, her feet in high red shoes, some bracelets on her wrists, a dab of scent behind the large sham pearls in her ears, shook off the cares of domesticity and was once more in uniform, reporting for duty, a legionary ordered for active service after the enervating restraints of a winter in barracks; and Tony, filling his cigar case before the mirror, and slipping it into the pocket of his dinner jacket, reminded himself that phantasmagoric, and even gruesome as the situation might seem to him, he was nevertheless a host, so that he knocked at the communicating door and passed with a calm manner into his guest's room; for a month now he had lived in a world suddenly bereft of order; it was as though the whole reasonable and decent constitution of things, the sum of all he had experienced or learned to expect, were an inconspicuous, inconsiderable object mislaid somewhere on the dressing table; no outrageous circumstance in which he found himself, no new mad thing brought to his notice could add a jot to the all-encompassing chaos that shrieked about his ears. He smiled at Milly from the doorway. ``Charming,'' he said, ``perfectly charming. Shall we go down to dinner?''