9. Meet Z.10 Smith in the dark. Offers me retaining fee of £10 down, £3 a week, a fiver for expenses, pending decision of unnamed “principal” as to my fitness for post (Second Murderer?). Duties, pro tem., to dine and dance at Leonardo’s. Curiouser and curiouser!
I can’t make anything of it. It’s just possible that Markham and Anna butted in on a plan that hadn’t really got anything to do with them. I mean Z.10 may be genuinely wanting some one to do a confidential job for him, and either Markham or Anna may have got to know about it. One of them might have been buying papers while Z.10 and I were talking on the telephone-no, that won’t do, because Morgan was talking to the tobacconist about Benno having pushed off the advertisement on to me before I talked to Z.10 at all. Well, that doesn’t matter, because of course there are dozens of other ways he might have got to know about the affair- he, or Anna. And I suppose Anna could have jabbed a hatpin into his tyre and made him late for his appointment with me. I wonder whether Anna is really in a hole, or whether she’s just trying to get me into one.
And that’s another thing that’s odd. Anna says she’s in a hole, and will I please commit a forgery and do seven years, or whatever it is they give you for forgery, to help her out of it, and she’ll say “Thank you kindly,” and press five hundred pounds into my hand. And Fay says she’s in a hole and can’t possibly get out of it unless I give her five hundred pounds-at least that’s what she said to start with, and now she says she never said anything of the sort, and that I must have been dreaming.
Now is there any connection between these two things? Or is it just a coincidence that Fay should be in a hole, and Anna should be in a hole, and that they should both, as you might say, harp on the sum of five hundred pounds? Can’t make head or tail of it. I can only go on writing things down as they happen.
Quite a lot happened last night. We got the same table at Leonardo’s. Fay seemed awfully bucked about coming, and about half way through dinner it came over me that I didn’t really care a damn about Z.10, or Anna, or anything else. My spirits went up with a run and I felt like taking on any old thing that was going to turn up.
Rena La Touche was there again, in what looked like a gold snake-skin. Fay told me she was wearing the largest emerald in the world. It was about an inch square, and she said it was flawless. I wondered whether nine hundred and ninety-nine people out of a thousand would have known the difference if it had been suddenly changed for a bit of colored glass. As long as they went on believing it as the biggest emerald in the world they’d have got just the same amount of thrill out of it.
She passed quite close to our table, with the love-sick rabbit about half a pace behind. Just as she was level with us she dropped her bag, a little gold affair with a handle made of twisted snakes. The rabbit picked it up as I was going to make a dive for it myself. She gave me a sort of perfunctory “come hither” look as she put out her hand to take it. She didn’t look at the rabbit at all, and I thought what a jolly time the poor devil must have, fetching and carrying and paying the bills, and buying her emeralds, or seeing other people buy them for her. She took the bag out of his hand, still looking at me, and began to move away.
Our table was against the wall, set into a recess. Just as Rena moved, she looked for an instant at Fay, and it seemed to me that the look asked a question, and it seemed to me that Fay’s eyes said “No.” Rena went on down the room with every one looking at her. Every one was looking at her all the time-they always do. But only Fay and I could have seen her ask that question. I don’t count the rabbit-subhuman and a poor specimen at that.
Fay began to talk rather fast. She pointed out Delphine, the woman whose shop she works in, on the other side of the room.
“Isn’t she smart?” she asked.
I thought she was perfectly hideous. Light-red hair scraped right off her forehead and curling up in wisps at the back of her neck; a sort of hatchet face made up a nasty yellowish white; and bright orange-colored lips put it rather thin and curly. I said what I thought, and I didn’t hear what Fay said, because just then I saw Isobel.
She was coming down the room. She looked pale and a little sad. She used not to look like that; she used to be all sparkle and life and happiness. She wore a dress of some soft blue stuff that was just a little darker than her eyes, and she had a string of pearls round her neck. She looked very beautiful. When I realized that I must be staring, I got my eyes away from her face and saw that she was with a party. There was a dark man with her, a strong stocky sort of fellow, not very tall.
I remembered what Anna had told me, and I wondered if it was Giles Heron, and whether it was true that Isobel was going to marry him. I shouldn’t believe anything just because Anna said it-she’s always been one of our leading amateur liars.
After Heron-if it was Heron-came Miss Willy Tarrant, full of joie de vivre and talking all the time. She hasn’t changed a bit. She was dressed in something that glittered and clanked like chain mail. Behind her came Bobby Markham. They went right up to the top of the room.
I felt Fay touch my arm. I think she’d been saying something that I hadn’t heard.
“Car-wake up! You’re pretty far gone if she sends you into a trance the moment she appears on the scene.”
I stared at her. She doesn’t know anything about Isobel, so I didn’t know what she was driving at. She looked as if she was angry too. I suppose she thought I was neglecting her.
“What are you talking about?” I said.
She primmed up her lips-I should like to tell her it’s not at all becoming; it always makes me want to slap her-and then she tossed her head.
“Your Clarissa-the very new cousin that no one’s ever heard of before-are you going to pretend you haven’t seen her?”
I hadn’t until that minute, but when Fay said “Clarissa” like that, I saw that Corinna Lee had joined Miss Willy’s party. There was a thin elderly woman with her, whom I took to be Cousin Abby, and two men, one middle-aged and the other young. Corinna had come out of gray, and was as gay as a humming-bird. I wondered if Anna and my uncle were going to turn up next, and then I saw that the table was full. I turned back to Fay.
“Why do you call her Clarissa?” I said.
“Isn’t it Clarissa?”
“No-Corinna-Corinna Lee.”
“What does it matter?”
The rest of dinner was rather a strain. Isobel had her back to me, but it was very difficult not to watch her. I didn’t want Fay to notice that, but I’m afraid she did. I hoped she’d go on thinking I was looking at Corinna. I don’t know what we talked about, but I must have kept my end up pretty well, because Fay seemed quite pleased.
XVI
After dinner we danced. The tables are all round the edge of the room, and there is an open space in the middle. The first time we passed Miss Willy’s table they were talking, Miss Willy loud enough for two, and no one looked at us except Bobby Markham, and he looked and looked away like you do when you’ve seen some one you don’t want to see. I went on doing the step Fay was teaching me, and wondering about Bobby. I wondered if he was my employer. It went a good deal against the grain to think he might be.
We went on dancing. Isobel never looked round. The man that I thought might be Giles Heron was on one side of her, and the elderly man who had come with Cousin Abby on the other. Heron was bending towards her and talking most of the time. He looked a good chap, solid and capable. About the third time we came round, Corinna saw me and waved her hand. She was between Bobby Markham and the young man she had come in with, a red-haired lad with a cheeky grin. They seemed to be getting on like a house on fire.