A shutter came down over Alfred’s face.
“It wasn’t there when I cleared, Miss.”
Nicola said: “Oh well! I expect, after all, Mr. Period—” And then remembered that Mr. Period had left the dining-room to answer the telephone and had certainly not collected the cigarette case when he briefly returned.
Alfred said: “The window was on the latch, as it is now, when I cleared, Miss. I’d left it shut, as usual.”
Nicola looked at it. It was a casement window and was hooked open to the extent of some eight inches. Beyond it were the rose garden, the side gate and the excavations in the lane. As she stared out of it a shovelful of earth was thrown up; derisively, she might almost have thought, by one of the workmen, invisible in the trench.
“Never mind,” she said. “We’ll find it. Don’t worry.”
“I hope so, I’m sure, Miss. It’s a valuable object.”
“I know.”
They were staring doubtfully at each other when Mr. Period came in looking exceedingly rattled.
“Nicola, my dear: Andrew Bantling on the telephone, for you. Would you mind taking it in the hall? We are un peu occupé, in the study. I’m so sorry.”
“Oh dear!” Nicola said. “So am I — that you’ve been bothered. Mr. Period, your cigarette case isn’t in here, I’m afraid.”
“But I distinctly remember—” Mr. Period began. “Well, never mind. Your telephone call, child.”
Nicola went into the hall.
Andrew Bantling said: “Oh, there you are at last! What goes on in the Lay-by? P.P. sounded most peculiar.”
“He’s awfully busy.”
“You’re being discreet and trustworthy. Never mind, I shall gimlet it out of you in the train. You couldn’t make the 3:30, I suppose?”
“Not possibly.”
“Then I shall simply have to lurk in the lane like a follower. There’s nowhere for me to be in this district. Baynesholme has become uninhabitable on account—” He lowered his voice and evidently put his mouth very close to the receiver, so that consonants popped and sibilants hissed in Nicola’s eardrum.
“What did you say?”
“I said the Moppett and her Leonard have arrived in a smashing Scorpion under pretense of wanting to see the family portraits. What’s the matter?”
“I’ve got to go. Sorry. Good-bye,” Nicola said, and rushed to the library.
Mr. Cartell and Mr. Period broke off their conversation as she entered. Sergeant Noakes was dialling a number.
She said: “I thought I should tell you at once. They’re at Baynesholme. They’ve driven there in the Scorpion.”
Mr. Cartell went into action. “Noakes,” he said, “tell Copper I want him here immediately in the car.”
“Which car, sir?” Noakes asked, startled, the receiver at his ear.
“The Bloodbath,” Mr. Period said impatiently. “What else? Really, Noakes!”
“He’s to drive me to Baynesholme as fast as the thing will go. At once, Noakes.”
Sergeant Noakes began talking into the telephone.
“Be quick,” Mr. Cartell said, “and you’d better come too.”
“Yes, George,” said Sergeant Noakes into the telephone. “That’s correct. Now.”
“Come along, Noakes. My hat and coat!” Mr. Cartell went out. “Alfred! My topcoat.”
“And you might ask them, Harold, while you’re about it,” Mr. Period quite shouted after him, “what they did with my cigarette case.”
“What?” the retreating voice asked.
“Lady Barsington’s cardcase. Cigarettes.”
There was a shocked pause. Mr. Cartell returned, half in and half out of an overcoat, a tweed hat cocked over one eye.
“What do you mean, P.P.? Surely you don’t suggest…?”
“God knows! But ask them. Ask!”
Désirée, Lady Bantling (ex-Cartell, factually Dodds), sat smiling to herself in her drawing-room.
She smoked incessantly and listened to Moppett Ralston and Leonard Leiss, and it would have been impossible for anyone to say what she thought of them. Her ravaged face, with its extravagant make-up, and her mop of orange hair made a flagrant statement against the green background of her chair. She was possibly not unamused.
Moppett was explaining how interested Leonard was in art and what a lot he knew about the great portrait painters.
“So I do hope,” Moppett was saying, “you don’t think it too boring and bold of us to ask if we may look. Leonard said you would, but I said we’d risk it and if we might just see the pictures and creep away again…?”
“Yes, do,” Désirée said. “They’re all Bantling ancestors. Gentlemen in skin-tight breeches, and ladies with high foreheads and smashing bosoms. Andrew could tell you all about them, but he seems to have disappeared. I’m afraid I’ve got to help poor Bimbo make up pieces of poetry for a treasure hunt and in any case I don’t know anything about them. I want my pictures to be modern and gay and, if possible, rude.”
“And, of course, you’re so right, Lady Bantling,” Leonard said eagerly. He leant forward with his head on one side sending little waves of hair oil towards her. Désirée watched him and accepted everything he said without comment. When he had talked himself to an ingratiating standstill, she remarked that, after all, she didn’t think she was all that interested in painting.
“Andrew has done a portrait of me which I do quite fancy,” she said. “I look like the third witch in Macbeth before she gave up trying to make the best of herself. Hullo, my darling, how’s your muse?”
Bimbo had come in. He threw an extremely cold glance at Leonard.
“My muse,” he said, “is bitching on me. You must help me, Désirée; there ought to be at least seven clues and it’s more amusing if they rhyme.”
“Can we help?” Moppett suggested. “Leonard’s quite good at really improper ones. What are they for?”
“A treasure hunt,” he said, without looking at her.
“Treasure hunts are my vintage,” Désirée said. “I thought it might be fun to revive them. So we’ve having one tonight.”
Moppett and Leonard cried excitedly. “But I’m utterly sold on them,” Moppett said. “They’re quite the gayest way of having parties. How exactly are you working it?” she asked Bimbo. He said shortly that they were doing it the usual way.
Désirée stood up. “Bimbo’s planting a bottle of champagne somewhere and the leading-up clues will be dotted about the landscape. If you don’t mind just going on your picture crawl under your own steam we’d better begin racking our brains for rhymes. Please do look wherever you like.” She held out her hand to Moppett. “I’m sorry not to be more hospitable, but we are, as you see, in a taking-on. Good-bye.” She looked at Leonard. “Good-bye.”
“My God!” Bimbo suddenly ejaculated. “The food from Magnums! It’ll be at the station.”
Moppett and Leonard stopped short and looked passionately concerned.
“Can’t you pick it up,” Désirée asked, “when you lay your trail of clues?”
“I can’t start before we’ve done the clues, can I?”
“They’re too busy to send anyone from the kitchen and they want the stuff. Madly. We’d better get the Bloodbath to collect it.”
“Look!” Moppett and Leonard said together and then gaily laughed at each other. “ ‘Two minds with butter…’ ” Moppett quipped. “But please — please do let us collect the things from Magnums. We’d adore to.”
Désirée said: “Jolly kind, but the Bloodbath will do it.”
Bimbo much more emphatically added: “Thank you, but we wouldn’t dream of it.”
“But why not?” Moppett protested. “Leonard’s longing to drive that thing out there, aren’t you, sweetie?”
“Of course. And, as a matter of fact,” Leonard said, “I happen to know the Bloodbath — if that’s George Copper’s crate — is out of commission. It won’t take us any time.”