"Thash right," nodded the youth. He looked hazily at Amberley, yet with a certain cunning in his face. "She's my sister."
"If you get into my car I'll return you to her," said Amberley.
The youth's eyes narrowed. "Who are you?" he demanded. "I'm not going to - to tell you anything. See?"
"All right," Amberley said peaceably and managed to thrust him into the car.
He was not an easy passenger. While he babbled aimlessly all went well, but when he had switched off the engine for the second time Amberley came near to losing his temper.
Mark cringed a little before the wrath in his face and wanted to get out. He seemed to become obsessed all at once with the idea that he was being kidnapped. It was with considerable difficulty that Amberley succeeded in allaying his fears, and then he began to talk about the murder. Very little of what he said made sense, nor did Amberley press him to be more explicit. He said several times that no one was going to make a cat's-paw of him, maundered a little of hidden dangers and of dark plots, and asserted loudly that whoever else got murdered it would not be himself. As Amberley swung the car into the lane that led to Ivy Cottage he suddenly grasped his sleeve and said earnestly: "I didn't think there was anything in it. Shirley thought so, but I didn't. A hoax. Thash what I thought. But it isn't. I see it isn't now. I've got to be careful. Not speak to anyone. Not give anything away."
"I shouldn't," said Amberley, drawing up at the gate of the cottage. He got out of the car and went up the flagged path to the front door. He knocked, heard a dog bark, and in a few minutes was confronting Shirley Brown.
She was evidently startled to see him, but she tried to conceal it. "May I ask what you want?" she said brusquely.
Mr. Amberley wasted no time on delicate euphemisms. "I want to get rid of a damned nuisance," he said. "I've brought your brother home. He's extraordinarily drunk."
"Oh, my God, again!." she said wearily. "All right, I'll come." She glanced up at him. "Decent of you to bother. Thanks."
"Stay where you are," said Amberley. "I'll fetch him." He went back to the car and opened the door. "Your sister's waiting for you."
Mark allowed himself to be assisted out of the car. "I didn't say anything I shouldn't, did I?" he said anxiously. "You'll tell her I didn't."
"All right." Amberley guided his erratic steps up the path.
Shirley looked him over. "Oh! You'd better go and sleep it off," she said. She took his arm and nodded to Amberley. "Thanks. Goodbye."
"I'm coming in," said Amberley.
"No, thanks. I can manage him."
"Nevertheless, I am coming in," he repeated. He put her aside without ceremony, and guided Mark into the house and up the narrow stairs. "Which room?" he said over his shoulder.
She was standing at the foot of the stairs frowning up at him. "On the left."
When he came down again some minutes later she was still standing where he had left her. She said: "I daresay it's very kind of you to take so much trouble, but I wish you'd go."
"I'm sure you do. Where did you learn your pretty manners?"
"Where you learnt yours!" she shot back at him.
"Do you know, I think I'm treating you with a remarkable amount of forbearance," he said. "Did anyone ever slap you really hard when you were a child?"
An unwilling smile crept into her eyes. "Often. Thank you so much for bringing my brother home. I'm most awfully grateful, and I do wish I could ask you to stop, only unfortunately I'm rather busy just now. How's that?"
"I prefer the original version. You might ask me into your sitting room."
"No doubt, but I'm not going to."
"Then I won't wait for the invitation," he said, and walked in.
She followed him, half angry, half amused. "Look here, I admit I owe you a debt of gratitude for not making trouble the other night, but that doesn't give you the right to force your presence on me. Please go. Why are you so anxious to pursue our acquaintance?"
He looked sardonically across at her. "I'm not in the least anxious to pursue it. But I'm interested in that murder."
"Of which I know nothing."
He said unpleasantly: "Lie to me by all means, Miss Brown, but choose a better lie than that. If you've any sense you'll stop being mysterious and tell me just what you're playing at."
"Really?" She raised her brows. "Why?"
"Because your extreme reluctance to behave in a normal manner is fast convincing me that you're up to some mischief. I don't like lawbreakers, and I have every intention of finding out what your game is."
"You'll be very clever if you do," she said.
"You are likely to discover, my misguided young friend, that I am considerably cleverer than anyone you've yet had to deal with."
"Thanks for the warning. But I have no game and I am not at all mysterious."
"You forget I've spent half an hour in your brother's instructive company."
Her calm left her; she cried hotly: "So you pumped a drunken boy, did you? A rotten, low-down trick!"
"That's better," he said. "Now we're getting at something."
"What did he say to you?" she demanded.
"Nothing of which I could make sense," he said. "Surprising as it may seem, I refrained from pumping a drunken boy. I am also refraining from pretending, in order to make you talk, a knowledge I don't possess."
She glanced up at him in a puzzled way. "Yes. Do you mind telling me why?"
"Natural decency," said Mr. Amberley.
"Mark talks a lot of nonsense when he's drunk," she said. She seemed to consider him. "I wonder what you think I am?" she said with a crooked smile.
"Do you? I'll tell you, if you like. An objectionable little fool."
"Thanks. Not a murderess, by any chance?"
"If I thought that, you would not be standing here now, Miss Shirley Brown. You are obviously playing some game which is probably silly and almost certainly dangerous. If you let that brother of yours out alone you'll very soon find yourself in a police cell. As an accomplice he's rotten."
"Possibly," she said, "but I don't want another. I believe in playing a lone hand."
"Very well," he replied. "Then I'll say — au revoir!"
"Dear me, am I going to see some more of you?" she inquired.
"You are going to see much more of me than you want to," said Mr. Amberley grimly.
"I've done that already," she informed him in a voice of great sweetness.
He had reached the door, but he turned. "Then we are mutual sufferers," he said, and went out.
She gave a sudden laugh and ran after him as far as the front door. "You're a beast," she called; "but I rather like you, I think."
Mr. Amberley looked back over his shoulder. "I wish I could return the compliment," he answered, "but honesty compels me to say that I do not like you at all. So long!"
Chapter Four
Odd how a mere strip of black velvet alters people," remarked Corkran, surveying the shifting crowd critically. "I've made three bloomers already."
Amberley was dangling his mask by the strings. "You can usually tell by the voice."
"You can't always. Oh, hell!"
"What's the matter now?"
"This blasted sword again," said Faust disgustedly. He hitched it round. "Can't dance with it, can't move a step without jabbing somebody in the shins with it. I'm going to park it somewhere soon and trust to luck that Joan doesn't spot it."
Joan, a dazzlingly fair Marguerite, passed at that moment in the arms of an Arab sheikh. She caught sight of the two in the doorway and slid out of the dance, drawing her partner with her. "Haven't you got a partner for this one?" she asked in concern. "Point me out somebody you'd like to be introduced to."
"My dear old soul, I can't dance with this sword on," protested Corkran. "I've made myself fairly unpopular as it is."