Miss Silver was probably the only person who enjoyed her dinner. She appreciated good food, and even a murder in the house could not obscure the superlative excellence of Mrs. Rodger’s cooking. When they adjourned to the drawing-room she produced her knitting. The pale pink infant’s vest now approaching completion awoke a faint spark of interest in Mrs. Tote. Before she knew where she was she was telling this comfortingly dowdy little person all about Allie and Allie’s baby, and how she hoped there would be another. “Not too soon, because I don’t hold with that, but it doesn’t do to put off too long either, because if it comes to years between like you get nowadays, where’s the company for the children? Every one of them’s an only child, as you may say, and when all’s said and done, what a child wants is company, and not a lot of grownups keeping it on the strain. A child wants other children to tumble about with and fight and make up with. I only had the one myself-at least only the one that lived, but I know what children ought to have.”
Miss Silver agreeing, they became quite cozy over a knitting-stitch.
Miss Masterman took up the paper. She did not read it, but if you hold up a newspaper, people leave you alone, and all she wanted was to be left alone.
Moira Lane turned from the fire, looked for a moment at Dorinda, and said,
“Come and talk to me.” Then she laughed. “For God’s sake let’s be human! I don’t think you did it, and I hope you don’t think I did, but if you do you might as well say so. Let’s get into the other settee and stop being polite and inhibited. Who do you think did do it? I don’t mind saying, whoever the murderer was, he did an uncommonly good job. Greg was poison. If he’s your uncle, you probably know as much about that as I do.”
Dorinda looked into the blue dancing eyes. The dance was a defiant one. She thought about Morgiana dancing in front of the Captain of the Forty Thieves and plunging a dagger up to the hilt in his breast. A feeling of horror came over her. It showed in her voice as she said,
“Not my uncle-my aunt’s husband.”
Moira’s laugh rang out.
“Who cares what he was? He was poison! And you’re just choked up with inhibitions. You’d be a lot more comfortable without them. What were you thinking about just now when you looked as if you’d caught me red-handed?”
Something gave way. Dorinda said,
“Morgiana and the Captain of the Forty Thieves-out of the Arabian Nights, where she stabs him.”
Moira was lighting a cigarette. Her hand was as steady as a rock. The flame of the match caught the paper and crept in along the brown shreds of tobacco. She threw the match into the fire and drew at the cigarette until the whole tip glowed red. Then, and not till then, she turned an interested gaze upon Dorinda.
“Do you know, I believe you’re clever, because I can just see myself doing that. She danced, didn’t she? Well, you could work yourself up like that-couldn’t you? Of course you’d have to hate the man to start with, but however much I hated anyone, I couldn’t stick a knife into him in cold blood-could you? It gives me pins and needles to think of it. But you might be able to work yourself up to it with some good whirling music and the sort of dance that gets faster and faster and faster-” She broke off, rather pale.
Dorinda said quickly, “You said I was clever. I’m going to tell you you’re stupid. It’s idiotic to talk like that, and you ought to have the sense to know it without being told.”
Moira blew out a little cloud of smoke. Her delicate eyebrows rose.
“Going to tell the police?” Her voice was lazy.
Dorinda said, “Don’t be silly!” as sharply as if they had both been schoolgirls.
“It might interest them,” said the lazy voice.
“I shouldn’t think so.”
Moira laughed.
“Do you know, I like you.”
“Thank you!”
“You needn’t be sarcastic-I meant it. I oughtn’t to, because I suppose you’re my hated rival. Justin’s in love with you, isn’t he?”
“Oh, no!”
Dorinda hadn’t blushed. She had turned rather pale. The gold-brown eyes looked at Moira with inescapable candour.
“Oh, no-he isn’t!”
Moira seemed amused.
“Did he tell you so?”
Dorinda held her head up.
“He is my cousin, and he has been very good to me. I am very fond of him, and I hope he is fond of me.”
Moira said, “Go on hoping!” Then she laughed. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you that you ought to tell the truth-unless you can put up a really convincing lie? Which you can’t. I can, but I’m not going to. I could have done with Justin myself, but I shan’t get him. I might have done if it hadn’t been for you.” She blew out another little cloud of smoke. “I don’t mean to say that I’m in off the deep end, so you needn’t lock your door in case I creep in in the middle of the night with another of those daggers. But I could have done with Justin, and I’ve an idea that he could have done with me if there hadn’t been any Dorinda Brown. So what a good thing I like you, isn’t it?”
Dorinda looked troubled.
“Moira-”
“Yes?”
“We don’t know each other at all-and we’re talking like this. I think I know why.”
“All right-why?”
Dorinda struck her hands together.
“It’s because it’s all too horrid really. We’ve got to get something else into it-something to make us forget how horrid it is. Making it all seem like nonsense is one way. That’s why you said that idiotic thing about coming into my room with a dagger. And talking about Justin is another. It makes it all-” She hesitated for a moment and came out with, “fantastic. It’s like turning it into a play-it stops it being real and-frightening.”
Moira looked at her. Then she said drily,
“Quite a bright child, aren’t you? In other words we dramatize this sort of thing in order to keep the upper hand of it. So awkward if it took charge and started in to dramatize us!”
Coffee was served in the drawing-room. Pearson having announced that fact to Justin Leigh, the men came wandering in. Miss Silver, to whose prompting the announcement had been due, watched them attentively. Mr. Carroll had drunk quite a lot at dinner. Left to himself, he would probably have drunk a good deal more, hence her hint to Pearson as the ladies crossed the hall. As a gentlewoman, she deplored any degree of intemperance. As a detective, she had no objection to his drinking enough to loosen his tongue, but no possible end would be served by his drinking himself into a stupor in the dining-room. She had wondered to what extent he would be amenable to social pressure, and was relieved when he entered the drawing-room a little flushed and with that crooked look rather more noticeable, but with no other sign that his glass had been filled about twice as often as anyone else’s.
When Mr. Masterman and Justin Leigh came in, she reflected upon the contrast they presented-a contrast all the more marked because the same superficial description could have been applied to either. They were both tall, dark men, but there it ended. Mr. Leigh carried an air of distinction. By common consent, no one had dressed for dinner. Miss Silver congratulated herself upon this. The black and white of a man’s formal evening dress tends to level out those evidences of individual taste which sometimes afford an invaluable clue to character. Mr. Leigh’s grey suit was not only very well cut, but it appeared so completely right as to be almost part of himself. Mr. Masterman had not the same power of relegating his clothes to the background. They gave Miss Silver the impression of being too new, and of their having cost more than he had been accustomed to spend. This may have been because Mr. Masterman himself might have been encountered without surprise in places where his clothes would immediately have attracted attention-such places, for instance, as behind the counter of a bank or in any City office. There was, in fact, a sense of discrepancy.