Sparkling Cyanide

Iris said sharply:

‘Why should he? And have we got to talk about—that night?’

His face crimsoned over.

‘No, no, of course not. Sorry, old thing. By the way, ask Browne to dinner one night. I’d like to meet him again.’

Iris was delighted. George was coming round. The invitation was duly given and accepted, but at the last minute Anthony had to go North on business and couldn’t come.

One day at the end of July, George startled both Lucilla and Iris by announcing that he had bought a house in the country.

‘Bought a house?’ Iris was incredulous. ‘But I thought we were going to rent that house at Goring for two months?’

‘Nicer to have a place of one’s own—eh? Can go down for weekends all through the year.’

‘Where is it? On the river?’

‘Not exactly. In fact, not at all. Sussex. Marlingham. Little Priors, it’s called. Twelve acres—small Georgian house.’

‘Do you mean you’ve bought it without us even seeing it?’

‘Rather a chance. Just came into the market. Snapped it up.’

Mrs Drake said:

‘I suppose it will need a lot of doing up and redecorating.’

George said in an off-hand way:

‘Oh, that’s all right. Ruth has seen to all that.’

They received the mention of Ruth Lessing, George’s capable secretary, in respectful silence. Ruth was an institution—practically one of the family. Good looking in a severe black-and-white kind of way, she was the essence of efficiency combined with tact …

During Rosemary’s lifetime, it had been usual for Rosemary to say, ‘Let’s get Ruth to see to it. She’s marvellous. Oh, leave it to Ruth.’

Every difficulty could always be smoothed out by Miss Lessing’s capable fingers. Smiling, pleasant, aloof, she surmounted all obstacles. She ran George’s office and, it was suspected, ran George as well. He was devoted to her and leaned upon her judgement in every way. She seemed to have no needs, no desires of her own.

Nevertheless on this occasion Lucilla Drake was annoyed.

‘My dear George, capable as Ruth is, well, I mean—the women of a family do like to arrange the colour scheme of their own drawing-room! Iris should have been consulted. I say nothing about myself. I do not count. But it is annoying for Iris.’

George looked conscience-stricken.

‘I wanted it to be a surprise!’

Lucilla had to smile.

‘What a boy you are, George.’

Iris said:

‘I don’t mind about colour schemes. I’m sure Ruth will have made it perfect. She’s so clever. What shall we do down there? There’s a tennis court, I suppose.’

‘Yes, and golf links six miles away, and it’s only about fourteen miles to the sea. What’s more we shall have neighbours. Always wise to go to a part of the world where you know somebody, I think.’

‘What neighbours?’ asked Iris sharply.

George did not meet her eyes.

‘The Farradays,’ he said. ‘They live about a mile and a half away just across the park.’

Iris stared at him. In a minute she leapt to the conviction that the whole of this elaborate business, the purchasing and equipping of a country house, had been undertaken with one object only—to bring George into close relationship with Stephen and Sandra Farraday. Near neighbours in the country, with adjoining estates, the two families were bound to be on intimate terms. Either that or a deliberate coolness!

But why? Why this persistent harping on the Farradays? Why this costly method of achieving an incomprehensible aim?

Did George suspect that Rosemary and Stephen Farraday had been something more than friends? Was this a strange manifestation of post-mortem jealousy? Surely that was a thought too far-fetched for words!

But what did George want from the Farradays? What was the point of all the odd questions he was continually shooting at her, Iris? Wasn’t there something very queer about George lately?

The odd fuddled look he had in the evenings! Lucilla attributed it to a glass or so too much of port. Lucilla would!

No, there was something queer about George lately. He seemed to be labouring under a mixture of excitement interlarded with great spaces of complete apathy when he sunk in a coma.

Most of that August they spent in the country at Little Priors. Horrible house! Iris shivered. She hated it. A gracious well-built house, harmoniously furnished and decorated (Ruth Lessing was never at fault!). And curiously, frighteningly vacant. They didn’t live there. They occupied it. As soldiers, in a war, occupied some look-out post.

What made it horrible was the overlay of ordinary normal summer living. People down for weekends, tennis parties, informal dinners with the Farradays. Sandra Farraday had been charming to them—the perfect manner to neighbours who were already friends. She introduced them to the county, advised George and Iris about horses, was prettily deferential to Lucilla as an older woman.

And behind the mask of her pale smiling face no one could know what she was thinking. A woman like a sphinx.

Of Stephen they had seen less. He was very busy, often absent on political business. To Iris it seemed certain that he deliberately avoided meeting the Little Priors party more than he could help.

So August had passed and September, and it was decided that in October they should go back to the London house.

Iris had drawn a deep breath of relief. Perhaps, once they were back George would return to his normal self.

And then, last night, she had been roused by a low tapping on her door. She switched on the light and glanced at the time. Only one o’clock. She had gone to bed at half-past ten and it had seemed to her it was much later.

She threw on a dressing-gown and went to the door. Somehow that seemed more natural than just to shout ‘Come in.’

George was standing outside. He had not been to bed and was still in his evening clothes. His breath was coming unevenly and his face was a curious blue colour.

He said:

‘Come down to the study, Iris. I’ve got to talk to you. I’ve got to talk to someone.’

Wondering, still dazed with sleep, she obeyed.

Inside the study, he shut the door and motioned her to sit opposite him at the desk. He pushed the cigarette box across to her, at the same time taking one and lighting it, after one or two attempts, with a shaking hand.